DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0016
12
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
of corresponding subjects, of type and anti-type,
was afterwards, as we shall see, carried much
farther.
In the seventh century, painting, as it existed in
Europe, may be divided into two great schools or
styles—the Western, or Roman, of which the cen-
tral point was Rome, and which was distinguished,
amid great rudeness of execution, by a certain dig-
nity of expression and solemnity of feeling; and
the Eastern, or Byzantine school, of which Con-
stantinople was the head-quarters, and which was
distinguished by greater mechanical skill, by ad-
herence to the old classical forms, by the use of
gilding, and by the mean, vapid, spiritless concep-
tion of motive and character.
From the seventh to the ninth century the most
important and interesting remains of pictorial art
are the mosaics in the churches,* and the minia-
ture paintings with which the MS. Bibles and
Gospels were decorated.
But during the tenth and eleventh centuries Italy
fell into a state of complete barbarism and confu-
sion, which almost extinguished the practice of art
in any shape ; of this period only a few works of
extreme rudeness remain. In the Eastern empire
painting still survived; it became, indeed, more
and more conventional, insipid, and incorrect, but
* Particularly those in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore
at Rome, and in the church of St. Mark at Venice.
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
of corresponding subjects, of type and anti-type,
was afterwards, as we shall see, carried much
farther.
In the seventh century, painting, as it existed in
Europe, may be divided into two great schools or
styles—the Western, or Roman, of which the cen-
tral point was Rome, and which was distinguished,
amid great rudeness of execution, by a certain dig-
nity of expression and solemnity of feeling; and
the Eastern, or Byzantine school, of which Con-
stantinople was the head-quarters, and which was
distinguished by greater mechanical skill, by ad-
herence to the old classical forms, by the use of
gilding, and by the mean, vapid, spiritless concep-
tion of motive and character.
From the seventh to the ninth century the most
important and interesting remains of pictorial art
are the mosaics in the churches,* and the minia-
ture paintings with which the MS. Bibles and
Gospels were decorated.
But during the tenth and eleventh centuries Italy
fell into a state of complete barbarism and confu-
sion, which almost extinguished the practice of art
in any shape ; of this period only a few works of
extreme rudeness remain. In the Eastern empire
painting still survived; it became, indeed, more
and more conventional, insipid, and incorrect, but
* Particularly those in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore
at Rome, and in the church of St. Mark at Venice.