Whenever artists, indeed, turned to actual representations or molded three-dimensional figures, which were rare down to 800 B.C., they tended to reflect reality (see Plate 6a, 9b); a schematic, abstract treatment of men and animals, by intent, rose only in the late eighth century.

To speak of this underlying view of the world is to embark upon matters of subjective judgment. At the least, however, one may conclude that Geometric potters sensed a logical order; their principles of composition stand very close to those which appear in the Homeric epics and the hexameter line. Their world, again, was a still simple, traditional age which was only slowly beginning to appreciate the complexity of life. And perhaps an observer of the vases will not go too far in deducing that the outlook of their makers and users was basically stable and secure. The storms of the past had died away, and the great upheaval which was to mark the following century had not yet begun to disturb men's minds.

Throughout the work of the later ninth century a calm, severe serenity displays itself. In the vases this spirit may perhaps at times bore or repel one in its internal self-satisfaction, but the best of the Geometric pins have rightly been considered among the most beautiful ever made in the Greek world. The ninth century was in its artistic work ``the spiritually freest and most self-sufficient between past and future,'' and the loving skill spent by its artists upon their products is a testimonial to their sense that what they were doing was important and was appreciated.