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 shade, without a painful attempt to represent actual relief. The colours of the marbles used here and elsewhere by the Romans are so quiet and harmonious that it would have been almost impossible to produce with them a harsh or glaring design, and when used with the skill and strong artistic feeling of the mosaic workers at Carthage the result is a real masterpiece of decorative design.

Medieval Mosaics.—These may be divided into four principal classes: (1) those used to decorate walls and vaults, made of glass cubes; (2) those for pavements, made of marble, partly in large shaped pieces, and partly in small tesserae; (3) glass in small pieces, either rectangular or triangular, used to enrich marble pulpits, columns, and other architectural features; (4) wood mosaics.

1. In the Byzantine period the glass cube mosaic was exclusively employed in mural decoration. At first natural colouring was used, and backgrounds, if not in local colour, were generally blue; but the use of gold, both for backgrounds and for the high lights on drapery, &c., gradually prevailed. Owing to the intense conservatism of Byzantine art, no regular stages of progression can be traced in this class of mosaic. Some of the 5th-century mosaics at Ravenna are, in every way, as fine as those of the 12th, and it was not till the end of the 13th century that any important change in style took place. The mosaics of the 9th century are inferior in drawing and general treatment to those both of the earlier and later time, while in Italy at least this art was almost entirely extinct during the 10th and 11th centuries. Extreme splendour of colour and jewel-like brilliance combined with the most stately grandeur of form are the main characteristics of this sort of decoration.

In mosaics of the best periods the treatment of the forms and draperies is broad and simple, a just amount of relief being expressed by delicate gradations of tints. In mosaics of the 9th century the drawing is very awkward, and the folds of the robes are rudely expressed in outline, with no suggestion of light and shade.

A further application of this work was to the decoration of broad bands over the columns of the nave, as at S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, 4th century, and in the two churches of S. Apollinare at Ravenna, 6th century. In some cases almost the whole interior of the church was encrusted in this magnificent way; as at Monreale Cathedral, the Capella Palatina of Palermo, and S. Mark’s at Venice.



In these churches the mosaics cover soffits and angles entirely, and give the effect of a mass of solid gold and colour producing the utmost conceivable splendour of decoration In many cases vaulted ceilings Were covered with these mosaics, as the tomb of Galla Placidia, 450, and the two baptisteries at Ravenna, 5th and 6th centuries. For exteriors, the large use of mosaic was usually confined to the west façade, as at S. Miniato, Florence; S. Maria Maggiore, Rome; and S. Mark’s, Venice. In almost all cases the figures are represented on a gold ground, and gold is freely used in the dresses and ornaments—rich jewels and embroidery being represented in gold, silver, sparkling reds, blues and other colours, so as to give the utmost splendour of effect to the figures and their drapery.

The revival of the art of painting in Italy and the introduction of fresco work in the 14th century gave the deathblow to the