Greek Pottery
The famous and distinctive style of Greek vase-painting with figures depicted with strong outlines, with thin lines within the outlines, reached its peak from about 600 to 350 BC, and divides into the two main styles, almost reversals of each other, of black-figure and red-figure painting, the other color forming the background in each case. Other colors were very limited, normally to small areas of white and larger ones of a different purplish-red. Within the restrictions of these techniques and other strong conventions, vase-painters achieved remarkable results, combining refinement and powerful expression.
Terracotta and Metal Figurines
Clay is a material frequently used for the making of votive statuettes or idols, since well before Minoan civilization until the Hellenistic era and beyond. In later periods the terracotta figurines lost their religious nature, representing from then on characters from everyday life .Figurines made of metal, primarily bronze, are an extremely common find at early Greek sanctuaries like Olympia, where thousands of such objects, mostly depicting animals, have been found.
Metalwork and Armor
Fine metalwork was an important art in ancient Greece, but later production is very poorly represented by survivals, most of which come from the edges of the Greek world or beyond, from as far as France or Russia. Vessels and jewelery were produced to high standards, and exported far afield. Objects in silver, at the time worth more relative to gold than it is in modern times, were often inscribed by the maker with their weight, as they were treated largely as stores of value, and likely to be sold or re-melted before very long.
Swords, the Greek helmet and often body Armour such as the muscle creases were made of bronze, sometimes decorated in precious metal, as in the 3rd-century Ksour Essef cuirass. Armour and "shield-bands" are two of the contexts for strips of Archaic low relief scenes, which were also attached to various objects in wood; the band on the Vix Krater is a large example.Polished bronze mirrors, initially with decorated backs and kore handles, were another common item; the later "folding mirror" type had hinged cover pieces, often decorated with a relief scene, typically erotic. Coins are described below. |