DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1066#0127
MINOAN. ART
with objects from a shrine of the Dove Goddess.
This relic shows great delicacy and refinement of
taste, not surpassed in Hellenistic days. The same
nicety is discernible in seal-stones, whereon purely
ornamental motives, first evolved under Egyptian
influence, reached a high degree of elaboration.
A new era in art was dawning when this ten-
dency to elaboration in seal-engraving gave way
to pictorial work, in which the subjects of the
earliest pictograms are sometimes repeated, but
with a fidelity to nature and an artistic perfection
only acquired by long training of eye and hand.
The best examples we have of these pictorial
seals are of a very simple character, such as the
exquisitely cut design of a bull in a stall, on a gem
found with the silver cup from Gournia. This
simplicity is also conspicuous on the best gems
of the First.Late Minoan period; two exquisite
dragon-flies on a green onyx from Gournia town
show an admirable restraint in expression and a
skill in composition, comparable with that of the
Greek coins of the fourth century B.C. " The
Gournia artist," as Mrs. Williams says, " was ever
quick to grasp the decorative possibilities of the
most minute details of animal and vegetable life.
In this instance he has contrasted one of the
ordinary species of dragon-flies with one having
round wings, very suggestive of the Nemoptera
Coa, which is still an inhabitant of the iEgean
islands."
The new spirit of freedom in art found its
fullest embodiment in painting and in inlaying,
which is a form of painting in metal. There are
a few fragments of fresco work of the Earlier
j*3
with objects from a shrine of the Dove Goddess.
This relic shows great delicacy and refinement of
taste, not surpassed in Hellenistic days. The same
nicety is discernible in seal-stones, whereon purely
ornamental motives, first evolved under Egyptian
influence, reached a high degree of elaboration.
A new era in art was dawning when this ten-
dency to elaboration in seal-engraving gave way
to pictorial work, in which the subjects of the
earliest pictograms are sometimes repeated, but
with a fidelity to nature and an artistic perfection
only acquired by long training of eye and hand.
The best examples we have of these pictorial
seals are of a very simple character, such as the
exquisitely cut design of a bull in a stall, on a gem
found with the silver cup from Gournia. This
simplicity is also conspicuous on the best gems
of the First.Late Minoan period; two exquisite
dragon-flies on a green onyx from Gournia town
show an admirable restraint in expression and a
skill in composition, comparable with that of the
Greek coins of the fourth century B.C. " The
Gournia artist," as Mrs. Williams says, " was ever
quick to grasp the decorative possibilities of the
most minute details of animal and vegetable life.
In this instance he has contrasted one of the
ordinary species of dragon-flies with one having
round wings, very suggestive of the Nemoptera
Coa, which is still an inhabitant of the iEgean
islands."
The new spirit of freedom in art found its
fullest embodiment in painting and in inlaying,
which is a form of painting in metal. There are
a few fragments of fresco work of the Earlier
j*3