Greek Art Observation

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I went to the MET at September 11’s Museum Friday. Prof. Udell introduced the Greek art at that day. Four galleries in the MET are special for ancient Greek Terracotta Vases made from 850BCE to 550BCE. Many of them don’t have labels show the artist’s name. They have attributed artists, which means that art historians today can’t figure out their creator’s name and life according to historical documents but can discover that a branch of anonymous art works have similar artistic features such as style, subject, and age. Art historians thus named the artist according to the works that are believed belong to him or her. Sometimes an attributed artists’ name can be as simple as the ‘C painter’. The Greek collection in the MET exhibits art works…show more content…
This exhibition provides a general impression of what the ancient Greek vases look like. The exhibition display art works chronologically. The first piece of art work I have carefully looked at is a terracotta krater made in 850 BCE, when the clay technology was just started developed in ancient Greek. ‘Krater’ means a huge vase whose shape likes a goblet but has two ears on each side. This krater 42 5/8 inch high, and its diameter is 28 1/2 inch. In addition to its giant size, the krater is put on the top of an about 5 feet high base, which makes me can only look up at it. It is displayed in a corner and is exposing in the air, which enable me to come close enough to look at its decoration and even be afraid of my breath will touch it. The terracotta krater was made in the geometric era and was carefully decorated with black straight liner figures and symbols. Some of the representations seem to be narrative: One of the figure sitting in the middle of a boat as if she is noble, or she is captured. Some soldiers, carrying lances and shields, are fighting beside her on the ships. Nevertheless, the narration of the story is not coherent, as if its creator, instead of attempted to tell the entire story, only kept the most interesting parts. According to Professor Udell, the…show more content…
The terracotta objects’s design gradually became maturer and more delicate. Greek artists moved from black figures to red figures, which was another technology that enabled artists to make more intricate pictures and controlled every detail. A terra-cotta kylix siana cup is an excellent example for red figure, which shows the story ‘Achilles pursuing Troilus and Polyxena from his position behind the well-house’ . This cup is small, only 5 1/8 inch high and protected by a glasses case. The columns painted on it that symboling houses were carefully decorated with delicate checkerboard pattern. The artist who made this cup not only have a better technique, but also a better narration skill, which allowed him to tell a more complex story and to express his emotion by symbols. In his picture a hare was stuck under Troilos’ horses, which means that the horses were running very fast. A vase fell on the floor and water flowing out, which illustrated the stress and tension happen in that scenario. Somehow Greek artist’s usage of symbol reminds me of the modern artists who also express their feeling with symbols regardless whether the figure is realistic or

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