IV. CONCLUSION 211

§ 17. On the opposite plate the uppermost figure on the left is a tolerably faithful representation of the general effect of one of these decorative olive-trees; the figure on the right is the head of the tree alone, showing the leaf clusters, berries, and interlacing of the boughs as they leave the stem. Each bough is connected with a separate line of fibre in the trunk, and the junctions of the arms and stem are indicated, down to the very root of the tree, with a truth in structure which may well put to shame the tree anatomy of modern times.

§ 18. The white branching figures upon the serpentine band below are two of the clusters of the flowers which form the foreground of a mosaic in the atrium. I have printed the whole plate in blue, because that colour approaches more nearly than black to the distant effect of the mosaics, of which the darker portions are generally composed of blue, in greater quantity than any other colour. But the waved background, in this instance, is of various shades of blue and green alternately, with one narrow black band to give it force; the whole being intended to represent the distant effect and colour of deep grass, and the wavy line to express its bending motion, just as the same symbol is used to represent the waves of water. Then the two white clusters are representative of the distinctly visible herbage close to the spectator, having buds and flowers of two kinds, springing in one case out of the midst of twisted grass, and in the other out of their own proper leaves; the clusters being kept each so distinctly symmetrical, as to form, when set side by side, an ornamental border of perfect architectural severity; and yet each cluster different from the next, and every flower, and bud, and knot of grass, varied in form and thought. The way the mosaic tesserę are arranged, so as to give the writhing of the grass blades round the stalks of the flowers, is exceedingly fine.

The three circles below are examples of still more severely conventional forms, adopted, on principle, when the decoration is to be in white and gold, instead of colour; these ornaments

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