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been directed against the Roman Catholic Congress of scientific men which met at Munich. By far the most respectable of the periodicals devoted to the interests of Roman Catholicism in this country has been compelled to choose between placing itself in antagonism to the Pope and abandoning the field. The Home and Foreign Review' has ceased to exist under circumstances which have many strong analogies with the fall of the Avenir in 1830. The conduct of Rome in these matters may seem to us very foolish, but it is a grave question whether, as regards its own interests, the Papacy is not following a more prudent course than that recommended by its generous but too ardent friends. When a city is being actively besieged is scarcely the time for changing the plan of its fortifications-an infirm old man may be excused for thinking that his best chance of prolonging life lies in remaining motionless.

Taking all these things into account, we do not believe that in a hundred years from the present date more people will know who Lacordaire was, what he did, and why he was famous. Nor do we believe that those who are acquainted with his life and works, will have a higher opinion of him as an orator, a writer, a thinker, and a politician than that which is generally entertained by men now living. But of one thing we are perfectly certain: that all who, whether now or hereafter, candidly study the life and character of the great French preacher, will not fail to convince themselves that they are in the presence of an earnest, large-hearted, noble-minded man, whose whole life was spent in serving God and his fellow-creatures zealously, according to the full measure of his lights. He was not a great thinker, scholar, or theologian, but he was a most eloquent preacher, and above all, a man whom it is impossible not to admire and respect.

ART. VI.—1. The History of our Lord as exemplified in Works of Art, with that of His types; St. John the Baptist; and other Persons of the Old and New Testament. Commenced by the late Mrs. Jameson; continued and completed by Lady Eastlake. 2. Fine Art as a Branch of Academic Study. A Letter addressed to Members of the Senate. By W. J. Beamont, M.A. Cambridge.

3. Letters from Rome to Friends in England. By the Rev. John W. Burgon, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College.

HE volumes which stand first on the list given above form Mrs. Jameson for the illustration of Christian Art. They are

devoted

devoted to the last and highest theme of all; and Lady Eastlake, upon whom the execution of by far the greater part of the arduous task has devolved, has performed her part with rare fidelity and judgment. In the first place, we have to thank her for having placed the subjects chronologically, commencing with that which heads most systems of Christian Art-the Fall of Lucifer, and Creation of the World; passing next to the Types and Prophets of the Old Testament; the History of the Innocents and of John the Baptist; the Life and Passion of our Lord; then to the abstract and devotional subjects growing out of these materials, and terminating with the Last Judgment. This arrangement gives method and connexion to the whole work; and as the specimens of art with which it is illustrated are likewise placed under each head, in the order in which they were produced, Lady Eastlake, simply following their teaching,' as she truly says, but, in fact, commenting upon their meaning out of the fulness of a gifted and richly-stored mind, and in her own spirited and graceful style, has been enabled to present to her readers a view of the whole current of Christian feeling and opinion from the earliest ages. Time was when a few centuries up or down made no difference in classification; but a more patient and inquiring spirit now prevails, and in the history of Art, as in civil history, the date and the succession of the different specimens are carefully weighed in determining their meaning, and Order is succeeding Chaos. We have at length discovered how much clearer a subject may be made by diligently studying it in its successive phases, by tracing its progress from one stage to the next, and noting how each affected the other. But if this mode of study is profitable where Art is examined merely for its own sake, still more is it worthy to be adopted where Art is studied as the exponent of the thought and belief of mankind on the loftiest of all subjects. It is thus that Lady Eastlake has studied Christian Art.

'We must,' she says, 'in the task that is before us, keep in mind that the object of Christian Art is the instruction and edification of ourselves, not any abstract and impossible unity of ideas that cannot be joined together. Early art never loses sight of this instinct. Pictures, as we have said, were the "books of the simple." The first condition, therefore, was that the books should be easily read.

6

Having thus seen certain moral excellences appertaining to early Christian Art-its faithful adherence to Scripture, and its true instinct as to its duty-we shall be the more justified in bringing it largely before the reader in a research intended to define the true standards of religious modes of representation. It is not only that from these simple and nameless artists have descended those Scriptural types and traditions which constitute the science of Christian Art, but that in them we find the subject, and not the art, the chief aim of their

labours.

labours. Art was for many centuries, where not affected by classic influences, too undeveloped to allow its votary to expand and disport himself in the conscious exercise of mechanical skill. He therefore suited his art, such as it was, to his subject; later painters may be said to have done the reverse. The transition from the one to the other, considered in a general way, is a curious scale, beginning with moral and ending with physical indications. Thus reverence is seen first, endowing scenes devoid of almost every other quality with a pious propriety which, if not art, is its best foundation. Then came a certain stereotyped dignity of forms, descended from Byzantine tradition; to this followed expression of feeling and dramatic action, as with Duccio and Giotto; next, the true variety of the human countenance, as with Fra Angelico; and then all these qualities together, heightened by greater skill in each, as with the great quattro-centisti of Florence, Padua, and Venice. These found their height of culmination in Leonardo da Vinci, and partially in Raffaelle, who threw down the last barriers of difficulty between a painter's hand and mind, and in whom, therefore, subject and art may be said to have had equal part. From this time commence the triumphs of art proper-the glories of colour, the feats of anatomical skill, the charms of chiaroscuro, and the revels of free-handling; all claiming to be admired for themselves, all requiring the subject to bend to their individualities. Here, therefore, there is little to say, however much to delight in. This is art alone-as much as, in another sense, the Dutch school is art alone-taking its forms from elevated or from homely nature, and accordingly producing works before which, to use a too familiar phrase, the mouth of the connoisseur waters, but, with very few exceptions, the eye of feeling remains dry.'-(vol. i. p. 9.)

It is by no means in the works of what are called the Old Masters only that the materials for study are to be found. From the symbolical gems and signet-rings, the first timid efforts of Christian Art; from the mural paintings of the Catacombs; from sculptured sarcophagi; from the mosaics with which the walls and cupolas of ancient basilicas and churches were covered ; from doors of ancient churches, cast in bronze or brass or carved in wood; from ivories and enamels; but, above all, from miniatures and early block-books;-from the careful examination of all these multifarious materials according to the order of their production Lady Eastlake has drawn a luminous and instructive history. Let us hear her account of one of these sources of

information:

'Richer,' she says, 'than any other source hitherto considered, and almost as ancient, we may now advert to the so-called miniatures, or illuminations, of the Scriptures and ancient religious books, which literally supply galleries of curious and beautiful conceptions, often within the compass of a few inches, and for the most part the work of unknown minds and hands. Even after the varied and accumulated Vol. 116.-No. 231.

L

forms

forms of destruction, common to all things, and more especially to monuments of religious art-ignorance, neglect, and cupidity, war, fire, and time-have done their worst, the number of these books is still fortunately Legion. For no church treasury, or convent choir of any pretensions to wealth-no royal or noble personages of piety, pride, or taste-failed to reckon these precious volumes among their choicest possessions. Here, on these solid and wellnigh indestructible parchment folios, where text and picture alternately take up the sacred tale -the text itself a picture, the picture a homily-the skill of the artist has exhausted itself in setting forth in positive images the great scheme of salvation. Sometimes these miniatures spread in solemn hierarchy over a whole page; oftener, and truer to their name, they nestle in the spaces of initials, or capital letters, and in the medallions of intricate borders. Now they look upon us with the forms, costumes, and even the countenances as of another world; then again they claim affinity by some touch of that common nature which makes all men kin. Nowhere is space lost, either within or without these venerable, silver-clasped and jewel-embossed volumes, whose very covers, as we have seen, afforded a field for special branches of artistic handicraft. Nor was all this labour spent in vain: their homes for centuries were in the silence of the sanctuary; their authors have mingled with the dust of the convent cemetery; over them have passed the rise and fall of the kingdoms of this world; but through them history has been transmitted with a continuity and fullness not to be found in any other forms of art, or, it may be said, in any form of literature. For pictures have speech and meaning where text is obsolete or obscure. "The pencil speaks the tongue of every land."

The very variety of these volumes permits of only general mention. Singly or collectively the canonical books of Scripture have been the main object of the work of the miniaturist: Genesis, Joshua, the Psalter, the Apocalypse, the Pentateuch, the Gospels, separately or together; the whole Bible; later, the Missal and the Breviary; the Office of the Virgin, and Books of Prayer. These spread over a space of time extending from the fifth to the fifteenth century, while every race, Greek and Latin, Byzantine and Carlovingian, French, Netherlandish, Anglo-Saxon, Irish, English, German, and Italian, who have acknowledged the Cross and felt after art, have set their individual mark on these monuments of devotional labour. Accordingly, for the antiquary and connoisseur, seeking to unravel the intricate threads of national character, there is no such help as that afforded by ancient miniatures, while to the student of Christian Art they are indispensable. For in them are found the great centres of harmony with modes of art of shorter duration, more limited range, and more perishable nature; from the types which emerge from the darkness of the Catacombs, as from the womb of the earth, through the abstract conceptions of a profounder, though outwardly ruder time, to the more strictly historical scenes of our Lord's Life and Passion; the interstices between each class, as well as each class itself, being filled up and enriched with a closeness and abundance only possible under

the

the conditions of this more manageable form of illustration. Thus here may be traced, with peculiar accuracy, where old traditions cease and new ones start into life-when a fresh subject takes timid root-how adherence to Scripture slackens, and legend and heresy creep in-till these in themselves become, to a practised eye, the landmarks of certain periods and races.'-(p. 25.)

We naturally look in such a work as this for information as to the representations of our Lord himself, and accordingly we find the subject fully treated. Lady Eastlake discredits the idea of a so-called type of our Lord's head derived from remotest antiquity, and continued in one unbroken descent to the masters of Italy and Southern Europe. She shows that the first known conception of the Saviour's features was inspired by the lingering feeling for classic forms; and, after illustrating largely the varieties which occurred at different periods in different countries, she proceeds—

'We seek, therefore, in vain for a sole and continuous type of our blessed Lord during those periods when the faculty of representing individual expression was yet undeveloped. As long as Christ was depicted like other men, and other men like Him, He cannot be said to have had a character of His own. No type, strictly speaking, therefore, could begin till Christ stood isolated by the personal individualities of those around Him. This power was partially reserved for the Italian masters of the renaissance of art, which began in the thirteenth century. That they should have reverentially retained the few characteristics transmitted through the Byzantine forms-the divided and falling hair, the forked beard, the somewhat lengthy face was but natural: their business was to vary other faces, not that of our Lord. But even that cannot be said to have been successfully done until the true painter of the human soul arose. Fra Angelico is admitted to have been the first who attained the wondrous gift of expression, by which each individual received a separate existence. He therefore may be said to have been the first who isolated Christ. Whether the character given to the Lord rose in proportion with that of those around him, is another question. We need but to look at the picture by Fra Angelico in the National Gallery, to see that while surrounded with greater variety, and higher types of individual beauty, earnestness, and devotion, than almost any other known picture presents, the head of the Christ is negative and unmeaning. Other instances, however, show that while the Frate's pious hand seems lamed when addressing itself to that awful countenance, yet the expression at which he aimed was that most proper to Christ-the divine sympathy towards the human race.

'It is to be regretted that the great painters of the beginning of the fifteenth century-Florentine, Paduan, Venetian-have left so few models of their conception of the Lord's head. The Madonna and the Infant reign supreme at this time; the Entombment and the Ascension also present His dead or His glorified features; but our

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