DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7476#0074
58
MONUMENTAL RELIEFS IN CRETE AND MAINLAND
■—Oriental in their ultimate source—were just such as the goldsmith
sculptors of the stelae executed with greater success on their engraved rings.
A good example of such a type is seen on a gold signet ring (Fig. 43) from
the Fourth Shaft Grave.
The funereal application of chariot-scenes is itself traditional in Crete,
as may be seen from the chariots on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, and
survives to a still later date in an
imperfectly preserved scene on a
larnax from the Zafer Papoura
cemetery, presented to the Ash-
molean Museum.
The evidence of the influence
of the M.M. Ill pictorial style
with rockwork borders on the
most advanced of the stelae—
that reproduced in Fig. 42—itself
Fig. 43. Gold Signet-ring from Shaft Grave rr i i i 1 i i
IV with Stag-hunt. affords a valuable clue to its date.
It may be said to represent the
transitional M.M. III-L. M. I phase, and not improbably belongs to the
same epoch as the last dated vessel of Tomb V, in which it was found—
an amphora in the L. M. I a style.1
It looks, therefore, as if the latest of the stelae was executed about the
middle of the sixteenth century B. c.
It has become almost an axiom that the art of monumental sculpture
in relief in stone—as contrasted with the hard stucco of which the Minoan
craftsmen knew the secret—was a 'Mainland Art', and was due to native
' Helladic' influence. The assertion in any case must be greatly modified,
since, from the beginning of M. M. Ill onwards, the finest decorative reliefs
were executed in native limestone at Knossos. In the case of figured
subjects, moreover, when we recall not only such masterpieces in the round
as the lioness's head rhyton, and, on a smaller scale, the Fitzwilliam statuette,
but the admirable reliefs on ' rhytons' and other vessels, it might seem
advisable to pause before drawing sweeping conclusions like the above.
It is probable that the artists trained in Minoan schools, who
worked on the Mainland side, for one reason or another, had found it less
easy to obtain a supply of the plaster to which they had been used in Crete.
They did not, indeed, give up its use, but seem to have applied it more as
a covering to works executed in the local stone. The Lions' Gate relief,
1 Furtwangler und Loeschcke, Myk. Thongefasse, PI. VII, 42.
MONUMENTAL RELIEFS IN CRETE AND MAINLAND
■—Oriental in their ultimate source—were just such as the goldsmith
sculptors of the stelae executed with greater success on their engraved rings.
A good example of such a type is seen on a gold signet ring (Fig. 43) from
the Fourth Shaft Grave.
The funereal application of chariot-scenes is itself traditional in Crete,
as may be seen from the chariots on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, and
survives to a still later date in an
imperfectly preserved scene on a
larnax from the Zafer Papoura
cemetery, presented to the Ash-
molean Museum.
The evidence of the influence
of the M.M. Ill pictorial style
with rockwork borders on the
most advanced of the stelae—
that reproduced in Fig. 42—itself
Fig. 43. Gold Signet-ring from Shaft Grave rr i i i 1 i i
IV with Stag-hunt. affords a valuable clue to its date.
It may be said to represent the
transitional M.M. III-L. M. I phase, and not improbably belongs to the
same epoch as the last dated vessel of Tomb V, in which it was found—
an amphora in the L. M. I a style.1
It looks, therefore, as if the latest of the stelae was executed about the
middle of the sixteenth century B. c.
It has become almost an axiom that the art of monumental sculpture
in relief in stone—as contrasted with the hard stucco of which the Minoan
craftsmen knew the secret—was a 'Mainland Art', and was due to native
' Helladic' influence. The assertion in any case must be greatly modified,
since, from the beginning of M. M. Ill onwards, the finest decorative reliefs
were executed in native limestone at Knossos. In the case of figured
subjects, moreover, when we recall not only such masterpieces in the round
as the lioness's head rhyton, and, on a smaller scale, the Fitzwilliam statuette,
but the admirable reliefs on ' rhytons' and other vessels, it might seem
advisable to pause before drawing sweeping conclusions like the above.
It is probable that the artists trained in Minoan schools, who
worked on the Mainland side, for one reason or another, had found it less
easy to obtain a supply of the plaster to which they had been used in Crete.
They did not, indeed, give up its use, but seem to have applied it more as
a covering to works executed in the local stone. The Lions' Gate relief,
1 Furtwangler und Loeschcke, Myk. Thongefasse, PI. VII, 42.