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The Exhibition of French Primitives

the naturalism of China and Japan than any that has succeeded it. In Italy it was checked by the abstract scientific enthusiasm of the Florentines which established perspective as a tyrant instead of a servant. In the north it was perhaps more than anything the great genius of an intensely prosaic and matter-of-fact temperament, of Jan van Eyck, that established that canon of relentlessly complete verisimilitude from which European art has never been able quite to escape.

The miniatures at Chantilly are not all by Pol de Limbourg-he was assisted by two brothers, who were distinctly his inferiors in genius, and who were by no means so distinctly emancipated from earlier tradition. One of them had, it is evident, travelled in Italy, but he had brought back thence no new naturalistic conceptions, but only a sentiment for the grandiose composition and, to the northerner, the romantic fancy of Giottesque architecture. He had copied Taddeo Gaddi, but Gaddi could teach nothing about nature that the French miniaturists did not already know. In any case, distinct as the Italian influence is in these designs, I cannot find that it affects Pol de Limbourg himself, and it is in Pol's work only that we find the complete realization of the new spirit. So far as one can tell, then, the priority of discovery rests with the northerners, and we may suspect that Pisanello's inspiration came from the north.

The de Limbourgs were, of course, no more Frenchmen by birth than Broederlam or the van Eycks. But they seem to have worked more constantly in French centres and to have absorbed more of the French spirit. Still, once again, we find that the power of genuinely pictorial conception is the special gift of a man of Netherlandish origin.

It is impossible here to discuss at length the very interesting problem raised by the inclusion of three pictures by the Maître

de Flémalle in this exhibition. There can be no doubt that these three pictures, Mr. Salting's Madonna, the Madonna and Saints from Aix, and the Nativity from Dijon, are by the same hand; whether all the other works which have been put with these are due to the same master seems to me doubtful. M. Bouchot, relying on certain details which occur both in these pictures and in Pol de Limbourg's miniatures, suggests that these are late works, done by Pol de Limbourg himself, on his return to the Netherlands after the death of the duc de Berri. In spite of these details I think that the essential differences of style, the divergence of types, here almost an exaggeration of the facial characteristics of the Netherlands, and in no way French, and the completely different design of the draperies, are far too striking points of distinction to be overcome. The painter of these pictures belongs much more to the Netherlandish branch of the Franco-Flemish tradition than Pol de Limbourg. But at the same time we must admit his isolation in that group. The gaiety and freshness of his colour, the brilliance and charm of his landscapes, mark him out as quite distinct from the school of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. If in his actual forms he approaches them, in spirit, especially in the sentiment of his landscapes, he is more akin to Hubert van Eyck and Pol de Limbourg. Indeed, the landscape of the Dijon Nativity is one of surpassing beauty, and has just that surprising quality of freshness, that immediate sympathy with the moods of nature, which I have tried to describe in talking of Pol de Limbourg, and which one contrasts with the more prosaic realism of typical Flemish

art.

We may return now to the Annunciation from the church of the Magdalen at Aix (p. 295), which belongs, I believe, to the same group and reflects the same

feeling. It has the same rich imaginative quality combined with the same passionate curiosity about the details of natural form that marks this early movement. In the angel's wing we have a rendering of the exact texture and quality of the wing of a bird of prey which Dürer might have envied. It has, too, the quivering life of nature, and is no mere stuffed specimen. But if the picture reminds us of Hubert van Eyck, especially in the use of wide-spreading draperies, it is none the less by an artist who worked on the French side of the border. The types of face seem to me Burgundian, broad and round, but with more delicate, more finely-cut features than even the Maître de Flémalle depicts, while the vivacity of the action of the hands distinguishes it at once from the art of the Netherlands. M. Bouchot ascribes it to a Burgundian artist, and this seems the best conclusion. The architecture, though it is in parts quite fantastic, reminds one of the architecture at Dijon, more stunted and blunt than the pure French tradition. The carved figures in the niches are clearly reminiscent of Claus Sluter's Puit de Moise at Dijon. Indeed, the cap of the prophet to the right is almost a copy of that which Sluter gives to his Ezekiel. Again, in the God the Father above, there is a close likeness to Broederlam's treatment, so that it seems probable that wherever the artist came from

he was working in Dijon when he executed this. The very peculiar lectern with its double arrangement of screws may, perhaps, lead to further identification. A precisely similar lectern-except that an eagle is substituted for the monkey-occurs in a superb miniature of the Bible Moralisée (88d. Exh. Bibl. Nat.) which has been attributed with great probability to the de Limbourgs. Yet another ground for attaching this picture to Dijon is the likeness of the treatment of the brocade of the Virgin's robe to that seen in a fresco of the Raising of Lazarus at Beaune, a work which deserves more attention than it receives, for its vivid and humorous dramatic feeling. It alone would indicate that the Burgundian school founded by Sluter and Malouel continued into the fifteenth century, and if we are right in attributing the Aix picture to it, it must have produced one artist of great genius. No reproduction can do justice to this marvellous work, can give more than a hint of the richness and depth of its chiaroscuro or translate the perfection of its technique. It is, I feel sure, in oils (not in tempera as the catalogue states), and the handling is so solid, so even, and so fused, that all traces of the execution are concealed. It has almost the surface and consistency of bronze, and the sheer perfection of the drawing of the architecture is a thing to marvel at.

TWO MEDIAEVAL CASKETS WITH SUBJECTS FROM ROMANCE

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the French escrins d'yvire à images mentioned in the inventories, and used as receptacles for jewels or small objects of value. The subjects with which they were carved were those considered appropriate to their usual destination as wedding gifts, consisting of episodes selected for the glorification of true love, with the occasional addition of a comic scene intended to point a moral against futile or unseasonable passion. Although there are always variations of detail, these subjects are very much the same on all the existing caskets of this style, and it is evident that there were traditional schemes which the ivory carvers were expected to follow.

BY OSBORNE M. DALTON HE minor like the major arts of the middle ages owe much of their charm to their connexion with contemporary literature, and there is a singular fascination in tracing to their proper source in epic or romance the varied scenes which decorate the furniture and the weapons, the trinkets and other objects, which have come down to us from those times. The exceptional closeness of the relation may be in large measure explained by the general didactic tendency of mediaeval art. Men who read little had become habituated to instruction by means of pictures, and they expected every artist to tell them a story with a moral. literature of romance was the source whence secular art drew its principal inspiration, and the object of this short article is to illustrate the manner in which romantic subjects were treated by men preoccupied by the desire for edification, and looking on beauty as a means rather than an end in itself. For this purpose I have taken two examples of work in carved ivory and bone, choosing caskets because their extended surface offered a wider scope for the representation of continuous narrative. In the first, a French example of about the middle of the fourteenth century, we see the didactic manner at its height. The second, wrought on the eve of the renaissance in a land never quite forgetful of a classical past, reveals the working of the new spirit which was soon to subvert the old mediaeval doctrine and release art from its implied obligation to edify. But even here there remains much of the pleasing mannerism and convention proper to a style careless of realism and content with vague and general types. Criticize as you

will the artistic theories of the mediaeval craftsman, the charm of his work abides, and the very offence is a delight to the eyes. The first casket is a good example of

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In the place of honour upon the top is the Taking of the Castle of Love,' a favourite subject of constant recurrence. fortress is defended by a garrison of fair damsels under the leadership of Venus, the 'Frau Minne' of early German song, whose cult the middle ages learned from Ovid and probably first adopted in Provence. The missiles used, with the exception of the irresistible arrows of the goddess, consist entirely of flowers, which are launched from great catapults, fired from cross-bows, or tipped by the basketful from the castle walls. The winged figure of Venus may be seen on the upper ramparts to the left, and opposed to her in unequal conflict are two knights with a cross-bow and a siege-machine, chivalrously replying to her pointed darts with harmless rose-blossoms. The machine is one of the engines which, under the name of a trabucium, blida or onager, were wont in real warfare to launch massive stones, but were sometimes charged with stranger missiles, such as flaming brands, and even full beehives, for the greater discomfiture of the enemy. On the right, a third knight scales the walls by the help of a rope ladder, while below, as an indication that all is really over, a fourth prepares to receive

1 Reproduced on page 301.

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