Apulian vase painting
Apulian vase painting was a regional style of South Italian vase painting from ancient Apulia in southeast Italy. It comprises geometric pottery and red-figure pottery.
The legitimate
Geometric pottery
The subject of the painted pottery has been put on a scientific basis by the intensive studies of
Each of these regions has its own peculiar and well marked style in pottery. The chronology of all three is not precisely concurrent; actually the Daunian school is dated from about 600 to 450BC and the Peucetian from 650 to 500BC, while the Messapian only begins at 500BC and lasts for two centuries. Wholly distinct is a much later Daunian school confined to Canosa, which belongs to the fourth and third centuries and may be called late-Canosan.[2]
This chronology excludes any connection with the Mycenaean. Actually no single example of Mycenaean ware has ever been discovered between the Alps and the Gulf of Taranto. But at two places in Apulia, Mattinata on the promontory of Gargano and the Borgo Nuovo at Taranto, geometric pottery of the very early Iron Age has been found. These two isolated discoveries, however, have yet to be explained; they stand apart from all other Apulian products and their proper connections have not been ascertained. The pottery of Mattinata and of Borgo Nuovo is apparently a foreign importation and its date is several centuries earlier than that of the regular Apulian schools now to be described.[1]
Apulian pottery schools
Daunian
Canosa and Ruvo have yielded the greatest quantity of early Daunian pottery, and were perhaps the principal, though not the only centers for its production. It is found over the whole of Daunia from Bitonto in the south to Lucera and Teanum in the north, occasionally in Picenum, and even in Istria. In Campania also the site of Suessula has yielded several vases, produced apparently under Daunian influence.[1]
There are four principal forms. The first is a round-bottomed footless
Rarer, but extremely characteristic of the Daunians, are elaborate grotesque ritual vases. One example is a ritual vase with a female figure opposite to the spout, in ceremonial dress with a fillet on her brow, long plaits of hair hanging down on her shoulders, and circular discs covering her ears. Instead of human figures, other examples have strange creatures with birds'-heads upon necks like serpents and other unusual experiments in zoomorphism (cf. also example 3, of an unpainted Daunian vessel). Apart from an occasional drawing of this kind, always quite schematic, the decoration of all Daunian vases is purely geometric. Squares, lozenges and triangles are the usual motives, arranged in panels of varying length and separated by vertical lines. Most of the decoration is placed on the upper half of the vase. In the school of Ruvo the fashion was to place a hanging trapezoidal figure on the lower half, but Canosa preferred horizontal bands or concentric circles on this otherwise empty field. Almost all the Daunian pottery was made by hand, but in a few of the finest kraters from Ruvo the wheel seems to have been used. The decorative designs were painted in two alternating colours, red and dark violet, generally but not always laid on a background of whitish slip.[1]
Peucetian
Entirely different from the Daunian pottery, both in spirit and in choice of shape and subject, is the Peucetian pottery. Fantastic ritual vases are unknown in Peucetia; kraters, bowls and jugs are the only forms permitted, and these are decorated in a style which is both simple and harmonious. There are two main classes of peucetian ware, the one painted in red and black (...), contemporary with imported Corinthian vases and considerably influenced by them, the other in plain black and white with a more restricted range of motives (cf. Gallery). There are four principal motives in the black and white, two of which, the swastika and the comb, overshadow the others. Swastikas began to appear at just the same period on pottery in the north of Italy, and are probably an imported conception from the Danube to the Balkans. The other chief motives are the festoon, and the zigzag. Cross-hatched lozenges are common to all these geometric schools but the Maltese cross, though only occasional, is peculiar to the Peucetians. This black and white ware goes back to 650BC and has a range of about 150 years from that point downwards.[1][4]
The sources of inspiration for the black and white class have been unsuccessfully sought in various places; and it seems fair to regard this ware as in the main an indigenous product. Daunians and Peucetians, dissimilar enough in all other respects, had each inherited a certain repertoire of geometric tradition which was widely current over the
Messapian
The
Canosan
Carefully to be distinguished from these three schools is the late-Canosan, which has nothing in common with the earlier Daunian school that also flourished at
Gallery
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Apulian Askos -
Daunian subgeometric duble-handle pot -
Peucetian Krater -
Messapian Trozella -
Canosan Krater
Red-figure pottery
Naples Archaeological Museum
Apulian vase painting was the leading South Italian vase painting tradition between 430 and 300 BC. Of the circa 20,000 surviving specimens of Italian red-figure vases, about half are from Apulian production, while the rest are from the four other centres of production, Paestum, Campania, Lucania and Sicily. The main production centre for Apulian vases was at thiasos imagery. The backs usually have images of cloaked youths. After the middle of the fourth century, the simple style became increasingly similar to the ornate one (see, e.g., the Varrese Painter ).
Cabinet des Médailles .The artists of the Ornate Style preferred bigger vessels with space for larger images, such as volute kraters, amphorae, loutrophoroi and hydriai. Compositions contained up to 20 figures, often arranged in two or more registers. The figures frequently appear to be floating. Colouring was used copiously, especially red, gold/yellow and white. While ornamentation had originally been relatively simple, from the mid-fourth century BC onwards, painters increasingly placed rich vegetal ornaments, especially on the necks and sides of vases. At the same time, simple perspective depictions of architecture, especially of "Underworld Palaces" (naiskoi) became common. From about 360 BC, a common motif was grave scenes showing individuals performing offerings at a stylised grave or pillar. Important representatives painters include the Ilioupersis Painter, the Darius Painter and the Baltimore Painter.  Popular mythological motifs include the Assembly of the Gods, the theatrical scenes, which are also known from the other South Italian traditions, but absent in Attica. These include motifs from dramatic theatre as well as farce (phlyax play ). In contrast, scenes of everyday life and athletic motifs disappear from the repertoire nearly totally after 370 BC.
The Apulian vase painters had considerable influence on the painters of the other South Italian traditions. Some of them appear to have moved to cities other than Taras, such as Canosa. Apart from red-figure pottery, black-glazed vases with painted decoration (Gnathian vases) and polychrome vases (Canosan vases) were also produced. The South Italian clays are less rich in iron than the Attic ones. As a result, the clay would not reach the rich red known from Attic red-figure vases. This was compensated by the addition of slips of light ochre clay before firing, which also produced smoother surfaces. Notes
See alsoLiterature
External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Apulian red-figure pottery.
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