Similar quiet pictures are found on the other two walls of the tomb; on the back wall a man is standing with his arm round a young flute-player’s neck, and is greeted by a woman. The dress of the woman is Etruscan; the subjects also are probably Etruscan—the preparations for the pompa and the dancing feast. But everything breathes coolness and calm, and we miss the usual jollity. The technique is equally remarkable. It is not the usual fresco painting: experiments have been made with size-paint, that is, an attempt at painting in distemper on the plaster stucco covering the walls. The attempt has failed; the colour has run in large blotches.
These two characteristics of the artist of the Tomba del Barone are of great interest because the German archaeologist, Gustav Körte, has demonstrated the existence of marks made by Greek artisans on the walls of this tomb. It was not in Etruscan, but in Greek letters that the artist indicated the amount of his day’s work, with a view to his wages. The explanation, then, seems to be the following: a Greek decorator was charged with the task of ornamenting the walls of the tomb, and he did it, as far as the dresses are concerned, according to local tradition; but he experimented boldly with a new technical process, the success of which was prevented by the dampness of the rock-wall; and he composed his pictures with a grandeur of line and a tranquillity in execution which make one think of the pediment of a Greek temple. In the light of this it is easier to realize how much of the Etruscan temperament there really is in the other paintings, all Greek influence on style notwithstanding. It must be noted here that artisans’ marks are the only written evidence left by the decorative painters of Etruria; artists’ signatures are unknown, whether in Greek or in Etruscan. The Etruscan nobles, like the Roman later, evidently employed Greek artists, but granted them no social position.
VII
TOMBA DELLE BIGHE
In the next period the predominant stylistic influence is Attic. A whole group of tombs dates from about 500 B.C.: they are thus contemporaneous with the severe red-figured vase-paintings. Very Attic and, at the same time, like a complete pictorial procession, representing everything which took place at a great Etruscan funeral, is the Tomba delle Bighe, previously mentioned and now published by Weege. As the pictures in this tomb are clearer and more complete than most Etruscan paintings, we will take some of them as a starting-point for a closer examination of the facts of Etruscan life.
There are two friezes on the three walls of the tomb: a narrower and lighter above; and a broader one below, in which the figures are painted on a deep red ground; the height of the friezes is respectively 36 and 90 cm., and they are separated by a broad, coloured band. The narrow frieze with the dark figures on light ground still reminds one of the black-figured Attic vases, whereas the lower purple frieze, in which the skin of the men is reserved in a somewhat lighter red, that of the women in white, recalls the red-figured vase-paintings, all differences notwithstanding.
On the right-hand main wall ([fig. 15]), in the broad frieze, men and women are dancing in honour of the dead among laurel branches. There are the usual ecstasy and the familiar animated gestures with the big fan-like hands, reminding one of the figures in archaic Greek vase-painting and plastic art.[30]
THE TUTULUS—CHARIOT RACE
Especially splendid is the female flute-player who turns round as she dances, her light chiton and red cloak fluttering about her; she can almost compare with ‘la bella ballerina’. The dancing-women all wear the high Etruscan wreathed cap, the so-called tutulus, which in the Tomba delle Iscrizioni is also worn by a male dancer. We meet with it again in Etruscan terracotta sculpture. The fashion is of Oriental origin, and goes back, ultimately, to the pointed ’sugar-loaf hat’ of the Hittites. It probably reached Etruria by way of Cyprus, where it is frequently seen in reliefs of the seventh century B. C. In Etruria the pointed woollen cap became part of the national dress.[31] Rome of course adopted the headgear and preserved the Etruscan tradition in the priesthoods; a purple tutulus adorned the Roman Flaminicae, and certain secondary priests wore a tutulus down to the time of Tertullian.[32] In early Rome all women wore the tutulus, and under it a head-cloth such as is shown in Etruscan terracottas ([fig. 16]); this is clear from a description of a Roman mourning scene in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (xi. 39), where the women tear their many and various fillets and hair-ornaments off their heads.[33]