DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0272
220 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
polychrome pictures, instinct with life and reality, such
as we see on the dagger-blades. Such is the passion for
this kind of decoration that even stone vessels are varie-
gated by inlaying stone of different shades. The walls of
dwellings are dressed with coats of lustrous white plaster,
and then painted in fresco with figure subjects in vivid and
varied colors as well as with merely decorative designs.
Finally glass, or rather an opaque glass paste, is known and
used in moulding an endless variety of trinkets, which are
either left plain or plated with delicate gold leaf.
Of these manifold arts as known and practiced by the
Mycenaeans we cannot here treat at length, nor shall we
attempt to trace each, step by step, in the course of its evo-
lution. Rather we shall confine ourselves to such study of
the subject as may promise to throw most light on the
beginnings of Mycenaean culture and on the problem of
the race who were its authors and bearers.
The stelae of the grave-circle at Mycenae must be
either contemporaneous with, or later than, the graves they
marked; and yet if*we compare them with the
relatively offerings from those graves we at once observe,
in most eases, a marked difference. They stand
apart, and wide apart, in both design and execution. In the
lion-hunt on the dagger-blade, for example, there is real
vitality and vigor; the composition is bold and free, and
the rendering — especially of the animals — is true to
nature. The artist's meaning is too clearly expressed to
leave a moment's doubt whether he is making lions or dogs.
On other objects of gold embossed with animal figures the
relief (as on the stelae) is still very low ; yet the forms are
not only rounded off naturally, but within the outline there
are details of anatomical moulding. But on the stelae, we
repeat, the forms look as if projected on a board by cutting
polychrome pictures, instinct with life and reality, such
as we see on the dagger-blades. Such is the passion for
this kind of decoration that even stone vessels are varie-
gated by inlaying stone of different shades. The walls of
dwellings are dressed with coats of lustrous white plaster,
and then painted in fresco with figure subjects in vivid and
varied colors as well as with merely decorative designs.
Finally glass, or rather an opaque glass paste, is known and
used in moulding an endless variety of trinkets, which are
either left plain or plated with delicate gold leaf.
Of these manifold arts as known and practiced by the
Mycenaeans we cannot here treat at length, nor shall we
attempt to trace each, step by step, in the course of its evo-
lution. Rather we shall confine ourselves to such study of
the subject as may promise to throw most light on the
beginnings of Mycenaean culture and on the problem of
the race who were its authors and bearers.
The stelae of the grave-circle at Mycenae must be
either contemporaneous with, or later than, the graves they
marked; and yet if*we compare them with the
relatively offerings from those graves we at once observe,
in most eases, a marked difference. They stand
apart, and wide apart, in both design and execution. In the
lion-hunt on the dagger-blade, for example, there is real
vitality and vigor; the composition is bold and free, and
the rendering — especially of the animals — is true to
nature. The artist's meaning is too clearly expressed to
leave a moment's doubt whether he is making lions or dogs.
On other objects of gold embossed with animal figures the
relief (as on the stelae) is still very low ; yet the forms are
not only rounded off naturally, but within the outline there
are details of anatomical moulding. But on the stelae, we
repeat, the forms look as if projected on a board by cutting