Of the fourth period—i.e. the ninth century—perhaps the most typical example is the Menologium (a sort of compound of a calendar and lives of the saints), now in the Vatican Library (MS. Gr. 1613). This MS. shows that the revival under Basil the Macedonian was a return not to Roman, but to ancient Greek art, the facial types being of the purest classical character.
In some of them we see the horizontal frown of the Homeric heroes (σύνοφρυς Οδυσσευς), and of the Georgian and Armenian races shown in the features of the Emperor Johannes Ducas. We have, too, the large Hera-like eye with its mystic gaze, which, in later Byzantine work, becomes first a gaze of lofty indifference, as in the portraits of the emperors and empresses, and lastly a stony and expressionless stare; still, if possible, more stony and glaring when transferred to Celtic and Carolingian Gospel-books. (See chapter on Carolingian Illumination.)
Of this fourth period we might indeed point to many examples. One must suffice. It is the beautiful Greek Psalter, now at Paris (MS., p. 139), containing lovely examples of antique design, including remarkable personifications or allegorical figures. In this MS. is one of the most graceful personifications ever painted, that of Night, with her veil of gauze studded with stars floating overhead. The seven pictures from the Life of David are among the best ever put into a MS. But personification is carried to an extreme. Thus the Red Sea, the Jordan, Rivers, Mountains, Night, Dawn, etc., are all represented as persons. The drawings are really beautiful and the illuminated initials and general ornament in good taste.
For other examples the reader may consult the British Museum Cat. of Addit. MSS., 1841–5, p. 87; also Du Sommerard, Les Arts au Moyen-âge, tom. v., 1846, pp. 107, 162–8, and album, 2e sér. pl. xxix., 8e sér. pl. xii.-xvi.
It is noticeable in these Byzantine pictures that while the figure-painting is often really excellent, the design skilful, and the pose natural, the landscape, trees, etc., are quite symbolic and fanciful. The painters seem to have been utterly ignorant of perspective. Buildings, too, without any regard to relative proportion, are coloured merely as parts of a colour scheme. They are pink, pale green, yellow, violet, blue, just to please the eye. That the painter had a system of colour-harmony is plain, but he paid no regard to the facts of city life, unless, indeed, it was the practice of the mediæval Byzantines to paint the outside of their houses in this truly brilliant style. Possibly they did so; we have similar things in Italy even nowadays.
No doubt the French illuminators of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries drew from these sources both their perspective and their architectural colouring. As for ornamental illumination, the principal method of decoration was a square heading,[10] perhaps including a semicircular arch sweeping over several arcades, the corners and wall-space being occupied either with arabesque patterns, showing them to be after the time of Leo III., or with scrolls of line-ornament enriched with acanthus foliages. Under this the scribe has placed his title.
[10] It has been thought to represent the Greek π, and to mean πύλη, a gate or door.
Other examples have a square frame filled with the latter kind of scrolls and foliages, leaving a sort of open panel in the centre, in which is placed a small scene of sacred history or perhaps of country life. Sometimes the title, in golden letters, is surrounded with medallions containing heads of Christ and the Virgin, apostles, and saints. The peculiar interlacing bands of violet, yellow, rose, blue, etc., which are still often seen in Russian ornament, are also features of these Byzantine MSS.; but most of all is the lavish use of gold. Perhaps the fact most to be remembered about these MSS. is that the painters of them worked in a manner that was absolutely fixed and rigid, the rules of which are laid down in a manual called the Guide to Painting, a work which has been translated by M. Didron.
So fixed and unalterable, indeed, is the manner that there is absolutely no difference to indicate relative antiquity between a MS. of the eleventh century and one of the sixteenth or even later, we might almost say, of the present day. In the matter of saint-images this is strictly true.
CHAPTER VI
CELTIC ILLUMINATION
Early liturgical books reflect the ecclesiastical art of their time—This feature a continuous characteristic of illumination down to the latest times—Elements of Celtic ornament—Gospels of St. Chad—Durham Gospels—Contrast of Celtic and Byzantine—St. Columba—Book of Kells—Details of its decoration.
In the earlier centuries of Christianity, when liturgical books were the chief occupation of the illuminator, it will need little pointing out to demonstrate that the page of the illuminated manuscript, where it contained more than the mere ornamental initial, was simply a mirror of the architectural decoration of the church in which it was intended to be used. Where the church enrichments consist, as on the Byzantine basilicas, of panellings, arcades, and tympana of gilded sculpture in wood or stone, with figures of saints, the pages of the Gospel-book bear similar designs. Where, as in the Romanesque, they are rich in mosaics, and fretted arcades interlacing each other, so are the illuminated Lives of the Saints, the Menologia, Psalters, and Gospel-books. Where, as in the Gothic cathedrals of the West—of France, Germany, or Italy—the stained glass is the striking feature of the interior, so it is with the illumination; it is a “vitrail”—a glass-painting on vellum. On this latter point we shall have more to say when we reach the period of Gothic illumination.
Incidentally, also, the book reflects the minor arts in vogue at the period of its execution. Often in the illumination we may detect these popular local industries. We see mosaic enamelling, wood- and stone-carving, and lacquer-work, and as we approach the Renaissance, even gem-cutting and the delicate craft of the medallist. In Venice and the Netherlands we have the local taste for flower-culture; in Germany we find sculpture in wood and stone; in France the productions of the enameller and the goldsmith; until at length, in the full blaze of the Renaissance itself, we have in almost every land the same varieties of enrichment practised according to its own special style of work.
It has been said that the oldest Celtic illuminated MSS. show no signs of classic, or even Byzantine, influence, yet the plan or framework of the designs makes use both of the cross and the arch, as used in the earliest Byzantine examples. The details, indeed, are quite