ABSTRACT
The gynaikonitis, the women’s quarters: how should we envisage this space? Was it ‘dark, squalid and unsanitary’, or a place of leisure and luxury?1 Did it exist in reality, or was it merely a concept, a place within the house where the women should be? These questions become acute when one considers the change in themes depicting women in late fifth-and early fourth-century vase-painting. Classical artists show women in far greater numbers than their early counterparts, but depict a much narrower range of themes, and these themes become stereotyping and inexpressive. Women are depicted almost exclusively in interior settings, in large or small groups, playing music, working wool or adorning themselves; images of domestic labour, of children and of sacrifice all become far less common. Some religious scenes still appear, for example the domestic festival of the Adonia, but we see much less of women outside the house. The scenes become increasingly abstract from c.440 BC onward; interiors are far less clearly defined than in previous images of domestic work, and there is a gradual move towards the placing of women in indistinct exteriors: although landscapes are always limited in ceramic art, by the end of the fifth century we find women appearing in ‘gardens’, with trees and rocks (fig. 4.1).2 At the same time the distinction between mortal and divine women becomes less sharp: female figures in apparently mundane contexts are often given the names of heroines or divine personifications. The figure of Eros, too, becomes a regular accompaniment to the women, fetching sashes and chests, holding up a mirror, or playing (fig. 4.2).3
