ARCHAEOLOGY treatment of the human body is here more advanced than on the vases of the Dipylon. On the site of Olympia, where Mycenaean remains are not found, but the earliest monuments seem to belong to the Dorian age, a quantity of dedications in bronze have been found, the decoration of which belongs to this style. We engrave (Fig. 4) the handle of a tripod from Olympia, which is adorned .with geometric patterns and Fig. 4. Handle of tripod : Olympia, iv. 33. surmoUI1ted by the figure of a horse. In the 7 th century, however, it was not unusual to adorn votive tripods and coffers with mythologic representations. Especially interesting is one plate of bronze, also from Olympia, used for some such purpose (Fig. 5), and showing in repousse work, finished with the graving tool, a winged Artemis grasping two lions, and Herakles shooting a centaur, whose front legs are human, not equine. In the upper lines of the relief are pairs of eagles and griffins. Another similar plate represents again Herakles shooting. More than one breastplate has come from Olympia engraved by the tool with scenes such as one finds on early vases. Votive models of animals are also abundant. In fact, the history of Greek Fig. 5.^--Bronze plate: Olympia. art from 800 to 500 b.c. can be nowhere better traced than in the plates of Furtwangler’s great work on the bronzes of Olympia. Period II. 700-480 b.c. It was in the 6th century that the genius of the Greeks, almost suddenly, as it seems to us, emancipated itself from the thraldom of tradition and passed beyond the limits with which the nations of the East and West had hitherto been content, in a free and bold effort towards the ideal. Thus the 6th century marks the stage in art in which it may be said to have become definitely Hellenic. The Greeks still borrowed many of their decorative forms, through Phoenician agency, from the old-world empires of Egypt and Babylon, but they used those forms freely to express their own meaning. And gradually, in the course of the century, we see both in the painting of vases and in sculpture a national spirit and a national style forming under the influence of Greek religion and mythology, Greek athletic training, Greek worship of beauty. . We must here lay emphasis on the fact, which is sometimes overlooked in an age which is greatly given to the Darwinian search after origins, that it is one thing to trace back to its original sources the nascent art of Greece, and
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quite another thing to follow and to understand its gradual embodiment of Hellenic ideas and civilization. The immense success with which the veil has in late years been lifted from the prehistoric age of Greece, and the clearness with which we can discern the various strands woven into the web of Greek art, have tended to fix our attention rather on what Greece possessed in common with all other peoples at the same early stage of civilization than on what Greece added for herself to this common stock. In many respects the art of Greece is incomparable—one of the great inspirations which have redeemed the world from mediocrity and vulgarity. And it is the searching out and appreciation of this unique and ideal beauty in all its phases, in idea and composition and execution, which is the true task of Greek archaeological science. In very recent years it has been possible, for the first time, to trace the influence of Ionian painting, as represented by vases, on the rise of art. The dis^ ^^ coveries at Naucratis and Daphnae in Egypt, due vases. to the keenness and pertinacity of Mr Petrie, opened a new light in this matter. It became evident that when those cities were first inhabited by Ionian Greeks, in the 7 th century, they used pottery of several distinct but allied styles, the most notable feature of which was the use of the lotus in decoration, the presence of continuous friezes of animals and of monsters, and the filling up of the background with rosettes, lozenges, and other forms. We engrave a vase found in Bhodes (Fig. 6) to illustrate this Ionian decoration. The sphinx, the deer, and the swan are prominent on it, the last-named serving as a link between the geometric ware and the more brilliant and varied ware of the Ionian cities. The assignment of the many species of early Ionic ware to various Greek localities, Miletus, Samos, Phocaea, and other cities, is a work of great difficulty, which is now closely occupying the attention of archaeologists. For the results of their studies the reader is referred to two recent German works, Boehlau’s Aus ionischen und italischen Nehropolen, and Endt’s Beitrdge zur ionischen Vasenmcderei. The feature which is most interesting in this pottery from our present point of view is the way in which representations of Greek myth and legend gradually make their way, and relegate the mere decoration of the vases to borders and neck. One of the earliest examples of representation of a really Greek subject is the contest of Menelaus and Euphorbus on a plate found in Rhodes {Ency. Brit. xix. p. 611, Fig. 24). On the vases of Melos, of the 7th century, which are, however, not Ionian, but rather Dorian in character, we have a certain number of mythological scenes, battles of Homeric heroes, and the like. One of these we engrave (Fig. 7). It represents Apollo in a chariot drawn by winged horses, playing on the lyre, and accompanied by a pair of Muses, meeting his sister Artemis. It is notable that Apollo is bearded, and that Artemis holds her stag
