DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18720#0023
17
The peculiar phase of painting on terra-cotta, to which we have referred as
characteristic of this sarcophagus, has of late years attracted much attention from
specialists in this department of archaeology, each seeking to arrive at a definite
classification, and all coming to more or less the same conclusion. The latest, and
at the same time one of the best qualified, is M. Pottier.1 With PI. VIII. before us
we shall be able to follow his classification of the Rhodian technique so far as
concerns the three methods which he distinguishes in it:—(i) The representation of the
head and sometimes the paws of an animal by means of painted lines, which he
truly says is a very ancient method, dating back even to the Mycenaean age. (2) The
representation of the body of the animal as an opaque silhouette, but with the inner
lines which mark the anatomy of the animal vacant (traits reserve's) on the ground
colour of the vase, a process which, he adds, makes its first appearance when the
Dipylon style of vase-painting began to develop into new fields. As, however, both
these methods are invariably combined on the vases in question, it would be an
advantage if one term could be found which would describe them both. It is, in
fact, the same combination of drawing and painting with which we are confronted on
the Cameiros sarcophagus and the kindred vases. (3) His third method, the substitution
of incised for vacant or left lines, only concerns us here in so far as the presence
of this method is an indication of the stage of painting which followed immediately
upon that of our sarcophagus. It is, however, of some importance to note that
both these methods (2 and 3) are combined on a sarcophagus from Clazomenae, which
has recently been acquired for America.
It will be seen from PI. VIII. that the animals on the Cameiros sarcophagus present
an obvious combination of the first two methods described by M. Pottier, that is to say,
the heads of the animals are in each case examples of line drawing with a brush, while
the bodies are painted in with a full brush. Certain inner lines indicating anatomical
structure are left to show in the white ground of the vase, while in the case of the bull
a large patch of the white ground represents the piebald colour of the creature. In
the lions the feet and lower part of the legs are filled in with colour and not
drawn in line.
In this strange combination of drawing and painting we are struck with the amount
of care which must have been necessary in painting round the inner lines, so as to
leave them reserved or vacant, especially so on the kindred vases, where the figures of
animals are much smaller than on the sarcophagus. In the subsequent stage of the art
these lines were by a much simpler process painted in with white over the black colour
with which the whole body of the animal was first laid in. What the origin of the
earlier and more laborious process may have been has not been explained. But taking
into consideration that the larger the figures, the more easy would this method be, we
may perhaps assume that it had been derived from painting on a large scale. In
view of this suggestion we may refer to the painted slabs of terra-cotta from Caere
1 Catalogue des Vases Antiques du Louvre, 1896,
p. 145. Compare his article in the Monuments
Piot, 1. p. 45, where he publishes a Rhodian vase on
which are combined the two methods of vacant and
of incised lines, as on a vase now in Berlin (Hellen.
Journ. 1885, p. 186, fig. 3), and on a large lebes
from Naucratis in the Brit. Mus. (A. 957), which
latter was apparently unknown to M. Pottier.
The peculiar phase of painting on terra-cotta, to which we have referred as
characteristic of this sarcophagus, has of late years attracted much attention from
specialists in this department of archaeology, each seeking to arrive at a definite
classification, and all coming to more or less the same conclusion. The latest, and
at the same time one of the best qualified, is M. Pottier.1 With PI. VIII. before us
we shall be able to follow his classification of the Rhodian technique so far as
concerns the three methods which he distinguishes in it:—(i) The representation of the
head and sometimes the paws of an animal by means of painted lines, which he
truly says is a very ancient method, dating back even to the Mycenaean age. (2) The
representation of the body of the animal as an opaque silhouette, but with the inner
lines which mark the anatomy of the animal vacant (traits reserve's) on the ground
colour of the vase, a process which, he adds, makes its first appearance when the
Dipylon style of vase-painting began to develop into new fields. As, however, both
these methods are invariably combined on the vases in question, it would be an
advantage if one term could be found which would describe them both. It is, in
fact, the same combination of drawing and painting with which we are confronted on
the Cameiros sarcophagus and the kindred vases. (3) His third method, the substitution
of incised for vacant or left lines, only concerns us here in so far as the presence
of this method is an indication of the stage of painting which followed immediately
upon that of our sarcophagus. It is, however, of some importance to note that
both these methods (2 and 3) are combined on a sarcophagus from Clazomenae, which
has recently been acquired for America.
It will be seen from PI. VIII. that the animals on the Cameiros sarcophagus present
an obvious combination of the first two methods described by M. Pottier, that is to say,
the heads of the animals are in each case examples of line drawing with a brush, while
the bodies are painted in with a full brush. Certain inner lines indicating anatomical
structure are left to show in the white ground of the vase, while in the case of the bull
a large patch of the white ground represents the piebald colour of the creature. In
the lions the feet and lower part of the legs are filled in with colour and not
drawn in line.
In this strange combination of drawing and painting we are struck with the amount
of care which must have been necessary in painting round the inner lines, so as to
leave them reserved or vacant, especially so on the kindred vases, where the figures of
animals are much smaller than on the sarcophagus. In the subsequent stage of the art
these lines were by a much simpler process painted in with white over the black colour
with which the whole body of the animal was first laid in. What the origin of the
earlier and more laborious process may have been has not been explained. But taking
into consideration that the larger the figures, the more easy would this method be, we
may perhaps assume that it had been derived from painting on a large scale. In
view of this suggestion we may refer to the painted slabs of terra-cotta from Caere
1 Catalogue des Vases Antiques du Louvre, 1896,
p. 145. Compare his article in the Monuments
Piot, 1. p. 45, where he publishes a Rhodian vase on
which are combined the two methods of vacant and
of incised lines, as on a vase now in Berlin (Hellen.
Journ. 1885, p. 186, fig. 3), and on a large lebes
from Naucratis in the Brit. Mus. (A. 957), which
latter was apparently unknown to M. Pottier.