THE appearance of this work in an English dress is one of the many indications that there is a counter current setting in, in opposition to the systems of bald utility which so strongly characterise these latter days. The utilitarian philosophy may continue to degrade the feelings and vulgarise the habits of society, and the pursuit of mammon may sap the foundations of our social system, but there are beacons still remaining to light us in the increasing darkness there are still in the desert fountains of living and flowing waters where the not-yet degraded mind may meet its proper aliment, and indulge its aspirations towards those stores of wealth where the moth corrupts not, neither do thieves break through and steal. The study of the works of the Creator, as shown in "the immensity of worlds and of life," the knowledge of his gracious purposes towards a fallen race, the history of man, and its illustration by human works, the study of the remains of art which have been bequeathed to us by ages-these are the truly elevating objects of contemplation, placing us, though still clogged with flesh, midway between earth and heaven.

The effect of these studies is obviously to train the mind to the contemplation of the past-to the love of the old; and these are the great counter influences to the downward current to which we have alluded. The admiration and love of the past now shows itself in many ways-in the chairs of science, of literature, and of art, we may observe it. It is this which has revived the study and awakened the love of that Christian architecture which makes the very stones to speak: it is this which has rendered the pursuit of antiquarian knowledge so popular-which has created societies and museums for its special advancement. Though to the

eye of the utilitarian the remains of antiquity-warlike, ecclesiastical, and domestic-have no value beyond that of the metal, iron, bronze, silver, or gold, of which they are rudely fashioned, to minds of another order their price is so great as to be scarcely calculable; for they are witnesses which cannot deceive, bearing evi dences to the truth of saints and fathers of the church, and of the sacred and profane historians. They are beings of a former time-they are the organic remains of the social worldthey are to history what the fossil is to geology, but with this additional interest, that they tell of man; that while the giant skeletons of a former world speak of a time when there was no man on the earth, these show us the developments of the human mind, its onward strugglings, the rise and decay of empires, and the ebbing and flowing of human power.

Finally, it is this influence which has created a modern school of historical painting in Germany, and even led an Overbeck and a Veit to reproduce the conceptions of the early Christian period, and revive the old but hallowed missal style. In England, Germany, Italy, France, we see the desire towards the past developed in a thousand ways; and all must hail it as showing a healthful reaction against the selfish character and levelling spirit of the day.

But we must turn to the work of Kügler, for the elegant translation of which we are indebted to a lady, and an Irishwoman, who possesses a knowledge of art attained by few in these or other countries, and a strong conviction of its importance to the wellbeing of society.

When we find that the work consists of upwards of four hundred closely printed pages, we can estimate the conviction of the importance of the subject to society, which could in.

VOL. XX. No. 115.

E

duce a lady of opulent circumstances to undertake such a task for the benefit of her country. The style of the translation is always elegant and often forcible, and the descriptions bring the picture wonderfully before the mind's eye. Take, for example, the description of the Madonna di San Sisto. The author is speaking of those compositions of Raphael in which, where saints are assembled around the madonna, they are placed in reciprocal relation to each other, and not, as in the earlier masters, ranged in simple symmetrical order, or disposed with a view to picturesque effect.

"The most important of this class is the madonna di San Sisto, in the Dresden Gallery. There the Madonna appears as the queen of the heavenly host, In a brilliant glory of countless angelheads, standing on the clouds, with the eternal Son in her arms; St. Sixtus and St. Barbara kneel at the sides, both of them seem to connect the picture with the real spectators. A curtain drawn back encloses the picture on each side; underneath is a light parapet, on which two beautiful boy-angels lean. The madonna is one of the most wonderful creations of Raphael's pencil; she is at once the exalted and blessed woman of whom the Saviour was born, and the tender earthly virgin whose pure and humble nature was esteemed worthy of so great a destiny. There is something scarcely describable in her countenance; it expresses a timid astonishment at the miracle of her own elevation, and at the same time the freedom and dignity resulting from the consciousness of her divine situation. The child rests natu rally but not listlessly in her arms, and looks down upon the world with a serious expression. Never has the love liness been blended so touchingly with a deep-felt solemn consciousness of the holiest calling, as in the features and countenance of this child. The eye is with difficulty disenchanted from the deep impression produced by these two figures, so as to rest upon the grandeur and dignity of the pope, the lowly devotion of St. Barbara, and the cheerful innocence of the two angel children. This is a rare example of a picture of Raphael's later time, executed entirely by his own hand. No design, no study of the subject, for the guidance of the scholar; no old engraving after such a study, has ever come to light."

We must not here omit to notice Mr. Eastlake, who has added notes princi

pally from the works of Rumohr, Vasari, and others, which though unquestionably valuable are scarcely sufficient to justify the very prominent appearance of his name in the title-page, before which those of the author and translator hide their diminished heads. Mr. Eastlake's reputation did not require this cheap, but somewhat doubtful addition.

But let us examine the work itself. It is not a hand-book of painting, but of the history of painting. It only describes pictures so far as they are subservient to elucidate the history of art. It does not profess to describe particular collections, and those who find fault with it on this score, should be reminded, that accurately-numbered catalogues, which will doubtless answer their purpose, may, for a small fee be had from the janitors of the different galleries. A collection of these, printed in double columns, would, doubtless, bé a selling book among those captious cognoscenti. Kügler's book professes to introducé ús to a knowledge of the early history and the progress of the art of painting, and the subjects are treated with great clearness and freedom from affectation. Some, because the work is German, will call it transcendental, but this is one of the common-place vulgarisms of the day, and unwor thy of notice.

The first book is dedicated to the history of early Christian art.

"The first point of interest for us is the relation which subsisted between the earlier Christian art and that of heathen antiquity. The flourishing period of Grecian art was already past before the establishment of Christianity. To create with the freedom of genius, in the spirit of those great artists, who had made the undying reputation of Athens, was not the privilege of the Roman, or of the Romanized Greek; but the high ideal type, the proportion and relation of forms, the dignified and the noble in attitude and gesture all this was imitated, again and again imitated, on the whole not without success. By this means the frivolous luxury of the Ro mans had been stamped with a grandeur and elevation, the source of which nust un loubtedly be sought in the true moral essence of Grecian art.

Thus the Christians found a highly finished form of imitation, and a very experienced technical skill, of which

they might have availed themselves for creations of their own. But in the peculiar and hostile position which they were forced to assume against the heathen religion and its followers, they at first allowed no representation whatever of holy subjects; and when, in later times, their scruples had ceased, heathen art was already drawing near extinction. The Christians, therefore, first practised the art in the degenerate manner of the latest Roman period→→→ with that manner they still imbibed the last ray of ancient grandeur, at the same time they applied what they adopted, even from the beginning, in a peculiar

manner.

"The cause of this determined opposition to the exercise of imitative art, lay not so much in a blind attachment to the Mosaic law, (which could not have been so all-important to the heathen converted to Christianity,) as in the circumstance that art generally was considered as the servant, nay, even as the pillar of idolatry. It became known, as we have seen, only in the degraded condition into which it had sunk, by ministering to a weak and criminal sensuality. It appeared the encourager alike of heathenism and moral depravity. Artists who wrought images of the gods, were regarded as messengers and servants of Satan-baptism was denied them by the church, so long as they adhered to their profession-and excommunication was pronounced against the neophyte who followed the prohibited occupation. Some went so far as purposely to describe the countenance of Christ as mean and repulsive, so that the artist must have despaired of representing it. They justified such views by texts from Scripture-for example, from Isaiah liii. 2, He hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.' It is evident that the art-loving heathen must have bitterly censured such a notion, and many are the controversies on this point, preserved to us from the earliest ages of Christianity.

"But there lives in art a higher ele. ment. So long as it has not degenerated into an empty phantom, it sustains and preserves the general sentiment of moral purity, and finds its perfection, in an especial sense, in the mysterious relation of Christianity to the present world. Hence the opposition alluded to could not long continue, and must have ceased even of itself, when in the beginning of the fourth century, Christianity was publicly recognised under Constantine, and its victory over heathenism was no longer doubtful. The great number of works of art which appeared in the first centuries after this

revolution, although they are certainly more remarkable for fulness of meaning than technical completeness, are a clear proof that the creative impulse had hitherto been constrained by external circumstances alone."

There are three important periods in the history of early Christian art. In the first, previous to the conversion of Constantine, we find those rude, yet simple and solemn representations, in the great catacombs of Rome and Naples-paintings, the result of the devotional spirit; and though executed under the terrors of persecution, displaying, as Kügler remarks, that new and vital principle which was to lead, in future times, to such great results. In the second period, during the reign of Constantine, the frescoes and mosaics of the Basilicas exhibit a higher and bolder style; and in the third, after the fury of the Iconoclasts was spent, and the conventional errors of the Byzantine method resigned, we see art rising to a comparatively high pitch, as in the works of the early Florentine masters, Cimabue and Duccio.

con

The author passes by the early Christian, or missal style, as some have termed it, perhaps too lightly. We confess a strong predilection to it. Without defending the glaring faults of the Byzantine school, we ceive that there is a character in the style of early Christian art, which cannot be wholly departed from with out great loss, at least so far as sacred subjects are concerned. And it is interesting to examine why it is that this style keeps such a hold on the imagination. Why is it that we look on Rubens' "Descent from the Cross," with wonder and admiration only, but feel ourselves weeping with the Magdalen of Quentin Matsys, as she stoops over the body of her crucified Redeemer, and wipes the blood from those feet which once, in a happier time, she washed with tears, and wiped with the same golden hair? All the faults of the painting are forgottencriticism is silent, and intrudes not on the overflow of the heart, and the burst of devotion. Why is it that the holy virgins and angels of the dark ages of painting-the offspring of the cloister and the cell, have, to minds imbued with religious love, more of sanctity than the works of a

Titian, a Domenichino, a Murillo, or a Vandyke? We perceive the artistical errors: the hardness of outline-the bad perspective-the unpleasing backgrounds and landscape-and the manifold and glaring anachronisms-but yet there is something which elevates the work, and harmonises with those high and mysterious objects which it presents to the outward and inward eye.

That the Byzantine painters adopted the style of the earliest Christian art, seems evident. They borrowed it from the mosaics and missal paintings of the earliest period; but according to Kügler, preserved the mere outward and lifeless form of the fresh and primitive creations; yet as this contained the expression of a sincere and deep feeling, it was capable of receiving a new inspiration, and of guiding the artist into a worthier path.

"The representations of Byzantine art are, for the most part, actual copies of their existing works, handed down from a better time; some of them may be traced back even to classical antiquity, (particularly the representations of allegorical figures,) and not unfrequently contain very significant and clever motives. But the particular knowledge of nature, that is of the human form, is entirely wanting; this is apparent in the drawing of the naked, and in the folds of the drapery, which follow no law of form, but succeed each other in stiff lines, sharp and parallel. The heads do not want character, but the expression is not merely defectivethey have in common something of a spectral rigidity, indicating, in its typelike sameness, a dull, servile constraint. The figures are long and meagre in their proportions, and so lifeless in their movements, that they set at defiance even the common law of gravity, and appear to totter on level ground. The grand motives which, in spite of all their defects, appear in many of the Byzantine works, are again wholly wanting, (as in the instance of the Roman mosaics,) in the designs of a later time. In these, the total absence of form and action, and the overloading with tawdry oriental ornaments, betray an utter incapacity for original productions. The representations of later saints belong to this period, and in particular that of the virgin

and child. We have also to mention here a mode of representing the crucified Saviour, likewise introduced later, and in itself sufficiently characteristic of Byzantine art. In the examples to

which we refer, he appears as if sinking under his tortures the head hanging down, the knees relaxed, and the body swollen and swayed to one side; while the Italian pictures of the same subject represent him in an upright position, victorious over bodily suffering."

It might be expected, that in the pictorial representations of Christ and the Virgin, the artists would be influenced by the opinions of the fathers of the church-and this we find to have been the fact. Thus, Cyril, Tertullian, and Justin, maintained that the Saviour had appeared in an abject form, and without beauty; and the words of Tertullian, "Si inglorius, si ignobilis, meus erit Christus," sufficiently show his conception of the appearance of the Redeemer. Justin declared that the abject form of Christ rendered the mystery of the redemption more sublime; while, on the other hand, St. Augustine, Jerome, and others, held that in his appearance, he stripped himself of his divinity only so far as might permit the gaze of hu man eyes. Thus, two conceptions of the appearance of Christ were developed the eastern church depicting him in the most abject, and often disgusting form; while in the west, as Rio remarks, the artists seem to have been led by the eloquence of St. Bernard, who said, that the beauty of Christ surpassed that of angels, and was the admiration and the joy of the heavenly host. We thus see that in the eastern schools, a low conception, added to the total want of originality, stamped the character of art; and these degrading representations may have in part caused that excessive tendency to the allegorical method which, in the seventh century had become so offensive as to require the interference of councils. In 692, the council of Constantinople declared that the Redeemer should be represented in the human form. "Gratiam et veritatem proponimus ut ergo quod perfectum est, vel colorum expressionibus omnium oculis subjiciatur, ejus qui tollit peccata mundi, Christi Dei nostri, humana forma characterem etiam in imaginibus pingi jubemus."-Canon 82. deinceps pro veteri agno erigi ac de

But in Italy, down to the ninth century, we observe the preservation of the earlier Christian style in the church frescoes, mosaics, and illuminated ma