A History of Greek Art by F. B. Tarbell (free novel 24 .txt) 📕

If sculpture in stone appears to have been very little practiced in the Mycenaean age, the arts of the goldsmith, silversmith, gem-engraver, and ivory carver were in great requisition. The shaft-graves of Mycenae contained, besides other things, a rich treasure of gold objects—masks, drinking-cups, diadems, ear-rings, finger-rings, and so on, also several silver vases. One of the latter may be seen in Fig. 43. It is a large jar, about two and one half feet in height, decorated below with horizontal flutings and above with continuous spirals in repousse (i.e., hammered) work. Most of the gold objects must be passed over, interesting though many of them are. But we may pause a moment over a group of circular ornaments in thin gold-leaf about two and one half inches in diameter, of which 701 specimens were found, all in a single grave. The patterns on these discs were not executed with a free hand, but by means of a mold. There are fourteen patterns in all, some of them made up of spirals and serpentine curves, others derived from vegetable and animal forms. Two of the latter class are shown in Figs. 34, 35. One is a butterfly, the other a cuttle-fish, both of them skilfully conventionalized. It is interesting to note how the antennae of the butterfly and still more the arms of the cuttle-fish are made to end in the favorite spiral.

The sculptures and gold objects which have been thus far described or referred to were in all probability executed by native, or at any rate by resident, workmen, though some of the patterns clearly betray oriental influence. Other objects must have been, others may have been, actually imported from Egypt or the East. It is impossible to draw the line with certainty between native and imported. Thus the admirable silver head of a cow from one of the shaft-graves (Fig. 36) has been claimed as an Egyptian or a Phenician production, but the evidence adduced is not decisive.

Similarly with the fragment of a silver vase shown in Fig. 37.

This has a design in relief (repousse) representing the siege of a walled town or citadel. On the walls is a group of women making frantic gestures. The defenders, most of them naked, are armed with bows and arrows and slings. On the ground lie sling-stones and throwing-sticks,[Footnote: So explained by Mr A. J. Evans in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, XIII., page 199. ] which may be supposed to have been hurled by the enemy. In the background there are four nondescript trees, perhaps intended for olive trees.

Another variety of Mycenaean metal-work is of a much higher order of merit than the dramatic but rude relief on this silver vase. I refer to a number of inlaid dagger-blades, which were found in two of the shaft-graves. Fig. 38 reproduces one side of the finest of these. It is about nine inches long. The blade is of bronze, while the rivets by which the handle was attached are of gold. The design was inlaid in a separate thin slip of bronze, which was then inserted into a sinking on the blade. The materials used are various. The lions and the naked parts of the men are of gold, the shields and trunks of the men of electrum (a mixture of gold and silver), the hair of the men, the manes of the lions, and some other details of an unidentified dark substance; the background, to the edges of the inserted slip, was covered with a black enamel. The scene is a lion-hunt. Four men, one armed only with a bow, the others with lances and huge shields of two different forms, are attacking a lion. A fifth hunter has fallen and lies under the lion’s fore-paws. The beast has already been run through with a lance, the point of which is seen protruding from his haunch; but he still shows fight, while his two companions dash away at full speed. The design is skilfully composed to fill the triangular space, and the attitudes of men and beasts are varied, expressive, and fairly truthful. Another of these dagger-blades has a representation of panthers hunting ducks by the banks of a river in which what may be lotus plants are growing, The lotus would point toward Egypt as the ultimate source of the design.

Moreover, a dagger of similar technique has been found in Egypt in the tomb of a queen belonging to the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty. On the other hand, the dress and the shields of the men engaged in the lion-hunt are identical with those on a number of other “Mycenaean” articles—gems, statuettes, etc.—which it is difficult to regard as all of foreign importation. The probability, then, seems to be that while the technique of the dagger-blades was directly or indirectly derived from Egypt, the specimens found at Mycenae were of local manufacture.

The greatest triumph of the goldsmith’s art in the “Mycenaean”

period does not come from Mycenae. The two gold cups shown in Fig.

39 were found in 1888 in a beehive tomb at Vaphio in Laconia.

Each cup is double; that is to say, there is an outer cup, which has been hammered into shape from a single disc of gold and which is therefore without a joint, and an inner cup, similarly made, whose upper edge is bent over the outer cup so as to hold the two together. The horizontal parts of the handles are attached by rivets, while the intervening vertical cylinders are soldered. The designs in repousse work are evidently pendants to one another.

The first represents a hunt of wild bulls. One bull, whose appearance indicates the highest pitch of fury, has dashed a would-be captor to earth and is now tossing another on his horns.

A second bull, entangled in a stout net, writhes and bellows in the vain effort to escape. A third gallops at full speed from the scene of his comrade’s captivity. The other design shows us four tame bulls. The first submits with evident impatience to his master. The next two stand quietly, with an almost comical effect of good nature and contentment. The fourth advances slowly, browsing. In each composition the ground is indicated, not only beneath the men and animals, but above them, wherever the design affords room. It is an example of the same naive perspective which seems to have been employed in the Tirynthian bull-fresco (Fig.

30). The men, too, are of the same build here as there, and the bulls have similarly curving horns. There are several trees on the cups, two of which are clearly characterized as palms, while the others resemble those in Fig. 37, and may be intended for olives.

The bulls are rendered with amazing spirit and understanding.

True, there are palpable defects, if one examines closely. For example, the position of the bull in the net is quite impossible.

But in general the attitudes and expressions are as lifelike as they are varied. Evidently we have here the work of an artist who drew his inspiration directly from nature.

Engraved gems were in great demand in the Mycenaean period, being worn as ornamental beads, and the work of the gem-engraver, like that of the goldsmith, exhibits excellent qualities. The usual material was some variety of ornamental stone—agate, jasper, rock-crystal, etc. There are two principal shapes, the one lenticular, the other elongated or glandular (Figs. 40, 41). The designs are engraved in intaglio, but, our illustrations being made, as is usual, from plaster impressions, they appear as cameos. Among the subjects the lion plays an important part, sometimes represented singly, sometimes in pairs, sometimes devouring a bull or stag. Cattle, goats, deer, and fantastic creatures (sphinxes, griffins, etc.) are also common. So are human figures, often engaged in war or the chase. In the best of these gems the work is executed with great care, and the designs, though often inaccurate, are nevertheless vigorous. Very commonly, however, the distortion of the figure is carried beyond all bounds. Fig. 40 was selected for illustration, not because it is a particularly favorable specimen of its class, but because it offers an interesting analogy to the relief above the Lion Gate.

It represents two lions rampant, their fore-paws resting on an altar (?), their heads, oddly enough, combined into one. The column which figures in the relief above the gate is absent from the gem, but is found on another specimen from Mycenae, where the animals, however, are winged griffins. Fig. 41 has only a standing man, of the wasp-waisted figure and wearing the girdle with which other representations have now made us familiar.

It remains to glance at the most important early varieties of Greek pottery. We need not stop here to study the rude, unpainted, mostly hand-made vases from the earliest strata at Troy and Tiryns, nor the more developed, yet still primitive, ware of the island of Thera. But the Mycenaean pottery is of too great importance to be passed over. This was the characteristic ware of the Mycenaean civilization. The probability is that it was manufactured at several different places, of which Mycenae may have been one and perhaps the most important. It was an article of export and thus found its way even into Egypt, where specimens have been discovered in tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty and later.

The variations in form and ornamentation are considerable, as is natural with an article whose production was carried on at different centers and during a period of centuries. Fig. 42 shows a few of the characteristic shapes and decorations; some additional pieces may be seen in Fig. 43. The Mycenaean vases are mostly wheel-made. The decoration, in the great majority of examples, is applied in a lustrous color, generally red, shading to brown or black. The favorite elements of design are bands and spirals and a variety of animal and vegetable forms, chiefly marine. Thus the vase at the bottom of Fig. 42, on the left, has a conventionalized nautilus; the one at the top, on the right, shows a pair of lily-like plants; and the jug in the middle of Fig. 43

is covered with the stalks and leaves of what is perhaps meant for seaweed. Quadrupeds and men belong to the latest period of the style, the vase-painters of the early and central Mycenaean periods having abstained, for some reason or other, from those subjects which formed the stock in trade of the gem-engravers.

The Mycenaean pottery was gradually superseded by pottery of an essentially different style, called Geometric, from the character of its painted decorations. It is impossible to say when this style made its first appearance in Greece, but it seems to have flourished for some hundreds of years and to have lasted till as late as the end of the eighth century B. C. It falls into several local varieties, of which the most important is the Athenian. This is commonly called Dipylon pottery, from the fact that the cemetery near the Dipylon, the chief gate of ancient Athens, has supplied the greatest number of specimens. Some of these Dipylon vases are of great size and served as funeral monuments. Fig. 44

gives a good example of this class. It is four feet high. Both the shape and the decoration are very different from those of the Mycenaean style. The surface is almost completely covered by a system of ornament in which zigzags, meanders, and groups of concentric circles play an important part.