[CHAPTER XI.]
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
Historically and philosophically, from the point of view of whatever religious denomination; in the eyes of the devout believer, as well as in the eyes of the sceptic; by the thinker, and by the mere automaton of blood, flesh and bones; it must be admitted, that the two most important events in the history of humanity were the foundation of Christianity, and the great migration of the Northern people. The one was a spiritual movement, the other thoroughly material.
It is usual, in tracing the historical development of mankind in science and art, to follow the apparent course of the sun, and to assume that progress travelled with Indra, Ormuzd, Horus and Phoibos Apollo, from East to West. This is, however, a mere phrase. To understand and appreciate the history of man, it is better to divide the globe into a southern and northern hemisphere; for we find, that in analogy with this subdivision, the material as well as the intellectual development of life on our globe took place. We may even go further, and trace a distinction between the development of life and art in the south and north of the northern and southern hemispheres. In the farthest south of the southern hemisphere we have animal life and man, in the very lowest scale of progressive development; whilst the further we travel towards the north, the more animal life and the intellectual capacity of man increase. This is also the case in the northern hemisphere, up to the frigid zone, where a reaction sets in. In the south the moral power was more developed than the intellectual. In the south the predominant static force, joined to an ill-disciplined imagination, drove man to the field of metaphysical speculation; the misunderstood laws of nature, and the ignorance of the sluggish and indolent masses, gave free play to superstition and priestcraft. Thus the south (or south-east) was the birth-place of various theogonies, and religious systems. Idolatry, zoolatry, Sabaism, theism, pantheism, astrology, symbolism, mysticism, alchemy, magic, and cabalism originated in the south. The intellectual power in humanity, with a strong tendency to regulate itself by moral force, decidedly prevailed in the north, or north-west of our globe; and we received philosophy, as well as art, in their highest perfection, from Greece, the then most northern dwelling-place of civilized humanity. All the sciences which, through their beneficial influence have promoted the welfare and progress of humanity, were fostered in the North. In the North, astronomy, geography, history, botany, zoology, physiology, anatomy, chemistry, geology, and cosmogony were developed.
The savage of the South, up to our days, does not go beyond an ornamentation with geometrical figures; he can neither produce animals nor the human figure. The Egyptians surpassed the Assyrians and Babylonians in their monumental architecture, but in the plastic reproduction of the human form they never succeeded. Their sitting figures had legs and thighs forming right angles in the side view, while in front they were parallel; the drapery was merely marked by lines, rarely interrupted by folds. In their historical and allegorical bas-reliefs the composition is devoid of elegance and correctness of outlines; but they already showed a remarkable power in drawing animals. The Indians reached a higher stage of progress in sculpture; their mythology and poetry furnished them with a variety of subjects, with which they covered the walls of their shrines and temples; after the doctrines of Buddha became more universal, they attained grandeur in their architecture, combined with a certain degree of elegance. The human form is reproduced with ease; the proportions, though too soft, too sensual, are more correct than with the Egyptians.
So long as the Greek artists worked with reverence and modesty, inspired by faith in the gods, they were capable of understanding God’s revelation of beauty in man’s outer form. So long as the Romans unconsciously worked in this spirit, they produced their stupendous architectural monuments. When, however, State and citizens were forced by false principles to war with reality for a beggarly existence, or to plunge into mere sensuous enjoyments, man came to an open rupture with his destiny, and humanity might have perished altogether in sin and iniquity, had not Providence mercifully interfered by freeing, through Christ, the ‘inner man’—that is, the intellectual and moral force in man—thus preparing humanity for a higher progressive life. The south of Asia had to go through the same religious and artistic phases of development. Buddhism stands to Brahmanism in the same relation as Christianity to Mosaism and Heathenism. Excepting, however, that both religions were reformations of older established creeds, all analogy between them ceases. The proof of the difference lies in the diametrically opposed development produced by Buddhism and Christianity. It is true that Buddhism teaches us not to kill, not to steal, not to lie, and not to be drunken. Christianity does the same. Buddha, in twelve other ordinances, extols self-abnegation, poverty, and commands all to meditate amongst the tombs on the fleeting transitoriness of our earthly existence. Christianity does the same. Christ, however, redeemed and freed our spiritual nature, and brought it into a self-conscious, vivid activity; whilst Buddhism degraded this higher individual nature into a nonentity, denying that there was an independent moral agent in us; teaching that we were phenomena of an all-pervading divine power, by which universality we should be absorbed after life. So long as Christianity held, though in a different shape, nearly the same mystic principles as Buddhism, the results in art were the same; for our ecclesiastical art was a revival of Buddhistic temples, with all their divisions and sub-divisions, their pointed arches, their variegated columns and pillars, the triforium, the altar (Daghopa), cloisters, chapels, and crypts.
Christ’s divine words resounded at a period when the Greeks had long turned their minds to the licentious worship of the sensuous. The Egyptians, sighing under their Roman taskmasters, had taken refuge in dark mysticism, the meaning of which had been long lost to them; the Jews were divided into quarrelling sects, sunken in religious indifference, or occupied with mere outward formalities, hating everyone and hated by everyone. The Romans knelt tremblingly before an imperial divinity, slaves and poor being considered mere burdens on society; the rich were merciless, debauched, and revelled in amusements; infanticides, suicides, murder and decay, despair and annihilation, were every-day occurrences. At this period, under such circumstances, the divine Master died on the cross, sealing with his death the one great tiding of love: ‘that we are all children of one Father, who is in heaven.’ The god of revenge of the old world was transformed into a God of inexhaustible love. With the Jews and the ancients, he only was blessed who had plenty on earth; now, the pure in mind, whether poor or rich, weak or mighty, beautiful or ugly, was extolled. God was not merely present in the universe as its living soul, or in a burning bush, in thunder and lightning, in growling volcanoes, in an ark, a carved idol, a statue or in a temple. God was present, wherever a kind, loving, and forgiving mind was ready to be His ark or temple. Christ repudiated all local gods; did not require any sacrifices of plants or animals; did not prescribe any diet, or outward sanguinary sign; did not allow polygamy; did not proclaim his followers the only chosen children of the Father of All; but taught the one and indivisible, and ever-true law of peace, love, and tolerance. This doctrine is as universal as intellect; it must be of as divine origin as intellect itself; it is, and can be, the only faith which must once unite Humanity into one great loving and beloved brotherhood. What a change! Not only a change; it was the building up of a new glorious future; it was the re-establishment of the lost balance between the working forces of humanity; it was the redemption of our individual, moral, and intellectual capacities; it was the enunciation of an eternal law, under which humanity had, till then, unconsciously developed, but of which it became conscious in word as well as in spirit, through Christ. Slavery in body or mind was, at least in principle, for ever abolished; and one of the noblest edifices of Byzantine architecture in Italy, the church of St. Vitale at Ravenna, was dedicated by Justinian, a Roman Emperor, to the memory of a slave, who was martyred for the sake of his piety and love. Hospitals for the poor and sick, Xenodochia (refuges for strangers) began to be built—architectural constructions of which the whole ancient world could not boast.
The Christian spirit at first struggled to find a corresponding form in art; the new wine was put into the old vessels till it burst the decaying fetters and issued forth in a life-giving art-stream, in two directions:—
(a) As Romanesque art in the West, a decaying continuation of Roman art;