Figures.—Some walls had figures in panels or set singly on the general ground. At the Guildhall is a morsel of plaster containing parts of two small dancing figures, which occupied a panel not more than 8 or 9 in. high (Fig. [117]). From the composition it appears that there would have been three figures altogether, filling a square panel (Fig. [118]). The central figure is of a darker hue than the others, and apparently the face is male; probably it is a faun with two nymphs. The painting of this is of high competence, and in full Pompeian tradition. The little panel, one of a series, would have been set at the centre of a wall division. Roach Smith illustrated the head of a figure of Mercury on a red ground; this was probably a single figure painted on a general ground and not included in a panel. Evidences for figures of full size have also been found.
Fig. 116.
A good foot on a blue ground and a piece of drapery of large scale of fine execution are in the British Museum: these are said to have come from Leadenhall Street (The Basilica?). Wright describes some fragments found at Great Chesterford, Essex. “A considerable variety of rather elegant patterns, among which were some representing portions of the human figure. The most remarkable of the latter was the foot of a female, as large as life, with drapery flowing round it. In one of the larger rooms of the villa at Combe End, in Gloucestershire, the lower part of the wall remained covered with fresco painting, on which were a row of feet, also as large as life, which had belonged to some grand paintings.”
Parts of inscriptions have also been discovered. A morsel was found on Tower Hill of “white wall painting with the letters [large capitals] S V P in reddish colour.” At Woodchester, some fragments “were painted with large capital letters which had formed part of inscriptions” (Wright, p. 195).
Cast-Shadows.—It was the practice in figure and foliage painting to boldly reinforce the forms with cast-shadows (see a fragment of a figure in Roach Smith’s Illustrations, pl. 14). A piece of a foliage tendril or festoon in the Rochester Museum, from the villa at Darenth, has cast-shadows. This is of long, delicate, grey-green olive leaves on a red ground, and the sharp shadow below forces it into prominence. Several of the ornamental patterns found in London were reinforced by shadows. A striking example is the large scroll foliage pattern from Leadenhall Market, where separate shadow lines and touches are laid almost like a secondary pattern. This, I think, from the scale of the work, must have been part of the decorations of the Civil Basilica described in Chapter II.
Fig. 117.
Provincial Roman painting is not fine as compared with the great things in either Greek or Gothic art, but we must remember, in comparing it with anything we can obtain to-day, that it was the ordinary journeyman decorator’s work of the time. It is certainly far beyond the standard of common work which we reach to-day; and Roman London, on the testimony of the arts, must have been quite a civilised place. A full study of the fragments in country museums ought to make an interesting subject for a student who is prepared to take up a definite piece of research on the history of art in Britain. Further, suggestions for enlarging the scope of work undertaken by present-day “painters and decorators” might be gathered from these ancient paintings. Our workmen are capable of much better work than is ordinarily demanded of them. Their skill in graining was noticeable; it was the last field where any freedom was left the workmen, and it was probably for that very reason (unconsciously functioning) that architects have tried to kill it. It is our duty to demand free and interesting work. A point to be thought of in regard to the Roman decorations is the character of the designs. These are not laboriously set out, transferred from a full-sized drawing, and painfully “executed”; they are swiftly painted in masterly brush strokes and varied at will for the fun of the thing.
