Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/55

* MOSAIC. 43 of Galla Plaoidia (440) and later in the Church of Snnt' Aijollinare uovo (coUO-ooO). Tlio lat- toi- iiKJiniuK'nl has its entire main walls covered with a triple row of mosaics. Thorou^'hly Greek also is the culminating work of the .sixtli cen- tury, the decoration of San Vitalc, also at llavcnna, with its two great historic panels of Ju^liniMu and Theodora, the Byzantine court and the ecclesiastical grandees. Jli'aiiwhile the Roman school had somewhat fallen from its su])remaey, for the only great work after Saint Paul's was the mosaic of Saints Cosmas and Damian (530), after w'hich Rome .sullVred from the wars between the Goths and Byzantines and the attacks of the Lombards. The decline reached Ravenna in the seventh cen- tury, as is shown at Sant' .Vpollinare in Classe, and continued in Rome, with Italo-Byzantine stifTness, as in the works at San Lorenzo, Sant' I Agnese, and San Venanzio. The coloring is still superb, but the figures are rigid and staring. Medi.ev.l. The Carolingiau era saw a re- vival in both East and West al)out the year 800, which lasted for less tli:in a century in Italy, but continued in the East from Basil the Jlacedonian to the capture of Constantinoide by the Crusaders in 1204. In Rome the mosaics of the Church of Santa Prassede, especially the scenes from the Apocalypse, are a maslorpiece, while Santi Xereo ed Achilleo and San IMarco are of second- ary importance. The art did not then spread lipyond Rome, as in the earlier period. Only in the Orient was it still supreme. The real re- vival of the art in the West came in the eleventh century ami was due to Byzantine inlluence and imijorted Byziintine artists. The two great schools were that of Sicily and Campania, with its masterpieces of Cefalfl, Palermo, and ilon- reale, and that of Venice, represented at San Marco, Torcello. and Murano. In variety of subject, in splendor of color, and in sheer amount, these works surpass the mosaics of the fifth and sixth centuries. The Roman school took part in this revival, hut mingled antirpie traditions with Byzantinism, and retained a freedom and beauty of decoration and detail foreign to the other .schools. It can best be studied at San Clemente, Santa Maria in Trastevere, .Santa ilaria Maggiore, and Saint .Tohn Lateran. In some of these works we ('an trace the first steps in the great revival of painting usuallv connected with the names of Cimabuc and Giotto". PAVEMEXT.S AND Dkcokation. IMcanwhile the mcdia'val mosaicists had been executing pave- ments far more lieautiful than any geometric floors of antiquity. The Byzantine school, as usual, took the lead, and the exquisite designs and coloring of the jiavements of San Marco and the Torcello Cathedral at Venice are but lepeti- tions of the pavements of the churches of Con- stantinople. Saloniki, Mount .A,thos. Chios, and elsewhere. The Italian school, though centring at Rome, did similar work in C'ampania and Sicily. The small marble cubes were worked in patterns around large circular, square, long, or polygonal slabs of porphyry', serpentine, verde nntico. rosso antico. or other rich marbles which formed the centre of each design. It was not long before the geometric designs of the floors were transferred to the various de- tails and objects in the church interiors, thus forming a perfectly harmonious whole. The Vol. XIV. -4. MOSAIC. altar fronts and canopies at Ferentino, the canopies at Santa Cecilia and San Paolo at Rome, the choir seats at Civita Castellana and San Lorenzo at Rome, the |)ulpits at Alba I'u- cense, San Lorenzo, Palermo. Salerno, and Ra- vello, the clioir screens at the two latter cathe- drals and at All)a, the Paschal candlesticks at Anagni, Eerentino, Santa Cecilia, and Salerno, the episcopal thrones at San Lorenzo and Kondi, the sepulchral monuments at San Francesco in Viterho, at the Cathedral of Perugia, at Orvieto, at Assisi, Rome (.Santa Maria Maggiore. Sojjra Alinerva, Ara C(eli, etc.), are a few among hun- dreds which made the interiors of churches wonderfully rich in this part of Italy. The geometrical mosaic patterns even invaded the field of architecture. The portals w<'re sur- rounded by it; it formed the nuiin decoration of the colonnaded porticoes, and even of the clois- ters. The cloisters of San Paolo and of the Lateran at Rome would lose all their beauty if their colunms and friezes were divested of the color and design given by these mosaics. Even Tuscan church architecture felt this influence to the extent of ol)taining a faintly similar cflTect by opus sectile with lu'oader design — as at Pisa (baptistery) and San Jliniato. near Florence. Xone of the European countries besides Italy and (jjreeeo used mosaics. An occasional work is found in Germany. France, or England; but, as at Westminster Abbey, it is the work of an Italian or a Greek. Only in Russia, as at Kiev and Novgorod, can we trace the existence of a regular branch of the art. JloiiAMMKPAN. The art passed from the By- zantine Greeks in the East to the Mohammedans, and was used by them for fiavements and the revetments of walls in nearly all the schools, but especially in Egypt, Spain, and Syria. Fig- un'd mosaics were substantially forbidden by the law of the Pro])hct, so that decorative, and espe- cially geometric, patterns were alone used. Mosques, fountains, palaces, baths, and other buildings, between the tenth and fifteenth cen- turies, had them in profusion. The mosques of Cairo (.see Mo.sque) contain an unbroken series which is paralleled in the old Coptic churches of the city. It is probable, in fact, that most of the mosaicists of the mosques were Christian Copts. The Alhambra at Grana- da contains dadoes of this geometric ornament, though here and in Syria, and especially in Persia, it was less used than the enameled tiles. IMoDEBN. 'ith the rise of the Giottesque school early in the fourteenth century the golden age of mosaic painting ended, frescoes taking its place. Such works as appear on the facades of Or'ieto and Siena cathedrals by Oreagna and his contemporaries in the four- teenth century are piirely decorative. Hence- forth mosaic loses its individuality, and seeks to imitate the delicate soft tones of fresco and then of oil. Great artists like Raphael (Santa Maris del Popolo, Rome), Titian, and Tintoretto (San Marco. Venice) furnished cartoons to be carried o>it by mosaicists. who are no longer artists, but mechanics. The atelier of the Vati- can, laisy producing altar-pieces for S.aint Peter in exact imitation of masterpieces in oils, multi- plying shades and minimizing the size of the mosaic cubes, has perfected this mechanie.al method. The atelier at Venice is the only other