Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/410

Pottery. 357 rare elegance. The decoration, too, has become more and more varied. The painter still delights in complicated arrangements of lines, scrolls, and spirals, but he has none the less greatly enriched his repertory with new forms, chiefly derived from the living world {PI. XXI.). Vases, however, in which the human figure is introduced, belong to the closing days of the Mycenian period. We will take the coarse, thick-walled monochrome pottery of Troy as subject-matter of this part of our study; in the first F10.437.-Jug. Half-siie. place because it is the only kind which the oldest strata have yielded, and secondly because it is found plentifully, without change of shape or form, in the upper layers, where it is mixed with potsherds of a different style of earthenware. The coarsest fragments belonged to huge vases, and were collected in the virgin soil of the oldest bed of rubbish. These wares are often imperfectly baked ; the paste is tender, easily scratched with the nail, and of loose texture, which detaches itself in particles. They appear to have been moulded, not turned. There is no trace of a handle. The potter had not yet learnt how to fix it to the bodies whilst the clay was moist, or to endow it