Ancient Greek Vases

With the renewed interest in do-it-yourself crafts that can be easily made it home, ancient Greek pottery has undergone a renaissance. Ancient Greek vases were, for many years, relegated to the dusty back rooms of museums. They were appreciated by professionals, but by few other people. Mostly, folks saw them as a historical curiosity. Nowadays, however, more and more people are seeing the wisdom of combining decorative and aesthetic function. The ancient Greeks knew this, but modern man forgot it for a while. The modernist aesthetic has always had an emphasis on stripped-down, functional forms. To get past this sometimes bland and dull way of decorating, it makes sense to turn to ancient arts.

Most people have seen pictures of ancient Greek vases before, but few have actually stopped to study them up close. In many ways, Greek ancient vases are not much different from the art of many other old societies. Rather than simply being made to contain water, grain, or whatever else, they also serve a narrative function. They would contain pictures of battles, fantastic retellings of mythology, or other similar motifs. The artwork would be regular and formulaic, but it also would have an elegant style and an exquisite attention to detail. As a decorative touch, it would add music and color to the day-to-day lives of ordinary people in an age before the invention of television and radio.

Most of the people who are interested in ancient Greek vases today are not interested in them so much for scholarly reasons, but rather for decorative ones. There are many different ways to incorporate ancient Greek art into your daily life. A lot of people like to buy a replica ancient Greek vases to adorn their households. You can find ones that are reasonably priced, and reasonably durable. Even better, you can make your own reproduction. There is no need to try to make an ancient Greek vase in an authentic style either. The important thing about ancient art and culture is what we can take from it in the present. If you can find a way to get decorative ideas from ancient artworks and make them your own, more power to you. All you have to do is learn a few basic things about clay working And painting, and you can begin to make your own decorative pots. You can even print pictures out off of the Internet and trace them on by making stencils.