Archeology of 7th C BC
3b Pottery
Orientalizing pottery
Beginning of Black-figure
Attic pottery
Text book:
• Boardman, J. 1998:
Early Greek Vase
Painting.
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Sir John Davidson Beazley
(13 . 9. 1885 to 6. 5. 1970)
was a British classical archeologist
and art historian, known for his
classification of attic vases by artistic
style. He was Professor of Classical
Archeology and Art at the University
of Oxford
from 1925 to 1956.
Geometric Greece – self-sufficient in its
economy as well as in art.
Mid of 8th Century – expansion of Greek = >
trade
Changes in pottery style: curves, flora and
fauna, human figures
• Animal style
• Human figures
• Corinth – cca 725 BC: First Greek city which
developed the Orientalizing style
• About one generation later: Athens and Cycladic
islands
• East Greece – geometric style during all 7th C
• Orientalizing and Black figure pottery kept ca 2
Centuries
• Many local styles and schools
Corinth
• Due of its trade activities
• Corinthian pottery is found on almost
every contemporary Greek sit both at
home and overseas.
• The style of Corinth is easy to clarify,
since its evolution is generally even
and steady
EARLY PROTOCORINTHIAN
(C.725 – 700 BC)
- Sphings and oriental flora
- The commonest and characteristic Protocorinthian
shape is the ARYBALLOS
- Globular (in middle Corinthian ovoid)
- Animals and birds are rare and vary a lot
- kotyle, oinochoe, straight-sided pyxis w/ flattish
knobbed lid
- Corinth was the dominant supplier of the grooving
export trade in Greek pottery
Aryballos
Oinochoe
Kotylai
MIDDLE PROTOCORINTHIAN
(C. 700 / 650 BC)
Black-figure technique:
1. Black siluette
2. Engraving of details, or contours by
sharp point
- It was done before the vessel was fired
and was still wet.
Decoration motives
• dot-rosettes, chain of lotus blossoms,
palmets
• Protocorinthian was essentially a
miniaturist style
LATE PROTOCORINTHIAN (650 –
640 B.C.) and TRANSITIONAL
(640 – 625)
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Transformation to black figure animal
„industrial“ production
The style was cheapened
Bigger and longer animals
Panters are replacing lions
Bull between lion and panther
Black band with white, purple and yellow strips
White figures on black ground, or black on black
TRANSITIONAL PHASE
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New tendencies are visible
Less precise contures
New shapes
The commonest shape still ARIBALLOS, but
lengthened and narrowed, pointed or piriform
The olpe is new
Oinochoe – more popular
Subgeometric decoration on the neck
Kotylai and concave-sided pyxides
THE RIPE ANIMAL STYLE
(625 – 550 BC)
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Early ripe period > its heyday
The painters’ effort was to obtain quickly and easily a rich and
decorative effect
Broad friezes
Long careless animal
Thick details
Filling ornaments
Less lions, more panthers
Boar, bull, goat, deer remain popular
Hares, eagles, geese and snakes on aribbaloi
Owls are more numerous
Hybrids appear: typhon, trithon, boread, mistress of beasts
Floral ornaments: almost only lotus and palmettes
Continous chains. If single floral motive then doubled lotus
Assyian influences to corinthian art
Ariballos, alabastron >> kotylai, olpe, oinochoe >> neck-amphora and
column krater appear
Middle ripe period > the animal style is disintegrating
THE RIPE STYLE – HUMAN
FIGURES (625 – 550 BC)
• Protocorinthian pots with human figures
are RARE
• Two influences: from animal style and
from “free” paiting
• Column crater (from Louvre)
• Strong influence on Attic
• Timonidas: the only Corinthian vasepainter whose name we know
Timonidas
• Protocorinthian pottery was a luxury
• A lot of wares made very simply with
simple decoration of plain bands, animal
silhouettes (dogs, hares)
SUBGEOMETRIC AND LINEAR
STYLES (725 – 5TH C BC)
• The invention of protocorinthian style
didn’t pushed out the geometric tradition
• Enrichment of repertory
• Some oriental novelties
• Spiral hook and four-leaved flower
• Solid triangles firstly on shoulder, later
transfered to bottom
• Simple linear decoration – better: linear
style.
TECHNIQUES
• Corinth: deposits of whitish clays
containing the traces of iron oxide
• After firing very pale yellow
• Very distinguished from the redder clays
for other Greek region
• Pinkish tinge, from 7th C greenish tinge
• Red tones are avoided >> paint in brown,
reddish brown, dark brown, black
• For ornament: white, purple, yellow
EXPORT & INFLUENCES
• Exported to all parts of Greek world with
exception of the East
• The only pottery which was widely exported
• The trade reached the peak in Early Ripe period.
Attic competition appeared.
• 6th C – rapid decline
• Imitation only in the West (Ischia, Cumae) =
Italo-corinthian school.
• The Ripe style: in Etruria and Attica
ATHENS
• The geometric style of Athens had been
distinguished by a strong sense of order –
collapse of the approach
• Experiments with the forms = Protoattic
style
EARLY PROTOATTIC
(710 – 680 BC)
• The lower half of the body is still geometric
• Above we are in the “new world”: lions,
birds with cracked necks
• A native development from Geometric, not
the adaptation of Oriental models
• ANALATOS painter started his carrier as
an geometric style painter and after 20 –
30 years can be described as a pioneer of
Early Attic school
The bell-Krater in Munich (ca 690):
- Protocorinthian school
Analatos’ hydria: different
• Popular motives: sphinx, horse, winged man,
Centaurus
• Dogs, cocks, eagles
• Bulky figures
• More movement
• Hunting scenes, chariots parades
• Two parallel schools: new figural painting and
still geometric tradition
• Shapes: hydria = new invention, amphora,
small globular oinochoe, stemmed bowl,
mug
• The wide-necked oinochoe disappeared
THE BLACK AND WHITE STYLE
(680 – 650 BC)
• This generation of artists is free of
geometric mannerism
• In Aegina, Boeotia, Megara, Perachora
near Corinth, Haereum in Argos
“New York Nessos Amphora”
ca 660
LATE PROTOATTIC (650 – 610 BC)
• Period of the transition to clear Black-figure style
• The black and white style fell into a decline about 650
BC
• So called “three-colour school”
• Animals became black as first, human figures resisted
longer
• On some pots elaborate polychromy: reds, yellow,
browns, bluish green
• Period of monumental style
• Shapes> big amphora, kotylai-krates united with its
stand and lid
• Decoration in light panel in black
Nessos Amphora in Athens (ca 615)
ATTIC BLACK-FIGURE:
THE PERIOD OF CORINTHIAN
INFLUENCE (610 – 590)
• Nessos painter: boundary between
Protoattic and Attic
• Nessos is followed by the GORGON
painter
• About one generation when Corinth pottery
is influenting Athenian
Gorgon painter
Eurythos Crater
Sophilos painter
• First Attic painter known by his name
• Contemporary with Corinthian Timonidas
• Same school with Gorgon painter, but more
laboured
• Corinthian fashion in shapes
• White horses
• Females white, males black (purple in face)
• 570 – the satyrs are appeared
• The art of the 8th – 7th C was indifferent to sex
Francoise vase
• Found near Chiusi in Etruria (in Florence today)
• No black-figure vase of so rich and complete
decoration survived complete except the
Francoise vase
• Theseus returning to Athens
• 200 figures, many of them named
• Meticulous in details
• Microscopic patterns
• Sure and elegant drawing
• Much is derivated from Corinthian style
• Human figures are moving, sphigx and griffons
look as sculptures
Cleitias – ca 570
1st real Black-figure vessel
Athenian cups
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They appear about 580
Comast cups
Flaring foot, short offset lip
Shape form Corinth
Three dancers in chitons, later naked
Purple faces and chests are common
585 – 570
Siana cups
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Rims are higher, cups wider, foot taller
Contours are more precise
Balance of white and dark
Lower part of cup is usually black,
otherwise patterned elaborately
TYRRHENIAN AMHORA
• So called pannel style
• Attic black-figure in early 6th C tends to
human figures
• Animal style faded out about 550 BC
together with all old systems of decoration
• Before 600: starts Athenian influence of
Corinth
• Attic pottery is found in Aegina, Boeotia,
Troy, Naucratis (Egypt), Caere (Etruria)
• Shortly after 600: also Black Sea, Delphi,
Ithaca, Etruria commonly, Massalia, Greek
Italy and Sicily
LACONIA
• The reserving period: Laconian I (700 –
630)
• The Early Black-figure period: Laconian II
(630 – 590)
• The developed Black-figure style:
Laconian III (590 – 550)
Laconian plain wares
Other regions:
• Boeotia
• Euboia (Chlacis and Eretria school)
• Cyclades (Theran Subgeometric, Linear island
group, the protome group, Melian group,
polychrome plates)
• East Greek cities (Subgeometric and bird bowls,
the wild goat style, the Chiot styles, Ionian little
mastersFikellura, Clazomenian black-figurs and
sarcophagi, Vroulian, Crete, Italy, Etruscan
schools: bucchero and black-figures etc.)
Laconia
Eretria
Boeotia
Eretria
Skyros
Cycladic
Melos
Ionian
Samian
Sculptures of 7th C BC