CHAPTER XI.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.

Historically and philosophically, from the point of view of whatever religious denomination; in the eyes of the devout believer, as well as in the eyes of the sceptic; by the thinker, and by the mere automaton of blood, flesh and bones; it must be admitted, that the two most important events in the history of humanity were the foundation of Christianity, and the great migration of the Northern people. The one was a _spiritual_ movement, the other thoroughly _material_.

It is usual, in tracing the historical development of mankind in science and art, to follow the apparent course of the sun, and to assume that progress travelled with Indra, Ormuzd, Horus and Phoibos Apollo, from East to West. This is, however, a mere phrase. To understand and appreciate the history of man, it is better to divide the globe into a southern and northern hemisphere; for we find, that in analogy with this subdivision, the material as well as the intellectual development of life on our globe took place. We may even go further, and trace a distinction between the development of life and art in the south and north of the northern and southern hemispheres. In the farthest south of the southern hemisphere we have animal life and man, in the very lowest scale of progressive development; whilst the further we travel towards the north, the more animal life and the intellectual capacity of man increase. This is also the case in the northern hemisphere, up to the frigid zone, where a reaction sets in. In the south the moral power was more developed than the intellectual. In the south the predominant static force, joined to an ill-disciplined imagination, drove man to the field of metaphysical speculation; the misunderstood laws of nature, and the ignorance of the sluggish and indolent masses, gave free play to superstition and priestcraft. Thus the south (or south-east) was the birth-place of various theogonies, and religious systems. Idolatry, zoolatry, Sabaism, theism, pantheism, astrology, symbolism, mysticism, alchemy, magic, and cabalism originated in the south. The intellectual power in humanity, with a strong tendency to regulate itself by moral force, decidedly prevailed in the north, or north-west of our globe; and we received philosophy, as well as art, in their highest perfection, from Greece, the then most northern dwelling-place of civilized humanity. All the sciences which, through their beneficial influence have promoted the welfare and progress of humanity, were fostered in the North. In the North, astronomy, geography, history, botany, zoology, physiology, anatomy, chemistry, geology, and cosmogony were developed.

The savage of the South, up to our days, does not go beyond an ornamentation with geometrical figures; he can neither produce animals nor the human figure. The Egyptians surpassed the Assyrians and Babylonians in their monumental architecture, but in the plastic reproduction of the human form they never succeeded. Their sitting figures had legs and thighs forming right angles in the side view, while in front they were parallel; the drapery was merely marked by lines, rarely interrupted by folds. In their historical and allegorical bas-reliefs the composition is devoid of elegance and correctness of outlines; but they already showed a remarkable power in drawing animals. The Indians reached a higher stage of progress in sculpture; their mythology and poetry furnished them with a variety of subjects, with which they covered the walls of their shrines and temples; after the doctrines of Buddha became more universal, they attained grandeur in their architecture, combined with a certain degree of elegance. The human form is reproduced with ease; the proportions, though too soft, too sensual, are more correct than with the Egyptians.

So long as the Greek artists worked with reverence and modesty, inspired by faith in the gods, they were capable of understanding God’s revelation of beauty in man’s outer form. So long as the Romans unconsciously worked in this spirit, they produced their stupendous architectural monuments. When, however, State and citizens were forced by false principles to war with reality for a beggarly existence, or to plunge into mere sensuous enjoyments, man came to an open rupture with his destiny, and humanity might have perished altogether in sin and iniquity, had not Providence mercifully interfered by freeing, through Christ, the ‘inner man’--that is, the intellectual and moral force in man--thus preparing humanity for a higher progressive life. The south of Asia had to go through the same religious and artistic phases of development. Buddhism stands to Brahmanism in the same relation as Christianity to Mosaism and Heathenism. Excepting, however, that both religions were reformations of older established creeds, all analogy between them ceases. The proof of the difference lies in the diametrically opposed development produced by Buddhism and Christianity. It is true that Buddhism teaches us not to kill, not to steal, not to lie, and not to be drunken. Christianity does the same. Buddha, in twelve other ordinances, extols self-abnegation, poverty, and commands all to meditate amongst the tombs on the fleeting transitoriness of our earthly existence. Christianity does the same. Christ, however, redeemed and freed our spiritual nature, and brought it into a self-conscious, vivid activity; whilst Buddhism degraded this higher _individual_ nature into a nonentity, denying that there was an independent moral agent in us; teaching that we were phenomena of an all-pervading divine power, by which universality we should be absorbed after life. So long as Christianity held, though in a different shape, nearly the same mystic principles as Buddhism, the results in art were the same; for our ecclesiastical art was a revival of Buddhistic temples, with all their divisions and sub-divisions, their pointed arches, their variegated columns and pillars, the triforium, the altar (Daghopa), cloisters, chapels, and crypts.

Christ’s divine words resounded at a period when the Greeks had long turned their minds to the licentious worship of the sensuous. The Egyptians, sighing under their Roman taskmasters, had taken refuge in dark mysticism, the meaning of which had been long lost to them; the Jews were divided into quarrelling sects, sunken in religious indifference, or occupied with mere outward formalities, hating everyone and hated by everyone. The Romans knelt tremblingly before an imperial divinity, slaves and poor being considered mere burdens on society; the rich were merciless, debauched, and revelled in amusements; infanticides, suicides, murder and decay, despair and annihilation, were every-day occurrences. At this period, under such circumstances, the divine Master died on the cross, sealing with his death the one great tiding of love: ‘that we are all children of _one_ Father, who is in heaven.’ The god of revenge of the old world was transformed into a God of inexhaustible love. With the Jews and the ancients, he only was blessed who had plenty on earth; now, the pure in mind, whether poor or rich, weak or mighty, beautiful or ugly, was extolled. God was not merely present in the universe as its living soul, or in a burning bush, in thunder and lightning, in growling volcanoes, in an ark, a carved idol, a statue or in a temple. God was present, wherever a kind, loving, and forgiving mind was ready to be His ark or temple. Christ repudiated all local gods; did not require any sacrifices of plants or animals; did not prescribe any diet, or outward sanguinary sign; did not allow polygamy; did not proclaim his followers the only _chosen_ children of the _Father of All_; but taught the one and indivisible, and ever-true law of peace, love, and tolerance. This doctrine is as universal as intellect; it must be of as divine origin as intellect itself; it is, and can be, the only faith which must once unite Humanity into one great loving and beloved brotherhood. What a change! Not only a change; it was the building up of a new glorious future; it was the re-establishment of the lost balance between the working forces of humanity; it was the redemption of our individual, moral, and intellectual capacities; it was the enunciation of an eternal law, under which humanity had, till then, unconsciously developed, but of which it became conscious in word as well as in spirit, through Christ. Slavery in body or mind was, at least in principle, for ever abolished; and one of the noblest edifices of Byzantine architecture in Italy, the church of St. Vitale at Ravenna, was dedicated by Justinian, a Roman Emperor, to the memory of a slave, who was martyred for the sake of his piety and love. Hospitals for the poor and sick, Xenodochia (refuges for strangers) began to be built--architectural constructions of which the whole ancient world could not boast.

The Christian spirit at first struggled to find a corresponding form in art; the new wine was put into the old vessels till it burst the decaying fetters and issued forth in a life-giving art-stream, in two directions:--

(_a_) As Romanesque art in the West, a decaying continuation of Roman art;

(_b_) As Byzantine art in the East, a revival of Asiatic art.

The beginning of Christian plastic and pictorial art is to be looked for in subterranean caves; in catacombs, used by Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Etruskans, and Romans as burial-places. The deep but simple doctrines of Christ were at first hidden in symbols, types, allegories and emblems. In a SYMBOL we try to express a general idea by a special outward sign, totally heterogeneous in form to the meaning. Geometrical figures, plants, and animals, furnish the elements of symbolism. In the ALLEGORY the artist represents congruities, traces connections, unites analogies and separates differences. Imagination has in allegories an inexhaustible field for composition. TYPES are signs, arbitrarily interpreted as meaning something, which they may or may not mean. EMBLEMS with the Greeks were golden or silver figures which could be detached from vessels. With the Romans the word was used as a synonym for symbol or metaphor. They became with us Christians signs in colours. White or blue was the emblem of innocence, red of joy, black of mourning, green of hope, and purple of power or dignity.

MYTHS generally had their origin in symbols and allegories, which found interpreters, commentators, exegists, and expounders in the priests of the ancient world. Later, the myths were taken up by poets and artists, and the dogmatic explanations of mystic signs were transformed into legends, tales, sagas, or even into historical facts. Nothing affords greater delight to the inquisitive mind of man than a mystic sign! The more unintelligible such a sign is, the more welcome it is to the childish creature. Anything veiled in doubt, shrouded in a symbol or type, has a peculiar charm. Anything that can only be guessed at, or dimly felt, is more admired than that which lies clearly before our perceptive faculty. ‘Mysteries were taught in symbols, in darkness at night-time; the symbolic itself is to be compared to night and darkness,’ says Demetrius. No wonder that symbols were adopted by the first followers of Christ. They were too near to Egypt; the ancient world had not yet altogether lost its hold on the minds of the masses, and they could not have avoided availing themselves of forms which were used by Indians, Greeks, Egyptians, or Romans.

In the old catacombs of St. Sebastiano, St. Calisto, St. Lorenzo, and Sta. Agnese at Rome, extending altogether to about 750 miles, and in those of St. Gennaro de Poveri, Sta. Maria della Sanitá, and Sta. Maria della Vita at Naples, we find some attempts at symbolism; the cross, the monogram of Christ’s name ΧΡ {CHR}; or an ΑΩ {AÔ}, symbolical of the beginning and the end of all things; a palm branch, doves, the piscis vesica, and here and there a lamb. But these signs belong to the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. The inscriptions do not go farther back than the second century. The homely simplicity of the early Christians is distinctly to be traced in the absence of all symbolic decoration during the first two centuries. Gradually the Christians passed through the phase of geometrical ornamentation. Triangles and circles, crosses and squares, squares divided into four squares, or the square taken three times, giving twelve points, which number contains the sacred numbers; three (the Trinity), five (the five sacred wounds of Christ), seven (the seven cardinal virtues, or the seven days of Creation), and twelve (the twelve apostles), made their appearance. Seven was a holy and mystic number with all the ancient nations. There were seven planets, and seven colours in olden times; Apollo’s lyre had seven strings; Pan used seven pipes for his flute. There are seven days of the week; seven or three times seven are the critical days in medicine; there were seven branches to the candlestick of the Jews in the Temple of Jerusalem. Seven years Jacob had to serve for Leah; and seven others for Rachel; seven were the ears and kine of which Pharaoh dreamt; seven were the gods in Scandinavian mythology; seven were the sufferings of the Virgin Mary; seven the cardinal virtues; seven the deadly sins; seven are the sacraments of the Romish Church. We cannot fail to see in the minutest details of history and art, philosophy and religious systems, an eternally progressing ‘one-ness’ pervading humanity as a great whole.

Scarcely had the Christians adopted these signs, when they passed on to the next phase, adorning churches and tombs, altars and sacred vessels, with emblems taken from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, to serve as the holy visible outward signs of some sacred inward grace or virtue. What was immortal was to be expressed in mortal forms, and the finite was to embody the infinite. Again, the meaning hallowed the form; again, by degrees, the _form_ became all, and the spirit was altogether lost through the mere outward sign. Art suffered for centuries under the gloomy pressure of symbolism, and in striving to disentangle itself, produced marvels, but it was only freed and attained higher forms of beauty again, when humanity had gone back to those laws, which when followed out had produced forms perfect in themselves.

For centuries art revelled in the reproduction of symbolical crows, eagles, peacocks, doves, gridirons, pitchers, beehives, oxen, pigs, bulls, geese, violins, fishes, &c., as the attributes of St. Sebastian, St. John, Sta. Barbara, St. Thomas of Aquin, St. Cyprian, St. Narcissus, St. Bernard, St. Sebaldus, St. Anthony, St. Martin, St. Genesius, St. Chrysogonus, &c. A whole science arose out of these symbols and emblems: _Iconology_, which differs only in form from mythology. The mere phenomena of nature were no longer embodied; the individual spirit that lived in the form, became all in all. We were thus introduced to a two-fold world by Christian art.

(1) Into a spiritual world, in which our intellect moved, as it were, in a circle. We took our beginning in the infinite, lost our transitory bodily form, and returned to the infinite from which we emanated--a kind of idealisation of the corporeal.

(2) A world of external forms, which in their individual phenomena had only a meaning as the fragile temporary vessels of the eternal Spirit; this Spirit was no longer a universal sum total by which the individual was hereafter absorbed, but was assumed to remain _individualised_ through all eternity. Artists and men worked not only for this world, but their deeds were to outlast all time to come. In this two-fold world, Christian art went through the following phases:--

(_a_) Through a _historical_ phase, which commenced with Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection, as the new central point of all things. The eternal Spirit was embodied, worked in a finite form, and freed from it, regained its absolute divinity. This led in time to sublime historical sketches in sculpture and painting.

(_b_) Through a _religious_ phase. The spirit, freed and redeemed by Christ, sought in deeds of harmonious love totally new spheres of action. Crystals, flowers, trees, landscapes, animals and men, were interwoven to proclaim not only outward beauty, as with the Greeks, but a union of the inorganic and the organic, the ancient and the new worlds, in honour of one God in three emanations or personifications.

So long as bishops, priests, elders, deacons and laymen, were occupied in trying to shape the new spirit into words, art appeared to slumber. A too strong storm-wind of dissension on metaphysical niceties, of mystic and dogmatic hair-splittings, hindered a plastic treatment of Christianity. Gnostics, Nestorians, Manichæans, Donatists, Arians, and Athanasians, &c., wasted the energies of the early Christian artists, with their wild distinctions, their incomprehensible differences. Quarrels as to whether a blessing was more efficacious when bestowed with _three_ or only with _two_ uplifted fingers; whether crosses of equal parts, or crosses in which one division was smaller than the other, were more powerful, did not promote the productive ability of artists. When, under Constantine, Christianity was elevated to the rank of a State religion, churches were built in honour of the new faith. In the West the Roman Basilicæ were given up to the religious worship of the Christians, and in time, mixed with Teuton forms, produced the Romanesque style. In the East a lively revival of Asiatic forms, of Indian, Assyrian, and Babylonian patterns, took place, and from these combinations we have the so-called Byzantine style.

The general characteristics of the early Christian style, in which the form of the Roman basilica predominated, were the following:--The apsis, the seat of the bishop and clergy, was semicircular. Between the apsis and the nave stood the altar, or rather the common table, canopied by a baldachin supported by columns. The walls were covered with figures of Christ. The main body consisted of a broad and lofty central nave, on the two sides of which there were two lower passages, divided by rows of columns, supporting the upper wall of the nave either by a common architrave, or by strong circular arches. The upper wall was provided with large broad windows, some being also placed in the low walls of the side-aisles. The apsis was kept in mystic darkness.

The threefold division of the Indian, Egyptian, and Hebrew temples was carefully kept up. The priests assembled in the apsis; the worshippers in the hall or the galleries; and the penitents or sinners stopped at the entrance. Of this period, we have the Basilica of Reparatus, in Tingitanum (now Orléansville) in Algeria, and another in El Hayz, on a small oasis, in the Libyan desert. In the former the pillars were probably square, and the apsis is not marked outside. The latter is furnished with vaulted aisles, adorned with pilasters and niches in the Romano-Egyptian style.

Under Constantine, Christian churches of larger dimensions were constructed; marble decorations and a profusion of columns were common. The five aisles still predominated, the Athanasians not having yet succeeded in establishing the Trinitarian doctrine. St. Peter’s at Rome (rebuilt in the 16th century); Sta. Croce at Jerusalem, and the Church of Sta. Maria at Bethlehem, built by Helena, the wife of Constantine, were splendid specimens of the pure early Christian style. The transept before the raised apsis was an innovation. The central aisle (the nave) rises in independent loftiness. The galleries are dispensed with, as the dimensions of the building are considerably increased. Light is admitted through windows in the lofty central aisle. The lines all tend towards the altar, and the high tribune. The nave is separated from the transept by a lofty arch supported by pillars. The transept is provided with broad windows, throwing the greatest amount of light on the altar, by which means a sublime effect is attained. St. Peter’s at Rome, and Sta. Maria at Bethlehem, are provided with cross-beams, which do not accord with the superstructure, which is too heavy. Before these churches, in a court-yard, stood the fountain. These fountains were common to all the Indian, Egyptian, and Hebrew temples, because the _sanctity of water_ was recognised by all the religious sects of the Southeast. _San Paolo fuori le mura_ belonged to this class of churches. It was constructed by Theodosius and Honorius. ‘The mighty apsis, about eighty feet in breadth, is increased in effect by a lofty transept, which stretches in front of it, across the whole nave. The body of the church has five aisles. Eighty granite columns, connected by circular arches, rise in four rows in order to divide the aisles, and to support the upper wall of the central aisle, and the framework of the roof. The main aisle opens into the transept with a broad and lofty triumphal arch, which rests on two colossal columns. A splendid atrium, surrounded with colonnades, was added to the front, completing the plan of this basilica.’ The high walls above the central isle fulfilled a double purpose: they vividly expressed an expanding tendency upwards, and filled the soul with the idea of the infinite. This tendency was still more strongly expressed in ecclesiastical or Gothic architecture. Scenes from the life of Christ and his disciples were painted, and, in imitation of Roman decoration, gilded panels and marble pavings were freely used. After the fourth century the five aisles were gradually abandoned, and only three were used, symbolic of the Trinity. We have here a kind of Indian or rather Buddhistic renaissance.

When Ravenna became the seat of the Byzantine Exarchs (viceroys), the Ostrogoth influences which were perceptible under Theodoric vanished, and a freer organisation of the sacred edifices was introduced by the addition of an independent bell-tower, reminding us of the Buddhistic towers or pillars, the Irish round towers, the minarets of the Mahomedans, and the obelisks of the Egyptians. The tower rose in a cylindrical form, without tapering. The roofs of the churches were generally flat. Strong wall pillars, connected by _circular_ arches, framed the windows as a repetition of the arcades below. The capitals retained a double row of acanthus leaves, but the imposts became stronger, taking the form of a coffin or a small altar, adorned with crosses, or the monogram of Christ. The churches of St. Vitale and St. Apollinare in Classe, are models of this transition style, which formed the link between the Romanesque and the Byzantine. In these we find Greek marble columns, profuse mosaics on gold grounds, panels and medallions filled with historical scenes, or the portraits of bishops, prophets, saints, and martyrs; the decoration is heavy in outlines, the forms and figures too naturalistic; the taste gorgeous without refinement; and the technical treatment rough and defective.

Whilst the architectural and ornamental styles were receiving fixed forms as the pure Romanesque of the West--through the influence of the Teutons, who became masters of Italy and worked with greater stiffness, simplicity, and angularity--Byzantine architecture assumed, from the time of Justinian, a peculiarly pompous, Asiatic type. The dome prevailed; the ground-plan was composed of squares and circles. Ceremonies and mysteries borrowed from the Egyptians, Persians, and Romans, and the division of priests into different castes, required a different arrangement of the building. There was a place for the high and one for the low clergy; another for the laymen; the galleries were, in the old Jewish fashion, assigned to the women; and, lastly, there was a place for the penitent. These divisions and subdivisions induced confusion and disunion in the whole plan. Many of the Christian buildings have become, in their turn, Mahomedan mosques, just as the Roman basilicæ of old were turned into Christian churches.

The mightiest and the most gigantic of all Byzantine churches is undoubtedly that of St. Sophia, at Constantinople. First the building was a temple dedicated to ‘Holy Wisdom,’ in the ancient or classic meaning of the word. The edifice was destroyed by fire, and rebuilt by Justinian in five years (A.D. 532-537). Twenty years later it was much damaged by an earthquake. The injured dome was removed, raised somewhat higher upon strengthened counterfoils, and finished A.D. 563. The architects were Anthemis of Tralles, and Isidorus of Miletus. The ground-plan, ornamentation, and construction, aim in combination at one single result--surprise. There is a contradiction between lengths and circles, destroying all effect of simple perspective. The various cupolas, arches, and half-cupolas, connected with great technical skill, have no organically united life. An antediluvian world opens its gates to us. There is everywhere something astounding and gorgeous, but we are unable to discern the necessity for the existence of the parts, to form a coherent total. The galleries with their colonnades puzzle us. The outer square-form, overtowered by a mighty cupola, and by half-cupolas, is as incongruous as the ornamentation of the interior. The shafts of the columns are amongst the finest specimens of Roman architecture. Walls and pillars are adorned with variegated marble panels in mosaic patterns. The roofs of the dome and semi-domes are covered with gold mosaics, set in coloured ornamented frames, interspersed with figurative tapestry-like representations. Christ, saints, and prophets, are suspended in golden clouds. The effect on an untutored mind is perfectly intoxicating. Though we do not underrate the fully developed system of stone-roof construction, we must draw the attention of our readers to the heavy and shapeless capitals with the scarcely recognisable Ionic volutes, combined with Corinthian leaf-work; all outlines being smothered by over-ornamentation, destroying the beautiful effect of the antique by a clumsy impost. Byzantine architecture remained stationary for hundreds of years. The religious spirit went hand in hand with their stiff, lifeless art. Ignorance and credulity engendered in the East a boundless intolerance of all divergence of opinion, to which was added an equally boundless toleration of falsehoods and frauds, so soon as these means served to support the received opinions. An intellectual standstill was the result of these principles, and acted on art, rendering it in general as well as in detail an unwieldy mixture of Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Roman forms, overloaded with Asiatic filigree composed of lines drawn from Christian symbolism. The Byzantine style of ornamentation will always be, like that of China, a strange element to us. However much the ingenuity of the winding, coiling, and recoiling lines, interspersed with small and large jewels, may interest us, though we may gaze at the profusion of gold mixed with gaudy colours with a kind of vague bewilderment, Byzantine art can never appeal to our sense of beauty.

A most important branch of Byzantine ornamentation was the treatment of metals. For flat decoration, in the style of embroidery, nothing can excel the use of metal, be it gold, silver, bronze, or steel, or a combination of all these. There was a fantastic originality in these productions which, when combined with an assiduous study of the antique, may aid us in many instances to produce excellent specimens of book-covers, patterns for ornamented salvers, caskets, cups, candlesticks, crosses, &c. Byzantine art, however, is the very opposite of classic art. Repose, as a consequence of the liveliest vibration of forms, and uniformity through a rich variation of patterns, are the real elements of Byzantine and Oriental art; in contradistinction to classic art, which is based on the authority of purpose and a correct subordination of details. This is the reason why the free but well-systematised ornaments of classic Greece were revived at this period with Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian textile patterns in metal, stone, or colours. Nothing could be more appropriate for this mode of ornamentation than leaf-work, flowers, creepers, &c., in the arrangement of which, the stern law of a well-regulated distribution of the repeated forms must be observed, to bring about a thorough balance between rest and vibration, variety and uniformity.

Whilst Byzantium was exhausting all its powers, and socially and artistically preparing to fall a prey to iconoclasts and Mahomedans; the movement, next in importance to the establishment of Christianity, viz. the migration of the Northern Teutons, took place.

We intend to group Kelts, Normans, Franks, Ostrogoths, and Westrogoths or Visigoths, Alemanni, Burgundians, Vinilians, Ingavorians, Istavorians, Vandals, Saxons, Anglo-Saxons, Markomanni, Rugi, Ubi, Gurgerni, Herulians, Bojoarians, Gepidi, Quadi, Marsingi, Sclavons, &c., all under the one name of North-European Ayrans. It is an imperative duty, with the art-historian, to group these scattered elements together, according to some visible signs, which serve to prove that, wherever we find an average facial angle of 90°, and an amount of brain averaging 92 cubic inches, we have to deal with the Aryan group of humanity. We avoid by this means divisions and sub-divisions _ad infinitum_, and the danger of losing ourselves in a labyrinth of petty national animosities and jealousies. Art, based on ethnology, and a study of climatological influences, has an immensely Christianising power. We see in the common language of forms, a common bond between those who formed themselves into small political communities, each in turn arrogating to themselves a kind of _‘chosen-people’ superiority_, and turning their powers against that very mother-stock from which they received life, vigour, a common language, and a common mode of thinking on supernatural matters, and the phenomena of nature. The Kelts, Normans, Saxons, Danes, Swedes, Teutons, Germans (Garmans, Wahrmans, or Wehrmans, Brahmans), are all of the same stock. Separated at different periods from their Trans-and Cis-Himâlâyan ancestors, they lost more or less of their old religious notions, customs, and manners, according to their lesser or greater intermixture with the Turanian substrata of aborigines, who peopled the countries wherein they settled. Next to the aspect of the country in which they established themselves, its climate must be taken into consideration. The Aryan, snowed in for six months in Scandinavia, or living on the coasts of the Baltic, obliged to fight for every foot of fertile ground with a boisterous and obstinate nature, must have developed otherwise than the self-same Aryan who, as Kelt, took up his abode on an island everlastingly green with refreshing verdure, and was insulated from outer influences for long periods, being thus led to look upon this detached spot as the very centre of the universe around which the five parts of our globe, the myriads of suns, stars, planets, and comets revolved. Between the Aryan-Kelt and the Aryan-Frank or Norman, there will be a difference, brought about by the progress of time and a freer intermixture with other branches of the mother-stock who attained a higher kind of civilisation. The Aryans in India lost themselves in metaphysical abstractions, and made of fire, water, and air a theogony in which the anthropomorphic element was altogether effaced. The Aryans in the north of Europe, in their cosmogony, held to the original conceptions. They had to battle with fire, water, and air, in the form of volcanoes, seas, rain, snow, hail and storms; and finding that with their intellectual power they could master these elements, they soon deprived them of their individual godhead, and the whole earth, with its loves and passions, its kindnesses and destructive tendencies, was looked upon as a living being. They also knew of two regions on earth--not of a spiritually created paradise and hell, but of a _Muspel-heim_ in the south, and a _Nifel-heim_ in the north: the one giving warmth, heat, life; the other cold and death; the one light, the other night; the one summer, and the other winter. According to the Aryans of the north of Europe the first cosmical heat produced the giant _Ymir_, or _Angelmir_, who was nourished by the sacred cow _Audumbla_, from which ran four streams of milk, the four seasons. Like Brahmă, Ymir had a son and a daughter; the daughter grew out of his arm, and the son out of his foot. The Brahman was the outgrowth of Brahmă’s mouth: the Kshattriya sprung from his arms, the Vaisya grew out of his thighs, and the S’udra out of his feet. Ymir’s son became the father of the Hirmthursen (giants). By licking huge rocks of sandstone the cow became the mother of Buri. We thus pass from the pastoral into the agricultural state, and have the legend of Jupiter and Io before us. Buri had a son, Bor, who had three sons. _Odin_, Guodan, Wuodan, Wodan, the All-pervader--the ‘Allvater’ (father of all), _Willi_ and _We_--air, fire and water. Wodan was also Baal, or the sun-god, in which capacity he had only _one eye_ (the sun); he was also Apollo, the god of poetry, and of all things that love light and goodness. He was also the warfaring god who led the people to battle, and protected the valorous and virtuous. He had to fight against the giant Ymir with his brothers. A reminiscence of the wars of the Greek gods with the Titans, &c.; the Indian Vritaghna or the Persian Veretaghna, with the evil spirits of darkness, or the Egyptian Horus with Typhon. Out of the dead body of Ymir, the sons of Bor created everything. They formed the earth of his flesh, the rocks of his bones, the skull became heaven, and his blood furnished seas, rivers, and streams. They then took four dwarfs and placed Austri (in the East), Westri (in the West), Sudri (in the South), and Nordri (in the North), to guard the four corners of the heavens. Wuodan then embraced the earth, and created his mighty son _Thor_, Donar, Thunder, the protector of his mother-earth, and the enemy of the wicked. He sent his lightnings against giants, purified the air, dispersed frost and cold, killed the demons of heat, silenced the destructive storms, built bridges, made high-roads, furthered the intercourse of man with man, and promoted civilisation. The second son of Wuodan was _Zio_ (Ziu, Zeus, Jovis, Síva, also Tyr-Tiu or Tusco), the god of battles, the destroyer. The third son was _Fro_ (Froho, Freyr, free), the happy god, the god of love and marriage. Who does not recognise in Thor, Froh, and Ziu--Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva--Jupiter, Apollo and Mars? As with the Aryans on the Ganges, so also with those on the Rhine, the Elbe or the Weser, and in Scandinavia, the passive element of nature was embodied in female divinities. _Hertha_, Nerthus (the earth), corresponds to S’ris, Hera, Ceres, Isis; _Holda_ is closely allied with Hilda, Hela, Hell (the hidden), the goddess of death, Durga; and _Freyja_ represents Venus, the goddess of love. These Aryans of northern Europe were known to the ancients as Hyperboræans. They were tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired, addicted to fighting, and sport. Some of them erected, in analogy with Buddhists and Egyptians, long thin towers reaching high into the air, pointing mystically upwards. The ‘Crux Ansata’ is reproduced in the Irish crosses, and their mode of ornamentation, with its twisted rope-like windings, and its serpent-like entanglements, points to Indian patterns of a very ancient type. When these Aryans of the north of Europe first dashed into the south, and destroyed the Roman colossus, they embraced Christianity with all the fervour of their unbiassed hearts. Entirely given up to the culture of the wild powers of nature, free from all metaphysical subtleties--the genuine men of wild oak, pine, and beech forests--they had no Vedas, no Homer, no Zoroaster, no Hermes, and no Moses to forget; they, in fact, only knew of an Allvater, because no two Teuton tribes held the same opinions on metaphysics. They had only one common ground, honest work--_industry_ (at those times concentrated on warfare); and therefore they received Christianity with the greatest eagerness, and became the only upholders, expounders, and propagators of a religion for which their hearts were created. They recognised in Christ’s words, what they heard in whispers in their legends, and in the experiences of their wild life--that we ought to love others as ourselves. They added some of their old superstitions to the pure faith, which they found already much impregnated with Egyptian, Roman, and Indian signs and symbols. In the beginning, whilst Christianity was spreading all over Europe, they cultivated a mixture of North European and Roman forms in architecture as well as in ornamentation. They constructed their churches with plans borrowed from ancient times, and freely used geometrical symbols--for the sign of the Indian Trimurty, that of the shields of David or Solomon, and that of the Trinity, did not differ. The pentagram is still made on every loaf the Germans bake; it was a Druidical mystic sign, and now serves good Christians to protect their bread from being eaten by evil spirits. If we look at our Tudor roses, or St. Katherine’s wheels, we may clearly trace their origin to the Zodiacs of Egypt, used as signs of the _Makrokosm_. The Teuton minds found themselves suddenly dazzled by Christian theology. Greek, Alexandrian, Nestorian, Arian, Athanasian, Jewish and Christian mystics and casuists, already abounded in the sunny Muspel-heim, in which the Teutons settled, and they had to exchange their gloomy, foggy, and stormy Nifel-heim of reality, for a spiritual Nifel-heim of doctrinal controversies. They turned their elfs and sprites, their kobolds and gnomes, their spirits of air, water, and fire, into so many evil spirits. They looked upon the literature of the Greeks and Romans, of which they knew nothing, as the work of Beelzebub. Art was an enchantress of the senses, and sculpture invented by the father of all ‘lies,’ to deceive us with mock-creatures, to seduce men, and to cheat them of their share in everlasting salvation. In this gloomy spirit the newly converted Teuton Christians built churches, and, sunken in the most atrocious superstition, occupied themselves with the casting out of devils. Nature was, in fact, one grand dwelling-place for demons. Plague, poverty, and sickness, were attributed to the agency of the enemy of mankind. Epileptic fits and insanity were signs that the demon had taken possession of unfortunate wretches, who were either tormented or put to death. Satan, with his legions of devils, continually harassed mankind. To mortify and kill the body by fasting, chanting, whipping, praying, and self-inflicted mortification, was thought the only worthy and cheerful occupation of mankind. In addition to these religious tendencies, wars were waged with merciless cruelty, either in favour of, or against the new Christian superstition. A few so-called _learned_ theologians studied the Jewish Cabala, Egyptian mysteries, Zoroastrian magical calculations, Greek sophisms, and Alexandrian Neo-Platonism. How could art have flourished under such circumstances? Incantations, astrological calculations, alchemical experiments, were the order of the day. The few learned men, whether architects or others, as soon as they produced anything astounding, were said to have received their ideas or plans, or their powers, from the devil. Who was to create any beautifully shaped product of art, surrounded by such misgivings?

This struggle lasted for several centuries; until, stimulated by movements in the far East, the Christian world left its secluded haunts in cloisters, monasteries, churches, and castles, and mixed once more with the outer world, and the whole gloomy medley of Christianised northern mythology had to yield to new forms in art.

Of this period we have a quantity of wood and ivory carvings, swords in the form of crosiers, and crosiers in the form of swords, cups and candlesticks, censers and pastoral staffs, diptichs and triptichs, recording scenes from the life of Christ or of some saint. From the third century down to the twelfth, year by year, artistic products of ornamentation grew worse and worse. In the third century there was some naturalness in the drapery, the folds being well executed; but in the fifth century the treatment of the human figure deteriorated; folds became more rope-like; Christ was represented as very young, with or without a beard, often retaining the form of Apollo, or of Hermes, carrying a lamb (the good shepherd). Bodies of saints and holy persons grew more and more emaciated; the anatomy was altogether neglected. After the Crusades in the twelfth century a marked improvement took place, but everything was then impregnated with Mahomedan forms. We should look with deep interest, and a sense of filial piety, on these primitive attempts of Christian art; the execution is bad, but the sentiments spread by their carvings, faulty designs, and poor ornamentations, are always excellent. The artists address us in a rough and unskilful manner, yet some spiritual truth awakens our better nature to exalted feelings of love. This, however, teaches us that a good feeling, a devout spirit, or a religious sentiment in the artists, is not alone enough to produce works of art.

Whilst Europe was expending its powers in the re-arrangement of the disturbed social and religious relations of humanity, a new movement arose which threatened to overwhelm the whole world.

The new movement produced new art forms, which in their turn serve to prove that art is a most important factor of civilisation. Till lately, the erroneous notion that art is a mere superfluous luxury has appeared to prevail with us. Art was placed by the ethicists in opposition to morals, and scientists either altogether ignored it, or regarded it as diametrically opposed to science--a pretty but useless toy. Art is as necessary to man as either ethics or science. For man is endowed with an emotional element, which must be satisfied and cultivated, in order to raise him to the dignity of a human being using his esthetical and intellectual faculties. It is vain to attempt to draw lines of demarcation, between our component material and spiritual elements. We recognise, or become conscious, through our _senses_; we sift the impressions made on our senses by the power of our _intellect_: and we regulate and arrange these impressions with the aid of our _reason_. We may, therefore, strictly treat art scientifically, as well as historically. For works of art may be considered under the following heads:--

(_a._) As the concrete embodiments of man’s thoughts; the importance of the historical study of which cannot be too strongly insisted upon, for through it we can best become acquainted with the past, from a social and religious point of view.

(_b._) As products that act upon our emotional, intellectual, and reasoning faculties. It is our duty to endeavour to ascertain what forms at different times, and under various impressions, acted most agreeably on us. We must learn to know the causes that produced certain art forms at certain periods, amongst certain people, under certain intellectual, social, and religious conditions. We must inquire why such forms flourished, decayed, or revived at different times.

(_c._) We may examine the relations in which our subjective impressions stand to the products of art, and learn how far such sensations developed, in time and space, to lead us to the consciousness of beauty.

From pre-historic times to the advent of Christ humanity was always engaged as a busy artist. In studying the history of man we find that art ushers us into life, gladdens the child, inspires the youth, and interests the man. All our public actions, all our religious ceremonies, our Court pageantry, our battles and funerals, all our useful or useless surroundings, pass more or less through an artistic process. In analysing the historical development of humanity at large, or that of a nation, or even that of single individuals, we find that our sensations, intellect, and reason have always been at work to create something in their respective spheres. From the times of Plato to our own all great thinkers have more or less occupied themselves with the endeavour to establish the principles of beauty; just as from Thales of Miletus, and Demokritos to Bacon, Kant, Darwin, and Häckel, they have sought to discover the principle of truth; or from Manû, Confucius, Moses, the Apostles, and Mahomet, to our own theologians, they have striven to decide what is right or wrong. Art worked synchronically with these endeavours, and its products are as numerous and variegated as our philosophical systems, or our creeds and sects. Moreover, works of art are, in many instances, far less perishable than works of mere speculation. It becomes an imperative duty, therefore, to study historically one of the most important branches of human activity and ingenuity, which furnishes us in its very products with a record in lasting forms, with at least the same ardour, earnestness, and veneration, with which we devote ourselves to more varying, changing, and perishable products. One fact must be obvious to every reader of these pages--that real art has so exalted a sphere that it can only exist to perfection wherever sciences and morals are highly cultivated.

In cursorily summarising these pages, we find that wherever and whenever beauty as the _ideal_, truth as the _real_, or goodness as the _ethical_ element in humanity, has been one-sidedly cultivated, works of art have not succeeded, for the harmony and union of these three can alone be the aim of humanity. This harmonious union it is difficult to attain, but we must endeavour to become historically conscious of the continuous striving of humanity to bring it about. We find two forces constantly at work in humanity--the one static (morals), the other dynamic (intellect)--bent upon leading us to culture, progress, truth, goodness, and beauty. In the fifth and at the beginning of the fourth century B.C., for once in our development, and then only for a short period, humanity undoubtedly succeeded in attaining a perfect balance of its moral, intellectual, and esthetical faculties. We may well call that period the golden age of mankind in art. We still live on the mere interest of that immense capital which was left by the Greeks as an imperishable legacy to humanity. Whatever the Greeks touched at that period they transformed into pearls of beauty, gold of truth, and jewels of goodness. They mounted the winged steed of imagination, and were taken up to the bright heaven of pure idealisation, where they saw boundless beauty in forms, and acquired an immortal striving after truth and the eternal laws of goodness, based on the very organisation of our complicated double nature. This dream of reality was short but