Vase Painting, Gender, and Social Identity in Archaic Athens

Spectators at the sides of narrative vase paintings have long been at the margins of scholarship, but a study of their appearance shows that they provide a model for the ancient viewing experience. They also reflect social and gender roles in archaic Athens. This study explores the phenomenon of spectators through a database built from a census of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, which reveals that the figures flourished in Athenian vase painting during the last two-thirds of the sixth century BCE. Using models developed from psychoanalysis and the theory of the gaze, ritual studies, and gender studies, Stansbury-O\'Donnell shows how these ‘spectators’ emerge as models for social and gender identification in the archaic city, encoding in their gestures and behavior archaic attitudes about gender and status.

• Looks at figures on the margins of pictures as models for the viewing experience • Uses data to define the qualities and parameters for the appearance of spectators • Developing interpretations based on theories developed in psychoanalysis, ritual studies, and gender studies

1. Seeing spectators; 2. Defining spectators; 3. Vision and the construction of identity; 4. Ritual performance, spectators, and identity; 5. Men and youths: gender and social identity; 6. Women as spectators: gender and social identity.

\'This study makes important progress in the discussion of the meaning of spectators in images on Athenian vases … Most important, the results here invite subsequent work and provide a clear basis for it.\' BMCR