ART 235the backward stretch of the arm and the curve of the back foot – is roughly circular.
The handle of the pail and the handle of the basin provide a link across the painting.
Furthermore, there is a predilection for rounded forms, in the bundle, in the pail, in
the various curves of the figure (particularly the buttocks), and in the curvaceous
basin. But the overall patterning is less marked and more difficult to describe than the
design of Exekias. What is immediately striking is the relaxed naturalism of this
arrested moment as the girl moves towards the basin. Although the head is in profile,
its incline, together with the corresponding alignment of the shoulder, the gentle
twisting of the torso and the slightly raised back leg together give the impression of
a moving figure at a pivotal moment. (The archaic convention that figures should be
strictly frontal or profile, or a combination of the two to represent the body in motion,
has been broken.) The beauty of this slightly androgynous figure stems from the
delicately executed artistry of the pose. On reflection, it can be seen that it would be
extremely difficult to attain this pose in actuality: the arm extended backwards
carrying a large pail would create great strain; in fact, the pail would naturally be held
much closer to the body. So while the stiffness of the archaic style has been softened
and its two-dimensional quality opened up, the new experimental style is only
partially naturalistic. Elements of stylization continue to exist in the hair and in the
lines of the drapery in the girl’s hand, and the artistry of the pose is more obvious in
its arrangement than will be the case in the later Classical style.
At the beginning of the classical period in the 470s, further innovations took place
as vase painters experimented with techniques initiated by one of the early masters
of classical picture painting, Polygnotus. None of his works survives but from
descriptions of them in later writers art historians have attributed to him a key role in
the revolution whereby painting becomes three-dimensional with limited use of
perspective to create the illusion of space. For the first time in the fifth century, vase
painters created scenes in which figures were not all placed on the same baseline.
The Niobid-painter (so called from the subject of the scene on the reverse side
of the vase in fig. 53 featuring the killing of the children of Niobe) has a group of
figures deliberately spaced at different levels, though since he has not recessed any
of them by making them smaller, they seem to be floating in space. This is especially
true of the figure to the right of the centre clasping his leg, who appears to be sitting
inmid-air with his lower foot rather awkwardly resting on the knee of the reclining
figure.
The subject of this side of the vase (fig. 53) is uncertain. It has sometimes been
thought to represent the Argonauts. The warriors are evidently in a relaxed mood.
Though the two shields and the circular decoration at the bottom left together make
a triangle, and the three sharp lines of the spears link figures and give overall form to
the composition, there is not the rigorously conceived geometric structure that had
been the basis from which Exekias perfected his art. The foreshortening of the two