Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/253

 monotheism sternly forbid any material presentation of the Deity, and sculpture in the round was almost abolished at the advent of Christianity. In one minor department, however, that of ivory carving, a school of artists was constantly exercised in order to provide the annual batch of consular diptychs, which it was customary to distribute throughout the provinces every new year. On each set of these plates, figured in low relief, appeared generally duplicate likenesses of the consul of the day, clad in his state robes and surrounded by subsidiary designs. The style of these productions, perfunctorily executed it may be, suggests that the average artist of the period was incapable of portraiture or of tracing correctly the lines of any living form.

c. Less unfortunate with reference to religion were the pictorial arts at this date. The decoration of churches, in brilliant colour and appropriate iconography, was gradually carried to a degree of elaboration which has never since been surpassed. The intrinsic nature of popular devotion insensibly established the convention that images in the flat did not contravene the divine prohibitions; and ecclesiastical prejudice yielded to expediency. On the iconostasis and around the walls of the sacred edifice, in proximity to the worshippers, Christ, the Virgin, the Apostles, and the Saints, with many a scene of Gospel history, were depicted in glowing tints on a blue or a golden ground. On every available space of the ceiling similar subjects, but of larger dimensions, were executed in a brilliant glass mosaic, and the mass of colour overhead completed the gorgeous effect of