Period of decadence.On the whole the miniatures are neither graceful nor highly decorative; they were executed at about the low water mark of classical artistic decadence shortly before the Byzantine revival under Justinian. Much that has been written in their praise must be attributed to antiquarian enthusiasm rather than to just criticism[[24]].
Fig. 2. Miniature of classical design from a twelfth century Psalter in the Vatican library.
Before passing on to another class of manuscripts it should be noted that there is in existence one manuscript of the fourth or fifth century A.D. which is of special interest on account of its being ornamented, not only with miniature pictures, but also with some decorative designs of a stiff conventional character. This is a Roman Kalendar, which forms part of a manuscript in the Imperial library in Vienna. The ornaments have but little decorative merit, but they are of interest as showing that the illuminations in classical manuscripts were not always confined to the subject pictures.
| Copies of lost originals. |
Copies of lost originals.It has not as a rule been sufficiently noticed that the style of miniature paintings in manuscripts of a considerably earlier date than either the Ambrosian Iliad or the Vatican Virgil is very fairly represented in various manuscripts of the tenth to the twelfth century, the illuminators of which have evidently copied, as accurately as they were able, miniatures in manuscripts of the first or second century A.D.
The originals of these early Roman manuscripts do not now exist, and therefore the information as to their style and composition, which is given in the mediaeval copies, is of great interest.
| Classical design. Graeco-Roman design. |
Classical design.A Greek twelfth century Psalter in the Vatican library (No. 381) has one special picture which is obviously a careful copy of a miniature painting of the first century A.D. or even earlier: see fig. [2]. The subject is Orpheus seated on a rock playing to a circle of listening beasts together with two nymphs and a youthful Faun or shepherd. These figures are arranged so as to form a very graceful composition in a landscape with hills and trees. The figures are extremely graceful both in outline and in pose, showing a considerable trace of Greek influence. The whole design closely resembles in style some of the wall paintings in the so-called "House of Livia" on the Palatine Hill in Rome, of which fig. [3] shows the scene of Io watched by Argus, and those in the now destroyed villa which was discovered by the Tiber bank in the Farnesina Gardens[[25]], and many of the better class of paintings on the walls of the houses of Pompeii. Graeco-Roman design.Of the latter a good example is shown in fig. [4], a painting the design of which has much fine Hellenic feeling in the grace of its form and the simplicity of the composition.
