PLATE XII.
[Fig. 22]. RHODIAN GEOMETRIC JUG.
[Fig. 23]. PROTOCORINTHIAN GEOMETRIC SKYPHOS.
colony of Kyme, it certainly founded a branch factory, which quickly took on a local character and exported in its turn; but in various other places also the style evoked local imitations.
The Protocorinthian style owed its brilliant future both to the Geometric foundation, and, as will appear, to the strong influence of Cretan Art. In Crete, after the settlement of the Dorians in the island, no definite Geometric style was formed: the Mycenean traditions were too strong and the relations with the East too close. After the purely Geometric vases, among which wide-bellied amphoræ without a neck are common, there soon appear vases showing Cyprian influence, particularly small jugs with concentric circles on the body (precursors of [Fig. 27]); thus a pitcher from Kavusi, which by an exception has figures on it (a charioteer and mourning women in a metope-like arrangement) is apparently, in shape as well as in the ornament which consists of a row of ‘S’s’ on their backs and the un-Geometric drawing of its silhouettes, dependent on similar Cyprian models.
Crete with its loosely-rooted Geometric style took up the new elements more freely than other localities, where at first they are placed side by side with the native ones, like the palm-tree on Rhodian vases, the Cyprian circles on Attic and Protocorinthian jugs, the precursors of the tongue pattern on Attic and Theran vases, the unsystematic rays on Attic and Protocorinthian ware, the running spiral probably borrowed from metal work on Protocorinthian and Theran vases. Moreover, figured representations from an alien world of ideas creep into the fixed Geometric systems, as for instance the two lions devouring a man on a Dipylon vase, the goddess flanked by two animals on a Boeotian amphora, the fabulous creatures on Rhodian vases.
These foreign elements, which have their root in Oriental art, are the harbingers of a complete revolution, and in them is heralded the end of the Geometric style. It is obvious that a decorative style like the Geometric could have no future: its possibilities were quickly exhausted, even where the style was most richly developed. Its dissolution would have come, even if superior civilization with richer methods of decoration had not been in close contact of trade and intercourse with this early Greek world, and exercised on it a persistent influence. The Cretans and Eastern Greeks lived in the immediate neighbourhood of Egypt and Asia, the islands and the mainland were united to the East by active trade relations. In particular Phoenician merchants, while the Geometric style was flourishing, handed on to the Greeks the products of Oriental art, as both the Epic and the finds testify. Nor did the Greeks remain at home either, but had long become a seafaring people; Attic, Boeotian and Protocorinthian painters proudly place representations of ships on Geometric vases; the statistics of the finds of the various Geometric wares show a constantly growing trade intercourse. Colonisation too has already begun, and is ever expanding; according to the earliest vase finds Syracuse, Kyme, and perhaps also Massilia and the Black Sea coast received settlers, while their mother-cities still had Geometric pottery. Since Syracuse was founded in the second half of the 8th century and its oldest graves contain late Geometric vases, we obtain an approximate date for the end of the Geometric style.
The objects of Oriental Art, which were brought before the eyes of the Greeks by this active intercourse, powerfully stimulated their fancy. The crowd of decorative motives from vegetation, the world of fantastic animals, and the superiority of Oriental Art in the rendering of life, drew Greek vase-painting out of Geometric uniformity and pointed it to new paths.