With regard to studies from the life, either of men or animals, it should be remembered that an artist is always biased by tradition and association to a degree which is now very difficult to realise. Even when looking at the same object two painters of different race and education might receive very different impressions on their retina. Thus in the very interesting sketch-book of Villard de Honecourt, a French sculptor and architect of the thirteenth century, there are studies of men, lions and other animals, which he has noted as being from the life; and yet these drawings look to us like the purely imaginative conceptions of a heraldic draughtsman, in spite of the fact that Villard certainly represented them as faithfully as he was able, putting down on his vellum the subjective visual and mental impression that he had received[54]. [Illustration: Fig. 15. Illumination in pen outline, from a manuscript written in the ninth century at St Gallen. It represents David riding out against his enemies.] [Illustration: Figs. 16 and 17. Subject countries doing homage to the Emperor Otho II; from a manuscript of the _Gospels_.] [Illustration] In the same way a modern Japanese artist evidently sees the nobler animals, such as men and horses, in a very subjective and distorted manner, whereas when he is dealing with fishes, reptiles, plants and the like he is able to depict them with the most wonderful grace, accuracy and realistic spirit. _Personal equation._ For this reason in examining an illuminated manuscript, or other early work of art, to discover what use the artist has made of actual study from nature, one should always take into account the influences which made him see each natural object in a special, personal way, and we must not argue that because the drawing now looks very unreal that it may not possibly have been as careful and accurate a study from life as the painter's eye and hand could produce. _Byzantine influence._ During the later Carolingian period there was a marked revival of Byzantine influence, which did not tend to delay the advancing decadence[55]. Figs. 16 and 17 show a very striking example of this, a two-page miniature from a magnificent purple and gold manuscript of _the Gospels_, which was executed for the Emperor Otho II., and is now in the Munich library. On the right-hand page is the Emperor enthroned holding the long sceptre and the orb, with an archbishop and some armed courtiers beside him. On the opposite page, personifications of _Rome_, _Gaul_, _Germany_ and _Slavonia_ are doing homage and offering gifts. The whole motive and design is borrowed from a much earlier Byzantine work, such as the mosaics of Justinian's time (c. 530 A.D.) in the churches of Ravenna. _Classical influence._