Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/375

 322 Primitive Grefxe: Mycenian Art. draughtsman. Finally, the chasing of water-fowls is one of the commonplaces of Egyptian painting. Thus, a bas-relief shows us a beast of the feline species and an ichneumon pursuing their volatile prey among rushes.^ Despite these and similar affinities, I am convinced that the Mycenian productions are the outcome of an Egyptianized but not of an Egyptian art, and I should no longer be inclined to consider any of the daggers as due to Phoenician industry. We have seen far too often the lion drawn from nature in the Mycenae intaglios and bas-reliefs not to accept the fact that at that time he still inhabited the mountain ranges of Greece. Lion-hunting, therefore, was a theme which this art may claim as its own ; besides, the details of costume and orna- ment beheld in all these pictures, distinguish them from Phoenician works and serve to connect them with the series of Mycenian productions whose origin nobody would think of disputing. The men wear the tight-fitting drawers which we find everywhere at Mycenae, and not the loose loin-cloth seen on the figures of Phoenician bowls.^ Again, on many of these tazze, the warriors are protected by a round shield ; whereas the cavaliers of the Mycenian glyptics and bas-reliefs are provided with two kinds of shields, neither of which has yet been met on Phoenician vases. Both kinds of shields are huge ; the one is long and semi-cylindrical, the second spherical, and curved in at the sides (PI. XVIII. 3 ; Figs. 414, 416, 418). If it is not unlikely that the subject figured on another blade was suggested by an Egyptian model (PI. XVII. i), I think I can detect from certain indications the mark of the artist. The way the plants, papyrus or lotus, are grouped in the field, is instinct with a degree of elegance and variety not to be found in the similar representations of Egypt, where the plants grow plentifully, or in the less frequent examples from Phoenicia. The plants, when figured in the Delta, are stiff and straight (Fig. 427) or arranged into sheafs (Fig. 428).^ It is the same with the medallion of a Phoenician bowl.* The artificer who designed the decoration of our dagger was more inventive ; each bunch of lotus is given a different inclination. As to the Vaphio vases, I am afraid that I took unnecessary trouble when, two years ago, I claimed for the Mycenian chiseller the honour of having executed them. This view of the case 1 Lepsius, DenkmiiUr. 2 History of Art ^ Ibid. ^ Ibid,