Greek pottery, the orientalizing style

Late in the eight century the orientalizing style arises. The influence from othe cultures begins to effect the culture of Greece as trade grows with other partds of the Mediterranean.


The orientalizing style has a number of new characteristics. Its decoration is less based on narrow bands of decoration like the previous geometric. There is also the use of polychromy (multiple colors). Figures gain in importance, though mostly animal figures, not human. There is also greater use of naturalistic representation. There are palmette designs and mythological animals, like this lion below.


The piece below has figures though, also horses pulling chariots.




This last piece is by a "named" artist, well, sort of , he is the Honolulu painter. Many of the potters later signed their work but those who didn't are named after a particularly well known piece they created. This piece is the namesake for this artist. It is of course located in the museum in Honolulu. Scholars have identified works artists in various museums and using stylistic similarities, assigned them a name. We will get more of that soon as we go into the black and then red figured ware. That starts tomorrow night. Things get real sophisticated next. The next two periods are why I am writing on this stuff in the first place.

This thing is called the antikythera mechanism. It was made between 150B.C. and 100B.C. and is the earliest known mechanical calculating device. It calculates astronomical positions. It has over thirty gears and was found on a sunken wreck in 1900 by sponge divers.