Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/464

This page needs to be proofread.

Pottery. 407 retained by the art of the following age. If the potter who painted the valiant men of Mycenae stands on a much lower platform than the engraver or the goldsmith, he yet reveals himself their countryman and contemporary, and as having to a certain extent been influenced by them. His drawing is far more faulty ; but it also possesses some of the qualities of theirs. Taken as a whole, the proportions are good, the modelling of the parts is firm, and what is more, we find movement, that distinctive characteristic of Mycenian work, frankly indicated ; look, for instance, at the least injured of the figures brandishing the lance. Fir„ 489.— Handle of craier. These vases close this division of ceramic art. What we find intermingled with their remains, near to the soil surface, both within Cyclopsean fastnesses and avenues leading to certain tombs, are fragments of a later epoch, belonging to what arch^eolc^ists call the "dipylon vases." We cannot dismiss the products of this industry without at least adverting to questions which face the historian, even though he is not in a position to solve them. Where was polished or glazed pottery — destined to so brilliant a future — first manufactured ? What was the extent of the area over which it disseminated its products ? Was its fabrication carried