to a building, had by degrees become purely fanciful. Every kind of fantastic ornament was introduced into them, and Vitruvius complains that nature had been altogether lost sight of. "The objects," he says, "which the ancients took for their models from reality are despised by the corrupted fashion of the present day. We nowadays see upon our walls not so much copies of actual things as fantastic monstrosities. Thus reeds take the place of columns in a design, ribboned and streamered ornaments with curling leaves and spiral tendrils take the place of pediments, diminutive temples are supported upon candelabra, vegetable shapes spring from the tops of pediments, and send forth multitudes of delicate stems with twining tendrils and figures seated meaninglessly among them. Nay, from the very flowers which the stalks sustain, are made to issue demi-figures having the heads sometimes of human beings and sometimes of brutes." This description applies almost entirely to the latest style in which Pompeii was restored after the earthquake. There are traces that it had been introduced somewhat earlier, and we find it the most common not only at Pompeii but in other Roman ruins of the same period. It has been called the grottesche, from the grottoes or subterranean places in Rome where it was first discovered. Severe artcritics, like Vitruvius, who apply the test of strict rules, may find fault with these exuberances of fancy; but their very charm lies in their emancipation from rule, kept as they are within the bounds of perfect taste. These decorations, which were frequently combined with beautiful stucco work, have excited the admiration of the modern world generation after generation ever since they were first excavated. Raphael and Giovanni da Udine reproduced them in the Loggie of the Vatican, Giulio Romano in his master-work, the Palazzo del Te at Mantua, and they are still the ideal of artistic wall-decoration. It was one of the most fortunate events in the history of art that in Raphael's time some of the finest of these walldecorations were brought to light by the excavations in the baths of Titus on Mount Esquiline. There he and his disciples saw those light and graceful draperies, those inimitable aërial figures, many of which time has now destroyed, but of which our generation may see the replicas on the Pompeian and Herculaneum walls. We are told how Raphael, when he first saw them, marvelled at their beauty and their freshness. In those exquisite remains of ancient art the great painters of the Renaissance found a new inspiration. They studied the figures, the arabesques, the very nature of the stucco. With the true insight of genius they were satisfied to copy where it was vain to attempt to rival. The figures called the "Hours," painted by Giovanni da Udine and Perino del Vaga in the Vatican, are identical with two figures found at Herculaneum. In those days Herculaneum was not excavated, but the same subjects are frequently repeated in ancient art for the sake of their beauty, and these very figures must have been seen by them in the excavations of Rome. - was Without speaking of the paintings which were ruthlessly destroyed in the early part of the excavations, it is melancholy to think that the greater part of those that have been excavated in the course of a century have already faded through atmospheric influences, and that no means of preserving them permanently have been found. In some cases, the very precautions taken for their preservation have been detrimental to them. The picture of Achilles giving up Briseis - one of the finest that have come down to us — not taken to Naples till more than two years after its excavation, owing to the great difficulty of detaching it from the wall. All that time it remained exposed to the air, and its beautiful coloring suffered much in consequence. The picture of Adonis dying in the arms of Aphrodite was seen in all its freshness by RaoulRochette in 1833, three years after its excavation; but when he saw it again, six years later, he found it much faded. The charming little pictures of Cupids and Psyches in the house of Marcus Lucretius, excavated in the presence of Mr. E. Falkener in 1846, and then tolerably clear, were nearly effaced two years after by the action of the salt in the stucco. Mr. Falkener took hurried sketches of them at the time of the excavation, during a momentary absence of the custode, for it was not allowed then to make drawings of unedited paintings till after three years had expired, when they were often spoilt and almost obliterated. Helbig also found that, after a few years, some of the pictures which had been left on the spot were either wholly destroyed or much damaged; and that even those in the Museum had suffered from various causes. In many cases the original colors of the pictures have changed-sometimes even before the excavation. The heat of the volcanic mass has often made the yellow ochre turn red, | vation of the pictures depends upon especially at Herculaneum; and the cin- various causes, such as the more or less nabar or vermilion- called by the Romans careful preparation of the stucco, and (if minium becomes black after a time, we admit, with Donner, that the pictures from contact with the air. Zahn saw this are frescoes) on the amount of care taken process go on under his eyes. He noticed to finish them while the wall was still wet. that, while the black grounds faded, the The directions given by Vitruvius about red ones became of an intenser black; and the thickness and composition of the he remarked that investigators who had stucco, in order to ensure its solidity, have not actually witnessed this process on the not always been followed by the Pomspot, on seeing traces of red in these peians, owing probably to the haste with black grounds, erroneously believed that which the town was restored after the the artists had laid a red ground first, earthquake. But the quality of the stucco and painted it over black afterwards. is always far superior to our modern Sometimes the minium has been painted fresco-grounds. The frequent use of sea over a ground of yellow ochre, in which sand in the preparation of the stucco has, case it comes off by degrees, leaving the however, had fatal consequences in develyellow ground exposed. In places where oping saltpetre, which destroys its firmit has been laid on very thin it turns ness. violet. The Pompeians, however, as we The technical part of the Pompeian have seen, used the minium but seldom in paintings has been a matter of dispute for the later decorations. It was a very ex- more than a century. The painter Donpensive color, and it faded when exposed ner, in an interesting treatise, has gone to the sun unless it went through a process very fully into the arguments, of which we (called by the Greeks kausis) of covering can only give an outline here. The quesit, when the wall was dry, with hot Punic tion was, whether they were done in fresco, wax mixed with oil, and burning it in after-in tempera, or after the old method of the wards by approaching an iron pan with hot coals. This seems to have been rarely practised at Pompeii, and other reds such as red ochres or sinopis were used in preference. Some pictures after their excavation are as short-lived as the ephemeræ, and we owe a debt of gratitude to men like Zahn, Ternite, Raoul-Rochette, Presuhn, Niccolini, and many others, who have preserved us the colored drawings not only of those pictures which are still extant, and which we do not see in all their freshness as they did, but also those which unfortunately have perished. Zahn was for three years at Pompeii - in 1825, 1826, and 1827, and again in 1830, during some of the most important excavations and he made at once drawings on the spot of the principal objects. It was with him at Pompeii that Goethe's son stayed when the famous housecalled at first Casa di Goethe, but better known as the Casa del Fauno- was first excavated. Presuhn, who unfortunately died while the second edition of his valuable book was going through the press, lived eight years in Italy, and contributed, with the assistance of Signor Discanno and Miss Amy Butts, in keeping exact copies of many a painting which has now entirely, or almost entirely, disappeared. Notwithstanding that so much has been destroyed, there remain at Pompeii a large number of pictures which exhibit a marvellous amount of freshness. The preserVOL. LXXIII. 3781 LIVING AGE. Greeks in encaustic. It was suggested from the first that they were frescoes, but Carcani, with all the authority of a member of the Accademia Ercolanese, contradicted this view in the first volume of the "Pitture Antiche d'Ercolani," and maintained that, with few exceptions, they were done in tempera. Winckelmann seems to have agreed with him at first, though he became doubtful on the subject afterwards. Raphael Mengs than whom there could be no more competent judge, as he distinguished himself in fresco and tempera, as well as oil-painting-gave distinctly as his opinion that the pictures were frescoes. His views, however, do not seem to have had the weight they deserved. The Abbate Requeno had tried to prove that the grounds were frescoes and that the figures and ornaments were done in encaustic, and he carried with him Carlo Fea, Raphael Mengs's friend. This view prevailed for a long time. Early in the century, the French chemist, Chaptal, and afterwards Sir Humphry Davy, analyzed the pigments found in jars at Pompeii and in other Roman ruins, as well as fragments of the paintings, and proved that, with one exception, a pink color in a jar, probably the purpurissum of which Pliny speaks, they were minerals such as are used in fresco-painting, and that wax, the necessary ingredient for encaustic, was totally absent. But though this was convincing as far as the general character of the pictures went, the cherished idea still lingered in some minds that a few at least might be encaustics. Subsequent analyses made by Professor Geiger, from Heidelberg, in 1826, and in later times by the French chemist Chevreul, had different results. Geiger found wax, glue, and other organic substances in the stucco, but Donner attributes this fact to accident, and believes that the painted fragments taken out of the ruins, on which the experiments were made, had probably received a coating of varnish, as was usually done at the time of the excavation to preserve the pictures. This supposition is borne out by the testimony of Mazois, who witnessed the excavations early in the century, and who, after describing the process by which some of the paintings in the house of Sallust were varnished for their preservation, says: Cette expérience n'a pas eu le succès qu'on en attendait. Le dissolvant qui avait servi à étendre la cire et à lui procurer la transparence, s'étant volatilisé avec le temps, la cire a reparu dans son état naturel et a formé un tartre blanc qui a fait croire à quelques personnes que le procédé d'après lequel les parois avaient été peintes, était bien vraiment l'encaustique des anciens, tandis que ces peintures sont à fresque comme toutes celles de Pompéi. The presence of the other organic substances may be due to the frequent use of sea sandwhich contains many such in the preparation of the walls. Chevreul, though he found no wax, resin, or gum, also discovered traces of organic substances in the painted wall fragments, but he found neither animal nor vegetable matter in the pigments. In the controversy between the archæologists Letronne and Raoul-Rochette as to whether the Greeks painted the walls of their temples or decorated them with wood panel paintings, the vexed question of the methods employed by the ancients for their mural paintings also found a place. Letronne maintained that the Greeks did not paint in fresco, but used the fresco process merely for coloring their walls in the first instance, and painted in tempera or encaustic over it, and that this method had been followed at Pompeii. Raoul-Rochette was of opinion that the Greeks sometimes practised fresco-painting, but that it held a very subordinate place in Greek art, and that in the great days of Greece the temples had been hung with wood panel paintings. As for the Pompeian paintings, he believed them to have been done in tempera. Hirt in 1833, and Müller in 1835, wrote that the grounds alone were done in fresco, and the figures and ornaments in tempera, and this view was adopted by Overbeck in his second edition of " Pompeji." The architect Wiegmann, Welcker, and Kügler, however, all followed in Mengs's footsteps, and believed the Pompeian paintings to be frescoes, and there is no doubt that Mazois held the same view. Otto Donner, with a thorough knowledge of the subject, and with the admirable Teutonic industry, accuracy, and minuteness, has studied on the spot the methods employed for painting the Pompeian walls, and he has come to the conclusion that the pictures are chiefly frescoes, that the tempera painting only plays a subordinate and supplemen. tary part, and that there is no encaustic wall-painting. This view has been adopted by Overbeck in his last edition of "Pomevidence seem entirely in its favor. Pliny peji,' ," and the arguments as well as the says that wax colors are not suited to stucco walls, and no encaustic paintings have been found on the walls of any of the Roman ruins or of the Catacombs. It is essential not to confuse encaustic painting with the process called the kausis, already described, where the wax was merely laid on as a preserving varnish. Pliny's description of encaustic painting had, from its conciseness, led to various interpretations. He says:— In ancient times there were but two methods of encaustic painting, in wax and on ivory, with the cestrum or pointed graver. When, however, this art came to be applied to the painting of ships of war, a third method was adopted, that of melting the wax colors and laying them on with a brush while hot. ing of this nature applied to vessels will never spoil from the action of the sun, winds, or salt water. Paint The ship-painting is sufficiently clear, but it has been an open question whether the cestrum applied to both the first methods or only to painting on ivory. According to Donner's interpretation it was used for both, and from the fact of Pliny's frequent mention of painting with the brush as distinct from encaustic panel-painting, this interpretation seems the most probable. Donner believes that in painting on wood panels and ivory, the powdered colors, mixed with Punic wax reduced by means of a solvent to about the thickness of modelling wax, were laid on with the cestrum or spatula and burnt in afterwards with the rhabdion, an iron rod, which was heated. The cestrum was an instrument pointed at one end and flat at the other; S and Donner thinks that it was toothed at | cias. The tradition of encaustic, however, the flat end like the leaf of the Betonica, is so completely lost that the best authorthe plant called in Greek Cestros, from ities arrive at the most opposite apprewhich he derives its name. The painter, ciations. Donner, while recognizing its no doubt, had a variety of these instru- merits in greater brilliancy and depth of ments. Some of the portraits found by coloring, believes it to have been a limited Mr. F. Petrie on the Egyptian mummies process; and he concludes, from the fact at Rubajjât are the only specimens of an- that the great Greek painters constantly cient encaustic painting that we know to used other methods side by side with it, be genuine; and though they are but poor and also from its having been early abanspecimens of a period of decadence, they doned, that it was unsuited to the broad are invaluable on account of the light they treatment of large compositions. It is throw on this branch of ancient art. Both doubtful whether the greatest of Greek Donner and Cros and Henry clearly see painters, Apelles, painted in encaustic at the traces of the cestrum in these paint- all. Wiegmann and Brunn arrive at much ings, but they also see those of the brush. the same conclusion, and believe that oil. Donner, however, will not admit that in painting has many advantages over encausthe great works of encaustic art the brush tic. Cros and Henry, on the contrary, was used at all, while Cros and Henry be- give the preference to encaustic, arguing lieve it was used "du moins comme in- that wax, unlike oil, allies with all colors, strument préparatoire;" but they add: that it does not flake off, that neither sun, "Pourtant nous avons reconnu pratique- heat, damp, nor dust can hurt it, that time ment qu'on pouvait se contenter du ces- has no effect on it, and that it can be retrum." One specimen of painting on touched without inconvenience, and this ivory was found at Pompeii in the shape view is supported by Mr. Cecil Smith. of thin ivory tablets, painted with Egyptian figures and ornaments, and probably forming a casket, and these were given away on the spot by the Prince of Capua to an English lady, and, according to Raoul-Rochette, have never been traced since. There exists, however, at the British Museum an Egyptian casket, which is said to come from Herculaneum, and which corresponds with the description of the object found at Pompeii, and probably the two were very similar.* These caskets appear to have been in use at that time. A casket almost identical with the one in the Museum was found in the cemetery of Hawara, in Egypt. Drawings of it may be seen in Mr. F. Petrie's book. Encaustic, with the Greeks, was the nearest equivalent to modern oil-painting, and there can be no doubt that the Greek genius brought it to great perfection, for the ancient writers evidently thought as much of their painting as their sculpture. Painting, in fact, was not only an independent art, but it was the complement of sculpture. We know what value Praxiteles attached to the circumlitio of Ni Attempts to identify the two caskets have been fruitless. It was supposed that the English lady might have been Mrs. R. Auldjo, to whom the Prince of Capua gave part of the glass vase found in 1834 in the house of the Faun, which she gave to the British Museum, and which, united to its other half, is known as the Auldjo vase; but there is no record of how the casket found its way into the museum, and it is in too good condition to be identified with the object described by Raoul-Rochette in "Peintures Antiques Inédites," p. 379. A picture of a painter's studio was found at Pompeii, and reproduced by Mazois, but it was destroyed by the rain soon after the excavation. It represented one of the favorite caricatures of the Pompeian artists-namely, pigmies performing the avocations of men. One is the artist seated before his easel, with his brush in hand, painting another pigmy dressed up as a distinguished personage. Near him stands his palette, in the shape of a fourlegged table, on which the colors are spread and a jar for washing the brushes. Another pigmy mixes colors over a brazier. This evidently represents two methods, showing that while the painter is painting in tempera, he practised encaustic also. In 1851, in a shop in the Strada di Stabiæ, various materials for painting were found - pieces of pumice-stone, pitch, resin, several pigments, a pestle, and jar for pounding the colors-in which Donner recognizes the materials required for the coarser method of encaustic painting employed for ships. Some crushed pieces of resin had been mixed with yellow ochre, from which it would seem as if resin as well as wax might be used in this process. No wax was found in the shop, and indeed very little in Pompeii. The reasons Donner gives for concluding that the pictures are frescoes are: that the colors on the walls are real fresco colors; that the careful preparation of the stucco rendered any mixture with the colors unnecessary; that in many cases he them, moreover, exposed to a much stronger light than they were intended for, since the rooms in a Roman house received all their light from the atrium and peristylium. We would fain ask who were these wonderful decorators whose work, after nearly two thousand years, fills us with admiration? It is probable that the houses were decorated by associations of But has found the joints, though carefully concealed under the ornaments, where a fresh ground had to be made; that fresco being the most lasting process it was also the most likely to be used for wall-painting. From the directions Vitruvius gives about wall-decoration, it is clear that fresco was the only suitable method, and he points to the ancient Greek walls as models. In fact, Donner believes that tempera paint-painters which were formed in those days ings would long ago have perished. It is true that the Egyptians painted in tempera thousands of years before the Pompeians painted their walls, and that their colors have shown greater durability than those of the Pompeians; but this is mainly owing to the extreme dryness of their climate, while at Pompeii the pictures almost always come to light in a very damp condition, and take several weeks to dry, before the preserving varnish can be put over them. The process of fresco secco (that is, wetting the wall, covering it with a layer of lime, and painting upon it; or painting straight on the wet wall with colors mixed with lime) has also been traced at Pompeii, while tempera has been used principally for touching up. Donner refutes an error of Carcani, adopted by Overbeck in his second edition, that the fresco colors combine chemically with the stucco, and become inseparable from it. This is not the case. The water alone penetrates into the stucco, while the particles of color adhere firmly to the surface. Through the absorption of the water, part of the hydrate of lime in the stucco is dissolved. It rises to the surface, and is converted into carbonate of lime, giving the paint a coating which not only protects it, but imparts a greater lustre to the colors. It is evident that the thicker the stucco is, the more water it absorbs and the more time it allows for the composition before drying, while a larger proportion of the solution of hydrate of lime is developed. Uninteresting as the subject of the technique may seem, it is most important for the right appreciation of the Pompeian paintings. The defects in the details, such as occasional inaccuracy of drawing, want of finish, and the absence of the more del icate shades of expression, are more easily accounted for; and our admiration will increase if we consider the hasty process by which such a marvellous combination of artistic work was produced. We see 66 66 to satisfy the enormous demand for works |