Use of text and images in which VMFA holds the copyright is permitted, with attribution, under the terms and conditions of a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC).Ĭopyright and other proprietary rights in material on this site may be held by individuals or entities other than or in addition to VMFA. 30 (1997).© Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, unless otherwise noted. I usually forget, anyway, so I just check the dates of a couple, and go from there.įor more information, see: 'Attic Red-Figured and White-Ground Pottery,' Mary B. It is more obvious to paint black figures on a red substrate than it is to paint negative space, so the red figures are more evolved. Remember that whatever color the vase appears, it's still clay, and therefore reddish: clay=red. Tip: Of the two, black-figure came first, but if you're looking at a large collection at a museum, it's easy to forget. It grew more complex as it became more widely used, with techniques spreading throughout the Greek world.

Simple style came first, often focusing on Dionysus. Euphronios is one of the most important of the painters from the early red-figure period. The style of painting continued to evolve. Named for the basic color of the figures, this form of pottery is called red-figure. Instead, artists using the new style enhanced their figures with black, white, or truly red lines. Where black-figure artists engraved details through the black to reveal the underlying base reddish color ( see the lines delineating muscles in the pancratists photo), this technique would serve no purpose on red figures on pottery, since the underlying material was identically reddish-colored clay. Instead of painting the figures black ( see accompanying photo of pancratists) on orange-red clay, the new vase painters left the figures red and painted the background around the red figures black. Near the end of the sixth century B.C., a revolution took place in vase painting techniques in Athens.

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