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The Thanatos Painter (5th century BCE) was an Athenian Ancient Greek vase painter who painted scenes of death on white-ground cylindrical lekythoi. [1] All of the Thanatos Painter's found lekythoi have scenes of or related to death (thanatos in Greek) on them, including the eponymous god of death Thanatos carrying away dead bodies. [2]
A lekythos (Ancient Greek: λήκυθος; pl.: lekythoi) is a type of ancient Greek vessel used for storing oil, especially olive oil. It has a narrow body and one handle attached to the neck of the vessel, and is thus a narrow type of jug, with no pouring lip; the oinochoe is more like a modern jug. In the "shoulder" and "cylindrical" types ...
The Thanatos Painter is a lekythoi painter from Athens, Greece in the 5th century BCE. The lekythoi attributed to the Thanatos Painter are all white-ground that is specifically used in the funerary context. These lekythoi also had depiction of death on them and thanatos is the Greek word for death.
Notable in this regard is the Group of the Huge Lekythoi, specialised in decorating large grave vessels. During the second half of the 5th century, white-ground vase painting was used nearly exclusively for grave lekythoi. When that vase type went out of use around 400 BC, white-ground vase painting also ceased.
Thanatos, the god of gentle death, can be seen on Greek funerary vases taking away the body of the deceased to the underworld. The act of laying out the body for mourners to see, called prothesis, is painted on the Dipylon amphora. The next step was the ekphora; the moving of the body to a cemetery in a procession.
The technique gained great importance during the 5th and 4th centuries, especially in the form of small lekythoi that became typical grave offerings. Important representatives include its inventor, the Achilles Painter, as well as Psiax, the Pistoxenos Painter, and the Thanatos Painter.
In Greek mythology, Thanatos (UK: / ˈ θ æ n ə t ɒ s /; [2] Ancient Greek: Θᾰ́νᾰτος, Thánatos, pronounced in Ancient Greek: "Death", [3] from θνῄσκω thnēskō "(I) die, am dying" [4] [5]) was the personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appearing in person.
An Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 440 BCE, showing Hypnos and Thanatos taking away the body of Sarpedon during the Trojan War. After the war, Papadimitriou was considered politically suspect by the new anti-communist government, set up following the dismantling of the armed communist organizations in February 1945. [18]