A unique scene of naked women swimming appears on an extraordinary amphora (ca. 520 BC) by the Andokides Painter (fig.7.2). Several features make this vase remarkable. The painting is experimental, unique in combining the new white-ground and red-figure techniques. And the subject matter was (and is) startling, exotic, and erotic for its time.3 These bathing women were apparently intended to be taken for Amazons—even though Amazons were expected to expose only their
FiG. 7.1. Heroically nude Amazons battling heroically nude Greek hoplites. A Greek warrior plunges a spear into an Amazon’s thigh while his companion hurls a spear; the battle continues on the other side, with a fallen Amazon and an Amazon archer, also nude. Black-figure lekythos (oil flask), Corinthian, ca. 575-550 BC, inv. 1884,0804.8, British Museum. © The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY.
Upper bodies in battle. (And even in the unusual vase discussed above, the heroically nude Amazons are discreetly shown from the back.) This vase is among the very first scenes of nude female bathers in Greek art. In archaic and early classical paintings, full female nudity usually implied some kind of sexual activity. Naked courtesans, prostitutes, and female entertainers, for example, were shown in brazen poses on pornographic vase paintings. Bathing scenes of proper Greek maidens and wives—including Helen of Troy—typically showed women washing in modest poses, amid perfume flasks, sponges, mirrors, basins, and fountains in the women’s quarters. Women bathing or swimming outdoors was a rare subject. The Andokides Painter’s innovative and intimate vignette of a group of Amazons—unself-conscious, athletic, and stark naked—is unparalleled in Greek art.4
The Andokides Painter’s pairing of related scenes on this wine amphora was, like many of his other paired paintings, visually playful, intended to stimulate conversation at a Greek symposium, a drinking party where aristocratic men enjoyed solving riddles and making racy jokes that turn on ambiguous wordplay and imagery. Many vases painted with provocative scenes for symposiasts to ponder have survived. A sexy novelty cup (in the Athens National Museum) created for a drinking party, for example, shows a young man and woman engaged in lively sex while surrounded by scenes of Greeks battling Amazons. One can imagine the lascivious speculations sparked by the pair of images on another wine amphora (Karkinos Painter) from the same era as the Andokides vase. On one side, five Greek men recline on cushions, conversing and gesturing. On the other side are five attractive Amazons armed with spears, one woman for each man, evoking a quintuple blind date.5
The Andokides vase also has two scenes back-to-back: Amazons in battle gear on one side and Amazons relaxing on the other. The unexpected juxtaposition of women arming themselves for war and peaceful nude women bathing causes the viewer to do a double take.
In the bathing scene the woman in the center is about to dive, to join her companion who is already swimming. The artist brushed the swimmer’s body with a light wash of diluted paint to suggest submersion in the sea. The fish painted below, a clever touch, turn the glossy black background into open water. On the left, a third woman oils her skin after her swim, from a small aryballos, a jar normally used by male athletes. (Perhaps she is applying invigorating halinda oil, used by Amazon bathers; chapter 10.) On the right, a fourth woman is stepping out of the scene past a column, turning back to look and gesture toward her friends. Her figure is partially damaged, so we cannot be certain whether she is nude—she appears to wear a soft cap with the flaps tucked up.6
On the other side of the vase, we see three typical Amazons with their arms and armor. On the left, an Amazon stands next to her shield and is tying—or is she untying?—the red laces of her patterned linen corselet over a short red tunic. In the center, an archer wearing a pointed, red Scythian-style cap with earflaps and holding a bow and quiver sits astride a spirited white horse with a red mane. Her Corinthian-style helmet (with bull’s horns and ears) is on the ground. On the far right an Amazon in a patterned outfit and cap carries a spear and turns back toward her friends in the same pose as the Amazon on the other side of the vase.
How do we know that the women frolicking in the sea are Amazons? The artist planted several hints to seduce his viewers into playing voyeurs peeping at naked Amazons. First, notice the two (poorly preserved) spotted objects hanging above the bathing scene. They are not sponges, as proposed in 2007 by a French vase scholar, although sponges would be appropriate in washing scenes. A closer look reveals a pair of soft, pointed caps with a diamond pattern and long ties, set aside by the diver and the swimmer. Some scholars note that at first glance these more closely resemble some soft caps worn by Scythians and Amazons than they do ordinary sakkoi (Greek women’s head coverings). Indeed, the swimmers’ caps resemble the headgear of the right-hand Amazon on the other side of the vase.7
The Andokides Painter encourages the viewer to keep turning the vase and comparing the details to find more links and relationships between the two images. Are the Amazons on one side disrobing to go swimming or are they putting on their clothes and armor after a swim? Turning the amphora (if one were the ancient owner and his friends) or walking around it (if one is a modern visitor to the Louvre Museum, where the vase is now displayed) creates a captivating narrative sequence, like a filmstrip loop: Amazons removing their armor, plunging into the sea, and then dressing again.
The key figure linking the two sides is the woman on the right. The viewer soon realizes that she is repeated in the same pose on both sides, looking back while stepping into the next scene. In fact, this woman is one of the Andokides Painter’s stock Amazon figures. She reappears on another Andokides vase, an early red-figure amphora from Orvieto. Four Amazons battle Heracles, and on the far right, the familiar backward-turning Amazon wears the same outfit and cap (now with the flaps down). She carries a bow instead of a spear. The very same
FiG. 7.2. Above, Amazons swimming. Below, Amazons arming. Greek red-figure/white-figure amphora, Andokides Painter, ca. 525 BC. Inv. F203, Musde de Louvre, Paris. Top photo, Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY; bottom photo, Hervd Lewandowski. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.
Corinthian helmet with bulls’ horns and ears also appears on one of these Amazons. Earrings and zigzag necklaces are other accoutrements linking the swimming women with the armed Amazons on both vases.8
The matching details and deliberate artistic clues strongly suggest that the artist was urging his viewers to relate the women warriors on the front of the Louvre vase to the naked bathers on the back. The surprising and titillating meaning comes into focus: we are watching Amazons at work and at play. Fully clothed and armed, the women are dangerous, but a peek at the unarmed Amazons relaxing at the seaside reveals a seldom-seen sensual, vulnerable side. Notably, many miniature paintings illustrating the Persian legend of the nomad archer horsewoman Shirin show her bathing; her tunic, bow case, and quiver of arrows hang on the branches of a tree (Fig. 22.1).9
World History
