The Later Periods

THE LATER PERIODS After the fantastic creatures and ornament of the 8th and 9th centuries, and without any transition, comes the art, at once refined and realistic, of the Macedonian revival. The old Greek taste for representation again prevails. A series of ivory carvings, manuscripts and enamels, which there is solid ground for dating, presents a small, gentle world in which every grade of the celestial and terrestrial hierarchies has its place.

Examples of the Later Style.

A suggestion of this change may be caught on one of the coins of Basil I. (867-886) and the new style is clearly seen on a few pages bound into the cele brated Gregory of Naziansus manuscript in the Bibliotheque Na tionale, Paris. Here, the imperial portraits can be dated between 879 and 886. These paintings and a sketch revealed by flaking on one of the pages have delicacy and distinction. There are few datable monuments between these pages and the Romanus and Eudocia ivory panel in the Cabinet des Medailles (Pl. II., fig. 6) which has recently been shown to represent Romanus II. and his first wife, who died 949, and not Romanus IV. (1067-1071). Thus one of the few dated ivory carvings is the most beautiful of all and represents both divine and worldly persons. Many ivories are closely related to the Romanus panel in style, but few ap proach it in quality. The triptych, such as the Harbaville ivory in the Louvre and the Borradaile in the British Museum. makes its appearance. It is covered with figures of Our Lord, Our Lady, the apostles and other saints in a great variety of costume, im perial, military, ecclesiastical and monastic ; a precisely defined hierarchy like that described in the contemporary writings of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. As may be seen in the Romanus ivory, features and limbs are delicate and in correct proportion, unlike those of the 6th century carvings, which are somewhat burly. Where there is exaggeration it is in attenuation and elongation : an almost effeminate elegance.

This style in metal-work may be seen in a gilt bronze triptych in the Victoria and Albert museum and in a beautiful bronze relief in the museum at Philippopoli in Bulgaria, as well as on an enamelled reliquary at Limburg-on-the-Lahn (probably between and 9S9), showing a composition similar to those in the ivories. Of the few illuminated manuscripts that can be assigned to the loth century, Grec 7o in the Bibliotheque Nationale has paintings in much the same spirit. The famous "Parisinus," Grec 139, in the same library, is characterized by pseudo-antique style. A marvellous collection of hard stone vases, glass and rock crystal vessels, the mounts of some of them adorned with en amels (Pl. I., fig. 8) or with rich and delicate filigree tracery, a great deal of which is probably of the loth century, exists in the treasure of St. Mark's at Venice.

No loth century mosaics are known except the floral decora tion in the Mihrab of the Mosque at Cordova, executed by Greeks imported for the purpose by Abd-er-Rahman III. (929-961). Numerous marble slabs, used in galleries, choir enclosures and even in windows and fountains out of doors, survive, mostly re employed in later buildings in Constantinople, Athens, Salonika, Mt. Athos and Venice. Some continue the animal decoration of an earlier period, but the animals have become tame, round and gentle. Most of these slabs, however, are ornamented with interlaced strap-work and rosettes carved in a peculiar S-shaped profile. Figure sculpture is rare, but a marble roundel set in the wall of a house in the Campiello Angaran in Venice bears a relief of an emperor, about half life-size, who may be of this period. Basil I.'s famous church, the Nea, has vanished, and surviving architecture of the 9th and loth centuries is on a humble scale. A superb porphyry head in the round on the parapet over the west porch of S. Mark's is certainly Byzantine, and very probably late loth century. Some magnificent silk textiles, several of which are happily dated by woven inscriptions, show much the same change as that seen on the slabs. Animals, birds and mon sters are still represented, but in another spirit, more often passant than rampant and their ferocity is rather that of menag erie beasts behind bars. The weaving is finer and the colours more delicate.

The art of the nth century is richer than that of the loth. Here again, the change comes out in a coin : the gold nomisma of Constantine VIII. (1025-28). The portrait of this monarch on the Exultet roll at Bari (Pl. I., fig. 9) shows an aggressive person age far removed from the benign and decorous court represented on the ivories discussed above. Figures are no longer small, deli cately proportioned, and nicely arranged against a spacious back ground, but tend to spread out over the field. Heads grow too big for their bodies. There is a suggestion of high living about these fleshly shapes, to be expected in the somewhat scandalous court of Constantine VIII., his daughter Zoe and her numerous husbands. Towards the end of the century, attenuated figures again become fashionable.

Mosaics.

After 400 years for which only enough scraps of mosaics are left to show that the art did not die out, we come, in the 11th century, to a rich series. The greatest uncertainty pre vails as to their chronological order. However, S. Sophia at Kiev, which still contains important mosaics, was founded in 1037 or 1038, and its decoration was probably not much later. The well preserved cycle at S. Luke in Phocis is very near the Kiev examples in style; those at Daphni near Athens are probably later. In the Greek Islands and in Asia Minor there are less extensive remains. Greek artists also worked in Venetia and at Trieste. An instance is the praying Virgin in the apse of Murano cathedral, which is a characteristic nth century composition, the single figure on its ground of gold peppered with red and black cubes standing in the exact axis of the church as the point of focus for the eyes of the congregation.

Church pavements, such as those of Venice and Murano, are rich, and more complicated and heterogeneous than those of the 6th century, containing, besides stone mosaic and opus sectile, re employed marble slabs. A few low reliefs representing the praying Virgin, which doubtless once decorated the walls of churches, have recently come to light. The most beautiful of these was dis covered at Salonika (Plate I., fig. 3).

The Decorative Arts.

The arts of the goldsmith and the enameller continue to flourish in the i ith century. At a period not easily determined, perhaps only in the 12th century, the designs of the cloisons become rectilinear and perfunctory. Here, as in the apses, the figure is backed by a flat gold ground. The colours are : a brilliant translucent green never equalled in Western work, a sub-translucent marine blue and opaque but rather nacreous whites, yellows and reds. The purples common in earlier work become rare.

In painted manuscripts also gold grounds occur frequently, and an elaborate head-piece in brilliant colours almost suggesting enamel is common. These head-pieces are usually found in books of the Gospels, opposite full-page portraits of the Evangelists. Psalters such as one in the British Museum dated 1066 are abundantly illuminated with small marginal paintings, some of them illustrating scenes of everyday life. Profane subjects, treated with evident enjoyment, are frequently found in other religious manuscripts, as well as in treatises on the chase and histories. Textile designs tend to grow more mechanical and conventional than in paintings. There still remain examples of the best of the rare late Byzantine examples of tapestry weaving. Ivory carving dies out : no example of the first quality can well be attributed to the later i ith or 12th centuries, but carved steatite panels come into favour.

The 12th to the 15th Centuries.

The 12th century pro duces no new movement of importance; it is significant that the imperial gold coinage, which had set a standard for the world since the time of Augustus, becomes corrupt as early as the reign of Michael VII. (1071-78) and never recovers. Even silver is de based, and the artistic merit of coins deteriorates. The 13th cen tury, broken by the Latin occupation of Constantinople, is obscure and poverty-stricken. For the 14th we have the dated mosaics of Kahrie Djami at Constantinople, which mark a definite breach with the principles of Byzantine monumental decoration. Their pic turesque qualities have led some to see in them Italian influence. The same may be said of numerous frescoes at Mistra and throughout the Balkans, and of the small portable mosaics, com posed of cubes of solid gold and semi-precious stones, of which a few brilliant examples survive in Western museums. The only monuments left of any interest by the isth century are a few manuscripts with imperial portraits in which velvety but coarse reds enliven mediocre drawings.

The later arts of the Orthodox countries have kept Byzantine iconography alive to the present day, but they lie outside the scope of the present article. (See also PERIODS OF ART.) (H. PE., R. T.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-H. Cohen, Description historique des monnaies Bibliography.-H. Cohen, Description historique des monnaies frappees sons l'Empire Romain (2nd ed. 1880-92) ; The Basilica of S. Mark in Venice (ed. by C. Boito, trans. by W. Scott, publ. by F. Ongania, 1888) ; N. Kondakov, Les Emaux Byzantins (1892) ; W. R. Lethaby and H. Swainson, Sancta Sophia, Constantinople (1894) ; R. Cattaneo, Architecture in Italy from the 6th to the Ilth century (trans. by I. Curtis-Cholmeley, 1896) ; G. Schlumberger, L'epopee byzantine a la fin du dixieme siecle 3 pt. (1896-1905) ; A. van Millingen, Byzantine Constantinople (1899) ;, A. Riegl, Die spdtromische Kunst Industrie nach den Funden in Osterreich-Ungarn, Oesterreichisches Archaologische Institut (Vienna, vol. i. 1901 ; vol. ii. 1923) ; A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana (Milan, 190I-13) ; A. Choisy, L'Art de Bdtir chez les Byzantins (2nd ed. 1904) ; G. Millet, "L'Art Byzantin" ; chap. iii. and bibl. in A. Michel, Histoire de l'Art, i5 vol. (1905-25) ; W. Wroth, Imperial Byzantine Coins in the British Museum (1908) ; J. Maurice, Numismatique Constantinienne, 3 vol. (1908-12) ; G. T. Rivoira, Lombardic Architecture: its origin, develop ment and derivatives (trans. by G. McN. Rushforth, 1910) ; O. M. Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology (191I), and East Christian Art (1925) ; O. Wulff, "Altchristliche and Byzantinische Kunst" in Handbuch der Kunstwissenchaft (vol. i. 1914; vol. ii. 1918) ; J. Strzygowski, "Die Baukunst der Armenier and Europa" in Arbeiten des Kunsthistorischen Instituts der Universitat von Wien, Bds. 9 and 10 (Vienna, 1918) and The Origin of Christian Church Art (trans. by O. M. Dalton and H. J. Braunholtz, Oxford, 1923) ; O. von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei (1921) ; J. Ebersott, Les Arts Somptuaires de Byzance (1923) and La Miniature Byzantine (1926) ; C. Diehl, Manuel d'art byzantin (2nd ed., rev. 1925) .