P. L. Jacob

“ When you approach the Gothic church, when you stand beneath its lofty roof, it is as if a new country were receiving you, possessing you, casting around you an atmosphere of subduing reverie in which you feel your wretched servitude to worldly interests vanishing away, and you become conscious of more solid, more important ties, springing up in you. The Deity whom our finite nature can figure to ourselves seems in fact to inhabit this immense building, to be willing to put himself in direct communion with the humble Christian who approaches to bow down before Him. ”

“ As a matter of fact, although French painting, regarded in the light of a national art, cannot boast of having spontaneously produced, as a thing of home-growth, any of those essays of complete independence of which Germany and Italy are so proud; the memorials of French art at least bear witness that, during the long reign of Byzantine tradition, it never ceased to struggle with some force under the yoke; at a time, indeed, when Italy and Germany themselves seemed, on the contrary, to bear the burden with the most submissive servitude. ”

“ Thanks to the studios of Agnolo and Agostino, Siena, a small town which calls to mind the ancient Sicyone, so weak in a political point of view and yet so learned and polished, was for some time the rival of Pisa, up to the period when Florence absorbed the artistic splendour of the two cities. Florence, as the home of the Arts, became the centre of radiation, whence artists took their flight over the whole of Italy, and from Italy spread among all the nations of Europe. ”

“ Who is not acquainted with at least some few works by Van Dyck? This celebrated pupil of Rubens has left in painting as many masterpieces as canvases; and in engraving he knew how to give to his etching-needle so much verve and spirit, that his prints are perfect models to follow, and have never been surpassed. Who is there that does not admire the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, which are equally remarkable for the light diffused over them, and the misty atmosphere that tempers its brilliancy? ”

“ One can imagine what an infinity, what variety and richness, of details it should contain.
Our subject presents, at the same time, another kind of interest more elevated and not less alluring. Here each Art appears in its different phases and in its diversified progress. It is a history, not alone of the Arts, but of the epoch itself in which they were developed; for the Arts, regarded in their generality, are the truest expression of society. They speak to us of tastes, of ideas, of character: they exhibit us in their works. ”

“ We are now at the end of the fifteenth century, and the masters of the great masters are in existence. It was Andrea Verrochio who, at the sight of an angel which Leonardo da Vinci, his pupil, had painted in one of his works, for ever abandoned his pencil. It was Domenico Ghirlandajo who, jealous of the superior qualities which he recognised in his pupil, the youthful Buonarotti, not only endeavoured, but succeeded in diverting his talents, at least for a time, to sculpture. ”

“ But we must not confine ourselves to characterising the works of one single group of artists; for, although the revival took its rise on the banks of the Arno, it spread far and wide beyond those limits. Added to this, Giotto, when visiting Verona, Padua, and Rome, left in each place the still resplendent traces of his presence. When Fra Angelico went to adorn the Vatican, his genius spread around it a fruitful irradiation which everywhere dimmed the ancient renown of the Byzantine painters who had hitherto prevailed in the Italian cities. ”

“ Notice how a feeling of life profusely pervades the whole of his vast pictures of important events; an idea of space is everywhere given; everywhere light plays a powerful part, and imagination has full scope. He is the painter par excellence of feasts and ceremonies: at once pompous and natural, his copiousness is only equalled by his dazzling facility; and we are compelled to forgive the errors with which he mingles on the same canvas the religious ideas of sacred subjects and the profane splendour of modern times.
What shall we say about Correggio? ”

“ He created for himself a heaven which he peopled with the purest and most venerated types of the human race; and a light, as from on high, beams with regal splendour on these graceful visions. In Raphael, even more than in Leonardo da Vinci, it seemed as if two artists of equal sublimity succeeded one another. At first we have the charming dreamer who, in the fresh enthusiasm of his early youth, creates Madonnas, artless daughters of the earth in whose look and countenance a sacred light shines in all its ineffable purity ”

“ Painting, commencing with mosaic and enamels, contributing to the decoration of buildings jointly with stained glass and frescoes, embellishing and illuminating manuscripts before it arrived at its highest point of perfection, with the Art of Giotto and Raphael, of Hemling and Albert Dürer; Engraving on wood and metal, with which is associated the work of the medallist and the goldsmith; and after attempting to touch upon Playing-cards and Niello-work, we suddenly evoke that sublime invention destined to change the face of the world—Printing. ”

“ During the Middle Ages, Art generally followed the inspirations of that Christian spirit which presided at the formation of this new world. It arose to reproduce in an admirable manner the religious ideal. Only towards the end of that period it searched out for beauty of form, and began to find it when the Renaissance made its appearance: the Renaissance, that is, the intellectual revolution, which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, restored among modern nations the sceptre to Literature and the Arts of antiquity. ”

“ Under Henry II. and Charles IX. this activity continued, and the architects who sought their inspirations in Grecian and Roman antiquity, as much as in the souvenirs of the Italian Renaissance, delighted in loading all the elegant and graceful buildings with ornaments, with bas-reliefs, and with statues, which they seemed to carve in the stone, as delicately wrought as a piece of goldsmith’s work. ”

“ It was by the same course of action that French sculpture always emulated its Transalpine rival; but, in order to attain the same end, the imitation followed a different path. In Italy, Art raised itself to the ideal by an attentive study of Greek forms; while on this side of the Alps, when sentiment required it, form was, if not sacrificed, at least neglected. French art showed more respect for the orthodoxy of Christian thought; she did not introduce into the sanctuary of the Holy of Holies any of those profane and material ideas that might have been inspired by the marbles of Greece. ”

“ Thus, in the Middle Ages, a new style of architecture is created that rapidly attained the highest degree of perfection, the ogival (later Gothic or flamboyant) , of which we see the chefs-d’œuvre in our cathedrals: at the Renaissance, this was replaced by architecture derived from that of the Greeks and Romans, which also produced admirable works, but almost always less in harmony with the dignity and splendour of worship. In the Middle Ages, Painting chiefly applied itself to represent the beau idéal of the religious mind reflecting itself in the countenance ”

“ The languages and literature of modern Europe are all Greek or Latin, Sclavonic or Gothic; these four great families of peoples and of languages have existed in spite of the vicissitudes of politics. Such is the basis whereon must be found all the researches by which we are to establish the origin and nature of the writing peculiar to each literature.
The Greeks of Constantinople taught writing to the Sclavonic race, and with it the Christian faith. The most ancient Greek writing (we speak of the Christian era only) was the capital writing, regular and well-proportioned ”

“ In the fifteenth century there are evident traces both of the existence and popularity of cards in Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. Their names, colours, and emblems, their number and forms, were indeed constantly changing, according to the country in which they were used and the fancy of the players. But whether called tarots or “French cards,” they were in fact nothing but modifications of the primitive Oriental cards, and an imitation more or less faithful of the ancient game of chess.
Reckoning from the fifteenth century, we meet with cards in every enumeration of games of chance ”

“ There is scarcely any ancient narrative which does not allude to jewels; and every day the discovery of precious objects, found in ruins and in tombs, still attests the high state of perfection the art of gold and silver work had attained among races long since extinct.
The Gauls, when under Roman dominion, applied themselves successfully to the business of the gold-worker. We may again say that the triumph of the Christian religion, under Constantine the Great, while encouraging the interior decoration of places of worship, added a fresh impulse to the development of this beautiful art. ”

“ Throughout all the periods of the Middle Ages, the ardent faith of which seemed to consider sufficient honour could never be rendered to the real presence of God in the holy sacrifice, the ornamentation of the altar was everywhere looked upon as an object of the most extraordinary pomp and of the most elevated artistic taste. Among the marvels of this kind we must name, as occupying a leading place, the gold altar of St. Ambrose, in Milan, which dates from 835, and those of the cathedrals of Basle and Pistoia, which belong to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. ”

“ However that may be, after Cellini, and until the reign of Louis XIV., the goldsmith’s art did but follow faithfully in the footsteps of the Italian master. Elevated by the impulse of the Renaissance, the art succeeded in maintaining itself in that high position without, however, any striking individuality discovering itself, until, in a century not less illustrious than the sixteenth, new masters appeared and imparted to it additional lustre and magnificence. ”

“ The painter was imbued with a sublime ideal of majestic types from which nothing was able to divert him. He felt as if there were existing in himself a whole population of heroes, whom, by the aid of painting and sculpture, he endeavoured to withdraw from their mental concealment, and to embody in incarnate forms. His personages scarcely seem to belong to our race; they appear to be creatures worthy{294} of some more spacious world, to the proportions of which their physical vigour and their moral energy would well respond. The very women do not possess the grace of their sex ”

“ As chiefs of the first school we have two men, each of whom presents to us one of the richest organisations and the most widely extending genius which human nature has, perhaps, ever produced; these were Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo, both of whom were sculptors as well as painters; and also architects, musicians, and poets. We will first speak of Leonardo da Vinci, whose style presents two very distinct epochs; the first tending to vigour in the shadows, to a mistiness in reflected lights, to a general effect produced by a certain oddness, or rather by a strange representation of truth ”

“ Germain-des-Prés, Paris.
At the time when Greek art, in its degenerate state, had sunk down into a department of mere goldsmith’s work, casting over Europe only a pale and feeble light; when artists, in representing sacred or profane subjects, contented themselves with simple medallions of bronze, gold, or silver, which were generally inserted in a shrine, or suspended on the walls; across the seas Byzantine art was springing into life; an art which blended Hellenic reminiscences with Christian sentiment. ”

“ The Greek masters doubtless affected some pride in the grandeur of their native name, but they were none the less living proofs that the sources from which flowed the inspiration of a Zeuxis, a Protogenes, or an Apelles, had since those far-distant days been long dried up. The East had for ever terminated its ancient character of artistic creation, and the most it seemed destined to achieve during the Middle Ages was to preserve the germ which the West was to bring again into active life. ”

“ All the Arts are interesting in themselves. Their productions awaken attention and excite curiosity. But here it is not one Art only that is treated of. We pass in review all the Arts, starting from the fourth century to the second half of the sixteenth—Architecture raising churches and abbeys, palaces and public memorials, strong fortresses and the ramparts of cities; Sculpture adorning and perfecting other Arts by its works in stone, marble, bronze, wood, and ivory ”

“ At Venice, we first have Titian, the painter of Charles V. and Francis I. “The genius of Titian,” says Alexander Lenoir, “is always great and noble. No painter has ever produced flesh-colours so beautiful and life-like. In Titian there is no apparent tone; the colouring of his flesh is so well{296} blended, that it seems as difficult to imitate as the model itself. Add to his pictures their truth and expression of action, and the elegance and richness of the drapery, and we shall have some idea of the great works which he left behind him.” ”

“ In addition to the Greek masters, who naturally felt compelled to contend with the innovators, certain individuals were found among the Italian artists who energetically embraced the party of the past. We will only mention one, Margaritone of Arezzo, who wore out his long life in a useless devotion to a cause which was already lost; even his name we should not have particularised, if it had not been that the art owed him some gratitude for the service he rendered it, by substituting the use of canvas prepared for painting instead of panels of wood, which had hitherto been exclusively employed. ”

“ Would it not be a more probable hypothesis that the simultaneous use of marble and glass for this purpose was the result of improvements in the art of making mosaics? for glass that, by metallic mixtures, may be brought to a variety of colours, is much more easily adapted to pictorial combinations than marble, the tints of which are the result of the caprices of nature. Seneca, alluding to the use of coloured glasses in mosaic, complains of people not being able “to walk except on precious stones;” this shows how prevalent the use of rich mosaics had become in Rome. ”