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This article is part of the series on:'History of Greek art'

'Prehistoric Greece'

Cycladic art - Minoan art -Mycenean art - Protogeometric Art -Geometric art

'Art in Ancient Greece'

Archaic Greek art - Classical Greek Art - Hellenistic Art - Greco-Buddhist art -Greek Art in Roman times

'Medieval Greece'

Byzantine art - Macedonian art

'Post-Byzantine Greece'

Art in Ottoman Greece - Cretan School -Heptanese School

'Modern Greece'

Art in modern Greece - Munich SchoolContemporary Greek Art

'Geometric Art' is a phase of Greek art, characterised largely by geometric motives in vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BCE to 800 BCE. Its centre was in Athens, and it was diffused amongst the trading cities of the Aegean^[1].

Contents

Geometric motives

Human depictions

See also

External links

References

Geometric motives

Vases in the Geometric style are characterized by many horizontal bands about the circumference covering the entire vase, between these lines the geometric artist used a number of other decorative motifs such as the zigzag, the triangle, the meander and the swastika. Besides abstract elements painters of this era introduced stylized depictions of humans and animals which marks significant departure from the earlier Protogeometric Art. Many of the surviving objects of this period are funerary objects a particularly important class of which are the amphorae that acted as grave markers for aristocratic graves, principly the Dipylon Amphora by the Dipylon Master^[2].
Linear designs were the principal motif used in this period. The meander pattern was often placed in bands and used to frame the now larger panels of decoration. The areas most used for decoration by potters with shapes such as the amphorae and lekythoi were the neck and belly; which not only offered the greatest liberty for decoration but also emphasised the taller dimensions of the vessels ^[3].

Human depictions

The first human figures appeared around 770 BCE on the handles of vases. The male was depicted with a triangular torso, an ovoid head with a blob for a nose and long cylindrical thighs and calves. Female figures were also abstract. Their long hair was depicted as a series of lines, as were the breasts, which appeared as strokes under the armpit^[4]

See also

★ List of Greek Vase Painters #Geometric Period

★ National Archaeological Museum of Greece

External links

★ Geometric Art in Ancient Greece

References

1. 'Greek Geometric Art' (1973) Bernhard Schweitzer ''The Classical Review'' 23 (2), pp. 249-252
2. , 'Geometric Greece: 900-700 BCE' (2003) John Nicholas Coldstream Routledge, London, UK
3. 'The Dark Age of Greece: An Archeological Survey of the Eleventh to the Eighth Centuries BCE' (2001) Anthony M. Snodgrass Taylor & Francis, New York, USA
4. 'Archaeology As Cultural History: Words and Things in Iron Age Greece' (2001) Ian Morris Blackwell Publishing, London, UK