Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Metal Age

Middle Minoan

The Middle Minoan period saw the evolution of a monarchical society based on palaces situated in the most fertile districts of Crete. There were undoubtedly frescoes in these large buildings before 1600 bce, but little survived the disastrous earthquake of about 1700 bce, and once again it is the pottery that gives the best idea of contemporary aesthetics. The decorative style is basically a development of the previous period’s. Curvilinear patterns in white, yellow, and red swirl around the surfaces of these bulbous vases. The latest Middle Minoan style is similar, but its static formality seems better suited to wall decoration, and it is likely that monumental frescoes from the old palaces influenced the vase painter. The combination of modeled flowers and animals with painted motifs on the vases certainly reflects similar developments in wall painting, where stucco reliefs were combined with simple painted backgrounds.

Middle Cycladic and Middle Helladic

On the mainland and in the islands, native styles of plain or simply painted pottery continued to be executed, but Cretan influence was felt toward the end of the period in both areas, and they began to be drawn into the wider cultural orbit characteristic of the following period.

Wall paintings

The three separate areas of the Aegean were brought into intimate contact during the Late Bronze Age; indeed the whole eastern Mediterranean saw intense cross connections and cultural diffusion. Great palaces arose on the Greek mainland and Crete and even on some of the smaller islands. Although there were probably differences in the natures of the societies that built them (resulting in fortified structures on the Greek mainland and unfortified ones on Crete), the palaces and great houses were decorated with complex frescoes whose style was based on Cretan models. Many of the figured scenes are merely decorative and depict landscapes with birds and animals or figures gathering flowers. Others show ceremonies connected with a cult or the court (the “bull-leaping fresco”) and were probably useful in bolstering the power of the royal or priestly classes. The style is a combination of dark outline drawing, to delimit the object shown, and solid painted areas within it. On some birds and animals the feathers or pelts are imitated by slightly more impressionistic brushstrokes. Most of these frescoes are in fragmentary condition, but a better idea of what they must once have looked like can be gained from the house walls at Akrotíri on Thera (one of the Cyclades of the southern Aegean). Thera was destroyed by volcanic eruption during the 15th century bce and is often referred to as the Greek Pompeii. The wall paintings there were heavily influenced by those of Crete, both as to style and subject matter, though the popularity of outline figures on a pale background stemmed from the local pottery tradition. One of the most exciting discoveries is a long frieze depicting a fleet of gaily decorated ships sailing against a backdrop of hilly islands with towns, shepherds, and hunters scattered along the shores or set upon the forested peaks among gushing streams. Another painting shows a group of women at a religious festival and—in the first known instance at this period—ordinary people: two boys boxing and a fisherman proudly displaying his catch. These paintings decorated well-to-do houses. In the great palaces of Crete and on the Greek mainland many of the scenes are rather more formal. At Knossos on Crete there are long lines of offering bearers in the vestibule leading to the state rooms. The throne in one ritual chamber is flanked by fresco paintings of griffins whose presence must have had a protective value. Griffins also flank the throne at Pylos in Greece, and the same site has produced fragments of another fresco showing battle scenes. Mycenae (also on the Greek mainland) possesses a small sanctuary whose walls are decorated with ritual episodes, and religious ceremonies do indeed appear to have been an important part of the wall painters’ repertoire. There are, however, none of the historical or annalistic scenes so characteristic of the palaces and temples of western Asia and Egypt. In particular there are no depictions of investitures or battles with accompanying inscriptions; in short, Aegean paintings are more muted than their Middle Eastern equivalents. This is not to say that the visitor would have been less impressed by the ruler’s power in these first great European civilizations, merely that the iconographic emphases were different.

Vase paintings