Book: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4

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_Mosaics and Paintings._--The method of depicting designs by bringing
together morsels of variously colored materials is of high antiquity. We
are apt to think of a line of distinction between classical and Christian
mosaics in that the former were generally of marble and the latter mostly
of colored and gilt glass. But glass mosaics were already in use in the
Augustan age, and the use of gilt tesserae goes back to the 1st or 2nd
century. The first application of glass to this purpose seems to have been
made in Egypt, the great glass-working centre of antiquity, and the gilding
of tesserae may with probability be traced to the same source, whence, it
is generally agreed, most of the gilt glass vessels, of which so many have
been found in the catacombs, were derived. The earliest existing mosaics of
a typically Christian character are some to be found at Santa Costanza,
Rome (4th century). Other mosaics on the vaults of the same church are of
marble and follow a classical tradition. It is probable that we have here
the meeting-point of two art-currents, the indigenous and the eastern. In
Rome, the great apse-mosaic of S. Pudenziana dates from about A.D. 400. The
mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, is incrusted within by mosaic work of
the 5th century, and most probably the dome mosaics of the church of St
George, Salonica, are also of this period. Of the 6th century are many of
the magnificent examples still remaining at Ravenna, portions of the
original incrustation of St Sophia, Constantinople, those of the basilica
at Parenzo, on the Gulf of Istria, and of St Catherines, Sinai. An
interesting mosaic which is probably of this period, and has only recently
been described, is at the small church of Keti in Cyprus. This, which may
be the only Byzantine mosaic in the British dominions, fills the conch of a
tiny apse, but is none the less of great dignity. In the centre is a figure
of the Virgin with the Holy Child in her arms standing between two angels
who hold disks marked with the sign [CHI]. They are named Michael and
Gabriel. Another mosaic of this period brought from Ravenna to Germany two
generations ago has been recently almost rediscovered, and set up in the
new Museum of Decorative Art in Berlin. In this, a somewhat similar
composition fills the conch of the apse, but here it is the Risen Christ
who stands between the two archangels. Above, in a broad strip, a frieze of
angels blowing trumpets stand on the celestial sea on either hand of the
Enthroned Majesty.

Such mosaics flowed out widely over the Christian world trom its art
centres, as far east as Sana, the capital of Yemen, as far north as Kiev in
Russia, and Aachen in Germany, and as far west as Paris, and continued in
time for a thousand years without break in the tradition save by the
iconoclastic dispute. The finest late example is the well-known
"mosaic-church" (the Convent of the Saviour) at Constantinople, a work of
the 14th century.

The single figures were from the first, and for the most part, treated with
an axial symmetry. Almost all are full front; only occasionally will one,
like the announcing angel, be drawn with a three-quarter face. The features
are thus kept together on the general map of the face. In the same way the
details of a tree will be collected on a simple including form which makes
a sort of mat for them. Groups, similarly, are closely gathered up into
masses of balanced form, and such masses are arranged with strict regard
for general symmetry. "The art," as Bayet says, "in losing something of
life and liberty became so much the better fitted for the decoration of
great edifices." The technical means were just as much simplified, and only
a few frank colours were made sufficient, by skilful juxtaposition, to do
all that was required of them. The fine pure blue, or bright gold,
backgrounds on which the figures were spaced, as well as the broken surface
incidental to the process, created an atmosphere which harmonized all
together. At St Sophia there were literally acres of such mosaics, and they
seem to have been applied with similar profusion in the imperial palace.

Mosaic was only a more magnificent kind of painting, and painted design
followed exactly the same laws; the difference is in the splendour of
effect and in the solidity and depth of colour. Paintings, from the first,
must have been of more grey and pearly hues. A large side chapel at the
mosaic church at Constantinople is painted, and it is difficult to say
which is really the more beautiful, the deep splendour of the one, or the
tender yet gay colour of the other. The greatest thing in Byzantine art was
this picturing of the interiors of entire buildings with a series of
mosaics or paintings, filling the wall space, vaults and domes with a
connected story. The typical character of the personages and scenes, the
elimination of non-essentials, and the continuity of the tradition, brought
about an intensity of expression such as may nowhere else be found. It is
part of the limited greatness of this side of Byzantine art that there was
no room in it for the gaiety and humour of the later medieval schools; all
was solemn, epical, cosmic. When such stories are displayed on the golden
ground of arches and domes, and related in a connected cycle, the result
produces, as it was intended to produce, a sense of the universal and
eternal. Beside this great power of co-ordination possessed by Byzantine
artists, they created imaginative types of the highest perfection. They
clothed Christian ideas with forms so worthy, which have become so
diffused, and so intimately one with the history, that we are apt to take
them for granted, and not to see in them the superb results of Greek
intuition and power of expression. Such a type is the Pantocrator,--the
Creator-Redeemer, the Judge inflexible and yet compassionate,--who is
depicted at the zenith of all greater domes; such the Virgin with the Holy
Child, enthroned or standing in the conchs of apses, all tenderness and
dignity, or with arms extended, all solicitude; of her image the _Painter's
Guide_ directs that it is to be painted with the "complexion the colour of
wheat, hair and eyes brown, grand eyebrows, and beautiful eyes, clad in
beautiful clothing, humble, beautiful and faultless"; such are the angels
with their mighty [v.04 p.0909] wings, splendid impersonations of
beneficent power; such are the prophets, doctors, martyrs, saints,--all
have been fixed into final types.

We are apt to speak of the rigidity and fixity of Byzantine work, but the
method is germane in the strictest sense to the result desired, and we
should ask ourselves how far it is possible to represent such a serious and
moving drama except by dealing with more or less unchangeable types. It
could be no otherwise. This art was not a matter of taste, it was a growth
of thought, cast into an historical mould. Again, the artists had an
extraordinary power of concentrating and abstracting the great things of a
story into a few elements or symbols. For example, the seven days of
creation are each figured by some simple detail, such as a tree, or a
flight of birds, or symbolically, as seven spirits; the flood by an ark on
the waters. What the capabilities of such a method are, where invention is
not allowed to wander into variety, but may only add intensity, may, for
instance, be seen in representations of the Agony in the Garden. This
subject is usually divided into three sections, each consecutive one
showing, with the same general scene, greater darkness, an advance up the
hill, and the figure of Christ more bowed. Another composition, the "Sleep
(death) of the Virgin," is all sweetness and peace, but no less powerful. A
remarkable invention is the _etomasia_, a splendid empty throne prepared
for the Second Advent. The stories of the Old Testament are put into
relation with the Gospel by way of type and anti-type. There are
allegories: the anchorite life contrasted with the mad life of the world,
the celestial ladder, &c., and fine impersonations, such as night and dawn,
mercy and truth, cities and rivers, are frequently found, especially in MS.
pictures.

A few general schemes may be briefly summarized. St Sophia has the
Pantocrator in the middle of the dome, and four cherubim of colossal size
at the four corners; on the walls below were angels, prophets, saints and
doctors. On the circle of the apse was enthroned the Virgin. To the right
and left, high above the altar, were two archangels holding banners
inscribed "Holy, Holy, Holy." These last are also found at Nicaea, and at
the monastery of St Luke. The church of the Holy Apostles had the Ascension
in the central dome, and below, the Life of Christ. St Sophia, Salonica,
also has the Ascension, a composition which is repeated on the central dome
of St Mark's, Venice. In the eastern dome of the Venetian church is Christ
surrounded by prophets, and, in the western dome, the Descent of the Holy
Spirit upon the Apostles. A Pentecost similar to the last occupies the dome
over the Bema of St Luke's monastery in Phocis; in the central dome of this
church is the Pantocrator, while in a zone below stand, the Virgin to the
east, St John Baptist to the west, and the four archangels, Michael,
Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, to the north and south. A better example of
grandeur of treatment can hardly be cited than the paintings of the now
destroyed dome of the little church of Megale Panagia at Athens, a dome
which was only about 12 ft. across. At the centre was Christ enthroned,
next came a series of nine semicircles containing the orders of the angels,
seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, principalities,
archangels and angels. Below these came a wide blue belt set with stars and
the signs of the zodiac; to the east the sun, to the west the moon. Still
below these were the winds, hail and snow; and still lower mountains and
trees and the life on the earth, with all of which were interwoven passages
from the last three Psalms, forming a Benedicite. After St Mark's, Venice,
the completest existing scheme of mosaics is that of the church of St Luke;
those of Daphne, Athens, are the most beautiful. A complete series of
paintings exists in one of the monastic churches on Mount Athos. The
Pantocrator is at the centre of the dome, then comes a zone with the
Virgin, St John Baptist and the orders of the angels. Then the prophets
between the windows of the dome and the four evangelists in the
pendentives. On the rest of the vaults is the life of Christ, ending at the
Bema with the Ascension; in the apse is the Virgin above, the Divine
Liturgy lower, and the four doctors of the church below. All the walls are
painted as well as the vaults. The mosaics overflowed from the interiors on
to the external walls of buildings even in Roman days, and the same
practice was continued on churches. The remains of an external mosaic of
the 6th century exist on the west facade of the basilica at Parenzo. Christ
is there seated amongst the seven candlesticks, and adored by saints. At
the basilica at Bethlehem the gable end was appropriately covered with a
mosaic of the Nativity, also a work of the age of Justinian. In Rome, St
Peter's and other churches had mosaics on the facades; a tradition
represented, in a small way, at San Miniato, Florence. At Constantinople,
according to Clavigo, the Spanish ambassador who visited that city about
1400, the church of St Mary of the Fountain had its exterior richly worked
in gold, azure and other colours; and it seems almost necessary to believe
that the bare front of the narthex of St Sophia was intended to be
decorated in a similar manner. In Damascus the courtyard of the Great
Mosque seems to have been adorned with mosaics; photographs taken before
the fire in 1893 show patches on the central gable in some of the spandrels
of the side colonnade and on the walls of the isolated octagonal treasury.
The mosaics here were of Byzantine workmanship, and their effect, used in
such abundance, must have been of great splendour. In Jerusalem the mosque
of Omar also had portions of the exterior covered with mosaics. We may
imagine that such external decorations of the churches, where a few solemn
figures told almost as shadows on the golden background brightly reflecting
the sun, must have been even more glorious than the imagery of their
interiors.

Painted books were hardly different in their style from the paintings on
the walls. Of the MSS. the Cottonian Genesis, now only a collection of
charred fragments, was an early example. The great _Natural History_ of
Dioscorides of Vienna (c. 500) and the Joshua Roll of the Vatican, which
have both been lately published in perfect facsimile, are magnificent
works. In the former the plants are drawn with an accuracy of observation
which was to disappear for a thousand years. The latter shows a series of
drawings delicately tinted in pinks and blues. Many of the compositions
contain classical survivals, like personified rivers.

In some of the miniatures of the later school of the art the classical
revival of the 10th century was especially marked. Still later others show
a very definite Persian influence in their ornamentation, where intricate
arabesques almost of the style of eastern rugs are found.

_The Plastic Art._--If painting under the new conditions entered on a fresh
course of power and conquest, if it set itself successfully to provide an
imagery for new and intense thought, sculpture, on the other hand, seems to
have withered away as it became removed from the classic stock. Already in
the pre-Constantinian epoch of classical art sculpture had become strangely
dry and powerless, and as time went on the traditions of modelling appear
to have been forgotten. Two points of recent criticism may be mentioned
here. It has been shown that the porphyry images of warriors at the
southwest angle of St Mark's, Venice, are of Egyptian origin and are of
late classical tradition. The celebrated bronze St Peter at Rome is now
assigned to the 13th century. Not only did statue-making become nearly a
lost art, but architectural carvings ceased to be seen as _modelled form_,
and a new system of relief came into use. Ornament, instead of being
gathered up into forcible projections relieved against retiring planes, and
instead of having its surfaces modulated all over with delicate gradations
of shade, was spread over a given space in an even fretwork. Such a highly
developed member as the capital, for instance, was thought of first as a
simple, solid form, usually more or less the shape of a bowl, and the
carving was spread out over the general surface, the background being sunk
into sharply defined spaces of shadow, all about the same size. Often the
background was so deeply excavated that it ceased to be a plane supporting
the relieved parts, but passed wholly into darkness. Strzygowski has given
to this process the name of the "deep-dark" ground. A further step was to
relieve the upper fretwork of carving from the ground altogether in certain
places by cutting away the sustaining portions.

[v.04 p.0910] The simplicity, the definition and crisp sharpness of some of
the results are entirely delightful. The bluntness and weariness of many of
the later modelled Roman forms disappear in the new energy of workmanship
which was engaged in exploring a fresh field of beauty. These brightly
illuminated lattices of carved ornament seem to hold within them masses of
cold shadow. Beautiful as was this method of architectural adornment, it
must be allowed that it was, in essence, much more elementary than the
school of modelled form. All such carvings were usually brightly coloured
and gilt, and it seems probable that the whole was considered rather as a
colour arrangement than as sculpture proper.

Plaster work, again, an art on which wonderful skill was lavished in Rome,
became under the Byzantines extremely rude. Many good examples of this work
exist at San Vitale and Sant' Apollinare in Classe at Ravenna, also at
Parenzo, and at St Sophia, Constantinople. Later examples of plaster work
of Byzantine tradition are to be found at Cividale, and at Sant' Ambrogio,
Milan, where the tympana of the well-known baldachin are of this material,
and contain modelled figures.

Coins and medallions of even the best period of Byzantine art prove what a
deep abyss separates them from the power over modelled relief shown in
classical examples. The sculptural art is best displayed by ivory carvings,
although this is more to be attributed to their pictorial quality than to a
feeling for modelling.

_Metal Work, Ivories and Textiles._--One of the greatest of Byzantine arts
is the goldsmith's. This absorbed so much from Persian and Oriental schools
as to become semi-barbaric. Under Justinian the transformation from
Classical art was almost complete. Some few examples, like a silver dish
from Cyprus in the British Museum, show refined restraint; on the other
hand, the mosaic portraits of the emperor and Theodora show crowns and
jewels of full Oriental style, and the description of the splendid fittings
of St Sophia read like an eastern tale. Goldsmith's work was executed on
such a scale for the great church as to form parts of the architecture of
the interior. The altar was wholly of gold, and its ciborium and the
iconastasis were of silver. In the later palace-church, built by Basil the
Macedonian, the previous metals were used to such an extent that it is
clear, from the description, that the interior was intended to be, as far
as possible, like a great jewelled shrine. Gold and silver, we are told,
were spread over all the church, not only in the mosaics, but in plating
and other applications. The enclosure of the bema, with its columns and
entablatures, was of silver gilt, and set with gems and pearls.

The most splendid existing example of goldsmith's work on a large scale is
the _Paid d'Oro_ of St Mark's, Venice; an assemblage of many panels on
which saints and angels are enamelled. The monastic church of St Catherine,
Sinai, is entered through a pair of enamelled doors, and several doors
inlaid with silver still exist. In these doors the ground was of
gilt-bronze; but there is also record of silver doors in the imperial
palace at Constantinople. The inlaid doors of St Paul Outside the Walls at
Rome were executed in Constantinople by Stauricios, in 1070, and have Greek
inscriptions. There are others at Salerno (c. 1080), but the best known are
those at St Mark's, Venice. In all these the imagery was delineated in
silver on the gilt-bronze ground. The earliest works of this sort are still
to be found in Constantinople. The panels of a door at St Sophia bear the
monograms of Theophilus and Michael (840). Two other doors in the narthex
of the same church, having simpler ornamentation of inlaid silver, are
probably as early as the time of Justinian.

The process of enamelling dates from late classical times and Venturi
supposes that it was invented in Alexandria. The cloisonne process,
characteristic of Byzantine enamels, is thought by Kondakov to be derived
from Persia, and to its study he has devoted a splendid volume. One of the
finest examples of this cloisonne is the reliquary at Limburg on which the
enthroned Christ appears between St Mary and St John in the midst of the
twelve apostles. An inscription tells that it was executed for the emperors
Constantine and Romanus (948-959).

A reliquary lately added to the J. Pierpont Morgan collection at South
Kensington is of the greatest beauty in regard to the colour and clearness
of the enamel. The cover, which is only about 41/2 by 3 ins., has in the
centre a crucifixion with St Mary and St John to the right and left, while
around are busts of the apostles. Christ is vested in a tunic. The ground
colour is the green of emerald, the rest mostly blue and white. The
cloisons are of gold. Two other Byzantine enamels are in the permanent
collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum: one is a cross with the
crucifixion on a background of the same emerald enamel; the other is a
small head of St Paul of remarkably fine workmanship.

Ivory-working was another characteristic Byzantine art, although, like so
many others it had its origin in antiquity. One of the earliest ivories of
the Byzantine type is the diptych at Monza, showing a princess and a boy,
supposed to be Galla Placidia and Valentinian III. This already shows the
broad, flattened treatment which seems to mark the ivory work of the East.
The majestic archangel of the British Museum, one of the largest panels
known, is probably of the 5th century, and almost certainly, as Strzygowski
has shown, of Syrian origin. Design and execution are equally fine. The
drawing of the body, and the modelling of the drapery, are accomplished and
classical. Only the full front pose, the balanced disposition of the large
wings, and the intense outlook of the face, give it the Byzantine type.

Ivory, like gold-work and enamel, was pressed into the adornment of
architectural works. The ambo erected by Justinian at St Sophia was in part
covered by ivory panels set into the marble. The best existing specimen of
this kind of work is the celebrated ivory throne at Ravenna. This
masterpiece, which resembles a large, high-backed chair, is entirely
covered with sculptured ivory, delicate carvings of scriptural subjects and
ornament. It is of the 6th century and bears the monogram of Bishop
Maximian. It is probably of Egyptian or Syrian origin.

So many fragments of ivories have been discovered in recent explorations in
Egypt that it is most likely that Alexandria, a fit centre for receiving
the material, was also its centre of distribution. The weaving of patterned
silks was known in Europe in the classical age, and they reached great
development in the Byzantine era. A fragment, long ago figured by Semper,
showing a classical design of a nereid on a sea-horse, is so like the
designs found on many ivories discovered in Egypt that we may probably
assign it to Alexandria. Such fabrics going back to the 3rd century have
been found in Egypt which must have been one of the chief centres for the
production of silk as for linen textiles. The Victoria and Albert Museum is
particularly rich in early silks. One fine example, having rose-coloured
stripes and repeated figures of Samson and the lion, must be of the great
period of the 6th century. The description of St Sophia written at that
time tells of the altar curtains that they bore woven images of Christ, St
Peter and St Paul standing under tabernacles upon a crimson ground, their
garments being enriched with gold embroidery. Later the patterns became
more barbaric and of great scale, lions trampled across the stuff, and in
large circles were displayed eagles, griffins and the like in a fine
heraldic style. From the origin of the raw material in China and India and
the ease of transport, such figured stuffs gathered up and distributed
patterns over both Europe and Asia. The Persian influence is marked. There
is, for example, a pattern of a curious dragon having front feet and a
peacock's tail. It appears on a silver Persian dish in the Hermitage
Museum, it is found on the mixed Byzantine and Persian carvings of the
palace of Mashita, and it occurs on several silks of which there are two
varieties at the Victoria and Albert Museum, both of which are classed as
Byzantine; it is difficult to say of many of these patterns whether they
are Sassanian originals or Byzantine adaptations from them.

AUTHORITIES.--A very complete bibliography is given by H. Leclercq, _Manuel
d'archeologie chretienne_ (Paris, 1907). The current authorities for all
that concerns Byzantine history or art [v.04 p.0911] are:--_Byzantinische
Zeitschrift ..._ (Leipzig, 1892 seq.); _Oriens Christianus_ (Rome, 1900
seq.). See also Dom R.P. Cabrol, _Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne_,
&c. (Paris, 1902 seq.). The best general introduction is:--C. Bayet, _L'Art
byzantin_ (Paris, 1883, new edition, 1904). See J. Strzygowski, _Orient
oder Rom_ (Leipzig, 1901) and other works; Kondakov, _Les Emaux byz._
(1892), and other works; C. Diehl, _Justinien et la civilis. byz._ (Paris,
1901), and other works; G. Millet, _Le Monastere de Daphne_, &c. (Paris,
1899), and other works; L.G. Schlumberger, _L'Epopee byz._ &c. (1896 seq.);
A. Michel, _Histoire de l'art_, vol. i. (Paris, 1905); H. Brockhaus, _Die
Kunst in den Athos-Klostern_ (Leipzig, 1891); E. Molinier, _Histoire
generale des arts_, &c. i., _Ivoires_ (Paris, 1896); O. Dalton, _Catalogue
of Early Christian Antiquities...of the British Museum_ (1901); A. van
Millingen, _Byzantine Constantinople_ (1899); Salzenberg, _Altchristliche
Baudenkmaler_ &c. (Berlin, 1854); A. Choisy, _L'Art de batir chez les
Byzantins_ (Paris, 1875); Couchand, _Eglises byzantines en Grece_; Ongania,
_Basilica di S. Marco_; Texier and Pullan, _L'Architecture b. 73_ (1864);
Lethaby and Swainson, _Sancta Sophia, Constantinople_ (1894); Schultz and
Barnsley, _The Monastery of St Luke_, &c. (1890); L. de Beylie,
_L'Habitation byz._ (Paris, 1903). For Syria: M. de Voguee,
_L'Architecture...dans la Syrie centrale_ (Paris, 1866-1877); H.C. Butler,
_Architecture and other Arts_, &c. (New York, 1904). For Egypt: W.E. Crum,
_Coptic Monuments_ (Cairo, 1902); A. Gayet, _L'Art Copte_ (Paris, 1902);
A.J. Butler, _Ancient Coptic Churches_. For North Africa: S. Csell, _Les
Monuments antiques de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1901). For Italy: A. Venturi,
_Storia dell' arte Italiana_ (Milan, 1901); G. Rivoira, _Le Origini della
architettura Lombarda_ (Rome, 1901); C. Errard and A. Gayet, _L'Art
byzantin_, &c. (Paris,1903).

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