red-figure

American  

[red-fig-yer] / ˈrɛdˌfɪg yər /

Or red-figured

adjective

1. pertaining to or designating a style of vase painting developed in Greece in the latter part of the 6th and the 5th centuries b.c., characterized chiefly by figurative representations in red against a black-slip background, details painted in the design, and the introduction of three-dimensional illusion in the rendering of form and space.

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Etymology

Origin of red-figure

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

It was a so-called red-figure kylix, a style in which the reddish figures are set against darkened backgrounds and have finer facial details — innovations that introduced greater realism to Greek art.

From New York Times • Apr. 19, 2023

The museum was also one of several to comply with an Italian campaign in recent decades to reclaim artifacts, returning an Attic red-figure vase it had acquired in 1983.

From New York Times • May 20, 2022

A birdie at the sixth was erased by a bogey at the 10th, and with Leishman on a red-figure tear, Woods was mostly a bystander the rest of the afternoon.

From Golf Digest • Jan. 26, 2020

Berlin’s Antikensammlung has lent a marvellous fifth-century BC red-figure skyphos, or cup, that shows Odysseus shooting his bow at the suitors who are hounding his wife, Penelope.

From The Guardian • Nov. 13, 2019

Vases of the Decadence.—For all practical purposes the red-figure style at Athens came to an end with the fall of the city in 404 b.c.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 6 "Celtes, Konrad" to "Ceramics" by Various