Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages Part 18

Before a mediaeval bishop could perform ma.s.s he was enveloped in a wrapper, and his hair was combed "respectfully and lightly" (no tugging!) by the deacon. This being a part of the regular ceremonial, special carved combs of ivory, known as Liturgical Combs, were used.

Many of them remain in collections, and they are often ornamented in the most delightful way, with little processions and Scriptural scenes in bas-relief. In the Regalia of England, there was mentioned among things destroyed in 1649, "One old comb of horn, worth nothing."

According to Davenport, this may have been the comb used in smoothing the king's hair on the occasion of a Coronation.

The rich pulpit at Aix la Chapelle is covered with plates of gold set with stones and ivory carvings; these are very fine. It was given to the cathedral by the Emperor Henry II. The inscription may be thus translated: "Artfully brightened in gold and precious stones, this pulpit is here dedicated by King Henry with reverence, desirous of celestial glory: richly it is decorated with his own treasures, for you, most Holy Virgin, in order that you may obtain the highest gain as a future reward for him." The sentiment is not entirely disinterested; but are not motives generally mixed?

St. Bernard preached a Crusade from this pulpit in 1146. The ivory carvings are very ancient, and remarkably fine, representing figures from the Greek myths.

Ivory handles were usual for the fly-fan, or flabellum, used at the altar, to keep flies and other insects away from the Elements.

One entry in an inventory in 1429 might be confusing if one did not know of this custom: the article is mentioned as "one muscifugium de pec.o.c.k" meaning a fly-fan of peac.o.c.k's feathers!

Small round ivory boxes elaborately sculptured were used both for Reserving the Host and for containing relics. In the inventory of the Church of St. Mary Hill, London, was mentioned, in the fifteenth century, "a lytill yvory cofyr with relyks." At Durham, in 1383, there is an account of an "ivory casket conteining a vestment of St. John the Baptist," and in the fourteenth century, in the same collection, was "a tooth of St. Gendulphus, good for the Falling Sickness, in a small ivory pyx."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IVORY MIRROR CASE; EARTH 14TH CENTURY]

Ivory mirror backs lent themselves well to decorations of a more secular nature: these are often carved with the Siege of the Castle of Love, and with scenes from the old Romances; tournaments were very popular, with ladies in balconies above pelting the heroes with roses as large as themselves, and the tutor Aristotle "playing horse" was a great favourite. Little elopements on horseback were very much liked, too, as subjects; sometimes rows of heroes on steeds appear, standing under windows, from which, in a most wholesale way, whole nunneries or boarding-schools seem to be descending to fly with them. One of these mirrors shows Huon of Bordeaux playing at chess with the king's daughter: another represents a castle, which occupies the upper centre of the circle, and under the window is a drawbridge, across which pa.s.ses a procession of mounted knights.

One of these has paused, and, standing balancing himself in a most precarious way on the pommels of his saddle, is a.s.sisting a lady to descend from a window. Below are seen others, or perhaps the same lovers, in a later stage of the game, escaping in a boat. At the windows are the heads of other ladies awaiting their turn to be carried off.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IVORY MIRROR CASE, 1340]

An ivory chest of simple square shape, once the property of the Rev.

Mr. Bowle, is given in detail by Carter in the Ancient Specimens, and is as interesting an example of allegorical romance as can be imagined. Observe the att.i.tude of the knight who has laid his sword across a chasm in order to use it as a bridge. He is proceeding on all fours, with unbent knees, right up the sharp edge of the blade!

Among small box shrines which soon developed in Christian times from the Consular diptychs is one, in the inventory of Roger de Mortimer, "a lyttle long box of yvory, with an ymage of Our ladye therein closed."

The differences in expression between French, English, and German ivory carvings is quite interesting. The French faces and figures have always a piquancy of action: the nose is a little retroussee and the eyelids long. The German shows more solidity of person, less transitoriness and lightness about the figure, and the nose is blunter. The English carvings are often spirited, so as to be almost grotesque in their strenuousness, and the tool-mark is visible, giving ruggedness and interest.

Nothing could be more exquisite than the Gothic shrines in ivory made in the thirteenth century, but descriptions, unless accompanied by ill.u.s.trations, could give little idea of their individual charm, for the subject is usually the same: the Virgin and child, in the central portion of the triptych, while scenes from the Pa.s.sion occupy the s.p.a.ces on either side, in the wings.

Statuettes in the round were rare in early Christian times: one of the Good Shepherd in the Basilewski collection is almost unique, but pyxes in cylindrical form were made, the sculpture on them being in relief. In small ivory statuettes it was necessary to follow the natural curve of the tusk in carving the figure, hence the usual twisted, and sometimes almost contorted forms often seen in these specimens. Later, this peculiarity was copied in stone, unconsciously, simply because the style had become customary. One of the most charming little groups of figures in ivory is in the Louvre, the Coronation of the Virgin. The two central figures are flanked by delightful jocular little angels, who have that characteristic close-lipped, cat-like smile, which is a regular feature in all French sculpture of the Gothic type. In a little triptych of the fourteenth century, now in London, there is the rather unusual scene of Joseph, sitting opposite the Virgin, and holding the Infant in his arms.

Among the few names of mediaeval ivory carvers known, are Henry de Gres, in 1391, Heliot, 1390, and Henry de Senlis, in 1484. Heliot is recorded as having produced for Philip the Bold "two large ivory tablets with images, one of which is the... life of Monsieur St.

John Baptist." This polite description occurs in the Accounts of Amiot Arnaut, in 1392.

A curious freak of the Gothic period was the making of ivory statuettes of the Virgin, which opened down the centre (like the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg), and disclosed within a series of Scriptural scenes sculptured on the back and on both sides. These images were called Vierges Ouvrantes, and were decidedly more curious than beautiful.

In the British Museum is a specimen of northern work, a basket cut out from the bone of a whale; it is Norse in workmans.h.i.+p, and there is a Runic inscription about the border, which has been thus translated:

"The whale's bones from the fishes' flood I lifted on Fergen Hill: He was dashed to death in his gambols And aground he swam in the shallows."

Fergen Hill refers to an eminence near Durham.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHESSMAN FROM LEWIS]

Some very ancient chessmen are preserved in the British Museum, in particular a set called the Lewis Chessmen. They were discovered in the last century, being laid bare by the pick axe of a labourer.

These chessmen have strange staring eyes; when the workman saw them, he took them for gnomes who had come up out of the bowels of the earth, to annoy him, and he rushed off in terror to report what proved to be an important archaeological discovery.

One of the chessmen of Charlemagne is to be seen in Paris: he rides an elephant, and is attended by a cortege, all in one piece. Sometimes these men are very elaborate ivory carvings in themselves.

As Mr. Maskell points out that bishops did not wear mitres, according to high authority, until after the year 1000, it is unlikely that any of the ancient chessmen in which the Bishop appears in a mitre should be of earlier date than the eleventh century. There is one fine Anglo-Saxon set of draughts in which the white pieces are of walrus ivory, and the black pieces, of genuine jet.

Paxes, which were pa.s.sed about in church for the Kiss of Peace, were sometimes made of ivory.

There are few remains of early Spanish ivory sculpture. Among them is a casket curiously and intricately ornamented and decorated, with the following inscription: "In the Name of G.o.d, The Blessing of G.o.d, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of the hope of good works, and the adjourning of the fatal period of death, be with Hagib Seifo.... This box was made by his orders under the inspection of his slave Nomayr, in the year 395." Ivory caskets in Spain were often used to contain perfumes, or to serve as jewel boxes. It was customary, also, to use them to convey presents of relics to churches. Ivory was largely used in Spain for inlay in fine furniture.

King Don Sancho ordered a shrine, in 1033, to contain the relics of St. Millan. The ivory plaques which are set about this shrine are interesting specimens of Spanish art under Oriental domination.

Under one little figure is inscribed Apparitio Scholastico, and Remirus Rex under another, while a figure of a sculptor carving a s.h.i.+eld, with a workman standing by him, is labelled "Magistro and Ridolpho his son."

Few individual ivory carvers are known by name. A French artist, Jean Labraellier, worked in ivory for Charles V. of France; and in Germany it must have been quite a fas.h.i.+onable pursuit in high life; the Elector of Saxony, August the Pious, who died in 1586, was an ivory worker, and there are two snuff-boxes shown as the work of Peter the Great. The Elector of Brandenburgh and Maximilian of Bavaria both carved ivory for their own recreation. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were many well-known sculptors who turned their attention to ivory; but our researches hardly carry us so far.

For a moment, however, I must touch on the subject of billiard b.a.l.l.s. It may interest our readers to know that the size of the little black dot on a ball indicates its quality. The nerve which runs through a tusk, is visible at this point, and a ball made from the ivory near the end of the tusk, where the nerve has tapered off to its smallest proportions, is the best ball. The finest b.a.l.l.s of all are made from short stubby tusks, which are known as "ball teeth." The ivory in these is closer in grain, and they are much more expensive. Very large tusks are more liable to have coa.r.s.e grained bony s.p.a.ces near the centre.

CHAPTER X

INLAY AND MOSAIC

There are three kinds of inlay, one where the pattern is incised, and a plastic filling pressed in, and allowed to harden, on the principle of a niello; another, where both the piece to be set in and the background are cut out separately; and a third, where a number of small bits are fitted together as in a mosaic. The pavement in Siena is an example of the first process. The second process is often accomplished with a fine saw, like what is popularly known as a jig saw, cutting the same pattern in light and dark wood, one layer over another; the dark can then be set into the light, and the light in the dark without more than one cutting for both. The mosaic of small pieces can be seen in any of the Southern churches, and, indeed, now in nearly every country. It was the chief wall treatment of the middle ages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARBLE INLAY FROM LUCCA]

About the year 764, Maestro Giudetto ornamented the delightful Church of St. Michele at Lucca. This work, or at least the best of it, is a procession of various little partly heraldic and partly grotesque animals, inlaid with white marble on a ground of green serpentine. They are full of the best expression of mediaeval art.

The Lion of Florence, the Hare of Pisa, the Stork of Perugia, the Dragon of Pistoja, are all to be seen in these simple mosaics, if one chooses to consider them as such, hardly more than white silhouettes, and yet full of life and vigour. The effect is that of a vast piece of lace,--the real cut work of the period. Absurd little trees, as s.p.a.ce fillers, are set in the green and white marble. Every reader will remember how Ruskin was enthusiastic over these little creatures, and no one can fail to feel their charm.

The pavements at the Florentine Baptistery and at San Miniato are interesting examples of inlay in black and white marble. They are early works, and are the natural forerunners of the marvellous pavement at Siena, which is the most remarkable of its kind in the world.

The pavement masters worked in varying methods. The first of these was the joining together of large flat pieces of marble, cut in the shapes of the general design, and then outlining on them an actual black drawing by means of deeply cut channels, filled with hard black cement. The channels were first cut superficially and then emphasized and deepened by the use of a drill, in a series of holes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DETAIL OF PAVEMENT, BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE]

Later workers used black marbles for the backgrounds, red for the ground, and white for the figures, sometimes adding touches of yellow inlay for decorations, jewels, and so forth. Some of the workers even used gray marble to represent shadows, but this was very difficult, and those who attempted less chiaroscuro were more successful from a decorator's point of view.

This work covered centuries. The earliest date of the ornamental work in Siena is 1369. From 1413 to 1423 Domenico del Coro, a famous worker in gla.s.s and in intarsia, was superintendent of the works. The beauty and spirit of much of the earlier inlay have been impaired by restoration, but the whole effect is unique, and on so vast a scale that one hesitates to criticize it just as one hesitates to criticize the windows at Gouda.

One compartment of the floor is in genuine mosaic, dating from 1373. The designer is unknown, but the feeling is very Sienese; Romulus and Remus are seen in their customary relation to the domesticated wolf, while the symbolical animals of various Italian cities are arranged in a series of circles around this centrepiece.

One of the most striking designs is that of Absalom, hanging by his hair. It is in sharp black and white, and the foliage of the trees is remarkably decorative, rendered with interesting minutiae.

This is attributed to Pietro del Minella, and was begun in 1447.

A very interesting composition is that of the Parable of the Mote and the Beam. This is an early work, about 1375; it shows two gentlemen in the costume of the period, arguing in courtly style, one apparently declaiming to the other how much better it would be for him if it were not for the mote in his eye, while from the eye of the speaker himself extends, at an impossible angle, a huge wedge of wood, longer than his head, from which he appears to suffer no inconvenience, and which seems to have defied the laws of gravitation!

The renowned Matteo da Siena worked on the pavement; he designed the scene of the Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents--it seems to have been always his favourite subject. He was apparently of a morbid turn.

In 1505 Pinturicchio was paid for a work on the floor: "To master Bernardino Pinturicchio, ptr., for his labour in making a cartoon for the design of Fortune, which is now being made in the Cathedral, on this 13th day of March, 12 Lires for our said Master Alberto."

The mosaic is in red, black, and white, while other coloured marbles are introduced in the ornamental parts of the design, several of which have been renewed. Fortune herself has been restored, also, as have most of the lower figures in the composition. Her precariousness is well indicated by her action in resting one foot on a ball, and the other on an unstable little boat which floats, with broken mast, by the sh.o.r.e. She holds a sail above her head, so that she is liable to be swayed by varying winds. The three upper figures are in a better state of preservation than the others.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DETAIL OF PAVEMENT, SIENA; "FORTUNE," BY PINTURICCHIO]

There was also in France some interest in mosaic during the eleventh century. At St. Remi in Rheims was a celebrated pavement in which enamels were used as well as marbles. Among the designs which appeared on this pavement, which must have positively rivalled Siena in its glory, was a group of the Seven Arts, as well as numerous Biblical scenes. It is said that certain bits of valuable stone, like jasper, were exhibited in marble settings, like "precious stones in a ring."

There were other French pavements, of the eleventh century, which were similar in their construction, in which terra cotta was employed for the reds.