History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 2 (of 2)Walters, H. B. (Henry Beauchamp)
History
History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman. Volume 2 (of 2)
Walters, H. B. (Henry Beauchamp)
Mythology, Classical, in art; Pottery, Ancient; Pottery, Etruscan; Pottery, Greek; Pottery, Roman
After the time of Polygnotos the influence of painting makes itself
felt, and we may recall that he perfected the advances of Kimon in this
respect. Not only did the vase-painters learn from him how to dispose
figures _en face_ or in three-quarter view, but they also learned how
to mark different expressions. It has also been observed that the
influence of tragedy must have been strong at this time. The krater
from Orvieto in the Louvre (Vol. I. p. 442) is a good instance of the
progress made in the fifth century in this direction. On one side of
the vase (see Fig. 103, _ibid._) we have a dying Niobid and a youth
with face to the front and eyes closing; on the other, in the
Argonautic scene, a warrior holding his knees, with lower lip fallen,
giving him a melancholy expression, and Herakles with a face of
sadness, marked by wrinkles. Other figures show exactly in what
direction they are looking (compare Kimon’s figures “looking down or
upwards”).[2006] In the later developments of the Apulian vases, with
their scenes drawn from tragic themes and represented in such dramatic
fashion, there is plenty of ability to represent emotion, and in
several cases it is accurately expressed, as in some of the scenes from
the sack of Troy. But in other cases, as on the Assteas vase in Madrid
(Fig. 107), much of the old quaintness and grotesqueness is apparent.
* * * * *
It is also necessary to treat of the methods adopted by the artist for
indicating locality or landscape in his pictures, a thing which is
often done in the briefest and most cursory manner. The germs of this
principle are perhaps to be observed (as noted elsewhere, Vol. I. p.
312) in the floral ground-ornaments of the Corinthian and other early
vases. In the more developed vase-paintings a sort of shorthand system
is customary, a system which in some degree probably prevailed on the
Greek stage, as on that of the Elizabethan drama. Thus a temple or a
house is represented by a column, or two columns supporting a pediment,
a wood or grove by a single tree, water by two dolphins swimming in the
lower part of the design, and so on. A notable exception is in the
palace depicted on the François vase, in which Thetis awaits the
arrival of the bridegroom Peleus. So much of the building is given in
detail that it is even possible to attempt a restoration.[2007] On the
same vase the walls of Troy are depicted, with a double door studded
with nails. In the Hydrophoria scenes (p. 173) considerable attention
is paid to the architectural details of the well-house, which was
probably in the form of a small temple, perhaps circular, surrounded by
a colonnade. The water issues from spouts in the form of lions’ heads,
and statues are often depicted in different parts of the building. The
François vase also gives an illustration of a well-house, with portico
supported by columns. The architecture is almost invariably Doric. In
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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