DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1118#0530
Greater
conven-
8So EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE ON LATER ART AT KNOSSOS
ficant exception of the zone marked by the original South Corridor that
went out of use at the time of the 'Great Rebuilding'. In the area
indeed, occupied by the ' Throne Room' system the internal arrangement
was wholly revolutionized, as will be shown, in the last days of the Palace
As compared with the great artistic traditions, such as characterized
tionaiism the preceding Palace stage that resulted from the 'Great Rebuiklino-'
tivestyk" the new work takes a severely regulated shape. Lost is the free spirit that
had given birth to the finely modelled forms of the athletes in the East
Hall groups and to the charging bull of the North Portico. Vanished is the
power of individual characterization and of instantaneous portraiture that
we recognize in the lively Miniature groups of the Court Ladies.1
Departed, too, is the strong sympathy with wild Nature, still visible in
the flowering plants with their rock setting as seen in the ' House of the
Frescoes'. Some survival of this spirit may still indeed be traced in the
gem-engravers' Art, and as the examples of ' Palace Style' of Vase painting
sufficiently show, these were the days of supreme decorative effort.
Proces- a sacral and conventional style now prevails—the upgrowth of which
sional . .
scheme we already trace in the earlier phase of L. M. I—clue to the continued
reaction of influences from New Empire Egypt.
derived
from
EgJ'P'- Grandiose conceptions, however, also came from that side, as is best
ism with sn'owu by the wholesale adoption, in the initial stage of the New Palace, of
scenes of tue processional scheme. In one form or another this decorative method,
mries showing files of persons of both sexes, goes back even beyond the early
Keftui. Dynasties,and it is well represented in the Middle Kingdom tombs,as at Beni-
Hasan. In the L. M. I b Palace the direct relationship of the ' Procession
Fresco' with the scenes depicted on the walls of the Theban tombs com-
memorating the Viziers of Queen Hatshepsut and Thothmes III cannot be
doubted. There, too, as we have seen, the men of Keftiu, with the same flowing
locks and the same attire—including at times the 'Libyan Sheath ' of Minoan
Crete—once more come into view, in this case offering tributary gifts to
Pharaoh's officers, in the same manner as on the Palace walls they carry
the sacred vessels of the Goddess. The earliest of these tombs—that of
L It is here assumed that the Miniature forms preserved in the reconstructed Palace
Frescoes—a fragment of which occurred in a of the close of M. M. III/;. In vol. i oi this
pure M. M. Ill b element underlying the work, published in ign, these frescoes, the
foundations of the new facade on the Central ' rococo' element in which is stressed, were
Court carried out according to the plan of the referred to L. M. I. Their advanced char-
'Great Rebuilding' (see P. of M., ii, Pt. II, acter none can deny, but the stratigrai*10
p. 803 and notes 1 and 2)—may have found evidence as to the M. M. Ill b date of those
their continuation among the other traditional actually preserved to us is conclusive.
conven-
8So EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE ON LATER ART AT KNOSSOS
ficant exception of the zone marked by the original South Corridor that
went out of use at the time of the 'Great Rebuilding'. In the area
indeed, occupied by the ' Throne Room' system the internal arrangement
was wholly revolutionized, as will be shown, in the last days of the Palace
As compared with the great artistic traditions, such as characterized
tionaiism the preceding Palace stage that resulted from the 'Great Rebuiklino-'
tivestyk" the new work takes a severely regulated shape. Lost is the free spirit that
had given birth to the finely modelled forms of the athletes in the East
Hall groups and to the charging bull of the North Portico. Vanished is the
power of individual characterization and of instantaneous portraiture that
we recognize in the lively Miniature groups of the Court Ladies.1
Departed, too, is the strong sympathy with wild Nature, still visible in
the flowering plants with their rock setting as seen in the ' House of the
Frescoes'. Some survival of this spirit may still indeed be traced in the
gem-engravers' Art, and as the examples of ' Palace Style' of Vase painting
sufficiently show, these were the days of supreme decorative effort.
Proces- a sacral and conventional style now prevails—the upgrowth of which
sional . .
scheme we already trace in the earlier phase of L. M. I—clue to the continued
reaction of influences from New Empire Egypt.
derived
from
EgJ'P'- Grandiose conceptions, however, also came from that side, as is best
ism with sn'owu by the wholesale adoption, in the initial stage of the New Palace, of
scenes of tue processional scheme. In one form or another this decorative method,
mries showing files of persons of both sexes, goes back even beyond the early
Keftui. Dynasties,and it is well represented in the Middle Kingdom tombs,as at Beni-
Hasan. In the L. M. I b Palace the direct relationship of the ' Procession
Fresco' with the scenes depicted on the walls of the Theban tombs com-
memorating the Viziers of Queen Hatshepsut and Thothmes III cannot be
doubted. There, too, as we have seen, the men of Keftiu, with the same flowing
locks and the same attire—including at times the 'Libyan Sheath ' of Minoan
Crete—once more come into view, in this case offering tributary gifts to
Pharaoh's officers, in the same manner as on the Palace walls they carry
the sacred vessels of the Goddess. The earliest of these tombs—that of
L It is here assumed that the Miniature forms preserved in the reconstructed Palace
Frescoes—a fragment of which occurred in a of the close of M. M. III/;. In vol. i oi this
pure M. M. Ill b element underlying the work, published in ign, these frescoes, the
foundations of the new facade on the Central ' rococo' element in which is stressed, were
Court carried out according to the plan of the referred to L. M. I. Their advanced char-
'Great Rebuilding' (see P. of M., ii, Pt. II, acter none can deny, but the stratigrai*10
p. 803 and notes 1 and 2)—may have found evidence as to the M. M. Ill b date of those
their continuation among the other traditional actually preserved to us is conclusive.