the end of the 18th century, and up to that time wall-papers were printed on small square pieces of hand-made paper, difficult to hang, disfigured by numerous joints, and comparatively costly; on these accounts wall-papers were slow in superseding the older modes of mural decoration. A little work by Jackson of Battersea, printed in London in 1744, throws some light on the use of wall-papers at that time. He gives reduced copies of his designs, mostly taken from Italian pictures or antique sculpture during his residence in Venice. Instead of flowing patterns covering the wall, his designs are all pictures—landscapes, architectural scenes or statues—treated as panels, with plain paper or painting between. They are all printed in oil, with wooden blocks worked with a rolling press, apparently an invention of his own. They are all in the worst possible taste, and yet are offered as great improvements on the Chinese papers which he says were then in fashion.
Fig. 6.—Early 18th-century Wall-Paper (22 in. wide.)
Fig. 6 is a good English example of 18th-century wall-paper printed on squares of stout hand-made paper 22 in. wide. The design is apparently copied from an Indian chintz.
In the 19th century in England, a great advance in the designing of wall-papers was made by William Morris and his school.
9. Painting.—This is naturally the most important and the most widely used of all forms of wall-decoration, as well as perhaps the earliest.
Egypt (see Egypt: Art and Archaeology) is the chief storehouse of ancient specimens of this, as of almost all the arts. Owing to the intimate connexion between the sculpture and painting of early times, the remarks above as to subjects and treatment under the head of Egyptian wall-sculpture will to a great extent apply also to Egyptian Paintings.the paintings. It is an important fact, which testifies to the antiquity of Egyptian civilization, that the earliest paintings, dating more than 4000 years before our era, are also the cleverest both in drawing and execution. In later times the influence of Egyptian art, especially in painting, was important even among distant nations. In the 6th century B.C. Egyptian colonists, introduced by Cambyses into Persepolis, influenced the painting and sculpture of the great Persian Empire and throughout the valley of the Euphrates. In a lesser degree the art of Babylon and Nineveh had felt considerable Egyptian influence several centuries earlier. The same influence affected the early art of the Greeks and the Etrurians, and it was not till the middle of the 5th century B.C. that the further development and perfecting of art in Greece obliterated the old traces of Egyptian mannerism. After the death of Alexander the Great, when Egypt came into the possession of the Lagidae (320 B.C.), the tide of influence flowed the other way, and Greek art modified though it did not seriously alter the characteristics of Egyptian painting and sculpture, which retained much of their early formalism and severity. Yet the increased sense of beauty, especially in the human face, derived from the Greeks was counterbalanced by loss of vigour; art under the Ptolemies became a dull copyism of earlier traditions.
The general scheme of mural painting in the buildings of ancient Egypt was complete and magnificent. Columns, mouldings and other architectural features were enriched with patterns in brilliant colours; the flat wall-spaces were covered with figure-subjects, generally in horizontal bands, and the ceilings were ornamented with sacred symbols, such as the vulture or painted blue and studded with gold stars to symbolize the sky. The wall-paintings are executed in tempera on a thin skin
(Taken from Loftie’s Ride in Egypt.)
Fig. 7.—Egyptian Wall-Painting of the Ancient Empire
in the Bulak Museum.
of fine lime, laid over the brick, stone or marble to form a smooth and slightly absorbent coat to receive the pigments, which were most brilliant in tone and of great variety of tint. Not employing fresco, the Egyptian artists were not restricted to “earth colours,” but occasionally used purples, pinks and greens which would have been destroyed by fresh lime. The blue used is very beautiful, and is generally laid on in considerable body—it is frequently a “smalt” or deep-blue glass, coloured by copper oxide, finely powdered. Red and yellow ochre, carbon-black, and powdered chalk-white are most largely used. Though in the paintings of animals and birds considerable realism is often seen (fig. 7), yet for human figures certain conventional colours are employed, e.g. white for females' flesh, red for the males, or black to indicate people of negro race. Heads are painted in profile, and little or no shading is used. Considerable knowledge of harmony is shown in the arrangement of the colours; and otherwise harsh combinations of tints are softened and brought into keeping by thin separating lines of white or yellow. Though at first sight the general colouring, if seen in a museum, may appear crude, yet it should be remembered that the internal paintings were much softened by the dim light in Egyptian buildings, and those outside were subdued by contrast with the brilliant sunshine under which they were always seen.
The rock-cut sepulchres of the Etrurians supply the only existing specimens of their mural painting; and, unlike the tombs of Egypt, only a small proportion appear to have been decorated in this way. The actual dates of these paintings are very uncertain, but they range possibly from about the 8th century B.C. down to almost the Etruscan Painting.Christian era. The tombs which possess these paintings are
