In the class of vases (3 (a)), with polychrome figures on a white ground, the essential feature is the white slip or engobe with which the naturally pale clay is covered. In the archaic vases of the 7th and 6th centuries b.c., especially in the Ionian centres, as at Rhodes, Naucratis and Cyrene, this slip is frequently employed, but with this, difference, that the figures are painted in the ordinary black-figure method, the only additional colour being purple laid on the black. We first find polychrome decoration, whether in wash or outline, in a small class of fragments from Naucratis, of the 6th century b.c., which technically are of a very advanced character. The colours used either for outline or wash include purple, brown, yellow, crimson and rose-colour, but some, if not all, of these colours were not fired.
In the 5th century this practice was revived at Athens, chiefly in the class of lekythoi or oil-flasks devoted exclusively to sepulchral uses. Here the vases, after leaving the wheel and being fitted with handles, &c., were covered with a coating of white clay. A second coating of black was applied to the parts not required for decoration, and the white was then finely polished, acquiring a dull gloss, and finally fired at a low temperature. The decoration was achieved as follows: a preliminary sketch was made with fine grey lines, ignoring draperies, &c., and not always followed when the colours were laid on. This was done when the first lines were dry, the colour being applied with a fine brush in monochrome—black, yellow or red—following the lines of the sketch. For the drapery and other details polychrome washes were employed, laid on with a large brush. All varieties of red from rose to brown are found, also violet, yellow, blue, black and green. Hair is treated either in outline or by means of washes.
Finally, we have to deal with the class of vases (3 (b)) in which opaque pigments are laid over the surface of the shining black with which the whole vase is coated. This method is met with at three distinct periods in the history of vase-painting, separated by long distances of time.
We first find it in the earlier Cretan or Kamares ware, where it seems to have been introduced not long after the close of the Neolithic period, about 2500 b.c., and where it holds its own for about a thousand years against the contrasted method of “dark on light” painting, till it was finally ousted by the latter at the height of “Mycenaean” civilization in Crete. The colouring is very varied, orange, brown, pink and white being the principal tints employed.
The process appears again at the end of the 5th century in a small class of Attic vases, which have been regarded as a sort of transition between the black-figured and red-figured. White and orange-red are here employed, sometimes with accessory details in purple and black and incised lines, so that the technique is virtually black-figured, though the appearance of the vases is often red-figured. Lastly, it appears in southern Italy as a final effort of vase-painting to flicker into life again about the end of the 3rd century. Some of these vases were made in Campania, where the method resembles that of the Attic class just described, others in Apulia, probably at Gnathia. The latter have feeble conventional decoration in purple and white with details in yellow, confined to one side of the vases, and are also distinguished by the use of ornaments in relief. They were also occasionally made in Greece proper.
Remarkably few colours were used by the Greek vase painters, especially in the best periods. The deep purple used for accessory details was produced from iron oxide, but the red used for lines on the white lekythoi is an ochre (μίλτος, rubrica). The white also used for accessories is an earth or clay; in the slip coating of the white ground vases it assumes the consistency of pipe-clay. Yellow, where used for details on the later vases, is an ochre, and blue and green are produced from artificial compounds containing copper. A number of the colours, such as blue, rose and green, used by the polychrome painters, are obviously artificial pigments which have not been fired. When gilding was employed it was laid on over a raised ground of clay finely modelled with a small tool or brush, and was attached by varnish, not by fire.
Potters and Inscriptions.—The potters who made these vases were mostly—at least at Athens in the 6th and 5th centuries, b.c.—μἐτοικοι, or resident aliens, as their names in many cases imply. We have an Amasis (an Egyptian name), a Brygus (a Scythian), a Lydus and a Scythes. The dialect of many of the inscriptions on Attic vases seems to show foreign influence, though in other cases peculiarities may be merely due to the use of a vernacular. They formed a gild or fraternity, and in each pottery there was probably more or less division of labour, the more simple processes being the work of slaves. This seems to be implied in the vase-paintings representing the interior of potteries. Others again “specialized” in different shapes, and were known as χυτροπλάθοι, ληκυθοποιοί, and so on.
Over a hundred names of artists are known, found on some five hundred vases. They go back to about 700 b.c., the earliest names being found on Corinthian and Boeotian vases; but the majority of the signatures are found on Attic black- and red-figured wares. Some, such as Andocides, made vases in which the two methods are combined. The best known is Nicosthenes, whose signature occurs eighty times. The ordinary forms of signature are four—(1) ὁ δεῖνα ἐποίησεν ; (2) ὁ δεῖνα ἔγραχεν; (3) ὁ δεῖνα ἔγραχε καὶ ἐποίησεν; (4) A ἔγραψε. B ἐποίησεν. Where ἐποίησε alone occurs (as in a signature of Euxitheus), it probably refers to the master of the pottery who designed the vase and superintended its production; in other cases the share of the actual artist is clearly indicated. Some artists, such as Duris and Makron, sign ἔγραψε alone; in all cases, the form of signature affords us a useful guide to their style.
Space forbids the discussion of other inscriptions found on vases, which include those descriptive of subjects or persons, ejaculations uttered by the figures, convivial exclamations, or the καλός names discussed below; all these are painted on the designs themselves. There is also another class of graffiti inscriptions, which includes those incised by the owners with their names and memoranda scratched under the foot, probably made by the potter or his workmen relating to the number of vases in a batch or “set” and their price.
Vitreous and Lead-glazed Wares.—In Greek tombs a class of pottery is often found which approximates, more in appearance to porcelain, but, though often spoken of by that name, it is not porcelain at all, but is analogous to the Egyptian glazed faience, of which it is in point of fact an imitation. It is distinguished by the white gritty material of which it is made, largely composed of sand, and forming what is sometimes known as “frit” from its semi-vitreous consistency. The surface is covered with a glaze, usually of a pale blue or cream colour, but other colours such as a manganese-purple or brown are sometimes found. Some of the earliest examples of this ware have been found in Mycenaean tombs at Enkomi in Cyprus, in the form of vases moulded in the shape of human or animal heads. These exhibit a remarkably advanced skill in modelling, and are more like Greek work of the 6th century b.c. Apart from the technique they have nothing in common with the Egyptian importations so often found in Mycenaean tombs.