Fig. 418.—The Goddess Demeter enthroned. Wall painting from Pompeii. (B.)
The Baths of Titus and Diocletian and the palace of the Cæsars on the Palatine Hill, Rome, were decorated with grotesques similar to those of Pompeii, and were studied to great advantage by Raphael and his pupils and assistants when decorating the Loggia of the Vatican. Thin tendrils, festoons of fruit, animals, masks, all kinds of grotesque forms and birds flying and playing in and out of light scrolls, architectural constructions of a light and fantastic character, and panels of landscapes formed the subjects that were painted on the walls, which were often divided into friezes, panels, and dados. These decorations were executed in tempera colours of bright reds, greens, yellows, blues, and black. The antique grotesques, so called from being found on the walls of underground chambers, or “grottos,” together with the figure subjects taken from Greek gems, furnished Raphael and his celebrated pupils Giovanni da Udine (1487-1561) and Perino del Vaga (1500-47) with fanciful ideas for the decoration of the Loggia of the Vatican, and the Villa Madama, at Rome. These grottesches were painted in a kind of fresco or tempera on a white ground with a fairly bright variety of colouring. Some portions of the decorations were executed in stucco relief made of a composition of lime and marble dust, and were sometimes gilded. Giovanni da Udine, or Ricamatore, as he is also called, was especially celebrated at this stucco-work, and in the drawing of animals and birds. He, and another celebrated artist, Primaticco, assisted Raphael’s great pupil Giulio Romano (1492-1546) in a similar kind of decoration at the ducal palace of Mantua. The latter artist executed the principal figure work at Mantua, and also at the Villa Madama.
Fig. 419—Pan. Wall Painting at Herculaneum. (B.)
There is no lack of good examples of Italian ornament, especially in carved marble and wood, in the churches and palaces of Italy and France.
The Museum at South Kensington is rich in casts and in real examples of Italian ornament, has excellent copies of the Raphael pilasters and other examples of painted decorations. In addition to this the maiolica plates and vases furnish good examples of painted decoration of the Renaissance period.
It is only necessary here to illustrate and describe a few examples of the style, as they appear in architectural decoration, for under the heads of the various historic industrial arts many examples of Renaissance ornament will come under our notice in a succeeding volume.
Fig. 420.—Mural Painting. Pompeii.
