This recording comes complete with all the juicy, unscripted, live-action museum gallery accents including background chatter, construction noises, and beeping proximity alarms. Note, the black-figure base pictured is different from the one I discuss during the tour. The red-figure vase is the same. Art Institute of Chicago ceramic color ...
The firing process of both red- and black-figure vessels consisted of three stages. During the first, oxidizing stage, air was allowed into the kiln, turning the whole vase the color of the clay. In the subsequent stage, green wood was introduced into the chamber and the oxygen supply was reduced, causing the object to turn black in the smoky environment.
· Added color was used considerably less in red-figure vase painting than it was in black-figure vase painting. In black-figure vase painting, for example, women's skin was often colored white, while in red-figure vase painting, the flesh of both male and female figures was left in the reserved red-orange clay. Once the vessel was decorated, it progressed through the …
· As the name indicates, the figures on these vases were black silhouettes set against the color of the clay beneath, which, in Athens, was a red-orange color. The production of black-figure vases was a lengthy process and it began with the procurement of the clay. Potters in ancient Athens used a process called levigation, whereby clay is mixed with water and heavy …
Between the beginning of the sixth and the end of the fourth century B.C., black- and red-figure techniques were used in Athens to decorate fine pottery, while simpler, undecorated wares fulfilled everyday household purposes. With both techniques, the potter first shaped ...
Painted vases were often made in specific shapes for specific daily uses—storing and transporting wine and foodstuffs (amphorai), drawing water (hydriai), drinking wine or water ( kantharoi or kylikes), and so on—and for special, often ritual occasions, such as pouring libations (lekythoi) or carrying water for the bridal bath (loutrophoroi). ...
This three-step firing process, which consisted of a cycle of oxidizing, reducing, and re-oxidizing the atmosphere inside the pottery kiln , was necessary to achieve the lustrous black gloss and the reserved red-orange decorative panels (8). The three-stage process occurred in the following order:
and the beginning of the 5th century B.C.E. were called the Pioneers, the most famous of whom were Euphronios and his rival Euthymides. Members of the Pioneers did not just use this new technique, but they explored its limitations by learning how to foreshorten the limbs of their figures and attempting new poses to give their figures more of a three-dimensional appearance (11). A well-known example of the Pioneers' innovative work is an amphora painted by Euthymides, which shows three men dancing, with their bodies twisted and moving in a tour-de-force of representation, and is accompanied by an inscription that taunts and challenges the painter's rival, declaring " As never Euphronios ."
At the leather-hard stage, after any burnishing and color enhancing, the ancient vase painter used charcoal to sketch the positions of figural details. This sketch was then outlined with a relatively wide strip, referred to as the eighth-of-an-inch strip, of black slip (5). This strip functioned as a dam, preventing slip from entering the areas reserved for decoration while the painter coated the background of the vessel with black slip. Once the sketch was completely outlined, details were added using a dilute slip. This slip is the same as that used to cover the entire vessel, but diluted so that it fires to a brown or golden brown color, as opposed to a deep black; this dilute slip was used to render fine details like hair or fine garments (6). The same dilute slip was used to create relief lines, which served to outline figures against the background or to delineate details like individual locks of hair; relief lines are so thick that they leave a visibly raised line (7).
The production of red-figure vases was a lengthy process and it began with the procurement of the clay. Potters in ancient Athens used a process called levigation, whereby clay is mixed with water and heavy impurities were allowed to sink to the bottom. This process was repeated until the clay had reached a sufficient level of purity and therefore plasticity. The clay was wedged to eliminate air bubbles before it was thrown on the potter's wheel. In ancient Greece, the potter's wheel was a large wooden or stone disk attached to an axle, which sat atop a pivot point on the ground. The wheel was kept in motion by a slave or potter's assistant, allowing the potter to use both hands to form the vessels. Most pottery was made in sections and appendages like lids, spouts, and handles added after the vessel had dried to a leather-hard state. At this leather-hard stage, too, the vessel could be burnished. The process of burnishing a vessel involves rubbing it vigorously with a hard, smooth object, probably leather, wood, or a smooth stone, in order to compact and smooth the surface of the clay (3). A light coating of red ochre was sometimes applied and the vessel re-burnished, enhancing the natural red-orange color of the clay (4).
Toward the end of the 5th century B.C.E., Athenian pottery workshops began producing fewer and fewer painted vessels. What had been a productive and lucrative export market dwindled and had all but ceased by the middle of the 4th century B.C.E. A new center of pottery production developed in the workshops in South Italy and Sicily and for the rest of the 4th century B.C.E., South Italian vase painting, which continued in the red figure style, predominated.
The red-figure technique of vase painting was invented in Athens around 530 B.C.E. and its invention is often attributed to an artisan referred to as the Andokides Painter (1). This technique of vase painting is essentially the reverse of black-figure vase painting. In the red-figure technique, the background of a vessel's surface is coated with a black slip. The decorative figures are left to stand out in reserve, that is, in the red-orange color of the base clay. Details on the decorative figures were indicated by black lines of slip, eliminating the need for incision, the method for indicating such details in the black-figure technique (2).
A major source of evidence for ancient Greece is painted pottery. The two most popular decorative styles are black-figure vase painting , practiced in the late 7th and 6th centuries B.C.E., and red-figure vase painting, largely the product of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E. Decoration included non-figural designs, as well as scenes with figures and activities from myth and daily life.
The production of black-figure vases was a lengthy process and it began with the procurement of the clay. Potters in ancient Athens used a process called levigation, whereby clay is mixed with water and heavy impurities allowed to sink to the bottom. This process was repeated until the clay had reached a sufficient level ...
Black-Figure Vase Painting. The black-figure technique of vase painting was invented in the city of Corinth around 700 B.C.E. It was around this time that Corinthian vase painters began adorning their vessels with animal friezes and occasional mythological scenes and they developed this new style of painting to depict these motifs.
White, for example, was used to indiciate women's flesh, while men's flesh was usually left in the black color of the slip, although it was sometimes painted over in red. The application of red and white could be used to create patterns, such as stripes on drapery or the ribs on an animal (4).
The vase painter then applied black slip to the areas to be decorated and used a sharp tool to incise any necessary details, a process that revealed the color of the clay beneath. After the decoration was applied, the vase painter -- who may sometimes have also been the potter -- could choose to add additional colors.
Whites, reds, and yellows were the only colors able to withstand the high heat of the pottery kilns. Colors were applied according to certain conventions that developed along with the black-figure technique. White, for example, was used to indiciate women's flesh, while men's flesh was usually left in the black color of the slip, ...
As the name indicates, the figures on these vases were black silhouettes set against the color of the clay beneath, which, in Athens, was a red-orange color. The production of black-figure vases was a lengthy process and it began with the procurement of the clay.
Once the vessel has been decorated, it progresses through a three-stage firing process . This three-step firing process, which consisted of a cycle of oxidizing, reducing, and re-oxidizing the atmosphere inside the pottery kiln , was necessary to achieve the lustrous black gloss and the reserved red-orange decorative panels (6). The three-stage process occurred in the following order:
The two most popular techniques of vase decoration were the black-figure technique, so-named because the figures were painted black, and the red-figure technique, in which the figures were left the red color of the clay.
The black-figure technique developed around 700 B.C. and remained the most popular Greek pottery style until about 530 B.C., when the red-figure technique was developed, eventually surpassing it in popularity.
Used for the storage and shipment of grains, wine, and other goods, as well as in the all-male Greek drinking party , known as the symposium, ancient Greek vases were decorated with a variety of subjects ranging from scenes of everyday life to the tales ...