Pompeii, Its Life and Art

by August Mau

The large panels contained paintings of various sizes, sometimes copies of masterpieces, more often a simple floating figure or a Cupid; groups are also found, as Cupid and Pysche, or a satyr with a bacchante. The appearance of a picture worked in tapestry is given by a border just inside the framework of the panel, as often in the decoration of the fourth style.

The fourth style cannot have been derived from the third. It is organically related with the second, out of which it was developed by laying stress on precisely that element, the architectural, the suppression of which gave rise to the third style of decoration. The most reasonable explanation of the relations of the four styles, briefly stated, is this:—

The Incrustation Style, a direct offshoot of Hellenistic art, was prevalent in eastern cities, where it was naturally followed by the Architectural Style; this may have been developed at one centre or, in different phases, at different centres contemporaneously.

Fig. 265.—Specimen of wall decoration. Fourth style.
In the middle panel, mythological scene in which Hercules is the principal figure; in each of the panels, a satyr and a bacchante.

At some prominent centre, probably Alexandria, the Architectural Style passed over into the Ornate Style, which was introduced into Italy in the reign of Augustus and remained in vogue till the middle of the first century A.D.

Meanwhile, at some other centre of culture, possibly Antioch, the Architectural Style, by an equally natural course of development, had passed over into the Intricate Style, which was first brought to Pompeii about 50 A.D. and remained in fashion till the destruction of the city.

The earthquake of the year 63 threw down some buildings and made necessary the thorough-going repair of many others. Between that year and 79, more walls were freshly decorated, probably, than in any previous period of equal length in the history of the city. For this reason, examples of decoration in the Intricate Style are much more numerous than might have been expected from the length of time that it was in vogue; they give the prevailing cast to the remains of painting in the ruins, and this style is ordinarily thought of when Pompeian wall decoration is referred to. The complex designs and brilliant colors form a decorative scheme which is often most effective, although the system of the third style reveals a finer and more correct taste.

If no remains of the two earlier styles had survived to modern times, the antecedents and relations of the other two could not possibly be understood. But with the first two in mind, we are able to see clearly how the most complex forms of the later decoration may be reduced, in last analysis, to simple elements. Even in the example of the Intricate Style given in [Plate XIII], we find a suggestion of the threefold division of the wall into base, main part, and upper part, which was so prominent in the Incrustation Style; and also an elaborate structural form at the middle of the wall recalling the pavilion framework of the second style, with a symmetrical arrangement of the architectural designs on either side, suggesting the panels at the sides of the principal painting.