The Protogeometric style (or "Proto-Geometric") is a style of

Ancient Greek pottery Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...

led by

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

produced between roughly 1030 and 900 BCE, in the first period of the Greek Dark Ages. After the collapse of the Mycenaean-

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...

Palace culture and the ensuing Greek Dark Ages, the Protogeometric style emerged around the mid 11th century BCE as the first expression of a reviving civilization. Following on from the development of a faster potter's wheel, vases of this period are markedly more technically accomplished than earlier Dark Age examples. The decoration of these pots is restricted to purely abstract elements and very often includes broad horizontal bands about the neck and belly and concentric circles applied with compass and multiple brush. Many other simple motifs can be found, but unlike many pieces in the following

Geometric style Geometric art is a phase of Greek art, characterized largely by geometric motifs in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, . Its center was in Athens, and from there the style spread among the trading cities of the ...

, typically much of the surface is left plain. Like many pieces, the example illustrated includes a colour change in the main band, arising from a firing fault. Both the red and black colour use the same clay, differently levigated and fired. As the Greeks learnt to control this variation, the path to their distinctive

three-phase firing Three-phase firing (or three-step firing) or iron reduction technique is a firing technique used in ancient Greek pottery production, specifically for painted vases. Already vessels from the Bronze Age feature the colouring typical of the tech ...

technique opened. Some of the innovations included some new

Mycene In Greek mythology, Mycene or Mykene (Ancient Greek: Μυκήνη), was a daughter of Inachus, king of Argos, the sister of Phoroneus, and the wife of Arestor. She was said to be the eponym of Mycenae. Mythology Homer's ''Odyssey'', calling he ...

an influenced shapes, such as the belly-handled amphora, the neck handled amphora, the

krater A krater or crater ( grc-gre, , ''kratēr'', literally "mixing vessel") was a large two-handled shape of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, krat ...

, and the

lekythos A lekythos (plural lekythoi) is a type of ancient Greek vessel used for storing oil (Greek λήκυθος), especially olive oil Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of ''Olea europaea''; family Oleaceae), a traditiona ...

. Attic artists redesigned these vessels using the fast wheel to increase the height and therefore the area available for decoration. From Athens the style spread to several other centres.

Chronology

Alex Knodell, in his (2021) book, classifies Protogeometric period in three sub-periods:Knodell, Alex, (2021)
Societies in Transition in Early Greece: An Archaeological History
University of California Press, Oakland, Table 1, p. 7.

References

* Cook, R.M., ''Greek Art'', Penguin, 1986 (reprint of 1972), *Murray, R. L. The Protogeometric Style: the first Greek style (1975). *Eiteljorg, H., "The fast wheel, the multiple brush compass and Athens as home of the Protogeometric style" '' American Journal of Archaeology'' (AJA) 84 (1980) pp. 445–452.

External links

''Greek Art & Archaeology''
(Japanese and English)

University of Texas at Austin 11th century BC in Greece 10th century BC in Greece 11th-century BC works 10th-century BC works Ancient Greek vase-painting styles Mycenaean Greece Iron Age Greek art Greek Dark Ages {{art-hist-stub

Chronology

See also

References

Further reading

External links