Bull-Leaping Fresco

The Bull-Leaping Fresco is a 78.2 cm high stucco fresco of bull-leaping from the Middle Minoan III to Late Minoan B period (17th-15th centuries BC), though there is also a view that it is a later work, of 1425 BC, which would put it in the New Palace period[1]

Contents

History

It was found on a wall on the east side of the palace of Knossos, in the courtyard of the stone mouth. Its main subject is a scene of bull-leaping, surrounded by images of stone and abstract linear motifs. The ensemble as a whole is two-dimensional, except for the strong lines in the woman's chests, legs and thighs, which reflect the artist's attempt to deliver volume and depth, a rare attempt for this period. It is on display at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.

On an Egyptian blue background, in the centre of the scene, is a bull, painted in pink-red ochre, lime and brown, or yellow ochre with coal - these colors may have been chosen for their effect, though it is also possible that the use of red ochre and other Neolithic colours is linked to contemporary ideas of death. The bull is suspended in the air, as a result of the artist's wish to capture its brash aggressive movement - bulls often continued to be represented that way right up to the creation of photography. Either side of the bull is a woman, one of whom holds the bull's horns and the other holds out her arms, while a man is on the bull's back. Both sexes are in the same costume (probably since a more complex garment could get entangled in the bull's horns) and they are differentiated by differences in the anatomy and colour used for their skin (the man is in red ochre, the women white, as in Cycladic and Mycenaean frescoes). The man's movement is dynamic, the figures' ears are fully formed and (as in most Bronze Age art) the bull's and humans' eyes are bird-like in appearance.

Bull-leaping scenes like these are found elsewhere in the ancient world, such as Tell el-Daba in the Nile Delta of Egypt.[2]

The fresco can be linked to different visual elements in other art forms, such as a steatite bull-headed rhyton (1600 BC)[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ See also Sinclair Hood, 74.
  2. ^ Bietak, Manfred, “Minoan Artists at the Court of Avaris.” In Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C., edited by Joan Aruz, Kim Benzel, and Jean M. Evans. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
  3. ^ Archaeological Museum of Heraklion. Βλ. See also Sinclair Hood, figures 87 and 55.

Bibliography