Plate III.
| LECTIONARY, OF THE USE OF PARIS. LATE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. (British Museum. Add. M.S. 17,341.) |
But it is not the debased classical decoration alone which marks the illumination of the Carolingian school. The influence of the Celtic art, which has been described, imposed itself and combined with it. This combination was due to the Englishman, Alcuin of York, who became abbot of the Benedictine house of St Martin of Tours, and who did so much to aid Charlemagne in the revival of letters. Thus, in the finest examples of the Carolingian illuminated MSS., Celtic interlaced patterns stand side by side with the designs of classical origin; and, at the same time, it is interesting to observe that the older native Merovingian style of ornament makes its presence felt, now and again, in this or that detail. But with all the artistic effort bestowed upon it, it must be conceded that Carolingian illumination, as presented in the MSS., is not always pleasing. Indeed, it is often coarse and monotonous, and there is a tendency to conceal inferiority under a dazzling abundance of gold. The leading idea of the ornament of the great MSS. was splendour. Gold was used in profusion even in the writing of the text, and silver also in a minor degree; and the vellum, stained or painted purple, enhanced the gorgeous effect of the illumination. But undoubtedly the purer style of the Celtic school balanced and restrained the tendency to coarseness; and this foreign influence naturally was stronger in some centres than in others. For example, in the abbey of Saint-Denis, near Paris, if we may draw conclusions from surviving examples, the Celtic style was in great favour. Another peculiarity in the decoration of the Carolingian MSS. is the tendency of the artist to mix his styles, and to attach details on a small scale, such as delicate sprays and flourishes, and minute objects, to large-scale initial letters, as though he felt that grossness required a corrective contrast. The art became more refined under the immediate successors of Charlemagne, and under Charles the Bald it culminated. The most famous MSS. of the Carolingian school are the Evangeliarium, written and illuminated by the scribe Godescalc for Charlemagne in the year 787; the Sacramentarium written for Drogon, son of Charlemagne and bishop of Metz; the Gospels of the emperor Lothair, once at Tours; the first Bible of Charles the Bald, presented by Count Vivien, abbot of St Martin of Tours; the second Bible, called the Bible of Saint Denis, in Franco-Saxon style; and the so-called Gospels of Francis II. There are also in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 2788) an Evangeliarium written in gold and known as the Codex aureus, of this school; and a Bible of Alcuin’s recension, probably executed at Tours in the middle of the 9th century, with illustrative miniatures and initial letters, but of a less elaborate degree of ornament.
After this brilliant period decadence sets in; and in the course of the 11th century Frankish illumination sinks to its lowest point, the miniatures being for the most part coarse and clumsy copies of earlier models. The colours become harsh, often assuming an unpleasant chalky appearance.
We have now to trace the development of another kind of book decoration, quite different from the florid style of gold and colours just now described, which had a lasting influence on the early art of England, where it was specially cultivated, and where it developed a character which at length became distinctively national. This is the style of outline drawing which fills so large a space in the Anglo-Saxon MSS. of the 10th and 11th centuries.
We have already seen how the Celtic style of ornamentation was introduced into the north of England. Thence it appears to have spread rapidly southward. As early as the beginning of the 8th century it was practised at Anglo-Saxon. Canterbury, as is testified by a famous psalter in the British Museum (Cott. MS. Vespasian A. 1), in which much of the ornament is of Celtic type. But the same MS. is also witness to the presence of another influence in English art, that of the classical style of Rome, certain details of the ornament being of that character and a miniature in the MS. being altogether of the classical type. With little hesitation this element may be ascribed to MSS. brought from Rome, in the first instance by St Augustine, and afterwards by the incoming missionaries who succeeded him, and deposited in such centres as Canterbury and Winchester. But this importation of MSS. from Italy was not confined to the south. We have distinct evidence that they were brought into northern monasteries, such as those of Jarrow and Wearmouth and York. Thus the English artists of both south and north were in a position to take advantage of material from two sources; and they naturally did so. Thus we find that mingling of the Celtic and classical styles just noticed. In this way, early grown accustomed to take classical models for their drawings, the Anglo-Saxon artists were the more susceptible to the later development of the classical style of outline drawing which was next introduced into the country from the continent. The earliest MS. in which this style of drawing is exhibited in fullest detail is the volume known as the Utrecht Psalter, once in the Cottonian Library, in which the text of the psalms is profusely illustrated with minute pen-sketches remarkably full of detail. The period of the MS. is about the year 800; and it was probably executed in the north or north-east of France. But the special interest of the drawings is that they are evidently copies of much older models and provide a valuable link with the late classical art of some two or three centuries earlier. The work is very sketchy, the movement of the draperies indicated by lightly scribbled strokes of the pen, the limbs elongated, the shoulders humped—all characteristic features which are repeated in the later Anglo-Saxon work. The drawings of the Utrecht Psalter are clearly typical examples of a style which, founded on Roman models, must at one time have been widely practised in western Europe. For instance, there are traces of it in such a centre as St Gallen in Switzerland, and there are extant MSS. of the Psychomachia of Prudentius (a favourite work) with drawings of this character which were executed in France in the 10th century. But the style does not appear to have taken much hold on the fancy of continental artists. It was reserved for England to welcome and to make this free drawing her own, and to develop it especially in the great school of illumination at Winchester. Introduced probably in such examples as the Utrecht Psalter and copies of the Psychomachia, this free drawing of semi-classical origin had fully established itself here in the course of the 10th century, and by that time had assumed a national character. A fair number of MSS. of the 10th and 11th centuries which issued from the Winchester school are still to be seen among the collections of the British museum, in most of which the light style of outline drawing with the characteristic fluttering drapery is more or less predominant, although body colours were also freely employed in many examples. But the most elaborate specimen of Anglo-Saxon illumination of the 10th century is one belonging to the duke of Devonshire: the Benedictional of the see of Winchester, executed under the direction of Æthelwold, bishop from 963 to 984, which contains a series of miniatures, in this instance in body colours, but drawn in the unmistakable style of the new school. In the scheme of decoration, however, another influence is at work. As England had sent forth its early Celtic designs to modify the art of the Frankish empire, so the Carolingian style of ornament now, in its turn, makes its way into this country, and appears in the purely ornamental details of the Anglo-Saxon illuminated volumes. The frames of the miniatures are chiefly composed of conventional foliage, and the same architectural leaf-mouldings of classical origin which are seen in the foreign MSS. are here repeated. Profuse gilding also, which is frequently applied, sometimes with silver, is due to foreign influence. But this character of decoration soon assumed a national cast. Under the hands of the Anglo-Saxon artist the conventional foliage flourished with greater freedom; and the colouring which he applied was generally softer and more harmonious than that which was employed abroad. Examples of outline drawing of the best type exist in the Harleian Psalter (No. 2904), of the same period as the Æthelwold Benedictional; in the register of New Minster (Stowe MS. 944), A.D. 1016-1020; and in the Prudentius (Cotton MS. Cleop. C. viii.), executed early in the 11th century.
With the Norman Conquest naturally great changes were effected in the illumination of English MSS., as in other branches of art; no doubt to the ultimate improvement of English draughtsmanship. Left to itself the outline drawing Norman. of the Anglo-Saxons, inclining as it did to affectation, would probably have sunk into fantastic exaggeration and feebleness. Brought more directly under Norman domination it resulted in the fine, bold freehand style which is conspicuous in MSS. executed in England in the next three centuries. Then we come to the period when the art of illumination is brought into line in the countries of western Europe, in England and in France, in Flanders and in western Germany, by the splendid outburst of artistic sentiment of the 12th century. This century is the period of large folios providing ample space in their pages for the magnificent initial letters drawn on a grand scale which are to be seen in the great Bibles and psalters of the time. The leading feature is a wealth of foliage with twining and interlacing branches, among which human and animal life is freely introduced, the whole design being thrown into relief by brilliant colours and a generous use of gold. The figure drawing both in miniatures and initials is stiff, the figures elongated but bold, and with sweeping lines in the draperies; and a tendency to represent the latter clinging closely to the limbs is a legacy of the tradition of the later classical style. In England the school of Winchester appears to have maintained the same excellence after the Norman Conquest as before it. A remarkable MS. (Cotton, Nero C. iv.), a psalter of about the year 1160, with a series of fine miniatures, is a good example of its work. In France, Flanders and western Germany we find the same energy in producing boldly ornamented volumes, as in England; a certain heaviness of outline distinguishing the work of the Flemish and German artists from that of the English and French schools. Such MSS. as the Stavelot Bible (Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 28,107), of the close of the 11th century, the Bible of Floreffe (Add. MS. 17,737-17,738), of about the year 1160, and the Worms Bible (Harl. MS. 2803-2804), of the same time, are fine specimens of Flemish and German work.
It is towards the close of the 12th century and in the beginning of the 13th century that the character of illumination settles down on more conventional lines. Hitherto gold had been applied in a liquid state; now it is laid on in leaf 13th Century. and is highly burnished, a process which lends a brilliant effect to initial and miniature. A great change passes over the face of things. The large, bold style gives place to the minute. Volumes decrease in size; the texts are written in close-packed characters; the large and simple is superseded by the small and decorated. The period has arrived when book ornamentation becomes more settled and accurately defined within limits, and starts on the course of regulated expansion which was to run for three hundred years down to the close of the 15th century. In the 13th century the historiated or miniature initial, that is, the initial letter containing within its limits a miniature illustrating the subject of the immediate text, is established as a favourite detail of ornamentation, in addition to the regular independent miniature. Such initials form a prominent feature in the pretty little Bibles which were produced in hundreds at this period. But a still more interesting subject for study is the development of the border which was to have such a luxuriant growth in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. Commencing as a pendant from the initial, with terminal in form of bud or cusp, it gradually pushes its way along the margins, unfolding foliage as it proceeds, and in course of time envelopes the entire page of text in a complete framework formulating in each country a national style.
In the miniatures of the 13th century the art of England, of France, and of the Low Countries runs very much in one channel. The Flemish art, however, may be generally distinguished from the others by the heavier outline already noticed. The French art is exquisitely exact and clean-cut, and in its best examples it is the perfection of neat-handedness. English art is perhaps less exact, but makes up for any deficiency in this direction by its gracefulness. However, there is often little to choose between the productions of the three countries, and they are hard to distinguish. As an aid for such distinction, among small differences, we may notice the copper tone of French gold contrasting with the purer metal in English MSS.; and the favour shown to deep ultramarine appears to mark French work. But, besides actual illuminated miniature painting, there is also a not inconsiderable amount of freehand illustrative drawing in the MSS. In this particular the English artist maintains the excellence of work which distinguished his ancestors. Such series of delicate drawings, slightly tinted, as those to be seen in the famous Queen Mary’s Psalter (Royal MS. 2 B. vii.), and in other MSS. of the 13th and 14th centuries in the British Museum, are not surpassed by any similar drawings done at the same period in any other country. In the 13th century also comes into vogue the highly decorated diaper-work, generally of lozenges or chequered patterns in brilliant colours and brightly burnished gold. These fill the backgrounds of miniatures and initials, together with other forms of decoration, such as sheets of gold stippled or surface-drawn in various designs. Diapering continued to be practised in all three countries down into the 15th century; and in particular it is applied with exquisite effect in many of the highly-finished MSS. of the artists of Paris.
To return to the growth of the borders: these continue to be generally of one style in both England and France and in Flanders during the 13th century; but, when with the opening of the 14th century the conventional foliage begins to expand, a divergence ensues. In France and Flanders the three-pointed leaf, or ivy leaf, appears, which soon becomes fixed and flourishes as a typical detail of ornament in French illumination of the 14th and 15th centuries. In England there is less convention, and along with formal branches and leafage, natural growths, such as daisy-buds, acorns, oak leaves, nuts, &c., are also represented.