It is the development of the initial
letter first into the bracket, then into the border, which forms the
great distinction of the "Art of Paris," as Dante calls it, from that of
Byzantium. The latter is almost always of a squared or tabular design,
traced and painted on a ground of burnished gold. The former exhausts
itself first in fantastic lacertine forms, twisted into the shapes of
the commencing letters or words of the writing, to which the suggestion
of some Byzantine MS, perhaps occasionally adds a frame. Next come
birds, dogs, dragons, vine-stems, and spirals embedded in couches of
colour; but, whatever its character, always it is the letter that
governs and originates the ornament. Only at the very end of its life,
when the border has completely eclipsed the initial, is the idea of
origin forgotten. Then, indeed, we find the border treillages of
flower-stem or leaf-work starting from meaningless points of the design,
or scattered shapelessly at random.
When we meet with work of this sort, we need no further proof that the
real art is dead. We have before us in such a performance--a trade
production--a mere object of commerce, valuable so far as it is the
result of labour, but not as a work of art.
According to the Abb? Geoghegan,[11] Christianity was known to the people
of Ireland in the fourth century.
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