• Tag Archives Ceramic
  • Ancient Greek. Ceramic.

    Greek Art Ceramic 

     

    Terracotta cosmetic vase. 4th quarter of the 6th century B.C. E
    Terracotta cosmetic vase. 4th quarter of the 6th century B.C. E

     

    Greek culture develop a very refine ceramic art that was imitate by various cultures in ancient times; among them the Etruscan and other peoples in the region. Their ceramic was highly appreciated and was always in demand because of is quality and variety.

    This is of the called Greek “minor Arts” the one that better and more varied in scenery and painting refers. Their ceramic production gives us a glance at their very sophisticated and varied techniques and a more approachable idea about their  artistic evolution.

    With a style and techniques, characterized by having different shapes and be very original, dominated by geometric elements arranged in stripes, shades of clay, from yellow to Brown grey, presents figures in red on a black background, or the background red with black figures, predominating animal and human forms. Greek pottery had as base material  clay and used several types of this one.

     Type of Clay in Greek Pottery.

    The clay of Athens was rich in oxide of iron and with cooking acquired a beautiful red-orange color.

     

    The Clay from Corinth, devoid of iron oxide, had a whitish color. These differences allow determining the source of the ceramic craft origin.

     

    • The clay was extracted from quarries it was purified and then washed for several weeks.
    • It was soaked in large ponds where fine particles that ascend to the surface were recovered by a process of filtration. This stage allowed removing impurities which could lead to a dangerous outbreak in the cooking process.
    • Then they dry the clay expose to the Sun that have been previously cut into blocks.
    • They were then stored for some time to provided its plastic qualities arouse and be that way allow to shape it.

     

    Manufacture of Greek pottery:

    • The Potter must be massing the pasta to expel the air bubbles and worked on a lathe powered by the Potter itself or an assistant.
    • When it was manufactured it is put to dry.
    • The next step was painting, according to a technique which varied depending on the style used. In general, the painter was playing with the contrast of the red color of clay and a layer of black color.
    •  The water of impurities were recovered and decanting it and was used to draw the decorative motifs.
    • Through the cooking resurface the drawings on the clay color background.

    Once the paint had dried, the painter led the Potter to step in for the cooking, that was relatively simple in principle, but requires care and experience nevertheless and had three stages.

     

    Stages of the cooking in Greek Ceramic.

    1.     Firing in oxidizing atmosphere.

    2.     Cooking in reductive atmosphere.

    3.     Cooking in re-oxidizing atmosphere.

     

     Forms and decorative motifs of Greek Ceramic:

    • Heroic legends
    •  Historical subjects
    • Athletic games,
    • Scenes of everyday life.

    Proof of its importance and prestige is the fact they were signed by both  the ceramist and the painter.

     

     

     

    Geometric style of greek Ceramic. (10th centuries to the VIII BC)

     Geometric decorative motifs in horizontal bands are the main theme. They were arranged in bands separated from black areas by triple lines. With the time, the balance between decorated bands and shady bands broke in favor of the decoration: the meanders and other thematic motives ended up covering the ceramic vessel.

     

    In the call “Middle Geometric” was introduced the figurative aspect representing animals, such as horses. The Geese and deer are now combined with the bands of geometric style.

     

     

    The vessels begin to be decorate lavishly without leaving any empty space, showing signs of what is known as “Horror vacuous”; Latin expression which literally means (fear of the vacuum) and is a term much used in criticism of art to point out this phenomenon in the decorative aspect.

     

     In the Center usually appear scenes with the following characteristics:

     

    –       The main theme is funeral ceremony.

     

    –       Schematic and stylization.

     

    –       Painting flat, without perspective and proportion.

     

    THE CORINTHIAN STYLE (UNTIL THE 6TH CENTURY B.C.)

    This style shows decoration of animals, real and fantastic, in horizontal stripes on a white background.

     

    THE  ORIENTAL STYLE (UNTIL THE 6TH CENTURY B.C.)

    This style was influenced by the Eastern motifs, human figures were here the main character; also show the uses of horizontal bands in the decoration of this vessel. One example of this period is the Francois glass: from the sixth century b. C.

     

     Black figure Pottery 

     

     

     

    From the 6th century B.C the narrative shifts the geometric to a second places, until definitely disappear the bands decorations, becomes this figures then the single motives in the belly of the item.

    Example Odysseus and Ajax playing at the funeral dice. Please note here the appearance of the human figure, silhouette in black and ochre funds. It is characterized not only by the drawing of figures in black on the bottom of clay, but also by the use of incisions.

     

     

    lekythos. Greek pottery for storing oil. Black figures.
    Lekythos. Greek pottery for storing oil. Black figures.

     

     

    “Red figure” pottery

     

    It appears at the end of the 6th century BC, but its heyday is in the 5th century BC.

    The scenes represented in the vessels gain in naturalism and expressiveness. The perspective and sense of spatial reality effects are achieved. In this case is use a reverse technique to the one used for the black figure in which on a black background highlighted figures in red for the color of the clay that was used to obtain the mixing of the paint.

    There are also a greater delicacy in the details and greater complexity in the grounds. In addition to the simple investment of the colors, red-figure pottery technique allowed an improvement of drawing, particularly in the representation of the draped, the bodies and other details.

    The precision gained with this new technique allow substitute almost complete the use of the polychromic, winning in fact the achievement of a most realistic expression.

     

    The Polychrome ceramics:

     

    It is also develops in the 5th century BC, when more colors are added to the palett.

     

    Greek policrome ceramic.

     


  • Prehistoric Art. Neolithic

    Neolithic Art 

    (new stone age)  – 8000-3000 BC.

     

     

    In  Neolithic period humans were settling in agrarian society, which left them enough free time to explore some key concepts of civilization – namely, religion, measurement, writing, rudiments of architecture and art. In this period the trades activities become wider helping the human conglomerates  become stronger as such. The glaciers of the northern hemisphere concluded the long, slow withdrawal, providing appropriate land and stabilizing the climate. The impact on human beings was of utmost importance.

    Stone Age can be divided into two phases:

    • Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) humans lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers
    • Neolithic (new stone age) humans adopted settled agricultural life.

    This newly found “climatic stability” was one of the factors that allowed many tribes to leave their wandering ways and start building more or less villages and permanent settlements. The Neolithic peoples perfected agricultural and formation of flocks’ techniques taming their animals. With a growing and stable supply of grains and meats, humans now had time to reflect on their situation and invent some fairly radical technological advances.

     

     

    fishing hooks Vinca culture,Neolithic

     

    The kind of art that was developed during this period:

    – The textiles

    – Architecture

    – The construction of megaliths, tombs, and defense walls.

    – Stylized pictograms.

    –  The statuary, painting and ceramics had in this time greater refinement.

     

    Neolithic Ceramic

     

    In Neolithic period the ceramic becomes most decorated showing the diversity in designs in regard to animal figures, geometric lines, bands,  or combination of them in the same vessel.

     

    Neolithic ceramic

    Vinča culture, around 5000 BC,

    Neolithic statuettes

     

    Sculptures were booming, after having been almost absent in the Mesolithic era. The issue of the female fertility takes a role starring as well as representation of the goddess mother very in relation to agriculture. There were statuettes representing animals, however, these were not fitted with the detail that enjoyed the goddesses. They are often broken or sliced – perhaps indicating that they were symbolically used in hunting rituals.

     

    neolitic figures

     

    In the Near East, in particular, the figurines are now clay and baked. And not only carved in stones.

     

    Neolithic Painting

    In Western Europe and the Near East paintings are been seen strip out of the caves and cliffs and focus on the purely decorative expression elements. The findings of the Çatal bronze in a former village in the modern Turkey show lovely murals (including oldest known landscape in the world), dating from 6150 BC. Given that wall paintings are prone to fading and crumbling, only traces of this artistic manifestation in Neolithic works have survived.

    The Neolithic paintings have more variety in the themes that are represented in the caves walls. Human figure is present now in the scenes but they are schematic not realistic although they do have more expressivity and can be perceived more clearly the movement intended and gestures of the figures.

    In this period painting is found in pottery as well with more elaborate designs although still relatively simple with geometric decorations as it was mentioned before.

    In this album you can see around 150 pictures of prehistoric paintings from cave in differents regions. 

     

     

    Architecture

    Architecture in the Neolithic period is close bounded with the people necessity of protection from the weather inclemencies and their need to worship their gods but also since they begin to bury their deceased; tombs were also constructed.

    The Megalithic constructions art is more know because is the one better preserve; thanks to has been built in stone, is now created in fixed locations. The oldest discovered megalithic sites, located in eastern Turkey, date to ca. 9000 BC.9. The highest concentration of megalithic architecture is found in Western Europe, where thousands of works have been discovered, many of them constructed during the period ca. 5000-1000 BC. (Stonehenge was the first time knows so far in which the post and lintel construction was made (in which vertical stones serve as columns for horizontal stones).

     

    Megalithic construction

     

    Megalithic architecture can be divided into two types:

    • Buildings.
    • Monuments.

    –          Megalithic buildings include houses, temples, and towers.

    –          A monument may consist of a single stone standing, (known as a monolith or menhir) or an arrangement of stones.

     

    Temples, shrines and rings of stones were built; the gods and goddesses are provided with well-known destinations, In addition, the emergence of tombs provided places of rest for the deceased. Neolithic period is the time when village are established, and they dedicate spaces for family life, worship and trade activities. In this period were important for many human conglomerates create defensive structures surrounding those villages either because of animals attack or belligerents neighbors and for that defensive purpose walls were raised to protect the dwellings.

    The construction of permanent buildings in Neolithic period gave rise to architectural sculpture, (Megalithic monuments, often are found near burial sites, although they are classified as architecture they are really a sort of sculpture (since they do not form enclosed spaces), though little of this has survived. The art of the Neolithic period when the people had not yet discovered how to melt metals continued to flourish in the Americas, Africa, Australia, and in particular Oceania. In some cases was still prospering in the (XX) century.

     

    Main features of Neolithic art

     

    • Was still, almost without exception, created for functional purposes.

    • Increases the representation of images of humans in comparison to the animals and humans represent in more detail.

    • Began to be used for ornamentation.

    • In the case of the architecture and the megalithic constructions art now is created in fixed locations. (Stonehenge was the first time knows so far in which the post and lintel construction was made.

     

     

     

     

    You can visit http://www.students.sbc.edu/ogborn03/prehistoricart.htm  for more information.