vases
which are of great value to scholars who study the history of the past.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.--NIOBE. _From a picture on a slab of granite at
Pompeii._]

[Illustration: FIG. 15.--THE DODWELL VASE. _At Munich._]

The Dodwell vase shows you the more simple style of decoration which was
used in the earlier times. Gradually the designs came to be more and more
elaborate, until whole stories were as distinctly told by the pictures on
vases as if they had been written out in books. The next cut, which is
made from a vase-painting, will show what I mean.

The subject of Fig. 16 is connected with the service of the dead, and
shows a scene in the under world, such as accorded with ancient religious
notions. In the upper portion the friends of the deceased are grouped
around a little temple. Scholars trace the manufacture of these vases back
to very ancient days, and down to its decline, about two centuries before
Christ. I do not mean that vase-painting ceased then, for its latest
traces come down to 65 B.C.; but like all other ancient arts, it was then
in a state of decadence. Though vase-painting was one of the lesser
arts, its importance can scarcely be overestimated, and it fully merits
the devoted study and admiration which it receives from those who are
learned in its history.

[Illustration: FIG. 16.--SCENE IN THE LOWER WORLD. _From a vase of the
style of Lower Italy._]

From what we know of ancient Greek painting we may believe that this art
first reached perfection in Greece. If we could see the best works of
Apelles, who reached the highest excellence of any Greek painter, we might
find some lack of the truest science of the art when judged by more modern
standards; but the Greeks must still be credited with having been the
first to create a true art of painting. After the decline of Greek art
fifteen centuries elapsed before painting was again raised to the rank
which the Greeks had given it, and if, according to our ideas, the later
Italian painting is in any sense superior to the Greek, we must at least
admit that the study of the works of antiquity which still remained in
Italy, excited the great masters of the Renaissance to the splendid
achievements which they attained.

CHAPTER II.

MEDIAEVAL PAINTING, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE
RENAISSANCE.

The Middle Ages extend from the latter part of the fifth century to the
time of the Renaissance, or about the fifteenth cent