those who are interested in the history not alone of Oriental but of
European art. Perhaps the most fascinating problem that presents itself
to the art historian is that of the origins of mediæval art. Until we
understand more or less completely how in the dim centuries of the later
Empire and early middle age the great transformation of Græco-Roman into
mediæval art was accomplished, we cannot quite understand the
Renaissance itself, nor even the form which the whole modern art of
Europe has come in the course of centuries to assume. And on this
problem the Munich exhibition throws many illuminating sidelights. Early
Mohammedan art is seen here to be a meeting point of many influences.
There are still traces of the once widespread Hellenistic tradition,
though this is seen to be retreating before the refluent wave of
aboriginal ideas. Sassanid art had already been the outcome of these
contending forces, and the pre-eminence of Sassanid art in forming early
Mohammedan styles is clearly brought out in this exhibition. Then there
is a constant exchange with Byzantium, and finally continual waves of
influence, sometimes fertilising, sometimes destructive, from that great
reservoir of Central Asian civilisation, the importance of which is now
at last being gradually revealed to us by the discoveries of Dr. Stein,
Drs. Lecoq and Grunwedel, and M. Pelliot.
And through this great clearing-house of early Mohammedan art there are
signs of influences passing from West to East. The most striking example
is that of the plate in cloisonnée enamel from the Landes Museum at
Innsbruck. Here we have the one certain example of Mohammedan cloisonnée
enamel established by its dedication to a prince of the Orthokid
dynasty of the twelfth century. It is extraordinary that this solitary
example should alone have survived from what must, judging from the
technical excellence of this specimen, have once been a flourishing
craft. The general effect of the intricate pattern of animal forms upon
a whiteish ground suggests, on the one hand, the earliest examples of
Limoges enamels, and on the other the early Chinese, and there can be
little doubt that the Chinese did in fact derive their knowledge of
cloisonnée, which they themselves called “Western ware,” from these
early Mohammedan craftsmen, who had themselves learned the technique
from Byzantium.
But on the whole the stream of influence is in the opposite direction,
from East to West, and one realises at Munich that in the great period
of artistic discovery and formation of styles the near East and the West
were developing in closest contact and harmony. Indeed the most fertile,
if not actually the most resplendent, period of both arts, was attained
whilst they were still almost indistinguishable. If it were not for the
habit of these early Mohammedan craftsmen of interweaving inscriptions
into their designs, a habit which endears them quite especially to
art-historians, how many works of Oriental manufacture would have been
ascribed to Europe? In spite of these inscriptions, indeed, such an
authority as M. Babelon has sought to place to the account of Western
artists the superb cut crystal vessels, of which the noblest example is
the inscribed ewer of the tenth century in the treasury of S. Mark’s. Or
take again the textiles. In the exhibition there are a number of
fragments of textiles of the tenth to the twelfth centuries, in which
the general principle of design is the same; for the most part the
surface is covered by circular reserves in which severely
conventionalised figures of hunters, lions, or monsters are placed in
pairs symmetrically confronted. Only minute study has enabled
specialists to say that some were made in Sassanid, Persia, some in
Byzantium, some in Sicily, and some in Western Europe. The dominant
style in all these is again derived from Sassanid art. And here once
more one must note the strange recrudescence after so long of Assyrian
types and motives, and its invasion of Western Europe, through
Byzantium, Sicily, and Spain.
What strikes us most in comparing Græco-Roman art with the new art
which gradually emerges in the middle ages is that, on the one hand, we
have a series of decorative designs never so remarkable for vitality as
for their elegance, and become by the time of the Roman Empire only less
perfunctory and mechanical than the patterns of modern times; and on the
other hand an art in which the smallest piece of pattern-making shows a
tense vitality even in its most purely geometrical manifestations, and
the figure is used with a new dramatic expressiveness unhindered by the
artist’s ignorance of actual form. Now in the splendid photographs of
the Sassanid rock carvings which Dr. Sarre has taken and which are
exposed at Munich, we can see something of this process of the creation
of the new vital system of design. In the earlier reliefs, those of the
time of Sapor, we have, it is true, a certain theatrical splendour of
pose and setting, but in the actual forms some flaccidity and inflation.
The artists who wrought them show still the predominance of the worn-out
Hellenistic tradition which spread in Alexander’s wake over Asia. In the
stupendous relief of Chosroes at Tak-i-Bostan, on the other hand, we
have all the dramatic energy, the heraldic splendour of the finest
mediæval art, and the source of this new inspiration is seen to be the
welling up once more of the old indigenous Mesopotamian art. We have
once more that singular feeling for stress, for muscular tension, and
for dramatic oppositions, which distinguish the bas-reliefs of Babylon
and Nineveh from all other artistic expressions of the antique world. It
would be possible by the help of exhibits at Munich to trace certain
Assyrian forms right through to Mediæval European art. Take, for
instance, the lion heads on the pre-Babylonian mace from Goudea in the
Louvre; one finds a precisely similar convention for the lion head on
the Sassanid repoussé metalwork found in Russia. Once again it occurs in
the superb carved rock crystal waterspout lent by the Karlsruhe Museum
(Room 54), and one finds it again on the font of Lincoln Cathedral and
in the lions that support the doorway columns of Italian cathedrals. In
all these there is a certain community of style, a certain way of
symbolising the leonine nature which one may look for in vain in Greek
and Græco-Roman art.
Even if this seem too forced an interpretation of facts, it is none the
less clear that everywhere in early Mohammedan art this recrudescence
of Assyrian forms may be traced, and that their influence was scarcely
less upon Europe than upon the near East. Dr. Sarre has taken a tracing
of the pattern which is represented in low relief upon the robes of
Chosroes in the Tak-i-Bostan relief. In South Kensington Museum there is
an almost identical piece of silk brocade which actually comes from the
ruins of Khorsabad, and in the same museum one may find more than one
Byzantine imitation of this design and closely similar ones made in
Sicily; and the conventional winged monster which forms the basis of
these designs has a purely Assyrian air.
In Egypt, too, it would seem that there was before the Arab invasion a
marked recrudescence of indigenous native design which enabled the
Coptic craftsmen gradually to transform the motives given to them by
Roman conquerors into something entirely non-Hellenistic. And the
incredible beauty of the Fatimite textiles of the tenth, eleventh, and
twelfth centuries, of which a few precious relics are shown in Room 17,
preserve something, especially in the bird forms, of this antique
derivation.
But to return once more to Sassanid art. The specimens from the
Hermitage and Prince Bobrinsky’s collections form an object lesson of
extraordinary interest in the development of early Mohammedan art. They
have inherited and still retain that extreme realisation of massive
splendour, that fierce assertion of form and positive statement of
relief which belongs to the art of the great primitive Empires, and most
of all to the art of Mesopotamia, and yet they already adumbrate the
forms of Mohammedan art into which they pass by insensible degrees.
Here, too, we find vestiges of the dying Hellenistic tradition. One of
Prince Bobrinsky’s bronzes, a great plate, has, for instance, a design
composed of classic vases, from which spring stems which bend round into
a series of circles, a design which might almost be matched as regards
form, though not as regards spirit, in the wall decorations of Pompeii.
Or take again the superb repoussé silver plate representing a Sassanid
king spearing a lion. Here the floating drapery of the king and the edge
of his tunic show a deliberately schematised rendering of the
traditional folds of the Greek peplos. But how much more Assyrian than
Greek is the whole effect--the dramatic tension of the figures
expressed by an emphasis on all the lines of muscular effort, as in the
legs of the horse and the lions. How Assyrian, too, is the feeling for
relief, and the predilection for imbricated or closely set parallel
lines as in the lions’ manes. In the conventional rock under one of the
lions one seems to see also a hint of Chinese forms.
Still more Assyrian is another plate, the arrangement of which recalls
the reliefs of Assurbanipal or Sennacherib, and yet already there are
forms which anticipate Mohammedan art; the gate of the city, its
crenelations, and the forms of the helmets of the soldiers, all have an
air of similarity with far later Mohammedan types. Another plate, not
reproduced here, shows a Sassanid king regaling himself with wine and
music, and gives already more than a hint of the favourite designs of
the Rhages potters or the bronze workers of Mossoul.
Among Prince Bobrinsky’s bronzes which were found in the Caucasus is a
late Sassanid aquamanile in the form of a bird. It is already almost
Mohammedan, though retaining something of the extreme solidity and
weight of earlier art. Once more, in the aggressive schematisation of
the form of the tail and the suggestion of feathers by a series of
deeply marked parallel lines, we get a reminiscence of Assyrian art,
while in the treatment of the crest there is the more florid
interweaving of curves which adumbrate not only Mohammedan but Indian
forms.
In the aquamanile in the form of a horse (see Plate) the Sassanid
influence is still predominant, but there can be no doubt that this is
already Mohammedan, probably of the eighth or ninth century. We have
already here the characteristics of Fatimite bronzes, of which a few
specimens are shown at Munich. The great griffin of Pisa could not, of
course, be moved from the Campo Santo, nor are the two specimens in the
Louvre shown, but the stag from the Bavarian National Museum is there
and affords a most interesting comparison with Prince Bobrinsky’s horse.
Both have the same large generalisation of form, and in both we have the
curious effect of solidity and mass produced by the shortened hind legs,
with the half-squatting movement to which that gives rise.
The Bobrinsky horse is obviously more primitive, and probably indicates
the beginnings of a school of bronze plastic in Mesopotamia
[Illustration:
Fatimite Bronzes Bobrinsky Collection
Plate IV.]
nearly parallel to that of Egypt. This school, however, never developed
as fully along sculptural lines, and at a comparatively early date
abandoned sculpture for the art of bronze inlay, of which Mossoul was
the great centre in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the incised
designs on the horse we have an example of the early forms of the
palmette ornament and of the interlacing curves which form the basis of
most subsequent Mohammedan patterns. Within the reserves formed by the
_intreccie_ are small figures, of which one--that of a man seated and
playing the lute--can just be made out in the reproduction. It is
already typical of the figure design which the Mohammedan artists
developed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
By way of comparison with this Mesopotamian example, Plate, Fig. 2,
shows a supreme example of Fatimite sculpture of the twelfth century. It
is, indeed, a matter for regret that Mohammedan artists so soon
abandoned an art for which they showed such extraordinary aptitude. The
lion which comes from the Kassel Museum has already been published by M.
Migeon,[19] but is of such rare beauty and interest in relation to the
Sassanid works here described that it seemed desirable to reproduce it
again. It shows the peculiar characteristics of all the art produced for
the Fatimite court, its exquisite perfection and refinement of taste,
its minuteness of detail and finish together with a large co-ordination
of parts, a rhythmic feeling for contour and the sequence of planes,
which have scarcely ever been equalled. And all these qualities of
refinement, almost of sophistication, which Fatimite art possesses, do
not, as we see here, destroy the elementary imaginative feeling for the
vitality of animal forms. In the case in which this masterpiece of
Mohammedan sculpture is shown there is also seen the celebrated lion
which once belonged to the painter Fortuny. Noble though this is in
general conception, the coarseness of its workmanship and the want of
subtlety in its proportions, in comparison with the Kassel lion, makes
it evident that it is not from the same school of Egyptian craftsmen,
but probably of Spanish origin.
Yet another of the Bobrinsky bronzes of about the same date as the horse
is already typically Mohammedan as may be seen by the leaf forms and
the _intreccie_ of the crest, but how much of the antique Sassanid
proportions and sense of relief is still retained! It is believed to be
from Western Turkestan and of the eighth or ninth century. One must
suppose that Sassanid forms travelled North and East as well as South
and West, and helped in the formation of that Central Asian art which
becomes the dominant factor in the later centuries of Mohammedan, more
especially of Persian, art.
Before leaving the question of Sassanid influences I must mention the
series of bronze jugs in the Bobrinsky and Sarre collections. The
general form is obviously derived from classic originals, but they have
a peculiar spout of a rectangular shape placed at right angles on the
top of the main opening. The effect of this is to give two openings, one
for pouring the water in, the other for pouring it out at right angles.
Now in the early Mossoul water jugs we see numerous examples of what are
clearly derivations of this form passing by gradual degrees into the
familiar neck with spout attached but not separated, which is typical of
later Mohammedan water jugs. This evolution can be traced step by step
in the Munich Exhibition, and leaves no doubt of the perfect continuity
of Sassanid and Mohammedan forms.[20]
One of the features of early Mohammedan art is the vitality of its
floral and geometrical ornament, the system of which is uniformly spread
throughout the Mohammedan world. The question of where and how this
system of ornament arose is not easily solved, but there are indications
that Egypt was the place of its earliest development. Its characteristic
forms seem certainly derived from the universal palmette of Græco-Roman
decoration. The palmette, so rigid, unvarying and frequently so lifeless
in the hands of Græco-Roman artists, became the source of the flexible
and infinitely varied systems of Mohammedan design, so skilfully
interwoven, so subtly adapted to their purpose, that the supremacy of
Mohammedan art in this particular has been recognised and perpetuated in
the word Arabesque. It is curious to note that the history of this
development is almost a repetition of what occurred many centuries
before in the formation of the system of Celtic ornament. There, too,
the Greek palmette was the point of departure. The Celtic bronze-workers
adopted a cursive abbreviation of it which allowed of an almost too
unrestrained flexibility in their patterns, but one peculiarly adapted
to their bronze technique. In the case of Mohammedan art it would seem
that the change from the palmette was effected by Coptic wood-carvers
and by the artists who decorated in plaster the earliest Egyptian
mosques. Indeed, one may suspect that the transformation of Græco-Roman
ornament had already been initiated by Coptic workers in pre-Mohammedan
times. One or two exhibits of Coptic reliefs in woodwork in Room 48 show
how far this process had already gone. The Coptic wood-carvers arrived
at an extremely simple and economical method of decoration by incisions
with a gouge, each ending in a spiral curve, and so set as to leave in
relief a sequence of forms resembling a half-palmette, and at times
approaching very closely to the characteristic interlacing “trumpet”
forms of Celtic ornament. A similar method was employed with even
greater freedom and with a surprising richness and variety of effect in
the plaster decorations of the earliest mosques, such as that of Ibn
Tulun. In this way there was developed a singularly easy and rhythmic
manner of filling any given space with interlaced and confluent forms
suited to the caligraphic character of Mohammedan design. It cannot be
denied that in course of time it pandered to the besetting sin of the
oriental craftsman, his intolerable patience and thoughtless industry,
and became in consequence as dead in its mere intricacy and complexity
as the Græco-Roman original in its frigid correctness. The periods of
creation in ornamental design seem indeed to be even rarer than those of
creation in the figurative arts, and if the greater part of Mohammedan
art shows, along with increasing technical facility, a constant
degradation in ornamental design it is no exception to a universal rule.
At any rate, up to the end of the thirteenth century its vitality was as
strong and its adaptability even greater than the ornamental design of
Christian Europe.
The design based on the half-palmette adapted itself easily to other
materials than wood and plaster. In an even more cursive form it was
used alike by miniaturists and the closely allied painters on pottery.
Of the former a good instance is that of a manuscript of Dioscorides,
written and painted by Abdullah ben el-Fadhl in the year 1223 A.D. It is
of Mesopotamian origin and shows in the decorative treatment of the
figures a close affinity with the painting on contemporary pottery from
Rakka. It is surprising how much character and even humour the artist
gives to figures which are conceived in a purely calligraphic and
abstract manner, and what richness and nobility of style there is in the
singularly economical and rapid indications of brocaded patterns in the
robes. Here we see how, in the hands of the miniaturists, the
half-palmette ornament becomes even more cursive and flexible, more
readily adapted to any required space than in the hands of the
wood-carver and plasterer.
The whole of the figure-design of this period, as seen in the pottery of
Rakka, Rhages, and Sultanabad, shows the same characteristics. It is all
calligraphic rather than naturalistic, but it is notable how much
expression is attained within the flexible formula which these
Mohammedan artists had evolved. The requirements of the potter’s craft
stimulated the best elements of such a school of draughtsmanship, and
for their power of creating an illusion of real existence by the sheer
swiftness and assurance of their rhythm, few draughtsmen have surpassed
the unknown masters who threw their indications of scenes from
contemporary life upon the fragile bowls and lustred cups of early
Syrian and Persian pottery.
It is generally believed now that not only in ceramics and metal work,
but even in glass, Fatimite culture was pre-eminent. Probably no such
collection of enamelled oriental glass has ever been brought together as
that at Munich.
An example of glass of Egyptian origin bearing the date 737 A.D.,
belonging to Dr. Fouquet, shows how early the manufacture of glass was
already established in Egypt. To Egypt, too, must be ascribed the
splendid crystals and carved glass-work in which the Munich Exhibition
is particularly rich. One of these is the so-called Hedwig glass from
the Rijksmuseum, at Amsterdam. It has two finely conventionalised lions
and eagles which resemble the types of Fatimite sculpture. It is
described by Migeon (“Manuel,” p. 378) as being of moulded glass, but
the design is probably cut on the wheel in the manner employed for
rock-crystal. Among the examples of carved crystal one of the finest is
the less well-known example of a waterspout in the shape of a lion’s
head, lent by the Karlsruhe Museum. In all these figures the distinctive
quality of Fatimite art, its combination of massive grandeur of design
with extreme refinement, are apparent.
None the less, the evidence in favour of Syrian and Mesopotamian centres
of glass-industry is very strong, and if many of the pieces, especially
the earliest ones, are still relegated to Egypt, some of the finest are
still ascribed, though on no very conclusive grounds, to the Syrian
workshops. The finest of these belong to the late twelfth and early
thirteenth centuries, and, generally speaking, the work of the
fourteenth century shows a decline. Perhaps the most splendid specimen
known is the large bottle from the treasury of S. Stephen’s, Vienna. The
glass in this and the kindred piece from the same place shows a peculiar
brownish yellow tone almost of the colour of honey, which gives the most
perfect background to the enamelled figure-decoration. In the choice of
subjects with a predominance of scenes from the chase there is
undoubtedly a considerable resemblance to the scenes on the encrusted
bronze work of Mossoul, and this, so far as it goes, makes in favour of
a Syrian origin. But whatever their origin, the finest of these pieces
show a decorative splendour and a perfection of taste which has assured
their appreciation from the days of the Crusaders. Already in the
inventory of Charles V. of France such pieces, frequently mounted on
silver stands, figure among the King’s choicest treasures. Nor was the
appreciation of this beautiful craft confined to Europe. One of the many
proofs of a continual interchange between the Mohammedan and Chinese
civilisations is seen in the number of examples of this glass which have
come from China. In Munich there is a magnificent bowl lent by Dr. Sarre
which is of Chinese provenance, and numerous other pieces have been
recorded.
The collection of incrusted bronzes at Munich is extremely rich, ranging
from the twelfth-century work, in which plastic relief is still used,
accompanied by sparse incrustations of red copper upon the almost strawy
yellow bronze, to the fourteenth and fifteenth-century work, in which
plastic relief has altogether disappeared, and elaborate incrustations
of silver and even gold give to the surface an extreme profusion of
delicate interwoven traceries. Here, too, the earliest work shows the
finest sense of design. The specimen from the Piet Latauderie
collection, still retains in its relief of stylistic animals a feeling
for mass and grandeur inherited from Sassanid metal-workers, and the
incrustations, though exquisitely wrought, are kept in due subordination
to the general design. Some of the thirteenth-century pieces, though
already tending to too great intricacy, still attain to a finely
co-ordinated effect by the use of reserves filled with boldly designed
figures. Some of the best of these contain scenes borrowed from
Christian mythology, among which I may mention, as a superb example, the
great bowl belonging to the Duc d’Arenberg.
I have alluded at various points to the influence of Chinese art upon
Mohammedan. Among the most decisive and curious instances of this is a
bronze mirror with the signs of the Zodiac in relief. Round the edge is
an inscription of dedication to one of the Orthokid princes. It is of
Mesopotamian workmanship. Here the derivation from Chinese mirrors,
which date back to Han times, is unmistakable, and is seen in every
detail, even to the griffin-head in the centre, pierced to allow of the
string by which it was carried.
[Illustration:
Persian Painting, end of 13th century Morgan Collection
Plate V.]
GIOTTO[21]
THE CHURCH OF S. FRANCESCO AT ASSISI