Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/199

 158 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. the better class of buildings with a brazen cuirass, which could be easily fixed. / Apparently, the Mycenian architect employed but two forms in his decorative scheme ; namely, spirals, and the pattern recalling the Doric frieze. We have utilized the latter for our frieze, the only division of the entablature where it would go, and the spirals have been fittingly .applied to the corona. Their continuous, unending curves run above the rich elements of the frieze ; they look well in the field of that narrow band, between the long, vanishing lines of the cornice, which is trenchantly relieved against the deep azure of the sky. Fig. 3 1 1 shows the pieces we have just described and defined set up in position. It will be observed that the arrangement exhibited here is not quite the same as that of our restoration of the Mycenian palace (PI. XI.). Of course there, too, the typical ornaments, spirals, metopes, and triglyphs, appear Fic. 310.— Mycenian [>alace. Second epoch. Lining of waler-nionlUinj;. in the corresponding situations, but the lower parts of the cornice are united with visible pegs at the sides of the central pavilion only ; whilst from the cornice, in the elevation of the wall, peer rounded beam-ends or discs. This arrangement invests the cornice with greater height and amplitude, but it does not form so coherent and solid a piece of work, capable of standing the brunt of any eventuality, as the specimens just described. These are at once very simple, yet of a simplicity allied to a good deal of ingenuity, and of the kind which is not attained in early youth. In what edifice did these forms originate ? We cannot say ; what appears certain is that they represent the ultimate progress and the last step in the organic development of Mycenian con- struction, the phase that immediately preceded the rise of the Doric order. This is proved by the Doric entablature seen in the oldest buildings of the order, where we find reproduced in stone every feature and every member whose place and function