Nothing has been said here about painting, because Greek painting is essentially a matter for the professional archæologist who can study what Pliny and others said about it and try to find some intelligent meaning in it by reference to pottery and sculpture. Of course the influence of Polygnotus, Parrhasios, Zeuxis, and Apelles should be traceable even in the humble decorators of pitcher, pot, and pipkin. But we have no relics of the original work of any of those artists, and the ancient art critic is an obscure and uncertain guide. He seems to have had the most ridiculous canons of art, and to have considered it the greatest triumph of painting when birds came to peck at the grapes in a picture. The only Greek pictures that we have are the mural frescoes and mosaics of Pompeii, which belong properly to the Roman department, and a few Egyptian mummy-cases painted by Greek artists. Therefore, if you please, we will leave Greek painting to the connoisseurs, with the remark that Apelles of the fourth century was considered the greatest of all Greek masters.
Nor can the ordinary student of culture get much satisfaction out of Greek music. It is rather cheering to reflect that after all they did not know everything down in Athens, but left one or two things for us to discover. One of them was harmony. We have heard accomplished savants give curious and not wholly unpleasant renderings of Greek music, and distinguished composers like Sir Hubert Parry have written very beautiful airs which are said to be Greek. Broadly speaking, we may divide modern reproductions of Greek music into two classes: those that are Greek, and those that are music. It is certain that the Greeks attached very great importance to music, far more, in fact, than we do. It was the foremost instrument of ancient education, and philosophers from Pythagoras to Plato insisted very seriously upon its moral and spiritual efficacy. The Greeks divided music into three principal modes, according to the key employed. The Dorian
Mode was the lowest in pitch. It was the music of the seven- or eight-stringed cithara used in martial songs and dances. The Spartans were so conservative in matters of music, as in all else, that when the famous Timotheus of Miletus appeared in their city with his new twelve-stringed harp the Ephors ordered the strings to be broken. The Phrygian Mode was based on the major scale with a flat seventh (G to G), and the Lydian on the major with a sharp fourth (F to F). The Lydian was the music of the “soft, complaining flute,” and its high-pitched sounds were condemned by the austere critics of the mainland as too sensuous and emotional. Wind music was, as we have seen on the monuments, originally regarded as a barbarian monstrosity, but a fourth-century dinner-party would scarcely have been complete without at least one turn on the double pipe by a pretty aulētris. A sort of double pipe is still used by Greek shepherd-boys, and in the modern example which I have seen one pipe was used as a “drone,” as in the bagpipes. This instrument is probably a humble survivor of the “syrinx” played by Arcadian shepherds in antiquity and by the modern impresario of Punch and Judy shows—in fact, the Pan-pipes. The superior instrument played by the aulētris would be really a double clarinet. The flute, as we have it, was not known in antiquity.
The Greek potter never made any legitimate advance beyond the Red-figured Style of the fifth century. In the early part of the fourth century there is no appreciable change of style; the technique is a little more perfect, the aim is a little less vigorous. The series of Panathenaic amphoræ[101] (those large jars painted with figures of Athena and athletic subjects intended for prizes at the Panathenaic games) continues unbroken, and their design changes little because they have to correspond with a conventional type. The custom was that they should have their figures in black, and accordingly the painter obeyed the custom by leaving parts of his vase in the natural red of the burnt clay, and treating those parts as
Plate LXXV. A NIOBID
Anderson
panels on which he painted his figures in black.[102] One change we notice: vases are no longer signed by the artist. We conclude from this that pottery is no longer assigned to known masters like Hieron and Douris for decoration, but more mechanically produced in large numbers by humble craftsmen in factories. This would correspond with the increased professionalism which characterises this period in all departments of life. Towards the end of the century—that is, in the days of Alexander—it appears that vases were more frequently made in metal; not that we have any metal vases surviving, but the earthenware takes forms which can only be explained as imitation of metal. Thus the surface is often raised in relief, and vases are apparently cast in moulds.