Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/30

 but all are destitute of pectoral and ventral fins. The skin is scaleless and smooth, in many species ornamented with varied and bright colours, so that these fishes are frequently mistaken for snakes. The mouth is wide, the jaws strong and armed with formidable, generally sharply pointed, teeth, which enable the Muraena not only to seize its prey (which chiefly consists of other fishes) but also to inflict serious, and sometimes dangerous, wounds on its enemies. It attacks persons who approach its places of concealment in shallow water, and is feared by fishermen.

Some of the tropical Muraenas exceed a length of 10 ft., but most of the species, among them the Mediterranean species, attain to only half that length. The latter, the “morena” of the Italians and the Muraena 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 rich brown, marked with large yellowish spots, each of which contains smaller brown spots.

 MURAL DECORATION, a general term for the art of ornamenting wall surfaces. There is scarcely one of the numerous branches of decorative art which has not at some time or other been applied to this purpose. For what may be called the practical or furnishing point of view, see. Here the subject is treated rather as part of the history of art.

1. Reliefs sculpted in Marble or Stone.—This is the oldest method of wall-decoration, of which numerous examples exist. The tombs and temples of Egypt are rich in this kind of mural ornament of various dates, extending over nearly 5000 years. These sculptures are, as a rule, carved in 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 discovered 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 squares 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 strict canons which were laid down by the Egyptians. No excessive realism or individuality of style arising from a careful study of the life-model was permitted. 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 hieroglyphs painted. In the case of sculpture in hard basalt or granite the painting appears often to have been omitted altogether. The absence of perspective effects and the severe self-restraint of the sculptors in the matter of composition show a sense of artistic fitness in this kind of decoration. That the rigidity of these sculptured pictures did not arise from want of skill or observation of nature on the part of the artists is apparent when we examine their representations of birds and animals; the special characteristics of each creature and species were unerringly caught by the ancient Egyptian, and reproduced in stone or colour, in a half-symbolic way, suggesting those peculiarities of form, plumage, or movement which are the “differentia” of each, other ideas bearing less directly on the point being eliminated.

The subjects of these mural sculptures are endless; almost every possible incident in man’s life here or beyond the grave is reproduced with the closest detail. The tomb of Tîh at Sakkarah (about 4500 ) has some of the finest and earliest specimens of these mural sculptures, especially rich in illustrations of the domestic life and occupations of the Egyptians. The latter tombs, as a rule, have sculptures 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 625 ). These are carved in low relief with almost gem-like delicacy of detail on enormous slabs of white marble. The sacred subjects, 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 amusements 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 reliefs



in long horizontal bands, and their reserved conventional treatment are somewhat similar to those of ancient Egypt, but they show a closer attention to anatomical truth and a greater love for dramatic effect than any of the Egyptian reliefs. As in the art of Egypt, birds and animals are treated with greater realism than human figures. A relief in the British Museum, representing a lioness wounded by an arrow in her spine and dragging helplessly her paralysed hind legs, affords an example of wonderful truth and pathos. 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, in this respect calling strongly to mind a similar peculiarity in the work of the Florentine Donatello.

The palace at Mashita on the ḥajj road in Moab, built by the Sasanian Chosroes II. ( 614–627), is ornamented on the exterior with beautiful surface sculpture in stone. The designs are of peculiar interest as forming a link between Assyrian and Byzantine art, and they are not remotely connected with the decoration on Moslem buildings of comparatively modern date.

Especially in Italy during the middle ages a similar treatment