Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/53

MURAL DECORATION 43 hot iron or brazier of burning charcoal was held near the face of the wall till, bit by bit, all the wax disappeared from the surface and soaked thoroughly into the absorbent stucco, thus fixing the pig ments with a vehicle that could stand the effects of damp. This application of hot wax appears to have been repeated more than once. The extreme smoothness of the fresco ground under the tempera pictures seems to show that the ground itself was both waxed and polished before the pictures were painted over it. By another method of encaustic the pigments themselves were mixed with hot wax, probably rendered more fluid and easy to work by the addition of some mineral spirit or essential oil. The final application of heat to the painted surface blended the colours together and fixed them on and into the absorbent stucco ground. Yitruvius (vii. 9) describes the former process, in which the wax was applied after the colours were laid on the wall. According to him this was necessary in order to prevent the painted surface becoming patchy, especially in the case of the red ground made of vermilion, an oxide of mercury. This, as well as the evidence of the paintings themselves, shows that Pliny is mistaken in assert ing that encaustic work could not be used for walls. 1 Vitruvius (vii.) also gives an interesting account of the great care that was needed in preparing stucco for painting. Three coats of old slaked lime and sand were first to be laid, and then three more coats mixed with pounded white marble, each coat of more finely powdered marble than the one beneath ; the last coat was to be polished till it gave a reflexion like a mirror. Damp or external walls were to be built hollow, and the cavity ventilated ; this was sometimes done, e.g., in the Palatine villa, by facing the wall inside with hollow bricks or tiles, on which the stucco was laid. Vitruvius, who probably died shortly before the Christian era, laments the decay of taste in his time, much as Pliny does ; he specially depre cates the use of gaudy red lead, and the sham architectural paint ings in which candelabra, reeds, and other incongruities are made to support heavy cornices and roofs of buildings. He complains also of the novel taste for expensive but inartistic colours, such as purple and azure. - Early Christian Mural Paintings in Italy. A very interesting series of these exists in various catacombs, especially those of Rome and Naples. They are of great value, both as an important link in the history of art and also as throwing considerable light on the mental state of the early Christians, which was distinctly influenced by the older faith. Thus in the earlier paintings of about the 4th century we find Christ represented as a beardless youth, beautiful as the artist could make him, with a lingering tradition of Greek idealization, in no degree like the " Man of Sorrows " of mediaeval painters, but rather a kind of genius of Christianity in whose fair outward form the peace and purity of the new faith were visibly sym bolized, just as certain distinct attributes were typified in the persons of the gods of ancient Greece. The favour ite early subject, Christ the Good Shepherd (fig. 9), is represented as Orpheus playing on his lyre to a circle of beasts, the pagan origin of the picture being shown unmistakably by the Phrygian cap and by the presence of lions, panthers, and other incongruous animals among the listening sheep. In other cases Christ is depicted standing with a sheep borne on his shoulders like Hermes Criophoros or Hermes Psychopompos favourite Greek subjects, especially the former, a statue of which Pausanias (ix. 22) mentions as existing at Tanagra in Boeotia. Here again the pagan origin of the type is shown by the presence in the catacomb paintings of the pan-pipes and 1 His remarks on the subject (xxxv. 11) are quite unintelligible. 2 Gell and Gandy, Pompeiana (1817-19 and 1835) ; Herculaneum et Pompei, Recueil des Peintures, &c., Paris (1870-72); Jorio, Descr. des Peintures antiques (1825) ; Renier et Perrot, Les Peintures du J alatin(l87Q); Hittorf, Arabesques of the Ancients ; Real Museo Bor- lonico (1824 et seq.) ; Mau, Gesch. der Decoraliven in Pompei (1882) ; Donner and Helbig, Wandgemalde der mm Vesuv verschutteten Stadte (1868); Ann. and Bull, dell Inst. di Cor. arch, di Roma (various years) ; Ternite and M tiller, Wandgemalde aus Pompei ; Zahn, Gemalde aus Pompei (1828); Rochette, Peintures de Pompei (1844-59) ; Mazois, Ruincs de Pompei (1824); Overbeck, Pompei, &c. (1856); Revue Archcol., vol. ii. (1845) ; Le Pitture antiche d Ercolano (1757-79) ; Fiorelli, Pomp, ant. Hist. (1860-4) ; Sogliano, Le Pitture murali Cam- pane (1880); Paderni, Dipinti, d-c., di Pompei, Ercolano, &c. (1865); Caylus, La Peinture d V Encaustique (1755) ; and Minervini, Bull, arch. Napol. (1852-59). See also the list of works on Greek painting. pedum, special attributes of Hermes, but quite foreign to the notion of Christ. Though in a degraded form, a good deal survives in some of these paintings, especially in the FIG. 9. 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. earlier ones, of the old classical grace of composition and beauty of drawing, notably in the above-mentioned repre sentations where old models were copied without any adaptation to their new meaning. Those of the 5th and 6th centuries still follow the classical lines, though in a rapidly deteriorating style, until the introduction of a foreign the Byzantine element, which created a fresh starting-point on quite different lines. The old naturalism and survival of classical freedom of drawing is replaced by stiff, conventionally hieratic types, very superior in dignity and strength to the feeble and spiritless compositions pro duced by the extreme degradation into which the native art of Rome had fallen. The designs of this second period of Christian art are very similar to those of the mosaics, such as many at Ravenna, and also to the magnificently illuminated MSS. on which the utmost skill and labour of the time were lavished. For some centuries there was but little change or development in this Byzantine style of art, so that it is impossible in most cases to be sure from mere 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 2d 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 sub jects 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