Boardman, John The History of Greek Vases (0500285934)

This book, newly available in paperback, is the definitive survey of Greek vases by the outstanding world authority on classical archaeology and art. In it, John Boardman sketches the stylistic history of Greek vases and goes on to explore the many other matters that make the subject so fruitful: the process of identifying artists; the methods of making and decorating the vases and the problems in doing so; the life of the potter; the pots’ dissemination beyond Greece; and their functions in life, cult and as messengers of style and subject. Boardman demonstrates how Greek artists exercised a style of narrative in art that was long influential in the West, and how their pictures reflected not simply on story-telling, but on the politics and social order of the day.