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.]