Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/386

 Characteristics of Mycenian Sculpture. 333 works of the Mycenian artist, we everywhere see the same choice of subjects, the same weapons and costume, the same mode of interpretation, and the same conventions ; sculptor and engraver work on the same themes, and the spirit in which they treat them is thoroughly alike, but widely different from that of Oriental art. The reader will judge from the example engraved below, perhaps the most impressive in our collection, how profound is the differ- ence between the two styles. The intaglio represents a battle- scene carried on by four men (Fig. 414). Victory seems assured to the man with the raised sword ; but the arrival of a new-comer may yet deprive him of his triumph, and in this way the issue of the strife is left undecided. We have met nothing like this in the battle-pictures of Egypt and Assyria. There, the artist does not admit that the hero whose exploits he is about to represent can ever be vanquished, or victory tremble in the balance between him and his foes. These are always overthrown by his mighty arm, or crushed under the wheel of his chariot. Any work of art where the conclusion may be foretold with absolute certainty must inevitably lose of its interest and warmth. An unerring instinct saved the Mycenian artist even then from such a pit-fall ; he understood that the mind of the spectator would not be moved if the end of the conflict were known before- hand. Here then, as in the lion-hunt of one of the daggers (PL XVIII. 3), as in the bull-fight of the Vaphio goblet (Fig. 362), he remains neuter between the parties striving against each other. His interest in them waxes in proportion to the power which they put forth ; he takes as much pleasure in show- ing off the courage of the lion and the bull, who fight gallantly for dear life, as in the man who brings them down with his club, or nets them. These are the very methods that Greek statuary will employ. If there is an intaglio which more than any other may be said to betray Oriental influence, it is the Mycenae ring with the portrayal of a deity seated in front of a tree (Fig. 418). Obviously it bears a certain analogy to the worship scenes figured on many a Chaldaeo- Assyrian cylinder ; ^ these present several variants on a theme representing women in different attitudes, grouped around a palm usually loaded with fruit ; whilst the sun and moon appear in the upper part of the scene. Hence it 1 M. Heuzey has pointed out the analogies referred to above, and engraved one of the cylinders in question {Rei^ue archeologiquc).