On the other hand, he must have been equally conscious
that natural objects such as flowers did not look natural in a
polychrome guise which was not that of Nature. The only solution
of the colour difficulty in the circumstances was a compromise in
the shape of a convention. Thus the tendency came into being to
make all natural objects either simply light on a dark ground,
or dark on a light ground.'[*]
[Footnote *: _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, vol. Xxvi., part I,
pp. 257, 258.]
The two flowers most generally used for the purpose of ornamentation
are the lily and the crocus. For the first time the importance of
pottery as an evidence of the condition of the art of the period
is second to that of other artistic products. It is to Middle Minoan
III. that there belongs the wonderful fabric of faience, of which so
many specimens were discovered in the Temple Repositories. In them
the same tendency towards naturalism reveals itself. The wild-goat
suckling its kid, the flying-fish, the porcelain vases, one of them
with cockle-shell relief, and another with ferns and rose-leaves
on a ground of pale green, are all instances of the naturalistic
growth. Evidence is also afforded of a great delight in scenes
connected with the sea, and we have the flying-fish and the seal
with the seaman in his skiff defending himself against the attacks
of the sea-monster, to witness to the Minoan appreciation alike
of the curiosities and the dangers of the deep.
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