DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.808#0073
'THE RING OF NESTOR,' ETC. 71
Translation of Design into Miniature Fresco.
There is no gloom about the picture; the human figures are not mere
shadows or half-skeletons, but real flesh and blood and moved by very human
emotions. Surprise, joy, affection and encouragement are alternately
suggested, and we see the advancing pair caught, as it were, with the spirit of
the dance, as if unseen music filled the background. The Goddess and her
handmaidens and the ministering griffin-ladies show the same vivacity of
gesture language, with truly dramatic touches in the action displayed. All
alike wear fashionable raiment, reflecting indeed the latest modes, and the
imagination is left free to fill in the bright colouring. We have here an abode
rather of light than of darkness, and, as has already been remarked,
the shady canopy above the lion's head presupposes light and warmth.84
Virgil's words indeed might also apply to the denizens of this Minoan
After-world:
Largior hie campos aether et lumine vestit.
Purpureo, solemque suum sua sidera norunt.
The highly picturesque character of the design and its skilful composition
leads to the conclusion that in this, as in other cases, the Minoan engraver
had taken over his subject—much epitomised, no doubt, even in this elaborate
example—from an original of the Greater Art.85 We are led back indeed to
some masterpiece in fresco painting of the kind that once adorned the Palace
at Knossos, giving a still completer view of the abode of the Blessed—itself
perhaps an illustration of a yet earlier poetic version, much as the celebrated
painting of Odysseus in Hades by Polygnotos reflects in the main the Homeric
Nekyia.m Of that painting, indeed, as it existed in the Lesche at Delphi we
have the very detailed description by Pausanias,87 and separate episodes
are preserved in later adaptations,88 but the artistic records do not reproduce
the subject in any connected shape. In the design on the ' Ring of Nestor,'
on the other hand, we obtain at least a partial insight into the actual com-
84 Aen. vi. 640 seqq. Classical Antiquities, Vol. I. (1851), p. 103
85 See P. of M., i. p. 685 seqq. seqq., and Plate. The groups there are
86 Though occasionally other epic sources, very sporadic. Prof. Robert's better-known
such as the Nostoi and Minyas, were used. arrangement in Die Nekyia des Polygnot
See I\ Dummler, Die Quellen zu Polygnots (1892), where the zone system is given up,
Nekyia {Ehein. Mus., N.F. 45 (1890), still conveys a very disconnected impres-
pp. 178-202); and C. Robert, Die Nekyia sion. As to the zone hypothesis, it may
des Polygnot, p. 74 seqq. (Sechszehntes be observed that there is good evidence
Hailisehes Winckelmannsprogramm, 1892). of arrangement in at least two horizonta
87 Lib. x. c. 28. zones in the case of Minoan frescoes.
88 Cf. Frazer, Pausanias, Vol. V.,pp. 376, Since there are also indications, as at the
377 : Prof. Robert, op. ctt., p. 53, con- North Entrance of the Palace at Knossos.
siders that vase painters freely adapted that these almost imperishable painted
certain groups. The division into three stucco works were visible on walls at the
zones was generally adopted by the earlier time of Hellenic occupation, it does not
restorers of Polygnotos' picture from seem safe to reject the possibility of a
Count Caylus onwards, based on Pausanias' suggestion from these much more ancient
description. It thus appears in Watkiss models. The art history of early Renais-
Lloyd's adaptation of the restoration by sance Italy had its parallel in Classical
Riepenhausen, published in the Mus. of Greece.
Translation of Design into Miniature Fresco.
There is no gloom about the picture; the human figures are not mere
shadows or half-skeletons, but real flesh and blood and moved by very human
emotions. Surprise, joy, affection and encouragement are alternately
suggested, and we see the advancing pair caught, as it were, with the spirit of
the dance, as if unseen music filled the background. The Goddess and her
handmaidens and the ministering griffin-ladies show the same vivacity of
gesture language, with truly dramatic touches in the action displayed. All
alike wear fashionable raiment, reflecting indeed the latest modes, and the
imagination is left free to fill in the bright colouring. We have here an abode
rather of light than of darkness, and, as has already been remarked,
the shady canopy above the lion's head presupposes light and warmth.84
Virgil's words indeed might also apply to the denizens of this Minoan
After-world:
Largior hie campos aether et lumine vestit.
Purpureo, solemque suum sua sidera norunt.
The highly picturesque character of the design and its skilful composition
leads to the conclusion that in this, as in other cases, the Minoan engraver
had taken over his subject—much epitomised, no doubt, even in this elaborate
example—from an original of the Greater Art.85 We are led back indeed to
some masterpiece in fresco painting of the kind that once adorned the Palace
at Knossos, giving a still completer view of the abode of the Blessed—itself
perhaps an illustration of a yet earlier poetic version, much as the celebrated
painting of Odysseus in Hades by Polygnotos reflects in the main the Homeric
Nekyia.m Of that painting, indeed, as it existed in the Lesche at Delphi we
have the very detailed description by Pausanias,87 and separate episodes
are preserved in later adaptations,88 but the artistic records do not reproduce
the subject in any connected shape. In the design on the ' Ring of Nestor,'
on the other hand, we obtain at least a partial insight into the actual com-
84 Aen. vi. 640 seqq. Classical Antiquities, Vol. I. (1851), p. 103
85 See P. of M., i. p. 685 seqq. seqq., and Plate. The groups there are
86 Though occasionally other epic sources, very sporadic. Prof. Robert's better-known
such as the Nostoi and Minyas, were used. arrangement in Die Nekyia des Polygnot
See I\ Dummler, Die Quellen zu Polygnots (1892), where the zone system is given up,
Nekyia {Ehein. Mus., N.F. 45 (1890), still conveys a very disconnected impres-
pp. 178-202); and C. Robert, Die Nekyia sion. As to the zone hypothesis, it may
des Polygnot, p. 74 seqq. (Sechszehntes be observed that there is good evidence
Hailisehes Winckelmannsprogramm, 1892). of arrangement in at least two horizonta
87 Lib. x. c. 28. zones in the case of Minoan frescoes.
88 Cf. Frazer, Pausanias, Vol. V.,pp. 376, Since there are also indications, as at the
377 : Prof. Robert, op. ctt., p. 53, con- North Entrance of the Palace at Knossos.
siders that vase painters freely adapted that these almost imperishable painted
certain groups. The division into three stucco works were visible on walls at the
zones was generally adopted by the earlier time of Hellenic occupation, it does not
restorers of Polygnotos' picture from seem safe to reject the possibility of a
Count Caylus onwards, based on Pausanias' suggestion from these much more ancient
description. It thus appears in Watkiss models. The art history of early Renais-
Lloyd's adaptation of the restoration by sance Italy had its parallel in Classical
Riepenhausen, published in the Mus. of Greece.