Development and Character of Gothic Architecture/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
PAINTING AND STAINED GLASS IN ENGLAND AND OTHER COUNTRIES
Although during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries the art of painting on the walls of churches, and of otherwise employing colour in architecture, was extensively practised in all the countries of Europe, yet there was nothing in other countries of essentially different character from that which was produced in France. The tenderness of sentiment and elegance of design which give charm to the works of French genius were not, indeed, equalled in other countries; but in general principles the art was the same all over Europe until the close of the thirteenth century, when, in Italy, the great movement set in which ultimately led, in that country, to the highest developments of painting.
The earliest pictorial art in Italy was posterior to the epoch of strictly Gothic building in the North. But being associated with the early pointed architecture of the country, the beginnings of this art form properly a part of our subject.
Italian painting exhibits from the first, qualities which are hardly met with in the same degree of advancement in the Gothic of the North. Though the outline remains distinct it is less prominent than in France, and the marking of details is more delicate and finished. The elements of chiaroscuro and perspective, though very slightly and imperfectly suggested, are nevertheless present from the first. In fact, a more pictorial treatment is everywhere manifest. Moreover, an increase of skill in design and of elaboration in treatment marks the individual character of the work; but it is not in technical points alone that the superiority of early Italian painting is apparent. The grace and sentiment of French design are often exquisite, but are less constant than in the work of the early Italian painters. The art of Cimabue at the close of the thirteenth century shows an improvement upon the severe conventions of French painting in the delicate gradations and pencillings which give a new touch of nature to flesh and to draperies; while the works of Giotto display the higher qualities of original genius, together with the imperfections which belong to an art in which entire mastery has yet to be acquired.
Among the earliest examples of mediæval wall painting in Italy are those of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. The architecture of this church is, as we have seen, essentially different from the Gothic; without its paintings the interior effect would be bald in the extreme. The large wall spaces, the absence of great expanses of brilliantly coloured glass to offer trying competition with the quiet tones of fresco, and the sufficiency of subdued light, rendered this building as inviting to the mediæval painter as a well-prepared canvas is to a painter of modern times. But unlike the modern painter on movable canvas, the mediæval Italian, called to paint upon the walls of churches, had constantly forced upon his mind the monumental purpose of his art—an habitual reference to which naturally develops the grandest characteristics of painting. This purpose led him to regard his wall space as a field to be embellished with colour, and although he had also a didactic and representative intention, yet he instinctively felt that everything else must be subordinated to a decorative scheme. His panel had primarily to be divided into fields of colours, whose arrangements should produce bright and harmonious effects which should be pleasing to the eye when regarded without reference to any pictorial design. But, in addition to this ruling ornamental motive, the intention of telling a story through a life-like rendering of figures and other objects was constant in his mind. The scenic representation at which he aimed was in no degree antagonistic to decorative effectiveness. In fact, as a general principle, there is far less antagonism between what is decorative and what is scenic in painting than is sometimes supposed.[1]
The essential elements of decorative effect and of pictorial truth are to some extent even dependent the one upon the other. For instance, the preservation of local hues throughout the great masses of a design, by the avoidance of neutral shading, which truth to nature demands, secures at the same time the full decorative value of every colour field. The mediæval Italian always preserved his local hues, both from a habit of pictorial veracity, and from a true decorative instinct. Hence the wall painting of Italy in the Middle Ages was as decorative and monumental in character as that of the Northern Gothic, while it became much more developed and beautiful as painting.
From the time of Cimabue to the time of Botticelli, the decorative idea ruled everything else in pictorial design. The constant habit of painting on walls gave something of a monumental character to even small panel pictures, and to this is largely due their essential beauty. To a certain extent, indeed, all good painting has the decorative character of monumental art. That is to say, a basis of harmonious design underlies all other qualities in the works of great painters. Mere life-like figure painting is not, in the best sense, art at all. But so long as the idea of beautiful design governs, all the qualities required for the representation of nature may be carried very far, with good effect, even in decorative wall painting. In the mediæval Italian schools scenic representation (though always subordinated to monumental exigencies, and never pursued in the modern manner) was ever being advanced farther and farther. In fact, the progress that was made in these schools, from the time of Cimabue to the time of Raphael, was a progress in truth of rendering almost altogether. In fundamental principles of design the art of Giotto is not inferior to that of any subsequent painter in Italy. It is in little more than skill of drawing and modelling that the art of Raphael, for instance, surpasses that of Giotto. Pictorial treatment may undoubtedly be carried too far for monumental effect; and though the limits of such treatment in wall painting may be difficult to define with precision, it may safely be said that it is always carried too far when mere representation becomes the leading motive of the painter. With the mediæval Italians it was never carried to this extent. The monumental idea was always dominant. In the frescoes of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi this was conspicuously so. The elements of representative painting are here so slightly developed as to remove the work but little in character from that of the Northern Gothic. In general effect it produces little other impression than that of a bright colour embellishment, though attentive examination reveals many subtleties of development that Gothic painting hardly ever exhibits. It is the same with the frescoes of the Spanish Chapel in Florence, and even with the paintings by Ghirlandajo in the choir of Sta. Maria Novella, though the pictorial skill in these last is much further advanced. In Giotto's frescoes in Sta. Croce the modelling of flesh and draperies is often remarkably natural, while those of Massaccio in the Carmini, and those of Lippi in the choir of Prato, are highly and exquisitely elaborated.
It is true, however, that mediæval wall painting in Italy, while always monumental in character, was treated as an important independent mode of expression as well as an architectural adjunct. Hitherto its technical and pictorial qualities have chiefly occupied the attention of connoisseurs of painting, and far too little respect has as yet been paid to its no less important architectural purpose, without a recognition of which its complete character cannot be understood. The spirit of the Renaissance—from which we have largely derived our habits of thought in matters of art was that of a time of severance of the arts which in earlier times had always been intimately associated; and the disposition to regard painting too much as an independent art of expression has made it difficult for the critics of the Renaissance and of recent times to comprehend it in its relation to the other arts of the Middle Ages.
In stained glass there were no peculiar styles either in England, Germany, Italy, or Spain. The use which in Romanesque times had everywhere been made of this mode of filling in apertures continued in each of these countries during the Gothic period. In many cases fine examples of Gothic glass design were executed, especially in England and Germany, but they were always more or less directly copied or imported from France. Good examples in England occur in Canterbury and Lincoln as well as elsewhere; but nowhere save in France was there, in this art, an active spirit of original invention, nor was there anything in the character of the architecture to stimulate its production. In England, as we have already seen, the east end of the church alone had an opening on a really large scale; and even here several narrow lancets often took the place of the single large opening.
- ↑ I think that M. Viollet-le-Duc, in his article Peinture, errs greatly in maintaining that the principles of pictorial and of decorative art are opposed the one to the other. I do not find that any such antagonism has apparently been felt to exist between them in the minds of the greatest painters of the past, whose art has been at once decorative and pictorial in purpose.
M. Viollet-le-Duc, on p. 61 of his article, refers to the arts of the Egyptians and Persians as illustrating the true principles of decorative art, and to the works of painters like Titian and Rembrandt, as illustrating those of pictorial art. But the author fails to recognise the fact that the art of Titian, like that of every great colourist, is in certain fundamental principles of design allied very closely to the more purely decorative arts of Egypt and Persia. The more commonly appreciated pictorial qualities of Titian's painting constitute but a small part of his art, which is strictly based upon principles of colour relations similar to those which give charm to the work of the Persian weaver. The author's objection to all pictorial treatment on the ground that the perspective which it involves calls for a single point of view, and is not only not architecturally effective, but is even injurious to architectural effect, is, I think, urged too strongly. The eye naturally makes large allowance in this regard. Very rarely are any pictures viewed from the precise point for which their perspectives are calculated; but if only the broad colour masses are fine and well disposed, a picture will always be broadly effective in its decorative qualities, however it may be viewed.
How far, in painting, natural modelling, chiaroscuro, and perspective are compatible with the best architectural effectiveness I do not attempt to determine. But certainly the line between what is decorative on the one hand, and what is pictorial on the other, cannot properly be so sharply drawn as it is by M. Viollet-le-Duc.