Pottery in Archaic Greece

This week for my blog entry I have chosen to discuss the third slide of our archaic section, The pottery is depicting a funerary procession. The decisions the artist made on who to include are related to who was important the time this pot was built. The style of the story drawn on the pot is very similar to ancient Egyptian art and the styles of the way the people are drawn are still very minimalist and look unnatural. The texture of the pot looks to be smooth, but that could be deceiving, parts of the artwork, like the legs of the horse, could be deeply carved in and cause rivets over the pot and ruin the idea of a smooth outside texture. The colors are very few and look to be natural colors that would’ve been easily in demand archaic Greece.

The artwork from this time period is very reminiscent and similar to that of ancient Egyptian artwork in the sense that it copies their ‘storyboard’ style. The procession wraps around the entire pot and has two levels to the tale, although it seems that to show the importance of the death, the people following the procession are on the top level while the animals are on the bottom with smaller people that are not as important. This is a depiction of a funerary procession, which was very common in archaic and classic Greece when a political figure or leader died. The Greek were very fond of their leaders and these processions were elaborate and respectful to the leaders and what they achieved in their lifetime.