More Color Theory

I finally finished Exercise 1.4 in The New Munsell(R) Student Color Set. The exercise basically asks you to complete the book by filling in the blanks on the color charts with colored chips. I've blogged about Munsell's color theory before elsewhere. I've also blogged about my specific experience assembling the color charts, back when I'd finished only the first three out of ten. Click here to see a new post in which I share my pictures of the completed charts with a few observations.

The Euphronios Krater

In discussing my previous questions with an outside expert, i.e., my mother-in-law, she recalled an interesting bit of news about the Euphronios krater, on p. 136 of the second edition of Stokstad's Art History, fig. 5-28. The krater is captioned in the book as Euphronios (painter) and Euxitheos (potter). Death of Sarpedon. c. 515 BCE. Red-figure decoration on a calyx krater. Ceramic, height of crater 18" (45.7 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She emailed me an article from the New York Times about the Metropolitan Museum of Art returning the krater to Italy as the Met had apparently acquired the krater from grave robbers in the 1970s. Click here to see the Wikipedia article about the krater which includes links to another New York Times article as well as other sources. Notably, the Wiki's links to the Met's collection database and a description of the piece at the Met's site are broken. A search of the Met's collection database for the piece yields no results.

P.S. I went ahead and edited the wikipedia entry to delete the out of date links to the Met and add the link to the New York Times article my mil sent me.

What is a Cult Statue?

Having posed the question of what a cult statue is in a previous post, I did what any blogger should have done: googled it.

The only clear answer I could find was from Answers.com, which defines a cult statue thusly:

Image of a divinity that served in antiquity as a focal-point for worship and cult rituals. Most cult statues were housed in temples or shrines, although outdoor worship of images is also attested. Although aniconic worship (i.e. of a non-anthropomorphic symbol of a deity such as a rock or pillar) is known in Near Eastern, Greek and Roman cults, most deities by the late 2nd millennium BC were worshiped in an anthropomorphic form and were, as such, earthly substitutes or humanized manifestations of the presence of a deity.

So my tentative answers to my own questions are:
In the description of the Parthenon on pp. 147-153 the author repeatedly refers to the statue of Athena inside the Parthenon as a cult statue. For a specific example see the last paragraph on p. 150. In this context "cult" differentiates between statutes that were not the focal point for worship and cult rituals and a statue that was worshiped. A cult statue is not materially different from another statue of the same subject, but its function was different. I'm guessing there could be a statue of Athena which was not the focus of worship or cult rituals, in which case it would depict the same subject matter as the cult statue of Athena inside the Parthenon, but it would not be a cult statue.

What do you think?

Who is the A.D. Painter?

Having posed the question of who the A.D. Painter is in a previous post, I did what any blogger should have done: googled it.

Searching for Stokstad and "A.D. Painter" led me to a funky website from Prentice Hall. By funky I mean when I try to load it a bunch of errors about missing images fill my screen. But once I closed all of those I got to a one line clue: "Women at a Fountain House, A.D. Painter." You might recall this piece from p. 135, fig. 5-27, where it is attributed to the Priam Painter. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which holds this piece credits it to the Priam Painter as well. They also have a really awesome search engine which allows you to search their collection and provides you with awesome information about each piece. Click here to see the MFA's entry on Women at a Fountain House. Be sure to scroll to the bottom and check out the five different photographs of the piece.

So the answers to my own questions are:
In the section on vase painting, which is pp. 132-137 in the second edition, the A.D. Painter is the Priam Painter. On p. 136 where the author writes that the A.D. Painter created a perfectly balanced composition of verticals and horizontals that take the shape of the vessel into account the author is referring to figure 5-27, Women at a Fountain House.

It's All Greek to Me

I've recently conquered the Greeks. In other words, I've finally finished chapter 5 in the second edition of Stokstad's Art History. But I'm left with two unresolved questions.

First, in the section on vase painting, which is pp. 132-137 in the second edition, who is the A.D. Painter? Is it the Priam Painter? On p. 136 the author writes that the A.D. Painter created a perfectly balanced composition of verticals and horizontals that take the shape of the vessel into account. Does that match the author's description of figure 5-27 or figure 5-26?

Second, in the description of the Parthenon on pp. 147-153 the author repeatedly refers to the statue of Athena inside the Parthenon as a cult statue. For a specific example see the last paragraph on p. 150. What does "cult" mean in this context? Is a cult statue different from another statue of the same subject?