DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0036
PREHISTORIC PERIODS 15
The bronze of the bull and the acrobat, unique in our
knowledge of Minoan bronzework, is a small masterpiece of
ingenuity. Its casting must have been extremely difficult.
Its preservation is not complete enough to show what sort
of pedestal it had, but the forelegs of the bull have a pro-
tuberant boss of bronze. Yet we cannot guess how it stood
or upon what kind of basis.
Here, too, there is a surprising lack of final finish. Nothing
at all seems to have been done to it after the casting.
2. CYCLADES
i. Hard Stones. The diminished force of artistic invention
seen in the products of the Cycladic islands makes the study
of the technical methods employed there a matter of less
difficulty. Where artists are less artistically inventive they
tend to be more conventional in the technical methods they
employ. For a long period there were produced in the islands
small idols in hard white marble which differed as little in
style as they did in the methods of their manufacture. Here
and there a sculptor was tempted to some unusual feat of
artistry, but tended rather to exhibit his originality by means
of size than by any lapse into naturalism or experiment in
complexity.
Cycladic artists invented a simple and convenient form
of idol which, for some reason which we do not know, had
an immense vogue over a wide area. Even the more sophisti-
cated Cretans imported Cycladic idols in large numbers1
while at the same time producing in other branches of art
1 Palace of Minos, i. 115 and n. 1. These imported idols were apparently
considered as objects of value since in almost all cases they show traces of
having been mended. Six were found in graves at Koumasa (see Xanthou-
dides, Vaulted Tombs of Mesara, trans. P. Droop, 1924, p. 21). Although
only three of these are of island marble it is unlikely that the other three were
made in Crete. One comes from Platanos (ibid., p. 121) and another from
Pyrgos {Arch. Delt. 4.163), one large and eight small from Haghios Onuphrios
(Xanthoudides, p. 21), four from Tylissos and a head from Trypete near
Candia (ibid.), and some others the provenance of which is not known.
The bronze of the bull and the acrobat, unique in our
knowledge of Minoan bronzework, is a small masterpiece of
ingenuity. Its casting must have been extremely difficult.
Its preservation is not complete enough to show what sort
of pedestal it had, but the forelegs of the bull have a pro-
tuberant boss of bronze. Yet we cannot guess how it stood
or upon what kind of basis.
Here, too, there is a surprising lack of final finish. Nothing
at all seems to have been done to it after the casting.
2. CYCLADES
i. Hard Stones. The diminished force of artistic invention
seen in the products of the Cycladic islands makes the study
of the technical methods employed there a matter of less
difficulty. Where artists are less artistically inventive they
tend to be more conventional in the technical methods they
employ. For a long period there were produced in the islands
small idols in hard white marble which differed as little in
style as they did in the methods of their manufacture. Here
and there a sculptor was tempted to some unusual feat of
artistry, but tended rather to exhibit his originality by means
of size than by any lapse into naturalism or experiment in
complexity.
Cycladic artists invented a simple and convenient form
of idol which, for some reason which we do not know, had
an immense vogue over a wide area. Even the more sophisti-
cated Cretans imported Cycladic idols in large numbers1
while at the same time producing in other branches of art
1 Palace of Minos, i. 115 and n. 1. These imported idols were apparently
considered as objects of value since in almost all cases they show traces of
having been mended. Six were found in graves at Koumasa (see Xanthou-
dides, Vaulted Tombs of Mesara, trans. P. Droop, 1924, p. 21). Although
only three of these are of island marble it is unlikely that the other three were
made in Crete. One comes from Platanos (ibid., p. 121) and another from
Pyrgos {Arch. Delt. 4.163), one large and eight small from Haghios Onuphrios
(Xanthoudides, p. 21), four from Tylissos and a head from Trypete near
Candia (ibid.), and some others the provenance of which is not known.