§8. STYLES OF GREEK ART. 183 



favour of the supposition that Italian influence had its effect 

 on the taste of the Greeks settled there ; while the absence 

 of these defects in the Greek vases of Etruria may be ex- 

 plained by their being mostly of those periods when good 

 art was rising, or had reached its zenith in Greece ; by Greek 

 taste not allowing itself to be vitiated by Italian influences ; 

 and by the vases being imported in great numbers from 

 Greece. Art, which had originally been borrowed by Etruria 

 from the Greeks, continued to be indebted to them for its 

 subsequent progress ; and the story of the advent of those 

 figurative personages, Eu^etp and Evypafxpos, shows how the 

 Etruscans were beholden to the handicraftsmen and draughts- 

 men of Corinth for its full establishment among them ; at a 

 period when it was beginning to develop itself in Greece, and 

 abounded in that simplicity for which it was then so re- 

 markable. 



It may also be observed that some even of the beautiful 

 vases of the best period are not free from the elongated 

 character which afterwards became so general in Southern 

 Italy. There is the same tendency in the works of the 

 Romans ; and this Italian corruption in olden times is the 

 more unaccountable, as the Italians of later (Christian) 

 periods have been noted for their appreciation of correct 

 proportion, contrasting most favourably in this respect with 

 their Roman predecessors. Are we to conclude that this 

 feeling had continued to hold its ground in Etruria from 

 olden times, and that it spread thence into other parts of 

 Italy? I leave this to the decision of others more capable 

 than myself; but it is certain that t r :e vases of Etruria have 

 not the same elongated form as those of Southern Italy. 



This is not the only point connected with the subject 

 which is deserving of attention ; and it would be curious to 

 inquire why and to what extent the types of vases vary at the 



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