PAPER: 5 to 10 pages approx. (includes exhibit plans). Design an
exhibit on Greek Vases and Greek Vase Technology to fit the Krannert
Art Museum Light Court space (opposite the Palette coffee shop on top
floor of museum). Your paper should include: a) a schematic diagram
showing placement of cases with artifacts and wall texts; b) a list of
vases from the KAM collection you want to include; c) suggested photos
or line drawings to accompany wall texts (remember, book illustrations
require copyright permission); d) wall texts and artifact labels (use
current KAM labels as guide; remember you are writing for the general,
educated public). N.b.: one of the wall texts in the final exhibit WILL
be the Kiln poem I read you in class (in the Noble book).
Use some (but not necessarily all) of the following topics:
- Shapes, names, and function of Greek
vases (selected examples)
- Subject matter (iconography) of Greek
vases (athletics, battles, myths, crafts, symposia, erotica, etc.)
- Social and economic context of Greek
vase-making (Potter’s Quarter in Athens; use of slave labor; signing of
vases by master potters and painters, etc.)
- **Method/ technology for producing a
typical vase: clay and glaze preparation, forming, surface finishing,
decoration, and firing.
- Examples of MISTAKES in Greek vase
firing/technology (what can go wrong, what we can learn).
- Archaeometry of Greek vases: what do
we know about composition of clay and gloss/glaze? What kind of kiln
did they use? How about the firing temperature and atmosphere?
- What we as a class have learned from
our experiments.
JOURNAL: Due same time, via email to
wisarc@uiuc.edu
Record comments and notes, your reactions to our clay and firing
experiments, what works and what doesn’t, what you have learned from
this project. Date each entry.
Send final
compilation to Prof. Wisseman by e-mail (**I hope to use excerpts from
your journals for the in-gallery exhibit guide).
READINGS:
*Toby Schreiber, Athenian Vase Construction (J. Paul Getty Museum,
1999)
738.3820938
Sch72a, Undergrad reserves.
*Joseph Veach Noble, The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery (Thames
and Hudson 1988, revised edition). Undergrad reserves.
Kingery,
W. David -- Attic pottery gloss technology (article on Electronic
reserve)
Websites:
The Beazley Archive (Beazley was “the” Greek vase scholar):
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/Test/Pottery%20Public/Script/Faseevennewer.htm
Shapes of Greek vases, with explanations:
http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/Test/Pottery%20Public/Script/shapes.htm
*Krannert Art Museum Greek Vase tour:
http://www.art.uiuc.edu/galleries/kam/resources/resource_center/GreekKam/index.html
Essays on Greek vase painters, lots of links:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Secondary/Painter_Essays/
Outstanding resource on Greek mythology, with pictures:
http://greekmyth.org/
General art of Greece:
http://www.loggia.com/art/ancient/greece.html