The features of Penthesileia betray more of inner life than those of Orpheus: and on a second Munich kylix, on which Apollo in presence of Ge slays her son Tityos, the master has gone a step further in physiognomy. The three faces are as convincingly graduated in expression as for example those on the beautiful ‘Lament for the dead,’ by a contemporary master, in Athens.
On the big interior of his kylikes (Fig. [134]) the ‘horse’ master could give freer play to his genius than on the exteriors, which, as in the kylikes of Berlin and Athens, he adorned with pretty scenes from the stable. The contrast between the great round pictures with their fine technique, and the lightly sketched exteriors, is so great, that some have thought of two artists working in the same studio, who divided the work, so that the ‘horse’ master would be different from the Penthesileia master; but the white-ground exterior of the Orpheus kylix seems to build the bridge. It is certainly characteristic that the exteriors of kylikes in this period no longer tempted talented painters to such lively compositions, as in the days of the Brygos and Perugia painters, and that even in the lifetime of the great Euphronios the paratactic decorative style most consistently prepared by Duris laid hold of these exteriors. The new style required big surfaces, and the most faithful reflexions of wall-painting are to be found on large vases.
The most famous of these great Polygnotan vases is the Paris calyx-krater from Orvieto (Fig. [135]), the figures of which, apart from Athena and Herakles, have not yet been certainly identified. From the expectant attitude of the figures it has been suggested that the picture represents the start of the Argonauts, or the preparation of the Attic heroes for the battle of Marathon. The great mythological scene is at any rate in the manner of the new period, which no longer has the preference of the ancients for the crisis of action but rather depicts preparation and after-effect, reflection on the deed accomplished and rest from action. That a Polygnotan wall-painting preceded the vase-painting in this psychologically refined conception, may be regarded as proved. For the figures not only appear in all sorts of bold foreshortenings, front and side views, not only surprise us by an abundance of motives, which are quite beyond previous vase-painting, but also show a series of peculiarities, which are expressly described as innovations of the great fresco-painter. When the figures of the krater open their mouths and show their teeth, when the stationary interior folds, the so-called drapery eyes have shadows painted in them, this can only be explained as imitation of the great painters, and similarly the gnashing of teeth and the shading of the horses’ bellies on the Centaur psykter. The Argonautic krater shows this dependence very strongly in its composition. Great painting had not only graduated the parts of the body in deep spatial layers, but transferred this novel deepening to the arrangement of its groups, distributing the actors over hilly country, which either elevated
PLATE LXXXII.
[Fig. 135]. THE ARGONAUTS (?). KALIX-KRATER OF POLYGNOTAN PERIOD.
From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei.
the figures of the background or often partly concealed them. It is clear that an art, which characterized the rounding of shields and bodies and the recesses of drapery by the distribution of light and shade, also gave actuality and effect of depth to the landscape by shading, though in primitive fashion, and a series of ‘Polygnotan’ vases proves the fact, by making flowers, bushes and plants spring out of the ground. It is true the painter of the Argonaut krater does not go so far, but he shows more strikingly than any other vase-painter the landscape of Polygnotan paintings, which, not forgetting the surface effect of vase-decoration, he does not shade but only indicates in outline by the incising tool. That in other ways, too, he altered his pattern to suit the technique of vase-painting, is proved by the freedom in the use of colour and perspective, which on other specimens of this period burst the barriers of vase-painting.