Curiosities of Christian History Part 43

_THE SACRED PAINTERS AND COMPOSERS._

IMAGES AND PICTURES IN CHURCHES.

The Romish Church has from the beginning looked favourably on the practice of adorning churches with images and pictures of sacred persons. At Nola, in 460, the cathedral of St. Felix had wall paintings of stories taken from the Old Testament. In 752 a council of the Church required images to be erected in churches, and worship of these was inculcated as a remembrance of the holy lives and conversation of the dead. The Iconoclast movement (see _ante_, p. 129) shook faith in the practice for about a century; but the Council of Nicaea, in 787, closed the controversy by approving the practice, and the opposition died out in 842. There seems no limit to the number or subjects of the wall paintings, and the Popes greatly encouraged them. In England at the Reformation images were directed to be taken down and destroyed. Very few wall paintings are found in any English churches, and they are of small value or importance.

THE RUNAGATE MONK PAINTERS.

"I learned," says Hugo of St. Victor, "from a certain prudent and religious man that there are some kinds of people who can scarcely ever be retained with order in the religious life. These are painters, physicians, and buffoons, who are accustomed to travel in different countries. Men of this description can hardly ever be stable. The art of painting is very delightful; for when a painter has painted a church, a chapter-room, a refectory, or any cabinets, if leave be granted to him, on being invited he goes soon to another monastery for the sake of painting. He paints the works of Christ upon a wall, but it never occurs to him to imitate the works in his own life and manners. So with the medical art; it needs an abundance of aromatic plants and medicines. When any one near the church falls sick, he is asked to go to see the patient, and the abbot can hardly refuse permission. Then he is always making experiments on things uncertain and making fallacious statements. Whereas a true monk should never speak out on anything. So it is with buffoons and jesters, who are always bent on rambling. The Fathers of the Council in the eighth century well decreed that monasteries should be the habitations of men labouring to serve G.o.d in silence and peace, and not mere receptacles of arts which minister to pleasure--not places for poets, minstrels, and musicians, but for men praying, reading, and praising G.o.d."

THE PICTURES IN MONASTERIES.

The monasteries were the nurseries of the arts of painting, sculpture, and music. Many of them contained exquisite frescoes of sacred subjects.

Ghiberti, the most ancient historian of art in Italy, spoke with enthusiasm of a great composition with which Ambrose de Lorenzo had covered the walls of a cloister, in which he represented the life of a Christian missionary. First a young man taking the habit of a monk; then entreating to be sent to convert the Saracens; then the departure and arrival before the Sultan, who orders him to be scourged; then condemning him to die; the decapitation; then a horrible tempest, during which vast trees are torn up by the roots and the people fly in terror. In the refectory of the convent of San Salvi, near Florence, Andrea del Sarto painted four figures of saints and the Last Supper; and during the siege in 1529, when the Florentines were compelled to demolish all buildings and reached this great fresco, they were struck dumb and motionless with admiration. One holy brother, lately in the Escurial monastery, guiding from cell to cell and room to room a British painter (Wilkie), pointed out that glorious work of t.i.tian the Lord's Last Supper, beautiful as when it first graced the refectory. As both stood with eyes transfixed at that masterpiece, the holy father said to the stranger: "Here daily do we sit, thanks given to G.o.d for daily bread; and here pondering the mischiefs of these restless times, and thinking of my brethren dead and gone, I not seldom gaze upon this solemn company unmoved by shock of circ.u.mstance or lapse of years, until I cannot but believe that they, these pictures, are in truth the substance and we the shadows."

THE SACRO MONTE DE VARALLO.

On the road from Anna to Varallo, in North Italy, the Sacro Monte, an eminence of great beauty, is seen and is resorted to by pilgrims from all quarters. At the foot is the church of St. Francis, where the wall dividing the nave from the choir is painted in fresco in nineteen compartments, representing the chief events in the life of the Saviour.

The hill of the Sacro Monte is covered with a series of fifty chapels or oratories, containing groups of figures of characters executed in terra-cotta, painted and clothed. They are grouped so as to represent pa.s.sages in Christ's history. The structures are never entered, being merely frames or cases to contain the respective subjects, which are viewed from two or three peepholes in front. Some of the figures are very indifferent works of art; others are of great merit. The oratories are richly decorated with facades, porticoes, and domes, and the figures are the size of life. The walls are all painted, and painters, sculptors, and architects have vied in producing their highest arts of embellishment.

Much effect is produced by the situation of some of the groups. The access to the place where Christ is laid in the sepulchre is by a vault where little light is admitted; and as it is difficult on entering from the open day to distinguish at first any object, the result is very impressive.

Many of the figures are clothed in real drapery, and some have real hair.

The executioners conducting the Saviour to Calvary are made as hideous and repulsive as possible, and are represented with goitres appended to their throats. This Sacro Monte originated in the piety of the blessed St.

Bernardino Caimo, or Coloto, a Milanese n.o.ble.

MIRACULOUS IMAGES IN SPAIN.

In Spain all cla.s.ses were devout believers in miraculous images and effigies of all kinds. Holy kerchiefs were preserved at Alicante, stamped with the Saviour's face; and winding-sheets revealing the same print were adored at Oviedo. In his "History of Painting" Palomino relates how a Christian and Jew labouring in a vineyard disputed about the Messiah, until the Jew, losing patience, exclaimed he would believe in Christ if He would emerge from that vine stock, and which thereupon forthwith became a crucifix. He also tells how at Valencia, on the death of a devout lady, the wax dropping from a taper that burned before her coffin shaped itself into a crucifix, and was treasured as a relic. Once an artist was employed by St. Theresa to paint our Lord at the column as she had beheld Him in a vision; and after failing to express the lady abbess's ideas, he at last found his unsatisfactory picture had been finished to perfection by an angel artist. And at a later time, when this same picture was restored, the nuns were told by the two artists employed that they saw the very finger of the angel as it traced the outlines. And when a pilgrim was engaged at Calatayud to paint St. Ignatius Loyola, he did it so well that he was supposed to be an angel in disguise. And by the same Divine influences the portrait of St. Jerome and the lion was found traced in the mottlings of a jasper.

CIMABUE'S PICTURE OF THE MADONNA (1302).

Cimabue, an Italian painter, who died in 1302, painted for a church in Florence a picture of the Madonna, which excited great enthusiasm in the public. Charles of Anjou, King of Naples, pa.s.sing through Florence while the artist was at work, was taken to see it at the artist's studio in a garden. It had been till then only known to confidants; but when the rumour spread, all Florence crowded to have a glimpse. Nothing before that period had been seen in Tuscany like this picture. When finished, it was carried in solemn procession to the church, followed by the whole population, and with such triumph and rejoicing that the quarter where the painter lived took its name from this event. The figure of the Virgin, as now judged by critics, is neither beautiful nor graceful, but there is a dignity and a majesty in her mien and an expression of inward ponderings and sad antic.i.p.ations rising from her heart to her eyes which rivet the memory. The Child, too, blessing with His right hand is full of deity; and the attendant angels, though like each other as twins, have much grace and sweetness. The picture still hangs in the church of the Dominicans in Santa Maria Novella. Cimabue was one of those conscientious painters who, on noticing the least blemish in his work, would destroy it without compunction, however much trouble it had caused him.

THE BISHOP'S APE TAKES TO PAINTING (1302).

In 1302 Buonamico Buffalmacco, the painter, was pa.s.sing through Arezzo, when Bishop Guido, hearing of his being a cheerful companion as well as great artist, requested him to stay with him and paint the chapel where the baptistery now is, the subject being "the Crucifixion." The painter set to work and completed a large part of it. It happened that the bishop had a large ape of extraordinary cunning and full of mischief, and which sometimes stood on the scaffold watching the work with great interest, particularly the mode of mixing the colours and pouring out from the various flasks, and beating up the eggs. One Sunday morning the ape contrived, in the absence of the painter, to get on the scaffold and see if he could not do that work too. It then fell upon the brushes and pots and pencils; and having mimicked the artist's ways, poured all the colours into one basin, and with a large brush proceeded shortly to cover the whole canvas with artistic flourishes. On Monday morning the artist, on returning, was horrified at the result, and at once attributed it to some envious person, whom he named to the bishop as the suspected culprit. The bishop was greatly annoyed, but, nevertheless, prevailed on the artist to return to his work, and he said he would provide six soldiers with drawn swords to remain concealed and on the watch, to cut down the intruder without mercy, in case a repet.i.tion of the nefarious deed should occur.

The figures were again painted by the artist, and after several days the soldiers took the alarm on hearing some strange sound of stealthy steps and movements, and then a figure clambering up to the scaffold and seizing the brushes. They noticed soon that this figure, after mixing the colours, painted with unseemly haste all the fine heads of saints which had been so carefully elaborated by the artist. They then summoned the artist himself to witness it, whereupon they all were unable to contain themselves for laughter at the grotesque handiwork of the amateur ape, which was the real culprit. The artist betook himself at once to the bishop, and said, "My lord, you desire to have your chapel painted in one fashion, but your ape chooses to have it done in another fashion." Then he told the story of what he had seen, and added: "There's no need for your lordship to send to foreign parts for a painter since you have a master of colour already in your house. Perhaps he did not at first fully understand how to mix the colours, but he is now evidently well acquainted with the whole secret, and can proceed without further help. I am no longer required here since we have discovered his talents, and I will ask no other reward for my labours except permission to return home." The bishop made suitable apologies and begged the artist once more to resume his work, and he would for its crimes shut up the ape in a strong wooden cage, and have it fastened on the scaffold, where it might spend its jealousy and rage in witnessing without having the power of further marring the work. The artist afterwards went to Pisa and covered the roofs and walls of the abbey of St. Paul with pictures from Old Testament subjects, which greatly pleased the people frequenting that place. And many other admirable sacred works were finished in Florence and other places by the same pencil.

THE PAINTER'S CRITICS AND BAD DEBTS (1342).

The same Buffalmacco was engaged by the town of Perugia to paint their patron saint Hercula.n.u.s for their market-place, and the price was agreed on. The painter erected scaffolds and also enclosed himself with boards, so as to keep the people from overlooking him in his labours. After ten days had pa.s.sed, the people pa.s.sing used to stop and wonder how long he was going to take to finish his picture, as they seemed to think such work could be turned out by the yard from a mould, so that the artist became worried and pestered with their importunities. The people became day by day more impatient, until the artist determined he would serve them out.

So after some days' preparation he admitted them to look at the work when near its completion, and they were greatly pleased, and all they next wanted was that he would remove the scaffolding entirely. He said this could not be done for two days longer, as he wished to retouch part of the picture when thoroughly dried. This was allowed. The artist had originally intended the saint's head to have a great diadem in relievo of richly gilt plaster, as was then the custom. He now, remounting his scaffold, subst.i.tuted for the original another coronet or garland surrounded with gudgeons. Next morning he went off to Florence, and when the people had to take down the scaffold and saw the affront put on them, they proposed to send hors.e.m.e.n in pursuit; but in the end they had to get another artist to set the diadem right and erase the silly gudgeons. The same artist was employed to paint a fresco for a country church at Calcindia, a picture of the Virgin holding the Infant Christ in her arms. He found the employer dilatory in payment, so he went and changed the Infant Christ into a bear, using water-colours only. The employer thereupon was in despair, and implored him to restore the Holy Child, and if so he would pay at once all demands. The money being forthcoming, the painter with a wet sponge easily removed the bear and restored the work.

THE NUNS CRITICISING THEIR ARTIST'S WORKS (1342).

The same great Florentine painter, Buffalmacco, about 1340 was employed by the nuns of Faenza to paint a sacred historical picture for them, and they were greatly pleased with every part of the details, except only that they thought the faces rather too pale and wan. Buonamico, hearing this, and knowing that the abbess had the very best Vernaccia wine that could be found in Florence, and which was indeed reserved by them for the use of the Ma.s.s, declared to the nuns that this defect could be remedied only by mixing the colours with good Vernaccia, and that when the cheeks were touched with colours thus tempered, they would become rosy and lifelike enough. The good sisters, who believed all he said, on hearing of this kept him amply supplied with the very best Vernaccia during all the time that his labours lasted, and while cheerfully swallowing this nectar he found on his palette colour enough to give as much rosiness as the ladies desired. It was related, however, that the painter was once surprised by the nuns while drinking the wine; but when he heard one of them saying to another, "See now, he is drinking it himself," he instantly took care adroitly to throw part of the contents out of his mouth on the picture, whereby the nuns were fully a.s.sured as to their mistake.

BROTHER ARTISTS RIVALLING EACH OTHER (1400).

Filippo Brunelleschi and Donato were both sculptors at Florence about the year 1400. Donato had completed a crucifix for the church of Santa Croce in Florence, to be placed beneath the picture of Taddeo Gaddi, which represented the girl restored to life by St. Francis. Filippo, on being shown the crucifix, and being asked by his friend what he thought of it, replied that Donato had placed a clown on the cross, and not a Christ, whose form was of perfect beauty. Donato testily replied, "Take wood then and make one yourself." Filippo, who did not allow himself to be irritated, felt that there was some truth in the retort, and resolved to set about the making of a crucifix himself, such as he thought ought to have been produced. He did this secretly, and it was (as may now be seen in the chapel of Count Bardi) an admirable work. Some time afterwards Donato was engaged to come and dine with him, and they had bought a lot of eggs and delicacies, which Donato was carrying homeward in an ap.r.o.n, when he was told to go forward to the house with these, and his friend would follow. On entering, Donato's eye caught sight of Filippo's crucifix, of which he had never heard anything, and was so amazed and ravished with it that all the eggs and dainties fell at once to the ground, as his eyes became riveted on beauties such as he himself could never attain to in the disposition of the legs, body, and arms. He at once confessed it was a miracle of art. And the two rivals were good friends for ever after.

Filippo was also a skilful and ingenious architect and engineer, and was recommended to the Pope by Cosmo de Medici as a man of such immense capacity that he would have confidence enough to turn the world back on its axis, a compliment which made the Pope stare at Filippo, who was small and insignificant in appearance. Count Sforza said that if every state had a man like Filippo, they might all live in peace without the use of arms.

A PAINTER AFFRONTING A FALLEN ANGEL (1408).

The painter Spinello Aretino was in 1408 engaged by the monks of St.

Agnolo, in Arezzo, to paint the wall of their church near the high altar, and the subject was to be the "Fall of the Angels." In the air appeared St. Michael in combat with the old serpent of seven heads and ten horns, while beneath and in the centre of the picture was Lucifer, already changed into a most hideous and devilish form. So anxious was the artist to make Lucifer frightful and horrible, that one night in his sleep Lucifer appeared to him and demanded to know where the painter had ever seen him look so ugly as that, and why he permitted his pencil to put so mortifying an affront as this upon him. The artist awoke in such extremity of horror that he was unable to speak, and he shook and trembled so violently that his wife thought he was dying. The shock proved to be so great that he never recovered the effects of it, remaining in a most desponding mood, and he gradually sank till he died in a very short time thereafter. It is also related of Lodovico Caracci, that when he had taken down the scaffold on which he had painted the arch above the altar of Bologna Cathedral, he noticed the foot of an angel bending before the Virgin crooked. He wanted to set up the scaffold again, and died of grief at this mischance.

ANGELICO'S DEVOTION TO SACRED ART (1455).

Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole, usually called Angelico, who died in 1455, was both a painter and a devoted Churchman. Though born to plenty, and having a strong turn for art, he entered the order of preaching friars at the age of twenty, and began painting the Virgin and Christ and saints.

Cosmo de Medici saw his merits, and engaged him to paint the Crucifixion for the church of San Marco at Florence, and he filled the lower ground with all the saints who were founders of religious bodies. Vasari said his picture of Gabriel making the Annunciation to the Virgin was considered so beautiful that the spectator could scarcely believe it to be the work of man, but that it must have been executed in Paradise. But his masterpiece was thought to be the coronation of the Virgin, surrounded by angels, saints, and holy personages. Vasari said the heads and figures were so varied in expression and att.i.tude that people had infinite pleasure in looking on them, and all admitted that even the saints themselves in heaven could not look otherwise than in this picture, and that no other than the angels themselves could produce such figures of elevated beauty, dignity, and devotion. The Pope invited him to execute various works at Rome, and was so charmed with the simplicity and modesty of the artist that he offered him a high appointment in the Church, as he was a friar and qualified; but the artist declined it and recommended a poor friend, to whom this office was kindly given. Angelico, in the estimation of his contemporaries, lived a life of pure holiness. He laboured continually at his paintings, but would do nothing that was not connected with things holy. He despised riches and had no anger in his composition. He used to say that the only true riches was contentment with little. He said he sought no dignity, and all he cared for was to escape h.e.l.l and draw near to Paradise. He said that he who practised the art of painting should live without cares or anxious thoughts, and he who would do the work of Christ should perpetually remain with Christ. His pictures of saints excelled those of all other artists. He said he never took up his pencil without first offering a prayer. He never painted a crucifix without tears streaming from his eyes. Some friendly hand painted his own portrait on the outside of his tomb in the church of the Minerva at Rome.

BRONZES FOR THE GATES OF PARADISE (GHIBERTI, 1455).

Lorenzo Ghiberti, a famous Florentine sculptor, who excelled in casting his sculpture in metals, had acquired so great a reputation that the city authorities gave him a commission about 1439 to decorate the chief door of San Giovanni with bronzes representing scenes or histories from the Old Testament. The door when finished met with unbounded praise from all quarters. When Michael Angelo was asked what he thought of it he said, "They are so beautiful that they might fittingly stand at the gates of Paradise!" This artist put his own portrait as well as that of his father on one part of the decorations of the border of the door. Lorenzo had shown his genius at the age of twenty, when he won the prize for which the first artists competed--namely, a bronze representing the sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham. Other bronzes representing separate subjects followed. For this great work he was liberally paid, and its admirable execution led to many lucrative commissions of a like kind.

THE OLDEST PAINTERS AND THEIR PERSPECTIVE (UCCELLO, 1472).

The older cla.s.s of mediaeval painters of sacred subjects often showed great ignorance of perspective. One memorable instance was that of Paolo Uccello, who died in 1472, and who had acquired great reputation for his pictures. His last great commission was one to paint St. Thomas searching for the wound in the side of Christ; and the painting was to be above the door of the church in the Mercato Veichio in Florence, dedicated to that saint. Paolo was proud of this commission, and told his friends that he would lay out all his strength on this picture, and display the fruit of his experience and insight in its design. His first step was to erect a close inclosure of planks all round the wall, so as to keep off the prying and curious. He had been working some time in secret when another artist, Donato, met him in the street and asked what sort of work this was that he was so closely engaged upon. Paolo said, with some self-satisfaction, that Donato would see it in due time. Some time later the same Donato accidentally pa.s.sed and saw Paolo Uccello uncovering this masterpiece, and after a courteous salutation Paolo was eager to know what his brother artist would say to it. Donato looked very minutely at it, and then said, "Why, Paolo, you are uncovering your picture just at the time you should be shutting it up from the public view." These words stabbed the painter to the heart; for on certain things being pointed out by the critic, he saw he had made a grievous mistake, and that the public would cover him with derision instead of applause. This fate he could not face, and from that time he shut himself up in his house so as to study once more the laws of perspective. And Vasari says this picture killed him, for the faults in it weighed on his spirits, which he never recovered. The painting has disappeared in modern times.

THE MONKS OVER-FEEDING THEIR ARTIST WITH CHEESE (UCCELLO, 1472).

The painter Paolo Uccello was engaged by the monks of San Miniato, near Florence, to paint the lives of the Holy Fathers in one of their cloisters. The work was to be partly coloured and princ.i.p.ally in terra verde, and it is said he rather misplaced his colours, making his fields blue, his cities red, and the buildings all colours. While he was engaged in this work the abbot gave him scarcely anything to eat but cheese, of which the painter grew so speedily sick, that, being of a timid nature, he went off clandestinely and did not return, and he gave no explanation.

The abbot and the monks sent to him, to ask why he did not return; but he gave no answer, and if he met them in the street he made off as fast as he could in another direction. At last one of the monks determined to solve the mystery, waylaid him, got speech of him, and put the same unanswered question. Paolo replied, "You have so murdered me, that I not only run away from you, but dare not stop near the shop of a carpenter or even pa.s.s by one. And all this comes of your abbot's mismanagement; for, what with his cheese pies and his cheese soup, he has made me swallow such a mountain of cheese that I am all turned into cheese myself, and I tremble lest the carpenters rush out, seize, and put me into their glue-pot. I am quite sure that if I had stayed with you longer I should have been no more Paolo, but mere cheese." When the monk told the other monks this story, they roared with laughter and begged their abbot to persuade the painter to return, and then to feed him well on other delicacies.

A CLUMSY CRUCIFIX BEFORE THE DYING ARTIST (GROSSO, 1488).

Nanni Grosso was a sculptor at Florence about 1488. One of his invariable rules was, that he would never execute any work in a convent unless the monks left the door of the wine cellar open, so that he could go in and take a drink when he pleased without asking their leave. When Nanni was on his deathbed in the hospital of Santa Marina Nuova, the nurses placed a wooden crucifix before him which was clumsy and ill executed. He implored them to take it out of his sight and bring him one by Donato, declaring that if they did not take that one from before him he should die in despair, so greatly did the sight of ill-executed works of art excite him.

A POOR ARTIST KILLED BY A SIGHT OF GOLD (1513).

Pinturicchio, a painter of Perugia, who had painted and decorated many churches, but without ever securing great profit to himself, was in his old days engaged to paint a picture of the Virgin at the convent of San Francesco, in Siena, and a room was appropriated to his use by the monks and given up to him entirely. They took away all the furniture so as to give him s.p.a.ce, leaving nothing but a very ma.s.sive old chest which was too heavy to be removed. The painter being arbitrary and domineering, soon made such a clamour about this chest being in his way, and he so worried the poor monks, that in their desperation they resolved to remove it rather than be any longer abused. So they dragged it out a little with immense difficulty, but in straining it one of its sides gave way and a sum of five hundred golden ducats tumbled out, which seemed so vast a collection of valuable material to our artist, and he was so transfixed with horror and remorse as he thought of his inconceivable folly in having thrown all this fortune, as it were, away, that he took to his bed and never rallied, dying shortly afterwards of a broken heart.