DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0276
224 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
own. In time, we say; for assuredly it was not at a bound,
but by slow stages, that the goldsmith's art attained to the
degree of perfection which we witness in the offerings of
the Royal Tombs, to say nothing of the Vaphio cups. We
have not yet the means to trace its course from the first
beginnings; but those beginnings, as we may reasonably
conjecture, are not to be sought at Mycenae and Thyns
alone, nor in a very recent past. Apart from its
influence on own perfection we have other proof of its high
sculpture .... , . . n .
antiquity in its obvious influence on sculpture.
Thus, on the stele which we have reproduced in Plate XI.
we see interlacing spirals filling the panel above as well
as the space about the main design; but this spiral motive
is in its nature foreign both to wood-carving and to sculp-
ture. If the generally received theory be a sound one, it is
borrowed from the goldsmith,1 who with the greatest ease
coils wire in various patterns and applies these at pleasure
to any surface he wishes to adorn. Thus the spiral would
be characteristic of a style formed in metal-work; and when
we find this motive on the stelae we naturally infer that it
had long ago been developed by the goldsmith, and become
so familiar as to be copied by the sculptor. And in fact,
on the gold and other offerings from the six acropolis
graves, there is no other motive we meet so often ; but we
always find it embossed upon the surface it adorns, never
1 Milchhofer, Anftinge der Kunst, 16 ff. But A. J. Evans (Primitive Picto-
grapks, 329 ff.) maintains that " the earliest gold-work as seen in the Akro-
polis Tomhs is the translation into metal of Aegean stone decoration." This
conclusion is based on the fact that among his Cretan seal-stones he finds "ex-
amples of the borrowing [from twelfth dynasty scarabs, c. 2500 b. c] of the
returning spiral motive." Elinders-Petrie (Egyptian Decorative Art, New
York, 1895) had already elaborated the same view, tracing the spiral motive
" from its simple forms on early scarabs to the most complicated networks
npon Egyptian ceilings," and maintaining that the fret patterns are "modifica-
tions of corresponding spirals due to the influence of weaving."
own. In time, we say; for assuredly it was not at a bound,
but by slow stages, that the goldsmith's art attained to the
degree of perfection which we witness in the offerings of
the Royal Tombs, to say nothing of the Vaphio cups. We
have not yet the means to trace its course from the first
beginnings; but those beginnings, as we may reasonably
conjecture, are not to be sought at Mycenae and Thyns
alone, nor in a very recent past. Apart from its
influence on own perfection we have other proof of its high
sculpture .... , . . n .
antiquity in its obvious influence on sculpture.
Thus, on the stele which we have reproduced in Plate XI.
we see interlacing spirals filling the panel above as well
as the space about the main design; but this spiral motive
is in its nature foreign both to wood-carving and to sculp-
ture. If the generally received theory be a sound one, it is
borrowed from the goldsmith,1 who with the greatest ease
coils wire in various patterns and applies these at pleasure
to any surface he wishes to adorn. Thus the spiral would
be characteristic of a style formed in metal-work; and when
we find this motive on the stelae we naturally infer that it
had long ago been developed by the goldsmith, and become
so familiar as to be copied by the sculptor. And in fact,
on the gold and other offerings from the six acropolis
graves, there is no other motive we meet so often ; but we
always find it embossed upon the surface it adorns, never
1 Milchhofer, Anftinge der Kunst, 16 ff. But A. J. Evans (Primitive Picto-
grapks, 329 ff.) maintains that " the earliest gold-work as seen in the Akro-
polis Tomhs is the translation into metal of Aegean stone decoration." This
conclusion is based on the fact that among his Cretan seal-stones he finds "ex-
amples of the borrowing [from twelfth dynasty scarabs, c. 2500 b. c] of the
returning spiral motive." Elinders-Petrie (Egyptian Decorative Art, New
York, 1895) had already elaborated the same view, tracing the spiral motive
" from its simple forms on early scarabs to the most complicated networks
npon Egyptian ceilings," and maintaining that the fret patterns are "modifica-
tions of corresponding spirals due to the influence of weaving."