Vase Painting in Classical Athens

Pottery is the single biggest category of evidence we have from the classical world – there is nothing we have more of. Much of it is fragmentary coarseware, but other vases were decorated. Thousands of vases painted in the black and red figure techniques were made in Athens between the seventh and fourth centuries BC and exported all over the Greek world. In this lecture Dr Gillian Shepherd looks at the basics of Athenian vase painting: shapes, techniques and dating. Vases with scenes of myth and everyday life are invaluable sources for analysing ancient society – for example, the scenes of everyday life give us a picture of Greek activities and what perishables such as furniture and textiles looked like. But can we take these at face value? Or do they potentially offer some more idealised or restricted view of ancient Greek life and society? This examined through two categories of everyday life scene in particular: warfare and women. Copyright 2013 Gillian Shepherd / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

You can listen to Vase Painting in Classical Athens online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Vase Painting in Classical Athens is an episode from Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War by La Trobe University.

This episode is 43:03 long.

This episode was published on May 31, 2013.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.