After the time of Polygnotos the influence of painting makes itself felt, and we may recall that he perfected the advances of Kimon in this respect. Not only did the vase-painters learn from him how to dispose figures _en face_ or in three-quarter view, but they also learned how to mark different expressions. It has also been observed that the influence of tragedy must have been strong at this time. The krater from Orvieto in the Louvre (Vol. I. p. 442) is a good instance of the progress made in the fifth century in this direction. On one side of the vase (see Fig. 103, _ibid._) we have a dying Niobid and a youth with face to the front and eyes closing; on the other, in the Argonautic scene, a warrior holding his knees, with lower lip fallen, giving him a melancholy expression, and Herakles with a face of sadness, marked by wrinkles. Other figures show exactly in what direction they are looking (compare Kimon’s figures “looking down or upwards”).[2006] In the later developments of the Apulian vases, with their scenes drawn from tragic themes and represented in such dramatic fashion, there is plenty of ability to represent emotion, and in several cases it is accurately expressed, as in some of the scenes from the sack of Troy. But in other cases, as on the Assteas vase in Madrid (Fig. 107), much of the old quaintness and grotesqueness is apparent.
It is also necessary to treat of the methods adopted by the artist for indicating locality or landscape in his pictures, a thing which is often done in the briefest and most cursory manner. The germs of this principle are perhaps to be observed (as noted elsewhere, Vol. I. p. 312) in the floral ground-ornaments of the Corinthian and other early vases. In the more developed vase-paintings a sort of shorthand system is customary, a system which in some degree probably prevailed on the Greek stage, as on that of the Elizabethan drama. Thus a temple or a house is represented by a column, or two columns supporting a pediment, a wood or grove by a single tree, water by two dolphins swimming in the lower part of the design, and so on. A notable exception is in the palace depicted on the François vase, in which Thetis awaits the arrival of the bridegroom Peleus. So much of the building is given in detail that it is even possible to attempt a restoration.[2007] On the same vase the walls of Troy are depicted, with a double door studded with nails. In the Hydrophoria scenes (p. 173) considerable attention is paid to the architectural details of the well-house, which was probably in the form of a small temple, perhaps circular, surrounded by a colonnade. The water issues from spouts in the form of lions’ heads, and statues are often depicted in different parts of the building. The François vase also gives an illustration of a well-house, with portico supported by columns. The architecture is almost invariably Doric. In outdoor scenes rocks occasionally appear, but only where they are necessary to the subject, as in the ambuscade of Achilles for Troilos. The branches of trees which frequently cover all the vacant spaces of the design on later B.F. vases, especially in Dionysiac scenes, may be mainly intended for decorative effect.