is represented in front view, the covering of the corpse is visible in its complete extent, as if it hung down upon it; in the case of pairs of horses the off horse is simply moved forward and represented smaller; masses of men are rendered by files of similar figures; figures to be thought of as in the background, e.g. the hinder rows in the Helen bowl (Fig. [21]) are placed high up. The space, which contains the figures, is an ideal tectonic space, the surface of the vase to be adorned. Where the figures do not suffice to fill this space, the Geometric artist regards it as a gap in the decoration of the vase and fills the void with dots, rows of zig-zags, hooked crosses, rosettes with a central point, and actually paints birds or fishes between the legs of horses or between the chariot and the bier which rests upon it (Fig. [20]).
This even covering of the surface gives the vases of this period a carpet-like appearance, and this textile impression is strengthened by the geometry of the ornamentation, by the angular stylization of the living beings, by the decorative schemes and the division into bands. But on this account to derive the whole style from the imitation of works of the loom would be a mistake; the stylistic limitations of the style cannot be identified straight off with the technical limitation of weaving. As in all primitive civilizations so in the formation of the Geometric vase style, simple linear patterns may have been taken over from weaving and plaiting: but this is not the case with circles and rosettes, and anyhow such a consistent and systematic perfection as that of the Geometric vase style is inconceivable as an imitation of a foreign technique.
Greek ceramic art never completely lost this ‘textile’ character, and never quite renounced the Geometric school through which it passed, though by centuries of labour it freed itself from the defects and crudities of that school. Vase-figures long exhibit their origin out of the ornamental silhouette; the decorative schemes of arrangement in rows and of antithetic groups are always breaking out afresh; the principle of using up the space is applied superficially for some time and only gradually refined; the decoration in bands subsists for a long time beside the vases with a pictorial field, and remains of it exist till late; the disinclination for deepening the field, based on a correct structural feeling, goes through the whole history of Greek vases and keeps the ornamental figure world of the vases always at a distance from the much less constrained world of free painting.
The Geometric vases have not merely a historical meaning, but a value of their own. They are not a preliminary stage, but something complete. In them Greek art in true Greek fashion worked out a thought; expressed itself for the first time in a classical way, if the phrase may be used; out of a clumsy rustic style with poor ornamentation developed vases of technical perfection, compact and clear in form, consistently thought out in the decoration now lavishly, now sparingly spread over them, in their austere beauty true children of the Greek genius.
But this style did not put out everywhere equally fine flowers. It was not, like the late Mycenean, an ‘imperial’ style, but, from the first—and this is significant for Greek art—differentiated and conditioned by locality; each region had its own manufacture of vases, and its own Geometric style. Already the lead is taken by that place, which later was to drive out of the field all competitors, viz., Athens. The Dipylon vases—the name usually given to Attic Geometric vases from the fact that most of them were found in the cemetery before the Dipylon Gate,—rise in form, technique and decoration to the greatest perfection and highest richness. In the magnificent amphoræ, as much as two metres in height, which are worthy of their monumental use as tomb decoration, the Geometric style perhaps reaches its culmination; in the so-called black Dipylon vases, often only sparingly decorated on the shoulder or neck and otherwise covered black, we get already an effect of colour which became popular much later; the stock of forms is ampler, the maeander more developed, the delight in telling a story and in representing a scene greater than in other Geometric styles. Beside the Dipylon there is a second site in Attica, Eleusis, though not so important; Boeotia too must be mentioned, the pottery of which makes a provincial impression, and is dependent in forms, patterns and subjects on Attica and the Aegean islands, as also that of the neighbouring Eretria in Euboea.
The prototypes of the big Boeotian and Eretrian amphoræ with high stem and broad neck have been found particularly in Delos and Rheneia, richly ornamented vases ‘de luxe,’ in which the painting is laid on a white slip. In the same place, where the cult of Apollo had a great attraction, several other Geometric classes were also found, among them the precursors of the art which flourished in the 7th century and which is usually ascribed to the island of Melos. On the Delian vases horses and human representations occur, but generally in this class there is a disinclination to represent figures. The same disinclination and the frequent use of a light slip characterize the pottery of the Dorian island of Thera, which developed a very definite though sober and monotonous Geometric style that seems to have obstinately persisted till well into the 7th century. The rich finds of other classes bear witness to an active trade with the mainland, other Cyclades, and the Ionic East, the pottery of which has many points of contact with the Cycladic. We know it from Miletus and other places on the Asiatic coast, but above all from the island of Rhodes. The Rhodian Geometric vases are distinguished from the Cycladic by the absence of the light slip, and seem in spite of many points of contact never to have reached the same level. An isolated vegetable ornament, the so-called palm-tree, points to relations with Cyprus. Cross-hatched rhombi and birds are very much in vogue; they appear also in loose arrangement on the ‘Bird kylikes,’ which in post-Geometric times extended from Rhodes over the Ionian region and so made their way to the Greek mainland, Italy and Sicily.
The most important Peloponnesian manufactures are: (1) that of Sparta, which now to some extent adopts the white slip later predominant; (2) that of Argos, which soon discards its Mycenean reminiscences and develops on parallel lines with the Attic ware without attaining to the heights and richness of the Dipylon vases; (3) above all, the so-called Protocorinthian.
This Geometric style, which next to the Attic had the greatest future before it, seems to be at home in the Northern Argolid ([p. 34]). Its early Geometric beginnings we do not know. It is akin to its Argive neighbour in many points, in the scantiness of its stock of forms, in shapes like the metallic krater with a stirrup-handle. Unfortunately little has been left to us of the large-sized vases, kraters, cauldrons, amphoræ and jugs. The two-handled cup (Fig. [23]), the round box, the globular oil-flask, the deep drinking-cup, the jug with flat bottom (Fig. [33]) are the favourite smaller shapes. The limitation of the decoration to the upper margin, and the decoration of the rest with parallel stripes is characteristic. This ware was more exported than any other Geometric class; it entered the southern Argolid, went by way of Corinth and Eleusis to Boeotia and Delphi, and was exported to Aegina and Thera, Italy and Sicily. On Italian soil, in the Euboean
