The Development of Greek The Development of Greek Vase DecorationVase Decoration

The PROTOGEOMETRIC style

This first Greek style of pottery decoration has been called the Geometric Style because the earliest examples show designs based on circles, arcs, triangles, and wavy lines. The earliest stage of simple geometric patterns is often called Early or "Proto"-Geometric and signals the reawakening of technical proficiency and a spirit of creativity amongst the Hellenic communities.

Attic protogeometric cup late C11th

Protogeometric amphora, late

C10th

The GEOMETRIC style

By about 900BC the Geometric style of decoration had become much more refined. The shapes are now more slender and the contours taut. Black bands increasingly dominate the surface but also frame alternate buff coloured areas crowded with rich and carefully drawn linear patterns. These patterns and motifs are more complex than the Proto-Geometric style and the overall effect is now much richer.

Geometric belly-handled amphora, "Athens 804" with prothesis scene, mid-8th c., 1.55 m high

Dipylon Amphora

(Geometric style), Athens,

c. 750 B.C.

Diplyon Vase (8th Century BC)

The ORIENTALISING style

Much of the “Orientalising” style decoration is derived from Minoan and Egyptian decoration. Greek trade with the older cultures - coastal cities in Syria, Palestine and Egypt - was now considerable. They were quickly adapting their simple geometric patterns on their export pottery to the very different Eastern designs. This soon led to a growing Eastern influence on Greek pottery design and painting.

Protocorinthian olpe, "Chigi

vase" mid-C7th, found near Veii,

Etruria

The PROTOATTIC style

In the earlier examples of Attic pottery from the late 8th century onwards figure painting in Attica developed out of geometric symbols. Slowly the figure painting became more naturalistic and concerned with all things Greek rather than "Oriental". By the beginning of the 6th century the potteries of Athens were producing a range of decorated pots with increasingly complex and detailed narrative groups - funeral scenes, sea battles, dances, boxing matches, and exploits of popular heroes.

Protoattic funerary

amphora, mid-C7th, 1.44 m high, found at

Eleusis

Protoattic amphora by

the Polyphemos Painter, 670-

660 BC

ATTIC BLACK-FIGURE DECORATION

Athenian painters copied this black-figure style from Corinth but, instead of the Oriental monsters, animals and birds motifs, preferred to develop further their own narrative style using Greek Gods, Heroes and monsters. The superior quality of their clay, pigment, and decoration and firing techniques quickly enabled the Athenian artists to overtake those of Corinth.

Early Attic Black-figure jug, painted in black, purple and white on orange clay, c. 550 BC

Black-figure vase decorating

• Originated in Corinth in C7th BC

• Athenian painters copied the technique, but changed the subject matter to Greek Gods, heroes and monsters.

• By c.600 BC Athens was the centre of black-figure vase pottery, and the Attic black-figure vases were of the highest quality

Development of the technique• Attic vases continued the Corinthian

tradition of including animals until c.550 BC, but they increasingly showed human figures

• Vases increasingly showed a narrative – a story line, often based on mythology and Greek heroes

• Vases still often contained patterns, but usually now as borders around the action – potters were separating vase from painting

Black-figure decorating: the process

• The rough basic hollow shape was thrown on a potter's wheel

• When leather-hard, it was turned horizontally on a lathe (exactly like wood turning) to the required form.

When the pot had reached the desired shape

• Vase was burnished (rubbed and smoothed with stone or wood)

• Handles were moulded separately and attached using slip

• A wash of yellow ochreous clay might have been brushed on to produce a richer terracotta colour

• The outlines of the decoration were drawn in charcoal, and then completely filled in with black slip.

SLIP• Fine clay, usually the same kind as the

rest of the vase, repeatedly mixed with water in order to separate the different size particles. Finally, the watery-clay is left to evaporate, then colours may be added. Urine is believed to have been mixed in to enhance the brushing quality of the slip.

• Used to colour the vases and stick pieces together

Details

• A sharp instrument was used to cut through the top layer of black slip to reveal the lighter, red-coloured clay beneath

• Patterns and details were created in this way.

When the design was complete,

the vase was fired.

Firing pots in Ancient Greece

Cretan updraft kiln, c.2000 BC – 2000 AD

One of the types of kiln the Greeks were using in the 5th century BC. This diagramatic slip drawing on a fragment of greek pottery shows that these potters used round updraft kilns with removable doors for placing and retrieving pots from the kiln. The whole structure is now permanent with a small chimney at the top.

By the 5th Century BC., potters had achieved a considerable control over their firings through the development of these enclosed updraft kilns: – Pots separated from the

fire,

– A permanent chamber with a door or bricked up opening,

– a short chimney with provision for controlling the draft on atmosphere of the kiln using a tile,

– or by blocking or reducing firemouth opening.

FIRING

Timing was crucial!

The process was always the same:

Stage 1Dry wood fire is built, and fed with oxygen until it reaches 800ºC

In this oxidising atmosphere, the vase turns red and glows with heat

Stage 2Green wood and damp material was added to make the fire smoke, and the vents were closed.

This reduced the atmosphere inside the kiln.

The kiln is then heated up to 950ºC, before being allowed to cool again.

The whole vase is now black in colour.

Stage 3The vents were opened again, and the temperature rose, creating an oxidising atmosphere.

The parts of the vase covered with slip remained glossy black in colour.

The parts not covered in slip absorb oxygen and turn red again.

The kiln is allowed to cool again and the vase is finished.

Innovations

• Artists began to experiment with different ways of drawing the human form.

• Fore-shortening and torsion were used to show human figures in different poses.

Athenian Jar from Vulci(Etruria) ca.540-530BC

Other developments:

• Figures became more convincing and realistic from c.550 BC

Athenian Jar from Vulci(Etruria) ca.540-530BC

Detail from Francois Vase, 570 BC

• Artists experimented with showing the human figure in different poses.

Exekias Amphora, 540-530 BC

• Artists began to use a white slip for women’s flesh. Men’s flesh remained black.

Attic black figured Kylix 6th c. BC.

ATTIC RED-FIGURE DECORATION

Red-figure pottery, invented at Athens about 530 BC, is the reverse of the black-figure style. In the black-figure style, figures were painted in glossy black pigment as silhouettes on the orange-red surface of the vase; details were added largely by incising.

Red-figure decoration

The inventor of the red-figure technique is thought to have been an artist known as the Andokides Painter, after the name of the potter who made a number of his vases. He was a pupil of Exekias in Athens, so he was still influenced by the black-figure technique.

Red-figure decoration

• Was produced in a very similar manner to black-figure, but there were several important differences:– The outline of the images was drawn with a

syringe-like instrument. This raised the surface of the decoration

– The vase was painted rather than the figures– Dilute glaze was painted on top of the figures

to add more detail

The effects of these differences:• Figures are lighter, slimmer and more

natural

• Drapery and anatomy lines can be painted or piped on later, making them more delicate and realistic

• Anatomy and facial expressions can be shown more easily

• Because anatomy is shown more clearly, there is no need for a different slip colour to show female figures

Advantages of red-figure decoration• A brush is more flexible than an incising

tool so a more flowing style is possible

• Thinner, flowing lines produce a 3-D appearance: whereas black-figure vase images are flat silhouettes, red-figure vase images are rounded and suggest mass

• Use of dilute slips give a wider range of colour lines

• Line drawing allows a more convincing depiction of human poses and actions

A new innovation

At the same time that this new technique gave artists more flexibility, they also became interested in developing the images they portrayed.

Vases therefore began to show the “psychological moment” – the moment just before or just after the action.

Red-figure Attic Kylix by the Painter Epiktetos

Andokides Painter. From a red-figure amphora, c.510 BC

WHITE-GROUND DECORATION

This last technique suggests that the pottery decorators longed to have the freedom to paint like mural painters on a plaster surface.

White-ground ware technique

• Although it was used in Athens during the C6th BC, it was not popular until the mid-C5th BC.

• Many artists did not use it at first because the white slip was fragile. White-ground vases were therefore not very practical for everyday use

The white-ground process was similar to the black- and red-figure

decoration process.

However, there were crucial differences:• A white slip (containing no iron) was

painted onto the area to be decorated• The scene was drawn on using red or

black slip. Again, a syringe-like instrument would have been used.

• Dilute glaze was used to add lines for detail

Then the vase was fired.

• After firing, more colours were added to decorate the vase. Vegetable dyes would have been used, and these were much less durable. Consequently, these colours have often worn off.

• Colours would have included:– Yellow– Red– Grey

• Later white-ground ware would have used a wider range of colours, and a wider use of dilute glaze

• White-ground vases were usually used for funerary ware. It was not handled much and was made to be buried with the body, so the durability of the decoration was less important.

• The vases often showed calm, peaceful scenes – decoration reflects vase’s use

Achilles Painter. White-ground lekythos. Muse on Mount Helicon. Circa 445 BC