MONASTIC ART. The art peculiar to the monastic orders. In the development of Chris tian art astieism was at times thy ing cause. The 1tnsilinin and 'Ally)* group, of monks in the East (luring the entire Middle :kges: the licnedirtinus in the %Vest from the eighth to tIn- eleventh century; the risIrreiuns during the twelfth; the Pronrificans and Do rninirnn.v, especially in Italy, during the thir teenth and forrt'enth Yenturies. produced a large proportion of the works of art of those periods.
The influence of these orders was seldom exer cised on the material side of the various arts, but more generally and radically on the choice and treatment of subject.
Aar. The monks of the Order of Saint Basil were the best organized and most numerous of the monastic aggregations in the East. and their influence upon Christian art was the most important produced by Eastern monas ticism. Oriental monasteries cannot compare with the largest in the West: but, on the other hand. study of them is more interesting, because so many more remain comparatively intact and are of so early a date. The groups in the Egyp tian Desert. for example, date mainly from the fourth and fifth centuries, and sumo of those in Old Cairo are not much later. The usual type is an immense inclosure surrounded by a high wall, like that around an Egyptian temple. Within the court the monks' cells are built against the inner edge of this wall, leaving the central space free for two or three churches. a large refectory. a strong watch tower which (villains the treasury and library. Next in age come the monasteries of thy cities of Central Syria fifth and sixth 1'0111.111'11'S). with a common cloister. Scattered over Syria and Palestine, beginning with -Instini a n's famous monastery of Saint Laba. on Mount Sinai, are monastic establislunents of the Syrian monk- which rivaled those of Egypt. They have been very little studied. But the period suc ceeding the Iconoclastic movement is represented by some monasteries at Constantinople (e.g.
Saint Jahn Stoudios Saloniki, Chios. Daphne, and Saint Luke in Greece. and especially by those of the lloly Mountain._Mount Athos, the centre of Hellenic monasticism from the eleventh century to the present day. The general plan of the Ahanit Athos monasteries was similar to that of the Egyptians. with the difference that a better organization had brimght. The separate monasteries were dotted over the mountain, each in its unclosing wall. Their churches, treasuries,
frescoes, and manuscripts have been carefully stud ied: they form one of the most interesting groups remaining from the .11iddle Ages. Some of the buildings are as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries, with mosaic pavements. decorative sculptures and mosaics, but the frescoes are all much later. The most interesting group in Thes saly are the famous monasteries- of Meteora, which the visitor can reach only by being hauled in a ba.sket to the top of a high precipitims rock. Here the buildings are not as old as at Mount Athos. In the strong Byzantine revival under Basil the -Macedonian and his sluice:4,-4)1-s (ninth and tenth centuries), the monks played an im portant part as colonists. Traces of their monas teries and hundreds of their ancliongic ea \Tv With 1117.11111ine frescoes are found. for example. in Ca labria. Apulia, and other parts of Southern Italy. Before then. hi the eighth eentury, the leono elastic persecutions had driven to Italy many Basilian monks, who as painters could no longer practice their art safely in the East. They gave the strongly Byzantine tinge to the art. especial ly the painting and decorative sculpture of the Boman school. which thence spread over the rest of Europe. There were over twenty Greek mon asteries in Rome. large and small. before the eleventh opiltury. That of Grottafeu"ratis near Rome, became the greatest representative of the Basilians in the West outside of Southern Italy, and still has interesting early mosaics and sculp tures.
While the monastic and lay artists of Europe developed their styles of architecture with hut little reference to the East, the arts of ivory carving, enameling. goldsmith work, mosaic. tapestry, and embroidery were perpetuated in the Eastern monasteries and by them 'trans mitted to the Western monks of the Carlovingian age. To the Eastern monks also was due a domi nant part in perfeeting the system of Christian iconography which was in part, at least, adopted in the \Vest, including the artistic types of Christ, the Virgin, John the Baptist, the Apostles, angels, and saints, as well as the arrangement of most of the subjects of the Old and New Te4ta ments. This influence was supreme in Italian painting, for example, up to the time of Giotto. With the name of the monk Panselinos will al ways be connected that written text-book of painters used until the present day by Neo-By zantine artists.