All through the Carlovingian period there is a close connection between the illuminator and the ivory carver, the latter trying to treat his subjects more in the manner of a painter, enlarged the cycle of Christian representations and began to break with tradition and recover his liberty. The figures still, in many cases, retain the heavy and rather crushed forms of degenerate Roman art; and in the 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. The Book of Psalms was especially popular, and this plaque is a word for word translation of certain verses of the XXVIIth Psalm (XXVI. in the Vulgate) into plastic form. v. 2. “When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.” (The crowd of warriors, some of whom have fallen). v. 5. “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle he shall hide me: he shall set me up upon a rock.” (David is seen being welcomed into the Tabernacle, which stands on a rock). Part of v. 6. “Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy” (altar and lamb). V. 10. “When my father and mother forsake me then the Lord will take me up” (in the right corner a man and woman turn away from a child). The hand above is typical of the protection of God which is asked for throughout the psalm. The slight and thin-ankled figures, and the continuous method of narration are characteristic of the miniatures, which originally derived their technique from late Roman Art, and carried on the old system of an unbroken series of scenes which is to be found in the bas-reliefs of Trajan’s Column. In the Utrecht Psalter (Anglo-Saxon) is an almost identical illustration of this psalm, which proves that this plaque was copied from it or some analogous manuscript, as the Bodley Psalter (No. 603) in the British Museum. These Psalters have furnished a model for another of these scenic psalms, carved on a plaque set in the magnificent binding of the Psalter of Charles the Bald, in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris. The manuscript was written between the years 842-869, and there is no reason to think that the jewelled and ivory cover is not contemporary. One side gives a graphic picture of the LVIth Psalm, and the other represents Nathan telling David the story of the little ewe lamb (2 Sam. xii.). The Louvre possesses a plaque, also of the ninth century, representing the interview of Abner and Joab (2 Sam. ii.), a subject by no means of general interest, and unlikely to have a plastic type, which proves still further the custom of copying the miniatures with more or less servility.
[SCHWEIZERISCHER LANDESMUSEUM, ZURICH
22. ILLUSTRATION OF PSALM XXVII
Carlovingian, ninth century
One more scenic plaque in the Louvre is of interest, not so much in connection with the MSS., but from the strong resemblance to the Probianus diptych ([Fig. 2]), especially in the lower scene, where the figures raise their hands to Solomon on his judgment seat. On the second half David is dictating his psalms to an assembly of clerks.
It is difficult to class the ivories of this long period, but the majority are of German origin. Art and culture were a great deal dependent on the Court, which had the effect of bringing into line the work of craftsmen of very varying nationalities. Here also was a fear lest the people should worship the images themselves, but an iconoclastic spirit never arose, and these numerous carvings, besides adding to the sumptuousness of the cult, were used for the instruction of the unlettered.
Ivory was classed with the precious metals, and much sought after for ecclesiastical purposes, the great abbeys of eastern France and Germany became regular workshops, making a large number of exquisite objects in goldsmith’s work and ivory. We are given a little side-light on the use of ivory in a letter of Eginhardt to his son, in which he mentions that he is sending him a carved ivory model of classical architecture that he should better understand certain passages in Vitruvius.
The mention of the work done in the monasteries brings us to the Abbey of St. Gall and the monk Tuotilo, who has long been the hero of the craft; but, alas, the charming picture that the chronicler Ekkehardt gives, a hundred years later, of this Leonardo among craftsmen is utterly without foundation; that there was a monk Tuotilo at the end of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth centuries the records of the monastery tell us, and a note added by a later hand says that he was learned and a sculptor.
Ekkehardt spoils his argument in favour of Tuotilo by attributing to him too many perfections, and by finally quoting the opinion of Charlemagne, who had been dead and buried nearly a hundred years. It is very sad to have to give up the one real individual who greets us on the rather weary path of anonymity. The fine book cover, one leaf of which Ekkehardt attributes to Tuotilo ([Fig. 23]), is still safely preserved in the Abbey of St. Gall, but the two leaves appear to be by the same hand, though there is every reason to attribute the workmanship to the ninth century. On the upper leaf Christ is represented in glory, youthful and beardless in type, as is often the case in Carlovingian ivories which come from the Germanic part of the empire. There was a flourishing school of German craftsmen who closely imitated the ivories of the Italo-Byzantine school of the sixth century, the great abbeys having many specimens of ancient ivory carving in their treasuries. The two cherubim and Four Evangelists with their symbolic beasts are also strongly Byzantine; above are busts of the sun and moon and beneath the figures of Ocean and Earth. In fact, the arrangement is borrowed wholesale from a very frequent Carlovingian type of the crucifixion ([Fig. 24]), even to the little tombs which have no connection with the subject. The workmanship is delicate, but very conventional, and the concentric folds on this and on the second leaf, point to the influence of the manuscripts. The second leaf represents the Assumption of the Virgin, the attitude is stiff and the drapery is terribly unreal, having almost the appearance of corrugated iron, but the movements of the angels are freer, especially the forward movement of the one on the Virgin’s right.