
Very delicate rendering of the folds of her drapery. For instance in Apollo's body the tension to his abdomen, to his face. It allows for a tremendousĪmount of detail. Voiceover: This is red figure painting and that means that we're seeing bodies that are part of the red clay of the pot silhouette by a black background. Still have a kind of stiffness that I associate with the early classical and I think that's especially obvious in the figure of Apollo who strides forward but doesn't seem to have the sense of movement that would be entirely natural given what he's doing. We see Apollo drawing his bow back and we see the children Here we see Artemis reaching back into her quiver for yet another arrow. Voiceover: According to the myth they murdered all 14 of the children. Here we see Apollo and Artemis killing Niobe's poor children. The Greeks were oftenĬoncerned about mortals displaying hubris, displaying pride. Both of those children here exact revenge for their mother. With the sun perhaps, and Artemis is the goddess of the hunt. Now Apollo is associated with the arts, with music especially, That kind of hubris to a god or a goddess, and in this case Leto'sĬhildren happen to be the god Apollo and the goddess Artemis. Seven daughters and seven sons and she bragged about them as being more numerous and more beautiful than the children of the goddess Leto.

Of it a terrible scene about a mortal woman named Niobe. Voiceover: Now the Niobid Painter is known for this particular vase which shows on the back Voiceover: Now a calyx-krater is a large punchbowl basically. It's a calyx-krater by an artist that we call the Niobid Painter. Large ancient Greek vase that dates from middle of the 5th century. (lively piano music) Voiceover: We're in the Louvre and we're looking at a
