from his most famous vase depicting Achilles and Briseis, to whom are also attributed
a number of white ground funeral vases called lekythoi (oil flasks).
The lekythos illustrated (fig. 63) depicts a girl playing a lyre. The Greek word at
the bottom right, Helicon, the seat of the Muses, indicates that she herself might be
one of the nine. The musical motif is continued in the presence of the bird at the girl’s
feet. The composition and drawing are extremely simple; the ground and the seat are
indicated by single lines, the curves of which are parallel to the curving lines of the
main figure upon which all the attention is concentrated. More detail on the seat or
the ground would have detracted from this concentration. The Achilles-painter has
anticipated the virtue of artistic tact upon which, according to Pliny, the master
Apelles prided himself when he said that ‘he knew when to take his hand away from
a picture’ (Natural History, 35, 80).
The Muse is gazing into the middle distance and the very slight curve to her lips
might indicate pleasure. She may easily be imagined to be serenely contemplating
the beautiful sound of the music she is making, for this is the mood that the painter
has successfully imparted to the painting.
Its simple harmony may seem to defy analysis, but on reflection, much of its
satisfying sense of completeness stems from the beautiful sense of proportion in the
broad outlines of the design, imparting to the whole a pleasing unity. The sweeping
curves of the back, the thighs and the legs make a sequence in which the three major
elements are perfectly proportioned. Into the central sweep of the main curve from
neck to knee fits the smaller and sharper curve of the lyre. The main curve is counter-
balanced both by the vertical line of the drapery (tapering into a corresponding curve),
which is directly below the head and neck (thus reinforcing the painting’s gravitational
centre), and by the arm and a series of straight lines including the fingers and the
strings and frame of the lyre, all bisecting the curves at an angle of roughly 45 degrees.
This series itself is crossed almost at right angles by the white band and top string of
the lyre. If the line of the headband, the line of the arm from the elbow to the forefinger
and the line of the legs were to be continued leftwards, they would all meet at the
edge of the vase, so that they may be said to form a series of radial lines on the main
semicircular curve. Of course, the beauty of the painting does not simply arise from
the design with its approximation to geometric patterns – such patterning could
equally result in stiffness and artificiality – but their presence underlying the apparent
naturalism of the surface must contribute to the beauty of its proportions and perhaps
suggest that at its best Greek art, even in its maturity, never entirely lost contact with
its geometrical origins.
The final masterly touch in the overall design may be seen in the positioning of
the bird. Its body forms a parallel line with the arm and the straight lines bisecting the
main curve of the girl’s body. Together with the headband it is almost an edging frame
to the whole structure, while the ground line on which it is situated continues and
254 THE GREEKS