DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2161#0228
166 POMPEIANA.
fill a compartment where greater detail was
judged unnecessary*.
In the chamber of the Amazons is also a
painting of Europa and the Bull.
These cubiculi are all about twelve feet
in height, and have been covered with six
small beams, on which were suspended the
floors of the upper chambers. The doors
appear, generally, to have had two valves, as
may be seen by the sockets in the thresholds
* This art of representing the effect of a picture upon a wall,
instead of imitating nature itself, is applied, with, considerable
success, in the decoration of certain modern Italian habitations.
The author has seen in the Palazzo Sannizzi, at Rieti, a room
of magnificent dimensions, on entering which a visiter imagines
himself in an apartment hung with green damask, and decorated
with a profusion of splendid pictures. There are Madonnas and
Holy Families, landscapes, animals, and battle-pieces, which recal,
at the moment, the names and works of the most distinguished
artists. A further examination, on a nearer approach, shows that
no one of the objects has any decided form or outline, or in-
telligible sign. Not only does the whole collection consist in
the representation of pictures, but their seemingly gold frames
are merely wooden mouldings roughly painted with ochre, most
scantily touched, here and there, in the prominent parts, with
gilding to represent the effect of catching lights. Behind each
sham picture was nothing but the white wall, and the apparently
rich silk hangings consist in a few narrow stripes of the stuff be-
tween the frames—yet the whole has a good effect.
fill a compartment where greater detail was
judged unnecessary*.
In the chamber of the Amazons is also a
painting of Europa and the Bull.
These cubiculi are all about twelve feet
in height, and have been covered with six
small beams, on which were suspended the
floors of the upper chambers. The doors
appear, generally, to have had two valves, as
may be seen by the sockets in the thresholds
* This art of representing the effect of a picture upon a wall,
instead of imitating nature itself, is applied, with, considerable
success, in the decoration of certain modern Italian habitations.
The author has seen in the Palazzo Sannizzi, at Rieti, a room
of magnificent dimensions, on entering which a visiter imagines
himself in an apartment hung with green damask, and decorated
with a profusion of splendid pictures. There are Madonnas and
Holy Families, landscapes, animals, and battle-pieces, which recal,
at the moment, the names and works of the most distinguished
artists. A further examination, on a nearer approach, shows that
no one of the objects has any decided form or outline, or in-
telligible sign. Not only does the whole collection consist in
the representation of pictures, but their seemingly gold frames
are merely wooden mouldings roughly painted with ochre, most
scantily touched, here and there, in the prominent parts, with
gilding to represent the effect of catching lights. Behind each
sham picture was nothing but the white wall, and the apparently
rich silk hangings consist in a few narrow stripes of the stuff be-
tween the frames—yet the whole has a good effect.