Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/54

Rh 44 MURAL DECORATION in Christ s life or figures of saints and the miracles they performed. A very fine series of these exists in the lower church of S. Clemente in Rome, apparently dating from the 6th to the 10th centuries ; among these are representa tions of the passion and death of Christ subjects never chosen by the earlier Christians, except as dimly fore shadowed by the Old Testament types. When Christ Himself is depicted in the early catacomb paintings it is in glory and power, not in His human weakness and suffering. Other early Italian paintings exist on the walls of the church of the Tre Fontane near Rome, and in the Capella di S. Urbano alia Caffarella, executed in the early part of the llth century. The atrium of S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, Rome, and the church of the Quattro Santi Incoro- nati have mural paintings of the first half of the 13th century, which show no artistic improvement over those at S. Clemente four or five centuries older. It was not in fact till the second half of the 1 3th century that stiff traditional Byzantine forms and colouring began to be superseded by the revival of native art in Italy by the painters of Florence, Pisa, and Siena (see FRESCO). During the first thirteen centuries of the Christian era mural painting appears to have been for the most part confined to the representation of sacred subjects. It is remarkable that during the earlier centuries council after council of the Christian church forbade the painting of figure-subjects, and especially those of any Person of the Trinity; but it was quite in vain. The double desire, both for the artistic effect of painted walls and for the religious teaching afforded by the pictorial representation of sacred scenes and the celebration of the sacraments, was too strong. In spite of the zeal of bishops and others, who sometimes with their own hands defaced the pictures of Christ on the walls of the churches, in spite of threats of excommunication, the forbidden paintings by degrees be came more numerous, till the walls of almost every church throughout Christendom were decorated with whole series of pictured stories. The useless prohibition was becoming obsolete when, towards the end of the 4th century, the learned Paulinus, bishop of Nola, ordered the two basilicas which he had built at Fondi and Nola to be adorned with wall-paintings of sacred subjects, with the special object, as he says, of instructing and refining the ignorant and drunken people. These painted histories were in fact the books of the unlearned, and we can now hardly realize their value and importance as the chief mode of religious teach ing in ages when none but the clergy could read or write. 1 English Mural Painting. During the Middle Ages, just as long before among the ancient Greeks, coloured decoration was used in the widest possible manner, not only for the adornment of fiat walls, but also for the enrichment of sculpture and all the fittings and archi tectural features of buildings, whether the material to be painted was plaster, stone, marble, or wood. It was only the damp and frosts of northern climates that to some 1 See Rossi, Roma sotterranea (1864-77) ; Nortlicote and Brownlow, Subterranean Rome (1877) ; Bottari, Roma sotterr. (1737-54) ; Ferret, Catacovibes de Rome (1851-55) ; Bellermann, Katacomben zu Neapel ; Garrucci, Arte Cristiana (1880) ; Mullooly, Paintings in S. Clemente, Rome (1868); Lord Lindsay, Christian Art (1847); Agincourt, Hist, de I Art, iif-xvi* siecle (1823-47) ; Theophilus, Div. Art. Schedula, Hendrie s ed. (1847) ; Eraclius, De Art. Romanormn, MS. in Bibl. Hoy., Paris, partly printed by Raspe ; &quot; Mappa Claviculte &quot; a 12th- century MS. Arcliseolocjia, xxxii. pp. 183-244 ; Cemiino Cennini, Trattato delta Pittura ; Vasari, Tre Arti del Discyno, Milanesi s ed. (1882) ; Mrs Merrifield, Fresco Painting (1856) 5 L. Batista Alberti, De Re ivdificatoria ; Richmond, Monumental Painting, Lectures on Art published by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (1882); Martigny, Diet, des Antiquites Chretiennes (1877); Dionysius of Zagora, Ep/j.ijveia TTJS fwypa0iKT?s (1853) ; Eastlake, Materials for Hist, of Painting, new ed. (1369) ; Wessely, Iconographie Gottes u. der Heili- ijen (1874); Didron et Durand, Iconographie Chretienne (1845); Cave Thomas, Mural Decoration ; Bull, di Arch. Cristiana (1864-65). extent limited the external use of colour to the less exposed parts of the outsides of buildings. The varying tints and texture of smoothly-worked stone appear to have given no pleasure to the mediaeval eye ; and in the rare cases in which the poverty of some country church prevented its walls from being adorned with painted ornaments or pictures the whole surface of the stone-work inside, mould ings and carving as well as flat wall-spaces, was covered with a thin coat of whitewash. Internal rough stone work was invariably concealed by stucco, forming a smooth ground for possible future paintings. Unhappily the ignorant barbarity of the 19th century has in the case of most English cathedrals and parish churches stripped off the internal plaster, often laying bare rubble walls of the roughest description, never meant to be exposed, and has scraped and rubbed the surface of the masonry and mould ings down to the bare stone. In this way a great proportion of mural paintings have been destroyed, though many in a more or less mutilated state still exist in England. It is difficult (and doubly so since the so-called &quot; restoration &quot; of most old buildings) to realize the splendour of effect once possessed by every important mediaeval church. From the tiled floor to the roof all was one mass of gold and colour. The brilliance of the mural paintings and richly- coloured sculpture and mouldings was in harmony with the splendour of the oak- work screens, stalls, and roofs all richly decorated with gilding and painting, while the light, passing through stained glass, softened and helped to combine the whole into one even mass of extreme decorative effect. Colour, and not in dull tints, was boldly applied everywhere, and thus the patchy effect was avoided which is so often the result of the modern timid and partial use of painted ornament. Even the figure-sculpture was painted in a strong and realistic manner, sometimes by a wax encaustic process, probably the same as the circumlitio of classical times. In the accounts for expenses in decor ating Orvieto cathedral wax is a frequent item among the materials used for painting. In one place it is specially mentioned that wax was supplied to Andrea Pisano (in 1345) for the decoration of the beautiful reliefs in white marble on the lower part of the west front. General Schemes of Mural Painting. From the llth to the 16th century the lower part of the walls, generally 6 to 8 feet from the floor, was painted with a dado the favourite patterns till the 1 3th century being either a sort of sham masonry with a flower in each rectangular space (fig. 10), or a conven tional, representation of a curtain with regular folds stiffly treated (Plate I.). Above this dado ranges of pictures with figure -sub jects were painted in tiers one above the other, each picture frequently sur rounded by a painted frame with arch and gable of architectural design. Fiu. 10. Wall - Painting, oi the 13th Painted bands of chevron century. &quot;Masonry pattern.&quot; or other geometrical ornament till the 13th century, and flowing ornament afterwards, usually divide the tiers of pictures horizontally and form the top and bottom bound aries of the dado. In the case of a church, the end Avails usually have figures to a larger scale. On the east wall of the nave over the chancel arch there was generally a large painting of the &quot; Doom &quot; or Last Judgment. One of the commonest subjects is a colossal figure of St Christopher (fig. 11), usually on the nave wall opposite the principal entrance, selected because the sight of a picture of this saint was supposed to bring good luck for the rest of the