William Morris, John Henry Middleton, and Walter Crane

“ The Moslem architects of the middle ages made great use of stucco ornament both for external and internal walls. The stucco is modelled in high or low relief in great variety of geometrical patterns, alternating with bands of more flowing ornament or long Arabic inscriptions. Many of their buildings, such as the mosque of Tulún at Cairo (A.D. 879) , owe nearly all their beauty to this fine stucco work, the purely architectural shell of the structure being often simple and devoid of ornament. These stucco reliefs were, as a rule, further decorated with delicate painting in gold and colours. ”

“ The colouring, though rather brilliant, is simply treated, and the figures are kept strictly to one plane without any attempt at complicated perspective. Other valuable specimens of Greek art, found at Herculaneum and now in the Naples Museum, are some small paintings, one of girls playing with dice, another of Theseus and the Minotaur. These are painted with miniature-like delicacy on the bare surface of marble slabs; they are almost monochromatic, and are of the highest beauty both in drawing and in gradations of shadow—quite unlike any of the Greek vase-paintings. ”

“ Internal rough stonework was invariably concealed by stucco, forming a smooth ground for possible future paintings. Unhappily a great proportion of mural paintings have been destroyed, though many in a more or less mutilated state still exist in England. It is difficult (and doubly so since the so-called “restoration” of most old buildings) to realize the splendour of effect once possessed by every important medieval church. From the tiled floor to the roof all was one mass of gold and colour. ”

“ As in the art of Egypt, birds and animals are treated with greater realism than human figures. A relief in the British Museum, representing a lioness wounded by an arrow in her spine and dragging helplessly her paralysed hind legs, affords an example of wonderful truth and pathos. ”

“ Methods of Execution.—Though Eraclius, who probably wrote before the 10th century, mentions the use of an oil-medium, yet till about the 13th century mural paintings appear to have, been executed in the most simple way, in tempera mainly with earth colours applied on dry stucco; even when a smooth stone surface was to be painted a thin coat of whitening or fine gesso was laid as a ground. In the 13th century, and perhaps earlier, oil was commonly used both as a medium for the pigments and also to make a varnish to cover and fix tempera paintings. ”

“ Even in Egypt the use of colour does not appear to have been more universal than it was among the Greeks (see Greek Art) , who applied it freely to their marble statues and reliefs, the whole of their buildings inside and out, as well as for the decoration of flat wall-surfaces. They appear to have cared little for pure form, and not to have Greek Painting.valued the delicate ivory-like tint and beautiful texture of their fine Pentelic and Parian marbles, except as a ground for coloured ornament. ”

“ The mosques of Cairo, India and Persia, and the domestic Moslem buildings of Spain are extremely rich in this method of decoration. In western Europe, especially during the 15th century, stone panelled-work with rich tracery formed a large part of the scheme of decoration in all the more splendid buildings. Akin to this, though without actual relief, is the stone tracery—inlaid flush into rough flint walls—which was a mode of ornament largely used for enriching the exteriors of churches in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. ”

“ Recently there has been a revival of tempera painting, and a group of painters are producing works on panel and canvas painted in tempera or fresco secco, with yolk of egg as a medium, according to the practice of the early Italian painters and the directions of Cennino Cennini. A pure luminous quality of colour is produced, valuable in mural decoration and also durable, especially under varnish. ”

“ The subjects of these mural sculptures are endless; almost every possible incident in man’s life here or beyond the grave is reproduced with the closest detail. The tomb of Tîh at Sakkarah (about 4500 B.C.) has some of the finest and earliest specimens of these mural sculptures, especially rich in illustrations of the domestic life and occupations of the Egyptians. The latter tombs, as a rule, have sculptures depicting the religious ritual and belief of the people, and the temples combine these hieratic subjects with the history of the reigns and victories of the Egyptian kings. ”

“ The general scheme of mural painting in the buildings of ancient Egypt was complete and magnificent. Columns, mouldings and other architectural features were enriched with patterns in brilliant colours; the flat wall-spaces were covered with figure-subjects, generally in horizontal bands, and the ceilings were ornamented with sacred symbols, such as the vulture or painted blue and studded with gold stars to symbolize the sky. The wall-paintings are executed in tempera on a thin skin ”

“ Unhappily, partly through the poverty and anarchy brought about by the French wars and the Wars of the Roses, the development of art in England made little progress after the beginning of the 14th century, and it was not till a time when the renaissance of art in Italy had fallen into decay that its influence reached the British shores. ”

“ Others, not the earliest in date, represent human sacrifices, such as those at the tomb of Patroclus—a class of subjects which, though Homeric, appears rarely to have been selected by Greek painters. The constant import into Etruria of large quantities of fine Greek painted vases appears to have contributed to keep up the supremacy of Hellenic influence during many centuries, and by their artistic superiority to have prevented the development of a more original and native school of art. ”

“ Thus in the Early Christian Painting in Italy. earlier paintings of about the 4th century we find Christ represented as a beardless youth, beautiful as the artist could make him, with lingering tradition of Greek idealization, in no degree like the “Man of Sorrows” of medieval painters, but rather a kind of genius of Christianity in whose fair outward form the peace and purity of the new faith were visibly symbolized, just as certain distinct attributes were typified in the persons of the gods of ancient Greece. ”

“ The peculiar Italian-Gothic of northern and central Italy during the 14th and 15th centuries, and at Venice some centuries earlier, relied greatly for its effects on this treatment of marble. St Mark’s at Venice and the cathedral of Florence are magnificent examples of this work used externally. Both inside and out most of the richest examples of Moslem architecture owe much to this method of decoration; the mosques and palaces of India and Persia are in many cases completely lined with the most brilliant sorts of marble of contrasting tints. ”

“ Owing to the intimate connexion between the sculpture and painting of early times, the remarks above as to subjects and treatment under the head of Egyptian wall-sculpture will to a great extent apply also to Egyptian Paintings.the paintings. It is an important fact, which testifies to the antiquity of Egyptian civilization, that the earliest paintings, dating more than 4000 years before our era, are also the cleverest both in drawing and execution. In later times the influence of Egyptian art, especially in painting, was important even among distant nations. ”

“ Reliefs sculpted in Marble or Stone.—This is the oldest method of wall-decoration, of which numerous examples exist. The tombs and temples of Egypt are rich in this kind of mural ornament of various dates, extending over nearly 5000 years. These sculptures are, as a rule, carved in low relief; in many cases they are “counter-sunk,” that is, the most projecting parts of the figures do not extend beyond the flat surface of the ground. Some unfinished reliefs discovered in the rock-cut tombs of Thebes show the manner in which the sculptor set to work. ”

“ The red used is applied in considerable body, so as to stand out in slight relief. Another class of design is more geometrical, forming regular repeats; but the most beautiful compositions are those in which the natural growth of trees and flowers is imitated, the branches and blossoms spreading over a large surface covered by hundreds of tiles without any repetition. One of the finest examples is the “Mecca wall” in the mosque of Ibrahim Agha, Cairo; and other Egyptian mosques are adorned in the same way (fig. 2) . ”

“ Many other buildings in southern Spain are enriched in the same way, some as late as the 16th century.
Almost peculiar to Spain are a variety of wall-tile the work of Italians in the 16th and 17th centuries. These are effective, though rather coarsely painted, and have a rich yellow as the predominant colour. The Casa de Pilatos and Isabel's Chapel in the Alcazar Palace, both at Seville, have the best specimens of these, dating about the year 1500. In other Western countries tiles have been used more for pavements than for wall-decoration. ”

“ Other Pompeian examples, where the surface is divided into flat panels, each containing a figure or group, have great merit for their delicate richness, without offending against the canons of wall-decoration, one of the first conditions of which is that no attempt should be made to disguise the fact of its being a solid wall and a flat surface. ”

“ In many cases the grounds were entirely covered with shining metal leaf, over which the paintings were executed; those parts, such as the draperies, where the metallic lustre was wanted, were painted in oil with transparent colours, while the flesh was painted in opaque tempera. The effect of the bright metal shining through the rich colouring is magnificent. This minuteness of much of the medieval wall-decoration is remarkable. Large wall-surfaces and intricate mouldings were often completely covered by elaborate gesso patterns in relief of almost microscopic delicacy (fig. 16) . ”

“ Some tombs in Magna Graecia of the 4th century B.C. are decorated in this way with figures of nymphs, cupids, animals and wreaths, all of which are models of grace and elegance, and remarkable for the dexterous way in which a few rapid touches of the modelling tool or thumb have produced a work of the highest artistic beauty (fig. 3) . Roman specimens of this sort of decoration are common, fine examples have been found in the baths of Titus and numerous tombs near Rome, as well as in many of the houses of Pompeii. ”

“ Sgraffito.—This is a variety of stucco work used chiefly in Italy from the 16th century downwards, and employed only for exteriors of buildings, especially the palaces of Tuscany and northern Italy. The wall is covered with a coat of stucco made black by an admixture of charcoal; over this a second thin coat of white stucco is laid. When it is all hard the design is produced by cutting and scratching away the white skin, so as to show the black under-coat. Thus the drawing appears in black on a white ground. ”

“ The lower part of the wall is painted one plain colour, forming a dado; the upper part sometimes has a well-designed frieze of flowing ornaments. In the better class of painted walls the whole is kept flat in treatment, and is free from too great subdivision, but in many cases great want of taste is shown by the introduction of violent effects of architectural perspective, and the space is broken up by complicated schemes of design, studded with pictures in varying scales which have little relation to their surroundings. ”

“ Walter of Durham and various members of the Otho family, royal goldsmiths and moneyers, worked for many years on the adornment of Henry III.’s palace and were well paid for their skill. Some fragments of paintings from the royal chapel of St Stephen are now in the British Museum. They are delicate and carefully painted subjects from the Old Testament, in rich colours, each with explanatory inscription underneath. The scale is small, the figures being scarcely a foot high. Their method of execution is curious. ”

“ Though in the paintings of animals and birds considerable realism is often seen (fig. 7) , yet for human figures certain conventional colours are employed, e.g. white for females' flesh, red for the males, or black to indicate people of negro race. Heads are painted in profile, and little or no shading is used. Considerable knowledge of harmony is shown in the arrangement of the colours; and otherwise harsh combinations of tints are softened and brought into keeping by thin separating lines of white or yellow. ”

“ The tombs which possess these paintings are mostly square-shaped rooms, with slightly-arched or gabled roofs, excavated in soft sandstone or tufa hillsides. The earlier ones show Egyptian influence in drawing and in composition: they are broadly designed with flat unshaded tints, the faces in profile, except the eyes, which are drawn as if seen in front. Colours, as in Egypt, are used conventionally—male flesh red, white or pale yellow for the females, black for demons. In one respect these paintings differ from those of the Egyptians ”

“ In many cases these mural paintings are of high artistic merit, though they are probably not the work of the most distinguished painters of the time, but rather of a humbler class of decorators, who reproduced, without much original invention, stock designs out of some pattern-book. ”