Smith, Cecil Harcourt; British Museum <London> [Hrsg.]: Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum (Band 3): Vases of the finest period (London, 1896)

INTRODUCTION. 3

Naucratis ware; in one instance, D 21, this added white is used for the plume
of a helmet, in another, D 33, for the flesh of a male figure, but in this case the
genuineness of the colour is not undoubted. Towards the end of this stage a
rich vermilion is introduced, usually for drapery ; this colour, consisting of a
thin unglazed pigment, apparently argillaceous, is very easily rubbed away,
and is usually less well-preserved than the others. It is nevertheless largely
employed in the third stage in place of the black or brown for the outline, as
well as for drapery, &c. : this change takes place towards the end of the fifth
century, when the designer becomes free even to carelessness, or elaborates his
composition till all its charm is lost ; the range of colours is further increased by
the addition of a green and blue. For a general discussion of the white lekythi
see Pottier, Etude sur les lecythes blancs.

The red-figure style, like the paintings on a white ground, is in principle
contour drawing as opposed to the silhouette of the preceding style. Drawing
in contour or outline had been in use at an early stage of the Corinthian and
Oriental fabrics,and especially on the Camiros and Naucratis ware. Then probably
followed an intermediate stage, as represented by the fragment of a stand (E 812),
on the interior of which is a design drawn in black outline on a red ground.

It is in vases of the kylix shape that the earlier stage of the red-figure
style is most clearly traceable : on the hydria and amphora older traditions still
linger, so that we not unfrequcntly find artists producing at one and the same
time kylikes of the developed red-figure style, and hydriae or amphorae with
black figures. Instances also occur of a vase painted in both methods. A
kylix at Palermo, signed by Andokides (Jahrbuch 1889, p. 196, pi. 4), has a
curious combination of the two styles : on the exterior are two pairs of colossal
eyes ; between one pair is a group in black figures, between the other a group
in red figures ; beneath each handle is a group, of which one half is in red, the
other in black figures. Three instances of the mixed style are included in this
volume in the kylikes E 2-4. Two of these have the interior scene in black
figures, the exterior in red, and in this respect offer a parallel to the amphora
B 193, which shows the two methods in contrast on its two sides. As an
example of the effects likely to ensue from such a juxtaposition, it is interesting
to compare the kylix E II, signed by Pamphaios, with the hydria B 300, also
by that artist. In the exterior scenes of the kylix the artist curtails his space
laterally by the introduction of two figures, symmetrically grouped on either
side, which have no connection with the action going forward, and fulfil a merely
decorative function. In the kylikes E 3,4, 5,6, the same effect is attained by the
old expedient of colossal eyes, which, however, are of rare occurrence in red-
figure painting. Similarly, again, in E 11 we have a survival of the horror vacui.
Pamphaios has been brought up to a tradition of filling in the field around his
figures : here it is effected by the introduction of a medley of letters which spread
all over the ground and make no connected sense.

In the black-figured style the hair of human figures was usually indicated
as a black mass, and therefore stood out naturally against the light background.

V, 2