Archaic: Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Escaping from the Cyclops's Cave

Art History

Ancient Greece

Geometric: Terracotta Krater
Archaic: Exekias, Attic black figure amphora with Ajax and Achilles playing a game
Archaic: Exekias, Dionysos Kylix, c. 530 B.C.E.
Archaic: Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Escaping from the Cyclops's Cave
Archaic: New York Kouros
Archaic and Early Classical: Ancient Greek Temples at Paestum, Italy
Archaic and Early Classical: East and West Pediments, Temple of Aphaia, Aegina
Early Classical: Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)
Classical: Myron, Discobolus (Discus Thrower), Roman copy of an ancient Greek bronze
Classical: Sculpture from the Parthenon's East Pediment
Classical: Parthenon Frieze
Classical: Parthenon Metopes
Classical: Caryatid and Column from the Erechtheion
Late Classical: Lysippos, Farnese Hercules, 4th century B.C.E. (later Roman copy by Glycon)
Late Classical: After Praxiteles, Venus (Roman Copy)
Hellenistic: Barberini Faun
Hellenistic: Dying Gaul
Hellenistic: Nike of Samothrace
Hellenistic: The Pergamon Altar
Hellenistic: Apollonius, Boxer at Rest
Hellenistic: Alexander Mosaic
Hellenistic: Laocoön and his Sons
Hellenistic: Eros Sleeping and An Old Market Woman

Archaic: Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Escaping from the Cyclops's Cave Unknown, Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Escaping from the Cyclops's Cave, Archaic Period, 550-500 B.C.E. (Getty Villa) Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Francesca Tronchin, Dr. Steven Zucker

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Archaic: Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Escaping from the Cyclops's Cave

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Dr. Francesca Tronchin: Hi, I'm Francesca Tronchin
and I'm going to be talking to you from the Getty Villa
in southern California about a crater--that is to say
a mixing vessel that comes from the Greek Archaic period
with a scene of Odysseus, the great hero, escaping
from the cave of Polyphemus.
Dr. Beth Harris: Can I just ask
what would have been mixed in here?
Dr. Tronchin: Hmm--it's a good question
and fortunately an easy one to answer.
The Greeks would always mix their wine with water.
It sounds kind of strange to us, but Greek wine
was evidently very dense and heavy.
Some wines could even be mixed with honey and spices and herbs
and things like that.
And according to the Greeks, only a barbarian
would drink his wine un-mixed.
Dr. Steven Zucker: That would be us (sarcastically).
Dr. Steven Zucker: Maybe we should start off with a little bit about the story
Dr. Tronchin: Okay! This comes from the The Odyssey of Homer
The story of Odysseus who was on the victorious side
of the Trojan war.
One of the great Greek warriors who survived
the Trojan war, and he wanted nothing more
but to get back home to Ithaca and the island off the coast of Greece.
Dr. Harris: And his wife Penelope
and his son, Telemachus.
Dr. Tronchin: But Odysseus had a lot difficulties
in finding his way home, and according to Homer
it took him about ten years.
So what we have here is just one little snippet
of a scene that occurs after Odysseus and his men
have spent the night in the cave of Polyphemus--a cyclops.
A son of the god of the sea, Poseidon.
Dr. Zucker: A cyclops is a giant--and known for having had one eye
So the giant had actually trapped these men in the cave
with the intention of eating them?
Dr. Tronchin: He did snack on a few--like a good barbaian
Polyphemus drank his wine un-mixed
and got too drunk and got very angry
and started scooping up Odysseus' men
and eating them like peanuts.
Odysseus and the survivors developed a plan
to escape from the cave.
And since Polyphemus was already pretty drunk
and he was passing out, Odysseus and his men
took a big long tree trunk, put it in a fire
and sharpened the end of it--and Polyphemus
passed out drunk--they gouged his eye out.
Dr. Zucker: Lovely!
Dr. Harris: My latin teacher loved to talk about that.
Dr. Tronchin: You know--as grizzly as the story is
it's very indicative of a Greek way of thinking
You don't treat your house guest badly
And that's precisely what Polyphemus had done
and so they needed to escape, so they blind Polyphemus
with this giant stake--then the next step to sneaking out
of the cave was Odysseus and his men
lashed themselves underneath the herd
of sheep and rams that Polyphemus had.
So as the sheep were walking out of the cave
Polyphemus was sort of patting the sheep on the back
and he couldn't feel that the men were riding underneath.
Dr. Zucker: He was standing guard at the mouth of the cave.
Dr. Harris: To make sure they didn't escape
Dr. Tronchin: Yes, and as Odysseus and his men as they
are leaving and about to sail away, Polyphemus says
"Well the least you can do is tell me your name"
And Odysseus tells him in Greek
"My name is Nobody"
And so Polyphemus is very angry and he says
"Nobody has blinded me and Nobody has stolen my sheep"
So the scene that we have here, is really
just a little snapshot of that entire story
but you have to remember that a Greek audience
would immediately recognize this.
One particular scene would be able to
recount the entire story.
Dr. Zucker: I think there is little extra humor here
because of course this is painted on a vessel
that's meant to serve wine--right?
And so it is sort of wonderfully folded into itself.
Dr. Tronchin: Oh absolutely, and I think
on a lot of Greek vases designed for drinking wine
there are all kinds of life lessons--so to speak.
And this is one of them of course
By looking at this little snapshot of the story of Odysseus
you remember Polyphemus and you remember not to drink too much.
Dr. Harris: Hopefully. (Laughter)
Dr. Zucker: So how is this painted?
When we think about ceramics, we think about glazes
and this looks very shiny in certain places
But the Greeks didn't really have glazes in the way that we understand them
Dr. Tronchin: That's absolutely right.
What the Greeks used for vase painting
--and we use that term "painting" rather loosely
because just the same that it wasn't really glaze
it wasn't really paint, but in fact slip
which is very watered down clay
And this gives us an insight into the tremendous
difficulty of vase painting
because after the potter has thrown the vase
on a potter's wheel--he might paint the vase
himself--or he might pass it off to someone
was exclusively a painter
And in using that slip--that watered down clay
and painting on a clay vessel
It's almost like painting on a black canvas with black paint
There would have been very difficult to see a lot of the areas
that had been painted.
Dr. Zucker: But now you can see them--so what makes that visible?
Dr. Tronchin: That happens through the magic of firing clay
Dr. Zucker: And the amount of oxygen that get's into the kiln?
Dr. Tronchin: Yes. The Greeks very early on developed an excellent
way of firing their pots like this--and let air in--and out
of the kiln at certain times in the firing process
So that all of the areas that were unpainted
remained this clay colored red--this terra cotta reddish orange
And all of those place that had been painted--
touched by the brush--they turned black through oxidation.
Dr. Zucker: And then the artist has gone in
and it seems like with a little stylus of some sort
etched into that black.
Dr. Harris: Did that happen after the firing?
Dr. Tronchin: Yes, yes that happened after the firing.
So those details that you see--for example
of the arm of Odysseus coming around the side of the ram
Of the ropes that are tying Odysseus to the ram
The ram's eye as well--those are all incised in with
--like you said--a stylus
Another technique that's been used here is added color
There are big patches of white in those two big eyes
that are either side of the vessel
These eyes that have a very enigmatic meaning to us today
I don't any has quite worked out
exactly what those giant eyes mean.
And there's also added white along the belly
of the ram and for the ram's horns.
Dr. Zucker: Oh yes
Dr. Tronchin: And that white was added after the firing process
and that explains why a lot of it has flaked off
Dr. Zucker: I'm really interested in looking at Odysseus' face
because here he is--his men have been devoured
or at least some of them--he's really defying death by escaping
and yet as a hero--he looks so calm
he looks so beautiful
and his face looks so determined
Dr. Harris: Well, I think is a characteristic--you could say
of Greek art from Archaic and the Classical period
that the facial expressions for the most part
are really quite blank--and there are some
tremendously violent scenes--for example
you can think of the pediment of the Temple of Zeus
where centars are attacking Greek women and men
yet everyone has these perfectly placid facial expressions
Dr. Zucker: Why would they do that?
Dr. Harris: Is it about transcending the earthly?
Dr. Zucker: Or perhaps just the nobility of calm?
Dr. Tronchin: Your guess is as good as mine
Dr. Harris: And this is an example of black figure pottery
Dr. Tronchin: Yes, black figure which was the earliest form of painting
on vases like this one--where really you're painting
the positive areas--you're painting the objects you see
the tree--the sheep--and so forth
rather than red figure where those details
where the actual figures as reserved
and the background is painted in
Dr. Zucker: So this is silhouette--that a kind of reserve line
(piano music)

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