THE LABORS OF THE FRANCISCANS FOR ART.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 188, 3 November 1876, Page 13

THE LABORS OF THE FRANCISCANS FOR ART.

(From ' MacMillan's Magazine/) To the Franciscan monks, who exercised a popular influence on Italian literature before Dante, we must also give the glory of having, in the basilica of Assisi (dedicated to the founder of their order), begun the first and most important change of Italian art, that of its emancipation from the conventionalities of G-reek or Byzantine artists in church painting. Byzantine church painting had its day; excellent specimens of its merits are numerous afl over Italy, more especially at Rome, Ravenna, and Venice. But its types were no longer suited to an age whose appreciation of beauty increased -with wealth, luxury, and intercourse with other countries— an age, in fact, which marked the first manhood of the Italian people and the Italian mind. The Byzantine figures breathe vigor and simplicity, and sometimes a- certain majesty of design; but the disposition of the groups is extravagant, the details are incorrect, the outline dry, and no knowledge of perspective is evinced. Profusion of gold everywhere, especially in the ground on which stand forth the figures of the Redeemer or of the Creator. On some crucifixes you would suppose mummies had been suspended with feet disjointed, while wounds pour out large rivulets of greenish blood; black, stern madonne, with long, stiff fingers, round eyes, and rough child; in general, long figures, vulgar heads, and want of expression are the characteristics of Byzantine art. It has imagination without grace ; richness, but no purity of design; rigidity, but no power ; talent, but no genius. It is, in fact, a style of transition, which soon became one of decline, when, having adopted several immutable laws, art was reduced to a mere mechanism, which any monk could copy and reprodiice with little trouble or expense. It is in the basilica of Assisi that Guido da, Siena and Giunta da Pisa emancipated themselves by degrees from their G-reek masters. The golden ground we see first substituted by azure besprinkled with golden stars. The figures become more animated, the expression more ideal, the dryness of the outline and grouping is softened, the immobility of the attitudes gives place to a more natural disposition ; in fact, art makes the first steps in its new life. Guido da Siena and Giunta da Pisa are followed by Bonamico, Parabuvi, Diotisalvi, and by that Duccio who is placed by some above Cimabue, and finally by Cimabue and Giotto, who completed the revolution. Among the many paintings inspired for the new style of art by the founder of the Franciscan order, every one who has been in Assisi must have seen Giotto's fresco representing the weddin? of St. Francis with Poverty, in her Tagged clothes, with a slender figure and thin face, but still preserving the features of a moat beautiful woman. A dog barks.at her, two children thruw stones at her, and place thorns in her path ; she, calm, happy, and radiant, stretches out her hand to St. Francis. While Christ Himself joins their hands, the Eternal Father, accompanied by angels, appears in the midst of clouds, as if heaven and the universe assisted at the happy wedding. There is nothing here which has the slighest association with the Greek manner. All is new, and free from school conventionality. And if you read the hymn of Dante to St. Francis, and the songs of St. Francis himself, and of Jacopone in praise of poverty, and then look at the fresco of Assisi, you will see in the Franciscan order the same source of inspiration, the same sign of popularity.