DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0237
XIII
CLASSES OF VASES
217
and others, began to make itself felt in vase-painting.1 This
influence worked both for good and evil. The treatment of
perspective improved, the human body was rendered with
greater correctness and beauty, and more freedom from con-
vention was introduced. But on the other hand, vase-painting,
as such, drifted from its old moorings and took the first move
in the direction of decline. The designs, though in some ways
showing a greater mastery, are no longer so thoroughly adapted
to the field for which they are designed, or the vase which
they adorn. We no longer regard them as nearly perfect
within narrowly fixed limits, but are disposed to look beyond
them to the contemporary fresco works of which they are
sometimes a reminiscence. But actual competition with these
greater paintings was impossible; hence the vase-painter became
less well satisfied with his work, which he now seldom signs.
He is no longer ambitious, but has sunk from an artist to a
craftsman.
(7) White-ground vases (fifth century). — In this style, in
place of drawing directly upon the red clay of the vase, the
potter first covered its surface with a layer of
fine white material. The importance of this
difference in technique lies in the fact that
the process of vase-painting thus resembled
far more closely that of fresco-painting; and
fresco-painting, or painting on prepared wet
plaster, was the usual procedure in the great
art of Greece. As a natural consequence,
the designs on white-ground vases are freer
and less conventional than those on contem-
porary red-figured vases, and are not merely
drawings but real paintings, the outlines being
filled in with washes of colour — red, yellow,
1 See Winter, Die jilngeren Altischen Vasen; also chapter pIG ^o^^^Lck
XII above. thos from Athens"
CLASSES OF VASES
217
and others, began to make itself felt in vase-painting.1 This
influence worked both for good and evil. The treatment of
perspective improved, the human body was rendered with
greater correctness and beauty, and more freedom from con-
vention was introduced. But on the other hand, vase-painting,
as such, drifted from its old moorings and took the first move
in the direction of decline. The designs, though in some ways
showing a greater mastery, are no longer so thoroughly adapted
to the field for which they are designed, or the vase which
they adorn. We no longer regard them as nearly perfect
within narrowly fixed limits, but are disposed to look beyond
them to the contemporary fresco works of which they are
sometimes a reminiscence. But actual competition with these
greater paintings was impossible; hence the vase-painter became
less well satisfied with his work, which he now seldom signs.
He is no longer ambitious, but has sunk from an artist to a
craftsman.
(7) White-ground vases (fifth century). — In this style, in
place of drawing directly upon the red clay of the vase, the
potter first covered its surface with a layer of
fine white material. The importance of this
difference in technique lies in the fact that
the process of vase-painting thus resembled
far more closely that of fresco-painting; and
fresco-painting, or painting on prepared wet
plaster, was the usual procedure in the great
art of Greece. As a natural consequence,
the designs on white-ground vases are freer
and less conventional than those on contem-
porary red-figured vases, and are not merely
drawings but real paintings, the outlines being
filled in with washes of colour — red, yellow,
1 See Winter, Die jilngeren Altischen Vasen; also chapter pIG ^o^^^Lck
XII above. thos from Athens"