[1406]. Nos. 1119–20, and one uncatalogued.
[1407]. Cf. B.M. Cat. of Terracottas, B 57–8.
[1408]. Ath. Mitth. 1901, p. 143 ff., with pl. 8.
CHAPTER XI
WHITE-GROUND AND LATER FABRICS
Origin and character of white-ground painting—Outline drawing and polychromy—Funeral lekythi—Subjects and types—Decadence of Greek vase-painting—Rise of new centres—Kertch, Cyrenaica, and Southern Italy—Characteristics of the latter fabrics—Shapes—Draughtsmanship—Influence of Tragedy and Comedy—Subjects—Paestum fabric—Lucanian, Campanian, and Apulian fabrics—Gnathia vases—Vases modelled in form of figures—Imitations of metal—Vases with reliefs—“Megarian” bowls—Bolsena ware and Calene phialae.
§ 1. White-Ground Vases
The method of painting on a white ground, which was brought to such perfection in the fifth century, really requires a section to itself, its development being parallel to, yet different from, that of the painting in red on black. Its genealogy can be traced almost throughout the period of Greek vase-painting, beginning with the Ionian fabrics of Rhodes and Samos, through the more developed vases of Naukratis and Kyrene, until it was introduced at Athens in the latter part of the sixth century, perhaps, as we have seen (p. [385]), by Nikosthenes. The method was not, of course, new then to Continental Greece. It was the one usually employed for painting votive tablets or pictures on wood, the surface of the tablet being prepared by covering it with a thick slip of creamy-white lustrous character, known as λεύκωμα.[[1409]] Thus it is used in one of the few examples known of Attic painting, apart from the vases, the Warrior pinax from the Acropolis, which may be dated about 500 B.C., and stands midway between frescoes and white-ground vases (see above, p. [397]). Possibly the idea of the white slip was to get the effect of painting on marble such as we see in the tombstones of Lyseas and Aineos.[[1410]]
This method was adhered to throughout the fifth century by all the great painters, such as Polygnotos, and hence the importance to us of the white-ground vases of that time, as reflecting their methods, and in a miniature form the appearance of their works. In the fifth century the all-important consideration in a picture was perfection of design and composition; colouring was relatively unimportant, and the technical processes exceedingly simple, three or four colours alone being employed. Cicero[[1411]] tells us that Polygnotos, Zeuxis, and Timanthes only used four colours—black, white, red, and yellow. It is interesting to note that these are just the four colours we ordinarily find on the polychrome vases, the flat tints so frequently employed being no doubt suggested by the mural paintings.
To go back to the earlier Athenian vases with white ground, we observe that at first the method of painting in silhouette, in the manner of the ordinary B.F. vases, obtains exclusively.[[1412]] About the beginning of the fifth century this method is superseded by what we may regard as a transitional class, in which the figures are painted partly in silhouette, partly in outline, the simple black-on-white design being preserved, with a very occasional use of purple or yellow.[[1413]] According to Winter, the origin of outline drawing of this kind may be found in the partly outlined female heads which are found on some of the minor artists’ cups, such as those of Sakonides, Eucheiros, and Hermogenes.[[1414]] We need not go as far as he does in explaining the catagrapha of Kimon (see p. [397]) as the replacement of mere silhouettes by outline drawing, so as to give individuality and variety to faces; but the vases which he publishes are remarkable for the highly developed character of the heads depicted thereon.[[1415]] One in particular is more like a head by Euphronios than one of the Epictetan cycle, to which it must belong in point of date. But it must be remembered that Epiktetos and his school were still hampered by archaic conventions, while the painter on a white ground was carving out the way to perfect freedom.
The shapes employed for the new white-ground technique are much the same as those used in the previous period—the kylix, the lekythos, the oinochoë, the pyxis, and the alabastron.[[1416]] But of these only one retains its popularity for any length of time; in fact, after the middle of the fifth century it is the only one employed at all. This shape is the lekythos, on which, indeed, alone the whole development of white-ground painting can be traced from the B.F. types down to the fourth century, when it finally disappears. Although not exclusively the sepulchral vase (as may be seen from the appearance of other vases on tombs in the painted funeral scenes[[1417]]), yet for some reason it came to be regarded as the proper shape for such purposes, and the fashion of making white lekythi exclusively for the tomb, and decorated as a general rule with funerary subjects, prevailed for about a hundred and fifty years. We have elsewhere (pp. [132], [143]) noted instances of its use recorded by Aristophanes.