volume. In Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and elsewhere in the
East a great deal was also being done in early times and production
continued there till Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were overrun by the
Moslems just before the middle of the seventh century. Though little
remains on the spot, quite a large number of portable works can be
assigned to these places; they mostly found their way to Cathedral
Treasuries and monasteries in the West at an early date. Many
smaller centres in the East were also far from insignificant, and as
we proceed we will have cause to call attention to paintings and
carvings in ivory which must have been produced in out-of-the-way
places rather than in the great centres; they are naturally less sophis-
ticated, but they nonetheless show the heritage of a great tradition,
and sometimes, in addition, they are distinguished by the originality
and freshness characteristic of a young art.

Our survey will thus be a wide sweeping one from the point of
view of the area it embraces; it will also include works of a very
diverse character. Something will be said of architecture, 'the mother
of the arts' and the frame in which so many of the other works we
speak of were set. The great mosaics and wall-paintings will receive
full consideration, and so will book-illustrations and panel-paintings
--icons as they are usually called. But in the East Christian world
the close distinctions so often drawn in the West between 'art' and
craft' were never really applicable, and the things on a small scale,
ivory carvings, textiles, works in precious metal or enamels, even
pottery, are often just as much works of art as are large-scale paint-
ings or sculptures. The small things, too, will therefore receive
attention in the text and figure frequently among the illustrations.

This does not mean, of course, that no large-scale works were
produced. The great mosaics of the Byzantine world, the wall-
paintings of Coptic Egypt or the Balkans, the sculptures that adorn
the tympana or even the entire façades of many a church in Armenia
and Georgia are all on a major scale. Indeed, the actual area of wall-
space that was covered by mosaics and paintings in the East Christian
world has probably never been exceeded, even in Renaissance Italy,
and though much has perished, work that extends over very many
square metres still survives. Some of it is, of course, primitive, some

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