PLATE XXXV.
[Fig. 69]. CHALKIDIAN AMPHORA.
vases can be dated below the first third of the 6th century. Corinthian pottery has no share in the Eastern Herakles with the lion-skin, the Amazons as Scythian women, the entry of the Satyrs, the rendering of folds, the painted ground for white additions. One asks whether this brilliant development could break off so abruptly, or if it is only accident which has concealed from us its continuation. Both are improbable. It looks rather as if, just as the Protocorinthian manufactory had its continuation in the Corinthian, so the Corinthian was carried on by the Chalkidian. For the vases denoted by their inscriptions as Chalkidian form, at all events according to the present state of our knowledge, a group covering a few decades, which is in succession of time to the later Corinthian vases, and is most closely connected with them by a series of detailed agreements. Not only do the vase shapes consistently carry on Corinthian tendencies, but details of decoration like the white neck rosettes filled with red, and the step pattern (Figs. [68] and [69]) continue; the Corinthian animal friezes with rosettes, the heraldic cocks, with the serpents, the winged demon, the riders with the space-filling birds (Fig. [69]), the wrestlers scheme, the grotesque dancers, the quadriga in front view are taken over; nay, details of drawing, like the warrior’s head in front view, the round outline of the edge of the short small chiton (Figs. [70] and [71]), the red spots on black clothes (Fig. [70]), the sword sheath with the St. Andrew crosses (Fig. [71]), the devices on the shields are not conceivable without their Corinthian predecessors; even the names of Corinthian grotesque dancers pass over to the Chalkidian Satyrs.
Not a single Chalkidian vase has been found in Chalkis itself, nor even in any part of the mother-country: all specimens preserved come from the West. One might therefore assume that the fabric had its seat, not in Chalkis itself, but in one of its colonies, and thus the powerful Corinthian traditions in this pottery would be easily explained. The West was dominated, as we saw, throughout the 7th century by Corinthian exportation; and the colonies of Chalkis had always been provided by friendly Corinth with clay vases. But the strong influence of the Chalkidian manufactory on the Attic is in favour of Chalkis itself having put an end to Corinthian production, or at any rate to Corinthian exportation. Why and how, cannot be stated: perhaps the publication of the many unpublished specimens will solve the riddle and clear up the close relation of the Chalkidian ware to the group of the Phineus kylix (Fig. [74]).
From every point of view the Chalkidian vases give us a heightening of the Corinthian, a great advance in the direction of a later period. Clay and black now attain their highest perfection, the distribution of colour is most delicately calculated; no longer is there so much use made of white surfaces (under which there is regularly a wash of black); especially we see no more of the arbitrary colour-contrast which did not shrink from white colouring of the male. If the Corinthian style had already aimed at metallic effect in the angular formation of the handles and the curving of the handle-bridges of the krater, the Chalkidian heightens these tendencies almost to faithful copying of metal vases, and consistently develops the vase shapes to the highest, almost over-refined elegance; the narrowing of the lower part of the body leads to the insertion of a roll, which the painter picks out in red from the black foot. Thus arise novel vase-shapes; the necked amphora (Fig. [69]) is elongated, its shoulder flattened, so that the body almost assumes the shape of an egg; the krater gets steep sides, high neck, and outward-bent handle bridges; out of the older hydria with arched shoulder comes a later shape, which, in a specimen at Munich (Fig. [68]) exactly copies the addition of cast handles to a metal body; and similarly the other shapes develop, the kylix with knobs on the handles, the two-handled cup, the jug.
The same endeavour after elasticity and elegance prevails in the distribution of the ornament over the vase, which was managed in a more masterly way at Chalkis than elsewhere. Certainly the ornamentation is based almost entirely on Corinthian foundations. The white dot-rosettes filled with red on the black neck, the lotus and palmette on the ground of the clay, tongues on the shoulder, and rays at the foot, the step pattern under the chief frieze are of old tradition but pass through a growing elaboration. As a new motive of decoration comes in the chain of buds, which we know from the East: as a rule it occurs beneath the chief band (Fig. [69]), or hangs over the figure-field in place of the lotus and palmette. The Ionic pattern is not exactly imitated in the process; the swellings under the Chalkidian buds suggest roses rather than lotus. Out of these buds, palmettes, and the tendrils uniting them, is formed the fixed ornament, which generally serves as central motive to heraldic animals and often develops into a wonderfully rich complex of lively lines (Fig. [69]). The proper place for this ornament is the centre of the upper band, which recovers its importance, now that the shoulder is set off more sharply in hydriae and necked amphorae, and as secondary field for decoration is, like the reverse of vases, usually decorated in the first instance with animals. On the shoulder-stripe the riders with the space-filling birds tend to drive out the archaic scheme of decoration; they flank the lotus and palmette cross and in later specimens, where the horizontal shoulder is no longer dominant in the general view, they pass from heraldic constraint to parade order, and are also occasionally replaced by cleverly disposed dancers. The reverse of the vase also more and more shakes off animal decoration and replaces it by ornamental compositions, as by the heraldic quadriga or the heraldic riders. Friezes of animals beneath the main scene (Fig. [68]) become very rare. However markedly the decoration of the vase departs from the old style, yet in spite of that there is in contrast with the Corinthian style a marked decorative invasion to be traced. The vases that have nothing but animal decoration are numerous, and the rosette often asserts itself again.
This decorative invasion, which is connected with the perfection of technique and marked talent of the Chalkidian artizan, does not detract in any way from the figure scenes. The latter preserve their old vigour and power of observation, some masters even raise it to a most intense elasticity, and breathe into the old types a new and vivid life, which in union with the line technique and arrangement in space makes these vases superior to most of the other black-figured pottery. How Herakles on the London amphora (Fig. [70]) unmercifully deals the death-blow to the three-bodied Geryon, or on the similar Munich vase (Fig. [71]) to Kyknos, is brought before our eyes with unambiguous matter-of-fact and verve.
The chest of Kypselos had already thus represented Herakles’ fight with Geryon, and the Chalkidian painter rests here, as often and especially in his battle scenes, on Corinthian types. But his rendering is anything but a borrowing, and bears witness to fresh and vigorous conception. The ‘Herakles and Kyknos’ is based on the old fighting scheme, which represents a warrior with raised right arm assailing an opponent who almost kneeling moves to the right but looks round; and so in effect only combines the ‘duellist’ ([p. 39]) and the runner with bent knee. On the Chalkidian picture the old ‘exigency of space’ type is hardly any longer to be traced; everything has become