Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/371

 3i8 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. he first traced the outlines and minute details, then smoothed over and rounded off the work with a turning-chisel. Finally, the edges of most of the holes were carefully beaten down to obtain an even surface ; a few, however, were left in the rough, about the jaw and shoulder of the Mycenae lions for example (PL XVI. 20), whilst the big round eyes beheld on a number of other images are no more than the holes with which the engrav- ing was begun (Fig. 421, 11). A species of scissors with curved blades or bores appear to have been found. They were used to cut circles or segments of circles, and were worked with the finger. Compared with the implements which a Pyrgoteles or a Dioscorides will have to hand, those of the Mycenian engraver appear very imperfect, slow, and difficult to handle. We admire all the more that by dint of patient and steady work he should have turned them to such good account. The more we study remote antiquity, the more we are amazed at the miracles per- formed by the artisans of those early days, perhaps slaves, for whom time did not count. Originality and Characteristics of Mycenian Sculpture. The reader has seen marble, clay, and bronze statuettes, sculp- tures modelled, whether in relief or intaglio, on metal, wood, ivory, marble, or gems, pass before his eyes, and he may perhaps have asked himself the question if all these pieces were executed in the country which has preserved them to us, or if a certain proportion was not imported by commerce to the islands and the Greek continent. The question has been implicitly answered in our former volumes, when every object that seemed to bear the seal of Egyptian or Phoenician industry was ascribed to the land where it had been found. On the other hand, a work of the chisel which was picked up in a tomb at Memphis has been adjudged by us to the Mycenian sculptor, because the taste, make, and certain features recognizable in it are those we discern, more or less distinctly, in all the works that have just been passed in review. The better we define these general characteristics, the easier will be our task in apportioning the share which should be allotted to imitation in this art, and in