The Ancient Greeks: Pots, Power and the Birth of a Civilisation
Emerging from the turmoil of the Bronze Age collapse, ancient Greece would become one of the most influential cultures in history – and ceramics were at the heart of its story.
Stephanie Rozene and Paul Greenhalgh trace the extraordinary rise of Greek pottery, from the bold patterns of the Geometric period to the great workshops of Athens and Corinth and the exquisite black-figure vessels of the Golden Age. Against a backdrop of warring city-states, expanding trade and the looming threat of the Persian Empire, they discover how these pots became vessels for myth, storytelling and everyday life – and an extraordinary record of a civilisation taking shape.
Images featured in this episode:
Terracotta volute-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water), Etruscan, c. 340–300 BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/645157
Terracotta hydria (water jar), Greek, Euboean, mid-6th century BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/255264
Terracotta lekythos (oil flask), Attributed to the Painter of Athens 1943, c. 450–440 BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/253479
Map of Peloponnesian War 431 BC https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_Peloponnesian_War_431_BC-en.svg Map of Athens https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Ancient_Greece.jpg
Proto-geometric pottery, c. 950-800, made at Kerameikos © The Trustees of the British Museum. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Plan of Kerameikos, Athens Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC 4.0)
Kerameikos Photo, Athens Courtesy of Paul Greenhalgh
Terracotta amphora (jar), Signed by Andokides, Attributed to the Andokides Painter, Attributed to the Lysippides Painter, c. 530 BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/255154
Terracotta neck-amphora, Greek, Attic, c. 710 BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/248292
Dipylon Amphora, 760-750 BCE, National Archaeological Museum of Greece, Athens , Courtesy of Paul Greenhalgh
Dipylon krater, Attributed to the Trachones Workshop, c. 725 BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/248905
Hellenistic Amphorae https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amphorae_stacking.jpg
Marble funerary stele, c. 4th century BCE, National Archaeological Museum of Greece, Athens Courtesy of Paul Greenhalgh
Terracotta oinochoe (wine jug), Attributed to the Chigi Group, c. 625 BC https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/255449
Vase, first half of 6th century BC (made) https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O340731/vase-unknown/
Black Figure amphora, Exekias, Greek, c.530-525 BCE, Vatican Museum. https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/museo-gregoriano-etrusco/sala-xix--emiciclo-inferiore--collezione-dei-vasi--ceramica-atti/anfora-attica-a-figure-nere-firmata-da-exekias.html
Terracotta lekythos (oil flask) (2), Attributed to the Amasis Painter, c. 550–530 BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/254843
Terracotta neck-amphora (jar) (2) with lid and knob (27.16), Attributed to Exekias, c. 540 BCE https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/250551
Signature Exekias Louvre https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Signature_Exekias_Louvre_F53.jpg
Death of Penthesileia, by Exekias, c. 550-543 BC, CC 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Exekias_-_ABV_143_1_-_Achilleus_and_Penthesilea_-_Oinopion_and_Dionysos_-_London_BM_1836-0224-127_-_03.jpg
Professor Paul Greenhalgh is a specialist on the art and design of the Modern period. He has written widely on Art Nouveau and curated several exhibitions including the major survey Art Nouveau 1890-1914, which toured internationally (2000-01). His books include Ephemeral Vistas (1988), Modernism in Design (1990), Art Nouveau 1890–1914 (2000), The Modern Ideal (2005), Fair World (2011), L’Art Nouveau: La Revolution Decorative (2013), Ceramic Art and Civilisation (2021) and Pablo Picasso: The Legacy of Youth (2022). He has held positions as Head of Research at the V&A Museum, London; President and Director at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Director of the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich; and Inaugural Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, London. He was born and raised in Bolton, and is a proud Lancastrian.
Stephanie Rozene is a ceramic artist, Professor of Art, and the Ceramics Program Coordinator at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York she has been teaching, writing and making art since 2004. At Hartwick she's been honored with the Wandersee Scholar in Residence award twice, along with the Teacher Scholar Award. Stephanie's research uses historical ornament and porcelain as a visual language to critique contemporary political rhetoric, and she also explores the history of clay as a cooking tool. Her work has been shown extensively both nationally and internationally. She is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and is the Vice President of the board of trustees for the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine, and was educated at NSCAD University in Nova Scotia, Canada and the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
More episodes
More episodes
00.38.30
The Ancient Greeks: From Red Figure to the Rise of Rome
How did Greek pottery shape the art of the Western world?
02:11
Introducing The History of Ceramics
The History of Ceramics brings together British art historian & curator Paul Greenhalgh and U.S. maker and academic Stephanie Rozene as they reveal the most surprising stories from this often-overlooked corner of art history.
39:31
The First Pot
In this episode Paul Greenhalgh and Stephanie Rozene travel back to the earliest civilisations to find out how they created the very first ceramic objects and what that meant to the story of mankind.
