Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/46

36 MURAL DECORATION without any repetition. One of the finest examples is the "Mecca wall" in the mosque of Ibrahim. Agha, Cairo; and other Egyptian mosques are adorned in the same magnifi cent way (fig. 2). Another variety, the special production Fro. 2. One of the Wall-Tiles from the Mosque of Ibrahim Agha, Cairo. 10 inches square. of Damascus, has the design almost entirely executed h: blue. It was about the year 1600 A.D., in the reign of Shah Abbas I., that this class of pottery was brought to greatest perfection, and it is in Persia that the most magni ficent examples of its use are to be found. Nothing can surpass the splendour of effect produced by these tile- coverings, varieties of which, dating from the 12th to the 17th centuries, were largely used in all the chief buildings of Persia. The most remarkable examples for beauty of design and extent of surface covered by these tiles are the mosque at Tabriz, built by Ali Khoja in the 12th century, the ruined tomb of Sultan Khodabend (1303- 1316 A.D.) at Sultanieh, the palace of Shah Abbas I. and the tomb of Abbas II. (ob. 1666 A.D.) at Ispahan, all of which buildings are covered almost entirely inside and out with this magnificent sort of decoration. Another important class of wall-tiles are those manu factured by the Spanish Moors, called "azulejos," especially during the 14th century. These are in a very different style, being designed to suggest or imitate mosaic. They have intricate interlacing geometrical patterns marked out by lines in slight relief ; brilliant enamel colours were then burned into the tile, the projecting lines forming boundaries for the pigments. A very rich effect is pro duced by this combination of relief and colour. They are mainly used for dados about 4 feet high, often surmounted by a band of tiles with painted inscriptions. The Alham- bra and Generalife palaces at Granada, begun in the 13th century, but mainly built and decorated by Yiisuf I. and Mohammed V. (1333-1391 A.D.), and the Alcazar at Seville have the most beautiful examples of these " azulejos." The latter building chiefly owes its decorations to Pedro the Cruel (1364 A.D.), who employed Moorish workmen for its tile-coverings and other ornaments. Many other buildings in southern Spain are enriched in the same way, some as late as the 16th century. Almost peculiar to Spain are a variety of wall-tile the work of Italians in the 16th and 17th centuries. These are effective, though rather coarsely painted, and have a rich yellow as the predominant colour. The Casa de Pilatos and Isabel s chapel in the Alcazar palace, both at Seville, have the best specimens of these, dating about the year 1500. In other Western countries tiles have been used more for pavements than for wall-decoration. 1 4. Wall-Coverings of Hard Stucco, frequently enriched with Reliefs. The Greeks and Romans possessed the secret of making a very beautiful hard kind of stucco, creamy in colour, and capable of receiving a polish like that of marble ; it would stand exposure to the weather. Those of the early Greek temples which were built, not of marble, but of stone, such as the Doric temples at ^Egina, Phiga- leia, Paestum, and Agrigentum, were all entirely coated inside and out with this beautiful material itself pleasant both in texture and hue, and an admirable surface for the further polychromatic decoration with which all Greek buildings seem to have been ornamented. Another highly artistic use of stucco among the Greeks and Romans for the interiors of buildings consisted in covering the walls and vaults with a smooth coat, on which while still wet the outlines of figures, groups, and other ornaments were sketched with a point ; more stucco was then applied in lumps and rapidly modelled into delicate reliefs before it had time to set. Some tombs in Magna Graecia of the 4th century B.C. are decorated in this way with figures of nymphs, cupids, animals, and wreaths, all of which are models of grace and elegance, both in form and action, and extremely remarkable for the dexterous way in which a few rapid touches of the modelling tool or thumb have FIG. 3. Modelled Stucco Wall-Relief, from a Tomb in Magna Gratia. About half full-size. produced a work of the highest artistic beauty and spirit (fig. 3). Roman specimens of this sort of decoration are very common, fine examples have been found in the baths of Titus and numerous tombs near Rome, as well 1 See Layard, Nineveh; Texier, L Armsnie, &c. ; Prisse d Avenues and Bourgoin, L Art Arabe (1869-77) ; Hessemer, Arabische Bau- Verzierungen (1853) ; Owen Jones, Alhambra (1842) ; Murphy, Arabian Antiquities of Spain (1813) ; Monumentos Arquitectonicos de Espafia (1859-82), article "Alhambra"; Parvillce, Architect, et decor. Turques, xif Slide (1874) ; Coste, Mon. mod. de la Perse (1867).