If, by such information we may consider the pecuniary position of potters as fairly good, shall we conclude that their education was equal to that of the best Athenian society? Here it may be well to enter a protest against the commonly accepted opinion. Vase painters are usually credited with qualities of originality amounting to positive genius. The merit of the composition and of the choice of subject, the skill in placing the figures, the invention of attitude and movement, are all attributed to them. Hartwig, an author who has closely studied the Greek drinking cups of the fifth century, goes so far in his admiration as to reject as fanciful any connection between the works of this industry and the great works of contemporary art. He grants that vase painters copy one another, and that they borrow mutually subjects for designs and even persons. But he maintains that their province remains indisputedly theirs, and one need not look for copies from celebrated works in their art. This opinion appears, like many others, to contain a truth and an error. It is quite true, that to look for a commonplace reproduction of great art upon painted vases would be useless. Many subjects are strictly designed for the express purpose of the vase, for the form of its surface, and are drawn from scenes of everyday life which were constantly under the draughtsman’s eyes, scenes of the palæstra, of banquets, military armaments, processions of cavalry, etc. Who could imagine a Greek draughtsman not copying Nature? But, on the other hand, how can one think of an artisan as skilled as an Athenian ceramist, who could remain indifferent to the lessons of the great masters? Would not his eyes and brain be filled with the works of art which made all public buildings and sanctuaries museums in the open air? And in that case, what strange rule would forbid him to borrow many of the subjects and persons from these superior models? These would be abstracts, free compositions, adaptations, but nevertheless a borrowing. [Illustration: Fig. 6. YOUTHS EXERCISING IN THE PALÆSTRA. Kylix by Douris. Louvre Museum.]