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As the human form is rendered without any feeling for bodily shape, so all the representations are without any spatial sense. Chariot floors and table surfaces are not fore-shortened, the breast of the dead man lying on the bier

PLATE XI.

Fig. 20. UPPER HALF OF A DIPYLON GRAVE-VASE.

Fig. 21. ‘THE RAPE OF HELEN,’ ON A BOWL FROM THEBES.

is represented in front view, the covering of the corpse is visible in its complete extent, as if it hung down upon it; in the case of pairs of horses the off horse is simply moved forward and represented smaller; masses of men are rendered by files of similar figures; figures to be thought of as in the background, e.g. the hinder rows in the Helen bowl (Fig. ssss1) are placed high up. The space, which contains the figures, is an ideal tectonic space, the surface of the vase to be adorned. Where the figures do not suffice to fill this space, the Geometric artist regards it as a gap in the decoration of the vase and fills the void with dots, rows of zig-zags, hooked crosses, rosettes with a central point, and actually paints birds or fishes between the legs of horses or between the chariot and the bier which rests upon it (Fig. ssss1).