In the class of vases (3 (a)), with polychrome figures on a white
ground, the essential feature is the white slip or _engobe_ with which
the naturally pale clay is covered. In the archaic vases of the 7th
and 6th centuries B.C., especially in the Ionian centres, as at
Rhodes, Naucratis and Cyrene, this slip is frequently employed, but
with this, difference, that the figures are painted in the ordinary
black-figure method, the only additional colour being purple laid on
the black. We first find polychrome decoration, whether in wash or
outline, in a small class of fragments from Naucratis, of the 6th
century B.C., which technically are of a very advanced character. The
colours used either for outline or wash include purple, brown, yellow,
crimson and rose-colour, but some, if not all, of these colours were
not fired.
In the 5th century this practice was revived at Athens, chiefly in the
class of _lekythoi_ or oil-flasks devoted exclusively to sepulchral
uses. Here the vases, after leaving the wheel and being fitted with
handles, &c., were covered with a coating of white clay. A second
coating of black was applied to the parts not required for decoration,
and the white was then finely polished, acquiring a dull gloss, and
finally fired at a low temperature. The decoration was achieved as
follows: a preliminary sketch was made with fine grey lines, ignoring
draperies, &c., and not always followed when the colours were laid on.
This was done when the first lines were dry, the colour being applied
with a fine brush in monochrome--black, yellow or red--following the
lines of the sketch. For the drapery and other details polychrome
washes were employed, laid on with a large brush. All varieties of red
from rose to brown are found, also violet, yellow, blue, black and
green. Hair is treated either in outline or by means of washes.
Finally, we have to deal with the class of vases (3 (b)) in which
opaque pigments are laid over the surface of the shining black with
which the whole vase is coated. This method is met with at three
distinct periods in the history of vase-painting, separated by long
distances of time.
We first find it in the earlier Cretan or Kamares ware, where it seems
to have been introduced not long after the close of the Neolithic
period, about 2500 B.C., and where it holds its own for about a
thousand years against the contrasted method of "dark on light"
painting, till it was finally ousted by the latter at the height of
"Mycenaean" civilization in Crete. The colouring is very varied,
orange, brown, pink and white being the principal tints employed.
The process appears again at the end of the 5th century in a small
class of Attic vases, which have been regarded as a sort of transition
between the black-figured and red-figured. White and orange-red are
here employed, sometimes with accessory details in purple and black
and incised lines, so that the technique is virtually black-figured,
though the appearance of the vases is often red-figured. Lastly, it
appears in southern Italy as a final effort of vase-painting to
flicker into life again about the end of the 3rd century. Some of
these vases were made in Campania, where the method resembles that of
the Attic class just described, others in Apulia, probably at Gnathia.
The latter have feeble conventional decoration in purple and white
with details in yellow, confined to one side of the vases, and are
also distinguished by the use of ornaments in relief. They were also
occasionally made in Greece proper.
Remarkably few colours were used by the Greek vase painters,
especially in the best periods. The deep purple used for accessory
details was produced from iron oxide, but the red used for lines on
the white _lekythoi_ is an ochre ([Greek: miltos], _rubrica_). The
white also used for accessories is an earth or clay; in the slip
coating of the white ground vases it assumes the consistency of
pipe-clay. Yellow, where used for details on the later vases, is an
ochre, and blue and green are produced from artificial compounds
containing copper. A number of the colours, such as blue, rose and
green, used by the polychrome painters, are obviously artificial
pigments which have not been fired. When gilding was employed it was
laid on over a raised ground of clay finely modelled with a small tool
or brush, and was attached by varnish, not by fire.
_Potters and Inscriptions_.--The potters who made these vases were
mostly--at least at Athens in the 6th and 5th centuries, B.C.--[Greek:
metoikoi], or resident aliens, as their names in many cases imply. We
have an Amasis (an Egyptian name), a Brygus (a Scythian), a Lydus and
a Scythes. The dialect of many of the inscriptions on Attic vases
seems to show foreign influence, though in other cases peculiarities
may be merely due to the use of a vernacular. They formed a gild or
fraternity, and in each pottery there was probably more or less
division of labour, the more simple processes being the work of
slaves. This seems to be implied in the vase-paintings representing
the interior of potteries. Others again "specialized" in different
shapes, and were known as [Greek: chutroplathoi], [Greek:
lêkuthopoioi], and so on.
Over a hundred names of artists are known, found on some five hundred
vases. They go back to about 700 B.C., the earliest names being found
on Corinthian and Boeotian vases; but the majority of the signatures
are found on Attic black- and red-figured wares. Some, such as
Andocides, made vases in which the two methods are combined. The best
known is Nicosthenes, whose signature occurs eighty times. The
ordinary forms of signature are four--(1) [Greek: ho deina epoiêsen];
(2) [Greek: ho deina hegrapsen ]; (3) [Greek: ho deina hegrapse kahi
epoiêsen]; (4) A [Greek: hegrapse]. B [Greek: epoiêsen]. Where [Greek:
epoiêse] alone occurs (as in a signature of Euxitheus), it probably
refers to the master of the pottery who designed the vase and
superintended its production; in other cases the share of the actual
artist is clearly indicated. Some artists, such as Duris and Makron,
sign [Greek: hegrapse] alone; in all cases, the form of signature
affords us a useful guide to their style.
Space forbids the discussion of other inscriptions found on vases,
which include those descriptive of subjects or persons, ejaculations
uttered by the figures, convivial exclamations, or the [Greek: kalos]
names discussed below; all these are painted on the designs
themselves. There is also another class of _graffiti_ inscriptions,
which includes those incised by the owners with their names and
memoranda scratched under the foot, probably made by the potter or his
workmen relating to the number of vases in a batch or "set" and their
price.
_Vitreous and Lead-glazed Wares_.--In Greek tombs a class of pottery
is often found which approximates, more in appearance to porcelain,
but, though often spoken of by that name, it is not porcelain at all,
but is analogous to the Egyptian glazed faience, of which it is in
point of fact an imitation. It is distinguished by the white gritty
material of which it is made, largely composed of sand, and forming
what is sometimes known as "frit" from its semi-vitreous consistency.
The surface is covered with a glaze, usually of a pale blue or cream
colour, but other colours such as a manganese-purple or brown are
sometimes found. Some of the earliest examples of this ware have been
found in Mycenaean tombs at Enkomi in Cyprus, in the form of vases
moulded in the shape of human or animal heads. These exhibit a
remarkably advanced skill in modelling, and are more like Greek work
of the 6th century B.C. Apart from the technique they have nothing in
common with the Egyptian importations so often found in Mycenaean
tombs.
In a subsequent period (8th-7th century B.C.) Egyptian objects in
faience became a common import into Greek cities, such as those of
Rhodes, and to a less degree in Sardinia and southern Italy, through
the commercial medium of the Phoenicians. Flasks of faience occur in
the Polledrara tomb at Vulci (610-600 B.C.) and similar vases with a
pale green glaze at Tharros in Sardinia in tombs of the same date. In
Rhodes, small flasks and jars are found ornamented with friezes of men
and animals in relief, or imitating in colour and design the glass
vessels of the Phoenicians. It also seems probable that the Greeks of
Rhodes and other centres attempted the imitation of this ware (see
fig. 19), for we find faience _aryballi_ or globular oil-flasks
modelled in the form of helmeted heads or animals, which are purely
Greek in style.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Enamelled pottery from tombs in Rhodes, made
under Egyptian influence.]
In the Hellenistic period the fashion was revived at Alexandria, and
under the Ptolemies large jugs of blue-enamelled faience with figures
in relief and bearing the names of reigning sovereigns were made and
exported to the Cyrenaica and to southern Italy. Two of these are in
the British Museum (Egyptian department). The same collection includes
a very beautiful glazed vase in the form of Eros riding on a duck,
found in a tomb at Tanagra, but undoubtedly of Alexandrine make, and a
head of a Ptolemaic queen, with a surface of bright blue glaze.
Subsequently in the 1st century B.C., this so-called porcelain ware
was replaced by a variety of ware characterized by a brilliantly
coloured glaze coating, in which the presence of lead is often
indicated. This ware was principally made at three centres; at Tarsus
in Asia Minor, at Alexandria and at Lezoux in central Gaul. But it was
probably also made in western Asia Minor and in Italy. It is not
confined to vases, being also employed for lamps and small figures;
the vases are usually of small size, in shapes imitated from metal
(Plate II., fig. 59). The colour of the glaze varies from a deep green
to bright yellow, and the inside of a vessel is often of a different
tint from the exterior. Many of these vases are decorated with figures
or designs in relief, others are quite plain. The colours of these
glazes are of course due to the addition of oxide of copper and oxide
of iron to a lead glaze, and they are strictly analogous to the green
and yellow glazes of medieval Europe.[7]
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF GREEK VASE-PAINTING.--It has been indicated in the
section dealing with technical processes that Greek vases may be
classified under four headings according to the character of the
decoration, and this classification may with a slight modification be
adopted as a chronological one, the history of the art falling under
four main heads, under which it will be convenient to describe its
development from the earliest specimens of painted pottery down to the
period when it was finally replaced by other methods of decoration.
These four classes and their main characteristics may be summarized as
follows:--
I. _Vases of the Primitive Period_ from about 2500 or 2000 to 600
B.C., including both the Cretan-Mycenaean epoch and the early ages of
historical Greece. In the former the pottery is either decorated in
polychrome on a shining black ground or conversely in shining black on
a buff ground; in the latter, the decoration is in brown or black
(usually dull, not shiny) on an unglazed ground varying from white to
pale red. In the former again the decoration is marked by its
naturalistic treatment of plant and animal forms; in the latter the
ornaments are chiefly linear, floral or figures of animals; human
figures and mythological scenes being very rare.
II. _Black-figured Vases_ from about 600-500 B.C.; figures painted in
shining black on a glossy ground varying from cream colour to bright
orange red, with engraved lines and white and purple for details;
subjects mainly from mythology and legend.
III. _Red-figured Vases_, from 520 to 400 B.C.; figures drawn in
outline on red clay and the background wholly filled in with shining
black, inner details indicated by painted lines or dashes of purple
and white, scenes from daily life or mythology. With these are
included the vases with polychrome figures on white ground. In these,
which are exclusively made at Athens, the perfection of vase-painting
is reached between 480 and 450 B.C.
IV. _Vases of the Decadence_, from 400 to 200 B.C.; mostly from
southern Italy, technique as in Class III., but the drawing is free
and often careless, and the general effect gaudy; subjects funereal,
theatrical and fanciful. At the end of this period vases are largely
replaced by plain shining black pottery modelled in various forms, or
with decorations in relief, all these being imitations of the metal
vases which began to take the place of painted wares in the estimation
of the Hellenistic world.
I. _Vases of the Primitive Period_.--It has been noted in the
introductory section that it is possible to trace the development of
pottery in Greece as far back as the Neolithic period, owing chiefly to
the light recently thrown on the subject by the excavations in Crete.
These have yielded large quantities of painted pottery of high technical
merit, usually with decoration in polychrome or white on a dark ground,
in what is known as the Kamares ware, covering the period 2500-1500 B.C.
(fig. 20). This was gradually superseded by painting in dark shining
pigments on a light glossy ground during the later Minoan period
(1500-1000 B.C.), forming what is known as the "Mycenaean" style. The
subjects, though chiefly confined to floral ornaments or aquatic plants
and creatures, are marvellously naturalistic yet decorative in their
treatment, often rivalling in this respect the pottery of the Far East.
In the latter part of this period this class of pottery was spread all
over the Mediterranean, and large quantities have been found in Greece,
especially at Mycenae, in Rhodes and other Greek islands, and in Cyprus,
where a series of vases with animals, monsters, and even human figures
shows what is probably the latest development of the pure Minoan or
Mycenaean style.
[Illustration: From _Annual of the British School at Athens_.