DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.67683#0125
MINOAN PERIOD
79
palmette;4 the ground is effectively broken by a band of double
rosettes and finished by a border of single rosettes.
PAINTING
The frescoes with which the walls of these palaces were deco-
rated furnish the chief source of our knowledge of Minoan paint-
ing. The young girl in Pl. 2.6 a has dark curly hair loosely ar-
ranged, one lock falling over the forehead; bright red lips and a
large eye, incorrectly drawn front view; and a dress looped up in
the back with a bunch of bright ribbons. The execution is hasty;
yet in spite of this the head and face are full of animation and
have a piquancy which has earned for her the title of “La Pa-
risienne."
In the Cupbearer (Pl. 17 b) we see a Cretan youth holding a
gold-mounted silver vase. This fresco was the first picture of a
Cretan man to be discovered, and the event caused much excite-
ment, as Sir Arthur Evans tells us:
There was something very impressive in this vision of brilliant youth and of
male beauty, recalled after so long an interval to our upper air from what had been
till yesterday a forgotten world. Even our untutored Cretan workmen felt the
spell and fascination. They, indeed, regarded the discovery of such a painting in
the bosom of the earth as nothing less than miraculous, and said, “Is it the icon
of a Saint! ’’ The removal of the fresco required a delicate and laborious process of
underplastering, which necessitated it being watched at night, and old Manolis,
one of the most trustworthy of our gang, was told off for the purpose. Somehow
or other he fell asleep, but the wrathful Saint appeared to him in a dream. Waking
with a start, he was conscious of a mysterious presence; the animals round began
to low and neigh, and “there were visions about”; “the whole place spooks,”
he said, in summing up his experiences next morning.
The youth has long hair, wears an elaborately embroidered
loin cloth with a silver-mounted girdle about the waist, silver
ornaments on his arms and neck, and on his wrist an agate signet
with which to seal his letters. The limbs are well modeled; his
pinched waist is characteristic of both the men and women of
Crete. The reason for this we do not know. It is evidently a
convention in the representation of Cretan people, for a painting
in an Egyptian tomb at Thebes so pictures them. It may have
originated in the attempt to express a lithe, athletic figure. This
youth was one of a procession of cupbearers, the effect of which
must have been highly decorative, as their figures moved rhyth-
mically along against the flat, brightly colored ground in which
a vivid, clear blue predominated. Although, as in Egyptian
4 For the entire ceiling see Tarbell, History of Greek Art, Fig. 28.
79
palmette;4 the ground is effectively broken by a band of double
rosettes and finished by a border of single rosettes.
PAINTING
The frescoes with which the walls of these palaces were deco-
rated furnish the chief source of our knowledge of Minoan paint-
ing. The young girl in Pl. 2.6 a has dark curly hair loosely ar-
ranged, one lock falling over the forehead; bright red lips and a
large eye, incorrectly drawn front view; and a dress looped up in
the back with a bunch of bright ribbons. The execution is hasty;
yet in spite of this the head and face are full of animation and
have a piquancy which has earned for her the title of “La Pa-
risienne."
In the Cupbearer (Pl. 17 b) we see a Cretan youth holding a
gold-mounted silver vase. This fresco was the first picture of a
Cretan man to be discovered, and the event caused much excite-
ment, as Sir Arthur Evans tells us:
There was something very impressive in this vision of brilliant youth and of
male beauty, recalled after so long an interval to our upper air from what had been
till yesterday a forgotten world. Even our untutored Cretan workmen felt the
spell and fascination. They, indeed, regarded the discovery of such a painting in
the bosom of the earth as nothing less than miraculous, and said, “Is it the icon
of a Saint! ’’ The removal of the fresco required a delicate and laborious process of
underplastering, which necessitated it being watched at night, and old Manolis,
one of the most trustworthy of our gang, was told off for the purpose. Somehow
or other he fell asleep, but the wrathful Saint appeared to him in a dream. Waking
with a start, he was conscious of a mysterious presence; the animals round began
to low and neigh, and “there were visions about”; “the whole place spooks,”
he said, in summing up his experiences next morning.
The youth has long hair, wears an elaborately embroidered
loin cloth with a silver-mounted girdle about the waist, silver
ornaments on his arms and neck, and on his wrist an agate signet
with which to seal his letters. The limbs are well modeled; his
pinched waist is characteristic of both the men and women of
Crete. The reason for this we do not know. It is evidently a
convention in the representation of Cretan people, for a painting
in an Egyptian tomb at Thebes so pictures them. It may have
originated in the attempt to express a lithe, athletic figure. This
youth was one of a procession of cupbearers, the effect of which
must have been highly decorative, as their figures moved rhyth-
mically along against the flat, brightly colored ground in which
a vivid, clear blue predominated. Although, as in Egyptian
4 For the entire ceiling see Tarbell, History of Greek Art, Fig. 28.