Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

artistic evidence and its interpretation 891
three angels represent the Trinity and the symbolic meal of bread and wine
foretelling the eucharist (which was celebrated in the church itself on the
altar in the sanctuary area below the mosaic). Neither of the cycles is a
simple narrative.
The decorators of the mosaics have also developed their means of
expression far beyond the conventions of the manuscripts of the period,
and they have reacted to the problems of a monumental environment.
They had to make the scenes somehow visible to the audience despite their
height above the colonnade and despite the difficulties of viewing which
result from daylight shining through windows. The use of gold around the
figures was one response to such problems; it was a device which succeeded
in marking and highlighting the principal figures, while at the same time
giving them increased symbolic status by their penumbra of gold. Making
the imagery visible had its spin-offs, too. This treatment of the scene of
Abraham and the three angels can be compared with another rendering in
the mosaics in San Vitale in Ravenna over a century later. Here the artists
have again explored and refined visual strategies to make the scene readable
from the floor of the church (perhaps after study of the S. Maria
Maggiore panel itself). In Ravenna a more linear style and an increase in the
size and scale of the figures as they are placed higher on the wall have
solved the viewing problems. In these churches, the mosaics were set
tessera by tessera directly and pragmatically on the walls – not in the studio
or in front of manuscripts – and the skills of presentation derive from
experience gained in the monuments.
In the face of an art-historical literature which has in general emphasized
broad-scale change but failed to offer any consensus on what that change
was or how it can be described or explained, it is likely that style history
must in future be more closely aligned with the indications of history and
literature. If decline is to be replaced by a meaningful notion of transformation,
we shall need to be aware of the formalistic contribution but also
to go beyond its limitations and accept that we are seeing a religious art
under development. 15 Although there are collections of texts about art in
this period (notably by C. Mango and C. Davis-Weyer), 16 the implications
for the history of art of such evocative authors at Paulinus of Nola,
Corippus, Procopius, Choricius of Gaza and Gregory of Tours (among
others) have been more signalled than explored by art historians.
The aim of this chapter is to cover the special and distinctive arthistorical
features of the period from 425 to 600, which does offer an
identifiable phase in the history of art, even if it lacks an agreed label. It is
a time replete with major works and innovations, which established the
15 Elsner (1995) exploits the primary literature more than Mathews (1993); for a critical review of
Mathews, see P. Brown in the Art Bulletin 77 (1995) 499–502.
16 Davis-Weyer (1971) and Mango (1972).
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