THE SACRED PAINTERS AND COMPOSERS.
IMAGES AND PICTURES IN CHURCHES.
The Romish Church has from the beginning looked favourably on the practice of adorning churches with images and pictures of sacred persons. At Nola, in 460, the cathedral of St. Felix had wall paintings of stories taken from the Old Testament. In 752 a council of the Church required images to be erected in churches, and worship of these was inculcated as a remembrance of the holy lives and conversation of the dead. The Iconoclast movement (seeante, p. 129) shook faith in the practice for about a century; but the Council of Nicæa, in 787, closed the controversy by approving the practice, and the opposition died out in 842. There seems no limit to the number or subjects of the wall paintings, and the Popes greatly encouraged them. In England at the Reformation images were directed to be taken down and destroyed. Very few wall paintings are found in any English churches, and they are of small value or importance.
THE RUNAGATE MONK PAINTERS.
“I learned,” says Hugo of St. Victor, “from a certain prudent and religious man that there are some kinds of people who can scarcely ever be retained with order in the religious life. These are painters, physicians, and buffoons, who are accustomed to travel in different countries. Men of this description can hardly ever be stable. The art of painting is very delightful; for when a painter has painted a church, a chapter-room, a refectory, or any cabinets, if leave be granted to him, on being invited he goes soon to another monastery for the sake of painting. He paints the works of Christ upon a wall, but it never occurs to him to imitate the works in his own life and manners. So with the medical art; it needs an abundance of aromatic plants and medicines. When any one near the church falls sick, he is askedto go to see the patient, and the abbot can hardly refuse permission. Then he is always making experiments on things uncertain and making fallacious statements. Whereas a true monk should never speak out on anything. So it is with buffoons and jesters, who are always bent on rambling. The Fathers of the Council in the eighth century well decreed that monasteries should be the habitations of men labouring to serve God in silence and peace, and not mere receptacles of arts which minister to pleasure—not places for poets, minstrels, and musicians, but for men praying, reading, and praising God.”
THE PICTURES IN MONASTERIES.
The monasteries were the nurseries of the arts of painting, sculpture, and music. Many of them contained exquisite frescoes of sacred subjects. Ghiberti, the most ancient historian of art in Italy, spoke with enthusiasm of a great composition with which Ambrose de Lorenzo had covered the walls of a cloister, in which he represented the life of a Christian missionary. First a young man taking the habit of a monk; then entreating to be sent to convert the Saracens; then the departure and arrival before the Sultan, who orders him to be scourged; then condemning him to die; the decapitation; then a horrible tempest, during which vast trees are torn up by the roots and the people fly in terror. In the refectory of the convent of San Salvi, near Florence, Andrea del Sarto painted four figures of saints and the Last Supper; and during the siege in 1529, when the Florentines were compelled to demolish all buildings and reached this great fresco, they were struck dumb and motionless with admiration. One holy brother, lately in the Escurial monastery, guiding from cell to cell and room to room a British painter (Wilkie), pointed out that glorious work of Titian the Lord’s Last Supper, beautiful as when it first graced the refectory. As both stood with eyes transfixed at that masterpiece, the holy father said to the stranger: “Here daily do we sit, thanks given to God for daily bread; and here pondering the mischiefs of these restless times, and thinking of my brethren dead and gone, I not seldom gaze upon this solemn company unmoved by shock of circumstance or lapse of years, until I cannot but believe that they, these pictures, are in truth the substance and we the shadows.”
THE SACRO MONTE DE VARALLO.
On the road from Anna to Varallo, in North Italy, the Sacro Monte, an eminence of great beauty, is seen and is resorted to bypilgrims from all quarters. At the foot is the church of St. Francis, where the wall dividing the nave from the choir is painted in fresco in nineteen compartments, representing the chief events in the life of the Saviour. The hill of the Sacro Monte is covered with a series of fifty chapels or oratories, containing groups of figures of characters executed in terra-cotta, painted and clothed. They are grouped so as to represent passages in Christ’s history. The structures are never entered, being merely frames or cases to contain the respective subjects, which are viewed from two or three peepholes in front. Some of the figures are very indifferent works of art; others are of great merit. The oratories are richly decorated with façades, porticoes, and domes, and the figures are the size of life. The walls are all painted, and painters, sculptors, and architects have vied in producing their highest arts of embellishment. Much effect is produced by the situation of some of the groups. The access to the place where Christ is laid in the sepulchre is by a vault where little light is admitted; and as it is difficult on entering from the open day to distinguish at first any object, the result is very impressive. Many of the figures are clothed in real drapery, and some have real hair. The executioners conducting the Saviour to Calvary are made as hideous and repulsive as possible, and are represented with goitres appended to their throats. This Sacro Monte originated in the piety of the blessed St. Bernardino Caimo, or Coloto, a Milanese noble.
MIRACULOUS IMAGES IN SPAIN.
In Spain all classes were devout believers in miraculous images and effigies of all kinds. Holy kerchiefs were preserved at Alicante, stamped with the Saviour’s face; and winding-sheets revealing the same print were adored at Oviedo. In his “History of Painting” Palomino relates how a Christian and Jew labouring in a vineyard disputed about the Messiah, until the Jew, losing patience, exclaimed he would believe in Christ if He would emerge from that vine stock, and which thereupon forthwith became a crucifix. He also tells how at Valencia, on the death of a devout lady, the wax dropping from a taper that burned before her coffin shaped itself into a crucifix, and was treasured as a relic. Once an artist was employed by St. Theresa to paint our Lord at the column as she had beheld Him in a vision; and after failing to express the lady abbess’s ideas, he at last found his unsatisfactory picture had been finished to perfection by an angel artist. And at a later time, when this same picture was restored, the nunswere told by the two artists employed that they saw the very finger of the angel as it traced the outlines. And when a pilgrim was engaged at Calatayud to paint St. Ignatius Loyola, he did it so well that he was supposed to be an angel in disguise. And by the same Divine influences the portrait of St. Jerome and the lion was found traced in the mottlings of a jasper.
CIMABUE’S PICTURE OF THE MADONNA (1302).
Cimabue, an Italian painter, who died in 1302, painted for a church in Florence a picture of the Madonna, which excited great enthusiasm in the public. Charles of Anjou, King of Naples, passing through Florence while the artist was at work, was taken to see it at the artist’s studio in a garden. It had been till then only known to confidants; but when the rumour spread, all Florence crowded to have a glimpse. Nothing before that period had been seen in Tuscany like this picture. When finished, it was carried in solemn procession to the church, followed by the whole population, and with such triumph and rejoicing that the quarter where the painter lived took its name from this event. The figure of the Virgin, as now judged by critics, is neither beautiful nor graceful, but there is a dignity and a majesty in her mien and an expression of inward ponderings and sad anticipations rising from her heart to her eyes which rivet the memory. The Child, too, blessing with His right hand is full of deity; and the attendant angels, though like each other as twins, have much grace and sweetness. The picture still hangs in the church of the Dominicans in Santa Maria Novella. Cimabue was one of those conscientious painters who, on noticing the least blemish in his work, would destroy it without compunction, however much trouble it had caused him.
THE BISHOP’S APE TAKES TO PAINTING (1302).
In 1302 Buonamico Buffalmacco, the painter, was passing through Arezzo, when Bishop Guido, hearing of his being a cheerful companion as well as great artist, requested him to stay with him and paint the chapel where the baptistery now is, the subject being “the Crucifixion.” The painter set to work and completed a large part of it. It happened that the bishop had a large ape of extraordinary cunning and full of mischief, and which sometimes stood on the scaffold watching the work with great interest, particularly the mode of mixing the colours and pouring out from the various flasks, and beating up the eggs.One Sunday morning the ape contrived, in the absence of the painter, to get on the scaffold and see if he could not do that work too. It then fell upon the brushes and pots and pencils; and having mimicked the artist’s ways, poured all the colours into one basin, and with a large brush proceeded shortly to cover the whole canvas with artistic flourishes. On Monday morning the artist, on returning, was horrified at the result, and at once attributed it to some envious person, whom he named to the bishop as the suspected culprit. The bishop was greatly annoyed, but, nevertheless, prevailed on the artist to return to his work, and he said he would provide six soldiers with drawn swords to remain concealed and on the watch, to cut down the intruder without mercy, in case a repetition of the nefarious deed should occur. The figures were again painted by the artist, and after several days the soldiers took the alarm on hearing some strange sound of stealthy steps and movements, and then a figure clambering up to the scaffold and seizing the brushes. They noticed soon that this figure, after mixing the colours, painted with unseemly haste all the fine heads of saints which had been so carefully elaborated by the artist. They then summoned the artist himself to witness it, whereupon they all were unable to contain themselves for laughter at the grotesque handiwork of the amateur ape, which was the real culprit. The artist betook himself at once to the bishop, and said, “My lord, you desire to have your chapel painted in one fashion, but your ape chooses to have it done in another fashion.” Then he told the story of what he had seen, and added: “There’s no need for your lordship to send to foreign parts for a painter since you have a master of colour already in your house. Perhaps he did not at first fully understand how to mix the colours, but he is now evidently well acquainted with the whole secret, and can proceed without further help. I am no longer required here since we have discovered his talents, and I will ask no other reward for my labours except permission to return home.” The bishop made suitable apologies and begged the artist once more to resume his work, and he would for its crimes shut up the ape in a strong wooden cage, and have it fastened on the scaffold, where it might spend its jealousy and rage in witnessing without having the power of further marring the work. The artist afterwards went to Pisa and covered the roofs and walls of the abbey of St. Paul with pictures from Old Testament subjects, which greatly pleased the people frequenting that place. And many other admirable sacred works were finished in Florence and other places by the same pencil.
THE PAINTER’S CRITICS AND BAD DEBTS (1342).
The same Buffalmacco was engaged by the town of Perugia to paint their patron saint Herculanus for their market-place, and the price was agreed on. The painter erected scaffolds and also enclosed himself with boards, so as to keep the people from overlooking him in his labours. After ten days had passed, the people passing used to stop and wonder how long he was going to take to finish his picture, as they seemed to think such work could be turned out by the yard from a mould, so that the artist became worried and pestered with their importunities. The people became day by day more impatient, until the artist determined he would serve them out. So after some days’ preparation he admitted them to look at the work when near its completion, and they were greatly pleased, and all they next wanted was that he would remove the scaffolding entirely. He said this could not be done for two days longer, as he wished to retouch part of the picture when thoroughly dried. This was allowed. The artist had originally intended the saint’s head to have a great diadem in relievo of richly gilt plaster, as was then the custom. He now, remounting his scaffold, substituted for the original another coronet or garland surrounded with gudgeons. Next morning he went off to Florence, and when the people had to take down the scaffold and saw the affront put on them, they proposed to send horsemen in pursuit; but in the end they had to get another artist to set the diadem right and erase the silly gudgeons. The same artist was employed to paint a fresco for a country church at Calcindia, a picture of the Virgin holding the Infant Christ in her arms. He found the employer dilatory in payment, so he went and changed the Infant Christ into a bear, using water-colours only. The employer thereupon was in despair, and implored him to restore the Holy Child, and if so he would pay at once all demands. The money being forthcoming, the painter with a wet sponge easily removed the bear and restored the work.
THE NUNS CRITICISING THEIR ARTIST’S WORKS (1342).
The same great Florentine painter, Buffalmacco, about 1340 was employed by the nuns of Faenza to paint a sacred historical picture for them, and they were greatly pleased with every part of the details, except only that they thought the faces rather too pale and wan. Buonamico, hearing this, and knowing that the abbess had the very best Vernaccia wine that could be found in Florence, and which was indeed reserved by them forthe use of the Mass, declared to the nuns that this defect could be remedied only by mixing the colours with good Vernaccia, and that when the cheeks were touched with colours thus tempered, they would become rosy and lifelike enough. The good sisters, who believed all he said, on hearing of this kept him amply supplied with the very best Vernaccia during all the time that his labours lasted, and while cheerfully swallowing this nectar he found on his palette colour enough to give as much rosiness as the ladies desired. It was related, however, that the painter was once surprised by the nuns while drinking the wine; but when he heard one of them saying to another, “See now, he is drinking it himself,” he instantly took care adroitly to throw part of the contents out of his mouth on the picture, whereby the nuns were fully assured as to their mistake.
BROTHER ARTISTS RIVALLING EACH OTHER (1400).
Filippo Brunelleschi and Donato were both sculptors at Florence about the year 1400. Donato had completed a crucifix for the church of Santa Croce in Florence, to be placed beneath the picture of Taddeo Gaddi, which represented the girl restored to life by St. Francis. Filippo, on being shown the crucifix, and being asked by his friend what he thought of it, replied that Donato had placed a clown on the cross, and not a Christ, whose form was of perfect beauty. Donato testily replied, “Take wood then and make one yourself.” Filippo, who did not allow himself to be irritated, felt that there was some truth in the retort, and resolved to set about the making of a crucifix himself, such as he thought ought to have been produced. He did this secretly, and it was (as may now be seen in the chapel of Count Bardi) an admirable work. Some time afterwards Donato was engaged to come and dine with him, and they had bought a lot of eggs and delicacies, which Donato was carrying homeward in an apron, when he was told to go forward to the house with these, and his friend would follow. On entering, Donato’s eye caught sight of Filippo’s crucifix, of which he had never heard anything, and was so amazed and ravished with it that all the eggs and dainties fell at once to the ground, as his eyes became riveted on beauties such as he himself could never attain to in the disposition of the legs, body, and arms. He at once confessed it was a miracle of art. And the two rivals were good friends for ever after. Filippo was also a skilful and ingenious architect and engineer, and was recommended to the Pope by Cosmo de Medici as a man of such immense capacity that he would have confidence enough to turnthe world back on its axis, a compliment which made the Pope stare at Filippo, who was small and insignificant in appearance. Count Sforza said that if every state had a man like Filippo, they might all live in peace without the use of arms.
A PAINTER AFFRONTING A FALLEN ANGEL (1408).
The painter Spinello Aretino was in 1408 engaged by the monks of St. Agnolo, in Arezzo, to paint the wall of their church near the high altar, and the subject was to be the “Fall of the Angels.” In the air appeared St. Michael in combat with the old serpent of seven heads and ten horns, while beneath and in the centre of the picture was Lucifer, already changed into a most hideous and devilish form. So anxious was the artist to make Lucifer frightful and horrible, that one night in his sleep Lucifer appeared to him and demanded to know where the painter had ever seen him look so ugly as that, and why he permitted his pencil to put so mortifying an affront as this upon him. The artist awoke in such extremity of horror that he was unable to speak, and he shook and trembled so violently that his wife thought he was dying. The shock proved to be so great that he never recovered the effects of it, remaining in a most desponding mood, and he gradually sank till he died in a very short time thereafter. It is also related of Lodovico Caracci, that when he had taken down the scaffold on which he had painted the arch above the altar of Bologna Cathedral, he noticed the foot of an angel bending before the Virgin crooked. He wanted to set up the scaffold again, and died of grief at this mischance.
ANGELICO’S DEVOTION TO SACRED ART (1455).
Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole, usually called Angelico, who died in 1455, was both a painter and a devoted Churchman. Though born to plenty, and having a strong turn for art, he entered the order of preaching friars at the age of twenty, and began painting the Virgin and Christ and saints. Cosmo de Medici saw his merits, and engaged him to paint the Crucifixion for the church of San Marco at Florence, and he filled the lower ground with all the saints who were founders of religious bodies. Vasari said his picture of Gabriel making the Annunciation to the Virgin was considered so beautiful that the spectator could scarcely believe it to be the work of man, but that it must have been executed in Paradise. But his masterpiece was thought to be the coronation of the Virgin, surrounded by angels, saints, andholy personages. Vasari said the heads and figures were so varied in expression and attitude that people had infinite pleasure in looking on them, and all admitted that even the saints themselves in heaven could not look otherwise than in this picture, and that no other than the angels themselves could produce such figures of elevated beauty, dignity, and devotion. The Pope invited him to execute various works at Rome, and was so charmed with the simplicity and modesty of the artist that he offered him a high appointment in the Church, as he was a friar and qualified; but the artist declined it and recommended a poor friend, to whom this office was kindly given. Angelico, in the estimation of his contemporaries, lived a life of pure holiness. He laboured continually at his paintings, but would do nothing that was not connected with things holy. He despised riches and had no anger in his composition. He used to say that the only true riches was contentment with little. He said he sought no dignity, and all he cared for was to escape hell and draw near to Paradise. He said that he who practised the art of painting should live without cares or anxious thoughts, and he who would do the work of Christ should perpetually remain with Christ. His pictures of saints excelled those of all other artists. He said he never took up his pencil without first offering a prayer. He never painted a crucifix without tears streaming from his eyes. Some friendly hand painted his own portrait on the outside of his tomb in the church of the Minerva at Rome.
BRONZES FOR THE GATES OF PARADISE (GHIBERTI, 1455).
Lorenzo Ghiberti, a famous Florentine sculptor, who excelled in casting his sculpture in metals, had acquired so great a reputation that the city authorities gave him a commission about 1439 to decorate the chief door of San Giovanni with bronzes representing scenes or histories from the Old Testament. The door when finished met with unbounded praise from all quarters. When Michael Angelo was asked what he thought of it he said, “They are so beautiful that they might fittingly stand at the gates of Paradise!” This artist put his own portrait as well as that of his father on one part of the decorations of the border of the door. Lorenzo had shown his genius at the age of twenty, when he won the prize for which the first artists competed—namely, a bronze representing the sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham. Other bronzes representing separate subjects followed. For this great work he was liberally paid, and its admirable execution led to many lucrative commissions of a like kind.
THE OLDEST PAINTERS AND THEIR PERSPECTIVE (UCCELLO, 1472).
The older class of mediæval painters of sacred subjects often showed great ignorance of perspective. One memorable instance was that of Paolo Uccello, who died in 1472, and who had acquired great reputation for his pictures. His last great commission was one to paint St. Thomas searching for the wound in the side of Christ; and the painting was to be above the door of the church in the Mercato Veichio in Florence, dedicated to that saint. Paolo was proud of this commission, and told his friends that he would lay out all his strength on this picture, and display the fruit of his experience and insight in its design. His first step was to erect a close inclosure of planks all round the wall, so as to keep off the prying and curious. He had been working some time in secret when another artist, Donato, met him in the street and asked what sort of work this was that he was so closely engaged upon. Paolo said, with some self-satisfaction, that Donato would see it in due time. Some time later the same Donato accidentally passed and saw Paolo Uccello uncovering this masterpiece, and after a courteous salutation Paolo was eager to know what his brother artist would say to it. Donato looked very minutely at it, and then said, “Why, Paolo, you are uncovering your picture just at the time you should be shutting it up from the public view.” These words stabbed the painter to the heart; for on certain things being pointed out by the critic, he saw he had made a grievous mistake, and that the public would cover him with derision instead of applause. This fate he could not face, and from that time he shut himself up in his house so as to study once more the laws of perspective. And Vasari says this picture killed him, for the faults in it weighed on his spirits, which he never recovered. The painting has disappeared in modern times.
THE MONKS OVER-FEEDING THEIR ARTIST WITH CHEESE (UCCELLO, 1472).
The painter Paolo Uccello was engaged by the monks of San Miniato, near Florence, to paint the lives of the Holy Fathers in one of their cloisters. The work was to be partly coloured and principally in terra verde, and it is said he rather misplaced his colours, making his fields blue, his cities red, and the buildings all colours. While he was engaged in this work the abbot gave him scarcely anything to eat but cheese, of which the painter grew so speedily sick, that, being of a timid nature, he went offclandestinely and did not return, and he gave no explanation. The abbot and the monks sent to him, to ask why he did not return; but he gave no answer, and if he met them in the street he made off as fast as he could in another direction. At last one of the monks determined to solve the mystery, waylaid him, got speech of him, and put the same unanswered question. Paolo replied, “You have so murdered me, that I not only run away from you, but dare not stop near the shop of a carpenter or even pass by one. And all this comes of your abbot’s mismanagement; for, what with his cheese pies and his cheese soup, he has made me swallow such a mountain of cheese that I am all turned into cheese myself, and I tremble lest the carpenters rush out, seize, and put me into their glue-pot. I am quite sure that if I had stayed with you longer I should have been no more Paolo, but mere cheese.” When the monk told the other monks this story, they roared with laughter and begged their abbot to persuade the painter to return, and then to feed him well on other delicacies.
A CLUMSY CRUCIFIX BEFORE THE DYING ARTIST (GROSSO, 1488).
Nanni Grosso was a sculptor at Florence about 1488. One of his invariable rules was, that he would never execute any work in a convent unless the monks left the door of the wine cellar open, so that he could go in and take a drink when he pleased without asking their leave. When Nanni was on his deathbed in the hospital of Santa Marina Nuova, the nurses placed a wooden crucifix before him which was clumsy and ill executed. He implored them to take it out of his sight and bring him one by Donato, declaring that if they did not take that one from before him he should die in despair, so greatly did the sight of ill-executed works of art excite him.
A POOR ARTIST KILLED BY A SIGHT OF GOLD (1513).
Pinturicchio, a painter of Perugia, who had painted and decorated many churches, but without ever securing great profit to himself, was in his old days engaged to paint a picture of the Virgin at the convent of San Francesco, in Siena, and a room was appropriated to his use by the monks and given up to him entirely. They took away all the furniture so as to give him space, leaving nothing but a very massive old chest which was too heavy to be removed. The painter being arbitrary and domineering, soon made such a clamour about this chest being in his way, and he so worried the poor monks, that in their desperationthey resolved to remove it rather than be any longer abused. So they dragged it out a little with immense difficulty, but in straining it one of its sides gave way and a sum of five hundred golden ducats tumbled out, which seemed so vast a collection of valuable material to our artist, and he was so transfixed with horror and remorse as he thought of his inconceivable folly in having thrown all this fortune, as it were, away, that he took to his bed and never rallied, dying shortly afterwards of a broken heart.
AN ARTIST DECEIVING THE BIRDS AND BEASTS (MONSIGNORI, 1519).
Francesco Monsignori of Verona had attained the highest reputation as a painter. In one picture he had to paint a beautiful dog as part of a group; and one day a friend calling with a living dog, the latter rushed furiously to the painting to attack the painted dog. In another work of the same artist, a picture of the Virgin and the Infant Christ, the Divine Child was represented as visible from the shoulder upwards only, and having one arm extended in the act of caressing the Virgin mother. One day Count Ludovico, having heard of this painting and being anxious to see it, brought his wife and son with him, and the boy had a green bird, called in Verona a terrazzani, perched on his wrist like a falcon. The moment they entered the room the bird, seeing the extended arm of the Infant Christ in the picture, flew towards it, intending to perch upon it. The bird fell to the ground, but immediately rose again, and tried to perch exactly as if it were a child on whose wrist such a bird is accustomed thus to sit. The nobles, amazed at this, were inclined to offer any price for such a picture, but the artist could not be prevailed upon to part with it. A pupil of the same painter, named Girolamo, painted a Madonna sitting underneath a tree, which was put in a church near Verona, and the wild birds that sometimes found their way inside used often to fly against the picture, intending to alight on the branches of this tree. And this circumstance made the picture famous to all the neighbourhood.
FINDING A MODEL FOR A MARTYRED SAINT (MONSIGNORI, 1519).
Francesco Monsignori of Verona had painted many sacred subjects with the highest success before he was engaged to paint St. Sebastian for the Church of the Madonna, outside Mantua. The saint was shot to death with arrows. While the painter was at work on the picture the Marquis of Mantua called and asked him whether he had got a good model for this difficult picture. Thepainter said he had selected a very beautiful person who was a porter, and who would no doubt allow himself to be tied to the stake and assume the proper attitudes. “That won’t do,” said the Marquis; “you will not be able to represent the proper fear and horror and resistance of the person who is to be murdered. Just inform me when your model is to sit again, and I will show you the right thing to do.” The following day, when the painter had fastened the porter to the stake, and had given secret notice of it to the Marquis, the latter suddenly burst into the room with a cross-bow and arrows in a state of great excitement, and with a loud voice he rushed to the porter, exclaiming, “Traitor! you are a dead man! I have caught you at last, and I will make an end of you,” with other horrible exclamations of rage and revenge. The poor unlucky porter, believing that his doom was near, made the most desperate efforts to release himself, and the excitement and agitation of his countenance and limbs, as he was struggling against his fate, supplied the painter with the very attitudes and expression he most desired. “Now,” said the Marquis, “he is just in the right position, I will leave you to do the rest.” This timely assistance enabled the painter to make an admirable picture of the martyrdom of the saint.
A DIVINE ARTIST DISCOVERING ONE STILL MORE DIVINE (FRANCIA, 1520).
Francesco Francia, born in 1450, began as a goldsmith and designer at Bologna, but felt he could be a painter, and his pictures when he attempted them soon brought him wealth and fame, for his Madonnas and Christs and angels and saints were exquisite. When he was at the height of fame, he had been constantly told of the glories of Raphael, who was then working at Rome, so that he longed to see some of these much-applauded masterpieces. It happened that Raphael had been commissioned to execute a picture of St. Cecilia, which was to be forwarded to Bologna on its way to the chapel of San Giovanni in Monte. Raphael, on forwarding it, sent a polite and friendly letter, asking Francia to look after it, and remove any scratches it might have received, and make any alterations which his skill might suggest. This pleased Francia, who had the picture at once taken out of its case and put in a clear light, that he might critically examine it. He was instantaneously confounded and overwhelmed with the beauty and masterly execution of the work. He at once felt conscious of his own foolish presumption in thinking he could improve it. He was struck dumb with terror, and went aboutdistracted and overweighted with grief at his own shortcomings. He sent the picture on to its destination, but its extreme and unparalleled beauty smote him to the heart. He took to his bed, never recovered his former spirits, and soon died of grief and vexation to think how far short he had been of such excellence. Such is the account given by Vasari, but it is thought by some authorities to have been exaggerated.
LEONARDO DA VINCI’S PICTURE OF THE LAST SUPPER (1520).
When Leonardo da Vinci painted the Last Supper about 1497, one of the greatest pictures of the world, the subject had been little attempted before, and he gave the greatest care to the details. He used to remain at his easel on the scaffold absorbed in thought for whole days, often forgetful of his meals. One great difficulty was to satisfy himself about the proper head for his Christ. He used to say that, when he attempted it, his hand trembled under the excitement of discovering the most appropriate face and expression. A friend, whom he consulted about the difficulty, comforted him by saying that, after his heads of James the Great and James the Less, it was beyond the power of man to give greater divinity and beauty to any human figures, and therefore he should leave the head of Christ imperfect. He never could satisfy himself about leaving out or finishing this cardinal point. At last he accepted a good deal of the form which the Byzantine painters had previously adopted, though he also improved upon it. Leonardo is said to have spent an inordinate time over this picture, and the prior of the monastery at Florence for whom it was painted in fresco could never understand why the painter seemed for so many days and weeks to be brooding and contemplating, and criticising, undoing, and altering, without finishing his work. The prior thought that, like the day-labourers, the great painter ought to have the brush constantly in his hand, spreading his colours and making visible progress in covering the wall. And he grievously complained again and again, not only to the painter himself, but to the duke, of all this delay; and the worry and importunity of this prior vexed and annoyed the painter, who, when alluding to it, explained to the duke how artists are sometimes producing most when they seem to be labouring least, their minds being elaborating the conceptions which it is so difficult to realise. He also informed the duke that there were still wanting to him two heads, one of which, that of the Saviour, he could not hope to find on earth, and had not yet attained the power of presenting to himself even in imagination,with all that perfection of beauty and celestial grace which appeared to him to be demanded. The second head still wanting was that of Judas Iscariot, which also caused him some anxiety, since he did not think it possible to imagine fitting features for a man who, after so many benefits received from his Master, had possessed a heart so depraved as to be capable of betraying that Master, the Lord and Creator of the world. With regard to the second, however, he said he would still pursue his search, and after all, if the worst came to the worst, and if he could find no better, then he would never be at any great loss so long as he had that troublesome and impertinent prior’s face before him. The duke laughed heartily, and the poor prior when informed was so utterly confounded at the appalling destiny awaiting him that he kept his peace for ever after. This magnificent masterpiece of the Last Supper unfortunately rapidly deteriorated in its colouring, owing to its being painted in oils instead of fresco; and it has often since been retouched and repaired, till it is doubtful how much of the original now remains, except the composition, design, and grouping, which make the picture imperishable. The refectory of the convent in which the picture was painted in fresco was more than once inundated with water, and ill usage did the rest. In 1796, when Napoleon’s troops entered Italy, they turned the refectory into a stable, and the men even amused themselves with throwing bricks at the painted heads of the Apostles. Fortunately the original work in its beauty was well copied in 1510, and this copy, after changing hands, came into the possession of the Royal Academy in London, who now possess it. Other copies were painted by the same artist about the same time. This picture is the best known and most famous in Christian art. We find it alike in rich men’s palaces and poor men’s cottages, in splendid mosaic and in coarse woodcut, on altarpieces and in all kinds of collections. On Christ’s right hand are in their order John, Judas, Peter, Andrew, James the Less, and Bartholomew. On Christ’s left hand in their order are James the Great (who sits next to Christ), Thomas, Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus, and Simon. Leonardo’s other sacred pieces, his Virgins and Holy Families, are all of exquisite beauty. A noble statue was erected to the memory of this great painter at Milan in 1872. The painter had a peculiarity of writing his chief documents backwards from right to left, so that they required to be read by the aid of a looking-glass. He is supposed to have done this to prevent the curious too easily acquiring knowledge of his studies for pictures.
RAPHAEL’S PICTURE OF THE PROCESSION TO CALVARY (1520).
Raphael painted his famous picture of the Procession to Calvary, called “Lo Spasimo di Sicilia,” for a Sicilian church at Palermo. In 1217, on its being finished, it was packed and taken on board a ship at Ostia bound for Palermo. A storm arose, the vessel foundered at sea, and all was lost except the package containing this picture, which was floated by the currents into the Bay of Genoa, and on being landed the wondrous masterpiece of art was taken out unhurt. The Genoese at first refused to give it up, insisting that it had been preserved and floated to their shores by the miraculous interposition of the Blessed Virgin herself, and it required a positive mandate from the Pope to represent it as a work done by contract.
THE DIVINE RAPHAEL’S MADONNA DI SAN SISTO.
The Benedictines of St. Sixtus at Placentia asked Raphael to paint the Madonna with the Child, St. Sixtus and St. Barbara. It was the last Madonna he painted; and, as if he had foreseen his approaching end, he made the picture one of surpassing beauty. In the midst of an immense and profound glory filled with cherubim heads, says Passavant, the Virgin is standing holding in her arms the Infant Jesus. Her feet scarcely touch the cloud which bears her; she stands out from the mystery of the heavens, and appears in her sweet and majestic grandeur. Beneath her St. Sixtus on the left and St. Barbara on the right are kneeling in adoration. Two little angels of celestial beauty lean on a cornice at the bottom, with a charming look of intelligence. The features of the Virgin, whose triumphant majesty is unequalled, wear an expression of nobleness, innocence, sweetness, and modesty; her Son, whose attitude is simple and childlike, bears in His whole countenance a Divine character, and His penetrating glance goes straight to the heart. It is no longer the graceful, smiling Child of the other Madonnas, but the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, who at the last day will become the Sovereign Judge. Wonderful power of art! In that little head, so calm, so sweet, and yet so severe, reside both the flame of the purest poetry and all the depth of Christian faith. The Madonna di San Sisto is indeed rendered Divine by the genius of the most ideal artist that God has ever created; and it is the work that contributed most to procure Raphael the surname of “the Divine.” Even in its technical part it does not resembleany of the other works of Raphael; although its execution is of extreme simplicity, it has none of that art which is only formed for delighting the eye. All in it is seen by the light of enthusiasm, and but for the little angels at the bottom painted as an after-thought on the clouds, we should scarcely see a trace of human hands in the picture. The picture is now in Dresden, and has excited admiration and the greatest veneration for three centuries.
RAPHAEL’S CARTOONS.
Raphael was commissioned by the Pope to paint cartoons for certain pieces of tapestry to be made in Flanders. The artist was fired with a desire to rival Michael Angelo’s, and he looked forward to these compositions being copied in fabrics of wool or silk and gold, which might be hung up before the wainscoting on high festivals, according to the customs of the Byzantines and Romans. The ten pieces of tapestry were afterwards made with great magnificence and perfection, and arrived from Flanders at Rome in 1519, only a few months before Raphael’s death, and hung up in St. Peter’s. He had the satisfaction of seeing this work crowned with complete success. Vasari says that these tapestries seem rather to have been performed by miracle than by the aid of man. The choice of subjects was prescribed to Raphael. The cartoons were sent to Arras and copied in tapestry. After being hung up in the Sistine chapel, the tapestries were pillaged by the troops of Charles V. in 1527, and carried off as spoils of war, and were sold at Lyons. In 1555 they were restored to the Pope. They were again stolen in the Revolution of 1789, and passed into the hands of the Jews, who at one time thought of burning them for the sake of the gold worked up in the fabric. In 1808, however, the Pope again possessed them, and they are now in the Vatican. As to the cartoons from which the tapestries were copied, these lay neglected in the manufactory at Arras till 1630. Rubens, having seen them there, described them to Charles I., who bought them for Whitehall Palace. At his death they were sold by auction, and Cromwell bought them for £300 for the nation. Charles II. was once on the point of selling them, but was persuaded not to do so. The cartoons were all riddled with needle prickings, and intersected by narrow bands, but William III. had them cleaned and put up at Hampton Court Palace. They are now kept at South Kensington Museum. They are drawn with chalk and coloured in distemper.
A DIVINE MASTER’S LAST MASTERPIECE.
Vasari, a contemporary and biographer of Raphael, says that the painter worked indefatigably at his picture of the Transfiguration of the Saviour which was destined for France. The Saviour is depicted on Mount Tabor, with eleven disciples awaiting Him at the foot. Meanwhile, a youth possessed of a spirit is brought to be healed, and he is shown writhing with contortions caused by the malignant spirit. An old man, with a face of apprehension and open eyes, watches the Apostles, as if anxious to know if there was hope. One woman, a principal figure, kneeling and pointing to these two, shows their misery. The Apostles look on full of compassion. In this work the master has produced figures and heads of unrivalled beauty, which has stamped him as the most excellent and Divine of all artists. Whoever shall desire to see in what manner Christ, transformed into the Godhead, should be represented, let him go and behold it in this picture. The Saviour is shown floating over the mount in clear air; the figure, foreshortened, is between those of Moses and Elias, who, illumined by His radiance, awaken into life beneath the splendour of the light. Prostrate on the earth are Peter, James, and John, in attitudes of great and varied beauty: one has his head bent entirely to the ground; another defends himself with his hands from the brightness of that immense light which proceeds from the splendour of Christ, who is clothed in vestments of snowy whiteness, His arms thrown open and the head raised towards heaven, while the essence and Godhead of all the three persons united in Himself are made apparent in their utmost perfection by the Divine art of Raphael. But as if that sublime genius had gathered all the force of his powers into one effort, whereby the glory and the majesty of art should be made manifest in the countenance of Christ, having completed that as one who had finished the great work which he had to accomplish, he touched the pencils no more, being shortly afterwards overtaken with death from a fever in 1520, at the age of thirty-seven.
RAPHAEL’S PICTURE OF ST. CECILIA.
A noble lady in 1513 built a chapel near Bologna to St. Cecilia, and Raphael was asked to paint an altarpiece. Passavant thus describes the work: “It was in one of his inspired moments that the master composed this exquisite painting. Everything in it speaks of faith and zeal. All the noble countenances bear theDivine stamp, and yet whatever may be the exultation of their souls, their attitudes are full of the calmest majesty. St. Paul leaning on a naked sword represents knowledge and wisdom, whilst on the other side St. John shows the full blessing of Divine love. Mary Magdalene, holding a vase of perfumes, is opposite to St. Paul, as if to indicate that, if the repentance of the apostle and his unwearied activity in the Church obtained forgiveness for him for his former sins, she also had been forgiven much because she had loved much. And as St. Paul, converted through a vision, is by the side of the living St. John, so St. Augustine, also converted to the faith of Christ, is by the side of the Magdalene. Surrounded by these great and touching figures St. Cecilia is standing, radiant with ecstasy, listening to the Divine harmonies sung by the angels in heaven. The earthly organ falls from her hands, she trembles with holy enthusiasm, and her soul seems longing to fly away to the heavenly country. The beauty of the style and the depth of expression are not the only things that render this a masterpiece, but the combination of these with harmony, richness, and powerful colouring. The colouring responds to the poetry of the subject; it carries us into an ethereal and mysterious atmosphere. No colourist has ever equalled this splendour, which we call almost Divine. Titian’s ‘Assumption’ excites feelings of joyfulness, Correggio’s ‘St. Jerome’ a gentle emotion, but Raphael’s ‘St. Cecilia’ brings us nearer to heaven.” It was this picture that killed Francia with mortification and self-humiliation. All Bologna was enthusiastic at the sight of so Divine a work. The picture still remains at Bologna.
THE INQUISITION ON SACRED ART (1522).
In 1522 Torrigiano, a Florentine sculptor, the same who, when a student and rival, had an altercation with Michael Angelo and broke his nose, received an order from a Spanish grandee, the Duke of Arcos, to carve a Madonna and Child of the natural size, for which he was told he would be well paid. The artist thereupon put forth all his skill, which was admitted to be great, and completed a matchless sculpture, which the purchaser was delighted with, and sent two servants carrying large bags of money wherewith to pay the sculptor and fetch away the gem. The latter, well pleased at the liberal payment, was equally delighted in turn; but on opening the bags, to his intense disgust he found that they were full of copper farthings, which amounted only to a beggarly total of thirty ducats (£13). Enraged at this meanness, he snatched a mallet, and regardless of the sacred character of the image, hefollowed to the spot where the sculpture stood, and with one blow he shivered it to atoms, and then told the lacqueys to take back their load of farthings to their master. This sacrilegious act the enraged grandee represented at once to the Holy Inquisition, before which tribunal the irascible artist was cited for heresy. He urged that he was entitled, as an author, to do what he liked with his own creation. But not so thought the demon judges, who with little hesitation decreed death with torture. The culprit died in prison before the day of sentence arrived, whether from excitement or refusing his food was never ascertained.
PAINTING THE LUMINOUS FACE OF CHRIST (CORREGGIO, 1534).
Vasari says that there was in his time (1540), in the city of Reggio (and now it is a gem in the gallery at Dresden), a picture by Correggio of the “Birth of Christ.” In this work the light proceeding from the presence of the Divine Child throws its splendour on the shepherds, and around all the figures who are contemplating the Infant. Many other beautiful effects are made manifest by the artist in this picture. Among others is one expressed by the figure of a woman, who, desiring to look fixedly at the Saviour, is not able with her mortal sight to endure the glory of His Divinity, which appears to cast its rays full on the figure. She is therefore shading her eyes with her hand. All this is admirably and wonderfully expressed. Over the cabin where the Divine Child is laid there hovers a choir of angels singing, and so exquisitely painted that they seem to have come direct from heaven, rather than from the hand of the painter. In the same city (now in the Palace at Madrid) there was a small picture, also by Correggio, not more than a foot high, and one of the most extraordinary and beautiful of all his works. The figures are small, the subject “Christ in the Garden,” the time night; and the angel appearing to the Saviour illumines His person with the splendour of his coming, an effect unapproachable for beauty. (Other critics say the disposition of the light in this picture is poetical and Divine.) On a plain at the foot of the mountain are seen the three apostles lying asleep. The shadow of the eminence on which the Saviour is in prayer falls over those figures, imparting to them a degree of force not to be described in words. In the farther distance is a tract of country over which the day is just breaking, and from one side approaches Judas with soldiers. Vasari says that for beauty, depth of thought, and execution no work can equal this. It is said that Correggio gave this gem to pay an apothecary’s bill of thirty shillings then due.
THE MONKS ASSISTING ARTISTS WITH THEIR PRAYERS (1560).
Queen Isabella of the Peace, about 1560, in order to please the Franciscans, to which order her confessor belonged, ordered a statue of the Virgin to be executed for a gift to them, and the best sculptor in Spain was to receive the commission. Becerra was chosen; but after a year’s work the Queen was not pleased, and the image was rejected. The next attempt was better, and it pleased the friars, who said it was worthy of Michael Angelo; but the Queen again rejected it. The Franciscans thereupon betook themselves to redoubled Masses and fasting, and the poor artist racked his memory and imagination for ideas of angelic grace and Divine beauty. Sitting one night in his studio, after much anxious thought, he fell into a slumber, and was aroused by an unknown voice saying to him, “Awake and arise, and out of that log of wood blazing on the hearth shape the thought within thee, and thou shalt obtain the desired image.” He immediately arose, plucked the log from the fire and fell to work upon it, and it proved to be an excellent piece of timber, and in time it grew under his hands into a miracle of art, and became the portentous image of Our Lady of Solitude, which is to this day had in reverence, and in which are expressed beauty, grief, love, tenderness, constancy, and resignation. The Queen at last acknowledged the carving was to her mind. The Virgin was dressed in sable garb and placed in the convent of the Minim Fathers at Madrid, and became renowned for her miraculous powers. Another artist, named Joannes, was engaged by the friars to paint the Virgin, and his first sketches were unsuccessful; but he and his employers betook themselves to religious exercises, and many holy men joined them in their prayers. Every day the artist confessed and communicated before commencing his labours. At last his piety and perseverance overcame all difficulties. It was acknowledged to be of great excellence, and amongst the friars it was soon famous for its miraculous powers.
MICHAEL ANGELO, PAINTER AND SCULPTOR (1564).
Michael Angelo, who was equally celebrated as a painter and sculptor of the first class, as well as architect, was born in 1475. His Madonnas and Holy Families and Christs are all admirable. In 1507 he began frescoes, and afterwards paintings for the Sistine Chapel and Pauline Chapel at Rome. In 1547 he was appointed architect to St. Peter’s at Rome, and at his death in 1564 was succeeded in the latter office by Raphael. MichaelAngelo was a man of spare figure and extraordinary activity. When he was at work he was satisfied with a scrap of bread and a drop of wine, which he took without breaking off the business in hand. He lived in this frugal way up to the time when he began his last pictures in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. He was then old, and allowed himself only a simple meal at the end of the day. He used sometimes to remain for whole months absorbed in meditation, without touching a brush or chisel; then, when he had elaborated his composition, he set to work as if inspired by a fury. Vasari says his imagination was so lofty that his hands could not express his sublime thoughts. Generally he used to put an idea hurriedly on paper, then take up each detail, and finish it as he proceeded. He would sometimes draw the same head ten or twelve times over before he was satisfied with it. He took very little sleep, and used often to get up in the night to work out a sudden fancy. He used to wear a sort of cardboard helmet, which he contrived so as to hold a light, and thus the part on which he worked was illumined without his hands being encumbered. He had a round head, high temples, a broad, square forehead, with seven lines straight across it, and a nose disfigured by a blow from the fist of Torrigiano, who, being jealous of him as a student, picked a quarrel with him, and thereby left this mark.
THE GREAT SCULPTOR’S MASTERPIECES (MICHAEL ANGELO, 1564).
Vasari, a contemporary of Michael Angelo, says of his Pieta, a marble figure of the Virgin (now in the chapel of Santa Maria della Febbre at Rome), that no sculptor, however distinguished an artist, could add a single grace or improve it by whatever pains he might take, whether in elegance and delicacy, or force, or careful execution, nor could any surpass the art which the sculptor has here exhibited. In like manner the marble figure of his dead Christ exhibits the very perfection of faithful execution in every muscle, vein, and nerve. There was besides a most exquisite expression in the countenance, and the limbs and veins and pulses are admirably arranged. The love and care which the sculptor had given to this group were such that he there left his name—a thing he never did again for any work—on the cincture which girdles the robe of Our Lady. The reason of this was, that one day he entered the chapel and heard a group of strangers praising it highly, and when one asked the other who was the artist, it was attributed at once to a person called the Hunchback of Milan. The real artist remained silent, but one night soon after he repaired to the chapel with a light and chisel,and engraved his name on the figure of the Madonna, whose “beauty and goodness, piety and grief, dead in the living marble,” are so well spoken of by the poet. This work brought Michael Angelo great fame. Certain stupid people did indeed affirm at the time that he has made Our Lady too young, but that is because they fail to perceive the fact that unspotted maidens long preserve the youthfulness of their aspect, while persons afflicted, as Christ was, do the contrary. The youth of the Madonna therefore did but add to the credit of the master.
SATISFYING A CRITIC OF THE FAULTLESS (MICHAEL ANGELO, 1564).
Vasari, the biographer and pupil, says that when Michael Angelo had set up his colossal marble statue of David, it chanced that Soderini, whom it greatly pleased, came to look at it while the artist was giving a few last touches, and told him that he thought the nose too short. Michael Angelo perceived that Soderini was in such a position beneath the figure that he could not see it conveniently, yet to satisfy him he mounted the scaffold with his chisel and a little powder which he had picked up from the floor. He then struck the nose a few times very gently, but without altering anything, and took care to let some of the powder fall down at the same time, and told the critic to look at it now. “I like it better now,” replied Soderini; “you have given it life.” The sculptor then came down, not without compassion for that class of people who desire to appear good judges of what they do not understand. Vasari says he may truly affirm that this surpasses all others, whether ancient or modern, Greek or Latin; neither the Marforio at Rome, the Tiber and the Nile in the Belvedere, nor the giants of Monte Cavallo can be compared to such a model of beauty and excellence. The outline of the lower limbs is most exquisite. The connection of each limb with the body is faultless, and the spirit of the whole form is divine. Never since has there been produced so fine an attitude, so perfect a grace, such beauty of head, feet, and hands; every part is replete with excellence; nor is so much harmony and admirable art to be found in any other work. He that has seen this, therefore, need not care to see any production else, whether of that age or of any preceding it.
MICHAEL ANGELO’S LAST JUDGMENT (1564).
Michael Angelo when commissioned by the Pope to finish the paintings of the Sistine Chapel executed two vast frescoes for the ends of the chapel, one on “The Last Judgment,” and the other“The Fall of the Angels.” “The Last Judgment” was begun in 1533, but was not finished till 1541. Though containing some groups powerfully painted, there were many adverse critics as to the general style and some of the details of this performance. The Pope’s master of the ceremonies, Biagio, was very severe in his comments, and when asked by the Pope what he thought of this painting, the former replied that he thought it was a shameless exhibition of naked figures, more fit for a bathing-house or a beershop than a church. Michael Angelo heard of this criticism, and one day when alone he put in a likeness of the unfortunate master of ceremonies among the damned under a representation of Minos. The resemblance was so striking that all Rome went to see it. Biagio being furious went and complained to the Pope, who asked where Michael Angelo had put him in the picture. “In hell,” he replied. “Alas!” rejoined Pope Paul, with a smile, “if he had only put you in purgatory, I could have got you out; but as you are in hell, I can do nothing for you. My power does not reach so far as that.”
VARGAS’S DEVOTION TO SACRED ART (1568).
Vargas of Seville painted for the cathedral in 1555 a picture of the Nativity, which still forms the altarpiece of the little chapel dedicated to that event. The Virgin Mother might have been sketched by the pure pencil of Raphael. The peasant who kneels at her feet with his offering of a basket of doves is a study from Nature, painted with much of the force and freedom of the later masters of Seville; and many of the accessories, such as the head of the goat dragged in by the shepherd and the sheaf of corn and pack-saddle, are finished with Flemish accuracy. He also painted “Christ going to Calvary,” and many saints and martyrs and female heads of much purity and grace. Vargas died in 1568, having been distinguished for his modesty, kindness, and devotion to religion. After his death there were found in his chamber the scourges with which he practised self-flagellation, and a coffin wherein he was wont to lie down in the hours of solitude and repose and consider his latter end. He had much wit and humour; and once, when asked by a brother painter his opinion of a very badly painted Saviour on the cross, Vargas said, “Methinks He is saying, ‘Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.’”
TITIAN’S HEAD OF CHRIST (1576).
Titian painted his great picture of “The Tribute Money,” nowin the Dresden Gallery, in answer to a taunt that Venetian art had no finish. This picture has commanded the admiration of four centuries for the Godlike beauty and calm majesty of Christ’s countenance. His lips seem to be parting with the question, “Whose is this image and superscription?” while the fingers point gracefully to the coin in the rough hand of his cunning tempter, whose face shows the low self-satisfaction with which he thinks he has outwitted the Master. Vasari says this head of Christ is “stupendous and miraculous”; its conscious sublimity of expressive attitude and movement are well set off by the sharp and cunning profile of the rough and weather-beaten questioner, who is so keen to foil a higher nature. This is thought to be the most perfect picture from the hand of Titian. He painted another great picture in his old age of “Christ at Emmaus,” gorgeous in colour and masterly in its attitudes and expression.
TITIAN’S PAINTING OF THE TRIBUTE MONEY (1576).
Scanelli tells the condition under which this renowned picture by Titian was produced. Titian was visited on a certain occasion by a company of German travellers, who were allowed to look at the pictures in his studio. On being asked what impression these works conveyed, these gentlemen declared that they knew of one master only who was capable of finishing as they thought paintings ought to be finished, and that was Durer. Their impression was, that Venetian compositions invariably fell below the promise which they had given at the first. To these observations Titian smilingly replied that, if he had thought extreme finish to be the end and aim of art, he too would have fallen into the excesses of Durer. But though long experience had taught him to prefer a broad and even track to a narrow and intricate path, yet he would still take occasion to show that the subtlest detail might be compassed without sacrifice of breadth, and so produced the Christ of the tribute money. All the artists of his time thought this the most perfect work of Titian. The contrast is sublime between the majestic calm and elevation, the Godlike beauty, of Christ and the low cunning and crafty, coarse air of the Pharisee who questions Him. The marble smoothness and fair complexion of Christ’s skin is contrasted with the rough, tanned, and weather-beaten skin of the other.
A DIFFIDENT ARTIST OF SACRED PICTURES REASSURED (ADRIANO, 1630).
At Cordova, in Spain, Adriano, a lay brother of the barefooted Carmelites, and who died in 1630, excelled in sacred art, andexecuted a great picture of the Crucifixion in which the Virgin and Mary Magdalene were leading figures; and this work is preserved in the convent there. This artist was so diffident of himself that he used to deface or destroy his pictures as soon as he had executed them. And so uniform was this practice with him that his friends took occasion to intercede with him for the preservation of his many valuable productions in the name of the souls in purgatory, knowing his attachment to the holy offices in their behalf. By this mode of exorcism the destroying spirit, which his self-dissatisfaction and fastidiousness conjured up, was happily kept in check; and the above and other valuable pictures were, thanks to the souls in purgatory, saved and preserved for the consolation of the living.
RUBENS’S GREAT PICTURES (1577-1640).
The cathedral of Notre Dame at Antwerp contains the masterpiece of Rubens, “The Descent from the Cross,” hung in the south transept. The picture is now somewhat misty and has been retouched in some places. The greatest peculiarity is the white sheet on which the body of Jesus lies, and which enhances the colouring. The Christ is said to be one of the finest figures ever invented, and the hanging of the head is exquisitely rendered. Two of the three Marys have more beauty than Rubens usually gives to female figures. The principal light comes from the white sheet. It was said that this picture was given in exchange for a piece of ground on which Rubens built his house; the original agreement was for one picture of St. Christopher, but Rubens gave them five, including that subject. Another picture of Rubens’s in the north transept is “The Elevation of the Cross,” which is full of life and interesting attitudes, and the horses are spirited. A third picture is the “Assumption of the Virgin,” which was painted in sixteen days. A fourth picture is the “Resurrection of the Saviour,” where Christ is represented coming out of the tomb in great splendour, the soldiers terrified and falling over each other in their confusion. In the museum at Antwerp is “The Crucifixion of Christ between the two Thieves,” by Rubens, where the figures are drawn and grouped with consummate art. The Magdalene is a leading character, and the good centurion is also represented. This is one of the first pictures of the world for composition, colouring, and correctness of drawing. Other sacred pictures of Rubens are to be seen in this collection.
THE MONKS GETTING A BARGAIN OF A PICTURE (TRISTAN, 1469).
The monks of La Sislo, near Toledo in Spain, were anxious to have a picture of the Last Supper painted for their refectory, like that painted by Titian for the monastery of Lorenzo, and applied to Dominico to execute the work. Dominico, on the ground of indisposition, declined it, but recommended his pupil Luis Tristan, who was accepted. The picture was finished, and the monks were highly pleased with it, but they thought the artist’s demand of two hundred ducats (£90) exorbitant. In their perplexity they referred to Dominico, who, though ill of the gout, drove to see the picture and assess its value. He looked at it, and then, turning with a threatening and angry countenance to his pupil, told him he had utterly disgraced himself and his profession by asking such a sum as two hundred ducats for such a picture as that. The monks were delighted and triumphant at this deliverance. Dominico, still looking fiercely, told his pupil at once to roll up his picture and take it away to Toledo, for he was certain to get five hundred ducats for it, and he then began to state reasons, and spoke in raptures of it as a masterly performance. At this turn of affairs the monks looked at each other with astonishment and vexation; and after a slight pause said, that upon the whole they thought they would keep to their bargain, and they then and there found the money and paid the sum agreed. Since then the Fathers had good reason to be well pleased; for all the critics of Europe, on seeing it, offered them far more than the price if they would part with it. Tristan died at Toledo in 1469.
VELASQUEZ’S “CRUCIFIXION” (1660)
In 1639 Velasquez produced one of his noblest pictures, “The Crucifixion,” painted for the nunnery of San Placido at Madrid. Unrelieved by the usual dim landscape or lowering clouds, the cross in this picture has no footing upon earth, but is placed on a plain, dark ground, like an ivory carving on a velvet pall. Never was that great agony more powerfully depicted. The head of our Lord droops on His right shoulder, over which falls a mass of dark hair, while drops of blood trickle from His thorn-pierced brows. The anatomy of the body and limbs is executed with as much precision as in Cellini’s marble, and the linen cloth wrapped about the body, and even the firwood of the cross, display his accurate attention to details. Our Lord’s feet are heldeach by a separate nail; at the foot of the cross are the usual skull and bones, and a serpent twines itself round the accursed tree. The sisterhood of San Placido placed this picture in their sacristy in a badly lighted cell, where it remained until the French came to Madrid and sold it in Paris, whence it was redeemed at a large price, and presented to the Royal Gallery of Spain.
HOW THE MONKS GOT THEIR FINE PICTURES (1671).
At the beatification of St. Benozzi in 1671, the monks of the order of Servi were anxious to have their church of the Annunziata at Florence suitably decorated. The sacristan of the convent wished to get the work done well and cheaply, and stimulated the vanity of rival artists by representing how their works would have the advantage of being exhibited in a church where such numbers of the devout constantly attended. He would not hold out the hope of large pay, but he promised abundance of prayers; and, above all, he dwelt on the favour which their performances would no doubt obtain from the Blessed Virgin herself, to whose especial honour they were to be consecrated. Andrea del Sarto yielded to these representations, and put forth all his strength. He painted on one side of the cortile two scenes from the life of the Madonna—“The Birth of the Virgin” and “The Adoration of the Magi”; and on the other side scenes from the life of San Filippo Benozzi. Every figure in those sublime groups is now familiar to the lovers of art. Other masterpieces were added by Andrea to that glorious church.
THE DIVINE MURILLO (1682).
Murillo, the Spanish painter, according to Sir D. Wilkie, adapted the higher subjects of art to the commonest understanding, and seems of all the painters the universal favourite. His paintings of “St. Elizabeth” and “The Healing of the Paralytic” are rich in colour and of singular beauty. He himself thought “The Charity of St. Thomas” was his best picture. His picture of “The Virgin of the Napkin,” though executed hastily, as a present to a cook who begged some memorial of him, shows a face in which thought is happily blended with maidenly innocence, and the Divine Child, with His deep, earnest eyes, leans forward in her arms, struggling, as it were, almost out of the frame, as if to welcome the saintly carpenter home from his daily toil. The picture is executed with a brilliancy of touch never excelled; itglows with a golden light, as if the sun were also shining on the canvas. Another picture, “The Guardian Angel,” shows the chief figure in a rich yellow robe and purple mantle, pointing as he goes with the right hand to heaven, and with the other leading a lovely child—the emblem of the soul passing through the pilgrimage of this world. Never was an allegory more sweetly told than in this picture, which is painted with great lightness of touch, and the transparent texture of the child’s garment is finely rendered. In his pictures of the Virgin Murillo’s celestial attendants are among the loveliest cherubs that ever bloomed on canvas. Hovering in the sunny air, reposing on clouds, or sporting amongst their silvery folds, these ministering shapes give life and movement to the picture, and relieve the Virgin’s statue-like repose. Some of them bear the large white lilies, others roses, sprays of olive and palm boughs, like those which are still annually blessed in churches, and hung as charms on balconies and portals. As a painter of children Murillo has caught with matchless insight all the nameless ways and graces of the bright-eyed Andalusian boys and girls he loved to depict.
CANO’S PICTURE OF THE VIRGIN (1690).
The most beautiful of Cano’s pictures is that of “Our Lady of Belem,” or Bethlehem, painted at Malaga for the cathedral of Seville. In serene celestial beauty this Madonna is excelled by no image of the Blessed Mary to be found in Spain. Her glorious countenance lends credit to the legends of the older art, and is such as might have been revealed in answer to the prayers of the saintly Vargas or of Joanes. The drapery is a crimson robe, with a dark blue mantle drawn over the head. The head of the Divine Child is perhaps not childlike; but there is much infantine simplicity and grace in the attitude, as He sits with His tiny hand resting on that of His mother. These hands are as usual admirably painted; and the whole picture is finished with exceeding care, as if the painter had determined to crown his labours and honour Seville with a masterpiece. Cano was the artist who was once engaged to model a statue of St. Antony for an accountant, and after it was finished and the price spoken of was deemed large, the accountant asked how many days’ labour it had cost. The answer being that it took twenty-five days, the patron at once rather indignantly observed, that at the rate charged it would be four doubloons a day—a most extravagant sum. To this Cano rejoined, “Yes, and I have been fifty years learning to make such a statue as that in twenty-five days.”