Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/559

 532 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. But the most important group is that of a wild bull chased by a hunter, which is almost preserved intact on the largest plastered fragment. We shall have to discuss elsewhere the spirit in which the artist interpreted the living form. Our pre- sent observations are designed to show what use was made of coloured plaster to enliven and vary the outward semblance of the structures. What most struck the excavators of these paintings was the extreme freedom and skilfulness of the drawing. Of these qualities it is impossible to judge from the plates that have reached us from MM. Dorpfeld and Tsoundas. The draughts- men employed on these restorations have made but too free a use of the compass ; the rigorous symmetry which they have introduced in their forms is assuredly not consonant with archaic art, and as a matter of fact does not exist in the originals. Take, for instance, a row of rosettes, and it will be found that not two are exactly alike. It is the same with the wings of genii : the colours are all fanciful, and the plumes on different planes. Everything was dashed in off-hand by painters suffi- ciently masters of their craft to dispense with tracings or even cartoons ; they drew and painted their subjects with the brush. Even though baskets full of these painted fragments were not to hand, we should none the less have divined how rapid and bold was the brush which traced them, and how universal among the inhabitants was the habit of throwing a coloured veil over all the surfaces of the building, within as well as without. So firmly established was the habit, that the horizontal divisions of the inner edifice were made to harmonize with the ornate vertical fields. For reasons of thickness, a certain proportion of the plastered paintings which have been exhumed at Thera are held to have fallen from the ceiling.^ No opinion can be formulated as regards the ceilings at Tiryns and Mycenae ; if their joists were apparent — as we are inclined to believe — they must have been protected by a coat of paint, to bring that part of the edifice in harmony with the gay decoration of the floor. Painted floors are not found at Troy. Many of these exhibit a plain surface of beaten earth, others a pavement composed of clay and very small pebbles embedded in it, or flags of green schist. It is self-evident that a feeling for colour was as yet ^ FouQUK, Santorin,