lish
school of illuminators. It is even suggested that the English style of
miniature painting influenced Europe as far as the Upper Rhine. It is
also very significant that the Dutch art of the brothers van Eyck, whose
sudden appearance seemed so inexplicable, is now proved to have had its
source in the North of France. On the other hand, we have drawings of
three ecstatic nuns showing decided originality; Hildegarde of Bingen,
already mentioned on a previous occasion, has herself ornamented her
book, _Scivias_, with miniatures which, according to Haseloff, in spite
of their primitive style, reveal a bizarre plastic talent, and are
therefore closely related to her intuitions. Alfred Peltzer speaks of
"fantastic figures surrounded by flames." The two other nuns were
Elizabeth of Schoenau, and Herrad of Landsberg; these two were entirely
under the influence of the dawning mysticism.

I will here quote a few more passages from Dvorak, who, in dealing with
the individual arts, does not lose sight of the whole. "Simultaneously
with a new literature," he says, "we have a new art of illustration, new
miniatures, no longer drawing inspiration from antiquity.... We meet the
new style in its full perfection wherever it is a matter of a new
technique (in the art of staining glass, for instance, or of
illustrating profane literature)...." He speaks of a new decoration of
manuscripts invented in Paris in the first half of the thirteenth
century. Thus the close and causal connection between the new poetry
and the illumination of books is clearly apparent, and it may be said
without exaggeration that the Provencal lyric poetry and the
North-French and Celtic cycles of romance led up to the new European
style of painting which did not come to perfection until two centuries
later. (Nothing positive can be said about the influence of France on
Italian art; the monumental character and the art of Cimabue, Giotto and
the Sienese does not, however, suggest that they were much influenced by
the art of miniature painting, but rather hints that they drew
inspiration from antique frescoes.)

I must add a few words on the subject of those miniatures which are not
easily accessible to the layman, but reproductions of which are
frequently met with in books on the history of art. In addition to
religious subjects, the whole courtly company which lives and breathes
in the legends of the Round Table, kings and knights, poets, minstrels,
and fair da