Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/633

Rh ARCHAIC METHODS.] POTTERY 609 figures and ornaments with a brush. If a part of the vase round its whole circumference was to be black, such as the foot and neck, the vase was again set on the wheel and the black enamel put on as it revolved. This repeated use of the wheel for the application of slip, glaze, and black enamel was in order to secure an even coating with uniform grain, far more difficult to get with the un aided brush. The grain thus produced can usually be distinctly traced in each of the three coatings. The firing of the black enamel must have been done with great care and skill, as a very slight chemical change in the black oxide of iron converts it into the red oxide. Thus the same stroke of a brush is often (in the earlier vases of this class) half black and half vermilion -red, or one side of a vase is red and the other black, according as it has been played upon by oxidizing or deoxidizing products of combustion in the kiln. In the finest vases the black enamel is of great beauty, with wonderful rich softness of texture, which no modern skill has been able to approach. The tombs of Nola, Capua, and other places in Magna Gnecia have supplied the most technically perfect vases, both for the fineness of their clay and the brilliance of their black enamel. After the firing of the enamel the details were drawn in by incised lines, cutting through the enamel down to the clay body of the vase. The clear and slightly-chipped edges of the lines show that they were done after firing, when the black enamel was in a hard vitreous state. This must have been done with some very sharp and hard point, probably a natural crystal of diamond or corundum, such as was used for engraving gems ; the incised details on some vases are of almost microscopic minuteness. 1 The &quot; non-vitreous &quot; colours, red and white, were sometimes put on before, sometimes after the incised lines. They were fixed in their place by a slight firing, not enough to vitrify them or to soften the edges of the incised lines in the enamel. Both these changes have been shown to take place under a not very violent heat, by experi ments made by the present writer on fragments of such vases. The white was used to depict the flesh of females and of some of the gods, such as Eros, or for the bodies of horses and the hair of old men. Chocolate-red was mostly used for ornamental touches on dress, armour, harness, and the like. Both are used in painting the heraldic beasts or ornaments which so often occur on the round shields of Greek warriors. Both the white and red are applied over the black. Thus the female figures are first completely painted in black, and the white afterwards applied over the face, hands, or other nude parts. 2 th il 4. Vases with Red Figures. The materials employed and the ires first stages in the manufacture of this class are the same as those of class 3 ; but, instead of the figures being painted in black, the ground is covered with black enamel, and the figures left, showing the glazed red slip which covers the whole vase. This method pro duced a great artistic advance in the beauty of the figures, the de tails and inner lines of which could be executed with freedom and ease by brush-marked lines instead of by the laborious process of cutting incised lines through the very hard black enamel. The outline of the figures was drawn, with wonderful precision and rapidity, with a brnsh fully charged with fluid enamel, boldly applied so as to make a broad line or band about one-eighth of an inch wide all round each figure, one edge of the band giving the boundary of the required form. Details and inner markings were then added with a fine-pointed brush capable of making the thinnest and most delicate strokes. On many of the finest vases the contour- lines of muscles and other markings intended to be less salient were painted in pale brown instead of black. Last of all, the main part of the ground between the black outline bands was filled in. The greater thickness of the enamel, where it was more concentrated in the bands, is generally visible ; the enamel used for filling in was thinner because it spread over a larger space as it flowed from the brush. In some cases a face or other part has had a thin black out line before the wider band was put on ; and then three distinct thicknesses of enamel can be seen, the thin outline standing out perceptibly more than the rest. It is evident that the fluid black enamel was applied in a somewhat thick viscid state, and thus a slight degree of relief was often produced, enabling black lines to show over the black ground, as is the case sometimes with the strings of lyres. This slight relief often gives additional effect to the treatment of curly hair, represented by a series of dots or glob ules, as in the transitional amphora described below (p. 612). This method recalls the free use of the drill in the representation of hair on early engraved gems. Touches of white and red were occasionally used, as in the preceding class of vases, but to a much more limited extent. Some of the finest black and red vases, especially speci mens from Nola, Vulci, and Capua, have enrichments in gold applied in relief. 5. Polychromatic Vases. Materials : the same as in the preced- 1 A very remarkable early vase, in the collection of Countess Dzialinska in 1 ans, is decorated with incised lines only, the whole being covered with the black enamel. 2 Unfortunately many Greek vases have been much injured while in the ands of dealers by the restoration of the white and red pigments. Vases winch have been thus treated should be washed carefully w th spirits of wine. uch removes the modern touches without injury to the ancient pigments. ing class with the addition of bright red, blue, green, and gold. Poly- The red used on some vases is an oxide of iron ; but a very brilliant chro- minium crimson also occurs, which appears to have been added after matic the final firing, and is not therefore, properly speaking, a &quot; ceramic &quot; vases, pigment. The blue and green are different oxides of copper, fused with silica and soda to make a bright vitreous enamel, which was then finely powdered and mixed with a proportion of white pigment (silica and lime) according to the strength of the tint required. This powdered enamel pigment is the &quot; smalto &quot; of mediaeval Italian painters. The gold was applied in leaf, not on the flat surface of the vase, but on a ground modelled in slight relief with semi-fluid slip of ordinary fine red clay, thus very much enhancing the effect produced by the gold leaf. Necklaces, bracelets, and other gold ornaments are always modelled in perceptible relief, producing a rich effect which no merely flat application of gold could give. Polychromatic vases may be divided into four main classes, (a) Vases in which the colours are used as additional decoration to the ordi nary red figures, c. g., the celebrated amphora from Camirus (Rhodes), with the scene of Peleus winning Thetis as his bride (see Plate V.). (b) Vases painted in brown outline, on a fine white slip, with the addition of red and yellow ochre colours, and occasionally a little gold, e.g., the cylix in the British Museum with Aphrodite seated on a flying swan (see Plate V.) ; this is a rare and usually very beautiful variety, and is more fully described below (p. 613). (c) Attic funeral lecythi, which have the neck and foot in brilliant black (wheel-applied) enamel and the main body of the vase covered with a non-vitreous white slip. The design was sketched in rough outline and the red pigment put on with a small brush over the white ground. The draAving is generally careless and rapid, but often shows great skill and beauty of touch. The colours, generally red, blue, or green, were then thickly and often clumsily applied over parts of the red outline drawing, mostly over the draperies. These vases were not meant to be handled, as their colours rub off very easily : they were simply intended for sepulchral purposes, either to hang on the stele or inthin the tomb, (d) Vases, especially from Magna Grfecia, such as rhytons, small cenochore, and others, moulded skilfully in a variety of fanciful shapes, heads of animals or deities, sphinxes, and other figures, either grotesque or beautiful. They are decorated partly with the usual red figures, and with the most brilliant black enamel, while other parts are painted in white and brilliant crimson with further enrichments in gold leaf. These bright colours seem to have been applied after the last firing, and not to be true ceramic colours. 6. Black Vases of Metal-like Designs. These vases often have the Metal- finest sort of black enamel, especially the large amphora from Capua like and other places in Magna Grrecia, covered all over with fluting or black gadroons. Some have wreaths of vine, olive, and other plants, or vases, imitations of gold necklaces modelled in slip, slightly in relief, and afterwards covered with gold leaf. A number of &quot; phiake omphalse &quot; (saucer -shaped vessels), of about 200 B.C., vere made by being pressed into a mould, and were thus stamped with figures in relief, such as processions of deities driving chariots. Some of these, made in Magna Gra?cia after its conquest by the Romans, have Latin inscriptions. One made at Cales is inscribed with the potter s name C. CANOLEIOS. L. F. FECIT. CALENOS (see Ann. Inst., 1883, p. 66). Small asci were decorated with highly -finished figure-subjects, stamped on emblemata or tablets of clay, which were embedded in the vase -vrMle it was soft. Such elaborate and metal-like pieces of pottery are entirely covered with black enamel. They are often of great beauty, both in the composition of the relief figures and in their delicate execution. Vases of this class have been found entirely covered with gold or silver leaf, copies of metal plate. 3 7. Vases, such as large asci, many from Magna Gracia, made of Vases simple yellowish biscuit clay, and modelled into shapes of female with heads, or covered with a number of statuettes of female figures, statu- They are generally painted simply in distemper in &quot; non-ceramic &quot; ettes. colours ; but they fall rather under the head of TERRA-COTTA (q.v. ). Some are of very great beauty, and are covered with statuettes very like those found at Tanagra. 8. Greek Vases of Debased Style, last period. These have the Debased usual red figures on a black enamel ground, of the same materials, Greek and applied in the same way as on the earlier vases, except that vases, the black enamel is much thinner and very inferior in quality, fre quently having a hard metallic gloss instead of the soft richness of the earlier vases. A great part of the figures and ornaments is executed in white, red, brown, and yellow pigments, with shading and gradations of colour, used to produce an effect of relief, which is unsuited to vase-painting, and, especially in the later examples, is executed with extreme rudeness and clumsiness of drawing. Vase- painting became degraded in style at a period when the other arts of Greece showed but little signs of decadence, and ceased altogether to be practised nearly a century before the Christian era. No painted vases were found in the buried cities of Pompeii, Hercu- laneum, and Stabia? ; and Suetonius (Julius Csesar, c. 81) mentions the eagerness with which certain Greek vases found in tombs near 3 See Otto Jahn, Vasen mit Gohlgclnnu :k, Leipsic, 1805. XIX. - 77