Ancient Greek Art: Hector Arming/Three Men Carousing by Euthymides

Okay so we're looking at the vase here which is known as Three Men Cruising and on the other side Hector Arming and this is by the painter called Euthymides and something really interesting about this vase is it's got an inscription on it that says as never Euphronius meaning as never Euphronius could do so it's a bit of a taunt to the other pioneer that you couldn't do something as good as this so we see some real rivalry between the pioneers at this time. In terms of subject matter the top one you're looking at King Priam on the left Hector arming himself in the middle who is of course Priam's son and to his right is his mother Hecuba and then a very different scene on the bottom a more active one we've got three men cruising or dancing and you can see the drinking cup in one of their hands the cantharos to suggest that this is a scene of revelry. So one of the main areas in which Euthymides is interested in is spacing out his figures so he really likes to not have any overlap so that he can focus on each individual carefully in turn and he also likes to give a variety in their profiles so you'll see some figures like Hector at the top are facing us others are inside profile like King Priam and then others again especially the reveler at the bottom on the right hand side are in a three-quarter pose. The other thing Euthymides is interested in is creating three-dimensional figures on a 2D space which is of course the vase and this is known as foreshortening and he does this in this particular vase when he has the revelers lift up their feet and turn their legs slightly towards us so we get the impression of something being in the foreground the kind of sole of the foot but then the rest of the body being in the background as though there is mass to it and that really 3D effect. Whilst there are therefore similarities in the scene in terms of the foreshortening and the spacing of the figures one way in which you can contrast them is in how active they are so the scene at the top with Hector arming is of course very calm and still this is one of those war scenes that's not conflict it's a moment of downtime like with Achilles and Ajax and it's meant to be contrasted with the much more dynamic scene at the bottom where we've got active stances from the revelers and we can see their legs and their hands in motion. We can also see that this is meant to be a symposium-esque scene they've got wreaths on their heads and they've even got a cantharos the two-handled drinking cup in their hands so that context is meant to be by its very nature more active and enjoyable than what we're seeing at the top. Finally I just want to point out Euthymides interest in anatomy as well so especially with the revelers at the bottom they're nude so that he can explore his demonstration of anatomy you can see the very careful paint lines there that point out the muscles on their torsos for example but also within the anatomy there's an exploration of age so if we just have a look at the top scene you can see that King Priam is shown as elderly and that is through the fact that he is balding and also if you have a look at his beard which looks a lighter colour to everything else and therefore would have been grey or white this has also been changed to demonstrate that he is older than Hector at the centre. So we've got some real individuality from Euthymides here and is comparative to what we have seen in some of the sculpture around this time as well.