middle helladic to the late helladic i shaft graves 20 страница

The costs for the sculpture at Epidauros generally match those in the Acropolis accounts, which include payments made for the relief sculpture on the frieze of the Erechtheion during the

last decade of the fifth century (Figure 11.3). The inscriptions record payments to specific individuals by the finished piece, such as “[payment to] Phyromachos of Kephisia for the young man with the breastplate: 60 drachmas” (Pollitt 1990, 192). Other sculptors received different amounts for other subjects, but all working out to a standard rate of 60 drachmas per figure. The reliefs were originally about 65 cm in height and made to be set into a blue marble block; consequently they were not part of the building fabric and were more readily trans­ported. The price and size would suggest that it took about two months to make each figure, which would have cost about $10,000 by our earlier estimates of the modern comparative value of the drachma ($167 X 60).

In conclusion, we can see that from the patron’s point of view, architectural sculpture could be more expensive proportionally than other construction costs and was a notable if relatively small part of the total cost of a project. Most of the time, however, the wages paid to the sculptors were the same as those paid to other skilled workers, including those who carved the architectural ornament and painted the building. There were probably cases, such as cult statues or highly prominent pieces such as acrote- ria, where some premium was paid for more accom­plished work, but even this was probably eclipsed by the cost of the quarrying and transportation in the final expenditure on the project.

PRODUCTION:

sculpture

The accounts for the Erechtheion and Epidauros are also of interest for what they tell us about the status of artists, and more particularly sculptors. Looking at the Erechtheion accounts, the names of the sculptors fall into two forms. One gives the name followed by the deme or tribe to which they belonged, such as Phyromachos of Kephisia or Hiasos of Kollytos. The other states their residence, such as Praxias living in Melite and Mynnion living in Argyle. The distinction is between Athenian citizens and metics, or foreign (non-Athenian) residents living and working in Athens. Overall, about three-fifths of the names in the Erechtheion accounts are metics. In some cases a name is followed by that of a master, indicating a slave, or the name is common for a slave; most of these were employed as masons or carpenters rather than sculptors or painters (Randall 1953).

The Epidauros accounts also include Athenian sculptors such as Timotheos who worked on site. Sculptors had to be mobile if they were interested in working on large projects, but how they were selected is less clear. The public nature of the contracts would mean that the project would have to be announced and a proposal or offer made before an award could be granted. It is possible that sculp­tors and their workshops might have competed against one another. A story in Pliny’s Natural History (34.53) records that Polykleitos, Pheidias, Kresilas, Kydon, and Phradmon all made statues of a

wounded Amazon for the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, and that the winner of the competition, Polykleitos, was chosen by a tally of the votes of the sculptors for second-best entry (after they had each selected their own work first). Whatever the historicity of the story, it does suggest a certain amount of colle­gial competitiveness among artists.

The payments connected to architectural sculpture help us to consider the cost of free-standing statues and funerary reliefs produced in the late fifth and fourth centuries. A life-size statue (about 165-175 cm high) would be three times as high as the Erechtheion figures and would have both front and back sides, rep­resenting about six times the amount of labor. This would suggest that a life-size statue in marble might cost about 360 drachmas and take about a year to make. A heroically scaled figure in marble (about 200 cm in height), like the figure of Agias from Delphi (see Figure 12.8, page 296), might have cost eight times the amount of the Erechtheion figure, or 480 drachmas. A funerary relief, such as that of Ampharete in the last chapter (see Figure 10.19, page 254), is about twice as high as the Erechtheion figures (120 cm vs. 65 cm) and includes an additional figure, so that it might have cost 150 drachmas based on the Erechtheion payments. A much larger funeral monument like that of Dexileos (see Figure 12.12, page 301), at 175 cm high and with two figures in very deep relief, might well have cost the same or a bit more than a life-size statue. Ampharete’s grave stele would represent about half of the annual income of a worker at the time, so it is likely that such funerary monuments were made by sculptors for wealthier and more elite clients.

We have less information, direct or indirect, on the costs for statues made out of bronze. The labor process would be more complicated and involve more equipment and energy for melting the bronze to pour into the mold. The two metals that constitute bronze, tin and copper, would have to be mined and the ore smelted to produce the raw material. Since the sources of copper and especially tin were far off in places like Cyprus, this would mean both had to be transported long distances to reach the foundry, although sufficient ingots of metal to make a bronze statue would be lighter, easier, and cheaper to transport than the marble needed for a stone sculpture. Undoubtedly there would have been a premium to pay for a bronze statue as compared to a marble one due to the cost and reusability of the material.

Based on Hellenistic sources, Andrew Stewart estimates a monumental-scale bronze portrait statue about 2 meters high would have cost 3,000 drachmas, with about 550 drachmas for the bronze alone and probably more than 2,000 drachmas for the labor of the sculptor and his work­shop (Stewart 1990, 67). This figure might also serve as an estimate for classical bronze statues like the Riace Warriors (see Figure 10.5, page 241) or the youth from the Antikythera shipwreck (see Figure 12.7, page 295). This is the most technically challenging type of bronze work, and it is pos­sible that the price would represent a more significant profit and premium for skill for the elite bronze-maker than for the marble sculptor. Such statues would have to be commissioned by a city, as Athens had done with the original bronze Tyrannicides, or by a very wealthy individual. It is less likely, however, that smaller-scale and simpler bronze work, like figures (see Figure 7.19, page 176) and mirrors (see Figure 10.6, page 242), would have had as much of a premium on labor given the simpler manufacturing process. The makers of small bronzes might have earned more of a stand­ard wage like marble sculptors.

production: POTTERY

Pottery was a much more modest commodity in ancient Greece than surviving Greek pottery is in the art market today. Clay is much less difficult to dig and refine and transportation from the source of the material to the place of production, the pottery workshop, is usually shorter than is the case with marble and limestone. Firing the pot required fuel and a kiln, but pottery is fired in batches to make production more efficient. It is likely that workshops were generally small and may well have been family enterprises, with extra workers like painters hired as needed to finish large batches.

Potters had to produce a wide range of products to meet daily needs, much of it utilitarian and undecorated as we saw in Chapter 5 (see Figures 5.16 and 5.17, page 116). Many of the products were either haphazardly or sketchily decorated, but they still had value as wares since a vessel was functional even if it were not beautiful. Like most artistic professions, learning to become a pot­ter was a process of apprenticeship, with the less skilled individuals performing less intricate work as they learned. Recently, Susan Langdon has argued that some small vessels with unskilled decoration might be the work of children learning to make and decorate a pot, training within the family enterprise. Typically, such works were small in scale to be suitable for small hands (Langdon 2013).

Some pottery pieces, such as the krater fragment in Figure 11.4, that appear unfinished were probably test pieces, placed into the kiln during firing to gauge if the temperature and conditions were sufficient for producing the color effects of the slips. These are still useful for understanding the process of red-figure painting today, as we discussed in Chapter 8.

(Figure 11.5). Marks like this are made after firing and show up on pottery sold in both Greek colonies and Etruria, so it is probable that the mark represents the price in Athens. A trader coming to Athens and its harbor, Piraeus, would have bought a number of works and then taken them by ship to markets else­where, perhaps selling them along the way or bring­ing an entire batch to a single destination or emporion for sale. How much of a mark-up there would be at the retail end is unknown, but allowing for loss in breakage during transportation, the final price should not be more than two or three times as much as the cost in Athens.

The price of 2 drachmas would likely be close to the retail price in Athens if the pot had been sold locally, and if we consider the drachma as being worth about $150-180 based on a median household income of $50,000 in the United States, the hydria would have cost about $300-360. This would be a significant pur­chase for an Athenian consumer, but not unreasona­ble, equivalent perhaps to an iPod or a couple of place settings of very fine china such as Wedgwood or Noritake today. If we consider that a pot like this could be used to serve water at a symposion, it would be equivalent in both price and formal use to the fine china used today on special holiday gatherings like Thanksgiving.

The price of the Polygnotan hydria is at the high end of the recorded prices. Some stelai in Athens record prices of 2.4-3.7 obols for Panathenaic amphorae that presumably were empty (see Figure 5.11, page 111). Since a drachma is equivalent to 6 obols, a 3-obol pot (U drachma) would be about $75-90 based on our $50,000 median household income. Stamnoi are about the same price, but smaller items like skyphoi (drinking cups) and lekythoi were far cheaper, from 1 obol down to V₆ obol ($4-5).

The lowest prices are probably for non-figured pottery. Athens produced large quantities of black-glaze ware that was consumed both locally and exported at the same time as red-figure ware (Figure 11.6). The cost of making the basic shape in clay and firing it would be the same as a figured pot, but the painted decoration would be simpler. Small vessels like the salt cellar and dishes would indeed be very modestly priced. Comparing figured and non-figured pots, Alan Johnston estimates that figural decoration would add about one-third to the value of the pot (Johnston 1991, 228). This suggests that pot painters, like sculptors, were paid at a rate of a drachma for a day’s work. One could make a large number of simple and small pots, or take more time for a larger, figured pot, but the price in both cases would reflect the labor needed to do the work and the income for the potter would be roughly similar, although there might have been a modest premium for fine and detailed work like the Polygnotan hydria.

Whereas painted pottery with figural scenes fetches high prices in the market today, vessels like Panathenaic amphorae would have been most valuable in antiquity when filled with the olive oil that was the prize for winning a competition. Vessels made from metal would have been worth far more intrinsically because of the cost of their material, whether bronze, silver, or gold, as was the case for metal sculpture over marble. A gold phiale from the late seventh century (Figure 11.7), for example, is much less complicated in its decoration than the Chigi olpe made about a decade earlier (see Figure 6.11, page 141). The lobe shape is unusual but straightforward for fabrication, and the surface is left plain except for the inscription: “The sons of Kypselos dedicated [this bowl] from

The bowl is without specific provenance but was said to come from Olympia, where Pausanias (5.17.5-5.19.10) records a cedar, ivory, and gold chest of Kypselos, a tyrant of Corinth c. 655-625, that was dedicated in the Temple of Hera. Temple and sanctuary inventories frequently mention metal vases, including large kraters, and typically signify their value in terms of their weight and material rather than their artistry. That is not to say that a more modest work like the Chigi olpe was
not admired by its owner or that producing painted pottery did not provide a livable income. It is only to remind us that what we value today from antiquity is not necessarily the same as what the original makers and owners would have prized most.

wares, markets, and distribution

Once a work like a pot is produced, it must be distributed and sold in a market. If the market is local, pot producers are immediately aware of what sells and what does not and can make adjust­ments in their wares to meet the needs or interests of consumers. When pottery is exported, there is a middle person, a merchant with access to transportation like a ship or cart, who buys whole­sale and sells retail. Merchants on returning to Corinth or Athens would have provided feedback to producers about what was successful abroad and what was not. We have little direct evidence of this process, but by looking at changes in production and wares we can get an idea of the rela­tionship that existed between artists and consumers and consider the links between artistic style and market.

Looking first at Corinthian pottery, we saw in Chapter 6 that its painters developed a black-figure technique with added color that appeared on small perfume vessels such as aryballoi and alabastra (see Figure 6.9, page 139; Figure 6.10, page 140). The painting technique, the division of the vase into multiple friezes with miniature-scale figures, and a limited range of subjects like animals, hunts, races, and fighting (see Figure 6.11, page 141) mean today that one can readily recognize Corinthian vessels from the seventh century. The vessels were valuable because they contained perfume and scented oil that had been imported to Corinth and then produced, packaged, and shipped around the Mediterranean. Corinth was not the only producer of these luxury goods, but its pottery gave its products a distinct identity in the market. Tom Rasmussen (1991) likens the style and deployment of Corinthian pottery to a trademark or brand identification, allowing a consumer to identify Corinthian perfume in the marketplace.

As time went on, Corinthian potters and painters produced other wares, including drinking cups and vessels associated with wine and the symposion, like the Chigi olpe, creating another source of revenue for their workshops independent of the perfume trade (see Figure 5.23, page 122; Figure 6.11, page 141). These new shapes of figured pottery continued with the same black-figure technique and many of the same compositions and subjects as the perfume containers, and would have been markedly different from local wares available in the markets of Italy. The less precise style and execution of late Corinthian pottery in the sixth century may indicate that they were being mass produced for a lower-end market.

After adopting the black-figure technique in the late seventh century, mostly on wares sold within the region, Athenian potters and painters began to make works that were exported, such as the Francois Vase (see Figure 8.23, page 203), while continuing to produce for their local market. The introduction of new shapes and subjects, as well as larger figural compositions, kept their wares distinctive in the marketplace from other Greek pottery, such as Corinthian black-figure. In some cases, Attic pots were produced solely for export, based on the distribution of findspots, and we even see Athenian potters imitating foreign shapes and then exporting their wares back to that market. For example, the black amphora in Figure 11.8 is Etruscan bucchero ware. The wide strap handles, embossed relief, and profile are different from Athenian amphorae and reflect metalware forms, while the glossy black finish gives a luster to the vessel. Bucchero ware is a distinctive Etruscan product, and in the last half of the sixth century we see a workshop associated with the Athenian potter Nikosthenes producing imitations of Etruscan shapes, like the black-figure amphora on the left, signed by Nikosthenes as potter. Rather than black glaze, its decoration uses the current Athenian black-figure style to show satyrs and maenads dancing, a universally popular theme for both domestic and export markets. Whereas Nikosthenic amphorae are unusual for their explicit demonstration of Athenian

11.8 Attic black-figure Nikosthenic amphora signed by Nikosthenes, c. 540-510 все. 13 in (33 cm). London, British Museum B296. Etruscan bucchero- ware amphora, 560-530.

13 Vs in (33.4 cm). London, British Museum 1984,1023.1. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum.

The pot is covered with a black slip and then overpainted, mostly with ornamental motifs in whites and light reds. This type of pottery was widely distributed to the north and east, but not as much to Italy where a competing product, called Gnathian ware, featured a larger range of themes and colors, as can be seen in a small lekythos found in Taras/Taranto (see Figure 12.20, page 309). The over­painting technique of West Slope ware was once thought to have originated in Athens, but whether Athenian potters were imitating Gnathian ware needs further study. Curiously, the human figure remains a subject in Gnathian ware, while it all but disappears from the Athenian workshops.

Beginning in the last quarter of the third century Athenian potters also began producing mold- made bowls, sometimes called Megarian bowls. These are mass-produced works made with fired terracotta molds, and then covered with black slip to give them a lustrous gloss like black-glaze ware. The bowls feature a range of ornamental friezes, including some Egyptianizing motifs, which led to their original association with Alexandria as a place of origin. Since few of the bowls have been found there, it is more likely that they were developed in Athens using Alexandrian metal wares as sources (Rotroff 1982, 6-13). Some bowls also include figural scenes, such as one example found in Thebes (Figure 11.10). In the center we see a striding male figure before a chariot. This is Hermes leading Hades, who is driving a chariot and holding the abducted Persephone in his arms. Further around the cup we find Demeter, Athena, and other figures reacting to the action. The bottom of the cup has veg­etation, while the upper rim features rosettes, palmettes, spirals, and egg-and-dart ornamental motifs.

Not only pottery was exported far from its place of production. Small terracottas that were light and readily transported, either by individuals or by merchants, were also widely distributed, but even large and heavy works like statues and reliefs ended up a great distance from their point of origin. The archaic kouros of Sombrotidas, for example, was found at Megara Hyblaea in Sicily, but its marble comes from the Greek islands and it is probable that it was exported as a finished or nearly finished work, since this would cut down on the weight and shipping cost (see Figure 8.10, page 191). As mentioned earlier, the metopes and pedimental sculpture at Olympia were quarried and carved nearly to completion on the island of Paros in the Aegean Sea, sent by ship to Corinth, and, after transfer to the other side of the isthmus, shipped further to Olympia on the west side of Greece (see Figure 9.14, page 228). These were works that were certainly made to order on commission, but we are less certain about works like the kouros of Sombrotidas, since a formulaic work such as this did not require spe­cial treatment or subject matter and the inscription could have been carved at the destination.

Athens in the fourth century and later was a large-scale exporter of sculpture as well as pottery. During the last two centuries of the Hellenistic period Athenian sculptors produced many classical- style works for export to Roman clients. By this time, Rome had conquered the Greek cities of Italy

artists and workshops

It was not only art like pottery, terracottas, and sculpture that could be made in one place and exported. Artists and their workshops were also mobile. For example, the workers at Epidauros were mostly Corinthians, so both stone for the building and the masons came from a relatively nearby city in the region (about 70 km). Since an architectural project requires work on site, this means that the workers would have had to relocate, at least temporarily, to the construction site. The Pentelic marble for the pediments and acroteria came from Attica (about 200 km away), as did the three sculptors who carved the figures on site. The names of the sculptors for the reliefs on the Erechtheion on the Acropolis include Athenians and non-Athenians, and the vast scale of the Pheidian program of the fifth century must have brought a number of workers to Athens from elsewhere to find work on the projects there.

These were temporary relocations, but there are other examples of more permanent movements of artists who settled in a new city to provide work for the local market. A very early example discussed in Chapter 4 (see pages 85-86) comes from a tholos tomb in Crete that was used as a workshop in the ninth century by goldsmiths, probably from north­ern Syria (Figure 11.12). These metalworkers brought with them new techniques and subjects that they began producing for a local market. Eventually these innovations were adopted by other metal­workers in Greece, whether through training or imi­tation. This example shows the portability of skills and designs from one part of the Mediterranean to another and indicates another means for the trans­mission of ideas and motifs.

We can see other examples of foreign artists taking up residence in Athens in the sixth century through the names of potters such as Lydos, “the Lydian,” or Amasis, who shares the name of an Egyptian pharaoh of the sixth century. Their contemporary Exekias may have been himself from the island of Salamis. It is thought that Exekias, who signed some pots as both maker (E/ceKia? enoiece Exekias epoiese or Exekias made [this]) and painter (E/ceKia? еурафсе Exekias egrapse or Exekias painted me), directed a workshop in Athens and employed others as potters and painters. While we consider that Attic black-figure is a distinctive product of Athens, it is interesting to note that many of its artists were not Athenian and were active in developing markets in Etruria and elsewhere.

Not only did Greek potters and painters make wares for export to foreign markets, but some also migrated to non-Greek areas like Etruria. One example is the workshop that began producing finely made hydria in the Etruscan city of Caere (modern Cerveteri), giving the name of Caeretan ware to this product (Figure 11.13). This ware had at least two recognizable artists, but its origin is uncertain. The black-figure technique is supplemented with a rich use of added reds and white, as we can see in the hydria attributed to the Eagle Painter. The picture shows Herakles bringing Kerberos, the three-headed hound of hell, to king Eurystheus, who gave the tasks to Herakles that make up his cycle of twelve heroic deeds. In this scene, Eurystheus has jumped into a large storage pithos and throws up his arms in fear, having assumed that Herakles would be killed by the beast rather than successfully capturing it. The humor of a scared king acting in an undignified way gives a comic gloss to the scene that is somewhat different from Attic versions of this story, although it is similar to Attic versions of Herakles bringing the Erymanthian boar back to Eurystheus, who hides in a pithos. The rounded bodies and extended limbs of the figures are dis­tinctive of the Caeretan style, which has similarities to Etruscan pottery painting and appears to have appealed to local clientele.

As mentioned earlier, in the last part of the fifth century red-figure workshops were set up in southern Italy. The earliest workshops of Lucanian red-figure ware, made in Metapontum/Metaponto, show strong connections in terms of style and subject matter to contemporary Attic red-figure painting, and the uncertainty over classifying some of these artists, like the Amykos Painter, as either Attic or Lucanian suggests that Athenian potters/painters may have migrated to set up workshops in western Greek markets, thereby satisfying pottery demand locally. By the beginning of the fourth century, the style of Lucanian red-figure had developed more distinctly, adopting a few new
shapes and compositions for the narrative pictures that it produced. By this time, local workshops had seized control of their markets from Athenian potters and painters, no doubt aided by the disruptions of the Peloponnesian War. The pelike showing Elektra and Orestes at the tomb of Agamemnon (see Figure 9.11, page 224) reveals the particular interest in stories fea­tured in tragic plays that were very popular in south­ern Italy, including the revival of fifth-century tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. At its best, the figural pottery of Apulia, Lucania,