Fantastic advice!! And something Iâve realized Iâve been doing for myself these last 6-7 years, even though I never had a name for it.
Seriously, this is such a great way to go about organizing your home.
I really canât express how much easier your life can be when you accept that thereâs no objectively right way to do this kind of stuff, especially when you let go of the idea that itâs a moral failure when you canât do something the âcorrect wayâ nor is it evidence of you being lazy.
Working with (leaning into) your natural limits and instincts can do wonders for you in your day-to-day life.
SAY NO MORE. everyone sit down, grab a drink, and listen to what i like to refer to as "hey what the fuck are we even doing." i will preface this with 4 statements:
I am a terminal hater. I view every claim made in an academic publication with a suspicious squint, which probably influenced my dissertation significantly and definitely influenced my outlook on Attic Late Geometric (henceforth called LG) pottery.
I am specifically a terminal hater of periodization. I love continuity. I love observing the integration of old and new as things gradually change over time. I do not like cutting time up into âneat little boxesâ which end up simplifying gradual processes into sharp breaks. I am also already a bit of a hater of Early Iron Age Greek chronology. I would kill Submycenaean in a heartbeat, I think itâs stupid as hell (shoutout Papadopoulos et al 2013 btw). So I am even more predisposed to be skeptical here.
I especially hate the idea of definitive statements being applied to a protohistoric period & region like, say, Early Iron Age Attica. like man i think it depends
Either everyone else has been using a totally separate mindset here which I am incapable of having towards pottery analysis or perhaps they've been smoking crack in a corner for almost a hundred years, its really uncertain. Either way this is literally just me. I have tried to find someone else with this specific critique. Nope. Its Just Me. so take that for what you will.
Anyways, here is my beef with the Standard Approach To Late Geometric Attic Pottery Chronology & Development (Abridged) (This was an 8000 word undergraduate dissertation):
So, background context for those of you not emotionally invested in Ancient Greek Pottery Lore - THIS is the standard [big-picture] chronology of Attic Geometric Pottery (from Coldstream 2008, "Greek Geometric Pottery"):
Ignore the top bit (Proto-Attic/PA), he ain't relevant (sorry proto-attic stans). What REALLY matters here is my buddy the Late Geometric - LG I and LG II and all variants therein (LGIa, LGIb, etc). This is the one which I will focus on today, for I find the way it's been framed to be total, utter bullshit.
You may be wondering "how is this utter bullshit? it looks fine!" Well. Well. For that I must backtrack a little to first discuss the Average Approach To Studying Ancient Pots. Due to multiple factors - especially antiquities trafficking, loss of in-situ contexts, antiquarianism - the Pot People have been molded into a strange lovechild between archaeology and art history. Which means that the analysis of pottery production, and of specific vessels is less about where they were found and more about their shape and decoration [ie, if its a fuckin skyphos or not + how Achilles was painted on it]. This isnât the only way that ancient ceramics are analyzed - thereâs also other indicators such as the clay used to make them (which is very useful for pinning its original production site to a particular geographic region, since the chemical composition of clay can be pretty confidently localized) and inscriptions/writing (ie, signatures by the artisan(s) or the usage of regional alphabets). But figural decoration remains the primary focal points for scholarship centered on Athenian pottery, and influences so much of how Attic vessels are analyzed in comparison to one another and how ancient Greek ceramic production is discussed as a whole.
This is further complicated by the general reliance on figural decoration to assign vases to a particular âworkshopâ or painter. This is more common with later Archaic black-figure and Classical red-figure vases, which sometimes have signatures, but the method is also applied indiscriminately to unsigned vases with 0 provenance (including Geometric vases). This is all quite vibes based - ie, âthe hand is pointing slightly downward so it has to be by THIS GUY!â - and tends to value the figural representation over any sort of written evidence. Beazley (the guy who basically pioneered this method for red-figure vases by staring at thousands of them for decades) actually hated painter signatures (Beazley "Attic Black Figure - A Sketch" 1989 , p. 9) which is⌠certainly a take! This approach to attribution & workshop studies has been criticized elsewhere (Whitley 1991, Smyrnaios 2017) but in the case of Athenian Geometric pottery (objectively one of the hardest styles to define a definitive workshop using only figural decoration [1]) itâs still Very Common (CouliĂŠ 2013, p. 2) and specifically instrumental for how we organize LG vases chronologically (Coldstream 2008, p. 8).
This brings me to the subject of Late Geometric chronology. For this I have to bring in another graph (bear with me again here, guys, please):
This particular diagram is from Davison, 1961 - a published and refined version of her PHD dissertation "Attic Geometric Workshops,â which remains influential in discussions concerning LG pottery (partially because Coldstream significantly relies on her for identifying characteristic works; cf Coldstream p. 3, 33). In her work, Davison organizes a metric fuckton of LG Attic vessels (many of which do not have a definitive in-situ context or provenance) into various workshops, relying primarily on their decoration (Davison 1961, p.6). Davisonâs attributions here, including her chronology, were reinforced by Coldstream and are fundamental to current reconstructions & analyses of LG pottery production, and discussions re: the development of the Late Geometric style (especially in CouliĂŠ 2013, which is [afaik] the most recent, thorough examination of LG pottery). I want to emphasize here that Davisonâs organization of these workshops is according to the painters of LG vessels, not the potters.
Which, in my humble opinion, is an absolutely fucking absurd way to conceptualize Late Geometric pottery workshops. Athenian workshops in the later Archaic period were centralized around the potters, not painters (Sapirstein 2013, 499-500); a theory that is further supported by the presence of faint inscriptions on red-figure pottery (made before firing) which delineate the position & identity of the figures depicted on the vase (Iozzo, 2018). And while I am hesitant to apply a later organization of production to what is, again, a protohistorical period with no written records, I find it far more plausible to center the production of ceramics around the potters, who are making the fucking vases here, rather than Davison & Coldstreamâs focus on painters - who are fulfilling a secondary, and ultimately more specialized/individualized role in the process. Especially since painters in Archaic Athens were also not restricted to a particular workshop (Sapirstein 2014, p. 180-181), so the conception that painters were trained in the kind of centralized way that Davison & Coldstream are theorizing here (moreso Coldstream, Davisonâs actually kinda flexible re: workshop organization) seems improbable. Regardless, basing the chronological sequence of vessels according to their decoration alone (in my opinion) seems far less useful than the potential route of how these vases were created.
For example, there was an incredibly interesting study semi-recently which analyzed the proportions of skyphoi cups from the Early Geometric through the LG (Smyrnaios 2017). The reason I find it so fascinating - and so useful as an approach to LG workshops - is because the study noted a consistency in these ratios, generally consistent changes in these ratios over time, and - in the case of two specific Late Geometric skyphoi - there was a clear break from the predominant pattern in favor of a different ratio which was used for only them!! (Smyrnaios 2017, p. 119). This (in my opinion) is WAY MORE useful for the reconstruction of a protohistoric workshop, because you can draw a clear, distinct contrast between how they were produced and the other studied examples. While this is not necessarily definitive in a chronological sense (maybe if you could pinpoint specific transitions in the ratio? but I digress), itâs still (again, in my opinion) far more useful than the predominant focus on the style of the painted decoration. Thereâs also another interesting study re: wheel-made vs. hand-made Protogeometric pottery (ca. 1000-900BCE) that proposes that differences in production methods were connected to who/where/how an individual potter was trained (RĂźckl & Jacobs, 2016). Thereâs so much more potential here re: ceramic production and its just being Ignored (well. Smyrnaios is pretty invested but overall this is a very niche area).
And workshop attributions are made even more complicated by the fact that Geometric pottery is so incredibly stylized.[2] So much of these attributions boil down to shit like the torso not being a perfect triangle (Coldstream 2008, p. 43), how fancy they want a meander to be (Bohen 2017, 229), the stars looking a bit sloppy (CouliĂŠ 2015, p. 41), the claim that the figures look too big so its gotta be a different workshop (Bohen 2017, also 229, i fucking hate Bohen 2017) - and itâs just⌠why? Why are we bulldozing past the abstract aspects of this style, the widespread usage of the same motifs and animals, and neglecting the flexibility of an individual painterâs style all to focus on ultimately unknowable technicalities in organization (which, as previously noted re: red-figure, could very well be due to the potter or commissioner, not the painter)? And people have been saying this shit since the 1940s (Chamoux 1945, p. 62-65) so it's not for lack of trying, but rather an insistence on academic stagnation.
Now, going back to Davisonâs graph, you may notice something a bit strange about the chronology of Late Geometric workshops. The style itself - and the entire period - is defined by the Dipylon Workshop - and, more specifically, the painter referred to as the âDipylon Masterâ (who, judging by Coldstream 2008, p. 33-35 is maybe also thought of as a potter? but I'll get to that).
You may or may not know the Dipylon Workshop from such hits as:
Athens 804, aka âThe Dipylon Amphoraâ[3], and my buddy Athens 192, aka the 'Dipylon Oinochoe.' There's lots of amphorai and oinochoai out there in the world so to me they are simply A804 and A192.
The Dipylon Workshop, for all intents and purposes, is seen as the progenitor of the entire Late Geometric style (Coldstream 2008, p. 29, 33, 35, 44) (Brann 1960, Preface, p. 12) (Bohen 1991, p. 62; Bohen 2017, p. 74-75) (Couliè 2013, p. 63-65). The chronology of every single proposed LG workshop relies on how they relate to the Dipylon Workshop. The âDipylon Masterâ is not only framed as the beginning of LG art (Davison 1961) (Coldstream 2008, p. 35, 36, 44) (Brann p. 12, 13) (CouliĂŠ 2013, p. 65), but also credited with the invention of several LG vase forms (Coldstream 2008, p. 34, 35). Bohen 2017 even calls him "the finest artisan of the Iron Age" (Bohen 2017, p. 72). The claim that this hypothetical lone painter invented entirely new vase forms, by the way, is a bit fucking absurd considering the aforementioned research focused on later Archaic Attic pottery production arguing that vase painters & potters tended to be specialized (Sapirstein 2013, p. 499-500). Yet I kept running into these claims again and again as I did my research.
But again, Iâm a skeptical bastard. So I got curious. What was the evidence behind this? Who came up with this theory? Where did it come from?
Everyone (Brann 1960, p. 12) (Coldstream 2008, 3) (Davison 1961, p. 6, 23-24) (Couliè 2015, p. 39) kept pointing back to an article by G. Nottbohm as the first to really define the 'Dipylon Master,' describe his style, and attribute works to him. So I go look for Nottbohmâs article. and. oh my god stop the fucking train okay
Itâs a JdI article (Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts[Journal of the German Archaeological Institute]) published in 1943 (under the fucking Third Reich, mid-WWII) -> đŠđŠđŠđ¤¨ I am now incredibly skeptical. I am scanning every sentence for even the slightest hint of nazi ideology. I am on red alert, like the bias equivalent of a tornado siren. I am re-evaluating Coldstreamâs proud proclamation that he âFollows G. Nottbohm In Believing Such Distinctions Are Possibleâ (Coldstream 2008, p. 2 yes he fucking said this) and also his entire reputation. But Iâm still withholding complete judgement here. Maybe sheâs got decent evidence? Some sort of sound analysis? I donât know man, this is apparently the whole fuckin reason we treat the âDipylon Masterâ as this pivotal figure, surely it has something.
Her evidence boils down to Athens 804, a shitload of Louvre fragments, and a giant oinochoe (bc it has a deer frieze. thats literally it) -> đŠ - I am now fully judging. I thought there would be more evidence here?? Everyone is just taking Nottbohmâs word for it as if this isnât the most patchwork shit ever. Chamoux even calls her out for cherry-picking later because the logic here is obviously just a vicious circle (Chamoux 1945, p. 63-64)! And Villard (1948, p. 1072) later kicked at least 1 of her other examples (the Baring Amphora) to the curb. Thereâs no mention of in-situ context anywhere?? Which is baffling, genuinely baffling, she doesnât even mention it in passing. Which is astounding to me because the excavation of Athens 804 was actually somewhat fucking documented and was published in German (BrĂźckner & Pernice, 1893), which Nottbohm could have almost certainly gotten access to as a PHD student at the University of Leipzig. Whatever faith I had in this fuckass theoretical guy is nonexistent, it is Gone
Her main comparison against what she attributes to the Dipylon Workshop is Athens 990 (The "Hirschfeld Krater,â whose provenance is [like the Dipylon Oinochoe] mildly fucked up on account of being from Palaiologosâ undocumented 1871 âexcavationâ) -> đŠ again Nottbohm is establishing an entire workshop that she can compare to the âDipylon Workshop,â which she is still defining at the same time, which. Honestly sheâs just shitting on A990 here. this paper invented the hirschfeld workshop too which just makes this worse since A990 is the defining vessel of that (cf Coldstream 2008 p 41). like can we not consider them both beautiful. must we always quantify. actually this is a nazi paper who the fuck am i kidding. guys, can we re-evaluate this or- oh no. oh god what's she sayin-
ÂŤVielmehr handelt es sich um die schĂśpferische Tat eines groĂen Meisters, dem es nicht nur gelungen ist, den ornamentalen geometrischen Stil auf seine hĂśchste HĂśhe und zur klassischen Vollendung zu fĂźhren - eben in der Amphora in Athen - sondern in dem auch die Kräfte dieses Stiles und seiner Zeit so stark wirksam waren, daĂ ihm die Darstellung der menschlichen Figur im Rahmen dieses Stiles mĂśglich wurde.Âť đđŹđŠđŠđŠđŠđŠ the racist & imperialist ideology is in full fuckinv swing and this is only page 15 out of 31. we got it all. the âgreat manâ history where 1 guy singlehandedly spearheaded an entire phase of art (source? Personal Bias. she made it the fuck up i'm not even joking THIS is everyones source here). the conception of one guys art as the âpeakâ of art and âclassical accomplishmentâ. the idea that the âDipylon Masterâ was, somehow, just built different and better than everyone else ever. God. Are we really relying on this shit for all our comparative analyses of attic late geometric pottery. like its abundantly clear shes only in this for Athens 804. which⌠yeah, others at this point were also trying to connect this amphora to other vessels (cf Kahane 1940, p. 477) but Nottbohm is frankly both reaching to an absurd degree here, and is the one everyone's citing here (Coldstream doesn't even mention Kahane [Coldstream 2008, p. 2]! jfc guys). how has nobody reviewed this in the past 80 years.
ÂŤIm Verlaufe der gesamten europäischen Kunst ist ihm eigentlich â in der GrĂśĂe seiner Bedeutung fĂźr die folgenden Zeiten â nur ein einziger an die Seite zu stellen, nämlich Giotto.Âť đŤŠđđŤ đŠđŠđŠ this line makes me feel like im high every time i see it. both for the first half emphasizing âin all of european artâ and then the bit comparing him to fucking giotto which sucker punches me in the face every time like are we really fucking serious here guys. Please. this is also immediately after the prior sentence for context, these two quotes are in 1 paragraph Together back-to-back. pages 15-16. Wow
ÂŤSo ist der Meister der Athener Amphora die erste faĂbare PersĂśnlichkeit auf dem Gebiete der bildenden Kunst, die uns auf europäischem Boden entgegentritt! Seine Existenz und sein Schaffen fĂźgen sich auf das schĂśnste dem Bilde der zweiten Hälfte des achten Jahrhunderts ein, das W. Schadewaldt in seinem Aufsatz 'Homer und sein Jahrhundert' entworfen hat. Auch an dem Meister der Amphora erleben wir den Durchbruch der PersĂśnlichkeit aus dem Dunkel der vorhergehenden Jahrhunderte. Sein Gestaltungswille durchbricht mit elementarer Kraft den ornamentalen Formenzwang und erobert sich die menschliche Figur als Darstellungsobjekt. Eines seiner Werke, die Amphora in Athen, in ihrer tektonischen Strenge und fast mathematischen Klarheit des Aufbaus wie der Einzelheiten, bedegutet fĂźr uns eine der groĂartigsten Manifestationen griechischen Geistes und griechischen Kunstwollens Ăźberhaupt.Âť đŠđŠđŠđŠđŠđŠhey uh What the actual fuck (these are her concluding remarks. Btw)
This ^^ is the foundation for how scholarship compares Late Geometric Attic pottery workshops and positions their development. This fuckass article that positions the âDipylon Masterâ[4] as the âfirst tangible artist on European soilâ who âbreaks through the darkness of the preceding centuriesâ and is âone of the greatest manifestations of the Greek spirit and Greek art of all time.â like. can we all set aside all the decorative analysis this field's been obsessed with for 100+ years and unpack this? like, her framing of the âDipylon Master,â the fact that she even fucking calls him ÂŤDer Meister der Grossen Dipylon-AmphoraÂť, and the field all just adopted that shit too for some fucking reason, just. All of it. Chuck it in the bin for now guys. Please. or. no? weâll just speculate abt which Middle Geometric workshop the âDipylon Masterâ came from (Bohen 2017, p. 160-162)? đŤ đŤ đŤ đŤ please the racism & facism is right fucking there like am i HIGH?
And Nottbohmâs methodology has been critically reviewed only once - by Chamoux (1945), who was also afaik the first one to actually respond to the article - but⌠he doesnât address the ideological bend to it that taints her methodology? He does make some very good points [5] that honestly just look like he got hit by Apollo's dodgeball, where he's like "Nottbohm's terminology will only encourage people to recreate an artist's personality which is ultimately unverifiable, surely we could be doing something better with our time" (Chamoux 1945, p. 68) (i'm paraphrasing & it's all in french). unfortunately he got proven right and this field refuses to do a u-turn. Chamoux why'd you have to focus on other shit besides Geometric pottery please you were the only one[6] on the right track,,,,
Anyways thatâs my take on Late Geometric pottery chronology, development & workshops đ i hate the "dipylon master founded it all and was First" idea and i dont give a shit if killing it nukes our current chronological dating of the LG because i think the theory should Die
---
[1.] The reason I consider Geometric pottery as "objectively one of the hardest styles to define a definitive workshop using only figural decoration" is because Geometric art is - as I've noted above - kinda sparse with figural decoration? And when it does appear, it's very linear & abstract. So emphasizing the decoration here, and treating it like definitive proof of a shared producer for two vases, is just. Bizzare to me.
[2.] This is not a dig at the LG style here - I think it fucks severely. My main concern is that so many attempts to categorize LG vessels seem to ignore this element of abstraction altogether - or, worse, treat divergences from it as âa mistakeâ (Moore 2007, p. 18), a âcollapseâ/disintegration (Coldstream 2008, p. 56), or âdegenerativeâ (Brann 1962, 15). This kind of thinking appears in tandem with the concept of Attic(cough Athenian cough) pottery being influenced by Corinth (Coldstream 2008, 56); take from that what you will.
[3.] rip to every other amphora from the hieraian gate cemetery ifg. only One Dipylon Amphora allowed
[4.] the quotation marks i have been using this whole time have been to convey just how much i fucking despise this name and all its shitass loaded baggage that it carries. this is quite an aggressive way to say this now that i think abt it but still im a Hater
[5.] Not including the bit where he tries to use LG battle scenes to date the Iliad. Not touching that with a ten-foot pole. I only care for his critique of Nottbohm â¤ď¸
[6.] this is technically an overexaggeration, Siebert 2010 (p. 311) kinda took up the torch on this one (calling Nottbohm's methodology inadequate lmao) but. i fear its like a tiny corner of french scholarship and the anglophones need to catch the hell up ASAP.
========================================
Sources/Further Reading:
Nottbohm, G.G. (1943) âDer Meister Der Grossen Amphora Im Dipylon,â JdI 58, pp. 1â31.
Chamoux, F. (1945) âLâĂCOLE DE LA GRANDE AMPHORE DU DIPYLON: Ătude Sur La CĂŠramique GĂŠomĂŠtrique Ă lâĂŠpoque de lâ ÂŤIliadeÂť,â Revue ArchĂŠologique, 23, pp. 55â97.
Davison, J.M. (1961) Attic Geometric Workshops. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press (Yale Classical Studies).
Coldstream, J.N. (2008) Greek geometric pottery: a survey of ten local styles and their chronology. Updated 2nd ed. Exeter: Bristol Phoenix press.
CouliÊ, A. (2013) La cÊramique grecque aux Êpoques gÊomÊtrique et orientalisante: XIe-VIe siècle av. J.-C. Paris: Picard (La cÊramique grecque, 1).
Smyrnaios, I. (2017) âChaĂŽne OpĂŠratoire: Moving from Theory to Praxis in the Study of Attic Geometric Pottery,â in L. Nevett (ed.) Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Ancient Greece: Manipulating Material Culture. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, pp. 104â123. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.8287082.
Kahane, P. (1940) âDie Entwicklungsphasen der Attisch-Geometrischen Keramik,â American Journal of Archaeology, 44(4), pp. 464â482. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/499959.
Villard, F. (1948) âUN NOUVEAU CRATĂRE DU DIPYLON AU MUSĂE DU LOUVRE.â Revue ArchĂŠologique 31/32, 1065â74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41028776.
Brann, E.T.H. (1962) Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery: Mid 8th to Late 7th Century B.C. (The Athenian Agora). Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/3601969.
Siebert, G. (2010) âLa rĂŠception de lâart gĂŠomĂŠtrique grec dans lâhistoriographie (fin du XIXe-milieu du XXe siècle),â KtèmaâŻ: civilisations de lâOrient, de la Grèce et de Rome antiques, 35(1), pp. 299â312. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3406/ktema.2010.2505.
Ĺ tÄpĂĄn RĂźckl and Loe Jacobs (2016) ââWith a Little Help from My Wheelâ: Wheel-Coiled Pottery in Protogeometric Greece,â Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 85(2), p. 297. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2972/hesperia.85.2.0297.
Iozzo, M. (2018) âHidden Inscriptions on Athenian Vases,â American Journal of Archaeology, 122(3), pp. 397â410. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.122.3.0397.
Sapirstein, P. (2013) âPainters, Potters, and the Scale of the Attic Vase-Painting Industry,â American Journal of Archaeology, 117(4), pp. 493â510. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.117.4.0493.
Sapirstein, P. (2014) âDemographics and Productivity in the Ancient Athenian Pottery Industry,â in J.H. Oakley (ed.) Athenian Potters and Painters III: Athenian Potters and Painters III. Oxbow Books, pp. 175â186. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1djzf.
Moore, M.B. (2007) âATHENS 803 AND THE EKPHORA,â Antike Kunst, 50, pp. 9â23.
Whitley, J. (1997) âBeazley as theorist,â Antiquity, 71(271), pp. 40â47. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00084520.
Bohen, B. (2017) Kratos & krater: reconstructing an Athenian protohistory. Oxford (GB): Archaeopress Archaeology (Archaeopress archaeology).
#look I don't know shit about anything so I might be so very wrong but everything op says about how the field dates Greek vases sounds insane#especially since you can. apparently. figure out where the clay came from????? why aren't you DOING that
(with apologies to @doloneia for chiming in here)
See, the problem with that approach is that knowing where the clay comes from doesn´t give you a date of when the vase was made - at best it would give you a date of the formation of the claybed (hope that´s the right word in English). We can approximately tell when a vase was fired via a method called Thermoluminescence dating, but that is VERY approxomate and as far as I know mostly done to fnd modern fakes.
Normally - or at least unless you are a classical archaeologist with a certain training, grumble, grumble - we´d prefer to date by stratigraphy and correlations with historic cultures with calendar systems we can translate into ours. Radiocarbon, if need be, but that is also somewhat imprecise and can´t be done on clay directly (on accont of not being an organic material). Dendrodating - dating by yearrings in trees in wood closely associated with the pottery in question - would be really nice, too.
And for various reasons, almost none of that is an option. Like, we can manage stratigraphic sequences at least for some sites and regions, but thanks to the prolonged fallout from the Bronze Age collapse, we lack secure associations with historic cultures, and wood does really, really not survive well in the Greek climate. On top of that, chronology in the rest of the Eastern Mediterranean and Egypt is also somewhat shaky during that time.
So we are in a situation, where we can fairly reliably date the last pottery from before the BA collapse (aka the Late Helladic B/C transition) and then nothing, really, until the Middle Geometric period at the earliest. Mostly, if I recall correctly, trading relationships with the Near East start up again at the end of this period around 750 BC and apply therefore mostly to (Attic) Late Geometric. The lengths of style phases before that are estimations.
All of that is before we go into the obsession of dating things down to a decade or two via style, an approach one of my professors called "an exercise in vanity" at one point. The problems with that op has thoroughly pointed out, but there are legitimate obstacles to doing it differently.
tysm for this addition!! i didnt really discuss other methods for dating ancient ceramics so this is a really important addendum - pottery chronology is messy, but in many cases this is one of the few surviving pieces of evidence we have. in the case of funerary remains (which are basically our main sources for LG Attic pottery with figural decoration), you could also try to use radiocarbon dating, but this method can involve destroying the bones altogether which. we dont want to do that! those are someones bones!! so yeah stratigraphic sequencing (which is haphazard, and in the case of many LG vases hard to determine since they were either illegally excavated, trafficked, or excavated in like 1890) & stylistic analysis are often the only tools we have. the specific issue i discussed above mainly arises when we try to take stylistic dating, which is inherently relative, and treat it almost like it was absolute.
The core appeal of Willy Wonka is that he's a nigh-omnipotent maniac who uses his near limitless powers over reality to trick shitty people into killing themselves. You can't make him the protagonist of a whimsical coming of age tale - you have to treat him like Jason Voorhees, or Dracula, or any other horror icon. Give him some new victims and new interesting kills and set him loose, that's all audiences want.
Gene lobbied hard for Wonka to be introduced as a feeble limping old man who suddenly falls into a forward somersault and leaps to his feet, because "from that moment on the audience won't know if he can be trusted." On a related note: the director told Gene what would happen during the boat scene, but none of the other actors were prepared; to this day, none of them are sure what he ad libbed and what was scripted.
My favorite detail, though, is his performance of Pure Imagination. On the surface, the song is charming and inviting, but if you look closely at him throughout the scene, you'll notice that Gene never blinks. He looks around, down at his feet, up at the trees; his eyes never fully close. He moves erratically, stuttering up and down the steps of the chocolate room. The lyrics are warm and friendly, but his face is blank. He bows to permit his visitors to run amok, but his posture is stiff. He helps Violet and Mike reach a couple of treats, but there is no joy in the gesture. The final post-chorus feels like a dirge, a threat, and a warning, all at once; Wonka sits in repose under a tree, but his eyes are glassy and dispassionate. "There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination; / living there / you'll be free / if you truly / wish / to be.......... "
Fantasy in excess, like anything else, will destroy you; that's the real message of Gene Wilder's Wonka. He taunts his guests with unrepentant disdain, and doesn't care if they live or die. He toys with their emotions, their safety, and their grip on reality, feeling no regret or remorse, no pity, no compassion. Fantasy is colorful and compelling, but it's false, and ultimately empty. Wonka is a walking maladaptive daydream, and as far as I'm concerned, that's the real reason the 1971 film has endured in the culture for so long.
It's a whimsical kind of day today, and what's more whimsical than a little circus? Viel GlĂźck, when translated from German into English, means a very chipper, "Good luck!"
