DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8577#0086
66 THE MIDDLE AND LATE CORINTHIAN ORIENTALIZING STYLES
just as there is nothing mean or scanty about the proportions of individual
figures, so there is nothing trivial, for all its complexity, about the general
effect of early Corinthian decoration. And we can also appreciate the signi-
ficance of another feature of the early style, which bears witness to its creative
power, the richness of the repertory of decorative motives which it employs.
The good qualities of the second (middle) orientalizing style are, almost
without exception, derived from the preceding period. Here and there we
have noticed something of the breadth and liveliness of the earlier style; but
in general the frieze-vases with rosetted fields show an unmistakable degenera-
tion—the effect is colourless, and the figures lifeless and emaciated. In a few
cases only the finer forms of the middle period become the vehicle of a
delicate and attractive style. A heraldic style which is the direct antithesis of
this development is equally uncharacteristic of this period as a whole. The
growing restriction of the subject-matter, with its consequent repetition of a
stereotyped formulae, is one of the most striking features of this phase.
This monotony of subject is still more marked in the late period; so too the
^predilection for meagre forms. And now there is a general tendency to
abandon the filling ornament. These peculiarities combined with a negligent
technique of draughtsmanship, give the average late Corinthian design a
singularly unpleasant character. The late period has, however, one good
feature, the application of outline drawing to the animal-style, as, for example,
in the amphora pi. 40, 1.
I have stressed these principal distinctions among Corinthian vases of
orientalizing style because, though sufficiently obvious in themselves, they
have not previously been suggested, even in outline. But it is important to
realize the consistent element in the local tradition, an element which is
always preserved beneath the surface of the development which takes place.
Corinthian drawing, throughout the seventy years allotted to the incised-
rosette style, has an individuality which at once distinguishes it from that of
all contemporary schools—an individuality which emerges with equal clear-
ness from a consideration of general character and of detail. Other schools,
Attic, Chalcidian, Laconian, Rhodian, and Boeotian, for example, learnt
much at certain times from Corinth. But they never assimilated the character
or all of the details of the Corinthian style, and probably they never tried to
do so. We are apt to think of these early schools as naively unselfconscious,
and in some senses this view is justified. But we must also reckon with the
probability that this preservation of individuality over a long period, when
exchange of ideas was a comparatively common thing, was in part at least the
expression of a deliberate policy.
just as there is nothing mean or scanty about the proportions of individual
figures, so there is nothing trivial, for all its complexity, about the general
effect of early Corinthian decoration. And we can also appreciate the signi-
ficance of another feature of the early style, which bears witness to its creative
power, the richness of the repertory of decorative motives which it employs.
The good qualities of the second (middle) orientalizing style are, almost
without exception, derived from the preceding period. Here and there we
have noticed something of the breadth and liveliness of the earlier style; but
in general the frieze-vases with rosetted fields show an unmistakable degenera-
tion—the effect is colourless, and the figures lifeless and emaciated. In a few
cases only the finer forms of the middle period become the vehicle of a
delicate and attractive style. A heraldic style which is the direct antithesis of
this development is equally uncharacteristic of this period as a whole. The
growing restriction of the subject-matter, with its consequent repetition of a
stereotyped formulae, is one of the most striking features of this phase.
This monotony of subject is still more marked in the late period; so too the
^predilection for meagre forms. And now there is a general tendency to
abandon the filling ornament. These peculiarities combined with a negligent
technique of draughtsmanship, give the average late Corinthian design a
singularly unpleasant character. The late period has, however, one good
feature, the application of outline drawing to the animal-style, as, for example,
in the amphora pi. 40, 1.
I have stressed these principal distinctions among Corinthian vases of
orientalizing style because, though sufficiently obvious in themselves, they
have not previously been suggested, even in outline. But it is important to
realize the consistent element in the local tradition, an element which is
always preserved beneath the surface of the development which takes place.
Corinthian drawing, throughout the seventy years allotted to the incised-
rosette style, has an individuality which at once distinguishes it from that of
all contemporary schools—an individuality which emerges with equal clear-
ness from a consideration of general character and of detail. Other schools,
Attic, Chalcidian, Laconian, Rhodian, and Boeotian, for example, learnt
much at certain times from Corinth. But they never assimilated the character
or all of the details of the Corinthian style, and probably they never tried to
do so. We are apt to think of these early schools as naively unselfconscious,
and in some senses this view is justified. But we must also reckon with the
probability that this preservation of individuality over a long period, when
exchange of ideas was a comparatively common thing, was in part at least the
expression of a deliberate policy.