Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/799

* CHRISTIAN ART. 701 CHRISTIAN ART. In Rome — Santa Maria Maggiore (Fifth Cen- tury), San Paolo fuore li Muri (Fifth), Santa SalJiiui (Fifth), San t'ietro in Viiicoli (Fifth), San Lorenzo (Sixth, old l)arl), Sanl' Agnese (Seventh), Santa Maria in Cosniedia (Eiglith), Santa Prassede (Xinth), San Martino di Monti (Xinth). In Ravenna — San Teodoro (Fifth). San Francesco (Fifth), San Apol- linarc Xuovo (Sixth), San Apollinare in Classe. In Spoleto — San Agostino. In Perugia — San Pietro. Also on the Adriatic basilieas in Parenzo, Pola. tirado, all of the Sixth Century. In Con- stantinople — Saint .John (Fiflli). In Bethle- hem — Church of the Xativify. In Salonica — Saint Demetrius. In Syria, such a multitude of churches, from the Basilica of Shagga, in the Fourtli Century, to the Church of Saint Simeon, in Kalat Siman, in the Sixth Century, that enumeration would he impossible. In nearly all these buildings, and in many others of less im- portance or poorer preservation, the one oflSeial type (see Basilica) is followed. The difl'erences are mainly in the common use by Greek and Eastern churches of the gallery for women over the side aisles, of double capitals over the col- umns, of polygonal apses, and of a modification of the old Corinthian and Ionic orders that led np to Byzantine ornament. In fact,, from the beginning, architecture in the Fast was tending toward the Byzantine. If one were to select a half-dozen out of all the remaining early basili- cas as the finest and best-preserved examples of the style, these would be: Church of the X'ativity, Bethlehem ; Santa Maria ^laggiore. Santa Sa- bina, and Santa Prassede, Rome; the two San ApoUinares in Kavenna ; and the cathedral in Parenzo. They have preserved a great part of their original decoration, as well as their archi- tecture. There was another important class of early Christian buildings, the baptisteries, chap- els, sacristies, mausoleums, and other religious structures, that were built not on an oblong, but on a concentric plan — that is, buildings that were circular, polygonal, or even eqjiilaterally cruciform. These buildings are of course com- parable to Roman structures like the Pantheon, the Temple of Vesta or Minen'a Medica, or the vaulted halls in the baths; but they were never so bold or on so large a scale. At first even churches were sometimes built in this form (Antioch; San Stefano Rotondo. Rome; Saint George, Salonica) : but this was found im- practicable for liturgical reasons, and it was thenceforth confined to other religious and funer- ary structures. Some were square externally and octagonal internally, by means of niches, like the two baptisteries in Ravenna and that in Kalat Siman; some purely circular, like Saint George in Salonica. In these cases the dome rests upon the outer wall, hut in the more developed and monumental examples it rests upon a row of colunms, and is surrounded by a conc-entric aisle imitated from the straight aisles of the basilica, and covered by a lower roof. Sometimes both dome and aisles are of masonry, as in Santa Costa nza in Rome and Santa ilaria Maggiore in Xocera — l>oth of them of circular plan; at other times, with lighter walls and higher proportions, the coverings are of wood, as in the Lateraii baptistery in Rome, which is octagonal, and San Stefano Rotondo, which is circular and with two aisles. The type with dome and vaults of stone, brick, or tile in the hands of Eastern architects connects in the Si.xtli Century with the early stages of the By- zantine style, especially where the dome is placed on a scpiare plan, and thus, and by means of an apse added at one end, a form is produced easily used as .a church. Tliis is the case with the Cathedral of Bozra and Saint George in Ezra in Syria, and with Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople. Some of the buildings have galleries over the aisles. For civil buildings of this period, we must go to the Syrian cities, where there remain thou- sands of houses, halls, colonnades, sepulchral monuments, all well built in stonework, and telling us as much of contemporary life as Pom- peii does for the previous centuries. In so far as materials of construction are con- cerned, bricks were the common material in the West, including the Greek provinces, and this j)recluded sculptured decoration, because no mar- ble lacing was used. But in tile Orient, espe- cially in Syria, local stone replaced brick, and tlicre is a great deal of good sculptural djetail. Here also the normal types of the classic orders, slavishly followed further west, are varied by many new forms, which are not only connected with Persian and Byzantine ornament, but seem to foreshadow Romanesque andGothie foliageand ornament. It is in Syria also that the greatest variety and inventiveness of architectural plan, composition, and form are shown. The master- piece of the scliool is the monastery of Saint Simeon in Kalat-Simau. BiBLiOGR.*.pnY. For systematic treatment: Holtzinger, Die altchristliche Architektur (Stutt- gart, 1889) ; Dehio and Von Bezold, Die kirch- liclie Baukunst des Abendlandes (Stuttgart, 1884) ; Essenwein, Der chrislliche Kirchenbau ( Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1880) ; Kraus, Geschich- ic drr clirisllichcn Kiinst (Freiburg, 1890) ; and for plates; Hiibsch, Die altchristlichrn Kirchen (Karlsruhe. 18.59-03) ; also French edition, .I/o«u- mcitts de I'archileclurc chritienne (Paris, 1800) ; for Svria: De Vogiie, Syrie Cent rale (Paris, 1805) r ScrLPTfRE. The earliest of the arts to fall, at the decline of the Roman Empire, was sculpture. The carvings on the Arch of Constantine, the Column of Theodosius. and the Imperial portraits of the Fourth Century, show this to have been so, even in the case of the most pretentiotis monu- ments. A few works of Christian sculpture of pre-Constantinian date come before this com- ])Iete decadence. Such are the statue of Saint Ilippolytus and that of the Good Shepherd in the Lateran Musevim, and a few of the sarcophagi (q.v.). The latter form the bulk of early Cliristian marble sculpture during the Third, Fourth, and Fifth centuries, after which there was very little sculpture on a large scale of any sort. These sarcojihagi, after the fashion of the earlier <mes of the Etruscans and pagan Romans, had a line of reliefs covering face and sides. Sometimes, even, there were two superposed rows of figures. Many stibjects were usually crowded together, though sometimes such scenes as the crossing of the Red Sea, or Jonah swallowed by the whale, occupy the entire front. The .scenes are selected with evident relation to funerary ideas and belief in future life, and are thus very instructive. (See Icoxocbapiiy.) ilost of them occur also in the catacomb frescoes. The techni(|ue begins to decline in the Fourth Ccn-