It is impossible to date any period of art with absolute accuracy; for art is always in the process of change, and the flourishing of any period of art is long anticipated by preliminary manifestations. In a general way, however, it may be said that the Gothic period extends from the second half of the XII century through the XV century. Italy presents an exception. The tentative Gothic art of the XIII century in Italy gave place to the new movement, founded upon enthusiasm for antiquity, as well as for nature, which we call the Renaissance. The classical element in Renaissance art is the feature which principally distinguishes it from Gothic. In the latter part of the XV century, the Renaissance spread from Italy into the northern countries, and, in the XVI century, accomplished a triumphant ascendancy over the late Gothic style.

The crowning achievement of Gothic art was the cathedral, where architect, sculptor and painter combined to create monuments which rank with the greatest works of human genius. Never has sculpture more perfectly adorned architecture; never has architecture more beautifully expressed the hopes and aspirations of a people. In this age the plastic arts were truly “the language of faith.”

From France, Gothic art spread to other lands, to Germany, Flanders, Spain, and England, and even to Italy. During the XIII and XIV centuries, the highest development of Gothic art took place in France, but, in the XV century, Burgundy and the merchant cities of Flanders gained pre-eminence. France required many years after the battle of Agincourt, in 1415, to recover from the exhaustion brought about by internal conflict and foreign wars. In the meantime, the rich cities of Flanders and the powerful Dukes of Burgundy offered the artist generous patronage.

If the artist in this late period lost something of the spirituality and noble simplicity of earlier times, he was more skillful technically and more realistic. Not that the earlier artist had not observed nature! On the contrary, he was eminently successful in discerning significant truths, but he subordinated objective representation to the requirements of a monumental style.

Save for a distinguished list of painters, headed by the great Flemish masters, the Van Eycks (?-1426, 1381-1440), Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464), and Hans Memling (1425-1495), Gothic art is largely anonymous. In the minor arts, such as glass painting, the illumination of manuscripts, metal work and enameling, furniture, and textiles, woven and embroidered, the Gothic Age excelled, and the rare surviving examples of these beautiful crafts are treasured among the most precious relics of this great period of the world's art.

The large well-head of Istrian stone in the foreground comes from the Palazzo Zorzi in Venice, and is a fine example of Venetian stone-carving in the XV century. The well-head, with its acanthus leaves at the four corners, reminds one of the Corinthian capital of classical times, and, as a matter of fact, ancient capitals were sometimes used in later periods for well-heads. On one side is an angel holding a shield supported by two lions passant. Doubtless, this shield was originally painted the owner's coat of arms.

In the XV century, hunting and hawking—the latter also called falconry—played a significant part in the social life of the nobility. These sports and the ability to pursue them in a generous and polite fashion set the nobility apart from the commoners, and formed the chief topic of conversation, when war did not call from the slaughter of animals to the slaughter of men. One of the most necessary implements in falconry is the lure, used to recall the falcon. In the upper right-hand corner of the tapestry a man is shown waving a lure in his right hand. The lure is a pair of wings attached to a cord, to which the falcon is trained to return because accustomed to find food there. The mode of carrying the falcon on the gloved hand is illustrated by several of the personages in the tapestry. Several of the falcons are still on leash; one has just been released and thrown up into the air; another is having the hood removed from his head. The rich costumes illustrate the extravagant fashions which prevailed in the middle of the XV century, when there was great competition in dress between the wealthy commoners and the nobility.

Great beauty of color distinguishes this tapestry. The greens and browns of the foliage form an agreeable contrast with the rich crimson and blue of the costumes, relieved by passages of green and violet. The Gothic artist was not afraid to use strong colors, but he knew how to keep them in harmonious relationship. The simplicity of the design, the purposeful abstention from realistic effects, which we note in this tapestry, are virtues in the art of mural decoration that can not be too highly commended.

About fifty years later than The Falconers, this beautiful tapestry with scenes from the Story of Esther, in the Charles Jairus Martin Memorial Collection, represents the tendency toward a more ornate and sumptuous art that characterized the late XV century. In the lower right-hand corner of the tapestry, just above the scroll, may be noted a small fleuron, which is probably the mark of an atelier, but tapestries before 1528 can rarely be assigned to any definite atelier or weaver. We must be content to designate our tapestry as Flemish, woven at the close of the XV century. The story of Esther was popular among the Flemish weavers at this time. Our tapestry, which formed part of a set, may be compared with three hangings of the same subject belonging to the Cathedral of Saragossa.

The reproduction can give but an unsatisfactory idea at best of the original. Not only do we lose the mellow harmonies of color, but in reducing the design of so large a tapestry to a few square inches many of the most beautiful details are necessarily lost. In the left-hand compartment, Queen Esther, kneeling before the King, kisses the golden scepter which Ahasuerus extends to her. Having won favor in the King's eyes, Esther asks as a boon that the King and Haman, the King's favorite, whose plot for the persecution of the Jews Esther intends to circumvent, shall attend a feast which she has prepared for them. In the upper left-hand corner are two little scenes; Esther kneeling in prayer, and Esther receiving instructions from Mordecai. In the compartment at the right is pictured Esther's banquet, the second feast, related in Chap. VII of the Book of Esther, which brought about the fall of Haman. Particularly interesting in this scene is the representation of table furnishings, the damask cloth, the enameled ewer in the shape of a boat, the knives with their handles of ivory and ebony, the hanap, the cup of Venetian glass, and the various pieces of plate. We have in this composition a remarkable document illustrating the luxury that characterized the life of the great nobles at the close of the XV century. In the scrolls at the bottom of the tapestry are Latin mottoes referring to the scenes above. Our tapestry was formerly in the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection.

In such tapestries as this and The Falconers, we may note the perfect relationship which exists between the nature of the design and the purpose to which the tapestry was put. Gothic tapestries of the XV century illustrate the true principle of mural decoration. Designers deliberately avoided realistic imitation of nature with spatial effects and tricks of illusion. They strove to achieve a decorative flatness of design which would emphasize rather than destroy the architectonic quality of the wall the tapestry was to cover.

A tapestry is woven, not embroidered, and forms a single fabric. Only two elements are employed in the making of it, the warp and the woof (or weft). These are the upright and the horizontal threads. The [pg 37] weaving is done upon a loom or frame. The bobbin, or shuttle, filled with thread of the weft, is passed from right to left behind the odd warp threads, and in passing leaves a bit of the weft thread in front of the even warp threads. On the backward trip, from left to right, the shuttle reverses its course and leaves the weft in front of the odd warp threads. Thus, all the warp threads are covered with the weft. A comb is used to press down the threads, so that they form an almost even line. Wool is generally used for the weft, linen or hemp for the warp. The texture was sometimes enriched with passages of gold and silver thread or perhaps a bit of silk.

Part of a large tapestry representing the Crucifixion. Its vigorous design and harmonious color make one regret all the more the loss of the other part of this splendid tapestry.

This life-size statue, which still retains traces of the painting and gilding with which Gothic sculptures were almost invariably enriched, is an important example of French Gothic sculpture. The monumental character of this great art is shown in the conventional rendering of the hair, and in the simplification of the modeling; its grace and naturalness in the pose of the Divine Mother. The beautiful, rhythmic lines of the drapery should be particularly noted. Representations of the Virgin in French XIV century art have neither the austerity of earlier periods nor the worldliness of later. They are characterized by charming sensibility and tenderness.

This statue of a holy woman, probably one of the half-sisters of the Virgin, Mary Cleophas, the wife of Alpheus, or Mary Salome, the wife of Zebedee formed part originally, it may be presumed, of a Pieta group. This remarkable example of German sculpture at the close of the XV century is carved in linden wood, and preserves largely intact the original gilding and polychromy which add so much to the decorative effect of the piece. A second figure from this group, a kneeling Magdalene, is in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin. There has been noted a similarity in style between these two sculptures and the work of the Meister des Blaubeurer Hochaltars (so called from the sculptured high altar in the choir of the cloister-church at Blaubeuren). We have represented, perhaps, a late phase of his art, stronger and more realistic than in his early period. It would be most interesting if the connection with this well-known master could be established, but, failing that, the figure may be confidently attributed to the school of Ulm, about 1500.

We do not expect to find in German sculpture of the XV century that spirituality which characterizes the great achievements of the Italian school. German plastic art was one of realism, modified by a strong decorative tradition centuries old, based not only on precedent but on propriety. If the carved altarpiece were to tell in the subdued light of the Gothic church, the artist had to resort to exaggeration, to sharp contrasts in modeling, to the added emphasis of gold and color, to secure his effect. The skillful artist converted his exaggerations of form and movement into beautiful decoration; seized upon the necessity of contrasting planes as a pretext for crumpling his draperies into numerous rhythmic folds, and used the resources of gilding and polychromy to enrich as well as to emphasize form.

But at his best, the German sculptor was more than a simple decorator. Our statue is a case in point. Here we have the work of one who surely has looked into the human heart. Beneath the pattern of line and area, beneath the gold and colors, is a living woman. Not our idea of a saint perhaps; rather, a pretty woman, dainty in her ways, coquetting with religeon—nevertheless very real. Our artist may never have seen a saint, but, no doubt, he saw many a maid like this in his parish. If we are not raised to spiritual heights by his conception of a sainted character, we are at least delighted by his charming humanity.

This relief, attributed to a well-known sculptor of the school of Ulm, one of the chief centers of South German art, may be dated about 1500. Such carvings as this were commonly used to ornament the doors of large shrines. The decorative treatment of the drapery, with its involved folds, is characteristic of the German school.

The foliage carved on the capital of this small column, probably from some cloister, exemplifies the skill with which the Gothic sculptor utilized natural forms as decorative motives.

The supreme moment in the life of St. Francis, the seraphic Poverello of Assisi, is the subject of this small panel picture, painted in tempera colors with a gold background, by an artist of Giotto's school in the Romagna, who was probably a direct pupil of the great Italian master, and whose charm of color and grace of line were vivified by a feeling for reality of form inspired by Giotto's example. Toward the close of the Saint's life, two years before his death, he retired with some companions to the solitudes of Monte La Verna. On the morning of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, as St. Francis knelt in prayer on a lonely part of the mountain, there appeared to him a seraph with six flaming wings bearing the effigy of Christ crucified. Two wings were raised above His head, two were spread in flight, and and two covered His body. As St. Francis gazed ecstatically upon this vision, the Savior's five wounds were miraculously imprinted on his hands and feet and side. The second figure in the composition is that of the Saint's companion, Brother Leo, who by his aloofness from the dramatic action of the picture serves effectively as a foil to the figure of St. Francis.

The Master of the St. Ursula Legend, a Flemish painter of the second half of the XV century, derives his name from the famous altarpiece in the Convent of the Black Sisters in Bruges representing the history of St. Ursula, a work painted about 1470. The anonymous master of the Bruges altarpiece shows to some extent the influence of Memling; his style, however, is thoroughly personal in its naivete and admirable expression of a good-natured temperament. His character is well seen in such a painting as ours, where the Mother is full of modesty, her face expressing a tender, timid love for her child, who does not embrace her after all, not the most natural thing for a baby to do, but amuses himself with playing with the leaves of a book which the Madonna holds. The Virgin is a home-like, simple type, wholesome if not beautiful.

This delightful French miniature, or illuminated page, on parchment is from some dismembered Book of Hours. If not painted by Bourdichon himself, it was certainly done in his studio under his direction. The invention of printing eventually brought to a close the beautiful art of illumination, but at the time of Bourdichon it flourished in highest perfection.

Two leading artists of the Flemish school were Quentin Massys and Joachim Patinir. Massys (1466-1530) began a new epoch in Netherlandish art; he served as a “connecting link” between Jan van Eyck and Rubens. Patinir (died 1524) was one of the first artists to emphasize the landscape rather than the figures in a painting, but the time had not yet come when landscape could be painted for itself alone. It was necessary to relate it with the familiar religious painting of the day by introducing some biblical or legendary theme. A favorite subject was the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. This is the subject of our panel-painting in which these two great masters collaborated; the landscape and the smaller figures by Patinir, the group of the Holy Family in the foreground by Quentin Massys. It is related that the Holy Family, closely pursued by Herod's soldiers, chanced to encounter by the roadside a man sowing wheat in a field. The Virgin spoke to him, saying that if anyone inquired if they had passed he should answer, “Such persons came by when I was sowing wheat”; then by a miracle Jesus caused the wheat to spring up and ripen in one night. The next day when the farmer was cutting the wheat, those pursuing the Holy Family came up and asked if he had seen them. He replied as he had been told, with the result that the soldiers turned back, convinced that they had mistaken the road and that the fugitives had gone elsewhere.