Another important class of wall-tiles are those manufactured by the Spanish Moors, called "azulejos," especially during the 14th century. These are in a very different style, being designed to suggest or imitate mosaic. They have intricate interlacing geometrical patterns marked out by lines in slight relief; brilliant enamel colors were then burnt into the tile, the projecting lines forming boundaries for the pigments. A very rich effect is produced by this combination of relief and color. They are mainly used for dados about 4 feet high, often surmounted by a band of tiles with painted inscriptions. The Alhambra and Generalife palaces at Granada, begun in the 13th century, but mainly built and decorated by Yusuf I. and Mohammed V. (1333-1391 A.D.), and the Alcazar at Seville have the most beautiful examples of these azulejos. The latter building chiefly owes its decorations to Pedro the Cruel (1364 A.D.), who employed Moorish workmen for its tile-coverings and other ornaments. Many other buildings in southern Spain are enriched in the same way, some as late as the 16th century.

the flat ground enriched with very minute patterns in | (ob. 1666 A.D.) at Ispahan, all of which buildings are the lustre-color. This combination of bold relief and covered almost entirely, inside and out, with this magdelicate painting produces great vigor and richness of nificent sort of decoration. effect, equally telling whether viewed in the mass or closely examined tile by tile. In the 15th century lustre-colors, though still largely employed for plates, vases, and other vessels, especially in Spain, were but little used for tiles; and another class of ware, rich in the variety and brilliance of its colors, was extensively used by Moslem builders all over the Mohammedan world. The most sumptuous sorts of tiles used for wall coverings are those of the so-called "Rhodian" and Damascus wares, the work of Persian potters at many places. Those made at Rhodes are coarsely executed in comparison with the produce of the older potteries at Ispahan and Damascus (see POTTERY), These are rectangular tiles of earthenware, covered with a white "slip" and painted in the most brilliant colors with slightly conventionalized representations of various flowers, especially the rose, the hyacinth, and the carnation. The red used is a very rich harmonious color, 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 freely 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 magnificent way (Fig. 2). Another variety, the special production of Damas

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 color. 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.1

4. Wall-Coverings of Hard Stucco, frequently enriched with Reliefs.-The Greeks and Romans possessed the secret of making a very beautiful hard kind of stucco, creamy in color, and capable of receiving a polish like that of marble; it would stand exposure to the weather. Those of the early Greek temples which were built, not of marble, but of stone, such as the Doric temples at gina, Phigaleia, Pæstum, and Agrigentum, were all entirely coated inside and out with this beautiful materialitself pleasant both in texture and hue, and an admirable surface for the further polychromatic decoration with which all Greek buildings seem to have been ornamented. Another highly artistic use of stucco among the Greeks and Romans for the interiors of buildings consisted in covering the walls and vaults with a smooth coat, on which, while still wet, the outlines of figures, groups, and other ornaments were sketched with a point; more stucco was then applied in lumps and rapidly modelled into delicate reliefs before it had time to set. Some tombs in Magna Græcia, 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,

10 inches square.

(Fig. 3). Roman specimens of this sort of decoration are very 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. These are mostly executed with great skill and frequently with good taste, though in some cases, especially at Pompeii, elaborate architectural compositions with awkward

able for the dexterous way in which a few rapid touches of the modelling tool or thumb have procus, has the design almost entirely executed in blue. | duced a work of the highest artistic beauty and spirit It was about the year 1600 A.D., in the reign of Shah Abbas I., that this class of pottery was brought to greatest perfection, and it is in Persia that the most magnificent examples of its use are to be found. Nothing can surpass the splendor of effect produced by these tile-coverings, varieties of which, dating from the 12th to the 17th centuries, were largely used in all the chief buildings of Persia. The most remarkable examples for beauty of design and extent of surface covered by these tiles are the mosque at Tabriz, built nes and Bourgoin, L' Art Arabe (1869-77); Hessemer, Arabische Bau1 See Layard, Nineveh; Texier, L'Arménie, etc.; Prisse d'Avenby Ali Khoja in the 12th century, the ruined tomb of Verzierungen (1853); Owen Jones, Alhambra (1842); Murphy, Arabian Sultan Khodabend (1303-1316 A.D.) at Sultanieh, the Antiquities of Spain (1813); Monumentos Arquitectonicos de España palace of Shah Abbas I. and the tomb of Abbas II.ave Siècle (1874); Coste, Mon. mod. de la Perse (1867). (1859-82), article "Alhambra;" Parvillée, Architect. et décor. Turques,

attempts at effects of violent perspective, modelled in slight relief on flat wall-surfaces, produce a very unpleasing effect. Other Pompeian examples, where the During the 16th century, and even earlier, stucco surface is divided into flat panels, each containing a wall-reliefs were used with considerable skill and decfigure or group, have great merit for their delicate rich-orative effect in Italy, England, and other Western ness of effect, without offending against the canons of countries. Perhaps the most graceful examples are wall decoration, one of the first conditions of which is the reliefs with which Vasari in the 16th century that no attempt should be made to disguise the fact incrusted pillars and other parts of the court in the of its being a solid wall and a flat surface. Florentine Palazzo Vecchio, built of plain stone by

The Moslem architects of the Middle Ages, who ex- | the celled in almost all possible methods of mural decoration, made great use of stucco ornament in the most elaborate and magnificent way, both for external and internal walls. The stucco is modelled in high or low relief in great variety of geometrical patterns, of wonderful beauty and richness, alternating with bands of more flowing ornament, or long Arabic inscriptions. Many of their buildings, such as the mosque of Tulún at Cairo (879 A.D.), owe nearly all their beauty to this fine stucco work, the purely architectural shell of the structure being often quite simple and devoid of ornament. These stucco reliefs were, as a rule, further decorated with delicate painting in gold and colors, producing an effect of indescribable beauty and splendor. The Moorish tower at Segovia in Spain is a good example of this class of ornament used externally. With the exception of a few bands of brick and the stone quoins at the angles, the whole exterior of the tower is covered with a network of stucco reliefs in simple geometrical patterns. The Alhambra at Granada and the Alcazar at Seville have the richest examples of this work, both in the delicate intricacy of the designs and in the brilliant colors with which they are painted. The lower part of the walls is lined with marble or tiles to a height of about 4 feet, and above that in many cases the whole surface is incrusted with these reliefs, the varied surface of which, by producing endless gradations of shadow, takes away any possible

1 It is unfortunate that the otherwise valuable work of Owen

Jones on the Alhambra gives a very false and unpleasing notion of the coloring of the place.

2 [According to Vasari (Lives of Eminent Painters, vol. i. p. 58, Bohn's Ed., London, 1851), this palace was built by Arnolfo di Cambio in the 13th century.-AM. ED.] 3 A good description of the process is given by Vasari, Tre Arti del Disegno, cap. xxvi.

44

and in a less extensive way a good deal earlier, is can

Many good artists working "of Flaunder's work.' used most largely during the 15th and 16th centuries, | batailes," or "paynted cloths of beyond sea work," or at Ghent and Bruges during the first half of the 15th century produced very fine work of this class, as well as designs for real tapestry. Several of the great Italian artists devoted their utmost skill in composition and invention to the painting of these wall-hangings. The most important existing example is the magnificent series of paintings of the triumph of Julius Cæsar executed by Andrea Mantegna (1485-1492) for Ludovico Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, and now at Hampton Court. These are usually, but wrongly, called "cartoons,' as if they were designs meant to be executed in tapestry; this is not the case, as the paintings themselves were used as wall-hangings. They are nine in number, and each compartment, 9 feet square, was separated from the next by a pilaster. They form a continuous procession, with life-sized figures of unrivalled grace and beauty, remarkable alike for their composition, drawing, and delicate coloring, the latter unfortunately much disguised by the most coarse and tasteless "restoration. Like most of these painted wall-hangings, they are executed in tempera, and rather thinly painted, so that the pigment might not crack off through the cloth falling slightly into folds. Another remarkable series of painted cloth hangings are those at Rheims cathedral, admirable for their noble breadth of design and rich coloring. some cases actual dyes were used for this sort of work. A MS. of the 15th century' gives receipts for "painted cloth," showing that sometimes they were dyed in a manner similar to those Indian stuffs which were afterwards painted, and are now called chintzes. These receipts are for real dyes, not for pigments, and among them is the earliest vas painted to imitate tapestry. English mediaval | known description of the process called "setting" the inventories both of ecclesiastical and domestic goods woad or indigo vat, as well as a receipt for removing

FIG. 5.-Italian Stamped Leather; 16th century.

frequently contain items such as these: "stayned
cloths for hangings," "paynted cloths with stories and

In

or "discharging" the color from a cloth already dyed. Another method employed was a sort of "encaustic" process; the cloth was rubbed all over with wax, and then painted in tempera; heat was then applied so that the colors sank into the melting wax, and were thus firmly fixed upon the cloth.

3. Printed Hangings and Wall-Papers.-The printing of various textiles with dye-colors and mordants is probably one of the most ancient of the arts. Pliny (H. N., xxxv.) clearly describes a dyeing process employed by the ancient Egyptians, in which the pattern was probably Various formed by printing from blocks. methods have been used for this work-wood blocks in relief, engraved metal plates, stencil plates, and even hand-painting; frequently two or more of these methods have been employed for the same pattern. The use of printed stuffs is of great antiquity among the Hindus and Chinese, and was certainly practiced in western Europe in the 13th century, and perhaps earlier. The South Kensington Museum has 13th-century specimens of block-printed silk made in Sicily, of very beautiful design. Towards the end of the 14th century a great deal of blockprinted linen was made in Flanders, and largely imported into England.

Wall-papers did not come into common use in Europe till the 18th century, though they appear to have been used much earlier by the Chinese. A few rare examples exist in England which may be as early as the 16th century; these are imitations, generally in flock, of the fine old Florentine and Genoese cut velvets, and

1 See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Painting in North Italy i. p. 404 1871; and Waagen, Art Treasures, 1854.

2 Leberthais, Toiles peintes de Reims (Paris).

3 Merrifield, Treatises on Painting, 1849.

hence the style of the design in no way shows the man can easily lift with one hand,-2 feet being about the date of the wall-paper, the same traditional pat- limit, as the blocks are necessarily thick, and in many cases terns being reproduced for many years with little or no thin outlines, which, if made of wood, would not stand the made heavier by being inlaid with copper, especially the change. Machinery enabling paper to be made in wear and tear of printing. In "flock" and gold or silver long strips was not invented till the end of the last printing the design is first printed in strong size; the flock century, and up to that time wall-papers were printed (finely cut wool of the required color), or metallic powder on small square pieces of hand-made paper, difficult to is then sprinkled by hand all over the paper; it adheres hang, disfigured by numerous joints, and compara- only to the wet size, and is easily shaken off the ground or tively costly; on these accounts wall-papers were slow unsized part. If the pattern is required to stand out in in superseding the older and more magnificent modes some relief this process is repeated several times, and the of mural decoration, such as wood-panelling, painting, sorts of paper are printed by machinery, the design being whole paper then rolled to compress the flock. Cheaper tapestry, stamped leather, and painted cloth. A little cut on the surface of wooden rollers, under which the paper work by Jackson of Battersea, printed in London in passes. The chief drawback to this process is that all the 1744, throws some light on the use of wall-papers at colors are applied rapidly one after the other, without allowthat time. He gives reduced copies of his designs,ing each to dry separately, as is done in hand printing. A mostly taken from Italian pictures or antique sculpture somewhat blurred appearance is the usual result. during his residence in Venice. Instead of flowing patterns covering the wall, his designs are all pictures -landscapes, architectural scenes, or statues-treated as panels, with plain paper or painting between. They are all printed in oil, with wooden blocks worked with a rolling press, apparently an invention of his own. They are all in the worst possible taste, and yet are offered as great improvements on the Chinese papers which he says were then in fashion.

Though at first wall-papers were a mere makeshift, and feeble imitation of rich textiles, yet, with a good feeling for the harmonies of color and a regard for the technical necessities of the process, very rich and beautiful effects may be produced, at a comparatively small cost, if hand-printing be adopted. Imitations of stamped leather are now produced with great success, though of inferior durability. Very thick, tough paper is used for this, and treated in the same way as the real

skins mentioned above. Fig. 6 is a good English example of 18th-century wall-paper printed on squares of stout hand-made paper, 22 inches wide. The design is apparently copied from an Indian chintz.

PAINTING.

This is naturally the most important and the most widely used of all forms of wall-decoration, as well as perhaps the earliest.

Egyptian Paintings.-Egypt is the chief storehouse of ancient specimens of this, as of almost all the arts. Owing to the intimate connection between the sculpture and painting of early times, the remarks above, both as to subjects and treatment, under the head of Egyptian wall-sculpture, will to a great extent apply also to the paintings. It is a very important fact, and one which testifies clearly to the enormous 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 very important among even very distant nations. In the 6th century B.c. Egyptian colonists, introduced by Cambyses into Persepolis, largely influenced the painting and sculpture of the great Persian empire, and throughout the valley of the Euphrates. In a lesser degree the art of Babylon and Nineveh had felt considerable Egyptian influence several centuries earlier. The same influence affected the early art of the Greeks and the Etrurians, and it was not till the middle of the 5th century B.C. that the further development and perfecting of art in Greece obliterated the old traces of Egyptian mannerism. After the death of Alexander the Great, when Egypt came into possession of the Lagida (320 B.C.), the tide of influence flowed the other way, and Greek art modified though it did not seriously alter the characteristics of Egyptian painting and sculpture, which still retained much of their early forThe method of printing wall-papers of the better sort is malism and severity. And yet the increased sense of probably the same now that it has always been. Wooden beauty, especially in the human face, derived from the blocks with the design cut in relief, one for each color, are Greeks, was counterbalanced by loss of vigor and force; applied by hand, after being dipped in an elastic cloth sieve art under the Ptolemies ceased to have a real life and charged with wet tempera pigment, great care being taken to lay each block exactly on the right place, so that the became a mere dull copyism of earlier traditions. various colors may "register" or fit together. In order to The general scheme of mural painting in the buildsuit the productions of the paper-mills these blocks are ings of ancient Egypt was very complete and magnifimade, in England 21 inches wide, and in France 18 inches cent. Columns, mouldings, and other architectural wide; the length of the block is limited to what the work-features were enriched with patterns in brilliant colors;

the flat wall-spaces were covered with figure-subjects, generally in horizontal bands, and the ceilings were richly 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 of fine lime, laid over the brick, stone, or marble, to form a smooth and slightly absorbent coat to receive the pigments, which were most brilliant in tone and of great variety of tint. Not employing fresco, the Egyptian artists were not restricted to earth colors," but occasionally used purples, pinks, and greens which would have been destroyed by fresh lime. The blue used is a very beautiful color, and is generally laid on in considerable body-it is frequently a "smalt" or deep-blue glass, colored by copper oxide, finely powdered. Red and yellow ochre, carbon-black, and powdered chalk-white are most largely used. Though in the paintings of animals and birds considerable realism is often seen (Fig. 7), yet for human

occasionally blue, are the only pigments. The rockwalls are prepared by being covered with a thin skin of lime stucco, and lime or chalk is mixed in small quantities with all the colors; hence the restriction to earth pigments," made doubly necessary by the constant dampness of these subterranean chambers. The process employed was, in fact, a kind of fresco, though the stucco ground was not applied in small patches only sufficient for the day's work; the dampness of the rock was enough to keep the stucco skin moist, and so allow the necessary infiltration of color from the surface. Many of these paintings, when first discovered, were quite fresh in tint, and uninjured by time, but they are soon dulled by exposure to light. In the course of centuries great changes of style naturally took place; the early Egyptian influence, probably brought to Etruria through the Phoenician traders, was succeeded by an even more strongly marked Greek influence-at first archaic and stiff, then developing into

great beauty of drawing, and finally yielding to the Roman spirit as the degradation of Greek art advanced under their powerful but inartistic Roman conquerors.

Throughout this succession of styles-Egyptian, Greek, and Græco-Roman-there runs a distinct undercurrent of individuality, due to the Etruscans themselves. This appears, not only in the drawing, but also in the choice of subjects. In addition to pictures of banquets with musicians and dancers, hunting and racing scenes, the workshops of different craftsmen and other domestic subjects, all thoroughly Hellenic in sentiment, other paintings occur which are very un-Greek in feeling. These represent the judgment and punishment of

FIG. 7.-Egyptian Wall-Painting of the Ancient Empire, in the Bulak souls in a future life. Mantus, Charun, and

other infernal deities of the Rasena, hideous in aspect, and armed with hammers, or furies defigures certain conventional colors are employed, e.g., | picted as black-bearded demons, winged and brandishwhite for females' flesh, red for the males, or black ing live snakes, terrify or torture shrinking human to indicate people of negro race. Heads are painted souls. Others, and not the earliest in date, represent in profile, and little or no shading is used. Consider- human sacrifices, such as those at the tomb of Patroable knowledge of harmony is shown in the arrange- clus-a class of subjects which, though Homeric, apment of the colors; and otherwise harsh combinations pears but rarely to have been selected by Greek of tints are skilfully softened and brought into keeping painters. The constant import into Etruria of large by thin separating lines of white or yellow. Though quantities of fine Greek painted vases appears to have at first sight the general coloring, if seen in a museum, largely contributed to keep up the supremacy of Helmay appear crude and gaudy, yet it should be remem- lenic influence during many centuries, and by their bered that the internal paintings were much softened artistic superiority to have prevented the development by the very dim light that was sparingly admitted into of a more original and native school of art. Though Egyptian buildings, and those outside were subdued by we now know Etruscan painting only from the tombs, contrast with the brilliant blue sky and glowing sun-yet Pliny mentions (H. N., xxxv. 3) that fine wallshine under which they were always seen.

paintings existed in his time, with colors yet fresh, on Etruscan Painting.-The rock-cut sepulchres of the the walls of ruined temples at Ardea and Lanuvium, Etrurians (see ETRURIA, vol. viii. p. 566) supply the executed, he says, before the founding of Rome. As only existing specimens of their mural painting, and, before mentioned, the actual dates of the existing unlike the tombs of Egypt, only a small proportion paintings are very uncertain. It cannot, therefore, be appear to have been decorated in this way. The act-positively asserted that any existing specimens are ual dates of these paintings are very uncertain, but much older than 600 B.C., though some, especially at they range possibly from about the 8th century B.C. Veii, certainly appear to have the characteristics of down to almost the Christian era. The tombs which more remote antiquity. The most important of these possess these paintings are mostly square-shaped paintings have been discovered in the cemeteries of rooms, with slightly-arched or gabled roofs, excavated Veii, Care, Tarquinii, Vulci, Cervetri, and other in soft sandstone or tufa hillsides. The earlier ones Etruscan cities.2 show distinct Egyptian influence, alike in drawing and in composition; they are very broadly designed with flat unshaded tints, the faces in profile, except the eyes, which are drawn as if seen in front. Colors, 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; very few colors are used-red, brown, and yellow ochres, carbon-black, lime or chalk-white, and

1 See Champollion, Panthéon Egyptien (1825); De Joannis, Peintures murales. des Egyptiens; Biechy,, La Peinture chez les Egyptiens (1868); Lenormant, Antiquités Egyptiennes; Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Aegypten; Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt.; Descr. de l'Egypte (Paris, 1821, etc.); Perrot et Chipiez, L'Art d'Egypte (1880), and other works on Egypt.

Greek Painting.-This is a very obscure subject, for, although Strabo, Pliny, Pausanias, and others have left us minute descriptions of Greek paintings, and ample accounts of painters and styles, yet of the pictures themselves almost nothing now remains. Even in Egypt, the use of color does not appear to have been more universal than it was among the Greeks,

See Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (1878); Golini, Pitture murali Etrusche; Micali, Mon, inediti; Mon. and Ann. d. Inst. Arch. (Rome, various years); Canina, L'antica Etruria (1846, et sq.); Bartoli, Sepolchri Rom. ed Etrus. (1727); Müller, Etrusker, and other works; Helbig, Pitture Cornelane (1863); Inghirami, Mon. Etruschi (1821-26); Byres, Sepulchral Caverns of Tarquinia (1842); and Raoul Rochette, Mon. d'Antiquité Grecque, Etrusque, et Romaine (1883).