A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

In Germany in this century ivory-carving was much practised and used for a great variety of purposes. In these smaller works the life and freshness, the grace and spirit of the manner of the time were very attractive (Fig. 78).

Fig. 78.—Ivory Relief. Hunting Scene.

In France the fourteenth century was much less productive of works of art than the preceding one had been. The fact that so much had been done in the thirteenth century—so many new churches built and so many older ones remodelled—is one reason for this change. In this direction there was very little left to be done. Then, too, the country was so disturbed by wars with England that the arts of peace suffered neglect. However, there was still much to be done to complete the grand works already begun, and during the early part of this century a great deal was accomplished by way of interior decoration in edifices not yet completed, and in the making of monuments in memory of persons of rank and importance. Those in the Cathedral of St. Denis were much increased in number, and in all parts of France these works were multiplied.

During this century many artists from the Netherlands were employed in France; and in the city of Dijon, which was the residence of the dukes of Burgundy, the works of Flemish artists were very numerous.

Perhaps the most skilful of these masters was Claux Sluter, who was the favorite of Philip the Bold, and executed the splendid monument to that duke which is now in the Museum at Dijon. He was also the sculptor of the Moses Fountain, the decorations of the Carthusian chapel, and other works which still remain to show how fine a sculptor he was. Sluter had a great influence upon art, and, in fact, may be said to have established a school the effects of which endured long after his time.

In England sculpture made no progress during the fourteenth century. Large architectural sculptures were neither numerous nor fine. Tomb-sculptures and monuments with portrait reliefs and statues were the principal plastic works of the time. The habit of erecting monuments to the dead now extended to all classes, whereas it had formerly been confined to noble and distinguished people. The result was that the monuments of the higher classes were more and more splendid in order to mark the differences of rank, and much grand effect was thus produced; but the merits of the sculpture was less than formerly, and the monuments of this age are wanting in spirit, stiff and unattractive. The costume of the time, too, was so ugly that it served to give a grotesque air to many figures, and thus added to the general appearance of decline which marked the English tomb-sculpture of the fourteenth century. It compares unfavorably with the German monuments of the same period, and the realistic portrait element which ruled it makes it seem like a monotonous and feeble system of mechanics rather than a style of art.

As we have said, the sculpture of Italy was quite different from that of the more northern countries of Europe. One great reason for this was that individualism in art was a strong power in Italy much earlier than in more northern countries. In Germany the early sculptors of the Middle Ages did not put their names upon their works; they practised their art as a religious service, and their pious devotion made them forget themselves. Not so in Italy: there each artist wished to be known in his works, and regarded them as works of art, done for the sake of art, and not as acts of piety. One result of this difference was that the northern sculptures had more of deep feeling and profound thought in them, while the Italian works had more perfection of form.

In Italy sculpture held the second place in the decoration of churches. Painting was preferred before it, and in spite of the influence of the Gothic style, which extended south of the Alps, the Italians would not give up their large wall-spaces and the splendid Christian paintings which were their glory. They built their edifices with this end in view, and as the same person was frequently an architect, painter and sculptor, he knew how to arrange his plans so as to suit his ideas of the merits of each art.

So it happened that the principal works which the sculptors did for the church were separate objects, such as altar-pieces, fonts, pulpits, and tombs. It rarely occurred that whole fronts of churches were covered with sculptures, as in Germany or France, and there were few richly sculptured portals of churches in Italy. The material mostly used for Italian sculpture was fine white marble, which was very rarely colored; sometimes a little gilding was used; but as a rule painting and sculpture were not united, as they had been north of the Alps.