Greek vase

“ In Greek vase decoration the conventional floral forms, or the mannered animal figures that follow each other monotonously round vases of the “Oriental” style, belong to the domain of ornament, while the human forms, say, on the earliest red-figured vases, while displayed in pleasing patterns and in studied relation to the shape and structure of the vessel, exhibit so much variety and so great an effort on the part of the artist to achieve similitude to nature, that they claim a place for themselves in the annals of the painter’s art. ”

“ At a later period, the whole vase was painted black, with the exception of the figures, which were then of the color of the clay of the vase; the contours of the figures, the hair, drapery, etc., being previously traced in black. There are then two general classes of Greek vases, distinguished by the figures, which are black or yellow. They are in general remarkable for the beauty and elegance of their forms. There is a great variety in their sizes; some being several feet high, and broad in proportion; others being not higher than an inch. ”

“ The Decadence of Greek Vase-Painting We have now reached the point at which the centre of ceramic industry is no longer to be found at Athens, but must be sought in distant colonies in various parts of the Mediterranean. The extinction of vase-painting as a decorative art at Athens was brought about as much by political events as by sheer artistic decadence at the end of the fifth century. It had until recent years been customary to assume that red-figured vases continued to be made at Athens through the greater part of the fourth century ”

“ Good and Bad.—While, then, we can exalt the Greek vase to a foremost place in the perfection of form, let us say that there are very{39} many Greek vases and pots which are bad, common, vulgar. So that no buyer, no student, must admire with his eyes shut. Hardly any considerable collection is without these bad things. Therefore, whoever seizes upon a Greek vase with the belief that it is beautiful because it is Greek, may wake some day to dash his god to pieces as false. ”

“ It is difficult in the 19th century to realise the importance of vases in ancient life. To the Greeks a vase was a receptacle for food, liquid, or storage, and for the adornment of the home. It was used in the daily life of the living and buried with the dead. Most of the finer Greek vases have been found in Etruscan tombs, but of Greek workmanship, imported from Greece or Grecian Colonies. Some black unglazed Etruscan vases have been found, but painted vases of Etruscan origin are rare. ”

“ Throughout there is a remarkable variety, not only of subjects, but of ornaments and methods of composition, features in which the Greek vase-painters at all periods allowed themselves little freedom. The ornamentation, which usually borders the figures above and below, or still oftener occupies the whole surface available for decoration, includes such motives as conventional wreaths and festoons, scrolls of foliage, and egg-and-tongue pattern; a favourite device is the use of columns with spiral shafts, often surmounted by masks, between the figures. ”

“ One of the most interesting, and certainly the most ancient, of all incised inscriptions on Greek vases is that engraved on a jug of “Dipylon” ware found at Athens in 1880. [2095] It runs: ὃς νῦν ὀρχηστῶν παντων ἀταλώτατα παίζει, τῦυ τόδε.... “He who now sports most delicately of all the dancers,” etc. Though probably not contemporary with this eighth-century vase, it is still of great antiquity, and the earliest Athenian inscription known.
In studying these graffiti, it must always be borne in mind that they lend themselves easily to forgery, and that many are open to grave suspicion. ”

“ Very nice vases were found at Ialysos in the island of Rhodes, and Ruskin bought them for the British Museum; but they have none of those great qualities that make Greek art worth studying, nor even a foretaste of such qualities. In its maturity Greek art was far the greatest that the world has ever seen, but it was not so in its infancy or its senile decay.
Apart from any merit they may have as works of art, Greek vases often have a human interest, especially if they are inscribed. One vase here tells you as an interesting fact, “Tleson, the son of Nearchos, made me.” ”

“ From the very beginning of Greek vase-painting there may be observed an endeavour to dispose the ornamental patterns in accordance with some system; and even though in some cases, as in the Cypriote Geometrical vases, there is an offence against the canons of art, yet at all periods the prevailing effect is one of symmetry and taste. It may be thought that in some respects there is a poverty in the variety of ornaments employed—as compared, for instance, with mediaeval art ”

“ In this high time of Art lay the seeds of corruption and death. The Athenian Greek became critical, refined, weak, luxurious, corrupt,{33} base; and then he went to decay. In some tombs (Fig. 30) opened in Italy, the body is found lying at length in the middle, and about it stand perfect vases, love-offerings of friends: were they once filled with perfumes upon which the spirit of the dead was wafted away? We place flowers in the graves of our lovely ones, and, beautiful as they are, they vanish with the dead. But the Greek vase remains to us after the lapse of two thousand years. ”

“ Athenian Pottery an Expression of the Greek Sense of Beauty.—Athens is proud of her traditions of naval and military glory; of the commerce of the Peiræus; of her free laws and constitution; of her sculptured temples, her poets, her rhetoricians and philosophers. Almost equally well might she be proud of her vases. They are not made—let us bear clearly in mind—by avowed artists, servants of the Muses and of the Beautiful; they are the regular commercial products of work-a-day craftsmen. But what craftsmen! In the first place, they have given to every vase and dish a marvelous individuality. ”

“ A few which are painted are quite different and inferior to the work of the Greeks. The collection was secured in Italy by Mr. J. J. Dixwell, who has been so good as to present it to the museum. Figs. 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, are examples of some of the vases in the Museum of the Louvre, which present the general style and character of this work; they show clearly how much the real Etruscan vase differs from the true Greek vase.{63}
CHAPTER III.
UNGLAZED POTTERY AT THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1876. ”

“ They are often modelled with great beauty and precision, especially the feet, which are admirably finished off, to effect which the vase must have been inverted. The modelling and separate attachment of the handle is represented in more than one ancient work of art (see Fig. 66) . In many cases the joining of the handles is so excellent that it is easier to break than to detach them. Great technical skill was displayed in turning certain peculiar forms of vases, and generally speaking the Greeks with their simple wheel effected wonders, producing shapes still unrivalled for beauty. ”

“ The largest and coarsest vases of the Greeks were made with the hand, and the large πίθοι, or casks, such as have been recently found in such numbers in Crete and Thera (p. 152) , were modelled by the aid of a kind of hooped mould (κάνναβος) : see ibid.) . The smaller and finer vases, however, were invariably turned on the wheel. On a Graeco-Roman lamp from Pozzuoli, in the British Museum, [768] a potter is seen standing and modelling a vase before his furnace, in the manner no doubt employed at all periods. ”

“ The clay is yellowish, and is covered with a deep black. The figures are reserved on the yellow and are well brought out by the black. The simplicity and dignity of this vase can hardly be excelled, and they are in striking contrast with the over-decorated things, so many of which have been made at Sèvres and Meissen. The great virtue of reticence was known and observed among the Greek artists.
The next (Fig. 39) is of a more uncommon form than the others, in its swelling out at the base. The handles, too, are rare, and the twisting together at the top quite peculiar. ”

“ In the fourth class we are introduced to a very interesting personality, that of Nikosthenes, the most prolific of all Greek vase-painters known to us, and of the B.F. artists by far the most original. [1221] He was, however, a potter rather than a painter, and on many of his vases the designs are little more than decorative motives. He favoured vases of metallic form, [1222] such as the phiale mesomphalos, and invented a peculiar type of amphora, also derived from a metallic origin, with broad, flat handles and slim body, with moulded rings dividing the subjects (see Plate XXX.) . ”

“ Their artistic merit was often of a high order, though this excellence was somewhat over-balanced by the figures being arranged to occupy the entire area of a gem’s surface. As Dr. Walters of the British Museum observed, “this horror vacui, or dread of leaving a vacant space, was characteristic of Greek artists at all periods.”
The Transitional Period proper, from 500 B.C. to 450 B.C., produced very fine gems with genre subjects. These were probably influenced somewhat by the freedom acquired by the Greek vase-painters, whose art reached its perfection in that era. ”

“ It is unlikely that they were used by the Athenian potters, since the Greek black glaze is so thin it would not be apt to run, but for the Roman ware with metallic glaze they were essential, and the marks they left are visible on the feet of the vases. [60] On one of the British Museum stilts (fig. 89) are remains of a greenish glaze from such a vase. No moulds for the Athenian plastic ware have to my knowledge been found. But moulds for the later wares, such as the Arretine, are of course plentiful. They are invariably made of burnt clay. ”

“ The next development of R.F. vase-painting, which presents all the characteristics of the best period of Greek art and of the highest point to which that art attained, is that called the fine style. In this the influence of painting first really begins to manifest itself, especially that of the Polygnotan school, which covers the years 470–440 B.C. It is shown alike in composition and in drawing, and to a lesser degree in the colouring; but the general use of colours and gilding on vases really belongs to the succeeding stage. ”

“ The issue rests with the jury of millions who use and admire burnt clay. Their wants, their sense of beauty and their purse will render the verdict. We might more safely and properly say that they will render a number of verdicts, all in their way and sphere just and true, since in no one of the arts so much as in this of all times and all nations is it so difficult to subject the infinitude of styles and fancies to one rigid canon. That the Greek vase is an absolute exemplar in grace and elegance of form every one hastens to concede. ”

“ Starting with what the poet gave them and holding this in mind as a guide and inspiration in certain details, the painters proceeded to create, as independent artists, a similar scene, transfused, however, with their own alterations. It is to be expected that in the over-filled vase paintings of Apulia and Campania one will find figures that show a wide liberty on the part of the painters, and that illustrate well how much the severe methods of the Athenian vase painters had been altered in Magna Graecia. ”

“ Vases of Greek and Roman styles were also common. A delicate thin ware with Assyrianesque figures, in white on a slightly sunk blue ground, was made in the Persian time and continued [115] into the Ptolemaic age. Large blocks for legs of furniture, and stands, were also made now. The characteristic colours are of a dark Prussian blue bordering on violet, and an apple-green.
In the Roman age there is an entirely new style. The body of the vase is of a purple-black colour, with a wreath of bright green leaves around it. Such continued almost to Coptic times. ”

“ The number of our vase-paintings, however, increases steadily, and whole classes, such as the early vases of Ionia, are being marked off from the crowd, and so becoming available for use in illustrating the history of Hellenic civilization.
The study of Greek art is thus one which is eminently progressive. ”

“ This vase may be regarded as having established the “type” for the subject so long popular on Attic vases, until Pheidias created a new and more ideal version. [1079] The Museum vase (Plate XXIII.) has a very remarkable representation of a subject rare in Greek art, with several unique features. [1080] The body of Polyxena is carried in a rigid horizontal position by Ajax Iliades (sc. son of Oïleus) and two others, to the tomb of Achilles, over which Neoptolemos stands to perform the fatal deed. Phoenix, Diomede, and Nestor “of Pylos” are spectators of the act. ”

“ Everything tends in the direction of elegance and delicacy.
Our next sub-division consists of vases, chiefly of late date, in which the decoration is by means of opaque colours laid on the surface of a vase altogether coated with black varnish or glaze. The process is not indeed one absolutely unknown in earlier times, for there is the primitive Kamaraes ware of Crete (p. 266) , and also a small series of archaic vases belonging to the early part of the fifth century (p. 393) in which this principle is adhered to, the designs being painted in opaque red or white on the black varnish. ”