Art-Jottings In Art-Studios.

ART-JOTTINGS IN ART-STUDIOS .

BY BRO . REV . W . TEBBS . MUBAL DECORATION— " FEESCO . "—I . "And on this . " npiIE art of "Mural Paintingas we have before very "brieflnoticedis of extreme

, y , - * - antiquity , and of Mural Painting possibly the most ancient form is "fresco . " AVhen we put forth this statement , however , it must be understood to be made with this reservation , that by " mural" painting here we mean the art when it had approached something like maturity . As for wall-painting in its earliest stages , in all probability , as it strikes us , and probably -would strike anyone that gave it a thought , colour would be applied to wallsold as well as newwhenever it struck the possessor of the wall

, , that a little decoration of this kind would be an improvement . To dogmatize upon the relative antiquity of the respective processes of any art is , at best , a somewhat hazardous proceeding ; ancl any conclusions that we draw from such slight premises as those pertaining to the original forms of the various arts are very apt to be overthrown , or , at least , considerably modified . AVe , therefore , think it better to state our opinions more hi the form of suggestions than of statements which have undergone or will be

able to undergo the test of definite proof . Wall-painting doubtless had its origin in a very simple way . Men—just as we often see mischievous or thoughtless boys do now—sketched upon the walls of their abodes . Very rude these sketches would be at first , and very simple wotdd be the materials employed . Probably , a good example of what we mean is the already quoted " portrait of a lover" executed by the lady ' s sweetheart in burnt stick on the garden

, wall . In fact , all lands of objects , animate and inanimate , were doubtless depicted for all sorts of purposes , in all manner of places , with every species of material . Such representations would , no doubt , in time he designed to serve the purposes of religious or historical representations , although at first they might have been simply executed for ornament , or even been the freaks of some imaginative genius , who , on the spin- of the moment , thus gave vent to his creative or imitative faculty .

Putting altogether aside the consideration of those crude efforts that were doubtless the parents of the pictorial art , not only of the branch of it known as "fresco , " but of all other kinds as well , we find amidst our archseological researches instances of finelyexecuted specimens of a very early date indeed . Thus it is with the buildings of ancient Egypt , the sepulchral monuments of Etraria , the walls of the disentombed dwelling-houses of Pompeii , ancl the sides of the Catacombs of the Eternal City . In all

these places the remains . of mural decoration are supposed to have been executed in " fresco . " The wall-paintings of Pompeii are particularly remarkable for the grandeur aud purity in the style of their drawing and design . The manner of their execution is slight and free ; ancl from this feature , as well as from the frequent repetition of the same objects and designs , it has been conjectured that the paintings are merely copies by decorators of originals , which were paintings of note in the temples or palaces of

Rome . Whether these originals were "frescoes , " or moveable " panels , " has long been a matter of dispute . The Greeks , as we have before remarked , are stated to have preferred moveable pictures , which coidd be sold or removed if necessity shoidd arise from fire or other accident ; whilst Pliny asserts that Apelles never painted on walls . Various pictures of immense value , again , were stated to have been taken from Greece to Rome . To whatever conclusion we may come , however , as to the orig in of the designs at Pompeii , there are the drawings themselves upon the walls ; and upon a