Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 92-93.(Budapest, 2000)
SZILÁGYI, JÁNOS GYÖRGY: "Les Adieux". A Column-krater of the Syracuse Painter
"Big figures, covering the surface well, though the drawing lacks subtlety." Martin Robertson's characterization 7 gives what seems to be a complete, faithful assessment of the style of the Syracuse Painter. For a long time now he has been held a follower of Makron, one of the most important artists of Late Archaic red-figure, although it is surprising that, unlike his master, who was, to judge by the more than three hundred works attributed to him, a kylix-painter kat'exochen, he produced almost nothing but large pots. 8 In none of his almost seventy known pieces does he approach the level of Makron's better work. It is understandable, then, that apart from registering his existence, scholars have had little to say about his oeuvre. 9 He was active in the second quarter of the fifth century, and we should take the dating of his Budapest vase to the years around 470 as emblematic rather than of biographical value: it simply points to the fact that the piece stands closer to the fading splendour of Attic Late Archaic in the late first quarter of the century than to the spirit of the vase-painters of the Parthenon period, seeking new means of expression around its middle, 10 with no value-judgement of any kind implied. Like most of the mediocre vase-painters working in the shadow of the great Early Classical masters in the second quarter of the fifth century, the Syracuse Painter had his own preferences in the use of decorative motifs, the technical realization of his pieces, and especially in the shapes to be decorated and choice of subject, although the latter two, interdependent in a number of cases (as with the loutrophoroi that make up approximately one quarter of the painter's known works), were determined, if not always, at least largely by the tastes of their purchasers expressed maybe only in the social atmosphere of the time. The majority of the decorative elements on the Budapest krater were adopted by the painter from black figure, as by most of his contemporaries who decorated columnkraters, and executed in black silhouette technique. This is well illustrated by a blackfigure column-krater from about the beginning of the century in the Museum of Fine Arts (figs. 10-11 ). n The chain of encircled palmettes with scrolls, like the ones that decorate the neck of side A of our vase, is more typical of the Syracuse Painter's personal taste; 12 he makes use of it above the picture on vases of various shapes, 13 more often than not in a version differing from and more widespread than that on the 7 The art of vase-painting in classical Athens, Cambridge 1992, 152. x ARV 2 , 458. 9 List of his works: Beazley. ARV 2 , 517-522. 1657: Para, 382-383; Beazley Addenda, 253; add Perkins, A. in Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections (ed. W.G. Moon), Chicago 1979, 176-177 (H.A. Cahn). - On the painter, aside from the mentioned works of Beazley and Robertson, see Richter in Richter - Hall, op. cit. (n. 4) 121; Beazley, in Caskey-Beazley, Boston, op. cit. (n.4) III, 46; Paribeni, E., EAA VU (1986) 339; Boardman, L, Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Classical Period, London 1989, 37 and figs. 38-39 (mentioned by name only in the picture-captions). 10 Aside from the conservative, archaic traits of his drawing, this is also shown by the fact that he is among the last to decorate A-type amphorae: Johnston, A.W., Trademarks on Greek Vases, Warminster 1979, 248 ad Type 12F.2. 11 Inv. 51. 837; unpublished. 12 In the following reference will be made to the vases of the Syracuse Painter by the bracketed number assigned them in Beazley's lists, to the hydria mentioned in note 9 with the number (35bis). 13 E.g. on hydria (35, 35bis) and pelike (33).
