A History of Greek Art / With an Introductory Chapter on Art in Egypt and Mesopotamia

by F. B. Tarbell

Some time before the end of the sixth century, perhaps as early as 540, a new method of decorating pottery was invented in Attica. The principal coloring matter used continued to be the lustrous black varnish; but instead of filling in the outlines of the figures with black, the decorator, after outlining the figures by means of a broad stroke of the brush, covered with black the spaces between the figures, leaving the figures themselves in the color of the clay. Vases thus decorated are called "red-figured." In this style incised lines ceased to be used, and details were rendered chiefly by means of the black varnish or, for certain purposes, of the same material diluted till it became of a reddish hue. The red-figured and black-figured styles coexisted for perhaps half a century, but the new style ultimately drove the old one out of the market.

The development of the new style was achieved by men of talent, several of whom fairly deserve to be called artists. Such an one was Euphronius, whose long career as a potter covered some fifty years, beginning at the beginning of the fifth century or a little earlier. Fig. 191 gives the design upon the outside of a cylix (a broad, shallow cup, shaped like a large saucer, with two handles and a foot), which bears his signature. Its date is about 480, and it is thus approximately contemporary with the latest of the archaic statues of the Athenian Acropolis (pages 151 f.). On one side we have one of the old stock subjects of the vase-painters, treated with unapproached vivacity and humor. Among the labors of Heracles, imposed upon him by his taskmaster, Eurystheus, was the capturing of a certain destructive wild boar of Arcadia and the bringing of the creature alive to Mycenae. In the picture, Heracles is returning with the squealing boar on his shoulder. The cowardly Eurystheus has taken refuge in a huge earthenware jar sunk in the ground, but Heracles, pretending to be unaware of this fact, makes as though he would deposit his burden in the jar. The agitated man and woman to the right are probably the father and mother of Eurystheus. The scene on the other side of the cylix is supposed to illustrate an incident of the Trojan War: two warriors, starting out on an expedition, are met and stopped by the god Hermes. In each design the workmanship, which was necessarily rapid, is marvelously precise and firm, and the attitudes are varied and telling. Euphronius belonged to a generation which was making great progress in the knowledge of anatomy and in the ability to pose figures naturally and expressively. It is interesting to note how close is the similarity in the method of treating drapery between the vases of this period and contemporary sculpture.

The cylix shown in Fig. 192 is somewhat later, dating from about 460. The technique is here different from that just described, inasmuch as the design is painted in reddish brown upon a white ground. The subject is the goddess Aphrodite, riding upon a goose. The painter, some unnamed younger contemporary of Euphronius, has learned a freer manner of drawing. He gives to the eye in profile its proper form, and to the drapery a simple and natural fall. The subject does not call, like the last, for dramatic vigor, and the preeminent quality of the work is an exquisite purity and refinement of spirit.

If we turn now from the humble art of vase-decoration to painting in the higher sense of the term, the first eminent name to meet us is that of Polygnotus, who was born on the island of Thasos near the Thracian coast. His artistic career, or at least the later part of it, fell in the "Transitional period" (480-450 B.C.), so that he was a contemporary of the great sculptor Myron. He came to Athens at some unknown date after the Persian invasion of Greece (480 B.C.) and there executed a number of important paintings. In fact, he is said to have received Athenian citizenship. He worked also at Delphi and at other places, after the ordinary manner of artists.

Painting in this period, as practiced by Polygnotus and other great artists, was chiefly mural; the painting of easel pictures seems to have been of quite secondary consequence. Thus the most famous works of Polygnotus adorned the inner faces of the walls of temples and stoas. The subjects of these great mural paintings were chiefly mythological. For example, the two compositions of Polygnotus at Delphi, of which we possess an extremely detailed account in the pages of Pausanias, depicted the sack of Troy and the descent of Odysseus into Hades. But it is worth remarking, in view of the extreme rarity of historical subjects in Greek relief- sculpture, that in the Stoa Poicile (Painted Portico) of Athens, alongside of a Sack of Troy by Polygnotus and a Battle of Greeks and Amazons by his contemporary, Micon, there were two historical scenes, a Battle of Marathon and a Battle of OEnoe. In fact, historical battle-pieces were not rare among the Greeks at any period.

As regards the style of Polygnotus we can glean a few interesting facts from our ancient authorities. His figures were not ranged on a single line, as in contemporary bas-reliefs, but were placed at varying heights, so as to produce a somewhat complex composition. His palette contained only four colors, black, white, yellow, and red, but by mixing these he was enabled to secure a somewhat greater variety. He laid his colors on in "flat" tints, just as the Egyptian decorators did, making no attempt to render the gradations of color due to varying light and shade. His pictures were therefore rather colored drawings than genuine paintings, in our sense of the term. He often inscribed beside his figures their names, according to a common practice of the time. Yet this must not be taken as implying that he was unable to characterize his figures by purely artistic means. On the contrary, Polygnotus was preeminently skilled in expressing character, and it is recorded that he drew the face with a freedom which archaic art had not attained. In all probability his pictures are not to be thought of as having any depth of perspective; that is to say, although he did not fail to suggest the nature of the ground on which his figures stood and the objects adjacent to them, it is not likely that he represented his figures at varying distances from the spectator or gave them a regular background.

It is clear that Polygnotus was gifted with artistic genius of the first rank and that he exercised a powerful influence upon contemporaries and successors. Yet, alas! in spite of all research and speculation, our knowledge of his work remains very shadowy. A single drawing from his hand would be worth more than all that has ever been written about him. But if one would like to dream what his art was like, one may imagine it as combining with the dramatic power of Euphronius and the exquisite loveliness of the Aphrodite cup, Giotto's elevation of feeling and Michael Angelo's profundity of thought.

Another branch of painting which began to attain importance in the time of Polygnotus was scene-painting for theatrical performances. It may be, as has been conjectured, that the impulse toward a style of work in which a greater degree of illusion was aimed at and secured came from this branch of the art. We read, at any rate, that one Agatharchus, a scene-painter who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, wrote a treatise which stimulated two philosophers to an investigation of the laws of perspective.

The most important technical advance, however, is attributed to Apollodorus of Athens, a painter of easel pictures. He departed from the old method of coloring in flat tints and introduced the practice of grading colors according to the play of light and shade. How successfully he managed this innovation we have no means of knowing; probably very imperfectly. But the step was of the utmost significance. It meant the abandonment of mere colored drawing and the creation of the genuine art of painting.

Two artists of the highest distinction now appear upon the scene. They are Zeuxis and Parrhasius. The rather vague remark of a Roman writer, that they both lived "about the time of the Peloponnesian War" (431-404 B.C.) is as definite a statement as can safely be made about their date. Parrhasius was born at Ephesus, Zeuxis at some one or other of the numerous cities named Heraclea. Both traveled freely from place to place, after the usual fashion of Greek artists, and both naturally made their home for a time in Athens. Zeuxis availed himself of the innovation of Apollodorus and probably carried it farther. Indeed, he is credited by one Roman writer with being the founder of the new method. The strength of Parrhasius is said to have lain in subtlety of line, which would suggest that with him, as with Polygnotus, painting was essentially outline drawing. Yet he too can hardly have remained unaffected by the new chiaroscuro.