About the time when the chair of Ravenna was made, that is, in the
sixth century, sculpture in ivory again sensibly declined. The
figures in Byzantine work of that period begin to be characterised
by sharpness and meagreness of form, and lengthiness of proportion;
in the heads, however, we yet find a good expression; and especially
in representations of our Lord dignity and resignation. The costume
also gradually became more and more covered with ornaments and jewels;
although the ancient classical robes were still copied, and apostles
were clothed in togas, or the virgin in a chlamys and tunic, or the
magi in Phrygian caps.
Troubles, moreover, arose, and about the year 750 there sprang up in
the east very bitter theological quarrels, especially having reference
to the lawfulness of the use of images, not only in churches but for
private devotion. The spirit of Mahometanism, strictly and dogmatically
condemning without distinction, whether in sculpture or in paintings,
all representations of the deity and of man, first shown in the near
neighbourhood of the Holy Land, spread rapidly from one country to
another. The Christian iconoclasts of Constantinople, even if they did
not follow the heresy of Mahomet in this matter to its fullest extent,
at least equalled it in hatred of all holy images and sacred sculpture,
and in the severity with which they persecuted the workers and
purchasers of such works. Towards the middle of the eighth century the
power and influence of these fanatics reached their height, and with
Leo the Isaurian on the throne received the fullest support which an
emperor could give. We must attribute to the rage of the iconoclasts,
indiscriminating in its fury, not only the destruction of Christian
monuments and sculpture (and especially those which were said to be
miraculous, ἀχειροποιηταί,) but of many of the most important and most
valuable remains, then still existing, of the best periods of ancient
Greek art. This persecution continued for more than a hundred years,
until the reign of Basil the Macedonian, A.D. 867; who, by permitting
again the right use of images, restored to the arts their free exercise.
In consequence of these excesses in the east the west of Europe
gained greatly. Not only works of art were brought by fugitives from
Constantinople to France, Germany, and other countries, thus furnishing
models from which copies could be multiplied and a better taste
introduced, but the workmen and artists themselves, driven into exile,
came and were hospitably received and founded everywhere new schools of
art. Charlemagne especially, too wise a prince to overlook the certain
benefits and advantages which were thus offered, liberally patronised
the strangers and gave them his assistance and protection everywhere.
Some writers of great authority upon paintings have said that the
iconoclast emigration did not much influence art in Rome and Italy. The
Roman artists, as shown in the few mosaics which remain, “trod the path
of decline, independent in their weakness. To the faults which had been
confirmed by centuries of existence, others were superadded. To absence
of composition, of balance in distribution and connection between
figures, were added neglect and emptiness of form, a general sameness
of feature, and the total disappearance of relief by shadow. Still the
reminiscence of antique feeling remained in certain types, in a sort
of dignity of expression and attitude, and in breadth of draperies,
which, though defined by parallel lines, were still massive.” Crowe
and Cavalcaselle, from whom the quotation is taken, may not intend,
however, to include in this statement sculptures in ivory.
[Illustration]
There are still remaining, in the collections both at home and abroad,
some examples of carved ivories from the fifth century to the time
of Charlemagne. The woodcut represents one of the most important and
remarkable works known of this period. Although there is a great
similarity of style between this ivory and a silver vase of the sixth
century in the Blacas collection, in the British museum, there is still
difficulty in suggesting even a probable date, which can scarcely be
later than the early part of the seventh century; nor is it more easy
to speculate on the original use of the vase. A loose ring, cut from
the same block of ivory, surrounds the foot; and, if the vase was made
for some very sacred purpose, we may suppose that the ring carried
a thin veil to be thrown over the whole for further security and
reverence. The cover is of later date, and where the ivory has cracked
there is a repair excellently done by some mediæval jeweller with a
small gold chain which extends from the rim downwards about two inches.
This piece is in the British museum.
Unlike the vase, which is good both in design and workmanship, the
early ivories of western Europe are rude and many of them even
barbarous in manner and workmanship; but about the year 800 a sure
result of the influx of Greek artists is to be seen, and the style
advanced with a very evident progression, subject only to a short
interval of deterioration at the end of the tenth century. After this
brief check there followed a distinct improvement, impressed, however,
with a feeling and type peculiar to the eleventh and first half of the
twelfth century. We find the figures calm and, as it were, collected
in design, but placed in stiff and unnatural positions, the draperies
close and clinging and broken up into numerous little folds, ornamented
also still more largely than before with small jewels or beads. The
school of the lower Rhine kept itself to a certain extent free from
these faults; their figures preserved more movement, their modelling
was better, their draperies more natural and disposed with greater art.
Christianity spread gradually though slowly over western Europe from
the age of Charlemagne, and, as it spread, ivory was used more and
more for the decoration of ecclesiastical furniture, especially of
books and reliquaries. The adaptation of the large tablets given by
the consuls has been already spoken of: and not only were the old
diptychs still remaining in the seventh or eighth centuries applied
to their new purpose for the public services of the church, but many
new diptychs must also have been provided. Pyxes for the consecrated
and unconsecrated wafers, retables or ornamented screens to be placed
upon altars, holy water buckets, handles for flabella, episcopal combs,
croziers, and pastoral staffs were made in fast increasing numbers.
There is ample evidence, not only from examples which have been
preserved down to our own times but from contemporary writers, of
the large extent to which the employment of ivory reached in the
Carlovingian period, from the end of the eighth to the middle of the
tenth century. Eginhard, writing to his son, sends him a coffer made by
a contemporary artist, enriched with columns of ivory after the antique
style; Hildoward, bishop of Cambrai, A.D. 790, orders a diptych of
ivory to be made for him in the twelfth year of his pontificate: an
inventory of Louis le Débonnaire, in 823, mentions a diptych of ivory,
a statuette, and a coffer; his son-in-law, count Everard, leaves in
his will writing tablets, a chalice and coffer, an evangelisterium
ornamented with bas-reliefs, and a sword and belt with similar
decorations, all of ivory; Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, in 845,
orders covers to be made for the works of St. Jerome with plaques of
ivory, and also for a sacramentary and lectionary.
Several of the most important of the existing examples of this famous
Carlovingian school are named in Labarte’s useful book: among them,
especially, the diptych preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of
Milan, and of which a plate is given in the album, _pl._ xiii.; the
two plaques which form the cover of the sacramentary of Metz, now in
the public library at Paris; and a bas-relief of a book of gospels at
Tongres, in the diocese of Liége, remarkable for the simplicity of the
composition, the soberness of its ornamentation and correctness of
design, all of which qualities are frequent characteristics of the work
of the ninth century.
Georgius says that the very ancient _tabulæ eburneæ_ which he saw in
the church of St. Riquier in Picardy (_Centulensi thesauro_), and those
given to his church by Riculfus, bishop of Elne, in Narbonne, A.D. 915,
were sacred diptychs.
Mr. Oldfield gives an excellent selection of Carlovingian ivories in
his catalogue of the casts of the Arundel society, classes 4, 5, and 6.
[Illustration]
In the same period we must also place, contrary to the judgment of
Du Sommerard, who would suggest an earlier date, a book cover in the
public library at Amiens, carved with the baptism of Clovis and with
two miracles of Remigius. On the next page is an engraving of this
plaque from Lacroix’s book on the arts of the middle ages. In the
scene of the baptism of Clovis, which occupies the lowest of the three
compartments, the dove is seen descending upon the head of the king
with the famous ampulla and sacred oil used in the coronations of the
sovereigns of France.
It is scarcely necessary perhaps to remark that the holy water buckets
above mentioned, p. 47, are not to be confounded with stoups; the
one was carried by an acolyte in attendance on the priest, the other
fixed against the wall at the entrance of the church. That _situlæ_ or
buckets were made of ivory, and for the especial purpose just named, is
certain from an example preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of
Milan, which is engraved in the appendix to the third volume of Gori’s
Thesaurus. This _situla_ is richly carved with scripture subjects and
round the upper border is incised the legend,
“Vates Ambrosii Gotfredus dat tibi sancte,
Vas veniente sacram spargendum Cæsare lympham.”
Gotfred was archbishop of Milan in the year 975.