Chapter XVIII
.). It is largely due to historical causes, such as the development of Greek commerce and colonial expansion, and generally to the fusion of Dorian and Ionian elements. Hence the prominent characteristic which distinguishes the new variety from the Proto-Corinthian; namely, the employment of vegetable ornament, not from direct observation of nature, but conventionalised. These patterns seem to be largely drawn from Oriental textile embroideries, and mainly take the form of rosettes, leaves, and flowers strewn all over the field; according to some writers, this is the explanation of the phrase _spargentes lineas intus_,[1038] used in connection with the Corinthian painters Aridikes and Telephanes. _Ground_-ornaments are almost unknown in Oriental art; but their adoption from the embroideries would only exemplify the principle, universal in early art, of imitating in one material the salient features of another. It has been suggested that these flowers and leaves are intended to represent the ground on which the animals are walking. If this is so, the effect is due to a principle already existing in Mycenaean art—the conventional rendering of perspective by placing objects whose real position is beyond the principal subjects in the same vertical plane with them. Another favourite pattern, either as a ground-ornament or as part of the subordinate decoration, is a combination of the palmette and lotos-flower, picked out with purple accessories[1039]; this pattern is purely conventional, and often assumes colossal dimensions in relation to the size of the vase. The purple accessories, which now become very common, may possibly be connected with another traditional Corinthian invention, that of Ekphantos, who used a red pigment made from pounded earth (see p. 395).[1040]
As regards shapes, the alabastron and aryballos[1041] are preeminently popular; the flat-bottomed jug, the pyxis or covered jar, and the skyphos or kotyle, are also found (see Plate XIX. figs. 1, 2, 5). There arises now a tendency in the larger vases to divide the body into zones or friezes, which henceforth become a characteristic feature. The subjects are strictly limited to animals such as the lion, or various types of birds; and friezes of running dogs and other quadrupeds now become the typical Corinthian motive.
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PLATE XX
_To face page 312_
[Illustration:
1. COVERED JAR OF CORINTHIAN FABRIC. 2. “RHODIAN” OINOCHOE. (BRITISH MUSEUM). ]
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4. =Vases with floral decoration and figures with incised lines= (about 650–600 B.C.).—In this next stage, the date of which corresponds with the later trench-tombs and older chamber-tombs of Etruria (see