Notes on East Christian Miniature

Abstract

THE scene which is reproduced on the cover of this number of The Art Bulletin is perhaps the most charming composition which Early Christian art has left us, sustaining as it does the pure melody of Hellenistic allegory, unperturbed as yet by obscurant mysticism. It is the third day of Creation, and the Lord Who has brought forth the trees and plants looks upon His work, attended by a flight of three winged figures which are the delightful impersonations of the Days. The Lord is conceived as the Logos, and thus conforms in type to Christ; He wears His hair short and curly and carries a scepter-cross. The miniature comes from the Cotton Genesis¹ of the British Museum and it is only by chance that it is preserved to us, by virtue of the otherwise reprehensible habit of borrowing valuable books which was one of the characteristics of the famous antiquary Peiresc. Sir Robert Cotton lent him the manuscript in 1618, and Peiresc kept it a long time, intending to make engravings of all its miniatures, but Cotton having finally insisted on the return of the codex, the drawings for the engravings were never finished and only two of them are left. It is fortunate that one of the two preserved this miniature, for the manuscript was almost wholly destroyed in the fire that wrecked the Cotton Library in 1731, and only blackened fragments of the richly illustrated Genesis remain.