Now, in the vases we have, as noted in regard to mythology, contemporary evidence. It must never be forgotten that vase-painting is essentially a decorative art; but, as we shall see later in tracing its historical development, there is always a tendency to ignore the essential subserviency of design to use, and to give the decoration a more pictorial character. Many of the late vases are, in fact, pictures on terracotta. Again, there is a class of fifth-century vases with polychrome paintings on white ground which actually recall the method we know to have been employed by the great master of that century, Polygnotos. And with regard to the late vases we shall hope to show in a future chapter that, like the Pompeian paintings, they often reflect the spirit, if not the exact likeness, of some well-known painting of which we have record.
Many instances might be given of vase-paintings which reflect, or assist our knowledge of, the products of the higher arts. Even as early as the end of the sixth century the group of the Tyrant-slayers, the creation of Antenor and of Kritios and Nesiotes, is found repeated on a black-figured vase[[6]]; and the early poros pediments from the Athenian Acropolis find an interesting parallel in an early Attic vase of about the same date.[[7]] So again in Ionia, the style of the sculptures of the archaic temple at Ephesos finds its reflection in some of the local sixth-century vase-fabrics.[[8]] Coming to the fifth century, the heads in Euphronios’ paintings may be compared with some of the Attic heads in marble, like that of the ephebos from the Acropolis.[[9]] Combats of Greeks with Amazons and Centaurs on later R.F. vases often seem to suggest a comparison with the friezes of Phigaleia and Olympia; a figure from the balustrade of the Nike temple is almost reproduced on a R.F. vase,[[10]] and the riding youths of the Parthenon frieze on some of the white Athenian lekythi; and the Kertch vase with the contest of Athena and Poseidon (Plate [L].) is of special interest as an almost contemporary reproduction of the Parthenon west pediment. In painting, again, the later R.F. vases in many instances reflect what we know of the style and composition of Polygnotos’ paintings, and there are many instances on the vases of the subjects treated by him and Mikon.[[11]]
It is not necessary here to say more of the importance of a study of Greek vases on the several lines that we have pointed out. It is sufficient to say that specialists in all these branches of Archaeology instinctively turn to vases for the main source of their information.
The earliest date at which public attention was directed to the painted vases was the end of the seventeenth century. In those days, it need hardly be said, systematic excavation was a thing quite unknown, while archaeology as a science was non-existent. Beyond a few sculptures which had been handed down at Rome or elsewhere through many vicissitudes, cabinets of gems which had been preserved by cardinals and other dignitaries who employed them for signet-rings, chiefly for ecclesiastical purposes, and some collections of coins of the Renaissance period, there were no specimens of ancient art preserved. During the seventeenth century, however, the fashion arose of making voyages to Italy or Greece, and bringing back any spoils that might attract the notice of the traveller. In this way the collection of Arundel Marbles at Oxford was made, and the nucleus of many of the famous private collections of England formed. But the painted vases, which for the most part lay buried in tombs, escaped notice almost entirely—and, perhaps even where specimens were preserved, they attracted little notice—until with Winckelmann arose a gradual hankering after the possession of artistic treasures and the formation of collections of antiques.
The earliest allusion to be found to painted vases is in the works of La Chausse (Caussius),[[12]] and in the Thesaurus of Graevius,[[13]] while the oldest existing catalogue is that of the collection of the Elector of Brandenburg, compiled by L. Beger in 1696–1701.[[14]] Some few are illustrated in these works, while others were given later by Montfaucon,[[15]] Dempster,[[16]] Gori,[[17]] and Caylus.[[18]] Winckelmann published several vases in his Histoire de l’Art (1764) and Monumenti Antichi (1769), and the industrious Passeri in 1767–75 published, besides a supplement to Dempster, three volumes containing coloured engravings of vases in various collections.
Sir William Hamilton, who was for some time English Ambassador at Naples, formed there a considerable collection of Greek and Roman antiquities, mostly painted vases, which had been discovered in various tombs in Southern Italy and Etruria. All these he brought with him to England and sold to the newly instituted British Museum in 1767. A Frenchman named Hugues or D'Hancarville compiled a magnificent work in four volumes[[19]] illustrating the vases in this collection, with elaborate diagrams of the shapes; but the representations of the subjects are often marred by the imaginary ornamental borders in which they are framed, while the whole work, like others of the same period, is marked by a tendency to ignore all but the artistic interest, and instead of an accurate reproduction to aim merely at giving a pretty picture.
A second collection of vases belonging to Hamilton was mostly lost at sea, but a record of it has been preserved in Tischbein’s work, Vases d’Hamilton[[20]] in four volumes, which is more accurate and useful than that of D'Hancarville. It is believed that many of these vases are now in the Hope collection at Deepdene, which is unfortunately inaccessible to archaeologists.
The Hamilton collection formed, as we have said, the nucleus of the magnificent array of vases in the British Museum. Most of them, it is true, belong to the later period or decadence of vase-painting, and were not only found, but had also been manufactured, in Italy. Although the time for a scientific study and classification was not yet to be for some sixty years, the interest in the subject was decidedly on the increase, and many English noblemen and gentlemen were forming collections, as well as such foreigners as the Duc de Blacas, the Duc de Luynes, and M. Millin. It became the fashion to produce large folio works embodying the contents of these collections in series of coloured illustrations, and thus we have, besides those already mentioned, the imposing publications of Millin,[[21]] Millingen[[22]], Laborde[[23]], and others. On the same lines, but mostly of later date, are the publications of De Rossi[[24]], Christie[[25]], Moses[[26]], Inghirami[[27]], Lanzi[[28]], Böttiger[[29]], Micali[[30]], Raoul-Rochette[[31]], Stackelberg[[32]], and the Duc de Luynes[[33]], who published either their own vases, as De Luynes, or some well-known collection like that of the Duc de Blacas, or some particular class of vases: e.g. Micali, those found in Etruria; Raoul-Rochette and Inghirami, those illustrating Homer; and Stackelberg, those found in tombs in Greece Proper. Few of these, it will be seen, were published in England, where neither public patronage nor private enterprise were found prepared to rival the achievements of the Continent.
In most of these works the vases are styled “Etruscan” as a matter of course. Even nowadays it is a very common experience to hear vases spoken of as “Etruscan” or even as “Etruscan urns,” as if every vase was used as a receptacle for the ashes of the dead. This error has lasted, with all the perseverance of a popular fallacy, for over a century, and cannot now be too strongly denounced. But at the beginning of the last century the Etruscan origin of painted vases was most strongly maintained by erudite scholars, chiefly Italians who desired to champion the credit of their own country, and the controversy raged with varying force till Greece was able to substantiate her own case by the numbers of vases that came forth from her tombs to proclaim their Hellenic origin.