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40 EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. Chap. I. constantly recognized not merely by his nimbus but by his tall stature, by his face and warrior’s dress. A rapid and sketchy execution in thin water-colour of light rosy tones, freely carried out with the brush in the Pompeian style; — all this, though combined with some defects of anatomy and coarseness of extremities, reveals an artist of the earlier times. Yet an inscription on the parchment would lead the student to consider these miniatures as a work of the ninth century. If this were so, it must be conceded that the painter not only imitated the antique in form and composition but also in technical execution. Vignette miniatures of still more classical forms, inter spersed among the leaves of an old MS. of Virgil 1 at the Vatican, are interesting in another sense. Their technical execution may be accurately described by a careful analysis of parts bared by the dropping of the upper surface. In landscape scenes, for instance, the whole surface appears to have been covered with an uniform blue tone, upon which antique groups and the short square Roman figures were drawn. The colour of the flesh tints and vestments was then laid on in body colour, the shadows strongly marked with a deep brown tint and the lights of draperies with gold. 2 The execution is probably due to an inferior artist of the fifth century, spirited in rendering incident but feeble in knowledge of form, as the coarse figures and large round eyes fully prove, yet imitating in the most faithful manner the classic forms of antiquity. One may indeed point to a Laocoon, which is hut too evidently an inspiration from the celebrated marble of that group. Another work of this time or of the close of the fourth century is the Homer, now in the Ambrosiana at Milan, quite in the character of the Roman art of the period under notice, the classical move ment for instance of a figure of Homer its warm and trans parent colour combining to make it one beautiful of its kind. 3 some attitudes are quite artistic. Defects of anatomy in the ex tremities may be frequently no ticed. The technical execution is that of a water-colour of light transparent tones. The drawing which may be seen, where parts of the miniature have been rubbed down is executed with a brush, not with point, and the system is not that which can be found in later miniatures. 1 Rome, Library of the Vatican. MSS. Nr. 3225. 2 The colour is laid on with great impasto, of a general red tone in the flesh tints. The lights of the draperies are touched in gold. The forms, though imitated from the antique, are not without defects, and the eyes particularly are large, round and staring. 3 Of course allusion is made only to those parts which are not damaged or retouched.