Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/216

CHAPTER IX. SCULPTURE. Materials, Processes, and Themes. In the course of the primitive age, the sculptor utilized all the materials that had served him to construct and decorate his edifices in his rendering of the human form. In the first place, he had all th e stone varieties which a hilly country supplied in abundance^, .dark volcanic rocks, hard or soft limestone, including island marble, which latter statuary will turn to such good account ; then he had c lay dried in the sun, the only kind which the mason of that day use3 Tor'Tiis structures, but when he modelled a small figure out of it, he knew that by placing it in the kiln he would ensure its durability. Finally, he had glass-pastes, cast in a mould, and ivorjr_and bone, which the point or the chisel would carve ; together with gold and silver, and the baser metals, lead, copp er, an d bronze ; but all could be fused, and stamped or worked in repouss^, and touched up with the burin. The Mycenian sculptor made a very sparing use of the round boss, and even when he acquired a certain sureness of hand it served him but to produce small figures. His art is seen at its best in low-relief and the modes of figuration allied thereto (PI. XIV.). Theoretically, low-relief seems to require greater effort than work done in the round boss ; in that by diminishing the depth of the bodies, the entire modelling has to be obtained by two or three plans connected with and superimposed to one another. Hence at first sight one is tempted to imagine that there are fewer difficulties to be overcome in copying the form with its three dimensions which touch and vision bring to our