Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/477

 450 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. thirty pieces of ivory were collected.^ But ivory was plentiful at Mycenae, both in the upper layers and the rock-cut tombs. '^ Asia Minor and Greece received ivory in an un wrought state, and fashioned it to suit their taste or needs. A knife-hasp from Troy is quite as rudely executed as the pottery and clay idols amongst which it was found (Fig. 502). We ask, without being able to answer the question, whether the animal portrayed on it was meant for a pig or a dog. But upon the ivories and glass from Mycenae, Menidi, and Spata, where the work is freer, the forms peculiar to Mycenian art are well defined. The decorations consist of purely geometrical figures, metopes and triglyphs (Fig. 223), and the unending variety of scrolls and spirals (Fig. 241); a whole network of lozenges with curvilinear sides, which the painter used to veil the vast expanse of his inner walls (Figs. 215, 216), including more or less complicated rosettes (Figs. 230, 231). The same animals, real or fictitious, are repeated on ivory and stone, or painted on terra-cottas. Then follow a whole series of marine animals, bivalves sometimes shown like an open oyster (Fig. 503), and argonauts.^ At other times wild animals are represented struggling with their usual prey ; now, a lion brings down a bull (Fig. 396), now a dog hangs from a goat at full speed (Fig. 398). Here we come upon a crouching bull (Fig. 394)» and rams moving in file or lying down (Figs. 399-401); there upon griffins (Figs. 407, 408) and sphinxes (Figs. 280, 409, 410). The design of the bas-relief over 'the Lions Gate returns upon a knife (Fig. 368).* The portrayal of men's figures, their costume and head-dress, is known to us from other monuments (Figs. 359, 373), whilst in the women's dress are more particularly beheld the distinctive peculiarities of this art (Figs. 347, 348, 377-381). Finally, not a few ivory columns reproduce the exact proportions of what we have called the Mycenian order (Figs. 201, 202, 205). Panels, furniture, and instruments were not the only instances wherein ivory was introduced ; combs, too, were richly decorated with it (Fig. 280), and above all, the handles of mirrors (Figs. ^ Bulletin dt correspondance hellhiique, 2 ScHLiEMANN, Myccna, Vaphio has given little or no ivory. ^ Bulletin de correspondance hellhiique. The same forms recur on ivory plaques discovered at MycentX. ^ See ScHLiEMANN, Mycena.