Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/364

Glyptic Art. 311 manufactured in Peloponnesus or Cyprus is unimportant. This much is plain : the type, with its sharply-defined lines, was very popular, in the Mycenian epoch, throughout the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. The figures holding up the jugs have pro- visionally been identified with water-genii. The vases would stand for the springs to which they give rise, whilst the shrub intervening between them would represent vegetation kept alive by rains and fountains. We will close this list with three intaglios engraved with images taken from still life. The first is a signet adorned by six heads of animals seen full face, belonging to a gold ring from Mycenae (Fig. 420). On the second signet appear four rams' heads (Fig. 419, 19) ; and on the third there is a helmet, with horns (Fig. 421, 6) curving in front in true ram fashion, like those of the helmets borne by warriors of other intaglios (Figs. 359, 373. 414)- Thus ends the series of types which may be taken to repre- sent the best authorized intaglios of Mycenian glyptics. It now only remains to examine their fabrication and origin. What strikes one from the first is that these gems one by one, even where the work seems to have been most rapid and least forced, exhibit a cleanly cut and admirably firm outline ; this is the only quality which can be discerned where the drawing is a mere linear sketch ; but the consummate skill of the engraver is best seen in the image within the contour. The modelling, par- ticularly of some animal figures, is at once broad and singularly simple. The roundness of the bodies is marked with rare frank- ness by means of planes of feeble depth, very skilfully superim- posed upon one another ; the prominence of bone and muscle under the skin is forcible, yet void of harshness. The movement is always well caught and naturalistic. The quality is even apparent in nude figures of men, where the artist's inexperience well coincide with the character that has been provisionally ascribed to the figures, and that we see no trace of hairs which would stand for the mane. Other examples of this same type are cited by Milchofer {Anfange) and Rossbach {Annah 1885). The latter brings forward another specimen which was found at Orvieto in Italy. The stone, a sardonyx, presents a curious and unique variant on the known type. It portrays a man who stands erect with outstretched arms between two genii. These, owing to the man's pose, cannot raise the vase as high as in the other intaglios. The engraving is in pure Mycenian style.