GREEK PAINTING.
The essentially plastic character of the Greek mind is evident in Grecian poetry from heroic days. With concrete images clearly before his mind a Greek produces a strong sense of reality in the description of the most ideal scenes. Such a characteristic found its highest expres sion in the art of sculpture, but it accomplished even more for paint ing by freeing it from the trammels of Oriental tradition and preparing the way for the great achievements of later days. The great Greek paint ers, Polygnotos, Zeuxis, Parrhasios, and Apelles, were as highly honored in antiquity as the greatest of the sculptors.
It is a problem of no small difficulty to derive from the ancient writers an adequate conception of the progress of Greek painting. We may read that Lumaros was the first to distilu,ruish man and woman, that Polygnotos W.1`; the ill st to vary the expression of the countenance, that Agatharchos first introduced a true perspective, that Zeuxis and Parrhasios with their skilful realism were able to deceive both animals and men, or that A pelles was thought to have surpassed all the possibilities of the future as well as all the artists of the past. But, as the works of these artists have perished, our knowledge of them is a matter of inference from the statements of ancient authors or from our observation of closely-related works of art. It is more in accord with the spirit of the present volume that we confine our attention to such products of ancient painting as still remain. Fortu nately, the decorated vases and mural paintings furnish material enough to enable us to trace in outline the history of painting among the Greeks and Romans.
is l'erses.—With in a few years there have come to light in differ ent parts of the Hellenic world vases of primitive character us back to Homeric days. Such are the vases found at Alyccnre, at Santorin, and in the tombs of Attica. The decoration is mainly of a geometric cha racter, and consists of zigzag lines, concentric circles, spirals, and the like. Where figures of animals appear, they represent European fauna, such as the horse; goat, swine, and water-fowl. They are characterized by
abnormal proportions and by stiffness of attitude, and arc often extremely geometric in drawing and in arrangement. Human figures of primitive design occur more rarely, and then in such groups as processions, funerals, and banqueting-scenes. No attempt seems to have been made at mytho logical representation.
/:7SCS (17he Orienial Sivle.—Next to this class of vases in chronolog ical order come those variously known as Corinthian, Doric, or Asiatic. A number of these vases have been discovered in tombs in the neighbor hood of Corinth, but others have also been found in other parts of Greece and in Etruria. A striking characteristic of this class of vases is the arrangement of the decoration in parallel horizontal zones. The animals chiefly represented are the Assyrian and Asiatic lions, panthers, bulls, eagles, and goats, together with griffins and sphinxes. The vacant spaces between the animals arc usually filled with rosettes or other conventional floral ornament. These vases are made of a hard, light-yellow clay, upon which the figures are painted in colors ranging from reddish-brown to deep black, with details occasionally of violet, and rarely of bite. The flat effect of the monochrome figures is somewhat relieved by incised lines cut through the color.
The most celebrated vase of this style is the Dodwell vase, at nunich (N. I.1, fig% 1). It was found in a sepulchre at Mertese, near Corinth. The body of the vase is adorned with rows of animals in the Oriental style, but the cover conies nearer the black-figured type. Here is repre sented a boar-hunt, in which sonic part is taken by Thcrsandros and Phi lon, Lakon, A ndnitas, Sakis, Alka, Dorimachos, and Againemncm, whose names are inscribed in Corinthian characters of the early fifth century.
For at least a century before this the Oriental style appears to have prevailed. In its earliest phases a strange mingling of Oriental and pre historic design is sometimes found, and among the later forms occur transitional specimens connecting the Oriental with the black-figured type.