Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/389

 336 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. wire, and cut into flexible narrow strips to form every conceivable curvilinear ornament. With light, nimble fingers, the pieces thus obtained are easily joined together by soldering or riveting ; this can be so deftly done as to be almost invisible to the eye. These resources one by one are only learnt by constant practice ; and it would be difficult to over-estimate how favourably placed was the Mycenian craftsman in this particular. The opportunities of the stone-cutter were confined to carving figures in the field of a stela or decorating the gate of an acropolis ; but such works were necessarily few and far between, whereas the flow of commissions that came to the goldsmith never ceased. The tastes and magnificence of the master spurred him on to produce unremittingly, and put forth all his strength to please his employers, who would not be satisfied with the same everlasting subjects. There is no handicraft which requires longer training than this, none where a turn of the hand is of greater consequence. Hence we are led to infer that the abundance of gold in kingly castles gave rise to real guilds in the main centres. The more delicate processes, such as incrustations on metal, were perhaps learnt in the first instance of alien artisans, who had come to Argolis to improve their lot, or had been brought thither as slaves. But once the secrets and processes of the craft had been mastered, they were handed down from father to son in artisan families, each generation adding somewhat to the stock it had received. As the artisan gained more and more skill in the handling of his tools, his confidence in himself increased, and his style became broader. That he had started with geometrical drawing is shown from the fact that linear patterns are about the only ones we see on the monuments of the Cyclades ; the next step was to demand new forms of the sea fauna and flora, which the ceramist took up and continued with great zest. So too the elegant outlines of certain insects seem to have had great attractions for him ; by degrees he plucked heart of grace and introduced first the figure of superior animals, then that of man himself, into works of a better class. The silver vase representing a besieged city, daggers with hunting scenes, and not a few engraved signet- rings, were all brought out of the shaft-graves over which rose stelae with the royal chariot carved upon them. Rings, vases, and daggers, then, cannot be younger than the stelae, yet how wide the difference of execution from one group of monuments