their productions literally buried in the wreck. The minds of the
composite nations that arose in Europe had no guide. Men were left to
their own instincts, only faintly aided by the ruins and traditions of
degenerate Rome; and each series of countries had its own style of
art, framed or adopted by the genius of the people. During the middle
ages, the style most general in Northern Europe was the Gothic; and by
that term the whole system of art during the period is popularly known
in England. The state of painting, under the Gothic régime, may be
seen in the stained windows of the cathedrals; in which strong
outlines and bright colours are laid down without any reference to
chiaro-scuro, or the scientific arrangement of light and shadow. This
seems a natural stage in art-development, and at the same moment it
was seen in equal perfection in China and Europe. In the former
region, the people are now beginning to advance a step beyond, through
their imitation of English pictures; although, but a few years ago,
they burst into fits of laughter on seeing the shadow of the nose in a
portrait. In Europe, a gigantic and almost sudden stride was made,
towards the close of the fifteenth century, under an influence from
which the Chinese were debarred, and the nature of which we shall
presently explain.

Let us first, however, just notice, that the charms of gaudy
inartistic colouring frequently exercise a powerful sway even over
minds familiar with better things; although that sway is always
indicative of the decay of intellectual or moral freshness. Thus, it
is remarked by an old Greek author (Dionysius of Halicarnassus), that
the perfection to which painting had been brought by Apelles, had
degenerated under Augustus; the painters being so much fascinated by
the new art of colouring, that they neglected design, and preferred
the brilliant or gaudy to the solid, and counterfeit to natural