DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0651
M. M. Ill: SURVIVALS OF CERAMIC POLYCHROMY 605
Magazine described above, which must be reckoned among the most beautiful
products of M. M. Ill ceramic Art, are reproduced on a larger scale in
Fig. 443. These closely resemble some clumps of the same flower that Com-
appear in the foreground of a naturalistic wall-painting, representing the ^It^H.
closing phase of M. M. Ill, found in the little Palace of Hagia T-riada. Trlada
, . , . ' . . Fresco.
A lily group from this fresco design is given in black and white for
comparison in Fig. 444.1
Other plant motives which appear in dark on light and in the new
technique on the pottery of the beginning of the first Late Minoan Period
had already made their appearance in white on dark at the present epoch.
In this style, too, the saffron flower is a favourite motive. The exquisite
vetch designs of the L. M. I pottery of Knossos also occur on M. M. Ill Vetches
sherds from this site, but the best existing illustrations in the old style are Tulips,
supplied by the two jugs, Fig. 445, a, b, found by the British excavators
at Palaikastro. The jar, Fig. 440, from the Temple Repositories
set beside these shows a group of flowers, in bud or only partly opened,
apparently tulips, which still grow wild in the glens of Juktas. They
are executed in a rough effective style somewhat suggestive of Dutch
crockery.
On the pottery of this epoch from the same Repositories and other Reeds or
sources,-both in the case of cups and of larger vessels, tufts of grasses are very rasses
frequent and this motive is exceptionally prominent on the succeeding L. M. I a
class.2 These in their original shape rather represent reeds or sedges and
take us back to the exquisite spikelets seen on the fragment of what had
clearly been a wall-painting executed on a considerable scale (see above,
p. 537, Fig 390).
It must nevertheless be noticed in comparing naturalistic designs of Exclusion
of H urn 3.
the M. M. Ill vase painters with the larger compositions on the walls from and
which they were excerpted that we are met by a remarkable lacuna. The pj11™^
plant designs of the frescoes are in their essence simply accessories to the from
main subjects presented, which are human or animal figures. On the contrast
pottery, however, this essential feature is omitted, and only the vegetable
details are selected for reproduction. This is the more noteworthy since paintings,
on a group of small steatite vessels, chiefly rhytons, the fabric of which
1 The wall-painting to which this fragment 2 Remains of quantities of L. M. la vessels
belongs does not as yet appear to have re- with grass decoration were found for instance
ceived illustration. It represents, apparently, in the well of Gypsades above the M. M. Ill
a later subject of the same nature as the Saffron stratum.
Gatherer.
Magazine described above, which must be reckoned among the most beautiful
products of M. M. Ill ceramic Art, are reproduced on a larger scale in
Fig. 443. These closely resemble some clumps of the same flower that Com-
appear in the foreground of a naturalistic wall-painting, representing the ^It^H.
closing phase of M. M. Ill, found in the little Palace of Hagia T-riada. Trlada
, . , . ' . . Fresco.
A lily group from this fresco design is given in black and white for
comparison in Fig. 444.1
Other plant motives which appear in dark on light and in the new
technique on the pottery of the beginning of the first Late Minoan Period
had already made their appearance in white on dark at the present epoch.
In this style, too, the saffron flower is a favourite motive. The exquisite
vetch designs of the L. M. I pottery of Knossos also occur on M. M. Ill Vetches
sherds from this site, but the best existing illustrations in the old style are Tulips,
supplied by the two jugs, Fig. 445, a, b, found by the British excavators
at Palaikastro. The jar, Fig. 440, from the Temple Repositories
set beside these shows a group of flowers, in bud or only partly opened,
apparently tulips, which still grow wild in the glens of Juktas. They
are executed in a rough effective style somewhat suggestive of Dutch
crockery.
On the pottery of this epoch from the same Repositories and other Reeds or
sources,-both in the case of cups and of larger vessels, tufts of grasses are very rasses
frequent and this motive is exceptionally prominent on the succeeding L. M. I a
class.2 These in their original shape rather represent reeds or sedges and
take us back to the exquisite spikelets seen on the fragment of what had
clearly been a wall-painting executed on a considerable scale (see above,
p. 537, Fig 390).
It must nevertheless be noticed in comparing naturalistic designs of Exclusion
of H urn 3.
the M. M. Ill vase painters with the larger compositions on the walls from and
which they were excerpted that we are met by a remarkable lacuna. The pj11™^
plant designs of the frescoes are in their essence simply accessories to the from
main subjects presented, which are human or animal figures. On the contrast
pottery, however, this essential feature is omitted, and only the vegetable
details are selected for reproduction. This is the more noteworthy since paintings,
on a group of small steatite vessels, chiefly rhytons, the fabric of which
1 The wall-painting to which this fragment 2 Remains of quantities of L. M. la vessels
belongs does not as yet appear to have re- with grass decoration were found for instance
ceived illustration. It represents, apparently, in the well of Gypsades above the M. M. Ill
a later subject of the same nature as the Saffron stratum.
Gatherer.