They both lived in ancient Greece, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.

Without the creature comforts of the modern-day potter’s studio, the two artists, separated by about 100 years, created images that illustrated Greek life on large ceramic vessels. Known today as the Amasis Painter and the Berlin Painter, both were Athenian vase painters whose works were preserved over centuries. Their first retrospectives occurred 30 years apart at the Toledo Museum of Art, the first in the late 20th century and the second this summer.

The Berlin Painter and His World: Athenian Vase-Painting in the Early Fifth Century B.C., an exhibition opening Saturday at the Toledo Museum of Art, will showcase ancient Mediterranean painted vases by a 5th century B.C. artist known today only as the Berlin Painter.

The show and its title pay homage to an exhibition that was curated in 1985 by the late Kurt Luckner, former curator of ancient art for TMA, and Dietrich von Bothmer, the then-chairman of the department of Greek and Roman art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century Athens opened in September, 1985, at the New York museum before traveling to Toledo and then on to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

“They put on this exhibition that traveled to these three venues, and it was the first single-artist show of an artist from antiquity,” said Adam Levine, current curator of ancient art for TMA. “This [Berlin Painter] exhibition is a tribute to the Toledo Museum of Art’s role in helping to generate this type of show, so it’s especially fitting that this exhibition should be here.”

The Berlin Painter remains open through Oct. 1. Most of the 84 ceramic pieces and statuettes in the show were lent from 15 institutions and two private collections from all over the world, including the Louvre in Paris, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Harvard Art Museums, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The show is complemented by eight objects from TMA’s antiquities collection, including an oil/​perfume jar called a lekythos created by the Providence Painter, believed to be a pupil of the Berlin Painter, Levine said.

Levine collaborated with show organizer J. Michael Padgett, the curator of ancient art at Princeton University Art Museum, the only other venue where the exhibition was seen through June 11.

“These are difficult shows to put on, and I think that one of the things that distinguishes this from other retrospectives of artists is that this will never happen again,” Levine said. “Anyone who is interested in outstanding artworks, anyone who is interested in ancient Greece, anyone who is interested in Western history, has to see this show here or they will never see it ever again.”

A lost master

Over the years, international scholars and historians have identified the works of the Berlin Painter, who was so named in 1911 by art historian and Oxford scholar Sir John Davidson Beazley after he discovered an amphora painted by the artist in Berlin. Through his close study of the detailed artistry on ceramic pots and painted vases recovered in Greece, Italy, and east to the Black Sea, Beazley was able to attribute more than 300 pieces to the Berlin Painter.

“Although the Berlin Painter would have been considered a humble craftsman within Athenian society, it is the painstaking identification of his surviving oeuvre that now affords him a place among the finest artists of ancient Greece,” Padgett wrote in the preface of the show’s catalog.

The Berlin Painter was believed to be one of the earliest vase painters to work almost exclusively in a method called red-figure painting, where slip clay, a substance of a thicker consistency than paint, is applied directly on a red-clay surface to achieve detail.

The Amasis Painter, whom historians believe worked in Athens between 560 B.C. and 515 B.C., worked mostly in black-figure painting, in which the images were painted onto the vessel and then details were etched into the workable red clay for which Greece was known. The Berlin Painter’s use of black-figure painting was more sporadic.

Both worked in hot, sweaty, cramped studios without electricity with what was believed to be about a dozen other men including a master potter and master painter and apprentices. They worked first as trainees and then later as masters of their craft, with pupils under them. Researchers believe they worked with primitive potter’s wheels and a kiln.

“The feel one had to have for one’s craft, to understand the oxygen content in the kiln without being able to see in, or without any instruments, we still to this day cannot create pots like this using ancient techniques,” Levine said. “We literally don’t know how they did it.”

Defined by style

Through his art, the Berlin Painter shows us a world 2,500 years ago, a culture of muses, warriors, athletes, musicians, and barbarians. Fifty-four of the show’s pieces are attributed to the anonymous artist.

Nicknamed the “Artist of Grace,” he held a particular interest in mythology, depicting the images of gods and goddesses on many of his vessels. To pinpoint the artist, Beazley first identified some of the artist’s stylistic, repetitive quirks, which included the use of delicate, sinewy lines, scalloped hemlines, and elongated feet and hands.

His spotlighting of a single figure on a large ceramic vessel was detailed, dramatic, and naturalistic.

“If you think about what it took to create these lines, the assuredness of hand, that is one of the things which is sort of a hallmark [of his work],” Levine said. “Not one of these things is enough to say this is by the Berlin Painter, but in combination across dozens of attributes, if all of them seem significantly similar to another, then it is reasonable to say they are probably by the same artist.

“New things are being found and attributed and reattributed, but I think the thing that this catalog [of works] demonstrates is the Berlin Painter’s corpus is pretty secure. John Beazley mostly got it right.”

Like the Amasis Painter, whom von Bothmer surmised during a 1985 interview with The Blade had worked his craft well beyond the age of 45, the Berlin Painter lived for many decades.

“The average life span at this time — probably 40 would be generous — but he produced for 40 to 45 years. He likely lived into his 60s and might have reached the age of 70,” Levine said. “Which means he lived through some of the most seismic events in … Western history.”

He lived through the Battle of Marathon and other fabled battles of the Persian Wars in mid-5th century B.C. He watched the defeat of the Persians, the victory of the Athenians, and the rebuilding of the temples on the Acropolis. He was a witness to the birth of Athenian democracy in 508 B.C.

Those life experiences were related through his art. In his younger years, he was taught by other potters and ceramicists in the Pioneer Group. He created work that was used at Greek parties. 

His pieces were commissioned later in life as vessels to hold the prizes of wine or olive oil for winning athletes in the Parthenian games, Olympic-style competitions held in ancient Greece.

The show will be broken down into four sections for the public: the Berlin Painter’s World, the Berlin Painter’s Style, Gods and Heroes. The show’s cost was not released; it is sponsored by ProMedica, an anonymous donor, Taylor Cadillac, and others, as well as several gifts in memory of Kurt Luckner.

Admission to TMA is free, however, this exhibition has a charge of $10, a practice the institution employs periodically for major exhibitions. Museum members and students get in free. The last exhibition with an admission charge was Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden in 2014.

Contact Roberta Gedert at: rgedert@theblade.com or 419-724-6075 or on Twitter @RoGedert.

First Published July 2, 2017, 4:00 a.m.