Another antique mosaic picture in the Museum at Naples is the seated figure of the tragic poet found in a house at Pompeii.
Fountains, columns, dados, wall panels, as well as floor decorations, were common objects of mosaic treatment with the Romans, and many houses of the better classes at Pompeii have been lavishly decorated with this imperishable material. A singular peculiarity was the almost exclusive representation of the human figure on floors, while the wall spaces only received ornamental compositions.
Fig. 289.—Head in Mosaic, from the “Battle of Issus.”
It appears from this that the Romans never thoroughly understood the true value of mosaic as a means of architectural decoration, and it was not until about the fourth century of our era that the walls and vaults of churches at Rome were treated with pictorial mosaic. For a long time in Italy the character of the design was strongly influenced by the old classic traditions, which impregnated the germs of the early Christian art of the catacombs of S. Calixtus and S. Agnese (see Figs. 332, 333, former vol.). This influence hardly ever passed away from the works of Italian artists, for down to the sixteenth century there has been many examples of church decoration in which a mixture of Pagan and Christian elements are found.
The remaining mosaics of the central cupola in the church of S. Constance at Rome consist of a Pagan composition—the “Triumph of Bacchus”—worked out in the Roman style, and another vaulted compartment in the same church has a mosaic decoration consisting of a vine spreading over the whole surface, amongst the branches and leaves of which are children gathering the grapes. At two of the sides are grape-laden waggons drawn by oxen, and figures pressing out the grape juice in the vats. From the subjects of the mosaics in this building it was formerly thought to be a temple of Bacchus; but as the vine is one of the commonest symbols of the Christian faith, and as a mixture of Christian and Pagan elements was a very common occurrence in the age of Constantine, there is no hesitation in describing these mosaics, and the church itself, as early Christian work.
A very important mosaic of the fourth century still exists in the apse of the Church of S. Pudentia at Rome. The design is not altered from the original, but much of the work has been restored at different times.
A colossal figure of Christ is enthroned in the centre of a composition which has an architectural background of temples and churches. St. Peter and St. Paul are represented on either side of the central figure, with other sacred personages, and above in the clouds float the sacred emblems of the Evangelists.
After Constantine removed the seat of his empire from Rome to Byzantium (330) mosaic decoration was used in many of the Eastern churches in Macedonia and other places in the Byzantine empire, but it was not until the sixth century that the decided Byzantine Greek style was developed in mosaic work—notably in the mosaics of the great church of Santa Sophia. During the fifth century at Rome, and more especially at Ravenna, the basilicas and Christian churches were decorated on the vaulted ceilings, walls, arches, and spandrels with mosaics, of which the general design and ornamental details were still strongly influenced with the spirit of the antique; but although these works retained much of the dignity pertaining to the latter, they were gradually losing the correctness of drawing which had characterised the mosaics of the fourth century.
In the chapter on Early Christian Architecture, in the former volume of this work, pages 288-300, we have drawn attention to some of these mosaics.