It is not a Cretan piece, for this shape of high stemmed cup was little used in Crete, not indeed until the very end of the bronze age. The vase is made of admirably levigated clay its surface is highly polished. The number of arms is altered in the interest of symmetry the suckers are rendered by neat rows of dots in superadded white. The creature is depicted in a manner that is both lifelike and decorative. The octopus on the Museum’s cup, page 73, is from an intermediate period. In the last period of the bronze age, the figure of the octopus is so stylized that it is little more than a figure eight with two eyes and four arms which cover in even loops the entire surface of the vase. In the earlier phases of the potter’s art, the whole cove was represented with fronds of seaweed floating about its margins and the smaller fry of marine life filling in the picture. Throughout the bronze age, potters, jewellers, and painters of frescoes used the octopus as a decorative motive. Since men made boats they have hunted the octopus so-if we except the glass-bottomed pail.
A bronze age cup with octopus decoration. One man hangs over the stern and looks through a glass-bottomed pail the other gently propels the boat. They are hunting the octopus in his lair. And on still summer mornings fishermen are seen working their boats in and out of the tiny coves that fringe the Greek islands. They are pounding the octopus to make it tender. On wharves young boys swing sprawling masses of pulp high above their heads and slap them with all their might against the ground. On the table d’hôte of seaside restaurants are served neatly cut sections of his long arms, which taste, if one has the temerity to taste, something like our scallop. NO one can travel far in the Eastern Mediterranean without encountering the octopus. A Bronze Age Cup Decorated with an Octopus
0 kommentar(er)
