Books: A History Of Greek Art
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F. B. Tarbell >> A History Of Greek Art
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At Mycenae also, both in the principal palace which corresponds to
that of Tiryns and in a smaller house, remains of wall-frescoes
have been found. These, like those of Tiryns, consisted partly of
merely ornamental patterns, partly of genuine pictures, with human
and animal figures. But nothing has there come to light at once so
well preserved and so spirited as the bull-fresco from Tiryns.
Painting in the Mycenaean period seems to have been nearly, if not
entirely, confined to the decoration of house-walls and of
pottery. Similarly sculpture had no existence as a great,
independent art. There is no trace of any statue in the round of
life-size or anything approaching that. This agrees with the
impression we get from the Homeric poems, where, with possibly one
exception, [Footnote: Iliad VI, 273, 303.] there is no allusion to
any sculptured image. There are, to be sure, primitive statuettes,
one class of which, very rude and early, in fact pre-Mycenaean in
character, is illustrated by Fig. 31. Images of this sort have
been found principally on the islands of the Greek Archipelago.
They are made of marble or limestone, and represent a naked female
figure standing stiffly erect, with arms crossed in front below
the breasts. The head, is of extraordinary rudeness, the face of a
horse-shoe shape, often with no feature except a long triangular
nose. What religious ideas were associated with these barbarous
little images by their possessors we can hardly guess. We shall
see that when a truly Greek art came into being, figures of
goddesses and women were decorously clothed.
Excavations on Mycenaean sites have yielded quantities of small
figures, chiefly of painted terra-cotta (cf. Fig. 43), but also of
bronze or lead. Of sculpture on a larger scale we possess nothing
except the gravestones found at Mycenae and the relief which has
given a name, albeit an inaccurate one, to the Lion Gate. The
gravestones are probably the earlier. They were found within a
circular enclosure just inside the Lion Gate, above a group of six
graves--the so-called pit-graves or shaft-graves of Mycenae. The
best preserved of these gravestones is shown in Fig. 32. The
field, bordered by a double fillet, is divided horizontally into
two parts. The upper part is filled with an ingeniously contrived
system of running spirals. Below is a battle-scene: a man in a
chariot is driving at full speed, and in front there is a naked
foot soldier (enemy?), with a sword in his uplifted left hand.
Spirals, apparently meaningless, fill in the vacant spaces. The
technique is very simple. The figures having been outlined, the
background has been cut away to a shallow depth; within the
outlines there is no modeling, the surfaces being left flat. It is
needless to dwell on the shortcomings of this work, but it is
worth while to remind the reader that the gravestone commemorates
one who must have been an important personage, probably a
chieftain, and that the best available talent would have been
secured for the purpose.
The famous relief above the Lion Gate of Mycenae (Figs. 25, 33),
though probably of somewhat later date than the sculptured
gravestones, is still generally believed to go well back into the
second millennium before Christ. It represents two lionesses (not
lions) facing one another in heraldic fashion, their fore-paws
resting on what is probably to be called an altar or pair, of
altars; between them is a column, which tapers downward (cf. the
columns of the "Treasury of Atreus," page 53), surmounted by what
seems to be a suggestion of an entablature. The heads of the
lionesses, originally made of separate pieces and attached, have
been lost. Otherwise the work is in good preservation, in spite of
its uninterrupted exposure for more than three thousand years. The
technique is quite different from that of the gravestones, for all
parts of the relief are carefully modeled. The truth to nature is
also far greater here, the animals being tolerably life-like. The
design is one which recurs with variations on two or three
engraved gems of the Mycenaean period (cf Fig. 40), as well as in
a series of later Phrygian reliefs in stone. Placed in this
conspicuous position above the principal entrance to the citadel,
it may perhaps have symbolized the power of the city and its
rulers.
If sculpture in stone appears to have been very little practiced
in the Mycenaean age, the arts of the goldsmith, silversmith, gem-
engraver, and ivory carver were in great requisition. The shaft-
graves of Mycenae contained, besides other things, a rich treasure
of gold objects--masks, drinking-cups, diadems, ear-rings,
finger-rings, and so on, also several silver vases. One of the
latter may be seen in Fig. 43. It is a large jar, about two and
one half feet in height, decorated below with horizontal flutings
and above with continuous spirals in repousse (i.e., hammered)
work. Most of the gold objects must be passed over, interesting
though many of them are. But we may pause a moment over a group of
circular ornaments in thin gold-leaf about two and one half inches
in diameter, of which 701 specimens were found, all in a single
grave. The patterns on these discs were not executed with a free
hand, but by means of a mold. There are fourteen patterns in all,
some of them made up of spirals and serpentine curves, others
derived from vegetable and animal forms. Two of the latter class
are shown in Figs. 34, 35. One is a butterfly, the other a cuttle-
fish, both of them skilfully conventionalized. It is interesting
to note how the antennae of the butterfly and still more the arms
of the cuttle-fish are made to end in the favorite spiral.
The sculptures and gold objects which have been thus far described
or referred to were in all probability executed by native, or at
any rate by resident, workmen, though some of the patterns clearly
betray oriental influence. Other objects must have been, others
may have been, actually imported from Egypt or the East. It is
impossible to draw the line with certainty between native and
imported. Thus the admirable silver head of a cow from one of the
shaft-graves (Fig. 36) has been claimed as an Egyptian or a
Phenician production, but the evidence adduced is not decisive.
Similarly with the fragment of a silver vase shown in Fig. 37.
This has a design in relief (repousse) representing the siege of a
walled town or citadel. On the walls is a group of women making
frantic gestures. The defenders, most of them naked, are armed
with bows and arrows and slings. On the ground lie sling-stones
and throwing-sticks,[Footnote: So explained by Mr A. J. Evans in
The Journal of Hellenic Studies, XIII., page 199. ] which may be
supposed to have been hurled by the enemy. In the background there
are four nondescript trees, perhaps intended for olive trees.
Another variety of Mycenaean metal-work is of a much higher order
of merit than the dramatic but rude relief on this silver vase. I
refer to a number of inlaid dagger-blades, which were found in two
of the shaft-graves. Fig. 38 reproduces one side of the finest of
these. It is about nine inches long. The blade is of bronze, while
the rivets by which the handle was attached are of gold. The
design was inlaid in a separate thin slip of bronze, which was
then inserted into a sinking on the blade. The materials used are
various. The lions and the naked parts of the men are of gold, the
shields and trunks of the men of electrum (a mixture of gold and
silver), the hair of the men, the manes of the lions, and some
other details of an unidentified dark substance; the background,
to the edges of the inserted slip, was covered with a black
enamel. The scene is a lion-hunt. Four men, one armed only with a
bow, the others with lances and huge shields of two different
forms, are attacking a lion. A fifth hunter has fallen and lies
under the lion's fore-paws. The beast has already been run through
with a lance, the point of which is seen protruding from his
haunch; but he still shows fight, while his two companions dash
away at full speed. The design is skilfully composed to fill the
triangular space, and the attitudes of men and beasts are varied,
expressive, and fairly truthful. Another of these dagger-blades
has a representation of panthers hunting ducks by the banks of a
river in which what may be lotus plants are growing, The lotus
would point toward Egypt as the ultimate source of the design.
Moreover, a dagger of similar technique has been found in Egypt in
the tomb of a queen belonging to the end of the Seventeenth
Dynasty. On the other hand, the dress and the shields of the men
engaged in the lion-hunt are identical with those on a number of
other "Mycenaean" articles--gems, statuettes, etc.--which it is
difficult to regard as all of foreign importation. The
probability, then, seems to be that while the technique of the
dagger-blades was directly or indirectly derived from Egypt, the
specimens found at Mycenae were of local manufacture.
The greatest triumph of the goldsmith's art in the "Mycenaean"
period does not come from Mycenae. The two gold cups shown in Fig.
39 were found in 1888 in a bee-hive tomb at Vaphio in Laconia.
Each cup is double; that is to say, there is an outer cup, which
has been hammered into shape from a single disc of gold and which
is therefore without a joint, and an inner cup, similarly made,
whose upper edge is bent over the outer cup so as to hold the two
together. The horizontal parts of the handles are attached by
rivets, while the intervening vertical cylinders are soldered. The
designs in repousse work are evidently pendants to one another.
The first represents a hunt of wild bulls. One bull, whose
appearance indicates the highest pitch of fury, has dashed a
would-be captor to earth and is now tossing another on his horns.
A second bull, entangled in a stout net, writhes and bellows in
the vain effort to escape. A third gallops at full speed from the
scene of his comrade's captivity. The other design shows us four
tame bulls. The first submits with evident impatience to his
master. The next two stand quietly, with an almost comical effect
of good nature and contentment. The fourth advances slowly,
browsing. In each composition the ground is indicated, not only
beneath the men and animals, but above them, wherever the design
affords room. It is an example of the same naive perspective which
seems to have been employed in the Tirynthian bull-fresco (Fig.
30). The men, too, are of the same build here as there, and the
bulls have similarly curving horns. There are several trees on the
cups, two of which are clearly characterized as palms, while the
others resemble those in Fig. 37, and may be intended for olives.
The bulls are rendered with amazing spirit and understanding.
True, there are palpable defects, if one examines closely. For
example, the position of the bull in the net is quite impossible.
But in general the attitudes and expressions are as lifelike as
they are varied. Evidently we have here the work of an artist who
drew his inspiration directly from nature.
Engraved gems were in great demand in the Mycenaean period, being
worn as ornamental beads, and the work of the gem-engraver, like
that of the goldsmith, exhibits excellent qualities. The usual
material was some variety of ornamental stone--agate, jasper,
rock-crystal, etc. There are two principal shapes, the one
lenticular, the other elongated or glandular (Figs. 40, 41). The
designs are engraved in intaglio, but, our illustrations being
made, as is usual, from plaster impressions, they appear as
cameos. Among the subjects the lion plays an important part,
sometimes represented singly, sometimes in pairs, sometimes
devouring a bull or stag. Cattle, goats, deer, and fantastic
creatures (sphinxes, griffins, etc.) are also common. So are human
figures, often engaged in war or the chase. In the best of these
gems the work is executed with great care, and the designs, though
often inaccurate, are nevertheless vigorous. Very commonly,
however, the distortion of the figure is carried beyond all
bounds. Fig. 40 was selected for illustration, not because it is a
particularly favorable specimen of its class, but because it
offers an interesting analogy to the relief above the Lion Gate.
It represents two lions rampant, their fore-paws resting on an
altar (?), their heads, oddly enough, combined into one. The
column which figures in the relief above the gate is absent from
the gem, but is found on another specimen from Mycenae, where the
animals, however, are winged griffins. Fig. 41 has only a standing
man, of the wasp-waisted figure and wearing the girdle with which
other representations have now made us familiar.
It remains to glance at the most important early varieties of
Greek pottery. We need not stop here to study the rude, unpainted,
mostly hand-made vases from the earliest strata at Troy and
Tiryns, nor the more developed, yet still primitive, ware of the
island of Thera. But the Mycenaean pottery is of too great
importance to be passed over. This was the characteristic ware of
the Mycenaean civilization. The probability is that it was
manufactured at several different places, of which Mycenae may
have been one and perhaps the most important. It was an article of
export and thus found its way even into Egypt, where specimens
have been discovered in tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty and later.
The variations in form and ornamentation are considerable, as is
natural with an article whose production was carried on at
different centers and during a period of centuries. Fig. 42 shows
a few of the characteristic shapes and decorations; some
additional pieces may be seen in Fig. 43. The Mycenaean vases are
mostly wheel-made. The decoration, in the great majority of
examples, is applied in a lustrous color, generally red, shading
to brown or black. The favorite elements of design are bands and
spirals and a variety of animal and vegetable forms, chiefly
marine. Thus the vase at the bottom of Fig. 42, on the left, has a
conventionalized nautilus; the one at the top, on the right, shows
a pair of lily-like plants; and the jug in the middle of Fig. 43
is covered with the stalks and leaves of what is perhaps meant for
seaweed. Quadrupeds and men belong to the latest period of the
style, the vase-painters of the early and central Mycenaean
periods having abstained, for some reason or other, from those
subjects which formed the stock in trade of the gem-engravers.
The Mycenaean pottery was gradually superseded by pottery of an
essentially different style, called Geometric, from the character
of its painted decorations. It is impossible to say when this
style made its first appearance in Greece, but it seems to have
flourished for some hundreds of years and to have lasted till as
late as the end of the eighth century B. C. It falls into several
local varieties, of which the most important is the Athenian. This
is commonly called Dipylon pottery, from the fact that the
cemetery near the Dipylon, the chief gate of ancient Athens, has
supplied the greatest number of specimens. Some of these Dipylon
vases are of great size and served as funeral monuments. Fig. 44
gives a good example of this class. It is four feet high. Both the
shape and the decoration are very different from those of the
Mycenaean style. The surface is almost completely covered by a
system of ornament in which zigzags, meanders, and groups of
concentric circles play an important part. In this system of
Geometric patterns zones or friezes are reserved for designs into
which human and animal figures enter. The center of interest is in
the middle of the upper frieze, between the handles. Here we see a
corpse upon a funeral bier, drawn by a two-horse wagon. To right
and left are mourners arranged in two rows, one above the other.
The lower frieze, which encircles the vase about at its middle,
consists of a line of two-horse chariots and their drivers. The
drawing of these designs is illustrated on a larger scale on the
right and left of the vase in Fig. 44; it is more childish than
anything we have seen from the Mycenaean period. The horses have
thin bodies, legs, and necks, and their heads look as much like
fishes as anything. The men and women are just as bad. Their heads
show no feature save, at most, a dot for the eye and a projection
for the nose, with now and then a sort of tassel for the hair;
their bodies are triangular, except those of the charioteers,
whose shape is perhaps derived from one form of Greek shield;
their thin arms, of varying lengths, are entirely destitute of
natural shape; their long legs, though thigh and calf are
distinguished, are only a shade more like reality than the arms.
Such incapacity on the part of the designer would be hard to
explain, were he to be regarded as the direct heir of the
Mycenaean culture. But the sources of the Geometric style are
probably to be sought among other tribes than those which were
dominant in the days of Mycenae's splendor. Greek tradition tells
of a great movement of population, the so-called Dorian migration,
which took place some centuries before the beginning of recorded
history in Greece. If that invasion and conquest of Peloponnesus
by ruder tribes from the North be a fact, then the hypothesis is a
plausible one which would connect the gradual disappearance of
Mycenaean art with that great change. Geometric art, according to
this theory, would have originated with the tribes which now came
to the fore.
Besides the Geometric pottery and its offshoots, several other
local varieties were produced in Greece in the eighth and seventh
centuries. These are sometimes grouped together under the name of
"orientalizing" styles, because, in a greater or less degree, they
show in their ornamentation the influence of oriental models, of
which the pure Geometric style betrays no trace. It is impossible
here to describe all these local wares, but a single plate from
Rhodes (Fig. 45) may serve to illustrate the degree of proficiency
in the drawing of the human figure which had been attained about
the end of the seventh century. Additional interest is lent to
this design by the names attached to the three men. The combatants
are Menelaus and Hector; the fallen warrior is Euphorbus. Here for
the first time we find depicted a scene from the Trojan War. From
this time on the epic legends form a large part of the repertory
of the vase-painters.
CHAPTER III.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE.
The supreme achievement of Greek architecture was the temple. In
imperial Rome, or in any typical city of the Roman Empire, the
most extensive and imposing buildings were secular--basilicas,
baths, amphitheaters, porticoes, aqueducts. In Athens, on the
other hand, or in any typical Greek city, there was little or
nothing to vie with the temples and the sacred edifices associated
with them. Public secular buildings, of course, there were, but
the little we know of them does not suggest that they often ranked
among the architectural glories of the country. Private houses
were in the best period of small pretensions. It was to the temple
and its adjunct buildings that the architectural genius and the
material resources of Greece were devoted. It is the temple, then,
which we have above all to study.
Before beginning, however, to analyze the artistic features of the
temple, it will be useful to consider the building materials which
a Greek architect had at his disposal and his methods of putting
them together. Greece is richly provided with good building stone.
At many points there are inexhaustible stores of white marble. The
island of Paros, one of the Cyclades, and Mount Pentelicus in
Attica--to name only the two best and most famous quarries--are
simply masses of white marble, suitable as well for the builder as
the sculptor. There are besides various beautiful colored marbles,
but it was left to the Romans to bring these into use. Then there
are many commoner sorts of stone ready to the builder's hand,
especially the rather soft, brown limestones which the Greeks
called by the general name of poros. [Footnote: The word has no
connection with porous] This material was not disdained, even for
important buildings. Thus the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, one of
the two most important religious centers in the Greek world, was
built of local poros. The same was the case with the numerous
temples of Acragas (Girgenti) and Selinus in Sicily. An even
meaner material, sun-dried brick, was sometimes, perhaps often,
employed for cella walls. Where poros or crude brick was used, it
was coated over with a very fine, hard stucco, which gave a
surface like that of marble.
It is remarkable that no use was made in Greece of baked bricks
before the period of Roman domination. Roof-tiles of terra-cotta
were in use from an early period, and Greek travelers to Babylonia
brought back word of the use of baked bricks in that country.
Nevertheless Greek builders showed no disposition to adopt baked
bricks for their masonry.
This probably hangs together with another important fact, the
absence of lime-mortar from Greek architecture. Lime-stucco was in
use from time immemorial. But lime-mortar, i.e., lime mixed with
sand and used as a bond for masonry, is all but unknown in Greek
work. [Footnote: The solitary exception at present known is an
Attic tomb built of crude bricks laid in lime-mortar] Consequently
in the walls of temples and other carefully constructed buildings
an elaborate system of bonding by means of clamps and dowels was
resorted to. Fig. 46 illustrates this and some other points. The
blocks of marble are seen to be perfectly rectangular and of
uniform length and height. Each end of every block is worked with
a slightly raised and well-smoothed border, for the purpose of
securing without unnecessary labor a perfectly accurate joint. The
shallow holes, III, III, in the upper surfaces are pry-holes,
which were of use in prying the blocks into position. The
adjustment having been made, contiguous blocks in the same course
were bonded to one another by clamps, I, I, embedded horizontally,
while the sliding of one course upon another was prevented by
upright dowels, II, II. Greek clamps and dowels were usually of
iron and they were fixed in their sockets by means of molten lead
run in. The form of the clamp differs at different periods. The
double-T shape shown in the illustration is characteristic of the
best age (cf. also Fig. 48).
Another important fact to be noted at the outset is the absence of
the arch from Greek architecture. It is reported by the Roman
philosopher, Seneca, that the principle of the arch was
"discovered" by the Greek philosopher, Democritus, who lived in
the latter half of the fifth century B. C. That he independently
discovered the arch as a practical possibility is most unlikely,
seeing that it had been used for ages in Egypt and Mesopotamia;
but it may be that he discussed, however imperfectly, the
mathematical theory of the subject. If so, it would seem likely
that he had practical illustrations about him; and this view
receives some support from the existence of a few subterranean
vaults which perhaps go back to the good Greek period. Be that as
it may, the arch plays absolutely no part in the columnar
architecture of Greece. In a Greek temple or similar building only
the flat ceiling was known. Above the exterior portico and the
vestibules of a temple the ceiling was sometimes of stone or
marble, sometimes of wood; in the interior it was always of wood.
It follows that no very wide space could be ceiled over without
extra supports. At Priene in Asia Minor we find a temple (Fig. 49)
whose cella, slightly over thirty feet in breadth, has no interior
columns. The architect of the Temple of Athena on the island of
AEgina (Fig. 52) was less venturesome. Although the cella there is
only 21 1/4 feet in breadth, we find, as in large temples, a
double row of columns to help support the ceiling. And when a
really large room was built, like the Hall of Initiation at
Eleusis or the Assembly Hall of the Arcadians at Megalopolis, such
a forest of pillars was required as must have seriously interfered
with the convenience of congregations. We are now ready to study
the plan of a Greek temple. The essential feature is an enclosed
chamber, commonly called by the Latin name cella, in which stood,
as a rule, the image of the god or goddess to whom the temple was
dedicated. Fig. 47 shows a very simple plan. Here the side walls
of the cella are prolonged in front and terminate in antae (see
below, page 88). Between the antae are two columns. This type of
temple is called a templum in antis. Were the vestibule (pronaos)
repeated at the other end of the building, it would be called an
opisthodomos, and the whole building would be a double templum in
antis. In Fig. 48 the vestibules are formed by rows of columns
extending across the whole width of the cella, whose side walls
are not prolonged. Did a vestibule exist at the front only, the
temple would be called prostyle; as it is, it is amphiprostyle.
Only small Greek temples have as simple a plan as those just
described. Larger temples are peripteral, i.e., are surrounded by
a colonnade or peristyle (Figs. 49. 50). In Fig. 49 the cella with
its vestibules has the form of a double templum in antis, in Fig
50 it is amphiprostyle. A further difference should be noted. In
Fig. 49, which is the plan of an Ionic temple, the antae and
columns of the vestibules are in line with columns of the outer
row, at both the ends and the sides; in Fig. 50, which is the plan
of a Doric temple, the exterior columns are set without regard to
the cella wall, and the columns of the vestibules. This is a
regular difference between Doric and Ionic temples, though the
rule is subject to a few exceptions in the case of the former.
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