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Around 1100 B.C. invaders from northwest of the Balkan Mountains entered what is today the Greek mainland, the islands of the Aegean and Asia Minor, the western part of Turkey. These invaders mixed with the Bronze Age peoples already inhabiting these areas, forming the civilization of ancient Greece. Organized into city-states, the ancient Greeks shared a common language and religion, but had dif­ferent governing structures. Often there was fierce rivalry between city-states, although on occasion the Greeks would combine forces against the Persians, who were a constant threat to the Aegean until the fifth century b.c. Around the sixth century B.C. the city of Athens rose to political, economic and cultural prominence.

Krater. 750-735 B.C.

Dipylon Cemetery, Athens. Geometric Style. Height: approx. 40″ (101cm). National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Some of the oldest surviving works of art created by the ancient Greeks are their ceramic vases. Many early vases served as monuments marking graves in cemeteries, thus explaining their large size and the funerary scenes often found adorning their exterior surfaces. One such vase from the Dipylon cemetery in Athens, dating to 750-735 B.C., is decorated in the “geometric” style. Unlike the more organic, curvilinear, free-floating designs seen on Minoan vases, geometric-style vases have more rectilinear and programmatic decoration, organized in bands. The torsos of the figures making up the funeral proces­sion in the second register from the top - the deceased himself can be seen laid out on his bier at the far right - consist of triangles, while their arms are composed of long, very thin rectangles. The humanity of these abstracted figures is subordinated to their role as decorative elements in the overall patterned design. The geometrically conceived human figures and patterns alternate and mix together on the surface of this vase, creating a two-dimensional rhythm.

Rhodian Oenochos (wine jar). Second half of the 7th century B.C.

Height: 13″ (32.5cm). Musee du Louvre, Paris

“Orientalising” vases such as the one illustrated here, so called because of the influence of works from the Near East and Egypt on the decoration, were produced in Greek pottery centers, such as Rhodes, in the seventh century B.C. The elegantly stylised deer and geese on this wine jar resemble animal forms in the art of the ancient Near East. The decorative plant forms at the base are very similar to the lotus buds found depicted in the ancient Egyptian art.

In the seventh century B.C., “orientalising” style vases were produced in several Greek pottery centres. As the name suggests, the decoration of these ceramic vessels was often influenced by motifs found in the art of the Near East and Egypt. Many of these vases were produced in Corinth, a major port which imported objects from the East. The orientalising style oenochos, or wine jar, from Rhodes, another centre of pottery production, is decorated with elegantly stylized deer and geese, resembling animals seen in many works from the ancient Near East. Interspersed between these animals are geometric design elements, while a plant motif resembling the lotus bud forms found in Egyptian painting and sculp­ture adorns the lowest register of the jar.

[catch the next part in the “History of Western Paintings”, Ancient Greece (Part Two), next Sunday. Subscribe to our RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss out!]