Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/255

VI. Sculpture of the Romanesque Period. 1. Tenth and Eleventh Centuries. In the dark ages which succeeded the fall of the Roman Empire, the greater number of the beautiful art works of antiquity, which had hitherto been preserved as things sacred, were wantonly destroyed or injured. Upon the removal of the empire to Byzantium, the production of statuary of any excellence entirely ceased ; the few bas-reliefs executed were altogether wanting in original power or true artistic beauty, and it was not until the beginning of the tenth century that the first faint glimmering of that light which subsequently illumin- ated all Europe appeared on the horizon. The art of painting, which was more suitable than that of sculpture for the decoration of the flat surfaces of the walls of the basilicas and early Romanesque churches, was the first to revive : the works of sculpture produced during the tenth and eleventh centuries were entirely of a secondary class, such as altars, diptychs, reliquaries, and. drinking-horns. Of these Ave need only name the most remarkable. In the so-called reliquary of Henry I. in the Castle Church of Quedlinburg, on which the three Marys are represented at the feet of Christ, we see the coarse style of the early part of the tenth century unredeemed by any technical excel- lence ; in an ivory diptych, dating from A.D. 972, in the Hotel de Cluny, Paris (Fig. 95), representing Christ bless- ing Otto II. and his Greek wife the Princess Theophane, we trace Byzantine influence in the careful finish of the EHA. Q