VAS
VAS (
vasa, generic name for earthenware) covers
in its extended sense (
a)
vessels of all materials; (
b)
utensils of every sort; and is (
c) in a special use applied to the
baggage of
an army.
Earthenware naturally subdivides itself into two classes, embracing firstly
those objects of the commonest utility which, once a suitable material and
form have been invented, retain that form and material practically unaltered
to the end; and, secondly, those which are subject also to the laws of
ornament and fashion. Product of primitive civilisation as is the invention
of baked clay for household utensils, no art is wholly removed from the
influence of its sister arts. Gourds, earlier in use than earthen-ware
vessels, showed men how to shape and ornament them; and metal-work,
ornamental glass, and textile industries have all left their mark on the
development of Greek and Roman ceramics.
The earliest pottery unearthed on Greek soil is represented in the finds of
Dr. Schliemann at
Hissarlik, and is of a rude type. The
manufacture is as yet in almost its first stage. There are vases of very
various forms, doubtless meant for special uses, but showing no great
adaptation of means to end: in scarcely more than
[p. 2.920]two series have the potters succeeded in establishing fixed types; the one
(fig. 1) being that
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Fig. 1. Two-handled Vase from hissarlik. (Schliemann, Ilios.）
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which Dr. Schliemann imagined might represent the Homeric
δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον, the other (fig. 2)--the
“owl-vase” --being noteworthy
 |
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Fig. 2. So-called “Owl Vase” from hissarlik.
(Schliemann, Ilios.）
|
as marking a first attempt to establish, in the analogy between a
vase and a living thing, a principle of design and decoration. [Examples of
the shapes: Schliemann,
Ilios, p. 299, No. 179,
and pp. 340 ff., figs. 227 ff., respectively.] This analogy, though helpful,
is responsible for many vagaries in early ceramic art. The Hissarlik vases
are hand-made--Dr. Schliemann excepts one, figured
Ilios, p. 214, No. 23--are generally of a dull-black colour
produced by the smoke of the furnace impregnating their substance, and have
been rubbed, after firing, by a piece of wood or some similar material so as
to dress the surface and impart a certain polish. The clay contains many
particles of mica, which may be used like pounded granite to bind and
strengthen. Handles are not generally employed, and their place is taken by
bosses pierced for the passage of a thong by which the vessel might be hung
against a wall: a practice sometimes retained in later ware as a mere form
of ornament. The vases are never painted, but in a certain proportion of
them scratches have been made to serve a first rude idea of design. These
scratchings have, Dr. Schliemann states, been in many cases “filled up
with white chalk;” but the presence of the chalk may, as in the
parallel instance of certain Cypriote vases, be accidental and due to the
nature of the soil, which both at Hissarlik and Alambra (Cyprus) is of a
limestone formation. A fragment of a large
πίθος
“from the second city” exhibits a second style of
ornamentation, the design being given by strips of clay applied in relief.
[For the Hissarlik pottery, see Schliemann,
Ilios and
Troja; Dumont et Chaplain,
Les Céramiques, s. v.]
In many ways analogous to the pottery of Hissarlik, but showing a distinct
advance upon it, is that obtained from the most ancient graves of Cyprus.
The class of ware here indicated is known by the name of the place where
most examples have been found,
Alambra (Dali): elsewhere in
Cyprus it has not been discovered except at Larnaca (Kition): both are sites
especially associated with Phoenician colonisation. The class consists of
vases (
a) covered with a vitreous slip and
baked to a lustrous red, almost vermilion in tint, ranging sometimes, by
over-exposure, to black or, by under-exposure, to a light red: the
ornamentation is by lines incised generally before, occasionally after,
firing. Some specimens of this class are decorated in appliqué
with strips of clay, which here and there take shape as serpents. (
b) Made of extra fine clay, moulded to a very
delicate texture. The colour is grey, or pale black; and the vessels are
less frequently ornamented with incised lines, and more often by
appliqué work: often the vase is left plain. The ware seems to be
rather later in date than that mentioned under (
a).
It is in the Alambra pottery that a distinctive style first emerges, both in
form and ornament. Two shapes are characteristic, the first of which is
simply a reproduction in clay of the long-stalked gourd which has always
been and is to-day the commonest water-or wine-bottle of the Cypriotes: in
some cases it has even been fitted with a string and stopper, thus carrying
the resemblance into the closest detail. [An example is in the Brit. Mus., 1
V. R., Wall-case 3, No. 1.] The other shape is that of a broad, shallow,
handleless cup. Something like a system of ornamentation also appears: the
scratches are gathered together to form lozenges and cables, and the field
is divided into sections by perpendicular lines. Many of the vases with
their bright red colouring set off by the white lines of incision, or their
delicate grey tint, are really effective. Their greater merit may be due to
[p. 2.921]Semitic influence, to which also the use of
the wheel is perhaps to be assigned.
Similar vases, though of inferior style, have been found on a number of the
Aegean Islands, such as Amorgos, Antiparos, Naxos, Melos: and they represent
a distinct epoch in ceramics, an epoch undoubtedly of considerable duration.
Already however a new style is growing up, and the introduction of painting
opens a great career to the potter. By whom and when painted vases were
invented is unknown, nor is it; necessary to assume for them a single
source. At
Thera (Santorin), which has, among the Aegean
Islands, yielded the richest harvest of early pottery, the new style is
found already established. Thera ware is made entirely upon the wheel, and,
almost for the first time, vases are furnished with a foot and intended to
stand by themselves instead of being hung against a wall. The clay used
proves the fabric to be an insular product: while the ornamentation shows a
great preference for plant-life, but admits also animal forms. Though great
success is not attained, there is a distinct striving to imitate nature. As
to colours, red, brown-black, and white are used upon prepared grounds of
grey, buff; and a brownish red. By substituting the brush for the point the
artist is enabled to ornament also the inside of the vase, and thus a new
departure is taken.
Thera pottery is found beneath a lava stratum, and this fact has given it an
exceptional value as suggesting the possibility of an approximate date.
Geologists, however, are unable to speak either with precision or unanimity;
and the opinion now in vogue that the ware belongs to the period 2000-1500
B.C. must stand for what it is worth. Any attempt to date the Hissarlik and
Alambra types from that of Thera is without value: Cypriote pottery in
particular, owing to its conservativeness, is exceptionally difficult in the
matter of chronology.
[For early Cypriote pottery, see an article by Sandwith,
Archaeologia, xlv. (1877-80), which is especially valuable
for its reserve. and for its illustrations in colour (v. pl. ix.); also
Dümmler,
Mitth. d. Ath. Inst. xi. pp. 209 f. and A.
S. Murray in Cesnola's
Cyprus. For Thera,
Dumont et Chaplain,
Les Céramiques, s. v.
“Type de Santorin,” and pll. i. and ii.: the geological
question in Fouqué,
Santorin et ses
Éruptions.]
The vases of Thera supply a natural point of transition to the second great
stage of early ceramic art represented by the so-called
Mycenaean ware. Spread over virtually the whole of the ancient
classical world, there has been found a class of pottery more or less
uniform in technique and ornamentation which has formed the subject of
special study by Drs. Furtwängler and Löschcke and has
been named by them “Mycenaean.” This class divides itself
broadly into vases painted (
a) with opaque, or
matt, and (
b) with
lustrous, colours (
Mattmalerei, Firnissmalerei). The first
division is of less interest, is relatively small, and of greater antiquity.
Examples of it occurred only in the deepest layers at Mycenae, and it is not
generally found accompanying (
b) in localities
other than Mycenae itself. The decoration is painted in opaque colour,
either on red or pale clay: in the former case the tints are violet-brown
and red, and white is at times employed, while the surface is polished; in
the latter only violet-brown is used, and there is no polishing. The
ornaments sometimes show a close analogy to the metal-work which Dr.
Schliemann found accompanying the pottery.
（
b) The introduction of lustrous colours is
“a new factor in vase-making;” and is to all intents
peculiar to Greek ceramics (including the pottery of peoples taught by
Greece). Four different styles may be distinguished:--1. A small class,
ground completely covered by black varnish, on which designs are painted in
matt white or red. 2. The ground is supplied by a whitish or yellow-brown
slip, the ornament painted in black-brown (lustrous). 3. A lustrous.
warm-yellow surface is ornamented with paintings in all shades, from yellow
to dark brown. 4. Similar but duller both in ground and lustre. Inner face
of open vases treated with varnish-colour. Of these styles the third is the
important one, and is the one almost solely represented outside the Argolid.
While the classification holds good, the conclusions based upon it by its
authors are more open to objection. They found in the Mycenae ware the
outcome of a civilisation pre-Dorian but not un-Greek, localised in and
about Mycenae, which carried by the channels of trade its manufactures to
all parts of the ancient world, so that “the Mycenaean pottery was as
exclusively made in the Argolid as the later Attic ware at Athens, or
the Corinthian at Corinth.” These positions have been, with good
reason, often challenged; but an alternative theory has not yet received the
stamp of general assent. In any case the problem of Mycenae is bound up with
the greater problem of the Mycenaean culture in general as represented
especially in its metal-work; and that culture has been variously traced to
Phoenicia, Egypt, Crete, and Caria.
Two styles of ornament mark themselves out in “Mycenaean”
pottery, and are indebted respectively to
marine
forms, and the conventions of metal-work, the former being especially
in favour at Ialysos, the latter at Mycenae. Two shapes also are highly
characteristic, the vase with a bow-form handle
(
Bügelkanne) and the cuttle-fish goblet: the first a
general receptacle for water, wine, oil, and ointments; the latter a
drinking cup, owing both form and ornament to the popularity, probably as
great then as now, of a fish which is considered at once a peculiar delicacy
and an excellent thirst-producer.
[For Mycenae ware,
v. Furtwängler and
Löschcke,
Mykenische Thongefässe and
Mykenische Vasen. A summary of the Mycenae controversy to
date is given in the last chapter of Schuchhardt's
Schliemann's
Ausgrabungen.]
A small but most interesting class of early vases is that which imitates
Phoenician glass. It is mainly represented by specimens obtained by Mr.
George Dennis in 1882 from the tumuli of Bin-tepe near Sardis. The clay is
painted with waved lines of the warmest orange and red, and is highly
polished. Other imitations of glass ware have been found on different sites,
and in Cyprus the style remains down to a comparatively late date.
In the Alambra and especially in the Mycenae pottery a new ornamental style
is beginning to assert its claim to notice, the
Geometric.
Owing
[p. 2.922]its origin very largely to the influence of
technique in metal, from which it borrows many of its most characteristic
members, like the concentric circle, spiral, maeander and cable, and
rosette, it soon won independence and makes its first appearance,--in the
Dipylon vases,--already a matured and
established convention. That it attaches itself closely in point of
development to the preceding Mycenae ware may seem established by the fact
of its being found side by side with the third and fourth varieties of that
style: but in reality there is, from a technical point of view, a very
perceptible break between the two; the birth of the Geometric style is
unknown, and it meets us first as a finished product which a long process of
development must have preceded. This fact, coupled with a minute examination
of formal style and the elements of ornamentation employed, has naturally
suggested an origin in a manner foreign. Furtwängler and
Löscheke would regard the Geometric principle in contrast to the
Mycenae technique as Dorian compared with pre-Dorian: others, as Kroker
(
Jahrbuch, 1886, pp. 95 f.), have endeavoured to prove a
close connexion with Egypt, others with Phoenicia or Ionia. (Older theory of
the Geometric vases in Conze,
Annali, 1877, p.
396 n.) The finest and most numerous specimens however come from Athens,
especially from the neighbourhood of the Dipylon (whence the name given to
this ware); and. a comparatively late oenochoe is marked as Attic by its
inscription (
Mitth. d. Ath. Inst. vi. Taf. 3). That Athens
was the main seat of manufacture is practically certain, but this in no way
excludes the question where the style first originated, a question which for
the present remains open. Nor is the chronology of the Geometric style
satisfactorily determined. It may have run its course for five or six
centuries, and lasts in Greece proper down to the 6th cent. B.C. Limits of
space make it impossible here to give a detailed account of the system of
ornament: it will be enough to reproduce an example (fig. 3) which contains
almost all the characteristic traits of its class, and to refer for
specimens of the dateless conventionalised style to the collection from
Cyprus in the British Museum (1 V. R.).
Attention should be specially drawn to the prevalence of forms of aquatic
life, the
limitation of range in the depicting
of quadrupeds, and the introduction of scenes from daily life, among which
funeral processions and sea-fights deserve most notice. Both matt and lustre
colours are used, including red of all shades, brown, and black, while the
ground is
generally of a prepared tone, varying from
the palest neutral stone to a deep red. Owing much to Orientalism in its
first development, the Geometric style attained so high and lasting a
popularity and became so purely conventional that it threatened to crush all
life out of ceramic art, when salvation came by a new impulse from the East.
Thenceforth two movements, conservative and progressive, manifested
themselves. The great merit of the style lies in the training it gave the
artist in sureness of hand and eye, and in the perfecting of shapes.
The pottery of
Cyprus may here be briefly dismissed. Alambra
ware, already treated, is in all probability genuinely archaic: absolute
certainty is out of the question. Geometric style was early established, and
soon drove all competitors from the field: it shows a special preference for
concentric circles and aquatic life. The process of development is in a
manner retrograde: the later the ware, the simpler and more purely geometric
is its ornamentation. Upon an unvarying background of geometric forms
foreign influences from time to time superimposed themselves, and vanished,
in agreement with political conditions, and thus there came into existence
an Egyptian-geometric, an Assyrian-geometric, a Persian-geometric, and,
lastly, a Greek-geometric. Finally the style seems to die out about the end
of the 4th century, although isolated specimens may go down even to Roman
times. No group of vases is to be identified with the Phoenicians. There is
no reason to believe that that people ever manufactured pottery to an
appreciable extent; though they introduced the potter's wheel and other
secrets of the craft from Egypt and Babylon. Pottery is alien to the spirit
of their trade, which was concerned with articles of little bulk and high
value. Still Phoenicia is responsible (
a) for
the introduction of certain Oriental forms (like the sacred tree); (
b) for a more lasting Semitic flavour than the
temporary dominion of successive conquerors would have imparted. Apart from
the accidents of political necessity, identically the same style of ware
remained in use for centuries: nor is there any particular reason for
assigning a given vase to the end or the beginning of the period. [The
report of the last excavations in Cyprus,
Journ. Hell. Stud.
1890, may be consulted.]
The universal extension of Geometric style gave rise to many local varieties,
and from this epoch begin fabrics classed, with greater or less justice, as
imitative. Especially was this the case in Italy, the great market for
vases, where native ceramic art now entered upon and maintained to the last
a rivalry with Greek (continental) wares. It was once, through ignorance,
the fashion to attribute all figured vases to Etruria; it is now, through
over-subtlety, equally the fashion to attribute everything to Greece proper.
By anticipation it may be said here that beside the distinct local Etruscan
wares, so well represented at Florence, there were certainly other, and S.
Italian Greek, imitations of later Corinthian and Attic pottery; but that
these were not, virtually, contemporary with their prototypes, it is
difficult to show. To have insisted on the possibly much wider scope of such
imitative art, to have protested against the over-hasty generalisations now
in vogue, is the great merit of Prof. Brunn; but his attempt to degrade so
many figured vases to the level of late Italian imitations has mainly
failed, resting as it does primarily on a mistaken view of the epigraphic
evidence from vases.
In the Geometric style--to return from this brief digression--new tendencies
soon appear. A small class of vases, named after the place of discovery
Phaleron, embraces a series of jugs (
olpae) of a peculiar shape, having a narrow body, an extremely
high and broad neck, and a trefoil lip. Though not differing in technique
from the Dipylon class, these vases introduce new features in the
characteristic label ornament of the neck, in a manner of filling the field
which is prophetic of later Rhodian style,
[p. 2.923]above
all in the employment of new animal types and their treatment, both in
design and grouping, on Oriental models. The reaction which manifests itself
first in the Phaleron ware soon spread widely, giving birth to an era of
transition. Another group of Attic vases shows the same tendency: the finest
of them is the Hymettos amphora, No. 56 in the Berlin Antiquarium.
Characteristic of the new method as shown in this vase is the heraldic
grouping of combatants in pairs. A like process was at work in the islands,
especially at Melos and Rhodes. A small class of amphorae (it contains three
and a fragment) was early set apart by Conze and named by him
“Melian.” Though the claim of the vases to a separate title has
been disputed, convenience at least has sufficed for its retention. Tile
Melian ware is later in development than much of the Rhodian, but it stands
first here because of its far closer connexion with the Dipylon style, as
shown in the range of geometric ornaments which still fill the field, and in
the manner of rendering the human animal forms as in the spirit of the
grouping. There are many features hitherto unknown in these Melian amphorae,
and the admixture of Oriental style and design is especially obvious; but
these details may be best considered under the heading of Rhodes.
[For Phaleron vases
v. Dumont et Chaplain,
Les
Céramiques, pp. 101 ff.; Böhlau,
Jahrbuch, 1887, pp. 44 f.: Hymettos amphora,
Furtwängler,
Beschreib. der Vasen S. . . . zu
Berlin, No. 56: Melos vases, Conze,
Melische
Thongefässe.]
Vase--painting then has reached the point at which the tide of
Orientalism, whose rising has been noted in the transition
style beginning with Phaleron, swells into full flood. Rhodes indeed can
show examples of the entire process: but it is with the triumph of the
Oriental style that the island pottery is specially associated. While under
its influence the vase-painter evolved a system of decoration effective and
of true beauty, the potter condensed the earlier
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Fig. 3. Vase from Curium in Cyprus. (Cesnola, pl. xxix.)
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multiplicity of forms to a few simple and elegant types, the most
characteristic among which is an
oenochoe,
resembling that in the next cut. Almost equally characteristic is the
pinax,
[p. 2.924]while
amphora and
cylix are taking shape; and, as the Oriental style
waxes to its zenith, the
alabastos--which may
conceivably be a
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Fig. 4. Oenochoe. (Birch.)
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Naucratis invention-and the
aryballos come to the
front and are the favourite shapes at Corinth. [ALABASTRUM; ARYBALLUS.] But whereas the types of
oenochoe, pinax, alabastos, and
aryballos are created in the Oriental school, those of the
amphora and
cylix
are only sketched.
Two alien arts exerted a special influence over the birth of the new style,
textiles--in particular, embroidery--and metal-work. Thus the scheme of
ornament on a Rhodian
pinax is comparable to
the unit of a brocaded pattern with the threads of the under-web left
projecting; and Corinthian designs reproduce the continuous texture and
involved lines of close embroidery: while on the other hand the choice of
rosettes and anthemia, the alternation of purple and red with a brown-black,
the employment of incised lines for details, display a connexion with
metal-work. Both arts impel the painter towards polychromy.
Painting at first, like the artists of the Transition, with brown-black
varnish on a plain polished ground, Rhodian potters founded a new method
when they effected a combination of silhouette and outline-drawing, and left
the light parts in ground-colour. Light and shade, discrimination of planes
of surface, become thereby possible. A fresh step in advance is made when
the red clay is covered throughout with a dull cream-white engobe which can
be used to represent flesh-colour with more fidelity to nature. Then white
and a new red tint are employed to mark details and differences of surface,
and are generally laid on in broad unbroken masses. A more minute
discrimination of details but a less spirited and less free conception marks
a yet further advance in technique, which is signalised by the use of purple
colour and the rendering of outlines and details by incised lines.
These differences in technique allow Rhodian ware to be divided into two main
classes, which have been named “Dorian” (
“Egyptian” ) and “Assyrian.” The former exhibits a
less conventional style, more freedom in the choice of animal types, and
among the ornaments with which in this, as in all Rhodian ware, the field is
sown, a preference for those of a geometric class and for the Egyptian
lotus: the latter practically admits no animals but the lion, bull, and
goat, is more distinctly Oriental in its forms, and loves to crowd the field
with rosettes. The former again employs white and red for details, but
retains outline drawing; the latter alone uses incised lines and purple. In
the one a metope arrangement is frequent, and is often forced; in the other,
where it occurs, it is only in the modified form of an Assyrian blazon, two
animals facing one another and separated by the sacred tree.
Taking Rhodian pottery as a whole, the subjects are drawn almost entirely
from the animal creation. Beast forms, the goat, lion, bull, boar, ram,
&c.--the first two in overwhelming preponderance--occupy most of the
vases: an apparently later group admits further the human figure, and
compound shapes like the Sphinx. In this later group one vase stands out
from among its fellows. This is the well-known Euphorbos
pinax, whose importance lies not only in the fact that it is
the first instance in which a definite scene--Menelaos and Hector fight over
Euphorbos--from a definite source (the Epos) is represented, but because
being inscribed with the heroes' names it furnishes other material for a
date than that drawn from internal evidence of style. Kirchhoff has thus
been enabled to place this vase at the end of the 7th century, and this
fixes with approximate certainty the lower limit of the Rhodian period (v.
Studien zur Gesch. d. griech. Alph.).
It is unnecessary here to discuss the doubts which have been thrown on the
claim of Rhodes to be the actual manufacturer of the pottery classed under
her name. Other things being equal, the principle is fairly trustworthy that
a particular style is native in the place where it is most abundantly found.
It is sufficient to refer to the treatment of these and similar questions in
e.g.
Egypt Explor. Fund Memoirs, Naukratis, pts. i. and ii.;
Jour. Hell. Stud. 1885, pp. 180 ff. [For Rhodian ware in
general,
v. A. S. Murray in
Revue
Archéol., Dec. 1882, pp. 342 ff.; Dumont et Chaplain,
Les Céramiques, s. v.; Salzmann,
Nécropole de Camiros, for illustrations.]
There is a small class of vases of a peculiar type found in Rhodes, at
Naucratis, and in Etruria, to which it has been proposed to give the name
“Polledrara,” after the large hydria of the British Museum.
The distinctive trait of this class is the clay, which is black throughout,
and contains numerous particles of mica. The designs are painted in scarlet
and purple, and occasionally blue. The origin of the ware is disputed;
Naucratis, Lesbos, Rhodes, and Etruria being all suggested as the seat of
its manufacture.
Closely resembling this group in material,, but very distinct in point of
ornament, are the
[p. 2.925]early Italian vases, the
so-called
Bucchero. Dull and rough in appearance at first, like
the brown ware which accompanies them, the Italian vases in their more
developed state are of lustrous black pottery, with ornaments and scenes
moulded in relief from the actual clay of the vase, the Bucchero properly so
named. The distinctive feature is the evident attempt to imitate as closely
as possible a bronze original: whence both colour and polish, moulding of
ornament in relief as though embossed, and treatment of lip and handles.
[Examples illustrated by Micali,
Monumenti Inediti; Dennis,
Etruria.]
The polychromatic style, whose commencement has already been seen in Rhodes,
reaches its highest development at
Naucratis. So cosmopolitan a
town (
Hdt. 2.178) must have brought together all
kinds of styles in ceramics, and the absence therefore of geometric, not to
mention Mycenae, pottery is to be noted as significant of the stage of
vase-painting contemporary with the existence of Naucratis, a town which
first became powerful under Amasis, and was ruined under Cambyses (roughly
580-520 B.C.). This furnishes a limit of exclusion for the earlier classes
of pottery, a limit which may, according to Mr. Petrie, be pushed further
back--to about 650 B.C.--as the oldest remains of the settlement are
considerably prior to Amasis. But among the various sorts of earthenware
found at Naucratis one group marks itself off as a local fabric; as is
proved by a dedication--to the “Aphrodite of Naucratis” --which
has been scratched in the clay
before firing (see
Journ. Hell. Stud. viii. p. 119). The ware shows a close
connexion with, but also a distinct advance upon, that of Rhodes. An opaque
white engobe is used, of a tint generally brighter than, but sometimes
approaching, that of Kameiros; on this engobe a design is painted in colour,
and the technique follows, but extends, that combination of outline and
silhouette which Rhodes had introduced. New colours, copied from the
Egyptian wall-paintings, are employed, especially a light sienna and an
umber red, the latter being a flesh tint for male figures. For female
figures flake white is added to the engobe. Each of the chief colours
appears in various shades; and the distinction of flesh tints so carefully
worked out in Egyptian painting reappears, but after a more haphazard
fashion, in Naucratis ware. The most advanced technique in use at Naucratis
traces outlines in light sienna and fills in the silhouette with an umber
tint.
[For Naucratis pottery, v.
Memoirs of Egypt Exploration Fund,
Naukratis, pt. 1.1884-5, and pt. 2.1888.]
* Vases with dedications are especially frequent at Naucratis. Pottery was
largely used in temple service, and was then marked with the name of the
divinity. Numerous similarly inscribed fragments have been found on the
Athenian Acropolis.
The excavations at Naucratis produced among other things fragments of the
ware known as
Cyrenaic; and on the strength of this fact the
claim of Cyrene to be the maker of the pottery, often disputed before, has
been anew called in question. No sufficient reason has, however, as yet been
adduced for disregarding the evidence furnished by the best-known Cyrene
vase, the Arcesilas cylix, with its strong local colouring. The ware, too,
is strikingly metallic in style; and it is not, as Puchstein maintains, to
the Cypro-Phoenician, but to the Carthaginian paterae that a debt is due. An
artistic connexion of this sort with Carthage is more probable in Cyrene
than in Naucratis.
The class is not numerous, but highly distinctive. Its favourite shape is the
cylix, which thus takes definite rank in the
development of vase-painting: but the
hydria,
deinos, and
amphora also occur. A
ground-surface is given by a dull smooth slip of light stone colour; and on
this the design is painted in black with purple as a subsidiary colour, all
main lines and inner details being scratched in. Subjects include mythology
and genre;--though not its first appearance, for we have noticed it already
in Dipylon ware for example, genre becomes here first of historic
interest:--and with much of helplessness in drawing there is decided feeling
and often spirit in the scenes. Zones of animals, in particular an aquatic
bird, are still retained, and beast and bird forms serve to fill the field
in a manner which seems directly borrowed from the bronze paterae already
mentioned. Lip and handle, and, in the cylices, stem and foot, are covered
with black varnish, a noteworthy change. Mechanical ornament is
exceptionally rich.
[The Cyrene vases are put together by Puchstein,
Arch. Zeit.
1881, pp. 215 ff.: they are exceptionally well represented in the British
Museum, 1 V. R. Latest discussion,
Ath. Mitth. 1886, pp. 90
ff.]
With
Corinthian ware Orientalism reaches its zenith. Earlier
however than Corinthian ware properly so called is a group of vases--almost
without exception diminutive
lekythoi of a peculiar
shape, and two-handled cups--which from their wide distribution must have
had as general, as they had a lasting, vogue. As these little vases, by far
the finest specimen of which has lately been presented to the British
Museum, show a very close connexion with the Corinthian, but also points of
difference, and seem moreover to be earlier, they have been named
Protocorinthian. Like the Cyrenaic, they too owe much in
technique and style to Phoenician metal-work. The clay is a fine, clear
yellow; the decoration consists mainly of zones of animals, but admits also
human figures; an elaborate ornament, composed of the anthemion and lotus,
resembling that which subsequently becomes characteristic at Corinth, makes
its appearance; and the field, though in general less encumbered, is sown
with rosettes. The colours vary from a red-brown to black.
The vast class of vases which groups itself under the name Corinthian was
long treated as the oldest Greek ware. The surface in this ware is often so
crowded with ornament, that at a few feet of distance the ground-colour
cannot be distinguished, and the general effect to the eye, due at once to
colour and design, is that of a rich Oriental brocade. This is especially
true of earlier specimens, whose subjects, fantastic fish-tailed monsters
for example, seem to have been directly chosen for their fitness to cover
most space. A like feeling has brought the
alabastos
[p. 2.926]into peculiar favour. The ground is a clear
yellow; the painting in black (often brown, thanks to over-firing), with
details in purple and red; while an extreme fondness for incised lines marks
the group as a whole. Subjects at first are mainly animals--where possible
in friezes--and monsters, the panther and certain winged shapes being
characteristic. Often too a vase, especially if an
aryballos, is decorated solely by an elaborate anthemion ornament.
[Most of the principal shapes are illustrated in Birch, p. 1961, gives cuts
mostly of protocorinthian ware.] In the later group human figures become
 |
|
Fig. 5. Cover of the Dodwell vase, with boar-hunt. (Birch.)
|
increasingly frequent, and occasionally scenes from ordinary life,
or from mythology, appear. An example (fig. 5) is here reproduced from
Birch,--the lid of the famous Dodwell vase. In technique there is no change
of moment.
Before the growing sense that human action is the vase-painter's true
subject, Orientalism begins to give way: yet the old tradition lingers in
the animal shapes which, having no direct relation to the main subject,
still encumber the field. The reform is due to the rise of a new school,
whose representative is the potter Timonidas, known also by the plaques of
the Akrokorinthos [
FICTILE The
Achilles vase, Berlin
Cat. 846]. A second master was Chares
(
Arch. Zeit. 1864, Taf. 184). This section of Corinthian
ware should be especially compared with the previously mentioned Cyrenaic
group. The face is generally rendered in silhouette, sometimes in outline,
and gradually a practice grows up of distinguishing the faces of female
figures by white colour applied directly to the ground. From its first
adoption white grew rapidly in favour at Corinth. The duration of this class
is fixed by the inscriptions for the 7th-6th centuries B.C.
Yet a later class of Corinthian ware shows the evidence of a strong foreign
influence, probably that of Athens. The smaller types previously in vogue
disappear, and their place is taken by large vases like the
amphora, heavy in form and with ring handles, the
hydria, and so-called
vaso a colonnette [
CRATER]. The clay ground becomes redder, lustre-varnish often
replaces the hitherto usual matt colour, white is more largely employed, the
field nearly freed of foreign elements, and animals relegated to a separate
zone below the main scene. Horsemen and quadrigae are favourite subjects.
The fine Berlin vase of “the setting out of Amphiaraos” will
serve as an example (Furtwängler,
Beschreib. 1655).
This last development of Corinthian pottery recalls the history of classical
ceramic art to Athenian soil, and henceforth we are concerned almost solely
with
Athens. But before dealing with Athenian ware proper, some
sidegroups merit notice; and one, the
Chalcidian, is of
exceptional importance. Unfortunately the group, first recognised as
Chalcidian through the alphabet of its inscriptions, is as yet vaguely
defined. [
V. Pottier ap. Dumont et Chaplain,
Les
Céramiques, pp. 276 ff.; or Klein,
Euphronios, pp. 65 if.; and contrast Brunn,
Probleme, in
Abhandl. d. kgl. bay. Akad., Bd.
xii. pt. ii., pp. 113 ff.] It is even maintained that the greater part are
late S. Italian imitations (Brunn,
l.c.; and Id.
Abhandl. Bd. xviii. pt. i.). Certainly the free and
spirited rendering, the knowledge here shown of the laws of painting, on
vases of, as is assumed, so early a fabric, are ground for surprise. The
class consists almost entirely of
amphorae of a
distinctive type (see fig. 6); and is the first to make that type of vase
its specialty. As concerns style, the free-grouping without regard to a
fixed centre, the
élan and
picturesqueness of conception, and, as to details, the plain long girt
chiton of the women, fitting so closely as to reveal each contour of the
body, and the peculiar ornament on the neck of the vase, are all alike
characteristic.
 |
|
Fig. 6 Chalcidian amphora. (Gerhard.)
|
Purple is richly used, incised lines employed with great skill, white less
frequently.
[p. 2.927]
Of other
Ionian fabrics so little has as yet been determined
that it will suffice here to remark their preference for a frieze-like
system of decoration, a more pictorial treatment, and a tendency to
polychromy. One large class of
amphorae has
long been known as
Tyrrhenian [
AMPHORA The body of the vase is generally more
slender than the cut there given from Dennis]. It is distinguished by its
shape, its zones of animals, the peculiar ornament--an alternation of
maeanders with an 8-rayed star--which separates the animal frieze from the
main scene on the shoulder, and by its prodigal use of colours other than
black. The origin of these vases is doubtful: all examples hitherto have
been found in Etruria, but they are certainly not of local make:
Dümmler thinks them “Pontic” (
Röm.
Mitth. 1887, pp. 171 ff., Taf. 8, 9).
One or two vases survive which represent
Boeotian style of
this period; but they are too few in number to allow of general criticism.
Being so few, however, it is curious that among them occur the names of two
artists, Gamedes and Theozotos. The
Caeretan
hydriae are more numerous, better known, and
equally distinctive. They exhibit an important change in technique. White
and subsidiary colours are no longer painted directly on to the ground-clay,
but are laid over the black varnish. Red and white are freely used, the
latter sometimes as a flesh-tint for
men:
incised lines are frequent and are firmly drawn. As the side handles of a
hydria necessarily interrupt a frieze, the
decoration is here divided into groups, and that on the reverse is made of
less account. The rendering is characterised by an almost reckless freedom,
and shows traces of what is very rare in Greek work, humour. As a whole they
are comparatively late. Their origin is disputed: Brunn, against general
opinion, holds to Helbig's original view (since abandoned by its author)
that they are of Etruscan fabric. [Helbig,
Annali, 1863, pp. 210 ff.; Brunn,
l.c.;
Dumont et Chaplain (Pottier), pp. 264 ff.]
From the 7th century B.C. to the end of the 4th
Athenian pottery
reigns almost without a rival. It has two epochs, the
black-figure and the
red-figure, united to
each other by a period of transition and experiment. With the exception of
the two or three classes of ware just previously described, and some few
imitative fabrics, the great mass of
black-figure pottery hails
from Athens. Two vase-shapes are especially in vogue in this ware,
amphorae and
hydriae,
the former greatly preponderating: both are rapidly perfected in form. [The
evolution of the amphora may be followed on p. 1973 of Baumeister's
Denkmäler. The hydria improves as its centre of
gravity mounts and the shoulder-scene shallows and widens.] A new discovery
contributed to the rapid advance of Athenian ceramics;--a deep-black varnish
of the highest brilliancy, with a surface like polished metal, insensible to
ordinary reagents, but not interfering with that porousness of the clay
which under a Greek sun is so necessary for the coolness of water or wine.
Its manufacture is still a secret: nor is it known where the invention first
saw the light. So popular did it immediately become that the vase-painter
covered the whole surface with it, leaving as field for the actual picture
only a square panel of red ground-colour--that of the natural clay
heightened by adding a little rubrica.
1 Not all potters, however, followed this plan, and subsequently there
was something of a reaction. Thus two groups come to be
distinguished,--vases which have a panel-field, and those which, though
generally marking off reverse from obverse, admit all space between the two
handles. as ground for the painter. No real difference of technique follows
this division. In both the artist first draws his outlines with a full brush
of black, fills in the silhouette, and then adds details with the point or
with strokes of white and purple-red: but perhaps the panel-painter uses
less subsidiary colours and trusts more to careful graving. Always, however,
it is rather a question of idiosyncrasy; and the polychromy of some of the
later vases is a reaction due to a particular school imbued with a fondness
for metallic effects. It is with the masters of black-figure style that the
point first comes adequately to express the lines of musculature and bodily
form. The rendering of drapery is a mark of relative date. At first the
chiton is a straight daub of colour, as in Corinthian ware, and is often
purple in hue with perhaps a black girdle: then patterns are scratched in,
or elaborately painted on with white: folds begin to be marked, are outlined
with the point, and dress gives some hint of the underlying contour of the
body. An alternate use of purple and black for the folds is occasionally
carried so far as to express light and shade. A like use of purple is to be
seen in the treatment of muscles in animals, especially the horse. White is
throughout a flesh-tint for female figures, but is also employed, on later
vases, for the long chiton of a charioteer and the grey hair of old men.
Drawing is almost entirely in profile: full-face is scarcely rendered with
more adroitness than was shown already in the François vase. The
eyes of men remain large and round, of women oval and small. In more recent
vases a trick grows up of crowding the field with long, purely conventional
ivy sprays: equally conventional in rendering are the landscape features
sometimes introduced, and no attempt is made at pictorial perspective.
Excellence of drawing is seldom a sufficient criterion of date.
The subjects of vases become now of less importance for their general
history. In black-figure ware they are mainly mythological, sometimes genre.
In mythology the Dionysiac cycle and the feats of Herakles are by far most
frequent; after them, the legends of Athena and Hermes. Frequently as scenes
from the Epic appear, scarcely any can be traced to the Iliad or Odyssey.
Ornament, as distinct from painted scenes, becomes stereotyped. Almost always
the neck of an amphora shows a design of lotus and anthemion hooped together
by a cable pattern: dentals unite neck to shoulder: below the field are two
zones, the upper a maeander, the lower continuous lotus buds: from the foot
shoot up the rays--which since Rhodian pottery have held their own. For a
hydria, ivy tendrils or chequers border the sides, a running anthemion the
bottom, of the field; below which sometimes
[p. 2.928]an
archaistic feeling has restored the Corinthian frieze of animals, but has
restored it purely as an ornamental finish.
The different schools of black-figure ware have yet to be recognised: those
that are known are, for the most part, concerned with either the
commencement or the end of this style and its transition into red-figure.
Early enough to be somewhat isolated is the first Athenian master-piece, the
François vase of Florence, in itself an
Epos.
Early also, as is shown by shape, by style of painting, and by arrangement
of subject, are a group of amphorae which, from their close connexion with
Corinthian ware, are known as Corintho-Attic. Characteristic are their zones
of animals; which have often caused them to be confounded in one class with
the “Tyrrhenian” (see above). A different
fundamentum divisionis has served to mark off the
Panathenaic amphorae [
AMPHORA]; which last through the black-figure, and
even to the end of the red-figure, period. The archaism of the figure of
Athena on the obverse becomes in time a pure convention, the reverse
reflecting contemporary style. Many specimens seem never to have been given
at the games, and are simply show-plate. Less numerous and of peculiarly
elongated form, are the
Prothesis-amphorae--vases used in the
burial service, and with subjects drawn mainly from its liturgy. The finest
examples belong to the later red-figure ware.
[François vase,
Mon. dell' Inst. 4.545-7;
Corintho-Attic, Loschcke,
Arch. Zeit. 1876; Panathenaic,
Urlichs,
Beiträge, pp. 33 ff.]
Much care was spent by masters of the black-figure style on the evolution of
the
cylix. That this type was in vogue at Cyrene has
been already noted, as also that it had acquired a developed shape and style
of decoration. The processes at Athens and Cyrene are parallel, and not
widely sundered in date, but have little or no influence on one another. The
oldest cylices at Athens have that shape with off-set lip, which derives
from Rhodes through Corinth. The alteration in form which follows [see under
CALIX] is closely connected
with changes in the mode of ornamentation. The early cylix having a deep
bowl is decorated in frieze fashion; and of the several zones into which the
surface is divided by the potter, only one is chosen by the painter. Then
comes a new idea: on the lip are drawn tiny groups or animal shapes, each
side having a couple of figures, or, more often, one only. The zone below is
occupied by inscriptions, the artist's signature or a
χαῖρε καὶ πρέ εὖ. This group of vases is known as
“Klein-meister.” Their strongly metallic appearance proves
their indebtedness to foreign influence, communicated through Rhodes.
Another experiment is probably the work of the artist Exekias (or, according
to some, of Nicosthenes). He uses a shallower vase without off-set lip, and
revives the “sacred-eye” ornament previously in favour at
Rhodes and Naucratis: making this suffice for the centre, he places the
actual scene under and about the two handles. “Eye” vases had a
considerable success; but gradually the handles come to be treated as the
natural limits of the field, and, the bowl becoming continually broader and
shallower, while off-set lips disappear, decoration spreads over the whole
outer surface. The inside remains a difficulty. Earlier artists neglected it
altogether, or painted only a small medallion in the centre. But fashion
wavered to and fro; sometimes the whole inner surface is ornamented with a
complete scene and the outside is less regarded; sometimes a medallion is
preferred. Especially to be noted are the cylices which have a Gorgoneion
for their medallion; for they may first have suggested a new style, which,
while the vase is covered with a black ground varnish, leaves the actual
figures in the original clay-tint,--as it were, in intaglio.
The
cylix class is exceptionally fruitful in artists'
signatures. Ergotimos and Klitias, who made and painted the great
François crater, were followed by Nearchos, whose sons Tleson and
Ergoteles, with Ergotimos' son Eucheiros, have signed many of the earlier
cylices. Other names are Xenocles, Hermogenes, Archicles, &c. In
amphorae Exekias takes first place for
spirited and careful drawing: Amasis carries nicety of detail almost to
extravagance: Hischylos represents transition style.
[For signed vases, early and late, for the characteristics of the great
schools, and the questions which group themselves round them, the reader is
referred once for all to Klein‘s two important works,
Die
griechischen Vasen mit Meistersignaturen and
Euphronios.]
By far the most prolific maker is Nicosthenes, a clever
entrepreneur who tried experiment after experiment to hit popular
taste. Already an introducer of one new fashion in cylices, he is perhaps
best known by a group of small amphorae of very peculiar form (fig. 7). The
 |
|
Fig. 7. Amphora of Nicosthenes. (Genick, Taf. iv.)
|
strange flat handles of his amphorae are by a new process made of
one piece with the vase. Nicosthenes is a master of the metallic style; but
his work distinguishes itself by a plumpness and
naïceté all his own. A doubt has indeed
[p. 2.929]been more than once expressed whether Nicosthenes
was an Athenian; and the finding a signed fragment of one of his vases at
Naucratis may suggest, whatever his provenance, the source whence many of
his novel departures were inspired (
Mem. Eg. Expl. Fund,
Naucratis, pt. i. p. 53). With him too is associated the prevalence, though
not the introduction, of yet another technique, in which black figures are
painted on a white engobe ground; a technique less new in Greek pottery than
novel at Athens. This group is confined to the smaller vases,
oenochoae, alabastoi, above all
lekythoi. The style does not differ from that usual in
black-figure ware; but here, as in the metallic class, a love for nicety,
exact finish, and vivid lustre makes itself prominent. It is the triumph of
the ornamental school. A peculiarity should be noted in the lekythoi. While
the main field is covered by a white engobe, neck and shoulder are left in
the natural clay: no difference however is made in decoration, except that
the shoulder is left to mechanical ornament. In all vases of the class lip
and foot are black. [For Nicosthenes, Klein,
op.
cit.; and Löschcke,
Arch. Zeit. 1881, pp. 33
ff.]
Nicosthenes is a typical figure. The epoch in Athenian pottery we have now
reached--roughly speaking, 500 B.C.--is an epoch of transition and
experiment. The vase-painter's art struggles in the throes of a revolution.
Process after process is tried and rejected, until at last one style emerges
from the chaos, and triumphs as rapidly as completely over all rivals. Many
relics of the struggle remain; vases which show the two styles conflicting
on obverse and reverse, inner or outer, ornament and scene. The final
perfecting of early red--figure technique is marked by the name of
Epiktetos: among his chief predecessors of the transition may be named
Hischylos and Pamphaios. Precise evidence for the origin and date of
red-figure ware is wanting: it seems however to have begun about 500 B.C.
(some writers think even under the tyranny of the Peisistratidae), and to
have owed its development to the influence of high art. A close connexion
may perhaps be supposed with the improvements in painting introduced at this
time by Cimon of Cleonae (Pliny,
Plin. Nat.
35.56). While hitherto Greek ceramic art must, on its formal side, be
placed under the heading “ornament,” from this point it becomes
a branch of painting. The great group of artists who inaugurate the new
style are proud of their mission, and spare no pains to perfect what they
began.
Among vase-forms it is the
cylix which is peculiarly
the favourite of earlier red-figure painters: its use in fact is a
party-badge. Though the new technique had triumphed, it was opposed by a
strong conservatism, which, while adopting the new style of painting, clung
to old shapes like the amphora and to old traditions in the matter of field
and ornament. To this tendency we owe some very beautiful examples of
red-figure amphorae, of greater elegance of form, and ornamented with only
one figure--sometimes a pair of figures--a side. Among the more advanced
types of this class is the “Nolan” amphora. [See
AMPHORA] After the
cylix, and to some degree succeeding it, come the
stamnos and
psycter [see
PSYCTER; STAMNUS], which are peculiar to the
earlier period: with them, but outlasting them, and continuing in favour to
very late times, is the
CRATER
At first the handles are placed low down and the form resembles a cup; then,
as its sides become straighter, a chalice; lastly, the handles are brought
on to the shoulder, and the vase is shaped like an inverted bell. This
campaniform crater was adopted also by later S. Italian manufacturers. After
400 B.C. obverse and reverse are more sharply distinguished; the latter
being ornamented in a purely conventional manner with three drapery figures
(
Mantelfiguren).
Technique, in red-figure ware, is simple. On a red ground clay, like that of
the black-figure ware, the scene is outlined in freehand with broad strokes
of a full brush of black varnish over a tracing lightly made with a fine
point; the rest of the surface is covered with an even layer of the same
colour, and details of organic form and folds of drapery are painted in with
a fine pencil, also in black. Details are sometimes given with red colour;
in later examples this tint is confined to the musculature, which is better
rendered by a shade scarcely standing out from the red ground on which it is
painted. Gilding appears towards the close of the so-called
“strong” style, and about the same time an attempt is made at
polychromy. (Cf. the beautiful Pandora cylix in the British Museum.) But
polychromy is soon confined, in the period of finest style, to smaller
vases,
lekythoi, pyxides, and
alabastoi, in sympathy with a more developed taste. [For plastic
additions, see under
FICTILE]
Throughout a steady advance in draughtsmanship, contrasting with the
conventionalism of black-figure ware, is to be observed. In the school of
Epictetos a simple broad treatment, with few or no details of organism, is
in vogue; a treatment suited to the subjects then in favour, scenes from
palaestra, banquets, and the life of
hetaerae. There
follows a period in which, while simplicity and strength of drawing and
grouping remain, details--as of drapery--are fully rendered, but with
inadequate success. Among these earlier artists, whose style is known as
“strong” or “severe,” Euthymides is of
conservative tendency; Duris careful and studied, but somewhat wanting in
originality; Euphronios and Brygos represent its most perfect form. A
wonderful variety of motif, pose, and grouping is attained,--a variety
reflected from the subjects where legends of Attic heroes like Theseus,
scenes from Epic and even from Lyric have replaced the older crowd of
athletes, revellers, and courtesans. But grace and natural truth are still
largely wanting: the face is still drawn almost solely in profile, or where
full is scarcely successful: foreshortening is rarely attempted: eyes are
drawn in full when the face is in side view. The year 430 B.C. may be taken
as nearly representing the time of transition from earlier
“strong” to later “fine” style. Vase-painting
undoubtedly owed most of its progress to a close relation with high art: but
this relation, as concerns details, is as yet very incompletely explained.
The chief debt must have been to painting, though earlier critics insisted
rather on a connexion with sculpture. Above all must be ranked the influence
of Polygnotus: yet it remains difficult.
[p. 2.930]to lay a
finger on direct traces of it. The earliest instance is a two-handled cup,
representing the Slaying of the Suitors (
Mon. dell' Inst.
10.53): and the relation of this vase to Polygnotus' frescoes at Delphi can
now be established through comparison with the Gjölbaschi reliefs.
Another example is on a cup from Chiusi, showing the washing of Odysseus'
feet and Telemachus in the presence of Penelope (Schreiber,
Bilderatlas, Taf. 63, 3). But neither vase can be earlier
than 400 B.C., as is evident, restrained as the
style is, from the figures of Penelope and the suitor wounded in the back.
The influence of Polygnotus and his school seems at first to have been
restricted to effecting improvements in motif and drawing: it is only with
the great age of painting in the 4th century that vases begin really to
reflect the higher art. To this period then, and not to the time of
Polygnotus, should be assigned such changes as the rendering of figures in
back view, the distinction of background and; foreground, transparency of
drapery, different tones of colour to express light and shade, and the
upgrowth of polychromy. [A comparatively early example of direct influence
of high art upon the vase-painter is the beautiful Kamiros amphora (
pelike) of the British Museum: note especially the
fleeing nymph in middle distance, and the use of blue, gold, and white.--For
other views on the connexion between ceramic art and the great schools of
painting,
v. Winter,
Die jüngere
att. Vasen, and papers in
Jahrbuch, 1887, by
Winter, Dümmler, and Studniczka.]
From 430 B.C. onwards the vase-artist rapidly attains perfect command over
material and instruments. He no longer shrinks, with the timidity of
ignorance, from the more difficult motifs: with full-face, three-quarter
face, and profile he is equally familiar. Boisterous strength yields to the
grace, charm, and refinement of the family circle. We are introduced to the
inner life of Athens, its pleasures, pastimes, and foibles, as well as to
its deeper sentiments. It is the reign of Aphrodite and Eros. For Epic the
painter gives us the drama. Fashion and luxury are mirrored in the
gauze-like drapery with its wealth of embroidery, in the jewels of the
women, the modishness of the men. The human figure is no longer swathed in
the full folds of Ionic dress; transparent silk replaces the heavier linen
robes. Action is dramatic and pictorial; motifs are studied from sculpture
and painting. The deities who are presented are those of music, love, song,
and revel, Fauns of the woods, Naiads of the sea, or Bacchantes from
Dionysus' train.;
Standing somewhat away from the red-figure vases, but contemporary with all
but the earliest, is the polychrome ware with white ground. The great
majority of this class are
lekythoi,2 but
pyxides and
alabastoi of similar technique also occur, though not among the
earliest examples. As the finest and most important specimens are lekythoi,
it will suffice to confine this account to them, merely adding that the
pyxides also make free use of gilding, which does not appear on lekythoi,
and that their subjects are generally those of the gynaeconitis. Two sorts
of clay are used, a pale-red and a grey-black, the former being thinner and
more fine. Over the clay a white engobe is laid, covering the body and often
the shoulder; neck, lip, and foot are in black varnish. The white is laid on
first, and possibly while the vase revolves on the wheel. On this white
surface a sketch in simplest outline is made with a fine brush of greyish or
bluish colour; sometimes, as in most red-figure vases, it is faintly traced
with a point. This sketch is then lined in, in monochrome, with black,
yellow, or red: and the same tint is employed for folds of drapery as for
the outline. Nude figures are rare: a false impression of nudity is conveyed
by the loss of strokes which once indicated dress. It is a matter of taste
with the individual artist whether the broad surfaces of drapery are
coloured in: later examples show careful shading of the dress, and
flesh-tints are in a few cases employed, varying according to the person
represented. Ornament is only used on the shoulder, but a maeander pattern
regularly forms a frame to the top of the field, very rarely appearing
below: in one case impressed patterns, ovoles, are found (on an
oenochoe). The shoulder may be either red
(ground-colour), black, or white: the latter colour greatly preponderates,
and. alone occurs in the most flourishing period. Colours are all opaque,
with exception of sienna (when used for outlines), and black: the range is a
large one, and includes red of all shades, from carmine to brown, blue,
violet, green, yellow, both chrome and ochre, brown and black. Klein
(
Euphronios, p. 97) thinks that they were applied in
encaustic. [
PICTURA]
Three classes of lekythoi may be distinguished:--(
a Figures generally in red or sienna: subjects entirely funereal:
polychromy sober and restrained: style fine. (
b) Figures in black or brown: subjects generally funereal, but
sometimes drawn from family life, the pantheon, or even mythology:
polychromy brilliant and often directly pictorial: style fine. (
c) Figures in yellow: shoulder without engobe:
painting almost always monochrome: style decadent, often careless. (For
lekythoi, v. E. Pottier,
Étude sur
les Lecythes blancs attiques.）
Contemporary with the whole of the red-figure and probably with a great part
of the black-figure period, are vases simply covered with a lustrous black
varnish. In the 4th century these vases become of more importance, are
ornamented with gilding, and here and there a figure in polychrome. The
majority are moulded, and therefore fall under plastic [
FICTILE]: many shapes are of
great beauty. Equally to plastic belong vases in the shape of human heads,
and, though less decisively, the rhyta. [
RHYTON] Plastic, too, is a group which appears in
the latter half of the 4th century, and contains vases formed of human busts
modelled in terracotta, surmounted by the neck of a lekythos. Occasionally
the vase is more complete, and a plastic figure or group is merely laid upon
it. Painting is polychrome. This class is the predecessor of the modelled
Capuan ware. [TERRACOTTA.]
The question of mechanical ornament in red-figure ware may be very briefly
dismissed. Its principal use is to supply the ground-line of a scene or to
give a finish to certain parts, especially
[p. 2.931]the
joints of a vase, as the lip, union of shoulder and neck, or handles.
Conservatism accounts, for the not infrequent retention of an ornamental
frame to the fields of hydria and amphora: under the handles of early
cylices, and especially under those of the stamnos, appear elaborate
anthemia. The forms almost solely in use are the maeander, running
anthemion, lotos and anthemion, laurel-wreath; the latter of which is
invariable on-campaniform craters.
The manufacture of red-figure vases ceased in Greece proper about the time of
Alexander, and is now transferred to S. Italy. There is no sudden change: in
this, as in all periods of Greek ceramic art, the various distinctive styles
overlap, and those which, like Geometric or Corinthian, had an especial
vogue, even outlasted their immediate successors. There had always existed
in Italy native schools of ceramic, but so powerful had been the influence
of pure Greek style, so completely had the fabrics of Corinth and Athens
secured and kept the market, that with a partial exception in favour of
Etruria, none of the Italian potteries ventured more than an imitation of
the products of continental Greece. With the opening of the Hellenistic age,
however, art becomes provincial; and as sculpture and painting passed to
Pergamon and Rhodes and Alexandria, so Magna Graecia inherited the potter's
craft. No new world-wide trade, like that of Athens, no important novelty in
technique, marked the transference. Although Apulia produced amphorae: and
crateres of great outward splendour, the decadence of style, which had
already begun at Athens, is painfully apparent. Men sought to add fresh life
to a waning industry by inventing giant vases and richer shapes, by
bringing. into play all the resources of polychromy, and even summoning
plastic to their aid; but profuse ornament and gaudy colouring scarcely
cloak bad drawing and bad taste; Yet the artists had a pride in their work,
and signatures, rare since the end of the “strong” style, again
occur, though, it is true, in no great number.r Two traits are
characteristic:--(
a) The strict relation
maintained on most examples between the use of the vase for, service at the
tomb and its decoration (either a scene of offerings at the tomb, or an
appropriate myth): and--where the subject is not funereal--(b) the frequent
borrowing from the stage (farces especially), and the rendering of other
than dramatic scenes with dramatic accessories (cf. Heydemann,
Jahrbuch, 1886, pp. 260 ff.).
Three separate S. Italian fabrics may be distinguished,
Lucanian,
Campanian, Apulian. The technique in all is that of red-figure
ware. Each class exhibits a peculiarity in depicting the human figure, a
peculiarity suggestive of difference of social type: each, too, introduces
details of national costume.
Lucanian vases may be relatively somewhat older; at least their manufacture
seems to have sooner come to an end. Though somewhat helpless in
draughtmanship, their style is comparatively restrained; polychromy is
little used, and the heavy, clumsy drapery seldom bears a trace of ornament.
A favourite shape is the campaniform crater; another, a kind of amphora only
found in Lucania, is illustrated by Genick (
Griech. Keramik,
pll. viii. ix. x.). Assteas is a Lucanian master. Earlier Campanian vases
imitate both in shape and subjects the so-called “Nolan”
amphorae (see above). Later examples show great fondness for polychromy,
tints especially prominent being white and yellow--the latter, in most
cases, a cheap substitute for gilding. Tendrils of vine, ivy, and other
plants are often introduced, as also on Apulian ware, with a happy effect:
and occasionally motifs are taken direct from nature (as, e. g. a bird
singing on a spray). The most important class, and that of highest artistic
merit, is the Apulian, a product probably of Tarentine activity.
Characteristic are the giant amphorae, one blaze of ornament from head to
foot: characteristic too the heavy Doric chin of the men, the slender neck
and stout barrel of the horses, the zones of fishes and marine;forms
employed as ornament. [For Apulian vases,;
v. O.
Jahn,
Einleitung, pp. 218 ff.; Gerhard,
Apul.
Vasenb. (B).]
As regards colours in S. Italian polychrome ware, the; red ground-clay is
often changed to brown, and white used as a flesh-tint for women, but also,
with a dash of yellow, for men. Yellow is perhaps the favourite decorative
colour. An example will suffice to show the distribution of tints. On a
crater representing the Calydonian hunt all the actors are in red
ground-colour, but the boar is black stippled with brown, his eye black on
white, his ears, tail, hoofs, and snout brown. His antagonist assails him
with a yellow Roman sword, carries a yellow shield with white rim and red
inner, and wears a yellow helmet. A dog, white, lined with yellow, leaps
against the monster. In the field are tree-boles, white lined with yellow,
and from them spring leafy sprays, also yellow. Under the lip of the vase is
an ivy-wreath, with leaves in red ground-colour pointed with black and edged
with a broad white outline.
It is doubtful at what time the S. Italian fabrics died out, possibly by 250
B.C.: but already in the 3rd-2nd centuries
B.C.
Latin painted vases appear. Their
ornamentation is quite simple and rude,--a spray of vine or olive with
perhaps an Eros in the centre (
Annali dell' Inst. 1884).
These are the last painted vases; and they are immediately succeeded by the
Cales ware, black, metallic, and moulded
(Gamurrini,
Gaz. Archéol. 1879, pp. 47 ff.).
Henceforth pottery, for so much life as is left to it, becomes a branch of
plastic. On the
Calene style follow the
Samian and
Aretine. Greek ceramic art has
given place to Roman. The pottery of Rome is in itself of less importance,
and is sufficiently described under FICTILE: but
it has a value of its own, as the link by which the secrets of classical
ceramic art were communicated to the Northern nations, among whom the Celts
rank first. Samian and Aretine vases were freely imitated in Gaul and
England; where native fabrics grew up under Roman influence. A valuable and
representative collection of Roman and early British pottery is in the
Yorkshire Philosophical Society's Museum at York.
The field of decoration in Vases.--At first the field is
necessarily vague. An early
principle of decoration
is established by the analogy of a vase to the human body: then in Alambra
ware definite units of ornamentation appear, and the surface is divided into
compartments. Painting, as at Thera, makes it possible to decorate inner
surfaces. In the Mycenae period the high centre
[p. 2.932]of
gravity in the prevailing vase-shapes serves to determine the shoulder as
principal field: in Dipylon style both shoulder and neck--the latter perhaps
especially--receive ornament, and there is a general correspondence between
obverse and reverse. In Phaleron oenochoae the panel on the neck and the
beginning of a metope style are to be noted; while the divergent rays which
decorate in perpendicular lines the lower body of the vase introduce a new
conception. The latter practice is perfected at Rhodes, and becomes
thenceforth an established principle. Rhodes, too, began to divide the field
into zones, proportioned to each other and to their position on the vase, to
reserve the neck for mechanical ornament, and to make the junction of neck
and shoulder organic by covering it with a band of dentals. Corinthian ware
retrogrades: handsome as it undoubtedly is, it is false to the law of
development which Greek pottery had already marked out for itself. At Cyrene
the influence of metal originals was supreme; but the zones, rays, and
dentals of Rhodes are retained. To metal-work is due the medallion and the
preference for cylices and their ornamentation on the inner surface. On
large vases the centre zone or zones form the field proper; the rest, like
the outside of cylices, is given up to mechanical ornament. The main scene
is placed, in Chalcidian amphorae, on the body; and above it is a narrow
band of animals and horsemen. With Attic black-figure many improvements are
introduced. A fixed ornament is adopted for the neck, and the field, divided
into obverse and reverse by the handles, is given an internal unity by being
framed in, and--as a consequence of the new technique--separated from the
rest of the vase. To each of the several shapes, moreover, a special system
of decoration begins to be assigned, compounded of three elements,--the
zone, panel, and medallion,--of which the first and third belong of right to
metal-work; the second is probably equivalent to a metope, and therefore
architectural. Of the manner in which a suitable ornamentation for cylices
was determined mention has previously been made. It need only be added here
that the outer surface was finally adopted as true field, while the school
of Epictetus perfected the inner medallion. Framing of the field, in
red-figure technique, in amphorae and hydriae, is only retained, as by
Andocides, from motives of conservatism. Until the influence of painting was
thoroughly felt only a single ground-line was used, and there was no real
differentiation of background and foreground. From 430 B.C. onwards the
single ground-line is frequently broken up, and the field is treated as
though the vase were so much canvas. Figures are also placed in the air, and
this practice is subsequently greatly abused. In Campanian and Lucanian
pottery as a rule no ground-line is marked: there are a few exceptions. In
Apulian an irregular chain of dots serves that purpose, while figures
“in the clouds” --forces controlling, and spectators
interested in, the action--are represented by busts only.
[For the difficult problem of the relation between obverse and reverse, and
the extent to which they mutually explain one another,
v. J. C. Morgenthau,
Der Zusammenhang der Bilder auf
griechischen Vasen.]
LITERATURE.--
General accounts: Jahn,
Einleitung zur Beschreibung der Vasensammlung zu
München (München, 1854: in parts obsolete); Birch,
Anc. Pottery (London, 2nd ed. 1873); Dumont et Chaplain,
Les Céramiques de la Grèce propre
(Paris, 1881:
in progress); Baumeister's
Denkmäler, s.v. “Vasenkunde”
(München, 1889: a most useful epitome, to which the present article
is in many ways indebted); Genick,
Griechische Keramik
(Berlin, 1883: a résumé of types with text by
Furtwängler); Lau,
Griechische Vasen
(München, 1877: numerous plates illustrating formal side of Greek
pottery).
Special works.--The references given under various sections of
this article are in no sense exhaustive, but they will furnish a clue to the
most important and recent papers in periodic literature which for vases is
of the utmost moment. For the connexion of early ceramics with Homeric
culture, Helbig,
Das homerische Epos: as a sample of modern
criticism, Robert,
Bild und Lied: for Cyprus and Phoenicia,
Perrot et Chipiez,
Histoire de l'Art dans
l'Antiquité, vol. iii. Brunn's theories are to be found
in
Abh. d. kgl. bay. Akad. vol. xii. pt. ii. pp. 87 ff., and
vol. xviii. pt. i. More extravagant is P. Arndt,
Studien zur
Vasenkunde (München, 1887).
Illustrative works.--The chief publications of figured and
other vases may be found catalogued under the names of Tischbein, Millin,
Millingen, Böttiger, Stackelberg, Gerhard, Panofka, Lenormant et De
Witte, Bröndsted, De Luynes, R.-Rochette, Benndorf,
Fröhner, Furtwängler: also in special series like the
Wiener Vorlegeblätter, or general collections
like Müller-Wieseler's, and Baumeister's
Denkmäler, and the chief archaeological journals.
[
H.A.T]
