Print Specifics:
- Type of print: Lithograph - Original French antique print
- Publisher: Librairie de Firmin Didot, Paris, Rue Jacob 56, 1885-1887.
- Condition: 1 (1. Excellent - 2. Very good - 3. Good - 4. Fair)
- Dimensions: 11 x 15.5 inches (28 x 40 cm), including blank margins (borders) around the image.
- Paper weight: 2 (1. Thick - 2. Heavier - 3. Medium heavy - 4. Slightly heavier - 5. Thin)
- Reverse side: Blank
- Notes: 1.
Green color 'border' around the print in the photo is a contrasting background
on which the print was photographed. 2. Detail of the print is sharper than the photo of the print.
Legend to the illustrations:
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The title under which we present these ornaments is justified by the
scrolls and leaves of the exfoliated Byzantine style, the human figure
in the Greek style, and the Celtic interlacing either in the form of
simple lacing or terminating in animal heads, which may be seen in n°
1, 2 and 4. These examples are from Sweden, Denmark, England and
Rhenish Germany. These are not simply evidence of Creek and Byzantine
styles rejuvenated by Celtic additions. It is clear that the
representations of the human figure are strongly related to the
traditions of Greek art, the decadence of which can easily be explained
in such troubled times. It is no less clear, as some acute
archeologists have pointed out, that in paintings such as n° 2, 3 and
4, there exists a very direct link between the expression of physical
beauty, as the Creeks conceived it in their idealization of serenity,
and the expression of moral beauty as the Christians conceived it.
However, the human figure who appears in the centre of these
decorations is not the man of the Creeks, but a radically new man who
brings the good news of the Gospel and is ennobled by sanctification.
It is his image which is set upon the walls of the old Latin basilica.
Like the Roman magistrate, who dispensed his justice
in the apse of the basilica, before it was adopted as the model of the
Christian temple, the evangelist in n° 2 sits in the curule chair. The
justice of which he speaks, however, is not part of human law, but
heralds eternal redemption. N° 2 represents the type of chapel found at
the extremity of each aisle of a basilica. Its depth is emphasized by
curtains, which are twisted round pillars, in the manner of those
represented in the mosaics of San Vitale in Ravenna. The vault is
adorned with a shimmering pattern of running scrolls above the angel of
Saint Matthew who holds the sacred book. The evangelist is seated in
the curule chair, displaying a partly unrolled parchment, on which one
may read the beginning of his narrative: "liber generationis",
"the book of the generation of Jesus Christ". Although this page from a
missal contains all the elements of a large-scale mosaic, it seems more
likely that it was modelled on the type of painting which replaced more
costly mosaics in the many wooden basilicas being so swiftly erected
and constantly rebuilt after fires had destroyed them.
N° 1. Type of enamelled metalwork, ninth or tenth
century. This initial adorns the first page of a psalter written in
Latin, which belongs to the British Museum (n° 2904). The book of David
was one of the most venerated sections of the Bible and its psalms were
adorned, in each monastery, with particular sumptuousness. According to
the traditions of the early Middle Ages, the artist drew his
inspiration from the most luxurious objects of his time, the enamelled
gold pieces which must have been most familiar to him. Golden objects
in the shape of a letter seem to have been common in those times. Among
others, an old tradition relates that Charlemagne presented twenty-four
abbeys with reliquaries in the shape of a letter of the alphabet. Our
capital B may therefore have existed in reality, although it matters
little whether this product of the goldsmith's skill was actually
nailed upon a wooden structure or not, for it offers a complete model,
an indication of the techniques of that time, which succeeding
centuries merely continued, including Benvenuto Cellini, despite his
claims. Enamelling, as the Byzantines practised it, is the simple
application onto metal surfaces of vitreous materials, which are bonded
by the process of fusion.
The colours of enamel have an extraordinary
vividness, and never decay. It seems that the Byzantines learned the
art of enamelling from the Orientals, and that they began practising it
around the time of Justinian, in the sixth century, in a way which then
seemed entirely new. Indeed, the technique of cloisonne enamel, which
was primarily used by the Byzantine goldsmiths, is quite unlike the
thin coating of vitreous material which the Greeks, and more
particularly the Etruscans, applied with a blow-pipe on certain
extremely delicate jewels. Enamel lends itself to the representation of
all sorts of subjects. Over the course of several centuries, sacred or
profane figures representing Christ and his mother, the principal
saints of the Oriental Church, the emperors and their wives, and so on,
were reproduced ad mfmltum. At the time of Leon the Isaurian, in the
early eighth century, the worship of images was prohibited and as a
result the human figure could not be reproduced on any of the objects
used in schismatic temples. Furthermore, the severe persecution
enforced by the iconoclasts led to large-scale emigration of Byzantine
artists, who brought first to Italy and then to the rest of Europe
their native arts and their unique skills. Thus, in an encounter
between those who came from Byzantium and those who, as the Celts, had
come from Asia long before the expatriation of the Greek goldsmiths,
the Celtico-Byzantine style had its origins. The English refer to it as
the Anglo-Saxon style, and it is generally given the name
"Carolingina", because of the period when it attained its perfection.
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