The enamellers of the sixteenth century, especially those who flourished at its beginning, were evidently inspired by these low-relief enamels to seek the same brilliant opalescence of effect by more scientific and less costly methods. But the simplification of the process degenerated into vulgarisation, and its original qualities gradually faded out. [Fig. 131], representing Our Lady of Sorrows, and signed I. C. (Jehan Courteys or Courtois), gives some idea of the design, at least, of the painted enamels executed by the Limousin artists of the early sixteenth century.
Gothic architecture, more especially in its religious manifestations from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, made its prolific influence felt, not only by the structural qualities of its vast and numerous buildings, but by those various arts created, perfected, or at least developed, for their decoration. We have traced a bare outline of its activities, regretting that space fails us to make an exhaustive study of their various manifestations. The priceless fragments which illustrate these offshoots of an art essentially French are now the chief ornaments not only of French, but of all European museums. They take rank as factors of the first importance in art education, pointing the way to fresh masterpieces of French genius.
PART II
MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE
CHAPTER I
MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE: ITS ORIGIN
The origin of monastic architecture is of no greater antiquity than the fourth century of the Christian era. The hermits and anchorites of the earliest period made their habitation in the caves and deserts of the Thebaïd; their sole monument is the record of their virtues, which have outlived any buildings they may have raised during their years of solitude. But the first Christians who banded themselves together under a common rule, and discarded anchoritism for the cenobitic life, marked their worldly pilgrimage by monuments, traces of which are still to be found in historic records or fragmentary remains.
The history of abbey churches is identical with that of cathedrals.[43] The architectural evolutions and transformations which succeeded each other in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries manifested themselves in both. Like the cathedrals, the abbey churches were the creation of monkish architects, and were carried out either under their immediate direction or that of their pupils.