Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/230

 Idols. 187 was it a net designed to hold a second infant ? ^ There we come across a glass-paste which shows enormous advance on the clay figures, and must therefore belong to the last days of the Mycenian period {Fig. 335). The modelling of the face is good, and decidedly clever ; but the rendering of the limbs and the form generally is as arbitrary as of yore ; the former lack consistency, and the latter bears no resemblance to reality. The neck is encircled by a single row of beads ; the fore-arm and hand are expressed by a curve of geometrical precision, a simple stroke void of breadth, but which, to the artisan of that day, seemed to suggest plainly enough the traditional gesture of the Asiatic KlG. 3J5.-lilol orglass-paale. Aclual sLzt. I'Hl- 3j6.— Ulass-pasli; idul goddess. A triple row of vertical bars marks the dress. The same conventional treatment is observable in the tail-piece at the end of the chapter; its chief characteristic is the abnormal — i r l^- 1 size of the breasts ; but the arms surrounding them are a mere rectangle. If the features of another and smaller glass-paste are barely outlined, the arms are much better drawn {Fig. 336). The arts of the mainland were carried on different lines and with different materials than those of the islands. The Ai^olian artisan could not command a substance as durable or as easily carved as marble ; hence he gave the preference to clay, and as soon as he had acquired proficiency in his craft, occasionally to bronze or lead. Then, too, the advance of civiliza- ' TsouNDAS. A very similar idol has been found at Mycenae. It has no arms, and the infant looks as if giued on to the mother.