10 Facts About Exekias

Exekias worked mainly in the black-figure technique, which involved the painting of scenes using a clay slip that fired to black, with details created through incision.

Exekias is regarded by art historians as an artistic visionary whose masterful use of incision and psychologically sensitive compositions mark him as one of the greatest of all Attic vase painters.

The works of Exekias are distinguished by their innovative compositions, precise draughtsmanship, and subtle psychological characterization, all of which transcend the inherent challenges of the black-figure technique.

Fourteen signed works by Exekias have survived, while many more have been attributed to him based on the stylistic connoisseurship method developed by John Beazley.

Exekias's signed pieces provide insight not only into the work of Exekias himself but into the way ancient pottery workshops operated.

Beazley attributed one of the vases with the potter-only signature to the so-called Group E, to which Exekias is closely related.

Fragments of column krater and a hydria attributed to Exekias were excavated on the Athenian Acropolis, suggesting that Exekias maintained a clientele in his home city.

Exekias is the first Athenian vase painter to depict Dionysus sailing in the expanse of the interior of a cup.

Exekias could have chosen any moment, but this is the one he painted.

Characteristically, Exekias uses the shape of the vessel, with its curving surface, as a terrain to which the lines and forms of the painting conform.