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Title: Sacred and Legendary Art, Volume I (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts.
Author: Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Sacred and Legendary Art, Volume I (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts." ***
VOLUME I (OF 2) ***
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
The woodcut number 48, The Symbol of St. Matthew. _Mosaic._, does
not exist.
On page 191, in the section on St. Peter and St.Paul, ĪC̄. X̄C̄. is an
near approximation of the actual symbol.
Italics are represented thus _italic_, bold thus =bold= and
superscripts thus y^{en}.
Sacred
AND
Legendary Art.
VOL. I.
THE LATEST EDITIONS OF MRS. JAMESON’S WORKS ON SACRED AND LEGENDARY
CHRISTIAN ART.
The Fifth Edition, in 2 vols. square crown 8vo. with 19 Etchings on
Copper and 187 Woodcuts, price 31_s._ 6_d._
LEGENDS of the SAINTS and MARTYRS as represented in the Fine Arts,
forming the FIRST SERIES of ‘Sacred and Legendary Art.’ By Mrs. JAMESON.
II. LEGENDS of the MONASTIC ORDERS. Third Edition, with 11 Etchings and
88 Woodcuts. 1 vol. 21_s._
III. LEGENDS of the MADONNA. Third Edition, with 27 Etchings and 165
Woodcuts. 1 vol. 21_s._
IV. HISTORY of OUR LORD as exemplified in Works of Art. By Mrs. JAMESON
and Lady EASTLAKE. Second Edition, with 31 Etchings and 281 Woodcuts. 2
vols. 42_s._
⁂ Of these 312 Illustrations, all prepared specially for the ‘History
of Our Lord,’ nearly one-third of the whole number have now been
engraved for the first time.
‘We have in these volumes, penned in a truth-seeking spirit and
illustrated with a copious generosity which at once elucidates and
adorns each section of the subject, contributions to the literature of
CHRISTIAN ART, for which every artist and every student of theology
will confess debt of private gratitude. To thoughtful inquirers,
richest mines are here opened for meditation. To minds prepared for
deeper draughts to quench the thirst for knowledge, wells are dug and
fountains are made to flow even in the desert tracks of time where
pilgrim’s foot seldom attempts to tread. We think that Lady EASTLAKE
has done special service in bringing into popular view recondite
stores which have hitherto been sealed for public use. She has, by
appeal to the early heads of Christ in the Catacombs, by reference to
Christian sarcophagi of the fourth century, to ivories as old as the
sixth century, and Greek MSS. and Byzantine miniatures of the ninth
century, enabled the art-student to tract the history of types and
antetypes, and to analyse the rudimentary germs which, from age to
age accumulating strength and growing in comeliness, at length issued
forth in perfected pictorial form. _It is to this, the infancy of art,
that at the present moment peculiar interest attaches._’
BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.
[Illustration: _The Assumption of the Magdalena_.]
Sacred
AND
Legendary Art.
BY MRS. JAMESON.
VOLUME I.
CONTAINING
LEGENDS OF THE ANGELS AND ARCHANGELS, THE EVANGELISTS,
THE APOSTLES, THE DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH,
AND ST. MARY MAGDALENE,
AS REPRESENTED IN THE FINE ARTS.
_SIXTH EDITION._
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1870.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
PREFACE
TO
THE THIRD EDITION.
The Author ventures to hope that, on comparing this Third Edition of
‘Sacred and Legendary Art’ with the two preceding, it will be found
greatly improved, and rendered more worthy of the kind approbation and
sympathy with which it has been received. The whole has been carefully
revised; the references to the pictures and other works of Art
corrected from the latest authorities, and many new examples have been
added. All the Illustrations, which were formerly etched on copper,
have been newly etched on steel; two have been omitted, and three
others, as more interesting and appropriate, have been substituted; and
twelve new woodcuts have been introduced. In a work so multifarious in
its nature, and comprising so many hundred subjects and references,
there may remain some errors and omissions, but they have not occurred
from want of care; and I must not omit to express due thanks for the
observations and corrections which have been forwarded to me from time
to time, and which have been in this Edition carefully attended to.
A. J.
_January 1857._
PREFACE
TO
THE FIRST EDITION.
(1848.)
This book was begun six years ago, in 1842. It has since been often
laid aside, and again resumed. In this long interval, many useful and
delightful works have been written on the same subject, but still
the particular ground I had chosen remained unoccupied; and, amid
many difficulties, and the consciousness of many deficiencies, I was
encouraged to proceed, partly by the pleasure I took in a task so
congenial—partly by the conviction that such a work has long been
wanted by those who are not contented with a mere manual of reference,
or a mere catalogue of names. This book is intended not only to be
consulted, but to be read—if it be found worth reading. It has been
written for those who are, like myself, unlearned; yet less, certainly,
with the idea of instructing, than from a wish to share with others
those pleasurable associations, those ever new and ever various aspects
of character and sentiment, as exhibited in Art, which have been a
source of such vivid enjoyment to myself.
This is the utmost limit of my ambition; and, knowing that I cannot
escape criticism, I am at least anxious that there should be no mistake
as to purpose and intention. I hope it will be clearly understood that
I have taken throughout the æsthetic and not the religious view of
those productions of Art which, in as far as they are informed with a
true and earnest feeling, and steeped in that beauty which emanates
from genius inspired by faith, may cease to be Religion, but cannot
cease to be Poetry; and as poetry only I have considered them.
The difficulty of selection and compression has been the greatest of
all my difficulties; there is not a chapter in this book which might
not have been more easily extended to a volume than compressed into a
few pages. Every reader, however, who is interested in the subject,
may supply the omissions, follow out the suggestions, and enjoy the
pleasure of discovering new exceptions, new analogies, for himself.
With regard to the arrangement, I am afraid it will be found liable
to objections; but it is the best that, after long consideration and
many changes, I could fix upon. It is not formal, nor technical, like
that of a catalogue or a calendar, but intended to lead the fancy
naturally from subject to subject as one opened upon another, with
just sufficient order to keep the mind unperplexed and the attention
unfatigued amid a great diversity of objects, scenes, stories, and
characters.
The authorities for the legends have been the _Legenda Aurea_ of
Voragine, in the old French and English translations; the _Flos
Sanctorum_ of Ribadeneira, in the old French translation; the _Perfetto
Legendario_, editions of Rome and Venice; the _Legende delle Sante
Vergini_, Florence and Venice; the large work of Baillet, _Les Vies
des Saints_, in thirty-two volumes, most useful for the historical
authorities; and Alban Butler’s _Lives of the Saints_. All these have
been consulted for such particulars of circumstance and character as
might illustrate the various representations, and then compressed into
a narrative as clear as I could render it. Where one authority only has
been followed, it is usually placed in the margin.
The First Part contains the legends of the scriptural personages and
the primitive fathers.
The Second Part contains those sainted personages who lived, or are
supposed to have lived, in the first ages of Christianity, and whose
real history, founded on fact or tradition, has been so disguised by
poetical embroidery, that they have in some sort the air of ideal
beings. As I could not undertake to go through the whole calendar,
nor yet to make my book a catalogue of pictures and statues, I have
confined myself to the saints most interesting and important, and (with
very few exceptions) to those works of Art of which I could speak from
my own knowledge.
The legends of the monastic orders, and the history of the Franciscans
and Dominicans, considered merely in their connexion with the revival
and development of the Fine Arts in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, open so wide a range of speculation,—the characteristics of
these religious enthusiasts of both sexes are so full of interest and
beauty as artistic conceptions, and as psychological and philosophical
studies so extraordinary, that I could not, in conscience, compress
them into a few pages: they form a volume complete in itself, entitled
‘Legends of the Monastic Orders.’
The little sketches and woodcuts are trifling as illustrations, and
can only assist the memory and the fancy of the reader but I regret
this the less, inasmuch as those who take an interest in the subject
can easily illustrate the book for themselves. To collect a portfolio
of prints, including those works of art which are cited under each
head as examples, with a selection from the hundreds of others which
are not cited, and arrange them in the same order—with reference, not
to schools, or styles, or dates, but to subject merely—would be an
amusing, and I think not a profitless, occupation. It could not be
done in the right spirit without leading the mind far beyond the mere
pleasure of comparison and criticism, to ‘thoughts more elevate and
reasonings high’ of things celestial and terrestrial, as shadowed forth
in form by the wit and the hand of man.
[Illustration: An Angel]
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION:
I. Of the Origin and general Significance of the Legends represented
in Art 1
II. Of the Distinction to be drawn between Devotional and Historical
Subjects 11
III. Of the Patron Saints of particular Countries, Cities, and
Localities 18
IV. Of certain Emblems and Attributes of general Application 23
V. Of the Significance of Colours. Conclusion 35
OF ANGELS AND ARCHANGELS.
OF ANGELS. Antiquity of the Belief in Angels. Early Notions respecting
them. How represented in the Old Testament. In the New Testament.
Angelic Hierarchies. The Nine Choirs. Seraphim, Cherubim. General
Characteristics in Painting. Infant Angels. Wings. Angels of Dante.
Angels as Messengers, Choristers, Guardians. As Ministers of Wrath.
As Agents in the Creation. Manner in which the principal Painters have
set forth the Angelic Forms and Attributes 41
THE ARCHANGELS. The Seven Archangels. The Four Archangels. The Three
Archangels 87
ST. MICHAEL 94
ST. GABRIEL 118
ST. RAPHAEL 126
Additional Notes on Angels 131
THE FOUR EVANGELISTS.
The earliest Types: as Four Books; as Four Rivers; as the Four
Mysterious Animals; the Human and Animal Forms combined; with Wings;
as Men 132
ST. MATTHEW. His Legend. His Attributes. Pictures from his Life not
common 143
ST. MARK. His Legend. Devotional Pictures: as Evangelist; as the
Disciple of Peter; as the Patron Saint of Venice. The Legend of the
Fisherman. The Legend of the Christian Slave. The Translation of the
Body of St. Mark 147
ST. LUKE. His Legend. Devotional Figures. Attributes: as Evangelist
and Painter. St. Luke painting the Virgin 154
ST. JOHN. His Legend. Devotional Pictures: as Evangelist; as Apostle;
as Prophet. Subjects from his Life; Legend of St. John and the Robber;
of the two Young Men; of Drusiana; of the Huntsman and the Partridge.
The Martyrdom of St. John. Legend of the Death of St. John. Legend of
Galla Placidia. Of King Edward the Confessor 157
The Six Writers of the Canonical Epistles, as a series 172
THE TWELVE APOSTLES.
Ancient Types: as Twelve Sheep; as Twelve Doves; as Twelve Men. How
grouped in Ecclesiastical Decoration. In the Old Mosaics; their proper
place. Examples from various Painters. Historical Subjects relating to
the Twelve Apostles: the Pentecost; the Separation of the Twelve
Apostles to preach the Gospel; the Twelve Baptisms; the Twelve
Martyrdoms 173
ST. PETER and ST. PAUL. The Ancient Greek Types. Examples of the early
Treatment of these two Apostles: in the old Mosaics; in early
Sculpture; in Pictures 185
ST. PETER. His peculiar Attributes: as Apostle and Patron Saint; as
the Head and Founder of the Roman Church; St. Peter as Pope. Subjects
from the Scriptural Life of St. Peter. Legendary Stories connected
with St. Peter. The Legend of Simon Magus; of the ‘_Domine, quo
vadis?_’ of Processus and Martinian. The Martyrdom of St. Peter.
St. Peter as Keeper of the Gates of Paradise. The Legend of St.
Petronilla. The Life of St. Peter in a Series of Subjects 193
ST. PAUL. Earliest Type. Attributes of St. Paul: the Sword. Subjects
from his Life. Stoning of Stephen. Conversion of St. Paul. The Vision
of St. Paul. Miracles of St. Paul. His Martyrdom. The Legend of
Plautilla. The Life of St. Paul in a Series of Subjects 212
ST. ANDREW. The Legend. Attributes. Historical Subjects from the Life
of St. Andrew. Flagellation. Adoration of the Cross. Martyrdom as
represented by Guido, Domenichino, and Murillo 226
ST. JAMES MAJOR. Story and Character as represented in Scripture. St.
James as Patron of Spain. The Legend of Santiago. The Battle of
Clavijo. The Pilgrims of Compostella. The Devotional Figures and
Attributes of St. James the Apostle. As Tutelar Saint of Spain.
Pictures from his Legend 230
ST. PHILIP. The Legend of the Idol and the Serpent. Devotional
Pictures and Attributes. Subjects from his Legend. Distinction between
St. Philip the Apostle and St. Philip the Deacon 241
ST. BARTHOLOMEW. The Legend. The Attributes. Martyrdom 244
ST. THOMAS. Origin of his peculiar Attribute. The Legend of King
Gondoforus. The Incredulity of St. Thomas. The Legend of the ‘_Madonna
della Cintola_.’ Martyrdom of St. Thomas 245
ST. JAMES MINOR. First Bishop of Jerusalem. Attributes. Resemblance to
Christ. Subjects from his Life. Martyrdom. Frescoes at Padua 250
ST. SIMON AND ST. JUDE. Legend and Attributes. Represented as
Children 252
ST. MATTHIAS. Attributes 254
JUDAS ISCARIOT. Scriptural Character. Legends relating to him; how
represented in various Subjects 255
THE LAST SUPPER. Its importance as a Sacred Subject. Devotional when
it represents the Institution of the Eucharist. Historical when it
represents the Detection of Judas. Various Examples. Giotto. Duccio of
Siena. Angelico da Fiesole. Luca Signorelli. Ghirlandajo. Albert
Dürer. Leonardo da Vinci. Raphael. Andrea del Sarto. Titian.
Poussin. 261
Faults and Mistakes committed by Painters in representing the Last
Supper 273
ST. BARNABAS. His Legend. Popular at Venice as Kinsman of St. Mark.
Represented with the Gospel of St. Matthew 278
THE DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH.
THE FOUR LATIN FATHERS. Their Particular Attributes. Their proper
place in Ecclesiastical Decoration. Subjects in which they are
introduced together 280
ST. JEROME. History and Character. Influence over the Roman Women.
Origin of his Attributes. Legend of the Wounded Lion. Devotional
Figures of St. Jerome: as Patron Saint; as Translator of the
Scriptures; as Penitent. Subjects from the Life of St. Jerome. The
Communion of St. Jerome 285
ST. AMBROSE. Story and Character of St. Ambrose. The Emperor
Theodosius. The Discovery of the Martyrs St. Protasius and St.
Gervasius. Legends relating to St. Ambrose. The Prefect Macedonius.
The Nobleman of Tuscany. Devotional Figures of St. Ambrose. His
peculiar Attributes. His Church at Milan; his Life as represented on
the Altar. Statue of St. Ambrose 300
ST. AUGUSTINE. Character of St. Augustine. His Shrine at Pavia, and
Bassorelievos representing his Life. Devotional Figures of St.
Augustine. Represented with his Mother, Monica. Various Subjects from
his Life. The Vision of St. Augustine 308
ST. GREGORY. His Story and Character. His Popularity. Legends
connected with his Life. Origin of his Attribute, the Dove. The Supper
of St. Gregory. The Mass of St. Gregory. The Miracle of the Brandeum.
St. Gregory releases the Soul of the Emperor Trajan. The Legend as
represented in Pictures. The Legend of the Monk. St. Gregory’s
Doctrine of Purgatory. How represented 315
THE FOUR GREEK FATHERS. How represented in the Greek Pictures, and by
the Latin Artists 324
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM. Singular Legends with regard to him. The Penance
of St. Chrysostom. As represented in the German Prints. By Lucas
Cranach. By Beham. By Albert Dürer 325
ST. BASIL THE GREAT. His Character. How represented. Story of the
Emperor Valens. Legends which refer to St. Basil 335
ST. ATHANASIUS. How represented. Unpopular as a Subject of Art 339
ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN. His History and Character. His celebrity as a
Poet. Beautiful Miniatures relative to his Life 340
ST. CYRIL. How represented 342
ST. MARY MAGDALENE, ST. MARTHA, ST. LAZARUS, ST. MAXIMIN,
ST. MARCELLA, ST. MARY OF EGYPT, AND THE BEATIFIED
PENITENTS.
Character of Mary Magdalene. Disputes concerning her Identity. The
Popular and Scriptural Legend. The old Provençal Legend. The
Devotional Representations: as Patron Saint; as Penitent. Sacred
Subjects in which she is introduced. Legendary Subjects. La Danse de
la Madeleine. The Assumption of the Magdalene. The Legend of the
Mother and Child. Her Life in a Series of Subjects. Legends of Mary
Magdalene and St. John the Evangelist 343
ST. MARTHA. Her Character. Legends of St. Martha. How represented.
Where introduced 381
ST. LAZARUS 383
ST. MARY OF EGYPT. The Legend. Distinction between St. Mary of Egypt
and Mary Magdalene. Proper Attributes of Mary of Egypt. Stories and
Pictures from her Life 385
MARY THE PENITENT, not to be confounded with Mary of Egypt. Her Story.
Landscapes of Philippe de Champagne 390
ST. THAIS. ST. PELAGIA 393
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
IN
THE FIRST VOLUME.
Woodcuts.
1. Laus Deo. _Liberale di Verona._
2. Angel. _Gaudenzio Ferrari._
3. Angels singing ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo.’ _Perugino._
4. Seraph. _Greek Emblem, 9th Century._
5. Cherubim. _Italian, 14th Century._
6. Cherubim. _Pinturicchio._
7. Cherubim. _Liberale di Verona._
8. Part of a Glory of Angels. _Ambrogio Borgognone._
9. Winged Genius. _Egyptian._
10. Winged Figure. _Nineveh Marbles._
11. Seraph. _Ancient Greek Mosaic._
12. Angels. _Orcagna._
13. Fiery Cherub. _Raphael._
14. Angel, hymning the Virgin. _Francia._
15. Piping Angel. _Gian Bellini._
16. Greek Angel bearing the Moon.
17. Angels on Horseback. _Cathedral of Auxerre._
18. Angels expelling Adam and Eve. _N. Pisano._
19. Angels who visit Abraham. _Raphael._
20. Plan of the Riccardi Chapel. _Florence._
21. Lamenting Angel. _Campo Santo._
22. The Angel wrestles with Jacob. _Greek Miniature._
23. Greek Angel. _Miniature._
24. Greek Angels. _Mosaic._
25. Angels. _F. Granacci._
26. Angel in a Crucifixion. _Albert Dürer._
27. Angels of the 17th Century.
28. Angel. _Poussin._
29. Angels rejoicing. _W. Blake._
30. Two Archangels. _Cimabue._
31. The Archangels Michael and Raphael. _Campo Santo._
32. Angels bearing the Instruments of the Passion. _Campo Santo._
33. The Three Archangels bear the Infant Christ.
34. St. Michael as Patron Saint. _Angelico da Fiesole._
35. Early Symbol of St. Michael and the Dragon. _Bas-relief._
36. St. Michael overcomes the Demon. _Martin Schoen._
37. The same subject. _Raphael._
38. St. Michael as Patron Saint. _Mabuse._
39. St. Michael as Angel of Judgment and Lord of Souls. _Justus of
Ghent._
40. St. Michael as Lord of Souls. _Luca Signorelli._
41. Egyptian Symbol.
42. St. Gabriel. _Lorenzo of Monaco._
43. St. Gabriel. _Wilhelm of Cologne._
44. Angel announcing the Death of the Virgin. _Filippo Lippi._
45. St. Gabriel. _Van Eyck._
46. St. Raphael. _Murillo._
47. St. Raphael. _Rembrandt._
48. The Symbol of St. Matthew. _Mosaic._
49. The Tetramorph. _Greek._
50. Symbol of St. Luke. _Mosaic._
51. Symbol of St. Luke. _Mosaic._
52. Symbol of St. John. _Mosaic._
53. Symbol of St. Mark. _Mosaic._
54. Symbol of St. John. _Miniature._
55. Symbol of St. Mark. _Sculpture._
56. Mystical Figures of the Four Evangelists. _Angelico da Fiesole._
57. Figure from Nineveh. _British Museum._
58. Winged St. Mark. _Hans Beham._
59. St. Matthew. _Raphael._
60. St. John. _Hans Hemling._
61. St. John with the Eagle. _Raphael._
62. St. John as Prophet. _Raphael._
63. St. John in the Island of Patmos. _Lucas van Leyden._
64. The Twelve Apostles, as Sheep. _Mosaic._
65. St. Philip. _Orcagna._
66. St. Peter and St. Paul. _Carlo Crivelli._
67. St. Peter. _Greek Type._
68. St. Peter with one Key. _Taddeo Gaddi._
69. St. Paul. _Greek Type._
70. St. Peter as Pope. _Cola dell’ Amatrice._
71. Repentance of Peter. _Bas-relief, 3rd Century._
72. Crucifixion of Peter. _Giotto._
73. St. Peter, as Keeper of the Gates of Paradise. _Simone Memmi._
74. St. Andrew. _Peter Vischer._
75. St. James Major. _Giovanni Santi._
76. Santiago slaying the Moors. _Carreño de Miranda._
77. St. James Major as Patron. _Andrea del Sarto._
78. The Miracle of the Fowls. _Lo Spagna._
79. St. Philip. _Albert Dürer._
80. St. Bartholomew. _Giotto._
81. St. Thomas. _Raphael._
82. St. James Minor. _L. van Leyden._
83. St. Matthias. _Raphael._
84. Angel swinging the Censer. _Albert Dürer._
85. St. Jerome doing Penance. _Titian._
86. St. Jerome. _Raphael._
87. St. Jerome healing the Lion. _Coll’ Antonio da Fiore._
88. Venetian St. Jerome.
89. The Vision of St. Augustine. _Murillo._
90. ‘La Pénitence de St. Jean Chrysostome.’ _Albert Dürer._
91. St. Mary Magdalene. Statue. _Donatello._
92. St. Mary Magdalene. _L. van Leyden._
93. St. Mary Magdalene. _Timoteo della Vite._
94. St. Mary Magdalene. _Murillo._
95. St. Mary Magdalene. _Annibale Caracci._
96. The Assumption of the Magdalene. _Albert Dürer._
97. St. Mary of Egypt dying. _Pietro da Cortona._
98. Angel. _Raphael._
Etchings.
PAGE
I. The Assumption of the Magdalene. _After Giulio Romano._ The
Original Fresco, which is in our National Gallery, was cut from the
wall of the Church of the Trinità de’ Monti, at Rome _Title_
II. A Venetian Votive Picture in commemoration of a Pestilence
(probably the pestilence of 1512, in which Giorgione perished).
St. Mark, enthroned as the Patron Saint of Venice, holds his Gospel;
on the right St. Sebastian and St. Roch, Protectors against the Plague;
on the left, St. Cosmo and St. Damian, Patron Saints of the Healing
Art. _Sketch after Titian._ The Original Picture, remarkable for
beauty of expression, and splendour and harmony of colour, in the
Church of S. Maria della Salute, at Venice 22
III. Angels of the Planets. _Raphael. From the fine set of Engravings
by L. Gruner, after the Frescoes in the Cappella Chigiana at Rome_ 80
IV. 1. St. Luke painting the Virgin. _After the Picture in the Academy
of St. Luke attributed to Raphael._ 2. St. Mark attended by St.
Gregory. _After Correggio_ 156
V. The Madonna della Cintola. The Virgin, as she ascends to heaven,
presents her girdle to St. Thomas; who kneels by the tomb, which is
full of roses. On the other side, the Archangel Michael, in reference
to the Legend. _From a Picture by Francesco Granacci in the Florence
Gallery_ 248
VI. The Last Supper. 1. _After Giotto._ 2. _After Leonardo da Vinci._
3. _After Raphael._ (For this etching I am indebted to Mr. George
Scharf.) 261
VII. The Four Latin Fathers. _From a Picture by Antonio Vivarini, in
the Academy at Venice_ 280
VIII. The Five Greek Fathers. _Drawing from an Ancient Greek Picture
in the Vatican_ 324
IX. Martha conducts her Sister Mary Magdalene to the Presence of our
Lord. _From the Engraving by Marc’ Antonio, after Raphael_ 381
[Illustration: 1 Laus Deo!]
Introduction.
I. OF THE ORIGIN AND GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGENDS REPRESENTED IN
ART.
We cannot look round a picture gallery—we cannot turn over a portfolio
of prints after the old masters, nor even the modern engravings which
pour upon us daily, from Paris, Munich, or Berlin—without perceiving
how many of the most celebrated productions of Art, more particularly
those which have descended to us from the early Italian and German
schools, represent incidents and characters taken from the once popular
legends of the Catholic Church. This form of ‘_Hero-Worship_’ has
become, since the Reformation, strange to us—as far removed from our
sympathies and associations as if it were antecedent to the fall of
Babylon and related to the religion of Zoroaster, instead of being
left but two or three centuries behind us and closely connected with
the faith of our forefathers and the history of civilisation and
Christianity. Of late years, with a growing passion for the works
of Art of the Middle Ages, there has arisen among us a desire to
comprehend the state of feeling which produced them, and the legends
and traditions on which they are founded;—a desire to understand, and
to bring to some surer critical test, representations which have become
familiar without being intelligible. To enable us to do this, we must
pause for a moment at the outset; and, before we plunge into the midst
of things, ascend to higher ground, and command a far wider range of
illustration than has yet been attempted, in order to take cognizance
of principles and results which, if not new, must be contemplated in a
new relation to each other.
* * * * *
The Legendary Art of the Middle Ages sprang out of the legendary
literature of the preceding ages. For three centuries at least, this
literature, the only literature which existed at the time, formed
the sole mental and moral nourishment of the _people_ of Europe. The
romances of Chivalry, which long afterwards succeeded, were confined to
particular classes, and left no impress on Art, beyond the miniature
illuminations of a few manuscripts. This legendary literature, on
the contrary, which had worked itself into the life of the people,
became, like the antique mythology, as a living soul diffused through
the loveliest forms of Art, still vivid and vivifying, even when the
old faith in its mystical significance was lost or forgotten. And it
is a mistake to suppose that these legends had their sole origin in
the brains of dreaming monks. The wildest of them had some basis of
truth to rest on, and the forms which they gradually assumed were but
the necessary result of the age which produced them. They became the
intense expression of that inner life, which revolted against the
desolation and emptiness of the outward existence; of those crushed and
outraged sympathies which cried aloud for rest, and refuge, and solace,
and could nowhere find them. It will be said, ‘In the purer doctrine of
the GOSPEL.’ But where was that to be found? The Gospel was not then
the heritage of the poor: Christ, as a comforter, walked not among men.
His own blessed teaching was inaccessible except to the learned: it was
shut up in rare manuscripts; it was perverted and sophisticated by the
passions and the blindness of those few to whom it _was_ accessible.
The bitter disputes in the early Church relative to the nature of the
Godhead, the subtle distinctions and incomprehensible arguments of
the theologians, the dread entertained by the predominant church of
any heterodox opinions concerning the divinity of the Redeemer, had
all conspired to remove _Him_, in his personal character of Teacher
and Saviour, far away from the hearts of the benighted and miserable
people—far, far away into regions speculative, mysterious, spiritual,
whither they could not, dared not follow Him. In this state of things,
as it has been remarked by a distinguished writer, ‘Christ became the
object of a remoter, a more awful adoration. The mind began, therefore,
to seek out, or eagerly to seize, some other more material beings in
closer alliance with human sympathies.’ And the same author, after
tracing in vivid and beautiful language the dangerous but natural
consequences of this feeling, thus sums up the result: ‘During the
perilous and gloomy days of persecution, the reverence for those who
endured martyrdom for the religion of Christ had grown up out of the
best feelings of man’s improved nature. Reverence gradually grew into
veneration, worship, adoration: and although the more rigid theology
maintained a marked distinction between the honour shown to the
martyrs, and that addressed to the Redeemer and the Supreme Being,
the line was too fine and invisible not to be transgressed by excited
popular feeling.’[1]
* * * * *
‘We live,’ says the poet, ‘through admiration, hope, and love.’ Out
of these vital aspirations—not indeed always ‘well or wisely placed,’
but never, as in the heathen mythology, degraded to vicious and
contemptible objects—arose and spread the universal passion for the
traditional histories of the saints and martyrs,—personages endeared
and sanctified in all hearts, partly as examples of the loftiest
virtue, partly as benign intercessors between suffering humanity and
that Deity who, in every other light than as a God of Vengeance, had
been veiled from their eyes by the perversities of schoolmen and
fanatics, till He had receded beyond their reach, almost beyond their
comprehension. Of the prevalence and of the incalculable influence
of this legendary literature from the seventh to the tenth century,
that is, just about the period when Modern Art was struggling into
existence, we have a most striking picture in Guizot’s ‘Histoire de la
Civilisation.’ ‘As after the siege of Troy (says this philosophical
and eloquent writer) there were found, in every city of Greece, men who
collected the traditions and adventures of heroes, and sung them for
the recreation of the people, till these recitals became a national
passion, a national poetry, so, at the time of which we speak, the
traditions of what may be called the heroic ages of Christianity had
the same interest for the nations of Europe. There were men who made it
their business to collect them, to transcribe them, to read or recite
them aloud, for the edification and delight of the people. And this was
the only literature, properly so called, of that time.‘
Now, if we go back to the _authentic_ histories of the sufferings and
heroism of the early martyrs, we shall find enough there, both of the
wonderful and the affecting, to justify the credulity and enthusiasm of
the unlettered people, who saw no reason why they should not believe
in one miracle as well as in another. In these universally diffused
legends, we may recognise the means, at least one of the means, by
which a merciful Providence, working through its own immutable laws,
had provided against the utter depravation, almost extinction, of
society. Of the ‘Dark Ages,’ emphatically so called, the period to
which I allude was perhaps the darkest; it was ‘of Night’s black arch
the key-stone.’ At a time when men were given over to the direst evils
that can afflict humanity,—ignorance, idleness, wickedness, misery;
at a time when the every-day incidents of life were a violation of
all the moral instincts of mankind; at a time when all things seemed
abandoned to a blind chance, or the brutal law of force; when there was
no repose, no refuge, no safety anywhere; when the powerful inflicted,
and the weak endured, whatever we can conceive of most revolting and
intolerable; when slavery was recognised by law throughout Europe;
when men fled to cloisters, to shut themselves from oppression, and
women to shield themselves from outrage; when the manners were harsh,
the language gross; when all the softer social sentiments, as pity,
reverence, tenderness, found no resting-place in the actual relations
of life; when for the higher ranks there was only the fierce excitement
of war, and on the humbler classes lay the weary, dreary monotony of
a stagnant existence, poor in pleasures of every kind, without aim,
without hope; _then_—wondrous reaction of the ineffaceable instincts
of good implanted within us!—arose a literature which reversed the
outward order of things, which asserted and kept alive in the hearts
of men those pure principles of Christianity which were outraged in
their daily actions; a literature in which peace was represented as
better than war, and sufferance more dignified than resistance; which
exhibited poverty and toil as honourable, and charity as the first
of virtues; which held up to imitation and emulation, self-sacrifice
in the cause of good and contempt of death for conscience’ sake: a
literature, in which the tenderness, the chastity, the heroism of
woman, played a conspicuous part; which distinctly protested against
slavery, against violence, against impurity in word and deed; which
refreshed the fevered and darkened spirit with images of moral beauty
and truth; revealed bright glimpses of a better land, where ‘the wicked
cease from troubling,’ and brought down the angels of God with shining
wings and bearing crowns of glory, to do battle with the demons of
darkness, to catch the fleeting soul of the triumphant martyr, and
carry it at once into a paradise of eternal blessedness and peace!
Now the Legendary Art of the three centuries which comprise the revival
of learning, was, as I have said, the reflection of this literature, of
this teaching. Considered in this point of view, can we easily overrate
its interest and importance?
* * * * *
When, after the long period of darkness which followed upon the decline
of the Roman Empire, the Fine Arts began to revive, the first, and for
several ages the only, impress they received was that of the religious
spirit of the time. Painting, Sculpture, Music, and Architecture, as
they emerged one after another from the ‘formless void,’ were pressed
into the service of the Church. But it is a mistake to suppose that
in adroitly adapting the reviving Arts to her purposes, in that
magnificent spirit of calculation which at all times characterised her,
the Church from the beginning selected the subjects, or dictated the
use that was to be made of them. We find, on the contrary, edicts and
councils _repressing_ the popular extravagances in this respect, and
denouncing those apocryphal versions of sacred events and traditions
which had become the delight of the people. But vain were councils and
edicts; the tide was too strong to be so checked. The Church found
herself obliged to accept and mould to her own objects the exotic
elements she could not eradicate. She _absorbed_, so to speak, the
evils and errors she could not expel. There seems to have been at this
time a sort of compromise between the popular legends, with all their
wild mixture of northern and classical superstitions, and the Church
legends properly so called. The first great object to which reviving
Art was destined, was to render the Christian places of worship a
theatre of instruction and improvement for the people, to attract and
to interest them by representations of scenes, events, and personages,
already so familiar as to require no explanation, appealing; at once
to their intelligence and their sympathies; embodying in beautiful
shapes (beautiful at least in their eyes) associations and feelings and
memories deep-rooted in their very hearts, and which had influenced,
in no slight degree, the progress of civilisation, the development of
mind. Upon these creations of ancient Art we cannot look as _those_ did
for whom they were created; we cannot annihilate the centuries which
lie between us and them; we cannot, in simplicity of heart, forget the
artist in the image he has placed before us, nor supply what may be
deficient in his work, through a reverentially excited fancy. We are
critical, not credulous. We no longer accept this polytheistic form of
Christianity; and there is little danger, I suppose, of our falling
again into the strange excesses of superstition to which it led. But
if we have not much sympathy with modern imitations of Mediæval Art,
still less should we sympathise with that narrow puritanical jealousy
which holds the monuments of a real and earnest faith in contempt. All
that God has permitted once to exist in the past should be considered
as the possession of the present; sacred for example or warning, and
held as the foundation on which to build up what is better and purer.
It should seem an established fact, that all revolutions in religion,
in government, and in art, which begin in the spirit of scorn, and
in a sweeping destruction of the antecedent condition, only tend
to a reaction. Our puritanical ancestors chopped off the heads of
Madonnas and Saints, and paid vagabonds to smash the storied windows
of our cathedrals;—_now_, are these rejected and outraged shapes of
beauty coming back to us, or are we not rather going back to them? As
a Protestant, I might fear lest in doing so we confound the eternal
spirit of Christianity with the mutable forms in which it has deigned
to speak to the hearts of men, forms which must of necessity vary
with the degree of social civilisation, and bear the impress of the
feelings and fashions of the age which produced them; but I must also
feel that we ought to comprehend, and to hold in due reverence, that
which has once been consecrated to holiest aims, which has shown us
what a magnificent use has been made of Art, and how it may still be
adapted to good and glorious purposes, if, while we respect these
time-consecrated images and types, we do not allow them to fetter us,
but trust in the progressive spirit of Christianity to furnish us with
new impersonations of the good—new combinations of the beautiful. I
hate the destructive as I revere the progressive spirit. We must laugh
if any one were to try and persuade us that the sun was guided along
his blazing path by a ‘fair-haired god who touched a golden lyre;’ but
shall we therefore cease to adore in the Apollo Belvedere the majestic
symbol of light, the most divine impersonation of intellectual power
and beauty? So of the corresponding Christian symbols:—may that time
never come, when we shall look up to the effigy of the winged and
radiant angel trampling down the brute-fiend, without a glow of faith
in the perpetual supremacy and final triumph of good over evil!
* * * * *
It is about a hundred years since the passion, or the fashion, for
collecting works of Art, began to be generally diffused among the
rich and the noble of this land; and it is amusing to look back
and to consider the perversions and affectations of the would-be
connoisseurship during this period;—the very small stock of ideas
on which people set up a pretension to taste—the false notions, the
mixture of pedantry and ignorance, which everywhere prevailed. The
publication of Richardson’s book, and Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses,
had this advantage,—that they, to a certain degree, diffused a more
elevated idea of Art as _Art_, and that they placed connoisseurship
on a better and truer basis. In those days we had Inquiries into the
Principles of Taste, Treatises on the Sublime and Beautiful, Anecdotes
of Painting; and we abounded in Antiquarian Essays on disputed Pictures
and mutilated Statues: but then, and up to a late period, any inquiry
into the true spirit and significance of works of Art, as connected
with the history of Religion and Civilisation, would have appeared
ridiculous—or perhaps dangerous:—we should have had another cry of
‘No Popery,’ and acts of parliament forbidding the importation of
Saints and Madonnas. It was fortunate, perhaps, that connoisseurs
meddled not with such high matters. They talked volubly and harmlessly
of ‘hands,’ and ‘masters,’ and ‘schools,’—of ‘draperies,’ of ‘tints,’
of ‘handling,’—of ‘fine heads,’ ‘fine compositions;’ of ‘the grace of
Raphael,’ and of the ‘Correggiosity of Correggio.’ The very manner in
which the names of the painters were pedantically used instead of the
name of the subject, is indicative of this factitious feeling; the only
question at issue was, whether such a picture was a genuine ‘Raphael?’
such another a genuine ‘Titian?’ The spirit of the work—whether _that_
was genuine; how far it was influenced by the faith and the condition
of the age which produced it; whether the conception was properly
characteristic, and of _what_ it was characteristic—of the subject? or
of the school? or of the time?—whether the treatment corresponded to
the idea within our own souls, or was modified by the individuality
of the artist, or by received conventionalisms of all kinds?—these
were questions which had not then occurred to any one; and I am not
sure that we are much wiser even now: yet, setting aside all higher
considerations, how can we do common justice to the artist, unless
we can bring his work to the test of truth? and how can we do this,
unless we know what to look for, what was _intended_ as to incident,
expression, character? One result of our ignorance has been the
admiration wasted on the flimsy mannerists of the later ages of Art;
men who apparently had no definite _intention_ in anything they did,
except a dashing outline, or a delicate finish, or a striking and
attractive management of colour.
* * * * *
It is curious, this general ignorance with regard to the subjects of
Mediæval Art, more particularly now that it has become a reigning
fashion among us. We find no such ignorance with regard to the subjects
of Classical Art, because the associations connected with them form a
part of every liberal education. Do we hear any one say, in looking at
Annibal Caracci’s picture in the National Gallery, ‘Which is Silenus,
and which is Apollo?’ Who ever confounds a Venus with a Minerva, or
a Vestal with an Amazon; or would endure an undraped Juno, or a
beardless Jupiter? Even the gardener in Zeluco knew Neptune by his
‘fork,’ and Vulcan by his ‘lame leg.’ We are indeed so accustomed, in
visiting the churches and the galleries abroad, and the collections at
home, to the predominance of sacred subjects, that it has become a mere
matter of course, and excites no particular interest and attention.
We have heard it all accounted for by the fact that the Church and
churchmen were the first, and for a long time the only, patrons of Art.
In every sacred edifice, and in every public or private collection
enriched from the plunder of sacred edifices, we look for the usual
proportion of melancholy martyrdoms and fictitious miracles,—for
the predominance of Madonnas and Magdalenes, St. Catherines and St.
Jeromes: but why these should predominate, why certain events and
characters from the Old and the New Testament should be continually
repeated, and others comparatively neglected; whence the predilection
for certain legendary personages, who seemed to be multiplied to
infinity, and the rarity of others; of this we know nothing.
We have learned, perhaps, after running through half the galleries
and churches in Europe, to distinguish a few of the attributes and
characteristic figures which meet us at every turn, yet without any
clear idea of their meaning, derivation, or relative propriety. The
palm of victory, we know, designates the martyr triumphant in death.
We so far emulate the critical sagacity of the gardener in Zeluco
that we have learned to distinguish St. Laurence by his gridiron,
and St. Catherine by her wheel. We are not at a loss to recognise
the Magdalene’s ‘loose hair and lifted eye,’ even when without her
skull and her vase of ointment. We learn to know St. Francis by his
brown habit and shaven crown and wasted ardent features; but do we
distinguish him from St. Anthony, or St. Dominick? As for St. George
and the dragon—from the St. George of the Louvre,—Raphael’s,—who sits
his horse with the elegant tranquillity of one assured of celestial
aid, down to him ‘who swings on a sign post at mine hostess’s door,’—he
is our familiar acquaintance. But who is that lovely being in the first
blush of youth, who, bearing aloft the symbolic cross, stands with one
foot on the vanquished dragon? ‘That is a copy after Raphael.’ And who
is that majestic creature holding her palm branch, while the unicorn
crouches at her feet? ‘That is the famous Moretto at Vienna.’ Are we
satisfied?—not in the least! but we try to look wiser, and pass on.
* * * * *
In the old times the painters of these legendary scenes and subjects
could always reckon securely on certain associations and certain
sympathies in the minds of the spectators. We have outgrown these
associations, we repudiate these sympathies. We have taken these
works from their consecrated localities, in which they once held each
their dedicated place, and we have hung them in our drawing-rooms
and our dressing-rooms, over our pianos and our side-boards—and now
what do they say to us? That Magdalene, weeping amid her hair, who
once spoke comfort to the soul of the fallen sinner—that Sebastian,
arrow-pierced, whose upward ardent glance spoke of courage and hope
to the tyrant-ridden serf,—that poor tortured slave, to whose aid St.
Mark comes sweeping down from above,—can they speak to _us_ of nothing
save flowing lines and correct drawing and gorgeous colour? must we be
told that one is a Titian, the other a Guido, the third a Tintoret,
before we dare to melt in compassion or admiration?—or the moment we
refer to their ancient religious signification and influence, must
it be with disdain or with pity? This, as it appears to me, is to
take not a rational, but rather a most irrational as well as a most
irreverent, view of the question; it is to confine the pleasure and
improvement to be derived from works of Art within very narrow bounds;
it is to seal up a fountain of the richest poetry, and to shut out a
thousand ennobling and inspiring thoughts. Happily there is a growing
appreciation of these larger principles of criticism as applied to
the study of Art. People look at the pictures which hang round their
walls, and have an awakening suspicion that there is more in them than
meets the eye—more than mere connoisseurship can interpret; and that
they have another, a deeper, significance than has been dreamed of by
picture dealers and picture collectors, or even picture critics.
II. OF THE DISTINCTION TO BE DRAWN BETWEEN THE DEVOTIONAL AND THE
HISTORICAL SUBJECTS.
At first, when entering on a subject so boundless and so diversified,
we are at a loss for some leading classification which shall be
distinct and intelligible, without being mechanical. It appears to me,
that all sacred representations, in as far as they appeal to sentiment
and imagination, resolve themselves into two great classes, which I
shall call the DEVOTIONAL and the HISTORICAL.
Devotional pictures are those which portray the objects of our
veneration with reference only to their sacred character, whether
standing singly or in company with others. They place before us
no action or event, real or supposed. They are neither portrait
nor history. A group of sacred personages where no action is
represented, is called in Italian a ‘_sacra conversazione_:’ the word
_conversazione_, which signifies a society in which there is communion,
being here, as it appears to me, used with peculiar propriety. All
subjects, then, which exhibit to us sacred personages, alone or in
groups, simply in the character of superior beings, must be considered
as _devotionally_ treated.
But a sacred subject, without losing wholly its religious import,
becomes historical the moment it represents any story, incident, or
action, real or imagined. All pictures which exhibit the events of
Scripture story, all those which express the actions, miracles, and
martyrdoms of saints, come under this class; and to this distinction I
must call the attention of the reader, requesting that it may be borne
in mind throughout this work.
We must also recollect that a story, action, or fact may be so
represented as to become a symbol expressive of an abstract idea:
and some scriptural and some legendary subjects may be devotional,
or historical, according to the sentiment conveyed: for example, the
Crucifixion and the Last Supper may be so represented as either to
exhibit an event, or to express a symbol of our Redemption. The raising
of Lazarus exhibits, in the catacombs, a mystical emblem of the general
resurrection; in the grand picture by Sebastian del Piombo, in our
National Gallery, it is a scene from the life of our Saviour. Among
the legendary subjects, the penance of the Magdalene, and St. Martin
dividing his cloak, may be merely incidents, or they may be symbolical,
the first of penitence, the latter of charity, in the general sense.
And, again, there are some subjects which, though expressing a scene or
an action, are _wholly_ mystical and devotional in their import; as the
vision of St. Augustine, and the marriage of St. Catherine.
* * * * *
Among the grandest of the devotional subjects, we may reckon those
compositions which represent the whole celestial hierarchy; the divine
personages of the Trinity, the angels and archangels, and the beatified
spirits of the just. Such is the subject called the ‘Paradiso,’ so
often met with in pictures and ecclesiastical decoration, where Christ
is enthroned in glory: such is also the Coronation of the Virgin, that
ancient and popular symbol of the triumph of Religion or the Church;
the Adoration of the Lamb; and the Last Judgment, from the Apocalypse.
The order of precedence in these sacred assemblages was early settled
by ecclesiastical authority, and was almost as absolute as that of
a modern code of honour. First after the Trinity, the Virgin Mary,
as _Regina Angelorum_, and St. John the Baptist: then, in order, the
Evangelists; the Patriarchs; the Prophets; the Apostles; the Fathers;
the Bishops; the Martyrs; the Hermits; the Virgins; the Monks, Nuns,
and Confessors.
As examples, I may cite the Paradiso of Angelico, in the Florence
Academy; the Coronation of the Virgin by Hans Memling, in the
Wallerstein collection, which contains not less than fifty-two figures,
all individualised with their proper attributes; and which, if it
were possible, should be considered in contrast with the Coronation
by Angelico. The Flemish painter seems to have carried his intense
impression of earthly and individual life into the regions of heaven;
the Italian, through a purer inspiration, seems to have brought all
Paradise down before us upon earth. In the Adoration of the Lamb by
Van Eyck, there are not fewer than two hundred figures. For the Last
Judgment, the grand compositions of Orcagna in the Campo Santo,—of Luca
Signorelli and Angelico at Orvieto,—and the fresco of Michael Angelo in
the Sistine Chapel, may be consulted.
Where the usual order is varied, there is generally some reason for
it; for instance, in the exaltation of a favourite saint, as we
sometimes find St. Dominick and St. Francis by the side of St. Peter
and St. Paul: and among the miniatures of that extraordinary MS., the
Hortus Deliciarum, now at Strasbourg, painted for a virgin abbess,
there is a ‘Paradiso’ in which the painter, either by her command or in
compliment to her, has placed the virgins immediately after the angels.
* * * * *
The representation of the Virgin and Child with saints grouped around
them, is a devotional subject familiar to us from its constant
recurrence. It also frequently happens that the tutelary saint of the
locality, or the patron saint of the votary, is represented as seated
on a raised throne in the centre; and other saints, though under every
other circumstance taking a superior rank, become here accessories,
and are placed on each side or lower down in the picture: for example,
where St. Augustine is enthroned, and St. Peter and St. Paul stand on
each side, as in a picture by B. Vivarini,[2] or where St. Barbara is
enthroned, and Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine stand on each side, as
in a picture by Matteo di Siena.[3]
In such pictures, the votary or donor is often introduced kneeling at
the feet of his patron, either alone or accompanied by his wife and
other members of his family: and to express the excess of his humility,
he is sometimes so diminutive in proportion to the colossal object
of his veneration, as to be almost lost to sight; we have frequent
examples of this _naïveté_ of sentiment in the old mosaics and votive
altar-pieces; for instance, in a beautiful old fresco at Assisi,
where the Magdalene, a majestic figure about six feet high, holds out
her hand in benediction to a little Franciscan friar about a foot in
height: but it was abandoned as barbarous in the later schools of Art,
and the votary, when retained, appears of the natural size; as in the
_Madonna del Donatore_ of Raphael[4], where Sigismond Conti is almost
the finest and most striking part of that inestimable picture: and in
the _Madonna_ of the Meyer family by Holbein.[5]
When a bishop is introduced into a group of saints kneeling, while all
the others are standing, he may be supposed to be the _Donatore_ or
_Divoto_, the person who presents the picture. When he is standing, he
is one of the bishop-patrons or bishop-martyrs, of whom there are some
hundreds, and who are more difficult to discriminate than any other
pictured saints.
* * * * *
And this leads me to the subject of the so-called _anachronisms_ in
devotional subjects, where personages who lived at different and
distant periods of time are found grouped together. It is curious
to find the critics of the last century treating with pity and
ridicule, as the result of ignorance or a barbarous unformed taste,
the noblest and most spiritual conceptions of poetic art. Even Sir
Joshua Reynolds had so little idea of the true object and feeling of
such representations, that he thinks it necessary to apologise for the
error of the painter, or the mistaken piety of his employer. We must
remember that the personages here brought together in their sacred
character belong no more to our earth, but to heaven and eternity: for
them there is no longer time or place; they are here assembled together
in the perpetual ‘communion of saints,’—immortal contemporaries in that
kingdom where the Angel of the Apocalypse proclaimed ‘that there should
be time no longer.’
Such groups are sometimes arranged with an artless solemnity, all the
personages standing and looking straight out of the picture at the
worshipper. Sometimes there is a touch of dramatic sentiment, which,
without interfering with the solemn devotional feeling, lights up the
whole with the charm of a purpose: as in the Correggio at Parma, where
St. Jerome presents his translation of the Scriptures to the infant
Christ, while an angel turns the leaves, and Mary Magdalene, symbol of
redemption and reconciliation, bends to kiss the feet of the Saviour.
* * * * *
Our ancestors of the middle ages were not particular in drawing
that strong line of demarcation between the classical, Jewish and
Christian periods of history, that we do. They saw only Christendom
every where; they regarded the past only in relation to Christianity.
Hence we find in the early ecclesiastical monuments and edifices such
a strange assemblage of pagan, scriptural, and Christian worthies;
as, Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, King David, Judas Maccabeus,
King Arthur, St. George, Godfrey of Boulogne, Lucretia, Virginia,
Judith, St. Elizabeth, St. Bridget (as in the Cross of Nuremburg).
In the curious Manual of Greek Art, published by Didron, we find the
Greek philosophers and poets entering into a scheme of ecclesiastical
decoration, as in the carved stalls in the Cathedral of Ulm, where
Solon, Apollonius, Plutarch, Plato, Sophocles, are represented, holding
each a scroll, on which is inscribed a passage from their works,
interpreted into an allusion to the coming of Christ: and I have seen
a picture of the Nativity in which the sibyls are dancing hand-in-hand
around the cradle of the new-born Saviour. This may appear profane to
some, but the comprehension of the whole universe within the pale of
Christianity strikes me as being in the most catholic, as well as in
the most poetical, spirit.
* * * * *
It is in devotional subjects that we commonly find those
anthropomorphic representations of the Divinity which shock devout
people; and which no excuse or argument can render endurable to those
who see in them only ignorant irreverence, or intentional profaneness.
It might be pleaded that the profaneness is not intentional; that
emblems and forms are, in the imitative arts, what figures of speech
are in language; that only through a figure of speech can any attempt
be made to place the idea of Almighty Power before us. Familiar
expressions, consecrated by Scripture usage, represent the Deity as
reposing, waking, stretching forth his hand, sitting on a throne;
as pleased, angry, vengeful, repentant; and the ancient painters,
speaking the language proper to their art, appear to have turned these
emblematical words into emblematical pictures. I forbear to say more on
this point, because I have taken throughout the poetical and not the
religious view of Art, and this is an objection which must be left,
as a matter of feeling, to the amount of candour and knowledge in the
critical reader.
* * * * *
In the sacred subjects, properly called HISTORICAL, we must be careful
to distinguish between those which are _Scriptural_, representing
scenes from the Old or New Testament; and those which are _Legendary_.
Of the first, for the present; I do not speak, as they will be fully
treated hereafter.
The historical subjects from the lives of the saints consist
principally of _Miracles_ and _Martyrdoms_.
In the first, it is worth remarking that we have no pictured miracle
which is not imitated from the Old or the New Testament (unless it be
an obvious emblem, as where the saint carries his own head). There is
no act of supernatural power related of any saint which is not recorded
of some great scriptural personage. The object was to represent the
favourite patron as a copy of the great universal type of beneficence,
CHRIST OUR REDEEMER. And they were not satisfied that the resemblance
should lie in character only; but should emulate the power of Christ
in his visible actions. We must remember that the common people of
the middle ages did not, and could not, distinguish between miracles
accredited by the testimony of Scripture, and those which were
fabrications, or at least exaggerations. All miracles related as divine
interposition were to them equally possible, equally credible. If a
more extended knowledge of the natural laws renders us in these days
less credulous, it also shows us that many things were possible, under
particular conditions, which were long deemed supernatural.
* * * * *
We find in the legendary pictures, that the birth of several saints
is announced by an angel, or in a dream, as in the stories of St.
Catherine, St. Roch, &c. They exhibit precocious piety and wisdom, as
in the story of St. Nicholas, who also calms a tempest, and guides
the storm-tossed vessel safe to land. They walk on the water, as in
the stories of St. Raymond and St. Hyacinth; or a river divides,
to let them pass, as in the story of St. Alban. Saints are fed and
comforted miraculously, or delivered from prison by angels; or resist
fire, like the ‘Three Children.’ The multiplication of bread, and the
transformation of water into wine, are standing miracles. But those
which most frequently occur in pictures, are the healing of the sick,
the lame, the blind; the casting out of demons, the restoration of the
dead, or some other manifestation of compassionate and beneficent power.
* * * * *
Some of the pictured legends are partly scriptural, partly historical,
as the story of St. Peter; others are clearly religious apologues
founded on fact or tradition, as those of St. Mary of Egypt and St.
Christopher; others are obviously and purely allegorical, as the
Greek story of St. Sophia (i. e. Heavenly Wisdom, ΣΟΦΙΑ) and her
celestial progeny, St. Faith, St. Hope, and St. Charity, all martyred
by the blind and cruel Pagans. The names sound as if borrowed from the
‘Pilgrim’s Progress;’ and it is curious to find Bunyan’s allegorical
legend, the favourite picture-book of the people, appearing just at
the time when the legends and pictures of the saints became objects
of puritanical horror, and supplying their place in the popular
imagination.
Martyrdoms are only too common: they present to us Christianity under
its most mystical aspect—the deification of suffering; but to render
these representations effective, they should be pathetic without being
terrible, they should speak to us
Of melancholy fear subdued by faith,
Of blessed consolations in distress;
but not of the horrid cruelty of man towards man. It has been well
remarked by my friend M. Rio, (to whose charming and eloquent
exposition of Christian Art I refer with ever-new delight,) that the
early painters of Western Christendom avoided these subjects, and that
their prevalence in ecclesiastical decoration marked the decline of
religious feeling, and the degeneracy of Art. But this remark does
not apply to Byzantine Art; for we find from the exact description of
a picture of the martyrdom of St. Euphemia (both the picture and the
description dating from the third century), that such representations
were then common, and were appealed to in the same manner as now, to
excite the feelings of the people.
The martyrdoms generally met with are those of St. Peter and St.
Paul, St. Stephen Protomartyr, St. Laurence, St. Catherine, and St.
Sebastian. These we find everywhere, in all countries and localities.
Where the patron of the church or chapel is a martyr, his martyrdom
holds a conspicuous place, often over the high altar, and accompanied
by all the moving circumstances which can excite the pity, or horror,
or enthusiasm of the pious votaries; but in the best examples we find
the saint preparing for his death, not suffering the torments actually
inflicted; so that the mind is elevated by the sentiment of his
courage, not disturbed and disgusted by the spectacle of his agonies.
III. OF CERTAIN PATRON SAINTS,
WHO ARE COMMONLY GROUPED TOGETHER IN WORKS OF ART, OR WHO BELONG TO
PARTICULAR COUNTRIES, CITIES, OR LOCALITIES.
While such assemblages of holy persons as are found grouped together
in devotional pictures are to be considered as quite independent
of chronology, we shall find that the selection has been neither
capricious nor arbitrary, and, with a little consideration, we shall
discover the leading idea in the mind of the artist that, at least,
which was intended to be conveyed to the mind of the spectator, and
which was much more intelligible in former times than it is now.
Sometimes we find certain saints placed in companionship, because they
are the joint patrons and protectors of the city or locality for which
the picture was painted. Thus in the Bologna pictures we constantly
find the bishop St. Petronius, St. Eloy, St. Dominick, and the warrior
St. Proculus; while in the Venetian pictures we have perpetual St.
Marks, St. Georges, and St. Catherines.
Or, secondly, they are connected by kindred powers and attributes. Thus
we find St. Sebastian, the patron against pestilence, in company with
St. Roch, who ministered to the sick of the plague. Thus St. Catherine
and St. Jerome, the two patrons of school theology, are often found in
companionship. Where St. Catherine and St. Barbara are found together,
the first figures as patroness of the ecclesiastical, and the second of
the military, power—or they represent respectively the contemplative
and the active life.
Or, thirdly, they are combined in the fancy by some inevitable
association; as St. Augustine and St. Stephen are often in the same
picture, because St. Augustine dedicated some of his most eloquent
works to the glory of the martyr.
Or they were friends on earth, for which reason St. Cyprian and St.
Cornelius are placed together.
Or their relics repose in the same spot; whence St. Stephen and St.
Laurence have become almost inseparable. When St. Vincent and St.
Laurence are placed together, (as in a lovely composition of Parmigiana
where they sit reading out of the same book,) it is because of the
similarity of their fate, and that the popular tradition supposed them
to be brothers.
* * * * *
A point of more general importance, and capable of more definite
explanation, is the predominance of certain sacred personages in
particular schools of Art. St. Cosmo and St. Damian, for instance,
are perpetually recurring in the Florentine pictures as the patron
saints of the Medici family. In the Lombard pictures St. Ambrose is
often found without his compeers—not as doctor of the Church, but as
bishop of Milan. In the Siena pictures, we may look for the nun St.
Catherine of Siena, and St. Ansano, the apostle of the Sienese, holding
his banner and palm. And in the Augustine chapels and churches, St.
Augustine figures, not as doctor of the Church, but as patriarch of the
Order.
A bishop-martyr, holding his palm, and not otherwise designated either
by name or attribute, would be—in one if Perugino’s pictures, St.
Ercolano or St. Costanzo; in a Florentine picture, St. Donato or St.
Romulo; if the picture were painted in the March of Ancona, it would
probably be St. Apollinaris of Ravenna; at Naples it would be St.
Januarius; at Paris, or in a picture painted for a French church, of
which there are many in Italy, it would be St. Denis; and in German
prints, St. Boniface or St. Lambert. I need not further multiply
examples.
If the locality from which the picture came will sometimes determine
the names of the personages, so the personages represented will often
explain the purpose and intended situation of the picture. There is
in Lord Ashburton’s gallery a noble group representing together St.
Peter, St. Leonard, St. Martha, and Mary Magdalene. Such a combination
points it out at once as intended for a charitable institution, and, on
enquiry, we find that it was painted for the chapel of a brotherhood
associated to redeem prisoners, to ransom slaves, to work for the
poor, and to convert the sinner to repentance. Many such interesting
and instructive analogies will be pointed out in the course of the
following pages, and the observer of works of Art will discover others
for himself.
I add here, in alphabetical order, those countries and localities of
which the patron saints are distinguished in works of Art.[6]
ANCONA: St. Cyriacus, _Bishop_; and his mother Anna, _Martyr_.
AREZZO: St. Donato, _Bishop_.
ASTI, NOVARA, and all through the cities of PIEDMONT and the north
of Italy, we find the _Warrior_, St. Maurice, and his companions St.
Secundus, St. Alexander, and the other Martyrs of the Theban Legion.
AUGSBURG: St. Ulrich, _Bishop_; St. Afra, _Martyr_.
AUSTRIA: St. Leopold, St. Stephen, St. Maximilian, St. Coloman.
BAMBERG: St. Henry and St. Cunegunda, _Emperor_ and _Empress_.
BARCELONA: St. Eulalia, _Martyr_. (In Spanish pictures only.)
BAVARIA: St. George, _Martyr_.
BERGAMO: St. Alexander, _Warrior_; St. Grata, _Widow_.
BOHEMIA: St. John Nepomuck, _Priest_; St. Wenceslaus, _King_; St.
Ludmilla, _Queen_; St. Vitus, _young Martyr_; St. Procopius, _Hermit_.
BOLOGNA: St. Petronius, _Bishop_; St. Dominick, _Friar_; St. Proculus,
_Warrior Martyr_; St. Eloy (Eligio), _Bishop_ and _Smith_.
BRESCIA: St. Faustinus and Jovita; St. Julia, St. Afra, _Martyrs_.
BRUGES: St. John the Baptist.
BURGUNDY: St. Andrew, _Apostle_.
COLOGNE: The Three Kings; St. Ursula, _Virgin Martyr_; St. Gereon,
_Warrior Martyr_.
COMO: St. Abbondio, _Bishop_.
CORTONA: St. Margaret, _Nun_ and _Penitent_.
CREMONA: St. Omobuono, _Secular Habit_.
FERRARA: St. Geminiano, _Bishop_; St. George, _Martyr_; St. Barbara,
_Martyr_.
FIESOLE: St. Romolo, _Bishop_.
FLORENCE: St. John the Baptist; St. Zenobio, St. Antonino, _Bishops_;
St. Reparata, _Virgin Martyr_; St. Cosmo and Damian (the Apothecary
Saints, especial patrons of the Medici family); St. Verdiana, _Nun_;
St. Miniato, _Warrior_.
FRANCE: St. Michael, _Angel_; St. Dionysius (Denis), _Bishop_; St.
Geneviève, _Virgin_; St. Martin, _Bishop_.
GENOA: St. George, St. Laurence, _Martyrs_.
GHENT: St. Bavon, _Prince_ and _Hermit_.
GRENOBLE: St. Hugh the Carthusian.
IRELAND: St. Patrick, _Bishop_; St. Bridget, _Abbess_.
LUCCA: St. Martin, _Bishop_; St. Frediano, _Priest_; St. Zita,
_Virgin_.
LIEGE: St. Hubert, _Bishop_ and _Huntsman_; St. Lambert, _Bishop_.
MADRID: St. Isidore, _Labourer_; St. Dominick, _Friar_; (Patron of the
Escurial, St. Laurence).
MANTUA: St. Andrew; St. Barbara; St. George and St. Longinus, _Warrior
Saints_.
MARSEILLES and all PROVENCE: St. Lazarus; St. Mary Magdalen; St.
Martha; St. Marcella.
MESSINA: St. Agatha, _Martyr_.
MILAN: St. Ambrose, _Bishop_ and _Doctor_; St. Gervasius and St.
Protasius, _Martyrs_; St. Maurice, St. Victor, _Warriors_.
MODENA: St. Geminiano, _Bishop_. (In Pictures of the Correggio School.)
NAPLES: St. Januarius, _Martyr_.
NOVARA: St. Gaudenzio, _Bishop_.
NUREMBURG: St. Laurence, _Martyr_; St. Sebald, _Pilgrim_ and _Hermit_.
(The latter an important person in pictures and prints of the Albert
Dürer school.)
PADUA: St. Anthony of Padua, _Friar_.
PARIS: St. Geneviève, _Virgin_; St. Germain, _Bishop_; St. Hippolitus,
_Martyr_.
PARMA: St. John, B.; St. Thomas the Apostle; St. Bernard, _Monk_; St.
Hilary (Ilario), _Bishop_.
PERUGIA: St. Ercolano and St. Costanzo, _Bishops_.
PIACENZA: St. Justina, _Martyr_; St. Antoninus, _Warrior_ (Theban
Legion).
PIEDMONT and SAVOY: St. John, B.; St. Maurice and St. George,
_Warriors_; St. Amadeus, _King_.
PISA: St. Ranieri, _Hermit_; St. Torpé, _Warrior_; St. Ephesus and St.
Potita, _Warriors_. (These only in the ancient Pisan school.)
RAVENNA: St. Appolinaris, _Bishop_.
RIMINI: St. Juliana, _Martyr_. (A young saint, popular all through the
north and down the east coast of Italy.)
SEVILLE: St. Leander, _Bishop_; St. Justina, St. Rufina, _Sisters_ and
_Martyrs_. (These are only found in Spanish pictures.)
SICILY: St. Vitus, _Martyr_; St. Rosalia, _Recluse_ (Palermo); St.
Agatha (Messina), St. Lucia (Syracuse), _Martyrs_.
SIENA: St. Ansano, _Martyr_; St. Catherine of Siena, _Nun_; St.
Bernardino, _Friar_.
THURINGIA and all that part of SAXONY: St. Elizabeth of Hungary; St.
Boniface, _Bishop_.
TOLEDO: St. Ildefonso, _Bishop_; and St. Leocadia, _Martyr_. (Only in
Spanish pictures.)
TREVISO: St. Liberale, _Warrior_.
TURIN: St. John the Baptist; St. Maurice, _Warrior_.
UMBRIA: All through this region and the eastern coast of Italy, very
important in respect to Art, the favourite saints are—St. Nicholas,
_Bishop_; St. Francis of Assisi, _Friar_; St. Clara, _Nun_; St.
Julian, _Martyr_; and St. Catherine, _Virgin Martyr_.
VALENCIA: St. Vincent, _Martyr_.
VENICE: St. Mark, _Apostle_; St. George, St. Theodore, _Warriors_; St.
Nicholas, _Bishop_; St. Catherine, St. Christina, _Virgin Martyrs_.
VERCELLI: St. Eusebius, _Bishop_; St. Thronestus, _Warrior_ (Theban
Legion).
VERONA: St. Zeno, _Bishop_; St. Fermo, _Martyr_; St. Euphemia,
_Martyr_.
VOTIVE PICTURES are those which have been dedicated in certain
religious edifices, in fulfilment of vows; either as the expression of
thanksgiving for blessings which have been vouchsafed, or propitiative
against calamities to be averted. The far greater number of these
pictures commemorate an escape from danger, sickness, death; and more
especially, some visitation of the plague, that terrible and frequent
scourge of the middle ages. The significance of such pictures is
generally indicated by the presence of St. Sebastian or St. Roch, the
patrons against the plague; or St. Cosmo and St. Damian, the healing
and medical saints; accompanied by the patron saints of the country
or locality, if it be a public act of devotion; or, if dedicated by
private or individual piety, the donor kneels, presented by his own
patron saint. In general, though not always, this expressive group is
arranged in attendance on the enthroned Madonna and her divine Son, as
the universal protectors from all evil. Such pictures are among the
most interesting and remarkable of the works of sacred Art which remain
to us, and have often a pathetic and poetical beauty, and an historical
significance, which it is a chief purpose of these volumes to interpret
and illustrate.
[Illustration:
_S^t. Damian._ _S^t. Mark._ _S^t. Roch._ _A. J. fecit_
_S^t. Cosmo._ _S^t. Sebastian._
_A Venetian votive picture against the plague._]
IV. OF CERTAIN EMBLEMS AND ATTRIBUTES.
To know something of the attributes and emblems of general application,
as well as those proper to each saint, is absolutely necessary; but it
will also greatly assist the fancy and the memory to _understand_ their
origin and significance. For this reason I will add a few words of
explanation.
* * * * *
The GLORY, NIMBUS, or AUREOLE—the Christian attribute of sanctity, and
used generally to distinguish all holy personages—is of pagan origin.
It expressed the luminous nebula (Homer, _Il._ xxiii. 205), supposed to
emanate from, and surround, the Divine Essence, which stood, ‘a shade
in midst of its own brightness.’ Images of the gods were decorated
with a crown of rays, or with stars; and when the Roman emperors
assumed the honours due to divinity, they appeared in public crowned
with golden radii. The colossal statue of Nero wore a circle of rays,
imitating the glory of the sun. This ornament became customary; and
not only the first Cæsars, but the Christian emperors, adopted the
same divine insignia; and it became at length so common that we find
it on some medals, round the heads of the consuls of the later empire.
Considered in the East as _the attribute of power only_, whether good
or evil, we find, wherever early Art has been developed under Byzantine
influences, the nimbus thus applied. Satan, in many Greek, Saxon, and
French miniatures, from the ninth to the thirteenth century, wears a
glory. In a psalter of the twelfth century, the Beast of the Apocalypse
with seven heads has six heads surrounded by the nimbus; the seventh,
wounded and drooping, is without the sign of power.
But in Western Art the associations with this attribute were not
merely those of dignity, but of something divine and consecrated. It
was for a long time avoided in the Christian representations as being
appropriated by false gods or heathen pride; and when first adopted
does not seem clear.[7] The earliest example cited is a gem of St.
Martin of the early part of the sixth century, in which the glory
round his head seems to represent his apotheosis: and in all instances
it is evidently intended to represent divine glory and beatitude.
The glory round the head is properly the nimbus or aureole. The oblong
glory surrounding the whole person, called in Latin the _vesica
piscis_, and in Italian the _mandorla_ (almond), from its form, is
confined to figures of Christ and the Virgin, or saints who are in
the act of ascending into heaven. When used to distinguish one of
the three divine persons of the Trinity the glory is often cruciform
or triangular. The square nimbus designates a person living at the
time the work was executed. In the frescoes of Giotto at Assisi, the
allegorical personages are in some instances distinguished by the
hexagonal nimbus. In other instances it is circular. From the fifth to
the twelfth century the nimbus had the form of a disc or plate over
the head.[8] From the twelfth to the fifteenth century, it was a broad
golden band, round, or rather behind, the head, composed of circle
within circle, often adorned with precious stones, and sometimes having
the name of the saint inscribed within it. From the fifteenth century
it was a bright fillet over the head, and in the seventeenth century
it disappeared altogether. In pictures the glory is always golden, the
colour of light; in miniatures and stained glass I have seen glories of
various colours, red, blue, or green.[9]
* * * * *
The FISH was the earliest, the most universal, of the Christian
emblems, partly as the symbol of water and the rite of baptism, and
also because the five Greek letters which express the word Fish form
the anagram of the name of Jesus Christ. In this sense we find the
fish as a general symbol of the Christian faith upon the sarcophagi of
the early Christians; on the tombs of the martyrs in the catacombs; on
rings, coins, lamps, and other utensils; and as an ornament in early
Christian architecture. It is usually a dolphin, which among the Pagans
had also a sacred significance.
The passage in the Gospel, ‘Follow me, and I will make ye fishers of
men,’ is supposed to have originated the use of this symbol; and I
may observe here, that the fish placed in the hands of St. Peter has
probably a double or treble signification, alluding to his former
occupation as a fisherman, his conversion to Christianity, and his
vocation as a Christian apostle, i. e. a fisher of men, in the sense
used by Christ; and in the same sense we find it given as an attribute
to bishops who were famous for converting and baptising, as St. Zeno of
Verona, and Gregory of Tours.
* * * * *
The CROSS.—About the tenth century the Fish disappeared, and the
Cross—symbol of our redemption, from the apostolic times—became the
sole and universal emblem of the Christian faith. The cross placed in
the hand of a saint is usually the Latin cross (1), the form ascribed
to the cross on which our Saviour suffered. Other crosses are used as
emblems or ornaments, but still having the same signification; as the
Greek cross (2), in which the arms are all of the same length; the
transverse cross, on which St. Andrew is supposed to have suffered,
in this form (3); the Egyptian cross, sometimes placed in the hands
of St. Philip the apostle, and it was also the form of the crutch of
St. Anthony, and embroidered on his cope or robe—hence it is called
St. Anthony’s cross (4). There is also the Maltese cross, and various
ornamental crosses. The double cross on the top of a staff, instead of
the crosier, is borne by the Pope only; the staff with a single cross,
by the Greek bishops.
[Illustration:
(1) (2) (3) (4)]
At first the cross was a sign only. When formed of gold or silver, the
five wounds of Christ were signified by a ruby or carbuncle at each
extremity, and one in the centre. It was not till the sixth century
that the cross became a CRUCIFIX, no longer an emblem but an _image_.
* * * * *
The LAMB, in Christian Art, is the peculiar symbol of the Redeemer
as the sacrifice without blemish: in this sense it is given as an
attribute to John the Baptist. The lamb is also the general emblem of
innocence, meekness, modesty; in this sense it is given to St. Agnes,
of whom Massillon said so beautifully, ‘peu de pudeur, où il n’y a pas
de religion; peu de religion, où il n’y a pas de pudeur.’
The PELICAN, tearing open her breast to feed her young with her own
blood, was an early symbol of our redemption through Christ.
One or both of these emblems are frequently found in ancient crosses
and crucifixes; the lamb at the foot, the pelican at the top, of the
cross.
The DRAGON is the emblem of sin in general, and of the sin of idolatry
in particular; and the dragon slain or vanquished by the power of the
cross, is the perpetually recurring myth, which, varied in a thousand
ways, we find running through all the old Christian legends: not
subject to misapprehension in the earliest times; but, as the cloud of
ignorance darkened and deepened, the symbol was translated into a fact.
It has been suggested that the dragon, which is to us a phantasm and an
allegory, which in the middle ages was the visible shape of the demon
adversary of all truth and goodness, might have been, as regards form,
originally _a fact_: for wherever we have dragon legends, whether the
scene be laid in Asia, Africa, or Europe, the imputed circumstances and
the form are little varied. The dragons introduced into early painting
and sculpture so invariably represent a gigantic winged crocodile, that
it is presumed there must have been some common origin for the type
chosen as if by common consent; and that this common type may have
been some fossil remains of the Saurian species, or even some far-off
dim tradition of one of these tremendous reptiles surviving in Heaven
knows what vast desolate morass or inland lake, and spreading horror
and devastation along its shores. At Aix, a huge fossilised head of
one of the Sauri was for a long time preserved as the head of the
identical dragon subdued by St. Martha; and St. Jerome relates that
he had himself beheld at Tyre the bones of the sea monster to which
Andromeda had been exposed—probably some fossil remains which in the
popular imagination were thus accounted for. Professor Owen told me
that the head of a dragon in one of the legendary pictures he had seen
in Italy closely resembled in form that of the Deinotherium Giganteum.
These observations have reference only to the type adopted when the old
Scripture allegory took form and shape. The dragon of Holy Writ is the
same as the serpent, i. e., personified sin, the spiritual enemy of
mankind.
The scriptural phrase of the ‘jaws of hell’ is literally rendered
in the ancient works of Art by the huge jaws of a dragon, wide open
and emitting flames, into which the souls of sinners are tumbled
headlong. In pictures, sin is also typified by a serpent or snake; in
this form it is placed under the feet of the Madonna, sometimes with
an apple in its mouth; sometimes, but only in late pictures of the
seventeenth century, winding its green scaly length round and round a
globe, significant of the subjugation of the whole earth to the power
of sin till delivered by the Redeemer. On this subject I shall have
much more to say when treating of the pictures of the Fall of Man, and
the subjects taken from the Apocalypse: for the present we need only
bear in mind the various significations of the popular Dragon myth,
which may shadow forth the conquest over sin, as in the legends of St.
Michael and St. Margaret; or over paganism, as in the legends of St.
Sylvester and St. George; or sometimes a destroying flood, as in the
legend of St. Martha, where the inundation of the Rhone is figured
by a dragon emerging from the waters and spreading around death and
pestilence,—like the Python of the Grecian myth.
* * * * *
The LION, as an ancient Christian symbol, is of frequent recurrence,
more particularly in architectural decoration. Antiquaries are not
agreed as to the exact meaning attached to the mystical lions placed in
the porches of so many old Lombard churches; sometimes with an animal,
sometimes with a man, in their paws. But we find that the lion was an
ancient symbol of the Redeemer, ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah:’
also of the resurrection of the Redeemer; because, according to an
oriental fable, the lion’s cub was born dead, and in three days its
sire licked it into life. In this sense it occurs in the windows of the
cathedral at Bourges. In either sense it may probably have been adopted
as a frequent ornament in the church utensils, and in ecclesiastical
decoration, supporting the pillars in front, or the carved thrones, &c.
The lion also typifies solitude—the wilderness; and, in this sense, is
placed near St. Jerome and other saints who did penance, or lived as
hermits in the desert; as in the legends of St. Paul the hermit, St.
Mary of Egypt, St. Onofrio. Further, the lion as an attribute denoted
death in the amphitheatre, and with this signification is placed near
certain martyrs, as St. Ignatius and St. Euphemia. The lion, as the
type of fortitude and resolution, was placed at the feet of those
martyrs who had suffered with singular courage, as St. Adrian and St.
Natalia.[10]
When other wild beasts, as wolves and bears, are placed at the feet
of a saint attired as abbot or bishop, it signifies that he cleared
waste land, out down forests, and substituted Christian culture and
civilisation for paganism and the lawless hunter’s life: such is the
significance in pictures of St. Magnus, St. Florentius and St. Germain
of Auxerre.
* * * * *
The HART or HIND was also an emblem of double signification. It was a
type of solitude and of purity of life, and was also a type of piety
and religious aspiration, adopted from the forty-second Psalm, ‘Like as
the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul for thee, O
God!’
When the original meaning of the lion, the hart, and other emblems,
was no longer present to the popular mind, legends were invented to
account for them; and that which had been a symbol, became an incident,
or an historical attribute,—as in the stories of the lion healed by St.
Jerome, or digging the grave of St. Paul; the miraculous stag which
appeared to St. Eustace and St. Hubert; the wounded doe in the legend
of St. Giles; and the hind which spoke to St. Julian.
* * * * *
The PEACOCK, the bird of Juno, was an ancient pagan symbol, signifying
the apotheosis of an empress, as we find from many of the old
Roman coins and medals. The early Christians, accustomed to this
interpretation, adopted it as a general emblem of the mortal exchanged
for the immortal existence; and, with this signification, we find the
peacock with outspread train on the walls and ceilings of catacombs,
the tombs of the martyrs, and many of the sarcophagi, down to the
fourth and fifth centuries. It is only in modern times that the peacock
has become the emblem of worldly pride.
* * * * *
The CROWN, as introduced in Christian Art, is either an emblem or an
attribute. It has been the emblem from all antiquity of victory, and
of recompense due to superior power or virtue. In this sense the word
and the image are used in Scripture in many passages: for example,
‘Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of glory.’ And in this
sense, as the recompense of those who had fought the good fight to the
end, and conquered, the crown became the especial symbol of the glory
of martyrdom. In very ancient pictures, a hand is seen coming out of
heaven holding a wreath or circlet; afterwards it is an angel who
descends with a crown, which is sometimes a coronet of gold and jewels,
sometimes a wreath of palm or myrtle. In general only the female
martyrs wear the symbolical crown of glory; martyrs of the other sex
hold the crown in their hands, or it is borne by an angel. Hence we may
presume that the crown, which among the Jews was the especial ornament
of a bride, signified the bride or spouse of Christ—one dedicated to
virginity for his sake; and in this sense, down to the present time,
the crown is placed on the head of a nun at the moment of consecration.
Therefore in the old pictures of female martyrs we may interpret the
crown in this double sense, as signifying at once the bride and the
martyr.
But it is necessary also to distinguish between the _symbol_ and the
_attribute_: thus, where St. Cecilia and St. Barbara wear the crown, it
is the symbol of their glorious martyrdom; when St. Catherine and St.
Ursula wear the crown, it is at once as the symbol of martyrdom and the
attribute of their royal rank as princesses.
The crown is also the symbol of sovereignty. When it is placed on the
head of the Virgin, it is as Queen of Heaven, and also as the ‘Spouse’
of Scripture allegory.
But the crown is also an attribute, and frequently, when worn by
a saint or placed at his feet, signifies that he was royal or of
princely birth: as in the pictures of Louis of France, St. William, St.
Elizabeth, St. Helena, and many others.
[Illustration: Four Crowns]
The crowns in the Italian pictures are generally a wreath, or a simple
circle of gold and jewels, or a coronet radiated with a few points.
But in the old German pictures the crown is often of most magnificent
workmanship, blazing with jewels.
I have seen a real silver crown placed on the figures of certain
popular saints, but as a votive tribute, not an emblem.
The SWORD is also either a symbol or an attribute. As a symbol it
signifies generally martyrdom by any violent death, and, in this sense,
is given to many saints who did not die by the sword. As an attribute
it signifies the particular death suffered, and that the martyr in
whose hand or at whose feet it is placed was beheaded: in this sense it
is given to St. Paul, St. Catherine, and many others. It is given also
to the warrior-martyrs, as the attribute of their military profession.
Other symbols of martyrdom are the AXE, the LANCE, and the CLUB.
ARROWS, which are attributes, St. Ursula, St. Christina, and St.
Sebastian.
The PONIARD, given to St. Lucia.
The CAULDRON, given to St. John the Evangelist and St. Cecilia.
The PINCERS and SHEARS, St. Apollonia and St. Agatha.
The WHEELS, St. Catherine.
FIRE and FLAMES are sometimes an emblem of martyrdom and punishment,
and sometimes of religious fervour.
A BELL was supposed to have power to exorcise demons, and for this
reason is given to the haunted St. Anthony.
The SHELL signifies pilgrimage.
The SKULL, penance.
The ANVIL, as an attribute of martyrdom, belongs to St. Adrian only.
The PALM, the ancient classical symbol of victory and triumph, was
early assumed by the Christians as the universal symbol of martyrdom,
and for this adaptation of a pagan ornament they found warrant in
Scripture: Rev. vii. 9, ‘And after this I beheld, and, lo, a great
multitude stood before the throne clothed with white robes and with
palms in their hands.‘... ‘And he said to me, These are they which
came out of great tribulation.’ Hence in pictures of martyrdoms an
angel descends with the palm; hence it is figured on the tombs of early
martyrs, and placed in the hands of those who suffered in the cause of
truth, as expressing their final victory over the powers of sin and
death.
The sensual think with reverence of the palm
Which the chaste votary wields.
[Illustration: Four palm fronds]
The palm varies in form from a small leaf to the size of a palm branch,
almost a tree. It is very small in the early Italian pictures, very
large in the Spanish pictures. In the Siena pictures it has a bunch of
dates depending from it. It is only in late pictures that the palm,
with a total disregard to the sacredness of its original signification,
is placed on the ground, or under the feet of the saint.
The STANDARD, or banner, is also the symbol of victory, the spiritual
victory over sin, death, and idolatry. It is borne by our Saviour
after his resurrection, and is placed in the hands of St. George, St.
Maurice, and other military saints; in the hands of some victorious
martyrs, as St. Julian, St. Ansano, and of those who preached the
Gospel among infidels; also in the hands of St. Ursula and St.
Reparata, the only female saints, I believe, who bear this attribute.
The OLIVE, as the well-known emblem of peace and reconciliation, is
figured on the tombs of the early martyrs; sometimes with, sometimes
without, the dove. The olive is borne as the attribute of peace by the
angel Gabriel, by St. Agnes, and by St. Pantaleon; sometimes also by
the angels in a Nativity, who announce ‘peace on earth.’
The DOVE in Christian Art is the emblem of the Holy Ghost; and, besides
its introduction into various subjects from the New Testament, as the
Annunciation, the Baptism, the Pentecost, it is placed near certain
saints who are supposed to have been particularly inspired, as St.
Gregory, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Hilarius, and others.
The dove is also a symbol of simplicity and purity of heart, and as
such it is introduced into pictures of female saints, and especially of
the Madonna and Child.
It is also the emblem of the soul; in this sense it is seen issuing
from the lips of dying martyrs, and is found in pictures of St. Eulalia
of Merida, and St. Scholastica the sister of St. Benedict.
The LILY is another symbol of purity, of very general application.
We find it in pictures of the Virgin, and particularly in pictures
of the Annunciation. It is placed significantly in the hand of St.
Joseph, the husband of the Virgin Mary, his staff, according to the
legend, having put forth lilies; it is given, as an emblem merely, to
St. Francis, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominick, and St. Catherine of
Siena, to express the particular purity of their lives.
The UNICORN is another ancient symbol of purity, in allusion to the
fable that it could never be captured except by a virgin stainless in
mind and life; it has become in consequence the emblem peculiarly of
_female_ chastity, but in Christian Art is appropriate only to the
Virgin Mary and St. Justina.
The FLAMING HEART expresses fervent piety and love: in early pictures
it is given to St. Augustine, merely in allusion to a famous passage
in his ‘Confessions;’ but in the later schools of Art it has become a
general and rather vulgar emblem of spiritual love: in this sense it is
given to St. Theresa; St. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, a Florentine nun;
and some of the Jesuit saints.
The BOOK in the hands of the Evangelists and the Apostles is an
attribute, and represents the Gospel. In the hand of St. Stephen it is
the Old Testament; in the hand of any other saint it may be the Gospel,
but it may also be an emblem only, signifying that the saint was famous
for his learning or his writings; it has this sense in pictures of
St. Catherine, the Doctors of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St.
Bonaventura.
A CHURCH placed in the hands of a saint signifies that he was the
founder of some particular church: in this sense St. Henry bears the
cathedral of Bamberg; or, that he was the protector and first bishop
of the church, as St. Petronius bears the cathedral of Bologna. I must
except the single instance of St. Jerome; the church in his hands
signifies no particular edifice, but, in a general sense, the Catholic
Church, of which he was the great support and one of the primitive
fathers; to render the symbol more expressive, rays of light are seen
proceeding from the portal.
The SCOURGE in the hand of a saint, or at his feet, signifies the
penances he inflicted upon himself; but in the hand of St. Ambrose, it
signifies the penance he inflicted upon others.
The CHALICE, or Sacramental Cup, with the Host, signifies Faith; it is
given to St. Barbara. The Cup, with the Serpent, is the attribute of
St. John.
The SHIP.—The Ark of Noah, floating safe amid the Deluge, in which all
things else were overwhelmed, was an obvious symbol of the Church of
Christ. Subsequently the _Ark_ became a ship. St. Ambrose likens the
Church of God to a ship, and the Cross to the mast set in the midst
of it. ‘_Arbor quædam in nari est crux in ecclesia._’ The Bark of St.
Peter tossed in the storm, and by the Redeemer guided safe to land,
was also considered as symbolical. These mingled associations combined
to give to the emblem of the ship a sacred significance. Every one who
has been at Rome will remember the famous mosaic of the ship tossed by
the storms, and assailed by demons, called THE NAVICELLA, which was
executed by Giotto for the old Basilica of St. Peter’s, and is now
under the Portico, opposite to the principal door. I believe that in
the pictures of St. Nicholas and St. Ursula the ship had originally
a sacred and symbolical significance, and that the legends were
afterwards invented or modified to explain the emblem, as in so many
other instances.
The ANCHOR is the Christian symbol of immovable firmness, hope,
and patience; and in this sense we find it very frequently in the
catacombs, and on the ancient Christian gems. It was given to several
of the early saints as a symbol. Subsequently a legend was invented to
account for the symbol, turning it into an attribute, as was the case
with the lion and the stag. For example: to St. Clement the anchor
was first given as the symbol of his constancy in Christian hope, and
thence we find, subsequently invented, the story of his being thrown
into the sea with the anchor round his neck. On the vane of the Church
of St. Clement in the Strand, the anchor, the parish device, was
anciently placed; and as in the English fancy no anchor can be well
separated from a ship, they have lately placed a ship on the other
side,—the original signification of the anchor, as applied to St.
Clement the martyr, being unknown or forgotten.
The LAMP, LANTERN, or TAPER, is the old emblem of piety: ‘Let your
light so shine before men:’—and it also signifies wisdom. In the first
sense we find this attribute in the hand of St. Gudula, St. Geneviève
of Paris, and St. Bridget; while the lamp in the hand of St. Lucia
signifies celestial light or wisdom.
FLOWERS and FRUITS, often so beautifully introduced into ecclesiastical
works of Art, may be merely ornamental; Crivelli, and some of the
Venetian and Lombard painters, were fond of rich festoons of fruit, and
backgrounds of foliage and roses. But in some instances they have a
definite significance. Roses are symbolical in pictures of the Madonna,
who is the ‘_Rose of Sharon_.’[11] The wreath of roses on the brow of
St. Cecilia, the roses and fruits borne by St. Dorothea, are explained
by the legends.
The apple was the received emblem of the Fall of Man and original sin.
Placed in pictures of the Madonna and Child, either in the hand of the
Infant Christ, or presented by an angel, it signified Redemption from
the consequences of the Fall. The pomegranate, bursting open, and the
seeds visible, was an emblem of the future—of hope in immortality.
When an apple, a pear, or a pomegranate is placed in the hand of St.
Catherine as the mystical _Sposa_ of Christ, which continually occurs,
particularly in the German pictures, the allusion is to be taken in the
scriptural sense: ‘The _fruit_ of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.’
V. OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COLOURS.
In very early Art we find colours used in a symbolical or mystic
sense, and, until the ancient principles and traditions were wholly
worn out of memory or set aside by the later painters, certain colours
were appropriate to certain subjects and personages, and could not
arbitrarily be applied or misapplied. In the old specimens of stained
glass we find these significations scrupulously attended to. Thus:—
WHITE, represented by the diamond or silver, was the emblem of light,
religious purity, innocence, virginity, faith, joy, and life. Our
Saviour wears white after his resurrection. In the judge it indicated
integrity; in the rich man humility; in the woman chastity. It was
the colour consecrated to the Virgin, who, however, never wears white
except in pictures of the Assumption.
RED, the ruby, signified fire, divine love, the Holy Spirit, heat, or
the creative power, and royalty. White and red roses expressed love and
innocence, or love and wisdom, as in the garland with which the angel
crowns St. Cecilia. In a bad sense, red signified blood, war, hatred,
and punishment. Red and black combined were the colours of purgatory
and the Devil.
BLUE, or the sapphire, expressed heaven, the firmament, truth,
constancy, fidelity. Christ and the Virgin wear the red tunic and
the blue mantle, as signifying heavenly love and heavenly truth.[12]
The same colours were given to St. John the evangelist, with this
difference,—that he wore the blue tunic and the red mantle; in later
pictures the colours are sometimes red and green.
YELLOW, or gold, was the symbol of the sun; of the goodness of God;
initiation, or marriage; faith, or fruitfulness. St. Joseph, the
husband of the Virgin, wears yellow. In pictures of the apostles, St.
Peter wears a yellow mantle over a blue tunic. In a bad sense, yellow
signifies inconstancy, jealousy, deceit; in this sense it is given to
the traitor Judas, who is generally habited in dirty yellow.
GREEN, the emerald, is the colour of spring; of hope, particularly
hope in immortality; and of victory, as the colour of the palm and the
laurel.
VIOLET, the amethyst, signified love and truth: or, passion and
suffering. Hence it is the colour often worn by the martyrs. In some
instances our Saviour, after his resurrection, is habited in a violet
instead of a blue mantle. The Virgin also wears violet after the
crucifixion. Mary Magdalene, who as patron saint wears the red robe, as
penitent wears violet and blue, the colours of sorrow and of constancy.
In the devotional representation of her by Timoteo della Vite,[13] she
wears red and green, the colours of love and hope.
GREY, the colour of ashes, signified mourning, humility, and innocence
accused; hence adopted as the dress of the Franciscans (the Grey
Friars); but it has since been changed for a dark rusty brown.
BLACK expressed the earth, darkness, mourning, wickedness, negation,
death; and was appropriate to the Prince of Darkness. In some old
illuminated MSS., Jesus, in the Temptation, wears a black robe.
White and black together signified purity of life, and mourning or
humiliation; hence adopted by the Dominicans and the Carmelites.
The mystical application of attributes and colours was more
particularly attended to in that class of subjects I have distinguished
as _devotional_. In the sacred historical pictures we find that the
attributes are usually omitted as superfluous, and characteristic
propriety of colour often sacrificed to the general effect.
These introductory observations and explanations will be found
illustrated in a variety of forms as we proceed; and readers will be
led to make comparisons and discover analogies and exceptions for
themselves. I must stop here;—yet one word more.
All the productions of Art, from the time it has been directed and
developed by Christian influences, may be regarded under three
different aspects. 1. The purely religious aspect, which belongs to
one mode of faith; 2. The poetical aspect, which belongs to all; 3.
The artistic, which is the individual point of view, and has reference
only to the action of the intellect on the means and material employed.
There is pleasure, intense pleasure, merely in the consideration of
Art as _Art_; in the faculties of comparison and nice discrimination,
brought to bear on objects of beauty; in the exercise of a cultivated
and refined taste on the productions of mind in any form whatever. But
a three-fold, or rather a thousand-fold, pleasure is theirs who to a
sense of the poetical unite a sympathy with the spiritual in Art, and
who combine with delicacy of perception, and technical knowledge, more
elevated sources of pleasure, more variety of association, habits of
more excursive thought. Let none imagine, however, that, in placing
before the uninitiated these unpretending volumes, I assume any such
superiority as is here implied. Like a child that has sprung on a
little way before its playmates, and caught a glimpse through an
opening portal of some varied Eden within, all gay with flowers, and
musical with birds, and haunted by divine shapes which beckon onward;
and, after one rapturous survey, runs back and catches its companions
by the hand and hurries them forwards to share the new-found pleasure,
the yet unexplored region of delight; even so it is with me:—I am on
the outside, not the inside, of the door I open.
[Illustration: 2 After Gaudenzio Ferrari, at Saronno]
PART I.
Ye too must fly before a chasing hand,
Angels and saints in every hamlet mourned!
Ah! if the old idolatry be spurn’d,
Let not your radiant shapes desert the land!
Her adoration was not your demand,—
The fond heart proffer’d it,—the servile heart,
And therefore are ye summon’d to depart;
Michael, and thou St. George, whose flaming brand
The Dragon quell’d; and valiant Margaret,
Whose rival sword a like opponent slew;
And rapt Cecilia, seraph-haunted queen
Of harmony; and weeping Magdalene,
Who in the penitential desert met
Gales sweet as those that over Eden blew! WORDSWORTH.
‘I can just remember,’ says a theologian of the last century, ‘when
the women first taught me to say my prayers, I used to have an idea
of a venerable old man, of a composed, benign countenance, with his
own hair, clad in a morning gown of a grave-coloured flowered damask,
sitting in an elbow-chair.’ And he proceeds to say that, in looking
back to these beginnings, he is in no way disturbed at the grossness
of his infant theology. The image thus shaped by the imagination of
the child was, in truth, merely one example of the various forms
and conceptions fitted to divers states and seasons, and orders
and degrees, of the religious mind, whether infant or adult, which
represent the several approximations such minds at such seasons can
respectively make to the completeness of faith. These imperfect ideas
should be held to be reconciled and comprehended in that completeness,
not rejected by it; and the nearest approximation which the greatest
of human minds can accomplish is surely to be regarded as much nearer
to the imperfection of an infantine notion than to the fulness of
truth. The gown of flowered damask and the elbow-chair may disappear;
the anthropomorphism of childhood may give place to the divine
incarnation of the Second Person in after-years; and we may come
to conceive of the Deity as Milton did when his epithets were most
abstract:—
‘So spake the SOVRAN PRESENCE.’
But after all, these are but different grades of imperfection in the
forms of doctrinal faith; and if there be a devouter love on the part
of the child for what is pictured in his imagination as a venerable
old man, than in the philosophic poet for the ‘Sovran Presence,’
the child’s faith has more of the efficacy of religious truth in it
than the poet’s and philosopher’s. (_Vide_ ‘Notes on Life,’ by HENRY
TAYLOR, p. 136.)
[Illustration: 3 Gloria in excelsis Deo!]
Of Angels and Archangels.
I. THE ANGELS.
There is something so very attractive and poetical, as well as soothing
to our helpless finite nature, in all the superstitions connected with
the popular notion of Angels, that we cannot wonder at their prevalence
in the early ages of the world. Those nations who acknowledged one
Almighty Creator, and repudiated with horror the idea of a plurality
of Gods, were the most willing to accept, the most enthusiastic in
accepting, these objects of an intermediate homage; and gladly placed
between their humanity and the awful supremacy of an unseen God, the
ministering spirits who were the agents of his will, the witnesses of
his glory, the partakers of his bliss, and who in their preternatural
attributes of love and knowledge filled up that vast space in the
created universe which intervened between mortal man and the infinite,
omnipotent LORD OF ALL.
The belief in these superior beings, dating from immemorial antiquity,
interwoven as it should seem with our very nature, and authorised by a
variety of passages in Scripture, has descended to our time. Although
the bodily forms assigned to them are allowed to be impossible, and
merely allegorical, although their supposed functions as rulers of
the stars and elements have long been set aside by a knowledge of the
natural laws, still the coexistence of many orders of beings superior
in nature to ourselves, benignly interested in our welfare, and
contending for us against the powers of evil, remains an article of
faith. Perhaps the belief itself, and the feeling it excites in the
tender and contemplative mind, were never more beautifully expressed
than by our own Spenser:—
And is there care in heaven? And is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is!—else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts! But O th’ exceeding grace
Of highest God that loves his creatures so,
And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe
How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
And come to succour us that succour want?
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends, to aid us militant?
They for its fight, they watch, and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant,
And all for love, and nothing for reward!
Oh why should heavenly God to men have such regard!
It is this feeling, expressed or unexpressed, lurking at the very core
of all hearts, which renders the usual representations of angels, spite
of all incongruities of form, so pleasing to the fancy: we overlook
the anatomical solecisms, and become mindful only of that emblematical
significance which through its humanity connects it with us, and
through its supernatural appendages connects _us_ with heaven.
But it is necessary to give a brief summary of the scriptural and
theological authorities, relative to the nature and functions of
angels, before we can judge of the manner in which these ideas have
been attended to and carried out in the artistic similitudes. Thus
angels are represented in the Old Testament—
1. As beings of a higher nature than men, and gifted with superior
intelligence and righteousness.[14]
2. As a host of attendants surrounding the throne of God, and as a kind
of celestial court or council.[15]
3. As messengers of his will conveyed from heaven to earth: or as sent
to guide, to correct, to instruct, to reprove, to console.
4. As protecting the pious.
5. As punishing by command of the Most High the wicked and
disobedient.[16]
6. As having the form of men; as eating and drinking.
7. As wielding a sword.
8. As having power to slay.[17]
I do not recollect any instance in which angels are represented in
Scripture as instigated by human passions; they are merely the agents
of the mercy or the wrath of the Almighty.
After the period of the Captivity, the Jewish ideas concerning angels
were considerably extended and modified by an admixture of the
Chaldaic belief, and of the doctrines taught by Zoroaster.[18] It
is then that we first hear of good and bad angels, and of a fallen
angel or impersonation of evil, busy in working mischief on earth and
counteracting good; also of archangels, who are alluded to by name;
and of guardian angels assigned to nations and individuals; and these
foreign ideas concerning the spiritual world, accepted and promulgated
by the Jewish doctors, pervade the whole of the New Testament, in which
angels are far more familiar to us as agents, more frequently alluded
to, and more distinctly brought before us, than in the Old Testament.
For example: they are represented—
1. As countless.
2. As superior to all human wants and weaknesses.
3. As the deputed messengers of God.
4. They rejoice over the repentant sinner. They take deep interest in
the mission of Christ.
5. They are present with those who pray; they bear the souls of the
just to heaven.
6. They minister to Christ on earth, and will be present at his second
coming.[19]
In the Gospel of St. John, which is usually regarded as the fullest and
most correct exposition of the doctrines of Christ, angels are only
three times mentioned, and in none of these instances does the word
angel fall from the lips of Christ. On the other hand, the writings of
St. Paul, who was deeply versed in all the learning and philosophy of
the Jews, abound in allusions to angels, and, according to the usual
interpretation of certain passages, he shows them divided into several
classes.[20] St. Luke, who was the friend and disciple of St. Paul,
some say his convert, is more direct and explicit on the subject of
angels than any of the other Evangelists, and his allusions to them
much more frequent.
* * * * *
The worship of angels, which the Jews brought from Chaldea, was early
introduced into the Christian Church. In the fourth century the council
of Laodicea published a decree against places of worship dedicated to
angels under names which the Church did not recognise. But neither
warning nor council seems to have had power to modify the popular
creed, countenanced as it was by high authority. All the Fathers are
unanimous as to the existence of angels good and evil. They hold that
it is evermore the allotted task of good angels to defend us against
evil angels, and to carry on a daily and hourly combat against our
spiritual foes: they teach that the good angels are worthy of all
reverence as the ministers of God and as the protectors of the human
race; that their intercession is to be invoked, and their perpetual,
invisible presence to be regarded as an incitement to good and a
preventive to evil.
This, however, was not enough. Taking for their foundation a few
Scripture texts, and in particular the classification of St. Paul,
the imaginative theologians of the middle ages ran into all kinds
of extravagant subtleties regarding the being, the nature, and the
functions of the different orders of angels. Except as far as they have
been taken as authorities in Art, I shall set aside these fanciful
disquisitions, of which a mere abstract would fill volumes. For our
present purpose it is sufficient to bear in mind that the great
theologians divide the angelic host into three hierarchies, and these
again into nine choirs, three in each hierarchy: according to Dionysius
the Areopagite, in the following order: 1. Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones.
2. Dominations, Virtues, Powers. 3. Princedoms, Archangels, Angels.
The order of these denominations is not the same in all authorities:
according to the Greek formula, St. Bernard, and the Legenda Aurea,
the Cherubim precede the Seraphim, and in the hymn of St. Ambrose they
have also the precedence—_To Thee, Cherubim and Seraphim continually do
cry_, &c.; but the authority of St. Dionysius seems to be admitted as
paramount, for according to the legend he was the convert and intimate
friend of St. Paul, and St. Paul, who had been transported to the
seventh heaven, had made him acquainted with all he had there beheld.
Desire
In Dionysius so intensely wrought
That he, as I have done, ranged them, and named
Their orders, marshall’d in his thought;
... For he had learn’d
Both this and much beside of these our orbs
From an eye-witness to Heaven’s mysteries. DANTE, _Par._ 28.
The first three choirs receive their glory immediately from God, and
transmit it to the second; the second illuminate the third; the third
are placed in relation to the created universe and man. The first
Hierarchy are as councillors; the second as governors; the third as
ministers. The Seraphim are absorbed in perpetual love and adoration
immediately round the throne of God. The Cherubim know and worship.
The Thrones sustain the seat of the Most High. The Dominations,
Virtues, Powers, are the Regents of stars and elements. The three last
orders, Princedoms, Archangels, and Angels, are the protectors of
the great Monarchies on earth, and the executors of the will of God
throughout the universe.
The term angels is properly applied to all these celestial beings; but
it belongs especially to the two last orders, who are brought into
immediate communication with the human race. The word angel, Greek in
its origin, signifies a messenger, or more literally _a bringer of
tidings_.
In this sense the Greeks entitle Christ ‘The great Angel of the will of
God;’ and I have seen Greek representations of Christ with wings to his
shoulders. John the Baptist is also an angel in this sense; likewise
the Evangelists; all of whom, as I shall show hereafter, bear, as
celestial messengers, the angel-wings.
[Illustration: 4 Greek Seraph; wings of gold
and crimson (Ninth century)]
In ancient pictures and illuminations which exhibit the glorification
of the Trinity, Christ, or the Virgin, the hierarchies of angels are
represented in circles around them, orb within orb. This is called a
glory of angels. In pictures it is seldom complete: instead of nine
circles, the painters content themselves with one or two circles only.
The innermost circles, the Seraphim and the Cherubim, are in general
represented as _heads_ merely, with two or four or six wings, and of
a bright-red or blue colour; sometimes with variegated wings, green,
yellow, violet, &c. This emblem—intended to shadow forth to human
comprehension a pure spirit glowing with love and intelligence, in
which all that is bodily is put away, and only the head, the seat of
soul, and wings, the attribute of spirit and swiftness, retained—is of
Greek origin. When first adopted I do not know, but I have met with
it in Greek MSS. of the ninth century. Down to the eleventh century
the faces were human, but not childish; the infant head was afterwards
adopted to express innocence in addition to love and intelligence.
[Illustration: 5 Cherubim, Italian (Fourteenth century)]
Such was the expressive and poetical symbol which degenerated in the
later periods of Art into those little fat baby heads, with curly hair
and small wings under the chin, which the more they resemble nature in
colour, feature, and detail, the more absurd they become, the original
meaning being wholly lost or perverted.
[Illustration: 6 Cherub Heads]
In painting, where a glory of angels is placed round the Divine Being
or the glorified Virgin, those forming the innermost circles are or
ought to be of a glowing red, the colour of fire, that is, of love; the
next circle is painted blue, the colour of the firmament, or light,
that is, of knowledge. Now as the word seraph is derived from a Hebrew
root signifying love, and the word cherub from a Hebrew root signifying
to know, should not this distinction fix the proper place and name of
the first two orders? It is admitted that the spirits which _love_ are
nearer to God than those which _know_, since we cannot know that which
we do not first love: that Love and Knowledge, ‘the two halves of a
divided world,’ constitute in their union the perfection of the angelic
nature; but the Seraphim, according to the derivation of their name,
should _love_ most; their whole being is fused, as it were, in a glow
of adoration; therefore they should take the precedence, and their
proper colour is red. The Cherubim, ‘the lords of those that know,’
come next, and are to be painted blue.
Thus it should seem that, in considering the religious pictures of the
early ages of Art, we have to get rid of certain associations as to
colour and form, derived from the phraseology of later poets and the
representations of later painters. ‘Blue-eyed Seraphim,’ and the ‘blue
depth of Seraph’s eyes,’ are not to be thought of any more than smiling
Cherubim.’ The Seraphim, where distinguished by colour, are red; the
Cherubim blue: the proper character, where character is attended to,
is, in the Seraph, adoration; in the Cherub, contemplation. So Milton—
With thee bring
Him who soars on golden wing,
The Cherub, Contemplation.
I remember a little Triptyca, a genuine work of Fiesole, in which one
of the lateral compartments represents his favourite subject, the
souls of the blessed received into Paradise. They are moving from the
lower part of the picture towards the top, along an ascent paved with
flowers, all in white garments and crowned with roses. At one side,
low down, stands a blue Cherub robed in drapery spangled with golden
stars, who seems to encourage the blessed group. Above are the gates of
heaven. Christ welcomes to his kingdom the beatified spirits, and on
each side stands a Seraph, all of a glowing red, in spangled drapery.
The figures are not here merely heads and wings, but full length,
having all that soft peculiar grace which belongs to the painter.[21]
In a Coronation of the Virgin,[22] a glory of Seraphim over-arches the
principal group. Here the angelic beings are wholly of a bright red
colour: they are human to the waist, with hands clasped in devotion:
the bodies and arms covered with plumage, but the forms terminating
in wings; all uniformly red. In the same collection is a small Greek
picture of Christ receiving the soul of the Virgin; over his head
hovers a large, fiery-red, six-winged Seraph; and on each side a Seraph
with hair and face and limbs of glowing red, and with white draperies.
Vasari mentions an Adoration of the Magi by Liberale of Verona, in
which a group of angels, all of a red colour, stand as a celestial
guard round the Virgin and her divine Infant.[23]
The distinction of hue in the red and blue angels we find wholly
omitted towards the end of the fifteenth century. Cherubim with blue,
red, green, and variegated wings we find in the pictures of Perugino
and other masters in the beginning of the sixteenth century, also
in early pictures of Raphael. Liberale di Verona has given us, in a
Madonna picture, Cherub heads without wings, and of a blue colour,
emerging from golden clouds. And in Raphael’s Madonna di San Sisto
the whole background is formed of Cherubim and Seraphim of a uniform
delicate bluish tinge, as if composed of air, and melting away into an
abyss of golden glory, the principal figures standing relieved against
this flood of living love and light—beautiful! So are the Cherubim
with many-coloured wings which float in the firmament in Perugino’s
Coronation of the Virgin; but none of these can be regarded as so
theologically correct as the fiery-red and bright-blue Seraphim and
Cherubim, of which are formed the hierarchies and glories which figure
in the early pictures, the stained glass, the painted sculpture, and
the illuminated MSS. from the tenth to the sixteenth century.
[Illustration: 7 Cherubim (Liberale di Verona)]
The next five choirs of angels, the Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms,
Virtues, Powers, though classed and described with great exactitude by
the theologians, have not been very accurately discriminated in Art.
In some examples the Thrones have green wings, a fiery aureole, and
bear a throne in their hands. The Dominations, Virtues, and Powers
sometimes bear a globe and a long sceptre surmounted by a cross. The
Principalities, according to the Greek formula, should bear a branch
of lily. The Archangels are figured as warriors, and carry a sword
with the point upwards. The angels are robed as deacons, and carry a
wand. In one of the ancient frescoes in the Cathedral at Orvieto, there
is a complete hierarchy of angels, so arranged as to symbolise the
Trinity, each of the nine choirs being composed of three angels, but
the Seraphim only are distinguished by their red colour and priority
of place. In the south porch of the Cathedral of Chartres, each of
the nine orders is represented by two angels: in other instances, one
angel only represents the order to which he belongs, and nine angels
represent the whole hierarchy.[24] Where, however, we meet with groups
or rows of angels, as in the Greek mosaics and the earliest frescoes
all alike, all with the tiara, the long sceptre-like wands, and the orb
of sovereignty, I believe these to represent the Powers and Princedoms
of Heaven. The Archangels alone, as we shall see presently, have
distinct individual names and attributes assigned to them.
[Illustration: 8 Part of a Glory of Angels surrounding the figure of
Christ in a picture by Ambrogio Borgognone]
The angels, generally, have the human form; are winged; and are endowed
with immutable happiness and perpetual youth, because they are ever
in the presence of Him with whom there is no change and no time. They
are direct emanations of the beauty of the Eternal mind, therefore
beautiful; created, therefore not eternal, but created perfect, and
immortal in their perfection: they are always supposed to be masculine;
perhaps for the reason so beautifully assigned by Madame de Staël,
‘because the union of power with purity (_la force avec la pureté_)
constitutes all that we mortals can imagine of perfection.’ There
is no such thing as an old angel, and therefore there ought to be
no such thing as an infant angel. The introduction of infant angels
seems to have arisen from the custom of representing the regenerate
souls of men as new-born infants, and perhaps also from the words of
our Saviour, when speaking of children: ‘I say unto you, their angels
do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.’ Such
representations, when religiously and poetically treated as spirits of
love, intelligence, and innocence, are of exquisite beauty, and have a
significance which charms and elevates the fancy; but from this, the
true and religious conception, the Italian _putti_ and _puttini_, and
the rosy chubby babies of the Flemish school, are equally remote.
[Illustration: 9 Egyptian winged genius (Louvre)]
In early Art, the angels in the bloom of adolescence are always amply
draped: at first, in the classical tunic and pallium; afterwards in
long linen vestments with the alba and stole, as levites or deacons; or
as princes, with embroidered robes and sandals, and jewelled crowns or
fillets. Such figures are common in the Byzantine mosaics and pictures.
The expression, in these early representations, is usually calm and
impassive. Angels partially draped in loose, fluttering, meretricious
attire, poised in attitudes upon clouds, or with features animated by
human passion, or limbs strained by human effort, are the innovations
of more modern Art. White is, or ought to be, the prevailing colour
in angelic draperies, but red and blue of various shades are more
frequent: green often occurs; and in the Venetian pictures, yellow, or
rather saffron-coloured, robes are not unfrequent. In the best examples
of Italian Art the tints, though varied, are tender and delicate: all
dark heavy colours and violent contrasts of colour are avoided. On
the contrary, in the early German school, the angels have rich heavy
voluminous draperies of the most intense and vivid colours, often
jewelled and embroidered with gold. Flight, in such garments, seems as
difficult as it would be to swim in coronation robes.
[Illustration: 10 Winged figure from Nineveh]
But, whatever be the treatment as to character, lineaments, or dress,
wings are almost invariably the attribute of the angelic form. As
emblematical appendages, these are not merely significant of the
character of celestial messengers, for, from time immemorial, wings
have been the Oriental and Egyptian symbol of power, as well as of
swiftness; of the spiritual and aerial, in contradistinction to the
human and the earthly. Thus, with the Egyptians, the winged globe
signified power and eternity, that is, the Godhead; a bird, with a
human head, signified the soul; and nondescript creatures, with wings,
abound not only in the Egyptian paintings and hieroglyphics, but also
in the Chaldaic and Babylonian remains, in the Lycian and Nineveh
marbles, and on the gems and other relics of the Gnostics. I have
seen on the Gnostic gems figures with four wings, two springing from
the shoulders and two from the loins. This portentous figure, from the
ruins of Nineveh, is similarly constructed. (10.)
In Etruscan Art all their divinities are winged; and where Venus
is represented with wings, as in many of the antique gems (and by
Correggio in imitation of them),[25] these brilliant wings are not, as
some have supposed, emblematical of the _transitoriness_, but of the
might, the majesty, and the essential divinity of beauty. In Scripture,
the first mention of Cherubim with wings is immediately after the
departure of the Israelites from Egypt (Exod. xxxi. 2). Bezaleel, the
first artist whose name is recorded in the world’s history, and who
appears to have been, like the greatest artists of modern times, at
once architect, sculptor, and painter, probably derived his figures
of Cherubim with outstretched wings, guarding the mercy-seat, from
those Egyptian works of Art with which the Israelites must have been
familiarised. Clement of Alexandria is so aware of the relative
similitude, that he supposes the Egyptians to have borrowed from the
Israelites, which is obviously the reverse of the truth. How far the
Cherubim, which figure in the Biblical pictures of the present day,
resemble the carved Cherubim of Bezaleel we cannot tell, but probably
the idea and the leading forms are the same: for the ark, we know, was
carried into Palestine; these original Cherubim were the pattern of
those which adorned the temple of Solomon, and these, again, were the
prototype after which the imagery of the second temple was fashioned.
Although in Scripture the shape under which the celestial ministers
appeared to man is nowhere described, except in the visions of the
prophets (Dan. x. 5), and there with a sort of dreamy incoherent
splendour, rendering it most perilous to clothe the image placed before
the fancy in definite forms, still the idea of wings, as the angelic
appendages, is conveyed in many places distinctly, and occasionally
with a picturesque vividness which inspires and assists the artist.
For instance, in Daniel, ch. vii., ‘they had wings like a fowl.’ In
Ezekiel, ch.i., ‘their wings were stretched upward when they flew;
when they stood, they let down their wings:’ ‘I heard the noise of
their wings as the noise of great waters:’ and in Zechariah, ch. v., ‘I
looked, and behold there came out two women, and the wind was in their
wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork.’ And Isaiah, ch.
vi., in the description of the Seraphim, ‘Each one had six wings; with
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with
twain he did fly.’ By the early artists this description was followed
out in a manner more conscientious and reverential than poetical.
[Illustration: 11 Seraph
(Greek mosaic, Cathedral of Monreale)]
They were content with a symbol. But mark how Milton, more daring,
could paint from the same original:—
A seraph wing’d; six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments divine: the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o’er his breast
With regal ornament; the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold
And colours dipp’d in heaven; the third his feet
Shadow’d from either heel with feather’d mail,
Sky-tinctured grain.
I have sometimes thought that Milton, in his descriptions of angels,
was not indebted merely to the notions of the old theological writers,
interpreted and embellished by his own fancy: may he not, in his
wanderings through Italy, have beheld with kindling sympathy some of
those glorious creations of Italian Art, which, when I saw them, made
me break out into his own divine language as the only fit utterance to
express those forms in words?—But, to return—Is it not a mistake to
make the wings, the feathered appendages of the angelic form, as like
as possible to real wings—the wings of storks, or the wings of swans,
or herons, borrowed for the occasion? Some modern painters, anxious to
make wings look ‘natural,’ have done this; Delaroche, for instance,
in his St. Cecilia. Infinitely more beautiful and consistent are the
nondescript wings which the early painters gave their angels:—large—so
large, that when the glorious creature is represented as at rest, they
droop from the shoulders to the ground; with long slender feathers,
eyed sometimes like the peacock’s train, bedropped with gold like the
pheasant’s breast, tinted with azure and violet and crimson, ‘colours
dipp’d in heaven,’—they are really angel-wings, not bird-wings.
[Illustration: 12 Angels (Orcagna)]
[Illustration: 13 Fiery Cherub (Raphael)]
Orcagna’s angels in the Campo Santo are, in this respect, peculiarly
poetical. Their extremities are wings instead of limbs; and in a few
of the old Italian and German painters of the fifteenth century we
find angels whose extremities are formed of light waving folds of pale
rose-coloured or azure drapery, or of a sort of vapoury cloud, or, in
some instances, of flames. The cherubim and seraphim which surround the
similitude of Jehovah when He appears to Moses in the burning bush,[26]
are an example of the sublime and poetical significance which may be
given to this kind of treatment. They have heads and human features
marvellous for intelligence and beauty; their hair, their wings, their
limbs, end in lambent fires; they are ‘celestial Ardours bright,’ which
seem to have being without shape.
Dante’s angels have less of dramatic reality, less of the aggrandised
and idealised human presence, than Milton’s. They are wondrous
creatures. Some of them have the quaint fantastic picturesqueness
of old Italian Art and the Albert Dürer school; for instance, those
in the Purgatorio, with their wings of a bright green, and their
green draperies, ‘verde come fogliette,’ kept in a perpetual state of
undulation by the breeze created by the fanning of their wings, with
features too dazzling to be distinguished:
Ben discerneva in lor la testa bionda,
Ma nelle facce l’ occhio si smarria
Come virtù ch’ a troppo si confonda.[27]
And the Shape, glowing red as in a furnace, with an air from the
fanning of its wings, ‘fresh as the first breath of wind in a May
morning, and fragrant as all its flowers.’ That these and other
passages scattered through the Purgatorio and the Paradiso assisted the
fancy of the earlier painters, in portraying their angelic Glories and
winged Beatitudes, I have little doubt; but, on the other hand, the
sublime angel in the Inferno—he who comes speeding over the waters with
vast pinions like sails, sweeping the evil spirits in heaps before him,
‘like frogs before a serpent,’ and with a touch of his wand making the
gates of the city of Dis fly open; then, with a countenance solemn and
majestic, and quite unmindful of his worshipper, as one occupied by
higher matters, turning and soaring away—this is quite in the sentiment
of the grand old Greek and Italian mosaics, which preceded Dante by
some centuries.[28]
But besides being the winged messengers of God to man, the deputed
regents of the stars, the rulers of the elements, and the dispensers
of the fate of nations, angels have another function in which we love
to contemplate them. They are the choristers of heaven. Theirs is
the privilege to sound that hymn of praise which goes up from this
boundless and harmonious universe of suns and stars and worlds and
rejoicing creatures, towards the God who created them: theirs is the
music of the spheres—
They sing, and singing in their glory move;
they tune divine instruments, named after those of earth’s harmonies—
The harp, the solemn pipe
And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop,
All sounds on fret by string or golden wire,
... And with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing.
There is nothing more beautiful, more attractive, in Art than the
representations of angels in this character. Sometimes they form
a chorus round the glorified Saviour, when, after his sorrow and
sacrifice on earth, he takes his throne in heaven; or, when the crown
is placed on the head of the Maternal Virgin in glory, pour forth their
triumphant song, and sound their silver clarions on high: sometimes
they stand or kneel before the Madonna and Child, or sit upon the steps
of her throne, singing,—with such sweet earnest faces! or playing on
their golden lutes, or piping celestial symphonies; or they bend in
a choir from the opening heavens above, and welcome, with triumphant
songs, the liberated soul of the saint or martyr; or join in St.
Cecilia’s hymn of praise: but whatever the scene, in these and similar
representations, they appear in their natural place and vocation, and
harmonise enchantingly with all our feelings and fancies relative to
these angelic beings, made up of love and music.
[Illustration: 14 Angel (Francia)]
[Illustration: 15 Piping Angel (Gian Bellini)]
Most beautiful examples of this treatment occur both in early painting
and sculpture; and no one who has wandered through churches and
galleries, with feeling and observation awake, can fail to remember
such. It struck me as characteristic of the Venetian school, that the
love of music seemed to combine with the sense of harmony in colour;
nowhere have I seen musical angels so frequently and so beautifully
introduced: and whereas the angelic choirs of Fiesole, Ghirlandajo,
and Raphael, seem to be playing as an act of homage for the delight of
the Divine Personages, those of Vivarini and Bellini and Palma appear
as if enchanted by their own music; and both together are united in
the grand and beautiful angels of Melozzo da Forli, particularly in
one who is bending over a lute, and another who with a triumphant and
ecstatic expression strikes the cymbals.[29] Compare the cherubic
host who are pouring forth their hymns of triumph, blowing their
uplifted trumpets, and touching immortal harps and viols in Angelico’s
‘Coronation,’[30] or in Signorelli’s ‘Paradiso,’[31] with those lovely
Venetian choristers, the piping boys, myrtle-crowned, who are hymning
Bellini’s Madonna,[32] or those who are touching the lute to the praise
and glory of St. Ambrose in Vivarini’s most beautiful picture; you will
feel immediately the distinction in point of sentiment.
The procession of chanting angels which once surmounted the organ in
the Duomo of Florence is a perfect example of musical angels applied to
the purpose of decoration. Perhaps it was well to remove this exquisite
work of art to a place of safety, where it can be admired and studied
as a work of art; but the removal has taken from it the appropriate
expression. How they sing!—when the tones of the organ burst forth, we
might have fancied we heard their divine voices through the stream of
sound! The exquisite little bronze choristers round the high altar of
St. Antonio in Padua are another example; Florentine in elegance of
form, Venetian in sentiment, intent upon their own sweet song!
* * * * *
There is a third function ascribed to these angelic natures, which
brings them even nearer to our sympathies; they are the deputed
guardians of the just and innocent. St. Raphael, whose story I shall
presently relate, is the prince of the guardian angels. The Jews held
that the angels deputed to Lot were his guardian angels.[33] The
fathers of the Christian Church taught that every human being, from
the hour of his birth to that of his death, is accompanied by an
angel appointed to watch over him. The Mahometans give to each of us
a good and an evil angel; but the early Christians supposed us to be
attended each by a good angel only, who undertakes that office, not
merely from duty to God, and out of obedience and great humility, but
as inspired by exceeding charity and love towards his human charge. It
would require the tongues of angels themselves to recite all that we
owe to these benign and vigilant guardians. They watch by the cradle of
the new-born babe, and spread their celestial wings round the tottering
steps of infancy. If the path of life be difficult and thorny, and evil
spirits work its shame and woe, they sustain us; they bear the voice of
our complaining, of our supplication, of our repentance, up to the foot
of God’s throne, and bring us back in return a pitying benediction, to
strengthen and to cheer. When passion and temptation strive for the
mastery, they encourage us to resist; when we conquer, they crown us;
when we falter and fail, they compassionate and grieve over us; when
we are obstinate in polluting our own souls, and perverted not only
in act but in will, they leave us—and woe to them that are so left!
But the good angel does not quit his charge until his protection is
despised, rejected, and utterly repudiated. Wonderful the fervour of
their love—wonderful their meekness and patience— who endure from day
to day the spectacle of the unveiled human heart with all its miserable
weaknesses and vanities, its inordinate desires and selfish purposes!
Constant to us in death, they contend against the powers of darkness
for the emancipated spirit: they even visit the suffering sinner in
purgatory; they keep alive in the tormented spirit faith and hope, and
remind him that the term of expiation will end at last. So Dante[34]
represents the souls in purgatory as comforted in their misery; and
(which has always seemed to me a touch of sublime truth and tenderness)
as rejoicing over those who were on earth conspicuous for the very
virtues wherein themselves were deficient. When at length the repentant
soul is sufficiently purified, the guardian angel bears it to the bosom
of the Saviour.
The earlier painters and sculptors did not, apparently, make the same
use of guardian angels that we so often meet with in works of Modern
Art. Poetical allegories of angels guiding the steps of childhood,
extending a shield over innocence, watching by a sick bed, do not, I
think, occur before the seventeenth century; at least I have not met
with such. The ancient masters, who really believed in the personal
agency of our angelic guardians, beheld them with awe and reverence,
and reserved their presence for great and solemn occasions. The
angel who presents the pious votary to Christ or the Virgin, who
crowns St. Cecilia and St. Valerian after their conquest over human
weakness; the angel who cleaves the air with flight precipitant’ to
break the implements of torture, or to extend the palm to the dying
martyr, victorious over pain; the angels who assist and carry in their
arms the souls of the just; are, in these and all similar examples,
representations of guardian angels.
* * * * *
Such, then, are the three great functions of the angelic host: they are
Messengers, Choristers, and Guardians. But angels, without reference to
their individuality or their ministry—with regard only to their species
and their form, as the most beautiful and the most elevated of created
essences, as intermediate between heaven and earth—are introduced into
all works of art which have a sacred purpose or character, and must
be considered not merely as decorative accessories, but as a kind of
presence, as attendant witnesses; and, like the chorus in the Greek
tragedies, looking on where they are not actors. In architectural
decoration, the cherubim with which Solomon adorned his temple have
been the authority and example.[35] ‘Within the oracle he made two
cherubims, each ten cubits high, and with wings five cubits in length’
(the angels in the old Christian churches on each side of the altar
correspond with these cherubim), ‘and he overlaid the cherubims with
gold, and carved all the walls of the house with carved figures of
cherubims, and he made doors of olive tree, and he carved on them
figures of cherubims.’ So, in Christian art and architecture, angels,
with their beautiful cinctured heads and outstretched wings and flowing
draperies, fill up every space. The instances are so numerous that they
will occur to every one who has given a thought to the subject. I may
mention the frieze of angels in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, merely as
an example at hand, and which can be referred to at any moment; also
the angels round the choir of Lincoln Cathedral, of which there are
fine casts in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham; and in some of the old
churches in Saxony which clearly exhibit the influence of Byzantine
Art—for instance, at Freyberg, Merseburg, Naumburg—angels with
outspread wings fill up the spandrils of the arches along the nave.
But, in the best ages of Art, angels were not merely employed as
decorative accessories; they had their appropriate place and a solemn
significance as a part of that theological system which the edifice, as
a whole, represented.
As a celestial host, surrounding the throne of the Trinity; or of
Christ, as redeemer or as a judge; or of the Virgin in glory; or the
throned Madonna and Child; their place is immediately next to the
Divine Personages, and before the Evangelists.
In what is called a Liturgy of Angels, they figure in procession On
each side of the choir, so as to have the appearance of approaching the
altar: they wear the stole and alba as deacons, and bear the implements
of the mass. In the Cathedral of Rheims there is a range of colossal
angels as a grand procession along the vaults of the nave, who appear
as approaching the altar: these bear not only the gospel, the missal,
the sacramental cup, the ewer, the taper, the cross, &c., but also the
attributes of sovereignty, celestial and terrestrial: one carries the
sun, another the moon, a third the kingly sceptre, a fourth the globe,
a fifth the sword; and all these, as they approach the sanctuary, they
seem about to place at the feet of Christ, who stands there as priest
and king in glory. Statues of angels in an attitude of worship on each
side of the altar, as if adoring the sacrifice—or bearing in triumph
the instruments of Christ’s passion, the cross, the nails, the spear,
the crown of thorns—or carrying tapers—are more common, and must be
regarded not merely as decoration, but as a _presence_ in the high
solemnity.
[Illustration: 16 Angel bearing the Moon
(Greek, 12th century)]
In the Cathedral of Auxerre may be seen angels attending on the
triumphant coming of Christ; and, which is most singular, they, as well
as Christ, are on horseback (17).
[Illustration: 17 Two angels on horseback]
When, in subjects from Scripture history, angels figure not merely as
attendants and spectators, but as personages necessary to the action,
they are either ministers of the divine wrath, or of the divine mercy;
agents of destruction, or agents of help and good counsel. As all
these instances belong to the historical scenes of the Old or the New
Testament, they will be considered separately, and I shall confine
myself here to a few remarks on the introduction and treatment of
angels in some subjects of peculiar interest.
* * * * *
[Illustration: 18 Adam and Eve expelled (N. Pisano)]
In relating ‘the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise,’ it is not
said that an angel was the immediate agent of the divine wrath, but it
is so represented in works of Art. In the most ancient treatment I have
met with,[36] a majestic armed angel drives forth the delinquents, and
a cherub with six wings stands as guard before the gate. I found the
same _motif_ in the sculptures on the façade of the Duomo at Orvieto,
by Niccolò Pisano. In another instance, an ancient Saxon miniature, the
angel is represented not as driving them forth, but closing the door
against them. But these are exceptions to the usual mode of treatment,
which seldom varies; the angel is not represented in wrath, but calm,
and stretches forth a sword which is often (literally rendering the
text) a waving lambent flame. I remember an instance in which the
preternatural sword, ‘turning every way,’ as the form of a wheel of
flames.
An angel is expressly introduced as a minister of wrath in the story
of Balaam, in which I have seen no deviation from the obvious prosaic
treatment, rendering the text literally, ‘and the ass saw the angel of
the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand.’
‘The destroying angel, leaning from heaven, presents to David three
arrows, from which to choose—war, pestilence, or famine.’ I have found
this subject beautifully executed in several MSS., for instance, in the
‘Heures d’Anne de Bretagne;’ also in pictures and in prints.
‘The destroying angel sent to chastise the arrogance of David, is
beheld standing between heaven and earth with his sword stretched over
Jerusalem to destroy it.’ Of this sublime vision I have never seen
any but the meanest representations; none of the great masters have
treated it; perhaps Rembrandt might have given us the terrible and
glorious angel standing like a shadow in the midst of his own intense
irradiation. David fallen on his face, and the sons of Ornan hiding
themselves by their rude threshing-floor, with that wild mixture of the
familiar and the unearthly in which he alone has succeeded.
‘The Chastisement of Heliodorus’ has given occasion to the sublimest
composition in which human genius ever attempted to embody the
conception of the supernatural—Raphael’s fresco in the Vatican. St.
Michael, the protecting angel of the Hebrew nation, is supposed to
have been the minister of divine wrath on this occasion; but Raphael,
in omitting the wings, and all exaggeration or alteration of the
human figure, has shown how unnecessary it was for _him_ to have
recourse to the prodigious and impossible in form, in order to give
the supernatural in sentiment. The unearthly warrior and his unearthly
steed—the weapon in his hand, which is not a sword to pierce, nor a
club to strike, but a sort of mace, of which, as it seems, a touch
would annihilate; the two attendant spirits, who come gliding above the
marble floor, with their hair streaming back with the rapidity of their
aërial motion—are in the very spirit of Dante, and, as conceptions of
superhuman power, superior to anything in pictured form which Art has
bequeathed to us.
In calling to mind the various representations of the angels of the
Apocalypse let loose for destruction, one is tempted to exclaim, ‘O
for a warning voice!’ When the Muse of Milton quailed, and fell ten
thousand fathom deep into Bathos, what could be expected from human
invention? In general, where this subject is attempted in pictures, we
find the angels animated, like those of Milton in the war of heaven,
with ‘fierce desire of battle,’ breathing vengeance, wrath, and fury.
So Albert Dürer, in those wonderful scenes of his ‘Apocalypse,’ has
exhibited them; but some of the early Italians show them merely
impassive, conquering almost without effort, punishing without anger.
The immediate instruments of the wrath of God in the day of judgment
are not angels, but devils or demons, generally represented by the
old painters with every possible exaggeration of hideousness, and as
taking a horrible and grotesque delight in their task. The demons are
fallen angels, their deformity a consequence of their fall. Thus, in
some very ancient representations of the expulsion of Lucifer and his
rebel host, the degradation of the form increases with their distance
from heaven.[37] Those who are uppermost are still angels; they bear
the aureole, the wings, and the tunic; they have not yet lost all their
original brightness: those below them begin to assume the bestial
form: the fingers become talons, the heads become horned; and at last,
as they touch the confines of the gulf of hell, the transformation
is seen complete, from the luminous angel into the abominable and
monstrous devil, with serpent tail, claws, bristles, and tusks. This
gradual transformation, as they descend into the gulf of sin, has a
striking allegorical significance which cannot escape the reader.
In a Greek MS. of the ninth century,[38] bearing singular traces of
antique classical art in the conception and attributes of the figures,
I found both angels and demons treated in a style quite peculiar and
poetical. The angels are here gigantic, majestic, Jove-like figures,
with great wings. The demons are also majestic graceful winged figures,
but painted of a dusky grey colour (it may originally have been black).
In one scene, where Julian the Apostate goes to seek the heathen
divinities, they are thus represented, that is, as _black angels_;
showing that the painter had here assumed the devils or demons to be
the discrowned and fallen gods of the antique world.
* * * * *
These are a few of the most striking instances of angels employed as
ministers of wrath. Angels, as ministers of divine grace and mercy,
Of all those arts which Deity supreme
Doth ease its heart of love in.
occur much more frequently.
The ancient heresy that God made use of the agency of angels in the
creation of the world, and of mankind, I must notice here, because
it has found its way into Art; for example, in an old miniature
which represents an angel having before him a lump of clay, a kind
of _ébauche_ of humanity, which he appears to be moulding with his
hands, while the Almighty stands by directing the work.[39] This idea,
absurd as it may appear, is not perhaps more absurd than the notion of
those who would represent the Great First Cause as always busied in
fashioning or altering the forms in his visible creation, like a potter
or any other mechanic. But as we are occupied at present with the
scriptural, not the legendary subjects, I return to the Old Testament.
The first time that we read of an angel sent as a messenger of mercy,
it is for the comfort of poor Hagar; when he found her weeping by the
spring of water in the wilderness, because her mistress had afflicted
her: and again, when she was cast forth and her boy fainted for thirst.
In the representation of these subjects, I do not know a single
instance in which the usual angelic form has not been adhered to. In
the sacrifice of Isaac, ‘the angel of the Lord calls to Abraham out of
heaven.’ This subject, as the received type of the sacrifice of the
Son of God, was one of the earliest in Christian Art. We find it on
the sarcophagi of the third and fourth centuries; but in one of the
latest only have I seen a personage introduced as staying the hand of
Abraham, and this personage is without wings. In painting, the angel
is sometimes in the act of taking the sword out of Abraham’s hand,
which expresses the nature of his message: or he lays one hand on his
arm, and with the other points to the ram which was to replace the
sacrifice, or brings the ram in his arms to the altar; but, whatever
the action, the form of the angelic messenger has never varied from the
sixth century.
[Illustration: 19 The Angels who visit Abraham (Raphael)]
In the visit of the angels to Abraham, there has been a variety
caused by the wording of the text. It is not said that three _angels_
visited Abraham, yet in most of the ancient representations the three
celestial guests are, winged angels. I need hardly observe that these
three angels are assumed to be a figure of the Trinity, and in some
old illuminations the interpretation is not left doubtful, the angels
being characterised as the three persons of the Trinity, wearing each
the cruciform nimbus: two of them, young and beardless, stand behind;
the third, representing the Father, has a beard, and, before _Him_,
Abraham is prostrated. Beautiful for grace and simplicity is the winged
group by Ghiberti, in which the three seem to step and move together
as one. More modern artists have given us the celestial visitants
merely as men. Pre-eminent in this style of conception are the pictures
of Raphael and Murillo. Raphael here, as elsewhere, a true poet,
has succeeded in conveying, with exquisite felicity, the sentiment
of power, of a heavenly presence, and of a mysterious significance.
The three youths, who stand linked together hand in hand before the
Patriarch, with such an air of benign and superior grace, want no wings
to show us that they belong to the courts of heaven, and have but just
descended to earth—
So lively shines
In them divine resemblance, and such grace
The hand that form’d them on their shape hath pour’d.
Murillo, on the contrary, gives us merely three young men, travellers,
and has set aside wholly both the angelic and the mystic character of
the visitants.[40]
The angels who descend and ascend the ladder in Jacob’s dream are
in almost every instance represented in the usual form; sometimes
a few[41]—sometimes in multitudes[42]—sometimes as one only, who
turns to bless the sleeper before he ascends;[43] and the ladder is
sometimes a flight, or a series of flights, of steps ascending from
earth to the empyrean. But here it is Rembrandt who has shown himself
the poet; the ladder is a slanting stream of light; the angels are
mysterious bird-like luminous forms, which emerge one after another
from a dazzling fount of glory, and go floating up and down,—so like a
dream made visible!—In Middle-Age Art this vision of Jacob occurs very
rarely. I shall have to return to it when treating of the subjects from
the Old Testament.
In the New Testament angels are much more frequently alluded to than
in the Old; more as a reality, less as a vision; in fact, there is no
important event throughout the Gospels and Acts in which angels do not
appear, either as immediate agents, or as visible and present; and
in scenes where they are not distinctly said to be visibly present,
they are assumed to be so invisibly, St. Paul having said expressly
that ‘their ministry is continual.’ It is therefore with undeniable
propriety that, in works of Art representing the incidents of the
Gospels, angels should figure as a perpetual presence, made visible
under such forms as custom and tradition have consecrated.
I pass over, for the present, the grandest, the most important mission
of an angel, the announcement brought by Gabriel to the blessed
Virgin. I shall have to treat it fully hereafter.[44] The angel who
appears to Joseph in a dream, and the angel who commands him to flee
into Egypt, was in both cases probably the same angel who hailed Mary
as blessed above all women; but we are not told so; and according to
some commentators it was the guardian angel of Joseph who appeared to
him. In these and other scenes of the New Testament, in which angels
are described as direct agents, or merely as a chorus of ministering
attendants, they have the usual form, enhanced by as much beauty, and
benignity, and aërial grace as the fancy of the artist could bestow on
them. In the Nativity they are seen hovering on high, pouring forth
their song of triumph; they hold a scroll in their hands on which their
song is written: in general there are three angels; the first sings,
_Gloria in excelsis Deo!_ the second, _Et in terra pax!_ the third,
_Hominibus bonæ voluntatis!_ but in some pictures the three angels are
replaced by a numerous choir, who raise the song of triumph in the
skies, while others are seen kneeling round and adoring the Divine
Infant.
The happiest, the most beautiful, instance I can remember of this
particular treatment is the little chapel in the Riccardi Palace at
Florence. This chapel is in the form of a Greek cross, and the frescoes
are thus disposed:—
[Illustration: 20
Altar
┌────────┐
│ 4 5 │
│ │
┌─────┘ └─────┐
│ 3 1 │
│3 1│
│ 3 1 │
└─────┐ ┌─────┘
│ │
│2 2│
└────────┘
Door
]
The walls 1, 2, and 3, are painted with the journey of the Wise
Men, who, with a long train of attendants mounted on horseback and
gorgeously apparelled, are seen travelling over hill and dale led by
the guiding star. Over the altar was the Nativity (now removed); on
each side (4, 5) is seen a choir of angels, perhaps fifty in number,
rejoicing over the birth of the Redeemer: some kneel in adoration, with
arms folded over the bosom, others offer flowers; some come dancing
forward with flowers in their hands or in the lap of their robe; others
sing and make celestial music: they have glories round their heads,
all inscribed alike, ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo!’ The naïve grace, the
beautiful devout expression, the airy movements of these lovely beings,
melt the soul to harmony and joy. The chapel having been long shut up,
and its existence scarcely remembered, these paintings are in excellent
preservation; and I saw nothing in Italy that more impressed me with
admiration of the genuine feeling and piety of the old masters. The
choral angels of Angelico da Fiesole already described are not more
pure in sentiment, and are far less animated, than these.[45]
But how different from both is the ministry of the angels in some of
the pictures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both German
and Italian! The Virgin Mary is washing her Divine Infant; angels dry
the clothes, or pour out water: Joseph is planing a board, and angels
assist the Infant Saviour in sweeping up the chips. In a beautiful
little Madonna and Child, in Prince Wallerstein’s collection, an angel
is playing with the Divine Infant, is literally his _play-fellow_; a
very graceful idea, of which I have seen but this one instance.
In the Flight into Egypt, an angel often leads the ass. In the Riposo,
a subject rare before the fifteenth century, angels offer fruit and
flowers, or bend down the branches of the date tree, that Joseph may
gather the fruit; or weave the choral dance, hand in hand, for the
delight of the Infant Christ, while others make celestial music—as in
Vandyck’s beautiful picture in Lord Ashburton’s collection. After the
Temptation, they minister to the Saviour in the wilderness, and spread
for him a table of refreshment—
... celestial food divine,
Ambrosial fruit, fetch’d from the tree of life,
And from the fount of life ambrosial drink.
It is not said that angels were visibly present at the baptism
of Christ; but it appears to me that they ought not therefore to
be supposed absent, and that there is a propriety in making them
attendants on this solemn occasion. They are not introduced in the
very earliest examples, those in the catacombs and sarcophagi; nor yet
in the mosaics of Ravenna; because angels were then rarely figured,
and instead of the winged angel we have the sedge-crowned river god,
representing the Jordan. In the Greek formula, they are required
to be present ‘in an attitude of respect:’ no mention is made of
their holding the garments of our Saviour; but it is certain that
in Byzantine Art, and generally from the twelfth century, this has
been the usual mode of representing them. According to the Fathers,
our Saviour had no guardian angel; because he did not require one:
notwithstanding the sense usually given to the text, ‘He shall give
his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot
against a stone,’ the angels, they affirm, were not the guardians,
but the servants, of Christ; and hence, I presume, the custom of
representing them, not merely as present, but as ministering to him
during his baptism. The gates of San Paolo (tenth century) afford
the most ancient example I have met with of an angel holding the
raiment of the Saviour: there is only one angel. Giotto introduces two
graceful angels kneeling on the bank of the river, and looking on with
attention. The angel in Raphael’s composition bows his head, as if
awe-struck by the divine recognition of the majesty of the Redeemer;
and the reverent manner in which he holds the vestment is very
beautiful. Other examples will here suggest themselves to the reader,
and I shall resume the subject when treating of the life of our Saviour.
* * * * *
In one account of our Saviour’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane,
it is expressly said that an angel ‘appeared unto him out of heaven,
strengthening him;’ therefore, where this awful and pathetic subject
has been attempted in Art, there is propriety in introducing a visible
angel. Notwithstanding the latitude thus allowed to the imagination,
or perhaps for that very reason, the greatest and the most intelligent
painters have here fallen into strange errors, both in conception and
in taste. For instance, is it not a manifest impropriety to take the
Scripture phrase in a literal sense, and place a cup in the hand of the
angel? Is not the word _cup_ here, as elsewhere, used as a metaphor,
signifying the destiny awarded by Divine will, as Christ had said
before, ‘Ye shall drink of my cup,’ and as we say, ‘his cup overfloweth
with blessings’? The angel, therefore, who does not bend from heaven to
announce to him the decree he knew full well, nor to present the cup
of bitterness, but to strengthen and comfort him, should not bear the
cup;—still less the cross, the scourge, the crown of thorns, as in many
pictures.
Where our Saviour appears bowed to the earth, prostrate, half swooning
with the anguish of that dread moment, and an angel is seen sustaining
him, there is a true feeling of the real meaning of Scripture; but even
in such examples the effect is often spoiled by an attempt to render
the scene at once more mystical and more palpable. Thus a painter
equally remarkable for the purity of his taste and deep religious
feeling, Niccolò Poussin, has represented Christ, in his agony,
supported in the arms of an angel, while a crowd of child-angels,
very much like Cupids, appear before him with the instruments of the
Passion; ten or twelve bear a huge cross; others hold the scourge,
the crown of thorns, the nails, the sponge, the spear, and exhibit
them before him, as if these were the images, these the terrors, which
could overwhelm with fear and anguish even the _human_ nature of such a
Being![46] It seems to me also a mistake, when the angel is introduced,
to make him merely an accessory (as Raphael has done in one of his
early pictures), a little figure in the air to help the meaning: since
the occasion was worthy of angelic intervention, in a visible shape,
bringing divine solace, divine sympathy, it should be represented under
a form the most mighty and the most benign that Art could compass;—but
has it been so? I can recollect no instance in which the failure has
not been complete. If it be said that to render the angelic comforter
so superior to the sorrowing and prostrate Redeemer would be to detract
from _His_ dignity as the principal personage of the scene, and thus
violate one of the first rules of Art, I think differently—I think it
could do so only in unskilful hands. Represented as it ought to be, and
might be, it would infinitely enhance the idea of that unimaginable
anguish which, as we are told, was compounded of the iniquities and
sorrows of all humanity laid upon _Him_. It was not the pang of the
Mortal, but the Immortal, which required the presence of a ministering
spirit sent down from heaven to sustain him.
[Illustration: 21 Lamenting Angel in a Crucifixion (Campo Santo)]
In the Crucifixion, angels are seen lamenting, wringing their hands,
averting or hiding their faces. In the old Greek crucifixions, one
angel bears the sun, another the moon, on each side of the cross:—
... dim sadness did not spare,
That time, celestial visages.
Michael Angelo gives us two unwinged colossal-looking angel heads,
which peer out of heaven in the background of his Crucifixion in a
manner truly supernatural, as if they sympathised in the consummation,
but in awe rather than in grief.
Angels also receive in golden cups the blood which flows from the
wounds of our Saviour. This is a representation which has the authority
of some of the most distinguished and most spiritual among the old
painters, but it is to my taste particularly unpleasing and unpoetical.
Raphael, in an early picture, the only crucifixion he ever painted,
thus introduces the angels; and this form of the angelic ministry is
a mystical version of the sacrifice of the Redeemer not uncommon in
Italian and German pictures of the sixteenth century.
As the scriptural and legendary scenes in which angels form the
poetical machinery will be discussed hereafter in detail as separate
subjects, I shall conclude these general and preliminary remarks
with a few words on the characteristic style in which the principal
painters have set forth the angelic forms and attributes.
It appears that, previous to the end of the fourth century, there were
religious scruples which forbade the representation of angels, arising
perhaps from the scandal caused in the early Church by the worship
paid to these supernatural beings, and so strongly opposed by the
primitive teachers. We do not find on any of the Christian relics of
the first three centuries, neither in the catacombs, nor on the vases
or the sarcophagi, any figure which could be supposed to represent
what we call an angel. On one of the latest sarcophagi we find little
winged figures, but evidently the classical winged genii, used in the
classical manner as ornament only.[47] In the second council of Nice,
John of Thessalonica maintained that angels have the human form, and
may be so represented; and the Jewish doctors had previously decided
that God consulted his angels when He said, ‘Let us make man after
_our_ image,’ and that consequently we may suppose the angels to be
like men, or, in the words of the prophet, ‘like unto the similitude of
the sons of men.’[48] (Dan. x. 16.)
But it is evident that, in the first attempt at angelic effigy, it
was deemed necessary, in giving the human shape, to render it as
superhuman, as imposing, as possible: colossal proportions, mighty
overshadowing wings, kingly attributes, these we find in the earliest
figures of angels which I believe exist—the mosaics in the church of
Santa Agata at Ravenna (A.D. 400). Christ is seated on a throne (as in
the early sarcophagi): he holds the Gospel in one hand, and with the
left gives the benediction. An angel stands on each side: they have
large wings, and bear a silver wand, the long sceptre of the Grecian
kings; they are robed in classical drapery, but wear the short pallium
(the ‘garb succinct for flight’); their feet are sandaled, as prepared
for a journey, and their hair bound by a fillet. Except in the wings
and short pallium, they resemble the figures of Grecian kings and
priests in the ancient bas-reliefs.
This was the truly majestic idea of an angelic presence (in
contradistinction to the angelic _emblem_), which, well or ill
executed, prevailed during the first ten centuries. In the MS.[49]
already referred to as containing such magnificent examples of this
God-like form and bearing, I selected one group less ruined than
most of the others; Jacob wrestling with the angel. The drawing
is wonderful for the period, that of Charlemagne; and see how the
mighty Being grasps the puny mortal, who was permitted for a while to
resist him!—‘He touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, and it was out
of joint’—the action is as significant as possible. In the original,
the drapery of the angel is white; the fillet binding the hair, the
sandals, and the wings, of purple and gold.
[Illustration: 22 Angel (Greek MSS., ninth century)]
[Illustration: 23 A.D. 1000.]
This lank, formal angel is from the Greco-Italian school of the
eleventh century. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century the forms
of the angels became, like all things in the then degraded state of
Byzantine Art, merely conventional. They are attired either in the
imperial or the sacerdotal vestments, as already described, and are
richly ornamented, tasteless and stiff, large without grandeur, and in
general ill drawn: as in these figures from Monreale (24).
[Illustration: 24 Greek Angels (Cathedral of Monreale. Eleventh
century)]
On the revival of Art, we find the Byzantine idea of angels everywhere
prevailing. The angels in Cimabue’s famous ‘Virgin and Child enthroned’
are grand creatures, rather stern; but this arose, I think, from his
inability to express beauty. The colossal angels at Assisi (A.D.
1270), solemn sceptred kingly forms, all alike in action and attitude,
appeared to me magnificent (30).
In the angels of Giotto (A.D. 1310) we see the commencement of a softer
grace and a purer taste, further developed by some of his scholars.
Benozzo Gozzoli and Orcagna have left in the Campo Santo examples of
the most graceful and fanciful treatment. Of Benozzo’s angels in the
Riccardi palace I have spoken at length. His master Angelico (worthy
the name!) never reached the same power of expressing the rapturous
rejoicing of celestial beings, but his conception of the angelic nature
remains unapproached, unapproachable (A.D. 1430); it is only his, for
it was the gentle, passionless, refined nature of the recluse which
stamped itself there. Angelico’s angels are unearthly, not so much in
form as in sentiment; and superhuman, not in power but in purity. In
other hands, any imitation of his soft ethereal grace would become
feeble and insipid. With their long robes falling round their feet, and
drooping many-coloured wings, they seem not to fly or to walk, but to
float along, ‘smooth sliding without step.’ Blessed, blessed creatures!
love us, only love us—for we dare not task your soft serene Beatitude
by asking you to _help_ us!
There is more sympathy with humanity in Francia’s angels: they look as
if they could weep, as well as love and sing.
[Illustration: 25 Angels (F. Granacci)]
Most beautiful are the groups of adoring angels by Francesco
Granacci,[50] so serenely tender, yet with a touch of grave earnestness
which gives them a character apart: they have the air of guardian
angels, who have discharged their trust, and to whom the Supreme
utterance has voiced forth, ‘Servant of God, well done!’
The angels of Botticelli are often stiff, and those of Ghirlandajo
sometimes fantastic; but in both I have met with angelic countenances
and forms which, for intense and happy expression, can never be
forgotten. One has the feeling, however, that they used human
models—the _portrait_ face looks through the _angel_ face. This is
still more apparent in Mantegna and Filippo Lippi. As we might have
expected from the character of Fra Filippo, his angels want refinement:
they have a boyish look, with their crisp curled hair, and their bold
beauty; yet some of them are magnificent for that sort of angel-beings
supposed to have a volition of their own. Andrea del Sarto’s angels
have the same fault in a less degree: they have, if not a bold, yet a
self-willed boyish expression.
Perugino’s angels convey the idea of an unalterable sweetness: those
of his earlier time have much natural grace, those of his later time
are mannered. In early Venetian Art the angels are charming: they are
happy affectionate beings, with a touch of that voluptuous sentiment,
afterwards the characteristic of the Venetian school.
In the contemporary German school, angels are treated in a very
extraordinary and original style (26). one cannot say that they are
earthly, or commonplace, still less are they beautiful or divine; but
they have great simplicity, earnestness, and energy of action. They
appear to me conceived in the Old Testament spirit, with their grand
stiff massive draperies, their jewelled and golden glories, their
wings ‘eyed like the peacock, speckled like the pard,’ their intense
expression, and the sort of personal and passionate interest they throw
into their ministry. This is the character of Albert Dürer’s angels
especially; those of Martin Schoen and Lucus v. Leyden are of a gentler
spirit.
Leonardo da Vinci’s angels do not quite please me, elegant, refined,
and lovely as they are:—‘methinks they smile too much.’ By his scholar
Luini there are some angels in the gallery of the Brera, swinging
censers and playing on musical instruments, which, with the peculiar
character of the Milanese school, combine all the grace of a purer,
loftier nature.
Correggio’s angels are grand and lovely, but they are like children
enlarged and sublimated, not like spirits taking the form of children:
where they smile it is truly, as Annibal Caracci expresses it, ‘_con
una naturalezza e semplicità che innamora e sforza a ridere con
loro_;’ but the smile in many of Correggio’s angel heads has something
sublime and spiritual, as well as _simple_ and _natural_.
[Illustration: 26 Angel. German School. (Albert Dürer)]
And Titian’s angels impress me in a similar manner—I mean those in the
glorious Assumption at Venice—with their childish forms and features,
but with an expression caught from beholding the face of ‘our Father
that is in heaven:’ it is glorified infancy. I remember standing before
this picture, contemplating those lovely spirits one after another,
until a thrill came over me like that which I felt when Mendelssohn
played the organ, and I became music while I listened. The face of one
of those angels is to the face of a child just what that of the Virgin
in the same picture is compared with the fairest of the daughters of
earth: it is not here superiority of beauty, but mind and music and
love, _kneaded_, as it were, into form and colour.
I have thought it singular and somewhat unaccountable, that among the
earliest examples of undraped boy-angels are those of Fra Bartolomeo—he
who on one occasion, at the command of Savonarola, made a bonfire of
all the undressed figures he could lay his hands on.
But Raphael, excelling in all things, is here excellent above all:
his angels combine, in a higher degree than any other, the various
faculties and attributes in which the fancy loves to clothe these
pure, immortal, beatified creatures. The angels of Giotto, of
Benozzo, of Fiesole, are, if not female, feminine; those of Lippi,
and of A. Mantegna, masculine; but you cannot say of those of Raphael
that they are masculine or feminine. The idea of sex is wholly lost
in the blending of power, intelligence, and grace. In his earlier
pictures grace is the predominant characteristic, as in the dancing
and singing angels in his Coronation of the Virgin.[51] In his later
pictures the sentiment in his ministering angels is more spiritual,
more dignified. As a perfect example of grand and poetical feeling,
I may cite the angels as ‘Regents of the Planets,’ in the Capella
Chigiana.[52] The cupola represents in a circle the creation of the
solar system, according to the theological and astronomical (or rather
_astrological_) notions which then prevailed—a hundred years before
‘the starry Galileo and his woes.’ In the centre is the Creator;
around, in eight compartments, we have, first, the angel of the
celestial sphere, who seems to be listening to the divine mandate,
‘Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven;’ then follow, in
their order, the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn. The name of each planet is expressed by its mythological
representative; the Sun by Apollo, the Moon by Diana: and over each
presides a grand colossal winged spirit seated or reclining on a
portion of the zodiac as on a throne. I have selected two angels to
give an idea of this peculiar and poetical treatment. The union of the
theological and the mythological attributes is in the classical taste
of the time, and quite Miltonic.[53] In Raphael’s child-angels, the
expression of power and intelligence, as well as innocence, is quite
wonderful; for instance, look at the two angel-boys in the Dresden
Madonna di San Sisto, and the angels, or celestial genii, who bear
along the Almighty when He appears to Noah.[54] No one has expressed
like Raphael the action of flight, except perhaps Rembrandt. The angel
who descends to crown Santa Felicità cleaves the air with the action
of a swallow;[55] and the angel in Rembrandt’s Tobit soars like a lark
with upward motion, spurning the earth.
[Illustration: _Angels of the Planets from the Capella Chigi._]
Michael Angelo rarely gave wings to his angels; I scarcely recollect
an instance, except the angel in the Annunciation: and his exaggerated
human forms, his colossal creatures, in which the idea of power is
conveyed through attitude and muscular action, are, to my taste,
worse than unpleasing. My admiration for this wonderful man is so
profound that I can afford to say this. His angels are superhuman,
but hardly angelic: and while in Raphael’s angels we do not feel the
want of wings, we feel while looking at those of Michael Angelo that
not even the ‘sail-broad vans’ with which Satan laboured through the
surging abyss of chaos could suffice to lift those Titanic forms from
earth, and sustain them in mid-air. The group of angels over the Last
Judgment, flinging their mighty limbs about, and those that surround
the descending figure of Christ in the Conversion of St. Paul, may be
referred to here as characteristic examples. The angels, blowing their
trumpets, puff and strain like so many troopers. Surely this is not
angelic: there may be _power_, great imaginative and artistic power,
exhibited in the conception of form, but in the beings themselves there
is more of effort than of power: serenity, tranquillity, beatitude,
ethereal purity, spiritual grace, are out of the question.
The later followers of his school, in their angelic as in their human
forms, caricatured their great master, and became, to an offensive
degree, forced, extravagant, and sensual.
* * * * *
When we come to the revival of a better taste under the influence of
the Caracci, we find the angels of that school as far removed from the
early Christian types as were their apostles and martyrs. They have
often great beauty, consummate elegance, but bear the same relation
to the religious and ethereal types of the early painters that the
angels of Tasso bear to those of Dante. Turn, for instance, to the
commencement of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, where the angel is deputed
to carry to Godfrey the behest of the Supreme Being. The picture of
the angel is distinctly and poetically brought before us; he takes to
himself a form between boyhood and youth; his waving curls are crowned
with beams of light; he puts on a pair of wings of silver tipped with
gold, with which he cleaves the air, the clouds, the skies; he alights
on Mount Lebanon, and poises himself on his balanced wings—
E si librò su l’ adeguate penne.
This is exactly the angel which figures in the best pictures of the
Caracci and Guido: he is supremely elegant, and nothing more.
I must not here venture on minute criticism, as regards distinctive
character in the crowds of painters which sprung out of the eclectic
school. It would carry us too far; but one or two general remarks
will lead the reader’s fancy along the path I would wish him to
pursue. I would say, therefore, that the angels of Ludovico have
more of sentiment, those of Annibal more of power, those of Guido
more of grace: and of Guido it may be said that he excels them all
in the expression of adoration and humility; see, for instance, the
adoring seraphs in Lord Ellesmere’s ‘Immaculate Conception.’ The
angels of Domenichino, Guercino, and Albano, are to me less pleasing.
Domenichino’s angels are merely human. I never saw an angel in one of
Guercino’s pictures that had not, with the merely human character, a
touch of vulgarity. As for Albano, how are we to discriminate between
his angels and his nymphs, Apollos, and Cupids? But for the occasion
and the appellation, it would be quite impossible to distinguish the
Loves that sport round Venus and Adonis, from the Cherubim, so called,
that hover above a Nativity or a Riposo; and the little angels, in his
Crucifixion, cry so like naughty little boys, that one longs to put
them in a corner. This merely heathen grace and merely human sentiment
is the general tendency of the whole school; and no beauty of form
or colour can, to the feeling and religious mind, redeem such gross
violations of propriety. As for Poussin, of whom I think with due
reverence, his angels are often exquisitely beautiful and refined: they
have a chastity and a moral grace which pleases at first view; but here
again the scriptural type is neglected and heathenised in obedience to
the fashion of the time. If we compare the Cupids in his Rinaldo and
Armida, with the angels which minister to the Virgin and Child; or the
Cherubim weeping in a Deposition, with the Amorini who are lamenting
over Adonis; in what respect do they differ? They are evidently painted
from the same models, the beautiful children of Titian and Fiamingo.
[Illustration: 27 Angels in a Nativity (Seventeenth century)]
[Illustration: 28 Angel: in a picture of Christ healing the Sick (N.
Poussin)]
Rubens gives us strong well-built youths, with redundant yellow hair;
and chubby naked babies, as like flesh and blood, and as natural, as
the life: and those of Vandyck are more elegant, without being more
angelic. Murillo’s child-angels are divine, through absolute beauty;
the expression of innocence and beatitude was never more perfectly
given; but in grandeur and power they are inferior to Correggio, and
in all that should characterise a divine nature, immeasurably below
Raphael.
Strange to say, the most poetical painter of angels in the seventeenth
century is that inspired Dutchman, Rembrandt; not that his angels
are scriptural; still less classical; and beautiful they are not,
certainly—often the reverse; but if they have not the Miltonic dignity
and grace, they are at least as unearthly and as poetical as any
of the angelic phantasms in Dante,—unhuman, unembodied creatures,
compounded of light and darkness, ‘the somewhat between a _thought_ and
a _thing_,’ haunting the memory like apparitions. For instance, look at
his Jacob’s Dream, at Dulwich; or his etching of the Angels appearing
to the Shepherds,—breaking through the night, scattering the gloom,
making our eyes ache with excess of glory,—the _Gloria in excelsis_
ringing through the fancy while we gaze!
* * * * *
I have before observed that angels are supposed to be masculine, with
the feminine attributes of beauty and purity; but in the seventeenth
century the Florentine painter, Giovanni di S. Giovanni, scandalised
his contemporaries by introducing into a glory round the Virgin, female
angels (_angelesse_). Rubens has more than once committed the same
fault against ecclesiastical canons and decorum; for instance, in his
Madonna ‘aux Anges’ in the Louvre. Such aberrations of fancy are mere
caprices of the painter, improprieties inadmissible in high art.
Of the sprawling, fluttering, half-naked angels of the Pietro
da Cortona and Bernini school, and the feeble mannerists of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, what shall be said? that they
are worthy to illustrate Moore’s Loves of the Angels? ‘_non ragioniam
di lor_;’ no, nor even _look_ at them! I have seen angels of the later
Italian and Spanish painters more like opera dancers, with artificial
wings and gauze draperies, dressed to figure in a ballet, than anything
else I could compare them to.
The most original, and, in truth, the only new and original version of
the Scripture idea of angels which I have met with, is that of William
Blake, a poet painter, somewhat mad as we are told, if indeed his
madness were not rather ‘the telescope of truth,’ a sort of poetical
_clairvoyance_, bringing the unearthly nearer to him than to others.
His adoring angels float rather than fly, and, with their half-liquid
draperies, seem about to dissolve into light and love: and his
rejoicing angels—behold them—sending up their voices with the morning
stars, that ‘singing, in their glory move!’
[Illustration: 29 ‘All the sons of God shouted for joy!’]
As regards the treatment of angels in the more recent productions of
art, the painters and sculptors have generally adhered to received and
known types in form and in sentiment. The angels of the old Italians,
Giotto and Frate Angelico, have been very well imitated by Steinle
and others of the German school: the Raffaelesque feeling has been in
general aimed at by the French and English painters. Tenerani had the
old mosaics in his mind when he conceived that magnificent colossal
Angel of the Resurrection seated on a tomb, and waiting for the signal
to sound his trumpet, which I saw in his atelier, prepared I believe
for the monument of the Duchess Lanti.[56]
* * * * *
I pause here, for I have dwelt upon these celestial Hierarchies,
winged Splendours, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers, till my fancy is
becoming somewhat mazed and dazzled by the contemplation. I must leave
the reader to go into a picture-gallery, or look over a portfolio of
engravings, and so pursue the theme, whithersoever it may lead him, and
it _may_ lead him, in Hamlet’s words, ‘to thoughts beyond the reaches
of his soul!’[57]
[Illustration: 30 Archangels (Cimabue. In San Francesco d’Assisi)]
II. The Archangels.
The Seven
Who in God’s presence, nearest to his throne,
Stand ready at command.—MILTON.
Having treated of the celestial Hierarchy in general, we have now to
consider those angels who in artistic representations have assumed an
individual form and character. These belong to the order of Archangels,
placed by Dionysius in the third Hierarchy: they take rank between the
Princedoms and the Angels, and partake of the nature of both, being,
like the Princedoms, Powers; and, like the Angels, Ministers and
Messengers.
Frequent allusion is made in Scripture to the seven Angels who stand
in the presence of God. (Rev. viii. 2, xv. 1, xvi. 1, &c.; Tobit xxii.
15.) This was in accordance with the popular creed of the Jews, who
not only acknowledged the supremacy of the Seven Spirits, but assigned
to them distinct vocations and distinct appellations, each terminating
with the syllable _El_, which signifies God. Thus we have—
I. MICHAEL (i.e. who is like unto God), captain-general of the host of
heaven, and protector of the Hebrew nation.
II. GABRIEL (i.e. God is my strength), guardian of the celestial
treasury, and preceptor of the patriarch Joseph.
III. RAPHAEL (i.e. the Medicine of God), the conductor of Tobit; thence
the chief guardian angel.
IV. URIEL (i.e. the Light of God), who taught Esdras. He was also
regent of the sun.
V. CHAMUEL (i.e. one who sees God?), who wrestled with Jacob, and who
appeared to Christ at Gethsemane. (But, according to other authorities,
this was the angel Gabriel.)
VI. JOPHIEL (i.e. the Beauty of God), who was the preceptor of the sons
of Noah, and is the protector of all those who, with an humble heart,
seek after truth, and the enemy of those who pursue vain knowledge.
Thus Jophiel was naturally considered as the guardian of the tree of
knowledge and the same who drove Adam and Eve from Paradise.
VII. ZADKIEL (i.e. the Righteousness of God), who stayed the hand of
Abraham when about to sacrifice his son. (But, according to other
authorities, this was the archangel Michael.)
The Christian Church does not acknowledge these Seven Angels by name;
neither in the East, where the worship of angels took deep root,
nor yet in the West, where it has been tacitly accepted. Nor have I
met with them as a series, _by name_, in any ecclesiastical work of
art, though I have seen a set of old anonymous prints in which they
appear with distinct names and attributes: Michael bears the sword
and scales; Gabriel, the lily; Raphael, the pilgrim’s staff and gourd
full of water, as a traveller. Uriel has a roll and a book: he is the
interpreter of judgments and prophecies, and for this purpose was sent
to Esdras:—‘The angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel,
gave me an answer.’ (Esdras, ii. 4.) And in Milton—
Uriel, for thou of those Seven Spirits that stand
In sight of God’s high throne, gloriously bright,
The first art wont his great authentic will
Interpreter through highest heaven to bring.
[Illustration: 31 The Archangels Michael and Raphael (Campo Santo)]
According to an early Christian tradition, it was this angel, and not
Christ in person, who accompanied the two disciples to Emmaus. Chamuel
is represented with a cup and a staff; Jophiel with a flaming sword.
Zadkiel bears the sacrificial knife which he took from the hand of
Abraham.
But the Seven Angels, without being distinguished by name, are
occasionally introduced into works of art. For example, over the arch
of the choir in San Michele, at Ravenna (A.D. 545), on each side of
the throned Saviour are the Seven Angels blowing trumpets like cow’s
horns:—‘And I saw the Seven Angels which stand before God, and to them
were given seven trumpets.’ (Rev. viii. 2, 6.) In representations of
the Crucifixion and in the Pietà, the Seven Angels are often seen in
attendance, bearing the instruments of the Passion. Michael bears the
cross, for he is ‘the Bannerer of heaven;’ but I do not feel certain of
the particular avocations of the others.
In the Last Judgment of Orcagna, in the Campo Santo at Pisa (31),
the Seven Angels are active and important personages. The angel who
stands in the centre of the picture, below the throne of Christ,
extends a scroll in each hand; on that in the right hand is inscribed
‘Come, ye blessed of my Father,’ and on that in the left hand, ‘Depart
from me, ye accursed:’ him I suppose to be Michael, the angel of
judgment. At his feet crouches an angel who seems to shrink from
the tremendous spectacle, and hides his face: him I suppose to be
Raphael, the guardian angel of humanity. The attitude has always
been admired—cowering with horror, yet sublime. Beneath are other
five angels, who are engaged in separating the just from the wicked,
encouraging and sustaining the former, and driving the latter towards
the demons who are ready to snatch them into flames. These Seven Angels
have the garb of princes and warriors, with breastplates of gold,
jewelled sword-belts and tiaras, rich mantles; while the other angels
who figure in the same scene are plumed, and bird-like, and hover above
bearing the instruments of the Passion (32).
Again we may see the Seven Angels in quite another character, attending
on St. Thomas Aquinas, in a picture by Taddeo Gaddi.[58] Here, instead
of the instruments of the Passion, they bear the allegorical attributes
of those virtues for which that famous saint and doctor is to be
reverenced: one bears an olive-branch, i.e. Peace; the second, a book,
i.e. Knowledge; the third, a crown and sceptre, i.e. Power; the fourth,
a church, i.e. Religion; the fifth, a cross and shield, i.e. Faith;
the sixth, flames of fire in each hand, i.e. Piety and Charity; the
seventh, a lily, i.e. Purity.
[Illustration: 32]
In general it may be presumed when seven angels figure together, or
are distinguished from among a host of angels by dress, stature, or
other attributes, that these represent the ‘Seven Holy Angels who
stand in the presence of God.’ Four only of these Seven Angels are
individualised by name, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. According
to the Jewish tradition, these four sustain the throne of the Almighty:
they have the Greek epithet _arch_, or chief, assigned to them, from
the two texts of Scripture in which that title is used (1 Thess. iv.
16; Jude ix.); but only the three first, who in Scripture have a
distinct personality, are reverenced in the Catholic Church as saints;
and their gracious beauty, and their divine prowess, and their high
behests to mortal man, have furnished some of the most important and
most poetical subjects which appear in Christian Art.
The earliest instance I have met of the Archangels introduced by name
into a work of art is in the old church of San Michele at Ravenna (A.D.
545). The mosaic in the apse exhibits Christ in the centre, bearing in
one hand the cross as a trophy or sceptre, and in the other an open
book on which are the words ‘_Qui videt me videt et Patrem meum_.’ On
each side stand Michael and Gabriel, with vast wings and long sceptres;
their names are inscribed above, but without the _Sanctus_ and without
the Glory. It appears, therefore, that at this time, the middle of the
sixth century, the title of _Saint_, though in use, had not been given
to the Archangels.
When, in the ancient churches, the figure of Christ or of the Lamb
appears in a circle of glory in the centre of the roof; and around, or
at the four corners, four angels who sustain the circle with outspread
arms, or stand as watchers, with sceptres or lances in their hands,
these I presume to be the four Archangels who sustain the throne of
God. Examples may be seen in San Vitale at Ravenna; in the chapel of
San Zeno, in Santa Prassede at Rome; and on the roof of the choir of
San Francesco d’Assisi.
So the four Archangels, stately colossal figures, winged and armed
and sceptred, stand over the arch of the choir in the Cathedral of
Monreale, at Palermo.[59]
So the four angels stand at the four corners of the earth and hold the
winds, heads with puffed cheeks and dishevelled hair.[60] (Rev. vii. 1.)
But I have never seen Uriel represented by name, or alone, in any
sacred edifice. In the picture of Uriel painted by Allston,[61] he
is the ‘Regent of the Sun,’ as described by Milton; not a sacred or
scriptural personage. On a shrine of carved ivory[62] I have seen the
four Archangels as keeping guard, two at each end; the three first are
named, as usual, St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael; the fourth is
styled _St. Chérubin_; and I have seen the same name inscribed over
the head of the angel who expels Adam and Eve from Paradise. There is
no authority for such an appellation applied individually; but I find,
in a famous legend of the middle ages, ‘La Pénitence d’Adam;’ that the
angel who guards the gates of Paradise is thus designated:—‘Lorsque
l’Ange Chérubin vit arriver Seth aux portes de Paradis,’ &c. The four
Archangels, however, seldom occur together, except in architectural
decoration. On the other hand, devotional pictures of the three
Archangels named in the canonical Scriptures are of frequent
occurrence. They are often grouped together as patron saints or
protecting spirits; or they stand round the throne of Christ, or below
the glorified [Illustration: 33 The Three Archangels (from an ancient
Greek picture)]
Virgin and Child, in an attitude of adoration. According to the Greek
formula, the three in combination represent the triple power, military,
civil, and religious, of the celestial hierarchy: St. Michael being
habited as a warrior, Gabriel as a prince, and Raphael as a priest.
In a Greek picture, of which I give an outline, the three Archangels
sustain in a kind of throne the figure of the youthful Christ, here
winged, as being Himself _the_ supreme Angel (ἂγγελος), and with both
hands blessing the universe. The Archangel Raphael has here the place
of dignity as representing the Priesthood; but in Western Art Michael
takes precedence of the two others, and is usually placed in the centre
as Prince or Chief: with him, then, as considered individually, we
begin.
ST. MICHAEL.
_Lat._ Sanctus Michael Angelus. _Ital._ San Michele, Sammichele.
_Fr._ Monseigneur Saint Michel. (Sept. 29.)
‘Michael, the Great Prince that standeth for the children of thy
people.’—_Dan._ xii. 1.
It is difficult to clothe in adequate language the divine attributes
with which painting and poetry have invested this illustrious
archangel. Jews and Christians are agreed in giving him the
pre-eminence over all created spirits. All the might, the majesty,
the radiance, of Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,
are centred in him. In him God put forth his strength when He exalted
him chief over the celestial host, when angels warred with angels
in heaven; and in him God showed forth his glory when He made him
conqueror over the power of sin, and ‘over the great dragon that
deceived the world.’
To the origin of the worship paid to this great archangel I dare not do
more than allude, lest I stray wide from my subject, and lose myself,
and my readers too, in labyrinths of Orientalism. But, in considering
the artistic representations, it is interesting to call to mind that
the glorification of St. Michael may be traced back to that primitive
Eastern dogma, the perpetual antagonism between the Spirit of Good and
the Spirit of Evil, mixed up with the Chaldaic belief in angels and
their influence over the destinies of man. It was subsequent to the
Captivity that the active Spirit of Good, under the name of Michael,
came to be regarded as the especial protector of the Hebrew nation: the
veneration paid to him by the Jews was adopted, or rather retained,
by the Oriental Christians, and, though suppressed for a time, was
revived and spread over the West, where we find it popular and almost
universal from the eighth century.
The legends which have grown out of a few mystical texts of Scripture,
amplified by the fanciful disquisitions of the theological writers,
place St. Michael before us in three great characters:—1. As captain of
the heavenly host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. 2. As lord of
souls, conductor and guardian of the spirits of the dead. 3. As patron
saint and prince of the Church Militant.
* * * * *
When Lucifer, possessed by the spirit of pride and ingratitude, refused
to fall down and worship the Son of man, Michael was deputed to punish
his insolence, and to cast him out from heaven. Then Michael chained
the revolted angels in middle air, where they are to remain till the
day of judgment, being in the mean time perpetually tortured by hate,
envy, and despair: for they behold man, whom they had disdained,
exalted as their superior; above them they see the heaven they have
forfeited; and beneath them the redeemed souls continually rising from
earth, and ascending to the presence of God, whence they are shut out
for ever.
‘Now,’ says the old Legend,[63] ‘if it be asked wherefore the books of
Moses, in revealing the disobedience and the fall of man, are silent
as to the revolt and the fall of the angels, the reason is plain; and
in this God acted according to his wisdom. For, let us suppose that a
certain powerful lord hath two vassals, both guilty of the crime of
treason, and one of these is a nobleman of pure and lofty lineage,
and the other a base-born churl:—what doth this lord? He hangs up the
churl in the market-place as a warning and example to others;—but, for
the nobleman, fearing the scandal that may arise among the people, and
perhaps also some insult to the officers of the law, the judge causes
him to be tried secretly, and shuts him up in a dungeon; and when
judgment is pronounced against him, he sends to his prison, and puts
him privily to death; and when one asketh after him, the answer is only
“He is dead:”—and nothing more. Thus did God in respect to the rebel
angels of old; and their fate was not revealed until the redemption of
man was accomplished.’
This passage from the old Italian legend is so curiously characteristic
of the feudal spirit of Christianity in the middle ages, that I have
ventured to insert it verbatim. If religion did, in some degree, modify
the institutions of chivalry, in a much greater degree did the ruling
prejudices of a barbarian age modify the popular ideas of religion.
Here, notwithstanding the primary doctrine of Christ—the equality of
all men before God, we have the distinction between noble and churl
carried into the very councils of Heaven.
But, to return to St. Michael: on whom, as the leader of his triumphant
hosts, God bestowed many and great privileges. To him it was given
to bid sound th’ archangel trumpet,
and exalt the banner of the Cross in the day of judgment; and to him
likewise was assigned the reception of the immortal spirits when
released by death. It was his task to weigh them in a balance (Dan. v.
27; Ps. lxii. 9): those whose good works exceeded their demerits, he
presented before the throne of God; but those who were found wanting
he gave up to be tortured in purgatory, until their souls, from being
‘as crimson, should become as white as snow.’ Therefore, in the hour
of death, he is to be invoked by the faithful, saying, ‘_O Michael,
militiæ cœlestis signifer, in adjutorium nostrum veni, princeps et
propugnator!_’
Lastly, when it pleased the Almighty to select from among the nations
of the earth one people to become peculiarly his own, He appointed St.
Michael to be president and leader over that chosen people.[64] ‘At
that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for
the children of thy people’ (Dan. x. 13, xii. 1): and when the power of
the Synagogue was supposed to cease, and to be replaced by the power
of the Church, so that the Christians became the people of God, then
Michael, who had been the great prince of the Hebrew people, became
the prince and leader of the Church militant in Christendom, and the
guardian of redeemed souls, against his old adversary the Prince of
Hell. (Rev. xii. 6, 7.)
The worship paid to St. Michael, and which originated in the far
East, is supposed to have been adopted by the Oriental Christians
in consequence of a famous apparition of the Archangel at Colossæ,
in Phrygia, which caused him to be held in especial honour by the
people of that city, and perhaps occasioned the particular warning
of St. Paul addressed to the Colossians. But although the worship of
angels was considered among the heresies of the early Church, we find
Constantine no sooner master of the empire, and a baptized Christian,
than he dedicates a church to the Archangel Michael (by his Greek
name Michaëlion), and this church, one of the most magnificent in
Constantinople, became renowned for its miracles, and the parent and
model of hundreds more throughout the East.
In the West, the honours paid to St. Michael are of later date: that
a church dedicated to him must have existed in Rome long before the
year 500 seems clear, because at that time it is mentioned as having
fallen into ruin. But the West had its angelic apparitions as well as
the East, and St. Michael owes his wide-spread popularity in the middle
ages to three famous visions which are thus recorded.
In the fifth century, in the city of Siponte, in Apulia (now
Manfredonia), dwelt a man named Galgano or Garganus, very rich in
cattle, sheep, and beasts; and as they pastured on the sides of the
mountain, it happened that a bull strayed and came not home: then the
rich man took a multitude of servants and sought the bull, and found
him at the entrance of a cave on the very summit of the mountain,
and, being wroth with the bull, the master ordered him to be slain;
but when the arrow was sent from the bow it returned to the bosom of
him who sent it, and he fell dead on the ground: then the master and
his servants were troubled, and they sent to inquire of the bishop
what should be done. The bishop, having fasted and prayed three days,
beheld in a vision the glorious Archangel Michael, who descended on
the mountain, and told him that the servant had been slain because he
had violated a spot peculiarly sacred to him, and he commanded that a
church should be erected and sanctified there to his honour. And when
they entered the cavern they found there three altars already erected,
one of them covered with a rich embroidered altar-cloth of crimson
and gold, and a stream of limpid water springing from the rock, which
healed all diseases. So the church was built, and the fame of the
vision of Monte Galgano, though for some time confined to the south of
Italy, spread throughout Europe, and many pilgrimages were made to the
spot on which the angelic footsteps had alighted.
The second vision is much more imposing. When Rome was nearly
depopulated by a pestilence in the sixth century, St. Gregory,
afterwards pope, advised that a procession should be made through
the streets of the city, singing the service since called the Great
Litanies. He placed himself at the head of the faithful, and during
three days they perambulated the city; and on the third day, when
they had arrived opposite to the mole of Hadrian, Gregory beheld the
Archangel Michael alight on the summit of that monument, and sheathe
his sword bedropped with blood. Then Gregory knew that the plague
was stayed, and a church was there dedicated to the honour of the
Archangel: and the Tomb of Hadrian has since been called the Castle of
Sant’ Angelo to this day.
This, of all the recorded apparitions of St. Michael, is the only one
which can be called poetical; it is evidently borrowed from the vision
of the destroying angel in Scripture. As early as the ninth century, a
church or chapel dedicated to St. Michael was erected on the summit of
the huge monument, which at that time must have preserved much of its
antique magnificence. The church was entitled _Ecclesia Sancti Angeli
usque ad Cœlos_. The bronze statue, which in memory of this miracle now
surmounts the Castle of St. Angelo, was placed there in recent times
by Benedict XIV., and is the work of a Flemish sculptor, Verschaffelt.
I suppose no one ever looked at this statue critically—at least, for
myself, I never could: nor can I remember now, whether, as a work of
art, it is above or below criticism; perhaps both. With its vast wings,
poised in air, as seen against the deep blue skies of Rome, or lighted
up by the golden sunset, to me it was ever like what it was intended to
represent—like a vision.
A third apparition was that accorded to Aubert, bishop of Avranches
(A.D. 706). This holy man seems to have been desirous to attract to his
own diocese a portion of that sanctity (and perhaps other advantages)
which Monte Galgano derived from the worship of St. Michael. In
the Gulf of Avranches, in Normandy, stands a lofty isolated rock
inaccessible from the land at high water, and for ages past celebrated
as one of the strongest fortresses and state prisons in France. In
the reign of Childebert II., St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches, had a
vision, in which the Archangel Michael commanded him to repair to
this rock, then the terror of mariners, and erect a church to his
honour on the highest point, where a bull would be found concealed,
and it was to cover as much space as the bull had trampled with his
hoofs: he also discovered to the bishop a well-spring of pure water,
which had before been unknown. As the bishop treated this command as
a dream, the Archangel appeared to him a second and a third time; and
at length, to impress it on his waking memory, he touched his head
with his thumb, and made a mark or hole in his skull, which he carried
to the grave. This time the bishop obeyed, and a small church was
built on the spot indicated; afterwards replaced by the magnificent
Abbey Church, which was begun by Richard duke of Normandy, in 966, and
finished by William the Conqueror. The poverty of invention shown in
this legend, which is little more than a repetition of that of Monte
Galgano, is very disappointing to the fancy, considering the celebrity
of Mont-Saint-Michel as a place of pilgrimage, and as one of the most
picturesque objects in European scenery, with its massive towers, which
have braved the tempests of a thousand years, rising from the summit
of the peak, and the sea weltering round its base. It failed not,
however, in the effect anticipated. The worship of St. Michael became
popular in France from the ninth century; the Archangel was selected
as patron saint of France, and of the military order instituted in his
honour by Louis XI. in 1469. The worship paid to St. Michael as patron
saint of Normandy naturally extended itself to England after the Norman
conquest, and churches dedicated to this archangel abound in all the
towns and cities along the southern and eastern shores of our island;
we also have a Mount St. Michael on the coast of Cornwall, in situation
and in name resembling that on the coast of France. At this day there
are few cities in Christendom which do not contain a church or churches
dedicated to St. Michael, some of them of great antiquity.
I must not omit that St. Michael is considered as the angel of good
counsel:—that ‘Le vrai office de Monseigneur Saint Michel est de faire
grandes revelations aux hommes en bas, en leur donnant moult saints
conseils,’ and in particular, ‘sur le bon nourissement que le père
et la mère donnent à leurs enfans.’[65] It is to be regretted that
‘Monseigneur Saint Michel’ should be found rather remiss in this part
of his angelic functions.
* * * * *
We shall now see how far these various traditions and popular notions
concerning St. Michael have been carried out in Art.
In all representations of St. Michael, the leading idea, well or ill
expressed, is the same. He is young and beautiful, but ‘severe in
youthful beauty,’ as one who carries on a perpetual contest with the
powers of evil. In the earlier works of art he is robed in white, with
ample many-coloured wings, and bears merely the sceptre or the lance
surmounted by a cross, as one who conquered by spiritual might alone.
But in the later representations, those coloured by the spirit of
chivalry, he is the angelic Paladin, armed in a dazzling coat of mail,
with sword, and spear, and shield. He has a lofty open brow, long fair
hair floating on his shoulders, sometimes bound by a jewelled tiara;
sometimes, but not often, shaded by a helmet. From his shoulders spring
two resplendent wings. Thus we see him standing by the throne of the
Madonna, or worshipping at the feet of the Divine Infant; an exquisite
allegory of spiritual and intellectual power protecting purity and
adoring innocence.
There is a most beautiful little figure by Angelico, of St. Michael
standing in his character of archangel and patron of the Church
Militant, ‘as the winged saint;’ no demon, no attribute except the
lance and shield. The attitude, so tranquilly elegant, may be seen in
this sketch (34). In the original the armour is of a dark crimson and
gold, the wings are of rainbow tints, vivid and delicate; a flame of
lambent fire rests on the brow.
But the single devotional figures of St. Michael usually represent
him as combining the two great characters of captain of the heavenly
host, and conqueror of the powers of hell. He stands armed, setting
his foot on Lucifer, either in the half-human or the dragon form, and
is about to transfix him with his lance, or to chain him down in the
infernal abyss. Such, however varied in the attitude, expression, and
accessories, is the most frequent and popular representation of St.
Michael, when placed before us, as the universally received emblem of
the final victory of good over evil.
[Illustration: 34 St. Michael. (Angelico, Fl. Acad.)]
In those churches of Christendom which have not been defaced by a
blind destructive zeal, this image meets us at every turn: it salutes
us in the porch as we enter, or it shines upon us in gorgeous colours
from the window, or it is wreathed into the capitals of columns, or it
stands in its holy heroic beauty over the altar. It is so common and
so in harmony with our inmost being, that we rather feel its presence
than observe it. It is the visible, palpable reflection of that great
truth stamped into our very souls, and shadowed forth in every form
of ancient belief,—the final triumph of the spiritual over the animal
and earthly part of our nature. This is the secret of its perpetual
repetition, and this the secret of the untired complacency with which
we regard it; for even in the most inefficient attempts at expression,
we have always the leading _motif_ distinct and true, the winged virtue
is always victorious above, and the bestial vice is always prostrate
below: and if to this primal moral significance be added all the charm
of poetry, grace, animated movement, which human genius has lavished
on this ever blessed, ever welcome symbol, then, as we look up at
it, we are ‘not only touched, but wakened and inspired,’ and the
whole delighted imagination glows with faith and hope, and grateful
triumphant sympathy,—so at least I have felt, and I must believe that
others have felt it too.
In the earliest representations of this subject, we see the simplest
form of the allegory, literally rendering the words of Scripture,
‘The dragon shalt thou trample under foot’ (Ps. xci. 13). Here there
is no risk of a divided interest or a misdirected sympathy. The
demon, grovelling under the feet of the victorious spirit, is not the
star-bright apostate who drew after him the third part of heaven; it
is the bestial malignant reptile:—not the emblem of resistance, but
the emblem of sin; not of the sin that aspires, which, in fact, is a
contradiction in terms;—no sin aspires;—but of the sin which degrades
and brutifies, as all sin does. In the later representations, where the
demon takes the half-human shape, however hideous and deformed, the
allegory may so be brought nearer to us, and rendered more terrible
even by a horrid sympathy with that human face, grinning in despite and
agony; but much of the beauty of the scriptural metaphor is lost.[66]
* * * * *
The representations of St. Michael and the dragon are so multifarious
that I can only select a few among them as examples of the different
styles of treatment.
The symbol, as such, is supposed to have originated with the Gnostics
and Arians, and the earliest examples are to be found in the ancient
churches on the western coast of Italy, and the old Lombard churches.
I have never seen it in the old mosaics of the sixth century, but in
the contemporary sculpture frequently. It would be difficult to point
to the most ancient example, such is the confusion of dates as regards
dedications, restorations, alterations; but I remember a carving in
white marble on the porch of the Cathedral of Cortona (about the
seventh century), which may be regarded as an example of this primitive
style of treatment: the illustration, from a slight sketch made on the
spot, will be better than any description (35).
Another instance will be remembered by the traveller in Italy, the
strange antique bas-relief on the façade of that extraordinary old
church the San Michele at Pavia; not the figure in the porch, which
is modern, but that which is above. In the Menologium Grecum is a St.
Michael standing with a long sceptre, a majestic colossal figure, while
kneeling angels adore him, and the demons crouch under his feet.[67]
[Illustration: 35]
By Martin Schoen: St. Michael, attired in a long loose robe and
floating mantle, tramples on the demon; he has thrown down the shield,
and with his lance in both hands, but without effort, and even with a
calm angelic dignity, prepares to transfix his adversary. The figure is
singularly elegant. The demon has not here the usual form of a dragon,
but is a horrible nondescript reptile, with multitudinous flexile
claws, like those of a crab, stretched out to seize and entangle the
unwary;—for an emblematical figure, very significant (36). In an old
fresco by Guariente di Padova[68] the angel is draped as in Martin
Schoen’s figure, but the attitude is far less elegant.
Sometimes the dragon has a small head at the end of his tail, instead
of the forked sting. I recollect an instance of St. Michael transfixing
the large head, while a smaller angel, also armed, transfixes the other
head.[69] This is an attempt to render literally the description in the
Apocalypse: ‘For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails:
for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them
they do hurt.’ (Rev. ix. 19.) In a most elegant figure of St. Michael,
from the choir of the San Giovanni, at Malta, I found the demon thus
characterised, with a tail ending in the serpent head.
In an old Siena picture[70] St. Michael is seated on a throne: in one
hand a sword, in the other the orb of sovereignty; under his feet lies
the dragon mangled and bleeding: a bad picture, but curious for the
singular treatment.
[Illustration: 36 St. Michael (Martin Schoen)]
In the sixteenth century these figures of St. Michael become less
ideal and angelic, and more and more chivalrous and picturesque. In
a beautiful altar-piece by Andrea del Sarto, now in the Florence
Academy, there is a fine martial figure of the Archangel, which,
but for the wings, might be mistaken for a St. George; and in the
predella underneath, on a small scale, he is conqueror of the demon.
The peculiarity here is, that the demon, though vanquished, makes a
vain struggle, and has seized hold of the belt of the angel, who, with
uplifted sword, and an action of infinite grace and dignity, looks
superior down, as one assured of victory.
Raphael has given us three figures of St. Michael, all different, and
one of them taking rank with his masterpieces.
The first is an early production, painted when he was a youth of
nineteen or twenty, and now in the Louvre. St. Michael, armed with a
shield on which is a red cross, his sword raised to strike, stands with
one foot on a monster; other horrible little monsters, like figures in
a dream, are around him: in the background are seen the hypocrites and
thieves as described by Dante; the first, in melancholy procession,
weighed down with leaden cowls; the others, tormented by snakes: and,
in the distance, the flaming dolorous city. St. Michael is here the
vanquisher of the Vices. It is a curious and fantastic, rather than
poetical, little picture.
The second picture, also in the Louvre, was painted by Raphael, in the
maturity of his talent, for Francis I.: the king had left to him the
choice of the subject, and he selected St. Michael, the military patron
of France, and of that knightly Order of which the king was grand
master.
St. Michael—not standing, but hovering on his poised wings, and
grasping his lance in both hands—sets one foot lightly on the shoulder
of the demon, who, prostrate, writhes up, as it were, and tries to lift
his head and turn it on his conqueror with one last gaze of malignant
rage and despair. The archangel looks down upon him with a brow calm
and serious; in his beautiful face is neither vengeance nor disdain—in
his attitude no effort; his form, a model of youthful grace and
majesty, is clothed in a brilliant panoply of gold and silver; an azure
scarf floats on his shoulders; his wide-spread wings are of purple,
blue, and gold; his light hair is raised, and floats outward on each
side of his head, as if from the swiftness of his downward motion. The
earth emits flames, and seems opening to swallow up the adversary. The
form of the demon is human, but vulgar in its proportions, and of a
swarthy red, as if fire-scathed; he has the horns and the serpent-tail;
but, from the attitude into which he is thrown, the monstrous form is
so fore-shortened that it does not disgust, and the majestic figure of
the archangel fills up nearly the whole space—fills the eye—fills the
soul—with its victorious beauty.
[Illustration: 37 The St. Michael painted by Raphael for Francis I.]
That Milton had seen this picture, and that when his sight was quenched
the ‘winged saint’ revisited him in his darkness, who can doubt?—
Over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flowed
Livelier than Melibœan, or the grain
Of Sarra worn by kings and heroes old
In time of truce.
By his side,
As in a glittering zodiac, hung the sword,
Satan’s dire dread, and in his hand the spear.
A third St. Michael, designed by Raphael, exists only as an
engraving.[71] The angel here wears a helmet, and is classically
draped; he stands in an attitude of repose, his foot on the neck of the
demon; one hand rests on the pummel of his sword, the other holds the
lance.
It seems agreed that, as a work of art, there is only the St. Michael
of Guido (in the Capuccini at Rome) which can be compared with that of
Raphael; the moment chosen is the same; the treatment nearly the same;
the sentiment quite different.
Here the angel, standing, yet scarcely touching the ground, poised on
his outspread wings, sets his left foot on the head of his adversary;
in one hand he brandishes a sword, in the other he holds the end
of a chain, with which he is about to bind down the demon in the
bottomless pit. The attitude has been criticised, and justly; the
grace is somewhat mannered, verging on the theatrical; but Forsyth is
too severe when he talks of the ‘air of a dancing-master:’ one thing,
however, is certain, we do not think about attitude when we look at
Raphael’s St. Michael; in Guido’s, it is the first thing that strikes
us; but when we look farther, the head redeems all; it is singularly
beautiful, and in the blending of the masculine and feminine graces, in
the serene purity of the brow, and the flow of the golden hair, there
is something divine: a slight, very slight expression of scorn is in
the air of the head. The fiend is the worst part of the picture; it
is not a fiend, but a degraded prosaic human ruffian; we laugh with
incredulous contempt at the idea of an angel called down from heaven
to overcome such a wretch. In Raphael the fiend is human, but the head
has the god-like ugliness and malignity of a satyr; Guido’s fiend is
only stupid and base. It appears to me that there is just the same
difference—the same _kind_ of difference—between the angel of Raphael
and the angel of Guido, as between the description in Tasso and the
description in Milton; let any one compare them. In Tasso we are struck
by the picturesque elegance of the description as a piece of art, the
melody of the verse, the admirable choice of the expressions, as in
Guido by the finished but somewhat artificial and studied grace. In
Raphael and Milton we see only the vision of a ‘shape divine.’
One of the most beautiful figures of St. Michael I ever saw, occurs in
a coronation of the Virgin by Moretto, and is touched by his peculiar
sentiment of serious tenderness.[72]
In devotional pictures such figures of St. Michael are sometimes
grouped poetically with other personages, as in a most beautiful
picture by Innocenza da Imola,[73] where the archangel tramples on the
demon; St. Paul standing on one side, and St. Benedict on the other,
both of whom had striven with the fiend and had overcome him: the
Madonna and Child are seen in a glory above.
And again in a picture by Mabuse,[74] where St. Michael, as patron,
sets his foot on the black grinning fiend, and looks down on a kneeling
votary, while the votary, with his head turned away, appears to be
worshipping, not the protecting angel, but the Madonna, to whom St.
Michael presents him (38). Such votive pictures are not uncommon, and
have a peculiar grace and significance. Here the archangel bears the
victorious banner of the cross;—he has conquered. In some instances he
holds in his hand the head of the Dragon, and in _all_ instances it is,
or ought to be, the head of the Dragon which is transfixed:—‘Thou shalt
bruise his head.’
[Illustration: 38 St. Michael (Mabuse, 1510)]
Those representations in which St. Michael is not conqueror, but
combatant, in which the moment is one of transition, are less frequent;
it is then an _action_, not an _emblem_, and the composition is
historical rather than symbolical. It is the strife with Lucifer;
‘when Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon
fought and his angels, and the great dragon was cast out.’ (Rev. xii.
7.) In churches and chapels dedicated to St. Michael, or to ‘the Holy
Angels,’ this appropriate subject often occurs; as in a famous fresco
by Spinello d’Arezzo, at Arezzo.[75] In the middle of the composition,
Michael, armed with sword and shield, is seen combating the dragon
with seven heads, as described in the Apocalypse. Above and around are
many angels also armed. At the top of the picture is seen an empty
throne, the throne which Lucifer had ‘set in the north;’ below is seen
Lucifer, falling with his angels over the parapet of heaven. (Isaiah
xiv. 13.) The painter tasked his skill to render the transformation
of the spirits of light into spirits of darkness as fearful and as
hideous as possible; and, being a man of a nervous temperament, the
continual dwelling on these horrors began at length to trouble his
brain. He fancied that Lucifer appeared to him in a dream, demanding by
what authority he had portrayed him under an aspect so revolting?—the
painter awoke in horror, was seized with delirious fever, and so died.
In his combat with the dragon, Michael is sometimes represented alone,
and sometimes as assisted by the two other archangels, Gabriel and
Raphael: as in the fresco by Signorelli, at Orvieto, where one of the
angels, whom we may suppose to be Raphael, looks down on the falling
demons with an air of melancholy, almost of pity.
In a picture by Marco Oggione,[76] Michael has precipitated the demon
into the gulf, and hovers above, while Raphael and Gabriel stand below
on each side, looking on; all are clothed in voluminous loose white
draperies, more like priests than warriors; but it is a fine picture.
In the large Rubens-room at Munich, there are two pictures of Michael
subduing the revolted angels. The large one, in which Michael is the
principal figure, is not agreeable. Rubens could not lift himself
sufficiently above the earth to conceive and embody the spiritual, and
heroic, and beautiful in one divine form; his St. Michael is vulgar.
The smaller composition, where the fallen, or rather falling, angels
fill the whole space, is a most wonderful effort of artistic invention.
At the summit of the picture stands St. Michael, the shield in one
hand, in the other the forked lightnings of divine wrath; and from
above the rebel host tumble headlong ‘in hideous ruin and combustion
hurled,’ and with such affright and amazement in every face, such a
downward movement in every limb, that we recoil in dizzy horror while
we look upon it. It is curious that Rubens should have introduced
female reprobate spirits: if he intended his picture as an allegory,
merely the conquest of the spiritual over the sensual, he is excusable;
but if he meant to figure the vision in the Apocalypse, it is a
deviation from the proper scriptural treatment, which is inexcusable.
This picture remains, however, as a whole, a perfect miracle of art:
the fault is, that we feel inclined to applaud as we do at some
astonishing _tour de force_; such at least was my own feeling, and
this is not the feeling appropriate to the subject. Though this famous
picture is entitled the Fall of the Angels, I have some doubts as to
whether this was the intention of the painter; whether he did not mean
to express the fall of sinners, flung by the Angel of judgment into the
abyss of wrath and perdition?
[Illustration: 39 St. Michael as Angel of Judgment and Lord of Souls
(Justus of Ghent)]
In those devotional pictures which exhibit St. Michael as Lord of
souls, he is winged and unarmed, and holds the balance. In each scale
sits a little naked figure, representing a human soul; one of these
is usually represented with hands joined as in thankfulness—he is the
_beato_, the elected; the other is in an attitude of horror—he is the
rejected, the reprobate; and often, but not necessarily, the idea
is completed by the introduction of a demon, who is grasping at the
descending scale, either with his talons, or with the long two-pronged
hook, such as is given to Pluto in the antique sculpture.
Sometimes St. Michael is thus represented singly; sometimes very
beautifully in Madonna pictures, as in a picture by Leonardo da Vinci
(A.D. 1498), where St. Michael, a graceful angelic figure, with light
flowing hair, kneels before the Madonna, and presents the balance to
the Infant, who seems to welcome the pious little soul who sits in the
uppermost scale.
[Illustration: 40 St. Michael (Signorelli, 1500. In the San Gregorio,
Rome)]
I have seen this idea varied. St. Michael stands majestic with the
balance poised in his hands: instead of a human figure in either
scale, there are weights; on one side is seen a company of five or six
little naked shivering souls, as if waiting for their doom; on the
other several demons, one of whom with his hook is pulling down the
ascending scale.[77] With or without the balance, St. Michael figures
as Lord of souls when introduced into pictures of the Assumption or
the Glorification of the Virgin. To understand the whole beauty and
propriety of such representations, we must remember, that according to
one of the legends of the death of the Virgin her spirit was consigned
to the care of St. Michael until it was permitted to reanimate the
spotless form, and with it ascend to heaven.
In one or two instances only, I have seen St. Michael without wings.
In general, an armed figure, unwinged and standing on a dragon, we may
presume to be a St. George; but where the balance is introduced, it
leaves no doubt of the personality—it is a St. Michael. Occasionally
the two characters—the protecting Angel of light and the Angel of
judgment—are united, and we see St. Michael, with the dragon under his
feet and the balance in his hand. This was a favourite and appropriate
subject on tombs and chapels dedicated to the dead; such is the
beautiful bas-relief on the tomb of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey.
In some representations of the last judgment, St. Michael, instead
of the banner and cross, bears the scales; as in the very curious
bas-relief on the façade of the church of St. Trophime at Arles. St.
Michael here has a balance so large that it is almost as high as
himself; it is not a mere emblem, but a fact; a soul sits in each
scale, and a third is rising up; the angel holds out one hand to
assist him. In another part of the same bas-relief St. Michael is
seen carrying a human soul (represented as a little naked figure) and
bringing it to St. Peter and St. Paul. In a celebrated Last Judgment,
attributed by some authors to John Van Eyck, by others to Justus of
Ghent, St. Michael is grandly introduced.[78] High up, in the centre,
sits the Saviour, with the severe expression of the judge. Above him
hover four angels with the instruments of the Passion, and below him
three others sounding trumpets (_v._ p. 54),—I suppose the seven
pre-eminent angels: the Virgin and St. John the Baptist on each side,
and then the Apostles ranged in the usual manner. ‘In the lower half of
the picture stands St. Michael, clad in golden armour, so bright as to
reflect in the most complete manner all the surrounding objects. His
figure is slender and elegant, but colossal as compared to the rest. He
seems to be bending earnestly forward, a splendid purple mantle falls
from his shoulders to the ground, and his large wings are composed of
glittering peacock’s feathers. He holds the balance; the scale with the
good rests on earth, but that with the souls which are found wanting
mounts into air. A demon stands ready to receive them, and towards
this scale St. Michael points with the end of a black staff which he
holds in his right hand.’ This picture, which is a chef-d’œuvre of the
early German school, is now in the church of St. Mary at Dantzig.
* * * * *
The historical subjects in which St. Michael is introduced exhibit
him as prince of the Hebrew nation, and belong properly to the Old
Testament.[79] ‘After the confusion of tongues, and the scattering of
the people, which occurred on the building of the Tower of Babel, every
separate nation had an angel to direct it. To Michael was given in
charge the people of the Lord. The Hebrews being carried away captive
into the land of Assyria, Daniel prayed that they might be permitted
to return when the seventy years of captivity were over: but the Angel
of Persia opposed himself on this occasion to the angels Michael and
Gabriel. He wished to retain the Jews in captivity, because he was
glad to have, within the bounds of his jurisdiction, a people who
served the true God, and because he hoped that in time the captive Jews
would convert to the truth the Assyrians and Persians committed to his
care.’ This curious passage from one of the early Christian fathers,
representing the good angels as opposed to each other, and one of them
as disputing the commands of God, is an instance of the confused ideas
on the subject of angels which prevailed in the ancient Church, and
which prevail, I imagine, in the minds of many even at this day.
In the story of Hagar in the wilderness, it is Michael who descends to
her aid. In the sacrifice of Isaac, it is Michael who stays the arm
of Abraham. It is Michael who brings the plagues on Egypt, and he it
is who leads the Israelites through the wilderness. It was the belief
of the Jews, and of some of the early Christian fathers, that through
his angel (not in person) God spoke to Moses from the burning bush,
and delivered to him the law on Mount Sinai; and that the angel so
delegated was Michael.
It is Michael who combats with Lucifer for the body of Moses. (Jude
v. 9.) According to one interpretation of this curious passage of
Scripture, the demon wished to enter and to possess the form of Moses,
in order to deceive the Jews by personating their leader; but others
say, that Michael contended for the body, that he might bury it in an
unknown place, lest the Jews should fall into the sin of paying divine
honours to their legislator. This is a fine picturesque subject; the
rocky desert, the body of Moses dead on the earth, the contest of the
good and evil angel confronting each other,—these are grand materials!
It must have been rarely treated, for I remember but one instance—the
fresco by L. Signorelli, in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
It is Michael who intercepts Balaam[80] when on his way to curse the
people of Israel, and puts blessings into his mouth instead of curses:
a subject often treated, but as a fact rather than a vision.
It is Michael who stands before Joshua in the plain by Jericho:—‘And
Joshua said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he
said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And
Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto
him, What saith my Lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord’s
host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place
whereon thou standest is holy.’ (Joshua v. 13-15.) This subject is very
uncommon. In the Greek MS. already alluded to, I met with a magnificent
example—magnificent in point of sentiment, though half ruined and
effaced; the God-like bearing of the armed angel, looking down on the
prostrate Joshua, is here as fine as possible.
It is Michael who appears to Gideon.[81] It is Michael who chastises
David.[82] It is Michael who exterminates the army of Sennacherib; a
subject magnificently painted by Rubens. (Some suppose that on this
occasion God made use of the ministry of an evil angel.[83])
It is Michael who descends to deliver the Three Children from the
burning fiery furnace. The Three Children in the furnace is a subject
which appears very early in the catacombs and on the sarcophagi
as a symbol of the Redemption;—so early, that it is described by
Tertullian;[84] but in almost all the examples given there are
three figures only: where there is a fourth, it is, of course, the
protecting angel, but he is without wings.[85]
Michael seizes the prophet Habakkuk by the hair of the head, and
carries him to Babylon, to the den of lions, that he may feed
Daniel.[86] This apocryphal subject occurs on several sarcophagi.[87] I
have seen it also in illuminated MSS., but cannot at this moment refer
to it. It occurs in a series of late Flemish prints after Hemskirk,—of
which there are good impressions in the British Museum.
* * * * *
The Archangel Michael is not named in the Gospels; but in the legends
of the Madonna, as we shall see hereafter, he plays a very important
part, being deputed by Christ to announce to his mother her approaching
end, and to receive her soul. For the present I will only remark,
that when, in accordance with this very ancient legend, an angel is
represented kneeling before the Madonna, and holding in his hand a palm
surmounted by stars, or a lighted taper, this angel is not Gabriel,
announcing the conception of Christ, as is usually supposed, but
Michael, as the angel of death.[88]
The legend of Monte Galgano I saw in a large fresco, in the Santa Croce
at Florence, by a painter of the Giotto school; but in so bad a state,
that I could only make out a bull on the top of a mountain, and a man
shooting with a bow and arrow. On the opposite wall is the combat of
Michael with the dragon—very spirited, and in much better preservation.
To distinguish the apparition of St. Michael on Monte Galgano from
the apparition on Mont St. Michel, in both of which a bull and a
bishop are principal figures, it is necessary to observe, that, in the
last-named subject, the sea is always introduced at the base of the
picture, and that the former is most common in Italian, and the latter
in French, works of art. In the French stained glass of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, St. Michael is a very popular subject, either
with the dragon, or the scales, or both.
Lately, in removing the whitewash from the east wall of the nave of
Preston Church, near Brighton, was discovered the outline of a group of
figures representing St. Michael, fully draped, and with large wings,
bearing the balance; in each scale a human soul. The scale containing
the _beato_ is assisted by a figure fully draped, but so ruined that
it is not possible to say whether it represents the Virgin, or the
guardian saint of the person who caused the fresco to be painted. I
am told that in the old churches of Cornwall, and of the towns on the
south coast, which had frequent intercourse with France, effigies of
St. Michael occur frequently, both in painting and sculpture. On the
old English coin, thence called an _angel_, we have the figure of St.
Michael, who was one of the patron saints of our Norman kings.
I must now trust to the reader to contemplate the figures of St.
Michael, so frequent and so varied in Art, with reference to these
suggestions; and leaving for the present this radiant Spirit, this
bright similitude of a primal and universal faith, we turn to his
angelic companions.
[Illustration: 41 Egyptian hieroglyphic of the Genius of Good
overcoming Evil (_v._ p. 108)]
ST. GABRIEL.
_Lat._ Sanctus Gabriel. _Ital._ San Gabriello, San Gabriele, L’Angelo
Annunziatore. _Fr._ St. Gabriel.
‘I am GABRIEL, that stand in the presence of God.’—_Luke_ i. 19.
In those passages of Scripture where the Angel Gabriel is mentioned by
name, he is brought before us in the character of a Messenger only,
and always on important occasions. In the Old Testament he is sent
to Daniel to announce the return of the Jews from captivity, and to
explain the vision which prefigures the destinies of mighty empires.
His contest with the Angel of the kingdom of Persia, when St. Michael
comes to his assistance, would be a splendid subject in fit hands;
I do not know that it has ever been painted. In the New Testament
the mission of Gabriel is yet more sublime: he first appears to the
high priest Zacharias, and foretells the birth of John the Baptist,—a
subject which belongs especially to the life of that saint. Six months
later, Gabriel is sent to announce the appearance of the Redeemer of
mankind.[89]
In the Jewish tradition, Gabriel is the guardian of the celestial
treasury. Hence, I presume, Milton has made him chief guardian of
Paradise:—
Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat,
Chief of the angelic guards, awaiting night.
As the Angel who announced the birth of Christ, he has been venerated
as the Angel who presides over childbirth. He foretells the birth of
Samson, and, in the apocryphal legends, he foretells to Joachim the
birth of the Virgin. In the East, he is of great importance. Mahomet
selected him as his immediate teacher and inspirer, and he became
the great protecting angel of Islamism: hence between Michael, the
protector of the Jews and Christians, and Gabriel, the protector of
the Moslem, there is supposed to exist no friendly feeling—rather the
reverse.
In the New Testament, Gabriel is a much more important personage than
Michael; yet I have never met with any picture in which he figures
singly as an object of worship. In devotional pictures he figures as
the second of the three Archangels—‘Secondo fra i primi,’ as Tasso
styles him; or in his peculiar character as the divine messenger of
grace, ‘_l’Angelo annunziatore_.’ He then usually bears in one hand a
lily or a sceptre; in the other a scroll on which is inscribed, ‘AVE
MARIA, GRATIA PLENA!’[90]
The subject called the ANNUNCIATION is one of the most frequent and
most important, as it is one of the most beautiful, in the whole range
of Christian Art. It belongs, however, to the history of the Virgin,
where I shall have occasion to treat it at length; yet as the Angel
Gabriel here assumes, by direct scriptural testimony, a distinct name
and personality, and as the dignity and significance proper to a
subject so often unworthily and perversely treated depend very much on
the character and deportment given to the celestial messenger, I shall
make a few observations in this place with respect to the treatment of
the angel, only reserving the theme in its general bearing for future
consideration.
In the early representations of the Annunciation it is treated as
a religious mystery, and with a solemn simplicity and purity of
feeling, which is very striking and graceful in itself, as well as
in harmony with the peculiar manner of the divine revelation. The
scene is generally a porch or portico of a temple-like building; the
Virgin stands (she is very seldom seated, and then on a kind of raised
throne); the angel stands before her, at some distance: very often,
she is within the portico; he is without. Gabriel is a majestic being,
generally robed in white, wearing the tunic and pallium _à l’antique_,
his flowing hair bound by a jewelled tiara, with large many-coloured
wings, and bearing the sceptre of sovereignty in the left hand, while
the right is extended in the act of benediction as well as salutation:
‘Hail! thou that art highly favoured! Blessed art thou among women!’ He
is the principal figure: the attitude of the Virgin, with her drapery
drawn over her head, her eyes drooping, and her hands folded on her
bosom, is always expressive of the utmost submission and humility. So
Dante introduces the image of the lowly Virgin receiving the angel as
an illustration of the virtue of Humility:—
Ed avea in atto impressa esta favella
‘Ecce ancilla Dei!’—
and Flaxman has admirably embodied this idea, both in the lofty angel
with outspread arms, and the kneeling Virgin. Sometimes the angel
floats in, with his arms crossed over his bosom, but still with the air
of a superior being, as in this beautiful figure after Lorenzo Monaco,
from a picture in the Florence Gallery.
[Illustration: 42]
The two figures are not always in the same picture; it was a very
general custom to place the Virgin and the Angel, the ‘Annunziata’
and the ‘Angelo annunziatore,’ one on each side of the altar, the
place of the Virgin being usually to the right of the spectator;
sometimes the figures are half-length: sometimes, when placed in the
same picture, they are in two separate compartments, a pillar, or some
other ornament, running up the picture between them; as in many old
altar-pieces, where the two figures are placed above or on each side of
the Nativity, or the Baptism, or the Marriage at Cana, or some other
scene from the life and miracles of our Saviour. This subject does not
appear on the sarcophagi; the earliest instance I have met with is in
the mosaic series over the arch in front of the choir in the church
of Santa Maria Maggiore, at Rome, executed in the fifth century. Here
we have two successive moments represented together. In the first the
angel is sent on his mission, and appears flying down from heaven;
the earliest instance I have seen of an angel in the act of flight.
In the second group the Virgin appears seated on a throne; two angels
stand behind her, supposed to represent her guardian angels, and the
angel Gabriel stands in front with one hand extended. The dresses are
classical, and there is not a trace of the mediæval feeling, or style,
in the whole composition.
In the Greek pictures, the Angel and the Virgin both stand; and in the
Annunciation of Cimabue the Greek formula is strictly adhered to. I
have seen pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which
Gabriel enters as a princely ambassador, with three little angels
bearing up his mantle behind: in a picture in the collection of Prince
Wallerstein, one meek and beautiful angel bears up the rich robes of
the majestic archangel, like a page in the train of a sovereign prince.
But from the beginning of the fourteenth century we perceive a change
of feeling, as well as a change of style: the veneration paid to the
Virgin demanded another treatment. She becomes not merely the principal
person, but the superior being; she is the ‘Regina angelorum,’ and the
angel bows to her, or kneels before her as to a queen.[91] Thus in the
famous altar-piece at Cologne, the angel kneels; he bears a sceptre,
and also a sealed roll, as if he were a celestial ambassador delivering
his credentials: about the same period we sometimes see the angel
merely with his hands folded over his breast, and his head inclined,
delivering his message as if to a superior being.
[Illustration: 43 The Angel Gabriel (Wilhelm of Cologne. 1440)]
I cannot decide at what period the lily first replaced the sceptre in
the hand of the angel, not merely as the emblem of purity, but as the
symbol of the Virgin from the verse in the Canticles usually applied
to her: ‘I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley.’ A lily
is often placed in a vase near the Virgin, or in the foreground of the
picture: of all the attributes placed in the hand of the angel, the
lily is the most usual and the most expressive.
The painters of Siena, who often displayed a new and original sentiment
in the treatment of a subject, have represented the angel Gabriel as
the announcer of ‘peace on earth;’ he kneels before the Virgin, crowned
with olive, and bearing a branch of olive in his hand, as in a picture
by Taddeo Bartoli. There is also a beautiful St. Gabriel by Martin
Schoen, standing, and crowned with olive. So Dante—
L’ angel che venne in terra col decreto
Della molt’ anni lagrimata pace.
Another passage in Dante which the painters seem to have had before
them shows us the Madonna as queen, and the angel as adoring:—
‘Qual è quel angel che con tanto giuoco
Guarda negli occhi la nostra regina
Innamorato sì che par di fuoco?’
Ed egli a me,—‘Baldezza e leggiadria
Quanta esser puote in angelo ed in alma
Tutta è in lui, e si volem che sia!’
It is in seeking this _baldezza e leggiadria_ in a mistaken sense that
the later painters have forgotten all the spiritual dignity of the
Angel Messenger.
Where the angel bears a lighted taper, which the Virgin extends her
hand to take from him; or, kneeling, bears in his hand a palm-branch,
surmounted by seven or twelve stars (44), the subject represented is
not the announcement of the birth of the Saviour, but the death of
the Virgin, a part of her legendary history which is rarely treated
and easily mistaken; then the announcing angel is not Gabriel, but
Michael.[92]
[Illustration: 44 Angel announcing the death of the Virgin (F. Filippo
Lippi)]
In old German Art, the angel in the Annunciation is habited in priestly
garments richly embroidered (42). The scene is often the bedroom of
the Virgin; and while the announcing angel enters and kneels at the
threshold of the door, the Holy Ghost enters at the window. I have
seen examples in which Gabriel, entering at a door behind the Virgin,
unfolds his official ‘Ave Maria.’ He has no lily, or sceptre, and she
is apparently conscious of his presence without seeing him.[93]
But in the representations of the sixteenth century we find neither
the solemnity of the early Italian nor the naïveté of the early German
school; and this divine subject becomes more and more materialised
and familiarised, until, losing its spiritual character, it strikes
us as shockingly prosaic. One cannot say that the angel is invariably
deficient in dignity, or the Virgin in grace. In the Venetian
school and the Bologna school we find occasionally very beautiful
Annunciations; but in general the half-draped fluttering angels and the
girlish-looking Virgins are nothing less than offensive; and in the
attempt to vary the sentiment, the _naturalisti_ have here run the
risk of being much _too_ natural.
[Illustration: 45 The Archangel Gabriel (Van Eyck)]
In the Cathedral at Orvieto, the Annunciation is represented in front
of the choir by two colossal statues by Francesco Mochi: to the right
is the angel Gabriel, poised on a marble cloud, in an attitude so
fantastic that he looks as if he were going to dance; on the other side
stands the Virgin, conceived in a spirit how different!—yet not less
mistaken; she has started from her throne; with one hand she grasps
it, with the other she seems to guard her person against the intruder:
majesty at once, and fear, a look of insulted dignity, are in the
air and attitude,—‘_par che minacci e tema nel tempo istesso_’—but I
thought of Mrs. Siddons while I looked, not of the Virgin Mary.
This fault of sentiment I saw reversed, but equally in the extreme, in
another example—a beautiful miniature.[94] The Virgin, seated on the
side of her bed, sinks back alarmed, almost fainting; the angel in a
robe of crimson, with a white tunic, stands before her, half turning
away and grasping his sceptre in his hand, with a proud commanding air,
like a magnificent surly god—a Jupiter who had received a repulse.
I pass over other instances conceived in a taste even more
blamable—Gabriels like smirking, winged lord chamberlains; and Virgins,
half prim, half voluptuous—the sanctity and high solemnity of the event
utterly lost. Let this suffice for the present: I may now leave the
reader to his own feeling and discrimination.
ST. RAPHAEL.
_Lat._ Sanctus Raphael. _Ital._ San Raffaello. _Fr._ Saint Raphael.
_Ger._ Der Heilige Rafael.
‘I am RAPHAEL, one of the Seven Holy Angels which present the prayers
of the Saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the HOLY
ONE.’—_Tobit_ xii. 15.
I have already alluded to the established belief, that every individual
man, nay, every created being, hath a guardian angel deputed to watch
over him:—‘Woe unto us, if, by our negligence or our self-will, we
offend him on whose vigilance we depend for help and salvation! But
the prince of guardian spirits, the guardian angel of all humanity, is
Raphael; and in this character, according to the early Christians, he
appeared to the shepherds by night ‘with good tidings of great joy,
which shall be for all people.’ It is, however, from the beautiful
Hebrew romance of Tobit that his attributes are gathered: he is the
protector of the young and innocent, and he watches over the pilgrim
and the wayfarer. The character imputed to him in the Jewish traditions
has been retained and amplified by Milton: Raphael is the angel sent by
God to warn Adam:—
. . . . . The affable archangel
Raphael; the sociable spirit that deign’d
To travel with Tobias, and secured
His marriage with the seven times wedded maid.
And the character of the angel is preserved throughout: his sympathy
with the human race, his benignity, his eloquence, his mild and social
converse. So when Adam blesses him:—
. . . . Since to part,
Go, heavenly guest, ethereal messenger,
Sent from whose sovereign goodness I adore!
Gentle to me and affable hath been
Thy condescension, and shall be honour’d ever
With grateful memory. Thou to mankind
Be good and friendly still, and oft return!
This character of benignity is stamped on all the best representations
of Raphael, which, however, are not common: they occur principally in
the chapels dedicated to the holy guardian angels; but there are also
churches and chapels dedicated to him singly.
The devotional figures of Raphael exhibit him in the dress of a pilgrim
or traveller, ‘his habit fit for speed succinct,’ sandals on his feet,
his hair bound with a fillet or diadem, the staff in his hand, and
sometimes a bottle of water or a wallet (_panetière_) slung to his
belt. In this figure by Murillo (46), from one of the most beautiful
pictures in the Leuchtenberg Gallery, Raphael is the guardian and guide
of the votary who appears below—a bishop who probably bore the same
name.[95]
Sometimes, as guardian spirit, he has a sword: the most beautiful
example I could cite of this treatment is the figure in the Breviary of
Anne of Bretagne (A.D. 1500); he wears a pale-green tunic bordered with
gold, and wings of a deep rose-colour; he has a casket or wallet slung
over his shoulder by a golden belt; in one hand he holds a sword, and
the other is raised with a warning gesture; his countenance, beautiful
and benign as possible, yet says, ‘Take heed.’ More commonly, however,
he carries a small casket, box, or vase, supposed to contain the ‘fishy
charm’ against the evil spirits. (Tobit vi. 6, 7.)
Raphael, in his character of guardian angel, is generally represented
as leading the youthful Tobias. When, in order to mark the difference
between the celestial and the mortal being, Tobit is figured so small
as to look like a child, and when the angel wears his spirit-wings,
and is not disguised, the whole subject becomes idealised: it is no
longer an historical action, but a devotional allegory; and Tobias with
his fish represents the Christian, the believer, guarded and guided
through his life-pilgrimage by the angelic monitor and minister of
divine mercy.
[Illustration: 46 St. Raphael (Murillo. Leuchtenberg Gallery)]
There is a small side chapel in the church of Saint Euphemia, at
Verona, dedicated to St. Raphael. The walls are painted with frescoes
from the story of Tobit; and over the altar is that masterpiece
of Carotto, representing the three archangels as three graceful
spirit-like figures without wings. The altar being dedicated to
Raphael, he is here the principal figure; he alone has the glory
encircling his head, and takes precedence of the others; he stands
in the centre leading Tobias, and looking down on him with an air of
such saintly and benign protection, that one feels inclined to say
or sing, in the words of the litany, ‘Sancte Raphaël, adolescentium
pudicitiæ defensor, ora pro nobis!’ Even more divine is the St. Michael
who stands on the right, with one hand gathering up the folds of his
crimson robe, the other leaning on his great two-handed sword; but such
a head, such a countenance looking out upon us—so earnest, powerful,
and serious!—we recognise the Lord of Souls, the Angel of Judgment. To
the left of Raphael stands Gabriel, the Angel of Redemption; he holds
the lily, and looks up to heaven adoring: this is the least expressive
of the three heads, but still beautiful; and, on the whole, the picture
left a stronger impression on my mind than any I had seen at Venice,
the glorious Assumption excepted. The colouring in its glowing depth
is like that of Giorgione. Vasari tells us, that this picture, painted
when Carotto was young (about A.D. 1495), was criticised because the
limbs of the angels were too slender; to which Carotto, famous for
his repartees, replied, ‘Then they will fly the better!’ The drawing,
however, it must be conceded, is not the best part of the picture.
The earliest picture of Titian which remains to us is a St. Raphael
leading Tobias;[96] beautiful, but not equal, certainly, to that of
Carotto. Raphael, as we might naturally suppose, painted his guardian
angel and patron saint _con amore_:[97] we have by him two St.
Raphaels; the first, a little figure executed when he was a boy in the
studio of his master Perugino, is now on one side of an altar-piece in
the Certosa at Pavia. Later in life, and in one of his finest works,
he has introduced his patron saint with infinite beauty of feeling:
in the Madonna della Pesce,[98] the Virgin sits upon her throne, with
the Infant Christ in her arms; the angel Raphael presents Tobias, who
is not here a youth but a child; while the Infant Christ turns away
from the wise bearded old doctor, who is intently studying his great
book, to welcome the angel and his charge. The head of the angel,
looking up in the face of the Madonna, is in truth sublime: it would be
impossible to determine whether it belongs to a masculine or a feminine
being; but none could doubt that it is a _divine_ being, filled with
fervent, enthusiastic, adoring love. The fish in the hand of Tobias has
given its name to the picture; and I may as well observe that in the
devotional pictures, where the fish is merely an attribute, expressing
Christian baptism, it is usually very small: in the story it is a sort
of monster, which sprang out of the river and would have devoured him.
All the subjects in which the Archangel Raphael is an actor belong
to the history of Tobit. The scenes of this beautiful scriptural
_legend_—I must call it so—have been popular subjects of Art,
particularly in the later schools, and have been admirably treated by
some of the best Dutch and Flemish painters: the combination of the
picturesque and poetical with the homely and domestic recommended it
particularly to Rembrandt and his school. Tobias dragging the fish
ashore, while the angel stands by, is a fine picturesque landscape
subject which has been often repeated. The spirited little sketch by
Salvator,[99] in which the figure of the guardian angel is admirable
for power and animated grace; the twilight effect by Rembrandt;[100]
another by Domenichino; three by Claude; may be cited as examples.
[Illustration: 47 Archangel (Rembrandt)]
In such pictures, as it has been rightly observed, the angel ought not
to have wings: he is disguised as the friendly traveller. The dog,
which ought to be omitted in the devotional pictures, is here a part of
the story, and figures with great propriety.
Rembrandt painted the parting of Tobias and his parents four times;
Tobias led by the angel, four times; Tobias healing his father, once;
the departure of the angel, twice. Of this last subject, the picture in
the Louvre may be pronounced one of his finest;—miraculous for true and
spirited expression, and for the action of the soaring angel, who parts
the clouds and strikes through the air like a strong swimmer through
the waves of the sea (47).
The story of Tobit, as a series of subjects, has been very frequently
represented, always in the _genre_ and picturesque style of the later
schools. I shall have to return to it hereafter; here I have merely
alluded to the devotional treatment, in order to direct attention to
the proper character of the Archangel Raphael.
And thus we have shown
... how Holy Church
Doth represent with human countenance
Gabriel and Michaël, and him who made
Tobias whole.—DANTE, _Par._ c. iv.
ADDITIONAL NOTES ON ANGELS.
1. In a picture by Gentile da Fabriano (_Berlin Gallery_, 1130), the
Virgin and Child are enthroned, and on each side of the throne is a
tree, on the branches of which are little red Seraphim winged and
perched like birds, singing and making music. I remember also a little
Dutch print of a Riposo (_v._ ‘Legends of the Madonna,’ p. 256), in
which five little angels are perched on the trees above, singing and
playing for the solace of the divine Infant. Thus we have Dante’s idea
of the _Uccelli di Dio_, reproduced in a more familiar form.
2. In the Convent of Sant-Angelo at Bologna, Camillo Procaccino
painted the ‘Acts of the Holy Angels’ in the following order:—1. The
Fall of the Dragon. 2. The Angels drive Adam and Eve from Paradise. 3.
The three Angels visit Abraham. 4. The Angel stays the arm of Abraham.
5. The Angel wrestles with Jacob. 6. The Angels visit Jacob in a
Dream. 7. The Angel delivers the three Children in the burning fiery
Furnace. 8. The Angel slays the Host of Sennacherib. 9. The Angel
protects Tobit. 10. The Punishment of Heliodorus. 11. The Annunciation
to Mary. It will be remarked that all these subjects are strictly
scriptural.
The Four Evangelists.
‘Matthew wrote for the Hebrews; Mark, for the Italians; Luke, for the
Greeks; for ALL, the great herald John.’—_Gregory Nazianzen._
Since on the Four Evangelists, as the witnesses and interpreters of a
revealed religion, the whole Christian Church may be said to rest as
upon four majestic pillars, we cannot be surprised that representations
of them should abound, and that their effigies should have been
introduced into Christian places of worship, from very early times.
Generally, we find them represented together, grouped, or in a series;
sometimes in their collective character, as the _Four Witnesses_;
sometimes in their individual character, each as an inspired teacher,
or beneficent patron. As no authentic resemblances of these sacred
personages have ever been known or even supposed to exist, such
representations have always been either _symbolical_ or _ideal_. In
the symbol, the aim was to embody, under some emblematical image, the
spiritual mission; in the ideal portrait, the artist, left to his own
conception, borrowed from Scripture some leading trait (when Scripture
afforded any authority for such), and adding, with what success his
skill could attain, all that his imagination could conceive, as
expressive of dignity and persuasive eloquence—the look ‘commercing
with the skies,’ the commanding form, the reverend face, the ample
draperies—he put the book or the pen into his hand, and thus the writer
and the teacher of the truth was placed before us.
The earliest type under which the Four Evangelists are figured is
an emblem of the simplest kind: four scrolls placed in the four
angles of a Greek cross, or four books (the Gospels), represented
allegorically those who wrote or promulgated them. The second type
chosen was more poetical—the four rivers which had their source in
Paradise: representations of this kind, in which the Saviour, figured
as a lamb holding the cross, or in his human form, with a lamb near
him, stands on an eminence, from which gush four rivers or fountains,
are to be met with in the catacombs, on ancient sarcophagi preserved
among the Christian relics in the Vatican, and in several old churches
constructed between the second and the fifth century.
At what period the four mysterious creatures in the vision of Ezekiel
(ch. i. 5) were first adopted as significant symbols of the Four
Evangelists, does not seem clear. The Jewish doctors interpreted them
as figuring the four Archangels,—Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel; and
afterwards applied them as emblems of the Four Great Prophets,—Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. By the early Oriental Christians, who
typified the whole of the Old Testament, the transfer of the emblem to
the Four Evangelists seems obvious and easy; we find it alluded to as
early as the second century. The four ‘Beasts’ of corresponding form in
the Revelation (chap. iv. 7), which stood round the throne of the Lamb,
were likewise thus interpreted; but it was not till the fifth century
that we find these symbols assuming a visible form, and introduced into
works of art. In the seventh century they had become almost universal,
as distinctive attributes.
[Illustration: 48 St. Matthew (Mosaic, fifth century)]
The general application of the Four Creatures to the Four Evangelists
is of much earlier date than the separate and individual application of
each symbol, which has varied at different times; that propounded by
St. Jerome, in his commentary on Ezekiel, has since his time prevailed
universally. Thus, then, 1. To St. Matthew was given the CHERUB, or
human semblance, because he begins his gospel with the human generation
of Christ; or, according to others, because in his gospel the human
nature of the Saviour is more insisted on than the divine. In the most
ancient mosaics, the type is human, not angelic, for the head is that
of a man with a beard. 2. St. Mark has the LION, because he has set
forth the royal dignity of Christ; or, according to others, because he
begins with the mission of the Baptist—‘_the voice of one crying in
the wilderness_’—which is figured by the lion: or, according to a third
interpretation, the lion was allotted to St. Mark, because there was,
in the middle ages, a popular belief that the young of the lion was
born dead, and after three days was awakened to vitality by the breath
of its sire; some authors, however, represent the lion as vivifying
his young not by his breath, but by his roar. In either case the
application is the same; the revival of the young lion was considered
as symbolical of the resurrection, and Mark was commonly called the
‘Historian of the Resurrection.’ Another commentator observes that
Mark begins his gospel with ‘roaring’—‘the voice of one crying in the
wilderness;’ and ends it fearfully with a curse—‘He that believeth not
shall be damned;’ and that, therefore, his appropriate attribute is the
most terrible of beasts, the lion.[101] 3. Luke has the OX, because he
has dwelt on the priesthood of Christ, the _ox_ being the emblem of
sacrifice. 4. John has the EAGLE, which is the symbol of the highest
inspiration, because he soared upwards to the contemplation of the
divine nature of the Saviour.
But the order in which, in theological Art, these symbols are placed,
is not the same as the order of the Gospels according to the canon.
Rupertus considers the Four Beasts as typical of the Incarnation, the
Passion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension; an idea previously dwelt
upon by Durandus, who adds, that the man and the lion are placed on
the right, because the incarnation and the resurrection are the joy
of the whole earth; whilst the ox is on the left, because Christ’s
sacrifice was a trouble to the apostles; and the eagle is above the ox,
as suggestive of our Lord’s upward flight into heaven: according to
others, the proper order in the ascending scale is thus—at the lowest
point on the left, the ox; to the right, the lion; above the ox, the
eagle; and above all, the angel. So in Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel, the
angel gazes into the face of the Holy One, the others form his throne.
I have dwelt on these fanciful interpretations and disquisitions,
because the symbols of the Evangelists meet us at every turn; in the
mosaics of the old Italian churches, in the decorative sculpture
of our old cathedrals, in the Gothic stained glass, in the ancient
pictures and miniatures, on the carved and chased covers of old
books; everywhere, in short, where enters the idea of their divine
mission—and where is it not? The profound thought, as well as the
vivid imagination, exercised in some of these early works of art, is
beginning to be appreciated; and we should lose the half of what is
poetical, and significant, and venerable in these apparently arbitrary
and fanciful symbols, if we merely seized the general intention, and
not the relative and appropriate meaning of each.
I will only add (for I have restricted myself to the consideration
of the mysteries of faith only so far as they are carried into the
forms of Art) that these symbols of the Four Evangelists were in their
combination held to be symbolical of the Redeemer, in the fourfold
character then universally assigned to him, as man, as king, as
high-priest, and as God; according to this Latin verse:
Quatuor hæc Dominum signant animalia Christum:
Est _Homo_ nascendo, _vitulus_ que sacer moriendo,
Et _Leo_ surgendo, cœlos _aquila_ que petendo;
Nec minus hos scribas animalia et ipsa figurant.
This would again alter the received order of the symbols, and place the
angelic or human semblance lower than the rest: but I have never seen
them so placed, at least I can recollect no instance.
A Greek mosaic, existing in the Convent of Vatopedi, on Mount Athos,
exhibits an attempt to reduce to form the wild and sublime imagery
of the prophet Ezekiel: the Evangelists, or rather the Gospels, are
represented as the tetramorph, or four-faced creature, with wings full
of eyes, and borne on wheels of living flame (49).
The Tetramorph, i.e. the union of the four attributes of the
Evangelists, in one figure, is in Greek Art always angelic or winged—a
mysterious thing. The Tetramorph in Western Art has in some instances
become monstrous, instead of mystic and poetical. In a miniature of the
_Hortus Deliciarum_, we find the new Law, or Christianity, represented
as a woman crowned and seated on an animal which, with the body of a
horse, has the four heads of the mystic creatures; and of the four
feet, one is human; one hoofed, for the ox; one clawed like an eagle’s;
and one like a lion’s: underneath is inscribed _Animal Ecclesiæ_.
In some other examples, the Church, or the new Law, is seated in a
triumphal car drawn by the eagle, the lion, and the ox, while the angel
holds the reins and drives as charioteer.
[Illustration: 49 Tetramorph]
The early images of the Evangelical symbol are uniformly represented
with wings, for the same reason that wings were given to the
angels,—they were angels, i.e. bringers of good tidings: for instance,
in the earliest example to which I can refer, a rude fragment of a
bas-relief in terracotta, found in the catacombs, which represents
a lamb with a glory holding a cross; on the right, an angel in a
sacerdotal garment (St. Matthew), on the left the winged ox (St. Luke),
each holding a book.
[Illustration: 50 St. Luke (Mosaic, A.D. 750)]
[Illustration: 51 St. Luke (Mosaic, fifth century)]
In the most ancient Christian churches we find these symbols
perpetually recurring, generally in or over the recess at the east end
(the apsis, or tribune), where stands the altar. And as the image of
Christ, as the Redeemer, either under the semblance of the lamb, or in
his human likeness, as a grand, calm, solemn figure enthroned, and in
the act of benediction, forms invariably the principal object; almost
as invariably the Evangelists are either at the four corners, or
ranged in a line above or below, or they are over the arch in front of
the tribune. Sometimes they are the heads only of the mystic creatures,
on an azure ground, studded with stars, floating as in a firmament,
thus (50): or the half figure ends in a leafy scroll, like the genii
in an arabesque, as thus (51): or the creature is given at full length
and entire, with four wings, holding the book, and looking much like a
figure in heraldry (52, 53).
[Illustration: 52 St. John (Mosaic, eleventh century)]
[Illustration: 53 St. Mark (Mosaic)]
The next step was the combination of the emblem with the human form,
i.e. the head of the lion, ox, or eagle, set upon the figure of a
man. Here is a figure of St. John standing with the head of an eagle,
holding the gospel (54). There is another rudely engraved in Münter’s
work, with the eagle’s head, wings upon the shoulders, and a scroll. I
remember another of St. John seated, writing, with the head and clawed
feet of an eagle, and the body and hands of a man. Such figures as a
series I have seen in ornaments, and frequently in illuminated MSS.,
but seldom in churches, and never of a large size. A very striking
and comparatively modern example of this peculiar treatment occurs
in a bas-relief on the door of the College of St. Stephen and St.
Lawrence, at Castiglione, in which the Four Evangelists are represented
as half-length human figures, amply draped and holding the gospels,
each with the emblematic head and large outspread wings (55). The
bronze bas-reliefs of the Evangelists on each side of the choir of
St. Antonio, at Padua, are similar in form, and very fine, both in
conception and workmanship.
[Illustration: 54 St. John]
This series of full-length figures is from the first compartment of
the Life of Christ by Angelico da Fiesole.[102] In the original the
figures stand round a mystic circle, alternately with the prophets
(56). We must remember, that however monstrous and grotesque such
figures may appear to the eye, they are not more unnatural than the
angelic representations with which we are so familiar that we see in
them beauty only—not considering that men with the wings of birds are
as merely emblematical and impossible as men with animal heads. It is
interesting, and leads the mind to many speculations, to remark that
the Babylonish captivity must have familiarised the Israelites with
the combination of the human and animal attributes in the same figure.
The gigantic bas-reliefs from Nineveh show us winged bulls with human
heads, and the human form with the eagle’s head and wings. This figure,
for example, (57) is not unlike some early figures of St. John, if we
substitute the book and the pen for the basket and the pine-cone.
[Illustration: 55 St. Mark]
[Illustration: 56]
[Illustration: 57 From Nineveh]
In a few later examples the only symbolical attribute retained is
a pair of wings. The next figure (58) is from a curious set of
Evangelists, of a minute size, and exquisitely engraved by Hans Beham:
they are habited in the old German fashion; each has his book, his
emblem, and in addition the expressive wings.
[Illustration: 58]
These animal symbols, whether alone or in combination with the human
forms, were perfectly intelligible to the people, sanctified in their
eyes by tradition, by custom, and by the most solemn associations.
All direct imitation of nature was, by the best painters, carefully
avoided. In this respect how fine is Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel! how
sublime and how true in feeling and conception! where the Messiah comes
floating along, upborne by the Four Creatures—mysterious, spiritual,
wonderful beings, animals in form, but in all else unearthly, and
the winged ox not less divine than the winged angel![103] Whereas in
the later times, when the artist piqued himself upon the imitation
of nature, the mystic and venerable significance was wholly lost. As
a striking instance of this mistaken style of treatment, we may turn
to the famous group of the Four Evangelists by Rubens,[104] grand,
colossal, standing or rather moving figures, each with his emblem,
if emblems they can be called which are almost as full of reality as
nature itself:—the ox so like life, we expect him to bellow at us; the
magnificent lion flourishing his tail, and looking at St. Mark as if
about to roar at him!—and herein lies the mistake of the great painter,
that, for the religious and mysterious emblem, he has substituted the
creatures themselves: this being one of the instances, not unfrequent
in Art, in which the literal truth becomes a manifest falsehood.
In ecclesiastical decoration the Four Evangelists are sometimes grouped
significantly with the Four Greater Prophets; thus representing the
connexion between the new and the old Law. I met with a curious
instance in the Cathedral of Chartres. The five great windows over
the south door may be said to contain a succinct system of theology,
according to the belief of the thirteenth century: here the Virgin,
i.e. the Church or Religion, occupies the central window; on one side
is Jeremiah, carrying on his shoulders St. Luke, and Isaiah carrying
St. Matthew; on the other side, Ezekiel bears St. John, and Daniel St.
Mark; thus representing the New Testament resting on the Old.
In ecclesiastical decoration, and particularly in the stained glass,
they are often found in combination with the Four Doctors, the
Evangelists being considered as witnesses, the Doctors as interpreters,
of the truth: or as a series with the Four Greater Prophets, the Four
Sibyls, and the Four Doctors of the Church, the Evangelists taking the
third place.
If, as late as the sixteenth century, we find the Evangelists still
expressed by the mystic emblems (as in the fine bronzes in the choir
of Sant’ Antonio at Padua), as early as the sixth we have in the Greek
MSS. and mosaics the Evangelists as venerable men, and promulgators
of a revelation; as in San Vitale at Ravenna (A.D. 547): on each side
of the choir, nearest the altar, we find the prophets Isaiah and
Jeremiah; then follow the Evangelists, two on each side, all alike,
all classically draped in white tunics, each holding an open book, on
which is inscribed ‘Secundum Marcum,’ ‘Secundum Johannem,’ &c.; and
above each the animal symbol or attribute, large, full length, and
grandly designed. In modern ecclesiastical decoration, the usual and
appropriate situation of the Four Evangelists is immediately under the
dome, nearest to the Saviour after the angels, or after the prophets,
where either are introduced. I will mention here a few examples
celebrated in the history of Art; premising that among the works of
Leonardo, of Michael Angelo, and Raphael, we find no representations of
the Four Evangelists; which is singular, considering that such figures
entered necessarily into every scheme of theological decorative art.
By Cimabue (A.D. 1270), larger than life, on the vault of the choir in
San Francesco d’Assisi.
By Giotto (A.D. 1320), in the choir of Sant’ Apollinare, at Ravenna;
seated, and each accompanied by one of the doctors of the Church.
By Angelico (A.D. 1390), round the dome of the chapel of San Niccolò,
in the Vatican; all seated, each with his emblem.
By Masaccio (A.D. 1420), round the dome of the chapel of the Passion in
San Clemente, at Rome; admirable for simple grandeur.
By Perugino (A.D. 1490), on the dome of the chapel del Cambio, at
Perugia; the heads admirable.
By Correggio (A.D. 1520), immediately under the cupola of San Giovanni,
in four lunettes, magnificent figures: and again in the Cathedral of
Parma, each seated in glory, with one of the doctors of the Church.
By Domenichino, two sets (A.D. 1620). Those in the church of St. Andrea
della Valle, at Rome, are considered his finest works, and celebrated
in the history of Art: they are grand figures. The emblematical animals
are here combined with the personages in a manner the most studied and
picturesque; and the angels which sport around them, playing with the
mane of St. Mark’s lion, or the pallet and pencils of St. Luke, are
like beautiful ‘Amoretti,’—but we hardly think of angels. The series at
Grotta-Ferrata is inferior.
The Four Evangelists by Valentin (A.D. 1632), in the Louvre, had once
great celebrity, and have been often engraved; they appear to me signal
examples of all that should be avoided in character and sentiment. St.
Matthew, for example, is an old beggar; the model for the attendant
angel is a little French _gamin_, ‘à qui Valentin a commandé de sortir
un bras de la manche de sa chemise, que de l’autre main il soutient
gauchement.’
Le Sueur (A.D. 1655) has represented the Four Evangelists seated at a
table writing; the Holy Ghost descends upon them in the form of a dove.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, we find sets of the
Evangelists in which the emblems are altogether omitted, and the
personages distinguished by their situation, or by their names
inscribed under or over them: but we miss those antique scriptural
attributes which placed them before us as beings foreshadowed in the
prophecies uttered of old; they have become mere men.
* * * * *
This must suffice for the Evangelists considered as a series and in
their collective character; but it will be interesting to pause for a
moment, and take a rapid retrospective view of the progress, from first
to last, in the expression of an idea through form.
First, we have the mere _fact_; the four scrolls, or the four books.
Next, the _idea_; the four rivers of salvation flowing from on high, to
fertilise the whole earth.
Thirdly, the _prophetic_ Symbol; the winged cherub of fourfold aspect.
Next, the _Christian_ Symbol; the four ‘beasts’ in the Apocalypse, with
or without the angel-wings.
Then the combination of the _emblematical animal_ with the _human_ form.
Then the _human_ personages, each of venerable or inspired aspect, as
becomes the teacher and witness; and each attended by the scriptural
emblem—no longer an emblem, but an attribute—marking his individual
vocation and character.
And, lastly, the emblem and attribute both discarded, we have the human
being only, holding his gospel, i.e. _his_ version of the doctrine of
Christ.
ST. MATTHEW.
_Lat._ S. Mattheus. _Ital._ San Matteo. _Fr._ Saint Matthieu. _Ger._
St. Matthäus. (Sept. 21.)
St. Matthew among the Apostles takes the seventh or eighth place, but
as an Evangelist he always stands first, because his gospel was the
earliest written. Very little is certainly known concerning him, his
name occurring but once in his own gospel, and in the other gospels
only incidentally with reference to two events.
He was a Hebrew by birth; by profession a publican, or tax-gatherer, in
the service of the Romans—an office very lucrative, but particularly
odious in the sight of his countrymen. His original name was Levi. It
is recorded in few words, that as he sat at the receipt of custom by
the lake of Gennesareth, Jesus in passing by saw him, and said unto
him, ‘Follow me,’ and he left all and followed him; and farther, that
he made a feast in his house, at which many publicans and sinners sat
down with the Lord and his disciples, to the great astonishment and
scandal of the Jews. So far the sacred record: the traditional and
legendary history of St. Matthew is equally scanty. It is related in
the _Perfetto Legendario_ that after the dispersion of the apostles
he travelled into Egypt and Ethiopia, preaching the Gospel; and
having arrived in the capital of Ethiopia, he lodged in the house of
the eunuch who had been baptized by Philip, and who entertained him
with great honour. There were two terrible magicians at that time in
Ethiopia, who by their diabolical spells and incantations kept all the
people in subjection, afflicting them at the same time with strange and
terrible diseases; but St. Matthew overcame them, and having baptized
the people, they were delivered for ever from the malignant influence
of these enchanters. And further, it is related that St. Matthew raised
the son of the King of Egypt from the dead, and healed his daughter of
the leprosy. The princess, whose name was Iphigenia, he placed at the
head of a community of virgins dedicated to the service of God; and a
certain wicked heathen king, having threatened to tear her from her
asylum, was struck by leprosy, and his palace destroyed by fire. St.
Matthew remained twenty-three years in Egypt and Ethiopia, and it is
said that he perished in the ninetieth year of our era, under Domitian:
but the manner of his death is uncertain; according to the Greek
legend, he died in peace, but according to the tradition of the Western
Church, he suffered martyrdom either by the sword or the spear.
[Illustration: 59 St. Matthew]
Few churches are dedicated to St. Matthew. I am not aware that he is
the patron saint of any country, trade, or profession, unless it be
that of tax-gatherer or exciseman; and this is perhaps the reason
that, except where he figures as one of the series of evangelists or
apostles, he is so seldom represented alone, or in devotional pictures.
In a large altar-piece, the ‘San Matteo’ of Annibal Caracci,[105] he
is standing before the throne of the Madonna, as a pendant to John
the Baptist, and gives his name to the picture: but such examples are
uncommon. When he is portrayed as an evangelist, he holds a book or a
pen; and the angel, his proper attribute and attendant, stands by,
pointing up to heaven, or dictating; or he holds the inkhorn, or he
supports the book. In his character of apostle, St. Matthew frequently
holds a purse or money-bag, as significant of his former vocation (56).
Neither are pictures from his life of frequent occurrence. The
principal incident, entitled the ‘Calling of Matthew,’ has been
occasionally, but not often, treated in painting. The _motif_ is simple
and not easily mistaken. St. Matthew is seated at a kind of desk with
money before him; various personages bring tribute; on one side is
seen Christ, with one or two of his disciples, generally Peter and
Andrew; St. Matthew is either looking towards him with an expression of
awe-struck attention, or he is rising from his seat, as in the act to
follow: the mere accessories and number of the personages vary with the
period of the composition and the taste of the painter.
1. The earliest instance I can cite, probably the oldest which has come
down to us, is in a Greek MS. of the ninth century.[106] St. Matthew
sits with both hands on a heap of gold, lying on a table before him: he
looks round at Christ, who is a little behind.
2. St. Matthew is about to rise to follow the Saviour; by Matte di Ser
Cambio of Perugia, who has represented his patron saint in a small
composition.[107]
3. In the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, there is a very curious
and interesting picture of this subject, by Mabuse, which once belonged
to King Charles I., and is quaintly described in the old catalogue of
his pictures ‘as a very old, defaced, curious altar-piece, upon a thick
board, where Christ is calling St. Matthew out of the custom-house;
which picture was got in Queen Elizabeth’s days, in the taking of Calus
Malus (Cadiz), in Spain. Painted upon a board in a gilded arched frame,
like an altar-piece; containing ten big figures, less than half so big
as the life, and some twenty-two afar off less figures. Given to the
King.’ In the foreground there is a rich architectural porch, from
which St. Matthew is issuing in haste, leaving his money-bags behind;
and in the background is seen the lake of Gennesareth and shipping.
This picture was among the booty taken in Essex’s expedition against
Cadiz in 1596, and probably stolen from some church.
4. In the Vienna Gallery I found three pictures of the same subject,
all by Hemessen, very quaint and curious.
5. At Dresden the same subject in the Venetian style by Pordenone.
6. By Ludovico Caracci, a grand scenic picture, painted for the
Mendicanti in Bologna.
7. In a chapel of the church of San Luigi de’ Francesi, at Rome,
there are three pictures by Caravaggio from the life of St. Matthew.
Over the altar is the saint writing his gospel; he looks up at the
attendant angel, who is behind with outspread wings, and in the act
of dictating. On the left is the calling of St. Matthew; the saint,
who has been counting money, rises with one hand on his breast, and
turns to follow the Saviour: an old man, with spectacles on his nose,
examines with curiosity the personage whose summons has had such a
miraculous effect: a boy is slyly appropriating the money which the
apostle has thrown down. The third picture is the martyrdom of the
saint, who, in the sacerdotal habit, lies extended on a block, while a
half-naked executioner raises the sword, and several spectators shrink
back with horror. There is nothing dignified or poetical in these
representations; and though painted with all that power of effect which
characterised Caravaggio, then at the height of his reputation, they
have also his coarseness of feeling and execution: the priests were
(not without reason) dissatisfied; and it required all the influence
of his patron, Cardinal Giustiniani, to induce them to retain the
pictures in the church where we now see them;—here we sympathise with
the priests, rather than with the artist and his patron.
The Feast which St. Matthew made for our Saviour and his disciples is
the subject of one of Paul Veronese’s gorgeous banquet scenes; that
which he painted for the refectory of the Convent of St. John and St.
Paul at Venice. It is now in the Academy, filling up the end wall of
one of the great rooms from side to side, and seeming to let in light
and air through the lofty marble porticoes, which give us such a
magnificent idea of the splendour which surrounded Levi before he left
all to follow Jesus.
In all the representations of the death of St. Matthew, except those of
the Greek or Byzantine school, he dies by the sword. The Greek artists
uniformly exhibit him as dying in peace, while an angel swings the
censer beside his bed: as on the ancient doors of San Paolo at Rome.
Pictures from the legendary life of St. Matthew are very rare. The
most remarkable are the frescoes in the chapel of San Matteo at
Ravenna, attributed to Giotto. They are so much ruined, that, of the
eight subjects represented, only three—his vocation, his preaching and
healing the sick in Ethiopia, and the baptism of the king and queen—can
be made out. In the Bedford missal at Paris I found a miniature,
representing St. Matthew ‘healing the son and daughter of King Egyptus
of the leprosy;’ but, as a subject of art, he is not popular.
ST. MARK.
_Lat._ S. Marcus. _Ital._ San Marco Evangelista. _Fr._ St. Marc.
_Ger._ Der Heilige Marcus. (April 25. A.D. 68.)
St. Mark the Evangelist was not one of the twelve Apostles: his
conversion apparently took place after the ascension. He was the
companion and assistant of Paul and Barnabas, with whom he preached the
Gospel among the Gentiles. According to the traditions received in the
Roman Church, he was converted by St. Peter, and became his favourite
disciple; attended him first to Aquileia, where they converted and
baptized the people on the shores of the Adriatic, and thence to Rome.
While there he wrote his gospel for the use of the Roman converts,—some
say from the dictation of the apostle. He afterwards, by command of St.
Peter, went to preach the Gospel in Egypt; and after preaching in Lybia
and Thebais for twelve years, he founded the church of Alexandria,
subsequently one of the most celebrated of all the early Christian
churches. The ire of the heathen being stirred up against him because
of his miracles, they reviled him as a magician, and, during the feast
of their god Serapis, seized him while in the act of worship, bound
him, and dragged him along the streets and highways, and over stony and
rocky places, till he perished miserably; at the same time a dreadful
tempest of hail and lightning fell upon his murderers, by which they
were dispersed and destroyed. The Christians of Alexandria buried his
mangled remains, and his sepulchre was regarded with great reverence
for several centuries. About 815 A.D., some Venetian merchants trading
to Alexandria carried off the relics (literally stole them,—‘_convey_
the wise it call!’), and they were deposited in the city of Venice,
where the stately church of St. Mark was built over them. Since that
time, St. Mark has been honoured as the patron saint of Venice, and
his legendary history has supplied the Venetian painters with many
beautiful and picturesque subjects.
When St. Mark is represented as one of the four Evangelists, either
singly or grouped with the others, he is almost invariably accompanied
by the lion, winged or unwinged, but generally winged,—which
distinguishes him from St. Jerome, who is also accompanied by the lion,
but unwinged, as we shall see hereafter.
In devotional representations, St. Mark often wears the habit of
bishop, as first bishop of Alexandria. He is thus represented in the
colossal mosaic over the principal door of St. Mark’s at Venice[108] in
the pontificals of a Greek bishop, no mitre, short grey hair and beard;
one hand raised in benediction, the other holding the gospel.
Of the innumerable pictures in which St. Mark figures as patron of
Venice, I can afford to give a few examples only.
1. A. Busati. He is seated on a throne; an open book in one hand,
bearing inscribed the Venetian motto (‘_la Leggenda de’ Veneti_‘) PAX
TIBI, MARCE, EVANGELISTA MEUS; the other hand blessing: behind him a
fig-tree, with leaves and no fruit; probably in allusion to the text,
ch. xi. 13, which is peculiar to St. Mark. On his right stands St.
Andrew bearing a cross; on the left St. Bernardino of Siena; behind him
the apple-tree which ‘brought death into the world and all our woe.’
This votive picture, from its mystical accessories and the introduction
of St. Bernardino, was probably painted for the Franciscans (_i Frari_)
of Venice: it is now in the Academy there.
2. St. Mark on a lofty throne holds his gospel in his hand; at his feet
the four saints who are protectors against sickness and pestilence, St.
Sebastian, St. Roch, St. Cosmo, and St. Damian: a splendid picture,
in Titian’s early manner.[109] 3. St. Mark plants the standard of
Venice, by Bonifazio. And 4. ‘San Marco che assista all’ coscrizione
maritima;’ (i.e. the enlisting of the mariners for the service of the
State) by G. del Moro, both curious instances of the manner in which
the Venetians mixed up their patron saint with all their political and
military transactions. 5. St. Mark presents the Doge Leonardo Dona to
the Virgin; the most remarkable of a numerous class of votive pictures
common in the Venetian school, in which St. Mark introduces either the
Doge or some general or magnifico to the Virgin.[110]
Among the devotional pictures of St. Mark, one of the most famous is
that of Fra Bartolomeo, in the Palazzo Pitti. He is represented as a
man in the prime of life, with bushy hair and a short reddish beard,
throned in a niche, and holding in one hand the gospel, in the other a
pen; the lion is omitted. The Frate painted this picture for his own
convent of San Marco at Florence. It is much lauded and celebrated,
but the attitude appeared to me rather forced, and the features rather
commonplace.
The legend which describes St. Mark as the disciple and amanuensis
of St. Peter, has given occasion for those votive pictures in which
they are represented together. 1. In the treasury of St. Mark’s is
preserved a golden reliquary of a square form, containing, it is said,
a fragment of the original gospel in the handwriting of St. Mark; the
chased cover represents St. Peter on a throne, and before him kneels
the evangelist, writing from his dictation.[111] 2. And again, in an
ancient Greek Evangelarium, St. Mark is seated, writing; St. Peter
stands before him with his hand raised as dictating. 3. In a beautiful
picture by Angelico da Fiesole,[112] St. Peter is in a pulpit preaching
to the Romans; and Mark, seated, is taking down his words in a book.
4. St. Peter and St. Mark standing together, the former holding a
book, the latter a pen, with an inkhorn suspended from his girdle, by
Bellini;[113] and, 5, a similar one by Bonvicino—very beautiful.[114]
Such pictures are extremely interesting, showing the opinion generally
entertained of the origin of St. Mark’s Gospel.
Historical pictures from the legendary life of St. Mark abound in the
Venetian school, but are not often found out of Venice.
St. Mark preaching the Gospel at Alexandria, by Gentil Bellini,[115]
a very large composition with numerous figures, is on many accounts
extremely curious. The painter, who had been at Constantinople,
transferred to Alexandria the Oriental scenery and costume with which
he had become acquainted. The church of St. Euphemia at Alexandria, in
the background, has the air of a Turkish mosque; a crowd of persons,
men and women, in the costume of the Turks, surround the saint, who is
standing on a kind of pedestal or platform, ascended by a flight of
steps, from which he addresses his audience with great fervour. Gentil
Bellini painted this picture for the Scuola di San Marco, at Venice.
It is related that one day St. Mark, in his progress through the city
of Alexandria, saw a poor cobbler, who had wounded his hand severely
with his awl, so as to be incapacitated from gaining his bread: St.
Mark healed the wound; and the cobbler, whose name was Anianus, being
converted and properly instructed, became a zealous Christian, and
succeeded St. Mark as bishop of Alexandria. This miraculous cure of St.
Anianus, and his subsequent baptism, are represented in two pictures
by Mansueti.[116] In the Berlin Gallery is the cure of St. Anianus, by
Cima da Conegliano; a large composition with many figures. The cure
and baptism of St. Anianus, represented as a very aged man, form the
subjects of two fine bas-reliefs on the façade of the School of St.
Mark, by Tullio Lombardo, A.D. 1502.
In the Martyrdom of St. Mark, he is dragged through the streets by the
enraged populace, who haul him along by a rope; a storm from above
overwhelms the idolaters. The subject is thus represented by Angelico
da Fiesole.[117]
* * * * *
A famous legend of St. Mark, which has been the subject of several
pictures, can only be worthily given in the language of the old
Venetian chronicle: there is something perfectly charming in the
picturesque naïveté and matter-of-fact detail with which this wild and
wonderful story is related; and if you, reader, have ever stood on the
steps of the Piazzetta and looked over to San Giorgio, or San Niccolò,
when the waves of the Lagune were foaming and driving up to your feet,
and storm-clouds stooping and lowering seemed to touch the very domes
and campanile around, then you will have the whole scene as a reality
before you.
‘On the 25th of February, 1340, there fell out a wonderful thing in
this land; for during three days the waters rose continually, and in
the night there was fearful rain and tempest, such as had never been
heard of. So great was the storm that the waters rose three cubits
higher than had ever been known in Venice; and an old fisherman being
in his little boat in the canal of St. Mark, reached with difficulty
the Riva di San Marco, and there he fastened his boat, and waited the
ceasing of the storm. And it is related that, at the time this storm
was at the highest, there came an unknown man, and besought him that he
would row him over to San Giorgio Maggiore, promising to pay him well;
and the fisherman replied, “How is it possible to go to San Giorgio?
we shall sink by the way!” But the man only besought him the more that
he should set forth. So, seeing that it was the will of God, he arose
and rowed over to San Giorgio Maggiore; and the man landed there, and
desired the boatman to wait. In a short while he returned with a young
man; and they said, “Now row towards San Niccolò di Lido.” And the
fisherman said, “How can one possibly go so far with one oar?” And they
said, “Row boldly, for it shall be possible to thee, and thou shalt
be well paid.” And he went; and it appeared to him as if the waters
were smooth. Being arrived at San Niccolò di Lido, the two men landed,
and returned with a third, and, having entered into the boat, they
commanded the fisherman that he should row beyond the two castles. And
the tempest raged continually. Being come to the open sea, they beheld
approaching, with such terrific speed that it appeared to fly over the
waters, an enormous galley full of demons (as it is written in the
Chronicles, and Marco Sabellino also makes mention of this miracle):
the said bark approached the castles to overwhelm Venice, and to
destroy it utterly; anon the sea, which had hitherto been tumultuous,
became calm; and these three men, having made the sign of the cross,
exorcised the demons, and commanded them to depart, and immediately
the galley or the ship vanished. Then these three men commanded the
fisherman to land them, the one at San Niccolò di Lido, the other at
San Giorgio Maggiore, and the third at San Marco. And when he had
landed the third, the fisherman, notwithstanding the miracle he had
witnessed, desired that he would pay him; and he replied, “Thou art
right; go now to the Doge, and to the Procuratore of St. Mark, and tell
them what thou hast seen, for Venice would have been overwhelmed had it
not been for us three. I am St. Mark the evangelist, the protector of
this city; the other is the brave knight St. George; and he whom thou
didst take up at the Lido is the holy bishop St. Nicholas. Say to the
Doge and to the Procuratori[118] that they are to pay you; and tell
them likewise that this tempest arose because of a certain schoolmaster
dwelling at San Felice, who did sell his soul to the devil, and
afterwards hanged himself.” And the fisherman replied, “If I should
tell them this, they will not believe me.” Then St. Mark took off a
ring which was on his finger, which ring was worth five ducats; and he
said, “Show them this, and tell them when they look in the sanctuary
they will not find it:” and thereupon he disappeared. The next morning,
the said fisherman presented himself before the Doge and related all he
had seen the night before, and showed him the ring for a sign. And the
Procuratori having sent for the ring, and sought in the usual place,
found it not; by reason of which miracle the fisherman was paid, and a
solemn procession was ordained, giving thanks to God, and to the relics
of the three holy saints, who rest in our land, and who delivered us
from this great danger. The ring was given to Signor Marco Loredano
and to Signor Andrea Dandolo the Procuratori, who placed it in the
sanctuary; and, moreover, a perpetual provision was made for the aged
fisherman above mentioned.’[119]
This legend is the subject of two celebrated pictures:—The first,
attributed to Giorgione,[120] represents the storm. A ship, manned by
demons, is seen towering over the waves: the demons appear to be seized
with consternation; some fling themselves headlong over the side of
their vessel, others are clinging to the rigging, others sit on the
masts which flame with fire, and the glare is seen over the murky sky
and sea. More in front are two barks, one rowed by four satyr-like
demons, splendid figures admirably painted, literally glowing as if
they were red-hot, and full of fierce animation. In the other bark
are seen the three saints, St. Mark, St. Nicholas, and St. George,
rowed by the fisherman; sea-monsters are sporting amid the waves,
demons bestride them; the city of Venice is just visible in the far-off
distance. The whole picture is full of vigour and poetic feeling; the
fiery glow of colour and the romantic style of Giorgione suited the
subject; and it has been admirably restored.
The second picture is by Paris Bordone,[121] and represents the
fisherman presenting the miraculous ring of St. Mark to the Doge
Gradenigo. It is like a grand piece of scenic decoration: we have
before us a magnificent marble hall, with columns and buildings in
perspective; to the right, on the summit of a flight of steps, sits
the Doge in council; the poor fisherman, ascending the steps, holds
forth the ring. The numerous figures, the vivid colour, the luxuriant
architecture, remind us of Paul Veronese, with, however, more delicacy,
both in colour and execution.
* * * * *
A Christian slave, in the service of a certain nobleman of Provence,
disobeyed the commands of his lord, and persisted in paying his
devotions at the shrine of St. Mark, which was at some distance. On his
return home, he was condemned to the torture. As it was about to be
inflicted, the saint himself descended from heaven to aid his votary;
the instruments of torture were broken or blunted, the oppressor and
his executioners confounded. This legend is the subject of a celebrated
picture by Tintoretto,[122] of which Mr. Rogers had the original
sketch. The slave lies on the ground amid a crowd of spectators, who
look on, animated by all the various emotions of sympathy, rage,
terror; a woman in front, with a child in her arms, has always been
admired for the life-like vivacity of her attitude and expression.
The executioner holds up the broken implements; St. Mark, with a
headlong movement, seems to rush down from heaven in haste to save his
worshipper; the dramatic grouping in this picture is wonderful; the
colouring, in its gorgeous depth and harmony, is in Mr. Rogers’s sketch
finer than in the picture.
* * * * *
In St. Mark’s, at Venice, we find the whole history of St. Mark on the
vault of the Cappella Zen (opening from the Baptistery), in a series
of very curious mosaics of the twelfth century. The translation of the
body of St. Mark; the carrying off the relics from Alexandria; their
arrival in Venice; the grand religious ceremonies which took place on
their arrival; are also represented in the mosaics over the portico
of St. Mark’s, executed chiefly between 1650 and 1680. We have the
same legend in two compositions of Tintoretto:[123] in the first, the
remains of St. Mark are taken forcibly from the tomb by the Venetian
mariners; in the other, they are borne away to sea in a night-storm,
while in the air is seen hovering a bright transparent form,—the soul
of the saint flitting with his body to Venice.
ST. LUKE.
_Lat._ Sanctus Luca. _Ital._ San Luca. _Fr._ Saint Luc. (Oct. 18.)
Of the real history of St. Luke we know very little. He was not an
apostle; and, like St. Mark, appears to have been converted after the
ascension. He was a beloved disciple of St. Paul, whom he accompanied
to Rome, and remained with his master and teacher till the last. It
is related, that, after the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, he
preached the Gospel in Greece and Egypt; but whether he died a natural
death, or suffered martyrdom, does not seem clear. The Greek traditions
represent him as dying in peace, and his death was thus figured on the
ancient doors of San Paolo at Rome. Others affirm that he was crucified
at Patras with St. Andrew.
There is some ground for the supposition that Luke was a physician.
(Col. iv. 14.) But the pretty legend which makes him a painter,
and represents him as painting the portrait of the Virgin Mary, is
unsupported by any of the earlier traditions. It is of Greek origin,
still universally received by the Greek Church, which considers
painting a religious art, and numbers in its calendar of saints a long
list of painters, as well as poets, musicians, and physicians. ‘Les
Grecs,’ says Didron, ‘semblent avoir canonisé des chrétiens uniquement
parce qu’ils s’occupaient de soulager le corps ou de charmer l’esprit.’
In the west of Europe, the legend which represents St. Luke as a
painter can be traced no higher than the tenth century; the Greek
painters introduced it; and a rude drawing of the Virgin discovered
in the catacombs, with an inscription purporting that it was ‘one of
seven painted by Luca,’ confirmed the popular belief that St. Luke
the evangelist was meant. Thus originated the fame of innumerable
Virgins of peculiar sanctity, all attributed to his hand, and regarded
with extreme veneration. Such ancient pictures are generally of Greek
workmanship, and of a black complexion.[124] In the legend of St. Luke
we are assured that he carried with him everywhere two portraits,
painted by himself; one of our Saviour, and one of the Virgin; and
that by means of these he converted many of the heathen, for not only
did they perform great miracles, but all who looked on these bright
and benign faces, which bore a striking resemblance to each other,
were moved to admiration and devotion. It is also said, that St. Luke
painted many portraits of the Virgin, delighting himself by repeating
this gracious image; and in the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata, at
Rome, they still show a little chapel in which, ‘as it hath been handed
down from the first ages, St. Luke the Evangelist wrote, and painted
the effigy of the Virgin-Mother of God.’
On the strength of this tradition, St. Luke has been chosen as the
patron saint of painters. Academies of art are placed under his
particular protection; their chapels are dedicated to him, and over the
altar we see him in his charming and pious avocation, that of painting
portraits of the Blessed Virgin for the consolation of the faithful.
The devotional figures of St. Luke, in his character of evangelist,
represent him in general with his gospel and his attendant ox, winged
or unwinged, as already described; but in Greek Art, and in those
schools of Art which have been particularly under the Byzantine
influence (as the early Venetian), we see St. Luke as evangelist young
and beardless, holding the portrait of the Virgin as his attribute
in one hand, and his gospel in the other. A beautiful figure of St.
Luke as evangelist and painter is in the famous ‘Heures d’Anne de
Bretagne.’[125]
In an engraving by Lucas v. Leyden, executed as it should seem in
honour of his patron saint, St. Luke is seated on the back of his ox,
writing the gospel; he wears a hood like an old professor, rests his
book against the horns of the animal, and his inkstand is suspended on
the bough of a tree. But separate devotional figures of him as patron
are as rare as those of St. Matthew.
St. Luke painting the Virgin has been a frequent and favourite subject.
The most famous of all is a picture in the Academy of St. Luke, at
Rome, ascribed to Raphael. Here St. Luke, kneeling on a footstool
before an easel, is busied painting the Virgin with the Child in her
arms, who appears to him out of heaven sustained by clouds: behind St.
Luke stands Raphael himself, looking on. Another of the same subject, a
very small and beautiful picture, also ascribed to Raphael, is in the
Grosvenor Gallery. In neither of these pictures is the treatment quite
worthy of that great painter, wanting his delicacy both of sentiment
and execution. There is a most curious and quaint example in the Munich
Gallery, attributed to Van Eyck: here the Virgin, seated under a rich
Gothic canopy, holds on her lap the Infant Christ, in a most stiff
attitude; St. Luke, kneeling on one knee, is taking her likeness. There
is another, similar in style, by Aldegraef, in the Vienna Gallery.
Carlo Maratti represents St. Luke as presenting to the Virgin the
picture he has painted of her. St. Luke painting the Madonna and Child,
while an angel is grinding his colours, I remember in the Aguado
Gallery; a late Spanish picture.[126]
[Illustration: _St. Mark attended by St. Gregory._]
[Illustration: _St. Luke painting the Virgin._]
ST. JOHN.
_Lat._ Sanctus Johannes. _Gr._ St. John Theologos, or the Divine.
_Ital._ San Giovanni Evangelista. _Fr._ Saint Jean; Messire Saint
Jehan. _Ger._ Der Heilige Johann. (Dec. 27, A.D. 99.)
Of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, so little is certainly known,
that we have no data on which to found an individual portrait;
therefore any representation of them as venerable and inspired teachers
suffices to the fancy: but it is quite otherwise with St. John, the
most distinguished of the evangelists, and the most beloved of the
disciples of our Lord. Of him sufficient is known to convey a distinct
impression of his personal character, and an idea of what his personal
appearance may have been, supposing this outward semblance to have
harmonised with the inward being.
He was the son of the fisherman Zebedee, and, with his brother James,
among the first followers of the Saviour. He is emphatically called
‘the disciple whom Jesus loved;’ a preference which he merited, not
only from the extreme purity of his life and character, but from
his devoted and affectionate nature. He appears to have been at all
times the constant companion of his divine Lord; and his life, while
the Saviour was on earth, inseparable from His. In all the memorable
circumstances recorded in the Gospel he was a party, or at least
present. He witnessed the glory of the transfiguration; he leaned
on the bosom of Jesus at the last supper; he stood by the cross in
the hour of agony; he laid the body of his crucified Master in the
sepulchre. After the death of the Virgin Mother, who had been confided
to his care, he went about Judæa, preaching the Gospel with St. Peter.
He then travelled into Asia Minor, where he founded the Seven Churches,
and resided principally at Ephesus. During the persecution of the
Christians under Domitian, St. John was sent in fetters to Rome; and,
according to a tradition generally received in the Roman Church, he was
cast into a cauldron of boiling oil, but was miraculously preserved,
and ‘came out of it as out of a refreshing bath.’ He was then accused
of magic, and exiled to the island of Patmos, in the Ægean Sea,
where he is said to have written his Revelation. After the death of
the Emperor Domitian he was released, and returned to his church at
Ephesus; and for the use of the Christians there he is said to have
written his gospel, at the age of ninety. A few years afterwards he
died in that city, being nearly a century old. All the incidents here
touched upon occur frequently as subjects of art, but most of them
belong properly to the life of Christ.
* * * * *
The personal character of St. John, at once attractive and picturesque,
has rendered him popular as a patron saint, and devotional pictures of
him are far more numerous than of any of the other evangelists.
He is represented in one of his three characters: 1, as evangelist; 2,
as apostle; 3, as prophet; or the three are combined in one figure.
1. Of the early eagle symbol, I have spoken at length.
In Greek Art, whether as apostle or evangelist, St. John is always
an aged man with white hair, and a venerable beard descending to
his breast; and by the earlier Latin painters, where he figures as
evangelist only, not as apostle, this type has been adhered to; but
the later painters set it aside, and St. John the Evangelist, nearly
a century old, has all the attributes of the youthful apostle. He
is beardless, with light curling hair, and eyes gazing upwards in a
rapture of inspiration: he is sometimes seated with his pen and his
book, sometimes standing; the attendant eagle always near him, and
frequently holding the pen or inkhorn in his beak.
In some of the old prints and pictures, which represent St. John
as writing the gospel, his eyes are turned on the Virgin with the
Infant Christ in her arms, who appear as a vision in the skies above;
underneath, or on his book, is inscribed,—‘The Word was made flesh,’ or
some other text of the same import. The eagle at his side has sometimes
the nimbus or a crown of stars,[127] and is then perhaps intended to
figure the Holy Ghost.
I remember an instance in which the devil, intent on intercepting
the message of reconcilement and ‘goodwill towards men,’ which was
destined to destroy his empire on earth, appears behind St. John, and
is oversetting the ink upon the pages; another, in which he is stealing
away the inkhorn.
2. As one of the series of apostles, St. John is always, in Western
Art, young, or in the prime of life; with little or no beard; flowing
or curling hair, generally of a pale brown or golden hue, to express
the delicacy of his nature; and in his countenance an expression of
benignity and candour. His drapery is, or ought to be, red, with a blue
or green tunic. He bears in his hand the sacramental cup, from which a
serpent is seen to issue. St. Isidore relates that, at Rome, an attempt
was made to poison St. John in the cup of the sacrament: he drank
of the same and administered it to the communicants without injury,
the poison having by a miracle issued from the cup in the form of a
serpent, while the hired assassin fell down dead at his feet. According
to another version of this story, the poisoned cup was administered
by order of the Emperor Domitian. According to a third version,
Aristodemus, the high-priest of Diana, at Ephesus, defied him to drink
of the poisoned chalice, as a test of the truth of his mission; St.
John drank unharmed,—the priest fell dead. Others say, and this seems
the more probable interpretation, that the cup in the hand of St. John
alludes to the reply given by our Saviour, when the mother of James and
John requested for her sons the place of honour in heaven,—‘Ye shall
drink indeed of my cup.’ As in other instances, the legend was invented
to explain the symbol. When the cup has the consecrated wafer instead
of the serpent, it signifies the institution of the Eucharist.
[Illustration: 60 St. John (Hans Hemling)]
Some of the old German representations of St. John are of singular
beauty: for example, one by _Hans Hemling_, one by _Isaac von
Melem_,[128] standing figures; simple, graceful, majestic; in the
prime of youth, with a charming expression of devotion in the heads:
both hold the sacramental cup with the serpent; no eagle; therefore
St. John is here to be considered as the apostle only: when, with the
cup, the eagle is placed by his side, he is represented in the double
character of apostle and evangelist (61).
[Illustration: 61 St. John (Raphael)]
* * * * *
In the early Siena school, and in some old illuminations, I have seen
St. John carrying in his hand a radiant circle, inscribed ‘_In primo
est verbum_,’ and within the circle an eagle with outspread wings: but
this is uncommon.
3. St. John as the prophet, the writer of the Revelation, is usually
an aged man, with a white flowing beard, seated in a rocky desert; the
sea in the distance, or flowing round him, to represent the island of
Patmos; the eagle at his side. In the old frescoes, and the illuminated
MSS. of the Apocalypse, this is the usual representation.
Some examples of the ideal and devotional figures of St. John, as
evangelist and prophet, will give an idea of the variety of treatment
in this favourite subject:—
1. Ancient Greek. St. John, with the head of an eagle and large wings,
the figure fully draped, is soaring upwards. In such representations
the inscription is usually ‘_Quasi aquila ascendet et avolabit_’
(‘Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle.’ Jer. xlix. 22).
2. Perugino. St. John as an aged man, with long grey beard and
flowing hair, attended by a black eagle, looking up at the Madonna in
glory.[129]
3. Raphael (?). St. John, young and beautiful, mounted on the back
of an eagle, and soaring heavenwards: in one hand he holds a tablet,
in the other a pen: sea and land below. This treatment, which recalls
the antique Jupiter bestriding his eagle, appears to me at once too
theatrical and too commonplace for Raphael.[130]
[Illustration: 62 St. John]
4. Correggio. St. John seated writing his gospel; the eagle at his feet
is pluming his wing: inscribed ‘_Altius cæteris Dei patefecit arcana_.’
One of the series of Evangelists in the Duomo of Parma—wonderfully
beautiful.
5. Domenichino. St. John, full length, life size; young and beautiful,
in an ecstasy of inspiration, and sustained by two angels; the eagle
at his feet: formerly in the Giustiniani Gallery;[131]—finer, I think,
than the St. John in Sant’ Andrea. Another, half length, a scroll in
his hand, looking upwards as one to whom the glory of the heavens had
been opened;—you see it reflected in his eyes,—while love, wonder,
devotion, beam from his beautiful face and parted lips: behind him
hovers the attendant eagle, holding the pen in his beak; near him
is the chalice, with the serpent; so that here he is in his double
character of apostle and evangelist.[132] Domenichino excelled in St.
Johns, as Guido in Magdalenes; perhaps the most beautiful of all is
that in the Brera, at Milan, where St. John bends on one knee at the
foot of the throne of the Madonna and Child, his pen in one hand, the
other pressed to his bosom, and looking up to them with an air of
ecstatic inspiration. Two little angels, or rather _amoretti_, are in
attendance: one has his arms round the neck of the eagle, sporting
with it; the other holds up the cup and the serpent. Every detail
is composed and painted to admiration; but this is the artistic and
picturesque, not the religious, version of the subject.
St. John is frequently represented with St. Peter, because, after the
ascension, they taught and acted in concert. In such pictures, the
contrast between the fiery resolve and sturdy, rugged grandeur which is
given to St. Peter, and the refinement, mildness, and personal grace of
St. John, produces a fine effect: as in Albert Dürer’s picture,[133]
where John is holding open the Gospel, and Peter apparently reading it;
two grand and simple figures, filling the mind as we gaze upon them.
As this picture was painted _after_ Albert Dürer became a Protestant,
I have thought it possible that he might have had some particular
meaning in thus making Peter study the Gospel of John. At all events,
Albert Dürer was quite capable of such an intention; and, whether
intended or not, the picture may be, and has been, thus interpreted.
The prophets and the poets often say more than they intended, for
their light was for others more than for themselves: so also the great
painters—the Raphaels and Albert Dürers—prophets and poets in their
way. When I have heard certain critics ridiculed because they found
more in the productions of a Shakspeare or a Raphael than the poet
or painter himself ever perceived or ‘intended,’ such ridicule has
appeared to me in the highest degree presumptuous and absurd. The true
artist ‘feels that he is greater than he knows.’ In giving form or
utterance to the soul within him, does he account to himself for all
the world of thoughts his work will excite in the minds of others? Is
its significance to be circumscribed either by the intention and the
knowledge of the poet, or the comprehension of the age in which he
lived? That is the characteristic of the second-rate, self-conscious
poets or painters, whom we read or study because they reflect to us
a particular meaning—a particular period,—but not of the Homers and
Shakspeares, the Raphaels and Albert Dürers; _they_ speak to all times,
to _all_ men, with a suggestive significance, widening, deepening with
every successive generation; and to measure their depth of meaning by
their own _intention_, or by the comprehension of their own or any
one generation, what is it but to measure the star of heaven by its
apparent magnitude?—an inch rule will do that!
But to return from this digression. In devotional pictures we often
see St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist standing together;
or on each side of Christ, or of the Madonna and Child. There is a
peculiar propriety and significance in this companionship: both are,
then, to be considered as prophets; they were, besides, kinsmen, and
bore the same name; and St. John the Evangelist was the disciple of
John the Baptist before he was called by Christ. Here, again, the
contrast between the dark, emaciated, hairy prophet of the wilderness,
and the graceful dignity of the youthful apostle, has a striking
effect. An example at hand is the bronze bas-relief on the tomb of
Henry VII.[134] Madonna pictures, in which the two St. Johns stand
before her throne, occur frequently. I remember, also, a marble group
of the Virgin and Child, in which the two St. Johns, as infants, are
playing at her feet, one with his eagle, the other with his reed
cross.[135]
As one who bore the most direct testimony to the Incarnation, St.
John is often introduced into Madonna pictures, and pictures of the
Nativity; but in the later schools only. In these instances he points
significantly to the Child, and the sacramental cup and wafer is either
in his hand or at his feet, or borne by an angel.
* * * * *
The historical and dramatic subjects in which St. John figures as a
principal personage are very numerous. As the scriptural scenes belong
properly to the life of Christ, I shall confine myself here to some
observations on the manner in which St. John is introduced and treated
in such pictures. In general he is to be distinguished from the other
apostles by his youth and beauty, and flowing hair; and by being placed
nearest to Christ as the most beloved of his disciples.
‘The mother of James and John imploring from our Saviour the highest
place in heaven for her two sons.’ (Matt. xx. 21): a picture by
Bonifazio, in the Borghese Gallery, beautiful both in sentiment and
colour. There is another example by Paul Veronese; and another, by
Tintoretto, was in the Coesvelt Gallery. I must observe that, except
in Venetian pictures, I have not met with this incident as a separate
subject.
In the last supper, Peter is generally on the right of Christ, and St.
John on the left: he leans his head down on the bosom of Christ (this
is always the attitude in the oldest pictures); or he leans towards
Christ, who places his hand upon his shoulder, drawing him towards him
with an expression of tenderness: this is the action in the fresco by
Raphael lately discovered at Florence. But I must reserve the full
consideration of this subject for another place.
Where, instead of the last supper, our Saviour is represented as
administering the Eucharist, St. John is seen on his right hand,
bearing the cup.
In the crucifixion, when treated as a religious rather than an
historical subject, St. John stands on the left of the Cross, and the
Virgin on the right; both in attitudes of the profoundest grief and
adoration mingled. In general the _motif_ of this sacred subject does
not vary; but I remember examples, in which St. John is seen trampling
a Jew under his feet; on the other side the Virgin tramples on a
veiled woman, signifying the old law, the synagogue, as opposed to the
Christian Church, of which the Virgin was the received symbol.
When the crucifixion is a _scene_ or action, not a _mystery_, then
St. John is beheld afar off, with the women who followed their divine
Master to Calvary.
St. John and the Virgin Mary returning from the crucifixion: he appears
to be sustaining her slow and fainting steps. I have only once met with
this beautiful subject, in a picture by Zurbaran, in the Munich Gallery.
In the descent from the Cross, St. John is a chief actor; he generally
sustains the head of the Saviour, and is distinguished by an expression
of extreme sorrow and tenderness. In the entombment he is sometimes
one of the bearers, sometimes he follows lamenting. In a print of
the entombment after Andrea Mantegna, he is not only weeping and
wringing his hands as usual, but absolutely crying aloud with the
most exaggerated expression of anguish. In pictures of the descent of
the Holy Ghost, St. John is usually a conspicuous figure, and in the
foreground. In the assumption of the Virgin, he is also conspicuous,
generally in front, as the pendant to St. Peter, and gazing upwards
with ecstatic faith and devotion.
Of course there is great variety in these representations: the later
painters thought less of individual character and significant propriety
of arrangement than of artistic grouping; therefore the above remarks
have reference to the early painters only.
In the scenes taken from the Acts, St. John is always in companionship
with St. Peter, and becomes the secondary figure.
[Illustration: 63 St. John (Lucas v. Leyden)]
St. John writing his Revelation in the island of Patmos is a subject
which frequently occurs in MSS. of the Apocalypse, and in the chapels
dedicated to St. John. The _motif_ is generally the same in all;
we have a desert island, with the sea in the distance, or flowing
round it; St. John, seated on a rock or under a tree, is in the act
of writing; or he is looking up to heaven, where the ‘Woman crowned
with stars,’ or ‘the Woman fleeing from the dragon,’ appears as in
his vision.[136] (Rev. xii.) Or he beholds St. Michael, armed, cast
down the dragon in human form; he has the eagle and book, and looks
up at the Virgin, as in a picture by Ambrogio Figino.[137] The eagle
is always in attendance as the symbol of inspiration in a general
sense; when represented with a diadem, or glory, as in some very early
examples, it is a symbol of the Holy Ghost, which, among the Jews, was
figured by the eagle.
The subjects from the legendary life of St. John are exceedingly
interesting, but they are not easily recognised, and require particular
attention; some are of frequent occurrence, others rarely met with.
1. Israel v. Meckenen. St. John instructing his disciples at Ephesus.
(Acts iv. 37.) The scene is the interior of a Gothic church, the
windows painted with heraldic emblazonments: St. John is seated
expounding the Scriptures, and five disciples sit opposite to him with
coarse ugly faces, but most intent, expressive countenances; in the
background, a large chest full of money.
2. Vatican, Chr. Mus. St. John drinking from the poisoned chalice;
a man falls down dead at his feet, several figures look on with awe
and astonishment: this is a frequent subject in the elder schools of
art, and in the illuminated MSS. of the Gospel and Apocalypse: but I
have never met with a representation later than the beginning of the
fourteenth century.[138]
3. It is related by Clement of Alexandria, that when St. John was at
Ephesus, and before he was exiled to Patmos, he had taken to his care
a young man of promising qualities of person and mind. During his
absence he left him under the spiritual guidance of a certain bishop;
but, after a while, the youth took to evil courses, and, proceeding
from one excess to another, he at length became the leader of a band of
robbers and assassins who struck terror into the whole country. When
St. John returned to Ephesus, he went to the bishop and demanded ‘the
precious deposit he had left in his hands.’ At first the priest did not
understand him; but when St. John explained the allusion to his adopted
son, he cast down his eyes with sorrow and shame, and told of what
had befallen. Then St. John rent his garments, and wept with a loud
voice, and cried out, ‘Alas! alas! to what a guardian have I trusted
our brother!’ And he called for a horse and rode towards the forest in
which the robbers sojourned; and when the captain of the robbers beheld
his old master and instructor, he turned and would have fled from his
presence; but St. John, by the most fervent entreaties, prevailed on
him to stop and listen to his words. After some conference, the robber,
utterly subdued, burst into tears of penitence, imploring forgiveness;
and while he spoke, he hid beneath his robe his right hand, which had
been sullied with so many crimes; but St. John, falling on his knees
before him, seized that blood-polluted hand, and kissed it, and bathed
it with his tears; and he remained with his re-converted brother till
he had, by prayers and encouraging words and affectionate exhortations,
reconciled him with Heaven and with himself.
This beautiful legend is the subject of some old engravings, in which
St. John is represented embracing the robber, who is weeping on his
neck, having flung away his weapons. It has been, however, too rarely
treated; I have never met with a picture of the subject; and yet it
abounds in picturesque capabilities: the forest background—the contrast
of youth and age—bright armour, flowing drapery, and the most striking
and affecting moral, are here all combined.
4. Another very pretty apologue relating to St. John is sometimes
included in a series of subjects from his life. Two young men, who had
sold all their possessions to follow him, afterwards repented. He,
perceiving their thoughts, sent them to gather pebbles and faggots,
and, on their return, changed these into money and ingots of gold,
saying to them, ‘Take back your riches and enjoy them on earth, as you
regret having exchanged them for heaven!’ This story is represented on
one of the windows of the Cathedral at Bourges. The two young men stand
before St. John, with a heap of gold on one side, and a heap of stones
and faggots on the other.
5. When St. John had sojourned in the island of Patmos a year and a
day, he returned to his church at Ephesus; and as he approached the
city, being received with great joy by the inhabitants, lo! a funeral
procession came forth from the gates; and of those who followed weeping
he inquired ‘who was dead?’ They said, ‘Drusiana.’ Now when he heard
that name he was sad, for Drusiana had excelled in all good works, and
he had formerly dwelt in her house; and he ordered them to set down the
bier, and having prayed earnestly, God was pleased to restore Drusiana
to life; she arose up, and the apostle went home with her and dwelt in
her house.
This incident is the subject of a fine fresco, painted by Filippo
Lippi, on the left-hand wall of the Strozzi Chapel at Florence. It has
the forcible expression and dramatic spirit of the painter, with that
characteristic want of elevated feeling in the countenances and in the
general treatment which is apparent in all his works: the group in one
corner, of a child starting from a dog, is admired for its truth; but,
by disturbing the solemnity of the marvellous scene, it repels like a
falsehood.
6. There is another beautiful and picturesque legend relating to St.
John, of which I have never seen any representation; but it may,
possibly, have occasioned the frequent introduction of a partridge into
the pictures of sacred subjects, particularly in the Venetian School.
St. John had a tame partridge, which he cherished much; and he amused
himself with feeding and tending it. ‘A certain huntsman, passing by
with his bow and arrows, was astonished to see the great apostle, so
venerable for his age and sanctity, engaged in such an amusement. The
apostle asked him if he always kept his bow bent? He answered, that
would be the way to render it useless. “If,” replied St. John, “you
unbend your bow to prevent its being useless, so do I thus unbend my
mind for the same reason.”’
7. The subject entitled the Martyrdom of St. John represents his
immersion in a cauldron of boiling oil, by order of the Emperor
Domitian. According to the received tradition, this event took place
outside the Latin gate at Rome; and on the spot stands the chapel of
San Giovanni _in Olio_, commemorating his miraculous deliverance, which
is painted in fresco on the walls. The subject forms, of course, one of
a series of the life of St. John, and is occasionally met with in old
prints and pictures; but it is uncommon. The treatment affords little
variety; in Albert Dürer’s famous woodcut, St. John is sitting in a pot
of boiling oil; one executioner is blowing the fire, another is pouring
oil from a ladle on the saint’s head; a judge, probably intended for
Domitian, is seated on a throne to the left, and there are numerous
spectators. Padovanino painted this subject for the San Pietro at
Venice; Rubens, with horrible truth of detail, for the altar-piece of
St. John at Malines.
It is the martyrdom in the boiling oil which gives St. John the right
to bear the palm, with which he is occasionally seen.
8. St. John, habited in priest’s garments, descends the steps of an
altar into an open grave, in which he lays himself down, not in death,
but in sleep, until the coming of Christ; ‘being reserved alive with
Enoch and Elijah (who also knew not death), to preach against the
Antichrist in the last days.’ This fanciful legend is founded on the
following text: ‘Peter, seeing the disciple whom Jesus loved following,
saith unto Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto
him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Then
went this saying abroad among the brethren that that disciple should
not die.’ (John xxi. 21, 22.)
The legend which supposes St. John reserved alive has not been
generally received in the Church, and as a subject of painting it is
very uncommon. It occurs in the Menologium Græcum,[139] where the grave
into which St. John descends is, according to the legend, ‘_fossa in
crucis figuram_’ (in the form of a cross). In a series of the deaths
of the Apostles,[140] St. John is ascending from the grave; for,
according to the Greek legend, St. John died without pain or change,
and immediately rose again in bodily form, and ascended into heaven to
rejoin Christ and the Virgin.
In a small and very curious picture which I saw at Rome,[141] forming
part of a Predella, there is a tomb something like the Xanthian tombs
in form: one end is open; St. John, with a long grey beard, is seen
issuing from it, and, as he ascends, he is met by Christ, the Virgin,
St. Peter, and St. Paul, who are descending from above; while figures
below look up with astonishment. On the ancient doors of San Paolo he
is lying in an open grave or sarcophagus.
* * * * *
Of the miracles performed by John after his death, two are singularly
interesting in the history of Art; both have been treated in sculpture.
9. When the Empress Galla Placidia was returning from Constantinople to
Ravenna with her two children (A.D. 425), she encountered a terrible
storm. In her fear and anguish she vowed a vow to St. John the
Evangelist, and, being landed in safety, she dedicated to his honour a
magnificent church. When the edifice was finished, she was extremely
desirous of procuring some relics of the evangelist, wherewith to
consecrate his sanctuary; but as it was not the manner of those days
to exhume, and buy and sell, still less to steal, the bodies of holy
men and martyrs, the desire of the pious empress remained unsatisfied.
However, as it is related, St. John himself took pity upon her; for
one night, as she prayed earnestly, he appeared to her in a vision;
and when she threw herself at his feet to embrace and kiss them, he
disappeared, leaving one of his slippers or sandals in her hand, which
sandal was long preserved.
The antique church of Galla Placidia still exists at Ravenna, to
keep alive, after the lapse of fourteen centuries, the memory of
her dream, and of the condescension of the blessed apostle. Not
much of the original building is left; the superb mosaics have all
disappeared, except a few fragments, in which may be traced the
storm at sea, and Galla Placidia making her vow. Over the principal
porch, which is of white marble, in the Lombard style, and richly
and elegantly ornamented, the miracle of the slipper is represented
in two bas-reliefs, one above the other. The lower compartment, or
lunette, represents a tabernacle, and within it an altar: St. John the
Evangelist is seen offering incense; on the other side is Barbation,
the confessor of the empress; she, prostrate at the feet of the
apostle, seems to take off his sandal: on each side are six hovering
angels bearing the implements of the mass. In the upper compartment,
Galla Placidia is seen kneeling at the feet of Christ, and offering
to him the sacred sandal, while the evangelist stands on one side,
and Barbation on the other. These bas-reliefs are not older than the
twelfth century, and are in excellent preservation: I should suppose,
from the style of the grouping, that they were copied, or imitated,
from the older mosaics, once in the interior of the church.
10. The other miracle has the rare interest of being English in its
origin and in its representation. ‘King Edward the Confessor had, after
Christ and the Virgin Mary, a special veneration for St. John the
Evangelist. One day, returning from his church at Westminster, where
he had been hearing mass in honour of the evangelist, he was accosted
by a pilgrim, who asked of him an alms for the love of God and St.
John. The king, who was ever merciful to the poor, immediately drew
from his finger a ring, and, unknown to any one, delivered it to the
beggar. When the king had reigned twenty-four years, it came to pass
that two Englishmen, pilgrims, returning from the Holy Land to their
own country, were met by one in the habit of a pilgrim, who asked of
them concerning their country; and being told they were of England,
he said to them, “When ye shall have arrived in your own country, go
to King Edward, and salute him in my name: say to him, that I thank
him for the alms which he bestowed on me in a certain street in
Westminster; for there, on a certain day, as I begged of him an alms,
he bestowed on me this ring, which till now I have preserved, and ye
shall carry it back to him, saying that in six months from this time
he shall quit the world, and come and remain with me for ever.” And
the pilgrims, being astounded, said, “Who art thou, and where is thy
dwelling-place?” And he answered, saying, “I am John the Evangelist.
Edward, your king, is my friend, and for the sanctity of his life I
hold him dear. Go now, therefore, deliver to him this message and this
ring, and I will pray to God that ye may arrive safely in your own
country.” When St. John had spoken thus, he delivered to them the ring,
and vanished out of their sight. The pilgrims, praising and thanking
the Lord for this glorious vision, went on their journey; and being
arrived in England, they repaired to King Edward, and saluted him, and
delivered the ring and the message, relating all truly. And the king
received the news joyfully, and feasted the messengers royally. Then he
set himself to prepare for his departure from this world. On the eve of
the Nativity, in the year of our Lord 1066, he fell sick, and on the
eve of the Epiphany following he died. The ring he gave to the Abbot of
Westminster, to be for ever preserved among the relics there.’[142]
According to one account,[143] the pilgrims met the king near his
palace at Waltham, at a place since called _Havering_. The writer
adds,—‘In allusion to this story, King Edward II. offered at his
coronation a pound of gold made in the figure of a king holding a ring,
and a mark of gold (8 oz.) made like to a pilgrim putting forth his
hand to receive the ring.’ These must have been two little statuettes
of gold.
The legend of King Edward and St. John the Evangelist is represented,
with other legends of the same monarch, along the top of the screen of
Edward the Confessor’s chapel. It is in three compartments. The first
represents King Edward bestowing the ring on St. John in the disguise
of a pilgrim; Westminster Abbey is seen behind. The second shows us
the meeting of the pilgrims and St. John in Palestine; he holds what
seems a palm. In the third the pilgrims deliver the ring to King
Edward, who is seated at table. The sculpture is very rude; the figures
disproportioned and ungraceful. They are supposed to be of the time of
Henry VI.
The same legend was painted on one of the windows of Romford church, in
Essex, but whether it still exists there I know not.[144]
* * * * *
Before I quit the subject of the Evangelists, it is worth while to
observe that, in Greek Art, not only the Four Evangelists, but the six
writers of the Acts and Epistles, are considered as a sacred series. In
an ancient and beautiful MS. of the _Epistole Canoniche_, presented by
the Queen of Cyprus to Pope Innocent VIII., they are thus represented,
two and two together:—
St. Luke, with a very thoughtful, earnest countenance, holds a scroll,
on which is written in Greek the commencement of the Acts, ‘The former
treatise have I made, O Theophilus; &c.; and St. James, with a long,
very earnest, and refined face, holds a single roll.
St. Peter, with a broad, coarse, powerful physiognomy, strongly
characterised, holds two rolls; and St. John, with a long and very
refined face, grey hair and beard, holds three rolls.
St. Jude, with a long white beard and very aquiline nose, holds one
roll. St. Paul, bald in front, with long brown hair and beard, and a
refined face, bears many rolls tied up together.
All the figures are on a gold ground, about six inches in height, very
finely conceived, though, as is usual in Byzantine Art, formal and
mechanical in execution. They look like small copies of very grand
originals. The draperies are all classical; a pale violet or brown
tunic and a white mantle, as in the old mosaics; the rolls in their
hands corresponding with the number of their writings.
The Twelve Apostles.
Next to those who recorded the word of God, were those called by Christ
to the task of diffusing his doctrine, and sent to preach the kingdom
of heaven ‘through all nations.’
[Illustration: 64]
The earliest representations of the Twelve Apostles appear to have
been, like those of the Four Evangelists, purely emblematical: they
were figured as twelve sheep, with Christ in the midst, as the Good
Shepherd, bearing a lamb in his arms; or, much more frequently, Christ
is himself the Lamb of God, raised on an eminence and crowned with a
cruciform nimbus, and the apostles were ranged on each side as sheep.
Instances are to be met with in the old Christian bas-reliefs. In
the old Roman churches[145] we find this representation but little
varied, and the situation is always the same. In the centre is the lamb
standing on an eminence, from which flow the four rivers of Paradise;
on one side six sheep issuing from the city of Jerusalem, on the other
six sheep issuing from the city of Bethlehem, the whole disposed in a
line forming a sort of frieze, just below the decoration of the vault
of the apsis. The church of S. M. Maggiore exhibits the only exception
I have met with; there we find a group of sheep, entering, not issuing
from, the gates of Jerusalem and Bethlehem: in this case, however, the
sheep may represent believers, or disciples in general, not the Twelve
Apostles. Upon the great crucifix in the apsis of San Clemente, at
Rome, are twelve doves, which appear to signify the Twelve Apostles.
The next step was to represent the Apostles as twelve men all alike,
each with a sheep, and Christ in the middle, also with a sheep,
sometimes larger than the others. We find this on some of the
sarcophagi.[146] Again, a little later, we have them represented as
twelve venerable men, bearing tablets or scrolls in their hands, no
emblems to distinguish one from another, but their names inscribed over
or beside each. They are thus represented in relief on several ancient
sarcophagi now in the Christian Museum in the Vatican, and in several
of the most ancient churches at Rome and Ravenna, ranged on each side
of the Saviour in the vault of the apsis, or standing in a line beneath.
* * * * *
But while in the ancient Greek types, and the old mosaics, the
attributes are omitted, they adhere almost invariably to a certain
characteristic individual representation, which in the later ages
of painting was wholly lost, or at least neglected. In these eldest
types, St. Peter has a broad face, white hair, and short white beard:
St. Paul, a long face, high bold forehead, dark hair and beard: St.
Andrew is aged, with flowing white hair and beard: St. John, St.
Thomas, St. Philip, young and beardless: St. James Major and St. James
Minor, in the prime of life, short brown hair and beard; both should
bear a resemblance more or less to the Saviour, but St. James Minor
particularly: St. Matthew, St. Jude, St. Simon, St. Matthias, aged,
with white hair. The tablets or scrolls which they carry in their
hands bear, or are supposed to bear, the articles of the Creed. It is
a tradition, that, before the apostles dispersed to preach the Gospel
in all lands, they assembled to compose the declaration of faith since
called the Apostles’ Creed, and that each of them furnished one of
the twelve propositions contained in it, in the following order:—St.
Peter: _Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, creatorem cœli et terræ_.
St. Andrew: _Et in Jesum Christum Filium ejus unicum, Dominum nostrum_.
St. James Major: _Qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria
Virgine_. St. John: _Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et
sepultus_. St. Philip: _Descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit à
mortuis_. St. James Minor: _Ascendit ad cœlos, sedet ad dexteram Dei
Patris omnipotentis_. St. Thomas: _Inde venturus est judicare vivos et
mortuos_. St. Bartholomew: _Credo in Spiritum Sanctum_. St. Matthew:
_Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam; sanctorum communionem_. St. Simon:
_Remissionem peccatorum_. St. Matthias: _Carnis resurrectionem_. St.
Thaddeus: _Et vitam æternam_.
The statues of the apostles on the shrine of the Virgin in the San
Michele at Florence exhibit a fine example of this arrangement. I give
the figure of St. Philip holding his appropriate sentence of the Creed
on a scroll (65).
[Illustration: 65 Orcagna]
* * * * *
In later times, the Apostles, instead of being disposed in a line, are
grouped round the Saviour in glory, or they form a circle of heads in
medallions: as statues, they ornament the screen in front of the altar,
or they are placed in a line on each side of the nave, standing against
the pillars which support it. From the sixth century it became usual to
distinguish each of them by a particular emblem or attribute borrowed
from some circumstance of his life or death. Thus, taking them in
order, according to the canon of the mass,—
St. Peter bears the keys or a fish.
St. Paul, the sword: sometimes two swords.
St. Andrew, the transverse cross.
St. James Major, the pilgrim’s staff.
St. John, the chalice with the serpent; sometimes the eagle also: but
the eagle, as I have observed, belongs to him properly only in his
character of Evangelist.
St. Thomas, a builder’s rule: also, but more seldom, a spear.
St. James Minor, a club.
St. Philip, the staff or crosier, surmounted by a cross; or a small
cross in his hand.
St. Bartholomew, a large knife.
St. Matthew, a purse.
St. Simon, a saw.
St. Thaddeus (or Jude), a halberd or lance.
St. Matthias, a lance.
The origin and meaning of these attributes will be explained presently:
meantime it must be borne in mind, that although in sacred Art the
Apostles are always twelve in number, they are not always the same
personages. St. Jude is frequently omitted to make room for St. Paul.
Sometimes, in the most ancient churches (as in the Cathedral of
Palermo), St. Simon and St. Matthias are omitted, and the evangelists
St. Mark and St. Luke figure in their places. The Byzantine manual
published by Didron omits James Minor, Jude, and Matthias; and inserts
Paul, Luke, and Mark. This was the arrangement on the bronze doors of
San Paolo-fuori-le-Mura at Rome, executed by Byzantine artists in the
tenth century, and now destroyed.
On an ancient pulpit, of beautiful workmanship, in the Cathedral of
Troyes, the arrangement is according to the Greek formula.[147] Thus—
───────────── ───────────── ───────────── ─────────────
S. John B. J. Christ. The Virgin.
───────────── ───────────── ───────────── An Angel.
S. Matthew. S. Peter. S. Simon.
S. Philip. S. Luke. S. Bartholomew. ─────────────
S. Mark. S. Andrew. S. James.
S. Paul. S. Thomas. S. John.
───────────── ───────────── ─────────────
Here, John the Baptist figures in his character of angel or messenger;
and St. Paul, St. Mark, and St. Luke take the place of St. James Minor,
St. Jude, and St. Matthias.
The earliest instance of the Apostles entering into a scheme of
ecclesiastical decoration, as the consecrated and delegated teachers
of a revealed religion, occurs in the church of San Giovanni in Fonte
at Ravenna.[148] In the centre of the dome is the Baptism of Christ,
represented quite in the classical style; the figure of the Saviour
being entirely undraped, and the Jordan, signified by an antique river
god, sedge-crowned, and bearing a linen napkin as though he were an
attendant at a bath. Around, in a circle, in the manner of radii, are
the Twelve Apostles. The order is,—Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip,
Bartholomew, Simon, Jude, James Minor, Matthew, Thomas, Paul; so that
Peter and Paul stand face to face at one extremity of the circle, and
Simon and Bartholomew back to back at the other. All wear pointed caps,
and carry the oblation in their hands. Peter has a yellow vest and
white mantle; Paul, a white vest and a yellow mantle, and so all round
alternately. The name of each is inscribed over his head, and without
the title _Sanctus_, which, though admitted into the Calendar in 449,
was not adopted in works of art till some years later, about 472.
In the next instance, the attributes had not yet been admitted, except
in the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul.
MOSAIC (A.D. 816). Christ, in the centre, stands on an eminence; in
one hand he holds an open book, on which is inscribed _Pax vobis_. St.
Peter, with the keys and a cross, stands on the right; and Christ, with
his right hand, points to the cross. St. Paul is on the left, with his
sword; beyond, there are five Apostles on one side, and four on the
other: in all, eleven (Judas being properly omitted). Each holds a
book, and all are robed in white; underneath the whole is inscribed,
in Latin, the words of our Saviour, ‘Go ye, and teach all nations.’
On the arch to the right, Christ is seated on a throne, and presents
the keys to St. Peter, who kneels on one side, and the standard to
Constantine, who kneels on the other (alluding, of course, to the
famous standard). On the arch to the left, St. Peter is throned, and
presents the stole to Pope Leo III., and the standard to Charlemagne.
This singular monument, a kind of _résumé_ of the power of the Church,
is a restoration of the old mosaic, executed by order of Leo III. in
the Triclinium of the old palace of the Lateran, and now on one side of
the Scala Santa, the side facing the Porta San Giovanni.
MOSAIC, in the old basilica of St. Paul (A.D. 1206). In the centre
an altar veiled, on which are the Gospels (or perhaps, rather, the
_Book of Life_, the seven-sealed book in the Revelations), and the
instruments of the Passion. Behind it rises a large Greek cross,
adorned with gold and jewels. Underneath, at the foot of the altar,
five small figures standing and bearing palms, representing those
who suffered for the cause of Christ; and on each side, kneeling,
the monk Aginulph, and Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, afterwards Nicholas
III. On each side of the altar, a majestic angel: one bears a scroll,
inscribed GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO; the other, ET IN TERRA PAX HOMINIBUS
BONÆ VOLUNTATIS. Beyond these the Apostles, six on each side, bearing
scrolls with the articles of the Creed. They are much alike, all in
white robes, and alternately with each stands a palm-tree, the symbol
of victory and resurrection. This composition, of a colossal size,
formed a kind of frieze (taking the place of the emblematical lamb and
twelve sheep) round the apsis of the Basilica.
* * * * *
In sculpture, the Apostles, as a series, entered into all decorative
ecclesiastical architecture: sometimes on the exterior of the edifice,
always in the interior. In our English cathedrals they are seldom found
unmutilated, except when out of the reach of the spoiler; such was the
indiscriminate rage which confounded the venerable effigies of these
delegated teachers of the truth with the images which were supposed to
belong exclusively to the repudiated religion!
Where the scheme of decoration is purely theological, the proper place
of the Apostles is after the Angels, Prophets, and Evangelists; but
when the _motif_, or leading idea, implies a special signification,
such as the Last Judgment, Paradise, the Coronation of the Madonna, or
the apotheosis of a saint, then the order is changed, and the Apostles
appear immediately after the Divine Personages and before the angels,
as forming a part of the council or court of heaven;—‘When the Son
of man shall come in his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’[149] Such is the arrangement in
the Campo Santo, in Angelico’s ‘Paradiso’ in the Florence Gallery,
in Raphael’s ‘Disputa,’ and many other instances: and I may add the
architectural treatment on the façade of Wells Cathedral, where,
immediately under the Saviour sitting in judgment, _stand_ the Twelve
Apostles, and beneath them the hierarchy of angels, each of the nine
choirs being here expressed by a single angel.[150] Therefore to
determine the proper place of the Apostles, it is necessary to observe
well and to understand what has been the design of the artist, and the
leading idea of the whole composition, whether strictly _theological_
or partly _scenic_. In all monuments which have a solemn or a sacred
purpose,—altars, pulpits, tombs,—the Apostles find an appropriate
place, either in connection with other sacred personages, or as a
company apart, the band of teachers. The range of statues along the top
of the screen in front of the choir of St. Mark’s at Venice will be
remembered by all who have seen them: in the centre stand the Virgin
and St. Mark, and then the Apostles, six on each side, grand solemn
figures, standing there as if to guard the sanctuary. These are by
Jacobelli, in the simple religious style of the fifteenth century,
but quite Italian. In contrast with them, as the finest example of
German sculptural treatment, we have the Twelve Apostles on the tomb
of St. Sebald, in his church at Nuremberg, cast in bronze by Peter
Vischer (about 1500). These have become well known by the casts which
have lately been brought to England; they are about two feet high, all
remarkable for the characteristic expression of the heads, and the
grand simplicity of the attitudes and draperies.
There are instances of the Apostles introduced into a scheme of
ecclesiastical decoration as devotional figures, but assuming,
from the style of treatment and from being placed in relation with
other personages, a touch of the dramatic and picturesque. Such are
Correggio’s Apostles in the cupola of the duomo at Parma (1532), which
may be considered as the most striking instance that could be produced
of studied contrast to the solemnity and simplicity of the ancient
treatment: here the _motif_ is essentially _dramatic_. They stand round
the dome as spectators would stand in a gallery or balcony, all in
picturesque attitudes, studiously varied (some, it must be confessed,
rather extravagant), and all looking up with amazement, or hope, or
joy, or adoration, to the figure of the glorified Virgin ascending into
heaven.
Another series of Apostles in the San Giovanni at Parma, which
Correggio had painted earlier (1522), are conceived, I think, in a
finer spirit as to character, but, perhaps, not more appropriate to
the scene. Here the Twelve Apostles are seated on clouds round the
glorified Saviour, as they are supposed to be in heaven: they are but
partially draped. In the heads but little attention has been paid to
the ancient types, except in those of St. Peter and St. Paul; but they
are sublime as well as picturesque in the conception of character and
expression.
The Apostles in Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment (A.D. 1540) exhibit a
still further deviation from the antique style of treatment. They stand
on each side of the Saviour, who is not, here, Saviour and Redeemer,
but inexorable Judge. They are grandly and artificially grouped, all
without any drapery whatever, and with forms and attitudes which recall
an assemblage of Titans holding a council of war, rather than the
glorified companions of Christ. In early pictures of Christ in glory,
the Apostles, his companions in heaven as on earth, form, with the
Patriarchs and Prophets, the celestial court or council: they sit upon
thrones to the right and to the left.[151] Raphael’s ‘Disputa’ in the
Vatican is a grand example of this arrangement.
Sets of the Apostles, in devotional pictures and prints are so common,
that I shall particularise only a few among the most interesting and
celebrated. Engravings of these can easily be referred to.
1. A set by Raphael, engraved by Marc Antonio: grand, graceful figures,
and each with his appropriate attribute. Though admirably distinguished
in form and bearing, very little attention has been paid to the ancient
types, except perhaps in St. Peter and St. John. Here St. James Minor
is omitted to make room for St. Paul.
2. A set by Lucas van Leyden, smaller than Raphael’s, but magnificent
in feeling: here also the ancient types are for the most part
neglected. These two sets should be compared as perfect examples of the
best Italian and the most characteristic German manner. Some of the
German sets are very curious and grotesque.
3. By H. S. Beham, a most curious set, in what may be called the ultra
German style: they stand two and two together, like a procession of old
beggars; the workmanship exquisite. Another set by Beham, in which the
figures stand singly, and which includes the Four Evangelists, dressed
like old burgomasters, with the emblematical wings, has been already
mentioned.
4. A set by Parmigiano, graceful and mannered, as is usual with him.
5. By Agostino Caracci. This set, famous as works of art, must, when
compared with those of Raphael and Lucas van Leyden, be pronounced
absolutely vulgar. Here St. John is drinking out of his cup, —an idea
which might strike some people as picturesque; but it is in vile taste.
Thaddeus has a saw as well as Simon; Peter has the papal tiara at his
feet; St. James Minor, instead of Thomas, carries the builder’s rule;
and St. Bartholomew has his skin thrown over his shoulders. This set
is an example of the confusion which prevailed with respect to the old
religious types and attributes, after the first half of the sixteenth
century.
6. ‘The Five Disciples,’ by Albert Dürer, seem intended to form part
of a complete set. We have St. Paul, St. Bartholomew, St. Thomas,
St. Philip, and St. Simon. The two last are the finest, and are most
grandly conceived.
These are examples of the simplest devotional treatment.
* * * * *
When the Apostles are grouped together in various historical
scenes,—some scriptural, some legendary—they are more interesting as
individual personages; and the treatment should be more characteristic.
Some of these subjects belong properly to the life of Christ: as the
Delivery of the Keys to Peter; the Transfiguration; the Entry into
Jerusalem; the Last Supper; the Ascension. Others, as the Death and
Assumption of the Virgin, will be considered in the legends of the
Madonna. But there are others, again, which refer more particularly to
the personal history of the Apostles, as related in the Acts and in the
Legends.
The Descent of the Holy Ghost was the first and most important event
after the Ascension of Christ. It is thus described: ‘When the day of
Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty
wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there
appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and sat upon each
of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to
speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there
were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under
heaven. Now when this was noised abroad the multitude came together,
and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own
language.... But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.’
(Acts ii. 1-12, 16.)
According to the usual interpretation, the word _they_, in the first
verse, does not signify the Apostles merely, but, with them, ‘the
women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brethren:’ hence in so
many representations of this subject the Virgin is not only present,
but a principal person: Mary Magdalene and others are also frequently
introduced.
1. The most striking example I have yet met with is the grand mosaic
in the principal dome of St. Mark’s at Venice. In the apex of the dome
is seen the Celestial Dove in a glory of light; rays proceed from the
centre on every side, and fall on the heads of the Virgin and the
Twelve Apostles, seated in a circle. Lower down is a series of twelve
figures standing all round the dome: ‘Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,
the dwellers in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia,
Pamphylia, Cretes and Arabians,’—each nation represented by one person,
and all in strange dresses, and looking up with amazement.
2. The Twelve Apostles and the Virgin are seen above seated in an
enclosure; tongues of fire descend from heaven; beneath is a closed
door, at which several persons in strange foreign dresses, with
turbans, &c., are listening with amazement. One of these is in the
Chinese costume,—a curious circumstance, considering the age of the
picture, and which could have occurred at that date nowhere but at
Venice.[152]
3. In the interior of a temple, sustained by slender pillars, the
Twelve Apostles are seated in a circle, and in the midst the Virgin,
tongues of fire on each head. Here the Virgin is the principal
person.[153]
4. An interior, the Twelve Apostles seated in a circle; above them, the
Celestial Dove in a glory, and from his beak proceed twelve tongues
of flame; underneath, in a small arch, is the prophet Joel, as an old
man crowned with a kingly crown and holding twelve rolls or scrolls,
indicating the Gospel in so many different languages. The allusion
is to the words of Joel, ii. 28: ‘And I will pour out my Spirit upon
all flesh.’[154] This is the Greek formula, and it is curious that it
should have been closely followed by Pinturicchio;—thus:
5. In a rich landscape, with cypresses, palm-trees, and birds, the
Virgin is seen kneeling; St. Peter on the right, and James Minor on the
left, also kneeling; five other Apostles on each side. The Celestial
Dove, with outspread wings, descends in a glory surrounded by fifteen
cherubim: there are no tongues of fire. The prophet Joel is seen
above, with the inscription, ‘_Effundam de Spiritu meo super omnem
carnem_.’[155]
6. The Virgin and the Apostles seated; flames of fire stand on their
heads; the Holy Ghost appears above in a glory of light, from which
rays are poured on every side. Mary Magdalene, and another Mary, are
present behind; astonishment is the prevailing expression in every
face, except in the Virgin and St. Peter. The composition is attributed
to Raphael.[156]
* * * * *
The next event of importance is the separation of the Twelve Apostles
when they disperse to preach the Gospel in all lands. According to the
ancient traditions, the Apostles determined by lot to what countries
they should go: Peter went to Antioch; James the Great remained in
Jerusalem and the neighbourhood; Philip went to Phrygia; John to
Ephesus; Thomas to Parthia and Judea; Andrew to Scythia; Bartholomew to
India and Judea. The Parting of the Apostles is a beautiful subject, of
which I have met with but few examples; one is a woodcut after Titian.
The Mission of the Apostles I remember to have seen by Bissoni over an
altar in the Santa Giustina at Padua: they are preparing to depart; one
reads from a book; another looses his shoes from his feet, in allusion
to the text, ‘Take neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes;’ several are
bidding adieu to the Virgin. This picture struck me as dramatic; its
merits otherwise I do not remember.
* * * * *
We have next ‘The Twelve Baptisms.’[157] In the upper compartment
Christ is standing in a majestic attitude, and on each side are six
Apostles, all alike, and in white garments. The inscription above is
in Greek: ‘Go ye, and preach the Gospel to all nations.’ Below, in
twelve smaller compartments, each of the Apostles is seen baptizing a
convert: an attendant, in white garments, stands by each font, holding
a napkin. One of the converts and his attendant are black, denoting
clearly the chamberlain of the Queen of Ethiopia. This is a very
uncommon subject.
* * * * *
And, lastly, we have ‘The Twelve Martyrdoms.’ This is a more frequent
series, in pictures and in prints, and occurs in a set of large fresco
compositions in the church of San Nereo e Sant’ Achilleo at Rome. In
such representations the usual treatment is as follows:—1. St. Peter is
crucified with his head downwards. 2. St. Andrew, bound on a transverse
cross. 3. St. James Major, beheaded with a sword. 4. St. John, in a
cauldron of boiling oil. 5. St. Philip, bound on a cross in the form of
a T. 6. St. Bartholomew, flayed. 7. St. Thomas, pierced with a spear.
8. St. Matthew, killed with a sword. 9. St. James Minor, struck down
with a club. 10. St. Simon and St. Jude together: one is killed with a
sword, the other with a club. 11. St. Matthias has his head cloven by a
halbert. 12. St. Paul is beheaded.[158]
The authority for many of these martyrdoms is wholly apocryphal,[159]
and they sometimes vary; but this is the usual mode of representation
in Western Art. In early Greek Art a series of the Deaths of the
Apostles often occurs, but they do not all suffer martyrdom; and the
subject of St. John in the cauldron of boiling oil, so famous in the
Latin Church, is, I believe, unknown, or, at least, so rare, that I
have not found it in genuine Byzantine Art.
The most ancient series I have met with (in a Greek MS. of the ninth
century) shows us five Apostles crucified: St. Peter and St. Philip
with the head downwards; St. Andrew on the transverse cross, as usual;
St. Simon and St. Bartholomew, in the same manner as our Saviour. St.
Thomas is pierced by a lance; and St. John is buried, and then raised
by angels, according to the legend. The same series, similarly treated,
ornamented the doors of the old Basilica of St. Paul, executed by Greek
artists of the tenth century.[160]
Wherever the Apostles appear as a series, we expect, of course, some
degree of discriminating propriety of character in each face and
figure. We seek it when they merely form a part of the general scheme
of significant decoration in the architectural arrangement of a place
of worship; we seek it with more reason when they stand before us
as a series of devotional representations; and still more when, as
actors in some particular scene, they are supposed to be animated by
sentiments called forth by the occasion, and modified by the individual
character. By what test shall we try the truth and propriety of such
representations? We ought to know both what to require from the artist,
and on what grounds to require it, before we can rest satisfied.
In the Gospel-histories the Apostles are consistently and beautifully
distinguished in temper and bearing. Their characters, whether
exhibited at full length, or merely touched upon, are sustained with
dramatic truth. The mediæval legends, however wild, are, as far as
character goes, in harmony with these scriptural portraits, and fill
up the outline given. It becomes therefore a really interesting
speculation to observe how far this variety of characteristic
expression has been carried out in the early types, how far attended
to, or neglected, by the great painters, since the revival of Art.
ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL.
_Lat._ SS. Petrus et Paulus. _Ital._ San Pietro or Piero, San Paolo.
_Fr._ S. Pierre, S. Paul. _Spa._ San Pedro, San Pablo. (June 29 and
30.)
I have already observed, that, as apostles and preachers of the word,
St. Peter and St. Paul take the first place. Even during their lives,
a superiority was accorded to them; and this superiority, as the
acknowledged heads and founders of the Christian Church, under Christ,
has been allowed down to the present time. The precedence is by common
consent given to St. Peter; but they are held to be equal in faith, in
merit, and in sanctity.
The early Christian Church was always considered under two great
divisions: the church of the converted Jews, and the church of the
Gentiles. The first was represented by St. Peter, the second by St.
Paul. Standing together in this mutual relation, they represent the
universal Church of Christ; hence in works of art they are seldom
separated, and are indispensable in all ecclesiastical decoration.
Their proper place is on each side of the Saviour, or of the Virgin
throned; or on each side of the altar; or on each side of the arch
over the choir. In any case, where they stand together, not merely as
Apostles, but Founders, their place is next after the Evangelists and
the Prophets.
[Illustration: 66 St. Paul St. Peter (Crivelli)]
Thus seen almost everywhere in companionship, it becomes necessary
to distinguish them from each other; for St. Peter does not always
bear his keys, nor St. Paul his sword. In the earliest examples, these
attributes are wholly omitted; yet I scarcely know any instance in
which a distinct type of head has not been more or less attended to.
[Illustration: 67 St. Peter (Greek type, eleventh century)]
The ancient Greek type of the head of St. Peter, ‘the Pilot of the
Galilean lake,’ is so strongly characterised as to have the air of
a portrait. It is either taken from the description of Nicephorus,
so often quoted, or his description is taken from some very ancient
representation: it certainly harmonises with all our preconceived
notions of St. Peter’s temperament and character. He is a robust
old man, with a broad forehead, and rather coarse features, an open
undaunted countenance, short grey hair, and short thick beard, curled,
and of a silvery white: according to the descriptive portrait of
Nicephorus, he had red weak eyes,—a peculiarity which it has not been
thought necessary to preserve in his effigies. In some early pictures
he is bald on the top of the head, and the hair grows thick around in a
circle, somewhat like the priestly tonsure; and in some examples this
tonsure has the form of a triple row of curls close to the head, a kind
of tiara. A curious exception to this predominant, almost universal,
type is to be found in Anglo-Saxon Art,[161] where St. Peter is always
beardless, and wears the tonsure; so that but for the keys, suspended
to a ring on his finger, one might take him for an elderly monk. It is
a tradition that the Gentiles shaved the head of St. Peter in order
to make him an object of derision, and that this is the origin of the
priestly tonsure.
[Illustration: 68 St. Peter with one Key (Taddeo Gaddi)]
The dress of St. Peter in the mosaics and Greek pictures is a blue
tunic, with white drapery thrown over it, but in general the proper
colours are a blue or green tunic with yellow drapery. On the early
sarcophagi, and in the most ancient church mosaics, he bears merely
a scroll or book, and, except in the character of the head, he is
exactly like St. Paul: a little later we find him with the cross in
one hand, and the Gospel in the other. The keys in his hand appear
as his peculiar attribute about the eighth century. I have seen him
with one great key, but in general he carries two keys, one of gold
and one of silver, to absolve and to bind; or, according to another
interpretation, one is of gold and one of iron, opening the gates
of heaven and hell: occasionally, but rarely, he has a third key,
expressing the dominion over heaven, and earth, and hell.[162]
St. Paul presents a striking contrast to St. Peter, in features as
in character. There must have existed effigies of him in very early
times, for St. Augustine says that a certain Marcellina, living in the
second century, preserved in her Lararium, among her household gods,
‘the images of Homer, Pythagoras, Jesus Christ, and Paul the apostle.’
Chrysostom alludes to a portrait of Paul which hung in his chamber,
but unfortunately he does not describe it. The earliest allusion to
the personal appearance of St. Paul occurs in Lucian, where he is
styled, in a tone of mocking disparagement, ‘the bald-headed Galilean
with a hook-nose.’ The description given by Nicephorus, founded, we
may presume, on tradition and on the existing portraits, has been the
authority followed in the early representations. According to the
ancient tradition, Paul was a man of small and meagre stature, with
an aquiline nose, a high forehead, and sparkling eyes. In the Greek
type the face is long and oval, the nose aquiline, the forehead high
and bald, the hair brown, the beard long, flowing and pointed, and of
a dark brown (in the Greek formula it is said that his beard should
be greyish—I recollect no instance of St. Paul with a grey beard);
his dress is like St. Peter’s, a blue tunic and white mantle; he has
a book or scroll in one hand, sometimes twelve rolls, which designate
his epistles. He bears the sword, his attribute in a double sense; it
signifies the manner of his martyrdom, and it is emblematical of the
good fight fought by the faithful Christian, armed with ‘the sword of
the Spirit, which is the word of God’ (Ephes. vi. 17). The life of
St. Paul, after his conversion, was, as we know, one long spiritual
combat:—‘perplexed, but not in despair; cast down, but not destroyed.’
[Illustration: 69 St. Paul (Greek type, eleventh century)]
These traditional characteristic types of the features and persons
of the two greatest apostles were long adhered to. We find them most
strictly followed in the old Greek mosaics, in the early Christian
sculpture, and the early pictures; in all which the sturdy dignity
and broad rustic features of St. Peter, and the elegant contemplative
head of St. Paul, who looks like a Greek philosopher, form a most
interesting and suggestive contrast. But, in later times, the old
types, particularly in the head of St. Paul, were neglected and
degraded. The best painters took care not to deviate wholly from the
square head and short grey beard of St. Peter; but, from the time of
Sixtus IV., we find substituted for the head of St. Paul an arbitrary
representation, which varied according to the model chosen by the
artist—which was sometimes a Roman porter or a German boor; sometimes
the antique Jupiter or the bust of a Greek rhetorician.
I shall now give some examples, in chronological order, of the two
great Apostles represented together, as Founders of the Church.
On the early sarcophagi (from A.D. 321 to 400), St. Peter and St. Paul
stand on each side of the Saviour. The former bears a cross, and is
generally on the left hand of Christ. The cross given to Peter, and
often set with jewels, is supposed to refer to the passage in St.
John, xxi. 19, ‘Signifying by what death he should die:’ but it may
surely bear another interpretation, i.e. the spirit of Christianity
transmitted to all nations by the first and greatest of the Apostles.
St. Paul carries a roll of writing; he has a very high bald forehead:
in other respects the two Apostles are not particularly discriminated;
they wear the classical costume.[163] Similar figures of Peter and
Paul occur on the ancient glass drinking-vessels and lamps preserved
in the Vatican; but the workmanship is so rude, that they are merely
curiosities, and cannot be cited as authorities.
MOSAIC (Rome, A.D. 443) in Santa Maria Maggiore, over the arch which
separates the sanctuary from the nave. We have in the centre a throne,
on which lies the roll, sealed with seven seals; above the throne rises
a cross set with precious stones; on each side of the throne, St.
Peter and St. Paul; they have no attributes, are habited in classical
draperies, and the whole representation is strictly antique in style,
without a trace of any of the characteristics of Mediæval Art. This
is the oldest representation I have met with next to those on the
sarcophagi.
MOSAIC (Rome, 6th century) in the church of Santa Sabina on the
interior of the arch over the door. We find on one side St. Peter, on
the other St. Paul. Under St. Peter stands a graceful female figure,
veiled, and inscribed _Ecclesia ex circumcisione;_ under St Paul, a
female figure, crowned, and inscribed _Ecclesia ex gentibus_.
MOSAIC (Rome, A.D. 526) in St. Cosmo and St. Damian, on the vault of
the apsis. Christ stands in the centre, sustained by clouds; his right
hand is raised in the attitude of one who exhorts (not blessing, as
is the usual manner); the left hand holds the book of life; at his
feet flows the river Jordan, the symbol of Baptism. On each side, but
lower down and much smaller in size, stand St. Peter and St. Paul; they
seem to present St. Cosmo and St. Damian to the Saviour. Beyond these
again, on either side, stand St. Theodore and the pope (Felix I.) who
dedicated the church. Palm trees, and a Phœnix crowned with a starry
glory, emblems of Victory and Immortality, close this majestic and
significant composition on each side. Here St. Peter and St. Paul are
dignified figures, in which the Greek type is strongly characterised;
they wear long white mantles, and have no attributes.
MOSAIC (Milan, 9th century), in Sant’ Ambrogio. Christ enthroned
presents the Gospel to St. Paul, and the two keys to St. Peter.
MOSAIC (A.D. 936) on the tomb of Otho II. St. Peter and St. Paul
together, rather more than half length, and above life size. St. Peter
has three keys, suspended on a ring; St. Paul, the book and sword.
The original mosaic is preserved in the Vatican, and a copy is in the
Lateran. This relic is, as a document, invaluable.
MOSAIC (A.D. 1216-1227), in the apsis of the old basilica of St. Paul.
Christ is seated on a throne, with the cruciform glory and his name
ĪC̄. X̄C̄.: the right hand gives the benediction in the Greek form;
he holds in his left an open book, inscribed VENITE BENEDICTI PATRIS
MEI PERCIPITE REGNUM. (Matt. xxv. 34.) On the left, St. Peter with
his right hand raised to Christ, and an open scroll in his left hand,
inscribed TU ES CHRISTUS FILIUS DEI VIVI. On the other side of Christ,
St. Paul; his right hand on his breast, and in his left a scroll with
these words, IN NOMINE JESU OMNE GENU FLECTATUR CŒLESTIUM TERRESTRIUM
ET INFERNORUM. (Phil. xi. 10.) Beyond St. Peter stands his brother St.
Andrew; and beyond St. Paul his favourite disciple Luke. At the foot of
the throne kneels a diminutive figure of the pope, Honorius III., by
whom the mosaic was dedicated. Palm-trees close the composition on each
side; underneath runs the frieze of the Twelve Apostles, described at
p. 173.
MOSAIC (12th century) in the Cathedral of Monreale at Palermo. St.
Peter and St. Paul are seated on splendid thrones on each side of
the tribune; St. Peter holds in his left hand a book, and the right,
which gives the benediction, holds also the two keys: over his head is
inscribed, SANCTUS PETRUS PRINCEPS APOSTOLORUM CUI TRADITÆ SUNT CLAVES
REGNI CŒLORUM. St. Paul holds the sword with the point upwards like a
sceptre, and the book as usual: the intellectual Greek character of
the head is strongly discriminated. The inscription is, SANCTUS PAULUS
PRÆDICATOR VERITATIS ET DOCTOR GENTIUM GENTI.
Among the rich and curious bas-reliefs in front of the church of St.
Trophime at Arles, we have St. Peter and St. Paul seated together
receiving the souls of the just. Each has two souls in his lap, and the
Archangel Michael is bringing another.
In pictures, their proper place, as I have observed, is on each side of
the throne of the Redeemer, or on each side of the Virgin and Child:
sometimes they are standing together, or reading in the same book.
This must suffice for the devotional treatment of St. Peter and St.
Paul, when represented as joint founders and patrons of the universal
Christian Church. Before I notice those historical subjects in which
they appear together, I have to say a few words of the manner in which
they are treated separately and distinctly. And first of St. Peter.
* * * * *
The various events of the life of St. Peter are recorded in the Gospels
and the Acts so minutely, that they may be presumed to be familiar to
all readers. From these we may deduce his character, remarkable for
fervour and energy rather than sustained power. His traditional and
legendary history is full of incidents, miracles, and wonderful and
picturesque passages. His importance and popularity, considered as
Prince of the Apostles and Founder of the Church of Rome, have extended
with the influence of that powerful Church of which he is the head and
representative, and multiplied, almost to infinitude, pictures and
effigies of him in his individual character, as well as historical
representations of his life and actions, wherever his paramount dignity
is admitted.
It struck me, when wandering over the grand old churches of Ravenna,
where the ecclesiastical mosaics are the most ancient that exist, and
still in wonderful preservation, that St. Peter and St. Paul do not
often appear, at least are in no respect distinguished from the other
apostles. Ravenna, in the fifth century, did not look to Rome for her
saints. On the other hand, among the earliest of the Roman mosaics,
St. Peter is sometimes found sustaining the throne of Christ, without
his companion St. Paul; as in S. Maria-in-Trastevere, S. Maria Nuova,
and others. At Rome, St. Peter is _the_ Saint, the _Santissimo_. The
secession of the Protestant Church dimmed his glory as Prince of the
Apostles and universal Saint; he fell into a kind of disrepute as
identified with the See of Rome, which exposed his effigies, in England
and Scotland particularly, to a sweeping destruction. Those were
disputatious days; and Peter, the affectionate, enthusiastic, devoted,
but somewhat rash apostle, veiled his head to the intellectual,
intrepid, subtle philosopher Paul.
* * * * *
Let us now see how Art has placed before us the sturdy Prince of the
Apostles.
I have already mentioned the characteristic type which belongs to him,
and his prevalent attributes the key, the cross, the book. When he
figures among the disciples in the Gospel stories, he sometimes holds
the fish as the symbol of his original vocation: if the fish be given
to him in single devotional figures, it signifies also Christianity, or
the rite of Baptism.
The figures of St. Peter standing, as Apostle and Patron Saint,
with book and keys, are of such perpetual occurrence as to defy all
attempts to particularise them, and so familiar as to need no further
illustration.[164]
Representations of him in his peculiar character of Head and Founder of
the Roman Church, and first universal bishop, are less common. He is
seated on a throne; one hand is raised in the act of benediction; in
the other he holds the keys, and sometimes a book or scroll, inscribed
with the text, in Latin, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock have I built
my Church.’ This subject of the throned St. Peter is very frequent
in the older schools. The well-known picture by Giotto, painted for
Cardinal Stefaneschi, now in the sacristy of the Vatican, is very
fine, simple and solemn. In a picture by Cima da Conegliano,[165]
St. Peter is not only throned, but wears the triple tiara as pope;
the countenance is particularly earnest, fervent, almost fiery in
expression: the keys lie at his feet; on one side stands St. John the
Baptist, on the other St. Paul.
As a deviation from the usual form of this subject, I must mention an
old bas-relief, full of character, and significantly appropriate to
its locality the church of San Pietro-in-Vincoli, at Rome. St. Peter,
enthroned, holds in one hand the keys and the Gospel; with the other he
presents his chains to a kneeling angel: this unusual treatment is very
poetical and suggestive.
[Illustration: 70]
There are standing figures of St. Peter wearing the papal tiara, and
brandishing his keys, as in a picture by Cola dell’ Amatrice (70). And
I should think Milton had some such picture in his remembrance when he
painted _his_ St. Peter:—
Last came and last did go
The pilot of the Galilean Lake;
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain,)
He shook his _mitred_ locks, and stern bespake.
When, in devotional pictures, St. Peter is accompanied by another
apostle with no distinctive attributes, we may suppose it to be St.
Mark, who was his interpreter, companion, and amanuensis at Rome.
According to an early tradition, the Gospel of St. Mark was written
down from the dictation of St. Peter.[166] In a miniature frontispiece
to St. Mark’s Gospel, the evangelist is seated writing, and St. Peter
stands opposite, as if dictating. In a picture by Angelico,[167] Peter
is preaching from a pulpit to a crowd of people: Mark, seated on one
side, is diligently taking down his words. In a very fine picture by
Bonvicino[168] they stand together; St. Peter is reading from a book;
St. Mark holds a scroll and inkhorn; he is submitting to St. Peter the
Gospel he has just penned, and which was afterwards confirmed by the
apostle.
Lastly, a magnificent Venetian picture[169] represents St. Peter
throned as bishop, with an earnest and rather stern countenance; he
holds a book in his hand; two angels with musical instruments are
seated on the steps of his throne: on his right hand stand John the
Baptist, and St. Jerome as cardinal; on his left St. Ambrose; while St.
Mark bends over a book, as if reading to this majestic auditory.
* * * * *
Those scenes and incidents related in the Gospels in which St. Peter is
a principal or conspicuous figure, I shall enlarge upon when treating
of the life of Christ, and will only indicate a few of them here, as
illustrating the manner in which St. Peter is introduced and treated in
such subjects.
We have, first, the Calling of Peter and Andrew in a picture by
Basaiti,[170] where the two brothers are kneeling at the feet of
the Saviour; the fishing-boats and the Lake of Gennesareth in the
background: and in the beautiful fresco by Ghirlandajo in the Sistine
Chapel, where a number of contemporary personages are introduced as
spectators. St. Andrew presenting St. Peter to our Saviour (as in a
picture by Cavalucci, in the Vatican), is another version of the same
subject; or St. Andrew is seen at the feet of Christ, while St. Peter
is sitting on the edge of the boat, or descending from it in haste.
‘Christ walking on the Sea’ is a familiar and picturesque subject, not
to be mistaken. The most ancient and most celebrated representation
is Giotto’s mosaic (A.D. 1298), now placed in the portico of St.
Peter’s, over the arch opposite to the principal door. The sentiment
in the composition of this subject is, generally, ‘Lord, help me; or I
perish:’ St. Peter is sinking, and Christ is stretching out his hand to
save him. It is considered as a type of the Church in danger, assailed
by enemies, and saved by the miraculous interposition of the Redeemer;
and in this sense must the frequent representations in churches be
understood.
In the ‘Miraculous Draught of Fishes,’ St. Peter is usually on his
knees looking up with awe and gratitude:—‘Depart from me, O Lord! for
I am a sinful man.’ The composition of Raphael (the cartoon at Hampton
Court) is just what we should seek for in Raphael, a masterpiece of
dramatic expression,—the significant, the poetical, the miraculous
predominating. The composition of Rubens, at Malines, which deserves
the next place, should be looked at in contrast, as an instance of
the picturesque and vigorous treatment equally characteristic of the
painter;—all life and reality, even to the glittering fish which tumble
in the net. ‘St. Peter finding the tribute money’ is a subject I have
seldom met with: the _motif_ is simple, and not to be mistaken.
In all the scenes of the life of our Saviour in which the apostles are
assembled,—in the Transfiguration, in the Last Supper, in the ‘Washing
the Feet of the Disciples,’ in the scene of the agony and the betrayal
of Christ,—St. Peter is introduced as a more or less prominent figure,
but always to be distinguished from the other apostles. In the third of
these subjects, the washing of the feet, St. Peter generally looks up
at Christ with an expression of humble expostulation, his hand on his
head: the sentiment is—‘Not my feet only, but my hands and my head.’
In the scene of the betrayal of Christ, St. Peter cutting off the ear
of Malthus is sometimes a _too_ prominent group; and I remember an old
German print in which St. Peter having cut off the ear, our Lord bends
down to replace it.[171]
‘St. Peter denying the Saviour’ is always one of the subjects in the
series of the Passion of Christ. It occurs frequently on the ancient
sarcophagi as the symbol of repentance, and is treated with classical
and sculptural simplicity, the cock being always introduced, as in the
illustration (71): it is here to be understood as a general emblem of
human weakness and repentance. As an action separately, or as one of
the series of the life and actions of Peter, it has not been often
painted; it seems to have been avoided in general by the early Italian
painters as derogatory to the character and dignity of the apostle.
The only examples I can recollect are in the later Italian and Flemish
schools. Teniers has adopted it as a vehicle for a guard-room scene;
soldiers playing at cards, bright armour, &c. Rembrandt has taken it as
a vehicle for a fine artificial light; and, for the same reason, the
Caravaggio school delighted in it. The maiden, whose name in the old
traditions is Balilla, is always introduced with a look and gesture of
reproach, and the cock is often perched in the background.
[Illustration: 71 Repentance of Peter (Sarcophagus, third century)]
‘Christ turned and looked upon Peter:’ of this beautiful subject,
worthy of Raphael himself, I can remember no instance.
The ‘Repentance of Peter’ is a subject seldom treated in the
earlier schools of Italy, but frequently by the later painters, and
particularly by the Bologna school; in some instances most beautifully.
It was a subject peculiarly suited to the genius of Guercino, who
excelled in the expression of profound rather than elevated feeling.
There is a manner of representing the repentance of Peter which seems
peculiar to Spanish Art, and is more ideal than is usual with that
school. Christ is bound to a column and crowned with thorns; St.
Peter kneels before him in an attitude of the deepest anguish and
humiliation, and appears to be supplicating forgiveness. Except in
the Spanish school, I have never met with this treatment. The little
picture by Murillo[172] is an exquisite example; and in the Spanish
Gallery are two others, by Pedro de Cordova and Juan Juanes:—in the
former, St. Peter holds a pocket-handkerchief with which he has been
wiping his eyes, and the cock is perched on the column to which our
Saviour is bound.
Another ideal treatment we find in a picture by Guercino; St. Peter
is weeping bitterly, and opposite to him the Virgin is seated in
motionless grief.
Half-length figures of St. Peter looking up with an expression of
repentant sorrow, and wringing his hands, are of frequent occurrence,
more especially in the later followers of the Bologna and Neapolitan
schools of the seventeenth century: Ribera, Lanfranco, Caravaggio,
and Valentin. In most of these instances, the total absence of ideal
or elevated sentiment is striking;—any old bearded beggar out of the
streets, who could cast up his eyes and look pathetic, served as a
model.
I recollect no picture of the Crucifixion in which St. Peter is present.
‘The delivery of the keys to Peter’ and ‘the Charge to Peter,’ (Feed my
sheep,) either in separate pictures or combined into one subject, have
been of course favourite themes in a Church which founds its authority
on these particular circumstances. The bas-relief over the principal
door of St. Peter’s at Rome represents the two themes in one: Christ
delivers the keys to Peter, and the sheep are standing by. In the
panels of the bronze doors beneath (A.D. 1431), we have the chain of
thought and incident continued; Peter delivers the emblematical keys to
Pope Eugenius IV.
It is curious that, while the repentance of Peter is a frequent subject
on the sarcophagi of the fourth century, the delivery of the keys to
Peter occurs but once. Christ, as a beardless youth, presents to Peter
two keys laid crosswise one over the other. Peter, in whose head the
traditional type is most distinctly marked, has thrown his pallium
over his outstretched hands, for, according to the antique ceremonial,
of which the early sculpture and mosaics afford us so many examples,
things consecrated could only be touched with covered hands. This
singular example is engraved in Bottari.[173] An example of beautiful
and solemn treatment in painting is Perugino’s fresco in the Sistine
Chapel. It contains twenty-one figures; the conception is quite ideal,
the composition regular even to formality, yet striking and dramatic.
In the centre, Peter, kneeling on one knee, receives the keys from the
hand of the Saviour; the apostles and disciples are arranged on each
side behind Christ and St. Peter; in the background is the rebuilding
of the Temple;—a double allegory: ‘Destroy this temple, I will build it
up in three days:’ and also, perhaps, alluding to the building of the
chapel by Sixtus IV.
In Raphael’s cartoon[174] the scene is an open plain: Christ stands
on the right; in front, St. Peter kneels, with the keys in his hand;
Christ extends one hand to Peter, and with the other points to a
flock of sheep in the background. The introduction of the sheep into
this subject has been criticised as at once too literal and too
allegorical,—a too literal transcript of the words, a too allegorical
version of the meaning; but I do not see how the words of our Saviour
could have been otherwise rendered in painting, which must speak to us
through sensible objects. The other apostles standing behind Peter show
in each countenance the different manner in which they are affected by
the words of the Saviour.
By Gian Bellini: a beautiful picture:[175] St. Peter kneeling,
half-length, receives the keys from Jesus Christ, seated on a throne.
Behind St. Peter stand the three Christian Graces, Faith, Hope, and
Charity. Poussin has taken this subject in his series of the Seven
Sacraments[176], to represent the sacrament of Ordination. In this
instance again, the two themes are united; and we must also remember,
that the allegorical representation of the disciples and followers of
Christ as sheep looking up to be fed, is consecrated by the practice of
the earliest schools of Christian Art. Rubens has rendered the subject
very simply, in a picture containing only the two figures, Christ and
St. Peter;[177] and again with five figures, less good.[178] Numerous
other examples might be given; but the subject is one that, however
treated, cannot be easily mistaken.
A very ideal version of this subject is where St. Peter kneels at the
feet of the Madonna, and the Infant Christ, bending from her lap,
presents the keys to him; as in a singularly fine and large composition
by Crivelli,[179] and in another by Andrea Salaino. Another, very
beautiful and curious, is in the possession of Mr. Bromley of
Wootten.[180]
* * * * *
After the ascension of our Saviour, the personal history of St. Peter
is mingled first with that of St. John, and afterwards with that of St.
Paul.
‘Peter and John healing the lame man at the gate called Beautiful’ is
the subject of one of the finest of the cartoons at Hampton Court.
Perin del Vaga, Niccolò Poussin, and others less renowned, have also
treated it; it is susceptible of much contrast and dramatic effect.
‘The sick are brought out and placed in the shadow of Peter and John
that they may be healed,’ by Masaccio.[181]
‘Peter preaching to the early converts:’ the two most beautiful
compositions I have seen, are the simple group of Masaccio; and another
by Le Sueur, full of variety and sentiment.
‘Peter and John communicate the Holy Ghost by laying their hands on the
disciples,’ by Vasari.[182] I do not well remember this picture.
The Vision of Peter: three angels sustain the curtain or sheet which
contains the various forbidden animals, as pigs, rabbits, &c. (as in a
print after Guercino).
‘Peter baptizes the Centurion’ (very appropriately placed in the
baptistery of the Vatican). St. Peter meets the Centurion; he blesses
the family of the Centurion. All commonplace versions of very
interesting and picturesque subjects.
‘The Death of Ananias.’ Raphael’s cartoon of this awful scene is a
masterpiece of dramatic and scenic power; never was a story more
admirably and completely told in painting. Those who had to deal with
the same subject, as if to avoid a too close comparison with his
unapproachable excellence, have chosen the death of Sapphira as the
_motif_: as, for example, Niccolò Poussin.[183]
‘Dorcas or Tabitha restored to life.’ One of the finest and most
effective of Guercino’s pictures, now in the Palazzo Pitti: the simple
dignity of the apostle, and the look of sick amazement in the face of
the woman restored to consciousness, show how strong Guercino could be
when he had to deal with natural emotions of no elevated kind. The same
subject, by Costanzi, is among the great mosaics in St. Peter’s. ‘The
Death of Dorcas,’ by Le Sueur, is a beautiful composition. She lies
extended on a couch; St. Peter and two other apostles approach the foot
of it: the poor widows, weeping, show to St. Peter the garments which
Dorcas had made for them (Acts ix. 39).
* * * * *
The imprisonment of Peter, and his deliverance by the Angel, were
incidents so important, and offer such obvious points of dramatic
effect, that they have been treated in every possible variety of style
and sentiment, from the simple formality of the early mosaics, where
the two figures—Peter sitting on a stool, leaning his head on his hand,
and the Angel at his side—express the story like a vision,[184] down to
the scenic and architectural compositions of Steenwick, where, amid a
vast perspective of gloomy vaults and pillars, a diminutive St. Peter,
with an Angel or a sentinel placed somewhere in the foreground, just
serves to give the picture a name.[185]
Some examples of this subject are of great celebrity.
Masaccio, in the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel, has represented
Peter in prison, looking through his grated window, and Paul outside
communing with him. (The noble figure of St. Paul in this fresco was
imitated by Raphael in the ‘St. Paul preaching at Athens.’) In the next
compartment of the series, Masaccio has given us the Angel leading
forth Peter, while the guard sleeps at the door: he sleeps as one
oppressed with an unnatural sleep. Raphael’s fresco in the Vatican is
not one of his best, but he has seized on the obvious point of effect,
both as to light and grouping; and we have three separate moments of
the same incident, which yet combine most happily into one grand scene.
Thus in the centre, over the window, we see through a grating the
interior of the prison, where St. Peter is sleeping between two guards,
who, leaning on their weapons, are sunk in a deep charmed slumber;[186]
an angel, whose celestial radiance fills the dungeon with a flood
of light, is in the act of waking the apostle: on the right of the
spectator, the angel leads the apostle out of the prison; two guards
are sleeping on the steps: on the left, the soldiers are roused from
sleep, and one with a lighted torch appears to be giving the alarm; the
crescent moon faintly illumines the background.
The deliverance of St. Peter has always been considered as figurative
of the deliverance of the Church; and the two other frescoes of this
room, the Heliodorus and the Attila, bear the same interpretation. It
is worth while to compare this dramatic composition of Raphael with
others wherein the story is merely a vehicle for artificial effects
of light, as in a picture by Gerard Honthorst; or treated like a
supernatural vision, as by that poet, Rembrandt.
Those historical subjects in which St. Peter and St. Paul figure
together will be noticed in the life of St. Paul.
I come now to the legendary stories connected with St. Peter; an
inexhaustible source of popular and pictorial interest.
Peter was at Jerusalem as late as A.D. 52; then at Antioch; also in
Babylon: according to the most ancient testimonies he was at Rome
about A.D. 63; but the tradition, that he resided as bishop in the
city of Rome for twenty-five years, first related by Jerome, seems
questionable.[187] Among the legendary incidents which marked his
sojourn in Rome, the first and the most important is the story of Simon
Magus.
Simon, a famous magician among the Jews, had astonished the whole city
of Jerusalem by his wonderful feats; but his inventions and sorceries
were overcome by the real miracles of Peter, as the Egyptian magi had
been conquered by Aaron. He offered the apostles money to buy the
secret of their power, which Peter rejected with indignation. St.
Augustine tells us, as a characteristic trait of the fiery-spirited
apostle, that ‘if he had fallen on the traitor Simon, he would
certainly have torn him to pieces with his teeth.’ The magician,
vanquished by a superior power, flung his books into the Dead Sea,
broke his wand, and fled to Rome, where he became a great favourite
of the Emperor Claudius, and afterwards of Nero. Peter, bent on
counteracting the wicked sorceries of Simon, followed him to Rome.
About two years after his arrival he was joined there by the Apostle
Paul. Simon Magus having asserted that he was himself a god, and could
raise the dead, Peter and Paul rebuked his impiety, and challenged
him to a trial of skill in presence of the emperor. The arts of the
magician failed; Peter and Paul restored the youth to life: and on many
other occasions Simon was vanquished and put to shame by the miraculous
power of the apostles. At length he undertook to fly up to heaven in
sight of the emperor and the people; and, crowned with laurel, and
supported by demons, he flung himself from a tower, and appeared for a
while to float thus in the air: but St. Peter, falling on his knees,
commanded the demons to let go their hold, and Simon, precipitated to
the ground, was dashed to pieces.
This romantic legend, so popular in the middle ages, is founded on some
antique traditions not wholly unsupported by historical testimony.
There can be no doubt that there existed in the first century a Simon,
a Samaritan, a pretender to divine authority and supernatural powers;
who, for a time, had many followers; who stood in a certain relation to
Christianity; and who may have held some opinions more or less similar
to those entertained by the most famous heretics of the early ages,
the Gnostics. Irenæus calls this Simon the father of all heretics.
‘All those,’ he says, ‘who in any way corrupt the truth, or mar the
preaching of the Church, are disciples and successors of Simon, the
Samaritan magician.’ Simon gave himself forth as a god, and carried
about with him a beautiful woman named Helena, whom he represented as
the first conception of his—that is, of the divine—mind, the symbol
or manifestation of that portion of spirituality which had become
entangled in matter.[188]
The incidents of the story of Simon Magus have been often and variously
treated.
1. By Quintin Matsys: Peter refuses the offer of Simon Magus—‘Thy money
perish with thee!’ Here Peter wears the mitre of a bishop: the picture
is full of coarse but natural expression.
2. ‘Peter and Paul accused before Nero:’ the fresco in the Brancacci
Chapel, attributed by Kugler to Filippino Lippi, is certainly one of
the most perfect pieces of art, as a dramatic composition, which we
have before the time of Raphael. To the right the emperor is seated on
his throne, on each side his ministers and attendants. The countenances
are finely varied; some of them animated by attention and curiosity,
others sunk in deep thought. The two apostles, and their accuser
Simon Magus, are in front. Simon, a magnificent figure, who might
serve for a Prospero, lays his hand on the vest of Peter, as if to
drag him forward; Paul stands aside with quiet dignity; Peter, with a
countenance full of energetic expression, points contemptuously to the
broken idol at his feet. For the felicity and animation with which the
story is told, and for propriety, grace, and grandeur, Raphael has not
often exceeded this picture.
3. Another of the series of the life of Peter in the Brancacci Chapel
is the resuscitation of the youth, who in the legend is called the
nephew of the emperor; a composition of numerous figures. In the centre
stands St. Peter, and before him kneels the youth; a skull and a few
bones are near him—a naïve method of expressing his return from death
to life. The variety of expression in the countenances of the assembled
spectators is very fine. According to the custom of the Florentine
school at that time, many are portraits of distinguished persons; and,
considering that the fresco was painted at a period most interesting in
the Florentine history (A.D. 1440), we have much reason to regret that
these can no longer be discriminated.
4. ‘The Fall of Simon Magus’ is a favourite and picturesque subject,
often repeated. A most ancient and most curious version is that on the
walls of the Cathedral at Assisi, older than the time of Giotto, and
attributed to Giunta Pisano. (A.D. 1232.) On one side is a pyramidical
tower formed of wooden bars; Peter and Paul are kneeling in front; the
figure of the magician is seen floating in the air and sustained by
hideous demons;—very dreamy, poetical, and fanciful. In Mr. Ottley’s
collection I saw a small ancient picture of the same subject, very
curious, attributed to Benozzo Gozzoli. Raphael’s composition in the
Vatican has the simplicity of a classical bas-relief,—a style which
does not appear suited to this romantic legend. The picture by L.
Caracci at Naples I have not seen. Over one of the altars of St. Peter,
we now see the great mosaic, after Vanni’s picture of this subject; a
clever commonplace treatment: the scene is an amphitheatre, the emperor
above in his balcony; Peter and Paul in front, invoking the name of
Christ, and Simon Magus tumbling headlong, forsaken by his demons; in
the background sit the vestals. Battoni’s great picture in the S. Maria
degli Angeli at Rome is considered his best production; it is full of
well-studied academic drawing, but scenic and mannered.
* * * * *
The next subject in the order of events is styled the ‘DOMINE, QUO
VADIS?’ After the burning of Rome, Nero threw upon the Christians the
accusation of having fired the city. This was the origin of the first
persecution, in which many perished by terrible and hitherto unheard-of
deaths. The Christian converts besought Peter not to expose his life,
which was dear and necessary to the well-being of all; and at length
he consented to depart from Rome. But as he fled along the Appian Way,
about two miles from the gates, he was met by a vision of our Saviour
travelling towards the city. Struck with amazement, he exclaimed,
‘Lord! whither goest thou?’ to which the Saviour, looking upon him
with a mild sadness, replied, ‘I go to Rome to be crucified a second
time,’ and vanished. Peter, taking this for a sign that he was to
submit himself to the sufferings prepared for him, immediately turned
back, and re-entered the city. Michael Angelo’s famous statue, now in
the church of S. Maria-sopra-Minerva at Rome, is supposed to represent
Christ as he appeared to Peter on this occasion; and a cast or copy of
it is in the little church of ‘Domine, quo vadis?’ erected on the spot
sanctified by this mysterious meeting.
It is surprising that this most beautiful, picturesque, and, to my
fancy, sublime legend has been so seldom treated; and never, as it
appears to me, in a manner worthy of its capabilities and its high
significance. It is seldom that a whole story can be told by two
figures, and these two figures placed in such grand and dramatic
contrast;—Christ in his serene majesty and radiant with all the glory
of beatitude, yet with an expression of gentle reproach; the apostle
at his feet, arrested in his flight, amazed, and yet filled with a
trembling joy; and for the background the wide Campagna or the towering
walls of imperial Rome;—these are grand materials; but the pictures I
have met with are all ineffective in conception. The best fall short of
the sublime ideal; most of them are theatrical and commonplace.
Raphael has interpreted it in a style rather too classical for the
spirit of the legend; with great simplicity and dignity, but as a
_fact_, rather than a vision conjured up by the stricken conscience and
tenderness of the affectionate apostle. The small picture by Annibale
Caracci in our National Gallery is a carefully finished academical
study and nothing more, but may be referred to as a fair example of the
usual mode of treatment.
Peter returned to Rome, persisted in his appointed work, preaching
and baptizing; was seized with St. Paul and thrown into the Mamertine
dungeons under the Capitol. The two centurions who guarded them,
Processus and Martinian, and many of the criminals confined in the
same prison, were converted by the preaching of the apostle; and there
being no water to baptize them, at the prayer of St. Peter a fountain
sprang up from the stone floor; which may be seen at this day.
‘The Baptism of St. Processus and St. Martinian in the Dungeon,’ by
Trevisani, is in the baptistery of St. Peter’s at Rome; they afterwards
suffered for the faith, and were canonised. In the same church is
the scene of their martyrdom by Valentino; they are seen bound and
stretched on a hurdle, the head of one to the feet of the other, and
thus beaten to death. The former picture—the Baptism—is commonplace;
the latter, terrible for dark and effective expression; it is just one
of those subjects in which the Caravaggio school delighted.
* * * * *
A few days after their incarceration, St. Peter and St. Paul were
condemned to death. According to one tradition, St. Peter suffered
martyrdom in the Circus of Caligula at the foot of the Vatican, and was
crucified between two metæ, i.e. the goals or terminæ in the Circus,
round which the chariots turned in the race; but, according to another
tradition, he was put to death in the court-yard of a barrack or
military station on the summit of Mons Janicula, where the church of
San Pietro in Montorio now stands; that is, on an eminence above the
site of the Circus of Caligula. At his own request, and that his death
might be even more painful and ignominious than that of his Divine
Master, he was crucified with his head downwards.
[Illustration: 72 Crucifixion of St. Peter (Giotto)]
In the earliest representations I have met with,[189] St. Peter is
raised on the cross with his head downwards, and wears a long shirt
which is fastened round his ankles. In the picture of Giotto,[190] the
local circumstances, according to the first tradition, are carefully
attended to: we have the cross erected between the two metæ, and about
twenty soldiers and attendants; among them a woman who embraces the
foot of the cross, as the Magdalene embraces the cross of the Saviour.
Above are seen angels, who bear the soul of the martyred saint in a
glory to heaven. Masaccio’s composition[191] is very simple; the scene
is the court-yard of a military station (according to the second
tradition). Peter is already nailed upon a cross; three executioners
are in the act of raising it with cords and a pulley to suspend it
against a great beam of wood; there are several soldiers, but no women,
present. In Guido’s composition[192] there are only three figures, the
apostle and two executioners; it is celebrated as a work of art, but
it appeared to me most ineffective. On the other hand, Rubens has gone
into the opposite extreme; there are only three persons, the principal
figure filling nearly the whole of the canvas: it is full of vigour,
truth, and nature; but the brutality of the two executioners, and the
agony of the aged saint, too coarsely and painfully literal. These
simple representations of the mere act or fact should be compared with
the fresco of Michael Angelo,[193] in which the event is evolved into
a grand drama. Here the scene is evidently the summit of the Mons
Janiculum: in the midst of a crowd of soldiers and spectators, St.
Peter lies nailed to the cross, which a number of men are exerting
their utmost strength to raise from the ground.
* * * * *
The legend which makes St. Peter the keeper of the gate of Paradise,
with power to grant or refuse admission, is founded on the delivery of
the keys to Peter. In most of the pictures which represent the entrance
of the blessed into Paradise or the New Jerusalem, Peter stands with
his keys near the gate. There is a beautiful example in the great
fresco of Simone Memmi in the chapel _de’ Spagnuoli_ at Florence: St.
Peter stands at the open portal with his great key, and two angels
crown with garlands the souls of the just as they enter joyously hand
in hand.
[Illustration: 73 From the fresco of Simone Memmi, Florence (S. Maria
Novella)]
The legend of St. Petronilla, the daughter of St. Peter (in French,
Sainte Pernelle), has never been popular as a subject of Art, and I can
remember no series of incidents from the life of St. Peter in which
she is introduced, except those in the Carmine at Florence. It is
apparently a Roman legend, and either unknown to the earliest artists,
or neglected by them. It is thus related:—
‘The apostle Peter had a daughter born in lawful wedlock, who
accompanied him in his journey from the East. Being at Rome with
him, she fell sick of a grievous infirmity which deprived her of the
use of her limbs. And it happened that as the disciples were at meat
with him in his house, one said to him, ‘Master, how is it that thou,
who healest the infirmities of others, dost not heal thy daughter
Petronilla?’ And St. Peter answered, ‘It is good for her to remain
sick:’ but, that they might see the power that was in the word of God,
he commanded her to get up and serve them at table, which she did;
and having done so, she lay down again helpless as before; but many
years afterwards, being perfected by her long suffering, and praying
fervently, she was healed. Petronilla was wonderfully fair; and
Valerius Flaccus, a young and noble Roman, who was a heathen, became
enamoured of her beauty, and sought her for his wife; and he being
very powerful, she feared to refuse him; she therefore desired him
to return in three days, and promised that he should then carry her
home. But she prayed earnestly to be delivered from this peril; and
when Flaccus returned in three days with great pomp to celebrate the
marriage, he found her dead. The company of nobles who attended him
carried her to the grave, in which they laid her, crowned with roses;
and Flaccus lamented greatly.’[194]
The legend places her death in the year 98, that is, 34 years after
the death of St. Peter; but it would be in vain to attempt to
reconcile the dates and improbabilities of this story.
St. Peter raising Petronilla from her sick bed is one of the subjects
by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel. The scene of her entombment is the
subject of a once celebrated and colossal picture by Guercino: the
copy in mosaic is over the altar dedicated to her in St. Peter’s: in
front, and in the lower part of the picture, she is just seen as they
are letting her down into the grave, crowned with roses; behind stands
Flaccus with a handkerchief in his hand, and a crowd of spectators:
in the upper part of the picture Petronilla is already in Paradise,
kneeling, in a rich dress, before the feet of Christ, having exchanged
an earthly for a heavenly bridegroom. This great picture exhibits, in a
surpassing degree, the merits and defects of Guercino; it is effective,
dramatic, deeply and forcibly coloured, and arrests attention: on the
other hand, it is coarse, crowded, vulgar in sentiment, and repugnant
to our better taste. There is a standing figure of Petronilla in the
Duomo at Lucca, by Daniel di Volterra, very fine.[195]
* * * * *
The life of St. Peter, when represented as a series, generally
comprises the following subjects, commencing with the first important
incident after the Ascension of Christ.
1. Peter and John heal the lame man at the Beautiful Gate. 2. Peter
heals the paralytic Eneas. 3. Peter raises Tabitha. 4. The angel takes
off the chains of Peter. 5. He follows the angel out of the prison. 6.
St. Peter and St. Paul meet at Rome. 7. Peter and Paul before Nero are
accused by Simon Magus. 8. The fall of Simon Magus. 9. The crucifixion
of St. Peter. This example is taken from the series of mosaics in the
Cathedral of Monreale, at Palermo.
The fine series of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel at Florence is
differently arranged; thus:—1. The tribute money found in the fish by
St. Peter. 2. Peter preaching to the converts. 3. Peter baptizes the
converts. In this fresco, the youth, who has thrown off his garments
and is preparing for baptism, is famous as the first really graceful
and well-drawn undraped figure which had been produced since the
revival of Art. 4. Peter and John heal the cripple at the Beautiful
Gate, and Petronilla is raised from her bed. 5. Peter in his prison is
visited by Paul. 6. Peter delivered by the angel. 7. The resuscitation
of the dead youth. 8. The sick are laid in the way of Peter and John,
‘that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some
of them.’ 9. Peter and John distribute alms; a dead figure lies at the
feet of the apostles, perhaps Ananias. The situation of the fresco
is very dark, so that it is difficult to distinguish the action and
expression of the figures. 10. Peter and Paul accused before Nero. 11.
The crucifixion of Peter.
In St. Peter’s at Rome, we have of course every scene from the life of
the apostle which could well be expressed by Art; but none of these are
of great merit or interest: most of them are from the schools of the
seventeenth century.
* * * * *
ST. PAUL, though called to the apostleship after the ascension of the
Saviour, takes rank next to St. Peter as one of the chief witnesses of
the Christian faith. Of all the apostles he is the most interesting;
the one of whose personal character and history we know most, and
through the most direct and irrefragable testimony. The events of his
life, as conveyed in the Acts and the Epistles, are so well known, that
I need not here particularise them. The legends connected with him are
very few.
* * * * *
The earliest single figure of St. Paul to which I can refer was found
painted on the walls of the cemetery of Priscilla, near Rome.[196] He
stands, with outstretched arms, in the act of prayer; (in the early
ages of Christianity the act of supplication was expressed in the
classical manner, that is, not with folded hands, but with the arms
extended;) he has the nimbus; his dress is that of a traveller, the
tunic and pallium being short, and his feet sandalled, perhaps to
indicate his many and celebrated travels; perhaps, also, it represents
Paul praying for his flock before he departed from Macedon to return
to Jerusalem (Acts xx.): over this ancient figure, which, though ill
drawn, is quite classical in sentiment and costume, is inscribed
PAULUS. PASTOR. APOSTOLOS; on his right hand stands the Good Shepherd,
in reference to the title of PASTOR, inscribed over his effigy. Another
figure of St. Paul, which appears to be of later date, but anterior to
the fifth century, was found in the catacombs at Naples: in this effigy
he wears the dress of a Greek philosopher; the style in which the
drapery is worn recalls the time of Hadrian: he has no nimbus, nor is
the head bald; he has sandals on his feet: over his head is inscribed
his name, PAULUS; near him is a smaller figure similarly draped, who
offers him fruit and flowers in a vase; probably the personage who was
entombed on the spot.
* * * * *
At what period the sword was given to St. Paul as his distinctive
attribute, is with antiquaries a disputed point; certainly, much later
than the keys were given to Peter.[197] If we could be sure that the
mosaic on the tomb of Otho II., and another mosaic already described,
had not been altered in successive restorations, these would be
evidence that the sword was given to St. Paul as his attribute as early
as the 6th century; but there are no monuments which can be absolutely
trusted as regards the introduction of the sword before the end of
the 11th century; since the end of the 14th century, it has been so
generally adopted, that in the devotional effigies I can remember no
instance in which it is omitted. When St. Paul is leaning on the sword,
it expresses his martyrdom; when he holds it aloft, it expresses also
his warfare in the cause of Christ: when two swords are given to him,
one is the attribute, the other the emblem; but this double allusion
does not occur in any of the older representations. In Italy I never
met with St. Paul bearing two swords, and the only instance I can call
to mind is the bronze statue by Peter Vischer, on the shrine of St.
Sebald, at Nuremberg.
Although devotional representations of St. Paul separate from St. Peter
and the other apostles occur very rarely, pictures from his life and
actions are commonly met with; the principal events are so familiar,
that they are easily recognised and discriminated even by the most
unlearned in biblical illustration: considered and treated as a series,
they form a most interesting and dramatic succession of scenes, often
introduced into the old churches; but the incidents chosen are not
always the same.
Paul, before his conversion, was present at the stoning of Stephen, and
he is generally introduced holding on his knees the garments of the
executioners. In some ancient pictures, he has, even while looking on
and ‘consenting to the death’ of the victim, the glory round his head,
as one who, while ‘breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord,’ was already a chosen vessel to bear His name
before the Gentiles.’ But in a set of pictures which relate expressly
to St. Paul the martyrdom of Stephen is, with proper feeling, omitted,
and the series generally begins with the CONVERSION OF PAUL,—in his
character of apostle, the first great event in his life. An incident so
important, so celebrated, and in all its accessories so picturesque and
dramatic, has of course been a frequent subject of artistic treatment,
even as a separate composition. In some of the old mosaics, the story
is very simply, and at the same time vividly, rendered. In the earliest
examples, St. Paul has the nimbus or glory while yet unconverted; he
is prostrate on the ground, grovelling on his hands and knees; rays
of light fall upon him out of heaven, where the figure of Christ,
half-length, is seen emerging from glory; sometimes it is a hand only,
which is the emblem of the Almighty Power; two or four attendants at
most are flying in terror. It is not said in Scripture that St. Paul
journeyed on horseback from Jerusalem to Damascus; but the tradition
is at least as old as the time of Pope Dalmasius (A.D. 384), as it is
then referred to. St. Augustine says he journeyed on foot, because
the Pharisees made a point of religion to go on foot, and it is so
represented in the old Greek mosaics. The expression, ‘It is hard
for thee to kick against the pricks,’ has been oddly enough assigned
as a reason for placing Paul on horseback;[198] at all events, as he
bore a military command, it has been thought proper in later times
so to represent him, and also as surrounded by a numerous cortége of
attendants. This treatment admits, of course, of endless variety,
in the disposition and number of the figures, in the attitudes and
expression; but the moment chosen is generally the same.
1. The oldest example I can cite, next to the Greek mosaics, is an old
Italian print mentioned by Zani. Paul, habited as a Roman warrior,
kneels with his arms crossed on his breast, and holding a scroll, on
which is inscribed in Latin, ‘Lord, what shall I do?’ Christ stands
opposite to him, also holding a scroll, on which is written, ‘Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ There are no attendants. Zani does not
give the date of this quaint and simple version of the story.
2. Raphael. Paul, habited as a Roman soldier, is lying on the ground,
as thrown from his horse; he looks upward to Christ, who appears in the
clouds, attended by three child-angels: his attendants on foot and on
horseback are represented as rushing to his assistance, unconscious of
the vision, but panic struck by its effect on _him_: one attendant in
the background seizes by the bridle the terrified horse. The original
cartoon of this fine composition (one of the tapestries in the Vatican)
is lost.
3. Michael Angelo. Paul, a noble figure, though prostrate, appears to
be struck motionless and senseless: Christ seems to be _rushing_ down
from heaven surrounded by a host of angels; those of the attendants
who are near to Paul are flying in all directions, while a long train
of soldiers is seen ascending from the background. This grand dramatic
composition forms the pendant to the Crucifixion of Peter in the
Cappella Paolina. It is so darkened by age and the smoke of tapers, and
so ill lighted, that it is not easily made out; but there is a fine
engraving, which may be consulted.
4. Another very celebrated composition of this subject is that of
Rubens.[199] Paul, lying in the foreground, expresses in his attitude
the most helpless and grovelling prostration. The attendants appear
very literally frightened out of their senses; and the grey horse
snorting and rearing behind is the finest part of the picture: as is
usual with Rubens, the effects of physical fear and amazement are given
with the utmost spirit and truth; but the scriptural dignity, the
supernatural terrors, of the subject are ill expressed, and the apostle
himself is degraded. To go a step lower, Cuyp has given us a Conversion
of St. Paul apparently for the sole purpose of introducing horses in
different attitudes: the favourite dapple-grey charger is seen bounding
off in terror; no one looks at St. Paul, still less to Christ above—but
the _horses_ are admirable.
5. In Albert Dürer’s print, a shower of _stones_ is falling from heaven
on St. Paul and his company.
6. There is a very curious and unusual version of this subject in
a rare print by Lucas van Leyden. It is a composition of numerous
figures. St. Paul is seen, blind and bewildered, led between two men;
another man leads his frightened charger; several warriors and horsemen
follow, and the whole procession seems to be proceeding slowly to the
right. In the far distance is represented the previous moment—Paul
struck down and blinded by the celestial vision.
* * * * *
‘Paul, after his conversion, restored to sight by Ananias,’ as a
separate subject, seldom occurs; but it has been treated in the later
schools by Vasari, by Cavallucci, and by P. Cortona.
* * * * *
‘The Jews flagellate Paul and Silas.’ I know but one picture of this
subject, that of Niccolò Poussin: the angry Jews are seen driving them
forth with scourges; the Elders, who have condemned them, are seated in
council behind: as we might expect from the character of Poussin, the
dignity of the apostles is maintained,—but it is not one of his best
pictures.
* * * * *
‘Paul, after his conversion, escapes from Damascus;’ he is let down
in a basket (Acts ix. 25): the incident forms, of course, one of the
scenes in his life when exhibited in a series, but I remember no
separate picture of this subject, and the situation is so ludicrous and
so derogatory that we can understand how it came to be avoided.
* * * * *
‘The ecstatic vision of St. Paul, in which he was caught up to the
third heaven.’ (2 Cor. xii. 2.) Paul, who so frequently and familiarly
speaks of angels, in describing this event makes no mention of them,
but in pictures he is represented as borne upwards by angels. I find
no early composition of this subject. The small picture of Domenichino
is coldly conceived. Poussin has painted the ‘Ravissement de St. Paul’
twice; in the first, the apostle is borne upon the arms of four angels,
and in the second he is sustained by three angels. In rendering this
ecstatic vision, the angels, always allowable as machinery, have here a
particular propriety; Paul is elevated only a few feet above the roof
of his house, where lie his sword and book. Here the sword serves to
distinguish the personage; and the roof of the house shows us that it
is a vision, and not an apotheosis. Both pictures are in the Louvre.
* * * * *
‘Paul preaching to the converts at Ephesus.’ In a beautiful
Raffaelesque composition by Le Sueur, the incident of the magicians
bringing their books of sorcery and burning them at the feet of the
apostle is well introduced. It was long the custom to exhibit this
picture solemnly in Notre Dame every year on the 1st of May. It is now
in the Louvre.
‘Paul before Felix,’ and ‘Paul before Agrippa.’ Neither of these
subjects has ever been adequately treated. It is to me inconceivable
that the old masters so completely overlooked the opportunity for grand
characteristic delineation afforded by both these scenes, the latter
especially. Perhaps, in estimating its capabilities, we are misled by
the effect produced on the imagination by the splendid eloquence of
the apostle; yet, were another Raphael to arise, I would suggest the
subject as a pendant to the St. Paul at Athens.
‘Paul performs miracles before the Emperor Nero;’ a blind man, a sick
child, and a possessed woman are brought to him to be healed. This,
though a legendary rather than a scriptural subject, has been treated
by Le Sueur with scriptural dignity and simplicity.
* * * * *
‘The martyrdom of St. Paul’ is sometimes a separate subject, but
generally it is the pendant to the martyrdom of St. Peter. According
to the received tradition, the two apostles suffered at the same time,
but in different places; for St. Paul, being by birth a Roman citizen,
escaped the ignominy of the public exposure in the Circus, as well
as the prolonged torture of the cross. He was beheaded by the sword
outside the Ostian gate, about two miles from Rome, at a place called
the Aqua Salvias, now the ‘Tre Fontane.’ The legend of the death of St.
Paul relates that a certain Roman matron named Plautilla, one of the
converts of St. Peter, placed herself on the road by which St. Paul
passed to his martyrdom, in order to behold him for the last time;
and when she saw him, she wept greatly, and besought his blessing.
The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her and begged that she
would give him her veil to bind his eyes when he should be beheaded,
promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked
at such a promise, but Plautilla, with a woman’s faith and charity,
taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, St. Paul
appeared to her, and restored the veil stained with his blood. It is
also related, that when he was decapitated the severed head made three
bounds upon the earth, and wherever it touched the ground a fountain
sprang forth.
In the most ancient representations of the martyrdom of St. Paul,
the legend of Plautilla is seldom omitted. In the picture of Giotto
preserved in the sacristy of St. Peter’s, Plautilla is seen on an
eminence in the background, receiving the veil from the hand of
Paul, who appears in the clouds above; the same representation, but
little varied, is executed in bas-relief on the bronze doors of St.
Peter’s. The three fountains gushing up beneath the severed head are
also frequently represented as a literal fact, though a manifest and
beautiful allegory, figurative of the fountains of Christian faith
which should spring forth from his martyrdom.
In all the melancholy vicinity of Rome, there is not a more melancholy
spot than the ‘Tre Fontane.’ A splendid monastery, rich with the
offerings of all Christendom, once existed there: the ravages of that
mysterious scourge of the Campagna, the malaria, have rendered it a
desert; three ancient churches and some ruins still exist, and a few
pale monks wander about the swampy dismal confines of the hollow in
which they stand. In winter you approach them through a quagmire; in
summer, you dare not breathe in their pestilential vicinity; and yet
there is a sort of dead beauty about the place, something hallowed as
well as sad, which seizes on the fancy. In the church properly called
‘San Paolo delle Tre Fontane,’ and which is so old that the date of the
foundation is unknown, are three chapels with altars raised over as
many wells or fountains; the altars are modern, and have each the head
of St. Paul carved in relief. The water, which appeared to me exactly
the same in all the three fountains, has a soft insipid taste, neither
refreshing nor agreeable. The ancient frescoes have perished, and the
modern ones are perishing. It is a melancholy spot.
To return, however, to that event which has rendered it for ages
consecrated and memorable. Among the many representations of the
decollation of St. Paul which exist in sculpture and in painting, I
have not met with one which could take a high place as a work of art,
or which has done justice to the tragic capabilities of the subject.
After his martyrdom the body of St. Paul was interred on a spot between
the Ostian gate and the Aqua Salvias, and there arose the magnificent
church known as San Paolo-_fuori-le-mura_. I saw this church a few
months before it was consumed by fire in 1823; I saw it again in
1847, when the restoration was far advanced. Its cold magnificence,
compared with the impressions left by the former structure, rich with
inestimable remains of ancient art, and venerable from a thousand
associations, saddened and chilled me.
The mosaics in the old church, which represented the life and actions
of St. Paul, were executed by the Greek mosaic masters of the eleventh
century. They appear to have comprised the same subjects which still
exist as a series in the church of Monreale near Palermo, and which I
shall now describe.
1. Saul is sent by the high-priest to Damascus. Two priests are seated
on a raised throne in front of the Temple; Saul stands before them.
2. The Conversion of Saul, as already described (p. 214).
3. Saul, being blind, is led by his attendants to the gate of Damascus.
4. Saul seated. Ananias enters and addresses him.
5. Paul is baptized: he is standing, or rather sitting, in a font,
which is a large vase, and not much larger in proportion than a
punch-bowl.
6. St. Paul disputes with the Jews. His attitude is vehement and
expressive: three Jewish doctors stand before him as if confounded and
put to silence by his eloquent reasoning.
7. St. Paul escapes from Damascus; the basket, in which he is lowered
down from a parapet, is about the size of a hand-basket.
8. St. Paul delivers a scroll to Timothy and Silas; he consigns to
their direction the deacons that were ordained by the apostles and
elders. (Acts xvi. 4.)
9. St. Paul and St. Peter meet at Rome, and embrace with brotherly
affection. I believe this subject to represent the reconciliation of
the two apostles after the dispute at Antioch. The inscription is, _Hic
Paulus venit Romam et pacem fecit cum Petro_. (In the Christian Museum
in the Vatican there is a most beautiful small Greek picture in which
Peter and Paul are embracing; it may represent the reconciliation or
the parting: the heads, though minute, are extremely characteristic.)
10. The decollation of St. Paul at the Aqua Salvias; one fountain only
is introduced.
This is the earliest instance I can quote of the dramatic treatment
of the life and actions of St. Paul in a series of subjects. The
Greek type of the head of St. Paul is retained throughout, strongly
individualised, and he appears as a man of about thirty-five or forty.
In the later schools of art, which afford some celebrated examples
of the life of St. Paul treated as a series, the Greek type has been
abandoned.
The series by Raphael, executed for the tapestries of the Sistine
Chapel in the Vatican, consists of five large and seven small
compositions.
1. The conversion of Saul, already described: the cartoon is lost. 2.
Elymas the sorcerer struck blind: wonderful for dramatic power. 3.
St. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. 4. Paul preaches at Athens. Of these
three magnificent compositions we have the cartoons at Hampton Court.
5. St. Paul in prison at Philippi. The earthquake through which he was
liberated is here represented allegorically as a Titan in the lower
corner of the picture, with shoulders and arms heaving up the earth.
This, which strikes us as rather pagan in conception, has, however,
a parallel in the earliest Christian Art, where, in the baptism of
Christ, the Jordan is sometimes represented by a classical river-god,
sedge-crowned, and leaning on his urn.
The seven small subjects, which in the set of tapestries run underneath
as borders to the large compositions, are thus arranged:—
1. ‘As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every
house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.’ (Acts viii.
3.) At one end of a long narrow composition Saul is seated in the dress
of a Roman warrior, and attended by a lictor; they bring before him a
Christian youth; farther on are seen soldiers ‘haling men and women’
by the hair; others flee in terror. This was erroneously supposed to
represent the massacre at Prato, in 1512, by the adherents of the
Medici, and is so inscribed in the set of engravings by Bartoli and
Landon.
2. John and Mark taking leave of the brethren at Perga in Pamphylia.
(Acts xiii. 3.)
3. Paul, teaching in the synagogue at Antioch, confounds the Jews.
(Acts xviii. 3.)
4. Paul at Corinth engaged in tent-making with his host. This is an
uncommon subject, but I remember another instance in a curious old
German print, where, in the lower part of the composition, the apostle
is teaching or preaching; and above there is a kind of gallery or
balcony, in which he is seen working at a loom: ‘You yourselves know
that these hands have ministered to my necessities, labouring night and
day, because we would not be chargeable unto you.’ (Acts xviii. 6.)
5. Being at Corinth, he is mocked by the Jews. (Acts viii. 12.)
6. He lays his hand on the Christian converts.
7. He is brought before the judgment-seat of Gallio.[200]
* * * * *
‘Paul, in the island of Melita, shaking the viper from his hand,’ is
not a common subject, and yet it is capable of the finest picturesque
and dramatic effects: the storm and shipwreck in the background,
the angry heavens above, the red firelight, the group of astonished
mariners, and, pre-eminent among them, the calm intellectual figure
of the apostle shaking the venomous beast from his hand,—these are
surely beautiful and available materials for a scenic picture. Even if
treated as an allegory in a devotional sense, a single majestic figure,
throwing the evil thing innocuous from him, which I have not yet
seen, it would be an excellent and a significant subject. The little
picture by Elzheimer is the best example I can cite of the picturesque
treatment. That of Le Sueur has much dignity; those of Perino del Vaga,
Thornhill, West, are all commonplace.
Thornhill, as everybody knows, painted the eight principal scenes of
the life of the apostle in the cupola of St. Paul’s.[201] Few people,
I should think, have strained their necks to examine them; the eight
original studies, small sketches _en grisaille_, are preserved in the
vestry, and display that heartless, mindless, mannered mediocrity,
which makes all criticism foolishness; I shall, however, give a list of
the subjects.
1. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra. 2. Paul preaching at Athens. 3. Elymas
struck blind. 4. The converts burn their magical books. 5. Paul before
Festus. 6. A woman seated at his feet; I presume the Conversion of
Lydia of Thyatira. 7. Paul let down in a basket. 8. He shakes the viper
from his hand.
At the time that Thornhill was covering the cupola at ‘the rate of
2_l._ the square yard,’ Hogarth, his son-in-law, would also try his
hand. He painted ‘St. Paul pleading before Felix’ for Lincoln’s.
Inn Hall; where the subject, at least, is appropriate. The picture
itself is curiously characteristic, not of the scene or of the chief
personage, but of the painter. St. Paul loaded with chains, and his
accuser Tertullus, stand in front; and Felix, with his wife Drusilla,
are seated on a raised tribunal in the background; near Felix is the
high-priest Ananias. The composition is good. The heads are full
of vivid expression—wrath, terror, doubt, fixed attention; but the
conception of character most ignoble and commonplace. Hogarth was
more at home when he took the same subject as a vehicle for a witty
caricature of the Dutch manner of treating sacred subjects—their
ludicrous anachronisms and mean incidents. St. Paul, in allusion to his
low stature, is mounted on a stool; an angel is sawing through one
leg of it; Tertullus is a barrister, in wig, band, and gown; the judge
is like an old doting justice of peace, and his attendants like old
beggars.
In the Florentine Gallery there is a very curious series of the lives
of St. Peter and St. Paul in eight pictures, in the genuine old German
style; fanciful, animated, full of natural and dramatic expression,
and exquisitely finished,—but dry, hard, grotesque, and abounding in
anachronisms.[202]
* * * * *
Among the few separate historical subjects in which St. Peter and St.
Paul are represented together, the most important is the dispute at
Antioch,—a subject avoided by the earliest painters. St. Paul says,
‘When Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because
he was to be blamed.’ Guido’s picture in the _Brera_ at _Milan_ is
celebrated: Peter is seated, looking thoughtful, with downcast eyes,
an open book on his knees; Paul, in an attitude of rebuke, stands over
against him. There is another example by Rosso: here both are standing;
Peter is looking down; Paul, with long hair and beard floating back,
and a keen reproving expression, ‘rebukes him to his face.’ I presume
the same subject to be represented by Lucas van Leyden in a rare and
beautiful little print, in which St. Peter and St. Paul are seated
together in earnest conversation. St. Peter holds a _key_ in his right
hand, and points with the other to a book which lies on his knees. St.
Paul is about to turn the leaf, and his right hand appears to rebuke
St. Peter; his left foot is on the _sword_ which lies at his feet.
* * * * *
‘The Parting of St. Peter and St. Paul before they are led to death.’
The scene is without the gates of Rome; and as the soldiers drag Peter
away, he turns back to Paul with a pathetic expression. This picture,
now in the Louvre, is one of Lanfranco’s best compositions.[203]
When the crucifixion of St. Peter and the decollation of St. Paul
are represented together in the same picture, such a picture must be
considered as religious and devotional, not historical; it does not
express the action as it really occurred, but, like many pictures
of the crucifixion of our Saviour, it is placed before us as an
excitement to piety, self-sacrifice, and repentance. We have this kind
of treatment in a picture by Niccolò dell’ Abate:[204] St. Paul kneels
before a block, and the headsman stands with sword uplifted in act to
strike; in the background, two other executioners grasp St. Peter, who
is kneeling on his cross and praying fervently: above, in a glory, is
seen the Virgin; in her arms the Infant Christ, who delivers to two
angels palm-branches for the martyred saints. The genius of Niccolò was
not precisely fitted for this class of subjects. But the composition
is full of poetical feeling. The introduction of the Madonna and Child
stamps the character of the picture as devotional, not historical—it
would otherwise be repulsive, and out of keeping with the subject.
There is a Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul engraved after
Parmigiano,[205] which I shall notice on account of its careless and
erroneous treatment. They are put to death together; an executioner
prepares to decapitate St. Peter, and another drags St. Paul by the
beard: the incidents are historically false, and, moreover, in a
degraded and secular taste. These are the mistakes that make us turn
disgusted from the technical facility, elegance, and power of the
sixteenth century, to the simplicity and reverential truth of the
fourteenth.
* * * * *
There are various traditions concerning the relics of St. Peter and
St. Paul. According to some, the bodies of the two apostles were, in
the reign of Heliogabalus, deposited by the Christian converts in the
catacombs of Rome, and were laid in the same sepulchre. After the lapse
of about two hundred years, the Greek or Oriental Christians attempted
to carry them off; but were opposed by the Roman Christians. The Romans
conquered; and the two bodies were transported to the church of the
Vatican, where they reposed together in a magnificent shrine, beneath
the church. Among the engravings in the work of Ciampini and Bosio are
two rude old pictures commemorating this event. The first represents
the combat of the Orientals and the Romans for the bodies of the
Saints; in the other, the bodies are deposited in the Vatican. In these
two ancient representations, which were placed in the portico of the
old basilica of St. Peter, the traditional types may be recognised—the
broad full features, short curled beard, and bald head of St. Peter,
and the oval face and long beard of St. Paul.
* * * * *
Here I must conclude this summary of the lives and characters of the
two greatest apostles, as they have been exhibited in Christian Art;
to do justice to the theme would have required a separate volume. One
observation, however, suggests itself, and cannot be passed over. The
usual type of the head of St. Peter, though often ill rendered and
degraded by coarseness, can in general be recognised as characteristic;
but is there among the thousand representations of the apostle Paul,
_one_ on which the imagination can rest completely satisfied? I know
not one. No doubt the sublimest ideal of embodied eloquence that ever
was expressed in Art is Raphael’s St. Paul preaching at Athens. He
stands there the delegated voice of the true God, the antagonist and
conqueror of the whole heathen world:—‘Whom ye ignorantly worship,
HIM declare I unto you’—is not this what he says? Every feature, nay,
every fold in his drapery, speaks; as in the other St. Paul leaning
on his sword (in the famous St. Cecilia), every feature and every
fold of drapery meditates. The latter is as fine in its tranquil
melancholy grandeur, as the former in its authoritative energy: in the
one the orator, in the other the philosopher, were never more finely
rendered: but is it, in either, the Paul of Tarsus whom we know? It
were certainly both unnecessary and pedantic to adhere so closely
to historic fact as to make St. Paul of diminutive stature, and St.
Peter weak-eyed: but has Raphael done well in wholly rejecting the
traditional portrait which reflected to us the Paul of Scripture,
the man of many toils and many sorrows, wasted with vigils, worn
down with travel, whose high bald forehead, thin flowing hair, and
long pointed beard, spoke so plainly the fervent and indomitable,
yet meditative and delicate, organisation,—and in substituting this
Jupiter Ammon head, with the dark redundant hair, almost hiding the
brow, and the full bushy beard? This is one of the instances in which
Raphael, in yielding to the fashion of his time, has erred, as it
seems to me,—though I say it with all reverence! The St. Paul rending
his garments at Lystra, and rejecting the sacrifice of the misguided
people, is more particularly false as to the character of the man,
though otherwise so grandly expressive, that we are obliged to admire
what our better sense—our _conscience_—cannot wholly approve.
* * * * *
I shall now consider the rest of the apostles in their proper order.
ST. ANDREW.
_Lat._ S. Andreas. _Ital._ Sant’ Andrea. _Fr._ St. André. Patron saint
of Scotland and of Russia. Nov. 30 A.D. 70.
St. Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, and the first who was called
to the apostleship. Nothing farther is recorded of him in Scripture:
he is afterwards merely included by name in the general account of the
apostles.
In the traditional and legendary history of St. Andrew we are told,
that after our Lord’s ascension, when the apostles dispersed to
preach the Gospel to all nations, St. Andrew travelled into Scythia,
Cappadocia, and Bithynia, everywhere converting multitudes to the
faith. The Russians believe that he was the first to preach to the
Muscovites in Sarmatia, and thence he has been honoured as titular
saint of the empire of Russia. After many sufferings, he returned to
Jerusalem, and thence travelled into Greece, and came at length to
a city of Achaia, called Patras. Here he made many converts; among
others, Maximilla, the wife of the proconsul Ægeus, whom he persuaded
to make a public profession of Christianity. The proconsul, enraged,
commanded him to be seized and scourged, and then crucified. The cross
on which he suffered was of a peculiar form (_crux decussata_), since
called the St. Andrew’s cross; and it is expressly said that he was not
fastened to his cross with nails, but with cords,—a circumstance always
attended to in the representations of his death. It is, however, to be
remembered, that while all authorities agree that he was crucified, and
that the manner of his crucifixion was peculiar, they are not agreed
as to the form of his cross. St. Peter Chrysologos says that it was
a tree: another author affirms that it was an olive tree. The Abbé
Méry remarks, that it is a mistake to give the transverse cross to
St. Andrew; that it ought not to differ from the cross of our Lord.
His reasons are not absolutely conclusive:—‘Il suffit pour montrer
qu’ils sont là-dessus dans l’erreur, de voir _la croix véritable_ de
St. André, conservée dans l’Église de St. Victor de Marseille; on
trouvera qu’elle est à angles droits,’ &c.[206] Seeing is believing;
nevertheless, the form is fixed by tradition and usage, and ought not
to be departed from, though Michael Angelo has done so in the figure of
St. Andrew in the Last Judgment, and there are several examples in the
Italian masters.[207] The legend goes on to relate, that St. Andrew, on
approaching the cross prepared for his execution, saluted and adored
it on his knees, as being already consecrated by the sufferings of the
Redeemer, and met his death triumphantly. Certain of his relics were
brought from Patras to Scotland in the fourth century, and since that
time St. Andrew has been honoured as the patron saint of Scotland, and
of its chief order of knighthood. He is also the patron saint of the
famous Burgundian Order, the Golden Fleece; and of Russia and its chief
Order, the Cross of St. Andrew.
* * * * *
Since the fourteenth century, St. Andrew is generally distinguished in
works of art by the transverse cross; the devotional pictures in which
he figures as one of the series of apostles, or singly as patron saint,
represent him as a very old man with some kind of brotherly resemblance
to St. Peter; his hair and beard silver white, long, loose, and
flowing, and in general the beard is divided; he leans upon his cross,
and holds the Gospel in his right hand.
[Illustration: 74 St. Andrew (Peter Vischer)]
The historical subjects from the life of St. Andrew, treated separately
from the rest of the apostles, are very few; his crucifixion is the
only one that I have found treated before the fifteenth century. On
the ancient doors of San Paolo, the instrument of his martyrdom has the
shape of a Y, and resembles a tree split down the middle. The cross in
some later pictures is very lofty, and resembles the rough branches of
a tree laid transversely.
I know but two other subjects relating to the life of St. Andrew which
have been separately treated in the later schools of art—the Adoration
of the Cross, and the Flagellation.
‘St. Andrew adoring his cross,’ by Andrea Sacchi, is remarkable for
its simplicity and fine expression; it contains only three figures.
St Andrew, half undraped, and with his silver hair and beard floating
dishevelled, kneels, gazing up to the cross with ecstatic devotion; he
is addressing to it his famous invocation:—‘Salve, Croce preziosa! che
fosti consecrata dal corpo del mio Dio!’—an executioner stands by, and
a fierce soldier, impatient of delay, urges him on to death.[208]
‘St. Andrew taken down from the cross’ is a fine effective picture by
Ribera.[209]
* * * * *
When Guido and Domenichino painted, in emulation of each other,
the frescoes in the chapel of Sant’ Andrea in the church of San
Gregorio, at Rome, Guido chose for his subject the Adoration of the
Cross. The scene is supposed to be outside the walls of Patras in
Achaia; the cross is at a distance in the background; St. Andrew, as
he approaches, falls down in adoration before the instrument of his
martyrdom, consecrated by the death of his Lord; he is attended by one
soldier on horseback, one on foot, and three executioners; a group of
women and alarmed children in the foreground are admirable for grace
and feeling—they are, in fact, the best part of the picture. On the
opposite wall of the chapel Domenichino painted the Flagellation of
St. Andrew, a subject most difficult to treat effectively, and retain
at the same time the dignity of the suffering apostle, while avoiding
all resemblance to a similar scene in the life of Christ. Here he is
bound down on a sort of table; one man lifts a rod, another seems
to taunt the prostrate saint; a lictor drives back the people. The
group of the mother and frightened children, which Domenichino so
often introduces with little variation, is here very beautiful; the
judge and lictors are seen behind, with a temple and a city in the
distance. When Domenichino painted the same subject in the church of
Sant’ Andrea-della-Valle, he chose another moment, and administered
the torture after a different manner: the apostle is bound by his
hands and feet to four short posts set firmly in the ground; one of
the executioners in tightening a cord breaks it and falls back; three
men prepare to scourge him with _thongs_: in the foreground we have
the usual group of the mother and her frightened children. This is
a composition full of dramatic life and movement, but unpleasing.
Domenichino painted in the same church the crucifixion of the saint,
and his apotheosis surmounts the whole.
All these compositions are of great celebrity in the history of Art for
colour and for expression. Lanzi says, that the personages, ‘if endued
with speech, could not say more to the ear than they do to the eye.’
But, in power and pathos, none of them equal the picture of Murillo,
of which we have the original study in England.[210] St. Andrew is
suspended on the high cross, formed, not of planks, but of the trunks
of trees laid transversely. He is bound with cords, undraped, except
by a linen cloth; his silver hair and beard loosely streaming in the
air; his aged countenance illuminated by a heavenly transport, as he
looks up to the opening skies, whence two angels of really celestial
beauty, like almost all Murillo’s angels, descend with the crown and
palm. In front, to the right, is a group of shrinking sympathising
women; and a boy turns away, crying with a truly boyish grief; on the
left are guards and soldiers. The subject is here rendered poetical by
mere force of feeling; there is a tragic reality in the whole scene,
far more effective, to my taste, than the more studied compositions
of the Italian painters. The martyrdom of St. Andrew, and the saint
preaching the Gospel, by Juan de Roelas, are also mentioned as splendid
productions of the Seville school.
I think it possible that St. Andrew may owe his popularity in the
Spanish and Flemish schools of art to his being the patron saint of
the far-famed Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece. At the time
that Constantinople was taken, and the relics of St. Andrew dispersed
in consequence, a lively enthusiasm for this apostle was excited
throughout all Christendom. He had been previously honoured chiefly as
the brother of St. Peter; he obtained thenceforth a kind of personal
interest and consideration. Philip of Burgundy (A.D. 1433), who had
obtained at great cost a portion of the precious relics, consisting
chiefly of some pieces of his cross, placed under the protection of the
apostle his new order of chivalry, which, according to the preamble,
was intended to revive the honour and the memory of the Argonauts. His
knights wore as their badge the cross of St. Andrew.
ST. JAMES THE GREAT.
_Lat._ Sanctus Jacobus Major. _Ital._ San Giacomo, or Jacopo,
Maggiore. _Fr._ St. Jacques Majeur. _Spa._ San Jago, or Santiago. El
Tutelar. Patron saint of Spain. July 25. A.D. 44.
St. James the Great, or the Elder, or St. James _Major_, was nearly
related to Christ, and, with his brother John (the evangelist) and
Peter, he seems to have been admitted to particular favour, travelled
with the Lord, and was present at most of the events recorded in the
Gospels. He was one of the three who were permitted to witness the
glorification of Christ on Mount Tabor, and one of those who slept
during the agony in the garden. After our Saviour’s ascension, nothing
is recorded concerning him, except the fact that Herod slew him with
the sword. In the ancient traditions he is described as being of a
zealous and affectionate temper, easily excited to anger: of this we
have a particular instance in his imprecation against the inhospitable
Samaritans, for which Christ rebuked him: ‘Ye know not what manner of
spirit ye are of. The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives,
but to save them.’ (Luke, ix. 55.)
As Scripture makes no farther mention of one so distinguished by his
zeal and by his near relationship to the Saviour, the legends of the
middle ages have supplied this deficiency; and so amply, that St.
James, as St. Jago or SANTIAGO, the military patron of Spain, became
one of the most renowned saints in Christendom, and one of the most
popular subjects of Western Art. Many of these subjects are so
singular, that, in order to render them intelligible, I must give
the legend at full length as it was followed by the artists of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
According to the Spanish legend, the apostle James was the son of
Zebedee, an illustrious baron of Galilee, who, being the proprietor
of ships, was accustomed to fish along the shores of a certain lake
called Gennesareth, but solely for his good pleasure and recreation:
for who can suppose that Spain, that nation of Hidalgos and Caballeros,
would ever have chosen for her patron, or accepted as the leader and
captain-general of her armies, a poor ignoble fisherman? It remains,
therefore, indisputable, that this glorious apostle, who was our Lord’s
cousin-german, was of noble lineage, and worthy of his spurs as a
knight and a gentleman;—so in Dante:—
Ecco _il Barone_
Per cui laggiù si visita Galizia.‘
But it pleased him, in his great humility, to follow, while on earth,
the example of his divine Lord, and reserve his warlike prowess till
called upon to slaughter, by thousands and tens of thousands, those
wicked Moors, the perpetual enemies of Christ and his servants. Now,
as James and his brother John were one day in their father’s ship
with his hired servants, and were employed in mending the nets, the
Lord, who was walking on the shores of the lake, called them; and they
left all and followed him; and became thenceforward his most favoured
disciples, and the witnesses of his miracles while on earth. After
the ascension of Christ, James preached the Gospel in Judea; then he
travelled over the whole world, and came at last to Spain, where he
made very few converts, by reason of the ignorance and darkness of
the people. One day, as he stood with his disciples on the banks of
the Ebro, the blessed Virgin appeared to him seated on the top of a
pillar of jasper, and surrounded by a choir of angels; and the apostle
having thrown himself on his face, she commanded him to build on that
spot a chapel for her worship, assuring him that all this province of
Saragossa, though now in the darkness of paganism, would at a future
time be distinguished by devotion to her. He did as the holy Virgin
had commanded, and this was the origin of a famous church afterwards
known as that of Our Lady of the Pillar (’_Nuestra Señora del
Pillar_‘). Then St. James, having founded the Christian faith in Spain,
returned to Judea, where he preached for many years, and performed many
wonders and miracles in the sight of the people: and it happened that a
certain sorcerer, whose name was Hermogenes,[211] set himself against
the apostle, just as Simon Magus had wickedly and vainly opposed St.
Peter, and with the like result. Hermogenes sent his scholar Philetus
to dispute with James, and to compete with him in wondrous works; but,
as you will easily believe, he had no chance against the apostle, and,
confessing himself vanquished, he returned to his master, to whom he
announced his intention to follow henceforth James and his doctrine.
Then Hermogenes, in a rage, bound Philetus by his diabolical spells,
so that he could not move hand or foot; saying, ‘Let us now see if
thy new master can deliver thee:’ and Philetus sent his servant to
St. James, praying for aid. Then the apostle took off his cloak, and
gave it to the servant to give his master; and no sooner had Philetus
touched it, than he became free, and hastened to throw himself at the
feet of his deliverer. Hermogenes, more furious than ever, called to
the demons who served him, and commanded that they should bring to him
James and Philetus, bound in fetters; but on their way the demons met
with a company of angels, who seized upon them, and punished them for
their wicked intentions, till they cried for mercy. Then St. James said
to them, ‘Go back to him who sent ye, and bring him hither bound.’
And they did so; and having laid the sorcerer down at the feet of St.
James, they besought him, saying, ‘Now give us power to be avenged
of our enemy and thine!’ But St. James rebuked them, saying, ‘Christ
hath commanded us to do good for evil.’ So he delivered Hermogenes
from their hands; and the magician, being utterly confounded, cast his
books into the sea, and desired of St. James that he would protect him
against the demons, his former servants. Then St. James gave him his
staff, as the most effectual means of defence against the infernal
spirits; and Hermogenes became a faithful disciple and preacher of the
word from that day.
But the evil-minded Jews, being more and more incensed, took James and
bound him, and brought him before the tribunal of Herod Agrippa; and
one of those who dragged him along, touched by the gentleness of his
demeanour, and by his miracles of mercy, was converted, and supplicated
to die with him; and the apostle gave him the kiss of peace, saying,
‘Pax vobis!’ and the kiss and the words together have remained as a
form of benediction in the Church to this day. Then they were both
beheaded, and so died.
And the disciples of St. James came and took away his body; and, not
daring to bury it, for fear of the Jews, they carried it to Joppa, and
placed it on board of a ship: some say that the ship was of marble,
but this is not authenticated; however, it is most certain that angels
conducted the ship miraculously to the coast of Spain, where they
arrived in seven days; and, sailing through the straits called the
Pillars of Hercules, they landed at length in Galicia, at a port called
Iria Flavia, now Padron.
In those days there reigned over the country a certain queen whose
name was Lupa, and she and all her people were plunged in wickedness
and idolatry. Now, having come to shore, they laid the body of the
apostle upon a great stone, which became like wax, and, receiving the
body, closed around it: this was a sign that the saint willed to remain
there; but the wicked queen Lupa was displeased, and she commanded
that they should harness some wild bulls to a car, and place on it the
body, with the self-formed tomb, hoping that they would drag it to
destruction. But in this she was mistaken; for the wild bulls, when
signed by the cross, became as docile as sheep, and they drew the body
of the apostle straight into the court of her palace. When Queen Lupa
beheld this miracle, she was confounded, and she and all her people
became Christians: she built a magnificent church to receive the sacred
remains, and died in the odour of sanctity.
But then came the darkness and ruin which during the invasion of the
Barbarians overshadowed all Spain; and the body of the apostle was
lost, and no one knew where to find it, till, in the year 800, the
place of sepulture was revealed to a certain holy friar.
Then they caused the body of the saint to be transported to
Compostella; and, in consequence of the surprising miracles which
graced his shrine, he was honoured not merely in Galicia, but
throughout all Spain. He became the patron saint of the Spaniards, and
Compostella, as a place of pilgrimage, was renowned throughout Europe.
From all countries bands of pilgrims resorted there, so that sometimes
there were no less than a hundred thousand in one year. The military
Order of Saint Jago, enrolled by Don Alphonso for their protection,
became one of the greatest and richest in Spain.
Now, if I should proceed to recount all the wonderful deeds enacted
by Santiago in behalf of his chosen people, they would fill a volume.
The Spanish historians number thirty-eight visible apparitions, in
which this glorious saint descended from heaven in person, and took the
command of their armies against the Moors. The first of these, and the
most famous of all, I shall now relate.
In the year of our Lord 939, King Ramirez, having vowed to deliver
Castile from the shameful tribute imposed by the Moors, of one hundred
virgins delivered annually, collected his troops, and defied their king
Abdelraman, to battle:
The king call’d God to witness, that, came there weal or woe,
Thenceforth no maiden tribute from out Castile should go.—
‘At least I will do battle on God our Saviour’s foe,
And die beneath my banner before I see it so!’
Accordingly he charged the Moorish host on the plain of Alveida
or Clavijo: after a furious conflict, the Christians were, by the
permission of Heaven, defeated, and forced to retire. Night separated
the combatants, and King Ramirez, overpowered with fatigue, and sad at
heart, flung himself upon his couch and slept. In his sleep he beheld
the apostle St. Jago, who promised to be with him next morning in
the field, and assured him of victory. The king, waking up from the
glorious vision, sent for his prelates and officers, to whom he related
it; and the next morning, at the head of his army, he recounted it to
his soldiers, bidding them rely on heavenly aid. He then ordered the
trumpets to sound to battle. The soldiers, inspired with fresh courage,
rushed to the fight. Suddenly St. Jago was seen mounted on a milk-white
charger, and waving aloft a white standard; he led on the Christians,
who gained a decisive victory, leaving 60,000 Moors dead on the
field. This was the famous battle of Clavijo; and ever since that day,
‘SANTIAGO!’ has been the war-cry of the Spanish armies.
* * * * *
But it was not only on such great occasions that the invincible patron
of Spain was pleased to exhibit his power: he condescended oftentimes
to interfere for the protection of the poor and oppressed, of which I
will now give a notable instance, as it is related by Pope Calixtus II.
There was a certain German, who with his wife and son went on a
pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella. Having come as far as Torlosa,
they lodged at an inn there; and the host had a fair daughter, who,
looking on the son of the pilgrim, a handsome and a graceful youth,
became deeply enamoured; but he, being virtuous, and, moreover, on his
way to a holy shrine, refused to listen to her allurements. Then she
thought how she might be avenged for this slight put upon her charms,
and hid in his wallet her father’s silver drinking-cup. The next
morning, no sooner were they departed, than the host, discovering his
loss, pursued them, accused them before the judge, and the cup being
found in the young man’s wallet, he was condemned to be hung, and all
they possessed was confiscated to the host.
Then the afflicted parents pursued their way lamenting, and made their
prayer and their complaint before the altar of the blessed Saint Jago;
and thirty-six days afterwards as they returned by the spot where
their son hung on the gibbet, they stood beneath it, weeping and
lamenting bitterly. Then the son spoke and said, ‘O my mother! O my
father! do not lament for me, for I have never been in better cheer;
the blessed apostle James is at my side, sustaining me and filling
me with celestial comfort and joy!’ The parents, being astonished,
hastened to the judge, who at that moment was seated at table, and the
mother called out, ‘Our son lives!’ The judge mocked at them: ‘What
sayest thou, good woman? thou art beside thyself! If thy son liveth,
so do those fowls in my dish.’ And lo! scarcely had he uttered the
words, when the fowls (being a cock and a hen) rose up full-feathered
in the dish, and the cock began to crow, to the great admiration of
the judge and his attendants.[212] Then the judge rose up from table
hastily, and called together the priests and the lawyers, and they went
in procession to the gibbet, took down the young man, and restored
him to his parents; and the miraculous cock and hen were placed under
the protection of the Church, where they and their posterity long
flourished in testimony of this stupendous miracle.
There are many other legends of St. James; the Spanish chroniclers in
prose and verse abound in such; but, in general, they are not merely
incredible, but puerile and unpoetical; and I have here confined myself
to those which I know to have been treated in Art.
Previous to the twelfth century, St. James is only distinguished among
the apostles by his place, which is the fourth in the series, the
second after St. Peter and St. Paul. In some instances he is portrayed
with a family resemblance to Christ, being his kinsman; the thin
beard, and the hair parted and flowing down on each side. But from the
thirteenth century it became a fashion to characterise St. James as a
pilgrim of Compostella: he bears the peculiar long staff, to which the
wallet or gourd of water is suspended; the cloak with a long cape, the
scallop-shell on his shoulder or on his flapped hat. Where the cape,
hat, and scallop-shells are omitted, the staff, borne as the first of
the apostles who departed to fulfil his Gospel mission, remains his
constant attribute, and by this he may be recognised in the Madonna
pictures, and when grouped with other saints.
[Illustration: 75 St. James Major (Gio. Santi)]
The single devotional figures of St. James represent him in two
distinct characters:—
1. As tutelar saint of Spain, and conqueror of the Moors. In his
pilgrim habit, mounted on a white charger, and waving a white banner,
with white hair and beard streaming like a meteor, or sometimes armed
in complete steel, spurred like a knight, his casque shadowed by white
plumes, he tramples over the prostrate Infidels; so completely was the
humble, gentle-spirited apostle of Christ merged in the spirit of the
religious chivalry of the time. This is a subject frequent in Spanish
schools. The figure over the high altar of Santiago is described as
very grand when seen in the solemn twilight.
[Illustration: 76 Santiago (Carreño de Miranda)]
[Illustration: 77 St. James Major (A. del Sarto)]
2. St. James as patron saint in the general sense. The most beautiful
example I have met with is a picture in the Florence Gallery, painted
by Andrea del Sarto for the Compagnia or Confraternita of Sant’
Jacopo, and intended to figure as a standard in their processions. The
Madonna di San Sisto of Raphael was painted for a similar purpose: and
such are still commonly used in the religious processions in Italy;
but they have no longer Raphaels and Andrea-del-Sartos to paint them.
In this instance the picture has a particular form, high and narrow,
adapted to its especial purpose: St. James wears a green tunic, and a
rich crimson mantle; and as one of the purposes of the Compagnia was to
educate poor orphans, they are represented by the two boys at his feet.
This picture suffered from the sun and the weather, to which it had
been a hundred times exposed in yearly processions; but it has been
well restored, and is admirable for its vivid colouring as well as the
benign attitude and expression.
3. St. James seated; he holds a large book bound in vellum (the
Gospels) in his left hand—and with his right points to heaven: by
Guercino, in the gallery of Count Harrach, at Vienna. One of the finest
pictures by Guercino I have seen.
Pictures from the life of St. James singly, or as a series, are not
common; but among those which remain to us there are several of great
beauty and interest.
In the series of frescoes painted in a side chapel of the church of St.
Antony of Padua (A.D. 1376), once called the Capella di San Giacomo,
and now San Felice, the old legend of St. James has been exactly
followed; and though ruined in many parts, and in others coarsely
repainted, these works remain as compositions amongst the most curious
monuments of the _Trecentisti_. It appears that, towards the year
1376, Messer Bonifacio de’ Lupi da Parma, Cavaliere e Marchese di
Serana, who boasted of his descent from the Queen Lupa of the legend,
dedicated this chapel to St. James of Spain (San Jacopo di Galizia),
and employed M. Jacopo Avanzi to decorate it, who no doubt bestowed his
best workmanship on his patron saint. The subjects are thus arranged,
beginning with the lunette on the left hand, which is divided into
three compartments:
1. Hermogenes sends Philetus to dispute with St. James. 2. St. James in
his pulpit converts Philetus. 3. Hermogenes sends his demons to bind
St. James and Philetus. 4. Hermogenes brought bound to St. James. 5.
He burns his books of magic. 6. Hermogenes and Philetus are conversing
in a friendly manner with St. James. 7. St. James is martyred. 8. The
arrival of his body in Spain in a marble ship steered by an angel. 9.
The disciples lay the body on a rock, while Queen Lupa and her sister
and another personage look on from a window in her palace. Then follow
two compartments on the side where the window is broken out, much
ruined; they represented apparently the imprisonment of the disciples.
12. The disciples escape and are pursued, and their pursuers with their
horses are drowned. 13. The wild bulls draw the sarcophagus into the
court of Queen Lupa’s palace. 14. Baptism of Lupa. 15 and 16 (lower
compartments to the left): St. Jago appears to King Ramirez, and the
defeat of the Moors at Clavijo.
* * * * *
There is a rare and curious print by Martin Schoen, in which the
apparition of St. James at Clavijo is represented not in the Spanish
but the German style. It is an animated composition of many figures.
The saint appears on horseback in the midst, wearing his pilgrim’s
dress, with the cockle-shell in his hat: the Infidels are trampled
down, or fly before him.
[Illustration: 78 The miracle of the Fowls (Lo Spagna)]
On the road from Spoleto to Foligno, about four miles from Spoleto,
there is a small chapel dedicated to St. James of Galizia. The frescoes
representing the miracles of the saint were painted by Lo Spagna (A.D.
1526), the friend and fellow pupil of Raphael. In the vault of the
apsis is the Coronation of the Virgin; she kneels, attired in white
drapery flowered with gold, and the whole group, though inferior in
power, appeared to me in delicacy and taste far superior to the fresco
of Fra Filippo Lippi at Spoleto, from which Passavant thinks it is
borrowed.[213] Immediately under the Coronation, in the centre, is a
figure of St. James as patron saint, standing with his pilgrim’s staff
in one hand, and the Gospel in the other; his dress is a yellow tunic
with a blue mantle thrown over it. In the compartment on the left, the
youth is seen suspended on the gibbet, while St. James with his hands
under his feet sustains him; the father and mother look up at him with
astonishment. In the compartment to the right, we see the judge seated
at dinner, attended by his servants, one of whom is bringing in a dish:
the two pilgrims appear to have just told their story, and the cock and
hen have risen up in the dish (78). These frescoes are painted with
great elegance and animation, and the story is told with much naïveté.
I found the same legend painted on one of the lower windows of the
church of St. Ouen, and on a window of the right-hand aisle in St.
Vincent’s at Rouen.
Of ST. JOHN, who is the fifth in the series, I have spoken at large
under the head of the Evangelists.
ST. PHILIP.
_Ital._ San Filippo Apostolo. _Fr._ Saint Philippe. Patron of Brabant
and Luxembourg. May 1.
Of St. Philip there are few notices in the Gospel. He was born at
Bethsaida, and he was one of the first of those whom our Lord summoned
to follow him. After the ascension, he travelled into Scythia, and
remained there preaching the Gospel for twenty years; he then preached
at Hieropolis in Phrygia, where he found the people addicted to the
worship of a monstrous serpent or dragon, or of the god Mars under that
form. Taking compassion on their blindness, the apostle commanded the
serpent, in the name of the cross he held in his hand, to disappear,
and immediately the reptile glided out from beneath the altar, at the
same time emitting such a hideous stench, that many people died, and
among them the king’s son fell dead in the arms of his attendants: but
the apostle, by Divine power, restored him to life. Then the priests of
the dragon were incensed against him, and they took him, and crucified
him, and being bound on the cross they stoned him; thus he yielded up
his spirit to God, praying, like his Divine Master, for his enemies and
tormentors.
According to the Scripture, St. Philip had four daughters, who were
prophetesses, and made many converts to the faith of Christ (Acts, xxi.
9). In the Greek calendar, St. Mariamne, his sister, and St. Hermione,
his daughter, are commemorated as martyrs.
[Illustration: 79 St. Philip (A. Dürer)]
When St. Philip is represented alone, or as one of the series of
apostles, he is generally a man in the prime of life, with little
beard, and with a benign countenance, being described as of a
remarkably cheerful and affectionate nature. He bears, as his
attribute, a cross, which varies in form; sometimes it is a small
cross, which he carries in his hand; sometimes a high cross in the form
of a T, or a tall staff with a small Latin cross at the top of it (79).
The cross of St. Philip may have a treble signification: it may allude
to his martyrdom; or to his conquest over the idols through the power
of the cross; or, when placed on the top of the pilgrim’s staff, it may
allude to his mission among the barbarians as preacher of the cross of
salvation. Single figures of St. Philip as patron are not common: there
is a fine statue of him on the façade of San Michele at Florence; and a
noble figure by Beccafumi, reading;[214] another, seated and reading,
by Ulrich Mair.[215]
* * * * *
Subjects from the life of St. Philip, whether as single pictures or
in a series, are also rarely met with. As he was the first called by
our Saviour to leave all and follow him, and his vocation therefore a
festival in the Church, it must, I think, have been treated apart; but
I have not met with it. I know but of three historical subjects taken
from his life:—
1. Bonifazio. St. Philip stands before the Saviour: the attitude of the
latter is extremely dignified, that of Philip supplicatory; the other
apostles are seen in the background: the colouring and expression
of the whole like Titian. The subject of this splendid picture is
expressed by the inscription underneath (John, xiv. 14): ‘Domine,
ostende nobis Patrem, et sufficit nobis.’ ‘Philippe, qui videt me,
videt et Patrem meum: ego et Pater unum sumus.‘[216]
2. St. Philip exorcises the serpent. The scene is the interior of a
temple, an altar with the statue of the god Mars: a serpent, creeping
from beneath the altar, slays the attendants with his poisonous and
fiery breath. The ancient fresco in his chapel at Padua, described
by Lord Lindsay, is extremely animated, but far inferior to the same
subject in the Santa Croce at Florence by Fra Filippo Lippi, where
the dignified attitude of the apostle, and the group of the king’s
son dying in the arms of the attendants, are admirably effective and
dramatic. St. Philip, it must be observed, was the patron saint of the
painter.
3. The Crucifixion of St. Philip. According to the old Greek
traditions, he was crucified with his head downwards, and he is so
represented on the gates of San Paolo; also in an old picture over the
tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon, where his patron, St. Philip,
is attached to the cross with cords, and head downwards, like St.
Peter;[217] but in the old fresco by Giusto da Padova, in the Capella
di San Filippo, he is crucified in the usual manner, arrayed in a long
red garment which descends to his feet.
* * * * *
It is necessary to avoid confounding St. Philip the apostle with
St. Philip the deacon. It was Philip the deacon who baptized the
chamberlain of Queen Candace, though the action has sometimes been
attributed to Philip the apostle. The incident of the baptism of the
Ethiopian, taking place in the road, by running water, ‘on the way that
goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza,’ has been introduced into several
beautiful landscapes with much picturesque effect. Claude has thus
treated it; Salvator Rosa; Jan Both, in a most beautiful picture in the
Queen’s Gallery; Rembrandt, Cuyp, and others.
ST. BARTHOLOMEW.
_Lat._ S. Bartholomeus. _Ital._ San Bartolomeo. _Fr._ St. Barthélemi.
Aug. 24.
As St. Bartholomew is nowhere mentioned in the canonical books, except
by name in enumerating the apostles, there has been large scope for
legendary story, but in works of art he is not a popular saint.
According to one tradition, he was the son of a husbandman; according
to another, he was the son of a prince Ptolomeus. After the ascension
of Christ he travelled into India, even to the confines of the
habitable world, carrying with him the Gospel of St. Matthew; returning
thence, he preached in Armenia and Cilicia; and coming to the city of
Albanopolis, he was condemned to death as a Christian: he was first
flayed and then crucified.
[Illustration: 80 St. Bartholomew (Giotto)]
In single figures and devotional pictures, St. Bartholomew sometimes
carries in one hand a book, the Gospel of St. Matthew; but his peculiar
attribute is a large knife, the instrument of his martyrdom. The
legends describe him as having a quantity of strong black hair and a
bushy grizzled beard; and this portrait being followed very literally
by the old German and Flemish painters, gives him, with his large
knife, the look of a butcher. In the Italian pictures, though of a
milder and more dignified appearance, he has frequently black hair; and
sometimes dark and resolute features; yet the same legend describes
him as of a cheerful countenance, wearing a purple robe and attended
by angels. Sometimes St. Bartholomew has his own skin hanging over
his arm, as among the saints in Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment, where
he is holding forth his skin in one hand, and grasping his knife in
the other: and in the statue by Marco Agrati in the Milan Cathedral,
famous for its anatomical precision and its boastful inscription, _Non
me Praxiteles sed Marcus pinxit Agratis_. I found in the church of
Nôtre Dame at Paris a picture of St. Bartholomew healing the Princess
of Armenia. With this exception, I know not any historical subject
where this apostle is the principal figure, except his revolting and
cruel martyrdom. In the early Greek representation on the gates of San
Paolo, he is affixed to a cross, or rather to a post, with a small
transverse bar at top, to which his hands are fastened above his head;
an executioner, with a knife in his hand, stoops at his feet. This is
very different from the representations in the modern schools. The
best, that is to say, the least disgusting, representation I have
met with, is a small picture by Agostino Caracci, in the Sutherland
Gallery, which once belonged to King Charles I.: it is easy to see
that the painter had the antique Marsyas in his mind. That dark
ferocious spirit, Ribera, found in it a theme congenial with his own
temperament;[218] he has not only painted it several times with a
horrible truth and power, but etched it elaborately with his own hand:
a small picture, copied from the etching, is at Hampton Court.
ST. THOMAS.
_Ital._ San Tomaso. _Sp._ San Tomé. Dec. 21. Patron Saint of Portugal
and Parma.
St. Thomas, called _Didymus_ (the twin), takes, as apostle, the seventh
place. He was a Galilean and a fisherman, and we find him distinguished
among the apostles on two occasions recorded in the Gospel. When
Jesus was going up to Bethany, being then in danger from the Jews,
Thomas said, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ (John, xi.
16, xx. 25.) After the resurrection, he showed himself unwilling to
believe in the reappearance of the crucified Saviour without ocular
demonstration: this incident is styled the Incredulity of Thomas. From
these two incidents we may form some idea of his character: courageous
and affectionate, but not inclined to take things for granted; or, as
a French writer expresses it, ‘brusque et résolu, mais d’un esprit
exigeant.’ After the ascension, St. Thomas travelled into the East,
preaching the Gospel in far distant countries towards the rising sun.
It is a tradition received in the Church, that he penetrated as far
as India; that there meeting with the three Wise Men of the East,
he baptized them; that he founded a church in India, and suffered
martyrdom there. It is related, that the Portuguese found at Meliapore
an ancient inscription, purporting that St. Thomas had been pierced
with a lance at the foot of a cross which he had erected in that city,
and that in 1523 his body was found there and transported to Goa.
In Correggio’s fresco of St. Thomas as protector of Parma he is
surrounded by angels bearing exotic fruits, as expressing his ministry
in India.
There are a number of extravagant and poetical legends relating to
St. Thomas. I shall here limit myself to those which were adopted in
ecclesiastical decoration, and treated by the artists of the middle
ages.
When St. Thomas figures as apostle, alone or with others, in all the
devotional representations which are not prior to the thirteenth
century he carries as his attribute the builder’s rule, of this form—
[Illustration]
Now, as he was a fisherman, and neither a carpenter nor a mason, the
origin of this attribute must be sought in one of the most popular
legends of which he is the subject.
[Illustration: 81 St. Thomas the Apostle]
‘When St. Thomas was at Cesarea, our Lord appeared to him and said,
“The king of the Indies, Gondoforus, hath sent his provost Abanes
to seek for workmen well versed in the science of architecture, who
shall build for him a palace finer than that of the Emperor of Rome.
Behold, now, I will send thee to him.” And Thomas went, and Gondoforus
commanded him to build for him a magnificent palace, and gave him much
gold and silver for the purpose. The king went into a distant country,
and was absent for two years; and St. Thomas meanwhile, instead of
building a palace, distributed all the treasures entrusted to him among
the poor and sick; and when the king returned, he was full of wrath,
and he commanded that St. Thomas should be seized and cast into prison,
and he meditated for him a horrible death. Meantime the brother of the
king died; and the king resolved to erect for him a most magnificent
tomb; but the dead man, after that he had been dead four days, suddenly
arose and sat upright, and said to the king, “The man whom thou wouldst
torture is a servant of God: behold I have been in Paradise, and the
angels showed to me a wondrous palace of gold and silver and precious
stones,” and they said, “This is the palace that Thomas the architect
hath built for thy brother King Gondoforus.” And when the king heard
these words, he ran to the prison, and delivered the apostle; and
Thomas said to him, “Knowest thou not that those who would possess
heavenly things, have little care for the things of this earth? There
are in heaven rich palaces without number, which were prepared from the
beginning of the world for those who purchase the possession through
faith and charity. Thy riches, O king, may prepare the way for thee to
such a palace, but they cannot follow thee thither.”’[219]
The builder’s rule in the hand of St. Thomas characterises him as the
spiritual architect of King Gondoforus, and for the same reason he has
been chosen among the saints as patron of architects and builders.
There is in this legend or allegory, fanciful as it is, an obvious
beauty and significance, which I need not point out. It appears to me
to be one of those many legends which originally were not assumed to
be facts, but were related as parables, religious fictions invented
for the instruction of the people, like our Saviour’s stories of the
‘Good Samaritan,’ the ‘Prodigal Son,’ &c., and were rendered more
striking and impressive by the introduction of a celebrated and exalted
personage—our Saviour, the Virgin, or one of the apostles—as hero of
the tale. This beautiful legend of St. Thomas and King Gondoforus
is painted on one of the windows of the cathedral at Bourges,—an
appropriate offering from the company of builders in that ancient
city. It is also the subject of one of the finest of the ancient
French _mysteries_, which was acted with great applause at Paris in the
fourteenth century.
But, in the historical subjects from the life of St. Thomas, the first
place must be given to the one scriptural incident in which he figures
as a principal person. ‘The Incredulity of St. Thomas’ occurs in all
the early series of the life of Christ, as one of the events of his
mission, and one of the proofs of his resurrection. On the ancient
gates of San Paolo it is treated with great simplicity as a sacred
mystery, St. Thomas being the principal personage in the action, as
the one whose conviction was to bring conviction to the universe.
Christ stands on a pedestal surmounted by a cross; the apostles are
ranged on each side, and St. Thomas, approaching, stretches forth his
hand. The incident, as a separate subject, is of frequent occurrence
in the later schools of Italy, and in the Flemish schools. The general
treatment, when given in this dramatic style, admits of two variations:
either St. Thomas is placing his hand, with an expression of doubt and
fear, on the wounds of the Saviour; or, his doubts being removed, he
is gazing upwards in adoration and wonder. Of the first, one of the
finest examples is a well-known picture by Rubens,[220] one of his
most beautiful works, and extraordinary for the truth of the expression
in the countenance of the apostle, whose hand is on the side of Christ;
St. John and St. Peter are behind. In Vandyck’s picture at Petersburg,
St. Thomas stoops to examine the Saviour’s hand. In a design ascribed
to Raphael, we have the second version: the look of astonished
conviction in St. Thomas.[221] Niccolò Poussin has painted it finely,
introducing twelve figures.[222] Guercino’s picture is celebrated, but
he has committed the fault of representing the two principal figures
both in profile.[223]
* * * * *
The legendary subject styled ‘La Madonna della Cintola’ belongs
properly to the legends of the Virgin, but as St. Thomas is always a
principal personage I shall mention it here. The legend relates that
when the Madonna ascended into heaven, in the sight of the apostles,
Thomas was absent; but after three days he returned, and, _doubting_
the truth of her glorious translation, he desired that her tomb should
be opened; which was done, and lo! it was found empty. Then the
Virgin, taking pity on his weakness and want of faith, threw down to
him her girdle, that this tangible proof remaining in his hands might
remove all doubts for ever from his mind: hence in many pictures of
the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin, St. Thomas is seen below
holding the sacred girdle in his hand. For instance, in Raphael’s
beautiful ‘Coronation’ in the Vatican; and in Correggio’s ‘Assumption’
at Parma, where St. Thomas holds the girdle, and another apostle kisses
it.
[Illustration: _The Madonna of the Girdle_]
The belief that the girdle is preserved in the Cathedral at Pistoia has
rendered this legend a popular subject with the Florentine painters;
and we find it treated, not merely as an incident in the scene of
the Assumption, but in a manner purely mystic and devotional. Thus,
in a charming bas-relief by Luca della Robbia,[224] the Virgin,
surrounded by a choir of angels, presents her girdle to the apostle.
In a beautiful picture by Granacci,[225] the Virgin is seated in the
clouds; beneath is her empty sepulchre: on one side kneels St. Thomas,
who receives with reverence the sacred girdle; on the other kneels the
Archangel Michael. In simplicity of arrangement, beauty of expression,
and tender harmony of colour, this picture has seldom been exceeded.
Granacci has again treated this subject, and St. Thomas receives the
girdle in the presence of St. John the Baptist, St. James Major, St.
Laurence, and St. Bartholomew.[226] We have the same subject by Paolino
da Pistoia; by Sogliani; and by Mainardi, a large and very fine fresco
in the church of Santa Croce at Florence.
A poetical and truly mystical version of this subject is that wherein
the Infant Saviour, seated or standing on his mother’s knee, looses
her girdle and presents it to St. Thomas. Of this I have seen several
examples; one in the Duomo at Viterbo.[227]
In the Martyrdom of St. Thomas, several idolaters pierce him through
with lances and javelins. It was so represented on the doors of San
Paolo, with four figures only. Rubens, in his large picture, has
followed the legend very exactly; St. Thomas embraces the cross, at
the foot of which he is about to fall, transfixed by spears. A large
picture in the gallery of Count Harrach at Vienna, called there the
Martyrdom of St. Jude, I believe to represent the Martyrdom of St.
Thomas. Two of the idolatrous priests pierce him with lances. Albert
Dürer, in his beautiful print of St. Thomas, represents him holding the
lance, the instrument of his martyrdom: but this is very unusual.
The eighth in the order of the Apostles is the Evangelist ST. MATTHEW,
of whom I have spoken at length.
ST. JAMES MINOR.
_Lat._ S. Jacobus Frater Domini. _Gr._ Adelphotheos. _Ital._ San
Jacopo or Giacomo Minore. _Fr._ St. Jacques Mineur. (May 1.)
The ninth is St. James Minor, or the Less, called also the Just: he
was a near relative of Christ, being the son of Mary, the wife of
Cleophas, who was the sister of the Virgin Mary; hence he is styled
‘the Lord’s brother.’ Nothing particular is related of him till after
the ascension. He is regarded as first Christian bishop of Jerusalem,
and venerated for his self-denial, his piety, his wisdom, and his
charity. These characteristics are conspicuous in the beautiful Epistle
which bears his name. Having excited, by the fervour of his teaching,
the fury of the Scribes and Pharisees, and particularly the enmity of
the high-priest Ananus, they flung him down from a terrace or parapet
of the Temple, and one of the infuriated populace below beat out his
brains with a _fuller’s club_.
In single figures and devotional pictures, St. James is generally
leaning on this club, the instrument of his martyrdom. According to
an early tradition, he so nearly resembled our Lord in person, in
features, and deportment, that it was difficult to distinguish them.
‘The Holy Virgin herself,’ says the legend, ‘had she been _capable_
of error, might have mistaken one for the other:’ and this exact
resemblance rendered necessary the kiss of the traitor Judas, in order
to point out his victim to the soldiers.
This characteristic resemblance is attended to in the earliest and
best representations of St. James, and by this he may usually be
distinguished when he does not bear his club, which is often a thick
stick or staff. With the exception of those Scripture scenes in which
the apostles are present, I have met with few pictures in which St.
James Minor is introduced: he does not appear to have been popular as
a patron saint. The event of his martyrdom occurs very seldom, and
is very literally rendered: the scene is a court of the Temple, with
terraces and balconies; he is falling, or has fallen, to the ground,
and one of the crowd lifts up the club to smite him.
Ignorant artists have in some instances confounded St. James Major and
St. James Minor. The Cappella dei Belludi at Padua, already mentioned,
dedicated to St. Philip and St. James, contains a series of frescoes
from the life of St. James Minor, in which are some of the miraculous
incidents attributed in the Legenda Aurea to St. James Major.
[Illustration: 82 St. James Minor]
1. The Council of the Apostles held at Jerusalem, in which St. James
was nominated chief or bishop of the infant Church. 2. Our Saviour
after his resurrection appears to St. James, who had vowed not to eat
till he should see Christ.[228] 3. St. James thrown down from the
pulpit in the court of the Temple. 4. He is slain by the fuller. 5.
A certain merchant is stript of all his goods by a tyrant, and cast
into prison. He implores the protection of St. James, who, leading
him to the summit of the tower, commands the tower to bow itself to
the ground, and the merchant steps from it and escapes; or, according
to the version followed in the fresco, the apostle lifts the tower on
one side from its foundation, and the prisoner escapes from under it,
like a mouse out of a trap. 6. A poor pilgrim, having neither money nor
food, fell asleep by the way-side, and, on waking, found that St. James
had placed beside him a loaf of bread, which miraculously supplied his
wants to the end of his journey. These two last stories are told also
of St. James of Galicia, but I have never met with any pictures of his
life in which they are included. Here they undoubtedly refer to St.
James Minor, the chapel being consecrated to his honour.
ST. SIMON ZELOTES (or THE ZEALOT). ST. JUDE (THADDEUS, or LEBBEUS).
_Ital._ San Simone; San Taddeo. _Fr._ St. Simon le Zélé. St. Thaddée.
_Ger._ Judas Thaddäus. (Oct. 28.)
The uncertainty, contradiction, and confusion which I find in all
the ecclesiastical biographies relative to these apostles, make it
impossible to give any clear account of them; and as subjects of Art
they are so unimportant, and so uninteresting, that it is the less
necessary. According to one tradition, they were the same mentioned by
Matthew as our Lord’s brethren or kinsmen. But, according to another
tradition, they were not the same, but two brothers who were among
the shepherds to whom the angel and the heavenly host revealed the
birth of the Saviour. Those painters who followed the first tradition
represent Simon and Jude as young, or at least in the prime of life.
Those who adopt the second represent them as very old, taking it for
granted that at the birth of Christ they must have been full-grown men;
and this, I think, is the legend usually followed. It seems, however,
generally agreed, that they preached the Gospel together in Syria and
Mesopotamia, and together suffered martyrdom in Persia: in what manner
they suffered is unknown; but it is supposed that St. Simon was sawn
asunder, and St. Thaddeus killed with a halberd.
In a series of apostles, St. Simon bears the saw, and St. Thaddeus a
halberd. In Greek Art, Jude and Thaddeus are two different persons.
Jude is represented young, Thaddeus old. St. Simon in extreme old age,
with a bald head, and long white beard. In the Greek representation
of his martyrdom, he is affixed to a cross exactly like that of our
Saviour, so that, but for the superscription Ο CΙΜΩΝ, he might be
mistaken for Christ. I do not know of any separate picture of these
apostles.
There is, however, one manner of treating them, with reference to
their supposed relationship to our Saviour, which is peculiarly
beautiful. Assuming that the three last-named apostles, James, the
son of Mary Cleophas; Simon and Jude; Joseph or Joses the Just, also
named by Matthew among the brethren of Christ; together with James
and John, the sons of Mary Salome,—were all nearly related to the
Saviour; it was surely a charming idea to group as children around
him in his infancy those who were afterwards called to be the chosen
ministers of his Word. Christianity, which has glorified womanhood and
childhood, never suggested to the Christian artist a more beautiful
subject, nor one which it would be more easy, by an unworthy or too
picturesque treatment, to render merely pretty and commonplace. This
version, however, of the _Sacra Famiglia_ is rarely met with. There is
an example in the Louvre, signed ‘Laurentius’ (Lorenzo di Pavia, A.D.
1513), which is remarkable as a religious representation; but the most
beautiful instance of this treatment is a _chef-d’œuvre_ of Perugino,
in the Musée at Marseilles. In the centre is the Virgin, seated on a
throne; she holds the Infant Christ in her arms. Behind her is St.
Anna, her two hands resting affectionately on the shoulders of the
Virgin. In front, at the foot of the throne, are two lovely children,
undraped, with glories round their heads, on which are inscribed their
names, Simon and Thaddeus. To the right is Mary Salome, a beautiful
young woman, holding a child in her arms—St. John, afterwards the
evangelist. Near her is Joachim, the father of the Virgin. At his feet
another child, James Major. To the left of the Virgin, Mary the wife of
Cleophas, standing, holds by the hand James Minor: behind her, Joseph,
the husband of the Virgin, and at his feet another child, Joseph (or
Joses) Justus. I have also seen this subject in illuminated MSS., and,
however treated, it is surely very poetical and suggestive.[229]
ST. MATTHIAS.
_Ital._ San Mattia. _Fr._ St. Mathias. (Feb. 24.)
St. Matthias, who was chosen by lot to fill the place of the traitor
Judas, is the last of the apostles. (Acts i.) He preached the Gospel
in Judea, and suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Jews, either by
the lance or by the axe. In the Italian series of the apostles, he
bears as his attribute the lance; in the German sets, more commonly the
axe.[230] The ceremony of choosing St. Matthias by lot is the subject
of a mediocre picture by Boschi. St. Denis says that the apostles were
directed in their choice by a beam of divine splendour, for it were
impious to suppose that such an election was made by chance. In this
picture of Boschi, a ray of light falls from heaven on the head of St.
Matthias.
[Illustration: 83 St. Matthias (Raphael)]
There is a figure of this apostle by Cosimo Roselli, holding a sword
_by the point_: what might be the intention of that capricious painter
it is now impossible to guess.[231] Separate pictures of St. Matthias
are very rare, and he is seldom included in sets of the apostles.
JUDAS ISCARIOT.
_Ital._ Giuda Scariota. _Fr._ Judas Iscariote.
The very name of Judas Iscariot has become a by-word; his person and
character an eternal type of impiety, treachery, and ingratitude. We
shudder at the associations called up by his memory; his crime, without
a name, so distances all possible human turpitude, that he cannot even
be held forth as a terror to evil doers; we set him aside as one cut
off; we never think of him but in reference to the sole and unequalled
crime recorded of him. Not so our ancestors; one should have lived in
the middle ages, to conceive the profound, the ever-present, horror
with which Judas Iscariot was then regarded. The devil himself did not
inspire the same passionate hatred and indignation. Being the devil,
what _could_ he be but devilish? His wickedness was according to his
infernal nature: but the crime of Judas remains the perpetual shame
and reproach of our humanity. The devil betrayed mankind, but Judas
betrayed his God.
* * * * *
The Gospels are silent as to the life of Judas before he became an
apostle, but our progenitors of the middle ages, who could not conceive
it possible that any being, however perverse, would rush at once into
such an abyss of guilt, have filled up the omissions of Scripture
after their own fancy. They picture Judas as a wretch foredoomed from
the beginning of the world, and prepared by a long course of vice and
crime for that crowning guilt which filled the measure full. According
to this legend, he was of the tribe of Reuben. Before his mother
brought him forth, she dreamed that the son who lay in her womb would
be accursed, that he would murder his father, commit incest with his
mother, and sell his God. Terrified at her dream, she took counsel
with her husband, and they agreed to avert the threatened calamity by
exposing the child. As in the story of Œdipus, from which, indeed,
this strange wild legend seems partly borrowed, the means taken to
avert the threatened curse caused its fulfilment. Judas, at his birth,
is enclosed in a chest, and flung into the sea; the sea casts him up,
and, being found on the shore, he is fostered by a certain king and
queen as their own son; they have, however, another son, whom Judas,
malignant from his birth, beats and oppresses, and at length kills in a
quarrel over a game at chess. He then flies to Judea, where he enters
the service of Pontius Pilate as page. In due time he commits the
other monstrous crimes to which he was predestined; and when he learns
from his mother the secret of his birth, he is filled with a sudden
contrition and terror; he hears of the prophet who has power on earth
to forgive sins; and seeking out Christ throws himself at his feet.
Our Saviour, not deceived, but seeing in him the destined betrayer,
and that all things may be accomplished, accepts him as his apostle:
he becomes the seneschal or steward of Christ, bears the purse, and
provides for the common wants. In this position, avarice, the only
vice to which he was not yet addicted, takes possession of his soul,
and makes the corruption complete. Through avarice, he grudges every
penny given to the poor, and when Mary Magdalene anoints the feet of
our Lord he is full of wrath at what he considers the waste of the
precious perfume: ‘Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred
pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the
poor, but because he was a thief.’ Through avarice, he yields to the
bribe offered by the Jews. Then follow the scenes of the betrayal of
Christ, and the late repentance and terrible suicide of the traitor,
as recorded in Scripture. But in the old Mystery of the ‘Passion of
Christ’ the repentance and fate of Judas are very dramatically worked
out, and with all possible circumstances of horror. When he beholds the
mild Saviour before the judgment-seat of Herod, he repents: Remorse,
who figures as a real personage, seizes on the fated wretch, and
torments him till in his agony he invokes Despair. Despair appears,
almost in the guise of the ‘accursed wight’ in Spenser, and, with like
arguments, urges him to make away with his life:—
And brings unto him swords, rope, poison, fire,
And all that might him to perdition draw,
And bids him choose what death he would desire.
Or in the more homely language of the old French mystery,—
Il faut que tu passes le pas!
Voici dagues et coutelas,
Forcettes, poinçons, allumettes,—
Avise, choisis les plus belles,
Et celles de meilleure forge,
Pour te couper à coup la gorge;
Ou si tu aimes mieux te pendre,
Voici lacs et cordes à vendre.
The offer here of the bodkins and the allumettes reminds us of the
speech of Falconbridge:—
If thou would’st drown thyself,
Put but a little water in a spoon,
And it shall be as all the ocean,
Enough to stifle such a villain up.
Judas chooses the rope, and hangs himself forthwith; ‘and falling
headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed
out:’ which account is explained by an early tradition, that being
found and cut down, his body was thrown over the parapet of the Temple
into the ravine below, and, in the fall, was riven and dashed to pieces.
There required but one more touch of horror to complete the picture;
and this is furnished by a sonnet of Giani, which I remember to have
read in my youth. When Judas falls from the fatal tree, his evil genius
seizes the broken rope, and drags him down to the seething abyss below:
at his approach, hell sends forth a shout of rejoicing; Lucifer smooths
his brow, corrugated with fire and pain, and rises from his burning
throne to welcome a greater sinner than himself:—
Poi fra le braccia incatenò quel tristo,
E colla bocca sfavillante e nera
Gli rese il bacio ch’ avea dato a Christo!
The retribution imaged in the last two lines borders, I am afraid, on a
_concetto_; but it makes one shiver, notwithstanding.
Separate representations of the figure or of the life of Judas Iscariot
are not, of course, to be looked for; they would have been regarded as
profane, as ominous,—worse than the evil-eye. In those Scripture scenes
in which he finds a place, it was the aim of the early artists to give
him a countenance as hateful, as expressive of treachery, meanness,
malignity, as their skill could compass,—the Italians having depended
more on expression, the German and Spanish painters on form. We have a
conviction, that if the man had really worn such a look, such features,
he would have been cast out from the company of the apostles; the
legend already referred to says expressly that Judas was of a comely
appearance, and was recommended to the service of Pontius Pilate by
his beauty of person; but the painters, speaking to the people in the
language of form, were right to admit of no equivocation. The same
feeling which induced them to concentrate on the image of the Demon
all they could conceive of hideous and repulsive, made them picture
the exterior of Judas as deformed and hateful as the soul within; and,
by an exaggeration of the Jewish cast of features combined with red
hair and beard, they flattered themselves that they had attained the
desired object. But as if this were not enough, the ancient painters,
particularly in the old illuminations, and in Byzantine Art, represent
Judas as directly and literally possessed by the Devil: sometimes it is
a little black demon seated on his shoulder, and whispering in his ear;
sometimes entering his mouth: thus, in their simplicity, rendering the
words of the Gospel, ‘Then entered Satan into Judas.’
The colour proper to the dress of Judas is a dirty dingy yellow; and
in Spain this colour is so intimately associated with the image of the
arch-traitor, as to be held in universal dislike: both in Spain and in
Italy, malefactors and galley-slaves are clothed in yellow.[232] At
Venice the Jews were obliged to wear yellow hats.
In some of the scriptural scenes in which Judas is mentioned or
supposed to be present, it is worth while to remark whether the painter
has passed him over as spoiling the harmony of the sacred composition
by his intrusive ugliness and wickedness, or has rendered him
conspicuous by a distinct and characteristic treatment. In a picture
by Niccolò Frumenti[233] of the Magdalene at the feet of our Saviour,
Judas stands in the foreground, looking on with a most diabolical
expression of grudging malice mingled with scorn; he seems to grind
his teeth as he says, ‘To what purpose is this waste?’ In Perugino’s
beautiful picture of the washing the feet of the disciples,[234] Judas
is at once distinguished, looking askance with a wicked sneer on his
face, which is not otherwise ugly. In Raphael’s composition of the
Magdalene anointing the feet of Christ, Judas leans across the table
with an angry look of expostulation.
Those subjects in which Judas Iscariot appears as a principal personage
follow here.
1. Angelico da Fiesole.[235] He is bribed by the Jews. The high-priest
pays into the hand of Judas the thirty pieces of silver. They are
standing before a doorway on some steps; Judas is seen in profile, and
has the nimbus as one of the apostles: three persons are behind, one
of whom expresses disapprobation and anxiety. In this subject, and in
others wherein Judas is introduced, Angelico has not given him ugly and
deformed features; but in the scowling eye and bent brow there is a
vicious expression.
In Duccio’s series of the ‘Passion of our Saviour,’ in the Duomo at
Siena, he has, in this and in other scenes, represented Judas with
regular and not ugly features; but he has a villanous, and at the same
time anxious, expression;—he has a bad conscience.
The scene between Judas and the high-priest is also given by Schalken
as a candle-light effect, and in the genuine Dutch style.
2. ‘Judas betrays his Master with a kiss.’ This subject will be noticed
at large in the Life of Christ. The early Italians, in giving this
scene with much dramatic power, never forgot the scriptural dignity
required; while the early Germans, in their endeavour to render Judas
as odious in physiognomy as in heart, have, in this as in many other
instances, rendered the awful and the pathetic merely grotesque. We
must infer from Scripture, that Judas, with all his perversity, had a
conscience: he would not else have hanged himself. In the physiognomy
given to him by the old Germans, there is no trace of this; he is an
ugly malignant brute, and nothing more.
3. Rembrandt. ‘Judas throws down the thirty pieces of silver in the
Temple, and departs.’[236]
4. ‘The remorse of Judas.’ He is seated and in the act of putting
the rope about his neck; beside him is seen the purse and the money,
scattered about the ground. The design is by Bloemart, and, from the
Latin inscription underneath, appears to be intended as a warning to
all unrighteous dealers.
5. ‘Judas hanging on a tree’ is sometimes introduced into the
background, in ancient pictures of the Deposition and the Entombment:
there is one in the Frankfort Museum.
6. ‘Demons toss the soul of Judas from hand to hand in the manner of a
ball:’ in an old French miniature.[237] This is sufficiently grotesque
in representation; yet, in the idea, there is a restless, giddy horror
which thrills us. At all events, it is better than placing Judas
between the jaws of Satan with his legs in the air, as Dante has done,
and as Orcagna in his Dantesque fresco has very literally rendered the
description of the poet.[238]
[Illustration: _Lionardo da Vinci_]
[Illustration: _Giotto_]
[Illustration: _Raphael_]
THE LAST SUPPER.
_Ital._ Il Cenacolo. La Cena. _Fr._ La Cène. _Ger._ Das Abendmal
Christi.
I have already mentioned the principal scenes in which the Twelve
always appear together; there is, however, one event belonging properly
to the life of Christ, so important in itself, presenting the Apostles
under an aspect so peculiar, and throwing so much interest around them
collectively and individually, that I must bring it under notice here.
* * * * *
Next to the Crucifixion, there is no subject taken from the history
of our redemption so consecrated in Art as the Last Supper. The awful
signification lent to it by Protestants as well as Catholics has given
it a deep religious import, and caused its frequent representation in
churches; it has been, more particularly, the appropriate decoration of
the refectories of convents, hospitals, and other institutions having
a sacred character. In our Protestant churches, it is generally the
subject of the altar-piece, where we have one.
Besides being one of the most important and interesting, it is one of
the most difficult among the sacred subjects treated in Art. While the
fixed number of personages introduced, the divine and paramount dignity
of One among them, the well-known character of all, have limited the
invention of the artist, they have tasked to the utmost his power of
expression. The occasion, that of a repast eaten by twelve persons, is,
under its material aspect, so commonplace, and, taken in the spiritual
sense, so awful, that to elevate himself to the height of his theme,
while keeping the ideal conscientiously bounded within its frame of
circumstance, demanded in the artist aspirations of the grandest order,
tempered by the utmost sobriety of reflection; and the deepest insight
into the springs of character, combined with the most perfect knowledge
of the indications of character as manifested through form. On the
other hand, if it has been difficult to succeed, it has been equally
difficult to fail signally and completely; because the spectator is not
here, as in the crucifixion, in danger of being perpetually shocked by
the intrusion of anomalous incidents, and is always ready to supply
the dignity and meaning of a scene so familiar in itself out of his
own mind and heart. It has followed, that mediocrity has been more
prevalent and more endurable in this than in any other of the more
serious subjects of Art. But where excellence has been in some few
instances attained, it has been attained in such a supreme degree, that
these examples have become a perpetual source of contemplation and of
emulation, and rank among the most renowned productions of human genius.
But, before I come to consider these analytically, it is necessary to
premise one or two observations, which will assist us to discrimination
in the general treatment.
Pictures and works of art, which represent the Last Supper of our
Lord, admit of the same classification which I have adhered to
generally throughout this work. Those which represent it as a religious
mystery must be considered as _devotional_; those which represent it
merely as a scene in the passion of our Saviour are _historical_.
In the first, we have the spiritual origin of the Eucharist; in
the second, the highly dramatic detection of Judas. It is evident
that the predominating _motif_ in each must be widely different. In
paintings which are intended for the altar, or for the chapels of the
Holy Sacrament, we have the first, the mystical version;—it is the
distribution of the spiritual food. In the second form, as the Last
Supper eaten by Christ with his disciples, as leading the mind to an
humble and grateful sense of his sacrifice, as repressing all sinful
indulgence in food, it has been the subject chosen to decorate the
refectory or common dining-room of convents.
It is curious that on the Christian sarcophagi the Last Supper does
not occur. There is, in the Vatican, a rude painting taken from the
catacombs representing twelve persons in a semicircle, with something
like plates and dishes before them. I could not determine whether
this was our Saviour and his apostles, or merely one of those feasts
or suppers instituted by the early Christians called _Agapæ_ or
love-feasts; but I should think the latter.
On the Dalmatica (deacon’s robe) preserved in the sacristy of the
Vatican, there is, if the date be exact (A.D. 795), the most ancient
representation I have seen of the institution of the Sacrament. The
embroidery, which is wonderfully beautiful, is a copy from Byzantine
Art. On one side, our Saviour stands by a table or altar, and presents
the cup to his apostles, one of whom approaches in a reverential
attitude, and with his hands folded in his robe; on the other side,
Christ presents the wafer or host: so that we have the two separate
moments in separate groups.
There exists in the Duomo of Lodi the most ancient sculptural example
of this subject I have met with; it is a bas-relief of the twelfth
century, dated 1163, and fixed in the wall to the left of the entrance.
Christ and the apostles are in a straight row, all very much alike; six
of the apostles lay their hands on their breast,—‘Lord, is it I?’ and
Christ presents the sop to Judas, who sits in front, and is as ugly as
possible.
Although all the Byzantine pictures of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries which have come under my notice represent Christ breaking the
bread or holding the cup, that is, the institution of the Sacrament,
the Greek formula published by Didron distinguishes between this scene
and that of the repast in which Judas is denounced as a traitor.
The earliest representation to which I can refer in Western Art, as
taking the historical form, is the Cenacolo of Giotto, the oldest and
the most important that has been preserved to us; it was painted by
him in the refectory of the convent of Santa Croce at Florence. This
refectory, when I visited it in 1847, was a carpet manufactory, and
it was difficult to get a good view of the fresco by reason of the
intervention of the carpet-looms. It has been often restored, and is
now in a bad state; still, enough remains to understand the original
intention of the artist, and that arrangement which has since been the
groundwork of similar compositions.
A long table extends across the picture from side to side: in the
middle, and fronting the spectator, sits the Redeemer; to the right,
St. John, his head reclining on the lap of Christ; next to him, Peter;
after Peter, St. James Major; thus placing together the three favourite
disciples. Next to St. James, St. Matthew, St. Bartholomew, and a young
beardless apostle, probably St. Philip.
On the left hand of our Saviour is St. Andrew; and next to him, St.
James Minor (the two St. Jameses bearing the traditional resemblance
to Christ); then St. Simon and St. Jude; and lastly, a young apostle,
probably St. Thomas. (The reader will have the goodness to recollect
that I give this explanation of the names and position of the eleven
apostles as my own, and with due deference to the opinion of those who
on a further study of the fresco may differ from me.) Opposite to the
Saviour, and on the near side of the table, sits Judas, apart from the
rest, and in the act of dipping his hand into the dish. It is evident
that the moment chosen by the artist is, ‘He that dippeth with me in
the dish, the same shall betray me.’
Although the excuse may be found in the literal adoption of the words
of the Gospel,[239] it appears to me a fault to make St. John leaning,
as one half asleep, on the lap of our Saviour, after such words have
been uttered as must have roused, or at least ought to have roused, the
young and beloved apostle from his supine attitude; therefore, we may
suppose that Christ is about to speak the words, but has not yet spoken
them. The position of Judas is caused by the necessity of placing him
sufficiently near to Christ to dip his hand in the same dish; while
to have placed him on the same side of the table, so as to give him
the precedence over the more favoured disciples, would have appeared
to the early artists nothing less than profane. Giotto has paid great
attention to the heads, which are individually characterised, but there
is little dramatic expression; the attention is not yet directed to
Judas, who is seen in profile, looking up, not ugly in feature, but
with a mean vicious countenance, and bent shoulders.
The arrangement of the table and figures, so peculiarly fitted for
a refectory, has been generally adopted since the time of Giotto in
pictures painted for this especial purpose. The subject is placed on
the upper wall of the chamber; the table extending from side to side:
the tables of the monks are placed, as in the dining-rooms of our
colleges, length-ways; thus all can behold the divine assembly, and
Christ appears to preside over and sanctify the meal.
In another Cenacolo by Giotto,[240] which forms one of the scenes in
the history of Christ, he has given us a totally different version of
the subject; and, not being intended for a refectory, but as an action
or event, it is more dramatic. It is evident that our Saviour has just
uttered the words, ‘He that dippeth with me in the dish, the same shall
betray me.’ Judas, who has mean, ugly, irregular features, looks up
alarmed, and seems in the act of rising to escape. One apostle (Philip,
I think) points at him, and the attention of all is more or less
directed to him. This would be a fault if the subject were intended
for a refectory, or to represent the celebration of the Eucharist. But
here, where the subject is historical, it is a propriety.
The composition of Duccio of Siena, in the Duomo at Siena, must have
been nearly contemporary with, if it did not precede, those of Giotto
(A.D. 1308); it is quite different, quite original in _motif_ and
arrangement. Seven apostles sit on the same side with Christ, and five
opposite to him, turning their backs on the spectator; the faces are
seen in profile. The attitude of St. John, leaning against our Saviour
with downcast eyes, is much more graceful than in the composition of
Giotto. St. Peter is on the right of Christ; next to him St. James
Minor: two young apostles sit at the extreme ends of the table, whom
I suppose to be St. Philip and St. Thomas: the other apostles I am
unable to discriminate, with the exception of Judas, who, with regular
features, has a characteristic scowl on his brow. Christ holds out a
piece of bread in his hand: two of the apostles likewise hold bread,
and two others hold a cup; the rest look attentive or pensive, but the
general character of the heads is deficient in elevation. The moment
chosen may be the distribution of the bread and wine; but, to me,
it rather expresses the commencement of the meal, and our Saviour’s
address: ‘With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you
before I suffer’ (Luke xxii. 15). The next compartment of the same
series, which represents the apostles seated in a group before Christ,
and listening with upturned faces and the most profound attention to
his last words, has much more of character, solemnity, and beauty, than
the Last Supper. Judas is here omitted; ‘for he, having received the
sop, went immediately out.’
Angelico da Fiesole, in his life of Christ, has been careful to
distinguish between the detection of Judas and the institution of the
Eucharist.[241] He has given us both scenes. In the first compartment,
John is leaning down with his face to the Saviour; the back of his head
only is seen, and he appears too unmindful of what is going forward.
The other apostles are well discriminated, the usual type strictly
followed in Peter, Andrew, James Major and James Minor. To the right of
Christ are Peter, Andrew, Bartholomew; to the left, James Minor. Four
turn their backs, and two young apostles stand on each side,—I presume
Thomas and Philip; they seem to be waiting on the rest: Judas dips
his hand in the dish. I suppose the moment to be the same as in the
composition of Duccio.
But in the next compartment the _motif_ is different. All have risen.
from table; it is no longer a repast, it is a sacred mystery; Christ is
in the act of administering the bread to St. John; all kneel; and Judas
is seen kneeling behind Christ, near an open door, and apart from the
rest, as if he were watching for the opportunity to escape. To dispose
of Judas in this holy ceremony is always a difficulty. To represent him
as receiving with the rest the sacred rite is an offence to the pious.
The expression used by St. John (xii. 30), ‘After he had received the
sop he went out,’ implies that Judas was not present at the Lord’s
Supper, which succeeded the celebration of the paschal supper. St. Luke
and St. Mark, neither of whom were present, leave us to suppose that
Judas partook, with the other disciples, of the mystic bread and wine;
yet we can hardly believe that, after having been pointed out as the
betrayer, the conscience-stricken Judas should remain to receive the
Eucharist. Sometimes he is omitted altogether; sometimes he is stealing
out at the door. In the composition of Luca Signorelli, which I saw at
Cortona, all the twelve apostles are kneeling; Christ is distributing
the wafer; and Judas, turning away with a malignant look, puts _his_
wafer into his satchel. In the composition of Palmezzano, in the Duomo
at Forlì, our Saviour stands, holding a plate, and is in the act of
presenting the wafer to Peter, who kneels: St. John stands by the side
of Christ, holding the cup: Judas is in the background; he kneels by
the door, and seems to be watching for the opportunity to steal away.
The fine composition, fine also in sentiment and character, of
Ghirlandajo, was painted for the small refectory in the San Marco
at Florence. The arrangement is ingenious: the table is of what we
call the horse-shoe form, which allows all the figures to face the
spectator; and at the same time takes up less room than where the
table runs across the picture from side to side. Judas sits in front,
alone; Christ has just designated him. ‘He it is to whom I shall give
the sop when I have dipped it.’ (John xiii. 26.) Judas holds the sop
in his hand, with an alarmed conscious look. Behind sits an ill-omened
cat, probably intended for the fiend. John, to the left of Christ,
appears to have swooned away. The other apostles express, in various
ways, amazement and horror.
It has been a question among critics, whether the purse ought to be
placed in the hand of Judas when present at the Last Supper, because it
is usually understood as containing the thirty pieces of silver: but
this is a mistake; and it leads to the mistake of representing him as
hiding the purse, as if it contained the price of his treachery. Judas
carries the purse openly, for he was the steward, or purse-bearer, of
the party ‘he had the bag, and bare what was put therein’ (John xii. 6,
xiii. 29): and as the money-bag is also the attribute of St. Matthew
the tax-gatherer, we must take care not to confound him with the
traitor and thief. This brings me to the consideration of the subject
as treated by Albert Dürer.
In the series of large woodcuts from the Passion of our Saviour
(styled ‘_La grande Passion_’), the Cenacolo is an event, and not a
mystery. John, as a beautiful youth, is leaning against our Saviour
with downcast eyes; he does not look as if he had thrown himself down
half asleep, but as if Christ had put his arm around him, and drawn
and pressed him fondly towards him. On the right is Peter: the other
apostles are not easily discriminated, but they have all that sort of
_grandiose_ ugliness which is so full of character, and so particularly
the characteristic of the artist: the apostle seated in front in a
cowering attitude, holding the purse which he seems anxious to conceal,
and looking up apprehensively, I suppose to be Judas.
In the smaller set of woodcuts (‘_La petite Passion_’) I believe the
apostle with the purse in the foreground to be St. Matthew; while the
ugly, lank-haired personage behind Christ, who looks as if about to
steal away, is probably intended for Judas: one of the apostles has
laid hold of him, and seems to say, ‘Thou art the man!’
There is a third Cenacolo, by Albert Dürer, which plainly represents
the Eucharist. The cup only is on the table, and Judas is omitted.
In a Cenacolo by another old German, Judas is in the act of receiving
the sop which Christ is putting into his mouth; and at the same time he
is _hiding_ the purse:—a mistake, as I have already observed.
* * * * *
These examples must suffice to give some idea of the manner in which
this subject was generally treated by the early German and Italian
artists. But, whether presented before us as a dramatic scene
expressing individual character, or as an historical event memorable
in the life of Christ, or as a religious rite of awful and mysterious
import—all the examples I have mentioned are in some respects
deficient. We have the feeling, that, whatever may be the merit in
sentiment, in intention, in detail, what has been attempted has _not_
been achieved.
* * * * *
When Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest thinker as well as the greatest
painter of his age, brought all the resources of his wonderful mind
to bear on the subject, then sprang forth a creation so consummate,
that since that time it has been at once the wonder and the despair of
those who have followed in the same path. True, the work of his hand is
perishing—will soon have perished utterly. I remember well, standing
before this wreck of a glorious presence, so touched by its pale,
shadowy, and yet divine significance, and by its hopelessly impending
ruin, that the tears sprang involuntarily. Fortunately for us,
multiplied copies have preserved at least the intention of the artist
in his work. We can judge of what it _has_ been, and take that for our
text and for our theme.
The purpose being the decoration of a refectory in a rich convent, the
chamber lofty and spacious, Leonardo has adopted the usual arrangement:
the table runs across from side to side, filling up the whole extent
of the wall, and the figures, being above the eye, and to be viewed
from a distance, are colossal; they would otherwise have appeared
smaller than the real personages seated at the tables below. The moment
selected is the utterance of the words, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto
you, that one of you shall betray me:’ or rather the words have just
been uttered, and the picture expresses their effect on the different
auditors. It is of these auditors, his apostles, that I have to speak,
and not of Christ himself; for the full consideration of the subject,
as it regards _Him_, must be deferred; the intellectual elevation,
the fineness of nature, the benign God-like dignity, suffused with
the profoundest sorrow, in this divine head, surpassed all I could
have conceived as possible in Art; and, faded as it is, the character
there, being stamped on it by the soul, not the hand, of the artist,
will remain while a line or hue remains visible. It is a divine shadow,
and, until it fades into nothing, and disappears utterly, will have
the lineaments of divinity. Next to Christ is St. John; he has just
been addressed by Peter, who beckons to him that he should ask ‘of
whom the Lord spake:’—his disconsolate attitude, as he has raised
himself to reply, and leans his clasped hands on the table, the almost
feminine sweetness of his countenance, express the character of this
gentle and amiable apostle. Peter, leaning from behind, is all fire
and energy; Judas, who knows full well of whom the Saviour spake,
starts back amazed, oversetting the salt; his fingers clutch the bag,
of which he has the charge, with that action which Dante describes as
characteristic of the avaricious:—
Questi risurgeranno dal sepolcro
Col pugno chiuso.
These from the tomb with clenchèd grasp shall rise.
His face is seen in profile, and cast into shadow: without being
vulgar, or even ugly, it is hateful. St. Andrew, with his long grey
beard, lifts up his hands, expressing the wonder of a simple-hearted
old man. St. James Minor, resembling the Saviour in his mild features,
and the form of his beard and hair, lays his hand on the shoulder of
St. Peter—the expression is, ‘_Can_ it be possible? Have we heard
aright?’ Bartholomew, at the extreme end of the table, has risen
perturbed from his seat; he leans forward with a look of eager
attention, the lips parted; he is impatient to hear more. (The fine
copy of Uggione, in the Royal Academy, does not give this anxious
look—he is attentive only.) On the left of our Saviour is St. James
Major, who has also a family resemblance to Christ; his arms are
outstretched, he shrinks back, he repels the thought with horror.
The vivacity of the action and expression are wonderfully true
and characteristic. (Morghen, the engraver, erroneously supposed
this to represent St. Thomas, and placed on the border of his robe
an inscription fixing the identity; which inscription, as Bossi
asserts, never did exist in the original picture.) St. Thomas is
behind St. James, rather young, with a short beard; he holds up his
hand, threatening—‘If there be indeed such a wretch, let him look
to it.’ Philip, young and with a beautiful head, lays his hand on
his heart: he protests his love, his truth. Matthew, also beardless,
has more elegance, as one who belonged to a more educated class than
the rest; he turns to Jude and points to our Saviour, as if about
to repeat his words, ‘Do you hear what he says?’ Simon and Jude sit
together (Leonardo has followed the tradition which makes them old
and brothers); Jude expresses consternation; Simon, with his hands
stretched out, a painful anxiety.
* * * * *
To understand the wonderful skill with which this composition has been
arranged, it ought to be studied long and minutely; and, to appreciate
its relative excellence, it ought to be compared with other productions
of the same period. Leonardo has contrived to break the formality of
the line of heads without any apparent artifice, and without disturbing
the grand simplicity of the usual order; and he has vanquished the
difficulties in regard to the position of Judas, without making him too
prominent. He has imparted to a solemn scene sufficient movement and
variety of action, without detracting from its dignity and pathos; he
has kept the expression of each head true to the traditional character,
without exaggeration, without effort. To have done this, to have been
the first to do this, required the far-reaching philosophic mind, not
less than the excelling hand, of this ‘miracle of nature,’ as Mr.
Hallam styles Leonardo, with reference to his scientific as well as his
artistic powers.
* * * * *
And now to turn to another miracle of nature, Raphael. He has given us
three compositions for the Last Supper. The fresco lately discovered in
the refectory of Sant’ Onofrio, at Florence, is an early work painted
in his twenty-third year (A.D. 1505). The authenticity of this picture
has been vehemently disputed; for myself—as far as my opinion is worth
anything—I never, after the first five minutes, had a doubt on the
subject. As to its being the work of Neri de’ Bicci, I do not believe
it possible; and as for the written documents brought forward to prove
this, I turn from them ‘to the handwriting on the wall,’ and there I
see, in characters of light, RAPHAEL—and _him_ only. It is, however, a
youthful work, full of sentiment and grace, but deficient, it appears
to me, in that depth and discrimination of character displayed in his
later works. It is evident that he had studied Giotto’s fresco in the
neighbouring Santa Croce. The arrangement is nearly the same.
Christ is in the centre; his right hand is raised, and he is about to
speak; the left hand is laid, with extreme tenderness in the attitude
and expression, on the shoulder of John, who reclines upon him. To
the right of Christ is St. Peter, the head of the usual character;
next to him St. Andrew, with the flowing grey hair and long divided
beard; St. James Minor, the head declined resembling Christ: he holds
a cup. St. Philip is seen in profile with a white beard: (this is
contrary to the received tradition, which makes him young; and I doubt
the correctness of this appellation). St. James Major, at the extreme
end of the table, looks out of the picture; Raphael has apparently
represented himself in this apostle. On the left of Christ, after St.
John, is St. Bartholomew; he holds a knife, and has the black beard
and dark complexion usually given to him. Then Matthew, something like
Peter, but milder and more refined. Thomas, young and handsome, pours
wine into a cup; last, on the right, are Simon and Jude: Raphael has
followed the tradition which supposes them young, and the kinsmen of
our Saviour. Judas sits on a stool on the near side of the table,
opposite to Christ, and while he dips his hand into the dish he looks
round to the spectators; he has the Jewish features, red hair and
beard, and a bad expression. All have glories; but the glory round the
head of Judas is much smaller than the others.[242]
* * * * *
In the second composition, one of the series of the life of Christ,
in the Loggie of the Vatican, Raphael has placed the apostles round a
table, four on each of the three sides; our Saviour presiding in the
centre. John and Peter, who are, as usual, nearest to Christ, look to
him with an animated appealing expression. Judas is in front, looking
away from the rest, and as if about to rise. The other heads are
not well discriminated, nor is the moment well expressed: there is,
indeed, something confused and inharmonious, unlike Raphael, in the
whole composition. I pass it over, therefore, without further remark,
to come to the third example—a masterpiece of his later years, worthy
as a composition of being compared with Leonardo’s; but, never having
been painted, we can only pronounce it perfect as far as it goes. The
original drawing enriches the collection of the Queen of England: the
admirable engraving of Marc Antonio, said to have been touched by
Raphael, is before me while I write. From the disposition of the unshod
feet as seen under the table, it is styled by collectors ‘_il pezzo dei
piedi_:’ from the arrangement of the table and figures it was probably
designed for a refectory.
In the centre is Christ, with both hands resting on the table; in the
head, a melancholy resignation. Peter is on the right, his hand on
his breast. John, on the left, places both hands on his breast, with
a most animated expression,—‘You cannot believe it is I?’ Andrew has
laid his hand on the shoulder of Peter, and leans forward with a sad
interrogative expression. The head of Judas has features akin to those
of the antique satyr, with the look askance of a detected villain:
he has heard the words, but he dares not meet the eye, of his Divine
Master: he has no purse. James Minor, next to John, with his hands
extended, seems to speak sadly to Philip: ‘And they began to inquire
among themselves, which of them should do this thing?’ The whole
composition is less dramatic, has less variety of action and attitude,
than that of Leonardo, but is full of deep melancholy feeling.
* * * * *
The Cenacolo of Andrea del Sarto, in the Convent of the Salvi near
Florence, takes, I believe, the third rank after those of Leonardo
and Raphael. He has chosen the self-same moment, ‘One of you shall
betray me.’ The figures are, as usual, ranged on one side of a long
table. Christ, in the centre, holds a piece of bread in his hand; on
his left is St. John, and on his right St. James Major, both seen in
profile. The face of St. John expresses interrogation; that of St.
James, interrogation and a start of amazement. Next to St. James are
Peter, Thomas, Andrew; then Philip, who has a small cross upon his
breast. After St. John come James Minor, Simon, Jude, Judas Iscariot,
and Bartholomew. Judas, with his hands folded together, leans forward,
and looks down, with a round mean face, in which there is no power of
any kind, not even of malignity. In passing almost immediately from the
Cenacolo in the St. Onofrio to that in the Salvi, we feel strongly all
the difference between the mental and moral superiority of Raphael at
the age of twenty, and the artistic greatness of Andrea in the maturity
of his age and talent. This fresco deserves its high celebrity. It is
impossible to look on it without admiration, considered as a work of
art. The variety of the attitudes, the disposition of the limbs beneath
the table, the ample, tasteful draperies, deserve the highest praise;
but the heads are deficient in character and elevation, and the whole
composition wants that solemnity of feeling proper to the subject.
* * * * *
The Cenacolo of Titian, painted for Philip II. for the altar of his
chapel in the Escurial, is also a notable example of the want of proper
reverential feeling: two servants are in attendance; Judas is in front,
averting his head, which is in deep shadow; a dog is under the table,
and the Holy Ghost is descending from above.
Niccolò Poussin has three times painted the Cenacolo. In the two series
of the Seven Sacraments, he has, of course, represented the institution
of the Eucharist, as proper to his subject; in both instances, in that
pure and classical taste proper to himself. In the best and largest
composition, the apostles are reclining on couches round the table.
Christ holds a plate full of bread, and appears as saying, ‘Take, eat.’
Four are putting the morsel into their mouths. Judas is seen behind,
with an abject look, stealing out of the room.
* * * * *
The faults which I have observed in pictures of this subject are
chiefly met with in the Venetian, Flemish, and later Bolognese schools.
When the _motif_ selected is the institution of the Eucharist, it is a
fault to sacrifice the solemnity and religious import of the scene in
order to render it more dramatic: it ought not to be dramatic; but the
pervading sentiment should be _one_, a deep and awful reverence. When
Christ is distributing the bread and wine, the apostles should not be
conversing with each other; nor should the figures exceed twelve in
number, for it appears to me that the introduction of Judas disturbs
the sacred harmony and tranquillity of the scene. When the _motif_ is
the celebration of the Passover, or the detection of Judas, a more
dramatic and varied arrangement is necessary; but here, to make the
apostles intent on eating and drinking, as in some old German pictures,
is a fault. Even Albano has represented one of the apostles as peeping
into an empty wine-pitcher with a disappointed look.
* * * * *
It appears to me, also, a gross fault to introduce dogs and cats, and
other animals; although I have heard it observed, that a dog gnawing a
bone is introduced with propriety, to show that the supper is over, the
Paschal Lamb eaten, before the moment represented.
Vulgar heads, taken from vulgar models, or selected without any regard
either to the ancient types, or the traditional character of the
different apostles, are defects of frequent occurrence, especially in
the older German schools; and in Titian, Paul Veronese, and Rubens,
even where the heads are otherwise fine and expressive, the scriptural
truth of character is in general sacrificed.
It is a fault, as I have already observed, to represent Judas anxiously
concealing the purse.
* * * * *
Holbein, in his famous Last Supper at Basle, and in the small one in
the Louvre, has adopted the usual arrangement: the heads all want
elevation; but here the attention fixes at once upon Judas Iscariot—the
very ideal of scoundrelism—I can use no other word to express the
unmitigated ugliness, vulgarity, and brutality of the face. Lavater
has referred to it as an example of the physiognomy proper to cruelty
and avarice; but the dissimulation is wanting. This base, eager,
hungry-looking villain stands betrayed by his own looks: he is too
prominent; he is in fact the principal figure;—a fault in taste,
feeling, and propriety.
* * * * *
The introduction of a great number of figures, as spectators or
attendants, is a fault; excusable, perhaps, where the subject is
decorative and intended for the wall of a refectory, but not otherwise.
In the composition of Paul Veronese, there are twenty-three figures;
in that of Zucchero, forty-five; in that of Baroccio, twenty-one. These
supernumerary persons detract from the dignity and solemnity of the
scene.
* * * * *
Tintoretto has introduced several spectators, and among them an old
woman spinning in a corner, who, while she turns her spindle, looks on
with an observant eye. This alludes to an early tradition, that the
Last Supper was eaten in the house of Mary, the mother of Mark the
evangelist. But it is nowhere said that she was present, and therefore
it is an impropriety to introduce her. Magnificent architecture, as in
the picture by B. Peruzzi (who, by the way, was an architect), seems
objectionable: but equally unsuitable is the poor dismantled garret in
this picture of Tintoretto; for the chamber in which the scene took
place was ‘the guest chamber,’ a large upper room, ready prepared; and
as it was afterwards the scene of the Pentecost, it must have held more
than a hundred persons.
* * * * *
It is a fault, as I have already observed, to represent John as
_asleep_ on the breast or the shoulder of our Saviour.
* * * * *
Though countenanced by the highest authorities in Art, I believe it
must be considered as a fault, or at least a mistake, to represent our
Saviour and his apostles as seated, instead of reclining round the
table. It is a fault, not merely because the use of the _triclinium_
or couch at all social meals was general in the antique times,—for the
custom of sitting upright was not so entirely extinct among the Jews
but that it might on any other occasion have been admissible,—but, from
peculiar circumstances, it became in this instance an impropriety. We
know that when the Passover was first instituted the Jews were enjoined
to eat it standing, as men in haste, with girded loins and sandalled
feet: but afterwards it was made imperative that they should eat it
in an attitude of repose, lying upon couches, and as men at ease; and
the reason for this was, that all the circumstances of the meal, and
particularly the attitude in which it was eaten, should indicate the
condition of security and freedom which the Israelites enjoyed after
their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage. In the then imperfect
state of Biblical criticism, this fact seems to have been unknown to
the earlier artists, or disregarded by those who employed and directed
them. Among modern artists, Poussin and Le Sueur have scrupulously
attended to it, even when the moment chosen is the mystical
distribution of the bread and wine which succeeded the Paschal Supper.
Commentators have remarked, that if Christ and his disciples _reclined_
at table, then, supposing Christ to have the central place of honour,
the head of John would have been near to the bosom of Christ: but under
these circumstances, if Judas were sufficiently near to receive the
sop from the hand of Christ, then he must have reclined next to him
on the other side, and have taken precedence of Peter. This supposed
a propinquity which the early Christian artists deemed offensive and
inadmissible.
* * * * *
In the composition by Stradano the arrangement of the table and figures
is particularly well managed: all recline on couches; in the centre
of the table is a dish, to which Christ extends his hand, and Judas,
who is here rather handsome than otherwise, at the same time stretches
forth his; the moment is evidently, ‘He that dippeth with me in the
dish, the same shall betray me.’ Two circumstances spoil this picture,
and bring it down to the level of the vulgar and the commonplace. In
the background is seen a kitchen and the cooking of the supper. Under
Judas crouches a hideous demon, with horns, hoof, and tail, visible
only to the spectator.
* * * * *
When the Cenacolo represents the Eucharist, it is, perhaps, allowable
to introduce angels, because it was, and I believe is, an established
belief, that, visible or invisible, they are always present at the
Sacrament. The Holy Ghost descending from above is unsanctioned by
Scripture, but may serve to mark the mystical and peculiar solemnity
of the moment chosen for representation. It may signify, ‘He that
receiveth me, receiveth _Him_ that sent me.’ But where angels attend,
or where the Spiritual Comforter comes floating down from above, then
the presence of Judas, or of any superfluous figures as spectators or
servitors, or of dogs or other animals, becomes a manifest impropriety.
The introduction of the Devil in person as tempting Judas is rendered
pardonable by the naïveté of the early painters: in the later schools
of art it is offensive and ridiculous.
The Cenacolo of Baroccio, painted by order of Clement VIII. (1594), for
his family chapel in the Santa Maria-sopra-Minerva, is remarkable for
an anecdote relating to it. Baroccio, who was not eminent for a correct
taste, had in his first sketch reverted to the ancient fashion of
placing Satan close behind Judas, whispering in his ear, and tempting
him to betray his Master. The Pope expressed his dissatisfaction,—‘_che
non gli piaceva il demonio si dimesticasse tanto con Gesù Cristo_,’—and
ordered him to remove the offensive figure. This is not the last
example of the ancient manner of treatment. In the Cenacolo of
Franceschini, painted nearly a century later, two angels are attending
on the sacred repast, while Judas is in the act of leaving the room,
conducted by Satan in person.
* * * * *
It is surely a fault, in a scene of such solemn and sacred import,
to make the head of Judas a vehicle for public or private satire, by
giving him the features of some obnoxious personage of the time.[243]
This, according to tradition, has been done in some instances. Perhaps
the most remarkable example that could be cited is the story of Andrea
del Castagno, who, after having betrayed and assassinated his friend
Domenico Veneziano, painted himself in the character of Judas: a
curious instance of remorse of conscience.
* * * * *
Volumes might be written on the subject of the Last Supper. It extends
before me, as I think and write, into endless suggestive associations,
which, for the present, I dare not follow out: but I shall have
occasion to return to it hereafter.[244]
ST. BARNABAS.
_Ital._ San Parnabà. _Fr._ Saint Barnabé. (June 11.)
St. Barnabas is usually entitled the _Apostle_ Barnabas, because he was
associated with the Apostles in their high calling; ‘and,’ according
to Lardner, ‘though without that large measure of inspiration and
high authority which was peculiar to the TWELVE APOSTLES, properly so
called, yet he is to be considered as _Apostolical_, and next to them
in sanctity.’ For this reason I place him here.
St. Barnabas was a Levite, born in the island of Cyprus, and the
cousin-german of Mark the evangelist. The notices of his life and
character scattered through the Acts invest him with great personal
interest. He it was who, after the conversion of Paul, was the first
to believe in his sincerity, and took courage to present him to the
other apostles, ‘who were afraid of him, and would not believe that
he was a disciple.’ (Acts xv. 39.) Barnabas afterwards became the
fellow-labourer of Paul, and attended him to Antioch. We are told
that ‘he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith;’ and to
this the legendary traditions add, that he was a man of a most comely
countenance, of a noble presence, grave and commanding in his step
and deportment; and thence, when he and Paul were at Lystra together,
‘they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius.’ Subsequently,
however, Paul and Barnabas fell into a dispute concerning Mark, and
separated. The tradition relates that Barnabas and Mark remained for
some time together, being united by the ties of friendship, as well
as by those of kindred. Barnabas preached the Gospel in Asia Minor,
Greece, and Italy; and there is an old legendary tradition that he was
the first bishop of Milan. The legend also relates that everywhere he
carried with him the Gospel of St. Matthew, written by the hand of
the evangelist, preaching what was written therein; and when any were
sick, or possessed, he laid the sacred writing upon their bosom, and
they were healed; (a beautiful allegory this!) and it happened that as
he preached in a synagogue of Judea against the Jews, they were seized
with fury and took him, and put him to a cruel death. But Mark and the
other Christians buried him with many tears.
The body of St. Barnabas remained in its place of sepulture till
the days of the Emperor Zeno, when, according to Nicephorus, it was
revealed in a dream to Antemius, that the apostle rested in a certain
spot, and would be found there, with the Gospel of St. Matthew lying
on his bosom. And so it happened: the remains were found; the Gospel
was carried to the emperor at Constantinople; and a church was built,
dedicated to St. Barnabas.
* * * * *
It is, I presume, in consequence of his being the kinsman of St. Mark,
that Barnabas is more popular at Venice than elsewhere, and that
devotional figures of him are rarely found except in Venetian pictures.
He is represented as a man of majestic presence, holding in his hand
the Gospel of St. Matthew, as in a fine picture by Bonifazio; in his
church at Venice he is represented over the high altar, throned as
bishop, while St. Peter stands below.
* * * * *
He often occurs in subjects taken from the Acts and the life of St.
Paul. In the scene in which he presents Paul to the other apostles, he
is the principal personage; but in the scene at Paphos, where Elymas
is struck blind, and at Lystra, he is always secondary to his great
companion.
[Illustration: 84 Angel (Albert Dürer) _v._ p. 79.]
The Doctors of the Church.
I. THE FOUR LATIN FATHERS.
The Evangelists and the Apostles represented in Art the Spiritual
Church, and took their place among the heavenly influences. The great
Fathers or Doctors were the representatives of the Church Militant
on earth: as teachers and pastors, as logicians and advocates, they
wrote, argued, contended, suffered, and at length, after a long and
fierce struggle against opposing doctrines, they fixed the articles of
faith thereafter received in Christendom. For ages, and down to the
present time, the prevailing creed has been that which was founded on
the interpretations of these venerable personages. They have become,
in consequence, frequent and important subjects of Art, particularly
from the tenth century—the period when, in their personal character,
they began to be regarded not merely as gifted and venerable, but as
divinely inspired; their writings appealed to as infallible, their
arguments accepted as demonstration. We distinguish them as the Latin
and the Greek Fathers. In Western Art, we find the Latin Fathers
perpetually grouped together, or in a series: the Greek Fathers seldom
occur except in their individual character, as saints rather than as
teachers.
The four Latin Doctors are St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine,
and St. Gregory. When represented together, they are generally
distinguished from each other, and from the sacred personages who may
be grouped in the same picture, by their conventional attributes.
Thus St. Jerome is sometimes habited in the red hat and crimson robes
of a cardinal, with a church in his hand; or he is a half-naked,
bald-headed, long-bearded, emaciated old man, with eager wasted
features, holding a book and pen, and attended by a lion. St. Ambrose
wears the episcopal robes as bishop of Milan, with mitre and crosier,
and holds his book; sometimes, also, he carries a knotted scourge, and
a bee-hive is near him. St. Augustine is also habited as a bishop, and
carries a book; he has often books at his feet, and sometimes a flaming
heart transpierced by an arrow. The origin and signification of these
symbols I shall explain presently.
[Illustration: _The Four Latin Fathers._]
* * * * *
In the most ancient churches the Four Doctors are placed after the
Evangelists. In the later churches they are seen combined or grouped
with the evangelists, occasionally also with the sibyls; but this
seems a mistake. The appropriate place of the sibyls is neither with
the evangelists nor the fathers, but among the prophets, where Michael
Angelo has placed them.
* * * * *
Where the principal subject is the glory of Christ, or the coronation
or assumption of the Virgin, the Four Fathers attend with their books
as witnesses and interpreters.
1. A conspicuous instance of this treatment is the dome of San Giovanni
at Parma. In the centre is the ascension of Christ, around are the
twelve apostles gazing upwards; below them, in the spandrils of the
arches, as if bearing record, are the Four Evangelists, each with a
Doctor of the Church seated by him as interpreter: St. Matthew is
attended by St. Jerome; St. Mark, by St. Gregory; St. Luke, by St.
Augustine; and St. John, by St. Ambrose.
2. A picture in the Louvre by Pier-Francesco Sacchi (A.D. 1640)
represents the Four Doctors, attended, or rather inspired, by the
mystic symbols of the Four Evangelists. They are seated at a table,
under a canopy sustained by slender pillars, and appear in deep
consultation: near St. Augustine is the eagle; St. Gregory has the ox;
St. Jerome, the angel; and St. Ambrose, the lion.
3. In a well-known woodcut after Titian, ‘The Triumph of Christ,’ the
Redeemer is seated in a car drawn by the Four Evangelists; while the
Four Latin Doctors, one at each wheel, put forth all their strength
to urge it on. The patriarchs and prophets precede, the martyrs and
confessors of the faith follow, in grand procession.
4. In a Coronation of the Virgin, very singularly treated, we have
Christ and the Virgin on a high platform or throne, sustained by
columns; in the space underneath, between these columns, is a group
of unwinged angels, holding the instruments of the Passion. (Or, as I
have sometimes thought, this beautiful group may be the souls of the
Innocents, their proper place being under the throne of Christ.) On
each side a vast company of prophets, apostles, saints, and martyrs,
ranged tier above tier. Immediately in front, and on the steps of the
throne, are the Four Evangelists, seated each with his symbol and book:
behind them the Four Fathers, also seated. This picture, which as a
painting is singularly beautiful, the execution finished, and the heads
most characteristic and expressive, may be said to comprise a complete
system of the theology of the middle ages.[245]
5. We have the same idea carried out in the lower part of Raphael’s
‘Disputa’ in the Vatican. The Four Doctors are in the centre of what
may be called the _sublunary_ part of the picture: they are the only
seated figures in the vast assembly of holy, wise, and learned men
around; St. Gregory and St. Jerome on the right of the altar, St.
Ambrose and St. Augustine on the left. As the two latter wear the same
paraphernalia, they are distinguished by having books scattered at
their feet, on which are inscribed the titles of their respective works.
* * * * *
The Madonna and Child enthroned, with the Doctors of the Church
standing on each side, is a subject which has been often, and sometimes
beautifully, treated; and here the contrast between all we can
conceive of virginal and infantine loveliness and innocence enshrined
in heavenly peace and glory—and these solemn, bearded, grand-looking
old Fathers, attending in humble reverence, as types of earthly
wisdom—ought to produce a magnificent effect, when conceived in the
right spirit. I can remember, however, but few instances in which the
treatment is complete and satisfactory.
1. One of these is a picture by A. Vivarini (A.D. 1446), now in the
Academy at Venice. Here, the Virgin sits upon a throne under a rich
canopy sustained by four little angels. She looks out of the picture
with a most dignified, tranquil, goddess-like expression; she wears,
as usual, the crimson tunic and blue mantle, the latter being of a
most brilliant azure; on her brow, a magnificent jewelled crown; the
Divine Child stands on her knee, and raises his little hand to bless
the worshipper. To the right of the Virgin, and on the platform of her
throne, stands St. Jerome, robed as cardinal, and bearing his church;
with St. Gregory, habited as pope. To the left stands St. Ambrose,
holding his crosier and knotted scourge, and St. Augustine with his
book. This is a wonderful picture, and, as a specimen of the early
Venetian school, unequalled. The accuracy of imitation, the dazzling
colour, the splendid dresses and accessories, the grave beauty of the
Madonna, the divine benignity of the Infant Redeemer, and the sternly
thoughtful heads of the old Doctors, are not only positively fine, but
have a relative interest and value as being stamped with that very
peculiar character which belonged to the Vivarini and their immediate
followers. It was painted for the Scuola della Carità.[246]
2. A different and a singular treatment of the Four Fathers occurs
in another Venetian picture.[247] Christ is represented seated on a
throne, and disputing with the Jewish doctors, who are eagerly arguing
or searching their books. In front of the composition stand St. Jerome,
St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory; who, with looks fixed on
the youthful Saviour, appear to be reverentially listening to, and
recording, his words. This wholly poetical and ideal treatment of a
familiar passage in the life of Christ, I have never seen but in this
one instance.
3. A third example is a picture by Moretto, of extraordinary
beauty.[248] The Virgin sits on a lofty throne, to which there is an
ascent of several steps; the Child stands on her right; she presses
him to her with maternal tenderness, and his arms are round her neck.
At the foot of the throne stand St. Ambrose, with his scourge, and
St. Augustine; St. Gregory, wearing the papal tiara, and without a
beard, is seated on a step of the throne, holding an open book; and
St. Jerome, kneeling on one knee, points to a passage in it; he wears
the cardinal’s dress complete. This picture is worthy of Titian in the
richness of the effect, with a more sober grandeur in the colour. The
Virgin is too much like a portrait; this is the only fault.[249]
* * * * *
In the Chapel of San Lorenzo, in the Vatican, Angelico has painted
eight Doctors of the Church, single majestic figures standing under
Gothic canopies. According to the names _now_ to be seen inscribed
on the pedestals beneath, these figures represent St. Jerome,[250]
St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Gregory, St. Athanasius, St. Leo,
St. John Chrysostom, and St. Thomas Aquinas. St. John Chrysostom and
St. Athanasius represent the Greek doctors. St. Leo, who saved Rome
from Attila, is with peculiar propriety placed in the Vatican; and
St. Thomas Aquinas, the angelic doctor, naturally finds a place in a
chapel painted by a Dominican for a pope who particularly favoured the
Dominicans,—Nicholas V.
* * * * *
The Four Fathers communing on the mystery of the Trinity, or the
Immaculate Conception, were favourite subjects in the beginning of the
seventeenth century, when church pictures, instead of being religious
and devotional, became more and more theological. There is an admirable
picture of this subject by Dosso Dossi.[251] Above is seen the Messiah,
as Creator, in a glory; he lays his hand on the head of the Virgin,
who kneels in deep humility before him; St. Gregory sits in profound
thought, a pen in one hand, a tablet in the other; St. Ambrose and
St. Augustine are similarly engaged; St. Jerome, to whom alone the
celestial vision appears to be visible, is looking up with awe and
wonder. Guido, in a celebrated picture,[252] has represented the
Doctors of the Church communing on the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin. The figures are admirable for thoughtful depth of character in
the expression, and for the noble arrangement of the draperies; above
is seen the Virgin, floating amid clouds, in snow-white drapery, and
sustained by angels; visible, however, to St. Jerome and St. Ambrose
only.
* * * * *
Rubens has treated the Fathers several times: the colossal picture in
the Grosvenor Gallery is well known, where they appear before us as
moving along in a grand procession: St. Jerome comes last; (he should
be first; but on these points Rubens was not particular:) he seems in
deep contemplation, enveloped in the rich scarlet robes of a cardinal
of the seventeenth century, and turning the leaves of his great
book. In another picture we have the Four Fathers seated, discussing
the mystery of the Eucharist; St. Jerome points to a passage in the
Scriptures; St. Gregory is turning the page; they appear to be engaged
in argument; the other two are listening earnestly. There is another
picture by Rubens in which the usual attributes of the Fathers are
borne aloft by angels, while they sit communing below.
* * * * *
These examples will suffice to give a general idea of the manner
in which the four great Doctors of the Western Church are grouped
in devotional pictures. We will now consider them separately, each
according to his individual character and history.
ST. JEROME.
_Lat._ Sanctus Hieronymus. _Ital._ San Geronimo or Girolamo. _Fr._ St.
Jérome, Hiérome, or Géroisme. _Ger._ Der Heilige Hieronimus. Patron of
scholars and students, and more particularly of students in theology.
(Sept. 30, A.D. 420.)
Of the four Latin Doctors, St. Jerome, as a subject of painting, is
by far the most popular. The reasons for this are not merely the
exceedingly interesting and striking character of the man, and the
picturesque incidents of his life, but also his great importance and
dignity as founder of Monachism in the West, and as author of the
universally received translation of the Old and New Testament into the
Latin language (called ‘The Vulgate’). There is scarcely a collection
of pictures in which we do not find a St. Jerome, either doing penance
in the desert, or writing his famous translation, or meditating on the
mystery of the Incarnation.
* * * * *
Jerome was born about A.D. 342, at Stridonium, in Dalmatia. His father,
Eusebius, was rich; and as he showed the happiest disposition for
learning, he was sent to Rome to finish his studies. There, through
his own passions, and the evil example of his companions, he fell into
temptation, and for a time abandoned himself to worldly pleasures. But
the love of virtue, as well as the love of learning, was still strong
within him: he took up the profession of law, and became celebrated
for his eloquence in pleading before the tribunals. When more than
thirty, he travelled into Gaul, and visited the schools of learning
there. It was about this time that he was baptized, and vowed himself
to perpetual celibacy. In 373, he travelled into the East, to animate
his piety by dwelling for a time among the scenes hallowed by the
presence of the Saviour; and, on his way thither, he visited some of
the famous Oriental hermits and ascetics, of whom he has given us such
a graphic account, and whose example inspired him with a passion for
solitude and a monastic life. Shortly after his arrival in Syria, he
retired to a desert in Chalcis, on the confines of Arabia, and there
he spent four years in study and seclusion, supporting himself by the
labour of his hands. He has left us a most vivid picture of his life of
penance in the wilderness; of his trials and temptations, his fastings,
his sickness of soul and body: and we must dwell for a moment on his
own description, in order to show with what literal and circumstantial
truth the painters have rendered it. He says, in one of his epistles,
‘Oh how often, in the desert, in that vast solitude which, parched by
the sultry sun, affords a dwelling to the monks, did I fancy myself
in the midst of the luxuries of Rome! I sate alone, for I was full of
bitterness. My misshapen limbs were rough with sackcloth, and my skin
so squalid that I might have been mistaken for an Ethiopian. Tears
and groans were my occupation every day and all day long. If sleep
surprised me unawares, my naked bones, which scarcely held together,
rattled on the earth.’ His companions, he says, ‘were scorpions and
wild beasts;’ his home, ‘a recess among rocks and precipices.’ Yet,
in the midst of this horrible self-torture and self-abasement, he
describes himself as frequently beset by temptations to sin and sensual
indulgence, and haunted by demons: at other times, as consoled by
voices and visions from heaven. Besides these trials of the flesh and
the spirit, he had others of the intellect. His love of learning, his
admiration of the great writers of classical antiquity,—of Plato and
Cicero,—made him impatient of the rude simplicity of the Christian
historians. He describes himself as fasting before he opened Cicero;
and, as a further penance, he forced himself to study Hebrew, which
at first filled him with disgust, and this disgust appeared to him a
capital sin. In one of his distempered visions, he fancied he heard
the last trumpet sounded in his ear by an angel, and summoning him
before the judgment-seat of God. ‘Who art thou?’ demanded the awful
voice. ‘A Christian,’ replied the trembling Jerome. ‘‘Tis false!’
replied the voice, ‘thou art no Christian: thou art a Ciceronian.
Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also.’ He persevered,
and conquered the difficulties of Hebrew; and then, wearied by the
religious controversies in the East, after ten years’ residence there,
he returned to Rome.
But neither the opposition he had met with, nor his four years of
solitude and penance in the desert, had subdued the fiery enthusiasm of
temperament which characterised this celebrated man. At Rome he boldly
combated the luxurious self-indulgence of the clergy, and preached
religious abstinence and mortification. He was particularly remarkable
for the influence he obtained over the Roman women; we find them,
subdued or excited by his eloquent exhortations, devoting themselves
to perpetual chastity, distributing their possessions among the poor,
or spending their days in attendance on the sick, and ready to follow
their teacher to the Holy Land—to the desert—even to death. His most
celebrated female convert was Paula, a noble Roman matron, a descendant
of the Scipios and the Gracchi. Marcella, another of these Roman
ladies, was the first who, in the East, collected together a number
of pious women to dwell together in community: hence she is, by some
authors, considered as the first nun; but others contend that Martha,
the sister of Mary Magdalene, was the first who founded a religious
community of women.
After three years’ sojourn at Rome, St. Jerome returned to Palestine,
and took up his residence in a monastery he had founded at Bethlehem.
When, in extreme old age, he became sensible of the approach of death,
he raised with effort his emaciated limbs, and, commanding himself to
be carried into the chapel of the monastery, he received the Sacrament
for the last time from the hands of the priest, and soon after expired.
He died in 420, leaving, besides his famous translation of the
Scriptures, numerous controversial writings, epistles, and commentaries.
* * * * *
We read in the legendary history of St. Jerome, that one evening, as
he sat within the gates of his monastery at Bethlehem, a lion entered,
limping, as in pain; and all the brethren, when they saw the lion, fled
in terror: but Jerome arose, and went forward to meet him, as though he
had been a guest. And the lion lifted up his paw, and St. Jerome, on
examining it, found that it was wounded by a thorn, which he extracted;
and he tended the lion till he was healed. The grateful beast remained
with his benefactor, and Jerome confided to him the task of guarding
an ass which was employed in bringing firewood from the forest. On one
occasion, the lion having gone to sleep while the ass was at pasture,
some merchants passing by carried away the latter; and the lion, after
searching for him in vain, returned to the monastery with drooping
head, as one ashamed. St. Jerome, believing that he had devoured his
companion, commanded that the daily task of the ass should be laid upon
the lion, and that the faggots should be bound on his back, to which
he magnanimously submitted, until the ass was recovered; which was in
this wise. One day, the lion, having finished his task, ran hither and
thither, still seeking his companion; and he saw a caravan of merchants
approaching, and a string of camels, which, according to the Arabian
custom, were led by an ass; and when the lion recognised his friend, he
drove the camels into the convent, and so terrified the merchants, that
they confessed the theft, and received pardon from St. Jerome.
The introduction of the lion into pictures of St. Jerome is supposed
to refer to this legend; but in this instance, as in many others, the
reverse was really the case. The lion was in very ancient times adopted
as the symbol befitting St. Jerome, from his fervid, fiery nature, and
his life in the wilderness; and in later times, the legend invented to
explain the symbol was gradually expanded into the story as given above.
* * * * *
Representations of St. Jerome, in pictures, prints, and sculpture,
are so numerous that it were in vain to attempt to give any detailed
account of them, even of the most remarkable. All, however, may be
included under the following classification, and, according to the
descriptions given, may be easily recognised.
The devotional subjects and single figures represent St. Jerome in
one of his three great characters. 1. As Patron Saint and Doctor of
the Church. 2. As Translator and Commentator of the Scriptures. 3. As
Penitent. As Doctor of the Church, and teacher, he enters into every
scheme of decoration, and finds a place in all sacred buildings. As
Saint and Penitent, he is chiefly to be found in the convents and
churches of the Jeronymites, who claim him as their Patriarch.
When placed before us as the patron saint and father of divinity, he is
usually standing full length, either habited in the cardinal’s robes,
or with the cardinal’s hat lying at his feet. It may be necessary to
observe, that there is no historical authority for making St. Jerome
a cardinal. Cardinal-priests were not ordained till three centuries
later; but as the other fathers were all of high ecclesiastical rank,
and as St. Jerome obstinately refused all such distinction, it has
been thought necessary, for the sake of his dignity, to make him a
cardinal: another reason may be, that he performed, in the court of
Pope Dalmasius, those offices since discharged by the cardinal-deacon.
In some of the old Venetian pictures, instead of the official robes of
a cardinal, he is habited in loose ample red drapery, part of which is
thrown over his head. When represented with his head uncovered, his
forehead is lofty and bald, his beard is very long, flowing even to his
girdle; his features fine and sharp, his nose aquiline. In his hand
he holds a book or a scroll, and frequently the emblematical church,
of which he was the great support and luminary: and, to make the
application stronger and clearer, rays of light are seen issuing from
the door of the church.
1. A signal instance of the treatment of Jerome as patron saint occurs
in a fine picture by Wohlgemuth, the master of Albert Dürer.[253] It
is an altar-piece representing the glorification of the saint, and
consists of three compartments. In the centre, St. Jerome _stands_ on
a magnificent throne, and lays his left hand on the head of a lion,
raised up on his hind legs: the donors of the picture, a man and a
woman, kneel in front; on each side are windows opening on a landscape,
wherein various incidents of the life of St. Jerome are represented;
on the right, his Penance in the Wilderness and his Landing at Cyprus;
and on the left, the merchants who had carried off the ass bring
propitiatory gifts, which the saint rejects, and other men are seen
felling wood and loading the lion. On the inner shutters or wings of
the central picture, are represented, on the right, the three other
doctors,—St. Augustine, with the flaming heart; St. Ambrose, with
the bee-hive; both habited as bishops; and St. Gregory, wearing his
tiara, and holding a large book (his famous Homilies) in his hand. On
the left, three apostles with their proper attributes, St. Andrew, St.
Thomas, and St. Bartholomew; on the other side are represented, to the
right, St. Henry II. holding a church (the cathedral of Bamberg), and
a sword, his proper attributes; and his wife St. Cunegunda.[254] On
the left St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Martin. There are besides,
to close in the whole, two outer doors: on the inner side, to the
right, St. Joseph and St. Kilian;[255] on the left, St. Catherine and
St. Ursula; and on the exterior of the whole the mass of St. Gregory,
with various personages and objects connected with the Passion of
Christ. The whole is about six feet high, dated 1511, and may bear
a comparison, for elaborate and multifarious detail and exquisite
painting, with the famous Van Eyck altar-piece in St. John’s Church at
Ghent.[256]
2. In his character of patron, St. Jerome is a frequent subject of
sculpture. There is a Gothic figure of him in Henry the Seventh’s
Chapel, habited in the cardinal’s robes, the lion fawning upon him.
When St. Jerome is represented in his second great character, as the
translator of the Scriptures, he is usually seated in a cave or in a
cell, busied in reading or in writing; he wears a loose robe thrown
over his wasted form; and either he looks down intent on his book, or
he looks up as if awaiting heavenly inspiration: sometimes an angel is
dictating to him.
* * * * *
1. In an old Italian print, which I have seen, he is seated on the
ground reading, in _spectacles_;—an anachronism frequent in the old
painters. Sometimes he is seated under the shade of a tree; or within
a cavern, writing at a rude table formed of a stump of a tree, or a
board laid across two fragments of rock; as in a beautiful picture by
Ghirlandajo, remarkable for its solemn and tranquil feeling.[257]
2. Very celebrated is an engraving of this subject by Albert Dürer. The
scene is the interior of a cell, at Bethlehem; two windows on the left
pour across the picture a stream of sunshine, which is represented with
wonderful effect. St. Jerome is seen in the background, seated at a
desk, most intently writing his translation of the Scriptures; in front
the lion is crouching, and a fox is seen asleep. These two animals
are here emblems;—the one, of the courage and vigilance, the other of
the wisdom or acuteness, of the saint. The execution of this print is
a miracle of Art, and it is very rare. There is an exquisite little
picture by Elzheimer copied from it, and of the same size, at Hampton
Court. I need hardly observe, that here the rosary and the pot of holy
water are anachronisms, as well as the cardinal’s hat. By Albert Dürer
we have also St. Jerome writing in a cavern; and St. Jerome reading in
his cell: both woodcuts.
3. Even more beautiful is a print by Lucas v. Leyden, in which St.
Jerome is reclining in his cell and reading intently; the lion licks
his foot.
4. In a picture by Lucas Cranach, Albert of Brandenburg, elector of
Mayence (1527), is represented in the character of St. Jerome, seated
in the wilderness, and writing at a table formed of a plank laid across
two stumps of trees: he is in the cardinal-robes; and in the foreground
a lion, a hare, a beaver, a partridge, and a hind, beautifully
painted, express the solitude of his life. In the background the
caravan of merchants is seen entering the gate of the monastery,
conducted by the faithful lion.
5. The little picture by Domenichino, in our National Gallery,
represents St. Jerome looking up from his book, and listening to the
accents of the angel. 6. In a picture by Tiarini,[258] it is St. John
the Evangelist, and not an angel, who dictates while he writes. 7. In
a picture by Titian, St. Jerome, seated, holds a book, and gazes up at
a crucifix suspended in the skies; the lion is drinking at a fountain.
Out of twenty prints of St. Jerome after Titian, there are at least
eight which represent him at study or writing.
* * * * *
It is in the double character of Doctor of the Church, and translator
of the Scriptures, that we find St. Jerome so frequently introduced
into pictures of the Madonna, and grouped with other saints. Two of
the most celebrated pictures in the world suggest themselves here as
examples:—1. ‘The Madonna della Pesce’ of Raphael; where the Virgin,
seated on a raised throne, holds the Infant Christ in her arms; on
her right hand, the archangel Raphael presents the young Tobias, who
holds the fish, the emblem of Christianity or Baptism. On the other
side kneels St. Jerome, holding an open book, his beard sweeping to his
girdle; the lion at his feet; the Infant Christ, while he bends forward
to greet Tobias, has one hand upon St. Jerome’s book: the whole is a
beautiful and expressive allegory.[259] 2. Correggio’s picture, called
‘The St. Jerome of Parma,’ represents the Infant Christ on the knees of
his mother: Mary Magdalene bends to kiss his feet: St. Jerome stands in
front, presenting his translation of the Scriptures.
[Illustration: 85 St. Jerome doing Penance (Titian)]
The penitent St. Jerome seems to have been adopted throughout the
Christian Church as the approved symbol of Christian penitence,
self-denial, and self-abasement. No devotional subject, if we except
the ‘Madonna and Child’ and the ‘Magdalene,’ is of such perpetual
recurrence. In the treatment it has been infinitely varied. The scene
is generally a wild rocky solitude: St. Jerome, half naked, emaciated,
with matted hair and beard, is seen on his knees before a crucifix,
beating his breast with a stone. The lion is almost always introduced,
sometimes asleep, or crouching at his feet; sometimes keeping guard,
sometimes drinking at a stream. The most magnificent example of this
treatment is by Titian:[260] St. Jerome, kneeling on one knee, half
supported by a craggy rock, and holding the stone, looks up with eager
devotion to a cross, artlessly fixed into a cleft in the rock; two
books lie on a cliff behind; at his feet are a skull and hour-glass;
and the lion reposes in front. The feeling of deep solitude, and a kind
of sacred horror breathed over this picture, are inconceivably fine and
impressive. Another by Titian, but inferior, is in the Louvre; and
there are at least twelve engravings of St. Jerome doing penance, after
the same painter: among them a superb landscape, in which are seen
a lion and a lioness prowling in the wilderness, while the saint is
doing penance in the foreground. By Agostino Caracci there is a famous
engraving of ‘St. Jerome doing penance in a cave,’ called from its size
the _great_ St. Jerome. But to particularise further would be endless:
I know scarcely any Italian painter since the fifteenth century who has
not treated this subject at least once.
The Spanish painters have rendered it with a gloomy power, and
revelled in its mystic significance. In the Spanish gallery of the
Louvre I counted at least twenty St. Jeromes: the old German painters
and engravers also delighted in it, on account of its picturesque
capabilities.
Albert Dürer represents St. Jerome kneeling before a crucifix, which he
has suspended against the trunk of a massy tree; an open book is near
it; he holds in his right hand a flint-stone, with which he is about
to strike his breast, all wounded and bleeding from the blows already
inflicted; the lion crouches behind him, and in the distance is a stag.
The penitent St. Jerome is not a good subject for sculpture; the
undraped, meagre form, and the abasement of suffering, are disagreeable
in this treatment: yet such representations are constantly met with in
churches. The famous colossal statue by Torrigiano, now in the Museum
at Seville, represents St. Jerome kneeling on a rock, a stone in one
hand, a crucifix in the other. At Venice, in the Frari, there is a
statue of St. Jerome, standing, with the stone in his hand and the lion
at his feet; too majestic for the Penitent. There are several other
statues of St. Jerome at Venice, from the Liberi and Lombardi schools,
all fine as statues; but the penitent saint is idealised into the
patron-saint of penitents.
When figures of St. Jerome as penitent are introduced in Madonna
pictures, or in the Passion of Christ, then such figures are
devotional, and symbolical, in a general sense, of Christian repentance.
There is an early picture of the Crucifixion, by Raphael,[261] in
which he has placed St. Jerome at the foot of the cross, beating his
breast with a stone(86).
[Illustration: 86 St. Jerome, as Penitent, in a Crucifixion (Raphael)]
The pictures from the life of St. Jerome comprise a variety of
subjects:—1. ‘He receives the cardinal’s hat from the Virgin:’
sometimes it is the Infant Christ, seated in the lap of the Virgin,
who presents it to him. 2. ‘He disputes with the Jewish doctors on
the truth of the Christian religion;’ in a curious picture by Juan
de Valdes.[262] He stands on one side of a table in an attitude of
authority: the rabbis, each of whom has a demon looking over his
shoulder, are searching their books for arguments against him. 3. ‘St.
Jerome, while studying Hebrew in the solitude of Chalcida, hears in a
vision the sound of the last trumpet, calling men to judgment.’ This is
a common subject, and styled ‘The Vision of St. Jerome.’ I have met
with no example earlier than the fifteenth century. In general he is
lying on the ground, and an angel sounds the trumpet from above. In a
composition by Ribera he holds a pen in one hand and a penknife in the
other: he seems to have been arrested in the very act of mending his
pen by the blast of the trumpet: the figure of the saint, wasted even
to skin and bone, and his look of petrified amazement, are very fine,
notwithstanding the commonplace action. In a picture by Subleyras, in
the Louvre, St. Jerome is gazing upwards, with an astonished look;
three archangels sound their trumpets from above. In a picture by
Antonio Pereda, at Madrid, St. Jerome not only hears in his vision
the sound of the last trump, he _sees_ the dead arise from their
graves around him. Lastly, by way of climax, I may mention a picture
in the Louvre, by a modern French painter, Sigalon: St. Jerome is in
a convulsive fit, and the three angels, blowing their trumpets in his
ears, are like furies sent to torment and madden the sinner, rather
than to rouse the saint.
* * * * *
While doing penance in the desert, St. Jerome was sometimes haunted by
temptations, as well as amazed by terrors.
4. Domenichino, in one of the frescoes in St. Onofrio, represents the
particular kind of temptation by which the saint was in imagination
assailed: while he is fervently praying and beating his breast, a
circle of beautiful nymphs, seen in the background, weave a graceful
dance. Vasari has had the bad taste to give us a penitent St. Jerome
with Venus and Cupids in the background: one arch little Cupid takes
aim at him;—an offensive instance of the extent to which, in the
sixteenth century, classical ideas had mingled with and depraved
Christian Art.[263]
5. Guido. ‘St. Jerome translating the Scriptures while an angel
dictates:’ life size and very fine (except the angel, who is weak, and
reminds one of a water-nymph[264]); in his pale manner.
* * * * *
6. Domenichino. ‘St. Jerome is flagellated by an angel for preferring
Cicero to the Hebrew writings:’ also in the St. Onofrio. The Cicero,
torn from his hand, lies at his feet. Here the saint is a young man,
and the whole scene is represented as a vision.
7. But St. Jerome was comforted by visions of glory, as well as haunted
by terrors and temptations. In the picture by Parmigiano, in our
National Gallery, St. Jerome is sleeping in the background, while St.
John the Baptist points upwards to a celestial vision of the Virgin
and Child, seen in the opening heavens above: the upper part of this
picture is beautiful, and full of dignity; but the saint is lying
stretched on the earth in an attitude so uneasy and distorted, that it
would seem as if he were condemned to do penance even in his sleep; and
the St. John has always appeared to me mannered and theatrical.
[Illustration: 87 St. Jerome and the Lion (Coll’ Antonio da Fiore)
Naples]
8. The story of the lion is often represented. St. Jerome is seated in
his cell, attired in the monk’s habit and cowl; the lion approaches,
and lays his paw upon his knee; a cardinal’s hat and books are lying
near him; and, to express the self-denial of the saint, a mouse is
peeping into an empty cup (87).[265]
In another example, by Vittore Carpaccio, the lion enters the cell, and
three monks, attendants on St. Jerome, flee in terror.
* * * * *
9. The Last Communion of St. Jerome is the subject of one of the most
celebrated pictures in the world,—the St. Jerome of Domenichino, which
has been thought worthy of being placed opposite to the Transfiguration
of Raphael, in the Vatican. The aged saint—feeble, emaciated, dying—is
borne in the arms of his disciples to the chapel of his monastery,
and placed within the porch. A young priest sustains him; St. Paula,
kneeling, kisses one of his thin bony hands; the saint fixes his eager
eyes on the countenance of the priest, who is about to administer the
sacrament,—a noble dignified figure in a rich ecclesiastical dress;
a deacon holds the cup, and an attendant priest the book and taper;
the lion droops his head with an expression of grief; the eyes and
attention of all are on the dying saint, while four angels, hovering
above, look down upon the scene.
Agostino Caracci, in a grand picture now in the Bologna Gallery, had
previously treated the same subject with much feeling and dramatic
power: but here the saint is not so wasted and so feeble; St. Paula is
not present, and the lion is tenderly licking his feet.
Older than either, and very beautiful and solemn, is a picture by
Vittore Carpaccio, in which the saint is kneeling in the porch of a
church, surrounded by his disciples, and the lion is seen outside.
10. ‘The Death of St. Jerome.’ In the picture by Starnina he is giving
his last instructions to his disciples, and the expression of solemn
grief in the old heads around is very fine. In a Spanish picture he is
extended on a couch, made of hurdles, and expires in the arms of his
monks.
In a very fine anonymous print, dated 1614, St. Jerome is dying alone
in his cell (this version of the subject is contrary to all authority
and precedent): he presses to his bosom the Gospel and the crucifix;
the lion looks up in his face roaring, and angels bear away his soul to
heaven.
11. ‘The Obsequies of St. Jerome.’ In the picture by Vittore Carpaccio,
the saint is extended on the ground before the high altar, and the
priests around are kneeling in various attitudes of grief or devotion.
The lion is seen on one side.[266]
* * * * *
I will mention here some other pictures in which St. Jerome figures as
the principal personage.
St. Jerome introducing Charles V. into Paradise is the subject of a
large fresco, by Luca Giordano, on the staircase of the Escurial.
St. Jerome conversing with two nuns, probably intended for St. Paula
and St. Marcella.[267]
The sleep of St. Jerome. He is watched by two angels, one of whom, with
his finger on his lip, commands silence.[268]
* * * * *
It is worth remarking, that in the old Venetian pictures St. Jerome
does not wear the proper habit and hat of a cardinal, but an ample
scarlet robe, part of which is thrown over his head as a hood (88).
[Illustration: 88 Venetian St. Jerome]
* * * * *
The history of St. Jerome, in a series, is often found in the churches
and convents of the Jeronymites, and generally consists of the
following subjects, of which the fourth and sixth are often omitted:—
1. He is baptized. 2. He receives the cardinal’s hat from the Virgin.
3. He does penance in the desert, beating his breast with a stone.
4. He meets St. Augustine. 5. He is studying or writing in a cell.
6. He builds the convent at Bethlehem. 7. He heals the wounded lion.
8. He receives the Last Sacrament. 9. He dies in the presence of his
disciples. 10. He is buried.
* * * * *
Considering that St. Jerome has ever been venerated as one of the great
lights of the Church, it is singular that so few churches are dedicated
to him. There is one at Rome, erected, according to tradition, on the
very spot where stood the house of Santa Paula, where she entertained
St. Jerome during his sojourn at Rome in 382. For the high altar of
this church, Domenichino painted his masterpiece of the Communion of
St. Jerome already described. The embarkation of Saint Paula, to follow
her spiritual teacher St. Jerome to the Holy Land, is the subject of
one of Claude’s most beautiful sea pieces, now in the collection of the
Duke of Wellington; another picture of this subject, the figures as
large as life, is in the Brera, by a clever Cremonese painter, Giuseppe
Bottoni.
* * * * *
St. Jerome has detained its long; the other Fathers are, as subjects of
Art, much less interesting.
ST. AMBROSE.
_Lat._ S. Ambrosius. _Ital._ Sant’ Ambrogio. _Fr._ St. Ambroise.
_Ger._ Der Heilige Ambrosius. Patron Saint of Milan. (April 4, A.D.
397.)
We can hardly imagine a greater contrast than between the stern,
enthusiastic, dreaming, ascetic Jerome, and the statesman-like,
practical, somewhat despotic AMBROSE. This extraordinary man, in
whose person the priestly character assumed an importance and dignity
till then unknown, was the son of a prefect of Gaul, bearing the same
name, and was born at Treves in the year 340. It is said that, when an
infant in the cradle, a swarm of bees alighted on his mouth, without
injuring him. The same story was told of Plato and of Archilochus, and
considered prophetic of future eloquence. It is from this circumstance
that St. Ambrose is represented with the bee-hive near him.
Young Ambrose, after pursuing his studies at Rome with success, was
appointed prefect of Æmilia and Liguria (Piedmont and Genoa), and took
up his residence at Milan. Shortly afterwards the Bishop of Milan
died, and the succession was hotly disputed between the Catholics and
the Arians. Ambrose appeared in his character of prefect, to allay
the tumult; he harangued the people with such persuasive eloquence
that they were hushed into respectful silence; and in the midst a
child’s voice was heard to exclaim, ‘Ambrose shall be bishop!’ The
multitude took up the cry as though it had been a voice from heaven,
and compelled him to assume the sacred office. He attempted to avoid
the honour thus laid upon him by flight, by entreaties,—pleading that,
though a professed Christian, he had never been baptized: in vain! the
command of the emperor enforced the wishes of the people; and Ambrose,
being baptized, was, within eight days afterwards, consecrated bishop
of Milan. He has since been regarded as the patron saint of that city.
He began by distributing all his worldly goods to the poor; he then
set himself to study the sacred writings, and to render himself in all
respects worthy of his high dignity. ‘The Old and the New Testament,’
says Mr. Milman, ‘met in the person of Ambrose: the implacable
hostility to idolatry, the abhorrence of every deviation from the
established formulary of belief;—the wise and courageous benevolence,
the generous and unselfish devotion to the great interests of humanity.’
He was memorable for the grandeur and magnificence with which he
invested the ceremonies of worship; they had never been so imposing. He
particularly cultivated music, and introduced from the East the manner
of chanting the service since called the Ambrosian chant.
* * * * *
Two things were especially remarkable in the life and character of
St. Ambrose. The first was the enthusiasm with which he advocated
celibacy in both sexes: on this topic, as we are assured, he was so
persuasive, that mothers shut up their daughters lest they should be
_seduced_ by their eloquent bishop into vows of chastity. The other
was his determination to set the ecclesiastical above the sovereign
or civil power: this principle, so abused in later times, was in the
days of Ambrose the assertion of the might of Christianity, of mercy,
of justice, of freedom, over heathenism, tyranny, cruelty, slavery.
The dignity with which he refused to hold any communication with the
Emperor Maximus, because he was stained with the blood of Gratian, and
his resolute opposition to the Empress Justina, who interfered with
his sacerdotal privileges, were two instances of this spirit. But the
most celebrated incident of his life is his conduct with regard to
the Emperor Theodosius, the last great emperor of Rome;—a man of an
iron will, a despot, and a warrior. That _he_ should bend in trembling
submission at the feet of an unarmed priest, and shrink before his
rebuke, filled the whole world with an awful idea of the supremacy of
the Church, and prepared the way for the Hildebrands, the Perettis, the
Caraffas of later times. With regard to St. Ambrose, this assumption
of moral power, this high prerogative of the priesthood, had hitherto
been without precedent, and in this its first application it certainly
commands our respect, our admiration, and our sympathy.
Theodosius, with all his great qualities, was subject to fits of
violent passion. A sedition, or rather a popular affray, had taken
place in Thessalonica; one of his officers was ill-treated, and some
lives lost. Theodosius, in the first moment of indignation, ordered an
indiscriminate massacre of the inhabitants, and seven thousand human
beings—men, women, and children—were sacrificed. The conduct of Ambrose
on this occasion was worthy of a Christian prelate: he retired from
the presence of the emperor, and wrote to him a letter, in which, in
the name of Christ, of his Church, and of all the bishops over whom he
had any influence, he denounced this inhuman act with the strongest
expressions of abhorrence, and refused to allow the sovereign, thus
stained with innocent blood, to participate in the sacraments of the
Church;—in fact, excommunicated him. In vain the emperor threatened,
supplicated; in vain he appeared with all his imperial state before the
doors of the cathedral of Milan, and commanded and entreated entrance.
The doors were closed; and even on Christmas-day, when he again as
a suppliant presented himself, Ambrose appeared at the porch, and
absolutely forbade his entrance, unless he should choose to pass into
the sanctuary over the dead body of the intrepid bishop. At length,
after eight months of interdict, Ambrose consented to relent, on two
conditions: the first, that the emperor should publish an edict by
which no capital punishment could be executed till thirty days after
conviction of a crime; the second, that he should perform a public
penance. The emperor submitted; and, clothed in sackcloth, grovelling
on the earth, with dust and ashes on his head, lay the master of the
world before the altar of Christ, because of innocent blood hastily
and wrongfully shed. This was a great triumph, and one of incalculable
results—some evil, some good.
Another incident in the life of St. Ambrose should be recorded to his
honour. In his time, ‘the first blood was judicially shed for religious
opinion’—and the first man who suffered for heresy was Priscilian,
a noble Spaniard: on this occasion, St. Ambrose and St. Martin of
Tours raised their protest in the name of Christianity against this
dreadful precedent; but the animosity of the Spanish bishops prevailed,
and Priscilian was put to death; so early were bigotry and cruelty
the characteristics of the Spanish hierarchy! Ambrose refused to
communicate with the few bishops who had countenanced this transaction:
the general voice of the Church was against it.
The man who had thus raised himself above all worldly power was endued
by popular enthusiasm with supernatural privileges: he performed cures;
he saw visions. At the time of the consecration of the new cathedral
at Milan, a miraculous dream revealed to him the martyrdom of two holy
men, Gervasius and Protasius, and the place where their bodies reposed.
The remains were disinterred, conveyed in solemn procession to the
cathedral, and deposited beneath the high altar; and St. Gervasius and
St. Protasius became, on the faith of a dream, distinguished saints in
the Roman calendar. Ambrose died at Milan, in 397, in the attitude and
the act of prayer.
* * * * *
There were many poetical legends and apologues relating to St. Ambrose
current in the middle ages.
It is related that an obstinate heretic who went to hear him preach,
only to confute and mock him, beheld an angel visible at his side, and
prompting the words he uttered; on seeing which, the scoffer was of
course converted; a subject represented in his church at Milan.
One day, Ambrose went to the prefect Macedonius, to entreat favour for
a poor condemned wretch; but the doors were shut against him, and he
was refused access. Then he said, ‘Thou, even thou, shalt fly to the
church for refuge, and shalt not enter!’ and a short time afterwards,
Macedonius, being pursued by his enemies, fled for sanctuary to the
church; but, though the doors were wide open, he could not find the
entrance, but wandered around in blind perplexity till he was slain. Of
this incident I have seen no picture.
On another occasion, St. Ambrose, coming to the house of a nobleman of
Tuscany, was hospitably received; and he inquired concerning the state
of his host: the nobleman replied, ‘I have never known adversity; every
day hath seen me increasing in fortune, in honours, in possessions. I
have a numerous family of sons and daughters, who have never cost me a
pang of sorrow; I have a multitude of slaves, to whom my word is law;
and I have never suffered either sickness or pain.’ Then Ambrose rose
hastily from table, and said to his companions, ‘Arise! fly from this
roof, ere it fall upon us; for the Lord is not here!’ and scarcely had
he left the house, when an earthquake shook the ground, and swallowed
up the palace with all its inhabitants. I have seen this story in a
miniature, but cannot at this moment refer to it.
St. Ambrose falls asleep, or into a trance, while celebrating mass, and
sees in the spirit the obsequies of St. Martin of Tours: the sacristan
strikes him on the shoulder to wake him. This is the subject of a very
old mosaic in his church at Milan.
When St. Ambrose was on his death-bed, Christ visited him and comforted
him; Honorat, bishop of Vercelli, was then in attendance on him, and
having gone to sleep, an angel waked him, saying, ‘Arise, for he
departs in this hour;’ and Honorat was just in time to administer the
sacrament and see him expire. Others who were present beheld him ascend
to heaven, borne in the arms of angels.
* * * * *
Devotional pictures of St. Ambrose alone as patron saint do not often
occur. In general he wears the episcopal pallium with the mitre and
crosier as bishop: the bee-hive is sometimes placed at his feet; but a
more frequent attribute is the knotted scourge with three thongs. The
scourge is a received emblem of the castigation of sin: in the hand
of St. Ambrose it may signify the penance inflicted on the Emperor
Theodosius; or, as others interpret it, the expulsion of the Arians
from Italy, and the triumph of the Trinitarians. It has always this
meaning, we may presume, when the scourge has three knots, or three
thongs. I have seen figures of St. Ambrose holding two human bones in
his hand. When this attribute occurs (as in a picture by _Vivarini_,
_Venice Acad._), it alludes to the discovery of the relics of Gervasius
and Protasius.
Among the few representations of St. Ambrose as patron saint, the
finest beyond all comparison is that which adorns his chapel in the
Frari at Venice, painted conjointly by B. Vivarini and Basaiti (A.D.
1498). He is seated on a throne, raised on several steps, attired in
his episcopal robes and mitre, and bearing the triple scourge in his
hand. He has a short grey beard, and looks straight out of the picture
with an expression of stern power;—nothing here of the benignity and
humility of the Christian teacher! Around his throne stands a glorious
company of saints: on the right, St. George in complete armour; St.
John the Baptist; a young saint, bearing a sword and palm, with long
hair, and the most beautiful expression of mild serene faith, whom I
suppose to be St. Theodore; St. Sebastian; and another figure behind,
part of the head only seen. On the left, St. Maurice, armed; the three
Doctors, St. Gregory, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and two other saints
partly seen behind, whose personality is doubtful. All these wait round
St. Ambrose, as guards and counsellors round a sovereign; two lovely
little angels sit on the lower step of the throne hymning his praise.
The whole picture is wonderful for colour, depth, and expression, and
shows to what a pitch of excellence the Vivarini family had attained in
these characteristics of the Venetian school, long before it had become
a school.
Most of the single figures of St. Ambrose represent him in his most
popular character, that of the stern adversary of the Arians. I
remember (in the Frari at Venice) a picture in which St. Ambrose in
his episcopal robes is mounted on a white charger, and flourishing on
high his triple scourge. The Arians are trampled under his feet, or fly
before him. I have seen an old print, in which he is represented with
a short grey beard, stern countenance, and wearing the bishop’s mitre:
underneath is the inscription ‘_Antiquis ejus imaginibus Mediolani olim
depictis ad vivum expressa_;’ but it seems certain that no authentic
portrait of him exists.
His church at Milan, the Basilica of Sant’ Ambrogio Maggiore, one of
the oldest and most interesting churches in Christendom, was founded
by him in 387, and dedicated to all the Saints. Though rebuilt in
the ninth century and restored in the seventeenth, it still retains
the form of the primitive Christian churches (like some of those at
Rome and Ravenna), and the doors of cypress wood are traditionally
regarded as the very doors which St. Ambrose closed against the
Emperor Theodosius, brought hither from the ancient cathedral. Within
this venerable and solemn old church may be seen one of the most
extraordinary and best-preserved specimens of Mediæval Art: it is the
golden shrine or covering of the high altar, much older than the famous
_pala d’ oro_ at Venice; and the work, or at least the design, of one
man:[269] whereas the _pala_ is the work of several different artists
at different periods. On the front of the altar, which is all of plates
of gold, enamelled and set with precious stones, are represented in
relief scenes from the life of our Saviour: on the sides, which are of
silver-gilt, angels, archangels, and medallions of Milanese saints. On
the back, also of silver-gilt, we have the whole life of St. Ambrose,
in a series of small compartments, most curious and important as a
record of costume and manners, as well as an example of the state of
Art at that time. I have never seen any engraving of this monument, but
I examined it carefully. In the centre stand the Archangels Michael and
Gabriel, in the Byzantine style; and below them, St. Ambrose blesses
the donor, Bishop Angelbertus, and the goldsmith Wolvinus. Around, in
twelve compartments, we have the principal incidents of the life of St.
Ambrose, the figures being, as nearly as I can recollect, about six
inches high.
1. Bees swarm round his head as he lies in his cradle. 2. He is
appointed prefect of the Ligurian provinces. 3. He is elected Bishop
of Milan in 375. 4. He is baptized. 5. He is ordained. 6. and 7. He
sleeps, and beholds in a vision the obsequies of St. Martin of Tours.
8. He preaches in the cathedral, inspired by angels. 9. He heals the
sick and lame. 10. He is visited by Christ. 11. An angel wakes the
bishop of Vercelli, and sends him to St. Ambrose. 12. Ambrose dies, and
angels bear away his soul to heaven.
I was surprised not to find in his church what we consider as the
principal event of his life—his magnanimous resistance to the Emperor
Theodosius. In fact, the grand scene between Ambrose and Theodosius
has never been so popular as it deserves to be: considered merely as a
subject of painting, it is full of splendid picturesque capabilities;
for grouping, colour, contrast, background, all that could be desired.
In the great picture by Rubens,[270] the scene is the porch of the
church. On the left the emperor, surrounded by his guards, stands
irresolute, and in a supplicatory attitude, on the steps; on the right
and above, St. Ambrose is seen, attended by the ministering priests,
and stretches out his hand to repel the intruder. There is a print,
after Andrea del Sarto, representing Theodosius on his knees before the
relenting prelate. In the Louvre is a small picture, by Subleyras, of
the reconciliation of Ambrose and Theodosius. In our National Gallery
is a small and beautiful copy, by Vandyck, of the great picture by
Rubens.
As joint patrons of Milan, St. Ambrose and St. Carlo Borromeo are
sometimes represented together, but only in late pictures.
There is a statue of St. Ambrose, by Falconet,[271] in the act of
repelling Theodosius, which is mentioned by Diderot, with a commentary
so characteristic of the French anti-religious feeling of that time,—a
feeling as narrow and one-sided in its way as the most bigoted
puritanism,—that I am tempted to extract it; only premising, that if,
after the slaughter at Ismaël, Catherine of Russia had been placed
under the ban of Christendom, the world would not have been the worse
for such an exertion of the priestly power.
C’est ce fougneux évêque qui osa fermer les portes de l’église a
Théodose, et à qui un certain souverain de par le monde [Frederic of
Prussia] qui dans la guerre passée avoit une si bonne envie de faire
un tour dans la rue des prêtres, et une certaine souveraine [Catherine
of Russia] qui vient de débarrasser son clergé de toute cette richesse
inutile qui l’empêchoit d’être respectable, auroient fait couper la
barbe et les oreilles, en lui disant: ‘Apprenez, monsieur l’abbé, que
le temple de votre Dieu est sur mon domain, et que si mon prédécesseur
vous a accordé par grâce les trois arpens de terrain qu’il occupe,
je puis les reprendre et vous envoyer porter vos autels et votre
fanatisme ailleurs. Ce lieu-ci est la maison du Père commun des
hommes, bons ou méchans, et je veux entrer quand il me plaira. Je ne
m’accuse point à vous; quand je daignerois vous consulter, vous n’en
savez pas assez pour me conseiller sur ma conduite, et de quel front
vous immiscez-veus d’en juger?’ Mais le plat empereur ne parla pas
ainsi, et l’évêque savoit bien à qui il avoit à faire. Le statuaire
nous l’a montré dans le moment de son insolent apostrophe.’
In Diderot’s criticisms on Art, which are often quoted even now,
there is in general a far better taste than prevailed in his time,
and much good sense; but a low tone of sentiment when he had to deal
with imaginative or religious Art, and an intolerable coarseness—‘most
mischievous foul sin in chiding sin.’
ST. AUGUSTINE.
St. Austin. _Lat._ Sanctus Augustinus. _Ital._ Sant’ Agostino. _Fr._
St. Augustin. (Aug. 28, A.D. 430.)
St. Augustine, the third of the Doctors of the Church, was born
at Tagaste, in Numidia, in 354. His father was a heathen; his
mother, Monica, a Christian. Endowed with splendid talents, a vivid
imagination, and strong passions, Augustine passed his restless youth
in dissipated pleasures, in desultory studies, changing from one faith
to another, dissatisfied with himself and unsettled in mind. His
mother, Monica, wept and prayed for him, and, in the extremity of her
anguish, repaired to the bishop of Carthage. After listening to her
sorrows, he dismissed her with these words: ‘Go in peace; the son of so
many tears will not perish!’ Augustine soon afterwards went to Rome,
where he gained fame and riches by his eloquence at the bar; but he
was still unhappy and restless, nowhere finding peace either in labour
or in pleasure. From Rome he went to Milan; there, after listening for
some time to the preaching of Ambrose, he was, after many struggles,
converted to the faith, and was baptized by the bishop of Milan, in
presence of his mother, Monica. On this occasion was composed the
hymn called the ‘Te Deum,’ still in use in our Church; St. Ambrose
and St. Augustine reciting the verses alternately as they advanced to
the altar. Augustine, after some time spent in study, was ordained
priest, and then bishop of Hippo, a small town and territory not far
from Carthage. Once installed in his bishopric, he ever afterwards
refused to leave the flock intrusted to his care, or to accept of
any higher dignity. His life was passed in the practice of every
virtue: all that he possessed was spent in hospitality and charity,
and his time was devoted to the instruction of his flock, either by
preaching or writing. In 430, after he had presided over his diocese
for thirty-five years, the city of Hippo was besieged by the Vandals;
in the midst of the horrors that ensued, Augustine refused to leave
his people, and died during the siege, being then in his seventy-sixth
year. It is said that his remains were afterwards removed from Africa
to Pavia, by Luitprand, king of the Lombards. His writings in defence
of Christianity are numerous and celebrated; and he is regarded as the
patron saint of theologians and learned men.
Of his glorious tomb, in the Cathedral of Pavia, I can only say that
its beauty as a work of art astonished me. I had not been prepared for
anything so rich, so elegant in taste, and so elaborate in invention.
It is of the finest florid Gothic, worked in white marble, scarcely
discoloured by time. Augustine lies upon a bier, and angels of
exquisite grace are folding his shroud around him. The basso-relievos
represent the events of his life; the statues of the evangelists,
apostles, and other saints connected with the history of the Church,
are full of dignity and character. It comprises in all 290 figures.
This magnificent shrine is attributed by Cicognara to the Jacobelli
of Venice, and by Vasari to the two brothers Agostino and Agnolo of
Siena; but he does not speak with certainty, and the date 1362 seems to
justify the supposition of Cicognara, the Sienese brothers being then
eighty or ninety years old.
Single figures of St. Augustine are not common; and when grouped
with others in devotional pictures, it is not easy to distinguish
him from other bishops; for his proper attribute, the heart flaming
or transpierced, to express the ardour of his piety or the poignancy
of his repentance, is very seldom introduced: but when a bishop
is standing with a book in his hand, or a pen, accompanied by St.
Jerome, and with no particular attribute, we may suppose it to be
St. Augustine; and when the title of one of his famous writings is
inscribed on the book, it of course fixes the identity beyond a doubt.
1. B. Vivarini. St. Augustine seated on a throne, as patron saint,
mitred and robed; alone, stern, and majestic.[272]
2. Dosso Dossi. St. Augustine throned as patron, attended by two
angels; he looks like a jovial patriarch.[273]
3. F. Filippo Lippi. St. Augustine writing in his chamber; no emblem,
no mitre; yet the _personalité_ so marked, that one could not mistake
him either for Ambrose or Jerome.[274]
4. Andrea del Sarto. St. Augustine as doctor; before him stand St.
Dominic and St. Peter Martyr; beside him St. Laurence, listening; in
front kneel St. Sebastian and Mary Magdalen.[275]
5. V. Carpaccio. St. Augustine standing; a fine, stern, majestic
figure; he holds his book and scourge.[276]
6. Paris Bordone. The Virgin and Child enthroned; the Virgin places
on the head of St. Augustine, who kneels before her, the jewelled
mitre.[277]
7. Florigerio. St. Augustine, as bishop, and St. Monica, veiled, stand
on each side of the Madonna.[278]
* * * * *
As a _series_ of subjects, the history of St. Augustine is not
commonly met with; yet certain events in his life are of very frequent
occurrence.
I shall begin with the earliest.
1. Monica brings her son to school; the master receives him; the
scholars are sitting in a row conning their hornbooks. The names of
Monica and Augustine are inscribed in the glories round their heads.
This is a very curious little oval picture of the early part of the
fourteenth century.[279]
Benozzo Gozzoli has painted the same subject in a large fresco in
the church of San Geminiano at Volterra (A.D. 1460). Monica presents
her son to the schoolmaster, who caresses him; in the background a
little boy is being whipped, precisely in the same attitude in which
correction is administered to this day in some of our schools.
2. St. Augustine under the fig-tree meditating, with the inscription,
‘Dolores animæ salutem parturientes;’ and the same subject varied,
with the inscription, _Tolle, lege_. He tells us in his Confessions,
that while still unconverted and in deep communion with his friend
Alypius on the subject of the Scriptures, the contest within his mind
was such that he rushed from the presence of his friend and threw
himself down beneath a fig-tree, pouring forth torrents of repentant
tears; and he heard a voice, as it were the voice of a child, repeating
several times, ‘_Tolle, lege_,’ ‘Take and read;’ and returning to the
place where he had left his friend, and taking up the sacred volume,
he opened it at the verse of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, ‘Not
in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in
strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provision for the flesh.’ Considering that this was the voice of God,
he took up the religious profession, to the great joy of his mother and
his friend.
3. C. Procaccino. The Baptism of St. Augustine in the presence of St.
Monica. This is a common subject in chapels dedicated to St. Augustine
or St. Monica.[280]
4. As the supposed founder of one of the four great religious
communities, St. Augustine is sometimes represented as giving the rules
to his Order: or in the act of writing them, while his monks stand
around, as in a picture by Carletto Cagliari:[281] both are common
subjects in the houses of the Augustine friars. The habit is black.[282]
5. St. Augustine dispensing alms, generally in a black habit, and with
a bishop’s mitre on his head.
6. St. Augustine, washing the feet of the pilgrims, sees Christ descend
from above to have his feet washed with the rest; a large picture in
the Bologna Academy by Desubleo, a painter whose works, with this one
exception, are unknown to me. The saint wears the black habit of an
Augustine friar, and is attended by a monk with a napkin in his hand.
I found the same subject in the Louvre, in a Spanish picture of the
seventeenth century; above is seen a church (like the Pantheon) in
a glory, and Christ is supposed to utter the words, ‘_Tibi commendo
Ecclesiam meam_.’[283]
7. St. Augustine, borne aloft by angels in an ecstatic vision, beholds
Christ in the opening heavens above, St. Monica kneeling below. This
fine picture, by Vandyck, is or was in the gallery of Lord Methuen
at Corsham: and at Madrid there is another example, by Murillo: St.
Augustine kneeling in an ecstasy sees a celestial vision; on one hand
the Saviour crucified, on the other the Virgin and angels.
* * * * *
[Illustration: 89 The Vision of St. Augustine (Murillo)]
This, however, is not the famous subject called, in general, 8.
‘The Vision of St. Augustine,’ which represents a dream or vision
related by himself. He tells us that while busied in writing his
Discourse on the Trinity, he wandered along the sea-shore lost in
meditation. Suddenly he beheld a child, who, having dug a hole in
the sand, appeared to be bringing water from the sea to fill it.
Augustine inquired what was the object of his task? He replied, that he
intended to empty into this cavity all the waters of the great deep.
‘Impossible!’ exclaimed Augustine. ‘Not more impossible,’ replied the
child, ‘than for thee, O Augustine! to explain the mystery on which
thou art now meditating.’
No subject from the history of St. Augustine has been so often treated,
yet I do not remember any very early example. It was adopted as a
favourite theme when Art became rather theological than religious, and
more intent on illustrating the dogmas of churchmen than the teaching
of Christ. During the 16th and 17th centuries we find it everywhere,
and treated in every variety of style; but the _motif_ does not vary,
and the same fault prevails too generally, of giving us a material
fact, rather than a spiritual vision or revelation. Augustine, arrayed
in his black habit or his episcopal robes, stands on the sea-shore,
gazing with an astonished air on the Infant Christ, who pauses, and
looks up from his task, holding a bowl, a cup, a ladle, or a shell
in his hand. Thus we have it in Murillo’s picture—the most beautiful
example I have seen: the child is heavenly, but not visionary,
‘palpable to feeling as to sense.’
In Garofalo’s picture of this subject, now in our National Gallery,
Augustine is seated on a rock by the margin of the sea, habited in
his episcopal robes, and with his books and writing implements near
him; and while he gazes on the mysterious child, the Virgin appears
amid a choir of angels above: behind Augustine stands St. Catherine,
the patron saint of theologians and scholars: the little red figure
in the background represents St. Stephen, whose life and actions are
eloquently set forth in the homilies of St. Augustine: the introduction
of St. Catherine, St. Stephen, and the whole court of heaven, gives
the picture a visionary character. Rubens has painted this subject
with all his powerful reality: here Augustine wears the black habit
of his Order. Vandyck in his large grand picture has introduced St.
Monica kneeling, thus giving at once the devotional or visionary
character.[284] Albert Dürer has designed and engraved the same
subject. The most singular treatment is the classical composition of
Raphael, in one of the small chiaro-scuro pictures placed significantly
under the ‘Dispute of the Sacrament.’ St. Augustine is in a Roman
dress, bare-beaded, and on horseback; his horse starts and rears at the
sight of the miraculous child.
There is something at once picturesque and mystical in this subject,
which has rendered it a favourite with artists and theologians; yet
there is always, at least in every instance I can recollect, something
prosaic and literal in the treatment which spoils the poetry of the
conception.
9. ‘St. Augustine and St. Stephen bury ‘Count Orgaz’—the masterpiece
of Domenico el Greco, once in the Cathedral of Toledo, now in the
Madrid Gallery. This Conde de Orgaz, as Mr. Ford tells us in his
Handbook, lived in 1312, and had repaired a church in his lifetime,
and _therefore_ St. Stephen and St. Augustine came down from heaven to
lay him in his tomb, in presence of Christ, the Virgin, and all the
court of heaven. ‘The black and gold armour of the dead Count is equal
to Titian; the red brocades and copes of the saints are admirable;
less good are the Virgin and celestial groups. I have before mentioned
the reason why St. Augustine and St. Stephen are often represented in
companionship.
St. Monica is often introduced into pictures of her son, where she has,
of course, the secondary place; her dress is usually a black robe, and
a veil or coif, white or grey, resembling that of a nun or a widow.
I have met with but one picture where she is supreme; it is in the
Carmine at Florence. St. Monica is seated on a throne and attended by
twelve holy women or female saints, six on each side. The very dark
situation of this picture prevented me from distinguishing individually
the saints around her, but Monica herself as well as the other figures
have that _grandiose_ air which belongs to the painter—Filippo Lippi.
I saw in the atelier of the painter Ary Scheffer, in 1845, an admirable
picture of St. Augustine and his mother Monica. The two figures, not
quite full length, are seated; she holds his hand in both hers, looking
up to heaven with an expression of enthusiastic undoubting faith;—
‘the son of so many tears cannot be cast away!’ He also is looking up
with an ardent, eager, but anxious, doubtful expression, which seems
to say, ‘Help thou my unbelief!’ For profound and truthful feeling and
significance, I know few things in the compass of modern Art that can
be compared to this picture.[285]
ST. GREGORY.
_Lat._ Sanctus Gregorius Magnus. _Ital._ San Gregorio Magno or Papa.
_Fr._ St. Grégoire. _Ger._ Der Heilige Gregor. (March 12, A.D. 604.)
The fourth Doctor of the Latin Church, St. Gregory, styled, and not
without reason, Gregory the Great, was one of those extraordinary men
whose influence is not only felt in their own time, but through long
succeeding ages. The events of his troubled and splendid pontificate
belong to history; and I shall merely throw together here such
particulars of his life and character as may serve to render the
multiplied representations of him both intelligible and interesting.
He was born at Rome in the year 540. His father, Gordian, was of
senatorial rank: his mother, Sylvia, who, in the history of St.
Gregory, is almost as important as St. Monica in the story of St.
Augustine, was a woman of rare endowments, and, during his childish
years, the watchful instructress of her son. It is recorded that when
he was still an infant she was favoured by a vision of St. Antony, in
which he promised to her son the supreme dignity of the tiara. Gregory,
however, commenced his career in life as a lawyer, and exercised during
twelve years the office of prætor or chief magistrate of his native
city; yet, while apparently engrossed by secular affairs, he became
deeply imbued with the religious enthusiasm which was characteristic
of his time and hereditary in his family. Immediately on the death
of his father he devoted all the wealth he had inherited to pious
and charitable purposes, converted his paternal home on the Celian
Hill into a monastery and hospital for the poor, which he dedicated
to St. Andrew: then, retiring to a little cell within it, he took
the habit of the Benedictine Order, and gave up all his time to study
and preparation for the duties to which he had devoted himself. On
the occasion of a terrific plague which almost depopulated Rome, he
fearlessly undertook the care of the poor and sick. Pope Pelagius
having died at this time, the people with one voice called upon Gregory
to succeed him: but he shrank from the high office, and wrote to the
Emperor Maurice, entreating him not to ratify the choice of the people.
The emperor sent an edict confirming his election, and thereupon
Gregory fled from Rome, and bid himself in a cave. Those who went
in search of him were directed to the place of his concealment by a
celestial light, and the fugitive was discovered and brought back to
Rome.
No sooner had he assumed the tiara, thus forced upon him against his
will, than he showed himself in all respects worthy of his elevation.
While he asserted the dignity of his station, he was distinguished
by his personal humility: he was the first pope who took the title
of ‘Servant of the Servants of God;’ he abolished slavery throughout
Christendom on religious grounds; though enthusiastic in making
converts, he set himself against persecution; and when the Jews of
Sardinia appealed to him, he commanded that the synagogues which had
been taken from them, and converted into churches, should be restored.
He was the first who sent missionaries to preach the Gospel in England,
roused to pity by the sight of some British captives exposed for sale
in the market at Rome. Shocked at the idea of an eternity of vengeance
and torment, if he did not originate the belief in purgatory, he was
at least the first who preached it publicly, and made it an article of
faith. In his hatred of war, of persecution, of slavery, he stepped
not only in advance of his own time, but of ours. He instituted the
celibacy of the clergy, one of the boldest strokes of ecclesiastical
power; he reformed the services of the Church; defined the model of
the Roman liturgy, such as it has ever since remained—the offices
of the priests, the variety and change of the sacerdotal garments;
he arranged the music of the chants, and he himself trained the
choristers. ‘Experience,’ says Gibbon, ‘had shown him the efficacy of
these solemn and pompous rites to soothe the distress, to confirm the
faith, to mitigate the fierceness, and to dispel the dark enthusiasm of
the vulgar; and he readily forgave their tendency to promote the reign
of priesthood and superstition.’ If, at a period when credulity and
ignorance were universal, he showed himself in some instances credulous
and ignorant, it seems hardly a reproach to one in other respects so
good and so great.
His charity was boundless, and his vigilance indefatigable: he
considered himself responsible for every sheep of the flock intrusted
to him; and when a beggar died of hunger in the streets of Rome,
he laid himself under a sentence of penance and excommunication,
and interdicted himself for several days from the exercise of his
sacerdotal functions.
Such was St. Gregory the Great, the last pope who was canonised:
celestial honours and worldly titles have often been worse—seldom so
well—bestowed.
* * * * *
During the last two years of his life, his health, early impaired by
fasts and vigils, failed entirely, and he was unable to rise from his
couch. He died in 604, in the fourteenth year of his pontificate. They
still preserve, in the church of the Lateran at Rome, his bed, and the
little scourge with which he was wont to keep the choristers in order.
The monastery of St. Andrew, which he founded on the Celian Hill, is
now the church of San Gregorio. To stand on the summit of the majestic
flight of steps which leads to the portal, and look across to the
ruined palace of the Cæsars, makes the mind giddy with the rush of
thoughts. _There_, before us, the Palatine Hill—pagan Rome in dust:
_here_, the little cell, a few feet square, where slept in sackcloth
the man who gave the last blow to the power of the Cæsars, and first
set his foot as sovereign on the cradle and capital of their greatness.
St. Gregory was in person tall and corpulent, and of a dark complexion,
with black hair, and very little beard. He speaks in one of his
epistles of his large size, contrasted with his weakness and painful
infirmities. He presented to the monastery of St. Andrew his own
portrait, and those of his father, and his mother St. Sylvia: they
were still in existence 300 years after his death, and the portrait of
Gregory probably furnished that particular type of physiognomy which we
trace in all the best representations of him, in which he appears of a
tall, large, and dignified person, with a broad full face, black hair
and eyebrows, and little or no beard.
As he was, next to St. Jerome, the most popular of the Four Doctors,
single figures of him abound. They are variously treated: in general,
he bears the tiara as pope, and the crosier with the double cross,
in common with other papal saints; but his peculiar attribute is the
dove, which in the old pictures is always close to his ear. He is
often seated on a throne in the pontifical robes, wearing the tiara:
one hand raised in benediction; in the other a book, which represents
his homilies, and other famous works attributed to him: the dove
either rests on his shoulder, or is hovering over his head. He is
thus represented in the fine statue, designed, as it is said, by M.
Angelo, and executed by Cordieri, in the chapel of St. Barbara, in
San Gregorio, Rome; and in the picture over the altar-piece of his
chapel, to the right of the high altar. In the Salviati Chapel, on the
left, is the ‘St. Gregory in prayer,’ by Annibal Caracci. He is seen
in front bareheaded, but arrayed in the pontifical habit, kneeling on
a cushion, his hands outspread and uplifted; the dove descends from
on high; the tiara is at his feet, and eight angels hover around:—a
grand, finely-coloured, but, in sentiment, rather cold and mannered
picture.[286]
By Guercino, St. Gregory seated on a throne, looking upwards, his hand
on an open book, in act to turn the leaves; the dove hovers at his
shoulder: to the left stands St. Francis Xavier; on the right, and more
in front, St. Ignatius Loyola. Behind St. Gregory is an angel playing
on the viol, in allusion to his love and patronage of sacred music;
in front an infant angel holds the tiara. The type usually adopted in
figures of St. Gregory is here exaggerated into coarseness, and the
picture altogether appears to me more remarkable for Guercino’s faults
than for his beauties.[287]
* * * * *
Several of the legends connected with the history of St. Gregory are of
singular interest and beauty, and have afforded a number of picturesque
themes for Art: they appear to have arisen out of his exceeding
popularity. They are all expressive of the veneration in which he was
held by the people; of the deep impression left on their minds by his
eloquence, his sanctity, his charity; and of the authority imputed to
his numerous writings, which commonly said to have been dictated by
the Holy Spirit.
* * * * *
1. John the deacon, his secretary, who has left a full account of his
life, declares that he beheld the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove
perched upon his shoulder while he was writing or dictating his famous
homilies. This vision, or rather figure of speech, has been interpreted
as a fact by the early painters. Thus, in a quaint old picture in the
Bologna Gallery, we have St. Gregory seated on a throne writing, the
celestial dove at his ear. A little behind is seen John the deacon,
drawing aside a curtain, and looking into the room at his patron with
an expression of the most naïve astonishment.
2. The Archangel Michael, on the cessation of the pestilence, sheathes
his sword on the summit of the Mole of Hadrian. I have never seen even
a tolerable picture of this magnificent subject. There is a picture in
the Vatican, in which Gregory and a procession of priests are singing
litanies, and in the distance a little _Mola di Adriano_, with a little
angel on the summit;—curious, but without merit of any kind.
3. The Supper of St. Gregory. It is related that when Gregory was only
a monk, in the Monastery of St. Andrew, a beggar presented himself at
the gate, and requested alms: being relieved, he came again and again,
and at length nothing was left for the charitable saint to bestow,
but the silver porringer in which his mother, Sylvia, had sent him a
_potage_; and he commanded that this should be given to the mendicant.
It was his custom, when he became pope, to entertain every evening at
his own table twelve poor men, in remembrance of the number of our
Lord’s apostles. One night, as he sat at supper with his guests, he
saw, to his surprise, not twelve, but thirteen seated at his table.
And he called to his steward, and said to him, ‘Did I not command thee
to invite twelve? and behold, there are thirteen!’ And the steward
told them over, and replied, ‘Holy Father, there are surely twelve
only!’ and Gregory held his peace; and after the meal, he called forth
the unbidden guest, and asked him, ‘Who art thou?’ And he replied,
‘I am the poor man whom thou didst formerly relieve; but my name is
the Wonderful, and through me thou shalt obtain whatever thou shalt
ask of God.’ Then Gregory knew that he had entertained an angel (or,
according to another version of the story, our Lord himself). This
legend has been a frequent subject in painting, under the title of
‘The Supper of St. Gregory.’ In the fresco in his church at Rome, it
is a winged angel who appears at the supper-table. In the fresco of
Paul Veronese, one of his famous banquet-scenes, the stranger seated
at the table is the Saviour habited as a pilgrim.[288] In the picture
painted by Vasari, his masterpiece, now in the Bologna Gallery, he has
introduced a great number of figures and portraits of distinguished
personages of his own time, St. Gregory being represented under the
likeness of Clement VII. The unbidden guest, or angel, bears the
features of the Saviour.
This is one of many beautiful mythic legends, founded on the words of
St. Paul in which he so strongly recommends hospitality as one of the
virtues: ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some
have entertained angels unawares.’ (Heb. xiii. 2.) Or, as Massinger has
rendered the apostolic precept,—
Learn all,
By this example, to look on the poor
With gentle eyes, for in such habits often
Angels desire an alms.
4. The Mass of St. Gregory. On a certain occasion, when St. Gregory
was officiating at the mass, one who was near him doubted the real
presence; thereupon, at the prayer of the saint, a vision is suddenly
revealed of the crucified Saviour himself, who descends upon the
altar, surrounded by the instruments of his passion. This legend has
been a popular subject of painting from the beginning of the fifteenth
century, and is called ‘The Mass of St. Gregory.’ I have met with it
in every variety of treatment and grouping; but, however treated, it
is not a pleasing subject. St. Gregory is seen officiating at the
altar, surrounded by his attendant clergy. Sometimes several saints are
introduced in a poetical manner, as witnesses of the miracle: as in
an old picture I saw in the gallery of Lord Northwick;—the crucified
Saviour descends from the cross, and stands on the altar, or is
upborne in the air by angels; while all the incidental circumstances
and instruments of the Passion,—not merely the crown of thorns, the
spear, the nails, but the kiss of Judas, the soldiers’ dice, the cock
that crew to Peter,—are seen floating in the air. As a specimen of the
utmost naïveté in this representation may be mentioned Albert Dürer’s
woodcut.
The least offensive and most elegant in treatment is the marble
bas-relief in front of the altar in the Chapel of St. Gregory at Rome.
* * * * *
5. The miracle of the Brandeum. The Empress Constantia sent to St.
Gregory requesting some of the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul. He
excused himself, saying that he dared not disturb their sacred remains
for such a purpose, but he sent her part of a consecrated cloth
(_Brandeum_) which had enfolded the body of St. John the Evangelist.
The empress rejected this gift with contempt: whereupon Gregory, to
show that such things are hallowed not so much in themselves as by
the faith of believers, laid the Brandeum on the altar, and after
praying he took up a knife and pierced it, and blood flowed as from a
living body. This incident, called the ‘miracle _dei Brandei_,’ has
also been painted. Andrea Sacchi has represented it in a grand picture
now in the Vatican; the mosaic copy is over the altar of St. Gregory
in St. Peter’s. Gregory holds up to view the bleeding cloth, and the
expression of astonishment and conviction in the countenances of the
assistants is very fine.
6. St. Gregory releases the soul of the Emperor Trajan. In a little
picture in the Bologna Academy, he is seen praying before a tomb, on
which is inscribed TRAJANO IMPERADOR; beneath are two angels raising
the soul of Trajan out of the flames. Such is the usual treatment of
this curious and poetical legend, which is thus related in the Legenda
Aurea:—‘It happened on a time, as Trajan was hastening to battle at
the head of his legions, that a poor widow flung herself in his path,
and cried aloud for justice, and the emperor stayed to listen to her;
and she demanded vengeance for the innocent blood of her son, killed
by the son of the emperor. Trajan promised to do her justice when he
returned from his expedition. “But, Sire,” answered the widow, “should
you be killed in battle, who then will do me justice?” “My successor,”
replied Trajan. And she said, “What will it signify to you, great
emperor, that any other than yourself should do me justice? Is it not
better that you should do this good action yourself than leave another
to do it?” And Trajan alighted, and having examined into the affair, he
gave up his own son to her in place of him she had lost, and bestowed
on her likewise a rich dowry. Now, it came to pass that as Gregory was
one day meditating in his daily walk, this action of the Emperor Trajan
came into his mind, and he wept bitterly to think that a man so just
should be condemned as a heathen to eternal punishment. And entering
into a church he prayed most fervently that the soul of the good
emperor might be released from torment. And a voice said to him, “I
have granted thy prayer, and I have spared the soul of Trajan for thy
sake; but because thou hast supplicated for one whom the justice of God
had already condemned, thou shalt choose one of two things: either thou
shalt endure for two days the fires of purgatory, or thou shalt be sick
and infirm for the remainder of thy life.” Gregory chose the latter,
which sufficiently accounts for the grievous pains and infirmities to
which this great and good man was subjected, even to the day of his
death.’
This story of Trajan was extremely popular in the middle ages: it
is illustrative of the character of Gregory, and the feeling which
gave rise to his doctrine of purgatory. Dante twice alludes to it;
he describes it as one of the subjects sculptured on the walls of
Purgatory, and takes occasion to relate the whole story:—
... There was storied on the rock
Th’ exalted glory of the Roman prince,
Whose mighty worth moved Gregory to earn
His mighty conquest—Trajan the Emperor.
A widow at his bridle stood attired
In tears and mourning. Round about them troop’d
Full throng of knights: and overhead in gold
The eagles floated, struggling with the wind.
The wretch appear’d amid all these to say:
‘Grant vengeance, Sire! for, woe beshrew this heart,
My son is murder’d!’ He, replying, seem’d:
‘Wait now till I return.’ And she, as one
Made hasty by her grief: ‘O Sire, if thou
Dost not return?’—‘Where I am, who then is,
May right thee.’—‘What to thee is others’ good,
If thou neglect thy own?’—‘Now comfort thee,’
At length he answers. ‘It beseemeth well
My duty be perform’d, ere I move hence.
So justice wills; and pity bids me stay.’
Cary’s DANTE, _Purg._ x.
It was through the efficacy of St. Gregory’s intercession that Dante
afterwards finds Trajan in Paradise, seated between King David and King
Hezekiah. (_Par._ xx.)
As a subject of painting, the story of Trajan was sometimes selected as
an appropriate ornament for a hall of justice. We find it sculptured
on one of the capitals of the pillars of the Ducal Palace at Venice:
there is the figure of the widow kneeling, somewhat stiff, but very
simple and expressive, and over it in rude ancient letters—‘_Trajano
Imperador, che die justizia a la Vedova_.’ In the Town Hall of Ceneda,
near Belluna, are the three Judgments (_i tre Giudizi_), painted by
Pompeo Amalteo: the Judgment of Solomon, the Judgment of Daniel, and
the Judgment of Trajan. It is painted in the Town Hall of Brescia by
Giulio Campi, one of a series of eight righteous judgments.
I found the same subject in the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury at
Verona. ‘The son of the Emperor Trajan trampling over the son of the
widow’ is a most curious composition by Hans Schaufelein.[289]
* * * * *
7. There was a monk, who, in defiance of his vow of poverty,
secreted in his cell three pieces of gold. Gregory, on learning
this, excommunicated him, and shortly afterwards the monk died. When
Gregory heard that the monk had perished in his sin, without receiving
absolution, he was filled with grief and horror; and he wrote upon a
parchment a prayer and a form of absolution, and gave it to one of
his deacons, desiring him to go to the grave of the deceased and read
it there: on the following night the monk appeared in a vision, and
revealed to him his release from torment.
This story is represented in the beautiful bas-relief in white marble
in front of the altar of his chapel; it is the last compartment on the
right. The obvious intention of this wild legend is to give effect to
the doctrine of purgatory, and the efficacy of prayers for the dead.
St. Gregory’s merciful doctrine of purgatory also suggested those
pictures so often found in chapels dedicated to the service of the
dead, in which he is represented in the attitude of supplication, while
on one side, or in the background, angels are raising the tormented
souls out of the flames.
In ecclesiastical decoration I have seen the two popes, St. Gelasius,
who reformed the calendar in 494, and St. Celestinus, who arranged the
discipline of the monastic orders, added to the series of beatified
Doctors of the Church.
II. THE FOUR GREEK FATHERS.
The Four Greek Fathers are St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great,
St. Athanasius, and St. Gregory Nazianzen. To these, in Greek pictures,
a fifth is generally added, St. Cyril of Alexandria.
From the time of the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches,
these venerable personages, who once exercised such an influence over
all Christendom, who preceded the Latin Fathers, and were in fact their
teachers, have been almost banished from the religious representations
of the west of Europe. When they are introduced collectively as a part
of the decoration of an ecclesiastical edifice, we may conclude in
general, that the work is Byzantine and executed under the influence of
Greek artists.
A signal example is the central dome of the baptistery of St. Mark’s at
Venice, executed by Greek artists of the 12th and 13th centuries. In
the four spandrils of the vault are the Greek Fathers seated, writing
(if I well remember), and in the purest Byzantine style of art. They
occupy the same places here that we find usually occupied by the Latin
Doctors in church decoration: each has his name inscribed in Greek
characters. We have exactly the same representation in the Cathedral
of Monreale at Palermo. The Greek Fathers have no attributes to
distinguish them, and the general custom in Byzantine Art of inscribing
the names over each figure renders this unnecessary: in general, each
holds a book, or, in some instances, a scroll, which represents his
writings; while the right hand is raised in benediction, in the Greek
manner, the first and second finger extended, and the thumb and third
finger forming a cross. According to the formula published by M.
Didron, each of the Greek Fathers bears on a scroll the first words
of some remarkable passage from his works: thus, St. John Chrysostom
has ‘God, our God, who hath given us for food the bread of life,’ &c.:
St. Basil, ‘None of those who are in the bondage of fleshly desires are
worthy,’ &c.: St. Athanasius, ‘Often, and anew, do we flee to thee, O
God,’ &c.: St. Gregory Nazianzen, ‘God, the holy among the holies, the
thrice holy,’ &c.: and St. Cyril, ‘Above all, a Virgin without sin or
blemish,’ &c.
[Illustration: _The five Greek Fathers._]
The Greek bishops do not wear mitres; consequently, when in the Italian
or German pictures St. Basil or any of his companions wear the mitre,
it is a mistake arising from the ignorance of the artist.
The Fathers of the Greek Church have been represented by Domenichino
at Grotta Ferrata, placed over the cornice and under the evangelists,
their proper place: they are majestic figures, with fine heads, and
correctly draped according to the Greek ecclesiastical costume. They
are placed here with peculiar propriety, because the convent originally
belonged to the Greek order of St. Basil, and the founder, St. Nilus,
was a Greek.[290]
The etched outline, from a beautiful ancient Greek miniature, will give
an accurate idea of the characteristic figures and habits of the Greek
Fathers.
* * * * *
As separate devotional and historical representations of these Fathers
do sometimes, though rarely, occur, I shall say a few words of them
individually.
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.
_Lat._ Sanctus Johannes Chrysostom. _Ital._ San Giovanni Crisostomo,
San Giovanni Bocca d’ Oro. _Fr._ St. Jean Chrysostome. Died Sept. 14,
A.D. 407. His festival is celebrated by the Greeks on the 13th of
November, and by the Latin Church on the 27th of January.
St. John, called CHRYSOSTOM, or OF THE GOLDEN MOUTH, because of his
extraordinary eloquence, was born at Antioch in 344. His parents were
illustrious, and the career opened to him was of arts and arms; but
from his infancy the bent of his mind was peculiar. He lost his father
when young; his mother Arthusia, still in the prime of her life,
remained a widow for his sake, and superintended his education with
care and intelligence. The remark of Sir James Mackintosh that ‘all
distinguished men have had able mothers,’ appears especially true of
the great churchmen and poets. The mother of St. John Chrysostom ranks
with the Monicas and Sylvias, already described.
John, at the age of twenty, was already a renowned pleader at the bar.
At the age of twenty-six, the disposition to self-abnegation and the
passion for solitude, which had distinguished him from boyhood, became
so strong, that he wished to retire altogether from the world; his
legal studies, his legal honours, had become hateful to him: he would
turn hermit. For a time his mother’s tears and prayers restrained him.
He has himself recorded the pathetic remonstrance in which she reminded
him of all she had done and suffered in her state of widowhood for his
sake, and besought him not to leave her. For the present he yielded:
but two years later he fled from society, and passed five or six years
in the wilderness near Antioch, devoting himself solely to the study of
the Scriptures, to penance and prayer; feeding on the wild vegetables,
and leading a life of such rigorous abstinence that his health sank
under it, and he was obliged to return to Antioch.
All this time he was not even an ordained priest; but shortly after
he had emerged from the desert, Flavian, bishop of Antioch, ordained
him, and appointed him preacher. At the moment of his consecration,
according to the tradition, a white dove descended on his head, which
was regarded as the sign of immediate inspiration. He then entered on
his true vocation as a Christian orator, the greatest next to Paul.
On one occasion, when the people of Antioch had offended the Emperor
Theodosius, and were threatened with a punishment like that which had
fallen on Thessalonica, the eloquence of St. John Chrysostom saved
them: he was so adored by the people, that when he was appointed
patriarch of Constantinople, it was necessary to kidnap him, and carry
him off from Antioch by a force of armed soldiers, before the citizens
had time to interfere.
From the moment he entered on his high office at Constantinople,
he became the model of a Christian bishop. Humble, self-denying,
sleeping on a bare plank, content with a little bread and pulse, he
entertained with hospitality the poor and strangers: indefatigable as
a preacher, he used his great gift of eloquence to convert his hearers
to what he believed to be the truth: he united the enthusiasm and the
imagination of the poet, the elegant taste of the scholar, the logic
of the pleader, with the inspired earnestness of one who had authority
from above. He was, like St. Jerome, remarkable for his influence
over women; and his correspondence with one of his female converts
and friends, Olympias, is considered one of the finest of his works
remaining to us: but, inexorable in his denunciations of vice, without
regard to sex or station, he thundered against the irregularities
of the monks, the luxury and profligacy of the Empress Eudosia, and
the servility of her flatterers, and brought down upon himself the
vengeance of that haughty woman, with whom the rest of his life was
one long contest. He was banished: the voice of the people obliged
the emperor to recall him. Persisting in the resolute defence of his
church privileges, and his animadversions on the court and the clergy,
he was again banished; and, on his way to his distant place of exile,
sank under fatigue and the cruel treatment of his guards, who exposed
him, bareheaded and bare-footed, to the burning sun of noon: and thus
he perished, in the tenth year of his bishopric, and the sixty-third
of his age. Gibbon adds, that, at the pious solicitation of the clergy
and people of Constantinople, his relics, thirty years after his death,
were transported from their obscure sepulchre to the royal city. The
Emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as Chalcedon, and,
falling prostrate on the coffin, implored, in the name of his guilty
parents, Arcadius and Eudosia, the forgiveness of the injured saint.‘
* * * * *
It is owing, I suppose, to the intercourse of Venice with the East,
that one of her beautiful churches is dedicated to San Gian Grisostomo,
as they call him there, in accents as soft and sonorous as his own
Greek. Over the high altar is the grandest devotional picture in
which I have seen this saint figure as a chief personage. It is the
masterpiece of Sebastian del Piombo,[291] and represents St. John
Chrysostom throned and in the act of writing in a great book; behind
him, St. Paul. In front, to the right, stands St. John the Baptist, and
behind him St. George as patron of Venice; to the left Mary Magdalene,
with a beautiful Venetian face; behind her, St. Catherine, patroness of
Venice: close to St. J. Chrysostom stands St. Lucia holding her lamp;
she is here the type of celestial light or wisdom.[292] This picture
was for a long time attributed to Giorgione. There was also a very
fine majestic figure of this saint by Rubens, in the collection of M.
Schamp: he is in the habit of a Greek bishop; in one hand he holds the
sacramental cup, and the left hand rests on the Gospel: the celestial
dove hovers near him, and two angels are in attendance.
* * * * *
I cannot quit the history of St. John Chrysostom without alluding
to a subject well known to collectors and amateurs, and popularly
called ‘_La Pénitence de St. Jean Chrysostome_.’ It represents a woman
undraped, seated in a cave, or wilderness, with an infant in her arms;
or lying on the ground with a new-born infant beside her; in the
distance is seen a man with a glory round his head, meagre, naked,
bearded, crawling on his hands and knees in the most abject attitude;
beneath, or at the top, is inscribed S. JOHANNES CRISOSTOMUS.
For a long time this subject perplexed me exceedingly, as I was quite
unable to trace it in any of the biographies of Chrysostom, ancient or
modern: the kindness of a friend, learned in all the _byways_ as well
as the _highways_ of Italian literature, at length assisted me to an
explanation.
[Illustration: 90 The Penance of St. Chrysostom (Albert Dürer)]
The bitter enmity excited against St. John Chrysostom in his lifetime,
and the furious vituperations of his adversary, Theophilus of
Alexandria, who denounced him as one stained by every vice, ‘_hostem
humanitatis, sacrilegorum principem, immundum dæmonem_,’ as a wretch
who had absolutely delivered up his soul to Satan, were apparently
disseminated by the monks. Jerome translated the abusive attack of
Theophilus into Latin; and long after the slanders against Chrysostom
had been silenced in the East, they survived in the West. To this
may be added the slaughter of the Egyptian monks by the friends of
Chrysostom in the streets of Constantinople; which, I suppose, was also
retained in the traditions, and mixed up with the monkish fictions. It
seems to have been forgotten who John Chrysostom really was; his name
only survived in the popular ballads and legends as an epitome of every
horrible crime; and to account for his being, notwithstanding all this,
a _saint_, was a difficulty which in the old legend is surmounted after
a very original, and, I must needs add, a very audacious fashion. ‘I
have,’ writes my friend, ‘three editions of this legend in Italian,
with the title _La Historia di San Giovanni Boccadoro_. It is in
_ottava rima_, thirty-six stanzas in all, occupying two leaves of
letter-press. It was originally composed in the fifteenth century,
and reprinted again and again, like the ballads and tales hawked by
itinerant ballad-mongers, from that day to this, and as well known to
the lower orders as “Jack the Giant-killer” here. I will give you the
story as succinctly and as properly as I can. A gentleman of the high
roads, named Schitano, confesses his robberies and murders to a certain
Frate, who absolves him, upon a solemn promise not to do three things—
Che tu non facci falso sacramento,
Nè homicidio, nè adulterare.
Schitano thereupon takes possession of a cave, and turns _Romito_
(Hermit) in the wilderness. A neighbouring king takes his daughter
out hunting with him; a white deer starts across their path; the king
dashes away in pursuit ten miles or more, forgetting his daughter;
night comes on; the princess, left alone in the forest, wanders till
she sees a light, and knocks for admittance at the cave of Schitano.
He fancies at first that it must be the “Demonio,” but at length he
admits her after long hesitation, and turns her horse out to graze.
Her beauty tempts him to break one of his vows; the fear of discovery
induces him to violate another by murdering her, and throwing her body
into a cistern. The horse, however, is seen by one of the cavaliers of
the court, who knocks and inquires if he has seen a certain “donzella”
that way? The hermit swears that he has not beheld a Christian face
for three years, thus breaking his third vow; but, reflecting on this
three-fold sin with horror, he imposes on himself a most severe
penance (“un’ aspra penitenza”), to wit—
Di stare sette anni nell’ aspro diserto.
Pane non mangerò nè berò vino,
Nè mai risguarderò il ciel scoperto,
Non parlerò Hebraico nè Latino,
Per fin che quel ch’ io dico non è certo,
Che un fantin di sei di porga favella,
“Perdonato t’ ha Dio; va alla tua cella.”
That is, he swears that for seven years he will neither eat bread nor
drink wine, nor look up in the face of heaven, nor speak either Hebrew
or Latin, until it shall come to pass that an infant of seven days old
shall open its mouth and say, “Heaven hath pardoned thee—go in peace.”
So, stripping off his clothes, he crawls on hands and knees like the
beasts of the field, eating grass and drinking water.
‘Nor did his resolution fail him—he persists in this “aspra penitenza”
for seven years—
Sette anni e sette giorni nel diserto;
Come le bestie andava lui carpone,
E mai non risguardò il ciel scoperto,
Peloso egli era a modo d’ un montone;
Spine e fango il suo letto era per certo,
Del suo peccato havea contrizione;
E ogni cosa facea con gran fervore,
Per purgar il suo fallo e grand’ errore.
In the meantime it came into the king’s head to draw the covers where
the hermit was leading this life. The dogs of course _found_, but
neither they nor the king could make anything of this new species
of animal, “_che pareva un orso_.” So they took him home in a chain
and deposited him in their zoological collection, where he refused
meat and bread, and persisted in grazing. On new year’s day the queen
gives birth to a son, who, on the seventh day after he is born, says
distinctly to the hermit,—
Torna alla tua cella,
Che Dio t’ ha perdonato il tuo peccato,
Levati su, Romito! ova favella!
But the hermit does not _speak_ as commanded; he makes signs that he
will write. The king orders the inkstand to be brought, but there
is no ink in it: so Schitano at once earns his surname of Boccadoro
(Chrysostom) by a simple expedient: he puts the pen to his mouth, wets
it with his saliva, and writes in letters of gold—
Onde la penna in bocca si metteva,
E a scrivere cominciò senza dimoro,
Col sputo, lettere che parevan d’ oro!
‘After seven years and seven days, he opens his golden mouth in speech,
and confesses his foul crimes to the king; cavaliers are despatched in
search of the body of the princess; as they approach the cavern they
hear celestial music, and in the end they bring the donzella out of
the cistern alive and well, and very sorry to leave the blessed Virgin
and the angels, with whom she had been passing her time most agreeably:
she is restored to her parents with universal _festa e allegrezza_, and
she announces to the hermit that he is pardoned and may return to his
cell, which he does forthwith, and ends in leading the life of a saint,
and being beatified. The “_discreti auditori_” are invited to take
example—
Da questo Santo pien di leggiadria
Che Iddio sempre perdona a’ peccatori,
and are finally informed that they may purchase this edifying history
on easy terms, to wit, a halfpenny—
Due quattrini dia senza far più parole.
The price, however, rose; for in the next century the line is altered
thus:—
Pero ciascun che comperarne vuole,
Tre quattrini mi dia senza più parole.’
The woodcuts prefixed to the ballad represent this saintly
Nebuchadnezzar on all fours, surprised by the king with his huntsmen
and dogs; but no female figure, as in the German prints, in which
the German version of the legend has evidently been in the mind of
the artists. It differs in some respects from the Italian ballad. I
shall therefore give as much of it here as will explain the artistic
treatment of the story.
‘When John Chrysostom was baptized, the Pope[293] stood godfather. At
seven years old he went to school, but he was so dull and backward,
that he became the laughing-stock of his schoolfellows. Unable to
endure their mockery, he took refuge in a neighbouring church,
and prayed to the Virgin; and a voice whispered, “Kiss me on the
mouth, and thou shalt be endowed with all learning.” He did so, and,
returning to the school, he surpassed all his companions, so that
they remained in astonishment: as they looked, they saw a golden
ring or streak round his mouth, and asked him how it came there?
and when he told them, they wondered yet more. Thence he obtained
the name of Chrysostom. John was much beloved by his godfather the
Pope, who ordained him priest at a very early age; but the first time
he offered the sacrifice of the mass, he was struck to the heart by
his unworthiness, and resolved to seek his salvation in solitude;
therefore, throwing off his priestly garments, he fled from the city,
and made his dwelling in a cavern of the rock, and lived there a long
while in prayer and meditation.
‘Now not far from the wilderness in which Chrysostom dwelt, was the
capital of a great king; and it happened that one day, as the princess
his daughter, who was young and very fair, was walking with her
companions, there came a sudden and violent gust of wind, which lifted
her up and carried her away, and set her down in the forest, far
off; and she wandered about till she came to the cave of Chrysostom,
and knocked at the door. He, fearing some temptation of the devil,
would not let her in; but she entreated, and said, “I am no demon,
but a Christian woman; and if thou leavest me here, the wild beasts
will devour me!” So he yielded perforce, and arose and let her in.
And he drew a line down the middle of his cell, and said, “That is
your part, this is mine; and neither shall pass this line.” But this
precaution was in vain, for passion and temptation overpowered his
virtue; he over-stepped the line, and sinned. Both repented sorely;
and Chrysostom, thinking that if the damsel remained longer in his
cave it would only occasion further sin, carried her to a neighbouring
precipice, and flung her down. When he had done this deed, he was
seized with horror and remorse; and he departed and went to Rome to
his godfather the Pope, and confessed all, and entreated absolution.
But his godfather knew him not; and, being seized with horror, he
drove him forth, and refused to absolve him. So the unhappy sinner
fled to the wilderness, and made a solemn vow that he would never rise
from the earth nor look up, but crawl on his hands and knees, until he
had expiated his great sin and was absolved by Heaven.
‘When he had thus crawled on the earth for fifteen years, the queen
brought forth a son; and when the Pope came to baptize the child, the
infant opened its mouth and said, “I will not be baptized by thee,
but by St. John;” and he repeated this three times: and none could
understand this miracle; but the Pope was afraid to proceed. In the
meantime, the king’s huntsmen had gone to the forest to bring home
game for the christening feast: there, as they rode, they beheld a
strange beast creeping on the ground; and not knowing what it might
be, they threw a mantle over it and bound it in a chain and brought it
to the palace. Many came to look on this strange beast, and with them
came the nurse with the king’s son in her arms; and immediately the
child opened its mouth and spake, “John, come thou and baptize me!” He
answered, “If it be God’s will, speak again!” And the child spoke the
same words a second and a third time. Then John stood up; and the hair
and the moss fell from his body, and they brought him garments; and he
took the child, and baptized him with great devotion.
‘When the king heard his confession, he thought, “Perhaps this was my
daughter, who was lost and never found;” and he sent messengers into
the forest to seek for the remains of his daughter, that her bones at
least might rest in consecrated ground. When they came to the foot
of the precipice, there they found a beautiful woman seated, naked,
and holding a child in her arms; and John said to her, “Why sittest
thou here alone in the wilderness?” And she said, “Dost thou not know
me? I am the woman who came to thy cave by night, and whom thou didst
hurl down this rock!” Then they brought her home with great joy to her
parents.‘[294]
This extravagant legend becomes interesting for two reasons: it
shows the existence of the popular feeling and belief with regard to
Chrysostom, long subsequent to those events which aroused the hatred of
the early monks; and it has been, from its popular notoriety, embodied
in some rare and valuable works of art, which all go under the name of
‘the Penance or Penitence of Johannes Chrysostom or Crisostomos.’
1. A rare print by Lucas Cranach, composed and engraved by himself.
In the centre is an undraped woman reclining on the ground against a
rock, and contemplating her sleeping infant, which is lying on her lap;
a stag, a hind crouching, a pheasant feeding near her, express the
solitude of her life; in the background is ‘the savage man’ on all
fours, and browsing: here, he has no glory round his head. The whole
composition is exceedingly picturesque.
2. A rare and beautiful print by B. Beham, and repeated by Hans Sebald
Beham, represents a woman lying on the ground with her back turned to
the spectator; a child is near her; Chrysostom is seen crawling in the
background, with the glory round his head.
3. A small print by Albert Dürer, also exquisitely engraved (from which
I give a sketch). Here the woman is sitting at the entrance of a rocky
cave, feeding her child from her bosom: in the background the ‘savage
man’ crawling on all fours, and a glory round his head. This subject
has been called St. Geneviève of Brabant; but it is evidently the same
as in the two last-named compositions.
All these prints, being nearly contemporaneous, show that the legend
must have been particularly popular about this time (1509-1520). There
is also an old French version of the story which I have not seen.
ST. BASIL THE GREAT.
_Lat._ St. Basilius Magnus. _Ital._ San Basilio Magno. _Fr._ St.
Basile. (June 14, A.D. 380.)
St. Basil, called the Great, was born at Cesarea in Cappadocia, in
the year 328. He was one of a family of saints. His father St. Basil,
his mother St. Emmelie, his two brothers St. Gregory of Nyssa and St.
Peter of Sebaste, and his sister St. Macrina, were all distinguished
for their sanctity, and renowned in the Greek calendar. The St.
Basil who takes rank as the second luminary of the Eastern Church,
and whose dogmatical and theological works influenced the faith of
his own age, and consequently of ours, was the greatest of all. But,
notwithstanding his importance in the Greek Church, he figures so
seldom in the productions of Western Art, that I shall content myself
with relating just so much of his life and actions as may render the
few representations of him interesting and intelligible.
He owed his first education to his grandmother St. Macrina the elder, a
woman of singular capacity and attainments, to whom he has in various
parts of his works acknowledged his obligations. For several years
he pursued his studies in profane learning, philosophy, law, and
eloquence, at Constantinople, and afterwards at Athens, where he had
two companions and fellow-students of very opposite character: Gregory
of Nazianzen, afterwards the _Saint_; and Julian, afterwards the
_Apostate_.
The success of the youthful Basil in all his studies, and the
reputation he had obtained as an eloquent pleader, for a time swelled
his heart with vanity, and would have endangered his salvation but
for the influence of his sister, St. Macrina, who in this emergency
preserved him from himself, and elevated his mind to far higher aims
than those of mere worldly science and worldly distinction. From that
period, and he was then not more than twenty-eight, Basil turned
his thoughts solely to the edification of the Christian Church; but
first he spent some years in retreat among the hermits of the desert,
as was the fashion of that day, living, as they did, in abstinence,
poverty, and abstracted study; acknowledging neither country, family,
home, nor friends, nor fortune, nor worldly interests of any kind,
but with his thoughts fixed solely on eternal life in another world.
In these austerities he, as was also usual, consumed and ruined his
bodily health; and remained to the end of his life a feeble wretched
invalid,—a circumstance which was supposed to contribute greatly to
his sanctity. He was ordained priest in 362, and bishop of Cesarea in
370; his ordination on the 14th of June being kept as one of the great
feasts of the Eastern Church.
On the episcopal throne he led the same life of abstinence and humility
as in a cavern of the desert; and contended for the doctrine of the
Trinity against the Arians, but with less of vehemence, and more of
charity, than the other Doctors engaged in the same controversy. The
principal event of his life was his opposition to the Emperor Valens,
who professed Arianism, and required that, in the Church of Cesarea,
Basil should perform the rites according to the custom of the Arians.
The bishop refused: he was threatened with exile, confiscation, death:
he persisted. The emperor, fearing a tumult, resolved to appear in
the church on the day of the Epiphany, but not to communicate. He
came, hoping to overawe the impracticable bishop, surrounded by all
his state, his courtiers, his guards. He found Basil so intent on his
sacred office as to take not the slightest notice of him; those of
the clergy around him continued to chant the service, keeping their
eyes fixed in the profoundest awe and respect on the countenance of
their bishop. Valens, in a situation new to him, became agitated: he
had brought his oblation; he advanced with it; but the ministers at
the altar, not knowing whether Basil would accept it, dared not take
it from his hands. Valens stood there for a moment in sight of all
the people, rejected before the altar,—he lost his presence of mind,
trembled, swooned, and would have fallen to the earth, if one of the
attendants had not received him in his arms. A conference afterwards
took place between Basil and the emperor; but the latter remained
unconverted, and some concessions to the Catholics was all that the
bishop obtained.
St. Basil died in 379, worn out by disease, and leaving behind him many
theological writings. His epistles, above all, are celebrated, not only
as models of orthodoxy, but of style.
Of St. Basil, as of St. Gregory and St. John Chrysostom, we have
the story of the Holy Ghost, in visible form as a dove of wonderful
whiteness, perched on his shoulder, and inspiring his words when he
preached. St. Basil is also celebrated as the founder of Monachism in
the East. He was the first who enjoined the vows of poverty, chastity,
and obedience; and his Rule became the model of all other monastic
Orders. There is, in fact, no other Order in the Greek Church, and when
either monks or nuns appear in a Greek or a Russian picture they must
be Basilicans, and no other: the habit is a plain black tunic with
a cowl, the tunic fastened round the waist with a girdle of cord or
leather. Such is the dress of the Greek caloyer, and it never varies.
* * * * *
The devotional figures of St. Basil represent him, or ought to
represent him, in the Greek pontificals, bareheaded, and with a thin
worn countenance, as he appears in the etching of the Greek Fathers.
* * * * *
‘The Emperor Valens in the church at Cesarea,’ an admirably picturesque
subject, has received as little justice as the scene between Ambrose
and Theodosius. When the French painter Subleyras was at Rome in
1745, he raised himself to name and fame by his portrait of Benedict
XIV.,[295] and received, through the interest of his friend Cardinal
Valenti, the commission to paint a picture for one of the mosaics in
St. Peter’s. The subject selected was the Emperor Valens fainting in
presence of St. Basil. We have all the pomp of the scene:—the altar,
the incense, the richly attired priests on one side; on the other,
the Imperial court. It is not easy to find fault, for the picture is
well drawn, well composed, in the mannered taste of that time; well
coloured, rather tenderly than forcibly; and Lanzi is enthusiastic
in his praise of the draperies; yet, as a whole, it leaves the mind
unimpressed. As usual, the original sketch for this picture far excels
the large composition.[296]
The prayers of St. Basil were supposed by the Armenian Christians,
partly from his sanctity, and partly from his intellectual endowments,
to have a peculiar, almost resistless, power; so that he not only
redeemed souls from purgatory, but even lost angels from the abyss of
hell. ‘On the sixth day of the creation, when the rebellious angels
fell from heaven through that opening in the firmament which the
Armenians call Arocea, and we the Galaxy, one unlucky angel, who had
no participation in their sin, but seems to have been entangled in
the crowd, fell with them.’ (A moral, I presume, on the consequences
of keeping bad company.) ‘And this unfortunate angel was not restored
till he had obtained, it is not said how, the prayers of St. Basil. His
condition meantime, from the sixth day of the creation to the fourth
century of the Christian era, must have been even more uncomfortable
than that of Klopstock’s repentant demon in “The Messiah.”’
* * * * *
There are many other beautiful legendary stories of St. Basil, but,
as I have never met with them in any form of Art, I pass them over
here. One of the most striking has been versified by Southey in his
ballad-poem, ‘All for Love.’ It would afford a great variety of
picturesque subjects.
ST. ATHANASIUS.
_Lat._ S. Athanasius, Pater Orthodoxiæ. _Ital._ Sant’ Atanasio. _Fr._
St. Athanase. (May 2, A.D. 373.)
St. Athanasius, whose famous Creed remains a stumbling-block in
Christendom, was born at Alexandria, about the year 298; he was
consequently the eldest of the Greek Fathers, though he does not in
that Church take the first rank. He, like the others, began his career
by the study of profane literature, science, and eloquence; but, seized
by the religious spirit of the age, he, too, fled to the desert,
and became, for a time, the pupil of St. Anthony. He returned to
Alexandria, and was ordained deacon. His first appearance as a public
character was at the celebrated council of Nice (A.D. 325), where he
opposed Arius and his partisans with so much zeal and eloquence, that
he was thenceforth regarded as the great pillar of orthodoxy. He became
Bishop of Alexandria the following year; and the rest of his life was a
perpetual contest with the Arians. The great schism of the early Church
blazed at this time in the East and in the West, and Athanasius, by his
invincible perseverance and intrepidity, procured the victory for the
Catholic party. He died in 372, after having been Bishop of Alexandria
forty-six years, of which twenty years had been spent in exile and
tribulation.
* * * * *
It is curious that, notwithstanding his fame and his importance in the
Church, St. Athanasius should be, as a patron and a subject of Art,
of all saints the most unpopular. He figures, of course, as one of
the series of Greek Doctors; but I have never met with any separate
representation of him, and I know not any church dedicated to him, nor
any picture representing the vicissitudes of his unquiet life, fraught
as it was with strange reverses and picturesque incidents. Such _may_
exist, but in Western Art, at least, they have never been prominent.
According to the Greek formula, he ought to be represented old,
bald-headed, and with a long white beard, as in the etching.
ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN.
_Gr._ St. Gregory Theologos. _Lat._ S. Gregorius Nazianzenus. _Ital._
San Gregorio Nazianzeno. _Fr._ St. Grégoire de Naziance. _Ger._ St.
Gregor von Nazianz. (May 9, A.D. 390.)
This Doctor, like St. Basil, was one of a family of saints; his father,
St. Gregory, having been bishop of Nazianzus before him; his mother,
St. Nonna, famous for her piety; and two of his sisters, St. Gorgonia
and St. Cesarea, also canonized. Gregory was born about the year 328;
and his mother, who fondly believed that he had been granted to her
prayers, watched over his early education, and guided his first steps
in piety and literature. When a boy, he had a singular dream, which he
has related himself. He beheld in his sleep two virgins of celestial
beauty; they were clothed in white garments, and their faces shone
upon him like two stars out of heaven: they took him in their arms and
kissed him as if he had been their child. He, charmed by their virgin
beauty and their caresses, asked who they were, and whence they came?
One of them replied, ‘I am called Chastity, and my sister here is
Temperance; we come to thee from Paradise, where we stand continually
before the throne of Christ, and taste ineffable delights: come to us,
my son, and dwell with us for ever;’ and having spoken thus, they left
him and flew upwards to heaven. He followed them with longing eyes till
they disappeared, and as he stretched his arms towards them he awoke.
This dream—how natural in a boy educated between a tender mother, who
had shielded him, as only mothers can, against all sinful temptations,
and a lovely and saintly sister!—he regarded as a direct revelation
from heaven: it decided his future life, and he made a vow of perpetual
continence and temperance. Like the other Greek doctors, he began
by the study of profane literature and rhetoric. He went to Athens,
where he formed an enduring friendship with St. Basil, and pursued
his studies with Julian, afterwards Cæsar and Apostate. After leaving
Athens, in his thirtieth year, he was baptized; and, devoting himself
solemnly to the service of God and the study of the Scriptures, like
his friend Basil, he destroyed his health by his austerities and
mortifications: he confesses that they were wholly repugnant to his
nature —a nature sensitive, imaginative, poetical; but this of course
only added to their merit and efficacy. His aged father withdrew
him from his solitude, and ordained him as his coadjutor: in 362 he
succeeded to the bishopric of Nazianzus: but great part of his time
was still spent at Constantinople, whither he was invited to preach
against the Arians. It was a strange spectacle to see, in the capital
of the world, a man, from a distant province and an obscure town, of
small shrunken stature, bald-headed, wrinkled, haggard with vigils and
fasting, poor, ill-clothed, and in his address unpolished and abrupt,
stand up to oppose himself to a luxurious court and prevalent sect.
The people began by stoning him; but at length his earnestness and
eloquence overcame all opposition.
Religious disputes were the fashion at that time in Constantinople,
not merely among the priesthood, but among the laity, the lawyers, and
above all the women, who were heard, in assemblies and at feasts, at
home and abroad, declaiming and arguing on the most abstruse mysteries
of the evangelical doctrine, till they lost temper and modesty:—so
true it is, that there is nothing new under the sun. This was in 378,
and St. Gregory found more difficulty in silencing their squabbles
than in healing the schisms of the Church. He was ordained Bishop of
Constantinople by the favour of Theodosius; but, unable to endure the
odious cabals and uncharitable contests which at that time distracted
and disgraced Christianity, he resigned his sacred office, and retired
to a small paternal estate, where he lived, with his usual self-denial
and austerity, till his death. He composed in his retreat a number of
beautiful poems in his native Greek: he was, in fact, the earliest
Christian poet on record. These poems are not hymns only, but lyrics,
in which he poured forth his soul, his aspirations, his temptations,
his joys, his sufferings, his plaintive supplications to Christ, to
aid him in his perpetual combats against a too vivid imagination, and
feelings and passions which not even age and penance had subdued.
* * * * *
St. Gregory Nazianzen ought to be represented as an old man wasted
by fasting and vigils, with a bald head, a long beard of a reddish
colour, and eyebrows the same. He is always the last in a series of
the Four Greek Fathers, and, though often occurring in Greek Art,
the popularity of St. Gregory the GREAT has completely banished St.
Gregory the POET from Western Art.
There remains, however, a very valuable and singular monument to the
honour of St. Gregory Nazianzen, in the Greek MS. of his sermons
preserved in the Imperial Library at Paris, and adorned with Byzantine
miniatures, which must once have been beautiful and brilliant: ruined
as they are, they present some of the most ancient examples which
remain to us of the treatment of many sacred subjects from the Old and
the New Testament, and give a high idea of the classic taste and the
skill of the Byzantine limners of the ninth century. Besides the sacred
subjects, we have numerous scenes interspersed from the life of Gregory
himself, his friend St. Basil, and the Emperor Theodosius. As these are
subjects which are exceptional, I need not describe them. Of the style
of the miniatures I have already spoken, and given one example (_v._ p.
75).
ST. CYRIL.
_Lat._ S. Cyrillus. _Ital._ San Cirillo. _Fr._ St. Cyrille. (Jan. 28,
A.D. 444.)
St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria from the year 412 to 444, was famous
in his time as deeply engaged in all the contests which disturbed the
early Christian Church. He has left a great number of theological
writings, which are regarded as authority in matters of faith. He,
appears to have been violent against the so-called heresies of that
day, and opposed Nestorius with the same determined zeal and inexorable
firmness with which Athanasius had opposed Arius. The ascendency of
Cyril was disgraced by the death of the famous female mathematician and
philosopher Hypatia, murdered with horrible cruelty, and within the
walls of a church, by the fanatic followers of the Patriarch, if he
did not himself connive at it. He is much more venerated in the Greek
than in the Latin Church. In the Greek representations he is the only
bishop who has his head covered; he wears a veil or hood, coming over
his head, falling down on his shoulders, and the front embroidered with
a cross, as in the illustration.
With the Greek Fathers I conclude the list of those saints who are
generally represented in their collective character, grouped, or in a
series.
St. Mary Magdalene, St. Martha, St. Lazarus, St. Marímín, St.
Marcella, St. Mary of Egypt, and the Beatified Penitents.
ST. MARY MAGDALENE.
_Lat._ Sancta Maria Magdalena. _Ital._ Santa Maria Maddalena. _Fr._
La Madeleine. La Sainte Demoiselle pécheresse. (July 22, A.D. 68.)
Patroness of Provence, of Marseilles, and of frail and penitent women.
Of all the personages who figure in history, in poetry, in art, Mary
Magdalene is at once the most unreal and the most real:—the most
_unreal_, if we attempt to fix her identity, which has been a subject
of dispute for ages; the most _real_, if we consider her as having
been, for ages, recognised and accepted in every Christian heart as the
impersonation of the penitent sinner absolved through faith and love.
In this, her mythic character, she has been surrounded by associations
which have become fixed in the imagination, and which no reasoning,
no array of facts, can dispel. This is not the place to enter into
disputed points of biblical criticism; they are quite beside our
present purpose. Whether Mary Magdalene, ‘out of whom Jesus cast seven
devils,’ Mary of Bethany, and the ‘woman who was a sinner,’ be, as
some authorities assert, three distinct persons, or, as others affirm,
one and the same individual under different designations, remains a
question open to dispute, nothing having been demonstrated on either
side, from Scripture or from tradition; and I cannot presume even to
give an opinion where doctors—and doctors of the Church, too—disagree;
Origen and St. Chrysostom taking one side of the question, St. Clement
and St. Gregory the other. Fleury, after citing the opinions of both
sides, thus beautifully sums up the whole question:—‘Il importe de ne
pas croire témérairement ce que l’Évangile ne dit point, et de ne pas
mettre la religion à suivre aveuglement toutes les opinions populaires:
_la foi est trop précieuse pour la prodiguer ainsi_; mais la charité
l’est encore plus; et ce qui est le plus important, c’est d’éviter
les disputes qui peuvent l’altérer tant soit peu.’ And this is most
true;—in his time the fast hold which the Magdalene had taken of the
affections of the people was not to be shaken by theological researches
and doubts. Here critical accuracy was nothing less than profanation
and scepticism, and to have attacked the sanctity of the Blessed Mary
Magdalene would have embittered and alienated many kindly and many
believing spirits. It is difficult to treat of Mary Magdalene; and
this difficulty would be increased infinitely if it were absolutely
necessary to enter on the much-vexed question of her scriptural
character and identity: one thing only appeals certain,—that such a
person, whatever might have been her veritable appellation, did exist.
The woman who, under the name of Mary Magdalene,—whether that name be
rightfully or wrongfully bestowed,—stands before us, sanctified in the
imagination and in the faith of the people in her combined character
of Sinner and of Saint, as the first-fruits of Christian penitence,—is
a reality, and not a fiction. Even if we would, we cannot do away with
the associations inseparably connected with her name and her image. Of
all those to whom much has been forgiven, she was the first: of all
the tears since ruefully shed at the foot of the cross of suffering,
hers were the first: of all the hopes which the Resurrection has
since diffused through nations and generations of men, hers were the
first. To her sorrowful image how many have looked up through tears,
and blessed the pardoning grace of which she was the symbol—or rather
the impersonation! Of the female saints, some were the chosen patrons
of certain virtues—others of certain vocations; but the accepted and
glorified penitent threw her mantle over all, and more especially over
those of her own sex, who, having gone astray, were recalled from error
and from shame, and laid down their wrongs, their sorrows, and their
sins in trembling humility at the feet of the Redeemer.
Nor is it only the popularity of Mary Magdalene as the representative
and the patroness of repentant sinners which has multiplied her image
through all Christendom. As a subject for painting,
Whether the fair one sinner it or saint it,
it is rich in picturesque capabilities. It combines all that can
inspire, with all that can chasten the fancy; yet, when we review
what has been done, how inadequate the result! In no class of subjects
have the mistakes of the painters, even the most distinguished, been
so conspicuous as in the representation of the penitent Magdalene;
and it must be allowed that, with all its advantages and attractions,
it is a subject full of perils and difficulties. Where the penitent
prevails, the saint appears degraded; where the wasted, unclad form
is seen attenuated by vigils and exposed in haggard unseemliness,
it is a violation of that first great rule of Art which forbids the
repulsive and the painful. And herein lies the fault of the earlier
schools, and particularly of the old Greek and German painters;—their
matter-of-fact ugliness would be intolerable, if not redeemed by the
intention and sentiment. On the other hand, where sensual beauty has
obviously been the paramount idea in the artist’s work, defeating its
holiest purpose and perverting its high significance, the violation of
the moral sentiment is yet more revolting. This is especially the fault
of the later painters, more particularly of the schools of Venice and
Bologna: while the French painters are yet worse, adding affectation to
licentiousness of sentiment; the Abbé Mèry exclaims with reasonable and
pious indignation against that ‘_air de galanterie_’ which in his time
was regarded as characteristic of Mary Magdalene. The ‘larmoyantes’
penitents of Greuze—Magdalenes _à la Pompadour_—are more objectionable
to my taste than those of Rubens.
* * * * *
I shall give the legend of the Magdalene here as it was accepted by the
people, and embodied by the arts, of the middle ages, setting aside
those Eastern traditions which represent the Mary of Bethany and the
Magdalene as distinct personages, and place the death and burial-place
of Mary Magdalene at Ephesus. Our business is with the Western legend,
which has been the authority for Western Art. This legend, besides
attributing to one individual, and blending into one narrative, the
very few scattered notices in the Gospels, has added some other
incidents, inconceivably wild and incredible, leaving her, however,
the invariable attributes of the frail loving woman, the sorrowing
penitent, and the devout enthusiastic saint.
Mary Magdalene was of the district of Magdala, on the shores of the
sea of Galilee, where stood her castle, called Magdalon; she was
the sister of Lazarus and of Martha, and they were the children of
parents reputed noble, or, as some say, of royal race. On the death
of their father, Syrus, they inherited vast riches and possessions
in land, which were equally divided between them. Lazarus betook
himself to the military life; Martha ruled her possessions with great
discretion, and was a model of virtue and propriety,— perhaps a little
too much addicted to worldly cares: Mary, on the contrary, abandoned
herself to luxurious pleasures, and became at length so notorious
for her dissolute life, that she was known through all the country
round only as ‘THE SINNER.’ Her discreet sister, Martha, frequently
rebuked her for these disorders, and at length persuaded her to listen
to the exhortations of Jesus, through which her heart was touched
and converted. The seven demons which possessed her, and which were
expelled by the power of the Lord, were the seven deadly sins to which
she was given over before her conversion. On one occasion Martha
entertained the Saviour in her house, and, being anxious to feast him
worthily, she was ‘cumbered with much serving.’ Mary, meanwhile, sat
at the feet of Jesus, and heard his words, which completed the good
work of her conversion; and when, some time afterwards, he supped
in the house of Simon the Pharisee, she followed him thither, ‘and
she brought an alabaster box of ointment, and began to wash his feet
with tears, and did wipe them with the hair of her head, and kissed
his feet, and anointed them with ointment; and He said unto her, Thy
sins are forgiven.’ She became afterwards one of the most devoted of
his followers; ‘ministered to him of her substance;’ attended him to
Calvary, and stood weeping at the foot of the cross. She, with the
other Mary, watched by his tomb, and was the first to whom he appeared
after the resurrection; her unfaltering faith, mingled as it was with
the intensest grief and love, obtained for her this peculiar mark of
favour. It is assumed by several commentators that our Saviour appeared
first to Mary Magdalene because she, of all those whom he had left on
earth, had most need of consolation:—‘_The disciples went away to their
own home; but Mary stood without the sepulchre, weeping._’
* * * * *
Thus far the notices in the Gospel and the suggestions of
commentators: the old Provençal legend then continues the story. After
the ascension, Lazarus with his two sisters, Martha and Mary; with
Maximin, one of the seventy-two disciples, from whom they had received
baptism; Cedon, the blind man whom our Saviour had restored to sight;
and Marcella, the handmaiden who attended on the two sisters, were by
the heathens set adrift in a vessel without sails, oars, or rudder;
but, guided by Providence, they were safely borne over the sea till
they landed in a certain harbour which proved to be Marseilles, in the
country now called France. The people of the land were pagans, and
refused to give the holy pilgrims food or shelter; so they were fain to
take refuge under the porch of a temple; and Mary Magdalene preached to
the people, reproaching them for their senseless worship of dumb idols;
and though at first they would not listen, yet being after a time
convinced by her eloquence, and by the miracles performed by her and by
her sister, they were converted and baptized. And Lazarus became, after
the death of the good Maximin, the first bishop of Marseilles.
These things being accomplished, Mary Magdalene retired to a desert
not far from the city. It was a frightful barren wilderness, in the
midst of horrid rocks and caves: and here for thirty years she devoted
herself to solitary penance for the sins of her past life, which she
had never ceased to bewail bitterly. During this long seclusion, she
was never seen or heard of, and it was supposed that she was dead.
She fasted so rigorously, that but for the occasional visits of the
angels, and the comfort bestowed by celestial visions, she must have
perished. Every day during the last years of her penance, the angels
came down from heaven and carried her up in their arms into regions
where she was ravished by the sounds of unearthly harmony, and beheld
the glory and the joy prepared for the sinner that repenteth. One day
a certain hermit, who dwelt in a cell on one of those wild mountains,
having wandered farther than usual from his home, beheld this wondrous
vision—the Magdalene in the arms of ascending angels, who were singing
songs of triumph as they bore her upwards; and the hermit, when he
had a little recovered from his amazement, returned to the city of
Marseilles, and reported what he had seen. According to some of the
legends, Mary Magdalene died within the walls of the Christian church,
after receiving the sacrament from the hand of St. Maximin; but the
more popular accounts represent her as dying in her solitude, while
angels watched over and ministered to her.
* * * * *
The middle of the thirteenth century was an era of religious excitement
all over the south of Europe. A sudden fit of penitence—‘una subita
compunzione,’ as an Italian author calls it—seized all hearts; relics
and pilgrimages, and penances and monastic ordinances, filled all
minds. About this period, certain remains, supposed to be those of Mary
Magdalene and Lazarus, were discovered at a place since called St.
Maximin, about twenty miles north of Toulon. The discovery strongly
excited the devotion and enthusiasm of the people; and a church was
founded on the spot by Charles, Count of Provence (the brother of
St. Louis), as early as 1279. A few years afterwards, this prince
was vanquished and taken prisoner by the king of Aragon, and when at
length set free after a long captivity, he ascribed his deliverance
particularly to the intercession of his chosen patroness, Mary
Magdalene. This incident greatly extended her fame as a saint of power;
and from this time we may date her popularity, and those sculptural
and pictorial representations of her, under various aspects, which,
from the fourteenth century to the present time, have so multiplied,
that scarcely any Catholic place of worship is to be found without her
image. In fact, it is difficult for us, in these days, to conceive,
far more difficult to sympathise with, the passionate admiration and
devotion with which she was regarded by her votaries in the middle
ages. The imputed sinfulness of her life only brought her nearer to
them. Those who did not dare to lift up their eyes to the more saintly
models of purity and holiness,—to the martyrs who had suffered in
the cause of chastity,—took courage to invoke her intercession. The
extravagant titles bestowed upon her in the middle ages—‘_l’amante
de Jésus-Christ_,’ ‘_la bien-aimée du Sauveur_,’ ‘_la très-saincte
demoiselle pécheresse_,’—and others which I should hardly dare to
transcribe, show the spirit in which she was worshipped, particularly
in the south of France, and the kind of chivalrous sentiment which
mingled with the devotion of her adorers. I found in an old French
sermon a eulogium of Mary Magdalene, which for its eloquence and
ingenuity seems to me without a parallel. The preacher, while
acknowledging the excesses which brought her a penitent to the feet of
Christ, is perfectly scandalised that she should be put on a par with
common sinners of the same class, and that on the faith of a passage in
St. Luke, ‘on a osé flétrir une des plus belles âmes qui soient jamais
sorties des mains du Créateur!’ He rather glorifies her as a kind of
Aspasia, to whom, indeed, he in a manner compares her.[297]
The traditional scene of the penance of the Magdalene, a wild spot
between Toulon and Marseilles, is the site of a famous convent called
La Sainte Beaume (which in the Provençal tongue signifies _Holy Cave_),
formerly a much frequented place of pilgrimage. It is built on the
verge of a formidable precipice; near it is the grotto in which the
saint resided; and to Mount Pilon, a rocky point about six hundred feet
above the grotto, the angels bore her seven times a day to pray. This
convent was destroyed and pillaged at the commencement of the French
Revolution. It was filled with relics and works of art, referring to
the life and the worship of the Magdalene.
But the most sumptuous fane ever erected to her special honour is that
which, of late years, has arisen in the city of Paris. The church, or
rather the temple, of La Madeleine stands an excelling monument, if not
of modern piety, at least of modern Art. It is built on the model of
the temple of Jupiter at Athens:—
That noble type is realised again
In perfect form; and dedicate—to whom?
To a poor Syrian girl of lowliest name—
A hapless creature, pitiful and frail
As ever wore her life in sin and shame!
R. M. MILNES.
The saint, whether she were ‘the lowly Syrian girl’ or the ‘Princess of
Magdala,’ would be equally astonished to behold herself thus honoured
with a sort of pagan magnificence in the midst of a luxurious capital,
and by a people more remarkable for scoffing than for praying. Even in
the successive vicissitudes of this splendid edifice there is something
strange. That which is now the temple of the lowly penitent was, a few
years ago, _Le Temple de la Gloire_.
Let us now turn to those characteristic representations with which
painting and sculpture have made us familiar, and for which both
Scripture and legendary tradition have furnished the authority and the
groundwork. These are so numerous and so infinitely varied that I find
it necessary here, as in the case of St. Jerome, to arrange them under
several heads.
The devotional representations may be divided into two classes. 1.
Those which represent the Magdalene as patron saint. 2. Those which
represent her penitence in the desert.
The historical subjects may also be divided into two classes. 1. Those
scenes from Gospel story in which Mary Magdalene figures as a chief or
conspicuous personage. 2. The scenes taken from her legendary life.
In all these subjects the accompanying attribute is the alabaster box
of ointment; which has a double significance: it may be the perfume
which she poured over the feet of the Saviour, or the balm and spices
which she had prepared to anoint his body. Sometimes she carries it in
her hand, sometimes it stands at her feet, or near her; frequently, in
later pictures, it is borne by an attendant angel. The shape varies
with the fancy of the artist; it is a small vase, a casket, a box, a
cup with a cover; more or less ornamented, more or less graceful in
form; but always there—the symbol at once of her conversion and her
love, and so peculiar that it can leave no doubt of her identity.
Her drapery in the ancient pictures is usually red, to express the
fervour of her love; in modern representations, and where she figures
as penitent, it is either blue or violet; violet, the colour of
mourning and penitence—blue, the colour of constancy. To express both
the love and the sorrow, she sometimes wears a violet-coloured tunic
and a red mantle. The luxuriant hair ought to be fair or golden.
Dark-haired Magdalenes, as far as I can remember, belong exclusively to
the Spanish school.
1. When exhibited to us as the patron saint of repentant sinners, Mary
Magdalene is sometimes a thin wasted figure with long dishevelled hair,
of a pale golden hue, falling over her shoulders almost to the ground;
sometimes a skin or a piece of linen is tied round her loins, but not
seldom her sole drapery is her long redundant hair. The most ancient
single figure of this character to which I can refer is an old picture
in the Byzantine manner, as old perhaps as the thirteenth century, and
now in the Academy at Florence. She is standing as patroness, covered
only by her long hair, which falls in dark brown masses to her feet:
the colour, I imagine, was originally much lighter. She is a meagre,
haggard, grim-looking figure, and holds in her hand a scroll, on which
is inscribed in ancient Gothic letters—
Ne despectetis
Vos qui peccare soletis
Exemplo meo
Vos reparate Deo.[298]
Rude and unattractive as is this specimen of ancient Art, I could not
look at it without thinking how often it must have spoken hope and
peace to the soul of the trembling sinner, in days when it hung, not in
a picture-gallery to be criticised, but in a shrine to be worshipped.
Around this figure, in the manner of the old altar-pieces, are six
small square compartments containing scenes from her life.
[Illustration: 91 Mary Magdalene (Donatello)]
The famous statue carved in wood by Donatello, in point of character
may be referred to this class of subjects: she stands over her altar
in the Baptistery at Florence, with clasped hands, the head raised
in prayer; the form is very expressive of wasting grief and penance,
but too meagre for beauty. ‘_Egli, la volle specchio alle penitenti,
non incitamento alla cupidizia degli sguardi, come avenne ad altri
artisti_,’ says Cicognara; and, allowing that beauty has been
sacrificed to expression, he adds, ‘but if Donatello had done all,
what would have remained for Canova?’ That which remained for Canova
to do, he has done; he has made her as lovely as possible, and he has
dramatised the sentiment: she is more the penitent than the patron
saint. The display of the beautiful limbs is chastened by the humility
of the attitude—half kneeling, half prostrate; by the expression of the
drooping head—‘all sorrow’s softness charmed from its despair.’ Her
eyes are fixed on the cross which lies extended on her knees; and she
weeps—not so much her own past sins, as the sacrifice it has cost to
redeem them. This is the prevailing sentiment, or, as the Germans would
call it, the _motive_ of the representation, to which I should feel
inclined to object as deficient in dignity and severity, and bordering
too much on the _genre_ and dramatic style: but the execution is almost
faultless. Very beautiful is another modern statue of the penitent
Magdalene, executed in marble for the Count d’Espagnac, by M. Henri de
Triqueti. She is half seated, half reclining on a fragment of rock, and
pressing to her bosom a crown of thorns, at once the mourner and the
penitent: the sorrow is not for herself alone.
[Illustration: 92 Mary Magdalene (Lucas v. Leyden)]
But, in her character of patron saint, Mary Magdalene was not always
represented with the squalid or pathetic attributes of humiliation and
penance. She became idealised as a noble dignified creature bearing no
traces of sin or of sorrow on her beautiful face; her luxuriant hair
bound in tresses round her head; her drapery rich and ample; the vase
of ointment in her hand or at her feet, or borne by an angel near her.
Not unfrequently she is attired with the utmost magnificence, either
in reference to her former state of worldly prosperity, or rather,
perhaps, that with the older painters, particularly those of the
German school, it was a common custom to clothe all the ideal figures
of female saints in rich habits. In the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries such representations of the Magdalene are usual both in
Italian and German Art. A beautiful instance may be seen in a picture
by Signorelli, in the Cathedral of Orvieto, where she is standing
in a landscape, her head uncovered, and the rich golden hair partly
braided, partly flowing over her shoulders; she wears a magnificent
tunic embroidered with gold, over it a flowing mantle descending to her
feet; she holds the vase with her left hand, and points to it with her
right. If it were not for the saintly aureole encircling her head, this
figure, and others similar to it, might be mistaken for Pandora. See,
for example, the famous print by Lucas v. Leyden, where she stands on
clouds with an embroidered coif and flowing mantle, holding the vase in
her left hand, and lifting the cover with her right (in the sketch it
is reversed): and in the half-length by Leonardo, or one of his school.
The want of a religious sentiment gives such figures a very heathen
and _Pandora_ look, so that the aureole alone fixes the identity. This
is not the case with a noble Magdalene by Dennis Calvert, in the
Manfrini Palace at Venice. She is standing in a fine bold landscape;
one hand sustains her ample crimson drapery, the other holds her vase;
her fair hair falls in masses over her shoulders, and she looks down
on her worshippers with a serious dignified compassion. This is one of
the finest pictures of the later Bologna school, finer and truer in
sentiment than any of the Caracci and Guido Magdalenes.
In this her wholly divine and ideal character of saint and intercessor,
Mary Magdalene is often most beautifully introduced as standing near
the throne of the Virgin, or as grouped with other saints. In two of
the most famous pictures in the world she is thus represented. In the
St. Cecilia of Raphael, she stands on the left, St. Paul being on
the right of the principal figure; they are here significant of the
conversion of the man through _power_, of the woman through _love_,
from a state of reprobation to a state of reconcilement and grace. St.
Paul leans in deep meditation on his sword. Mary Magdalene is habited
in ample drapery of blue and violet, which she sustains with one hand,
and bears the vase in the other. She looks out of the picture with
a benign countenance and a particularly graceful turn of the head.
Raphael’s original design for this picture (engraved by Marc Antonio)
is, however, preferable in the sentiment given to the Magdalene: she
does not look _out_ of the picture, but she looks _up_: _she_ also
hears the divine music which has ravished St. Cecilia. In the picture
she is either unconscious or inattentive.
In the not less celebrated St. Jerome of Correggio she is on the
left of the Madonna, bending down with an expression of the deepest
adoration to kiss the feet of the infant Christ, while an angel behind
holds up the vase of ointment: thus recalling to our minds, and
shadowing forth in the most poetical manner, that memorable act of
love and homage rendered at the feet of the Saviour. Parmigiano has
represented her, in a Madonna picture, as standing on one side, and
the prophet Isaiah on the other. Lord Ashburton has a fine picture by
Correggio, in which we have the same ideal representation: she is here
grouped with St. Peter, St. Margaret, and St. Leonardo.
There are two classes of subjects in which Mary Magdalene is richly
habited, and which must be carefully distinguished; those above
described, in which she figures as patron saint, and those which
represent her _before_ her conversion, as the votary of luxury and
pleasure. In the same manner we must be careful to distinguish those
figures of the penitent Magdalene which are wholly devotional in
character and intention, and which have been described in the first
class, from those which represent her in the act of doing penance, and
which are rather dramatic and sentimental than devotional.
* * * * *
2. The penance of the Magdalene is a subject which has become, like the
penance of St. Jerome, a symbol of Christian penitence, but still more
endeared to the popular imagination by more affecting and attractive
associations, and even more eminently picturesque,—so tempting to the
artists, that by their own predilection for it they have assisted in
making it universal. In the display of luxuriant female forms, shadowed
(not hidden) by redundant fair hair, and flung in all the _abandon_
of solitude, amid the depth of leafy recesses, or relieved by the
dark umbrageous rocks; in the association of love and beauty with the
symbols of death and sorrow and utter humiliation; the painters had
ample scope, ample material, for the exercise of their imagination, and
the display of their skill: and what has been the result? They have
abused these capabilities even to licence; they have exhausted the
resources of Art in the attempt to vary the delineation; and yet how
seldom has the ideal of this most exquisite subject been—I will not say
realised—but even approached? We have Magdalenes who look as if they
never could have sinned, and others who look as if they never could
have repented; we have Venetian Magdalenes with the air of courtesans,
and Florentine Magdalenes with the air of Ariadnes; and Bolognese
Magdalenes like sentimental Niobes; and French Magdalenes, _moitié
galantes_, _moitié dévotes_; and Dutch Magdalenes, who wring their
hands like repentant washerwomen. The Magdalenes of Rubens remind us of
nothing so much as of the ‘unfortunate Miss Bailey;’ and the Magdalenes
of Van Dyck are fine ladies who have turned Methodists. But Mary
Magdalene, such as we have conceived her, mournful yet hopeful,—tender
yet dignified,—worn with grief and fasting, yet radiant with the glow
of love and faith, and clothed with the beauty of holiness,—is an ideal
which painting has not yet realised. Is it beyond the reach of Art? We
might have answered this question, had Raphael attempted it;—but he has
not. His Magdalene at the feet of Christ is yet unforgiven—the forlorn
castaway, not the devout penitent.
The Magdalene doing penance in her rocky desert first became a popular
subject in the sixteenth century; in the seventeenth it was at the
height of favour. There are two distinct versions of the subject,
infinitely varied as to detail and sentiment: either she is represented
as bewailing her sins, or as reconciled to Heaven.
In the former treatment she lies prostrate on the earth, or she is
standing or kneeling at the entrance of the cave (in some of the old
illuminated missals the upper part of her body is seen emerging from a
cave, or rather a hole in the ground), the hands clasped, or extended
towards heaven; the eyes streaming with tears; the long yellow hair
floating over the shoulders. The crucifix, the skull, and sometimes the
scourge, are introduced as emblems of faith, mortality, and penance;
weeping angels present a crown of thorns.
In the latter treatment she is reading or meditating; the expression
is serene or hopeful; a book lies beside the skull; angels present the
palm, or scatter flowers; a vision of glory is seen in the skies.
The alabaster box is in all cases the indispensable attribute. The eyes
are usually raised, if not in grief, in supplication or in aspiration.
The ‘uplifted eye’ as well as the ‘loose hair’ became a characteristic;
but there are some exceptions. The conception of character and
situation, which was at first simple, became more and more picturesque,
and at length theatrical—a mere vehicle for sentiment and attitude.
1. The earliest example I can remember of the Penitent Magdalene,
_dramatically_ treated, remains as yet unsurpassed,—the reading
Magdalene of Correggio, in the Dresden Gallery. This lovely creation
has only one fault the virginal beauty is that of a Psyche or a
Seraph. In Oelenschläger’s drama of ‘Correggio,’ there is a beautiful
description of this far-famed picture; he calls it ‘Die Gottinn des
Waldes Frömmigkeit,’—the goddess of the religious solitude. And in
truth, if we could imagine Diana reading instead of hunting, she might
have looked thus. Oelenschläger has made poetical use of the tradition
that Correggio painted this Magdalene for a poor monk who was his
confessor or physician; and thus he makes Silvestro comment on the
work:—
What a fair picture!—
This dark o’erhanging shade, the long fair hair,
The delicate white skin, the azure robe,
The full luxuriant life, the grim death’s head,
The tender womanhood, and the great book:—
These various contrasts have you cunningly
Brought into sweetest harmony.
But truer, at least nobler in sentiment, is the Magdalene by the
same painter (in the Manfrini Palace, Venice), of the same size and
similarly draped in dark blue; but here _standing_ at the entrance of
her cave. She leans her elbow on the book which lies on the rock, and
appears to be meditating on its contents. The head, seen in front, is
grand and earnest, with a mass of fair hair, a large wide brow, and
deep, deep eyes full of mystery. The expression of power in this head
pleases me especially, because true to the character, as I conceive it.
Doch ist es schön von einem Weibe, mein’ ich,
Einmal gefallen wieder sich zu heben;
Es gibt sehr wen’ge Männer, die das können!
Yes! it is good to see a hapless woman,
That once has fallen, redeem herself! In truth,
There be few men, methinks, could do as much.
_Correggio_, Act i. Scene 1.
I do not know why this lovely Manfrini picture should be so much
less celebrated than the Dresden Magdalene: while the latter has
been multiplied by copies and engravings, I do not remember a single
print after the Manfrini Magdalene. There is a bad feeble copy in the
Louvre;[299] I know no other.
2. There is a celebrated picture by Timoteo della Vite, in the Bologna
Gallery. She is standing before the entrance of her cavern, arrayed
in a crimson mantle; her long hair is seen beneath descending to her
feet; the hands joined in prayer, the head declined on one side, and
the whole expression that of girlish innocence and simplicity, with
a touch of the pathetic. A mendicant, not a Magdalene, is the idea
suggested; and, for myself, I confess that at the first glance I was
reminded of the little Red-Riding-Hood, and could think of no sin
that could have been attributed to such a face and figure, beyond the
breaking of a pot of butter: yet the picture is very beautiful.
[Illustration: 93 Mary Magdalene (Timoteo della Vite)]
3. The Magdalene of Titian was so celebrated in his own time, that
he painted at least five or six repetitions of it, and copies and
engravings have since been multiplied. The eyes, swimming in tears,
are raised to heaven; the long dishevelled hair floats over her
shoulders; one hand is pressed on her bosom, the other rests on
the skull; the forms are full and round, the colouring rich; a book
and a box of ointment lie before her on a fragment of rock. She is
sufficiently woeful, but seems rather to regret her past life than
to repent of it, nor is there anything in the expression which can
secure us against a relapse. Titian painted the original for Charles V.
His idea of the _pose_ was borrowed, as we are told, from an antique
statue, and his model was a young girl, who being fatigued with long
standing, the tears ran down her face, and Titian attained the desired
expression.’(!) His idea therefore of St. Mary Magdalene was the
fusion of an antique statue and a girl taken out of the streets; and
with all its beauties as a work of art—and very beautiful it is—this
_chef-d’œuvre_ of Titian is, to my taste, most unsatisfactory.
4. Cigoli’s Magdalene is seated on a rock, veiled _only_ by her long
hair, which falls over the whole figure; the eyes, still wet with
tears, are raised to heaven; one arm is round a skull, the right hand
rests on a book which is on her knees.
5. The Magdalene of Carlo Cignani, veiled in her dishevelled hair, and
wringing her hands, is also most affecting for the fervent expression
of sorrow; both these are in the Florence Gallery.[300]
6. Guido, regarded as the painter of Magdalenes _par excellence_, has
carried this mistake yet farther; he had ever the classical Niobe
in his mind, and his saintly penitents, with all their exceeding
loveliness, appear to me utterly devoid of that beauty which has been
called ‘the beauty of holiness;’ the reproachful grandeur of the Niobe
is diluted into voluptuous feebleness; the tearful face, with the loose
golden hair and uplifted eyes, of which he has given us at least ten
repetitions, however charming as art—as painting, are unsatisfactory
as religious representations. I cannot except even the beautiful study
in our National Gallery, nor the admired full-length in the Sciarra
Palace, at Rome; the latter, when I saw it last, appeared to me poor
and mannered, and the pale colouring not merely delicate, but vapid.
A head of Mary Magdalene reading, apparently a study from life, is,
however, in a grand style.[301]
[Illustration: 94 Mary Magdalene (Murillo)]
7. Murillo’s Magdalene, in the Louvre, kneeling, with hands crossed
on her bosom, eyes upraised, and parted lips, has eager devout hope
as well as sorrow in the countenance. 8. But turn to the Magdalene of
Alonzo Cano, which hangs near: drooping, negligent of self; the very
hands are nerveless, languid, dead.[302] Nothing but woe, guilt, and
misery are in the face and attitude: _she_ has not yet looked into the
face of Christ, nor sat at his feet, nor heard from his lips, ‘Woman,
thy sins be forgiven thee,’ nor dared to hope; it is the penitent only:
the whole head is faint, and the whole heart sick. 9. But the beautiful
Magdalene of Annibal Caracci has heard the words of mercy; _she_ has
memories which are not of sin only; angelic visions have already come
to her in that wild solitude: she is seated at the foot of a tree;
she leans her cheek on her right hand, the other rests on a skull;
she is in deep contemplation; but her thoughts are not of death: the
upward ardent look is full of hope, and faith, and love. The fault of
this beautiful little picture lies in the sacrifice of the truth of
the situation to the artistic feeling of beauty—the common fault of
the school; the forms are large, round, full, untouched by grief and
penance.
[Illustration: 95 Mary Magdalene (Annibal Caracci)]
10. Vandyck’s Magdalenes have the same fault as his Madonnas; they are
not feeble nor voluptuous, but they are too elegant and ladylike. I
remember, for example, a Deposition by Vandyck, and one of his finest
pictures, in which Mary Magdalene kisses the hand of the Saviour
quite with the air of a princess. The most beautiful of his penitent
Magdalenes is the half-length figure with the face in profile,
bending with clasped hands over the crucifix; the skull and knotted
scourge lie on a shelf of rock behind; underneath is the inscription,
‘_Fallit gratia, et vana est pulchritudo; mulier timens Dominum ipsa
laudabitur_.’ (Prov. xxxi. 30.) 11. Rubens has given us thirteen
Magdalenes, more or less coarse; in one picture[303] she is tearing her
hair like a disappointed virago; in another, the expression of grief
is overpowering, but it is that of a woman in the house of correction.
From this sweeping condemnation I must make one exception; it is the
picture known as ‘The Four Penitents.’[304] In front the Magdalene
bows down her head on her clasped hands with such an expression of
profound humility as Rubens only, when painting out of nature and
his own heart, could give. Christ, with an air of tender yet sublime
compassion, looks down upon her:—‘Thy sins be forgiven thee!’ Behind
Christ and the Magdalene stand Peter, David, and Didymus, the penitent
thief; the faces of these three, thrown into shadow to relieve the
two principal figures, have a self-abased, mournful expression. I
have never seen anything from the hand of Rubens at once so pure and
pathetic in sentiment as this picture, while the force and truth of the
painting are, as usual, wonderful. No one should judge Rubens who has
not studied him in the Munich Gallery.
* * * * *
The HISTORICAL SUBJECTS from the life of Mary Magdalene are either
scriptural or legendary; and the character of the Magdalene, as
conceived by the greatest painters, is more distinctly expressed in
those scriptural scenes in which she is an important figure, than in
the single and ideal representations. The illuminated Gospels of the
ninth century furnish the oldest type of Mary, the penitent and the
sister of Lazarus, but it differs from the modern conception of the
Magdalene. She is in such subjects a secondary scriptural personage,
one of the accessories in the history of Christ, and nothing more: no
attempt was made to give her importance, either by beauty, or dignity,
or prominence of place, till the end of the thirteenth century.
The sacred subjects in which she is introduced are the following:—
1. Jesus at supper with Simon the Pharisee.—‘And she began to wash
his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hair of her head, and
kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment.’ (Luke vii. 30.)
2. Christ is in the house of Martha and Mary.—‘And she sat at Jesus’
feet, and heard his words; but Martha was cumbered with much serving.’
(Luke x. 39, 40.)
3. The Raising of Lazarus.—‘Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother
had not died.’ (John xi. 32.)
4. The Crucifixion.—‘Now there stood by the cross Mary Magdalene.’
(John xix. 25; Matt. xxvii. 56.)
5. The Deposition from the Cross.—‘And Mary Magdalene, and the mother
of Jesus, beheld where he was laid.’ (Mark xv. 47.)
6. The Maries at the Sepulchre.—‘And there was Mary Magdalene and the
other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.’ (Matt. xxvii. 61.)
7. Christ appears to Mary Magdalene in the Garden, called the _Noli me
tangere_.—‘Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father.’ (John
xx. 17.)
In the first, second, and last of these subjects, the Magdalene is
one of the two principal figures, and necessary to the action; in the
others she is generally introduced, but in some instances omitted; and
as all belong properly to the life of Christ, I shall confine myself
now to a few remarks on the characteristic treatment of the Magdalene
in each.
1. The supper with Simon has been represented in every variety of
style. The earliest and simplest I can call to mind is the fresco of
Taddeo Gaddi in the Rinuccini Chapel at Florence. The Magdalene bends
down prostrate on the feet of the Saviour; she is in a red dress, and
her long yellow hair flows down her back; the seven devils by which
she was possessed are seen above, flying out of the roof of the house
in the shape of little black monsters. Raphael, when treating the same
subject, thought only of the religious significance of the action, and
how to express it with the utmost force and the utmost simplicity.
There are few figures—our Saviour, the Pharisee, four apostles, and two
attendants: Mary Magdalene, in front, bends over the feet of Christ,
while her long hair half conceals her face and almost sweeps the
ground; nothing can exceed the tenderness and humility of the attitude
and the benign dignity of Christ. As an example of the most opposite
treatment, let us turn to the gorgeous composition of Paul Veronese; we
have a stately banquet-room, rich architecture, a crowd of about thirty
figures; and the Magdalene is merely a beautiful female with loose
robes, dishevelled tresses, and the bosom displayed: this gross fault
of sentiment is more conspicuous in the large picture in the Durazzo
Palace at Genoa than in the beautiful finished sketch in the collection
of Mr. Rogers.[305] A fine sketch by the same painter, but quite
different, is at Alton Towers. The composition of Rubens, of which a
very fine sketch is in the Windsor collection, is exceedingly dramatic:
the dignity of Christ and the veneration and humility of the Magdalene
are admirably expressed; but the disdainful surprise of some of the
assistants, and the open mockery of others,—the old man in spectacles
peering over to convince himself of the truth,—disturb the solemnity of
the feeling: and this fault is even more apparent in the composition
of Philippe de Champagne, where a young man puts up his finger with
no equivocal expression. In these two examples the moment chosen is
not ‘_Thy sins are forgiven thee_,’ but the scepticism of the Pharisee
becomes the leading idea: ‘_This man, if he were a prophet, would have
known who and what manner of woman this is._’
2. Christ in the house of Martha and Mary. Of this beautiful subject
I have never seen a satisfactory version; in the fresco by Taddeo
Gaddi in the Rinuccini Chapel the subject becomes legendary rather
than scriptural. Mary Magdalene is seated at the feet of Christ in
an attitude of attention; Martha seems to expostulate; three of
the disciples are behind; a little out of the principal group, St.
Marcella, also with a glory round her head, is seen cooking. At Hampton
Court there is a curious picture of this subject by Hans Vries, which
is an elaborate study of architecture: the rich decoration of the
interior has been criticised; but, according to the legend, Martha
and Mary lived in great splendour; and there is no impropriety in
representing their dwelling as a palace, but a very great impropriety
in rendering the decorations of the palace more important than the
personages of the scene. In a picture by Old Bassano, Christ is seen
entering the house; Mary Magdalene goes forward to meet him; Martha
points to the table where Lazarus sits composedly cutting a slice of
sausage, and in the corner St. Marcella is cooking at a fire. In a
picture by Rubens, the treatment is similar. The holy sisters are like
two Flemish farm servants, and Christ—but I dare not proceed:—in both
these instances, the colouring, the expression, the painting of the
accessories—the vegetables and fruit, the materials and implements for
cooking a feast—are as animated and true to nature as the conception of
the whole scene is trivial, vulgar, and, to a just taste, intolerably
profane.
One of the most modern compositions of this scene which has attracted
attention is that of Overbeck, very simple and poetical, but deficient
in individual expression.
3. The raising of Lazarus was selected by the early Christians as an
emblem, both of the general resurrection, and the resurrection of our
Saviour, at a time that the resurrection of the Saviour in person
was considered a subject much too solemn and mysterious to be dealt
with by the imitative arts. In its primitive signification, as the
received emblem of the resurrection of the dead, we find this subject
abounding in the catacombs, and on the sarcophagi of the third and
fourth centuries. The usual manner of representation shows the dead man
swathed like a mummy, under the porch of a temple resembling a tomb,
to which there is an ascent by a flight of steps. Christ stands before
him, and touches him with a wand. Sometimes there are two figures only,
but in general Mary Magdalene is kneeling by. There is one instance
only in which Christ stands surrounded by the apostles, and the two
sisters are kneeling at his feet:—‘Lord, hadst thou been here, my
brother had not died.’[306]
In more modern Art this subject loses its mystic signification, and
becomes simply a scriptural incident. It is treated like a scene in a
drama, and the painters have done their utmost to vary the treatment.
But, however varied as regards the style of conception and the number
of personages, Martha and Mary are always present, and, in general,
Mary is at the feet of our Saviour. The incident is of course one of
the most important in the life of Christ, and is never omitted in the
series, nor yet in the miracles of our Saviour. But, from the beginning
of the fourteenth century, it forms one of the scenes of the story of
Mary Magdalene. The fresco of Giovanni da Milano at Assisi contains
thirteen figures, and the two sisters kneeling at the feet of Christ
have a grand and solemn simplicity; but Mary is not here in any respect
distinguished from Martha, and both are attired in red.
In the picture in our National Gallery, the kneeling figure of Mary
looking up in the face of Jesus, with her grand severe beauty and
earnest expression, is magnificent: but here, again, Mary of Bethany
is not Mary Magdalene, nor the woman ‘who was a sinner;’ and I doubt
whether Michael Angelo intended to represent her as such. On the
other hand, the Caracci, Rubens, and the later painters are careful
to point out the supposed identity, by the long fair hair, exposed
and dishevelled, the superior beauty and the superior prominence and
importance of the figure, while Martha stands by, veiled, and as a
secondary personage.
* * * * *
4. In the Crucifixion, where more than the three figures (the Redeemer,
the Virgin, and St. John) are introduced, the Magdalene is almost
always at the foot of the cross, and it is said that Giotto gave the
first example. Sometimes she is embracing the cross, and looking up
with all the abandonment of despairing grief, which is more picturesque
than true in sentiment; finer in feeling is the expression of serene
hope tempering the grief. In Rubens’ famous ‘Crucifixion’ at Antwerp,
she has her arms round the cross, and is gazing at the executioner with
a look of horror: this is very dramatic and striking, but the attention
of the penitent ought to be fixed on the dying Saviour, to the
exclusion of every other thought or object. In Vandyck’s ‘Crucifixion,’
the face of the Magdalene seen in front is exquisite for its pathetic
beauty. Sometimes the Virgin is fainting in her arms. The box of
ointment is frequently placed near, to distinguish her from the other
Maries present.
* * * * *
5. In the Descent or Deposition from the Cross, and in the Entombment,
Mary Magdalene is generally conspicuous. She is often supporting
the feet or one of the hands of the Saviour; or she stands by
weeping; or she sustains the Virgin; or (which is very usual in the
earlier pictures) she is seen lamenting aloud, with her long tresses
disordered, and her arms outspread in an ecstasy of grief and passion;
or she bends down to embrace the feet of the Saviour, or to kiss his
hand; or contemplates with a mournful look one of the nails, or the
crown of thorns, which she holds in her hand.
In the Pietà, of Fra Bartolomeo, in the Pitti Palace, the prostrate
abandonment in the figure of the Magdalene, pressing the feet of Christ
to her bosom, is full of pathetic expression; in the same gallery is
the Pietà by Andrea del Sarto, where the Magdalene, kneeling, wrings
her hands in mute sorrow. But in this, as in other instances, Raphael
has shown himself supreme: there is a wonderful little drawing by him,
in which Nicodemus and others sustain the body of the Saviour, while
Mary Magdalene lies prostrate bending her head over his feet, which she
embraces; the face is wholly concealed by the flowing hair, but never
was the expression of overwhelming love and sorrow conveyed with such
artless truth.
6. The Maries at the Sepulchre. The women who carry the spices
and perfumes to the tomb of Jesus are called, in Greek Art, the
_Myrrhophores_, or myrrh-bearers: with us there are usually three,
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and John, and Mary Salome. In
Matthew, two women are mentioned; in Mark, three; in Luke, the number
is indefinite; and in John, only one is mentioned, Mary Magdalene.
There is scarcely a more beautiful subject in the whole circle of
Scripture story than this of the three desolate affectionate women
standing before the tomb in the grey dawn, while the majestic angels
are seen guarding the hallowed spot. I give, as one of the earliest
examples, a sketch from the composition of Duccio: the rules of
perspective were then unknown,—but what a beautiful simplicity in the
group of women! how fine the seated angel!—‘The angel of the Lord
descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door
and sat upon it.’ I have seen one instance, and only one, in which the
angel is in the act of descending; in general, the version according
to St. John is followed, and the ‘two men in shining garments’ are
seated within the tomb. There is a famous engraving, after a design by
Michael Angelo, called ‘The three Maries going to the Sepulchre:’ it
represents three old women veiled, and with their backs turned—very
awful; but they might as well be called the three Fates, or the three
Witches, as the three Maries. The subject has never been more happily
treated than by Philip Veit, a modern German artist, in a print which
has become popular; he has followed the version of Matthew: ‘As it
began to dawn, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the
sepulchre.’ The attitude of motionless sorrow; the anxious expectant
looks, fixed on the tomb; the deep shadowy stillness; the morning light
just breaking in the distance, are very truly and feelingly expressed.
7. The ‘Noli me tangere’ is the subject of many pictures; they do not
vary in the simplicity of the _motif_, which is fixed by tradition, and
admits but of two persons. The composition of Duccio, as one of the
series of the Passion of Christ, is extremely grand; and the figure
of Mary, leaning forward as she kneels, with outstretched hands,
full of expression. The old fresco of Taddeo Gaddi, in the Rinuccini
Chapel,[307] is also exquisite. Two of the finest in conception and
treatment are, notwithstanding, in striking contrast to each other.
One is the Titian in the collection of Mr. Rogers:[308] the Magdalene,
kneeling, bends forward with eager expression, and one hand extended to
touch him: the Saviour, drawing his linen garment round him, shrinks
back from her touch—yet with the softest expression of pity. Besides
the beauty and truth of the expression, this picture is transcendent
as a piece of colour and effect; while the rich landscape and the
approach of morning over the blue distance are conceived with a sublime
simplicity. Not less a miracle of Art, not less poetical, but in a
far different style, is the Rembrandt in the Queen’s Gallery: at the
entrance of the sepulchre the Saviour is seen in the habiliments of
a gardener, and Mary Magdalene at his feet, adoring. This picture
exhibits, in a striking degree, all the wild originality and peculiar
feeling of Rembrandt: the forms and characters are common; but the
deep shadow of the cavern tomb, the dimly-seen supernatural beings
within it, the breaking of the dawn over the distant city, are awfully
sublime, and worthy of the mysterious scene. Barroccio’s great
altar-piece, which came to England with the Duke of Lucca’s pictures,
once so famous, and well known from the fine engraving of Raphael
Morghen, is poor compared with any of these: Christ is effeminate and
commonplace,—Mary Magdalene all in a flutter.
I now leave these scriptural incidents, to be more fully considered
hereafter, and proceed to the fourth class of subjects pertaining to
the life of the Magdalene—those which are taken from the wild Provençal
legends of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
1. ‘La Danse de la Madeleine’ is the title given to a very rare and
beautiful print by Lucas v. Leyden. It represents Mary Magdalene
abandoned to the pleasures of the world. The scene is a smiling and
varied landscape; in the centre Mary Magdalene, with the anticipative
glory round her head, is seen dancing along to the sound of a flute
and tabor, while a man in a rich dress leads her by the hand: several
groups of men and women are diverting themselves in the foreground; in
the background, Mary Magdalene, with a number of gay companions, is
chasing the stag; she is mounted on horseback, and has again the glory
round her head: far in the distance she is seen borne upwards by the
angels. This singular and suggestive composition is dated 1519. There
is a fine impression in the British Museum.
2. ‘Mary Magdalene rebuked by her sister Martha for her vanity and
luxury.’ I believe I am the first to suggest that the famous picture
in the Sciarra Palace, by Leonardo da Vinci, known as ‘Modesty and
Vanity,’ is a version of this subject. When I saw it, this idea was
suggested, and no other filled my mind. The subject is one often
treated, and here treated in Leonardo’s peculiar manner. The attitude
of the veiled figure is distinctly that of remonstrance and rebuke; the
other, decked and smiling, looks out of the picture holding flowers in
her hand, as yet unconvinced, unconverted: the vase of ointment stands
near her. In other pictures there is no doubt as to the significance of
the subject; it has been gracefully treated in a picture by Giovanni
Lopicino, now in the gallery of the Belvedere at Vienna. She is seated
at her toilette; her maid is binding her luxuriant hair; Martha,
standing by, appears to be remonstrating with great fervour. There is
a pretty picture by Elisabetta Sirani of the same scene, similarly
treated.
3. ‘Mary Magdalene conducted by her sister Martha to the feet of
Jesus.’ Of this most beautiful subject, I know but one composition of
distinguished merit. It is by Raphael, and exists only in the drawing,
and the rare engraving by Marc Antonio. Christ sits within the porch
of the Temple, teaching four of his disciples who stand near him.
Martha and Mary are seen ascending the steps which lead to the portico:
Martha, who is veiled, seems to encourage her sister, who looks down.
I observe that Passavant and others are uncertain as to the subject of
this charming design: it has been styled ‘The Virgin Mary presenting
the Magdalene to Christ;’ but with any one who has carefully considered
the legend, there can be no doubt as to the intention of the artist.
‘Mary Magdalene listening to the preaching of our Saviour, with Martha
seated by her side,’ is one of the subjects in the series by Gaudenzio
Ferrari at Vercelli: it is partly destroyed. We have the same subject
by F. Zucchero; Mary, in a rich dress, is kneeling at the feet of the
Saviour, who is seated under a portico; Martha, veiled, stands near
her, and there are numerous spectators and accessories.
4. ‘The Magdalene renouncing the Vanities of the World’ is also a very
attractive subject. In a picture by Guido she has partly divested
herself of her rich ornaments, and is taking some pearls from her hair,
while she looks up to heaven with tearful eyes. In a sketch by Rubens,
in the Dulwich Gallery, she is seated in a forest solitude, still
arrayed in her worldly finery, blue satin, pearls, &c., and wringing
her hands with an expression of the bitterest grief. The treatment,
as usual with him, is coarse, but effective. In his large picture at
Vienna, with the figures life-size, Mary is spurning with her feet a
casket of jewels, and throwing herself back with her hands clasped in
an agony of penitence: while Martha sits behind, gazing on her with an
expression so demurely triumphant as to be almost comic. There is an
exquisite little picture by Gerard Douw in the Berlin Gallery, in which
the Magdalene, in a magnificent robe of crimson and sables, is looking
up to heaven with an expression of sorrow and penitence; the table
before her is covered with gold and jewels. ‘Mary Magdalene renouncing
the World,’ by Le Brun, is a famous picture, now in the Louvre. She
looks up to heaven with tearful eyes, and is in the act of tearing
off a rich mantle; a casket of jewels lies overturned at her feet.
This picture is said to be the portrait of Madame de la Vallière, by
whose order it was painted for the church of the Carmelites at Paris,
where she had taken refuge from the court and from the world. It has
that sort of theatrical grace and grandeur, that mannered mediocrity,
characteristic of the painter and the time.[309] There is a Magdalene
in the Gallery at Munich by Le Brun, which is to me far preferable;
and this, and not the Paris one, I presume to be the portrait of the
Duchesse de la Vallière. In a picture by Franceschini she has flung off
her worldly ornaments, which lie scattered on the ground, and holds a
scourge in her hand, with which she appears to have castigated herself:
she sinks in the arms of one of her attendant maidens, while Martha,
standing by, seems to speak of peace, and points towards heaven: the
figures are life-size.[310] None of these pictures, with the exception
of the precious Leonardo in the Sciarra Palace, have any remarkable
merit as pictures. The scenes between Mary and Martha are capable of
the most dramatic and effective illustration, but have never yet been
worthily treated.
5. ‘The embarkation of the Magdalene in Palestine, with Martha,
Lazarus, and the others, cast forth by their enemies in a vessel
without sails or rudder, but miraculously conducted by an angel,’ is
another subject of which I have seen no adequate representation. There
is a mediocre picture by Curradi in the Florence Gallery. Among the
beautiful frescoes of Gaudenzio Ferrari in the Church of St. Cristoforo
at Vercelli, is the voyage of the Magdalene and her companions, and
their disembarkation at Marseilles.[311]
6. ‘Mary Magdalene preaching to the inhabitants of Marseilles’ has been
several times represented in the sculpture and stained glass of the old
cathedrals in the south of France. In the Hôtel de Cluny there is a
curious old picture in distemper attributed to King René of Provence,
the father of our Margaret of Anjou, and famous for his skill as a
limner. Mary Magdalene is standing on some steps, arrayed in loose
white drapery, and a veil over her head. She is addressing earnestly a
crowd of listeners, and among them we see King René and his wife Jeanne
de Laval on thrones with crown and sceptre:—a trifling anachronism of
about 1400 years, but it may be taken in a poetical and allegorical
sense. The port of Marseilles is seen in the background. The same
subject has been classically treated in a series of bas-reliefs in
the porch of the Certosa at Pavia: there is a mistake, however, in
exhibiting her as half naked, clothed only in a skin, and her long
hair flowing down over her person: for she was at this time the
missionary saint, and not yet the penitent of the desert.
[Illustration: 96 The Assumption of the Magdalene (Albert Dürer)]
7. ‘Mary Magdalene borne by angels above the summit of Mount Pilon,’
called also ‘The Assumption of the Magdalene,’ is a charming subject
when treated in the right spirit. Unfortunately, we are oftener
reminded of a Pandora, sustained by a group of Cupids, or a Venus
rising out of the sea, than of the ecstatic trance of the reconciled
penitent. It was very early a popular theme. In the treatment we find
little variety. She is seen carried upwards very slightly draped,
and often with no other veil than her redundant hair, flowing over
her whole person. She is in the arms of four, five, or six angels.
Sometimes one of the angels bears the alabaster box of ointment; far
below is a wild mountainous landscape, with a hermit looking up at the
vision, as it is related in the legend. The illustration is from a fine
woodcut of Albert Dürer (96).
In a hymn to the Magdalene, by an old Provençal poet (Balthazar de la
Burle) there is a passage describing her ascent in the arms of angels,
which, from its vivid graphic naïveté, is worthy of being placed under
this print of Albert Dürer:—
Ravengat lou jour los anges la portavan
Ben plus hault que lou roc.
Jamais per mauvais temps que fessa ne freddura,
Autre abit non avia que la sien cabellura,
Que como un mantel d’or tant eram bels e blonds
La couvria de la testa fin al bas des talons.
The fresco by Giulio Romano, in which she is reclining amid clouds, and
sustained by six angels, while her head is raised and her arms extended
with the most ecstatic expression, was cut from the walls of a chapel
in the Trinità di Monte, at Rome, and is now in our National Gallery.
One of the finest pictures ever painted by Ribera is the Assumption
of the Magdalene in the Louvre, both for beauty of expression and
colour. She is here draped, and her drapery well managed. The Spanish
painters never fell into the mistake of the Italians; they give us no
Magdalenes which recall the idea of a Venus Meretrix. The rules of the
Inquisition were here absolute, and held the painters in wholesome
check, rendering such irreligious innovations inadmissible and unknown.
In the Turin Gallery there is an Assumption of the Magdalene by
Dennis Calvert, admirably painted, in which she is carried up by four
Apollo-like angels, who, with their outstretched arms, form a sort of
throne on which she is seated: she is herself most lovely, draped in
the thin undress of a Venus; and the whole composition, at first view,
brought to my fancy the idea of a Venus rising from the sea, throned in
her shell and sustained by nymphs and cupids.
In general, the early painters, Albert Dürer, Vivarini, Lorenzo di
Credi, Benedetto Montagna, represent her in an upright position, with
hands folded in prayer, or crossed over her bosom, and thus soaring
upwards, without effort of will or apparent consciousness; while the
painters of the seventeenth century (with whom this was a favourite
subject) strained their imagination to render the form and attitude
voluptuously graceful, and to vary the action of the attendant angels,
until, in one or two instances, the representation became at once
absurdly prosaic and offensively theatrical. F. Zucchero, Cambiasi,
Lanfranco, Carlo Maratti, have all given us versions of this subject in
a florid, mannered style.
Over the high altar of the Madeleine, at Paris, is the same subject in
a marble group, by Marochetti, rather above life-size. Two angels bear
her up, while on each side an archangel kneels in adoration.
* * * * *
8. The Last Communion of the Magdalene is represented in two different
ways, according to the two different versions of the story: in the
first, she expires in her cave, and angels administer the last
sacraments; one holds a taper, another presents the cup, a third the
wafer. This has been painted by Domenichino. In the other version,
she receives the sacrament from the hand of St. Maximin, who wears
the episcopal robes, and the Magdalene kneels before him, half-naked,
emaciated, and sustained by angels: the scene is the porch of a church.
9. The Magdalene dying in the Wilderness, extended on the bare earth,
and pressing the crucifix to her bosom, is a frequent subject in the
seventeenth century. One of the finest examples is the picture of
Rustichino in the Florence Gallery. The well-known ‘Dying Magdalene’ of
Canova has the same merits and defects as his Penitent Magdalene.
I saw a picture at Bologna by Tiarini, of which the conception appeared
to me very striking and poetical. The Virgin, ‘La Madre Addolorata,’
is seated, and holds in her hand the crown of thorns, which she
contemplates with a mournful expression; at a little distance kneels
Mary Magdalene with long dishevelled hair, in all the abandonment of
grief. St. John stands behind, with his hands clasped, and his eyes
raised to heaven.
When the Magdalene is introduced into pictures of the ‘Incredulity of
Thomas,’ it is in allusion to a famous parallel in one of the Fathers,
in which it is insisted, ‘that the faith of Mary Magdalene, and the
doubts of Thomas, were equally serviceable to the cause of Christ.’
* * * * *
Among the many miracles imputed to the Magdalene, one only has
become popular as a subject of Art. Besides being extremely naïve
and poetical, it is extremely curious as illustrating the manners of
the time. It was probably fabricated in the fourteenth century, and
intended as a kind of parable, to show that those who trusted in Mary
Magdalene, and invoked her aid, might in all cases reckon upon her
powerful intercession. It is thus related:—
‘Soon after Mary Magdalene landed in Provence, a certain prince of
that country arrived in the city of Marseilles with his wife, for the
purpose of sacrificing to the gods; but they were dissuaded from doing
so by the preaching of Mary Magdalene: and the prince one day said to
the saint, “We greatly desire to have a son. Canst thou obtain for
us that grace from the God whom thou preachest?” And the Magdalene
replied, “If thy prayer be granted, wilt thou then believe?” And he
answered, “Yes, I will believe.” But shortly afterwards, as he still
doubted, he resolved to sail to Jerusalem to visit St. Peter, and to
find out whether his preaching agreed with that of Mary Magdalene. His
wife resolved to accompany him: but the husband said, “How shall that
be possible, seeing that thou art with child, and the dangers of the
sea are very great?” But she insisted, and, throwing herself at his
feet, she obtained her desire. Then, having laden a vessel with all
that was necessary, they set sail; and when a day and a night were
come and gone, there arose a terrible storm. The poor woman was seized
prematurely with the pains of childbirth; in the midst of the tempest
she brought forth her first-born son, and then died. The miserable
father, seeing his wife dead, and his child deprived of its natural
solace, and crying for food, wrung his hands in despair, and knew not
what to do. And the sailors said, “Let us throw this dead body into the
sea, for as long as it remains on board the tempest will not abate.”
But the prince, by his entreaties, and by giving them money, restrained
them for a while. Just then, for so it pleased God, they arrived at a
rocky island, and the prince laid the body of his wife on the shore,
and, taking the infant in his arms, he wept greatly, and said, “O Mary
Magdalene! to my grief and sorrow didst thou come to Marseilles! Why
didst thou ask thy God to give me a son only that I might lose both
son and wife together? O Mary Magdalene! have pity on my grief, and,
if thy prayers may avail, save at least the life of my child!” Then he
laid down the infant on the bosom of the mother, and covered them both
with his cloak, and went on his way, weeping. And when the prince and
his attendants had arrived at Jerusalem, St. Peter showed him all the
places where our Saviour had performed his miracles, and the hill on
which he had been crucified, and the spot from whence he had ascended
into heaven. Having been instructed in the faith by St. Peter, at the
end of two years the prince embarked to return to his own country, and
passing near to the island in which he had left his wife, he landed in
order to weep upon her grave.
‘Now, wonderful to relate!—his infant child had been preserved alive
by the prayers of the blessed Mary Magdalene; and he was accustomed
to run about on the sands of the sea-shore, to gather up pebbles and
shells; and when the child, who had never beheld a man, perceived the
strangers, he was afraid, and ran and hid himself under the cloak which
covered his dead mother; and the father, and all who were with him,
were filled with astonishment; but their surprise was still greater
when the woman opened her eyes, and stretched out her arms to her
husband. Then they offered up thanks, and all returned together to
Marseilles, where they fell at the feet of Mary Magdalene, and received
baptism. From that time forth, all the people of Marseilles and the
surrounding country became Christians.’
The picturesque capabilities of this extravagant but beautiful legend
will immediately suggest themselves to the fancy;—the wild sea-shore
—the lovely naked infant wandering on the beach—the mother, slumbering
the sleep of death, covered with the mysterious drapery—the arrival
of the mariners—what opportunity for scenery and grouping, colour
and expression! It was popular in the Giotto school, which arose and
flourished just about the period when the enthusiasm for Mary Magdalene
was at its height; but later painters have avoided it, or, rather, it
was not sufficiently accredited for a Church legend; and I have met
with no example later than the end of the fourteenth century.
The old fresco of Taddeo Gaddi in the S. Croce at Florence will give
some idea of the manner in which the subject was usually treated.
In the foreground is a space representing an island; water flowing
round it, the water being indicated by many strange fishes. On the
island a woman lies extended with her hands crossed upon her bosom;
an infant lifts up the mantle, and seems to show her to a man bending
over her; the father on his knees, with hands joined, looks devoutly
up to heaven; four others stand behind expressing astonishment or
fixed attention. In the distance is a ship, in which sits a man with a
long white beard, in red drapery; beside him another in dark drapery:
beyond is a view of a port with a lighthouse, intended, I presume,
for Marseilles. The story is here told in a sort of Chinese manner as
regards the drawing, composition, and perspective; but the figures and
heads are expressive and significant.
In the Chapel of the Magdalene at Assisi, the same subject is given
with some variation. The bark containing the pilgrims is guided by
an angel, and the infant is seated by the head of the mother, as if
watching her.
* * * * *
The life of Mary Magdalene in a series of subjects, mingling the
scriptural and legendary incidents, may often be found in the old
French and Italian churches, more especially in the chapels dedicated
to her: and I should think that among the remains of ancient painting
now in course of discovery in our own sacred edifices they cannot fail
to occur.[312] In the mural frescoes, in the altar-pieces, the stained
glass, and the sculpture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
such a series perpetually presents itself; and, well or ill executed,
will in general be found to comprise the following scenes:—
1. Her conversion at the feet of the Saviour. 2. Christ entertained
in the house of Martha: Mary sits at his feet to hear his words. 3.
The raising of Lazarus. 4. Mary Magdalene and her companions embark
in a vessel without sails, oars, or rudder. 6. Steered by an angel,
they land at Marseilles. 6. Mary Magdalene preaches to the people. 7.
The miracle of the mother and child. 8. The penance of the Magdalene
in a desert cave. 9. She is carried up in the arms of angels. 10. She
receives the sacraments from the hands of an angel or from St. Maximin.
11. She dies, and angels bear her spirit to heaven.[313]
The subjects vary of course in number and in treatment, but, with some
attention to the foregoing legend, they will easily be understood
and discriminated. Such a series was painted by Giotto in the Chapel
of the Bargello at Florence (where the portrait of Dante was lately
discovered), but they are nearly obliterated; the miracle of the
mother and child is, however, to be distinguished on the left near the
entrance. The treatment of the whole has been imitated by Taddeo Gaddi
in the Rinuccini Chapel at Florence, and by Giovanni da Milano and
Giottino in the Chapel of the Magdalene at Assisi; on the windows of
the Cathedrals of Chartres and Bourges; and in a series of bas-reliefs
round the porch of the Certosa of Pavia, executed in the classical
style of the sixteenth century.
* * * * *
On reviewing generally the infinite variety which has been given to
these favourite subjects, the life and penance of the Magdalene, I
must end where I began; in how few instances has the result been
satisfactory to mind or heart, or soul or sense! Many have well
represented the particular situation, the appropriate sentiment, the
sorrow, the hope, the devotion: but who has given us the _character_?
A noble creature, with strong sympathies, and a strong will, with
powerful faculties of every kind, working for good or evil such a woman
Mary Magdalene must have been, even in her humiliation; and the feeble,
girlish, commonplace, and even vulgar women who appear to have been
usually selected as models by the artists, turned into Magdalenes by
throwing up their eyes and letting down their hair, ill represent the
enthusiastic convert or the majestic patroness.
* * * * *
I must not quit the subject of the Magdalene without some allusion to
those wild legends which suppose a tender attachment (but of course
wholly pure and Platonic) to have existed between her and St. John the
Evangelist.[314] In the enthusiasm which Mary Magdalene excited in
the thirteenth century, no supposition that tended to exalt her was
deemed too extravagant: some of her panegyrists go so far as to insist
that the marriage at Cana, which our Saviour and his mother honoured
by their presence, was the marriage of St. John with the Magdalene;
and that Christ repaired to the wedding-feast on purpose to prevent
the accomplishment of the marriage, having destined both to a state of
greater perfection. This fable was never accepted by the Church; and
among the works of art consecrated to religious purposes I have never
met with any which placed St. John and the Magdalene in particular
relation to each other, except when they are seen together at the
foot of the cross, or lamenting with the Virgin over the body of
the Saviour: but such was the popularity of these extraordinary
legends towards the end of the thirteenth and in the beginning of the
fourteenth century, that I think it possible such may exist, and, for
want of this key, may appear hopelessly enigmatical.
[Illustration: _Martha presents her sister Mary to our Lord._]
In a series of eight subjects which exhibit the life of St. John
prefixed to a copy of the Revelation,[315] there is one which I
think admits of this interpretation. The scene is the interior of
a splendid building sustained by pillars. St. John is baptizing a
beautiful woman, who is sitting in a tub; she has long golden hair.
On the outside of the building seven men are endeavouring to see what
is going forward: one peeps through the key-hole; one has thrown
himself flat on the ground, and has his eye to an aperture; a third,
mounted on the shoulders of another, is trying to look in at a window;
a fifth, who cannot get near enough, tears his hair in an agony of
impatience; and another is bawling into the ear of a deaf and blind
comrade a description of what he has seen. The execution is French, of
the fourteenth century; the taste, it will be said, is also _French_;
the figures are drawn with a pen and slightly tinted: the design is
incorrect; but the vivacity of gesture and expression, though verging
on caricature, is so true, and so comically dramatic, and the whole
composition so absurd, that it is impossible to look at it without a
smile.
ST. MARTHA.
_Ital._ Santa Marta, Vergine, Albergatrice di Cristo. _Fr._ Sainte
Marthe, la Travailleuse. Patroness of cooks and housewives. (June 29,
A.D. 84.)
Martha has shared in the veneration paid to her sister. The important
part assigned to her in the history of Mary has already been adverted
to; she is always represented as the instrument through whom Mary was
converted, the one who led her first to the feet of the Saviour. ‘Which
thing,’ says the story, should not be accounted as the least of her
merits, seeing that Martha was a chaste and prudent virgin, and the
other publicly contemned for her evil life; notwithstanding which,
Martha did not despise her, nor reject her as a sister, but wept for
her shame and admonished her gently and with persuasive words; and
reminded her of her noble birth, to which she was a disgrace, and that
Lazarus, their brother, being a soldier, would certainly get into
trouble on her account. So she prevailed, and conducted her sister to
the presence of Christ, and afterwards, as it is well known, she lodged
and entertained the Saviour in her own house.‘[316]
According to the Provençal legend, while Mary Magdalene converted the
people of Marseilles, Martha preached to the people of Aix and its
vicinity. In those days the country was ravaged by a fearful dragon,
called the _Tarasque_, which during the day lay concealed in the river
Rhone. Martha overcame this monster by sprinkling him with holy water,
and having bound him with her girdle (or, as others say, her garter),
the people speedily put an end to him. The scene of this legend is now
the city of _Tarascon_, where there is, or was, a magnificent church,
dedicated to St. Martha, and richly endowed by Louis XI.
The same legends assure us that St. Martha was the first who founded a
monastery for women; the first, after the blessed Mother of Christ, who
vowed her virginity to God; and that when she had passed many years in
prayer and good works, feeling that her end was near, she desired to
be carried to a spot where she could see the glorious sun in heaven,
and that they should read to her the history of the passion of Christ;
and when they came to the words, ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit,’ she died.
As Mary Magdalene is the patroness of repentant frailty, so Martha is
the especial patroness of female discretion and good housekeeping. In
this character, she is often represented with a skimmer or ladle in her
hand, or a large bunch of keys is attached to her girdle. For example,
in a beautiful old German altar-piece attributed to Albert Dürer,[317]
she is standing in a magnificent dress, a jewelled turban, and holding
a well-known implement of cookery in her hand. In a missal of Henry
VIII.,[318] she is represented with the same utensil, and her name
is inscribed beneath. In general, however, her dress is not rich but
homely, and her usual attributes as patron saint are the pot of holy
water, the asperge in her hand, and a dragon bound at her feet. In the
chapels dedicated to the Magdalene, she finds her appropriate place
as pendant to her sister, generally distinguished by her close coif
and by being draped in blue or dark brown or grey; while the Magdalene
is usually habited in red. When attended by her dragon, St. Martha is
sometimes confounded with St. Margaret, who is also accompanied by a
dragon: but it must be remembered that St. Margaret bears a crucifix or
palm, and St. Martha the pot of holy water; and in general the early
painters have been careful to distinguish these attributes.
St. Martha, besides being a model of female discretion, sobriety, and
chastity, and the patroness of good housewives, was, according to
the old legends, the same woman who was healed by Christ, and who in
gratitude erected to his honour a bronze statue, which statue is said
to have existed in the time of Eusebius, and to have been thrown down
by Julian the Apostate.[319]
When Martha and Mary stand together as patronesses, one represents the
_active_, the other the _contemplative_, Christian life.
Martha is generally introduced among the holy women who attend the
crucifixion and entombment of our Lord. In a most beautiful Entombment
by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Martha kisses the hand of the Saviour, while
Mary Magdalene is seen behind with outspread arms: Lazarus and Maximin
stand at the head of the Saviour.
* * * * *
Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary, is revered as the first
bishop and patron saint of Marseilles, and is generally represented
with the mitre and stole. There are at least fifty saints who wear
the same attire; but when a figure in episcopal robes is introduced
into the same picture, or the same series, with Martha and Mary, it
may be presumed, if not otherwise distinguished, to be St. Lazarus:
sometimes, but rarely, the introduction of a bier, or his resurrection,
in the background, serves to fix the identity. Grouped with these
three saints, we occasionally find St. Marcella (or Martilla), who
accompanied them from the East, but who is not distinguished by any
attribute; nor is anything particular related of her, except that she
wrote the life of Martha, and preached the Gospel in Sclavonia.
* * * * *
There are beautiful full-length figures of Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and
Marcella, in the Brera at Milan, painted by one of the Luini school,
and treated in a very classical and noble style; draped, and standing
in niches to represent statues. At Munich are the separate figures of
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, by Grünewald: Lazarus is seen standing by
his bier; Mary, in the rich costume of a German lady of rank, presents
her vase; and Martha is habited like a German _hausfrau_, with her
dragon at her feet. They are much larger than life, admirably painted,
and full of character, though somewhat grotesque in treatment.
Over the altar of the church ‘La Major’ at Marseilles, stands Lazarus
as bishop; Mary on the right, and Martha on the left: underneath these
three statues runs a series of bas-reliefs containing the history of
Lazarus. 1. He is recalled to life. 2. Seated on the edge of his tomb,
he addresses the spectators. 3. He entertains Christ. 4. The arrival at
Marseilles. 5. He preaches to the people. 6. He is consecrated bishop.
7. He suffers martyrdom.
In a tabernacle or triptica by Nicolò Frumenti (A.D. 1461),[320] the
central compartment represents the raising of Lazarus, who has the
truest and most horrid expression of death and dawning life I ever
beheld. On the volet to the right is the supper in the house of Levi,
and the Magdalene anointing the feet of the Saviour; on the left volet,
Martha meets him on his arrival at Bethany: ‘Lord, if thou hadst been
here, my brother had not died.’
In the chapel of Mary Magdalene at Assisi, we find, besides the history
of her life, full-length figures of Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Maximin.
Mary, a beautiful dignified figure, as usual in rich red drapery,
stands to the right of the altar, holding out her hand to a kneeling
Franciscan: on the left Martha stands in grey drapery with a close
hood: Lazarus and Maximin as bishops.
* * * * *
This will give an idea of the manner in which these personages are
either grouped together or placed in connection with each other.
ST. MARY OF EGYPT.
_Ital._ Santa Maria Egiziaca Penitente. _Fr._ Sainte Marie
l’Égyptienne, La Gipesienne, La Jussienne. (April 2, A.D. 433.)
I place the story of St. Mary of Egypt here, for though she had no real
connection with the Magdalene, in works of art they are perpetually
associated as _les bienheureuses pécheresses_, and in their personal
and pictorial attributes not unfrequently confounded. The legend of
Mary _Egyptiaca_ is long anterior to that of Mary Magdalene. It was
current in a written form so early as the sixth century, being then
received as a true history; but it appears to have been originally one
of those instructive parables or religious romances which, in the early
ages of the Church, were composed and circulated for the edification
of the pious. In considering the manners of that time, we may easily
believe that it may have had some foundation in fact. That a female
anchoret of the name of Mary lived and died in a desert of Palestine
near the river Jordan—that she there bewailed her sins in solitude
for a long course of years, and was accidentally discovered—is a very
ancient tradition, supported by contemporary evidence. The picturesque,
miraculous, and romantic incidents with which the story has been
adorned, appear to have been added to enhance the interest; and, in its
present form, the legend is attributed to St. Jerome.
‘Towards the year of our Lord 365, there dwelt in Alexandria a woman
whose name was Mary, and who in the infamy of her life far exceeded
Mary Magdalene. After passing seventeen years in every species of vice,
it happened that one day, while roving along the sea-shore, she beheld
a ship ready to sail, and a large company preparing to embark. She
inquired whither they were going? They replied that they were going
up to Jerusalem, to celebrate the feast of the true cross. She was
seized with a sudden desire to accompany them; but having no money,
she paid the price of her passage by selling herself to the sailors
and pilgrims, whom she allured to sin by every means in her power.
On their arrival at Jerusalem, she joined the crowds of worshippers
who had assembled to enter the church; but all her attempts to pass
the threshold were in vain; whenever she thought to enter the porch,
a supernatural power drove her back in shame, in terror, in despair.
Struck by the remembrance of her sins, and filled with repentance, she
humbled herself and prayed for help; the interdiction was removed, and
she entered the church of God, crawling on her knees. Thenceforward she
renounced her wicked and shameful life, and, buying at a baker’s three
small loaves, she wandered forth into solitude, and never stopped or
reposed till she had penetrated into the deserts beyond the Jordan,
where she remained in severest penance, living on roots and fruits,
and drinking water only; her garments dropped away in rags piecemeal,
leaving her unclothed; and she prayed fervently not to be left thus
exposed: suddenly her hair grew so long as to form a covering for
her whole person (or, according to another version, an angel brought
her a garment, from heaven). Thus she dwelt in the wilderness, in
prayer and penance, supported only by her three small loaves, which,
like the widow’s meal, failed her not, until, after the lapse of
forty-seven years, she was discovered by a priest named Zosimus. Of
him she requested silence, and that he would return at the end of a
year, and bring with him the elements of the holy sacrament, that she
might confess and communicate, before she was released from earth. And
Zosimus obeyed her, and returned after a year; but not being able to
pass the Jordan, the penitent, supernaturally assisted, passed over
the water to him; and, having received the sacrament with tears, she
desired the priest to leave her once more to her solitude, and to
return in a year from that time. And when he returned he found her
dead, her hands crossed on her bosom. And he wept greatly; and, looking
round, he saw written in the sand these words:—“O Father Zosimus, bury
the body of the poor sinner, Mary of Egypt! Give earth to earth, and
dust to dust, for Christ’s sake!” He endeavoured to obey this last
command, but being full of years, and troubled and weak, his strength
failed him, and a lion came out of the wood and aided him, digging with
his paws till the grave was sufficiently large to receive the body of
the saint, which being committed to the earth, the lion retired gently,
and the old man returned home, praising God, who had shown mercy to the
penitent.’
* * * * *
In single figures and devotional pictures, Mary of Egypt is portrayed
as a meagre, wasted, aged woman, with long hair, and holding in her
hand three small loaves. Sometimes she is united with Mary Magdalene,
as joint emblems of female penitence; and not in painting only, but in
poetry,—
Like redeemed Magdalene,
Or that Egyptian penitent, whose tears
Fretted the rock, and moisten’d round her cave
The thirsty desert.
Thus they stand together in a little rare print by Marc’ Antonio,
the one distinguished by her vase, the other by her three loaves.
Sometimes, when they stand together, Mary Magdalene is young,
beautiful, richly dressed; and Mary of Egypt, a squalid, meagre, old
woman, covered with rags: as in a rare and curious print by Israel von
Mecken.[321]
* * * * *
Pictures from her life are not common. The earliest I have met with
is the series painted on the walls of the Chapel of the Bargello, at
Florence, above the life of Mary Magdalene: they had been whitewashed
over. In seeking for the portrait of Dante, this whitewash has been in
part removed; and it is only just possible for those acquainted with
the legend to trace in several compartments the history of Mary of
Egypt.
1. Detached subjects are sometimes met with. In the church of San
Pietro-in-Pò, at Cremona, they preserve relics said to be those of Mary
of Egypt: and over the altar there is a large picture by Malosso,
representing the saint at the door of the Temple at Jerusalem,
and repulsed by a miraculous power. She is richly dressed, with a
broad-brimmed hat, and stands on the step, as one endeavouring to
enter, while several persons look on,—some amazed, others mocking.
2. Mary of Egypt doing penance in the desert is easily confounded with
the penitent Magdalene. Where there is no skull, no vase of ointment,
no crucifix near her, where the penitent is aged, or at least not young
and beautiful, with little or no drapery, and black or grey hair,
the picture may be presumed to represent Mary of Egypt, and not the
Magdalene, however like in situation and sentiment. There is a large
fine picture of this subject at Alton Towers.
3. The first meeting of Mary and the hermit Zosimus has been painted by
Ribera: in this picture her hair is grey and short, her skin dark and
sunburnt, and she is clothed in rags.
4. In another picture by the same painter she is passing over the
Jordan by the help of angels; she is seen floating in the air with her
hands clasped, and Zosimus is kneeling by. This subject might easily
be confounded with the Assumption of the Magdalene, but the sentiment
ought to distinguish them; for, instead of the ecstatic trance of the
Magdalene, we have merely a miraculous incident: the figure is but
little raised above the waters, and the hermit is kneeling on the
shore.[322]
5. St. Mary receives the last communion from the hands of Zosimus. I
have known this subject to be confounded with the last communion of the
Magdalene. The circumstances of the scene, as well as the character,
should be attended to. Mary of Egypt receives the sacrament in the
desert; a river is generally in the background: Zosimus is an aged
monk. Where the Magdalene receives the sacrament from the hands of
Maximin, the scene is a portico or chapel with rich architecture, and
Maximin wears the habit of a bishop.
6. The death of Mary of Egypt. Zosimus is kneeling beside her, and the
lion is licking her feet or digging her grave. The presence of the lion
distinguishes this subject from the death of Mary Magdalene.
[Illustration: 97 The Death of Mary of Egypt]
St. Mary of Egypt was early a popular saint in France, and particularly
venerated by the Parisians, till eclipsed by the increasing celebrity
of the Magdalene. She was styled, familiarly, La Gipesienne (the
Gipsy), softened by time into La Jussienne. The street in which stood
a convent of reformed women, dedicated to her, is still _la Rue
Jussienne_.
We find her whole story in one of the richly painted windows of the
cathedral of Chartres; and again in the ‘Vitraux de Bourges,’ where the
inscription underneath is written ‘Segiptiaca.’
Among the best modern frescoes which I saw at Paris, was the decoration
of a chapel in the church of St. Merry, dedicated to Ste. Marie
l’Égyptienne: the religious sentiment and manner of middle-age Art are
as usual imitated, but with a certain unexpected originality in the
conception of some of the subjects which pleased me. 1. On the wall,
to the right, she stands leaning on the pedestal of the statue of the
Madonna in a meditative attitude, and having the dress and the dark
complexion of an Egyptian dancing-girl; a crowd of people are seen
behind entering the gates of the Temple, at which she alone has been
repulsed. 2. She receives the communion from the hand of Zosimus, and
is buried by a lion.
On the left-hand wall. 3. Her apotheosis. She is borne aloft by many
angels, two of whom swing censers, and below is seen the empty grave
watched by a lion. 4. Underneath is a group of hermits, to whom the
aged Zosimus is relating the story of the penitence and death of St.
Mary of Egypt.
I do not in general accept modern representations as authorities, nor
quote them as examples; but this resuscitation of Mary of Egypt in a
city where she was so long a favourite saint, appears to me a curious
fact. Her real existence is doubted even by the writers of that Church
which, for fourteen centuries, has celebrated her conversion and
glorified her name. Yet the poetical, the moral significance of her
story remains; and, as I have reason to know, can still impress the
fancy, and, through the fancy, waken the conscience and touch the heart.
There were several other legends current in the early ages of
Christianity, promulgated, it should seem, with the distinct purpose of
calling the frail and shining woman to repentance. If these were not
pure inventions, if the names of these beatified penitents retained in
the offices of the Church must be taken as evidence that they _did_
exist, it is not less certain that the prototype in all these cases
was the reclaimed woman of the Scriptures, and that it was the pitying
charity of Christ which first taught men and angels to rejoice over the
sinner that repenteth.
* * * * *
The legend of MARY, the niece of the hermit Abraham[323] must not be
confounded with that of Mary of Egypt. The scene of this story is
placed in the deserts of Syria. The anchoret Abraham had a brother,
who lived in the world and possessed great riches, and when he died,
leaving an only daughter, she was brought to her uncle Abraham,
apparently because of his great reputation for holiness, to be brought
up as he should think fit. The ideas of this holy man, with regard
to education, seem to have been those entertained by many wise and
religious people since his time; but there was this difference, that
he did not show her the steep and thorny way to heaven, and choose for
himself ‘the primrose path of dalliance.’ Instead of applying to his
charge a code of morality as distinct as possible from his own, he,
more just, only brought up his niece in the same ascetic principles
which he deemed necessary for the salvation of all men.
Mary, therefore, being brought to her uncle when she was only seven
years old, he built a cell close to his own, in which he shut her
up; and, through a little window, which opened between their cells,
he taught her to say her prayers, to recite the Psalter, to sing
hymns, and dedicated her to a life of holiness and solitude, praying
continually that she might be delivered from the snares of the
arch-enemy, and keeping her far, as he thought, from all possibility of
temptation; while he daily instructed her to despise and hate all the
pleasures and vanities of the world.
Thus Mary grew up in her cell till she was twenty years old: then it
happened that a certain youth, who had turned hermit and dwelt in that
desert, came to visit Abraham to receive his instructions; and he
beheld through the window the face of the maiden as she prayed in her
cell, and heard her voice as she sang the morning and the evening hymn;
and he was inflamed with desire of her beauty, till his whole heart
became as a furnace for the love of her; and forgetting his religious
vocation, and moved thereto by the devil, he tempted Mary, and she
fell. When she came to herself, her heart was troubled; she beat her
breast and wept bitterly, thinking of what she had been, what she had
now become; and she despaired, and said in her heart, ‘For me there is
no hope, no return; shame is my portion evermore!’ So she fled, not
daring to meet the face of her uncle, and went to a distant place, and
lived a life of sin and shame for two years.
Now, on the same night that she fled from her cell, Abraham had a
dream; and he saw in his dream a monstrous dragon, who came to his
cell, and finding there a beautiful white dove, devoured it, and
returned to his den. When the hermit awoke from his dream he was
perplexed, and knew not what it might portend; but again he dreamt, and
he saw the same dragon, and he put his foot on its head, and crushed
it, and took from its maw the beautiful dove, and put it in his bosom,
and it came to life again, and spread its wings and flew towards heaven.
Then the old man knew that this must relate to his niece Mary; so
he took up his staff, and went forth through the world seeking her
everywhere. At length he found her, and seeing her overpowered with
shame and despair, he exhorted her to take courage, and comforted her,
and promised to take her sin and her penance on himself. She wept and
embraced his knees, and said, ‘O my father! if thou thinkest there is
hope for me, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest, and kiss
thy footsteps which lead me out of this gulf of sin and death!’ So he
prayed with her, and reminded her that God did not desire the death of
a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live;
and she was comforted. And the next morning Abraham rose up and took
his niece by the hand, leaving behind them her gay attire and jewels
and ill-gotten wealth. And they returned together to the cell in the
wilderness.
From this time did Mary lead a life of penitence and of great humility,
ministering to her aged uncle, who died glorifying God: after his
death, she lived on many years, praising God, and doing good in
humbleness and singleness of heart, and having favour with the people;
so that from all the country round they brought the sick, and those who
were possessed, and she healed them,—such virtue was in her prayers,
although she had been a sinner! Nay, it is written, that even the touch
of her garment restored health to the afflicted. At length she died,
and the angels carried her spirit out of the shadow and the cloud of
sin, into the glory and the joy of heaven.
Although the legend of Mary the Penitent is accepted by the Church,
which celebrates her conversion on the 29th of October, effigies of
her must be rare; I have never met with any devotional representation
of her. A print attributed to Albert Dürer represents the hermit
Abraham bringing back his penitent niece to his cell.[324]
In the Louvre are two large landscapes by Philippe de Champagne, which
in poetry and grandeur of conception come near to those of Niccolò
Poussin; both represent scenes from the life of Mary the Penitent. In
the first, amid a wild and rocky landscape, is the cell of Abraham, and
Mary, sitting within it, is visited by the young hermit who tempted
her to sin: in the second, we have the same wilderness, under another
aspect; Mary, in a rude secluded hut, embowered in trees, is visited
by pilgrims and votaries, who bring to her on their shoulders and on
litters, the sick and the afflicted, to be healed by her prayers. The
daughter of Champagne, whom he tenderly loved, was a nun at Port-Royal,
and I think it probable that these pictures (like others of his works)
were painted for that celebrated convent.
* * * * *
St. Thais, a renowned Greek saint, is another of these ‘_bienheureuses
pécheresses_,’ not the same who sat at Alexander’s feast, and fired
Persepolis, but a firebrand in her own way. St. Pelagia, called
_Pelagia Meretrix_ and _Pelagia Mima_ (for she was also an actress), is
another. These I pass over without further notice, because I have never
seen nor read of any representation of them in Western Art.
St. Afra, who sealed her conversion with her blood, will be found among
the Martyrs.
Poets have sung, and moralists and sages have taught, that for the
frail woman there was nothing left but to die; or if more remained
for her to suffer, there was at least nothing left for her to be or
do: no choice between sackcloth and ashes and the livery of sin. The
beatified penitents of the early Christian Church spoke another lesson;
spoke divinely of hope for the fallen, hope without self-abasement or
defiance. We, in these days, acknowledge no such saints: we have even
done our best to dethrone Mary Magdalene; but we have martyrs,—‘by the
pang without the palm,’—and _one_ at least among these who has not
died without lifting up a voice of eloquent and solemn warning; who
has borne her palm on earth, and whose starry crown may be seen on high
even now, amid the constellations of Genius.
[Illustration]
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Milman, Hist. of Christianity, iii. 540.
[2] Venice; SS. Giovanni e Paolo.
[3] Siena; San Domenico.
[4] Rome; Vatican.
[5] Dresden Gal.
[6] The Saints who do not appear in these volumes will be found in the
‘Legends of the Monastic Orders.’
[7] ‘Avant le 5me siècle le nimbe chrétien ne se voit pas sur les
monuments _authentiques_.’ (Didron, Iconographie, p. 101.)
[8] A metal circle, like a round plate, was fastened on the head of
those statues placed in the open air, to defend them from the rain or
dust. Some of the ancient glories are very like those plates, but I do
not think they are derived from them.
[9] I believe these coloured glories to be symbolical, but am not
sure of the application of the colours. Among the miniatures of the
_Hortus Deliciarum_, painted in 1180, is a representation of the
celestial paradise, in which the virgins, the apostles, the martyrs,
and confessors wear the golden nimbus; the prophets and the patriarchs,
the white or silver nimbus; the saints who strove with temptation, the
red nimbus; those who were married have the nimbus green, while the
beatified penitents have theirs of a yellowish white, somewhat shaded.
(Didron, Iconographie Chrétienne, p. 168.)
[10] In the example of St. Jerome, a lion may have originally typified
any hinderance in the way of study or of duty; in allusion to the text,
‘The slothful man saith, There is a lion by the way.’ Prov. xxvi. 13.
[11] _Vide_ ‘Legends of the Madonna.’
[12] In the Spanish schools the colour of our Saviour’s mantle is
generally a deep rich violet.
[13] Bologna Gal.
[14] 2 Sam. xiv. 17.
[15] Gen. xxxii. 1, 2; Ps. ciii. 21; 1 Kings xxii. 19; Job i. 6.
[16] Gen. xxii. 11; Exod. xiv. 19; Num. xx. 16; Gen. xxi. 17; Judg.
xiii. 3; 2 Kings i. 3; Ps. xxxiv. 7; Judith xiii. 20.
[17] 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xix. 35; Gen: xviii. 8; Num. xxii. 31; 1
Chron. xxi. 16; Gen. xix. 13.
[18] Calmet.
[19] Matt. xxvi. 53; Heb. xii. 22; Matt. xxii. 30; Luke xx. 36; Matt.
xix. 24; Luke i. 11; Acts v. 19, _et passim_; Luke xv. 10; 1 Peter i.
12; Luke xvi. 22; Heb. i. 14; 1 Cor. xi. 10; Matt. i. 20, xvi. 27, xxv.
31.
[20] Rom. viii. 38; Col. i. 16; Ephes. i. 21.
[21] I know not whether it be necessary to observe here, that in
early Art the souls of the blessed are not represented as angels, nor
regarded as belonging to this order of spiritual beings, though I
believe it is a very common notion that we are to rise from the dead
with the angelic attributes as well as the angelic nature. For this
belief there is no warrant in Scripture, unless Mark xii. 25 be so
interpreted.
[22] Now in the Collection of Prince Wallerstein at Kensington Palace.
[23] Vasari, p. 648. Fl. edit.
[24] I saw in the palace of the Bishop of Norwich an elegant little
bas-relief in alabaster, exhibiting the nine choirs, each represented
by a single angel. The first (the Seraphim) hold the sacramental cup;
the Cherubim, a book; the Thrones, a throne; the Principalities, a
bunch of lilies; the Archangels are armed. The other attributes are not
clearly made out.
The figures have been ornamented with painting and gilding, now
partially worn off, and the style is of the early part of the fifteenth
century. It appeared to me to have formed one of the compartments of an
altar-piece.
[25] As in the picture in our National Gallery, No. 10.
[26] Vatican: Raphael’s fresco.
[27] _v._ Purg. c. viii.; Par. c. xxxi.; Purg. c. xxiv.
[28] The Cherubim in the upper lights of the painted windows at
St. Michael’s, Coventry, and at Cirencester, are represented each
standing on a white wheel with eight spokes. They have six wings, of
peacocks’ feathers, of a rich yellow colour. A white cross surmounts
the forehead, and both arms and legs are covered with short plumage.
The extremities are human and bare. At Cirencester the Cherubim hold a
book; at Coventry a scroll.
[29] In the sacristy of the Vatican.
[30] In the Louvre.
[31] In the Cathedral at Orvieto.
[32] In the _Frari_ at Venice.
[33] Gen. xviii., xlviii. 16.
[34] Purg. c. viii.
[35] 1 Kings vi. 23.
[36] MS. 10th century. Paris, Bibl. Nationale.
[37] MS. 13th century, Breviaire de St. Louis.
[38] Paris. Bibl. Nat., No. 510. G. MS.
[39] As in the legend of Prometheus. (Plato, Protag. p. 320.)
[40] Sutherland Gallery.
[41] As in Raphael’s fresco in the Vatican.
[42] As in the picture by Allston, painted for Lord Egremont, and now
at Petworth.
[43] As in a picture by F. Bol.
[44] See ‘Legends of the Madonna,’ p. 180.
[45] For several curious and interesting particulars relative to these
subjects, see the ‘Legends of the Madonna,’ pp. 247, 256.
[46] The picture is, I suspect, not by Poussin, but by Stella. There is
another, similar, by Guido; Louvre, 1057.
[47] Ciampini, p. 131, A.D. 394.
[48] Greek MS. A.D. 867.
[49] Paris, Bib. Nat., No. 510.
[50] In the Academy at Florence: they must have formed the side wings
to an enthroned Madonna and Child.
[51] Gallery of the Vatican.
[52] S. Maria del Popolo, Rome.
[53] The mosaics in the dome of the Chigi chapel are so ill lighted
that it is difficult to observe them in detail, but they have lately
been rendered cheaply accessible in the fine set of engravings by
Gruner, an artist who in our day has revived the pure and correct
design and elegant execution of Marc Antonio.
[54] As in the fresco in the Vatican.
[55] See the engraving under this title by Marc Antonio; it is properly
St. Cecilia, and not St. Félicité.
[56] It is now in the Lanti chapel in the church of the Lateran.
[57] Mr. Ruskin remarks very truly, that in early Christian art there
is a certain confidence, in the way in which angels trust to their
wings, very characteristic of a period of bold and simple conception.
Modern science has taught us that a wing cannot be anatomically joined
to a shoulder; and in proportion as painters approach more and more to
the scientific as distinguished from the contemplative state of mind,
they put the wings of their angels on more timidly, and dwell with
greater emphasis on the human form with less upon the wings, until
these last become a species of decorative appendage, a mere _sign_ of
an angel. But in Giotto’s time an angel was a complete creature, as
much believed in as a bird, and the way in which it would or might
cast itself into the air and lean hither and thither on its plumes,
was as naturally apprehended as the manner of flight of a chough or a
starling. Hence Dante’s simple and most exquisite synonym for angel,
“Bird of God;” and hence also a variety and picturesqueness in the
expression of the movements of the heavenly hierarchies by the earlier
painters, ill replaced by the powers of foreshortening and throwing
naked limbs into fantastic positions, which appear in the cherubic
groups of later times.’ The angels from the Campo Santo at Pisa,
numbered 12, 21, and 32, are instances of this bird-like form. They are
_Uccelli di Dio_. Those numbered 27, 28, and 37 are examples of the
later treatment.
[58] A.D. 1352. Florence, S. Maria Novella.
[59] Greek mosaic, A.D. 1174.
[60] MS. of the Book of Revelation, fourteenth century. Trinity
College, Dublin.
[61] Coll. of the Duke of Sutherland.
[62] Hôtel de Cluny, 399.
[63] _v._ Il perfetto Legendario. 1659.
[64] The Gnostics taught that the universe was created by the Seven
Great Angels, who ranked next to the _Eons_, or direct emanations from
God: ‘and when a distribution was afterwards made of things, the chief
of the creating angels had the people of the Jews particularly to his
share; a doctrine which in the main was received by many ancients.’—See
Lardner’s ‘History of the Early Heresies.’ I have alluded to the angel
pictured as the agent in creation (p. 39), but the Seven creating
Angels I have not met with in art. This was one of the Gnostic fancies
condemned by the early Church.
[65] Le Livre des Angeles de Dieu, MS. Paris Bibl. Nat.
[66] Dr. Arnold has some characteristic remarks on the half-human
effigies of Satan; he objects to the Miltonic representation:—‘By
giving a human likeness, and representing him as a bad man, you
necessarily get some image of what is good, as well as of what is bad,
for no man is entirely evil.’—‘The hoofs, the horns, the tail, were
all useful in this way, as giving you an image of something altogether
disgusting; and so Mephistophiles, and the utterly contemptible and
hateful character of the Little Master in Sintram, are far more true
than the Paradise Lost.’—_Life_, vol. ii.
[67] Vatican MSS., No. 1613, A.D. 989.
[68] A.D. 1365. Eremitani. Padua.
[69] Greek Apocalypse MS. Paris Bibl. Nat.
[70] Siena Acad.
[71] By Marco di Ravenna. Bartsch, xiv. 106.
[72] Brescia. S. Maria delle Grazie.
[73] Milan, Brera.
[74] Boisserée Gallery.
[75] A.D. 1400. Engraved in Lusinio’s ‘Early Florentine Masters.’
[76] Milan. Brera.
[77] Psalter of St. Louis. Bib. de l’Arsenal, Paris.
[78] See ante, p. 111, for the figure of St. Michael.
[79] St. Ephrem, Bib. Orient. tom. i. p. 78. De Beausobre, vol. ii. p.
17.
[80] Didron, Manuel grec., p. 101.
[81] Judges vi. 11.
[82] 2 Sam. xxiv. 16.
[83] Calmet.
[84] De Oratione, cap. xii.
[85] Bottari, Tab. xxii. On the early Christian sarcophagi, as I have
already observed, there are no winged angels. In the oft-repeated
subject of the ‘Three Children in the burning fiery furnace,’ the
fourth figure, when introduced, may represent _a_ son of God,—i.e. an
angel; or _the_ Son of God, i.e. Christ, as it has been interpreted in
both senses.
[86] Bel and the Dragon, 26.
[87] Bottari, 15, 49, 84.
[88] See ‘Legends of the Madonna.’
[89] ‘The stone on which stood the angel Gabriel when he announced to
the most Blessed Virgin the great mystery of the Incarnation,’ is among
the relies enumerated as existing in the church of the Santa Croce at
Rome.
[90] In Paradise he sings for ever the famous salutation:—
Cantando _Ave Maria gratia plena_
Dinanzi a lei le sue ali distese.
DANTE, _Par._ 32.
[91] See the Ursuline Manual. ‘When an angel anciently appeared to
the patriarchs or prophets, he was received with due honour as being
exalted above them, both by nature and grace; but when an archangel
visited Mary, he was struck with her superior dignity and pre-eminence,
and, approaching, saluted her with admiration and respect. Though
accustomed to the lustre of the highest heavenly spirits, yet he was
dazzled and amazed at the dignity and spiritual glory of her whom he
came to salute Mother of God, while the attention of the whole heavenly
court was with rapture fixed upon her.’
[92] The Annunciation and the Death of the Virgin, and the office and
character of the announcing angel in both subjects, are fully treated
and illustrated in the ‘Legends of the Madonna,’ pp. 179, 334.
[93] As in a very curious print by ‘Le Graveur de 1466;’ and there are
other instances.
[94] Chants Royaux. Paris Bibl. Nat. MS. No. 6,989.
[95] Mr. Stirling entitles this picture ‘An Angel appearing to a Bishop
at his prayers.’
[96] In the church of S. Marziale, Venice.
[97] Passavant’s Rafael, vol. ii. pp. 6, 150.
[98] Madrid Gallery.
[99] Louvre, No. 358.
[100] In our National Gallery.
[101] Rupertus, Commentar. in Apocal. c. 4. Mark xvi. 16.
[102] Fl. Acad.
[103] There is a small and beautiful picture by Giulio Romano in the
Belvedere at Vienna, representing the emblems of the Four Evangelists
grouped in a picturesque manner, which was probably suggested by
Raphael’s celebrated picture, which is in the Pitti palace at Florence.
[104] Grosvenor Gallery.
[105] Dresden Gallery. No. 828.
[106] Paris, Bib. du Roi, No. 510.
[107] A.D. 1377. Eng. in Rossini, pl. 24.
[108] Designed by Titian, and executed by F. Zuccati.
[109] It is so like Giorgione in sentiment and colour that it has
been attributed to him. For this expressive votive group, see the
frontispiece to vol. ii., and the legends of the four patron saints
above mentioned.
[110] Beneath the monument of Nicolò Orsini, in the SS.
Giovanni-e-Paolo at Venice. A very remarkable and beautiful picture
of this class is in the Berlin Gallery (No. 316). St. Mark, enthroned
and holding his gospel open on his knees, is instructing three of the
_Procuradori di San Marco_, who kneel before him in their rich crimson
dresses, and listen reverently.
[111] Venice Ducal Palace.
[112] Fl. Gal.
[113] Venice Acad.
[114] Brera, Milan.
[115] Brera, Milan.
[116] A.D. 1500. Scuola di S. Marco, Venice.
[117] Fl. Gal.
[118] The _Procuradori_ had the charge of the church and the treasury
of St. Mark.
[119] Sanuto, Vite de’ Duci Veneti.
[120] Acad. Venice.
[121] Acad. Venice.
[122] Ibid.
[123] Venice, Ducal Palace.
[124] The little black Virgin of the Monte della Guardia, near Bologna,
I saw carried in grand procession through the streets of that city,
in May 1847. The following inscription is engraved on a tablet in
the church of San Domenico and San Sisto at Rome: ‘Here at the high
altar is preserved that image of the most blessed Mary, which, being
delineated by St. Luke the Evangelist, received its colours and
form divinely. This is that image with which St. Gregory the Great
(according to St. Antonine), as a suppliant, purified Rome; and
the pestilence being dispelled, the angel messenger of peace, from
the summit of the castle of Adrian, commanding the Queen of Heaven
to rejoice, restored health to the city.’ A Virgin in the Ara Cœli
pretends to the same honour: both these are black and ugly, while that
in the S. Maria in Cosmedino is of uncommon dignity and beauty. See
‘Legends of the Madonna,’ Introduction, p. xli.
[125] MS. A.D. 1500. Paris, Bib. Imp.
[126] F. Rizi. A.D. 1660.
[127] As in the Missal of Henry VIII. Bodleian, Oxford.
[128] Both among the fine lithographs of the Boisserée Gallery. (_v._
Nos. 5, 15, 25.)
[129] Acad. Bologna.
[130] Musée, Marseilles.
[131] Leigh Court, Gal. of Mr. Miles.
[132] Petersburg, Gal. of Prince Narishken. Eng. by Müller.
[133] Munich Gal.
[134] Westmin. Abbey.
[135] Rome, S. Maria-sopra-Minerva.
[136] _v._ ‘Legends of the Madonna.’
[137] Brera, Milan.
[138] We find among the relics exhibited on great occasions in the
church of the S. Croce at Rome ‘the cup in which St. John, the apostle
and evangelist, by command of Domitian the emperor, drank poison
without receiving any injury; which afterwards being tasted by his
attendants, on the instant they fell dead.’
[139] Vatican MSS., tenth century.
[140] MSS., ninth century. Paris Nat. Library.
[141] Vatican, Christian Museum.
[142] Johannis Brompton Cronicon, 955.
[143] Dart’s Hist. of Westminster.
[144] _v._ Legend of St. Edward the Confessor in the ‘Legends of the
Monastic Orders,’ p. 99.
[145] Rome. S. M. in Trastevere. S. Prassede. S. Clemente. S. Cecilia.
[146] Bottari, Tab. xxviii.
[147] The churches in the eastern provinces of France, particularly in
Champagne, exhibit marked traces of the influence of Greek Art in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries.
[148] A.D. 451. Ciampini, Vet. Mon. p. 1, c. iv.
[149] Matt. xix. 28; and Luke xxii. 30.
[150] I must refer the reader to Mr. Cockerell’s illustrations and
restorations of the rich and multifarious and significant sculpture of
Wells Cathedral.
[151] Luke xxii. 30.
[152] Venice Acad., fourteenth century.
[153] Rosini, vol. iii. p. 75.
[154] Convent of Chilandari, Mount Athos.
[155] Vatican, Sala del Pozzo.
[156] Vatican.
[157] Greek MS., ninth century. Paris, Bibl. du Roi, No. 510.
[158] A set of martyrdoms is in the Frankfort Museum; another is
mentioned in Bartsch, viii. 22.
[159] Eusebius says that _all_ the Apostles suffered martyrdom; but
this is not borne out by any ancient testimony.—_Lardner’s Cred. of
Gospel Hist._ vol. viii. p. 81.
[160] They were fortunately engraved for D’Agincourt’s _Histoire de
l’Art_, before they were destroyed by fire.
[161] St. Guthlac’s Book. Ethelwold’s Benedictional.
[162] As in the mosaic on the tomb of Otho II. (Lateran Mus.).
[163] Bottari, Tab. xxv.
[164] One of the finest I have ever seen is the ‘Saint Pierre au
Donateur,’ by Gaudenzio Ferrari; holding his keys (both of gold), he
presents a kneeling votary, a man of middle age, who probably bore
his name. The head of St. Peter is very characteristic, and has an
energetic pleading expression, almost _demanding_ what he requires for
his votary. The whole picture is extremely fine. (_Turin Gallery_, No.
19.)
[165] Milan, Brera (No. 189).
[166] What St. Clement says is to this purpose: that St. Peter’s
hearers at Rome were desirous of having his sermons writ down for their
use; that they made their request to Mark to leave them a written
memorial of the doctrine they had received by word of mouth; that they
did not desist from their entreaties till they had prevailed upon him;
and St. Peter confirmed that writing by his authority, that it might be
read in the churches.’—LARDNER, _Cred._, vol. i. p. 250.
[167] Fl. Gal.
[168] Brera, Milan.
[169] Gian Bellini: Venice. S. M. de’ Frari.
[170] Vienna Gal.
[171] Bartsch, vi. 92.
[172] ‘Le Christ à la Colonne.’ _Louvre_, No. 550.
[173] Tab. xxi.
[174] Hampton Court.
[175] Madrid Gal., No. 114.
[176] Bridgewater Gal.
[177] Cathedral at Malines.
[178] Gal. of the Hague.
[179] This picture, formerly in the Brera, is now in England, in the
gallery of Lord Ward. It is the finest and most characteristic specimen
of the master I have ever seen.
[180] It is signed MẼDULAÉ, and attributed to Giulio della Mendula; a
painter (except through this picture) unknown to me.
[181] Brancacci Chapel, Florence.
[182] Berlin Gal., No. 313.
[183] Louvre, No. 685.
[184] As in the Greek mosaics in the Cathedral of Monreale, near
Palermo.
[185] Several such pictures are in the royal collections at Windsor and
Hampton Court.
[186] Moore makes a characteristic remark on this fresco; he is
_amazed_ at the self-denial of the painter who could cross this fine
group with the black iron bars which represent the prison.
[187] Some Protestant writers have set aside St. Peter’s ministry at
Rome, as altogether apocryphal; but Gieseler, an author by no means
credulous, considers that the historical evidence is in favour of the
tradition (_v._ Text-book of Eccles. Hist. p. 53). This is the more
satisfactory because, even to Protestants, it is not agreeable to be at
Rome and to be obliged to reject certain associations which add to the
poetical, as well as to the religious, interest of the place.
[188] He represented her as a resuscitation of the famous Helen of
Troy, which is said to have suggested to Goethe the resuscitation of
Helena in the second part of ‘Faust.’
[189] MS., Vatican, No. 6409. 10th century.
[190] In the sacristy of the Vatican.
[191] In the Brancacci Chapel at Florence.
[192] In the Gallery of the Vatican.
[193] Vatican. Capella Paolina.
[194] _v._ Il perfetto Legendario.
[195] There was an oratory in the church of the Franciscans at
Varallo, in which they celebrated a yearly festival in honour of St.
Petronilla. While Gaudenzio Ferrari was painting there the series
of frescoes in the chapel of the crucifixion on the Sacro Monte, he
promised to paint for the festival an effigy of the saint. The eve of
the day arrived, and still it was not begun: the people murmured, and
reproached him, which he affected to treat jestingly; but he arose in
the night, and with no other light than the beams of the full moon,
executed a charming figure of St. Petronilla, which still exists. She
stands holding a book, a white veil over her head, and a yellow mantle
falling in rich folds: she has no distinctive emblem. ‘Gaudenzio, che
in una bella notte d’estate dipinse fra ruvide muraglie una Santa
tutta grazia e pudore mentre un pallido raggio di luna sbucato dalla
frondosa chioma d’albero dolcemente gl’irradia la fronte calva e la
barba rossiccia, presenta un non so che di ideale e di romanzesco che
veramente rapisce.’—Opere di Gaudenzio Ferrari, No. 21. (Maggi, Turin.
It is to be regretted that in this valuable work neither the pages nor
the plates are numbered.)
[196] Second or third century. Bosio, p. 519.
[197] _v._ Münter’s Sinnbilder, p. 35.
[198] _v._ Zani. Enc. delle Belle Arti.
[199] In the gallery of Mr. Miles, at Leigh Court.
[200] Those who consult the engravings by Santi Bartoli and Landon
must bear in mind that almost all the references are erroneous. See
Passavant’s ‘Rafael,’ ii. 245.
[201] The clergy who permitted Sir James Thornhill to paint the cupola
of St. Paul’s with Scripture scenes, refused to admit any other
paintings into the church. Perhaps they were justified; but not by the
plea of Bishop Terrick—the fear of idolatry.
[202] This series, the most important work of the painter, Hans
Schaufelein, is not mentioned in Kugler’s Handbook. It is engraved in
outline in the ‘New Florence Gallery,’ published in 1837.
[203] ‘St. Paul prevents his jailor from killing himself’ (Acts xvi.)
has been lately painted by Claude Hallé, and is now in the Louvre.
(École française, No. 283.)
[204] In the Dresden Gal., No. 821.
[205] Bartsch, vii. 79.
[206] Théologie des Peintres.
[207] In several ancient pictures and bas-reliefs the cross has the
usual form, but he is not nailed—always bound with cords, as in the
ancient bas-relief over the portal of his church at Vercelli.
[208] Gallery of the Vatican.
[209] Munich, 363.
[210] In the collection of Mr. Miles at Leigh Court.
[211] Hermogenes was the name of a famous Gnostic teacher and
philosopher; thence, I suppose, adopted into this legend.
[212] _v._ Southey, ‘Pilgrim of Compostella.’
[213] Passavant’s Rafael, I. 508.
[214] Duomo, Siena.
[215] Belvedere, Vienna.
[216] Venice Acad.
[217] Rome, S. Maria-in-Trastevere. A.D. 1397.
[218] Stirling’s ‘Artists of Spain,’ ii. p. 753.
[219] Legenda Aurea.
[220] Gallery of Antwerp.
[221] Passavant’s Rafael, II. 116.
[222] Eng. by Audran.
[223] Gal. Vatican.
[224] Fl. Acad.
[225] Fl. Gal.
[226] Florence, Casa Ruccellai.
[227] The romantic Legend of the _sacratissima cintola_, ‘the most
sacred girdle of the Virgin,’ is given at length in the ‘Legends of the
Madonna,’ p. 344.
[228] ‘Very soon after the Lord was risen, he went to James, and showed
himself to him. For James had solemnly sworn that he would eat no bread
from the time that he had drunk the cup of the Lord till he should see
him risen from among them that sleep. “Bring,” saith the Lord, “a table
and bread.” He took bread, and blessed and brake it, and then gave it
to James the Just, and said to him, “My brother, eat thy bread; for the
Son of man is risen from among them that sleep.”’—St. Jerome, as quoted
in Lardner, _Lives of the Apostles_, chap. xvi.
[229] Matt. xiii. 55; Mark xv. 40.
[230] Fl. Gal.
[231] Fl. Acad.
[232] See Ford’s ‘Handbook of Spain;’ also Goethe’s ‘Theory of
Colours,’ translated by Sir C. Eastlake. ‘When a yellow colour is
communicated to dull and coarse surfaces, such as common cloth,
felt, or the like, on which it does not appear with full energy, the
disagreeable effect alluded to is apparent. By a slight and scarcely
perceptible change, the beautiful impression of fire and gold is
transformed into one not undeserving the epithet foul, and the colour
of honour and joy reversed to that of ignominy and aversion. To this
impression, the yellow hats of bankrupts, and the yellow circles on the
mantles of Jews, may have owed their origin.’ (P. 308.)
[233] Fl. Gal.
[234] Manfrini P., Venice.
[235] Fl. Acad.
[236] In the gallery of Lord Charlemont, Dublin.
[237] MS., No. 7206. Bib. du Roi.
[238] Florence, S. Maria Novella. It is clear that the extravagant
legends which refer to Judas Iscariot were the inventions of the
middle ages, and are as little countenanced by the writings of the
early fathers as by the Gospels. Eusebius says, that ‘Christ gave like
gifts to Judas with the other apostles; that once our Saviour had good
hopes of him on account of the power of the free will, for Judas was
not of such a nature as rendered his salvation impossible; like the
other apostles, he might have been instructed by the Son of God, and
might have been a sincere and good disciple.’ (Quoted in Lardner, vol.
viii. p. 77.) The Mahometans believe that Christ did not die, that
he ascended alive into heaven, and that Judas was crucified in his
likeness. (Curzon, p. 185.)
[239] The Greek expression, ‘leaning on his bosom, or on his lap,’
is not, I believe, to be taken literally, being used to signify an
intimate and affectionate intercourse.
[240] Florence Acad.
[241] In the series of compositions from the life of Christ, now in the
Academy at Florence; beautifully and faithfully engraved by P. Nocchi.
[242] This is also observable in the Last Supper by Nicolò Petri in the
San Francesco at Pisa.
[243] For a signal example, see Stirling’s ‘Artists of Spain,’ p. 493.
[244] For some remarks on the subject of the Pentecost, _v._ ‘Legends
of the Madonna,’ p. 325.
[245] Acad. Venice. Giovanni ed Antonio da Murano. 1440.
[246] As I have frequent occasion to refer to pictures painted for
the _Scuole_ of Venice, it may be as well to observe that the word
_scuola_, which we translate _school_, is not a place of education, but
a confraternity for charitable purposes,—visiting the sick, providing
hospitals, adopting orphans, redeeming prisoners and captives, &c.
In the days of the republic these schools were richly supported and
endowed, and the halls, churches, and chapels attached to them were
often galleries of art: such were the schools of St. Mark, St. Ursula,
St. Roch, the Carità and others. Unhappily, they exist no longer; the
French seized on their funds, and Austria does not like confraternities
of any kind. The Scuola della Carità is now the Academy of Arts.
[247] Acad. Venice. Gio. da Udine.
[248] Frankfort Museum.
[249] We missed the opportunity, now never more to be recalled, of
obtaining this admirable picture when it was sold out of the Fesch
collection.
[250] I believe the figure called St. Bonaventura, to represent St.
Jerome, because, in accordance with the usual scheme of ecclesiastical
decoration, the greatest of the four Latin Fathers would take the first
place, and the cardinal’s hat and the long flowing beard are his proper
attribute; whereas there is no example of a St. Bonaventura with a
beard, or wearing the monastic habit without the Franciscan cord. The
Arundel Society have engraved this fine figure under the name of St.
Bonaventura.
[251] Dresden Gal.
[252] Imp. Gal., St. Petersburg.
[253] Vienna Gal.
[254] In the catalogue, St. Cunegunda is styled _St. Elizabeth Queen of
Hungary_, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary is styled _St. Elizabeth Queen
of Portugal_.
[255] Irish Bishop of Würtzburg, and Patron, A.D. 689.
[256] ‘In this picture we recognise the master to whom Albert Dürer was
indebted for his education; indeed, Wohlgemuth here surpasses his great
scholar in the expression of gentleness and simplicity, particularly in
the heads of some of the female saints.’—_Handbook of Painting: German,
Flemish, and Dutch Schools_, p. 111.
[257] Florence, Ogni Santi.
[258] Bologna, S. Maria Maggiore.
[259] The picture, originally at Naples, was purchased or appropriated
by Philip IV. for the Church of the Escurial, which belonged to the
Jeronymites.
[260] Milan, Brera.
[261] Collection of Lord Ward.
[262] Louvre, Sp. Gal.
[263] P. Pitti, Florence.
[264] Lichtenstein Gal.
[265] Kugler pronounces this to be a Flemish picture (_v._ ‘Handbook,’
p. 190).
[266] The three frescoes by Carpaccio are in the Church of San Giorgio
de’ Schiavoni at Venice.
[267] It was in the Standish Gal. in the Louvre.
[268] Engraved by Loli.
[269] Wolvinus, A.D. 832. ‘His name seems to indicate that he was of
Teutonic race—a circumstance which has excited much controversy amongst
the modern Italian antiquaries.’—_Murray’s Handbook._
[270] Belvedere Gal., Vienna.
[271] Paris, Invalides.
[272] SS. Giovan e Paolo, Venice.
[273] Brera, Milan.
[274] Fl. Gal.
[275] Pitti Pal. This fine picture was painted for the Agostini.
[276] Brera, Milan.
[277] Berlin Gal.
[278] Acad., Venice.
[279] Vatican, Christian Museum.
[280] Cremona.
[281] Belvedere, Vienna.
[282] _v._ ‘Legends of the Monastic Orders,’ p. 191.
[283] I believe this picture was afterwards in the possession of Mr.
Dennistoun, of Dennistoun. Mr. Stirling mentions it as a fine specimen
of Murillo’s second style.
[284] Once in Lord Methuen’s Gallery at Corsham.
[285] It was in the possession of Her Majesty the Ex-Queen of the
French, who paid for it 25,000f.
[286] There is a duplicate in the Bridgewater Gallery.
[287] Sutherland Gal.
[288] Vicenza. S. Maria del Monte.
[289] Bartsch, _Le Peintre Graveur_, vii. 264.
[290] For an account of St. Nilus, and the foundation of Grotta
Ferrata, see the ‘Legends of the Monastic Orders.’
[291] According to Sansovino, begun by Giorgione and finished by
Sebastian.
[292] Dante, _Inf._ c. xi.
[293] The Greek word _Papa_, here translated _der Papst_ (the Pope),
betrays the Eastern origin of the story. It is the general title of the
Greek priesthood, and means simply a priest, elevated in the German
legend into ‘the Pope.’
[294] Koburgher, ‘Legendensammlung,’ 1488, p. 325. Heller’s ‘Leben und
Werke Albrecht Dürer’s,’ p. 440.
[295] Sutherland Gal.
[296] ‘_La Messe de saint Basile._’ Louvre, École française, No. 508.
[297] ‘Pour vous ramener à des idées plus favorables à la Madeleine,
vous transportant au temps et aux circonstances où vécut cette célèbre
Israélite, je pourrais vous dire, MESSIEURS, que l’antiquité, ne
jugeant pas équitable d’exiger plus de vertu du sexe réputé pour
le plus faible, ne croyait pas les femmes déshonorées de ce qui ne
déshonorait pas les hommes à ses yeux; qu’elle a d’ailleurs toujours
été bien moins sévère à des sentiments qui, naissant avec nous, lui
paraissaient une partie de nous-mêmes, et qu’elle n’attacha jamais
aucune idée flétrissante aux suites d’une passion qu’elle trouvait
presque aussi pardonnable que naturelle. Les grâces de la beauté
étaient alors regardées comme les autres talents; et l’art de plaire,
aussi autorisé que les autres arts, loin d’inspirer de l’éloignement,’
&c.
After describing, in glowing terms, her splendid position in the world,
her illustrious rank, her understanding, ‘_droit, solide, et délicat_,’
her ‘_grâce_,’ her ‘_esprit_,’ her wondrous beauty, particularly
her superb hair, ‘_cultivé avec tant de soin, arrangé avec tant
d’art_;’—and lamenting that a creature thus nobly gifted should have
been cast away upon the same rock which had shipwrecked the greatest,
the most illustrious, of her _compatriotes, ‘le fort Samson, le preux
David, le sage Salomon_;’ he goes on to describe, with real eloquence,
and in a less offensive strain of panegyric, her devotion at the foot
of the cross, her pious visit to the tomb by break of day, braving the
fury of the guards, the cruelty of the Jews, and taking the place of
the apostles, who were dispersed or fled. And thus he winds up with a
moral, most extraordinary when we recollect that it was preached from a
pulpit by a grave doctor in theology:—
‘Jeunes personnes qui vivez encore dans l’innocence! apprenez donc
de la Madeleine combien grands sont les périls de la jeunesse, de la
beauté, de tous les dons purement naturels; souvenez-vous que le désir
excessif de plaire est toujours dangereux, rarement innocent, et qu’il
est bien difficile de donner beaucoup de sentiments, sans en prendre
soi-même. A la vue des faiblesses de la jeune Israélite, comprenez de
quelle importance est, pour vous, la garde de votre cœur; et à quels
désordres il vous expose, si vous ne vous accoutumez à le contrarier
sans cesse, en tous ses penchants.
‘Femmes mondaines, et peut-être voluptueuses! apprenez de la
Madeleine à revenir de vos écarts; ils ont été, dans vous, le fruit
de la faiblesse humaine; que votre retour soit le fruit de votre
correspondance à la grâce. Et pourriez-vous ou vous proposer un modèle
plus digne d’être suivi que celui que vous présente Madeleine, ou
trouver ailleurs un motif plus puissant de le suivre?
‘Et vous qui, fières d’une réserve que vous ne devez peut-être qu’à
votre insensibilité, vous en faites un rempart, à l’abri duquel vous
croyez pouvoir mépriser toute la terre, et dont la mondanité de
Madeleine elle-même a peut-être scandalisé la précieuse vertu! femmes
plus vaines que sages! apprenez de notre Sainte, qu’il n’y a que la
grâce de Dieu et une attention continuelle sur nous-mêmes qui puissent
nous aider constamment contre la pente qui nous précipite vers le
mal; et craignez qu’on ne puisse vous dire, à son sujet, ce quo Saint
Augustin disait à une dévote de votre caractère, pleine d’elle-même et
médisante: “Plût à Dieu que vous eussiez donné dans les mêmes excès
dont vous croyez si volontiers les autres capables! vous seriez moins
éloignée du royaume de Dieu; du moins vous auriez de l’humanité!”’
Le Brun’s Magdalene is just the Magdalene described by this preacher:
both one and the other are as like the Magdalene of Scripture as Leo X.
was like St. Peter.
[298] The original Latin distich runs thus:—
Ne desperetis vos qui peccare soletis,
Exemploque meo vos reparate Deo.
[299] It was in the Standish Gallery belonging to Louis-Philippe, and
now dispersed.
[300] There is a beautiful half-length female figure, attributed to
Correggio, and engraved under the title of ‘Gismunda’ weeping over
the heart of her lover, in the collection of the Duke of Newcastle.
The duplicate in the Belvedere Gallery at Vienna is there styled a
Magdalene, and attributed correctly to Francesco Furini.
[301] Lichtenstein Gal.
[302] These two pictures were sold out of the Louvre with King
Louis-Philippe’s pictures.
[303] Turin Gallery.
[304] Munich Gallery, No. 266. There is an inferior repetition in the
Royal Gallery at Turin.
[305] The great picture formerly in the Durazzo Palace is now in the
Royal Gallery at Turin. It is wonderful for life and colour, and
dramatic feeling—a masterpiece of the painter in his characteristic
style.
[306] Bottari, Tab. xxx.
[307] Santa Croce, Florence.
[308] This beautiful and valuable picture has been bequeathed by the
poet to the National Gallery.
[309] The print by Edelinck is considered as the masterpiece of that
celebrated engraver.
[310] Dresden Gal.
[311] See p. 379, _note_.
[312] There are about 150 churches in England dedicated in honour of
Mary Magdalene.
[313] There is a fine series of frescoes from the life of Mary
Magdalene by Gaudenzio Ferrari, in the church of St. Cristoforo at
Vercelli. 1. Mary and Martha are seated, with a crowd of others,
listening to Christ, who is preaching in a pulpit. Martha is veiled and
thoughtful: Mary, richly dressed, looks up eagerly.—Half destroyed. 2.
Mary anoints the feet of the Saviour: she lays her head down on his
foot with a tender humiliation: in the background the Maries at the
sepulchre and the _Noli me tangere_.—This also in great part ruined.
3. The legend of the Prince of Provence and his wife, who are kneeling
before Lazarus and Mary. Martha is to the left, and Marcella behind. In
the background are the various scenes of the legend:—the embarkation;
the scene on the island; the arrival at Jerusalem; the return to
Marseilles with the child. This is one of the best preserved, and the
heads are remarkably fine. 4. Mary Magdalene sustained by angels,
her feet resting between the wings of one of them, is borne upwards.
All the upper part of the figure is destroyed. In the background are
the last communion and burial of the Magdalene. I saw these frescoes
in October 1855. They suffered greatly from the siege in 1638, when
several bombs shattered this part of the wall, and will soon cease to
exist. They are engraved in their present state in Pianazzi’s ‘Opere di
Gaudenzio Ferrari,’ No. 19.
[314] Bayle, Dict. Hist.; Molanus, lib. iv., de Hist. Sacrar. S. Mag.,
cap. xx. p. 428; Thomasium, prefat. 78. The authority usually cited is
Abdius, a writer who pretended to have lived in the first century, and
whom Bayle styles ‘the most impudent of legendary impostors.’
[315] Paris, Bibliothèque du Roi, MS. 7013, fourteenth century.
[316] Il Perfetto Legendario.
[317] Queen’s Gal.
[318] Bodleian MSS., Oxford.
[319] It is perhaps in reference to this tradition that St. Martha
has become the patroness of an order of charitable women, who serve
in the hospitals, particularly the military hospitals, in France and
elsewhere,—her brother Lazarus having been a soldier.
[320] Fl. Gal.
[321] B. Museum.
[322] It was in the Sp. Gal. in the Louvre, now dispersed.
[323] Santa Maria Penitente.
[324] ‘Leben und Werke Von Albrecht Dürer,’ No. 2067.
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