The technical advance, which in some measure replaced the influence of the rising art of painting by that of metal-working, is shown more plainly in the figured representations, particularly the friezes of animals, which the vase-painters, inspired by Oriental metal ware and embroideries, with ever greater zest employ on their vases. Beside the birds, stags and roes, beside the dogs pursuing hares, with which a lower stripe could be easily filled, come new animals, for which they are chiefly indebted to Oriental art, bull, goat, bear, ram, wild-goat, lion and panther, sphinx, siren, griffin, and other hybrids. These creatures appear in quite definite types, which admit of little variety: it is characteristic that the panther’s head is drawn in front view, perhaps through an abbreviation of a heraldic double panther; and this rule is devoutly observed through the whole period of decoration with animal friezes. An indication of this is that the decorative animals never become pure outlines like the human figures, but after a period of partial silhouette ([p. 31]), return to the complete silhouette, as satisfying better the requirements of decoration. This return became possible through the use of the incised line, by the help of which interior drawing could be added on a black ground, and the effect of the figures was further enhanced by the addition of details in red. This is an important innovation in the history of Greek vase-painting. The general effect of the vase is completely altered by the decorative play of colour, which extends also to the ornamentation, and takes on that gay many-coloured aspect which is so characteristic of the older archaic period, and which is only dropped late in the 6th century. The new colour system does not aim at realism; it makes prominent for decorative purposes single parts of the animal body, especially the neck and belly.
The drawing of the human figure proceeds on other lines than that of animals. In consequence of the new development of the art of painting ([p. 33]), it makes a fresh start. First we have the vase of Aristonothos (Fig. [30]); the next stage is represented by the Ram vase (Fig. [28]); the desire of distinguishing the lighter skin of women from that of men leads to the tinting in brown of the male body. But in the formation of the figure types certainly it was not only painting that stood godmother, the metal worker’s art must also have asserted its influence; the kinship with Cretan and Argive flat bronze reliefs and metal engraved work is too great, the sharp clear-cut types too much in the spirit of bronze technique, for it to be possible to postulate an independent development. To this corresponds the fact that the outlines of the figures are accompanied by incised lines on polychrome vases with black ground, on the finest of the later lekythoi (oil-flasks) and on the Chigi jug (Fig. [35]). This technique is repeated on the big two-handled cups with finely stylised figured representations, which finally accomplish an important advance already foreshadowed by small and hasty specimens: the dark silhouette with incised interior detail, prevalent in the style of the animal friezes, and along with it certain details like the circular rendering of the eye, are taken over for the representation of male figures.
PLATE XVIII.
Figs. 36 & 37. SCENES FROM THE CHIGI JUG: HARE AND LION HUNT; CHARIOT.
This adoption, which only takes place at the end of the development, and makes the Protocorinthian style the starting point of black-figured vase painting, does not unite heterogeneous elements. For man and decorative animal are equivalent in their juxtaposition, and beside the free mythological scenes there is a series of representations, which seems to have grown straight out of the animal frieze. The Centaur, the old Greek forest monster, joins the animals; winged demons in the remarkable scheme of running with bent knee (pointing to the metope treatment) are also placed amongst them; kneeling archers shoot arrows at them, hunters and combatants pursue them, Bellerophon rides on Pegasus against the Chimaera, Herakles fights against the Centaurs. Purely human scenes, like the favourite Duel (Fig. [ 43]), are simply flanked by animals. The addition of figures in rows and overlapping makes this simple combat into a battle; wounded fall, corpses are hotly fought over, auxiliaries hurry up. The artist always in these cases gives prominence to the finely decorated shields, the pride of Argive metal industry. Like the rows of fighting men, the other frieze-like compositions, the processions of riders and chariot-races, the hunting scenes and chase of the hare, thanks to charming observation of detail, make a direct appeal which is strange for such early art. The bushes in the hare-hunt of the Chigi jug (Fig. [36]) show the awakening of the landscape element, which to be sure is always a rarity on vases and must have played a larger part in free painting. Moreover, the varying colouring of the animals on the stripe in question, which appears also on a frieze of riders (Fig. [31]) and continues in Corinthian painting, must come from the same source, whereas the bold front view of the Sphinx head (Fig. [37]) like that of the panther head and the Corinthian quadriga, was attempted for the first time in an ornamental band. Hand in hand with the enlivening of the friezes goes the suppression of field ornamentation: it is only sparingly applied, limited to the animal friezes or entirely absent. At times a lizard (Fig. [34]), a swan or a monkey comes into the figured scenes.
Of course this is all devoid of meaning; for in spite of all progress and freer treatment the style is merely concerned with the decoration of a surface; ‘exigencies of space’ are its supreme law. These control the type of the human figure, for even where it is not essentially an ornamental scheme, like the runner with bent knee, it fills from top to bottom the stripe assigned to it, extends its breast frontally, and reaches out its arms, as if it were yearning for a frame. And as the body avoids all perspective, so the head in profile shows its most expressive part, the eye surmounted by the brow, in full extent, and renders the long hair falling down over the neck as smooth surface, and the curly forehead hair as spiral. There is no rendering of folds to show depth in the drapery, which now the artist in true Greek fashion treats in an abstract way, unlike reality. The human figure remains a type, a homogeneous constituent part of the stripes, which are entirely designed for filling space. It matters little, if between chariot-race and lion-hunt on the Chigi jug (Fig. [37]) a double Sphinx is inserted as central motive, or Bellerophon lays the Chimaera low in presence of two Sphinxes (Fig. [34]); if close to the lion-hunt in the same stripe, Hermes leads the three goddesses before the fair Trojan shepherd, and if the names of the personages are entered in the field with big letters as a kind of ornamentation by way of filling: the incipient delight in telling a story is taken at once into the service of filling the field.
As the human figure still appears almost completely on a par with the ornamental animal figure, so there is little trace of any superior weight being attached to the scenic representations in the decorative system. Where the