Most of the earliest Cliristian art that has been discovered is in the C.iii i,,!.^ ^f i;,„iir. Tlri- does not mean, as A\ • . ihat tii.'
Church of Italj- was aii: 'i' i'm i,-i ,,i tli,-
Church was not; still l'-~ •'.'••■- ii -how, a~ iv popularly imagined, that the Kdinan Cliristi.iiis used the Catacombs as their churches and piT- manent hiding-places. The art of the Cataccniilis has survived because it has been preserved umler-
ART
•iround ; but it was not the only art, and the early Christians worshipped above ground like every- lx)dy else, except in the case of occasional services for the departed. But hardly anything has sur- vived of tlie art above ground : in literature we have only hints that stir but do not satisfy the imagination,— as when Eusebius tells us {HE viii. 12) that in times of persecution tlie churches were pulled down (as by Diocletian in 302), and men- tions that the church at Nicomedia, destroyed in 303, was of great size and importance {cle Mart. Pcrs. 12, 'fanuni illud editissimum '). At a time when not the buildings only, but the very books of the Christians were destroyed, it was in the burial- places— immune by Roman law from molestation, and hidden away from the ravages of sun and air, and of barbarians ancient and modem— that works of art survived ; and to the Catacombs we must turn for our evidence. There is every reason to suppose that the art which we find there is typical of that of the whole Church ; for (1) the Cliristian Churches were bound together by remarkably close ties in the first three centuries ; (2) tlie sym- bolism of the Catacombs is shown by the early literature to have been that of the rest of the Church also ; and (3) there was a uniformity of art throughout the empire, of which Rome was the cosmopolitan centre, — an Italian city indeed in which most of the art was executed by Greeks.
Enough description for our present purpose of the paintings in the Catacombs will be found in the article on Chrlst IN ART. To that article, which deals with Christian art on its most import- ant side (the Christological), reference may also be made for illustrations from the other arts which are here more briefly mentioned. It will suffice here to make a few general statements. (1) Pictorial art is found in the earliest catacombs, belonging to a period before the end of the 1st cent., as well as in those of later date ; (2) the first Christians must have been fond of art to use it so freely in the dark : the cubkula of the Catacombs, which were only visited occasionally, and where nothing could be painted or seen except by lamp-light, must represent art at its minimum. Yet that art is both good and abundant. (3) Among the very earliest examples, figures are included as well as merely decorative subjects of animals, flowers, etc. (4) The art is the highly developed art of the Roman Empire, which was at its height in the 1st and 2nd centuries, and declined after the reign of Hadrian. (5) The art of the Catacombs is there- fore Christian only in that it generally represents Christian subjects, and that it acquires almost at once a certain marked character of mystic sym- bolism which is peculiar to the ages of persecu- tion. Certainly there is something about this early painting which at once distinguishes it as Christian. Its authors were intent on expressing ideas, — not the technical theolo^ of an ecclesi- astical system, but the faith and hope of ordinary Christian people, —therefore they use suggestion and symbol, and are fond of a conventional treat- ment even of Scripture subjects, ami thus their work is marked by a quiet reser\e tliat excludes all reference to the sutterings and death of the martyrs, :unl <l\\ells upon the life and power of Chri-t, iKii u]">ii His death and passion. This art is ni:iiki'.l l.\ simplicity, happiness, and peace; it de;iN uiily' with such OT and NT and other subjects as could bear a mystical inti'i |.ri-t:ition in roiiiiexion with the delivcrami- :iii.l liapi.iuess of t lie departed through the pow^r of ( In i-t :iiul the ■jrace of the sacraments. It is sdiin'tiiiics of a tii;;h technical order and of great beauty, though the ditticulties of its execution led to its being often sketchy in character. Born full-grown in the 1st cent., it passed in the 2nd into this second
AKT
mystical period, declining after the 2nd cent, gradually in technique, as the pagan art was declining. After the Peace of the Church in the 4th cent, it passes into its third period, when it.s symbolism is more obvious, more didactic and dogmatic.
Sculpture naturally does not appear so early as painting. The dark catacombs were no place for its display, though in them it ha-s its beginnings in the graffiti or incised designs which are common on the tombs. These were easily to be seen, and could be wrought on the spot, which was an im- portant consideration in days when it was difficult to order Christian sculpture from pagan shops. It would be an easier matter to have executed in the public studios a subject tliat could bear a pagan interpretation ; and thus it is that we do find a statue of the Good Shepherd which probably belongs to the 3rd cent., though one would natur- ally expect Christians who lived in pagan times to be shy of the use of statuary. In the 4tli cent, the growing custom of burial above ground, coupled with the prosperity of the Church, en- couraged tlie use of sculptured sarcophagi (cf. Christ in Art). E,\cellent carved ivories arc also found at this period, but art had been steadily declining since Hadrian's time, and after the 6th cent, no good sculpture of any sort is found. There was no opposition to it in the West, but in the East the Iconoclastic controversy (716-867) led to the wholesale destruction of 'images,' whether painted or carved ; and though it ended in the restoration of pictures, there was a tacit compromise by which statues were not restored, in spite of the decision in favour of ' images ' by the Second Council of Nictea (787). This renunciation of statuary in the Eastern Church grew into a passionate aversion to its use inside a place of worship, — an aversion which con- tinues stul.