Gisela M. A. Richter

A New Early Attic Vase

At a time when the history of Greek vase-painting is only gradually being reconstructed as one discovery after another supplies the necessary clues, it is difficult to assign to the various classes of pottery names which will be permanently satisfactory. This difficulty is the excuse for the many misleading terms which have crept into our study of Greek vases. Names assigned purely provisionally soon became generally accepted, and when once part of the common nomenclature, it becomes a matter of convenience that they should be retained. In many cases this retention is necessary; otherwise, in the present uncertainty of the origin of so many of the early styles, we should continually be changing names according as one theory or another appeared more plausible. In other cases, however, where our knowledge rests on firmer foundations, and where a term has become a confusing anomaly, it is time that we should revise our loose use of language. Such a case is that of the ‘Proto-Attic’ vases. These vases, connecting as they do the Attic Dipylon with the Attic black-figured style, show the continuity of Athenian ceramic art. To call a vase ‘Proto-Attic’ when it is posterior to another Attic fabric is therefore a contradiction in terms.

The Greek Kouros in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Whenever our store of Greek sculpture is enriched by a new example of major importance, the new-comer naturally arouses great interest. The question immediately arises whether it conforms with what is already known of the Greek sculpture of that period or whether it reveals new features. In either case it becomes the object of keen discussion, for we are almost as eager to test the soundness of the edifice we have tentatively set up as to enlarge it. The newly-acquired archaic marble statue in New York (Pls. IV, V) is such an important new-comer. Under the circumstances I have gladly accepted the invitation of the Editorial Committee of this Journal to present a short note on the statue pending its more detailed publication in Metropolitan Museum Studies and Brunn-Bruckmann-Arndt, Denkmaler . The significance of the New York statue lies in the fact that it is the best preserved and so the most representative example of the earliest ‘Apollo’ figures—or kouroi as we now preferably call them—of Greece. That is, it stands at the beginning of the long line of development which began about 600 B.C. and culminated about a century and a half later in the Apollo of Olympia. Its only important contemporaries are the famous colossal figures from Sounion, one extensively restored, the other a mere torso, and the Dipylon statue, of which only the head and one hand have survived. The preservation of the New York statue, on the other hand, is astonishingly good.