In conclusion, it may be noted that although all provincial museums contain more or less complete collections of the ordinary plain fabrics, they are for the most part of strictly local origin, and not in themselves sufficient for general study. But since the acquisition of the Morel Collection by the British Museum the student has ample facilities for investigating there not only the fabrics of Britain, but also those of Gaul, of which an exhaustive series is now incorporated in our national collection.
With this review of the ceramic industries of the Roman Empire, we conclude our survey of the pottery of the classical world. We have followed its rise from the rough, almost shapeless products of the Neolithic and earliest Bronze Age, when the potter’s wheel was as yet unknown (on classical soil), and decoration was not attempted, or was confined to the rudest kinds of incised patterns. We have traced the development of painted decoration from monochrome to polychrome, from simple patterns to elaborate pictorial compositions, and so to its gradual decay and disappearance under the luxurious and artificial tendencies of the Hellenistic Age, when men were ever seeking for new artistic departures, and a new system of technique arose which finally substituted various forms of decoration in relief for painting. And lastly, we have seen how this new system established itself firmly in the domain of Roman art, until with the gradual decay of artistic taste and under the encroachments of barbarism, it sank into neglect and oblivion. We observe, too, with a melancholy interest, that while other arts, such as architecture, painting, and metal-work, have left some sort of heritage to the later European civilisations, and like the runners in the Greek torch-race
vitai lampada tradunt,
this is not so in the case of pottery. This art had, it would seem, completely worn itself out, and had, in fact, returned to the level of its earliest beginnings. The decorative element disappears, and pottery becomes, as in its earliest days, a mere utilitarian industry, the secrets of its former technical achievements irrevocably lost, its ornamentation reduced to the simplest and roughest kinds of decoration, and its status among the products of human industry once more limited to the mere supplying of one of the humblest of men’s needs.
But this was inevitable, and we must perforce be content; for have we not seen, in the course of its rise and fall, a reflection of the whole history of Greek art, from the humble beginnings in which Pausanias descried the touch of something divine which presaged its future greatness? It is unnecessary to recapitulate the manner in which the successive stages of Greek art are mirrored in the pottery, from the first efforts of the Athenian potter down to the eclecticism of the Arretine ware. Let it suffice to say that the object of this work has been twofold: firstly, to show the many-sided interests of the historical study of ancient pottery; secondly, to point out its value to the student of ancient art and mythology: and that it is the modest hope of the writer that this object has been in some measure fulfilled.
[3421]. See a correspondence in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1844-45, reprinted in the Gentleman’s Magazine Library, Romano-British Remains, ii. p. 547 ff.
[3422]. Bonner Jahrbücher, xcvi. p. 82.
[3423]. Ergebnisse von Olympia, iv. p. 206: cf. ibid. v. p. 783.