CHAPTER I.

THE FOUNTAINS OF EUROPEAN ART.

Routes by which Art Travelled.--Their Point of Convergence.--Cyprus: Its History.--The Successive Nations Governing It.--The Strata of Ancient Civilization found within its Shores.--The Discoveries of Cesnola.--Larnaca.--Dali.--Athieno.--Curium.--Progress of Cypriote Pottery.--Early Greek Art: Its Connection with Assyria and Egypt.--Phœnician and Assyrian Art.--General Deductions.--Asia Minor.--Oriental Art turning in various Streams to Greece.--What Greece Rejected, Persia Seized upon.--Persia’s Contributions to Ceramic Art.--History in Reference to its Art.--Effect of Conquest.--What Persia Taught the Arabs.--Spread of Persian Art by the Saracens.--Rhodes.--Damascus.--Progress of Saracenic Art.--The North of Africa.--Metallic Lustre and Stanniferous Enamel.--Hispano-Moresque.--Early Spain.--Persian Influence upon Europe.

We now approach a point in our history which stands within sight both of the wonders of early Greece and of the beginnings in the Middle Ages of the best ceramic art of Europe. From Persia, as a centre, art travelled north and west by many devious routes ere it touched the European shores. But behind the Persian is the older civilization of Babylonia and Assyria, to whose glories it succeeded. We are thus once more brought back to Egypt and Egyptian influences. After spreading to the east they extended northward, and in Greece are met by others transmuted by a passage through Assyria and Phœnicia, but springing from the same prolific source on the banks of the Nile. Persia, after acquiring from Egypt’s eastern pupils her earliest knowledge, adapted the lessons thus derived to her own ideas, and spread it across the tracts already followed by others who had learned directly from her teachers. From both the south and east these lines of original and derivative art converged toward one point, the eastern shores and islands of the Mediterranean and Greece. To show how difficult it is to disentangle the web of footprints, let us glance at Cyprus, as revealed to us by the discoveries of General Luigi Palma di Cesnola (Fig. 145), and described in his work upon “Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples.” The record may be read by all who visit the Metropolitan Museum of New York. We choose Cyprus because it was virtually the meeting-place of the East with the West. Assyrian, Egyptian, Phœnician, and Greek influences contend for the mastery.

[Illustration: Fig. 145.--General Luigi Palma di Cesnola.]

[Illustration: Fig. 146.--Phœnician Vase, with Figure. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

There is no certainty as to the derivation of the first settlers. They may have been either Phœnicians or Cilicians, and thus only another branch of the great Semitic family to which the Phœnicians belonged. Or colonists may have arrived from Cilicia and Phœnicia at about the same time. There is less reason for believing that any settlers came from Egypt, although the first historical conquest of the island was effected by the Egyptians. This event took place about B.C. 1440, during the reign of Thothmes III. How long it remained under Egyptian control does not exactly appear, but it next passed into the hands of the Tyrians at a date prior to B.C. 1000. It was next conquered by Sargon, King of Assyria, and when, about B.C. 600, Apries, King of Egypt, took Sidon, he included Cyprus in his conquest. Amasis, the successor and murderer of Apries, completed the work of the latter. The Cypriotes then turned for deliverance to Cambyses of Persia, and Cyprus became a dependency of the great eastern power. Again the island was shaken by revolt, and the greater part of its people joined the Ionians in an unsuccessful attempt to throw off the Persian yoke. The Athenians and Lacedæmonians, after taking a portion of Cyprus (B.C. 477), abandoned their conquests. Then came the rebellion of Evagoras, King of Salamis, whose father had been dispossessed by the Persians, the result of which was that Evagoras recovered his own kingdom, but the island still remained tributary to Persia. It then fell under the control of Alexander of Macedon, and was held by his generals for a few years after his death. Ptolemy Lagus, or Soter, again brought Cyprus under Egyptian rule, and lastly came the arms of all-conquering Rome. We need go no farther. We stand in Cyprus, upon a battle-field crossed by the armies of every nation of antiquity with any claim to warlike renown, and find in it at once the theme of ancient poets and the prize of ancient warriors. So far we may travel in the track of war, but the history of art is affected less by the conquest of battle than by permanent occupancy and the more peaceful conquest of colonization. Thus we find Phœnician art leaving a deeper impress upon Cyprus than any other, and one to be detected even amidst the confusion of Semitic and Hellenic remains. This art developed, on the one hand, into something bearing a semblance of an independent Cypriote character, and, on the other, into a form more distinctively Greek. Phœnicia was the country in which the Assyrian and Egyptian elements of decorative art were combined, and being brought on the other side into contact with Greece, the history of Greek art is thus continued backward into a remote antiquity.

[Illustration: Fig. 147.--Phœnician Vase, from Curium. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Mus.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 148.--Phœnician Vase, from Dali, with Phœnician Inscription. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

The early Phœnician settlers located themselves chiefly on the southern and eastern sides of the island; the Greeks chose the north and west. Both were evidently actuated by the same motive, viz., to give the preference to the localities nearest the land from which they had come. The Phœnicians founded Paphos, Amathus, and Citium; the Greeks founded Salamis, Curium, Neo-Paphos, and several other towns. Tencer and Agapenor, two of the Greek heroes from the Trojan war, settled in Cyprus, and the island is thus introduced into Grecian legend. As time passed, the Greek and Phœnician elements underwent a more or less complete amalgamation. The Greek language became the prevailing tongue, and the Phœnician religion became the common creed. Aphrodite, who sprung from the foam of the sea, and was wafted to the shore of Cyprus, was the Tyrian Astarte, the Assyrian Mylitta. Her worship extended over the whole island, and was engaged in with all the licentious impurity of the Oriental original. Greece rose as Phœnicia declined, and her people spread beyond the limits of their ancestral settlements. One civilization rose upon the ruins of another, and died in its turn; and Cesnola found them piled one upon another in strata, to be opened up and read like the stony leaves of the geologist’s book.

[Illustration: Fig. 149.--Phœnician Vase, from Curium. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

That this is literally the case can be very easily shown. General di Cesnola began his excavations at Larnaca, on the southern shore of the island, or near the ancient Citium, or Kittim, a Phœnician city. Near this city have been found a number of terra-cotta statuettes, which General Cesnola ascribes to the fourth century before our era. He thinks they were imported from Greece. They were accompanied by others, poorly executed, and some figures suggestive of Phœnicia and Egypt. It was here that the vase, Fig. 150, was discovered. Crossing the Santa Croce range, he found, at Dali, on the plain of Messaria, the necropolis of the Phœnician city Idalium. He began his excavations among the Phœnician tombs, and exhumed a great quantity of pottery of several shapes. The vases are of light-colored clay, and are variously decorated with geometric patterns and concentric circles in brown color. One of them (Fig. 148) has a Phœnician inscription, and all the others were evidently Phœnician. Above the tier of tombs from which these were taken, a second tier was discovered, of a different epoch, and containing objects of a totally different character. Earthen-ware gave place to glass in all the shapes found in Greek pottery, the amphora, lekythos, krater, kylix, and others. Many were of a formation so evidently late that the discoverer ascribes them to the Græco-Roman period. Here then, was Greek and Phœnician work reposing in juxtaposition. An explanation was found by returning to the Greek tomb which had been first opened, and under it was discovered the continuation of those of the Phœnicians. The Greek Idalium had grown upon the ruins of a Phœnician predecessor, and hidden under the ashes of the one Cesnola found the necropolis of the other. On prosecuting his researches in the latter, the type of pottery again altered, and the decoration of concentric rings reappeared. At Alambra, west of Dali, he found a number of small clay images--horsemen, warriors, chariots, a representation of a procession, and vases of two kinds. He made excavations in five burying-grounds, all apparently belonging to the Phœnician Idalium; and from a mound in the same district he obtained a collection which, from the combination of Egyptian and Assyrian forms and decoration, may be assumed to contain some of the most ancient relics of Phœnician art. Two green-glazed bowls have Egyptian paintings, and the vases occasionally take the form of animals and birds.

[Illustration: Fig. 150.--Assyro-Phœnician Vase, from Larnaca. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)]

Striking eastward from Dali, the explorer reached Athieno, near the ancient Golgoi, and there came upon a necropolis and an ancient temple of Venus. The most remarkable fact concerning the statuary brought from this locality is that the lines of nationality are so broad and well defined. General Cesnola then determined to push his explorations toward the East, and, after visiting Salamis, turned westward to Paphos, Neo-Paphos, and then northward to Soli and other places on the northern shore. Returning to the southern shore, a number of terra-cotta vases and figures of the Phœnician type and Egyptian green-glazed vessels were exhumed at Amathus. A statuette of Astarte and figures of Egyptian deities were found almost together. Lastly, General Cesnola visited Curium, a city said to have been founded by an Argive colony. There he found pottery of the usual mixed types, including vases, terra-cotta figures, and one large vase (Fig. 151), so strongly marked with Greek influences that he ascribes it to the earlier period of Greek art. Both General Cesnola and Mr. A. S. Murray think that it may have been taken to Curium from Greece. Its four handles, its great size, and its elaborate decoration make it unequalled among the vast number of Cypriote relics in the Metropolitan Museum.

[Illustration: Fig. 151.--Greek Vase, from Curium. Height, 4 ft. 9 in. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Museum.)]

In constructing a theory of the progression of Cypriote pottery it is necessary to examine closely the different styles of ornamentation. On some we find Assyrian symbols and characteristic styles of decoration; on others the figures are as evidently Egyptian. Thus the archaic vase from Larnaca (Fig. 150) is just such a work as might be expected from the Phœnician founders of Kittim while still directly under the domination of Assyrian ideas. The pattern between the animals is distinctively Assyrian. In a similar manner the vase (Fig. 146) is decorated with an Egyptian figure, but in the subsidiary decoration--the plaited pattern on the sides and the concentric circles arranged vertically--there is nothing indicative of Egyptian influence. We see in it the work of a potter who combined an Egyptian suggestion with a more independent form of ornament. It has already been said that, of all the nations of antiquity, the Phœnicians are most strongly marked by influences emanating from Egypt, on the one hand, and from Assyria on the other. To this people, therefore, we may attribute the two vases last referred to.

[Illustration: Fig. 152.--Phœnician Vase, from Curium. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

It is also necessary to bear in mind that, while certain symptoms of independence on the part of Cypriote potters must be appreciated at their full value, there are no evidences of the potter’s art ever having developed among them to any great extent. It is possible that the effeminate, voluptuous nature of the people prevented the attainment of artistic superiority. It is also possible that their skill in working metal may have distracted their attention from clay. In either event we discover no well-defined gradation from the lower to the higher, such as we find in Greece. Cyprus may have been still wrapped in slumber, while Greece was striding forward in the full vigor of its young life. It may have been following its ancient models, while Greece was turning from the old to the new and original. It is difficult, therefore, to ascribe with precision the Cypriote pottery to any given age. A rule by which to determine such questions has been laid down in this way: vases painted with linear designs are the most ancient; then follow those with animal figures; lastly come those with human forms. Cypriote pottery makes the application of such a rule extremely hazardous and difficult. How apply it to the vase with vertical rings and human form and head (Fig. 146)? The figure is Egyptian, and might, for that reason, carry us back to the conquest by Thothmes III., were it not that it represents the latest style of decoration according to the accepted rule, while the remainder of the decoration belongs to the earliest.

[Illustration: Fig. 153.--Phœnician Pottery, from Curium. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 154.--Phœnician Vase, from Curium. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Mus.)]

The practice of ornamenting with concentric rings is an application to pottery of a pattern borrowed from working in metal. Cyprus was famed for its copper, and, from the legendary age downward, exported armor and weapons of bronze. It is not singular, therefore, if on some of the ruder relics of the potter we should find this ornament. In the curious circle of vases (Fig. 153) we see arranged round the base the concentric rings, which were in time transformed into the Greek spiral. The same pattern is exemplified in the specimen from Curium (Fig. 154), from which, and from several others in the Metropolitan Museum, it might almost be inferred that the vessel had been shaped to suit the favorite style of decoration. A cognate style, also having its origin in metal-working, is that represented in the vase from Dali (Fig. 148), sufficiently authenticated by its Phœnician inscription. It belongs to a very large class, which appears to extend from the earliest times down to the beginning of purely Greek art. It will be observed that the squares run both horizontally and perpendicularly, an arrangement much more noticeable in many other specimens. One of the earlier examples is seen on the bird-shaped vase in the illustration Fig. 155. In what is probably a much later vessel, a swan with circular body and triangular wings makes its appearance. This is the rude attempt at decorating with figures of an artist skilled only in geometrical designs. One point is to be particularly noted before leaving these vases, viz., that in that bearing the Phœnician inscription, the vertical lines or bands give place to horizontal bands round the upper part of the body and neck. The Greeks invariably make use of the horizontal band.

[Illustration: Fig. 155.--Phœnician Vases, found at Dali. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 156.--Phœnician Vase, from Curium. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Mus.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 157.--Phœnician Vase, from Curium. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metrop. Mus.)]

The approach to Greek art is marked by the introduction of several new features. In the vases from Curium (Figs. 149, 156, and 157), the lines are horizontal, the shapes improve, and the spout, consisting of a woman holding a pitcher, is indicative of a skill in moulding and an originality in designing, having little in common with the ruder forms from the same city. This is one of the ideas which seems never to have occurred to the modern potter, whose most fantastically turned and severely shaped spouts contrast most unfavorably with the simple yet apt design of his old Phœnician predecessor. The Phœnician vase with animal figures from Dali (Fig. 158), is the ancestor of a large class of early Greek pottery similarly decorated. The shape and the encircling horizontal bands recall early Greek work, and the animal forms point to an Asiatic influence transmitted in part through Phœnicia, but probably also through other channels, to Greece. The style is rare among Cypriote vases. It is carried farther in the large vase from Curium (Fig. 151), which is remarkable as a combination of the Cypriote rectilinear method of decoration, the earlier form of the Greek fret, the Asiatic style of animal decoration, and the culmination of the Cypriote rows of concentric rings found in the bands of spirals. This is one of the most remarkable vases in the Cesnola collection, and also one of the most important links between the art of Greece and those of Phœnicia and the East. Even admitting it to have been made in Greece, and thence taken to Curium, it is in perfect harmony with the Phœnician vase last referred to, on the one hand, and with that bearing the Phœnician inscription on the other.

The Greek vase and cups from Dali (Fig. 159) show a new motive in the decoration. The spirals give place on the vase to a running scroll, painted with a free hand; and in the kylix on the left, the concentric circles become semicircles, festooned round the lip after the fashion of lambrequins. In the kylix on the right, the rectilinear designs and enclosed squares become the fret. It will be seen hereafter, when we come to speak of Greece, how the forms of the kylix improve.

[Illustration: Fig. 158.--Phœnician Vase, found at Dali. (Cesnola Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

While we cannot assign an exact age to any of these works, we can see how the beginnings of the art of Greece can be traced to a much more remote antiquity than was previously apprehended. Mingling in the heroic age with a people uniting in itself much of the civilization of Assyria and Egypt, the Greeks were acquiring the knowledge which their own artistic genius subsequently turned to such brilliant account. The highway is complete from Greece to untold antiquity. We learn, therefore, from the relics brought together by General Cesnola, that the view taken of the devious course followed by ceramic art is correct. Egypt gave instruction to all. In her is the spring of ancient art. The Phœnicians studied under her Assyrian pupils, and the two branches, from Phœnicia and Egypt, met in Greece, and there appeared in a new form, more refined, and reflecting a higher ideality and a keener sensitiveness to the subtlest lines of beauty. Di Cesnola has found in Cyprus their point of contact, and has disclosed to our eyes the teacher and scholar sleeping in a common grave.

[Illustration: Fig. 159.--Greek Vase and Cups, found at Dali. Cesnola Coll., (N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

Should it be asked if in Cyprus alone we must look for the ceramic remains of Phœnicia, the Land of Palms, the answer must be negative. It is true that few relics have come down to us from the sites of her domestic industries. But let us glance briefly at the history of that wonderful country, wonderful alike in enterprise and in science. Ptolemy Claudius, writing in the second century, says that Phœnicia extended from Egypt on the south to the Eleutherus on the north, and eastward to the confines of Syria; or, in other words, that to it belonged the entire eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Like all other eastern nations, it changed its boundaries as the successive waves of war swept over it. First came the Persians, then the Greeks, and, lastly, the Romans. When enjoying its independence, in an earlier age, it was the disseminator of the knowledge which, to a great extent, it acquired in Egypt. To Greece it gave its alphabet, the foundation of the literature which has kindled the admiration of the scholars of all times. Its navigators passed the Pillars of Hercules and reached the shores of England. Phœnician colonies were founded all along the Mediterranean, at Utica and Carthage on the south, and at Marseilles in Gaul. Here, then, was a people gathering in from every side all that the world could give of art and science, and spreading its knowledge with every keel which, from the great ports of Tyre and Sidon, furrowed the Mediterranean. As might be expected, therefore, the remains of its ceramic art and the evidences of its influence are found in Cyprus, Malta, Egypt, Carthage, Greece, Sicily, Rome, and Etruria.

The ceramic remains found on the Phœnician coast are nearly all referable to her later conquerors. One specimen is singular and suggestive. It was found at Tyre, and is a polished cruse, with round body, long neck, wide lips, and a handle joining the neck and body. It resembles the Egyptian too closely to leave any doubt of the origin of its style and manufacture. After our previous experiences we are quite prepared to meet a mythical Phœnician worker in clay; but his presence does not disturb our inferences. It merely pushes back to a prehistoric age the date when the first of Phœnicia’s debts to Egypt was incurred. Other examples, fragments with Phœnician inscriptions, give further hints of the immediate well-spring of Grecian art. Phœnician vases are found in Sicily. Egypt and Carthage teach the same lesson, and illustrate the wide-reaching enterprise of the Tyrian founders of Carthage.

Turning northward from Phœnicia to Asia Minor, the evidences of ceramic skill point to identically the same conclusion. Let us take the older first. There, as in Cyprus, we meet with early traces of Hellenic art. Across the Ægean sea, on the shores of Asia Minor, Greece again touched the older arts of Assyria and Egypt. The coffins found in Mesopotamia are after the Assyrian type. From Tarsus come terra-cotta works ornamented with green, in a simple style, closely allied to the Greek. At Rhodes has been found a vase or pitcher of turquoise blue, ribbed perpendicularly, and crossed at intervals by horizontal bands. Such specimens take us back again to Egypt. In short, the history of Asia Minor, its existence successively under Scythians, Medes, and Persians, while it was receiving the surplus population of Greece from the west, would lead us to look for what we only found in part in Cyprus, namely, native styles moulded by influences from east, west, and south. These generalizations are offered as a substitute for a more connected history, for the construction of which intelligibly the materials are wanting. Enough has been said to show that through many different channels the arts of Egypt and the East set, in a long and steady stream, toward Europe; that there, meeting with the rising Hellenic civilization, they were transmuted and purified, and that from the Hellenizing process emerged the admirable art now called Greek.

Meanwhile it is to be noted that, so far, we have made allusion to only one-half of the debt which Europe owes to the East. Greece rejected the rich coloring and fantastic forms which reached her from the centre of all that was most brilliant in ceramics--the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. These were seized with avidity by Persia, the only survivor, in our time, of the four great monarchies of the East. Bright colors and gorgeous combinations were grateful to the eye revelling in the splendor almost unconsciously associated with the word “Oriental.” To Persia, therefore, we must look, not only as the great conservator of previous skill, but as the medium of its development into a higher form. That part of her inheritance from Assyria and Babylonia which concerns us now, was the knowledge of processes, of the deft mingling of colors, the production of tints, and the skilful application of enamels. We have seen to what purpose this knowledge was cultivated, in so far as the evidences found within her own borders can show. We have seen what may here be especially recalled, enamels and metallic lustre applied to pottery, with an almost bewildering brilliancy.

We now approach the question of Persia’s contributions to the art. Can, for example, none of the remains exhumed by Cesnola be claimed for Persia? It appears not, at least not with certainty, although certain plaques convey a hint of Persian workmanship. Whatever she left in Cyprus, if anything, is hardly to be distinguished from the older works of Assyria and Phœnicia. Had Persia, then, no originality, and where beyond her own limits must we look for its distinctive impress. Let us return for a moment to Persian history. We have already seen that the country was occasionally overrun by surrounding nations, but the fact is noticeable that when it could not resist, it absorbed its assailants. Its nationality was preserved even in conquest. A similar capacity for assimilation and independence is seen in its art. There can be no doubt of its having drawn from Assyria and Babylonia. Its most ancient architecture is sufficient to settle that point. But apart from that, and keeping in view the influence of Mohammedanism and the influx of Chinese wares and possibly workmen in the sixteenth century, the art of Persia is marked throughout its entire course by certain distinguishing features which invasion could not obliterate. The artistic instinct was strong in the people as a whole; and conquest retarded the progress of art only to see it rise again in all its first vigor, to be spread far and wide even by those who had for a time hindered its native growth. In this way we can trace its advance to Asia Minor and Rhodes, through Egypt, along the northern coast of Africa, and thence to different points in Southern Europe.

[Illustration: Fig. 160.--Saracen Tile. (Trumbull-Prime Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 161.--Saracenic Tiles. Green and Dark-blue on White. (Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)]

The tracks we now follow are those of Eastern art in its second and more modern progress toward the west. Persia was its real source. When the Mohammedan Arabs overran Iran, they found art the handmaid to beauty and luxury, to which they had been strangers. Essentially nomadic, the wild fanatics from Arabia had given little attention to æsthetic culture. They were captivated by what they found in Persia. If they modified it, it was only to make it conformable to the behests of their religion. We find, for example, a faience tile representing the sacred Temple of Mecca, in two shades of blue, red, black, and pale-green, and with a border of white and red. It is easy to imagine the caliphs of Bagdad calling to their assistance the men whose works they had seen, to complete the embellishment of their capital. The style called arabesque is in all probability of Persian origin. In every collection of note are examples of what is called Saracenic pottery. The Arabs were called Saracens when they came to Europe, or met the arms of the Crusaders in Palestine. Saracen pottery, therefore, is Persian modified by Arabian taste or local style. And here, to save much trouble, and avoid the confusion into which disputants over the wares of Damascus, Rhodes, Cairo, and other localities might lead us, it may be as well, once for all, to understand that at no place of which we have any knowledge were the Saracens the first to introduce a rudimentary knowledge of pottery. What they did was to bring with them certain distinctive styles; and now, when all proofs of an earlier fabric are wanting, we may safely take it for granted that it existed, and that the invaders and colonists only superimposed a superior art. This should be borne in mind, because it would be impossible to account for the abundant remains found on certain sites by attributing them all to the Saracens. One of the first things to which the Arabs turned their attention in each country to which they carried their arms, was to raise mosques for the religions observances attaching to their faith. The tomb of Mohammed, at Medina, is covered with tiles so closely resembling those of Persia as to suggest not only Persian inspiration, but Persian workmen. In Asia Minor tiles belonging to the eleventh and twelfth centuries are abundant, of a precisely similar character. History explains their presence there by telling us that the Arabian or Saracenic conquerors sent for artists from Persia to bring their skill to the embellishment of the new domain. In this we have the key to much of the ceramic art of Asia Minor.

[Illustration: Fig. 162.--Faience Jug, from Rhodes.]

[Illustration: Fig. 163.--Faience Jug, from Rhodes.]

As to Rhodes and the origin of its faience (Fig. 162), we are tolerably certain that in Persia was the source of the skill there developed. History and tradition point to the same conclusion. Legend says that a vessel bound for Venice, and having some Persian potters on board, was wrecked on the island, and that there a manufactory was founded (Fig. 163). Possibly on this tradition the conjecture was based that a Persian colony had settled there. In any case, Rhodes was occupied by Persians in the seventh century, and then by the Greeks. When the crusading fever was at its height, the knights of St. John held the island until expelled by the Turks. It was probably these knights who captured a vessel laden with Persian pottery and artists, and compelled the latter to found the manufacture at Rhodes. At the Musée de Cluny are specimens of their work, plainly Persian, but adapted to the changed condition and limited appliances of the potters. The Rhodian differs little from the Persian. The colors are less brilliant, and the ornamentation in relief is like that found on vases and tiles in Asia Minor. The predominating colors are white and blue for grounds and red for designs. Similarly as to Damascus, it is beyond reasonable doubt that potteries existed there. Their ruins are said to have been found; and it is probable that, so far from importing the wares, Damascus supplied orders from without. These facts lead to the conclusion that Persian art was carried by the Saracens or their Christian opponents to the same countries that Egyptian and Assyrian art had reached centuries before.

[Illustration: Fig. 164.--Maghreb Urn.]

Turning now to the south and west, we follow the line of Saracenic conquest along the north coast of Africa until it reached the Atlantic Ocean. Egypt first fell under Mussulman control, and the standard of Islam was carried westward from the Nile. Thirteen hundred years after Battus founded Cyrene, the Mussulman Keironan was built upon its ruins. In Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco the Saracenic works multiply. One traveller in Tunisia describes a mosque with the walls overlaid with tiles of many patterns. Another, crossing Algeria, visits the mosque at Telemeen, and finds _azulejos_ (from the Arabic for “varnished tile”) equal to those of Granada, and tiling in blue, red, and yellow, again compelling a comparison with the works of the Moors in Spain. The brilliant domes and mosaic pavements of mosques and houses mark the Saracenic progress. Besides these, many examples of urns and other vessels of Saracenic fabrication have been found, colored in brown, yellow, blue, and green, in styles not far removed from the Persian. Viewed comprehensively, the pottery of Northern Africa (Fig. 164) would show pieces of local fabrication, and Persian styles and processes modified by removal from their eastern centre. What concerns us chiefly is that the Saracenic predominates. It is reasonable to suppose that the invaders, in order to decorate the edifices which quickly gave indication of their presence, sent for tiles to the seats of the industry in the East. Afterward, when the Mussulman power had been firmly established, factories were built, and a new industry rose among the conquered people. Imitations are mingled with works showing a developing originality. The Mussulman and Persian traditions become modified, and the symbolical meaning of the animals painted on the dishes and basins appears to have become obscure to the artists employing them as decoration.

A great deal of the African pottery can only be taken as a basis for conjecture. Its place of manufacture is unknown. Its style is peculiar and its coloring unique. It is not impossible that European art was paying the debt it had incurred to Southern teachers. Ceramic art travelled with the Saracens wherever they went. How far that was may be estimated from the fact that they conquered within eighty years as much territory as it had taken Rome four hundred years to bring into subjection. They crossed into Spain, Sicily, and Italy, and there planted settlements. A great deal has been said of the _reflet à métallique_ and stanniferous enamel, and notably of the _discovery_ of the latter in Italy. Both came from the East, and reached Europe through the Saracens. The employment of tin in producing a white opaque enamel was, as we have seen, known to the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and Assyrians. It does not appear to have been so highly esteemed as the silicious glaze by means of which the Persians worked their greatest ceramic wonders, but it was not forgotten. Fragmentary evidences of its use by the Saracens are found in the places which they passed, and it is, at least, more reasonable to suppose that through them the process reached Europe, than that it was rediscovered there. One is almost wearied with the endless conjectures on these matters. We find a certain art in the East. We trace the different channels of communication with Europe. We find Greece touching Asia Minor, trade binding Phœnicia with every port in the Mediterranean, Etruria bringing to her own ports the manufactures of Eastern experts, colonies settling in all manner of places and coming from many sources. It has been plainly demonstrated that the lines of intercourse cross and recross in a hundred different ways and directions. When, therefore, we have it proved to a demonstration that analogous knowledge was transmitted by certain routes, it is hardly worth one’s while to discuss the European discovery of a process which we know did not originate there, however much it may have been improved.

The art which we call Hispano-Moresque might, therefore, with equal propriety, be called Persico-Spanish or Hispano-Saracenic. Spain was twice overrun by Mohammedan conquerors. In the eighth century (711) the Arabs subdued the Goths and founded the Caliphate of Cordova. It is both singular and disappointing that no ceramic relic of this period has been found. The Spanish, even under the sway of Rome, had attained to a comparative excellence in the art, and the productions resulting from the union of original traditions with Arabian influences would have formed an interesting link in our history. The Arabians remained for about five hundred years, when, in 1235 the Moors overturned the Arab rule, and founded the kingdom of Granada. The Moors succumbed, in their turn, to Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, and between these two dates, 1235 and 1492, was the golden era of the ceramic art of Spain.

Meantime it is to be observed, as showing the possible and actual extent of Persian influence:

_Firstly._--That under the Moorish sway a colony of Persians existed in Spain. This, according to Major R. Murdoch Smith, is attested by a document recently brought to notice by a Spanish traveller in Persia, assigning the town Rioja to the Persians as their place of residence.

_Secondly._--That mosaic work has been found in Persia, composed of star and cross shaped tiles of different colors fitted together, and that similar tiles are made in Spain at the present time.

_Thirdly._--That in Persia are found the prototypes of the Spanish style of ornamenting vaults with hanging-work, like plaster stalactites.

_Fourthly._--That, according to Piot, “numerous Persian faience plaques and pieces of vases, resembling those of our own time, are found encrusted in the white marble of a church in Naples.”

_Fifthly._--That Mr. Drury C. Fortnum has found a specimen of Persian ware in the church of St. Cecilia, at Pisa. The piece is clearly Persian in style, black arabesques on a blue ground, similar to others found at Rhages.

_Sixthly._--That the Saracens overran Sicily in the ninth century, and that a Moorish colony landed there some centuries later.

The corollary deducible from these facts is clear, viz., that in Persian art, as brought into Europe by the Moors, Arabs, or Saracens, and by the Persians themselves, we must find the bridge upon which to cross from the ancient arts of Assyria and Babylonia to those of Italy and Spain.