Tuesday, November 22, 2011

To punctuate the series

22 Nov 2011  Not on Pearl Harbor Day, as usual, but even before Thanksgiving Day (actually on the 50th anniversary of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy), as I was returning from collecting the old cat before an oncoming deluge, at the bottom of the Japanese Camelia tree, where its blooming always begins, and almost in the dark in the shade of the tree, I saw this new camelia (which the heavy rain surely damaged), so I took a chance that the baby Nikon could take it without flash, which these camelias respond to badly in a photograph
I had already decided to interrupt the series of essays on vase-painting.  Among the reasons are copyright laws and the abundance of good literature (as well as appalling stuff) on the great masterpieces of Greek vase painting, since I object to the use of most of the old drawings instead of the real vases.  Even more critical to my decision is the fact that the subject becomes far more complex in the periods from Late Archaic through Late Classical, and the best work (which fortunately was done on fired vases rather than some biodegradable ground, but is no less great for being on a pot) needs to be discussed in individual essays, treated in the same way as I have done the Miletos lion or the "Barberini Faun", for example.
In the album, for the time being, I can call your attention to a great Late Corinthian black-figure krater, Louvre E 638, Payne's no. 1474, for which I do have an acceptable digital image:
Louvre E 638 (Payne NC no. 1474; Amyx CorVP, pp. 574-5, often considered
mainly for its inscriptions, since, like the EC Eurytios Krater, it stands alone,
without another known by the same hand.  It represents the Departure of Hektor
for battle at Troy.
I could write a whole essay on a vase like this; indeed, it is pointless just to say how interesting and fine it is, and no more.  The very fact of Corinth's rubbing red clay onto the surface of these kraters requires discussing their Attic contemporaries along with them, the very works of Sophilos and Kleitias of which I have no photos that I can use here.

So, though I haven't at this moment decided what to write on next, I shall return in Teegee: Essays to just that, essays instead of lessons.  That also will allow me write true Opera Nobilia essays on some of the masterpieces of drawing and design for their own sake.
See: http://teegeeoperanobilia.blogspot.com/2011/11/homage-to-berlin-painter.html

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