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"From Hand to Lip: The Art and Technology of Making a Greek Vase"

is a Krannert Art Museum Featured Works exhibit (on display May 29-August 1, 2004). Below are the original wall texts and case labels:

INTRODUCTION

Throughout history, people have used fired clay to make containers, lamps, roof tiles, frieze plaques, burial urns, figurines, and other useful objects.

“From Hand to Lip: The Art and Technology of Making A Greek Vase” is the story of an ancient ceramic industry that produced thousands of vases over several centuries. The manufacturing process is well understood because of ample archaeological evidence (vases and remains of kilns), literary descriptions of pottery-making (see the kiln poem in this exhibit), and images of potters at work on numerous potsherds.

While many Greek vases were retained for local use, others were exported all over the Mediterranean. Some of our finest containers for storage, cooking, and serving have been recovered from tombs in central and southern Italy, as well as North Africa, Israel, and Turkey. Many of these beautifully decorated vases served as a unique means of communication, displaying scenes from Greek mythology and daily life.

This exhibit focuses on the black-figured and red-figured vases produced in the Greek cities of Athens and Corinth during the seventh to fourth centuries B.C. Guest curator Sarah Wisseman (Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials) worked with her undergraduate students from Anthropology 221 “Materials and Civilization” to select representative vases from the KAM collections and to produce replicas illustrating the complexity of Greek design and firing technology.

Special thanks to Ron Kovatch (Ceramics), who provided valuable consultations on ceramic techniques and firing procedures, and to Charles Wisseman, who assisted with kiln-building and photography.


THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF GREEK VASE MANUFACTURE

Greek potters and vase-painters worked in together in teams. Their names, known because they signed their work, have enabled art historians to classify vases stylistically into workshops or schools (e.g. the “Workshop of Exekias”). The potters employed slaves, shown at work in vase-paintings turning wheels, stoking kilns, and carrying clay, fuel, and water.

In Athens, potters and painters worked in a special district in the northwest part of the city: the Potter’s Quarter or Kerameikos. Because ceramic artisans were located close to the workshops of bronze-casters and sculptors, vase-painters often illustrated aspects of these other crafts in their compositions.


FORM AND FUNCTION

Greek vases were thrown on a potter’s wheel in sections, which were then allowed to dry to the “leather-hard” stage and joined together with wet clay. Vases were crafted into shapes determined by their function, for example, the three-handled hydria for water-carrying, the two-handled amphora for wine and oil, the lekythos, an oil flask for funerary purposes, and the kylix, a drinking cup.

Each completed vase was trimmed and the surface was smoothed with water and the potter’s fingers. On Athenian vases, a thin coat of miltos—a red ocher wash to enhance the orange-red color of the fired clay—was often added. Then the vase was carefully burnished (polished) with smooth stones and soft rags. To form figures and other decoration, the painter applied a special slip (or gloss), a fine suspension of clay in water. Analyses have shown that the Greek black gloss contained fluxing agents such as oxides of iron and potassium that made the painted surface sinter (vitrify) at a lower temperature than the body of the vase.

Athenian potters used several decorative schemes of contrasting colors. This exhibit features the black-figured technique (black figures on a red ground) and its mirror-image, the red-figured technique (red figures on a black ground).


A VASE PAINTING IS WORTH 1,000 WORDS

In an age before magazines, the glossy surfaces of wine, oil, and water vases served as the Sports Illustrated of the ancient world. Athletes were depicted in gymnasium or outdoor settings as they trained for the first Olympic Games and for war. Other aspects of Greek life—departing warriors, drinking parties, funerals, horseback riding, mythology, religion, crafts, and domestic activities—were also adapted to the curved surfaces of the vases. Since most of Greek monumental wall painting has not survived, these paintings on fired clay give us unique glimpses into the life and thought patterns of the ancient Greeks.


PYROTECHNOLOGY

The Greeks were master potters, technically adept at controlling time, temperature, and atmosphere—the essential aspects of the firing process. The Greek kiln, illustrated on several potsherds, was a beehive-shaped, updraft kiln with a rectangular fuel box and a short chimney. The characteristic red-on-black or black-on-red decoration was achieved in a three-stage firing process: oxidation-reduction-oxidation. First, the kiln was heated using ample wood fuel and good air circulation (oxidation) and all peep-holes open. When the temperature reached about 850°C, indicated by the cherry-red color of the fire, the chimney and peep-holes were blocked and green wood or damp sawdust was added to the fuel box. This created a reducing atmosphere, causing red iron oxide to convert to black iron oxide and turning all the pottery black. In the third phase of firing, peep-holes and chimney were reopened, allowing air to circulate again and turn the clay body back to red-orange. In a successful firing, the slipped areas remained jet black, providing a pleasing contrast with the red-orange color of the fired Athenian clay.


MAKE YOUR OWN GREEK VASE

The students in Anthropology 221 produced test-tiles and small pinched or coiled pots out of a local Midwestern clay similar in composition to Athenian clay (terracotta with iron oxides and illite). After smoothing and polishing their half-dry pieces, the students decorated their work with black-figured designs of animals, mythological creatures, warriors, and musicians using a slip made from the same clay.

A pseudo-Greek kiln was built at the South Farms Ceramic Studio, and the pottery was fired in an oxidation-reduction-oxidation cycle. Our results were very interesting. In some cases, the slip-gloss acted as a resist, protecting the clay from turning black and remaining red (the opposite of what was expected). On other vases, reds and blacks appeared in distinct patterns that were probably formed by contact with burning fuel or position in the kiln.

Our experiments taught us that many factors contribute to the success or failure of a “Greek” firing. In addition to monitoring the atmosphere and temperature of the kiln, potters must build their kiln carefully so there are no cool spots, provide sufficient fuel to keep the temperature consistent, and choose a warm day with no wind.


KILN POEM

"If you will pay me for my song, O potters,
Then come, Athena, and hold thy hand above the kiln!
May the kotyloi and all the kanastra turn a good black,
May they be well fired and fetch the price asked,
Many being sold in the marketplace and many on the roads,
And bring in much money, and may my song be pleasing.
But if you (potters) turn shameless and deceitful,
Then do I summon the ravagers of kilns,
Both Syntrips (Smasher) and Smaragos (Crasher) and
Asbetos (Unquenchable) too, and Sabaktes(Shake-to-pieces)
And Omodamos (Conqueror of the Unbaked), who makes
Much trouble for this craft,
Stamp on stoking tunnel and chambers, and may the whole kiln
Be thrown into confusion, while the potters loudly wail.
As grinds a horse's jaw so may the kiln grind
To powder all the pots within it.
Come, too, daughter of the Sun, Circe of many spells,
cast cruel spells, do evil to them and their handiwork,
Here too let Cheiron lead many centaurs,
Both those that escaped the hands of Herakles and those that perished.
May they hit these pots hard, and may the kiln collapse.
And may the potters wail as they see the mischief.
But I shall rejoice at the sight of their luckless craft.
And if anyone bends over to look into the spy-hole, may his whole face
Be scorched, so that all may learn to deal justly.”

(poem attributed to Herodotus, from“Life of Homer,” 2nd or 3rd c. A.D.
Adapted from Joseph Veach Noble’s The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery)


CASE LABELS

Corinthian Olpe
Corinth, Greece. Attributed to the Moore Painter.
Ca. 600 B.C.
1970-9-2

Corinthian potters used a different clay, one that fired cream-color instead of red-orange, for their vases. This olpe, or pitcher, is decorated with friezes of real and mythical animals (panthers, panther-birds, sirens, goats, boars, and swans). The silhouette-and-incision technique is a precursor of the black-figured technique adopted by Athenian potters. Additional details were added in white and red slips.


> Black-figured neck-amphora, Type B
Athens, Greece. Attributed to the Pointed Nose Painter
of the Tyrrhenian Group.
Ca. 550 B.C.
1970-9-3

To create black-figured decoration, the vase-painter brushed on silhouettes of people and animals using a fine slip. When the slip was dry, he incised (drew with a sharp stick) through the slip, revealing the red clay background, to depict muscles, facial features, and drapery. Additional highlights were applied in a dark red or white slip prior to firing.

This vase was a container for wine or oil. It is decorated with horsemen, ivy leaves, and nonsense inscriptions.


Red-figured Amphora
Southern Italy. Attributed to the Amykos Painter.
Late 5th century B.C.
1970-7-3

In the red-figured technique, the vase-painter used slip to outline his figures prior to applying the black background. Preliminary sketch lines were drawn with a blunt tool for muscles, drapery, and other details. These lines can often be seen on the finished vase. Sketch lines became relief lines when they were covered with thickened slip applied with a syringe.

This wine or oil container, produced in a Greek colony in southern Italy, is decorated with a departure of a warrior on one side and two pairs of heavily draped youths on the reverse. The shape of this amphora recalls oil-vases awarded as prizes in the Panathenaic festival in Athens, Greece.


Red-figured Bell-Krater
Athens, Greece
Late fifth century B.C.
1970-7-2

Kraters were vases used for mixing wine and water at banquets. One side depicts the messenger god, Hermes, with a seated woman and a nude youth, and the other side shows three standing youths.

The mottled red-brown gloss on this vase illustrates what could go wrong in a Greek firing. Either the slip was applied too thinly or the firing atmosphere of the kiln was poorly controlled. The uneven color could also be due to poor placement in the kiln (near an air leak, for example), insufficient fuel, or other unknown factors.


Student Vases

Undergraduate students in Professor Sarah Wisseman’s Anthropology 221 class made these pots and tiles using pinching, coiling, and slab techniques. At the half-dry or leather-hard stage, they polished the surfaces with smooth stones and painted on a slip composed of the same clay as the body with extra iron oxide. Designs were etched through the slipped areas with needle tools, using line-drawings of Greek designs. The student vases were fired in a model Greek kiln in an oxidation-reduction-oxidation cycle.


DVD SLIDE SHOW:

This slide show includes images of Greek vases from various museums, photographs of Anthropology 221 students making pinch-pots and tiles, and the building and firing of a pseudo-Greek kiln at the University of Illinois Ceramics Studio.

Copyright 2004. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.