Talk:Pottery of ancient Greece

BC versus BCE

Can people please refrain from changing the usage of BCE versus BC in this article without discussing or explaining why they do so? Wikipedia policy (see here) demands that articles be internally consistent, but does not favour one convention over the other. It explicitly states that "it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is a substantive reason".

This article (Pottery of ancient Greece) was started using BC. It is the descendant of one parent article, "Greek Art", now moved to Art in ancient Greece, which used BC. Incidentally, BC is also used in the overwhelming majority of literature on the topic. On those grounds, it should continue to use BC.

So, either leave it as it is, or give a good reason why a change is useful or necessary and await the discussion, or spend your wiki time doing something constructive. Thanks. athinaios (talk) 13:33, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hear, hear. I don't think it is quite that bad. People work on these things piecemeal, so they are careless about which method is appropriate.Botteville (talk) 00:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

maps and dates

this page shoulld have something about where the pottery was from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.23.185.250 (talk) 03:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

vase like thing

Great opening sentence there guys! Bitbut (talk) 04:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Clay is not hardy at all..."bulks large"?? This needs a major rewrite. Lithoderm (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

What's stopping you?Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 22:50, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

in one paragraphe the first stage in the kiln is the low temperature one.

three paragraphs afterwards the first stage is the high one as shown by the inverted comas

it doesn't seem to be coherent

Greek pottery, unlike today's pottery, was only fired once, but that firing had three stages. After the pottery is stacked inside the kiln our potter can start the first stage. He heats the kiln up to around 800°C with all the vents on the sides open to let air in. This turns the pottery and the paint red all over. Once the kiln reaches 800°C the vents are closed and the temperature is raised to 950°C and then allowed to drop back to 900°C. This turns the pottery and the paint all black. The potter then starts the third and final phase by opening the vents and allowing the kiln to cool all the way down. This last phase leaves the slip black but turns the pottery back to red. This happens because when the clay is given air it turns red, but when the black slip is heated to 950°C it no longer allows air in. So the slipped area stays black while the bare areas stay red.

.

The black color effect was achieved by means of changing the amount of oxygen present during firing. This was done in a single cycle, in a process known as three-phase firing. First, the kiln was heated to around 920-950°C, with all vents open bringing oxygen into the firing chamber and turning both pot and slip a reddish-brown (oxidising conditions) due to the formation of hematite (Fe2O3) in both the paint and the clay body. Then the vent was closed and green wood introduced, creating carbon monoxide which turns the red hematite to black magnetite(Fe3O4); at this stage the temperature decreases due to incomplete combustion. In a final reoxidizing phase (at about 800-850 °C) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Giasone595 (talk • contribs) 16:04, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

How about a list of the famous vases?

I know there's already an article on the list of vase painters, it is long one and of interest to professional specialists. However, what I would find highly interesting, and useful to most of us just interested in this fascinating subject, is a list of those world-famous vases which have made an impact on the scholarship, the art aesthetes, and the collectors.

When you read the literature, mention is made time and again of the "famous" vase painted by so-and-so, the Chigi vase, the Niobid Krater, etc...There could be, not a separate article (unless somebody is brave enough to tackle it, and it could be envisioned), but a list, say of the 10, 20, 50 most famous and important vases, as defined by the experts, with a short one or two lines explanation of the renown. I am pretty sure that readers of this article would welcome such an addition. --ROO BOOKAROO (talk) 06:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

That would be fine as a stand-alone article, but I think it would quickly make this one too long. Ecphora (talk) 14:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

There are several articles on individual vases. See Category:Individual ancient Greek vases, but some may not be categorized. These should be linked to in the list. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

If you're looking for a job to do, there's a long overdue article to be written on the Pronomos vase - perhaps the only Greek vase with a whole symposium devoted to it. I thought of doing it myself, but I suspect I won't now. "World-famous vases" sounds a bit too vague to be an article unto itself, but there are plenty of articles still to be written on individual vases, like the Wurzburg Telephus vase or the Boston Hesione vase. Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 15:19, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, for starters, in this line of inquiry, I could mention one list of 45 "key vases" established by the Beazley Archive at Oxford Un. This is the list I have been using for my own education in this field. It is called "Greek vases 800-300 BC: key pieces" (and there are exactly 45 of them), and is found at Greek vases 800-300 BC: key pieces . Now, Pronomos is listed, but not the Wurzburg Telephus, nor the Boston Hesione are in that list. Again, this Beazley list is strictly scholarly, for the narrow educational purposes of undergraduates. Probably all the names in that list are rightly famous, but the list does not include all the famous vases of the period.

All the important vases, say for the period later than 300 BC, are not included in that list either, because of the limitations of the period selected, 800 - 300 BC. Later vases were not all imitations of the previous styles, and some may have contributed significant addition to styles and techniques (the Portland vase?). In addition, quite a few, from the basic period of 800 - 300 BC, plus of the additional period beyond 300 BC must have gained notoriety among professionals in the field beyond academics, for their exceptional aesthetic qualities, or extraordinary provenance or novelty of some sort, and that includes the real world of dealers and collectors, whose interests transcend pure academic criteria. Those extra "famous" vases should be included.

So we can envision a primary scholarly list of about 50 vases, plus perhaps another 50 which have gained world-class renown for other historical reasons, but that are as valid and meaningful to our cultural world as the educational list of primary models of the genre selected by Beazley.

There's also a gigantic list of the Perseus "Art & Archaeology Artifact Browser", Perseus list of collections of ancient Greek vases. It lists 127 collections, presumably the most significant in the world today, and using it to select legitimate targets for our list of "famous vases" requires a good knowledge of the field.
The Perseus catalogue shows links to each of the collections with detailed descriptions cum thumbnails of the vases, including Berlin (63), Chicago Art Institute (only 9?), Cleveland (54), British Museum (165), J.P. Getty (120), Munich (112), Fine Arts Boston (301), the largest in the world, Met (only 10?), Louvre (110), Toledo (49), Penn. Un. (87). The same email sent to the directors of these collections would immediately spotlight the "famous" vases.

The Beazley list of 45 is a very good start, and it will keep me busy while waiting for a more complete list of, say, the top 100.

I think this idea is meaningful, but requires good editors who already are pretty knowledgeable about the history of Greek vase painting, and about the resources available to compile a fuller list. Contacting by email four or five top world experts and scholars, in addition to top museum collections directors, would pretty quickly provide the material to compile an excellent list considered as reliable and reputable for the whole field--ROO BOOKAROO (talk) 05:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC).

Yes, but the problem is "top 100 famous vases" will never be a well defined category, Prof. X's favourite vases even less so. What you should ask is does it add to the reader's understanding of the subject: does it contextualise the objects in question, would a list tell you enough to make further research? I'm sorry but I think we'd be better served with a series of articles summarising the current knowledge on those individual vases - a much harder task, but more worthwhile.Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 06:30, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I don't see a problem with a list if the criteria for inclusion can be defined better—numerically is not a good idea for the reason above. We have things like list of Roman amphitheatres that also serve as a kind of index (see WP:SAL#General formatting), and I find those kinds of lists very useful. On the amphitheaters list, a few are red links—a legitimate use of red links to encourage article creation on missing topics. I personally would find a list of notable Greek vases very helpful, as I'm often looking to see whether we have an article on a particular vase. But it shouldn't be limited by an arbitrary number, or by non-criteria such as "famous". Each vase on the list should be notable, in the usual WP sense.

If I were putting such a list together, I would set it up as a table, with columns providing key information such as date, style/technique, typological shape, painter if known, ancient provenance (Attic, Corinthian, etc.), and what museum currently holds it. A column for image thumbnails would also be nice. Or the first column could contain both an image and the vase's conventional name. In the header to the first column, I'd have a footnote specifying "unless otherwise noted, vases on this list are included in the [choose the most authoritative and capacious source list, such as the Beazley/Oxford one]." Then in adding named vases not on that list, the individual item would be footnoted with an indication of its notability (such as its inclusion on other lists). Alternatively, each individual vase could have its own footnote documenting what lists of major vases it appears on, establishing individual notability. I think it's a good idea to control the size of the list by including only vases that are notable enough to potentially have their own article. Another thought: a sortable table might work, but I would find an alphabetical list pretty useless: chronological seems more informative to me. Or you might create separate tables for red-figure, black-figure, etc. Just some suggestions. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:33, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

The quantity of the literature is such that vast numbers of individual vases qualify as notable for WP, though we currently only seem to have 15 articles on specific examples, as collected at Category:Individual ancient Greek vases. Johnbod (talk) 14:46, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I hate to rehash the same points, but I am trying to be as clear as can be.

First, I certainly agree that an alphabetical list cannot be very serviceable. Chronology is the reality of vase production evolution. Any search application can immediately find any name in a given list.

Second, of course it makes no doubt that increasing knowledge and scholarship, and increasing articles on important vases is paramount. And the Beazley Archive Research Center at Oxford does a pretty good job by top experts. Still, it has not stopped them from selecting 45 vases for a fundamental list of "key pieces". And I think this idea is valid.
Of course any number is arbitrary. Beazley is so well aware of this that they prudently called its list "key pieces". It happens to be 45 for the period in question, 800 - 300 BC, but it could have been any other number. I mentioned 50 as a kind of ballpark figure, or 100 because it still is a manageable order of magnitude, arbitrarily adopted by many makers of famous lists. But those numbers have no objective value whatsoever and can be completely ignored.

In addition, it seems pretty obvious that the vases selected for the Beazley choice of "key pieces" are all exceptional, and at least in the scholarly world they must be all famous. But there must be many more even for that basic period of 800 - 300 BC, and, further, many more for the next period later than 300 BC . So those editors who have objected that such a list would be too large for this article must be right. It should become a separate, sub-article. A huge undertaking, no doubt, and only for editors who know their stuff, and whom to send their inquiring emails to.

For, to be clear, this notion of "fame" does not include only published evaluations by scholars and academics, found in the literature, but also those from the practical world of the market, dealers and private collectors. This notion of "fame" has social and historical connotations and dimensions, not just knowledge and erudition.
Even if elusive, the dimension of "fame" has its value, even if it cannot be accurately measured and objectively agreed upon. Although many professional pollsters or the Pew Research people might disagree, and believe that a good approximation of "famous" objects or vases can be reached.

After all, the Greeks themselves showed us the way. They had their lists of famous things and people in practically all fields: their top gods, the 7 wonders of the world, their top temples and sanctuaries, their top schools of philosophy, their top athletes, their most famous poets and playwrights, with competitions going on all the time in every activity. They were always busy evaluating everything, establishing lists of the best in any area of life: sports, arts, literature, plays, etc...

Nobody will ever agree 100% on any definitive list of famous Greek vases, but it would certainly be a valid effort. And it is not a matter of "we'd be better served with a series of articles summarising the current knowledge on those individual vases - a much harder task, but more worthwhile." Who is "we" here?
This is an illusory choice. It is not a case of one or the other.
The series of individual articles is well started and extremely valuable, and it will continue. But it does not prevent putting together an auxilliary article on the side focusing on the social/historical aspects of celebrity attached to certain vases.

After all, like the Greeks, we are interested in conferring celebrity in all fields, not just sports or Hollywood stars, or pop singers. Wikipedia itself is full of articles focusing on celebrities and famous people and objects, and on lists of the best too.
Each year the members of the Nobel Foundation committee spend their time scratching their heads to determine who are the best choices for all their prizes. And their choices are far from being universally accepted as absolute measures of importance. So there's no need to fear a certain element of subjectivity in selecting a choice of famous vases, it cannot be eliminated, and it is not a serious deterrent. The key is to have a team of expert connoisseurs to plant the first seeds.

The Beazley team has an amusing phrase for their list: "top of the pots". Very amusing and pertinent. However, when it comes to presenting the first item in their list, the Dipylon vase, they've chosen a neck amphora from Athens, without giving any explanation for their choice, say over the krater at the Met in New York. Because that's a category rather than a single piece.

Anyway this line of musing may interest me more than it does your team of editors, but I remain convinced that somebody some day will extend the Beazley list to a longer period, say later than 300 BC. And if there's indecision between two or three comparables (which one is the most famous bilingual amphora by Andokides?), the list may present a couple of alternatives, or even a limited sublist of 1st, 2d, 3d when the comparison is too close to call.

The ancient Greeks had the same problem in picking a winner among equally superior contestants, both in theater competitions, or in sports, for instance the pentathlon. They invented the solution of the extra test, for instance wrestling for the pentathlon athletes. Dealers and collectors of vases add, when everything else seems equal, considerations of quality of preservation or repairs. Museums do the same when they consider selling off extra inventory.--ROO BOOKAROO (talk) 05:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC) (signature and date added one day later than posting).

I don't follow Roo's reasoning, though I see no grounds for objecting to the creation of a standalone list, based on the criteria at WP:SAL. On the other hand, I would not enjoy looking at a list article in which the majority of links were red, even though a stated purpose of red links at WP:RED is to encourage article creation. I noticed how few articles we have when I pointed out the category above (if all the articles we have are categorized). But according to WP:SAL, the potential size of the list isn't grounds for not creating one, if effective criteria for inclusion are established, particularly if Roo starts the article based on the Oxford list. I would hope editors wouldn't add vases willy-nilly without creating articles, but I've seen few mechanisms for preventing self-indulgent behavior of that kind. For good or ill, some of the longest articles on Wikipedia are lists. A couple of very long lists that I'm aware of are List of Greek mythological figures and List of Roman consuls. The first is well-trafficked, and the second is certainly useful and legitimate, with each consul considered inherently notable per WP:POLITICIAN (one fine editor in particular chips away steadily at generating articles on these figures). So again, I don't see any grounds for objecting to the proposed list as a separate article in the form of a standalone list, but would prefer that each vase be demonstrably notable in its own right. However, Roo, you cannot limit the list by number, and if you don't see why, I must express my doubt that you haven't fully read and understood the criteria for creating a standalone list. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree the list should be open. In terms of utility, a list of redlinks is pretty useless, but we do have lots of photos on Commons. Links to the many individual web pages that museums and other websites also have can be very useful, whether or not there are WP articles. These are probably not going to be created at a vast rate. Are there very notable pottery vases as late as 400AD? I think not. We have Category:Hellenistic and Roman sculptural vases and Cup of the Ptolemies, with a few more like the latter that could be added, but they are rather different beasts, in stone of different kinds. Johnbod (talk) 15:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Johnbod's view of scope and suggestions on how to construct the content. A thumbnail could be labeled with the name (or variants) in the first column; in addition to columns providing some basic information (I made suggestions above), a link could be provided to the museum's object page. If a vase had no article, then I suppose it would be an aesthetic choice as to whether to red-link it or just leave it black until a bluelink can be provided. (A great number of red links make an article look unfinished to me, but that's a personal response.) What should such a SAL be named? List of named Greek vases? "Named" implies notability. The name should be found in multiple sources (though there might be variations), and not be an ad-hoc tag a scholar comes up with to distinguish a vase among others she's discussing. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Why not write the relevant articles first, then worry about collating them in a list? That at least would have the virtue of creating some actual encyclopedic content which might, who knows, tell the reader something about Greek Vases he couldn't glean from the Beazley site. Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 16:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

You seem to have commented without reading the suggestions. Vase typology, provenance, style, and date are encyclopedic pieces of information that Wikipedia could provide, in many cases along with an image, in a tabular list without sending readers to an external site, and before a fuller article is created. A list would also serve as an index to articles that do exist, and give interested editors ideas for creating new articles on notable vases that we currently lack. Some editors enjoy compiling lists, indices, and nav bars more than writing articles, and as far as I know, there are no rules against choosing to participate in that way. If Roo wants to spend time doing this, as long as the list conforms to the SAL guidelines, what grounds do you have for trying to prevent it? I don't understand what's to gain from having no information at all about notable vases. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm preventing it? I should have such imperium. I'm just saying the point of an encyclopedia is to inform the reader, and a list without context or content doesn't. Why not spend your energies on writing articles instead? Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 17:19, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Let me clarify. You seem to oppose the creation of a SAL of named Greek vases, but you don't seem to be giving reasons based on the criteria at WP:SAL. No one is proposing a list without content: in addition to a thumbnail of the vase with its name(s), the table should include encyclopedic information such as date, painter, provenance, style, vase shape typology, and the museum that holds it. How is that a list "without context or content"? Pottery of ancient Greece is the context, and SALs are often separate from the main article. Roo seems to want a chronological presentation, which is itself informative in illustrating periodization or stylistic trends. Roo doesn't need to justify why he or she would want to do this instead of creating separate articles. We're volunteers who spend our time as we choose, as long as our activities aren't unconstructive. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:25, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

To quote a great sage "I would not enjoy looking at a list article in which the majority of links were red", me neither. Making lists of articles that don't yet exist is a misdirection of the energy of editors, that's all I was asserting. Twospoonfuls (ειπέ) 17:41, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Cynwolfe is utterly correct: "I must express my doubt that you haven't fully read and understood the criteria for creating a standalone list." I have not read it yet, but probably will.
Of course, using the word "famous" may pose a problem in Wikipedia computer parlance. Definition of "famous" cannot be done by following Manual Of Style regulations. You have to appeal to professional measurers of fame, such as Pew Research, major pollsters, established experts in the field such as Beazley, Eisenberg, Boardman, etc., the directors of top museum collections such as the British Museum, Ashmolean, Metropolitan, Louvre, MFA in Boston, JP Getty, Munich, Berlin, Athens, Vatican, etc.., and major art dealers. A Wikipedia editor can only be a compiler of external, objective authorities.
Passive reading seems to be the norm of many Wikipedia articles, but a higher level of research can be achieved with active questioning of external sources, by soliciting comments and opinions of established experts. This is perfectly feasible with email questioning. But is this new, modern method allowed and recognized by the Wikipedia bible of "Manual of Style" and other rules? Cynwolfe must know the answer. I now prefer using my time reading about Greek vases than endless Wikipedia regulations, and let Cynwolfe be an expert on that question.
So "famous", which unfailingly creeps up in all the literature on Greek vases I have read, may pose a problem. Dealers, auctioneers, and some museum catalogs prefer using the word "Important". Beazley finesses the dilemma by calling its list "Key Pieces". "Key" may not be emphatic enough for the American public. "Named" may be too meek and losing the intention of such a list. "Notorious" is more in tune with the language of "notoriety" that Wikipedia editors seem to understand.
Such a list will never satisfy everybody. In a field of such exquisite vases, passion and enthusiasm will always be present. The word "Selection" is a valuable one, as it does reflect the necessary subjectivity underlying an objective but partial list of favorites.
Contrary to what some commenters have suggested, I don't feel to be the right one to start such a list. I am still a learner, an avid one, but not an experienced "amateur" in the old 18th-century meaning of "passionately knowledgeable collector" who knows the full scope of the field and its traps. Some editor with a solid knowledge of the vast universe of ancient Greek vases has to start that article, if it is of any interest.
I would never start an article for which I am not a learned and experienced connoisseur. The best I could do is offering suggestions for corrections and occasional editing to an existing article, but not providing its initial form. Some far better editor than me has to kick off this article. --ROO BOOKAROO (talk) 06:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Roo, a connoisseur is exactly what you should not be in order to compile such a list. You're right that "famous" is not a criterion for a SAL. This is related to why Johnbod and I cautioned you not to create a list limited by number, like "top 100." That's not what a WP list is. Any editor is competent to create a list article, provided that the list is based on something, and contains encyclopedic information. Suggestions as to what might constitute "encyclopedic" information appear above. I would further suggest that you not waste any more time musing on the creation of a list until you read WP:SAL, because you're only muddying the waters. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

picture on left of article has possibly unwanted parenthetical?

"The so-called "Memnon pieta", Ancient Greek Attic red-figure cup, ca. 490–480 BC, from Capua. Inscriptions on the left: (ΕΕΝΕΜΕΚΝΕRΙΚΕ (this inscription doesn't make sense), HERMOΓΕΝΕS KALOS ("Hermogenes kalos" - "Hermogenes is fair"). Inscriptions on the right: HEOS ("Eos"), ΔΟRIS EΓRAΦSEN ("Doris Egraphsen" - Do(u)ris painted). Inscription on the right: MEMNON ("Memnon"), KALIAΔES EΠOIESEN ("Kaliades epoiesen" - Kaliades made). Musée du Louvre, G 155." I mean "(this inscription doesn't make sense)"199.33.32.40 (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Tidied to "meaning unclear" etc. "Kalos" to "beautiful" though "pretty" might be better? Johnbod (talk) 15:26, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Unhappy with gutting of this article

Most of the former content of this article has been moved to a new Ancient Greek vase painting (that used to redirect here). I must say I'm failing to see any encyclopedic benefit here, and many losses. The old article had hardly a sentence on unpainted Greek pottery, which apart from utilitarian amphorae etc is an obscure subject, if highly useful for archaeology. The bits now left here, like "Rediscovery and scholarship" are just as much about "vase painting" as those taken away. The new article now has these as big gaps, and here they are oddly stranded. No attempt has been made to fill in for the material removed - the section "Development of vase painting" now consists in its entirety of "Main article: Ancient Greek vase painting" followed by a sentence from the old lead: "The most familiar aspect of ancient Greek pottery is painted vessels of fine quality. There were also many types of unpainted pottery for everyday and kitchen use." I very much doubt that anything has been done to adjust the hundreds of links that "should" now go to the new article - the only links to there seem to come from templates.

There might be a case for renaming our article on Greek pottery as "Ancient Greek vase painting", though I think the many redirects (again not updated) worked fine. I can see no case for splitting it pretty randomly. I suggest we return to the old situation. This article gets about 400 views per day, and such drastic action should have been raised here first. Incidentally, the new article, despite ongoing editing by the splitter, only seems to be getting 50 views a day, so there is a drastic drop in getting readers to a page with this information.

Thoughts from others? Johnbod (talk) 14:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the creation of a new and separate article is fine, so long as it is properly summarized here. One sentence and a main article link is not a proper summary. The section in this article should mention the split article's major stages: protogeometric, geometric, Orientalizing style, black figure, red figure, white ground, plastic vases, and Hellenistic, with links to each of these subjects. Whereas each of these have an entire sub-section devoted to them in Ancient Greek vase painting, in this article here they can have approximately a sentence or two to achieve the same thing. Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:14, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

But since there is really nothing here not covered by "vase painting", what is then the point of having this article, which gets all the views? There is only anything left because he has only moved some of the stuff relating to vase painting, not all of it. Other parts (eg manufacture) are just duplicated. Can you explain what the benefit of the split is, either for the apparently small number of people seeing the new article, or the x10 larger number of people who don't see it? There was no issue with article size. In general only very small %s of people follow links to sub-articles. Johnbod (talk) 16:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Generally speaking, Wikipedia promotes the splitting of articles, ideally for each section if necessary and if it becomes too unwieldy and large. I think you are right that this entire article itself is not too large or hard to navigate at all, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be separate articles for these subjects, regardless of how many people view this or other articles. That being said, as you can probably now see with my latest edits, I have been attempting to summarize here what has been found in the material moved to the new article. I think that is an ideal solution. Feel free to beef it up even more, since I've only added a paragraph thus far (I'll be citing the Oxford Companion to Archaeology, yet with a few more sources, the section could become roughly half as large as the split article and still warrant the additional article for further information). Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:27, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but I've thought about this for a few days, & I'm clear in my mind that the split brings no benefits at all. The "ideal solution" is what the community had worked out before. It's not true that "Generally speaking, Wikipedia promotes the splitting of articles, ideally for each section if necessary" in the absence of size issues. You talk about "these subjects" but, apart from terracottas, which get only one line here, there is only one subject. It's really a title move by stealth. I think we should see what others have to say, but I'd suggest not devoting much more time to what I hope will be un-needed summarizing. Johnbod (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Hm....The sections on vase type/function, manufacture, inscriptions, and modern scholarship don't exactly strike me as being one and the same with the styles of Greek vase painting that developed from the Greek Dark Age to the Hellenistic period. Have you sought out User:MisterCake for this discussion? Since he is the one that split the article. Who were the other editors involved here? I've only recently taken an interest in this article, so I'm unaware of anyone else by user name. Pericles of Athens^Talk 16:59, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

All that stuff is about painted vases - in fact he copied the inscriptions section over. It seems a very bad idea, and very old-fashioned, to strip out a pure history of style from the wider aspects of the subject, not that that is exactly what he's done. Johnbod (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Johnbod: if you're going to move most of that material back into this article, that's fine, but I still think it warrants its own article, which can even be expanded to elaborate on the points already made. Also, please retain the information I've just cited from Oakley (2012), since his source is rather useful for covering the basics (with a few details that aren't mentioned at all in the Ancient Greek vase painting article as it stands now). Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:09, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I want to see what others think. There should be people along I think. Happy to keep useful additions of course. I've assumed User:MisterCake sees this on his watchlist, as other exchanges have suggested. Johnbod (talk) 20:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Quite aware when I did it it might be reverted. Certainly no hard feelings if it must do, and I understand the most striking feature of the pottery is the vase painting, but it seems odd to direct one interested in the pottery to the paintings and from there maybe to typology. It seems to me to warrant a splitting off into its own article in the same way an amphora does from the typology article, as Pericles mentioned with splitting of articles. The two biggest problems I see are: 1) The three-phase firing might be considered the art of the potter, though is significant to the painting of vases and 2) For lack of panel and wall paintings, the vase paintings are just as much synonymous with ancient Greek painting as they are with ancient Greek pottery. Seems to me a project in future to make the pottery article more about pottery as such - for I don't know much and it was just a vase painting article in the pottery section if you will. Cake (talk) 22:04, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

This isn't pursuading me. The longest section now left in the article is "Rediscovery and scholarship". How is this about pottery rather than painting? There really is next to nothing in the article about non-painted pottery; putting ampohrae in the lead pic doesn't change this. I don't follow the end of yr 2nd sentence. We shouldn't be masking drastic changes to highly-viewed articles in case somebody does a project in the future - which seems unlikely. Johnbod (talk) 05:09, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The rediscovery and scholarship bit indeed seems about both pottery and vase painting, so I have left it and thought it should possibly be moved or copied. I wouldn't think for an article to be about pottery-as-such it would have to be about "unpainted pottery". Talking about the differences between a kylix and a kantharos, say, would hardly be about painting, or imply they were unpainted. To me, it seems like saying an article on Greek sculptors rather than painters should only be about works with no paint residue left. I don't see why one interested in vase painting should be directed to pottery anymore than to wall painting. What else is a problem aside from scholars like Furtwaengler or Beazley concerning himself with both pottery and painting (in the former's case, add sculpture too)? Works could be inscribed by either and in different ways. Figurines could of course be painted but it's not like figurine painting is our best example of painting left (as it is with vase painting) and seem to be included in pottery not because of a similarity to vase painting but because they were made of clay. Levigation and so forth is an important part of pottery, not of vase painting. Then again, three-phase firing had much to do with the color, and so that part was copied, though it could probably be trimmed down. No doubt, an article on pottery should also contain talk of unpainted pottery, in silver and etc. Cake (talk) 10:59, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

In brief, I think vase painting should be separated from pottery as wall paintings would be from mosaic (if the inscriptions be any guide, see: Stag Hunt Mosaic) if either were to be expanded enough. There was plenty on vase painting for a separate article, so I did it. Cake (talk) 11:54, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

But apparently people don't need to know anything about the "Rediscovery and scholarship" re vase-painting? And it doesn't matter that only 10% of readers will see the page with the most important aspects of the whole subject of Greek pottery? I think the positions of thpose commenting so far are unlikely to change, & we should wait to see what others think. Johnbod (talk) 12:20, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I said perhaps that section could be copied too. Beazley certainly, say. Turns out I already did that in the background section. As long as pottery links to vase painting (or even has a whole section, like now) I don't much get the complaint of page views. We could move it to pottery in general or something and get more views. Either way I tend to defer to other editors on stuff like this, though. Cake (talk) 13:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

At 48,299 bytes, the pre-split article was far from unwieldy. Its fuller overview of the subject and proper emphasis on the painted decoration seems to better serve the reader. Ewulp (talk) 05:31, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think unwieldy, but easily large enough to split. If vase painting is pottery, then one might as well direct "painting of ancient greece" here too rather than have an article about mosaics or panel and wall painting proper. Cake (talk) 05:46, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

"Painting of ancient Greece" doesn't redirect anywhere, and if it did it shouldn't redirect to mosaic because a mosaic is not a painting; but a painted piece of pottery is pottery. How does this split benefit the reader? Ewulp (talk) 01:21, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Vase paintings and mosaics are virtually the only paintings we have. A painted piece of pottery is painted. We know a lot more of the Berlin Painter than we do Apelles. The same words distinguish potters and painters from mosaicists and painters! It helps the reader by not having a pottery article constantly qualify that it isn't really about pottery. Hardly different than "mosaics of ancient Greece" being about Apelles, or "paintings of Ancient Greece" talking about slaves setting mosaics and vases. Cake (talk) 06:54, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

As Ewulp said, a mosaic is not a painting (it is an arranged collection of tiny embedded pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials). You're also forgetting that we have some Greek tomb frescos that still exist, in both Italy and Greece proper (perhaps elsewhere too where I'm just not remembering them). That being said, I do think the genre of vase painting deserves its own article. Yet I think all or at least most the material that was originally removed should be added back here, and the original points that were made should be highly elaborated in the split article, which should be fleshed out and much larger than it currently stands. I can help with that, since there are a number of sources available on Google books that seem useful (this topic has fortunately been given a great amount of attention in academia, generally speaking). Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:12, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I've been trying to find my Robin Osborne book. Believe it or not, I do know what a mosaic is. We have zero paintings from Apelles aside from maybe a mosaic. I created the Stag Hunt Mosaic article which I think shows the parallels pretty clearly, i .e. even the language suggests mosaic:wall painting::pot:vase painting though I grant just "ancient greek walls" would be the more literal analogy. The point is the difference in both cases of who to credit for the image rather than the medium. Just look at the navbox for vase painters - few of those were also potters. I can think of three preserved Greek wall paintings (one at Thermon, Tomb of the Diver, Hades and Persephone at Vergina) and no panel paintings. I really think making a pottery article cover all of vase painting would be as odd as Greek sculpture only being about painted sculpture, and pottery has no right to lay claim on vase painting any more than painting. Sure, if you study ancient Greek pottery, you study vase painting - but the same applies to studying ancient Greek painting. Cake (talk) 07:30, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Whether you can find your personal copy of Osborne's book or not, there are still other tomes by various authors available on Google Books that, from what I've seen, could be very useful. As for Greek paintings, are you and I looking at the same article for Hellenistic art? Particularly the painting section, where it shows late 4th-century BC frescos from Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki and two others (2nd century BC) showing chainmail-armored soldiers from the Makedonian and Ptolemaic kingdoms? Or are you restricting this definition of "Greek wall paintings" only to the earlier Classical and Archaic periods? That would be odd...why not include the Hellenistic period in that assessment? In either case, I'm in agreement with you that vase painting deserves its own article, yet we can restore much of the material of the article into this one, because there's really no reason to have such a small section on vase painting when most readers are going to expect to find a great deal of information on that in this article (which at the moment is rather small). Pericles of Athens^Talk 09:37, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I trust there are. Osborne was good for how even in Italy the vase painting styles were Attic. Not sure how I managed to rule out those from the Hellenistic article you added. I guess Hades is such a striking discovery that I forget any from a later date. Lots of color, and the banquet scene is nice for the instruments. Is there anything other than at Thermon on the Greek mainland, rather than in Magna Graecia or Macedonia? More importantly, I would be curious about your vision on how to separate vase painting and pottery. Guess we talk about foreshortening in the Niobid Painter or the Revelers Vase in the vase painting article? Cheers Cake (talk) 12:38, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Can we stay on-topic in this section? I don't believe that paintings on vases can be separated from their "support" in the way that oil paintings and canvas or wood can. Nor does the main literature approach them in this way. Johnbod (talk) 13:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I hope I did to some extent. It seems our experiences differ. While one will learn a lot about pottery while trying to learn about vase painting, one who wishes to study wall or panel painting (I see now the Pitsa panels are a thing) will have a lot easier time reading Beazley than he will digging up the few examples of tombs with frescoes. If you think approaching the issues separately is impossible, that is why I asked Pericles how he would do it. Cake (talk) 18:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Well I've tried to move everything back despite my stubbornness. Could still use some guidelines for sorting the pottery from the vase painting. Cake (talk) 02:21, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps in the future when that section becomes way too large for this article (after my own additions), then we can make a formal split article with an abundant amount of material. Until then the current length of this article seems fine. Pericles of Athens^Talk 08:51, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

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"Citation needed" in intro

There are a few misunderstandings in this one paragraph of the intro. Don't get me wrong, I like this article a lot and think it is very well written, although perhaps was not so well organized. So, I thought I would follow the lengthier process of marking the errors first without just deleting them. That way the author can fix it rather than me. There is a time limit on that offer, but I do not know what it is.

The first issue is the meaning of Aegean. Aegean means Aegean, as opposed to mainland. Thus Mycenaean pottery is not Aegean. Also it refers to the pre-Greek civilization on Crete and in the Cyclades (Thera). Those are clearly closely related, which is not captured by separate terms "Minoan" and "Cycladic." None of that applies to anything Greek. But the Late Bronze Age on the mainland and by then on Crete WAS Greek. So, it is ancient Greek and their pottery is ancient Greek pottery. Mycenaean is not Aegean, and is still valid. I'm willing to consider any published alternative view.

Second, saying that ancient Greek pottery proper begins with proto-Geometric contradicts the source in the very first footnote. That organization does not exclude Bronze Age pottery from being ancient Greek pottery. It rattles on cheerfully about Late Helladic, Late Minoan, and so on. There is no distinction between "proper" and what? not proper? ancient Greek pottery. Ancient Greek pottery ought to begin with the pottery of the speakers of ancient Greek. The last I checked that language began in Greece about 2000 BC. Any claim that the pottery "proper" begins with proto-geometric certainly needs some documentation, and if you find any, which I do not think you will, we have to point out that this is only the view of that author. Then we need the other view and at least one supporter of that. I'm convinced that once you look into this you will realize the unsupported statements are wrong.Botteville (talk) 23:43, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Revisit

I can't really do much for this article until we decide what we want. The main contradiction can be summarized as follows. Are we presenting "Greek pottery AND Aegean pottery", "Greek pottery OR Aegean pottery" or "Greek pottery XOR Aegean pottery?" Running through these logical possibilities are the cases of "Greek Pottery NOT Greek pottery; that is, pottery that is Greek in every sense except the art historical, but may not be considered Greek in that sense, and "Aegean pottery NOT Aegean pottery;" that is, pottery made in other locations in the style of pottery made in the Aegean (strictly speaking, Cycladic). Right now there appear to be contradictions resulting from failure to decide this issue. For example, "IF Greek pottery XOR Aegean pottery, THEN ..." the very first picture, being of amphorae from a bronze-age shipwreck, cannot consistently be there at all. In that point of view also, we cannot cover the topic of submycenaean pottery or stirrup jars being transitional, because there are no transitions. Whatever view we go for, I think the others need to be explained, for balance.

Other than that I notice some other question marks. Our first paragraph is getting quite famous among the parasites. At least two sellers of pdf's have made it look as though the 1st paragraph appears in some books they are trying to get you to buy. They're not telling you it is from Wikipedia. That whole bit about the pottery being a disproportionate mirror of Greek society is the kind of hypothesis that need a reference. I presume that the one ref given covers it. In order to see it I would have to haul my tired tail down to a library that has the book. Also, the article is somewhat obviously pro-Athenian. Apparently geometric pottery being the hallmark of the Dorians has gone unnoticed.

This is enough revisit for now. More important to get the supporting detail right.Botteville (talk) 14:43, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Deprecated source removal

Johnbod is vociferously defending an external link to deprecated source the WP:DAILYMAIL1, to the point of abusiveness in edit summaries.

I removed the link in [ this edit] with the summary "WP:ELNO, WP:DAILYMAIL1" - that is, it was one of an excess number of external links that didn't satisfy WP:ELNO - at best, as a news article, it would be "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. In other words, the site should not merely repeat information that is already or should be in the article. Links for future improvement of the page can be placed on the article's talk page." As a deprecated source, it would not be suitable for a featured article.

Johnbod then replaced it with the edit summary: "rvt - find a "better" source then".

This doesn't make sense in terms of the objection - it's a deprecated source, and one of an excess number of external links, that seems to fail WP:ELNO. "Replacing" it seems an incoherent idea.

So I removed it again, challenging its addition under WP:BURDEN: The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.

It's a prima facie unreliable source - because it's deprecated.

So Johnbod would need to show that it was nevertheless such an important source that it was actually necessary - e.g., under WP:UNDUE.

Given that the Daily Mail has been found in two wide general RFCs to be a deprecated source - generally prohibited, per WP:DAILYMAIL1 - claims of this particular article's necessity as a source would probably need to go to WP:RSN as well, or at the least be flagged there pointing here.

Johnbod, can you justify why this Daily Mail link is such a necessary source that it must be included in this article? Preferably without slipping into personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 20:30, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

What I've said very clearly in 2 edit summaries is that what is necessary is for you to find a replacement source for this press release write-up rather than just removing the DM. You could have done this in a tenth of the time it it took to write all that - if you still remember how to add material to articles, that is. Johnbod (talk) 23:53, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

And yet, this makes no sense as a demand - per WP:ELNO alone, let alone per WP:DAILYMAIL1. And you're literally calling it a "press release writeup". How does this not clearly fall afoul of WP:ELNO #1? Please address the concerns - David Gerard (talk) 08:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

And I see another editor concurs on the EL issue - David Gerard (talk) 08:53, 24 May 2020 (UTC)