Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/341

 x] ANTIQUE CHRISTIAN PAINTINQ 323 as well as figures and designs taken from the common decorative painting of the time. In style and tech- nique the entire painting of the catacombs is part of the Graeco-Roman antique. The work was carried on with dim light; Christians were not rich enough to employ the best artists ; hence, this painting never surpasses, and is often inferior to, contemporary pagan decoration. Its best performances are figures like Psyche, frankly taken from the pagan art. The Christian compositions are inferior.^ Frequently they rest with a bare indication of the subject, with slight detail or setting.' The many palpable symbols bespeak a child's need to make a sign for what it cannot express. Indeed, the more distinctively Chris- tian paintings in the catacombs are just childlike compositions, inadequate, unfinished, immature. Yet they suggest the furthest hopes of man, and with quiet assurance of their realization beyond the grave. There is no reference to the persecutions which occa- sionally, or to the hatreds which continually, beset the Christian folds. No martyrdom is drawn, but palms and lilies are painted on the tombs of those who sweetly, sometimes through fire and blood, passed to immortal life.* The catacombs are at peace with all the world; in them is naught but hope assured, and joy and love.* 1 Moses striking the Rock, or Daniel among the Lions, or Noah in the Ark exhibit utter inferiority in composition compared with the Psyche or some of the pictures of the Good Shepherd. > Noah in the Ark is an illustration of this. dom, but generally of the victory over death. for in Roman and Greek paganism there i« peace in the tomb, and sometimes cheerfolneoi, but little hope.
 * Not that the palm or lily is to be taken as evidence of a martyr-
 * In this there was no total departure from the pagan antique ;