The Andokides painter was an ancient Athenian vase painter who was active from 530 to approximately 515 BCE. His work is unsigned; he is named after Andokides

Andokides

Andokides was a famous potter of Ancient Greece. The painter of his pots was an anonymous artist, the Andokides painter, who is recognized as the creater of the red-figure style, beginning around 530 BC. His work is compared with Exekias, who was said to have created the most detailed and best...

, the potter for whom he worked. He is believed to be the inventor of the red figure style of vase painting.

Beginnings of his art

The Andokides painter began working at a time when the black-figure style

Black-figure pottery

Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic is one of the most modern styles for adorning antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BC...

 predominated. He was undoubtedly a pupil of Exekias

Exekias

Exekias was an ancient Greek vase-painter and potter, who worked between approximately 550 BC - 525 BC at Athens. Most of his vases, however, were exported to other regions of the Mediterranean, such as Etruria, while some of his other works remained in Athens. Exekias worked mainly with a...

, one of the masters of the art. The technical limits of this black-figure technique, which required the incision of detail onto a silhouette of a figure, were reached around the late 6th century BCE. The Andokides painter undertook brief tests, brushing white paint directly on a glazed black base. The white wash was fragile, as seen on an amphora preserved in the Louvre (inv.F203) which is ascribed to him. He next had the idea to reverse the process: he reserved the background in black glaze instead of the foreground figures. In this way, the red color of the clay became the ground on to which further details of the characters were painted in black with a fine brush. This method allowed greater precision and more detail than before.

The first evidence of the new technique—that would gradually spread to dominate the art—dates to 530 BCE. During a transitional period, the Andokides painter produced amphoras which present the black figure style on one side and the red figure style on the other, sometimes with the same scene. These vases may have been tests to present the new technique to his customers. These vases are called bilingual. Thereafter, he produced only vases in the red figure style.

He was not the only one to use these innovations. Others, like Oltos

Oltos

Oltos was a Late Archaic Greek vase painter, active in Athens. From the time between 525 BC and 500 BC, about 150 works by him are known. Two pieces, a cup in Berlin and a cup in Tarquinia , are signed by him as painter.Oltos is thought to have begun his career in the workshop of the potter...

 or Epiktetos

Epiktetos

Epiktetos was an Attic vase painter in the early red-figure style. Besides Oltos, he is the most important painter of the Pioneer Group. He was active between 520 and 490 BC...

, produced bilingual vases, but the majority of researchers agree that the works of the Andokides painter were produced a few years before the others, which means he was likely the principal inventor of the technique.

Painting style

A score of vases with black figures, whose attribution is disputed by some researchers, show that the Andokides painter gradually attained greater control and virtuosity in the technique. Earlier examples appear a little stiff. Later, the artist exploits the benefits inherent in the technique, utilizing a range of colors from red to dark brown. The Andokides painter marked the arrival of the red figure style that was later used by great artists like Euphronios

Euphronios

Euphronios was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter, active in Athens in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. As part of the so-called "Pioneer Group,"...

. The painter's most favored subject matter was a wide range of mythological scenes depicting the gods and heroes. Heracles

Heracles

Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

was his favorite character.