DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.810#0124
LATE APPEARANCE OF HUMAN FORMS ON VASES 499
side, g, from Thebes,1 shows a coalescence with the ' ogival canopy' motive
that gives it the appearance of a plant with roots, and this feature is shared
by the two specimens from cups of Korakou (j, k).2 h, which illustrates
a variant type, is from Volo.:i Failing the catena of transitional forms,
given in Fig. 301, no one would have suspected that such designs as are
illustrated in the last-named examples were derived from an original design
depicting an inflorescent date-palm.
Decisive Influence of Fresco Designs of Walls on Vase-painting.
Whatever route we follow, we are thus led back to the decisive influence
exercised on the vase-painter's Art by fresco designs on the walls that were
in vogue in the preceding Age. Not only the rocky borders and back-
grounds derived from the rugged Cretan landscape, and the flowers and
vegetable forms—including the 'Sacral Ivy'—that supply such a brilliant
contrast, but even the jewellery of the figured compositions all find a place
in their decorative repertory. Only the human subjects themselves and, for Absence
1 . * ' ' . of human
that matter, animal forms in general, are wanting. The ban on these, indeed, and
was only altogether raised at the time of the entry on the scene of a new f"r™^on
ethnic element, which we have every reason to identify with the Achaean, v'ases
... J down to
at an epoch when the traditional culture both in Crete and Mainland L. M. III.
Greece—however much of the older elements it still retained—had ceased
to be in any true sense ' Minoan'.
This change in ceramic fashion was not by any means abrupt. Already
at an earlier date birds occasionally appear and a few exceptional figures of
Sphinxes, and we have evidence of religious scenes, on clay larnakes of late
L. M. Ill date, copied, no doubt, from the painted designs on sarcophagi,
like that of Hagia Triada. A descending God appears on a L. M. Ill lamax
from Milato and traces of a chariot scene, such as is frequently repeated in
the Cypriote groups, on another, from Knossos.4 But for compositions like
those of the ' Warrior Vase' and the agrimi hunt on the bowl from the
Artsa Grave in East Crete5 we have to wait till an epoch when the new
element was already beginning to exert its sway and the bowed form of
fibula had made its appearance.
1 Keramopoullos, 'A^X' dUJkr.j iii, p. 144, 4 In the Ashmolean Museum, from the
Fig. 106. Zafer Papoura Cemetery. The design is only
2 C. W. Blegen, Korakou. For j (here faintly traceable and was discovered in the
completed) see p. 65, Fig. 73, 2. For k, PI. process of cleaning in the Museum.
VII, 2. 5 Xanthudides, 'E<f>. 'Ap^., 1904, PI. iii, and
s P. Wolters, Ath. Mitth., xiv (1889), PI. pp. 33, 34.
IX, 1 and p. 264.
l! 2
side, g, from Thebes,1 shows a coalescence with the ' ogival canopy' motive
that gives it the appearance of a plant with roots, and this feature is shared
by the two specimens from cups of Korakou (j, k).2 h, which illustrates
a variant type, is from Volo.:i Failing the catena of transitional forms,
given in Fig. 301, no one would have suspected that such designs as are
illustrated in the last-named examples were derived from an original design
depicting an inflorescent date-palm.
Decisive Influence of Fresco Designs of Walls on Vase-painting.
Whatever route we follow, we are thus led back to the decisive influence
exercised on the vase-painter's Art by fresco designs on the walls that were
in vogue in the preceding Age. Not only the rocky borders and back-
grounds derived from the rugged Cretan landscape, and the flowers and
vegetable forms—including the 'Sacral Ivy'—that supply such a brilliant
contrast, but even the jewellery of the figured compositions all find a place
in their decorative repertory. Only the human subjects themselves and, for Absence
1 . * ' ' . of human
that matter, animal forms in general, are wanting. The ban on these, indeed, and
was only altogether raised at the time of the entry on the scene of a new f"r™^on
ethnic element, which we have every reason to identify with the Achaean, v'ases
... J down to
at an epoch when the traditional culture both in Crete and Mainland L. M. III.
Greece—however much of the older elements it still retained—had ceased
to be in any true sense ' Minoan'.
This change in ceramic fashion was not by any means abrupt. Already
at an earlier date birds occasionally appear and a few exceptional figures of
Sphinxes, and we have evidence of religious scenes, on clay larnakes of late
L. M. Ill date, copied, no doubt, from the painted designs on sarcophagi,
like that of Hagia Triada. A descending God appears on a L. M. Ill lamax
from Milato and traces of a chariot scene, such as is frequently repeated in
the Cypriote groups, on another, from Knossos.4 But for compositions like
those of the ' Warrior Vase' and the agrimi hunt on the bowl from the
Artsa Grave in East Crete5 we have to wait till an epoch when the new
element was already beginning to exert its sway and the bowed form of
fibula had made its appearance.
1 Keramopoullos, 'A^X' dUJkr.j iii, p. 144, 4 In the Ashmolean Museum, from the
Fig. 106. Zafer Papoura Cemetery. The design is only
2 C. W. Blegen, Korakou. For j (here faintly traceable and was discovered in the
completed) see p. 65, Fig. 73, 2. For k, PI. process of cleaning in the Museum.
VII, 2. 5 Xanthudides, 'E<f>. 'Ap^., 1904, PI. iii, and
s P. Wolters, Ath. Mitth., xiv (1889), PI. pp. 33, 34.
IX, 1 and p. 264.
l! 2