Amphora showing Athena and Hermes

The Orphic Hymn to Athena is an exuberant celebration of the goddess with intriguing images of her qualities… “Mother of Art in all your abundance, catalyst of progress! / You bring folly to the corrupt and a sense of purpose to the pure! / Indeed, you are male and female in one, / Patron of war and wisdom, / You are fluid of form, a dragon, / Infused with inspiration of the Gods! / Rightly-honored One, who brought Phlegran giants down to defeat, / You driver of steeds, Tritogeneia, save us from evil, bearing Victory in your arms! / Day and night, eternally, in even the loneliest hours, / Hear my prayer, and grant us an abundant peace, fulfillment, good health. / Make prosperous the hour, gray-eyed One, inventor of Art, / The object of the people’s ceaseless prayers– / My Queen!” I like it… and I will use it as an introduction to my BLOG POST Amphora showing Athena and Hermes. http://commonplacebook.com/journal/inspiration/ancient-greeks-hymns-to-athena/

Amphora showing Athena and Hermes comes from Yale University Art Gallery and is attributed to the Berlin Painter. It was purchased for Yale University by Rebecca Darlington Stoddard in 1913 and today, the Amphora is considered one of the Museum’s Highlights. Rightly so, as the Berlin Painter is one of the finest artists of Athenian 5th-century pottery painting.

We know nothing about him… the name we use today, Berlin Painter, is conventional, given to this talented Attic Greek vase-painter by Sir John Beazley based on the “system of forms” technique he used to identify ancient Greek pottery-painters. All scholars can attest, is that the Berlin Painter was most talented, a rival to the Kleophrades Painter, a prominent member of the Pioneer Group, who introduced red-figure painting… and more! The Berlin Painter introduced new principles of style and design. He set his figures free of frames and side pattern bands, allowing them to dominate the composition as they stand majestically against the black background. The Berlin Painter is the master of refined grandeur! https://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/tools/pottery/collection/johnbeazley1.htm and https://www.britannica.com/biography/Berlin-Painter

As the Yale University Art Gallery experts write for the unprecedented 2017 Exhibition The Berlin Painter and His World at Princeton Art Museum “The Berlin Painter’s style is distinguished by a suave elegance and a palpable tension between shape and decoration. His figures, and the ornament accompanying them, are executed with taut, dexterous precision, whether on water jars (hydriai), large wine bowls (kraters), or smaller shapes such as jugs (oinochoai) and oil bottles (lekythoi). The single figures on either side of his amphorae frequently share the same conceptual space. Accompanied by little or no ornament and spotlighted against the black ground, they are framed only by the contours of the vessel itself.” https://cfileonline.org/exhibition-athenian-vase-painting-makes-its-formal-debut-with-first-solo-show/

References on the Berlin Painter… https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/1726 and https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/1656 and https://static.artmuseum.princeton.edu/berlin-painter/ and http://artimage.princeton.edu/files/ProductionJpegs/BerlinPainter-web.pdf

For a PowerPoint on Berlin Painter Amphoras, please… Check HERE!