From every point of view the Chalkidian vases give us a heightening of the Corinthian, a great advance in the direction of a later period. Clay and black now attain their highest perfection, the distribution of colour is most delicately calculated; no longer is there so much use made of white surfaces (under which there is regularly a wash of black); especially we see no more of the arbitrary colour-contrast which did not shrink from white colouring of the male. If the Corinthian style had already aimed at metallic effect in the angular formation of the handles and the curving of the handle-bridges of the krater, the Chalkidian heightens these tendencies almost to faithful copying of metal vases, and consistently develops the vase shapes to the highest, almost over-refined elegance; the narrowing of the lower part of the body leads to the insertion of a roll, which the painter picks out in red from the black foot. Thus arise novel vase-shapes; the necked amphora (Fig. 69) is elongated, its shoulder flattened, so that the body almost assumes the shape of an egg; the krater gets steep sides, high neck, and outward-bent handle bridges; out of the older hydria with arched shoulder comes a later shape, which, in a specimen at Munich (Fig. 68) exactly copies the addition of cast handles to a metal body; and similarly the other shapes develop, the kylix with knobs on the handles, the two-handled cup, the jug. The same endeavour after elasticity and elegance prevails in the distribution of the ornament over the vase, which was managed in a more masterly way at Chalkis than elsewhere. Certainly the ornamentation is based almost entirely on Corinthian foundations. The white dot-rosettes filled with red on the black neck, the lotus and palmette on the ground of the clay, tongues on the shoulder, and rays at the foot, the step pattern under the chief frieze are of old tradition but pass through a growing elaboration. As a new motive of decoration comes in the chain of buds, which we know from the East: as a rule it occurs beneath the chief band (Fig. 69), or hangs over the figure-field in place of the lotus and palmette. The Ionic pattern is not exactly imitated in the process; the swellings under the Chalkidian buds suggest roses rather than lotus. Out of these buds, palmettes, and the tendrils uniting them, is formed the fixed ornament, which generally serves as central motive to heraldic animals and often develops into a wonderfully rich complex of lively lines (Fig. 69). The proper place for this ornament is the centre of the upper band, which recovers its importance, now that the shoulder is set off more sharply in hydriae and necked amphorae, and as secondary field for decoration is, like the reverse of vases, usually decorated in the first instance with animals. On the shoulder-stripe the riders with the space-filling birds tend to drive out the archaic scheme of decoration; they flank the lotus and palmette cross and in later specimens, where