Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/497

Rh the stage in art in which it may be said to have become definitely Hellenic. The Greeks still borrowed many of their decorative forms, either from the prehistoric remains in their own country or, through Phoenician agency, from the old-world empires of Egypt and Babylon, but they used those forms freely to express their own meaning. And gradually, in the course of the century, we see both in the painting of vases and in sculpture a national spirit and a national style forming under the influence of Greek religion and mythology, Greek athletic training, Greek worship of beauty. We must here lay emphasis on the fact, which is sometimes overlooked in an age which is greatly given to the Darwinian search after origins, that it is one thing to trace back to its original sources the nascent art of Greece, and quite another thing to follow and to understand its gradual embodiment of Hellenic ideas and civilization. The immense success with which the veil has in late years been lifted from the prehistoric age of Greece, and the clearness with which we can discern the various strands woven into the web of Greek art, have tended to fix our attention rather on what Greece possessed in common with all other peoples at the same early stage of civilization than on what Greece added for herself to this common stock. In many respects the art of Greece is incomparable—one of the great inspirations which have redeemed the world from mediocrity and vulgarity. And it is the searching out and appreciation of this unique and ideal beauty in all its phases, in idea and composition and execution, which is the true task of Greek archaeological science.

In very recent years it has been possible, for the first time, to trace the influence of Ionian painting, as represented by vases, on the rise of art. The discoveries at Naucratis and Daphnae in Egypt, due to the keenness and pertinacity of W. M. Flinders Petrie, threw new light on this matter. It became evident that when those cities were first inhabited

by Ionian Greeks, in the 7th century, they used pottery of several distinct but allied styles, the most notable feature of which was the use of the lotus in decoration, the presence of continuous friezes of animals and of monsters, and the filling up of the background with rosettes, lozenges and other forms. Fig. 8 shows a vase found in Rhodes which illustrates this Ionian decoration. The sphinx, the deer and the swan are prominent on it, the last-named serving as a link between the geometric ware and the more brilliant and varied ware of the Ionian cities. The assignment of the many species of early Ionic ware to various Greek localities, Miletus, Samos, Phocaea and other cities, is a work of great difficulty, which now closely occupies the attention of archaeologists. For the results of their studies the reader is referred to two recent German works, Böhlau’s Aus ionischen und italischen Nekropolen, and Endt’s Beiträge zur ionischen Vasenmalerei. The feature which is most interesting in this pottery from our present point of view is the way in which representations of Greek myth and legend gradually make their way, and relegate the mere decoration of the vases to borders and neck. One of the earliest examples of representation of a really Greek subject is the contest of Menelaus and Euphorbus on a plate found in Rhodes. On the vases of Melos, of the 7th century, which are, however, not Ionian, but rather Dorian in character, we have a certain number of mythological scenes, battles of Homeric heroes and the like. One of these is shown in fig. 9. It represents Apollo in a chariot drawn by winged horses, playing on the lyre, and accompanied by a pair of Muses, meeting his sister Artemis. It is notable that Apollo is bearded, and that Artemis holds her stag by the horns, much in the manner of the deities on Babylonian cylinders; in the other hand she carries an arrow; above is a line of water birds.

Some sites in Asia Minor and the islands adjoining, such cities as Samos, Camirus in Rhodes, and the Ionian colonies on the Black Sea, have furnished us with a mass of ware of the Ionian class, but it seldom bears interesting subjects; it is essentially decorative. For Ionian ware which has closer relation to Greek mythology and history we must turn elsewhere. The cemeteries of the great Etruscan cities, Caere in particular, have preserved for us a large number of vases, which are now generally recognized as Ionian in design and drawing, though they may in some cases be only Italian imitations of Ionian imported ware. Thus has been filled up what was a blank page in the history of early Greek art. The Ionian painting is unrestrained in character, characterized by a licence not foreign to the nature of the race, and wants the self-control and moderation which belong to Doric art, and to Attic art after the first.

Some of the most interesting examples of early Ionic painting are found on the sarcophagi of Clazomenae. In that city in archaic times an exceptional custom prevailed of burying the dead in great coffins of terra-cotta adorned with painted scenes from chariot-racing, war and the chase. The British Museum possesses some remarkable specimens, which are published in A. S. Murray’s Terra-Cotta Sarcophagi of the British Museum. On one of them he sees depicted a battle between Cimmerian invaders and Greeks, the former accompanied to the field by their great war-dogs. In some of the representations of hunting on these sarcophagi the hunters ride in chariots, a way of hunting quite foreign to the Greeks, but familiar to us from Assyrian wall-sculptures. We know that the life of the Ionians before the Persian conquest was refined and not untinged with luxury, and they borrowed many of the stately ways of the satraps of the kings of Assyria and Persia.

Fig. 10 shows a curious product of the Ionian workshops, a fish of solid gold, adorned with reliefs which represent a flying eagle, lions pulling down their prey, and a monstrous sea-god among his fishes. This relic is the more valuable on account of the spot where it was found—Vettersfelde in Brandenburg. It