THE ORIGIN OF THE ART
When we come to get a little familiar with old miniatures, to have learned their language, as it were, we shall find that, if they are authentic portraits, they possess, in addition to their high personal interest, other and distinct values as illustrations of art, of history, and of costume. They are, in fact, when genuine and contemporary, precious documents, some of which go back several centuries, and are of great service in reading the history of the past. They have, like other works of art, their definite origins; and so, too, they have their own separate and distinct characteristics, and it is upon these and such-like aspects of the study that I propose now to say a few words.
As in the case of so many arts and religions, it is to the Orient, that cradle of them all, as far as our present knowledge allows us to know, that we must turn our eyes, if we wish to find the earliest source of the practice. There is no doubt whatever that the Egyptian papyri were rubricated, and we may safely conclude that the use of gold, silver, and colour in the ornamentation of MSS. found its way from the valley of the Nile into Greece. Thence Greek artists took it to Rome, and from Rome the use spread throughout Europe.
Many choice historical miniatures have long pedigrees, and it may be worth while to see how far back we can definitely trace the practice of the fascinating art which gave them birth.
On this point I may quote the opinion of the late Keeper of the Department of Engravings in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, M. Henri Bouchot. He had made, as is well known, a close and profound study of the art of the French "Primitifs," and therefore the conclusions that he arrived at may, I think, be very safely taken on this subject.
Writing many years ago in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, he said the origin of miniature painting "is lost in the obscurity of the ninth century." He contended that the heads which are to be found in MSS. of that period, the work of monkish artists, are intended to represent some well-known prince, emperor, or pope of that time. He suggested that the painter, shut up in his monastery, could only paint such a portrait from hearsay, and from information which he gathered from brethren of his Order, or from neighbouring great nobles with whom he came in contact, and who, in their turn, had seen the original of such a portrait or portraits.
If this distinguished French critic be right, it follows that at that remote date such representations could have been little less than pure inventions; and such, indeed, he would have us suppose to be the case for several centuries more. But at the commencement of the fourteenth century it would seem that the illuminators set themselves to render the real portraiture of individuals; and here, from our point of view, the especial interest of the subject may be said to begin.
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY MISSAL.
A PHILOSOPHER.
(Wallace Collection.)