PREDICTION BY EDMOND POTTIER

IN 1906 RELATIVE TO GREEK

SYMMETRY

Decorative drop cap initial 'I' at the start of the paragraph.I WILL add that the proportions of the vases, the relations of dimensions between the different parts of the vessel, seem among the Greeks to have been the object of minute and delicate researches. We know of cups from the same factory, which, while similar in appearance, are none the less different in slight, but appreciable, variations of structure (cf., for example, Furtwängler and Reichhold, "Griechische Vasenmalerei," p. 250). One might perhaps find in them, if one made a profound study of the subject, a system of measurement analogous to that of statuary. We have, in fact, seen that at its origin the vase is not to be separated from the figurine (p. 78); down to the classical period it retains points of similarity with the structure of the human body (Salle H). As M. Froehner has well shown in an ingenious article (Revue des Deux Mondes 1873, c. CIV, p. 223), we ourselves speak of the foot, the neck, the body, the lip of a vase, assimilating the pottery to the human figure. What, then, would be more natural than to submit it to a sort of plastic canon, which, while modified in the course of time, would be based on simple and logical rules? I have remarked ("Monuments Piot, IX," p. 138) that the maker of the vase of Cleomenes observed a rule illustrated by many pieces of pottery of this class, when he made the height of the object exactly equal to its width. M. Reichhold (l. c. p. 181) also notes that in an amphora attributed to Euthymides the circumference of the body is exactly double the height of the vase. I believe that a careful examination of the subject would lead to interesting observations on what might be called the "geometry of Greek ceramics." E. POTTIER, Musée National du Louvre, "Vases antiques III," p. 659.