Millingen's Collection of Greek Vases. 223 



not to be read ; the drawing is incorrect ; the figures want life 

 and expression ; the subjects represented are frec[uent]y inexpli- 

 cable, because the vases are anterior to the fourth century, vvlien 

 Zeuxis created, and caused to be generally adopted, constant modes 

 of painting the gods and heroes. It is believed that tiie second 

 sort of vases is that v/hich was most generally imitated in the 

 following ages, from love of archaism. 



The ground of the vases of the third sort is black ; the figures 

 are yellow or red : these are the most common. 



Sometimes we find on the Greek vases, blue, green, carmine, 

 and even gilding. The white colour was added on the painting 

 in the accessaries, as well as the inscriptions; her.ce it happens 

 that they have often been in part rubbed off. The white colour 

 was partly made of white lead. 



A second baking fixed the colours on the vases, and gave them 

 that bright varnish which distinguishes the most precious of them. 

 As for ordinarv vases, a varnish was giveji to the uhole ground 

 before the baking, which in this case was not followed by a se- 

 cond. 



The figures were generally copies, and not original, of the in- 

 vention of the painters of the vases. M. rie Rossi thinks we may 

 infer this from the circumstance, that no painting is found in 

 which the artist has corrected himself, that is to sav, where he 

 has departed from the dotted lines, or even changed any attitude. 



Such are the mechanical details of the manufacture and paint- 

 ing ; which was the part least known. 



Very different judgements have been passed on the painters of 

 the Greek vases of baked earth, or rather on the designers ; for 

 the name of painters should be reserved for those who create 

 their subjects, ancLnot mere copyists*. If v/e examine the va- 

 riety, the elegance of the draperies, the beauty of the figures, the 

 exactness of the proportions, we shall own that these designers 

 have some merit, especially when u-e consider that the figures 

 drawn on the convexity of the vases, and in the concavity of the 

 paterae, are in true persjiective, so that they mnv not appear de- 

 formed : this is so true, that if we trace the outline of one of these 

 figures, and lay it on a plane surface, it will seem to lean back- 

 wards, to fall (it is the art of th.e painter of ceilings). On the 

 other hand, the extremities of these beautiful figuies (the hands 

 and feet) are drawn with as much negligence as we find in the 



• Though wc have in this place used the words pamtcm and desif^ncr.t as 

 in the rrencii, it is not beciuise wo consider tiieiii as jiroperly expressing the 

 meaning intended, but rather bcc-iuse we could not fully make up our mind 

 in the choice of two single words exactly corresponding. In fact, designer, 

 from its root ilcvi;», seems more strongly indicative of invention Xh^in painter 

 does. — Bi). 



pictures 



