CHAPTER XI
_WHITE-GROUND AND LATER FABRICS_
Origin and character of white-ground painting—Outline drawing and polychromy—Funeral lekythi—Subjects and types—Decadence of Greek vase-painting—Rise of new centres—Kertch, Cyrenaica, and Southern Italy—Characteristics of the latter fabrics—Shapes—Draughtsmanship—Influence of Tragedy and Comedy—Subjects—Paestum fabric—Lucanian, Campanian, and Apulian fabrics—Gnathia vases—Vases modelled in form of figures—Imitations of metal—Vases with reliefs—“Megarian” bowls—Bolsena ware and Calene phialae.
§ 1. WHITE-GROUND VASES
The method of painting on a white ground, which was brought to such perfection in the fifth century, really requires a section to itself, its development being parallel to, yet different from, that of the painting in red on black. Its genealogy can be traced almost throughout the period of Greek vase-painting, beginning with the Ionian fabrics of Rhodes and Samos, through the more developed vases of Naukratis and Kyrene, until it was introduced at Athens in the latter part of the sixth century, perhaps, as we have seen (p. 385), by Nikosthenes. The method was not, of course, new then to Continental Greece. It was the one usually employed for painting votive tablets or pictures on wood, the surface of the tablet being prepared by covering it with a thick slip of creamy-white lustrous character, known as λεύκωμα.[1409] Thus it is used in one of the few examples known of Attic painting, apart from the vases, the Warrior pinax from the Acropolis, which may be dated about 500 B.C., and stands midway between frescoes and white-ground vases (see above, p. 397). Possibly the idea of the white slip was to get the effect of painting on marble such as we see in the tombstones of Lyseas and Aineos.[1410]
This method was adhered to throughout the fifth century by all the great painters, such as Polygnotos, and hence the importance to us of the white-ground vases of that time, as reflecting their methods, and in a miniature form the appearance of their works. In the fifth century the all-important consideration in a picture was perfection of design and composition; colouring was relatively unimportant, and the technical processes exceedingly simple, three or four colours alone being employed. Cicero[1411] tells us that Polygnotos, Zeuxis, and Timanthes only used four colours—black, white, red, and yellow. It is interesting to note that these are just the four colours we ordinarily find on the polychrome vases, the flat tints so frequently employed being no doubt suggested by the mural paintings.
To go back to the earlier Athenian vases with white ground, we observe that at first the method of painting in silhouette, in the manner of the ordinary B.F. vases, obtains exclusively.[1412] About the beginning of the fifth century this method is superseded by what we may regard as a transitional class, in which the figures are painted partly in silhouette, partly in outline, the simple black-on-white design being preserved, with a very occasional use of purple or yellow.[1413] According to Winter, the origin of outline drawing of this kind may be found in the partly outlined female heads which are found on some of the minor artists’ cups, such as those of Sakonides, Eucheiros, and Hermogenes.[1414] We need not go as far as he does in explaining the _catagrapha_ of Kimon (see p. 397) as the replacement of mere silhouettes by outline drawing, so as to give individuality and variety to faces; but the vases which he publishes are remarkable for the highly developed character of the heads depicted thereon.[1415] One in
## particular is more like a head by Euphronios than one of the Epictetan
cycle, to which it must belong in point of date. But it must be remembered that Epiktetos and his school were still hampered by archaic conventions, while the painter on a white ground was carving out the way to perfect freedom.
The shapes employed for the new white-ground technique are much the same as those used in the previous period—the kylix, the lekythos, the oinochoë, the pyxis, and the alabastron.[1416] But of these only one retains its popularity for any length of time; in fact, after the middle of the fifth century it is the only one employed at all. This shape is the lekythos, on which, indeed, alone the whole development of white-ground painting can be traced from the B.F. types down to the fourth century, when it finally disappears. Although not exclusively the sepulchral vase (as may be seen from the appearance of other vases on tombs in the painted funeral scenes[1417]), yet for some reason it came to be regarded as the proper shape for such purposes, and the fashion of making white lekythi exclusively for the tomb, and decorated as a general rule with funerary subjects, prevailed for about a hundred and fifty years. We have elsewhere (pp. 132, 143) noted instances of its use recorded by Aristophanes.
The introduction of polychromy is a gradual development. At first, as we have seen, colour is very sparingly employed, only in the use of a brownish yellow (produced by thinning out the black) for details or washes, or of a purple or pinkish brown. Subsequently the outlines are drawn in black or brown, and filled in with black, brown, or purple washes; the occasional use of a clear, thick, white pigment, standing out against the cream background, is also to be noted[1418]; and next a wash of bright red or vermilion is employed. In the final stages of polychrome painting, during the fourth century, the range of colours is greatly extended, and blue or green are employed
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PLATE XLIII
[Illustration:
VASES WITH POLYCHROME DESIGNS ON WHITE GROUND. (BRITISH MUSEUM). ]
_To face page 456._
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in addition to those already named. The outlines are also painted in the vermilion colour already mentioned, instead of the black in previous use. Up to the end of the fifth century the colouring always preserves a character of soberness and austerity; and such a feature as the use of gilding[1419] is quite exceptional.
Some of the white-ground kylikes are only partially so; the exterior is painted in the ordinary R.F. manner, of the “strong” style, as in the case of the Anesidora cup in the British Museum. On the other hand, a fine cup at Gotha has a red-figured interior and polychrome exterior.[1420] In the Munich collection there are three very beautiful cups of this kind.[1421] The interior subjects are respectively Europa on the bull, a frenzied Maenad, and Hera. The cup with the Maenad is attributed by Furtwaengler to the style of Brygos, and may therefore be dated about 470–460 B.C. It is rare to find a large vase decorated in this method, but there is a very fine krater of the calyx type in the Museo Gregoriano at Rome,[1422] which has been attributed to the middle of the fifth century (contemporary with Euphronios’ later manner); the subject is the delivery of the infant Dionysos to the nymphs of Nysa, and is painted throughout in polychrome on a white ground. Of late years some very fine pyxides in this style have been found in Greece,[1423] often decorated with marriage scenes, the style of the painting being contemporary with Duris and Brygos. But for beauty and delicacy all are surpassed by some of the smaller cups, above all the Aphrodite cup from Kameiros in the British Museum,[1424] in which refinement and grace are combined with boldness of conception and accuracy of drawing in a marvellous degree. Or, again, the group of cups and bowls by Sotades (see above, p. 445),[1425] some with mythological or other subjects painted in minute and graceful style, others of fantastic or unusual shape and decoration, form a unique series among the white-ground vases.[1426]
To sum up in the words of A. S. Murray the characteristics of these vases[1427]: “There was thus in the white vases an exceptional opportunity for purity of outline in the drawing, and it is not without reason that they are regarded as the best representatives we yet possess of the great age of Greek fresco-painting, in which also purity and sweep of outline on a white ground, simplicity of composition, and a limited scale of brilliant colours, were the chief characteristics.”
It remains now to speak of the funeral lekythi as a distinct class, their subjects and method of treatment.[1428] Although it was formerly customary to speak of “vases of Locri” or “vases of Gela” in speaking of examples found on those sites, it is almost certain that they are all really of Athenian origin.[1429] Apart from the fact that the great majority have been found at Athens, there are no special peculiarities about those from other sites which would justify any such distinction of fabrics. The same remarks apply to the numerous examples which have been found of late years at Eretria in Euboea, and have caused some recrudescence of the theory of non-Attic origin.[1430] But Eretria was so near to Athens that importation must have been quite a simple matter. In regard to the Locri vases, it has been noted by M. Pottier[1431] that they seem to represent an _inferior_, though still Athenian fabric, in which the white is more lustrous and less flaky than in the better examples, and the outlines are in black exclusively. Black silhouettes are occasionally found, and the subjects are not necessarily funerary.
The funerary subjects fall into four classes; they will be enumerated in