Good Design Knows no Era

In my last post I centered around the Gestalt theory, where the human mind can organize and make sense of images. I was reminded of ancient art, Greek and Egyptian art in particular, where bodies were often reduced to idealized shapes and elements and portrayed in very geometric, unnatural positions. One example from Greece is the Athenian bilingual amphora seen below:

Athenian bilingual amphora, black-figure side, clay, painted by "The Andokides Painter," c. 525 B.C. (Antikenmuseum, Munich)

Similar to Egyptian art, the eyes are shown frontally yet are on faces in profile. The Hermes figure on the far left also has odd posture; his feet are perpendicular to the picture plane while his torso is parallel to it, something that cannot be achieved in real life but is acceptable in this medium. Somehow our mind equates these discrepancies into a figure that somehow makes sense. When we look at that figure of Hermes, we see nothing wrong with him. The couch the middle figure is reclining on has been abstracted to two legs, but viewers assume that those legs either extend back into the picture plane or have a matching set directly behind them. The stability is unseen, but it’s assumed, because that’s what makes sense to what we know.

Ancient Greeks had great mastery of the visual arts. The main subject, the reclining figure in the center, is clearly make the focus point because he is larger than everyone else. He occupies the center of the frame dictated by the handles of the amphora. Likewise, the servant on the far right is smallest because he is of least importance. The repetition of the floral pattern above and on the handles draws the eye upward and keeps the scene from being too heavy on the bottom. The characters on the right, the gods, though larger than the servant on the right, are balanced because the right is made heavier with the standing pot and grapevines. The two sides are asymmetrical yet equal. Perfectly balanced yet lacking the unyeilding symmetry which Greek architecture was so known for.

The Greeks developed many things which later generations used, most notably their architecture. Hopefully, however, this post showed that their other forms of expression, here, pottery, were looser than their famous building style, and that their contributions to western art far exceed what many give them credit for. This amphora displays a clear focus, balance and repetition, and even tells a story. The subjects and composition set standards which society today still emulates.