Thus in the court of the temple of Apollo and in the first peristyle of the house of the Faun we see Ionic columns supporting a Doric entablature; in the house of the Black Wall, Doric columns with an Ionic entablature. The Doric architrave, contrary to rule, appears divided into two stripes, not only in the colonnade of the Forum, where the stripes represent a difference of material, but also in the house of the Faun, where the architrave is represented as composed of single blocks reaching from column to column (p. 51). In the Palaestra (p. 165), and in many private houses, the Doric column was lengthened, in a way quite out of harmony with the original conception, in order to make it conform to the prevailing desire for height and slender proportions. The shaft nowhere appears with the pronounced entasis and strong diminution characteristic of the type, and the capital has lost the breadth and graceful outline of the Greek Doric.
The Ionic columns in the cella of the temple of Jupiter (p. 65) are of the Greek type, with volutes on two sides; elsewhere we find only the so-called Roman Ionic, with four volutes, a type that appears in several well defined and pleasing examples. One of these, a capital from the portico at the entrance of the Forum Triangulare, is shown in Fig. 249. The deep incisions of the egg-and-dart pattern, which give the egg almost the appearance of a little ball, is characteristic; it is found only at Pompeii, and there not after the Tufa Period. A still freer handling of the Ionic is seen in the capital of a pilaster in the casa del duca d'Aumale (Fig. 250).
The Corinthian capital appears in the usual forms, but the projecting parts are shallow, on account of the lack of resisting qualities in the stone. The best examples are the capitals of the columns and pilasters of the exedra in the house of the Faun. The workmanship here is fine, the realistic treatment of the acanthus leaves being especially noteworthy. An interesting series of variations from the normal type is seen in the capitals of the pilasters at house entrances; we have already met with a striking example of this series, ornamented with projecting busts of human figures (Fig. 178). The design is often so fantastic that the essential character of the Corinthian capital seems entirely lost sight of.
The entablatures of the temples built in the Tufa Period, as of those erected in later times, have all perished. The entablatures of the colonnades, however, are at least in part well preserved in a number of instances, and are of two types, the Doric, characterized by the use of triglyphs, and the Ionic, distinguished by the dentils of the cornice.
Both types are found also in the wall decoration, the first rarely, the second very frequently. On the altar of the temple of Zeus Milichius, which is of tufa coated with stucco, the Doric entablature appears in association with the characteristic decoration of the first style, the imitation of large blocks of marble; on the top are terminal volutes of Ionic origin, as generally upon Roman altars and altar-shaped tombs (Fig. 251). On walls decorated in the first style, however, only Ionic entablatures are seen,—sometimes even twice upon the same wall, as in the example shown in Fig. 122. From this we infer that in the temple construction of the Tufa Period, the simple and elegant Ionic entablature was the prevailing type.
Notwithstanding its free adaption of Greek forms, the Tufa Period availed itself very sparingly of polychrome decoration for architectural members. The stucco of the Ionic capital in the house of the Faun is white; white likewise are most of the capitals of pilasters found in the houses, and also the numerous Ionic cornices on the walls.
There are, nevertheless, scanty traces of the application of color. In the wall decoration of the house of Sallust we find a Doric frieze with the metopes painted red. The frieze under the Ionic cornices on the walls also is usually made prominent with color,—red, yellow, or blue; and a red frieze is seen in the peristyle of the house of the Black Wall, above the pilasters of the garden wall. The lower stripe of the painted architrave in the house of the Faun, already referred to, is yellow.
It seems probable that in some cases color was applied to the projecting figures of the peculiar capitals used in houses; at the time of excavation, traces of coloring were distinctly seen upon those belonging to the alae of the house of Epidius Rufus (p. 309). The exposed capitals at the entrances (Fig. 178), if originally painted, would naturally have lost all traces of the coloring before the destruction of the city, unless it were from time to time renewed. Notwithstanding these exceptions, we must conclude that the stucco coating upon public buildings and temples was generally white, in the case of capitals and cornices as well as of the shafts of columns and outside walls; colors were used to a limited extent, upon friezes and perhaps other parts of entablatures.
The architectural remains of the half century immediately succeeding the Tufa Period, between the founding of the Roman colony at Pompeii and the establishment of the Empire, present nothing specially characteristic outside of the peculiarities of construction mentioned in Chap. 6.
In the earlier years of the Empire, the Pompeians, as Roman subjects everywhere, commenced to build temples and colonnades of marble. The style, which was distinctively Roman, can be studied to better advantage elsewhere; the remains at Pompeii are relatively unimportant, and the chief points of interest have been mentioned in connection with our study of individual buildings.
Fig. 252.—Capitals of columns, showing variations from typical forms.
The stylistic development of Roman architecture in the next period,—the gradual transition from the simplicity of the Augustan Age to the more elaborate ornamentation of the Flavian Era,—is marked by two opposing tendencies, one conservative, holding to the traditions of marble construction, the other reactionary. The latter tendency manifests itself so strongly at Pompeii that it merits special comment.
First in the East, it appears, men wearied of seeing the ornamental forms of the Greek religious architecture repeated over and over again in every kind of building, and attempted to break away from them entirely. The reaction reached Italy in the earlier years of the Empire, and began to exert an influence upon ornamental forms, especially of domestic architecture, at the time when the third style of wall decoration was coming into vogue.
At Pompeii, this revolt from tradition affected not only the ornamentation of private houses, but also that of public buildings, as the Stabian Baths, and even of temples, as those of Apollo and Isis, rebuilt after the earthquake of the year 63. Greek forms were replaced by fantastic designs of every sort, worked in stucco. The capitals of columns and pilasters retained a semblance of Doric and Corinthian types, but were adorned with motives from many sources; the variety of form and treatment can best be appreciated by inspecting the examples shown in our illustrations (Figs. 242, 253, 254).
The entablatures no longer retained the ancient division of architrave, frieze, and cornice, but were made to represent a single broad stripe, sometimes, however, with a projecting cornice; this stripe was ornamented with stucco reliefs, and was frequently painted in bright colors. Sometimes the decorative theme is taken from a vine, as in the entablature of the portico in front of the temple of Isis (Fig. 80) and that of the peristyle of the house of the Vettii (Fig. 161). In some cases the stripe is divided into vertical sections; the broad sections correspond with the intercolumniations, the narrow ones with the spaces above the columns; and the ornamental design is varied accordingly, as in the palaestra of the Stabian Baths (p. 198), the court of the temple of Apollo (Fig. 31), and the peristyle of the house of the Silver Wedding. In many instances the background is white, frequently part of the details of ornament as well; but colors were freely used, particularly red, blue, and yellow, in all parts of the entablature.
The lower third of the columns also was painted a bright red or yellow—a treatment that would have been abhorrent to the taste of the Tufa Period. The desire for variety and brilliancy of color increased, and was more pronounced in the years immediately preceding the eruption than at any previous time.
Consistently with this change in the standard of taste in regard to details, the Pompeians no longer had pleasure in the ample dimensions of the olden time. Houses were not now built with high rooms, great doorways, and lofty columns as in the Tufa Period. The rooms were smaller and lower, and also, we may add, more homelike. But curiously enough, the columns were often made thick as well as short, doubtless in order to afford more space for the display of color on the capitals and the lower part of the shaft.
Roman public and religious architecture in most cities still adhered to the forms of marble construction, a suggestion of which we find in the white walls of the temple of Isis; but the lower third of the columns in the colonnade about this temple was painted red, and the entablature was no doubt ornamented with colored designs, as was that of the temple of Apollo. The best preserved example of this last phase of Pompeian architectural ornamentation is in the semicircular vaulted niche at the right of the Street of Tombs.
Thus we see accomplished at Pompeii, in less than two centuries, a complete revolution in matters of taste, so far as relates to architecture. An entirely new feeling has been developed. The beauty of contour and of symmetrical proportion found in the Greek architecture had no charm for the Pompeian of the later time; its place had been usurped by a different form of beauty, that produced by the use of a variety of brilliant colors in association with forms that were intricate, and often grotesque.
The open squares and public buildings of Pompeii were peopled with statues. The visitor who walked about the Forum in the years immediately preceding the eruption, saw on all sides the forms of the men of past generations who had rendered service to the city, as well as those of men of his own time.
Besides the five colossal images of emperors and members of the imperial families, places were provided in the Forum for between seventy and eighty life size equestrian statues; and behind each of these was room for a standing figure. Whether all the places were occupied cannot now be determined, but from the sepulchral inscription of Umbricius Scaurus (p. 418) it is clear that as late as the time of Claudius or Nero, there was yet room for another equestrian figure. Statues were placed also in the Forum Triangulare and occasionally at the sides of the streets.
In the portico of the Macellum were twenty-five statues; the sanctuary of the City Lares contained eight, while the portico of the Eumachia building furnished places for twenty-one. But only one of the hundreds of statues erected in honor of worthy citizens has been preserved, that of Holconius Rufus, the rebuilder of the Large Theatre; the figure was dressed in the uniform of a military tribune, and stood on Abbondanza Street near the Stabian Baths. With this should be classed the portrait statues in the temple of Fortuna (p. 131), and those of Octavia (Fig. 38), Marcellus (Fig. 39), and Eumachia.
The statue of Eumachia is an interesting example of the ordinary portrait sculpture of the Early Empire (Fig. 255). The pose is by no means ungraceful, the treatment of the drapery is modest and effective. The tranquil and thoughtful face is somewhat idealized, and without offensive emphasis of details. The statue is not a masterpiece; nevertheless, it gives us a pleasant impression of the lady whose generosity placed the fullers under obligation, and affords an insight into the artistic resources of the city.
A number of portrait statues belonging to sepulchral monuments were found when the tombs east of the Amphitheatre were excavated (Chap. 51). Most of them are of tufa covered with stucco; the rest are of fine-grained limestone. From the aesthetic point of view they are valueless.
Sculptured portraits of a different type were set up in private houses. Relatives, freedmen, and even slaves sometimes placed at the rear of the atrium, near the entrance of the tablinum, a herm of the master of the house. At each side of the square pillar supporting the bust, there was usually an arm-like projection (seen on the herm of Cornelius Rufus, Fig. 121), on which garlands were hung upon birthdays and other anniversary occasions. Both the herm of Rufus and that of Vesonius Primus previously mentioned (p. 396) are of marble; the head belonging to the herm of Sorex (p. 176) is of bronze.
The most striking of the portrait herms is that of Lucius Caecilius Jucundus (Fig. 256), which was set up in duplicate, for the sake of symmetrical arrangement, in the atrium of his house on Stabian Street. The pillar is of marble; the dedication reads Genio L[ucii] nostri Felix l[ibertus],—'Felix, freedman, to the Genius of our Lucius.'
The bust, of bronze, is modelled with realistic vigor. There is no attempt to soften the prominent and almost repulsive features by idealization. We see the Pompeian auctioneer just as he was, a shrewd, alert, energetic man, with somewhat of a taste for art, and more for the good things of life,—a man who would bear watching in a financial transaction.
Houses were adorned also with heads and busts of famous men of the past,—poets, philosophers, and statesmen. An extensive collection of historical portraits was discovered at Herculaneum, but Pompeii thus far has not yielded many examples. In a room in one of the houses was found a group of three marble heads, about one half life size, representing Epicurus, Demosthenes, and apparently the Alexandrian poet Callimachus, whose works were particularly valued in the time of the Early Empire. The identification of the third head is not certain, but whether Callimachus or some other poet is intended, the group reveals the direction of the owner's literary tastes; he was interested in philosophy, oratory, and poetry.
Two portrait busts of distinguished men, which evidently belong together, were found in another house, laid one side. In the Naples Museum they bore the names of the Younger Brutus and Pompey, but both identifications are erroneous; the features in neither case agree with the representations upon coins. The faces, as shown by the physiognomy and the treatment of the hair, are those of Romans of the end of the Republic or the beginning of the Empire. Recently a new identification has been proposed which has much in its favor. It rests chiefly upon the resemblance of one of the busts to the mosaic portrait of Virgil, discovered in 1896 at Susa, in Africa. The full, round face of the other agrees very well with what we know of the appearance of Horace. It may be that we have here a pair of poets, the two most prominent of the Augustan Age.
Frequently the gardens of the peristyles, as those of the houses of the Vettii and of Lucretius, were profusely adorned with sculptures of all kinds. We find in them statuettes, herms, small figures of animals, and diminutive groups. Figures derived from the myths of the bacchic cycle, Bacchus, Silenus, satyrs, and bacchantes, are particularly common. The artistic value is slight; among the best examples is the double bust, with Bacchus on one side and a bacchante on the other, found in the garden of the house of the Vettii (Fig. 257).
Characteristic among these sculptures are the figures designed for the adornment of fountains; a number of them are exhibited in the Museum at Naples. Bacchic figures are met with most frequently. A good example is the marble Silenus in the garden of the house of Lucretius; the water spurts from the opening in the wineskin which the old man carries. The design of the small bronze satyr in the peristyle of the house of the Centenary is more pleasing; an opening in the wineskin, held under the left arm, cast a jet against the outstretched right hand in such a way that the water was thrown back upon the satyr's body.
Fountains were adorned also with genre groups and animal forms. We have already noticed the two bronze groups in the peristyle of the house of the Vettii, each representing a boy holding a duck, from the bill of which sprang a jet of water (Fig. 162). The largest collection of animal forms was about the basin in the middle peristyle of the house of the Citharist; it comprised two dogs, a boar, a lion, a deer, and a snake, each throwing a jet into the basin below. The fountain jets, however, were not in all cases so closely related to the ornamental pieces. A number of those in the house of the Vettii sprang from lead pipes near the figures. The familiar bronze statue of the seated fisherman, in the Naples Museum, belonged to a fountain, in which the jet was thrown forward, not from the figure, but from the mouth of a mask projecting from the stump on which the fisherman sits.
Of the statues of divinities set up for worship in the temples, there are unfortunately but few remains. The most important fragment is the head of Jupiter, discussed in a previous chapter (Fig. 22). Three wretched terra cotta statues of the gods of the Capitol were found, as we have seen, in the temple of Zeus Milichius; and mention has been made also of the herms and other specimens of sculpture in the courts of the temples of Apollo and Isis, and in the palaestra. More numerous than any other class of sculptures, however, are the small bronze images of tutelary divinities preserved in the domestic shrines. These are of interest rather from the light which they shed on the practices of domestic worship than from their excellence as works of art, and it seems unnecessary to add anything here to what has already been said in regard to them in the chapter dealing with the arrangements of the Pompeian house. But occasionally there were large domestic shrines, in which statues of merit were placed; among these are two worthy of mention.
In the corner of a garden belonging to a house in the first Region (I. ii. 17) is a shrine faced with white marble, in which was a small marble statue of Aphrodite, partly supported by a figure commonly identified as Hope, Spes. The carving is in no way remarkable, but the statue is of interest on account of the well preserved coloring applied to the eyes, hair, and dress. The group is now in the Naples Museum.
A more important example, from the aesthetic point of view, is the statue of Artemis, of one half life size, shown in Plate XI. It was found in a house near the Amphitheatre which was excavated in 1760 and covered up again. It is a careful copy, made in the time of Augustus, of a Greek masterpiece produced in the period of the Persian Wars. The original was probably the Artemis Laphria mentioned by Pausanias. This was a work of Menaechmus and Soedas, two sculptors of Naupactus. Previous to the battle of Actium it stood in a sanctuary in Calydon, whence it was removed by Augustus, who presented it to the colony founded by him at Patras.
The goddess appears in this statue as a huntress, moving forward with a firm but light step; the bow in the left hand has disappeared. The copyist was remarkably successful in impressing upon his work the gracious and pleasing character of the original; the later archaic Greek art, in spite of its conventions, is full of human feeling. The copy preserved also the coloring of the model; but the tinting of the Roman colorist was probably less delicate than that of the Greek limner who added the polychrome decoration to the marble original. The hair was yellow. The pupils of the eyes were brown, the eyelashes and eyebrows black. The rosettes of the diadem were yellow, and the border of the outer garment was richly variegated in tints of yellow, rose color, and white. Traces of rose-colored stripes are visible also about the openings of the sleeves, on the edge of the mantle at the neck, and on the border of the chiton.
Besides the bronze statues of Apollo and Artemis already mentioned (pp. 88, 352), four others of those found at Pompeii are worthy of more than passing notice,—the dancing satyr from which the house of the Faun received its name, the small Silenus used as a standard for a vase, the so-called Narcissus and the Ephebus found in 1900.
The dancing satyr is shown in Fig. 258. It was found lying on the floor of the atrium in the house of the Faun, but the pedestal could not be identified. The figure is instinct with rhythmic motion. Every muscle of the satyr's sinewy frame is in tension as he moves forward in the dance, snapping his fingers to keep time; the pose is a marvel of skill. The unhuman character of the half-brute is indicated by the horns projecting from the forehead, and the pointed ears. The face, marked by low cunning, offers no suggestion of lofty thought or moral sense. We have here the personification of unalloyed physical enjoyment. The satyr, unvexed by any care or qualm of conscience, is intoxicated with the joy of free movement, and dances on and on, unwearied, with perfect ease and grace.
Muscular tension is skilfully indicated in the Silenus, who stands holding above his head with his left hand a round frame, in which, as shown by the fragments, a vase of colored glass was standing at the time of the eruption. The head, crowned with ivy, leans forward and to the right, and the right hand is moved away from the body in the effort to balance the weight supported by the left. The frame is awkwardly designed to represent a snake. The thick-set figure of Silenus is about sixteen inches high. This bronze was discovered in 1864, in the house of Popidius Priscus (VII. ii. 20).
Fig. 259.—Listening Dionysus, wrongly identified as Narcissus. Bronze statuette in the Naples Museum.
The third of the bronzes mentioned is also a statuette, about two feet high (Fig. 259). It was found in 1863 in a house of the seventh Region (VII. xii. 21). The figure is that of a youth of remarkable beauty. The face wears an expression of childlike innocence and pleasure. The head leans forward in the attitude of listening; the index finger of the right hand is extended, and the graceful pose is that of one who catches the almost inaudible sound of a distant voice.
The name Narcissus, given to the figure by Fiorelli immediately upon its discovery, is surely wrong; that unhappy youth did not reciprocate the love of the nymph Echo, and could not have been imagined with so cheerful a face. The figure has also been called Pan, from a myth in which Pan and Echo appear together; but the characteristic attributes are lacking, and the rough god of the shepherds would not have been represented in so lithe and graceful a form.
This beautiful youth, with an ivy crown upon his head and elaborate coverings for the feet, and with the skin of a doe hanging over his shoulder, is none other than Dionysus himself. The mirthful god of the vine is not playing with his panther—the base is too small to have been designed for two figures, and the attitude of listening is not consistent with this interpretation. The youthful divinity has fixed his attention upon some distant sound,—the cries of the bacchantes upon some mountain height, or the laughter of naiads in a shady glen.
Of unusual interest is the bronze statue of an ephebus, discovered in November, 1900, outside the city on the north side, about a hundred paces from the Vesuvius Gate; it was laid away in an upper room of a house presenting nothing else worthy of note. It is apparently a Greek original, and is of three-quarters life size (Fig. 260).
The statue represents a youth about fourteen years of age, of slender but well-developed form, and finely chiselled features. Advancing with firm but graceful step, he rests the right foot, and is bringing the left foot forward. In his right hand, extended, he carried some object—a branch, it may be, or a crown, which was to be laid upon an altar; the eye naturally follows the movement of the hand.
Especially effective is the rhythmic movement of the body. The right thigh, sustained by the resting foot, is carried slightly forward; the chest on the left side swings back, while in consequence of the extension of the right hand the shoulders remain horizontal. Notwithstanding the felicity of the pose, it must be confessed that the modelling as a whole is somewhat lacking in vigor, the treatment of details being superficial.
In Greece, before it was carried off to Italy, the figure may have been set up as a votive offering in some sanctuary, or have stood in a gymnasium. From indications on the under side of the feet it is clear that the statue, after the manner in vogue in Greece, was mounted on a stone pedestal, being joined to the pedestal with melted lead; the round bronze base found with it is of Italian origin. Probably when it was being transported from Greece the eyes, of marble, became loose in their sockets and fell down into the hollow interior of the statue; they were replaced by glass eyes. The breaking of the right arm, which was severed when found, made possible the recovery of the original eyes, which have now again been set in place.
Insensible to the charm of the figure when seen as the sculptor designed it, the Pompeian owner, deciding to turn it to practical use, converted it into a lampholder. In the right hand was placed a short bar of bronze, to either end of which was fastened a small ornament with a projecting arm, for a hanging lamp; the whole statue was then coated with silver. However barbarous the taste that prompted the transformation, the decorative effect of the silvered statue with its lighted lamps must have been far from unpleasant.
Regarding the place of the statue in relation to the development of Greek sculpture, it is yet too early to speak.
Had the ruins of Pompeii not been systematically searched, after the disaster, for works of art and other objects of value, they would have yielded a far richer store of sculptures. But while the specimens recovered add little to our knowledge of types, they give a new insight into the application of the sculptor's art in antiquity to the beautifying of the surroundings of everyday life.
The inner walls of houses and public buildings at Pompeii were plastered, and usually decorated with colors; only storerooms, kitchens, and apartments designed for the use of slaves were left in the white. Outer walls were as a rule plastered, except when built of hewn stone, a kind of construction not employed after the Tufa Period. Stucco was occasionally used on façades of ashlar work where special ornamentation seemed to be needed, as at the entrance of the house of the Faun; and in later times, now and then, a front with reticulate or brick facing was left unplastered. Previous to the time of Augustus the stucco coating of outer walls ordinarily remained uncolored. Afterwards color was employed, but only to a limited extent, as in the addition of a dark base to a wall the rest of which remained white.
The painting upon Pompeian walls, as shown by the painstaking investigations of Otto Donner, was fresco, that is, executed in water colors upon the moist stucco of a freshly plastered surface. The method of preparing the wall was less elaborate than that recommended by Vitruvius, who advises the use of seven coats of plaster, first a rough coat, then three of sand mortar and three of stucco made with powdered marble, each coat being finer than the one preceding. In the better rooms, however, we find upon the walls at least one, often several, layers of sand mortar, and one or more coats of marble stucco; the entire thickness of the plastering varies from two to three inches. In unfinished or neglected rooms walls are sometimes found with a single coat of sand mortar. Occasionally powdered brick was used in the stucco as a substitute for marble dust.
Plastering so thick as that ordinarily used must have remained moist for a considerable length of time, much longer than the plastering of our day; yet it could not have retained its moisture long enough to complete the painting of an entire wall as one piece. Walls which are elaborately decorated sometimes show traces of a seam, where a moist section was laid on next to one that had already become partially dry. When the decorative design included pictures, usually the divisions and borders and other decorative elements were finished rapidly while the surface was moist; then a square or round hole was cut where a picture was to be inserted, and filled with fresh stucco, on which the picture was painted. In this way a carefully executed painting could be set in a wall already dry.
In the last years of the city pictures were sometimes painted on the dry surface of a wall that had previously received its decorative framework; some of the figures seen in the middle of the large panels furnish examples of this method of work. A size of some kind must have been used in such cases, but chemical analysis thus far has failed to determine its nature. The distemper painting was much less durable than the fresco, the colors of which became fixed with the hardening of the wall.
Sometimes, as in the house of Lucretius, the place of paintings upon stucco was taken by paintings upon wood, the wooden panels being let into the wall. As these panels were thin and lacked durability, we may perhaps believe that the paintings which they contained were of inferior quality.
The artistic value of Pompeian painting varies from the routine work of indifferent decorators to pictures of genuine merit, such as those found in the house of the Tragic Poet, the house of the Vettii, and the house of Castor and Pollux. Viewed as a whole, the wall decoration has a peculiar interest for us; it not only richly illustrates the application of painting by the ancients to decorative uses, but also affords a striking example of the evolution of decorative designs from simple architectural motives to intricate patterns, in which the scheme of coloring is hardly less complicated than that of the ornamental forms.
The four styles of wall decoration were briefly characterized in the Introduction, in connection with our survey of the periods of construction. It now remains to illustrate these by typical examples and to trace their inner connection. We are here concerned only with the decorative designs, or ornamental framework of the walls; the paintings, which formed the centre of interest in the later styles, are reserved for consideration in a separate chapter.
The development of ancient wall decoration came comparatively late, after the art of painting, in the hands of the Greek masters, had reached and passed its climax. Yet we know almost nothing in regard to the earlier stages. Apparently the system which we find at Pompeii originated in the period following the death of Alexander the Great, and received its impulse of development from the contact of Greece with the Orient. But whatever the origin, from the time to which the earliest specimens at Pompeii belong—the second century B.C.—to the destruction of the city, we can trace an uninterrupted development, which, nevertheless, comes to an end in the latter part of the first century A.D.
The decline is characterized by increasing poverty of design, with feeble imitation of past styles. Just as it is setting in, however, extant examples become rare. Some specimens of the wall decoration of later times, as of the period of the Antonines and the reign of Septimius Severus, are preserved, but they are isolated and not sufficient in number to enable us to follow the stages of the decline. Thus it happens that the only period in the history of ancient wall decoration in regard to which we have the materials for a full and satisfactory study, is the period exemplified in the remains at Pompeii, the chronological sequence of which extends over two centuries.
The oldest houses, those belonging to the Period of the Limestone Atriums (p. 39), have preserved no traces of wall decoration beyond the limited application of white stucco.
The remains of the decoration of the Tufa Period are fairly abundant, and are well preserved on account of the excellent quality of the stucco to which the colors were applied. They belong to the first or Incrustation Style. A good example has already been given, the end wall of a bedroom in the house of the Centaur (Fig. 122); we present here, for more detailed examination, the left wall of the atrium in the house of Sallust (Fig. 261).
Notwithstanding the lack of color in our illustration, the divisions of the wall are plainly seen—a dado, painted yellow; a relatively low middle division, the upper edge of which is set off by a projecting cornice; and an upper part reaching from the first cornice, which appears in three sections on account of the doors, to the second. The surface of the main part of the wall is moulded in stucco to represent slabs or blocks with bevelled edges, which are painted in imitation of different kinds of marble. Above the high double doors opening into rooms connected with the atrium, frames of lattice-work for the admission of air and light have been assumed in our restoration.
The dado in the Incrustation Style is generally treated as a separate member; in rare instances the imitation of marble blocks is extended to the floor. It has a smooth surface and is painted a bright color, usually yellow; there is no suggestion of the practice of later times, which gave a darker color to the base than to the rest of the wall. This independent handling is undoubtedly to be explained as a survival from a previous decorative system, in which the lower part of the wall, as at Tiryns, was protected by a baseboard; the conventional yellow color with which it is painted, as in the case of the lower stripe of the Doric architrave in the house of the Faun (p. 51), is a reminiscence of the use of wood. The upper edge of the dado was ordinarily distinguished by a smooth, narrow projecting band or fillet.
The blocks moulded in slight relief upon the main part of the wall are of different sizes. In our illustration we see first a series of three large slabs, which are painted black. Above these are three narrow blocks of magenta. The rest present a considerable variety of size and color, until we reach those just under the cornice, which again are all of the same shade, magenta.
The cornice in this style is always of the Ionic type, with dentils. In many cases, as that of the bedroom in the house of the Centaur, it serves as an upper border for the decoration, the wall above being unpainted. Sometimes, however, the imitation of marble is carried above the cornice, the wall surface being divided to represent smoothly joined blocks without bevelled edges, or painted in plain masses of color separated by a narrow white stripe, as in the atrium of the house of Sallust. Above these brilliant panels we see in Fig. 261 a second cornice of simple design; the wall between this cornice and the ceiling was left without decoration.
This system made no provision for paintings; their place was taken in the general scheme of decoration by elaborate mosaic pictures upon the floor. The taste of the age evidently preferred representations in mosaic; otherwise the painting of pictures upon the walls, which was brought to so high a degree of perfection by Polygnotus and his contemporaries, would not have been abandoned.
The Incrustation Style, as exemplified at Pompeii, is in a secondary stage; it must have been worked out originally in genuine materials, at a time when walls were actually veneered, to a certain height, with slabs of various kinds of marble, cut and arranged to represent ashlar work; above the cornice marking the upper edge of the veneering, the surface was left in the white. The use of different varieties of marble points to an active commercial intercourse between the countries about the Mediterranean Sea, such as first became possible after the conquests of Alexander. So characteristic a style, requiring the use of costly materials, could only have been developed in an important centre of wealth and culture.
Fig. 262.—Distribution of colors in the section of wall represented in Fig. 261.
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In view of all the circumstances, we are probably safe in concluding that the Incrustation Style originated in Alexandria, in the third century B.C. From Alexandria it spread to other cities of the East and West, stucco being used in imitation of marble, where marble could not be procured; scanty remains similar to those at Pompeii, and of approximately the same period—the second century B.C.—have been found at Pergamon, on the island of Delos, and lately in Priene. This style represents for us the wall decoration of the Hellenistic age. It is characterized by the same poverty of form and obvious striving after simplicity which we have noticed in the architecture of the Tufa Period. The projecting cornice above the body of the wall is always of the same type; yet the second century B.C. enjoyed a rich heritage of architectural forms, and lack of variety in this and other details of ornamentation was due, not to dearth of materials, but to the prevailing taste.
The earliest known example of the decoration of the second or Architectural Style, is on the walls of the Small Theatre, which was built soon after 80 B.C. The style remained in vogue till the middle of the reign of Augustus; it may be loosely characterized as the wall decoration of the first century B.C. It shows an interesting development from simpler to richer and more complex forms. The more elaborate and finished designs are not so well exemplified at Pompeii as in Rome, where two beautiful series have been found, both dating from the earlier part of the reign of Augustus. One series is in the so-called house of Livia or Germanicus on the Palatine. The other was found in a house on the right bank of the Tiber, excavated in 1878; the paintings were removed to the new Museo delle Terme. The specimen shown in Plate XII, however, is from a Pompeian wall; the room in which it was found opens off from the peristyle of a house in the fifth Region (V. i. 18).
The oldest walls of the second style closely resemble those of the first, with this characteristic difference: the imitation of marble veneering is no longer produced with the aid of relief; color alone is employed, upon a plane surface, as in the cella of the temple of Jupiter (Fig. 20). The earlier division of the wall into three parts is retained, but the painted cornice, no longer restricted to the dentil type, appears in a variety of forms. The base also is treated with greater freedom. Frequently it is painted in strong projection, as if the rest of the wall above it were further from the eye, while upon the shelf thus formed are painted columns reaching to the ceiling and seemingly in front of the main part of the wall; such columns and pillars, with Corinthian capitals, are seen in Plate XII, at the right and the left.