I shall presently have the pleasure of showing you in some kind of
sequence a number of illustrations taken from books of the 15th, and
first years of the 16th centuries. But before I do so I wish to read
to you a few remarks on the genesis and the quality of the kind of art
represented by these examples, and the lessons which they teach us.
Since the earliest of those I have to show is probably not earlier in
date than about 1420, and almost all are more than fifty years later
than that, it is clear that they belong to the latest period of
Mediæval art, and one or two must formally be referred to the earliest
days of the Renaissance, though in spirit they are still Gothic. In
fact, it is curious to note the suddenness of the supplanting of the
Gothic by the neo-classical style in some instances, especially in
Germany: e.g., the later books published by the great Nuremberg
printer, Koburger, in the fourteen-nineties, books like the "Nuremberg
Chronicle," and the "Schatzbehalter," show no sign of the coming
change, but ten years worn, and hey, presto, not a particle of Gothic
ornament can be found in any German printed book, though, as I think,
the figure-works of one great man, Albert Dürer, were Gothic in
essence.
The most part of these books, in fact all of them in the earlier days
(the exceptions being mainly certain splendidly ornamented French
books, including the sumptuous books of "Hours"), were meant for
popular books: the great theological folios, the law books, the
decretals, and such like of the earlier German printers, though
miracles of typographical beauty, if ornamented at all, were
ornamented by the illuminator, with the single exception of
Gutenberg's splendid "Psalter," which gives us at once the first and
best piece of ornamental colour-printing yet achieved. Again, the
dainty and perfect volumes of the classics produced by the earlier
Roman and Venetian printers disdained the help of wood blocks, though
they were often beautifully illuminated, and it was not till after the
days of Jenson, the Frenchman who brought the Roman letter to
perfection, it was not till Italian typography began to decline, that
illustration by reproducible methods became usual; and we know that
these illustrated books were looked upon as inferior wares, and were
sold far cheaper than the unadorned pages of the great printers. It
must be noted in confirmation of the view that the woodcut books were
cheap books, that in most cases they were vernacular editions of books
already printed in Latin.
The work, then, which I am about to show you has first the
disadvantage of the rudeness likely to disfigure cheap forms of art in
a time that lacked the resource of slippery plausibility which helps
out cheap art at the present day. And secondly, the disadvantage of
belonging to the old age rather than the youth or vigorous manhood of
the Middle Ages. On the other hand, it is art, and not a mere trade
"article;" and though it was produced by the dying Middle Ages, they
were not yet dead when it was current, so that it yet retains much of
the qualities of the more hopeful period; and in addition, the
necessity of adapting the current design to a new material and method
gave it a special life, which is full of interest and instruction for
artists of all times who are able to keep their eyes open.
All organic art, all art that is genuinely growing, opposed to
rhetorical, retrospective, or academical art, art which has no real
growth in it, has two qualities in common: the epical and the
ornamental; its two functions are the telling of a story and the
adornment of a space or tangible object. The labour and ingenuity
necessary for the production of anything that claims our attention as
a work of art are wasted, if they are employed on anything else than
these two aims. Mediæval art, the result of a long unbroken series of
tradition, is preëminent for its grasp of these two functions, which,
indeed, interpenetrate then more than in any other period. Not only is
all its special art obviously and simply beautiful as ornament, but
its ornament also is vivified with forcible meaning, so that neither
in one or the other does the life ever flag, or the sensuous pleasure
of the eye ever lack. You have not got to say, Now you have your
story, how are you going to embellish it? Nor, Now you have made your
beauty, what are you going to do with it? For here are the two
together, inseparably a part of each other. No doubt the force of
tradition, which culminated in the Middle Ages, had much to do with
this unity of epical design and ornament. It supplied deficiencies of
individual by collective imagination (compare the constantly recurring
phases and lines in genuine epical or ballad poetry); it ensured the
inheritance of deft craftsmanship and instinct for beauty in the
succession of the generations of workmen; and it cultivated the
appreciation of good work by the general public. Now-a-days artists
work essentially for artists, and look on the ignorant layman with
contempt, which even the necessity of earning a livelihood cannot
force them wholly to disguise. In the times of art, they had no one
but artists to work for, since every one was a potential artist.
Now, in such a period, when written literature was still divine, and
almost miraculous to men, it was impossible that books should fail to
have a due share in the epical-ornamental art of the time.
Accordingly, the opportunities offered by the pages which contained
the wisdom and knowledge of past and present times were cultivated to
the utmost. The early Middle Ages, beginning with the wonderful
calligraphy of the Irish MSS., were, above all times, the epoch of
writing. The pages of almost all books, from the 8th to the 15th
century, are beautiful, even without the addition of ornament. In
those that are ornamented without pictures illustrative of the text,
the eye is so pleasured, and the fancy so tickled by the beauty and
exhaustless cheerful invention of the illuminator, that one scarcely
ventures to ask that the tale embodied in the written characters
should be further illustrated. But when this is done, and the book is
full of pictures, which tell the written tale again with the most
conscientious directness of design, and as to execution with great
purity of outline and extreme delicacy of colour, we can say little
more than that the only work of art which surpasses a complete
Mediæval book is a complete Mediæval building. This must be said, with
the least qualification, of the books of from about 1160 to 1300.
After this date, the work loses, in purity and simplicity, more than
it gains in pictorial qualities, and, at last, after the middle of the
15th century, illuminated books lose much of their individuality on
the ornamental side; and, though they are still beautiful, are mostly
only redeemed from commonplace when the miniatures in them are
excellent. But here comes in the new element, given by the invention
of printing, and the gradual shoving out of the scribe by the
punch-cutter, the typefounder, and the printer. The first printed
characters were as exact reproductions of the written ones as the new
craftsmen could compass, even to the extent of the copying of the
infernal abbreviations which had gradually crept into manuscript; but,
as I have already mentioned, the producers of serious books did not at
first supply the work of the illuminator by that of the woodcutter,
either in picture work or ornament. In fact, the art of printing
pictures from wood blocks is earlier than that of printing books, and
is undoubtedly the parent of book illustration. The first woodcuts
were separate pictures of religious subjects, circulated for the
edification of the faithful, in existing examples generally coloured
by hand, and certainly always intended to be coloured. The earliest of
these may be as old as 1380, and there are many which have been dated
in the first half of the 15th century; though the dates are mostly
rather a matter of speculation. But the development of book
illustration proper by no means puts an end to their production. Many
were done between 1450 and 1490, and some in the first years of the
16th century; but the earlier ones only have any special character in
them. Of these, some are cut rudely and some timidly also, but some
are fairly well cut, and few so ill that the expression of the design
is not retained. The design of most of these early works is mostly
admirable, and as far removed from the commonplace as possible; many,
nay most of these cuts, are fine expressions of that pietism of the
Middle Ages which has been somewhat veiled from us by the strangeness,
and even grotesqueness which has mingled with it, but the reality of
which is not doubtful to those who have studied the period without
prejudice. Amongst these may be cited a design of Christ being pressed
in the wine press, probably as early as the end of the 14th century,
which may stand without disadvantage beside a fine work of the 13th
century.
The next step towards book illustration brings us to the block-books,
in which the picture-cuts are accompanied by a text, also cut on wood;
the folios being printed by rubbing off on one side only. The subject
of the origin of the most noteworthy of these books, the "Ars
Moriendi," the "Lord's Prayer," the "Song of Solomon," the "Biblia
Pauperum," the "Apocalypse," and the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis,"
has been debated, along with the question of the first printer by
means of movable types, with more acrimony than it would seem to need.
I, not being a learned person, will not add one word to the
controversy; it is enough to say that these works were done somewhere
between the years 1430 and 1460, and that their style was almost
entirely dominant throughout the Gothic period in Flanders and
Holland, while it had little influence on the German wood-cutters. For
the rest, all these books have great merit as works of art; it would
be difficult to find more direct or more poetical rendering of the
events given than those of the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis;" or more
elegant and touching designs than those in the "Song of Solomon." The
cuts of the "Biblia Pauperum" are rougher, but full of vigour and
power of expression. The "Ars Moriendi" is very well drawn and
executed, but the subject is not so interesting. The "Apocalypse" and
"The Lord's Prayer" are both of them excellent, the former being
scarcely inferior in design to the best of the Apocalypse picture MSS.
of the end of the thirteenth century.
We have now come to the wood-cuts which ornament the regular books of
the Gothic period, which began somewhat timidly. The two examples in
Germany and Italy, not far removed from each other in date, being the
"Historie von Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther," printed by Albrecht
Pfister, at Bamberg, in 1462; and the "Meditations of Turrecremata (or
Torquemada)," printed at Rome by Ulric Hahn, in the year 1467, which
latter, though taken by the command of the Pope from the frescoes of a
Roman Church (Sta. Maria Sopra Minerva) are as German as need be, and
very rude in drawing and execution, though not without spirit. But,
after this date, the school of wood-carving developed rapidly; and, on
the whole, Germany, which had been very backward in the art of
illumination, now led the new art. The main schools were those of Ulm
and Augsburg, of Maintz, of Strasburg, of Basel, and of Nuremberg, the
latter being the later. The examples which I shall presently have the
pleasure of showing you are wholly of the first and the last, as being
the most representative, Ulm and Augsburg of the earlier style,
Nuremberg of the later. But I might mention, in passing, that some of
the earlier Basel books, notably Bernard Richel's "Speculum Humanæ
Salvationis," are very noteworthy; and that, in fourteen-eighties,
there was a school at Maintz that produced, amongst other books, a
very beautiful "Herbal," and Breydenbach's "Peregrinatio," which,
amongst other merits, such as actual representations of the cities on
the road to the Holy Land, must be said to contain the best executed
woodcuts of the Middle Ages. Of course, there were many other towns in
Germany which produced illustrated books, but they may be referred in
character to one or other of these schools. In Holland and Flanders
there was a noble school of woodcutting, delicately decorative in
character, and very direct and expressive, being, as I said, the
direct descendant of the block-books. The name of the printer who
produced most books of this school was Gerard Leeuw (or Lion), who
printed first at Gouda, and afterwards at Antwerp. But Colard Mansion,
of Bruges, who printed few books, and was the master of Caxton in the
art of printing, turned out a few very fine specimens of illustrated
books. One of the most remarkable illustrated works published in the
Low Countries--which I mention for its peculiarity--is the "Chevalier
Deliberé" (an allegorical poem on the death of Charles the Rash), and
I regret not being able to show you a slide of it, as it could not be
done satisfactorily. This book, published at Schiedam in 1500,
decidedly leans towards the French in style, rather than the native
manner deduced from the earlier block-books.
France began both printing and book illustration somewhat late, most
of its important illustrated works belonging to a period between the
years 1485 and 1520; but she grasped the art of book decoration with a
firmness and completeness very characteristic of French genius; and
also, she carried on the Gothic manner later than any other nation.
For decorative qualities, nothing can excel the French books, and many
of the picture-cuts, besides their decorative merits, have an
additional interest in the romantic quality which they introduce: they
all look as if they might be illustrations to the "Morte D'Arthur" or
Tristram.
In Italy, from about 1480 onward, book illustrations became common,
going hand-in-hand with the degradation of printing, as I said before.
The two great schools in Italy are those of Florence and Venice. I
think it must be said that, on the whole, the former city bore away
the bell from Venice, in spite of the famous Aldine "Polyphilus," the
cuts in which, by the way, are very unequal. There are a good many
book illustrations published in Italy, I should mention, like those to
Ulric Hahn's "Meditations of Turrecremata," which are purely German in
style; which is only to be expected from the fact of the early
printers in Italy being mostly Germans.
I am sorry to have to say it, but England cannot be said to have a
school of Gothic book illustration; the cuts in our early printed
books are, at the best, French or Flemish blocks pretty well copied.
This lamentable fact is curious, considered along with what is also a
fact: that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the English
were, on the whole, the best book decorators.
I have a few words to say yet on the practical lessons to be derived
from the study of these works of art; but before I say them, I will
show you, by your leave, the slides taken from examples of these
woodcuts. Only I must tell you first, what doubtless many of you know,
that these old blocks were not produced by the graver on the end
section of a piece of fine-grained wood (box now invariably), but by
the knife on the plank section of pear-tree or similar wood--a much
more difficult feat when the cuts were fine, as, e.g., in
Lützelberger's marvellous cuts of the "Dance of Death."
[Mr. Morris then showed a series of lantern slides, which he described
as follows:]
1. This is taken from the "Ars Moriendi," date about 1420. You may
call it Flemish or Dutch, subject to raising the controversy I
mentioned just now.