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NOW for the first time the history of Greek vases proper begins. In the pottery of the geometric style are latent the forces, which we see afterwards expanding in contact with the East, as well as the oldest beginnings that we can trace of that brilliant continuous development, which led to the proud heights of Klitias, Euphronios, Meidias. Its producers may be unreservedly described as Greeks: Hellas has come into being. However primitive the civilization of this early Greece may have been, however patriarchal is the picture which Homer, the great genius of this period, gives us of this world, however much the works of art described by him point to Mycenean reminiscences and Phoenician importation, yet in the department of ceramics the art of this time was thoroughly original and highly developed, and it is from the vases that this early phase gets its name.

We should like to have a glimpse of the origin of the Geometric style, but its beginnings are shrouded in darkness. It cannot be regarded as simply a descendant of the pre-Mycenean Geometric pottery, which in outlying parts continued throughout the Bronze Age; for in its ‘varnish’ technique, its forms and decoration, it is totally different from those primitive vessels. As little is it a direct continuation of the Mycenean style, from which it took over the technique of painting. However much towards the end of its development the latter inclined to decoration in bands and the geometrizing of ornament, it was an outworn poor style that arose out of schematizing of living forms, in complete contrast with the clear concise Geometric style, which consistently unfolds and exhausts its individuality.