BRYGOS. — HIS CHARACTERISTICS. 
i 
Until within a comparatively few years archaeologists have been content to treat 
Greek vase paintings from the point of view mainly of mythology. Only the signed 
vases were recognized as belonging to different artists. Now, however, it has become 
evident that each artist possesses individual stylistic qualities, by the recognition of 
which even his unsigned works can be gathered together. Every artist, by dint of 
long practice and the dexterity resulting therefrom, is bound to develop certain idio- 
syncrasies that will recur again and again on his works. It is for these peculiarities, 
these personal touches, that the student of ceramics looks to-day in order to differen- 
tiate the works of one artist from those of others of the same period and — one might 
even say — of the same school. 
Hartwig has followed this line of investigation in his Meistersclialen, and among 
the Athenian artists of the red-figured period treated by him is Brygos. Hartwig's 
results, however, are indefinite ; for while one is led to assent to the characteristics 
pointed out as our author passes from one vase to another, there is a feeling at 
the conclusion that nothing tangible has been given by which one can identify our 
artist. To say that such and such a characteristic, as for instance the custom of 
covering the reclining figures up to the waist with an himation, 2 is very common with 
Brygos is of little value to a student taking up the study of that artist, if he finds that 
the same characteristic is as common with other contemporary artists. There must 
be something peculiar to Brygos, as there is to other artists, by which lie can be dis- 
tinguished from others. If this were not so, the great number of unsigned vases and 
fragments which, wrongly or rightly, have been classed as his could not have been 
1 A portion of this monograph was submitted in competition for the Charles Eliot Norton Fellowship of 
Harvard University. Completed it was offered for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard, as also in ful- 
filment of the requirements imposed upon the holder of the Norton Fellowship. 
'resa 
for permission to use two plates (Plates I and II) 
Vol. VI, 1902. 
2 Meisterschalen. d. 350. 
5 
