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Cycladic Vase-painting of the Seventh Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

H. G. G. Payne
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Extract

An inquiry into the classification of the various Island fabrics of the seventh century is accompanied by many difficulties, some of which are the peculiar inheritance of the subject. Not only was much of the material discovered without grouping or stratification in the Catharsis grave at Rheneia; the very fact of the original provenance of these vases from Delos at once deprives the circumstances of their discovery of much of its a priori significance. Further, by far the greater part of the material, from Rheneia remains unpublished; and, lastly, there will always be the difficulty, often amounting to impossibility, of classifying some of the fabrics at all without examining the vases in the hand—a process which involves a visit to several comparatively inaccessible places. The result of these various and partially inevitable causes is a misfortune, inasmuch as Cycladic vase-painting, despite many borrowings, possesses a definite and often very interesting individuality of its own. Of this the published finds have for some years given us a simple and fairly intelligible picture, a chiaroscuro effect, one might say, in which the central figures appeared clearly, if not sharply, grouped against the background. Gradually, however, as our knowledge and materials increase, it appears that the straight-forwardness of the picture was in some measure deceptive. In reality the subject is beset by complications, and there is, unfortunately, much for the chilly work of analysis to do before we can hope to appreciate for its own sake what the various schools of Island painting have to offer, or to understand their point of view in relation to that of their contemporaries in Crete, in Ionia and on the mainland of Greece. Accordingly, the appearance of a work containing much new material was a very welcome event. In Professor Dugas' book the subject receives its first specialised treatment, but his classification presents one or two difficulties, and the notes which follow have been put together as an alternative solution of the problems, independently arrived at.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , 1926 , pp. 203 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1926

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References

1 I should like here to express my warmest thanks for permission granted by the Director of the French School at Athens to stay at Delos, in the house of the French School.

1a La Céramique dea Cyclades, Paris, 1925.

2 Vases of this fabric have not been discovered in Greece outside Thera, , Delos, , Rheneia, , Paros, (Ath. Mitt. 1917, p. 73seq.)Google Scholar, and Aegina (griffon jug, v. infra, and possibly the fragment, Ath. Mitt. 1897, p. 270, Fig. 4). The examples from Euboea are all of local manufacture (cf. Buschor,2 p. 70), as are further fragments in the Eretria Museum. On the examples wrongly stated (Jahrbuch, 1897, p. 195; Collignon-Couve, Nos. 211 and 212) to have been found in Boeotia, see Dragen, dorff, Thera, ii., p. 209.Google Scholar The slipless crater from Melos (Jahrbuch, 1899, p. 34) connected with the fabric by Dugas (p. 111) can hardly be reckoned with it on grounds either of style or of technique. I am indebted to Mr. Forsdyke for information concerning this vase. The finds at Paros are perhaps significant.

3 E. g. called by Wide Boeotian; so also Dragendorff, , sceptically (Thera, ii. p. 210)Google Scholar; by Buschor, Cycladic; by Pfuhl, Euboic-Cycladic or simply Euboic.

4 Conze, Meliache Thongefässe; Pfuhl, Figs. 104–110; Dugas, Pls. VII–X., etc.

5 B.C.H. 1911, 381 ff.

6 Good examples illustrated: Dugas, Pls. II and III; Dragendorff, , Thera, ii. p. 199seq.Google Scholar; Ath. Mitt. 1903, Pls. XXVII–XXXI; De Ridder, , Vases du Cabinet des Médailles, Pl. I, No. 25Google Scholar; Jahrbuch, 1897, Pl. X.

7 Ath. Mitt. 1903, Pls. XXXI, XXXII; Pfuhl, Fig. 98.

8 B. M. 73–8–20–385, from Aegina, here illustrated in three aspects on Pl. VIII. For permission to publish these new photographs and the drawing from the Burgon Lebes, my thanks are due to Mr. H. B. Walters. In the drawing I have transferred the white marks visible on the front foot of the left-hand lion to the one I have illustrated, on which they have almost disappeared, and I have also restored the central ornament (cf. Pfuhl, Fig. 82). The white lines on the black are not reserved, but are in white paint; similarly the alternate teeth, though these are painted directly on the clay. The ears of the griffon, restored on the vase so as to point outwards, have been restored to a vertical position in the photographs.

9 (1) Leyden, Reijks Museum (Conze, , Zur Geschichte der Anfänge der Kunst, Pl. XI, 2Google Scholar; poor, inaccurate drawings): Pl. IX, 1, a photograph which Professor Holwerda was kind enough to procure and to give me permission to publish. (2) Paris, Cabinet des Médailles, De Bidder, 26 (Conze, l. c. Pl. XI, 1; Morin-Jean, Fig. 107, p. 95; Milliet-Giraudon, i. Pl. IV); detail on Pl. X by kind permission of M. Dieudonné.

10 Cf. Johansen, , Les Vases Sicyoniens, p. 109.Google Scholar That this is a western imitation seems improbable owing to the presence of mica in the clay.

11 I am speaking only of the regular ‘Euboic-Cycladic’ style; the ‘Atticising’ group (Dugas, Pl. II and p. 137) cannot, so far as I can see, certainly be connected with this series.

12 The attitude of the crouching animal is not nearly so well grasped on the Leyden vase. Note also the awkwardly elongated hind quarters and the sharp angle at the knee of the hind leg.

13 Cf. Wide, , Jahrbuch, 1897, p. 197.Google Scholar

14 This, however, is a not uncommon peculiarity of this fabric.

15 Cf. Buschor,2 p. 70.

16 Dugas, Pl. XV.

17 Pfuhl, Pl. XVII, 82; Fig. 1.

18 Note, for example, all the details of rendering in the mouth, lower jaw, shoulder, feet, etc.

19 Jahrbuch, 1897, p. 178; Dugas, p. 132, though this surely rather overstates the case.

20 Ivories from Sparta give excellent illustrations of this. Cf. B. S. A. p. 78, Fig. 17, etc., and text, p. 79.

21 V. note 12, supra.

22 No. Inv. 2430 (Prinz, , Funde aus Nauhratis, Pl. IVGoogle Scholar, a).

23 I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Barocelli of Turin for procuring the photographs and allowing me to publish them.

24 Dugas, Pl. III, 2; Thera, ii. p. 60, Fig. 209, etc., etc.; B.C.H. 1911, p. 381, Fig. 42.

25 The craters with their panels of concentric circles strongly recall Cretan geometric. A crater in the Levi find has exactly the same use of a big horizontal cable to fill the back of a vase as we see in Thera, ii. p. 201, Fig. 403. Cretan plastic comparable with the griffon head we now have in the lion from Afrati, (Liverpool Annals, 1925, Pl. II)Google Scholar; the dotted animals of the Linear Island style are exactly paralleled by those on the oenochoe from the same find (ib., Pl. VI, 1 = J.H.S. 1924, p. 279, Fig. 7). There are many reasons for supposing the Odysseus vase from Aegina to be Cretan (clay and varnish correspond exactly to many examples in the Levi find). The shape, again, is essentially East-Greek and Cretan; Rhodian geometric, B. M. 60–4–4–10, 61–4–25–48; Munich 455, Cat. I, Fig. 57; Hague, Buschor,2 p. 75, Fig. 55. Rhodian orientalising, Berlin, F. 295, Prinz, Pl. II (cf. n. 22, supra); Hermitage, , Kinch, , Vroulia, p. 220Google Scholar, Fig. 107; Cretan, Berlin, F. 3916; Liv. Ann. 1925, Pl. VI b. = J.H.S. 1924, p. 279. (The three Protocorinthian examples of this shape are quite isolated: B. M. 60·2–1·32; Munich 227 and 228, Cat. I, Pl. XI). The style of the animals on the griffon jug shows many strong resemblances to that of the Odysseus vase.

26 Linear geometric motives, Dugas, p. 116 seq.; Melian motives, p. 197 seq. The following are common to the two styles: Dugas, p. 197, Fig. 109, (a) geometric motive, passim; (b) also found in Protocorinthian (Fouilles de Delphes, v. p. 164), Cretan (Pfuhl, Fig. 34), etc., etc.; (c) passim; (d) Cretan, Pfuhl, Fig. 38; (e) passim; (f), (h), (i) passim, Fig. 110, p. 198; (b),(c) and Fig. III, (a), (c), (d), (e) passim, Fig. IIII, (b) East Greek; (f) Rhodes, Crete. Fig. 115, (b), (c) (found in Linear orientalising) are East Greek. Fig. 116 (a), (c) passim.

27 It is possible but not certain that the vases regarded in B.C.H. 1911, p. 381, as Proto-Melian are to be reckoned with these.

28 Cf., however, Pfuhl, i. p. 132, and Poulsen, , Mon. Piot. xvi. p. 28.Google Scholar

29 Dugas, Pl. I, 4, copied from such vases as Johansen, Pl. V, 5 or 6; Pl. IV, 1, which recalls the Aegina skyphos, Johansen, Pl. XIII, 1, in shape, but the decoration is earlier; and Pl. XIV; 1, the Protocorinthian affinities of which are equally apparent. Such skyphoi as this last are absent alike from the repertory of Cycladic and E. Greek shapes.

The technique of all these vases is rather peculiar. Coarse, brick-red clay, like Melian, thick, lemon-yellow slip(cf. Dugas, ‘engobe blanc’) and brilliantly lustrous brown varnish.

30 Of ordinary Rhodian shape. It may be said that there is no question that these four vases (to which a small fragment, B.C.H. 1911, p. 398, Fig. 57, must be added) are of anything but Cycladic origin.

31 Furtwaengler, , Kleine Schriften, ii. Pl. XXXI.Google Scholar

32 Rhodian (or, of course, Naukratite) origin for the original is proved by details like the white socks of the lions—not a Cycladic motive, but almost invariable in Rhodian—e. g. Louvre, , Catalogue, I, Pl. XII, A 316 (Sphinx)Google Scholar, and the rendering of the lion's mane by semi-circles, as commonly in the Rhodian lions (e. g. Walters-Birch, I, Pl XXIV, 2; B.M. Inv. 64–10–24–143; fragment from Syracuse, , Monumenti dei Lincei, xxv, Fig. 113, p. 527.Google Scholar Cf. Johansen, p. 150, on the only case where this occurs in Attic pottery). Cycladic lions, where the mane is indicated, have cross-hatched or ‘flame’ manes.