THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN EUROPE
Before we give our whole attention to the first picture, of which the
original was painted in England in 1377, let us imagine ourselves in
the year 1200 making a rapid tour through the chief countries of Europe
to see for ourselves how the people lived. The first thing that will
strike us on our journey is the contrast between the grandeur of the
churches and public buildings and the insignificance of most of the
houses. Some of the finest churches in England, built in the style
of architecture called 'Norman,' one or more of which you may have
seen, date before the year 1200, as for example, Durham Cathedral,
and the naves of Norwich, Ely, and Peterborough Cathedrals. The great
churches abroad were also beautiful and more elaborately decorated,
in the North with sculpture and painting, in the South with marble
and mosaic. The towns competed one with another in erecting them finer
and larger, and in decorating them as magnificently as they could.
This was done because the church was a place which the people used
for many other purposes besides Sunday services. In the twelfth,
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the parish church, on week-days
as well as on Sundays, was a very useful and agreeable place to most
of the parishioners. The 'holy' days, or saints' days, 'holidays'
indeed, were times of rejoicing and festivity, and the Church
processions and services were pleasant events in the lives of many
who had few entertainments, and who for the most part could neither
read nor write. Printing was not yet invented, at least not in Europe,
and as every book had to be written out by hand, copies of books were
rare and only owned by the few who could read them, so that stories
were mostly handed down by word of mouth, the same being told by mother
to child for many generations.
The favourites were stories of the saints and martyrs of the Catholic
Church, for of course we are speaking now of times long before the
Reformation. The Old Testament stories and all the stories of the life
of Christ and His Apostles were well known too, and just as we never
tire of reading our favourite books over and over again, our
forefathers of 1200 wanted to see on the walls of their churches
representations of the stories which they could not read. Their daily
thoughts were more occupied with the Infant Christ, the saints, and
the angels, than ours generally are. They thought of themselves as
under the protection of some saint, who would plead with God the Father
for them if they asked him, for God Himself seemed too high or remote
to be appealed to always directly. He was approached with awe; the
saints, the Virgin, and the Infant Christ, with love.
We must realise this difference before we can well understand a picture
painted in the twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth centuries, nor can
we look at one without feeling that the artist and the people for whom
he painted, so loved the holy personages. They thought about them
always, not only at stated times and on Sundays, and never tired of
looking at pictures of them and their doings. It is sometimes said
that only Catholics can understand medieval art, because they feel
towards the saints as the old painters did. But it is possible for
any one to realize how in those far-off days the people felt, and it
is this that we must try to do. The religious fervour of the Middle
Ages was not a sign of great virtue among all the people. Some were
far more cruel, savage, and unrestrained than we are to-day. Very
wicked men even became powerful dignitaries in the Church. But it was
the Church that fostered the impulses of pity and charity in a fierce
age, and some of the saints of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catharine of Siena, are still
held to be among the most beautiful characters the world has ever known.
The churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in Florence were
lined with marble, and a great picture frequently stood above the altar.
It is difficult to realize to-day that the processes which we call
oil and water-colour painting were not then invented, and that no shops
existed to sell canvases and paints ready for use. The artist painted
upon a wooden panel, which he had himself to make, plane flat, and
cut to the size he needed. In order to get a surface upon which he
could paint, he covered the panel with a thin coating of plaster which
it was difficult to lay on absolutely flat. Upon the plaster he drew
the outline of the figures he was going to paint, and filled in the
background with a thin layer of gold leaf, such as is to-day used for
gilding frames. After the background had been put in, it was impossible
to correct the outline of the figures, and the labour of preparing
the wooden panel and of laying the gold was so great that an artist
would naturally not make risky attempts towards something new, lest
he should spoil his work. In the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey
there is a thirteenth-century altar-piece of this kind, and you can
see the strips of vellum that were used to cover the joins of the
different pieces of wood forming the panel, beneath the layer of
plaster, which has now to a great extent peeled off.
The people liked to see their Old Testament stories and the stories
from the Life of Christ painted over and over again. They had become
fond of the versions of the tales which they had known and seen painted
when they were young, and did not wish them changed, so that the range
of subjects was not large. The same were repeated, and because of the
painter's fear of making mistakes it was natural that the same figures
should be repeated too. Thus, whatever the subject pictured, a
tradition was formed in each locality for the grouping and general
arrangement of the figures, and the most authoritative tradition for
such typical groupings was preserved in Constantinople or Byzantium,
from which city the 'Byzantine' school of painting takes its name.
Before 1200, Byzantium had been a centre of residence and the
civilizing influence of trade for eighteen centuries. It had been the
capital of the Roman Empire, and less civilized peoples from the north
had never conquered the town, destroying the Greek and Roman traditions,
as happened elsewhere in Europe. You have read how the Romans had to
withdraw their armies from England to defend Rome against the attacks
of the Goths from the north, and then how Britain was settled by Angles,
Saxons, Jutes, and Danes, who destroyed most of the Roman civilization.
A similar though much less complete destruction took place in Italy
a little later, when Goths and Lombards, who were remotely akin to
the Angles and Saxons, overwhelmed Roman culture. But next to
Constantinople, Rome had the best continuous tradition of art, for
the fine monuments of the great imperial days still existed in the
city. In Byzantium the original Greek population struggled on, and
continued to paint, and make mosaics, and erect fine buildings, till
the Turks conquered them in 1453. The Byzantines were wealthy and made
exquisite objects in gold, precious stones, and ivory. While they were
painting better than any other people in Europe, they too reproduced
the same subjects and the same figures over and over again, only the
figures were more graceful than those of the local Italian, English,
and French artists, who in varying degrees at different times tried
to paint like the Byzantine or Greek artists, but without quite the
same success. So long as there was no need for an artist to paint
anything but the old well-established subjects, and so long as people
desired them to be painted in the old conventional manner, there was
little reason why any painter should try to be original and paint what
was not wanted. But in the thirteenth century a great change took place.
Let us here refresh our memories of what we may have read of that
delightful saint, Francis of Assisi. He was born in 1182, the son of
a well-to-do nobleman, in the little town of Assisi in Umbria, and
as a lad became inflamed with the ideal of the religious life. But
instead of entering one of the existing monastic orders, where he would
have been protected, he gave away every possession he had in the world
and adopted 'poverty' as his watchword. Clad in an old brown habit,
he walked from place to place preaching charity, obedience, and
renunciation of all worldly goods. He lived on what was given to him
to eat from day to day; he nursed the lepers and the sick. Ever described
as a most lovable person, he won by his preaching the hearts of people
of all classes, from the King of France to the humblest peasant. He
wrote beautiful hymns in praise of the sun, the moon, and the stars,
and had a great love for every living thing. The birds were said to
have flocked around him because they loved him, and we read that he
talked to them and called them his 'little sisters.' An old writer
tells this story in good faith:
When St. Francis spake words to them, the birds began all of them to
open their beaks and spread their wings and reverently bend their heads
down to the ground, and by their acts and by their songs did show that
the holy Father gave them joy exceeding great.
Wherever he preached he made converts who 'married Holy Poverty,' as
St. Francis expressed it, gave up everything they had, and lived his
preaching and roaming life. St. Francis himself had no idea of forming
a monastic order. He wished to live a holy life in the world and show
others how to do the same, and for years he and his companions worked
among the poor, earning their daily bread when they could, and when
they could not, begging for it. Gradually, however, ambition stirred
in the hearts of some of the followers of Francis, and against the
will of their leader they made themselves into the Order of Franciscan
Friars, collected gifts of money, and began to build churches and
monastic buildings. At first the buildings were said to belong to the
Pope, who allowed the Franciscans to use them, since they might not
own property; but after the death of St. Francis, the Order built
churches throughout the length and breadth of Italy, not of marble
and mosaic but of brick, since brick was cheaper; but the brick walls
were plastered, and upon the wet plaster there were painted scenes
from the life of St. Francis, side by side with the old Christian and
saintly legends. This sudden demand for painted churches with
paintings of new subjects, stirred the painters of the day to alter
their old style. When an artist was asked to paint a large picture
of St. Francis preaching to the birds, he had to look at real birds
and he had to study a real man in the attitude of preaching. There
was no scene that had ever been painted from the life of Christ or
of any saint in which a man preached to a bird, so that the artist
was driven to paint from nature instead of copying former pictures.
Let us now read what a painter who lived in the sixteenth century,
Vasari by name, wrote about the rise of painting in his native city.
Some learned people nowadays say that Vasari was wrong in many of the
stories he told, but after all he lived much nearer than we do to the
times he wrote about, and it is safer to believe what he tells us than
what modern students surmise, except when they are able to cite other
old authorities to which Vasari did not have access.
The endless flood of misfortunes which overwhelmed unhappy Italy not
only ruined everything worthy of the name of a building, but completely
extinguished the race of artists, a far more serious matter. Then,
as it pleased God, there was born in the year 1240, in the city of
Florence, Giovanni, surnamed Cimabue, to shed the first light on the
art of painting. Instead of paying attention to his lessons, Cimabue
spent the whole day drawing men, horses, houses, and various other
fancies on his books and odd sheets, like one who felt himself compelled
to do so by nature. Fortune proved favourable to his natural
inclination, for some Greek artists were summoned to Florence by the
government of the city for no other purpose than the revival of painting
in their midst, since the art was not so much debased as altogether
lost. In this way Cimabue made a beginning in the art which attracted
him, for he often played the truant and spent the whole day in watching
the masters work. Thus it came about that his father and the artists
considered him so fitted to be a painter that if he devoted himself
to the profession he might look for honourable success in it, and to
his great satisfaction his father procured him employment with the
painters. Thus by dint of continual practice and with the assistance
of his natural talent he far surpassed the manner of his teachers.
For they had never cared to make any progress and had executed their
works, not in the good manner of ancient Greece, but in the rude modern
style of that time. Cimabue drew from nature to the best of his powers,
although it was a novelty to do so in those days, and he made the
draperies, garments, and other things somewhat more life-like, natural,
and soft than the Greeks had done, who had taught one another a rough,
awkward, and commonplace style for a great number of years, not by
means of study but as a matter of custom, without ever dreaming of
improving their designs by beauty of colouring or by any invention
of worth.
If you were to see a picture by Cimabue (there is one in the National
Gallery which resembles his work so closely that it is sometimes said
to be his), you would think less highly than Vasari of the life-like
quality of his art, though there is something dignified and stately
in the picture of the Virgin and Child with angels that he painted
for the Church of St. Francis at Assisi. Another story is told by Vasari
of a picture by Cimabue, which tradition asserts to be the great Madonna,
still in the Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence.
Cimabue painted a picture of Our Lady for the church of Santa Maria
Novella. The figure was of a larger size than any which had been
executed up to that time, and the people of that day who had never
seen anything better, considered the work so marvellous that they
carried it to the church from Cimabue's house in a stately procession
with great rejoicing and blowing of trumpets, while Cimabue himself
was highly rewarded and honoured. It is reported, and some records
of the old painters relate, that while Cimabue was painting this
picture in some gardens near the gate of S. Piero, the old King Charles
of Anjou passed through Florence. Among the many entertainments
prepared for him by the men of the city, they brought him to see the
picture of Cimabue. As it had not then been seen by any one, all the
men and women of Florence flocked thither in a crowd with the greatest
rejoicings, so that those who lived in the neighbourhood called the
place the 'Joyful Suburb' because of the rejoicing there. This name
it ever afterwards retained, being in the course of time enclosed
within the walls of the city.
For this story we may thank Vasari, because it helps us to realize
the love the people of Florence felt for the pictures in their churches,
and the reverence in which they held an artist who could paint a more
beautiful picture of the Virgin and Child than any they had seen before.
It is difficult to think of the population of a town to-day walking
in procession to honour the painter of a fine picture; but a picture
of the Madonna was a very precious thing indeed to a Florentine of
the thirteenth century, and we may try to imagine ourselves walking
joyfully in that Florentine procession so as the better to understand
Florentine Art.
I have repeated this legend about Cimabue, because he was the master
of Giotto, who is called the Father of Modern Painting. The story is
that Cimabue one day came upon the boy Giotto, who was a shepherd,
and found him drawing a sheep with a pointed piece of stone upon a
smooth surface of rock. He was so much struck with the drawing that
he took the boy home and taught him, and soon he in his turn far
surpassed his master. In order to appreciate Giotto we need to go to
Assisi, Florence, or Padua, for in each place he has painted a series
of wall-paintings. In the great double church of Assisi, built by the
Franciscans over the grave of St. Francis within a few years of his
death, Giotto has illustrated the whole story of his life. An isolated
reproduction of one scene would give you no idea of their power. In
many respects he was an innovator, and by the end of his life had broken
away completely from the Byzantine school of painting. He composed
each one of the scenes from the life of St. Francis in an original
and dramatic manner, and so vividly that a person unacquainted with
the story would know what was going on. Standing in the nave of the
Upper Church, you are able to contrast these speaking scenes of the
lives of people upon earth, with the faded glories of great-winged
angels and noble Madonnas with Greek faces, that were painted in the
Byzantine style when the church was at its newest, before Giotto was
born. These look down upon us still from the east end of the church.
Giotto died in 1337, and for the next fifty years painters in Italy
did little but imitate him. Scenes from the life of St. Francis and
incidents from the legends of other saints remained in vogue, but they
were not treated in original fashion by succeeding artists. The new
men only tried to paint as Giotto might have painted, and so far from
surpassing him, he was never even equalled by his followers.
We need not burden our memories with the names of these 'Giottesque'
artists; and now, after this glimpse of an almost vanished world, we
will turn our attention to England and to the first picture of our
choice.