THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF A VASE PAINTER AT ATHENS
A biography of Douris must not be expected. No classical writer has
honoured one of these potters even so far as to mention his name.
Ancient literature has only left some brief allusions to the craft,
some inscriptions recalling their dedications in sanctuaries. The
vases themselves and the inscriptions traced thereon form the clearest
testimony we possess. Here again we must be guided by discretion and
not drift into romance. A learned German assumes that Euthymides, a
celebrated potter of the fifth century and a contemporary of Douris,
must have died young, while his rival Euphronios, after a long career,
died at an advanced age. He quite forgets that the number of signed
vases to be attributed to any individual artist is liable to be
diminished or increased by a chance discovery, and that we are still
far from being able to survey at a glance the complete production of
a manufacturer. Euthymides may have produced far more than Euphronios;
we have, however, only recovered seven of his vases. An enquiry into
the lives of vase painters must be confined to a consideration of the
general conditions of their position. All inference as to special facts
is necessarily conjectural and fictitious.
Modern historians have made known to us this important fact: trade in
Athens, as in other Greek cities, was chiefly in the hands of those
called “Metics,” that is to say, strangers living in the city and given
certain political rights regulated by special laws. Athens possessed
laws most favourable to the metics, and from the time of Solon,
according to Plutarch, strangers crowded into this generous city, which
offered such obvious advantages to settlers.
During the time of the Peloponnesian war (431 B.C.) the number of
metics had increased to 96,000, as compared with 120,000 citizens--an
enormous proportion. It is therefore to be supposed that many
manufacturers at the beginning of the fifth century were aliens or
descended from foreign families. This hypothesis is confirmed by the
potters’ names, many of which are foreign: Skythes (the Scythian),
Lydos (the Lydian), Amasis (name of an Egyptian Pharaoh of the
sixth century), Kolchos (inhabitant of Colchis), Thrax (of Thrace),
Sikanos and Sikelos (the Sicilian), Brygos (name of a Macedonian or
Illyrian people), etc. Beside these, however, we meet with many purely
Greek or Attic names--Klitias, Ergotimos, Nikosthenes, Epiktetos,
Pamphaios, Euphronios, Hieron, Megakles, and others. In certain cases,
the craftsman’s patronymic follows, as Kleomenes, son of Nikias;
Euthymedes, son of Polios. This indicates a freeman and citizen of
Athens. Once we even find the deme mentioned: Nikias, son of Hermokles,
of the deme Anaphlystos. We here catch a glimpse of a society where the
actual citizen associates freely with many naturalised aliens. It is
probable that slaves or freedmen were also employed, as one may guess
from the following nicknames: Paidikos (beautiful child), Smikros (the
little one), Mys (the rat). Douris’ name does not appear to be Attic.
It is always written Doris on vases, but we know that in those times
the diphthong _ou_ was simply expressed by _o_. The name Doris does not
exist in the catalogue of men’s names which has come down to us, while
the name Douris is well-known. It may have been of Ionian origin.
To resume, the Kerameikos of Athens formed a district by itself, a
little world where all sorts of people belonging to different races
and societies jostled one another. The master was the manager of
the factory and a craftsman, capable of making a vase as well as
painting it, designing the forms, the ornaments, and the subjects.
His assistants, who were sometimes allowed the honour of signing,
were employed under his direction in the shaping and decorating of
pottery; even women took part in this work, as we see on a beautiful
vase-painting (Fig. 2) to be described later. Lastly, there were the
workmen engaged in working the clay, preparing the glaze and the
colours, taking care of the ovens, moving materials, etc. Comparing the
arrangements in a modern ceramic factory, one will find about the same
conditions and these three grades of workers.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. A POTTER’S WORKSHOP. MODELLING AND BAKING OF
VASES.
Hydria. Munich Museum.]
We must naturally picture things in Greece on a modest scale: the
enterprise conducted at less expense than nowadays, the capital
smaller, and the staff reduced to those strictly required. Above
all, it is necessary to remember that the division of labour was
far less marked in ancient times than with us. The same man was
capable of different tasks, he was employed according to his ability
and intelligence. There was nothing of the mechanical spirit, which
nowadays has passed into the man from the machine, and, for the sake
of greater speed and precision, isolates a workman in a corner of
the factory without teaching him anything else. Undoubtedly a social
hierarchy existed and weighed heavily upon the individual; to be
citizen, metic, or slave implied profoundly different conditions of
life, which raised more formidable barriers between classes than with
us. But in the exercise of art or industry the life of the ancients
presents itself under a singularly democratic aspect. Their workmen
shared their mental work far more than ours do, and were familiar with
all the details of the craft. This it is which gives to the industrial
art of the Greeks a marked distinction. No matter how modest the
work, one feels a living intelligence therein. The history of vases
is most suggestive in this respect. We never find the stiffness of
mechanical labour, the monotony of copy repeated to satiety. All
are not masterpieces--far from it. But not one is quite devoid of
individuality, and the best proof that can be given is that two painted
Greek vases exactly identical do not exist.
Whether Douris was metic or citizen, we may think of him as a
craftsman, who by his knowledge and skill had acquired an important
position in the town, and directed one of these flourishing
establishments in the potters’ quarter, near the Dipylon Gate, and just
at the entrance to the Necropolis. His ware helped to carry the fame of
Attic taste into distant lands.
We know that the majority of Greek vases have been gathered from
Etruscan tombs, where they formed the personal property of the dead
after having been used by families at banquets and at religious
ceremonies. Similar finds have been made in many other sites of the
ancient world: in the islands of Sicily, Rhodes, Melos; on the coast
of Africa, in Cyrenaica; in the Thracian Chersonese, even as far as
the Crimea. But nowhere have the finds been richer than in Etruria;
this was the favourite market for Attic ware during the sixth and the
greater part of the fifth century.
After the disastrous war in Sicily, when communication with the
Tyrrhenian Sea was severed, they turned to southern Italy, the
Islands, Africa, and the Scythian colonies. The trade in vases was
not limited to the home market, to the customers of Athens and the
neighbourhood. The most important and most thriving part of the
industry was the export into foreign countries. What we to-day term
_l’article de Paris_ scattered over all the world somewhat recalls the
favour enjoyed by Attic productions in that age. Great profits must
have been realised.
This trade was again combined with other important exports. It would be
an error to consider the painted vase as a curio simply made for the
pleasure of the eyes of the collector or artist, like the porcelain
of China and of Japan to-day. The Greeks had no _bric-à-brac_. We may
even say that there were no art amateurs or collectors. Utility was the
only foundation of art: it formed its health and strength. We do not
believe a statue was ever made, even in the fifth century, simply for
the pleasure of creating a beautiful piece of work. Each art object had
a practical purpose, and only existed by virtue of a want: offerings
to the gods, consecrations after victories, household utensils, votive
offerings at the altar and the tomb. It follows that industrial art was
still more intimately connected with practical needs. The amphora,
which appears as a speciality of Athens in the ceramic industry,
contained the famous oil gathered in the plain--to-day still famous
for its olive groves--or wine from Parnes. We know positively that
the Panathenaic amphoræ given as prizes at the feasts in honour of
Athene contained the savoury oil produced by the sacred plants of the
goddess. Victors carried these to their homes as trophies. There is
no reason to believe that other vases were treated differently. Why
should the painted amphoræ, such as are found from the sixth century
onwards in great numbers in Etruscan tombs, be sent forth empty from
the workshops of Corinth, Chalkis, or Athens? They certainly once
contained a product prized by the inhabitants of Caere and Volsinii
more than the beauty of the painting on their exterior. In consequence
of this beautiful decoration, which was a sort of trade-mark of Greek
produce, rich families in Italy ordered entire “table services” from
Athens for special use at banquets and religious festivals. They
not only comprised receptacles for oil and wine--amphoræ, krateres,
lekythoi, decanters for wine as the oinochoai, holders of water as the
hydria--but also vases for drinking, such as the kylix, the kantharos,
and the skyphos, and even plates and platters. From the fifth
century onwards Athens had succeeded in destroying all competition. She
had become the unique centre of this trade. The character of the art
then obtained decisive importance.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. A DISPLAY OF VASES AND A PURCHASER.
Kylix by Phintias. Baltimore Museum.]
The manufacture of the kylix--which was essentially the instrument of
joy and gaiety, passing at banquets from hand to hand and admired by
every one as it passed--received an impetus until then unknown.
Hence it was in consequence of being in close connection with the
export trade and with the two other great industries of wine and oil
that the ceramic art of Athens developed so extraordinarily. The
manufacturers must frequently have made large fortunes. Historians
tell us that the great fortunes in Athens were in the hands of the
metics. It is not astonishing to hear of rich offerings being made
on the Acropolis by manufacturers, some of whom were potters. On the
pedestal of an offering we read the name of the potter Euphronios. A
votive stele, in a style of delicate archaism, represents in bas-relief
a manufacturer of vases seated, holding two drinking cups in one hand.
Unfortunately a great part of the inscription is effaced, but one can
still distinguish the end of a name “IOS” which might be Euphronios.
The style of the sculpture and the accepted date of the ceramist would
agree.
The most beautiful archaic statue found on the Acropolis is signed
by one of the greatest sculptors of the fourth century, Antenor, and
bears a dedication made by a certain Nearchos, who might be a maker of
black-figured vases--one of which is preserved. This identification is
unfortunately not certain, but is admitted by several archæologists,
and implies nothing improbable. If one could definitely prove that
the potter Nearchos had ordered, of a famous sculptor, an important
work for an offering to the goddess Athene as a tithe of his gains, we
should possess most important evidence as to the social and pecuniary
condition of craftsmen.
Another curious record of the mode of life led by certain potters is
given on a vase in the Museum at Brussels. A painter has painted his
own portrait in the features of a young man at a banquet leaning on a
couch, feasting in the gay company of friends and hetairai (Fig. 3).
He is a contemporary of Douris named Smikros. One day, his purse being
well filled in consequence of good orders, he and some companions of
the studio indulged in the pleasures the city yielded.
If, by such information we may consider the pecuniary position of
potters as fairly good, shall we conclude that their education was
equal to that of the best Athenian society? Here it may be well to
enter a protest against the commonly accepted opinion. Vase painters
are usually credited with qualities of originality amounting to
positive genius. The merit of the composition and of the choice of
subject, the skill in placing the figures, the invention of attitude
and movement, are all attributed to them. Hartwig, an author who has
closely studied the Greek drinking cups of the fifth century, goes so
far in his admiration as to reject as fanciful any connection between
the works of this industry and the great works of contemporary art.
He grants that vase painters copy one another, and that they borrow
mutually subjects for designs and even persons. But he maintains that
their province remains indisputedly theirs, and one need not look for
copies from celebrated works in their art.
This opinion appears, like many others, to contain a truth and an
error. It is quite true, that to look for a commonplace reproduction
of great art upon painted vases would be useless. Many subjects are
strictly designed for the express purpose of the vase, for the form of
its surface, and are drawn from scenes of everyday life which were
constantly under the draughtsman’s eyes, scenes of the palæstra, of
banquets, military armaments, processions of cavalry, etc. Who could
imagine a Greek draughtsman not copying Nature?
But, on the other hand, how can one think of an artisan as skilled as
an Athenian ceramist, who could remain indifferent to the lessons of
the great masters? Would not his eyes and brain be filled with the
works of art which made all public buildings and sanctuaries museums
in the open air? And in that case, what strange rule would forbid
him to borrow many of the subjects and persons from these superior
models? These would be abstracts, free compositions, adaptations, but
nevertheless a borrowing.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. YOUTHS EXERCISING IN THE PALÆSTRA.
Kylix by Douris. Louvre Museum.]
Furthermore, what we have just said of vase manufacturers places
them in a popular class whose members did not shine by education.
Merchants of free status, metics, freedmen or slaves could not form
a society comparable to the one in which lived a Polygnotos or a
Phidias. Isocrates says scornfully: “Who would dare compare Phidias
to a maker of terracottas, or Zeuxis and Parrhasios to a painter of
votive offerings?” He would undoubtedly have said the same of vase
painters. We affirm, in fact, that many of these workers were quite
illiterate; some were content simply to trace sham letters or letters
in juxtaposition, without any meaning, in the place of the usual
inscription. Many made gross mistakes, or mixed the dialect of their
own country with that of Athens. Some did not even know how to spell
the name of the potter for whom they were working, but wrote it in
three or four different ways. These little facts help to illustrate the
inferior condition of this society. To look here for great artists,
philosophers or thinkers, rivals of Pindar and Æschylus, of Phidias
and Polygnotos, would be contrary to all likelihood. If Euphronios,
Douris or Brygos had genius, it was entirely in their province as
skilled draughtsmen, guided and influenced by beautiful models, besides
being business men and prudent merchants. The idea of raising such men
to the height of creators and inventors would certainly have greatly
astonished the Athenians.
To sum up, Nature and living truth--the works of great masters and
the teachings of the past--these form the double source from which
all artists, at all times, have drawn. It would seem difficult to
exclude from one or the other the painters of Greek vases. On the
contrary, in studying them we feel, although their social position is
humble, and their private education mediocre, that they are peculiarly
great, inasmuch as their artistic sense is always alert, always
emulous of competitors or works of art about them, and, finally,
great in that dominant quality which the Greek carries within him--a
keen sensitiveness to all that is beautiful in life. As artisans,
craftsmen, merchants and metics, they move in a lower sphere in their
city; but nothing shows more clearly the power of the environment than
seeing in Athens, which had become the spiritual centre of Greece,
the working man’s world raising itself without effort from its dead
level to the intellectual life of the higher classes: a phenomenon
all the more remarkable as it occurred in an ancient society, that is
to say, in an era when the social barriers were inflexibly rigid. May
modern democracies be inspired by this example and understand that the
education of the masses comes from the highly-gifted, and the masses
will never be high-minded when those whom fortune has placed above them
are worthless.