From the very beginning of Greek vase-painting there may be observed an endeavour to dispose the ornamental patterns in accordance with some system; and even though in some cases, as in the Cypriote Geometrical vases, there is an offence against the canons of art, yet at all periods the prevailing effect is one of symmetry and taste. It may be thought that in some respects there is a poverty in the variety of ornaments employed—as compared, for instance, with mediaeval art; but it should be remembered that—as their architecture shows—the Greek principle was to achieve the highest results within a limited sphere. Their system was conventional, but its conventions are forgotten in the artistic effect that it produces.
It is on the earliest vases that the greatest variety and richness of ornament occurs; as the art is developed the ornamentation becomes more and more subsidiary, until on the vases of the finest R.F. period it has almost disappeared. But in the later phases it again comes to the fore, tending more and more to obscure and finally to supersede the subjects. To set forth as briefly as possible the growth and development of Greek ornament, both as a whole and in the case of individual motives, will be the object of the succeeding summary. It will be found advisable to treat the subject in a twofold aspect,—firstly, dealing with individual forms and their development; and, secondly, in their relation to the decoration of the vases and their subjects, as exemplified in the different periods and fabrics.
Various theories have been propounded as to the origin of the ornaments found on Greek vases. Some have seen in the patterns architectural adaptations, suggested by the ornamentation of the different members of a temple, such as the maeander, egg-and-tongue pattern, or the astragalus, just as the disposition of the subject is often a reminiscence of the frieze or metopes. But this is no real explanation. In the first place, the patterns are found on vases at a period when they were hardly as yet used in architecture; and, secondly, their use on vases and in architecture must undoubtedly be traced to a common source. Others, again, have regarded them as conventional symbols, the kymation or wave-pattern representing water, a flower or rosette the ground on which the figures stand, and so on. Or, again, it has been thought that they were originally derived from textile patterns, being produced mechanically by the ways in which the threads ran in the loom, whence they were applied with deliberate artistic intention to the surface of a vase.
It is, in fact, impossible to put forward any one theory which will account for the whole system of decorative ornament. As has been pointed out in our introductory chapter, many of these patterns are not only spontaneous, but universal in their origin among primitive peoples; every nation has begun with its circles, triangles, spirals, or chevrons. We are also, in regard to the Greeks, met with the remarkable fact that in its earliest form their painted pottery presents a very elaborate and highly developed system of ornamentation—purely geometrical, it is true, yet none the less of an advanced character. It is a composite system, formed partly from Mycenaean and pre-Mycenaean local elements, and partly from the decorative ideas introduced by the Dorians from Central Europe; subsequently the range of Greek vase-ornament was yet further enlarged by the introduction of vegetable patterns, the palmette, the lotos-flower, and the rosette, which are due to the growth of Oriental influences, both from Egypt and from Assyria.
FIG. 139. MAEANDER OR EMBATTLED PATTERN.
FIG. 140. MAEANDER OR KEY-PATTERN (ATTIC).
In order to deal with the various ornaments and patterns in detail, it may be found convenient to divide them under three heads—rectilinear, curvilinear, and vegetable or floral. Of the first class the most consistently popular is the typically Greek pattern known as the maeander, key, or fret pattern. It first appears with the Geometrical style, in which it plays an important part, often covering a large proportion of the surface of a vase, arranged in broad friezes. Three varieties are found—a simple battlement pattern (Fig. [139]), and the slightly more elaborate forms, Fig. [140], and the pattern given in Vol. I. p. [283], Fig. [83]. In the Boeotian Geometrical, Phaleron, and Proto-Corinthian fabrics it is seldom found, or only in a debased form, as