The Tapestry Book Part 4

German Tapestry, about 1450]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500

Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.]

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Canon de Haisnes, "La Tap.i.s.serie."

[8] M. de Barante, "Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne."

[9] Froissart, ma.n.u.script of the library of Dijon.

[10] De Barante, "Histoire."

[11] See M. Pinchart, "Roger van der Weyden et les Tap.i.s.series de Berne."

[12] Enguerrand de Monstrelet, "Chronicles."

CHAPTER V

HIGH GOTHIC

The wonderful time of the Burgundian dukes is gone; Charles le Temeraire leaves the world at Nancy, where the pitying have set up a cross in memory of his unkingly death, and where the lover of things Gothic may wander down a certain way to the exquisite portico of the Ducal Palace and, entering, find the Gothic room where the duke's precious tapestries are hung. In this sympathetic atmosphere one may dream away hours in sheer joy of a.s.sociation with these shadowy hosts of the past, the relentless slayers in the battle scenes, relentless moralists in the religious subjects--for morality plays had a parallel in the morality tapestry, issuing such rigid warnings to those who make merry as is seen in _The Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets_, _The Reward of Virtue_, _The Triumph of Right_, _The Horrors of the Seven Deadly Sins_, all of which were popular subjects for the weaver.

With the artists who might be called primitives we have almost finished in the end of the Fifteenth Century. The simplicity of the very early weavers pa.s.sed. They were content with comparatively few figures, and these so strongly treated that in composition one scarce took on more importance than another. When Arras and other Flemish towns, as well as Paris and certain French towns, developed the industry and employed more ambitious artists, the designs became more crowded, and the tendency was to multiply figures in an effort to crowd as many as possible into the s.p.a.ce. When architecture appeared in the design, towers and battlements were crowded with peeping heads in delightful lack of proportion, and forests of spears springing from platoons of soldiers, filled almost the entire height of the cloth.

The nave fashion still existed of dressing the characters of an ancient Biblical or cla.s.sic drama in costumes which were the mode of the weaver's time, disregarding the epoch in which the characters actually lived.

An adherence to the childlike drawing of the early workers continues noticeable in their quaint way of putting many scenes on one tapestry.

Interiors are readily managed, by dividing--as in _The Sacraments_ set in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York--with slender Gothic columns, than which nothing could be prettier, especially when framed in at the top with the Gothic arch. In outdoor scenes the frank disregard of the probable adds the charm of audacity. Side by side with a scene of carnage, a field of blood with victims lying p.r.o.ne, is inserted an island of flowers whereon youths and dogs are pleasantly sporting; and adjoining that may be another section cunningly introduced where a martyred woman is enveloped in flames which spring from the ground around her as naturally as gra.s.s in springtime.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA

Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN

Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century]

And flowers, flowers everywhere. Those little blossoms of the Gothic with their perennial beauty, they are one of the smiles of that far time that shed cheer through the centuries. They are not the grandiose affairs of the Renaissance whose voluptuous development contains the arrogant a.s.surance of beauty matured. They do not crown a column or trail themselves in foliated scrolls; but are just as Nature meant them to be, unaffected bits of colour and grace, upspringing from the sod. In the cathedral at Berne is a happy example of the use of these sweet flowers, as they appear at the feet of the sacred group, and as they carry the eye into the sky by means of the feathery branches like fern-fronds which tops the scene; but we find them nearer home, in almost every Gothic tapestry.

It was about the end of the last Crusade when Italy began to produce the inspired artists who broke the bonds of Byzantine traditions and turned back to the inspiration of all art, which is Nature. Giotto, tending his sheep, began to draw pictures of things as he saw them, Savonarola awoke the conscience, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio--a string of names to conjure with--all roused the intellect. The dawn of the Renaissance flushed Europe with the life of civilisation. But before the wonderful development of art through the reversion to cla.s.sic lines, came a high perfection of the style called Gothic, and with that we are pleased to deal first. It is so full of beauty to the eye and interest to the intellect that sometimes we must be dragged away from it to regard the softer lines of later art, with the ingrat.i.tude and reluctance of childhood when torn from its fairy tales to read of real people in the commonplace of every day.

We are now in the time when the perfection of production was reached in the tapestries we call Gothic. Artists had grown more certain of their touch in colour and design, and weavers worked with such conscientious care as is now almost unknown, and produced a quality of tapestry superior to that of their forebears. The Fifteenth Century and the first few years of the Sixteenth were spent in perfecting the style of the preceding century, and so great was the perfection reached, that it was impossible to develop further on those lines.

It must not be supposed from their importance that Brussels and Bruges were the sole towns of weavers. There were many high-warp looms, and low-warp as well, in many towns in Flanders and France, and there were also beginnings in Spain, England and Germany. Italy came later. The superb set in the Cluny Museum in Paris, _The Lady and the Unicorn_, than which nothing could be lovelier in poetic feeling as well as in technique, is accorded to French looms. But as it is impossible in a cursory survey to mention all, the two most important cities are dwelt upon because it is from them that the greatest amount of the best product emanated.

Tapestries could not well decline with the fortunes of a town, for they were a heavy article of commerce at the time when Louis XI attacked Arras. Trade was made across the Channel, whence came the best wool for their manufacture; they were bought by the French monarchs and n.o.bility; many drifted to Genoa and Italy, to be sold by the active merchants of the times to whoever could buy. When, therefore, Arras was crushed, her able workmen flew to other centres of production, princ.i.p.ally in Flanders, notably to Bruges and Brussels, and helped to bring these places into their high position.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VERDURE

French Gothic Tapestry]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ECCE h.o.m.o"

Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]

Stories of kings and their magnificence breathe ever of romance, but kings could not be magnificent were it not for the labour of the conscientious common people, those who go daily to their task, asking nothing better than to live their little span in humble endeavour. The weavers, the tap.i.s.siers of that far-away time in Flanders are intensely appealing now when their beautiful work hangs before us to-day. They send us a friendly message down through the centuries. It is this makes us inquire a bit into the conditions of their lives, and so we find them scattered through the country north of France working with single-hearted devotion toward the perfection of their art. That they arrived there, we know by such tapestries as are left us of their time.

Bruges was the home of a movement in art similar to that occurring in Italy. Old traditions of painting were being thrown aside--the revolution even attacking the painter's medium, tempera, which was criticised, discarded and replaced by oil on the palettes. Memling, the brothers Van Eyck, were painting things as they saw them, not as rules prescribed. Bernard Van Orley was at work with bold originality.

It were strange if this Northern school of painters had not influenced all art near by. It is to these men that Brussels owes the beauty of her tapestries in that apogee of Gothic art which immediately preceded the introduction of the Renaissance from Italy.

Cartoons or drawings for tapestries took on the rules of composition of these talented and original men. Easily distinguishable is the strong influence of the religious feeling, the fidelity to standards of the church. When a rich townsman wished to express his praise or grat.i.tude to G.o.d, he ordered for the church an altar-piece or dainty gilded Gothic carving to frame the painted panels of careful execution. When Jean de Rome executed a cartoon, he treated it in much the same way; built up an airy Gothic structure and filled the s.p.a.ces with pretty pictures. The so-called Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan's shows this treatment at its best. Unhappily, the atelier of Jean de Rome or Jan von Room is too sketchily portrayed in the book of the past; its records are faint and elusive. We only hear now and then an interested allusion, a suggestion that this or that beautiful specimen of work has come from his atelier.

Cartoons at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century were not all divided into their different scenes by Gothic column and arch. In much of the fine work there was no division except a natural one, for the picture began to develop the modern scheme of treating but one scene in one picture. Although this might be filled with many groups, yet all formed a harmonious whole. The practice then fell into disuse of repeating the same individual many times in one picture.

A good example of the change and improvement in drawing which a.s.sisted in making Brussels' supremacy and in bringing Gothic art to perfection, is the fine hanging in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

(Plate facing page 57.) It depicts with beautiful navete and much realism the discomfiture of Pharaoh and his army floundering in the Red Sea, while the serene and elegant children of Israel contemplate their distress with well-bred calm from the flowery banks of an orderly park.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT

Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CROSSING THE RED SEA

Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts]

This tapestry ill.u.s.trates so many of the important features of work during the first period of Brussels' supremacy that it is to be lingered over, dissected and tasted like a dessert of nuts and wine.

Should one speak first of the cartoon or of the weave, of the artist or of the craftsmen? If it is to be the tap.i.s.sier, then to him all credit, for in this and similar work he has reached a care in execution and a talent in translation that are inspired. Such quant.i.ty of detail, so many human faces with their varying expressions, could only be woven by the most adroit tap.i.s.sier.

The drawing shows, first, one scene of many groups but a sole interest, with none but probable divisions. Much grace and freedom is shown in the att.i.tudes of the persons on the sh.o.r.e, and strenuous effort and despair among the engulfed soldiers. Extreme attention to detail, the making one part as finished as another, even to the least detail, is noticeable. The exaggerated patterns of the stuffs observable in earlier work is absent, and a sense of proportion is displayed in dress ornament. The free movement of men and beasts, and the variety of facial expression all show the immense strides made in drawing and the perfection attained in this brilliant period.

It was a time when the artist perfected the old style and presaged the new, the years before the Renaissance had left its cradle and marched over Europe. This perfection of the Gothic ideal has a purity and simplicity that can never fail to appeal to all who feel that sincerity is the basic principle of art as it is of character. The style of Quentin Matsys, of the Van Eycks, was the mode at the end of the Fifteenth Century and the beginning of the Sixteenth, and after all this lapse of time it seems to us a sweet and natural expression of admirable human attributes.

In the new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the labels of certain exhibits, purchases and loans allude briefly to "studio of Jean de Rome." It is an allusion which especially interests us, as our country now holds examples of this atelier which make us wish to know more about its master. He was a designer in the marvellous transition period of about 1500, when art trembled between the restraint of ecclesiastic Gothic and the voluptuous freedom of the Renaissance; hesitated between the conventions of religion and the abandonment to luxury, to indulgence of the senses. It is the fashion to regard periods of transition as times of decadence, of false standards of hybrid production, but at least they are full of deepest interest to the student of design who finds in the tremulous dawn of the new idea a flush which beautifies the last years of the old method.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., New York]

Attributed to this newly unearthed studio of Jean de Rome hangs a marvellous tapestry in the new wing alluded to, one which deserves repeated visits. (Plate facing page 58.) Indeed, to see it once creates the desire to see it again, so beautiful is it in drawing and so exquisite in colour and weave. It is suggested that Quentin Matsys is responsible for the drawing, and it is known that only Bruges or Brussels could produce such perfection of textile. Indeed, Jean de Rome is by some authorities spoken of as Jean de Brussels, for it is there that he worked long and well, a.s.sisting to produce those wonders of textile art that have never been surpa.s.sed, not even by the Gobelins factory in the Seventeenth Century. The tapestry in the Metropolitan Museum is now the property of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., but began life as the treasure of the King and Queen of Spain who, at the time when Brussels was producing its best, were sitting firmly on a throne but just wrested from the Saracenic occupancy. Spain, while unable to establish famous and enduring tapestry factories of her own, yet was known always as a lavish buyer. Later, Cardinal Mazarin, with his trained Italian eye, detected at once the value of the tapestry and became possessed of it, counting it among his best treasures of art. It is a woven representation of the triptych, so favourite in the time of the Van Eycks, and is almost as rich with gold as those ancient altar decorations. The tapestry is variously called _The Kingdom of Heaven_, and _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ and is the most beautiful and important of its kind in America. Fortunate they who can go to the museum to see it--only less fortunate than those who can go to see it many times.