CHAPTER XII

PAINTING

The origin of painting dates from remote antiquity, and the art had already passed through many developments before it was applied by Gothic architects to the decoration of their buildings.

"In the thirteenth century the architectonic painting of the Middle Ages reached its apogee in France. The painted windows, the vignettes of manuscripts, and the mural decorations of this period all denote a learned and finished art, and are marked by a singular harmony of tones, and a corresponding harmony with architectural forms. It is beyond question that this art was developed in the cloister, and was a direct product of Græco-Byzantine teachings."[38]

[38] Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire raisonné_, vol. vii.

From the archæological point of view, however, it is important to bear in mind the considerable influence exercised upon continental art by the manuscripts and miniatures of Irish monks, so early as the reign of Charlemagne.

Towards the close of the twelfth century sculpture and painting alike entered on a new phase, resulting from that process of architectural evolution we have been considering. The hieratic tradition was set aside for the direct teaching and inspiration of nature. But as the mastery of the painter increased, the mural spaces available for the application of his new methods diminished rapidly, till, by the thirteenth century, the only wall surfaces left to him were those beneath the windows, and some few triangular spaces in the vault, where the interlacing network of arches became gradually closer and closer. Finding themselves thus practically excluded from the new Gothic buildings, the painters of the day turned their attention with entire success to the decoration of ancient monuments by the new naturalistic methods. The domes of great abbey churches such as St. Front (Périgueux) offered immense bare surfaces, the concave forms of which they utilised with extraordinary skill, adorning them with compositions in which figure and ornament are so adroitly combined, that they seem to be of normal proportions, in spite of their really colossal size (Fig. 117).

Thanks to a discovery of mural paintings made in the Cathedral of Cahors in 1890, of the greatest archæological importance, we are able to verify these statements.

During the progress of certain works undertaken for the preservation of the two domes, some paintings of great interest were laid bare on the removal of several coats of whitewash from the western cupola. Traces of similar decoration were found on the eastern cupola and its pendentives, but these it was found impossible to preserve, the action of the air causing them to peel at once from the surfaces. But the western composition is intact, and though the brilliance of the colour has no doubt suffered from time, we can still appreciate the learning, vigour, and firmness of hand perceptible in the design, which is outlined in black.

This western cupola, which is ovoid, and some fifty-three feet in diameter, like that of the east, is divided by its pictorial scheme into eight sectors, separated by wide bands of boldly-designed fruits and flowers. Fig. 116 gives an exact idea of the general arrangement. Eight colossal figures of prophets, varying in height from fifteen to sixteen feet approximately, form the chief motives of the decoration. David, the prophet king, and the four great prophets: Daniel to the left of David; then in order, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel on the right, towards the choir of the church, and the three minor prophets--Jonah, Esdras, and Habakkuk--are painted in modulated tones, the dark outline forming a setting, on a background varying from tawny to deep red. The figures are enframed in a firmly-drawn architectural setting. This architecture is painted in gray against the masonry, the courses of which are indicated by double lines of brown upon the pale ochre of the general surface. Each prophet holds a phylactery or banderole inscribed with his name in beautiful thirteenth-century characters.

The floriated bands which divide the sectors terminate above in a circular frieze surrounding the crown of the cupola. The latter represents a starry sky, the centre painted with the apotheosis of St. Stephen, the patron of the cathedral. The frieze is painted with scenes from the trial and stoning of the Saint; the life-size figures are full of expression and grouped with great variety. In these paintings there are evident leanings towards the naturalistic evolution; and though the figures of the prophets are still hieratic in certain respects, the poses, heads, and details all point to evident research in the matter of physiognomy. This research is carried very far in the figures of the circular frieze, where the hands have evidently been carefully studied from nature.

Technically speaking, these paintings are not frescoes. "The medium employed seems to have been egg, the white and yolk mixed, and the method very analogous to that of water-colour painting.... The red tones were laid over a bed of deep orange, the effect being one of extraordinary vigour and brilliance, taking into account the means at command. The use of a prepared ground was systematic, and was resorted to whenever intensity of the tones or colour effects was desired. Evident efforts in the direction of modelling are noticeable, though these have been neutralised to a great extent by a lack of concentration in the lights, and if it were not for the thick outline in which each figure is set, there would be much in common between the methods of these paintings and those renderings of diffused light affected by our modern _plein-airistes_. The general tone is that of the simpler paintings of the thirteenth century, that is to say, of those in which no gold was used. The effect is warm and brilliant, the dominant hue orange, heightened by reds of various tints."[39]

[39] From the technical notes of M. Gaïda.

According to the archæological records derived from various works of the historians of Le Quercy, these paintings in the west cupola of Cahors were carried out under the direction of the Bishops Raymond de Cornil, 1280-93, Sicard de Montaigu, 1294-1300, Raymond Panchelli,[40] 1300-1312, or Hugo Geraldi, 1312-16, the friend of Pope Clement V. and of Philip IV. of France, who was burnt alive at Avignon, or perhaps even of Guillaume de Labroa, 1316-24, whose residence was at Avignon, and who governed the diocese of Cahors through a procurator. From this period onwards there was no further question of decorative works, the successors of these bishops being fully occupied in maintaining the struggle against the English invaders.

[40] Raymond Panchelli, or Raymond II., who in 1303 began to build the Bridge of Valentré at Cahors.

It seems reasonable therefore to infer that the Cahors paintings date either from the end of the thirteenth century or the beginning of the fourteenth. In any case, these decorations are of very great artistic merit, and of the highest interest as an unique example of French decorative art at the finest period of the thirteenth century, when Gothic architecture had reached its apogee, and was producing masterpieces which served as models for contemporary artists, and even more notably, for those of the early fourteenth century.

That vigilant guardian of our beautiful cathedrals and historic monuments, the _Administration des Cultes_, has taken measures which do it infinite honour in this matter. No attempt has been made to restore the paintings, but all necessary steps have been taken to ensure their preservation as they stand, so as to leave intact the archæological value of these convincing witnesses to the genius of our French mediæval painters.

The mural spaces available for fresco decoration having been gradually suppressed, and decorative painting limited to the illumination of certain subordinate members of the structure, the mediæval artists began to apply themselves to the decoration of the great screens of glass which, with their sculptured framework of stone, now filled the entire spaces between the piers. In this new art, or rather this incarnation of the spirit of decoration under a new form, we find a fresh illustration of that supple assimilative genius which already distinguished the French artist.

[41] Drawings lent by M. Ed. Didron, painter upon glass.

"It is in the nature of the material used, that painted windows should greatly affect the character of the building they decorate. If their treatment is injudicious, the intended architectural effect may be greatly modified; if, on the other hand, they are intelligently applied, they tend to bring out the beauty of structural surroundings.... As is the case with all architectonic painting, stained glass demands simplicity in composition, sobriety in execution, and an avoidance of naturalistic imitation. It should aim neither at illusion nor perspective. Its scheme of colour should be frank, energetic, comprising few tints, yet producing a harmony at once sumptuous and soothing, which should compel attention, but seeks not to engross it to the detriment of the setting. Like a mural mosaic, an Eastern carpet, or the enamelled goldsmith's work of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a truly decorative window has no affinities with a picture, a scene or landscape gazed at from an open window, where the interest concentrates itself upon a particular point, and where the illumination is not equally diffused throughout. The fundamental law of decorative painting rests on a convention the aim of which is the satisfaction of the eye, which finds its pleasure to a far greater degree in the logical decoration of some structural or useful object than in its realisation of natural phenomena. Between painted windows and pictures a great gulf is fixed; and the modern school, the heir of the Italian Renascence, seeking to bridge it over, has seduced decorative art from the safe paths of sound judgment."[42]

[42] _Le Vitrail à l'Exposition de 1889_, by Ed. Didron; Paris, 1890.

The true functions of stained glass were never more admirably understood than in the twelfth century. The artists of that day had a perfect comprehension of those colour-harmonies, the subdued splendour of which best accorded with the simple and vigorous forms of Romanesque architecture. Upon his glass of various tints the painter first outlined his figure or ornament in black. This outline he supported with a flat half-tint which supplied a rough modelling and allowed the forms expressed to make their fullest effect from a distance. When, in the thirteenth century, the extreme austerity of religious buildings began to relax, the splendour of the painted windows increased proportionately; but the coloration, though it increased in glow and vigour, still preserved its complete harmony with its surroundings. An additional richness is perceptible in work of the fourteenth century, at which period red glass began to be used with a certain prodigality. The system of execution remains unchanged so far; but the black outline is considerably attenuated, and the half-tone which emphasises it loses much of its importance. The figures, in place of the hieratic repose of an earlier period, affect a certain grace and animation which herald a tendency towards realistic imitation. These germs of naturalism soon bore fruit. At the close of the fourteenth century the discovery of how to obtain yellow from salts of silver, and the facility with which it could be used to warm the grayer tones of glass by the help of the muffle, caused a revolution in the art of glass-painting, and prepared the way for polychromatic enamelling. This discovery, eminently useful when discreetly applied, was to lead to regrettable exaggerations.

In the fifteenth century the figures of saints were usually drawn upon glass so tinted as to be of a soft white tone; the hair, beards, head-dresses, jewels, trimmings, and embroideries were painted in yellow. The figures stood out in bold relief against a background of blue or red, and were divided by a damasked drapery of green or purple. Vast architectural motives were introduced enframing the figures and filling up the immense window spaces of the latest period of mediæval art. The transformation was radical. It is of interest to note that the final development of the Gothic style ought logically to have brought about a recrudescence of vigour in the coloration of stained glass; but the exact reverse was the case; and a marked modification took place in the glowing effects won by a diversity of strong tints. The sort of _camaïeu_ which was the result obliged the painter to insist more strongly on the modelling of the figures, and to give less importance to the black outline, which was eventually suppressed altogether.

In the sixteenth century painted glass became to a certain extent translucent pictures, in which architectural fitness was no longer respected. Composition lost its simplicity. A subject spread from panel to panel, regardless of the intervening tracery. Nevertheless, we forget the defects of this luxuriant development, and cease to wonder at its popularity, in view of that broad and vigorous execution and beauty of colour which give it a special decorative value of its own.

Enamelling is so closely allied to glass-painting as to claim a word for itself. Here, again, the decorative art of the Middle Ages was characteristically displayed, and though the process is more specially applicable to the ornamentation of goldsmith's work than to the decoration of large surfaces, it is one of the most brilliant and exquisite of the auxiliary arts.

The earliest enamels are _champlevé_ and _cloisonné_. By the _champlevé_ process a hollow, the edges of which outlined the figures or ornaments, was cut in the field or ground of metal for the reception of the fusible enamel; for _cloisonné_, _cloisons_, or slender walls of metal were fixed upon the field to separate flesh from draperies, and one tint generally from another. The background, the _cloisons_, and the flesh were gilt and burnished; details were defined by engraved lines, so that the draperies only were enamelled.

Fig. 128 reproduces an enamel of the close of the eleventh century, in which these various characteristics may be studied. The inscriptions on either side of the cross are formed by letters vertically superposed, which read downwards.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century enamels were executed by the process known as _taille d'épargne_. By this method the ground was cut out, as described above, for the reception of the various ingredients which, after undergoing the process of firing, formed the enamel; the draperies, hands, and feet of the figures which were _épargnés_ (_spared_ or left) were modelled and chased in very low relief; but the central figure, such as the Christ, and the heads of the subordinate personages or attendant angels, were always in high relief, vigorously modelled, and chased.

Fig. 129, a plaque forming the cover of an evangelium, is a characteristic example of this class of enamel. It dates from the early thirteenth century, and is a production of the _ateliers_ founded at Limoges by the monks of Solignac.

The reliquary figured No. 130 is also a work of the Limousin enamellers. The methods employed are identical, but the carving of the figures is less delicate, indeed almost rudimentary, the modelling being replaced by hasty strokes of the graver. The lower panel of this reliquary represents the martyrdom of Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, the upper part his apotheosis. It is crowned by a ridge roof of two sides.

As is well known, Thomas à Becket was canonised two years after his tragic death, which had aroused general reprobation throughout Christendom. The universal feeling expressed itself at Limoges by the manufacture of a great number of reliquaries destined to receive relics of the sainted martyr.

In the details of the draperies and hands of those portions of Fig. 129 which are carved in low relief, we may trace the germs of those low-relief enamels known as translucent, or to be more exact, transparent enamels. This process originated in Italy, and was commonly employed in France, and even in Germany throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, more especially the latter. These enamels could only be executed on gold and silver. The method consisted in modelling the design in very low relief on the face of the plate, which was then covered with a transparent enamel of few colours. The process was a slow and difficult one; the pieces were consequently very costly, and the demand for them proportionately restricted.

The enamellers of the sixteenth century, especially those who flourished at its beginning, were evidently inspired by these low-relief enamels to seek the same brilliant opalescence of effect by more scientific and less costly methods. But the simplification of the process degenerated into vulgarisation, and its original qualities gradually faded out. Fig. 131, representing Our Lady of Sorrows, and signed I. C. (Jehan Courteys or Courtois), gives some idea of the design, at least, of the painted enamels executed by the Limousin artists of the early sixteenth century.

Gothic architecture, more especially in its religious manifestations from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, made its prolific influence felt, not only by the structural qualities of its vast and numerous buildings, but by those various arts created, perfected, or at least developed, for their decoration. We have traced a bare outline of its activities, regretting that space fails us to make an exhaustive study of their various manifestations. The priceless fragments which illustrate these offshoots of an art essentially French are now the chief ornaments not only of French, but of all European museums. They take rank as factors of the first importance in art education, pointing the way to fresh masterpieces of French genius.