Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/535

 5o8 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. their consequent mode of employment. Apart from subordinate sections, such as column and antae bases, the component parts of the edifice were rubble and sun-dried brick, both of which required to be protected by paint, stucco, and bronze. Plaster- ing calls for colour. This, when laid on the soft fresh plaster, gets fixed as it dries. The fresco process, it would seem, was discovered at an early date, and distemper liberally utilized to enliven the large surfaces of the building with a variety of tones ; the brush accentuating with a different pigment, here lines that answered to the natural divisions of the structure, there more or less complicated figures. No colour has been discovered on the pottery of Troy, and tinted plaster nowhere appears on its walls. Its habitations, whether inside or without, are everywhere coated, first with clay mixed with straw, and secondly with a yellowish- white and finer earth, laid on as thin as a sheet of paper.^ This is not the case at Thera ; there polychromy appears on pottery, on the walls and ceilings of prehistoric houses, and the house-painter may be said to have fairly set out on his career. Although his decorative scheme is still very awkward and hesitating, it will none the less serve him later to clothe the inner walls of the Tirynthian and Mycenian palaces with fairness and magnificence." From Thera to Tiryns is a long cry. Nevertheless, the marked advance made by the Argolic painter in figure drawing and combination of lines is carried out with four or five colours only : white, dark brown, pale yellow, chalky red, and bright blue. The greenish tint seen here and there on these frag- ments is due to exposure. No genuine green colour has appeared anywhere.^ Red is of two distinct shades, light and dark ; the artist has painted his grounds with the former, and traced the ornament with the latter.* The whites are ''reserved,*' as in an aquarelle, by leaving the whitewashed surface unpainted and therefore perfectly smooth ; whereas pencil-strokes and bits of hair left by the brush are plainly discernible in the coloured parts. The wall-facings of limestone were certainly painted, to harmonize them with the lively appearance of the interiors, where colour was liberally applied to stone and wood. Large external surfaces were probably washed in with one colour only, and their lines broken with stripes of a different tone. In appearance, these ^ ScHLiEMANN, lUos, - Vide ante, p. 492. ^ Vide ante, p. 287. ^ Schliemann, Tiryns.