1842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



145 



Scriptural subjects — innocent as embellishments — possibly more or 

 less efficacious as impressive lessons, and aids to devotional feeling. 

 At present there is hardly a church, except St. Paul's, calculated for 

 the reception of vpalUpaintings, yet of such decoration even that, we 

 find, has been deprived, through the over-scrupulousness of one who 

 could enforce his velo against it ; and perhaps, were it not that they 

 are utterly lost in obscurity, the same worthy prelate would have con- 

 demned Sir James Thornhill's paintings in the cupola to be expunged 

 by whitewash. The exterior itself of the cathedral might at the 

 present day be objected to by some, as presenting in its noble dome, 

 its statues, and other ornaments, more of a Papistical physiognomy 

 than is becoming in a Protestant church of any kind. 



There is, we suspect, no small degree of superstition, or else regard 

 to the superstitious fancies of others, in that excessive and over- 

 zealous avoidance of things perfectly indifterent in themselves, merely 

 because they have been used — perhaps greatly abused — by the followers 

 of a different creed. But is not this apparent virtue a fault, and that 

 bv no means a light one, partaking as it does of that haughty and 

 uncharitable spleen, which our Lord himself omitted no opportunity 

 of reproving in the Pharisees, against whom, as has been remarked by 

 a certain writer, all meek and humble as he was, he was continually 

 directing the severest sarcasms and the most pointed irony. 



That we may allay the fears and scruples of those who in their just 

 aversion to Popery look upon painting and sculpture in churches as 

 part and parcel of it — as among its enticements and defilements— we 

 will now listen to Dr. Griineisen, whom, to say the truth, we have 

 kept in the background so long, that our readers may have begun to 

 suppose we did not intend to admit him further than the threshold of 

 our article. Now, as is evident from the title he has given it, the 

 scope of the Doctor's dissertation — which, we may observe, appeared 

 on the occasion of the Reformation festival at Leipzig, 1&39 — is to 

 show that the principles of the Reformation do not demand the renun- 

 ciation of the fine arts, or their expulsion from the service of the 

 church ; and that it is a mere vulgar prejudice to imagine that the 

 reformers themselves either desired or contemplated any such result, 

 but merely sought to abolish those idolatrous pictures and statues to 

 which the Romanists ascribed supernatural eiTicacy or particular 

 sacredness, together with relics — always doubtful, and for the greater 

 part, merely fictitious. The indiscriminate Bilderstiirmerci and spo- 

 liation of works of art in churches and religious houses proceeded 

 entirely from the lawless fanaticism of the people, who, in all sudden 

 changes, whether political or religious, think they cannot better dis- 

 play their sincerity in favour of one cause, than by blindly attacking 

 and wreaking their vengeance upon whatever is considered by them 

 identified with that of their opponents. So far, however, were the 

 heads of the Reformation from sanctioning or any way countenancing 

 this zealot Vandalism — albeit some Protestants of the present day would 

 perhaps show themselves less scrupulous and less moderate — that they 

 exerted their authority and influence to arrest the mischievous havoc, 

 as far as was then possible, even at the risk of offending their own 

 intemperate partisans. To look upon them, therefore, as the insti- 

 gators and abettors is a calumnious error : with far more truth and 

 reason may the Romish church be charged with directly sanctioning 

 those idolatrous superstitions and practices among its followers which 

 it affects to disown for itself ; inasmuch as it has tacitly connived at 

 and profited by them, without lifting up its voice against such 

 enormities. 



Zuiiiglius expressly says, " statuas, imagines, et simulacr^i, nemo 

 tam ilolidus est, qui putet abolendas esse, ubi nuUus eis cultus ex- 

 hibetur" ; and although he remonstrates against the papistical use or 

 abuse of such representations, "alioquin," he adds, "nemo magis 

 miratur picturas, statuas, et imagines quam nos." Very few will 

 attribute much laxity, or indeed any want of rigour to Calvin, and yet 

 we find this stern reformer speaking with a liberality in favour of art 

 that is little less than startling : " neque tamen e/i supersitiiione tenear, 

 ut nullas prorsus imagines ferendas censeam. Sed quia sculptura et 

 pictura dvna aunt Dei, purum et legitimum utriusque usum require, 

 Be quae Dominus in suam gloriam et bonum nostrum nobis contulit, ea 



non tantum poUuanlur praepostero abusu, sed in nostram quoque per- 

 niciem convertantur." Here he openly vindicates the employment of 

 both painting and sculpture in the service of the church, and for the 

 adornment of its temples, calling them gifts from God, and making 

 use of the very strong and remarkable expression, " neque ea super- 

 stitione tenear," which may be interpreted "I have not such a blind 

 and superstitious horror of the superstitions of popery as to imagine 

 that all pictures ought to be interdicted." Indeed, he elsewhere re- 

 commends the introduction of historical subjects from scripture as 

 silent admonitions, and incentives to godliness. In short, we believe 

 that the Royal Academicians would have succeeded far better with 

 John Calvin than they did with the Bishop of London, who, when they 

 applied to him, certainly evinced some of that siiperslitioii which the 

 celebrated reformer disowned. Yet, as we are not Calvinists, and 

 therefore his authority may have comparatively little weight, let us 

 turn to Luther, whose opinion ought certainly to stand for something ; 

 and, undoubtedly to the surprise of many, we find him taunting the 

 Bildenliirmers or iconoclasts, and destroyers of church pictures and 

 images, with tolerating similar representations in the wood-cuts of 

 their German bibles. "I humbly crave, therefore," he adds, "that 

 they would allow the same license to us, and permit us to adorn our 

 walls in like manner as they do their books, with images forcibly 

 calling to mind, or else serving to explain, what is recorded in Holy 

 Writ; because I see not how they can be more hurtful when deline- 

 ated upon a wall, than on the page of a hook. Would to God I might 

 persuade our great and wealthy ones to have the entire bible painted 

 both outside and withinside their houses; that would be truly a 

 Christian work." Without exactly assenting to this last opinion, 

 which appears to us of very questionable propriety, we may be satis- 

 fied with the direct and explicit testimony given in favour of painting 

 and sculpture as suitable adornments for churches, by those who, as 

 Anti-romanists, are generally supposed to have viewed them with 

 abhorrence, and to have laboured to suppress them. 



The other fallacy or error here combated is the prevalent idea that, 

 independently of the change in religious worship, the Reformation 

 has proved of evil influence upon art generally, there being, in the 

 very constitution of Protestantism, what checks and prevents art from 

 coming to full maturity, although it may not actually blight it in the 

 bud. We grant that no second Raphael or Michel Agnolo has arisen 

 as a luminary of Protestant art, that painting has upon the whole 

 declined since the period immediately preceding the Reformation; 

 and had such declension been confined to those countries which era- 

 braced the reformed faith, the argument sought so to be established 

 might be received as a valid one ; whereas the case stands altogether 

 differently, since it is precisely in Catholic and papal Italy itself that 

 the fine arts, and painting more especially, sunk almost to degrada- 

 tion — to mere mechanical and tasteless routine — to insipidity and 

 almost to imbecility, during a considerable portion of the two last 

 centuries, although it would seem that if Catholicism and Protestant- 

 ism had any share in the matter, it ought to have received a fresh 

 impetus in Italy, from the roused spirit of rivalry, and the desire of 

 opposing the majestic array of Catholic worship in all its splendour, 

 to the tasteless and cheerless poverty of that of the reformed church. 

 Allowing, therefore, that it was their religious faith and the aesthetic 

 influence of their creed which, animating the great Catholic artists of 

 other days, and enabled them to achieve works that seem almost to have 

 been inspired, we must conclude that the prompting, devotional spirit 

 of their creed has long since passed away, and that Romanism itself 

 is now little more than nominal, compared with what it formerly 

 was. Either the cause alleged was not the real one — or at best, but 

 one concurring with many others, or it has now ceased, since it most 

 evidently is no longer in operation. On the other hand, Romanism 

 favours a good deal that is most anti-aesthetic, and attaches a high 

 value to many things that art would repudiate, either as absolute de- 

 formities, or as vain baubles and gewgaws. What shall we say of 

 that pious taste for bijouterie which the Romanists practically attribute 

 to their saints? — of diamond necklaces and other trinkets, childishly 

 dedicated to the Madonna? "The pomp exhibited in architecture 



