First
Painted Vases
In the decoration of vases the distinction is more
clearly marked, and the presence of a new intellect is
visible from the beginning of Greck work. The
Graeco-Phenician styles are quite distinct from the
Egypto-Phenician and the Phenician, althoug founded on
them at the first. Out of the rude checker and diamond
ornamentations the Greeks extracted various combinations
of lines for friezes and decorative borders. Out of the
systems of circles overlapping each other and crossed by
straight lines, the Greek eye selected and improved a
variety of bead, drop, and scroll patterns, which always
remained favorites on Greek vases. The lines of the
rigid lotus-flower were resolved into separate patterns,
recombined in conventional forms of exceeding
gracefulness, without symbolic meaning, and used solely
as ornamental devices pleasing to the eye. Other leaves
and flowers first copied from nature, afterward
conventionalized, arranged as wreaths or border
patterns, indicate a new spirit in the arts of
ornamentation. The whole system of decoration in
symbolism was abolished, and the new system of
decoration to please the eye was introduced. All this
preceded the great achievement and glory of Greek
decoration, the painting of story on vases.
The style of decorated vases which has been
heretofore regarded as the earliest distinctively Greek
has been variously called Doric, Corinthian,
Carthaginian, and Egyptian. This variation of name
indicates the hitherto puzzling character of the
decoration, which consisted in rows of
animals--panthers, lions, goats, deer, and
birds--usually arranged in friezes around the vase,
while flowers are strewed over the field. (See III. 46.)
Specimens of this class have been found in various Greek
localities. Many have been discovered at Corinth. In the
Trumbull-Prime collection are a number of specimens
found in Southern Italy. As bearing on the question
whether the art history in Cyprus is fairly illustrative
of early Greek art history elsewhere, this style of
decorated pottery is interesting. Brought under view
with an immense number of the vases in the Cesnola
collection, it takes its place at once as an advanced
Egypto-Phenician style. But none of this pottery has
been found in Cyprus except a single small aryballos,
which was in the Kurium temple vanlts. Nevertheless, its
relation to the Egypto-Phenician is not subject to
doubt. The ware is different from any of the Cypriote
works. It is heavy, thick, cream-color or cold gray on
the surface, with decorations in black, white, and
maroon or red, the details of birds and animals, such as
limbs, muscles, feathers, etc., incised in the paste
through the color. Some specimens appear to have the
thin Iustrons glaze; but this may be the result of high
polish. The animals have always a remarkably stiff,
immovable look, which is thoroughly characteristic. But
the Egypto-Phenician decorations of Cyprus are here:
animals arranged in rows, the colors, the black and red
bands around objects, the lotus-flowers, the large
birds. On three vases in our collection are soldiers,
almost hidden by their shields. The same design is on
the single specimen found at Kurium, and the same also
occurs engraved on a gold ring which was among the
treasures of that temple. On one vase in our collection
is a winged shield, on the shield an asp. On others, the
same large bird appers which is so frequent on Cypriote
pottery. These vases occupy, therefore, a position in
art between the best decoration of the Phenicians and
the earliest of the pure Greek. They are of the
transition period. Although not made in Cyprus, they
show knowledge and education proceeding from
acquaintance with either the arts of Cyprus or kindred
arts of Phenicians in other localities. There is every
probability that explorations in other Phenician
countries will bring to light other local series of the
Egypto-Phenician predecessors of this style of Greek
art. It may be regarded as reasonably certain that this
class of vases illustrates the first great improvements
made by the Greek mind on the decorative styles of their
predecessors. But the style was far from satisfactory to
the progressive intellect and taste of the Greeks, and
was soon abandoned. It is possible that in the later
periods of skilled Greek art this archaic style of work
was reproduced for lovers of the antique.
The step which was next taken by the Greeks was a
gigantic stride. They had introduced into the ceramic
art the idea of decoration for beauty, and discarded the
old prevailing notion of using it for religious
symbolism. Now came the idea of illustrating story. In
our age of pictures and illustrated books, it seems a
simple idea. So is writing, printing; so is a magnetic
telegraph. But the beginnings of invention are more
marvellous than their progressions from step to step.
The first invention of a sign to express to the eye the
sound of the voice was a greater invention than the
printing-press. The first rude picture which told in
silence a complete story was a more marvellous work than
Kaulbach's frescoes in Berlin.
Was this new use of art a Greek invention? Egypt had
practised it two thousand years. The Egyptian
hieroglyphic writing, in its system of determinatives
(an occassional picture to explain the definite meaning
of the preceding signs), contained the very essence of
the art of illustration. There is no evidence that the
Greeks derived this idea from Egypt. It may have been an
original Greek conception. They claimed it as such, but
did not date the discovery in very remote times. Homer
says nothing of painting at the time of the siege of
Troy. The Greeks ascribed the beginning of the art among
them to the island of Sicyon, where outlines were made;
but the custom of filling up the outlines with color
they regarded as later.
Paintings are mentioned at Phocaea in 544 B.C. Cimon
of Cleonae is the earliest Greek painter mentioned. His
date is uncertain, but probably between 550 and 500 B.C.
To Polygnotus, a contemporary of the sculptor Phidias,
about 450 B.C., was ascribed the first great improvement
in the art from the archaic stiffness, and he was said
to have been the first to paint the open mouth showing
teeth. We shall see very soon that a century before
Polygnotus a lion was painted by an unknown artist with
open mouth and white teeth. The Phenicians had not
painted subjects until after they had come into contact
with the Greeks. Phenician vases with chariot scenes,
with animals browsing, and other representations of
action, are to be classed as of the Graeco-Phenician
period. Egyptian subject painting on vases had been
confined to a few rude outlines, chiefly of funereal or
mythological scenes of the character in the illustration
(9) on page 36.
Wherever the Greeks found this idea, they now began
for all subsequent ages the custom of telling stories,
recording history, perpetuating mythology in pictures.
Henceforth the glory of Greek romance in song is to be
illustrated with abundant paintings. For the purposes of
this art they found that kind of pottery best suited to
their ideas which the Phenicians had long produced in
brick-red color, decorated with circles and bands in
black, and covered with their lustrous glaze, which has
been described among Phenician potteries as Class 7.
They varied it by giving the surface sometimes an
artificial buff or yellowish-red color.
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