CHAPTER XVII

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DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--EARLY TYPES OF THE DIABOLICAL FORMS.--ST. ANTHONY.--ST. GUTHLAC.--REVIVAL OF THE TASTE FOR SUCH SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--THE FLEMISH SCHOOL OF BREUGHEL.--THE FRENCH AND ITALIAN SCHOOLS, CALLOT, SALVATOR ROSA.

We have seen how the popular demonology furnished materials for the earliest exercise of comic art in the middle ages, and how the taste for this particular class of grotesque lasted until the close of the mediæval period. After the "renaissance" of art and literature, this taste took a still more remarkable form, and the school of grotesque _diablerie_ which flourished during the sixteenth century, and the first half of the seventeenth, justly claims a chapter to itself.

The birthplace of this demonology, as far as it belongs to Christianity, must probably be sought in the deserts of Egypt. It spread thence over the east and the west, and when it reached our part of the world, it grafted itself, as I have remarked in a former chapter, on the existing popular superstitions of Teutonic paganism. The playfully burlesque, which held so great a place in these superstitions, no doubt gave a more comic character to this Christian demonology than it had possessed before the mixture. Its primitive representative was the Egyptian monk, St. Anthony, who is said to have been born at a village called Coma, in Upper Egypt, in the year 251. His history was written in Greek by St. Athanasius, and was translated into Latin by the ecclesiastical historian Evagrius. Anthony was evidently a fanatical visionary, subject to mental illusions, which were fostered by his education. To escape from the temptations of the world, he sold all his property, which was considerable, gave it to the poor, and then retired into the desert of the Thebaid, to live a life of the strictest asceticism. The evil one persecuted him in his solitude, and sought to drive him back into the corruptions of worldly life. He first tried to fill his mind with regretful reminiscences of his former wealth, position in society, and enjoyments; when this failed, he disturbed his mind with voluptuous images and desires, which the saint resisted with equal success. The persecutor now changed his tactics, and presenting himself to Anthony in the form of a black and ugly youth, confessed to him, with apparent candour, that he was the spirit of uncleanness, and acknowledged that he had been vanquished by the extraordinary merits of Anthony's sanctity. The saint, however, saw that this was only a stratagem to stir up in him the spirit of pride and self-confidence, and he met it by subjecting himself to greater mortifications than ever, which of course made him still more liable to these delusions. Now he sought greater solitude by taking up his residence in a ruined Egyptian sepulchre, but the farther he withdrew from the world, the more he became the object of diabolical persecution. Satan broke in upon his privacy with a host of attendants, and during the night beat him to such a degree, that one morning the attendant who brought him food found him lying senseless in his cell, and had him carried to the town, where his friends were on the point of burying him, believing him to be dead, when he suddenly revived, and insisted on being taken back to his solitary dwelling. The legend tells us that the demons appeared to him in the forms of the most ferocious animals, such as lions, bulls, wolves, asps, serpents, scorpions, panthers, and bears, each attacking him in the manner peculiar to its species, and with its peculiar voice, thus making together a horrible din. Anthony left his tomb to retire farther into the desert, where he made a ruined castle his residence; and here he was again frightfully persecuted by the demons, and the noise they made was so great and horrible that it was often heard at a vast distance. According to the narrative, Anthony reproached the demons in very abusive language, called them hard names, and even spat in their faces; but his most effective weapon was always the cross. Thus the saint became bolder, and sought a still more lonely abode, and finally established himself on the top of a high mountain in the upper Thebaid. The demons still continued to persecute him, under a great variety of forms; on one occasion their chief appeared to him under the form of a man, with the lower members of an ass.

The demons which tormented St. Anthony became the general type for subsequent creations, in which these first pictures were gradually, and in the sequel, greatly improved upon. St. Anthony's persecutors usually assumed the shapes of _bonâ fide_ animals, but those of later stories took monstrous and grotesque forms, strange mixtures of the parts of different animals, and of others which never existed. Such were seen by St. Guthlac, the St. Anthony of the Anglo-Saxons, among the wild morasses of Croyland. One night, which he was passing at his devotions in his cell, they poured in upon him in great numbers; "and they filled all the house with their coming, and they poured in on every side, from above and from beneath, and everywhere. They were in countenance horrible, and they had great heads, and a long neck, and lean visage; they were filthy and squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears, and distorted face, and fierce eyes, and foul mouths; and their teeth were like horses' tusks, and their throats were filled with flame, and they were grating in their voice; they had crooked shanks, and knees big and great behind, and distorted toes, and shrieked hoarsely with their voices; and they came with such immoderate noises and immense horror, that it seemed to him that all between heaven and earth resounded with their dreadful cries." On another similar occasion, "it happened one night, when the holy man Guthlac fell to his prayers, he heard the howling of cattle and various wild beasts. Not long after he saw the appearance of animals and wild beasts and creeping things coming in to him. First he saw the visage of a lion that threatened him with his bloody tusks, also the likeness of a bull, and the visage of a bear, as when they are enraged. Also he perceived the appearance of vipers, and a hog's grunting, and the howling of wolves, and croaking of ravens, and the various whistlings of birds, that they might, with their fantastic appearance, divert the mind of the holy man."

Such were the suggestions on which the mediæval sculptors and illuminators worked with so much effect, as we have seen repeatedly in the course of our preceding chapters. After the revival of art in western Europe in the fifteenth century, this class of legends became great favourites with painters and engravers, and soon gave rise to the peculiar school of _diablerie_ mentioned above. At that time the story of the Temptation of St. Anthony attracted particular attention, and it is the subject of many remarkable prints belonging to the earlier ages of the art of engraving. It employed the pencils of such artists as Martin Schongauer, Israel van Mechen, and Lucas Cranach. Of the latter we have two different engravings on the same subject--St. Anthony carried into the air by the demons, who are represented in a great variety of grotesque and monstrous forms. The most remarkable of the two bears the date of 1506, and was, therefore, one of Cranach's earlier works. But the great representative of this earlier school of _diablerie_ was Peter Breughel, a Flemish painter who flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century. He was born at Breughel, near Breda, and lived some time at Antwerp, but afterwards established himself at Brussels. So celebrated was he for the love of the grotesque displayed in his pictures, that he was known by the name of Peter the Droll. Breughel's "Temptation of St. Anthony," like one or two others of his subjects of the same class, was engraved in a reduced form by J. T. de Bry. Breughel's demons are figures of the most fantastic description--creations of a wildly grotesque imagination; they present incongruous and laughable mixtures of parts of living things which have no relation whatever to one another. Our cut No. 155 represents a group of these grotesque demons, from a plate by Breughel, engraved in 1565, and entitled _Divus Jacobus diabolicis præstigiis ante magnum sistitur_ (St. James is arrested before the magician by diabolical delusions). The engraving is full of similarly grotesque figures. On the right is a spacious chimney, and up it witches, riding on brooms, are making their escape, while in the air are seen other witches riding away upon dragons and a goat. A kettle is boiling over the fire, around which a group of monkeys are seen sitting and warming themselves. Behind these a cat and a toad are holding a very intimate conversation. In the background stands and boils the great witches' caldron. On the right of the picture the _magus_, or magician, is seated, reading his _grimoire_; with a frame before him supporting the pot containing his magical ingredients. The saint occupies the middle of the picture, surrounded by the demons represented in our cut and by many others; and as he approaches the magician, he is seen raising his right hand in the attitude of pronouncing a benediction, the apparent consequence of which is a frightful explosion of the magician's pot, which strikes the demons with evident consternation. Nothing can be more _bizarre_ than the horse's head upon human legs in armour, the parody upon a crawling spider behind it, the skull (apparently of a horse) supported upon naked human legs, the strangely excited animal behind the latter, and the figure furnished with pilgrim's hood and staff, which appears to be mocking the saint. Another print--a companion to the foregoing--represents the still more complete discomfiture of the _magus_. The saint here occupies the right-hand side of the picture, and is raising his hand higher, with apparently a greater show of authority. The demons have all turned against their master the magician, whom they are beating and hurling headlong from his chair. They seem to be proclaiming their joy at his fall by all sorts of playful attitudes. It is a sort of demon fair. Some of them, to the left of the picture, are dancing and standing upon their heads on a tight-rope. Near them another is playing some game like that which we now call the thimble-rig. The monkeys are dancing to the tune of a great drum. A variety of their mountebank tricks are going on in different parts of the scene. Three of these playful actors are represented in our cut No. 156.

[Illustration: _No. 156. Strange Demons._]

Breughel also executed a series of similarly grotesque engravings, representing in this same fantastic manner the virtues and vices, such as Pride (_superbia_), Courage (_fortitudo_), Sloth (_desidia_), &c. These bear the date of 1558. They are crowded with figures equally grotesque with those just mentioned, but a great part of which it would be almost impossible to describe. I give two examples from the engraving of "Sloth," in the accompanying cut (No. 157).

[Illustration: _No. 155. St. James and his Persecutors._]

[Illustration: _No. 157. Imps of Sloth._]

[Illustration: _No. 158. The Folly of Hunting._]

From making up figures from parts of animals, this early school of grotesque proceeded to create animated figures out of inanimate things, such as machines, implements of various kinds, household utensils, and other such articles. A German artist, of about the same time as Breughel, has left us a singular series of etchings of this description, which are intended as an allegorical satire on the follies of mankind. The allegory is here of such a singular character, that we can only guess at the meaning of these strange groups through four lines of German verse which are attached to each of them. In this manner we learn that the group represented in our cut, No. 158, which is the second in this series, is intended as a satire upon those who waste their time in hunting, which, the verses tell us, they will in the sequel lament bitterly; and they are exhorted to cry loud and continually to God, and to let that serve them in the place of hound and hawk.

_Die zeit die du verleurst mit jagen, Die wirstu zwar noch schmertzlich klagen; Ruff laut zu Gott gar oft und vil, Das sey dein hund und federspil._

[Illustration: _No. 159. The Wastefulness of Youth._]

The next picture in the series, which is equally difficult to describe, is aimed against those who fail in attaining virtue or honour through sluggishness. Others follow, but I will only give one more example. It forms our cut No. 159, and appears, from the verses accompanying it, to be aimed against those who practice wastefulness in their youth, and thus become objects of pity and scorn in old age. Whatever may be the point of the allegory contained in the engraving, it is certainly far-fetched, and not very apparent.

This German-Flemish school of grotesque does not appear to have outlived the sixteenth century, or at least it had ceased to flourish in the century following. But the taste for the _diablerie_ of the Temptation scenes passed into France and Italy, in which countries it assumed a much more refined character, though at the same time one equally grotesque and imaginative. These artists, too, returned to the original legend, and gave it forms of their own conception. Daniel Rabel, a French artist, who lived at the end of the sixteenth century, published a rather remarkable engraving of the "Temptation of St. Anthony," in which the saint appears on the right of the picture, kneeling before a mound on which three demons are dancing. On the right hand of the saint stands a naked woman, sheltering herself with a parasol, and tempting the saint with her charms. The rest of the piece is filled with demons in a great variety of forms and postures. Another French artist, Nicholas Cochin, has left us two "Temptations of St. Anthony," in rather spirited etching, of the earlier part of the seventeenth century. In the first, the saint is represented kneeling before a crucifix, surrounded by demons. The youthful and charming temptress is here dressed in the richest garments, and the highest style of fashion, and displays all her powers of seduction. The body of the picture is, as usual, occupied by multitudes of diabolical figures, in grotesque forms. In Cochin's other picture of the Temptation of St. Anthony, the saint is represented as a hermit engaged in his prayers; the female figure of voluptuousness (_voluptas_) occupies the middle of the picture, and behind the saint is seen a witch with her besom.

[Illustration: _No. 160. The Demon Tilter (Callot)._]

[Illustration: _No. 161. Uneasy Riding (Callot)._]

But the artist who excelled in this subject at the period at which we now arrive, was the celebrated Jacques Callot, who was born at Nancy, in Brittany, in 1593, and died at Florence on the 24th of March, 1635, which, according to the old style of calculating, may mean March, 1636. Of Callot we shall have to speak in another chapter. He treated the subject of the Temptation of St. Anthony in two different plates, which are considered as ranking among the most remarkable of his works, and to which, in fact, he appears to have given much thought and attention. He is known, indeed, to have worked diligently at it. They resemble those of the older artists in the number of diabolical figures introduced into the picture, but they display an extraordinary vivid imagination in the forms, postures, physiognomies, and even the equipments, of the chimerical figures, all equally droll and burlesque, but which present an entire contrast to the more coarse and vulgar conceptions of the German-Flemish school. This difference will be understood best by an example. One of Callot's demons is represented in our cut No. 160. Many of them are mounted on nondescript animals, of the most extraordinary demoniacal character, and such is the case of the demon in our cut, who is running a tilt at the saint with his tilting spear in his hand, and, to make more sure, his eyes well furnished with a pair of spectacles. In our next cut, No. 161, we give a second example of the figures in Callot's peculiar _diablerie_. The demon in this case is riding very uneasily, and, in fact, seems in danger of being thrown. The steeds of both are of an anomalous character; the first is a sort of dragon-horse; the second a mixture of a lobster, a spider, and a craw-fish. Mariette, the art-collector and art-writer of the reign of Louis XV. as well as artist, considers this grotesque, or, as he calls it, "fantastic and comic character," as almost necessary to the pictures of the Temptation of St. Anthony, which he treats as one of Callot's especially _serious_ subjects. "It was allowable," he says, "to Callot, to give a flight to his imagination. The more his fictions were of the nature of dreams, the more they were fitted to what he had to express. For the demon intending to torment St. Anthony, it is to be supposed that he must have thought of all the forms most hideous, and most likely to strike terror."

Callot's first and larger print of the Temptation of St. Anthony is rare. It is filled with a vast number of figures. Above is a fantastic being who vomits thousands of demons. The saint is seen at the entrance of a cavern, tormented by some of these. Others are scattered about in different occupations. On one side, a demoniacal party are drinking together, and pledging each other in their glasses; here, a devil is playing on the guitar; there, others are occupied in a dance; all such grotesque figures as our two examples would lead the reader to expect. In the second of Callot's "Temptations," which is dated in 1635, and must therefore have been one of his latest works, the same figure vomiting the demons occupies the upper part of the plate, and the field is covered with a prodigious number of imps, more hideous in their forms, and more varied in their extraordinary attitudes, than in the same artist's first design. Below, a host of demons are dragging the saint to a place where new torments are prepared for him. Callot's prints of the Temptation of St. Anthony gained so great a reputation, that imitations of them were subsequently published, some of which so far approached his style, that they were long supposed to be genuine.

Callot, though a Frenchman, studied and flourished in Italy, and his style is founded upon Italian art. The last great artist whose treatment of the Temptation I shall quote, is Salvator Rosa, an Italian by birth, who flourished in the middle of the seventeenth century. His style, according to some opinions, is refined from that of Callot; at all events, it is bolder in design. Our cut No. 162 represents St. Anthony protecting himself with the cross against the assaults of the demon, as represented by Salvator Rosa. With this artist the school of _diablerie_ of the sixteenth century may be considered to have come to its end.

[Illustration: _No. 162. St. Anthony and his Persecutor._]

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