DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0265
XV
VASES: ARTISTIC TRADITION
245
nary schemes of figures something not quite common, some
hint at the ideal tales of the old epic.
It will be observed how closely all this agrees with the
account of early Greek art already given in chapter V. The
typical vase-painting is a mental construction. The artist re-
produces from memory a scheme familiar to him, with any
variations which may suggest themselves to him at the moment.
He gives the scene a more exact meaning, either by adding
inscriptions, or by inserting some more definite details or some
extra persons. Place and time he usually disregards. The
beauty of the design (for beauty is seldom wholly absent) comes
from what is Greek in it — the simplicity and directness, the
admirable proportion and balance, the keen sense of the charm
of the human form in every pose and every connection. The
ordinary vases which fill our museums were mostly made for
export to Italy or Sicily. If made by any workmen except
Greek, they would be unworthy of careful attention; but art
belongs so preeminently to Greece that the meanest works
produced in that country have importance. But artists of a
better class also worked on vases, and when we reach their
works we mount at once to a higher level, and it becomes
worth while to examine them with care, that we may trace in
them the further working of the Greek artistic spirit. We
pass in them from the mere scheme to a composition showing
purpose and thought.
How the vase-painter proceeded in embodying in art a story
or myth has been well set forth by Professor Carl Robert in
his very useful work Bild und Lied. I cannot in all points
agree with him; but he has done excellent work in cutting a
path through a forest which had before his time only been
traversed by narrow tracks.
There are some myths which can be represented in painting
by a very few figures; others which require a far larger num-
VASES: ARTISTIC TRADITION
245
nary schemes of figures something not quite common, some
hint at the ideal tales of the old epic.
It will be observed how closely all this agrees with the
account of early Greek art already given in chapter V. The
typical vase-painting is a mental construction. The artist re-
produces from memory a scheme familiar to him, with any
variations which may suggest themselves to him at the moment.
He gives the scene a more exact meaning, either by adding
inscriptions, or by inserting some more definite details or some
extra persons. Place and time he usually disregards. The
beauty of the design (for beauty is seldom wholly absent) comes
from what is Greek in it — the simplicity and directness, the
admirable proportion and balance, the keen sense of the charm
of the human form in every pose and every connection. The
ordinary vases which fill our museums were mostly made for
export to Italy or Sicily. If made by any workmen except
Greek, they would be unworthy of careful attention; but art
belongs so preeminently to Greece that the meanest works
produced in that country have importance. But artists of a
better class also worked on vases, and when we reach their
works we mount at once to a higher level, and it becomes
worth while to examine them with care, that we may trace in
them the further working of the Greek artistic spirit. We
pass in them from the mere scheme to a composition showing
purpose and thought.
How the vase-painter proceeded in embodying in art a story
or myth has been well set forth by Professor Carl Robert in
his very useful work Bild und Lied. I cannot in all points
agree with him; but he has done excellent work in cutting a
path through a forest which had before his time only been
traversed by narrow tracks.
There are some myths which can be represented in painting
by a very few figures; others which require a far larger num-