Esthetic Evolution. 221 



causes also, but it cannot be contested but that Christ- 

 ianity has been at least one of the most important of 

 them. Christian art as regards architecture culminated in 

 the thirteenth century. Sculpture and painting continued 

 to develop at the least until the end of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury ; but as they gained in natural beauty they lost the 

 Christian inspiration, and the nature of the artistic move- 

 ment of the Renaissance has been already noted in the 

 first chapter. * 



Now the greatest lover of Christian art, if he is candid 

 cannot deny the various imperfections of its early and 

 mediaeval efforts, nor the great improvement and advance 

 which in many respects marked the reappearance of the 

 pagan spirit in art. 



Are we then to anticipate a complete severance between 

 high art and Christian symbolism of all kinds ; or may 

 we hope that the decay of Christian art has been but the 

 prelude to its reappearance in a more perfect condition 

 hereafter, as the break up of the harmony of the grub or 

 larva into the discord of the chrysalis or pupa, results in 

 the more perfect harmony of the imago, or butterfly ? 



In the present day we have seen a great reaction against 

 the Renaissance movement, architecturally in modern 

 gothic, pictorially in the school of Overbeck and pre- 

 Raphaelism, and musically in a return to Palestrina and 



* See ante, page 24. 



