DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0392
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
degree of intensity, consult our memories to see whether the
motif has been used before, and condemn the treatment as
feebler. We are petty and lacking in piety and are always
qualifying even our masterpieces. A mosaic passes unchal-
lenged, and although it generally repeats something that has
been said before, you take off your hat every time and
believe that a new revelation has been vouchsafed to you.
The origin of these pictures is known. Very much belated
successors of the Greeks to whom we are indebted for the
statues and temples put the pictures together out of little
bits of stone: anonymous and completely impersonal crafts-
men. Their art does not enter into it at all. An atom of this
stiffness would be enough to make us attack and condemn
the productions of the same race, on the same soil, fifteen
centuries earlier; and the mechanical craftsmanship un-
enlivened by any personal touch, which we find so utterly
satisfying in the mosaics, would strike us as the sin against
the spirit of art if it were to show itself in antique sculpture,
and no glamour of mere age could dull our sensibility.
Mosaic is not in itself responsible for this extraordinary
effect, for we do not react so obligingly to antique mosaic
decorations. Pagan mosaics always have something common-
place and degenerate about their handling; many a visitor is
left cold by the naturalism of the Battle of Alexander in the
Naples Museum. It cannot be merely the use of outline;
for the pictorial styles of every race have made us sow our
wild oats at one time or another. Perhaps it’s the gold.
Even without the figure the glittering surface would hold
enchantment enough. In that case we should be enslaved by
crassly material means. That is not the case; for the far less
vigorous early Christian mosaics in Italy, which are not on a
gold ground, are equally enchanting. The Baptistery and
the Mausoleum at Ravenna are among our sanctuaries. It
must surely be the legend which is intricately entangled in
the walls of the place: a glittering chain of pictures like a
36°
degree of intensity, consult our memories to see whether the
motif has been used before, and condemn the treatment as
feebler. We are petty and lacking in piety and are always
qualifying even our masterpieces. A mosaic passes unchal-
lenged, and although it generally repeats something that has
been said before, you take off your hat every time and
believe that a new revelation has been vouchsafed to you.
The origin of these pictures is known. Very much belated
successors of the Greeks to whom we are indebted for the
statues and temples put the pictures together out of little
bits of stone: anonymous and completely impersonal crafts-
men. Their art does not enter into it at all. An atom of this
stiffness would be enough to make us attack and condemn
the productions of the same race, on the same soil, fifteen
centuries earlier; and the mechanical craftsmanship un-
enlivened by any personal touch, which we find so utterly
satisfying in the mosaics, would strike us as the sin against
the spirit of art if it were to show itself in antique sculpture,
and no glamour of mere age could dull our sensibility.
Mosaic is not in itself responsible for this extraordinary
effect, for we do not react so obligingly to antique mosaic
decorations. Pagan mosaics always have something common-
place and degenerate about their handling; many a visitor is
left cold by the naturalism of the Battle of Alexander in the
Naples Museum. It cannot be merely the use of outline;
for the pictorial styles of every race have made us sow our
wild oats at one time or another. Perhaps it’s the gold.
Even without the figure the glittering surface would hold
enchantment enough. In that case we should be enslaved by
crassly material means. That is not the case; for the far less
vigorous early Christian mosaics in Italy, which are not on a
gold ground, are equally enchanting. The Baptistery and
the Mausoleum at Ravenna are among our sanctuaries. It
must surely be the legend which is intricately entangled in
the walls of the place: a glittering chain of pictures like a
36°