Art History I
Breta Petraccia Water jar (shoulder hydria) with Athena, Herakles, Apollo, and Hermes
Water jar (shoulder hydria) with Athena, Herakles, Apollo, and Hermes is an Ceramic Ancient Greek vase that was placed at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. The vase was colored with black slip at the negative space (back ground). The positive space where the design was divided into 3 main parts on the vase was colored with red pigment. Only one half of the vase (one side) comes with the design.
Overall, the main design was divided into 3 main areas. Top, middle and the bottom of the vase. All 3 parts contains different scene. In my opinion, the artist try to draw the eye of the audiences into the middle part of the design on the vase. …show more content…
They are wearing Corinthian helmet with the shields and javelins on their hands. On the two sides of the battle, there are two female onlookers that raising their arms in a certain type of gesture.
At The middle panel describe a scene that “Athena steps into a chariot”. Facing her was a “nude Herakles” holding bow and club. Right behind the four horses, “Apollo” is holding a lyre. There is a unidentified female figure that missing the head stands right behind the horse withers. At the horse head position, “Hermes holds a caduceus”. At the bottom panel, the design describes the scene of a deer hunt with 3 warriors on the horse and one on foot hunting a stag.
In my opinion, the composition overall is to draw the audiences’ eyes into the main part of the vase where Athena steps into a chariot. At the top and bottom panels, we can clearly see that the artist tried to lead our eyes into the middle part of the panel by creating the two similar, symmetrical sides of the scene that leads the eyes right into the middle of the design. For example, At the top panel, if we divide the scene into half, we will have two similar symmetrical sides with the warriors wearing helmet with the shield and the javelins. The javelins with the gesture of the two warriors were pointing at the middle warrior was in a defending gesture. Besides that, the two female figures are raising their arm …show more content…
I think the artist successfully used the spaces to help our travel around where the artist want the audiences to focus on. At the top and bottom panels, there are a lot of spaces between the figures that emphasize more into the movements and the meaning of the characters in the scene. In contrast, the middle panel was different in spaces compare to the two other panels. The middle panel seems contain less empty, free spaces between the figures. Especially, from the position where Apollo was standing to all the way to the very right side of the panel where Hermes standing with his head looked down. The four horses and the figures occupied the most space of this area. However, the very left side of the panel where Athena steps on the chariot and face the naked Herakles, we can obviously see that there are spaces between and around these two figures. For these reasons, our eyes got stuck around these two figure, and when we first look at the panel, our eyes will be lead right into the left part of