DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0411
306 TARQUINII.—The Cemetery. [chap, xviii.
tombs already described. There is nothing archaic about
them. Here are grouping, perspective, fore-shortening,
full faces—never attained or even attempted in the earlier
paintings; here are correctness and ease of design,
modelling of form instead of mere outline, a natural and
harmonious tone of colour in place of conventionalities
and startling contrasts, drapery no longer in stiff, formal
plaits, but hanging in broad, easy folds. In a word, these
frescoes are so like those of Pompeii, that they might be
pronounced Roman, were it not for their national peculi-
arities. There is little doubt that they belong to the period
of Roman domination in Etruria. Read the inscription on
one of the rock-hewn benches, and you have proof that
the tomb was used by the conquerors :—•
AVRELIA- L- F- OPTVMA- FEMINA
VIXSIT- AN- XLV
sepulchres of the Etruscans generally, as covered by the sea. Nor are the
well as in their cities, circuses, amphi- mutules and triglyphs without meaning ;
theatres, theatres, and temples, he sees for as in architecture they represent
"a secret allusion to the economy of beams and rafters, so here they are
the universe and its grand divisions." hieroglyphical of the skeleton and
This particular tomb " manifestly figures frame-work of the infernal world and
the kingdom of shades and the infernal of its great mountain—a bold artistic
world. The pillar in the centre is the metaphor, which of rocks makes
chief of the five mountains which were beams, but not less bold than that
supposed to support our globe. The other, which of the waves of the sea
surrounding frieze expresses this still makes a meander-pattern." In the
better in the language of art; for its figures on the pillar the same writer
upper portion, with waves and dolphins, sees Ceres or the Earth, and her two
indicates most clearly the sea which sons, the giants Othus and Ephialtes,
covers the infernal world and surrounds who are supporting and steadying
our globe; and the lower, with rose- the earth, their kingdom; and in the
flowers, indicates the infernal world itself, painted mouldings of the cornice above,
which has its own peculiar vegetation. he interprets the panthers' heads as
The pillar itself, still better to set forth symbols of monsters guarding the gates
the hidden idea of the artist, bears the of hell ; and the foliage as representing
rose-flowers, but no waves or dolphins, that of the upper world, our globe,
because the central mountain which it Ann. Inst. 1834, pp. 156—159.
represents has vegetation, but is not
tombs already described. There is nothing archaic about
them. Here are grouping, perspective, fore-shortening,
full faces—never attained or even attempted in the earlier
paintings; here are correctness and ease of design,
modelling of form instead of mere outline, a natural and
harmonious tone of colour in place of conventionalities
and startling contrasts, drapery no longer in stiff, formal
plaits, but hanging in broad, easy folds. In a word, these
frescoes are so like those of Pompeii, that they might be
pronounced Roman, were it not for their national peculi-
arities. There is little doubt that they belong to the period
of Roman domination in Etruria. Read the inscription on
one of the rock-hewn benches, and you have proof that
the tomb was used by the conquerors :—•
AVRELIA- L- F- OPTVMA- FEMINA
VIXSIT- AN- XLV
sepulchres of the Etruscans generally, as covered by the sea. Nor are the
well as in their cities, circuses, amphi- mutules and triglyphs without meaning ;
theatres, theatres, and temples, he sees for as in architecture they represent
"a secret allusion to the economy of beams and rafters, so here they are
the universe and its grand divisions." hieroglyphical of the skeleton and
This particular tomb " manifestly figures frame-work of the infernal world and
the kingdom of shades and the infernal of its great mountain—a bold artistic
world. The pillar in the centre is the metaphor, which of rocks makes
chief of the five mountains which were beams, but not less bold than that
supposed to support our globe. The other, which of the waves of the sea
surrounding frieze expresses this still makes a meander-pattern." In the
better in the language of art; for its figures on the pillar the same writer
upper portion, with waves and dolphins, sees Ceres or the Earth, and her two
indicates most clearly the sea which sons, the giants Othus and Ephialtes,
covers the infernal world and surrounds who are supporting and steadying
our globe; and the lower, with rose- the earth, their kingdom; and in the
flowers, indicates the infernal world itself, painted mouldings of the cornice above,
which has its own peculiar vegetation. he interprets the panthers' heads as
The pillar itself, still better to set forth symbols of monsters guarding the gates
the hidden idea of the artist, bears the of hell ; and the foliage as representing
rose-flowers, but no waves or dolphins, that of the upper world, our globe,
because the central mountain which it Ann. Inst. 1834, pp. 156—159.
represents has vegetation, but is not