File:History of mediæval art (1893) (14756837996).jpg

Identifier: historyofmedival00rebe (find matches)
Title: History of mediæval art
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Reber, Franz von, 1834-1919 Clarke, Joseph Thacher, d. 1920
Subjects: Art, Medieval
Publisher: New York : Harper & Bros.
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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the patrons of the Church, St. Cosmo andSt. Damian, advance upon either side, preceded by the four chiefapostles. In general composition, as well as in the proportion ofthe figures and the drapery, this work is far superior to that inS. Paolo; but even here a certain senile degeneration may be ob-served in the heads of the saints, and the color and shadows of thegarments display a greater degree of hardness than can be explained 84 EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE PAINTING. and excused by the inherent defects of mosaic work. The diligenceand exactness required by this mode of execution had indeed beenof beneficial effect, and the hasty and careless style of the frescosin the catacombs had been entirely avoided; but the inlaying ofsmall cubes of colored glass and stone was no less attended withsignal disadvantages. A harmonious blending of color was ex-tremely difficult to attain, and the greatest possible care in execu-tion could not compensate for the lost sense of artistic composition,
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Fig. 49.—Mosaic in the Apse of SS. Cosma e Damiano in Rome. and of just relation between the figures and the landscape of thebackground, which, in some slight degree at least, had been main-tained in the mosaic of S. Pudenziana. In later works the figuresstand isolated like statues, the heads are all full-face, while the skyand landscape, entirely without perspective, are nothing more thanconventional indications. It would not be justifiable to speak of a style of mosaic pecul-iarly Roman ; but it is probable that, throughout Italy, the work-ers in this branch during the fifth and sixth centuries came underRoman influence, equally with all other Italian artists of that period. MOSAICS OF RAVENNA. 85 The mosaics of Milan, in SS. Satiro e Aquilino, and of Naples, inthe Baptistery of the Cathedral, do not contradict this assumption.In Ravenna, however, there appears at an early period a certainindependence, or, to speak more correctly, a combination of Occi-dental and Oriental motives

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