THE STYLE OF POLYGNOTOS AND PHEIDIAS
In the studio of Euphronios the so-called ‘Horse master’ painted a kylix
now in Berlin with the praise of the fair Glaukon. The outside is
decorated in the usual red-figured technique with lively scenes of
riders and stables, the inside (a youth and a girl) is rendered in
outline, with coloured interior lines and surfaces, on the ground
covered with a white slip. The progress in the rendering of bodies and
drapery is unmistakeable; the oblique view of the female breast is
almost correctly caught, the material of the cloaks is packed in lost
folds with bent-round end. But even the whole conception of the figures
goes far beyond the archaic art of the pre-Persian time: the proportions
and faces have a touch of greatness, beside which all preceding art
seems narrow and embarrassed. The simplification of the profile and the
severe long lower part of the face essentially determine one’s
impression of the heads. A new period is announcing itself: a time of
progressive naturalism and at the same time a period of noble greatness
of style and exalted types. The statements of the ancients as to the
great painting of this age, of Polygnotos and his company, lay stress on
these qualities; not only the progress, which relieves the rendering of
body and garment of the old stiffness, but the great Ethos of these
paintings is praised. So with good reason we call the vase painting of
the post-Persian generation Polygnotan, even if at the beginning of this
epoch the influence of the great art is not felt so much as at its
culmination.
The name of Glaukon, which we have met with on the Euphronios kylix of
Berlin, recurs on a series of vases, almost always in the two-line
arrangement, which comes now into vogue, and often in combination with
his father Leagros’ name. Lekythoi, or slender oil-flasks, which now
become the regular offering for graves, and when so employed invariably
use the white-ground technique of the Berlin kylix, afford several
examples of this favourite’s name, which has become the hinge of
vase-chronology. On a Bonn fragment (Fig. 128), which in the older style
has a domestic scene, not one taken from the cemetery, and paints the
flesh in white, a woman is sitting in an arm-chair and putting on a
golden necklace, which the handmaid in front of her has offered in a
box. The face of this woman signifies a new world: the archaic types are
discarded, the old traditions replaced by a quite individual almost
portrait-like conception. The eye, which has hardly any traces of the
old full-view and puts the pupil entirely into the open inner corner,
gives the face a very natural and living effect, it is really looking:
and the hair hanging out from the cap in confusion, the profile not
dominated by any canon of beauty, and the drawing of the hands, show the
painter penetrated by the same effort after truth. It is perhaps an idle
question, what period inaugurates the history of Greek portraiture,
since each innovation taken from the model individualizes the
traditional type; but it is just the vase-paintings of the post-Persian,
Kimonian age, which went further than the later ones in thus
individualizing. The woman of the Glaukon lekythos, the old woman on a
skyphos in Schwerin from the workshop of Pistoxenos (Fig. 127) and on a
loutrophoros in Athens, the head of a warrior from a krater in New York
(Fig. 130) may be taken as symptoms of a very personal portraiture in
the age of Kimon. The effort to get rid of the traditional ideal types
led a series of these
[Illustration: PLATE LXXVII.
Fig. 127. OLD WOMAN: FROM A SKYPHOS WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER
PISTOXENOS.
Fig. 128. DETAIL OF A FRAGMENTARY WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXVIII.
Fig. 129. APHRODITE ON A GOOSE: FROM A KYLIX WITH WHITE-GROUND INTERIOR.
BEARING THE “LOVE-NAME” OF GLAUKON.
Fig. 130. WARRIOR: FROM A RED-FIGURED KRATER.]
masters to recast even the divine figures with a strikingly individual,
coarse and almost common effect. The master of the Boston ‘Eos’ kylix, a
successor of Makron in Hieron’s studio, makes his undistinguished
goddess of the morning be carried off by a spindly street-lad; the
Demeter, who on a Munich hydria attends the departure of Triptolemos,
betrays little of the sacred beauty of the motherly goddess; and other
vase-paintings have almost the effect of conscious caricatures of ideal
types.
The new possibilities of ‘Physiognomy’ in differentiating character by
the facial type, however, brought the expression of divine nature to its
fullest expansion, and helped not merely to make men more human but also
gods more divine. A London white-ground kylix from Rhodes (Fig. 129) is
connected with the Bonn lekythos and the Berlin kylix of Euphronios by
the common name of Glaukon. The goddess of love, riding through the air
on her sacred bird, the goose, is of more than earthly beauty: her
hands, not only the one with the flower but the unoccupied left hand,
speak the same expressive language as her face and whole form. The
effect of this picture is comparable to that of a song. Now for the
first time the inner kinship of the art of words with that of pictures
presses itself on the observer of works of art. No one will think of
comparing the Geometric style with the Homeric Epic in value of
expression, or the ornamental style of the 7th century with contemporary
Lyric poetry, though one may see a reflection of Anacreontic and ballad
feeling in the art of the later 6th century. But the weight of the
Aeschylean pathos is as little to be mistaken in works of graphic and
plastic art as the Sophoclean glow and pure beauty of line.
The more delicate animation, which this period could bestow on its
forms, of itself pointed away from archaic loquacity and pleasure in
narration. The genre scene is certainly as old as the historical, and
we have seen that there was no difference of principle. The nearer the
red-figured style came, the more representations of feeling were
combined with representations of action, and towards the end of the
archaic style they are no longer rarities. With the new liberation of
the style, especially with the enlivening of the eye, a different sort
of inward feeling asserts itself. Figures devoid of action, occupied
with themselves or contemplating another figure, are themes which the
painters of lekythoi in particular were never tired of inventing; and in
later times, when the cemetery scenes replaced the domestic ones on
these vases, and the privacy of the indoor scenes was transferred to the
visit to the grave, the harmony of soul between the visitor and the
dead, whose living likeness fancy could not separate from the grave,
often found an unspeakably intimate expression (p. 145).
The quantity of pictures of ‘pure existence’ does much to determine the
altered aspect presented by post-Persian vase-painting. On the slim
‘Nolan’ amphorae and those with twisted handles, on the calyx-kraters
and the bell-kraters often decorated on the mouth with a branch, on the
‘stamnoi’ and other vases, which are decorated like the ‘Nolan,’ the
slender restful figures heighten the impression of quiet elegance. Thus
the grandeur of the new style at the same time gets a marked decorative
value, a value not without danger for the living rendering of reality.
Greatness is not every man’s affair, and the painters, who only took
over externally the big forms and the lofty simplicity, and could not
fill them with a life of their own, can only rank as decorative artists
and should by the same right be called ‘affected’ as the refined masters
of the Amasis period (p. 106). Even talented painters consciously gave
up to decorative effect the reverses of their vases, which they adorn
with quickly drawn motionless figures wrapped in cloaks.
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIX.
Fig. 131. THE DEATH OF AKTAION: FROM A RED-FIGURED KRATER.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
The three Glaukon representations we have met with till now are pure
pictures of ‘existence.’ The ‘horse’ master dedicated to the same boy
Glaukon a second kylix, the fragments of which, found on the Acropolis,
represent the death of Orpheus at the hands of the Thracian women. The
scheme, if one may speak of such, is in so far old, as the victor moving
to the right attacks an opponent in kneeling position also moving to the
right and looking round; but an infinite nobility is poured over the old
type, and the fight is carried through with dramatic weight, though in
the faces of the fighters the inward excitement is not reflected, as on
later works of the same hand. Yet, as on the Aphrodite kylix (Fig. 129)
the living expression of the eye is already strengthened by the line of
the upper lid.
In place of the very fragmentary Orpheus kylix, the fight in a
contemporary picture may show the progress, which scenes of dramatic
movement attain in Polygnotan times. The slaying of Aktaion by the
divine huntress Artemis was brought to great effect by the Pan master,
so called from the reverse of the same Boston bell-krater (Fig. 131). In
the stiff folds of the cloak of Artemis this vigorous and original
painter betrays his descent from the archaic style, which can be plainly
followed in his works, always full as they are of dramatic life.
Otherwise there is little archaic in this picture. The long lower part
of the face, which lends the heads their severity, the folds running
themselves out, which assert themselves even in the chiton, the surely
drawn fore-shortened foot of Artemis, the lower legs of Aktaion
disappearing in the background, show the progressive master; the
suggestive effect of the composition, and the urgent language of the
gestures are quite in the spirit of the noble new style.
With the Centaur psykter in Rome (Fig. 132) we get perhaps beyond the
bloom of Glaukon’s beauty, and what reminds us of old times in the
grotesque movement of the battle scene is probably only individual
failings of the master, which he outweighs by many innovations. The
three-quarters view of the face, the fore-shortening of the shield, the
motive of the falling man seen from behind, are significant of the
struggle with perspective; the bestial lust for battle speaks out of the
eyes of the attackers as does the penetrating pain of the wounded; and
the pathos of the gestures is at least post-archaic. The impression of
this vase is remarkably determined by the experiments in colouring,
which the master undertakes with help of thinned colour: the helmets,
greaves, and hides he has made dark in contrast with the human skin, he
has given an effect of light to the material of the hair of head and
beard, and rounded the horses’ bodies by shading.
These novelties of the somewhat crude and quaint master are only
intelligible as reflection of a great painting, which struggled with
problems of expression and light, as is expressly testified for the art
of the great Polygnotos and his contemporaries. Naturally at no time
were vase-painters entirely uninfluenced by the achievements of the
great art. But just now in the sixties of the 5th century, this
borrowing made itself felt more than ever, and enticed the vase-painters
often beyond the limits of their branch of art. This comes not only from
the overpowering impression of the great personalities among the
painters of this period, but especially from the fact, that
wall-painting now struck out new bold paths, on which vase-painting
could follow it less than ever.
Among the vase-pictures, which very strongly echo these new strains, are
the later works of the ‘horse’ master. The interior of the Penthesileia
kylix (Fig. 134) only enclosed by a delicate branch, the master did not
paint as in
[Illustration: PLATE LXXX.
Fig. 132. BATTLE WITH CENTAURS: RED-FIGURED PSYKTER.
Fig. 133.
TOP-PLAYER: FROM A WHITE-GROUND KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER
HEGESIBULOS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXI.
Fig. 134. ACHILLES KILLS PENTHESILEIA: INTERIOR OF A RED-FIGURED KYLIX.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
the kylikes of Berlin and Athens on white ground, but he heightens the
red-figured technique by the application of thinned black glaze, by dull
red and light grey surfaces, with brown and white additions, and by
applications of gold. The four figures which are forced into this circle
almost burst the frame, not merely by the disproportion of their tall
forms, but still more by their inner greatness and passion. In the midst
of the battle-field, where the sword rages, and the ground lies full of
corpses, Achilles has overtaken the Amazon queen, and furious with rage,
plunges his sword in her heart: however much her hands and eyes plead
for mercy, it is too late.
The features of Penthesileia betray more of inner life than those of
Orpheus: and on a second Munich kylix, on which Apollo in presence of Ge
slays her son Tityos, the master has gone a step further in physiognomy.
The three faces are as convincingly graduated in expression as for
example those on the beautiful ‘Lament for the dead,’ by a contemporary
master, in Athens.
On the big interior of his kylikes (Fig. 134) the ‘horse’ master could
give freer play to his genius than on the exteriors, which, as in the
kylikes of Berlin and Athens, he adorned with pretty scenes from the
stable. The contrast between the great round pictures with their fine
technique, and the lightly sketched exteriors, is so great, that some
have thought of two artists working in the same studio, who divided the
work, so that the ‘horse’ master would be different from the
Penthesileia master; but the white-ground exterior of the Orpheus kylix
seems to build the bridge. It is certainly characteristic that the
exteriors of kylikes in this period no longer tempted talented painters
to such lively compositions, as in the days of the Brygos and Perugia
painters, and that even in the lifetime of the great Euphronios the
paratactic decorative style most consistently prepared by Duris laid
hold of these exteriors. The new style required big surfaces, and the
most faithful reflexions of wall-painting are to be found on large
vases.
The most famous of these great Polygnotan vases is the Paris
calyx-krater from Orvieto (Fig. 135), the figures of which, apart from
Athena and Herakles, have not yet been certainly identified. From the
expectant attitude of the figures it has been suggested that the picture
represents the start of the Argonauts, or the preparation of the Attic
heroes for the battle of Marathon. The great mythological scene is at
any rate in the manner of the new period, which no longer has the
preference of the ancients for the crisis of action but rather depicts
preparation and after-effect, reflection on the deed accomplished and
rest from action. That a Polygnotan wall-painting preceded the
vase-painting in this psychologically refined conception, may be
regarded as proved. For the figures not only appear in all sorts of bold
foreshortenings, front and side views, not only surprise us by an
abundance of motives, which are quite beyond previous vase-painting, but
also show a series of peculiarities, which are expressly described as
innovations of the great fresco-painter. When the figures of the krater
open their mouths and show their teeth, when the stationary interior
folds, the so-called drapery eyes have shadows painted in them, this can
only be explained as imitation of the great painters, and similarly the
gnashing of teeth and the shading of the horses’ bellies on the Centaur
psykter. The Argonautic krater shows this dependence very strongly in
its composition. Great painting had not only graduated the parts of the
body in deep spatial layers, but transferred this novel deepening to the
arrangement of its groups, distributing the actors over hilly country,
which either elevated
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXII.
Fig. 135. THE ARGONAUTS (?). KALIX-KRATER OF POLYGNOTAN PERIOD.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
the figures of the background or often partly concealed them. It is
clear that an art, which characterized the rounding of shields and
bodies and the recesses of drapery by the distribution of light and
shade, also gave actuality and effect of depth to the landscape by
shading, though in primitive fashion, and a series of ‘Polygnotan’ vases
proves the fact, by making flowers, bushes and plants spring out of the
ground. It is true the painter of the Argonaut krater does not go so
far, but he shows more strikingly than any other vase-painter the
landscape of Polygnotan paintings, which, not forgetting the surface
effect of vase-decoration, he does not shade but only indicates in
outline by the incising tool. That in other ways, too, he altered his
pattern to suit the technique of vase-painting, is proved by the freedom
in the use of colour and perspective, which on other specimens of this
period burst the barriers of vase-painting.
Both encouraged and warned by such examples, one must look through the
vase-painting of this period for other traces of Polygnotan painting,
especially on vases which agree in subject with the wall-paintings of
which we have accounts, and not only in the freedom named, but also in
the inferiority of the execution to the conception, show of what spirit
they are the offspring. One can never expect copies. The very fact that
exact replicas never occur among the Polygnotan types, shows that the
vase-painters dealt with the borrowed property according to their own
individuality and for their definite purpose. So the two cases we have
selected must be judged individually. The ‘Penthesileia’ master was
probably stimulated to his treatment of the theme by a big Amazon
painting; but the clever painter not merely translated this impulse into
his own brilliant technique and adapted it to his circular field, but
also extended over it his personal great feeling, and translated the
picture into his personal style, so that it has the effect of a natural
continuation of his earlier works. The ‘Argonaut’ master had no concern
with this great ‘Ethos’ or the delicate polychrome technique. He
borrowed more superficially, took an extract from the big scene of his
model in his strong relief-lines, and emphasized the individual
characteristics rather than the dash of the original. In realism, his
bearded hero holding a spear is not inferior to the contemporary warrior
of the New York krater (Fig. 130). Great painting went on tempestuously
developing, and in the next age burst its fetters of colour and space in
a manner which could not but deter even the boldest vase-painter from
imitation, if he were not to shake off every sane regard for the
preservation of his surface-effect. So reflexions of wall-painting on
vases become rarer, and the ‘Polygnotan’ vases remain an episode.
Naturally there were many vase-painters who did not enter this dangerous
ground: nay, the majority did not do so. With many the avoidance of a
big surface went so far that they divided the outside of a calyx-krater
or big ‘aryballos’ into two friezes and filled them with small figures
in defiance of constructive considerations. Out of the series of these
‘little masters,’ who beside the big-figure painters continued the
traditions of the elegant style, let us mention _e.g._ the painter who
decorated the box signed by the potter Megakles (Figs. 136-7) with
charming scenes from women’s apartments, and the lid with five comic
hares; or the author of the girl plying the top on a white-ground kylix
of the potter Hegesibulos (Fig. 133), a potter who was active as early
as the Leagros period; and especially Sotades, from whose workshop came
not only plastic vases in the shapes of horses, sphinxes, knuckle-bones,
crocodiles devouring negroes, etc., but also white-ground kylikes of
most elegant shape, whose exquisite interiors, like the friezes of
those
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIII.
Figs. 136 & 137.
LID AND SIDE OF A PYXIS WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER MEGAKLES.
Fig. 138. MAENADS: FROM A RED-FIGURED POINTED AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIV.
Fig. 139. POLYNEIKES OFFERS ERIPHYLE THE NECKLACE: FROM A RED-FIGURED
PELIKE.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._
Fig. 140.
ORPHEUS AMONG THE THRACIANS: FROM A RED-FIGURED KRATER.]
drinking vessels, lead us to the beginning of the age of Pheidias.
This transition is also accompanied by some painters’ signatures, which
become rarer, the more the individual performances of vase-painters are
cast in the shade by the great art. The signatures do not present us
with the first artists of the time. Hermonax is somewhat smooth and
tedious, and Polygnotos, the namesake of the great painter, to judge
from the mixed nature of his unoriginal style, must have lived by
borrowing. His pelike from Gela is a Polygnotan vase with an Amazon
scene; on the London stamnos, to be dated about the middle of the
century, advanced and old-fashioned types are combined in an unpleasing
fashion.
Anonymous masters better represent the transition from Polygnotos to
Pheidias. The master of a krater with a dancing scene in Rome (the
‘Villa Giulia’ master), is not distinguished for temperament and
progressiveness, but is rather a correct and academic individual; but
the neatly drawn scenes of his krater and stamnoi, in the noble bearing
of the figures and the manner in which they gaze at each other, betray
the approach of a new ideal of man. Much more talented is the master,
who on a pointed amphora at Paris combined the wonderful group of two
Maenads (Fig. 138) with a scene of Bacchic revelry, as Amasis did almost
a century before (Fig. 98). The two girls are of truly royal dignity,
like each other in this, but subtly distinguished in expression. The
three-quarter view of the head is almost devoid of harshness, and only
the ladle-shaped under lip connects her with the Polygnotan female
heads.
How even the drapery becomes a vehicle of expression and every fold
breathes the greatness of the whole picture, may become clearer if we
look at the ‘Eriphyle’ of a pelike at Lecce (Fig. 139), with which we
also pass the middle of the century. This picture must be compared to
the Corinthian Amphiaraos krater (Fig. 66) to see, how in the interval
of 120-130 years the soul of art has changed. The later master
represents not the dramatic culmination of the story but the
psychological climax, when Polyneikes offers to the wife of Amphiaraos
the seductive necklace, for which she will send her husband to death. As
often on vases of this period, two figures stand calmly facing one
another, but they are here united by most delicate psychology; Eriphyle,
simply attired in plain peplos, is full of an inner life which
circulates through her body to the finger-tips. This harmonious union of
a monumental type with intimate feeling is at the beginning of the most
Greek period of Greek art-history, the most human period of the history
of mankind, the age of Pheidias.
If we name the following decades of the history of vase-painting after
Pheidias, we do not mean that he was in very close relations with the
art of the vase-painters. But the artist, who in the Parthenon frieze
introduced that inconceivable nobility of form, who in the West side of
the frieze developed the play of lines to new greatness, to heighten it
in the pediment to a great outburst of passion, impressed this age so
much with his nature that one cannot imagine the vase-paintings as
unaffected by this powerful influence.
Never was Greek art so much an art of expression as at this period. As
if in response to the search for a word to describe this new expression,
the beautiful musical pictures of the time present themselves. Since the
Geometric style art had continually represented musical performers, but
it was reserved for the age of Pheidias to give pictorial expression to
the effect of musical sounds on men. The krater from Gela (Fig. 140)
belongs to the early Periclean age; the sure touch in the rendering of a
twist of the body and its rounded form is now a matter of course even in
the hasty execution of a second-rate draughtsman; the head type gets
the
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXV.
Fig. 141. MUSIC: RED-FIGURED NECKED AMPHORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXVI.
Fig. 142. SLEEP AND DEATH CARRY OUT A WARRIOR TO BURIAL: WHITE-GROUND
LEKYTHOS.]
square outline, the shortened jaw, the long drawn nose, which are
characteristic of the age of Pheidias; the repetition of the epithet
_kalos_ shows that the custom of inscribing a love-name is dying out.
About contemporary is the London amphora with twisted handles (Fig. 141)
with the Muses Melusa and Terpsichore and the bard Musaios. Orpheus
among the Thracians and Terpsichore in a reverie with the harp are
purely pictures of lyric feeling.
As if music had tamed them, the vase-pictures of the Periclean age
change their nature. All crudities have gone: the too bold
foreshortenings and the realistic details taken from great paintings are
less obvious: nothing any longer disturbs the free play of the lines.
The conception of men rises to its highest possible point. The figures
on the Munich stamnos (Fig. 146) are not merely masterpieces of fully
developed drawing but also ideal types of pure free humanity. Movements
are often merely motives of beauty: the fold style combines a new
naturalism with the most monumental effect.
This new spirit also animates the finest of the white-ground lekythoi,
whose proper history begins in the Glaukon period (p. 134) and cannot be
traced far beyond the 5th century. In their first period they had
preferred to render domestic scenes, representations from the female
apartments. But the purpose of these grave vases continually asserts
itself more and more. The ferryman of the dead appears, to take goodly
men into his bark; the brothers Sleep and Death dispose of the corpse
(Fig. 142); Hermes, the conductor of souls, waits to be followed; the
dead man laments for his life. But the domestic scenes have given place
to the walk to the grave; and the visit to the tombstone, beside which
the dead man stands or sits as if alive, becomes the typical subject of
the lekythoi. The special technique of these vases produces an effect
often very different from the red-figured style, especially since the
white filling of the outlines (p. 134) is dropped. The employment of
glaze-colour in the rendering of outlines, and the transition to
brush-painting, with which from the first surfaces had been covered in
different varieties of colour, lead afterwards to an unusual
individualization of the line. One cannot say that this technique
approximates the lekythoi to the effect of wall-painting as much as it
severs it from red-figured vase-painting. Only a few exceptional late
specimens in their pictures operating freely with light and shade burst
the bounds of vase-decoration, and show clearly with what good sense the
vase-painters renounced competition with the great art, which now
victoriously solves the problems of full perspective, of giving the
effect of depth in space, with the gradation of dimensions, and the
contrasts of light and dark.
In a Boston lekythos (Figs. 143 and 144) we have an ‘existence’ picture
in the manner of the new period (p. 136). The dead warrior stands in
Polygnotan attitude, with bent arm resting on his hip (cp. Fig. 135,
last to left), beside his altar-shaped tomb, and looks over it to the
girl, who without perceiving him approaches with funeral offerings. One
notices in the treatment of the nude, that he is the product of an age
which already had the perspective sense: so vividly do the few lines of
his contour, his muscles, and his knee-pan, give the suggestion of a
rounded body; and also the drawing of the female nude, which accident
has freed from the drapery added in perishable dull paint, in its very
realistic outline goes beyond anything previous. Since the Circe and
Phineus kylikes, and the numerous black-figured and red-figured pictures
of bathing, dancing, and drinking hetairai, art had busied itself with
the naked bodies of women as much as of men: and where nudity could not
be represented, it indicated the outlines of the body through
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXVII.
Figs. 143 & 144. YOUTH AND MAIDEN ON A WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS.
Fig. 145. WOMAN SEATED AT A GRAVESTONE: FROM A WHITE-GROUND LEKYTHOS.]
the cover of the drapery (p. 119). For Polygnotos we have the express
tradition of women with transparent garments, and on the Argonaut krater
even Athena’s grand forms are indicated; the great liberator of
wall-painting must also have been a pioneer in the drawing of the female
body. The new style here too brings perfection and fills the form of
women with its noble greatness and simplicity. That it too, in contrast
with the 4th century, eschews all that is typically feminine, soft and
unformed, is a proof how strong was the ideal of male beauty.
A London lekythos (Fig. 142) also represents a dead soldier at the
grave. The winged brothers Sleep and Death with tender hand dispose of
his corpse, as they do with the dead Sarpedon in the Iliad: and the
lekythos-painter took his type also from the Sarpedon pictures; the
young warrior who had fallen far from his country, should on the vase
have the same boon of burial in his native soil, as was granted by Zeus
to the Lycian king. The fine type was then divested of its proper
meaning and received a more general signification. The London vase,
which uses lustreless colours for the outlines of its figures also, must
be somewhat later than the Boston vase, although the new technique, that
is pure brush technique, went on for a time beside the old. Though
stylistic estimates now become difficult, one fancies in the wonderful
vigour of the drawing, and in the stronger individuality of the hair,
that one is nearer to the period of the Parthenon pediments than in the
somewhat more austere Boston group. Where the way led may be shown by
the woman sitting on the steps of a tomb on a lekythos in Athens (Fig.
145), which not only by the strongly plastic suggestion of the outline
goes beyond the Pheidian period proper, but also in the grandiose
heightening of the simple motive shows itself as one of the works which
take up and cast in new moulds the pathos of the Parthenon pediments.
Every line in the very individual drawing of the woman, who is
supporting her left hand and lifting her garment with her right, while
her feet are unruly in submitting to the sitting posture, is animated by
passionate unrest.
Though the age of Pheidias liked pictures of feeling with quiet figures
like the music-scenes, the Munich stamnos and the lekythoi, it did not
exhaust itself in them. Beside the vases with large figures, there are
others, which continue to cultivate the elegant style and prepare the
way for a class which flourishes in the last decades of the century.
Little jugs with nursery scenes, pomade boxes with pictures of female
life, globular unguent pots with lekythos-like mouth are the principal
vehicles of this style, and the “Eretria” master is a typical
representative. On great and small vases we find scenes of animated
motion, passionate scenes of conflict, which on their side too, share in
the nobility of the style of the age. The brutal vigour and hardness of
old motives seems broken, softened, often almost takes a turn to
elegance. The order of the large compositions with its arrangement of
the figures over one another and indication of the broken ground by
lines closely follows the Polygnotan system. But while the Polygnotan
depth in space was produced by a naturalistic tendency, which soon led
to complete freedom in the great art, it is continued by the
vase-painters as a mere principle of distribution and space-filling,
_i.e._, it receives a decorative character.
One of the finest pictures of movement from this period decorates a
stamnos at Naples (Fig. 147): women who are sacrificing before a
tree-trunk dressed out as Dionysos and dancing to the tambourine. The
exact dating of this picture, like the whole chronology of the late and
post-Pheidian vases, is a matter of dispute: but this much is certain,
that it cannot be understood except as a near echo of the art of
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXVIII.
Fig. 146. RED-FIGURED STAMNOS.
Fig. 147. OFFERINGS AT THE IMAGE OF DIONYSOS: FROM A RED-FIGURED
STAMNOS.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXXIX.
Fig. 148. PELOPS AND HIPPODAMEIA: FROM A RED-FIGURED NECKED AMPHORA.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]
the Parthenon pediments. Into the noble line-drawing of the middle style
of Pheidias has come a new passionate movement, which draws the contour
in more violent curves, dissolves the hair in strong waves, throws the
drapery into great folds, and enlivens the clinging parts with
restlessly curving inner folds. The upper garment of Dionysos is given
rich effect by long border zig-zags, interspersed stars and an
embroidered wreath, the expression of his eyes is strengthened by
emphasis on the upper lid. Details added in white and liberal use of
thinned black heighten the coloured effect. This new style with its
marked enhancement of the lines is the later style of Pheidias, a
reflection of the last and highest development of the Parthenon master,
which pointed Attic art into new paths, and lived its life out and died
in the school of Pheidias.
The amphora with twisted handles at Arezzo (Fig. 148) must be in close
connection with the last phase of the Pheidian style and cannot be far
removed from the Naples stamnos. Its shape enriches the type of the
Terpischore vase in London (Fig. 141) by sharper profiling of the mouth
and foot, but does not yet draw the lower part into the dull curve,
which robs the amphorae and bell-kraters of the end of the century of
strong and taut effect. Similarly the scene, the wild career of Pelops
and Hippodameia over the sea, heightens the tendencies of Pheidian art
without succumbing to the palsy which can be felt in the style of
Meidias. The divine horses, the gift of Poseidon, emit sparks of the
fire of the steeds on the pediments; the majestically animated attitude
of Hippodameia reminds one of the Athenian lekythos (Fig. 145); in
Pelops every line is full of passion and bold movement. Here too the
draperies are rich and elaborate, the restless billowing of the folds is
more marked than on the Naples stamnos, and the flowing chiton folds,
which cling close to the body, prepare for the exaggeration dear to
post-Pheidian sculpture and painting. Not only does the drawing of
individual forms show a plastic conception of space, but the whole scene
is inconceivable without a contemporary big painting with considerable
landscape capacities: from the tree-clad hilly coast the chariot rushes
out upon the deep sea.
In fiery impetus only one of the vase-paintings of this period can
compare with the Pelops vase, the somewhat later Naples fragment of a
Gigantomachia (Figs. 149-151). An invention of truly Titanic force,
which is also echoed on other later vases, must be the basis of this
picture, and even the unusual division (unsuited to vases) by an arch
points to a model from another branch of art. In a rocky landscape the
fight for existence of the gods and the sons of the earth-goddess takes
place in the early morning, when Helios is rising on the vault of heaven
and Selene is sinking down into ocean, as on the east pediment of the
Parthenon. The bold movements, the twistings and bendings of the
combatants, the ‘lost’ profile, the swellings and packings of the skin
and muscles are rendered with sure touch. The plastic effect of the
middle line of chest and abdomen is increased by doubling, and
horizontal folds bring out the lower part of the forehead, the locks of
hair and tips of hide flutter as if they were alive; the breasts of the
earth-goddess are modelled out of the drapery as if bare, the eyes are
deep-set, the underlips project.
That the rendering of the female body was now not less accomplished than
that of the male, beside the lekythos in Athens, a picture of a
different order may show. On an Oxford jug appears in the spaciousness
favoured by these vases an old theme, Satyr and Nymph (Fig. 154). One
can scarcely realize the nobility of Pheidian conception more fully than
by comparing this scene with the Phineus kylix (Fig. 74) and its
congeners. What early ages had represented
[Illustration: PLATE XC.
Figs. 149-151. GIGANTOMACHIA: FRAGMENT OF A RED-FIGURED KRATER.]
[Illustration: PLATE XCI.
Fig. 152. ADONIS AND APHRODITE: FROM A RED-FIGURED HYDRIA.]
with drastic humour, is here refined and given a soul: even the Satyrs
and Centaurs, the rugged monsters of the woods and mountains, are tamed
by the new spirit which will not any longer endure brutality and
obscenity.
The sleeping nymph Tragodia is not only correctly observed in her
foreshortening, in movement and distribution of the weight of the body,
she is also the vehicle of a wonderful feeling. The picture, which
immediately prepares for the works of the Meidias painter and the
‘Pronomos’ master, and beside the great style of the Pelops and Giant
vases shows us the continuance of the refined and elegant style, cannot
have been produced long after Pheidias’ death.
The time of the School of Pheidias, of whose best works we have been
introduced to a selection, gives us again a few artists’ names. The
painter Aison gives us a Madrid kylix with the exploits of Theseus,
which must be about contemporary with the Giant vase. On the Theseus of
the interior the hair is dissolved into lively curls, which stand out
dark on a lighter ground, and the plastic swelling of the belly goes to
the utmost limit of what is possible; in his protectress Athena we see
already the contrast between the leg that bears the weight and is
covered by hanging folds, and the free leg, which is closely covered by
the drapery; which is exaggerated by Aristophanes, whom the potter
Erginos employed, just as is the hair with light under-painting, and the
chiton clinging as if moist and blowing back. Aison, who began his
activity even in Pheidian days, draws more elegantly than his younger
colleague, but neither master initiated a new development of kylix
painting. The greatness of both lay in exploiting as artizans accessible
types.
With the works of Aristophanes we probably go further from the time of
Pheidias than with the Naples fragment: the works of the ‘Meidias’
painter take us to the time of the Nike balustrade, _i.e._, the two
last decades of the 5th century. They too are an echo of the art of the
Parthenon pediments, but in travelling along the road this echo has lost
its vigour. On the unsigned Adonis hydria in Florence (Fig. 152) all the
figures exuberate in lazy grace and fine motives of beauty. Particularly
the groups, Adonis in the lap of Aphrodite, and Hygieia with Paidia,
remind us of the Parthenon, the wonderful melting forms of the ‘Fates’
and other pediment figures. But what there was born of passion, is here
become fashion, and is playfully treated. The excitement of the faces
with wide nostrils, the bowing and bending of bodies conscious of their
beauty, the supporting of arms and play of fingers, the whole extent of
the carelessly united society on the wavy hill-lines (p. 141) in spite
of all its grace has something of the formula about it. The style of the
drapery is certainly an indication of the weakening of earlier vigour.
The many and over elegant broken-up folds, which cling unnaturally close
to breast and free leg, the curling of the cloak folds, and the
independent movement of the tips, is a long way off the Parthenon
pediments, which inaugurate this enhancement of style, but without loss
of vigour and by a kind of natural evolution. The effort for fine
effect, which is expressed in the rich patterning, is in noticeable
contrast to the restlessness of the drapery. A certain inclination to
pomp is characteristic of the post-Pheidian style. The raised gilt
details of the clay, which we know already on the white ground lekythoi
(Fig. 134), the box of Megakles (Fig. 137) and the works of the Eretria
master (p. 148), are now in high honour, and are plentifully employed on
the Adonis vase.
The Meidias painter also produced a series of similar pure pictures of
‘existence’ on hydriae, _e.g._, the fair Phaon, the singer ‘Thamyris,’
Paris with the goddesses,
[Illustration: PLATE XCII.
Fig. 153. THE GIANT TALOS OVERCOME BY THE DIOSKUROI: RED-FIGURED
VOLUTE-KRATER.]
the Eleusinian deities, and decorated other vases also in this manner.
These scenes, on which the figures move less vigorously than the lines,
are more successfully rendered than the pathos of the scene of abduction
on the London hydria signed by the potter Meidias. He was no bold
progressive artist; his technically exquisite and very delicately drawn
pictures recast in new shapes the new phenomena of art: in him the
series of masters of the type of the ‘Sotades’ painter and the Eretria
master comes to an end.
His contemporary, who may after the chief figure of the Satyric play
vase at Naples be called the ‘Pronomos’ master, likes figures of
‘existence’ in pretty poses, but he draws them with more spirit and does
more justice to the vehement style of his time. On the Naples vase, a
showy volute-krater with rich profiling, he puts on the obverse the cast
of an Attic theatrical performance in two almost equal rows one above
the other, and thus starts a principle of composition which was taken up
by the vase-painting of Lower Italy (Fig. 158). Liberal use is made of
thinned colour, the centre of the scene is denoted by a white figure,
the luxuriantly ornamented dresses confuse the general impression. In
respect of shape and decoration one may speak of a decay of the finer
tectonic sense, which reminds us surprisingly of the vases of Lower
Italy. The perspective side-view of the footstool and of the tripod
column are liberties taken by the great art, which generally Attic
vase-painters consciously avoid so as to keep to the surface treatment.
The tripod-column, which transplants us into the Theatre of Athens, as
the Athena of the Panathenaic vases to the Acropolis, recurs after
Polygnotan times often in the midst of mythological scenes, and brings
the vases, which show it, anyhow in relation to dramatic exhibitions.
It has been proposed to recognise the effect of the stage on
vase-painting, _e.g._ in the increased pomp of the dresses. This effect
might at the most have taken place indirectly; for that the
vase-painters often took as their patterns votive paintings of
victorious Choregi, is more than probable. And in general one may draw
conclusions as to the great art from many a fine invention, which is
seen on vase-paintings at second-hand, _e.g._ from the Bacchic scenes on
the reverse of the ‘Pronomos’ vase. This conclusion is certainly also
justified in view of the Talos vase (Fig. 153) which transforms the
mighty echoes of the late Pheidian art into the pompous, as the Meidias
vases into the ornamental-elegant. The vase-shape is closely allied to
that of the ‘Pronomos’: the central figure in white, so popular in this
period, recurs, and in its spatial effect is enhanced by shaded
modelling far above the proportions of the other figures, which show
plainly the conscious restraint of the vase-painters. Though the ‘Talos’
master altered the composition of his pattern to suit his vase, he must
have preserved with tolerable faithfulness the grandiose invention of
the centre group; the passionate impetus, which fills the whole scene
and catches even the cloaked figures of the reverse, is here most
convincing.
With this fine masterpiece, which almost exaggerates the element of
show, not separated by more than two decades from the Parthenon
pediment, we close the history of the vases that show the style of
Pheidias. Nay, one may regard the proper history of Greek vase-painting
as closed with these post-Pheidian vases. Not merely does the potter
make his vases untectonic by excessive profiling and elaborate
extension, but the painter too, interrupts the unity of the vase-surface
with the white-painted and plastically modelled central figure; thus in
a sense the silhouette style is declared bankrupt.
[Illustration: PLATE XCIII.
Fig. 154. SATYR AND SLEEPING MAENAD: FROM A RED-FIGURED JUG.
Fig. 155. WOMEN AT THE BATH: FROM A LATE ATTIC PELIKE.
_From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._]