No More Learning



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540
Early building
about the middle of the fifth century, that is half-way between the reigns
of Constantine and Justinian.
In the East from a very early time ordinary building works were for
the most part done with sun-dried mud bricks. In hot, dry countries this
forms a fairly good material. Besides this use of crude bricks there had
come down a still simpler way of building by aggregations of clay. The
mud, even when subdivided into crude bricks, adhered so thoroughly when
put together in a mass with liquid mud in the joints, that a type of struc-
ture was developed which was homogeneous; the roofs and floors being of
the same materials as the walls, and continuous with them. The chambers,
large or small, were cells in a mass-material. Such a method of building
was common to the valleys of the Nile and the great rivers of Western
Asia. Burnt bricks were in turn developed from mud bricks by an exten-
sion of the method found so successful in making pottery. Such bricks
were often used for special purposes in combination with the crude bricks
from an early time. The building forms made use of in typical Byzan-
tine architecture largely depended on the use of brick, which may be
regarded as the bringing together of small units well cemented so as
to form continuous walls and vaults. Burnt bricks were usually set in
so much mortar, the bricks being thin and the joints thick, that the
whole became a sort of built concrete. The mortar in a wall, in fact,
must frequently have been much more in quantity than the bricks.
Arising doubtless out of primitive ways of forming mud roofs, it
became customary later to construct vaults of mud bricks, and then of burnt
bricks, by leaning the courses against an end wall so that the vault was
gradually drawn forward from the end of a given chamber in inclined
layers. Each layer was thus supported by the part already done and no
centring was required. Domes came to be erected in a somewhat similar
way. A rod or a cord being attached to the centre so as to be readily
turned in any direction, a dome was reared on its circular base, a course
at a time, the curvature being determined by the length of the rod or
cord. About 1670 Dr Covel described this method of procedure, and it
is still practised in the East, although skilled dome builders are now but
few.
If a dome is not set over a circle, but over an octagon or a square, a
troublesome question arises in regard to the angles. Where the chamber
is small, and especially in the case of the octagonal form, the work can
easily be jutted out in the angles so as roughly to conform to the circular
base required for the dome. When, however, a square area is large,
some regular solution becomes necessary. The angles of the square may
be cut off by diagonal arches so as to form an octagon. If such arches
are so built as to continue back into the angles forming little vaults,
on a triangular base, they are called squinches. In such cases as these the
base of the dome is governed by the width across the chamber, but it is
possible to plan a dome on the diagonal dimensions of the area to be
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Domes
541
a
а
covered so as to spring out of the angles. In this case it is clear that
the dome as seen from within gradually expands from the four lowest
points and spreads on the walls as it grows upward, forming concave
triangles having curved lines against the four walls. These pieces of the
domical surface running down into the angles are called pendentives.
When the circular basis required for the dome is formed by these pen-
dentives it is possible to set a complete semispherical dome on them,
and there will be a break in the curvature where such a dome springs
from the pendentives; or it is possible to carry on the curvature of
the pendentives, forming in this case a flatter dome with the surface con-
tinuous to the angles. The first would be a dome on pendentives, and the
other we might call a pendentive dome. Again a third variety is
obtained by building a circular ring of wall, a
a circular ring of wall, a “drum," above the
pendentives, and on that the dome at a higher level. This was a later
fashion. It is rather difficult to see the geometry of all this without a
model; but if an apple be cut into halves, and then one half is laid on its
cut surface and four vertical cuts are made in pairs opposite to one
another so as to reduce the circular base to a square, we shall obtain a
model of a dome with continuous pendentives.
The methods of building ordinary vaults with inclined courses as
described above were practised in Egypt in the early dynasties, and also
in Mesopotamia. Evidence is accumulating which suggests that domes,
even domes with pendentives, were used in these countries long before the
Christian era. A dome with pendentives has been found over an Egyptian
tomb which seems to have been built about 1500 years B. C. When Alex-
ander built his new Greek capital in Egypt it must have been a city of brick
buildings covered with vaults, save for a few chief structures which were
built in the usual manner of Greek temples. A Latin author, writing
about the year B. c. 50, says that the houses of Alexandria were put
together without timber, being constructed with vaults covered over
with concrete or stone slabs. The scarcity of timber in Egypt, the
cause behind the development of vaulted structures, is again brought
before us in a letter written by St Gregory to Eulogius, the Patriarch of
Alexandria, in regard to timber which was sent to him all the way from
Italy. It was doubtless from the new Hellenistic capital, and possibly
from Western Asia as well, that the art of building vaulted structures
spread to Pompeii and Rome. Later, it was almost certainly from
Alexandria that Constantinople obtained the more developed traditions
of brick building by which it was possible to erect the great church of
St Sophia. It seems to be equally true that decorative ideas and
processes were largely derived from Alexandria. In addition to the
facts mentioned in the first volume, reference may be made to a painted
catacomb chamber at Palmyra illustrated by Strzygowski, who assigned
it to the third century. Amongst the subjects are Victories carrying
medallions like those on consular ivories of the fifth century.
There are
CH. XXI.


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542
Early churches
a
also panels representing geometrical arrangements of marble, and a
cornice imitating modillions in a formal perspective on the flat. This is
practically identical with a “cornice” band made up of flat morsels of
marble of different colours at Salonica. At Ravenna again there are
angels in mosaic which are certainly derived, as Strzygowski himself
pointed out, from such medallion-bearing Victories as those of Palmyra.
Alexandria would be the best common centre for places so far apart as
Salonica, Ravenna and Palmyra, and the painted catacomb at the latter
place may be taken to represent Alexandrian art of the fifth century.
Catacomb burial itself most probably originated in Alexander's city.
Recent explorations in Asia reveal how wide was the saturation of late
Hellenistic and early Christian art in the East. Alexandria was the great
emporium for distributing works of art over the civilised world.
Two early churches, both perhaps of the fifth century, may be taken
as types, one of the circular plan and the other of the basilican. The
former, the church of St George at Salonica, is a domed rotunda having
a very thick wall in which a series of recesses are, as it were, excavated,
while a bema with an apse projects to the eastward. The circular
“nave” thus follows the tradition of many Roman tomb buildings as,
for instance, that of St Helena at Rome; this constitutes indeed the
martyrion type of church. The rotunda of Salonica may be earlier
than the bema attached to it and may have been erected in the fourth
century; the masonry of the wall is of small stones with bonding courses
of brick, a late Roman fashion. The dome, which is about eighty feet
in diameter, was encrusted within with mosaics of which large portions
still remain. Eight great panels contained martyrs standing in front of
architectural façades. These are, it may be supposed, the courts of
,
paradise. The saints are in the attitude of prayer ; and some ivories
.
shew St Menas of Alexandria in a similar way. One of these ivories
has the background filled by an architectural composition which is
remarkably like those of the Salonica mosaics. Here are round pedi-
ments filled with shells, lamps hanging between pairs of columns,
curtains drawn back, and birds. Mr Dalton has spoken of the architectural
façades which derive from the scenes of the theatre as “ in a Pompeian
style,” and has remarked that the free use of jewelled ornament on
columns and arches is an oriental feature. It is not to be doubted that
these mosaics derive from the art of Alexandria. The recesses of the
interior are also covered with mosaic; this church must have been a
wonderfully beautiful work. The dome is covered externally by a low-
pitched roof.
The basilican church mentioned above is St John of the Studion at
Constantinople, which was built about 463 and is now in a terribly
ruined condition. It is rather short and wide and had two storeys of
marble columns on either hand, the lower tier supporting a moulded
marble beam, forming the front of a gallery floor, and the upper tier


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Precursors of St Sophia
543
a
aiding to carry the roof. A really structural gallery of this kind is a
beautiful feature. The most perfect part of this church is now the col-
umnar front of the narthex. The columns and entablature are of marble
elaborately carved. This carving, in accordance with a principle which
afterwards became still more marked, is sharply cut into the general
block-form of the mouldings and capitals, the serrated edges of the leaves
are in sharp triangular forms, and details are accentuated with holes
formed by a drill
. On the white marble and under the bright light this
delicately fretted surface decoration tells like pierced work; indeed a
little later it became customary to undercut much of the surface patterns
so that the capitals were surrounded by a thin layer of pierced pattern
work only attached here and there to the background; the result was
often wonderfully vivid and delightful. Marble door frames were set
between the columns of the narthex, forming a screen; this, like all such
expedients in Byzantine architecture, is done in a perfectly direct and
simple manner. Without pretence and without bungling the builders
did what was required in a free and great way ; but it was done in
noble materials under the guidance of a fine tradition. Byzantine archi-
tecture at its best gives us a romantic feeling of freedom with a classical
sense of order; it followed a law of liberty.
Another typical building is the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus at
Constantinople, built about 526. The plan of the central area is an
octagon with semicircular recesses projecting from the alternate sides ;
there are eight strong piers but the interspaces are set with columns
which bear a marble entablature forming a gallery beam which follows
the tradition just described. The outer walls form a square, from which
to the eastward projects the apse of the bema. The central area is
covered by a dome which is protected by leadwork but not by any inde-
pendent roof. The church of S. Vitale at Ravenna closely resembles
that of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, but it has hemicycles of columns pro-
jecting from every side of the octagon except where the bema opens
to the east.
Both these churches were built before Justinian essayed the colossal
task at St Sophia, which became one of the greatest building triumphs
in the whole history of architecture. The reign of Justinian was a time
of astonishing architectural activity ; nothing of the kind was to be
experienced again, until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries marked, by
the erection of countless cathedrals, another flood-time of art. The
superb plan of St Sophia must have been led up to by a great number
of experiments in smaller churches, many of which have been destroyed
unrecorded. The church of Sergiopolis, the ruins of which still exist,
has great hemicycles of columns on either side of the “nave,” and
Wulff has recorded two fragmentary plans from ruined churches at
Tralles, one of which had some affinity with the church at Sergiopolis,
while the other had a great apse from which five apsidal niches projected.
CH. XXI.


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544
St Sophia
Then again the churches of St Irene and of the Holy Apostles, the
latter of which was later than St Sophia, were both experiments in form
and in the equilibrium of domes. The Church of Christ (the Holy Wisdom,
St Sophia) at Constantinople, has from the moment of its erection been
the most famous church in the world. It was only a century old when
Arculf brought an account of it to the West, and from that day to
this its reputation has been unchallenged. It was the supreme effort of
the greatest emperor-builder of the Christian era. It seems to be more
individual and original and less related to other buildings of its kind in
scale, power and splendour than is any other great architectural work.
As M. Choisy has said, “ It is a conception marvellous in its audacity-
the science of effect, the arts of counterpoise, and of noble decoration
can be pushed no further. ” This wonderful structure was begun on
15 January 532; it was completed in six years and dedicated at Christmas
537: an astonishing effort. The dome soon fell, but it was rebuilt and
the church was re-dedicated at Christmas 563.
It is a vast domed hall, surrounded by other halls forming aisles and
having two storeys, while the central area rises to the dome. The more
organic parts of the structure like the columns, door and window frames,
are all of porphyry and of marbles, some white, some coloured. All the
rest is rough brickwork entirely covered over within by a precious
plating of fine marbles and mosaics of pattern-work and figures on
gold backgrounds. There must be whole acres of these encrustations of
marble and mosaic. Procopius says, “The entire vaulting is covered
with gold, but its beauty is even surpassed by the marbles which reflect
back its splendour. ” On the exterior the structure is bare and plain.
It was probably partially sheeted with marble; the great windows are
filled with marble lattices. The domes are covered with lead applied
directly upon the brickwork. The central dome was much flatter as first
built than it is at present. Expanse rather than height was aimed at.
In front of the church was a great square court surrounded by arcades,
and many other enclosures full of trees formed quiet precincts around
the cathedral. From the description of the Court poet, Paul the
Silentiary, recited in 563, at the opening ceremony after the fallen
dome had been rebuilt, we may form some picture of the splendour of
the great building when complete with all its necessary furniture. The
stalls of the priests in the apse were plated with silver. The iconostasis
was also of silver, while the altar was of gold set with precious stones,
and sheltered by a ciborium, or canopy, of silver—“ a silver tower, on
fourfold arches and columns, furnished with an eight-sided pyramid, a
globe and cross above wrought with many a loop of twining acanthus. "
On the central axis in front of the iconostasis was the ambo, having a
flight of steps to the east and another to the west. It rose from the
midst of a circular screen of columns which enclosed also the place for
the singers. On the beam which rested on the columns stood many
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Contemporary descriptions
545
a
standards bearing lamps, “ like trees. " The ambo itself had a canopy,
and the whole was formed of precious marbles, silver and ivory. On the
elevated floor of this ambo the Emperors were crowned. It was the
prototype of the “pulpitum ” set up at Westminster where the English
kings were crowned.
“Who shall describe the fields of marble gathered on the pavement
and lofty walls of the church? Fresh green from Carystus, and many-
coloured Phrygian stone of rose and white, or deep red and silver; por-
phyry powdered with bright spots, green of emerald from Sparta, and
Iassian marble with waving veins of blood-red on white; streaked red
stone from Lydia and crocus-coloured marble from the hills of the Moors.
Celtic stone like milk poured out on glittering black; the precious onyx
like as if gold were shining through it, and the fresh green from the
land of Atrax, a mingled harmony of shining surfaces. The mason also
has fitted together thin pieces of marble figuring intertwining curves
bearing fruit and flowers, with here and there a bird sitting on the twigs.
Such adornment surrounds the church above the columns. The capitals
are carved with the barbed points of graceful acanthus; but the vaulted
roof is covered over with many a little square of gold, from which the rays
streaming down strike the eyes so that men can scarcely bear to look. ”
The church was dedicated and re-dedicated at Christmas, and the
axis of the church points exactly to the point of sunrise on Christmas
Day. It must have been at the very moment of sunrise that the doors
of the completed church were thrown open.
The poet says, “At last the holy morn had come, and the great door
of the new-built temple ground on its opening hinges. And when the
first beam of rosy light, driving away the shadows, leapt from arch to
arch, all the princes and people hymned their song of praise and prayer,
and it seemed as if the mighty arches were set in heaven. ”
The architects were two artists from Asia Minor, Anthemius of
Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus. They were the most famous builders of
the age, and Anthemius with a younger Isidorus, nephew of the other,
is said to have built also the Church of the Holy Apostles.
The square area covered by the central dome of St Sophia is more
than one hundred feet in each direction ; it is prolonged, east and west,
by two vast semicircles, making a length of considerably more than two
hundred feet. From the eastern semicircle open three smaller apses,
and to the west open two apses and a central square compartment. All
this is unobstructed area, one colossal chamber. At the sides of the
square central space, and around the four corner apses, stand magnificent
monolithic columns of porphyry, and of marble, green spotted with white.
These columns with their arches support the gallery floor above the
aisles. Over them again rise other columns which bear the lateral walls
supporting the dome. The dome itself is pierced around its base by
forty windows through which a flood of light pours into the vast space.
C. MED, H. VOL. III. CH. XXI.
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546
Decoration
On the pendentives are still four colossal six-winged cherubim of mosaic,
which probably formed part of the first decoration. Similar creatures
are painted in the nearly contemporary MS. of Cosmas the traveller.
The dome probably had a figure of Christ in a circle at the summit and
the rest of its surface sprinkled with stars. Right and left on the vault
of the bema are still two great angels with wings which reach to their
feet. On the vault of the apse itself are also some remains, although
much injured and now obscured by paint, of a large figure of the seated
Virgin holding in her arms the Saviour who gives the benediction.
Probably these are works executed after the Iconoclastic interval.
Anthony, a Russian pilgrim (c. 1200), says that Lazarus the image-
painter first painted in the sanctuary of St Sophia the Virgin with Christ in
her arms and two angels. Now a celebrated artist of this name was one
of those who suffered at the Iconoclastic persecution; he was imprisoned
and tortured but he survived to replace over the great gate of the palace
called Chalce the image of Christ. Bayet, who quotes the story from the
life of Theophilus, speaks of this with some doubt as a monastic legend
(Byz. Art, p. 124). This very figure, however, is mentioned within fifty
years of the time required in an edict of Leo the Wise known as the
Book of the Prefect. In this it is ordained that the perfumers of the
city should have their shops between the Milion and the “Venerated
image of Christ which surmounts the Portico of Chalce, to the end that
the incense should rise toward the image. ” Further Dr Walsh, who was
chaplain to our embassy at the Porte about 1820, writes in a little book
entitled Essuys on Ancient Coins, “ There stood till very late in Con-
stantinople an inscription over the gate of the palace, called Chalce.
Under a large cross sculptured over the entrance to the palace were the
following words, “The Emperor cannot endure that Christ should be
represented (graphes) a mute and lifeless image graven on earthly
materials, but Leo and his young son Constantine have at their gates
engraved the thrice blessed representation of the Cross, the glory of
believing monarchs. " A plain cross had evidently replaced the original
image; later, possibly under Michael II, a crucifix was again placed over
the gateway. Doubtless a similar alteration was made in St Sophia and
other churches, and of one of these we still have ample evidence. The fine
conch over the apse of the church of St Irene in Constantinople has only
a large plain cross, erect on a stepped base set on a gold background.
In St Sophia at Salonica there is a similar plain cross over the apse, and
both these are almost certainly of the Iconoclastic period.
After this short description of the central classical example of Byzan-
tine art, St Sophia, Constantinople, it is impossible to attempt any
account of other individual buildings. At Salonica there is a wonderful
group of churches, including the superb basilica of St Demetrius. In
Asia Minor there are a great number of ruined churches, many of which
must have been built during the reign of Justinian. One important
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Other churches of the period
547
group of ruins comprising a monastery and a palace, ķasr ibn Wardān,
has only recently been discovered. The church in Isauria described by
Dr A. C. Headlam is now famous as a step in development. Later
researches by Sir William Ramsay and Miss Bell, and the German
excavations at Priene, Miletus and Ephesus, have brought to light an
immense body of new material. Syria is crowded with ruined churches,
many of which were built in the great sixth century. A well-equipped
American expedition, which lately worked over the ground, has added
greatly to our knowledge of the period. Still further east in Mesopo-
tamia and Armenia there are many interesting buildings, some of which
are still used for Christian worship. In Egypt and the Sūdān the
Christian ruins are at last receiving attention, and an Austrian expedi-
tion has excavated the convent of St Menas near Alexandria. The
excavations at Bawit and Sakkara have brought to light a wonderful
series of capitals and other sculptured stones. Many of these seem to be
prototypes of forms well known in Constantinople and Ravenna. One
or two second-rate capitals of this kind have recently been added to the
British Museum, but the best have gone to Berlin, where there is a very
fine collection of Christian art, and to Boston. To the
age
of Justinian
belong the monastery and church of St Catherine under Mount Sinai,
where still as when Procopius wrote, “monks dwell whose life is only a
careful study of death. ” It is a compact square fort surrounded by high
walls, within which is a large church half filling up the space, the rest
being occupied by a few narrow lanes of small dwellings. The Egyptian
monasteries are of this type, and that of Sinai was doubtless built by
masters from Egypt. The plan of the church has an Egyptian charac-
teristic in a chapel across the east end outside the apse. The church is
basilican with granite columns and a wooden roof. On the old timbers
were found three inscriptions, which shewed that the monastery was finished
between 548 and 562. In the apse is a much injured mosaic of the
Transfiguration which is probably of the age of the church. Besides
the celebrated enamelled door, which probably dates from the eleventh
century, are some carved wooden doors, which De Beylié thinks belonged
to the original work. The inscriptions spoken of above mention
Justinian, “our defunct empress Theodora," and Ailisios the architect. .
During the last generation an enormous body of evidence for Christian
art in North Africa has been recorded by French scholars. One of the
latest discoveries is a beautiful baptistery at Timgad, which had the floor
and the basin of the font with its curb-wall continuously covered with
mosaic. It may be mentioned here that parts of a mosaic floor, from
what must have been a baptistery at Carthage, are now in the British
Museum. This shews a stag and a hind drinking from the waters of
paradise, recalling the verse : “ As the hart panteth after the water
brooks. "
On the shores of the Adriatic and in Italy are many pure Byzantine
CH. XXI.
35-2


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548
Italian Byzantesque
works of the sixth century. One is the splendid basilica of Parenzo
with its atrium and baptistery complete. It has a great number of beau-
tiful carved capitals which were certainly imported from Constantinople.
There are also some fine mosaics. The most remarkable of these is one
covering the external surface of the west wall above the atrium roof.
It shewed the Majesty enthroned amidst the seven candlesticks. This
may remind us that Justinian encrusted the west external wall of the
basilica of the Holy Nativity at Bethlehem with a great mosaic of the
birth of Christ. Such external mosaics were quite common on Byzantine
churches. At Parenzo, as also at Ravenna, and in St Sophia itself,
there is much ornamental plastering of the sixth century.
At Ravenna is a large group of buildings, some of the age of Jus-
tinian, others both earlier and later. S. Vitale has already been mentioned.
The delightful small cruciform tomb-chapel of Galla Placidia has some
fifth century mosaics. There are also two large baptisteries and two
magnificent basilican churches with their splendid mosaics. Here also
is the very curious tomb of Theodoric with its monolithic covering
shaped like a low dome.
One of the chief treasures preserved in this city is a superb ivory
throne, a work of the fifth century, with panels carved with subjects
from the Old and New Testaments. This is almost certainly an Alex-
andrian work. Somewhat similar panels, preserved at Cambridge and
in other museums, suggest that more than one of such thrones had been
made.
In Rome there are several remnants from the age of Justinian, chief
amongst which are the choir enclosures of S. Clemente. At Milan, on
the north side of S. Lorenzo, is a beautiful chapel with mosaics in
apsidal recesses. One is of Christ and the Apostles, which is executed
in a very grey scheme of colour, largely black and white, with some
blue and green; the nimbus of Christ is white. Although so simple
these mosaics are most beautiful. At Naples there is a baptistery with
very fine but fragmentary mosaics, which date perhaps from the end of
the fifth century.
Byzantine mosaic decoration was one of the noblest art-forms ever
developed. Enormous areas were covered by perfectly coherent and
co-ordinated schemes of pictorial teaching, and a solemn majesty was
unerringly attained; while the splendour of the gold backgrounds
suffused the whole with a glowing atmosphere.
The types of Christian imagery which are found in the Byzantine
mosaics of the fifth and sixth centuries were probably drawn from Egyptian
Christian sources. It has been suggested that these types may have
originated in Palestine, and that the paintings and mosaics of the great
churches built there by Constantine largely influenced the schemes of
imagery in the rest of Christendom may not be doubted. It is improbable,
however, that Palestine was a school of iconographical invention; whereas
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Early art in books
549
Egypt seems to have been a glowing hearth of pictorial activity from
the Hellenistic age onwards.
Early Christian iconography must have been developed at an active
Hellenistic centre. Jerusalem was hardly this, and Palestinian art
for the most part must have been an offshoot of that of Alexandria,
It is probable that painted rolls and books were the chief sources,
from which the types to become familiar in paintings and mosaics were
spread abroad.
The codex form of book, which seems at an early time to have
become specially associated with Christian literature, was almost
certainly an Egyptian innovation. According to Sir Maunde Thompson,
codices of vellum, of the third century and earlier, have been found in
Egypt, and this form of MS. “ was gradually thrusting its way into use
in the first centuries of our era. . . . The book form was favoured by the
early Christians. In the fourth century the struggle between the roll
and the codex was finished. ” Some fine book-bindings, which may even
be as early as the sixth century, have lately been found in Egypt. The
noble Codex Alexandrinus of the fifth century, now in the British
Museum, is an Egyptian book. So also, almost certainly, is the once
beautiful, but now almost destroyed, pictured book of Genesis called the
Cotton Bible. The writing of this volume is very like that of the
Codex Alexandrinus and of a great number of papyrus fragments. It
also seems to date from the fifth century, and furthermore its pictures
have some affinities with others in an Alexandrian chronicle of the
world on papyrus, which has been published by Strzygowski, while they
have a closer likeness to other painted books which have been judged to
have been produced in Alexandria, such as illuminated volumes of
Dioscorides and of Cosmas the traveller, and a roll of Joshua. Many
points in the miniatures with which the Cotton Genesis was crowded
bear out this view of its origin. Thus, two of those relating to Joseph
in Egypt shew a group of pyramids in the background; a third had
well-drawn camels ; and another the burial of a body wrapped like a
mummy. It has been proved by Dr Tikkanen of Helsingfors that this
MS. or a duplicate of it, was used by the mosaic workers at St Mark's,
Venice, at the end of the twelfth century, for the designs from early
Bible history which fill the domes of the narthex. Twenty-six of those
relating to the Creation were accurately enlarged copies of as many
miniatures from the now terribly injured book, and these subjects,
designs of great dignity and grace, can consequently be restored. Other
pictures in the volume which relate to Lot, Abraham and Joshua, were
again very similar to the series of mosaics executed in Sta Maria
Maggiore in Rome about A. D. 440, and, indeed, the types found in the
Cotton Genesis seem to have had an almost canonical importance.
Their influence can be traced far down in the Middle Ages, and even the
Biblical pictures of Raphael still retained some reminiscence of them. One
CH. XXI.


## p. 550 (#596) ############################################

550
Mosaics and paintings
characteristic of the Cottonian MS. is the appearance in the miniatures
of impersonations of such ideas as the Seven Days of Creation, and the
Four Rivers of the Garden; the former being represented as seven
angels, and the latter as four reclining figures with urns. The Soul
breathed into man is depicted in the form of a winged Psyche. The
Creator is shewn as Christ, “by Whom all things were made. "
Another famous book of Genesis at Vienna, having pictures painted
below the text on pages of purple vellum, is almost certainly later than
the Cottonian book, and although there are obviously some links
between them, the Vienna designs seem to stand outside the Alexandrian
circle. Two other books on purple, which have much in common with
the Vienna book, are the codices of Rossano and Sinope. All three
may probably be dated about A. D. 500, and may have been painted at
Constantinople. The magnificent Dioscorides, which is dated c. 512, is
almost certainly an Alexandrian book. Its fine, clear drawings of
plants may be copied from a more classical original. The Joshua Roll
of the Vatican is probably sixth century and of Alexandrian origin.
Several of the mosaics at Ravenna have characteristics similar to the
miniatures in these Egyptian books, and it may be regarded as certain
that it was not only at St Mark's, Venice, that the designs for mosaics
were taken from such sources. Indeed, it must be more and more
recognised that such compositions were very often drawn out of authori-
ties almost as fixed as the texts which they illustrated. All religious
art, and Byzantine art especially, has in a large degree been the handing
on of a tradition. The outlines of these iconographical schemes must
have been suggested by theologians'. They were certainly not the result
of a free play of artistic fancy.
A number of figured textiles which have been found in Egypt are
also very interesting in regard to the treatment of their subjects. Some
are merely painted or dyed and others are woven and embroidered.
Three pieces of the dyed work in the Victoria and Albert Museum have
designs of the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Miracles of Christ.
These, again, are interesting as giving us versions of well-known types of
the subjects, and suggest that these designs also had their character
impressed upon them in Egypt. For instance, they closely resemble
others found on the ivory throne at Ravenna, and this similarity rein-
forces the argument in favour of that famous work having been made in
Alexandria, which was the great mart for objects in carved ivory? .
A favourite scheme of ornamentation on the Christian textiles found
in Egypt is the imitation of jewelling. Especially is this the case with
the Cross ; and the jewelled cross, which appears again and again in the
mosaics of Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople, would also seem to have
been an Egyptian invention. Recently many wall-paintings have been
1 As in some later Italian works, such as in the Spanish Chapel at Florence. See
Wood Green, J. , Sta Maria Novella, pp. 150 ff. 2 See Vol. 1. Chapter xxi.
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The East, Rome and art
551
a
are.
exposed by excavation in Egypt and here, also, well-known types, like
the Majesty and the Ascension, have been found.
It has not been possible to speak of the quality of Byzantine art but
only of certain leading facts in its history. As a whole it was
wonderful movement of return to first principles in regard to structures
and to the free expression of feeling in what we call decoration. Roman
art was very largely official, grandiose, and a matter of formulas. The
Roman artist was as closely imprisoned in conventions as we ourselves
Then came a time and an influence which led the people to build
what they wanted only by the rules of common sense, and to draw for
decorative art fresh draughts from the springs of poetry.
So art was transformed and a great cycle of a thousand years was
entered on. Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic are
all incidents in its mighty sweep, and before it was spent great cathedrals
had been built all over Europe.
Having followed, so far as our space will allow, the main stream of
Christian art while flowing through Constantinople and the East, we
must now try to trace the broader facts of its development in the
West.
It is not to be doubted that, until the eastern civilisation was checked
by the Arab conquests in the seventh century, its art had been the true
heir of the ages, and that the great upheaval put a stop to its proper
progress, and then threw it back in many broken eddies over western
Europe. In our first volume we saw that early Christian art was a phase
of Roman art modified by eastern ideas. In western Europe, for the early
Christian period, there were in the main three influences at work, in the
culture of which art is one aspect : the native stock, the Romano-
Christian tradition, and the steady, unceasing pressure of oriental ideas.
In mentioning the latter we do not try to beg any “Byzantine question. "
It would doubtless be true to say conversely that the West influenced
the East, but here and now we are only concerned with the West and
the action of external forces upon it.
In reaction against claims which have been urged for oriental in-
fluence in Christian art, Commendatore Rivoira has lately made a
powerful plea for a further consideration of the part played by Rome
and Italy as the main source of western Christian art, but he confessedly
does this rather in regard to structural architecture than to the pictorial
and plastic matters which form so great a part of any complete architec-
ture. Further, in regard to the structures, his contention in many cases
only avails to shew that those eastern customs, which some earlier
writers had thought came in with Byzantine art, had already been taken
over by Roman builders. And it must never be forgotten that Roman art
itself was only one branch of a widespread Hellenistic culture the prime
centre of which was Alexandria.
Quite recently a whole new phase of Roman art has been coming
CH, XXI.


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552
Provincial Roman art
into view, that is, the form of it which was developed rather in the pro-
vinces than in the capital. An enormous body of this Roman provincial
art has been revealed by French researches in North Africa, and the study
of local antiquities in Italy, France, Spain, South Germany, and even
Britain, shews how far this little-known art had developed or degenerated
from the standards of the Augustan age. This art is rude and redun-
dant, shewing a ferment of undisciplined ideas, and in it we may find many
of the germs of the Christian architecture of the West which, by a true
instinct, has been called Romanesque.
Probably the best centre in which to study provincial Roman art is
Trèves, where a perfectly arranged museum is crowded with smaller monu-
ments, while many large ones are still extant in the streets. Among the
latter are a magnificent basilica, now a church, a great city gate, the Porta
Nigra, and a ruined palace, usually called that of Augustus, although
apparently it must belong to the fourth century. The monuments in the
museum comprise a great number of important, richly sculptured, tombs,
some of which are of the sarcophagus form, while others are like small towers
crowned by a pyramid, with a sculptured finial at the apex, a form which
recalls many a Romanesque tower and spire built centuries later. They
themselves seem to derive from the mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The
sloping surfaces of the pyramidal coverings are roughly carved into leafage
arranged like scales, and the rest of these monuments is adorned with a
profusion of sculptured figures and pattern-work. The large plain sur-
faces are frequently covered by what, in later art, we should call diaper
patterns, that is, recurring arrangements of lozenges, octagons and
circles, combined so as to cover the field and with the interspaces filled
in with simply-carved leafage. This type of ornamentation is practically
unknown in classical Roman architecture. It was doubtless taken up
from the East, and it is the precursor of a kind of decoration, which
thenceforth was to be common for many centuries; indeed, the covering
of flat vertical surfaces with roughly cut patterns in low relief is typical
of the art of the “Dark Ages. " It may be noted that the surface
patterns, and even the figure sculptures, on the monuments of Trèves
were painted with bright colours, and hence it seems probable that the
elaborate braided and chequered ornamentation of our own Saxon crosses
was completed by colouring.
What we have found best illustrated at Trèves must have been charac-
teristic, in greater or lesser degree, of all the cities of western Europe 1.
Even in London, at the Guildhall and British Museums, there are
fragments which shew that a similar type of architecture prevailed here.
Amongst the stones are some which clearly belong to tombs with pyramidal
coverings like those mentioned above, and other stones, some of which
belong to small columns, have diaper pattern-work. These fragments
1 Even in Britain the lion dug up at Corbridge (Corstopitum) is a striking
example.
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Rome's influence on its conquerors
553
.
probably belonged to the tombs of the rich merchants of Londinium.
The coins of Roman Britain shew a similar likeness to those of Trèves,
which in the fourth century was the capital of the western section of
the Empire. In the museum at Sens are important remnants of a
façade, which was largely decorated with boldly designed vine foliage
of a curiously “Romanesque" character.
Romanised Europe was a soil well prepared for the upspringing of
Romanesque art, and many centres, down to the end of the twelfth
century, shew us how the old monuments were turned to for inspiration
and guidance. In some places there was hardly any interruption of
continuity ; in others the conquering peoples from the North (although
they entered into that which they could not properly understand or
use) could not help crude imitation when they themselves had to build.
The problem of architectural history is now less one of inquiry as to
sources than a question as to the vigour of building impulse. An ener-
getically expanding school always gathers from everything it may reach,
but a declining school does not know how to use even what it has.
When the Romanesque movement in architecture was under way, the
Roman background was searched, and at the same time the current
customs of the more powerful art of the East were drawn upon.
In the fifth century, western Europe had a vast system of splendid
roads linking up a great number of provincial Roman cities. Many of
them were burned and ruined, but few can have been destroyed. Even
in Britain these Roman cities were sights to wonder at, as the poem
on the ruins of Bath witnesses, and Bede tells us how the citizens
of Carlisle guided St Cuthbert round the city shewing him the walls
and a fountain of marvellous workmanship constructed formerly by the
Romans. In Rome itself the early Christian tradition was being continued,
and there, as at Ravenna and Milan, at Lyons and Arles, Byzantine
influences were all the time being absorbed and passed on to the
West.
The third strain in Romanesque art was the barbaric element in the
blood and traditions of the people. After the Roman and Byzantine influ-
ences, which came from the Church, had been absorbed and transformed,
the art began to put on more and more of a barbaric character. This
was especially the case in the West after the Danish irruptions. Some of
the stone carvings wrought in England during the tenth century were
extremely savage in their character.
A school of art, which should be of extraordinary interest to us, is
that which arose in Northumbria in the second half of the seventh century,
but was soon to disappear. There is ample documentary record of the
culture of the time when Wilfrid and Benedict Biscop built churches and
formed monastic libraries, and when Bede wrote his famous history.
Some remnants of Wilfrid's churches yet remain, and Bede tells us how
they were decorated by paintings forming a consistent series of Biblical
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554
Roman influence in England
types and story. These paintings were brought from Rome, and the
fortunate discovery of the painted walls of Sta Maria Antiqua in that
city, which were decorated by Greek artists just at the time that Benedict
Biscop was making his collection, suggests very clearly what these
pictures must have been like. It cannot be doubted that they were
of eastern origin. Many works of art, which we still fortunately possess,
have been attributed to the same age, but some of them are so remark-
able as compared with other works of that time on the Continent that
Commendatore Rivoira and Professor Cook of Yale have argued with
great detail that they could not have been produced at that time. At
Ruthwell and Bewcastle, on either side of the Scottish border, are the
shafts of two tall standing crosses elaborately sculptured with figures and
pattern-work, with long inscriptions in runes, and, in the case of
Ruthwell, with Latin inscriptions as well.
inscriptions as well. Rivoira, approaching the
question from the Italian point of view, and with a wide knowledge of
European art, would assign them to the twelfth century, and Professor
Cook argues that they were probably erected by King David of Scotland
about 11401.
These noble cross shafts, however, are only the most famous of a large
class of monuments of more or less the same type, which must belong to
about the same period. If they have to be dated in the twelfth century, the
Irish crosses also, as is recognised by the critics just named, cannot be
earlier. Such a scheme in all its implications would make a tremendous
alteration in British archaeology. On the other hand, the early dates of
some of the Saxon works are so firmly established that they cannot even
be attacked. Such are large numbers of early Saxon coins, some of which
bear devices analogous to the decorations of the crosses, while others,
like the coins of Offa, have fine heads. Others, again, like a coin of
Peada, have runes of similar form to those on the crosses. If a selection
of such coins was published in comparison with the crosses, much that
has been said as to the improbability of the early date of these would
have to be ruled out. We also possess the splendid illuminated text
written and decorated at Lindisfarne very early in the eighth century,
with its braided ornamentation, symbols of the four evangelists, and
other designs which closely resemble the ornament and symbols on the
crosses. There is also the noble Codex Amiatinus, once owned by Abbot
Ceolfrid, and taken with him as a present for the Pope when he left
England for Rome in 716, which has some points of resemblance. It has
further been shewn that the Latin inscriptions, which describe the sculp-
tures on the Ruthwell Cross, are in an alphabet of a semi-Irish character
resembling the letters of the Lindisfarne book, while the runic inscrip-
tion of this cross contains a version of the old English poem on the
Dream of the Holy Rood, which Dr Bradley attributes to the authorship
of Caedmon. Another monument, the date of which has not been
1 See Baldwin Brown, G. , The Arts in Early England, Vol. v. 1921.
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The English crosses
555
attacked, is the shrine of St Cuthbert now at Durham, which is recorded
to have been made in 698. Some designs incised on it, which include
figures of Christ, angels, and apostles, together with symbols of the
ev gelists, a cross and inscriptions, are again singularly like the designs
found
upon the two great cross shafts. The runes on the Bewcastle
cross formed a memorial inscription, which is terribly decayed, and
doubt is cast on the readings, first made in 1856, by which it appeared
that it was set up to Alchfrid, son of Oswy, about the year 670. On
the other hand, the name Cyneburh, which was the name of Alchfrid's
wife, has often been read by many independent observers, including
Kemble, in 1840. Even the presence of the name Alchfrid is admitted
by Viator, the Runic scholar, but Professor Cook claims that the form
is feminine and cannot apply to Alchfrid. Thus the question stands for
the moment, but when, by comparative illustration, it has been shewn
that the objection to the early date of the art of these wonderful monu-
ments must fall to the ground, then we may anticipate that much of the
opposition to the interpretation of the runes will also disappear. At the
least the certain name of Cyneburh will be given its due weight. The
present writer has no doubt at all that these crosses were set up by a
powerful Northumbrian ruler in the seventh century. Professor Cook even
expresses a doubt as to whether these shafts were parts of crosses at all,
which to English scholars will seem like doubting whether a torn volume
was ever a book: His work, however, is valuable as stating the case
for the extremist reaction. In regard to the sculptures on the Ruthwell
cross, it has been shewn that they have affinities with the subjects on the
Byzantine ivory throne at Ravenna, which was probably made in Alex-
andria, and with some Coptic works. Now the second half of the
seventh century was exactly the time when Rome itself had become
almost completely Byzantinised. The church of Sta Maria Antiqua, before
mentioned, belongs to this time. It is no accident that it was just at
this moment that a Greek from Tarsus, Theodore by name, became
Archbishop of Canterbury. The sculptures on the Ruthwell cross in-
clude the Crucifixion, the Annunciation, Christ healing the blind man,
Christ and the Magdalene, and the Visitation on one side; on the other,
the flight into Egypt, SS. Paul and Anthony the hermits, breaking bread
in the desert, Christ worshipped by “beasts and dragons,” St John
Baptist, and the symbols of the evangelists. A third cross shaft, hardly
less remarkable, that of Acca, now at Durham, is accepted by Rivoira
as being of the eighth century. It is difficult for an English student
to understand why two should be taken away and the other left.
Saxon works of a different kind, but not less noteworthy, are the
silver Ormside cup, the celebrated Alfred jewel and the vestments of
Bishop Frithstan, now at Durham, which were embroidered at Winchester
about the year 912. It may be remembered that William of Malmes-
bury says that the daughters of Edward the Elder were skilful needle-
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556
Irish art
women, and it is not unlikely that these exquisite works came from this
royal school of art.