Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/262

Representations of Human Life. 215 as a sign of their comparatively recent date ; on the contrary, we should find the mark of the firm style which characterizes the most important work bequeathed to us by the Mycenian chisel ^ , • What we must understand by stelae where the drawing is most faulty, are trial pieces of the stone-carver, who, for reasons we shall presently adduce, is more backward than the goldsmith. This is proved by the ornaments associated with the figures of these sculptures, wherein is manifest the same taste which pervades the vases and the jewellery that have come from these graves. The stone-cutter has copied the forms which the metal-worker executed in bronze, in silver, or in gold wire, previously rounded off with the tool and applied to his back- grounds. We have already compared a gold plate from one of the pit-graves, adorned by twisted wire, with the sculptured medallions of one of the stelae similarly decorated (Fig. 355). We find again and again imitation of wire-ornament, whether in the paintings seen about the walls of Tiryns, the ivories from Spata, or the Mycenian ornapaents (Figs. 219-222). The stelae, then, were carved and set up with each successive grave. These were at first separated, each constituting a mound by itself, but in the end they came to form a single great tumulus, over which was placed the slab-circle. The several cippi correspond to different generations, to different reigns, and a century may well have intervened between the oldest and youngest of these sculptures. The first attempts were the least happy ; then were carved those pieces which excite our astonishment by their excessive rudeness ; but improvement soon followed. Could the stelae be set out in nearly a perfect state, and in their original order, the advance of the stone-carver would be manifest to all ; we should then see how steady was his progress from the opening to the final closing of the royal cemetery. The most perfect example of the series would be the first stela we have described, that which contains the best drawn and the largest number of figures. The theme, throughout the series, is ever the same, and no change is rung from first to last ; we even detect it in those specimens where the artist vainly strove to carry out his thought on stone. The subject is the glorification of the king; who, from his elevated chariot, commands the rank and file in the affray ; a king whose swift horses, like those of Achylles in the