John Boardman

240 p. : 26 cm

All the components of Greek art which were to culminate in the Classical styles of the 5th century BC can be traced in the development of vase painting in early Greece, from the 11th to the 6th centuries BC. Geometric styles gave way by about 700 BC to the influence of the Near East; in the following Orientalizing period the Greeks learned how to tell a story in pictures; and by the 6th century various regional studios were competing with the dominant Corinthian and Athenian potters and painters for markets east and west. Early Greek vases display the Greek painter's craft at its most mathematical, its most colorful, and in its most directly narrative mode. They closely mirror the history and culture of their day. The later achievements of Greek art can only be fully understood in the light of this formative period of variety, competition and experiment.

John Boardman here explores Greek art as a foreign art transmitted to the non-Greeks of antiquity - peoples who were not necessarily able to judge the meaning of Greek art and who may have regarded the Greeks themselves with great hostility. Boardman's pioneering work assesses how and why the arts of the Classical world traveled and to what effect, roughly from the eighth century B.C. to early centuries A.D., from Britain to China. Since the Greeks were not themselves always the intermediaries and the results were largely determined by the needs of the recipients, this becomes a study of foreign images accepted or copied usually without regard to their original function. In some places, such as Italy, these images were overwhelmingly successful. In Egypt, the Celtic world, the eastern steppes, and other regions with strong local traditions, they were never effectively assimilated. Finally, in cultures where there was a subtler blend of influences, notably in the Buddhist east, the Classical images could serve as a catalyst to the generation of effective new styles. Boardman's approach is as much archaeological as art-historical, and the processes he reveals pose questions about how images in general are copied and reinterpreted. In addition, the author has demonstrated for specialists and for a broader audience that looking at Greek art from the outside provides a wealth of new understanding of Greek art itself.

Discusses the historical and artistic aspects of Athenian red figure vases of the classical period through the fourth century.

"Authoritative and brilliantly illustrated. . . . The book recommends itself not only for its synthesis of existing knowledge, but also for its original ideas." -- The Daily Telegraph" For most people there is no more satisfying expression of Greek art than its sculpture. It was the first, the only ancient art to break free from conceptual conventions for representing men and animals, and to explore consciously how art might imitate or even improve upon it. The first stages of this discovery, from the semi-abstract beginnings in the eighth century BC to the more representational art of the early fifth century, are explored and illustrated in this handbook. This handbook chronicles the development of Classical Greek sculpture and includes not only illustrations of the masterpieces of architectural sculptural from the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon, but also many original works of bronze sculpture from that period, some of which have only recently been discovered.

"The quality of Greek painting and the intrinsic interest of the figure subjects chosen for depiction were never greater than in Athens in the fifty years following the invention of the `red figure' technique in about 530 BC. This is the period covered by this book, a sequel to Athenian Black Figure Vases also written by John Boardman, Lincoln Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology and Art in Oxford."--Back cover.

"In Ancient Greece, colonies were sometimes founded by vanquished people, who left their homes to escape subjection at the hand of a foreign enemy; sometimes as a sequel to civil disorders, when the losers in internecine battles left to form a new city elsewhere; sometimes to get rid of surplus population, and thereby to avoid internal convulsions; and sometimes as a result of ostracism. But in most cases the motivation was to establish and facilitate relations of trade with foreign countries and further the wealth of the mother-city (in Greek, metropolis)."--Wikipedia.

"In no other art of antiquity do we come closer to the visual experience of the ancient Greeks than through their finely-wrought pottery." "In this volume John Boardman explores the vases functions in Greek life and culture, and as messengers of style and subject. He relates the processes of identifying artists, the methods of making and decorating the vases, the artists lives and conduct in the potters' quarter in Greek towns, and the ways in which their wares were traded far beyond the borders of the Greek world, from Morocco to Persia, from Russia to the Sudan. Boardman demonstrates that the scenes figured on the vases reflected not simply on story-telling, but on the politics and social order of the day; moreover, they exercised a style of narrative in art that was to resonate throughout Western culture for centuries to come."--Jacket.