Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/782

* MONASTIC ART. rf)4 MONASTICISM. emplify the liaiuliwoik of the native artists taught by these Frenchmen. So it was every- where, especially in Oeriiiaiiy and En;;land. where local peculiarities .soon stron;;ly niiuliticd the im- ported style', and before the close of the thir- teenth century the oriprinal strictness of the Order was rela.ed, and, especially in France, the entire rich system of (iotbic decoration adopted, with its traceiy.. floral sculpture, and stained glass. With the fourteenth century the decadence of the Order, replaced in jmpularity by the Fran- ciscans and Dominicans, removed it as a serious factor from the field of art. Fbaxcisc.x ..) Domi.mcax Art. The mon- asteries of these Orders were in or near the cities, so that the members could take part in the daily life of the people. There were ordinarily no high encircling cloistral walls, no arrangements for teaching the arts (except occasionally that of illuminating manuscripts or doing goldsmith work), no warehouses. The art of the mendi- cant orders was especially important in Italy. At the beginning the Cistercian style furnished models for cliurch and cloistral architecture, but soon these borrowed traits dropped into insig- nificance, when compared with the original fea- tures that were developed. The emiduisis laid upon preaching in their churches to the masses, and thus inllneming ])ublic sentiment, led to the creation of two new types of monastic church — that with lofty aisles and with widely spaced supports between nave and aisles, and the hall church type with no aisles. In both cases the object was to place large congregations within sight and hearing of the pulpit. 8an Francesco at Assisi. the mother mcmastery, was the model for the hall-church type : San Francesco and San Domenico at Bologna for the three-aisled type. Of the greatest churches of the thirteenth centurv' in Italy, nearly all were built by monks of these two Orders — ^Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croee at Florence, Santa Maria dei Frari and Santi Giovanni e Paolo at Venice, Santa Maria soi)ra .Minerva in Kome. Sant' Anastasia at Verona. San Francesco at Ascoli. While the Orders were less prominent in the architecture of the rest of Europe, they certainly jiopularized in Oermany the use of the hall church, which became a very conunon type: but the predominance of cathedral architecture and the continued prosperity of the Cistercians limited their sphere. Of even greater importance was the effect of the Oriler> on sculpture and painting. The thought and feeling, the system and symbolism that lay behind tile great schools of fresco paint- ing of Florence. Siena, and cither Italian centres, as well as thc> Frc^nch scdiools of cathedral sculp- ture at Chartres, Hheims. .-miens, Hourges, Paris, are due to the inllucnee of Saint Francis, Saint Dominic, and their successors, such as Saint Bonaventura and Thomas .quinas. The encyclopa'clic thinkers who furnished the ideas and directed the hand of sculptors and painters were the teachers of thes<' Orders, who also directed the thought of the universities of F.urope. The frescoes in the Church of San Francesco at .ssisi. in the Cnppelli dei Spagnuoli at Floretue. the Palazzo Pubblicoat Siena, the tower at Florence, and of Orvieto Cathedral, are their work, in .symbolism, in teaching, in all their higher value. The bold attempt to represc-nt the origin, char- acter, and history of the universe in art, made by the decorators of the French Gothic cathe- drals, had precisely the same source. The corre- sponding printed pages are to be found in Vin- cent of iSeauvais's Speculum Viiiversnle and other similar literary encyelopicdias. It is by reading the life and legends of Saint Francis, by studying the important rc'de of the preachers in the popular movements, by reading the ser- mons of the great preachers, that one can realize how clearly the my.stic and allegorical art of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is a crea- tion of these Orders and merely a part of a great wave of social reform that was due largely to them. Giotto, the (!addi, Orcagna, Andrea Pisano. and other artists, wliile not members of the Orders, expressed their ideals. Other Ordkrs. Of all the Western Orders, only one returned in the Middle Ages to the anchoretic idea and expressed it in beautiful architectural movements. Tliis was the Carthusian Order (Chartreux) of Saint Bruno, founded in the eleventh ecmtury. The individual cell life of each member determined the form and character of the mcmastic' liuihlings. which covered a gi'eat extent of ground, usually around two immense cloisters or open courts. The secularizing of art. which began in the thirteenth century, was carried further forward by each century of the Renaissance. What the art-guilds commenced humanism completed. The monastic Orders exercised no influence in art after ihv fourteenth century, even though some individual members were prcnninent artists, such as Fra . gelico. Filippo Lippi. Bartolommeo, the painters; Fra Giocondo, the architect; etc. lilBUOou.MMiv. The entire theme of monastic art is so interwoven with the history of Chris- tian art as a whole, as to have eluded treatment. Lenoir, Architecture nioiio.s/ic/i/c (Paris, 1852- .51)), has given a very good summary of this part of the subject. Other general works are: Wiese, Vebir das 'crli<iltnis dcr Kunst sur Religion (Berlin. 1878): Springer. Klonterleben uiid KlosterhuHSI (Bonn. 1880); Schlosser, Die ubcntUiiiiiliachc Kloslrraniuiic dm friihereii Mit- Ictdllrrfi ('ienna, I8S1M ; Kraus, (liKchichle der chrittlirhoi Kuiisl (Freiburg. IS'.tti); for the Basilians, Brockhaus, l)ir KuiisI in den Athos- Kliislrni (Leipzig. IHitO), and Balhr, he mon- aslrre b!i::(iiiliii de Tvbriis/iu (Paris, 18!)"); for the Benedictines. Kriitzinger. Die Bencdiktiner- orden und die Kultur (Heidelberg. 1876); for the Cistercians. Sharpe. The Architecture of the ('ifitcrei(i)i.i (London. 18741 ; for the Dominicans and Franciscans. Enlart. Oriijiiirn frinicdises de I'architccture (juthiqur lu Itrilir (Paris. 18i)4). Consult, also, the authcnities referrcnl to under CiiRisTiAx Art: Bknk»iitink.s : Cistkrciaxs. MONASTICISM. The general term used to describe the system under which those men and women live who have abandoned the world for religious reasons, and live, whether separately or in comnninity, in the pursuit of perfection. The vows under" which they live (for details see Vow) are based upon what are known as the evangelical counsels (q.v.), or maxims collected from the teachings of Christ to guide those who are desirous of attaining perfection in this life. From their being bound by such vows, these people are known as religious (Lat. relipare. to bind). The term monk is correctly applied only ^ to the members of the older or more strictly