The Book of Art for Young People | Page 5

painters. To do that you must know something about the way
they lived and the things they believed, and what they hoped for and
what they were afraid of.
Here, for instance, is a very funny fact solemnly recorded in an old
account book. A certain Count of Savoy owned the beautiful Castle of
Chillon, which you have perhaps seen, on the shores of the Lake of
Geneva. But he could not be happy, because he and the people about
him thought that in a hole in the rock under one of the cellars a basilisk
lived--a very terrible dragon--and they all went in fear of it. So the
Count paid a brave mason a large sum of money (and the payment is
solemnly set down in his account book) to break a way into this hole
and turn the basilisk out; and I have no doubt that he and his people
were greatly pleased when the hole was made and no basilisk was
found. Folks who believed in dragons as sincerely as that, must have
gone in terror in many places where we should go with no particular
emotion. A picture of a dragon to them would mean much more than it
would to us. So if we are really to understand old pictures, we must
begin by understanding the fancies of the artists who painted them, and
of the people they were painted for. You see how much study that
means for any one who wants to understand all the art of all the world.
We shall not pretend to lead you on any such great quest as that, but
ask you to look at just a few old pictures that have been found
charming by a great many people of several generations, and to try and
see whether they do not charm you as well. You must never, of course,
pretend to like what you don't like--that is too silly. We can't all like the
same things. Still there are certain pictures that most nice people like. A
few of these we have selected to be reproduced in this book for you to
look at. And to help you realize who painted them and the kind of
people they were painted for, my daughter has written the chapters that

follow. I hope you will find them entertaining, and still more that you
will like the pictures, and so learn to enjoy the many others that have
come down to us from the past, and are among the world's most
precious possessions to-day.


CHAPTER II
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN EUROPE
Before we give our whole attention to the first picture, of which the
original was painted in England in 1377, let us imagine ourselves in the
year 1200 making a rapid tour through the chief countries of Europe to
see for ourselves how the people lived. The first thing that will strike us
on our journey is the contrast between the grandeur of the churches and
public buildings and the insignificance of most of the houses. Some of
the finest churches in England, built in the style of architecture called
'Norman,' one or more of which you may have seen, date before the
year 1200, as for example, Durham Cathedral, and the naves of
Norwich, Ely, and Peterborough Cathedrals. The great churches abroad
were also beautiful and more elaborately decorated, in the North with
sculpture and painting, in the South with marble and mosaic. The towns
competed one with another in erecting them finer and larger, and in
decorating them as magnificently as they could. This was done because
the church was a place which the people used for many other purposes
besides Sunday services. In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries, the parish church, on week-days as well as on Sundays, was a
very useful and agreeable place to most of the parishioners. The 'holy'
days, or saints' days, 'holidays' indeed, were times of rejoicing and
festivity, and the Church processions and services were pleasant events
in the lives of many who had few entertainments, and who for the most
part could neither read nor write. Printing was not yet invented, at least
not in Europe, and as every book had to be written out by hand, copies
of books were rare and only owned by the few who could read them, so

that stories were mostly handed down by word of mouth, the same
being told by mother to child for many generations.
The favourites were stories of the saints and martyrs of the Catholic
Church, for of course we are speaking now of times long before the
Reformation. The Old Testament stories and all the stories of the life of
Christ and His Apostles were well known too, and just as we never tire
of