Part 1 (1/2)

Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places.

by Frederick William Fairholt.

NOTE.

The following Papers originally appeared in the _Art-Journal_, for which they were specially written. They are from the pen of that painstaking and accurate archaeologist, the late F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A. The ill.u.s.trations also were engraved from original sketches by the Author.

It has been suggested that the results of so much labour and research should be still further utilised; and that the merit and value of these Essays ent.i.tle them to a more lasting form than is afforded by the pages of a magazine. The Editor confidently believes that the popular style in which these articles are written, and the fund of anecdote and curious information they contain, will render them acceptable to a large number of general readers.

A second series of Art-papers, by the same Author, is in the press, and will shortly be published, under the t.i.tle of ”Homes, Haunts, and Works of Rubens, Vand.y.k.e, Rembrandt, and Cuyp; and of the Dutch Genre-Painters.”

_January, 1871._

RAMBLES OF AN ARCHaeOLOGIST AMONG OLD BOOKS AND IN OLD PLACES.

CHAPTER I.

Long after the extinction of the practical art-power evolved from the master-minds of Greece and Rome, though rudely shattered by the northern tribes, it failed not to enforce from them an admission of its grandeur.

Loving, as all rude nations do, so much of art as goes to the adornment of life, they also felt that there was a still higher aim in the enlarged spirit of cla.s.sic invention. It is recorded that one of these ancient chieftains gazed thoughtfully in Rome upon the n.o.ble statuary of the fallen race, and declared it the work of men superior to any then remaining, and that all the creations of such lost power should be carefully preserved. The quaint imaginings of uncivilised art-workmans.h.i.+p bore the impress of a strong but ruder nature; elaboration took the place of elegance, magnificence that of grandeur.

Slowly, as centuries evolved, the art-student came back to the purity of antique taste; but the process was a tardy one, each era preferring the impress of its own ideas: and though the grotesque contortions of mediaeval statuary be occasionally modified by the influence of better art on the Gothic mind, it was not till the revival of the study of cla.s.sic literature, in the fifteenth century, that men began to inquire into the art of the past ages, and endeavoured to obtain somewhat of its sacred fire for the use of their own time. The study was rewarded, and the style popularly known as that of the _Renaissance_ rapidly spread its influence over the world of art, sanctioned by the favour of such master-minds as Raphael, and the great men of his era.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1.]

It was not, however, to be expected that any style should be resuscitated in all its purity without the admixture of some peculiarity emanating from the art which adopted it, and which was more completely the mode of the era. The Renaissance is, therefore, a Gothic cla.s.sicality, engrafting cla.s.sic form and freedom on the decorative quaintnesses of the middle ages. Fig. 1 is as pertinent a specimen as could be obtained of this characteristic: the Greek volute and the Roman foliage are made to combine with the hideous inventions of monkery, the grotesque heads that are exhibited on the most sacred edifices, and which are simply the stone records of the strife and rivalry that prevailed between monks and friars up to the date of the Reformation, and are therefore of great value to the student of ecclesiology and ecclesiastical history. In this instance they seem to typify death and h.e.l.l, over whom the Saviour was victorious by his mortal agony: the emblems of which occupy the central s.h.i.+eld, and tell with much simple force the story of man's redemption. Mediaeval art has not unfrequently the merit of much condensation of thought, always particularly visible in its choice of types by which to express in a simple form a precise religious idea, at once appealing to the mind of the spectator, and bringing out a train of thought singularly diffuse when its slight origin is considered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2.]

The easy applicability of the revived art to the taste for fanciful display which characterised the fifteenth century, led to its universal adoption in decoration; but the wilder imaginings of the living artist always tampered with the grand features of the design. The panel, Fig.

2, is an instance. The griffins have lost their cla.s.sic character, and have a.s.sumed the Gothic; the foliations are also subjected to the same process. The design is, however, on the whole, an excellent example of the mode in which the style appeared as a decoration in the houses of the n.o.bility, whose love of heraldic display was indulged by the wood carver in panelled rooms rich with similar compartments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3.]

Heraldry, with all its adjuncts, had become so great a pa.s.sion with the n.o.ble, that the invention of the artist and student was taxed for badges and mottoes by n.o.ble families. The custom flourished most in Italy, where the _impresa_ of a n.o.ble house spoke to the eye at once, whether it was found on a sword-hilt or over a church-door. We give as an instance, in Fig. 3, that adopted by the bold Dukes of Burgundy, sovereigns in their own dominions, and exciting much terror of rivalry in the minds of the kings of France themselves. Their _badge_, or _impresa_, was indicative of their rude power; a couple of knotted clubs, saltier-wise, help to support a somewhat conventional figure of the steel used for striking the flint to produce fire; the whole surmounted by the crown, and intended to indicate by a.n.a.logous reflection the vigour of the ducal house. As a bold defiance, a rival house adopted the _rabot_, or carpenter's plane, by which they indicated their determination to smooth by force the formidable knots from the clubs of the proud rulers of Burgundy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 4.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5.]

The art of enamelling, which had reached a high degree of perfection in the Roman era, was refined upon in the middle ages, and ultimately its character was so much altered thereby that it ended in rivalling painting, rather than retaining its own particular features, as all arts should do. It may be fairly considered that originally it was used simply to enrich, by vitrified colour, articles of use and ornament.

Metal was incised, and the ornamental s.p.a.ces thus obtained filled with one tint of enamel colour, each compartment having its own. By this means very brilliant effects were often produced, all the more striking from the pure strength of their simplicity. It was not till the twelfth century that an attempt at floating colours together was made, and this led ultimately to a pictorial treatment of enamel which destroyed its truest character. The very old form was, however, practised in the latest days of its use; and our engraving of the very beautiful knife-handle designed by Virgil Solis at the end of the sixteenth century (Figs. 4 and 5), was intended to be filled with a dark blue enamel, in the parts here represented in black, while the interstices of the cross-shaped ornaments above would receive some lighter tint of warmer hue. The birds and foliage would be carefully engraved, the lines of shadow filled with a permanent black, thus a.s.suring a general brilliancy of effect. Such knives were by no means an uncommon decoration of the table at the period when this was designed: it is now a branch of art utilised until all trace of design has gone from it; for we cannot accept the slight scroll work and contour of a modern silver knife-handle as a piece of art-workmans.h.i.+p, when we remember the beautiful objects of the kind produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gorgeous in design and colour, and occasionally enriched by jewels or amber.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7.]