Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/532

Genkral Charactkristics ok the Mvcenian Period. 475 striving to reproduce them with the minute and childish fideh'ty which characterizes Japanese art, and when in the next stage he simplified the forms and rendered them in a thoroughly con- ventional manner. The first impulse is to study Nature ; as soon as we think we know her, we look away and reproduce types to which the hand has become habituated, almost mechanically and without a change. The organic forms which the potter tried to imitate were too few in number, and their structure much too elementary, not to have led betimes to common-place interpretation. From the graves in the acropolis have come the finest ornaments, and pottery exhibiting brilliant glaze and quaint decoration. The qualities which characterize the vases of this class recur on specimens collected in other localities ; hence we may safely infer that they all belong to the same era, and were turned out by the same workshops. The products of the follow- ing period show a less sincere execution, and work hastily and easily done. The stock-in-trade of this popular art was poor enough, and, as it asked for no help of the stranger, it ere long came to a stand-still. The case seems to have been different with what we have called the royal art. As the wealth and influence of the prince increased, the architect was required to build statelier and nobler edifices. As to the painter and the sculptor, they greatly widened their horizon when they attacked the human and animal figure. Thus, they depicted wild beasts which the king brings down, or the horse which draws his chariot, etc. ; in so doing they measured their strength with models which interested them, and their talent was all the better for their ambitious effort. The Vaphio vases were discovered in a domed-tomb, and there are no valid reasons why they should not have been chiselled for the prince who had them buried with him. That such a conjecture is not against reasonable probability, is shown from other works belonging to the last days of Mycenian art, conspicuous like these for correctness and firmness of design. Such would be the bas-relief of the Lions Gate, the Abbia figure of bronze (Fig. 351), the Mycenae silver vase, on which men's masks are portrayed (Fig. 374), and the best ivories (Figs. 373, 379-381). The expansion which so great a variety of themes gave to painting and sculpture never ceased until the fall of the Achaean dynasties of Argolis and Laconia.