PAINTING
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PAINTING
which the State attmlu'il to the imporial majcsly
of Csesar. The Good Sliopherd of the C'atacoinhs
and the pastoral scenes gradually disappeared; the
last traces of them are found in the rotunda of .St.
Constantia and in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia
at Ravenna (c. 4.50). In the magnificent mosaic of
S. Pudenziana at Rome (before 410), the Cross, which
stands in mid-heaven above a Senate of Apostles
wearing the laticlavc, is already a symbol of triumph.
Christ appears as a celestial imperalor invested with
awe-inspiring glory. "The arches of the world",
writes Eusebius, "are His throne, the earth is His
footstool. The celestial armies are His guard." —
Thus formidably is the God of the Gospel portrayed
on the porch of the ancient Vatican.
Rome still preserves the oldest remains of the new art, but the East has claims to priority. Such recent discoveries as those of M. Cledat in the necropolis of El Bagaout (fourth century) and in the convent of Baouit (sixth century), the excavations of M. Gayet in the tombs of .\ntinoe and the funeral portraits unearthed at Fayum form an accumulation of evi- dence which leaves no doubt on this point. To these may be added the famous miniatures of Cosmas Indicopleustes and of the "Roll of Josue" (preserved at the Vatican), the originals of which date from the sixth century, or those of the Mesopotamian Evangel- iary, illustrated in 586 by the monk Rabula (Lauren- tian Library, Florence), and, although of somewhat later date, the paintings of the Evangeliaries of Etsch- miadzin (Armenian, dated 989) and Rossano, repro- duced from obviously earlier models, either Alexan- drian or Syriac. These paintings are chiefly narrative and historical in character. The Church, having con- quered paganism, must now face the task of supplying its place. And the Church quickly recognized in her own experience with paganism the efficacy of images as means of instruction. This is testified by a letter (end of the fourth century) from St. Nilus to the pre- fect Olympiodorus, who had built a church and wished to know if it were fitting that he should adorn it only with scenes of the chase and angling, with foliage, etc., having in view only the pleasure of the eye. St. Nilus replied that this was mere childish nonsense, that the fitting thing in the sanctuary was the image of the Cross, and on the walls scenes from the Old Testament and the Gospel, so that those who, being unable to read the Scriptures, might by these pictures be re- minded of the beautiful deeds of the followers of the true God, and thereh\' impelled to do in like manner. Obviously, the holy anchorite here recommended gen- uine historical compositions. The Church, replacing the vast pagan repertory of legend and fable, created for the imagination a new basis, likewise derived from the past. At that date the best apology for the Church was the story of its life and its genealogy, and this was perseveringly set forth during the early centuries after Constantine. This historical tendency is clearly evi- dent at St. Mary Major's in the forty mosaics, exe- cuted in the time of Pope Sixtus HI (432-40), which relate the fives of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Josue. Christ's victory and His glorious Advent also find expression in the "triumphal arches" of St. Paul's Without the Walls (under Leo I, 440-61) and of the Lateran (under Hilary I, 461-68).
But Rome, conquered by the hordes of Alaric, had fallen from her political rank, and henceforth the evolution of Byzantine painting must be followed at Ravenna and Constantinople.
B. Monumental Painting to the Iconoclastic Contro- versy. — Representing deeds rather than ideals, events rather than symbols, the Byzantine School endowed Christianity with a complete system of representation of all types, some of which are still used, and once for all formulated the essential traits of the great scenes of religious history. (See Byzantine Abt.)
In its early period Byzantine painting was strictly
realistic. The mosaics, e. g., on either sifle of the
(^hoir of S. Vitale at Ravenna, show the Court of
Justinian and Theodora — sickly, dissolute figures; the
men, coarse; the women, bleached and bedizened,
overladen with jewels and dressed in the extreme of
luxury — unforgettable personifications of a cori-ui)t
and dazzling life. This care for documentary exacti-
tude was applied also to the past: historic characters
were treated as contemporary. The Christians of the
first three centuries had been obliged to content them-
selves with conventional types, without individual
character, for their figures of Christ; liiit here B>-zan-
tine art raised new questions. The Christ olofjicid clis-
putes of the time necessitated new dogmatic dclini-
tions. In painting a certain school, appealing to a
text of Isaias, maintained that Christ was hideous.
In answer to these, appeal was made, in the fourth
century, to the so-called "Letter of Lentulus to the
Senate". Christ, according to this document, had
blue eyes and light hair falling smooth to His ears,
then in curls over his shoulders. One recognizes here
the desire to give to the figure of the Sax'iour a certain
majestic beauty embodied in the stereotyped traits
of a portrait which leaves no room for the play of
fancy.
The same process of determination went on at the same time for the principal characters of sacred his- tory, for the Blessed Virgin, the Patriarchs, and the Apostles, and each of these pictorial types acquired the force of a law. The Council of 692, for example, decreed that Christ should be represented as the Lamb. This scrupulosity extends to accessories and embellishments: at San Vitale, Ravenna, the "Hospi- tality of Abraham" has for its setting a vast verdant landscape; at San Apollinare Nuovo, the city of Classis and the palace of Theodoric are accurately represented. In Gospel scenes veritable reproduc- tions of Jerusalem were aimed at. The care for exact representation was, at the same time, counteracted by the passion for grandeur and splendour of effect which dominated all Byzantine painting. The latter tendency arose partly from the exigencies of decora- tive work and the inexorable laws governing monu- mental style. Decoration implies work intended to be viewed from a distance, and therefore simple in out- line and colossal in scale, reduced to absolute essentials strikingly displayed on a wall-surface. Hence certain conventions, the result of optical laws: few gestures, little action, no agitation or confusion. The counte- nances have an impassive and fixed expression, as the tragic actor, in the Greek theatre, assumed mask and cothurnus, and chanted the solemn lines to a slow recitative.
This theatrical and imposing style was, however, less artificial than might be supposed. It naturally ascribed to the personages of the sacred drama the ceremonious dignity of the Byzantine world, modelling the past on the present. One of the most marked effects of these ideas is the repugnance to representing suffering and death. At San Apollinare Nuovo, in the portrayal of the Passion, not Christ, but his execu- tioner, carries His Cross. The artist reverently omits the scene on Calvary, and indeed Christian art for a long time observed the same reticence (cf. Br6hier, "Origines du Crucifix", Paris, 1904). But on the other hand there is the taste for noble composition, the love of symmetry, the striving after grandiose and solemn efTects. From these same ideals of pomp and grandeur resulted a type of expression in harmony with them, monumental painting in the more solid, more luxurious style of mosaic. This was already an ancient art, well known to the Alexandrians, practised also by the Romans, who used it chiefly for the pave- ments of their villas. But it was reserved for the Byzantines, who applied it to mural decoration, to dis- cover its true resources. (See Mosaics.)
