the same principle: the chief of a savage tribe and the native prince of India are each surrounded with a profusion of ornament-feathers and beads in the one case, gold and precious stones in the other. In a higher stage of society, -along with the growth of commerce, the prosperity of towns, and a national literature, the true Artistic genius finds its scope, its patrons, and its popular admirers. Such, as we shall see presently, was the state of Greece in its best days, and of Italy just before the Reformation. The period during which the Arts attain a high degree of excellence is usually succeeded by a time of feeble imitation, of fashionable luxury, often by a crushing despotism. Art loses all vigour, truth, and freshness. Literature is filled with petty conceits: the faint echoes of the thoughts of dead men, repeated by voices incapable of uttering the wants of the living, and therefore unable to guide them. Such was the state of Rome under its emperors; such, in some respects, the state of Europe during the 18th century. We trust that, by God's mercy, we live in better times now. The revival of earnestness in religion, the return to simplicity and truthfulness in poetry and popular literature, the prodigious energy of discovery in science, with its effect on commerce and on agriculture, the spread of rational principles of liberty-all these things conspire to awaken a national life which cannot fail to find its counterpart in the Arts. But, if our present condition has its own advantages, it has also its peculiar risks. Excessive competition and the cheapening of manufactures foster habits of self-indulgence and vulgar finery in the purchaser, while they tend to depress the great artist and the good workman. Among the antidotes for these evils, are good education, and an appreciation of great works; and to both of these public attention is forcibly directed. HISTORICAL SKETCH. What has been now said, in a general way, may be cast in a more detailed form, with a slight sketch of the most important periods of Art. The first Art in the history of the world was the tillage of the ground-the sweat of the brow for the fruits of the earth. At the dawn of society we find the Chosen Race engaged in the care of flocks and herds. We also meet with the building of cities, with artificers in brass and iron, and with such as handle the harp and the organ. At the time of the Flood men said to one another, "Let us make brick and burn them throughly." They lived on an alluvial or clay soil, and probably had no lime: they had "brick for stone, and slime for mortar," the slime being a sort of pitch. Thus history hints at the origin of the Arts of Agriculture, both the tillage of the soil and the care of live-stock, the manufacture of tools and implements and of instruments of music, brick-making and pottery; nor must we forget the carpentry implied in the construction of the Ark. In Egypt may still be read the earliest uninspired history of the world, embodied in monuments of art, running back far beyond all records contained in any book except the Bible. The subject is too extensive and too difficult to be treated of here: suffice it to say, that the ordinary popular accounts trace to the Valley of the Nile, and its settled population, the arts of systematic agriculture, and of land-measurement as the foundation of geometry; while the Pyramids and Temples are a standing witness to the early attainments in architecture. The history of the Jews makes us acquainted with considerable advance in the dressing of skins and in the manufacture of woven fabrics, as well as a high development of the art of the carpenter and the mason. But it is remarkable that the agricultural population of Judæa did not provide its own craftsmen for the building of Solomon's Temple: they came from Tyre. If we pass now from dim traditions and monumental records to the period of profane history (omitting, in order not to complicate our subject, many interesting phases of human art in the East and even in America), we may concentrate our attention on certain great periods of human literature and art, by which we are influenced every day of our lives, in our private houses, in our sacred buildings, and in our public works. These periods are:-1. The Greek, five centuries before Christ; 2. The Roman, about the Christian æra; 3. The Gothic of the Middle Ages; 4. The Italian, just before the Reformation. GREEK ART. After the great kings of the East, with their Persian hordes, had been rolled back into Asia by the courage of the little free states of Greece, the Arts attained, in the fifth century before Christ, a perfection which, in some departments, has never been since equalled in any age or in any country. The evidence of this high state of Greek art still exists in buildings, in statues, in bronzes, in vases, and in coins. Samples of all of these may be seen in the British Museum. The relics of Greek Art are to this day the foundation of the studies of the artist, and for this reason: they rest on Nature, and on certain fundamental principles of proportion, which, whether we fully understand them or not, have exercised, and still continue to exercise, an unmistakeable influence over the minds of educated men. The influence of Greek Art in its own best days was not confined to the small spot of Greece alone. It was closely connected with the development of a maritime power and a colonial system; and it is still to be traced over many of the islands of the Mediterranean, and over a large portion of the surrounding continents. ROMAN ART. The Arts, as practised at Rome about four centuries after the time when the constellation of poets, historians, and artists shone in all its brightness at Athens, were essentially different. The Romans were not, in any high sense of the word, artists, nor were they, even as poets and orators, original. The Romans were farmers, soldiers, lawgivers. They conquered and administered the world that is to say, the world as it was then known, namely, the countries round the Mediterranean Sea, and across Asia to the Persian Gulf. They made great progress in power and wealth; and over their whole empire, wherever they established a colonial or provincial government, they showed their power by the erection of bridges, temples, theatres, aqueducts, baths, and whatever could minister to public convenience or even private luxury. But whatever they knew of art they borrowed from the Greeks; and what they imitated they debased and corrupted-they made it magnificent in scale, but they lost all sense of the refinement which is the charm of Greek Art. The one great step forwards made by the Romans was the adoption of the Arch, by which they were enabled to bridge over large spaces never dreamt of by the Greeks, who only laid stones horizontally from pillar to pillar. The amphitheatres of the Romans, not only in Italy, but in the South of France, are a standing record of the greatness of the world's masters; they left their mark on England in the construction of military roads and camps, still to be seen at Dorchester. Their domestic life, the utensils of their kitchens, the trinkets even of the ladies' toilets, are revealed by the disinterment of Pompeii from under the ashes of Vesuvius. Roman Art has had a great, and not always a favourable, influence over modern European building and furniture; but the admirer of pure form will ever turn to Greece as his guide. Roman grandeur and magnificence attained their height, amidst monstrous wickedness and corruption, about the time when our Saviour brought a new life into the world. The misery of the people, the utter prostration of heart and mind among the educated, has hardly any parallel in the history of the human race. The cup of woe was full; the old world sunk under its own weight. The ancient literature dwindled into contemptible weakness; and finally literature and the arts were destroyed under the terrible scourge of the barbarian invaders. Slowly did the Church struggle with the brute force of ignorance, becoming itself after a time hardly less ignorant than the rude warriors who divided Europe amongst them. The art of the middle ages was at first only a coarse imitation of Roman forms, having a wild and rich beauty and a grotesque grandeur of its own, of which some idea may be formed from the towers of Exeter Cathedral and the Norman arches of churches, such as St. Germans; but the cathedrals of Winchester, Durham, Peterborough, and even Gloucester, will give a more clear idea of Norman work. The Norman conquest of England was followed by a period of great energy in construction: nearly all the old Saxon churches were replaced by magnificent Norman structures. The Bayeux tapestry, executed under the orders of Queen Matilda, wife of William, and the painted glass supposed to have been executed in the twelfth century, give proof of early attention to the arts of design, and of a sense of beauty and harmony of colour, growing up amid the strife of the barons. The Building and Art of Europe to the close of the twelfth century of the Christian Æra, tell of the lingering influence of Rome. They have therefore, to speak generally, been included under the term Romanesque. The thirteenth century ushers in a new period, which extends to the Reformation. GOTHIC ART. It is needless to discuss here the question how the Gothic Arch was invented, and how far it grew out of the mechanical elements of former structures. It is important to notice, that the intercourse with the East brought about by the Crusades was followed by a rapid development of a new style in Architecture in France and England; that this was accompanied by efforts in sculpture remarkable for the beauty of the work produced. Some of the best sculpture of the Gothic period may be seen on the front of Wells Cathedral, and some, though not equal to that of Wells, at Exeter. The living spirit of Christian Art burst forth in forms of exquisite beauty, such as the world had never seen before; although they grew in some sense out of the Roman and Romanesque forms which preceded them. The point to be specially noticed in Gothic Art is its freedom.* All the Art of the ancient world was more or less slavish; long horizontal lines unbroken; fixed proportions of column and frieze; unvarying types of capitals repeated over and over again; doors, windows, and pannels-all parallel lines, or at right angles. Such was the spirit of Pagan beauty seeking perfection on earth; and finding it, but finding it how? in a cold earthly ideal, of which the utmost that can be said is, that it makes gods or rather idols of human reason and human passion: the one cold, severe, and geometrical; the other veiling the grossness of sin and sensuality under a beautiful exterior form. How different was Christian Art! The individual man had been called into full life; slavery had disappeared; workmen were organized in fraternities; and each man's bent and genius found its place. Every capital, every window, was different ; instead of cold clearness and uniformity, we find a marvellous mystery, full of life, full of beauty, and yet all conspiring to form one great whole. Many of the great architects of the middle ages are unknown; but some were great bishops, and have left a name behind them, and are blessed by many a scholar who owes them his education. Among them may be mentioned William Wykeham, the founder of Winchester School and New College, Oxford. The true spirit and growth of Gothic Art did not last above two centuries, say from the first to the second Richard. During the fifteenth century, that is from Richard II. to Richard III., churches were built chiefly in the style so common in the parish churches of the West of England; more conspicuous for their lofty towers, large windows, and generally fine proportions, than for real freedom of artistic skill. Under the Tudors, that is from Henry VII. to Elizabeth, the degradation of Gothic became complete-coarse, heavy, unmeaning loads of ornament in square panellings took the place of grace and freedom. Changes of a similar but even more debased character were going on upon the Continent, concurrently with the increasing corruption of the Church. ITALIAN ART IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. But amidst this corruption there were noble minds struggling against the evil around them. A deeply Christian spirit was finding its expression in sublime poetry, and finally arose a school of painting so pure, so refined, that, although it has been surpassed in richness of colour and in many technical details, it * See Ruskin on 'Gothic, and on the Functions of the Workman,' a small book sold for sixpence, which will well repay study. |