Geometric Art

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History of Greek art
Prehistoric Greece
Cycladic art - Minoan art -

Mycenean art - Protogeometric Art -

Geometric art
Art in Ancient Greece
Archaic Greek art - Classical Greek Art -

Hellenistic Art - Greco-Buddhist art -

Greek Art in Roman times
Medieval Greece
Byzantine art - Macedonian art
Post-Byzantine Greece
Art in Ottoman Greece - Cretan School -

Heptanese School
Modern Greece
Art in modern Greece - Munich School

Contemporary Greek Art
Dipylon Vase
Dipylon Vase

Geometric Art is a phase of Greek art, characterised largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BCE to 800 BCE. Its centre was in Athens, and it was diffused amongst the trading cities of the Aegean.[1]

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[edit] Geometric motives

Vases in the Geometric style are characterized by many horizontal bands about the circumference covering the entire vase. Between these lines the geometric artist used a number of other decorative motifs such as the zigzag, the triangle, the meander and the swastika. Besides abstract elements, painters of this era introduced stylized depictions of humans and animals which marks a significant departure from the earlier Protogeometric Art. Many of the surviving objects of this period are funerary objects, a particularly important class of which are the amphorae that acted as grave markers for aristocratic graves, principally the Dipylon Amphora by the Dipylon Master.[2]

Linear designs were the principal motif used in this period. The meander pattern was often placed in bands and used to frame the now larger panels of decoration. The areas most used for decoration by potters on shapes such as the amphorae and lekythoi were the neck and belly, which not only offered the greatest liberty for decoration but also emphasised the taller dimensions of the vessels.[3]

[edit] Human depictions

The first human figures appeared around 770 BCE on the handles of vases. The male was depicted with a triangular torso, an ovoid head with a blob for a nose and long cylindrical thighs and calves. Female figures were also abstract. Their long hair was depicted as a series of lines, as were their breasts, which appeared as strokes under the armpit.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Snodgrass, Anthony M. (Dec. 1973). "Greek Geometric Art by Bernhard Schweitzer". The Classical Review 23 (2): 249–252. 
  2. ^ Coldstream, John N. (2003). Geometric Greece: 900-700 BCE. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 0415298997. 
  3. ^ Snodgrass, Anthony M. (2001). The Dark Age of Greece: An Archeological Survey of the Eleventh to the Eighth Centuries BCE. New York, USA: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0415936365. 
  4. ^ Morris, Ian (Sept. 1999). Archaeology As Cultural History: Words and Things in Iron Age Greece. London, UK: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0631196021.