Anna Maria Elizabeth Cust

“ From the earliest dawn of the human race until our time, Ivory has held a first place as a material for making the pleasing little luxuries of life, religious or civil. Cave-Man has left behind him incised sketches of animals, the product of his leisure moments; all literature tells of the use of it, and the digger’s spade turns up a series of charming objects, from the ornamental hair combs of a prehistoric princess, who dazzled the Egyptian court some 7000 years B.C., to the ivory-handled walking-stick of some gouty old Greek who lived at the outset of this most prosaic era. ”

“ Charlemagne, crowned emperor in 800, if not perhaps the wondrous hero of tradition, was a very powerful factor in the history and civilization of his day, and exerted all his energy to introduce order and learning among the vast hordes of barbarians who more or less willingly acknowledged his rule. He stirred up all latent powers, introduced new ideas and stimulated an admiration for all Roman culture, being dazzled quite as much by the actual pomp and splendour of the Constantinopolitan court as by the memories of ancient Rome. ”

“ The same breath which awakened the life in architecture freed the sculptor from the chains of custom, and we may consider the statues on the porch at Chartres as the commencement of modern sculpture. Like the Greeks, the Gothic artists formed a type by the process of selection from individuals. The new art was at first absolutely religious and simple, but the research for grace and the ever growing naturalism, mitigated, it is true, by extreme elegance and delicacy, gradually engrossed the entire mind of the artist and ended in the exclusion of all spirituality. ”

“ The woman present at the sale of Joseph, holds her hand in her veil like many a stately figure in Roman art, but the meeting of Joseph with his old father is quite modern in its emotional force, the old man tremblingly totters forward into the arms of his stalwart young son, and one cannot help feeling irritated at the bystanders’ conventional gestures as they gaze on such a touching scene. ”

“ Even in ivory carving, which is always behind the age, we find an almost ludicrous barbarity. An ivory tablet of the eighth century in the Bologna Museum is a fair example of this mixed style; it has three tiers of scenes from the Nativity, and shows strong Byzantine influence, yet there is something in the treatment of the drapery, barbaric as it is, which seems to lead on to the later Italian style of the eleventh century, which definitely connects with the earliest Gothic art in France. ”

“ Above all, it is the hands and the well-proportioned muscular feet, which show the power of the real artist escaping from the conventionality of his subject. On the back of the panel he has freed himself entirely from the spell of classical antiquity and drunk deeply of new oriental ideas, creating a most decorative design, illustrating the “Triumph of the Cross,” which rises, ornamented with roses, above the flowering earth, stretching up to the skies, which are thickly covered with stars, and bear the Greek inscription Jesus Christ Victorious. ”

“ Secondly the near presence of the powerful and rapidly assimilating barbarian, who imitating all things, often ignorant of their meaning, and incapable of good workmanship, reduced art in the Western Empire to the lowest ebb.
In Constantinople there lingered a fading shadow of the old Greek spirit, which, at least, inspired the craftsman to finished workmanship and a love of elegant form. ”

“ The relief of the Rhenish carvings is usually bold, and the figures large and long, but they often lack both the spontaneity of the Germans and the elegance of the Byzantines. A charming representation of the Nativity encircled by an embattled wall, and another plaque with the Visitation of the Magi, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, show these features, the figures having almost the appearance of children’s toys set out at random without the slightest relation to the background. ”

“ A great triumphal joy seems to break out in the glowing mosaics of the earlier basilicas, and again and again, Christ, the Mighty, the Ruler, is represented in enormous size on the glittering walls, and not a trace of His sufferings, which formed the chief theme of later art. ”

“ There are a number of ivories of a double character, strongly influenced by Byzantine art yet not so closely allied to the Ravenna Throne as those already mentioned. The magnificent angel in the British Museum should probably be classed among these (frontispiece) . It is the first half of a diptych of unusual size, and though the drapery is a little unmeaning in places, still it is good, and with the rich architecture and the thickly feathered wings, forms a splendid whole. There is nothing to compare with it in the sixth century for firmness of design ”

“ There is no real break between Classical art and that of the Middle Ages; the early Christian was the last phase of Roman art, and the Church handed on with the Christian religion a mass of Judaic and Latin culture which the barbarian races, having none of their own, accepted, but through their different nature and requirements, modified and debased. ”

“ The angel coming to the Virgin to announce her death brings her a palm from Paradise as a sign; the group of men in uneasy attitudes are the apostles newly dropped from the clouds, having been collected from all parts to be present. The lowest scene of the central part is the most important; in it the Virgin is lying dead, surrounded by the apostles, whilst the little naked soul is on the arm of Christ, Who raises His hand to bless the dead body. The whole imagery is the same as on the Byzantine ivory in the Library at Munich. In another part the body is borne away for burial. ”

“ There is little to distinguish German ivories in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries from the French; perhaps there is a tendency to greater elaboration in the architecture, and on rare occasions the figures betray the German type; but in the fifteenth century the love of realism gained ground, and the ivory carvers more closely imitated the painters and the rapidly increasing school of wood carving. ”

“ The Crucifixion on a binding in the John Rylands Library at Manchester (Fig. 25) is evidently by the same artist. The grouping is purely Byzantine, but the severance of feeling is as far as the East is from the West. The gesture of the beloved disciple as he clasps his hands to control his passionate emotion, is worth all the stereotyped poses of Byzantine art, and one forgets the crudity of the whole thing in wonder at the emotion pent up in those rugged forms. ”

“ In this carving we see what the craftsman can do when left to himself; it is not a very artistic production, but it has a freshness entirely lacking in the other panels. The ornamental panels are splendidly carved, and recall the beautiful openwork panels on the book cover at Monza, which most probably belonged to Berenger, King of Italy in 888, and Emperor 916, and also the marble screens and balustrades which decorate so many Byzantine buildings. ”

“ The droop of the bull’s head as he grazes by the side of the Four Rivers is very natural, though the artist still adheres to the rather dry technique of animal portrayal in ancient art. These animals may be compared with those on the diptych of Bourges, which are scattered over the background in much the same way, but with less defiance of perspective, as they are supposed to be leaping in the act of fighting. ”

“ Byzantine art became the technical school of the younger nations, teaching them craftsmanship and design, thus enabling them to express their more impulsive religious emotions and leading them on till they found the full expression of their genius in the aspiring beauty of Gothic art.
The best period for commencing the study of mediæval ivory-carving is with the fourth century, A.D., and the great series of Consular Diptychs which form the backbone of the early history of the craft and created a type which lasted through the whole mediæval era. ”

“ Byzantine, eleventh century
[Pg 94] “The composition of the figures is not the invention of the painters, but the law of tradition of the Catholic Church.” These are the words of a decree of the Nicene Council in the eighth century, and it is not surprising that these compositions, settled on theological grounds were inclined to be unvarying and hieratic, the wonder is that they have so many artistic qualities. Another bond for the unfortunate artist was a certain work called “A Guide to Painting,” in which minute regulations are laid down for every detail of form and colouring. ”

“ There is every reason to believe the story that the Emperor Heraklius brought over a carved ivory throne from Alexandria in the beginning of the next century. The difficulty of adopting this Alexandrian theory lies in the existence of an Italo-Byzantine school in Italy, which is proved by the number of pyxes and book covers, which seem to show nearly every step between the old Latin and the almost entirely Byzantine art of the Ravenna Throne. ”

“ To this passion for carved ivory we owe our knowledge of the continuity of art for many centuries after the break up of the Roman Empire, and the almost complete cessation of monumental sculpture. In fact, no such continuous chain has survived in any other artistic production ”

“ Before closing this short survey, one small statuette in the Victoria and Albert Museum should be mentioned, as the sweet and affectionate earnestness of the Virgin’s face is typical of the English ivories, for if far inferior to the French in actual technique, they have a depth of reverent feeling which is too often entirely wanting in the latter.
The Italian ivory workers continued long under the spell of the Byzantines, and when aroused to the fresh ideas of Gothic art, their work at first showed few features that could distinguish it from the French models. ”

“ The richly embroidered dress and tiny feet and hands show Byzantine influence, but the architecture, with the twin arch windows is thoroughly Saxon. The mysterious man on the roof is a curious genre addition, and the owl, most likely typifies the night. The hunting scenes clearly show the two art waves, the lions are unintelligently copied from the conventional Byzantine animal, but very considerable first-hand information is shown in the drawing of the boars and bears, with which the craftsman probably had some personal acquaintance. ”

“ The Lipsanoteca, or large ivory casket in the Museo Civico at Brescia, is a fine work of early Christian sculpture, and has far more connection with antiquity than with the early development of the art of the Middle Ages. But it is difficult to pass it by undescribed, as it gives the early types of so much that is met again in later art. Molinier classes it among the sixth century ivories of mixed style. ”

“ We have an exaggerated idea of the rigidity of Byzantine art owing to the numerous repetitions by inferior craftsmen which are found in our museums, and by confusing the Golden Age, with the period of real deadness which commenced in the twelfth century, and has lasted to this very day in the art of the Greek Church. ”

“ The figures still, in many cases, retain the heavy and rather crushed forms of degenerate Roman art; and in the [Pg 108] endeavour to impart deeper expression the proportions were often spoiled, delicate parts, as the features being delineated in undue size, and the research for originality often leading to violent and exaggerated attitudes, and to the overloading of detail, yet all the gestures are instinct with life, and full of a naïve directness of action.
A small plaque in the museum at Zurich (Fig. 22) is a good illustration of the immense influence of the miniatures on ivory carving. ”