vasepainting

Vase painting refers to the decoration of ceramic vessels, particularly in ancient Greece, where artists applied painted scenes and patterns to vases such as amphorae, kraters, kylikes, and lekythoi. The practice began in the Geometric period and flourished from the 9th to the 4th centuries BCE, reaching a high point in Archaic and Classical art.

Vases were formed from terracotta and decorated with slips (colored clays) before firing. The main painting techniques were black-figure, red-figure, and white-ground. In black-figure decoration, figures were painted in a glossy black slip and details incised into the silhouette. In red-figure technique, the background was filled with black while the figures remained the natural red color of the clay, allowing finer brushwork. White-ground vase painting used a light background with painted figures and often additional colors for portraits or ceremonial scenes.

Subject matter varied: mythological episodes, heroic battles, athletic events, and scenes of daily life. Works are found in several regional styles and often include inscriptions or signatures by individual painters or workshops. Prominent centers included Athens, Corinth, and other workshop hubs; notable artists are associated with both the black-figure and red-figure traditions.

Vase painting served both utilitarian and ceremonial purposes: vases were used in the home, symposia, religious rituals, and burials. The surviving corpus influenced Roman pottery and later Western art, and remains a central source for the study of ancient iconography, social life, and craft techniques. Today, tens of thousands of vase paintings survive in museums and collections worldwide.