Greek pottery

“ The line which distinguishes it from Greek pottery is, however, one of artistic evolution rather than of chronology, one of political circumstances rather than of geographical demarcation. In other words, it will be found that during a certain period the ceramic art had reached the same stage of evolution throughout all the Mediterranean countries; in Greece and Asia Minor, in the Crimea and in North Africa, in Southern Italy and in Etruria, a point of development had been reached at which the same kind of pottery, of very similar artistic merit, was being made in all parts alike. ”

“ That these marks were known not only to Egyptians, but to foreigners here as well, is probable from the discoveries of Aegean pottery in this place. Intermixed with, and even beneath, the rubbish mounds of the twelfth dynasty are pieces of pottery which appear to be the forerunners of what we know as Greek pottery in later ages. The ware, the motives of the decoration, belong to the Aegean, and not to Egypt ”

“ Crete in all probability will, before many years are over, supply a great mass of material for the history of early Greek pottery. Until recent years it has received little attention from travellers or explorers, and few vases of any period have come therefrom into our Museums. [167] But Crete has always been looked to by archaeologists for the solution of the Mycenaean problem, and the systematic excavations now at length set on foot are even richer in their yield of Mycenaean and primitive pottery than those of Rhodes, Melos, and Cyprus. ”

“ Men will admire Greek pottery so long as they have any sense of elegant proportion; they will admire Oriental pottery so long as they find any beauty in the changing colors of a kaleidoscope or in a gem. The aims and ideals of the two peoples were different, and the world has not yet seen the combination of a gracefulness of form equal to the Greek with the coloring of the Orient.
Fig. 16.—Nankin Porcelain. Brown bands; base, white; body, pale green; neck, light brown. Decoration chiefly pink, green, and blue; neck and body crackled. (Sutton Coll.) ”

“ This is particularly noticeable in the black Greek pottery, which, while possessing all its former appearance, can, however, be scratched by the nail or broken by a gentle pressure between the fingers. It is thus that we are indebted to the art of pottery for innumerable works of art, many of which have proved most useful in elucidating historical facts, and making us acquainted with the habits, dresses, and ceremonies of ancient peoples. ”

“ Hellenistic Period.—In the time after the Exile there is not much change in the character of the pottery until after the conquest of Alexander the Great. The influx of influences from the Græco-Macedonian world affected the whole life of the land, and was reflected also in its pottery. As in the second and third Semitic periods, there were importations of pottery from abroad, though at this time the importations were from regions affected by Greek art. ”

“ Pottery.—The Greeks came to make pottery a real art. They called it Ceramics (the potter's art) , and this name is still preserved. Pottery had not the same esteem in Greece as the other arts, but for us it has the great advantage of being better known than the others. While temples and statues fell into ruin, the achievements of Greek potters are preserved in the tombs. This is where they are found today. Already more than 20,000 specimens have been collected in all the museums of Europe. They are of two sorts ”

“ One object of emulation among the Greek potters was to make vessels of perfect form and great tenuity. Such vessels when produced were highly valued, and some Athenians seem to have attained a high pitch of excellence in the production of these thin and light vases. Greece was the chief school of design in pottery, as in most other arts; and the less inventive Romans were content to borrow, imitate, or at most, modify the forms and patterns of their neighbors.
It was long thought that the ancients did not understand, or at most practiced in a very imperfect manner, the art of making glass ”

“ The year 1889 also saw the completion of the excavations of the Acropolis at Athens, which did much to settle the question of the chronology of Attic vases. Yet another sixteen years, and if the increase in actual bulk of material is relatively not so great, yet the advance in the study of pottery, especially that of the primitive periods, has been astounding; and while in 1857, and even in 1873, it was impossible to do much more than collect and co-ordinate material, in 1905 Greek ceramics have become one of the most advanced and firmly based branches of classical archaeology. ”

“ The dead was surrounded by the belongings he had valued; the warrior had his arms, the woman her ornaments, mirror, and toilet boxes, and the child his toys. An idea of the prevalence of the custom may be formed by looking through the collection with this fact in mind. The greater part of the Greek pottery now in existence was found in tombs, not only in Greece but in Italy and in many other parts of the Mediterranean world. The bronze chariot and the utensils in Case S in the Third Room were the tomb furniture of an Etruscan noble. ”

“ In attempting a detailed description of the Graeco-Phoenician pottery, it will be seen that any chronological system is impossible. The conservative tendency of Cypriote art caused the same methods of decoration to be employed with extraordinary persistency during a period of time which saw the whole development of Hellenic vase-painting from its earliest beginnings to its decline, and though there is a certain amount of variety, there is no development properly speaking, and the latest fabrics are, artistically speaking, on the same level as the earliest. ”

“ This is distinctly after the manner of the oldest Greek pottery and of archaic wall paintings. Herein they resemble also another archaic pedimental relief, found near the old temple of Dionysos at Athens, and representing just such a procession of satyrs and mænads as appears so often on vases.
To give a local habitation to the class of pottery which most nearly influenced the artist of these reliefs, is not easy. Perhaps it is a reasonable conjecture to make it Kamiros of Rhodes. Kamiros ware shows just such an admixture of oriental and geometrical designs as characterizes our pediments. ”

“ All the modern Greek pottery which I have seen is of a very coarse kind, though in many islands the ancient shapes of the amphora, and other larger vases are still retained, with little deviation. This is particularly the case at Rhodes. The fine tough clay used by the ancients is either unknown or the process by which it was tempered and wrought to such tenacity is no longer understood: glazing is seldom employed. ”

“ The terra-cotta earthenware vases and cups of the Greek and Etruscan potters, by universal consent, have come to be accepted as the most beautiful and satisfactory. That they were thus perfect from the start, and always so, no one need maintain; but that from Greece and from many parts of it should have come such a vast number of vessels, nearly all of which are beyond criticism, is what no one can fully explain.
Whence came the inspiration, the perception of beauty, which made the ordinary potter an artist, no man can tell. ”

“ What artistic sense was evinced by these primitive potters was shown exclusively in the forms, and in the tendency which is especially conspicuous in primitive times, though it lingered on through the history of Greek art, and again broke out in the period of the decadence, to combine the ceramic and the plastic idea, and to give to the vase the rude resemblance of the human form. ”

“ We can better estimate their relative æsthetic worth now than in the days when a general reverence for Greek antiquity led to a popular belief in the beauty of Greek pottery, though scarcely a single type of its many forms can fairly be so considered or even be compared to the products of the Minoan predecessors of Greek culture, however interesting they may still remain for us as the awkward and inappropriate foundation for exquisite little pictures. ”

“ The growing fashion of using only vases of chased gold and silver in preference to painted pottery made itself more and more felt both in Greece and Italy during the Alexandrine period. The same tendency which we have already noted, to reproduce as far as possible the characteristics and appearance of metal, may be observed in all the pottery of this period. Not only do the subjects moulded in relief reproduce the appearance of the chased and repoussé designs, but the shapes are those of the metal vases, and even in the black glaze there are attempts to produce a metallic effect. ”

“ Technical Processes Roman pottery, regarded from its purely technical aspect, is in some ways better known to us than Greek, chiefly owing to the extensive discoveries of kilns, furnaces, and potters’ apparatus, such as moulds and tools, in various parts of Western Europe. On the other hand, its classification is a much more difficult matter, although it has for so long been the subject of study, for reasons which will subsequently appear. This is perhaps partly due to the overwhelming interest which the discoveries of recent years have evoked in the study of Greek vases ”

“ In building up a certain shape it is best to use a templet of cardboard or plaster, to be sure that the profile of the vase is followed out correctly. To give the required finish at the end, modeling tools as well as further rubbing with the fingers are required.
With this process in mind it is easy to distinguish between built and wheel-made pottery among the Greek wares. In the built pottery, however careful the work, there is always a certain unevenness of outline—which indeed gives it some of its charm. ”

“ On the south side the accumulation of débris from the Greek period is much more considerable than on the north side and upon the plateau; and thus far Georgios Photidas constantly finds Greek pottery and those terra-cottas with two holes at one end, which, in my excavations hitherto, ceased entirely at a depth of 2 meters (61⁄2 feet) . The greater portion of these round articles have the potter’s stamp already mentioned, representing a bee or fly with outspread wings above an altar. ”

“ The Romans, who used metal vases to a far greater extent than the Greeks—at least under the late Republic and Empire—did not hold the art of pottery in very high estimation, and their vases, like their tiles and lamps, were produced by slaves and freedmen, whereas at Athens the potter usually held at least the position of a resident alien. ”

“ There is, in fact, in Roman pottery no clear line of distinction to be drawn between the various forms of drinking-cups or of jugs or dishes, as is the case with Greek vases; different forms again are found in different fabrics, and those typical of ornamented wares are not found in plain pottery, and so on. Nor must it be forgotten that in Roman pottery the ornamented wares are the exception rather than the rule. Where the Greeks used painted vases, the Romans used metal; and apart from the plain pottery, the forms are almost limited to a few varieties of cups, bowls, and dishes. ”

“ The technique presents several entirely new features, such as the use of a slip as a basis for the colours; the polished, brilliant, and even surface; and above all the lustrous black varnish, which was the peculiar pride of Greek potters, and is now a lost art. The comparative monotony of the colouring is probably due to a purely technical reason, namely, the difficulty of resisting the action of fire; otherwise such an artistic people would doubtless have exhibited the same richness of colouring in their pottery that we find in their frescoes. ”

“ Unfortunately very few potter’s implements of classical Greek times have survived. We have no Athenian wheel or kiln or turning tools. And even from other periods the list of such utensils is a slim one. But what has survived here and there from other periods is in line with the general trend of the evidence—that the techniques in ancient times were very similar to what they are today. Perhaps the most interesting pieces are the terracotta disks found at Gournia, Arezzo, and elsewhere, [57] which are wheel-heads [58] on [85] which the pottery was thrown and turned. ”

“ The extensive finds of pottery in Greece, Asia Minor, Northern Africa, Italy, and elsewhere, including more especially products of the earlier periods, have enabled the students of the subject to trace the sequence of fabrics from the rude wares of Troy and the Greek Islands up to the graceful and finished products of the Athenian ateliers, and onward to the overgrown luxuriousness of the gigantic Apulian wares. ”

“ Other pottery is brown or cream-coloured, and sometimes white. Some of the ancient earthenware is throughout its substance black, an effect produced by mixing the earth with comminuted asphaltum (gagates) , or with some other bituminous or oleaginous substance. It appears also that asphaltum, with pitch and tar, both mineral and vegetable, was used to cover the surface like a varnish. The best pottery was manufactured at Athens, in the island of Samos, and in Etruria. A quarter of Athens was called Cerameicus, because it was inhabited by potters. ”

“ It is often adopted for the Canopic vases of Etruria (see Chapter XVIII.) . Many of these are unpainted, or rather are covered with a white slip and then painted in tempera like the ordinary terracotta figures; they are, in fact, figurines in essence, vases by accident; whereas in the first-named group the vase idea retains the predominance. But it is almost impossible to draw the line. A fine early instance of imitation of metal in early Greek pottery is the British Museum jug from Aegina (A 457) terminating in the head of a Gryphon. ”