(British Museum. Cotton MS., Nero D. iv. f. 211.)]
Byzantine.
When the centre of government passed eastward, Roman art came under
Oriental influence with its sense of splendour, and developed the style
known as Byzantine which, in its earlier stages, and until it became
stereotyped in character, was broad in its drawing, on classical lines,
and brilliant in its colouring, and which introduced a profuse
application of gold in the details of ornament. Reacting on the art of
the west, the influence of the Byzantine or Greek school is not only
prominent in such early works as the mosaics of Ravenna, but it has also
left its mark in the peculiar character of Italian pictorial art of the
middle ages.
Very few examples of early Byzantine work in MSS. have survived; but two
fragmentary leaves (Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 5111) of tables of the Eusebian
canons, which must have stood at the beginning of a copy of the Gospels,
executed no doubt in the Eastern capital in the 6th century, are
sufficient to exemplify the splendour of ornament which might be
lavished on book decoration at that date. The surface of the vellum is
entirely gilt, and the ornamental designs are in classical style and
painted in bright colours. Two well-known MSS., the Genesis of the
Imperial Library of Vienna, of the latter part of the 6th century, and
the Gospels of Rossano in southern Italy, of the same period, both
containing series of illustrative paintings of a semi-classical type,
are very interesting specimens of Byzantine art; but they depend on
their purple vellum and their silver-written texts to claim a place
among highly ornamented MSS., for the paintings themselves are devoid of
gold. On the other hand, the Greek MS. of Genesis, of the 5th or 6th
century, which once formed part of the Cottonian collection in the
British Museum, but which was almost totally destroyed by fire, was of a
more artistic character: the drawing of its miniatures was of great
merit and classical in style, and gold shading was largely employed in
the details. The famous MS. of Dioscorides at Vienna, executed in the
year 472, is another excellent example of the early Byzantine school,
its series of paintings at the beginning of the volume well maintaining
the classical sentiment.
From such early examples Byzantine art advanced to a maturer style in
the 9th and 10th centuries, two MSS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale of
Paris being types of the best work of this time. These are: the copy of
the sermons of Gregory Nazianzen (MS. _Grec._ 510), executed about the
year 880 and containing a series of large miniatures, some being of the
highest excellence; and a psalter of the 10th century (MS. Grec. 139),
among whose miniatures are examples which still maintain the old
sentiment of classical art in a remarkable degree, one in particular,
representing David as the psalmist, being an adapted copy of a classical
scene of Orpheus and the Muses. The same scene is repeated in a later
Psalter in the Vatican: an instance of the repetition of favourite
subjects from one century to another which is common throughout the
history of medieval art. At the period of the full maturity of the
Byzantine school great skill is displayed in the best examples of
figure-drawing, and a fine type of head and features is found in the
miniatures of such MSS. as the _Homilies of Chrysostom_ at Paris, which
belonged to the emperor Nicephorus III., 1078-1081, and in the best
copies of the Gospels and Saints' Lives of that period, some of them
being of exquisite finish. By this time also the scheme of decoration
was established. Brilliant gilded backgrounds, give lustre to the
miniatures. Initial letters in gold and colours are in ordinary use;
but, it is to be observed, they never become very florid, but are rather
meagre in outline, nor do they develop the pendants and borders which
are afterwards so characteristic of the illuminated MSS. of the west. By
way of general decoration, the rectangular head-pieces, which are such
prominent features in Greek MSS. from the 10th to the 13th centuries,
flourish in flowered and tesselated and geometric patterns in bright
colours and gold. These are palpably of Oriental design, and may very
well have been suggested by the woven fabrics of western Asia.
But Byzantine art was not destined to have a great history. Too
self-contained and, under ecclesiastical influence, too much secluded
from the contact with other ideas and other influences which are vitally
necessary for healthy growth and expansion, it fell into stereotyped and
formal convention and ran in narrow grooves. A general tendency was set
up to paint the flesh tints in swarthy hues, to elongate and emaciate
the limbs, to stiffen the gait, and generally to employ sombre colours
in the miniatures, the depressing effect of which the artist seems to
have felt himself compelled to relieve by rather startling contrasts of
bright vermilion and lavish employment of gold. Still the initials and
head-pieces continued to retain their brilliancy, of which they could
scarcely be deprived without losing their _raison d'être_ as decorative
adjuncts. But, with all faults, fine and delicate drawing, with
technical finish in the applied colours, is still characteristic of the
best Greek miniatures of the 10th to 12th centuries, and the fine type
of head and features of the older time remains a tradition. For example,
in the Gospel lectionary, Harleian MS. 1810, in the British Museum, of
the 12th century, there is a series of scenes from the life of Christ
which are more than usually free from the contemporary conventionalism
and which contain many figures of noble design. After the 12th century
there is little in the art of Greek MSS. to detain us. The later
examples, as far as they exist, are decadent and are generally lifeless
copies of the earlier MSS.
Byzantine art, as seen in Greek MSS., stands apart as a thing of itself.
But we shall have to consider how far and in what manner it had an
influence on western art. Its reaction and influence on Italian art have
been mentioned. That that influence was direct is manifest both in the
style of such works as the mosaics of Italy and in the character of the
paintings of the early Italian masters, and eventually in the earliest
examples of the illuminated MSS. of central and southern Italy. But it
is not so obvious how the influence which the eastern art of the Greek
school undoubtedly exercised on the illuminated MSS. of the Frankish
empire was conveyed. All things considered, however, it seems more
probable that it passed westward through the medium of Italian art
rather than by actual contact, except perhaps in accidental instances.
Franco-Lombardic.
We turn to the west of Europe, and we shall see how in the elaborately
ornamented Frankish MSS. of the Carolingian school was combined the
lingering tradition of the classical style with a new and independent
element which had grown up spontaneously in the north. This new factor
was the Celtic art which had its origin and was brought to perfection in
the illuminated MSS. of Ireland and afterwards of Britain. It will
therefore be convenient to trace the history of that school of book
ornamentation. But before doing so we must dispose, in few words, of the
more primitive style which preceded the Carolingian development in
western continental Europe. This primitive style, which we may call the
native style, as distinguished from the more artificially compounded
art of the revival under Charlemagne, seems to have been widely extended
throughout the Frankish empire and to have been common in Lombardy, and
to some degree in Spain, as well as in France, and is known as
Merovingian and Franco-Lombardic. This kind of ornamentation appears
chiefly in the form of initial letters composed of birds, fishes and
animals contorted into the shapes of the alphabetical letters; and in a
less degree of head-pieces and borders filled with interlacings, or
bands, or geometrical patterns, and even details of animal life. In
these patterns, barbarous as they usually are, the influence of such
artistic objects as mosaics and enamels is evident. The prevailing
colours are crude green, red, orange and yellow, which hold their place
with persistence through successive generations of MSS. This native
style also, in course of time, came under Celtic influence, and adopted
into its scheme the interlaced designs of animal forms and other details
of the ornament of the north. It is therefore necessary to bear in mind
that, side by side with the great series of Carolingian MSS., executed
with all possible magnificence, there was existent this native school
producing its examples of a more rustic character, which must be taken
into account when studying the development of the later national style
in France, in the 10th and succeeding centuries.