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 PAINTING

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PAINTING

spent three years at Avignon and the last seven years of his Hfe at Lyons. Here he was instrumental in es- tabhshing a liospital for the plague-striclven, and, by his zeal and eloquence, diverted an irruption of Wal- densianism and Lutheranism from the city, receiving in acknowledgement the much coveted rights and privileges of citizenship. The epitaph, originally adorning his tomb in the Dominican church at Lyons, fixes the date of his death beyond dispute. The merit of his "Veteris et Novi Testamenti nova translatio" (Lyons, 1527) lies in its literal adherence to the He- brew, which won for it the preference of contempo- rary rabbis and induced Leo X to assume the expenses of publication. After the pontiff's death these de- volved on the author's relatives and friends. Several editions of it, as well as of the monumental "Thesau- rus linguae sancta;" (Lyons, 1529), were brought out by Protestants as well as Catholics. Among other productions, all of which treat of Sacred Scripture, Greek, or Hebrew, were "Isagoges seu introductionis ad sacras literas liber unus" (Lyons, 1528, etc.), and "Catena argentea in Pentateuchum" in six volumes (Lyons, 15.36).

See Versions of the Bible; Qu^tip-Echard, Scriptores 0. P., II (Paris, 1721): TODRON, Hist, des hommes iilustres de Vordre de St. Dominique, IV (Paris. 1747); Tiraboschi, Storia delta letter, ital., VII (Venice, 14.51); Mandonnet. s. v. DominicainSt and ViGOOBOUX, Did. de la Bible, s. v. (Paris, 1910).

Thos. a K. Reillt.

Painting:, Religious. — Painting has always been associated with the life of the Church. From the time of the Catacombs it has been used in ecclesiastical ornamentation, and for centuries after Constantine reUgious art was the only form of living art in the Christian world. Its fecundity has been wonderful, and even now, although much diminished, is still im- portant. Until the Renaissance the Church exercised a veritable monopoly over this sphere. Profane paint- ing in Europe dates only from the last three centuries, and it took the lead only in the last century. It may therefore be said that throughout the Christian Era the history of painting has been that of religious painting.

It would be absurd to seek to place the Church in contradiction to the Gospel on this point, as difl the Iconoclasts in the eighth century and the Protestants in the sixteenth. The doctrine of the Church has been clearly enunciated by Molanus in his "Historia SS. Imaginum" (Louvain, 1.568; the best edition is that of Paquot, Louvain, 1771; an ample bibliography is found on pp. 212-24). It is truly remarkable that such a magnificent development of artistic thought should proceed from a purely spiritual doctrine preached by humble Galilean fishermen who were ignorant of art and filled with the horror of idol- atry characteristic of the Semitic races. Far from reproaching the Church with infidelity to the teach- ings of her Founder, we should rather acknowledge her wisdom in rejecting no natural form of human activity, and thus furthering the work of civilization.

The very fact that the Church permitted painting obliged her to assign it a definite object and to pre- scribe certain rules; art never seemed to her an end in itself; as soon as she adopted it she made it a means of instruction and edification. "The picture", says the Patriarch Nicephorus, "conceals the strength of the Gospel under a coarser, but more expressive form." "The picture is to the illiterate", says Pope St. Greg- ory, "what the written word is to the educated." In like manner St. Basil: " What speech presents to the ear painting portrays by amute imitation." And Peter Comestor says, in a famous text : "The paintings of the churches are in place of books to the uneducated" (quasi libri laicorum). "We are, by the grace of God, those who manifest to the faithful the miracles wrought by faith" — thus the painters of Siena express them- selves in the statutes of their guild (1355). The same

ideas are contained in the "Treatise on Painting" of Cennino Cennini, and in France in the " Livre des M6- tiers" of the Parisian Etienne Boileau (1254). In 1513, at the height of the Renaissance, Albrecht Diirer wrote: "The art of painting is used in the service of the Church to depict the sufferings of Christ and of many other models; it also preserves the countenances of men after their death." Almost the same definition is given by Pacheco, father-in-law of Velasquez, in his "Arte de la Pintura", printed at Seville in 1649.

The constant doctrine of the Church was defined at the Second Council of Xicsea (787), and is summed up in the often quoted formula: "The composition of the image is not the invention of the painters, but the result of the legislation and approved tradition of the Church" (Labbe, "Concil.", VII, "Synod. Nica>na", II, Actio VI, 831, 832). It would be impossible to define more clearly the importance of art in the life of the Church, and at the same time its subordinate posi- tion. Thence, obviously, results one of the chief char- acteristics of religious painting, its conservative in- stinct and its tendency to hieratic formalism. Art being regarded as didactic, necessarily partook of the severe nature of dogma. The slightest error bordered on heresy. To alter anything in the garments of the saints or of the Blessed Virgin, to depict the former shod or the latter barefooted, to confuse the piety of the simple by innovations and individual whims, were all serious matters. The Christian artist was sur- rounded by a strict network of prohibitions and pre- scriptions. From this resulted the artistic danger of soulless, mechanical repetition, which religious paint- ing did not always escape. The responsibility for this, however, must not be ascribed to the Church, but rather to human slothfulness of mind, for, as a matter of fact, there is an element of mobility in art as it is understood by the Church. Religious art may be called a realistic art. Its appeal to the emotions by the representation of facts obliges it to be more and more exactly imitative, and it must adopt the progressive stages of technic to express all the phases of human feeling. Even the most immobile of the great Chris- tian schools, the Byzantine, has only an apparent im- mobility; more intimate knowledge inspires increasing admiration for its vitality and elasticity. The inno- vating and creative faculty has never been denied to the religious painters. In the twelfth century Guil- laume Durand, the famous Bishop of ISIende, wrote in his "Rationale" (I, 3): "The various histories as well of the New as of the Old Testament are depicted ac- cording to the inclination of the painters. For to painters as to poets a license has ever been conceded to dare whatever they pleased."

I. The Catacombs. — The monuments of religious painting for the first four centuries are to be sought only at Rome (.see Catacombs, Roman; Ecclesias- tical Art, Origin). But this peculiar art must not be taken as typical of what was in vogue elsewhere. It is a great mistake to look in the Roman cemeteries for the origin or the cradle of Christian painting: as has been conclusively proved by the learned researches of Strzygowski and .\jiialof, an art, which seems to have been fully ilcveluped by the end of the fifth century, grew up in Syria, Egypt, or Asia Minor, and com- pletely supplanted that of the Catacombs. The latter did notsurvivethe very special conditions under which it arose, and was but an isolated and local school with- out development or future, but none the less valuable, venerable, and pleasing.

II. Byzantine Painting. — A. The New Iconogra- phy. — By the edict of 313 Christianity was recog- nized as the official religion of the Empire. The Church left its hiding-places and breathed freely, and the period of the basilicas^began. A profound trans- formation of religious painting was the result of this triumph. The time had come to display the insignia of Christ's victory with the same material splendour