Part 4 (1/2)

The buffet on page 43 is an excellent specimen of the best fifteenth century French Gothic oak work, and the woodcut shows the arrangement of gold and silver plate on the white linen cloth with embroidered ends, in use at this time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Oak Table. Period: Late XV. or Early XVI. Century.

French.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flemish Buffet. Of Carved Oak; open below with panelled cupboards above. The back evidently of later work, after the Renaissance had set in. (_From a Photo, by Messrs. R. Sutton & Co. from the Original in the S. Kensington Museum._) Period: Gothic To Renaissance, XV.

Century.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Tapestried Room in a French Chateau, With Oak Chests as Seats.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Oak Seat, With moveabls Backrest, in front of Fireplace. Period: Late XV. Century. French.]

We have now arrived at a period in the history of furniture which is confused, and difficult to arrange and cla.s.sify. From the end of the fourteenth century to the Renaissance is a time of transition, and specimens may be easily mistaken as being of an earlier or later date than they really are. M. Jacquemart notices this ”gap,” though he fixes its duration from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and he quotes as an instance of the indecision which characterised this interval, that workers in furniture were described in different terms; the words coffer maker, carpenter, and huchier (trunk-maker) frequently occurring to describe the same cla.s.s of artisan.

It is only later that the word ”menuisier,” or joiner, appears, and we must enter upon the period of the Renaissance before we find the term ”cabinet maker,” and later still, after the end of the seventeenth century, we have such masters of their craft as Riesener described as ”ebenistes,” the word being derived from ebony, which, with other eastern woods, came into use after the Dutch settlement in Ceylon. Jacquemart also notices the fact that as early as 1360 we have record of a specialist, ”Jehan Petrot,” as a ”chessboard maker.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Interior of An Apothecary's Shop. Late XIV. or Early XV.

Century. Flemish. (_From an Old Painting._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne of Brittany. (_From a Miniature in the Library of St. Petersburg_) Representing the Queen weeping on account of her Husband's absence during the Italian War.

Period: XV. Century.]

Chapter III.

The Renaissance.

THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY: Leonardo da Vinci and Raffaele--Church of St.

Peter, contemporary great artists--The Italian Palazzo--Methods of gilding, inlaying and mounting Furniture-Pietra-dura and other enrichments--Ruskin's criticism. THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE: Francois I.

and the Chateau of Fontainebleau--Influence on Courtiers, Chairs of the time--Design of Cabinets--M.E. Bonnaffe on The Renaissance, Bedstead of Jeanne d'Albret--Deterioration of taste in time of Henry IV., Louis XIII. Furniture--Brittany woodwork. THE RENAISSANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Influence of the House of Burgundy on Art--The Chimney-piece at Bruges, and other casts of specimens at South Kensington Museum. THE RENAISSANCE IN SPAIN: The resources of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--Influence of Saracenic Art, high-backed leather chairs, the Carthusian Convent at Granada. THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY: Albrecht Durer--Famous Steel Chair of Augsburg--German seventeenth century carving in St. Saviour's Hospital. THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND: Influence of Foreign Artists in the time of Henry VIII.--End of Feudalism--Hampton Court Palace--Linen pattern Panels--Woodwork in the Henry VII. Chapel at Westminster Abbey--Livery Cupboards at Hengrave--Harrison quoted--the ”parler,” alteration in English customs--Chairs of the sixteenth century--Coverings and Cus.h.i.+ons of the time, extract from old Inventory--South Kensington Cabinet--Elizabethan Mirror at Goodrich Court--Shaw's ”Ancient Furniture” the Glas...o...b..ry Chair--Introduction of Frames into England--Characteristics of Native Woodwork--Famous Country Mansions, alteration in design of Woodwork and Furniture--Panelled Rooms at South Kensington--The Charterhouse--Gray's Inn Hall and Middle Temple--The Hall of the Carpenter's Company--The Great Bed of Ware--Shakespeare's Chair--Penshurst Place.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

It is impossible to write about the period of the Renaissance without grave misgivings as to the ability to render justice to a period which has employed the pens of many cultivated writers, and to which whole volumes, nay libraries, have been devoted. Within the limited s.p.a.ce of a single chapter all that can be attempted is a brief glance at the influence on design by which furniture and woodwork were affected. Perhaps the simplest way of understanding the changes which occurred, first in Italy, and subsequently in other countries, is to divide the chapter on this period into a series of short notes arranged in the order in which Italian influence would seem to have affected the designers and craftsmen of several European nations.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century there appears to have been an almost universal rage for cla.s.sical literature, and we believe some attempt was made to introduce Latin as a universal language; it is certain that Italian Art was adopted by nation after nation, and a well known writer on architecture (Mr. Parker) has observed:--”It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the national styles of the different countries of Modern Europe were revived.”

As we look back upon the history of Art, a.s.sisted by the numerous examples in our Museums, one is struck by the want of novelty in the imagination of mankind. The glorious antique has always been our cla.s.sic standard, and it seems only to have been a question of time as to when and how a return was made to the old designs of the Greek artists, then to wander from them awhile, and again to return when the world, weary of over-abundance of ornament, longed for the repose of simpler lines on the principles which governed the glorious Athenian artists of old.

The Renaissance in Italy.

Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci and Raffaele may be said to have guided and led the natural artistic instincts of their countrymen, to discard the Byzantine-Gothic which, as M. Bonnaffe has said, was adopted by the Italians not as a permanent inst.i.tution, but ”faute de mieux” as a pa.s.sing fas.h.i.+on.

It is difficult to say with any certainty when the first commencement of a new era actually takes place, but there is an incident related in Michael Bryan's biographical notice of Leonardo da Vinci which gives us an approximate date. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, had appointed this great master Director of Painting and Architecture in his academy in 1494, and, says Bryan, who obtained his information from contemporary writers, ”Leonardo no sooner entered on his office, than he banished all the Gothic principles established by his predecessor, Michelino, and introduced the beautiful simplicity and purity of the Grecian and Roman styles.”

A few years after this date, Pope Julius II. commenced to build the present magnificent Church of St. Peter's, designed by Bramante d'Urbino, kinsman and friend of Raffaele, to whose superintendence Pope Leo X.