Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/636

Rh 612 POTTERY [HELLENIC. is tlie cylix of Arcesilaus found at Vulci, now in the Paris Bibliotheque. It is painted in black and red on a cream- Kei vases with black figures. FIG. 25. The Burgon Panathenaic amphora, with early Greek inscription. white slip, and represents Arcesilaus, one of the Cyrenian kings of this name, superintending the weighing of a number of bags of the silphium plant. All the figures and even the scales have their names painted by their side. It is executed with great neatness and technical skill, but the drawing is stiff and awkward. The scene, which is repre sented with great dramatic vigour, appears to be on board a ship, judging from the complicated cordage overhead and the yard-arm from which the large balance is suspended. It is at present impossible to fix with any certainty the dates of this early Hellenic pottery, as is also the case with the still older pottery of Rhodes and Mycenae, but the increase of our knowledge on the subject tends to give a much more remote period to its production than has been hitherto assigned to it by the majority of writers on the subject. The foregoing class of pottery forms a link, with various stages of development, from the glossless vases painted in dull ochre browns and reds to that large and important class of Greek pottery which has figures painted in glossy black enamel, on a red, slightly glazed, clay ground, or less frequently on a cream- white ground. The vases of this class, found in large quantities over a wide area in Greece, Italy, and Sicily, include paintings of the most different kinds, from the rudest almost shapeless daubs to the most carefully-executed pictures, drawn with great beauty of composition and firm accuracy of form, though always retaining some amount of archaic stiffness and conventionalism. Though the faces are nearly always represented in profile, the eyes are shown front-wise, a method of treatment which continued in use even on the earlier vases of the next period, those with red figures on a black ground. Fig. 26 shows the progressive treatment Fro. 26. Series of human eyes from painted vases, showing the develop ment of drawing, and power of representing the eye in profile. of the human eye by vase-painters, from the earliest intro duction of figures down to the end of the 4th century B.C. Many of the floral ornaments of this period still retain clear signs of their Oriental origin. The sacred tree of Assyria, in an elaborate and highly conventionalized form, very frequently occurs, or, worked into a running pattern, it forms a continuous band of decoration, out of which the Greek so-called &quot;honeysuckle pattern&quot; seems to have been developed. These vases have far greater variety and richness in their decorative patterns than those with the black ground, the natural result of the great ease and freedom of hand with which delicate floral designs could be touched in with the brush in black, while in the later manner the red patterns had to be laboriously left out by working the black ground all round them. Hence the stiffness and poverty of invention which are so remarkable in the decorative patterns on the vases of the &quot;best period.&quot; Many of the black figures of men and animals are executed with extraordinary minuteness, owing largely to the engraved gem-like treatment with which the incised lines are applied, especially in the representation of the hair of men or animals, and also in the rich textile patterns with which the draperies are often covered. Some of the vases, judging from their general form and thin band-like handles, were evidently copied from metal vessels, as, for ex ample, a number of small amphora; found in various places, executed in the workshop of Nicosthenes, a rather inartistic potter, who appears to have turned out a large number of vases with little or no variety in shape or ornament. The later vases, with black figures, were produced Trans simultaneously with the earlier ones decorated with red tion - figures; and during this transitional period (about the middle of the 5th century B.C.) some vase-painters worked in both styles, both kinds of painting sometimes occurring even on the same vase. The British Museum possesses one of the finest specimens of these, a large amphora with nobly-designed paintings. On one side are two seated figures of Greek warriors, probably Ajax and Achilles, playing at a game like draughts. They are painted in black with chocolate-red touches, and minute details, such as the drapery over their armour and their wavy hair, executed in incised lines of extreme fineness and gem-like treatment. The other side of the vase has red figures on a black ground, a most powerfully drawn group of Heracles strangling the Nemaean lion in the presence of lolaus, and an archaic statue -like figure of Athene. As in the painting with black figures, some touches of red are used. The treatment of Heracles s hair is peculiar and again recalls gem-engraver s work, in which hair is represented by a series of drilled holes ; in this painting the stiff curls are given by a number of round dots of the black enamel, applied in considerable body so as to stand out in relief. This treatment frequently occurs on the fine vases of this and later periods, and the same method is occasionally used in a very effective way to represent bunches of grapes and the like. Vases ivith Black Ground and Red Figures. After about Blac the middle of the 5th century B.C. this method superseded^ that with the black figures, and to this class belong the^ j. finest vases of all. The drawing of the earlier specimens is strongly sculpturesque in style, sometimes recalling the noble though slightly archaic pediment figures from ^Egina, while the vase-paintings of a few years later seem to belong to the Phidian school ; the forms are noble and massive, treated with great breadth and simplicity, and kept strictly to one plane ; faces are nearly always drawn in profile, ; ; t. and all violent foreshortening of limbs is avoided. Some vase-painters- of this period (c. 450-400) retain a slight touch of Oriental feeling in their drawing, as, for in stance, the beautiful amphora by Euxitheus in the British Museum, which has single figures of Achilles and Briseis, one on each side (see fig. 27).