The practice of laying colours on the black varnish is, of course, one that was quite familiar to B.F. artists; the analogous procedure in the R.F. period was the laying of black pigment on the red glaze, as was necessarily done for details such as devices on shields. The transition was therefore easy in the case of a vase covered with black varnish, to painting the figures only in the opaque colours upon it, thereby enlarging the scope of the process. The incised lines in which the figure was necessarily sketched out before painting (and which frequently occur in this class) led the way to the process by which the R.F. artist engraved his design on the red clay before covering the rest of the vase with varnish. In the case of female figures it is obvious that this method was already practised, especially in scenes in which they appeared entirely nude, and the whole figure was painted white over the black silhouette, the black becoming the real accessory where it was required for the hair, etc.[[1246]]
Dr. Six, who has studied this class, gives a list of about seventy examples,[[1247]] including one signed by Nikosthenes (Plate [XXXV]., fig. 2 = F 114 in the Louvre) which has a figure of a woman painted in white each side, the style, be it noted, being purely black-figured. In later specimens the object seems to have been to imitate the appearance of the R.F. vases, and to paint the figures in a similar but opaque red colour instead of white.[[1248]] Other examples again have figures only incised on the black, without any addition of colour.[[1249]] In some of the earlier ones the use of black as an accessory[[1250]] shows that the painter, so to speak, “thought” in the B.F. style, but used white for black and vice versa.
Most of the earlier examples have been found in Greece or Magna Graecia; they are usually of the lekythos form, which is always rare in Etruria. The later group chiefly consists of small bowls (phialae) of very negligent style, but some are of the typical R.F. forms, such as the “Nolan” amphora and the stamnos. A considerable number of fragments were found on the Acropolis of Athens, showing that even these late imitative specimens, in spite of their rude, careless execution, cannot be placed later than 480 B.C.
One of the most interesting examples is a fragment found on the Acropolis of Athens,[[1251]] with an owl within an olive-wreath; it had been dedicated to Athena by a potter whose name is now lost. There is also a good series in the British Museum (B 681–700), including a lekythos with Odysseus carried under the ram, painted in polychrome.
Before embarking upon the history of the red-figured vases it may be well to endeavour to see what light the vase-paintings up to this point throw on the literary traditions preserved for us, chiefly by Pliny, in regard to early painting. There is, perhaps, no subject which that writer has treated with greater vagueness; and we are forced to the conclusion that he really knew nothing about it, and did not comprehend the meaning of the earlier writers from whom he borrowed.[[1252]] Still, it may fairly be supposed that the names he mentions are those of real persons, even if his account of their achievements is vague or imaginary. There are also a few stray items of information given by Aristotle, Aelian, Strabo, and Athenagoras.
PLATE XXXV
Vases with Opaque Designs on Black Ground.
1. Brit. Mus.; 2. By Nikosthenes, in Louvre.