ART IN PRIMITIVE GREECE.
It was not only on their temples and images of their gods that the
Greeks put their best efforts in art; but in their vases, jewellery,
furniture, and humbler utensils of the household and of every-day life,
we find the Greek artist pouring out some of his richest fancies, and
the same spell of beauty is cast over them all. And did not Pericles,
the son of Xanthippus, eulogise his countrymen in his famous speech on
those who had fallen in the Peleponnesian War, as “lovers of justice and
wisdom,” “philosophers, lovers of _beauty_, and foremost among men”?
In Egypt, Assyria, and Persia we find all the artistic knowledge of
these countries was lavished on the temples, and to the glorification of
their autocratic rulers; but scarcely any remains are found that would
imply a fostering of the minor arts among the common people. On the
contrary, in Greece art impregnated the life and work of all classes,
from the highest to the lowest in the state. This was only possible when
entire freedom prevailed, as it did in the mass of the Greek people.
Some of the oldest monuments of primitive Greece have been found at
Mycenæ, Troy (Hissarlik), and Tiryns. These consist of domed tombs, such
as the tomb of Agamemnon, or the so-called “Treasure-house” of Atreus,
and others, as the rock-cut tombs. The site of ancient “Troy divine” was
discovered by Dr. Schliemann in the year 1875, under the mound of the
modern Hissarlik, in the Trojan plain, in the north-west corner of Asia
Minor. The character of the stone, clay, wood, and lime materials, and
similarity of the construction, enable the archæologist to place the
remains found at these three places as belonging to the same epoch of
time and style of art which has been called Mycenian. The oldest
monument of Greek sculpture yet discovered is supposed to be the Lion’s
Gate of the Mycenian Acropolis (Fig. 277).
[Illustration: Fig. 277.—Perspective View of the Lion’s Gate. (P. & C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 278.—Alabaster Frieze, Tiryns. (P. & C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 279.—Plan of Fig. 278, Alabaster Frieze. (P. & C.)]
Pausanias thus alludes to Mycenæ and Tiryns:—"A portion of the enclosure
wall still remains, and the principal gate, with the lions over it.
These (the walls) were built by the Cyclops who made the wall at Tiryns
for Præteus. Among the ruins at Mycenæ is the fountain called Perseia,
and the subterraneous buildings of Atreus and his children, in which
their treasures were stored."
[Illustration: Fig. 280.—Ivory Plaque from Mycenæ. (P. & C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 281.—Fragment of Frieze from Mycenæ. (P. & C.)]
The sculptured lions are still there, so is the spring Perseia, and the
wonderful treasure-house of Atreus is still the best preserved of all
the domed tomb buildings of Mycenæ.
[Illustration: Fig. 282.—Mycenian Palace, Second Epoch. Architrave and
Frieze. (P. & C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 283.—Mycenian Palace, Second Epoch. Restoration of
Entablature. (P. & C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 284.—Entablature of C. Selinous Temple. (P. & C.)]
From the remains of Mycenian architecture, Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez
have ingeniously restored some of the wooden construction of the palaces
of that early period, and have assumed that, from these early wooden
constructions of Mycenæ, the Greeks developed the renowned order of
Doric architecture. We have seen that, in most countries, stone
architecture, in its earliest stages, was but copies of the earlier
wooden construction. The Doric order seems to have been no exception to
this rule, for here again the stone-cutter has borrowed from the
carpenter. To go back for some of the supposed beginnings of the Doric
frieze, the alabaster frieze, shown in plan and elevation at Figs. 278
and 279, has been found in the ruins of a palace at Tiryns.
[Illustration: Fig. 285.—Vase of Woman’s Form, Troy. (P. & C.)]
The pattern of this frieze is the same as that which has been frequently
found on other fragments from Mycenæ. It resembles the Doric triglyphs
and metopes in consisting of a double design; two semicircles back to
back, divided by a vertical rectangular band, which is subdivided by a
vertical central division, having rosettes arranged vertically on either
side. Two similar designs are seen on the ivory plaque (Figs. 280 and
281) and fragment of frieze from Mycenæ. The same design appears also on
the red porphyry fragments of the façade decoration on the Mycenian
beehive tombs.
[Illustration: Fig. 286.—Vase from Troy. (P. & C.)]
An illustration from Perrot and Chipiez shows an assemblage of the
component parts of this frieze pattern, with a portion of the architrave
in wood (Fig. 282).
We refer the reader for a fuller description of the transition of the
Doric entablature from the Mycenian wood construction to Perrot and
Chipiez’ “Art in Primitive Greece,” Vol. II. We extract a portion in
explanation of the illustrations (Figs. 282 and 283), where the analogy
between the wooden construction of the former and the stone construction
of the latter is clearly established.
[Illustration: Fig. 287.—Pilgrim’s Bottle, Ialysos. (P. & C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 288.—Three-Handled Amphora, Ialysos. (P. & C.)]
In Fig. 284 we have the entablature of the C. Temple of Selinous (one of
the oldest examples of Doric architecture), rendered famous by the
archaic sculptures embellishing its metopes. There is not one of all the
members we have passed in review but which appears in it. Thus, a pair
of stone beams, corresponding with the like number of timbers in the
Mycenian wood frame, constitute the architrave; and under listel C
surmounting it, peers, flush with the triglyphs, the small plank B.
[Illustration: Fig. 289.—Vase with Geometric Decoration. (P. & C.)]
Its lower section is adorned by the ornament known as guttæ, the origin
and meaning of which had hitherto been unsatisfactorily explained. The
guttæ are cylindrical in shape detached from the walls, and in every
respect identical with the wooden pegs which occur in this situation
below the timber entablature. These same pegs again appear above the
frieze in the semblance of another ornamental form, the “mutules” which,
until lately, had seemed every whit as strange and problematical as the
guttæ. The stone table N, in the lower surface of which the guttæ are
carved, is no other than our old wood-plate, which in the Mycenian
carpentry work exhibits these same saliences or pegs, and served to fix
the lining of the joists below. If the Selinous mutules are sloped, it
is because they are associated with a ridged roof; but as a flat
covering has been assumed for Mycenæ, it involved—without prejudice to
the system—a horizontal position for the mutules. As regards the frieze,
both here and in every Doric building, it invariably consists, like the
alabaster frieze, of pillars D alternating with slabs E. The function of
the pillars (triglyphs) is to maintain the slabs (metopes) in place.
[Illustration: Fig. 290.—The Marseilles Ewer. (P. & C.)]
Comparison between these two figures will further show all the details,
with slight modifications, to be practically similar. Thus, the whole of
the Doric order, the basis of all Greek architecture, including the
column, longitudinal beams, and joists supporting the roof, as well as
the secondary decorative construction, had its origin in wooden
construction, and there is hardly any doubt but that the Mycenian palace
was its prototype. The Greeks of later days forgot the borrowing of the
timber construction, and have given names to some parts, such as “guttæ”
(drops), which ought to be more correctly pegs.
[Illustration: Fig. 291.—Gold Pendant, from Troy. (P. & C.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 292.—Gold Ornaments, from Troy. (P. & C.)]
Great quantities of pottery and objects of industrial art in metal—more
especially in gold—have been found in the excavations at Mycenæ, Tiryns,
and Troy. The earthenware pottery is generally decorated in colours of
brown, red, and greyish white. The patterns are very simple, bands and
squares arranged in rows, some animal forms, leaves with wavy stems, and
spirals; some of the pottery is decorated with marine animals, such as
the octopus, cuttle-fish, argonaut, and with seaweed. Some curious
shaped vases of woman forms (Figs. 285, 286) have been found by Dr.
Schliemann.
[Illustration: Fig. 293.—Gold Plate Ornament, from Troy.]
[Illustration: Fig. 294.—Gold Disc. (P. & C.)]
A pilgrim’s bottle from Ialysos decorated with circular bands, and an
amphora with three handles, from the same place, decorated with bands
and lily forms with curled-back petals, are very beautiful, and a small
vessel with geometric ornament are all of the same character (Figs. 287,
288, and 289). The most beautiful form of Mycenian pottery is the
Marseilles vase or ewer, in the Borély collection (Fig. 290).
[Illustration: Fig. 295.—Gold Disc. (P. & C.)]
The decoration is a brown-black on a light ground, and consists of the
argonaut shellfish and seaweed. It is likely to have been a copy from a
metal object owing to its shape, which is characteristic of metal.
[Illustration: Fig. 296.—Gold Cup, Troy. (P. & C.)]
In metal-work generally, and in the inlaying of gold and electrum in a
bronze ground, the Mycenian artists have produced some splendid work.
There are six chromolithographs in Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez’s “Art in
Primitive Greece” of bronze Mycenian daggers inlaid with gold and
electrum of various shades: one has the representation of panthers
hunting birds on a river-bank—the river is stocked with fish; another
has a lion hunt by armed men; a third, lions hunting gazelles; a fourth
has running lions; a fifth, spiral ornamentation; and the sixth a free
rendering of lilies both on handle and blade. The art and workmanship of
them all are of a high order.
Some gold ornaments from Troy (Figs. 291 and 292) show their skill in
hand-wrought jewellery.
[Illustration: Fig. 297.—Gold Ewer, Troy. (P. & C.)]
The golden butterfly (Fig. 293) and the two gold discs (Figs. 294 and
295) are stamped on the metal, and were used as dress decorations; they
were found in great quantities in the tombs of the women at Mycenæ. One
is an octopus design, and the other a butterfly.
The gold cup (Fig. 296) and ewer (Fig. 297), found at Troy along with
many others in silver, gold, and bronze, give a fair idea of the beauty
of shape and design of such articles of this period. They show marks of
injury by fire.