Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

Monastic bigotry.

Monastic bigotry.The monastic bigotry, which prohibited study either of the living model or of the beauties of classical sculpture, tended to foster a strongly conventional element in Art, which for certain decorative purposes was of the highest possible value. Anything like realism is quite unsuited both for colossal mural frescoes or mosaics and for miniature paintings in an illuminated manuscript.

Fine early mosaics.

Fine early mosaics.Thus, for example, the existing mosaics on the west front of St Mark's Basilica in Venice[^[44]], which were copied from noble paintings by Titian and Tintoretto, are immeasurably inferior to the earlier mosaics with stiff, hieratic forms designed after Byzantine models, as for example the mosaics in the Apse of SS. Cosmas and Damian in Rome, executed for Pope Felix IV. 526 to 530; see fig. [8].

So, again, the skilfully drawn and modelled figures in a manuscript executed by Giulio Clovio in the sixteenth century are not worthy to be compared, for true decorative beauty and fitness, with the flat, rigid forms, full of dignity and simple, rhythmical beauty which we find in any Byzantine manuscript of a good period[^[45]].

Fig. 8. Mosaic of the sixth century in the apse of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian in Rome.

Limitations of Byzantine Art.

Limitations of Byzantine Art.It should, however, be remarked that in Byzantine art this conventional treatment of the human form is carried too far, and therefore, splendid as a fine Byzantine manuscript usually is, it falls far short of the almost perfect beauty that may be seen in Anglo-Norman and French illuminated manuscripts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, such marvels of beauty, for example, as French manuscripts of the Apocalypse executed in the first half of the fourteenth century in Northern France; see below, page [118].

Edict against statues.