File:A dictionary of architecture and building - biographical, historical, and descriptive (1902) (14593015717).jpg

Identifier: dictionaryofarch02stur (find matches)
Title: A dictionary of architecture and building : biographical, historical, and descriptive
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Sturgis, Russell, 1836-1909
Subjects: Architecture Architecture Architects
Publisher: New York : The Macmillan company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
ss subsisted for many centuries. In themosaics of the Byzantine Greeks, the figures ofmen, women, and animals are in the main col-oured patterns upon flat coloured ground.Where accessories are introduced, they also aretreated flatly, and are intended either to .sym-989 biilizc, to help out a story, or simply to fillsjiace as decorative spots, never to appear asreal objects, set deeply enough into the back-ground to justify their small size as comjiaredwith the human figures. This is to say, in aword, that they have no atmospheric perspective.As instances, one may note the little Pala-tium of Theodorie, or the tiny Portus Classis in the mosaics of S. Apojlinare Nuovo at Ra-venna ; here the .saints and virgins, the palace090 MURAL PAINTING and tlie gallery, all stand in a frieze of ecjuallieight; colnmns and ships dn not overtop themen and women, yet all are on exactly the sameatniosiiiierif jilane. All that play of light and modulation whichcomes in an absolutely realistic treatment of
Text Appearing After Image:
MuEAL Painting: 14th Century; One Bay of NaveOf S. An ASTASIA AT Verona. nature was left out of these mosaics, and wasreplaced by the play of light upon the unevensurfiioe made by the cubes or tesserse, the deco-rative arrangement of lines, the use of purelyornamental forms, and the subtile variations oftone in masses of cubes, which when seen froma distance appeared to form flat patterns.991 MURAL PAINTING All this was in strict compiehension of tiiclaws of decoration. In later mosaics, such ;istliose of the Capella Keale at Palermo, of Mon-reale, or of the earlier works in S. Marco, suchclianges from the Ravemiese treatment as occurare not in the direction of loss of flatness, butrather in the direction of compli-cation. The dci-orations are morebroken up into .smaller and morenumerous parts, that is to say, tiieartists who worked for Roger ofSicily or for the crusading Dogesthought and composed less simi)lytlian ilid the men who worked forJustinian and Theodoric. In thenorth of Eur

Note About Images