EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
Historically and philosophically, from the point of view of whatever
religious denomination; in the eyes of the devout believer, as well as
in the eyes of the sceptic; by the thinker, and by the mere automaton
of blood, flesh and bones; it must be admitted, that the two most
important events in the history of humanity were the foundation of
Christianity, and the great migration of the Northern people. The one
was a _spiritual_ movement, the other thoroughly _material_.
It is usual, in tracing the historical development of mankind in
science and art, to follow the apparent course of the sun, and to
assume that progress travelled with Indra, Ormuzd, Horus and Phoibos
Apollo, from East to West. This is, however, a mere phrase. To
understand and appreciate the history of man, it is better to divide
the globe into a southern and northern hemisphere; for we find, that in
analogy with this subdivision, the material as well as the intellectual
development of life on our globe took place. We may even go further,
and trace a distinction between the development of life and art in
the south and north of the northern and southern hemispheres. In the
farthest south of the southern hemisphere we have animal life and
man, in the very lowest scale of progressive development; whilst the
further we travel towards the north, the more animal life and the
intellectual capacity of man increase. This is also the case in the
northern hemisphere, up to the frigid zone, where a reaction sets in.
In the south the moral power was more developed than the intellectual.
In the south the predominant static force, joined to an ill-disciplined
imagination, drove man to the field of metaphysical speculation; the
misunderstood laws of nature, and the ignorance of the sluggish and
indolent masses, gave free play to superstition and priestcraft. Thus
the south (or south-east) was the birth-place of various theogonies,
and religious systems. Idolatry, zoolatry, Sabaism, theism, pantheism,
astrology, symbolism, mysticism, alchemy, magic, and cabalism
originated in the south. The intellectual power in humanity, with a
strong tendency to regulate itself by moral force, decidedly prevailed
in the north, or north-west of our globe; and we received philosophy,
as well as art, in their highest perfection, from Greece, the then
most northern dwelling-place of civilized humanity. All the sciences
which, through their beneficial influence have promoted the welfare
and progress of humanity, were fostered in the North. In the North,
astronomy, geography, history, botany, zoology, physiology, anatomy,
chemistry, geology, and cosmogony were developed.
The savage of the South, up to our days, does not go beyond an
ornamentation with geometrical figures; he can neither produce
animals nor the human figure. The Egyptians surpassed the Assyrians
and Babylonians in their monumental architecture, but in the plastic
reproduction of the human form they never succeeded. Their sitting
figures had legs and thighs forming right angles in the side view,
while in front they were parallel; the drapery was merely marked by
lines, rarely interrupted by folds. In their historical and allegorical
bas-reliefs the composition is devoid of elegance and correctness
of outlines; but they already showed a remarkable power in drawing
animals. The Indians reached a higher stage of progress in sculpture;
their mythology and poetry furnished them with a variety of subjects,
with which they covered the walls of their shrines and temples; after
the doctrines of Buddha became more universal, they attained grandeur
in their architecture, combined with a certain degree of elegance. The
human form is reproduced with ease; the proportions, though too soft,
too sensual, are more correct than with the Egyptians.
So long as the Greek artists worked with reverence and modesty,
inspired by faith in the gods, they were capable of understanding
God’s revelation of beauty in man’s outer form. So long as the Romans
unconsciously worked in this spirit, they produced their stupendous
architectural monuments. When, however, State and citizens were forced
by false principles to war with reality for a beggarly existence, or
to plunge into mere sensuous enjoyments, man came to an open rupture
with his destiny, and humanity might have perished altogether in sin
and iniquity, had not Providence mercifully interfered by freeing,
through Christ, the ‘inner man’--that is, the intellectual and moral
force in man--thus preparing humanity for a higher progressive life.
The south of Asia had to go through the same religious and artistic
phases of development. Buddhism stands to Brahmanism in the same
relation as Christianity to Mosaism and Heathenism. Excepting, however,
that both religions were reformations of older established creeds,
all analogy between them ceases. The proof of the difference lies
in the diametrically opposed development produced by Buddhism and
Christianity. It is true that Buddhism teaches us not to kill, not
to steal, not to lie, and not to be drunken. Christianity does the
same. Buddha, in twelve other ordinances, extols self-abnegation,
poverty, and commands all to meditate amongst the tombs on the fleeting
transitoriness of our earthly existence. Christianity does the same.
Christ, however, redeemed and freed our spiritual nature, and brought
it into a self-conscious, vivid activity; whilst Buddhism degraded this
higher _individual_ nature into a nonentity, denying that there was an
independent moral agent in us; teaching that we were phenomena of an
all-pervading divine power, by which universality we should be absorbed
after life. So long as Christianity held, though in a different shape,
nearly the same mystic principles as Buddhism, the results in art
were the same; for our ecclesiastical art was a revival of Buddhistic
temples, with all their divisions and sub-divisions, their pointed
arches, their variegated columns and pillars, the triforium, the altar
(Daghopa), cloisters, chapels, and crypts.
Christ’s divine words resounded at a period when the Greeks had long
turned their minds to the licentious worship of the sensuous. The
Egyptians, sighing under their Roman taskmasters, had taken refuge
in dark mysticism, the meaning of which had been long lost to them;
the Jews were divided into quarrelling sects, sunken in religious
indifference, or occupied with mere outward formalities, hating
everyone and hated by everyone. The Romans knelt tremblingly before
an imperial divinity, slaves and poor being considered mere burdens
on society; the rich were merciless, debauched, and revelled in
amusements; infanticides, suicides, murder and decay, despair and
annihilation, were every-day occurrences. At this period, under such
circumstances, the divine Master died on the cross, sealing with his
death the one great tiding of love: ‘that we are all children of _one_
Father, who is in heaven.’ The god of revenge of the old world was
transformed into a God of inexhaustible love. With the Jews and the
ancients, he only was blessed who had plenty on earth; now, the pure
in mind, whether poor or rich, weak or mighty, beautiful or ugly, was
extolled. God was not merely present in the universe as its living
soul, or in a burning bush, in thunder and lightning, in growling
volcanoes, in an ark, a carved idol, a statue or in a temple. God
was present, wherever a kind, loving, and forgiving mind was ready
to be His ark or temple. Christ repudiated all local gods; did not
require any sacrifices of plants or animals; did not prescribe any
diet, or outward sanguinary sign; did not allow polygamy; did not
proclaim his followers the only _chosen_ children of the _Father of
All_; but taught the one and indivisible, and ever-true law of peace,
love, and tolerance. This doctrine is as universal as intellect; it
must be of as divine origin as intellect itself; it is, and can be,
the only faith which must once unite Humanity into one great loving
and beloved brotherhood. What a change! Not only a change; it was the
building up of a new glorious future; it was the re-establishment of
the lost balance between the working forces of humanity; it was the
redemption of our individual, moral, and intellectual capacities; it
was the enunciation of an eternal law, under which humanity had, till
then, unconsciously developed, but of which it became conscious in word
as well as in spirit, through Christ. Slavery in body or mind was,
at least in principle, for ever abolished; and one of the noblest
edifices of Byzantine architecture in Italy, the church of St. Vitale
at Ravenna, was dedicated by Justinian, a Roman Emperor, to the memory
of a slave, who was martyred for the sake of his piety and love.
Hospitals for the poor and sick, Xenodochia (refuges for strangers)
began to be built--architectural constructions of which the whole
ancient world could not boast.
The Christian spirit at first struggled to find a corresponding form
in art; the new wine was put into the old vessels till it burst the
decaying fetters and issued forth in a life-giving art-stream, in two
directions:--
(_a_) As Romanesque art in the West, a decaying continuation of Roman
art;
(_b_) As Byzantine art in the East, a revival of Asiatic art.
The beginning of Christian plastic and pictorial art is to be looked
for in subterranean caves; in catacombs, used by Egyptians, Assyrians,
Persians, Greeks, Etruskans, and Romans as burial-places. The deep but
simple doctrines of Christ were at first hidden in symbols, types,
allegories and emblems. In a SYMBOL we try to express a general idea by
a special outward sign, totally heterogeneous in form to the meaning.
Geometrical figures, plants, and animals, furnish the elements of
symbolism. In the ALLEGORY the artist represents congruities, traces
connections, unites analogies and separates differences. Imagination
has in allegories an inexhaustible field for composition. TYPES are
signs, arbitrarily interpreted as meaning something, which they may or
may not mean. EMBLEMS with the Greeks were golden or silver figures
which could be detached from vessels. With the Romans the word was used
as a synonym for symbol or metaphor. They became with us Christians
signs in colours. White or blue was the emblem of innocence, red of
joy, black of mourning, green of hope, and purple of power or dignity.
MYTHS generally had their origin in symbols and allegories, which found
interpreters, commentators, exegists, and expounders in the priests of
the ancient world. Later, the myths were taken up by poets and artists,
and the dogmatic explanations of mystic signs were transformed into
legends, tales, sagas, or even into historical facts. Nothing affords
greater delight to the inquisitive mind of man than a mystic sign!
The more unintelligible such a sign is, the more welcome it is to the
childish creature. Anything veiled in doubt, shrouded in a symbol or
type, has a peculiar charm. Anything that can only be guessed at, or
dimly felt, is more admired than that which lies clearly before our
perceptive faculty. ‘Mysteries were taught in symbols, in darkness
at night-time; the symbolic itself is to be compared to night and
darkness,’ says Demetrius. No wonder that symbols were adopted by the
first followers of Christ. They were too near to Egypt; the ancient
world had not yet altogether lost its hold on the minds of the masses,
and they could not have avoided availing themselves of forms which were
used by Indians, Greeks, Egyptians, or Romans.
In the old catacombs of St. Sebastiano, St. Calisto, St. Lorenzo, and
Sta. Agnese at Rome, extending altogether to about 750 miles, and in
those of St. Gennaro de Poveri, Sta. Maria della Sanitá, and Sta. Maria
della Vita at Naples, we find some attempts at symbolism; the cross,
the monogram of Christ’s name ΧΡ {CHR}; or an ΑΩ {AÔ}, symbolical of
the beginning and the end of all things; a palm branch, doves, the
piscis vesica, and here and there a lamb. But these signs belong to the
fourth and fifth centuries A.D. The inscriptions do not go farther back
than the second century. The homely simplicity of the early Christians
is distinctly to be traced in the absence of all symbolic decoration
during the first two centuries. Gradually the Christians passed through
the phase of geometrical ornamentation. Triangles and circles, crosses
and squares, squares divided into four squares, or the square taken
three times, giving twelve points, which number contains the sacred
numbers; three (the Trinity), five (the five sacred wounds of Christ),
seven (the seven cardinal virtues, or the seven days of Creation),
and twelve (the twelve apostles), made their appearance. Seven was a
holy and mystic number with all the ancient nations. There were seven
planets, and seven colours in olden times; Apollo’s lyre had seven
strings; Pan used seven pipes for his flute. There are seven days of
the week; seven or three times seven are the critical days in medicine;
there were seven branches to the candlestick of the Jews in the Temple
of Jerusalem. Seven years Jacob had to serve for Leah; and seven others
for Rachel; seven were the ears and kine of which Pharaoh dreamt; seven
were the gods in Scandinavian mythology; seven were the sufferings of
the Virgin Mary; seven the cardinal virtues; seven the deadly sins;
seven are the sacraments of the Romish Church. We cannot fail to see
in the minutest details of history and art, philosophy and religious
systems, an eternally progressing ‘one-ness’ pervading humanity as a
great whole.
Scarcely had the Christians adopted these signs, when they passed on to
the next phase, adorning churches and tombs, altars and sacred vessels,
with emblems taken from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, to serve as
the holy visible outward signs of some sacred inward grace or virtue.
What was immortal was to be expressed in mortal forms, and the finite
was to embody the infinite. Again, the meaning hallowed the form;
again, by degrees, the _form_ became all, and the spirit was altogether
lost through the mere outward sign. Art suffered for centuries under
the gloomy pressure of symbolism, and in striving to disentangle
itself, produced marvels, but it was only freed and attained higher
forms of beauty again, when humanity had gone back to those laws, which
when followed out had produced forms perfect in themselves.
For centuries art revelled in the reproduction of symbolical crows,
eagles, peacocks, doves, gridirons, pitchers, beehives, oxen,
pigs, bulls, geese, violins, fishes, &c., as the attributes of St.
Sebastian, St. John, Sta. Barbara, St. Thomas of Aquin, St. Cyprian,
St. Narcissus, St. Bernard, St. Sebaldus, St. Anthony, St. Martin,
St. Genesius, St. Chrysogonus, &c. A whole science arose out of these
symbols and emblems: _Iconology_, which differs only in form from
mythology. The mere phenomena of nature were no longer embodied; the
individual spirit that lived in the form, became all in all. We were
thus introduced to a two-fold world by Christian art.
(1) Into a spiritual world, in which our intellect moved, as it were,
in a circle. We took our beginning in the infinite, lost our transitory
bodily form, and returned to the infinite from which we emanated--a
kind of idealisation of the corporeal.
(2) A world of external forms, which in their individual phenomena had
only a meaning as the fragile temporary vessels of the eternal Spirit;
this Spirit was no longer a universal sum total by which the individual
was hereafter absorbed, but was assumed to remain _individualised_
through all eternity. Artists and men worked not only for this world,
but their deeds were to outlast all time to come. In this two-fold
world, Christian art went through the following phases:--
(_a_) Through a _historical_ phase, which commenced with Christ’s
birth, life, death, and resurrection, as the new central point of all
things. The eternal Spirit was embodied, worked in a finite form, and
freed from it, regained its absolute divinity. This led in time to
sublime historical sketches in sculpture and painting.
(_b_) Through a _religious_ phase. The spirit, freed and redeemed by
Christ, sought in deeds of harmonious love totally new spheres of
action. Crystals, flowers, trees, landscapes, animals and men, were
interwoven to proclaim not only outward beauty, as with the Greeks,
but a union of the inorganic and the organic, the ancient and the new
worlds, in honour of one God in three emanations or personifications.
So long as bishops, priests, elders, deacons and laymen, were occupied
in trying to shape the new spirit into words, art appeared to slumber.
A too strong storm-wind of dissension on metaphysical niceties, of
mystic and dogmatic hair-splittings, hindered a plastic treatment of
Christianity. Gnostics, Nestorians, Manichæans, Donatists, Arians, and
Athanasians, &c., wasted the energies of the early Christian artists,
with their wild distinctions, their incomprehensible differences.
Quarrels as to whether a blessing was more efficacious when bestowed
with _three_ or only with _two_ uplifted fingers; whether crosses of
equal parts, or crosses in which one division was smaller than the
other, were more powerful, did not promote the productive ability of
artists. When, under Constantine, Christianity was elevated to the rank
of a State religion, churches were built in honour of the new faith.
In the West the Roman Basilicæ were given up to the religious worship
of the Christians, and in time, mixed with Teuton forms, produced the
Romanesque style. In the East a lively revival of Asiatic forms, of
Indian, Assyrian, and Babylonian patterns, took place, and from these
combinations we have the so-called Byzantine style.
The general characteristics of the early Christian style, in which
the form of the Roman basilica predominated, were the following:--The
apsis, the seat of the bishop and clergy, was semicircular. Between
the apsis and the nave stood the altar, or rather the common table,
canopied by a baldachin supported by columns. The walls were covered
with figures of Christ. The main body consisted of a broad and lofty
central nave, on the two sides of which there were two lower passages,
divided by rows of columns, supporting the upper wall of the nave
either by a common architrave, or by strong circular arches. The upper
wall was provided with large broad windows, some being also placed
in the low walls of the side-aisles. The apsis was kept in mystic
darkness.
The threefold division of the Indian, Egyptian, and Hebrew temples was
carefully kept up. The priests assembled in the apsis; the worshippers
in the hall or the galleries; and the penitents or sinners stopped at
the entrance. Of this period, we have the Basilica of Reparatus, in
Tingitanum (now Orléansville) in Algeria, and another in El Hayz, on
a small oasis, in the Libyan desert. In the former the pillars were
probably square, and the apsis is not marked outside. The latter is
furnished with vaulted aisles, adorned with pilasters and niches in the
Romano-Egyptian style.
Under Constantine, Christian churches of larger dimensions were
constructed; marble decorations and a profusion of columns were common.
The five aisles still predominated, the Athanasians not having yet
succeeded in establishing the Trinitarian doctrine. St. Peter’s at Rome
(rebuilt in the 16th century); Sta. Croce at Jerusalem, and the Church
of Sta. Maria at Bethlehem, built by Helena, the wife of Constantine,
were splendid specimens of the pure early Christian style. The transept
before the raised apsis was an innovation. The central aisle (the nave)
rises in independent loftiness. The galleries are dispensed with, as
the dimensions of the building are considerably increased. Light is
admitted through windows in the lofty central aisle. The lines all
tend towards the altar, and the high tribune. The nave is separated
from the transept by a lofty arch supported by pillars. The transept
is provided with broad windows, throwing the greatest amount of light
on the altar, by which means a sublime effect is attained. St. Peter’s
at Rome, and Sta. Maria at Bethlehem, are provided with cross-beams,
which do not accord with the superstructure, which is too heavy. Before
these churches, in a court-yard, stood the fountain. These fountains
were common to all the Indian, Egyptian, and Hebrew temples, because
the _sanctity of water_ was recognised by all the religious sects of
the Southeast. _San Paolo fuori le mura_ belonged to this class of
churches. It was constructed by Theodosius and Honorius. ‘The mighty
apsis, about eighty feet in breadth, is increased in effect by a lofty
transept, which stretches in front of it, across the whole nave. The
body of the church has five aisles. Eighty granite columns, connected
by circular arches, rise in four rows in order to divide the aisles,
and to support the upper wall of the central aisle, and the framework
of the roof. The main aisle opens into the transept with a broad and
lofty triumphal arch, which rests on two colossal columns. A splendid
atrium, surrounded with colonnades, was added to the front, completing
the plan of this basilica.’ The high walls above the central isle
fulfilled a double purpose: they vividly expressed an expanding
tendency upwards, and filled the soul with the idea of the infinite.
This tendency was still more strongly expressed in ecclesiastical or
Gothic architecture. Scenes from the life of Christ and his disciples
were painted, and, in imitation of Roman decoration, gilded panels and
marble pavings were freely used. After the fourth century the five
aisles were gradually abandoned, and only three were used, symbolic
of the Trinity. We have here a kind of Indian or rather Buddhistic
renaissance.
When Ravenna became the seat of the Byzantine Exarchs (viceroys), the
Ostrogoth influences which were perceptible under Theodoric vanished,
and a freer organisation of the sacred edifices was introduced by the
addition of an independent bell-tower, reminding us of the Buddhistic
towers or pillars, the Irish round towers, the minarets of the
Mahomedans, and the obelisks of the Egyptians. The tower rose in a
cylindrical form, without tapering. The roofs of the churches were
generally flat. Strong wall pillars, connected by _circular_ arches,
framed the windows as a repetition of the arcades below. The capitals
retained a double row of acanthus leaves, but the imposts became
stronger, taking the form of a coffin or a small altar, adorned with
crosses, or the monogram of Christ. The churches of St. Vitale and
St. Apollinare in Classe, are models of this transition style, which
formed the link between the Romanesque and the Byzantine. In these we
find Greek marble columns, profuse mosaics on gold grounds, panels and
medallions filled with historical scenes, or the portraits of bishops,
prophets, saints, and martyrs; the decoration is heavy in outlines,
the forms and figures too naturalistic; the taste gorgeous without
refinement; and the technical treatment rough and defective.
Whilst the architectural and ornamental styles were receiving fixed
forms as the pure Romanesque of the West--through the influence of
the Teutons, who became masters of Italy and worked with greater
stiffness, simplicity, and angularity--Byzantine architecture assumed,
from the time of Justinian, a peculiarly pompous, Asiatic type. The
dome prevailed; the ground-plan was composed of squares and circles.
Ceremonies and mysteries borrowed from the Egyptians, Persians, and
Romans, and the division of priests into different castes, required
a different arrangement of the building. There was a place for the
high and one for the low clergy; another for the laymen; the galleries
were, in the old Jewish fashion, assigned to the women; and, lastly,
there was a place for the penitent. These divisions and subdivisions
induced confusion and disunion in the whole plan. Many of the Christian
buildings have become, in their turn, Mahomedan mosques, just as the
Roman basilicæ of old were turned into Christian churches.
The mightiest and the most gigantic of all Byzantine churches is
undoubtedly that of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. First the building
was a temple dedicated to ‘Holy Wisdom,’ in the ancient or classic
meaning of the word. The edifice was destroyed by fire, and rebuilt
by Justinian in five years (A.D. 532-537). Twenty years later it was
much damaged by an earthquake. The injured dome was removed, raised
somewhat higher upon strengthened counterfoils, and finished A.D. 563.
The architects were Anthemis of Tralles, and Isidorus of Miletus. The
ground-plan, ornamentation, and construction, aim in combination at
one single result--surprise. There is a contradiction between lengths
and circles, destroying all effect of simple perspective. The various
cupolas, arches, and half-cupolas, connected with great technical
skill, have no organically united life. An antediluvian world opens its
gates to us. There is everywhere something astounding and gorgeous,
but we are unable to discern the necessity for the existence of the
parts, to form a coherent total. The galleries with their colonnades
puzzle us. The outer square-form, overtowered by a mighty cupola,
and by half-cupolas, is as incongruous as the ornamentation of the
interior. The shafts of the columns are amongst the finest specimens
of Roman architecture. Walls and pillars are adorned with variegated
marble panels in mosaic patterns. The roofs of the dome and semi-domes
are covered with gold mosaics, set in coloured ornamented frames,
interspersed with figurative tapestry-like representations. Christ,
saints, and prophets, are suspended in golden clouds. The effect on an
untutored mind is perfectly intoxicating. Though we do not underrate
the fully developed system of stone-roof construction, we must draw
the attention of our readers to the heavy and shapeless capitals with
the scarcely recognisable Ionic volutes, combined with Corinthian
leaf-work; all outlines being smothered by over-ornamentation,
destroying the beautiful effect of the antique by a clumsy impost.
Byzantine architecture remained stationary for hundreds of years. The
religious spirit went hand in hand with their stiff, lifeless art.
Ignorance and credulity engendered in the East a boundless intolerance
of all divergence of opinion, to which was added an equally boundless
toleration of falsehoods and frauds, so soon as these means served
to support the received opinions. An intellectual standstill was the
result of these principles, and acted on art, rendering it in general
as well as in detail an unwieldy mixture of Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek,
and Roman forms, overloaded with Asiatic filigree composed of lines
drawn from Christian symbolism. The Byzantine style of ornamentation
will always be, like that of China, a strange element to us. However
much the ingenuity of the winding, coiling, and recoiling lines,
interspersed with small and large jewels, may interest us, though we
may gaze at the profusion of gold mixed with gaudy colours with a kind
of vague bewilderment, Byzantine art can never appeal to our sense of
beauty.
A most important branch of Byzantine ornamentation was the treatment
of metals. For flat decoration, in the style of embroidery, nothing
can excel the use of metal, be it gold, silver, bronze, or steel, or
a combination of all these. There was a fantastic originality in
these productions which, when combined with an assiduous study of the
antique, may aid us in many instances to produce excellent specimens
of book-covers, patterns for ornamented salvers, caskets, cups,
candlesticks, crosses, &c. Byzantine art, however, is the very opposite
of classic art. Repose, as a consequence of the liveliest vibration
of forms, and uniformity through a rich variation of patterns, are
the real elements of Byzantine and Oriental art; in contradistinction
to classic art, which is based on the authority of purpose and a
correct subordination of details. This is the reason why the free but
well-systematised ornaments of classic Greece were revived at this
period with Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian textile patterns in
metal, stone, or colours. Nothing could be more appropriate for this
mode of ornamentation than leaf-work, flowers, creepers, &c., in the
arrangement of which, the stern law of a well-regulated distribution of
the repeated forms must be observed, to bring about a thorough balance
between rest and vibration, variety and uniformity.
Whilst Byzantium was exhausting all its powers, and socially and
artistically preparing to fall a prey to iconoclasts and Mahomedans;
the movement, next in importance to the establishment of Christianity,
viz. the migration of the Northern Teutons, took place.
We intend to group Kelts, Normans, Franks, Ostrogoths, and Westrogoths
or Visigoths, Alemanni, Burgundians, Vinilians, Ingavorians,
Istavorians, Vandals, Saxons, Anglo-Saxons, Markomanni, Rugi, Ubi,
Gurgerni, Herulians, Bojoarians, Gepidi, Quadi, Marsingi, Sclavons,
&c., all under the one name of North-European Ayrans. It is an
imperative duty, with the art-historian, to group these scattered
elements together, according to some visible signs, which serve to
prove that, wherever we find an average facial angle of 90°, and
an amount of brain averaging 92 cubic inches, we have to deal with
the Aryan group of humanity. We avoid by this means divisions and
sub-divisions _ad infinitum_, and the danger of losing ourselves
in a labyrinth of petty national animosities and jealousies. Art,
based on ethnology, and a study of climatological influences, has
an immensely Christianising power. We see in the common language of
forms, a common bond between those who formed themselves into small
political communities, each in turn arrogating to themselves a kind
of _‘chosen-people’ superiority_, and turning their powers against
that very mother-stock from which they received life, vigour, a common
language, and a common mode of thinking on supernatural matters, and
the phenomena of nature. The Kelts, Normans, Saxons, Danes, Swedes,
Teutons, Germans (Garmans, Wahrmans, or Wehrmans, Brahmans), are all
of the same stock. Separated at different periods from their Trans-and
Cis-Himâlâyan ancestors, they lost more or less of their old religious
notions, customs, and manners, according to their lesser or greater
intermixture with the Turanian substrata of aborigines, who peopled
the countries wherein they settled. Next to the aspect of the country
in which they established themselves, its climate must be taken into
consideration. The Aryan, snowed in for six months in Scandinavia, or
living on the coasts of the Baltic, obliged to fight for every foot
of fertile ground with a boisterous and obstinate nature, must have
developed otherwise than the self-same Aryan who, as Kelt, took up his
abode on an island everlastingly green with refreshing verdure, and was
insulated from outer influences for long periods, being thus led to
look upon this detached spot as the very centre of the universe around
which the five parts of our globe, the myriads of suns, stars, planets,
and comets revolved. Between the Aryan-Kelt and the Aryan-Frank or
Norman, there will be a difference, brought about by the progress of
time and a freer intermixture with other branches of the mother-stock
who attained a higher kind of civilisation. The Aryans in India lost
themselves in metaphysical abstractions, and made of fire, water, and
air a theogony in which the anthropomorphic element was altogether
effaced. The Aryans in the north of Europe, in their cosmogony, held
to the original conceptions. They had to battle with fire, water, and
air, in the form of volcanoes, seas, rain, snow, hail and storms; and
finding that with their intellectual power they could master these
elements, they soon deprived them of their individual godhead, and
the whole earth, with its loves and passions, its kindnesses and
destructive tendencies, was looked upon as a living being. They also
knew of two regions on earth--not of a spiritually created paradise and
hell, but of a _Muspel-heim_ in the south, and a _Nifel-heim_ in the
north: the one giving warmth, heat, life; the other cold and death;
the one light, the other night; the one summer, and the other winter.
According to the Aryans of the north of Europe the first cosmical
heat produced the giant _Ymir_, or _Angelmir_, who was nourished by
the sacred cow _Audumbla_, from which ran four streams of milk, the
four seasons. Like Brahmă, Ymir had a son and a daughter; the daughter
grew out of his arm, and the son out of his foot. The Brahman was the
outgrowth of Brahmă’s mouth: the Kshattriya sprung from his arms,
the Vaisya grew out of his thighs, and the S’udra out of his feet.
Ymir’s son became the father of the Hirmthursen (giants). By licking
huge rocks of sandstone the cow became the mother of Buri. We thus
pass from the pastoral into the agricultural state, and have the
legend of Jupiter and Io before us. Buri had a son, Bor, who had three
sons. _Odin_, Guodan, Wuodan, Wodan, the All-pervader--the ‘Allvater’
(father of all), _Willi_ and _We_--air, fire and water. Wodan was
also Baal, or the sun-god, in which capacity he had only _one eye_
(the sun); he was also Apollo, the god of poetry, and of all things
that love light and goodness. He was also the warfaring god who led
the people to battle, and protected the valorous and virtuous. He had
to fight against the giant Ymir with his brothers. A reminiscence of
the wars of the Greek gods with the Titans, &c.; the Indian Vritaghna
or the Persian Veretaghna, with the evil spirits of darkness, or the
Egyptian Horus with Typhon. Out of the dead body of Ymir, the sons of
Bor created everything. They formed the earth of his flesh, the rocks
of his bones, the skull became heaven, and his blood furnished seas,
rivers, and streams. They then took four dwarfs and placed Austri (in
the East), Westri (in the West), Sudri (in the South), and Nordri (in
the North), to guard the four corners of the heavens. Wuodan then
embraced the earth, and created his mighty son _Thor_, Donar, Thunder,
the protector of his mother-earth, and the enemy of the wicked. He sent
his lightnings against giants, purified the air, dispersed frost and
cold, killed the demons of heat, silenced the destructive storms, built
bridges, made high-roads, furthered the intercourse of man with man,
and promoted civilisation. The second son of Wuodan was _Zio_ (Ziu,
Zeus, Jovis, Síva, also Tyr-Tiu or Tusco), the god of battles, the
destroyer. The third son was _Fro_ (Froho, Freyr, free), the happy god,
the god of love and marriage. Who does not recognise in Thor, Froh, and
Ziu--Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva--Jupiter, Apollo and Mars? As with the
Aryans on the Ganges, so also with those on the Rhine, the Elbe or the
Weser, and in Scandinavia, the passive element of nature was embodied
in female divinities. _Hertha_, Nerthus (the earth), corresponds
to S’ris, Hera, Ceres, Isis; _Holda_ is closely allied with Hilda,
Hela, Hell (the hidden), the goddess of death, Durga; and _Freyja_
represents Venus, the goddess of love. These Aryans of northern Europe
were known to the ancients as Hyperboræans. They were tall, blue-eyed,
fair-haired, addicted to fighting, and sport. Some of them erected,
in analogy with Buddhists and Egyptians, long thin towers reaching
high into the air, pointing mystically upwards. The ‘Crux Ansata’ is
reproduced in the Irish crosses, and their mode of ornamentation, with
its twisted rope-like windings, and its serpent-like entanglements,
points to Indian patterns of a very ancient type. When these Aryans
of the north of Europe first dashed into the south, and destroyed
the Roman colossus, they embraced Christianity with all the fervour
of their unbiassed hearts. Entirely given up to the culture of the
wild powers of nature, free from all metaphysical subtleties--the
genuine men of wild oak, pine, and beech forests--they had no Vedas,
no Homer, no Zoroaster, no Hermes, and no Moses to forget; they, in
fact, only knew of an Allvater, because no two Teuton tribes held
the same opinions on metaphysics. They had only one common ground,
honest work--_industry_ (at those times concentrated on warfare); and
therefore they received Christianity with the greatest eagerness, and
became the only upholders, expounders, and propagators of a religion
for which their hearts were created. They recognised in Christ’s words,
what they heard in whispers in their legends, and in the experiences
of their wild life--that we ought to love others as ourselves. They
added some of their old superstitions to the pure faith, which they
found already much impregnated with Egyptian, Roman, and Indian signs
and symbols. In the beginning, whilst Christianity was spreading all
over Europe, they cultivated a mixture of North European and Roman
forms in architecture as well as in ornamentation. They constructed
their churches with plans borrowed from ancient times, and freely used
geometrical symbols--for the sign of the Indian Trimurty, that of the
shields of David or Solomon, and that of the Trinity, did not differ.
The pentagram is still made on every loaf the Germans bake; it was
a Druidical mystic sign, and now serves good Christians to protect
their bread from being eaten by evil spirits. If we look at our Tudor
roses, or St. Katherine’s wheels, we may clearly trace their origin
to the Zodiacs of Egypt, used as signs of the _Makrokosm_. The Teuton
minds found themselves suddenly dazzled by Christian theology. Greek,
Alexandrian, Nestorian, Arian, Athanasian, Jewish and Christian mystics
and casuists, already abounded in the sunny Muspel-heim, in which the
Teutons settled, and they had to exchange their gloomy, foggy, and
stormy Nifel-heim of reality, for a spiritual Nifel-heim of doctrinal
controversies. They turned their elfs and sprites, their kobolds and
gnomes, their spirits of air, water, and fire, into so many evil
spirits. They looked upon the literature of the Greeks and Romans,
of which they knew nothing, as the work of Beelzebub. Art was an
enchantress of the senses, and sculpture invented by the father of all
‘lies,’ to deceive us with mock-creatures, to seduce men, and to cheat
them of their share in everlasting salvation. In this gloomy spirit the
newly converted Teuton Christians built churches, and, sunken in the
most atrocious superstition, occupied themselves with the casting out
of devils. Nature was, in fact, one grand dwelling-place for demons.
Plague, poverty, and sickness, were attributed to the agency of the
enemy of mankind. Epileptic fits and insanity were signs that the demon
had taken possession of unfortunate wretches, who were either tormented
or put to death. Satan, with his legions of devils, continually
harassed mankind. To mortify and kill the body by fasting, chanting,
whipping, praying, and self-inflicted mortification, was thought the
only worthy and cheerful occupation of mankind. In addition to these
religious tendencies, wars were waged with merciless cruelty, either in
favour of, or against the new Christian superstition. A few so-called
_learned_ theologians studied the Jewish Cabala, Egyptian mysteries,
Zoroastrian magical calculations, Greek sophisms, and Alexandrian
Neo-Platonism. How could art have flourished under such circumstances?
Incantations, astrological calculations, alchemical experiments, were
the order of the day. The few learned men, whether architects or
others, as soon as they produced anything astounding, were said to have
received their ideas or plans, or their powers, from the devil. Who was
to create any beautifully shaped product of art, surrounded by such
misgivings?
This struggle lasted for several centuries; until, stimulated by
movements in the far East, the Christian world left its secluded haunts
in cloisters, monasteries, churches, and castles, and mixed once more
with the outer world, and the whole gloomy medley of Christianised
northern mythology had to yield to new forms in art.
Of this period we have a quantity of wood and ivory carvings, swords
in the form of crosiers, and crosiers in the form of swords, cups and
candlesticks, censers and pastoral staffs, diptichs and triptichs,
recording scenes from the life of Christ or of some saint. From the
third century down to the twelfth, year by year, artistic products of
ornamentation grew worse and worse. In the third century there was some
naturalness in the drapery, the folds being well executed; but in the
fifth century the treatment of the human figure deteriorated; folds
became more rope-like; Christ was represented as very young, with or
without a beard, often retaining the form of Apollo, or of Hermes,
carrying a lamb (the good shepherd). Bodies of saints and holy persons
grew more and more emaciated; the anatomy was altogether neglected.
After the Crusades in the twelfth century a marked improvement took
place, but everything was then impregnated with Mahomedan forms.
We should look with deep interest, and a sense of filial piety, on
these primitive attempts of Christian art; the execution is bad, but
the sentiments spread by their carvings, faulty designs, and poor
ornamentations, are always excellent. The artists address us in a rough
and unskilful manner, yet some spiritual truth awakens our better
nature to exalted feelings of love. This, however, teaches us that a
good feeling, a devout spirit, or a religious sentiment in the artists,
is not alone enough to produce works of art.
Whilst Europe was expending its powers in the re-arrangement of the
disturbed social and religious relations of humanity, a new movement
arose which threatened to overwhelm the whole world.
The new movement produced new art forms, which in their turn serve to
prove that art is a most important factor of civilisation. Till lately,
the erroneous notion that art is a mere superfluous luxury has appeared
to prevail with us. Art was placed by the ethicists in opposition to
morals, and scientists either altogether ignored it, or regarded it as
diametrically opposed to science--a pretty but useless toy. Art is
as necessary to man as either ethics or science. For man is endowed
with an emotional element, which must be satisfied and cultivated, in
order to raise him to the dignity of a human being using his esthetical
and intellectual faculties. It is vain to attempt to draw lines of
demarcation, between our component material and spiritual elements.
We recognise, or become conscious, through our _senses_; we sift the
impressions made on our senses by the power of our _intellect_: and we
regulate and arrange these impressions with the aid of our _reason_.
We may, therefore, strictly treat art scientifically, as well as
historically. For works of art may be considered under the following
heads:--
(_a._) As the concrete embodiments of man’s thoughts; the importance of
the historical study of which cannot be too strongly insisted upon, for
through it we can best become acquainted with the past, from a social
and religious point of view.
(_b._) As products that act upon our emotional, intellectual, and
reasoning faculties. It is our duty to endeavour to ascertain what
forms at different times, and under various impressions, acted most
agreeably on us. We must learn to know the causes that produced certain
art forms at certain periods, amongst certain people, under certain
intellectual, social, and religious conditions. We must inquire why
such forms flourished, decayed, or revived at different times.
(_c._) We may examine the relations in which our subjective impressions
stand to the products of art, and learn how far such sensations
developed, in time and space, to lead us to the consciousness of beauty.
From pre-historic times to the advent of Christ humanity was always
engaged as a busy artist. In studying the history of man we find that
art ushers us into life, gladdens the child, inspires the youth,
and interests the man. All our public actions, all our religious
ceremonies, our Court pageantry, our battles and funerals, all our
useful or useless surroundings, pass more or less through an artistic
process. In analysing the historical development of humanity at large,
or that of a nation, or even that of single individuals, we find that
our sensations, intellect, and reason have always been at work to
create something in their respective spheres. From the times of Plato
to our own all great thinkers have more or less occupied themselves
with the endeavour to establish the principles of beauty; just as from
Thales of Miletus, and Demokritos to Bacon, Kant, Darwin, and Häckel,
they have sought to discover the principle of truth; or from Manû,
Confucius, Moses, the Apostles, and Mahomet, to our own theologians,
they have striven to decide what is right or wrong. Art worked
synchronically with these endeavours, and its products are as numerous
and variegated as our philosophical systems, or our creeds and sects.
Moreover, works of art are, in many instances, far less perishable than
works of mere speculation. It becomes an imperative duty, therefore, to
study historically one of the most important branches of human activity
and ingenuity, which furnishes us in its very products with a record
in lasting forms, with at least the same ardour, earnestness, and
veneration, with which we devote ourselves to more varying, changing,
and perishable products. One fact must be obvious to every reader of
these pages--that real art has so exalted a sphere that it can only
exist to perfection wherever sciences and morals are highly cultivated.
In cursorily summarising these pages, we find that wherever and
whenever beauty as the _ideal_, truth as the _real_, or goodness as the
_ethical_ element in humanity, has been one-sidedly cultivated, works
of art have not succeeded, for the harmony and union of these three can
alone be the aim of humanity. This harmonious union it is difficult to
attain, but we must endeavour to become historically conscious of the
continuous striving of humanity to bring it about. We find two forces
constantly at work in humanity--the one static (morals), the other
dynamic (intellect)--bent upon leading us to culture, progress, truth,
goodness, and beauty. In the fifth and at the beginning of the fourth
century B.C., for once in our development, and then only for a short
period, humanity undoubtedly succeeded in attaining a perfect balance
of its moral, intellectual, and esthetical faculties. We may well call
that period the golden age of mankind in art. We still live on the
mere interest of that immense capital which was left by the Greeks as
an imperishable legacy to humanity. Whatever the Greeks touched at
that period they transformed into pearls of beauty, gold of truth, and
jewels of goodness. They mounted the winged steed of imagination, and
were taken up to the bright heaven of pure idealisation, where they
saw boundless beauty in forms, and acquired an immortal striving after
truth and the eternal laws of goodness, based on the very organisation
of our complicated double nature. This dream of reality was short but
vivid. Humanity lives still in an ineffaceable longing and a burning
desire to regain that period. Like diamonds dropped in unknown ages in
small crystallisations into the sand of rivers, the works of Greece
appear in the stream of time, serving as a fundamental basis of beauty,
truth, and goodness.
The well-balanced harmony was unfortunately soon disturbed.
Giddy with victory and joy, the Greeks discarded ethics; truth was made
the handmaid of sophistry, superstition, and scepticism; and beauty,
in losing her ideal glory, sank into the depths of sensualism and
realism. The harmony of the triad, which artists, philosophers, and
moral teachers had succeeded in establishing, was destroyed, and a
discordant strain of melancholy woe resounded through history, echoing
here and there some remnants of the old and charming melodies. The
conquests of Philip of Makedon and Alexander the Great brought the
East into contact with the Greek spirit. The East furnished mystic
incomprehensibilities, and an egotistic hatred of all art that could
not be turned into money, or used for serving some deity to buy up its
good graces. Buddhistic tenets joined hands with Brahmanic conceits;
Egyptian symbols were intermingled with Hebrew practical enactments,
without any ideal aspirations. Greek philosophical diatribes were
used to prove the impossible possible, and the ‘supernatural’ most
natural. Some Greeks attempted to revive the antique mode of thinking,
but they were silenced by the Neo-Platonists, and thus the Greeks
themselves became the most successful apostles of unnaturally-shaped
superstitions, deadening the vivifying spirit of Christ’s teachings.
The Romans had only one aim in history--to regulate their conquests.
The State was everything with them; they taught us how to systematise
the actions of men, to make them useful citizens in this world, and,
when they left their legacy of infallible authority to the Romish
Church, how to prepare fit inhabitants for another world. The outward
realistic form, proclaiming some inward mystic grace or meaning, became
everything. Base hollowness in art and morals, vapid verbiage in
philosophy, unnatural profligacy and licentiousness, mean covetousness
and heartless egotism, brought humanity intellectually, morally, and
spiritually, to the brink of destruction. Everyone thirsted for a
change--reality was unbearable.
Men strove, in deadening their bodies, to seek the salvation of their
souls. The realistic tendency of the degenerated ancient times gave
way to blind faith, which by degrees obtained an exclusive hold on the
ideal in man, ignoring his reflective and reasoning nature, working
only on the emotional, and burying antiquity under the gloomy ruins
of the Middle Ages. For more than 1000 years beauty had to yield to
mystic symbolism, truth to superstitious prejudice, and ethics to a
morbid sentimentality and a cruel hierarchical despotism. Dogmatic
scholasticism sought to foster elegance of forms; to create artistic
enthusiasm; but this attempt was vain. When, however, the dogmatic
ice began to melt in the burning rays of the rising sun of a freer
inquiry; when the Romish Church, anxious for some powerful helpmate to
check the rays of this sun, and work on the gloomy, stupified emotions
of the masses, called in to aid her the spirit of the Greeks in art,
she prepared a bright and happy future for humanity. The reformation
in art-forms, and the revival of the antique spirit in poetry, was
soon followed by a revival in science and ethics. Philosophy began to
unravel the mysteries of nature, and to make natural forces subservient
to man’s wants and happiness. Ethics, based on freedom of thought, grew
day by day more powerful, and Greek forms were used in the purified
spirit of Christ, divested of strange and unintelligible dogmas.
Having secured the right freely to store up the results of our
intellectual investigations, we must devote our artistic energies,
through an assiduous study of the historical development of art, to
a corresponding culture of our sense of beauty. This is essential,
if we hope to stand as high artistically, as we do technically and
mechanically. Without culture we cannot hope to vie with other
nations in high art, in historical paintings, frescoes, sculpture,
and architecture. A thorough knowledge of art-history will destroy
tasteless prejudices, and enable us progressively to develop the
past without becoming guilty of anachronisms. Inspired by the firm
conviction that the culture of taste leads to the very highest
development of ethics, and that art can only flourish in strict harmony
with truth and goodness, we can progress, but not otherwise.
In this volume we have brought the reader down to the art of the
Mahomedans, and trust in a future work to trace the historical
development of art to our own times. What we have said in praise
of Greek art, must not be misunderstood to imply that, since it
flourished, we have not made gigantic progressive strides in
sculpture, architecture, and painting; but we have done so only when
we have worked in the Greek spirit, that is, on the principles which
stamped their works of art with perfection.
_BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ART._
Agincourt, ‘Histoire de l’Art par les Monuments’. 6 vols. Fol.
Paris, 1823.
Asiatic Researches.
Birch, ‘Ancient Pottery.’
Blanc (Charles), ‘Grammaire des Arts du Dessin.’ Paris, 1870.
Bohlen (von), ‘Das alte Indian.’ Königsberg, 1830. 2 vols.
Bökh, Works, 1811. Leipzig.
Botta and Flandin, ‘Monuments de Ninive,’ 1849. Paris.
Boutell, ‘Arms and Armour.’
Brugsch, ‘Histoire d’Egypte,’ 1875. Leipzig.
Bunsen, ‘Place of Egypt in History of the World,’ vol. 5.
Burnouf, ‘Introduction à l’Histoire du Buddhisme Indien.’ Paris,
1844.
Carrière (Moriz), ‘Die Kunst im Zusammenhange der
Kulturentwickelung.’ 5 vols. Leipzig; Brockhaus, 1871.
Champollion, ‘Lettres écrites de l’Egypte.’
‘Christy, Museum Catalogue,’ 103 Victoria Street. By A. W. Franks,
M.A., Curator. Photographs of same.
Cox, ‘History of Mythology of Aryan Nations.’
Cox, ‘Manual of Ancient Mythology.’
Cox, ‘Mythology of the Aryan Nations.’ Longmans, 1870. 2 vols.
Creuzer (Dr. Friedrich), ‘Symbolik und Mythologie.’ Leipzig and
Darmstadt, 1836. 4 vols.
Curtius, ‘History of Greece.’
Darwin, ‘Expression of the Emotions.’ London, 1872.
Davis (Sir J. F.), ‘China.’ John Murray, 1857.
Denon, ‘L’Egypte.’
D’Hancarville, ‘Recherches sur l’origine, l’esprit et le progrès
des Arts de la Grèce.’ London, 1785.
Dyer, ‘History of the City of Rome.’
Dyer, ‘History of Rome.’ 1864.
Dyer, ‘Pompei.’
Eber (Dr.), ‘Ægypten und die Bücher Moses.’ Leipzig, 1868.
Egypt, Guide to. Written by Wilkinson. John Murray.
Engelhardt, ‘Denmark in the Old Iron Age.’ London, 1866.
‘Ethnological Society Transactions,’ 1869. _Easter Island._
Fellows, ‘Asia Minor and Lycia.’
Fergusson (J.), ‘Indian Architecture.’
Fergusson (J.), ‘Palaces of Nineveh and Persepolis Restored.’
London, 1851.
Figuier, ‘Earth and Sea.’ 1870.
Flaxman, ‘Lectures.’
‘Fortnightly Review’--Spencer’s articles on _Nature Worship_.
Chapman and Hall.
Gailhabaud, ‘Monuments de l’Architecture.’
Gau (F. C.), ‘Antiquités de la Nubie.’ Paris, 1821-27.
Gibbon, ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.’
Gladstone (Right Hon. W. E.), ‘Homeric Synchronism.’ London, 1876.
Gould (Baring), ‘Origin and Development of Religious Belief.’
Rivingtons, 1869.
Grote, ‘History of Greece.’
Guilleman, ‘Heavens.’
Harrison (Charles), ‘Catalogue of a Series of Photographs from the
Collection of the British Museum.’ W. A. Mansell & Co.
Hegel, ‘Æsthetik.’ Berlin, 1842. 3 vols.
Hegel, ‘Philosophy of History.’
Herder, ‘Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit.’ Stuttgart, 1827. 4
vols.
Hirt, ‘Monography of the Temple of Solomon.’
Hutcheson, ‘An Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue.’ London, 1729.
Hyde, ‘Historiæ Religionis veterum Persarum.’ Oxonii, 1700.
‘International Congress of Prehistoric Archæology.’ 1868.
Jennings (Hargrave), ‘The Rosicrucians.’ London, 1870.
Jones (Owen), ‘Apology for Colouring the Greek Court of the Crystal
Palace.’
Jones (Sir Wm.), Works. London, 1799. 6 vols. 4to.
Kant, ‘Æsthetik.’ Leipzig, 1838.
King, ‘Antique Gems.’
Kingsborough (Lord), ‘Antiquities of Mexico.’ London, 1831-48. 9
vols. Imp. Folio.
Klaproth, ‘Nouv. Jour. Asiat.’ vol. 5.
Layard, ‘Nineveh.’
Lenormant, ‘Manual of the History of the East.’ 2 vols. Asher and
Co., 1875.
Lepsius, ‘Denkmäler.’ Berlin.
Lewes, ‘Biographical History of Philosophy.’
Lubbock, ‘Origin of Civilization and Primitive Condition of Man.’
Particularly chapters on Religion, and page 119. 1870.
Lubbock, ‘Prehistoric Times.’
Lübke (Dr.), ‘History of Art.’ Smith, Elder, and Co., 1868.
Madsen, ‘Afbildinger af Danske Oldsager og Mindesmar.’ Ker.
Kjöbenhavn, 1872.
‘Manual of Ethnology.’ John Murray.
Mommsen, ‘Römische Geschichte.’ Berlin, 1868.
Müller (C. O.), ‘Ancient Art and its Remains.’ London: B. Quaritch,
1852.
Müller (Max), ‘Chips from a German Workshop.’ Longmans, 1868.
Newton, ‘Second Catalogue of Vase Rooms, British Museum.’
Nott and G. R. Gliddon, ‘Types of Mankind.’ Dr. Morton.
Oppert (Dr. J.), ‘Expéd. scient. en Mésop.’
Parthey (Dr.), ‘De Philis insula ejusque monumentis commentatis.’
Berolini, 1830.
Philosophy. See Smith’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible.’
Piper (Prof. Ferdinand), ‘Mythologie der Christlichen Kunst.’
Weimar, 1847.
Potter, ‘Antiquities of Greece.’ Edinburgh, 1818.
‘Pyramid Builders of the Mississippi.’
Rawlinson, ‘Herodotus.’
Rawlinson, ‘Manual of Ancient History.’
Rémusat (Abel), ‘Mélanges Asiatiques.’ vol. 1.
Sandreczki (C.), ‘Reise nach Mosul und durch Kurdistan.’ Stuttgart,
1857. 4 vols.
Schliemann (Dr.), ‘Discoveries at Hassarlik.’
Schnaase (Dr. E.), ‘Geschichte der Bildenden Künste.’ Düsseldorf,
1866.
Schwegler, ‘History of Philosophy.’
Sef (Abd Alla), ‘Relation de l’Egypte traduite par Silvestre de
Sacy.’ Paris, 1810.
Semper (Dr.), ‘Die Textile Kunst.’ Frankfurt a. M., 1860.
Shaftesbury (Earl of), ‘Characteristics.’ 1743. 3 vols.
Smith, ‘Ancient History.’
Smith, ‘Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.’
Spruner, ‘Historical Atlas.’
Squier and Davis, ‘Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.’
Stephens, ‘Runic Monuments.’ 2 vols. London, 1866.
Stevens, ‘Flint Chips.’ Bell and Daldy, 1870.
Stuart & Revett, ‘Antiquities of Athens.’ London, 1827.
Taine, ‘Lectures on Art.’
‘Traveller’s Art Companion.’ _Principal Sculptors._ See pages 414
_et seq._
‘Traveller’s Companion, The.’ Bell and Daldy, 1868.
Tylor, ‘Primitive Culture.’ London, 1871.
Uhlemann (Dr. Max), ‘Thoth oder die Wissenschaft der alten
Aegypter.’ Göttingen, 1855.
Valeriani (Prof. Domenico), ‘Etrusco Museo Chiusino.’ Poligrafia
Fiesolana, 1839.
Vaux, ‘British Museum.’
Vogüé (Le Comte de), ‘Le Temple de Jérusalem.’ Paris, 1864.
Wilkinson, ‘Manners and Customs of Egyptians.’ Murray, 1855. Small
edition.
Winkelmann, Werke. 2 vols.
Worsaae, ‘Norse Antiquities.’ Copenhagen, 1859.
Zerffi (Dr.), _Historic Art Studies_, with 1030 illustrations.
‘Building News,’ 1872-6.
INDEX.
A, 84
ΑΩ {AÔ}, 272
Abulfeda, 35
Absolom, 150
Achaians, 180
Acherusian, 134
Achilles, 184
Action, 16
Adoniram, 146
Æneas, 234
Æsop, 242
Ætna, 215
Agamemnon, 185
Ageladas, 193
Agesander, 207
Agincourt, 225
Agodhyá, 77
Agrômainyus, 89
Ahriman, 89
Ahura-Mazda, 89
Albans, 233
Alemanni, 283
Alexander the Great, 87
Alkibiades, 201
Alkmene, 185
Allegory, 270
Allvater, 286
Amn, 114
Amphiprostyle, 176
Anaxagoras, 193
Ancus Martius, 235
Andromeda, 250
Angeians, 180
Angelmir, 286
Antætemple, 176
Anthemis of Tralles, 281
Antiope, 208
Antonines, 258
Anubis, 117
Apis, 189
Apollo at Bassæ, 200
Apollo (Saurokthonos), 206
Apollo (Smintheus), 203
Apollodorus, 256
Apollonius, 207
Archaic-Doric, 178
Arch (Roman), 245
Ariadne, 190
Arians, 275
Aristotle, 187
Arkadia, 200
Arno, 213
Artemis of Ephesus, 189
Aryan, 26
Asar, 214
Asioatha, 80
Asklepios, 196
Asphaltites, 134
Athanasians, 275
Athene Promachos, 195
Athenodorus, 207
Atlas, 164
Atos (Akotus), 108
Attic-Doric, 178
Audumbla, 286
Augustus, 252
Aurelius Commodus, 241
Azer-Abad, 89
Babylon, 97
Baltic, 285
Barucchi, 105
Bachante, 204
Basilica of Reparatus, 277
Beautiful, 3
Beelzebub, 290
Bendemir (Araxes), 91
Bengallee, 82
Bhîma, 159
Boaz, 148
Böckh, 104
Book of Deliverance, 113
Bor, 286
Botta, M., 88
Brahmă, 64
Brahman, 85
Brahmapootra, 60
Bronze (age), 33
Brugsch, 105
Bryaxis, 205
Buddha, 75
Bunsen, 105
Burgundians, 284
Buri, 286
Byzantine, 270
Byzes of Naxos, 191
Cadam, 89
Cainozoic, 180
Caracalla, 260
Carthage, 236
Carrios, 41
Catulus, M., 251
Cavœdium, 217
Celerus, 254
Chalúkyan, 82
Champ-levé, 131
Champollion, 104
Cheops (Shufu), 119
Chephren (Shafra), 120
Chichen, 42
Chimera, 168
Chinese language, 46
Chinese trellis-work, 50
Chiron, 185
Choda (Gott, God), 84
Christianity, 263
Chuda (Khuda, Svadâtta), 84
Cicero, 242
Cis-Himâlâyans, 61
Claudius, 253
Cleopatra, 253
Cloisonné, 131
Clusium, 218
Coati, 40
Colosseum, 255
Compluvium, 217
Confucius, 47
Constantine (triumphal arch), 256
Contractura, 175
Copan, 42
Corichanca, 41
Corneto, 220
Cortona, 213
Cranoges, 37
Crassus, L., 251
Critical (School of Art), 8
Cross-vault (Roman), 245
Crusades, 292
Crystallisations, 12
Cupid, 69
Cupola (Roman), 245
Cuzco, 41
Cynerary chests, 217
Daghopa, 79
Daidalos, 190
Danaians, 180
Dante, 240
Dea Cloacina, 239
Dead (book of the), 112
Delphos, 188
Demeratos, 221
Demeter, 161
Demetrius, 271
Dempster, 225
Derush, 141
Devaki, 70
Dews (Devas), 96
Dialectic, 63
Dibutades, 181
Diodorus (Siculus), 100
Diogenes Laertius, 111
Diopos, 221
Dipteros, 176
Diptichs, 291
Dirkê, 208
Disk heresy, 105
Divespitar, 67
Donatists, 275
Dös (Dyss, or Dolmens), 35
Dordogne, 34
Doric, 173
Dshemshid, 90
Dshey-Afram, 89
Dravidian, 82
Durga, 69
Dypuc, 69
Echidna, 168
Eight Periods of Jewish History, 139
Echetlos, 215
Eirene, 202
Elbruz, 94
Elektra, 185
El Hayz, 277
El Kassr, 98
Encaustum, 131
Entasis, 176
Epimetheus, 164
Epistyle, 176
Erato, 165
Erechtheium, 179
Eriene Veedjo (Iran Veji), 89
Eros, 204
ἦθος {êthos}, 188
Etruskans, 212
Etruskan style, 225
Euchier, 221
Eugrammos, 221
Euripides, 201
Eurythmy, 13
Euxine, 244
Euterpe, 165
Exarchs, 279
Expression, 16
Ezekiel, 139
Farnese Bull, 207
Fascine constructions, 37
Faust, 164
Feather ornament, 126
Fervers, 96
Ficus Indica, 80
Ficus religiosa, 81
Figeac, 104
Flavians, 247
Fora (Civilia), 252
Fortuna Virilis (temple of), 251
Forum Trajanum, 255
Franks, 283
Freyja, 288
Froh (Freyr), 287
Gæa, 160
Galpones, 41
Gânesa, 67
Ganges, 60
Ganymede, 68
Garuda, 68
Gepidi, 284
Geryon, 168
Ghandarvas, 200
Giallo antico, 262
Glaukos, 191
Glypthotek, 203
Gnostics, 275
Gurgerni, 284
Hadrian, 247
Hal-her, 116
Hamadan (Erbatana), 92
Hamilton (Lord), 183
Hanau, 41
Harris, 73
Harpies, 219
Hassarlik, 189
Hathor-masks, 125
Herakles, 159
Hekatoncheires, 162
Hektor, 184
Hermetic books, 104
Here, 161
Herodotus, 35
Hertha (Nerthus, Earth), 288
Herulians, 284
Hes (Isis), 117
Hesiri (Osiris), 117
Hestia, 161
Hieratic style, 125
Hieroglyphs, 108
Hierogrammatists, 111
Hillel (Rabbi), 104
Himeros, 204
Hincks, 105
Hirmthursen, 286
Historical (School of Art), 7
Hittites, 34
Holda, 288
Horace, 242
Horoskopus, 111
Horus, 117
Hurin, 41
Hyksos, 105
Hypæthral, 176
Ideography, 108
Iphikrates, 193
Iliad, 184
Impluvium, 217
Ingavorians, 284
Indus, 60
Ionic, 173
Iron (age), 33
Isidorus of Miletus, 281
Istavorians, 284
Is’wara, 69
Itza, 42
Jachin, 148
Janus, 67
Japetós, 160
Jordan, 134
Jordanes, 34
Jugurtha, 237
Julius Cæsar, 251
Ka, 84
Kadmus, 157
Kalamis, 193
Kaledonian (boar), 202
Kaliphs, 87
Kaliya Nága, 71
Kalliope, 166
Kansa, 70
κάθαρσις {katharsis}, 188
Kentaur, 218
Kekrops, 157
Kelts, 283
Kenrick, 105
Kentimanos, 160
Kephisodotus, 202
Kha, 84
Kham (Ham, Chemnus), 106
Khem, 114
Khai-Khorus (Kyrus), 87
Kimon, 190
Klio, 165
Kneph, 116
κονίασις {koniasis}, 173
Korinthian, 173
Korœbus, 181
Kouyunjik, 93
Krishna, 70
Kronos, 160
Kshattriya, 85
Ktesias, 100
Kynic, 187
Kyprus, 44
Kyrenæic, 187
Labyrinth, 123
Lake-dwellings, 35
Laokoön, 207
Lapis lazuli, 262
Laplanders, 34
Lauth, 106
Layard, R. H., 88
Leah, 273
Lekythus, 186
Leochares, 205
Lepsius, 105
Lernean serpent, 168
Li-king, 47
Lotus, 126
Lukeres, 233
Lysippus, 201
Maccabees, 133
Mahâbhârata, 73
Makedonian-Doric, 178
Makrokosm, 289
Mal’hurâ, 71
Man (Jao), 116
Manasseh Ben Israel, 135
Mania, 223
Manichæans, 275
Mantus, 223
Manurra, 251
Marcus Aurelius, 258
Markomanni, 258
Masaya, 39
Mastadon, 213
Mausoleum (of Augustus), 253
Mausolos at Halikarnassus, 205
Medea, 250
Medusa, 185
Mêlas, 191
Melpomene, 165
Memnonium, 123
Memnons, 124
Memphis, 106
Mem-tsu, 47
Menes, 106
Menkerynus (Menkare), 120
Meshiah, 155
Metis, 161
Metopes, 176
Miaos, 53
Miltiades, 196
Milton, 240
μίμησις {mimêsis}, 188
Module, 174
Moltke, 41
Moses, 141
Motion, 16
Murghab, 92
Muspel-heim, 286
Mut, 114
Myths, 271
Naksh-i-Rustam, 92
Negro, 23
Neolithic, 33
Nero, 253
Nestorians, 275
Net, 115
Nifel-heim, 286
Niké, 185
Nineveh, 97
Ninus, 90
Niobe, 206
Normans, 283
Num (Nu), 114
Numa Pompilius, 234
Nundi, 189
Odin, 286
Okeanos, 160
Oligochromatic, 182
Olympian, Pythian, Nemæan, and Isthmian games, 171
Onatas, 193
Opisthodome, 175
Opus plumarium, 54
Orchia, 219
Ormuzd, 89
Orpheus, 157
Ostrogoths, 283
Ovid, 242
Palenque, 42
Palm-tree, as ornament, 126
Palæolithic, 33
Pantheon, 253
Paphos, 145
Papyrus, as ornament, 126
Parsagad (Passagarda or Persepolis), 91
Parthenon, 197
Pátála, 71
Paulastya, 68
Pelasgians, 180
Penelope, 184
Pentagram, 289
Per-ao (Pharaoh), 107
Perigord, 34
Perikles, 193
Peripteros, 176
Peshat, 141
Perseus, 185
Perseus, 250
Phædrus, 242
Pheidias, 193
Phigalia, 200
Philesian Apollo, 171
Phtah, 115
Pile-dwellings, 36
Pindar, 224
Planimetric, 17
Plato, 187
Plautus, 242
Pluton, 161
Pluton, 202
Polychromatic, 182
Polydoros, 207
Polyhymnia, 165
Polykrates, 191
Pompey, 143
Pontos, 160
Poseidon, 161, 203
Posticum, 175
Pothos, 204
Prasias, 35
Prathama-Raja, 75
Praxiteles, 193
Præneste (Palestrina), 220
Prometheus, 164
Prophets, 112
Proportion, 19
Prostyle, 176
Proteus, 159
Proto-Doric, 178
Ptolemaic style, 129
Punic war, 236
Pythagoras of Regium, 193
Quadi, 284
Quatusco, or Huatusco, 40
Ra (with the Persians), 84
Ra, 115
Rachel, 273
Radamanthus, 223
Ramâyâna, 73
Ramnes, 233
Ravenna, 279
Realistic (School of Art), 7
Remes, 141
Rhœkos, 191
Roma (Amor), 229
Romanesque, 270
Romulus and Remus, 234
Rosetta-stone, 104
Sabines, 233
Sacred books (of the Egyptians), 111
Sacsahuaman, 41
Sallust, 242
Samoyedes, 34
Sanchi Tope, 76
San Paolo fuori le mura, 278
Saul, 132
Scandinavia, 285
Scaurus, M., 251
Schliemann (Dr.), 189
Seb (Kronos), 116
Semiramis, 90
Septimus Severus, 247
Servius Tullius, 235
Seti, 115
Shi-king, 47
Shoo-king, 47
Siamek, 90
Skopas, 201
Skylla, 168
Smilis, 191
Sod, 141
Solomon, 138
Sophokles, 171
Sphinx, 168
Sphinxes (six kinds of), 120
S’rî, 68
Sta. Agnese, 272
Sta. Barbara, 274
Sta. Croce at Jerusalem, 277
Sta. Maria at Bethlehem, 277
St. Apollinare in Classe, 279
St. Calisto, 272
Stereometric, 17
Stiens (of Cambodia), 35
St. John, 274
St. Katherine’s wheel, 289
St. Lorenzo, 272
Stolists, 112
St. Peter’s at Rome, 277
St. Sebaldus, 274
St. Sebastian, 274
St. Sebastiano, 272
St. Sophia, 280
St. Vitale, 279
Sublime, 3
S’udra, 85
S’wa, 64
Symbol, 270
Symbolic, 63
Symmetry, 13
Syrakuse, 236
Tachyno, 35
Tahamur, 90
Tarquinius Priscus, 235
Tarquinius Superbus, 235
Tartaros, 162
Tauriskos, 207
Tacitus, 242
Telos, 181
Temple, Egyptian, 122
Teni (This, Thinis), 106
Teotl, 39
Terence, 242
Terpsichore, 165
Teth (Toth, Hermes), 116
Thales, 213
Thalia, 165
Thebes, 123
Themistokles, 193
Theodorus, 191
Thera, 182
Thermæ, 253
Thor, 287
Thukydides, 193
Tiberius, 253
Timotheos, 205
Tingitanum, 277
Titicaca, 40
Titians, 233
Titus Livy, 242
Tombs, Egyptian, 120
Trajan, 247
Trans-Himâlâyans, 61
Tree of Art, 28
Triglyphs, 176
Trilôchana, 69
Trimurty, 65
Triophthalmos, 70
Tritons, 203
Tsem-tsu, 47
Tshao-Pings, 52
Tshil-Minar, 91
Tudor roses, 289
Tulasi, 71
Tullus Hostilius, 234
Turanian, 24
Tuscanicum, 217
Types, 271
Typhon (Nubi, or Set), 116
Tyrrhenian, 181
Uhleman, 105
Ulpia (Basilica), 256
Ulysses, 184
Unger, 106
Urania, 165
Uranus, 160
Uræus, 129
Uxmal, 42
Va, 84
Vaisya, 85
Vandals, 284
Vauban, 41
Veretaghna, 287
Vesta, 251
Vesuvius, 222
Via Sacra, 255
Vinitians, 284
Virgil, 242
Vishnu, 64
Viterbo, 219
Volaterra, 218
Volci, 218
Vritaghna, 287
Vurka, 98
Xp, 272
Xenophon, 193
Yachahnasi, 41
Yamuná, 71
Y-King, 47
Ymir, 286
Yo-king, 47
Young, Dr., 104
Zacharias, 150
Zahok, 90
Zarathustra (Zerdusht, Zoroaster), 94
Zedekiah, 132
Zend-Avesta, 88
Zeruane-Akerene, 95
Zeus, 162
Zorobabel, 142
Zui (or Tui, Tuisco), 287
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Transcriber-added descriptions of some illustrations are in
parentheses, like this: [Illustration: (description)].
Some words were printed both with and without accent marks. The ones
clearly meant to be the same (e.g., Index references to the other form)
were changed; the rest appear both ways.
Greek and symbols not in the Latin-1 or ASCII character sets have
been transliterated or substituted in those versions of this eBook.
The original letters and symbols might appear in the UTF-8 and HTML
versions. Devices unable to display such characters may substitute
question marks or other placeholders.