OF THE FINE ARTS. 



XXV 



Those who arc acquainted with the physiog- 

 nomy of nations, imagine that they perceive in 

 the new architecture the peculiar mind and fancy 

 of the Gothic tribes. The gay, the mercurial 

 Greeks would have thought of the descent of 

 their own Ulysses into the shades, had they 

 entered a Gothic cathedral. The twilight aisles, 

 the cold, fantastic ribbings and knottings of the 

 arches overhead, the niches and recesses filled 

 with stern saints, afflicted madonnas, and with 

 recumbent figures, looking the corses they imi- 

 tated, and the lettered gravestones under their 

 feet, would have put a Spartan soldier to flight. 

 The Gothic warrior, on the other hand, felt a 

 not unpleasing melancholy in his mind as he 

 passed the threshold. The haunted woods and 

 darksome vales of the north had prepared him 

 for kindred glooms ; the banner and the scutcheon 

 told him of his predecessors in martial glory; 

 the windows shed " a dim religious light," which 

 suited the hue of his thoughts ; the voice of the 

 preacher, sounding through the aisles, united 

 with the graves of the dead to make him look 

 upward, and he left the house of God with a 

 solemn step and a saddened spirit, which he 

 could not have known had he visited a Grecian 

 temple. 



The early architecture of this rude people was 

 useful and intelligible, but not elegant. It was 

 partly wood and partly stone ; nay, one of our 

 earliest Saxon churches was of wicker work. 

 The workmanship was coarse, the design heavy ; 

 nor did the painting or the sculpture which it 

 contained atone for such defects. Saints and 

 apostles carved with a hatchet ; legends deline- 

 ated with a mop rather than a brush ; postures 

 straight, stiff", and formal ; lineaments rudely 

 indicated ; expression harsh and savage ; all 

 told, as plain as with a tongue, that the science 

 and skill displayed in the Greek and Roman 

 works were departed from the earth, and that 

 man had to begin his studies anew. As the 

 Christian religion spread and grew strong, the 

 fine arts expanded with it ; science was applied 

 to the humble fabrics in which the cross of Christ 

 was first set up ; the simple form of the cross on 

 which the churches were founded was embellished 

 with taste and skill ; geometry came to the aid 

 of the architect, and aided him in forming those 

 elegant and remarkable combinations of beauty 

 and strength, which are the wonder of all who 

 are not blinded with classic glory. The sculptor 

 and the painter also exerted themselves ; rigidity 

 of form relaxed into nature ; a saint-like mild- 

 ness of sentiment succeeded to savage expres- 

 sion ; something of heaven was stamped on the 

 face ; a rude divinity of meaning gave an interest 



to the groups, and robes, which formerly de- 

 pended like icicles, began to grow soft and 

 flexible, and an air of ease, and a capability to 

 think, was impressed on all they touched. This 

 was the work of centuries, and did not arise 

 from the influence of one master-mind ; it was 

 the result of growing knowledge, and of a taste 

 for the elegant ; modified, however, by the 

 Christian religion, which Avas interpreted to 

 forbid the seeking for information in heathen 

 sources, and the drinking at other well-springs 

 than those of the church. 



Though many pictures, pronounced Jt>y the 

 monks noble, and statues of saints, reckoned by 

 the friars divine, were produced during the early 

 ages of the church, we must regard Cimabue as 

 the Chaucer of art ; for with him came a maturer 

 science, and above all poetry. He found art in 

 much the same condition as the sculptors of 

 Greece received it from those of Egypt ; and he 

 purified and elevated it, and rendered it more 

 worthy of that divine religion with which it was 

 associated. What the fine arts had been doing 

 during the twelve hundred years which intervened 

 between the days of the apostles and those of 

 Cimabue, may be read in the history of the 

 world. One horde of barbarian conquerors suc- 

 ceeded another ; war followed war ; now a bare- 

 footed monk sat on the throne of the Ca;sars ; 

 then a barbarian from the Danube or the Wolga, 

 and both exercised a power hostile to the deve- 

 lopment of such genius as delights in noble or 

 lovely creations. That this first of Christian 

 painters was inspired by the consummate models 

 of heathen art, cannot be disproved, though it 

 may be doubted. The superstitious zeal of the 

 image-breakers of the preceding centuries had 

 been directed against those magnificent reliques 

 of Grecian genius ; they destroyed in their wrath 

 all that the Huns and Vandals had spared, and 

 little was left save what lay buried in the ruins 

 of towns and temples, to be dug up in a happier 

 age. Neither could the intercourse which still 

 subsisted between Rome and the capital of the 

 East be of advantage to his studies ; their alli- 

 ance was shaken by difference of interest, and 

 imbittered by religious disputes ; and, moreover, 

 we are yet to learn that Constantinople had 

 arts to boast of Avorthy of being communicated. 

 Cimabue had to rely on his own inspiration, and 

 his works were the wonder of his own as well as 

 aftertimes. He painted a life-size picture of the 

 Virgin Mary with so much success, for Florence, 

 his native place, that the citizens treated him 

 with honours almost divine ; his work was borne 

 in solemn procession to the church, and the 

 happy day was celebrated by a public feast. He 



