1Ancient Greek art did not always boast a variety of colours. Of course, Mycenaean artefacts display polychromy: the wall paintings in the palaces of the rulers, such as a life-size richly clad female (fig. 1), are famous.1 Mycenaean sculptures too can be polychrome; a well known example is the stucco head from the 13^th century BC from the acropolis at Mycenae.2 Polychrome paintings are also found on gravestones3 as well as on terracotta vases; even on bronze weapons inlaid gold, silver and niello were used to create many-coloured images.4

2About 1000 BC a fundamental colour change took place: polychromy was abandoned in favour of a polarity of light and dark values that became the colour principle of Greek art for the following archaic Age. Since the Mycenaeans were Greeks, there is no way of explaining this event through the incursion of a new ethnic group, and it certainly was not an artistic impoverishment. I propose to look at this in connection with the simultaneous disappearance of figured scenes as well as of plant and spiral ornaments; as is well known, all these were richly represented in Mycenaean imagery.5 The lack of figured scenes in the 10^th and 9^th centuries (the few human or animal figures that have been found cannot change the overall picture) goes hand in hand with the new ornaments: compass-drawn circles, straight lines, and rectangular patterns (figs. 2-3).6 These motifs are not abstractly reduced images of Mycenaean ornaments but primary geometric forms, and A. Furtwängler aptly chose the term “Geometric” for the art of the three centuries after 1000 BC.7 The abandoning of polychromy, of figured scenes and of plant and spiral ornaments, marks a new artistic beginning, indicating a fundamental change in mentality. It is very clear that this new beginning owed nothing to foreign influence.

Fig. 1 — Mycenaean woman. Wall painting from the cult centre at Mycenae. Late 13^th century BC. Athens, Nat. Mus.

(Photo: Nat. Mus.)

Fig. 2 — Attic amphora from the Kerameikos. 10^th century BC. Athens, Kerameikos Mus.

Fig. 3 — Attic amphora from the Kerameikos. c. 850 BC. Athens, Kerameikos Mus.

Fig. 4 — Attic amphora from the Dipylon. Prothesis. c. 760-750 BC. H.c. 1.55m. Athens, Nat. Mus. 804.

3The polarity of light and dark is still found in the figured scenes (dark silhouettes on a light ground) that became frequent in the eighth century, mainly in Attic vase painting (fig. 4).8 It is significant that this polarity reflects the concept of colour in the Homeric poems.9 Philological research has indeed shown that some Homeric words did not denote colour until later. For instance, χλωρός is used of plants and trees, meaning “moist”; the sense of “green” developed only later, since living vegetation has this colour. In general, Homer mostly foregoes indicating colour in favour of stating how light or dark something is; for this he uses a great number of words. Those denoting the light value are related to brightness and can be translated as “brilliant”, “glittering”, “sparkling”, “flashing”, “dazzling” and so on; thus in the Homeric poems λευκός ( “white”) can be used of water or a bronze vessel. A leukaspis warrior (Il. 10.294) is one with a brilliant shield. The tripod cauldrons that are the most prestigious offerings in Geometric sanctuaries, reaching a height of over 4m in the 8^th century,10 can also be considered to be “white” in a Homeric sense; decorated with incised geometric ornaments, without the colour effect from inlay work that Mycenaean bronze daggers had,11 they would have shimmered in the sunshine as they stood in the open air in the sanctuary.

Fig. 5 — Attic amphora from Eleusis; on the neck Odysseus and his companions blinding Polyphemus. c. 670 BC. Eleusis Mus.

(After Tiverios 1996, p. 242, colour pl. 6.)

Fig. 6 — Attic krater from the Kerameikos. Sphinx. c. 640 BC. Athens, Kerameikos Mus. 801.

4The value “dark” is expressed with adjectives like μέλας ( “black, dark”), κυάνεος ( “blue, dark”) and so on. Dark is related to the night and the underworld, but the sea can also be called dark, as a menacing force, or alternatively bright and shining: as a rule, Homeric colour terms do not denote an unchangeable quality of the things to which they are applied. Without going into the various peculiarities of the Homeric concept of colour, it must be stressed that the poet was not “colour-blind”, as he has been called; rather, he saw in the world a polarity of light and dark. This concept of colour is connected to the way of thinking in pairs of contrasts that was established in the Homeric poems and remained valid in the Archaic age.12

5In vase paintings of the first half, and mainly the second quarter, of the 7^th century, a new feature consists of white applied over reserved areas of the figures, as in the scene showing Odysseus and his companions blinding Polyphemus (fig. 5);13 one of the Greeks is wholly white, while the others have white faces and Polyphemus a reserved one. About the middle of the century red was added as a third value, and Archaic polychromy was created; the artists discovered the impact of colourful images. An example is the sphinx (fig. 6),14 and it is telling that Beazley attributed this vase to the first painter in his “Earliest Black Figure”:15 the colour triad (light, dark, red)16 introduces the most characteristic Archaic technique in vase painting, the so-called black figure.17

6The new colour principle retained the polarity of the colour values. While, as a rule, we think of hues when we consider colour in painting, in this art there existed not hues but values. Thus to the value “light” may be assigned colours that look different to the modern viewer, such as white and beige on the sphinx (fig. 6). The value-based concept in Archaic art is not to be approached with assumptions based on hue.

7On Protocorinthian vase paintings, the triad of light, dark and red is accompanied by masterly incision that contributes to elaborate miniature images, for example on animal friezes (fig. 7).18 On early Attic black figure vases, the incision is more large-scale (fig. 6), and on Cycladic ones it is as a rule less consistent, as for instance on the well known Parian krater-amphora (fig. 8).19 Finally, in East Ionian vase paintings of the 7^th century there is no incision at all: see for example the Lévy Oinochoe of c. 640-630 BC.20 The different use of incision in the various regional schools reveals that they were not all interested to the same degree in precise articulation –this interest is most marked in the Corinthian vases of the second half of the 7^th century. But the colour triad is found in all pottery schools.

8A short article by H. Jantzen that appeared in 1913 marked the beginning of art historical research on the visual character of colour in painting.21 He distinguished the representational value of colour (Darstellungswert) from its intrinsic value (Eigenwert). It is indeed noteworthy that, with the emergence of Archaic polychromy in the mid-7^th century, colour acquired a representational value for the first time in Greek art of the first millennium. There is no need to go here into the distinctive traits of this value in Archaic art,22 but it must be stressed that its appearance is related to another significant innovation in these years: the connection of the surface of a figure with the substantial body of which it is a part. On the surface of a Protogeometric terracotta deer (fig. 9),23 nothing represents the hide; in this age, geometric patterns cover every available surface, whether the article is an animal, a chest24 or a vase (fig. 2). The surface of the deer statuette appears not to be, as it were, associated with the substantial body of which it is a part. The same applies to two Attic terracotta birds of the mid-8^th century:25 the painted patterns certainly do not represent feathers. The order underlying the nonrepresentational motifs on such figures may be called κόσμος, in the Homeric sense of the word.26 Obviously, the surface of the geometric figures is autonomous, so that even figured images may appear on late Geometric statuettes, for instance incised birds on the neck of a bronze horse.27

Fig. 7 — Protocorinthian oinochoe from the sanctuary of Apollo at Aegina. Animal friezes. c. 640-630 BC. Aegina Mus. 1754.

(Photo: E. Walter-Karydi.)

Fig. 9 — Attic terracotta deer from the Kerameikos. 10^th century BC. H. 26.6 cm. Athens, Kerameikos Mus. 641.

Fig. 8 — Parian krater-amphora. Apollo on a chariot drawn by winged horses, escorted by two females, is welcomed by his sister Artemis. c. 650-640 BC. Athens, Nat. Mus. 911.

Fig. 10 — Attic krater from Aegina (drawing). a. Orestes stabbing Aegisthus; b. Artemis, Apollo (?). c. 670 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung A 32.

9It is consistent with this quality of the Geometric figures’ surface that, in the dark silhouettes on vase paintings, male skin is not differentiated from female, since no skin as such is represented at all. Likewise, when late Geometric human figures have reserved faces, this occurs with both males and females,28 just as the added white of the first half of the 7^th century is not used for gender differentiation: male figures may be white (fig. 5). On fig. 10a Orestes, who is stabbing Aegisthus, is dark, while his victim is white, like Klytaimnestra who, appalled, turns away; on the other side of the vase (fig. 10b)29 a female with a bow, obviously Artemis, has a dark arm and a white face, while the male facing her, probably Apollo, is wholly white. It is evident that the added white had no representational value; it merely enhances the polarity of dark and light shortly before the vase painters begin to use red, creating the Archaic colour triad.

10The independant quality of the figures’ surface may explain the infrequent representation of clothing in Geometric images.30 For instance, in the prothesis scene shown in fig. 4 the gender of the figures around the corpse on the bier is indicated mainly through their gestures of ritual lament, the women with both arms raised to tear their hair, and the men raising only one arm in salutation of the dead. Accordingly, it is not only the long-gowned figures in this scene who are female, but also those performing the female gesture of lamentation –and they are certainly not to be thought of as nude. In this scene, only the two figures on the left, who raise one arm and have a dagger strapped on, are male. Surprising as it may be to a modern viewer, there is no intentional rendering of clothing or nudity in Geometric art.

11In the second quarter of the 7^th century, some pioneers among the vase painters throughout Greece attempted to distinguish male skin through colour. For instance, on the Argive krater (fig. 11) Polyphemus and the Greeks blinding him have reddish skin.31 On an Attic oinochoe of c. 670 BC from the sanctuary of Apollo at Aegina,32 Odysseus and his companions, who are leaving Polyphemus’ cave tied under his rams so that when the Cyclops feels blindly he will not find them, have reddish skin too, while the rams’ hide, rendered in its particular texture through parallel reddish brush strokes, is distinguished from the human skin: this is never the case in Geometric painting. In the Naxian scene shown in fig. 1233 there is a team of two galloping horses; the one in the foreground is black with a reddish head, and applied white and reddish alternate on the mane enhancing its lushness, while the second horse has a reddish body and mane and a white head. The horses overlap a second chariot, of which the black-clad driver has a reddish skin. Part of the vase painter’s signature is preserved, but not his name. On a contemporary Naxian krater-amphora,34 the male god standing on a chariot with winged horses likewise has reddish skin (while that of the female, labelled Aphrodite, is reserved) and the same is the case with Bellerophon on the plate fig. 13.35 This distinguishing of male skin by colour is also found on mid-7^th century vases from Megara Hyblaea in Sicily.36

Fig. 11 — Argive krater from Argos. Odysseus and his companions blinding Polyphemus. c. 670-660 BC. Argos Mus.

(Photo: EFA, Ph. Collet.)

Fig. 12 — Naxian krater from Naxos. Chariot race. c. 660 BC. Max. h. 14cm. Naxos Mus. 2154.

Fig. 13 — Cycladic plate from Thasos. Bellerophon flying on his winged horse Pegasos against the Chimaira. c. 660 BC. Thasos Mus. Π 2085.

12Some isolated experiments in Attic vase painting of the late second quarter of the century are noteworthy. An amphora from c. 660-650 BC from Kynosarges has scenes in black figure technique, but the male figures have white skin;37 on a contemporary krater there are birds displaying the colour triad but without incision.38 There is even a short-lived attempt at polychrome matt-painted white-ground on some vases of c. 660 BC from the Kerameikos.39 Such experiments bear witness to a creative restlessness in the Attic workshops shortly before black figure was established. In this style, male skin is as a rule dark, and female skin white, for instance in the vivid scene of Athena bringing her protégé Herakles to Olympus and introducing him to Zeus on a cup by the Phrynos Painter of c. 550-540 BC.40 Creating gender differentiation through colour polarity was an achievement of the Archaic age.

13Even after the mid-7^th century, reddish colour is (instead of black) used to depict male skin on non-Attic vases. For instance, on the Parian vase shown in fig. 8 Apollo has reddish skin, as have the men on the later Parian vases shown in figs. 14a and b41 (the women have white skin) and fig. 15.42 These warriors are Achaean heroes, since one of them is labelled M [e] nel [aos and another one probably Sthen [elos, and they are marching to battle together with those on the chariot behind them, fellow warriors (or gods?).43 The Parian painter of the Potnia, fig. 16,44 gifted though he was, has mistakenly given the goddess red feet (that is, a male skin colour), while on her face and arms the skin is reserved, and therefore female.

Fig. 14 — Parian krater-amphora “from Melos”; a. Herakles and his bride Deianeira taking leave of her parents; b. detail (neck): Hermes and a female. c. 600 BC. Colour reconstructions by K.D. Mylonas. Athens, Nat. Mus. 354.

(After K. D. Mylonas, “Πήλινος αμφορέας εκ Μήλου”, AEphem 1894, pp. 226-238, pll. 13-14.)

Fig. 15 — Parian dinos from the Apollo sanctuary at Despotiko. Achaean warriors marching to battle. Later 7^th century BC. Paros, Mus. 4083, 4084, 4085.

Fig. 16 — Krater-amphora, detail (neck). Potnia with a lion. Max h. 30 cm. c. 640-630 BC. Berlin, Antikensammlung F 301.

Fig. 17 — Thasian plate from Thasos. Rider. c. 640-630 BC. Thasos Mus. Π 2057.

Fig. 18 — Protocorinthian oinochoe from the sanctuary of Apollo at Aegina. Animal frieze; preparation of a bull’s sacrifice; warrior and Amazon (labelled) who stretches out her right hand begging for mercy while holding the bow in her left; head of a satyr; rest of the fight with the Hydra (part of the Hydra and a red shoe of Herakles or rather Iolaos). c. 640-630 BC. Aegina Mus. 1379 and new fragments without nos.

14On Thasian vases reddish male skin is as frequent as on the Parian vases, e.g. on the rider fig. 17.45 Finally, the East Dorian workshop uses a reddish colour for male skin too, as in the scene of Menelaus fighting Hector over the body of Euphorbus on the famous plate in the British Museum from Rhodes.46

15Reddish male skin is also found in a small group of Protocorinthian masterpieces of the third quarter of the 7^th century. In these black figure scenes, colour has an articulating function that is strikingly more effective than in any other Archaic vase paintings. Thus, on the celebrated Chigi olpe of c. 640-630 BC,47 incision and colour, even some yellow, articulate the closely knit marching warriors and their armour with a striking precision. In another proto-Corinthian masterpiece (fig. 18), even the horses’ feet are differentiated in colour, black and reddish, while the heron flying to the left has a reddish neck and head and black-figured wings; the male figures have reddish and the Amazon reserved skin.48

16Yellow, a light value, is frequent in the black-polychrome vases, as on an oinochoe that is decorated entirely with flawlessly incised tongues and compass-drawn incised scales in red, dark and yellow, as well as rosettes in applied white.49 The Protocorinthian vase painters’ ability to combine colour and incision brings about a stunning decorative effect.

17It is true that it is in vase painting, where so much is preserved, that we can best follow the emergence of polychromy, but a corresponding process must have taken place in free painting too. Only wall paintings of the years shortly after the mid-7^th century are known: a battle scene in the cella interior of the temple at Kalapodi50 and fragments in full polychromy from the temple of Poseidon at Isthmia, most probably the cella interior as well.51 These wall paintings are firm evidence for the beginning of monumental polychrome painting in the mid-7^th century.

18Turning to sculpture, we may establish that the so-called monumental sculpture in stone emerging in the mid-7^th century was from the very start polychrome: Nikandre, as the first example of such a female statue, proves the point.52 Thus, to the qualities distinguishing this sculpture –such as its coordinated proportions, stable stand and so on– we must add its colourful appearance. The emergence of polychromy in sculpture is linked to another significant innovation of these years, mentioned above:53 the surface of a figure is now connected to the substantial body of which it is a part. Accordingly, intelligible visual formulae for animal’s hides, bird’s feathers and so on appear, and these formulae are polychrome. On the earliest large-scale stone lion, a limestone sculpture at Olympia from c. 660 BC, the mane is rendered with incised scales, drawn with a compass and alternately painted red, blue, and a light colour (perhaps yellow).54

19Obviously, as with painting of the Archaic period (see above), colour acquires a representational value in sculpture. Therefore, it is not surprising that from now on clothing and nudity are clearly indicated, and there is no doubt as to whether a figure is nude or not. Two terracotta females in funeral lamentation may illustrate the point: on the Attic statuette of c. 700 BC,55 the late Geometric patterns in dark on light do not represent clothing. There is even a lamenting female painted on the independant surface of its front and rear, while the Cycladic statuette of c. 600 BC from Thera wears a belted black and red dress that is rendered unambiguously.56

20The colour triad dominates in Archaic sculpture: light (white or yellow), dark (black or blue), and red. Green is found occasionally, for instance on the narrow framing ornament of an Attic grave stele, from c. 530 BC,57 but it is used only for details, not on large surfaces.

21Archaic stone architecture is polychrome too, as is well known. Bronze decoration was applied on Geometric temples, which were constructed mainly of mudbrick and wood, with stone being used only for thresholds, beds for wall timbers and socles,58 as the brilliance of this material was highly appreciated in this age.59 If these temples also had paintings, they must have followed the Geometric colour principle of dark on light. The painted decoration of the well-known small votive models of this age60 is not, of course, identical to that of contemporary temples, but may suggest how their decoration could have looked.

22The evidence of the excavated buildings is meagre: in the Toumba building at Lefkandi, the walls above the stone socle were built of mud bricks of brown clay preserved in two, three or four courses; between courses a pale, sometimes almost white, mud mortar was visible.61 There were also alternate courses of brown and yellow bricks.62 Apparently this patterned brickwork was an intentional decoration, as the excavators realized; not being polychrome, since there is no red, it follows the colour principle of the Geometric period. It seems that the realization of the role polychromy may play in architecture goes hand in hand with the discovery of the potential uses of stone as a building material in the 7^th century.63 The temple of Apollo at Corinth of the first half, or more specifically the second quarter, of the century does not seem to have had polychrome decoration; its embellishment, focused on the roof, consisted in the tiles being arranged in stripes, “a pattern of dark stripes on the roof at regular intervals”.64 This pattern still follows the Geometric colour principle of temple decoration.

23It is true that it is not before the second quarter of the 6^th century that a complete colour reconstruction of a temple can be achieved.65 All mouldings, lion heads and other forms of water-spouts and so on were polychrome, the vertical elements such as the triglyphs, mutuli and guttae being blue, the horizontal elements red. The sculptures, whether in relief or in the round, were of course polychrome. While there is rich evidence for temple polychromy in the 6^th century, we know little about the 7^th. Nevertheless, the wall paintings of the temples at Kalapodi and Isthmia, mentioned above,66 suggest that already in the mid-7^th century the use of colour was introduced on the temple buildings themselves; Archaic stone architecture must have been polychrome from the very start.

24To sum up, polychromy emerged in the mid-7^th century and was found in all major art forms. Of course, each artistic genre followed its own rules; for example, as Beazley has pointed out, “Black-figure is a vase-technique”.67 It is in principle that the colour language of the Archaic age was strikingly uniform.68 This uniformity did not last; already in the early Classical art a differentiation set in, but that is beyond the scope of this paper.

25In the above discussion, the role that some scholars attribute to Egyptian art for Greek painting and the emergence of polychromy has not featured. Pliny twice mentions Egypt as the originator of painting (N.H. 7.205; 35.16), suggesting that from there the idea came to Greece, although he goes on to mention “inventors” in Greece.69 It is well known that the concept of a single individual inventing an art form or a technical device or similar (protos euretes) was deeply rooted in early Greece. In this paper, I have tried to trace Pliny’s Greek “inventors” not as the single personalities he mentions, but as a reflection of a genuinely Greek process revealed by the preserved works themselves: the transformation of the dark/light polarity, the colour principle in Geometric art, into the light/dark/red triad of Archaic art, was a panhellenic event of the mid-7^th century. For instance, it cannot be seriously considered that the Athenian Eumaros was the first to distinguish male and female through colour in painting, as Pliny (N.H. 35.56) declares, since it is possible to follow the attempts of the vase painters in the various regional workshops to do just that (see above).

26The steps the vase masters take towards polychromy show that its emergence was not an isolated “invention” of one artist. This evidence is significant, since these pot-bound images have an importance of their own; Archaic vase painting was not dependent on free painting, but a self-sufficient art. As such, it bears a strong affinity to free or large-scale painting, being, as E. Pfuhl put it, “ein wertvoller Teil der Gesamtmalerei des Archaismus”.70 Therefore it is redundant to ask whether polychromy was invented in free painting or vase painting.71 Besides, polychromy is not limited to painting, whether free/large-scale or pot-bound, but emerged in stone sculpture and presumably in stone architecture of the mid-7^th century as well.

27Moreover, the Greeks, as a seafaring and merchant people, had contact with Egypt long before the mid-7^th century, when “the opening up of Egypt to Greeks”72 took place. There is of course some Egyptian influence to be discerned in Greece, for instance in the fabrication of small objects, but this does not mean that a crucial new beginning such as the emergence of polychromy should be interpreted in this way. Egyptian polychrome painting, of which the influence Pliny joins with the achievement of Greek inventors in a slightly contradictory manner, played at best an incidental role in the genuinely Greek process of creating polychromy in art. It is worth recalling how, in c. 1000 BC, Mycenaean polychromy (of which Pliny knew nothing) was relinquished and a polarity of dark and light values created as the colour principle of Geometric art. A similar phenomenon, which likewise marked the beginning of a new age in art, was the emergence of polychromy in the mid-7^th century; in this case too, there is no need to postulate foreign influence.

28There is a further factor to consider. The Homeric poems have no term for “colour”, which is not surprising and χρώς means “skin”.73 The word χρώς as the term for colour begins to comes up as H. Fränkel pointed out, after Homer.74 It is significant that the word denoting “skin” becomes the one for “colour” in the same period that, as was remarked above, the surface of a figure is aligned to the substantial body of which it was a part. All this reveals a process in the Greek language that corresponds to the emergence of polychromy in the art of the 7^th century. There was clearly a change in the way the Greeks perceived what surrounded them, and the artists reacted in their own way as they explored the world of colour.

29Pliny’s statements, which have caused much controversy among scholars, do contain some truths amongst the contradictory information that he drew from his various sources, but they cannot be dealt with in the focus of this paper. I have instead tried to present the emergence of polychromy (in the form of the light/dark/red Archaic colour triad) as a mid-7^th century event taking place in all major art forms –painting, sculpture, architecture and vase painting– and finding a striking parallel in early Greek poetry.