Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/431

 376 Primitive Greece: Mycen[an Akt. did it preserve the same level of excellence throughout its term of existence. We cannot, without infringing on the limits within which we wish to confine ourselves, divide the lustrous vases into four groups,' as specialists have done, but will consider the whole series as forming but one class. The two first sections comprise pottery exhibiting new methods in the decorative scheme. The paste is gritty and coarse, and the ground and designs lack brilliancy. The third group represents the perfection of the art ; the paste is pure and of a fine texture ; the walls are thin, and Fiu. 457.— Amphora from lalysos. Height, 43 c. the yellow tone of the ground is of a beautiful warm colour. The tint of the decorations ranges from pale yellow to darkest brown ; certain details are painted in white. The colours are true in tone, a quality they owe to the intense heat to which the vases have been subjected (PI. XXL). Most of the vases yielded by the Mycenae graves, and almost all those that have come from the sepulchres at Nauplia, Menidi, Spata, and lalysos, belong to this group. The fabrication of polished pottery, then, extends from the day when the graves of the slab-circle were ' Mykam.hi Vaien.