Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/44

34 M U R IM U Some of the tropical Muraenas exceed a length of 10 feet, but most of the species, among them the Mediter ranean species, attain to only half that length. The latter, the " Morena " of the Italians and the Mursena Helena of ichthyologists, was considered by the ancient Romans to be one of the greatest delicacies, and was kept in large ponds and aquaria. It is not confined to the coasts of southern Europe, but is spread over the Indian Ocean, and is not uncommon on the coasts of Australia. Its body is generally of a pich brown, beautifully marked with large yellowish spots, each of which contains smaller brown spots. MURAL DECORATION Plate I. nnHERE is scarcely one of the numerous branches of JL decorative art which has not at some time or other been applied to the ornamenting of wall-surfaces. It will be convenient to classify the various methods under dif ferent heads. 1 1. Reliefs sculptured in Marble or Stone. This is the oldest method of wall-decoration, of which numerous ex amples still exist. The tombs and temples of Egypt are very rich in this kind of mural ornament of various dates, extending over the enormous period of nearly 5000 years. These sculptures are, as a rule, carved in very low relief ; in many cases they are "counter-sunk," that is, the most projecting parts of the figures do not extend beyond the flat surface of the ground. Some unfinished reliefs dis covered in the rock -cut tombs of Thebes show the manner in which, the sculptor set to work. The plain surface of the stone was marked out by red lines into a number of sqiiares of equal size. The use of this was probably twofold : first, as a guide in enlarging the design from a small drawing, a method still commonly practised ; second, to help the artist to draw his figures with just proportions, following the very strict canons which were laid down by the Egyptians. No excessive realism or indi viduality of style arising from a careful study of the life- model was permitted. 2 When the surface had been covered with these squares, the artist drew with a brush dipped in red the outlines of his relief, and then cut round them with his chisel. When the relief was finished, it was, as a rule, entirely painted over with much minuteness and great variety of colours. More rarely the ground was left the natural tint of the stone or marble, and only the figures and hiero glyphs painted. In the case of sculpture in hard basalt or granite the painting appears often to have been omitted altogether. The utter absence of perspective effects and the severe self-restraint of the sculptors in the matter of composition show a keen sense of artistic fitness in this kind of decoration. That the stern rigidity of these sculptured pictures did not in any way arise from want of skill or observation of nature on the part of the artists is at once apparent when we examine their representations of birds and animals ; with the most unerring skill and precision the special characteristics of each creature and species were caught by the ancient Egyptian and repro duced in stone or colour, not literally, but in a half -symbolic way, suggesting exactly those peculiarities of form, plum age, or movement which are the essence and " differentia " of each, all other ideas bearing less directly on the point being carefully eliminated. The subjects of these great mural sculptures are endless in their variety ; almost every possible incident in man s life here or beyond the grave is reproduced with the closest attention to detail. The tomb of Tih at Sakkarah (about 4500 B.C.) has some of the finest and earliest specimens of these mural sculptures, especially rich in illustrations of the every-day domestic life and occupations of the Egyptians. The later tombs, as a rule, have sculptures 1 See also FRESCO, MOSAIC, KASHI, and TAPESTRY. 2 During the earliest times more than 4000 years before our era theie appear to have been exceptions to this rule. depicting the religious ritual and belief of the people, and the temples combine these hieratic subjects with the history of the reigns and victories of the Egyptian kings. The above remarks as to style and manner of execution may be applied also to the wall-sculptures from the royal palaces of Nineveh and Babylon, the finest of which are shown by inscriptions to date from the time of Sennacherib to that of Sardanapalus (from 705 to 025 B.C.). These are carved in very low relief with almost gem-like delicacy of detail on enormous slabs of white marble. The sacred sub jects, generally representing the king worshipping one of the numerous Assyrian gods, are mostly large, often colossal in scale. The other subjects, illustrating the life and amuse ments of the king, his prowess in war or hunting, or long processions of prisoners and tribute-bearers coming to do him homage, are generally smaller and in some cases very minute in scale (fig. 1). The arrangement of these FIG. 1. Assyrian Relief, on a marble Wall-slab from the Palace of Sardanapalus at Nineveh. reliefs in long horizontal bands, and their reserved con ventional treatment are somewhat similar to those of ancient Egypt, but they show a closer attention to anatomical truth and a greater love for strong dramatic effect than any of the Egyptian reliefs. As in the art of Egypt, birds and animals are treated with far greater realism than human figures. The plastic art of no period or country has ever surpassed in skill and life-like truth the Assyrian reliefs of horses, mules, hounds, goats, lions, and many other animals. A relief in the British Museum, represent ing a lioness wounded by an arrow in her spine and dragging helplessly her paralysed hind legs, affords an example of wonderful truth and pathos. Very remarkable technical skill is shown in all these sculptures by the way in which the sculptors have obtained the utmost amount of effect with the smallest possible amount of relief (see BABYLONIA, vol. iii. p. 190), in this respect calling strongly