CHAPTER I

A GENERAL REVIEW OF THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN ART FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, THE ORIGINS OF ITS SYMBOLISM AND ITS GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE

I

N THESE DAYS of constantly increasing knowledge of, and interest in, paintings of the 9th to the 16th century-that category of pictures which goes under the name of "The Old Masters"-it is becoming more and more important that those who would learn to love such pictures, could they but understand their subject and symbolism, possess some practical aid to their "reading," in order to extract from them their full cultural value.

It should be borne in mind that pictorial representation of sacred subjects-which class constituted the vast majority of early paintings, both of the Italian and the northern schools till well into the Cinquecento, the 16th century-was originally permitted by the church as an additional means of propagating the faith, in the days when books were still rare and very costly, outside the reach of all save the wealthy clergy and nobles, and such rich dilettanti as, for example, Pico della Mirandola.

In those days, the education of the masses, such as it was, lay entirely in the hands of the clergy, who, once the principle of pictorial representation was admitted, ordained not alone which subjects were to be depicted, and which to be eschewed, but even the manner in which the holy or saintly personages were to be clothed, what colors were to be used for their clothing, and the hierarchical order in which they were to appear in group pictures. Every detail had its significance in the established protocol of the Roman Catholic Church.

No better example of the manner in which the church instructed its artistic servants, and thus both encouraged and hampered the cause of true artencouraged it by the profusion of commissions issued, and hampered it by the restrictions in composition, both of color and line, which were imposed upon the artists than the following translation of a contract dated April 14th, 1453, between the Seigneur Jean de Montagnac-a Pyrennean name and the painter, Enguerrand Charonton, for an altar-piece to be set up in the Chapel of the Carthusian Monastery at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. The subject was "The Cor

onation of the Virgin," a popular one with all early masters. This contract was published in an article by Guy Eglington in the March, 1924, issue of the International Studio, with the following translation:

Followeth bereafter the ordering of the altarpiece which Messire Jean de Montagnac willeth be made by Master Enguerrand, painter, to be placed in the church of the Carthusians at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, on the altar of the Holy Trinity.

First there shall be the form of Paradise, and in this Paradise shall be the Holy Trinity, and between Father and Son shall be no difference; and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and Our Lady, before, as shall seem best to the said Master Enguerrand; and on the head of Our Lady, the Holy Trinity shall be placing a crown.

Item: by the side of Our Lady shall be the angel Gabriel with a certain number of angels, and on the other side Saint Michael with such number of angels as shall seem best to the said Master Enguerrand.

Item: on the other band [the left side] Saint John the Baptist with other patriarchs and prophets according to the judgment of the said Master Enguerrand.

Item: on the right side shall be Saint Peter and Saint Paul with certain number of other apostles.

Item: on the side by Saint Peter shall be a martyr pope over whose bead an angel shall be bolding the tiara (tierre), together with Saint Stephen and Saint Lawrence in the habit of cardinal deacons* with other Holy Martyrs to the ordering of the said master.

Item: beside Saint John the Baptist will be the confessors, that is to say Saint Gregory in the form of a pope as above and two boly cardinals, one old and one young, and Saint Agricola and Saint Hugh, bishops (Saint Hugh in Carthusian babit), and other saints according to the judgment of the said master Enguerrand.

Item: on the side of Saint Peter shall be Saint Catherine with certain other virgins according to the judgment of the said Master Enguerrand.

Item: on the side by John the Baptist (sic!) the two Marys, the Magdalen and the mother of James, and Salome, each of them bolding in her bands that which she ought to hold, together with other women according to the judgment of the said Master Enguerrand.

Item: shall be in the aforesaid Paradise some of every buman estate to the ordering of the said Master Enguerrand.

* A curious error, for St. Stephen and St. Lawrence were deacons, not cardinal deacons.

Item: above the said Paradise shall be the heavens in which will be the sun and moon according to the judgment of the said Master Enguerrand.

Item: after the heavens the earth, of which shall be shown a portion of the city of Rome.

Item: on the side of the setting sun shall be the form of the Church of Saint Peter of Rome, and [the] front of the said church at the portal has a cone of copper and ilex, [whence] one descends by great steps into a large square leading to the bridge Sant' Angelo.

Item: on the left side of the said square is a portion of the wall of Rome and on the other side are houses and shops of all manner of men; at the end of the said square is the Castel Sant' Angelo and a bridge over the Tiber which is in that city of Rome.

Item: in the said city [Rome] are many churches among which is the church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, where while Saint Gregory was celebrating, to him appeared Our Lord in the form of a Pietà, of which shall be painted the story according to the ordering of the said Master Enguerrand, in which story shall be Saint Hugh, Carthusian, assistant to the said Saint Gregory, with other prelates according to the judgment of the said Master Enguerrand.

Item: looking from Rome, the Tiber shall be shown entering into the sea, and on the sea a certain number of galleys and ships.

Item: beyond the sea shall be a portion of Jerusalem, first the Mount of Olives on which shall be the Cross of Our Lord and at the foot thereof a praying Carthusian, and a little further shall be the sepulchre of Our Lord and an angel above saying: Surrexit, non est hic; ecce locus ubi posuerant eum.

Item: at the foot of the said sepulchre will be two praying friars; on the right band the valley of Jebosaphat between two mountains; in which valley a church where is the sepulchre of Our Lady and an angel above saying: Assumpta est Maria ad aethereum thalamum in quod rex regum stellato sedit solio; and at the foot of that sepulchre a praying friar.

Item: on the left side there shall be a valley in which there will be three personages of a like age; from each of them will spring rays of light, and there shall be Abraham coming from bis tabernacle, and worshipping the said three personages, saying unto them, etc.

Item: on the second mountain will be Moses with bis sheep and a young boy playing upon the bagpipe, and there appeared to the said Moses, Our Lord in the form of a fire in the midst of a bush and Our Lord will be saying to Moses: Moses, Moses! And Moses will reply: Assum.

Item: on the left [sic] side will be Hell; and between Purgatory and Hell will be a mountain; and on the side of Purgatory above the mountain will be an angel comforting the souls in Purgatory; and on the side of Hell will be a greatly deformed devil on the mountain, turning his back on the angel and lying in wait for certain souls in Hell which, by other devils, are driven towards him.

Item: the said altarpiece shall be made all in fine

oil colors and the blue shall be fine blue of Acre excepting that which shall be laid on the border which shall be fine blue of alamigne (Germany), as around the altar piece shall be fine gold and burnished.

Item: the said Master Enguerrand shall show all bis science in the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin and for the rest according to his conscience.

Item: the back of the altarpiece shall be painted with a fine cloth of crimson damask all figured with fleurs-de-lys. The 14th day of April, 1453.

There is considerable attention drawn, in the wording of this document, to the fact that Master Enguerrand could "use his judgment," or "act according to his conscience," from which one would be led to wonder if this painter, possessed of the "frondeur" ("kicking") spirit of his race had not been objecting to the settlement by his patron of so much of the detail. The phrases of this sort appear so frequently as to appear almost conciliatory. And can one be surprised if an intelligent painter did grumble at the ordering of a picture, with so little left to his imaginative powers and sense of balance and composition.

Interference, moreover, went very much further than simply declaring what subjects were to be depicted and how. To understand this it is necessary to go back to the beginnings of Christian Art in the days when the followers of the new faith were either actually being persecuted, or lived in fear of a recrudescence of former persecutions.

As a result thereof, their artistic endeavors were more or less concealed, and produced in their underground "burial-clubs" or catacombs, the regular entrances to which were destroyed during the earlier persecutions and new underground secret passages constructed. The early Christians were not very far removed from their pagan kindred, and it must be remembered in this connection that they were not a different race nor differently educated, but Romans converted to Christianity as a new and beautiful doctrine based on the Golden Rule. So it is not difficult to realize how it was that they retained so many of their old customs on adopting the new creed, nor why they were not required to abandon all their belongings of a pagan character, so long as they were ready to throw away whatever had been offered "in sacrifice to idols."

Naturally, the childhood training of many of these converts could not be eradicated instantly, and so we find pagan symbols and symbolism used constantly in early Christian iconography. Even the nimbus-of which I speak more fully later-the outstanding symbol of canonisation in the eyes of most people

-was simply a borrowed pagan symbol in use so far back that it is mentioned in the Iliad of Homer (940-850 B.C.). It represented originally a luminous nebula derived from the Divine Essence, and so came to symbolize power. Many Roman emperors are portrayed with a nimbus of rays, while a compara