The introduction of polychromy is a gradual development. At first, as we have seen, colour is very sparingly employed, only in the use of a brownish yellow (produced by thinning out the black) for details or washes, or of a purple or pinkish brown. Subsequently the outlines are drawn in black or brown, and filled in with black, brown, or purple washes; the occasional use of a clear, thick, white pigment, standing out against the cream background, is also to be noted[[1418]]; and next a wash of bright red or vermilion is employed. In the final stages of polychrome painting, during the fourth century, the range of colours is greatly extended, and blue or green are employed
PLATE XLIII
VASES WITH POLYCHROME DESIGNS ON WHITE GROUND.
(British Museum).
To face page 456.
in addition to those already named. The outlines are also painted in the vermilion colour already mentioned, instead of the black in previous use. Up to the end of the fifth century the colouring always preserves a character of soberness and austerity; and such a feature as the use of gilding[[1419]] is quite exceptional.
Some of the white-ground kylikes are only partially so; the exterior is painted in the ordinary R.F. manner, of the “strong” style, as in the case of the Anesidora cup in the British Museum. On the other hand, a fine cup at Gotha has a red-figured interior and polychrome exterior.[[1420]] In the Munich collection there are three very beautiful cups of this kind.[[1421]] The interior subjects are respectively Europa on the bull, a frenzied Maenad, and Hera. The cup with the Maenad is attributed by Furtwaengler to the style of Brygos, and may therefore be dated about 470–460 B.C. It is rare to find a large vase decorated in this method, but there is a very fine krater of the calyx type in the Museo Gregoriano at Rome,[[1422]] which has been attributed to the middle of the fifth century (contemporary with Euphronios’ later manner); the subject is the delivery of the infant Dionysos to the nymphs of Nysa, and is painted throughout in polychrome on a white ground. Of late years some very fine pyxides in this style have been found in Greece,[[1423]] often decorated with marriage scenes, the style of the painting being contemporary with Duris and Brygos. But for beauty and delicacy all are surpassed by some of the smaller cups, above all the Aphrodite cup from Kameiros in the British Museum,[[1424]] in which refinement and grace are combined with boldness of conception and accuracy of drawing in a marvellous degree. Or, again, the group of cups and bowls by Sotades (see above, p. [445]),[[1425]] some with mythological or other subjects painted in minute and graceful style, others of fantastic or unusual shape and decoration, form a unique series among the white-ground vases.[[1426]]
To sum up in the words of A. S. Murray the characteristics of these vases[[1427]]: “There was thus in the white vases an exceptional opportunity for purity of outline in the drawing, and it is not without reason that they are regarded as the best representatives we yet possess of the great age of Greek fresco-painting, in which also purity and sweep of outline on a white ground, simplicity of composition, and a limited scale of brilliant colours, were the chief characteristics.”