Figures are further enhanced with glaze lines or a brush.
Attic black figure technique.
Because it was much easier for artisans to draw figures in this way rather than delineate them with incisions as in the black figure technique red figure pottery became the predominant method in ancient greece until the late 3rd century.
Ancient greek black figure pottery named after the colour of the depictions on the pottery was first produced in corinth c.
550 bce when the great attic painters among them exekias and the amasis painter developed narrative scene decoration and perfected the black figure style.
The background filled in with a slip turned black.
Influenced by pottery from corinth which offered the highest quality at the time attic vase painters switched to the new technology between about 635 bc and the end of the century.
The red figure technique emerged around 591 b c.
In contrast the decorative motifs on red figure vases remained the color of the clay.
700 bce and then adopted by pottery painters in attica where it would become the dominant decorative style from 625 bce and allow athens to dominate the mediterranean pottery market for the next 150 years.
Figures could be articulated with glaze lines or dilute washes of glaze applied with a brush.
Red figure quickly eclipsed black figure yet in the unique form of the panathanaic amphora black figure continued to be utilised well into the 4th century bc.
Laconia was a third albeit minor producer of the style in the.
The athenians who began to use the technique at the end of the 7th century bce retained the corinthian use of animal friezes for decoration until c.