University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Link to University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Link to University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture

Page View

Speltz, Alexander / Styles of ornament: exhibited in designs, and arranged in historical order, with descriptive text.
([1906])

The Grecian ornament,   pp. [43]-66


Page [43]

Grecian Womans in the home (Gerhardt, auserlesene Vasenbilder). 
THE GRECIAN ORNAMENT. 
t has been clearly and definitely proved, both from 
discoveries made in excavations, as well as from certain significant statements
made by Homer himself, that even in prehistoric times severa1~ céntres
of art existed in Greece and in the islands lying in its neighbourhood. These
centres were chiefly found 
in Peloponnessus, in Attica, in Milet, Ephesus, Chios, Samos, and many other
islands, as well as also in Southern Italy. The prehistoric Grecian Ornament,
which was brought to light by Schliemann in the excavations undertaken by
him in Troy, Mycene and Tirynthia, contains so many Egyptian and Assyrian
motifs that no doubt can be _________ but that Egypt and Asia Minor exercised
a most powerful influence on the early beginnings of Grecian art. That an
intercourse existed between these countries is beyond doubt, for, even in
prehistoric times, the waters of the Mediterranean were alive with craft
trading in all directions. 
 In its primary stages of development, Grecian art in the islands on the
Aegean Sea was subject to Oriental influences. Grecian stone 
* t~t~jai~, like that of the Egyptian, was developed from wooden structures,
the constructive forms of the latter, being, in many cases, changed into
ornament in the stone tectonics. 


Go up to Top of Page