Browse Exhibits (3 total)
Introduction: the Rediscovery of the Byzantine and Medieval "Minor Arts"
In 18th-century Europe, many antiquarians, collectors, and scholars held negative attitudes towards post-classical art, influenced by Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s monumental Geschichte des Kunst des Altertums (1764), which placed classical Greek art at the pinnacle of great art, and Edward Gibbon’s successful The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1789), which blamed Christianity for the fall of the Roman empire. As western European travelers, diplomats, and soldiers began to explore the eastern Mediterranean in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, many published travelogues that criticized the Byzantine wall paintings and monuments which they encountered. Only a few scholars (such as Bernard de Montfaucon) and major collectors (including the royal families of France and Russia) showed great passion for Byzantine and medieval art and antiquities.
In sharp contrast to the 18th century, the 19th century saw significantly more interest in early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art. A number of factors contributed to this, including increased opportunities to travel to the eastern Mediterranean. Nationalism also played a large role; in post-revolutionary France, for example, popular culture romanticized medieval Crusaders, while, in newly independent Greece, Bulgaria, and imperial Russia, some scholars and influential people sought to promote Byzantine and Slavic heritage. As interest in the past grew, architects, artists, and craftsmen found a market for revivalist styles (neo-classical, Byzantine Revival, Gothic Revival), both in architecture and the decorative arts.
Collectors
For a variety of personal and political reasons, a few 19th-century art collectors enthusiastically acquired manuscripts, textiles, and small objects of enamel, gold, silver, and ivory that represented the history of art from early Christianity through the Renaissance. Many of these objects had been tucked away in church, royal, or private collections, some reappearing in revolutionary France as treasuries were confiscated. The burgeoning European art market benefitted from the portability of such objects.
A number of the private collectors represented in this exhibition wished their collections to be displayed in various ways to the public. They collaborated with museum curators, art historians, illustrators, and publishers to produce beautifully illustrated catalogs not only for self-promotion but sometimes with scholarly and educational intent. Some collectors opened their homes to scholars and members of the public in order to allow them to study the objects, contributed objects to the great European exhibitions, and sought to bestow their collections on museums. Furthermore, several collectors were avid supporters of newly established schools of design. Their collecting, display, and patronage created new markets for revivalist styles in the applied arts but also markets for forgeries, of which these collectors were sometimes victims themselves. High-quality forgeries complicated and continue to complicate the study of these so-called “minor arts.”
Art Historians and Artists
Art historians
Before the 19th century, antiquarians with interests in Byzantine art focused primarily on texts associated with imperial patrons, attractive illuminated manuscripts, coins, and the opulent Byzantine-style monuments of Italy. In the 19th century, opportunities to travel and excavate in formerly Byzantine lands led to studies of architecture, mosaics, and wall paintings based on in situ monuments. At the same time, scholarship on the Byzantine “minor arts” emerged from the compilation of research and materials for the catalogs of private collections. Many of the men who are now known as the leading Byzantine art historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries owe their reputations in part to the collection catalogs which they helped to create: O.M. Dalton, Jules Labarte, N.P. Kondakov, William Milliken, Emile Molinier, and Wolfgang Volbach to name a few.
Artists
The availability of Early Christian, Byzantine and medieval antiquities not only energized the European antiquities market but also impacted nineteenth-century arts themselves. Many artists and connoisseurs felt anxious about the manufacture of objects by modern industrial methods, especially in comparison to the delicate craftsmanship of artists of the past. This anxiety fuelled the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Design Reform Movement. The market for antiquities generated markets for “knock-offs” and revivalist styles.
Within this milieu, art societies, academies for training young artists, and museums with the expressed mission to promote the decorative arts blossomed throughout Europe. A combined focus on historic and contemporary design is still evident in museums such as the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Museum of Manufactures (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London (founded 1852), and the Kunst-und-Industriemuseum in Vienna (now Museum für angewandte Kunst founded 1864). The Expositions Universelles in Paris, the Great Exhibitions in London, and similar exhibitions in other major cities showcased contemporary designs alongside antiquities from around the world as well.
The hungry market for replicas and objects that imitated minor arts of the past helped to make the fortunes and fame of master artists such as Murano, Fabergé and the Castellani brothers. These artisans are credited with rediscovering forgotten techniques for elaborate metalwork, enamels, and micromosaics. Their designs drew inspiration from the antiquities being uncovered in new excavations.