Religious Art

At in earlier period than that with which we are dealing these signs and conventions were of real service to the artist. By their help he could supplement the inadequacy of his technique. It was obviously easier to draw a cruciform nimbus round the head of the Christ than to show in His face the stamp of divinity. In the thirteenth century art could have done without such assistance. The artists at Amiens who clothed with so great majesty the Christ teaching at the door of their cathedral had no need of it. The sculptors of Chartres knew how to express sanctity otherwise than by the use of the nimbus; a virginal grace envelops St. Modeste and the great soul of St. Martin shines in his face. But faithful to the past the thirteenth century did not relinquish the old conventions, and deviated little from tradition. By that time the canons of religious art had grown to have almost the weight of articles of faith, and we find theologians consecrating the work of the craftsmen by their authority.

Before such a mystery even maternal love is stilled. Mary keeps a religious silence and ponders, say the commentators, the words of prophets and angels which had even now come to pass. St. Joseph shares her silence, and motionless, with fixed gaze, the two are wrapt in solemn contemplation. So imposing and entirely theological a conception is far removed from the picturesque "cribs" which made their appearance at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and which mark the end of great religious art.

There can be no doubt that a manual of iconography, a guide for painters and sculptors, was passed on from generation to generation in the cathedral workshops, those permanent studios which the Italians call "opera del duomo." A treatise of the kind must have resembled the book of the monk Denys which Didron discovered on Mt. Athos . This famous "Guide to Painting" written by a Greek monk dates, it is true, only from the eighteenth century, but in it the most ancient traditions are perpetuated. Nothing changes in the unmoving East. Even to-day the painters of Mt. Athos when decorating their chapels observe the rules transmitted to them by the monk Denys, and paint exactly as did their predecessors in the Middle Ages. It must have been through some such book that the rules of iconography and the unity of religious art were maintained over the long period which is the subject of our study.

It is surprising that a learned Benedictine, so able an interpreter of classical monuments, should so far misinterpret the religious art of his own country. The kings and queens of France whom he thinks to find in the church porches, are in reality the ancestors of Jesus according to the flesh. The dignified kings in the porch at Chartres and the queens with the mysterious smile and beautiful plaited hair are, as M. Voge seems to have shown conclusively, the kings and queens spoken of in St. Matthew's genealogy. Rahab, Solomon, Ruth, Boaz and Obed are to the left in the central doorway, Jesse, David, Bathsheba and Solomon are to the right. The agreement with St. Matthew is so perfect that one can hardly fail to adopt the solution proposed by M. Voge.

Religious art began to decline in the fifteenth century, and it was quite possible for works of the thirteenth century to be misunderstood. Yet we would not pretend for a moment that the clerestory windows in the apse of the cathedral of Troyes do not appear to represent three historical characters. One is an unknown emperor (the inscriptions reads "Imperator"), another is a king-"(R)ex Philipp."-no doubt Philippus, who might well be Philip Augustus, and the third is a bishop, "Eps. Herve" in the inscription, no doubt Bishop Herveus who died in 1223.