Day 22 – One Shape Does Not Fit All!

I’m actually writing my blog early in the day today! Our schedule has been all over the place (yup, thanks to the move), so I decided to take advantage of a free moment in the morning to write. Also, sadly, I was unable to have any coffee this morning since our coffee pot was packed away already and I couldn’t sneak out to buy some. So today’s blog is brought to you by some tea I managed to scrounge up and drink out of a Styrofoam cup.

Today will probably be my last day on the subject of Greek Pottery, but I did not want to move on until I discussed the shapes a little bit. Ancient Greek Vases were not “one shape fits all.” As the Metropolitan Museum’s Article yesterday noted, “Painted vases were often made in specific shapes for specific daily uses.” (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vase/hd_vase.htm). I also found some information on vase shapes from an online Reed College study guide. (http://cdm.reed.edu/cdm4/studyguides/vases/intro-types.html). (No Wikipedia today, either! Go me!)

Examples of some different vase shapes and their uses are amphora (transporting food and wine), kanthoros or kylix (drinking water), lekythos (pouring libations), loutrophoros (carrying water for a bridal bath), and albastron (a tiny vase that could be tied to the wrist for carrying perfumes and oils). As you can see, the vase shapes are a mix of shapes for everyday uses and shapes for special or ritual occasions. This is a picture I found on Reed’s website that shows some of the different shapes:

Again, the complexity of these ancient traditions fascinates me. I’m not sure I can think of something similar today. In our culture, are there really any groups of widely accepted shapes for different purposes? The only thing I could really come up with is that we have different shapes of wine glasses for red wine, white wine, sparkling wine, etc. That doesn’t even come close to the complexity of the Greek Vase shapes. Am I forgetting something? Can you think of an analogous example in our lives today?

Finally, just because, here’s another picture of a Greek vase. This is an amphora shaped jar:

Xoxo,

Diana

Day 21 – Artists at Work: How the Ancient Greeks Made Pottery

So, I wrote briefly about the Orientalizing style yesterday, and while there is certainly much more I could research and write about that style, I want to go ahead and move on to Black and Red Vase Painting. When I looked at an overview of the Greek Styles of Vase Painting, this was my favorite. (Also, I’m getting closer to the end of the 30 days of the “Art” portion of my Coffee Bean Dreams Project, so I don’t want to get too bogged down on any one thing. I might still check out one more area of art before moving on to the next 30 Day Topic!)

Since I found an article on the Metropolitan Museum’s website about black and red figure techniques (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/vase/hd_vase.htm), I decided to take a break from Wikipedia. (True Academics, rejoice!). I liked the article from the Met Museum a lot because it also actually described the process of making the pot. First, it was shaped on a wheel, and if it was a large enough pot it was made in sections. Once the sections had dried they were assembled with clay in liquid form (known as a slip), and then finally the handles were added. To make black figure vases, the figures were applied with a slip that turned black during firing the pots. Red figure vases were the opposite: the figures remained the color of the clay pot while the background was filled with a slip that turned black. The black figure style came first and was gradually replaced by the red figure style as the ancient potters realized the better design possibilities with the red figure technique.

After the pots were shaped and assembled, and the designs applied or filled in, the pots went through a three stage firing process: the first stage, oxidizing, allowed air into the kiln and turned the pot the color of clay; the second stage introduced green wood which reduced the oxygen supply and turned the pot black; and in the third stage more air was allowed in the kiln again which caused glossed areas to remain black but the rest of the pot to turn back to orange.

So, I don’t know if others find the pot-making process itself as fascinating as I do, but for some reason the idea of making pots has always appealed to me. Maybe I should try taking a pottery class one of these days- something about the idea of feeling the wet clay in your hands and then seeing it turn into beautiful vase just seem so wholesome and satisfying. I’ve never really considered myself an artist, but I think I could very much get into making pottery. (How that pottery would actually look is another story, but, you know…)

Ok, I’m off to do more moving related tasks (cannot wait for this weekend for the move to be over!!), but I’ll leave you with a few examples of red and black figure vases from the Met’s website. Notice the many different shapes of the vases!

Xoxo,

Diana

Day 18 – Discovering History through Art

This morning I switched gears a bit to look into another ancient culture’s art – Ancient Greece. You may remember Doc Rose, who recommended impressionist painting to me. She mentioned that I should take a look at Ancient Greek vases because of the wide variety of shapes and techniques. After reading the Wikipedia page on Ancient Greek Pottery (I know, I know, Wikipedia again!), I can verify that this is definitely the case! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_of_ancient_Greece#Red_figure). The development of Greek vase painting is traced through several different styles: protogeometric, geometric, orientalizing, black figure, red figure, white ground technique, and the Hellenistic Period. Are your eyes glazed over yet?!? This is a lot to digest, and I want to spend the next few days looking at the different styles. The black and red figure style looks particularly interesting- check out this example I found on the Metropolitan Museum’s website:

Also interesting: the page mentions that, because pottery is relatively durable, the art on ancient Greek pottery has had a disproportionately large influence on modern understanding of ancient Greek society. This fascinates me- we know much of what we know about the ancient Greeks because of one of their art forms. I feel that art is often considered to be an unnecessary side pursuit in society. I admit I’ve rolled my eyes at art and the need to be “cultured” more often than once. But in the case if the Ancient Greeks, their art served quite a useful purpose – since centuries upon centuries later we can learn about their lives and history through that art. I think that’s pretty cool, don’t you?

Finally, before I sign off today - Happy Memorial Day! Thanks to all of the brave men and women who have given their lives serving in the U.S. Military.

Xoxo,

Diana

Day 10 – Pablo & the Blues

Today I spent more time looking at Pablo Picasso… there is a lot of information out there on him. So, first of all, two fun facts:

• Picasso’s given name when he was born was “Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Crispiniano de la Santísima Trinidad.” Seriously. That is a long name.
• Apparently, more of Picasso’s paintings have been stolen than any other artist. Nice claim to fame there.

I read through the some Wikipedia pages on Picasso today (find them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_Blue_Period), and simultaneously learned a lot and was overwhelmed by the amount of information. Love or hate him, there is no denying that Picasso has had a profound influence on the world of art, and had a long, vibrant career. I don’t think I like most of his work; however, I’m fascinated by him as a person.

His paintings are typically divided into several different periods, and today I found myself reading about his “blue period.” From 1901-1904, he created somber paintings in blue shades. I love the color blue- it’s my favorite color. However, it can be either a very happy or sad color. For example, usually a blue sky or beautiful blue ocean are thought of as happy scenes. Picasso’s blue paintings were not such happy scenes, but were more on the depressing side of blue and contain themes of loneliness, poverty and despair. Picasso was depressed and mourning the suicide death of a friend, and his paintings show this depressed tone. Although these works are popular today, he had difficulty selling them at the time. The Old Guitarist (pictured below), is one well known work from this time period. Apparently it is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. (I really need to get back by there!) I think what makes this painting seem really depressing to me is that the man’s skin has a blue tone. It just looks so unnatural and gives the painting a haunted feel. Many of his “blue period” paintings are like this.

I’m having a hard time deciding if I like this or not. On the one hand, it is a pretty somber painting. On the other hand, the color of a painting matters a lot to me. I think I’m leaning towards not liking it… I don’t think liking the color is enough to overcome the moodiness of the painting, and I’m not much into moody art these days. I definitely went through an emo phase, but these days I prefer things to be more bright and happy.

What do you think of this painting, and of Picasso’s Blue Period?

Xoxo, 

Diana

Day 2 - The Story Behind the Artist

I decided to spend my coffee time today looking a bit into the Impressionists, at the recommendation of my friend and former professor, “Doc Rose.” Doc Rose was one of my favorite professors in undergrad- I took a linguistics class from her. Linguistics was known as a very difficult, scary class at my university, but it was a required class to graduate if you were an English major. Since I was only an English minor (my major was psychology), I wasn’t actually required to take Linguistics to graduate. Spurred on by a love of all things language (ok, and perhaps a little bit of pride that “just because I was only an English minor and not major, that did NOT mean I was incapable of handling the highly dreaded Linguistics), I took the class anyways. I’m glad I did – the class was challenging but not impossible, and I enjoyed the content. (Yes, even the diagramming sentences part. Grammar nerd alert.) Doc Rose and I still keep in touch via Facebook, and when she read my blog yesterday she told me she likes the Impressionists, particularly Gustave Caillebotte. Since Doc Rose has never steered me wrong on literature recommendations, I decided to take her art recommendation and check out the Impressionists.

So, this morning, I found myself drinking a hot cup of Joe while reading the Wikipedia page for Mr. Caillebotte. By the way, I have a love/hate relationship with Wikipedia. I still (rightly!) refuse to use it for formal research, but I must admit it’s often a good starting place for learning about a new topic about which you know nothing. After reading the Wikipedia page, I was intrigued. I found out that Caillebotte went to law school and was licensed to practice law. I’m always interested when I see someone who was a lawyer pursuing a different career path, since I’m a lawyer but sometimes many times wonder what else is out there for me. Reading Caillebotte’s story made me interested in seeing some of his work. Lucky for me, one of his most famous paintings, Paris Street; Rainy Day (pictured below), is owned by the Chicago Art Institute. I’m going to try to get by there this month and see it. The real take away from this morning, however, is that I enjoyed hearing the story of the artist himself, and this is what made me interested to learn more about and see some of his art. It’s too soon to say, but perhaps it will never be the beauty of a painting itself that moves me, but rather the story behind the artist. Does this count as “liking art,” even if I don’t necessarily have an interest in the mechanics and technique of certain styles of art?

Xoxo,

Diana