Ode on a Grecian Urn Essay

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Ode Grecian

Entering the Greek and Roman art section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, I was first struck by the skillful lighting and the overall professionalism inherent in the displays. There were not as many people in this section as in some of the others I had visited that day. Yet because of the caliber of artifacts exhibited at the Met, I still felt continuity with the greater world of ancient art. Looking around the gallery containing the Archaic Greek vases, painted in the "black figure" technique, I was immediately impressed by the range of imagery that was depicted on the vases. The sheer age of the vases was astounding. I know most of them were restored painstakingly by experts, but these were items about 2500 years old. I was drawn to one vase in particular, a "neck-amphora" made of terracotta construction and finished with the classic Archaic black figure technique. According to the description on the Metropolitan Museum's Web site, black figure vase painting involved the application of glaze "in silhouettes," and then after that, details like the drapery are incised using a fine object. The particular amphora I was looking at was attributed to an artist named Exekias. I did not know that there were any famous Greek vase painters.

Then I remembered the underlying purpose of my visit and why I selected this very gallery. I was gazing directly at the "still unravished bride of quietness," the "foster child of silence and slow time," (Keats lines 1, 2). A piece of art like the Exekias neck-amphora tells a story; it is like a visual version of a textbook.

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As Keats delicately put it in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn," a piece like this is a "Sylvan historian, who canst thus express / A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme." No sooner had I laid eyes on the urn that I quickly understood Keats' infatuation with classical Greek pottery. The first stanza of the poem finishes with a series of rhetorical questions as the poet ponders the meaning of the imagery on the vase. "What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape?" asks the poet (Keats, line 5). "What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? / What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?" (Keats lines 8, 9). These are the very same questions I asked when gazing at the amphora. Who did the painting depict? Why are the figures gathered around a chariot? Where are they going? Who are they? Are they gods or mortals?

Keats ultimately concludes that its silence is its power. Because the amphora cannot answer using words, it has an indelible power over time, history, and the human mind. Without words, the amphora transcends time. Its "Attic shape," and its "silent form" give the amphora a visual power that poetry or other writing does not have (Keats lines 41, 44). The viewer gazes that this splendid 2500-year-old object and is transported to a timeless realm at which all humanity unites. It is miraculous that a 2500-year-old vase can embody the power of time. What happens when viewing the vase is remarkable: instead….....

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