Late Roman art reminds us of the art of Etruria in its archaic days, except that the freshness and promise are wanting, and that the one was in its first, the other its second childhood.
Before entering on the subject of Christian art, I must again refer, however briefly, to the Eastern origin of all art. It is evident that this had always flowed in streams of many types from that high watershed of Central Asia, where our human race is said to have been created, and whence all wisdom and knowledge have emanated. In the image of the Creator, man issued from thence, endowed with the gift of the creative power. Wave after wave of fresh and apparently differing nationalities followed each other; partially submerging those that had gone before, and spreading till it had reached the furthest shores of the Northern seas and the Atlantic, and encircled the Mediterranean. They all followed the same course from east to west. The Greek civilization was indeed so dazzling and strong, that it lighted the world all around; and India, Persia, and Assyria felt its influence reflected back on its old Asian cradle.
But from the same high watershed[59] flowed other tribal types towards China, Java, and Japan, that had no affinity with any western civilization; and while the Assyrian, Persian, Indian, and Mongolian styles mixed and overlapped so near their sources, that it is sometimes hardly possible to reason out and classify their resemblances and their differences, the tribes flowing Eastward turned aside and went their own way, and have remained till now perfectly distinct.[60]
In spite of their matchless dexterity in the manipulation of their materials, the infinite variety of their stitches, and exquisite finish in execution, carrying out to the utmost point the intended effect, yet Chinese and Japanese textile art differs in its inner principles from all our accepted canons of taste; so that their want of harmony, and sometimes their absurdity, is a puzzle of which we cannot find the key. This I have already alluded to (p. [3]).
I purposely avoid the questions suggested by Chinese art. The immense antiquity it claims cannot be allowed without hesitation. M. Terrien de la Couperie, however, believes that he has found the actual point of departure of Chinese civilization, and he considers it to be an early offshoot from Babylon.[61] He supports his theory on linguistic grounds, and we must anxiously wait to see if it is corroborated by further researches into the earliest records of the archaic Chinese literature. But immobility in art is a Chinese characteristic, and no national cataclysms seem to have disturbed it. The oldest specimens known are very like the most modern. Yet an adept, learned in Chinese art, can detect the signs which mark its different epochs.
In this they differ from the Japanese, who, added to their inherited exquisite appreciation of natural beauty, have a power of assimilation that might lead in time to their possessing a school of art which, being really original, might become the style of the future. The civilization of Japan is not older than the fifth century A.D., and was probably then imported from Corea. Some of the earliest specimens we know of their art are embroidered religious pictures by the son of a Mikado Sholokutaiski, who was in the seventh century the great apostle of Buddhism in Japan; and the next earliest works are by the first nun, Honi, in the eighth century. We have European work as old, and it is most interesting to compare the differences of their styles and stitches.
We must now return to the beginning of our era, when we find Greek taste, such as it was, still influencing and colouring art in Italy, and throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, wherever Roman colonies were founded, till the eighth century. It died hard; but by that time the barbarians had poured from the east and north in successive waves, and conquered and suppressed the classical civilization.
Nothing is so puzzling in textile art as the mixture of styles during the first 1000 years A.D. The Græco-Roman, the Byzantine, and the Egyptian, crossed by the Arabian, Persian, and Indian styles, were reproduced in the Sicilian looms. Certain stock patterns, such as the reclining hares or fawns, as we find them on the Shishak pall, or that of the Tree of Life, approached by worshipping men or animals, originating in Assyrian art, are employed as borders, and fill up vacant spaces. The information collected from the tombs in the Crimea immediately preceding our era, is supplemented by the variety in style and materials from the Fayoum, now placed by Herr Graf’schen in the Museum at Vienna.
Christian art, which began in Byzantium, gradually grew, and formed itself into the Gothic,[62] which in time overcame the general chaos of style.
Eastern art continued to flow westward, modifying and suggesting. When the Phœnicians and Carthaginians had laid down their ancient commercial sceptre, it was taken up by the Greeks, and later by the Venetians and Genoese, always trading with Asiatic goods. Then the arts of the Scandinavians[63] and of the Celts (who were the weavers), though barbaric, still retained and spread certain Oriental traditions. Luxury was born in Babylon, and Persia became its nurse, whence all its glories and refinements spread over the world. But if luxury was Babylonian, art was Greek. Alas! the love of luxury survived in Rome the taste for art.