Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/507

 480 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. that section of the building. Such a mode of construction has yet another drawback : it endows the upper bed of each unit with so sharp a section that the edge is apt to break off. This has actually happened in the cupola of Atreus, where most of the blocks have one of their borders split and frayed. Taken all in all, the defects of the system are counterbalanced by sterling qualities; since with the judicious choice and skilful management of the materials, as well as the piling of a compact mass around and atop the dome, many of these buildings were nearly whole towards the beginning of the century. Even now, the traveller who visits Mycenae, as he steps over the threshold of the Treasury and looks upwards at the vast cupola whose top is lost in shadow, cannot forbear thinking of days long gone by, when doughty Achaean chiefs would gather here, either to celebrate the funerals or commemorate the death of their kings, the sons of Atreus. Secondary For?ns. We have said what were the materials used by the builder, how he dressed them and put them together. Before we essay to restore the two principal types which Mycenian art created, it will be well to point out how it interpreted certain subordinate forms, whose distinctive peculiarities contribute more than aught else to define the style and taste of a particular architecture. Gates, When we compare the existing gates of the edifices of this epoch, whether pierced in citadel walls, or in the [fa9ades of domed-tombs and rock-cut graves, what on the threshold strikes the observer is that each of these entrances, be they great or small, affects a trapezoid or rectangular shape. They are narrower above than below (Figs. 95, 97, 99, 118, 119, 121, 123, 131, 145, 188). The reason which counselled this choice is not to be accounted for by the aesthetic sense, but rather from the oft-repeated fact that the employment of timbered