PLATE L.
[Fig. 91]. ‘LITTLE MASTER’ KYLIX.
[Fig. 92]. ATTIC KYLIX WITH KNOB-HANDLES.
and much in the style of the figures come from the neighbouring fabric. This Chalkidian influence is to be traced on a second type of kylix belonging to this period, that with off-set rim, (not the one in Circe’s hand), which for a time carelessly draws its figures over the junction, but finally makes a clean cut between handle frieze and rim ornament: the rim is e.g. decorated with a branch or painted black, the handle frieze bears figures or the artist’s signature in neat letters between the palmettes proceeding from the handles. The masters of the François vase themselves took this step forward; in Naukratis and the interior of Asia Minor signed specimens have been found, speaking documents of the popularity of the fine Attic ware in the East, which help to explain the alteration of the Ionic style ([p. 86]).
The workshop of Ergotimos passed to his son Eucheiros (B.M. Cat. ii., p. 221), who, like the sons of Nearchos, Ergoteles and Tleson (B.M. Cat. ii., p. 222) is found among the so-called ‘little masters,’ the makers of dedicated high-stemmed cups, who, with special pride, and probably also for decorative reasons, put their names on their products. More than twenty makers’ names, among them those of Exekias, Pamphaios, Charitaios, Hischylos, and Nikosthenes, have been handed down to us on these vases, an important piece of evidence for the vigour of Attic production in the generation after Klitias and Ergotimos. These masters preserve the division between handle and rim stripes, even when the rim is not marked off from the body. As with Klitias, the handle stripe bears the master’s inscription or a drinking motto; in this case the representation, consisting of neat miniature figures or a female head drawn in fine outline, moves into the upper stripe (Fig. [91]). Side by side with that, the painting of the rim black and decoration of the handle stripe with figures are very common. In the figures decorative tendencies, betokening intention rather than convention, assert themselves. The interior picture often consists of the Gorgon’s mask, or a figure to fill the space to fit the circle; the outside often bears meaningless compositions (heraldic animals, winged creatures, runners, riders, men wrapped in cloaks), out of which develop scenes of hunting and pursuit, chariot-races, and cock-fights; but also mythological scenes and vigorous battle pictures with many figures occur. When such scenes are still flanked by heraldic animals, in this case primitive traditions are consciously retained.
On the Munich kylix (Fig. [91]) the painter in the inscription praises the beauty of Kalistanthe. More commonly fair boys are praised, a practice which continues on vases for a century, the explanation being supplied by the erotic scenes represented from the later time of Klitias. Those celebrated are seldom to be regarded as the favourites of the vase-painters themselves, but generally sons of the best society, for whom there was a furore. This worship of beauty is of use to the historian, for many of the Kaloi are great persons with established dates, and anyhow the common love-name puts all vases which bear it into a short period of time; for the bloom of beauty lasts not more than a decade.
If the kylikes of the ‘little masters’ last to the beginning of the red-figured style ([p. 109]), the eye-cups go a good bit beyond this limit. The type must have been brought to Athens from the ‘Phineus’ manufactory ([p. 80]) in the later period of the ‘little masters’; and perhaps the Ionian Amasis, who has left a fine specimen with a figure holding a branch between the eyes, had much to do with this naturalization. Certainly the Attic artists never rival the swelling shapes and vigorous life of their prototypes. With this type the outside begins again to be treated as a decorative unit