Historic Ornament, Vol. 1 (of 2) / Treatise on decorative art and architectural ornament

by James Ward

Fig. 332.—Painting from the Catacomb of S. Agnese.

The use of these doubtless arose from the desire to deprecate anything that savoured of the images of heathendom, but evidently the early Christians soon arrived at the idea that painting might be admissible in a church where sculptured images could not be tolerated—the latter reminding them too much of the sculptured deities of the ancients—and consequently we find that the painted subjects from the heathen Pantheon were adapted by the artists who decorated the catacombs, but the figure of Christ was introduced where formerly a Roman god was the personage, thereby giving the mythological subject a new Christian meaning. In the catacombs of S. Agnese Christ is represented as the “Good Shepherd,” carrying on his shoulders the lamb that had been lost (Fig. 332); and in the catacombs of S. Calixtus, on a wall painting, he is portrayed under the type and figure of Orpheus, charming all nature with his music (Fig. 333). In the central octagonal panel he is represented with a harp, surrounded by the beasts and birds of the field. In the eight compartments around the central panel, four landscapes alternate with four figure subjects:—Moses striking water out of the rock, and opposite, Christ raising Lazarus, who is represented as a mummy; Daniel in the lions’ den, and opposite this, David with the sling. The heathen subjects of Cupid and Psyche, and others, have been used to represent Christian symbols. In sculpture, there are some remains of early Christian art in which the figures of Christ and his Apostles are clothed in the dress, and worked somewhat in the spirit, of the antique. The sarcophagus under the pulpit of S. Ambrogio at Milan is a good example of this kind of art. Some ivory carvings of this period have been executed as tablets, with scriptural subjects, after the manner of the Roman Consular diptychs. These ivory carvings, that exhibit a true spirit of the antique in their design, are not to be confounded with the later Byzantine diptychs that were executed in a more archaic style.

Fig. 333.—Wall Painting from the Catacombs of S. Calixtus.

During the fifth century, and even in the latter part of the fourth, we see the more cheerful spirit of the antique character dying out, and the art of the time exhibits a greater importance and attention which is given to large masses, while smaller or minor surfaces are left empty, and decorative detail suppressed. There is an apparent striving to render the figure of the Redeemer—the chief personage—larger and more important in the scale of the decoration, and at the same time to give him more individuality. As the technical qualities of the Christian art diminished, the majesty and sublimity of the Great Teacher was expressed in a more spiritual conception of his divinity.

Several examples of decoration illustrating this phase of Christian art occur in the wall paintings in the catacombs of S. Ponziano at Rome. The face of Christ in these representations is full of earnest and mild serenity; the right hand is raised as if in blessing, and the left holds the book of life.

In the fourth century, mosaic was used in the basilicas as a means of decorating the apse and walls, as the Romans before had used it in their floors and dados.

In the hands of the early and inexperienced artists, the character of the material in mosaic had a great deal to do, but not all, in the creating of the type of angular and rigid forms of the figures, which was transmitted to all subsequent Christian mosaics. At the same time there was the intense desire to make the figures of Christ and of other sacred personages of a sorrowful and austere character. We can, however, trace in these figures the magisterial dignity that invests the sculptured figures of the Emperors and Senators of Roman art.

In Italy, the Christian mosaics assumed more and more a decided breaking away from the traditions of the antique. Large masses as single figures were symmetrically arranged, ornamental details were suppressed, and bands with inscriptions framed the large spaces of the walls and the apse. The figures were more isolated, attenuated, severe of expression, and leaving much to be desired in their anatomical construction or in the natural movement of the body; but all this tended to give them that expression of devotional simplicity aimed for by those early mystics, who only looked on the world as a “vale of tears.” In the vaulted roof of the funeral chapel erected to the memory of the daughter of Constantine at Rome—Sta. Costanza—some of the earliest mosaic work is to be found, consisting of an antique treatment of the vine and tendrils used in a symbolic sense; and in another chapel, that of the Empress Galla Placida, at Ravenna, similar work is seen, mixed with symbolic signs, as the hart—"panting for water brooks"—a symbol of the soul thirsting for salvation. This chapel was erected A.D. 440.

After this time, and towards the end of the fifth century, we find the characteristic features of Christian art more insisted in: such as the colossal portraits and figures of Christ, the isolation of single figures, the symmetrical grouping of crowds of smaller figures, and of the representatives of the angel, bull, eagle, and lion, as winged symbols of the Evangelists, all rendered the more impressive by the architectural spacing, and the plain blue ground which surrounded most of the figures. Two churches may be mentioned that contained fine examples of the above type of early Christian mosaics; one is the great basilica of St. Paul, without the walls at Rome, built under Theodosius and Honorius about A.D. 386, and the other that of St. Cosmo e Damiano in Rome. The great mosaics in the apse of the latter church were executed between A.D. 526 and 530 by Pope Felix IV. The floors of these churches are made of what is known as “Opus Alexandrinum,” the finest and grandest floor decoration that exists (Fig. 334). Circular slabs of porphyry and serpentine marble sawn in disks from antique columns are laid down, and twisted interlacings and rings surround them as bands composed of triangular bits of white, black, or coloured marble, forming simple and effective patterns in a quiet harmony of colour. Some of this work may be seen in Westminster Abbey.