Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/401

 348 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. considered by some in the light of an importation, but we think on very insufficient reasons. The same blue ground, the same colour and technique, and even accessories, occur on the wall- paintings at Tiryns ; whilst the god with the huge shield, the beflounced women, and the profiles of the altar have been met again and again on other monuments of Mycenian art. The picture was doubtless intended to recall some religious ceremony of the local worship, and painted by the same artists who decorated the megarons. It was probably set up in a prominent place about the room, and designed to place the owners of the house wherein it was discovered under the protection of the god of battles. With these populations, the brush was not only employed to decorate the walls of buildings, but of every available expanse of surface. With it thousands of clay vases were covered with designs, including those stone vases which the isles of the Archipelago turned out in vast quantities. Of these, not a few specimens have found their way to Argolis. Thus, on the fragment of a sandstone jar from the Heraeum, the point of the brush has traced the outlines of a man with a necklace (Fig. 434).^ The dress is only indicated by a broad band which must have formed the upper border of the tunic. Of all these paintings, the Tirynthian fresco is that which, owing to its state of preservation and the nature of the theme, permits us to judge of the habits of the painter and his qualities of workman- ship. As to the figures and patterns having been produced from other designs, this is an idea which, as has been well observed, is inadmissible. The eye of the painter was his only guide ; he drew the image on the wall itself, even though he had to trace and correct his outlines more than once. The ground of the frescoes has peeled off in many places, and revealed the remains of an older sketch over which a coating of blue had been spread. The bull in the first instance was somewhat longer, and as a consequence of it the tail stood farther back and the fore- feet were higher than they are now ; but the artist saw his mistake, and outlined the figure three times over until he was satisfied. The fact that the painter drew his outlines upon a damp surface implies a singularly free and sure hand, together with a precise knowledge of the appropriate character to be given to each form 1 Athenische Mittheilungen,