THE arabesques of the Vatican have been noticed before; there were, however, arabesques on the ceiling of the Sala del Cambio at Perugia, painted by Perugino, Raphael’s master, also in the Borgia apartment at the Vatican, and in the Villa Madama; arabesques of the latter are said to have been copied from the plaster work in Hadrian’s villa near Tivoli.

Raphael, being one of the greatest modern painters, added to the beauty of this sort of decoration by the exquisite drawing and composition of the figures. Some of the medallions at the Loggias contain subjects said to be taken from antique gems, and Scripture subjects are also introduced; the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise is balanced by one of Omphale and Hercules, the queen having the club.

When a cipher or a sign conveys to our minds an idea, or an association of ideas, we call it a “symbol,” particularly if the idea is connected with religion. The commonest form met with in symbolic art is the circle, as the symbol of eternity, from its having neither beginning nor ending; it often appears as a serpent with its tail in its mouth, for this, like many other Pagan symbols, was adopted by the early Christians. The circle in the shape of a wheel has perhaps had the widest signification in art. The wheel of fire, or sun-wheel, was an emblem of the Teutonic sun-worshippers. The tchakra, or sacred wheel, is the emblem of the religion of Brahma; it is the shield of Brahma and Vishnu, as a wheel of fire; it is to the Siamese a type of universal dominion, a sign of disaster, and the symbol of eternity. (See Fig. 168.) The wheel form at Fig. 169 is the kikumon or badge of the Empire of Japan; it is derived, however, from the chrysanthemum.

Christian art, from the beginning of the first century of our era to the fourth, consisted almost entirely of symbols. The first Christians were fearful lest their new converts should relapse into Paganism, and so avoided images; and being persecuted they used only a few symbols such as the fish, the dove, the lamb, and the monogram of Christ. This last consisted of two Greek letters X and P (Chi and Rho), the Chi forming the cross as shown at A in Fig. 170; another form of this is shown at B, in which a cross has the Rho formed on the upright stem, and has the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (Alpha and Omega) written beneath the arms. This form sometimes appears on the nimbus over the head of a lamb; the latter sometimes stands on a round hill, at the bottom of which issue four streams, the whole symbol signifying “Christ the first and the last, the Lamb of God,” the streams “the four evangelists whose gospels are the water of life to the whole world.”

At C, Fig 170, we have the monogram that the Emperor Constantine placed on the labarum, or

Imperial standard, after his conversion; it was woven in gold on purple cloth. Christ was sometimes represented as Orpheus, with a lyre in his hand, amid the birds and beasts; the commonest personification of Him was, however, as the Good Shepherd caring for His sheep, in which He was always represented young and beautiful. Every allegorical representation of the Founder of the Christian religion was rendered pleasing to the eye of the new converts, and anything pertaining to the dreadful scene of the Crucifixion was avoided. The Christian Church was symbolized under the form of a ship, with our Lord as the pilot and the congregation as the passengers; whence we may have the word nave (of a church), from navis, a ship; naus, a ship, was also the Greek name for the inner part of a temple.

The dove in Christian art is the emblem of fidelity and of the Holy Spirit, the pelican of the Atonement, and the phoenix of the Resurrection. One of the symbols of our Lord is a fish, because its Greek name ????? (Ichthus) contains the initials of “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.” It was also used as the symbol of a Christian passing through the world without being sullied by it, as the fish is sweet, in spite of its living in salt water; it is found engraved in the soft stone of the Roman catacombs (where the early Christians took refuge), with the monogram and other inscriptions. The Vesica piscis, or fish form, often encloses the Virgin and Child, and is the common form of the seals of religious houses, abbeys, colleges, &c. The four evangelists are represented respectively as a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle,—St. Mark being the lion, the calf St. Luke, the man St. Matthew, and the eagle St. John.

Many plants are used as symbols in Christian art: the vine, as typical of Christ, during Byzantine times and the Middle Ages. In Scripture we find frequent allusions to the vine and grapes; the wine-press is typical of the “Passion,” as we read in Isaiah. The passion-flower, as its name denotes, was, and is, used as an emblem of the death of Christ. The lily is the emblem of purity, and has always been used as the attribute of the Virgin Mary in pictures of the Annunciation. We find this plant often engraved on the tombs of early Christian virgins. From the iris, formerly called a lily, is derived the flower de luce, or fleur-de-lis, one of the finest conventional renderings of any flower; it was much used as a decoration in sculpture, painting, and weaving during the thirteenth and following centuries. It was the royal insignia of France; mediÆval Florence bore it on her shield and on her coin, the fiorino; and it was used in the crowns of many sovereigns, from King Solomon down to our own Queen. The trefoil is an emblem of the Trinity, and is a common form in Gothic decoration.

The symbolic and mnemonic classes have now been described, and the Æsthetic alone remains. Æsthetic form we owe to the clearness and directness of the Greek mind. The Greeks were contented with the simple solution of the problem before them, which was to beautify what they had in hand. If they wanted allegorical subjects they confined them to their figure subjects, and being thus freed from other disturbing elements, they concentrated their whole attention on perfecting floral form. They attained perfection in this as they did in their figures, by correcting the peculiarities of the individual by a study of the best specimens of a whole class; and thus succeeded in making the most perfect type of radiating ornament, and of adapting it to sculpture and painting, on flat and curved surfaces. This ornament has perfect fitness, for you can neither add to it nor take away from it without spoiling its perfection. The same may be said, only in a minor degree, of the colour applied to the carved patterns of the Saracens and Moors: they are both Æsthetic works, solely created for their beauty. A symphony in music is a composition of harmonious sounds; it has little subject-matter, and is analogous to Æsthetic ornament, only the ear is charmed by the former, as the eye is by the latter.