Customer Reviews

The History of Greek Vases

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Its a very good book, well documented. The only issue that is was important to improve, is to change at least some photos from Black and White to Color. Art documentation demands many times to see directly the pieces colors

Boardman presents an excellent overview of current thinking on the development and significance of ancient Greek pottery. While the black and white photography seems to have bothered other reviewers, in a work of this kind the quantity and quality (= resolution) of the illustrations is more important than the color. Greek black- and red-figure vase painting is primarily the art of line drawing. With the exception of vases executed with special techniques such as added red or white (for which readers are directed to the excellent book The Colors of Clay: Special Techniques in Athenian Vases), including full color illustrations would have meant little more than changing the pictures from black-and-white to black-and-orange.

Readers can rest assured that Boardman's reputation as a leader in the field is well-deserved. If you are looking for a good, up-to-date introduction to the scholarship of Greek vase painting, this is the book to buy.

Though this adds to a field which has been dealt with before, the book presnts a fresh and insightful viewpoint. It will be valuable to all students of Greek history and chronolgy, and modern "pot throwers" everywhere.

This book is a nicely done scholarly work by Sir Boardman. It discusses the chronological development of the painting designs on Greek pottery with many examples pictured from each of the several delineated earliest time periods. There are numerous photographs (over 500) of various pottery items from museums around the world. They show the evolution from simple concentric circular and zigzag designs to very simplistic animal and human shapes to more realistic detail of humans and animals. The photographs show fine details, but are in black and white. The main emphasis in the book is on the painted designs and their time evolution. Thus, I did not find the lack of color in the photos that disturbing. The book is about far more than just vases and includes many plates, bowls, tankards, jugs, etc. I am not a student of Greek history or art, but found the book to be very readable and was interested in the history and many of the examples shown. Many years ago while touring in Greece I bought a copy of an early Greek lidded bowl, which I have always admired, and thus became interested in learning more about it. This book was definitely helpful.

I wish I had known this book had all the pictures in black and white. What would you say of a book on the old masters of painting in black and white? Do I need to say more? or color doesn't matter in greek vases? I read a few pages and closed the book.... for ever!

The reviews of _Greek Vases_ on Amazon complain justifiably of the lack of
color photographs, which are understandably needed for aesthetic
evaluation, a critique also made of the more recent and better balanced
book _Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty_ by Andrew Lear and Eva
Cantarella, which also neglected to discuss metal ware. The Amazon
reviewers to date of _Greek Vases_ miss the main point, however, that
despite the title, Boardman, the doyan of Greek vaaase studies now over
80, discussed only ceramics, which were actually upstaged after 480 B.C.
by silverware at symposia as I have shown, though his arch critic Vickers,
the curator of antiquities at the Ashmolean, who Boardman is said to have
treated shabbily, falsely asserted that the Greek elite had always used
precious metals at symposia. Carried away by his homosexual mentor, Sir.
John Beazley, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, Boardman, now also
Sir John, equates the vase painters with Michaelagelo and Raphael,
although not a single one of them is ever even mentioned in any surviving
Greek or Latin document. Furthermore, against all evidence, he asserts
that these "pots," as Vickers dubs them, constituted an important economic
export for Athens, helping to balance the payments for Athenian imports in
spite of Vickers' proof that they cost very little indeed.