Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/363

 3IO Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. more goats are butting at each other ; they stand erect on their hind legs preparing to butt again (PL XVI. 13 ; Fig. 419, 23). A pair of long-horned antelopes nearly repeat the same attitude, save that here a tree interposes between them (Fig. 419, 22). Horses are probably meant in the field of a lentoid gem from Vaphio, representing an elongated face without horns (Fig. 421, 21); there is much cleverness in the variety of the attitudes. Birds are more rare ; I know of but one small intaglio where their portrayal, two wild ducks with flapping wings, is seen (Fig. 421, 18). Nor have fishes often been depicted; the only instance which occurs to me are two dolphins (Fig. 424, 2). As with the sister arts, here too the fancy was not content with the forms presented by Nature ; it called in also those fictitious beings that we already know, and created composite types as well, not to be found in the works of the sculptor. There, separated by a palm tree, we have two sphinxes couching and facing each other (Fig. 421, 22); here griffins are grouped in like fashion, one on each side of an altar surmounted by a column (Fig. 421, 25). A third griffin, couchant, fills the very elongated surface of a gem with his huge wings (Fig. 424, 8). A single head, seen full face, appears over a double body, intended no doubt to represent griffins (Fig. 421, 17); elsewhere the engraver seems to have tried to draw a bird's bill. Griffins and sphinxes are familiar enough ; but here comes a type as yet unseen either on gold-leaf, glass-pastes, or ivories. The attitude is not uncommon, a pair of lions erect on their hind-legs ; but the band around the body, the thoroughly conventional rendering of the mane, which has all the air of a cloak thrown over the shoulders of the brutes, are new and peculiar features. The garment or mane is interspersed with dots in relief, and it rounds off into an appendage which detaches itself from the body, after the fashion of the lower part of a frock coat. The fore-paws are raised like arms ; they rest upon a shrub planted in a vase, and support two water-jugs of very elegant shape (Figs. 419, 16 ; 424, 6). The only instance where this type had appeared, before glyptic art brought it to our knowledge with a series of examples which are beginning to be rather numerous, is a bronze vase from Cyprus, on the handle of which is depicted a similar group to the one just described.^ Whether the vase was ^ I thought at one time to detect a squamy fish's skin on the back of the lions ; but the interpretation found little favour. I would submit, however, that it would