3-044-416 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Attic Black-Figure Neck Amphora, about 530 BC. Storage Jar. Additional Info: Waving his club threateningly, the Greek hero Herakles pursues a centaur, a mythological part-horse, part-human creature, on the front of this Athenian black-figure amphora. On the back of the vase, Theseus battles the Minotaur. The Affecter depicted the two great heroes of the Greeks, Herakles and Theseus, battling monsters, symbolic victories of Greek civilization over the barbarians, yet he did not appear very interested in the stories. For example, in Greek mythology, Herakles battles two centaurs, Pholos and Nessos. The depiction on this vase is quite unusual for Athenian pottery of the time, because the Affecter did not provide the clues that would identify which encounter was represented here. It is, however, quite typical for the Affecter, who focused primarily on the decorative aspects of figures. His unusual approach to potting is also evident on this vase, where he threw an old-fashioned neck-amphora form but modified it by adding a raised ring to separate the neck from the body. The oddness of the Affecter's style may be explained by the fact that he appears to have been creating vases for export to Etruria. He created products to suit Etruscan rather than Greek taste.