Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/196

The Origin of Doric Architecture. reproduced on stone, the salient heads of the timbers, whether as dentils or modillions ; but as they are non-existent in the Doric entablature, we may safely infer the latter to have been derived from a system wherein the beam-fronts were concealed by a lining, which served the double purpose of covering them and giving the cornice greater amplitude, so as to render it a more efficient shield for wall, architrave, and frieze against the weather. Our Fig. 308 represents a cornice where all these conditions have been duly fulfilled ; its composition is shown both in separate pieces, and joined together by the hand of the carpenter. A course of planks (m) is laid across the lower face Fig. 307. — Section of wall of the Mycenian paliice. of the beams, to conceal the joints. Hydraulic pressure would ere long have caused displacement in the continuous surface obtained by setting the planks side by side, and have disagreeably impressed the sense of order. The danger was averted by a series of small wooden boards, which fitted into cuttings con- trived in plate g, and covered the joint along its whole extent. The arrangement was valuable both from a constructional and artistic standpoint, in that it provided saliences and hollows which helped the ornamental effect. But it had one drawback : as such pieces as these rest on nothing in particular, they are apt to stir, slip down here, get warped and move up there, part from their bigger fellows, and the result is an upper broken line. As with the frieze, here also