How the sudden change of technique took place, how the idea suggested itself, that instead of painting silhouettes on the ground of the clay, figures drawn in outline should be left free to contrast with the black background, is not yet explained. The inversion of the colour system is not new. From Ionic, Corinthian, Attic, and Boeotian workshops we know of light painting on a dark ground, and a plate from Thera has light figures in added paint and a black background. But this is entirely different from the red-figured style, which uses the ground of the clay for its figures. Only late Klazomenian sarcophagi can be regarded as its earlier stages, and it is quite possible that the new technique was naturalized in Athens by East Ionic painters. At any rate the idea fell on fruitful soil. The archaic mixture of colour was long worn out, the simplification of colour-effect, by increasing limitation to the two values, clay and glaze, was in full swing, and the effect of big glazed surfaces had been tried in the body-amphorae and in vessels completely covered with black colour (p. 108). But more than all else the revolution in figure-drawing which was now setting in strong in the great art was striving for expression in vase painting. A successor of the Athenian Eumares, Kimon of Kleonai, according to Pliny, invented oblique views and foreshortening, rescued the body from archaic stiffness, furnished limbs with joints, for the first time rendered veins, and represented folds and swellings of drapery; he must belong to the last third of the century; for his predecessor is father of the sculptor Antenor, who worked, it is true, for the old potter Nearchos (p. 103) but also for the young Athenian Republic (510 B.C.) Though Pliny, after the fashion of ancient historians, is too fond of asserting ‘inventions,’ this much is clear, that after Eumares there was a breach with tradition in Athenian painting, and that here, for the first time in the history of the world, bonds were once for all burst, which hitherto had hardly been touched. Naturally the vase-painters could not be left behind; but since the old silhouette incised style was quite unsuited for the new liberties of drawing, but on the other hand outline drawing on light ground ran counter to the decorative purposes of the vases which used silhouettes, the idea of inverting the colour-scheme must have been received with enthusiasm among the vase-painters.