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Title: Greek vase-painting
Author: Buschor, Ernst
Language: English
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GREEK VASE-PAINTING
[Illustration: PLATE I.
Frontispiece: THESEUS, ATHENA AND AMPHITRITE: KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE
OF THE POTTER EUPHRONIOS
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
GREEK
VASE-PAINTING
by ERNST BUSCHOR
WITH C·L·X ILLUSTRATIONS
TRANSLATED BY G. C. RICHARDS
M.A., F.S.A., FELLOW OF ORIEL
COLLEGE OXFORD & WITH A
PREFACE BY PERCY GARDNER
LITT.D., F.B.A., PROFESSOR OF
CLASSICAL ARCHÆOLOGY
IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF OXFORD
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1921
CONTENTS
Page
Preface vii
Chapter I. The Stone and Bronze Ages 1
” II. The Geometric Style 18
” III. The Seventh Century 29
” IV. The Black-Figured Style 63
” V. The Red-Figured Style in the Archaic Period 111
” VI. The Style of Polygnotos and Pheidias 133
” VII. Late Offshoots 155
Index of Illustrations 161
Index of Names 174
PREFACE
A history of Greek vase-painting has been for a long time a desideratum
of students of Greek art and antiquity. Many years ago I planned such a
work, but the difficulty of the necessary illustration caused the plan
to break down. In the meantime an extensive literature has grown up on
the subject, mainly in German, but with contributions from other
countries. In his first chapter Dr. Buschor has shewn how the result of
excavation in Greece and Italy has been to throw our starting-point
further and further back, until it lies in the Neolithic age. But it is
not only in regard to the earlier phases of Greek vase-painting that
research has brought light: the red-figured vase-painting which is one
of the most perfect fruits of Greek art in the fifth century has been
far more minutely and intensively studied. The result has been to fix
the outlines, and more than the outlines, of the history of a fourth
great branch of Greek artistic activity; the history of architecture, of
sculpture and of coinage having been already thoroughly investigated.
And this fourth branch is not merely vase-painting; but since the fresco
and other paintings of the great age of Greece have almost entirely
perished, we may fairly say that it includes almost all that we can ever
know of the history of early Greek painting. Vase-paintings can but
feebly image the colouring of the great painters of Greece; but they can
give us invaluable information as to the principles of grouping and
perspective adopted by them; they can reflect the extreme beauty of
their figure-drawing; and they can shew us how they treated subjects
from the vast repertory of Greek mythology and poetry.
Most of those who take up the study of Greek art are strongly attracted
by vases, the subjects of which are more varied, and the treatment freer
than is the case with sculpture. For mythology, religion, athletics,
daily life, they are first-hand authorities. Yet one may fairly say
that, until a few years ago, satisfactory study of them was impossible.
Vase-paintings, in consequence of the shape of the vessels themselves,
can very seldom be adequately reproduced by photography. And the
published drawings of them, until about 1880, were quite untrustworthy;
partly because the draughtsmen had insufficient sense of style, partly
because most of the vases in the great museums were more or less
restored, often in a most misleading way.
Thus merely to reproduce published engravings of the vases was quite
misleading. The truth about them could only be known from a technical
examination of the originals scattered through Europe. Yet one must say
that in nearly all our English classical books and dictionaries, old
engravings are uncritically reproduced. It is a fouling of the springs;
and however practically inevitable such a course may often have been,
the result is that the reader never knows whether he is treading on firm
ice or on a mere crust. Anything more reckless and misleading than the
procedure of the publishers and editors of illustrated classical books
can scarcely be imagined. The errors resulting can only be weeded out by
slow degrees.
Since about 1880 things have slowly mended. The German Archæological
Institute, and the French and English Societies for the promotion of
Hellenic Studies have published really careful drawings of a multitude
of vases, Mr. F. Anderson in England being one of the most accurate and
careful of the artists employed. In the last few years the catalogues of
vases in Berlin, Paris, Munich, London and other places have given
authoritative information as to restorations. A fresh era in the
knowledge of technique and subject was begun by the magnificent
publication of Furtwängler and Reichhold, with its splendid plates. At
present the most authoritative works on early red-figured vases are
those of an Oxford man, Mr. J. D. Beazley, and an American, Mr. J. C.
Hoppin. Mr. Beazley has been good enough carefully to revise the present
translation.
We have reached a stage at which, for all but specialists, what was most
needed was a general history of Greek vases in all their periods,
compiled by a trustworthy authority, and so fully illustrated (no easy
matter) as to enable a reader to follow the text throughout. Thus would
the whole subject be mapped out, and the approach to any particular
province be made easy. Such a book is that of Dr. Buschor. His examples
are carefully chosen; his text shews full mastery of the subject; and it
is very unlikely that his treatment will be superseded for a long time
to come. It is, however, a book not adapted for a mere cursory reading,
but for careful consideration and study.
I may add a few words by way of introduction to the subject. We may
divide the whole history of Greek pottery into two sections, which are
separated one from the other by the line which divides primitive from
mature Greece, about the middle of the sixth century.
Before that time, before the age of Crœsus and the rise of the Persian
Empire, the history of Greece is very imperfectly known to us, through
the traditions of the temples and the old families, which are seldom
wholly to be trusted. Where history is uncertain it is of untold value
to have monuments and works of human manufacture to supplement it. These
provide a skeleton of fact with which to compare legend and tradition.
It is now generally recognized that before writings in the form of
inscriptions and coins come into general use, pottery furnishes the
most continuous and most trustworthy material for the dating of sites,
indications of commercial intercourse, the movements of peoples. In
recent years the study of prehistoric Greece has made immense strides,
primarily owing to the excavations of Schliemann, Evans and other
investigators. The subject seems to fascinate the younger generation of
archæologists; and the pottery found in the graves of the early
inhabitants of Greece and Asia Minor has been worked at with great
minuteness and to much result. It has revealed to us the outlines of the
early history of Crete, the Troad, Laconia, Thessaly, and a number of
other districts. Constant comparison with the results of finds in Egypt
which can be dated from inscriptions has revealed in a measure the state
of the civilization of the Ægean in century beyond century, back to
Neolithic times.
When Greek civilization became fully established, in the sixth century,
when inscriptions and coins begin to give us far more exact information
than that which can be derived from pottery, the interest attaching to
the latter does not cease, but it changes in character. We no longer go
to it to determine the outlines of the history of civilization. But it
has now become a thing precious in itself because of its beauty, its
close relation to the poetry, the religion and the life of Greece. The
elegant forms of Greek vases and the charm of the designs painted on
them have caused them to be sought after by great museums and wealthy
collectors. The graves of Italy, Sicily, Hellas, have poured out a
constant supply of these works of art, some of them beyond value.
Classical archæologists have naturally given much attention to them; and
of late years the assignment of examples to noted masters, and the study
of their technique have been zealously prosecuted. They belong too
wholly to a civilization which has passed away to be readily understood
by ordinary visitors of museums; but those who have once been bitten
with their charm find in them an occupation, a delight and a solace
which are great helps in life. Greece is the classical land of art in
all its forms, and the principles of art which were established by the
successive schools of art there can never be wholly neglected. If we set
aside the pottery of China and Japan, which is, in another sphere, of
unsurpassed beauty, the pottery of Greece is the only perfectly
developed and thoroughly consistent pottery in the world; and the noted
productions of modern Europe seem in comparison poor and half-civilized.
Dr. Buschor’s general plan has compelled him to write but in a summary
way of the works of red-figured style, which are incomparably the most
beautiful. In fact, in such small and rough illustrations as are
possible in a handbook, their quality could not be reproduced. For them
the reader must go on to other works, or visit the vase-rooms of
museums. A conspectus of successive styles and periods was all that was
possible. And I think that enough is here accomplished to arouse the
interest of those who love art and have some sympathy with the Greek
spirit.
The old supremacy of the Classics in education has passed away, and in
future they will have to hold their own not by prescriptive right but in
virtue of their intrinsic value, on which more and more stress is being
laid by those who feel what their neglect in the modern world would
mean. It is time to strengthen their hold by shewing how they lie at the
very root of philosophy, literature and art. Our successors will not be
satisfied with drilling boys in Greek and Latin grammar, but will have
to insist on the place held by ancient peoples, the Jews, the Greeks and
the Romans, in the evolution of all that is valuable and delightful in
the modern world. We have to widen the field of Classics, and illustrate
the literature from every point of view. And if it be felt that the
object of education is not merely to enable boys and girls to earn a
living, but to help them to lead a worthy and happy life, then I have no
fear that the Classics will be permanently eclipsed.
Mr. Richards’ work as a translator was very difficult. In spite of
kindred origin, the German mind in literary production moves on
different lines from the English. Not only is the order of words in a
sentence different, but the sentences themselves are much more involved,
and German scientific writers aim at an exactness in the use of terms
which we seldom attempt. Mr. Richards’ version is very accurate; but it
must be allowed to be not always easy reading. He preferred to retain as
much as possible of the meaning, even if it involved some stiffness in
the text. Students will thank him for this; and if the general reader
finds that he has to give the text a closer attention than he is used to
give to books, he will in fact have his reward.
Dr. Buschor’s work is a solid stone for the temple of knowledge, and the
main lines of the subject are now so firmly fixed by induction, that
they are not likely to suffer very much change in the future.
P. GARDNER.
CHAPTER I.
THE STONE AND BRONZE AGES
Students of the history of Greek vases have been gradually led backwards
from a late period to earlier and earlier stages of civilization by the
course of circumstances. First of all graves were opened in Lower Italy;
the first great collection of vases, formed by Sir William Hamilton,
British ambassador in Naples, and published in 1791-1803, contained
chiefly the output of later Italian manufactories. Next, from 1828
onwards, the doors of Etruscan graves were unlocked, and their contents
proved to be the rich treasures of Greek red and black-figured vases,
procured in such numbers by the Etruscans of the 6th and 5th centuries.
About twenty years later a bright light was thrown on eastern Greek
pottery of the 7th century by the discovery of a cemetery in Rhodes.
About 1870 the ‘Geometric’ style became known and the Dipylon vases at
Athens were revealed. In the seventies and eighties Schliemann’s spade
unearthed the Mycenean civilization, and in the beginning of the present
century we were introduced to the culmination of this period in Crete.
Finally in quite recent times finds of vases of the Stone Age in Crete
and in North Greece have given us a view of vase-production in the third
millennium B.C. If therefore we wish to retrace this long road, we must
begin at a period, of which the investigation has only just begun and
which presents most difficult problems.
The excavations in Northern Greece, _i.e._, in North Boeotia, Phocis
and above all Thessaly, have introduced us to a purely _Neolithic_
civilization. Here alongside of the two simpler prehistoric techniques,
unornamented (monochrome) and incised ware, was discovered, even in the
oldest strata, a richly developed painted style, with linear ornaments
painted either in red on vases with a white slip or in white on vases
made red by firing. The monochrome, red or black vases are often
brilliantly polished and of excellent workmanship. In the later layers
of the Stone Age finds this civilization differs considerably according
to locality. One class of painted (and incised) vases is very prominent:
it was found chiefly at Dimini and Sesklo, and shows quite a new
principle of decoration (Fig. 1). It combines curvilinear patterns,
especially the spiral motive, with rectilinear decoration (zig-zag, step
pattern, chequers, primitive maeander, etc.); the colouring varies,
white on red, black on white, brown on yellow. Side by side with this
style we find in other places the greatest variety of painted and
unpainted vases: even polychrome decoration appears. In the early Bronze
Age all this splendour vanishes and gives place to the production of
coarse unpainted ware.
It appears that this Stone-Age Ceramic of North Greece has no connection
with the finds of South Greece, and is rather to be traced to the North
and the civilization of the Danube valley.
The South presents us with a much more primitive picture. The large
layer of Stone Age finds, which came to light in Crete, produced vases
with incised geometrical ornament, alongside of coarse undecorated
pottery, but curvilinear patterns of Thessalian type are completely
absent and painted vases are rare. The reason for a less elaborate
development of Neolithic civilization in Crete seems to be that it gave
place to the Bronze Age comparatively
[Illustration: PLATE II.
Fig. 1. STONE AGE BOWL FROM THESSALY.]
[Illustration: Fig. 2. FACE-URN FROM TROY II-V.]
early: in Thessaly it seems to go down far into the second millennium.
According to these early vase finds one has thus to picture to oneself
the beginnings of ceramic art. First, the most essential household
vessels are fashioned by hand out of imperfectly cleansed clay, and
burnt black in the open fire, and before long the outer surface is also
polished, probably with smooth stones. Rectilinear ornaments are pressed
or incised into the soft clay, and by degrees the method of filling and
indicating the incised lines by a white substance is learned; the clay
is also treated plastically, for instance channelled. Gradually the clay
is made less impure, is more cleanly polished and more evenly baked in
the oven, and by the actual firing has various colours, red, black,
grey, yellow and brown, imparted to it. Thus a ground is also obtained
for painting, on which the rectilinear ornaments are imposed with
colour. Greater solidity and brighter colouring are obtained by covering
the vase with a slip, which moreover sets off the painting excellently.
The invention of the wrongly styled ‘varnish,’ a black colour glaze
which, though technically undeveloped, appears even in North Greece of
the Stone Age, is of the highest importance for the whole history of
Greek vase-painting. The forms are primitive, little articulated, but
already very various: the decoration covers uniformly almost the whole
vase.
But the different techniques do not regularly succeed each other;
inventions are not immediately communicated from one locality to
another; primitive methods subsist alongside of more advanced, nay even
sometimes drive them out again. This much is clear, that a section taken
through these contemporaneous prehistoric civilizations would present a
highly variegated aspect.
The Stone Age is succeeded by the Bronze Age, here earlier and there
later; here more quickly, there more slowly; i.e., metals are gradually
introduced, and with them new techniques and a new civilization. It is
evident that to the earlier Bronze Age belong a series of innovations
which are of decisive importance for the history of vases, the invention
of the potter’s wheel, the perfection of the so-called ‘varnish,’ and
the imitation of metal forms in clay. In most places the potter’s oven
and the painting of vases appear only in the early Bronze Age.
Into the early Bronze Age fall the finds from the earliest layers at
Troy. In the unalterable faith that he was discovering the world of
Homer, with the strong and weak points of a dilettante, Heinrich
Schliemann began to dig at Hissarlik, and in the excavations of 1871,
1878, 1890 and 1893 Dörpfeld and he investigated the rubbish hill, which
has become so famous, the nine superimposed settlements of which
represent as many successive civilizations down to Roman times. The
numerous ceramic finds of the five lowest layers show the transition
from rude hand-made and ill-baked ware with impressed linear patterns to
ever more developed stages. The potter’s wheel and oven finally succeed
in producing brilliant red, black, grey, brown vases of the finest
technique. The variety of shapes is very great, some are already quite
developed; the imitation of metal forms is to be traced here and there.
A notable speciality is found in the so-called Face-urns (Fig. 2), rude
imitations of the human form, produced by adding eyes, nose, mouth,
ears, nipples and navel; and there are also other vase-types, which are
not repeated in Western Greece. Painting is rare, the vases are either
monochrome or adorned with incised linear ornaments, which are often
applied in the manner of necklaces, or divide the vase vertically.
The Bronze Age civilization of the second city up to the fifth, which,
judging by the rich finds of metal utensils and
[Illustration: PLATE III.
Fig. 3. JUG FROM SYROS.]
[Illustration: Fig. 4. JUG FROM MYCENÆ.]
gold ornaments, was by no means primitive, recurs in the whole of N.W.
Asia Minor and in Cyprus. Its last phase cannot be separated in time
from the western civilization of the shaft graves (p. 7).
Parallel with Troy II-V and the mainland civilization of Marina (below),
on the islands of the Aegean is the so-called Cycladic civilization. Its
pottery, however, presents a much more variegated picture: beside the
primitive vases there are vases incised and painted with rich, not
exclusively rectilinear, ornamentation: glazed (‘varnished’) vases also
occur. The forms are very varied: bronze and stone vessels often serve
as models; the structure of the vases and the distribution of the
ornamentation show unmistakeably definite artistic intention. There is
great difference between various islands and a comprehensive view of the
development is not yet possible. Specimens like the beaked jug from
Syros (Fig. 3) are probably contemporary with the early Minoan style of
Crete (p. 7), but the pans with engraved spirals, circles, ships and
fish are later. On Melos, which has quite a separate position of its
own, the influence of the Cretan ‘Kamares’ civilization (p. 8) in
technique and decoration is obvious.
We return to the mainland and Central Greece. Hagia Marina in Phocis is
the chief place in which a pottery, following on the Neolithic, has been
found, hand-made with a black or red glaze, with or without rectilinear
ornaments in white. This was called ‘Primitive varnish ware,’ before the
Neolithic preceding stages had become known. ‘Marina’ ware superseded
the Neolithic in Boeotia (Orchomenos) and Thessaly also; similar vases
have been found in the western islands (Leukas) and in the Argolid
(Tiryns). It is also related to the Cycladic civilization, as is
indicated by the jug imitated from metal models, which is common to both
styles.
The ‘Marina’ layer is succeeded at Orchomenos by a ware of a totally
different kind, which probably spread from this locality and is
therefore called ‘Minyan,’ dark-grey and grey or yellow vases,
especially (_a_) drinking-cups, with tall channelled foot, and (_b_)
profiled two-handled cups (Fig. 6), turned on the wheel, and in shape
more plainly even than the Marina ware dependent on metal models. The
wide extension of this already finely developed ware combines a series
of bronze-age sites into a chronological unit, the so-called ‘Shaft
grave’ stage (p. 7). In Northern and Central Greece as well as in Leucas
it follows on the ‘Marina’ ware, in Attica and Aegina it takes the place
of the monochrome and incised ware, in the islands it supersedes the
Cycladic pottery, in Troy it is parallel with the ware of Asia Minor and
Cyprus, in the Argolid the Marina finds of Tiryns are followed by the
shaft graves of Mycenae with Minyan vases.
Almost everywhere along with the Minyan ware we find vases not so finely
constructed, generally hand-made, which are neither burnt dark nor
glazed, but show a decoration applied in dull colour. This lustreless
painting (_Mattmalerei_) in Central and Northern Greece, and also in
Attica (white-ground ware of Aphidna, Eleusis), uses only geometrical
ornaments; in the Argolid on red or light clay vases linear patterns,
wavy lines, running spirals or even figured decorations (_e.g._ birds,
Fig. 4) are painted in brown colour. The decoration generally emphasises
the shoulder; the lower part of the vase is unadorned and separated by
stripes from the upper.
The next stage is that Minyan ware and lustreless painting are almost
everywhere driven out by Creto-Mycenean ‘Varnish’ pottery. In many
places this process did not take place till the end of the Bronze Age,
as in Thessaly, Central Greece and Attica (Eleusis). It was apparently
[Illustration: PLATE IV.
Fig. 5. KAMARES VASE FROM KNOSSOS.
Fig. 6. KYLIX FROM MYCENÆ.]
the lords of the Argolid who first and most freely opened their gates to
Cretan importation and influence; in the shaft graves of Mycenae, famous
for their rich treasure of gold, discovered by Schliemann in 1874 behind
the Lion Gate, the oldest Cretan import in the shape of vases of the
first late Minoan style (p. 10), appears beside Minyan and lustreless
ware (Figs. 4 and 6).
By the side of these local products, the ‘Varnish’ vases in the shaft
graves appear like children of a strange and sunnier world,
representative of a quite different and superior style of art. The idea
that they came from Crete has been confirmed by the excavations carried
on since 1900, which in different parts of the island disclosed a
compact civilization of markedly un-Greek character, developing without
a break from the third millennium to the end of the second, which is in
striking contrast to that of the mainland. This civilization has been
named Minoan after the fabulous king Minos, the builder of the
labyrinth, and it has been divided into three epochs, of which the first
two precede the period of the shaft graves.
In the early Minoan period, following on the miserable Stone Age (p. 2)
the Cretans must have laid the foundation of their riches, if an
inference may be drawn from the stone vases and goldsmith’s work of
Mochlos. The ceramic art enters on two paths, which have a future before
them. The vases were hitherto unpainted and only incised. Now _either_
they are covered with brilliant black paint (‘varnish’) on which the old
patterns are painted in tenacious white colour, a technique which
celebrated its triumph in the subsequent period, or the vases are left
in the colour of the clay and painted with bands of ‘varnish’; to this
so-called ‘Mycenean’ technique belongs the whole late period (p. 10).
There is a special group of flamed ware, the patterns of which, like
much that is Minoan, are far nearer to modern applied art than to
Greek. Even in the first half of this period the kiln seems already to
be known; the potter’s wheel appears in the second, which is
characterized by the first appearance of curvilinear patterns,
especially the wave series and running spiral.
The Middle Minoan period, a pure and richly-developed bronze
civilization, is the height of polychromy: the clay is finely cleansed,
the black glaze is at its very best, red in different shades occurs
besides white. A transition leads to the brilliant period of the Kamares
style, named after the first discoveries in the Kamares cave on Mt. Ida.
The ‘Mycenean technique’ occurs not infrequently alongside of the
polychrome; but as it often edges the ornaments with incised lines or
puts white spots on them, it does not reject the tendency to richer
effect, which is a feature of the age and is also expressed in the
relief-like ornamentation of many vases (Barbotine). The ornamentation
is still very fond of linear patterns, and also develops the spiral
still further, and lays the foundation of the numerous decorative
motives which characterize the later periods; living creatures also
(birds, fishes, quadrupeds) are represented in painting. The motive of
drops falling from the brush, which would be inconceivable in Greek
vase-painting proper, occurs already. There is a simultaneous use of
decoration in bands, and without division; the emphasizing of the
shoulder by ornamentation is found in contrast with the lower part
decorated, if at all, with stripes (Figs. 3 and 4). The stock of forms
increases, and the imitation of metal-work is often unmistakeable.
In the Kamares style proper (Figs. 5 and 9) polychromy (white, red, and
dark yellow on black) reaches its highest development, the greatest
variety of plastic decoration appears, the Mycenean technique (dark on
light) is relegated to the background.
[Illustration: PLATE V.
Figs. 7 & 8. FUNNEL-VASES OF LATE MINOAN I STYLE. FROM PALAIKASTRO AND
PSEIRA.
Fig. 9. KAMARES PITHOS FROM PHAISTOS.]
The shapes become continually more delicate, metal vases are often
directly copied; cups, beaked jugs, beaked saucers, and amphorae with
handles at the mouth are specially common. The list of ornaments is much
increased and can scarcely be described in few words. By the side or in
the place of geometrical motives, crosses, zig-zags, groups of strokes,
and richly developed circle, bow and spiral motives, appear vegetable,
leaves, branches, rosettes, and most important of all, the continuous
wavy tendril. Even living beings appear occasionally.
The plant ornamentation of the Kamares vases is in a peculiar relation
to nature. Though nature is here for the first time consistently
imitated, the reproduction is not at all ‘naturalistic’ but thoroughly
and from the first severely stylized. Not only does the colouring bear
no relation to the object represented, not only is the combination of
vegetable and geometric motives of purely decorative character, but the
natural object imitated is often barely recognizable. The Kamares potter
only aims at a pretty combination of colour and line, not at
representations. Nor is he concerned with structural arrangement:
division by bands and emphasizing the lower part of the vase by leaves
pointing upward are uncommon. Usually the decoration spreads freely over
the field and is not subordinated to the structure of the vessel. This
undisputed predominance of the ornamentation is in the sharpest contrast
to the procedure of Greek art proper.
The Kamares civilization, starting from Crete, exercised influence over
the islands of the Aegean: the importation and imitation of its ware can
be proved for Thera and Melos. Isolated finds in Egypt are of
importance, first because they prove the relation of Crete to the Nile
valley, and secondly because they give a fixed date (XII Dynasty). The
technique did not disappear with the Middle Minoan Age, but was long
maintained alongside of the new style.
The Kamares finds come mostly from the older palaces of Phaistos and
Knossos. The investigation of their ruins has shown that these buildings
were destroyed by fire and soon afterwards replaced by still finer new
edifices. The vase finds in these later palaces show a complete break
with the old style. Polychromy is no longer the principal attraction; it
is given only a secondary place: the new style (Middle Minoan III and
Late Minoan I, Figs. 7, 8, 10 and 11), which is no longer satisfied with
gay ornamentation, but with fresh vigour essays the conquest of Nature
and her excellences, throws off the bands of the old technique, and with
bold freedom depicts the newly discovered world in dark colour on light
clay. In contrast to the Kamares style, it did not arise on the vases
themselves by the enrichment of an ornamental style, but it is to be
understood as the reflection of higher techniques. Vase-painting gives
only a small extract from the rich array of subjects, which the other
lesser arts and the wall-painting of the period conjure before our eyes.
Of the wonderfully vivid representations of men and animals, in which
the Cretans were masters, nothing is to be found on the vases. This is
certainly not an accident, but a sign of the purely decorative feeling
of these artists. They did not want to stylize the human or animal body
till it became decorative, to distort it for the eye by placing it on a
curved surface, and by combining figures to upset the ease and flow of
the decorative scheme. Thus they entirely gave up all reproduction of
them, and are thus in marked contrast with Greek vase-painting, the
history of which may be regarded as a constant struggle to represent
mankind and animal creation. The Cretans took to other objects instead,
which could be represented in the vigorous way they aimed at, and yet
also filled the field decoratively, without any loss to the picture from
the
[Illustration: PLATE VI.
Fig. 10. STIRRUP-VASE OF LATE MINOAN I STYLE FROM GOURNIA.
Fig. 11. AMPHORA OF LATE MINOAN I STYLE FROM PSEIRA.]
curve of the vessel. The vegetable world had entered the decoration of
vases in the Kamares period: now it does so afresh, but in a totally
different spirit. Grasses, branches, ivy, crocuses, lilies as they grow
and wave in nature, surround the vases. But these people were specially
concerned with the sea, marine plants and live creatures. Lotus flowers,
sea-weeds and reeds wave in the water, the cuttle-fish stretches out his
feelers, the nautilus swims about, starfish and snails, corals and
sea-anemones surround the living objects, and dolphins gambol around.
What impelled the Cretan vase-painters thus unweariedly to represent the
marine world exclusively on vases? The explanation can only be sought in
that supreme law of the development of artistic style, the talent for
invention in a few pioneer brains and the slowness in invention of the
many. The excellent idea of having the cool liquid in the vases
surrounded by this decorative play of marine life, which filled the
field and was so life-like, perhaps came from a single gifted brain. The
idea became popular, and the common run of vase-painters created
countless variations of the theme.
The excellent naturalism directly inspired by nature, which it transfers
with a bold brush to the vases, is limited to a short creative period:
immediately the schematic and conventional assert themselves; life
disappears, but fixed decorative formulæ remain, and to them the future
belongs. Moreover, the stylized ornamentation never ceased to exist
alongside of the natural; nay, often appears on the same vase in
conjunction with it, in the shape of wavy lines, spirals in different
combinations, continuous tendrils (which are also treated naturally) or
stylized plants. Thus two methods of decoration are in contrast, one
‘tectonic’ with arrangement in bands, another, which freely scatters
naturalistic representations over the vase, a kind of ornament which
has made almost everyone who has spoken of it adduce the parallel of
Japanese art. The freely adorned vases are also most characteristic of
the art of the Cretans, and show most plainly their gay and heedless
manner, their free decorative work, their direct relation to nature,
foreign to abstraction and idea: they set this art in contrast with the
contemporary old civilizations of the Nile and Euphrates as well as with
the Greek.
The naturalism of the first Late Minoan period has narrower limits than
has been usually estimated. Not only is the stock of themes scanty (Fig.
11 is an exception); but also the reproduction of nature is purely
superficial, knows nothing of perspective or shading, and stylizes the
forms into the style of decorative drawing: thus, for instance, the
marine world is represented without any indication of water. Of course,
this does not mean that such abstraction from reality is not an
advantage from the point of view of decorative art. Often the
vase-shapes show a cultivated feeling for form in the way the body
swells and contracts, but appear simple and constrained when compared
with the fine lines of contour in the next period. Among new types that
emerge may be mentioned the ‘stirrup vase’ (Fig. 10) and the ‘funnel
vase’ (Figs. 7 and 8).
The superiority of these Cretan vases to all contemporary ceramic output
showed itself in a vigorous export. The Egyptian finds of this ware give
as a date the XVIII dynasty, approximately 1500 B.C., a date confirmed
by some Egyptian objects found in Crete. Cretan vases were also exported
in quantities to Melos and Thera: there the native industry loses itself
in imperfect imitations of this imported ware. The Cretan civilization
also enters the Greek mainland, especially the Argolid. The shaft graves
of Mycenae (p. 7), from which the Late Minoan civilization transplanted
to the mainland has been named ‘Mycenean,’
[Illustration: PLATE VII.
Figs. 12 & 13. AMPHORÆ OF THE PALACE STYLE FROM KNOSSOS.]
are the oldest instance of this fact. The imported vases of the six
graves are distributed over the whole of the first Late Minoan (early
Mycenean) period, containing late specimens of Kamares style and early
specimens of the Palace style: but the bulk of the ‘varnish’ vases found
on the mainland belong to the succeeding period.
The second Late Minoan period of vase production in Crete, the so-called
Palace style (Figs. 12 and 13) is not so sharply divided from the first,
as the latter is from the Kamares style. Both phases are connected by
several transitional forms and run parallel for a time. An important
difference is that the last traces of the Kamares technique (the
imposition of white, red and orange on a black ground) disappear: there
is simply painting in black on light clay (Mycenean technique). The
decoration neglects the neck and foot of the vessel and emphasizes the
shoulder, particularly with the characteristic half-branches. The
animated reproductions of nature in the preceding style are treated in a
fanciful way; they become fixed and are changed into ornaments and
patterns for filling; the significant unity of the design is interrupted
by foreign elements; the marine and plant ornamentation now never covers
the whole vase but retires into a single band. In short, the
naturalistic style gives place to a tectonic style, the representations
are not the chief thing aimed at, which is the filling of the space.
Beside the ornaments produced by the schematizing of living natural
forms come new ones, which often look like a borrowing of architectural
forms; moreover, the juxtaposition and combination of the ornaments show
the same spirit, and also the emphasis now laid on the shape of the
vase, in which the structure and the swinging contour reach their
highest form of elegance, as can be seen most plainly in the amphorae.
This art had a wide influence outside Crete. To the beginning of the
period, the transition from the first to the second Late Minoan style,
belong many mainland finds, especially from domed tombs, in Peloponnese
(Vaphio, Argos, Mycenae, Old Pylos), in Attica (Athens, Thorikos,
Spata), in Boeotia (Thebes, Orchomenos) and in Thessaly (Volo). The
finds continue during the period of the developed Palace style. The
majority of these ‘varnish’ vases seem not to have been imported from
Crete but made by Cretan artizans in the country. The Mycenean local
princes, who from their lofty citadels controlled the surrounding
country, surrounded themselves more and more with the splendour of this
southern civilization, ordered weapons, ornaments, precious vases from
Crete, used them in life, gave them to the dead in graves; they also
took into their service foreign artists, and gave employment to Cretan
masons, painters and potters.
The islands too acquire Cretan vases: they were exported as far as
Aegina, Melos, distant Cyprus, and the sixth city of Troy.
About the end of the second Late Minoan period the Cretan palaces of
Phaistos, Knossos, and Hagia Triada are destroyed, and with the
destruction of these and other sites the Palace style decays.
The pottery of the Late Mycenean (or third Late Minoan) period (Figs.
14-17) is very inferior to that of the Palace style. The technique is at
first neat but afterwards falls off: the smooth yellowish clay takes a
green tinge, the brilliant glaze colour, often burnt red, becomes a
lustreless black. The ornamentation consists of the last remains of the
naturalistic decoration, now become quite lifeless and poor, with which
are associated purely geometrical patterns of the simplest kind, wavy
lines, spirals, concentric circles. Rectilinear patterns (groups of
strokes, hatched triangles) become ever more prominent. The decoration
is generally
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.
Fig. 14. LATE MYCENEAN CUP FROM RHODES.
Fig. 15. LATE MYCENEAN STIRRUP-VASE FROM RHODES.]
very loose, emphasizes the shoulder band, and usually puts on the lower
half of the vase only a few stripes: vertical division of the field into
‘metopes’ is common.
But, on the other hand, figured representations are not unusual on late
Mycenean vases. Two classes can be distinguished off-hand:--(_a_) animal
representations, in traditional ornamental style and very ‘geometrical’
in treatment, particularly birds with cross-hatched bodies, certainly
continuations of the old lustreless painting (cp. Fig. 4 with Fig. 15);
and (_b_) larger compositions taken over from wall-painting, often
provided with ornaments to fill the field, like the chariot-race on the
krater from Rhodes (Fig. 17). The best-known example is the Warrior vase
from Mycenae representing the departure for the battle-field.
Apart from these figured representations, one may say that Cretan
vase-painting, after its brilliant achievements in the Kamares, shaft
grave, and Palace styles, sinks down to that primitive level from which
it started: it becomes once more a geometrical style.
The area over which we find this pottery is enormous, being practically
the whole Mediterranean basin, Crete, Egypt, the Cyclades, the coast of
Asia Minor (sixth city of Troy) and its adjacent islands (_e.g._
Rhodes), Cyprus (where the Mycenean supersedes an old and plentiful
pottery akin to that of Troy), Phoenicia, Italy, Sicily, and especially
all important sites of the Greek mainland. In many places, where the
‘varnish’ painting did not enter earlier, it now comes into contact with
the old indigenous technique, with the monochrome, incised and
lustreless vases: many backward settlements, like Olympia, seem to have
had practically no acquaintance with the Mycenean style.
Here again the Egyptian finds give us a date: they last from about the
end of the 15th down into the 12th century. But since it is not
conceivable that we should date the Geometrical period, which followed
the Mycenean, back into the second millennium, the late Mycenean style
must have lasted at least four centuries; the rate of development, which
in the time of great achievements had been very rapid, must have become
considerably slower.
To arrange the huge mass of late Mycenean vases in this long development
is impossible, until the material has been sifted and worked through.
But one thing already can be said with certainty, that it was not merely
exported from Crete; indeed it is more than questionable, whether Crete
played the leading part. In this period the native seat of the brilliant
Minoan civilization is no longer in the foreground; the centre of
gravity has shifted to the mainland, in particular the Argolid. Even in
the period of the shaft graves we see the Peloponnesians eagerly
adopting Cretan civilization; in the following period the mainland vies
with Crete in the production of Mycenean vases, and finally must have
wrested the lead from the southern outpost. This applies not merely to
civilization but to political conditions. A hypothesis, in favour of
which there is much to be said, connects the destruction of the Cretan
palaces with the invasion of conquering ‘Achaeans,’ the name Homer
applies to the lords of the mainland. Just as the wall-painting
originally borrowed from Crete was still flourishing on the mainland,
when it had died out at home, so the late Mycenean pottery must have
been produced mainly in continental Greece, and the new style must have
been formed by the Peloponnesians. Thus we can explain the non-Minoan
elements, the strong geometrical influence on the decoration, and the
taking over of figured scenes from wall-painting, which was rejected by
the old Cretans.
So it was probably the ‘Achaeans’ who spread the late Mycenean pottery
all over the Mediterranean. They had
[Illustration: PLATE IX.
Figs. 16 & 17. LATE MYCENEAN VASES FROM RHODES.]
become a seafaring nation on a great scale. Of their entry into Crete we
have just spoken, of their united campaigns of conquest in Asia Minor,
in which the Cretan king has the Argive Agamemnon as his overlord, the
Homeric poems tell us, and of their colonizing expansion in the
Mediterranean the vase finds among other things give evidence, as they
justify conclusions about new localities of manufacture (Troy, Rhodes,
Cyprus, etc.).
In the beginning of the first millennium the scene is totally altered.
On the coast of Asia Minor and the islands are settled Hellenic races,
among which the Aeolians and Ionians are probably descendants of the
emigrated Achaeans, while the Dorians represent a new tribe come in from
the north, which subdued the Peloponnese and Crete and extended to the
south of the Aegean Sea.
These shiftings of population, the so-called Dorian invasion, with which
Greek historians begin the history of their country, mark the end of the
Bronze Age and of the Mycenean civilization. Iron weapons, only
sporadically to be found in the late Mycenean age, take the place of
bronze; the Mycenean vase style vanishes all along the line, and gives
way to a new style, the Geometric.
CHAPTER II.
THE GEOMETRIC STYLE
Now for the first time the history of Greek vases proper begins. In the
pottery of the geometric style are latent the forces, which we see
afterwards expanding in contact with the East, as well as the oldest
beginnings that we can trace of that brilliant continuous development,
which led to the proud heights of Klitias, Euphronios, Meidias. Its
producers may be unreservedly described as Greeks: Hellas has come into
being. However primitive the civilization of this early Greece may have
been, however patriarchal is the picture which Homer, the great genius
of this period, gives us of this world, however much the works of art
described by him point to Mycenean reminiscences and Phoenician
importation, yet in the department of ceramics the art of this time was
thoroughly original and highly developed, and it is from the vases that
this early phase gets its name.
We should like to have a glimpse of the origin of the Geometric style,
but its beginnings are shrouded in darkness. It cannot be regarded as
simply a descendant of the pre-Mycenean Geometric pottery, which in
outlying parts continued throughout the Bronze Age; for in its ‘varnish’
technique, its forms and decoration, it is totally different from those
primitive vessels. As little is it a direct continuation of the Mycenean
style, from which it took over the technique of painting. However much
towards the end of its development the latter inclined to decoration in
bands and the geometrizing of ornament, it was an outworn poor style
that arose out of schematizing of living forms, in complete contrast
with the clear concise Geometric style, which consistently unfolds and
exhausts its individuality.
Naturally the Mycenean style did not disappear abruptly from the face of
the earth, and there are transitional forms, which cannot be nicely
divided. They must not be too highly estimated; they are, it is true, at
the beginning of the new development, but do not influence it. Thus the
‘Salamis’ vases, and their parallels from Athens, Nauplia, and Assarlik
in Southern Asia Minor, show this transition, retaining in part Mycenean
forms like the stirrup vase, and Mycenean ornaments like the spiral, but
being in fact an insignificant ware, of bad workmanship and meagre
decoration. More interesting is the survival of Mycenean traditions in
Crete, the home of the Minoan style, and in the Argolid, the chief seat
of late Mycenean civilization: certain vase-shapes, hatched triangles,
concentric circles and semi-circles on the shoulder are retained from
the old style.
From these and other Mycenean reminiscences the unfolding of the new
style cannot be explained any more than by a revival of pre-Mycenean
Geometric styles. We must rather bring in, to explain the phenomenon,
those movements of peoples, the driving out of southern Mycenean
civilization by races advancing from the North, and the new mixture of
blood, which strengthened and made dominant the northern European
element. Though the Dorians did not develop the style as conspicuously
as other tribes, there arose out of the ferment caused by their
appearance on the scene the new creative vigour, the Greek element
proper, which, out of the frozen traditions of the mainland and the
lifeless relics of Mycenean art created a new style and a firm basis for
a fine development.
The Geometric style makes a virtue of the necessities of rude
beginnings; out of the simple decorative material at its disposal, it
creates a rich system. Angular patterns, rows of dots, strokes,
‘fish-bones,’ zig-zags, crosses, stars, hooked crosses, triangles,
rhombi, hook maeanders, maeanders broken up in different ways, maeander
systems, chequers, net patterns are most common; alongside of them are
circles and rosettes neatly made with the compass. The wavy line, which
like the snake edged with dots perhaps comes from Mycenean polyps, takes
a second place; all other free ornamentation is eschewed; the place of
continuous spirals is taken by circles connected by tangents. Thus the
ornamentation appears to be steeped in mathematics, and the same is the
case with the representation of living beings. Man and animal alike
appear in stylized silhouettes, which bring the various parts of the
body into the simplest possible scheme, and set them off sharply against
one another. Thus the human breast appears as an inverted triangle and
is shown frontally, but the legs and head are in profile. The head,
which is only emancipated from the silhouette style in the succeeding
period, already often has a space reserved in it to indicate the eye. As
a rule the human body is represented naked, while towards the end of the
period, the instances of clothing, especially of women, become more
numerous. There has been division of opinion as to whether this nudity
reproduces actual life. That is certainly not the case. “This is the
nudity of the primitive artist, of the abstract linear style. It is not
man as he actually is, but the concept ‘man’ which is to be rendered,
and clothes are no part of this concept.” (Furtwängler). These oldest
Greek representations of man are not, properly speaking, reproductions
of nature, but a kind of mathematical formulæ;, which gradually in the
course of centuries of fresh observation of
[Illustration: PLATE X.
Fig. 18. ATTIC GEOMETRIC AMPHORA (DIPYLON CLASS).
Fig. 19.
GEOMETRIC AMPHORA, PROBABLY ATTIC (BLACK DIPYLON CLASS).]
nature become richer, corporeal, living, spiritual. Animal
representation begins also in the same formulistic manner. The choice is
in contrast with the Minoan animal world: there is complete absence of
the Oriental animal world of fancy; we only see the Northern fauna;
horses, roes, goats, storks, geese. The animals stand upright, graze, or
rest with neck turned round. The technique is always that of the pure
silhouette; only the birds often, as in the pre-Mycenean and late
Mycenean styles (Figs. 4 and 15), show hatched or cross-hatched inner
drawing of the body.
These geometric ornaments and abstract silhouettes of men and animals
form the complete stock out of which the artist of the period provides
for the decoration of his vases. With them he fills the bands into which
he loves to divide the vase (Fig. 18); or at all events the shoulder or
handle band, constructively the most important, in which case he covers
the lower part of the vase with black (Fig. 19) or with parallel rings
(Fig. 23). The bands, the breadth of which is varied, are filled in two
ways. Either we have continuous ornaments, and processions of animals,
chorus dancers, warriors, chariots and horses, which in this style are
essentially nothing but ornament; or he divides the bands, and
particularly the handle bands (Fig. 19) vertically into rectangular
fields, metopes as they are called. The metope naturally takes a
different scheme of filling the space from the band; if the latter
prefers a continuous series, the former requires ornaments complete in
themselves, like circles and rosettes, or in the case of figures, the
antithetical group, the heraldic opposition of two different fields of
figures, or of two figures in the same field. The figures connected by
compulsion of space are then more closely united by a central motive,
and there arise ornamental compositions not at all drawn from actual
life, _e.g._ two birds both holding in their beaks a fish or a snake,
two horses with crossed fore-legs, rearing towards each other, tied to
a tripod, or held by a man with a bridle, two roes with raised fore-legs
leaning against a tree. Band and metope with their compulsory schematism
no longer suffice for the growing need of representation: in the large
vases the chief band is often made very high, or in the upper part of
the vase a rectangle adorned with ornament or figures is left out from
the surrounding black: thus arises the vase with special field for
subjects.
Legend, which in this period found its brilliant expression in the Epics
of Homer and Hesiod, is still very much in the background in these
vase-paintings. Centaurs only begin to be represented on late Geometric
vases. Scenes such as the embarkation on the bowl from Thebes (Fig. 21)
cannot be interpreted otherwise than mythically, as the rape of Helen by
Paris or of Ariadne by Theseus, since on Geometric bronze fibulæ from
Boeotia it is certain that legendary scenes are intended. The battle
scenes too, with their duellists surrounded by spectators and their
fights on a large scale by land and sea, must be inspired by the Heroic
Saga. But far more numerous are the scenes of daily life, which are
connected with the sepulchral purpose of the vases. We see the dead man
lying on the bed of state, covered with a big cloth; men, women, and
children, with arms raised to their heads in token of grief, are
standing, sitting and kneeling around him; we see the bier placed on the
hearse, and amid loud lamentation of the populace driven to the
cemetery, while, in honour of the deceased, chariot-races and mimic
battles are represented and dances are performed to the sound of flutes
and lyres.
As the human form is rendered without any feeling for bodily shape, so
all the representations are without any spatial sense. Chariot floors
and table surfaces are not fore-shortened, the breast of the dead man
lying on the bier
[Illustration: PLATE XI.
Fig. 20. UPPER HALF OF A DIPYLON GRAVE-VASE.
Fig. 21. ‘THE RAPE OF HELEN,’ ON A BOWL FROM THEBES.]
is represented in front view, the covering of the corpse is visible in
its complete extent, as if it hung down upon it; in the case of pairs of
horses the off horse is simply moved forward and represented smaller;
masses of men are rendered by files of similar figures; figures to be
thought of as in the background, _e.g._ the hinder rows in the Helen
bowl (Fig. 21) are placed high up. The space, which contains the
figures, is an ideal tectonic space, the surface of the vase to be
adorned. Where the figures do not suffice to fill this space, the
Geometric artist regards it as a gap in the decoration of the vase and
fills the void with dots, rows of zig-zags, hooked crosses, rosettes
with a central point, and actually paints birds or fishes between the
legs of horses or between the chariot and the bier which rests upon it
(Fig. 20).
This even covering of the surface gives the vases of this period a
carpet-like appearance, and this textile impression is strengthened by
the geometry of the ornamentation, by the angular stylization of the
living beings, by the decorative schemes and the division into bands.
But on this account to derive the whole style from the imitation of
works of the loom would be a mistake; the stylistic limitations of the
style cannot be identified straight off with the technical limitation of
weaving. As in all primitive civilizations so in the formation of the
Geometric vase style, simple linear patterns may have been taken over
from weaving and plaiting: but this is not the case with circles and
rosettes, and anyhow such a consistent and systematic perfection as that
of the Geometric vase style is inconceivable as an imitation of a
foreign technique.
Greek ceramic art never completely lost this ‘textile’ character, and
never quite renounced the Geometric school through which it passed,
though by centuries of labour it freed itself from the defects and
crudities of that school. Vase-figures long exhibit their origin out of
the ornamental silhouette; the decorative schemes of arrangement in rows
and of antithetic groups are always breaking out afresh; the principle
of using up the space is applied superficially for some time and only
gradually refined; the decoration in bands subsists for a long time
beside the vases with a pictorial field, and remains of it exist till
late; the disinclination for deepening the field, based on a correct
structural feeling, goes through the whole history of Greek vases and
keeps the ornamental figure world of the vases always at a distance from
the much less constrained world of free painting.
The Geometric vases have not merely a historical meaning, but a value of
their own. They are not a preliminary stage, but something complete. In
them Greek art in true Greek fashion worked out a thought; expressed
itself for the first time in a classical way, if the phrase may be used;
out of a clumsy rustic style with poor ornamentation developed vases of
technical perfection, compact and clear in form, consistently thought
out in the decoration now lavishly, now sparingly spread over them, in
their austere beauty true children of the Greek genius.
But this style did not put out everywhere equally fine flowers. It was
not, like the late Mycenean, an ‘imperial’ style, but, from the
first--and this is significant for Greek art--differentiated and
conditioned by locality; each region had its own manufacture of vases,
and its own Geometric style. Already the lead is taken by that place,
which later was to drive out of the field all competitors, viz., Athens.
The Dipylon vases--the name usually given to Attic Geometric vases from
the fact that most of them were found in the cemetery before the Dipylon
Gate,--rise in form, technique and decoration to the greatest perfection
and highest richness. In the magnificent amphoræ, as much as two metres
in height, which are worthy of their monumental use as tomb decoration,
the Geometric style perhaps reaches its culmination; in the so-called
black Dipylon vases, often only sparingly decorated on the shoulder or
neck and otherwise covered black, we get already an effect of colour
which became popular much later; the stock of forms is ampler, the
maeander more developed, the delight in telling a story and in
representing a scene greater than in other Geometric styles. Beside the
Dipylon there is a second site in Attica, Eleusis, though not so
important; Boeotia too must be mentioned, the pottery of which makes a
provincial impression, and is dependent in forms, patterns and subjects
on Attica and the Aegean islands, as also that of the neighbouring
Eretria in Euboea.
The prototypes of the big Boeotian and Eretrian amphoræ with high stem
and broad neck have been found particularly in Delos and Rheneia, richly
ornamented vases ‘de luxe,’ in which the painting is laid on a white
slip. In the same place, where the cult of Apollo had a great
attraction, several other Geometric classes were also found, among them
the precursors of the art which flourished in the 7th century and which
is usually ascribed to the island of Melos. On the Delian vases horses
and human representations occur, but generally in this class there is a
disinclination to represent figures. The same disinclination and the
frequent use of a light slip characterize the pottery of the Dorian
island of Thera, which developed a very definite though sober and
monotonous Geometric style that seems to have obstinately persisted till
well into the 7th century. The rich finds of other classes bear witness
to an active trade with the mainland, other Cyclades, and the Ionic
East, the pottery of which has many points of contact with the Cycladic.
We know it from Miletus and other places on the Asiatic coast, but above
all from the island of Rhodes. The Rhodian Geometric vases are
distinguished from the Cycladic by the absence of the light slip, and
seem in spite of many points of contact never to have reached the same
level. An isolated vegetable ornament, the so-called palm-tree, points
to relations with Cyprus. Cross-hatched rhombi and birds are very much
in vogue; they appear also in loose arrangement on the ‘Bird kylikes,’
which in post-Geometric times extended from Rhodes over the Ionian
region and so made their way to the Greek mainland, Italy and Sicily.
The most important Peloponnesian manufactures are: (1) that of Sparta,
which now to some extent adopts the white slip later predominant; (2)
that of Argos, which soon discards its Mycenean reminiscences and
develops on parallel lines with the Attic ware without attaining to the
heights and richness of the Dipylon vases; (3) above all, the so-called
Protocorinthian.
This Geometric style, which next to the Attic had the greatest future
before it, seems to be at home in the Northern Argolid (p. 34). Its
early Geometric beginnings we do not know. It is akin to its Argive
neighbour in many points, in the scantiness of its stock of forms, in
shapes like the metallic krater with a stirrup-handle. Unfortunately
little has been left to us of the large-sized vases, kraters, cauldrons,
amphoræ and jugs. The two-handled cup (Fig. 23), the round box, the
globular oil-flask, the deep drinking-cup, the jug with flat bottom
(Fig. 33) are the favourite smaller shapes. The limitation of the
decoration to the upper margin, and the decoration of the rest with
parallel stripes is characteristic. This ware was more exported than any
other Geometric class; it entered the southern Argolid, went by way of
Corinth and Eleusis to Boeotia and Delphi, and was exported to Aegina
and Thera, Italy and Sicily. On Italian soil, in the Euboean
[Illustration: PLATE XII.
Fig. 22. RHODIAN GEOMETRIC JUG.
Fig. 23. PROTOCORINTHIAN GEOMETRIC SKYPHOS.]
colony of Kyme, it certainly founded a branch factory, which quickly
took on a local character and exported in its turn; but in various other
places also the style evoked local imitations.
The Protocorinthian style owed its brilliant future both to the
Geometric foundation, and, as will appear, to the strong influence of
Cretan Art. In Crete, after the settlement of the Dorians in the island,
no definite Geometric style was formed: the Mycenean traditions were too
strong and the relations with the East too close. After the purely
Geometric vases, among which wide-bellied amphoræ without a neck are
common, there soon appear vases showing Cyprian influence, particularly
small jugs with concentric circles on the body (precursors of Fig. 27);
thus a pitcher from Kavusi, which by an exception has figures on it (a
charioteer and mourning women in a metope-like arrangement) is
apparently, in shape as well as in the ornament which consists of a row
of ‘S’s’ on their backs and the un-Geometric drawing of its silhouettes,
dependent on similar Cyprian models.
Crete with its loosely-rooted Geometric style took up the new elements
more freely than other localities, where at first they are placed side
by side with the native ones, like the palm-tree on Rhodian vases, the
Cyprian circles on Attic and Protocorinthian jugs, the precursors of the
tongue pattern on Attic and Theran vases, the unsystematic rays on Attic
and Protocorinthian ware, the running spiral probably borrowed from
metal work on Protocorinthian and Theran vases. Moreover, figured
representations from an alien world of ideas creep into the fixed
Geometric systems, as for instance the two lions devouring a man on a
Dipylon vase, the goddess flanked by two animals on a Boeotian amphora,
the fabulous creatures on Rhodian vases.
These foreign elements, which have their root in Oriental art, are the
harbingers of a complete revolution, and in them is heralded the end of
the Geometric style. It is obvious that a decorative style like the
Geometric could have no future: its possibilities were quickly
exhausted, even where the style was most richly developed. Its
dissolution would have come, even if superior civilization with richer
methods of decoration had not been in close contact of trade and
intercourse with this early Greek world, and exercised on it a
persistent influence. The Cretans and Eastern Greeks lived in the
immediate neighbourhood of Egypt and Asia, the islands and the mainland
were united to the East by active trade relations. In particular
Phoenician merchants, while the Geometric style was flourishing, handed
on to the Greeks the products of Oriental art, as both the Epic and the
finds testify. Nor did the Greeks remain at home either, but had long
become a seafaring people; Attic, Boeotian and Protocorinthian painters
proudly place representations of ships on Geometric vases; the
statistics of the finds of the various Geometric wares show a constantly
growing trade intercourse. Colonisation too has already begun, and is
ever expanding; according to the earliest vase finds Syracuse, Kyme, and
perhaps also Massilia and the Black Sea coast received settlers, while
their mother-cities still had Geometric pottery. Since Syracuse was
founded in the second half of the 8th century and its oldest graves
contain late Geometric vases, we obtain an approximate date for the end
of the Geometric style.
The objects of Oriental Art, which were brought before the eyes of the
Greeks by this active intercourse, powerfully stimulated their fancy.
The crowd of decorative motives from vegetation, the world of fantastic
animals, and the superiority of Oriental Art in the rendering of life,
drew Greek vase-painting out of Geometric uniformity and pointed it to
new paths.
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.
Fig. 24. ATTIC GEOMETRIC KYLIX.
Figs. 25 & 26. CRETAN JUGS IN THE FIRST ORIENTALISED STYLE.]
CHAPTER III.
THE SEVENTH CENTURY
As the Oriental motives pour into the Greek world, a new development
begins, which in the details of its course is still hard to grasp, the
collision of the native Geometric style with Oriental influence, the
fusion of both elements into a new unity, and the growth of the archaic
style. In contrast with the quiet and consistent unfolding of Geometric
style, the process to anyone who goes deep into its details takes on the
character of a restless fermentation, and an almost dramatic tension. It
occupies, roughly speaking, the 7th century. Without forgetting how
arbitrary divisions in the history of Art must always be, let us here
treat as one the period from the end of the Geometric style to the
abandonment of filling ornament, the change in technique of clay and
colouring, and the formation of the established body of black-figured
types.
The smelting process took on a different character in the different
regions, according to the tenacity with which the old style was
retained, and the intensity of the contact with the East. In most places
there follows first a period of hesitation and experimentalism, out of
which finally the new style is formed. Nowhere does the Oriental element
simply take the place of the Greek Geometric; the acquisitions of the
old style, the fixed vase shapes, the principles of decoration, and the
technique, remain and are further developed. Greek pottery was much too
highly and richly developed, too firmly rooted, to find it necessary to
imitate Oriental clay vases. The stimuli were of much more general
nature; they are chiefly visible in the ornamentation and pictorial
types, they are taken from metal vases and richly embroidered materials,
from costly carpets, articles of jewellery, engraved gems, and other
fine things, which the foreign trader or the seafaring Greek brought
from the Near or Far East or saw with his own eyes abroad. It became
apparent to him, that the Geometric style was really poverty-stricken
and mathematical. The feeling for finely-drawn line and vivid
reproduction of life awoke in view of the freer Art of the East; the
Greek made the Oriental models his own and created out of them and the
mathematical element a new Art. Not all stimuli come direct from the
East; perhaps only comparatively few, which were then passed on, were
constantly altered and took on varied local colour. It looks as if the
stream of Oriental influence took two different routes, one by way of
the Greek East (Rhodes, Samos, Miletus) and another by way of Crete,
which evidently had a strong influence on the Cyclades and Peloponnesus.
In Crete Phoenician metal objects have been found, which were imported
during the Geometric period, and the Cretan Geometric pottery soon takes
up motives of decoration borrowed from the Oriental or Orientalizing
metal industry. The row of ‘S’s,’ which plays a part in Geometric
bronzes, appears as we have seen on the Kavusi jug (p. 27). Its climax
is the cable pattern (_guilloche_), which is obviously borrowed from
Phoenician metal vessels (Fig. 26). The tongue pattern (Figs. 25-27)
which surrounds the lower part and the shoulder of the vases, like the
rays similarly used (Figs. 31-35), goes back ultimately to Egyptian
plant calyces. The connection with bronze patterns is fully proved by
the dots often placed on the ornaments, by the technique of adding white
on black painted vases (Fig. 29)
[Illustration: PLATE XIV.
Fig. 27. CRETAN MINIATURE JUG.
Fig. 28. THE FLIGHT FROM THE CAVE OF POLYPHEMUS, FROM A JUG FROM
ÆGINA.]
which aims at a metallic effect, and by the change of the vase shapes.
These often get a quite non-ceramic appearance (Fig. 25), and in their
rounding and contouring, especially by the emphasis on the foot (Figs.
25 and 27), they are in contrast with the Geometric forms. The Praisos
jug (Fig. 26) is obviously under Cypriot influence, as is the delicate
Berlin jug (Fig. 27), in which a previously described class (p. 27)
reaches its high water mark. The Praisos pitcher (Fig. 25) to the
Orientalizing patterns enumerated already adds the hook spirals, which
are characteristic of the 7th century, and the Berlin jug adds also the
volute and the palmette. The plastic head which crowns this little
bottle, and is entirely inspired by the Egypto-Phoenician ideas of form,
inaugurates a new era in the representation of man. We are now in the
time when Greek sculpture was born, in that notable period when Greek
art under the influence of Oriental art took to the chisel, to enter on
a century of development which ended in giving shape to the loftiest and
most delicate creations that can move the spirit of man. It is
noteworthy that Greek tradition embodied the beginnings of this
development in a Cretan, Daedalus, and to a kinsman of this ancestor of
all Greek sculptors it traced back the invention of the great art of
painting, without the influence of which we cannot conceive of
vase-paintings henceforward.
The first period of the transitional style betrays little of this
influence. The reproduction of living beings is dominated by the
decorative figures of the East, especially monsters and fabulous beings,
which now make their entry into Greek art, and exercise a powerful
attraction not only on plastic art, but on poetic and mythopœic fancy.
Thus the Geometric silhouette is superseded. If even the preceding age
had felt the need of leaving void a hole to indicate the eye, now the
head is completely rendered by an outline and made lifelike by interior
drawing (Fig. 30). The next stage is that the whole body also is
rendered in contour. To make the transition plain, we show here a
vase-fragment, the Cretan origin of which is not established, but which
must be in close connection with Cretan art, the Ram jug from Aegina
(Fig. 28). The animal frieze, with its hook spirals, dot rosettes,
rhombi and triangles to fill the space, is characteristic of older
Oriental art; the drawing of the rams is far beyond Geometric technique;
in the body too the silhouette is given up, and indication of the hide
is attempted. This animal frieze is no longer an end in itself: by the
men clinging to them the ornamental rams become mythical rams, the rams
of the Odyssey. The fugitives are not very closely connected with their
saviours, and the giant must have been more than blind not to notice
them. But on the other hand the artist has drawn them very clearly, has
put both arms and both legs in view of the spectator, and even, where a
small detail would not otherwise have shown well, made a small nick in
the belly of the ram. This shows how the artist of the period could with
difficulty do without a clear outline.
These attempts are perfected in the outlined figure of a plate from
Praisos, which is certainly Cretan (Fig. 29). The childishly
disproportioned structure has now become a clear organism of genuine
Greek stamp, full of excellent observation of nature; the ornamentally
constrained picture becomes now a free version of a legend, which
however cannot be interpreted with certainty, till the white object
under the sea-monster has been explained. It is most likely that we may
see in it the foot of a female figure filling the left half of the
plate, perhaps Thetis, who escapes from the attacks of Peleus by
changing into a fish. The interior incised lines in the body of the
sea-monster are a novelty, which the ceramic art has developed
[Illustration: PLATE XV.
Fig. 29. HERAKLES AND SEA-MONSTER (?) FROM A CRETAN PLATE.
Fig. 30. ARGIVE KRATER WITH THE SIGNATURE OF ARISTONOTHOS: SEVENTH
CENTURY.]
independently (p. 37). But on the other hand the advance in drawing and
the technical rendering of form, the outline of Peleus, the light colour
of the woman, the reddish brown tint of the rider on the reverse, cannot
be explained apart from the influence of free painting, whose oldest
stages are stated to have been outlining with progressive drawing of
interior details, monochromy (_i.e._ outline drawing with a filling of
colour) and distinction of sex by colour. After an interval of several
centuries wall-painting must have sprung up again and flourished in
Crete, different to be sure in essentials from the Minoan, rather
influenced by the East like the decorative art of the time. In spite of
the tendency to represent painting as ‘invented’ in Greece, Greek
tradition reluctantly admits that this art was indigenous and highly
developed in Egypt long before.
The bloom of Cretan art seems not to have outlasted the 7th century.
Finds give out, and tradition expressly testifies to the migration of
Cretan sculptors to the Argolid, a district which also took over the
inheritance of Cretan vase painting.
Of the two chief centres of Argive Geometric vase fabrication, one which
is to be sought in the region of Argos and Tiryns cannot be followed out
very clearly. The oldest Greek vase signed by an artist, the krater of
the potter Aristonothos with the blinding of Polyphemus (Fig. 30), seems
from the shape of the vase to belong to this class. The complicated
shape of the circle of rays, the breaking up of the head silhouette, the
juxtaposition of the traditional sea-fight with the legendary scene, are
typical of the early Orientalizing period; certain parallels with the
late Mycenean Warrior vase (p. 15) perhaps justify the conclusion, that
remains of the old wall-painting had an influence on the style. Like the
Aristonothos vase, some stirrup-handled kraters with metope decorations
continue Argive Geometric traditions. These vases, however, are
exclusively found in the West (Syracuse) and were probably made there;
they do not give faithful reflection of their Argive prototypes. A
krater with tall foot and ornamentation in bands, found at the Argive
Heraion, representing the rescue of Deianeira, with plentiful use of
‘monochromy,’ is too isolated to make a picture of this Orientalizing
pottery possible.
It cannot have played a leading part, but must soon have been put in the
shade by its near neighbour and rival. For that the so-called
Protocorinthian fabrication is also at home in the Argolid is proved by
the fact that the chief places, where the ware is found, are Argos and
Aegina, and that quantities of small and hardly exportable ware are
found at various places in the district. The alphabet of the
inscriptions agrees with this locality, and so does the style, which
leads up to the Corinthian, whence the name has been given, as well as
the fact that the great trading-centre of Corinth looked after the sale
of the wares; for the area in which they were sold is identical with
that of the Corinthian vases. On account of these close relations with
Corinth, the home of the Protocorinthian vases has been sought with
great probability in the neighbouring town of Sicyon, of which we are
told that it was the place to which Cretan artists migrated, that it was
the birthplace of Greek painting and seat of a flourishing metal
industry, so that we are able to account for three ingredients of the
new style. For the Protocorinthian style of the 7th century gave the
most delicate development of Cretan ‘Daedalic’ types, particularly near
its end; fixed a clear style of figure representation and an ample store
of types, and developed its vase-shapes, system of decoration and
technique, under the influence of metal patterns, more severely,
precisely and richly than any
[Illustration: PLATE XVI.
Fig. 31. Fig. 32.
PROTOCORINTHIAN LEKYTHOI WITH BATTLE-SCENE AND SLAUGHTER OF THE
CENTAURS.
Fig. 33. PROTOCORINTHIAN JUG OF POST-GEOMETRIC STYLE FROM ÆGINA. EARLY
SEVENTH CENTURY.]
other contemporary centre of fabrication. In it the vase history of the
post-Geometric century culminates.
Even in the Geometric period which preceded it (p. 26) (the sparing
ornamentation of which is in contrast with the Dipylon pottery and its
greater delight in using the brush) metallic influence can be traced;
the simple running spiral certainly comes from incised bronzes. The
delicate two-handled cups closely connected with the Geometric style
(Fig. 23), with their well-cleansed clay, improved glaze colour baked
black to red, and the reduction of the walls almost to the thinness of
paper, can only have been produced in competition with the metal
industry; and as a matter of fact delicate silver vases of the same
shape have been found along with the clay copies of them in Etruscan
graves. The lower part of the cups is at first painted black, but soon
it is surrounded with the circle of rays, which according to the ideas
of the new period emphasizes and makes clear the tectonic character of
that part of the vase. This motive also appears in the Geometric
decoration of the flat-bottomed jugs (Fig. 33), the unguent pots which
show Cyprian influence in their oldest globular shape, the kylikes,
round boxes and other shapes, though not always in the typical place,
and often also combined with other ornaments (Figs. 30 and 32). In spite
of its Geometrical treatment and its truly Greek close combination with
the system of decoration, it does not disown the impulse it owes to
Oriental patterns (p. 30). The Protocorinthian style also introduced its
doubling (Fig. 32), which still survives in the 6th century (Fig. 98).
The cable pattern, borrowed as has been shown from Oriental metal-work,
drives out the ‘S’s’ and the running spiral. As a handle ornament it
gets a rich enlargement (Fig. 32), the fine stylization of which, no
doubt, was first produced in metal industry. Of the greatest importance
is the adoption of loops, volutes, running tendrils and friezes of arcs,
which in combination with the palmette appear on the wall of the vase or
as an upper stripe, and from simple, often loosely stylized beginnings,
expand with the help of the lotus-flower into a fine loop and flower
ornament (‘Rankengeschling’), as in Figs. 31, 32, 35. That this
ornamentation, in spite of its rigid stylization, was felt by the Greeks
to belong to the living vegetable world, is shown _e.g._ by the
volute-complex, behind which the hunter (on the lowest stripe of Fig.
31) waits to catch the hare, as well as behind the naturally drawn bush
(on Fig. 36); this shows that the ‘volute tree’ (Fig. 34) flanked by two
sphinxes, is thought of as a real tree. On the other hand the ornaments
in the field are quite as meaningless as in the older style: to those
used by Geometric artists are now added the hook spiral, and the rosette
treated as a dotted star, two ornaments we have seen already on the Ram
jug (Fig. 28); at first they are independent and can be used to form
friezes, later they become less and less prominent (Figs. 32 and 34, cp.
also Fig. 28). Two further decorative motives lead us back into the
region of metal-work, the scale-pattern extending over the whole body of
the vase (Fig. 38), which so often occurs in incised metal-work, and the
tongue ornament, the typical decoration of bronze vessels, which on clay
vases as well often rises over the foot in place of the kindred rays,
but most commonly finishes the shoulder where it meets the neck. Both
motives have already been met with in Crete, as applied on a black
ground. The black ground technique of the Praisos jug (Fig. 26) is very
popular with Protocorinthian artists, goes alongside of the clay-ground
vases for the whole period, and supplies richly coloured examples
decorated with figures and ornaments of fine effect, particularly in
combination with a new technique, which appears in the advanced style,
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.
Fig. 34. BELLEROPHON AND THE CHIMAERA FROM A PROTOCORINTHIAN LEKYTHOS.
Fig. 35. PROTOCORINTHIAN JUG, KNOWN AS THE CHIGI VASE.]
being specially typical of scale and tongue ornamentation, that of
incision. It is perhaps idle to inquire into its invention: it is more
important to establish the fact, that it was first consistently and
systematically applied to the black-ground vessels of the
Protocorinthian artists, who were also famed for metal-work, and gave a
new stamp to the style at a time when the East used simple brush
technique almost exclusively. The incised line is always combined with
the addition of coloured and particularly red details.
The technical advance, which in some measure replaced the influence of
the rising art of painting by that of metal-working, is shown more
plainly in the figured representations, particularly the friezes of
animals, which the vase-painters, inspired by Oriental metal ware and
embroideries, with ever greater zest employ on their vases. Beside the
birds, stags and roes, beside the dogs pursuing hares, with which a
lower stripe could be easily filled, come new animals, for which they
are chiefly indebted to Oriental art, bull, goat, bear, ram, wild-goat,
lion and panther, sphinx, siren, griffin, and other hybrids. These
creatures appear in quite definite types, which admit of little variety:
it is characteristic that the panther’s head is drawn in front view,
perhaps through an abbreviation of a heraldic double panther; and this
rule is devoutly observed through the whole period of decoration with
animal friezes. An indication of this is that the decorative animals
never become pure outlines like the human figures, but after a period of
partial silhouette (p. 31), return to the complete silhouette, as
satisfying better the requirements of decoration. This return became
possible through the use of the incised line, by the help of which
interior drawing could be added on a black ground, and the effect of the
figures was further enhanced by the addition of details in red. This is
an important innovation in the history of Greek vase-painting. The
general effect of the vase is completely altered by the decorative play
of colour, which extends also to the ornamentation, and takes on that
gay many-coloured aspect which is so characteristic of the older archaic
period, and which is only dropped late in the 6th century. The new
colour system does not aim at realism; it makes prominent for decorative
purposes single parts of the animal body, especially the neck and belly.
The drawing of the human figure proceeds on other lines than that of
animals. In consequence of the new development of the art of painting
(p. 33), it makes a fresh start. First we have the vase of Aristonothos
(Fig. 30); the next stage is represented by the Ram vase (Fig. 28); the
desire of distinguishing the lighter skin of women from that of men
leads to the tinting in brown of the male body. But in the formation of
the figure types certainly it was not only painting that stood
godmother, the metal worker’s art must also have asserted its influence;
the kinship with Cretan and Argive flat bronze reliefs and metal
engraved work is too great, the sharp clear-cut types too much in the
spirit of bronze technique, for it to be possible to postulate an
independent development. To this corresponds the fact that the outlines
of the figures are accompanied by incised lines on polychrome vases with
black ground, on the finest of the later lekythoi (oil-flasks) and on
the Chigi jug (Fig. 35). This technique is repeated on the big
two-handled cups with finely stylised figured representations, which
finally accomplish an important advance already foreshadowed by small
and hasty specimens: the dark silhouette with incised interior detail,
prevalent in the style of the animal friezes, and along with it certain
details like the circular rendering of the eye, are taken over for the
representation of male figures.
This adoption, which only takes place at the end of the development, and
makes the Protocorinthian style the
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
Figs. 36 & 37. SCENES FROM THE CHIGI JUG: HARE AND LION HUNT;
CHARIOT.]
starting point of black-figured vase painting, does not unite
heterogeneous elements. For man and decorative animal are equivalent in
their juxtaposition, and beside the free mythological scenes there is a
series of representations, which seems to have grown straight out of the
animal frieze. The Centaur, the old Greek forest monster, joins the
animals; winged demons in the remarkable scheme of running with bent
knee (pointing to the metope treatment) are also placed amongst them;
kneeling archers shoot arrows at them, hunters and combatants pursue
them, Bellerophon rides on Pegasus against the Chimaera, Herakles fights
against the Centaurs. Purely human scenes, like the favourite Duel (Fig.
43), are simply flanked by animals. The addition of figures in rows and
overlapping makes this simple combat into a battle; wounded fall,
corpses are hotly fought over, auxiliaries hurry up. The artist always
in these cases gives prominence to the finely decorated shields, the
pride of Argive metal industry. Like the rows of fighting men, the other
frieze-like compositions, the processions of riders and chariot-races,
the hunting scenes and chase of the hare, thanks to charming observation
of detail, make a direct appeal which is strange for such early art. The
bushes in the hare-hunt of the Chigi jug (Fig. 36) show the awakening of
the landscape element, which to be sure is always a rarity on vases and
must have played a larger part in free painting. Moreover, the varying
colouring of the animals on the stripe in question, which appears also
on a frieze of riders (Fig. 31) and continues in Corinthian painting,
must come from the same source, whereas the bold front view of the
Sphinx head (Fig. 37) like that of the panther head and the Corinthian
quadriga, was attempted for the first time in an ornamental band. Hand
in hand with the enlivening of the friezes goes the suppression of field
ornamentation: it is only sparingly applied, limited to the animal
friezes or entirely absent. At times a lizard (Fig. 34), a swan or a
monkey comes into the figured scenes.
Of course this is all devoid of meaning; for in spite of all progress
and freer treatment the style is merely concerned with the decoration of
a surface; ‘exigencies of space’ are its supreme law. These control the
type of the human figure, for even where it is not essentially an
ornamental scheme, like the runner with bent knee, it fills from top to
bottom the stripe assigned to it, extends its breast frontally, and
reaches out its arms, as if it were yearning for a frame. And as the
body avoids all perspective, so the head in profile shows its most
expressive part, the eye surmounted by the brow, in full extent, and
renders the long hair falling down over the neck as smooth surface, and
the curly forehead hair as spiral. There is no rendering of folds to
show depth in the drapery, which now the artist in true Greek fashion
treats in an abstract way, unlike reality. The human figure remains a
type, a homogeneous constituent part of the stripes, which are entirely
designed for filling space. It matters little, if between chariot-race
and lion-hunt on the Chigi jug (Fig. 37) a double Sphinx is inserted as
central motive, or Bellerophon lays the Chimaera low in presence of two
Sphinxes (Fig. 34); if close to the lion-hunt in the same stripe, Hermes
leads the three goddesses before the fair Trojan shepherd, and if the
names of the personages are entered in the field with big letters as a
kind of ornamentation by way of filling: the incipient delight in
telling a story is taken at once into the service of filling the field.
As the human figure still appears almost completely on a par with the
ornamental animal figure, so there is little trace of any superior
weight being attached to the scenic representations in the decorative
system. Where the
[Illustration: PLATE XIX.
Fig. 38. PROTOCORINTHIAN OR CORINTHIAN JUG.
Fig. 39. Fig. 40.
CORINTHIAN ALABASTRON AND ARYBALLOS.]
painter employs them, it is true he puts at their disposal the chief
frieze and often one at the base in addition, but he frames them with
prominent stripes of ornament or animals, and side by side with the
narrative vases purely decorative ones are still produced. The presence
of several animal friezes on a single vase (_e.g._ on jugs of the shape
of Fig. 35) is not uncommon; like band ornamentation in general, it is
in contrast with the practice of the Geometric period (p. 25) and is
probably to be traced to a strong influence of Oriental textile art. For
the most severely shaped black vases, which are nearest to the bronze
models that we possess (Fig. 38), do not always adopt this fundamentally
non-tectonic breaking up of the body of the vase.
The close connection of the shapes with metal-work has been already
proved in the case of the cups of early Orientalizing style (Fig. 23),
and goes through the whole history of the fabric, and even where the
models were not immediately copied, gave the vase-shapes a clearness and
precision, with which the products of no other manufactory can compete;
the Sicyonian-Corinthian school of repoussé work perhaps originated many
metal vase-shapes, which were afterwards used in various manufactories.
Though the Protocorinthian list of shapes is only known to a small
extent, an important change can be established. Beside the jugs of
primitive construction (cp. Fig. 33 with Fig. 54) appear later more
rounded vessels, the jug with ‘rotelle’ (Fig. 38) and the
wineskin-shaped, the chief example of which (Fig. 35) with its
excellently decorated bands, sometimes black, sometimes in the ground of
the clay, shows us the style in a richer and more developed form than
any other vase of this fabric. In the same way the little ‘lekythoi’
which are technically often quite exquisite, change their appearance,
exchange their old globular shape (Fig. 27) for a slimmer one with
pronounced shoulder, which the caprice of the potter often furnishes
with plastic additions, Argive transformations of Cretan ‘Daedalic’
types (Figs. 27 and 31). And as beside the ‘rotelle’ jug, we have the
wineskin-shaped jug, so beside this sort of ‘lekythos’ there is a
wineskin-shaped variety with a rough tongue-pattern on the neck (Fig.
39).
The ‘lekythoi’ were the chief exported article, or at least the most
favoured grave-offering of the customers abroad. But one cannot call it
the favourite shape of Protocorinthian workmanship: it must not be
forgotten that we have only an accidental selection of this ware, due to
the discovery of two native sanctuaries (the Argive Heraion and the
Temple of Aphrodite in Aegina), and many graves in the Argolid, Attica,
and Boeotia, in the East (Thera, Rhodes, Asia Minor) and in the West
(Sicily, Italy, Carthage). Wherever this ware came it exercised a
stimulating influence, and in many places evoked local copies (p. 52);
more than other districts the West was dominated by this Art. As the
oldest Etruscan wall-paintings, those of the _Grotta Campana_ at Veii
and the _Tomba dei Leoni_ at Caere, are quite under the influence of
Sicyonian-Corinthian painting, so the class called into existence a
multitude of imitations in Sicily and Italy, particularly at Kyme.
The extraordinarily wide currency of the ware denotes not merely its
superiority, but also that of the trade-centre which exported it. This
need not necessarily have been identical with the place of manufacture.
Many signs, especially the occurrence of the vases in quantity in the
Corinthian colony of Syracuse, point to the fact that the great trading
city of Corinth took over the sale of the ware and gradually replaced it
by its own products. The vases localized with certainty in Corinth by
their alphabet give an immediate continuation of the Protocorinthian,
and one
[Illustration: PLATE XX.
Fig. 41. ANIMAL FRIEZE FROM AN EARLY CORINTHIAN JUG.
Fig. 42. ANIMAL FRIEZE FROM A CORINTHIAN JUG.]
can only ask whether this manufacture simply transferred its chief
workshops to Corinth or whether Corinth in the closest imitation of late
Protocorinthian ware developed a new style, which thanks to the
commercial capacity of the Corinthians could drive the older competitor
out of the field: its sphere of influence, as we saw, replaces the
Protocorinthian, nay, encroaches still further on the Ionian region
(Samos, Naukratis, Pontus).
The Corinthian style did not long retain the metallic clearness and
precision of its predecessor, neither in its shapes, which for the most
part it takes over (Figs. 35, 38, 39, 43), nor in its decoration, which
exhibits the final triumph of the ornamental style. The dark ground
technique becomes rarer; the scaly fields continue for a time, white
rosettes painted on the black neck and edge are in favour to the end;
the indispensable tongue ornament on the shoulder gradually comes to be
rendered by the brush. The animal-frieze vases, which are quite in the
forefront of the interest, link on to the later Protocorinthian in
decoration and in the style of the figures, but soon alter the types in
the sense of a broader rendering of form, and the rosettes in the field
also show this change. On the common ware, which was turned out along
with the good, one gets as a result coarse animals and filling patterns
like mere blots; but even technically perfect vases show a strong
inclination to overfill the field, which one might bring into causal
connexion with the Corinthian textile art famed in antiquity, if the
vase picture repudiated the brush technique more than it does.
The composition shows the same intrusion of a strongly decorative
element. The heraldic scheme is more prominent than ever. We owe to it
the invention of a new ornament, a combination of lotus-flower and
palmettes (Fig. 39), which like the old volute-tree (Fig. 34) is
flanked by two animals. In particular the wineskin-shaped and globular
unguent-pots (Figs. 39 and 40) (Alabastron and Aryballos), the
successors of the Protocorinthian unguent-pots, are decorated with it;
but even in the stripes, which have not got the ‘palmette and lotus
cross,’ there are groups of three animals at a time inspired by the
heraldic scheme (Fig. 41). The list of types grows: beside the
quadrupeds appear many birds (_e.g._ geese, swans, eagles, cocks and
owls,) fishes and serpents; a motley series of hybrids, bearded
sphinxes, winged lions, winged panthers, tritons and other fabulous
creatures are side by side with the favourite winged demons, sphinxes,
sirens and griffins. The place of the central ornament is often taken by
purely human beings, especially the runner with bent knee, and the
goddess of beasts (πὁτνια θἡρων) which in the Oriental patterns are
flanked by animals; but also non-ornamental figures, women, riders,
grotesque dancers (Figs. 40 and 43) are found in this place. Thus arises
a co-ordination of man and decorative animal similar to that of
Protocorinthian art; anyone who has followed on the vases this process,
which is characteristic of the 7th century, is not surprised, when in
the archaic Corinthian pediment at Corfu mythological scenes appear side
by side with the Gorgon flanked by panthers, and when in the
representation of the central animal the myth begins to be active.
The non-ornamental human figures in the animal compositions are of
course not invented for this purpose, but borrowed from other contexts,
scenes of human life, which existed beside the decorative
representations and followed the lead of the Protocorinthian precursors.
They are certainly more intimately connected with the animal figures.
The male figure (p. 38) has finally discarded the old outline drawing
with brown filling for the animal-frieze technique, black silhouette
with incised interior details.
[Illustration: PLATE XXI.
Fig. 43. CORINTHIAN SKYPHOS.
Fig. 44. ACHILLES AND TROILOS: FROM THE LATE CORINTHIAN FLASK BY
TIMONIDAS.]
But at the same time the memory of monochromy is not yet quite extinct;
the head silhouette is still by preference painted red. When often
instead of it the breast and thigh are picked out in red, when in sphinx
and siren contour drawing is abandoned, the connection with the
animal-frieze style is complete, and the new intrusion of a strong
decorative element in this pottery is obvious.
Even the compositions of the figured scenes are under this decorative
spell, which, as in the Protocorinthian style, is only broken through by
a few gifted masters. The duel flanked by sirens on the Boston cup (Fig.
43) is typical of the older Corinthian style. The warriors and riders
are often arranged in processions, collected in big battle-scenes; the
grotesque revellers and dancers with extended posterior, prototypes of
the satyrs, fill whole friezes with their reckless antics; the girls
take hands for the dance. Special legendary scenes are, however, very
rare, and when vase-painters like Chares supply names to an ordinary
series of riders, this makes clear rather than removes the defect.
This defect to be sure is due to a great extent to the accidental
preservation of a series of vases, which are for the most part careless
decorative work intended for the export trade, so that we may form
erroneous ideas. The neighbourhood of Corinth itself has supplied some
fine specimens with a marked character of their own, which bridge the
gap between the Chigi vase and later Corinthian vase-painting (Figs.
64-67), _e.g._ kylikes where, in the interior field framed by tongue
pattern ornament, are fine Gorgon masks and human busts, and especially
two works signed by the painter Timonidas. The flask with the story of
Troilos (Fig. 44) shares with the Chigi vase the contrast of colour
important for Corinthian painting. The flesh of the women is light as a
set-off to that of the men, the chiton of the man sets off his nude
parts, the shield its bearer, the front horse the hinder of the pair.
The delight in the landscape element, the fine steeds, and big
inscriptions, points back to Protocorinthian style. But nothing is left
of the ornaments scattered about the field but a small palmette, the
composition has become looser, there is much less tendency to cover the
surface in the drawing of the figures: the old scheme of the kneeling
runner has its echo in the Achilles lurking in ambush, but it is
ingeniously adapted to new use. Thus there is a much freer relation to
space, which gives the necessary foundation for the descriptive style.
The hunter too, whose outline Timonidas has put on a clay votive tablet
unconstrained by the silhouette technique or by the desire for contrast
of colour (Fig. 45), is not crowded by any filling ornaments; the finely
drawn youth in the balance of his proportions and the rendering of
detail surpasses the wrestler of the Praisos plate (Fig. 29), and in his
broad massive appearance introduces a new rendering of the body. And
similarly the dog, coloured bright yellow with appropriate detail, goes
far beyond the animal frieze style. One fancies that in this animal
eagerly looking up to his master one sees expressed something like
feeling.
Like the pinax of Timonidas many other votive tablets of the same find
take one out of the stock vase scenes, especially in the delight in
landscape, the trees conceived of in their special natures, the
cross-section like genre scenes from the workshop of the potter and
metal-worker, from mining and sea voyages. The vases, however, show
little of those progresses in colouring and spacing, which we must
assume in greater measure for the great art of painting. The decisive
step in the history of vase painting, which is especially embodied for
us by the painter Timonidas, consists in the liberation of the field, in
the transition from the ornamental to the pictorial style, in the
abandonment of filling ornamentation, which only survives in vegetable
[Illustration: PLATE XXII.
Fig. 45. HUNTER AND HOUND. PINAX FROM CORINTH, SIGNED BY TIMONIDAS.
Fig. 46. FRIEZE OF AN EARLY PHALERON JUG.]
motives suitable to the occasion and scattered birds, serpents, lizards
(Figs. 34 and 66), and in the triumph of figure-subjects over friezes of
ornament or animals, which can best be followed in the kraters (Fig.
65). With this step, which is completed in the beginning of the 6th
century, we are brought close to the black-figured style proper, which
is differentiated by some technical innovations.
But before we pass to that, we have still to follow the transition here
described through the other fabrics of the 7th century. We can rapidly
pass over Sparta, which as yet produces no ware fit for exportation. The
course here is similar to what went on in the Argolid. Beside many
specialities one seems to notice kinship with Ionian pottery in the
small bands of squares accompanied by dots and the branches on the edge
of the kylix, in the placing of similar animals in rows. In what close
relation earlier Spartan civilization stood to Ionia, we learn from the
history of lyric poetry.
To the three stages, earlier Protocorinthian, later Protocorinthian,
older Corinthian, answer the three groups in Attica named respectively
after Phaleron, the Nessos vase and Vurvá. The break-up of the most
definite of all Geometric styles seems to have taken place in spite of
vehement opposition. Details of the Oriental flora and fauna are first
assimilated to the old style, and taken unobtrusively into the Geometric
system of decoration. In the group named after the finds at Phaleron the
new style with marked Phoenician imitations gets the upper hand. To the
unsystematic reproduction and application of the new ornaments, now
arbitrarily scattered, now ranged in special rows, and so added to the
others, succeeds a severer choice, stylization and arrangement; the
luxuriant vegetable character of the decoration (Fig. 46), with which
birds and insects are often combined, only lasts for a time. The same
experimental hesitation prevails in the figure drawing, which does not
go straight from the Geometric silhouette to contour drawing and
monochromy, but very soon experiments from time to time in the incised
line and added white paint, and in the later Phaleron stage is not
sparing of details in red, _e.g._, for the hair and dress. The progress
in the rendering of nature happily can still be followed to some extent
in big vases. It leads to a fixed type with a loose outline with ankles,
knee-pan, and elbow rendered like ornaments: in the head the big eye in
front view dominates at the expense of the forehead, the skull is flat,
the aquiline nose is very prominent, the ear is like a volute. Similarly
in early Greek sculpture an ornamental conception of the outline and the
details of the body is expressed, and casts a light on the conception of
ornament as something living and not yet felt to be an abstraction from
reality.
The big Phaleron vases also give evidence as to the grouping of the
figures, which we have not been able to get from the Protocorinthian
vases that have been preserved. Older specimens like the Berlin amphora
from Hymettos already fill the greater part of the vase surface with the
descriptive frieze, only surrounded by narrow lines of ornaments and
animals, and in addition the neck of the amphora is adorned with figured
scenes. Even in Geometric times Attic pottery had already given greater
scope to the narrative style than other manufactures: in the Phaleron
vases it creates an important system of decoration, which is continued
in the group of which the Nessos vase is the chief representative, and
prevails to the exclusion of everything else in the 6th century.
When the later Phaleron vases re-adopt the full silhouette in animal
drawing and extend the technique of incised detail and additions in red
to human outline figures, which they often emphasize only to make them
stand out from the
[Illustration: PLATE XXIII.
Figs. 47 & 48. HERAKLES AND THE CENTAUR NESSOS; THE GORGONS: NECK AND
BODY DESIGNS OF AN ATTIC AMPHORA.]
background, they prepare a step, which is completed in the Nessos group,
_i.e._, the taking over of the animal-frieze technique into
figure-painting, with which vase-painting parts company again from the
great art and returns to decorative silhouette effect. In Attica, too,
the circular rendering of the eye is taken over for the male figure, the
flesh-tone of the face is retained for decorative effect, women are
distinguished by the old outline-drawing, decorative female creatures
and monsters do not escape from the silhouette treatment (Fig. 48).
On vases of this technique the Orientalizing luxuriance developed out of
Geometric richness is entered by a new spirit of severity and
discipline, which one would be most inclined to explain by strong
influence of Protocorinthian art. The field ornaments are similarly
limited, and the rosette with points has the chief place; the lotus and
palmette pattern of the Nessos vase (Fig. 48), the cable and the double
rays of the Piraeus amphora (Fig. 49) are simple borrowings, the
lion-type on the vase just named is closely connected with the
Protocorinthian. One may ask whether the types in spite of their Attic
stamp do not partly come from the Sicyonian-Corinthian school. The
procession of chariots in the Piraeus amphora is only in the line of old
tradition, but on the neck of the Nessos vase the Phaleron type is
replaced by another, which is certainly only an extract from a larger
composition, and the same artist makes the sisters of Medusa furiously
pursue a Perseus not represented at all, whom the Aegina bowl of kindred
style and the rather later cauldron in the Louvre show along with his
protectors Athena and Hermes. At any rate the vase-painters had no
hesitation in taking over the compositions once created and cutting them
up, enlarging or abbreviating them according to their requirements,
intensifying or weakening them according to their talents. The same
lucky ‘laziness of invention’ is shown in the rendering of the
individual figure. Old types of Oriental art are behind the battle
motive of Herakles, the flight of the Gorgons, and the race of the
Harpies on the Aegina bowl; the unusual front view points to the origin
of the Gorgon type as an ornament. But the Greek showed originality in
animating and enhancing these types. In spite of the harsh perspective
it is arrestingly expressive when the Medusa collapses in death, the
sisters rush with the speed of lightning through the air, Herakles kicks
the back of the rough monster, and the victim supplicates his tormentor
by touching his beard: we have an art with the joy of youth full of
vigour and possibilities of development displaying itself, the same
early Attic art, which next found plastic expression in the early
sculptures of the Acropolis. On the Nessos amphora the decorative
figures are of secondary importance. The mouth bears the old goose
frieze, the broad handles are adorned with owls and swans: under the
principal field a row of dolphins gambol, but they are hardly to be
conceived of as a meaningless animal frieze, but are to be understood in
a ‘landscape’ sense; the wild chase is by sea. On the other vases of
this group the animal frieze element is much stronger, on some it
entirely prevails, _e.g._, on big-bellied amphorae with no angle
dividing body from neck, and a bason from Vurvá, which both reduce the
filling ornaments very considerably. These vases lead over to a
noticeably miscellaneous class, the so-called Vurvá style, which just
like the older Corinthian denotes a strengthening of the decorative and
is also to be regarded as a rival of Corinth. The ornamentation is very
limited, for filling there is nothing but rosettes, which may also form
independent friezes: the decoration assumes quite similar forms to those
of the Corinthian fabric. But the Corinthian elements do not entirely
give its character to the Vurvá style. Apart
[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.
Fig. 49. ATTIC AMPHORA.
Fig. 50. CYCLADIC (EUBOIC) AMPHORA.]
from the traditions of the brilliant Geometric period, which remained
longer operative in the very ceramic and non-metallic Attic school than
in the Argive-Corinthian, one suspects also influences from Eastern
Greece. According to the evidence of vase finds, Athens was then in
connection with Naukratis. Thus one may refer the painting of white on
the figures, which is only occasionally employed at Corinth, but on the
Vurvá vases often takes the place of the red, to the influence of the
East, which had long known it, and explain in the same way many a
similarity with the East in the motley array of animals.
Beside the common ware, purely decorative, technically trivial and poor,
naturally the subject-vases went on, as at Corinth. It is not only the
‘runners with bent knee’ mingled with the animals, the draped men and
riders, who maintain the connection with the older figure-painting; the
traditions of the Nessos vase and its parallels continued on big and
carefully executed vases. These vases are to Attic pottery, what the
works of Timonidas were to Corinthian; they give up filling ornament,
individualize the world of figures out of its ornamental constraint,
give the subject-style the spatial freedom, which it needs for its
evolution. Just as we could follow this transitional style in Corinth on
a vase and pinax of Timonidas, so it meets us in Attica at the same time
in vases with decoration in bands, necked amphorae, kraters, and
cauldrons, and in big-bellied amphorae with special field for the
subject, which take the place, in some measure, of sepulchral votive
‘pinakes,’ and are decorated with a female bust or a horse’s head,
placed on a panel reserved in the black ground. This vase with special
field, which arose from the needs of representation, only transitorily
enters the service of animal decoration, and then becomes the chief
vehicle of the new style, whose beginning we have reached with the
last-named vases.
Attic pottery of the 7th century exercised great influence upon its
Boeotian and Eretrian neighbours, where an independent artistic spirit
never existed. One might describe these dependent manufactories as
provincial branches of the Attic, had they not been influenced by other
models as well. The big Boeotian amphorae with tall broad neck, the
decoration of which consists chiefly of a pictorial frieze at the level
of the handles, divided vertically, are imitated from vases of the
islands (p. 25). The best known instance, from Thebes, shows on one side
the Oriental goddess flanked by lions, on the other a flying bird and
spiral ornamentation. This metope decoration with flying birds and
Orientalizing volutes and palmettes called forth a special Boeotian
class, which some conservative workshops went on producing with great
tenacity to the end of the 6th century. It excels in tall-stemmed
kylikes with white slip and colour accessories in red and yellow. Other
workshops, like those of Pyros and Mnasalkes, imitated the
Protocorinthian and Corinthian wares, quantities of which were imported;
in the 6th century one enters an Attic sphere of influence. Similarly
Attic and island influences are found side by side at the neighbouring
Eretria in Euboea.
The Cycladic manufactory, to which the Boeotian and Eretrian imitations
point, cannot yet be followed beyond the early Orientalizing stage. On
the amphorae with white slip already described, to which class belongs
the Stockholm vase with the roebuck (Fig. 50), and on the closely allied
griffin jug from Aegina (Fig. 51), severely stylized flowers and
tendrils enter the not very rich Geometric ornament, the new cable meets
the old meander in the same frieze, rows of triangles are enclosed by
spirals; in the metopes of the shoulder stripe appear, surrounded by
scanty filling ornaments, simple animal representations,
[Illustration: PLATE XXV.
Fig. 51. CYCLADIC JUG WITH GRIFFIN’S HEAD FROM ÆGINA.]
generally birds, also feeding animals, heraldic or fighting lions, pairs
of panthers in heraldic scheme, in the characteristic partial
silhouette, which renders the head and parts of the body in outline, but
the skins with black or white spots according to the technique. The Ram
jug from Aegina (Fig. 28), the exact attribution of which is uncertain,
is at any rate closely allied.
This charming class has been called Euboic, but no Euboic find
substantiates the name. It has hitherto come to light only on the
islands of the Aegean, especially Delos-Rheneia, Thera and Melos. Delos
also supplied the earlier Geometric stages, but as the central meeting
place of the islanders, it received so many different elements that it
appears venturesome to rename the ‘Euboic’ ‘Delian’ ware, since a
closely-allied pottery, which would have the same right to this name,
can be probably distinguished from it. This class, which has a
predilection for decoratively applied horse-heads, and like the
Protocorinthian, has the habit of putting red and white stripes on parts
of the vase which are covered with black, at an early date supplied
figured representations without field ornaments; it seems to have been
occasionally imitated in the Euboic colony of Kyme, which otherwise is
completely under Protocorinthian influence. The similarity of the animal
representations to Cretan metal work and of the fine griffin head (Fig.
51) to those of bronze cauldrons from Olympia, strengthens the
above-mentioned relations of the Euboic-Delian style to the Cretan and
Argive.
Thera is not in question as the home of these vases. This island had its
own very important fabrication in Geometric times, which like the Attic
sticks obstinately for a long time to the old style, and as long as it
exists, never allows the new elements, which often are strongly
suggestive of metal patterns, to get the upper hand. In Melos it has
been perhaps correct to localize an important manufactory of which the
products have been chiefly found in this island and in the neutral
sphere of Delos-Rheneia. The heavy double spirals with gusset-like
filling, which this style prefers to the other Orientalizing ornaments,
and which it puts in to fill space, arranges in stripes, puts one on the
top of another as ‘the volute-tree,’ or quadruples as ‘the
volute-cross,’ give this pottery a peculiar stamp. The style is most
finely represented by the big weighty amphorae which in shape and
technique of the light ground for painting on are akin to the
above-mentioned Cycladic vases, but are finely decorated on neck and
body with representations, and also show the same feeling for rich
decoration in the luxuriant filling ornamentation. The Melian delight in
representation, like the Attic, gives us an insight into the growth of
the figured style. The rows of geese (Fig. 52), the big sphinxes and
panthers, the horses ranged heraldically on either side of a
volute-cross, the favourite framed horse-busts show the well-known
partial silhouette; and the female busts, the confronted riders, the
duellists flanked by women, the gods facing each other or driving in
chariots, the ‘Persian Artemis’ carrying a lion, the free legendary
scenes reflect in technique and drawing the same development which we
followed at Athens. We can assign to about the date of later Phaleron
vases a specimen like the Apollo vase (Fig. 52), which colours light
brown the male body, and in the drawing of animals leads from the old
partial silhouette to the later technique. The fine ‘Marriage of
Herakles’ (Fig. 53) marks a great step in advance, not only by the
complete taking over of the black-figured animal style, and the
superposition of many details in white on horses and patterns of
garments, but above all by the lively rendering of the paratactic
composition and the removal of all Geometric traces in the rendering of
[Illustration: PLATE XXVI.
Fig. 52. ARTEMIS, APOLLO, ARGE AND OPIS: FROM A “MELIAN” AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.
Fig. 53. HERAKLES AND IOLE (?): FROM A “MELIAN” AMPHORA.
Fig. 54. EARLY RHODIAN JUG.]
bodies. The heraldic motives have given place to more natural ones; the
male type is not merely distinguished by brown painting from the female.
The shape of the vase is more compact, the decoration more tectonic, the
goose frieze on the shoulder edge is replaced by the tongue pattern,
which also as garment edging drives out the old zig-zag. But the filling
ornaments are as copious as ever, and the step, which the Nessos vase
took in the technique of the figures, has not yet been taken. Thus the
‘Melian’ vases take us lower down in the 7th century than the other
Cycladic products, but not yet to its close.
Perhaps new finds will bring the continuation of these manufactories and
build a bridge to the style of the 6th century. If we get them, we may
hope for a completion of the picture here given, a clearing up of the
relations of the manufactories to one another and to the East and West,
and evidence as to their localization. For even the Melian origin of the
‘Melian’ vases is not certain: this manufactory too, to judge by the
chief locality of the finds, would have to be moved to Delos, the little
inconspicuous island, where Leto bore her twins Apollo and Artemis, on
which the whole Ionic world gathered to celebrate its divine
fellow-citizens. We can trace something of this festal spirit and
devotional pride of the insular Ionians in the Apollo and Artemis of the
Melian vase, of course in a humbler way than in the magnificent hymn of
the Ionian bard.
The technique of the white ground for painting and much in the filling
ornament and the animal-drawing unites these insular vases with the
artistic circle of S. W. Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, through
which obviously, as well as through Crete, Oriental decorative motives
principally found their way into Greece. The impulses which guided the
weak Geometric style of this district into new paths can with certainty
be traced to metal work, especially Phoenician bowls, and to textile
products. Miletus, the head of East Ionic civilization, had a
flourishing textile industry in the 7th century, the decoration of which
was quite under the spell of the East. An attempt has been made to fix
at Miletus a manufactory, the extension of which coincides exactly with
the commercial sphere of this great maritime town; the coast of Asia
Minor and the adjacent islands, the colonies on the Black Sea and in the
Delta are the most important, a secondary part is played by the Cyclades
and the Italo-Sicilian area, but the Greek mainland is unaffected. But
since Miletus need not have done more than distribute, just as Corinth
did for the Protocorinthian ware, since closely allied and almost
inseparable wares were made in several places, and the bulk of these
vases were found in Rhodes, we may retain the traditional name
‘Rhodian.’
The transition from the Geometric phase (p. 26) to the developed style
of animal decoration can be to some extent followed. We see, for
instance, the old shape of the jug (Fig. 22) become metallically
rounded, the cable on the neck drive out the old zig-zags, and on the
shoulder two animals antithetically flank the central metope (Fig. 54).
The stiff division into metopes of the shoulder stripe is next dropped,
the animals and fabulous beings of the East are placed heraldically one
on either side of a central vegetable motive, and under this heraldic
band, in obvious rivalry with textile work adorned in bands, continuous
friezes of animals in rows, of dogs pursuing hares, of grazing wild
goats and deer, of running goats, which in spite of their decorative
character often testify to a very fresh observation of nature. Bands of
different ornament, cables, and continuous loops, Geometric motives in
metope-like arrangement, especially the upright garland of lotus buds
and flowers, are added to
[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.
Fig. 55. RHODIAN JUG.
Fig. 56. LATE RHODIAN JUG.
Fig. 57. EUPHORBOS PLATE FROM RHODES: MENELAOS AND HECTOR FIGHTING OVER
THE BODY OF EUPHORBOS.]
the animal friezes: the last-named ornament generally takes the place of
the rays round the bottom of the vase. With these decorative stripes the
Rhodian style at the height of its production likes to cover the whole
surface of its favourite jugs with ‘rotelle’ on the handles (Figs. 55
and 56), its necked amphorae, bowls and other vessels, and in this way
arrives at a delicate and rich carpet-like effect: the equipoise between
the animal silhouettes neatly placed on the white ground, coloured red
and white, and the vigorous clear ornamentation, the showing of the
ground through in delicate details where colour is purposely omitted,
the well-distributed filling ornaments, into which sometimes small birds
with an absence of pedantry are introduced, are all very satisfactory to
the decorative sense: the distinction of the shoulder stripe by the
heraldic element prevents the impression that the surface of the vase is
too uniformly cut up. The accumulation of animal friezes, and the
heraldic arrangement of Orientalizing animals round a vegetable
combination of ornaments, are features which we have already found in
Western art; but while these elements became prominent there at a time
when the incised full silhouette was in exclusive possession of the
field, when plant decoration took more abstract shapes, and filling
patterns were reduced to the rosette, the culmination of the Rhodian
animal-frieze vases falls in the pictorial period, when the plant
decoration is naturalistic and filling ornamentation is abundant.
A uniform band decoration did not exclusively prevail. A group of jugs,
which by its more tense and profiled shape and by a transition to the
later floral ornamentation shows itself to be progressive, and which
gradually replaces the cable of the neck by the broken so-called
‘metope’ maeander (Fig. 56), leaves out of the black body of the vase
only a narrow stripe with the maeander reduced to pothooks, and
surrounds the bottom of the vase with long rays. But beside this method
the other certainly persists. Its tenacious life is proved by vases like
the Paris cauldron (Fig. 58) and its parallels from Naukratis, which
show the archaic Rhodian band style alongside of the developed incised
animal style on the same vase. In these hybrids which are essentially
akin to the vases of Andokides (p. 115) the old stylizing of the figures
is giving way, the rich store of filling motives is yielding to the
prevalence of the rosette, the vegetable ornamentation is exchanging its
vigorous plant-like appearance for thinner and more abstract shapes,
which however take on a freer swing and submit to richer variations, the
most important of which is the continuous tendril. At the same time the
old technique of painting and leaving void spaces continues to be
cultivated at a time, when elsewhere and probably also in the East the
black-figured animal style has become the regular thing, and the filling
ornamentation combined with it has assumed the blot-like shapes of the
Corinthian and Vurvá stage. Finally the Rhodian style also adopts the
new fashion.
Thus this style from an early date shows itself extremely decorative and
little inclined to actual representations. We should know nothing of
them, if the plates, a favourite item in Rhodian fabrication, like their
Phoenician metal prototypes, did not exchange the old concentric
decoration of stripes for the division into two segments, the larger of
which is occasionally adorned with the human figure instead of the usual
animal or fabulous creature. The drawing of the figures adopts the
method already familiar. The place of outline drawing of the men is
taken by brown tinting, _e.g._, in the heroes fighting in the well-known
scheme on the Euphorbos plate (Fig. 57), while the women retain the old
technique, _e.g._ the Gorgon on a plate in London, which is an
adaptation of the Oriental animal goddess, and quite
[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.
Fig. 58. LATE RHODIAN CAULDRON (LEBES).]
exceptionally fills the whole circular space (Fig. 59). Both plates show
early beginnings of incised work, the Gorgon in the inner marking of the
drapery, Hector’s shield in the drawing of the flying bird. The view
that the incised technique in figures is borrowed from Protocorinthian
work receives support in this shield with its Argive suggestion, and in
the Argive lettering, with which the excellent artist, roughly
contemporaneous with the Chigi jug (Figs. 35 and 36), has transformed a
conventional composition into a scene described in the 17th Book of the
Iliad. The full silhouette with inner detail incised appears only in
specimens, which from their degenerate filling ornaments are plainly
late products of the 7th century, _e.g._ a plate with a running Perseus.
That when this happens the eye retains its oval shape, is characteristic
of the Eastern Ionic school.
This transition to the black-figured style can be better followed in a
closely allied pottery, fixed by the contemporary inscriptions of
dedicators to the Milesian colony of Naukratis in the Delta. While the
old filling motives are coming to an end, and the vegetable stripe
ornamentation is being increased by the addition of continuous tendrils
and confronted lotus and palmette, and rows of circumscribed palmettes,
of bands of buds and rows of pomegranates, the animal frieze adopts the
incised full silhouette. The human representations, often of a high
order of excellence, gradually asserting themselves beside the animal
decoration, show a reluctance in taking this step. The old brush
technique is still maintained in the specimens, which reserve thin lines
in the silhouette instead of incising them (Fig. 60); and also the brown
tinting of the male body (Fig. 61) seems to continue in this area longer
than elsewhere. These conservative features are balanced by an
innovation in colouring, which like the change in plant ornamentation
denotes an important step to the style of the 6th century; even before
the actual decay of filling ornamentation, Naukratite painting (as in
the Praisos plate, Fig. 29) begins to paint in white the light flesh of
women, _e.g._ the face of the sphinx; and the same colour is used in the
Herakles sherd (Fig. 61), on which the lion’s skin still appears in the
ground of the clay, in order to contrast with the linen jerkin.
The delight in polychrome effect is very strongly expressed on the
interiors of the tall drinking cups and other vases, which the
Naukratite painter likes to cover with a wash of black, and then to
paint over it plant decoration in red and white. Incision enters also
into their polychrome lotus decoration and thus gives it an effect
similar to that of an older class of kylikes, big-bellied and necked
amphorae, found in Rhodes, which is decorated in the old style with
incised ornaments of red colour, and at a time when the Rhodian style
was still practising pure brush technique, was already preparing for the
later phase, a conclusion which must also be drawn from the Paris
cauldron for animal representation. This black-ground polychromy, which
occurs only occasionally on Rhodian jugs in white and red stripes, white
rosettes and eyes (Fig. 55), becomes so popular and elaborate at
Naukratis, that one is almost tempted to think of a continuation of
Protocorinthian influence, since Naukratis was in close connection with
Protocorinthian Aegina.
Beside Naukratis itself Aegina was also the chief place of export for
this gaily coloured pottery, which unfortunately has only reached us in
precious fragments, and of whose scenes of merry life drawn from legend,
the revel and the dance we should gladly know more. With the Rhodian
ware it also reaches Italy and Sicily; the Acropolis of Athens gives us,
_e.g._ the fine Herakles sherd (Fig. 61), and Boeotia in a grave of the
early 6th century a late cup with heraldic cocks.
[Illustration: PLATE XXX.
Fig. 59. GORGON PLATE FROM RHODES.
Figs. 60 & 61. BUSIRIS; HERAKLES: NAUKRATITE SHERDS FROM NAUKRATIS AND
ATHENS.]
Beside the Rhodian ware Miletus seems also to have been the
export-centre of another allied fabric, that of the vases called
‘Fikellura,’ from the name of the site in Rhodes, where they were first
found. Their home is now generally sought in Samos because of the common
ware found in that island. The greater number of the vases preserved,
the prevalent form being the necked amphorae with metope-maeander (Fig.
56), are contemporaneous with the later phase of the Rhodian. This is
proved by the advanced ornamentation with the thinner simplified lotus
wreath, the rows of circumscribed palmettes, leaves (Fig. 63),
pomegranates (Fig. 62), and crescents (Fig. 63); also by the almost
complete disappearance of the ‘horror vacui’ so that the painter may
reduce filling ornament to its lowest dimensions, paint big surfaces
with loose net and scale patterns, and decorate the body of the vase
with big continuous handle tendrils and an animal placed between them or
only with a human figure boldly inserted in the void (Fig. 62). In the
animals and fabulous beings, which add to the Rhodian types the heron
and the water-hen or the fantastic man with the head of a hare, the
partial silhouette is now rare; narrow lines left without colour, as at
Naukratis, take the place of incised lines, and in the same technique
are the purely human forms, which with their receding foreheads,
projecting noses and almond-shaped eyes, with their coarse postures,
are, like the Naukratis vases, true offspring of the Ionic spirit.
The Altenburg amphora (Fig. 63) must be a late example. The loin-cloths
are painted red and framed with incised lines, which this style so long
resisted. A few dot rosettes, reduced to their lowest dimensions, are
all that is left of the old filling ornamentation, a long-stemmed bud,
such as the early 6th century favours, projects into the field. Just as
the runner of the London vase in his vigorous but stiff posture gives
quite a new meaning to an old ornamental scheme, so the movements of the
Altenburg revellers, which entirely fill the field, convince us of their
intoxication. The ornamental style has now in the East, as well as in
the West, become narrative and descriptive.
With these bibulous Ionians, who to the sound of flutes dance round
their big mixing-bowl with cups and jugs, we pass finally from the wide
ramifications of 7th century vase history to the developed archaic
style.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXI.
Figs. 62 & 63. FIKELLURA AMPHORÆ.]
CHAPTER IV.
THE BLACK-FIGURED STYLE
Archaic art, the wonderful offspring of the contact of Greek
civilization with the East, exercises its charm to-day more than ever.
We have ceased to ascribe a unique saving grace to the classic period,
the period of full bloom, and to allow no independent value to the
preceding century except as an inevitable transitional phase. We love
these archaic works of sculpture and painting for their own sake, not in
spite of their crudities but just because of their unpolished hidden
vigour, because of the precious combination of their essential features.
The fetters of space, and the strong tradition of an ornamental early
period give them a monumental effect, which has nothing of mummified
stiffness but is kept ever fresh and youthful by an eminently
progressive spirit and an energetic endeavour to attain freedom. The
archaic style ‘with fresh boldness goes beyond its Oriental patterns, is
ever making fresh experiments, and thus exhibits constant change and
progress. It is always full of serious painstaking zeal, it is always
careful, takes honest trouble, is exactly methodical: the language which
it speaks always tells of inward cheerfulness and joy at the result of
effort, the effect produced by independent exertion. There is something
touching in the sight of archaic art with its child-like freshness, its
painstaking zeal, its reverence for tradition, and yet its bold
progressiveness. What a contrast to Oriental and Egyptian art, which are
fast bound in tradition: in the one the sweltering air of dull
coercion, in the other the fresh atmosphere of freedom’ (Furtwängler).
The history leading up to the origin of this style has become clear to
us by quarrying in different localities. We saw the vases lose their
peculiarly carpet-like appearance, the filling motives disappear, the
bands of animals and ornaments forfeit their independence and become a
subordinate member in the tectonic construction, we saw the world of
figures win its way out of ornamental compulsion to greater freedom and
extend over the vase. The 6th century, to the beginnings of which we
pursued the history of vases, knows only occasionally inserted rosettes,
or a lonely bud projecting into the field. Plant ornamentation becomes
true Greek ornament, abstract, tectonic, and when occasion demands, full
of life with its swing. Animal friezes retire to the foot or the
shoulder, are often incidentally treated as mere decorative accessories
or seized by quite unheraldic liveliness. The principal interest is
devoted to depicting man, his doings and goings on. The vase painter is
now more anxious than ever to narrate and depict; he finds ever less
satisfaction in ornamental composition. He is never tired of describing
hunting and warfare, wrestling and chariot-racing, the festal dance and
procession, but with greatest preference, remembering the purpose of his
vases, drinking and wild dancing. But also the heroes of past ages,
their bold exploits and strange adventures, are his constant theme. The
Homeric Epic, the tales of Herakles the mighty, the bold Perseus and
Bellerophon, had evoked pictorial representations even in the 7th
century; but now the full stream of the legendary treasury pours into
painting and gives an infinitely rich material to the joy of narration.
What the vase-painter makes of this material is never conceived in the
historical or archæological spirit, but breathes entirely the air of
his own time; often only the added names (which according to the new
feeling for space assume smaller dimensions) raise a genre scene into
one from myth. Moreover the Saga is only seldom re-shaped by inventive
brains. Types once invented pass on, go from workshop to workshop, from
one district to another, are abbreviated (p. 49), expanded,
conventionally repeated or filled with new life. Types may also cross;
there arise purely through art, contaminations of legend, which are
foreign to poetry. When a Corinthian painter unites the Embassy to
Achilles (Iliad IX) with the visit of Thetis, this has as little to do
with poetry, as when on Attic vases the birth of Athena is coupled with
the apotheosis of Herakles, or the slaying of Troilos is transferred to
Astyanax, or the entombment of the dead Sarpedon to Memnon. But
everything strange need not be misunderstanding on the artist’s part.
The vases supply us with a multitude of legendary motives and
variations, which we cannot find in literature, and are the faithful
reflex of the fluidity of Greek mythology, which, devoid of canon and
dogmatism, was in constant flux.
Olympos too, is subject to these vicissitudes. Its gods live a human
life among men, the only difference being that some representative
scenes give them a stiffer and more elaborate appearance than that of
ordinary mortals. In early times the divinity is chiefly betokened by
inscriptions and attributes. On the painting of the Corinthian Kleanthes
stood Poseidon with a fish in his hand beside Zeus in labour. Late
observers of this picture failed to understand this external
characterization of the sea-god, and saw an act of brotherly sympathy
with the god’s pains in this holding up of the tunny; and thus a great
deal beside must have appeared strange to them, _e.g._ Apollo with the
great lyre still bearded in the 7th century (Fig. 52), Herakles without
lion-skin (Fig. 64), the unarmed Athena, who only at the beginning of
the 6th century, in contrast with the Chigi vase (Fig. 37), the Aegina
bowl and the Gorgon lebes (p. 49), begins to express her bellicose
nature by attributes, and much besides.
The favourite god of the drinking vessels is the wine-god with cup and
vine. He makes Hephaistos drunk and leads him back to Olympos to
liberate Hera from the magic chair. The big-bellied dancers and purely
human creatures, who form his escort on Corinthian vases, in the first
third of the century are superseded by the Ionic horse-men, the Satyrs,
who become ever more closely associated with Dionysos, celebrate feasts
with the Maenads, never despise the gifts of their master, and make fair
nymphs pay for it. The half-bestial creature in whom ancient Greek fancy
vigorously incorporates man’s pleasure in wine and women with all its
comic effects, is quite the patron of archaic vase-painting.
That all these representations were developed by vase-painting alone is
more than improbable. That the Bacchic scenes of toping and dancing were
created on the actual vase, is most likely; but one is often enough
compelled to assume other sources. The fight of Herakles with the lion,
for instance, in its oldest form is the borrowing of an Oriental type,
which is composed for a tall rectangle, and is expanded by the
vase-painters for their purposes by filling figures, ‘spectators.’ The
gifted artist, who gave this heraldic type the more natural impress
which was regular in the older black-figured style, was perhaps a
vase-painter; the creator of the later black-figured type was certainly
not, for his horizontal group is certainly a fine invention but always
has to be adapted artificially to the vase surface. As with the
wrestling of Herakles, so it is with Theseus’ struggle with the
Minotaur. The same sort of extension occurs on a favourite subject of
older black-figured style, the quadriga in front view, whose horses
heraldically turn their heads sideways, whose helmeted warrior is in
front view while the unhelmeted driver is in profile. This type,
certainly invented for a square, is also known in bronze and stone
relief, and the question, in what technique it first appeared, will
scarcely be answered in favour of vase-painting. For a square, too, the
finely compact group of Herakles wrestling with Triton was first
composed, a theme common on Attic vases from the hydria of Timagoras
onwards; the older wrestling scheme, superseded by this type, in its
Herakles spread out before the eyes of the observer and kneeling as he
wrestles, still shows strong affinity with the Orientalizing frieze
compositions (p. 46), and is for vase decoration much more typical than
the later invention, which on vases always has a ‘borrowed’ effect. The
dependence of vase-painting on other techniques is finally evidenced by
the so-called ‘couplings’: the best-known instance is the combination of
the departure of Amphiaraos with the Funeral-games of Pelias on a
Corinthian (Fig. 66), an Attic and an Ionic vase, a combination which is
borrowed from an inlaid wooden chest of Corinthian workmanship at
Olympia (‘the chest of Kypselos’) or a prototype from which both were
derived.
After all this one will not hesitate to look for a strong reflex of the
great art of painting on the vases, alongside of the special property of
the vase-painter and typical ornamental figures equally common to all
art, or to picture to oneself wall-paintings or easel pictures, like the
birth of Athena by Kleanthes, after the fashion of the best
vase-paintings, which are least constrained by ornamental
considerations, or to reconstruct from the copies of vase-painters
compositions like the Destruction of Troy (Iliupersis), the Return of
Hephaistos, the Reception of Herakles into Olympos. One is particularly
impelled this way, when the vases give now shorter, now longer,
extracts from the same large composition; thus we have a reflection on
some dozen vases of Exekias and his successors of the fine
representation of the heroes Aias and Achilles surprised by the Trojans
while deeply absorbed in a game of draughts, and warned by Athena just
in time (Fig. 96). One cannot conceive of any difference of principle in
perspective, in the rendering of the body and the drapery, in the
spiritual content, between vase-painting and free painting; they both
are children of one time. Nor did the vase-painter feel any necessity to
alter the composition of his patterns. Only as he had to decorate framed
bands, the law of isocephalism was more binding for him than for the
great art. Hence his strong disinclination for “landscape,” which we
often meet with in Corinthian and Ionian pinakes and wall-painting, but
on the vases never, or only in palpable caricature; the painter who on a
hydria from Caere copied a seascape with the Rape of Europa, was obliged
to place beside the figure what looks like a mole-hill but is intended
for a mountain.
This limitation of the possibilities of composition by decorative
considerations was of hardly any importance. The wide gulf between free
painting and vase picture was conditioned in the first instance by
technique. It was that which gave its special effect to the
black-figured style and set its stamp upon it. We saw previously that
vase-painting, when it took over the silhouette style from the
decorative animal frieze, increased its distance from free painting,
under whose spell it had been for a good part of the 7th century, that
with the incised technique it took over, _e.g._ the circular drawing of
the eye, and with the new colouring entered decorative paths (pp. 38,
44, 49). Free painting drew with the brush on light ground, used black
and white very sparingly, more frequently red, blue, green, yellow and
brown; placed these colours side by side in simple harmonies, with very
little gradation and shading, but also sometimes, _e.g._ to represent
fire, used the smooth brush; rendered the men in reddish brown, women,
children, animals and objects in light colouring. With this
free-coloured effect the black-figured style was neither able nor
anxious to compete. Just like the Geometric, it is in its own fashion
again an ornamental style, which does not disown its predominantly
decorative character. The figure silhouettes serve it as ornaments to
fill a given space, which are in a certain equipoise of colour in
relation to the rest of the decoration and the black painted parts of
the vase; the incision stipulates a sharp delineation of types, the
imposed colour gives a parti-coloured effect. The coloured effect of the
vases is essentially defined by the clay, which now, in the developed
black-figured style, takes on a brilliant warm red upper surface, and by
the black glaze, which assumes a metallic lustre. The darker colouring
of the clay deprives the lighter parts of their effects by contrast, and
compels the painters to replace the contour-drawing of women, linen
garments, etc., gradually by laying on white colour, with which at first
the contour is simply filled; but afterwards more commonly black
underpainting is overlaid. With the transition to white, clear
silhouettes are also obtained, which set off against the background more
effectively than the old contour figures.
The advance in the preparation of the clay and glaze colour came about
on the Greek mainland. Tradition makes the Sicyonian Butades invent the
red colouring of the clay at Corinth, and thus gives the correct
indication. The Chalcidian and Attic workshops helped the new technique
to prevail; in the East it gradually gets the upper hand and forces the
Ionian manufactories to give up their favourite white ground and adapt
their technical freedom to the growing strictness of the western
system. Attica, which in the 6th century opens a dangerous rivalry in
Eastern and Western markets and finally wins the day, brings the process
to perfection. With the refinement of incised technique it puts an end
to the parti-coloured method still much affected by Corinthians and
Chalkidians, it clears away the big surfaces coloured red and white and
all colour in ornament and animal frieze, and helps the harmony of clay
and black to its purest and fullest effect.
With the disappearance of the old parti-coloured system the vases are
completely removed from the effect of free painting. For that we may be
grateful to fortune. For this refinement of the black-figured style
permitted the sensitive feeling of Greek artists for decoration to
satisfy the delight of narrating and describing along with the
ornamental traditions of the old style. They had no need, as had the old
Minoan vase-painters (p. 10), to shrink from borrowing figured scenes.
The recasting of types into the decorative silhouette style made it
possible for them to conjure on to the vases whatever touched their
hearts and delighted their eyes, and thus to transmit to us an infinite
variety of scenes, without which our knowledge of Greek legend, Greek
life and Greek art would have remained terribly scanty.
Corinth must lead off the history of this new style. The chief centre of
commerce and industry in the Peloponnese, the celebrated seat of a
flourishing ceramic industry and of an important school of painting, it
not only took the decisive step to the new technique, but even in its
red-clay phase had helped the designs to drive out animal decoration,
and composed, or at least introduced into vase-painting, numerous types,
which supply material to other workshops for a long time. The quadriga
in front view, which Chalcidian and Attic painters repeated so often and
which kept
[Illustration: PLATE XXXII.
Fig. 64. HERAKLES AND EURYTIOS; HORSEMEN: FROM A CORINTHIAN KRATER.
Fig. 65. CORINTHIAN KRATER.]
its decorative effect for almost a century, appears here for the first
time; the triangular scheme of two wrestlers seizing each other by the
arms and pressing head against head, which survived to the time of
Nikosthenes, was taken by the Amphiaraos krater (Fig. 66) from the
above-mentioned chest of Kypselos (p. 67); the nuptial procession of
Peleus and Thetis which we shall meet on the lebes of Sophilos and the
François-vase is prepared for in Corinthian vase-painting; and the
battle-scenes, rider-friezes and chariot-races, of which there was a
beginning in the Protocorinthian style, were most richly developed by
the Corinthians, and adopted by Chalkis and Athens often without any
essential improvement. Thus one may be sure, that a number of other
types, which are not represented in the selection that accident has
given us, started their victorious career from Corinth, and that the
lost great art of Corinth, the bronze industry of which we have
specimens and the richly-adorned chest of Kypselos described by
Pausanias supplied to the vase-painters a number of mythological
compositions, which influenced other manufactories. Unfortunately the
greater part of this rich treasure is lost to us. The loss is the more
to be lamented, as what we have shows us a fine inventive talent on the
part of the Corinthian artists and a magnificently free and easy
conception of life and legend. The Homeric poetry and the Epic inspired
by it, the lays of Peleus and Herakles, the ballad poetry now becoming
very fashionable, from which come _e.g._ the birth of Athena and
probably also the Return of Hephaistos to Olympos, are reflected on
these Corinthian vases in inimitably vivid and drastic fashion; and the
vase-painter also gives scenes from daily life, carouses, drunken men
who dance wildly with naked women, kitchen and winepress, riding and
driving, marching out to battle, and the wild mellay itself. It is
particularly on the kraters (Figs. 64-66) that we can trace how the
accumulating material gets space on the vases; animal decoration, in
which heraldic cocks are very popular, retires ever more to the reverse,
under the handles, into the base stripe, and also by preference is
replaced by lines of galloping riders, who form a lively decorative foil
to the mythological principal picture (Fig. 64). Meanwhile filling
ornament disappears. The flying bird over the rider (Fig. 65) renders
the same service as the rosette, nay a better; it transplants the scene
out of a decorative space into an actual one, the open country; and the
space-filling animals of the Amphiaraos vase, which are traditional (p.
40), are not intended merely any longer to enliven the vase surface but
the wall of the house, the floor and the air. Thus the liberation of the
field, for which Timonidas and his fellows paved the way, is attained.
With this goes hand in hand the liberation of figure-drawing from
ornamental constraint. The outspreading of the figure in the surface,
which is still strong in the 7th century, is toned down or ingeniously
given a motive, as with the kneeling warrior who fights backwards, and
does not disguise his connection with the old runner with bent knee. The
individualizing of men and animals carried forward by Timonidas now once
more makes big advances in human figures, horses and dogs.
We will select two of the kraters to give us an idea of the development
of the style. One, a Paris vase (Fig. 64), gives a special application
to a fine banqueting scene, by added names and the insertion of Iole, as
the visit paid by Herakles to Eurytios, king of Oichalia. The fair
daughter of the house stands with some indifference between the guest
and her brother; it is supposed to represent a legend, but is really
little more than a genre scene, as which it is hard to beat. The lively
conversation of the guests, the dogs tied to the sofa-legs waiting and
speculating on the chance of
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII.
Fig. 66. DEPARTURE OF AMPHIARAOS: FROM A CORINTHIAN KRATER.]
bits falling from the table are masterly, and even the horses in the
supporting frieze, if out of proportion and inelegant, are the more
characteristic and living. The technique follows old tradition; the
flesh of Iole, tables and sofas, one dog, shields on the reverse, appear
in outline drawing. Such contours, also found sometimes where men’s
bodies left white set off those painted dark, unite to some extent, as
does the red colouring of the male countenance, the vase in its effect
with the great art.
On the other hand the Amphiaraos krater (Fig. 66), which gives up red
for male faces, and makes a point of covering the outline figures with a
layer of white, has become more decorative and black-figured. Its
pictures are not equal in execution to the invention, but come from
excellent models (p. 67). Between the colonnade and façade of the house,
which are in line like the tables in the Eurytios vase, the hero,
because of his oath, mounts his chariot to go with open eyes to the
death he forebodes; his angry look is directed to Eriphyle and the fatal
necklace in her hand. With raised hands the family takes leave, a
maid-servant gives the stirrup-cup to the charioteer. Foreboding evil,
the faithful Halimedes sits on the ground: his heart has evidently
bidden him to train up the boy Alkmaion to take vengeance on his mother.
The whole delight in narration, which in the exaggerated rendering of
the necklace strongly emphasizes the previous history, is as genuinely
archaic, as the mythological individualizing of an old type ‘The
warrior’s departure.’
The Amphiaraos krater is more developed than the Eurytios vase, not
merely in technique. The painter of the later vase, though not so gifted
as his colleague, draws more cleverly, and works with a set of types
before him, as the frieze of riders shows. The advance becomes plain in
the shape of the vase. The Eurytios krater encloses an almost uniformly
swelling cauldron between a lip ring which is very low and a foot which
spreads out in ample dimensions. From this round-bellied archaic shape
we pass to a later more defined and elegant one in the Amphiaraos
krater, which has a higher neck, a steeper and much less swelling body,
with its lower part running to a point, till finally the outline almost
resembles an inverted triangle and from the handles a rectangular or
curved bridge has to be built leading to the high rim (krater à
colonnette). The tendency to development, which we can read out of the
vase shapes, may be taken as a symbol of the history of style. For a
Greek vase was always something organic, as much so as a tree or animal.
Unfortunately, besides the large kraters with their numerous figures,
which were favourite articles of export, few vases are preserved. In the
scene on the Eurytios krater we get the lebes with stand, also the jug
and drinking cup (kylix), which exist in various extant specimens. The
kylix has an offset lip (as in Fig. 24), and often knobs on the handles,
the interior picture is framed by tongue pattern. Beside the necked
amphorae, which like the kraters seldom have any other ornament than
rays, shoulder tongues and neck rosettes, the similarly decorated
big-bellied amphorae continue, which like their Attic parallels (p. 51)
put human busts or animal representations of old and new style into the
figure panel. The three-handled water pitcher (hydria) has the type with
vaulted shoulder common in the older black-figured style, and adorns it
with spirals and maeanders. All these ornaments, to which may be added
the double lotus and palmette of the Eurytios krater and occasional net
and step patterns, partake of the solidity and variety of the style.
Strangely enough, the phase of the Corinthian style here described is
for us the end of the fabric; not one of these
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIV.
Fig. 67. CORINTHIAN PLATE.
Fig. 68. THE SLAYING OF TYPHON BY ZEUS: CHALKIDIAN HYDRIA.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXXV.
Fig. 69. CHALKIDIAN AMPHORA.]
vases can be dated below the first third of the 6th century. Corinthian
pottery has no share in the Eastern Herakles with the lion-skin, the
Amazons as Scythian women, the entry of the Satyrs, the rendering of
folds, the painted ground for white additions. One asks whether this
brilliant development could break off so abruptly, or if it is only
accident which has concealed from us its continuation. Both are
improbable. It looks rather as if, just as the Protocorinthian
manufactory had its continuation in the Corinthian, so the Corinthian
was carried on by the Chalkidian. For the vases denoted by their
inscriptions as Chalkidian form, at all events according to the present
state of our knowledge, a group covering a few decades, which is in
succession of time to the later Corinthian vases, and is most closely
connected with them by a series of detailed agreements. Not only do the
vase shapes consistently carry on Corinthian tendencies, but details of
decoration like the white neck rosettes filled with red, and the step
pattern (Figs. 68 and 69) continue; the Corinthian animal friezes with
rosettes, the heraldic cocks, with the serpents, the winged demon, the
riders with the space-filling birds (Fig. 69), the wrestlers scheme, the
grotesque dancers, the quadriga in front view are taken over; nay,
details of drawing, like the warrior’s head in front view, the round
outline of the edge of the short small chiton (Figs. 70 and 71), the red
spots on black clothes (Fig. 70), the sword sheath with the St. Andrew
crosses (Fig. 71), the devices on the shields are not conceivable
without their Corinthian predecessors; even the names of Corinthian
grotesque dancers pass over to the Chalkidian Satyrs.
Not a single Chalkidian vase has been found in Chalkis itself, nor even
in any part of the mother-country: all specimens preserved come from the
West. One might therefore assume that the fabric had its seat, not in
Chalkis itself, but in one of its colonies, and thus the powerful
Corinthian traditions in this pottery would be easily explained. The
West was dominated, as we saw, throughout the 7th century by Corinthian
exportation; and the colonies of Chalkis had always been provided by
friendly Corinth with clay vases. But the strong influence of the
Chalkidian manufactory on the Attic is in favour of Chalkis itself
having put an end to Corinthian production, or at any rate to Corinthian
exportation. Why and how, cannot be stated: perhaps the publication of
the many unpublished specimens will solve the riddle and clear up the
close relation of the Chalkidian ware to the group of the Phineus kylix
(Fig. 74).
From every point of view the Chalkidian vases give us a heightening of
the Corinthian, a great advance in the direction of a later period. Clay
and black now attain their highest perfection, the distribution of
colour is most delicately calculated; no longer is there so much use
made of white surfaces (under which there is regularly a wash of black);
especially we see no more of the arbitrary colour-contrast which did not
shrink from white colouring of the male. If the Corinthian style had
already aimed at metallic effect in the angular formation of the handles
and the curving of the handle-bridges of the krater, the Chalkidian
heightens these tendencies almost to faithful copying of metal vases,
and consistently develops the vase shapes to the highest, almost
over-refined elegance; the narrowing of the lower part of the body leads
to the insertion of a roll, which the painter picks out in red from the
black foot. Thus arise novel vase-shapes; the necked amphora (Fig. 69)
is elongated, its shoulder flattened, so that the body almost assumes
the shape of an egg; the krater gets steep sides, high neck, and
outward-bent handle bridges; out of the older hydria with arched
shoulder comes a later shape, which, in a specimen at Munich (Fig. 68)
exactly copies the addition of cast handles to a metal body; and
similarly the other shapes develop, the kylix with knobs on the handles,
the two-handled cup, the jug.
The same endeavour after elasticity and elegance prevails in the
distribution of the ornament over the vase, which was managed in a more
masterly way at Chalkis than elsewhere. Certainly the ornamentation is
based almost entirely on Corinthian foundations. The white dot-rosettes
filled with red on the black neck, the lotus and palmette on the ground
of the clay, tongues on the shoulder, and rays at the foot, the step
pattern under the chief frieze are of old tradition but pass through a
growing elaboration. As a new motive of decoration comes in the chain of
buds, which we know from the East: as a rule it occurs beneath the chief
band (Fig. 69), or hangs over the figure-field in place of the lotus and
palmette. The Ionic pattern is not exactly imitated in the process; the
swellings under the Chalkidian buds suggest roses rather than lotus. Out
of these buds, palmettes, and the tendrils uniting them, is formed the
fixed ornament, which generally serves as central motive to heraldic
animals and often develops into a wonderfully rich complex of lively
lines (Fig. 69). The proper place for this ornament is the centre of the
upper band, which recovers its importance, now that the shoulder is set
off more sharply in hydriae and necked amphorae, and as secondary field
for decoration is, like the reverse of vases, usually decorated in the
first instance with animals. On the shoulder-stripe the riders with the
space-filling birds tend to drive out the archaic scheme of decoration;
they flank the lotus and palmette cross and in later specimens, where
the horizontal shoulder is no longer dominant in the general view, they
pass from heraldic constraint to parade order, and are also occasionally
replaced by cleverly disposed dancers. The reverse of the vase also more
and more shakes off animal decoration and replaces it by ornamental
compositions, as by the heraldic quadriga or the heraldic riders.
Friezes of animals beneath the main scene (Fig. 68) become very rare.
However markedly the decoration of the vase departs from the old style,
yet in spite of that there is in contrast with the Corinthian style a
marked decorative invasion to be traced. The vases that have nothing but
animal decoration are numerous, and the rosette often asserts itself
again.
This decorative invasion, which is connected with the perfection of
technique and marked talent of the Chalkidian artizan, does not detract
in any way from the figure scenes. The latter preserve their old vigour
and power of observation, some masters even raise it to a most intense
elasticity, and breathe into the old types a new and vivid life, which
in union with the line technique and arrangement in space makes these
vases superior to most of the other black-figured pottery. How Herakles
on the London amphora (Fig. 70) unmercifully deals the death-blow to the
three-bodied Geryon, or on the similar Munich vase (Fig. 71) to Kyknos,
is brought before our eyes with unambiguous matter-of-fact and verve.
The chest of Kypselos had already thus represented Herakles’ fight with
Geryon, and the Chalkidian painter rests here, as often and especially
in his battle scenes, on Corinthian types. But his rendering is anything
but a borrowing, and bears witness to fresh and vigorous conception. The
‘Herakles and Kyknos’ is based on the old fighting scheme, which
represents a warrior with raised right arm assailing an opponent who
almost kneeling moves to the right but looks round; and so in effect
only combines the ‘duellist’ (p. 39) and the runner with bent knee. On
the Chalkidian picture the old ‘exigency of space’ type is hardly any
longer to be traced; everything has become
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVI.
Fig. 70.
HERAKLES AND GERYONEUS: FROM A CHALKIDIAN AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: Fig. 71. THE SLAYING OF KYKNOS BY HERAKLES: FROM A
CHALKIDIAN AMPHORA.]
expressive and characteristic. To be sure the contrast between the body
in front view and the legs in profile and the spreading over the surface
are still hardly toned down, but the thrust dealt with the right arm,
the clutch of the left, the foot pressed against the back of the
opponent’s knee are full of vigour, and the collapse of the bleeding son
of Ares, his prayer for mercy while he plucks the victor’s beard, the
dimmed eye with its pathos, the composition and the filling of the space
are very artistic.
This heightening of characteristic touches does not merely appear in
battle scenes, but also the intimate touches in many Corinthian subjects
are carried on. Even the Eurytios krater had succeeded in expressing the
horror which seizes Odysseus and Diomede at the sight of the suicide of
Aias. The feeling in this group is perhaps surpassed by an episode in a
Chalkidian battle-scene; where the intent care, with which Sthenelos
binds up the finger of the wounded Diomede, reminds one of the later
kylix of Sosias (Fig. 114); and when a Paris amphora enlarges the march
out to battle by a domestic scene of arming, early red-figured painting
is again anticipated.
The combination of this fresh and direct observation of nature with a
marked decorative talent unites Chalkidian with the Ionic art of the
islands. On Chalkidian soil, where a language with a strong Ionic
element was spoken, a close contact with eastern neighbours must be
assumed. It is not only the chain of buds on the vases that witnesses to
this contact. The Satyr, a hairy fat fellow, with marked horse-ears and
horse-tail, often with horse-hoofs, enters from the East in a form,
which meets us on the Phineus vase (Fig. 74). And when the Chalkidian
painter occasionally indicates the outline of the female back, where
previously the drapery falling straight down entirely concealed it, when
he furnishes his Geryon with wings and often equips Herakles with the
lion’s skin, in this, as in much besides, one cannot fail to see Eastern
influence. Whether the rendering of folds, the beginnings of which
appear on Chalkidian vases as elsewhere, has the same origin, is
doubtful.
The fabric in the Ionic islands which was in close reciprocal relation
with the Chalkidian, may be called the ‘Phineus’ fabric after its chief
product, till accident betrays to us its home. From the remains of
lettering on the Phineus kylix, it can only be said, that it was
produced in a place where Ionic was spoken, which cannot have been near
to Asia Minor. The style, more Eastern than Chalkidian, but different
from East Ionic in much, _e.g._ the circular drawing of the male eye,
and closely akin to Chalkidian, is probably of Cycladic origin. But a
connection of this pottery with one of the old Cycladic manufactories
(p. 52) is impossible. As little as the Chalkidian has it any previous
history; the few amphorae and kylikes that remain belong exactly to the
same short period of time, in which the Chalkidian vases were produced.
The amphorae are rather earlier than the Phineus vase, and often very
like the decorative earlier Chalkidian specimens. Chalkis seems to have
supplied to them the western technique, the vase-shape, the foot-ring,
and also to have supplied the patterns in many specimens for animal and
rider decoration. But the less severe construction of the vases, the
irregular division of the fields for figures, the preference for a dark
covering of the ground above the rays, the liberties in decoration, lead
us to more Eastern soil. The very chain of buds, luxuriant and hardly
stylized, which often covers the neck, shows the unpedantic and concrete
Ionic style, and the same playful carelessness appears, when the painter
is lavish with filling rosettes and buds, when he inserts into a
heraldic frieze of animals a complex of creatures furiously biting each
other, or puts
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVII.
Fig. 72. IONIC EYE KYLIX.
Fig. 73.
HEAD OF ATHENA, BETWEEN THE EYES OF AN IONIC KYLIX.]
between his favourite squatting sphinxes a fighting warrior, a couple of
dancers, or two running girls, when he composes heraldically the heads
of two processions of riders, and makes a combatant the central motive
of heraldic riders, when he invents animal combinations with a common
head. So it is no wonder if he makes into an effective motive of
decoration the apotropaic eyes popular in this phase of art, which we
know from Delian, Melian, and Rhodian vases of the 7th century (Fig.
57), if he often adds ears and nose, and fills the centre with an
arbitrarily chosen motive, a leaf or a human figure. The eyes are found
on the necks of amphorae, but very often as outside decoration of the
kylix, which in perfected specimens shows alike the height and the end
of this manufacture.
The wonderfully living and swelling outline of these delicate kylikes
(Fig. 72) may be taken as a symbol of the style of the figures, which is
absolutely remote from abstract dryness. It often enough adopts
Corinthian-Chalkidian types as models. The ‘Phineus’ painter did not
invent of himself the warrior with head in front view; the slaying of
Troilos goes back to an old Corinthian type; the pursuit of the mounted
Penthesileia introduces, it is true, a new Eastern Amazon type in place
of the old one (which is also used in this group), but is based on the
composition of a Corinthian battle picture. What the ‘Phineus’ painter
does with his models is always distinguished by individual and genuinely
Ionic life. On the group of amphorae a fine vigorous figure style
prevails, which on the kylikes has a finer and at the same time more
delicate development. The charming Athena (Fig. 73), who now appears in
armour, and whose shield-edge the painter for decorative reasons has
doubled, the Scythian who like the mounted Amazon is at home in East
Greece, the skipping Silenus, the dog in front view would not tell us
much of this kylix-style. But fortunately the painter of the Phineus
kylix surrounded the fine Silenus mask in the interior with a continuous
frieze, the lack of which a hundred contemporary vases could not
outweigh. The wall with the vine and the lion’s head plainly divides the
frieze into two scenes: evidently a magic well, which pours wine into
the cup of the delighted Satyr. A lion, a panther and two stags draw the
chariot of the Wine-god and his consort. On the legendary team a Satyr
is making mischief; two of his colleagues are quite diverted from their
duty by the sight of three nymphs, who are bathing at a spring in a
wood. A lion’s head as spout pours into a basin the water with which
they are laving themselves; their clothes they have already hung up. The
other picture shows the blind king Phineus, from whom the Harpies have
taken the food off the table, for which he is vainly feeling; the
valiant sons of Boreas pursue the impudent thieves through the air over
the sea.
All is living, original and drastic in its conception, as perhaps was
only possible for an Ionian. The movements of the Satyrs and the nude
maidens, the animals and plant-life are caught from nature, and this
study betrays itself in various details. The face of Phineus, still
painted red like that of the Satyrs, is drawn in front view, which we
have hitherto only found in the helmeted warrior’s head, the collar-bone
and chest muscles are rendered, the eyes of the Boreads are already much
reduced in scale. Especially important is the treatment of the drapery,
not to mention the linen chiton of Dionysos with its parallel lines
indicating the material, or the long red chitons of the women and the
curved outline of the shirts of the Boreads, or the garments of the
Harpies adorned with Ionic crosses and borders; important innovations
appear in the himatia, that of Phineus is divided into
[Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII.
Fig. 74.
PHINEUS; DIONYSOS: FRIEZE ROUND THE INTERIOR OF AN IONIC EYE KYLIX.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
red and black stripes, those of Dionysos and the women show rendering of
folds. That the himation rather emphasizes than conceals the outline of
the back, is a true Ionic feature.
Beyond this stage, the ‘Phineus’ fabric cannot be traced. Generally the
Cycladic pottery of this period is hard to get hold of. We do not know
whether there were more factories on the islands, and some isolated but
allied specimens with more fully Ionic alphabet cannot yet be localized.
On the other hand, the ceramic history of the Greek East offers at least
some fixed points, though the transition from the old style has not yet
been cleared up. We were able to accompany the Rhodian-Naukratite and
the ‘Fikellura’ styles to the very threshold of the black-figured, but
here the thread seems to snap. Shallow bowls found in Egypt and South
Russia with bud decoration and black-figured interior designs, which
were imitated by the Attic Vurvá style, and amphorae with remains of the
old ornamentation and big isolated animal-silhouettes in the field,
perhaps represent the latest products of the Rhodian style. The
‘Fikellura’ style finds its continuation in a ware, which was certainly
produced in Klazomenai, perhaps also in several places at the same time,
and has come to light not only in the Ionian region and the colonies in
Egypt and the Black Sea, but also in Italy. The Klazomenian style has in
common with its predecessor not only a series of ornaments (tongues,
rays, late Rhodian garlands, continuous tendrils, rows of crescents,
friezes of leaves, ‘metope’ maeanders, buds in the field, scales over a
surface), but continues the old shape of amphora and has the same
preference for loose decoration: beside the vases adorned in bands, on
which the animal friezes are driven out of the chief band, it is very
fond of a field consisting of a reserved panel or running all round, and
of the decoration of the neck by means of an ornament, an animal head
or a human head. In the field it likes to put instead of the heraldic
pair a single animal, a sphinx before a standing man or upright branch,
an isolated palmette and lotus cross, which are in a measure constituent
parts of heraldic compositions, and shows the same freedom, going even
beyond that of the Phineus painter, when it makes isolated figures,
dancers, running girls, or men wearing mantles, the central motive of
its heraldic sphinxes or cocks, and when it puts a runner with bent knee
between two lions that turn away from him (Fig. 75). The palmette and
lotus-cross and the animal types differ from Western types; the
selection, too, is characteristic of the East. There is a special
preference for the Siren: this bird-woman is used surprisingly often
heraldically, and in rows to make a frieze. The female panther occurs as
well as the male; the grazing deer is a Rhodian legacy. The ostriches
show knowledge of Africa, the winged horses and boars connection with
Asiatic art. The Klazomenian style is particularly strong in the new
formation of fantastic beings, to which the near neighbourhood of the
East gave the impulse. The seahorse and the Triton were invented
somewhere in this area: to the ‘Fikellura’ man with the head of a hare
Klazomenai adds a being with a tail and a lion’s head among human
revellers, among dancing men and women appears suddenly the bearded
monster with the horse’s tail, the Satyr (Fig. 75).
The stock of types varies considerably from that of the West; this is
particularly clear in the scenes with human figures. Beside the pictures
of riders and battles, beside the few preserved legendary scenes, among
which the most important are the battles of Amazons, who here in the
East have become mounted Scythian women, the prominent place is taken by
scenes of drinking and dancing in the
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.
Fig. 75. SATYR AND MAENAD: KLAZOMENIAN VASE FROM KYME.
Fig. 76. NECK-DESIGN OF AN IONIC AMPHORA.]
manner of the Altenburg amphora (Fig. 63). The file principle, so potent
in the East Ionic animal frieze, strongly asserts itself in the dancing
maidens and the abandoned revellers: the oblique inclination forward,
which the Klazomenian painter often gives the intoxicated, and which is
very successfully preserved on an early Milesian relief in London,
emphasizes at the same time the decorative arrangement, and increases
the expressiveness, just as the eccentric movements of the dancers
equally well fill the space and mark the tone. For life, sensual and
everyday though often grotesque and brutal, is what these Ionian masters
give, even if they are only decorative artists or artizans, whatever it
may cost. So they succeed in nothing so well as women, satyrs and
animals. The maidens with their receding foreheads, almond-shaped and
often obliquely set eyes, and the little mouth somewhat drawn in below,
and the well-marked back contour, have an attractiveness even on the
most careless representations; the shaggy satyrs betray their equine
nature not merely in ear, tail and hoof; the robust strong-maned horses,
the female panthers with swelling breasts, the fighting cocks forgetting
their heraldic duties, all show nature very close at hand.
The history of this style, which must approximately extend over the
first half of the 6th century, can be to some extent followed. In the
beginning comes the conflict of the old Ionic and Western techniques,
the transition from the light slip to the reddish-yellow surface, and
the tendencies in ornamentation which still strongly remind one of
‘Fikellura.’ The silhouette style makes liberal use of white. Not only
with inherited aversion does it often replace incision by delicate lines
of paint, provide garments with white crosses, animals with white spots
and white belly-stripe, and ornaments with white details: in its earlier
period it also extends the white surfaces, which it still places on the
ground of the clay at times, from women and linen chitons to men, horses
and dogs, and becomes as parallel to the Corinthian style with this
contrast of colouring as with its wide-necked broad-bellied form of
amphora.
The latest wares of the colony of Daphne (abandoned in 560 B.C.) show
the transition to the rendering of folds of drapery, which takes the
place of the old parti-coloured surfaces in the group of vases which
took its rise about the middle of the century. In this later group, to
which a series of ‘lebetes’ with topers, satyrs, centaurs, and battle
scenes is an obvious introductory link, and which culminates in two
amphorae at Munich (Figs. 76 and 78) and one in Castle Ashby, there
enters into the old style varied, free and easy, broadly even laxly
rendered, a peculiar severity and discipline. The three chief specimens,
necked amphorae with the continuous scene preferred by the East, are
more defined and elastic in shape, more finished in shape and colour,
more ornamental and elaborate in the rendering of the figures, than was
the case with the earlier style. The conclusion which naturally suggests
itself, that this new spirit came from the West and the Chalkidian-Attic
region, is confirmed by the ornaments. Beside the Ionic looped and
plaited bands, leaf and bud friezes, and the continuous tendrils (Fig.
76), come the double rays, the Western palmette and lotus system; and
when the painter scatters animals among the ornaments (Fig. 76), he
follows old Ionic tradition, but the hare and the hedgehog with the
ostrich riders of the Castle Ashby amphora are of Corinthian origin
(Fig. 66). In the treatment of the figure, the meeting of Eastern vigour
and Western severity makes as charming an effect as the genuinely Ionic
and very decorative composition; the scene of a Munich amphora arranged
round a centre (Fig. 77) with the cunning Hermes, who creeping up on
[Illustration: PLATE XL.
Fig. 77. HERMES STEALS THE COW IO FROM THE GIANT ARGOS. FROM AN IONIC
AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE XLI.
Fig. 78. CENTAURS HUNTING: FROM THE SAME AMPHORA AS FIG. 77.]
tip-toe steals away the fair cow Io from the sleeping giant Argos, and
the picture of the Centaurs hunting on the reverse (Fig. 78) are full of
ornamental vigour and at the same time full of fresh observation. The
left hand of the giant shows a new study of nature compared with the
old-fashioned right of Hermes and left of the front Centaur; in the
giant the artist is struggling to represent the anatomy, and the mantle
of Hermes plainly falls in layers, in contrast with the absence of folds
in the chiton.
The new impetus, which even expressed itself in exportation to Italy,
could not save the Klazomenian manufactory from the preponderance of its
Attic rival; it is at the same time its end. Not that the East Ionic
decorative tendencies formed a blind alley; the combination with western
technique ensured its continued life. But Asia Minor, which at this time
fell into the hands of the Persians, was not a suitable soil for
continued production. Athens seized not only the exportation but the
entire production. The arrival at Athens of East Ionic artists is
reflected not merely in the names of the vase-painters. When on the jug
of Kolchos and the Attic vases, typical Eastern principles of
composition crop up, when Nikosthenes introduces an East Ionic shape of
amphora (Fig. 104), when the red-figured technique coming into existence
on Klazomenian sarcophagi conquers the Attic workshops, when on early
red-figure kylikes the same decorative tendencies which prevailed in the
East assert themselves, there can be no question of an extinction of
East Ionic art, but only of a re-birth in Athens, and a baptism with
Attic spirit.
About on a level with the Castle Ashby group is another East Ionic
class, also only known through export to Italy, the ‘Caeretan hydriae,’
so-called from the place where they were mostly found (amphorae and
kraters being also represented), which are usually attributed to South
East Ionia. The developed vase-shapes, the completed black figure
technique, which has a wash under the white and uses incision freely
even for outlines, and the decoration, which has got beyond the animal
style, make their late origin certain, and the agreement with Ephesian
sculpture of about 550 B.C., expressed in treatment of hair, converging
mantle folds and the graded edges of the drapery, clinches the matter.
When in spite of that these vases stick fast to the system of contrast
in colour, that agrees with an expressed preference for gay decoration
such as from the days of the Naukratis vases South East Ionia loved. The
‘Caeretan’ painter actually enhances this colour preference, in that he
varies the colour of the male body from black to dark red, bright yellow
and white and similarly alternates the colour of hair and clothes. He
gives the same motley effect to the ornamentation, which shows plainly
its descent from the old Rhodian in its broad lotus and palmette system,
its rosettes, hook-crosses, and spiral-crosses ornamenting the neck, and
also reveals East Ionic freedom in natural myrtle branches and
ivy-tendrils, in bucrania with festoons and in interspersed animals. The
animal world too, with its fallow deer, lions, griffins, winged horses,
and winged bulls, is characteristic of the East and the neighbourhood of
Asia. These animals have long ceased to play their heraldic part, though
on the reverse of the vase two may face each other in symmetrical
correspondence; they are rather by choice included in hunting scenes.
The traditional tendency finds a refuge, if anywhere, in the figure
scenes. In heraldic scenes of battle, in the horse-taming ‘runner with
bent knee,’ in Satyr and Nymph running to meet each other, it asserts
itself: but the living interest makes one forget the ornamental scheme.
Lively drastic description is the strong point of the ‘Caeretan’
painter. His broadly treated scenes of hunting, fighting, and wrestling,
the fine delineations
[Illustration: PLATE XLII.
Fig. 79. HERAKLES SLAYS BUSIRIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS: FROM A CÆRETAN
HYDRIA.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._
Fig. 80. SPARTAN KYLIX.]
[Illustration: PLATE XLIII.
Fig. 81. HERAKLES BRINGS CERBERUS TO EURYSTHEUS: CÆRETAN HYDRIA.]
of Satyr life, of the Heraklean legend, of Hermes and his theft of the
kine, of the drunk and lame Hephaistos, of Europa carried by the bull
over the sea, leave nothing to be desired in the way of original
invention, healthy vigour, and naive vividness, and in their aversion to
the typical and abstract they are diametrically opposed to Attic
painting. The stocky, strong man Herakles with the curly hair who
dispatches the inhospitable Pharaoh, Busiris, and his cowardly throng
(Fig. 79), or who with the hound of hell frightens the Argive king into
a wine jar (Fig. 81), are cabinet pictures of vigorous humour. The local
colouring is also unmistakeable. The altar with volute profiles is an
East Ionic architectural shape, the knowledge of the Egyptian and black
races, of Egyptian priestly dress, of monkeys, can only have been
obtained in Africa; the origin of the Busiris legend is only conceivable
in the neighbourhood of the kingdom of the Pharaohs. Thus though the
Caeretan vases found a local continuation in Etruria, because of this
local colouring one cannot imagine them made by Ionian colonists in
Caere.
On the other hand one may assume origin on Etruscan soil for another
class of East Ionic style, only known from Etruria, called ‘Pontic,’ as
having been wrongly localized on the Black Sea. The Asiatic-Ionian
origin of the style is based on the vase shapes as on the choice,
technique, types and application of the ornamental and animal
decoration; and also the figures, the lines of Tritons and Nereids,
riders and Scythians, heralds and Centaurs, and the legendary scenes,
which are often under ornamental influence (Figs. 82 and 83) in
execution and application, point to the same source. The ‘Pontic’
painters actually enrich our knowledge of East Ionic decorative motives
by a series of combined lotus, palmettes, volutes, maeanders, by net
patterns, leaf-friezes, etc., by a plentiful selection of animals,
which includes the marine Centaur, with the Asiatic man-bull, and is
fond of lines of guinea-fowls. But on the whole the class is very
provincial and cannot be regarded as a clear source of evidence. It is
questionable, whether obstinate persistence in stripe decoration, only
reluctantly giving way to the picture field, would have been possible in
the mother-country well on in the 6th century. The style is visibly
departing further from its Greek starting point. Vases which represent
Lanuvian Juno (B.M. Cat. II. p. 66) or Etruscan winged demons, show in
subject what the style of itself betrays.
Two classes with scanty decoration, fixed as East Greek by many finds,
can only be named for completeness sake; one, the ‘Bucchero’ ware long
known in Etruria, which perhaps originated in Aeolis and which owes its
black lustre not to glaze colour but to impregnation with charcoal and
to polishing; the other, the ware with a great extension in South Asia
Minor and Italy, either unadorned, or only decorated with stripes, which
give important conclusions as to the development of vase-shapes.
The East Greek manner took the place of the Corinthian in Italy at the
beginning of the 7th century. This revolution is less connected with
importation than with the immigration of Ionic artists. But even the new
current is more and more open to the influence of the ever-spreading
Attic importation, which in the East and West not merely captures the
market but also forces production under its spell.
Before we pass to this victorious fabric, we must once more return to
Peloponnesus, to a fabric standing in isolation and of marked
peculiarity, the Spartan. Excavations at Sparta show the transition to
the black-figured style, such as took place elsewhere about the end of
the 7th century. Corinth seems to have set the example for this
transition;
[Illustration: PLATE XLIV.
Figs. 82 & 83. PARIS AND HIS HERD; PRIAM AND HERMES LEAD HERA, ATHENA
AND APHRODITE BEFORE PARIS: FROM A PONTIC AMPHORA.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
at all events Corinthian elements, _e.g._ riders with birds for
space-filling in the black-figured style give this indication, though
the conservative retention of the white slip and the inconsistent
rendering of the male eye clearly distinguish it from Corinthian. It
becomes really tangible to us at the period, when exportation properly
begins, at a time which already puts a black wash under imposed white
and with the shapes takes us further along into the 6th century. The
ware for exportation, which spread far over the mainland to Naukratis
and Samos as well as to Etruria, has given us only a few big vases,
finely decorative works, which are very conservative in their adornment.
The earliest of them is a Paris ‘lebes’ with heraldically arranged
animal-frieze and a frieze of figures above it, in which pot-bellied
topers are placed between the Troilos story and a Centaur battle; two
volute kraters and two hydriae, by their shapes, cannot be much later.
Broad tongues adorn shoulder and foot, the rays are doubled, to
Geometric zig-zag and hooked bands are added upright arched friezes of
lotus and pomegranate, continuous branches, and the lotus and palmette
pattern; the animal friezes have types of their own and do not avoid the
processional order not ordinarily favoured in the West. Even the larger
vases found in actual Spartan sanctuaries are almost entirely decorative
and show little of the figure painting coming in so vigorously in other
manufactories.
A compensation for this is offered by the number of kylikes preserved,
which in the 6th century, as in East Ionia, Corinth and Athens, so also
in Sparta, gradually pass into the high-stemmed shape with offset rim
(Fig. 80). The outsides of these kylikes are adorned only in a few
earlier specimens with antithetic or processional animal friezes,
otherwise only with the simple or net-like pomegranate pattern, with
lotus leaves and rays; from the handles proceed palmettes on their
sides. The figures are entirely confined to the interior, which much
more commonly than in other manufactories, rises out of pure
ornamentation or animal decoration to free scenic representations. To be
sure this is often at the expense of the decorative effect. Most scenes
are anything but composed with a view to a round space, and the segments
under the line which marks the level of the ground, often very clumsily
filled with plant and animal ornamentation, the rosettes, filling
flowers, and birds dispersed without meaning about the scene, are always
clumsy old-fashioned compromises between representation and
space-filling. The stock of figures, with which the painter decorates
his interiors, usually more or less at random, is even in its rendering
helpless and antiquated; to make up it preserves its independence and
ease, its primitive solidity; the strong warriors, riders and hunters,
the men carousing with women, the musicians and drinkers, the girls
bathing in the river, are in subject and execution truly Spartan. Beside
the pictures from daily life comes mythology with pot-bellied dancers,
who have not yet, so far as we know, been superseded by Ionic Satyrs,
with Erotes crowning riders and drinkers, and various legendary scenes.
None of these kylix-pictures breathes the Spartan spirit, the spirit of
the lyric poetry of Sparta, so well as the Berlin vase with the carrying
home of fallen warriors, which is perhaps taken over from a continuous
frieze without any attempt to fit it into the circular field; but even
in this shape has the effect upon us of a funeral march of Kallinos or
Tyrtaios (Fig. 84). But in humorous descriptiveness the Arkesilas vase
(Fig. 85) takes the palm. It is a genre scene, but not this time from
the life of a Spartan citizen, but a travel reminiscence of a painter,
who once in African Cyrene looked on, while the silphion was weighed
under
[Illustration: PLATE XLV.
Fig. 84. RETURNING FROM BATTLE: FROM A SPARTAN KYLIX.]
[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.
Fig. 85. ARKESILAS OF CYRENE WATCHING THE LADING OF SILPHION: FROM A
SPARTAN KYLIX.]
the stern eye of Arkesilas, and stowed in the hold of a sailing ship to
be exported. The monkey too, which the painter puts on the yard, he
became acquainted with in Africa; the birds are not meaningless but fly
round the ship; only the lizard is an external addition, and we already
know it to be Corinthian. The life-like picture, which before the
decisive excavations in Sparta was regarded as chief proof of Cyrenaic
origin for this pottery, confirms the result of digging in the shape of
the chair legs, which agree with Spartan reliefs, and in the
inscription, only possible in Sparta. There is an approximate date given
too; for the king, whose portrait we have, reigned about the middle of
the 6th century. With this it agrees that his mantle is divided into
black and red stripes, which, as we saw in the Phineus kylix, comes
before the rendering of folds.
This conservative style does not show the same keenness as its
contemporaries in rendering folds and developing the knowledge of
anatomy; nor is the need felt for a long time of freeing the field from
filling ornaments or the base segment from animal decoration. The group
of vases which belongs to the second half of the century is especially
marked by the return of the white slip and of polychromy in the
ornamentation. It is only late that the Spartan painters turn to the
rendering of folds and richer body details, really only in a time of
decadence, which diminishes the foot, no longer colours the ornament,
and often avoids the base-segment. The occasional use of pale red
figures painted on a black ground with incised details can only be
explained as a provincial imitation of Attic red-figured technique, with
the superiority of which Sparta cannot even remotely compete. Similar
vases without any figures show the last output of the fabric.
The only fabric in which the black-figured style completed its life and
exhausted its possibilities, the only one which shows its living force
through the archaic and classic periods, is the Attic. Even at the end
of the 7th century it begins to vie with others. We already saw that
Vurvá vases were exported to East Ionia; the Gorgon lebes of the Louvre
comes from Italy. Etruria now becomes the chief place where Attic and
indeed all black-figured vases are found. The fact that ware made to be
exported to Etruria first gave us the knowledge of Greek vase-painting,
led enquiries on false tracks for a long time in localizing the fabrics,
and even to-day the word ‘vases’ reminds us of the decisive finds on
Italian soil.
The Attic manufactory is, as we saw, proved not only by the alphabet of
their inscriptions but also by continuous finds in Attica itself. To be
sure, the inequality of production in technique and style obtrudes
itself on us here more than elsewhere, and makes us take fabric in a
wider sense, as a complex of workshops, which turn out at the same time
good and rubbishy ware, traditional and progressive painting, vases with
light or dark-red clay. The Boeotian workshops, without doing them
injustice, we may class with Attic workshops of the second class; in the
6th century, in so far as they do not go on turning out their old bird
kylikes (p. 52), they are only provincial offshoots of Attic industrial
art. The same is the case with Eretria.
The inequality of Attic ware has yet other reasons. More than other
fabrics the Attic adopted foreign influences. Athens’ central position
between Corinth, Chalkis and the Cyclades, its relations to East Ionia,
led to a penetration of old Attic art traditions with other elements and
to the formation of a new style: the rise of trade and industry enticed
alien painters to settle at Athens, since foreign fabrics had more and
more to give in to Athenian superiority. Thus it is that Corinthian,
Chalkidian, ‘Phineus,’ East Ionic, occasionally even Spartan fabrics
[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.
Fig. 86. WEDDING OF PELEUS: FRAGMENTS OF A CAULDRON BY SOPHILOS.
Fig. 87. ATTIC TRIPOD-VASE.]
are reflected in the Attic pottery. These reflections give a very varied
air to Attic pottery, but on the other hand help to a dating of its
separate phases. After a period of Corinthian influence follows one with
a strong Chalkidian element, in the eye-kylikes the pattern of ‘Phineus’
ware is at work, while relations to East Ionic art run along side by
side.
The group, which one is inclined to make parallel with the red-clay
Corinthian, may be named the ‘Sophilos’ group from the fragments of a
‘lebes’ found on the Acropolis (Fig. 86). In contrast with its immediate
predecessor the Sophilos vase vies in motley effect with Corinthian
ware. Ornament is richly painted; himatia and borders are picked out in
colour, women and linen chitons have a white filling; in the red of the
male face and the varied colouring of the horses the system of
contrasted colours is as plainly exhibited as in the red colouring of
the male breast or of the whole male body on other contemporary vases.
The marriage of Peleus and Thetis is the subject, in a type repeated on
the François vase (Fig. 90), which we see developed on Corinthian
kraters, probably under the influence of the chest of Kypselos. Who
introduced into the scene the Muse in front view playing on the syrinx,
cannot be stated; the lower part of the body in profile is in marked
contrast with this bold front view; that it is of ornamental origin,
perhaps from a double Siren, might be suggested without its being too
venturesome.
The frieze is framed between a broad lotus and palmette pattern and a
stripe with large animals. Whether the filling ornament has been omitted
from the animal as well as from the figured frieze, in which nothing but
the big lettering reminds us of the old requirement of filling the
space, cannot be ascertained from this specimen; a second vase of the
same painter shows between the animals, which still suggest the Vurvá
style, isolated large rosettes, and other vases of this group make a
palmette flower or bud with stalk project into the field. These isolated
echoes of the old filling ornamentation, influenced by the East like the
gradually appearing friezes of buds and leaves (p. 83) disappear about
the middle of the century; but the animal friezes themselves live on
longer.
This survival of old decorative tendencies in a new shape appears still
more plainly in other vases of the “Sophilos” period. The amphorae,
which leave a “metope” unpainted to carry their figures or make the
figure field continuous, when they do not cover the whole body with
stripes, have like the Klazomenian on the neck a head, a lotus and
palmette cross, or a circle between zig-zags (the amphora which Dionysos
is dragging on the François vase is of this type), and prefer still to
decorate their stripes and fields with heraldically arranged animals.
The Ionic liberties too, the meaningless compositions, are not
infrequent, just as beside many Corinthian echoes in the friezes of
animals and riders, Ionic patterns often assert themselves in the
drawing and colouring of the animals, and in the shape and decoration of
the vases. The kraters and hydriae which are parallel with the
Corinthian, give the same impression. Of the smaller vases we may select
two hasty compositions, which cannot compare with the fine work of
Sophilos, but in their way help to enlarge our idea of the period. The
Munich tripod-vase (Fig. 87) in the stripe on the rim shows alongside of
the old animal composition two wrestlers of the Corinthian scheme and a
horse race from the same source, the succession of which is interrupted
by a fallen horse just as the animal friezes of contemporary vases
contain fighting animal groups; and a kantharos of Boeotian manufacture
and shape (Fig. 88) over the animal frieze introduces the wild dancers,
who as at Corinth, Chalkis and in East Ionia prepare the way for the
Satyrs.
[Illustration: PLATE XLVIII.
Fig. 88. BŒOTIAN KANTHAROS.
Fig. 89. ARRIVAL OF THESEUS’ SHIP AT DELOS: DETAIL OF THE FRANÇOIS VASE,
FIG. 90.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
Just as we followed the process in late Corinthian and Chalkidian
workmanship, so in Athens the broad, massive archaic black-figured style
in the shape of the vase and the rendering of the figures passes into
more and more elegant compression and precision; Sophilos is followed by
Klitias. The Florence vase ‘made’ by the potter Ergotimos, ‘painted’ by
Klitias and named after its finder François (Figs. 89 and 90), even in
the boldly rising outline of the body shows the spirit of a new age, and
goes beyond the round-bellied shape of the Gorgon ‘lebes’ as much as the
late Corinthian kraters surpass the Eurytios vase (Fig. 64). Ergotimos
holds the mean between the old round-bellied vase shapes and the more
elegant ones of the Chalkidian best period (p. 77), just as Klitias does
between the figured style of Sophilos and that of Amasis (p. 105); and
as Ergotimos does his best in delicately moulding the shape and gives
the vase a showy appearance with his elongated handle volutes, so in the
figured decoration covering the whole surface and in the incredibly
delicate execution of all details Klitias presents a refinement of the
black-figured style which in its way cannot be surpassed. Potter and
painter here take a step, which secures for Attic pottery the paramount
position for all time.
The treatment of the procession of the Olympians in honour of the
newly-wedded sea-goddess on the principal frieze is particularly rich.
We have seen that Klitias here utilized an old type. The representative
solemnity required by the subject gives an archaic stamp to this frieze;
in particular the richly adorned festal clothes with patterns that it
almost requires a microscope to see, which bear witness to uncanny
patience and accuracy on the part of the painter, heighten the stiffly
venerable impression. But when compared with Sophilos, Klitias shows a
considerable advance in the rendering of nature.
For that we must not lay stress on the head of Dionysos in front view,
for the god’s mask-like appearance passed from cult into vase-painting;
but we may point to the diminished heaviness of the figures, the smaller
size of the eye, the division of the himatia into stripes, which here
and there converge like folds, and the reduction in size of the
inscriptions. The other friezes exhibit Klitias as a master of the
delineation of life and movement: the arrival of the ship of Theseus at
Delos (Fig. 89), the hunt of Meleager, the battle with the Centaurs, the
chariot-race, the return of Hephaistos, the adventure of Troilos, and
the delightful frieze on the foot with the battle of dwarfs and cranes;
even the heraldic animal frieze is seized by the same liveliness, for
between the heraldic sphinxes and griffins the animals, now treated in
quite an elegant and concise way, are attacking each other. How much of
these scenes is due to the inventiveness of Klitias and his direct
observation of nature cannot be made out. He has not got the rough
freshness and naturalism of the Ionic painters, but instead a marked
feeling for clear and speaking types; and generally speaking, discipline
and the gift of abstraction seem to have been more characteristic of the
Athenians than of the Ionians, who set more carelessly to work. Perhaps
Klitias got from eastern masters the interruption of the heraldry in the
animal frieze by fighting groups; and at any rate the Satyrs who
accompany the drunken Hephaistos come from the East into Attic pottery.
In the technique of the figures, the old style is worthily putting forth
its last efforts; the white is still put direct on the clay, the man’s
face is coloured red, black horse alternates with white. But with the
perfection of the clay and the black used in painting, and the minute
detail of incised lines, a new feeling for colour is brought in, which
leads away from the old motley effect; the masters of the
[Illustration: PLATE XLIX.
Fig. 90.
KRATER BY KLITIAS AND ERGOTIMOS: “THE FRANÇOIS VASE.”
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
François vase themselves in their later works go over to the new system,
which paints a ground for the white and gives up red in the male body, a
system which, perhaps, other less thorough artists had already set
going.
The chariot-race for a prize on the neck of the François vase introduces
us to an old and popular contest, which according to tradition
Pisistratus replaced by other games, when in 566 B.C. he reformed the
Panathenaea. At the same time he must have erected a new image of Athena
on the Acropolis, which, in opposition to the old conception, (p. 66)
still followed by the François vase, represented the goddess in full
armour. For on the prize vases, which were given to the victors full of
precious oil and labelled ‘one of the prizes from the city of Athens’
(τῶν Άθήνηθεν ἄθλων), Athena always appears as a fighting warrior, just
as the poet Stesichoros and paintings of the time of Sophilos had made
her leap from the head of Zeus. The oldest of these Panathenaic amphorae
(an idea of their shape is given by Fig. 101, a later specimen of about
520 B.C.) shows on the obverse the new type of Athena in the making, and
on the reverse the chariot-race which was now becoming infrequent. Since
this vase adheres closely to the Sophilos group in style and especially
in the animal decoration of the neck, but on the other hand already has
a painted ground for white, it will not be possible to move the François
vase and the transition to the later technique away from the sixties of
the 6th century.
The group of kraters, lebetes, hydriae, amphorae and other vases, which
immediately adheres to the François vase, usually, in so far as it is
not interrupted by marked individualities, is described by the
antiquated name ‘Tyrrhenian,’ derived from the finds in Etruria. The
conservative and often mechanical character of these vases does not
conceal the progressive elements. The vases assume the more slender
egg-shaped form known to us from Chalkis, the old neck ornament of the
amphorae (p. 96) is replaced by lotus and palmette. White colour is
regularly placed on black ground; Herakles is often equipped with the
lion’s skin; Athena with at any rate helmet and spear; in place of the
old-fashioned burlesque dancers and naked women come Satyrs and Maenads.
But of improvements in observation of nature this second-class group has
hardly any to show. It lives on the achievements of great masters, on
Corinthian traditions, and eastern influences. The frieze amphorae,
which continue alongside of the amphorae with picture field, vie with
the François vase in the accumulation of figured friezes; only in the
lower stripe they economize in figure scenes by using lines of lotus and
palmettes and animals. Thus their general appearance is still very like
the Vurvá vases, the Gorgon lebes and many vases of the Sophilos period.
The traditions of the 7th century end in this mechanical group; the
great masters of the second third of the century bring, perhaps from
Chalkis, new vase types and new kinds of decoration.
The transition may first be followed in the Kylix, which happily can be
traced in its development by many signed specimens. The firm of
Ergotimos produces a cup with knobbed handles and no set-off for the
rim, the interior picture of which is framed by tongue pattern, thus a
kylix of the type known to us from Corinth and Chalkis; on the outside
the Satyr is still loosely connected with drinkers of the old type, and
has thus not yet been associated with Dionysos and the Maenads. This
type of kylix shews marked Chalkidian influence, especially in later
specimens like that of Boston (Fig. 92), on which Circe (painted white
over black) hands to the companions of Odysseus the fatal potion and so
brings about her own abrupt end. Series of branches and buds, probably
also the dog in front view (p. 81)
[Illustration: PLATE L.
Fig. 91. ‘LITTLE MASTER’ KYLIX.
Fig. 92. ATTIC KYLIX WITH KNOB-HANDLES.]
and much in the style of the figures come from the neighbouring fabric.
This Chalkidian influence is to be traced on a second type of kylix
belonging to this period, that with off-set rim, (not the one in Circe’s
hand), which for a time carelessly draws its figures over the junction,
but finally makes a clean cut between handle frieze and rim ornament:
the rim is _e.g._ decorated with a branch or painted black, the handle
frieze bears figures or the artist’s signature in neat letters between
the palmettes proceeding from the handles. The masters of the François
vase themselves took this step forward; in Naukratis and the interior of
Asia Minor signed specimens have been found, speaking documents of the
popularity of the fine Attic ware in the East, which help to explain the
alteration of the Ionic style (p. 86).
The workshop of Ergotimos passed to his son Eucheiros (B.M. Cat. ii., p.
221), who, like the sons of Nearchos, Ergoteles and Tleson (B.M. Cat.
ii., p. 222) is found among the so-called ‘little masters,’ the makers
of dedicated high-stemmed cups, who, with special pride, and probably
also for decorative reasons, put their names on their products. More
than twenty makers’ names, among them those of Exekias, Pamphaios,
Charitaios, Hischylos, and Nikosthenes, have been handed down to us on
these vases, an important piece of evidence for the vigour of Attic
production in the generation after Klitias and Ergotimos. These masters
preserve the division between handle and rim stripes, even when the rim
is not marked off from the body. As with Klitias, the handle stripe
bears the master’s inscription or a drinking motto; in this case the
representation, consisting of neat miniature figures or a female head
drawn in fine outline, moves into the upper stripe (Fig. 91). Side by
side with that, the painting of the rim black and decoration of the
handle stripe with figures are very common. In the figures decorative
tendencies, betokening intention rather than convention, assert
themselves. The interior picture often consists of the Gorgon’s mask, or
a figure to fill the space to fit the circle; the outside often bears
meaningless compositions (heraldic animals, winged creatures, runners,
riders, men wrapped in cloaks), out of which develop scenes of hunting
and pursuit, chariot-races, and cock-fights; but also mythological
scenes and vigorous battle pictures with many figures occur. When such
scenes are still flanked by heraldic animals, in this case primitive
traditions are consciously retained.
On the Munich kylix (Fig. 91) the painter in the inscription praises the
beauty of Kalistanthe. More commonly fair boys are praised, a practice
which continues on vases for a century, the explanation being supplied
by the erotic scenes represented from the later time of Klitias. Those
celebrated are seldom to be regarded as the favourites of the
vase-painters themselves, but generally sons of the best society, for
whom there was a furore. This worship of beauty is of use to the
historian, for many of the _Kaloi_ are great persons with established
dates, and anyhow the common love-name puts all vases which bear it into
a short period of time; for the bloom of beauty lasts not more than a
decade.
If the kylikes of the ‘little masters’ last to the beginning of the
red-figured style (p. 109), the eye-cups go a good bit beyond this
limit. The type must have been brought to Athens from the ‘Phineus’
manufactory (p. 80) in the later period of the ‘little masters’; and
perhaps the Ionian Amasis, who has left a fine specimen with a figure
holding a branch between the eyes, had much to do with this
naturalization. Certainly the Attic artists never rival the swelling
shapes and vigorous life of their prototypes. With this type the outside
begins again to be treated as a decorative unit
[Illustration: PLATE LI.
Fig. 93. DIONYSOS: INTERIOR OF AN EYE KYLIX BY EXEKIAS.]
without division, an arrangement of which the red-figured style makes
almost exclusive use. The interior is generally not more richly
decorated than by the ‘little masters.’ When Exekias on one vase adorns
the whole interior surface with a wonderful idyll, the giver of the vine
in a sailing boat with dolphins leaping round him, this is quite an
exception (Fig. 93): that the ground is painted brick-red, is quite
unique.
The names Ergotimos and Klitias, Exekias and Amasis, Charitaios,
Pamphaios and Nikosthenes show that the manufacture of kylikes was by no
means a separate speciality, and that it may be simply due to accident
if certain firms producing larger vases do not recur among the ‘little
masters.’
The larger masterpieces naturally show the progress of the style much
more plainly than the conservative Tyrrhenian ware and the kylikes. We
noticed above, that single specimens, which stand out markedly from the
ordinary ware of the period, attach themselves to the François vase. The
master of a fine lebes from the Acropolis showing Ionic influence, who
occasionally still colours the male face red, probably emigrated from
the East like his contemporaries Kolchos and Lydos. Like Klitias, the
masters prefer to cover garments with rich patterns rather than to
render folds: they relieve the monotony of white chitons by vertical
strokes, and divide the surfaces of cloaks into stripes. This division
does not yet attain any effect of depth. But when Nearchos, the father
of two ‘little masters’ (pp. 101 and 112), divides the short male chiton
also by wavy lines into black and red stripes, he has already in his
mind the rendering of folds, and Kolchos grades the ends of cloaks with
clear folds. This emancipation from the old superficiality, which in the
period of the ‘little masters’ leads to the emergence of the ‘fold’
style in the works of Amasis and Exekias, must now be exhibited in a
selection of amphorae and hydriae in connection with the change of
vase-shapes and decoration.
We begin with the big-bellied amphora, which at the end of the 7th
century we saw reserve a square field and decorate it with horses’ or
women’s heads, and which in the period of Sophilos begins to put an
upper border of ornament on its figure-field, which is often adorned
with animals. Fine specimens of the Klitias period, which banish the
animal ornament into a lower frieze or give it up altogether, show an
obvious change in shape, in that the handles, instead of standing off
like ears, are drawn up perpendicularly, while the body of the vase is
to some degree tightened. Vases like that of Taleides with the slaying
of the Minotaur, or like the unsigned Iliupersis vase in Berlin (Fig.
94) with the gay alternate palmette pattern and the old heavy foot of
the François vase, belong to this class. On both vases standing figures
form an extension of an animated central group, but the Iliupersis
master makes a better whole of his triptych than Taleides, who merely
juxtaposes the heroes’ conflict and the spectators: alongside of the
furious Neoptolemos, who has already laid one Trojan low and is on the
point of despatching the aged king and his grandson with one blow,
Menelaos threatens his faithless wife, whom he has won back, while on
the other side Priam’s entreaties are supported by wife and daughter: a
picture rich in content, of true archaic vividness and talkativeness,
excellently drawn and composed. It is not only the way in which white is
used that takes one beyond the François vase; the rosette ornamentation
of the garments is quite typical of the following period (Fig. 92); the
wavy striping of the short chiton and the simple grading of the cloak
reminds us of Nearchos and Kolchos, and whether Klitias could have
characterized a dying man as well as our master is at least
[Illustration: PLATE LII.
Fig. 94. ILIUPERSIS: FROM AN ATTIC AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE LIII.
Fig. 95. SATYRS AT THE WINE-PRESS: FROM AN ATTIC AMPHORA.]
questionable.
The current of Chalkidian influence, which sets in vigorously about this
time, seizes also the body amphora. The arched foot becomes more
plate-like, a clay-ring unites it with the end of the body, which is
more taper; the Chalkidian wreath of buds (Fig. 71) for a time commonly
takes the place of the palmette and lotus band, which becomes scantier
and more monotonous, and as at Chalkis, a figure frieze (Fig. 95) may
occupy this space. The type belongs to the earlier ‘little master’
period. From Exekias, who was himself in his off-hours a ‘little
master,’ comes a specimen in the Louvre with the praise of the fair
Stesias, a youthful work of this worthy successor of Klitias, on which
Chalkidian patterns are very finely worked out, without the slightest
attempt at the rendering of folds.
The unsigned Würzburg amphora of Amasis (Fig. 95), like all the vases of
this master peculiar in shape and of perfect technique, is more
progressive and probably somewhat later than the Stesias amphora of
Exekias: the cloak of Dionysos on the obverse is laid in three folds; on
the reverse the shaggy satyrs, stylized in a quite un-Attic way, who to
the sound of the flute are gathering, pressing, and distributing into
jars the beloved gift of the god, show the same connection with the
‘Phineus’ factory as the eye kylix (p. 102). The technical perfection
and the fine decorative effect of Amasis’ vases are only surpassed by a
wonderful contemporary group, which is usually called the ‘affected’
class, because it consciously sacrifices the living representation of
the figure world to the ornamental general effect.
The over-elegant works of Exekias, the ‘affected’ vases, the minute
‘little master’ kylikes represent the last refinement of the silhouette
style, its last trump-card. The future belonged not to the masters of
the adorned surface, but to the delineators of the surface in movement.
In the last phase of the body amphora prior to the red-figured style, in
which the band-like handles and the narrower neck are drawn higher and
the stiff palmette pattern becomes canonical, Exekias in his riper
development passes over to rich rendering of folds; on the harmonious
amphora in Rome, which no longer praises Stesias but Onetorides (Fig.
96) he exhibits in the cloaks of the players the last possibilities of
his subtle technique with an almost incredible devotion to detail, but
even these fine clothes have their edges overlapping, and on the reverse
of the vase, besides foldless patterned clothes, appear cloaks richly
animated with folds. The amphora must be of the same period as the eye
kylix (Fig. 93); not only the feeling as a whole but the dark-red
chitons in layers on the outside point to the late activity of the
master.
The necked amphorae complete our idea of the two great masters. The old
heavy shapes with the arched foot take up Chalkidian influences and go
through the same processes of change, which we know from Chalkis. The
old-fashioned decoration with animal stripes is retained by the
Tyrrhenian vases, that with continuous pictorial field by the ‘affected’
group for a time, till the later Chalkidian type conquers the whole
field (Fig. 69). Amasis seems not merely to have introduced it into
Athens but also to have created the pretty variation with the flat
shoulder with a rectangular turn and the wide handles running out below
into tendrils: for these continuous tendrils are old property of his
eastern home. The handle ornament separates off the pictures on the two
sides and liberates the figures from the constraints of a frieze. The
Paris amphora with Dionysos and the interesting group of embracing
Maenads (Fig. 98) is closely connected with the Würzburg amphora (Fig.
95) not only by the double rays, which Amasis loves,
[Illustration: PLATE LIV.
Fig. 96. ACHILLES AND AIAS PLAYING AT DRAUGHTS: FROM AN AMPHORA BY
EXEKIAS.
Fig. 97. ATTIC NECKED AMPHORA WITH SATYR-MASK.]
[Illustration: PLATE LV.
Fig. 98.
NECKED AMPHORA WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER AMASIS.
Fig. 99. DETAIL FROM THE INTERIOR OF A CAULDRON BY EXEKIAS.]
by the grouping, which in the other vase is transferred without change
to satyrs, by the beginning of himation folds, but also by many details
of the very individual style. The aversion to white colour is
interesting. On both vases the linen chiton of the god is left black;
the Paris maenads are rendered in outline only: it is but seldom that
the reaction against the old parti-coloured scheme goes so far.
Parallels are provided by the Athena of Kolchos’ jug and the girl-busts
of the ‘little masters’ (Fig. 91). Both the other amphorae of Amasis are
more advanced. The shape of the vase is slimmer, the decoration simpler,
the relation of figures to space freer. The bodies are no longer the
thick-set broad-thighed type of the older style: the eye plays no longer
so prominent a part. The short chiton is not merely laid in black and
red layers but even provided with a quite naturally waving border: the
artist thus far surpasses the standard of Exekias and even of early
red-figured masters. He need not on that account be put very late, for
the simple Ionic masters of the Caeretan hydriae, perhaps his
countrymen, made this border before him. This Ionism is in favour of
Amasis, who signs only as potter, having himself painted all his vases,
and having played the pioneer not only in vase shapes and decoration but
also in figure style. Exekias (in whose works the unity of the whole is
often expressly emphasized by the inscription ‘made and painted me’)
does not attack the problem of folds so boldly. Even on the two fine
necked amphorae, which praise the favourite of his later period, as a
good Athenian he lays the drapery in neatly-ironed layers.
The slender Munich necked amphora (Fig. 97) goes still further beyond
the Chalkidian models (Fig. 69). The neck ornament connects it with the
late works of Exekias, the eye decoration with the kylix type of the
same time, and even the space-filling vine-tendrils, which perhaps
Amasis introduced from the ‘Phineus’ factory into Attic painting, are a
favourite motive in later times. The satyr mask, like the Dionysos mask,
probably passed from cult into decorative painting; if Klitias
represents Dionysos, and Amasis the satyr, with head in front view, the
influence of these masks is not to be mistaken.
We have not yet named the most productive amphora painter. Nikosthenes
supplied some fine examples of the method of Amasis, some of which like
the Exekias lebes (Fig. 99) on the body of the vase help the fine black
colour to exclusive possession; besides a quantity of notably metallic
amphorae with band handles, the production of which in quantities seems
to be his speciality, though other masters adopted and modified the
shape (Fig. 104). The often very hasty and conservative decoration of
these vases cannot come from one painter. Nikosthenes, of whom almost a
hundred signed vases are extant (kraters, ‘Amasis’ and ‘Nikosthenes’
amphorae, ‘little master’ kylikes, eye kylikes, neatly painted jugs with
white ground, and red-figured vases) must have employed a series of
painters. The only one who gives his name, Epiktetos, we shall hear of
later.
The hydria too, which often shows its use in pretty fountain scenes
(Fig. 106), alters its form. As in Chalkis (p. 76) the egg-shaped type
of the Klitias period, shown _e.g._ on the Troilos frieze of the
François vase, gradually gives way to the later type with picture field
and horizontal, separately adorned shoulder. Timagoras, a contemporary
of Exekias, still prefers a broad-bellied shape and does not form handle
and foot as elegantly as Pamphaios. His Paris vase with the later type
of the contest with Triton (p. 67), on which he still paints the
monster’s face red for colour contrast, is very important for chronology
by a declaration of love for
[Illustration: PLATE LVI.
Fig. 100. FROM A LATE ATTIC BLACK-FIGURED HYDRIA.]
Andokides, a young colleague and later chief master of the early
red-figured style. If Timagoras is the predecessor of Andokides,
Pamphaios is his rival. His slim London hydria with the slightly bent up
handles, on which the vine of Dionysos overgrows the whole picture, and
the dark-red striping of the cloak assumes pure fold-character, falls
into the red-figured period, which after the second third of the century
begins to compete with the old technique, and to which Pamphaios himself
opens his workshop. The new style did not abruptly drive out the old:
from the time of its predominance perhaps more black-figured vases are
preserved than from the preceding period. In the leading studios for a
time both techniques were practised side by side, often by the same
painters. The balance inclined quickly to the side of the style which
painted the background and not the figure, and after the transitional
time of Andokides and Pamphaios only inferior talents experiment in the
old silhouette style. But though driven out of the leading position,
this old style was still busy and productive at least to the beginning
of the 5th century: especially necked amphorae and hydriae, which the
new style did not zealously affect, keep the tradition.
At this later date the shapes become elongated, the lotus and palmette
ornament loses colour, sweep and consistency. The hydriae bend their
handles more steeply upwards: the row of palmettes enclosed by tendrils
is preferred as framing ornament. The figures move more freely in the
space, and are also more hastily drawn; in particular the rendering of
folds becomes regular. The red stripes, which are painted quite
meaninglessly between the folds, no longer remind us that they once
indicated sewed parts of garments; white rosettes and red spots serve as
surface patterns, a red stroke as border. On the fine hydria in Berlin
(Fig. 100) probably of Euphronios’ time, which, it is true, is quite
unlike its class, the old round formation of the eye actually
approximates to the natural oval.
The links with the red-figured style, especially common love names like
Hipparchos, Pedieus, and Leagros, help us to date this style. Thus the
circumscribed row of palmettes seems to appear in the early Leagros
period (p. 114); the Berlin vase is thus moved to the end of the
century, like a group of pelikai with charming genre scenes and a series
of other vases of red-figured shape (p. 119).
In the new century the black-figured production gradually dies away.
Apart from the Panathenaic amphorae (p. 99) and other vases, which for
ritual reasons remain conservative, only trifling small ware keeps up
the old style. The prize vases can be followed as votive offerings on
the Acropolis, and in exported specimens down into the 4th century,
where they are dated to the year by archons’ names (one of 313 B.C. has
been found); even in late times they do not give up the old type of
Athena, but elongate it to agree with the slender proportions of the
vase, and combine other later features with the old picture.
In Boeotia black-figured painting, alongside of primitive attempts to
imitate Attic red-figured vases, continued as long in the burlesque
parodies of myth of the so-called ‘Kabirion’ vases; black painting on a
light ground is found in the early Hellenistic ‘Hadra vases’ made at
Alexandria, and similar late phenomena occur in various localities.
These late black-figured vases show real progress in nothing but the
development of a loose freely moving vegetable ornamentation: but this
progress depended on pure brush-technique, not on the old incised
style.
[Illustration: PLATE LVII.
Fig. 101. ATTIC VASE, LATE BLACK-FIGURED STYLE.
Fig. 102. PANATHENAIC AMPHORA.]
CHAPTER V.
THE RED-FIGURED STYLE IN THE ARCHAIC PERIOD
How the sudden change of technique took place, how the idea suggested
itself, that instead of painting silhouettes on the ground of the clay,
figures drawn in outline should be left free to contrast with the black
background, is not yet explained. The inversion of the colour system is
not new. From Ionic, Corinthian, Attic, and Boeotian workshops we know
of light painting on a dark ground, and a plate from Thera has light
figures in added paint and a black background. But this is entirely
different from the red-figured style, which uses the ground of the clay
for its figures. Only late Klazomenian sarcophagi can be regarded as its
earlier stages, and it is quite possible that the new technique was
naturalized in Athens by East Ionic painters.
At any rate the idea fell on fruitful soil. The archaic mixture of
colour was long worn out, the simplification of colour-effect, by
increasing limitation to the two values, clay and glaze, was in full
swing, and the effect of big glazed surfaces had been tried in the
body-amphorae and in vessels completely covered with black colour (p.
108). But more than all else the revolution in figure-drawing which was
now setting in strong in the great art was striving for expression in
vase painting. A successor of the Athenian Eumares, Kimon of Kleonai,
according to Pliny, invented oblique views and foreshortening, rescued
the body from archaic stiffness, furnished limbs with joints, for the
first time rendered veins, and represented folds and swellings of
drapery; he must belong to the last third of the century; for his
predecessor is father of the sculptor Antenor, who worked, it is true,
for the old potter Nearchos (p. 103) but also for the young Athenian
Republic (510 B.C.) Though Pliny, after the fashion of ancient
historians, is too fond of asserting ‘inventions,’ this much is clear,
that after Eumares there was a breach with tradition in Athenian
painting, and that here, for the first time in the history of the world,
bonds were once for all burst, which hitherto had hardly been touched.
Naturally the vase-painters could not be left behind; but since the old
silhouette incised style was quite unsuited for the new liberties of
drawing, but on the other hand outline drawing on light ground ran
counter to the decorative purposes of the vases which used silhouettes,
the idea of inverting the colour-scheme must have been received with
enthusiasm among the vase-painters.
The new invention unites the enhanced freedom of movement of the
draughtsman with a decorative effect which is not inferior to that of
the old style. The warm red inner surface of the figures, which the
painter can animate by the brilliant sweeping ‘relief lines,’ splendidly
contrasts with the wonderful black lustre of the ground. The new style
too is a silhouette style, and uses the ornamental effect of the
figures. But it contains quite different possibilities, and of itself
moves away from the types of the old style and towards an individual
treatment of the figures. The contrast between the black silhouette of
the man and the white-filled figure of the woman falls away, also the
circular shape of the man’s eye connected with the incised style, the
gay dresses, and much besides. The red-figured style enters into the
characteristic working out of the human body and its parts, the study of
drapery folds and the rendering of movement in a living way. But growing
naturalism is in true Greek fashion contemporaneous with adherence to
types; formulæ once invented are retained and repeated by different
masters, until new discoveries by bolder spirits outdo them and put them
in the shade. In the archaic red-figured style this vigorous struggle
between formula and bold observation of nature offers an exciting
spectacle. Step by step the ground is won from the archaic style, till
after a struggle of about fifty years, about the time of the Persian
wars, a free rendering of nature is attained, which then lays the
foundation for the formation of a new and higher series of types, for
the style of Polygnotos and Phidias.
This period may be regarded as the culminating point of vase-painting
altogether, if emphasis is laid on the intensity of the line, and on the
intimate relation between artist and technique. In it artistic craft had
its greatest triumphs and created the most perfect synthesis between
ornamental types and delightful naturalism. Potters and painters were
never again so conscious of their performances as in this period, never
again felt themselves so much as rival individualities. Certainly the
old black-figured masters, Timonidas, Klitias, Exekias and Amasis,
cannot be denied personal expression. But the red-figured conquerors of
nature, each of whom in his own way breaks through the old system of
type, produce a far more differentiated effect. It is also a result of
the fresh current, which now enters vase-painting, that we can more than
ever follow the development of these individualities. The signatures,
which are preserved in such number from no other period, give an
insight, not merely into the manifold production, but also into the
growth of personalities and their struggle for ever new possibilities.
Among the signatures we must distinguish between potters and painters.
We must never assume that the ‘maker’ is responsible for the adornment
of his vases; it looks rather as if the painters had lived pretty
independently and been employed first by one and then by another
proprietor of a workshop. What it means, that now the potter signs, now
the painter, sometimes both together, and that many strong personalities
do not sign at all, cannot be made out in the present state of our
knowledge.
The love-names help to fix the chronology of the vases still more than
in the black-figured style. We saw that Andokides was _kalos_, when
Timagoras’ workshop was in full swing. When he is a full-blown painter,
the ‘Epiktetan’ kylikes and an Oxford plate celebrate the youths
Stesagoras, Hipparchos and Miltiades. If Miltiades is the victor of
Marathon, Stesagoras his brother, and Hipparchos the archon of 496 B.C.,
their ephebic years and these vases must be fixed about 520 B.C.
Memnon’s youth must fall about the same time; for one of the many
kylikes with his name, like a lekythos signed by Gales, shows the bard
Anakreon, who was entertained by the Pisistratidae, 522-514 B.C. The
painters Phintias and Euthymides praise the youth Megakles; now on a
votive pinax from the Acropolis this name was replaced later by another,
and it is a plausible guess to connect this erasure with the banishment
of a Megakles in 486 B.C., who about twenty-five years before might have
deserved these praises. The youthful beauty of Leagros is in the time of
the vase-painter Euphronios, and anyhow earlier than the destruction of
Miletos, in which a Leagros vase was shattered: the Leagros who fell in
battle as Strategos 465 B.C., must have been an ephebus in the last
decade of the 6th century. His son Glaukon, who was Strategos in 440
B.C., dates the vases which celebrate him with his father’s name a
generation later, so about 470 B.C. The only established fact from finds
does not contradict the ‘Leagros’ chronology; in the tumulus of
[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.
Fig. 103. ATHENA AND HERAKLES: FROM AN AMPHORA IN THE STYLE OF THE
ANDOKIDES PAINTER.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
Marathon (490 B.C.) the latest offering was a sherd of the kylix type
with simple maeander (c.p. Fig. 115) which appears in the later
‘Leagros’ period. The Acropolis finds, which are prior to the Persian
conflagration (480 B.C.), have not yet been sorted and sifted.
According to this chronology the red-figured style must have made its
entry into Athens about fifty years before the Persian War, with which
it is customary to close the archaic period of Greek art, _i.e._, about
530 B.C.
We saw above, that the workshops of Pamphaios and Nikosthenes open their
doors to it: neither master breaks abruptly with the old style, which
often asserts itself together with the new on the same vase. This
contrast of the two styles is made clear by no one more obviously than
the potter Andokides on his fine amphorae, which are directly in line of
succession with Exekias; never is the essence of both styles so plain as
when on such a vase the same subject is treated by the same painter’s
hand in the old and in the new technique. The unsigned, but certainly
Andokidean Munich amphora (Fig. 103) is not one of these instances in
spite of the similarity of the subject; its black-figured Herakles scene
is certainly by a different hand from its red-figured, in which the same
delicate and original artist as on most of the signed works (the
‘Andokides’ painter) expresses himself. If this painter is identical
with the potter, Andokides was not merely in shape and decoration of his
vases but also as draughtsman a pupil and successor of Exekias. He has
inherited the feeling for elegant detailed drawing and for richly
ornamented garments. In the Herakles scene we see the same joy in a
harmonious picture as in the sea-voyage of Exekias (Fig. 93) and the
game of draughts (Fig. 96), which he actually copied; and the same
intense absorption in the subject makes all other works of Andokides
charming. In much the drawing reminds us of the teacher, particularly
the flat layers of drapery, which already resolve the chitons into rich
folds and end in the border more naturally, but do not attain the
life-like waving of the late works of Amasis. The filling of the space
with vine branches also is more in accord with the old technique than
the new. But the more advanced pupil is shown not merely by the renewed
study of the body, which appears in the drawing of hand and foot, in
pointed elbow and knee, and in Herakles’ leg shown through the drapery,
but also by the more compact composition and the individual treatment of
the heads.
The entirely red-figured vases by Andokides are not necessarily older
than the black-figured: the latest vase signed by him (in Madrid) still
combines both techniques. It must have been decorated by a third artist
less archaic in feeling, who also worked for the potter firm of Menon.
The Menon painter adds to the Andokidean framing patterns the row of
circumscribed palmettes, though not yet in their final shape, and
approximates in style to the young Euphronios and his rival Euthymides.
The ornament of the Madrid vase does not seem to have been devised as
border pattern. It must be derived from the tendril-composition, which
on red-figured vases takes the place of the Amasis ornament (Fig. 98)
and is in great favour as handle-ornament for kylikes. On the fine
amphora in Paris, which the transitional master Pamphaios made after the
patterns of Nikosthenes, and Oltos probably painted with scenes of
hetairai and satyrs (Fig. 104), it appears as handle decoration together
with an equally novel calyx and leaf ornament, which adorns the
shoulder. The free decorative method of composition, which can be traced
back through Amasis (p. 105) and Klazomenai to the Fikellura style (p.
61) is exactly in the manner of the red-figured style, which not only
shakes off the frieze constraint but
[Illustration: PLATE LIX.
Fig. 104. HETAIRA; SATYR AND MAENAD: AMPHORA WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE
POTTER PAMPHAIOS.]
[Illustration: Fig. 105.
THE ARMING OF HECTOR: FROM AN AMPHORA BY EUTHYMIDES.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
[Illustration: PLATE LX.
Fig. 106. FOUNTAIN: FROM A RED-FIGURED HYDRIA BY HYPSIS.]
even the pictorial field: on the amphora, which the same painter
executed for the potter Euxitheos, he discards the old frame, which now
only separates black from black, and his example is followed sooner or
later by other artists.
It is true that the painter Euthymides, the contemporary of the young
Euphronios and gifted continuer of Andokides’ body amphorae, keeps the
frame on his vases, which are now purely red-figured. But he not only
helps the later palmette ornament to triumph over the old bands of
zig-zags and buds (Fig. 105) but enhances the unity of effect by
beginning to leave the ornament in the colour of the clay and to shape
it in red-figured manner, as was the case straight away with the handle
decoration (Fig. 104). Almost as a rule he puts in his field three
standing figures of large dimensions, in which he demonstrates to the
eye his progress in observation of nature. Under the garments bodies
begin to move, and their anatomy male and female is studied by the
artists of this period with tireless zeal.
The fruits of this study appear on the Munich Priam vase (Fig. 105), in
the drawing of hands, in the differentiated pose of the legs, in the
bold front view of the foot, still more on the reverse in the bendings
and turnings of three naked drunken men with full indication of muscles.
Certainly the limitations of his eye for perspective appear, when the
further from sight of the two chest muscles comes under the nearer one,
when the woman’s breast is turned outwards, when the transition of the
breast seen in front view to the legs in profile is not made clear, and
the head of the man walking to the right and looking round in archaic
fashion is still turned in profile to the left; the artist, it is true,
breaks through the old scheme of the figure in one place, but his
avoidance of lines shewing depth is so strong that he prefers to put
those parts of the body, of whose front and back he is conscious, simply
one beside the other. But it is just the contrast between the bold
attempt at progress on the painter’s part and the perspective
constraint, the feeling of conflict; if you like, that gives their charm
to the vase-paintings of this period.
Though the bodies are no longer as previously packed into the garments,
and drapery is rather subordinate to the treatment of the body, studies
in drapery also have been very fruitful. The contrast between the heavy
woollen himation, and the more delicate crinkles of the linen chiton is
plainly marked. The depths of the folds in the cloak, according as they
are close together or more freely distributed, are given in gradation by
thicker or thinner lines of colour; the chiton folds join in separate
masses and run out in the expressive so-called swallow-tail borders,
which divide the outline of the drapery much more rhythmically than the
layered borders of the ‘Andokides’ painter.
Chalkidian painters had already rendered scenes of arming. But those of
Euthymides mark a great psychological advance. The paternal anxiety of
the bald-pated old man and the nervousness of the mother’s pet making
his first début are finely expressed. The feeling for everyday life, in
an age which suddenly recognized in common things a world of artistic
problems, was keener than ever. What cared Euthymides about his subject
“Hector’s departure”? He drew a scene from his neighbour’s door and
added heroic names.
His best work the master left unsigned, the Munich amphora, on which
Theseus under protest from Helen (note the thumb) with gay impudence
carries off Korone (Fig. 107). The head of the ravisher, which gets its
increased liveliness not merely from the shifting of the pupil from the
centre inwards, may serve as example of the newly-conquered
possibilities of expression, and the extract from the picture may give
an idea of the charm of archaic art.
[Illustration: PLATE LXI.
Fig. 107. THE RAPE OF KORONE BY THESEUS; FROM AN AMPHORA BY EUTHYMIDES.
Fig. 108. DRUNKEN SATYR: FROM AN ARCHAIC RED-FIGURED KYLIX.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXII.
Fig. 109. RHYTON WITH RED-FIGURED DECORATION ON THE NECK.]
The Bonn hydria of Euthymides with the praise of Megakles shows a quite
new type of vase; in contrast to the offset black-figured shape, it
unites neck and body in an elegant curve, so that the old-fashioned
division of the decoration into two or three parts disappears. The same
fair youth is praised by his gifted colleague Phintias, whom we see from
his beginnings in the workshop of Deiniades expanding more and more
brilliantly, on a London hydria of the old shape; but the gracefully
moving boys, who in the picture while drawing water are addressed by an
older man, already carry water-pots of both types in their hands, and
Phintias himself occasionally adopted the later shape; as does the
painter Hypsis with the pretty well-house scene (Fig. 106), on which
again both vase-shapes are represented; for the girl, who is just
putting the cushion on her head, has placed a pitcher of the old type
under the lion’s head spout from which the water is pouring, while her
companion is lifting a hydria of the new shape already well-filled from
the satyr’s mouth. The intensive study of the female form is seen in
Oltos’ picture of a hetaira (Fig. 104) and in many other vase-paintings
of the period, and even when they represent girls clothed, the painters
are unwilling to sacrifice their newly-won knowledge to external
probability, and even under the drapery help the charm of the body
outline to assert itself, as Hypsis does on his well-scene (Fig. 106).
Like the Bonn hydria, the works of Euthymides witness to the emergence
of new vase-types, the Turin psykter and the unsigned Vienna pelike. An
idea may be obtained of the psykter (which is regarded as a cooling
vessel) by the later example in Rome (Fig. 104) in which the narrower
cylindrical lower part is however missing. The pelike is a kind of small
wineskin-shaped amphora. Even the transitional artist Pamphaios gave
Oltos a stamnos (cp. Fig. 146) to paint, and the early red-figured
artist Smikros painted one. The calyx-krater, a kind of enlarged cup
with low-set handles, seems to appear in the Leagros period (Fig. 113).
The remarkable vases in the shape of a head (Figs. 101, 109) in a
smaller form served for the reception of unguents and oil even in
Protocorinthian and early Ionic styles, but seem only at this time to
become popular as bumpers in the service of the drinker, and the pretty
heads of negroes and girls with the love-names Epilykos and Leagros form
the beginning of the development, which culminates in Sotades (p. 142).
The other drinking vessels, the kantharos, which is brandished by Duris’
satyrs (Fig. 122), the skyphos, from which Euphronios’ hetairai are
drinking (Fig. 112) are only continuations and refinements of old shapes
(Figs. 88, 43). The favourite drinking utensil is naturally the kylix,
which even for the “little master” period in fabrication and exportation
is at the head of the vases, and now not only receives its finest
finish, but also through the abundance of specimens preserved and the
richness of inscriptions renders the most valuable service to the
historian.
On the Andokides amphora (Fig. 103), the psykters of Euphronios (Fig.
112), and Duris (Fig. 122), the shape with offset rim appears. This late
specimen of the old type must have been more popular than the extant
painted examples lead one to suppose, but was certainly far less usual
than the shape with a single curve, which the red-figured style took
over with the eye kylikes and in the most delicate way simplified and
animated.
The history of these kylikes, like that of the big-bellied amphorae,
begins with examples of mixed technique. Andokides actually extended his
principle of the black-figured and red-figured halves of the vase to
kylikes: but happily this procedure was extremely rare. In the early
[Illustration: PLATE LXIII.
Fig. 110. DRUNKEN LYRE-PLAYER: FROM A KYLIX BY SKYTHES.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXIV.
Fig. 111. FLUTE-PLAYER AND DANCING GIRL: FROM A KYLIX BY EPIKTETOS.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
kylikes the mixture of technique is rather to be found in the fact, that
in the interior the black-figured picture, which with its circle in the
colour of the clay contrasted so decoratively with the black-covered
edge, was still retained, while outside between the eyes, and gradually
also in their place, figures were inserted in the colour of the ground.
This procedure is _e.g._ connected with the names of the potters
Nikosthenes, Pamphaios, Hischylos and Chelis, and with the painters’
names Epiktetos and Psiax, and with the love-name Memnon. When Skythes
paints the outside in black-figured technique and the inside in
red-figured of a kylix (unsigned) dedicated to Epilykos, this is, like
the procedure of Andokides, an exception, and a conscious divergence
from the traditional relation. The transition to purely red-figured
technique compels the artists to separate the interior from the black
surroundings. Up to the Leagros period this separation is effected by a
narrow ring in the ground of the clay, which they leave uncovered by
black paint: on the kylikes the eye-decoration is gradually dropped. If
one takes the signatures of the masters of this group together with
those of the transitional kylikes and the contemporary big vases, the
number of the painters’ names comes to about a dozen, while the potters
are far more numerous; and thus in view of the mere accident of
preservation and the anonymity of other palpable artistic personalities
one can form an idea of the vigorous life, which then reigned in the
Kerameikos, the quarter of Athens where the potters lived.
It is interesting to follow the process by which the early red-figured
kylikes from very decorative beginnings rise to even greater freedom and
objectivity. Even the insertion of the figure between the eyes, which
comes from the Ionic ‘Phineus’ fabric, is meaningless and a mere
decorative scheme; and also, when he gives up the decoration with eyes,
the painter likes to put one or three figures as central motive between
the broad ornaments of the handles. Even the exterior pictures with
numerous figures, which occur in the late period of the potter Pamphaios
and in the full activity of the painter Oltos, are by no means free from
decorative schematism; arrangement in a row and heraldry still play a
part, and occasionally, as in the ‘little master’ style, winged horses
or sirens take the centre of the representation. Even the old Ionic
scheme of the horse-holding runner revives on a kylix of this group.
The interior too at first is still under strong decorative constraint.
Quite in contrast to the early Attic kylikes of the Klitias period and
to the Spartan, which often take no regard to the space in the
representation, the figure always adapts itself to the circular form,
extends its masses to fit the space, often presses head and feet against
the edge, and gives the interior a decorative and very animated
appearance, to some extent comparable to a rotating wheel. One imagines
the painters had studied and sketched the bending, crouching, running,
twisting, and turning of handsome youths often only to get motives for
their interior scenes. Skythes, the master of fine black-figured votive
tablets on the Acropolis, who liked to dedicate his kylikes to his young
colleague the painter Epilykos, in the interior of the kylix at Rome
(Fig. 110) goes beyond this stage, and fills the space more loosely with
the lyre held at right angles and the freely arranged knotted stick of
his singing boy; and Epiktetos, who painted his wonderfully subtle
figures in a long working life for various potters, Nikosthenes,
Hischylos, Pamphaios, Python and Pistoxenos, in the late Python kylix in
London (Fig. 111), under the influence of later masters, goes over to
the two figure picture. One can see from their bodies that they are
prior to the time of Euphronios and Euthymides. In his
[Illustration: PLATE LXV.
Fig. 112. HETAIRAI: FROM A PSYKTER BY EUPHRONIOS.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
[Illustration: PLATE LXVI.
Fig. 113. HERAKLES AND ANTAIOS: FROM A KALYX-KRATER BY EUPHRONIOS.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
vigorous lyre-player, whom we may identify with his favourite Epilykos,
Skythes does almost too much in the rendering of the chest-muscles and
makes the abdominal muscles seen in front view, and rendered in thinned
varnish, press against them in an impossible way; Epiktetos, who is for
a while disinclined for interior drawing, turns the breasts of his
dancing women outwards, and in their space-filling movement reminds of
old types. But the master of a Munich eye kylix has side-views of
shields, and draws a kneeling leg in back view, so that the sole is
visible and the calf almost disappears. Back views of the human body are
given also in kylikes from the workshop of Kachrylion, which takes us
over into the Leagros period just like the works of Phintias and Oltos,
whom we already know. For Phintias soon outdoes the theft of the tripod
of his early Deiniades kylix on a fine amphora at Corneto, and Oltos,
the painter of the Pamphaios amphora and most of the Memnon kylikes,
passes from the praise of Memnon to that of Leagros on the fine kylikes
from Euxitheos’ workshop.
The Leagros period might be described as the culminating point of the
dramatic tension prevailing in the older red-figured style. In it
Phintias breaks the archaic fetters of his youth, Euthymides creates his
decisive works, and we see the development of the great master
Euphronios, whom Euthymides boasts to have beaten on the Priam amphora
(Fig. 105). All the three vases, which bear the signature of Euphronios
as painter, praise the fair Leagros, _i.e._ the Munich Geryon kylix,
which appeared in Kachrylion’s workshop, which, like the Leagros kylikes
of Oltos, has under the exterior scenes a band of circumscribed
palmettes in the colour of the ground, the Petrograd psykter with the
hetairai (Fig. 112) and the Paris calyx-krater with Herakles and Antaios
(Fig. 113).
The harmonious indoors scene of the psykter in its quite neat and sure
drawing of the nude sets the finishing touch to the studies of Epiktetos
(Fig. 111), Oltos (Fig. 104), and their contemporaries, and does the
subject more justice than many pictures more advanced in perspective.
The leg of the thirsty Palaisto disappearing in the background recurs in
the Antaios scene, where the painter fully exhibits his anatomical
knowledge, and shows as little regard for the concealing skin as other
painters do for female drapery; the inner drawing is not even as usual
put on in thinner colour. The composition of the scene is not very
flexible. The struggle of the muscular but quite civilized Herakles with
the rugged giant (whose right hand is a masterpiece of drawing) is the
true theme, while the horrified women, who are almost old-fashioned in
their drawing, serve like club, quiver and lion’s skin, only as filling
for the triangular wrestling scheme, which was probably borrowed. A band
of palmettes, and another of palmette and lotus in the red-figured
style, vigorously frame the bold picture. The reverse of the Antaios
krater shows the artist well on the way to represent correctly the
course of the abdominal muscles from the chest to the pudenda, and thus
to give a convincing expression to the old distortion of the body.
Unfortunately we cannot further follow Euphronios on this path in the
light of signed vases, for the ten kylikes with his name, which fill the
gap between the youth of Leagros and that of his son Glaukon, were only
signed by him as potter and some of them were demonstrably handed over
to others to paint. That a progressive artist like Euphronios in this
whole period never again took brush in hand, is more than improbable,
and among the unsigned vases of the succeeding period his more mature
works must be represented.
The kylix made in the workshop of Sosias (Fig. 114) has been variously
ascribed to Euphronios and to the painter
[Illustration: PLATE LXVII.
Fig. 114. ACHILLES AND PATROKLOS: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE
POTTER SOSIAS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXVIII.
Fig. 115. BOY CHASING A HARE: RED-FIGURED KYLIX.]
Peithinos: the remarkable work of art must rather belong to an unknown
third person (the ‘Sosias’ painter). The composition filling the space
suggests the old style, especially the pressing of the foot against the
rim: but the boldly fore-shortened right leg of Patroklos with the foot
viewed from above, known also to Euthymides and to Phintias in his
maturity, the full development of the bunches of drapery and the
swallow-tail edges, and above all the extremely bold attempt to open the
corner of the eye, lead us into the critical phase of the archaic
red-figured painting, the Leagros period. Only an intense study of the
model could lead this master so far from the beaten track; that with the
added names of Achilles and Patroklos he came into conflict with the
Iliad, mattered little to him. Furthermore on the Sosias vase a
technical innovation comes seriously into play, which is gradually
adopted by Euphronios (Fig. 112), Euthymides (Fig. 107), Phintias and
Hypsis (Fig. 106); the outline of the hair is no longer separated from
the black ground by the old hard incised line, but by a narrow line of
the colour of the ground. Within the kylikes, which praise the fair
Leagros, a change takes place in the framing of the interior picture; in
place of the ring in the colour of the clay, of which occasionally they
attempt to increase the effect by doubling, comes the maeander in
different varieties, first simple and continuous (Frontispiece and Figs.
108, 115, 126), then ever more frequently in broken up shape (Fig. 116).
The new frame comes _e.g._ on the London kylix, which by the hare-hunt
gives such a natural motive for the space-filling movements of the
running Leagros (Fig. 115). The Leagros of the kylix agrees so exactly
with that of the Antaios krater, that one may ascribe this advance to
Euphronios; for the line of the ground giving the hair outline and the
organic connection of chest and belly are beyond the stage of the krater
in question.
A further step forward on the part of the same master may probably be
seen in the Boston kylix, which praises both Leagros and Athenodotos
(Fig. 108). Never perhaps was the inmost nature of the satyr so fully
caught as in this fine example: he is squatting on the emptied pointed
amphora and positively breathing out an aroma of wine and wantonness.
His lifelike picture goes far beyond the Antaios krater, and a closely
connected Athenodotos kylix in Athens actually carries this vivacity
into the same subject, the wrestle of Herakles and Antaios.
If Euphronios thus surpassed himself one may believe him also
responsible for the next step, the ‘Panaitios’ stage, to which it is a
very short distance from the Athenodotos kylikes. To the transition,
that is about the end of the 6th century, belongs the Paris Theseus
kylix, signed by Euphronios as potter but without love-name. The boldly
drawn exterior seems to form the bridge to the style of the ‘Panaitios’
master, that vigorous painter, perhaps identical with the later
Euphronios, from whose hand comes the London Panaitios kylix with the
signature of Euphronios as potter. The rich and ornamental interior
(Frontispiece) is in a certain contrast with the exterior scenes, and is
so closely connected with the early works of Duris, that we may enquire,
whether Euphronios did not entrust the decoration of the interior to a
talented pupil with a great tendency to elaboration. But perhaps this
contrast is due only to the representative seriousness of the subject.
Young Theseus, in order to receive his rightful position as son of
Poseidon, has gone down to the bottom of the sea, and in the presence of
Athena is greeted by Amphitrite.
The time of Panaitios and that of Chairestratos, which partly coincides
with it, remove many hard features of the Leagros stage. The turnings of
bodies lose all violence: in the frontal stand of both feet, and in the
oblique view of
[Illustration: PLATE LXIX.
Fig. 116. AFTER THE BANQUET: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE
POTTER BRYGOS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXX.
Fig. 117. A MAENAD IN FRENZY: FROM AN ARCHAIC RED-FIGURED POINTED
AMPHORA.]
the head, new possibilities are indicated. The pupil is now always in
the inner corner of the eye, though the bold experiment of the ‘Sosias’
painter is not generally adopted. Above all a new current enters the
drapery. The divisions of the chiton with patterns of folds gives way to
a more natural and uniform distribution: the play of folds at the edges
of the cloaks is generally emphasized by a thick pair of lines. These
tendencies become complete in the later Chairestratos and the Hippodamas
period, with which we get down to about 480 B.C.
The masters of this later date deal now quite freely and easily with the
achievements of their predecessors: the old rude vigour gives way to
ornamental elegance or swinging liveliness. The relation of figures to
space also alters: the forms move more freely, are less confined by
space, and are surrounded with air. Thus the free decoration of the
Oltos amphora (Fig. 104) asserts itself once more. The small so-called
‘Nolan’ necked amphorae, and the popular amphorae of Panathenaic shape,
only reserve one figure or group in the black surface. The fine and
elegant effect of this ‘Nolan’ decoration often attacks other types of
vases, to which is now added the bell-krater (cp. Fig. 123 centre).
Of these later masters, the one who keeps most the massiveness and
dignity of the older style is the ‘Kleophrades’ painter, who grew up in
the Leagros period and has furnished one of his works with the potter’s
signature of Kleophrades, son of Amasis. As an example of his style let
us take the Munich pointed amphora belonging about to the Panaitios
period: the passionate frenzy of frantic Maenads has never been more
perfectly caught than in the back-tossed head of the rushing waver of
the thyrsos (Fig. 117). The ‘Kleophrades’ painter was a pupil of
Euthymides: but for a number of his contemporaries it can be shown that
they won their spurs in the celebrated studio of Euphronios. It is true
that we only have evidence in an inscription of activity in the service
of Euphronios for one painter denoted by name, and malicious accident
has deprived us of all but the last four letters of his name. Onesimos,
as his name is usually restored, combines in simple composition on his
kylix riders and boys leading horses, and thus is the predecessor of the
‘Horse’ master. On the other hand the master of the Troilos kylix in
Perugia, which Euphronios also signed as potter (the ‘Perugia’ master)
inherited more of the fire and dramatic vigour of the ‘Panaitios’
master. His Munich Centaur kylix is worthy of the great teacher, and the
interior (Fig. 126) is equally perfect as filling the space and as
rendering animated life. The shield in profile view, which shows
indication of shading, the Centaur’s head, and especially the grandiose
foreshortening of the horse-body, point beyond the Panaitios period.
To this group must have belonged the ‘Brygos’ painter, who in earlier
works, _e.g._, in the clearly and vigorously composed Iliupersis in
Paris (Figs. 118 and 119), is still strongly inspired by the
achievements of the Perugia master, and later develops the fiery vigour
of his youthful period in ever more delicate and elegant shapes. He is
fond of shaded shields, hairy bodies and cloaks adorned with spots.
Perhaps the finest work of his maturity is the interior of the Würzburg
kylix (Fig. 116), on which a young Athenian, supported by the hands of a
girl, relieves himself of the wine he has imbibed too freely. The
picture not only in its free adaptation to space and in the sure hand
with which the movement of body and drapery is rendered, but especially
in the fine animation of the expression, is a worthy last note of
archaic art. The unsigned Vienna skyphos of the Brygos painter (Fig.
120) must be placed between the Paris and Würzburg kylikes. It also
gives a
[Illustration: PLATE LXXI.
Figs. 118 & 119. THE SACK OF TROY: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF
THE POTTER BRYGOS.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXII.
Fig. 120. SKYPHOS WITH THE RANSOMING OF HECTOR.
Fig. 121. THESEUS DESERTS THE SLEEPING ARIADNE (?): FROM THE EXTERIOR OF
A KYLIX.]
fine picture full of life: Achilles has placed under the table the dead
body of Hector, which he daily drags round the walls of Troy, is
reclining at his meal, and talking to his charming cup-bearer, as if he
did not hear the appeal of the old Priam for his son’s corpse and did
not see the presents brought in by the attendants. The clear dramatic
disposition is as much in the manner of the master as the free pose of
the cup-bearer with weight on one leg, and the delicate psychological
animation of the countenances. The kylix in Corneto (Fig. 121), the
outside of which has been interpreted as the secret departure of Theseus
from the sleeping Ariadne, is at least closely related to the works of
the ‘Brygos’ painter. In the workshop of Euphronios the youthful Duris
must also have been a pupil. For his earliest work, the Vienna kylix,
with an arming scene, painted for the potter Python, is quite under the
influence of the Panaitios master, and can only be recognized as the
work of a painter of another tendency by the greater elegance and
slimness of the figures, and the more schematic composition.
In the kylikes with the names of Panaitios and Chairestratos, it can
still be traced to some extent, how out of the docile imitator of the
Panaitios master comes the real Duris, the routine draughtsman, who puts
down his elegant figures with almost academic objectivity and who cares
more for the uniform decorative effect of his neat silhouettes than for
complicated compositions of life. The pair of Berlin kylikes, perhaps
made by Kleophrades, and the kantharos, on which Duris signs as potter
and painter, show as plainly as possible this gradual realization of
independence, and also pass more and more, though not finally, from the
artificial fold packets of the chiton to a uniform system of wavy lines.
How entirely Duris altered his style even during the Chairestratos
period, is shown _e.g._ by the Vienna kylix, painted for Python with the
contest for the Arms of Achilles, which not merely in its more elegant
shape, but also in drawing and the relation of the figures to the space,
is widely distant from the arming scene on a kylix of the same workshop.
The fine Eos kylix in the Louvre, which Duris painted for the potter
Kalliades and dedicated to Hermogenes, the London Theseus kylix, and
probably also the fine London psykter with the love-name Aristagoras
(Fig. 122) belong to this period. The satyrs of this psykter, who
instead of joining in procession play all kinds of unprofitable tricks
behind the back of the leader of the chorus, need only be compared with
their fellows on the Boston kylix, and one can recognize at once the
routine hand and slighter artistic endowment of the master, but also the
more elegant and easy draughtsmanship of the later time.
In the later period of the artist (about 480 B.C.) we must put along
with their congeners the kylikes with the love-name Hippodamas, the
finest of which is the Berlin school vase (Fig. 124). In the drapery of
the teachers and pupils, who are here assembled in the class-room,
nothing of archaic stiffness remains. If even the Leagros period had
made the cloak folds come to a natural end, they now bend round their
ends and pave the way for the “drapery eyes,” which in the next period
so naturally characterize the packings in the material.
The great development, which is evidenced for Duris by his many
signatures, suggests considerations. We ask whether other masters too
did not fundamentally change, and whether _e.g._ Euphronios did not
develop out of the ‘Leagros’ stage to that of the ‘Panaitios’ master and
the Perugia painter, and on his later works include the painter’s
signature in that of the potter’s firm, _i.e._ whether works like the
Munich Centauromachy (Fig. 126) do not represent a late phase of this
gifted painter, who can be proved to have lived into the ‘Glaukon’
period.
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIII.
Fig. 122. HERMES AND SATYRS: FROM A PSYKTER BY DURIS.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIV.
Fig. 123. DRUNKEN MAENADS: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER
HIERON.]
Of the other painters of this period, we must content ourselves with
naming three, the Berlin master, Makron, and the Bronze-Foundry master.
The ‘master of the Berlin amphora’ even surpasses Duris in elegance, and
is fond of introducing his slim elastic figures in ‘Nolan’ style, _i.e._
isolated on a dark background.
Makron, who painted almost all the vases on which Hieron’s signature as
potter is found, studied by choice in the Palaestra, where boys
performed gymnastics and were addressed by older men. A Berlin kylix
(Fig. 123), like several works of his hand, introduces us to Bacchic
revelry, an excited chorus of drunken and vigorously gesticulating
maenads, whose bodies are not concealed by the rustling pomp of folds:
the ‘kolpos’ or fold of the chiton drawn up through the belt, which
Brygos also is fond of, is more transparent than the upper and lower
parts of the complicated garment. These figures in which all is life,
movement and expression, should be compared with those of the Andokides
painter or even those of Euphronios, in order to realize, how in these
few decades the liberation from archaic stiffness and adherence to type
was almost tempestuously accomplished.
We take leave of the archaic styles with the charming picture of an
anonymous painter, the ‘master of the bronze foundry,’ who on a Berlin
kylix (Fig. 125) transplants us into the interior of the workshop of a
sculptor in bronze. A workman is poking the oven, another is handling
the bellows, the assistant looks on, the master is working at a statue,
not yet fully put together: so intimate is the contact with life in this
scene. Everything interested the vase-painters of this time equally;
they have spread out before us human life, got their material from every
quarter, and wherever they laid hold of it, it was interesting. How
closely they came to grips with their subject, how they tried to be
clear, and to give a lively picture of what they saw, and how under
their hands the object at once changed into the artistic type, the human
body into the clearly defined study of the nude, the garment into a
thing of decorative life, and an assemblage of human beings into an
ornamental figure composition!
[Illustration: PLATE LXXV.
Fig. 124. SCHOOL-SCENE: FROM A KYLIX BY DURIS.
Fig. 125. BRONZE-FOUNDRY: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE “LOVE-NAME” OF
DIOGENES.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXVI
Fig. 126. CENTAUROMACY: FROM A RED-FIGURED KYLIX.]
CHAPTER VI.
THE STYLE OF POLYGNOTOS AND PHEIDIAS
In the studio of Euphronios the so-called ‘Horse master’ painted a kylix
now in Berlin with the praise of the fair Glaukon. The outside is
decorated in the usual red-figured technique with lively scenes of
riders and stables, the inside (a youth and a girl) is rendered in
outline, with coloured interior lines and surfaces, on the ground
covered with a white slip. The progress in the rendering of bodies and
drapery is unmistakeable; the oblique view of the female breast is
almost correctly caught, the material of the cloaks is packed in lost
folds with bent-round end. But even the whole conception of the figures
goes far beyond the archaic art of the pre-Persian time: the proportions
and faces have a touch of greatness, beside which all preceding art
seems narrow and embarrassed. The simplification of the profile and the
severe long lower part of the face essentially determine one’s
impression of the heads. A new period is announcing itself: a time of
progressive naturalism and at the same time a period of noble greatness
of style and exalted types. The statements of the ancients as to the
great painting of this age, of Polygnotos and his company, lay stress on
these qualities; not only the progress, which relieves the rendering of
body and garment of the old stiffness, but the great Ethos of these
paintings is praised. So with good reason we call the vase painting of
the post-Persian generation Polygnotan, even if at the beginning of this
epoch the influence of the great art is not felt so much as at its
culmination.
The name of Glaukon, which we have met with on the Euphronios kylix of
Berlin, recurs on a series of vases, almost always in the two-line
arrangement, which comes now into vogue, and often in combination with
his father Leagros’ name. Lekythoi, or slender oil-flasks, which now
become the regular offering for graves, and when so employed invariably
use the white-ground technique of the Berlin kylix, afford several
examples of this favourite’s name, which has become the hinge of
vase-chronology. On a Bonn fragment (Fig. 128), which in the older style
has a domestic scene, not one taken from the cemetery, and paints the
flesh in white, a woman is sitting in an arm-chair and putting on a
golden necklace, which the handmaid in front of her has offered in a
box. The face of this woman signifies a new world: the archaic types are
discarded, the old traditions replaced by a quite individual almost
portrait-like conception. The eye, which has hardly any traces of the
old full-view and puts the pupil entirely into the open inner corner,
gives the face a very natural and living effect, it is really looking:
and the hair hanging out from the cap in confusion, the profile not
dominated by any canon of beauty, and the drawing of the hands, show the
painter penetrated by the same effort after truth. It is perhaps an idle
question, what period inaugurates the history of Greek portraiture,
since each innovation taken from the model individualizes the
traditional type; but it is just the vase-paintings of the post-Persian,
Kimonian age, which went further than the later ones in thus
individualizing. The woman of the Glaukon lekythos, the old woman on a
skyphos in Schwerin from the workshop of Pistoxenos (Fig. 127) and on a
loutrophoros in Athens, the head of a warrior from a krater in New York
(Fig. 130) may be taken as symptoms of a very personal portraiture in
the age of Kimon. The effort to get rid of the traditional ideal types
led a series of these
[Illustration: PLATE LXXVII.
Fig. 127. OLD WOMAN: FROM A SKYPHOS WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER
PISTOXENOS.
Fig. 128. DETAIL OF A FRAGMENTARY WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXVIII.
Fig. 129. APHRODITE ON A GOOSE: FROM A KYLIX WITH WHITE-GROUND INTERIOR.
BEARING THE “LOVE-NAME” OF GLAUKON.
Fig. 130. WARRIOR: FROM A RED-FIGURED KRATER.]
masters to recast even the divine figures with a strikingly individual,
coarse and almost common effect. The master of the Boston ‘Eos’ kylix, a
successor of Makron in Hieron’s studio, makes his undistinguished
goddess of the morning be carried off by a spindly street-lad; the
Demeter, who on a Munich hydria attends the departure of Triptolemos,
betrays little of the sacred beauty of the motherly goddess; and other
vase-paintings have almost the effect of conscious caricatures of ideal
types.
The new possibilities of ‘Physiognomy’ in differentiating character by
the facial type, however, brought the expression of divine nature to its
fullest expansion, and helped not merely to make men more human but also
gods more divine. A London white-ground kylix from Rhodes (Fig. 129) is
connected with the Bonn lekythos and the Berlin kylix of Euphronios by
the common name of Glaukon. The goddess of love, riding through the air
on her sacred bird, the goose, is of more than earthly beauty: her
hands, not only the one with the flower but the unoccupied left hand,
speak the same expressive language as her face and whole form. The
effect of this picture is comparable to that of a song. Now for the
first time the inner kinship of the art of words with that of pictures
presses itself on the observer of works of art. No one will think of
comparing the Geometric style with the Homeric Epic in value of
expression, or the ornamental style of the 7th century with contemporary
Lyric poetry, though one may see a reflection of Anacreontic and ballad
feeling in the art of the later 6th century. But the weight of the
Aeschylean pathos is as little to be mistaken in works of graphic and
plastic art as the Sophoclean glow and pure beauty of line.
The more delicate animation, which this period could bestow on its
forms, of itself pointed away from archaic loquacity and pleasure in
narration. The genre scene is certainly as old as the historical, and
we have seen that there was no difference of principle. The nearer the
red-figured style came, the more representations of feeling were
combined with representations of action, and towards the end of the
archaic style they are no longer rarities. With the new liberation of
the style, especially with the enlivening of the eye, a different sort
of inward feeling asserts itself. Figures devoid of action, occupied
with themselves or contemplating another figure, are themes which the
painters of lekythoi in particular were never tired of inventing; and in
later times, when the cemetery scenes replaced the domestic ones on
these vases, and the privacy of the indoor scenes was transferred to the
visit to the grave, the harmony of soul between the visitor and the
dead, whose living likeness fancy could not separate from the grave,
often found an unspeakably intimate expression (p. 145).
The quantity of pictures of ‘pure existence’ does much to determine the
altered aspect presented by post-Persian vase-painting. On the slim
‘Nolan’ amphorae and those with twisted handles, on the calyx-kraters
and the bell-kraters often decorated on the mouth with a branch, on the
‘stamnoi’ and other vases, which are decorated like the ‘Nolan,’ the
slender restful figures heighten the impression of quiet elegance. Thus
the grandeur of the new style at the same time gets a marked decorative
value, a value not without danger for the living rendering of reality.
Greatness is not every man’s affair, and the painters, who only took
over externally the big forms and the lofty simplicity, and could not
fill them with a life of their own, can only rank as decorative artists
and should by the same right be called ‘affected’ as the refined masters
of the Amasis period (p. 106). Even talented painters consciously gave
up to decorative effect the reverses of their vases, which they adorn
with quickly drawn motionless figures wrapped in cloaks.
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIX.
Fig. 131. THE DEATH OF AKTAION: FROM A RED-FIGURED KRATER.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
The three Glaukon representations we have met with till now are pure
pictures of ‘existence.’ The ‘horse’ master dedicated to the same boy
Glaukon a second kylix, the fragments of which, found on the Acropolis,
represent the death of Orpheus at the hands of the Thracian women. The
scheme, if one may speak of such, is in so far old, as the victor moving
to the right attacks an opponent in kneeling position also moving to the
right and looking round; but an infinite nobility is poured over the old
type, and the fight is carried through with dramatic weight, though in
the faces of the fighters the inward excitement is not reflected, as on
later works of the same hand. Yet, as on the Aphrodite kylix (Fig. 129)
the living expression of the eye is already strengthened by the line of
the upper lid.
In place of the very fragmentary Orpheus kylix, the fight in a
contemporary picture may show the progress, which scenes of dramatic
movement attain in Polygnotan times. The slaying of Aktaion by the
divine huntress Artemis was brought to great effect by the Pan master,
so called from the reverse of the same Boston bell-krater (Fig. 131). In
the stiff folds of the cloak of Artemis this vigorous and original
painter betrays his descent from the archaic style, which can be plainly
followed in his works, always full as they are of dramatic life.
Otherwise there is little archaic in this picture. The long lower part
of the face, which lends the heads their severity, the folds running
themselves out, which assert themselves even in the chiton, the surely
drawn fore-shortened foot of Artemis, the lower legs of Aktaion
disappearing in the background, show the progressive master; the
suggestive effect of the composition, and the urgent language of the
gestures are quite in the spirit of the noble new style.
With the Centaur psykter in Rome (Fig. 132) we get perhaps beyond the
bloom of Glaukon’s beauty, and what reminds us of old times in the
grotesque movement of the battle scene is probably only individual
failings of the master, which he outweighs by many innovations. The
three-quarters view of the face, the fore-shortening of the shield, the
motive of the falling man seen from behind, are significant of the
struggle with perspective; the bestial lust for battle speaks out of the
eyes of the attackers as does the penetrating pain of the wounded; and
the pathos of the gestures is at least post-archaic. The impression of
this vase is remarkably determined by the experiments in colouring,
which the master undertakes with help of thinned colour: the helmets,
greaves, and hides he has made dark in contrast with the human skin, he
has given an effect of light to the material of the hair of head and
beard, and rounded the horses’ bodies by shading.
These novelties of the somewhat crude and quaint master are only
intelligible as reflection of a great painting, which struggled with
problems of expression and light, as is expressly testified for the art
of the great Polygnotos and his contemporaries. Naturally at no time
were vase-painters entirely uninfluenced by the achievements of the
great art. But just now in the sixties of the 5th century, this
borrowing made itself felt more than ever, and enticed the vase-painters
often beyond the limits of their branch of art. This comes not only from
the overpowering impression of the great personalities among the
painters of this period, but especially from the fact, that
wall-painting now struck out new bold paths, on which vase-painting
could follow it less than ever.
Among the vase-pictures, which very strongly echo these new strains, are
the later works of the ‘horse’ master. The interior of the Penthesileia
kylix (Fig. 134) only enclosed by a delicate branch, the master did not
paint as in
[Illustration: PLATE LXXX.
Fig. 132. BATTLE WITH CENTAURS: RED-FIGURED PSYKTER.
Fig. 133.
TOP-PLAYER: FROM A WHITE-GROUND KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER
HEGESIBULOS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXI.
Fig. 134. ACHILLES KILLS PENTHESILEIA: INTERIOR OF A RED-FIGURED KYLIX.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
the kylikes of Berlin and Athens on white ground, but he heightens the
red-figured technique by the application of thinned black glaze, by dull
red and light grey surfaces, with brown and white additions, and by
applications of gold. The four figures which are forced into this circle
almost burst the frame, not merely by the disproportion of their tall
forms, but still more by their inner greatness and passion. In the midst
of the battle-field, where the sword rages, and the ground lies full of
corpses, Achilles has overtaken the Amazon queen, and furious with rage,
plunges his sword in her heart: however much her hands and eyes plead
for mercy, it is too late.
The features of Penthesileia betray more of inner life than those of
Orpheus: and on a second Munich kylix, on which Apollo in presence of Ge
slays her son Tityos, the master has gone a step further in physiognomy.
The three faces are as convincingly graduated in expression as for
example those on the beautiful ‘Lament for the dead,’ by a contemporary
master, in Athens.
On the big interior of his kylikes (Fig. 134) the ‘horse’ master could
give freer play to his genius than on the exteriors, which, as in the
kylikes of Berlin and Athens, he adorned with pretty scenes from the
stable. The contrast between the great round pictures with their fine
technique, and the lightly sketched exteriors, is so great, that some
have thought of two artists working in the same studio, who divided the
work, so that the ‘horse’ master would be different from the
Penthesileia master; but the white-ground exterior of the Orpheus kylix
seems to build the bridge. It is certainly characteristic that the
exteriors of kylikes in this period no longer tempted talented painters
to such lively compositions, as in the days of the Brygos and Perugia
painters, and that even in the lifetime of the great Euphronios the
paratactic decorative style most consistently prepared by Duris laid
hold of these exteriors. The new style required big surfaces, and the
most faithful reflexions of wall-painting are to be found on large
vases.
The most famous of these great Polygnotan vases is the Paris
calyx-krater from Orvieto (Fig. 135), the figures of which, apart from
Athena and Herakles, have not yet been certainly identified. From the
expectant attitude of the figures it has been suggested that the picture
represents the start of the Argonauts, or the preparation of the Attic
heroes for the battle of Marathon. The great mythological scene is at
any rate in the manner of the new period, which no longer has the
preference of the ancients for the crisis of action but rather depicts
preparation and after-effect, reflection on the deed accomplished and
rest from action. That a Polygnotan wall-painting preceded the
vase-painting in this psychologically refined conception, may be
regarded as proved. For the figures not only appear in all sorts of bold
foreshortenings, front and side views, not only surprise us by an
abundance of motives, which are quite beyond previous vase-painting, but
also show a series of peculiarities, which are expressly described as
innovations of the great fresco-painter. When the figures of the krater
open their mouths and show their teeth, when the stationary interior
folds, the so-called drapery eyes have shadows painted in them, this can
only be explained as imitation of the great painters, and similarly the
gnashing of teeth and the shading of the horses’ bellies on the Centaur
psykter. The Argonautic krater shows this dependence very strongly in
its composition. Great painting had not only graduated the parts of the
body in deep spatial layers, but transferred this novel deepening to the
arrangement of its groups, distributing the actors over hilly country,
which either elevated
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXII.
Fig. 135. THE ARGONAUTS (?). KALIX-KRATER OF POLYGNOTAN PERIOD.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
the figures of the background or often partly concealed them. It is
clear that an art, which characterized the rounding of shields and
bodies and the recesses of drapery by the distribution of light and
shade, also gave actuality and effect of depth to the landscape by
shading, though in primitive fashion, and a series of ‘Polygnotan’ vases
proves the fact, by making flowers, bushes and plants spring out of the
ground. It is true the painter of the Argonaut krater does not go so
far, but he shows more strikingly than any other vase-painter the
landscape of Polygnotan paintings, which, not forgetting the surface
effect of vase-decoration, he does not shade but only indicates in
outline by the incising tool. That in other ways, too, he altered his
pattern to suit the technique of vase-painting, is proved by the freedom
in the use of colour and perspective, which on other specimens of this
period burst the barriers of vase-painting.
Both encouraged and warned by such examples, one must look through the
vase-painting of this period for other traces of Polygnotan painting,
especially on vases which agree in subject with the wall-paintings of
which we have accounts, and not only in the freedom named, but also in
the inferiority of the execution to the conception, show of what spirit
they are the offspring. One can never expect copies. The very fact that
exact replicas never occur among the Polygnotan types, shows that the
vase-painters dealt with the borrowed property according to their own
individuality and for their definite purpose. So the two cases we have
selected must be judged individually. The ‘Penthesileia’ master was
probably stimulated to his treatment of the theme by a big Amazon
painting; but the clever painter not merely translated this impulse into
his own brilliant technique and adapted it to his circular field, but
also extended over it his personal great feeling, and translated the
picture into his personal style, so that it has the effect of a natural
continuation of his earlier works. The ‘Argonaut’ master had no concern
with this great ‘Ethos’ or the delicate polychrome technique. He
borrowed more superficially, took an extract from the big scene of his
model in his strong relief-lines, and emphasized the individual
characteristics rather than the dash of the original. In realism, his
bearded hero holding a spear is not inferior to the contemporary warrior
of the New York krater (Fig. 130). Great painting went on tempestuously
developing, and in the next age burst its fetters of colour and space in
a manner which could not but deter even the boldest vase-painter from
imitation, if he were not to shake off every sane regard for the
preservation of his surface-effect. So reflexions of wall-painting on
vases become rarer, and the ‘Polygnotan’ vases remain an episode.
Naturally there were many vase-painters who did not enter this dangerous
ground: nay, the majority did not do so. With many the avoidance of a
big surface went so far that they divided the outside of a calyx-krater
or big ‘aryballos’ into two friezes and filled them with small figures
in defiance of constructive considerations. Out of the series of these
‘little masters,’ who beside the big-figure painters continued the
traditions of the elegant style, let us mention _e.g._ the painter who
decorated the box signed by the potter Megakles (Figs. 136-7) with
charming scenes from women’s apartments, and the lid with five comic
hares; or the author of the girl plying the top on a white-ground kylix
of the potter Hegesibulos (Fig. 133), a potter who was active as early
as the Leagros period; and especially Sotades, from whose workshop came
not only plastic vases in the shapes of horses, sphinxes, knuckle-bones,
crocodiles devouring negroes, etc., but also white-ground kylikes of
most elegant shape, whose exquisite interiors, like the friezes of
those
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIII.
Figs. 136 & 137.
LID AND SIDE OF A PYXIS WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER MEGAKLES.
Fig. 138. MAENADS: FROM A RED-FIGURED POINTED AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIV.
Fig. 139. POLYNEIKES OFFERS ERIPHYLE THE NECKLACE: FROM A RED-FIGURED
PELIKE.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._
Fig. 140.
ORPHEUS AMONG THE THRACIANS: FROM A RED-FIGURED KRATER.]
drinking vessels, lead us to the beginning of the age of Pheidias.
This transition is also accompanied by some painters’ signatures, which
become rarer, the more the individual performances of vase-painters are
cast in the shade by the great art. The signatures do not present us
with the first artists of the time. Hermonax is somewhat smooth and
tedious, and Polygnotos, the namesake of the great painter, to judge
from the mixed nature of his unoriginal style, must have lived by
borrowing. His pelike from Gela is a Polygnotan vase with an Amazon
scene; on the London stamnos, to be dated about the middle of the
century, advanced and old-fashioned types are combined in an unpleasing
fashion.
Anonymous masters better represent the transition from Polygnotos to
Pheidias. The master of a krater with a dancing scene in Rome (the
‘Villa Giulia’ master), is not distinguished for temperament and
progressiveness, but is rather a correct and academic individual; but
the neatly drawn scenes of his krater and stamnoi, in the noble bearing
of the figures and the manner in which they gaze at each other, betray
the approach of a new ideal of man. Much more talented is the master,
who on a pointed amphora at Paris combined the wonderful group of two
Maenads (Fig. 138) with a scene of Bacchic revelry, as Amasis did almost
a century before (Fig. 98). The two girls are of truly royal dignity,
like each other in this, but subtly distinguished in expression. The
three-quarter view of the head is almost devoid of harshness, and only
the ladle-shaped under lip connects her with the Polygnotan female
heads.
How even the drapery becomes a vehicle of expression and every fold
breathes the greatness of the whole picture, may become clearer if we
look at the ‘Eriphyle’ of a pelike at Lecce (Fig. 139), with which we
also pass the middle of the century. This picture must be compared to
the Corinthian Amphiaraos krater (Fig. 66) to see, how in the interval
of 120-130 years the soul of art has changed. The later master
represents not the dramatic culmination of the story but the
psychological climax, when Polyneikes offers to the wife of Amphiaraos
the seductive necklace, for which she will send her husband to death. As
often on vases of this period, two figures stand calmly facing one
another, but they are here united by most delicate psychology; Eriphyle,
simply attired in plain peplos, is full of an inner life which
circulates through her body to the finger-tips. This harmonious union of
a monumental type with intimate feeling is at the beginning of the most
Greek period of Greek art-history, the most human period of the history
of mankind, the age of Pheidias.
If we name the following decades of the history of vase-painting after
Pheidias, we do not mean that he was in very close relations with the
art of the vase-painters. But the artist, who in the Parthenon frieze
introduced that inconceivable nobility of form, who in the West side of
the frieze developed the play of lines to new greatness, to heighten it
in the pediment to a great outburst of passion, impressed this age so
much with his nature that one cannot imagine the vase-paintings as
unaffected by this powerful influence.
Never was Greek art so much an art of expression as at this period. As
if in response to the search for a word to describe this new expression,
the beautiful musical pictures of the time present themselves. Since the
Geometric style art had continually represented musical performers, but
it was reserved for the age of Pheidias to give pictorial expression to
the effect of musical sounds on men. The krater from Gela (Fig. 140)
belongs to the early Periclean age; the sure touch in the rendering of a
twist of the body and its rounded form is now a matter of course even in
the hasty execution of a second-rate draughtsman; the head type gets
the
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXV.
Fig. 141. MUSIC: RED-FIGURED NECKED AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXVI.
Fig. 142. SLEEP AND DEATH CARRY OUT A WARRIOR TO BURIAL: WHITE-GROUND
LEKYTHOS.]
square outline, the shortened jaw, the long drawn nose, which are
characteristic of the age of Pheidias; the repetition of the epithet
_kalos_ shows that the custom of inscribing a love-name is dying out.
About contemporary is the London amphora with twisted handles (Fig. 141)
with the Muses Melusa and Terpsichore and the bard Musaios. Orpheus
among the Thracians and Terpsichore in a reverie with the harp are
purely pictures of lyric feeling.
As if music had tamed them, the vase-pictures of the Periclean age
change their nature. All crudities have gone: the too bold
foreshortenings and the realistic details taken from great paintings are
less obvious: nothing any longer disturbs the free play of the lines.
The conception of men rises to its highest possible point. The figures
on the Munich stamnos (Fig. 146) are not merely masterpieces of fully
developed drawing but also ideal types of pure free humanity. Movements
are often merely motives of beauty: the fold style combines a new
naturalism with the most monumental effect.
This new spirit also animates the finest of the white-ground lekythoi,
whose proper history begins in the Glaukon period (p. 134) and cannot be
traced far beyond the 5th century. In their first period they had
preferred to render domestic scenes, representations from the female
apartments. But the purpose of these grave vases continually asserts
itself more and more. The ferryman of the dead appears, to take goodly
men into his bark; the brothers Sleep and Death dispose of the corpse
(Fig. 142); Hermes, the conductor of souls, waits to be followed; the
dead man laments for his life. But the domestic scenes have given place
to the walk to the grave; and the visit to the tombstone, beside which
the dead man stands or sits as if alive, becomes the typical subject of
the lekythoi. The special technique of these vases produces an effect
often very different from the red-figured style, especially since the
white filling of the outlines (p. 134) is dropped. The employment of
glaze-colour in the rendering of outlines, and the transition to
brush-painting, with which from the first surfaces had been covered in
different varieties of colour, lead afterwards to an unusual
individualization of the line. One cannot say that this technique
approximates the lekythoi to the effect of wall-painting as much as it
severs it from red-figured vase-painting. Only a few exceptional late
specimens in their pictures operating freely with light and shade burst
the bounds of vase-decoration, and show clearly with what good sense the
vase-painters renounced competition with the great art, which now
victoriously solves the problems of full perspective, of giving the
effect of depth in space, with the gradation of dimensions, and the
contrasts of light and dark.
In a Boston lekythos (Figs. 143 and 144) we have an ‘existence’ picture
in the manner of the new period (p. 136). The dead warrior stands in
Polygnotan attitude, with bent arm resting on his hip (cp. Fig. 135,
last to left), beside his altar-shaped tomb, and looks over it to the
girl, who without perceiving him approaches with funeral offerings. One
notices in the treatment of the nude, that he is the product of an age
which already had the perspective sense: so vividly do the few lines of
his contour, his muscles, and his knee-pan, give the suggestion of a
rounded body; and also the drawing of the female nude, which accident
has freed from the drapery added in perishable dull paint, in its very
realistic outline goes beyond anything previous. Since the Circe and
Phineus kylikes, and the numerous black-figured and red-figured pictures
of bathing, dancing, and drinking hetairai, art had busied itself with
the naked bodies of women as much as of men: and where nudity could not
be represented, it indicated the outlines of the body through
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXVII.
Figs. 143 & 144. YOUTH AND MAIDEN ON A WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS.
Fig. 145. WOMAN SEATED AT A GRAVESTONE: FROM A WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS.]
the cover of the drapery (p. 119). For Polygnotos we have the express
tradition of women with transparent garments, and on the Argonaut krater
even Athena’s grand forms are indicated; the great liberator of
wall-painting must also have been a pioneer in the drawing of the female
body. The new style here too brings perfection and fills the form of
women with its noble greatness and simplicity. That it too, in contrast
with the 4th century, eschews all that is typically feminine, soft and
unformed, is a proof how strong was the ideal of male beauty.
A London lekythos (Fig. 142) also represents a dead soldier at the
grave. The winged brothers Sleep and Death with tender hand dispose of
his corpse, as they do with the dead Sarpedon in the Iliad: and the
lekythos-painter took his type also from the Sarpedon pictures; the
young warrior who had fallen far from his country, should on the vase
have the same boon of burial in his native soil, as was granted by Zeus
to the Lycian king. The fine type was then divested of its proper
meaning and received a more general signification. The London vase,
which uses lustreless colours for the outlines of its figures also, must
be somewhat later than the Boston vase, although the new technique, that
is pure brush technique, went on for a time beside the old. Though
stylistic estimates now become difficult, one fancies in the wonderful
vigour of the drawing, and in the stronger individuality of the hair,
that one is nearer to the period of the Parthenon pediments than in the
somewhat more austere Boston group. Where the way led may be shown by
the woman sitting on the steps of a tomb on a lekythos in Athens (Fig.
145), which not only by the strongly plastic suggestion of the outline
goes beyond the Pheidian period proper, but also in the grandiose
heightening of the simple motive shows itself as one of the works which
take up and cast in new moulds the pathos of the Parthenon pediments.
Every line in the very individual drawing of the woman, who is
supporting her left hand and lifting her garment with her right, while
her feet are unruly in submitting to the sitting posture, is animated by
passionate unrest.
Though the age of Pheidias liked pictures of feeling with quiet figures
like the music-scenes, the Munich stamnos and the lekythoi, it did not
exhaust itself in them. Beside the vases with large figures, there are
others, which continue to cultivate the elegant style and prepare the
way for a class which flourishes in the last decades of the century.
Little jugs with nursery scenes, pomade boxes with pictures of female
life, globular unguent pots with lekythos-like mouth are the principal
vehicles of this style, and the “Eretria” master is a typical
representative. On great and small vases we find scenes of animated
motion, passionate scenes of conflict, which on their side too, share in
the nobility of the style of the age. The brutal vigour and hardness of
old motives seems broken, softened, often almost takes a turn to
elegance. The order of the large compositions with its arrangement of
the figures over one another and indication of the broken ground by
lines closely follows the Polygnotan system. But while the Polygnotan
depth in space was produced by a naturalistic tendency, which soon led
to complete freedom in the great art, it is continued by the
vase-painters as a mere principle of distribution and space-filling,
_i.e._, it receives a decorative character.
One of the finest pictures of movement from this period decorates a
stamnos at Naples (Fig. 147): women who are sacrificing before a
tree-trunk dressed out as Dionysos and dancing to the tambourine. The
exact dating of this picture, like the whole chronology of the late and
post-Pheidian vases, is a matter of dispute: but this much is certain,
that it cannot be understood except as a near echo of the art of
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXVIII.
Fig. 146. RED-FIGURED STAMNOS.
Fig. 147. OFFERINGS AT THE IMAGE OF DIONYSOS: FROM A RED-FIGURED
STAMNOS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIX.
Fig. 148. PELOPS AND HIPPODAMEIA: FROM A RED-FIGURED NECKED AMPHORA.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
the Parthenon pediments. Into the noble line-drawing of the middle style
of Pheidias has come a new passionate movement, which draws the contour
in more violent curves, dissolves the hair in strong waves, throws the
drapery into great folds, and enlivens the clinging parts with
restlessly curving inner folds. The upper garment of Dionysos is given
rich effect by long border zig-zags, interspersed stars and an
embroidered wreath, the expression of his eyes is strengthened by
emphasis on the upper lid. Details added in white and liberal use of
thinned black heighten the coloured effect. This new style with its
marked enhancement of the lines is the later style of Pheidias, a
reflection of the last and highest development of the Parthenon master,
which pointed Attic art into new paths, and lived its life out and died
in the school of Pheidias.
The amphora with twisted handles at Arezzo (Fig. 148) must be in close
connection with the last phase of the Pheidian style and cannot be far
removed from the Naples stamnos. Its shape enriches the type of the
Terpischore vase in London (Fig. 141) by sharper profiling of the mouth
and foot, but does not yet draw the lower part into the dull curve,
which robs the amphorae and bell-kraters of the end of the century of
strong and taut effect. Similarly the scene, the wild career of Pelops
and Hippodameia over the sea, heightens the tendencies of Pheidian art
without succumbing to the palsy which can be felt in the style of
Meidias. The divine horses, the gift of Poseidon, emit sparks of the
fire of the steeds on the pediments; the majestically animated attitude
of Hippodameia reminds one of the Athenian lekythos (Fig. 145); in
Pelops every line is full of passion and bold movement. Here too the
draperies are rich and elaborate, the restless billowing of the folds is
more marked than on the Naples stamnos, and the flowing chiton folds,
which cling close to the body, prepare for the exaggeration dear to
post-Pheidian sculpture and painting. Not only does the drawing of
individual forms show a plastic conception of space, but the whole scene
is inconceivable without a contemporary big painting with considerable
landscape capacities: from the tree-clad hilly coast the chariot rushes
out upon the deep sea.
In fiery impetus only one of the vase-paintings of this period can
compare with the Pelops vase, the somewhat later Naples fragment of a
Gigantomachia (Figs. 149-151). An invention of truly Titanic force,
which is also echoed on other later vases, must be the basis of this
picture, and even the unusual division (unsuited to vases) by an arch
points to a model from another branch of art. In a rocky landscape the
fight for existence of the gods and the sons of the earth-goddess takes
place in the early morning, when Helios is rising on the vault of heaven
and Selene is sinking down into ocean, as on the east pediment of the
Parthenon. The bold movements, the twistings and bendings of the
combatants, the ‘lost’ profile, the swellings and packings of the skin
and muscles are rendered with sure touch. The plastic effect of the
middle line of chest and abdomen is increased by doubling, and
horizontal folds bring out the lower part of the forehead, the locks of
hair and tips of hide flutter as if they were alive; the breasts of the
earth-goddess are modelled out of the drapery as if bare, the eyes are
deep-set, the underlips project.
That the rendering of the female body was now not less accomplished than
that of the male, beside the lekythos in Athens, a picture of a
different order may show. On an Oxford jug appears in the spaciousness
favoured by these vases an old theme, Satyr and Nymph (Fig. 154). One
can scarcely realize the nobility of Pheidian conception more fully than
by comparing this scene with the Phineus kylix (Fig. 74) and its
congeners. What early ages had represented
[Illustration: PLATE XC.
Figs. 149-151. GIGANTOMACHIA: FRAGMENT OF A RED-FIGURED KRATER.]
[Illustration: PLATE XCI.
Fig. 152. ADONIS AND APHRODITE: FROM A RED-FIGURED HYDRIA.]
with drastic humour, is here refined and given a soul: even the Satyrs
and Centaurs, the rugged monsters of the woods and mountains, are tamed
by the new spirit which will not any longer endure brutality and
obscenity.
The sleeping nymph Tragodia is not only correctly observed in her
foreshortening, in movement and distribution of the weight of the body,
she is also the vehicle of a wonderful feeling. The picture, which
immediately prepares for the works of the Meidias painter and the
‘Pronomos’ master, and beside the great style of the Pelops and Giant
vases shows us the continuance of the refined and elegant style, cannot
have been produced long after Pheidias’ death.
The time of the School of Pheidias, of whose best works we have been
introduced to a selection, gives us again a few artists’ names. The
painter Aison gives us a Madrid kylix with the exploits of Theseus,
which must be about contemporary with the Giant vase. On the Theseus of
the interior the hair is dissolved into lively curls, which stand out
dark on a lighter ground, and the plastic swelling of the belly goes to
the utmost limit of what is possible; in his protectress Athena we see
already the contrast between the leg that bears the weight and is
covered by hanging folds, and the free leg, which is closely covered by
the drapery; which is exaggerated by Aristophanes, whom the potter
Erginos employed, just as is the hair with light under-painting, and the
chiton clinging as if moist and blowing back. Aison, who began his
activity even in Pheidian days, draws more elegantly than his younger
colleague, but neither master initiated a new development of kylix
painting. The greatness of both lay in exploiting as artizans accessible
types.
With the works of Aristophanes we probably go further from the time of
Pheidias than with the Naples fragment: the works of the ‘Meidias’
painter take us to the time of the Nike balustrade, _i.e._, the two
last decades of the 5th century. They too are an echo of the art of the
Parthenon pediments, but in travelling along the road this echo has lost
its vigour. On the unsigned Adonis hydria in Florence (Fig. 152) all the
figures exuberate in lazy grace and fine motives of beauty. Particularly
the groups, Adonis in the lap of Aphrodite, and Hygieia with Paidia,
remind us of the Parthenon, the wonderful melting forms of the ‘Fates’
and other pediment figures. But what there was born of passion, is here
become fashion, and is playfully treated. The excitement of the faces
with wide nostrils, the bowing and bending of bodies conscious of their
beauty, the supporting of arms and play of fingers, the whole extent of
the carelessly united society on the wavy hill-lines (p. 141) in spite
of all its grace has something of the formula about it. The style of the
drapery is certainly an indication of the weakening of earlier vigour.
The many and over elegant broken-up folds, which cling unnaturally close
to breast and free leg, the curling of the cloak folds, and the
independent movement of the tips, is a long way off the Parthenon
pediments, which inaugurate this enhancement of style, but without loss
of vigour and by a kind of natural evolution. The effort for fine
effect, which is expressed in the rich patterning, is in noticeable
contrast to the restlessness of the drapery. A certain inclination to
pomp is characteristic of the post-Pheidian style. The raised gilt
details of the clay, which we know already on the white ground lekythoi
(Fig. 134), the box of Megakles (Fig. 137) and the works of the Eretria
master (p. 148), are now in high honour, and are plentifully employed on
the Adonis vase.
The Meidias painter also produced a series of similar pure pictures of
‘existence’ on hydriae, _e.g._, the fair Phaon, the singer ‘Thamyris,’
Paris with the goddesses,
[Illustration: PLATE XCII.
Fig. 153. THE GIANT TALOS OVERCOME BY THE DIOSKUROI: RED-FIGURED
VOLUTE-KRATER.]
the Eleusinian deities, and decorated other vases also in this manner.
These scenes, on which the figures move less vigorously than the lines,
are more successfully rendered than the pathos of the scene of abduction
on the London hydria signed by the potter Meidias. He was no bold
progressive artist; his technically exquisite and very delicately drawn
pictures recast in new shapes the new phenomena of art: in him the
series of masters of the type of the ‘Sotades’ painter and the Eretria
master comes to an end.
His contemporary, who may after the chief figure of the Satyric play
vase at Naples be called the ‘Pronomos’ master, likes figures of
‘existence’ in pretty poses, but he draws them with more spirit and does
more justice to the vehement style of his time. On the Naples vase, a
showy volute-krater with rich profiling, he puts on the obverse the cast
of an Attic theatrical performance in two almost equal rows one above
the other, and thus starts a principle of composition which was taken up
by the vase-painting of Lower Italy (Fig. 158). Liberal use is made of
thinned colour, the centre of the scene is denoted by a white figure,
the luxuriantly ornamented dresses confuse the general impression. In
respect of shape and decoration one may speak of a decay of the finer
tectonic sense, which reminds us surprisingly of the vases of Lower
Italy. The perspective side-view of the footstool and of the tripod
column are liberties taken by the great art, which generally Attic
vase-painters consciously avoid so as to keep to the surface treatment.
The tripod-column, which transplants us into the Theatre of Athens, as
the Athena of the Panathenaic vases to the Acropolis, recurs after
Polygnotan times often in the midst of mythological scenes, and brings
the vases, which show it, anyhow in relation to dramatic exhibitions.
It has been proposed to recognise the effect of the stage on
vase-painting, _e.g._ in the increased pomp of the dresses. This effect
might at the most have taken place indirectly; for that the
vase-painters often took as their patterns votive paintings of
victorious Choregi, is more than probable. And in general one may draw
conclusions as to the great art from many a fine invention, which is
seen on vase-paintings at second-hand, _e.g._ from the Bacchic scenes on
the reverse of the ‘Pronomos’ vase. This conclusion is certainly also
justified in view of the Talos vase (Fig. 153) which transforms the
mighty echoes of the late Pheidian art into the pompous, as the Meidias
vases into the ornamental-elegant. The vase-shape is closely allied to
that of the ‘Pronomos’: the central figure in white, so popular in this
period, recurs, and in its spatial effect is enhanced by shaded
modelling far above the proportions of the other figures, which show
plainly the conscious restraint of the vase-painters. Though the ‘Talos’
master altered the composition of his pattern to suit his vase, he must
have preserved with tolerable faithfulness the grandiose invention of
the centre group; the passionate impetus, which fills the whole scene
and catches even the cloaked figures of the reverse, is here most
convincing.
With this fine masterpiece, which almost exaggerates the element of
show, not separated by more than two decades from the Parthenon
pediment, we close the history of the vases that show the style of
Pheidias. Nay, one may regard the proper history of Greek vase-painting
as closed with these post-Pheidian vases. Not merely does the potter
make his vases untectonic by excessive profiling and elaborate
extension, but the painter too, interrupts the unity of the vase-surface
with the white-painted and plastically modelled central figure; thus in
a sense the silhouette style is declared bankrupt.
[Illustration: PLATE XCIII.
Fig. 154. SATYR AND SLEEPING MAENAD: FROM A RED-FIGURED JUG.
Fig. 155. WOMEN AT THE BATH: FROM A LATE ATTIC PELIKE.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
CHAPTER VII.
LATE OFFSHOOTS
We should unnaturally shift the centre of gravity in our narrative if we
treated the late period of Greek vase-painting with anything like the
same fulness as its development from the Geometric to Meidias. The fully
developed and often almost playfully treated vase-shapes give no longer
any really tectonic ground for the silhouette style, which had exhausted
the qualities compatible with its inward nature: the elegance of the
vases feels the pictorial decoration to be a burden, as does the style
of the figures feel the tectonic compulsion. Even in the last third of
the 5th century examples are multiplied of the transition to free brush
technique. The Pelops amphora (Fig. 148) adorns its black neck with a
sphinx added in white, the Talos vase (Fig. 153) and with it a multitude
of other vases seek to fix the impression by a white central figure, to
which the others rendered in ordinary technique are only a pale foil. In
the course of the 4th century this foil too, was dropped, and black
glazed vases of elegant shape were decorated only with figures or
ornaments loosely added in white. The brush technique, both the black of
Boeotian vases (p. 110) and the white of Attic and Lower Italian, made a
new development in ornamentation, which culminates in spiral tendrils
and branches with depth of space, in combination of figures and foliage
of plastic effect. Besides these freely decorated vases the red-figured
long continue. But the centre of gravity of the manufacture lies no
longer in Athens. Even in the time of Pheidias the Attic school sent a
branch to Lower Italy, which took root in the Periclean colonies of
Lucania, extended to various places in Lucania, Campania, Apulia, and
Southern Etruria, and soon grew up as a strong plant. In this
production, which in the 4th century completely supplanted Attic
importation, few really original artists took part, who all seem to
belong to the early period, and perhaps were emigrated Athenians; the
master of the Paris ‘Tiresias’ krater is one of them. From the early
group, in which good Attic tradition is strongly felt, we select two
bell-kraters. The full, and rather empty heads, the very general
conception of the divine types leave us no doubt as to the Italian
origin of the Paris ‘Orestes’ vase found in Lucania (Fig. 156), while
the wonderful group of the sleeping Erinyes, Klytemnestra urging them to
vengeance, and the purified Orestes, show us not only a fine model but a
clever hand. From the drawing and shape of the vase it may very well
belong to the end of the 5th century, like the closely analogous London
krater (Fig. 157). This vase with much humour introduces to us one of
the favourite Italian farces (the Phlyakes) and begins a long series of
similar representations from different workshops. Thus _e.g._ the
painter Assteas painted two Phlyax vases, one of which in comic parody
gives the violation by Aias of Kassandra, while the other is a serious
theatrical scene, which with its detailed rendering of the stage clearly
demonstrates the influence of the drama on vase-painting.
The activity of this painter, who from the stiff variety of the style
and the localities of the finds must be localized in South Campania,
belongs to a later phase, which does not concern us. For the more these
Italo-Greek vases in shape, decoration and representation develop local
peculiarities and depart from their purely Attic starting point, the
less do they belong to our survey, which excludes provincial varieties.
Out of the mass of Lower Italian vases of the 4th century, which in
shape partly run parallel with the Attic,
[Illustration: PLATE XCIV.
Fig. 156. ORESTES AND THE FURIES: FROM A LUCANIAN BELL-KRATER.
Fig. 157. COMEDY SCENE: LOWER-ITALIAN BELL-KRATER.]
[Illustration: PLATE XCV.
Fig. 158. ACHILLES AND THERSITES: APULIAN VOLUTE-KRATER.]
partly develop noticeably baroque and locally limited peculiarities,
which in their chiefly sepulchral representations, influenced by
Orphic-Dionysiac cults, often fall into coarseness, stiffness, or
effeminate insipidity, let us take only one example. The Boston volute
krater, 1¼ metres high (Fig. 158) belongs to a group of Apulian grand
vases, which elongate the shape of the Talos vase (Fig. 153) and add
rich ornament in white colour. On the reverse bearers of offerings above
one another in the favourite borrowed motives (sitting, standing,
running, leaning on a pillar, drawing up one foot) surround a
white-painted Heröon with the dead man: the obverse combines a similar
building with a mythological scene, the slaying of Thersites by
Achilles, and thus gives a mythical prototype to the dead man, for whose
grave the vase is designed. The liberal use of white paint, the ‘black
ground’ ornamentation of the neck and foot with branches and tendrils
are progressive elements, which lead the way for Hellenistic products
like the Apulian Gnathia vases; in the increased pathos of the faces is
traced, though provincially coarsened, the stronger weight given to
sentiment in the 4th century; and the perspective rendering of the
building operating with light and shade, which often extends to the
ornament, points to a period, which had won complete freedom in space,
and certainly could distribute figures over the landscape more naturally
than the vase-painter, who filled the tall space with them only in a
superficially decorative way.
Sentiment and light, the great achievements of 4th century art, were the
ruin of the decorative silhouette style, whose figure world can admit of
pathos, as little as the bursting of its vase sides by perspective views
corresponds to its surface decoration. Even in Athens, where out of the
successors of the Meidias, Pronomos and Talos styles an after-bloom
developed (Figs. 155 and 159), which from the rich exports in the Black
Sea is usually called the Kerch style, the new tendencies of art were
fatal to the red-figured style. To be sure this was in a different
direction to Lower Italy. The figure world of the elegant Attic vases,
which in the new naturalness of motives and drapery, in the strong
emphasis on female forms, is far removed from the types of Pheidias,
betrays little of the enhanced pathos of the great painting, which one
would have to deduce from the sculpture of Skopas and Praxiteles, even
if it were not expressly witnessed to by literary tradition. From the
same finer decorative sense the Attic masters made no use of the full
perspective of their time, and interrupted the vase-surface neither by
buildings or ornaments drawn in perspective nor by composition in
several planes, but following the old manner simply arranged above and
beside each other on the surface their generally large and restful
figures. As in the post-Pheidian style they like to pick out single
figures by white colour, and do not despise gilded additions, nay, they
even often heighten the decorative effect of colour by the application
of light blue, green and rose, occasionally also by figures in relief
and painted (as Xenophantos did in his aryballos with hunting Persians,
meant for Eastern customers, in signing which he emphasizes his Athenian
citizenship). The varying shades of the colour scale give one an inkling
of the new problems of light, which were certainly struggling for
expression not only in sculpture; in the drawing of the figures,
rendered in strong relief strokes, nothing of this is observed. Thus the
‘Kerch’ masters ensure to their vases a finer general aspect than the
Southern Italians, just as their commonest figures are distinguished
from the Italian by a certain nobility; but they are far behind the huge
advances of the great art, which now in its methods of expression
attained the heights perhaps of Titian and Tintoretto, and have an
_arrieré_ effect, listless and
[Illustration: PLATE XCVI.
Fig. 159. LATE ATTIC KALYX-KRATER.
Fig. 160. HELLENISTIC CUP.]
dull. Just as the new style could express itself better by the applied
than by the reserved ornamentation, which in spite of new formations has
a stiff and lifeless effect, so too the red-figured style, which as is
proved by finds at Alexandria, continued to exist down into the early
Hellenistic age, was no longer the congenial vehicle of the expression
of its age; and it was only seldom that notable personalities attempted
to practise it.
Rightly recognising that the days of the draughtsman and his decorative
figure style were past and gone, the ceramic workshops of the late 4th
century, and the Hellenistic, which appeared in several spots of the now
decentralized Greek world, more and more gave up the red-figured
technique. The great increase of the means of colouring, which is to be
assumed for the late painting, the complete suppression of formal
tendencies in favour of impressionism did not permit the silhouette
style even a subsidiary place. The future belonged to free brush
technique, that which painted in black, and that which had a black
ground (pp. 110 and 157).
The figured world, the representations, no longer play any part; the
Hellenistic painters prefer to put on their elegant, often playfully
treated vases tendrils, festoons, hanging branches and fillets, wreathes
and masks in loose arrangement. With these products of the mere
craftsman, which are often of fascinating effect (cp. Fig. 160), but
often in shape and decoration cause one to miss the delicate taste of
earlier times, ends the history of Greek vase-painting; by pottery with
relief ornament (already heralded by the completely black channelled
vases of the 4th century and works like the aryballos of Xenophantos),
which now gains ground more and more, painted pottery is completely
driven off the field.
NOTE
Thanks are due to Messrs. F. Bruckmann, of Munich, for permission to
reproduce several drawings from Furtwängler-Reichhold, _Griechische
Vasenmalerei_.
INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE I. Interior of a kylix signed by Euphronios as potter: from
Caere; Paris, Louvre, G 104. Diameter 0,39. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_
5. _Frontispiece_
CHAPTER I.: THE STONE AND BRONZE AGES:--
Pl. II. Fig. 1. Bowl from Sesklo: Athens. Height 0,20. Dark painting on
lemon-coloured ground. From Tsountas, _Dimini and Sesklo_ (Greek), pl.
22
Fig. 2. Face-urn from Troy II.-V.: Berlin. Height 0,30. From _British
School_ yellowish clay. From _H. Schliemann’s Sammlung Trojanischer
Altertümer, Hubert Schmidt_, _No._ 1,080 and 1,084....._To face page 2_
Pl. III. Fig. 3. Beaked jug from Syros: Athens, Nicole 123. Height 0,16.
Light-brown painting on yellow ground. From _Ephemeris Arch._ 1899, pl.
10. No. 8
Fig. 4. Beaked jug from the sixth shaft-grave at Mycenae: Athens, Nicole
189. Height 0,30. Turned on the wheel, polished, lustreless brown (and
red) painting. From Furtwängler and Löschcke, _Mykenische Tongefässe_,
pl. IX. No. 44......4
Pl. IV. Fig. 5. Vase of Kamares style from the palace of Knossos:
Candia. Height, 0,22. Painting white, orange and carmine-red on black
glaze. From _British School Annual_ IX, p. 120.
Fig. 6. Unpainted kylix with yellow smoothed surface, from the fourth
shaft-grave at Mycenae: Athens, Nicole 164. Diameter 0,12. From
Furtwängler and Löschcke, _Mykenische Tongefässe_, pl. V. No. 22.....6
Pl. V. Fig. 7. Funnel-vase of late Minoan I. from a house at
Palaikastro: Candia. Height 0,10. Turned on the wheel, _Annual_ IX, p.
311, fig. 10
Fig. 8. Funnel-vase of late Minoan I. from house on the island of
Pseira: Candia. From Seager, _Excavations on the island of Pseira_, p.
25, fig. 8
Fig. 9. Vase (Pithos) of Kamares style from Phaistos: Candia. Height
0,50. Red and white painting on black glaze. From _Monumenti Antichi_
XIV., pl. XXXV. b......_To face page_ 8
Pl. VI. Fig. 10. Stirrup-vase of late Minoan I., from a house at
Gournia: Candia. Height 0,20. From H. Boyd Hawes, _Gournia_, pl. H.
Fig. 11. Amphora of late Minoan I., from a house on Pseira. With many
details overpainted in white. From Seager _op. cit._, pl. VII......10
Pl. VII. Fig. 12. Amphora of Palace style from a grave of Knossos. From
_Archæologia_, 1905, pl. CI.
Fig. 13. Amphora of Palace style from a grave of Knossos. From
_Archæologia_, 1905, pl. C......12
Pl. VIII. Fig. 14. Late Mycenean Cup from Ialysos (Rhodes): London.
Height 0,20. Dark-brown glaze-colour on yellow ground, details in white.
From Furtwängler-Löschcke, _Mykenische Vasen_, pl. VIII., 49.
Fig. 15. Late Mycenean stirrup-vase from Ialysos (Rhodes): London.
Height 0,23. Yellowish-red glaze-colour on yellow ground. The tentacles
of the cuttle-fish from a peculiar ornament on the reverse, a bird by
the side of it. From Furtwängler-Löschcke, _Mykenische Vasen_, pl. IV.,
24......14
Pl. IX. Fig. 16. Late Mycenean vase with ribbed handles from Ialysos
(Rhodes): London. Height 0,34. Dark-brown glaze-colour (in parts burnt
red) on yellow ground. From Furtwängler-Löschcke, _Mykenische Vasen_,
pl. VI., 32.
Fig. 17. Late Mycenean vase with ribbed handles from Rhodes: Munich 47.
Height 0,45. Brown, partly red, glaze-colour on yellow ground. Biga
with driver and companion. _Münchener Vasensammlung_ I., p. 6, fig.
7....._To face page_ 16
CHAPTER II.: THE GEOMETRIC STYLE:--
Pl. X. Fig. 18. Attic Geometric Amphora (Dipylon class): Munich 1,250.
Height O,50. From photo.
Fig. 19. Geometric Amphora, said to come from Melos, probably Attic
(Black Dipylon): Munich. Height O,73. _Münchener Jahrbuch_, 1909, II.,
p. 202, fig. 1.....20
Pl. XI. Fig. 20. Upper half of a Dipylon grave-vase: Athens,
Collignon-Couve 214. Height I,23. From _Monumenti dell’ Istituto_ IX.,
pl. 40, 1
Fig. 21. Frieze from the upper half of a bowl from Thebes, of which the
rest is only decorated with stripes: London. From _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_, 1899, pl. 8.....22
Pl. XII. Fig. 22. Rhodian Geometric jug, said to come from Crete: Munich
455. Height O,22. _Münchener Vasensammlung_ I., p. 44, fig. 57
Fig. 23. Protocorinthinian Geometric cup (skyphos) from Greece: Munich.
Height O,12. _Münchener Jahrbuch_, 1913, I., p. 78.....26
Pl. XIII. Fig. 24. Attic Geometric kylix from Athens: Munich. Diameter
O,18. _Münchener Jahrbuch_, 1913, I., p. 78.
CHAPTER III.: THE SEVENTH CENTURY:--
Fig. 25. Cretan hydria from Praisos: Candia. Height O,30. From _British
School Annual_, IX., pl. 9c
Fig. 26. Cretan jug from Praisos: Candia. Height O,33. White on glaze.
From _B.S.A._ IX., pl. 9d.....28
Pl. XIV. Fig. 27. Cretan miniature jug with female head: Berlin 307.
Height O,10. From _Athenische Mitteilungen_, 1897, pl. 6
Fig. 28. Fragment of a jug from Aegina: Athens. Nicole 848. Diameter ca.
0,25. _Athenische Mitteilungen_, 1897, pl. VIII......_To face page 30_
Pl. XV. Fig. 29. Fragment of a plate from a grave at Praisos: Candia.
Original diameter ca. 0,35. Wrestle with a sea monster. From _B.S.A._
X., pl. III.
Fig. 30. Krater of Aristonothos: Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori. Height
0,36. From _Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’histoire_, 1911, pl. I......32
Pl. XVI. Fig. 31. Protocorinthian lekythos: London, B.M. Height 0,07.
From _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, XI., pl. I., 2
Fig. 32. Protocorinthian lekythos, said to come from Corinth: Berlin
336. Height 0,06. From _Archäologische Zeitung_, 1883, I.
Fig. 33. Protocorinthian jug of post-Geometric style from Aegina: Munich
225a. Height 0,18. _Münchener Vasensammlung_ I., p. 11, fig. 17.....34
Pl. XVII. Fig. 34. Protocorinthian lekythos, said to come from Thebes:
Boston. Height 0,07. From _American Journal of Archæology_, 1900, pl.
IV......36
Pl. XVIII. Figs. 35-7. Protocorinthian jug, from the neighbourhood of
Rome: Rome, Villa di Papa Giulio. Height 0,26. From _Antike Denkmäler_
II., pls. 44 and 45.....38
Pl. XIX. Fig. 38. Protocorinthian or Corinthian jug: Munich 234. Height
0,44. From photo.
Fig. 39. Corinthian alabastron, from Greece: Cambridge, Fitzwilliam
Museum 30. Height 0,20. From _Catalogue_, pl. IV.
Fig. 40. Corinthian aryballos, from Greece: Cambridge, Fitzwilliam
Museum 36. Height 0,20. From _Catalogue_, pl. IV......40
Pl. XX. Fig. 41. Animal frieze from an early Corinthian jug: Munich 228.
_Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 12, fig. 18
Fig. 42. Animal frieze from a Corinthian jug of wine-skin shape: Munich
246. _Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 16, fig. 24....._To face page_ 42
Pl. XXI. Fig. 43. Corinthian skyphos, from Samos: Boston. Height O,08.
From photo.
Fig. 44. Scene from the late Corinthian flask of Timonidas, from Kleonai
(Peloponnese): Athens, Collignon-Couve 620. Height of vase 0,14. From
_Athenische Mitteilungen_, 1905, pl. VIII......44
Pl. XXII. Fig. 45. Pinax (votive-tablet), from Corinth, signed by
Timonidas: Berlin 846. Height 0,22. From _Antike Denkmäler_ I., pl. 8,
13
Fig. 46. Frieze of an early Phaleron jug, from Analatos (Attica):
Athens, Collignon-Couve 468. From _Jahrbuch_, 1887, pl. 3.....46
Pl. XXIII. Figs. 47-8. Neck and body designs of an early Attic Amphora,
from Athens: Athens, Collignon-Couve 657. Height 1,22. From _Antike
Denkmäler_ I., pl. 57.....48
PI. XXIV. Fig. 49. Early Attic Amphora, from Piraeus: Athens,
Collignon-Couve 651. Height 1,10. From _Ephemeris_, 1897, pl. 5
Fig. 50. Cycladic (Euboic) Amphora: Stockholm. Height 0,59. From
_Jahrbuch_, 1897, pl. 7.....50
Pl. XXV. Fig. 51. Jug with griffin’s head, from Aegina: London, B.M., A
547. From photo......52
Pl. XXVI. Fig. 52. Chief design on a “Melian” amphora, from Melos:
Athens, Collignon-Couve 475. Height of amphora 0,95. From Conze,
_Melische Tongefässe_, pl. IV......54
Pl. XXVII. Fig. 53. Herakles and Iole (?) on a “Melian” amphora, said to
come from Crete: Athens, Collignon-Couve 477. From _Ephemeris_, 1894,
pl. 13
Fig. 54. Early Rhodian jug, from Rhodes: Hague, Scheurleer Collection.
Height 0,22. From photo......55
Pl. XXVIII. Fig. 55. Rhodian jug: Munich 449. Height 0,33. _Münch.
Vasens._ I., p. 42, fig. 54
Fig. 56. Late Rhodian jug, from Rhodes: Munich 450. Height 0,33. _Münch.
Jahrb._, 1911, II., p. 200
Fig. 57. Euphorbos plate, from Rhodes: London, B.M. Diameter 0,38. From
Photo......_To face page_ 56
Pl. XXIX. Fig. 58. Late Rhodian cauldron (lebes), from Italy: Paris,
Louvre. Height 0,35. From photo......58
Pl. XXX. Fig. 59. Gorgon plate, from Rhodes: London, B.M. From _J.H.S._,
1885, pl. 59.
Fig. 60. Sherd from Naukratis: Oxford. (Busiris’ head painted red on
white slip, details by leaving the parts unpainted). From _J.H.S._,
1905, pl. VI., I.
Fig. 61. Naukratite sherd found on the Acropolis of Athens: Athens,
Acropolis 450a. Yellow, red and white painting on bright ground. From
_Akropolisvasen_ I., pl. 24.....60
Pl. XXXI. Fig. 62. Amphora, from Rhodes (Fikellura): London, B.M., A
1311. Height 0,34. From _Münchener Archäol: Studien_, p. 300, fig. 24.
Fig. 63. Amphora (Fikellura): Altenburg. Height 0,31. From Böhlau,
_Nekropolen_, p. 56.....62
CHAPTER IV.: THE BLACK-FIGURED STYLE:--
Pl. XXXII. Fig. 64. Two friezes of a Corinthian krater, from Caere:
Paris, Louvre E. 635. Height 0,46. After photo.
Fig. 65. Corinthian krater, from Corinth: Munich 344. Height 0,31.
_Münch. Jahrb._, 1911, II., p. 290, fig. 1......70
Pl. XXXIII. Fig. 66. Frieze of a Corinthian krater, from Caere: Berlin
1655. Height 0,46. From _Monumenti_ X., pl. 4, 5.....72
Pl. XXXIV. Fig. 67. Corinthian plate: Munich 346a. Diameter 0,28.
_Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 31, fig. 46
Fig. 68. Chalkidian hydria, from Italy: Munich 596. Height 0,46. From
photo......_To face page_ 74
Pl. XXXV. Fig. 69. Chalkidian amphora, from Vulci: Würzburg. Height
0,41. From photo......_To face page_ 74
Pl. XXXVI. Fig. 70. Chalkidian amphora, from Caere: London, B.M., B 155.
Height 0,45. From photo.
Fig. 71. Scene from Chalkidian amphora of Italian provenance: Munich
592. _Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 65, fig. 75......78
Pl. XXXVII. Fig. 72. Ionic eye kylix, from Italy: Munich 589. Height
0,10. From photo.
Fig. 73. Head of Athena, from Ionic eye kylix: Munich 590. _Münch.
Vasens._ I., p. 64, fig. 74......80
Pl. XXXVIII. Fig. 74. Phineus kylix, from Vulci: Würzburg. Diameter
0,39. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 41......82
Pl. XXXIX. Fig. 75. Ionic b.f. fragments, from Kyme (Asia Minor):
London, B.M. From photo.
Fig. 76. Neck design of an Ionic b.f. Amphora, from Italy: Munich 586.
_Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 62, fig. 73......84
Pls. XL.-I, Figs. 77-8. Obverse and reverse of an Ionic b.-f. Amphora,
from Italy: Munich 585. From _Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 59, figs. 69 and
70......86 & 87
Pl. XLII. Fig. 79. Chief design on a Caeretan hydria: Vienna, Museum für
Kunst und Industrie 217. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 51.
Fig. 80. Spartan kylix, from Italy: Munich 382. Height 0,15. From
_Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 34, fig. & 48.....88
Pl. XLIII. Fig. 81. Caeretan hydria, from Caere: Paris, Louvre E 701.
Height 0,43. From photo......89
XLIV. Figs. 82-3. Obverse and reverse of a Pontic amphora, from Italy:
Munich 837. Height of vase 0,33. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_
21......90
Pl. XLV. Fig. 84. Spartan kylix, from Corneto: Berlin. From _Jahrbuch d.
D. Instatus_ 1901, pl. III.
Pl. XLVI. Fig. 85. Spartan kylix (Arkesilas), from Vulci: Paris, Cabinet
des Médailles 189. Diameter 0,29. From _Monumenti_ I., pl. 47ᴬ
Pl. XLVII. Fig. 86. Fragments of a cauldron (lebes) by Sophilos: Athens,
Acropolis. Gräf 587. Height of the frieze 0,09. From Gräf,
_Akropolisvasen_, pl. 26
Fig. 87. Attic tripod vase, from Athens: Munich. Height 0,12. From
_Münch. Jahrb._, 1911, II., p. 291, fig. 5......94
Pl. XLVIII. Fig. 88. Boeotian b.-f. kantharos: Munich 419. Height 0,19.
From _Münch. Vasens._ I., p. 40, fig. 52
Fig. 89. Detail of the François vase. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_,
13.....96
Pl. XLIX. Fig. 90. François vase, from Chiusi: Florence, Museo
archeologico. Height 0,66. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_, pl. 3,
10.....98
Pl. L. Fig. 91. ‘Little Master’ kylix, from Vulci: Munich, Jahn 36.
Height 0,15. From photo.
Fig. 92. Attic b.-f. kylix with knob handles: Boston. From
photo......100
Pl. LI. Fig. 93. Interior of an eye kylix of Exekias, from Vulci:
Munich, Jahn 339. Diameter 0,30. From Gerhard, _Auserlesene Vasenbilder_
I., pl. 49.....102
Pl. LII. Fig. 94. Scene from an Attic b.-f. Amphora, from Vulci: Berlin
1685. Height of vase 0,49. From Gerhard, _Etruskische und Kampanische
Vasenbilder_, pl. 21.....104
Pl. LIII. Fig. 95. Scene from an Attic b.-f. Amphora, probably from
Vulci: Würzburg, Urlichs 331. From photo......105
Pl. LIV. Fig. 96. Amphora of Exekias, from Vulci: Rome, Museo
Gregoriano, Helbig 1220. Height of vase 0,80. From photo.
Fig. 97. Attic b.-f. necked Amphora, from Italy: Munich. Height 0,40.
From photo......_To face page_ 106
Pl. LV. Fig. 98. Necked Amphora of Amasis: Paris, Cabinet des Médailles
222. Height 0,33. From photo.
Fig. 99. Detail from interior of a cauldron of Exekias, from Caere:
formerly Castellani Collection, Rome. From _Wiener Vorlegeblätter_,
1888, pl. 5, 3 b.....107
Pl. LVI. Fig. 100. Chief scene on a late b.-f. hydria, from Vulci:
Berlin, 1897. Height of vase 0,44. From Gerhard, _Auserlesene
Vasenbilder_ IV., pl. 249-50.....108
Pl. LVII. Fig. 101. Attic vase in shape of negro’s head with late b.-f.
decoration of neck: Boston. From photo.
Fig. 102. Panathenaic Amphora, from Vulci: Munich, Jahn 655. Height
0,62. From photo......110
CHAPTER V.: THE RED-FIGURED STYLE IN THE ARCHAIC PERIOD:--
Pl. LVIII. Fig. 103. Scene on an Amphora in the style of the Andokides
painter, from Vulci: Munich, Jahn 388. Height 0,535. From
_Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 4.....114
Pl. LIX. Fig. 104. Amphora of the potter Pamphaios (Nikosthenes’ shape),
from Etruria: Paris, Louvre G 2. Height 0,38. From photo......116
Pl. LX. Fig. 105. Scene on an Amphora of Euthymides, from Vulci: Munich,
Jahn 378. Height 0,60. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 14.
Fig. 106. Shoulder scene on a hydria of Hypsis, from Vulci: Rome,
Torlonia Collection. From _Antike Denkmäler_ II., pl. 8.....117
Pl. LXI. Fig. 107. Detail of Amphora of Euthymides, from Vulci: Munich,
Jahn 410. From photo.
Fig. 108. Detail from interior of an archaic r.-f. kylix, from Orvieto:
Boston. From photo......118
Pl. LXII. Fig. 109. Rhyton (in shape of a horse’s head) with r.-f.
decoration of neck: Boston. From photo......_To face page_ 119
Pl. LXIII. Fig. 110. Interior of a kylix by Skythes, from Caere: Rome,
Villa di Papa Giulio. Diameter of interior O,10. From _Monuments Piot
XX._, pl. 7.....120
Pl. LXIV. Fig. 111. Interior of a kylix by Epiktetos, from Vulci.
London, B.M., E. 38. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 73, 1.....121
Pl. LXV. Fig. 112. Part of the design on the psykter of Euphronios, from
Caere. Petrograd, Hermitage, 1670. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_
63.....122
Pl. LXVI. Fig. 113. Obverse of a kalyx-krater of Euphronios, from Caere.
Paris, Louvre G 103. Height of krater O,46. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_
92.....123
Pl. LXVII. Fig. 114. Kylix signed by the potter Sosias, from Vulci:
Berlin 2278. Diameter 0,32. From photo......124
Pl. LXVIII. Fig. 115. Interior of a r.-f. kylix, from Caere: formerly
Branteghem Collection, now London, B.M., E 46. From Hartwig,
_Griechische Meisterschalen_, pl. VIII......125
Pl. LXIX. Fig. 116. Interior of a kylix of Brygos, from Vulci: Würzburg,
Urlichs (1872) 346. From photo......126
Pl. LXX. Fig. 117. Detail of an archaic r.-f. pointed amphora, from
Vulci: Munich, Jahn 408. From Photo.
Pl. LXXI. Figs. 118-9. Exteriors of a kylix of Brygos: Paris, Louvre.
From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 25.....128
Pl. LXXII. Fig. 120. R.-f. skyphos, from Italy: Vienna, Museum für Kunst
und Industrie 328. From photo.
Fig. 121. Exterior of a kylix, from Corneto: Corneto. From _Monumenti
XI._, pl. 20.....129
Pl. LXXIII. Fig. 122. Scene on a psykter of Duris, from Caere: London,
B.M., E. 768. Height of vase O,29. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_
48.....130
Pl. LXXIV. Fig. 123. Kylix of Hieron, from Vulci: Berlin 2290. Diameter
O,33. From photo......131
Pl. LXXV. Fig. 124. Kylix of Duris, from Caere: Berlin 2285. Diameter
0,28. From photo.
Fig. 125. R.-f. kylix, from Vulci: Berlin 2294. Diameter 0,30. From
photo. ....._To face page_ 132
Pl. LXXVI. Fig. 126. Interior of a r.-f. kylix, from Vulci: Munich, Jahn
368. Diameter 0,305. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 86.......133
CHAPTER VI.:
THE STYLE OF POLYGNOTOS AND PHEIDIAS.
Pl. LXXVII. Fig. 127. Figure on a skyphos of Pistoxenos, from Caere:
Schwerin. From _Jahrbuch des D. Instituts_ 1912, pl. 6
Fig. 128. Detail of a fragmentary white-ground lekythos, from Attica:
Bonn. From _J.H.S._ 1896, pl. 4.....134
Pl. LXXVIII. Fig. 129. Kylix with white-ground interior, from Rhodes:
London, B.M. D 2. Diameter 0,24. From photo.
Fig. 130. Detail of a r.-f. krater: New York. From photo......135
Pl. LXXIX. Fig. 131. Obverse of a r.-f. krater, from Sicily (?): Boston.
Height of vase 0,36. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 115, 1.....136
Pl. LXXX. Fig. 132. Fragmentary r.-f. psykter, from Falerii: Rome, Villa
di Papa Giulio. From photo.
Fig. 133. Interior of a kylix, of the potter Hegesibulos: Brussels:
_Münch. Jahrb._ 1913, II., p. 89.....138
Pl. LXXXI. Fig. 134. Interior of a r.-f. kylix, from Etruria: Munich,
Jahn 370. Diameter 0,425. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 6.....139
Pl. LXXXII. Fig. 135. Obverse of a r.-f. kylix-krater, from Orvieto:
Paris, Louvre G 341. Height of vase 0,55. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_
108.....140
Pl. LXXXIII. Figs. 136-7. Design on lid and sides of a pyxis of
Megakles: Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels. Height 0,063. Diameter 0,085.
From Fröhner, _Coll. Barre_, pl. VII.
Fig. 138. Detail of a r.-f. pointed amphora: Paris, Cabinet des
Médailles 357. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_, pl. 77,1....._To face page_
142
Pl. LXXXIV. Fig. 139. Scene on a r.-f. pelike, from Rugge (Apulia):
Lecce. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_ .....66
Fig. 140. Scene on a r.-f. krater, from Gela: Berlin. Height of vase
0,50. From _50 Berliner Winckelmannsprogramm_ (1890).....143
Pl. LXXXV. Fig. 141. R.-f. Amphora, from Vulci: London, B.M., E 271.
Height 0,57. From photo......144
Pl. LXXXVI. Fig. 142. White-ground lekythos, from Attica: London, D 58.
Height ca. 0,48. From photo......145
Pl. LXXXVII. Figs. 143-4. Youth and maiden on a white-ground lekythos,
from Attica: Boston 8440. Height of vase, 0,40. From photo.
Fig. 145. Detail of a white-ground lekythos: Athens, Collignon-Couve
1822. From Furtwängler-Riezler, _Weissgrundige Lekythen_, pl. 93.....146
Pl. LXXXVIII. Fig. 146. R.-f. stamnos, from Vulci: Munich, Jahn 382.
Height 0,445. From photo.
Fig. 147. Scene on a r.-f. stamnos, from Campania: Naples, Heydemann
2419. From photo......148
Pl. LXXXIX. Fig. 148. Scene on a r.-f. Amphora, from neighbourhood of
Arezzo: Arezzo. Height of vase 0,54. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_, pl.
67.....149
Pl. XC. Figs. 149-51. Three details of a fragmentary r.-f. vase: Naples.
From three photos, in the Munich Vase Collection.....150
Pl. XCI. Fig. 152. Scene on a r.-f. hydria, from Populonia: Florence.
Height of vase 0,46. From Milani, _Monumenti scelti_, pl. 4.....151
Pl. XCII. Fig. 153. R.-f. volute amphora, from Ruvo: Ruvo, Jatta
Collection 1501. Height of frieze 0,35. From _Furtwängler-Reichhold_
38......152
Pl. XCIII. Fig. 154. Scene on a r.-f. jug: Oxford. Height of vase 0,21.
From _J.H.S._ 1905, pl. 1.
CHAPTER VII.: LATE OFFSHOOTS:--
Fig 155. Scene on a late Attic pelike, from
Kerch (Crimea): Petrograd, Hermitage
1795. Height 0,38. From
_Furtwängler-Reichhold_ 87,2......_To face page_ 154
Pl. XCIV. Fig. 156. Lucanian bell-krater, from the
Basilicata: Paris, Louvre. Height
0,53. From photo.
Fig. 157. Lower Italian bell-krater with
comedy scene (Phlyax vase), from
Apulia. London, B.M., F. 151.
Height of vase 0,39. From photo......156
Pl. XCV. Fig. 158. Apulian volute amphora, from Bari:
Boston. Height 1,25. From photo......157
Pl. XCVI. Fig. 159. Late Attic kalyx-krater, from
Greece: Munich. Height 0,41. From
_Münch. Jahrb._, 1913, 1., p. 79
Fig. 160. Hellenistic cup with designs painted
in white: Munich. Height 0,09.
From _Münch. Jahrb._, 1909, II. p.
204, fig. 8......158
INDEX OF NAMES
The names of painters and potters are printed in italics. All are
Athenian, unless it is otherwise stated.
Achaeans, 16.
Achilles, 46, 65, 68, 125, 128, 129, 139, 157.
Acropolis (of Athens), 99, 103, 110, 114, 115, 122, 137, 153.
Acropolis sculptures, 50.
Adonis, 152.
Ægean Sea, 17.
Ægina, 6, 14, 26, 32, 42, 49, 50, 52, 53, 60.
Æolians, 17.
Æolis, 90.
Africa, 89, 92.
Aias, 68, 79, 156.
_Aison_, 151.
Aktaion, 137.
Alabastron, 44.
Alexandria, 110, 159.
Alkmaion, 73.
Altenburg, amphora at, 61, 84.
_Amasis_, 97, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 113, 116, 127, 136, 143.
Amazons, 75, 81, 84, 139, 141.
Amphiaraos, 67, 71, 72, 73, 143, 144.
Amphitrite, 126.
Amphora, 24, 49, 52, 54, etc.;
(big-bellied), 50, 74, 104;
(necked), 51, 74; (pointed), 126, 127;
(Nolan), 127, 136;
(with twisted handles), 149;
(Panathenaic), 99, 110, 127, 153.
Anakreon, 114, 135.
_Andokides_, 58, 108, 109, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121.
_‘Andokides’ painter_, 115, 131.
Antaios, 123, 124, 125, 126.
Antenor (sculptor), 112, 131.
Aphidna (Attica), 6.
Aphrodite, Temple of, 42.
Aphrodite, 135, 137, 152.
Apollo, 25, 54, 55, 65, 139.
Apulia, 156.
Apulian vases, 157.
Arezzo, amphora at, 149.
Argive alphabet, 59.
Argolid, The, 5, 6, 7, 12, 19, 26, 33, 42.
_Argonaut Master, The_, 140-2.
Argonauts, The, 140, 147.
Argos (giant), 86.
Argos (town), 14, 26, 33.
Ariadne, 22, 129.
Aristagoras (kalos), 130.
_Aristonothos_ (? Aristonoos, perhaps Argive), 33, 38.
_Aristophanes_, 151.
Arkesilas, king, 92.
Artemis, 55, 137.
Artemis the Persian, 54.
Aryballos, 44, 142, 158.
Asia Minor, 5, 6, 15, 17, 19, 42, 55, 80, 87, 101.
Assarlik, 19.
_Assteas_ (Campanian painter), 156.
Astyanax, 65.
Athena, 49, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 81, 99, 100, 106, 110, 126, 147, 153.
Athenodotos (kalos), 126.
Athens, 19, 51, 96, 99, 106, 111, 121, 157.
Athens, Vases in, 139, 147, 149.
Attica, 6, 25, 42, 51.
Barbotine, 8.
Beaked jug, 5.
Bellerophon, 39, 40, 64.
_Berlin amphora, Master of the_, 131.
Berlin, Vases in, 92, 104, 109, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 139.
Black Sea, 28, 56, 89, 158.
Boeotia (Boeotians), 2, 22, 26, 42, 52, 60, 94, 96, 110, 155.
Bonn, Vases in, 119, 134, 135.
Boreas, 82.
Boreas, Sons of, 82.
Boston, Vases in, 45, 100, 126, 130, 135, 137, 146, 147, 157.
Bowl (Schüssel), 22, 66.
Bronze Age, 2, 3, 4.
_Bronze-foundry Master_, 131.
_Brygos painter_, 128, 129, 131, 139.
Bucchero ware, 90.
Busiris (Pharaoh), 89.
_Butades_ (Sicyonian), 69.
Cable pattern (Guilloche), 30, 35.
Caere, 42, 68.
Caeretan hydriae, 87-9, 107.
Campania, 156.
Carthage, 42.
Castle Ashby, Amphora at, 86, 87.
Centaurs, 22, 39, 86, 89, 98, 128, 140, 150.
Centauromachy, 91, 130.
Chairestratos (kalos), 126, 127, 129.
Chalkidian style, 69, 70, 75-80, 94, 96, 97, 100, 104, 105, 106, 107, 118.
Chalkis, 71, 75, 76, 77, 80, 94, 96, 99, 100, 105, 106, 108.
_Chares_ (Corinthian painter), 45.
_Charitaios_, 101, 103.
_Chelis_, 121.
Chigi jug, 38, 40, 45, 59, 66.
Chimaera, The, 39, 40.
Circe, 100, 146.
Corfu, 44.
Corinth, 26, 34, 42, 50, 56, 69, 70, 90, 94, 100.
Corinthian style, 43, 50, 70-75, 90, 94, 96.
Corneto, Vases in, 123, 129.
Cretans, 10, 12, 34.
Crete, 1, 2, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 27, 33, 55.
Cyclades, 15, 25, 94.
Cycladic (pottery, etc.), 5, 6, 25, 52, 54, 80.
Cyprus, 5, 6, 14, 15, 17, 26.
Cyrene, 92.
‘Daedalic’ types, 34.
Daedalus, 31.
Daphne, 86.
Deianeira, 34.
_Deiniades_, 119, 123.
Delian (or Euboic) ware, 53, 81.
Delos, 25, 54, 55, 98.
Delphi, 26.
Delta, The, 56, 59.
Demeter, 135.
Dimini, 2.
Diomede, 79.
Dionysos, 66, 82, 96, 97, 100, 106, 108, 148, 149.
Dipylon (Athens), 1, 24, 27, 35.
Dörpfeld (Wilhelm), 4.
Dorians, The, 17, 19.
_Duris_, 120, 126, 129, 130, 131, 139.
Egypt, 9, 15, 83.
Egyptian, 89.
Eleusis, 6, 25, 26.
Eos, 130, 135.
Ephesian sculpture, 88.
_Epiktetos_, 108, 114, 121, 122, 123, 124.
Epilykos (kalos), 120-3.
Eretria, 25, 52, 94.
_Eretria master, The_, 148, 152, 153.
_Erginos_, 151.
_Ergoteles_, 101.
_Ergotimos_, 97, 100, 101, 103.
Eriphyle, 73, 143, 144.
Ethos, 133, 142.
Etruria, 90, 91, 94, 99, 156.
Etruscan, 1, 35, 90.
Euboea, 25, 52.
Euboic (or Delian) ware, 53.
_Eucheiros_, 101.
_Eumares_, 111, 112.
Euphorbos plate, 58.
Euphrates, The, 12.
_Euphronios_, 18, 109, 114, 116, 117, 120, 122-9, 131, 133, 134, 135, 139.
Europa, 68, 88.
Eurytios, 72, 79, 97.
_Euthymides_, 114, 116-9, 122, 123, 125, 127.
_Euxitheos_, 117, 123.
_Exekias_, 68, 101, 102, 103, 105, 107, 108, 113, 115.
Face urns, 4.
‘Fates,’ The, 152.
Fibulae, 22.
Fikellura (Samian) ware, 60-2, 83, 116.
Flamed ware, 7.
Florence, Vase in, 97.
François vase, 71, 95, 96, 97-9, 100, 101, 103, 104, 108.
Funnel vase, 12.
Furtwängler, Adolf, 20, 64.
Gales, 114.
Ge, 139.
Gela, 143, 144.
Geometric style, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22-8, 29, 31, 41, 54, 56, 69, 135, 144.
Geryon, 78, 79.
Gigantomachia, 150.
Glaukon, son of Leagros (kalos), 114, 124, 130, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 145.
Gnathia vases, 157.
Gorgon, 44, 50, 58, 101.
Gorgon lebes, 49, 66, 97, 100.
Griffin head jug, 53.
Hadra vases, 110.
Halimedes, 73.
Hamilton, Sir William, 1.
Harpies, 50, 82.
Head, Vases in shape of, 120, 142 (Figs. 101, 109).
Hector, 59, 118, 129.
_Hegesibulos_, 142.
Helen, 22, 23, 118.
Helios, 150.
Hellenistic painting, 159.
Hephaistos, 66, 67, 71, 88, 98.
Herakles, 39, 50, 54, 60, 64, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, 75,
79, 89, 99, 115, 116, 123, 124, 126.
Hermes, 40, 49, 86, 88, 145.
Hermogenes (kalos), 130.
_Hermonax_, 143.
Heröon, 157.
Hesiod, 22.
Hetairai, 116, 119, 120, 123, 146.
_Hieron_, 131, 135.
Hipparchos (kalos), 109, 114.
Hippodamas (kalos), 127, 130.
Hippodameia, 149.
_Hischylos_, 101, 121, 122.
Hissarlik (Troy), 4.
Homer, 16, 22.
Homeric poems, 17, 71, 135 (see _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_).
_Horse master_, 128, 133, 137, 138, 139.
Hydria, 67, 74, 108, 109, 119.
Hygieia, 152.
Hymettos, 48.
Hymn (Homeric), 55.
_Hypsis_, 119, 125.
Ida, Mt., 8.
Iliad, The, 59, 65, 125, 147.
Iliupersis, 67, 104, 128.
Io, 86.
Iole, 72, 73.
Ionia, 47, 94.
Ionians, 17, 62.
Ionic art, 25, 55-62, 79-89, 120.
Isocephalism, Law of, 68.
Italy, 15, 26, 42, 60, 90.
Japanese art, 12.
Jug with rotelle, 41-3, 57;
wine-skin-shaped, 41.
Kabirion, 110.
_Kachrylion_, 123.
Kalistanthe (kale), 102.
_Kalliades_, 130.
Kallinos, 92.
Kaloi, 102, 114.
Kamares style, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13.
Kantharos, 96, 120, 129.
Kassandra, 156.
Kavusi, 27, 30.
Kerameikos, 121.
Kerch style, 158.
Kimon (statesman), 134.
_Kimon of Kleonai_, 111.
Klazomenai, 83, 84, 87, 116.
Klazomenian sarcophagi, 87, 111.
Klazomenian style, 83, 84.
_Kleanthes_ (Corinthian painter), 65, 67.
_‘Kleophrades’ painter_, 127.
_Kleophrades, son of Amasis_, 127, 129.
_Klitias_, 18, 97, 98, 101, 103, 104, 108, 113.
Klytemnestra, 156.
Knossos, 10, 14.
_Kolchos_, 87, 103, 104, 107.
Korone, 118.
Krater, 15, 33, 34, 71, 72, 73, (a colonnette) 74, (calyx)
123, 136, 140, 142, (bell) 127, 136, 149, 156, (volute) 157.
Kyknos, 78.
Kylix (bird), 26, 52, 94, (eye) 81, (with offset rim) 91.
Kyme (Italy), 27, 28, 42, 53.
Kypselos, Chest of, 67, 71, 78, 95.
Lanuvian Juno, 90.
Leagros, father of Glaukon (kalos), 109,
114, 115, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 130, 134, 142.
Lebes (cauldron) 49, (bronze) 53, 57, 66,
71, (with stand) 74, 86, 91, 95, 108.
Lecce, Pelike at, 143.
Leto, 55.
Leukas, 5, 6.
Lion Gate, The, 7.
_Little Masters_, 101, 102, 105.
London, Vases in, 58, 61, 78, 108, 119,
122, 125, 126, 130, 135, 143, 145, 147, 149, 156.
Lotus, 11.
Loutrophoros in Athens, 134.
Louvre (see Paris).
Lower Italy, Vases of, 153, 155, 158.
Lucania, 156.
_Lydos_ (the Lydian), 103.
Madrid, vases in, 116, 151.
Maenads, 66, 100, 106, 127, 131, 143.
_Makron_, 131, 135.
Marathon, 114, 115, 140.
Marina (Hagia), 5, 6.
Massilia, 28.
Mattmalerei (lustreless painting), 6.
Medusa, 49, 50.
Megakles (Alkmaeonid), 114, 119.
_Megakles_ (potter), 142, 152.
_Meidias_, 18, 149, 151, 157.
Meleager, 98.
‘Melian’ vases, 53-5, 81.
Melos, 5, 9, 12, 14, 25, 53.
Melusa, 145.
Memnon (epic hero), 65.
Memnon (kalos), 114, 121, 123.
Menelaos, 104.
_Menon, painter_, 116.
Metallic effect in vase shapes, 76.
Metope maeander, 57, 61.
Metopes, 21.
Miletus, 25, 30, 55, 56, 114.
Minoan style (1), Early, 5, 7;
(2), Middle, 8, 9;
(3), Late, 10, 12, 13, 14.
Minos, 7.
Minotaur, 66, 104.
Minyan ware, 6.
_Mnasalkes_ (Theban), 52.
Mochlos (Crete), 7.
Monochromy, 33, 44, 48.
Munich, Vases in, 76, 78, 86, 96, 102, 107,
115, 117, 118, 123, 127, 128, 130, 135, 138, 139, 145, 148.
Musaios, 145.
Muse, 95, 145.
Mycenae, 6, 7, 12, 14.
Mycenean, 1, 7, 8, 13, 14-19 (late).
Naples, 1.
Naples, Vases in, 148, 150, 153.
Naturalistic style, 11, 13.
Naukratis, 43, 51, 58, 59, 60, 61, 83, 88, 91, 101.
Nauplia, 19.
_Nearchos_, 101, 103, 104, 112.
Neolithic, 2, 5.
Neoptolemos, 104.
Nereids, 89.
Nessos vase, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51.
New York, Vase in, 134, 142.
Nike balustrade, 151.
_Nikosthenes_, 87, 101, 103, 108, 115, 116, 121, 122.
Nile, The, 9, 12.
Nolan style, 131.
Nudity, 20.
Nymph, 82, 150.
Odysseus, 79, 100.
Odyssey, 32.
Oichalia, 72.
_Oltos_, 116, 119, 122, 123, 124, 127.
Olympia, 15, 53, 67.
Olympos, 65, 66, 67, 71.
_Onesimos_ (?), 128.
Onetorides (kalos), 106.
Orchomenos (Boeotia), 5, 6, 14.
Orestes, 156.
Oriental art, 29-32, 35, 37.
Orpheus, 137, 139.
Orvieto, Calyx-Krater from, 140.
Oxford, Vases in, 114, 150.
Paidia, 152.
Palace style (second late Minoan), 13, 14.
Palaisto, 124.
_Pamphaios_, 101, 103, 108, 109, 115, 116, 121, 122, 123.
_‘Pan’ Master, The_, 137.
Panaitios (kalos), 126, 127.
_‘Panaitios’ Master, The_, Frontispiece, 126, 128, 129, 130.
Panathenaea, The, 99.
Panathenaic amphorae (see _Amphora_).
Paris (of Troy), 22, 40, 152.
Paris , Vases in: (1) Louvre, 49, 58, 72, 79,
91, 94, 105, 108, 116, 123, 126, 128, 130, 140, 156;
(2) Cabinet des Médailles, 92, 106, 143.
Parthenon, 144, 147, 148, 150, 151.
Patroklos, 125.
Pausanias (Descriptio Graeciæ), 71.
Pedieus (kalos), 109.
Pegasus, 39.
_Peithinos_, 124.
Peleus, 32, 33, 71, 95.
Pelias, 67.
Pelike, 110, 119, 143.
Peloponnese, 17, 90.
Pelops, 149, 150, 155.
Penthesileia, 81, 138.
_Penthesileia Master, The_, 139, 141.
Periclean age, 144.
Perseus, 49, 59, 64.
_Perugia Master, The_, 128, 130, 139.
Petrograd, Psykter in, 123.
Phaistos, 10, 14.
Phaleron style, 47, 48, 49, 54.
Phaon, 152.
Pheidias, 113, 142, 143, 144, 148, 151, 154.
‘Phineus’ style, 80-3, 102, 105, 107, 121.
Phineus kylix, 76, 79, 80, 81, 93, 146, 150.
_Phintias_, 114, 119, 123, 125.
Phlyakes, 156.
Phocis, 2, 5.
Phœnicia, 15.
Phœnician metal work, 30, 47, 55, 58.
Physiognomy, 135, 139.
Pinax (votive tablet), 46, 51, 114.
Piraeus amphora, 49.
Pisistratidae, 114.
Pisistratus, 99.
_Pistoxenos_, 122, 134.
Plate (Teller), 32, 58.
Pliny, 111, 112.
Polychromy, 8, 10, 60, 93 (see _Kamares_, _Naukratis_.)
Polygnotan vases, 140, 141.
_Polygnotos_, 123, 133, 138, 143, 146.
_Polygnotos_ (vase painter), 143.
Polyneikes, 144.
Polyphemus, 33.
‘Pontic’ vases, 89, 90.
Pontus, 43.
Poseidon, 65, 126.
Praisos, 31, 32, 36, 46, 59.
Praxiteles, 158.
Priam, 104, 117, 123.
_‘Pronomos’ Master, The_, 151, 153, 154;
Protocorinthian, 26, 27, 34, 36, 37, 38, 41,
42, 43, 44, 47, 49, 53, 56, 59, 71, 75, 120.
_Psiax_, 121.
Psykter, 119, 120, 123, 130, 137, 140.
Pylos, 14.
_Pyros_ (Theban), 52.
_Python_, 122, 129.
Ram jug, 32, 53.
Rankengeschling, 36.
Rays, Circle of, 35.
Red-figured style, 87, 102, 109, 111-3.
Rheneia, 25, 54.
Rhodes, 1, 15, 17, 26, 30, 42, 61, 135.
Rhodian ware, 56-9, 81.
Rome, Vases in, 105, 122.
Rotelle, 41, 57.
Russia, South, 83, 158.
Samos (see Fikellura), 30, 43, 61, 91.
Sarcophagi (see Klazomenai).
Sarpedon, 65, 147.
Satyrs, 45, 66, 75, 79, 82, 84, 88, 92, 96,
98, 100, 107, 116, 119, 120, 126, 130, 150.
Schliemann, Heinrich, 4, 7.
Schwerin, Vase in, 134.
Scythians, 75, 81, 84, 89.
Selene, 150.
Sesklo, 2.
Shaft graves (Mycenæ), 6, 7, 12.
Sicily, 15, 26, 42, 60.
Sicyon, 34 (see _Butades_).
Sicyonian-Corinthian metal work, 41.
Silenus, 81.
Silhouette, 31, 32, 37.
Silphion, 92.
Sirens, 45, 95.
Skopas, 158.
Skyphos (two-handled cup), 35, 38, 45, 120, 128, 134.
_Skythes_ (the Scythian), 121, 122, 123.
Sleep and Death, 145, 147.
_Smikros_, 120.
_Sophilos_, 71, 95, 96, 97, 99, 104.
Sosias kylix, 79, 124, 125.
_‘Sosias’ painter_, 125, 127.
_Sotades_, 120, 142, 153.
Sparta, 26, 47, 90.
Spartan ware, 90-3, 122.
Spata, 14.
Sphinx, 39, 40, 45.
Stamnos, 119, 136, 143, 145, 148.
Stesagoras (kalos), 114.
Stesias (kalos), 105.
Stesichoros, 99.
Sthenelos, 79.
Stirrup-vase, 12, 19.
Stockholm, Vase in, 52.
Stone Age, 1, 2, 3, 7.
Stylized ornament, 11.
Syracuse, 28, 34, 42.
Taleides, 104.
Talos vase, 154, 155, 157.
Tectonic style, 11, 13.
Terpsichore, 145, 149.
Textile influence, 23.
Thamyris, 152.
Thera, 9, 12, 25, 26, 27, 42, 53, 111.
Thebes, 14, 22.
Thersites, 157.
Theseus, 22, 66, 98, 118, 126, 129, 130, 151.
Thessaly, 2, 3, 5, 6.
Thetis, 32, 65, 71, 95, 97.
Thorikos (Attica), 14.
Thracian women, 137.
_Timagoras_, 67, 108.
_Timonidas_ (Corinthian), 45, 46, 51, 72, 113.
Tintoretto, 158.
Tiresias, 156.
Tiryns, 5, 33.
Titian, 158.
Tityos, 139.
_Tleson_, 101.
Tragodia, 151.
Triada Hagia (Crete), 14.
Tripod vase, 96.
Triptolemos, 135.
Triton, 67, 89, 108.
Troilos, 45, 65, 81, 91, 98, 108.
Troy, 4, 5, 6, 17, 129.
Turin, Psykter in, 119.
‘Tyrrhenian’ vases, 99, 100, 103, 106.
Tyrtaios, 92.
Vaphio, 14.
Vase shapes (see Alabastron, Amphora, Aryballos, Beaked jug,
Bowl, Face urn, Funnel-vase, Head, Hydria, Jug, Kantharos,
Krater, Kylix, Lebes, Loutrophoros, Pelike, Plate, Psykter,
Skyphos, Stamnos, Stirrup vase, Tripod vase).
Veii, 42.
Vienna, Vases in, 119, 128, 129.
_Villa Giulia Master, The_, 143.
Volo, 14.
Vurvá vases, 47, 50, 51, 83, 93, 95, 100.
Wall painting (see Butades, Eumares, Kimon of Kleonai,
Kleanthes, Polygnotos), 16, 31, 33, 67, 68, 138, 158.
Warrior vase (from Mycenae), 15, 33.
Würzburg, Vases in (82), 105, 106, 128.
Xenophantos, The Athenian, 158.
Zeus, 65, 147.
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