Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/526

Secondary Forms. shaped in Tomb I. (PI. V.), and semi-circular in Tomb II. (Fig. 198). The species of atrophy which befell the base is to be explained by the very subordinate part played by stone in these buildings, where blocks of great calibre only appear in the foundations, whilst small stones scarcely dressed at all, and overlaid with clay or stucco, everywhere constitute the body of the walls. The visible parts of the building were made over to the carpenter, cabinet-maker, and house-painter. In such conditions as these, we need not wonder that the supreme effort of the builder should have concentrated itself on shaft and capital. Both were timber, and both benefited by the facilities which the pliancy of wood offered to the ornamentist, who can carve it into beautiful shapes, or use it as backing to metal incrustations. The probability that somewhat ornate buildings should have had their woodwork plain and undecorated is very small indeed. The semi-column of Tomb II. Is fluted (Fig. 198). As the number of its flutes is thirteen, twenty-six would go round the whole pillar.' They are tangent to one another, as in the Doric column. The same arrangement is shown in one of the diminutive ivory supports referred to above (Figs. 201, 202). The tenon projecting frorri the lower portion of the colonnette, and the mortise hollowed in the upper face of the abacus, indicate that it belonged to some small piece of furniture, such as a votive casket which had been placed in the grave. The mode of assemblage adopted here cannot have greatly differed from that which was applied to the real column when it exceeded a certain height. The number of the flutes is twenty-four. ' Bulletin de cornspondana hellinique. 2 TsOUNDAS, ' hyaatia.<^. Toipav iy Mukijvoic.