WHAT we have attempted has been to gather and present, in a way to be easily understood, the most important facts respecting “Pottery and Porcelain.”
The study of this interesting subject has for more than a century been constant in Europe, and notably so during the last twenty-five years. A correct knowledge of it may now almost be called a liberal education. In the United States something has been done; and the public mind is now asking, “What is it that makes ‘pottery and porcelain’ so attractive to scholars, statesmen, women, and wits?”
In some degree we have answered this question. My part of the work has been to gather where I could such historical and technical facts and such illustrations as seemed most valuable, not only to the student but to the collector.
Many of these came from Europe, of course, where since Queen Anne’s day the love of “old china” has at times risen to enthusiasm. But I have drawn from our own collections whenever it has been possible. In the preparation and engraving of the illustrations I hope the judicious critic, as well as the judicious public, will give due credit to the publishers and their artists, who, it seems to me, deserve great praise for having so well done what they have undertaken to do. Permit me to say a word for collectors.
Busy men who are making railways and coal-pits, under the pleasing illusion that they are developing the country more than the rest of us, are apt to think a man with any hobby except that of making money is wasting his time.
I would like to remind the reader that there are a few—many of them young men and young women too—who have money enough for all reasonable wants, and who do not care to waste time and life in getting more money, for which they have no special uses; these persons find a perennial occupation in the study, the comparison, the purchasing, the collecting, of all that will illustrate their subject of study—their hobby. Around this subject of pottery and porcelain may be grouped, if one so pleases, all the habits, the wants, the inventions, the growths, of human society.
Some have yet a notion that the study of the politics and the fightings of man is most important; others, how man came to be an Arminian or an Augustinian; others, whether the sun is or is not gradually cooling down, and must finally cease to be, or whether, on the contrary, its flames are fed by the self-sacrificing stars.
Without detracting from their labors, I beg leave to say that my great hobby or central fact being the home, I hold that whatever makes that interesting, beautiful, or useful, is, or should be, interesting, beautiful, and useful, to all the world. I believe that what we call politics, or government, is only valuable in that it helps to create and to protect desirable homes; all the rest—all the speeches, and processions, and crownings, and court-balls, and receptions, and dinners—are “leather and prunella.”
Therefore I believe the “art of living” is first and foremost; to know how to make this life comfortable and beautiful is all-important. Yet there is not a teacher of this great art in all the land, although “professors” are legion.
We may well ask, when we go to a house: “What have they there to tell us—what to show us? What have they collected to interest, to please, to instruct?”
If a person has only many bonds bearing coupons locked up in his safe—delightful as the fact may be to him—what pleasure or satisfaction is that to us?
But if in that house are gathered all the interesting examples of any growth of Nature or of Art, what a pleasure to go there!—they may be beetles, or butterflies, or stones, or shells, or silvers, or porcelains. I thank God that here is a man who can and does collect—one who does care for something which I too care for.
I wish, therefore, that every young man and young woman would get a hobby early in life to which he or she can at any time devote some spare time and spare money. Ennui, the demon who afflicts the idle, is thus exorcised, and vice loses its charming power.
The collector, too, does not waste his money. There is not a collection of pictures or of minerals, of birds or of butterflies, of chinas or of books, of armor or of gems, of laces or of tapestries, if made with ordinary care and knowledge, but is worth more—often ten times or fifty times more—than it has cost. Even in a pecuniary way, therefore, the hobby is productive; and the collection is not only as interesting, but it is as good as gold.
Our Collections.—Of collections of porcelain and pottery one must of course look for great exhibitions to the museums of Europe—such as the Kensington Museum, in London; the Cluny, in Paris; the Green Vaults, in Dresden; the Oriental, at Leyden—and to private collections, such as the Rothschilds have made at London and at Paris, to Lady Schreiber’s, and many more, in England.
What are accessible to us are the private collections of some of our own people.
In New York, Mr. William C. Prime’s collection is quite large, numbering some four thousand pieces. It is particularly devoted to the porcelains of Europe, and is an excellent collection. In it are some four or five complete dinner-services of old Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, and many single pieces which rank high.
Mr. S. P. Avery’s collection of Oriental porcelains is the most complete we have, and is very rich in all the departments, especially the Chinese. His pieces of “celestial blue” number more than any other single collection in this country.
In the Loan Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art have been exhibited many examples from Mr. Prime’s collection of porcelains, and about five hundred pieces of Oriental ware from Mr. Avery’s, of nearly every distinctive style made in China and Japan in their best times.
The collection of Mr. Robert Hoe, Jr., is extremely choice in its admirable specimens of Oriental porcelain. Its egg-shells, crackles, and “celestial blues,” are not to be excelled. In this collection are also examples of other styles, among them some of the best of old Dresden.
Mr. W. L. Andrews, of New York, has a very choice collection of Oriental porcelain, probably the best in the country, and, containing the most of the “rose-back” and other “egg-shell.”
Mr. Edward Cunningham, of Milton, Massachusetts, has many superb vases, some of them of great size, obtained by himself in China.
In Albany, Mr. J. V. L. Pruyn has several complete dinner-services of Sèvres porcelain, made for King Louis Philippe, one large service of Lowestoft, and many other individual and interesting specimens. Some of his examples of Sèvres painting cannot be surpassed. He has also a small breakfast-service of “celestial blue,” mounted in silver, which is excellent.
In Boston, Mr. G. W. Wales’s collection is very varied and rich. He has excellent examples of Oriental and of European porcelains, and some perfect pieces of “celestial blue.” Many of his best specimens are on loan in the Boston Art Museum.
Mrs. Anson Burlingame’s collection of Chinese porcelain, at Cambridge, made while in China, is not large, but it has in it some of the best examples of the “green,” the “celestial blue,” the “rose,” and the “chrysanthemum.” Some of these have been exhibited in the Loan Collection in Boston.
Dr. F. W. Lewis and Mr. E. S. Clarke, of Philadelphia, have small and good collections, particularly devoted to Oriental porcelains.
Mr. W. S. Vaux and Dr. Lewis have made interesting exhibitions of the pottery of Greece and of Italy.
Mr. Joseph A. Clay, of Philadelphia, has a small and valuable collection of early Peruvian pottery, of the period before the Spanish Conquest. There is also a varied collection of South and North American Indian pottery in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge.
There may be, and probably are, in the United States many interesting collections of which I know nothing. I am told that Mr. Walters, of Baltimore, and Mr. Probasco, of Cincinnati, both have many very rare and valuable pieces; but, I regret to say, I have had no opportunity of seeing them.
I do not doubt that the love for these fine works of man’s hand will grow, that more and more small collections will be begun, and that time will make them large and valuable and interesting.
A word of caution may be said to guard against imitations, which abound in Europe. I hear now that the Chinese and Japanese are learning, all too quickly, our Christian ways of counterfeiting, and are likely to better the instruction.
In conclusion, I implore our people not to fill their houses with imitations of old things—not even when the antiques are good is it desirable to encourage porcelain-painters in that sort of thing: when it comes to copying antiquity which is poor, it is inexcusable; and when we reach the counterfeiting of the antique, it smacks of baseness.
For this sort of thing we, the public, are responsible. The painter paints what will sell.
No gentleman or lady should consent to be shabby, or to help other people along that facile road. Let us keep our eyes open to any and all new work which is good, and especially to all which shows originality and courage on the part of modelers or of painters. Let us moderns admire the good in the Orientals, but let us worship our own gods, and dare and do for ourselves.
As far as practicable, I have in these pages pointed to examples, and have illustrated by such as are owned in this country; so that many persons who wish to examine these interesting works of fictile art may see them for themselves.
The public collections are of course all open; and I am glad to say that private collectors seem willing and ready to open their collections to students as much as possible. It is human and pleasant to wish that others should enjoy what we enjoy.
Marks, and especially upon porcelain, are not the most important thing; but still they are important, and to many are most satisfactory. I have therefore included in this volume all the prominent ones; so that the book will be found useful not only to the collector at home, but also to him who travels abroad.
The traveler who has a wise hobby gets a thousand times more pleasure from his travels than he who has no purpose except change of place and aimless movement. I suggest to the man who has none to try “pottery and porcelain.”
As to prices of porcelain, etc., I have given those paid at actual sales whenever I could find them; they will be of service to buyers and collectors, as something of a guide to what they may safely pay.
Books which may be referred to, and especially such as may be found in some of our public libraries, are given at the end of the volume.
I hope the public will buy this book, and also good pottery and porcelain.
C. W. E.
The Pottery of the Stone Age.—The Lacustrine Dwellings.—Vases of the Bronze Age.—Peruvian Pottery.—Mexican Pottery.—Pottery of Western Mounds.—The Cesnola Collections.—Roman Pottery.—Saxon and Scandinavian Pottery.—The Pottery of Ancient Gaul—of Ancient Germany.
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Fig 1.—Bowl of the Stone Age.
SO ancient is the potter’s art that it may be said to have begun with the beginnings of man. A belief exists still in Silesia that there is a mountain out of which cups and jugs spring spontaneously, as the mushrooms shoot from the moist soil of the plains. Interwoven, then, as pottery is with the history of the race, having relations daily and hourly with man’s universal and greatest vocation—the preparation of the food which supports and continues life—it has had and will have an interest as vital as it is wide-spread.
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Fig. 2.—Vase of the Stone Age.
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Fig. 3.—Vase of the Bronze Age.
Man a Cooking Animal.—Man is the only cooking animal, so far as I know. It is easy to believe that archaic man, when he began to evolve from the animal state, at once began to invent, and that, after he had discovered the uses of fire, the first need was of vessels which could be used upon the fire to seethe and boil.
And what do we find?
The Reindeer Age—the Stone Age.—Of prehistoric times, when the reindeer roved free over Europe, even to the shores of the Mediterranean, in the Stone age, even when man lived in caves and was only able to fashion things with stones, a few pots have been found, showing how early his wants led him to fashion things of clay.
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Fig. 4.—Vase of the Bronze Age.
The Lacustrine Dwellings of the Stone Age have given up a few traces of men. The remains of lake-dwellers have been found mostly in Switzerland, but somewhat in Ireland and Scotland. These reveal a people who built their huts for safety upon piles or upon fascines anchored in the small lakes. A variety of interesting things, consisting of spear-heads, knives, hatchets, etc., have been found, some of flint, some of bone, and some of bronze. Among these, which pertain to our subject, are a few pots of clay, which have survived the gnawing tooth of Time.
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Fig. 5.—Bronze Age.
In Figs. 1 and 2 are to be seen two of these. They are coarse and clumsy, and are of blackish-gray clay, hardened in the sun or in an insufficient fire. They are not turned upon a wheel, but show marks of the fingers impressed in the soft clay. Yet we cannot but be struck with the faint attempt at decoration to be seen on the foot of one of them, even in that era of savageness.
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Fig. 6.—Bronze Age.
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Fig. 7.—Bronze Age.
The Bronze Age yields up pottery which does not yet show the invention of the potter’s wheel. The work is still moulded by the hand, but the clay is better, and the forms begin to show clear indications of a sense of proportion and a considerable degree of choice. The shapes are in greater variety, and some of them certainly are good. Of the five examples (Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) none are very bad, and two (Figs. 3 and 4), if not three, are excellent.
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Fig. 8.—Peruvian.
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Fig. 9.—Peruvian.
The pointed bottom appears here as it does in the early forms of the Greek amphora; and, as the illustrations show, this involves a necessity for a further invention in the tripods upon which they rest. I have seen no explanation of this more difficult construction, and can think of none. It is certainly no easier to make the pointed than the flat bottom, and it certainly is not so useful. Why, then, was it so common? I can only suppose that when first made the point was intended to be thrust into the ground; but the moment they had hit upon the flat bottom, that moment the point, I should fancy, would have been abandoned; but it evidently was not. Perhaps they loved the old as some of us do, not because it was good, but because it was old. Who can tell?
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Fig. 10.—Ancient Peru.
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Fig. 11.—Ancient Peru. Fig. 12.—Ancient Peru.
How early the varied decoration showed itself we cannot know, but in many examples of early fictile work, the meander, the chevron or saw-tooth, and the fret, now called the Greek fret, are sure to appear—and among the most diverse and distant nations; so, too, the forms and the uses of the vessels.
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Fig. 13.—Ancient Peru.
Do not these things show that man develops everywhere along a corresponding line? They have not copied from one another, but a like want has produced a similar result in all.
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Fig. 14.—Ancient Peru. Fig. 15.—Ancient Peru.
As we approach the historic ages, we find among the Egyptians, the Mexicans, the Peruvians, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Gauls, the Germans, the use of the potter’s wheel, one of the earliest machines made by man. Of the Egyptian and Greek pottery I shall have something to say in a chapter upon the “Greek Vase.”
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Fig. 16.—Roman Cup.
The Mexican pottery, sometimes called Aztec, is usually of reddish clay, and the vessels are almost identical in form and decoration with those of the Peruvians, which will appear in their place. They are of great variety, and must have been made in large numbers. The Mexicans also made grotesques and idols of clay, which are usually hideous, and are intended to be; for the gods of evil were those they feared and worshiped most. These potteries are of unglazed clay, as are all those we are now treating.
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Fig. 17.—Roman Vase.
The civilizations which organized themselves in Mexico have always been an interesting and curious study. When Cortez and his conquering, gold-seeking white men reached the high lands of the beautiful interior (1517), they found the splendid city of Mexico, built over and along the shores of the inland lake, and stretching toward the foot-hills which protect it from unfriendly winds. Here the Aztecs had organized society. They had succeeded to the Toltecs, a prosperous, industrious, and probably a peaceful people—a people coming from the warmer South, and unable to cope with the more hardy Aztecs, who came down from the North.
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Fig. 18.—Roman Vase found at London.
These Aztecs had not only developed the arts of architecture and painting, as well as most of the mechanic arts; they had also reached to a literature, to laws, to a religion most elaborate and splendid; and they had not neglected to conquer and tax surrounding tribes, and make them pay tribute, as all the “great” white nations of the world have done. But all their civilizations, laws, religions, arts, were swept into ruin by the conquering hand of Cortez and his successors.
And what have we now in Mexico? What has come of the destruction of the great Indian races there? What but greed, anarchy, cruelty, ruin? It would be a curious speculation now to picture what that country—the most beautiful and most bountiful—might now be in the hands of its own people, and with a government which could protect life and make labor safe. As it is, its life and its art give us nothing to look at or to enjoy.
Must man always destroy first in order that he may build up, and then be himself destroyed? No remains have come to us of glazed pottery belonging to these times; and it is probable that, their wants being fewer, their climate milder, and their food simpler, invention was not so much on the alert as it might have been in a colder and harsher climate. That these races were for some unknown reason superior to those living farther to the north, none will doubt when they know what they accomplished as compared with the Indians of the United States.
The Peruvians were the most cultivated and comfortable nation upon the Western Continent when Pizarro (1531) invaded, and, I may say, destroyed them. Indeed, when we read the accounts given of them by the Spanish writers themselves, we have only another proof that what we call “carrying to other peoples the blessings of civilization and Christianity” means rather the cursing them with cruelty and greed.
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Fig. 19.—Vase. Pottery of Ancient Gaul.
A large collection of their pottery was shown at the United States Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and there is a sufficient and most interesting exhibit of it in the Peabody Museum at Harvard in Cambridge. In this collection, also, are to be found many examples of like unglazed pottery found in the Western mounds of the United States by Professors Shaler and Carr, who for some years have been engaged in researches in Kentucky and at other points in the West.
Upon some examples of this American pottery (Figs. 8 to 15) are to be seen decorations in color, mostly red, black, and brown; and it would seem impossible that these colors should have lasted through so many centuries, if they were not fixed by fire, and therefore were mineral.
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Fig. 20.—Pottery of Ancient Gaul.
The decorations, too, were somewhat varied, but in none which I have seen do they go beyond the elementary styles already mentioned.
The production of idols and fantastic vases, animals and grotesques, must have been extensive, as so many of these have already been found; indicating that they must have been common in their day. Examples of this fantastic decoration and modeling are seen in Figs. 12 to 15—and in Fig. 14 is an approach to portraiture. In one (Fig. 15) is seen the double-bellied bottle, so much in use in China and Japan. The twin-bottles seen in Figs. 8 and 9 are good examples of a fancy which evidently pleased potter and people in those “good old Peruvian times.”
A most singular fact is mentioned by Demmin, that on one of their casseroles the handle is clearly the phallus, symbol of life, found on Egyptian sculptures, and once worshiped.
One curious fact is asserted by the French savants,[1] that there is abundant evidence to show that through a long succession of years, perhaps three thousand, the character of these American potteries grew less and less pure and simple, and more and more debased and vulgar; which one can well believe, when we see everywhere that whole nations, some of them calling themselves civilized, have gone the same road, downward from the good to the bad, and not upward toward the true and the beautiful.
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Fig. 21.—Ancient Gaul.
The opening of the Cesnola collections, at the New York Museum of Arts, shows us a vast number of early potteries which are as yet hardly classified or understood. Many of them bear marks of Assyrian or of Phœnician inspiration; and among them are rude vessels closely resembling those of Peru, and also many grotesque forms of vases and animals, such as mark the early attempts at Art in other nations. That collection should be examined by those who are interested in this subject.
The hand-book published by the Museum is full of condensed information, and should be carefully preserved.
The pottery of the Romans went wherever their armies went. Thus it is found in France, in England, in Germany, in Spain, etc., etc. This Roman pottery has been found where excavations have been made, in Italy, in France, in England, along the Rhine, and in other places. It is distinguished as being more heavy and clumsy in form than that made in Greece, and the color of the clay is red, lighter or darker. The best of the Roman ware is often called Samian, because it was supposed to resemble that made at Samos in Greece, though it is quite different. The finest pieces approach to the color of sealing-wax, and have a lustre thin and brilliant, which has given rise to some dispute whether or not it is the result of an applied mineral varnish, or whether it is the product of careful hand-friction, developed and perfected by a high heat. The varnish, if such, is so thin that it has not been possible to analyze and decide upon it.
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Fig. 22.—Ancient Gaul.
This red Samian or Roman much resembles the polished red ware made to-day in Egypt—of which a collection was shown in the recent Philadelphia Exhibition, and this bore no varnish.
One thing remarked as to this Roman pottery is, that it is never decorated with designs or ornaments in one or more colors. The decoration is sometimes incised, but more often is in relief. This is curious, too, as those master-potters, the Greeks, used colors in their designs. These pieces are to be seen in the museums of Paris, London, and elsewhere. The example engraved (Fig. 16) is a cup on which the decoration is in relief, and the fillets and bands are carefully moulded on the potter’s wheel.
Figs. 17 and 18 were found in excavations made in 1845 in the city of London, and are excellent examples of this pottery. They are now in the Museum of Geology at London.
Fig. 17 is a sort of vase, or perhaps a drinking-cup, and is ornamented with the head of an animal. It is described as of “a pale red with a darkish-brown varnish.”
Fig. 18 is called the “Cup of Samos,” resembling so much as it does the work made at Samos. While these pieces were found in the earth beneath the city of London, many others have been found elsewhere; and much is believed to have been made at the old Anglo-Roman town of Caistre, in England, where remains of many furnaces have been unearthed.
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Fig. 23.—Ancient Gaul.
Roman pottery has been found on the banks of the Rhine, near Bonn, Coblentz, Mayence, in Baden, etc., etc.; in France, at Auvergne, and at other points.
This finer work is supposed to date about the first century of our era. It is classed by M. Demmin as being made at Arezzo, the ancient Aretium, in Tuscany.
Commoner styles of Roman pottery were made, and many examples of these have been found of a coarser clay, and varying in color, gray, black, and yellow, or light paleish red; sometimes with a black or brown varnish. These were doubtless made for the common uses of the kitchen. The drinking-cups of this pottery often bore inscriptions, such as Ave, welcome; Vivas, live; Bibe, drink; Vive, bibe multum, live and drink much, etc.
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Fig. 24.—Ancient German.
Pottery was undoubtedly made by the Saxons, the Scandinavians, the Gauls, and the Germans, before the coming of Roman armies and Roman potters. Of these early remains examples have been found in the barrows of England, and in other excavations.
M. Cleuziou published a work in 1872, “La Poterie Gauloise,”[2] warmly and strenuously claiming for the Gauls an art and a pottery before the coming of the all-grasping Romans; who, he asserts, not only stole their country, but also have claimed to be their benefactors and civilizers when they were not. I cannot, of course, discuss the question here. The engravings given (Figs. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) are quoted by M. Figuier, from whom I take them, as examples of this early and curious work. Some of these certainly seem to indicate an inspiration original and quite different from what we see among the Romans. Later, and after the coming of the Romans, there were produced in Gaul vases and other articles, which may well be called “Gallo-Romaine,” or Gallic-Roman.
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Fig. 25.—German Pottery. Fig. 26.—German Pottery.
The German potters also produced at a very early day large quantities of pottery, which has a character of its own. That it must have been very extensively made and used is evident from the many specimens exhumed in various parts of Germany; in such numbers, indeed, that the peasantry have a profound belief they are the work of the dwarfs, and that they sprout spontaneously like mushrooms, as I have said. The examples we present are more simple than most of the Roman work, and the decoration is more severe. (Figs. 24, 25, 26.)
Pots, vases, and children’s toys, are also found in tombs in various parts of Germany, some of which show decided marks of art.
In some of these are found the ashes of the dead, in others bones broken up, and so preserved.
Palaces of Homer’s Heroes.—The Ceramicus at Athens.—Egyptian Pottery.—Etruscan Tombs.—Good and Bad Vases.—Age of Vases.—Various Styles.—The Archaic Style.—The Fine Style.—Beauty a Birthright.—Aspasia’s House.—Names of Vases.—The Cup of Arcesilaus.—Number of Extant Vases.—Their Uses.—The Greek Houses.—Greek Women.—Greek Men.—The Hetairai.—Etruscan Vases.
THE Greek Vase has come to be a synonym for beauty of form. Not that every Greek vase is perfect—by no means—but that the Greeks had come to feel and were able to express perfection of form in it as it had not been done before, and as it has not been better done since.
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Fig. 27.—Egyptian Kylix.
So much interest hangs around this expression of the potter’s art, that we give more space to the subject than to many other branches of the art. Keeping this perfection in mind, the manner of life of those Greeks, out of which the Greek vase grew, becomes of value, and is indeed of most interest.
How did the Greeks live, and why was the Greek vase made?
That the finest houses or palaces of the chiefs of the Heroic or Homeric period were larger, and more marked by barbaric splendor, than were the dwellings of the great in the days of Pericles, is admitted.
We give from Mr. Bryant’s translation of the Iliad a brief description of Hector’s return to Troy from the battle-field:
He passed onward in search of Andromache:
That the description is glorified, we need not doubt, for that is the province of poetry; and poor is the poet who does not see the beauty through the squalor, the sunshine through the cloud.
The Greek house of the time of Pericles was much smaller and less splendid than this.
It is a curious fact to know that most of what remains to us of the living Greeks and Egyptians has been saved for us by the dead. Not a complete house of the living exists; while those of the dead have been unearthed not only in Greece, but in parts of Italy, which in many places was colonized by Greeks, and in which Greek customs and Greek art had a strong hold.
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Fig. 28.—Egyptian Bottle, Side and Front View.
The Egyptians honored their dead, the Greeks honored their dead, and the Romans honored their dead. Let them have our thanks; for, because of that, things of interest and beauty are left to us.
In their tombs have been found gold-work, jewels, manuscripts, vases: all of which tell their stories of the way men lived, how they worked, what they sought; all of which show us that man then was the same as man is now—if you pricked him he bled, if you tickled him he laughed. We are apt to think that the Past was ignorant, brutal, savage. Have we, boastful as we are, made porcelain better than the Chinese? Have we made vases more beautiful than the Greeks? Poetry more musical?
In the far past man was savage, brutal, ignorant; and there is in man still the latent tiger. In the civilization of which we boast, there exist in all great cities, side by side with luxury and splendor, poverty, wretchedness, squalor, brutality.
In the days of Pericles, in those days when the Amphora and the Temple reached their most perfect development, the influences of Art and Poetry were most potent upon that small democratic oligarchy which possessed Athens and tyrannized over Greece. Then the tiger lay down in the midst of a wonderful wealth of architecture, sculpture, poetry, eloquence, painting (we suppose), and pottery. Then a whole district of the city to the northwest of the Acropolis and the Areopagus was occupied by the shops of the potter and the painter, and was known as the Ceramicus, or Keramicus, as it now is often spelled. From that centre went out into all the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea thousands upon thousands of those vases and pots which were made and decorated there, and from whose pictures we have drawn much of our knowledge of Greek life, art, manners, and dress.
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Fig. 29.—Egyptian Vase.
In this high time of Art lay the seeds of corruption and death. The Athenian Greek became critical, refined, weak, luxurious, corrupt, base; and then he went to decay. In some tombs (Fig. 30) opened in Italy, the body is found lying at length in the middle, and about it stand perfect vases, love-offerings of friends: were they once filled with perfumes upon which the spirit of the dead was wafted away? We place flowers in the graves of our lovely ones, and, beautiful as they are, they vanish with the dead. But the Greek vase remains to us after the lapse of two thousand years.
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Fig. 30.—Tomb found in the Environs of Naples.
When the Greeks—how early—began to fashion their fine work is not surely known; but pottery of theirs exists dating as far back as 700 BC Behind them were the Assyrians and the Egyptians, both nations great in war and great in the arts of peace. The remains we have of both show the Egyptians to have been the masters, with whom began those arts which grew and bore fruit in Assyria and in Greece. But the art of the Egyptians seems never to have reached the lightness, the delicacy, the exquisite beauty of line, which yet glorify the fictile art of Greece. Older than the oldest writings of the Hebrews, older than Homer, is the potter’s wheel; through all history it has been the friend and companion of man; its products are part of his daily life; and delicate, brittle as they are, they have proved more enduring than the Pyramids.
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Fig. 31.—The Archaic Period.
Nearly all the pieces of pottery found in Egypt belong to those things which went into the daily uses of life. Most of them are of common clay, with common forms, and rude finish; and they seem to have been of all shapes and designed for many purposes. Great casks, vases, pots for oil, for grain, for meats, for wines, for drugs, for lamps; children’s marbles, checkers, toys, rings, amulets, bottles, etc., etc., are among the many things shaped by the potter in Egypt.
Of those things made for ornamental purposes, there still exist some vases which approach the simple beauty of the Greek; of which we give one as pictured by Wilkinson in his work upon the antiquities of Egypt.
Fig. 27 is an Egyptian kylix or drinking-cup. It much resembles the Greek kylix or cylix, except that the foot is less perfect.
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Fig. 32.—The Departure of Achilles, from Vase in the Louvre.
The highly-ornamented bottle (Fig. 28, aryballos) is another thing made purely for purposes of luxury, which Potiphar’s wife used to hold her dainty perfumes—perfumes which, we may easily believe, would add to her dangerous charms. It is modeled from the African calabash, which was the first vessel used there for carrying water. Form and decoration are both perfect in this small bottle.
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Fig. 33.—Kylix, of an Early Form.
We add a figure of very ancient Egyptian pottery, an early example of the efforts of that people at the human figure in clay. It is made to serve the purposes of a vase, whether for religious uses or other we do not know (Fig. 29).
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Fig. 34.—Kylix, Finer Form.
The terra-cotta earthenware vases and cups of the Greek and Etruscan potters, by universal consent, have come to be accepted as the most beautiful and satisfactory. That they were thus perfect from the start, and always so, no one need maintain; but that from Greece and from many parts of it should have come such a vast number of vessels, nearly all of which are beyond criticism, is what no one can fully explain.
Whence came the inspiration, the perception of beauty, which made the ordinary potter an artist, no man can tell.
It is not possible that the men who worked at the potter’s wheel in Athens, or in Samos, or in Crete, were “educated,” as we say it, to such a fine sense of the beautiful. We, with all the education we can put into our people, do not equal them. We can no more explain this than we can tell how such a wonderful growth of beautiful cathedrals shot up into life in France in what we call the “Middle Ages.” Nor was this perfection only to be found among the potters who worked in Greece. It brought forth works fit for gods in Cyrenaica, on the northern coast of Africa, in great abundance; of which farther on we give an example in the Cup of Arcesilaus. The wandering potters who went into Italy, and there produced those beautiful vases, were Greeks. We have been in the habit of calling them “Etruscan vases,” because they have been found in largest numbers and in most perfect preservation in Etruria. But it is now well known that the real Etruscan potters never reached the same technical skill, or had any such eye for form, as was common among the Greeks.
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Fig. 35.—Greek Rhyton, in the Louvre.
I have mentioned the tombs—that many of the finest Greek vases have been found in those of Italy, and particularly in the part once called Etruria. In Fig. 30 is shown one of these tombs discovered near Naples. In it may be seen the remains of the body, with vases of various shapes standing or hanging on the wall. Most of the vases found with the dead in Greece were buried in the soil, and are thus less perfect than those found in Italy.
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Fig. 36.—Greek Amphora, Panathenaic.
Good and Bad.—While, then, we can exalt the Greek vase to a foremost place in the perfection of form, let us say that there are very many Greek vases and pots which are bad, common, vulgar. So that no buyer, no student, must admire with his eyes shut. Hardly any considerable collection is without these bad things. Therefore, whoever seizes upon a Greek vase with the belief that it is beautiful because it is Greek, may wake some day to dash his god to pieces as false.
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Fig. 37.—Amphora, from the Louvre.
Let us guard, too, against another chance for disappointment. Nearly all the best vases extant have lain for centuries underground; they have lost the freshness and fineness of their polish; their coloring is often defaced; they are, perhaps, scratched or chipped. Seeing these rather dilapidated examples of the fictile art with eyes of extravagant expectation, one may feel disappointment or disgust. But let him look on till he sees and feels the subtile springing lines which shot from the brain of the potter, and inspired his hand to shape the vase.
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Fig. 38.—Amphora.
As to the age of the Greek vases there are some evidences. The Greek poet Pindar, who lived between 520 and 440 BC, describes the amphoræ, those painted vases which were given as prizes at the Panathenaic festivals (see Fig. 36), and they are spoken of by Aristophanes, Strabo, and others.[3]
Many attempts have been made to classify the works of the Greek potters, and the result is of some value, though a considerable degree of vagueness must attach to such as cannot be fixed by any signature or by the subject. Demmin,[4] Brongniart,[5] Birch, and others, have attempted classifications. We give here a sketch of that of the last as, on the whole, the most simple and probable; the writer follows Gerhard:
1. The “Ancient” or “Archaic” style, from BC 700 to 450.
2. The “Fine Style” from BC 450 to 328. The best were during the time of Phidias.
3. The Decadence, from BC 228 to the end of the Social Wars, BC 87. This includes all made in Italy down to the time of Augustus, at which period most of the towns and works in “Magna Græcia” and the south of Italy had been destroyed.
To the first or Archaic period are attributed the vases with yellow ground, having brown and maroon figures, mostly hatchings, flowers, or rude representations of animals, such as the goat, the pig, the stork, etc., etc. Whenever the human figure appears on the vases of this period it is shorter and less graceful than that on later work.
The next period is likely to show the figures in yellow upon black ground; the designs here are more beautiful; the subjects are mythological, historical, and poetical, and the human figures often have the grace and beauty which mark the best period of Grecian art.
The Decadence is marked by coarser work, less purity of form, and grosser and clumsier designs.
The paste or clay at times approaches the hardness of “terra-cotta;” at others it is so soft as to be scratched with a knife, and is easily broken. Its color varies: the earlier or Archaic period is mostly of a pale lemon-color; the clay used at Athens and Melos was a pale red; and in the best period of Greece the color becomes a warm orange; while those found in Italy usually called Etruscan are always of a dull, rather pale, red. Upon these grounds figures were painted in black, brown, yellow, and red.
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Fig. 39.—Amphora.
Perspective those true artists did not strive after. The Greeks sketched in their designs in clean lines, and colored them with flat color, touching the muscles and articulations here and there to bring out more fully the action; but to rival the painter upon his canvas, that was not attempted upon pottery. It seems desirable to give some notion, as well as can be done in black-and-white, of what the earlier vases were like; and we, therefore, transcribe here some examples given by Birch, which show, not only the style of the decoration, but the forms, of the Archaic period (see Fig. 31).
The animals shown are rude and clumsy, and are arranged in bands, which are sown with flower-shapes without order or meaning. The forms, too, of the pots themselves, especially the two largest, are wholly lacking in that fine, subtile grace which marks them during the time of the “Fine Style.” That the Art of Greece was not born full-grown and perfect like the goddess Minerva is certain; but that it grew and grew fast to its perfectness in that most keen and cunning Greek brain is also certain.
The time of the “Fine Style” was the time of Pericles, of Aspasia, of Æschylus, of Phidias; the time when the most beautiful of the beautiful Greek temples was built on the Acropolis sacred to Minerva; when sculpture, painting, poetry, and architecture, reached their height; when the human form and the human face arrived at such a divine beauty as they had never reached since the days of paradise, and have not again reached. In this wonderful time the Greek vase was born into its perfect form.
Some peculiarities of the old or Archaic style, after it passed the simple method of decoration already described, and when it began to treat the human figure, are thus specified by Mr. Birch: “The faces of the females are white to indicate superior delicacy of complexion, and the pupils of their eyes, which are more elongated than those of the male figures, are red. The eyes of the men are engraved and of a form inclining to oval, the pupils circular. The eyes of the women are sometimes made like those of men, especially on those vases on which the faces are colored black upon a white ground. The forms are rather full and muscular, the noses long, the eyes oblique and in profile, the pupil as if seen in front, the extremities long and not carefully finished, the outlines rigid, the attitudes à plomb, the knees and elbows rectangular, the draperies stiff, and describing perpendicular, angular, and precise oval lines. The faces are generally in profile, full faces being very rare.”
We quote again as to the work upon the Fine style: “In this the figures are still red, and the black grounds are occasionally very dark and lustrous. The ornaments are in white, and so are the letters. The figures have lost that hardness which at first characterized them; the eyes are no longer represented oblique and in profile; the extremities are finished with greater care, the chin and nose are more rounded, and
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Fig. 40.—Krater (Vase Campanienne), from the Louvre.
have lost the extreme elongation of the earlier school. The limbs are fuller and thicker, the faces noble, the hair of the head and beard treated with greater breadth and mass, as in the style of the painter Zeuxis, who gave more flesh to his figures, in order to make them appear of greater breadth and more grandiose, adopting the ideas of Homer, who represents even his females of large proportions. The great charm of these designs is the beauty of the composition and the more perfect proportion of the figures. The head is oval, three-quarters of which are comprised from the chin to the ear, thus affording a guide to its proportions, which are far superior to those of the previous figures. The disproportionate shape of the limbs disappears, and the countenance assumes its natural form and expression. The folds of the drapery, too, are freer, and the attitudes have lost their ancient rigidity. The figures are generally large, and arranged in groups of two or three on each side, occupying about two-thirds of the height of the vase.”
The design we have given to illustrate in some degree the “Fine Style” is the “Departure of Achilles” (Fig. 32), taken from a vase in the Louvre.
In our modern time it has come to pass that men worship strength, power, words, gold, brass—everything but beauty. They care little to have beautiful things about them, less to be beautiful themselves, to create beautiful children, or to do beautiful work. And what is the result? Often they are as unlovely in their souls as in their persons; and so, while we boast of great cities, and long railways, and amazing cotton-mills, we boast not of beautiful men who make beautiful work. Perfection tends to perfection, and ugliness to ugliness. Therefore, let the perfect man and the perfect woman marry, that thus we may have the perfect race once more. To bring this to pass we must insist upon perfect form and perfect decoration in all things about us; we must know beauty and value it. One step to this great end is to study the Greek vase. The next step is to make every home a temple of art.
What can we not believe of such a house as that of Aspasia in Athens, when she was virtually the wife of Pericles in the best period of Greece? That it was graced surely by works of divinest beauty; that these exquisite vases which we are praising stood upon her shelves, graced her pedestals, and adorned the corners specially made for their reception. We may believe that the potters themselves presented their beautiful work to the most distinguished woman of all Greece; that the victor in the Panathenaic games should ask a place for his prize in the atmosphere of light and learning which surrounded this remarkable woman.
The shapes and uses of the Greek vases, cups, jugs, etc., etc., are many. We mention here those most known as follows: for holding oil, wine, etc., etc., amphora, pelice, stamnos; for carrying water, etc., hydria, kalpis, or calpis; for mixing wine and water, etc., krater, oxybaphon, kelebe; for pouring water, wine, etc., œnochoe, cruche, or kruche, olpe, prochoos; for cups and drinking-vessels, cylix, or kylix, kantharos, kyathos, rhyton, skyphos, phiale, etc., etc.; for perfumes, ointments, etc., lekythos, or lecythos, alabastron, cotyle, or kotyle, aryballos, etc.
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Fig. 41.—Hydria.
The vases most known are these:
The amphora (Figs. 36, 37, 38, 39), a name applied to vases with two handles, sometimes with a pointed base to thrust into the ground or to be set into a tripod; great numbers of these exist, and in various shapes, some of which will appear in our illustrations.
The amphoræ were used to hold wine, oil, wheat, and a great variety of other articles.
The hydria (Figs. 41 and Fig. 42) and kalpis were used to carry water. The former has one handle.
The krater or crater (Fig. 40) was a large, open-mouthed vessel used for mixing wine with water.
The cruche (Fig. 43) and œnochoe were jugs or pitchers used to pour liquids at the symposia.
The kylix or cylix (Figs. 33 and Fig. 34), the rhyton (Fig. 35), and the kyathos, were drinking-cups used at feasts.
The lekythos, and kotyle and alabastron, were used for perfumes, pomatums, and other such luxuries for the bath and the toilet; and we may believe, from the number of these found, that woman in those antique days was careful to enhance her charms.
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Fig. 42.—Hydria.
We give two examples of the cylix or kylix used for a drinking-cup, which always carried two handles. The first (Fig. 33) is of the earliest period, and is more severe than the last. It is ornamented with the Greek fret, with zigzags or chevrons, etc., etc., of simple design.
The other (Fig. 34) is more graceful and finished in form, and has a more elaborate design, which, however, seems to me quite behind the work found on the cups of the “Fine Style.”
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Fig. 43.—Vase for Libations.
We give some particulars of the Greek vases, mostly from the collections of the Louvre at Paris.
Some of the AmphoræFig. 36