The broken fragments of
the Minoan race crept back after the sack to the blackened ruins
of their holy and beautiful house, not to rebuild it, but to divide
its stately rooms and those of its dependencies by rude walls into
poor dwelling-houses, where they lived on--a very different life
from that of the golden days before the sack.
[Illustration XXIII: GREAT JAR WITH PAPYRUS RELIEFS (_p_. 206)]
In their own way they strove to continue, possibly under the modifying
influence of the art tradition of their conquerors, the great story
of the art of Knossos. There is no abrupt break in the style of the
pottery and other articles belonging to the latest Minoan period, as
compared with that of the days before the catastrophe. Technical skill
is almost as great as ever; it is degeneration in the inspiration of
the art that has begun. The spirit of the nation has been broken,
and its art is no longer living. Though the old models are followed,
it is with less complete understanding, with a perpetually increasing
interval, and with less and less fidelity. 'With the inability to
create new ideas of art and life,' says Dr. Mackenzie, 'is coupled
the slavish adherence to inherited tradition and custom in both.
Nothing new is produced, and nothing old is changed.'[*] 'For Crete
the sack is AEgospotami, Late Minoan III.
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