[Fig. 89]. ARRIVAL OF THESEUS’ SHIP AT DELOS: DETAIL OF THE FRANÇOIS VASE, FIG. 90.
From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.
Just as we followed the process in late Corinthian and Chalkidian workmanship, so in Athens the broad, massive archaic black-figured style in the shape of the vase and the rendering of the figures passes into more and more elegant compression and precision; Sophilos is followed by Klitias. The Florence vase ‘made’ by the potter Ergotimos, ‘painted’ by Klitias and named after its finder François (Figs. [89] and [90]), even in the boldly rising outline of the body shows the spirit of a new age, and goes beyond the round-bellied shape of the Gorgon ‘lebes’ as much as the late Corinthian kraters surpass the Eurytios vase (Fig. [64]). Ergotimos holds the mean between the old round-bellied vase shapes and the more elegant ones of the Chalkidian best period ([p. 77]), just as Klitias does between the figured style of Sophilos and that of Amasis ([p. 105]); and as Ergotimos does his best in delicately moulding the shape and gives the vase a showy appearance with his elongated handle volutes, so in the figured decoration covering the whole surface and in the incredibly delicate execution of all details Klitias presents a refinement of the black-figured style which in its way cannot be surpassed. Potter and painter here take a step, which secures for Attic pottery the paramount position for all time.
The treatment of the procession of the Olympians in honour of the newly-wedded sea-goddess on the principal frieze is particularly rich. We have seen that Klitias here utilized an old type. The representative solemnity required by the subject gives an archaic stamp to this frieze; in particular the richly adorned festal clothes with patterns that it almost requires a microscope to see, which bear witness to uncanny patience and accuracy on the part of the painter, heighten the stiffly venerable impression. But when compared with Sophilos, Klitias shows a considerable advance in the rendering of nature.
For that we must not lay stress on the head of Dionysos in front view, for the god’s mask-like appearance passed from cult into vase-painting; but we may point to the diminished heaviness of the figures, the smaller size of the eye, the division of the himatia into stripes, which here and there converge like folds, and the reduction in size of the inscriptions. The other friezes exhibit Klitias as a master of the delineation of life and movement: the arrival of the ship of Theseus at Delos (Fig. [89]), the hunt of Meleager, the battle with the Centaurs, the chariot-race, the return of Hephaistos, the adventure of Troilos, and the delightful frieze on the foot with the battle of dwarfs and cranes; even the heraldic animal frieze is seized by the same liveliness, for between the heraldic sphinxes and griffins the animals, now treated in quite an elegant and concise way, are attacking each other. How much of these scenes is due to the inventiveness of Klitias and his direct observation of nature cannot be made out. He has not got the rough freshness and naturalism of the Ionic painters, but instead a marked feeling for clear and speaking types; and generally speaking, discipline and the gift of abstraction seem to have been more characteristic of the Athenians than of the Ionians, who set more carelessly to work. Perhaps Klitias got from eastern masters the interruption of the heraldry in the animal frieze by fighting groups; and at any rate the Satyrs who accompany the drunken Hephaistos come from the East into Attic pottery.
In the technique of the figures, the old style is worthily putting forth its last efforts; the white is still put direct on the clay, the man’s face is coloured red, black horse alternates with white. But with the perfection of the clay and the black used in painting, and the minute detail of incised lines, a new feeling for colour is brought in, which leads away from the old motley effect; the masters of the
