Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/529

1 502 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. The middle of the shaft is seamed by flutes, and metal strips, covered with chevrons and spirals, surround the upper and lower parts. Again, we scent metal in the ring of leaflets which adorn what Vitruvius calls the ^/^/^j/^^ ( escape ") (Fig. 204). The leaves could of course have been rendered in wood, but they would not have come out as distinctly as they do in stone, nor with so sharp and well-defined an outline. The forms they present in these marbles — where they have been preserved to us — had previously been modelled by the chisel in repousse, out of bronze zones which served to hide the junction between shaft and capital. We could wish that the conjecture suggested by an ivory tablet which has been picked up in the Menidian grave were capable of being verified. On a plain semi-column, dividing the field in twain, is exhibited what one is tempted to call the canonical type of the Mycenian capital (Fig. 205).^ Each division is filled with a brace of winged sphinxes. Upon the piece of furniture with which this tablet was associated, was apparently reproduced an arrangement borrowed from some building ; a palatial frontispiece, a portico, or a hypostyle ordinance which supported the ceiling of some hall or other. There is yet another version for the use to which the semi-column could have been put. It may have been utilized, notably in the inner building, to break the long, monotonous line of wall. The columns which we have studied, either on a reduced scale or full grown, have enough characteristics in common to justify our considering them all as trial specimens, and more or less off-shoots of a unique type. We are thus led to infer the existence of a Mycenian order in the architecture of pre-Homeric Greece, which, like its later Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian sisters, is defined by the proportions and entasis of its shaft, the shape of its base and capital. We shall have to find out if, among the classic orders, there is one which very nearly approaches this primordial type. Between the Mycenian pillar and its nearest fellow there is always a main difference, arising from difference of materials and the function which each has to fulfil. In the Mycenian portico, pillars certainly relieve the beam which supports the entablature, but the principal weight of the archi- ^ Das Kuppelgrab bei Menidi, The above engraving only shows one-half of the tablet, in length thirty-eight centimetres.