RERAMIC STUDIO 
GREEK POTTERY 
GREEK pottery, like early glass and other objects of his- 
toric interest, owes its preservation largely to its burial. 
It is uncovered to-day from tombs in almost perfect condition 
despite its age of more than twenty centuries and from the fact 
that the Etruscan graves are particularly well stored with it, 
many have supposed that it was an Etruscan product. But 
Etruria merely bought it from the Greeks, or, at most, imitated 
the Greek patterns. In the Institute collection there is a large 
jar of Corinthian pottery, so called, which dates back to the 
sixth century before Christ. The pieces of that epoch are 
characterized by black zones on an earthen ground, and by 
bands, or friezes, representing animals and gods. Indeed, the 
archaic forms are all characterized l^y black figures on a red 
decadent art is seen in a vase on which are two heads facing a 
funeral stele. There is an overelaboration in the subsidiary 
ornament and a lack of the satisfying simplicity discoverable 
in the pieces made a century or two before. Yet the example 
of second century before Christ work that is offered in the vase 
planted in the top of a human head shows that the sense of 
form had not been debased, for the head is well modeled and 
is of a recognizably good Greek type, but the taste that would 
utilize a part of the human body for a purpose of this kind 
shows a lapse in the artistic ideal. The little vase of the third 
century before Christ that is exhibited in the museum is of 
interest because of its decoration, for it represents a warrior 
overtaken by his death genius in the form of a gryphon. 
At the beginning of the Christian era the art of the Greclc 
FISH DESIGN FOR CUP AND SAUCER— MARY SIMPSON 
Grey blue or gfold outlined in red. 
ground, while the more artistic and perfect pieces of later date 
reverse this method and show the pictures in red on a ground 
of black. 
The art reached its perfection in about the fifth centur\' 
before Christ. As the Institute specimens show, the distinctive 
marks of work of that period are bold, solid forms, with a 
s:nooth, almost lustrous surface where the black appears, 
economy of ornament and free drawing, somewhat conven- 
tional and often repeated. 
By the third century before Christ, the art of the potter 
had run down. He still made his craters and amphorae of 
good clay, but the smoothness of finish, the freedom of the 
decoration, and something of the grace and soundness of out- 
line in the utensil are missed. An excellent example of this 
potters was practically' obsolete; hence the value of these 
rescues from the tombs that mark the sites of the Greek 
colonies in southern and central Italy are of importance as 
revelations not merely of craftmanship, but as exhil3iting the 
faiths and customs of a departed race. 
To Greek pottery succeeded a new art — the pressed 
pottery of the Samians — and of this the museum has come into 
possession of several interesting copies. Yet hardly copies, 
either, for, although the clay was softened by the hand of 
moderns, j^et, the figures in clear, high relief, that ornament 
the surfaces of the bowls, are impressed by actual contact with 
the molds made in Samos nineteen hundred years ago. It is 
Ijelieved that these cups and bowls are copies of others made in 
gold and silver. 
