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AP®︎/College Art History
Course: AP®︎/College Art History > Unit 4
Lesson 3: Ancient Greece- The classical orders
- The Athenian Agora and the experiment in democracy
- Anavysos Kouros
- Peplos Kore from the Acropolis
- Making Greek vases
- Niobid Painter, Niobid Krater
- Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear Bearer)
- Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)
- Parthenon (Acropolis)
- The Parthenon
- Who owns the Parthenon sculptures?
- Phidias, Parthenon sculptures (pediments, metopes and frieze)
- "Plaque of the Ergastines" fragment from the frieze on the east side of the Parthenon
- Victory (Nike) Adjusting Her Sandal, Temple of Athena Nike (Acropolis)
- Grave Stele of Hegeso
- Winged Victory (Nike) of Samothrace
- Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon
- Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii
- Apollonius, Seated Boxer
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Making Greek vases
Greek vases, crafted from refined terra cotta, underwent a meticulous process. Potters mixed raw clay with water, removed impurities, and used a technique called "wedging" to prepare the clay. Vases were shaped on a wheel, assembled, and decorated with liquid clay. A three-stage firing process resulted in the distinctive red and black color scheme. Created by Getty Museum.
Want to join the conversation?
- Why do they use their feet to mix the clay?(10 votes)
- that wasn't mixing, it was wedging - to get air bubbles out. And it's the most hardcore wedging I've ever seen. Usually you just wedge a little bit of it at a time with your hands. You have to get the air out of it, because air expands when it's heated. Any air bubbles would cause a ceramic to explode in the kiln.(40 votes)
- At, the potter attaches the handles but how would he smooth the wet clay out? The vase itself is a bit dry and isn't moldy and does not move with the moving surface. 2:15(5 votes)
- The rough bits created when the handles are attached can be easily smoothed out by hand, without using the wheel. After the wet clay has dried somewhat, the potter could also touch it up with a wet sponge. The cup bowl is sturdy enough at this stage that neither method would cause it to bend or disfigure.(5 votes)
- Could you make a cup that is just as uniform as one made on a wheel without a wheel?(4 votes)
- The advantage of using the wheel is it's much faster, once you've mastered it.(4 votes)
- he shows how the vases were made by a rotating machine in the video, greeks clearly did not have one of those with a motor on it, They had to keep that thing rotating by hand, or someone else?(2 votes)
- The video may have been showing a kick wheel where the top disk upon which the pot is thrown is attached by an axel to a large round stone or something similar that the potter kicks. These are still widely used. Here is a photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/T%C3%B6pferscheibe.jpg(6 votes)
- Atthe video demonstrated wedging. In art class we knead our clay by throwing it onto the table. Are these the same thing or same idea or are they unrelated? Also, is the potter doing that just because he's making a vase or did potters do that for clay every time, no matter what they were making? 0:46(3 votes)
- Potters do it every time to get the air out, no matter what they're making. When air bubbles heat up in a kiln, the air expands, cracking the vessel, often causing an explosion that can damage other vessels. And yes, the video shows someone wedging the clay, just on a much larger scale.(4 votes)
- The video shows black figures on a red background. What about red figures on black backgrounds? I know they exist but how do they make them?(3 votes)
- They would just reverse the painting process. I'll use the vase made in the video as an example to explain this. If you want a red dolphin on a black vase instead of a black dolphin on a red vase, you would do the following: instead of painting the dolphin itself in the paint that becomes black when the vase is fired in the kiln, you would paint everything except for the dolphin itself. That way, the background becomes black when the pot is fired, while the dolphin remains red.(4 votes)
- Alright, I'm confused. He implies that Ancient Greek potters would be able to use a pottery wheel to form the clay vases. However, Ancient Greeks clearly didn't have the electricity which makes wheels move today. How could they possibly make the wheel turn?(1 vote)
- They could also have someone turn the wheel for them.(1 vote)
- Beginning at about, the narrator explains the three-stage firing process. On average, how long is the vase subjected to each stage before it is removed from the kiln or migrated to the next stage? Were the stages 5 minutes long, or 5 hours long? 3:05(2 votes)
- I know that in stage 1, which is kindling (or oxidizing), typical firing took place at a temperature of 850 to 975 degrees Celsius. It took about 8 to 9 hours to reach this temperature, and at a temperature of 500 °C, after 6 or 7 hours, true firing of the now red-hot vessels began.
(the time of the first stage was about all I could find, so I hope this helps)(3 votes)
- where is that piece of pottery from? 2:25(2 votes)
- It's an Attic Greek cup, made ca. 520 BC. It was published by the Getty in 2002, according to this reference: http://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=1792(2 votes)
- at, what tool did the potter use to sketch the outline of the dolphin? 2:38(2 votes)
Video transcript
- Greek vases were made of
terra cotta or baked clay. Before the clay could be used for pottery, pebbles and other impurities
had to be removed. First, the potter mixed
the raw clay with water in large outdoor pools to
make a thick, silty liquid. This liquid clay stood until the heavier impurities had
settled to the bottom. The refined liquid was then
drained off into a second pool. The potter repeated this
settling process several times. The pool was then left
to evaporate in the sun, leaving behind the refined clay. The final step in preparing
the clay for potting was called "wedging". The potter systematically
compressed and folded the clay, making it more malleable
and mixing together any parts that may settled into layers. The clay was now ready for use. Most Greek vases were thrown or formed on the potter's wheel. The complex shapes of Greek
pottery often required that a vase be thrown in
pieces and then assembled. For example, to make a kylix or cup the potter first centered
the clay on the wheel. When it stopped wobbling the
potter began a central hole. Pressure from the potter's
fingers inside the hole gradually widened this opening and
formed the bowl of the cup. Aside from the wheel,
the potter's main tools were his hands. Although a wet sponge was often
used to smooth the surface. To make the foot of the cup, the potter again centered
the clay, drew it up, and then hollowed out the stem. The next day when the formed
pieces had dried slightly, the bowl of the cup was
trimmed with a metal shaver and received a final smoothing. The potter used wet clay to bond the separately made bowl and foot, and then smoothed over the join. Next, the potter stretched
out lengths of clay and bent them into handles. Again using wet clay the potter attached the handles to the bowl. Often roughening the joining
surfaces to increase the bond. The vase was now ready to be decorated. Athenian vase painters experimented with a number of different
methods of vase decoration. To create a vase in the
black figure technique, that is, with black figures
against a red background. The vase painter first sketched
the outline of the design, in this case a dolphin, onto the surface of the vessel. Then, using a highly
refined liquid clay as paint the vase painter filled in the outline, creating a silhouette. When applied, the clay paint
was almost the same color as the surface of the vase. But with firing it would turn black. The vase painter next
used a sharp point to scratch internal details
through the silhouette. The vase was then ready for the kiln. The contrasting red and black color scheme of Athenian pottery was the result of a difficult
three stage firing process. Using wood-fired kilns or ovens, vases were heated to about
800 degrees centigrade in an oxygen-rich environment, causing the whole vase to turn red. Next, the potter closed
off the vents of the kiln and added green wood and leafy branches creating an oxygen poor environment. As a result, the whole vase turned black. At the same time, the kiln
temperature was raised causing the thin painted
layer of decorative clay to become glossy and nonporous. Finally the kiln was
allowed to slowly cool, and the potter reopened the vents letting oxygen into the kiln again. In this stage the unpainted
areas of the vessels returned to their warm red color. But the glossy areas, which
could not absorb oxygen, remained black.