Athens.
The early history of vase-painting at Athens is complicated. It was only
by degrees that the geometric style gave way to, or developed into, what
is known as the black-figured style. It would seem that until the age of
Peisistratus Athens was not notable in the world of art, and nothing
could be ruder than some of the vases of Athens in the 7th century, for
example that here figured, on one side of which are represented the
winged Harpies (fig. 14) and on the other Perseus accompanied by Athena
flying from the pursuit of the Gorgons. This vase retains in its
decoration some features of geometric style; but the lotus and rosette,
the lion and sphinx which appear on it, belong to the wave of Ionian
influence. Although it involves a departure from strict chronological
order, it will be well here to follow the course of development in
pottery at Athens until the end of our period. Neighbouring cities, and
especially Corinth, seem to have exercised a strong influence at Athens
about the 7th century. We have even a class of vases called by
archaeologists Corintho-Attic. But in the course of the 6th century
there is formed at Athens a distinct and marked black-figured style. The
most-remarkable example of this ware is the so-called Francois vase at
Munich, by Clitias and Ergotimus, which contains, in most careful and
precise rendering, a number of scenes from Greek myth. One of these
vases is dated, since it bears the name and the figure of Callias in his
chariot (_Mon. dell' Inst._ iii. 45), and this Callias won a victory at
Olympia in 564 B.C. Fig. 15 shows the reverse of a somewhat later
black-figured vase of the Panathenaic class, given at Athens as a prize
to the winner of a foot-race at the Panathenaea, with the foot-race
(_stadion_) represented on it. A large number of Athenian vases of the
6th century have reached us, which bear the signatures of the potters
who made, or the artists who painted them; lists of these will be found
in the useful work of Klein, _Griechische Vasen mit Meistersignaturen_.
The recent excavations on the Acropolis have proved the erroneousness
of the view, strongly maintained by Brunn, that the mass of the
black-figured vases were of a late and imitative fabric. We now know
that, with a few exceptions, vases of this class are not later than the
early part of the 5th century. The same excavations have also proved
that red-figured vase-painting, that is, vase-painting in which the
background was blocked out with black, and the figures left in the
natural colour of the vase originated at Athens in the last quarter of
the 6th century. We cannot here give a detailed account of the beautiful
series of Athenian vases of this fabric. Many of the finest of them are
in the British Museum. As an example, fig. 16 presents a group by the
painter Pamphaeus, representing Heracles wrestling with the
river-monster Achelous, which belongs to the age of the Persian Wars.
The clear precision of the figures, the vigour of the grouping, the
correctness of the anatomy and the delicacy of the lines are all marks
of distinction. The student of art will perhaps find the nearest
parallel to these vase-pictures in Japanese drawings. The Japanese
artists are very inferior to the Greek in their love and understanding
of the human body, but equal them in freshness and vigour of design. At
the same time began the beautiful series of white vases made at Athens
for the purpose of burial with the dead, and found in great quantities
in the cemeteries of Athens, of Eretria, of Gela in Sicily, and of some
other cities. They are well represented in the British Museum and that
of Oxford.
[Illustration: _Mon. d. Inst._ x. 48 m.