DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0112
86
THE PALACE STYLE
work varied from the sculpturesque high relief of the
Bull's Head,1 and the low modelling of the King with the
Peacock Plumes,5 to the more usual flat-surfaced frescoes.3
These were either life-sized, like the Cupbearer, or miniature,
like the scenes from the Palace sports. The two kinds of
fresco seem to have been freely used side by side on
the same wall, and were framed in decorative designs of
wonderful variety, in which lozenge and zig-zag and fish-
scale and tooth and dentil ornament played their part
along with triglyphs and rosettes and every kind of
spiral. Even the decoration of the most characteristic
vases of this period shows the influence of the architectural
spirit, their rosettes and conventional flowers being
imitated from the fresco borders and stone friezes of the
Palace. Naturalism, where it survives in pottery,4
borrows its flowers and birds and fishes from the scenes
depicted in the frescoes themselves, just as the more
conventional style borrows from their decorative frame-
work. On all vases alike the last traces of polychromy
or of a monochrome light design on a dark ground have
disappeared. We have now what used to be called the
" best Mycemean " style of dark on light; the design
being of a lustrous glaze varying from red-brown to black
according to the success with which it hides what is
beneath it ; while the ground is a buff clay slip polished
by hand on the terracotta body of the vase.5
Of the conventional style there is a splendid example
from the Royal Villa, nearly 4 feet high, with the
triple sprays and buds of a papyrus plant;c while in
a vase from the second interment in the Isopata tomb,
the imitation masonry and triglyphs of the miniature
1 See p. 19. 2 Sec ibid.
3 T. Fyfe in J.B.A. x. 1902, pp. 107-31, Plates I. and II.
figs. 1 to 81.
* B.S.A. ix. fig. 72, p. 117, vii. p. 51 ; see also J.H.S. xxiii.
fig. 11, p. 195. 5 Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxiii. p. 194.
« B.S.A. ix. fig. 88, p. 139.
THE PALACE STYLE
work varied from the sculpturesque high relief of the
Bull's Head,1 and the low modelling of the King with the
Peacock Plumes,5 to the more usual flat-surfaced frescoes.3
These were either life-sized, like the Cupbearer, or miniature,
like the scenes from the Palace sports. The two kinds of
fresco seem to have been freely used side by side on
the same wall, and were framed in decorative designs of
wonderful variety, in which lozenge and zig-zag and fish-
scale and tooth and dentil ornament played their part
along with triglyphs and rosettes and every kind of
spiral. Even the decoration of the most characteristic
vases of this period shows the influence of the architectural
spirit, their rosettes and conventional flowers being
imitated from the fresco borders and stone friezes of the
Palace. Naturalism, where it survives in pottery,4
borrows its flowers and birds and fishes from the scenes
depicted in the frescoes themselves, just as the more
conventional style borrows from their decorative frame-
work. On all vases alike the last traces of polychromy
or of a monochrome light design on a dark ground have
disappeared. We have now what used to be called the
" best Mycemean " style of dark on light; the design
being of a lustrous glaze varying from red-brown to black
according to the success with which it hides what is
beneath it ; while the ground is a buff clay slip polished
by hand on the terracotta body of the vase.5
Of the conventional style there is a splendid example
from the Royal Villa, nearly 4 feet high, with the
triple sprays and buds of a papyrus plant;c while in
a vase from the second interment in the Isopata tomb,
the imitation masonry and triglyphs of the miniature
1 See p. 19. 2 Sec ibid.
3 T. Fyfe in J.B.A. x. 1902, pp. 107-31, Plates I. and II.
figs. 1 to 81.
* B.S.A. ix. fig. 72, p. 117, vii. p. 51 ; see also J.H.S. xxiii.
fig. 11, p. 195. 5 Mackenzie in J.H.S. xxiii. p. 194.
« B.S.A. ix. fig. 88, p. 139.