Renaissance in Italy: the fine arts

Front matter

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RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.

THE FINE ARTS

Preface

This third volume of my book on the Renaissance in Italy does not pretend to retrace the history of the ItaHan arts, but rather to define their relation to the main movement of Renaissance culture. Keeping this, the chief object of my whole work, steadily in view, I have tried to explain the dependence of the arts on mediaeval Christianity at their commencement, their gradual emancipation from ecclesiastical control, and their final attainment of freedom at the moment when the classical revival culminated.

Not to notice the mediaeval period in this evolution would be impossible ; since the revival of Sculpture and Painting at the end of the thirteenth century was among the earliest signs of that new intellectual birth to which we give the title of Renaissance. I have, therefore, had to deal at some length with stages in the development of Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, vi PREFACE.

which form a prelude to the proper age of my own history.

In studying the architectural branch of the subject, I have had recourse to Fergusson's Illustrated Handbook of Architecture , to Burckhardt's Cicerone, to Grliner's Terra-Cotta Buildings of North Italy, to Milizia's Mentor ie degli Architetti, and to many illustrated works on single buildings in Rome, Tuscany, Lombardy, and Venice. For the history of Sculpture I have used Burckhardt's Cicerone and the two important works of Charles C Perkins, entitled Tuscan Sculptors and Italian Sculptors, Such books as Z^ Tre Porte del Bat- Hstero di Firenze, Gruner's Cathedral of Orvieto, and Lasinio's Tabernacolo della Madonna d'Orsammichele have been helpful by their illustrations. For the history of Painting I have made use principally of Vasari's Vite de piu eccellenti Pittori, etc., in Le Monnier's edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle's History of Painting, of Burckhardt's Cicerone, of Rosini's illustrated Storia della Pitiura Italiana, of Rio's LArt Chretien, and of Henri Beyle's Histoire de la Peinture en Italic. I should, however, far exceed the limits of a preface were I to make a list of all the books I

PREFACE. vii

have consulted with profit on the history of the arts in Italy.

In this part of my work I feel that I owe less to reading- than to observation. I am not aware of having mentioned any important building, statue, or picture which I have not had the opportunity of studying. What I have written in this volume about the monuments of Italian art has always been first noted face to face with the originals, and afterward corrected, modified, or confirmed in the course of subsequent journeys to Italy. I know that this method of composition, if it has the merit of freshness, entails some inequality of style and disproportion in the distribution of materials. In the final preparation of my work for press I have therefore endeavored, as far as possible, to compensate this disadvantage by adhering to the main motive of my subject — the illustration of the Renaissance spirit as this was manifested in the Arts.

I must add, in conclusion, that Chapters VII. and IX. and Appendix II. are in part reprinted from the Westminster, the Cornhill, and the Contemporary,

Chapter I. The Problem For The Fine Arts

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Art in Italy and Greece — The Leading Phase of Culture — Esthetic Type of Literature — Painting the Supreme Italian Art — Its Task in the Renaissance — Christian and Classical Traditions— Sculpture for the Ancients — Painting for the Romance Nations — Mediaeval Faith and Superstition — The Promise of Painting — How far can the Figurative Arts express Christian Ideas ? — Greek and Christian Religion — Plastic Art incapable of solving the Problem — A more Emotional Art needed — Place of Sculpture in the Renaissance — Painting and Christian Story — Humanization of Ecclesiastical Ideas by Art — Hostility of the Spirit of True Piety to Art — Compromises effected by the Church — Era Bartolommeo's S. Sebastian — Irreconcilability of Art and Theology, Art and Philosophy — Recapitulation — Art in the end Paganizes — Music — The Future of Painting after the Renaissance . . . . . . i

Chapter II. Architecture

Architecture of Mediaeval Italy — Milan, Genoa, Venice — The Despots as Builders — Diversity of Styles — Local Influences — Lombard, Tuscan Romanesque, Gothic — Italian want of feeling for Gothic — Cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto — Secular Buildings of the Middle Ages — Florence and Venice — Private Palaces — Public Halls — Palazzo della Signoria at Florence — Amolfo di Cambio — S. Maria del Fiore — Brunelleschi's Dome — Classi-

CONTENTS.

PAGS

cal revival in Architecture— Roman Ruins— Three Periods in Renaissance Architecture— Their Characteristics— Brunelleschi — Alberti — Palace-building — Michellozzo — Decorative work of the Revival— Bramante — Vitoni's Church of the Umilta at Pistoja — Palazzo del Te — Villa Farnesina — Sansovino at Venice —Michael Angelo— The Building of S.Peter's— Palladio— The Palazzo della Ragione at Vicenza— Lombard Architects — Theorists and students of Vitruvius — Vignola and Scamozzi — European influence of the Palladian style— Comparison of Scholars and Architects in relation to the Revival of Learning . . 40

CHAPTER in.

SCULPTURE.

Niccola Pisano — Obscurity of the sources for a History of Early Italian Sculpture — Vasari's Legend of Pisano — Deposition from the Cross at Lucca — Study of Nature and the Antique — Sarcophagus at Pisa — Pisan Pulpit— Niccola's School — Giovanni Pisano — Pulpit in S. Andrea at Pistoja — Fragments of his work at Pisa — Tomb of Benedict XI. at Perugia — Bass-reliefs at Orvieto — Andrea Pisano — Relation of Sculpture to Painting — Giotto — Subordination of Sculpture to Architecture in Italy — Pisano's Influence in Venice — Balduccio of Pisa — Orcagna— The Tabernacle of Orsammichele — The Gates of the Florentine Baptistery — Competition of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Delia Querela — Comparison of Ghiberti's and Brunelleschi's Trial-pieces — Comparison of Ghiberti and Delia Querela — The Bass-reliefs of S. Petronio — Ghiberti's Education — His Pictorial Style in Bass-relief — His feeling for the Antique — Donatello — Early Visit to Rome — Christian subjects — Realistic Treatment— S. George and David — Judith — Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata — Influence of Donatello's Naturalism — Andrea Verocchio — His David — Statue of Colleoni — Alessandro Leopardi — Lionardo's Statue of Francesco Sforza — The Pollajuoli — Tombs of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. — Luca della Robbia — His Treatment of Glazed Earthenware — Agostino di Duccio — The Oratory of S. Bernardino at Perugia — Antonio Rossellino— Matteo Civitali — Mino da Fiesole — Benedetto da Majano — Characteristics and Masterpieces of this Group — Sepulchral Monuments — Andrea Contucci's Tombs in S. Maria del Popolo

CONTENTS. xi

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— Desiderio da Settignano — Sculpture in S. Francesco at Rimini— Venetian Sculpture — Verona— Guido Mazzoni of Modena — Certosa of Pavia — Colleoni Chapel at Bergamo — Sansovino at Venice — Pagan Sculpture — Michael Angelo's Scholars — Baccio Bandinelli — Bartolommeo Ammanati — Cellini — Gian Bologna — Survey of the History of Renaissance Sculpture . .100

Chapter IV. Painting

Distribution of Artistic Gifts in Italy — Florence and Venice — Classification by Schools — Stages in the Evolution of Painting — Cimabue — The Rucellai Madonna — Giotto — His widespread Activity — The Scope of his Art — Vitality — Composition — Color — Naturalism — Healthiness — Frescoes at Assisi and Padua— Legend of S. Francis — The Giotteschi — Pictures of the Last Judgment — Orcag^a in the Strozzi Chapel — Ambrogio Lorenzetti at Pisa — Dogmatic Theology — Capella degli Spagnuoli — Traini's ' Triumph of S. Thomas Aquinas ' — Political Doctrine expressed in Fresco — Sala della Pace at Siena — Religious Art in Siena and Perugia — The Relation of the Giottesque Painters to the Renaissance . . . .180

Chapter V. Painting

Mediaeval Motives exhausted — New Impulse toward Technical Perfection — Naturalists in Painting — Intermediate Achievement needed for the Great Age of Art — Positive Spirit of the Fifteenth Century — Masaccio — The Modern Manner — Paolo Uccello — Perspective — Realistic Painters — The Model — Piero della Francesca — His Study of Form — Resurrection at Borgo San Sepolcro — Melozzo da Forli — Squarcione at Padua — Gentile da Fabriano — Fra Angelico — Benozzo Gozzoli — His Decorative Style — Lippo Lippi — Frescoes at Prato and Spoleto — Filippino Lippi— Sandro Botticelli — His value for the Student of Renaissance Fancy — His feeling for Mythology — Piero di Cosimo — DomenicflLJjhirlandaio— IiL_whal_5ense he sum§_up xii CONTENTS.

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the-AggrrrErosaic-Spiidt — FlQFefte€-4iilherto sofireme in Paint- Jng — Extension of Art activity throughout Italy — Medicean Patronage . • . . . . .224

Chapter VI. Painting

Two Periods in the True Renaissance — Andrea Mantegna — His Statuesque Design — His Naturalism — Roman Inspiration— Triumph of Julius Caesar — Bass-Reliefs — Luca Signorelli — The Precursor of Michael Angelo — Anatomical Studies — Sense of Beauty — The Chapel of S. Brizio at Orvieto — Its Arabesques and Medallions — Degrees in his Ideal — Enthusiasm for Organic Life — Mode of treating Classical Subjects — Perugino — His Pietistic Style — His Formalism — The Psychological Problem of his Life — Perugino's Pupils — Pinturicchio — At Spello and Siena — Francia — Fra Bartolommeo — Transition to the Golden Age— Lionardo da Vinci — The Magician of the E_enaissance— Raphael — The Melodist — Correggio — The Faun -—Michael Angelo — The Prophet .... 266

Chapter VII. Venetian Painting

Painting bloomed late in Venice — Conditions offered by Venice to Art — Shelley and Pietro Aretino — Political Circumstances of Venice — Comparison with Florence — The Ducal Palace — Art regarded as an adjunct to State Pageantry — Myth of Venezia — Heroic Deeds of Venice — Tintoretto's Paradise and Guardi's Picture of a Ball — Early Venetian Masters of Murano — Gian Bellini — Carpaccio's little Angels — The Madonna of S. Zaccaria — Giorgione — Allegory, Idyl, Expression of Emotion — The Monk at the Clavichord — Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese — Tintoretto's Attempt to dramatize Venetian Art — Veronese's Mundane Splendor — Titian's Sophoclean Harmony — Their Schools — Further Characteristics of Veronese — of Tintoretto — His Imaginative Energy — Predominant Poetry — Titian's Perfection of Balance — Assumption of Madonna — Spirit common to the Great Venetians ...... 347

CONTENTS. xiii

Chapter VIII. Life Of Michael Angelo

PAGB

Contrast of Michael Angelo and Cellini — Parentage and Boyhood of Michael Angelo — Work with Ghirlandajo — Gardens of S. Marco — The Medicean Circle — Early Essays in Sculpture — Visit to Bologna— First Visit to Rome— The ' Pieta' of S. Peter's — Michael Angelo as a Patriot and a Friend of the Medici — Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa — Michael Angelo and Julius II. — The Tragedy of the Tomb — Design for the Pope's Mausoleum — Visit to Carrara — Flight from Rome — Michael Angelo at Bologna — Bronze Statue of Julius — Return to Rome — railing c\^ the Sistine_Oia£el — Greek and Modern Art — Raphael — Michael Angelo and Leo X. — S. Lorenzo — The New Sacristy — Circumstances under which it was designed and partly finished — Meaning of the Allegorizes — Incomplete State of Michael Angelo's Marbles — Paul III.— The ' Last Judgment * — Critiques of Contemporaries — The Dome of S. Peter's — Vittoria Colonna — Tommaso Cavalieri — Personal Habits of Michael Angelo — His Emotional Nature — Last Illness . . 384

Chapter IX. Life Of Benvenuto Cellini

His Fame — His Autobiography— Its Value for the Student of History, Manners, and Character in the Renaissance — Birth, Parentage, and Boyhood — Flute-playing — Apprenticeship to Marcone — Wanderjahr— The Goldsmith's Trade at Florence — Torrigiani and England — Cellini leaves Florence for Rome —Quarrel with the Guasconti — Homicidal Fury— Cellini a Law to himself— Three Periods in his Manhood — Life in Rome — Diego at the Banquet — Renaissance Feeling for Physical Beauty — Sack of Rome — Miracles in Cellini's Life— His Affections — Murder of his Brother's Assassin— Sanctuary— Pardon and Absolution—Incantation in the Colosseum— First Visit to France- Adventures on the Way— Accused of Stealing Crown Jewels in Rome— Imprisonment in the Castle of S. Angelo— The Governor—Cellini's Escape— His Visions— The Nature of his Religion—Second Visit to France— The Wandering Court— Le Petit xiv CONTENTS,

Nesle— Cellini in the French Law Courts— Scene at Fontainebleau— Return to Florence— Cosimo de' Medici as a Patron- Intrigues of a Petty Court-Bandinelli-The Duchess-Statue of Perseus— End of Cellini's Life- Cellini and Machiavelli . 437

Chapter X. Th E Epi Gon

Full Development and Decline of Painting— Exhaustion of the old Motives— Relation of Lionardo to his Pupils-His Legacy to the Lombard School— Bernardino Luini— Gaudenzio Ferrari— The Devotion of the Sacri Monti— The School of Raphael— Nothmg left but Imitation— Unwholesome Influences of Rome— Giulio Romano— Michael Angelesque Mannerists— Misconception of Michael Angelo— Correggio founds no School— Parmigianino— Macchinisti— The Bolognese— After-growth of Art in Florence ^Andrea del Sarto— His Followers-Pontormo-Bronzino-Re- Tival of Painting in Siena— Sodoma-His Influence on Pacchia, Beccafumi, Peruzzi— Garofalo and Dosso Dossi at Ferrara— The Campi at Cremona— Brescia and Bergamo— The Decadence in the second half of the Sixteenth Century— The Counter-Refoi-mation— Extinction of the Renaissance Impulse . 48

APPENDICES.

I._The Pulpits of Pisa and Ravello . . • • 507

II.— Michael Angelo's Sonnets . . • • -512

III.— Chronological Tables . . • • * 529

RENAISSANCE IN ITALY.

Chapter I. The Problem For The Fine Arts

Art in Italy and Greece — The Leading Phase of Culture — Esthetic Type of Literature — Painting the Supreme Italian Art — Its Task in the Renaissance — Christian and Classical Traditions — Sculpture for the Ancients — Painting for the Romance Nations — Mediaeval Faith and Superstition — The Promise of Painting — How far can the Figurative Arts express Christian Ideas ? — Greek and Christian Religion — Plastic Art incapable of solving the Problem — A more Emotional Art needed — Place of Sculpture in the Renaissance — Painting and Christian Story — Humanization of Ecclesiastical Ideas by Art — Hostility of the Spirit of True Piety to Art — Compromises effected by the Church — Fra Bartolommeo's S. Sebastian — Irreconcilability of Art and Theology, Art and Philosophy — Recapitulation— Art in the end Paganizes — Music — The Future of Painting after the Renaissance.

It has been granted only to two nations, the Greeks and the Italians, and to the latter only at the time of the Renaissance, to invest every phase and variety of intellectual energy with the form of art. Nothing notable was produced in Italy between the thirteenth and the seventeenth centuries that did not bear the stamp and character of fine art. If the methods of science may be truly said to regulate our modes of thinking at the present time, it is no less true that during the Renaissance, art exercised a Hke controlling influence. Not only was each department of the fine arts practiced with singular success ; not only was the national genius to a very large extent absorbed in painting, sculpture, and architecture ; but the aesthetic impulse was more subtly and widely diffused than this alone would imply. It possessed the Italians in the very center of their intellectual vitality, imposing its conditions on all the manifestations of their thought and feeling, so that even their shortcomings may be ascribed in a great measure to their inability to quit the aesthetic point of view.

We see this in their literature. It is probable that none but artistic natures will ever render full justice to the poetry of the Renaissance, Critic:, endowed with a less lively sensibility to beauty of outline and to harmony of form than the Italians complain that their poetry lacks substantial qualities ; nor is it except by long familiarity with the plastic arts of their contemporaries that we come to understand the ground assumed by Ariosto and PoHziano. We then perceive that these poets were not so much unable as instinctively unwilling to go beyond a certain circle of effects. They subordinated their work to the ideal of their age, and that ideal was one to which a painter rather than a poet might

ESTHETIC ENTHUSIASM. 3

successfully aspire. A succession of pictures, harmoniously composed and delicately toned to please the mental eye, satisfied the taste of the Italians. But, however exquisite in design, rich in color, and complete in execution this literary work may be, it strikes a Northern student as wanting in the highest elements of genius — sublimity of imagination, dramatic passion, energy and earnestness of purpose. In like manner, he finds it hard to appreciate those didactic compositions on trifling or prosaic themes which delighted the Italians for the very reason that their workmanship surpassed their matter. These defects, as we judge them, are still more apparent in the graver branches of literature. In an essay or a treatise we do not so much care for well-balanced disposition of parts or beautifully-rounded periods, though elegance may be thought essential to classic masterpieces, as for weighty matter and trenchant observations. Having the latter, we can dispense at need with the former. The Italians of the Renaissance, under the sway of the fine arts, sought after form, and satisfied themselves with rhetoric. Therefore we condemn their moral disquisitions and their criticisms as the flimsy playthings of intellectual voluptuaries. Yet the right way of doing justice to these stylistic trifles is to regard them as products fan all-embracing genius for art, in a people whose most serious enthusiasms were aesthetic.

The speech of the Italians at that epoch, their social habits, their ideal of manners, their standard of morality, the estimate they formed of men, were ahke conditioned and qualified by art. It was an age of splendid ceremonies and magnificent parade, when the furniture of houses, the armor of soldiers, the dress of citizens, the pomp of war, and the pageantry of festival were invariably and inevitably beautiful. On the meanest articles of domestic utility, cups and platters, door-panels and chimney-pieces, coverlets for beds and lids of linen-chests, a wealth of artistic invention was lavished by innumerable craftsmen, no less skilled in technical details than distinguished by rare taste. From the Pope upon St. Peter's chair to the clerks in a Florentine counting-house, every Italian was a judge of art. Art supplied the spiritual oxygen, without which the life of the Renaissance must have been atrophied. During that period of prodigious activity the entire nation seemed to be endowed with an instinct for the beautiful, and with the capacity for producing it in every conceivable form. As we travel through Italy at the present day, when * time, war, pillage, and purchase ' have done their worst to denude the country of its treasures, we still marvel at the incomparable and countless beauties stored in every burgh and hamlet. Pacing the picture-galleries of Northern Europe, the country-seats of English nobles, and the palaces of Spain, the same reflection

METHOD OF TREATMENT. 5

is Still forced upon us: how could Italy have done what she achieved within so short a space of time ? What must the houses and the churches once have been from which these spoils were taken, but which still remain so rich in masterpieces? Psychologically to explain this universal capacity for the fine arts in the nation at this epoch is perhaps impossible. Yet the fact remains, that he who w^ould comprehend the Italians of the Renaissance must study their art, and cling fast to that Ariadne-thread throughout the labyrinthine windings of national character. He must learn to recognize that herein lay the sources of their intellectual strength as well as the secret of their intellectual weakness.

It lies beyond the scope of this work to embrace in one inquiry the different forms of art in Italy, or to analyze the connection of the aesthetic instinct with the manifold manifestations of the Renaissance. Even the narrower task to which I must confine myself is too vast for the limits I am forced to impose upon its treatment. I intend to deal with Italian painting as the one complete product which remains from the achievements of this period, touching upon sculpture and architecture more superficially. Not only is painting the art in which the Italians among all the nations of the world stand unapproachably alone, but it is also the one that best enables us to gauge their genius at the time when they impressed their culture on the rest of Europe. In the history of the Itahan intellect painting takes the same rank as that of sculpture in the Greek. Before beginning, however, to trace the course of Italian art, it will be necessary to discuss some preliminary questions, important for a right understanding of the relations assumed by painting to the thoughts of the Renaissance, and for explaining its superiority over the sister art of sculpture in that age. This I feel the more bound to do because it is my object in this volume to treat of art with special reference to the general culture of the nation.

What, let us ask in the first place, was the task appointed for the fine arts on the threshold of the modern world } They had, before all things, to give form to the ideas evolved by Christianity, and to embody a class of emotions unknown to the ancients.^ The inheritance of the Middle Ages

^ It may fairly be questioned whether that necessary connection between art and religion which is commonly taken for granted does in truth exist ; in other words, whether great art might not flourish without any religious content. This, however, is a speculative problem, for the present and the future rather than the past. Historically, it has always been found that the arts in their origin are dependent on religion. Nor is the reason far to seek. Art aims at expressing an ideal ; and this ideal is the transfiguration of human elements into something nobler, felt and apprehended by the imagination. Such an ideal, such an all-embracing glorification of humanity only exists for simple and unsophisticated societies in the form of religion. Religion is the universal poetry which all possess ; and the artist, dealing with the mythology of his national belief, feels himself in vital sympathy

CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN TRADITIONS. 7

had to be appropriated and expressed. In the course of performing this work, the painters helped to humanize reHgion, and revealed the dignity and beauty of the body of man. Next, in the fifteenth century, the riches of classic culture were discovered, and art was called upon to aid in the interpretation of the ancient to the modern mind. The problem was no longer simple. Christian and pagan traditions came into close contact, and contended for the empire of the newly-liberated intellect. During this struggle the arts, true to their own principles, eliminated from both traditions the more strictly human elements, and expressed them in beautiful form to the imagination and the senses. The brush of the same painter depicted Bacchus wedding Ariadne and Mary fainting on the hill of Calvary. Careless of any peril to dogmatic orthodoxy, and undeterred by the dread of encouraging pagan sensuality, the artists wrought out their modern ideal of beauty in the double field of Christian and Hellenic legend. Before the force of painting was exhausted, it had thus traversed the whole cycle ot

with the imagination of the men for whom he works. More than the painter is required for the creation of great painting, and more than the poet for the exhibition of immortal verse. Painters are but the hands, and poets but the voices, whereby peoples express their accuilated thoughts and permanent emotions. Behind them crowd the lit-nerations of the myth-makers ; and around them floats the vital atmosphere of enthusiasms on which their own souls and the souls o\ their brethren have been nourished.

thoughts and feelings that form the content of the modern mind. Throughout this performance, art proved itself a powerful coagent in the emancipation of the intellect ; the impartiality wherewith its methods were applied to subjects sacred and profane, the emphasis laid upon physical strength and beauty as good things and desirable, the subordination of classical and mediaeval myths to one aesthetic law of loveliness, all tended to withdraw attention from the differences between paganism and Christianity, and to fix it on the goodliness of that humanity wherein both find their harmony.

This being in general the task assigned to art in the Renaissance, we may next inquire what constituted the specific quality of modern as distinguished from antique feeling, and why painting could not fail to take the first place among modern arts. In other words, how was it that, while sculpture was the characteristic fine art of antiquity, painting became the distinguishing fine art of the modern era.^ No true form of figurative art intervened between Greek sculpture and Italian painting. The latter took up the work of investing thought with sensible shape from the dead hands of the former. Nor had the tradition that connected art with religion been interrupted, although a new cycle of religious ideas had been substituted for the old ones. The late Roman and Byzantine

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY. 9

manners, through which the vital energies of the Athenian genius dwindled into barren formalism, still lingered, giving crude and lifeless form to Christian conceptions. But the thinking and feeling subject, meanwhile, had undergone a change so all-important that it now imperatively required fresh channels for its self-expression. It was destined to find these, not as of old in sculpture, but in painting.

During the interval between the closing of the ancient and the opening of the modern age, the faith of Christians had attached itself to symbols and material objects little better than fetiches. The host, the relic, the wonder-working shrine, things endowed with a mysterious potency, evoked the yearning and the awe of mediaeval multitudes. To such concrete actualities the worshipers referred their sense of the invisible divinity. The earth of Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, the House of Loreto, the Sudarium of Saint Veronica, aroused their deepest sentiments of awful adoration. Like Thomas, they could not l)c contented with believing ; they must also touch and handle. At the same time, in apparent contradistinction to this demand for things of sense as signs of supersensual power, the claims of dogma on the intellect grew more imperious, and mysticism opened for the dreaming soul a realm of spiritual rapture. For the figurative arts there was no true place in either of these regions. Painting and sculpture were alike alien to the grosser superstitions, the scholastic subtleties, and the ecstatic trances of the Middle Ages ; nor had they any thing in common with the logic of theology. Votaries who kissed a fragment of the cross with passion could have found but little to satisfy their ardor in pictures painted by a man of genius. A formless wooden idol, endowed with the virtue of curing disease, charmed the pilgrim more than a statue noticeable only for its beauty or its truth to life. We all know that Wttnderthatige Bilder sz7td nieist mir schlechte Gemdlde. In architecture alone, the mysticism of the Middle Ages, their vague but potent feelings of infinity, their yearning toward a deity invisible, but localized in holy things and places, found artistic outlet. Therefore architecture was essentially a mediaeval art. The rise of sculpture and painting indicated the quickening to life of new faculties, fresh intellectual interests, and a novel way of apprehending the old substance of religious feeling; for comprehension of these arts implies delight in things of beauty for their own sake, a sympathetic attitude toward the world of sense, a new freedom of the mind produced by the regeneration of society through love.

The mediaeval faiths were still vivid when the first Italian painters began their work, and the

THE PROMISE OF THE ARTS, ii

sincere endeavor of these men was to set forth in beautiful and worthy form the truths of Christianity. The eyes of the worshiper should no longer have a mere stock or stone to contemplate : his imagination should be helped by the dogmatic presentation of the scenes of sacred history, and his devotion be quickened by lively images of the passion of our Lord. Spirit should converse with spirit, through no veil of symbol, but through the transparent medium of art, itself instinct with inbreathed life and radiant with ideal beauty. The body and the soul, moreover, should be reconciled ; and God's likeness should be once more acknowledged in the features and the limbs of man. Such was the promise of art ; and this promise was in a great measure fulfilled by the painting of the fourteenth century. Men ceased to worship their God in the holiness of ugliness ; and a great city called its street Glad on the birthday-festival of the first picture investing religious emotion with aesthetic charm. But in making good the promise they had given, it was needful for the arts on the one hand to enter a region not wholly their own — the region of abstractions and of mystical conceptions; and on the other to create a world of sensuous delightfulness, wherein the spiritual element was materialized to the injury of its own essential quality. Spirit, indeed, spake to spirit, so far as the religious content was concerned ; but flesh spake also to flesh in the aesthetic form. The incarnation promised by the arts involved a corresponding sensuousness. Heaven was brought down to earth, but at the cost of making men believe that earth itself was heavenly.

At this point the subject of our inquiry naturally divides into two main questions. The first concerns the form of figurative art specially adapted to the requirements of religious thought in the fourteenth century. The second treats of the effect resulting both to art and religion from the expression of mystical and theological conceptions in plastic form.