lines, though in a rapidly deteriorating style, until the introduction of a foreign—the Byzantine—element, which created a fresh starting-point on different lines. The old naturalism and survival of classical freedom of drawing is replaced by stiff, conventionally hieratic types, superior in dignity and strength to the feeble compositions produced by the degradation into which the native art of Rome had fallen.
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| Fig. 8.—Painted Vault from the Catacombs of St Callixtus, Rome. In the centre Orpheus, to represent Christ the Good Shepherd, and round are smaller paintings of various types of Christ. |
The designs of this second period of Christian art are similar to those of the mosaics, such as many at Ravenna, and also to the magnificently illuminated MSS. For some centuries there was little change or development in this Byzantine style of art, so that it is impossible in most cases to be sure from internal evidence of the date of any painting. This to some extent applies also to the works of the earlier or pagan school, though, roughly speaking, it may be said that the least meritorious pictures are the latest in date.
These catacomb paintings range over a long space of time; some may possibly be of the 1st or 2nd century, e.g. those in the cemetery of Domitilla, Rome; others are as late as the 9th century, e.g. some full-length figures of St Cornelius and St Cyprian in the catacomb of St Callixtus, under which earlier paintings may be traced. In execution they somewhat resemble the Etruscan tomb-paintings; the walls of the catacomb passages and chambers, excavated in soft tufa, are covered with a thin skin of white stucco, and on that the mural and ceiling paintings are simply executed in earth colours. The favourite subjects of the earliest paintings are scenes from the Old Testament which were supposed to typify events in the life of Christ, such as the sacrifice of Isaac (Christ’s death), Jonah and the whale (the Resurrection), Moses striking the rock, or pointing to the manna (Christ the water of life, and the Eucharist), and many others. The later paintings deal more with later subjects, either events in Christ’s life or figures of saints and the miracles they performed. A fine series of these exists in the lower church of S. Clemente in Rome, apparently dating from the 6th to the 10th centuries; among these are representations of the passion and death of Christ—subjects never chosen by the earlier Christians, except as dimly foreshadowed by the Old Testament types. When Christ Himself is depicted in the early catacomb paintings it is in glory and power, not in His human weakness and suffering.
Other early Italian paintings exist on the walls of the church of the Tre Fontane near Rome, and in the Capella di S. Urbano alla Caffarella, executed in the early part of the 11th century. The atrium of S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, Rome, and the church of the Quattro Santi Incoronati have mural paintings of the first half of the 13th century, which show no artistic improvement over those at S. Clemente four or five centuries older.
It was not in fact till the second half of the 13th century that stiff traditional Byzantine forms and colouring began to be superseded by the revival of native art in Italy by the painters of Florence, Pisa and Siena. During the first thirteen centuries of the Christian era mural painting appears to have been for the most part confined to the representation of sacred subjects. It is remarkable that during the earlier centuries council after council of the Christian Church forbade the painting of figure-subjects, and especially those of any Person of the Trinity; but in vain. In spite of the zeal of bishops and others, who sometimes with their own hands defaced the pictures of Christ on the walls of the churches, in spite of threats of excommunication, the forbidden paintings by degrees became more numerous, till the walls of almost every church throughout Christendom were decorated with whole series of pictured stories. The useless prohibition was becoming obsolete when, towards the end of the 4th century, the learned Paulinus, bishop of Nola, ordered the two basilicas which he had built at Fondi and Nola to be adorned with wall-paintings of sacred subjects, with the special object, as he says, of instructing and refining the ignorant and drunken people. These painted histories were in fact the books of the unlearned, and we can now hardly realize their value as the chief mode of religious teaching in ages when none but the clergy could read or write.
During the middle ages, just as long before among the ancient Greeks, coloured decoration was used in the widest possible
manner not only for the adornment of flat walls, but also for the enrichment of sculpture and all the
fittings and architectural features of buildings, whether the material to be painted was plaster, stone, marbleEnglish
Mural
Painting. or wood. It was only the damp and frosts of northern climates that to some extent limited the external use of colour to the less exposed parts of the outsides of buildings. The varying tints and texture of smoothly worked stone appear to have given no pleasure to the medieval eye; and in the rare cases in which the poverty of some country church prevented its walls from being adorned with painted ornaments or pictures the whole surface of the stonework inside, mouldings and carving as well as flat wall-spaces, was covered with a thin coat of whitewash.
Internal rough stonework was invariably concealed by stucco, forming a smooth ground for possible future paintings. Unhappily a great proportion of mural paintings have been destroyed, though many in a more or less mutilated state still exist in England. It is difficult (and doubly so since the so-called “restoration” of most old buildings) to realize the splendour of effect once possessed by every important medieval church. From the tiled floor to the roof all was one mass of gold and colour. The brilliance of the mural paintings and richly
coloured sculpture and mouldings was in harmony with the splendour of the oak-work—screens, stalls, and roofs—all decorated with gilding and painting, while the light, passing through stained glass, softened and helped to combine the whole into one mass of decorative effect. Colour was boldly applied everywhere, and thus the patchy effect was
avoided which is so often the result of the modern timid and partial use of painted ornament. Even the figure-sculpture was painted in a strong and realistic manner, sometimes by a wax encaustic process, probably the same as the circumlitio
of classical times. In the accounts for expenses in decorating Orvieto cathedral wax is a frequent item among the materials used for painting. In one place it is mentioned that wax was supplied to Andrea Pisano (in 1345) for the decoration of the beautiful reliefs in white marble on the lower part of the west front.
From the 11th to the 16th century the lower part of the walls, generally 6 to 8 ft. from the floor, was painted with a dado—the favourite patterns till the 13th century being either a sort of sham masonry with a flower in each rectangular space (fig. 9), or a conventional representation of a curtain with
