This vase is an excellent example of geometric-era Greek craft. Human, animal and artificial forms are abstracted nearly beyond shape, many to simple lines. All are adjusted to planar depth with even spatial arrangement. Generally, there is a horizontal flow with perpendicular angles and a top-down register organization. Motifs imply wilderness, mountains and night sky. The lower register shows a military procession with shield-bearing soldiers and horse-drawn chariots. All registers have a design-first “mentality”, bringing attention to the form of the vase while individual forms work with its vertical orientation. |
While the individual elements can be identified as soldier, animal, chariot, etc, this is a work of design. There effectively is no background, and where there is it is separated from other elements to be placed in its own design area. The patterning mimics the horizontal direction of the registers and conforms to the shape of the vase.
Line is primary, and they build shapes and patterns. Texturing is also present in some of the wider forms. Off-black slip is offset against the beige background, effectively creating an achromatic work. There is no attempt to create an illusion of depth on this piece, a defining characteristic of the time period. Rather, an implication of recession in space is created by placing a background pattern or texture above (read “behind”) the scene it belongs to, or to merge shapes into a single form, suggesting overlapping forms without separating them (eg, the row of horses in the lower register).
Pictorially, a great deal of balance is to be found. Positive against negative space and stability against movement are all brought into roughly equivalent ratios. There is a heavy reliance on long, hair-like lines and values on the opposite ends of the spectrum. All figures are either in profile or straight-on view. The elongated formatting of the figures works at cross-angles to the overall lateral organization of this work. All registers format the surface they’re on with a pleasant textural pattern. Of course, the two with the figurative processions contain the most lateral movement, and the framing registers support this movement well. Areas of focus are general and not specific.
I mistook the subject of this work. It depicts the cremation and burial of an important person. Figures in mourning have upraised gestures of desperate loss, while the lower register is the funerary procession. The stark achromatic color scheme and simplification of human body parts reflect the harshness and inflexibility of the theme of this piece, death. When the well-crafted conceptual layer is peeled away, clearly the formal design of this work can still be appreciated today for it’s spatial sensitivity, movement and organic merging of scene and medium.
While the individual elements can be identified as soldier, animal, chariot, etc, this is a work of design. There effectively is no background, and where there is it is separated from other elements to be placed in its own design area. The patterning mimics the horizontal direction of the registers and conforms to the shape of the vase.
Line is primary, and they build shapes and patterns. Texturing is also present in some of the wider forms. Off-black slip is offset against the beige background, effectively creating an achromatic work. There is no attempt to create an illusion of depth on this piece, a defining characteristic of the time period. Rather, an implication of recession in space is created by placing a background pattern or texture above (read “behind”) the scene it belongs to, or to merge shapes into a single form, suggesting overlapping forms without separating them (eg, the row of horses in the lower register).
Pictorially, a great deal of balance is to be found. Positive against negative space and stability against movement are all brought into roughly equivalent ratios. There is a heavy reliance on long, hair-like lines and values on the opposite ends of the spectrum. All figures are either in profile or straight-on view. The elongated formatting of the figures works at cross-angles to the overall lateral organization of this work. All registers format the surface they’re on with a pleasant textural pattern. Of course, the two with the figurative processions contain the most lateral movement, and the framing registers support this movement well. Areas of focus are general and not specific.
I mistook the subject of this work. It depicts the cremation and burial of an important person. Figures in mourning have upraised gestures of desperate loss, while the lower register is the funerary procession. The stark achromatic color scheme and simplification of human body parts reflect the harshness and inflexibility of the theme of this piece, death. When the well-crafted conceptual layer is peeled away, clearly the formal design of this work can still be appreciated today for it’s spatial sensitivity, movement and organic merging of scene and medium.
No comments:
Post a Comment