GREEK ART —PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. Painting.— Modern students of Grecian archeology do not doubt that the Greeks of different epochs were as success ful in painting of stately and religious sub jects and of painting and drawing in a slighter and more popular way as they were in sculpture; but this is merely an inference. Absolutely nothing remains to us of Greek painting of high class. We can study the figures on Greek painted vases and notice their admirable dis position and the beautiful designs made of their combinations, and we can note the technical system followed, sometimes by drawing on the clay with a hard point, sometimes without that help and drawn evidently with the brush alone. The use of pigment, too, generally black but sometimes of other colors, can be perfectly understood; but this is all of the simplest character, nor can we draw any conclusions at all about the wall-paintings or panel-paintings of the Greeks. In the houses of Pompeii there are many wall-paintings which seem to have had a non-Italian and probably Greek origin, and furthermore it is known that Pompeii was a town of Greek settlement and retained much Grecian influence even under the Roman Em Some portrait heads have been found in Egypt painted on panel (that is, thin boards) and these are certainly non-Egyptian; they may be assumed to be Greek, of the Alexandrian epoch. In these, however, there is no back' ground, no added incident, which might guide us to a knowledge of Greek design in Gragli.w art. Finally, some paintings discovered 111 Rome, though belonging to houses of late date, are altogether Greek in design; and these may well be reduced copies, or imitations, of famous originals 300 years earlier. None of these paintings are of great importance. None of them give us an exalted idea of the painting which stood for their original impulse. The statements made by ancient writers with regard to the paintings of their own time and those who were then famous as having belonged to earlier times, are of very little use, because we have no standard with which to compare their critical remarks, and furthermore because no one of the books remaining to us from antiquity seems to be the work of a man greatly interested in fine art. For this reason the paintings on the vases are worthy of the most minute examination. The earliest style in which the subjects represented are at all elaborate are of the undetermined epoch which we call the Mycenaean. Those vases are rich in patterns of scrolls, bands, zigzags and spots with, some what rarely, animal forms introduced in bands and (as in Crete and Cyprus) as a principal subject and covering a large part of the body of the vase. The painting is generally in
brownish red on a dull yellow ground, which is the natural color of the clay. The famous Warrior Vase found at Mycenw and now in the Central Museum at Athens and which we must suppose to date from 1000 B.C., has much of that grotesque indifference to form and perfect satisfaction with an indication of mean ing which we associate with barbaric art in all ages: the human form is drawn without any comeliness or grace and without any success in getting control of gesture; but the purpose is clear, viz., the displaying of a procession of warriors wearing large helmets, carrying great shiekls of the curious •kidney shape long after ward associated with certain Asiatic influences, and carrying spears in the right hand, which spears have sometimes two heads or what seem to be heads.
The paintings on pottery which are of the most interest are those of the period beginning about 600 a.c. and ending about 150 ac. The earlier pieces are, of course, difficult to date even approximately. They represent warriors engaged in battle, the scene forming a broad band running around the vase; lions, bulls and stags arranged again in horizontal bands; figures draped in long garments, men as well as women carrying stringed instruments, weapons, baskets and the like; ocasionally a scene which can be identified, as where Hercules brings the Erymanthian boar to show to his brother, King Eurystheus, or where Peleas is about to carry off Thetis from among her at tendant nymphs; or they represent a feast, with men reclining on couches and others acting as attendants bringing pitchers and vases to fill the cup held by the reclining guest. The beauti ful black glaze of the vases is used sometimes as the pigment for the figures and sometimes to Work the background around the figures. These two styles are known as the black-on-red or black figure style, the other as the red-on-black or red figure style, and this latter style is known as the later of the two. There is still another form which is generally the latest of all. In this the black glaze is worked over the whole vase except for a panel or medallion or even a band around the vase, which is left in the red color of the pottery, and upon this the figures are painted in black. From the 5th century on the drawing is extremely vigorous and significant. It is grotesque sometimes, as where the muscles are given excessive promi nence or where the attitude is exaggerated in the attempt to make it tell the story; but every where the drawing of the outline and the filling in with color shows singular mastery.