When painted vases first began to be discovered in Southern Italy, the subjects were supposed to relate universally to the Eleusinian or Dionysiac mysteries, and this school of interpretation for a long time found favour in some quarters, even in the days of Gerhard and De Witte. But it was obvious from the first that such interpretations did not carry the investigator very far, and even in the eighteenth century other systems arose, such as that of Italynski, who regarded the subjects as of historical import.[27] Subsequently Panofka endeavoured to trace a connection between the subjects and the names of artists or other persons recorded on the vases, or, again, between the subjects and shapes. The latter idea, of course, contained a measure of truth, as is seen in many instances[28]; but it was, of course, impossible to follow out either this or the other hypothesis in any detail.
The foundations of the more scientific and rational school of interpretation were laid as early as the days of Winckelmann, and he was followed by Lanzi, Visconti, and Millingen, and finally Otto Jahn, who, as we have seen, practically revolutionised the study of ceramography. Of late, however, the question of the interpretation of subjects has been somewhat relegated to the background, owing to the overwhelming interest evoked by the finds of early fabrics or by the efforts of German and other scholars to distinguish the various schools of painting in the finest period.
Millingen, in the Introduction to his _Vases Grecs_, drew up a classification of the subjects on vases which need not be detailed here, but which, with some modifications, may be regarded as holding good to the present day. He distinguishes ten classes, the first three mythological, the next four dealing with daily life, and the three last with purely decorative ornamentation. A somewhat similar order is adopted by Müller in his _Handbuch_, by Gerhard in his _Auserlesene Vasenbilder_, and by Jahn in his Introduction to the Munich Catalogue (p. cc ff.). In the present and following chapters the arrangement and classification of the subjects adhere in the main to the system laid down by these writers; and as the order is not, of course, chronological in regard to style, reference has been made where necessary to differences of epoch and fabric.[29] It may be convenient to recapitulate briefly the main headings under which the subjects are grouped.
