Christ giving crowns tn than the beginning of tl
30f
s not earlier There
sculpture of Christ enthroned on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (t 350) ; and the same subject is often beautifully carved on the ivories of the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries. By the end of the 4th cent, the great mosaic pictures of Christ in glory begin, the earliest being in the church of St. Pudenziana in Rome, c. 390. These became thenceforward the leading feature of the apsidal decoration of the basilicas in the 5th and 6tli centuries ; and they are by far the greatest and the most imposing of the early pictures of our Lord. He is represented in these mosaics as en- throned in the glory of the Apocalypse, among the angels, the Apostles, and other saints and martjTS. The last great mosaic of our Lord occurs over the central door within the nave of St. Sofia, Con- stantinople : in this famous picture Christ sits upon a throne, while an emperor prostrates him- self at His feet, and on either side are medallions of the Virgin and St. Michael.
Pictures and statues of our Lord in Majesty are common in the Middle Ages, when other symboli- cal representations occur. A favourite one'(\vliicli is often found in the uppermost light of stained glass windows, and in other forms of art) is the Coronation of the Virgin by our Lord, which, like the Mass of St. Gregory, is cliaracteristie of the change that had come over Christendom at that time. There should be mentioned also, as illus- trating tlie lowest depths of materialism in re- ligious art, the anthropomorphic representations of the Holy Trinity, which appear as early as the 9th cent. ; in some the Son bears a cross, while the Father is distinguished by a tiara, and the Holy Spirit by a dove over His head ; in others there are two human figures with a dove between them ; in others the Father holds a Crucifi.x upon \\ Inch a dove descends: there are even exaiuiJes of a human figure with three faces.
ymbol by itself the
by flames and the Crown ... ii...ii.-.
3. Types of Portraiture.— In the first five cen- turies three distinct types appear in the portraiture of Christ. They are thus classified by Detzel :
First type. — A youthful beardless figure of purely ideal character, such as is found in the usual classical subjects, thus representing the perfect and eternal humanity of our Lord. Kraus calcu- lates that there are 104 examples of this type in the Catacombs, 97 in the sarcophagi, 14 in the mosaics, 45 in gold "lasses, 50 in other arts, and 3 in MSS. Although the earliest representations are of this kind (indeed the 3rd and 4th cent, pictures of Christ in Majesty are as purely ideal as are the 1st and 2nd cent, pictures of the Good Shepherd), there are instances also of the beardless Christ in the mosaics [e.g. in the Raising of Lazarus at St. Apollinare Nuova, and the Throned Christ at St. Vitale, both of the 6tli cent.), in the time of Charlemagne, and as late as the 13th cent., e.g. in the golden altar at Aix-la-Chapelle, where the Christ is of youthful aspect and enthroned.
Second type. — Christ is represented bearded, in the fulness of manly strength ; thus there is still the conception of an ideal humanity, immortal and unmortitied, without harshness and without sorrow. Examples occur frequently in the mosaics of the 4tli to 6th cents., as at St. Pudenziana, St. Maria Maggiore at Rome, St. Apollinare in Classe, and St. Vitale at Ravenna ; ami also in the late 7th or 8th cent, fresco of the Catacombs of St. Generosa.
Third type. — The Byzantine type, which appears thrice in the Roman 'mosaics of the 5th and 6tli cents, (e.g. at St. Paolo fuori le Mure), and em- bodies the growing monastic asceticism of the time. Christ in this type appears older and more severe, with longer hair and beard, deep-set eyes and hard features. This developed into the still harder and stifl'er ' debased Byzantine ' type.
To these may be added the Modern type, in which artists innumerable have striven to embody their highest conceptions of human perfection and Divine goodness. After the long sleep of pictorial art, the revival of sculpture and painting gave us such statues as the Beau Dieu of Amiens, and all the famous pictures of such artists as Orcagna, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Perugiuo, Raphael, Leonardo, Luini, ]\Iichael Angelo, Titian, Durer, Guido, Murillo, Rubens, — to mention only some typical instances, — and the many works of our own times. All have followed in the main the type which the media'val and Renaissance artists obtained from the legendary descriptions which are mentioned below.
iv. The Question of the Likeness of Christ. — It is obvious from what has been already stated, that no tme portraits of Christ have come down to us, and that no attempt was made at reproducing His likeness in the first centuries. The earliest portraits varied much in type, and had only this in common— that they were all idealistic, repre- senting the countenance of a man unmarred by faults or peculiarities ; while, in particular, the art of the Catacombs and of the earliest sculpture, with entire disregard of historic aetnality, repre- sented the Lord under tin- ly\>'- "f .i licautiful youth. The early controver>y a- to tin- ai.pearance of Christ shows how entirely all tradition of His actual appearance was lost.