Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/167

* MXJKAL DECORATION. 135 MURAL DECORATION. considerable licight in this way. while private houses were generally contined to fresco work. ( tSee Plate of Pompeian Jlural Decoration, under Decob.tive Art.) Jlural decoration on stueeo was often microscopic in scale, small compart- ments, and small scenes being ju.taposed without much central interest, and Ijy attempts at per- spective effects and difl'erent planes the effort was made to counteract the confining effect of the walls of a room; to substitute pictures one could look into for flat decorated surfaces. See Roman Akt. E.RLY Christian. In early Christian and Byzantine mural decoration one school adopted as its main medium the new method of mosaic wall pictures (see JIo.SAic), which gave a richer mural color scheme than had ever been known in any style. Casting aside the Roman pic- turesqueness, this school returned to the Oriental flat effects; but with the addition of glowing gold grounds and the depth given by the colored glass cubes an entire wall often became a single picture instead of an agglomeration of units. The advantage of Byzantine decoration was that the eye was received by and sank into its rich mosaic surfaces instead of being thrown back by shallow fresco coloring. The other school pre- ferred plain or frescoed surfaces; this treatment was common in most of Syria, Asia IMinor, North Africa, and Europe. Jlural decoration in these regions for long after the decline of Rome was practically extinct where Byzantine inlluence did not exist.' Even in Byzantine art fresco paint- ing tended in many places to displace mosaic. See CitRiSTiAN Abt; Byzantike Art. JIoiiAMMEDAN. The earliest special develop- ment of mediieval decoration was in the Jloham- medan world, and it was one of great interest. It used color very generously, but also sculpture in low relief; its effects were mainly those of tapestry and other stuffs, even when design was in the form of colorless carvings on the outside surface of a dome. Geometric patterns were most prominent ; floral forms, and very rarely human figures, characterize Persian art. Glazed tiles were specialties in Persia, geometric mosaics in Egypt, colored stuccoes in Spain. There was hut little composition, grouping, or subdivision; the main plan was to cover the surfaces com- pletely with more or less uniformity. There were practically no plain surfaces and no heavy pro- jections. Such necessary projections as penden- tives were broken up into minute stalactites. The effects were rich and restful, often even hypnotic. The Oriental races always retained the faculty of harmonious coloring, and used it to the full in mural decoration. though related to the Byzantine type, this style was far more intricate and less well composed. See Moham- medan .rt. JIedi.eval. The mediaeval decorative mural work in Europe did not begin to take shape until the close of the eleventh centxiry; its usual media were extremely simple, merely fresco painting and sculpture in stone. The multiplicity of styles makes any unity of characterization such as was possible in other previous styles, quite impossi- ble. In some parts of Europe there was prac- tically no attempt at mural decoration till the Gothic period, as in parts of Germany and Eng- land. In Central and Southern France the entire exterior fagades were often compositions in sculp- ture; in Tuscany and Northern Italy effects of color on the exterior w'cre given by the use of marbles, terra-cotta, and brickwork in patterns or courses. In certain regions, such as Sicily, Rome, and Venice, the Byzantine and Oriental rich color scheme, especially in the form of mosaic work, prevailed. (See Romanesque .Vrt.) Wlien, however, European art became thoroughly nationalized and indigenous in the tJothic period, Italy took a decided lead in the development of painted nuiral decoration in fresco which superseded all other methods. The reason for this was that the more logical Gothic art of the North, under French leadership, prac- tically suppressed wall surfaces, and consequently mur.ai decoration, in favor of detached ornamen- tation in stone, stained glass, and the like, due to the framework system of Gotliic architecture. Italy, almost alone, did not abolish wall sur- faces; consequently her painters, like Cimabue and Giotto and their contemporaries and suc- cessors, could develop the primitive fresco-work of the Romanesque type into a really artistic scheme of mural decoration such as we see at Assisi, Florence, and Siena. Grand figured com- positions, harmoniously grouped, were the char- acteristic of this Italian school. Rich borders sometimes followed, sometimes contrasted with the architectural lines. Above all the coloring was light and clear and the efl'ects flat and sym- bolic, the figures being rather like silhouettes on a flat ground. (See Gothic Art.) Sometimes there were also grand exterior effects both of color and form, as at Orvieto. Renaissance. The Renaissance saw Italy still easily leading in mural decoration from JIasaccio to Raphael; the media were even simpler than before, for mosaics were entirely discarded and effects of sculpture and architectural member- ment less frequent. The climax in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael's Stanze was reached by a perfectly consistent series of steps, some advan- tageous" such as the al)andonment of the heavy architectural frameworks of the Giottesque period for simpler borders; some %vere disad- vantageous, such as the attempts to do away with flat effects by the introduction of perspective and a variety of planes in both environment and figures. The juggling with jierspective and anatomical difficulties indulged in during the fifteenth century by Paolo Uccello, Melozzo, and Mantegna led, in later days, to the extravagances of Correggio, Paolo Veronese, and Tiepolo. It became the main object of painters of the six- teenth century to change the subdivisions of flat mural decoration into a series of realistic framed vistas, and this mistaken realism was empliasized by the use of oil instead of fresco colors, giving' effects of atmospheric perspective besides the previously acquired linear perspective. See Renaissance Art. Modern. During the first half of the nine- teenth century mural decoration declined to very low estate. In France, however, the influence of the national school of fine arts and the Gov- ernment patronage of the arts preserved it from extinction, and the domination of classicalism and tradition began toward 1840 to yield to a new and fresher spirit, exemplified in the works of Hippolyte Flandrin. The decorative sense is more highly developed in France than else- where, and there has risen in France a remark- able school of mural painting, whose influence has been felt throughout the modern world. Modern French decorative painting rejects the