CHAPTER VII.

Christian Art-Motive.

- The Three Phases of Christian Art. - Objections to Generalization. Necessity for. - The Protestants of the Dark Ages. - The Dawning Phase. Comparison between Grecian and Christian Art, in Character and Execution. - Examples. — The Laokoon. — Dying Gladiator. - Sensualism of Christian Art. Whence derived. Art-Aspect of Oriental Symbolism. - Dante. Milton. - Orgagna. Michel Angelo. - Their Works as Art and Illustrations of Christian Ideas. - Phidias. - Apollo de Belvedere. Flora of Naples. - Torso de Belvedere. Elgin Marbles. - Perfect Art. Bad Art. The Demand of the Present Age. — Ideal in Art a Comparative Term. — Pietà of Michel Angelo. - Domenichino's St. Jerome. Raphael's Transfiguration. God and Christ as Art-Objects. Christ of Michel Angelo.-Tenerani: Saviour, Angel, and Descent from the Cross. - Pagan Ascetic Art. - The Diogenes of Naples. - Christian Ascetic Art. The St. Jerome of Agostino Carracci.- Heathen and Christian Grotesque compared. - Il Penseroso.

EFORE proceeding to a more particular analysis of Christian art as a whole, we

must enlarge upon the radical difference between it and that of antiquity, arising from their antagonistic primary principles of sensuous pleasure and self-sacrifice; the one aiming at heightening every enjoyment, whether of body or intellect, on the plane of present happiness, and the other of subduing the natural desires, as

THE CHRISTIAN MOTIVE.

47

in themselves sinful, and seeking to win a future good, and to escape a future retribution, by the purifying processes of self-denial and expiation. In both cases, through the excessive culture of these opposite principles, the body became the sufferer, and by the inevitable workings of sensualism or asceticism avenged outraged morality. But it was as natural for one extreme to be succeeded by the other, as for the tide of the ocean to rise and fall. The generous culture of the Greek produced more pleasing effects, because his scope was normal humanity and his aim natural beauty. The Christian attempted a more difficult task, and with a loftier purpose. He sought to portray the triumphs of the spirit over the body. Instead of seeking sensuous beauty, he sought rather to manifest his contempt of it. No longer was the body a cherished friend of life, but its direct foe. Studiously depreciating it, he destroyed the harmony which should exist between holy feeling and beautiful form. His motive was indeed noble; but ignorance and fanaticism too often turned his art into burlesque or horror. Even the person of Christ, his God, was subjected to this coarse treatment, on the ground that his earthly life was a prolonged humiliation, and his death an expiation of the sins of the world. To him he was a literal man of sorrows and the chief of martyrs. For a time, that sacred figure, to portray which under the most lovely human type art now considers its highest triumph, was designedly represented as ignoble and vulgar. It was only when the Christian

48

CHRISTIAN ART DISAPPOINTS.

artist began to appreciate the rules of Greek taste, that he emerged from his error, and succeeded, though imperfectly, in connecting his spiritual aspirations with a more congenial outward expression. Unfortunately, before he had perfected his style, he was seduced from his purer motive into a love of the external, and learned to prefer workmanship or mere scientific skill and force to idea; so that, without surpassing, according to the inspiration of his faith, the best works of the plastic art of Greece as inspired by its religion, he has simply hinted the superior excellence of his motive. The Greek perfected his work, and rested awhile upon the high standard he had created. His Christian brother, on the contrary, has never fully reached his aim. Within one generation that of Raphael — he

passed rapidly from those art-motives, which, if conscientiously persevered in, by the aid of science might have long ago carried Christian art to a corresponding degree of perfection with the Grecian, into a stage that marked the decline, rather than the advance, of his new-found teacher. Mankind was not yet ripe for the perfect development of art. It preferred for a while longer dead bones to new soul-forms. It is evident to every student of human progress that Christian art, thus far, has been but a series of attempts, as fluctuating and as disappointing as the expression of Christianity itself. Hence, we have still to look for its complete advent. This will not be until the heart of man, more fully warmed by Christ's love, prepares his under

THREE PHASES OF CHRISTIAN ART. 49

standing to receive a larger measure of divine wisdom than has yet been given to it.

No just comparison, therefore, at this period, can be instituted between the completed classical and immatured Christian art. The one attained its full growth and passed away; while the other, founded upon deeper and more enduring revelation, is but in its childhood. Indeed, it is but reawakening from the lethargy to which the looking back of the past three centuries to the forms and ideas of its predecessor, rather than to its spirit and knowledge, doomed it, after it attained its first genuine expression in the Pre-Raphaelite efforts that succeeded its primary dogmatic formalism.

Christian art has had thus far three phases of being. First, the theological, when the church dictated its laws. This lasted from the time of Constantine to the thirteenth century.

Secondly, the religious, which began in the awakening of the European mind at the termination of the preceding epoch, and continued until the sixteenth century.

The first period was the reign of superstition; the second, of devotion. Interwoven with the latter, and fostered by medieval enterprise, was that intellectual freedom which, however imperfect in action, helped to vindicate the rights of mind, and leavened the new schools with the principles of growth. Two grand streams flowed from this union: the one, true and earnest, looking to nature as a guide, while continuing to find in the religious faculty its chief aliment, welcom

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OBJECTIONS TO GENERALIZATION.

ing such aid as the then partial knowledge and sparse examples of pure classicalism afforded it; the other disinterring ancient art as a model, accepting its forms without its spirit, and devoting it to pride and pleasure. Out of this last grew that anomalous, mongrel, semi-sensual phase, which, taking the precedence of the first, formed the third, and is known as the Renaissance. It was a fusion of pagan philosophy with modern unbelief, at a time when the heads of the Roman church, setting an example of skepticism and licentiousness, saw only in art an instrument of self-glory or sensual gratification. From such a soil what other harvest could be garnered than decline and corruption? *

There are grave objections to generalization. In condensing the mental characteristics of individuals or epochs a degree of misapprehension or injustice can scarcely be avoided. Yet, in looking back over the stream of time, certain lights and shadows are so conspicuous as to give a general tone to the view. Doubtless a nearer sight would disclose the brighter or darker spots, now lost in the far distance. It is sufficient, however, for common distinctions to faithfully report the view as a whole.

There is perhaps as much art-superstition in the world now as in the ages succeeding Constantine. Scores of millions of Roman and Greek Catholics still worship the rudest and

* We have, in a previous work, devoted to the Italian schools, examined in detail and given the history of mediaval painting. See Art-Studies, Chap. III. et seq.