Child-life in Art Part 4

Turning from Raphael's clouds of dimly suggested cherub faces to those representations of the angel throngs in which the child forms are more distinctly delineated, we find that the great masters have made use of the myriad figures to express a corresponding variety in mood and character. Thus, when the emotions of the princ.i.p.al personage in a composition are too complex to be adequately expressed on a single countenance, the angel faces surrounding may each, in turn, convey some one of the many aspects of thought or feeling which go to make up the entire conception.

The Crucifixion[16] is a striking instance of the mingling, of contrasted emotions,--bodily suffering and spiritual victory, worldly defeat and heavenly triumph,--all of which cannot be depicted on the face of the Christ, but which a throng of attendant cherubs may fully interpret. The same principle is ill.u.s.trated in the many scenes of which the Madonna is the central figure, as the Immaculate Conception, the a.s.sumption, and the Coronation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRAGMENT FROM THE a.s.sUMPTION.--t.i.tIAN.]

Of such paintings, t.i.tian's a.s.sumption is the most splendid example.

The ascending, Virgin is surrounded by a wreath of child-angels, of surpa.s.sing grace and beauty. It is of these that Mrs. Jameson has written, in her incomparable way, that they are "mind and music and love, kneaded, as it were, into form and color." From a compositional point of view they serve an important purpose in directing the attention of the spectator to the princ.i.p.al figure of the picture. All the gracefully intertwined limbs of the angelic host--outstretched arms and floating figures,--form the radii of a great semicircle centering in the beautiful Madonna.

If t.i.tian's child-angels stand for the highest attainment in the idealization of child beauty, those of Rubens, on the other hand, are the most human and lovable ever conceived in art. Their lovely baby forms cl.u.s.ter in countless numbers about the glorified Virgin, joyously bearing palm and wreath in token of her triumph.

The name of Murillo also occupies the first rank in the delineation of companies of child-angels. Called in turn the t.i.tian and the Rubens of Spain, he is like his Venetian and Flemish prototypes in his intense sympathy for childhood. His angels have not that transcendent superiority to mortals which distinguishes t.i.tian's, nor are they the dimpled bits of pink-and-white babyhood characteristic of Rubens. They belong somewhere between the two extremes, and are remarkable for their innocence and purity of expression. As the Immaculate Conception was Murillo's favorite subject, it is here that we see his child-angels at their best. He has also introduced them into the Holy Family of Seville, as well as into that most wonderful painting of the Christ-child Appearing to Saint Anthony of Padua.

A beautiful method of introducing child-angels into religious pictures, differing widely from the treatment of angel hosts, is to represent one[17] or two, sometimes three, in attendance upon the Madonna and Babe, or the Christ. This is especially appropriate where the subject is treated devotionally, and the central figure is elevated on a throne or pedestal, with the angels at the foot.

Among the Florentine artists, the two friends Raphael and Bartolommeo, as well as their contemporary, Andrea del Sarto, furnish many examples of these angel attendants. With Andrea del Sarto, as was characteristic, they are bewitching winged boys; while with Bartolommeo and Raphael they partake of a more delicate spirituality, which marks them as truly celestial.

The Madonna of the Harpies, which is considered the masterpiece of Andrea del Sarto, contains two charming cherubs, which may be taken as excellent types of the artist's rendering of these subjects. The Two Angels, from his great painting of the Four Saints, are somewhat above his average plane. These lovely and graceful figures originally stood in the centre of a large composition, but were at a later date removed from the canvas to make a separate picture. Their real significance is to show forth the beauty of a saintly life. Each carries a scroll, and one points upward.

In the work of Bartolommeo the finest cherubs are those of his Throne Madonna, the Madonna Enthroned, and the Risen Christ. All three show the same masterly hand, and express a similar conception of the office filled by the angels. In every case one is looking up with a rapt expression of joy, while the other is more contemplative, drooping the head as if in reflection. The contrast suggests the distinction of early theology between the seraphim and cherubim, the former being, according to etymological significance, the spirits who love and adore, and the latter, those who know and worship. This distinction was scrupulously adhered to in early art by representing the seraphim as red, and the cherubim as blue. Although later artists no longer observed any discrimination between two cla.s.ses of celestial beings, it may be that the difference between Bartolommeo's two angels is due to the influence of this idea. Be this as it may, the fact remains that the opposition between them in face and att.i.tude is exactly appropriate to symbolize one as love and the other as reflection.

This is very marked in Raphael's work, as may be seen in his Madonna del Baldacchino, a painting whose style of composition is strikingly like that of Bartolommeo. Of the two singing angels at the foot of the Madonna's throne, one studies eagerly the meaning of his music, while the other sings with the happy unconsciousness of a bird. Comparing with this Raphael's grandest achievement, the Sistine Madonna, we find the same _motif_ carried to its highest realization. The two beautiful cherubs who lean upon the parapet at the bottom of the picture are perfect impersonations of the serene content and the thoughtful deliberation with which varying types of Christian believers have received the great fact of the Incarnation.

The Venetian painters delighted to put musical instruments into the hands of their child-angels, representing them as choristers, hymning the praises of the infant Saviour. Of these, many notable examples were produced in the _botteghe_ of the two rival artist families, the Bellini and the Vivarini. Jacopo Bellini and his two sons, Gentile and Giovanni, were the real founders of the Venetian school, and the work of Giovanni became an ideal standard, which his contemporaries essayed to follow. Luigi Vivarini was so successful as his imitator that his paintings are often incorrectly a.s.signed to the greater artist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIPING ANGEL.--BELLINI.]

The Frari Madonna, however, is an undoubted Bellini, and here the Venetian conception of the child-angel is seen in its loveliest aspects.

Two eager little choristers stand on the lower steps of the Madonna's throne, "exquisite courtiers of the Infant King," as Mrs. Oliphant gracefully calls them. One, myrtle-crowned, is blowing on a pipe, while the other bends gravely over a large lute.

The Madonna of the Church of the Redentore[18] shows another pair of angel musicians, sitting on a low wall in the foreground, one at the head and the other at the feet of the sleeping Babe. Both are playing on lutes, and the serious, absorbed air with which they fulfil their task is delightful to see. With lifted face and faraway eyes, they seem to be listening to a heavenly chorus, of which their own melody is an echo.

Any mention of the Venetian type of angels would be incomplete without adding the names of Palma Vecchio and Carpaccio to the list of those who most delicately interpreted the subject. Examples of their work are scattered over Northern Italy, but none perhaps are more representative than Carpaccio's Presentation, in the Academy at Venice, and Palma's altar-piece at Zerman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGEL FROM PAINTING IN CHURCH OF REDENTORE.--VIVARINI.]

The child-angel as a playmate and companion of the Christ-child is a conception which has not infrequently been represented in art with great appropriateness. Both Van Dyck and Lucas Cranach have given us the Repose in Egypt, enlivened by the presence of a company of frolicsome cherubs sporting about the Divine Babe. Rubens painted a lovely group of the Infant Jesus and Saint John, seated on the ground, playing with their celestial little visitors. A Holy Family, by Ippolito Andreasi, represents angel children gathering and bringing grapes to the Saviour.

With a small circle of Florentine artists, led by Botticelli, and including Filippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi, a unique cla.s.s of child-angels is in great favor. These are children of a larger growth and maturer appearance than the infantine cherubs of contemporary artists, and might properly be called angel-youths. In the best examples their expression is an admirable mingling of strength and purity. As attendants to the Christ-child, they serve in various capacities with loving and reverent grace.

In Botticelli's famous "round Madonna" of the Uffizi, one holds the ink vessel into which the Virgin dips her pen as she writes the Magnificat, two others hold a starry crown over her head, and two more complete the group, as companions of the Saviour. In the Holy Family, by the same artist, only two angels are introduced, one of whom leans over a bal.u.s.trade, with a beautiful lily-stalk in his hand, in token of the Virgin's purity.

Filippo Lippi's charming rendering of angel-youths is best seen in the picture which represents the Christ-child borne by two attendant cherubs in exemplification of the psalmist's words, "They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." The Madonna stands before the Divine Babe, with hands clasped in adoration, a lovely impersonation of the Madre Pia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANGEL FROM VISION OF MADONNA APPEARING TO SAINT BERNARD.--FILIPPINO LIPPI.]

The Madre Pia is also the subject of one of Filippino Lippi's most exquisite angel pictures. The Infant Saviour lies on the ground, in a garden, while his mother kneels to adore him. Angel-youths surround him, kneeling, and one stands showering rose-petals down upon him.

The masterpiece of Filippino Lippi is the Vision of Saint Bernard, in the Badia at Florence, and here again angel-youths are introduced with charming effect. Two are in the rear, with hands clasped in adoration; two are beside the Virgin, bearing the weight of her mantle, and raising their earnest young faces with sweet reverence. One of these faces is presented in profile, and has a delicately cut, pure outline, of rare gentleness and beauty.

The artist's ideal is wonderfully helpful to the imagination, and the thought is full of comfort, that it is loving and tender presences like these which are "in charge over us, to keep us in all our ways."

VI.

THE CHRIST-CHILD.

And the Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of G.o.d was upon him.

LUKE ii. 40.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CHRIST-CHILD.

Among the innumerable pictures in which the world's great religious painters have represented the scenes of the earthly life of our Lord, it is amazing to note the large proportion of subjects relating to his infancy and childhood. What else can this mean than that the hearts of worshippers ever yearn towards that which they can understand and love, and that thus, of all the varied aspects of Christ's character, it appeals to us most forcibly that He was once a babe in the Bethlehem manger.

To find the earliest delineations of the Christ-child we must go to the Catacombs of Rome, and on the walls of their strange subterranean chapels retrace the fading features of the Divine Babe as painted there centuries ago to cheer the hearts of Christians. Two of these primitive frescos are in the Greek chapel of the Catacomb of S. Praxedes,[19]

where they are a constant object of interest to the art pilgrim.

Considered aesthetically, they have of course no intrinsic beauty; but to the thoughtful mind they stand for the beginnings of a great art movement which culminated in the canvases of Raphael and t.i.tian.

From the frescos of the Catacombs the next step in the progress of Christian art was to the mosaics ornamenting the basilicas; and here the Christ-child again appears as a conspicuous figure. Some of the most interesting of these mosaics[20] represent the Babe receiving the gifts of the Magi,--as at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome and at Saint Apollinare in Ravenna. In others, as at Capua, the Child shares with the enthroned Virgin the adoration of a surrounding group of saints. Still another of peculiar interest is at Santa Maria in Trastevere (Rome), where the Infant is suckled at his mother's breast.

When we enter that strange period of history known as the Dark Ages, we find the art products few and uninteresting; but even then the Christ-child is not forgotten, and again and again he appears sculptured in marble over the portals of cathedrals, or painted in stiff Byzantine style over their altars.

Thus it was that in the new birth of art in Italy, when Niccol Pisano in sculpture, and Cimabue in painting, awakened the sleeping world to a love of beauty, the Madonna, with her heaven-born Babe, was the first subject to arouse enthusiasm; and it was for a picture of this sort that all Florence went mad with joy, as it was borne along The Street of Rejoicing.

In early representations, both in mosaics and paintings, the Child is dressed in a tunic, white, red, or blue, often very richly ornamented with gold embroidery. This method obtained as late as the fourteenth century, when Fra Angelico still painted the Babe in the elaborate royal garments of a king. But art at last returned to nature, and from the fifteenth century the Holy Child was painted partially and sometimes wholly undraped, with beautiful rounded limbs and soft pink baby flesh.

It was then that Italy was transformed into a paradise of art, and all the important cities were full of great painters whose hearts were aglow with the sacred fire of genius. In the host of beautiful works which were produced in the next three centuries, every type of treatment was exemplified, varying from the most simple naturalism to the loftiest idealism. The nave realism of Filippino Lippi's chubby baby, placidly sucking his thumb as he looks out of the picture, is matched in the frolicsome boys of Andrea del Sarto's many paintings, smiling mischievously from the Madonna's arms. At the other extreme is the strangely precocious looking child of Botticelli, raising his eyes heavenward, with a mystic smile on his serious face.

And when it would seem that every conceivable type of infancy, and every imaginable situation had already been realized on the canvas, Raphael[21] arose to create an entirely new ideal. His life was so short, his work so surpa.s.singly brilliant, that it was as if a splendid meteor suddenly flashed across the starry firmament of the Cinque-Cento.

Perugino, his master; Pinturicchio, his employer; Fra Bartolommeo, his friend; Andrea del Sarto, "the faultless painter," all paled before his rapidly increasing glory. When he laid down his brush at the age of thirty-seven, he had finished a career which is one of the miracles of history. His work is a complete epitome of religious art, including all the great themes, and enveloping each with an atmosphere of pure spirituality, indescribably elevating to mind and soul.

His conception of the Christ-child ranges from the sleeping Babe from whose innocent face the Madonna of the Diadem softly lifts a veil, to the grave boy whom the Chair Madonna clasps in her arms. Every shade of playfulness, of affection, of dignity, and of contemplation, is mirrored in the long series of pictures in which he embodied his ever-changing ideal of the Divine Infant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADONNA DI CASA TEMPI.--RAPHAEL.]

The magnificent versatility of his genius is admirably ill.u.s.trated by the contrast between two of his finest works,--the Madonna of the Casa Tempi and the Madonna di San Sisto, standing the one for the human aspect and the other for the divine, in the incarnation of the Son of G.o.d. The first shows an ideal mother fondly pressing her darling's cheek against her own; the second is a vision of ideal womanhood hastening down the centuries to present the Word to the waiting world.