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LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
T E N C E N T U ft I E S 
 
 OF ART. 
 
 ITS 
 
 PROGRESS IN EUROPE 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 IX th TO THE XIX th CENTURY. 
 
 lOitl) a glance at tljc Artistic tlflorfts of (Classical JVntiqaiti), anti canclubinq consecrations 
 on tljc probable influence of ti)e (great (£rt)ibition, anb on % present 
 state anb future prospects of Jlrt in (great Britain 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY NOEL HUMPHREYS, 
 
 author of tftr " llluminatrS Poofts of rfjr fHiDOtr agfs.' ■■ anctciit tffoins anti fflrtials. Tlir tfTomagr of Ettglani),” *c. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 GRANT AND GRIFFITH, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD. 
 
 MDCCCLII. 
 
LONDON I 
 
 VI7.KTEILY AND COMPANY, PRINTERS AND ENGRAVERS, 
 PETERBOROUGH COURT, FLEET STREET. 
 
L UL 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction — Important influence of Art on the prosperity of Nations — An Outline of the manner ir 
 which it is proposed to treat the progress of special arts in the succeeding Chapters 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Illustration t. — Clje portico of St. Uinrent tic $)aul, ports. 
 
 Page 
 
 Architecture — Its Origin in Greece — Its perfect development there — The Analogies of Greek Archi- 
 tecture with the Egyptian— The Roman style founded on the Greek— The profuse use of the Arch by 
 
 the Romans — The decline of Roman Architecture — The original form of the Christian Churches The 
 
 variations of style caused by barbaric invasions— The Gothic founded on debased Roman— The forma- 
 tion of the Gothic styles— Their decay, and the return, in the 15th and 16th centuries, to the styles of 
 Roman Architecture— The subsequent return to Gothic— The French styles before and after Louis 
 XIV.— The period of Wren— The utter debasement of English Art— Its Revival— The rage for pre- 
 cedent and style— Polychromic Architecture— Its modern treatment, and true principles— Architec- 
 ture of the Crystal Palace— New materials for building— Puture prospects of Architecture in Great 
 Britain 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Illustration 2.— JRon (Escaping from % Ittt of Sin, Itoplcs. 
 
 Sculpture— The Origin of Sculpture among the Greeks-Its development— The great works in the 
 Chryselephantine style by Phidias-The later Grecian Sculptors-The Groups of the late Grecian 
 Sculptors— Roman Sculpture-Its decay-Rise of Modern Sculpture, at first almost entirely Hieratic 
 
 or Eccles.astic-The Sculptured Tombs of the Middle Ages-The first return to poetical and histo- 
 
 ncal subjects— Donatello, Michael Angelo, Cellini, Ghiberti, Bernini— The French Sculptors of the 
 16th century, Goujon, Pilon, and others ; and afterwards Pujet, called the French Michael Angelo, and 
 Le Pautre— The Sculpture of English Tombs in the Elizabethan period— Roubiliac, Bacon, and Flax- 
 man-The living Sculptors of France and England-The Sculpture of the Great Exhibition- 
 Trickery in Sculpture— The prospects of Sculpture in Great Britain— The highest principles, and 
 true mission of Sculpture 3 
 
 A 2 
 
2 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Illustration 3.— Earnest $omc in tlje pontine JUorstjes, bt) fcopoib Robert, ©alien) of tlje fnremburg. 
 
 Page 
 
 Painting — The Origin of Painting — Its early character — Its development in Greece — The greatest 
 Painters of Greece compared and estimated — The culture of Painting in Rome — Its decline — The 
 Colossal Portrait of Nero on canvas — The Decline of the Art — The Painting of the dark ages, almost 
 entirely confined to Miniatures in the richly-decorated copies of the Gospels so frequent at that time — 
 
 The profuse use of Painting in the first Gothic Cathedrals — The stiff Byzantine style of those works — 
 
 A Native School established at Toulouse — The revival of the Art in Italy by Cimabue, Giotto, and 
 others — Of the immediate predecessors of Raphael and Michael Angelo, Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci, 
 Ghirlandajo, &c. — Of the great Painters of the age of Leo X. — Of the commencement of mannerism 
 by the great Italian masters — The School of Bologna — The Spanish Schools — The decline of 
 Modern Painting with that of the Roman Catholic Faith — Portrait Painters, Van Eyck, Holbein, 
 
 &c. — Vandyck — Velasquez — Lely — Kneller — The decline of the Art throughout the 18th century — 
 The revived French School of David — The revived English School of Reynolds — The Classicists and 
 the Romanticists — The Pre-Raphaelites— Leopold Robert — Present state and future prospectsof Painting 
 in Great Britain 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 illustration 4.— ,3 pesign for ©olbsmitljs' tDork, bi) pautre. 
 illnstralioit 5— i Specimen of HicUo, bt) ^iniguerra. 
 illustration G.— Suit of ©namcUcti ptatc Jlrmonr, from tt)c jHbliotljniuc Rationale, Paris, 
 illustration 7.— Jl Russian Rase, ricljlt) (EnameUeb, in imitation of kernel IRorh. 
 
 Metal Work — The first knowledge of the Metals — The Age of Stone, the Age of Bronze, and the Age 
 of Iron— The earliest Metal Work of an Artistic Character — Grecian skill in Metal Work — Etrurian 
 skill in Copper — Grecian Jewellery — Roman Jewellery — Roman Arms, &c. — Roman Coinage — 
 Decline of Metal Works in the West — Its continued success in the East — The early Metal Workers 
 among Modern Nations — St. Dunstan — St. Eloi — The Throne of Dagobert — The Reliquaries — The 
 early Coinage of the Modern Kingdoms — The Defensive Armour of the Middle Ages — The Shrines 
 fenced with rich Iron Work — The more Modern Works — The Metal Work of the Great Exhibition — 
 Our chances of success against Foreign competition 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JHlnstrotion 8. — ricl;tt)-cornct> portable JUtar in (Dab, ©Ijcnt. 
 
 Ivory and Wood Carving — The first Statues were of Wood — The earliest knowledge of the use of 
 Ivory — The Ivory Island of the Nile — The Teeth of Elephants mistaken for Horns by Ancient Authors 
 — The Chest of Cypselus — The Carved Drinking-cups of the Shepherds — The Ivory Statues of 
 Phidias and others — Ezekiel’s mention of the use of Ivory among neighbouring nations — Roman 
 Houses lined with Ivory — Mediaeval Works in Ivory: Caskets, Drinking-horns, Dyptics, Tryptics, &c. — 
 Crucifixes — Oak Carvings of Cathedral Screens, &c. — Modern Ivory Carving Establishments at Havre 
 and Dieppe — The Ivory Carving in the Exhibition — The propriety of establishing, in England, per- 
 manent establishments for Ivory Carving— Our Wood Carving of the Middle Ages, and of the Elizabethan 
 Age — Grinling Gibbons — Ilis living Imitators, Rogers, Wallis, &c. — The Wood Carving of the Great 
 Exhibition — The general existing state of the Art in England and on the Continent, and in India and 
 China ' . 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 3 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Illustration 9 .— | Stimuli ©lass ttfinbom, from tlje ffiljurclj of ? 3 rou, franco 
 Illustration 10.— |l Specimen of Jltajolica IDare, supposed to be ksigitei) bt) |ulio tlomano. 
 Illustration n.— H Sauce-boat of palissi) UParr. 
 
 Illustration 12. — Salt-cellar, resembling tlje style calleb penri-n.-tUnre. 
 
 Glass and Pottery — The Potter’s Wheel, one of the earliest mechanical appliances— Grecian pro- 
 ficiency in Pottery — The. Potters of Athens — Grecian fictile Vases — Their value and beauty — 
 
 Their use as Prizes at Public Games — Their estimation by the Persians and Romans — How far 
 Enamel and Porcelain were known to the Ancients — Decline of Ancient Alt — Rise of Modern Art — 
 Difference of Stained Glass and Painted Glass — The Painted Glass of our Cathedrals — The Majolica 
 Ware — Its Imitation by Palissy — Henri-II.-Ware — The establishment of the Royal French Manu- 
 factory at Sevres — English Pottery — Wedgewood and his cotemporaries — Pottery and Glass of the 
 Great Exhibition — Superiority of Minton’s specimens 97 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Illustrations 13 , 14 , ant> 15 . — Specimens of JStokrn (Oriental ©mbroibert), from % ©real ©rljibitioi:. 
 
 Textile Fabrics — The Origin of the Art of Weaving lost in the darkness of antiquity— The earliest 
 Embroidered patterns — The Jewish Embroidery described by Moses as used for the dresses of Aaron, 
 and in the draperies of the Temple — The Assyrian patterns for Embroidery, the Pallium and other 
 articles of Greek and Roman dress — Richly Embroidered Ancient Tapestry and Carpets — Modern 
 Tapestry and Carpets — Modern Lace — Modern Silks and Printed Cottons — Printing known to the 
 Chinese and other Orientals many centuries ago — Prospects of our Textile Fabrics in general — 
 English Machine Lace, and French and Erussels Pillow Lace 104 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Illustration ig. — Jl pulpit, &c., from tye (Cljurd) of St. /raitcts, at |lssisi. 
 
 Mosaic — Its profuse use in the Buildings of the Greeks and Romans for Floors— Its use at the Decline of 
 the Roman Empire in the interior and exterior of Churches — Its neglect after the early part of 
 the Middle Ages — Its revival in modern Rome — All the Pictures removed from St. Peter’s, and their 
 places filled with copies in Mosaic — Their excellence and durability — English introduction of Mosaic 
 in a mechanical form — Its capacity for further development 109 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Conclusion — Influence of the Great Exhibition — Its management— The distribution of Prizes — The 
 probability of its repetition — The management of a future International Exhibition in England — 
 General Resume and Conclusion ..Ill 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 T H E influence of the cultivation of art on the wealth and the destiny of 
 nations has never been disputed by those capable of considering the subject. 
 The mere trading peoples of the earth, however brilliant may have been 
 their day of triumphant commerce, have always fallen into insignificance and ruin 
 when the conquests and advances of other countries have destroyed their commercial 
 ramifications. The Phoenicians, when their Tyre, their great entrepot, was swept 
 away in the tide of the Alexandrian invasion, rose no more. Carthage, with her vast 
 dependencies in Sicily and Spain, fell for ever, when Rome had destroyed her 
 merchant fleets. The counter and the ledger in themselves have no intrinsic worth; 
 a single campaign may destroy the purpose of their existence. 
 
 But to the producers, the real creators of wealth, political revolutions are less 
 fatal. The prosperity of the artist and the artisan, the creators of those various pro- 
 ducts which make up the sum of civilised comfort, and embellish and refine our 
 existence, is rarely destroyed by mere political convulsions. Their creations are as 
 valuable to the new governors as to the old ; and thus Athens became more materially 
 prosperous after the loss of her independence ; for she long ruled the world from her 
 academies and her ateliers more effectually than in the time of her pretence to military 
 greatness; and the meanest implements of her artists wrought more permanent 
 dominion for her than all the blood shed at Marathon or at Platasa. 
 
 How far the possession of splendid monuments increases the prosperity of a 
 metropolis we may learn from the spectacle of modern Rome. Her ancient imperial 
 power crushed, her modern spiritual dominion fast escaping her, lost to all rank as a 
 political capital, she yet possesses her magnificent temple, the unrivalled St. Peter’s, 
 and a few masterpieces of antique art, her “ Laocoon,” and her “ Apollo and these 
 monuments alone, cause her native population to be annually exceeded in number by the 
 strangers within her walls, drawn there by the magnetic influence of art, to pour 
 wealth from every country of Europe into the coffers of her citizens. 
 
 The possession of the “Venus,” and of a few other blocks of marble, that the 
 chisel of a Praxiteles may have spent a few days upon, and of a few pieces of canvas 
 upon which the magic labour of a Raphael may have been bestowed, are worth 
 annual millions to the Florentines. 
 
 While Paris, as a great centre of modern art, as the fountain of European taste, 
 
6 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 has been for centuries the first object of the traveller; and in our day, the English- 
 man, the German, the Russian, the American, even the Italian, all make Paris the 
 principal point of the tour which is now necessary to the final accomplishment of 
 every education. The millions that have thus found their way into the French 
 capital are beyond calculation, and her Louvre, her Tuileries, her Palais Royal, her 
 bronze column, and her Egyptian obelisk, may be considered by those who are inca- 
 pable of seeing them in any other light, as “ splendid commercial investments.” 
 
 No such crowd of art-worsliippers ever rushed to the shrine of London — that 
 vast aggregation of counting-houses, desks, ledgers, docks, stocks, and warehouses, 
 formed into a gigantic hodge-podge of dark narrow streets and winding alleys, teem- 
 ing with a population of clerks, occupied casting-up, checking, and counter-checking — 
 that London, with its atmosphere of coal smoke, its river of diluted sewage — without a 
 single public monument of importance, without one noble street, without a single 
 public fountain, without a public statue, except the contemptible effigies in cocked hats 
 among the dingy foliage of our squares. No art-worshippers crowded to London, 
 such as many now living can recollect it, in all its dingy reality. In public 
 buildings of real merit and importance, in fountains, statuary, palaces, galleries of art, 
 and all that make up the attractions of a brilliant metropolis, we are still lamentably 
 deficient, notwithstanding great progress during the last forty years. But a new era 
 has recently broken upon us, and we have seen the deficiencies which our national 
 vanity so long concealed from our too partial eyes ; we have established schools of 
 design, held cartoon competitions, and endeavoured, in our frantic efforts after art, 
 even to galvanise into existence a Gothic Hotel de Ville, in default of any other 
 palatial edifice of respectability ; and, last of all, really waking up to the advance of 
 other nations, we have taken a truly magnificent step in the right direction, and 
 invited the whole world to an international tournament of art. In this cause, though 
 we have but too long exhibited our incapacity to construct a permanent national palace, 
 we have yet constructed a temporary one, worthy to receive the contributions of the 
 nations, and, however some may regret that this great national event should be mixed 
 up with Court favour and idle pageantry, it is yet a noble expression of national 
 development. 
 
 We are on the eve of making enormous strides, both in political, social, and 
 artistic economy, and at such a juncture it has appeared to me that an outline of the 
 adventurous story of art, in its various distinct fields of development, would be an 
 acceptable offering to the spirit of the exciting epoch in which we are struggling on 
 towards a better and a higher standing as a civilised nation. 
 
 In such an attempt I have thought it better to confine myself within very 
 moderate limits, so as to present a concise panoramic view, rather than an extended 
 treatise filled with curious research, only valued at its true worth by the thoroughly 
 initiated in each particular branch. 
 
 In order to carry out my intention of conciseness, I have generally confined myself 
 to the history of art during the last thousand years only, and have even then avoided 
 all the curious learning and elaborate detail with which this theme might be enriched. 
 I have not sought to establish nicety of dates, or subtle division of styles ; but have 
 
1 ; ■ £\f\ I 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 endeavoured to seize only the striking sihouette , or general outline of each subject, 
 giving occasionally such touches of interior finish to the figure presented, as seemed 
 particularly invited by the occasion. 
 
 In architecture, for instance, I have gone farther back than the thousand years 
 
 prescribed, in order to sketch its rise and beautiful development in Greece ; but, 
 
 although I may linger to observe the mode of its growth, and detail a few of its 
 
 points of singular excellence, and some of its defects, I do not enter into the details of 
 
 the Prostyle Tetrastyle of the Ionic order, or the Peripteral Hexastyle of the Doric, 
 
 nor the mysteries of the Hypaethral Decastyle of the Corinthian — I do not dwell 
 
 upon the plan of the Peripteros, or the Opisthodomus, or of the marble Plutei, and 
 
 their gates giving access to the Prodromus — all this is for the ai'chaiological architect 
 
 alone. With the names of dry bones I have nothing to do, but only with the spirit 
 
 that animated them, and which, existing languidly through the mazes of Roman 
 
 architecture, blazed up again in all its vigour in our own Gothic cathedrals. I shall 
 
 allude to the influence which the introduction of "lazed windows exerted in archi- 
 
 © 
 
 tectural elevations, but whether that influence commenced as early as the time of 
 Nero, when a kind of glass was first tried as a substitute for the lapis specularis, or 
 whether such influence was not apparent till the time of Constantine, or not till some 
 three or four centuries later, I shall not stay to examine ; nor shall I stay to decide 
 whether the coloured windows, apparently alluded to by Prudentius in the passage 
 describing the church of St. Paul,* restored by Honorius, alluded to painted 
 windows, or only to a geometrical disposition of coloured glass, or merely 
 to the mosaics of the apsis and other portions of the building. It will be suf- 
 ficient for my purpose in this branch of the subject to perceive that the Homan 
 basilica eventually developed itself into the Gothic cathedral, and that the Gothic was 
 superseded by an extraordinary and eventually slavish and insane restoration of 
 Greek and Roman forms in all their details, followed by a subsequent similar return 
 to the Gothic. Such bold features of art-history I shall endeavour to trace ; for, as 
 I view thecoui’se of art, it is to be considered, not as a succession of various detached 
 and fitful epochs of invention, with dismal blanks between ; but, on the contrary, as a 
 continuous current of ideas, developing themselves according to the materials and 
 circumstances they have to deal with, as a stream of art, giving animation to marble, 
 imparting its magic breath to the various forms of foliage and flowers, as it bends them 
 to its purposes, and, except when the hindering of stolid governments, or political 
 revolutions, drives it into distortions and unnatural abasement, gliding gently onward 
 towards a yet unperceived and undreamed-of perfection, finding beauties in every 
 stage of its progress. One would think Shakspeare, whose universal mind seems 
 to have embraced all subjects, was meditating on the course of the spirit of art, 
 
 • “The magnificence of the place is full of regal pomp. The good prince by whom it was consecrated has 
 caused its walls to be covered with rich paintings, at great cost. The beams are gilded, so that the light is all 
 of gold, like the sun in the East. The arched windows are filled with many colours, as the meadows in sprino - 
 sparkle with the colours of many flowers.” This allusion to coloured glass has been thought by some to allude 
 to the glass-coated tesserae of the mosaics, and that the arched openings or spaces may be the semi-sphere of 
 the apse and corresponding parts. 
 
8 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 and symbolizing its advance in the image of a stream, gliding onward towards 
 eventual perfection, in the following passage : — 
 
 “ When his fair course is not hindered, 
 
 He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones, 
 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 He overtaketh in his pilgrimage, 
 
 And so, by many winding nooks, he strays, 
 
 With willing sport to the wild ocean, 
 
 Making a pastime of each weary step 
 
 Till the last step hath brought him to his love, 
 
 Where he will rest, as, after much turmoil, 
 
 A blessed soul doth in Elysium.” 
 
 This exquisite poetry, perhaps penned upon the banks of the gentle Avon, seems, 
 with the simple alteration of a tense or pronoun, to express exactly that which I 
 have essayed to say in prose. 
 
 Following out this view of the subject, I shall decry any mad attempt to strain 
 the current of art from its legitimate course, while, at the same time, I shall offer a 
 few remarks on the possible advent of an original and national style, both in archi- 
 tecture and other branches of art, formed on true artistic principles. 
 
 In sculpture — in painting — in metal work — in textile fabrics — in carvings in 
 wood and ivory — in mosaic — in glass work of every description — and in other 
 branches of production in which the arts of design play a conspicuous part, I shall 
 endeavour, in the treatment of each particular subject, to submit it to an alchemy 
 which may evolve its true theory of the beautiful, according to its purpose, its 
 material, and its necessary form and structure ; calling to mind the Hellenic maxim 
 that “ nothing is beautiful which is not good an axiom repeated on the eve of the 
 dark ages by the fathers of the church — K od ravrov son r dya.Qw to xaXov. 
 
 That “ no body is truly beautiful which is not constructed with strict and perfect 
 reference to its destination” — that “ beauty cannot exist without the symmetry of 
 order ” — that “ true beauty is more beautiful as a whole than in any of its parts ” — that 
 “ the highest beauty consists in unity,” — are maxims which formed the philosophy of 
 art and the explanation of the beautiful, as early as the dawn of Grecian civilization) 
 and are as true now as then. 1 shall endeavour to apply them, to each branch of art 
 I am now about to discuss, without pedantry, but with that earnestness which all 
 must feel who love art more for itself than even for its consequences, great as they may 
 be to every nation cultivating it with the sedulous perseverance of a time devotee, 
 without which no great results were ever yet realised in its domain. 
 
 Yet, in artistic criticism I have always considered the expression of individual 
 sentiment more generally desirable than the cleverest exposition of accepted canons • 
 for while we have many always ready to apply the generally -received tests to every 
 fresh work of art, but few are found willing to risk the ordeal of putting forth new ones. 
 I shall not, therefore, shrink from the latter course. For if even the greater portion 
 of my positions be overthrown by the “ well-trained bands” of custom, precedent, or 
 superstition, and but one or two ideas only are allowed to strike root, as additions to 
 the guiding principles of art, I shall be more than rewarded for all the obloquy of 
 defeat on others. 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 A MONG the arts which have imparted grace and dignity to the history of 
 nations, and marked their various phases with the most striking monuments, 
 Architecture holds the most conspicuous, if not the highest place. The 
 great interest attaching to the history of architecture arises, in the first place, from 
 the fact that a knowledge of its first principles is necessary to man, so soon as he 
 emerges from nomadic barbarism, and requires a fixed place of shelter — a home. 
 Secondly, because it is necessary to the culture and development of one of man’s 
 highest faculties — the religious element of his nature. 
 
 In the hut which forms his own residence, the first rude principles of architec- 
 tural construction crudely develop themselves ; while in the temple, or holy precinct, 
 made sacred to the divinity he worships, embellishments are essayed, which go on 
 developing and extending till repetition, variation, and experience gradually evolve 
 a special school of art ; such, for example, as that of Greece. 
 
 The earliest huts, and the earliest temples, were, no doubt, of the most rude and 
 diminutive construction. The first temples, according to Hesiod, were the <two1, 
 which would seem to have been nothing more than a hollow tree, venerated, perhaps, 
 as marking the spot on which some event connected with the history or religion 
 of the tribe had taken place, or perhaps as stricken by thunder, and thus rendered 
 sacred, as the vehicle or instrument on which the divine power had been manifested, 
 — the fulmen, or thunderbolt, being the chief symbol of omnipotence assigned to the 
 highest divinity of Grecian worship. Thus, in the trunk of some vast tree, hollowed, 
 as it were, by the divine hand, a rude image of the divinity was placed, as in a 
 niche ; and so the-custom of building niches or canopies for important statues may 
 have originated. 
 
 The arts, among a finely-organized race, do not remain stationary. In the 
 instinctive perception of the beautiful — one of the glorious faculties which distin- 
 guish men from the lower animals — lies the secret of artistic origination and 
 progress. The Greeks at an early period invested their wooden huts with a kind of 
 rustic symmetry, which became the type upon which the leading forms of those 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 temples were founded, which afterwards became the admiration of the world as 
 miracles of artistic conception and execution. 
 
 Sir Charles Fellows, in his Travels in Asia Minor, describes the timber dwell- 
 ings of the present peasantry as differing little in style to what they must have been 
 three thousand years ago ; so that we may yet see the wooden models upon which 
 the masterpieces of Grecian architecture were founded. 
 
 It is easy to conceive that, in a country abounding in timber, the trunks of trees 
 would be used to support the roofs of dwellings, as they became more permanent and 
 substantial ; and that such supports should afterwards be imitated in stone in more 
 important works, is consistent with all we know of the imitative progress of art. 
 
 If theory were insufficient, the general form and all the details of the ancient 
 Doric temples are sufficient evidence that they were idealized copies of rude wooden 
 structures. First, we have the proportions of the column, tapering towards the top 
 in the same degree as the trunk of a tree of similar bulk. Then we have the square 
 base of the column,* which represents the tile or stone upon which the timber column 
 was placed to prevent decay. The top also was covered with a small slab (No. 1) 
 of wood or stone, to prevent the drainage of moisture into it from the beam which 
 it supported. The beam (2) became, in the stone structure, the entablature, and 
 
 A PORTION OF THE ORIGINAL STRUCTURE IN WOOD. 
 
 A PORTION OK THE IDEALIZED COPY IN STONE. 
 
 above, the ends of the beams (3) became the triglyphs of the frieze, which in the 
 wood were perhaps scored with three or more indents, by way of rude ornament; 
 these indents, in the stone imitation, form three intermediate bands, from which 
 the triglyph receives its name ; or, the marks of the triglyphs may have been sug- 
 
 * I” ^ ie ear b’ Doric the bases of the columns were not distinct, but formed one common base, the podium. 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 11 
 
 gested by the natural splits which would take place in that direction during the 
 drying of the timber. 
 
 Other, minor features, can be traced in a similar manner, not only in the Doric, 
 but up to the trusses, and some other features of the highly- wrought Corinthian order. 
 
 It is thus evident that the forms of the earliest Grecian order of architecture were 
 immediately founded upon those of structures of wood. Indeed, Pausanias informs 
 us, that the earliest temples themselves were of wood ; and we may imagine the 
 anno), to have been the origin of the cella, to which additional space may have been 
 added, as the population of the neighbourhood increased, and it became necessary to 
 protect the immediate vicinity of the sacred statue from vulgar intrusion. The term 
 temple, in Greek rs/M-evos-, meaning to cut off or separate (-rspovow), the land thus appro- 
 priated being separated from the surrounding district by a certain solemn formula. 
 These first additions were doubtless, as Pausanias informs us, of wood, and a perfect 
 temple of wood — a great improvement upon its prototype, the hut — in all probability 
 preceded the temple of hewn stone. 
 
 The simple grandeur of the Greek temple in its perfected state and fullest 
 dimensions, surrounded with its double or even triple row of columns, is an object 
 too well known to require description, and it now remains only to discuss briefly 
 but critically its merits in an artistic point of view. 
 
 Its first great merit is its national originality ; for that it was not an idealized 
 improvement upon Egyptian models, as similarity of proportion has led some to 
 suppose, is not supported by any facts ; and from the wide field of comparison open 
 to modern critics, it now appears evident that art, in its infancy, was rarely carried from 
 one state to another, but more frequently arose independently, from the natural wants 
 of each distinct people ; and the similarity of art in its early stages, in widely different 
 countries, is to be ascribed to the similarity in the organization, and consequent 
 similarity of wants and tastes, in all races ofmen, during their first steps from barbar- 
 ism to civilization. 
 
 It is possibly true, however, that the Greeks, as their architecture advanced to 
 perfection, which happened at a time when the intercourse with Egypt became 
 frequent, borrowed some ideas from that source. This view is borne out by the 
 similarity of proportion in the columns, which more closely resemble the massive 
 supports of the Egyptian monuments than the trunks of trees, in which they more 
 immediately originated. Nevertheless, the details remain strictly distinct and national. 
 
 Next comes the question of general fitness, and here again the verdict must be 
 favourable. The earlier Greek temples are rather to be considered as residences of 
 the local deity, and not receptacles for worshippers ; and thus the interior, rarely 
 lighted, except from the entrance doorway, was shrouded in a dusky light, which 
 imparted an indistinctness and mystery to the statue of the divinity, highly favourable 
 to that kind of feeling and veneration, which it was sought to inspire ; while exter- 
 nally, the projecting cornice, and the single or double colonnade, were admirably 
 fitted to produce that grateful shade so desirable in southern climates. 
 
 Thus far, fitness of form to purpose, one of the great principles of art, is 
 admirably fulfilled. Then arises the question of fitness of form, proportion, and 
 
 B 2 
 
12 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 detail, to material; and here, the conscientious critic must deny to the ingenious 
 Greek the same meed of praise. To copy slavishly in stone a mode of construction 
 that might be excellent in wood, is at variance with the true principles of art. The 
 distinct qualities of the new material ought to have suggested a distinct mode of 
 construction, for which it was especially suited. Thus, to refer to a modern English 
 example, the columns (lately removed) of the Quadrant , were, though of cast-iron, 
 made of the proportion required in stone , while one-fourth of the thickness, in such 
 a material as iron, would have been amply sufficient. The facilities afforded for 
 enrichment also, in casting metal, ought to have suggested a totally distinct style of 
 ornamentation. 
 
 But the Greeks appear to have perceived at a later period, that the details sug- 
 gested by wooden structures were not applicable to stone ; and with this view, in the 
 Ionic and Corinthian orders, swept away the triglyphs, and some other details 
 belonging to timber buildings, from the frieze — thus forming a field upon which to 
 display the most exquisite specimens of sculpture in stone and marble. 
 
 As luxury increased, the column, which had originally been composed of several 
 blocks or drums fixed at the core by means of iron or copper cramps, was wrought 
 from the quarry in a single shaft ; and princes rivalled each other in presenting 
 valuable columns of this description to temples in the progress of construction. Thus 
 Croesus contributed the greater number of the pillars towards the building of the 
 temple at Ephesus ; and a very interesting record of this custom exists in the ruins of 
 the temple of Labranda, in Caria, the front of the columns bearing tablets inscribed 
 with the names of the original donors. 
 
 Every available part of the temple was eventually covered with magnificent sculp- 
 ture — the pediment or gable, was filled by mighty compositions from the hand of a 
 Phidias or a Praxiteles, as was the metope , or space between the triglyphs of the 
 Doric frieze. 
 
 Taking into consideration the effect of the entire composition, as carried out in 
 the finest models of the Greek temples, it becomes a question whether the early 
 architects, who decided the eventual forms by copying the first stone temples from 
 wooden ones, would have been so successful if they had aimed at entire originality, 
 and had treated the more solid material according to principles of construction arising 
 out of its own peculiar qualities. 
 
 However this may be, it is certain that, when decoration was attempted, the 
 ancients were as continually falling into inappropriate imitation as the moderns, arising 
 perhaps from the imitation of antique forms, as of something sacred, and not to be 
 rashly infringed. This spirit of imitation would seem to have been necessary to true 
 artistic progress in its earlier stages ; as we find that in the Persian and Assyrian 
 monuments which have been recently made known by modern travellers and dis- 
 coverers, discrepancies of this description do not occur, and yet they are vastly 
 inferior in abstract beauty of form to the works of the Greeks and Egyptians, which 
 can both be charged with the inconsistencies alluded to. 
 
 I have not thought it necessary for my present purpose to go farther back than 
 the earliest development of architecture in Greece ; but having mentioned Egypt 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 13 
 
 incidentally, I may here state that the old theory, of the Egyptian style having 
 originated in the custom of cutting their temples out of the solid rock, is now ex- 
 ploded, which I mention the more willingly, as the explanation of the fallacy exhibits 
 an artistic error similar to that which induced the Greeks to reproduce wooden forms 
 in stone. 
 
 The excavated Egyptian temples bear evident marks of having been copied from 
 buildings raised in the manner of those of the Greeks, by means of horizontal 
 beams supported by upright columns, and the Egyptian architect, with all his sense of 
 the grand and majestic in his art, committed, by the introduction of simulated beams 
 where the living rock itself formed the solid roof, an unpardonable breach of the 
 simplest aesthetic principles* According to the latest chronological computations, 
 some of the Egyptian excavated temples date more than 3000 years before the 
 Christian era ; and if this computation be correct, how deeply into hoar antiquity 
 must we endeavour to pierce, to give a date to the monument erected upon the column 
 and beam principle, which served as the model of the more modern excavated works, 
 themselves 5000 years old. 
 
 This digression has led me slightly out of my way, though it has, at the same 
 time, served to illustrate an important architectural principle. But I must not, even 
 for a similarly valuable illustration, wander more widely into the interesting field of 
 Egyptian or Assyrian architecture, as my purpose is only to treat of that of the last 
 ten centuries, merely briefly noticing those styles of classical art, which especially 
 led up to the modern. In doing so, I have not thought it necessary to go farther 
 into the arts of antiquity than the origin of architecture in Greece, which directly 
 influenced that of Rome, from which the modern architecture of Western Europe 
 is directly derived. 
 
 I must now pass rapidly to the art as practised by the Romans. This remarkable 
 nation appears to have possessed the knowledge of the arch, and its true application 
 from a very remote period ; at all events as early as the age of the Tarquins, when 
 the great Cloaca was constructed. And it was this application of the arch to public 
 buildings, both as a vehicle of ornament as well as strength, which imparted to Roman 
 structures in which it was adopted, a character totally distinct from that of Greek 
 buildings, and laid the foundation of the principles upon which the vast European struc- 
 tures of the middle ages were erected. Let us examine a segment of the Coliseum, and 
 compare it with a Greek temple. The latter is only composed of one story, and the 
 eye, at a proper distance, embraces the whole design at a glance ; but in the Roman 
 structure, the parts are multiplied, and tier above tier arises, over which the eye of 
 the spectator must travel in succession before it can fully comprehend the whole. 
 
 Aesthetically examined, this composition is open to objections as great as those 
 urged against the Greek temple. The column, that fascinating and necessary feature 
 of the Greek structure, is here become a parasite ; and the sham of the pilaster will 
 
 * Herodotus says, that the origin of the Egyptian column was the trunk of the palm-tree, and no doubt, 
 from the similarity of its proportions, it arose, like that of the Greeks, from the imitation of timber dwellings ; 
 as the cupola is ingeniously said to have had its birth in the East, from the form of the tent of its nomadic 
 tribes, who, as they became settled, imitated the form of their home of the desert in more permanent materials. 
 
14 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 not bear analysis. The arches alone, in every case, carry the superincumbent wall, and 
 the attached pillar becomes an unnecessary excrescence. It imitates the function of 
 the Greek column when not required, just as the triglyph of the Doric frieze imitated 
 beams which no longer existed. 
 
 A somewhat similar application of the arch and column prevailed till the fall of 
 the Western Empire; but at that time, and even so early as the 3rd century, in the 
 reign of Diocletian, all symmetry was comparatively lost, as will be seen by the 
 diagram from the palace of that emperor, at Spalatro. 
 
 PART OF THE COLISEUM. 
 
 PART OF THE PALACE OK DIOCLETIAN AT SPALATRO. 
 
 Both the above examples tend to show how Grecian simplicity of idea in archi- 
 tectural composition had been departed from, and how much more complicated was 
 the combination of forms resulting from the liberal use of the principle of the arch ; 
 but while we admit the superior magnificence of the Roman combinations, we cannot 
 allow them the same merit of simple grandeur and oneness of idea which forms the 
 great perfection of a Grecian temple. It is well known, however, that the Romans 
 erected many temples upon a similar general plan to those of the Greeks, though they 
 seldom employed the ancient Doric or even the Ionic order, preferring the Corinthian. 
 But it is not with such works that I have to deal here, but rather with the striking 
 departures from Greek models, by means of the use of the arch, which produced, 
 under one form of application, the dome of the Pantheon, and in another the magni- 
 ficent pile of arcades, gallery above gallery, which we still admire in the gigantic 
 ruins of the Coliseum. 
 
 In these new developments of the main features of Grecian architecture, by the 
 addition of a new one, the oneness of composition, as I have said, was, to a certain 
 extent lost, for want of a true artistic feeling in Roman artists ; the cohesion in the 
 multiplied parts wanted that true aesthetic continuity of idea which should have 
 welded the whole together in such a way that it could not be separated without injur- 
 ing the design. This problem was not solved by the Romans. The composition of their 
 noblest remaining monument, the Coliseum, consists of a series of layers, as it were, of 
 colonnades, or rather arcades, placed one over the other, without any further connection 
 of design than their accurate superposition one over the other. The upper arcade might 
 be removed without injuring the general effect, and so indeed might the second and 
 third successively, leaving the lower arcade as perfect, as a composition, without them 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 15 
 
 as with them. It remained for the Goths, the barbarians, to solve the problem, and 
 give cohesion to the alliance of the arch and the column, as I shall endeavour to 
 show. 
 
 The conversion of Constantine to Christianity gave a new life to the rapidly- 
 declining architecture of Rome. A number of Christian churches were erected upon a 
 model quite distinct from that of the pagan temples. The temples, as I have before 
 stated, were considered rather as the residence of the particular deity, than as 
 places of public worship, and but small space was provided within the temple 
 itself, although abundant shade and shelter was afforded to attendant crowds, on great 
 occasions, beneath the spacious colonnades without. 
 
 When therefore places of public worship were required for the new faith, where 
 the Gospel might be preached to a large assemblage, and where the congregation 
 might join in prayer with the preacher, the Roman Basilicas, or courts of law, were 
 found more convenient models than the temples, and some were positively converted 
 into churches, others being constructed upon their model, and many of the more ancient 
 existing churches of Italy still claim the title of Basilica in token of their early 
 foundation. 
 
 The original law courts, or basilicas, of the Romans, were large open halls, on 
 either side of which rose a row of columns, which, while they served to support the 
 roof, divided the total space within the external walls into three compartments, cor- 
 responding to the nave and side aisles in modern churches. Above the principal 
 columns, with their entablature and cornice, rose a series of much smaller ones, which 
 were the immediate supports of the roof, forming galleries above the side aisles, which 
 were the only covered portion of the building ; the nave, or central portion of the 
 hall, being open to the sky, or, if roofed, having large openings to admit light and air. 
 In the time of Constantine, however, side lights, probably even glazed, were begin- 
 ning to be introduced, as existing churches of that period would seem to show, though, 
 in many cases, the windows may have been later additions.* The tribune, or seat of the 
 magistrate, a semicircular recess at the end of the basilica, formed, in the primitive 
 churches, the place for the altar, and the point from which the officiating priest 
 addressed the congregation. 
 
 It would be impossible to follow out here all the modifications which followed in 
 succession, and rendered the basilica} suited, in all respects, to their new purpose. But 
 many churches still exist of the 4th and 5 th centuries, which are most interesting 
 monuments of the art of the period, opening a delightful field of study to the student 
 of architectural history. To these venerable monuments of the primitive ages of 
 Christianity our oldest cathedrals are but works, as it were, of yesterday. 
 
 Having arrived at the period when the Christian architecture commences its 
 career, we are nearing the point, in the progress of architectural design, which 
 forms the true transition link between classical and modern architecture, between 
 Roman and Gothic ; that point at which the barbarian but original genius of the 
 architects of the lower ages, solved the problem I have before alluded to, of uniting 
 
 * It was not till a much later period that the transept was introduced, to give the churches the cruciform 
 character which was so long considered essential. 
 
16 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 in one cohesive and homogeneous design the column of the Greeks and the arch of 
 the Romans. 
 
 The two stories of columns in the basilica, or church, till much later than the time 
 of Constantine, continued to he without any connecting feature of design ; as in the 
 case of the Coliseum, the upper story might have been removed without injuring the 
 effect of the lower ; and it was not till the period when nearly all the most accre- 
 dited writers upon the art, have described it as being at its lowest depth of debase- 
 ment, that a more complete idea of using the combined elements of the arch and 
 the column arose. That is the period when, as an art of design, the ancient or clas- 
 sical architecture of Europe may be considered to close its career, and modern, or 
 Gothic architecture, to use a generally-accepted term, may be said to begin. 
 
 The fresh sentiment which at once founded an entirely new school of architectural 
 
 design, was that which successfully united, in one 
 continuous composition, an elevation orfaijade of 
 several stories. This was effected by a simple but 
 beautiful expedient, long considered by modern 
 critics the first step of utter barbarism ; I mean 
 that of substituting a group of columns for a sin- 
 gle one, making the central one shoot gracefully 
 upwards, through every story of the building, 
 and through several orders of columns and arcades, 
 until its capital rested beneath the uppermost 
 horizontal line of the whole composition ; while 
 others finished their upward career at lower 
 points, each still forming integral portions of the 
 whole; being allied and held together by a series 
 of connecting bands, and each springing from the 
 same source. The shorter columns of the group 
 supporting the lower arcades, while the taller 
 shoot upwards to the highest point of the building, 
 supporting the vaulted arch-work of the stone 
 roof. The diagram in explanation, is from the 
 church of Conques in the south of France, which 
 exhibits an example of this species of composition, 
 before the introduction of the pointed arch, and 
 before the groined vaultings of the pointed roof, 
 subsequently introduced, gave rise to a more 
 complete and beautiful development of the idea. 
 It is probably a work of the 10th or 11th cen- 
 tury, and is not selected as one of the earliest specimens, as the works of the Lombards 
 in the north of Italy exhibit happy innovations of the same description as early as 
 the 6tli, 7th, and 8th centuries ; and probably indications of the same character may be 
 found in some of the churches of Ravenna, executed under the patronage of Placidia, 
 immediately previous to the crash of the Roman empire in the west, in the 5th century. 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 17 
 
 It is an example, which marks very clearly the principle of a group of connecting 
 columns, and although it is possible, as I have said, that this felicitous innovation may 
 have been foreshadowed in some of the later works of the last race of Roman architects, 
 it appears more probable that it is due to the original and more daring and inno- 
 vative genius of the north; for there are no traces of it in the magnificent church of St. 
 Sophia, built by Justinian at Constantinople, in the 6th century ; nor do the churches 
 built in the Byzantine style at a later period, by Charlemagne, exhibit this feature 
 in a prominent manner ; they exhibit only an extension of the latest phase of Roman 
 art, preserved in the eastern portion of the Empire, and given back to Western Europe 
 again, by the courses of the Danube and the Rhine, as soon as that portion of the shattered 
 Empire of the West had risen into independent states sufficiently settled to receive it. 
 
 But the style thus imported was now an exotic in those regions ; and the 
 one which I have supposed, arose from the meeting of northern daring and 
 Roman luxury on the plains of Italy, the true Gothic, soon superseded it, and 
 became, as it developed itself, that magnificent art, which covered Western Europe 
 with its “ sky -cleaving” cathedrals, whose lofty towers and wondrous fretted spires 
 are examples of design, of scientific construction, of complication of parts, and 
 vastness of scale, to which classical art never attained. 
 
 I have thus, at greater length than I intended, endeavoured to trace the 
 successive phases of three great architectural epochs, which are linked together in 
 close relationship, and which immediately preceded, and directly led to, the architec- 
 ture of the last ten centuries. 
 
 The first epoch is illustrated by the Greek temple ; the second by the Roman 
 amphitheatre ; the last by the Gothic cathedral. 
 
 The Greek temple exhibits the direct transition of the art from wood to stone, 
 as a material of structure. The Roman amphitheatre exhibits the union of the arch 
 with the simple beam and column ; and the earliest Gothic cathedrals exhibit the first 
 perfect blending of the three features ; giving to the arch its due predominance as a 
 higher and more scientific contrivance for supporting superincumbent weight than the 
 simple column and beam, which latter is, in Gothic art, almost dispensed with, as the 
 arch-work springs boldly from the columns themselves, in the construction of some of 
 the finest cathedrals of the high Gothic era, which may be considered to be about 
 the middle of the 14th century. 
 
 Having fairly arrived at the starting point of Gothic art, we may now prepare for 
 seeing it branch off with many distinct ramifications in different countries and epochs; 
 but it attained its most complete and consistent development in France, Germany, and 
 England, from the middle of the 13th to the middle of the 15th century. 
 
 In the Gothic of middle and southern Italy, a lingering reminiscence of the 
 Byzantine and debased Roman styles continued even to the time of the renaissance ; 
 but in the north of that peninsula, a more legitimate Gothic developed itself ; in the 
 region, in fact, where it had originated ; that is to say, in Lombardy, where its first 
 seeds were sown, and where it eventually produced such monuments as the Cathedral 
 of Milan. But it is to the north of the Alps that we must look for the true development 
 of Gothic art, during the ten centuries of progress which I am about to trace. 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 Already, between the 9th and the 12th centuries, a fine homogeneous style had been 
 formed, possessing nearly all the qualities of Gothic composition, except the pointed 
 arch. This last feature, long known in the East, and brought into Spain by the Arabs, 
 as early as the 7th century, gradually superseded the semicircular arch between the 
 12th and 13th centuries, and gave to the Gothic its final touch of completeness and 
 perfection. The high pointed gable of northern structures (adopted, as is supposed, to 
 obtain such a slope in the roof as would prevent the accumulation of snow), was not 
 in perfect accordance with the round top of the great east window, as will be seen by 
 diagram A ; while the form of the pointed arch, diagram B, at once brings the 
 
 fines of the roof and window into harmony. This appears to have been acutely 
 perceived by the Gothic architects ; and thus we find the pointed window frequently 
 adopted beneath the gable, while the circular form was still continued in the lateral 
 lights, as in diagram C, where they occur beneath a nearly unbroken horizontal line. 
 
 c 
 
 The side lights, it would appear, were eventually subjected to a similar change, to 
 bring them into a like accordance with internal forms, the salient features of which 
 were mainly governed by the system of vaulting, which had been adopted for the 
 roofing of each compartment of the nave and aisles. The principle of vaulting had 
 been known to the Romans as a means of covering in, or roofing, any square area by 
 means of converging walls ; which is but an ingenious application of the principle of 
 the arch. The diagram below exhibits four walls converging in this manner; or rather 
 three, the fourth being necessarily removed to exhibit the others. 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 19 
 
 This is one of the commonest and best known principles in building, and only 
 
 described here as a link in the argument. 
 
 When the Gothic architects began to raise the pitch of roofs so constructed, each 
 compartment necessarily exhibited the silhouette , as the French would term it, of four 
 pointed arches, meeting at the apex, in a common centre. So long as the vaulting 
 was built at a very low pitch, as common in Roman structures, this feature was not 
 strikingly obvious, but in the raised pitch of Gothic structures, the pointed character, 
 as I have said, became remarkable, and the windows of the aisles were then made 
 pointed, to accord with the form of the vaulting, just as the end window had pie- 
 viously changed its form to accord with the pointed gable. 
 
 The diagram D exhibits the low or flattened vault, with a round topped window , 
 and the diagram E, a higher and consequently more pointed vault, with a pointed 
 window to correspond. 
 
 This is the most probable and self-evident theory of the introduction of 
 the pointed arch. Though the very gradual transition of form, from the round 
 to the pointed arch in the southern provinces of France might lead to other 
 conclusions. 
 
 But whatever theory of the cause of the adoption of the pointed or Gothic 
 arch may eventually prevail, it is certain that it became very general in the 13th 
 century, and we thus see Gothic architecture, at this epoch, starting fairly on its 
 course, with its three great elements of form and design brought into beautiful 
 harmony ; namely, the slender connecting column, the principle of vaulting and 
 groining in a perfected form, and the pointed arch in accordance with it. 
 
 I shall not attempt to define special styles in this noble architecture of the middle 
 ages, nor divide them into Romanesque, Norman, early English, perpendicular, Tudor, 
 or flamboyant, &c. &c., but merely allude to a few general principles and striking 
 features, which more or less pervade every phase of its career. 
 
 In the first place, let us consider, for a moment, all the scientific difficulties of 
 construction, mastered by the Gothic architect; difficulties which had been called into 
 existence by some of the new forms and arrangements of the Christian temples of the 
 middle ages. The ancient Roman Basilica presented little difficulty to contend with in 
 the construction of the roof, as the greater part of the central portion was no doubt open 
 to the sky ; and when the form was adopted for Christian churches, and a flat timber 
 roof, composed of beams laid from wall to wall, was adopted, such an addition presented 
 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 no new structural difficulties to the architect, a wall of very moderate strength being 
 sufficient for its support. 
 
 But when the Gothic architects determined, with the religious enthusiasm and 
 energy peculiar to that animated and vigorous age, to render these Christian monuments 
 almost indestructible by time, and to compose even the roof of stone, and that, pitched 
 at an acute angle, the weight and thrust upon the outer walls became formidable. 
 To meet this exigency, two of the chief features of Gothic architecture, the buttress 
 and the pinnacle, were invented ; and eventually the flying buttress, as it has been 
 termed. 
 
 F 
 
 THE BUTTRESS AND PINNACLE. 
 
 The diagram F shows the effect of the simple buttress (1), in resisting tire 
 thrust of the roof (2). Diagram G shows the effect of the flying buttress, in sup- 
 porting the wall of the nave or choir, generally higher than the side aisles, against the 
 thrust of its more elevated roof ; the weight of the pinnacle, in both cases, assisting the 
 buttress. This last expedient, that of the flying buttress, as it has been strikingly 
 termed, is one of the boldest and most ingenious devices exhibited in the whole history 
 of architectural progress, and the decorative forms which the buttress and its pinnacle 
 were made to assume, under the adaptive hand of the Gothic architect, render them, 
 not only excellent as a highly scientific expedient in structure, but exquisitely 
 decorative ; in fact, they were made to form one of the most picturesque and original 
 features of the art. 
 
 The next striking feature of the style is the window. The ancient Basilica, which 
 formed the original model of Christian architecture, was, as I have said, lighted from 
 the roof, that is to say, after its colonnades, which were at first open, were enclosed 
 with an external wall ; but the earliest of the Christian churches appear to have been 
 lighted from openings at the sides, in short windows ; some perfectly open ; while, 
 as early as the 5th century, others, in Italy and the East, were no doubt glazed, as 
 glass began to be extensively used for such purposes about that time. Yet, we find 
 examples in Italy of thin slabs of transparent marble or alabaster being used in the 
 position of glass for windows as late as the 8th century. But I do not dwell upon the 
 nicety of precise dates, or upon especial peculiarities of particular examples. It is 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 21 
 
 sufficient for my purpose to point out that the mediaeval architects early perceived 
 that the lateral openings, or windows, occurring at regular intervals, flanked by the 
 buttresses and their pinnacles, must necessarily become a very principal feature in 
 church architecture. As if in aid of this view, the general introduction of glass, and the 
 art of painting it with various devices occurred, just as Gothic architecture began to 
 assume a special and complete character ; and its uses in the decoration of the church 
 windows were at once seized upon by the architects of the age ; by whom it was framed 
 in stone tracery of various forms, gradually increasing in elaborate and graceful design 
 up to the end of the 15th century. This window tracery forming, as it did, the 
 exquisitely graceful and ever-varied framing to the rich colours of the glass pictures 
 which it enclosed, is among the most beautiful and successful developments of Gothic 
 design, and forms one of the most fascinating features of our superb cathedrals, from 
 the 13th to the 15th centuries. 
 
 Still more wonderful, perhaps, as pieces of Gothic design and architectural struc- 
 ture, are the noble towers and spires with which our mediaeval temples are crowned. 
 The campanile of Italy were but successive stories of miniature colonnades ; and if they 
 occasionally advanced somewhat towards the character of the northern Gothic, like the 
 famous campanile of Giotto, at Florence, they are still composed of evident layers, or 
 stories ; whilethe Gothic steeples of Germany, Flanders, and France rise in ever-varying 
 design towards their acuminating summit, infinite in profuse and elaborate detail, and 
 even the minutest part forming a blended and integral portion of the whole. 
 
 The brilliant epoch of this beautiful phase of art may be placed about the end of 
 the 14th century, when its most striking general characteristics, the angular or pointed 
 feature, combined with the interlacing of intricate tracery, extended to every branch 
 of fine and industrial art. The metal-worker and forger of arms and armour, the 
 embroiderer, the leather-worker, the goldsmith, the sculptor, the painter, — all were 
 thoroughly imbued with the peculiar genius of Gothic art. Even the writing of the 
 period was thoroughly marked by the same angular feature ; and its illuminated letters 
 glittered with golden tracery as rich as that of the windows ; so that a cathedral or a 
 castle at that period, with all their appointments, of every class of workmanship, must 
 have exhibited one of the grandest ensembles of artistic homogeneousness and com- 
 pleteness, that the history of art ever knew.* 
 
 This perfection was not the result of the drowsy, or worse, the commercial 
 spirit in which art is practised now ; it was, on the contrary, the result of deep 
 earnestness. One can scarcely conceive, in these degenerate days of art, the 
 enthusiasm which was exhibited in the erection of the great Gothic temples of 
 Christendom. When Erwin of Steinbach submitted the plan of the tower of 
 Strasbourg to the Bishop Conrad of Lichtenberg, and the prelate determined to 
 put the vast design in execution, promising heavenly rewards to all who should 
 assist in its structure, so great were the crowds of men, women, and children, who 
 
 * I have not room to refer to the graceful yet distinct style which marked the brief development of Gothic 
 architecture in southern Italy or Sicily : nor the overwrought but magnificent richness, that a more truly 
 Gothic style exhibited in Spain ; nor to follow the gradual and lingering decay of Byzantine art in Russia. I 
 can only seize the more immediate links of the last ten centuries of the development of the art, with the view of 
 ascertaining some of the causes which have led to its present state, and may influence its future prospects. 
 
22 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 hastened to take part in what they considered a sacred task, that the chroniclers of 
 the period describe it as one of the most wonderful scenes of the age. When we consider 
 also the estimation in which the great master masons were held, and their total devotion 
 to their art — and that any artist guilty of leading an irregular life was immediately 
 excluded from a profession and a brotherhood which was considered to partake in some 
 degree of the sacred character which belonged to their works — we need not feel surprised 
 at the triumph of art in that age, as compared with its decline in ours. 
 
 But the renaissance was at hand. Gothic exuberance of design had outdone 
 itself, and th e flamboyant style, as it has been termed in France and Spain, and the 
 overlaid excess of the Tudor in England, no doubt led to the dowmfall of this exquisite 
 phase of art. In contrast with the overcharged richness and the excessive multipli- 
 cation of parts exhibited by Gothic architecture at the opening of the 16th century, 
 the repose and simplicity of the remaining ruins of Greece and Rome, of the Acropolis 
 and the Forum, became highly attractive to the artistic eye; and not only the artist 
 but also the poet and historian of the age were fired with enthusiasm for the long 
 neglected majesty and grandeur of classical architecture; and indeed classical art in 
 general, for the renewed study of the poets, historians, and philosophers of Greece and 
 Rome (so long placed without the pale of study by the overwrought zeal of the 
 Romish clergy, as pagan and heretical) contributed not a little to the general and 
 active admiration of all the artistic productions of the ancients, and led to that kind 
 of retrograde step in art which had then no parallel in its history. 
 
 The intricate beauties of design and scientific niceties of construction, which 
 Gothic art had been a thousand years in perfecting, were overthrown as it were in a 
 moment. The clustering Gothic pillars were intermingled with Corinthian columns, 
 and classic scrollings of bastard acanthus usurped the place of the oak, the rue, the 
 thistle, and other national plants, which had been wrought into architectural deco- 
 rations with such exquisite skill by the matchless race of Gothic carvers, so well 
 trained to excellence by the masonic companies who had banded themselves together 
 for the practice of their glorious art. By this introduction of classic features, all 
 congruity of style was for a moment lost ; and the grossest absurdities were practised 
 in the attempt to introduce, per force, the Corinthian column, and massive Grecian 
 cornice. One of the most absurd existing examples of this sudden mania is a church 
 in Poland, in the construction of which, by bizarre conceit, the degenerate architect 
 determined to make the Roman column supersede the buttress — a feat which he 
 performed by placing the column at two feet distant from the wall, and connecting 
 it only at the top by a little bridge or beam ; thus placing a mere parasitic ornament 
 at the post of the efficient buttress, and that in a way that, so far from being a 
 support, and a counterpoise to the thrust of the roof, must have been, if anything, 
 an extra drag and dead weight pulling at the wall, as if to assist the dangerous 
 thrust of the roof. It was, however, notwithstanding this dereliction, an artistic age, 
 and the first shock of the mongrel admixture over, new styles evolved themselves, 
 which, if less scientific in construction, less intricately rich in ornamental detail, 
 and less homogeneously complete than the pure Gothic, were yet worthy the name 
 of art, in a high degree. 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 •23 
 
 The cinque-cento style (so called from having originated in the loth century in 
 Italy, where this extraordinary retrograde step preceded its perpetration in France, 
 Germany, and England) possesses extraordinary elegance ; and a long list of artistic 
 names might be cited, whose arabesque ornaments and other decorative detail, rival 
 even Greek design in exquisite grace and purity of conception and execution. But 
 in Italy the revolution was confined principally to decorative detail ; while in 
 France it effected more radical changes, growing rapidly out of revolution, to order; 
 and some of the churches, chateaux, and public fountains, erected during ther eigns of 
 Francis I. and Henri II., are exquisite models of a beautiful style, originated and 
 perfected in less than a quarter of a century. 
 
 In England, a corresponding desertion of the Gothic, and return to antique 
 forms, produced the Elizabethan style, greatly inferior either to the renaissance style 
 of France, or the cinque-cento of Italy. 
 
 All these styles eventually disappeared in a continued attempt to reproduce tire 
 Roman. Palladio in Italy, and Inigo Jones in England, and the great architects 
 of the period in France, imitated, to a certain extent, the effect of the later Roman 
 buildings, modified, however, to modern circumstances. At a somewhat later period, 
 Philibert de l’Orme and others in France, and Sangallo and many more in Italy, 
 brought the general style of architecture still nearer to what they conceived to be the 
 classical standard. 
 
 In the meantime St. Peter’s had arisen in Rome ; commenced by Bramanti in the 
 cinque-cento feeling at a time when we were still at high Gothic in the construction of 
 Henry the Seventh’s chapel at Westminster, continued by Michael Angelo, and termi- 
 nated by a later race of architects, it gave rise to St. Genevieve in Paris, and St. 
 Paul's in London ; after which, the styles of the period of Queen Anne and Louis XIV. 
 gradually lost all individual character, as they drew nearer and nearer to Roman models; 
 the French school, however, being impressed with a feeling of considerable splendour 
 by the facile pencil of Le Brun, and the exuberant imagination of Le Pautre. 
 
 After this period all original feeling appears entirely to cease ; and the middle 
 and latter half of the 18th century yields but a dreary blank to the artistic explorer. 
 
 But in England, towards the close of that century, another extraordinary 
 retrograde step took place ; and that time, it was to the long-deserted Gothic that the 
 national taste reverted — a taste fostered, if not originated, by Horace Walpole and his 
 collection at Strawberry-hill. 
 
 I have said, speaking of the age of the “ Revival” as it is termed, that it was an 
 artistic age, and that in spite of the incongruity of the materials then intermingled, 
 two or three distinct and remarkable styles were evolved. But the close of the 
 18th century was not an artistic age, and the attempt to revive the Gothic at that 
 time was a lamentable failure, as the wretched character of the repairs and additions 
 to Windsor will sufficiently exemplify, although they were executed after some years 
 of experience, had, in a degree, refined the wretched carpenter’s Gothic of Batty 
 Langley and his class into a somewhat more respectable style. 
 
 In France the public taste took an opposite direction. The paintings of David, 
 and the architecture of Messrs. Percier and Fontaine, combined with the general study of 
 
24 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART 
 
 the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, given rise to by the revolution, had imparted a 
 new impetus to classical art on the continent ; and the taste called the gout de l' Empire, 
 from being at its zenith during the reign of Napoleon, was the result of the movement. 
 It was a servile but frigid and badly felt imitation of Greek and Roman detail, with 
 no conception of the grandeur of the entire compositions. In the beginning of the 
 present century, extended travel disclosed to our artists and their patrons the superior 
 purity and elegance of Greek art over Roman ; and the publication of various 
 works on Grecian remains (of architecture, costume, painting, &c., together with the 
 importation of the Elgin marbles,) led to a perfect mania for the servile imitation 
 of Greek forms. But a similarly close imitation of the Gothic had been going on in 
 the meantime, and great improvement made ; several works of great excellence as 
 mere reproductions having been erected ; so that the confusion of taste was at its 
 acme, one party lauding Gothic to the skies, as the only Christian architecture ; 
 another declaring the Grecian the only style founded upon the true principles of art ; 
 while a third party declared for the Elizabethan, as a “national” style. In short, 
 the existing race of architects, in order to meet the public taste, were reduced to mere 
 style-mongers. Originality of thought or design was out of the question ; and no skill 
 in the practice of architecture was required, beyond a sort of cleverness in galvaniz- 
 ing dead styles into a factitious existence ; the works of bygone centuries making 
 fearful grimaces under the operation : as the bard of the time sang, without thinking 
 of architects, their 
 
 — “Galvanism set some corpses grinning.” 
 
 Not long after the epoch I am describing, the Houses of Parliament were burnt 
 down, and the style- mongering came into full play. There was to be a competition 
 for the re-building, and the competitors were (will it be believed ?) confined to two 
 “ styles,” the “ Gothic ” and the “ Elizabethan.” 
 
 The Gothic design, a very excellent one of its kind — the best perhaps that could 
 be done by the artist thus nailed down to a pattern— carried the day ; and we find 
 ourselves at the present moment, positively lavishing the national millions upon the 
 reproduction of a dead art, with all its exuberance of ornament actually outdone, in 
 the piece of exquisite sham Gothic now in the act of perpetration. Here are all 
 the unnatural lions, the knock-kneed saints, the bandy kings, and wry-necked queens, of 
 the struggling art of the 15 th century; for, in imitation, it is always the faults that are 
 most successfully imitated. Nothing could be more admirable than Gothic architecture 
 in its own age, and, as far as the knowledge of design was then developed, the details 
 were admirably wrought ; the conscientious labour, the high finish, and the beautiful 
 conception of the whole design concealing, or at least atoning for, the anatomical 
 errors of drawing : while the exaggerated crisping of the foliage, and the heraldic contor- 
 tion of animals, so vile in modern imitation, were then full of the life and spirit of the 
 time. Could we imagine Gothic art, hewing out its own course through its period of 
 repletion or over richness at the end of the 15th century, and then, purified and refreshed, 
 pursuing its course to our own time, we might behold a noble and exquisite national 
 style, which would, strictly speaking, have been still Gothic ; but how different to the 
 Gothic now rising rampant in Westminster, the Gothic of three hundred years ago 
 

 \ 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
HOLY GH RO W-L ARCHITECTURE. Ike _ EX AW HL E. _ 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 25 
 
 resuscitated as it existed then, while art, science, and general civilization, have 
 travelled so far in advance. The double return to dead forms, within the three last 
 centuries, first to the classical, and then to the Gothic, is peculiar to modern times ; 
 for no example exists of such retrograde movements, in the whole previous range of 
 art history. 
 
 In France and Germany a Gothic taste arose with the restoration of the Bourbons, 
 waging a fierce war, under the name of the Romantic style, against the republican 
 and imperial classicism. This feeling went on increasing, nearly to the extinction 
 of the classical styles, till the end of the reign of Louis Philippe, which was its most 
 brilliant epoch, when the collection of the Hotel Cluny was purchased by Government, 
 and made public ; and when the cathedral of St. Denis and the Sainte Chapelle were 
 restored, and the chapelle at Dreux constructed ; in short, when a rage for “ moyen 
 aye ” art of every description became an epidemic throughout the country. This feeling 
 received a wholesome check during the revolution of 1848, and in England, rather 
 unexpectedly, a similar one through the medium of the agitation against “ Papal 
 aggression everything connected with the church decoration of Catholic times 
 being sweepingly condemned by the dominant party. Such appears, at present, to 
 be the end of the age of style-mongering, copying, and every kind of servile repro- 
 duction. The advent of a better and more original and courageous feeling must be 
 near at hand ; but I must reserve what I have to say on that head for the conclusion 
 of the architectural section of my Ten Centuries of Art. 
 
 POLYCHROME ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The discovery, by comparatively recent students and travellers, that remains of 
 colour were observable on the columns, friezes, cornices, &c. of Grecian temples, 
 was received by some with incredulity ; by others, with that avidity which a morbid 
 thirst for novelty urges on to seize every opportunity of innovation. Polychrome 
 architecture became the theme of many pens, the routine practitioners strongly con- 
 demning it, and alleging, in support of their views, that the refined and elegant 
 Greeks could never have been guilty of such vulgar barbarism as to daub with paint 
 the spotless purity of the Parian marble. They quoted again and again the oft- 
 cited lines of our great poet, about “ painting the lily” and “ gilding refined gold 
 forgetting, in their abstract theories, that our noble Gothic cathedrals still exhibited 
 well-preserved and successful examples of a similar class of decoration, derived, no 
 doubt, from Byzantine models, in which, in a degraded form, the architectural prac- 
 tices of the elder Greeks had been preserved. 
 
 Forgetting also, that the uninteresting self-coloured interiors, exhibited by many 
 fine Gothic works as they then appeared, were produced by the ruthless whitewash 
 of the Puritans, — those Iconoclasts of the 15th century, who hated art as much as 
 they hated Popery. 
 
 Other writers and artists, on the contrary, thoroughly investigating the subject, 
 produced restored models of the Parthenon and other Greek temples, in which 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 the original colouring was restored ; the remaining traces suggesting various modes of 
 carrying out the pictorial decorations, according to the positions in which the different 
 tones of ancient colour were found. Some of these experiments were quite sufficient 
 to prove that the introduction of artificial colour and gold, even to the concealment 
 of the beautifully delicate tone of the purest pentelic marble, was far from producing 
 a barbaric effect, even when clumsily reproduced by modern hands, not trained, like 
 the Greeks, to the exquisite harmony of form and proportion with which the 
 polychrome decorations had to correspond. Suffice it to say, that the feeling in favour 
 of colour prevailed ; which, however (so far as it was founded, as supposed, on the 
 high authority of Greek models), may, to a great extent, have been wrong ; for it is 
 by no means certain that the reds and supposed blues , of which traces exist, were of 
 that brilliant tone adopted in modern restorations. 
 
 Among the ruins of an ancient Greek temple, on the site of the ancient Metapontum, 
 in Magna Grecia, the Due de Luynes discovered, during the excavations which he 
 caused to be made, several fragments of cornice, &c., on which the ancient colour- 
 ing was preserved in a perfect state ; and these colours, so far from being scarlet, 
 or ultramarine blue, consisted only of a dull but rich clay-coloured red, and of a 
 dull yellow approaching to buff, both sharply defined, in their respective patterns, by 
 black, and relieved sparingly with white ; a combination which must have been sober 
 yet grand and imposing in effect, and similar to that produced by the same combina- 
 tion of colour in Etruscan vases. 
 
 The temple of Metapontum presents a perfectly harmonious, and, at the same time, 
 appropriate system of colouring, which might be termed “ Natural Polychromy,” as the 
 entire surface of the structure was composed of an earthy cement, which thus received 
 merely such colours as those which the most common species of earth suggested, as those 
 of red, yellow, and white clay, heightened with touches of a deeper colour. I can imagine 
 a modern brick building, carried out upon such a principle of colouring, so as to pro- 
 duce a very pleasing and cheerful yet sober effect. But it must be artistically done, 
 and not confined to a few chequerings of red and black squares, which is the most 
 extensive effort at polychrome design yet essayed by our architects and builders in 
 brick structures. 
 
 Whether the Greek system of painting their temples has been correctly interpreted 
 by its modem discoverers and defenders or not, we shall see that they had not courage 
 to apply it to the exterior of any new work of importance ; the first essays in polychromic 
 architecture in the Greek feeling being confined to interiors. This may, perhaps, be 
 accounted for by the existence of more perfectly preserved ancient models for this 
 application of the system ; afforded especially by the disinterred houses of Pompeii, and 
 other Roman remains. Hence, in France, and especially in Germany, Pompeiian 
 interiors became the fashion ; and several good examples were also produced in 
 England. 
 
 But the feeling for colour soon caused more recent (that is to say mediaeval) 
 models of polychrome effect in interiors to be sought for ; and the remains of Gothic 
 colouring in our ancient cathedrals was diligently explored ; many being carefully re- 
 stored, with as much of the ancient coloured decoration as trustworthy models could 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 27 
 
 be found for ; while modem design of a more or less suitable character supplied the 
 remainder. Of this class of restoration, the Temple church is perhaps the most perfect 
 specimen ; while the Gothic church at Cheadle, built and decorated after the original* 
 design of Welby Pugin, and the interior of the House of Lords, are perhaps the best 
 examples of entirely modern works of this class. 
 
 In Germany, the most striking example of restored Gothic Polyehromy is un- 
 doubtedly the cathedral of Cologne ; and in France, the restoration of the cathedral of 
 St. Denis, and of the Sainte Chapelle, offer similar and perhaps in some respects superior 
 examples. But in the latter country, notwithstanding the recent rage for mediaeval 
 art, occasionally in some of its worst phases, interior decorations, in a semi-classical or 
 “ Italian” style, have been produced, to which we can offer no parallel in splendour. 
 The exquisite chapel in the Chausse d’Antin, the interior walls of which are entirely 
 covered with paintings on gold grounds after the Byzantine manner, is a splendid 
 example of the return to richly coloured interiors ; and yet after a manner not un- 
 worthy of modern art ; for the figures in those pictures are not distorted and misdrawn, 
 in servile imitation of mediaeval models, but executed with all the severe accuracy and 
 purity of drawing, for which the best section of the F rench school is so justly celebrated. 
 We have no modern work to compare to this. The interior of the church of La 
 Madeleine is another great work of a distinct style, though the great principle of the 
 abundant use of colour forms the basis of its internal decorations. This building was 
 commenced during the Empire, and then intended, no doubt, to be of the severest 
 simplicity, as far as colour is concerned ; the unspotted purity of the stone or marble 
 remaining intact, or at most heightened with a little gilding, sparingly introduced 
 in the capitals and most obviously inviting features. It is built upon the classic 
 model of the Pantheon at Rome, the supposed work of Vitruvius, and like that 
 structure has no windows, being exclusively lighted from the top; yet not from one 
 opening only ; for the dome of the Pantheon, with its central light, is repeated three 
 times, giving three great lights to the roof of the nave, thus formed of three successive 
 vaults or domes, which produce a fine and unusual effect. The structure of this monu- 
 ment was so often interrupted by political revolutions, that it has been but recently 
 completed ; and in the interior decorations, the severe intentions of the original plan 
 have been altogether superseded by the existing passion for colour. Richness and variety, 
 both of colour and material, have, in fact, been so splendidly wrought out, that the eye, 
 captivated by the blended richness of painting, sculpture, and gilding, scarcely perceives 
 the peculiarities of the structure, which thus do not at first strike the casual observer. 
 
 Tire walls and ceilings of the Egyptian Museum in the Louvre, and some of the 
 new apartments of the Hotel de Ville, are splendid examples of internal decoration, 
 founded rather on the works of the period of the renaissance than on classical exam- 
 ples ; such, for instance, as Fontainebleau, the old parts of the Louvre, and the palaces 
 of Italy, of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, where the profuse use of colour, in inter- 
 nal architecture, was never abandoned till the beginning of the 18th century, when the 
 servile imitation of antique remains, from which of course all remains of colour had 
 
 * As original as a re-composition of various Gothic models can be. 
 
 D 2 
 
28 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 in most cases been obliterated by time, caused a few frigid structures to be erected 
 in what was considered to be pure classical taste. 
 
 In Germany the polychromic treatment of architecture has been in general, with a 
 few examples of mediaeval monomania, of a more classical character; and as such, for want 
 of models, not so successful as the attempts of the French school. The palace, and the 
 Glypto theca and Pinacotheca of Munich, have been so sufficiently described as not to 
 require more than a passing allusion here ; and now that the first interest attaching to 
 those interesting attempts at the restoration of a lost style of art is cooled down, and the 
 first glitter and freshness of the works themselves faded, they may be fairly pronounced 
 to be, to a certain extent, failures; but they have been the means of educating a nume- 
 rous class of students of a high class to that branch of architectural decoration, which 
 must eventually lead to great results ; for the rising race of artists of every class is fast 
 emancipating itself from the thraldom of fixed styles of any epoch. An original feeling in 
 art, suited to and peculiar to the age, must evolve itself from the feeling which is induc- 
 ing the students of modern art to break through, one after another, the leading-strings 
 of authorities and precedents, and all obsolete guides and finger-posts whatsoever. In Eng- 
 land, we have worked out the principle of mediaeval polychromy in architecture with 
 fair success ; but in the classical feeling we have done little ; and it is to the pupils of the 
 great Munich school that we are at last indebted for increased activity in that direction. 
 
 Mr. Sang, and other less successful or less known artists, have been employed to 
 decorate the ceiling of our Royal Exchange, in which the classical and especially the 
 Pompeiian direction of their studies is evident. A similar class of designs has been 
 introduced by artists of the same school in some of our leading club-houses and pri- 
 vate mansions ; the success of the attempts not being always satisfactory. One of the 
 most conspicuous national attempts, at a classical style of architectural polychromy, I 
 believe, by native artists, is to be found in the new internal decorations of the British 
 Museum, where, if the entrance-hall is but tolerable, and the staircase infamously bad, 
 the gallery of antiquities promises much better, and is in some particulars excellent, 
 especially in the mass of rich red which forms the background to the statues. 
 
 But what can be said of the crude attempts at the introduction of colour on por- 
 tions, or rather a single portion, of the exterior of this building — the pediment of the 
 portico only? This small essay has surely made the pediment and its sculptured 
 decoration a disconnected patch, quite at variance, in tone and character, with all the 
 rest of the building, which still remains an unbroken mass of stone-colour. This patch- 
 work, so far from being an improvement, has produced a painful discord ; for, as Mr. 
 Hay has ingeniously pleaded, there is a close analogy between architectural effect and 
 music ; and I can imagine I hear the call, “ Resolve me that discord,” from the 
 bedridden and sensitive musician, who could not rest till a person, who on leaving the 
 room had struck a discord on the harpsichord, returned, at the repeated calls of the 
 agonised musician, and “ resolved the discord.” It is only to be resolved in the 
 facade of the British Museum by the due distribution of colour over the whole 
 elevation, a project which would require much more invention than the mere painting 
 the ground of an alto-relievo blue, and leaving the figures white, with the addition 
 of some injudicious gilding, which but increases the patchwork effect of the attempt. 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 29 
 
 The portico of St. Vincent and Paul, at Paris, which forms the leading illustra- 
 tion of this section, is an example of exterior colouring of Greek character of very 
 much higher pretence, but still imperfectly carried out ; inasmuch as some of the 
 architectural members do not correspond to the high tone of colour of others. Where 
 it is desired to make the ground of the pediment behind the statuary blue, the effect 
 might be led up to, by painting the sunk portions of the fluted columns of the same 
 colour; and when gold is used, in addition to the blue, it should be supported by gild- 
 ing in other parts of the elevation, however sparingly introduced, — in the bases and 
 capitals of the columns, for instance — when it would produce a very rich effect. The 
 paintings within the portico of St. Vincent and Paul are an ingenious variation of the 
 low reliefs in a similar position in the Parthenon ; but altogether, notwithstanding 
 great cleverness of execution, and the legitimate support afforded to the combina- 
 tions of colour, by means of the rich bronze doors, the effect is yet unsatisfactory, 
 as all revived , and of necessity imperfectly comprehended, systems must be. 
 
 The difficult questions raised by what is termed “ taste,” in the matter of artificial 
 colouring in external architecture, are not easy of solution, and not even of discussion 
 within the space that I can allot to them. But the common sense of the question, as 
 far as modern theory in art is as yet developed, would seem to stand about thus : — a 
 white ground, whether of Parian marble, or any artificial white substance, may be 
 coloured with a general tone of colour, or receive a painted pattern, because it is suited, 
 by the uniform tone of its surface, to the reception of either a plain colour or a painted 
 device. Granites and veined marbles, on the contrary, are unsuited, by the nature of 
 their owm natural colouring, to receive any artificial additions of colour, and therefore, 
 if used at all, must be considered as already coloured, by the hand of Nature. 
 
 In polychrome structures, decorative sculpture, or statuary, must, it would seem, 
 remain white, as modern feeling and “taste”* would be opposed to the addition of 
 colour in these cases ; the light and shade produced by the varieties of relief being 
 deemed a sufficient effect, which colour would only tend to confuse ; and yet the 
 chilly effect of white statuary, among richly coloured architectural decorations, of 
 which they form an integral part, must be felt as unpleasant and jarring, f It 
 
 would seem, therefore, that the introduction of statuary, in artificially coloured ex- 
 ternal architecture, is unadvisable, as well as sculpture, even of a decorative character — 
 such as foliated capitals, friezes, &c. ; for it would evidently be more consistent in such 
 cases, that the whole of the parts, intended to receive detailed decoration, should be 
 painted rather than carved ; the architect being confined to the production of surfaces, 
 of greatly varied character, suited to the reception of painted ornament ; some concave, 
 some convex, some flat, some of large extent, and some being merely a delicate moulding 
 or minute panel. By this arrangement there would be no confusion between simulated 
 and real reliefs ; and painting would play its proper part, unshackled by conflicting 
 opinions, respecting the good or bad taste of adding colour to sculpture, whether it 
 be of the human figure, or merely of foliage. 
 
 * It is nevertheless evident now, that the Greeks occasionally, if not always, painted the statuary, as well as 
 the columns, mouldings, &c. 
 
 t But the solution of this problem has yet to be solved by repeated experiments. 
 
80 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OE ART. 
 
 Upon this theory it is quite evident that grand designs of highly consistent and 
 magnificent character might be produced, which could either be treated so as to 
 produce the severest gravity of aspect, or its very opposite, the most glittering and 
 graceful lightness, as the object of the structure might require. 
 
 On the other hand, if sculpture is to be employed, which can itself receive no 
 artificial colouring, it would seem, carrying out the same theory, that no artificial 
 colouring should be allowed in the other portions of the composition. But still, 
 effects of contrast in colour might be produced, by what we may term natural poly- 
 chromy ; that is to say, colour introduced by means of naturally coloured materials. 
 For instance, the sculpture in the pediment of a portico might be composed of white 
 marble, and the ground of black marble, relieved and made to associate itself with the 
 sculpture by means of a line of white band inlaid near the edge ; while some of the 
 mouldings and the fluting of the columns might be inlaid with a few well-placed 
 and well-proportioned lines of the black; the whole being judiciously heightened in 
 effect by the addition of a little gilding, severely and sparingly applied. 
 
 That this theory is founded upon principles truly consonant with those sym- 
 pathies of association and propriety which we call <c taste,” I may illustrate by re- 
 ference to a cameo, the chaste and yet strongly contrasted effect of which is equally 
 pleasing to the educated and uneducated eye. The sardonyx, or the shell cameo, 
 please from the evidently tasteful and ingenious advantage seized by the artist to 
 produce an agreeable and striking yet natural contrast. But if we were to paint 
 the relief orange or green, or the ground blue or scarlet, the charm would evaporate 
 in an instant. The sympathies, with natural association and artistic propriety, would 
 be shocked ; and even the uneducated in art would feel it, as well as the educated, 
 though perhaps without tracing the cause to its source. The vague purple of the 
 Portland vase, though artificial, pleases on account of its approach to the natural con- 
 ditions above detailed, while the palpable light blue ground, and white reliefs of works 
 of similar character, imitated from it by the ingenious Wedgewood, at once check 
 the impulse to admire their beauty of execution and graceful design, by their 
 glaringly artificial contrast. Hence it appears, that artificial colour belongs to the 
 province of painting, and natural or innate colour to that of sculpture. In interior 
 decorations, though not in exterior ones, it would seem that the great Italian 
 architects ol the 16th century arrived instinctively at a similar theory ; for at that 
 period they, in many instances, either abandoned altogether, in some of their richest 
 works, the arabesque paintings of the preceding period, or produced nearly whole deco- 
 rative composition, by means of painting only, as in the case of the famous apart- 
 ment decorated with the story of Psyche, by the hand of Raphael, and the gallery of 
 the Farnesi palace, by Annibale Carracci, to which, indeed, might be added Michael 
 Angelo’s ceiling of the Sistine chapel. 
 
 On the other hand, where sculpture of various character was profusely introduced, 
 little or no artificial colour was resorted to ; but the architects of the asre found 
 abundant means, in the natural polychromy I am describing, to obtain the richest con- 
 ceivable combinations of colour. Of illustrations of this principle, there is no lack 
 among the fine Italian works of the period ; but while the interior of St. Peter’s 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 31 
 
 offers to my recollection an example at once so magnificent, and so completely carried 
 out, I need seek no other. 
 
 There, all is what I have termed natural polychromy; and yet the variety of 
 colour is endless. The blue is lapis-lazuli ; the violet, marble of Africa ; the orange 
 and yellow, are from the quarries of Sienna ; the green is the antique Serpentino ; the 
 red, the famed rosso-antico ; the white, the stainless stone of Carrara. All these 
 various materials, under the skilful hands of the great race of architects, who succes- 
 sively spent their lives on this vast monument, gravely dispose themselves into glorious 
 masses of light and dark, of warm and cool, of rich and sober, every mass endlessly 
 yet unobtrusively enriched with exquisite details, formed either by sculpture in relief 
 or inlaid designs ; the whole blended into one harmonious whole, by the pervading yet 
 subdued glitter of the profuse gilding. All this gorgeous richness of effect is yet at the 
 same time chaste and pure, because the spectator feels there is no sham, no artificial dye 
 or colour ; like the cameo, its contrasts and its colours appear innate, and have those 
 intimate associations with each other, that cast an atmosphere of reality and propriety 
 over all, such as the artificial can rarely attain to. 
 
 But, says the caviller, there are the pictures. No, they are no longer pictures ; 
 there is nothing of perishable canvas within the walls of St. Peter’s ; the pictures 
 have been transmuted to stone. In the atteliers of' the Vatican, the masterpieces of 
 Italy’s great painters have been, as it were, by some magical alchemy, wrought into 
 imperishable stone, for the decoration of Italy’s greatest temple; and those results 
 of the admirable skill of the Mosaic workers, are truly astonishing results of repro- 
 ductive art. They are, in perfection and execution, superior to the finest Mosaics 
 of antiquity; so perfect, in fact, that a stranger might walk through St. Peter’s, 
 and admire its gallery of pictures, without perceiving that they had become stone, 
 or that they formed an integral part of those vast walls, as imperishable as the 
 building itself. 
 
 From this and other examples I come to the conclusion, finally, that artificial 
 polychromy must be confined to painting in its decorative features, while natural 
 polychromy must be confined to sculpture. 
 
 In colouring the various materials used in architecture, both of a monumental 
 character, and in ordinary building, it would seem that the colours may nearly always 
 be arbitrary, and at the taste of the architect or decorator. Iron, for instance, from 
 being of uniform colour, may fitly receive either an unvaried coating of some arbitrary 
 tone, or a pattern of suitable design, of any colour; but in the case of iron I should 
 prefer a violet tone, such as steel assumes at a certain heat, varied by a dull orange, 
 such as is produced by rust, either or both relieved with white, such colours being 
 naturally associated with the idea of iron ; and I cannot help fancying that those tones 
 would have produced a better effect in the iron-work of the Crystal Palace, than the 
 undecided and somewhat leaden blue and subdued yellow which have been employed. 
 
 Copper might be coloured with its own soft red tone, relieved with masses, or 
 tracery of light verdigris green heightened with black ; and so of the artificial colouring 
 of other substances. This is perhaps a somewhat fanciful theory ; and a perfectly 
 arbitrary choice of colour might supersede it, if any special advantage were in view. 
 
32 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 The artificial colouring of all colourless plaster, or all compounded materials, such 
 as lime, cement work, &c., may of course be completely arbitrary; as the compost 
 is a mixture on which no immediate associations can fix; though I have said, in 
 speaking of the temples at Metapontum, that well-known earthy colours, like those 
 of the red, yellow, and white clays, heightened with black, have an agreeable affinity 
 with such structures as we perceive to be formed of manipulated earths. The one 
 thing to avoid in colouring or painting such substances, and indeed any other, is 
 positive imitation of another natural substance, such as granite, rare marble, &c., 
 which, as a sort of “sham,” is always repulsive to the eye of pure and cultivated taste ; 
 while a system of decorating buildings so composed, by means, either of perfectly 
 arbitrary colours, or colours associated with the nature of the material, appear a 
 consistent, indeed indispensable portion of their artistic manipulation. In concluding 
 this attempt to describe portions of the past progress and the future prospects of 
 architecture, I must allude again to its chances of progressive originality. 
 
 THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 
 
 I have made some few remarks on the influence likely to be produced by the 
 prominent position in which the purpose of the soi-disant “ Crystal Palace” has placed 
 structures composed of glass and iron. The conservatory at Kew, that at Sion-house, 
 that at Chatsworth, or the one in the Regent’s-park, all predecessors to the Crystal 
 Palace, exhibited, equally well as the last-named structure, all that has yet been 
 done with iron and glass. At the time the duty was taken off that material, writings 
 innumerable, by persons interested in the progress of the arts of civilization, especially 
 domestic architecture, eloquently advocated glass roofs, &c., accompanying their writings 
 by designs and suggestions of a various and occasionally original character; but all these 
 things fell flatly upon the public attention, which could only be roused by some such 
 event as the international exhibition. The building made to contain the great 
 show of the whole world’s industry, though differing in no essential point from the 
 well-known structures above enumerated, except in dimensions, became, to the general 
 public, a striking novelty, which the name of the Crystal Palace tended, in no slight 
 degree, to impress upon the public mind. It became an excellent and conspicuous 
 advertisement for the iron and glass principle of building; and thus, as being the means 
 of weaning the ever-conservative feelings of national taste from old prejudices, or sluggish 
 inattention, to new paths of improvement, has created a great good ; and now, when 
 public attention is all curious to see the Crystal Palace principle applied to all classes of 
 buildings, let us briefly consider to what architectural modifications it might lead, if 
 followed out. 
 
 One of the first, occurring to the speculative architect, would be that caused 
 by the fact that light being admitted through all parts of the surface of such a 
 building, no special windows would be required; thus entirely altering the whole 
 physiognomy of any structure, carried out upon the principle of the Crystal Palace, 
 and leading inevitably to new combinations of form, and entirely new effects. But 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 33 
 
 these new architectural features (which might become very beautiful if carefully 
 developed by truly artistic minds, sensitively alive to properties and peculiarities of the 
 new materials they might have to deal with) must clearly be confined to a small class of 
 buildings of special character, such as public galleries, and buildings of that character, as 
 in domestic dwellings, and even public offices, privacy is as much a requirement as 
 shelter ; and one cannot imagine, without a shudder of sympathetic discomfort, the 
 situation of a family sleeping, dressing, eating, &c. , within the translucent and fragile 
 walls of a crystal home ; or a staff of post-office or banking clerks curiously exhibited 
 at work, like bees in a glass hive, should crystal post-offices and banks be constructed. 
 
 Nevertheless, the great extension of the use of iron, glass, and other artificial 
 materials, is much to be desired ; and although their use in the Crystal Palace has 
 not suggested to its constructors any new principles of importance, beyond what had 
 been previously developed in the Kew conservatory, and other similar structures; 
 yet the very fact of putting a glass-house to some other use than the protection of 
 delicate plants, is itself an innovation which must lead to many more. 
 
 In the next effort, to which the crude first essay will necessarily lead, we 
 shall doubtless have some attempt at decorative design in the vertical and other sup- 
 ports, in which, appropriate ornament will grow out of the special functions of each 
 member of the structure, which, in a new material, must inevitably lead to new com- 
 binations of lines ; especially to the introduction of tracery of light and graceful 
 character, delicately framing the transparent crystal, and charming the eye by a 
 thousand playful variations of exquisite form, such as the properties of the materials 
 so naturally suggest. 
 
 But beyond a crude combination of iron and glass alone, I conceive that other 
 new materials must lend their aid, which, possessing requisite qualities, will supply the 
 wants so keenly felt in the first imperfect attempts. I allude more especially to a com- 
 bination of glazed earthenware with glass, by which means we shall obtain a due 
 proportion of opaque substance in both wall and roof ; while the glassy surface of the 
 porcelain will harmonize most homogeneously with the glass itself. These will form, as it 
 were, an exquisitely tinted clothing to the iron skeleton ; and by this combination we 
 shall possess all the old requirements of domestic dwellings, with many new advantages. 
 
 In the first place, in our coal burning towns, our houses will present a surface 
 to the atmosphere, to which the sooty deposits, so disfiguring our present architec- 
 ture, will not adhere. In the second place, no triennial coating of new paint will be 
 required, as the fresh and delicate tints of the vitrified surface will not injure by 
 time, but will endure as long as the building lasts. In the third place, the 
 most highly wrought effects of polychrome architecture may be attained in a most ex- 
 quisite and appropriate manner, the rich designs of which will not be liable to perish 
 like the exterior frescoes of the palaces of Italy, but be as endurable as the china 
 tower of Nankin, or the elaborate porcelain tombs of Hindoostan ; for the building of 
 houses of crockery is no new-fangled idea, and their durability has been well tested by 
 the monuments above alluded to, which have defied the ravages of centuries. 
 
 The crude attempts at the use of Dutch and other glazed tiles in the exterior 
 of buildings, bears no analogy either to the style of the ancient monuments I have 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 named, or to the style in which I conceive porcelain may he used in modern 
 buildings ; for I am imagining not a mere parasitic casing, but a design carried out, 
 ab ovo, with reference to the especial qualities of the new material, which should be 
 adapted, in form and density, in a totally new and appropriate manner to its new 
 purpose. I can conceive a sparkling and brilliant, yet massive and durable, style of 
 architecture growing out of the proper use of these materials, to which the history 
 of the art can afford no parallel, the pictorial decorations of which, burnt in beneath 
 the glaze, would be a part of the wall itself ; and they might be made as elaborately 
 rich, or as chastely simple, as desired, according to the destination of the building. 
 
 I had in preparation several large designs of the character suggested above, for 
 the Exhibition of 1851 ; but the definitive notice of the impossibility of their admit- 
 tance, after the 31st of March, compelled me to abandon them for that time. 
 
 The last point I shall allude to, as an advantage which ought to be made to grow 
 out of the use of new materials (indeed it ought to have done so out of the old ones), 
 is the more complete and permanent structure of roofs. 
 
 The Greeks, in their most perfect temples, constructed the exterior of the roof 
 of marble, the effect of which was as carefully studied in its general form and orna- 
 mental detail as any other part of the building, — quite as much so as the columns and 
 their entablature, to which most of the antiquarian studies of modern architects have 
 been principally confined. 
 
 The Romans, in the best period of their artistic development, roofed the more con- 
 spicuous public buildings with bronze, which was frequently gilt, and was of a character as 
 permanent as the rest of the building. But with the decline of classical architecture the 
 true character of the roof, really the most important part of a building, as mainly affording 
 that shelter, to obtain which the whole building was erected, was lost sight of ; and 
 though we find the Gothic architects constructing vaulted roofs, in the designs of 
 which they displayed perhaps the highest structural science of which the history of 
 art affords any example ; yet, the exterior of the same roof, instead of being so designed 
 as to harmonize with the rest of the building, was simply a rude covering of sheet lead, or 
 glazed tiles ; and examples of the latter may be still seen in some of the churches of Naples. 
 
 But though mediaeval monuments do not exhibit, in the exterior of their roofs, 
 those characters of evident permanence, or of homogeneous accordance with the 
 structural character of the rest of the building, yet they were ever ornamental. A rich 
 fringing of pierced metal work generally crested the highest ridge ; and elaborately 
 designed vanes, or ornamental pinnacles of similar character to the cresting, rose in 
 many quaint spiral forms from the angles. This was the case also in private dwellings; 
 though the vane was not used upon the roof of houses inhabited by persons below the 
 rank of a knight, as it indicated the right of the lord of the dwelling to bear a banner. 
 
 Gradually, however, though inexplicably, the feeling of decorating the roof gave way . 
 even in superior buildingsand public monuments; parapets ornamented with balustrades, 
 &c., being adopted to conceal the nakedness and poverty of the crown of the building. 
 
 One can hardly conceive a skilful architect, commissioned to construct a palace 
 for some wealthy person, making use of the most permanent materials in the walls 
 and in the interior, and ornamenting them with every refinement within the reach 
 
ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 35 
 
 of lavish expenditure ; and yet, in the roof, the crowning completion of his structure 
 — that portion which has most to contend with in its contact with heat, cold, 
 rain, and snow — being contented with a few timber scantlings, slightly boarded, 
 upon which are nailed some little squares of slate or tile till the whole is covered in. This 
 wretched piece of patchwork, so unworthy of the high name of architecture, the con- 
 structor partially conceals, it is true, with a high parapet, or some other shabby 
 device ; but concealment is a poor contrivance, and in this instance something worse. 
 
 It appears to me that the exterior of the roof is not only not to be slighted, but to 
 be designed and constructed with greater care, greater beauty, and greater permanence, 
 both as to material and structure, than any other portion of the building, of which it 
 should be the crowning ornament, as much as the capital is of the column. 
 
 But it is its permanence, both of appearance and real character, that I most 
 strongly urge, as one of the principles in architectural design likely to lead to more 
 striking and magnificent as well as more beneficial innovations, than any other 
 reform. I trust, at all events, that mere routine architecture, as I have before said 
 in this article, has nearly had its day; — and it is high time ; for voices, though few, 
 have been long raised against it. I myself, fifteen years ago, in an article in 
 “ Loudon’s Architectural Magazine,” advocated strongly those views of architectural 
 progress, which are in favour of working out a national and original style, imbued 
 with the true artistic spirit of the age ; and I then alluded to a more copious use of 
 glass and iron, as likely, if employed with a true understanding of their qualities as 
 building materials, to lead to originality of a striking character, taking care neither 
 to make iron simulate the proportions of stone, (as the Greeks had made stone wear 
 the costume of wood) ; nor to make glass play the part, when associated with iron, 
 which it did when associated with stone or brick. Many of the aspirations I then 
 conceived have since been realized in the construction of our noble railway stations ; 
 with their far-stretching roofs, so strong and yet so slight ; and their slender columns, so 
 taper, and yet, as iron, so all-sufficient for their purpose. The Crystal Palace too, 
 as I have said, has marked an advance in the right direction, and though it does not 
 exhibit the amount of artistic design, which might have been attained without 
 increasing the expense ; and although it has been called “ a vast cucumber frame,” 
 and although Mr. Owen Jones’s blue and yellow columns have been called “ barber’s 
 poles,” yet, the whole is so highly satisfactory, as being excellently adapted to its 
 special purpose — a necessarily ephemeral one — that its success has been complete, in 
 spite of cavils. But its real merits are jeopardized by the injudicious excitement of 
 its producers and their friends, who, if they succeed in establishing it permanently, as 
 one of the monuments of this metropolis, will assuredly bring down upon it such 
 criticism, as would be out of place if applied to the ephemeral palace of a season, and 
 from which it is now shielded by the triumphant success of the international exhibi- 
 tion, but which would assuredly, and justly, handle it very severely as a permanent 
 building. Against such an intention I would protest, even if I stood alone, whether 
 it were for the purpose of a winter garden or a statue gallery, or for an occasional 
 exhibition room, or any other purpose. First, on the grounds just stated; and 
 secondly, because we are too great a nation to purchase our luxuries second-hand. If 
 
 E 2 
 
36 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 we want a winter garden, we can surely afford to build one, — and a splendid one 
 too, — a structure specially designed for the purpose, and with a view to permanence. 
 W e surely can get a winter garden without purchasing a cast-off exhibition building ; 
 and if we want a better public gallery of art than we possess, we surely can afford to 
 build that too, and not allow ourselves to be persuaded that we had better buy a thing 
 to make a national gallery of which has already served another turn. 
 
 But to return to glass and iron. All innovations, successful or not, are good signs ; 
 and surely with such a view we cannot have much more measuring out of Ionic, or 
 Doric, or Corinthian by the yard, when a new metropolitan monument is required ; the 
 architect merely directing his clerk to make out a neat drawing of a portico of so 
 many columns, Doric or Ionic, au c/ioix, with lateral extensions or wings to match ; 
 such as I could point out in an important metropolitan monument of recent date, 
 one so recent as not yet to be completed. Surely we cannot witness the erection of 
 many more “castellated” mansions, made up of a gateway from Battle-abbey, a 
 series of windows from Haddon-hall, and other pretty fragments from some well- 
 known Gothic abbey, or Tudor manor-house ; the whole patchwork so neatly 
 “ fine-drawn,” as not to show the seams. No ; a better spirit of design is abroad ; a 
 more original feeling is arising ; and old forms and principles will be gradually super- 
 seded by new ones, arising out of the genius, the feelings, the habits, the science? 
 and the special form of civilization of the present age. 
 
 But the transition must be gentle — must be well felt — must arise out of the capa- 
 bilities of the materials, and the character and purpose of the structure; both of 
 which will present continually new themes for the inventive and adaptive genius of 
 the coming race of architects. 
 
 We must have no rush at supposed originality, by merely abruptly changing 
 superficial forms, like the Court architect, in a recent reign, who composed what he 
 termed a “ new order,” dubbing it “ The Georgian,” as distinct from the Corinthian, 
 inasmuch as the ostrich feathers of the royal crest were substituted for the 
 acanthus leaves of the Grecian capital. Such puerile innovations, however, had their 
 day ; but a new style must now be born in spirit as well as in form. Its principle of 
 construction must arise gradually, out of the nature of its materials ; and its decorations, 
 out of the form of its structure, and its purpose ; and thus true originality will be 
 attained ; for it must be borne in mind that a new style is not invented like a new 
 watch-spring, or a new method of cutting envelopes. No ; a new style in art is not 
 invented, it grows ! yet not spontaneously ; it requires sedulous and continual 
 culture ; its soil, is progressive civilization, and its stimulants, are ever-renewed appli- 
 cations of human genius, diluted with sound common sense, and applied, not only 
 with untiring industry, but with enthusiasm, with devotion, with love — yes, love 
 especially. “ Love,” as Emmerson has beautifully said, “is our highest word and, 
 with reference to art, it is indeed the Promethean spark which gives it vitality — 
 
 “ Ah, how skilful grows the hand. 
 
 That obeyeth Love’s command ; 
 
 It is the heart and not the brain, 
 
 That to the highest doth attain. ’’ — Longfellow. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 S CULPTURE holds a higher place among the fine arts than Architecture, 
 because its origin and development are founded upon moral or intellectual 
 wants, rather than physical ones. Architecture originated in providing man 
 with his dwelling, his shelter, thus appealing first to mere material wants ; while 
 sculpture, starts from higher ground, and only appeals to the imagination — and 
 to that portion of it, the spiritual perception of the beautiful, the cultivation of 
 which, is one of the highest duties of civilization. 
 
 Sculpture ranks above painting also, because its highest qualities partake more of 
 the ideal ; it is confined to the domain of form alone,* in which it reaches the highest 
 attainments of art, without the aids of colour or perspective ; and, above all, sup- 
 ports the gaze of the scrutinizing eye of criticism from every side, instead of merely 
 presenting a single aspect to the spectator, like a picture. 
 
 From these causes, and others, the development of purely ideal beauty, and the 
 most perfect symmetry of form, have been sought and developed to a greater 
 extent in sculpture than in the sister arts. Its origin, too, has been higher ; for while 
 the first works of the first architect must have been, as I have said, the hut which 
 was to be his dwelling, and painting, according to the graceful Grecian fable, is said 
 to have originated in the attempt to reproduce the positive features of a particular 
 individual, by marking permanently the outline of a shadow, cast by the light of a 
 lamp upon the wall, — sculpture, on the other hand, arose neither by providing for a 
 material want, nor by a servile imitation of the features of a particular individual ; 
 but from the attempt to idealize the form of a deity — to create an object, which should 
 symbolize in material form the character .of a superior being The first attempt may have 
 occurred first, in Egypt, or in Central Asia ; but the earliest steps in art are similar in all 
 countries, without the necessity of supposing any communication between them. To 
 Greek sculpture alone I shall therefore look for examples, for its infant steps, as its after 
 development, was more splendid in Greece than in any other region, and the noble 
 works of Grecian artists remain still unrivalled. The first attempts were, in Greece 
 
 * I shall only be able to glance in another place at Torreutie and coloured sculpture, the Chryselephan- 
 tine works, &c. & c. 
 
38 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 as elsewhere, of the rudest and most simple character ; yet, in its rudeness and 
 simplicity the infancy of Grecian art was never grotesque. The noble organization 
 of this peculiar race appears to have prevented them from producing such hideous 
 conceptions, even in their first attempts, as the earliest idols of the Chinese, or of 
 those savage races not discovered till modern times. Yet the beginnings were rude. 
 The earliest known representations of the gods were simply a column of wood, of 
 about the height of a human being ; the most ancient statues of the twin Dioscuri, 
 as recorded by Greek writers, being two such wooden columns, joined together by a 
 connecting bar of the same material. 
 
 That such was really the origin of that school of sculpture, carried to such 
 perfection by later artists, is a fact curiously borne out by the Greek word xiouv, which 
 expresses equally a column or a statue. These wooden statues, or rather symbols of 
 deities, were made of peculiar woods; thus, the statues of Dionysius, the Greek 
 Bacchus, who was also god of figs, were made of the wood of the fig tree ; and other 
 woods were adopted for other statues through similar associations. The veneration in 
 which these rude works of wood were held, caused later sculptors, even when the art 
 was fully developed, to contiuue the ancient practice, and many fine statues in wood 
 existed in the time of Pausanias. 
 
 A similar practice existed in other countries deriving their ci\ilization directly 
 or indirectly from Greece ; and we learn from a passage in Cicero, that such was the 
 early practice in Borne, for he states that the ancient statues of Romulus and of Numa, 
 preserved in the capitol, were of wood. 
 
 It may easily be conceived that an attempt to develop the form of the head as 
 the seat of mind and of expression, should precede any attempt to reproduce the entire 
 figure, in the form of a perfect statue ; and, in fact, it was the upper part of the 
 column of w'ood alone, which received the first truly sculptural development ; and the 
 form thus appearing, that of a head surmounting a simple and unwrought trunk, no doubt 
 suggested the later Hermes, which continued to be executed long after perfect statues 
 had been executed by skilful artists. The feet were next added ; and in the struggle 
 to execute these sculptured portions with increasing perfection, they were occasionally 
 made of stone, while the trunk remained of w T ood. Slight hollows scooped in the 
 trunk, next suggested the proportions of the legs and arms, and by degrees they 
 became more and more perfectly executed, till, like a similar phase of art in Egypt, 
 where it became finally permanent, those members were perfectly executed, in a certain 
 stiff manner, while they yet remained attached to the trunk. 
 
 So great was the effect produced by the next step in art, or rather series of 
 steps, which eventually detached the arms and legs from their adhesion through 
 their whole length to the trunk, that this great advance was assigned by the imagina- 
 tive Greeks to a superior being, possessed of more than ordinary powers, whom they 
 personified under the name of Daedalus ; who is said to have been the first to give 
 “ a life-like effect to statues a passage which no doubt refers to the great improve- 
 ment effected, by detaching and giving the effect of action to the arms and legs. 
 
 The existence of this imaginary personage, called Daedalus, is assigned to the 
 age of Theseus ; and the inventions attributed to him, are both artistic and 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 39 
 
 mechanical ; as he is said to have invented wings of wood, fastened on with wax, 
 with which he escaped from the persecutions of Minos in Crete ; while his son 
 Icarus, whom he had similarly furnished, flying too near the sun, melted the wax, 
 and fell into that part of the JEgean sea which is called after him, the Icarian. 
 
 Such was the mode in which the Greeks testified their admiration of the 
 progress of art, by concentrating the successive advances of several generations of 
 sculptors in the person of one superhuman individual, whom they marked as a secon- 
 dary divinity. It is possible, however, that a real Daedalus actually existed, and 
 practised the art of sculpture, making, probably, great improvements, though not 
 concentrating within his own career, and perfecting at one leap all that is fabulously 
 attributed to him ; and the existence of a true Daedalus is rendered the more probable, 
 as art, or rather its profession, was then hereditary ; and Socrates, the great phi- 
 losopher, but wretched sculptor, claimed to be a Daedal, by hereditary descent. 
 Pausanias mentions several wooden statues by Daedalus, as existing in his time. 
 
 The next step in Grecian sculpture may be generally illustrated by those works 
 discovered among the ruins of vEgina, which, although they display well conceived 
 dramatic action in the limbs, have yet nearly all the stiffness of the Egyptian style. 
 The neat execution, and formal draperiefe of this period of Grecian art, accord in 
 effect with what was once generally known as the Etruscan style, but which now 
 receives the name of archaic, though that term, founded on the Greek word 
 afxajios, ( old ,) would equally well apply to any ancient and imperfect style. 
 
 It is most probable, as 1 have stated, that the art of sculpture originated and 
 developed itself independently in Egypt, Asia, and all south western and southern 
 Europe, much after the same manner as I have described it to have done in Greece. 
 But while in Egypt it attained to a certain point, and then remained stationary, in 
 Persia and Assyria it advanced beyond that period, and we find in the recently 
 disenterred sculptures of Khorsabad and Nimroud, certain characters, especially the 
 exaggerated expression of the muscles of the legs and arms, which no doubt afforded 
 the Greeks and Macedonians the first hint, for that style which is expressed on a small 
 scale in the types of coins attributed to Lete, and to some of the earliest princes of 
 the Macedonian monarchy, before the neat archaic style of MCgina had fully 
 developed itself. This latter has been termed the hieratic style, as used principally 
 under the supervision of the priesthood for the decoration of temples. Many works 
 executed under hieratic influence were accurate copies of former statues, the very 
 defects of which had become sanctified by age and antique worship, and it was not till 
 more popular subjects began to be treated, that the art made great strides towards 
 perfection. 
 
 By the hand of Phidias sculpture was carried to the highest pitch, which 
 was indeed a point of grandeur never afterwards reached, although the art became 
 more generally practised, and in more popular forms, and although a noble series of 
 illustrious names succeeded that of the great friend of Pericles in the history of 
 Grecian sculpture. Although the works of Praxiteles, the possible author of the 
 matchless Venus ; Lysippus, who alone was permitted the privilege of producing por- 
 traits of Alexander; of Scopas, the author of many works of world-wide celebrity, 
 
40 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 and the productions of many other artists, were some of them superior in execution 
 and finish, and a species of refined grace; yet the great Phidias remained the 
 Michael Angelo of Grecian art, unapproached in a certain sublimity of conception 
 and breadth of treatment which were entirely his own ; and which we may still 
 admire in the wonderful metopes of the Parthenon, and other magnificent fragments 
 in our great Museum. 
 
 It may be said of the Greek school of sculpture in general, that the realization 
 of an ideal beauty was carried by these great artists to a higher pitch than it has 
 ever since attained ; the solemn grandeur of omnipotence was expressed in the Greek 
 conception of the form of Jupiter, in such majesty as defies approach; the highest 
 ideal grace and youthful symmetry and beauty in the form of man, was attained in 
 the matchless realization of the Apollo, while the most perfect loveliness of idealized 
 beauty is the female form shone forth, “ as if it gave out a light,” in the marble 
 which Grecian hands had shaped to personify the goddess of love. 
 
 But I pass rapidly over the excellent phases in which Grecian sculpture 
 displayed various classes of beauty, after its zenith in Athens, in the time of Pericles, 
 and its wonderful extension and popularization after the conquests of Alexander the 
 Great, and under the Greek princes of Syria and Egypt, till the subjection of these 
 regions to the power of Rome. 
 
 I must however state, en passant, that the most marked characteristic of Greek 
 sculpture, after the conquests of Alexander, when great schools of art arose at 
 Seleucia, Pergamus, Ephesus, Alexandria, &c., was the more abundant production of 
 portrait statues of princes, often in the character, and with the attributes of gods. It 
 is to this period also, that most of the purely poetical, or descriptive subjects may be 
 assigned, and many important groups, such as that of the Laocoon, and that of the 
 Farnesian Bull, a still larger composition, now existing in the Neapolitan collection. 
 
 Still more extensive groups are mentioned by ancient authors, such as those 
 representing the great victories of Attalus and Eumenes over the Gauls, which, if the 
 conjecture be correct, that the famous “ dying gladiator” of the Vatican is a Gaul 
 belonging to one of these groups, must have been of the very highest excellence. The 
 lighting gladiator of the Borghesi collection, now in the Louvre, is also supposed to 
 have formed part of a battle scene of a similar class. Poetical subjects of a popular 
 character were at this time multiplied to a vast extent for galleries of the wealthy ; 
 while the statues of the gods were no longer original designs, as in the earlier phases 
 of the art, but were confined to reproductions of forms now rendered sacred by antique 
 worship ; and works of the archaic period even were reproduced with a degree of 
 elegance, which greatly puzzled our earlier archaiologists, who imagined these to be 
 really works of the archaic period. 
 
 I have been unable in the present space to trace the first dawnings of Greek 
 sculpture of a popular character on the early coinage, or to suggest that the group 
 of the centaur carrying off a female, on the money of Lete, may have been the distant 
 prototype of the metopes of the Parthenon. I at once hurry on to the sculpture 
 of the Romans, which must be dismissed with brief notice. At the foundation of the 
 empire by Au 0 ustus, the Romans appear to have been thoroughly imbued with 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 41 
 
 profound admiration of the arts of newly subjugated Greece, Sicily, and other 
 countries more advanced in art than themselves. Greek artists flocked to Home, to 
 bask in the sunshine of the new centre of the Empire ; and works executed during 
 the reigns of the first Caesars, almost equal the finest monuments of Greece. 
 Native artists appear also to have been formed under the tuition of the Greeks, and 
 to have established a school distinctly Roman. Pliny mentions the names of several 
 eminent sculptors, who were Roman citizens, and the originality of the school so 
 formed, is further proved by the execution of the Roman coinage of that period, 
 which bears a character perfectly distinct from Greek monuments of the same class, 
 and in some respects claims a sort of superiority over them. In alto and basso 
 relievo, the Romans attained also to great excellence in a style peculiarly their own. 
 But the arts of the great Empire decayed with its political prosperity, and at the fall 
 of its western portion beneath repeated barbaric invasions, sculpture had sunk into 
 a mere adjunct of architecture ; and in that character, was of the most debased descrip- 
 tion of art. 
 
 Sufficient, however, remained to form a spark from which a new school was to 
 be ignited ; and with the aid of somewhat better models occasionally finding their 
 way from Constantinople, in the form of reliquaries decorated with miniature reliefs, 
 modern sculpture shaped out its rude beginnings. 
 
 MODERN SCULPTURE. 
 
 It is now that we begin to examine those works which serve to illustrate the 
 last ten centuries of artistic progress. England, after its desertion by Rome, exhibits 
 a dreary blank of several centuries, as far as art is concerned — the only artistic pro- 
 ductions being the curious illuminated gospels of the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, which 
 display a quaint and original style of elaborate ornamentation peculiar to themselves. 
 In sculpture, however, nothing exists to mark the art of those periods. In France, on 
 the other hand, some fragments of sculpture remain of what may be termed a 
 Gallo- Roman style ; the interest of which, as a link in the history of art, has been 
 pointed out by recent archaiologists. This kind of debased Roman art is found 
 principally developed in alto-relievos over the doorways and other portions of the 
 church architecture of the period. 
 
 But it is from about the period of Charlemagne that our ten centuries of art 
 must commence their progress, and about that epoch may be said to originate the 
 truly distinct feeling in art which separates ancient and modern sculpture into two 
 utterly distinct schools. 
 
 The debased Byzantine feeling in sculpture, which found its way through the 
 eastern countries of Europe to France and England at this period, strongly tinges 
 the character of the art both in France and even England at that time ; and exercised 
 more or less influence till the 12th or 13th centuries, when it was effaced by the then 
 rapidly rising originality of the arts of Western Europe. The works of sculpture of 
 the period comprised between the 9th and 13 th centuries, are exclusively of an 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 ecclesiastical character, and consist almost entirely of alto-relievos, representing 
 different passages in the life of Christ, more or less symbolically treated, and figures 
 of the Apostles, Evangelists, &c., after the same style. Though, in some cases, it is 
 supposed that such sculptures occasionally represent chronologically arranged series of 
 princes, as Mr. Cockerel has attempted to show in the supposed range of Saxon kings 
 on the facade at Wells, so interestingly described in his “Iconography of Wells 
 Cathedral.” But a more genuine and. better authenticated class of iconographic 
 sculpture began to appear in the sepulchral monuments, on which the effigies of the 
 first crusaders are sculptured with admirable fidelity of individual character ; their 
 chain mail, their massive swords, and their “ crossed” legs, expressing so vividly the 
 energy and the fanaticism of the age. 
 
 Recumbent figures on sepulchral monuments may be traced back to Roman art, 
 many sarcophagi of the later Roman periods having figures of that class on the fids. 
 But they are generally slightly raised on one arm, as in the act of speaking to, or 
 looking towards the spectator. 
 
 Etruscan monuments of a similar character exist of a still earlier period, and 
 frequently in miniature, the precise intention of which is difficult to determine. 
 Whether the modern monuments were immediately derived from these, as is most pro- 
 bable, some Gallo-Roman examples appearing to furnish the connecting link, is im- 
 possible to determine with certainty, or whether the idea was derived more directly from 
 Constantinople, it is sufficient to note that the Gothic treatment appears more poetic 
 and felicitous, as the personages are represented in perfect repose, as sleeping, which 
 produces that solemn stillness of effect so beautifully in keeping with the quiet and 
 sanctity of the Gothic aisles, in which their tenants repose. 
 
 From the 13th to the 15th centuries, the art of sculpture was still confined to the 
 alto-relievo, and semi-detached statuary on the exterior of the great Gothic cathedrals, 
 and to the sepulchral monuments within. In the 14th century the latter attained the 
 highest excellence in the truly Gothic phase of the art, to which every link of pro- 
 gress for nearly two centuries exhibits some new and exquisitely worked-out features 
 of ornament or general structure, till, at the close of the 15th century, the richness 
 and beauty of these works, combining the skill of the ornamentalist, the architect, 
 and the sculptor, attained the culminating point of excellence. 
 
 The figures, as in the earlier periods, were still recumbent ; and the arms 
 generally joined over the breast, with the hands palm to palm, raised piously in prayer ; 
 characteristics alike predominating in the tombs of nobles, prelates, or princes ; while 
 above, rich canopies of fretted stone suspended their elaborate tracery, often of most 
 exquisite design, and wrought with a patient and persevering labour and high finish, 
 which is one of the most beautiful characteristics of the art of the period, when life 
 must have been sacrificed on its altar regardless of any guerdon or reward beyond the 
 excellence of the work, which would seem to have been the artist’s only recompense, 
 and beyond the artistic love of which he looked not. 
 
 Up to this epoch, sculpture may be said to have been confined to such works as 
 just described. No subjects of a popular character having appeared, the temple and 
 the tomb absorbed the art of those ages, and imparted to them a sombre grandeur or 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 43 
 
 sedate grace, which, in the more poetical and popular works of the later epochs of 
 the art, were gradually superseded by a more worldly tone, and a lighter character. 
 
 The 16th and 17 th centuries saw the extinction of Gothic sculpture as w r ell as 
 Gothic architecture, and beheld the rise in their places of a new school of art, 
 partly founded on ancient Roman models ; yet the sepulchral monuments lost none of 
 their elaboration, though it appeared in another feeling. In fact, elaborate richness in 
 these monuments was even increased both in material and workmanship. A single 
 figure, with its canopy, was no longer deemed sufficient ; and the prodigality of wealth, 
 which in former centuries had been spent in the erection of cathedrals, was now lavished 
 upon a single tomb. Groups of attendant statues stood around, as it were guarding the 
 “ mighty dead,” as in the magnificent tomb of Maximilian, at Inspruck ; or supporting 
 the elaborately enriched slab upon which the recumbent statues of the dead lie in 
 their robes of state ; a second slab in the shade beneath the upper one, showing the 
 same bodies, stripped of their earthly trappings, and exhibiting the first dark traces 
 of “ death’s effacing finger,” wrought with fearful reality, as in the tomb of Louis 
 XII. at St. Denis. The tomb of Francis I. at the same place, of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella in Spain, the tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster, by the hand of an 
 Italian sculptor, and many fine works in other capitals of Europe, exhibit a similar 
 style of splendour, which died out at the close of the 17 th century. Of the last 
 portion of this period, the tombs of the Popes in St. Peter’s at Rome, form the 
 most magnificent series of examples, composed of a combination of rich marbles, 
 bronze, and gilding, which have been wrought into wonderfully homogeneous com- 
 positions of unique splendour, by the Italian artists of the period. 
 
 The works of Cicognara and d’Agincourt exhibit an interesting series of the 
 sepulchral monuments of Italy, which in their peculiar phase of Gothic, and after- 
 wards in their matchless cinque-cento period, make a most beautiful series of examples 
 of art progress. 
 
 I have extended my brief remarks upon sepulchral monuments beyond the close 
 of the 15th century, in order to dispose finally of that branch of my subject, and 
 must now retrace my steps to the close of the 15 th century, at which period modern 
 sculpture of a popular character may be said to commence. 
 
 Popular sculpture, — the sculpture of romance, of poetry, and of history, — only 
 began to put forth its first tender shoots as the influence of hieratic or rather 
 ecclesiastical sculpture decayed. 
 
 It was in Italy that sculpture of a character distinct from that of the church 
 first appeared. The discovery of the classical works of antiquity, turned up from 
 time to time, began to be appreciated as early as the first half of the 1 5th century, 
 and its study led to the production of works of a somewhat similar character. Ten- 
 dencies towards the cultivation of sculpture, as something more than a decorative 
 adjunct of architecture, commenced in Italy as early as the 12th century, and it is 
 most probable that its first steps were made at Pisa, where Bonano, a native Italian, 
 cast the bronze doors of the Duomo, as early as the year 1180, a.d. The sculptures 
 of the arch of San Dominica, at Bologna, and the fine sculpture of some public build- 
 ings at Sienna. Andrea de Pisa became the father of Florentine sculpture, among 
 
 F 2 
 
44 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 whose works are the relievos of the famous Campanile. Previously to these a few 
 public fountains had been erected in Italy, richly adorned with sculpture in a 
 manner denoting a popular feeling for the art, and the same may be said of Ger- 
 many, where some of the admirable Gothic fountains of the 14th and 15th centuries 
 still remain. 
 
 At the close of the 14th century the competition opened at Florence, for the 
 execution of the gates of the Baptistry marks the first epoch of positively popular 
 sculpture in Italy. Donatelli, the cotemporary of Ghiberti, was among the earliest 
 modern sculptors who successfully treated detached statues, of which, the famous 
 group at Florence, treated after the antique manner, without drapery, has served as a 
 type of so many more recent and less excellent works. His celebrity caused him to 
 be employed by the Venetian Senate, to erect at Padua an equestrian statue of 
 bronze to Gatamellata, general of the Venetian armies. This work was so admired 
 by the Paduans that he was created a citizen of the place. 
 
 Thus, in the early part of the 15th century, we see sculpture revived in Italy as a 
 popular art, and its great professors called upon to commemorate great national events 
 by means of Iconic statues. Donatelli was perhaps the most extraordinary genius 
 that the modern school of Italian sculpture has produced. He was the first to throw 
 olf the conventional stiffness of Gothic art, and idealize rather than servilely copy the 
 fine forms of nature. He preceded Michael Angelo by the average length of a life ; 
 and yet his best works approach nearer to the graceful simplicity of antique art than 
 even those of the great Buonarotti ; he had also all the merit of reviving the idealized 
 treatment of natural forms, and if, in a certain sublime grandeur and daring, he was 
 surpassed by his celebrated successor in correctness, certainly in finish, he was not 
 equalled. 
 
 But we now see sculpture fairly re-established in Europe as a popular art. 
 Michael Angelo, in his Bacchus and other single statues, nearly equalled the finest 
 Greek models. Jean of Bologna raised his noble and characteristic statue of Cosmo 
 de Medici ; Cellini cast his beautiful Perseus, now in the Loggia at Florence, and 
 numerous other works of similar character were executed by excellent though less 
 known architects before the close of the 15th century. 
 
 The opening of the 16th century saw the sculptors of Italy in demand all over 
 Europe, — at the court of Charles V. at Vienna, at Madrid, at the court of Francis I. 
 of France, and at the courts of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. of England. But among 
 those countries it was only in France that native sculptors arose at that period, 
 where Cousin, Pilon, and Goujon, emulating the excellency of the revived Florentine 
 school, gave to their works a national character truly French, which Goujon carried 
 to the highest perfection in the reign of Henri II. — the statue of the celebrated 
 Diana of Poictiers, the tribune of Louvre, and the fountain of the Innocents being 
 real masterpieces of art, independent of any time or school. The correctness of outline 
 and proportion, the sweetness of expression, the occasional power, where needed, and 
 an all-pervading elegance, forming a rare and fascinating combination of excellence 
 seldom found in the highest works of any class; while those of Jean Goujon received 
 an additional charm from a slight spice of the quaintness of the middle ages still linger- 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 45 
 
 ing about them, but so slight that, like a minute portion of some pungent condiment 
 to well combined cookery, it gives the last touch of art, and heightens the flavour of 
 the whole combination. 
 
 In Italy, Giovanni dell’ Opera, Nicolo di Tributo, Baccio Bondinelli, Vincenzo 
 Dante, and others, carried forward the art vVith success, and produced some fine works ; 
 but they had no longer the quaint bloom of the first revival upon them, and in that 
 respect were less attractive perhaps than the best examples of the period in France. 
 
 In England, our native sculptors had disappeared with the decay of Gothic 
 architecture, and in Germany, sculpture on a grand scale made little progress, 
 though the miniature sculpture of Albert Durer in wood, hone-stone, and ivory, were 
 exquisite works of the kind. 
 
 The sculpture of the 17th century in Italy and France, is marked by other 
 characteristics than those of the 15th and 16th. The simplicity and severe elegance 
 derived from antique models gave place to an ambitious and showy style, in which 
 all sorts of difficulties, unsuited to such a material as marble, were resorted to ; 
 such as the “man escaping from the net of sin,” to be spoken of hereafter, in which 
 the entire net-work is produced by detached cutting, from the same block of marble 
 as the figure. 
 
 As an example of the over-wrought and confused style of the Italian sculpture 
 of the 15th century, I may cite the celebrated Twelve Apostles by Bernini, in the 
 church of St. Giovanni Latoranno. In painting, as in sculpture, the Twelve Apostles, 
 accompanied by their respective emblems, formed one of the most frequent subjects 
 of the early masters, and their treatment by successive hands, as modern art 
 progressed, might alone furnish a history of sculpture from the 9th to the 19th 
 century. The correct but rude character of the earliest periods — the more elegant 
 treatment of the 13th century — the angularity of the 14th, and the grace combined 
 with grandeur of the 15th, more particularly in Italy — form the most marked epochs 
 which preceded the works of Bernini. This clever and rapid sculptor, at the same 
 time painter and architect, one of the last of the race of those great Italian artists who 
 combined, and successfully combined, the profession and practice of three distinct arts, 
 treated his twelve colossal statues of the Apostles, in the church of St. Giovanni 
 Lateranno, in a masterly manner, as far as florid execution is concerned, and some 
 of the figures exhibit great grandeur of conception ; but the flutter of the flying 
 drapery, the exaggerated waving of the hair, combined almost always with over- 
 dramatic action, give a theatrical, and, to use a vulgar term, clap-trap tone to 
 these otherwise fine works. I fear I may have recorded a more favourable opinion 
 of them in my journal of my first impressions in Rome, written some years ago, 
 when I was struck with the dashing splendour and facile chiseling of these works. 
 
 Bernini is indeed the Rubens of sculpture, though certainly exhibiting less of true 
 artistic power than the glorious Fleming. It is impossible in the present space to 
 cite more than one or two names in illustration of the art of a period or country ; 
 and therefore, though fifty other names of the Berninian period thrust themselves 
 upon the memory, that of Bernini must suffice, as his reputation was not merely 
 Italian but European. He was invited to Paris, where he executed the noble bust of 
 
46 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 Louis XIV., and declined a similar invitation to England from Charles I., dreading 
 the sea voyage ; but executed the bust of that unhappy monarch from the well-known 
 sketch by Vandyck, in which the king is represented in front face, and both right 
 and left profiles. The bust, however, did not arrive till after the execution of that 
 prince ; and many anecdotes are related, to the effect, that the marble was found 
 stained with a spot of blood, &c., when it eventually arrived in England. No English 
 sculptors worthy of note yet appeared ; but in France, worthy successors of those of 
 the age of Francis I. were found, such as Puget, Le Poutre, Le Gros, the Coustons, and 
 others. Specimens of the works of most of these masters, and many others, may be 
 found in the gardens of the Tuileries. 
 
 Puget was undoubtedly the greatest of the group, and his works are in many 
 respects superior to his Italian rivals, Bernini or Algardi. His celebrated Caryatides, 
 which supports the great balcony of the Town- hall at Toulon, are truly magnificent 
 works of their class, and the vigour with which these colossal figures are conceived 
 and executed, earned for their author the title of the French Michael Angelo. His Milo, 
 and his group of Perseus and Andromeda, at the entrance of the park of Versailles, 
 are among his best works, and are perhaps superior to any other executed in Europe 
 at that period. Many equestrian statues of great excellence were executed in France 
 in the course of the 17th century ; some of them of great merit. How superior to 
 anything of the kind in England, may be conceived by comparison with the bronze 
 statue of Charles I., an English work, which, though pleasing, and in some respects 
 graceful and meritorious as a work of native art, is yet far below any of the best 
 works of the Continent of similar style. Among works of French sculpture of the 
 17th century, I may mention the celebrated “ Horses of Marly,” as they are called, as 
 possessing that genuine goodness, with all their faults, which alone stamps a work 
 with perennial popularity ; in this case proved by the thousands of copies, both 
 large and small, which have been made of these groups ; for there is scarcely a 
 house, wherein a tolerable collection of bronzes gives token of the residence of an 
 amateur of art, where a miniature bronze copy of the “ Marly Horses” may not be 
 found ; and even the Italian boys carry about shilling casts of them, which always 
 find a ready sale. In the beginning of the 18th century this school of French 
 sculpture began to decay, and the last names connected with the art, previous to the 
 Revolution, are those of Bouchardon and Pigal, whose chief merit is expert execution ; 
 the style being trivial, and the flutter of the draperies exaggerated far beyond the 
 most objectionable works of Bernini or his imitators, without any of their force or 
 grandeur. In short, the decline of art during the 18th century was most rapid 
 throughout Europe, the latent causes of which have yet to be fully explained, but 
 which I may not dilate upon in my present space. 
 
 In Germany and Spain, the art of sculpture followed a similar, but less striking 
 course, and in other countries its career was not different. 
 
 In England, the race of sculptors, partly native, who had executed the fine 
 tombs of the Elizabethan and subsequent periods, had disappeared or sunk into utter 
 insignificance ; and the little sculpture worthy of remark, was principally the work 
 of foreign artists. 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 47 
 
 The sculpture in the form of portrait statues of royal personages of the reigns 
 of James II., Anne, and the three first sovereigns of the house of Hanover, is 
 sufficiently poor; and, of ideal statuary, that miserable artistic epoch exhibits an 
 absolute blank. 
 
 Towards the close of the 18th century, the portraits, and a few of the sepulchral 
 monuments of Roubiliac, exhibit some of the characters of the French school of the 
 time in a favourable manner ; and the works of Bacon are above contempt. Then, 
 the bust maker, Nollekens, must be mentioned; but the only English sculptor of the 
 time who did anything to exalt the art, and whose career indeed marks an epoch in 
 the arts of Europe, was Flaxman ; but he has left few works, and his fame princi- 
 pally rests upon his outline illustrations of Homer and Dante, attempts at the revival 
 of classic simplicity and purity of design which preceded the efforts in the same 
 direction of the modern school of Germany. Flaxman ’s admiration of the high 
 qualities of Grecian sculpture was dissiemnated by means of his lectures, and his 
 genius extended its influence beyond the limits of his more peculiar domain ; and 
 though the patronage of Wedgewood worked a revolution in the fictile wares of Staf- 
 fordshire, which causes some of the specimens produced at that time, at the cost of 
 a few shillings, to be now bought at high prices for the enrichment of select cabinets. 
 
 The name of Chantrey afterwards became the highest in English sculpture, but 
 the cool judgment of posterity will no doubt come to the conclusion that, except in 
 the inferior department of portrait busts, he was far overrated by his cotemporaries ; 
 and, in fact, the monument in Lichfield Cathedral, upon which the critics of a quarter 
 of a century ago went into ecstacies, must be acknowledged to be a very weak, 
 and altogether second rate performance. His equestrian statue of George IV., at 
 Charing-cross, is equally poor, if not more so — a verdict which may also be pro- 
 nounced upon that of the Duke of Wellington, in front of the Royal Exchange. 
 In short, the works of Chantrey want that hardiesse , that nerve, that vigour, which, 
 combined with a certain indescribable grace, marks the works of all truly great sculp- 
 tors, ancient and modern. Such a combination of grace and vigour is found in the 
 works of Phidias, of Michael Angelo, of Jean Goujon ; but in the works of 
 Chantrey both are absent. There is a quiet, respectable propriety about his pro- 
 ductions, which, with their frequently clever manipulation, keeps them just above 
 the dead level of mediocrity ; but into the region of ideal art they never rise. 
 
 In Italy, about the same period, a similar but superior genius arose. Canova’s 
 first steps in the plastic art were exercised upon the ornamentation of pastry-cooks’ 
 devices for dinner-table decorations ; and his statuettes in butter or sugar soon 
 attracted attention. The pastry-cook’s boy became one of the most celebrated sculp- 
 tors of modern times ; and appearing, as he did, after a century of gradual decadence 
 in art, his graceful works, in which he attempted to restore the taste for the long 
 neglected severe simplicity of Greek art, soon acquired an European celebrity ; and 
 as he boldly rushed into the region of the ideal, and treated the highest class of 
 mythological and poetical subjects, his fame justly rose far above those sculptors of 
 the period who were engaged, with few exceptions, upon mere portraiture. 
 
 The excellence of his works was doubtless overrated by his enthusiastic admirers, 
 
48 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 but after deducting from a well-earned high reputation, a certain conventional cold- 
 ness, and an equally conventional prettiness in his female heads, and a want of power 
 thoroughly to understand the true spirit of that Greek art, the chief characteristic 
 of which he sought to restore ; yet his dancing nymphs, and other works of that class, 
 will always l’emain masterpieces in their peculiar style, and the colossal head of 
 Napoleon at Chatsworth contains qualities of a very high, if not the highest, charac- 
 ter. He was followed in Italy by Thorwalsden, the Dane, whose first inspirations 
 were derived from Canova, though lie afterwards worked out a style peculiar to 
 himself. 
 
 In France, the style of Canova predominated during the reign of Napoleon, and 
 the early part ol the Bourbon restoration ; but no French sculptor of that epoch ap- 
 peared, whose works approach the peculiar excellencies of the originator. 
 
 Let us now proceed to the works of living sculptors. In France and Germany, 
 towards the end of the first quarter of the present century, a new race of artists had 
 appeared, who professed innovative theories somewhat analogous to those put forth by 
 the band of English artists now calling themselves Pre-Raphaelites. The sculptors, as 
 well as the painters, of continental Europe, revolted against the somewhat servile 
 devotion to classic art, which the talents of Canova, and of the French painter, David, 
 had rendered nearly universal ; and, rushing into the opposite extreme, determined, 
 even in imaginary subjects, to abandon the ideal in art, and resort to positive and 
 direct imitation of individual nature. 
 
 Some remarkable works were produced under the influence of the new theory 
 (for there were men of genius in the field) ; and the war between classicist and Roman- 
 ticist, as the two schools were called, raged for a time with what may be truly called fury. 
 The great bulk of the press went, of course, with the older and most strongly -esta- 
 blished theory, — the routine of professional criticism was not to be suddenly diverted 
 from the ease of a well-beaten path. But the works of a few eminent men so 
 exquisitely combined the boasted simplicity and purity of the classic style with a 
 certain portion of the rugged vigour of the new school, and young, fresh, and ardent 
 writers took up the new position so determinately, that the Romanticists eventually 
 remained masters of the field ; and such men as Danneker and Schwanthaler, in Ger- 
 many, and as David, of Angers, and others in France, have produced works combining 
 brilliant conception, and vigorous power of execution, worthy of the intellectual pro- 
 gress of the 19th century. The prominent English names belonging to the same epoch, 
 the last twenty-five years, are Gibson and Bailey, both somewhat too closely attached to 
 the classical feeling even to imitation, especially the former, to stand in the same 
 rank for originality as the great names of the Continent. Indeed, a section of our 
 school, at the head of which perhaps Macdowcll maybe named, threatens to displace 
 the great celebrities by a more independent course, both of study and practice. 
 
 The collection of sculpture in the building in Hyde-park will enable us to 
 judge of the relative merits of the existing race of European sculptors, not omitting 
 the transatlantic pretensions of our American brethren. 
 
 Here, whatever the decision of the jurors may be, it is quite evident that the highest 
 place in the truly ideal region of the highest walk of sculpture belongs to the German, 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 49 
 
 Kiss, the author of the “ Amazon and as an example of the high position of the 
 ideal, when sufficiently founded upon the firm base, not of an individual nature, in 
 any special class of form, but of collective nature, if I may be allowed the term. As 
 expressing an ideal, founded upon a race, rather than upon an individual, I will compare 
 the group of the Amazon, which embodies the former view, with the “ Greek Slave,” 
 which is merely an exquisite reflex of a very interesting individual model, in which 
 certain personal defects are inevitable; such as belong to the individual, and not 
 to the genus. These peculiarities are so marked iu the present instance as to 
 produce at once the painful sensation of a particular person wantonly stripped, and 
 exposed, and the unpleasant impression produced has been somewhat idly thought to 
 be the triumphant realization of the intention of the artist ; but — if an artist could be 
 found, capable of representing, not the image of an individual, but an ideal of the 
 female form of the human race thus exposed for sale to slavery — how much nobler 
 would be the sympathies aroused, than by the impression of a particular person thus 
 actually and really exposed, in a real, vulgar slave-market. The “ Greek Slave” conveys 
 the painful idea of individual exposure and nakedness; but is such the impression on 
 beholding the finest works of Grecian art, or Kiss’s noble group of the “ Amazon ?” 
 
 The French sculptor, Lechesne, in his powerfully conceived and admirably 
 wrought groups of the “ Eagle attacking the Child of the dead Mother,” and the 
 “ Child protected by the Dog from a Serpent,” has also taken up too strongly the 
 ground of individual delineation, rather than ideal generalization, but with so much 
 Jnore nerve and imagination than Mr. Powers, that the want of a more refined 
 idealism is scarcely felt under the influence of the striking emanation of genius, 
 however inconsistent with the highest theories of the art. 
 
 Energetic power of delineation is peculiar to the modern French school, and is 
 exhibited with amazing force and skill in more than one work in the Exhibition, but 
 in none more so than in the “ First Cradle,” in which the figure of Eve is treated 
 with truly wonderful vigour : the luxuriant mass of uncombed but glistening hair is 
 a magnificent display of artistic manipulation of the highest character, and the whole 
 combination exhibits great energy of thought and artistic power. 
 
 There are some graceful works of Belgian artists, in which a combination of 
 Grecian idealism, with a sufficient admixture of modern nature to produce a fresh 
 and charming effect, such as that group, in which the idea of the refinement of 
 beauty triumphing over brute force, is expressed by the figure of an exquisitely-formed 
 “ Female clipping the talons of a Lion,” the “ Indian Mother at the Tomb of her 
 Child,” and other works. But what shall we say to the soi-disant Austrian sculpture, 
 in which the wretched piece of servilely vulgar portraiture, the statue of Kadetzky, 
 is the only Austrian work contained in the sculpture gallery, under the name of 
 Austria, which is entirely the produce of the subjugated cities of Italy? 
 
 To these works the attention of the public has been most strongly attracted, 
 but certainly not by the real excellence of the works themselves, which, though 
 infinitely beyond the figure-head image of Radetzky, are yet of very second-rate 
 merit ; the much-admired “ Nest of Cupids” is even third rate : but it is not to the 
 “Nest of Cupids,” or even to the better things of this gallery, I fear, that the general 
 
 G 
 
50 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 public has turned to with so much admiration, but rather to the poor, tricky devices 
 of the “ Vestal Virgin,” and other figures, in which the effect of a transparent drapery 
 covering yet exposing the features, is wrought out with considerable skill. It is 
 pitiful to see the public taste thus become a victim to the empty clap-trap of art, to a 
 mere example of dexterity of chisel ; and as an inducement to that same public to 
 look for higher and better things, I may inform it that the trick is a stale one — an 
 argument generally irresistible with the fickle monster called the Public, whose vora- 
 cious but easily palled appetite regards novelty above all other delicacies. 
 
 In the chapel of San Severo, at Naples, not always open, as being a private oratory 
 of the noble family of the Sangri, is a statue singularly enough called “ Chastity,” veiled 
 in a similar manner to the veiled vestal of the Exhibition, every limb and lineament 
 being distinctly traceable through the superfluous drapery. This statue is a work of 
 Corradini, executed in memory of the mother of Raimondo di Sangri. Another 
 work in the chapel, and of the same epoch — the 17th century — is a figure of the 
 “ Dead Christ” covered with a shroud, through the folds of which every feature is per- 
 fectly discernible ; and the finesse , skill, and feeling with which this effect has been 
 wrought out by the hand of its sculptor, Guiseppe Sanmartino, redeems it from the 
 triviality which would otherwise attach to attempts so completely out of the domain 
 of legitimate art. 
 
 But a still more astonishing work of similar character is to be seen in the same 
 oratory, the intricate elaboration of the workmanship of which calls to mind the 
 patient skill of the Chinese carver, by whose labour the perforated spheres of ivory 
 are ornamented and detached, one within the other. This statue is said to represent 
 the Prince Raimondo Sangri himself, under the form of man, escaping from the net of 
 sin by divine aid. The work is considered the capo cC opera of Guccirolo, and is ex- 
 hibited by the guides as one of the greatest wonders of art, the net and the entire 
 group being carved out of a single block of marble. It is easy to perceive, not only 
 the unprofitable waste of excessive labour in this work, but also the poverty of the 
 allegory by which the idea is interpreted. “ The net of sin” is barely tolerable in a 
 certain class of literature ; but when we behold it positively and elaborately worked 
 out in material marble, it becomes absolutely ridiculous ; and the work is, therefore, 
 with all its merits of manipulation, only one of the most remarkable monuments of a 
 depraved and false taste. 
 
 Of the English works of sculpture in the Exhibition, Hyde Park, I shall only 
 allude, for want of space, to the statue of the “ Hunter,” by Gibson, and the three statues 
 by Macdowell. To the former all respect is due, as the work of an artist whose perse- 
 vering devotion to his calling has earned for him the highest position in the British 
 school. But in his present, and, indeed, in all his works, according to my own 
 impression, notwithstanding their excellence of design and beauty of execution, there 
 is an attachment to the bygone and dead forms of the conventional beauty of classical 
 antiquity, which deprive his productions of that living interest which a closer associa- 
 tion with existing forms of beauty, of sentiment, of style, and of expression, might 
 impart to them. 
 
 The exquisite works of Gibson do not seem thoroughly to belong to our age ; 
 
SCULPTURE. 
 
 51 
 
 they are, in fact, essentially Pagan in conception, as well as style ; and the excessive 
 devotion to special forms of Grecian statuesque beauty often suggests the idea that 
 the English statue one is admiring, may be claimed piecemeal by Grecian predecessors 
 — the torso, by a Venus, an arm, by a nymph, a foot, by a Cupid, the head, by a Diana. 
 Yet I would not, as I said, have a sculptor resort to mere individual portraiture, in 
 order to give individual character. 
 
 I contend for idealism in art ; but not the idealism of other times, of other 
 forms of civilization, of extinct peculiarities of race ; no, but on the contrary, for 
 an idealism consistent with the sympathies, the associations, and the aspirations of 
 the present age. And I contend, again, that each artist must idealize according to 
 his own individual organization ; so that the works of each, although conventional, 
 inasmuch as they should never be mere copies of individual nature, shall yet possess 
 individuality of character, in being original and unique idealizations, and not 
 idealizations after the manner of the Greeks, or of any other marked school of art. 
 
 I think that the works of Macdowell embody this theory more than those of any 
 other English sculptor. His female, and youthful male heads, express a peculiar cast of 
 enthralling beauty, which, though ideal, is seemingly real, and that reality belongs 
 to the present age, and to the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 There is a celestial loveliness in the beautiful face of his “ Eve,” which, though 
 more lovely than the features of any individual woman, is yet an embodiment of 
 the peculiar style of beauty which distinguishes the women of his own country. In 
 his ‘‘ Cupid,” the same charm exists; the appropriate expression is ideal, and yet it is 
 full of the real life of our age and race, and seems to breathe forth the peculiar beauty 
 of the blue-eyed, fair-haired children of our native land. The conventional forms 
 adopted by servile worshippers of the antique — the well-known form of Grecian eye, the 
 well-known Grecian treatment of the hair — are not reproduced by Macdowell ; he has 
 fully appreciated Hellenic art, and knows the secret of its perfection ; but he is dreaming 
 an equal perfection upon similar broad principles, but distinct details and distinct general 
 character. His form, his expression, his breath of life, are of the time and of the land 
 in which he lives ; the secret, in fact, of the perfection of the arts of Greece also, 
 which were but the choicest emanations of that age, and of that land. 
 
 I feel, while I am writing, that these thoughts are not mine alone, but that they 
 pervade, more or less, the minds of nearly all our younger artists ; of men who are 
 destined to carry the arts of Great Britain to a higher pitch than they have ever yet 
 attained, and in a higher feeling than has been as yet achieved. We see already a 
 tendency not only to abandon mere portraiture as the only profitable branch of sculpture, 
 but to aim at the sculptural embodiment of subjects connected with our history, our 
 poetry, and our religion — embodiments which, with the aid of the facilities of reproduc- 
 tion of artistic works now so rapidly extending, will carry the refining effects of the love 
 of the beautiful among all classes, and tend, more than amended laws or political 
 reforms, to the elevation of the national mind. 
 
 The Greeks were so devoted to the love of ideal beauty, that even to their greatest 
 men, a mere iconic or portrait statue was seldom allowed — the one to Miltiades, 
 after the great Athenian victory, being among the rare exceptions : and when this feel- 
 
52 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 ing shall be ripened with us, we may hope to avoid the perpetration of such excrescences, 
 in the name of metropolitan and national monuments, as the colossal caricature of 
 the Duke of Wellington at Hyde-park Corner. 
 
 Sculpture, the highest and purest of the fine arts, has a noble and a sacred trust 
 to fulfil. To teach the knowledge and the appreciation of the beautiful, is one of the 
 highest tasks confided to man — is especially that of the artist, and more especially 
 that of the sculptor. 
 
 How much teaching is yet required, one may estimate by examining the effect 
 produced upon the spectators at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy, by 
 the scanty array of sculpture there displayed, in the wretched apartment devoted to 
 it. The nude figures, those representations of the divine form in which the Creator has 
 clothed humanity, appear to strike most of the visitors, uneducated in art, not only as 
 something very shocking to coat-and-waistcoat morality, but also as something strange. 
 1 hey gaze with a half incredulous eye, as upon some monstrous animal seen for the 
 first time. A sort of vague disappointment, too, seems part of the unpleasing impres- 
 sion which the finest works of sculpture produce upon them, as though they had not 
 imagined the human form to be that kind of thing. A spruce youth, a real credit 
 to his tailor, w'hose ideal of feminine grace is founded upon the wasp-like waist and 
 exuberant petticoat of the last vision of ball-room beauty he waltzed with, may often 
 be seen in the sculpture room, apparently suffering under the heavy disappointment 
 of an unexpected revelation only assuaged by a certain incredulity in the correctness 
 of the delineation. 
 
 Sculpture has, as it were, preserved the most perfect types of the “ human form 
 divine,” through ages of false civilization, and through the laborious disguises of 
 long centuries of various barbarisms. It has vindicated its exquisite symmetry 
 against the worst assaults of tailors, stay-makers, peruke-makers, red-heeled shoes, or 
 the Puritan iconoclasts of all times. 
 
 The chaste and sacred form, petrified, as it were, by the magic of Praxiteles or 
 Phidias, in the Pentilic or the Parian stone, and by their more humble followers in 
 the marble of more modern quarries, has alone preserved among the cultured few a 
 tree appreciation of the beauty of the most perfect example of living organization ; 
 and to complete and extend the knowledge and admiration of this highest emanation 
 of the beautiful, is the domain and the mission of the noble art of sculpture.* 
 
 * I originally intended devoting a portion of this chapter to that branch of sculpture which depends 
 for its effect on colour as well as form. The chryselephantine, or gold and ivory statuary of the age of Phi- 
 dias holds the highest rank in this branch of art ; and as some of his noblest works, especially the Olympian 
 Jupiter, were formed of these materials, and not of marble, it becomes at once evident that sculpture, aided by 
 the colour and texture of the materials employed, need not descend to the level of modem wax-work. That 
 white marble Was not absolutely essential to the high character of sculpture, is sufficiently proved by the 
 exquisite Fawn, and other works in rosso-antico. Statues of a high class, in two or three different marbles, as 
 the draperies in dark, and the flesh in light marble, are not uncommon ; and the painted statuary of the 
 mediaeval epochs, founded possibly on antique models, is proved by existing examples not to have been deprived 
 of its artistic character by the addition of artificial colour ; but the question of the good or bad taste of these 
 invasions of the simple domain of form, which is the especial region of sculpture, would require a chapter 
 exclusively devoted to it ; and I therefore dismiss it at once without discussion, merely inviting my reader to 
 think out the problem for himself. 
 

 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 P AINTING, though it is compelled to hold a secondary rank to sculpture, 
 commands a wider domain, and appeals to a more extensive sphere of popular 
 appreciation. The fascination of colour, the striking effects produced by 
 artificial light and shade, and the magic of perspective, both linear and aerial, im- 
 part to it, in its highest development, attractions to which the severe and limited 
 privileges of sculpture are alien. 
 
 The facilities also, for expressing dramatic action are infinitely greater; and 
 though antique sculpture produced, occasionally, what may be termed “ marble 
 pictures” in the colossal compositions filling the pediments of the most splendid tem- 
 ples, such as the well-known group of “ Niobe and her Children,” as well as relievos, 
 both strong and slight, in other portions of the building, like the Metopes, and the low 
 reliefs in the portico of the Parthenon, yet, such works, in the severe treatment they 
 must receive in sculptured marble, do not speak so fully to the eye as a dramatic scene 
 embodied in painting of the highest class — such as is exhibited in the works of the 
 great masters of the Italian mediaeval school, or by more modern and equally gifted 
 artists. 
 
 Painting is thus more essentially a popular art than sculpture ; it has formed the 
 delight of the people from the earliest times, its beauties being more distinctly intel- 
 ligible to the uncultured eye, than the more recondite excellencies of sculpture in its 
 purest form.* 
 
 The Egyptians attributed the origin of painting to divine inspiration, and con- 
 ceived that it was confided to man for the purpose of recording in the sacred 
 writings the deeds of gods and heroes, for the first writing was strictly pictorial ; 
 the object to be described being painted in close imitation of nature, and not 
 expressed, as now, by a combination of phonetic characters. Thus pictures and 
 writings were originally one, and the painted sculptures, descriptive of the conquests of 
 the Egyptians on the walls of the palaces and temples of Thebes and Memphis, were 
 such “ handwriting on the wall” as the youthful Daniel was called upon to interpret. 
 
 * Of course I do not allude to the jiainted' statuary of the Greeks, which must have appealed in a striking 
 manner to the popular mind. 
 
54 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 But, as paleographic painting became more and more conventional, reducing 
 itself at last to mere linear abbreviations of the original forms, the art which had 
 originated that of writing, developed itself in another direction ; and painting, as a 
 medium of decoration, and as a means representing detached events, without reference 
 to a written history, gradually extended and developed its magical powers. 
 
 That it had attained great excellence at a very early period appears pretty 
 certain, and its first steps appear to have occurred in the following chronological order. 
 
 At first painting and sculpture may be considered as one and the same art, as 
 colour is essential to neither, either as the same, or as distinct arts of design. The 
 earliest sculptures were more generally coloured, which colouring may be considered 
 the first step in painting. The coloured basso-relievo of the Egyptians were a 
 singular and close combination of both sculpture and painting, and tend more than 
 any other existing monuments to prove that, as I have stated, the arts which even- 
 tually diverged into such distinct tracks, were originally combined as one. 
 
 Greek and Latin authors, in speaking of the origin of painting, consider what is 
 termed skiagraphy (axix ypoaplot) to have been the first step. This term signifies a mere 
 external outline, such as is formed by a shadow cast by the sun or a lamp. 
 
 The first skiagraphists are alluded to in the oft-repeated Grecian fable, which 
 describes the daughter of Dibutades, a potter of Sicyon, who, observing the shadow 
 of her lover upon the wall, drew its outline with such fidelity, that her father was 
 enabled to cut away with great accuracy the plaster within the outline, and obtain 
 an impression in clay from the cavity so produced. Athenogoras mentions as the first 
 skiagraphist Saurias of Samos, who traced his horse’s shadow upon the sand with the 
 point of his spear. Such outlined figures were, in the next stage of the art, filled up with 
 certain colours. Whether the colouring of the different figures and draperies were alike, 
 or different, they did not constitute “ painting” in the high acceptation of the term, but 
 only “ colouring.” Those subjects, doubtless the earliest, in which only one colour was 
 used, were termed monochromes,* while those in which various colours were used 
 were polychromes. The next step was the addition to the outline of the inner 
 markings. 
 
 The art, up to this period, is thought by some to have been always practised upon a 
 white ground, and that the introduction of arbitrary self-colours, as alluded to above, 
 was a subsequent addition, first practised by Cleophantus of Corinth, described bv 
 Pliny, as using “ testa trita ,” which is understood to mean drawing his figures on a 
 red ground, as we find them on the ancient Greek and Etruscan vases. 
 
 The painters of the designs on the Greek vases do not appear to have been held 
 in any esteem, as their names are not mentioned by ancient authors ; they were most 
 likely a race of draughtsmen exclusively employed in the Grecian potteries. The grace 
 and spirit of their works, however, may be taken as an indication of the great 
 excellence of the higher branches of painting in Greece. 
 
 * At a later period there was also the monochrome of a higher character, in which a subject, though 
 entirely executed in one colour, as gray, red, brown, or any other colour, was as properly shaded according to 
 the true principles of chiaro-oscuro as the works in which all the local colours were added. Such works were 
 of the same character as our mediaeval miniatures in Came-gris. 
 
PAINTING, 
 
 DO 
 
 The proper application of local colours, in strict accordance with nature, was an 
 immense step in advance of the application of colour as a mere arbitrary decoration, 
 and is so mentioned by ancient authors, who have fortunately preserved to us most 
 interesting records of the early progress of Grecian art. 
 
 The art of painting had most likely arrived at great perfection in Asia Minor, 
 before it had emerged from its infancy in Greece, as Candaules King of Lydia is 
 said to have purchased a picture by Bularchus, representing a battle of the Magnetes, 
 for as much gold as would cover its surface. This particular assertion is, however, open 
 to criticism on more than one account ; but it may, no doubt, be taken as general 
 evidence, that a school of painting existed in Asia Minor as early as the time of 
 Candaules, 716 B. C. 
 
 Cimon of Cleonas is the first Greek artist whose name is recorded as a pro- 
 ficient in the art, and is described as not only understanding the proper application 
 of local colour previously practised by Eumarus, but also to have understood light 
 and shade, and the foreshortening of the limbs, as well as the indication of such 
 minor features as the muscles, veins, &c. He is supposed to have lived about the 
 time of Solon, in the sixth century before Christ. 
 
 It was in the next century, however, the fifth before the Christian era, that 
 Greek painting attained its first truly remarkable era. The works of Cimon were no 
 doubt of the archaic style, similar to the sculptures attributed to Daedalus ; but 
 Polygnotus of Thasos, who came to Athens during the supremacy of Pericles, and 
 was consequently a co temporary of Phidias, advanced the art at once to a pitch of 
 excellence, in which it would seem, from the remarks of ancient writers, that it equalled 
 the rival art of sculpture, even in the hands of Phidias himself. 
 
 The works of Polygnotus, however, do not appear to have been detached pictures, 
 but decorations of temples, the most celebrated of which are mentioned by Pausanias 
 as being a great series of paintings in the Lesche of the temple of Apollo at 
 Delphi, to a minute description of which the Greek antiquarian devotes seven 
 chapters. I conceive that this series of paintings, one of which represented the 
 siege and destruction of Troy, must have been formed of several parallel spaces ox- 
 strips, one below the other, filled with successive groups arranged in chronological 
 order, somewhat similar to the basso-relievo in the portico of the Parthenon, or like 
 the painted basso-relievo of the Egyptian temples, which they no doubt greatly 
 resembled in general effect, though of very superior artistic execution, consisting of 
 simple painting, instead of being low reliefs heightened in effect by the addition of 
 colour, as in the Egyptian works. 
 
 But though the works of Polygnotus were probably pure painting, the art of 
 painting statuary was also a profession in Greece at that time, and continued so 
 till the time of Praxiteles, who is said to have declared that he preferred, before all 
 his works, those which had been coloured by Nicias. 
 
 The painted histories of Polygnotus possessed no doubt high excellence of 
 design, and were of a very sublime character ; for their merit was not only extolled 
 by the highest critics of the time, but by those also of the age of Alexander. 
 
 Quintilian, however, observes, that there was a certain rudeness about them, 
 
56 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 and that their peculiar excellencies could only be considered as the commencement 
 of the refinement and completeness of execution that followed in the next century ; 
 stating, at the same time, rather satirically, that he feared there might be some 
 affectation influencing the judgment of those who preferred the early works to those 
 of subsequent artists. 
 
 Zeuxis and Apollodorus, in the next generation, added dramatic effect and unity 
 of composition to the art. Parrhasius, Eupompus, and Timanthes were the other 
 greatest names of the period, in which nearly all the excellencies of which the art is 
 capable, appear to have been attained as completely as in the greatest age of modern 
 Italian art. 
 
 All superior works in the time of Zeuxis were no longer painted on the walls 
 of buildings themselves, but on separate prepared panels, framed in various ways, 
 and afterwards incrusted on the walls where required. 
 
 The greatest of the race of painters — who, without being able to exceed the 
 sublimity or completeness of the art as practised by Zeuxis and Parrhasius, except 
 in a certain grace or elegance — was Apelles, and in his works this refinement 
 of beauty was by the Greeks termed Xapn, and by the Romans venustas . The 
 kind of elegance here expressed may be approximately understood by the character 
 of his favourite subjects, his most perfect work being his “ Venus Anadyomene” 
 — (Venus rising from the sea); from which it would seem that it was in the softer 
 graces of the female form that his greatest excellence consisted. But that he was 
 not deficient, at the same time, in the power of investing the male subject with 
 its due dignity, is proved by his possession of the exclusive privilege of painting the 
 portraits of his great patron, Alexander. 
 
 Protogenes, Euphranor, Nicias, Athenion, and Philochares, were the cotem- 
 noraries of Apelles, and were the last of the great race of Greek painters ; for after 
 the Alexandrian epoch Grecian painting rapidly declined ; much more rapidly than 
 sculpture, which, even as late as the time of Trajan, produced such works as the 
 Laocoon and the Antinbus, while, after the reigns of the first successors of 
 Alexander, painting rapidly declined ; and subsequent to the subjection of Greece 
 by the Romans, no great works of painting appear to have been executed. 
 
 The Greek artists who flocked to Rome became chiefly employed in portraiture or 
 in the decoration of private dwellings, such works being generally executed in a rapid 
 and careless manner, quite excluding them from holding any rank as works of high 
 art.* Two names are, however, mentioned, which did honour to the art after its 
 general decline — Timomachus, a cotemporary of Caesar, and Action, who flourished as 
 late as the reign of Hadrian. 
 
 I must at once pass over the several remnants of Roman painting preserved to 
 us, regretting that there are none of Greece, and proceed to the final decline and 
 utter debasement of the art towards the time of the fall of the Western Empire. 
 
 * Portraiture appears to have flourished greatly in Rome, as we find Varro making a collection of 700 
 portraits of eminent men. But as an example of the taste in painting which distinguished the Romans, I 
 may cite the colossal portrait of Nero, 120 feet high, which was painted upon canvas, the first time that its use 
 is recorded. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 57 
 
 At that period, the middle of the 5th century, we have examples of Grseco- 
 Roman painting — remains which have been but recently studied, and for which we are 
 indebted principally to the race of artists of a particular class who devoted their lives to 
 the enrichment of copies of the gospels, in which miniature representations of the Evan- 
 gelists, and events in the history of Christ, are profusely scattered ; and it is to the 
 sacred character of the books of which these works form the enrichment, that we 
 are indebted for the preservation of such interesting monuments of the state of the 
 pictorial art at this obscure epoch.* 
 
 These miniatures are generally very elaborate in their details of dress, &c., richly 
 coloured, and highly illuminated with gilding. The drawing of most of these works 
 is however, artistically speaking, of the rudest and coarsest description ; and their 
 imitations by Hibernian and Anglo-Saxon illuminators of the 7th and 8th centuries 
 still more so ; which latter more resemble Mexican or very early Chinese art, than 
 any other European works I am acquainted with. We now approach the epoch at 
 which the last ten centuries of art commence their progress. 
 
 About the period of Charlemagne, or rather about the middle of the 9th 
 century, the arts began to revive, and the works executed even in Constantinople about 
 that period, are very superior to Byzantine productions of the 5th, 6th, and 7th 
 centuries, while in France and Germany the entire interior of the churches were 
 covered with painting. 
 
 Illuminated miniatures, executed in Constantinople in the 9th and 10th centuries, 
 possess occasionally a nobleness of character almost worthy of the descendants of the 
 great artists of Greece ; but yet, taken as entire compositions, they are stiff, and with 
 a strong tincture of the general barbarism of the time ; when architecture alone, of 
 the fine arts, appeared to flourish, painting upon a large scale having still further 
 declined about this time. 
 
 The 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries, like the 7th, 8th, and 9th, afford but few 
 monuments of pictorial art, except such as are found in illuminated MSS. ; but in 
 those invaluable records the links in the history of painting are faithfully preserved. 
 The improvement in the decorative arabesque borderings was much more remarkable 
 during those periods than that of the miniature pictures, which still preserve, 
 frequently, much of the debased Roman character, without any marked advance, but 
 rather perhaps a tendency to decline. The remains of large mural paintings of these 
 epochs, may still be seen at Milan and in other ancient churches of Italy. 
 
 In the 13th century the arts of design began to live a new life, and a peculiar 
 style arose, which is as remarkable for an elegant feeling in the mode of treating 
 the human figure, for graceful drapery, and for profuse and eminently original 
 qrnament, as it is for the quaintness which was so long the only characteristic which 
 modern archaiologists perceived in it. 
 
 Lately, however, it has been somewhat too well appreciated, and servile copies 
 of the remarkable style of this epoch — especially with the view, as it would seem, of 
 
 * A few MSS., not of a sacred character, are also attributed to this epoch, as the Dioscorides at Vienna, 
 Terence at Florence, fragments of a copy of Virgil, &c. 
 
 PI 
 
58 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 preserving all its most glaring defects — have been perpetrated to an extent that has 
 become nauseating, and the same may he said of the stupid reproduction of works of 
 the two succeeding centuries. 
 
 The 13th century, of which we have such fine pictorial records in the illuminated 
 MSS. and painted windows in England and France, was marked in Italy by the 
 rise of a race of artists in the higher branches of the pictorial art, whose works were 
 free from much of the grotesque drawing and quaint characteristics of our northern 
 works. 
 
 The Italian painting of the 13th and 14th, and early part of the 15th centuries, 
 marks a beautiful and exquisite phase in modern art, in which, following Cimabue 
 and others, the well-known names of Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Beato, Gaddo Gaddi, 
 Ghirlandajo, and Perugino, the master of Raphael, with a host of others, occur. In 
 their various works, ahnost every kind of excellence short of conventional dexterity, 
 the art of grouping, or composition, and the value of chiaro-oscuro, were accom- 
 plished ; and in an exquisitely simple and naive interpretation of nature, sometimes 
 accompanied by admirable expression, these artists have remained inimitable ; and 
 while, as I have said, a certain archaic rigidity lingers about their works, they are free 
 from the grotesque quaintness of the more northern productions of the period. The 
 expression of their female heads frequently beams with angelic sweetness, and in the 
 later masters of the period, with exquisite grace and beauty, arising, doubtless, from 
 the custom of painting the portraits of living persons in historical pictures ; such 
 anachronisms proving the love of art which existed among the higher classes at the 
 time. The most beautiful female heads of Ghirlandajo in his paintings of the choir 
 of St. Maria Novella, are said to be portraits of “ Genevra de’ Benci,” the Florentine 
 beauty of her day. 
 
 Tire remarkable features of the school of art which immediately followed this 
 epoch in Italy, and developed itself at the close of the 15th and first quarter of the 
 16th century, is founded upon the discovei’y and general adoption of certain artistic 
 maxims, regarding the art of grouping, the use of fight and shadow, and their more 
 agreeable proportions, and a freer treatment of natural forms, the necessary con- 
 sequences of the assiduous and continuous study of the two preceding centuries. 
 
 Giorgione, Titian, and Corregio in the North, and Michael Angelo and Raphael 
 in Central Italy, were the leaders of this change. 
 
 It appears singular at the first view, that the works of Raphael, which retain a 
 much stronger tincture of the archaic rigidity of the preceding period than those of 
 any of his cotemporaries, should have taken the highest rank, even in his own day ; a 
 fact I shall return to in speaking of a rising sect in the modern English school. 
 
 Michael Angelo also, though in a less degree than Raphael, still exhibits slight 
 traces of the so-termed archaic feeling, even through the colossal energy of his style, 
 which is less extraordinary, perhaps, than in the case of Raphael, as his period of 
 maturity preceded that of Raphael by twenty years. 
 
 Andrea del Sarto, precisely cotemporary with Raphael, painted in a much more 
 advanced style than the latter, both as to freedom of drawing, sense of colour, and 
 knowledge of chiaro-oscuro. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 59 
 
 In the north of Italy, where the revival of art had been later, it was more 
 rapid. Titian and Corregio, the great artists of Venice and Parma, were cotem- 
 poraries of Raphael, and yet, in skill of manipulation, in knowledge of the science 
 of shadowing, and in picturesque form and softness of outline, which latter they 
 carried to the highest extent it has yet reached, they were far in advance of Raphael ; 
 as, indeed, was the Venetian Giorgione, his predecessor. The foot note will show the 
 cotemporary maturity of these great artists.* 
 
 The superiority of rank held by Raphael even over Michael Angelo, must be attri- 
 buted to a certain intellectual grace of the highest character, which invariably dis- 
 tinguishes the works of the painter of Urbino, and by his adhesion to a great extent to 
 the simpler treatment of the former period, which he never abandoned for any of the 
 refinements of colour, chiaro-oscuro , or Corregioesque softness, not even in his later and 
 more perfect works, such as the cartoons, over the grandeur, simplicity, and great power 
 of accurate delineation of which, the Raphaelesque intellectualism always presides. 
 The reputation of Michael Angelo rests upon similar grounds, though the styles are 
 so utterly distinct. Thus it would appear, that the intellectual treatment of the art, 
 even accompanied by archaic mannerism, is capable of higher and more permanent 
 attractiveness, than the most skilful manipulation, and all the refinements of the 
 conventional mechanism without it. 
 
 The followers, of the severe grandeur, and rigid grace of the Roman and 
 Florentine schools, as represented by Raphael and Michael Angelo, were, as all 
 followers necessarily must be, behind their masters, and it was not till another race 
 endowed with real genius, after its kind, the family of the Caracci, endeavoured to 
 blend the decorative character of the schools of the North with the accuracy and 
 severity of those of Rome and Florence, that a new epoch really arose. 
 
 But it was, after all, not an original epoch. The tricks of composition, the dis- 
 tribution by rule, of light and shade, the calculated juxta-position of certain colours, 
 combined with a conventional idealism in form, by which all natures were more or 
 less assimilated, and the treatment of the subjects through the medium of a careful 
 manipulation, the result of the most critical study, were the marked characteristics of 
 the school of the Caracci. It is true that the race of artists so educated, have left works 
 as fine as artistic productions can possibly be which are produced through the 
 media of conventional maxims, instead of being inspired by the individual invention 
 which necessarily arises from the direct study of nature. The names of Domenichino, 
 Caravaggio, and Guido, are, however, sufficient to show how far art may be carried 
 by such means as those employed by the school of Bologna. 
 
 At a later period, the beginning of the 18 th century, the Saxon Raphael 
 
 * Names. 
 
 25 Years of Age in 
 
 Died in 
 
 L. de Vinci 
 
 1479 
 
 1519 
 
 Giorgione 
 
 about 1490 
 
 1511 
 
 M. Angelo 
 
 1490 
 
 1503 
 
 Raphael 
 
 1508 
 
 1523 
 
 A. del Sarto 
 
 1513 
 
 1530 
 
 Corregio 
 
 1519 
 
 1534 
 
60 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 Mengs endeavoured to restore the high school of historical painting which had 
 decayed utterly after the pupils of the Caracci and the ephemeral fame of Carlo 
 Maratti. But the efforts of Mengs only reproduced classical art in a modern garb, 
 though his efforts, in accordance as they were with the frigid classicism of the time, 
 earned for him a great reputation in his own day. 
 
 In Germany, Holland, and Flanders, the beginning of the 16th century was 
 marked by the appearance of such men as Albert Durer, Holbein, Lucas von Legden, 
 and Israel von Mechenen, as well as many others. Their works possess those striking 
 peculiarities, for which the angular feeling of northern Gothic art is remarkable, but 
 with the angularity and sharpness of this style they combined a power of correct 
 delineation now first developed in the North, the vigorous character of which is as 
 remarkable as anything in the history of art. But, as the style of Raphael in Italy 
 was succeeded by one in which conventionality had a greater share than originality, 
 so in Germany, and in Flanders, where oil painting had been first invented by Van 
 Eye, a similar series of conventional artists followed. In certain domestic subjects, 
 however, the Dutch, by going direct to the source of all originality, nature, struck 
 out a school of art peculiar to themselves, as they did also in landscape ; but in high 
 art, the brilliant genius and prosperous career of Rubens, and the daring innovations 
 of Rembrandt, are the only remarkable events which followed the great epoch of 
 Durer and Holbein. 
 
 Portrait painting alone remained a flourishing art ; indeed, in the portraits of 
 Vandyck and Velasquez, it perhaps attained in the middle of the 17th century its 
 highest development, and a degree of excellence which had been foreshadowed in the 
 North, by the striking works of Holbein. 
 
 The conventional styles of portraiture which followed, led by Lely and after- 
 wards by Kneller, with all their flutter of drapery, and prim imitations of courtly 
 nature, sophisticated by a particular phase of civilization, afford an example of the style 
 of art then prevalent all over Europe, for its higher branches had completely decayed. 
 Towards the end of the 18th century, the efforts of Mengs succeeded by those of 
 the French painter David, both aiming at a return to a dead classicism, a revival 
 of Grecian forms, with which the age could have no intimate sympathy, led to 
 nothing better than the style of the Napoleon era ; which, except as marking an 
 historical epoch, is utterly contemptible. 
 
 In the meantime, Reynolds, in England, had once more made a direct appeal to 
 nature, from which, notwithstanding the mannerism he adopted in carrying it out, 
 European art may date its second revival ; for, although the painting of the French 
 “romantic” school, who have superseded the frigid Greeianisms of David and his 
 followers, cannot be termed imitators of the initiative given by Reynolds, they were 
 yet, chronologically speaking, his followers. 
 
 Reynolds’s attempt was considered absurd by the artists in vogue at the time ; 
 and Ellis, the fashionable portrait painter of the day, is reported to have attempted 
 to drive him from his new course, by exclaiming “ Shakspeare in poetry, Sir, and 
 Kneller in painting ! ” a juxta-position which Reynolds was, however, not willing 
 to allow. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 61 
 
 Immediately following Reynolds were portrait painters, such as Opie and others, 
 who followed his style; but the frigid compositions of West, for whose works the 
 really great genius of Barry was neglected, were in vogue at the same time, and 
 though Northcote promised better things, the taste for the chilly monotonous works 
 of Westall, Howard, and others, prevailed. It may easily be conceived how unsettled 
 was the public taste in England at the close of the 18th, and beginning of the 19th 
 centuries, when we find the eccentric productions of Fuseli, and the elegant but over- 
 valued designs of Stoddart, occupying contemporaneously the public attention, with 
 those of Westall and West. The names of Wilkie, Lawrence, and Collins, mark 
 more prominently perhaps than any others the dawn of the existing English school, 
 in which brilliant colouring, and a direct appeal to nature, only wanted the addition 
 of the accurate dclineative power of the French to make it the first school in Europe ; 
 but in this it was lamentably deficient.. 
 
 How we have had since — our Ettys, our Newtons, our Leslies, our Maclises, our 
 Turners, our Martins, our Danbys, and our Landseers ; and in landscape, our Stan- 
 fields and our Creswicks, need not be told, as all interested in art well know the 
 anxiety with which their productions have been looked forward to each successive 
 year in our annual exhibitions, and with what genuine enthusiasm their success and 
 that of many other cotemporary artists has been hailed. 
 
 In the French school the declared dissent from classicism, and an appeal to living 
 nature, has given rise to such men as Eugene Deveria, Paul de la Roche, Eugene de 
 la Croix, Horace Vemet, and a host of others, who have produced the most striking 
 works in the progress of recent art, both as regards the scale of their performances, and 
 the hardy and novel mode of treatment they have so boldly and successfully adopted. 
 In Germany a somewhat similar course has led to less striking results. The works of 
 the German school of the day make better prints than pictures. They have too much 
 of the cartoon style of the great masters of the 15th century about them to pretend to 
 originality; and to this is added a strong tinge of the exploded French classicism which 
 still lingers about the German school, and gives to it a monotonous character, not- 
 withstanding the genius displayed in the great works of Cornelius,* Ben deraann, and 
 their compeers, and even of those who have endeavoured to break through the 
 trammels by which the onward progress of the school is delayed. The delay, how- 
 ever, will not be great, for both in Germany and France the present ferment of 
 antagonistic styles is already producing great and striking results. 
 
 THE PRE-RAPHAELITES. 
 
 Amidst all this progress, all this new life infused into art since the commencement of 
 the present century — by what latent causes it would take too long to discuss — a feeling 
 has developed itself in nearly all the artistic productions of our epoch which betrays, as 
 just hinted at in the German school, a disposition to revive and retain the manner, the 
 principles of practice, and even the manipulation of the great schools of Italy, a con- 
 ventional system which even our greatest men do not appear to have the courage to 
 
62 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 break through. But a band of devoted young artists have tried back, as it were, 
 and found that in modern art, convention began to take the place of simple appeal to 
 nature, even in the works of the great Raphael ; and they have therefore determined 
 to take up art as it is found previous to that epoch, and from that starting point make 
 what advances they may, trusting to nature alone as their guide to lead them on in 
 the path of beauty, and of progress. How far they have as yet succeeded in their 
 chivalrous attempt is a question which has strongly divided public opinion. One set 
 of partizans lauding to the skies even the first efforts of these young painters, and the 
 others, seeing in their works nothing but what is crude, hideous, and contemptible. 
 The press, like the audacious Gaul at the weighing of the Roman ransom, has thrown 
 its ponderous sword into the balance on the side of the latter party, and accompanied 
 its verdict with taunt, and sneer, and ridicule, of every shade and shape — even with in- 
 vective, and coarse personality, which the case by no means appeared to call for, and 
 which, acting like an over-dose of certain poisons, has served as its own antidote. It 
 would seem that the dose had been administered upon the homoeopathic principle of 
 similis similia curantur , but certainly not in infinitissimal doses, or imperceptible 
 globules, but by the quart, or rather by the gallon. 
 
 The violent character of the onslaught had the effect of enlisting many new de- 
 fenders on the side of these Argonauts of art; thus seeking the “ golden fleece ’’ 
 wherewith to clothe their imaginations, upon barbarous and untrodden shores. The 
 author of “ Modern Painters” was among their first defenders, soon followed by the 
 excellent articles by T. H. in an eminent weekly periodical, and many others. A 
 strong section of the public soon followed, and sided so strongly with the per- 
 secuted band, that, in a pecuniary sense, their fortunes are made, and they have 
 a fair opportunity of working out their theory, to victory or defeat, as the event 
 may prove. 
 
 It is certain that they have gone conscientiously to work, that their productions 
 have been the result not only of deep and careful study, but of equally careful repro- 
 duction by means of the most highly-wrought manipulation. They have not painted 
 the clothing of the meadows, and the vegetable denizens of the stream, as a matter of 
 background- work, to be dashed off in a few conventional touches in the studio, from 
 rough sketches, the true character of which might be misinterpreted at every touch : 
 they have not taken nature at second hand; they have at once, beneath the open 
 sky, transferred nature as they saw it to their canvas ; they abjured close studios, with 
 lights only to the north, and sought the broad, all-pervading sunshine. They went 
 forth into the woods and fields ; they watched the morning daisy, blushing to the 
 tips of its petals as it unfolded its white veil, and exposed its golden face to the bright 
 daylight ; they bent over the water-lily — that 
 
 “ Sculpture-like and stately river queen,” 
 
 and saw it lift its marble brow above the waters, and expand its glories to the midday 
 sun ; they watched its massive foliage rise while yet folded like a scroll, and by 
 degrees develop its form, and spread its varnished surface level with the gently heaving 
 waters, rocking it, as it were, in a noontide siesta upon a glassy bed. They have 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 63 
 
 peered curiously into the depths of the waters themselves as they flowed by, and dis- 
 tinguished the shy forms of glittering fish darting here and there among the stems 
 of the lilies, or the deep-rooted reeds, where they trace also the vague outline of 
 other dimly shadowed forms, discovering a whole world of mysteries hidden deeply 
 from vulgar eyes beneath the green waters. 
 
 They have sat for hours in the deep silence of the woods, and have watched the 
 light travel from the eastern to the western side of the trunks of the ash, the oak, the 
 beech, the elm, and have noted the texture of their various barks, in all their degrees, 
 from the smooth integument of the beech, to the rugged surface of the oak, and 
 the delicate gray of the ash ; they have watched the young shoots expand their 
 youngest leaves, pinked with the ruddy hue of their forest strength ; they have sat 
 so still, and so wrapt in their communings with this fresh nature, that the wood- 
 pecker has resumed his low tapping upon the hollow trunk of the pollard oak, and 
 the jay has lighted confidently in the branches above them, and sits daintily arrang- 
 ing his gaudy plumage, from which a few bright azure feathers, quaintly striped 
 with jetty black, fall noiselessly to their feet, but not unperceived by these ardent 
 students — I have seen them reproduced in their works, as are also that opening daisy, 
 that fresh juicy foliage of the water-lily, the glittering and darkening scales, now seen, 
 now gone, of the tiny fish, those nimble swimmers, who dart out of sight before their 
 form can be defined, except by the gifted eye of the true student of nature. 
 
 The reproduction of these and the like phenomena, has been grappled with by 
 the Pre-Raphaelites, and to a certain extent successfully ; but so minutely con- 
 scientious has been the manipulation, that much of its excellence has escaped the 
 attention of the ordinary critic. Accustomed to see similar effects produced by a 
 few conventional dashes, he has not perceived how fully and exquisitely they were 
 wrought out in these works. 
 
 The careful study of the folds and texture of drapery too, has, in one picture ex- 
 hibited this season, been carried to a pitch of excellence not attained by any other 
 pencil of the English school. But what seems wanting now, is a keener perception 
 of the beautiful in the human figure, especially in female heads, and a higher and 
 broader perception of general effect, at present to some extent impaired by excessive 
 attention to detail In avoiding all taint of conventionalism, they have of necessity 
 abandoned many important principles, which, however abused by superficial adoption, 
 and vulgarized by continual repetition unvaried by the infusion of fine individual 
 feeling, must yet form the basis of artistic maxims for all time. However freshly, 
 and with however much novelty of character, these first great principles of art may 
 be worked out, they must still form the grammar of the art, and must not, cannot 
 be abandoned. 
 
 But the Pre-Raphaelites will come to this. Let them honestly work their way to 
 it ; they have conscientiously recule pour mieux stauter ; then let them not be pre- 
 cipitated in their leap by unfair criticism, or unfeeling ridicule ; let them advance 
 over the long course they have so courageously undertaken, at their own pace, and 
 with every encouragement in their gigantic undertaking. 
 
 In dismissing the subject of “Pre-Raphaelite” art, I must add that, even should 
 
64 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 its followers succeed in establishing a school founded upon the realization of the 
 most minute and exquisite treatment of every detail, even in a much higher and more 
 artistic, and more energetic feeling, than is found in the laborious miniatures of 
 Gerard Dow or Mieris, or Metzu or others of that class, yet, I conceive, that a school 
 founded upon an almost opposite principle, producing details by a few broad and telling 
 touches, and upon general effect produced by means of well-studied masses, of form, 
 colour, and light and shade, may be coequally and coevally successful, as a distinct 
 style of art ; for there is a certain fascination about a dashing facility of pencil, when 
 wielded by a genius capable also of the higher requirements, which will, on a different 
 pedestal, hold as high a rank, as minute finish, however exquisite, and however free 
 from any smallness of character. 
 
 I will before quitting the subject, suggest to the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, 
 the careful examination of the works of a great cotemporary, too early lost to the art, 
 Leopold Robert, who, to a certain extent, preceded them in their course, and has 
 probably taken a higher and finer view of the position they are assuming, than they 
 are aware of. He too threw aside the conventional touch, the hackneyed mass of 
 shadow, the stereotyped outline of female prettiness, with its unmeaning smirk, and 
 its hues of white and pink ; and he too, has gone direct to nature, but with a deeper 
 sense of abstract beauty, as it is eventually defined by the study of many individuals, 
 but not as ever realized in one. 
 
 Leopold Robert secured to himself another great advantage over the Pre- 
 Raphaelites : he sifted, instead of rejecting all those principles of art evolved by its 
 greatest masters during three centuries of successive study. He found upon examina- 
 tion, that there really were broad irrefragable principles upon which the art of 
 painting, in its highest sphere, must ever be based ; and instead of waiting to dis- 
 cover them over again for himself by a course of laborious study, he gladly accepted 
 the discoveries of his predecessors, whether announced as discoveries by themselves 
 or by their critics. It is easy to say of critics, that the makers of rules could not 
 be the authors of the works whose principles they propound. It is easy to say that 
 Aristotle, who so skilfully dissected the great dramatic works of the Greek tragedians, 
 and dug out the principles — principles unperceived by the great authors themselves — 
 upon which they had, by artistic instinct been constructed, could not have written 
 the works whose principles of construction he thus detected. But it is not so easy 
 to prove that the principles so discovered are false ; on the contrary, all succeeding 
 analysis tends to confirm their truth. Leopold Robert felt thus of the long- 
 acknowledged principles of his art, and therefore went to work fully armed by all the 
 conventional rules, which had been the guides and land-marks of his predecessors, 
 but determined to avoid their conventional application. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, 
 he belonged to a band of devoted artists, determined to regenerate art, and how 
 far he succeeded, the well-known composition of his “ Harvest Home in the Pontine 
 Marshes,” reproduced, in small, at the head of this article, is sufficient to prove ; for 
 it has been accepted by acclamation, as of that genuine class of art which speaks to 
 all ages and all nations ; and its reproduction by every engraver of eminence in almost 
 every country of Europe is a glorious ovation to its author. 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 65 
 
 He took high ground, also, in what the French term the morale of his art ; 
 he conceived it to be a sacred calling; that its followers were teachers of the pure 
 worship of the beautiful; a religion whose hierarchs still speak to the world from the 
 depths of hoar antiquity, and still breathe forth their refining precepts from the 
 Parian stone fashioned by the hands of a Phidias or a Praxiteles ; and from the more 
 recent works of the gifted Raphael, still as fresh in the eloquence of their immortal 
 preaching as when newly painted beneath the pure sky of Rome. Leopold longed 
 to be one of these great preachers of the worship of the beautiful, with all its 
 purifying and refining influences ; and as a preparation for his sacred office, deemed 
 that above all, purity of thought, purity of living, and intense devotion to the culture 
 of the perception of that beauty, the excellence of which he sought to teach, were 
 of the deepest necessity. In the profession and practice of these principles, and 
 of his art, Leopold Robert exhaled a pure and refined existence, which may serve 
 as a model, however unattainable in its excellence, to future cultivators of the refining- 
 duties of art. 
 
 In thus referring to continental art, one is led to compare generally its chief 
 characteristics with our own. We shall find that the German school in its high but cold 
 elevation — however certain to lead to more attractive results anon — occupies as yet, 
 an isolated position — that the school of modern Italy is still lost, in a frigid and 
 servile classicism, and is powerless, while those of Holland and Belgium are too 
 nearly allied to the French to require special notice. 
 
 The school of France, however, one with which we shall have to engage in a 
 close struggle for excellence, has many analogies and aspirations common to our own. 
 
 In landscapes, interiors, and marine pieces, the various and distinct styles worked 
 out by Stanfield, Roberts, Creswick, Linnel, Martin, Danby, and others, in some 
 respects defy the rivalry of our neighbours, notwithstanding the glorious sea- 
 pieces of Gudin, and the interiors of Isabey and Granet, and some of the landscapes 
 of Cabat, Jules Dupre, Trojan, &c. &c., or the animals of Leuillier, whose “ Christians 
 abandoned to the Wild Beasts in a Roman Circus” created so much enthusiasm a few 
 years ago. In pictures of cabinet size, treating of poetical, dramatic, or historical sub- 
 jects, the names of Maclise, Herbert, Hook, Elmore, Frost, Cope, &c. are balanced 
 by a list of French rivals of about equal excellence ; for while they do not equal our 
 school in colour, they surpass it in power of drawing, and in a certain finesse in the 
 intellectual treatment of their subjects. 
 
 But while we maintain the struggle with credit in the class of art just described, 
 in the highest walk of painting we are left far behind. Either the individual ambi- 
 tion of our artists is of a lower calibre, or the class of patronage is different, or our 
 leading artists are, in most cases, a set of men less educated than the French, and con- 
 sequently incapable of attempting the intellectual treatment of subjects in the same 
 profound and magisterial spirit as their continental rivals. 
 
 Pickersgill’s great picture, the “ Samson and Dalilah,”* was a great work as to 
 
 * The cartoon competition brought much talent of a high class that was not suspected to exist ; but 
 nothing was produced capable of sustaining comparison with the highest efforts of the French school of art of 
 that kind. Take, for instance, the solitary example of the “Hemicycle” by Delaroche, at the Eoole des 
 Beaux Arts. 
 
 I 
 
66 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 manipulation and colour, and as a piece of masterly model painting ; but there 
 was no new intellectual grasp of the subject ; and the same may be said of Etty’s 
 “Joan of Arc,” which was, at the same time, full of such errors of drawing and 
 proportion as the veriest tyro would have been ashamed of ; these defects, it is true, 
 were redeemed, if such redemption were possible, by splendour of execution and the 
 magic of colour; but they ought not to exist in a work pretending to the rank 
 of high art. 
 
 Similar observations may be urged against the very few other pictures of similar 
 dimensions which our school has produced. For, after all, what have we done, since 
 the noble efforts of Barry in the Adelphi, to compare to the “ Reve de Bonheur” of 
 Papety, or the “ Orgie Romaine” of Couture ? Assuredly nothing of the same 
 high class. Barry had certainly preceded Papety in his pictorial interpretation of 
 “ A Vision of the Happiness of a Future State of Existence,” in which he makes 
 the highest human aspirations attain their solution in the fields of Elysium. He 
 has made the happy future of the legislator consist in a meeting of such as Lycurgus, 
 Confucius, and Penn ; such personal interchange of the ideas of widely distant ages, 
 so extending the field of legislative vision, that questions of endless difficulty are 
 solved in a moment, and the supreme happiness of the legislator consummated. 
 So with the poet. Homer meets Dante, Chaucer, and Shakspeare — while the harmony 
 of the spheres, which still remained unfathomed by Newton, is developed to him by 
 an angel. But all this is more powerfully conceived than executed. 
 
 Not so with the works of Papety. The ground taken up by the French artist is 
 more manageable, perhaps more of “ the earth, earthy,” but its treatment is full of 
 poetry in his hands. His “ Dream of Happiness,” his “ Reve de Bonheur,” is an 
 expression of the supremest happiness of which human life is susceptible in different 
 natures, and at different epochs of life, represented by a number of distinct groups, 
 skilfully wrought into a composition of wonderful elaboration ; yet, so artistically 
 contrived as to appear of the utmost simplicity. In one group, it is love — in another, 
 art — in another, science — in another, the triumph of strength in athletic exercises — in 
 another, the joy of the hunter — in another, the morbid ecstasy of the successful 
 miser, or the frantic pleasure of the excited gambler. 
 
 The scene and costume are well conceived and simple, for they do not obtrude 
 themselves ; the epoch might be Greek — it might be Roman — it might be a scene 
 among the Frankish Merovingians — or it might even be modern. So much does the 
 purely intellectual dominate in the treatment of the subject, that the artist’s con- 
 ception of costume or appropriate accessories do not once occur to the spectator. 
 He sees the lovers wandering beneath the shade of majestic trees in the deep 
 twilight, feeling not even the beauty of the hour, so absorbed is each in the other. 
 He sees the young astronomer, blind to the beauty of human eyes, while in the 
 contemplation of the lights of heaven. He sees the young artist in the ecstasy of 
 giving the last touches to the work which has occupied his dreams as well as his 
 waking hours. He sees the triumphant eye of the successful soldier returning from the 
 combat, and the victorious wrestler glorying in his strength. He sees the successful 
 hunter prostrate with flashing eye and distended nosti’il, the vanquished boar, 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 67 
 
 foaming a vain defiance. He sees the gleaming eye of the miser reflecting the 
 brightness of his hoarded gold, but fitfully watching lest some unexpected intrusion 
 should endanger his possession. He sees the gambler, mad with the pleasure of hope 
 in his last stake, which is sure to win back all, and more than repay, with a 
 paroxysm of delight, moments, hours of despair. All this, and much more, is told 
 in the picture of Papety, snatched too early from his profession, like the gifted 
 Gericault, in the full tide of success. 
 
 Of such a class are the pictures, always above life size, to which the youthful artists 
 of F ranee devote their early years. Refusing lucrative offers of employment in less 
 glorious channels of art, they devote the entire energy of youth to these great works, 
 looking to fame alone, and treating profit as a matter below the attention of a true 
 artist. With such feelings, many truly noble works have been produced, and, at the 
 same time, many below mediocrity, when mistaken patronage interfered, as the 
 galleries of Versailles so fully testify. I will only allude to one more work of this 
 high class, that of Couture. We have seen how our clever countryman, Mr. Poole, 
 has treated the “ Goths in Italy.” A few armed and fair-haired warriors, not too 
 barbarous in appearance, lie about the slopes of an Italian garden, overlooking a 
 beautiful bay. The Mediterranean gleams beneath them, the blue Italian sky 
 above, and they are waited on by a noble Roman maiden, now a slave. This is all 
 Mr. Poole has seen in his subject, or, at all events, thought proper to execute. It 
 must be allowed, however, that what he has done, he has done well. But let us see 
 how M. Couture has treated a similar theme; his “ Orgie Romaine,” is a banquet 
 in the time of Roman decadence, when the stern virtues of the great republic were 
 forgotten, and an oriental luxury, and debasing dissipation had usurped their place. 
 The lines of Juvenal, 
 
 “ ssevior armis, 
 
 Luxuria incubit victumque ulciscitur orbem,” 
 
 would appear to have suggested the picture. The scene, as so well described by 
 Gautier in one of his inimitable criticisms, passes in a vast apartment supported by 
 columns of the Corinthian, or rather composite order, for Roman luxury has already 
 overcharged with parasitic ornament and unnatural combinations the beautiful design 
 of the Grecian capitals. The pale sky of morning is seen through the interstices of 
 the architecture, a new day breaking upon the nocturnal revelry to show it all its 
 vileness. Around, are statues of the elder Romans, frowning from their pedestals 
 upon the degradation of their degenerate descendants ; a lightning of indignation 
 seems to shine even through their eyes of stone, and a bitter sarcasm seems to die 
 upon the curled angle of their marble lips. How poetical is the invention of this 
 phalanx of mute spectators of the scene. One daring youth, maddened with wine, 
 mounts the pedestal of a Brutus or a Camillus, and insolently holds the wine cup to his 
 silent lips. Thus has the artist united the interest of the spectator between the 
 Romans of marble, and the Romans of flesh — the ancestor and his posterity — between 
 the founders of an empire, and its destroyers. Women in dresses resplendent with 
 embroidery, and worn carelessly at the end of the banquet, are gazing listlessly at the 
 breaking light, or turning a careless ear to words of flattery addressed to them by 
 
 I 2 
 
68 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 men as listless as tliemselves ; others, of more robust organization, appear to resist the 
 hour, the wine, the excess, defying even the retributive finger of dissipation. Beyond, 
 is a group of elders, rosy, hilarious, clear-eyed, crowned with roses and with ivy, the 
 victors of a hundred feasts, who have seen whole generations of vigorous youth sink into 
 the grave of luxury. There, a band of girls and youth, evidently more devoted to the 
 dance than the table, are still alert, and playfully dispute the possession of a wreath of 
 flowers. The centre of the picture is occupied by a magnificent female figure — a 
 once superb creature — whose beauty is already marked by the lines, while it yet defies 
 the last effects, of dissipation. The style of her beauty is as of something nocturnal 
 and voluptuous, and yet statuesque and magnificent — a Messalina in power, in vice, and 
 in disdain of virtue. She leans carelessly on the shoulder of a man magnificently 
 robed, who seems the Amphitryon of the banquet, and as she leans so proudly, 
 with her fading, yet still glorious beauty, she might be a personification of Rome 
 herself, conquered by pleasure, before a Gothic sword was drawn against her. Other 
 figures equally characteristic abound, as well as innumerably rich and characteristic 
 accessories. But enough has been said to show the grasp of intellectual power with 
 which the work was conceived. I must not omit a final characteristic touch of great 
 effect. In the shade of a projecting portion of the architecture, stand two figures, 
 cynical, austere — perhaps the satirist and the historian — a Juvenal, and a Tacitus. 
 They are evidently judges, and not actors in the scene. But this is left an enigma 
 to the spectator ; it is sufficient that he is impressed with the feeling, that the 
 orgie has been sternly watched, by observers who will evidently not allow its vicious 
 luxuries to pass without the just castigation of a biting record. 
 
 Pictures of this class, our school has not yet produced, or dreamed of. The views 
 of our artists have been confined within comparatively narrow limits. The immense 
 importance of mere “money position” in our country, deters the young artist from de- 
 voting the years of his prime of youth to the production of great works of monumental 
 dimensions. He is driven at once to such as arc suited to mere room furniture, 
 of a high class, it is true, but which still leave their producers infinitely below the 
 artistic rank justly assumed by MM. Papety and Couture. In fact, with our present 
 notions regarding pictures, and their fit destination, and the few purposes to which, as 
 decorations, they can be applied, beyond, as I have said, mere furniture, it appears 
 useless to hope that our artists will venture on such high ground, notwithstanding the 
 example of their brothers of France. Till something is done here towards establishing 
 an arena for the outpourings of a similar artistic ambition, we shall have our greatest 
 artists pandering to print-shop speculations, and even our Landseers and their peers 
 desecrating their pencils by the production of “ Poor Doggies,” and the like ; or 
 worse, groups of singing children, labelled to catch the pseudo-pious, with such titles 
 as “ Lord have mercy upon us,” and other really blasphemous ticketing of the same 
 class. But it is easier to decry than suggest improvements — easier to break down 
 than to build up. So, not to point out a disease without suggesting a remedy, I 
 will glance at the present state of public taste in such matters, and if it is found 
 fit to relish a higher class of works, propose a mode of encouraging their production. 
 
 By some of the best and most enthusiastic advocates for establishing a national 
 
PAINTING. 
 
 69 
 
 school of high art, much has been said against such institutions as those termed 
 “ Art Unions.” The result of the operations of these associations has, however, 
 proved their immense utility. Their faults have been many, hut perhaps unavoid- 
 able. They have issued bad prints, and have been the means of selling bad 
 pictures ; but the extensive inoculation of the middle classes, with a taste for 
 art through their means, has been enormous and undeniable, and many, raised by 
 their influence to a higher perception of art than can be gratified by such means, 
 have deserted the ranks of the associations, and become patrons on their own 
 account. That such has been the beneficial effect of these unions, combined with 
 that produced by local exhibitions, who can doubt, when he sees our manufacturers 
 of Birmingham, &c., giving thousand-guinea commissions for pictures to our leading 
 artists ? From the last-named fact, it appears evident that the public taste is fit to 
 receive and admire works of the highest class, and also to pay for them. This 
 mere private patronage, however, cannot, from other causes than mere insufficiency 
 of money means, be effective beyond very limited bounds, on account of the ordinary 
 dimensions of our domestic residences, even of the highest class. 
 
 In our great national buildings we cannot hope for much, as their decoration 
 must long remain fettered by royal commissions, and other incumbrances of that kind, 
 which, however liberal in their beginning, must, from their inherent nature, soon 
 sink into a very narrow circle of favouritism, one-sided patronage, and even rank 
 jobbing. We must, therefore, look to public efforts, quite unshackled by the in- 
 fluence of governmental patronage. I would suggest, therefore, the establishment of 
 a number of institutions similar in constitution and principle to our most splendid 
 club-houses ; but instead of devoting the great means which are placed at the disposal 
 of such clubs — to the object of luxuriously feeding the body — they should do that 
 office for the mind ; they should be restaurants to the intellect, nourishing it with the 
 refinements of art, daily refreshing the soul with those exquisite feelings arising from 
 the contemplation of the most perfect artistic works, and gently exciting it by continual 
 fresh additions to the collection of the institution. The mission of “ clubs” would 
 then assume a somewhat higher character than in ministering to the fastidious 
 appetites of gentlemen who are, through their means, enabled to get more flavour 
 about their broiled chicken, and to sip their pint of chablis more delicately iced, than 
 they could hope for either at their own homes, or at a respectable tavern. 
 
 Let us then imagine eight hundred gentlemen, or ladies, subscribing but six 
 guineas a year, and we have at once an income of about £5,000. A builder could easily 
 be found, willing to erect a suitable, building, on being guaranteed five per cent, for his 
 outlay; we will suppose this to be £10,000 — a sum for which a very splendid and 
 suitable edifice might be erected; the interest, or yearly rent, would thus amount 
 to £500. The supply of all the works on art as they appeared, and all the leading 
 periodicals, would consume another £500, leaving a clear surplus of £4,000 a-year, 
 which should be exclusively devoted to the purchase of works of art. The 
 attendance, and the keeping of the building always clean, and in perfect order, should 
 be performed by the servants of a commercial restaurateur attached to the in- 
 stitution, who, in return for exclusively furnishing the members with any refresh- 
 
70 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 ments required, of the first quality, and at tariff prices, should, as his rent, keep the 
 building in order, and furnish all necessary attendance. 
 
 The members would thus, for a small subscription of six guineas annually, enjoy 
 the luxury of a gallery of art, increasing every year at the rate of ,£4,000 worth, 
 besides the voluntary donations of extra works by members, which would most 
 certainly be considerable. Such a gallery, with the addition of a gradually growing 
 library, and many other advantages easily perceived, would be an infinite advance 
 upon the poor purposes to which the vast means of our great metropolitan clubs are 
 at present applied, and might eventually lead to the gradual growth of numbers of 
 palaces of art, each a Louvre in itself — a consummation by no means impossible or 
 improbable, when we look back to the small list of works of art possessed by Francis I., 
 who may be considered the founder of the magnificent French collections of the 
 present day. That this idea, whether from my suggestion, or that of others, is 
 destined to germinate, I am certain, and also that its results will, in a few years, 
 fill our metropolis. 
 
 The opinion has latterly gained ground among artists, that the governmental 
 patronage extended to art on the Continent, has been of signal service in developing 
 its higher branches. But this conclusion is sufficiently disproved by the eight miles 
 of painted canvas in the galleries of Versailles, as compared with works of French 
 artists produced by independent exertion ; whilst, if we turn to this country, where 
 government patronage has been recently essayed to a limited extent, we shall find that 
 the results have been equally unfortunate, the most recent example of its inefficiency 
 being displayed in the silly and indiscriminate scattering of prize medals at the close 
 of the Great Exhibition. I would, therefore, warn artists to look to a sounder arena 
 than the regions of a court for the exercise of their talents. I would have them look 
 to the rapidly increasing taste of our great industrials ; to public institutions of 
 strictly popular organization, such as I have described above, and to a true, honest, 
 and independent love of art for itself, alone certain to lead to well-earned distinction 
 and success. Let, I repeat, artists of all classes work out their career with these 
 feelings, especially eschewing the hollow temptation of meretricious and ephemeral 
 distinction acquired through courtly patronage, as a dangerous and destructive^ 
 though glittering bait. 
 
ZIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 METAL WORK, 
 
 THEN it is considered how important to our daily and hourly comforts are 
 m/%' the household implements with which a knowledge of working in various 
 metals has furnished us, we must at once be struck with the importance of 
 human progress in the industrial arts. The bare comparison between the well polished 
 fire-grate — the balance handled table-knife, or the well finished silver-spoon, with 
 the wigwam fire of the savage, and the sharpened stone which serves him for a 
 knife, suggest at once the condition of the immense chasm which has been passed in 
 our onward progress, Hie beginning of which is still within the records of human 
 knowledge. If then the rude beginning of all we have accomplished is still so recent 
 as to be within the boundary of our imperfect records, how much may we not, 
 as a race, hope to accomplish in the illimitable future, if we continue to work 
 vigorously in the road of improvement. 
 
 We occupy, in comparison with the savage, a proud position in the arts of 
 civilization ; yet, if we look round, and critically ascertain how deficient are most of 
 our household implements and appliances, in that species of design which constitutes 
 beauty, and which should in all things lend its refining aid to embellish our existence, 
 we shall find that till within five or six years, the last century has supplied no pro- 
 gress in that direction, and that its work has been confined exclusively to achieving 
 great excellence in mere mechanical processes, in which a certain phase of perfection 
 has been attained. The mere utilitarian application of industrial art has been carried 
 to a wonderful extent, both in facility of production and in the excellence, mecha- 
 nically speaking, of the products. But in the same period we shall not only find 
 that the artistic element of industrial art, has not made a corresponding progress, but, 
 on the contrary, that it has, during the last century, absolutely retrograded. 
 
 During that period, works in metal, with the exception of bronze statuary, 
 cannot claim even a respectable place in art, in comparison with their positions 
 in former periods. The works of the goldsmith even, had sunk into insignificance 
 
72 
 
 TEN CENTURES OF ART. 
 
 at the close of the 18 th century ; and from iron and brass-work, anything like 
 artistic or decorative feeling had entirely disappeared. 
 
 Now that art has once more began to shed its beautifying influence over the 
 products of these branches of industry, it will be interesting to trace its earliest 
 and subsequent progress in connexion with metal working. 
 
 That the metals were unknown to man within a period to which our records 
 extend, is proved by both ancient and modern writers on the subject, and proved 
 also, by the continual discovery, even in our own island, of weapons and various 
 utensils formed of hard stone; a mode of reducing which to the required forms 
 evidently preceded any acquaintance with the metals. 
 
 In our own time, too, races of men have been discovered, who were still in that 
 primitive stage of knowledge, in which stone serves the purposes eventually trans- 
 ferred to gold, silver, bronze, iron, &c. Such were the natives of the islands of 
 the Pacific, discovered by Captain Cook, and the natives of New Zealand and 
 Australia. 
 
 The early stages of human civilization are more easily traced by reference to 
 their weapons of war than by any other monuments ; and archaiologists have found it 
 convenient to divide the early epochs of European civilization into “the age of stone,” 
 “ the age of bronze,” and the “ age of iron;” for it is proved by many existing monu- 
 ments that the use of bronze, for both offensive and defensive weapons, long preceded 
 that of iron, as that of stone preceded bronze. 
 
 It would seem, that gold was the first metal discovered, which is easily con- 
 ceived, as it is found in a nearly pure state, and is so malleable and ductile, that a 
 mode of making use of it for ornamental purposes must soon have followed its 
 discovery. That such was in fact the case is proved by some of our earliest written 
 records; those of the Bible for instance, in which jewels of gold, vases, &c. are 
 described as being in use as early as the time of Abraham, sometimes adjusted to 
 certain weights so as to pass also for money, known by numismatists as “jewel money,” 
 for which purpose the large bracelets and massive torques of the Celtic nations, in 
 more recent times, were also used. 
 
 Gold was once plentiful in Western Asia, and gold tripods and other votive gifts 
 to temples in that metal, are mentioned at a very early period. Another proof 
 of the knowledge of gold having preceded that even of silver, is the gold coinage of 
 Asia Minor, the existing specimens of which are evidently of more ancient fabric 
 than any silver coins known. 
 
 The discovery of silver, however, was doubtless not long in following that of gold ; 
 and it was probably soon used for decorative purposes by the ancients more frequently 
 than gold, on account of its greater abundance. Pliny mentions that many had 
 gained renown for chasing in silver, but none for chasing in gold ; but that must be 
 an exaggerated statement, as gold tripods, and other objects “more precious for their 
 workmanship than even their material,” are mentioned as early as the period of the 
 last race of Lydian princes. 
 
 The discovery of copper was the next advance in the knowledge of the metals, 
 soon followed by that of tin, &c., by the mixing of which with copper, bronze was 
 
METAL WORK. 
 
 73 
 
 produced, long so extensively used for weapons and armour, previous to its employ- 
 ment for decorative purposes. 
 
 Iron, though perhaps the last discovered of the common metals, and very late in 
 coming into general use, was nevertheless known, and occasionally used at a com- 
 paratively early period. There is a passage in Athenaeus describing a vase presented 
 by Alyattes, King of Lydia, to the Temple of Delphi, in the 6th century before the 
 Christian era, the base of which was in wrought iron, richly chased with an elaborate 
 design, consisting of minute figures of animals, insects, and plants, the work of 
 Glaucus of Chios. Plutarch also mentions a work in iron, some three centuries later, 
 as still considered remarkable in his time, namely, the highly-wrought helmet of 
 Alexander, which he describes as shining like silver, a proof that even at that date iron 
 was very rarely used for arms or armour, or the material of the helmet of Alexander 
 would not be mentioned as unusual. 
 
 Many monuments might be cited, such as tripods, vases, pieces of armour, 
 chariots, the chest of Cypselus, &c., made of gold or silver, or a combination of 
 several materials, in which the precious metals formed a principal part, all of which 
 have been minutely described by ancient authors ; but many of the more ancient 
 were doubtless, though perhaps elaborate, of very stiff archaic workmanship, as we 
 may infer from the remark of Socrates, himself a sculptor, and a descendant of 
 Daedalus, who is made to say that “ if Daedalus himself could return to life, and 
 produce works similar to those which pass for his, he would render himself ridiculous 
 in the eyes of living sculptors — so great had been the progress in art between 
 the (assumed) time of Daedalus and that of Socrates. 
 
 But nevertheless, previous to the time of Phidias (about 450 B.C.) the art of 
 working in metal must have attained to comparative excellence, the names of 
 several artists having been preserved as excelling in that branch of art, such as the 
 G laucus above-named, and Theodoras of Samos, who made the ring of Polycrates, and 
 a celebrated golden vessel, which afterwards adorned the palace of the King of Persia. 
 
 The art of working in various metals had indeed become an especial vocation, 
 termed the Torreutic art (ropzu nx.n'), and afterwards known to the Romans as Ccelatara , 
 both terms being probably synonymous, though antiquarians draw nice distinctions, 
 inferring that the Torreutic process consisted in fixing thin plates of the metal on to 
 other substances, by means of holes and rivets, from r opevu, to bore or pierce, while 
 the Roman term referred rather to engraving, or chasing, from ccelo, to chase, and 
 ccedo , to cut. 
 
 Though, as I have said, metal work of a very complicated nature existed before 
 the time of Phidias, it remained to the great Athenian sculptor to raise the art 
 to the highest rank, which he did by his famous statues of Jupiter, and Minerva, 
 partly executed in gold, and doubtless by other smaller works now forgotten. The 
 intimate connexion of this art with statuary in the great artistic age of Greece is 
 proved by the fact that several eminent sculptors were also chasers in silver, such as 
 Myron and Pasitiles. The sculptor Mys engraved the battle of the Lapithce with 
 the centaurs on the shield of Phidias’s colossal statue of Minerva. 
 
 About the time of Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander, works in silver 
 and gold had become common luxuries, and in arms and armour the use of the 
 
 J 
 
74 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 precious metals was profuse, as we learn incidentally from the name of the favourite 
 cohort of Alexander, the Argyraspides , or silver shields, so named from their shields 
 plated with silver. The Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, at a later period, not 
 only imitated his Macedonian namesake in the array of a similar troop, which he 
 called his Argyroaspides, but also surpassed that degree of luxury by the formation of 
 a still more select corps, called the Ghrysoaspides , or golden shields, as described by 
 his biographer, Lampridius. 
 
 The first works both of gold, silver, or bronze, were produced either by ham- 
 mering, or engraving, the invention of the art of casting, both in bronze and iron, 
 being ascribed to Theodorus of Samos. The earliest bronze statue of Zeus, by 
 Learchus of Rhigium, was formed of several pieces nailed together. 
 
 The great period of invention among the ancient races of Europe, appears to have 
 been the three centuries which followed the age of Homer, during which Glaucus of 
 Chios is said to have invented the art of soldering metals, and the brothers Telecles 
 and Theodorus that of casting, in which they produced celebrated works by their 
 then new process. The art of casting statues and other works in bronze was carried 
 to its highest point by Polycleitus, the immediate successor of Phidias ; but I must 
 pass quickly over the subject of statuary, this chapter being more especially devoted 
 to the progress of metal work in general. 
 
 I must not omit, however, to hint that the Rhodians established a positive trade 
 in bronze statuary of the highest class ; and when Pindar, in the figurative language 
 of poetry, says “ that the day the Rhodians dedicated a temple to Minerva, a shower 
 of gold fell upon the island,” he doubtless means that when those islanders successfully 
 cultivated the arts patronised by that deity, they became rapidly wealthy, and it is 
 well known that their merchants exported statues as an important branch of com- 
 merce, filling the cities of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and even the cities of Greece 
 herself, and the more distant Rome, with the works of her great artists — a “ trade” to 
 which Pindar again alludes when he says that “ Prometheus” (symbol of the genius 
 which inspires sculptors) “ has excited in the mind of the Rhodians a noble emulation, 
 and the statues which they model spread themselves abroad among the cities, even 
 like a crowd of mortals who walk the earth.” So important an element of commerce 
 may the fine arts become, when the enlightenment of a people has perceived not only 
 their beauty , but their use. 
 
 How far the arts, when successfully cultivated, were capable of enriching coun- 
 tries, is abundantly shown by the recorded prices of celebrated works. Nicias, 
 the Athenian leader, for instance, refused 60 talents (A - 13,000) for one of his 
 pictures, which he afterwards presented to the state ; and at Rome, Caesar placed two 
 pictures by Timomachus at the entrance of the Temple of Venus Genitrix, which had 
 cost him 80 talents (above £17,000), while a picture by Aristides was purchased 
 for 100 talents (£22,000). To which list of the price current of works of Grecian 
 art, may be added the interesting fact that the state of Sicyon paid off its “ national 
 debt” by the sale of its pictures. 
 
 The noble coinage of the Greeks exhibits in an unbroken series of examples, the 
 progress of that people in working silver, gold, and copper, from the earliest period, 
 
METAL WORK. 
 
 75 
 
 to the highest development of Grecian art — from the rude beginning, when the 
 imperfection of their coining instruments only enabled them to produce an object in 
 relief on one side of the coin, the other presenting the rude indent, caused by 
 the punch — to the time when such exquisite impersonations, first of deities, and then 
 of princes, formed the types of the coinage, as leads the archaiologist to suppose that 
 a race of artists was employed upon that class of art nothing inferior in skill to the 
 more celebrated producers of sculpture upon a large scale.* That the art of die-sinking 
 for the coinage was an important one, is proved by the recent discovery of some of the 
 engravers’ names, which occur on the noble Syracusian medallions, that of Kimon 
 being the most frequent, especially on the fine pieces which have the head of Proser- 
 pine in magnificent relief on the obverse, and the quadriga, or four-horse chariot, on the 
 reverse. In this branch of art the Grecian colonies of Sicily and south of Italy appear 
 to have surpassed the mother country, especially in general elaboration and high finish, 
 Athens especially among the states of Greece Proper never having cultivated the 
 manipulation of the coinage, in an artistic point of view. 
 
 The metal work of the Greeks consisted in various other classes of manufacture, or 
 rather art, for the character of their productions was so high and artistic, and of such 
 careful elaboration, that they cannot be classed with what we now term manufactures. 
 Among the works mentioned by cotemporary writers are caskets and vases, formed of 
 rare woods, richly mounted in gold and silver, highly decorated with profuse chasing 
 and embossing, and also a kind of inlaying, which may have much resembled our 
 modern damascene work. The patterns on vases and other vessels in general consisted 
 of geometrically designed borderings, and more rarely of foliage, enriched with 
 animals, &c. Arms and armour generally bore for ornament the delineation of 
 battles, or contests of athletae, either engraved or embossed, and in some cases, both in 
 armour as well as in vases and other ordinary vessels, the designs were made separate, 
 and rivetted on, the objects in relief being frequently gold, fastened on a silver 
 ground, a method of ornamentation referred to in the prosecution of the Roman 
 Praetor Verres, who so abused his powers during his government of Sicily as to call 
 down the public indignation so finely expressed in the pleadings of Cicero. Verres, it 
 would appear, though a greedy, was not a very accomplished amateur of art, and 
 generally took with him a Greek sculptor and a painter to advise him w r hich statues, 
 which pictures, or which highly-wrought vases were best worth his appropriation. By 
 the advice of these worthies, he sometimes only removed the raised ornaments from 
 rich cups or vases, causing them to be fixed on vessels of his own ; thus evading 
 the accusation of taking the vases themselves. 
 
 In less artistic but equally elaborate works, the Egyptians and even the Assyrians 
 were expert artizans. Many curious Egyptian works exist in our museums ; and 
 we shall shortly, through the labours of Layard, be able to look upon the throne of 
 the Assyrian king, and judge for ourselves of the cunning workmanship of the gold- 
 smiths of Nineveh and Babylon. That the most celebrated Grecian works in armour, 
 vases, &c., were the work of great artists, is certain ; but that such things were also 
 
 * See my work on “ Ancient Coins and Medals.” 
 j 2 
 
76 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 produced as branches of mere manufacture is equally on record ; for the orator 
 Lysias had a manufactory of shields which occupied twenty slaves, and Demosthenes 
 inherited a “ sword manufactory” from his father, which was worked by thirty slaves, 
 and a “ bed manufactory” which employed twenty, in which last, a great quantity of 
 ivory, copper, iron, and ebony was used. 
 
 It is, however, to be presumed that the really fine works of art, as above 
 suggested, were generally the production of independent artists ; but it is probable, 
 at the same time, that even the bedsteads of the manufactory of Demosthenes 
 and his competitors, for it is not to be supposed that he had all the trade to 
 himself, were occasionally highly artistic productions ; for it is impossible to conceive 
 that the 3000 statues by the greatest artists of Greece, which decorated the temples 
 and public places of Athens, should not have exercised a remarkable influence 
 upon the taste of her artizans ; whose ancestors had heard the maxims of Socrates, 
 inculcating above all things the admiration of the beautiful, when he preached its 
 culture to Athenian artists of all classes, propounding to Pistias, the armourer — to 
 Parrhasius, the painter — or to Aristippus, the philosopher, that abstract beauty 
 may exist in all things, of however various form and purpose ; and that the principle 
 of beauty in a beautiful and accomplished woman, in a helmet, in a drinking cup, 
 or a richly-wrought cuirass, was one and the same thing, and that the forms of 
 all those different objects (if perfect) were subject to the same law. 
 
 Still, the smaller productions of great artists must have been of a higher 
 character than any works produced in manufactories, and by the hand of slaves, and 
 when, as we know they did, the chisels and the gravers, of such men as Ariston, 
 Calliades, Mys, Stratonicus, Euphorion, and Critias, were used to chase a drinking 
 cup, to emboss a sword sheath, or to damascene a helmet, or when Euphorion, the 
 especial sculptor of colossal statues, occasionally amused his leisure with carving a 
 miniature vase, the works so produced must have been almost above price, and 
 have formed the luxuries of princes, or found a place among the sacred treasures of 
 rich temples. 
 
 It was to such a “manufacturer” that Anacreon addressed his well-known ode; 
 in which he exclaims, “ Excellent artist, carve me on this cup the beautiful Bathyllus, 
 pressing forth the wine from luxurious grapes, along with the youthful Bacchus, and 
 with Cupid.” 
 
 But among the finely-organised Greek race, there was another class, less exigeant 
 than poets, and less rich than princes, whose artistic instincts had to be gratified. 
 Theocritus and other pastoral poets have described the delight with which the 
 Grecian shepherd beheld the rich chasing of a drinking cup, and how such objects 
 became the prizes for which they contended in their pastoral songs. Such cups 
 were, doubtless, originally carved in wood by the shepherds themselves, to beguile 
 the weary watchings of their flocks, as the modern Giotto traced the image of 
 his dog on a piece of stone while he watched his sheep among the Apennines, 
 but at a later period the workshops of Athens, of Corinth, of Sicyon, of Rhodes, 
 and such establishments as the bed manufactory of Demosthenes, furnished the 
 bulk of the people with their artistic luxuries ; while the great and independent 
 
METAL AVORK. 
 
 77 
 
 artists worked exclusively for the rich and powerful. As when we find the celebrated 
 Lysippus chasing a cup for the King Cassander, expressly to drink the wine of Mendes. 
 Such, too, was the cup of Hercules, mentioned by Athenseus, upon which the siege of 
 Troy was represented, and which also bore the inscription “ Parrhasius made the 
 design, Mys engraved it ; I represent the high Ilion, which the Greeks overthrew.” 
 
 The love of decorative vases was carried to excess by the dilettanti of Greece, 
 and more than seventy-two sorts of drinking cups are described by Athenaeus, each 
 having a distinctive name. Among those celebrated for the love of richly-wrought 
 vases, the Ptolemies are remarkable for the luxury in which they indulged, and the 
 patronage of this branch of art was extraordinary ; while the Arcadian Pithias caused 
 it to be inscribed on his tomb that he had possessed more vases than any other man * 
 
 With such incitement it is not difficult to conceive that the arts and manufactures 
 flourished in Greece. They even outlived her political prosperity, and retained their 
 supremacy even after the deluge of barbarism that swept away the Roman Empire 
 in the West. Greece was the last province that remained to the emperors of the East, 
 and even as late as the 11th century we find her workshops still busy in the 
 creation of industrial wealth, and those great and eternal axioms of beauty which 
 guided her first great artists, still ruling to a great extent the Greek art of the dark 
 ages. F or the helmets and shields manufactured at that late period by her armourers, 
 still perpetuated the classic forms of the helm and shield of Minerva that were 
 modelled by the hand of Phidias. 
 
 The Romans, at an immeasurable distance, followed a similar course to the Greeks 
 in their style of working silver and gold utensils and ornaments. Influenced by the 
 style of art which prevailed in the cities of Magna-Grecia, and also by that of Etruria, 
 where the working of copper or rather bronze had attained to such excellence that 
 Etruscan candelabra were prized even at Athens, Roman art exhibited peculiarities 
 which occasionally possess a certain largeness and grandeur of manner not always 
 found even in Grecian works. 
 
 The eventual style of design in the industrial arts of Rome, when it assumed a 
 definite character after the firm establishment of the empire, may be said to have 
 been founded upon the arts of all nations : the spoils of Africa, and of the temples of 
 Egypt, the riches of Asia, even the golden vessels and elaborate decorations of the 
 temple of Jerusalem, forming part of the artistic treasure which served to form the 
 taste of the Roman Empire. On the arch of Titus, raised to commemorate his 
 return from the conquest of the country of the JeAVS, the seven-branched candle- 
 stick, and the sacred vessels of the temple, Avere carved in high relief, and those 
 carvings are still perfect, forming one of the most remarkable objects that attract the 
 attention of the wanderer in the ruined forum of the eternal city. But he may pur- 
 chase there a still more striking memorial of the fall of Jerusalem, from itinerant 
 vendors of ancient coins, a class of traders seldom without a specimen of the coinage 
 of Vespasian struck to commemorate that event, on which Judea is some- 
 times personified as a weeping figure at the feet of the Emperor, beneath the 
 
 * Many were doubtless works of pottery, which I shall allude to in speaking of fictile wares in general. 
 
78 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 famous inscription “ Judea capta.” Indeed the Roman coinage offers, perhaps, even 
 a more interesting series of metallic monuments, than that of Greece and her colonies ; 
 for in addition to the three or four hundred authentic portraits of the emperors and 
 their wives and children, such historic events as Judea capta, -/Egypta capta, and a 
 vast number of others, are recorded on the coinage of the Roman Empire, some of 
 which have no other record. 
 
 The decorative arts, as exhibited in finely-wrought objects of gold and silver, 
 appear to have been much cultivated in Italy, both before and after Roman supre- 
 macy ; and the modern Roman museums are full of specimens, especially that formed 
 by Gregory XIV. which contains a superb collection of ancient gold jewellery, 
 indiscriminately termed Etruscan. Some of it is undoubtedly of Etruscan work- 
 manship, of both early and late date, found in the tombs of Etruria, but a portion 
 belongs no doubt to other parts of Italy, and much, probably, to the great 
 capital itself, whither artists and artizans, from all the provinces of the empire, 
 flocked for employment. Among these interesting remains of ancient art, the 
 metallic mirrors are conspicuous, for it would seem that although glass was known in 
 Rome, even before the foundation of the empire by Augustus, yet the art of con- 
 verting it into mirrors was not brought to perfection, and highly polished metallic 
 plates served this purpose, some of which are most elegantly ornamented ; but those 
 of foreign workmanship, especially Corinthian, appear to have been preferred to 
 such as were of native fabric. The gold ornaments in the Roman museums are very 
 various in character, and some of them so delicately constructed, of such thin leaves 
 of gold, as makes their perfect preservation truly marvellous. 
 
 In Greece, very few remains in the form of minute jewellery have been found, 
 while in Italy they are abundant, and the national museums, as I have said, contain 
 vast accumulations full of interest to the student of art and its history. Among 
 these we may examine endless examples of the fibula or brooch, sometimes more 
 nearly resembling a buckle, by which the two ends of the scarf were fastened over 
 the chest, some of them of most exquisite design ; some as light and delicate as the 
 filagree work of modern Genoa, while others are solid and massive, and enriched 
 with deep chasing. Here too, we find endless varieties of the armilla or bracelet, 
 which was a favourite ornament with the ladies of Rome, as it had been among 
 the Medes and Persians, both men and women ; and from the East, the custom 
 travelled not only through Greece to Rome, but through Thrace and the Ger- 
 manic countries to Gaul, and even Britain, where it was constantly worn by the 
 warriors of every tribe ; sometimes round the neck, and sometimes round the 
 arm. By the Celts these ornaments were called torques , and the Roman, Manlius, 
 who slew a Gaulish chief, and took from him his torque, received the surname of 
 Torquetus ; and on coins struck by his family towards the end of the Republic, 
 a torque of the description still frequently found even as far west as Ireland, 
 is made to form the bordering of the coin in commemoration of the victory of 
 their ancestor. 
 
 In addition to the armilla? and fibula?, we find in the Gregorian and other 
 collections, earrings, necklaces, and ornaments for the hair, the latter frequently 
 
METAL WORK 
 
 79 
 
 formed of extremely thin plates of gold, forming a wreath of leaves and flowers 
 executed with a taste and finish very similar to that which might be exhibited by a 
 modern Parisian manufacturer of artificial flowers, if compelled to work with gold 
 instead of gauze. 
 
 That great extravagance of taste, both in the quantity and the form of gold 
 ornaments, marked the period of the decline of Roman power, we may infer from 
 passages in the writings of the later poets and historians, and the magnificent collec- 
 tion of gold monuments, principally belonging to the decline of the western empire, 
 in the museum at Vienna, on which a special work has been recently published, 
 exhibit the style of art which then prevailed — a sad decline from the better works of 
 a former period. The power of seizing with artistic energy the proportions and 
 poetic symmetry of the human figure was lost, and a stiff and crude imitation of the 
 most obvious forms took its place. The representation of foliage and animals, so 
 exquisite in former periods, had declined in the same way, while the introduction of 
 elaborate geometrical patterns supplied the deficiency of the more truly artistic 
 features, by imparting an intricate richness which required little more of the artist 
 than mechanical skill in the neat and regular execution of set patterns. 
 
 This is the style that continued through the dark ages, as they have been termed, 
 from the 5th to the 9th centuries, the artists of Greece and the Eastern capital, 
 Constantinople, alone displaying some degree of art in the higher branches of design. 
 
 When Theodoric, the King of the Visigoths, reigned at Toulouse, he boasted 
 that the rich vessels of gold and silver which decorated his tables, were the production 
 of native workmen, proving that the separation from Rome had already begun, in 
 France at least, to give rise to a race of native artists. In the 6th century St. Eloi, 
 the patron saint of Goldsmiths, became celebrated for his productions in metal work. 
 Born in 588, near Limoges, always celebrated as a seat of art, especially enamel work, 
 Eloi imbibed there his first knowledge in goldsmiths’ work. He was early employed 
 by Clotaire II., and afterwards wrought a magnificent throne of solid gold for 
 Dagobert II., by whom he was made moneyer and treasurer. After rising rapidly in 
 church preferment and riches, and founding many monasteries, he died in 659, and was 
 canonised. From this period up to the time of Charlemagne, and his immediate suc- 
 cessors, the designs of the metal workers continued to exhibit very much of the debased 
 Roman or Byzantine character, and many monuments of these epochs are preserved in 
 the national collections of France. The successors of Charlemagne neglected native 
 art, and the chronicles of the time inform us that the swords enriched with diamonds, 
 the jewels and the rich furniture of the Carlovingian princes, after the founder of 
 the race, were all imported from the East, or from Greece or Italy. 
 
 In England we have but few remaining monuments to reveal to us the state of 
 art in metal working from the 9th to the 11th centuries; but that it was not lost, 
 we know. The abundant series of coins of the Saxon race, though rude and 
 inferior to those of the continent, yet display a certain amount of knowledge 
 of the art, while a few such curious remains as the fibula or brooch, called the 
 jewel of Alfred, show that enamelling on metal was understood, and the celebrity of 
 St. Dunstan as a worker in metals is too well known to require enlarging upon. The 
 
80 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 proficiency, however, of that prelate in the industrial arts is not an isolated fact, either 
 in England or on the continent. The development of the feudal system, and the 
 oppressions of petty chieftains independent of the sole monarch, then but a shadow 
 of a power, drove the goldsmith, and even the blacksmith, into the monas- 
 teries, the only secure refuge from the robber nobles who for several centuries carried 
 on a systematic succession of plunderings difficult now to conceive. Not only were arti- 
 ficers of all kinds found only among the monks, who thus drew all the wealth of a state 
 into the monasteries ; but import and export trade was also paralysed, as it was unsafe 
 to travel with articles of any value, in consequence of the depredations of the noble 
 robbers ; till, to remedy the evil to some extent, fairs were established, all comers to 
 which were guaranteed safe arrival and departure by powerful chiefs or princes, on 
 payment of certain fees; the celebrated fair of St. Denis being one of the first 
 established. But as ancient towns and cities gradually recovered from the shock of 
 successive invasions, plunderings, and revolutions, and asserted their claims to, and 
 obtained, chartered rights, a power rapidly grew up, to form a counterpoise to that 
 of the feudal aristocracy, and the industrial arts again began to flourish among the 
 people, notwithstanding the efforts of Geoffry, Bishop of Auxonne, who, seeing the 
 profession of art extending among the people, sought to retain it within the pale of 
 the church by bequeathing prebends to such ecclesiastics who should apply them- 
 selves to the culture of painting, goldsmiths’ work, glass making, or other arts which 
 might serve to embellish sacred architecture. 
 
 The ridiculous opinion entertained towards the close of the 10th century, that 
 the end of the world was at hand, and that the completion of the millennium after 
 the birth of Christ would witness the dissolution of all things, caused all the arts of life 
 to be entirely neglected for a time. Even churches were abandoned half finished, 
 and a sombre fanaticism seemed to weigh upon and darken the whole of Christendom. 
 But with the commencement of the 11th century a period of reaction opened. The 
 foundations of most of the vast cathedrals of Europe were laid at that epoch, and in 
 France magnificent doors of bronze were cast for some of those splendid structures, 
 which were extraordinary works for that day, even if modelled and cast by work- 
 men brought from Constantinople. 
 
 The state of art in France, in the middle of the 11th century, was introduced to 
 England by the Norman invasion, previous to which the English were, no doubt, 
 much in arrear of the continent. 
 
 Some of the most remarkable metal work of this epoch is to be found in bronze 
 doors, and other works of that class, executed in Greece, in Constantinople, in Italy, 
 and also in France ; while in Sicily, the Normans there established, imported 
 colonies of Greek artizans from the islands of the Archipelago, for the express purpose 
 of founding a school of art. To the larger works in bronze may be added the 
 reliquaries for the preservation of the bones of saints, and other relics, which were 
 generally made in the form of a church of the period, richly ornamented with niches, 
 in which were miniature statues, stiffly but neatly executed, the whole frequently 
 enriched with enamel, or precious stones. Highly wrought book-covers too, of bronze, 
 and even of gold and silver, were executed to preserve copies of the Gospels, then 
 
/ I R A R Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 

 
 wyyf- \K<y , WiWmSGHl 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 ‘ Jjl 
 
 
 is! 
 
 
 
 METAL WORK-AS EXHIBITED IN ARMS & ARMOUR. 
 
 i a Suit of childs armour enamelled with blue in the erenc.h collection z a nose-piece 
 
 FOR*A SET OF HORSE ARMOUR — 3 A SHEATH FOR A DACOER 4 A CILT SPUR 
 
METAL WORK. 
 
 81 
 
 frequently written in letters of gold, a fine example of which custom is preserved in 
 the British Museum, under the name of the Codex Aureus. Such reliquaries, and 
 rich covers for the sacred volume, were made by the artizans of France, and even 
 Germany and England ; but the finer works of Italy and Greece, though themselves 
 in a stiff and peculiar style, were superior in art to those of Western and Northern 
 Europe. 
 
 At that time, when the means of rapid intercommunication of countries, so 
 excellently established by the Romans, had been destroyed, and no new means 
 developed as yet to supply the loss, England and France were as separate from 
 Greece or Asia Minor, as they are now from the Antipodes; and separate countries, 
 consequently, developed their arts and customs in strikingly different channels. 
 The Moors in Spain and the North of Africa established a peculiar school of art, 
 brought from Asia, which descended into all minor objects of their manufacture, and 
 yet did not extend, in any of its characteristics, materially beyond the limits of the 
 countries they occupied ; and thus, while the Greeks of the Morea and the adjacent 
 islands continued to make arms and armour similar to those worn by a Themistocles or 
 an Alcibiades, in the more western countries of Europe a species of chain armour 
 was worn, formed of a shirt, &c., of iron rings, the only solid piece being the conical 
 helmet, also of iron ; for about the period of the fall of the Roman empire of the 
 West, bronze seems to have been gradually superseded by iron as a material for arms 
 and armour. 
 
 Pieces of plate were gradually added to the chain armour, such as knee pieces^ 
 elbow caps, &c., till at the close of the 14th century, the entire suit of plate armour 
 was produced ; one of the most excellent, complete, and efficient productions of human 
 ingenuity that the industrial art of any age has perfected. The complete suit of plate 
 armour of the highest period, when the armourer was indeed an artist, is, in fact, a 
 masterpiece of skill; every joint, every plate, having its particular technical name, 
 and its especial use, and each being forged, formed, and decorated with most exquisite 
 skill and taste. The end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century was the 
 most decorative period in this as in most other industrial arts, and the suits of armour 
 ornamented by the hand of such masters of the period as Benvenuto Cellini and others* 
 remained not only unsurpassed, but are as yet unequalled specimens of the art of work- 
 ing in iron, gilding, and inlaying in exquisite arabesque devices of gold and silver. 
 Many of the shields, swords, breastplates, helmets, &c., executed for Charles V., whose 
 taste for rich armour was one of his greatest weaknesses, are still preserved in the 
 royal armoury of Madrid, and are exquisite models of design and execution. 
 
 The following century witnessed the gradual decrease of the use of defensive 
 armour, but the portions still retained were yet more richly, though not so artistically 
 decorated. Some of the pieces of armour attributed to Henry II. of France, are of 
 very magnificent character, exhibiting richly embossed devices in steel upon a gold 
 ground, which produces a very gorgeous and striking effect. 
 
 The suit of armour in the plate illustrating this branch of the subject was 
 evidently, from the size, made for a child, and is not only richly gilt, but also 
 enamelled with rich purple in a very elaborate and magnificent manner. The other 
 
 K 
 
82 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 objects in the same plate show what abundance of clever and minute design was 
 lavished upon works of this description by the armourers of the 15th and 16th 
 centuries. 
 
 In following out the course of progress of defensive armour, I have advanced 
 beyond the era at which I was discussing the general progress of the arts employed in 
 metal work in general. It will be sufficient, however, on retracing our steps, to state 
 briefly that the arts of design in all works of metal followed a very similar course to 
 that described in treating of architectural decorations in a former chapter. The rich 
 and complicated scrollings of the 11th and 12th centuries departed more and more 
 from the still lingering reminiscences of classical art, and the elegant originality of the 
 13th century prepared the way for the angular feeling of the pointed Gothic. In 
 the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries rich reliquaries, elaborate gospel covers, and 
 minutely and profusely ornamented crosiers, remain as monuments to illustrate those 
 transitions in art. 
 
 During the earlier portions of these periods rich designs were almost exclusively 
 confined to such works as were destined to ecclesiastical purposes, and, indeed, laws were 
 passed with a view to confine them to that channel ; for the crusades, injudicious 
 commercial regulations, and the banishment of the Jews, who possessed nearly all 
 the commercial capital of Europe, had so drained the principal states of money, that it 
 was forbidden to manufacture silver or gold objects of more than the weight of a 
 mark, except for the churches. 
 
 Among the most prominent names that have been preserved as skilful workers 
 in metal from the 11th to the end of the 13th centuries is that of Raoul, the gold- 
 smith of Philip III., the first man of the third estate who obtained letters of nobility. 
 The 14th century is the epoch of “ high Gothic,” when the angular feeling, and the 
 development of interlacing tracery reached its climax. Of this epoch we have rich 
 chalices and other vessels, wrought with such minute and wonderful elaboration as no 
 modern work can surpass, and which must have suggested to Chaucer the line refer- 
 ing to the dress of Dido, which he describes as “ rough with jewels.” 
 
 The best works of the 15th century, nevertheless, excel those of the 14th, in a 
 freer feeling in foliaged ornaments, in a less stiff treatment of the human figure, and 
 in a higher phase of general artistic feeling. The 15th century is indeed the most 
 striking epoch in the history of the modern industrial arts. It is a period when 
 the great artists of the day began to perceive the grand simplicity of the classical 
 styles, as a principle, without slavishly following out all their details ; and when 
 arabesque ornament, and a graceful and yet somewhat decorative treatment of the 
 human figure attained their utmost development, and delicate manipulation had 
 reached to its most exquisite degree of finish. 
 
 Among the goldsmiths, bronzists, and workers of other metals at the close of the 
 15th and beginning of the 16th century, we find such names as that of the great 
 Donatello, the sculptor, who was also a goldsmith. His works belong to the middle 
 of the 15th century, and yet, like those of his cotemporary, Brunelleschi, also a 
 goldsmith, have not been surpassed by those of the great artists who followed half a 
 century later. Next appears Andrea Verocchio, the master of Perrugino, who, in his 
 
METAL WORK. 
 
 83 
 
 turn, became the master of Raphael, and is said to have produced marvellous things 
 in gold. Raphael Borghini says, “ Faceva in quelV arte cose maravigliose .” * Then 
 appears Ghiberti, the famous author of the bronze gates of the Florentine Baptistery, 
 and Finiguerra, the great artist in niello , whose works gave rise to the modern inven- 
 tion of engraving ; and last of the great race of Florentine goldsmiths of the period, the 
 well-known Benvenuto Cellini, whose elaborate and splendid works are too well 
 known to require description. In Germany, Flanders, and Holland, Albert Durer, 
 Lucas von Leyden, and Israel von Mechenen, designed and wrought most elaborate 
 pieces of gold and silver plate, the recently-published copies of which have been of 
 the highest use to our rising race of designers in that branch of industrial art. After 
 this period, from the great encouragement afforded by the French King, Francis I., 
 and his immediate successors, France took the lead in artistic works in gold and 
 silver, having learned from the Italians the higher branches of the art. For Cellini 
 tells us that when he arrived in France, he found the French goldsmiths very expert 
 in the more ordinary branches of metal work, but not one among them capable of 
 putting together and soldering the members of a statue. 
 
 But the arts of the sculptor and the designer were rapidly acquired by the 
 French goldsmiths. The necklace and some other jewels of Diana of Poictiers show 
 the excellence of the jewellers of that period, and Stephen de Laulne, under 
 Henry IV., and the two Germains, Le Pautre, and others, under Louis XIV., 
 brought the gold and silver plate of F ranee into the highest repute. 
 
 The plate given in illustration of gold work is from one of the florid designs of 
 Le Pautre, who evidently formed his style mainly on that of the Italian designer, 
 Polidore Caravaggio, modifying it with the prevailing taste brought into vogue by 
 the painter, Le Brun. The designs of Le Pautre, critically judged, are full of 
 defects ; they have not the chaste simplicity of the antique, nor the refined quaintness 
 and crisp elegance of the cinque-centisti ; but they have a certain magnificence of 
 form, which, with their high reliefs, and great variety of surface, seem especially 
 suited to metal work, where a certain glitter, a certain gorgeousness of effect, appears 
 almost preferable to forms over-refined by delicacy of design and execution, which 
 have their more fitting domain in the subdued tones of bronze or marble. 
 
 After this period, which extended beyond the beginning of the 18th century, 
 the industrial arts rapidly declined in artistic character. 
 
 In England, at the close of the 15th and the opening of the 16th century, the 
 artistic branches of the industrial arts appear to have sunk very low, and we find 
 foreign artists almost exclusively employed upon great works. The splendid iron 
 enclosure to the tomb of Edward IV. at Windsor, is said to have been the work 
 of a Flemish smith, the Flemings having acquired great excellence in iron work, 
 as many of the richly-wrought balconies of some of the older buildings in Brus- 
 sels, Ghent, and Antwerp fully attest ; and wrought iron decorations of that 
 description, of very elaborate character, are still manufactured in those cities, where the 
 art has never been entirely abandoned. Many specimens of locks, knockers, &c. 
 
 Raph. Borffi. “II Riposo,” p. 519. 
 K 2 
 
84 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 curiously wrought in iron, of rich design, were, however, recently shown at the 
 Exhibition of Mediaeval Art in the Adelphi, proving that such works were also 
 produced by English artizans, though we find Torricelli, Jean of Procida, and 
 other foreigners employed in more important public works in the reigns of Henry 
 VII. and VIII. In the latter reign Holbein made designs for our jewellers, 
 and many of the original drawings — exquisite specimens of elegant invention — are 
 still preserved in the British Museum. 
 
 Many curious and beautiful chalices of gold and silver are still preserved in 
 our colleges and guilds, which belong to the period of the 16th and 17th centuries, 
 and the beginning of the 18th ; but among such monuments, as date previous to 
 the civil wars of Charles I., great havoc was made during that contest. First, 
 great part of the plate of the colleges was melted down to assist the royal cause, 
 and afterwards the royal collection itself, containing both British and foreign 
 specimens of great beauty, was ordered by the republican government to be coined 
 into current money, though it was represented to them at the time that the 
 objects were much more valuable for their exquisite workmanship than for their 
 mere intrinsic value as gold and silver. Many of the works then destroyed, and 
 also of those still existing in our colleges, were no doubt of native workmanship ; 
 and that we had native goldsmiths of eminence, the name of Heriot and others 
 is sufficient to attest ; to which might be added, did space allow, a long list from 
 the records of the Goldsmiths’ Company. But that the goldsmiths, and chasers, 
 and engravers in metal of the continent were very superior in the higher classes 
 of work, we may infer from their employment in the national coinage. Charles I., 
 for instance, appointed Nicholas Briot to the management of the artistic departments 
 in the Mint, under whose instructions our own celebrated Simon acquired his 
 eminence as a die engraver, in which branch of art he has never since been surpassed. 
 But Charles II., led away by the general superiority of foreign artists, overlooked the 
 claims of Simon, and appointed the De Boetters to the post of die sinkers in the 
 Mint. It is well known that on the accession of the Hanoverian line, the British 
 money of George I. was very inferior in execution to that of his petty continental 
 dominions. 
 
 NIELLO AND ENAMEL. 
 
 In tracing as nearly in chronological order as I found it possible the general 
 progress of working in metal, I have not till now found space to speak of niello. 
 The term niello is, no doubt, an Italian abbreviation of vigellus (black). The art 
 consists in engraving a design, in deep lines, on silver or gold, and filling up the sunken 
 lines with a species of black enamel which, when polished, exhibited the design with 
 beautiful distinctness. The art appears to have been practised between the 7th and 
 10th centuries, and in the 13th to have been in very general use in some places, as a 
 collection of various objects, richly decorated with niello, has been discovered in a 
 
METAL WORK EXHIBITED IN SPECIMENS OF NIELLO BY FINIGUERRA & OTHERS. 
 
/ 
 
 :i A fi V 
 
 Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
METAL WORK. 
 
 85 
 
 church in Central Italy, which evidently belong to that period. But the revival of 
 the art by the celebrated Florentine goldsmiths of the 15th century has caused its 
 invention to be attributed to them. Maso Finiguerra was the artist who more 
 especially devoted himself to this class of work. A beautiful example, possibly by 
 this artist, is now in the British Museum. It is a pax, an object used in Roman 
 Catholic church ceremonial for receiving the “ kiss of peace.” The niello portion is 
 a silver plate, partly inlaid with gold, to represent the glories, &c., the subject being 
 the adoration of the Magi. The framework is of silver gilt, richly enamelled with 
 green and purple. Many of Finiguerra’s works are very elaborate, and the annexed 
 plate, supposed to be executed by him in his earlier style, and also representing an 
 adoration of the Magi, will convey a good idea of the general effect produced by the 
 process. It has evidently been executed for the purpose of being inlaid within a 
 border of some other style of work, as the rivet marks indicate, and formed probably 
 the central portion of a rich book-cover. 
 
 The smaller specimens in my plate were apparently intended for knife handles, 
 or for insertion in ivory work in the rich caskets which were used for jewels 
 at that period. Finiguerra was followed by Cellini, Raiboldi, Rossi, Perigrini, and 
 Francia, the master of Marc Antonio, one of the first engravers, as we now understand 
 the term. It was indeed the practice of niello which immediately gave rise to the 
 modern art of engraving, the discovery of which happened- in the following manner : 
 — It was usual with the niellatori to rub black into their engravings to ascertain 
 whether they were perfect, and while a plate was thus charged with black, it is 
 related of Finiguerra that, on one occasion, he placed it accidentally face down- 
 wards, upon damp linen ; which having been covered by some other household article, 
 a pressure was produced, which caused a perfect repetition of the design to appear 
 on the linen. This was the hint from which the race of modern engravers rapidly 
 arose, whose art it is not my purpose to trace here, as it is more especially one of 
 reproduction than origination. 
 
 One of the most beautiful specimens of niello is the pax executed by Finiguerra 
 for the church of St. John, at Florence, in the year 1452 ; but many of larger 
 dimensions are known, especially some magnificent book-covers, mentioned by 
 Cigonara. The application of this art to modern silver and plated work might be 
 made with great advantage, as the effect of design, and of light and shade is produced 
 without inequality of surface , which, as greatly facilitating cleaning, and indeed 
 preventing the possibility of the accumulation of any kind of dirt, renders it much 
 better suited to table plate of every description, than decoration by means of em- 
 bossing or chasing. The art has been already applied by the Russians, with such 
 great success, to snuff-boxes and other small articles, as shows its capacity for many 
 other purposes. 
 
 The same may be said of enamelling in various colours upon metal — an art 
 greatly neglected, but which might be made a superb, as well as convenient, means 
 of decorating articles of plate. The enamel workers of Limoge were celebrated as 
 early as the 6th century, and works of enamel upon metal, such as clock dials, &c., 
 are produced at the present day ; but its artistic application as a means of decoration 
 
86 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 of rich and durable character in the industrial arts, has fallen into disuse. Many 
 suggestive specimens exist, however, from the well-known jewels of Alfred and 
 Dagobert, and the rich book-covers of the 11th century, and to candlesticks, and 
 other small works of both English and continental fabric, as late as the beginning, 
 even the middle, of the last century. As suggestive example I give the annexed 
 plate of a Russian enamelled vase. 
 
 In the specimens of caskets, cups, ewers, &c., exhibited in the Crystal Palace, 
 by Messrs. Morel, the introduction of enamel has been essayed with good effect, and 
 some exquisite morceaux , founded on mediaeval models, have been produced by them. 
 But the splendid set of chessmen exhibited in the Zolverein department, eclipse all 
 rivalry in the delicate addition of colour to gold and silver by means of enamel. 
 
 The attention bestowed by the French artizans from the time of Louis XIV. 
 forward, upon the decoration of ornamental clocks with ormolu and bronze ornaments, 
 and upon mountings and inlayings in rich furniture, have given them the command 
 of a lucrative commerce in those branches of industrial art, which even now, when 
 the last ten years have done so much towards renovating artistic taste in our manufac- 
 tures, we have not dreamt of rivalling. 
 
 The great international exhibition has, however, demonstrated to the world that 
 if we are inferior in the artistic department of nearly all metal works, we are, at all 
 events, greatly in advance of our rivals in all the mechanical processes connected 
 with that branch of industry. Our cutlery, without any pretension to artistic design, is 
 so truly wrought, and the temper of the steel is so excellent, that it is at once preferred 
 to the more tastefully and artistically finished articles produced by France or Belgium, 
 our only rivals, for the cutlery of other European countries is left at an immeasurable 
 distance, and the specimens of some of the common classes of work from Austria 
 are perfectly ludicrous in their rudeness. 
 
 In cast brass work we are again pre-eminent, and our brass-founders, in their 
 metal bedsteads, and rich stoves, or grates, and fenders, with their fire implements, 
 are far beyond all competition, though the hand of French modellers is visible in 
 much of the best ornament attached to their works. 
 
 In silver plate, of a certain class, we are also pre-eminent, and the application of 
 the “ electro ” principle, as it is now technically termed, by which a coating of silver 
 is deposited upon copper work through the medium of electric action, has been 
 carried to such a pitch of excellence by the Messrs. Elkington, as to defy competition. 
 The only objection to be adduced to the display made by these enterprising manu- 
 facturers is, that all their best specimens are actual reproductions either of classical 
 or of mediaeval models, and their attention should be called to the excellent pro- 
 ductions of Winkelman and Sussman of Berlin. 
 
 In our specimens of presentation plate, race cups, &c., we exhibit original 
 designs by native artists, some of which are very excellent; and if they do not 
 always equal French designs in the clever treatment of the human figure, in 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
ENAMEI A RUSSIAN VASE ENRICHED WITH ENAMEL 
 
 
METAL WORK. 
 
 87 
 
 which the modelling of our Gallic neighbours is so spirited and correct, yet we some- 
 times, in our silver work, approach them even in that respect ; Tor the splendid 
 epergne exhibited by Messrs. Hunt and iioskill has little to desire in the modelling 
 of the figures. 
 
 In rich chalices for church service, either simply engraved or enriched in 
 various ways, Messrs. Hardman and others have produced some truly artistic works ; 
 but they are all too servilely copied from well-known forms, an objection which 
 applies also to the exquisite specimens of damascening in works of this class, con- 
 tributed by Belgium. 
 
 The Russian department exhibits specimens of gilt candelabra, and brass or gilt 
 mountings of malachite objects, in a much more dangerous form of rivalry to our 
 brass-founders than the French, inasmuch as they present many original and national 
 characteristics of design not found in the works of the same class of our neighbours ; 
 and the same remark applies to the specimens of gold and silver work from the 
 same quarter. 
 
 In iron casting nothing appears to surpass that exhibited in our grates and other 
 chimney appurtenances ; except the specimens of Berlin iron casting, from colossal 
 statuary down to minute jewellery, to which the specimens from our Colebrook Dale 
 works are immeasurably inferior, especially in articles pretending to an artistic character. 
 
 Though it is seen that in metal work of utilitarian character, and in silver plate 
 even of a higher class, we surpass all rivals, we shall find that when artistic feeling 
 becomes an essential character, we are left far, far behind. The small brooches, 
 bracelets, caskets, elaborate alto-relievo of artistic character for porte-monnaye, or cigar 
 cases, and other small objects, in oxydized silver, exquisitely modelled by designers 
 of first-rate ability, worthy successors of Cellini or Pilon, place the French at the 
 head of that class of art. In their clocks and chimney candelabra they are equally 
 pre-eminent, some modern French works of that kind being worthy to be placed in 
 museums for preservation as exquisite monuments of the arts of the 19th century. In 
 bronzes cl'art, as they have termed the best class of their statuettes in bronze, the 
 French have equally distanced all competitors, the ateliers of Florence being far 
 outdone by those of Paris. The works of their own existing artists in this class of 
 art, as well as some of their reproductions of the finest monuments of antique sculp- 
 ture, are truly admirable specimens of modern skill, and the moderate price at which 
 these beautiful works are produced brings within the domain of commercial art, as an 
 article of common trade, such works as would, even in the last century, have been 
 confined to the galleries of the wealthy. 
 
 It is evident that English artizans require as yet great artistic culture, but it is 
 fast coming, and as we see the ranks of art of the classes termed “ fine ” fast filling 
 with men of real and original genius, we may hope to induce many from the over- 
 filled columns to turn their attention to the creation of beautiful designs, calculated to 
 raise the artistic character of the industrial arts in this country, and impart to them 
 those qualities, the want of which has alone excluded them from markets which their 
 sound, conscientious, and durable fabrication would otherwise command. 
 
 There is a new, and great, and lucrative career open to inventors, designers, and 
 
88 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 producers of all branches of metal work of the highest class, which, it is to be hoped, 
 the great stimulus of the late international and peaceful contest will induce many 
 to enter. 
 
 I have placed my chapters on architecture, sculpture, and painting before those 
 on industrial art, because, without the former, the latter could not exist — without 
 the school of painting in Paris, the scarcely less distinguished school of design of 
 Lyons could not llourish. Our great manufacturers must therefore become, as they 
 are beginning to be, the true patrons of art, and the purchasers of its greatest works. 
 The parasitic patronage of art by the wealthy drones of the hive, bears no fruit, but 
 its encouragement by our great industrials must conduct us towards that supreme per- 
 fection in artistic manufacture which ought to be the ambition of every great nation 
 pretending to lead the civilization of the world. 
 
 The dignity of labour is beginning to be truly felt, and the designer, as well as 
 the producer, of those minor embellishments of our homes which tend so essentially 
 to refine and civilize a nation, will hold a rank little, if at all, inferior to that of 
 the great artists who are destined to fill those national galleries of art which, most 
 certainly, we are shortly destined to possess. 
 
 That we have every cause to hope for eventual success in the higher branches of 
 industrial art is clear, from the dissatisfaction displayed by our neighbours at the 
 distribution of awards, notwithstanding that French exhibitors, in proportion to their 
 numbers, have received more medals than our own. This excessive and unjust 
 discontent has evidently a deeper seat than the mere possession of the awards, which 
 have been far too lavishly distributed to be of any value as marks of merit. It 
 arises from the display of unexpected power and progress among our own producers, 
 in branches which have hitherto been monopolised by France. But I trust in the 
 good sense and chivalrous and manly character of our neighbours not to carry such a 
 feeling beyond a mere temporary ebullition of vexation, for the markets of the world 
 are open to both alike, and the fast-spreading principles of free-trade will enable 
 each nation to prevail in those branches for which it is locally and constitutionally 
 best fitted. The barriers of superstition and international enmity are being broken 
 down, and a wide cosmopolitan feeling is fast superseding the narrow national 
 prejudices of our fathers. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
WOOD AND IVORY CARVIN G,&x_LXAM PL E._ A PORTABLE A'LTAR , IN CARVED OAK 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 CARVING IN IVORY AND WOOD. 
 
 T HE beautifully soft tone and compact texture of ivory, caused it to be highly 
 prized at a very early period, as a material for works of art. 
 
 At its first introduction into Greece, it was considered so beautiful and 
 so precious, that its use was confined to statues of the gods alone ; and the same is 
 stated of its first knowledge by the Etruscans, Romans, and other Italian states, who 
 first received it through the Carthaginians. 
 
 Its use was known to the Egyptians at a very remote period, and the island of 
 Elephanta in the Nile took its name from being the principal commercial depot of 
 this material. Among Egyptian remains, however, we have only small articles in 
 ivory, and there is no record of its having been applied to statuary. 
 
 In Asia, its use was no doubt known as early, if not earlier than in Egypt, 
 though we have no Asiatic monuments of any description pretending to the same 
 antiquity as those of the great African kingdom, unless the records of China are to 
 be trusted in regard to the dates of ancient monuments of that portion of Asia, 
 where, in mediaeval and in modern times as well as in India, the art of working in ivory 
 has been carried, as far as minute manipulation goes, to a curious pitch of excellence. 
 
 In Central and Western Asia the earliest records of the use of ivory occur in 
 the poems of Homer, and in the sacred writings of the Jews. 
 
 That ivory was not known to the Greeks prior to the Trojan war, appears from 
 passages in the poems of Homer, while its use in Asia is mentioned as though it 
 were common ; and it is never referred to in describing the richness or detail of 
 Grecian works. Thus the bit of a horse belonging to a Trojan warrior is described 
 as encrusted with ivory ; but it is not till after his return from Asia and Egypt, that 
 the palace of Menelaus is described as enriched with ornaments of that material ; 
 and then it is referred to as though it was the first time such things had been seen in 
 Greece. 
 
 At a somewhat later period, there is a passage in the Psalms attributed to the 
 Jewish king David, in which ivory is alluded to as not then uncommon in Judasa, in 
 the residences of the wealthy — “ All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia ; 
 out of the ivory palaces out of which they have made thee glad.” These ivory 
 palaces were doubtless such as contained apartments encrusted with thin plates of 
 
 L 
 
90 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 ivory, such as were at a subsequent period described by Pliny as common in Rome, 
 and which explains the term Eburnea domus , and also Eburneum templum , which 
 did not literally mean houses or temples entirely built of ivory ; but buildings in 
 which the principal apartments were lined with thin plates of it. 
 
 The next important mention of ivory in the Jewish writings is the description 
 of the throne of Solomon, which we are told was composed of gold and ivory : — 
 
 “ Moreover the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the best gold. The 
 throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was round behind ; and there were stays on either 
 side on the place of the seat, and two lions stood beside the stays. And twelve lions stood there on 
 the one side and on the other upon the six steps : there was not the like made in any kingdom.” 
 
 The precise disposition of the ornaments, or their extent, may not have resem- 
 bled the thrones of other princes of the period ; but the winged lions recently 
 brought from Assyria, are of nearly cotemporary workmanship, and with other 
 Assyrian ornaments they no doubt afford us an excellent idea of the style of the throne 
 of Solomon, which will be realised to the imagination still more strikingly on the 
 arrival of the throne itself of the Assyrian king, one of the last treasures yielded 
 by the excavations at Nimroud. 
 
 Ezekiel mentions the profuse use of ivory by the Tyrians, by whom, indeed, and 
 the Phoenicians generally, it was carried to Greece, Italy, and great part of Western 
 Europe, as an article of trade. The passage of Ezekiel runs — 
 
 “ Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars ; the company of Ashurites have made 
 thy benches of ivory, brought out from the isles of Chittim.” 
 
 That the Assyrians were well acquainted with the use of ivory, the throne just 
 referred to and the fragments of other exquisite ornaments lately brought to light 
 by the enterprising Dr. Layard, are sufficient proof. These remains resemble in style 
 the art of the Egyptians, from which, however, they are sufficiently distinct, as the 
 works of a perfectly separate school. 
 
 The works in ivory executed by Greek artists, are the first mentioned by 
 classical authors, as true “ works of art.” 
 
 The early wooden statues of the Greeks, described in the chapter on Sculpture, 
 were, when they first began to assume a decorative and somewhat artistic aspect, 
 not only painted to imitate life, like the mediajval statues of saints, but were clothed 
 in real draperies, as the statues of the Virgin are still in Catholic countries ; and 
 some effeminate Polycrates may have embroidered a rich tunic for some wooden 
 Venus, just as a Ferdinand VII. has been recently found to work a petticoat for the 
 Virgin Mary. The next step was to make the exposed portions of the figure, such 
 as the head, hands, &c., of marble, the semi-transparent quality of which rendered 
 more finely the character and texture of flesh than wood, even when painted flesh 
 colour. To the use of marble for this purpose succeeded ivory, the fine cream-like 
 tone of colour of which was thought still more closely to resemble that of the most 
 delicate human skin. About the same time, sculptured drapery was substituted 
 for the real, and generally gilt with thin plates of gold. 
 
 This gold-and-ivory, or Chryselephantine statuary, as it has been termed, had 
 attained to considerable perfection previous to the time of Phidias, but it was from 
 
CARVING IN IVORY AND WOOD. 
 
 91 
 
 the hand of the great Athenian sculptor that it received the signet of high art, and 
 was made to hold the highest place in sculpture among the most eminent critics 
 of classical antiquity. 
 
 W inkelman appears somewhat incredulous as’ to the really exquisite effect which 
 ancient authors ascribe to these works, observing that such combinations appear 
 inconsistent with what we know of the refinement of Greek taste ; but the fact is 
 that our existing canons of taste are chiefly founded upon the works of antiquity, 
 and in sculpture no works of that art, except those in marble or bronze, have come 
 down to us, so that we have formed our ideas of propriety of material upon them 
 alone ; but if, on the contrary, statues combined of ivory and gold had been pre- 
 served, instead of those of marble or bronze, it is very possible we should have 
 considered an after innovation of simple marble statues very chilly, and have dubbed 
 works of that pure but colourless material, lifeless and uninteresting. 
 
 Certain it is that the ancients fully appreciated the excellence of the Chrysele- 
 phantine works of the great masters, and have preserved interesting particulars 
 respecting them, especially of the colossal works of Phidias in those materials : the 
 celebrated Jupiter was placed within a temple in the sacred wood called Alt is, near 
 Olympia, and the statue, though in a sitting posture, nearly touched the roof of the 
 temple, which Pausanias incidentally informs us was fifty-eight feet high. The 
 body of this celebrated statue was naked to the waist, and exquisitely plated 
 with ivory, the lower limbs being clothed in a gilt drapery, while the hair and beard 
 were also gilt. The throne upon which the figure of the deity was seated was formed of 
 ivory, gold, and cedar wood, enriched with precious stones, which latter, or coloured 
 marble, were used also for the eyes ; in the extended right hand stood a statuette of 
 Victory of considerable size, also of ivory and gold, which is described as being of 
 extraordinary beauty. The sandals appear also to have been richly wrought in gold, 
 and the bas-relief of the throne, or, according to some, the detached figures of deities 
 with which the throne was surrounded, were also elaborately wrought in all their 
 details, and composed of the same materials as the principal statue. The entire com- 
 position would appear to have been one of the highest artistic efforts of classical 
 antiquity ; for Strabo tells us that it not only greatly surpassed, both in richness 
 and an imposing majesty of aspect, the later and more finished works of Policlytes, but 
 seemed to realize the actual jwcesens numen. It was in fact the highest effort ever 
 made to impress the worshippers of an idolatrous faith with a sense of the 
 actual and holy presence of a supreme deity. That such was the impression upon 
 the ancient worshippers, and that statues of this kind deeply impressed great poets 
 as well as the populace, we may learn from the “ Canticles of Canticles,” the song of 
 Solomon ; passages of which describe the body of a beautiful human being as “ of ivory,” 
 “ thy neck is as a tower of ivory,” &c., other portions of the body being equally 
 described as “ of ivory, inlaid with sapphires;” all of which epithets were no doubt 
 suggested by statuary of this description, at present under discussion, in which the 
 eyes were frequently formed of sapphires and other precious stones. 
 
 The perishable nature of ivory, however, eventually caused its disuse for these 
 purposes; Phideas himself recommending marble, as more durable, for his great 
 
 L 2 
 
92 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 statue of Minerva, in the Parthenon at Athens; hut the Athenians preferred the 
 more attractive warmth and life-like reality of ivory ; and his second greatest work 
 was, in deference to the popular will of Athens, also of the Chryselephantine class. 
 
 In the present active ferment of the principles, practices, prejudices, and 
 superstitions of our imperfectly created hut obstinately defended canons of taste — 
 our articles of faith in art — we should carefully examine all the out-works of the 
 fortress, and energetically demolish all such as may tend rather to embarrass, than 
 serve to defend the citadel. 
 
 We have been in the habit of considering white marble as the only legitimate 
 material for a school of high sculpture, without having had the means of comparing 
 with it, ivory sculpture on a large scale. Statuettes in ivory, even when entirely of 
 that material, have been considered rather as pretty toys than legitimate works of art ; 
 and when enriched with jewels and other extraneous ornaments, such a work has been 
 considered to sink at once into the school of colifichel prettiness. But the real state of 
 the case may perhaps be, that it is much easier to manage one material than many ; 
 much easier to produce a monochrome statue, when form alone is to be studied, than a 
 polychrome composition where the difficulties of colour, and many other considerations, 
 have also to be artistically considered and overcome: just as many artists may be found 
 capable of producing a fine pictorial composition in mere black and white, who are 
 utterly incapable of carrying it on to a perfect picture, rich with all the spoils of con- 
 quest in the subdued region of colour. But, rejoin the defenders of existing taste, “ of 
 the powers that be” — always a numerous class — supposing, say they, that the difficul- 
 ties of such piecemeal statuary be conquered, the effect must always be like that of 
 patchwork — troubled, incomplete, and unsatisfactory as a whole, not for a moment 
 comparable to the beautiful repose and completeness of simple marble. 
 
 This rejoinder appears very plausible, because it is based on our long pre- 
 conceived ideas of artistic propriety. But all such as have examined and duly 
 appreciated Pradier’s exquisite statuette of Leda in the Great Exhibition, must have 
 felt the foundations of their creed crumble beneath them. This truly great artist 
 has in this work worthily revived the Chryselephantine art of Phidias and Policlytes. 
 Pradier’s is a small work, and a first work in the style, but it is beautiful : the entire 
 figure, the head gracefully crowned with lotus leaves, is of pure ivory, the partial drapery 
 is of gold, as are also the jewels that glitter on the neck and arms, which jewels them- 
 selves are farther enriched with turquoises and other precious stones, while the swan 
 is of silver with golden beak and feet; the whole effect of the various metals, ivory, 
 and gems, is so exquisitely balanced, both in quantity, in form, and in colour, that 
 the work only requires to be on a colossal scale,* or even of life-size, to place it in 
 the highest rank as a great work ot art. It was a labour of love of the gifted Pradier, 
 who executed it with enthusiasm as a gift to the Artists’ Association of Paris ; a society 
 formed to succour distressed members of their profession. 
 
 Pradier has already shown a tendency towards the introduction of gold even in 
 his marble statuary, as may be seen in his exquisite 3>PYVH, also exhibited in Ilyde 
 Park ; in which work, the exquisitely designed necklace and bracelets are richly gilt. 
 
 * It is about two feet six inches in height. 
 
CAR'VING IN IVORY AND WOOD. 
 
 93 
 
 The ancient works of ivory which, with the exception of small articles of 
 Egyptian and Assyrian workmanship, have reached us, are of comparatively late 
 date, and chiefly Roman, of the Eastern Empire. The most remarkable are the 
 consular tablets, consisting of two plates of ivory, richly carved on the outside, 
 generally known by their Greek name Dyptica, which expresses the form of these 
 tablets, as consisting of two plates, folded together by means of a kind of hinge 
 formed of metal wires. The inside of these ivory tablets was covered with wax to 
 write upon, which was done by means of a stile or point ; and to prevent its being 
 effaced when closed, each side was protected by a raised margin. 
 
 In the later periods of the empire, it was customary to present the consuls with 
 such richly carved tablets or dyptics, on which are frequently represented the games 
 and combats of the circus, to the superintendance of which, and a few other courtly 
 offices, the once supreme dignity of consul had dwindled. After the establishment 
 of Christianity, such tablets were also occasionally presented to dignitaries of the 
 church, on receiving their appointments ; and rich dyptics were likewise presented 
 as marks of favour by the eastern emperors to independent princes, as that sent from 
 Constantinople to the Frankish king Clovis, the first independent king of France 
 formally acknowledged by the Greco-Roman emperors. 
 
 These dyptics, of which many curious and interesting examples exist, are the 
 last, indeed almost the only specimens of ivory of classical antiquity that have 
 reached us. The art continued to be cultivated in Constantinople at a period when 
 the last ten centuries of art commence their progress, and when the annals of 
 the Greco-Roman empire in the East belong to modern history. Dyptics and tryptics 
 upon a large scale, very exquisitely finished, were executed between the 8th and 10th 
 centuries, especially of the latter period, when the style of art, though in that 
 peculiar form of debasement known as Byzantine style, is yet so beautiful, as regards 
 finish and a remarkable mastery of the manipulation of the material, as to render 
 works of the period exquisite monuments of mediaeval skill. 
 
 To Western Europe the use of ivory as a material for rich book-covers, reli- 
 quaries, and other church ornaments, travelled about this period ; and many 
 elaborately designed monuments remain, still as perfect as the day they were wrought, 
 to test the rising skill of our early native artists. The angles of the rich gospel covers, 
 from the 9th to the 12th century, were generally filled with the figures or symbols of 
 the Evangelists, and the centre by a figure of Christ seated on a throne, one hand hold- 
 ing the globe, and the other raised as in the act of teaching. This figure is frequently 
 in such high relief as to be nearly detached ; and sometimes of very excellent 
 workmanship. One of the most exquisite specimens of mediaeval book-covers of 
 ivory, is that made for one of the crusading kings of Jerusalem ; a work of the 12th 
 century, now in the British Museum. The design is of a different character to those 
 described above, being entirely covered with the rich scroll work peculiar to the 
 period, in which spaces are left for small bas-reliefs relating to the life of Christ ; the 
 ornaments are very deeply cut, and enriched with turquoises. But it would be im- 
 possible to enumerate a hundredth part of even the more celebrated specimens of 
 ivory carving executed during the middle ages, from the curiously wrought set of 
 
94 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 chessmen* presented to Charlemagne by the Mahometan conqueror Haroun al Raschid, 
 in the 8th century, to the exquisite drinking-horns and tankards of II fiammingo in 
 the 16th. Specimens of long drinking-horns, formed of a portion of an elephant’s tusk, 
 carved all round with elaborate designs, were wrought as early as the 12 th century, as 
 well as other ornaments, such as handles to hunting knives, swords, rich crosiers, and 
 other ecclesiastical ornaments. The jewel caskets of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, 
 embracing works both in the most angular Gothic and the most florid renaissance styles, 
 and those of all intermediate gradations, form a most interesting series of works in 
 each successive manner ; proving that the art of carving in ivory once established in 
 modern Europe was not allowed to decay. Most exquisite works of Albert Durer and 
 other masters exhibit its highest development in the commencement of the 16th 
 century. 
 
 The style of more modern works in ivory is well known. The establishment of 
 ivory carving as a special branch of manufacture has long been celebrated in the 
 F rench town of Dieppe, and also in an inferior class of productions at Geislingen in 
 Wurtemberg, where brooches and other small ornaments of very superior workmanship 
 have been produced, at a price that places them within the reach of all classes of 
 purchasers. 
 
 A few recent works must be enumerated, among which stands conspicuous a 
 remarkable modern work in ivory by a Swedish artist, lately exhibited by the Queen, 
 at the recent display of mediaeval and modern art, in the rooms of the Society 
 of Arts. The great Exhibition also furnishes some good specimens from the Zolverein 
 and other quarters ; among which, the stag-horn and ivory carvings of Rampendal, 
 of Hamburg, and similar specimens from Wiesbaden, in Nassau, are fair specimens. 
 The ivory cup by Michael Hagen, of Munich, is nearly as good as a work of II 
 jiammingo ; and, in another style, the ivory work of Christian Frank, of Furth, is 
 nearly as good. The ivory casket by Christian George, of Copenhagen, with 
 bas-reliefs, after Thorwalsden, must not be overlooked ; nor some French works in 
 ivory, both from Paris and Dieppe ; as also the pearl carving, enriched with gold, 
 which make the fans of Paris real works of art. 
 
 India and China, in the same great international display, furnished some truly 
 exquisite specimens of intricate and delicate workmanship, as the ivory throne, the 
 Chinese carving in jade stone, &c., &c. ; but the only specimen of really high art in 
 ivory, is the exquisite statuette of Pradier. The general admiration, however, of 
 that work is a significant proof that the production of works of a very artistic cha- 
 racter in ivory, may be aimed at by our great industrials, as well as our first artists, 
 and that a lucrative and noble branch of industrial art may be thus created. 
 
 Wood carving followed a very similar course to that of ivory. We find the 
 ancients using rare woods for decorative purposes, as in the cedar-wood carvings of 
 the chest of Cypselus ; and in the modern history of art, it begins to figure at an 
 early period. 
 
 Towards the 13th century, however, its greatest development took place, upon 
 
 Preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 
 
CARVING IN IVORY AND WOOD. 
 
 95 
 
 a magnificent scale ; the elaborate stall, tabernacle, and screen-work of carved oak 
 being among the greatest wonders of those truly wonderful monuments — the 
 mediaeval cathedrals. 
 
 Smaller works of ecclesiastical character were also executed, among the most 
 beautiful of which are the small portable altars, one of which, a beautiful work of 
 the beginning of the 16th century, forms the illustration of this chapter. 
 
 The art of carving in wood declined during the 16th century, but was singularly 
 renovated in a new feeling towards the close of the 17th and the beginning of the 1 8th, 
 by a new race of artists, among whom the most original, and perhaps the greatest, 
 was our own Gibbons, whose carvings in St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. James’s Church, 
 at Penshurst, and other places, are too well known to require description. 
 
 The specimens of monastic and other domestic furniture in carved wood, afford 
 a series of monuments in which the whole progress of the art may be traced from 
 the 13th to the 16th centuries, and about the latter period rich cabinets and tables 
 seem to have occupied the carving tools of really great artists, so excellent is the 
 design and execution of some of these works. 
 
 A variety of interesting publications have called public attention to the rich pro- 
 ductions of mediaeval skill during the last twelve or fifteen years, causing the previous 
 frigid attempts at reproducing a classical style in furniture to be completely abandoned 
 for the mediaeval styles. But in most cases those styles have been but imperfectly com- 
 prehended by the public at large, and a vast Wardour-street commerce has been 
 erected on the sure foundation of that ignorance, which is likely to last at least as 
 long as the wretchedly cottered up specimens which minister to it. 
 
 These wretched patchwork combinations, consisting of every incongruous mixture, 
 stuck together so as to form some article of furniture in common use, have hitherto 
 found a ready sale, though without any pervading design, and the detached pieces 
 themselves being generally fragments of the coarsest and most worthless specimens. 
 
 The great step made within the last four or five years in this department, must, 
 however, soon put an end to this paltry traffic in patchwork. And many specimens in 
 the great Exhibition show that modern producers of a better stamp are hurrying 
 on towards rapid improvement in the right direction, which has been greatly 
 accelerated by encouragement afforded by the revived taste for church decoration. 
 
 In the great house of glass, but few specimens of wood carving belong to. the 
 highest branch of the art, which may be described as statuary in wood ; the group 
 by Geerts, of Louvain, in oak, and the crucifix by Vanhoof, of Antwerp, being 
 almost the only specimens, but both very good. 
 
 In the decorative branches of the art, displayed in the enrichment of furniture 
 and other articles, many beautiful examples occur ; and we have seen the graceful 
 carvings of the industrious Swiss executed during the long winters, amid the snow 
 of their Alps, in which works the greatest advantage has been taken of the character 
 of some of their native pine timber ; the ornament being carved in the white stratum, 
 while the red portion of the timber is made to form the ground. 
 
 Some neat Norwegian and Swedish carving looks like French or British work 
 of the 16th century, and is yet so accurate and complete, as far as it goes, as to form 
 
96 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 an interesting specimen of the recent progress of Northern art. The French wood 
 carving, as exhibited in the exquisite ebony cabinet by Ringuet le Prince, and in 
 the small but most beautiful specimens of Lienard, equals the finest furniture work 
 of the 16th century ; and the magnificent sideboard by Amelot, supported by sitting 
 hounds, the upper part decorated with game and fruit, would be a noble work if all 
 the upper part representing the four quarters of the world, and other still less 
 appropriate subjects, were all cut away. From Belgium the ebony cabinet of Roul6, 
 of Antwerp, is a fine specimen of industrial art. 
 
 The Austrian carving in a certain bold but highly finished style, is perhaps 
 unrivalled, especially the celebrated bed, a sideboard, and a suit of chairs ; while 
 even from India and China, carved gates, lattices, and other works, exhibit very 
 remarkable expertness ; from India indeed, several cabinets in a semi-European style, 
 are very beautiful specimens of neat workmanship. 
 
 The English carvers have not the least distinguished themselves in the contest. 
 In the style of work exhibited by Messrs. Gillows, and the handsome sideboard by 
 Messrs. Hunter and others, we are perhaps surpassed by the more artistic and expert 
 treatment of the Parisian and Vienese carvers ; but in the sideboard in two woods, 
 by Mr. Lieven, and the candelabra in dark and light woods by Messrs. Willis 
 and Bartlett, as in the rich cabinet with porcelain pilasters by Dowbiggen, we stand 
 more alone. But it is in the recently-founded English style, based on that of our 
 celebrated Gibbons, that we are most successful ; here the nearly detached foliage 
 and flowers, and the delicate carving of feathered game, in high relief, is pecu- 
 liarly successful, and unlike any foreign productions exhibited in the great interna- 
 tional contest ; in this department the Messrs. Rogers lead the way, but are closely 
 followed, if not in some points surpassed, by the Messrs. Hanson, and by the exquisite 
 lime-tree carvings of Wallis; while our untaught artists, such as George Cook, the 
 author of the Warwick sideboard, in another line, promise future excellence. 
 
 In inlaid woods, the most astonishing specimen is, perhaps, an elaborate speci- 
 men of Spanish industry, the table by Perery , of Barcelona, most intricately ornamented 
 with mosaic, the minute tesserae being all formed of coloured woods. So minute is 
 the detail of some of the ornaments, that a strong lens has been supplied, to magnify 
 them for the curious observer. Scarcely less elaborate in another style, is an Italian 
 work, the table inlaid in minute geometric patterns by Rolandi, of Brescia ; and in 
 still another style of broad pictorial inlaying the tables by Medina, of Madrid, are 
 remarkable ; while an English specimen of inlaying in stained woods in floral patterns, 
 i n a style recently very successfully revived and treated, is shown in the cabinet by 
 Smee and Sons. 
 
 In fine, the last ten centuries of art in wood and ivory carving, if they have never 
 produced such works as the “ Olympian Jupiter” of Phidias, and if the excellence 
 attained in many branches of the art in the 15th and 16th centuries had faded in 
 the 17 th and died in the 18th, yet show at the present epoch a vast advance over their 
 beginnings ; and the revival of a true artistic feeling within the last few years, pro- 
 mises progress and success beyond what the most sanguine would have dared to 
 hope only a dozen years ago. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS, 
 
.WINDOW AT BROU 
 
 KAINTILD GLASS, fcc EXAMPLE 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 ARTISTIC WORKS 
 
 IS 
 
 GLASS, POTTERY, AND PORCELAIN. 
 
 T HAT glass was known to the ancients at a very early period is proved by the 
 small toys and ornaments of Egyptian workmanship, of which numerous 
 specimens are to be found in all public museums and national collections of 
 importance, and that the vitreous substance of which these objects are composed was 
 actually glass, produced in a similar manner to that of modern manufacture, the 
 Egyptian paintings of Beni-Hassan exhibiting the whole process of glass-blowing, 
 which appears to have been executed in the reign of Osirtasen the first, cotemporary 
 of Joseph, leave little reason to doubt. The tombs of Egypt furnish, in addition to the 
 glass toys above alluded to, bottles, drinking-cups, and a multitude of other objects. 
 
 At a later period Sidon and Alexandria were the great marts of glass manu- 
 facture, from whence, articles both for domestic use and luxury were exported to 
 Greece and Rome. The sand most used in these seats of glass manufacture appears 
 to have been imported from the coast of Syria, near the mouth of the river Belus, 
 which doubtless gave rise to the story narrated by Pliny, of the accidental discovery 
 of the art of glass making by a party of Syrian travellers at this spot, who, finding no 
 stones to support their cooking vessels, brought from their ships, which were laden with 
 nitre, some lumps of that material suitable for their purpose, which becoming fused by 
 the heat of the fire, united with the sand of the coast, upon which they rested, and 
 formed a stream of vitreous matter. 
 
 The same author leads us to suppose that the Sidonians attempted the fabrication 
 of glass mirrors, with the view of superseding those of polished steel ; an attempt in 
 which they appear to have failed. But though it is seen that glass was known prior to 
 the era of Roman supremacy, it did not hold a high place as a vehicle for artistic decora- 
 tion, partly, no doubt, from its extreme hardness, and the consequent difficulty of engrav- 
 ing upon it, while the art of moulding designs, and afterwards attaching them by partial 
 re-fusion, does not appear to have been understood till a comparatively late period. 
 
 During the reigns of the first Roman emperors, great strides seem to have been 
 made in glass manufacture ; for Strabo mentions that a common glass drinking-cup 
 
 M 
 
98 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 could be purchased for half an as, at that time less than a halfpenny of our money ; 
 while in the immediately preceding period, the application of glass as an architectural 
 material was first essayed, so that the Crystal Palaces of our day are not novelties. This 
 Roman application of glass to building pirrposes was exhibited in the erection of the 
 celebrated theatre for the public games, which Ahnilius Scaurus caused to be con- 
 structed after his return from Syria. The elevation of the scena of this edifice 
 consisted of three stories, the lower one being of marble, and the upper one of gilt 
 wood- work, while the middle one was of (/lass. The manner in which glass was 
 used in this instance was doubtless as a facing , just as thin plates of very precious 
 marble might have been used for the same purpose. 
 
 The material afterwards came into general use for similar purposes, the walls 
 and even floors of ordinary apartments being furnished with a surface of glass. 
 Rooms fitted up in this way were called vitrece camarce , and the panels, vitrei 
 quadratures. The art of ornamenting small articles of glass with artistic decorations 
 of a high character soon followed ; and we find that as early as the time of Nero, a 
 number of Sestertii equal to ±'50 of our money, were frequently given for a single 
 drinking-glass of this description. 
 
 In the time of Pliny, the use of glass had so much extended, that manufac- 
 tories were established, not only in Italy, but in Gaul and Spain. 
 
 Modes of imitating in glass nearly all the precious stones were also discovered, 
 as well as the mode of engraving upon them by means of the adamus or diamond, and 
 even of multiplying such engravings in fac-simile with glass pastes, by which means 
 the designs of the finest gems were placed within the reach of those who were 
 unable to purchase the real stones. 
 
 A method was also discovered of attaching moulded reliefs of semi-opaque 
 white glass, to grounds of some rich dark colour ; and that, so beautifully, that the 
 well-known Portland vase, which is an exquisite example of this description of 
 Roman glass-ware, was thought by Montfaucon and other critics of the last century, 
 to be a real sardonyx. At what period the Romans adopted glass instead of the lapis 
 specular is, for the purpose of window lights, is unknown; but that it was in use for 
 that purpose at the time of the destruction of Pompeii is certain, as bronze lattices with 
 some of the still remaining pieces of glass in them were among the archaiological curiosi- 
 ties revealed by the excavations carried on there by the Neapolitan government. 
 
 One especial process in common use among Roman glass-makers deserves to be 
 mentioned separately, as affording a useful hint to modern manufacturers ; a certain 
 number of rods of glass, of different colours and sizes, were so placed together, as that 
 a clean cross-cut through the whole should exhibit, on the face of the section, 
 a set pattern. When the bundle of rods were accurately placed according to 
 design, and fixed, they were subjected to precisely that degree of heat which 
 would soften them, without absolutely melting, and so cement them together. 
 The mass, when cold, was rapidly cut by some means, into thin slices, each of which 
 formed a perfect slab or tile, exhibiting on its surface the same pattern. Examples 
 of this method are still in existence, the patterns of which are very elegant ; and it 
 is evident that it may be applied to modern purposes with great effect. 
 
ARTISTIC WORKS IN GLASS, ETC. 
 
 99 
 
 The art of glass-making was not lost with the decline of the Roman Empire ; 
 and though artistic manipulation of a high character disappeared, very curious cups 
 and other vessels, of intricate though not artistic workmanship, were made at Con- 
 stantinople, after the complete fall of the Empire in the West. 
 
 The most remarkable works in glass of the middle ages are, doubtless, the painted 
 windows; an art which, however, was not discovered till the time of Charles the 
 Bald, in the 9th century. Stained glass, and painted glass, have been confused in 
 some of the accounts of the progress of this branch of art, but they are perfectly 
 distinct. A process of staining glass was known to the ancients, but not the art 
 of decorating it with transparent paintings ; and even the staining of flat pieces of 
 glass for windows appears to have been a late invention of the Romans ; for the small 
 remains of glass for windows discovered at Pompeii are invariably white; and it 
 is not till the time of Constantine, that we hear of coloured windows. The first 
 recorded, are those of the famous Basilica of St. Paul, built by the last-named 
 Emperor, but greatly enlarged and embellished by Theodosius, by whom the coloured 
 windows were most likely added, as a passage in Prudentius, quoted in another place, 
 would seem to infer. 
 
 All the coloured windows mentioned by Fortunatus, Gregory of Tours, and 
 Anastasius, at a later period, were still merely stained , and not painted, as is plain 
 by the style in which they are described. They are spoken of as imitating “the 
 various colours of the rainbow,” and in other cases, as shedding a glowing tone of 
 amber, like the rays of the setting sun ; but no painting or design of any kind is 
 alluded to. 
 
 In the reign of Charles the Bald,* as I have said, or of Louis le Debonnaire, 
 the art of glass painting was first practised in F ranee ; a fact recorded incidentally 
 by the historian of the monastery of St. Benignus, of Dijon, who, writing in 1052, 
 states, that an ancient glass window existed in his time, representing the martyrdom 
 of St. Paschasia, which window was taken from the ancient church which had been 
 enlarged and embellished by Charles the Bald. That this was most probably one of the 
 very first specimens of painted glass ever executed, is corroborated by the circum- 
 stance that the popes Adrian I. and Leo III., who lived in the immediately preced- 
 ing period, caused no painted windows to be executed for any of the splendid 
 buildings which they erected, not even for the church of San Giovanni Lateranno, 
 the windows of which are described by Anastasius as of “glass of different colours” 
 only, while it is pretty certain that these magnificent hierarchs would have availed 
 themselves of the art of glass painting had it been known in their time. 
 
 The subsequent history of glass painting, as an adjunct of ecclesiastical archi- 
 tecture, has been too fully discussed in recent works to require additional discussion 
 here ; and I shall therefore only remark that the illustration to this article is from the 
 church of Brou, one of the most exquisite gems of the renaissance style. The 
 windows of this interesting monument, both in their form and pictorial decoration, 
 display the peculiarities of that elegant phase of art in a more beautiful manner than 
 
 * See David — Ilistoire de la Peinture. 
 M 2 
 
100 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 any other work I am acquainted with. A few years, nay a few months ago, its 
 beauties would not have been appreciated : our artists in glass painting having fixed 
 their affections exclusively on the geometrical patterns of the 12th century, and on the 
 stiff and peculiar pictorial compositions of the 14th, among the wry necks, sharp 
 noses, knock-knees, and angular elbows, of which they seemed to revel with peculiar 
 delight. But a better feeling is fast peeping out, and the fine Milanese window by Bertini, 
 in the great Exhibition, is, with many defects, so superior to any of our own works 
 in the cramped style referred to, that it must tend to revolutionize the Gothic taste so 
 completely as scarcely to leave any admiration for my specimen from Brou ; although 
 in that example the quaintness of style and drawing is so slight as scarcely to deserve 
 the term, and so graceful, as really to form one of the charms of the work. In other 
 branches of glass manufacture, modern art did not develope itself remarkably till 
 towards the 15th century, when the drinking glasses and the mirrors of Venice 
 became celebrated all over Europe. In the beginning of the 16th century the 
 glass ware of Germany became also celebrated, and the graceful, or quaint, or richly 
 embellished forms of the German glass of this period are greedily sought by collectors. 
 After that epoch, however, the artistic treatment of the material declined again, while, 
 at the same time, all the mechanical appliances for the mere manufacture of the raw 
 material were greatly improving. Eventually, at an epoch very near our own time, 
 the purity and transparency of the finest natural crystal has been surpassed by the 
 brilliancy of pure flint glass, in the beauty of which we have surpassed all rivals, 
 though their advances in the same manufacture have been also great. The decorations, 
 however, of this beautiful material were generally confined to mere facet cutting, and 
 it Avas not till the Germans began again to assert their ancient claim to excellence by 
 the new style of glass work produced in Bohemia, that we ourselves, incited by the 
 example, began to invest this exquisite material with worthy artistic embellishment. 
 
 The great Exhibition has shown to all, the progress achieved. Not only did we 
 behold there a speckless, faultless mirror, above eighteen feet high by ten broad ; 
 showing that, in the progress of the mere fabrication of plate-glass, we have surpassed 
 our neighbours, the French and Germans, in which till recently they surpassed us: not 
 only was there the Crystal Fountain, the brilliancy of which exceeded that of the glit- 
 tering element which it scatter’d so gracefully in that palace of art ; but there Avas also 
 a display of really artistic design in glass, which, both in form, in colour, and in 
 elaborately engraved decorations, equalled, in many respects, the curious Avorks 
 of the 15th and 16th centuries, and which in the brilliancy of the material itself 
 very far surpassed them. 
 
 In coloured glass the magnificent display from Bohemia took the lead ; in artistic 
 engraving of figure subjects, the glass cup by Bdhm, of Hamburgh, distanced all 
 rivalry ; the design of Avhich represents an exquisite reduction of the Avell-knoAvn 
 “ Passage of the Granicus.” The only things approaching this in excellence Avere the 
 English specimens exhibited by Mr. Green, which, indeed, were only surpassed by the 
 German work in the superior treatment of the human figure. This deficiency is by 
 far too common among our decorative artists, and Ave must hope to see it remedied at 
 an early period through the medium of our newly-established schools of design. In 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS, 
 
(POTT E RV.&c&c) __ I . A MAJOLICA T A ZZA DESIGNED BY JULIO ROMANO _2.. A SAUCE-BOAT IN PALISSY-WARE_3.ASALT CELLAR IN HENRI-DEUX WARE 
 
AUTISTIC WORKS IN GLASS, ETC. 
 
 101 
 
 ornamental and very original arabesque designs, and in a series of reproductions of 
 Etruscan patterns, Mr. Green exhibited some truly exquisite works ; while a wine- 
 glass valued at fifteen guineas seemed to point in the direction of the fifty-guinea 
 chalices of the age of Nero. 
 
 Messrs. Apsley Pellat, Bacchus, and others, were equally successful. In this beau- 
 tiful branch of art manufacture, some of the specimens of engraved glass mounted in 
 enamelled gold and silver, by MorellandCo.,were gems that might have passed criticism 
 in the age of Cellini. But the promising part of all this is, that it is evidently but a 
 beginning. A young and well- trained race of designers are just issuing from our 
 new schools of design, who will soon, if our manufacturers know how to cultivate 
 their talents, move far in advance of the present state of decorative art in this 
 country. 
 
 POTTERY AND PORCELAIN. 
 
 The potter’s wheel was one of the first pieces of mechanism devised by human 
 ingenuity. It is found depicted on the walls of Egyptian palaces erected before the 
 age of Abraham, and is described in the verse of Homer. The art was not confined 
 to the Egyptians or the Greeks, but seems to have been practised at an early period 
 by all nations ; even the distant Britons understood it, and remains have been 
 discovered, with the potters’ names upon the work, which belong to an epoch prior to 
 the Roman invasion. 
 
 Even during the monarchic period of Rome pottery was so important a branch 
 of industry, that Numais said to have instituted a corporation of potters. At Athens 
 this class of artizans was so numerous that a part of the city was called Cerameicus , 
 as being exclusively inhabited by them. 
 
 The style of Grecian and Etruscan pottery is well known. But I may remind the 
 student that valueless clay was, by the hand of Athenian art, rendered more precious 
 than gold. The masterpieces of this craft were publicly exhibited at the Panathensea, 
 and were given, filled with oil, as prizes to the victors in the great public games, at 
 which important occasions they were deemed worthy rewards. Fart of the Athenian 
 excellence in this branch of art depended upon the peculiar qualities of the clay of 
 the Cohan promontory, and such was the mania of the dilettanti of that period for 
 the possession of vases and cups in that material, fashioned by Athenian art, that 
 Plutarch, in ridiculing the excess to which the taste was carried, says, that if a 
 man of taste had been accidentally poisoned, he would refuse to take the antidote 
 unless it were presented to him in a cup of Colian clay. 
 
 Earthen vessels were not esteemed by the Persians, and even among the Romans 
 they gave way to those formed of the precious metals or glass ; the Romans, how- 
 ever, always preserved a taste for the finer specimens, and statuary in clay always 
 continued to be venerated as an ancient and almost sacred form of sculpture. A con- 
 secrated quadriga of terra-cotta surmounted the pediment of the temple of Jupiter 
 Capitolinus, while earthen vessels were always used in their religious ceremonials 
 long after silver vessels were common for private uses. 
 
102 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 Glazed pottery appears to have been known to the Egyptians at an early period, 
 though only fabricated in small articles ; beside which, no ancient remains exist, unless 
 we except the apparently fabulous antiquity claimed by the Chinese for some of their 
 works of this class. As an European art we do not hear of it until it was practised as an 
 Italian manufacture in the 15th century, under the name of Majolica, a term supposed 
 to be derived from the circumstance of the art having been derived from Majorca, 
 where it was practised by Moors driven out of Spain ; an Eastern origin, however 
 remote or indirect, being always claimed for this art. The first Italian specimens were 
 produced by the brothers Della Robbia. 
 
 The beautiful specimens of this ware produced in Italy towards the end of the 
 15th and during; the 16th centuries, were the result of the skill of the first artists of the 
 age, who deemed it no desecration of their talents to paint rich and beautiful designs 
 on the exquisite surface which the makers of majolica presented to them. 
 
 It is foreign to my purpose to attempt to follow and describe the “ Curiosities of 
 Earthenware Manufacture ” — how Bernard Palissy, of Limoge, a place long celebrated 
 for its enamelling on metal, succeeded, after various disappointments, in establishing 
 the art in France, just as it began to languish in Italy — how, in disregard of his 
 services, he perished in prison, a victim to religious persecution — how the peculiar 
 style of work called Henri-deux-ware suddenly arose and disappeared. 
 
 The first records of English pottery belong to the reign of Elizabeth — when the 
 introduction of painted earthenware caused metal to fall into disuse, and the metal 
 workers were the first modern British potters. They endeavoured to rival the foreign 
 designs by pouring a liquid clay into their metal moulds, producing thus a light ware 
 far from unattractive. 
 
 The raised enamel work on pottery of the Brothers Della Robbia, in Italy, 
 Palissy, in France, is much sought by collectors, and is very creditable to the 
 industrial arts of the beginning of the 16th century, the high finish of the raised 
 figures of fish, reptiles, &c., on the Palissy ware being sometimes very extraordinary. 
 
 The plate illustrating this subject contains a raised work sauce-boat of the latter 
 class, a salt-cellar of nearly the same period, more resembling the Henri-Il.-ware, and 
 a covered tazza of the Italian Majolica, said to be decorated with designs in Cante- 
 ens by the hand of Giulio Romano. 
 
 Porcelain is distinguished from earthenware, as is well known, by its semi-trans- 
 parency. Its manufacture in Europe is of very recent origin, though long known to 
 the Chinese and Japanese. The accidental discovery of a mode of making semi- 
 transparent earthenware, or porcelain, was accidentally discovered in the laboratory of 
 Augustus II., the alchymist elector of Saxony, about the year 1705 — and the elector 
 soon perceived that a more profitable speculation was open to him than the discovery 
 of the philosopher’s stone. Hence the establishment of the celebrated Dresden China 
 works — at first highly profitable, but eventually like all princely speculations degene- 
 rating into jobbery, and consequent loss. The porcelain of Dresden was the first 
 to claim any degree of excellence, and its works in small statuettes, as well as in 
 its more ordinary forms, upheld their reputation till near the middle of the 18th cen- 
 tury, old Dresden ware being as much prized by connoisseurs as even Italian Majolica. 
 
ARTISTIC WORKS IN GLASS, ETC. 
 
 103 
 
 Next followed the establishment of the porcelain manufactory of Sevres in France, 
 in which the first artists of the country were engaged in the decoration of 
 its finest works ; and the productions of this establishment, from its foundation to 
 the reign of Louis Philippe, are marked with a particular cypher for each reign, 
 and form as beautiful a series of objects illustrating the progress of art within those 
 periods as can be conceived. 
 
 In England the Chelsea ware was the first to claim any attention for artistic 
 merit ; and after that the Derby and Worcester ware. But the eventual cheapness of 
 the products of the Staffordshire potteries, and the good wearing qualities of such 
 designs as the too celebrated “ swallow pattern,” put down all rivalry. 
 
 It was the genius of Wedgewood that first brought the Staffordshire potteries 
 into artistic notice. Perceiving the beauties of ancient art, more particularly that of 
 the Greek and Etruscan vases, he sought their imitation, and in his enthusiasm 
 named the establishment he succeeded in forming, Etruria. Here he succeeded 
 in copying the celebrated Portland vase, and that so exquisitely that good specimens 
 commanded extravagant prices. Wedgewood engaged the talents of Flaxman and 
 other great artists, and became the real founder of the important character which the 
 English manufacturers in this branch have assumed, notwithstanding the still prevailing 
 popularity of the “ swallow pattern.” 
 
 Since the time of Flaxman real progress slumbered till within the last ten years, 
 a period at which most of our industrial arts began to revive, in consequence of 
 improved public taste ; and in no branch is the improvement more striking than in 
 that of pottery and porcelain. The great Exhibition displayed our progress in this 
 department to high advantage, and met with little rivalry, except that of the French 
 national establishment at Sevres, the best specimens from which are produced without 
 regard to cost, at all approach our own best examples. Even in the modern imitation 
 of the Palissy ware, our works are infinitely superior to those of his own countrymen. 
 The statuettes in Parian, however, which our fabrics have boasted so much of, were 
 decidedly inferior to similar French works in biscuit , especially in the modelling 
 and reproduction of the extremities. But in rich dinner and tea services— in vases 
 rivalling the glories of the Italian Majolica— or the porcelain of Dresden, or Sevres, as 
 well as in ornamental garden vases and encaustic tiles — we were unrivalled, and the 
 name of Minton generally stood supreme in the entire department, though a small 
 vase exhibited by Copeland, termed jewel ware, was as remarkable for elaborate and 
 curious design as it is faultless in mechanical execution. 
 
 In fine, our manufactories of earthenware and porcelain are in an active state of 
 vigorous progression, and none can guess what wonders of beauty and art may not be 
 shown to the world, if in another ten years, another universal exhibition should take 
 place.* 
 
 * The application of pottery, porcelain, and glass to building purposes I have treated in Chapter I., 
 (Architecture), but I would particularly call attention to the semi-opaque mottled glass of various rich colours, 
 of the manufactory at 93 Thames-street, as peculiarly suited to such purposes. 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 TEXTILE FABRICS, 
 
 T HE origin of the art of weaving is lost in the depths of the distant civilization 
 of Central Asia ; and that the Chinese, in the still farther East, understood 
 the use of silk for weaving purposes, is proved by their use of a skein of silk 
 as a symbol in their earliest hieroglyphic writings, which date as early as even 3000 
 years before the Christian era. To discuss the manner of the first invention of the 
 looms of oriental countries would therefore now be idle. 
 
 It will be sufficient to remind my readers that the earliest writers speak of 
 woven fabrics as in common use ; and even textile fabrics of the richest character 
 are alluded to as things of no uncommon occurrence, but occasionally remarkable 
 for superior excellence of ornamental design. 
 
 Moses, in describing the erection of the tabernacle and its various appurtenances, 
 and the robes of the priests, not only mentions curtains of goat’s-hair, but purple 
 and fine linen, and curious embroidery ; and that they “ beat the gold into thin 
 plates and cut it into wires, to work it into the blue, and the purple, and the scarlet, 
 with curious -work.” A girdle of this kind, formed of blue, and purple, and scarlet 
 needlework, is also mentioned ; and the hem of the garment of Aaron was em- 
 broidered with a pattern formed of a bell and pomegranate ; a “ bell and a 
 pomegranate round about it.” 
 
 The peculiar style of these ornaments and embroidery may now be vividly con- 
 ceived, from the examination of the numerous representations of embroidered robes in 
 the recently unburied sculptures of Assyria, which were, perhaps, being carved at 
 the very time of the building of the tabernacle ; though they more probably belong 
 to a somewhat more recent period, but one in wliich the general style of Asiatic art 
 had suffered but little change, and they are therefore capable of illustrating in a vivid 
 manner the mosaic style of art. 
 
 We find that the Asiatics excelled at a very early period in the fabrication of 
 carpets, termed by the Greeks raicm, or tocttis, from which the French tapis and 
 our term tapestry is derived ; and that rich carpets or pieces of tapestry were dis- 
 
I FXI II. F. FABRICS, &c._ EXAMPLES. .ORIEN TAL F. M BRO I D E R V IN THE GREAT EXHIBITION 
 
 ' LMBKull/FKY »N VIOL » t SATIN. 8V fu y SU/ or.I.OUT. OAIJOHT EK i EURJKDIOEKV ON hli-.I.IH \U SOKIAl IOOl.ll •, |, AUGHT I 
 
{ I8RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
TEXTILE FABRICS. 
 
 105 
 
 played by the Egyptians and Carthaginians at festivals and other public occasions ; 
 and they were also used by the Greeks as early as the age of Homer ; and at a 
 later period, by the Roman emperors as prizes at the Circensian games. 
 
 In the East, the most renowned seat of this branch of manufacture was Babylon. 
 But Alexandria, Carthage, and Corinth, were also celebrated for their carpets and 
 tapestry in general. 
 
 Fine specimens of woven textures of this description were spread over couches, 
 thrones, &c., of persons of distinction, especially at nuptial ceremonials. Catullus 
 speaks of one so used, which represented the whole story of Theseus and Ariadne. 
 On state occasions the orientals also spread carpets over their floors ; and the 
 modern carpets of Turkey and Persia show that Asia has not forgotten her ancient 
 textile skill, though she displays no longer her former talent in the higher branches 
 of the art in which dramatic scenes were represented as in pictures. 
 
 In articles of dress, the skill of the loom was early called into requisition in the 
 East, especially in that sort of shawl called peplos (ncTiXof) by the Greeks, which in 
 the East was anciently worn by both men and women, as at the present day. 
 Women of high rank wore the peplos trailing on the ground, and of the richest 
 texture ; indeed, it was upon shawls that the greatest skill and labour of the loom 
 were bestowed ; and so various and exquisitely wrought were the subjects on the 
 most beautiful of these works, that the greatest poets felt inspired to describe, with an 
 embroidery of words, the objects wrought more materially in silken and golden threads. 
 
 The East was then, as now, the great seat of the most luxurious shawl manufac- 
 ture, and Tyre and Sidon were the ports from which they were exported to the West. 
 
 Polemon wrote an elaborate essay on the shawls of Carthage (a Tyrian colony), 
 and a work entitled “ The Shawl,” a] id intended to illustrate certain parts of the 
 “Iliad,” was ascribed to Aristotle, while the learned Varro did not think it beneath 
 him to write a •nzir'Ko'ypa.tpia., or treatise on shawls. Some are described which exhibited 
 the stars, &c. according to the ancient system of astronomy, and some belonging 
 to temples (as votive olferings), represented hunting pieces, and other scenes, among 
 the finest of which were those in the temple of Delphi, only exhibited in processions 
 and other great priestly ceremonials. 
 
 The Romans imported these riches of the oriental looms into Italy as their 
 wealth increased. They called the arts of weaving and embroidering subjects on 
 shawls and carpets, textile painting. Still, among the Romans, the simplest forms of 
 weaving were the most highly esteemed, and so long as any remnant of the early 
 republican manners remained, a loom formed the most honourable piece of furni- 
 ture in the house of every family of distinction ; the labours of which were directed 
 by the female principals of the family, while the more intricate part of the work was 
 actually executed by their own fingers. The same practice was common in Greece ; 
 and Iphigenia is made by Euripides to recognise her brother Orestes by the figured 
 clothing which he wore, and which she had herself woven ; but, at a later period, both 
 in the East and West, the art of weaving appears to have passed into the hands of 
 the other sex. 
 
 That embroidery , a more obvious art than decorative weaving, should have been 
 
 N 
 
106 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 carried to a still greater extent by the ancients is easily understood, and some of the 
 accounts of the splendid works wrought by this means are almost incredible, especially 
 towards the decline of the Roman empire, when the robes of oriental embroidery 
 worn by Diocletian, appear to have been of extraordinary richness ; but this art, as 
 well as all others, decayed with the fall of Rome, which had enveloped the whole 
 civilized world in its mantle of empire ; and when those protecting folds shrank from the 
 defenceless nations, the arts every where declined before barbaric invasion. The Greeks 
 were the last to retain and revive the sparks of every branch of ancient art ; and in the 
 12th century they were the only European nation in possession of the silk- worm, 
 though it had been introduced in the 6th. At that time they furnished all Europe 
 with rich stuffs, and the daughters of Athens still wove with as dexterous fingers in 
 the darkness of the 12th century as in the days of Arachne, for the woven stuffs of 
 Greece exhibited at that period curiously elaborate designs (though of course of the 
 well-known Byzantine character), which displayed flowers, fruits, and landscapes, as 
 well as historical and allegorical subjects. Some textures were made at this time so 
 weighty with gold threads, and superadded embroidery and precious stones, that, in 
 the form of a robe, they weighed down with fatigue the luxurious wearer, whilst 
 others, we are told , were so delicately fine, that an entire piece might be placed in the 
 hollow of a cane. These works were exported to Gaul, to Spain, to Africa, and even 
 Britain ; and Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, and Saxons were clothed in the rich cloths 
 of the Grecian looms. 
 
 As the Eastern empire fell, the energies of Greece decayed, but fortunately Western 
 Europe had already become inoculated with her spirit of manufacture. The Norman 
 conquerors of Sicily imported silk- worms into that island, along with Greek artizans to 
 manage them, and the culture and the art spread from thence to Italy and to France. 
 
 A taste for rich draperies became one of the great features of ecclesiastical splen- 
 dour ; the richness of carved marble, and stone rendered more precious than marble by 
 its workmanship, was concealed on great festivals in the churches, by cloth of gold, in 
 which brilliantly-coloured designs were intricately woven, and the robes of state, of 
 both prelates and princes, were of a similar character of richness ; the hand of the 
 embroidei’er commencing its labours when the elaborations of the weaver had ceased. 
 The French town of Arras became one of the great seats of tapestry manufacture, 
 which took its name, and the greatest masters of painting eventually lent their aid, 
 frequently making designs for the richest Avorks ; and it is a series of such designs from 
 the hand of Raphael for the manufactory at Arras, that we now admire in the Cartoons 
 of Hampton Court. That series of Cartoons was originally made for the tapestry 
 with which the piazza of San Pietro, at Rome, was decorated during the festival 
 of the Corpus Domini. The actual tapestry itself, woven from those designs, is still 
 in excellent preservation, and still used for its original purpose, only one or two sub- 
 jects being missing, which were sold during the revolutions of the last years of the 
 18th century, to a Jew, for the gold threads which they contained. 
 
 Other curious pieces of tapestry exist, long preceding in chronological order 
 the series woven at Arras from the designs of Raphael; among which are 
 several of the 13th and 14th centuries, not to mention the famous Bayeux roll 
 
TEXTILE FABRICS. 
 
 10T 
 
 worked by the fair hands of the wife of William of Normandy, and her attendant 
 ladies, in the 11th century. 
 
 France became, at a later period, celebrated also for her carpets, the Aubusson 
 manufacture being highly prized all over Europe. The establishment of the govern- 
 ment tapestry manufactory of the Gobelins gave the finishing touch to the supremacy 
 of that country in this department ; while her silk fabrics, long growing and progressing 
 silently but surely at Lyons, at length eclipsed the textile fabrics of the whole world 
 by the beauty of their designs. 
 
 Lace had been first made in Spain in the 15 th century, and its fabrication 
 was early engrafted on the low countries, where the productions of Mechelen, Valen- 
 ciennes, and Brussels, soon surpassed the works of Spain in that branch of textile art, 
 some of the ecclesiastical lace work (point lace) of the 1 6th century still remaining 
 unrivalled in richness, in design, and in general quality. France, in the meantime, 
 had not been behind in entering the field in lace work, and the point of Cambray and 
 Alencon, soon rivalled the produce of the pillows of the low countries. 
 
 In England the progress in the higher branches of the textile art had been slow. 
 Broad cloths, blankets, and coarse linens she produced, both through the medium of 
 domestic looms and in established factories, but scarcely anything more; though, in 
 embroidery on velvets (the velvets themselves being imported), native artists frequently 
 displayed much skill. 
 
 James I., in the beginning of the 17 th century, was the first to endeavour 
 by governmental patronage to introduce the culture of the silk- worm, and planted 
 whole groves of mulberry-trees for that purpose, but the project failed ; the unwise 
 edict of Nantes, under Louis XIV., being the first occasion of giving a real stimulus 
 to our textile manufactures. The persecuted Protestants of France fled from Lyons, 
 Rouen, and other seats of French industry, and established here those manufac- 
 tories which have since become so extensive, if not as flourishing as they ought 
 to be. Thus originated, not only the silk-weavers of Spitalfields, but the stocking- 
 weavers of Nottingham, the carpet-weavers of Kidderminster, and other places. 
 
 But the great staple of English textile fabric has been created through the means 
 of the brave men she drove forth to America. By this means cotton has been produced 
 in such abundance on the other side of the Atlantic, and its export thence so almost 
 entirely confined to this country, that the fabrication of cloths from it has been effected 
 in such vast abundance as to give us the command of all the markets of the world ; and 
 those markets have been secured to us by the low prices which our extraordinary im- 
 provements in the mechanical appliances of machinery have enabled us to work for. 
 
 Indeed it was the comparatively recent invention of the steam-engine, the spin- 
 ning-jenny, and the power-loom — all creations of the end of the last century — that first 
 gave us that command of trade which we now possess in all articles produced by their 
 means; and, such is the perfection to which machinery of that kind has been carried, 
 that even exquisite lace, of most elaborate design, is now produced by it, and sold 
 at a few pence per yard, while similar patterns on the pillows of Flanders, could not 
 be wrought for as many guineas. 
 
 In quality and facility of production we now stand unrivalled ; but what is to be 
 
 N 2 
 
108 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 said of our designs ? It is our inferiority in this particular that still allows our French 
 and other continental rivals to hold certain markets against us. 
 
 The display in the great Exhibition has shown our inferiority in this respect. 
 Even the works of semi-barbarous states beat us in design. The shawls of India, 
 though they do not surpass some of the finest productions of the French looms, are certainly 
 more original than those of our own. Even the gold embroidery of Tunis, Albania, 
 and Turkey, surpass in taste our ordinary works, and it is from one of the latter that 
 I have selected the illustration of this chapter ; they are the following. 
 
 The central example was labelled in the Exhibition as the work of “ Tuysuzoglous’ 
 daughter,” and a very graceful invention is this piece of needlework of the Turkish 
 maiden, whose rivals, Sofialioglus’ daughter, Hadgi-Mihal, and other artists rich in the 
 oriental euphony of their names, have nevertheless ecpialled. The specimen first named 
 is worked in gold thread and spangles, on violet silk. The next, No. 2, by “ Sofia- 
 lioglus’ daughter,” is delicately wrought on very transparent muslin ; and No. 3 is 
 also a delicate border worked on muslin ; all three displaying great originality of design ; 
 and, as coming from a seat of manufacture for which our own producers have great 
 contempt, may stimulate them to efforts in a fresher and more original style of design 
 than is generally found in their works of this class. 
 
 The last ten centuries of art in textile fabrics have exhibited great barbaric rich- 
 ness in the early periods ; wonderful variety and exuberance of design in the 15th and 
 16th centuries, and great decline in the last half of the 18th and first quarter of the 
 1 9th. But a period of revival has set in in good earnest ; and the exquisite specimens 
 of Gobelin tapestry, and other continental specimens in every branch of woven fabrics 
 in the Great Exhibition, not forgetting the embroidered muslins of Switzerland, must 
 impart a great stimulus to our own manufacturers. These are already in brisk move- 
 ment, showing, in some cases, such superior specimens, even of design, in the 
 recent trial of skill, as must, with the wonderful appliances of the most perfect machinery 
 in the world, lead to great results; while the lace work exhibited by Messrs. Groucock, 
 and by Mr. Hayward, of Nottingham, seem to point in the right direction. Among 
 the remarkable textile fabrics of the Exhibition, I would call to the recollection of 
 our manufacturers the magnificent brocades and gold damasks from Moscow; the 
 singular embroidery of peculiar style executed on a fabric produced from the fibre 
 of the pine-apple, exhibited by tire Signora Margarita, of Manilla ; the elegant 
 lace work of novel design, with semi-detached flowers, by Madame Hubert, of Paris ; 
 the Chantilly lace of Aubrey -Freres, and the bed-cover in point d'Alenqon, by 
 Lefebure, as also the French white lace mantillas made for the Mexican market, 
 and another bed-cover embroidered on cambric, the production of which occupied 
 eight pair of hands for nine months. These are real works of art, the careful and 
 exquisite designs of which, if they have been well studied, will do much towards 
 improving our national taste in the production of textile fabrics of a high class. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS. 
 
 
MOSAIC . .EXAMPLE 
 
 STONE PULPIT, & c ASSISI 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 MOSAIC. 
 
 I N speaking of mosaic, I shall be very brief, as its construction is necessarily so 
 laborious as to forbid the possibility of its general and popular application as 
 a decorative art. In public buildings, however, its judicious application may 
 prove highly decorative ; and, eventually, through the medium of a kind of repro- 
 duction, by which one finished model might be repeated with comparatively small 
 labour, its use may be extended in some cases even to domestic dwellings. 
 
 Mosaic, or opus musivum , as it was termed by the Romans, was common in 
 Asia Minor at an early period ; but no remains of the art, as practised by the Greeks 
 either in Asia Minor or in Europe, have been discovered. 
 
 In the Roman period, Pliny informs us that there were various kinds of mosaic, 
 the two principal of which were, lithostrotum , or bordering, often of very rich and 
 varied pattern ; and the proper opus musivum, which was the term applied generally 
 to the pictura de musivum, or mosaic painting. The lithostrota w r ere made of 
 various coloured cubes, mechanically applied in geometric, but often rich patterns ; 
 while the opus musivum was composed, it is said, of minute and thin slabs of marble, 
 of forms suited to the flow of the subject. 
 
 The first use of mosaic by the Romans appears to have been in the time of 
 Sulla, who caused the floor of the Temple of Fortune at Pramesti to be made in 
 mosaic ; and the fine floor discovered in the last century in that locality is supposed 
 to be the very pavement alluded to by ancient writers. In small houses mosaics, or 
 rather lithostrota, were in common use, in which the patterns are generally confined 
 to black and white, but often of very excellent design. In superior dwellings, the 
 mosaics were of the true opus musivum, and represented scenes of real life, birds, 
 animals, &c. Some of those recently disinterred at Pompeii being truly magnificent 
 specimens of the art, both in execution, elaboration, and design. Among these, that 
 representing the Battle of Issus is the most celebrated ; but, fine as it is, it is evidently 
 a somewhat debased copy of a much finer and earlier work. The Romans extended 
 this art to the walls, and even the ceilings of their dwellings, and introduced it into 
 the semi-barbarous countries of the north and west, as they came successively under 
 the dominion of the empire — very excellent examples being continually discovered, 
 not only in Spain and Gaul, but even in Hungary and Britain. 
 
 Towards the close of the empire the art displayed in mosaic decorations greatly 
 
no 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 declined, but at the same time the use of this laborious art became more profuse ; 
 especially after the establishment of Christianity, when it formed the most splendid means 
 of ornamentation adopted in the decoration of the first churches founded by Constantine 
 and his successors. As real art declined, a kind of barbaric splendour gradually assumed 
 its place ; and, as rich stuffs of oriental fabric, profusely enriched with grotesque, but 
 elaborately rich designs, enriched with gold and silver thread, and even pearls and 
 other gems, usurped the place of the artistic productions of the decayed looms of 
 Greece, so in the art of mosaic, the noble composition, correct design, and scientific 
 distribution of subdued but beautiful colours of former periods, were sought to be 
 replaced by a vain and gaudy glitter of purple and gold. 
 
 Nevertheless, the vast mosaics of this epoch, with their invariable ground of 
 bright gold, form highly interesting records of art, and are, in fact, links in pictorial 
 history where monuments of no other kind have reached us. These great formal 
 pictures in mosaic, which frequently occupy the semi-dome forming the ceiling 
 of the apse of the early Basilicae, are generally in the stiff and peculiar style which 
 marked the Byzantine art of the period, for the workmen, no longer artists, were 
 doubtless brought from Constantinople. Such, for instance, is the fine specimen 
 executed in the reign of Honorius in the church of San Paolo, at the time of its 
 repairs during his reign ; and such also are many well-preserved specimens of about 
 the same epoch at Ravenna, while hundreds of interesting examples might be cited, of 
 successive eras, bringing the history of gold-grounded mosaic down to the 15th 
 century ; the ceilings and walls of St. Marc’s of Venice alone affording examples of 
 several periods of its later development, the description of which formed the basis of 
 Madame Dudevant’s exquisite story, “ Les Maitres Mosaistes.” 
 
 The application of the gold-grounded mosaic to the exterior of buildings, in the 
 friezes, spiral columns, and other portions of the structure, is, however, one of the 
 most suggestive features in the history of the art. The tessene at that time being 
 formed of glass, coloured at the back, the vitreous external surface effectually resisted 
 the action of the atmosphere, of which the perfect preservation of specimens which 
 have been exposed to the air for seven centuries is sufficient proof. A specimen of 
 this class of tesserae may be seen in Westminster Abbey, in the tomb of Henry II. 
 which was executed in Italy. 
 
 The only modern attempts at mosaic of a high character are those in St. Peter’s 
 at Rome, by means of which all the celebrated pictures of Raphael and others, 
 formerly decorating that building, have been so skilfully transformed to stone, that a 
 careless spectator would never guess that he was not looking on painted canvas. I 
 have visited the ateliers in which such works are produced, and, from what I saw, am 
 convinced that nothing would be easier than to establish a similar school in this 
 country, whose principal duty should be the recording in “ pictorial stone’ in our great 
 public buildings such national fasti as ought not to be confided to the more perish- 
 able keeping of paint and canvas, and which sculpture could not fittingly represent. 
 At the same time, the production of exquisite miniatures for jewellery, and other 
 objects, would yield sufficient profit to render the establishment self-supporting. 
 
TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 I N a general survey of art so rapid as the foregoing, it has been manifestly impossible 
 even to touch upon all the more salient points of interest. Many, indeed, are so 
 well known and justly appreciated, in proportion to their interest, as not to require 
 any remark from me. Of such points, one of the most remarkable is, that at which 
 any branch of industrial art merges from one of personal interest and personal exe- 
 cution, into one of multifarious interest and manifold manipulation. This occurs 
 when division of labour is first sought as a means of economy ; when each portion of 
 a fabricated object, passing through different hands, the artistic merit of the whole is 
 decreased, while its mere mechanical excellence is greatly improved. This kind of 
 artistic deterioration is carried still farther by the subsequent adoption of machinery, 
 eventually substituted for nearly all hand labour, which necessarily destroys the little 
 sentiment remaining in the stage of the minute subdivision of manual skill, which 
 still left some slight mark of intelligence on each particular part of the work. 
 
 The machine produces exquisitely even textures, beautiful uniformity, and dozens, 
 — grosses, — thousands of objects where human hands created one, and all these so alike 
 as greatly to aid and facilitate the wholesale transactions of commerce, rendering the 
 examination of any separate article, after a general sample has been seen, a perfectly 
 unnecessary waste of time. But in the development of our productive arts in this 
 direction, which has been carried to the greatest possible extent by the great manufac- 
 turers of England, artistic features have been entirely lost sight of. On the other 
 hand, cheapness, quantity, and a pervading quality of soundness and solidity, have 
 given us the command of the markets of the world in certain branches of manufacture. 
 
 Our continental neighbours have pursued a somewhat different course. They 
 have rather developed the artistic feeling, aided, certainly, by the subdivision of 
 labour in production, but never losing sight of a good original design as the all- 
 important thing, the more or less cheap reproduction of which was deemed of less 
 consequence than the excellent manner in which the artistic idea was preserved in the 
 
112 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 process of multiplication. Even in the partial adoption of machinery they have not 
 so much sought cheapness as a more excellent and unfailing mode of reproduction, in 
 some cases, than hand labour. Thus, the Jacquard loom was not invented to produce 
 cheap silks, but, on the contrary, to facilitate the more perfect reproduction of the 
 most rich and exquisite designs in that material. In following out this feeling 
 our neighbours have been left behind in quantity and in cheapness. But they 
 have stolen a long march upon us in the direction of beauty, and they have educated 
 a race of intellectual artizans so cultured to the appreciation of that beauty, that their 
 more artistic labours are to them no toil, compared to the dull, machine-like, unintel- 
 lectual drudgery carried on in our great centres of industrial art. As an illustration 
 of the results of these differences, let us look at the aspect of some of the great French 
 manufactories as compared to our own. At Malonais, for instance, the great extra 
 suburban seat of the Rouen cotton works, the traveller may see a magnificent 
 chateau-like building — one among a hundred such — approached by avenues of 
 limes, or oriental planes, through the midst of a carefully-kept flower-garden. The 
 fine range of buildings in the rear, lighted by large and handsome windows, are not 
 suites of apartments for the accommodation of a stud of race horses below, and troops 
 of over-fed and half-employed servants above, as, judging from analogy, an aristo- 
 cratic English traveller might imagine. No : this extensive building contains well- 
 kept and handsome tiers of noble ateliers, well ventilated, and well fitted up for 
 comfort as well as work. In these establishments the proprietor often resides during 
 the whole of the year, especially in the noble manufactories of Alsace, so well 
 described by M. Blanqui in his interesting letters. These industrial colonies are 
 frequently the property of members of the nobility, and the hereditary arms 
 belonging to historic names are blazoned over the entrance, receiving in this new 
 situation the signet of a truer nobility than was ever earned in predatory, or even 
 patriotic war. 
 
 Compare this state of things with what we see in English “ workshops.” What 
 is yonder black and smoky pile ? An agglomeration of formless chimneys, vomiting 
 forth endless dark clouds of lurid smoke on one side, and on the other, a mass of far- 
 reaching, longitudinal openings (the long lights), glazed with small panes of dingy glass 
 The black and naked walls both of the exterior and interior have a bleak, comfortless, 
 wretched, and depressing aspect; they frown darkly and ominously upon the spectator— 
 a sadness creeps over him, — no wonder that he shudders : he is in the vicinity of a 
 Lancashire cotton factory. A wretched scene is that surrounding this place ; it is a 
 country blasted and disfigured by soot and smoke, and by the trampling of reckless 
 feet, confined to no path ; for there is no garden — no tree — no flower — nothing of 
 nature — all is blackened, dead, and, as it were, accursed, by the blast of some 
 impending and demoniac spirit. But, reader, this state of things is — economy ! 
 The absence of comfort, of gardens, of trees, of flowers, has “reduced the calicoes 
 a farthing per yard,” and the French have been undersold and driven out of the 
 markets of Monte Video — of Canton — of the world. This is presumed to be unan- 
 swerable. But let us look to final results, rather than the present condition of affairs. 
 The French and others have preserved the artistic feeling in the struggle to multiply 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 113 
 
 cheaply the products of industrial art. We have lost ours. If, then, these opponents 
 should now adopt all our improvements in machinery, exhibited so fully and fairly to 
 them in the Crystal Palace, backed by their superior taste, what will then be the 
 consequence ? I leave to our manufacturers to answer that question themselves, for 
 they now foresee that its answer and solution are impending, and brought some 
 score of years nearer by the teachings of the great Exhibition. But, with the energy 
 peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race, they have made, and are making, gigantic efforts 
 to restore to the industrial arts of this country that beauty of design which will alone 
 ensure their permanent pre-eminence. The success of such endeavours, in their in- 
 dividual branches, I have referred to in the foregoing pages. 
 
 THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 
 
 At the momentous crisis just referred to, the great international Exhibition was 
 proposed. To Mr. Henry Cole I believe the initiation of that important event is 
 due. Mr. Cole has been an active man for some years in matters pertaining to 
 the improvement of national industrial art ; but his endeavours have not always 
 been responded to by our manufacturers. In his attempts to set before the public 
 certain specimens of art manufacture of a superior class, the producers thought 
 that the royalty, or per centage claimed by the suggestor on the production of parti- 
 cular designs furnished by him, was a troublesome tax, and the furtherance of the 
 scheme was thus crushed at its very outset. A general exhibition of native produc- 
 tions was then suggested and carried out by the active energy of this gentleman in 
 the rooms of the Society of Arts in the Adelphi, which was, however, but poorly 
 responded to, and the display was small. Itwas an effort in the right direction 
 nevertheless. Prizes were then proposed by the Society of Arts for designs ; but 
 their awards, especially in such cases as that of the Felix Summerly tea service, gave 
 such dissatisfaction that the attempt was, after some further efforts, abandoned. 
 But out of the failure of the small exhibition and the small prizes a much larger 
 idea sprang. The native producers not having responded to the call, it was sought 
 to stimulate them by foreign rivalry, and an international exhibition was proposed 
 by the ever-active Mr. Cole. A petition was placed upon a table in the rooms of 
 the Society of Arts, stating the expected advantages to be derived from such a 
 scheme, and requesting royal patronage for carrying it out. But the signatures were 
 slow in coming in, and when I appended my own name there were but very few 
 others as yet attached to the paper. 
 
 The royal patronage was, however, obtained, and not till then did there appear 
 any probability of carrying out the project ; but the patronage of the Prince Albert 
 immediately turned the tide in its favour, for the masses of our productive classes 
 are as yet led more by the name, and the old prestige of royal patronage than by 
 any well- formed judgment of their own, as may easily be conceived, when we see 
 the ready sale found for prints, in endless variety of sameness, of royal progresses 
 through arches of greenery, and among coloured flags, and other conventional modes 
 of regal greeting ; and royal laying of first stones with silver or golden trowels. 
 
 o 
 
114 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 Suffice it to say that the point was carried, and the Prince ruled supreme over 
 the project, while Mr. Cole was appointed, with a handsome salary, to superintend, 
 with an executive commission, the carrying out of the scheme. 
 
 But all at present seems little, and on a neat manageable scale. The nursing of 
 the notion was all in a small way ; but the projectors were unconsciously nursing a 
 baby giant, and one of rapid growth. The glitter of royal patronage, by calling 
 forth general attention, ended in enlisting the serious consideration of the industry of 
 all nations. They perceived, far beyond the projectors, the ultimate results of such a 
 display of industrial power, and entered upon it worthily, as something far higher 
 in the way of contest than the game of soldiering, or any other governmental pastime 
 in which neither the greatness nor the interests of the people are concerned. 
 
 The idea, when cast forth like a little ball, was a mere apple of discord, inscribed 
 with a promise of reward “to the most beautiful ” among the works of the world ; and 
 was at first neglected, and kicked about like any other unobserved trifle ; but when 
 once gilded by the smiles of royalty, it became a conspicuous object ; the glittering 
 bauble was seen, and its inscription interpreted in a much wider sense than the in- 
 scribers dreamed of. The peoples took up the ball, and struck it round the earth, 
 and the thing, once free of the laboratory of its Frankensteins, became a mighty 
 monster in the hands of the industry of the world. 
 
 Our own national enthusiasm reverberated the shout of other nations, and it became 
 evident that the industrial Exhibition, shooting far beyond the limits expected by its 
 originators, would become one of the great events of the world. In this unexpected 
 state of affairs, a small clique was no longer a fit organ of management ; and though 
 among their friends and adherents were many men of real ability, the usual sins of 
 cliqueism became rampant ; the decisions in the competitions for designs for the 
 building, and for the medals, were cramped and warped by it, and gave universal 
 dissatisfaction. The decision come to at last, that their own artists should make their 
 own design for their building, and so reserve to themselves whatever credit might 
 be achieved, was the cause of general indignation ; and rival propositions were imme- 
 diately put forward, of such various kinds, that one was forcibly reminded of the story 
 ol the city about to be suddenly fortified ; for which purpose the cobbler recommended 
 leather, the tailor cloth, the mason bricks, and the glazier glass ! In the case of the 
 Exhibition building, the glazier’s proposition silenced all competition. Mr. Paxton, 
 the eminent constructor of greenhouses and conservatories, recommended an enlarged 
 building of that kind, which proposition, backed by the interest of a noble duke, and 
 favourably viewed by the Prince, carried the day, especially as the great conservatory 
 at Kew was already in existence as a pattern to show exactly the kind of tiring 
 proposed. 
 
 Many were at first opposed to the scheme ; the idea of so monstrous a cucumber 
 frame appeared at first ridiculous ; but the idea was nevertheless a good one, and the 
 erection of a glass conservatory for exotic silks and bronzes instead of ferns or palms, 
 turned out entirely successful. This success, however, was a lucky haphazard, quite 
 at variance with the intentions of the managerial clique. A spirited manufacturer 
 was soon found ready to undertake the building, and run the risk of being paid out 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 115 
 
 of the profits, then pretty well felt to be no risk at all, for the world was already at 
 work for the contest, and several spirited capitalists and noblemen had made offers to 
 guarantee the payment of any deficiency that might eventually accrue if the receipts 
 were inadequate. 
 
 The time came, the labours of the world’s industry were collected, and it was 
 determined to open the display with considerable state— with a ceremonial procession. 
 This could not fail to be an interesting, indeed a sublime spectacle. The producers of 
 all the marvels of skill, intelligence, and beauty, there collected — the creators of the 
 wonders of the world’s industry, — electing chiefs in each department of art, of 
 scientific constructions, and of exquisite mechanical fabrics to lead this great triumphal 
 march, thus formed of the elite of the wealth-producers of the world — the delegated 
 industrials of the universe — the most worthy representatives of the “ wealth of nations” 
 — the true civilizers of all countries — the creators of the things of beauty, which, in 
 decorating our homes in the smallest details of domestic appliances, educate and refine 
 the world, and lead it a step in advance by every new creation of design, and by 
 every new beauty developed in its execution — such a procession, made up of the pro- 
 ductive intellect of the universe, would indeed have been a glorious sight, and an 
 unmistakeable sign of the world’s progress ; but this was not to be. We have mis- 
 conceived the nature of the intended ceremony. The principle adopted by the 
 managerial clique was, that the maker of the jewel should not be the person honoured, 
 but rather the gentlemen who ordered the box to put it in, and the makers of the box 
 so ordered by them. It was not the founders of the feast who were to be honoured, 
 but the men who laid their cloth. This will scarcely be believed when the influence 
 of the presiding clique has ceased, and when the press, anxious to aid the project and 
 give it all the advantage of the prestige of its royal patronage, shall have ceased to 
 advertise the perfection of all the arrangements. It will then scarcely be believed 
 that the procession was positively formed of the clique itself and their adherents, 
 garnished with a few noble lords in court dresses, a few military men in their regi- 
 mental scarlet and gold; and, in addition, the planners, contractors, painters, &c., 
 who had been engaged in the erection of the temporary building !* It is beyond 
 credence ; and when to this is added, that the exhibitors, the men who had ex- 
 pended time, energy, money, and intellect, to a vast extent in the production of that 
 unparalleled display, were not even admitted to view the opening ceremony of the 
 feast of their own providing, from which they were utterly excluded, in favour of 
 persons who were about to be well paid for all they did— the case then appears a 
 truly extraordinary one. 
 
 Never was a greater cheat put upon royalty than when the gracious presence of 
 the Queen, the Prince, and their family was insulted with a performance by the stage- 
 managers, treasurers, lower officials, scene-shifters, and even the glaziers, painters, 
 and joiners of the temporary theatre, instead of one by the real actors. 
 
 The clumsiness and bad taste of the national fete was carried beyond the precincts 
 
 * No one would have wished to see Mr. Paxton excluded from the procession, as he was himself an exhibitor, 
 and of a very capital and most extensive piece of work ; but then all this was paid for, and well paid for ; while 
 the Exhibition itself was provided by the exhibitors at their own expense — and that enormous. 
 
 O 2 
 
116 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 of the building. Our illustrious visitors, thus excluded from their own feast, when 
 seeking to leave the Park in search of other amusement, found the road at Cumber- 
 land-gate blocked up by the half-finished erection of the marble arch ; a clumsy and 
 insufficient side-gate being the only mode of egress at that point, through ruts of 
 newly-laid gravel up to the axles of the wheels. 
 
 A drive down Regent Street was perhaps next proposed : the great London 
 thoroughfare of the West End. But no ; the pavement is up — the line is blocked — 
 the visitor must drive through the back streets. But then there is still the great 
 National Museum — the visitor drives to its doors ; but they are closed, — and a great 
 placard coolly announces that they will continue so for eight days. Really John Bull 
 does not understand giving fetes, or he allows those to manage them who do not. 
 
 But let us hasten to the ceremonial closing of the Exhibition ; for it is pro- 
 mised to make amends to the exhibitors for the insult offered to them on its opening. 
 They are to have free admission on two days. It is true that the glory of the show 
 is somewhat tarnished — the crimson cloth is faded — the smart painting has lost its 
 freshness — the dust of millions of active feet has done its work on all — but the collected 
 works of the world form still a glorious sight ; and with a little ceremonial, a for- 
 mal reception by royalty, or, at all events, by the leading members of the ministry, &c., 
 at the principal entrance, with a few such additional compliments as the removal of 
 the railing from the great diamond, to allow a more privileged and closer view, and 
 the appointment of guides and officers, in some little pomp of office, to explain the 
 British portion to foreign visitors, and the foreign portion to our native exhibitors, — 
 a few such arrangements might go some way towards repairing the former want of 
 taste. But things were not viewed in this manner by the managers, and I am 
 almost ashamed to state how the matter was really conducted. However, the truth 
 must be told. There was not only no fitting reception offered — there was not only no 
 closer view of the great state jewel, or any other remarkable object prepared, but, 
 on the contrary, the diamond was removed altogether, and various kinds of demoli- 
 tion were going on all around, ere the producers of the Exhibition were invited to 
 enter. On their arrival at the glorious scene of their own creation, they found no 
 posse of ministerial state to receive them, but were astonished by a gang of sappers 
 and miners busily knocking up the asphalte pavement into dangerous heaps, and 
 poking great planks and beams about, among the legs of the visitors, who were com- 
 pelled, if they did not retire in disgust, to scramble over such encumbrances 
 into the building, where many of the most attractive things had been already, like 
 the diamond, removed. To crown all, the police and their families received free 
 admission on the same day. Many of the police are doubtless respectable men, 
 but so long as society requires the exercise of their professiop, the “ thief-taker” 
 must necessarily, though a useful member of the community, occupy a very inferior 
 station in it, at all events one which is generally considered to exclude him from 
 participating as a visitor among men of more honourable station. 
 
 The indiscriminate distribution of prizes is a subject too unpleasant to dwell 
 upon, especially while the disgust, just or unjust, of so many is as yet hardly cooled ; 
 and indeed the good or bad distribution of awards by a scries of arrangements so 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 117 
 
 constituted, is a matter of no consequence, and does not at all interfere with the 
 great triumph art and industry have achieved.* 
 
 It only remains, therefore, to allude to the finally closing scene, which, with all its 
 dismal inefficiency, was yet incapable of tarnishing the glory of the real actors in the 
 great drama just concluded; its bad taste and bad management only recoil upon its 
 concoctors, the clique, and their immediate adherents. As in the opening ceremony, 
 these gentlemen and their friends assumed the chief characters, and read papers, 
 lauding themselves and their management, to which, proli pudor! they attributed 
 the success of the great display still glittering around, while a final insult was 
 impudently flung at the exhibitors. They were fenced off with ropes, &c. to a 
 distance where the reading of those statements was inaudible; the space within, 
 except some accommodation to female exhibitors (as the ladies who had furnished 
 works of art to the great assemblage were termed), being occupied by the members 
 of the commission and other officials. This “ lame and impotent ” conclusion ap- 
 peared even to damp and chill the well-known good nature of the Prince, who 
 went through the reading of a long paper without any of his wonted energy or 
 pleasing affability. But there was still time to repair errors. This miserable climax 
 was without doubt to be redeemed by the proffer of distinguished honours to the 
 leading producers of the different classes of those exquisite works which had just 
 concentrated the attention and admiration of the world, and who had incurred such 
 great expense and sacrifice of time to represent themselves worthily in the great dis- 
 play without fee or reward. 
 
 But no ! The “ fountain of honour ” was advised to shed its distinc- 
 tions among the managing officials. Military gentlemen, no doubt very active, 
 useful, and efficient in the humble position of managers and arrangers of the 
 objects exhibited, and of the police by which they were to be protected, receive 
 “ governments.” But more astounding is the offer to Mr. Paxton, the designer 
 of the temporary building, of the honour of knighthood, not proposed to any one 
 of the eminent men for whose works that temporary protection was erected ; and 
 more extraordinary still, that he, the independent and energetic carver-out of his own 
 well-deserved fortunes, should accept a distinction so uncalled-for, and, as regards the 
 superior claims of eminent exhibitors, so invidious. That the same honour should be 
 offered to and accepted by the contractor and builder, appears still more singular, 
 when his respectability and strong good sense are so well known, and which must 
 
 * One ought not, however, to omit to place on record two or three flagrant errors, to say nothing more, 
 by which this distribution of awards was unenviably distinguished. The want of any fixed principle in these 
 awards is exemplified in such cases as the following : — Mr. Cundall, a publisher, exhibits a choice specimen of 
 bookbinding ; but, instead of awarding a medal to Mr. Cundall, the bookbinder himself is sought out and the 
 prize given to him. Many will agree in this view ; but then what is to be said to the next case ? Mr. Ingram, 
 the proprietor of the “Illustrated News,” exhibits the machinery by which his paper is printed, and receives a 
 medal, while Mr. Appelgarth, the well-known inventor and maker of the machine, is not noticed. These are 
 contradictions in principle. The next example is one either of ignorance or unfairness ; a prize is given to a 
 
 gentleman, Mr. for bookbinders’ cloth, — while in the trade it is well known that his articles hold a very 
 
 inferior rank— while Mr. Wilson, the recent introducer of the ultra-marine book-cloth, esteemed by the trade 
 the most brilliant fabric yet offered to them, and in which the official illustrated catalogue itself is bound, as 
 the most striking novelty of that branch of manufacture — Mr. Wilson, receives no award at all ! ! 
 
118 
 
 TEN CENTURIES OF ART. 
 
 have made him fully aware that he had done nothing more than carry out a common 
 trading transaction, with the ordinary skill and energy which has always, I believe, 
 characterised his business transactions. 
 
 One honourable exception, in one of the most beneficially active of the 
 managers, ought to be recorded. One gentleman, holding office in the commission 
 of management, refused not only the proffered “ knighthood,” but also the proffered 
 salary, though to the latter his continual and efficient labours fully entitled him. 
 There remains, however, the great event itself, unsullied by the folly of these vagaries, 
 and the sins, both of omission and commission, on the part of the clique into whose 
 immediate management the matter fell ; for the names of several of our great indus- 
 trials made use of in the list of commissioners, &c., were mere noms de guerre, as 
 those gentlemen had little to do with the positive arrangements, all the faults of 
 which, as well as the gentlemen who perpetrated them, will be soon forgotten, 
 notwithstanding the attempts to perpetuate them in the shape of daguerreotype 
 portraits, and their publication in illustrated newspapers, ticketed and labelled with 
 the titles of their various ephemeral offices. 
 
 But all the petty drawbacks, as I have said, will pass away and be forgotten, while 
 the great event itself will live on. Its effect in stimulating the industry of all countries 
 has been already felt, and the true dignity of labour in every class of art has been 
 made manifest, as well as the superiority of its distinctions, to every other kind of rank. 
 The great democratic and industrial principle of the amity of nations, despite their 
 governments, has been eloquently preached by the works of beauty they have offered 
 up on the great altar of international love. The non-productive classes have shrunk 
 into the background ; factitious titles of rank, and all pretended social elevations 
 founded on any other claim than successful labour, have had their brittleness exposed ; 
 the petty views of aristocratic influence, which would have made a mere gew-gaw of 
 the great event, have exhibited the helplessness of their demonstrations in front of 
 the great battalions of the world’s real workers. That glorious labour which has at 
 last seen the noble spectacle of its accumulated creations, fitly represented, must soon 
 assume the positions of dignity, and the places, of power towards which the late 
 event has so accelerated the speed of its advance. 
 
 The international Exhibition will be repeated, and that at no far distant period ; 
 and its next advent will be a still more effective promoter of the true interests of the 
 real producers of the wealth of all countries. But the next time its management 
 must be no little private matter — no affair of a small clique of well-intentioned, but 
 unsuitable gentlemen, supported by a few noble lords, and enlivened by the uniforms 
 of a few military men. No ! such a meeting is necessarily a truly democratic and 
 istrial fete, and must be managed entirely by the people. It will be so next time, 
 and it will then be seen whether the founders of the feast will be excluded from the 
 honours of their own festival, and the banquet of their own providing. 
 
 I am more brief in conclusion than I could wish, were it not that I am pre- 
 paring a special treatise on international exhibitions and public competitions of all 
 kinds, with a detailed analysis of the decisions of the juries and their mode of 
 proceeding in the late event.