Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/447

 ^gd Primitive Greece; Mycenian Art. vase in the Tshinli-Kiosk Museum at Constantinople is carried to the extreme limits of conventionalism. The vessel was found by Hambdi-Bey — during the excavations which he carried on in the iEolian necropolis of Pitane — to whom I am indebted for the annexed drawings (Figs. 480, 482).^ The first represents the vase itself, and the second shows the ornament drawn out at length. It is a stirrup-handled amphora, painted in red with touches of black, on a pale yellow ground. The lateral spout is broken. The above amphora is one of the many specimens that have come from the shaft-graves of Peloponnesus and Mycenae ; together they enable us to comprehend the different kinds of pottery made by the inhabitants, or such as were obtained from foreign sources, during a thousand years or thereabouts. The products of local manufacture must have far exceeded imported wares ; nevertheless, the technique of the vase under notice points to its having come from an important centre. Mono- chrome pottery is abundantly found at Pitane, in Mysia ; the clay, which is almost black, is as coarse and the forms as rude as at Troy. This primitive earthenware was, it seems, immedi- ately followed by vases overspread with a white lustrous slip, on which the subject was painted with a light red colour. Like the Camiros examples, they exhibit sphinxes, flowers of the lotus, and the like. A few vases, found at rare intervals, generally small, with red ornaments, wreaths, and palmettes upon a black ground, take us to the red pottery, with reliefs, of the Roman period. The highest effort of the painter is beheld in the elaborate subject represented on this vase. The respiratory organs of the creature are not indicated. The eyes are replaced by spirals, and the body is unnaturally elongated. Mollusks, fish, birds, and quadrupeds move in and out of the huge fellow's tentacles. At the extremities of these, and around the body, are undulating lines apparently designed for sea-waves. The question may be asked whether these creatures, severally, have been dropped there intentionally, or merely for the sake of filling the space, and if so, whether the painter did not choose the arrangement to convey an allegorical meaning not very hard to grasp. I showed the vase to the eminent zoologist, M. Houssay, who is known to archaeolo- gists for his co-operation in the expedition of Dieulafoy to Susiana. ^ The drawings in question were made under my supervision by a pupil of the Turkish School of Art, founded and directed by Hambdi-Bey.