Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/375

Rh SECOND PERIOD.] ARCHAEOLOGY The tnmness and grace of these early reliefs had a charm for the artists and patrons of later times, especially the times of the first emperors, such as has been exercised in our day by the paintings of the pre-Raphaelite masters, and between the imitations then produced and the original models it is frequently difficult to draw a clear distinc tion. A critical list of these imitations whether sculp tured in relief or in the round is given by Friederichs Bausteine, L pp. 71-95; and, with illustrations, byOverbeck Gesch. d, Griech. Plastik, 2d ed., i. pi. 14. As examples of early sculpture in its inferior walk may be mentioned (10) a series of bronze statuettes which have served as stands of mirrors or otherwise as decorations of furniture. Those which have been or are still stands of mirrors are generally female figures, and it is to be observed that the oldest of them, as distinguished from the later examples, wear a iqavy under-garment or chiton, apparently of worsted material, and over this again an ample and by no means light peplos. If we are to credit the Greeks with having been intro duced, by the Assyrians to one branch of art more than another, we should say it was the art of gem-engraving. Xot that we possess Greek gems which compare in style and antiquity with those of Assyria, but, if for no other reason, because we find a technical process of so great difficulty existing at all in Greece at an early period Perhaps the earliest examples of the art in Greece possessed t artistic merit are two scarabs from ^Egina, one with the figure of a bowman in pure ^Eginetan style, and the other bearing the inscription Kpeovn Sa et/u (Bullettino d, Inst Arch. 1840, p. 140) ; three from Asia Minor, two of them being inscribed, the one Shoves, the other Apto-roreiW (Brann, Gesch. d. Griech. Kiinstlcr, ii. pp. 633 and 604). The only glyptic artist mentioned in this early period is Mnesarchus of Samus, the father of Pythagoras. In con trast with the paucity of early gems from Greek soil is the immense number of scarabs yielded by the tombs of Etruria which at least reflect the style of this period. The material s principally of rock-crystal, carnelian, and banded agate, and the subjects, it is worthy of remark, are mostly taken from the heroic legends of Greece, figures of deities being exceedingly scarce, as indeed is also the case on the Etruscan bronze mirrors, which, however, are obviously of a later date. Painting, or rather colouring, as it would be more properly described in its earliest phase, in which it was entirely subservient to architecture and ceramography, is said to have been first elevated to an art by Cleanthes of Corinth who introduced the drawing of figures iu outline; by lephanes of Sicyon, who improved on this by indicating the principal details of anatomy; and finally by Ecphantes Corinth or .Craton of Sicyon, by the introduction of colours (Pliny .V. //., xxxv. 3, 15). Again we have bumarus of Athens, who is said to have first distinguished in his paintings men from women, probably by the means opted in the early vases, that is, by painting the flesh white in the case of women. The historical truth of statements may be doubted; not so, however, those that refer to Cimon of Cfleon*, wh o made an unquestion able advance in the treatment of draperies, and in exchan ge conventional manner of rendering the human form to nature (.Elian, Var. ., xxxv. 8, 6). Cimon appears the early Pcloponn esian ^ oo1 s the task imposed on painters at that tune was mostly the decoration of the cella walls of temples 353 time of Apelles, they used only the simple colours, white yellow, red, and bluish black, in the mixing of which to obtain other shades they seem to have advanced very little greater attention being directed to the drawing than to the colouring. From the school of Asia Minor, which from the proximity of the Lydians, Phrygians, and Phoenicians, with their long practice in working in colours, may have arisen earlier than that of the Peloponnesus, the first -name we_ hear of is that of Bularchus, who, according to Pliny (A. //., vii. 38, 126 ; xxxv. 8, 55), produced a large painting of the taking of Magnesia, which he sold to Candaules king of Lydia, for its weight in gold. From the coast of Asia Minor our records of painting pass to Samus, an aland which was conspicuous in early times for the grand scale of its undertakings. There Mandrocles, who made tne bridge of boats across the Bosphorus by which Darius crossed with his army 515 B.C., executed a large historical painting of this passage of the Persians across the bridge with Darius seated, enthroned, on the shore. This picture according to Herodotus (iv. 88), was placed in the Henenm )t bamus. To the Samian school belonged Caffiphon and Agatharchus. It is also not unlikely that it had exercised some influence on Aglaophon of Thasus the father and instructor of Polygnotus. From Corinth the art of painting, coupled with that of modelling in clay passed to Etruria, lower Italy, and Sicily. At present the only examples of early Greek painting which we can adduce Painted are furnished by the vases, a branch of the art which the vases, ancients themselves regarded, it appears, with sufficient disrespect. For us, the vases, which have been preserved in great numbers, have this special value, that they present in an unbroken line, if in a comparatively degraded form the various stages of Greek painting from its first beginnings under Oriental influence to its decline. The class which belongs to the period now before us is distinguishable from the others by the fact that the figures upon them are first scratched in outline on the red ground of the vase, and then filled in with black, the whole being covered with a varnish which seems to have lost nothing of its brilliancy The other colours employed are white for the flesh parts of women and the hair of old men, white and a dark purple tor the details of draperies and other accessories The eyes are always placed full in profile, and the drawing of the figures is exceedingly, stiff and angular. By far the greater part of this class of vases have been found in the tombs of Etruria, and for this reason they were called Etruscan, a designation which they retained till the fre quency of Greek inscriptions, recording the artists names upon them, contrasted with the total absence of Etruscan inscriptions, led to their being correctly traced to Greek workshops. As to their date, it has recently been arcnied by a high authority (Brann, Probleme in der Geschichte der lasenmalerei) that the greater part of these vases in ict, all that have been found in Etruria, with at most two or three exceptions are the production of Greek vase painters at a period not earlier than the end of the 3d century B.C., when a taste for the archaic manner must have revived. This theory has encountered much opposi-
 * ion. Applying it to the large collection of vases of this

class _ from Etruria in the British Museum, one vase alone remains as a genuine example of the work of an early period. Whether we regard these vases as spontaneous productions or as imitations, they will serve to convey at best a dim idea of early Greek painting as a fine art. Of the next class of vases those with red figures on black ground some appear, from the severity of the drawin^ to belong to the end of this period. The whole question of ancient vase-painting has been very fully and ably dis cussed by Otto Jahn in his Introduction to the Vayfti- Sammhmg zu Miinchen. n. - 45