the homely and useful onion, leek, garlic, chive, and asparagus belong,
no less than a multitude of lovely flowers.
The New Zealand flax (_Phormium tenax_), and all the magnificent yuccas
and aloes, together with our English butcher's broom (_Ruscus
aculeatus_), which has not a little botanical interest (as being the
only British shrub which belongs to the group called "Monocotyledons")
also belong to this order. Closely allied to the lilies are the
amaryllids (_Amaryllidaceæ_), amongst which are the agaves, with their
gigantic flower stems, sometimes forty feet high, supporting a
multitudinous crop of flowers, the product and termination of a life.
To these follow the pine-apples (_Bromeliaceæ_) all originally from
America, the useful bananas and plantains (_Musaceæ_), and the
ginger-plants (_Zingiberaceæ_), tropical herbs, generally of great
beauty.
The underground parts of certain tropical plants (_Dioscoreaceæ_) are
known as "yams." A representative of this order exists in England in the
climbing black bryony (_Tamus_) of our hedges, and to the same group
belongs the very singularly stemmed elephant's foot, or tortoise-tree
(_Testudinaria elephantipes_). The last-named plant is a native of the
Cape of Good Hope, where it has been known as Hottentot's bread, because
the soft interior of its swollen base was at one time eaten by the
natives of that region, who have, however, now abandoned it to the
baboons.
Lastly, in this connexion may be mentioned the very interesting and
beautiful group of orchids (_Orchidaceæ_), many of which live high up
in the air, supported on the branches of trees, from which their roots
hang freely down. Such orchids are sometimes spoken of as "air-plants."
All the Angiosperms as yet mentioned, from the grasses to the orchids
inclusively, belong to the lower of the two great groups or classes into
which, as was lately said, the whole mass of Angiosperms is divided.
This great group is named _Monocotyledones_ (on account of the structure
of the seed), and it is sometimes spoken of as _Endogens_, in reference
to a generally prevalent habit of growth. The members of this whole
class will then hereinafter be spoken of as "Monocotyledons."
All the plants which yet remain to be enumerated belong to the other and
still greater group of Angiosperms called (also in reference to their
seeds) _Dicotyledons_, a group sometimes spoken of as "_Exogens_," in
reference to the habit of growth prevalent amongst its species.
All our familiar trees which are not conifers, and most of our flowering
shrubs and herbs, are "Dicotyledons."
Amongst the many orders which compose the Dicotyledonous group the few
following may be selected for enumeration, either on account of the
general interest they possess, or because they will have to be more or
less referred to hereafter.
We may thus note the singular order of vegetable parasites, the
_Loranthaceæ_, an order containing some thirty genera with four hundred
species, and including the mistletoe, which is traditionally venerable
in our island. The great group of catkin-bearing trees (_Amentaceæ_),
contains a great assemblage of plants, familiar in England, such as the
hornbeam, hazel, oak, beech, Spanish chestnut, birch, willow, poplar,
&c.[24]
The largest and one of the most remarkable flowers in the world,
_Rafflesia_--a parasite found in Java and Sumatra by Sir Stamford
Raffles--is the type of the small order _Rafflesiaceæ_. The eccentric
pitcher-bearing plants form the order _Nepenthaceæ_. The English herb
called "Spurge" (with its milky juice), belongs to the order
(_Euphorbiaceæ_), which is a large[25] cosmopolitan group, some species
of the plants belonging to which attain, in hot countries, the size of
trees. Certain African species strangely resemble different kinds of
_Cactus_. The elm order (_Ulmaceæ_) may come next. The hop, the hemp,
the mulberry, the fig, and the dorstenia are all nearly allied, the
first two belonging to the order _Cannabinaceæ_, the last three to the
_Moraceæ_. The bread-fruit of the South-Sea Islands belongs to the same
order (_Artocarpaceæ_) as does the deadly upas-tree of Java. Garments
made of the inner bark of this plant are like the shirt of Nessus, and
will produce intolerable irritation; and even climbing the tree to
obtain its flowers is said to have produced severe effects on the
climber. In proximity to the last-mentioned plant comes appropriately
(as also in its proper botanical order) the group of stinging-nettles
(_Urticaceæ_). The curious Australian plants which delighted the eyes of
Captain Cook's botanical companions belong to the order _Proteaceæ_.
Besides these may be mentioned the dead-nettle order (_Labiatæ_); the
broom-rapes (_Orobanchaceæ_); the order of snap-dragons and foxgloves
(_Scrophularineæ_); the potato group (_Solanaceæ_), which includes the
deadly nightshade and the dulcamara of our hedges; the parasitic order
(_Cuscutaceæ_); the beautiful group of convolvuluses (_Convolvulaceæ_);
the gentians (_Gentianaceæ_); the primrose group (_Primulaceæ_); the
heaths (_Ericaceæ_); the graceful hair-bell and its allies
(_Campanulaceæ_); the very large group to which belong the daisy,
dandelion, and thistle (_Compositæ_); the honeysuckle order
(_Caprifoliaceæ_); the ivy (_Araliaceæ_); the large order containing the
fennel, hemlock, and a multitude of other forms which, though mostly
ranking as herbs, attain gigantic dimensions in some species found in
Africa and Kamskatka (_Umbelliferæ_); the very singularly-shaped group
of cactuses (_Cactaceæ_), with leafless fleshy stems, which sometimes
look like dry columns and sometimes are globular; the begonias
(_Begoniaceæ_); the cucumbers, melons, and vegetable marrows
(_Cucurbitaceæ_); the singularly-formed passion-flowers
(_Passifloraceæ_); the myrtles (_Myrtaceæ_); the carnivorous group
containing the sundew and Venus's flytrap (_Droseracæ_); the fleshy
houseleek and stonecrops (_Crassulaceæ_); the Saxifrages
(_Saxifragaceæ_); the rose group (_Rosaceæ_), which includes within it
most of our fruits, such as the apple, pear, strawberry, cherry, peach,
plum, almond, and others; the very large order which contains the peas,
beans, and their allies (_Leguminoseæ_); the horse-chestnut order
(_Hippocastaneæ_); the maples (_Acerineæ_); the hollies (_Ilicineæ_);
the oranges and citrons (_Aurantiaceæ_); the cranesbills and
pelargoniums (_Geraniaceæ_); the flaxes (_Linaceæ_); the limes
(_Tiliaceæ_), in which the useful jute is included; the mallows
(_Malvaceæ_); the St. John's worts (_Hypericaceæ_); the order of pinks
(_Caryophylleæ_); the pansies (_Violaceæ_); the rock-roses (_Cistaceæ_);
the mignonette group (_Resedaceæ_); the great wall-flower and cabbage
group (_Cruciferæ_); the poppies (_Papaveraceæ_); the water-lilies
(_Nymphaceæ_); the berberries (_Berberideæ_); the custard-apples
(_Anonaceæ_); the magnolias (_Magnoliaceæ_); and, finally, the great
group (_Ranunculaceæ_) containing the anemones, the clematis, hellebore,
monkshood, and the buttercup, which last is of great use to the student
of Botany because it is an excellent type of all flowers.
The above may serve as a brief enumeration of the more generally known
or more interesting orders of flowering plants, as also of the most
noteworthy forms of cryptogams. The much more numerous and complex
groups of animals have also been catalogued in the earlier and larger
part of this Essay, which may thus, it is hoped, answer the purpose of
an introduction to those multitudinous forms of organic life, the
leading points in the structure and functions of which are hereafter to
occupy us.
The main groups of Animals and Plants may be provisionally tabulated as
follows:--
ANIMALS.
{ _Mammalia_ (Man and Beasts)
(1) VERTEBRATA { _Aves_ (Birds)
(Back-boned { _Reptilia_ (Serpents, Crocodiles, Lizards, &c.)
Animals) { _Batrachia_ (Frogs, Efts, &c.)
{ _Pisces_ (Fishes)
{ _Cephalopoda_ (Cuttle Fishes)
(2) MOLLUSCA { _Pteropoda_
(Soft Animals) { _Gasteropoda_ (Snails, &c.)
{ _Lamellibranchiata_ (Oysters, &c.)
{ _Brachiopoda_ (Lamp-shells)
(3) TUNICATA (Ascidians, Tunicaries, or Sea-squirts)
(4) ARTHROPODA { _Crustacea_ (Crabs, &c.)
(Animals with { _Myriapoda_ (Hundred-legs, &c.)
jointed feet) { _Arachnida_ (Scorpions, Spiders, &c.)
{ _Insecta_
{ _Annelida_ (Earth-worms, Leeches, &c.)
{ _Enteropneusta_ (Balanoglossus)
{ _Bryozoa_ (Sea-mat, &c.)
{ _Nematoidea_ (Thread-worms)
(5) VERMES { _Trematoda_ (Flukes, &c.)
{ _Turbellaria_ (Planariæ, &c.)
{ _Cestoidea_ (Tape-worms)
{ _Rotifera_ (Wheel-animalcules)
{ _Gasterotricha_
{ _Gephyrea_ (Sipunculus, &c.)
(6) ECHINODERMA (Star-fishes, &c.)
{ _Ctenophora_ (Beröe, &c.)
(7) COELENTERA { _Actinozoa_ (Coral animals)
{ _Hydrozoa_ (Jelly-fishes, &c.)
(8) SPONGIDA (Sponges)
{ _Infusoria_ (Animalcules with mouths)
(9) HYPOZOA { _Gregarinida_
{ _Rhizopoda_ (Foraminifers, Radiolarians,
Flagellata, &c.)
PLANTS.
{ _Algæ_ (Sea-weeds, Confervæ, &c.)
{ _Fungi_
{ _Lichenes_
(1) CRYPTOGAMIA { _Hepaticæ_ (Liverworts and Scale-mosses)
(Flowerless { _Characeæ_ (Nitella, &c.)
Plants) { _Musci_ (Mosses)
{ _Marsiliaceæ_ (Pepperworts)
{ _Equisetaceæ_ (Horsetails)
{ _Filices_ (Ferns)
(2) PHANEROGAMIA { A. _Gymnosperms_ (Firs, Yews, Cycads, &c.)
(Flowering { { _Monocotyledones_ (Grasses, Palms, Lilies,
Plants) { B. _Angiosperms_ { Orchids, &c.)
{ { _Dicotyledones_ (the great mass of Flowering
{ { Plants and Trees).
ST. GEORGE MIVART.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, May, 1879, p. 261.
[5] _L. c._ p. 262.
[6] "A classification of any large portion of the field of Nature, in
conformity to the foregoing principles, has hitherto been found
practicable only in one great instance, that of animals."--_Logic_,
third edition, 1851, vol. i., chap. viii. § 5, page 279.
[7] CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, July, 1879, pp. 716 and 717.
[8] _L. c._ p. 717.
[9] CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, July, 1879: "What are Living Beings?"
[10] Very small deer, commonly called in error musk-deer.
[11] The European beavers have abandoned the dam-building habit. They
retained it, however, as late as the thirteenth century.
[12] By the Author in a Paper read before the Zoological Society in Nov.
1864. See also his "Man and Apes," Hardwicke, 1873; and the article
"Ape" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," vol. ii. p. 148.
[13] "Histoire Naturelle," tome xiv. p. 61, 1766.
[14] For an explanation of the zoological system of nomenclature which
has been adopted since the time of Linnæus, see CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for
May, page 262.
[15] See ante, p. 14.
[16] See CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for July, p. 710.
[17] See CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, July, p. 710.
[18] For a summary of our knowledge respecting this group, see the
"Linnean Society's Journal," Vol. xiv. (Zoology), p. 136.
[19] A "spore" is a minute reproductive particle.
[20] See CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for July, 1879, p. 714.
[21] Some botanists think that yeast is no true and definite kind of
plant, but that it is only a conglomeration of fungoid spores of divers
sorts.
[22] This motion is that referred to at the bottom of page 696, in the
CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for July, 1879, as _Cyclosis_.
[23] Some readers may be startled at the mode here adopted of primarily
dividing the Phanerogams, and may object to it as opposed to usage; but
reasons will be given later for the mode of division here adopted.
[24] The above-named plants may for our purpose be thus conveniently
grouped together, according to the older fashion of botanists. Strictly
speaking, however, they should be divided amongst several
orders--_e.g._, hazel and hornbeam (_Corylaceæ_), the oak, beech, and
chestnut (_Capuliferæ_), the birches (_Betulaceæ_), the willows
(_Salicaceæ_), &c.
[25] Containing upwards of 2500 species.
THE ARTISTIC DUALISM OF THE RENAISSANCE.
I.
Into the holy enclosure which had received the precious shiploads of
earth from Calvary, the Pisans of the thirteenth century carried the
fragments of ancient sculpture brought from Rome and from Greece; and in
the Gothic cloister enclosing the green sward and dark cypresses of the
grave-yard of Pisa, the art of the Middle Ages came for the first time
face to face with the art of antiquity. There, among pagan sarcophagi
turned into Christian tombs, with heraldic devices chiselled on to their
arabesques and vizored helmets surmounting their garlands, the great
unsigned artist of the fourteenth century, be he Sienese or Florentine,
be he Orcagna, Lorenzetti, or Volterra, painted the typical masterpiece
of mediæval art, the great fresco of the Triumph of Death. With
wonderful realization of character and situation he painted the
prosperous of the world, the dapper youths and damsels seated with dogs
and falcons beneath the orchard trees, amusing themselves with
Decameronian tales and sound of lute and psaltery, unconscious of the
gigantic scythe wielded by the gigantic dishevelled Death, and which, in
a second, will descend and mow them to the ground; but the crowd of
beggars, ragged, maimed, paralyzed, leprous, grovelling on their
withered limbs, see and implore Death, and cry stretching forth their
arms, their stumps, and their crutches. Further on, three kings in long
embroidered robes and gold-trimmed shovel caps, Lewis the Emperor,
Uguccione of Pisa, and Castruccio of Lucca, with their retinue of ladies
and squires, and hounds and hawks, are riding quietly through a wood.
Suddenly their horses stop, draw back; the Emperor's bay stretches out
his long neck sniffing the air; the kings strain forward to see, one
holding his nose for the stench of death which meets him; and before
them are three open coffins, in which lie, in three loathsome stages of
corruption, from blue and bloated putrescence to well-nigh fleshless
decay, three crowned corpses. This is the triumph of Death; the grim and
horrible jest of the Middle Ages: equality in decay; kings, emperors,
ladies, knights, beggars, and cripples, this is what we all come to be,
stinking corpses; Death, our lord, our only just and lasting sovereign,
reigns impartially over all.
But opposite, all along the sides of the painted cloister, the amazons
are wrestling with the youths on the stone of the sarcophagi; the
chariots are dashing forward, the Tritons are splashing in the marble
waves; the Bacchantæ are striking their timbrels in their dance with the
satyrs; the birds are pecking at the grapes, the goats are nibbling at
the vines, all is life, strong and splendid in its marble eternity. And
the mutilated Venus smiles towards the broken Hermes; the stalwart
Hercules, resting against his club, looks on quietly, a smile beneath
his beard; and the gods murmur to each other, as they stand in the
cloister filled with earth from Calvary, where hundreds of men lie
rotting beneath the cypresses, "Death will not triumph for ever; our day
will come."
We have all seen them opposite to each other, these two arts, the art
born of antiquity and the art born of the Middle Ages; but whether this
meeting was friendly or hostile or merely indifferent, is a question of
constant dispute. To some, mediæval art has appeared being led,
Dante-like, by a magician Virgil through the mysteries of Nature up to a
Christian Beatrice, who alone can guide it to the kingdom of heaven;
others have seen mediæval art, like some strong, chaste knight turning
away resolutely from the treacherous sorceress of antiquity, and
pursuing solitarily the road to the true and the good; for some the
antique has been an impure goddess Venus, seducing and corrupting the
Christian artist; the antique has been for others a glorious Helen, an
unattainable perfection, ever pursued by the mediæval craftsman, but
seized by him only as a phantom. Magician or witch, voluptuous,
destroying Venus or cold and ungrasped Helen, what was the antique to
the art born of the Middle Ages and developed during the Renaissance?
Was the relation between them that of tuition, cool and abstract, or of
fruitful lore, or of deluding and damning example?
The art which came to maturity in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries was generated in the early mediæval revival. The seeds may,
indeed, have come down from antiquity, but they remained for nearly a
thousand years hidden in the withered, rotting remains of former
vegetation, and it was not till that vegetation had completely
decomposed and become part of the soil, it was not till putrefaction had
turned into germination, that artistic organism timidly reappeared. The
new art-germ developed with the new civilization which surrounded it.
Manufacture and commerce reappeared: the artisans and merchants formed
into communities; the communities grew into towns, the towns into
cities; in the city arose the cathedral; the Lombard or Byzantine
mouldings and traceries of the cathedral gave birth to figure-sculpture;
its mosaics gave birth to painting; every forward movement of the
civilization unfolded as it were a new form or detail of the art, until,
when mediæval civilization was reaching its moment of consolidation,
when the cathedrals of Lucca and Pisa stood completed, when Niccoto and
Giovanni Pisani had sculptured their pulpits and sepulchres, painting,
in the hands of, Cimabue and Duccio, of Giotto and of Guido da Siena,
freed itself from the tradition of the mosaicists as sculpture had freed
itself from the practice of the stone-masons, and stood forth an
independent and organic art.
Thus painting was born of a new civilization, and grew by its own vital
force; a thing of the Middle Ages, original and spontaneous. But
contemporaneous with the mediæval revival was the resuscitation of
antiquity; in proportion as the new civilization developed, the old
civilization was exhumed; real Latin began to be studied only when real
Italian began to be written; Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio were at once
the founders of modern literature and the exponents of the literature of
antiquity; the strong young present was to profit by the experience of
the past.
As it was with literature, so likewise was it with art. The most purely
mediæval sculpture, the sculpture which has, as it were, just detached
itself from the capitals and porches of the cathedral, is the direct
pupil of the antique; and the three great Gothic sculptors, Niccoto,
Giovanni, and Andrea of Pisa, learn from fragments of Greek and Roman
sculpture how to model the figure of the Redeemer and how to chisel the
robe of the Virgin. This spontaneous mediæval sculpture, aided by the
antique, preceded by a full half-century the appearance of mediæval
painting; and it was from the study of the works of the Pisan sculptors,
that Cimabue and Giotto learned to depart from the mummified
monstrosities of the Miratic, Byzantine, and Roman style of Giunta and
Berlinghieri. Thus, through the sculpture of the Pisans the painting of
the school of Giotto received at second-hand the teachings of antiquity.
Sculpture had created painting, painting now belonged to the painters.
In the hands of Giotto it developed within a few years into an art which
seemed almost mature, an art dealing victoriously with its materials,
triumphantly solving its problems, executing as if by miracle all that
was demanded of it. But Giottesque art appeared perfect merely because
it was limited; it did all that was required of it, because that which
was required was little; it was not asked to reproduce the real, nor to
represent the beautiful, it was asked merely to suggest a character, a
situation, a story.
The artistic development of a nation has its exact parallel in the
artistic development of an individual. The child uses his pencil to tell
a story, satisfied with balls and sticks as body, head, and legs,
provided he and his friends can associate with them the ideas in their
minds: the youth sets himself to copy what he sees, to reproduce forms,
and effects, without any aim beyond the mere pleasure of copying; the
mature artist strives to obtain forms and effects of which he approves,
he seeks for beauty. In the life of Italian painting generations of men
who flourished at the beginning of the sixteenth century are the mature
artists; the men of the fifteenth century are the inexperienced youths;
the Giottesques are the children--children Titanic and seraph-like, but
children nevertheless, and, like all children, learning more perhaps in
their few years than can the youth of the man learn in a lifetime.
Like the child, the Giottesque painter wished to show a situation or
express a story, and for this purpose the absolute realization of
objects was unnecessary. Giottesque art is not incorrect art, it is
generalized art; it is an art of mere outline. The Giottesques could
draw with great accuracy the hand, the form of the fingers, the bend of
the limb, they could give to perfection its whole gesture and movement,
they could produce a correct and spirited outline, but within this
correct outline marked off in dark paint there is but a vague, uniform
mass of pale colour; the body of the hand is missing, and there remains
only its ghost, visible indeed, but unsubstantial, without weight or
warmth, eluding the grasp. The difference between this spectre hand of
the Giottesques, and the sinewy, muscular hand which can shake and crush
of Masaccio and Signorelli, or the soft hand with throbbing pulse and
warm pressure of Perugino and Bellini,--this difference is typical of
the difference between the art of the fourteenth century and the art of
the fifteenth century; the first suggests, the second realizes; the one
gives impalpable outlines, the other gives tangible bodies; the
Giottesque cares for the figure only, inasmuch as it displays an action,
he reduces it to a semblance, a phantom, to the mere exponent of an
idea; the man of the Renaissance cares for the figure, inasmuch as it is
a living organism, he gives it substance and weight, he makes it stand
out as an animate reality. But despite its early triumphs, the
Giottesque style, by its inherent nature, forbade any progress; it
reached its limits at once, and the followers of Giotto look almost as
if they were his predecessors, for the simple reason that, being unable
to advance, they were forced to retrograde. The limited amount of
artistic realization required to present to the mind of the spectator a
situation or an allegory had been obtained by Giotto himself, and
bequeathed by him to his followers, who, finding it more than sufficient
for their purposes, and having no incentive to further acquisition in
the love of form and reality for their own sake, worked on with their
master's materials, composing and recomposing, but adding nothing of
their own. Giotto had observed Nature with passionate interest, because,
although its representation was only a means to an end, it was a means
which required to be mastered, and as such became in itself a sort of
secondary aim; but the followers of Giotto merely utilized his
observations of Nature, and in so doing gradually conventionalized and
debased these second-hand observations. Giotto's forms are wilfully
incomplete, because they aim at mere suggestion, but they are not
conventional: they are diagrams, not symbols, and thence it is that
Giotto seems nearer to the Renaissance than do his latest followers, not
excepting even Orcagna. Painting, which had made the most prodigious
strides from Giunta to Cimabue, and from Cimabue to Giotto, had got
enclosed within a vicious circle, in which it moved for nearly a century
neither backwards nor forwards: painters were satisfied with suggestion;
and as long as they were satisfied, no progress was possible.