Born in the Middle East , the art of pottery reached in ancient Greece a high level of artistic quality. There is also a major testimony to the life and culture of the ancient Greeks.

Greek vases have survived in large numbers although this probably represents only a tiny fraction of production time, more than 50 000 vessels from the only Athens remain today. For their part, the other objects of art have often been destroyed either by time ( wood , cloth , pigment paint) or by the hand of man, with a view to recovery ( stone , bronze , precious metals ). While it is easy to break a vase, it is much more difficult to destroy completely: even the fragments can still talk.

Summary 1 Painting 1.1 Proto-Geometric Style 1.2 Geometric Style 1.3 oriental style 1.4 in black Figures 1.5 red 1.6 Hellenistic Period 2 Manufacture 2.1 Materials 2.2 Shaping 2.3 coloring to the plaster 2.4 Cooking 3 Typology of vases 4 See also 4.1 Bibliography 4.2 Articles Related External 4.3 Links

Painting

Style Protogeometric

The vase Protogeometric period (c. 1050 - 900 BC. ) constitute the bulk of the evidence on the early artistic dark ages. Indeed, the large sculpture is not yet known, and the mural lack of an essential element for its development: the wall supports worthy of the name. Many other art forms (burning of ivory , jewelry , metal work ) experience a recession similar.

Instead, ceramic production is not extinct, especially in Athens. The vases are decorated with shiny black lacquer from the bronze age. They take some of the reasons Mycenaean (wavy lines drawn by hand), but new designs (half- circles , concentric circles) are drawn with more care, the compass or a comb. The decor is simple and conforms to the shape of the vase forms by emphasizing the horizontal lines and broad black bands.

The site Lefkandi is a leading places of origin of ceramics from this period. We have discovered a particular figurine exceptional centaur , 36 cm high. Its forms are very stylized, and his body is decorated with geometric shapes and shading.

Geometric Style

The geometric art flourished in the ^ninth and ^eighth centuries BC. AD is characterized by new patterns, breaking with the iconography of Minoan and Mycenaean: meanders and Greek , triangles and other geometric patterns (hence the name of the period). They are arranged in bands separated by dark zones of triple lines. Over time, the balance between bands decorated and dark bands is broken in favor of the setting: the meanders and other reasons eventually cover the entire vase.

While at Old Geometric (approximately 900 - 850 BC. ) there are only geometric patterns, in what is called the style "Dipylon black", which is characterized by extensive use of the varnish Dark, Geometric Average (approx. 850 - 770 BC. ) figurative decoration makes its appearance: it is primarily the frieze of identical animals ( horses , deer , goats , geese , etc.). which now alternating with bands of geometric patterns. Meanwhile, the scene is complicated and becoming more plentiful: the painter is reluctant to leave empty spaces and fills them with rosettes or swastikas ornaments. This is called "abhors a vacuum" and never stopped until the end of the Geometric period.

By mid-century human figures appear. Representations of the best known are those found in Dipylon vases, one of the cemeteries of Athens. The fragments of these large funerary vases show mainly parades of tanks or warriors or funeral scenes: / prostheses (exhibition and lament the death) or / ekphor (transporting the coffin to the cemetery). The bodies are represented geometrically with the exception of calves, rather protuberant. In the case of soldiers, a shield-shaped dolly , nicknamed "Dipylon shield" because of its characteristic design, covers the central part of the body. Legs and necks of horses, the chariot wheels are shown next to each other. The hand of a painter of that time, instead of a signature called " Master Dipylon "has been identified on several works, including amphorae monumental.

At the end of the period appear representations mythological , probably when Homer formats the traditions of the Trojan Cycle in the Iliad and the Odyssey. However, there is a risk over-interpretation to the modern observer: a confrontation between two warriors might as well be a duel than a Homeric battle, a ship aground may represent the shipwreck of Odysseus or anyone.

Finally, local schools appear in Greece. Production vessel has never been the preserve of Athens - it is well attested from the period Protogeometric to Corinth , in Boeotia , at Argos , in Crete or the Cyclades -, painters and potters have long content to follow the style penthouse. Now they create their own style: Argos specializes in figurative scenes, Crete remains committed to a strict geometrism.

Style orientalizing

The oriental style unfolds primarily Corinth 725 to 625 BC. AD approximately. It is characterized by a strong influence of oriental art: if the East is much less amateur ceramic Greece, his painting and sculpture shows a representation finer and more realistic. This influence is reflected by a new range of reasons: sphinxes , griffins , lions , etc.. represented more realistically than before. In the friezes, the painter uses now or lotus palmette. Human figures are still relatively rare: they are scenes of battles, sometimes hoplite , or scenes of hunting. Geometric features remain in the style known as proto-Corinthian geometric patterns found and the "filling" of the background by new rosettes and decorative motifs.

Corinthian painters use the black figure, mainly on red background: they use a colloidal suspension of brown color, cooking, takes a glossy black, almost metallic. This technique has long remained a mystery despite the efforts made by ceramists English ^nineteenth century as Wedgwood to uncover the secret. The Corinthians also invented the technique of incision hollow to bring out the pale clay. This style is mainly expressed in miniature vases (aryballes, alabastra) whose forms appear so.

Corinth ceramics are exported throughout Greece, and their technique arrived in Athens, who develops his own style, however, the Eastern influence less marked. In this period characterized protoattique, the Orientalist motifs appear but the line remains relatively unrealistic. The painters are attached to show typical scenes of the Geometric Period, as the parades of floats. However, they adopt the principle of linear drawing in lieu of the silhouette. In the mid- ^seventh century style appears white and black: black line on white background, accompanied by full color to render the color of flesh or clothing. The clay used in Athens, much more orange than that of Corinth, in fact lends itself less readily to the representation of flesh.

For his part, Crete and especially the islands of the Cyclades are distinguished by their attraction to the vases called "plastic", that is to say that the belly or the neck is molded in the shape of animal heads or man. At Aegina , the most popular plastic vase has a griffin's head. Melien amphorae, made Paros , should little or at Corinth in the East. They have, such as vases with reliefs, a penchant for compositions epic and horror of a vacuum which is characterized by the use of rosettes and swastikas.

Finally, we can identify a final style, that of "wild goat", traditionally attributed to Rhodes because of important discoveries in the necropolis of Camiros. In fact, it is widespread throughout the Asia Minor , with production centers in Miletus and Chios. Two forms are predominant: oinochoai , who copy designs in bronze, and dishes, with or without feet. The decor is organized in superimposed registers in which stylized animals, including goats, wild (which gave its name to the style) follow in friezes. Many decorative motifs (triangles, swastikas, rosettes, floral) fill in the blank spaces.

Black Figures

The style of the black figure was invented in Corinth from the ^seventh century BC. AD , but was caught by Athens that carries at its peak during the Archaic period ( ^sixth century BC. ) It is characterized not only by the drawing of figures in black on bottom clay (rather red in the case of Athens), but also by the use of interpolations. There is thus a series of pseudo-black figures, in which bands of light are reserved and not incised. Cup in the fowler Louvre is one example (see cons).

The first Athenian black-figure pottery is heavily influenced by that of Corinth, as shown in its decoration covering without fill patterns. The figures (primarily animals: lions, goats, sphinxes, etc..) Are arranged in superimposed registers and highlight main stage. Nevertheless, the Athenian pottery stands little bit of that influence. The taste for mythological motifs and composition in a single large register that prevail between 550 and 530 BC. AD demonstrate how a style unique to the city creates. Meanwhile, vases decorated evolve. The large vase funeral leaves room for vase life, mainly amphorae, hydria , cups and craters.

It recognizes several styles of painters Athenian, which can sometimes give a name with a signed piece. Such is the case Klitias , the painter Franois Vase in the Archaeological Museum of Florence : the crater, discovered in a tomb in Etruscan , dates from about 570 BC. AD , it has six strips are five figurative narrative and also bears the signature of the potter, Ergotimos. That also Exekias , one of whose most famous works is an amphora, now exhibited in Rome in the Vatican Museums , which shows Ajax and Achilles at Troy , playing. Others are identified only by conventional designations, often due to John Beazley ( 1 885 - 1.97 thousand ), art historian, pioneer in the study of Greek pottery. So the Gorgon Painter takes it the nickname of dinos that appears on Medusa.

Figures red

The style of the red face appears to Athens to 530 - 520 BC. AD It is quickly spearheaded production penthouse, allowing it to emerge as one large school in the classical period. It is a reversal of the black figure: the bottom is painted black, the figures having the color of the clay, the details are painted rather than incised. It was probably invented by a painter specific, possibly influenced by a client or even more likely by the potter. The names of potters Nikosthenes , Amasis or Andokides have been cited. Anyway, the first painter to apply this style is the painter Andokides , we have a couple of vases. In the early days of this period, painters can coexist scenes figure in black and red figures in scenes: this is called vases "bilingual."

Beyond the simple inversion of colors, the red figure technique allows an improvement of the design, particularly in the representation of drapery, bodies and information, whose accuracy compensates for the almost complete disappearance of color. Realism wins: the female and male bodies are now more easily distinguishable, the musculature is better made, which excels in style Euphronios , and the representation of members in all three dimensions (shortened transition profile at the front view, representation of three-quarters).

In 480 - 479 BC. AD , during the Median wars , Athens was occupied by the Persians. His workshops are destroyed - there are well filled with shards in the district of Ceramics - and when the Athenians found their city, ceramic production must start almost from scratch. The relics of the archaic style are then abandoned - except the group of Mannerist painter Pan - red face and finally adopted. Some painters, like Niobides, are influenced by the sculpture or mural painting. The design becomes more sophisticated, while the choice of scenes is shifting to private life, including scenes of harem : the "flowery," the last great Athenian style. Decor elements ( flowers , plants ) appear from the late ^fifth century BC. AD while the painter returns to the horror of the void that was affecting the Geometric period: the compositions are loaded. There is a taste for detail and transparency of clothing, as well as the movement given by the boiling thereof. The polychromy is also up, with the use of white paint and gilding. Archaisms persist in central Athens, as the use of black figure Panathenaic amphorae for, while we're inventing small terracotta figurines that will be disseminated throughout the Greek world and later known as the Tanagra.

Outside Athens, the production of vases painted with figures almost disappears, with the exception of Magna Graecia. The Apulia and Campania ( Paestum in particular) have a production quality comparable to that of Athens. The beginnings of the so-called Apulian pottery dating back to last decade of the ^fifth century BC. AD : Apulia whose production is initially close enough to the style penthouse will gradually develop a language of its own iconography. The Darius Painter so named because of the volute krater showing Darius (Naples H3253) has illustrated many contemporary themes at the time of Alexander the Great. If the ceramic is mainly Italiote consumed locally, it has also been exported to Greece proper ( Corcyra , Demetrias ) and around the Mediterranean (Croatia, Corsica, Spain). Some shops specialize in genre scenes, especially the phlyax , parody of heroic parts Attic theme.

Hellenistic period

In the Hellenistic period , the vessels are not painted but simply decorated. Let the workshop comes at a shiny black backdrop embellished with floral designs or animals, or it changes radically bias: it is not possible to obtain various colors to cooking, just paint vase after cooking. In this case, the colors are obviously less sustainable, as this technique is usually reserved for her funeral vases.

However, in some places, there are still pockets of production in which we continue to make decorations figured vases. This is the case of Crete that produces up to the early ^second century BC. AD mythological scenes. The main production centers are in Crete Knossos , Lyttos and Gortyn.

Manufacturing

Materials

If the Greek ceramic base material for the clay , all the clays are not identical. Thus, one of Athens is rich in iron oxide (Fe ₂ O _3): cooking, it takes a beautiful orange-red. That of Corinth , devoid of iron oxide, has a whitish hue. These differences can, for a chemical analysis to determine the cause of such or such vases and was able to climb the group hydriae Hadra used in Alexandria in the Hellenistic period , as funerary urns were manufactured not in Egypt , as was thought, but in Crete.

The clay is extracted from quarries or wells of clay, then purified by washing for weeks: it is put to soak in large basins where fine particles float to the surface and are recovered. This step removes impurities that could cause burst firing. The clay is then dried in the sun and then cut into blocks. These are then stored for some time, so that they acquire their visual qualities.

Forming

When making a vase, the potter kneads the dough to expel air bubbles before working on a tower (invention Middle East arrived in Greece in ^the second millennium BC. ) operated by the potter himself or by an assistant. The vases can be mounted once, but the larger pieces consist of several parts that are then assembled at the slip (clay thinned with water recovered from purification tanks). It's the same for the handles or feet are molded plastic vases.

Once the vase shaped, it is dried. It is then ready to be painted using a technique that varies depending on the style used. Generally, the artist plays on the contrast in color between the red clay and black coating.

Stained with coating

Regarding the black-figure Attic pottery or red figures , a special process is used from the period Protogeometric. Upon purifying clay by decantation , and then we can wash away the particulate material (dirt), it takes water that has served and is saturated clay , called slip. This water will be used to draw patterns. by cooking it that these drawings will emerge on the clay-colored background. It does not always paint. However, some hightlights of color may be added after cooking.

Cooking

Once the paint dries, the painter leaves his hand at pottery for cooking, delicate operation, consisting of three steps:

1. Cooking in an oxidizing atmosphere (vents open to let the oxygen ) around 800 C: the vase is completely red.
2. Cooking in a reducing atmosphere (vents closed) around 950 C, with the addition of plants in the fire to cause smoke, then the temperature is lowered to 900 C. The carbon monoxide thus generated by the incomplete combustion plants, reducing compound, reduces the ferric oxide (Fe ₂ O _3),ferrous oxide (FeO) or magnetite (Fe ₃ O ₄₎ black: the vase is entirely black and the black coated brushed to be "vitrified" becoming impervious.
3. Cooling in an oxidizing atmosphere (vents open oven) always around 900 C the oxygen in the air can oxidize the ferrous oxide to ferric oxide in the non-coated, which turn red (turns into magnetite hematite) ; parts coated, previously become impervious remain black.

Cooking is relatively simple in principle but requires care and experience: we know a number of vases undercooked or frankly missed or with small imperfections due to accidental contact with a nearby vase. Generally, these defects do not prevent the marketing of the vase.

Types of vessels

The Greeks have all sorts of containers, usually earmarked for a particular purpose: an amphora used instead to carry liquids, especially the olive oil - a hydria , as its name suggests, is a water jug. For purposes of classification, we now distinguish these different containers according to their shape by giving them specific names: a vase will be classified as aryballos or alabaster , while the Greeks were probably much less strict in their names.

See also

Bibliography

• John Beazley :
  • (In) Attic Black-Figure Vase Painters, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1956,
  • (In) Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1963 ^(2nd edition)
  • (In) Paralipomena, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1971;
• John Boardman:
  • The Origins of Greek vase painting, Thames & Hudson, et al. "The Universe of Art, London, 2003 ( ISBN 2-87811-157-5 )
  • The Athenian black-figure vases, Thames & Hudson, et al. "The Universe of Art, London, 2003 ( ISBN 2-87811-103-6 );
  • The Athenian red-figure vases. Archaic Period, Thames & Hudson, et al. "The Universe of Art, London, 2003 ( ISBN 2-87811-114-1 )
  • The Athenian red-figure vases. The Classical Period, Thames & Hudson, et al. "The Universe of Art, London, 2003 ( ISBN 2-87811-181-8 )
• (In) Arthur Dale Trendall, Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, Thames & Hudson, London, 1989;
• (In) Tom Rasmussen (ed.), Looking at Greek Vases, Cambridge University Press, 1991 ( ISBN 0-521-37679-3 );
• Charles Dugas , The Greek Pottery, Payot, Paris, 1924;
• Francois Villard, Greek vases, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1956;
• (El) , : , , Athens, 2005 ( a href = "Sp% C3% A9cial: Ouvrages_de_r% C3% A9f% C3% A9rence/960214436X" class = "mw-internal-magiclink isbn"> ISBN 960-214 - 436X).

Related articles

• Figure pottery black and red
• Typology of Greek pottery
• Greek painting:
  • Komos

External Links

• (En) Greek Pottery painted on the Beazley Archive.
• History of Ancient Greek pottery