Art
Discoveries in Greece and Crete THE exhibition at Burliniton House of the work of a single archaeological school during fifty years is bound to be rather heterogeneous. Further, since most of the objects excavated and Studied are in Greece, their place here is chiefly taken by reproducticiM—casta, photographs and drawings. Neverthel less, "it is not only impressive as a record of work but well worth visiting as an exhibition. It is divided into three sections: one room devoted to Minoan culture, chiefly illustrated by Sir Arthur Evans's discoveries at Knossos, two to School excavations and the work of individual Students, and one to Byzantine art. The first and last are the most immediately striking : they form diatinct wholes, while the intermediate sections arc inevitably a number of rather haphazard extracts from the immense field of Greek art. On the other hand, the attempt to cram all Minoan culture into one room is rather intimidating, and tile restorer's imagination seems sometimes a little highly coloured. Still, both faults would have pleased the Minoans; and this remains a rare opportunity for seeing the whole material united, and deserves close attention even from those who do not rate the intrinsic value of Minoan art high.
The second room deals: chiefly with Prehistoric Greece and centres round *My-cenae. Here the material is more modestly presented and consequently easier to appreciate. The third room is dominated by the recent excavations at Peraehora. This is as it should be, both because they are unpublished and because of the intrinsic merit of the finds. Most striking are the bronzes and ivories, of which there are excellent casts ; some of them are masterpieces (ivory sphinx 236, bronze spinx 249, lion 246, Herakles 260). The pottery, being chiefly illustrated by photographs, does not tell so well, but the exquisite drawing of the bust deserves attention ; some of the pieces of 214 should be compared with the wonderful fragment shown in a drawing by Humfry Payne, 361b. The temple-model 231 is also of unconurion interest. The archaic material,from.Sparta and elsewhere forms a valuable supplement to that from Perachora, and Sparta (shown in room two) adds a piece of major statuary, the warrior 199- a good work if not a masterpiece. Major sculpture is also represented in the section dealing with the work of the late Humfry Payne. He perceived that the Rampin head in the Louvre joined the torso of a rider from the Acropolis of Athens, and casts of the two are here for the first time united. The head has always been recognised as a very fine piece, but mounted on the body it gives us an out- standing masterpiece of early Greek art. , .The core of the Byzantine section is a large number of drawings,,withsupplementary photographs, of Greek churches and the mosaics in them, made by students of the School in the first thirty years of its existence, and through lack of funds chiefly unpublished. The drawings are of very high quality,, particularly those of Weir and Barnsley ; but George's of §t. Demetrius at Thessalonika are also exceedingly good and derive a special importance from the fact that that very beautiful building and its mosaics have since been chiefly destroyed. The detail head 541 is an exceptionally sensitive drawing—evidently a very faithful rendering of a very beautiful original. It is to be hoped that these will be published, also Weir and Barnsley's work—their St. Luce appeared in 1901, but none of the others have seen the light before this exhibition. The cases of ikons and Byzantine pottery and nick-nacks, and the very beautiful seventeenth- eighteenth-century. Greek island embroideries with which the walls above the drawings are hung, have the refreshing quality of being originals, inevitably rare in the earlier rooms.
In face of so many examples of the art produced in Greece over some five thousand years, one naturally looks to see if there is any continuity of spirit. Throughout a great part there undoubtedly is. Perhaps even the great mosaics of St. Demetrius at Thessalonika are the hurt flare of the tradition • already manifest in the earliest bronzes from .Perachora, which passes through such ups and downs as the Rampin horseman (367-8) and the Lyeosura group (881-2), but the Palace of Knossos and the Monastery of St. Luce are as little" Greek" as the Cathedral at Chartres or the Taj Mahali
MARTIN ROBERTSON.
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