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DOURIS AND THE PAINTERS OF GREEK VASES
[Illustration: Fig. 1. KANTHAROS AND KYLIX (Cup).
By Douris. Brussels and Louvre Museums.]
DOURIS AND THE PAINTERS OF GREEK VASES
by
EDMOND POTTIER
Membre de L’Institut
Translated by Bettina Kahnweiler
With a Preface by
Jane Ellen Harrison
Hon.D.Litt.Durham, Hon.Ll.D.Aberdeen
London
John Murray, Albemarle Street, W.
1909
DEDICATED
IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE TO
AUGUST LEWIS
PREFACE
The translator of M. Pottier’s monograph on _Douris_ has kindly
asked me to write, by way of preface, a few words on the relation of
Greek vase-painting to Greek literature and to Greek mythology. I do
this with the more pleasure because this relation has, I think, been
somewhat seriously misunderstood, and M. Pottier’s delightful monograph
which, thanks to Miss Kahnweiler, is now given to us in English form,
should do much to clear away misconception and to set the matter before
us in a light at once juster and more vivid.
* * * * *
First let us consider for a moment the relation between Greek art and
Greek literature.
In classical matters we are all of us, scholars and students alike,
bred up in a tradition that is literary. Our earliest contact with
the Greek mind is through Greek poets, historians, philosophers. This
is well, for these remain--all said--the supreme revelation. But this
priority of _literary_ contact begets, almost inevitably, a certain
confusion of thought. Bred as we are in a literary tradition, we come
later to be confronted with other utterances of the Greek mind, for
example graphic art--vase-painting. This we naturally seek to relate to
our earlier and purely literary conceptions. What has come to us second
we instinctively make subordinate, ancillary. Greek art, and especially
what we call a “minor art,” such as vase-painting, is the “hand-maid”
of Greek poetry, or, to drop metaphor, the function of Greek art, is,
we think, to illustrate Greek literature. Public and publisher alike
demand nowadays that books on Greek literature, on Greek mythology,
even editions of Greek plays, should be “illustrated” from Greek art.
By illustration is meant translation, the transference with the
minimum of alteration of an idea expressed in one art into the medium
of another. Were it possible in a work of art to separate the idea
expressed from the form in which it is expressed, such transference
might be an eligible and even elegant pastime. But every one knows that
such separation of idea and form is in art impossible. Translation of
poetry from one language to another is precarious, a thing only to be
attempted by a poet; translation from one art to another is a task
so inherently barren that the Greek, till his decadence, left it,
instinctively, unattempted.
Against the poison of this “illustration” theory M. Pottier’s monograph
is the best antidote, and all students of the Greek mind will be
grateful to Miss Kahnweiler for making his monograph more easily
accessible. M. Pottier focuses our attention on the personal artist, a
man not intent on “illustrating” another man’s work, but on producing
works of art of his own. Douris uses sometimes the same material as
Homer or Arktinos, but he shapes it to his own decorative ends; he
draws his inspiration naturally and necessarily rather from graphic
than from literary tradition.
* * * * *
Beneath the “illustration” fallacy there lurks, as regards mythology,
another and a subtler misconception.
Until quite recent years mythology has been again to scholars and
students alike, a thing of “mythological allusions,” a matter to be
“looked up” with a view to the elucidation of obscure passages in
_Pindar_ or dramatic choruses. Even nowadays mythology remains, to many
a well-furnished scholar, a sort of by-product, an elegant outgrowth of
the Greek mind, a thing merely “poetical,” by which he means having
no touch with reality. Or, at best, if the scholar be himself a poet,
he loves mythology without analysing it, he feels it as a dream that
haunts, a thing that attends and allures him through the waste places
of scholarship, more real and more abiding than any realism, a thing to
him so intimate that he does not ask the _why_ of it.
Thanks to the impact of another study, anthropology, we are awake
now and look at mythology with other eyes. We know that mythology
is not a last, lovely, literary flower, but a thing primitive,
deep-seated, long antedating anything that can be called literature,
not a separate “subject” at all, but rather a mode of thinking common
at an early stage to all subjects. Mythology is not the outcome of an
idle, vagrant fancy, but a necessary step in the evolution of human
thought; a strenuous step taken by man towards knowledge, towards the
fashioning and ordering of the world of mental conceptions. Mythology
is the mother-earth out of which for the Greeks grow those stately,
fruit-bearing trees, literature, art, history, philosophy. A Greek
vase-painter does not “illustrate” mythology, he utters it in line and
colour as the poet utters it in words and rhythm.
Take a simple instance from the work of Douris, the kylix in the
Louvre, in the centre of which is painted _Eos carrying the body of
Memnon_.
The mythologist, that is man in his early days of thinking, cannot
conceive or name the abstract, empty “dawn.” The glow of morning is
to him the print of unearthly yet human fingers. He images “dawn” as
“Dawn,” in terms of humanity, that is of the one and only thing he
inwardly felt and knew--himself. The dawn is for him a beautiful woman,
and to complete her humanity, she is a mother. Literature, which is at
first but story-telling, took up the tale, and knew that Eos the Dawn
who rose in the East had a child of the East for her son, and mourned
for him in his death, and carried him away for his burial.
The vase-painter is a mythologist too, and he takes a mythological
story for his motive, but his art has other ends than that of the poet.
He may have heard the story recited at a Panathenaic festival, just as
he may have seen it painted on some Stoa or Lesche. But he does not
illustrate it, does not translate from an alien art into his own. He
takes the myth and lets his own art say what it and only it can say.
He has seen in the human body the vision of a heavenly pattern; he
gives us the grace of a bending body, the poise of a flying foot, the
swiftness of straight lines, the majesty and poignancy of limbs stark
in death. That is all, and, surely, enough.
JANE ELLEN HARRISON.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. HOW DESIGNS ON VASES REPRESENT THE HISTORY OF GREEK PAINTING 1
II. THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF A VASE PAINTER AT ATHENS 9
III. THE WORKSHOP AND TOOLS OF DOURIS 23
IV. HOW DOURIS WORKED 30
V. THE WORK OF DOURIS 43
CONCLUSION 80
BIBLIOGRAPHY 87
INDEX 89
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. Page
1. Kantharos and Kylix (drinking cups) by Douris. Brussels
and Louvre Museums. Taken from Photographs _Frontispiece_
2. Workshop of a Vase Painter (red figured hydria in Caputi
Collection at Ruvo), from Blümner. _Technologie und
Terminolog. der Gewerbe und Künste_, ii., p. 85, Fig. 15 4
3. The painter Smikros and his companions (red figured krater
in the Brussels Museum), from _Monuments et Mémoires de
la Fondation Piot_ (article by C. Gaspari, ix., 1902,
Pl. 2) 8
4. A Potter’s Workshop; modelling and baking of vases
(black-figured hydria, Munich Museum), from Birch,
“History of Ancient Pottery,” 1858, p. 249 12
5. A display of Vases and a purchaser (red figured kylix
painted by Phintias, Baltimore Museum). Hartwig’s
_Meisterschalen_, Pl. 17 16
6. Youths exercising in the Palæstra (red figured kylix by
Douris, Louvre Museum), from an original Photograph 20
7. Aphrodite upon her Swan (Polychrome on white background,
British Museum), from A. Murray and A. Smith,
“White Attic Vases,” Pl. 15 24
8. Eos carrying Memnon, her dead son (red figured kylix by
Douris, Louvre Museum), from an original Photograph 28
9. Contest of Menelaos and Paris (exterior of preceding
one), from an original Photograph 32
10. Contest of Ajax and Hector (exterior of preceding one),
from an original Photograph 36
11. The Adventures of Theseus (red figured kylix by Douris,
British Museum), from E. d’Eichthal et Th. Reinach
_Poèmes choisis de Bacchylide_, p. 48 40
12. Theseus and Kerkyon; Theseus and the Marathonian bull
(reverse of red figured cup by the potter Euphronios,
in the Louvre Museum) taken from Furtwängler &
Reichhold _Griechische Vasenmalerei_, Pl. 5 44
13. Nereids appealing to Nereus and Doris (red figured
cup by Douris, Louvre Museum), taken from _Wiener
Vorlegeblätten_, vii., Pl. 2 48
14. Sileni playing and dancing (red figured vase by Douris,
British Museum) Furtwängler & Reichhold _Griechische
Vasenmalerei_, Pl. 48 52
15. Hera and Iris attacked by Sileni (red figured cup by
Brygos, British Museum), Furtwängler & Reichhold
_Griechische Vasenmalerei_, Pl. 17 54
16. Contest of Ajax and Ulysses; the voting of the Greek
Chiefs (red figured cup by Douris, Vienna Museum),
Furtwängler & Reichhold _Griechische Vasenmalerei_,
Pl. 54 56
17. Ulysses restoring the Arms of Achilles to Neoptolemos
(interior of preceding one), Furtwängler & Reichhold
_Griechische Vasenmalerei_, Pl. 54 60
18. Achilles killing Troïlos (red figured cup by Euphronios,
Perugia Museum) taken from Rayet et Collignon,
_Céramique Grecque_, Fig. 70 64
19. Soldiers arming (red figured cup by Douris, Vienna
Museum), Furtwängler & Reichhold, Pl. 53 68
20. Greek Hoplite and Persian Standard-bearer (red figured
cup by Douris, Louvre Museum), _Wiener Vorlegeblätten_,
vii., Pl. 3. Great surface indicates restoration 70
21. Seated Youth holding a Hare (red figured kylix by Douris,
Louvre Museum), from an original Photograph 72
22. Interior of a School (red figured kylix by Douris, Berlin
Museum), from _Monumenti dell’ Inst. Arch._, ix., Pl. 54 76
23. A Schoolmaster. Berlin Museum, from Hartwig,
_Meisterschalen_, Pl. 46 80
24. Zeus carrying off a Woman (attributed to Douris, Louvre
Museum), from an original Photograph 84
25. A Painter at Work (fragment, Boston Museum), _Jahrbuch
des Arch. Instituts_, xiv., 1899, Pl. 4, Hartwig 86
DOURIS AND THE PAINTERS OF GREEK VASES
CHAPTER I
HOW DESIGNS ON VASES REPRESENT THE HISTORY OF GREEK PAINTING
This book has not been written for the professional archæologist. While
speaking of Douris, we propose to give the reading public an idea of
the chief characteristics of Greek painting.
It may be asked why the title of this little book is not Polygnotos or
Parrhasios. As we are treating of ancient painting, why not choose as a
study one of these famous men, whose works give to the art of his time
its distinctive character?
The answer is simple. Not a single painting is preserved by the masters
who, with the sculptors Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles, and Lysippos,
made the ages of Pericles and Alexander illustrious. Not a fragment of
their paintings nor a piece of their frescoes has escaped destruction.
Unfortunate chance has thus kept the most glorious period of Greek
painting hidden from our view. Recent discoveries in Mycenæ, Tiryns,
Crete, and Melos have revealed astonishing works of the pre-Hellenic
age, and they have restored to us frescoes contemporary with Minos
and Agamemnon. And for more than a century the excavations at Pompeii
and Herculaneum have made known all the details of the decoration of
Roman houses at the time of Augustus and Titus. But between these two
periods--separated by fifteen or twenty centuries--all is obscurity,--a
dark gap which a few marble panels in the museum of Athens are quite
insufficient to cover. These pale remnants of funereal monuments from
the Kerameikos, frescoes painted on marble, reproduced the life and
likeness of the departed.
Literature still remains. Pausanias, Pliny, Lucian, and others have
enumerated and described the celebrated works of ancient painting, and
indicated the chief characteristics of the great masters. In certain
passages even the technique is mentioned and analysed. With the help of
this literature we can, in a general way, trace the history of Greek
painting, and it is chiefly from these records that such classic books
have been written as Brunn’s _Geschichte der Künstler_ and Woltmann’s
_Geschichte der Malerei_. For gaining a thorough knowledge of the data
of the subject, the great value of these books is unquestionable.
But there is no doubt that a history compiled from texts becomes
excessively dry, even though illustrations are borrowed from Pompeii
and Herculaneum. What impression would any one who had never seen a
painting by Raphael or Michelangelo receive by merely reading about
them?
Furthermore, many ancient authors, far from being accurate or full
in their information, are hopelessly brief; often the subject of a
painting and the name of its author are mentioned in but three words.
Let us suppose that two thousand years hence our descendants should
find a guide-book and read, “_The Sacred Grove of the Muses_, by
Puvis de Chavannes.” What conclusions could they draw in regard to
the composition of the painting or the talent of its author? Such
is our position in regard to many works of antiquity. Even if, as
is sometimes the case, the descriptions are full, as in a passage
where Pausanias enumerates all the persons in the two frescoes of
Polygnotos at Delphi, _The Visit to Hades_ and _The Capture of Troy_,
the same darkness still exists as to the placing of the figures, their
expression, their attitude, and the technique of the colouring.
Thanks to the study devoted to painted vases, we are now able to
get a better idea of and throw a little more light on the style and
composition of Greek painting. M. Paul Girard’s book, _La Peinture
Antique_ is an instance. Nearly all the illustrations in the chapters
devoted to classic Greece are taken from the decoration of vases. To
return to a comparison made above. One who knew nothing of Raphael’s
work, but who had seen some _faïence_ of Urbino reproducing certain
works of the time, would in every way be more capable than those who
had not of understanding the master’s composition and his style. He
would undoubtedly still lose many things. He never would realise the
harmony of his colours or the loftiness and purity of his designs. This
is, alas! what we must say, in comparing the painting of a Greek vase
with the lost paintings of Polygnotos or Zeuxis. The reflection of a
lost art is all that remains to us!
[Illustration: Fig. 2. THE WORKSHOP OF A VASE PAINTER.
Caputi Collection, Ruvo.]
We should add, however, that the distinction between Greek
manufacturers and their models must have been less marked than in
later ages. Of this we cannot give material proof, but from certain
details we arrive at this conclusion. On the one hand, the Attic
craftsman was endowed, as rarely any one has been, with the art of
design and the sense of style. On the other hand, the ancient fresco,
particularly of the fifth century, was only drawing in flat colours,
without shading or modelling. Hence, there did not exist the gulf which
in modern times separates a reproduction due to mechanical means from a
painting executed with all the fine shades and skilful distinctions of
_chiaro oscuro_. In Greece, a painter of frescoes or a painter of vases
was above all things a good draughtsman. Here is a common measure which
reduces the distance between them.
In the absence of original paintings we must descend a step and have
recourse to the vase industry, and thus discover dimly the nature of
pictorial art in the best times of classic Greece.
But here another question arises. In treating of Greek ceramics, is the
name of Douris the most important one among the many artists presenting
themselves to our mind? He formed one of the Pleïades, who, between
the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias (510 B.C.) and the Persian wars
(490–479 B.C.), brought the manufacture of Athenian pottery to its
culminating point. His rivals Euphronios and Brygos have, however, been
considered more skilled or more inspired in their work. Why then choose
Douris as the most representative type of Greek painting?
This is the reason. We know at present about one hundred names of
manufacturers and painters of vases. Those who during the best period
have left the greatest number of works are Euphronios, Douris, Hieron,
and Brygos. Leaving aside simple fragments, and only counting pieces
helpful for serious study, we possess of the first-named ten signed
works, of the third twenty, of the fourth eight. Of Douris twenty-eight
are known.
The greater number alone would justify our choice. But another and
more important consideration may be added to the former. Manufacturers
of vases have different trademarks for their ware. They trace their
name with a paint-brush on the body of the vase, or else incise it
in fine letters on the foot or handle. The mode in which their name
occurs varies: “So-and-so made,” or else “So-and-so painted.” There
can be no uncertainty as to the latter phrase; it refers to the artist
who executed the paintings decorating the vase. But this term is far
less frequent than the former, which has caused many discussions.
“So-and-so made”? Is it a more elliptical way of implying the designer,
or is it the potter who speaks in contrast to the painter and designer?
Or, again, did the same man make the vase and then paint it? Is it the
master, the overseer who directs the entire manufacture, and who, after
the different processes of modelling, of decoration, and of baking have
been executed under his direction and according to his plans, affixes
to the ware of his house a sort of commercial trade-mark? All these
opinions have been supported at different times. We cannot say that the
subject has been fully elucidated. In consequence we run a great risk
of mistake in saying that a painting is a certain potter’s workmanship,
when the vase does not explicitly state who painted it.
The inevitable conclusion remains; to argue with certainty about
painters of vases we can only trust one expression: “So-and-so
painted.” In the most prominent group of potters of the fifth century,
it is Douris who best fulfils all these conditions, and relieves
us of all uncertainties on this subject. He is a craftsman, and
can make a pot or have one made under his direction. The museum at
Brussels possesses a kantharos which “Douris made” (Fig. 1). But he
is above all a draughtsman and executes all his paintings himself,
for the twenty-eight examples mentioned, including the kantharos at
Brussels, bear the words, “Douris painted.” Even Euphronios, to whom
Klein devoted an entire book, making this artist famous--and who to
many represents the vase painter _par excellence_--only signed as
draughtsman three or four vases, and as craftsman seven.
As potter and painter, Douris fulfils the necessary qualifications of
a master-craftsman; above all as draughtsman and painter, he satisfies
most fully our desire of finding in the decoration of painted vases a
reflection of the great contemporary art. This is why the choice of his
name seemed to us imperative.
[Illustration: Fig. 3. THE PAINTER SMIKROS AND HIS COMPANIONS.
Krater in the Brussels Museum.]