APULIAN AMPHORA.
PERSEPHONE IN HADES.
(British Museum).
There does not seem to be any possibility of distinguishing different centres of fabric in Apulia. Nor can Tarentum have been a centre of vase-fabrics, although Lenormant stoutly upheld its claims, as the chief centre of Greek civilisation in that region. But Tarentum has been the scene of much excavation, and results do not point to that conclusion; most of the vases found there are purely Greek. On the other hand, enormous numbers have been found at Ruvo, and this was undoubtedly the chief centre, though without a distinguishing style of its own. Ruvo was famous for its red clay, and remains of furnaces and potteries have been found there. Other sites where vases have been found are Bari, Canosa, and Ceglie. At Canosa there was a preference for the tall amphora with scroll-handles, the large phiale, and the prochoös,[[1489]] and purple accessories were largely used here. It is also interesting to recall that Canosa seems to have been the centre for the large ornamental vases of terracotta painted in tempera (p. [119]).
On some of the column-handled kraters[[1490]] local costumes appear, probably representing the Peucetians, and having some affinities with those of Lucania; the principal features are the tall pointed cap and short striped chiton worn by both sexes. Another group peculiar to Apulia is formed by the fish-plates[[1491]]—a peculiar form of plate, with low stem, a sinking in the centre, and edge turned over, all being painted with fish of various kinds (Plate [XLIV].). They were no doubt used for eating fish, the sinking being for the sauce; but they may also have been hung up as votive offerings in the temple of some marine deity.
The last efforts of vase-painting on the soil of Magna Graecia date from the latter half of the third century B.C. By this time vase-painting had reached a stage of complete decadence, devoid of style or taste, and rapidly verging on barbarism, as shown in some specimens, which seem to be the efforts of local craftsmen to copy the better examples, but with the same want of success as the Etruscans.[[1492]]
Another direction which vase-painting took before it finally disappeared is illustrated by a group of vases mostly found at Egnazia (Gnathia) in Apulia, which clearly form a final stage in the evolution of the local fabric just discussed. Originally known from the place where the majority was found as vasi di Egnazia or Gnathia vases, they were in the view of Lenormant more probably made at Tarentum.[[1493]] But we have seen that there is slight evidence of local fabric there,[[1494]] and their connection with the fabrics of Ruvo and Canosa makes it more likely that they came from that neighbourhood. It is therefore probable that the old name is the correct one.
The characteristics of this group are: (1) the black varnish with which the whole vase is covered; (2) the designs painted in opaque colours—white, purple, and yellow; (3) the tendency to imitate vases of metal, as seen in the vertically ribbed bodies and other details of form. The important rôle played by the black varnish is interesting, as showing the increasing tendency to reduce the painter’s labour to a minimum, combined with a striving after novelty and the rejuvenation of the art. The practice, no doubt, arose from the discovery of the painter that it was easier to paint the figures on the black in opaque colour than to trace them out in the clay and work round them with the varnish, especially in the case of the elaborate foliage patterns which played so important a part in Apulian vases.
The subjects are usually confined to the shoulder or neck, at least of the larger vases; but figures are comparatively rare. One krater in the British Museum (F 543) which belongs to the comic series is a notable exception; and there is a pleasing subject on a skyphos in the Louvre[[1495]]—a cock and goose confronted, and greeting one another with the respective salutations, “Ah, the goose!” “Oh, the cock!” But in the majority of cases the only designs are female heads, Erotes (Fig. [118]), birds, comic and tragic masks suspended from wreaths, and simple foliage patterns. The reverse of the two-sided vases is often undecorated.
