The Roman period is noted for the many beautiful Consular diptychs, which may now be seen in our national museums. They consist of two ivory leaves usually 12 by 5 inches, the inside having a slightly sunk plane covered with wax for writing upon, the outside being enriched with delicate carved reliefs (figs. 7, 8, and 9). These diptychs were given by new consuls on their appointment, to their friends and officers of the state. The consul is usually represented seated on the cushioned curule chair, or chair of state, and his name is generally written across the top of one leaf.
The Byzantines enriched the covers of their manuscripts with ivory, of which an illustration is given in fig. 6; the ivory throne of Maximian, Archbishop of Ravenna, A.D. 546-556, is also of this period. A beautiful treatment of ivory was used in the 13th and 14th centuries by the Saracens of Egypt; they frequently worked a fine geometric inlay of ivory upon ebony; in other examples ivory panels were pentagonal, hexagonal, or star-shaped, and carved with delicate arabesques, the framing of the panels being of cedar or ebony. In India ivory carving reached a high degree of perfection, especially in the many ivory combs, with pierced and relief work representing the figure of Buddha surrounded with foliage and richly caparisoned elephants.
In the Carlovingian period, 8th to 10th centuries, ivory was largely used for coffers or small chests. During the early Gothic period in Italy and France, ivory crucifixes, pastoral staffs, croziers, statuettes and triptychs were made in large numbers; and the ivory combs and mirror cases of the Renascence period have fine reliefs of legendary or allegorical subjects. Of pictorial ivories the modern Japanese craftsmen show the highest technical skill, combined with a keen perception of nature and movement, yet their ivories lack the beauty and dignity of composition and the decorative treatment of the early and Mediæval ivories.
MOSAICS. [Plate 26.]
MOSAICS.
The durability, range of colour, and appropriateness of material and treatment to architectural conditions, has placed the art of Mosaic as the chief decorative enrichment of architecture. Its antiquity is unquestionable, for in the Book of Esther, i, 6, we read “of a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble.”
Mosaic is the art of forming patterns by means of pieces of variously-coloured materials, fitted together, and is broadly divided into three classes: (1) Opus Tesselatum, or clay mosaic; (2) Opus Lithostratum, or stone mosaic; (3) Opus Miserum, or glass mosaic. These divisions are again sub-divided into: (1) Opus Figlinum, or ceramic mosaic, formed of a vitreous composition and coloured with metallic oxides; (2) Opus Signinum, small pieces of tile; (3) Opus Vermiculatum, sub-divided into (a) Majus, black and white marble, (b) Medium, in which all materials and colours were used, and (c) Minus, of minute tesseræ, principally used for furniture inlay; (4) Opus Sculpturatum, slabs of marble hollowed out and filled in with grey or black marble; (5) Opus Alexandrinum, inlay of porphyry and serpentine; and (6) Opus Sectile, formed of different laminæ or slices of marble of various colours.
It was in Rome that the art of Mosaic was brought to its greatest perfection, during the 1st and 2nd centuries, A.D., and many splendid examples of this period are now in the museums of the Vatican and at Naples. The finest example came from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, and represents the battle of Issus, between Alexander and Darius. This mosaic, of the 3rd century B.C., is probably a copy of a Greek painting.