In making the vases the wheel was used in the following manner:—A piece of paste of the required size was placed upon it vertically in the centre, and while it revolved was formed with the finger and thumb, the potter paying regard not only to the production of the right shape, but to the necessary thickness of the walls. This process sufficed for the smaller pieces, such as cups or jugs; the larger amphorae and hydriae required the introduction of the arm. The feet, necks, mouths, and handles were separately turned on moulds, and fixed on while the clay was moist. They are often modelled with great beauty and precision, especially the feet, which are admirably finished off, to effect which the vase must have been inverted. The modelling and separate attachment of the handle is represented in more than one ancient work of art (see Fig. [66]). In many cases the joining of the handles is so excellent that it is easier to break than to detach them. Great technical skill was displayed in turning certain peculiar forms of vases, and generally speaking the Greeks with their simple wheel effected wonders, producing shapes still unrivalled for beauty.
In the case of the earlier vases, which are made by hand, after the clay was properly kneaded the potter took up a mass of the paste, and hollowing it into the shape of walls with one hand, placed the other inside it and pressed it out into the required form. In this way also the thickness of the walls could be regulated. When raised or incised ornaments were required, he used modeller’s tools, such as wooden or bronze chisels. The largest and coarsest vases of the Greeks were made with the hand, and the large πίθοι, or casks, such as have been recently found in such numbers in Crete and Thera (p. [152]), were modelled by the aid of a kind of hooped mould (κάνναβος): see ibid.). The smaller and finer vases, however, were invariably turned on the wheel. On a Graeco-Roman lamp from Pozzuoli, in the British Museum,[[768]] a potter is seen standing and modelling a vase before his furnace, in the manner no doubt employed at all periods.
Certain parts of the ancient painted vases were modelled by the potter from the earliest times—e.g. on those of the Geometrical period horses are occasionally found on the covers of the flat dishes moulded in full relief, and in other examples the handle is enriched with the moulded figure of a serpent twining round it. This kind of ornament is more suitable to works in metal than in clay, and suggests the idea that such vases were, in fact, imitations of metallic ones. On vases of all periods moulded bosses and heads, like the reliefs on metal vases, are sometimes found; even in black-figured vases the insertions of the handles of hydriae and oinochoae are occasionally thus enriched. In the later styles modelling was more profusely employed; small projecting heads were affixed to the handles of jugs[[769]] at their tops and bases, and on the large kraters found in Apulia the discs in which the handles terminated (see above, p. [171]) were ornamented with heads of the Gorgon Medusa, or with such subjects as Satyrs and Maenads. These portions were sometimes covered with the black varnish used for the body of the vase, but frequently they were painted with white and red colours of the opaque kind.
A peculiar kind of modelling was used for the gilded portions of reliefs, introduced over the black varnish. When the vase was baked a fine clay was applied to the parts intended for gilding and delicately modelled, either with a small tool or a brush, a process similar to that adopted in the Roman red ware (en barbotine, see Chapter [XXI].). It may indeed have been squeezed in a fluid state through a tube upon the vase, and then modelled. As the gilded-portions are generally small, this process was not difficult or important. A vase discovered at Cumae[[770]] has two friezes executed in this style, the upper round the neck, representing the Eleusinian deities, delicately modelled, coloured, and with the flesh completely gilded; the lower one consists of a band of animals and arabesque ornaments. Several vases from the same locality, from Capua and from the Cyrenaica, have wreaths of corn, ivy, or myrtle, and necklaces round the neck, modelled in the same style, while the rest is plain.
But the art of modelling was soon extensively superseded by that of moulding, or producing several impressions from a mould, generally itself of terracotta. The subject was in the first place modelled in relief with considerable care; and from this model a cast in clay was taken and then baked. The potter availed himself of moulds for various purposes. From them he produced entire parts of his vase in full relief, such as the handles, and possibly in some instances the feet. He also stamped out certain ornaments in relief, much in the same manner as the ornaments of cakes are prepared, and fixed them while moist to the still damp body of the vase. Such ornaments were principally placed upon the lips or at the base of the handles, and in the interior of the kylikes or cups of a late style. A late bowl of black glazed ware in the British Museum (see Plate [XLVIII].) contains an impression from one of the later Syracusan decadrachms having for its subject the head of Persephone surrounded by dolphins: it was struck about 370 B.C. by Euainetos.[[771]]
The last method to be described is that of producing the entire vase from a mould by stamping it out, a process extensively adopted in Roman pottery. During the best period of the fictile art, while painting flourished, such vases were very rare; but on the introduction of a taste for magnificent vases of chased metal, the potters endeavoured to meet the public taste by imitating the reliefs of metal ware.
The most remarkable of these moulded vases are the rhyta or drinking-horns, the bodies of which terminate in the heads of animals, produced from a mould (see above, p. [192]). By the same process were also made vases in the form of jugs or lekythi, the bodies of which are moulded in the shape of human heads, and sometimes glazed, while the necks were fashioned on the lathe, and the handles added. These were coloured and ornamented on the same principle as the rhyta, the vase-portion being generally covered with a black glaze, but sometimes with a white slip, after the manner of the terracottas. Besides the rhyta, phialae, or saucers, were also moulded; fine examples of which process may be seen on the flat bossed saucers, or phialae mesomphaloi, discussed in Chapter XI., p. [502].
Amphorae and other vases of late black ware, the bodies of which are reeded, were also evidently produced from moulds, and could not be made by the expensive process of modelling. Of smaller dimensions, but also made by moulding, were the vases known as gutti, or “lamp-feeders” (see above, p. [200]). They have reeded bodies, long-necked mouths, and circular handles; and on their upper surface a small circular medallion in bas-relief, with a mythological subject. Such vases are principally found in Southern Italy and in Sicily, and belong to the second century B.C. (Chapter XI., p. [502]). After being moulded they were entirely covered with a black glaze. Other vases again are entirely moulded in human or animal forms, with a small mouth or spout. These are found at all periods, but chiefly in the archaic Rhodian and Corinthian fabrics, and again reviving in the later stages of vase-fabrics in Southern Italy. Examples may be seen in the First Vase Room (Cases 33–34 and F) and Fourth Vase Room (Case B) of the British Museum: see also Plate [XLVI]. Others again retain the form of the jug or lekythos, with a figure or relief attached to the front of the body and coloured or covered with a white slip, while the back is varnished black. The whole subject is treated in fuller detail in Chapter [XI].
Many vases of the fourth century and later are entirely covered with a coating of black glaze, while rows of small stamped ornaments, apparently made with a metal punch, have been impressed on the wet clay before the glaze was applied. These decorations are unimportant in their subjects, which are generally small Gorgons’ heads, tendrils, or palmettes, and hatched bands, arranged round the axis of the vase. This latter ornament was probably produced by rolling the edge of a disc notched for the purpose round the vase, in the same manner as a bookbinder uses his brass punch. When these vases came into use the potter’s trade had ceased to be artistic, and was essentially mechanical. They are found on almost all sites from Cyprus to Italy.[[772]]