Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/181

 140 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. in the ground-plan — are on the axis of the entrances, it would be easy to cite irregularities of the same nature in more advanced stages of art. Ancient Greece never suffered from a mania for absolute symmetry ; the word itself, as interpreted by her archi- tects, had a slightly different meaning from that which we now attach thereto, although we have borrowed it from her. We next come to the entrances. We assume that the wood folding-doors were overlaid with bronze plates. In surrounding them with rosettes, we follow a rock-cut tomb at Mycenae (Fig. 234). The timbered frames which close the impost recall certain forms seen in the decoration of the ceilings of Egyptian tombs.^ The ex- ample of the Orchomenos ceiling authorized us to seek patterns on the banks of the Nile, without binding ourselves, however, to slavish interpretation. With regard to the forms distributed about the uprights of chaplets, of leaves, horizontal bars, rectangular shapes, and the like, they are all to be traced to the repertory of the Mycenian artist (Figs. 213, 223, 227, etc.). The erections extending right and left of the megaron call for no particular notice. Above a foundation of rubble masonry, the wall is continued with courses of crude brick, and beams which intersect one another, their heads peeping out from under the roof. The windows, unlike the doors, are not trapezoidal in shape, but mere rectangular slits or interstices left between a pair of beams. The section is intended to give an idea of the mode of lighting, and the amplitude of the great hall (PI. XII.). Remembering the predilections of this art, we could not but clothe our walls ; all the forms put there are those it most affects. I f the plat-bands which appear on the columns supporting the roof bring to mind the corresponding member of the Ionic capital, it is not because any specimen of this variant of a well-known type has been found in these ruins, but simply to indicate that the shape might well have developed in that sense. The coloured figuration which adorns the walls of the megaron is borrowed from the frescoes that have been collected in the rooms of the Tirynthian and Mycenian palaces. The dimension of the patterns is identical with that beheld on the existing fragments. For reasons of size, images borrowed from the animal and vegetable kingdom are placed as far as possible on a level with the eye of the spectator. From these plastered fragments ^ History of Art