Themes > Arts > Painting > Painting before 1300 > Aegean Frescoes > Frescoes

Minoan and Mycenaean frescoes differ in some important ways. The meaning behind them contrast in a variety of ways. Also their origins of figural wall and floor-painting in the Aegean world differ. Mycenaean frescoes need not come from palaces, although the vast majority of them so far published do. There are, for example, post-palatial (i.e. LH IIIC) frescoes known from Mycenae, as well as frescoes of the palatial period from a private house in Argos and a "mansion" or possible mini-palace at Zygouries (the so-called "Potter's Shop"). The earliest Mycenaean frescoes so far discovered come from dump deposits at Mycenae and probably date to the LH IIA period of the late 16th or early 15th century B.C. The Pylos frescoes Those found in the ruins of the palace, whether actually on walls or fallen from them, as well as those found in various dumps around the palace - may all be dated to the later LH IIIB period, ca. 1250-1200 B.C. These frescoes show that much the same range of representational motifs appears in frescoes of ca. 1250 B.C. as can be found in frescoes of the period ca. 1750-1375 B.C. on Crete [Neopalatial and earlier Final Palatial pereiods] and in the islands. Thus the art of fresco painting is characterized on the Mycenaean Mainland by a tenacity of tradition that can be compared with that of oral formulaic poetry, particularly well illustrated in the poetry of Homer. This tradition was established by the Minoans, although Cameron has observed a number of features in the depiction of large-scale female figures in Mycenaean frescoes of the LH IIIA-B periods which are to be derived from Theran (or generally Cycladic) rather than Minoan antecedents and which suggest that fresco art may have been transmitted to the Mainland from Crete through the Cyclades rather than directly. One result of the extreme conservatism of Mycenaean fresco art is that it is impossible to date Mycenaean murals by their subject matter alone. The repetitiousness of Mycenaean fresco iconography also suggests that "pattern books" of some sort may have been in circulation on the Greek Mainland during the later half of the Late Bronze Age. The frescoes also show that fresco formulas, like the literary formulas in oral poetry, may in theory become misunderstood with the passage of time. Thus, for example, Mycenaean versions of bull-jumping differ so substantially from Minoan ones that modern authorities have questioned whether bull-jumping was still an activity actually practiced by the Mycenaeans. That is, the novel compositional aspects of such scenes could reflect misunderstanding of an artistic formula rather than a genuine change in the sport of bull-jumping. Many believe that frescoes in Pylos were used more for a decorative purpose than for some other significant meaning. From this, one can interpret a frescoe of Pylos to wrongfully represent the normal life of the people. Frescoes may wrongly symbolize acts of hunting or combat. In this sense, then, there is a pronounced contrast with Minoan palatial fresco art, which in its choice of scenes certainly seems to have concerned itself primarily with real activities conducted on a regular basis in or around the palace building (i.e. bull-jumping, dancing, boxing, and processional scenes). However, it must be kept in mind that the purely decorative character of the wall paintings at Pylos may simply reflect the individual tastes of the local dynast, as do a number of the architectural peculiarities of that palace. Yet even if the Pylos frescoes are conceded to be largely decorative in function, certain motifs and themes are clearly considered appropriate for specific architectural locales: large lions and wingless griffins, for example, occur only in rooms with large ceremonial hearths, while processions of large-scale human figures decorate the walls of the porch and vestibule immediately preceding the throne room. Scenery "Pylos has little to show of nature for nature's sake." There is nothing at Pylos comparable to such scenes as the "Springtime Fresco" from Akrotiri, the frescoes showing blue monkeys picking flowers or romping about in a troupe from Knossos and Akrotiri, or the famous mural showing a cat stalking a bird from Ayia Triadha. Indeed, at Pylos many living forms including bluebirds, dogs, and nautili are reduced to the status of lifelessly repeated motifs employed in continuous friezes. The only plant forms which remain natural at Pylos are the flowers sometimes carried by women. Animals and Humans in Frescoes Animals have varied roles in the Pylos frescoes, but all animals are depicted primarily in terms of their interaction with human beings. Scenes within which only animals appear in a naturalistic landscape are extremely rare. In the hunting scenes, animals are man's victims. They are included in other scenes as his property or his helpers (horses, dogs, a bull). Animals also figure importantly as symbols, presumably of royal power, in the form of alternating lions and wingless griffins. Only once at Pylos does an animal appear in a natural setting, in the form of a life-size deer in a fragmentary scene which includes a papyrus plant. The employment of animals in anthropocentric settings appears to be common to all Mycenaean wall painting and not a characteristic of the Pylos murals alone. Compare, for example, such well-known scenes as the boar hunt from Tiryns (known also in a virtually identical rendering at Orchomenos), the deer hunt from Tiryns, the bull-jumping panels from Mycenae and Tiryns, and the appearance of horses hitched to chariots at both Tiryns and Mycenae. Two classes of such scenes may be differentiated on the basis of varying scales and subjects. Scenes on a small or miniature scale at Pylos include scenes of the hunt, of battle or of the preparation for battle, of offering and sacrifice, and of banqueting. Hunting and battle scenes on this small scale are also known from Mycenae, Tiryns, and possibly Orchomenos. The subject matter of these frescoes is thus far not well paralleled at this scale in Minoan painting (except possibly in the miniature frescoes from Tylissos that depict, among other things, boxers), but does appear to have had antecedents on a miniature scale in LM IA frescoes from Ayia Irini on Keos and Akrotiri on Thera. Scenes featuring life-size human figures of both sexes are common enough at Pylos but all appear to be processions of one sort or another. Similar scenes occur at both Tiryns and Thebes, and all such scenes are of course closely comparable to LM II-IIIA antecedents in the Corridor of the Procession and on the Grand Staircase at Knossos.

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