Chapter XXI
.).
As depicted on vases and elsewhere, the ancient furnaces seem to have been of simple construction, tall conical ovens fed by fires from beneath, into which the vases were placed with a long shovel resembling a baker’s peel. The kilns were heated with charcoal or wood fuel, and in some of the representations of them we see men holding long instruments with which they are about to poke or rake the fires (Fig. 68). They had two doors, one for the insertion of the vases and one for the potter to watch the progress of the baking. For vases of great size, like the huge πίθοι, special ovens must have been necessary; and we have a representation on a Corinthian pinax[783] of such an oven, the roof of which resembles the upper part of a large _pithos_ surrounded by flames.
[Illustration: FIG. 68. SEILENOS AS POTTER.]
On the lamp from Pozzuoli in the British Museum, referred to on p. 209, there is a curious subject in relief, representing a potter about to place a vase in an oven with a tall chimney; and on a hydria at Munich[784] (Fig. 67 _b_) a man is about to place an amphora in a kiln, while other jars (painted white) stand ready to be baked. But for our purposes the Corinthian pinakes are even more valuable for the information they afford. There are several representing the exterior of the conical furnace, with men standing by watching the fires and tending them with rakes[785]; in another we have a bird’s-eye view in horizontal section of the interior of an oven, filled with jugs of various forms (Fig. 69). Flames are usually indicated rising from underneath the ovens.[786]
[Illustration: FIG. 69. INTERIOR OF FURNACE (FROM CORINTHIAN PINAX)]
The Munich hydria (Fig. 67_b_) reproduces the interior of a potter’s workshop with such detail that a full description of the scene may be permissible.[787] On the left of the picture a seated man seems to be examining an amphora, which has just been finished (it is painted black) and is brought up for his approval. Next is seen an amphora on the potter’s wheel, painted white to indicate its imperfect state; one man places his arm inside to shape the interior, while another turns the wheel for him. On their right another white amphora is being carried out, just fresh from the wheel, but without handles or mouth, to be dried in the open or at the furnace; next is another standing on the ground to dry. On the right of the scene stands the foreman or master of the pottery, before whom a nude man carries what has been thought to be a sack of coals for the furnace, which is seen on the extreme right.
Even more vivid and instructive, in spite of its careless execution, is the painting on a kotyle found at Exarchos or Abae in Lokris, and now in the Athens Museum (Fig. 70).[788] The style is that of the imitation B.F. vases found in the temple of the Kabeiri at Thebes, late in the fifth century. We see represented the interior of a potter’s workshop, in which the master of the business sits holding up a kylix in one hand, while with the other he threatens a slave, who runs off with three kotylae ready for the furnace; three similar kotylae stand by the master’s feet, and behind him are two more vases on a shelf. On the right of the scene a workman sits at a table on which is a pot full of paint, with a brush in it; he holds up a newly-painted kotyle, admiring his workmanship. The picture is completed by a realistic representation of an unfortunate slave suspended by cords to the ceiling as a punishment for some offence, while another belabours him with a leather thong.
[Illustration: FIG. 70. INTERIOR OF POTTERY.]
It would appear that the vases after the baking were often placed on the exterior of the furnace, either to prevent the too rapid cooling of the clay, or (as indicated on the Berlin cup) for the pigments to dry. Jahn and others have published a gem[789] on which a small two-handled vase is placed on the top of an oven, and a youth is applying two sticks to it, perhaps in order to take it down without injury by the contact of the hand. A companion gem,[790] on which an artist is painting a similar jar, shows a jug and a kylix standing on a kiln.
When the vases were returned from the furnace, the potter appears to have made good as far as possible the defects of those not absolutely spoiled; and if naturally or by accident any parts remained too pale after the baking, the defect was remedied by rubbing them over with a deep red ochre, which supplied the necessary tone.
4. PAINTING
We may distinguish three principal classes of painted pottery, of which one at least admits of several subdivisions:—
(1) Primitive Greek vases, with simple painted ornaments, chiefly linear and geometrical, laid directly on the ground of the clay with the brush. The colour employed is usually a yellowish or brownish red, passing into black. The execution varies, but is often extremely coarse.
(2) Greek vases (and Italian imitations) painted with figures. These may be subdivided as follows:—
(_a_) Vases with figures in black varnish on red glazed ground (see Frontispiece, Vol. II.);
(_b_) Vases with figures left in the red glaze on a ground of black varnish (see Frontispiece, Vol. I.).
(3) (_a_) Vases of various dates with outline or polychrome decoration on white ground (see Plate XLIII.);
(_b_) Vases (also of various dates) with designs in opaque colour on black ground.
Of these, the second group is by far the largest and most important, and the complicated and technical processes which it involved will demand by far the greater share of our attention in the following account of the methods of painting. In both the classes (_a_) and (_b_) the colouring is almost confined to a contrasting of the red glazed ground of the clay with a black varnish-like pigment, a contrast which perhaps more than anything else furnishes the great charm of a Greek vase.
This black varnish is particularly lustrous and deep, but varies under different circumstances. Great difference of opinion has always existed as to its nature, and the method by which it was brought to such perfection by the Greeks. The variations in its appearance are due
## partly to differences of locality and fabric, partly to accidents of
production. It is seen in its greatest perfection in the so-called Nolan amphorae of the severe red-figure period; and at its worst in the Etruscan and Italiote imitations of Greek fabrics. On the vases found at Vulci it shows a tendency to assume a greenish hue, as opposed to the blue-black of the Nolan vases, while variations in the direction of red, brown, and (on late South Italy fabrics) grey are of frequent occurrence. It is probable that these gradations of quality are mainly due to the action of fire, according as a higher or lower temperature was employed. On the other hand, the ashen-grey hue which vases of all periods sometimes assume[791] seems to be due to the direct action of fire in contact with them, and this may perhaps be explained by supposing that they had been burnt on a funeral pyre. This varnish also varies in the thickness with which it was laid on, as can be easily detected with the finger.
Although the chemical action of the earth sometimes causes the black varnish to disappear entirely, leaving only the figures faintly indicated on the red-clay ground, there has never yet been found any acid which has any effect upon it.[792] Various opinions have been promulgated, from Caylus downwards, as to the elements of which it is composed.[793] Brongniart[794] has analysed it with the following results:—
Silicic acid 46·30 50·00 Clay earth 11·90 Iron oxide 16·70 17·00 Chalk 5·70 Magnesia 2·30 Soda 17·10 Copper traces.
It is unnecessary here to enter in detail into the numerous other theories of its composition, but so far it cannot be said that any certainty has been attained.
Turning now to the methods by which the black varnish was applied, we find it necessary to distinguish between the two classes of black-figured and red-figured vases; some vases, of course, are completely covered with it, having no painted design, but these do not enter into the question.
In the black-figured vases the figures are painted in black silhouette on the red ground of the vase, the outlines being first roughly indicated by a pointed instrument making a faint line.[795] The surface within these outlines was then filled in with the black pigment by means of a brush, the details of anatomy, drapery, armour, etc., being subsequently brought out in part by further incising of lines with a pointed tool. In some of the finest vases, such as those of Amasis and Exekias (p. 381), the delicacy and minuteness of these lines is brought to an extraordinary pitch of perfection. After a second baking had taken place, the designs were further enriched by the application of opaque purple and white pigments, usually following certain conventional principles, the flesh of women and devices on shields, for instance, being always white, folds of drapery always purple. A third baking at a much lower heat was necessary to fix these colours, and the vase was then complete.
It should here be noted that there are really two subdivisions of these black-figured vases, which may be termed for convenience “red-bodied” and “black-bodied.”[796] In the former the whole vase stands out in the natural red colour of the clay; whereas in the latter the treatment approaches more nearly to the red-figure method which we shall presently discuss. The whole body of the vase is in these examples covered with the black varnish, with the exception of a framed panel of red, on which the figures are painted. This distinction may be well observed in the Second Vase Room of the British Museum, where most of the vases on the east side of the room belong to the former or “red-bodied” class, while all those on the west side are “black-bodied,” with designs in panels.
In the red-figured vases the black varnish is used as the background, and covers the whole vase, as in the “black-bodied” B.F. fabrics, the figures not being actually painted, but _left red_ in the colour of the clay. The process was as follows:—Before the varnish was applied the outlines of the figures were indicated, not by incised lines but by drawing a thick line of black with a brush round their contours. It is probable that a fine brush was used at first, especially for more delicate work, and then a broader brush producing a line about an eighth of an inch in thickness. The process, be it noted, is more akin to _drawing_ than painting; and it was as draughtsmen _par excellence_ that the red-figure artists excelled. The next stage was to mark the inner details by means of very fine black lines (corresponding to the incised lines of B.F. vases), or by masses of black for surfaces such as the hair; white and purple were also employed, but far more sparingly than on the earlier vases. In the late Athenian and South Italian vases a tendency to polychromy sprang up, but the main process always remained the same to the final decadence of the art. The figures being completed and protected from accidents by their broad black borders, the varnishing of the whole exterior surface was then proceeded with. This was of course a purely mechanical business. A fragment of a red-figured vase in the Sèvres Museum forms an excellent illustration of the method employed, as, although the figures are finished, the ground has never been filled in, and the original black border is plainly visible (Fig. 71).
[Illustration: FIG. 71. FRAGMENT OF UNFINISHED RED-FIGURED VASE.]
The result of the second baking was to fix the varnish and cause it to permeate the surface of the clay in such a way as to become practically inseparable from it. The subsidiary colours, on the other hand, which were laid on over the black, are always liable to disappear or fade.
A very interesting representation of painters at work on their vases is to be seen on a hydria from Ruvo (Fig. 72).[797] Three painters are seated at work with their brushes, of whom two are being crowned by Victories, while the third is about to receive a wreath from Athena, the protecting goddess of the industry. Their paint-pots are to be seen by their side. At one end of the scene a woman is similarly occupied.
From _Blümner_.
[Illustration: FIG. 72. STUDIO OF VASE-PAINTER.]
In class 3 (_a_), or vases with figures on white ground, we have to deal with the process of covering the naturally pale clay with a white slip of more or less thick and creamy consistency, on which the designs were painted. In the archaic period this process is fairly common, especially in the earliest vases of Corinth and of Ionia, and at Kyrene and Naukratis. It was revived at Athens about the end of the sixth century (see pp. 385, 455). But when once the white slip was laid on, the technical process differed little from that in use on ordinary red-ground vases, except for the general avoidance of white as an accessory; it merely results that instead of a contrast of black and red, one of black and cream is obtained. The method was one also largely practised in early painting, as we see in the Corinthian pinakes and the sarcophagi of Clazomenae (pp. 316, 362).
But there is another class of white-ground vases to which we must devote more special attention, namely, those on which the figures are painted either in outline or with polychrome washes on the same white slip. The earliest instance of such a method is in the series of fragments found at Naukratis, dating from the beginning of the sixth century (see p. 348), which technically and artistically are of remarkably advanced character, and combine the two methods of painting in outline and in washes of colour. In the fifth century the practice was revived at Athens as a means of obtaining effective results with small vases, and became especially characteristic of one class, the funeral lekythi, which are elsewhere described (