Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/353

 x] BYZANTINE PAINTING 335 plain in historical relief work like that on Trajan^s column, which was a careful record of a conquest, and again they are pronounced in portrait sculpture. The subjects being Romans, the portraits naturally showed Roman features. Moreover, the Romans pre- ferred to be portrayed clothed in the toga, or in armor, rather than nude, which would have suited the Greek taste : Graeca res est nihil velare^ at contra Eomana ac militaris thoraca addere, says Pliny .^ In the East these influences would rarely operate, or these Roman modifications occur. An artist tends to reproduce what he sees and what he is ; what he is, is affected by his environment. At Rome and in Italy painting as well as sculpture, by whomsoever practised, tended to differ from the art of the East, where scenes and people were Greek and oriental. The Pompeian frescoes afford an example. They are Greek works, yet are touched by the Italian landscape and by Italian taste and the Italian type of human form and feature. The subjects were taken from myth and legend ; often the pictures were repro- ductions of classic Greek compositions. But the hu- man types in them seem to differ generically from the group of Greek portraits discovered at Fayoum in Egypt.* In fine, during the first centuries of the Empire, painting in Italy was Greek, yet affected by the influences of its environment 1 Nat. Hist., XXXIV, 18. The imperial statue of Augustas in the Vatican is an example of this. Marriott, " Family Portraits at Pompeii," The Archmoloffical Jour^ ncU, ISfM. TbeM also are Boman in typo.
 * Certain pictures at Pompeii seem to have been portraits. See