Now the festival was agreed upon and arrangedFor the four flowering weeksWhen sweet May attracts, till he flies off again.At Tinkapol upon a green plainHigh up on a wonderful meadow with spring colourSuch as no eye has seen before or since. Soft sweet MayHad dressed it with his own charming extravagance.There were little wood birds, a joy to the ear,Flowers and grass and green plants and summer meadsThat were a delight to eye and heart.One found there whatever one would, whatever May should bring--Shade from the sun, limes by the brook,A gentle breeze which brought the prattleOf Mark's court people. May's friend, the green turf,Had made herself a charming costume of flowers,In which she shone back at the guests with a festival of her own;The blossoming trees smiled so sweetly at every one,That heart and mind smiled back again.The pure notes of the birds, blessed and beautiful,Touched heart and senses, filling hill and dale with joy.The dear nightingale,Sweet bird, may it ever be blessed!Sang so lustily upon the boughThat many a heart was filled with joy and good humour.There the company pitched itselfWith great delight on the green grass.The limes gave enough shade,And many covered their tent roofs with green boughs.
Now the festival was agreed upon and arranged
For the four flowering weeks
When sweet May attracts, till he flies off again.
At Tinkapol upon a green plain
High up on a wonderful meadow with spring colour
Such as no eye has seen before or since. Soft sweet May
Had dressed it with his own charming extravagance.
There were little wood birds, a joy to the ear,
Flowers and grass and green plants and summer meads
That were a delight to eye and heart.
One found there whatever one would, whatever May should bring--
Shade from the sun, limes by the brook,
A gentle breeze which brought the prattle
Of Mark's court people. May's friend, the green turf,
Had made herself a charming costume of flowers,
In which she shone back at the guests with a festival of her own;
The blossoming trees smiled so sweetly at every one,
That heart and mind smiled back again.
The pure notes of the birds, blessed and beautiful,
Touched heart and senses, filling hill and dale with joy.
The dear nightingale,
Sweet bird, may it ever be blessed!
Sang so lustily upon the bough
That many a heart was filled with joy and good humour.
There the company pitched itself
With great delight on the green grass.
The limes gave enough shade,
And many covered their tent roofs with green boughs.
There is a heartfelt ring in this. We see that even this early period of German mediæval poetry was not entirely lacking in clear voices to sing of Nature with real sympathy.
The description of the Minne grotto is famous, with its magical accessories, its limes and other trees, birds, songs, and flowers, so that 'eye and ear alike found solace'; but the romantic love episode, interwoven as it is by the poet with the life of Nature, is more interesting for our purpose.
They had a court, they had a council which brought them nought but joy. Their courtiers were the green trees, the shade and the sunlight, the streamlet and the spring; flowers, grass, leaf, and blossom, whichrefreshed their eyes. Their service was the song of the birds, the little brown nightingales, the throstlets and the merles and other wood birds. The siskin and the ringdove vied with each other to do them pleasure, all day long their music rejoiced ear and soul. Their love was their high feast.... The man was with the woman, and the woman with the man; they had the fellowship they most desired, and were where they fain would be....In the dewy morning they gat them forth to the meadow where grass and flowers alike had been refreshed. The glade was their pleasure-ground; they wandered hither and thither hearkening each other's speech, and waking the song of the birds by their footsteps. Then they turned them to where the cool clear spring rippled forth, and sat beside its stream and watched its flow till the sun grew high in the heaven, and they felt its shade. Then they betook them to the linden, its branches offered them a welcome shelter, the breezes were sweet and soft beneath its shade, and the couch at its feet was decked with the fairest grass and flowers.
They had a court, they had a council which brought them nought but joy. Their courtiers were the green trees, the shade and the sunlight, the streamlet and the spring; flowers, grass, leaf, and blossom, whichrefreshed their eyes. Their service was the song of the birds, the little brown nightingales, the throstlets and the merles and other wood birds. The siskin and the ringdove vied with each other to do them pleasure, all day long their music rejoiced ear and soul. Their love was their high feast.... The man was with the woman, and the woman with the man; they had the fellowship they most desired, and were where they fain would be....
In the dewy morning they gat them forth to the meadow where grass and flowers alike had been refreshed. The glade was their pleasure-ground; they wandered hither and thither hearkening each other's speech, and waking the song of the birds by their footsteps. Then they turned them to where the cool clear spring rippled forth, and sat beside its stream and watched its flow till the sun grew high in the heaven, and they felt its shade. Then they betook them to the linden, its branches offered them a welcome shelter, the breezes were sweet and soft beneath its shade, and the couch at its feet was decked with the fairest grass and flowers.
With these lovers, love of Nature is only second to love of each other. So in the following:
That same morning had Tristan and his lady-love stolen forth hand in hand and come full early, through the morning dew, to the flowery meadow and the lovely vale. Dove and nightingale saluted them sweetly, greeting their friends Tristan and Iseult. The wild wood birds bade them welcome in their own tongue ... it was as if they had conspired among themselves to give the lovers a morning greeting. They sang from the leafy branches in changeful wise, answering each other in song and refrain. The spring that charmed their eye and ear whispered a welcome, even as did the linden with its rustling leaves. The blossoming trees, the fair meadow, the flowers, and the green grass--all that bloomed laughed at their coming; the dew which cooled their feet and refreshed their heart offered a silent greeting.
That same morning had Tristan and his lady-love stolen forth hand in hand and come full early, through the morning dew, to the flowery meadow and the lovely vale. Dove and nightingale saluted them sweetly, greeting their friends Tristan and Iseult. The wild wood birds bade them welcome in their own tongue ... it was as if they had conspired among themselves to give the lovers a morning greeting. They sang from the leafy branches in changeful wise, answering each other in song and refrain. The spring that charmed their eye and ear whispered a welcome, even as did the linden with its rustling leaves. The blossoming trees, the fair meadow, the flowers, and the green grass--all that bloomed laughed at their coming; the dew which cooled their feet and refreshed their heart offered a silent greeting.
The amorous passion was the soil in which, in its early narrow stages, sympathy for Nature grew up. Was it the thirteenth-century lyrics, the love-songs of the Minnesingers, which unfolded the germ? For thelyric is the form in which the deepest expression can be given to feeling for Nature, and in which she either appears as background, frame, or ornament, or, by borrowing a soul or symbolizing thought and feeling, blends with the inner life.
As the German court epics took their material from France, so the German love-songs were inspired by the Provençal troubadours. The national differences stand out clear to view: the vivid glowing Provençal is fresher, more vehement, and mettlesome; the dreamy German more monotonous, tame, and melancholy. The one is given to proud daring, wooing, battle, and the triumph of victory; the other to musing, loving, and brooding enthusiasm. The stamp of the occasional, of improvisation, is upon all Provençal work; while with the German Minnesingers, everything--Nature as well as love--tends to be stereotyped, monotonous.
The scanty remains of Troubadour songs[7]often shew mind and Nature very strikingly brought together, either in harmony or contrast. For example, Bernard von Ventadour (1195):
It may annoy others to see the foliage fall from the trees, but it pleases me greatly; one cannot fancy I should long for leaves and flowers when she, my dear one, is haughty to me.Cold and snow become flowers and greenery under her charming glance.As I slumber at night, I am waked by the sweet song of the nightingale; nothing but love in my mind quite thrilled by shudders of delight.God! could I be a swallow and sweep through the air, I would go at midnight to her little chamber.
It may annoy others to see the foliage fall from the trees, but it pleases me greatly; one cannot fancy I should long for leaves and flowers when she, my dear one, is haughty to me.
Cold and snow become flowers and greenery under her charming glance.
As I slumber at night, I am waked by the sweet song of the nightingale; nothing but love in my mind quite thrilled by shudders of delight.
God! could I be a swallow and sweep through the air, I would go at midnight to her little chamber.
When I behold the lark up springTo meet the bright sun joyfully,How he forgets to poise his wingIn his gay spirit's revelry.Alas! that mournful thoughts should springE'en from that happy songster's glee!Strange that such gladdening sight should bringNot joy but pining care to me.
When I behold the lark up spring
To meet the bright sun joyfully,
How he forgets to poise his wing
In his gay spirit's revelry.
Alas! that mournful thoughts should spring
E'en from that happy songster's glee!
Strange that such gladdening sight should bring
Not joy but pining care to me.
A very modern thought which calls to mind Theodore Storm's touching lines after the death of his wife:
But this I cannot endure, that the sun smiles as before, clocks strike and bells ring as in thy lifetime, and day and night still follow each other.
But this I cannot endure, that the sun smiles as before, clocks strike and bells ring as in thy lifetime, and day and night still follow each other.
He connects spring with love:
When grass grows green and fresh leaves springAnd flowers are budding on the plain,When nightingales so sweetly singAnd through the greenwood swells the strain,Then joy I in the song and in the flower,Joy in myself but in my lady more;All objects round my spirit turns to joy,But most from her my rapture rises high.
When grass grows green and fresh leaves spring
And flowers are budding on the plain,
When nightingales so sweetly sing
And through the greenwood swells the strain,
Then joy I in the song and in the flower,
Joy in myself but in my lady more;
All objects round my spirit turns to joy,
But most from her my rapture rises high.
Arnold von Mareuil (about 1200) sings in the same way:
O! how sweet the breeze of AprilBreathing soft, as May draws near,While through nights serene and gentleSongs of gladness meet the ear.Every bird his well-known languageWarbling in the morning's pride,Revelling on in joy and gladnessBy his happy partner's side....With such sounds of bliss around me,Who could wear a saddened heart?
O! how sweet the breeze of April
Breathing soft, as May draws near,
While through nights serene and gentle
Songs of gladness meet the ear.
Every bird his well-known language
Warbling in the morning's pride,
Revelling on in joy and gladness
By his happy partner's side....
With such sounds of bliss around me,
Who could wear a saddened heart?
He calls his lady-love
The fairest creature which Nature has produced here below, fairer than I can express and faker than a beautiful May day, than sunshine in March, shade in summer, than May roses, April rain, the flower of beauty, mirror of love, the key of Fame.
The fairest creature which Nature has produced here below, fairer than I can express and faker than a beautiful May day, than sunshine in March, shade in summer, than May roses, April rain, the flower of beauty, mirror of love, the key of Fame.
Bertran de Born too sings:
The beautiful spring delights me wellWhen flowers and leaves are growing,And it pleases my heart to hear the swellOf the bird's sweet chorus flowingIn the echoing wood, etc.
The beautiful spring delights me well
When flowers and leaves are growing,
And it pleases my heart to hear the swell
Of the bird's sweet chorus flowing
In the echoing wood, etc.
The Greek lyrists up to Alexandrian times contented themselves with implying indirectly that nothing delighted them so much as May and its delights; but these singers implicitly state it. The German Minnesingers too[8]are loud in praise of spring, as in that anonymous song:
I think nothing so good nor worthy of praiseAs a fair rose and my good man's love;The song of the little birds in the woods is clear to many a heart.
I think nothing so good nor worthy of praise
As a fair rose and my good man's love;
The song of the little birds in the woods is clear to many a heart.
and summer is greeted with:
The good are glad that summer comes. See what a benefit it is to many hearts.
The good are glad that summer comes. See what a benefit it is to many hearts.
The Troubadour motive is here too:
Winter and snow seem as beautiful flowers and clover to me, when I have embraced her.
Winter and snow seem as beautiful flowers and clover to me, when I have embraced her.
and Kürenberg makes a lady sing:
When I stand there alone in my shift and think of thee, noble knight, I blush like a rose on its thorn.
When I stand there alone in my shift and think of thee, noble knight, I blush like a rose on its thorn.
Delight in summer, complaint of winter--this is the fundamental chord struck again and again; there is scarcely any trace of blending the feelings of the lover with those of Nature. It is a monotonous repetition of a few themes, of flowers and little birds as messengers of love, and lady-loves who are brighter than the sun, whose presence brings spring in winter or cheers a grey and snowy day.
Deitmar von Eist greets spring with:
Ah! now the time of the little birds' singing is coming for us, the great lime is greening, the long winter is past, one sees well-shaped flowers spread their glory over the heath. 'Tis a joy to many hearts, and a comfort too to mine.
Ah! now the time of the little birds' singing is coming for us, the great lime is greening, the long winter is past, one sees well-shaped flowers spread their glory over the heath. 'Tis a joy to many hearts, and a comfort too to mine.
In another song the birds and roses remind him of a happy past and of the lady of his heart.
A little bird sang on the lime o'erhead,Its song resounded through the woodAnd turned my heart back to another place;And once again I saw the roses blow,And they brought back the many thoughtsI cherish of a lady.
A little bird sang on the lime o'erhead,
Its song resounded through the wood
And turned my heart back to another place;
And once again I saw the roses blow,
And they brought back the many thoughts
I cherish of a lady.
A lady says to a falcon:
You happy falcon you! You fly whither you will!And choose the tree you like in the wood.I have done the same. I chose a husbandFor myself, whom my eyes chose.So 'tis fitting for beautiful women.
You happy falcon you! You fly whither you will!
And choose the tree you like in the wood.
I have done the same. I chose a husband
For myself, whom my eyes chose.
So 'tis fitting for beautiful women.
In winter he complains:
Alas for summer delight! The birds' song has disappeared with the leaves of the lime. Time has changed, the nightingales are dumb. They have given up their sweet song and the wood has faded from above.
Alas for summer delight! The birds' song has disappeared with the leaves of the lime. Time has changed, the nightingales are dumb. They have given up their sweet song and the wood has faded from above.
Uhland's beautiful motive inSpring Faith, that light and hope will come back to the oppressed heart with the flowers and the green, is given, though stiffly and dimly, by Heinrich von Veldegge:
I have some delightful news; the flowers are sprouting on the heath, the birds singing in the wood. Where snow lay before, there is now green clover, bedewed in the morning. Who will may enjoy it. No one forces me to, I am not free from cares.
I have some delightful news; the flowers are sprouting on the heath, the birds singing in the wood. Where snow lay before, there is now green clover, bedewed in the morning. Who will may enjoy it. No one forces me to, I am not free from cares.
and elsewhere:
At the time when flowers and grass come to us, all that made my heart sad will be made good again.
At the time when flowers and grass come to us, all that made my heart sad will be made good again.
The loss of the beauty of summer makes him sad:
Since the bright sunlight has changed to cold, and the little birds have left off singing their song, and cold nights have faded the foliage of the lime, my heart is sad.
Since the bright sunlight has changed to cold, and the little birds have left off singing their song, and cold nights have faded the foliage of the lime, my heart is sad.
Ulrich von Guotenberg makes a pretty comparison:
She is my summer joy, she sows flowers and cloverIn my heart's meadow, whence I, whate'er befall,Must teem with richer bliss: the light of her eyesMakes me bloom, as the hot sun the dripping trees....Her fair salute, her mild commandSoftly inclining, make May rain drop down into my heart.
She is my summer joy, she sows flowers and clover
In my heart's meadow, whence I, whate'er befall,
Must teem with richer bliss: the light of her eyes
Makes me bloom, as the hot sun the dripping trees....
Her fair salute, her mild command
Softly inclining, make May rain drop down into my heart.
Heinrich von Rugge laments winter:
The dear nightingale too has forgotten how beautifully she sang ... the birds are mourning everywhere.
The dear nightingale too has forgotten how beautifully she sang ... the birds are mourning everywhere.
and longs for summer:
I always craved blissful days.... I liked to hear the little birds' delightful songs. Winter cannot but be hard and immeasurably long. I should be glad if it would pass away.
I always craved blissful days.... I liked to hear the little birds' delightful songs. Winter cannot but be hard and immeasurably long. I should be glad if it would pass away.
Heinrich von Morungen:
How did you get into my heart?It must ever be the same with me.As the noon receives her light from the sun,So the glance of your bright eyes, when you leave me,Sinks into my heart.
How did you get into my heart?
It must ever be the same with me.
As the noon receives her light from the sun,
So the glance of your bright eyes, when you leave me,
Sinks into my heart.
He calls his love his light of May, his Easter Day:
She is my sweetheart, a sweet MayBringing delights, a sunshine without cloud.
She is my sweetheart, a sweet May
Bringing delights, a sunshine without cloud.
and says, in promising fidelity: 'My steady mind is not like the wind.'
Reinmar says:
When winter is overI saw the heath with the red flowers, delightful there....The long winter is past away; when I saw the green leavesI gave up much of my sorrow.
When winter is over
I saw the heath with the red flowers, delightful there....
The long winter is past away; when I saw the green leaves
I gave up much of my sorrow.
In a time of trouble he cried:
To me it must always be winter.
To me it must always be winter.
So we see that Troubadour references to Nature were drawn from a very limited area. Individual grasp of scenery was entirely lacking, it did not occur to them to seek Nature for her own sake. Their comparisons were monotonous, and their scenes bare, stereotyped arabesques, not woven into the tissue of lyric feeling. Their ruling motives were joy in spring and complaint of winter. Wood, flowers, clover, the bright sun, the moon (once), roses, lilies, and woodland birds, especially the nightingale, served them as elementary or landscape figures.
Wilhelm Grimm says:
The Minnesingers talk often enough of mild May, the nightingale's song, the dew shining on the flowers of the heath, but always in relation only to their own feelings reflected in them. To indicate sad moods they used faded leaves, silent birds, seed buried in snow.
The Minnesingers talk often enough of mild May, the nightingale's song, the dew shining on the flowers of the heath, but always in relation only to their own feelings reflected in them. To indicate sad moods they used faded leaves, silent birds, seed buried in snow.
and Humboldt:
The question, whether contact with Southern Italy, or the Crusades in Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, have enriched the art of poetry in Germany with new natural pictures, can only generally be answered by the negative. It is not remarked that the acquaintance with the East gave any new direction to the songs of the minstrels. The Crusaders came little into actual contact with the Saracens; they even lived in a state of great restraint with other nations who fought in the same cause. One of the oldest lyric poets was Friedrich of Hausen. He perished in the army of Barbarossa. His songs contain many views of the Crusades; but they chiefly express religious sentiments on the pain of being separated from his dear friends. He found no occasion to say anything concerning the country or any of those who took part in the wars, as Reinmar the Elder, Rubin, Neidhart, and Ulrich of Lichtenstein. Reinmar came a pilgrim to Syria, as it appears, in the train of Leopold the 6th, Duke of Austria. He complains that the recollections of his country always haunted him, and drew away his thoughts from God. The date tree has here been mentioned sometimes, when they speak of the palm branches which piouspilgrims bore upon their shoulders. I do not remember that the splendid scenery in Italy has excited the fancy of the minstrels who crossed the Alps. Walther, who had wandered about, had only seen the river Po; but Friedank was at Rome. He merely remarked that grass grew in the palaces of those who formerly bore sway there.
The question, whether contact with Southern Italy, or the Crusades in Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, have enriched the art of poetry in Germany with new natural pictures, can only generally be answered by the negative. It is not remarked that the acquaintance with the East gave any new direction to the songs of the minstrels. The Crusaders came little into actual contact with the Saracens; they even lived in a state of great restraint with other nations who fought in the same cause. One of the oldest lyric poets was Friedrich of Hausen. He perished in the army of Barbarossa. His songs contain many views of the Crusades; but they chiefly express religious sentiments on the pain of being separated from his dear friends. He found no occasion to say anything concerning the country or any of those who took part in the wars, as Reinmar the Elder, Rubin, Neidhart, and Ulrich of Lichtenstein. Reinmar came a pilgrim to Syria, as it appears, in the train of Leopold the 6th, Duke of Austria. He complains that the recollections of his country always haunted him, and drew away his thoughts from God. The date tree has here been mentioned sometimes, when they speak of the palm branches which piouspilgrims bore upon their shoulders. I do not remember that the splendid scenery in Italy has excited the fancy of the minstrels who crossed the Alps. Walther, who had wandered about, had only seen the river Po; but Friedank was at Rome. He merely remarked that grass grew in the palaces of those who formerly bore sway there.
As a fact, even the greatest Minnesinger, Walther, the master lyrist of the thirteenth century, was not ahead of his contemporaries in this matter. HisSpring Longingbegins:
Winter has wrought us harm everywhere,Forest and field are dreary and bareWhere the sweet voices of summer once were,Yet by the road where I see maiden fairTossing the ball, the birds' song is there.
Winter has wrought us harm everywhere,
Forest and field are dreary and bare
Where the sweet voices of summer once were,
Yet by the road where I see maiden fair
Tossing the ball, the birds' song is there.
andSpring and Women:
When flowers through the grass begin to springAs though to greet with smiles the sun's bright rays,On some May morning, and in joyous measure,Small songbirds make the dewy forest ringWith a sweet chorus of sweet roundelays,Hath life in all its store a purer pleasure?'Tis half a Paradise on earth.Yet ask me what I hold of equal worth,And I will tell what better stillOfttimes before hath pleased mine eyes,And, while I see it, ever will.When a noble maiden, fair and pure,With raiment rich and tresses deftly braided,Mingles, for pleasure's sake, in company,High bred, with eyes that, laughingly demure,Glance round at times and make all else seem faded,As, when the sun shines, all the stars must die.Let May bud forth in all its splendour;What sight so sweet can he engenderAs with this picture to compare?Unheeded leave we buds and blooms,And gaze upon the lovely fair!
When flowers through the grass begin to spring
As though to greet with smiles the sun's bright rays,
On some May morning, and in joyous measure,
Small songbirds make the dewy forest ring
With a sweet chorus of sweet roundelays,
Hath life in all its store a purer pleasure?
'Tis half a Paradise on earth.
Yet ask me what I hold of equal worth,
And I will tell what better still
Ofttimes before hath pleased mine eyes,
And, while I see it, ever will.
When a noble maiden, fair and pure,
With raiment rich and tresses deftly braided,
Mingles, for pleasure's sake, in company,
High bred, with eyes that, laughingly demure,
Glance round at times and make all else seem faded,
As, when the sun shines, all the stars must die.
Let May bud forth in all its splendour;
What sight so sweet can he engender
As with this picture to compare?
Unheeded leave we buds and blooms,
And gaze upon the lovely fair!
The grace in this rendering of a familiar motive, and the individuality in the followingComplaint of Winter, were both unusual at the time:
Erewhile the world shone red and blueAnd green in wood and upland too,And birdlets sang on the bough.But now it's grown grey and lost its glow,And there's only the croak of the winter crow,Whence--many a ruffled brow!
Erewhile the world shone red and blue
And green in wood and upland too,
And birdlets sang on the bough.
But now it's grown grey and lost its glow,
And there's only the croak of the winter crow,
Whence--many a ruffled brow!
Elsewhere he says that his lady's favour turns his winter to spring, and adds:
Cold winter 'twas no more for me,Though others felt it bitterly;To me it was mid May.
Cold winter 'twas no more for me,
Though others felt it bitterly;
To me it was mid May.
He has many pictures of Nature and pretty comparisons, but the stereotyped style predominates--heath, flowers, grass, and nightingales. The pearl of the collection is the naive song which touches sensuous feeling, like theSong of Solomon, with the magic light of innocence:
Under the lime on the heath where I sat with my love,There you would findThe grass and the flowers all crushed--Sweetly the nightingale sang in the vale by the wood.Tandaradei!When I came up to the meadow my lover was waiting me there.Ah! what a greeting I had! Gracious Mary, 'tis bliss to me still!Tandaradei! Did he kiss me, you ask? Look at the red of my lips!Of sweet flowers of all sorts he made us a bed,I wager who passes now smiles at the sight,The roses would still show just where my head lay.Tandaradei!But how he caressed me, that any but oneShould know that, God forbid! I were shamed if they did;Only he and I know it,And one little birdie who never will tell.
Under the lime on the heath where I sat with my love,
There you would find
The grass and the flowers all crushed--
Sweetly the nightingale sang in the vale by the wood.
Tandaradei!
When I came up to the meadow my lover was waiting me there.
Ah! what a greeting I had! Gracious Mary, 'tis bliss to me still!
Tandaradei! Did he kiss me, you ask? Look at the red of my lips!
Of sweet flowers of all sorts he made us a bed,
I wager who passes now smiles at the sight,
The roses would still show just where my head lay.
Tandaradei!
But how he caressed me, that any but one
Should know that, God forbid! I were shamed if they did;
Only he and I know it,
And one little birdie who never will tell.
So we see that interest in Nature in the literature of the Crusaders very seldom went beyond the utilitarian bounds of pleasure and admiration in fertility and pleasantness; and the Germannational epics rarely alluded to her traits even by way of comparison. The court epics shewed some advance, and sympathy was distinctly traceable in Gottfried, and even attained to artistic expression in his lyrics, where his own feelings chimed with Nature.
For the rest, the Minnesingers' descriptions were all alike. The charm of Nature apart from other considerations, delight in her for her own sake alone, was unknown to the time.
Hitherto we have only spoken of literature.
Feeling for Nature reveals itself in plastic art also, especially in painting; and since the mind of a people is one united organism, the relation between poetry and painting is not one of opposition and mutual exclusion--they rather enlarge and explain, or condition each other.
As concerns feeling for Nature, it may be taken as a universal rule that landscape-painting only develops when Nature is sought for her own sake, and that so long as scenery merely serves the purpose of ornament in literature, so long it merely serves as accessory and background in painting; whereas, when Nature takes a wider space in prose and poetry, and becomes an end of representation in herself, the moment for the birth of landscape-painting has come. We will follow the stages of the development of painting very briefly, from Woltmann and Woermann's excellent book,[9]which, if it throws no fresh light upon our subject, illustrates what has just been said in a striking manner.
In the first centuriesAnno Domini, painting was wholly proscribed by Christendom. Its technique did not differ from that of antiquity; but Christendom took up an attitude of antagonism. The picture worship of the old religions was opposed to its very origin and essence, and was only gradually introduced into the Christian cult through heathen influences. It is a fact too, easy to explain, especiallythrough its Jewish origin, that Christianity at first felt no need of art, and that this one-sidedness only ceased when the specifically Jewish element in it had died out, and Christendom passed to cultivated Greeks and Romans. In the cemeteries and catacombs of the first three centuries, we find purely decorative work, light vines with Cupids, but also remains of landscapes; for instance, in the oldest part of the cemetery of Domitilla at Rome, where the ceiling decoration consists of shepherds, fishers, and biblical scenes. The ceiling picture in St Lucina (second century) has apparently the Good Shepherd in the middle, and round it alternate pictures of Him and of the praying Madonna; whilst in the middle it has also charming divisions with fields, branches with leaves and flowers, birds, masks, and floating genii.
In Byzantine painting too, the influence of antiquity was still visible, especially in a Psaltery with a Commentary and fourteen large pictures. David appears here as a shepherd; a beautiful woman's form, exhibiting the melody, is leaning with her left arm upon his shoulder; a nymph's head peeps out of the foliage; and in front we have Bethlehem, and the mountain god resting in a bold position under a rock; sheep, goats, and water are close by, and a landscape with classic buildings, streams, and mountains forms the background; it is very poetically conceived. Elsewhere, too, personifications recur, in which classic beauty is still visible, mixed with severe Christian forms.
At the end of the tenth century began the Romantic period, which closed in the thirteenth.
The brilliant progress made by architecture paved the way for the other arts; minds trained in its laws began to look for law in organic Nature too, and were no longer content with the old uncertain and arbitrary shapes. But as no independent feeling for Nature, in the widest sense of the term, existed,mediæval art treated her, not according to her own laws, but to those of architecture. With the development of the Gothic style, from the thirteenth century on, art became a citizen's craft, a branch of industry. Heretofore it had possessed but one means of expression--religious festival or ceremony, severely ecclesiastical. This limit was now removed. The artist lived a wide life, open to impressions from Nature, his imagination fed by poetry with new ideas and feelings, and constantly stimulated by the love of pleasure, which was so vehement among all classes that it turned every civil and ecclesiastical event to histrionic purposes, and even made its influence felt upon the clergy. The strong religious feeling which pervaded the Middle Ages still ruled, and even rose to greater enthusiasm, in accordance with the spirit of the day; but it was no longer a matter of blind submission of the will, but of conscious acceptance.
It is true that knowledge of the external world was as yet very limited; the painter had not explored and mastered it, but only used it as a means to represent a certain realm of feeling, studying it just so far as this demanded. We have seen the same in the case of poetry. The beginnings of realistic painting were visible, although, as, for example, in representing animals, no individuality was reached.
From the middle of the fourteenth century a new French school sprang up. The external world was more keenly and accurately studied, especially on its graceful side. It was only at the end of that period that painting felt the need to develop the background, and indicate actual surroundings by blue sky, hills, Gothic buildings, and conventional trees. These were given in linear perspective; of aerial perspective there was none. The earlier taste still ruled in initialling and border decorations; but little flowers were added by degrees to the thorn-leaf pattern, and birds, sometimes angels, introduced.
The altar-piece at Cologne, at the end of the fourteenth century, is more subjective in conception, and full of lyric feeling. Poetic feeling came into favour, especially in Madonna pictures of purely idyllic character, which were painted with most charming surroundings. Instead of a throne and worshipping figures, Mary was placed sitting comfortably with the Child on flowery turf, and saints around her; and although the background might be golden instead of landscape, yet all the stems and blossoms in the grass were naturally and accurately treated. In a little picture in the town museum at Frankfort, the Madonna is seated in a rose garden under fruit trees gay with birds, and reading a book; a table with food and drinks stands close by, and a battlemented wall surrounds the garden. She is absorbed in contemplation; three female saints are attending to mundane business close by, one drawing water from a brook, another picking cherries, the third teaching the child Christ to play the zither. There is real feeling in the whole picture, and the landscape is worked in with distinct reference to the chief idea.
Hence, although there were many isolated attempts to shew that realistic and individual study of Nature had begun, landscape-painting had not advanced beyond the position of a background, treated in a way more or less suited to the main subject of the picture; and trees, rocks, meadows, flowers, were still only framework, ornament, as in the poetry of the Minnesingers.[10]
In a certain sense all times are transitional to those who live in them, since what is old is always in process of being destroyed and giving way to the new. But there are landmarks in the general development of culture, which mark off definite periods and divide what has been from what is beginning. Hellenism was such a landmark in antiquity, the Renaissance in the Middle Ages.
Without overlooking the differences between Greek and Italian, classic and modern, which are relative and not absolute, it is instructive to note the great likeness between these two epochs. The limits of their culture will stand out more clearly, if, by the aid of Helbig's researches and Burckhardt's masterly account of the Renaissance, we range the chief points of that likeness side by side.
They were epochs in which an icy crust, which had been lying over human thought and feeling, melted as if before a spring breeze. It is true that the theory of life which now began to prevail was not absolutely new; the stages of growth in a nation's culture are never isolated; it was the result of the enlargement of various factors already present, and their fusion with a flood of incoming ones.
The Ionic-Doric Greek kingdom widened out in Alexander's time to a Hellenic-Asiatic one, and thebarriers of the Romano-Germanic Middle Ages fell with the Crusades and the great voyages of discovery. Hellenism and the Renaissance brought about the transition from antiquity and the mediæval to the specifically modern; the Roman Empire inherited Hellenism, the Reformation the Renaissance. Both had their roots in the past, both made new growth which blossomed at a later time. In Hellenism, Oriental elements were mixed with the Greek; in the Renaissance, it was a mixture of Germanic with the native Italian which caused the revival of classic antiquity and new culture. Burckhardt says[1]:
Elsewhere in Europe men deliberately and with reflection borrowed this or the other element of classical civilization; in Italy, the sympathies both of the learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as a symbol of past greatness. The Latin language too was easy to an Italian, and the numerous monuments and documents in which the country abounded facilitated a return to the past. With this tendency, other elements--the popular character which time had now greatly modified, the political institutions imported by the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and northern forms of civilization, and the influence of religion and the Church--combined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was destined to serve as the model and ideal for the whole western world.
Elsewhere in Europe men deliberately and with reflection borrowed this or the other element of classical civilization; in Italy, the sympathies both of the learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as a symbol of past greatness. The Latin language too was easy to an Italian, and the numerous monuments and documents in which the country abounded facilitated a return to the past. With this tendency, other elements--the popular character which time had now greatly modified, the political institutions imported by the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and northern forms of civilization, and the influence of religion and the Church--combined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was destined to serve as the model and ideal for the whole western world.
The distance between the works of the Greek artists and poets--between Homer, Sophocles, and Phidias on the one hand, and the Alexandrian Theocritus and Kallimachos and the Pergamos sculptures on the other--is greater than lies between theNibelungenliedand the Minnesingers, and Dante and Petrarch. In both cases one finds oneself in a new world of thought and feeling, where each and all bears the stamp of change, in matters political and social as well as artistic. If, for example, by the aid of Von Helbig's researches,[2]we conjure up apicture of the chief points in the history of Greek culture, we are astonished to see how almost every point recurred at the Renaissance, as described by Burckhardt.
The chief mark of both epochs was individualism, the discovery of the individual. In Hellenism it was the barriers of race and position which fell; in the Renaissance, the veil, woven of mysticism and delusion, which had obscured mediæval faith, thought, and feeling. Every man recognized himself to be an independent unit of church, state, people, corporation--of all those bodies in which in the Middle Ages he had been entirely merged.
Monarchical institutions arose in Hellenism; but the individual was no longer content to serve them only as one among many; he must needs develop his own powers. Private affairs began to preponderate over public; the very physiognomy of the race shewed an individual stamp.
After the time of Alexander the Great, portrait shewed most marked individuality. Those of the previous period had a certain uniform expression; one would have looked in vain among them for the diversities in contemporary types shewn by comparing Alexander's vivid face full of stormy energy, Menander's with its peculiar look of irony, and the elaborate savant-physiognomy of Aristotle. (HELBIG.)
After the time of Alexander the Great, portrait shewed most marked individuality. Those of the previous period had a certain uniform expression; one would have looked in vain among them for the diversities in contemporary types shewn by comparing Alexander's vivid face full of stormy energy, Menander's with its peculiar look of irony, and the elaborate savant-physiognomy of Aristotle. (HELBIG.)
And Burckhardt says:
At the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the charm laid upon human personality was dissolved, and a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress.... Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree the individuality, not only of the tyrant or Condottiere himself, but also of the men whom he protected or used as his tools--the secretary, minister, poet, or companion.
At the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the charm laid upon human personality was dissolved, and a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress.... Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree the individuality, not only of the tyrant or Condottiere himself, but also of the men whom he protected or used as his tools--the secretary, minister, poet, or companion.
Political indifference brought about a high degree of cosmopolitanism, especially among those whowere banished. 'My country is the whole world,' said Dante; and Ghiberti: 'Only he who has learned everything is nowhere a stranger; robbed of his fortune and without friends, he is yet a citizen of every country, and can fearlessly despise the changes of fortune.'
In both Hellenism and the Renaissance, an effort was made in art and science to see things as they really were. In art, detail was industriously cultivated; but its naturalism, especially as to undraped figures, was due to a sensuous refinement of gallantry and erotic feeling. The sensuous flourished no less in Greek times than in those of Boccaccio; but the most characteristic peculiarity of Hellenism was its intentional revelling in feeling--its sentimentality. There was a trace of melancholy upon many faces of the time, and unhappy love in endless variations was the poet's main theme. Petrarch's lyre was tuned to the same key; a melancholy delight in grief was the constant burden of his song.
In Greece the sight of foreign lands had furthered the natural sciences, especially geography, astronomy, zoology, and botany; and the striving for universality at the Renaissance, which was as much a part of its individualism as its passion for fame, was aided by the widening of the physical and mental horizons through the Crusades and voyages of discovery. Dante was not only the greatest poet of his time, but an astronomer; Petrarch was geographer and cartographer, and, at the end of the fifteenth century, with Paolo Toscanelli, Lucca Baccioli, and Leonardo da Vinci, Italy was beyond all comparison the first nation in Europe in mathematics and natural science.
A significant proof of the wide-spread interest in natural history is found in the zeal which shewed itself at an early period for the collection and comparative study of plants and animals. Italy claimsto be the first creator of botanical gardens.... princes and wealthy men, in laying out their pleasure gardens, instinctively made a point of collecting the greatest possible number of different plants in all their species and varieties. (BURCKHARDT.)
A significant proof of the wide-spread interest in natural history is found in the zeal which shewed itself at an early period for the collection and comparative study of plants and animals. Italy claimsto be the first creator of botanical gardens.... princes and wealthy men, in laying out their pleasure gardens, instinctively made a point of collecting the greatest possible number of different plants in all their species and varieties. (BURCKHARDT.)
Leon Battista Alberti, a man of wide theoretical knowledge as well as technical and artistic facility of all sorts, entered into the whole life around him with a sympathetic intensity that might almost be called nervous.
At the sight of noble trees and waving corn-fields he shed tears ... more than once, when he was ill, the sight of a beautiful landscape cured him. (BURCKHARDT.)
At the sight of noble trees and waving corn-fields he shed tears ... more than once, when he was ill, the sight of a beautiful landscape cured him. (BURCKHARDT.)
He defined a beautiful landscape as one in which one could see in its different parts, sea, mountain, lake or spring, dry rocks or plains, wood and valley. Therefore he cared for variety; and, what is more striking, in contrast to level country, he admired mountains and rocks!
In Hellenism, hunting, to which only the Macedonians had been addicted before, became a fashion, and was enjoyed with Oriental pomp in theparadeisoi. Writers drew most of their comparisons from it. In the Renaissance, Petrarch did the same, and animals often served as emblems of state--their condition ominous of good or evil--and were fostered with superstitious veneration, as, for example, the lions at Florence.
Thus the growth of the natural sciences increased interest in the external world, and sensitiveness brought about a sentimental attitude towards Nature in Hellenism and in the Renaissance.
Both discovered in Nature a source of purest pleasure; the Renaissance feeling was, in fact, the extension and enhancement of the Hellenic. Burckhardt overlooked the fact that beautiful scenery was appreciated and described for its own sake in Hellenism, but he says very justly;
The Italians are the first among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful.... By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of Nature--spring with its flowers, the green fields and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground without perspective.
The Italians are the first among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful.... By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of Nature--spring with its flowers, the green fields and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground without perspective.
Among the Minnesingers there were traces of feeling for Nature; but only for certain stereotyped phases. Of the individuality of a landscape, its characteristic colour, form, and light, not a word was said.
Even the Carmina Burana were not much ahead of the Minnesingers in this respect, although they deserve a closer examination.
These Latin poems of wandering clerks probably belong to the twelfth century, and though no doubt a product in which the whole of Europe had a share, their best pieces must be ascribed to a French hand. Latin poetry lives again in them, with a freshness the Carlovingian Renaissance never reached; they are mediæval in form, but full of a frank enjoyment of life and its pleasures, which hardly any northerner of that day possessed. Often enough this degenerated into frivolity; but the stir of national awakening after the long sleep of the Middle Ages is felt like a spring breeze through them all.
It is a far cry from the view of Nature we saw in the Carlovingian monks, to these highly-coloured verses. The dim light of churches and bare cell walls may have doubled the monks' appreciation of blue skies and open-air life; but they were fettered by the constant fight with the senses; Nature to them must needs be less a work of God for man's delight, than a dangerous means of seduction. 'They wandered through Nature with timid misgiving, and their anxious fantasy depictedforms of terror or marvellous rescues.[3]The idyllic pleasure in the simple charms of Nature, especially in the monastery garden of the Carlovingian time, contrasts strikingly with the tone of these very mundanevagantes clerici, for whom Nature had not only long been absorbed and freed from all demoniac influence, but peopled by the charming forms of the old mythic poems, and made for the joy and profit of men, in the widest and naivest sense of the words.
Spring songs, as with the Minnesingers, take up most of the space; but the theme is treated with greater variety. Enjoyment of life and Nature breathes through them all.
One runs thus:
Spring cometh, and the earth is decked and studded with vernal flowers. The harmony of the birds' returning song rouses the heart to be glad. It is the time of joy.
Spring cometh, and the earth is decked and studded with vernal flowers. The harmony of the birds' returning song rouses the heart to be glad. It is the time of joy.
Songs 98 to 118 rejoice that winter is gone; for instance:
Now in the mild springtime Flora opens the lap which the cold frost had locked in cruel time of winter; the zephyr with gentle murmur cometh with the spring; the grove is clad in leaves. The nightingale is singing, the fields are gay with divers hues. It is sweet to walk in the wooded glens, it is sweeter to pluck the lily with the rose, it is sweetest of all to sport with a lovely maiden.
Now in the mild springtime Flora opens the lap which the cold frost had locked in cruel time of winter; the zephyr with gentle murmur cometh with the spring; the grove is clad in leaves. The nightingale is singing, the fields are gay with divers hues. It is sweet to walk in the wooded glens, it is sweeter to pluck the lily with the rose, it is sweetest of all to sport with a lovely maiden.
Another makes a similar confession, for Nature and amorous passion are the two strings of these lyres:
Beneath the pleasant foliage of a tree 'tis sweet to rest, while the nightingale sings her plaintive song; sweeter still, to sport in the grass with a fair maiden.... O, to what changeful moods is the heart of the lover prone! As the vessel that wanders o'er the waves without an anchor, so doth Love's uncertain warfare toss 'twixt fear and hope.
Beneath the pleasant foliage of a tree 'tis sweet to rest, while the nightingale sings her plaintive song; sweeter still, to sport in the grass with a fair maiden.... O, to what changeful moods is the heart of the lover prone! As the vessel that wanders o'er the waves without an anchor, so doth Love's uncertain warfare toss 'twixt fear and hope.
The beauties of Nature are drawn upon to describe the fair maiden; her eyes are compared to stars, her colour to lilies and snow, her mouth to a rose, her kiss 'doth rend in sunder all the clouds of care.'
In the flowery season I sat beneath a shady tree while the birds sang in the groves ... and listened to my Thisbe's talk, the talk I love and long for; and we spoke of the sweet interchange of love, and in the doubtful balance of the mind wanton love and chastity were wavering.I have seen the bright green of flowers, I have seen the flower of flowers, I have seen the rose of May; I have seen the star that is brighter than all other, that is glorious and fair above all other, through whom may I ever spend my life in love.
In the flowery season I sat beneath a shady tree while the birds sang in the groves ... and listened to my Thisbe's talk, the talk I love and long for; and we spoke of the sweet interchange of love, and in the doubtful balance of the mind wanton love and chastity were wavering.
I have seen the bright green of flowers, I have seen the flower of flowers, I have seen the rose of May; I have seen the star that is brighter than all other, that is glorious and fair above all other, through whom may I ever spend my life in love.
On such a theme the poet rings endless changes. The most charming is the poemPhyllis and Flora. Actual landscape is not given, but details are treated with freshness and care:
In the flowery season of the year, under a sky serene, while the earth's lap was painted with many colours, when the messenger of Aurora had put to flight the stars, sleep left the eyes of Phyllis and of Flora, two maidens whose beauty answered to the morning light. The breeze of spring was gently whispering, the place was green and gay with grass, and in the grass itself there flowed a living brook that played and babbled as it went. And that the sun's heat might not harm the maidens, near the stream there was a spreading pine, decked with leaves and spreading far its interweaving branches, nor could the heat penetrate from without. The maidens sat, the grass supplied the seat.... They intend to go to Love's Paradise: at the entrance of the grove a rivulet murmurs; the breeze is fragrant with myrrh and balsam; they hear the music of a hundred timbrels and lutes. All the notes of the birds resound in all their fulness; they hear the sweet and pleasant song of the blackbird, the garrulous lark, the turtle and the nightingale, etc.... He who stayed there would become immortal; every tree there rejoices in its own fruit; the ways are scented with myrrh and cinnamon and amomum; the master could be forced out of his house.
In the flowery season of the year, under a sky serene, while the earth's lap was painted with many colours, when the messenger of Aurora had put to flight the stars, sleep left the eyes of Phyllis and of Flora, two maidens whose beauty answered to the morning light. The breeze of spring was gently whispering, the place was green and gay with grass, and in the grass itself there flowed a living brook that played and babbled as it went. And that the sun's heat might not harm the maidens, near the stream there was a spreading pine, decked with leaves and spreading far its interweaving branches, nor could the heat penetrate from without. The maidens sat, the grass supplied the seat.... They intend to go to Love's Paradise: at the entrance of the grove a rivulet murmurs; the breeze is fragrant with myrrh and balsam; they hear the music of a hundred timbrels and lutes. All the notes of the birds resound in all their fulness; they hear the sweet and pleasant song of the blackbird, the garrulous lark, the turtle and the nightingale, etc.... He who stayed there would become immortal; every tree there rejoices in its own fruit; the ways are scented with myrrh and cinnamon and amomum; the master could be forced out of his house.
The first to shew proof of a deepening effect of Nature on the human spirit was Dante.
Dante and Petrarch elaborated the Hellenistic feeling for Nature; hence the further course of the Renaissance displayed all its elements, but with increased subjectivity and individuality.
No one, since the days of Hellenism, had climbed mountains for the sake of the view--Dante was the first to do it. And although, in ranging heaven, earth, hell, and paradise in theDivina Commedia, he rarely described real Nature, and then mostly in comparisons; yet, as Humboldt pointed out, how incomparably in a few vigorous lines he wakens the sense of the morning airs and the light on the distant sea in the first canto of Purgatorio: