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The Kamares civilization, starting from Crete, exercised influence over the islands of the Aegean: the importation and imitation of its ware can be proved for Thera and Melos. Isolated finds in Egypt are of importance, first because they prove the relation of Crete to the Nile valley, and secondly because they give a fixed date (XII Dynasty). The technique did not disappear with the Middle Minoan Age, but was long maintained alongside of the new style.

The Kamares finds come mostly from the older palaces of Phaistos and Knossos. The investigation of their ruins has shown that these buildings were destroyed by fire and soon afterwards replaced by still finer new edifices. The vase finds in these later palaces show a complete break with the old style. Polychromy is no longer the principal attraction; it is given only a secondary place: the new style (Middle Minoan III and Late Minoan I, Figs. ssss1, ssss1, ssss1 and ssss1), which is no longer satisfied with gay ornamentation, but with fresh vigour essays the conquest of Nature and her excellences, throws off the bands of the old technique, and with bold freedom depicts the newly discovered world in dark colour on light clay. In contrast to the Kamares style, it did not arise on the vases themselves by the enrichment of an ornamental style, but it is to be understood as the reflection of higher techniques. Vase-painting gives only a small extract from the rich array of subjects, which the other lesser arts and the wall-painting of the period conjure before our eyes. Of the wonderfully vivid representations of men and animals, in which the Cretans were masters, nothing is to be found on the vases. This is certainly not an accident, but a sign of the purely decorative feeling of these artists. They did not want to stylize the human or animal body till it became decorative, to distort it for the eye by placing it on a curved surface, and by combining figures to upset the ease and flow of the decorative scheme. Thus they entirely gave up all reproduction of them, and are thus in marked contrast with Greek vase-painting, the history of which may be regarded as a constant struggle to represent mankind and animal creation. The Cretans took to other objects instead, which could be represented in the vigorous way they aimed at, and yet also filled the field decoratively, without any loss to the picture from the