Chapter 7

PLATE LVIII.Fig. 103. ATHENA AND HERAKLES: FROM AN AMPHORA IN THE STYLE OF THE ANDOKIDES PAINTER.From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LVIII.

Fig. 103. ATHENA AND HERAKLES: FROM AN AMPHORA IN THE STYLE OF THE ANDOKIDES PAINTER.

From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

Marathon (490 B.C.) the latest offering was a sherd of the kylix type with simple maeander (c.p. Fig. 115) which appears in the later ‘Leagros’ period. The Acropolis finds, which are prior to the Persian conflagration (480 B.C.), have not yet been sorted and sifted.

According to this chronology the red-figured style must have made its entry into Athens about fifty years before the Persian War, with which it is customary to close the archaic period of Greek art,i.e., about 530 B.C.

We saw above, that the workshops of Pamphaios and Nikosthenes open their doors to it: neither master breaks abruptly with the old style, which often asserts itself together with the new on the same vase. This contrast of the two styles is made clear by no one more obviously than the potter Andokides on his fine amphorae, which are directly in line of succession with Exekias; never is the essence of both styles so plain as when on such a vase the same subject is treated by the same painter’s hand in the old and in the new technique. The unsigned, but certainly Andokidean Munich amphora (Fig.103) is not one of these instances in spite of the similarity of the subject; its black-figured Herakles scene is certainly by a different hand from its red-figured, in which the same delicate and original artist as on most of the signed works (the ‘Andokides’ painter) expresses himself. If this painter is identical with the potter, Andokides was not merely in shape and decoration of his vases but also as draughtsman a pupil and successor of Exekias. He has inherited the feeling for elegant detailed drawing and for richly ornamented garments. In the Herakles scene we see the same joy in a harmonious picture as in the sea-voyage of Exekias (Fig.93) and the game of draughts (Fig.96), which he actually copied; and the same intense absorption in the subject makes all other works of Andokides charming. In much the drawing reminds us ofthe teacher, particularly the flat layers of drapery, which already resolve the chitons into rich folds and end in the border more naturally, but do not attain the life-like waving of the late works of Amasis. The filling of the space with vine branches also is more in accord with the old technique than the new. But the more advanced pupil is shown not merely by the renewed study of the body, which appears in the drawing of hand and foot, in pointed elbow and knee, and in Herakles’ leg shown through the drapery, but also by the more compact composition and the individual treatment of the heads.

The entirely red-figured vases by Andokides are not necessarily older than the black-figured: the latest vase signed by him (in Madrid) still combines both techniques. It must have been decorated by a third artist less archaic in feeling, who also worked for the potter firm of Menon. The Menon painter adds to the Andokidean framing patterns the row of circumscribed palmettes, though not yet in their final shape, and approximates in style to the young Euphronios and his rival Euthymides. The ornament of the Madrid vase does not seem to have been devised as border pattern. It must be derived from the tendril-composition, which on red-figured vases takes the place of the Amasis ornament (Fig.98) and is in great favour as handle-ornament for kylikes. On the fine amphora in Paris, which the transitional master Pamphaios made after the patterns of Nikosthenes, and Oltos probably painted with scenes of hetairai and satyrs (Fig.104), it appears as handle decoration together with an equally novel calyx and leaf ornament, which adorns the shoulder. The free decorative method of composition, which can be traced back through Amasis (p. 105) and Klazomenai to the Fikellura style (p.61) is exactly in the manner of the red-figured style, which not only shakes off the frieze constraint but

PLATE LIX.Fig. 104. HETAIRA; SATYR AND MAENAD: AMPHORA WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER PAMPHAIOS.

PLATE LIX.

Fig. 104. HETAIRA; SATYR AND MAENAD: AMPHORA WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER PAMPHAIOS.

Fig. 105.THE ARMING OF HECTOR: FROM AN AMPHORA BY EUTHYMIDES.From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

Fig. 105.

THE ARMING OF HECTOR: FROM AN AMPHORA BY EUTHYMIDES.

From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LX.Fig. 106. FOUNTAIN: FROM A RED-FIGURED HYDRIA BY HYPSIS.

PLATE LX.

Fig. 106. FOUNTAIN: FROM A RED-FIGURED HYDRIA BY HYPSIS.

even the pictorial field: on the amphora, which the same painter executed for the potter Euxitheos, he discards the old frame, which now only separates black from black, and his example is followed sooner or later by other artists.

It is true that the painter Euthymides, the contemporary of the young Euphronios and gifted continuer of Andokides’ body amphorae, keeps the frame on his vases, which are now purely red-figured. But he not only helps the later palmette ornament to triumph over the old bands of zig-zags and buds (Fig.105) but enhances the unity of effect by beginning to leave the ornament in the colour of the clay and to shape it in red-figured manner, as was the case straight away with the handle decoration (Fig.104). Almost as a rule he puts in his field three standing figures of large dimensions, in which he demonstrates to the eye his progress in observation of nature. Under the garments bodies begin to move, and their anatomy male and female is studied by the artists of this period with tireless zeal.

The fruits of this study appear on the Munich Priam vase (Fig.105), in the drawing of hands, in the differentiated pose of the legs, in the bold front view of the foot, still more on the reverse in the bendings and turnings of three naked drunken men with full indication of muscles. Certainly the limitations of his eye for perspective appear, when the further from sight of the two chest muscles comes under the nearer one, when the woman’s breast is turned outwards, when the transition of the breast seen in front view to the legs in profile is not made clear, and the head of the man walking to the right and looking round in archaic fashion is still turned in profile to the left; the artist, it is true, breaks through the old scheme of the figure in one place, but his avoidance of lines shewing depth is so strong that he prefers to put those parts of the body, of whose front and back he is conscious, simply one beside the other. But it isjust the contrast between the bold attempt at progress on the painter’s part and the perspective constraint, the feeling of conflict; if you like, that gives their charm to the vase-paintings of this period.

Though the bodies are no longer as previously packed into the garments, and drapery is rather subordinate to the treatment of the body, studies in drapery also have been very fruitful. The contrast between the heavy woollen himation, and the more delicate crinkles of the linen chiton is plainly marked. The depths of the folds in the cloak, according as they are close together or more freely distributed, are given in gradation by thicker or thinner lines of colour; the chiton folds join in separate masses and run out in the expressive so-called swallow-tail borders, which divide the outline of the drapery much more rhythmically than the layered borders of the ‘Andokides’ painter.

Chalkidian painters had already rendered scenes of arming. But those of Euthymides mark a great psychological advance. The paternal anxiety of the bald-pated old man and the nervousness of the mother’s pet making his first début are finely expressed. The feeling for everyday life, in an age which suddenly recognized in common things a world of artistic problems, was keener than ever. What cared Euthymides about his subject “Hector’s departure”? He drew a scene from his neighbour’s door and added heroic names.

His best work the master left unsigned, the Munich amphora, on which Theseus under protest from Helen (note the thumb) with gay impudence carries off Korone (Fig.107). The head of the ravisher, which gets its increased liveliness not merely from the shifting of the pupil from the centre inwards, may serve as example of the newly-conquered possibilities of expression, and the extract from the picture may give an idea of the charm of archaic art.

PLATE LXI.Fig. 107. THE RAPE OF KORONE BY THESEUS; FROM AN AMPHORA BY EUTHYMIDES.

PLATE LXI.

Fig. 107. THE RAPE OF KORONE BY THESEUS; FROM AN AMPHORA BY EUTHYMIDES.

Fig. 108. DRUNKEN SATYR: FROM AN ARCHAIC RED-FIGURED KYLIX.

PLATE LXII.Fig. 109. RHYTON WITH RED-FIGURED DECORATION ON THE NECK.

PLATE LXII.

Fig. 109. RHYTON WITH RED-FIGURED DECORATION ON THE NECK.

The Bonn hydria of Euthymides with the praise of Megakles shows a quite new type of vase; in contrast to the offset black-figured shape, it unites neck and body in an elegant curve, so that the old-fashioned division of the decoration into two or three parts disappears. The same fair youth is praised by his gifted colleague Phintias, whom we see from his beginnings in the workshop of Deiniades expanding more and more brilliantly, on a London hydria of the old shape; but the gracefully moving boys, who in the picture while drawing water are addressed by an older man, already carry water-pots of both types in their hands, and Phintias himself occasionally adopted the later shape; as does the painter Hypsis with the pretty well-house scene (Fig.106), on which again both vase-shapes are represented; for the girl, who is just putting the cushion on her head, has placed a pitcher of the old type under the lion’s head spout from which the water is pouring, while her companion is lifting a hydria of the new shape already well-filled from the satyr’s mouth. The intensive study of the female form is seen in Oltos’ picture of a hetaira (Fig.104) and in many other vase-paintings of the period, and even when they represent girls clothed, the painters are unwilling to sacrifice their newly-won knowledge to external probability, and even under the drapery help the charm of the body outline to assert itself, as Hypsis does on his well-scene (Fig.106).

Like the Bonn hydria, the works of Euthymides witness to the emergence of new vase-types, the Turin psykter and the unsigned Vienna pelike. An idea may be obtained of the psykter (which is regarded as a cooling vessel) by the later example in Rome (Fig.104) in which the narrower cylindrical lower part is however missing. The pelike is a kind of small wineskin-shaped amphora. Even the transitional artist Pamphaios gave Oltos a stamnos (cp. Fig. 146)to paint, and the early red-figured artist Smikros painted one. The calyx-krater, a kind of enlarged cup with low-set handles, seems to appear in the Leagros period (Fig.113). The remarkable vases in the shape of a head (Figs.101,109) in a smaller form served for the reception of unguents and oil even in Protocorinthian and early Ionic styles, but seem only at this time to become popular as bumpers in the service of the drinker, and the pretty heads of negroes and girls with the love-names Epilykos and Leagros form the beginning of the development, which culminates in Sotades (p. 142).

The other drinking vessels, the kantharos, which is brandished by Duris’ satyrs (Fig.122), the skyphos, from which Euphronios’ hetairai are drinking (Fig.112) are only continuations and refinements of old shapes (Figs.88,43). The favourite drinking utensil is naturally the kylix, which even for the “little master” period in fabrication and exportation is at the head of the vases, and now not only receives its finest finish, but also through the abundance of specimens preserved and the richness of inscriptions renders the most valuable service to the historian.

On the Andokides amphora (Fig.103), the psykters of Euphronios (Fig.112), and Duris (Fig.122), the shape with offset rim appears. This late specimen of the old type must have been more popular than the extant painted examples lead one to suppose, but was certainly far less usual than the shape with a single curve, which the red-figured style took over with the eye kylikes and in the most delicate way simplified and animated.

The history of these kylikes, like that of the big-bellied amphorae, begins with examples of mixed technique. Andokides actually extended his principle of the black-figured and red-figured halves of the vase to kylikes: but happily this procedure was extremely rare. In the early

PLATE LXIII.Fig. 110. DRUNKEN LYRE-PLAYER: FROM A KYLIX BY SKYTHES.

PLATE LXIII.

Fig. 110. DRUNKEN LYRE-PLAYER: FROM A KYLIX BY SKYTHES.

PLATE LXIV.Fig. 111. FLUTE-PLAYER AND DANCING GIRL: FROM A KYLIX BY EPIKTETOS.From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXIV.

Fig. 111. FLUTE-PLAYER AND DANCING GIRL: FROM A KYLIX BY EPIKTETOS.

From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

kylikes the mixture of technique is rather to be found in the fact, that in the interior the black-figured picture, which with its circle in the colour of the clay contrasted so decoratively with the black-covered edge, was still retained, while outside between the eyes, and gradually also in their place, figures were inserted in the colour of the ground. This procedure ise.g.connected with the names of the potters Nikosthenes, Pamphaios, Hischylos and Chelis, and with the painters’ names Epiktetos and Psiax, and with the love-name Memnon. When Skythes paints the outside in black-figured technique and the inside in red-figured of a kylix (unsigned) dedicated to Epilykos, this is, like the procedure of Andokides, an exception, and a conscious divergence from the traditional relation. The transition to purely red-figured technique compels the artists to separate the interior from the black surroundings. Up to the Leagros period this separation is effected by a narrow ring in the ground of the clay, which they leave uncovered by black paint: on the kylikes the eye-decoration is gradually dropped. If one takes the signatures of the masters of this group together with those of the transitional kylikes and the contemporary big vases, the number of the painters’ names comes to about a dozen, while the potters are far more numerous; and thus in view of the mere accident of preservation and the anonymity of other palpable artistic personalities one can form an idea of the vigorous life, which then reigned in the Kerameikos, the quarter of Athens where the potters lived.

It is interesting to follow the process by which the early red-figured kylikes from very decorative beginnings rise to even greater freedom and objectivity. Even the insertion of the figure between the eyes, which comes from the Ionic ‘Phineus’ fabric, is meaningless and a mere decorative scheme; and also, when he gives up the decoration witheyes, the painter likes to put one or three figures as central motive between the broad ornaments of the handles. Even the exterior pictures with numerous figures, which occur in the late period of the potter Pamphaios and in the full activity of the painter Oltos, are by no means free from decorative schematism; arrangement in a row and heraldry still play a part, and occasionally, as in the ‘little master’ style, winged horses or sirens take the centre of the representation. Even the old Ionic scheme of the horse-holding runner revives on a kylix of this group.

The interior too at first is still under strong decorative constraint.

Quite in contrast to the early Attic kylikes of the Klitias period and to the Spartan, which often take no regard to the space in the representation, the figure always adapts itself to the circular form, extends its masses to fit the space, often presses head and feet against the edge, and gives the interior a decorative and very animated appearance, to some extent comparable to a rotating wheel. One imagines the painters had studied and sketched the bending, crouching, running, twisting, and turning of handsome youths often only to get motives for their interior scenes. Skythes, the master of fine black-figured votive tablets on the Acropolis, who liked to dedicate his kylikes to his young colleague the painter Epilykos, in the interior of the kylix at Rome (Fig.110) goes beyond this stage, and fills the space more loosely with the lyre held at right angles and the freely arranged knotted stick of his singing boy; and Epiktetos, who painted his wonderfully subtle figures in a long working life for various potters, Nikosthenes, Hischylos, Pamphaios, Python and Pistoxenos, in the late Python kylix in London (Fig.111), under the influence of later masters, goes over to the two figure picture. One can see from their bodies that they are prior to the time of Euphronios and Euthymides. In his

PLATE LXV.Fig. 112. HETAIRAI: FROM A PSYKTER BY EUPHRONIOS.From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXV.

Fig. 112. HETAIRAI: FROM A PSYKTER BY EUPHRONIOS.

From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXXXVI.Fig. 113. HERAKLES AND ANTAIOS: FROM A KALYX-KRATER BY EUPHRONIOS.From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXXXVI.

Fig. 113. HERAKLES AND ANTAIOS: FROM A KALYX-KRATER BY EUPHRONIOS.

From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

vigorous lyre-player, whom we may identify with his favourite Epilykos, Skythes does almost too much in the rendering of the chest-muscles and makes the abdominal muscles seen in front view, and rendered in thinned varnish, press against them in an impossible way; Epiktetos, who is for a while disinclined for interior drawing, turns the breasts of his dancing women outwards, and in their space-filling movement reminds of old types. But the master of a Munich eye kylix has side-views of shields, and draws a kneeling leg in back view, so that the sole is visible and the calf almost disappears. Back views of the human body are given also in kylikes from the workshop of Kachrylion, which takes us over into the Leagros period just like the works of Phintias and Oltos, whom we already know. For Phintias soon outdoes the theft of the tripod of his early Deiniades kylix on a fine amphora at Corneto, and Oltos, the painter of the Pamphaios amphora and most of the Memnon kylikes, passes from the praise of Memnon to that of Leagros on the fine kylikes from Euxitheos’ workshop.

The Leagros period might be described as the culminating point of the dramatic tension prevailing in the older red-figured style. In it Phintias breaks the archaic fetters of his youth, Euthymides creates his decisive works, and we see the development of the great master Euphronios, whom Euthymides boasts to have beaten on the Priam amphora (Fig.105). All the three vases, which bear the signature of Euphronios as painter, praise the fair Leagros,i.e.the Munich Geryon kylix, which appeared in Kachrylion’s workshop, which, like the Leagros kylikes of Oltos, has under the exterior scenes a band of circumscribed palmettes in the colour of the ground, the Petrograd psykter with the hetairai (Fig.112) and the Paris calyx-krater with Herakles and Antaios (Fig.113).

The harmonious indoors scene of the psykter in its quiteneat and sure drawing of the nude sets the finishing touch to the studies of Epiktetos (Fig.111), Oltos (Fig.104), and their contemporaries, and does the subject more justice than many pictures more advanced in perspective. The leg of the thirsty Palaisto disappearing in the background recurs in the Antaios scene, where the painter fully exhibits his anatomical knowledge, and shows as little regard for the concealing skin as other painters do for female drapery; the inner drawing is not even as usual put on in thinner colour. The composition of the scene is not very flexible. The struggle of the muscular but quite civilized Herakles with the rugged giant (whose right hand is a masterpiece of drawing) is the true theme, while the horrified women, who are almost old-fashioned in their drawing, serve like club, quiver and lion’s skin, only as filling for the triangular wrestling scheme, which was probably borrowed. A band of palmettes, and another of palmette and lotus in the red-figured style, vigorously frame the bold picture. The reverse of the Antaios krater shows the artist well on the way to represent correctly the course of the abdominal muscles from the chest to the pudenda, and thus to give a convincing expression to the old distortion of the body. Unfortunately we cannot further follow Euphronios on this path in the light of signed vases, for the ten kylikes with his name, which fill the gap between the youth of Leagros and that of his son Glaukon, were only signed by him as potter and some of them were demonstrably handed over to others to paint. That a progressive artist like Euphronios in this whole period never again took brush in hand, is more than improbable, and among the unsigned vases of the succeeding period his more mature works must be represented.

The kylix made in the workshop of Sosias (Fig.114) has been variously ascribed to Euphronios and to the painter

PLATE LXVII.Fig. 114. ACHILLES AND PATROKLOS: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER SOSIAS.

PLATE LXVII.

Fig. 114. ACHILLES AND PATROKLOS: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER SOSIAS.

PLATE LXVIII.Fig. 115. BOY CHASING A HARE: RED-FIGURED KYLIX.

PLATE LXVIII.

Fig. 115. BOY CHASING A HARE: RED-FIGURED KYLIX.

Peithinos: the remarkable work of art must rather belong to an unknown third person (the ‘Sosias’ painter). The composition filling the space suggests the old style, especially the pressing of the foot against the rim: but the boldly fore-shortened right leg of Patroklos with the foot viewed from above, known also to Euthymides and to Phintias in his maturity, the full development of the bunches of drapery and the swallow-tail edges, and above all the extremely bold attempt to open the corner of the eye, lead us into the critical phase of the archaic red-figured painting, the Leagros period. Only an intense study of the model could lead this master so far from the beaten track; that with the added names of Achilles and Patroklos he came into conflict with the Iliad, mattered little to him. Furthermore on the Sosias vase a technical innovation comes seriously into play, which is gradually adopted by Euphronios (Fig.112), Euthymides (Fig.107), Phintias and Hypsis (Fig.106); the outline of the hair is no longer separated from the black ground by the old hard incised line, but by a narrow line of the colour of the ground. Within the kylikes, which praise the fair Leagros, a change takes place in the framing of the interior picture; in place of the ring in the colour of the clay, of which occasionally they attempt to increase the effect by doubling, comes the maeander in different varieties, first simple and continuous (Frontispiece and Figs. 108, 115, 126), then ever more frequently in broken up shape (Fig.116). The new frame comese.g.on the London kylix, which by the hare-hunt gives such a natural motive for the space-filling movements of the running Leagros (Fig.115). The Leagros of the kylix agrees so exactly with that of the Antaios krater, that one may ascribe this advance to Euphronios; for the line of the ground giving the hair outline and the organic connection of chest and belly are beyond the stage of the krater in question.

A further step forward on the part of the same master may probably be seen in the Boston kylix, which praises both Leagros and Athenodotos (Fig.108). Never perhaps was the inmost nature of the satyr so fully caught as in this fine example: he is squatting on the emptied pointed amphora and positively breathing out an aroma of wine and wantonness. His lifelike picture goes far beyond the Antaios krater, and a closely connected Athenodotos kylix in Athens actually carries this vivacity into the same subject, the wrestle of Herakles and Antaios.

If Euphronios thus surpassed himself one may believe him also responsible for the next step, the ‘Panaitios’ stage, to which it is a very short distance from the Athenodotos kylikes. To the transition, that is about the end of the 6th century, belongs the Paris Theseus kylix, signed by Euphronios as potter but without love-name. The boldly drawn exterior seems to form the bridge to the style of the ‘Panaitios’ master, that vigorous painter, perhaps identical with the later Euphronios, from whose hand comes the London Panaitios kylix with the signature of Euphronios as potter. The rich and ornamental interior (Frontispiece) is in a certain contrast with the exterior scenes, and is so closely connected with the early works of Duris, that we may enquire, whether Euphronios did not entrust the decoration of the interior to a talented pupil with a great tendency to elaboration. But perhaps this contrast is due only to the representative seriousness of the subject. Young Theseus, in order to receive his rightful position as son of Poseidon, has gone down to the bottom of the sea, and in the presence of Athena is greeted by Amphitrite.

The time of Panaitios and that of Chairestratos, which partly coincides with it, remove many hard features of the Leagros stage. The turnings of bodies lose all violence: in the frontal stand of both feet, and in the oblique view of

PLATE LXIX.Fig. 116. AFTER THE BANQUET: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER BRYGOS.

PLATE LXIX.

Fig. 116. AFTER THE BANQUET: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER BRYGOS.

PLATE LXX.Fig. 117. A MAENAD IN FRENZY: FROM AN ARCHAIC RED-FIGURED POINTED AMPHORA.

PLATE LXX.

Fig. 117. A MAENAD IN FRENZY: FROM AN ARCHAIC RED-FIGURED POINTED AMPHORA.

the head, new possibilities are indicated. The pupil is now always in the inner corner of the eye, though the bold experiment of the ‘Sosias’ painter is not generally adopted. Above all a new current enters the drapery. The divisions of the chiton with patterns of folds gives way to a more natural and uniform distribution: the play of folds at the edges of the cloaks is generally emphasized by a thick pair of lines. These tendencies become complete in the later Chairestratos and the Hippodamas period, with which we get down to about 480 B.C.

The masters of this later date deal now quite freely and easily with the achievements of their predecessors: the old rude vigour gives way to ornamental elegance or swinging liveliness. The relation of figures to space also alters: the forms move more freely, are less confined by space, and are surrounded with air. Thus the free decoration of the Oltos amphora (Fig.104) asserts itself once more. The small so-called ‘Nolan’ necked amphorae, and the popular amphorae of Panathenaic shape, only reserve one figure or group in the black surface. The fine and elegant effect of this ‘Nolan’ decoration often attacks other types of vases, to which is now added the bell-krater (cp. Fig. 123 centre).

Of these later masters, the one who keeps most the massiveness and dignity of the older style is the ‘Kleophrades’ painter, who grew up in the Leagros period and has furnished one of his works with the potter’s signature of Kleophrades, son of Amasis. As an example of his style let us take the Munich pointed amphora belonging about to the Panaitios period: the passionate frenzy of frantic Maenads has never been more perfectly caught than in the back-tossed head of the rushing waver of the thyrsos (Fig.117). The ‘Kleophrades’ painter was a pupil of Euthymides: but for a number of his contemporaries it can be shown that they won their spurs in the celebrated studio ofEuphronios. It is true that we only have evidence in an inscription of activity in the service of Euphronios for one painter denoted by name, and malicious accident has deprived us of all but the last four letters of his name. Onesimos, as his name is usually restored, combines in simple composition on his kylix riders and boys leading horses, and thus is the predecessor of the ‘Horse’ master. On the other hand the master of the Troilos kylix in Perugia, which Euphronios also signed as potter (the ‘Perugia’ master) inherited more of the fire and dramatic vigour of the ‘Panaitios’ master. His Munich Centaur kylix is worthy of the great teacher, and the interior (Fig.126) is equally perfect as filling the space and as rendering animated life. The shield in profile view, which shows indication of shading, the Centaur’s head, and especially the grandiose foreshortening of the horse-body, point beyond the Panaitios period.

To this group must have belonged the ‘Brygos’ painter, who in earlier works,e.g., in the clearly and vigorously composed Iliupersis in Paris (Figs.118and119), is still strongly inspired by the achievements of the Perugia master, and later develops the fiery vigour of his youthful period in ever more delicate and elegant shapes. He is fond of shaded shields, hairy bodies and cloaks adorned with spots. Perhaps the finest work of his maturity is the interior of the Würzburg kylix (Fig.116), on which a young Athenian, supported by the hands of a girl, relieves himself of the wine he has imbibed too freely. The picture not only in its free adaptation to space and in the sure hand with which the movement of body and drapery is rendered, but especially in the fine animation of the expression, is a worthy last note of archaic art. The unsigned Vienna skyphos of the Brygos painter (Fig.120) must be placed between the Paris and Würzburg kylikes. It also gives a

PLATE LXXI.Figs. 118 & 119. THE SACK OF TROY: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER BRYGOS.From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXXI.

Figs. 118 & 119. THE SACK OF TROY: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER BRYGOS.

From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXXII.Fig. 120. SKYPHOS WITH THE RANSOMING OF HECTOR.

PLATE LXXII.

Fig. 120. SKYPHOS WITH THE RANSOMING OF HECTOR.

Fig. 121. THESEUS DESERTS THE SLEEPING ARIADNE (?): FROM THE EXTERIOR OF A KYLIX.

fine picture full of life: Achilles has placed under the table the dead body of Hector, which he daily drags round the walls of Troy, is reclining at his meal, and talking to his charming cup-bearer, as if he did not hear the appeal of the old Priam for his son’s corpse and did not see the presents brought in by the attendants. The clear dramatic disposition is as much in the manner of the master as the free pose of the cup-bearer with weight on one leg, and the delicate psychological animation of the countenances. The kylix in Corneto (Fig.121), the outside of which has been interpreted as the secret departure of Theseus from the sleeping Ariadne, is at least closely related to the works of the ‘Brygos’ painter. In the workshop of Euphronios the youthful Duris must also have been a pupil. For his earliest work, the Vienna kylix, with an arming scene, painted for the potter Python, is quite under the influence of the Panaitios master, and can only be recognized as the work of a painter of another tendency by the greater elegance and slimness of the figures, and the more schematic composition.

In the kylikes with the names of Panaitios and Chairestratos, it can still be traced to some extent, how out of the docile imitator of the Panaitios master comes the real Duris, the routine draughtsman, who puts down his elegant figures with almost academic objectivity and who cares more for the uniform decorative effect of his neat silhouettes than for complicated compositions of life. The pair of Berlin kylikes, perhaps made by Kleophrades, and the kantharos, on which Duris signs as potter and painter, show as plainly as possible this gradual realization of independence, and also pass more and more, though not finally, from the artificial fold packets of the chiton to a uniform system of wavy lines. How entirely Duris altered his style even during the Chairestratos period, is showne.g.by the Vienna kylix, painted for Python with the contest for the Arms ofAchilles, which not merely in its more elegant shape, but also in drawing and the relation of the figures to the space, is widely distant from the arming scene on a kylix of the same workshop. The fine Eos kylix in the Louvre, which Duris painted for the potter Kalliades and dedicated to Hermogenes, the London Theseus kylix, and probably also the fine London psykter with the love-name Aristagoras (Fig.122) belong to this period. The satyrs of this psykter, who instead of joining in procession play all kinds of unprofitable tricks behind the back of the leader of the chorus, need only be compared with their fellows on the Boston kylix, and one can recognize at once the routine hand and slighter artistic endowment of the master, but also the more elegant and easy draughtsmanship of the later time.

In the later period of the artist (about 480 B.C.) we must put along with their congeners the kylikes with the love-name Hippodamas, the finest of which is the Berlin school vase (Fig.124). In the drapery of the teachers and pupils, who are here assembled in the class-room, nothing of archaic stiffness remains. If even the Leagros period had made the cloak folds come to a natural end, they now bend round their ends and pave the way for the “drapery eyes,” which in the next period so naturally characterize the packings in the material.

The great development, which is evidenced for Duris by his many signatures, suggests considerations. We ask whether other masters too did not fundamentally change, and whethere.g.Euphronios did not develop out of the ‘Leagros’ stage to that of the ‘Panaitios’ master and the Perugia painter, and on his later works include the painter’s signature in that of the potter’s firm,i.e.whether works like the Munich Centauromachy (Fig.126) do not represent a late phase of this gifted painter, who can be proved to have lived into the ‘Glaukon’ period.

PLATE LXXIII.Fig. 122. HERMES AND SATYRS: FROM A PSYKTER BY DURIS.From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXXIII.

Fig. 122. HERMES AND SATYRS: FROM A PSYKTER BY DURIS.

From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.

PLATE LXXIV.Fig. 123. DRUNKEN MAENADS: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER HIERON.

PLATE LXXIV.

Fig. 123. DRUNKEN MAENADS: FROM A KYLIX WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER HIERON.

Of the other painters of this period, we must content ourselves with naming three, the Berlin master, Makron, and the Bronze-Foundry master. The ‘master of the Berlin amphora’ even surpasses Duris in elegance, and is fond of introducing his slim elastic figures in ‘Nolan’ style,i.e.isolated on a dark background.

Makron, who painted almost all the vases on which Hieron’s signature as potter is found, studied by choice in the Palaestra, where boys performed gymnastics and were addressed by older men. A Berlin kylix (Fig.123), like several works of his hand, introduces us to Bacchic revelry, an excited chorus of drunken and vigorously gesticulating maenads, whose bodies are not concealed by the rustling pomp of folds: the ‘kolpos’ or fold of the chiton drawn up through the belt, which Brygos also is fond of, is more transparent than the upper and lower parts of the complicated garment. These figures in which all is life, movement and expression, should be compared with those of the Andokides painter or even those of Euphronios, in order to realize, how in these few decades the liberation from archaic stiffness and adherence to type was almost tempestuously accomplished.

We take leave of the archaic styles with the charming picture of an anonymous painter, the ‘master of the bronze foundry,’ who on a Berlin kylix (Fig.125) transplants us into the interior of the workshop of a sculptor in bronze. A workman is poking the oven, another is handling the bellows, the assistant looks on, the master is working at a statue, not yet fully put together: so intimate is the contact with life in this scene. Everything interested the vase-painters of this time equally; they have spread out before us human life, got their material from every quarter, and wherever they laid hold of it, it was interesting. How closely they came to grips with their subject, how they triedto be clear, and to give a lively picture of what they saw, and how under their hands the object at once changed into the artistic type, the human body into the clearly defined study of the nude, the garment into a thing of decorative life, and an assemblage of human beings into an ornamental figure composition!

PLATE LXXV.Fig. 124. SCHOOL-SCENE: FROM A KYLIX BY DURIS.

PLATE LXXV.

Fig. 124. SCHOOL-SCENE: FROM A KYLIX BY DURIS.

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