DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8577#0112
VIII
THE CORINTHIAN FIGURE STYLE
ALTHOUGH the majority of Corinthian vases are decorated with
f\ orientalizing subjects, we have a good deal of evidence for the Corin-
thian figure style. Vases naturally provide the greater part of this evidence,
but there are two important supplementary sources: i, the long series of
votive plaques from a temenos of Poseidon a little way south-west of the
Acrocorinth;1 2, the painted metopes from the temples of Thermon2 and
Kalydon 3 in Aetolia.
It is not to be expected that a picture formed from material so diverse in
kind, will be entirely consistent or harmonious. The vases alone bear witness
to a succession of curiously different styles. The pinakes are clearly more
closely related to free painting than to vase-painting; while the metopes,
inestimably precious as the only actual examples of free painting in the
seventh century, far surpass any impression which we might have formed on
the indirect evidence of the minor arts. Often, therefore, as one source
supplements the other, we are reminded constantly that our evidence enables
us to reconstruct little more than the outlines of the Corinthian tradition.
Throughout the history of archaic vase-painting at Corinth, the figure style
tends to detach itself from the restrictions of the black-figure technique.
There is, of course, a continuous tradition of work in the ordinary silhouette
style; indeed, this is the one unbroken tradition of Corinthian figure-painting.
But from a very early date there is consistent evidence of an external influence,
which makes a cleavage between the figure painter and his colleague the orienta-
lizing painter;4 the former will deviate, now in one direction, now in another,
but always with the same end in view: to free himself from the limitations of
the orientalizing style, and to find a means of expression better adapted to his
interest in the world of ordinary experience. The other goes his way entirely
indifferent to these experiments, true to the conventions of purely 'decora-
tive' art.
Thus in the second and third quarters of the seventh century we have the
1 The modern name of the hill on which the
temenos stood is Pente Skouphia. On the discovery,
which was made in 1879, see Rayet in Gaz. Arch.
1880, 101. The majority of the pinakes are now
in Berlin; they are described at length and dis-
cussed by Furtwangler in his catalogue and are
published by Frankel in Antike Denkmaler, with
important additions by Pernice in Jahrbuch 1897,
iff. A few have passed from Berlin to other German
Museums (Bonn, Heidelberg). There are some in
the Louvre, published by Collignon in Mon. Grecs ii,
23 ff, and by Rayet in Gaz. Arch. 1880,101 ff. One
in the Louvre not previously published is shown in
fig. 38. A fragment of a Corinthian pinax was found
on the Athenian acropolis (Eph. Arch. 1886, pi. 6;
Graf-Langlotz 2578, pi. 109).
2 A.D. ii, pi. 50 ff.; A.M. 1914, 237 ff. (Koch);
Pfuhl, figs. 480-3; B.SA. 1925/6, 124 ff. (Payne).
3 Poulsen-Rhomaios, Bericht pis. 24, 5.
4 I need hardly emphasize the obvious fact that the
figure painter is often simply the orientalizing
painter's other self; the two styles were practised by
the same people.
THE CORINTHIAN FIGURE STYLE
ALTHOUGH the majority of Corinthian vases are decorated with
f\ orientalizing subjects, we have a good deal of evidence for the Corin-
thian figure style. Vases naturally provide the greater part of this evidence,
but there are two important supplementary sources: i, the long series of
votive plaques from a temenos of Poseidon a little way south-west of the
Acrocorinth;1 2, the painted metopes from the temples of Thermon2 and
Kalydon 3 in Aetolia.
It is not to be expected that a picture formed from material so diverse in
kind, will be entirely consistent or harmonious. The vases alone bear witness
to a succession of curiously different styles. The pinakes are clearly more
closely related to free painting than to vase-painting; while the metopes,
inestimably precious as the only actual examples of free painting in the
seventh century, far surpass any impression which we might have formed on
the indirect evidence of the minor arts. Often, therefore, as one source
supplements the other, we are reminded constantly that our evidence enables
us to reconstruct little more than the outlines of the Corinthian tradition.
Throughout the history of archaic vase-painting at Corinth, the figure style
tends to detach itself from the restrictions of the black-figure technique.
There is, of course, a continuous tradition of work in the ordinary silhouette
style; indeed, this is the one unbroken tradition of Corinthian figure-painting.
But from a very early date there is consistent evidence of an external influence,
which makes a cleavage between the figure painter and his colleague the orienta-
lizing painter;4 the former will deviate, now in one direction, now in another,
but always with the same end in view: to free himself from the limitations of
the orientalizing style, and to find a means of expression better adapted to his
interest in the world of ordinary experience. The other goes his way entirely
indifferent to these experiments, true to the conventions of purely 'decora-
tive' art.
Thus in the second and third quarters of the seventh century we have the
1 The modern name of the hill on which the
temenos stood is Pente Skouphia. On the discovery,
which was made in 1879, see Rayet in Gaz. Arch.
1880, 101. The majority of the pinakes are now
in Berlin; they are described at length and dis-
cussed by Furtwangler in his catalogue and are
published by Frankel in Antike Denkmaler, with
important additions by Pernice in Jahrbuch 1897,
iff. A few have passed from Berlin to other German
Museums (Bonn, Heidelberg). There are some in
the Louvre, published by Collignon in Mon. Grecs ii,
23 ff, and by Rayet in Gaz. Arch. 1880,101 ff. One
in the Louvre not previously published is shown in
fig. 38. A fragment of a Corinthian pinax was found
on the Athenian acropolis (Eph. Arch. 1886, pi. 6;
Graf-Langlotz 2578, pi. 109).
2 A.D. ii, pi. 50 ff.; A.M. 1914, 237 ff. (Koch);
Pfuhl, figs. 480-3; B.SA. 1925/6, 124 ff. (Payne).
3 Poulsen-Rhomaios, Bericht pis. 24, 5.
4 I need hardly emphasize the obvious fact that the
figure painter is often simply the orientalizing
painter's other self; the two styles were practised by
the same people.