Douris and the Painters of Greek Vases

Name: Douris and the Painters of Greek Vases
Author: Pottier, Edmond

Pottier, Edmond

Douris, active 6th century B.C.-5th century B.C.; Vase-painting, Greek

Take a simple instance from the work of Douris, the kylix in the
Louvre, in the centre of which is painted _Eos carrying the body of
Memnon_.

The mythologist, that is man in his early days of thinking, cannot
conceive or name the abstract, empty “dawn.” The glow of morning is
to him the print of unearthly yet human fingers. He images “dawn” as
“Dawn,” in terms of humanity, that is of the one and only thing he
inwardly felt and knew--himself. The dawn is for him a beautiful woman,
and to complete her humanity, she is a mother. Literature, which is at
first but story-telling, took up the tale, and knew that Eos the Dawn
who rose in the East had a child of the East for her son, and mourned
for him in his death, and carried him away for his burial.

The vase-painter is a mythologist too, and he takes a mythological
story for his motive, but his art has other ends than that of the poet.
He may have heard the story recited at a Panathenaic festival, just as
he may have seen it painted on some Stoa or Lesche. But he does not
illustrate it, does not translate from an alien art into his own. He
takes the myth and lets his own art say what it and only it can say.
He has seen in the human body the vision of a heavenly pattern; he
gives us the grace of a bending body, the poise of a flying foot, the
swiftness of straight lines, the majesty and poignancy of limbs stark
in death. That is all, and, surely, enough.

                                             JANE ELLEN HARRISON.




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                                             PAGE
    I. HOW DESIGNS ON VASES REPRESENT THE HISTORY OF GREEK PAINTING    1

   II. THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF A VASE PAINTER AT ATHENS                9

  III. THE WORKSHOP AND TOOLS OF DOURIS                               23

   IV. HOW DOURIS WORKED                                              30

    V. THE WORK OF DOURIS                                             43

       CONCLUSION                                                     80

       BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                   87

       INDEX                                                          89




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  Fig.                                                              Page
    1. Kantharos and Kylix (drinking cups) by Douris. Brussels
          and Louvre Museums. Taken from Photographs      _Frontispiece_

    2. Workshop of a Vase Painter (red figured hydria in Caputi
          Collection at Ruvo), from Blümner. _Technologie und
          Terminolog. der Gewerbe und Künste_, ii., p. 85, Fig. 15     4

    3. The painter Smikros and his companions (red figured krater
          in the Brussels Museum), from _Monuments et Mémoires de
          la Fondation Piot_ (article by C. Gaspari, ix., 1902,
          Pl. 2)                                                       8

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Douris and the Painters of Greek Vases

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