Ancient Greek Pottery - Essay Example

Ancient Greek Pottery The development of Ancient Greek pottery is a long history that span for over five centuries. There appears to be progress in historical development of Greek poetry over time. In the geometry age, pottery was marked with fewer details in decoration and the use of shapeless objects. Later, the orientalization age allowed for detailed pottery with clear animal features, which can be related with development of experience and new tools of work. The red and black-figure periods showed high level of expertise both in terms of use of color, details, and drawing of human characters. Therefore, the Greek pottery has been a subject of transformation as increase in expertise, experience, interaction, and availability of new tools made it possible of potter to make better works. The geometric Period Pottery One of the distinct developments of the ancient Greek pottery was the evolution of the geometric design. The geometric design pottery was common during the 8th and 9th century BC, when a new design for pottery came into being. The geometric style is characterized by the use of different motifs and geometric objects drawn on the pieces of art. In the early period, the abstract motifs characterized by use of black varnish and a few geometric decorations were more common. In this period, meanders and triangles were more common as evidenced in the figure. The figure shows the advanced objects that came about in the advanced stages of the geometric period. The use of different colours, other than black, made the pottery work more distinct. In these later stages, the porters advanced their skills by being able to make a variety of objects for decoration purpose. For instance, in the figure, the porter painted horses and birds as part of their geometric decorations. In later stages, the designers were able to draw human beings, which made the work better. In comparison with other period of pottery, the geometric period was more traditional and the decoration style was limited. As compared to the orientalization style, the geometric period was less detailed and shapeless, which shows the limitation of this traditional style. However, it looks much different from the red-figure and black-figure styles that came to exist later after development of pottery skills. Orientalization Style The orientalization period occurred in the 8tha and 7th century BC a period when there was intensive interaction between the Greeks and Asian in trade. In this vase painting style, the potters were concerned with the painting of smaller objects and with more details. Common drawings included animal paintings and very few cases of human vase painting. The images were better shaped compared to the geometric age as a sign of development in the pottery work. The designers were able to use a combination of colors such as white, red brown, as show in the figure, to come up with clear pictures of animals. For instance, the image of the bird in the figure comes out clearer due to the use of different colors. Unlike the geometric age, when geometric shapes were used excessively in the work, the orientalization used a variety of repertory motifs on its base and the top part. In the figure, a beautiful pattern of motifs at the base of art work comes out clear due repetition, hence making a beautiful pattern. Apart from this, the images comprised more details to bring out clearer shapes. Unlike in the image showing the geometric style where birds are shapeless, the orientalization style provides a better look of the bird, which has feathers, different colors, and well-shaped legs. From this angle, it is clear that orientalization period was an improvement of the geometric style in terms of colors and details and decoration styles. Red-Figure Period The red figure technique was common during the 6th century BC shortly after the black-figure technique came into being. As the figure shows, the red-figure technique comprised of making red vase painting on a black background. The black background was obtained through firing of the pieces of art within an oven. This is different from the black-figure age when the black painting was done on a red background. As compared to earlier periods of pottery such as orientalization and geometric, the red-figure era was marked with painting of human bodies. Often, the images of famous people in Greek were put on the images as a symbol for their respect. These developments paved way for advanced painting techniques which led to making of better pottery works. As compared to the black-figure era, the red-figure used brush to paint on top of the black background rather than inscribing images which was common in the former method. This allowed the painters to make better images with more details as compared to other methods. In the black-figure method, it was less accurate and it was possible to see lines that were inscribed through mistakes. However, the brush allowed for more accuracy and helped the artists to include more details in their work. For instance, as noted in the figure, important features are drawn using thick lines while less important features are drawn using thin lines. Therefore, the red-figure approach helped was advanced which is associated with the discovery of new tools of work that could do better jobs. In conclusion, the increase in experience and expertise helped the Ancient Greek porters to make more pronounced, detailed, and well decorated work of art. As the experience increased, the artists were able to include more detailed features in their work and use better colors to outline details in their work. Apart from that, the development of new tools such as the brush resulted to ability of making accurate art design which further contributed to improvement of art work. A close analysis of the geometric, orientalization, black-figured and red-figured pottery shows continuous improvement in the Greek work of art. There interact of the Greek people with other people in trade helped them to become economic entrepreneurs as they mastered pottery work and improved quality of their art pieces. Read More