La Pittura Vascolare | Vase Painting

Photographs by Luigi Spina

Texts by Annamaria Mauro, Claude Pouzadoux, Adriana Sciacovelli, Luigi Spina

Treasures of Magna Graecia in Matera

The Italiote red-figure vases from Magna Graecia and the Rizzon Collection, preserved in the National Museums of Matera’s Ridola Museum, offer an opportunity to perceive the ancient world with new eyes and to tease out its innermost meanings, thanks to the photography of Luigi Spina. Significant testimony to vase painting between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, the museum’s artifacts largely date back to the discoveries of Domenico Ridola (1841-1932) and form part of elaborate funerary assemblages, in which everyday life is reflected in myths, and possess great aesthetic and historical value.

In the book, black is the protagonist: it enhances the red figures and brings out the keen eye of photographer Luigi Spina. Anatomical details, drapery, and decorative motifs emerge in all their strength without the filter of museum cases, while touches of white enrich the vases’ bichrome palette. Photographing a work of art means capturing its deep meaning to communicate it to the world. Far from the idea of a museum catalog, the volume is rather a figurative atlas of antiquity.

Luigi Spina, a photographer, has published several volumes with 5 Continents Editions, including The Buchner Boxes (2014), Hemba (2017), and Mythical Diary (2017), dedicated to the Farnese Collection. With the same publisher, he created the series “Hidden Treasures”: The Farnese Cup, The Alexander Mosaic, San Domenico by Niccolò dell’Arca, The Riace Bronzes (2022), the project Canova Four Tempos (2020-2024) and the large-scale photographic project Inside Pompeii (2023).