Queen and Lady, do not weep, do not lament, but take comfort.
But architecture was not the only Byzantine art. It seems at first strange that, whereas the sculpture of the human figure was the greatest achievement of old Greek art, it should have suddenly and entirely come to an end about the year 300. But this fact is the result of Christian feeling. To Christians the beautiful Greek statues were simply the homes of unclean devils. It was for refusing to worship these gods that their fathers had been torn and mangled in the circus; so they would have nothing like them. They had no prejudice against images; on the contrary, theologically, they have always held the same position as we do, and practically the holy Ikons play a much more conspicuous part in the East than in the West. But the Ikon must be flat—it may be mosaic, painting, even bass-relief, but—especially since the Iconoclast troubles—the flatter the picture the more orthodox it is. The Byzantine artists could carve stone with amazing skill, as the capitals of their columns show, only it must not be the human figure. They carved twisted leaves and networks of twining branches, geometric patterns and crosses, baskets with birds peeping out, lions and lambs, doves and peacocks. The feeling of their carving alone shows that Byzantine work has quite definitely crossed the line from the classical to the mediæval manner. Their instinct was for gorgeousness, and they found a natural outlet for it in the glowing colours of marble and small mosaic. The Romans had used mosaic for their pavements, but now it became incomparably richer and brighter, and was put along walls and spandrils and to line domes. Whether made by Greek artists or not, the mosaics at Ravenna are the classical example of this work, Byzantine in manner at any rate. There is no perspective, no multitude of shades to make the figures look plastic, no shadows. Against backgrounds of gold or blue
- ↑ A poem written soon after the fall of the city. I have kept the rather halting metre of the original. The last two lines are quite beautiful:
σώπα, κύρα δέσποινα, μὴ κλαίῃς, μὴ δακρύζῃς,
πάλε μὲ χρόνους, μὲ καιρούς, πάλε δικά σου εἶναι.The whole text in Artemides: Ὀρφικὴ λύρα (Athens, 1905), 141.
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