Ancient Attic Greek Vases
Figure 4 : RTI still-capture of a detail of the stamnos in Figure 1. Examples of ridged lines are indicated with orange arrows, and furrowed lines with white arrows. Republished with permission of Maney Publishing, from [2]; permission conveyed through CCC.
proposed by Seiterle [ 8 ]. Two diff erent application techniques were used to produce the two types of lines. As the name indicates, laid lines are produced by laying the glaze-dipped hairs of the linierhaar down onto the surface of the vessel followed by liſt ing the brush straight up, creating the distinctive ridged profi le of the line. In contrast, the pulled line was created by setting down all or part of the brush, and while leaving the hair in contact with the vessel, the brush was pulled across the surface creating a characteristic furrowed profi le as the tip of the brush dragged through the glaze medium producing lines that
are longer than the length of the brush hair. For example, the eye of T etis on the Tyszkiewicz stamnos consists of lines with a central ridged profi le like that produced using the laid-line technique ( Figure 5 ). T e lines that defi ne the outline of the eye were painted fi rst, followed by those that outline the iris. Both the real-color confocal image and the 3D elevation map clearly show an additive eff ect where the lines overlap. In contrast, the pupil was painted with a more dilute application, probably with a conventional brush. A preliminary sketch of the eye inscribed into the surface with a hard tool is also discernible just above the eye. T e Museum of Fine Arts Boston has in its collection a fragmentary kylix attributed to the Antiphon Painter from c. 480 BCE ( Figure 6 ). T e fragment depicts a male fi gure seated on a chair holding a kylix in his leſt hand and a stylus-like (pen-like) tool in his right. When examined under magnifi cation with raking light, a single relief line connecting the tool and the surface of the vessel is discernible and can convincingly be argued to depict a linierhaar [ 1 , 2 ]. T e man also holds a small pointy imple- ment between his leſt thumb and index fi nger, which the authors believe could be a a small container holding the glaze material. Contour line . In addition to the relief line, another decorative feature of interest in this research is the study of the contour line, a wide line forming part of the black background that oſt en surrounds the fi gures on red-fi gure vases ( Figure 7 ). T e black background was painted in two stages with glaze more dilute than that of the relief lines, using a wider, more traditional type of brush. T e contour line was applied with the purpose of creating a safe margin around the silhouettes of the fi gures to protect them from being disrupted by the broadly applied brush strokes of the background glaze, an action probably executed at a relatively fast pace. Application sequence . One question considered in this study is which came fi rst, the relief line or the contour line. Whereas Greek vase scholars Norbert Kunisch [ 11 ] and Beth Cohen [ 12 ] suggest that the relief lines outlining the fi gures preceded the application of the contour line, other vase experts like Joseph V. Noble and Alexander Boix propose a reverse sequence [ 10 , 7 ], though Boix claims that there are exceptions. T e sequence proposed by Kunisch and Cohen was observed by Artal-Isbrand and Klausmeyer on the Tyszkiewicz stamnos where the overlap of the contour line over the relief lines extending into the background at the nape of the fi gure’s neck results in a soſt er, more rounded appearance of the otherwise crisp relief lines ( Figure 7 ) [ 1 ]. T is sequence was also observed on all the other Attic vases and vase fragments that were part of this study [ 2 ].
Discussion
Figure 5 : Real-color confocal image (left) and the corresponding 3D elevation map (right) of Thetis’s proper left eye. The relief lines exhibit the central ridged profi le characteristic of laid lines. Evidence of a preliminary inscribed sketch is visible in the surface directly above the eye. The dimensions of each image are 3.45 × 2.35 mm, and the images were stitched from 32 individual area scans taken with a 50× objective. The distance from the substrate surface to the highest elevation on the lines was 40 µm. Republished with permission of Maney Publishing, from [2]; permission conveyed through CCC.
2015 July •
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In this research, two types of relief lines were identifi ed by the authors: the laid line, characterized by a ridged profi le, and the pulled line, charac- terized by a furrowed profi le. As the name indicates, laid lines are produced by laying the glaze-dipped hairs of the linierhaar down onto the surface of
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