implicity and largeness of style.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Hydria by Meidias in the style of Polygnotus.]

In _the fine_ style (460-440 B.C.) breadth of effect and dignity are
aimed at, and although cup-painting had passed its zenith, and signed
specimens become rarer, yet, considering the red-figured vases as a
whole, this period exhibits the perfection of technique and drawing. In
many of the larger vases the scenes are of a pictorial character,
landscape being introduced, with figures ranged at different levels, and
herein we may see a reflection of the style of the painter Polygnotus.
One of the finest cups in this style is in the Berlin Museum, it is
signed by the artists Erginus and Aristophanes, and the subject is the
battle of the gods and giants. To the end of the period belongs a
beautiful _hydria_ in the British Museum by the painter Meidias with
subjects from Greek legend in two friezes (fig. 29). Generally speaking,
there is a reaction in favour of mythological subjects.

In the _late fine_ style, which begins about 440 B.C., the pictorial
effect is preserved, but with perfected skill in drawing the
compositions deteriorate greatly in merit, and become at once
over-refined and careless. The figures are crowded together without
meaning or interest. The fashion also arose of enhancing the designs by
means of accessory colours--almost unknown in the previous stages--such
as white laid on in masses, blue and green, and even with gilding.
Athletic and mythological subjects yield place to scenes from the life
of women and children or meaningless groups of figures (fig. 30).

A good example of this style is an _amphora_ from Rhodes with the
subject of Peleus wooing Thetis, in which polychrome colouring and
gilding are introduced. There are also many imposing and elaborate
specimens found (and perhaps made) in the colonies of the Crimea and the
Cyrenaica; in particular one signed by Xenophantus with the Persian king
hunting, and another representing the contest of Athena and Poseidon for
the soil of Attica, both from the Crimea.

Contemporary with the red-figure method is one in which the figures are
painted on a white slip or _engobe_ resembling pipe-clay, with which the
whole surface was covered; the figures are drawn in outline in red or
black, and partly filled in with washes of colour, chiefly red, purplish
red, or brown, but sometimes also with blue or green. This style seems
to have been popular about t