Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/374

 344 Painting Germany and France in the Romanesque period (tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries), and even the most insig- nificant village churches were adorned with frescoes. The principal works of this description in Germany dating from these centuries are those on the ceiling of S. Michael's at Hildesheim ; and those in the choir and left aisle of the cathedral at Brunswick, supposed to have been executed before 1250; in the Nicolas Chapel at Soest; and in the church of Schwarz Rheindorf. There are the remains of a mosaic in the cupola of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle : it represents Christ with twenty- four elders. We know too, from miniatures of them, that the castle of Upper Ingelheim on the Rhine was adorned with frescoes of historical subjects, which bore strong traces of Byzantine influence. In France, the frescoes in the churches at S. Savin and Tournus are among the most remarkable. All these works follow the antique rather than the Byzantine style, and are distinguished by a simple earnestness and dignity in the figures, by their powerful colouring, and appropriate- ness as architectural decorations. The industry of the monks, — especially of those of the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, of which Tutilo (or Tuotilo) and Notker were the most celebrated, — carried the art of manuscript painting to the greatest perfection in the middle ages. In the same period it became the fashion to paint movable or easel pictures. The rise of the pure Gothic style — which, it will be re- membered, underwent large modifications when practised in Italy — was unfavourable to the progress of painting in the north of Europe. Frescoes were no longer required to decorate the flat walls, for the walls were reduced to