Pottery is the ceramic material which makes up pottery wares most often cups, bowls, vases etc. Greek pottery, the pottery of the ancient Greeks is important both for the intrinsic beauty of its forms and decoration and for the light it sheds on the development of Greek pictorial art and Greek life. Because fired clay pottery is highly durable—and many pieces have survived—the painted decoration of this pottery has become the main source of information for Greek life.
Stories on Greek Pottery
More than any other element, the pictures are the most important decorations on vases. The artist painted them on and fired them on the pottery. The Greeks artist delighted in telling stories through their images. the artists sought to endow their figures with mood and character, as well as the capacity for action, they achieved this with the use of different poses, gestures, and expressions to render emotion and clarify the narrative action. The stories on these vases and pottery normally depicted scenes from everyday life as well as the standard heroic and mythological themes.
It is the storytelling aspect of vase-painting that readily captures our imagination. This is especially true when a picture is dramatic, such as the scene where we witness Tekmessa’s discovery of the body of the dead warrior Ajax. Although Ajax was the strongest of the Greeks who participated in the Trojan War, he did not die gloriously in battle. Tragic events beyond his control forced him to commit suicide. Ajax set his sword upright in the pebbly beach at Troy and threw himself upon it.
Greek pottery in addition to displaying grand narrative scenes used decorative patterns and floral designs often at the foot, rim, handles and borders of vessels. Lotus, , ivy, meander, rays, tongues and rosettes were the most popular.
Art Characteristics of Greek Vase Painting
The art displayed on the pottery varies in subject matter but the "look" stays consistent. Some of thie reasoning behind this is the production and firing of clay but most for stylistic choices. Bellow are a few art terms we today are today that are displayed in greek pottery.
Depth: Depth is defined as The apparent distance from front to back or near to far in an artwork. Techniques of perspective are used to create the illusion of depth in paintings or drawings. In Greek painting they use a LACK of depth. all artwork appears to flat and as if all figures were on a stage.
Shape: Shape is defined In the visual arts, a flat, (no shading) enclosed area of an artwork created through lines,color. such common shapes are triangles, circles, and squares. However shapes can be organic and represent figures. In Greek art figures are surrounded by black or the figures are solid black therefor creating a very silhouette shape. Shapes also are not heavily detailed.
Silhouette: A silhouette is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single color, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject.
Color:Color is the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is reflected back to the eye. In Greek art artist Mainly used two colors Can you guess which ones? And technically one isn't really a color.
The vases were decorated by painters who worked in several techniques, of which the two principal ones were black-figure and red-figure. In both of these techniques, two colors predominate: a deep orange-red and a shiny, metallic-looking black. The black-figure technique was developed by about 700 B.C. in Corinth. The black figures were painted as silhouettes that stand out against the orange-red clay surface of the vase.
check out this website for greek paintings
Project: Create a modern day VAse with a modern illustrations
Part one: Create an illustration from a Important aspect of modern Life (in your opinion)
Step one: Choose a aspect that you feel is important and is reflective of our times. This about a sport .. your favorite sport, or more personal, your day graduation, your education, your life goals, etc
Step two: brainstorm with your peers and curate three images that clearly depict your chosen event/ story
Step Three:Take those three images and vector silhouettes from them in illustrator to create your personal modern day illustrations
Choose the appropriate and enter your three images
1. enter your images
2. in the comments section go guess what the event is on two other slides.
Part Two: Create your Vase Forms and apply your illustration
Step One: turn your story illustrations into a swatch
Step two choose a vase from from link to the side
Step three: trace have with the pen tool, give a stroke and revolve
Step four : while revolving, map your art
Step 6: Rasterize the vase when happy
Step 7 : create two more vases!
Students will create forms inspired by greek pottery. First they will create a thematic silloutte arragnment, then they will use the pen tool to the create a form. useing the mapping art feature along with the revolve tool students will aply their silloutte artwokrk to the form
Must Create at least 3 pottery forms
each form must have a silhouette short or Greek pattern mapped on exterior
all forms must have 3d characteristic, ie value
add a overlay piece onto the finished piece using the layer mode