EUR 780,00
AMPHORA GEOMETRIC STYLE
We introduce a very elegant amphora -ceramic recipient with two handlers and a long and narrow neck, used to store crop, seeds or liquids- belonging to the Ancient Greece geometric style, that defines a long period of the Greek Art history.
This style flourished between IX and VIII centuries b.C and is characterized for using new features: meanders, triangles and other geometrical figures, that’s where the name of the style comes from. These are separated from the black areas by triple lines. Along the time, the balance between the decorated bands and the shadowed bands broke in favor of the decoration: the meanders and other motifs at the end covered all the piece.
On the Medium Geometric period, about 850-770 b.C. makes it appearance the figurative decoration with the first friezes of identical animals (horses, deer, goats, geese, etc.) that from now on alternate with bands of geometric motifs. In parallel, the decoration becomes more complicated and becomes more and more abundant: the empty areas are filled with rosettes or decorative swastikas. This step is called "horror vacui" and will not end until the end of the geometric style.
Most of the pieces found in geometric style, come from an old neighborhood of Athens, the Ceramics, where there is also the old cemetery of Athens and one of the entrance doors to the city, the Dipilon that gives name to some styles within the geometric period.
The first discovery of geometric vessels took place in 1871. The vessels were placed on the tombs to collect the ritual offerings, with time they acquired monumental character, reaching sizes of up to one and a half meters. Our piece of 750 a.C. is a reproduction on a smaller scale of the original found in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen museum in Munich. It is very representative within the geometric style of the so-called black Dipilon, because of its wide use of black varnish, all the basic components of the style, meanders, triangles, squares, mixing the colors red and yellow and what defines the era of this piece, the introduction of identical animals between the geometric bands. It is observed that the interest of the ancient Greek artists begins in the designs with complex patterns and dispositions according to mathematical rules, beginning and ending the work with animals, gazelles up, geese down and what looks like deer resting in the middle of the work.
Size is 40cm H x 21 cm ⌀ (15.7" H x 8.3" ⌀). Weight is 3Kg (6.6 pound). Package weight for shipment is 6Kg (13.2 pound).