DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2532#0072
CLASSIFICATION OF EARLY VASES
51
an"
1 tin'
preceding the second class with which the specifically Greek antiquities, as well as
traditional history, have been supposed to begin, — namely, Mycenaean ware. This
broad and diversified class includes a very early form of vase, decorated in color, which,
especially in the types of Thera (Santorini), forms a transition from the primitive to the
Mycenaean. As a matter of fact the Santorini vases cannot be distinguished in their
essential qualities from the earliest specimens included among the Mycenaean vases.
First, there are vases with dull, unglazed color (Fig. 22). From these rudimentary
beginnings the Mycenaean vases rise through many categories, minutely distinguished
by Furtwangler and others, to a very high form of ceramic perfection. This is especially
the case when the new feature of glazed or lustrous color is added (Fig-. 23), which
gives such variety to their painted decorations and foreshadows the most beautiful vases
of the later historical Greek periods. These vases found at Mycenae and on Mycenaean
sites in company with beautiful work in gold and other materials have hitherto been
connected with the Homeric descriptions of the
surroundings in which the Atridae and their
fellow heroes lived at Mycenae and elsewhere.
The third category (Fig. 24) differs essentially
from the Mycenaean class; and though it
maintains, as regards the actual performance
of the potter's skill, a very high standard, the
peculiar taste in the forms adopted by him, as
well as the peculiar system of painted orna-
mentation, mark a distinct change or break
from the previous traditions which appear to
vanish when this third class comes into the
field. And as regards artistic feeling this
third class distinctly shows a retrograde move-
ment of a more inartistic people. This period
has been identified with the inroad of the
Dorians which swept away the Achaean civili-
zation preceding it. From the peculiar style
of ornamentation on these vases they are known
as " Geometric," or, as some of the most strik-
ing examples were first found about the Dipy-
lon gate of Athens, as " Dipylon " ware (Fig. 25). Next follows a fourth class of gen-
erally smaller vases of peculiar shape and refined workmanship, with neat linear orna-
mentation (Fig. 26), into which subsequently friezes of certain animals are introduced
(Fig. 27), the so-called Proto-Corinthian ware, for which Dr. Hoppin has with good rea-
son proposed the name " Argive." l This gradually becomes more elaborate and redun-
dant in its decoration, until it naturally leads over to a class intimately related to it,
namely, the fifth class, or Corinthian ware. It is at this point that oriental influences are
manifest in the wealth, as well as in the specific details, of ornamentation. But in time
these foreign characteristics are eliminated in this Corinthian ware, and the final emanci-
pation from archaic conventionalism as well as from alien influences is gradually worked
out in the establishment of the typical Greek style of historical times. This is done
chiefly at Athens in the earlier black-figured and then in the beautiful red-figured ware
1 See Am. Jour. Arch. 1900, p. 445.
Fig. 24. — Mycenaean Vase, with lustrous
Glaze, conventional.
From Furtwangler and Loesclicke, Mykenische
p. 29, fig. 17.
asen,
J
51
an"
1 tin'
preceding the second class with which the specifically Greek antiquities, as well as
traditional history, have been supposed to begin, — namely, Mycenaean ware. This
broad and diversified class includes a very early form of vase, decorated in color, which,
especially in the types of Thera (Santorini), forms a transition from the primitive to the
Mycenaean. As a matter of fact the Santorini vases cannot be distinguished in their
essential qualities from the earliest specimens included among the Mycenaean vases.
First, there are vases with dull, unglazed color (Fig. 22). From these rudimentary
beginnings the Mycenaean vases rise through many categories, minutely distinguished
by Furtwangler and others, to a very high form of ceramic perfection. This is especially
the case when the new feature of glazed or lustrous color is added (Fig-. 23), which
gives such variety to their painted decorations and foreshadows the most beautiful vases
of the later historical Greek periods. These vases found at Mycenae and on Mycenaean
sites in company with beautiful work in gold and other materials have hitherto been
connected with the Homeric descriptions of the
surroundings in which the Atridae and their
fellow heroes lived at Mycenae and elsewhere.
The third category (Fig. 24) differs essentially
from the Mycenaean class; and though it
maintains, as regards the actual performance
of the potter's skill, a very high standard, the
peculiar taste in the forms adopted by him, as
well as the peculiar system of painted orna-
mentation, mark a distinct change or break
from the previous traditions which appear to
vanish when this third class comes into the
field. And as regards artistic feeling this
third class distinctly shows a retrograde move-
ment of a more inartistic people. This period
has been identified with the inroad of the
Dorians which swept away the Achaean civili-
zation preceding it. From the peculiar style
of ornamentation on these vases they are known
as " Geometric," or, as some of the most strik-
ing examples were first found about the Dipy-
lon gate of Athens, as " Dipylon " ware (Fig. 25). Next follows a fourth class of gen-
erally smaller vases of peculiar shape and refined workmanship, with neat linear orna-
mentation (Fig. 26), into which subsequently friezes of certain animals are introduced
(Fig. 27), the so-called Proto-Corinthian ware, for which Dr. Hoppin has with good rea-
son proposed the name " Argive." l This gradually becomes more elaborate and redun-
dant in its decoration, until it naturally leads over to a class intimately related to it,
namely, the fifth class, or Corinthian ware. It is at this point that oriental influences are
manifest in the wealth, as well as in the specific details, of ornamentation. But in time
these foreign characteristics are eliminated in this Corinthian ware, and the final emanci-
pation from archaic conventionalism as well as from alien influences is gradually worked
out in the establishment of the typical Greek style of historical times. This is done
chiefly at Athens in the earlier black-figured and then in the beautiful red-figured ware
1 See Am. Jour. Arch. 1900, p. 445.
Fig. 24. — Mycenaean Vase, with lustrous
Glaze, conventional.
From Furtwangler and Loesclicke, Mykenische
p. 29, fig. 17.
asen,
J