HELLENIC.] POTTERY 613 It should be remarked that the style of vase-paintings is generally rather archaic as compared with other branches FIG. 27. Amphora by Euxitheus (c. 450 B c. ), figure of Briseis ; the other side has Achilles. of contemporary art, as was the case with their inscrip tions, and a certain conventionalism of treatment, such as would not be found in sculpture, lingers till quite the end of the 5th century B.C. Fig. 28 shows a painting from Fia. 28. Peleus leading home his bride Thetis ; painting inside a cylix found in a tomb at Vulci (c. 440-420 B.C.). the inside of a cylix, remarkable for the severe beauty and simple grace of its drawing and composition. The scene represents the moment when Peleus has won Thetis for his bride, and is leading her away in triumph, gently overcoming her modest reluctance ; her shrinking and yet yielding attitude is drawn in the most refined and masterly manner possible. 1 In the succeeding century both drawing and composition 1 The same design, though with inferior execution, is repeated on a cylix found at Corneto ; see Mon. lust., xi., table xx. began to gain in softness and grace, while losing something of their old vigour. Vase-paintings become more pictorial, and the compositions more elaborate and crowded ; the British Museum has an amphora from Camirus (Rhodes), one of the most beautiful of this later class, elaborately decorated on one side with various coloured pigments and gold applied over the finished black and red figures. As in the earlier cylix of fig. 28 the scene represents the final triumph of Peleus in his pursuit of Thetis ; in order to fill up the space some of the figures are placed, as it were, in the air, a method of composition peculiar to the later vase-paintings. Though not highly finished in details, such as the hands and feet, this picture is a perfect marvel of skilful touches rapidly applied, and of extreme beauty of form and general composition (see Plate V.). The funeral lecythi from tombs in the neighbourhood of Athens are a remarkable class of vases, c. 350-300 B.C. (see fig. 29). On these, over a white ground, are painted scenes representing mourners visiting sepulchral stelae with offerings in their hands. They are drawn carelessly, but with great skill, in red outline and then coarsely filled in with colours. Some of the seated females are designed with wonderful grace and pathos, the whole pose full of a ten der longing for the departed one. Besides the funeral lecythi a few pieces of pot- ; . tery have been found, dating -^ from about the same period, which have paintings exe cuted on a ground of white slip. Some of them are of most extraordinary beauty ; perhaps the finest of all is a cylix from a Ilhodian tomb, now in the British Museum, on the inside of which is a drawing, chiefly in outline, representing Aphrodite seated FIO. 29. Sepulchral lecythus on the back of a flying swan. from a tomb near Athens. For delicacy of touch and re- ( British Museum.) fined beauty of drawing this painting is quite unrivalled. The exquisite loveliness of Aphrodite s head and the pure grace of her profile, touched in with simple brush-formed lines, are quite indescribable, and show a combination of mechanical skill united to imaginative power and realiza tion of the most perfect and ideal beauty such as no people but the Greeks can ever have so completely possessed (see Plate V.). Vases of the Decadence. The vases of this class are often Vases of of enormous size, covered with very numerous figures, often the de " possessing much graceful beauty in form, but very inferior ca in execution and purity of drawing to the earlier paintings. The figures, especially in the later specimens, are thoroughly pictorial in treatment ; many of them are painted in cream- white, with shaded modelling in yellows and browns. Effects of perspective are introduced in some of the archi tectural features, particularly in the bands of rich floral scroll-work. In the 2d century, till about 100 B.C., when painted vases ceased to be made, the paintings became extremely coarse and devoid of any merit whatever, though even at this time moulded vases, either decorated with reliefs all over or with small inserted emblemata, con tinued to be made of great artistic beauty. The extreme degradation to which vase-painting of this period fell
seems to be due not so much to the general decay of the