FINE ARTS (ITALIAN)
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FINE ARTS (VENETIAN)
which was originally a Christian church built in 532 A. D. by Justinian, but which is now a Mohammedan mosque in Constantinople. In Constantinople, also, is located St. Sergius, another example of Byzantine architecture. This building, like San Vitale in Ravenna, has an octagonal ground-plan and is surmounted with a dome.
Byzantine art spread its influence far and wide and until the i2th century and, in some places, until much later, it dominated the art of the Christian world. In Venice is an example of this influence in St. Mark's. In Russia, where we find the fantastic bulbous dome, and in Greece the Byzantine style of building has remained the approved style of the Greek Catholic church. There are buildings of this type in Greece, on Mt. Athos and in Athens. Probably the most marked influence it has exerted is on Mohammedan architecture even to the present time. See Hamlin's History of Architecture.
ITALIAN ART
In Italy have arisen and developed three successive styles of architectxire, namely, the Roman, the Byzantine and the western Romanesque. Each of these has produced its own distinct type of decorative painting and sculpture. We have treated Byzantine art under a separate head. Italian painting and sculpture, which belong more particularly to the last named style of architecture, will be dealt with in detail in the biographies of the artists of the renaissance, which is said to begin with the work of Cimabue, who is called "the father of modern painting," in the i3th century.
Cimabue and especially his pupil and successor, Giotto, tried to break away from the traditions of the church that had fettered the Byzantine painters and sculptors; and they gradually grew toward a representation of the human figure that had grace and beauty as well as more truth of drawing.
There were two great centers of culture and art that produced the majority and the greatest of the Italian masters. These centers were Florence and Venice. The Florentine school comprised such artists as Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio, Fra An-gelico, Botticelli, Raphael, Lionardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. The Venetian school claims the two Bellini, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. Montegna came from Padua, Corregio from Parma, and Perugino with a group of student? makes up the Umbrian school.
Venetian Architecture. Situated halfway between the Byzantine and Franconian empires, Venice became the market-city of exchange between two powers. Artists from the east and west were drawn to this great bazar, and aative workers accom-
panied the ships that pillaged oriental cities of materials and ideas. The Venetian artisan was clever enough to learn the secrets of many trades, and imitated them,—to the gain of decorative Venice. The architects and builders had not the severe and practical training of the Pisan and Florentine. There was no internal warfare in the republic, and therefore no need of household fortresses. Therefore the Venetian seized upon the picturesque and fantastic styles in others, and grafted them upon a building suited to his needs. For instance: Venetian palaces face canals; some on cross-intersections of waterways: therefore angle-windows were introduced, that the owner might have two views. These were faulty in construction,—but how convenient! The useless screen over Ponte del Paradiso would be ridiculous, if it were not a gem of the sculptor's chisel. A lack of coherence is one of the marked demerits in Venetian building, although that is balanced by a keen sense of the picturesque.
Among the most important examples are the' Byzantine cathedral of St. Mark; the Gothic palace of the doges; and the renaissance church of S. Maria dei Miracoli, where the evolution in type of construction is seen. St. Mark's, Venice, with its oriental columns, its sculptures, bronzes and mosaics, is a museum as well as a church, for here are found the spoils of battle as well as the symbols of peace. The mosaics are set to show a tiny rim of plaster; this opaque rim of white, combined with the bits of gold and colored glass, produces a glow upon the walls that is matchless.
The two lower arcades of the doges' palace are among the best in Europe, but the building is badly marred, because the third story, planned to rest on the back of the upper arcade, was brought forward flush with its front edge. The marble facing, however, of this despised third story is built into the wall, instead of being stuck on. as was usual elsewhere. The sixteenth-century library, built by Sansovino, with its double colonnade of open arches and embedded columns, is one of the finest secular buildings in Europe.
This edifice, with the cathedral and the ducal palace, forms a noble group about that heart of Venice, the Square of St. Mark. From the water-gate of this square Palladio's Campanile of San Giorgio cleaves the sky and is a bright foil to the great dome of S. Maria della Salute.
We embark and glide down the Grand Canal, with "glorified streets" in the form of bridges and lined with old palaces, showing the same fine distinction of style in Gothic or Renaissance, as their owners in family and position, and then the eye falls on one of consummate grace; so satisfying is it to a lover of pure beauty, that one knows instinctively that he looks upon
