Proto-Geometric artists
Mainly of the tenth century BCE, had subjected the free curvilinear patterns of the past to the authority of the compass. Rectilinear patterns-the meander, zig-zag, swastika-provided the main themes in Geometric art (ninth to eighth centuries) and beside them crept in simple figure subjects-a mourner on a grave vase, the prestigious symbol of a horse, pattern bands of animal bodies. After barely a generation of experiment with scenes of human figures, some in action, the Athenian Dipylon Master was able to offer on his vases the classic statement of Geometric art, panels of pattern which are resolved into figures of mourners and the dead in the ritual of laying out (pro-thesis) and burial. The scenes are not demonstrably other than of contemporary practice. The silhouette figures, composed of geometric patterns, can step beyond being symbols for man to some expression of his behaviour, by nuances of gesture or drawing, but something more was needed to translate this art into a medium for greater narrative expression. (Boardman, 1986)