CHAPTER VIII

_VASE-PAINTING IN IONIA_

General characteristics—Classification—Mycenaean influence—Rhodian pottery—“Fikellura” ware—Asia Minor fabrics—Cyrenaic vases—Naukratis and its pottery—Daphnae ware—Caeretan hydriae—Other Ionic fabrics—“Pontic” vases—Early painting in Ionia—Clazomenae sarcophagi.

Having traced the history of vase-painting in Greece Proper down to the middle of the sixth century B.C., the point at which a tendency towards unification of style becomes perceptible, we must now turn our attention to the remains of the art on the other side of the Aegean, among the representatives of the Ionian race and in the centres of Ionian influence. To a certain extent it is difficult to treat the subject at all in a handbook, as, owing chiefly to want of material, the existence of an Ionian school of vase-painting has only been realised of late years, and it is as yet too early to sift proofs from theories, or to give a succinct and systematised account of the development and achievements of this school. The most that can be attempted is to present the reader with a review of the accumulated materials, and to point out what groups of vases may be regarded as exhibiting “Ionian” characteristics, or at all events such as permit of their being connected together.[1082] It must be borne in mind that some of these fabrics, such, for instance, as the Rhodian wares, have not actually been found in Ionic settlements; in other words, the name Ionian is to be applied to certain styles or schools, in the main associated with that race, apart from considerations of ethnography.

On one point scholars are in general agreement—namely, that Ionic art is a direct survival of Mycenaean. This was recognised as long ago as 1879 by Furtwaengler[1083] and by Lenormant,[1084] who pointed out that the silver cauldron dedicated by King Alyattes at Delphi must have been quite Mycenaean in character, although not earlier than the seventh century. It was decorated with aquatic animals and plants. There was in Ionia no disturbing element, such as the Dorian invasion introduced into Europe, between Mycenaean culture and the spread of Oriental influences. The Greek cities in Ionia owe their origin to that upheaval, but their culture was not affected by it; and their founders brought their Mycenaean civilisation with them fresh from Greece to their new homes in Miletos, Ephesos, Phocaea, Chios, and Samos. This was in the eleventh and tenth centuries B.C., and the Panionion, or union of Ionian cities, lasted down to the sixth century (when it was broken up by the Persian invasion), besides stretching out its feelers over the Mediterranean, to the Egyptian Delta and elsewhere. The actual centres of pottery-manufacture are not, however, easy to determine, and much may depend on the results of future excavations. That there was more than one is fairly obvious, and it will probably appear that Clazomenae, Miletos, and perhaps Phocaea, played the most important parts.

As regards the characteristics of the Ionian wares, a rough division may be made into two classes, corresponding to the buff-clay and red-clay Corinthian wares respectively. In the earlier, the vases are always covered with a creamy-white or drab-coloured slip, on which the figures stand out in lustrous black paint.[1085] The most typical fabric is that of the Rhodian wares, found in such large quantities in that island, but not necessarily made there. In the later group the place of the white slip is taken by a red coating or glaze similar to that of the Attic and later Corinthian wares, but somewhat brighter.

The principal subdivisions may be classified as follows (the arrangement is M. Pottier’s, with one or two small differences):—

I. 1. Rhodian wares.[1086] 2. Samian and “Fikellura” wares.[1087] 3. Asia Minor fabrics: (_a_) Caria.[1088] (_b_) Knidos.[1089] (_c_) Larissa.[1090] (_d_) Myrina.[1091] (_e_) Pitane.[1092] (_f_) Phocaea.[1093] (_g_) Troad.[1094] 4. Vases found in the Crimea.[1095] 5. Naukratis wares.[1096] 6. Clazomenae sarcophagi.[1097]

II. 1. Cyrenaic wares. 2. Daphnae wares. 3. Caeretan hydriae. 4. So-called “Pontic” vases. 5. Developed B.F. Ionian fabrics from Clazomenae, Kyme, Naukratis, Rhodes, etc. 6. Italo-Ionic vases of the decadence and Etruscan imitations.[1098]

The subdivision between the earlier and later fabrics is, roughly speaking, between those with white and red ground, and between those in which ground-ornaments are used or not. Generally speaking, all the second class have more in common with the Attic B.F. vases than with “primitive” fabrics.

Before proceeding to the consideration of these fabrics in detail, it may be as well to note some of the general characteristics of Ionian pottery. In the use of incised lines and accessory pigments we may note two points: firstly, the absence for some time of any attempt at incised lines, their place being taken partly by contours drawn in outline on the clay; secondly, the use of white lines or patches for details. The incised lines, when they do appear, seem to be derived from Corinth. We may, perhaps, detect their arrival in the vases with imbrications (see p. 311), which were imported thence to Rhodes; but another theory is that they were derived from engraved work in metal. Practically their place had been, and to some extent continued to be, taken by the white paint, which, be it noted, is obviously a Mycenaean survival or revival.[1099] It frequently occurs on the pottery of Ialysos and Enkomi, in precisely the same manner as we see it used in Rhodes or on the sarcophagi of Clazomenae. Sometimes both the incised lines and the white-paint details are found on the same vase, as is seen in some of the Rhodian jugs, or on a pinax from Naukratis.[1100] The white pigments are usually laid directly on the clay, not on the black, as at Athens. They are used for flesh tints, but not to distinguish sex (cf. the Caeretan hydriae, p. 355, where men are painted white, as on the Melian vases they are yellow).

As regards the ornamentation, the persistence of Mycenaean motives is exceedingly remarkable.[1101] It is seen especially in the fabrics of Rhodes and Naukratis, with their wealth of ground-ornaments, and is found not only in the more conventional motives such as spirals, or scale-pattern, but also in the vegetable patterns. There is generally in the floral decoration of the vases a tendency towards the naturalism of Mycenaean pottery. Animals, when decoratively treated, are usually arranged in long friezes, contrasting with the Corinthian method of grouping them heraldically in pairs.[1102] In the human figures Oriental influence is frequently prominent, as in the hybrid beings which so often adorn the vases, or in such types as the “Asiatic Artemis”; or, again, in small details, the conical caps and shoes with turned-up toes, which recall the figures on the monuments of Lydia and Phrygia. Oriental costumes generally are reproduced with great fidelity. As a rule the proportions are gross and heavy, as compared with the slimness of figures on Attic vases, wherein a curious contrast may be observed with the characteristics of Ionian and Continental architecture and sculpture, in which these features are reversed. There is, moreover, a conspicuous absence of stiffness in the Ionian compositions—rather, a remarkable freshness, vigour, and originality quite in advance of their time. Another point of contrast with the Attic vases is the absence of any differentiation of the sexes in the shape of the eye, which is always oval (cf. p. 408).

In the choice of subjects the same law may be observed to prevail as in the Corinthian wares—that of the _hiérarchie des genres_. Mythological subjects appear first about the middle of the seventh century, in the Euphorbos pinax. Later we find actually scenes of a quasi-historical character, as in the battle-scenes on the Clazomenae sarcophagi and the Cyrenaic Arkesilaos vase. Throughout there is a remarkable absence of inscriptions, which are only found at the most on some half-dozen vases. The height of the Ionian style may be said to have been reached in the seventh century, lasting up to about the middle of the sixth; thence there is a rapid downfall, due mainly to historical causes, and the traces of its influence are only to be sought in Italian imitations of an inferior kind, and in some of the Attic black-figured vases, such as those of Amasis and Nikosthenes.

But the influence that was exercised during all this period by Ionian art in general on Greece is not easy to estimate; it is not confined to the pottery, but is found in sculpture and architecture as well as the minor arts. There are numerous passages in ancient writers bearing on the activity of early Ionian artists, such as Theodoros and Rhoikos of Samos, and their works, which often took the form of offerings of Asiatic princes to the Greek temples. The Ionic school of sculpture, illustrated by the early temple at Ephesos, the “Harpy” Monument, and other notable works, as well as the great Amyclaean throne, which Bathykles of Magnesia was commissioned to erect, established the fame of early Greek sculpture in no small degree; and Ionic architecture, though slower to win its way to favour in Greece Proper, reached a high degree of excellence at an early period on the eastern shore of the Aegean. Of painting in Ionia, apart from the vases, we propose to speak later. In literature and in civilisation generally Ionia was, up to the middle of the sixth century, far more advanced than any part of the Greek mainland.

§ 1. RHODES AND ASIA MINOR

The distinctive pottery of Rhodes,[1103] which, whether of local manufacture or not, is found almost exclusively in that island,[1104] represents the union of Mycenaean elements with a new feature, that of Oriental influence. Although primarily due to the dispersion of the Phoenicians by Assyria in the eighth century, this Orientalising of Ionia is purely artistic and industrial, not political, and is due to the commercial activity of the Phoenicians. The pottery represents a sort of transition between Assyrian and Greek decorative art, the essentially Greek elements in which are a survival of Mycenaean ornaments and a Mycenaean faculty of observation of nature, especially in the animal world. From the East were derived such features as hybrid monsters (the Sphinx, Siren, etc.), animals such as the lion, isolated motives like the lotos-flower and the rosette, and generally a tendency to imitate textile fabrics with long bands of decoration, in which the ground is strewn with these rosettes and other ornaments. We have already seen that these features also made their mark on the Corinthian style, but they are more especially characteristic of Rhodes. Human figures are exceedingly rare.

In regard to the shapes a great advance is made towards the classical types; the parts of the vase are more clearly distinguished, and the forms are few and consistent. The special Rhodian shape is the oinochoë, a large jug with trefoil lip and spherical body, decorated with two or three friezes of animals (see Plate XX. and p. 177); next in popularity is the circular plate or _pinax_. The ornamentation is always in lustrous black paint on the characteristic white or drab-coloured slip, with a free use of purple for details. White is little used as an accessory—there seems to have been a prejudice against its use when the ground of the vase was also white—but incised lines occur more freely. On the other hand, the heads of animals are almost always outlined in black on the clay ground, a feature derived from Mycenaean pottery, and interior details are also frequently left in the ground of the clay, as in the Geometrical style. We have already mentioned instances in which the two methods are found on the same vase.

The typical Rhodian oinochoae, like the contemporary Corinthian vases, owe much to the imitation of the textile embroideries of Assyria, of which we have already spoken under the other head (p. 312). These had become familiar in Rhodes through the agency of the Phoenicians, but it is also possible that the Ionians were themselves proficient in this industry. The bands of lotos-ornament and friezes of animals also appear on the porcelain vases found in large numbers at Kameiros (p. 127), which are sometimes most elaborately ornamented, and are clearly of Phoenician origin; the seventh century was, in fact, the time when the Greek world was most dominated by Oriental influences.

The ornamental patterns on the vases of this class fall under two heads—the smaller independent ground-ornaments, and the more elaborated bands of vegetable ornament. The former are best illustrated by the Euphorbos pinax, presently to be described; in contrast to the unvarying Corinthian rosette, they show a considerable variety of treatment, and are partly variations on the rosette theme, partly geometrical, like the fragments of maeander, or crosses with hooked arms, which recall in form the ubiquitous _swastika_. The band of lotos-flowers and buds actually occurs at a much earlier date in Boeotia, as we have seen, but it is at Rhodes that it first assumes the characteristic Greek form. On the pinakes a development of this motive, forming a fan-shaped combination of radiating leaves, is usually employed to fill in the “exergue” below the designs; a similar ornament is found on the black wares with incised patterns, and it is the forerunner of the pear-shaped radiations painted on the small bowls of a more recent date.[1105]

A typically Ionian motive is the plait-band, found at Naukratis and on the Clazomenae sarcophagi, and introduced from Assyria. The Mycenaean spiral, so prominent in Attica and Melos, retires into the background, or loses its geometrical significance, and becomes a mere vegetable motive, an adjunct to the floral combinations of bud and flower. The Rhodian vases are, in fact, the first in which spiral motives were freely used for calyx-ornaments, as, generally speaking, they were the first in post-Mycenaean times to raise floral motives from mere ground-ornaments to independent decoration.[1106]

The series of pinakes yield the most interesting examples of Rhodian vase-painting; they are usually decorated with a figure of a ram or other animal on a large scale (Plate XXIV.), the exergue or lower portion of the field being filled in with a suitable pattern, such as a sort of fan-pattern of spreading rays or fronds (see above), or a free variation of the Egyptian lotos-flower. But one is of surpassing interest and importance, the famous Euphorbos pinax as it is generally called, which was found at Kameiros, and is now in the British Museum. The subject is the combat of Menelaos and Hector over the body of Euphorbos,[1107] a scene from the _Iliad_, but not reproduced in accurate detail, as, indeed, is seldom the case in archaic art. The figures are drawn partly in outline, with a lavish use of purple for details, and the whole of the ground is filled in with various ornaments, rosettes, etc., one at the top of the scene taking the form of a pair of eyes, with a conventionalised floral pattern between. Additional interest is given to the design by the fact that the figures are named, the words being in the Argive alphabet (see