Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/424

 POTTERV, 369 tinuous rows interspersed with dots; volutes, undulating lines, rings and spirals intersecting one another. Vegetable forms are by no means rare. Leaves arranged into graceful chaplets, run, here on the body of a cylindrical vase, there inside a dish ; whilst flowers, perhaps irises, have been met on the mural paintings (Figs. 208, 209) of Tiryns. Occasionally animals are also introduced. A spherical vase shows us a goat or doe at full speed (PL XX. i), and on a fragment there is an animal of the stag species amidst shrubs." Another painted vase is Fio. 450. — Base of vase. Height, 35 c. ; diameter at the base, zo c. given by Dumont, on which birds were probably reproduced, all that remains, however, are some long feathers from the tail.^ " The several decorative forms which we have enumerated present a certain unity. We see the most widely-opposed designs united together on the same piece. Similarities of make, proving community of origin, appear in all these vases. The taste they reveal is already instinct with refinement, a sincere striving after proportion and symmetry. With very simple elements they suc- ceed in forming combinations of a somewhat elaborate character. ' A. Dumont, Les dramtques. * Ibid.