He remarks that all mediaeval art was religious; the only concession to the secular being found in the illuminations of some of the chivalry romances.  Gothic architecture was the expression of Teutonic genius, which is realistic and stands for the reason, while Italian sacred painting was idealistic and stands for the imagination.  In the most perfect art, as in the highest type of religion, reason and imagination are in balance.  Hence, the influence of Van Eyck, Memling, and Duerer on Italian painters was wholesome; and the Reformation, the work of the reasoning Teutonic mind, is not to be condemned.  Reason is to blame only when it goes too far and extinguishes imagination.[23]

“The sympathies of the North, or of the Teutonic race, are with Death, as those of the Southern, or classic, are with Life. . . .  The exquisitely beautiful allegorical tale of ‘Sintram and His Companions’ by La Motte Fouque, was founded on the ‘Knight and Death’ of Albert Duerer, and I cannot but think that Milton had the ‘Melancholy’ in his remembrance while writing ‘Il Penseroso.’” [24] The author thinks that, whatever may be true of Gothic architecture—­an art less national than ecclesiastical—­“sculpture and painting, on the one hand, and the spirit of chivalry on the other, have usually flourished in an inverse ratio one to the other, and it is not therefore in England, France, or Spain, but among the free cities of Italy and Germany that we must look for their rise.” [25] I give these conclusions—­so opposite to those of Catholic mediaevalists like Digby and Pugin—­because they illustrate the temper of Lindsay’s book.  One more quotation I will venture to add for its agreement with Uvedale Price’s definition of the picturesque:[26] “The picturesque in art answers to the romantic in poetry; both stand opposed to the classic or formal school—­both may be defined as the triumph of nature over art, luxuriating in the decay, not of her elemental and ever-lasting beauty, but of the bonds by which she had been enthralled by man.  It is only in ruin that a building of pure architecture, whether Greek or Gothic, becomes picturesque.” [27]

Lord Lindsay’s “Sketches” contained no illustrations.  Mrs. Jameson’s very popular series on “Sacred and Legendary Art” was profusely embellished with wood-cuts and etchings.  The first number of the series, “Legends of the Saints and Martyrs,” was begun in 1842, but issued only in 1848.  “Legends of the Monastic Orders” followed in 1850; “Legends of the Madonna” in 1852; and the “History of Our Lord” (completed by Lady Eastlake) in 1860.  Mrs. Jameson had an imperfect knowledge of technique, and her work was descriptive rather than critical.  But it probably did more to enlist the interest of the general reader in Christian art than Lord Lindsay’s more learned volumes; or possibly even than the brilliant but puzzling rhetoric of Ruskin.