FRANCONIAN ILLUMINATION
The later Saxon schools--Bernward of Hildesheim--Tuotilo and Hartmut of
St. Gallen--Portrait of Henry II. in MS. 40 at Munich--Netherlandish and
other work compared--Alleged deterioration of work under the Franconian
Emperors not true--Bad character of the eleventh century as to
art--Example to the contrary.
The MS. just referred to (Munich, Cimel. 58) brings us most probably to
the time of the third. Otho, but it is really with his father's marriage
to the Princess Theophano that the great revival in the arts began, and
the names of St. Bruno of Cologne and Augsburg, Gerbert, Bernward of
Hildesheim, Tuotilo, Salomon, Hartmut, Folchard, and Sintramn of St.
Gallen, are, as it were, points of light and centres of expanding
circles of artistic skill. Bruno and Gerbert are too well known to need
any further remark. Bernward of Hildesheim, made bishop there in 992 by
Theophano, and tutor to her son Otho III., "excelled no less in the
mechanical than in the liberal arts. He was an excellent penman, a good
painter, and as a household manager was unequalled." Such is Tangmar's
tribute to his pupil's character. He was, indeed, an enthusiast in
painting, mosaic, and metal-work, and used to collect all the objects of
art he could lay hands on, to form a museum or studio for the
instruction of a class of art students and workmen. The collection was
formed mainly out of the numerous presents brought to the young Emperor
from foreign, and especially Greek and Oriental, princes, and contained
many examples of beautiful metal-work and Greek illumination. His own
Cathedral of Hildesheim was supplied with jewelled service-books, in
part at least the work of his own hand. The chalices and incense-burners
and the massive golden corona or candelabrum of the cathedral were also
the productions of his own workshops. The mural paintings, too, were
executed by himself. His handiwork, so lovingly described by his old
schoolmaster Tangmar, may still be seen in Hildesheim, where visitors to
that quaint old Saxon city are told that the bronze gates of the
cathedral and the jewelled crucifix were placed there by the venerable
bishop himself in 1015, while in the cathedral-close rises a column
adorned with bronze reliefs from the Life of Christ, authoritatively
declared to be the work of his own hands--let us say they came out of
his own workshops, in the year 1022, nearly a thousand years ago. St.
Bernward was canonised by Celestine III. in 1194. His sarcophagus is in
the crypt of the Basilica of St. Michael at Hildesheim. Of Tuotilo, the
pupil of Moengall (or Marcellus), it is said that he was physically
almost a giant; just the man, says his biographer, that you would choose
for a wrestler. He was a good speaker, had a fine musical voice, was a
capital carver in wood, and an accomplished illuminator. Like most of
the earlier monks of St. Gallen, he was a clever musician, equally
skilful with the trumpet and the harp. And the charm about it all was
that he was always cheerful and in excellent spirits, and in consequence
a general favourite. Nor is this all. Besides being teacher of music in
the upper school to the sons of the nobility, he was classical tutor,
and could preach both in Latin and Greek. His chief accomplishments,
however, were music and painting, and on these his reputation mainly
rests. He composed songs, which, like an Irish bard, he sang to the
harp--the popular instrument of this Irish foundation. Being thus
multifariously accomplished (he was, by the way, an excellent boxer), he
was much in request, and by the permission of his abbot travelled to
distant places. One of his celebrated sculptures was the image of the
Blessed Virgin for the cathedral at Metz, said to be quite a
masterpiece. Nay, he was even a mathematician and astronomer, and
constructed an astrolabe or orrery, which showed the courses of the
planets.
This allusion to the astrolabe reminds us that it was Abbat Hartmut of
St. Gallen, who was also an accomplished illuminator, who constructed a
large map of the world--one of the extremely few that until that time
the world had ever seen.
St. Gallen and its artists, however, must not be permitted to monopolise
our attention too long. The reader must for the rest refer to Dr. Rahn
and the writers whom he quotes. Sometimes it is said that the
illuminations of the eleventh century are proofs of the rapid decline of
art, and to demonstrate the fact that they are frankly hideous, some
writers bring forward instances such as the miniatures of a Missal,
especially a Crucifixion, said to be at Paris,[22] and a MS. at Berlin
said to have been executed in the earlier days of the Franconian dynasty
(1034-1125) containing another Crucifixion, which, though not quite so
horrible as the one just referred to, is sufficiently bad. These
miniatures are irredeemably barbaric and not in any sense typical of the
age. Such examples, in fact, can be found in any age and in any country.
Were they really representative of the best art of the time, there might
be an excuse for their reproduction, but they are not, and therefore no
reliance can be placed on their evidence.
[22] _Le Livre, etc._, par M.P. Louisy, Paris, 1886, 8°, p. 79.
In the miniatures of MSS. executed for the Othos and Henrys of the early
Saxon dynasty the worst they can be charged with, as compared with the
periods before and after them, is slavish imitation. The portrait of
Henry II. (Saint Henry, husband of Cunegunda) in MS. 40 at Munich is by
no means barbaric--it is more Greek than anything else--but it is down
to the smallest element of composition a direct imitation of the similar
portrait of Charles the Bald in the Emmeram Gospels. It is not a copy,
for there is a significant difference in the attitudes of the emperors.
Henry holds a sceptre in his right hand and an orb in his left, like
Otho III. in the miniature already described, whereas Charles is empty
handed. Then both on the Emperor's head and on the smaller figures the
crowns are different--the panelling of the Imperial canopy is different,
and, of course, there is a different inscription. Lastly, it may be said
that some of the differences are improvements. Another change is
characteristic--Charles was beardless, Henry has a pointed beard.
It is true this is an example belonging to the very brightest years of
the Othonian revival. But to pass over other Saxon MSS., there are
extant examples from Evroul (when Roger de Warenne, son of the great
Earl of Surrey, practised as a scribe and illuminator on his retirement
to that monastery), St. Martin's of Tournay, St. Amand, Benedictbeuern,
Lobbes, and Weissobrunn could all boast accomplished calligraphers. The
last establishment produced the celebrated Diemudis, who, though a
woman, was distinguished by a most extraordinary activity and skill.
Nor are these all that could be named, for by no means least among them
we may quote Monte Cassino, many of whose elegant productions have been
published by the present occupants of the monastery. Then the Greek
miniaturists of the eleventh century are once more to the front. The
famous Slav Evangeliary of Ostromir (1056-67) shows us a MS. probably
executed for a governor of Novgorod, which contains by no means
despicable work, whether in the figures of the evangelists or the
ornamental borders. Of course, in Greek MSS. we know pretty well what to
expect; fairly good ornament, rich details of embroidery, etc.,
wilfulness of colour in architecture, mannerism in the attitudes and
faces, but good, clever technic and bright gold.
Lastly, there is the celebrated Evangeliary given to San Benedetto of
Mantua by the Countess Matilda now in the Vatican, enriched with little
miniatures from the Life of the Virgin, which Lanzi declares surpass
everything else he ever saw of the same period.
The Poitevin MS. at Poitiers, a biographical compilation of saints in
honour of St. Radegonde, though nothing wonderful, is worth recording as
a transitional example just before the close of the century. As an
example of the latter part of a continual deterioration, it should be
worse than anything preceding. Yet it is not so. It is certainly heavy
and rather dull, and the drawing far from excellent, but it is also, on
the other hand, far from "frankly horrible." In introducing examples of
other schools into this chapter the writer's object has solely been to
vindicate the illuminators of the eleventh century from the sweeping
charge sometimes made against them of absolute deterioration. Of the
school directly under our notice, the charge is certainly not true, and
the wretched stuff cited in support of it can only be looked upon as
accidental salvages of no artistic value whatever.
In proof that the book-work of the eleventh century was not all
worthless, we may refer to just one example. It is a MS. consisting of
but a few fragments executed at Luxeuil under Abbat Gerard II. The
remains are such as to cause regret for the loss of the rest. On one
page Christ is shown seated on a rich _sella_ covered with an
embroidered cushion in the manner of the consular diptychs. He is
clothed in a pale yellow tunic, over which is worn a purple pallium with
a white border. He is beardless, and his brown hair is kept close to the
head and neck, and falls over the shoulders. The feet are nude and by no
means ill-drawn. Surrounding the head is a cruciform nimbus enclosed in
a circle--both cross and circle being pale green, the latter outlined
with red. The chief fault of the head is the excessive length of the
nose and the wide stare of the eyes. The right arm is raised somewhat as
in the St. Sernin Evangeliary, but with the palm outwards, and much
superior in drawing.
The whole figure is painted on, or at least surrounded by, a golden
background--so far indicating the Byzantine origin of the design. It is
enclosed in a cusped aureola formed of several coloured bands of green,
violet, and rose. This shows German taste. Eight circlets or medallions
surround this figure of Christ, four of which contain the symbols of the
evangelists; the other four--Isaiah, Daniel, Ezechiel, and Jeremiah. All
hold portions of the band which connects them, and on which appears a
series of inscriptions in Latin. These consist of passages from the
Vulgate.
The whole picture is placed in a square frame consisting of bands of
various colours and gold outlined in red. The inner ground is chiefly
blue, and the names of the prophets and evangelists are painted on it in
white Roman capitals. Taken altogether it is a very splendid page, but
even this is surpassed in gorgeous richness of ornament by the miniature
of St. Mark. And the borders of other pages in this Luxeuil fragment are
full of ornament, giving the impression that the work was imitated from
that of the goldsmith and enameller. The figures and symbols of the
evangelists in these early Gospel texts are fully explained after St.
Jerome by Alcuin, whose revision of the Vulgate forms the text of the
Durham Book already referred to.
The "Manual" shortly to be mentioned differs somewhat in its explanation
of these symbols. The curious combination called the "Tetra morph" is a
compound of the four attributes or symbols into a single figure, to
signify that the four evangelists give only one gospel, and ought not to
be separated. It occurs frequently in Greek, but only seldom in Latin or
Western iconography.[23]
[23] On this figure see _Annales Archéologiques_, tom. 8, p. 206, etc.