Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Fine Arts Part 19

"And Anna hearing these words was sorely troubled. And she laid aside her mourning garments, and she adorned her head, and put on her bridal attire; and at the ninth hour she went forth into her garden, and sat down under a laurel tree and prayed earnestly. And looking up to heaven, she saw within the laurel bush a sparrow's nest; and mourning within herself she said, 'Alas! and woe is me! who hath begotten me?

who hath brought me forth? that I should be accursed in the sight of Israel, and scorned and shamed before my people, and cast out of the temple of the Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? I cannot be likened to the fowls of heaven, for the fowls of heaven are fruitful in thy sight, O Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? Not to the unreasoning beasts of the earth, for they are fruitful in thy sight, O Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? Not to these waters, for they are fruitful in thy sight, O Lord! Woe is me! to what shall I be likened? Not unto the earth, for the earth bringeth forth her fruit in due season, and praiseth thee, O Lord!'

"And behold an angel of the Lord stood by her and said, 'Anna, thy prayer is heard, thou shalt bring forth, and thy child shall be blessed throughout the whole world.' And Anna said, 'As the Lord liveth, whatever I shall bring forth, be it a man-child or a maid, I will present it an offering to the Lord.' And behold another angel came and said to her, 'See, thy husband Joachim is coming with his shepherds;' for an angel had spoken to him also, and had comforted him with promises. And Anna went forth to meet her husband, and Joachim came from the pasture with his herds, and they met at the golden gate; and Anna ran and embraced her husband, and hung upon his neck, saying, 'Now know I that the Lord hath blessed me. I who was a widow am no longer a widow; I who was barren shall become a joyful mother.'

"And they returned home together.

"And when her time was come, Anna brought forth a daughter; and she said, 'This day my soul magnifieth the Lord.' And she laid herself down in her bed; and she called, the name of her child Mary, which in the Hebrew is Miriam."

With the scenes of this beautiful pastoral begins the life of the Virgin.

1. We have first Joachim rejected from the temple. He stands on the steps before the altar holding a lamb; and the high priest opposite to him, with arm upraised, appears to refuse his offering. Such is the usual _motif_; but the incident has been variously treated--in the earlier and ruder examples, with a ludicrous want of dignity; for Joachim is almost tumbling down the steps of the temple to avoid the box on the ear which Issachar the priest is in the act of bestowing in a most energetic fashion. On the other hand, the group by Taddeo Gaddi (Florence, Baroncelli Chapel, S. Croce), though so early in date, has not since been excelled either in the grace or the dramatic significance of the treatment. Joachim turns away, with his lamb in his arms, repulsed, but gently, by the priest. To the right are three personages who bring offerings, one of whom, prostrate on his knees, yet looks up at Joachim with a sneering expression--a fine representation of the pharisaical piety of one of the elect, rejoicing in the humiliation of a brother. On the other side are three persons who appear to be commenting on the scene. In the more elaborate composition by Ghirlandajo (Florence, S. Maria Novella), there is a grand view into the interior of the temple, with arches richly sculptured. Joachim is thrust forth by one of the attendants, while in the background the high priest accepts the offering of a more favoured votary. On each side are groups looking on, who express the contempt and hatred they feel for one, who, not having children, presumes to approach the altar. All these, according to the custom of Ghirlandajo, are portraits of distinguished persons. The first figure on the right represents the painter Baldovinetti; next to him, with his hand on his side, Ghirlandajo himself; the third, with long black hair, is Bastiano Mainardi, who painted the a.s.sumption in the Baroncelli Chapel, in the Santa Croce; and the fourth, turning his back, is David Ghirlandajo. These real personages are so managed, that, while they are not themselves actors, they do not interfere with the main action, but rather embellish and ill.u.s.trate it, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Every single figure in this fine fresco is a study for manly character, dignified att.i.tude, and easy grand drapery.

In the same scene by Albert Durer,[1] the high priest, standing behind a table, rejects the offering of the lamb, and his attendant pushes away the doves. Joachim makes a gesture of despair, and several persons who bring offerings look at him with disdain or with sympathy.

[Footnote 1: In the set of wood-cuts of the Life of the Virgin.]

The same scene by Luini (Milan, Brera) is conceived with much pathetic as well as dramatic effect. But as I have said enough to reader the subject easily recognized, we proceed.

2. "Joachim herding his sheep on the mountain, and surrounded by his shepherds, receives the message of the angel." This subject may so nearly resemble the Annunciation to the Shepherds in St. Luke's Gospel, that we must be careful to distinguish them, as, indeed, the best of the old painters have done with great taste and feeling.

Is the fres...o...b.. Taddeo Gaddi (in the Baroncelli Chapel), Joachim is seated on a rocky mountain, at the base of which his sheep are feeding, and turns round to listen to the voice of the angel. In the fres...o...b.. Giotto in the Arena at Padua, the treatment is nearly the same.[1] In the series by Luini, a stream runs down the centre of the picture: on one side is Joachim listening to the angel, on the other, Anna is walking in her garden. This incident is omitted by Ghirlandajo. In Albert Durer's composition, Joachim is seen in the foreground kneeling, and looking up at an angel, who holds out in both hands a sort of parchment roll looking like a diploma with seals appended, and which we may suppose to contain the message from on high (if it be not rather the emblem of the _sealed book_, so often introduced, particularly by the German masters). A companion of Joachim also looks up with amazement, and farther in the distance are sheep and shepherds.

[Footnote 1: The subject will be found in the set of wood-cuts published by the Arundel Society.]

The Annunciation to St. Anna may be easily mistaken for the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary;--we must therefore be careful to discriminate, by an attention to the accessories. Didron observes that in Western art the annunciation to St. Anna usually takes place in a chamber. In the East it takes place in a garden, because there "_on vit feu dans les maisons et beaucoup en plein air_;" but, according to the legend, the locality ought to be a garden, and under a laurel tree, which is not always attended to.

3. The altercation between St. Anna and her maid Judith I have never met with but once, in the series by Luini, where the disconsolate figure and expression of St. Anna are given with infinite grace and sentiment. (Milan, Brera.)

4. "The meeting of Joachim and Anna before the golden gate." This is one of the most important subjects. It has been treated by the very early artists with much _navete_, and in the later examples with infinite beauty and sentiment; and, which is curious, it has been idealized into a devotional subject, and treated apart. The action is in itself extremely simple. The husband and wife affectionately and joyfully embrace each other. In the background is seen a gate, richly ornamented. Groups of spectators and attendants are sometimes, not always, introduced.

In the composition of Albert Durer nothing can be more homely, hearty, and conjugal. A burly fat man, who looks on with a sort of wondering amus.e.m.e.nt in his face, appears to be a true and animated transcript from nature, as true as Ghirlandajo's attendant figures--but how different! what a contrast between the Florentine citizen and the German burgher! In the simpler composition by Taddeo Gaddi, St. Anna is attended by three women, among whom the maid Judith is conspicuous, and behind Joachim is one of his shepherds[1].

[Footnote 1: In two compartments of a small altar-piece (which probably represented in the centre the Nativity of the Virgin), I found on one side the story of St. Joachim, on the other the story of St. Anna.--_Collection of Lord Northwick, No. 513, in his Catalogue_.]

The Franciscans, those enthusiastic defenders of the Immaculate Conception, were the authors of a fantastic idea, that the birth of the Virgin was not only _immaculate_, but altogether _miraculous_, and that she owed her being to the joyful kiss which Joachim gave his wife when they met at the gate. Of course the Church gave no countenance to this strange poetical fiction, but it certainly modified some of the representations; for example, there is a picture by Vittore Carpaccio, wherein St. Joachim and Anna tenderly embrace. On one side stands St. Louis of Toulouse as bishop; on the other St. Ursula with her standard, whose presence turns the incident into a religious mystery.

In another picture, painted by Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, we have a still more singular and altogether mystical treatment. In the centre St.

Joachim and St. Anna embrace; behind St. Joachim stands St. Joseph with his lily wand and a book; behind St. Anna, the Virgin Mary (thus represented as existing before she was born[1]), and beyond her St.

Laurence; in the corner is seen the head of the votary, a Servite monk; above all, the Padre Eterno holds an open book with the _Alpha_ and _Omega_. This singular picture was dedicated and placed over the high altar of the Conception in the church of the Servi, who, under the t.i.tle of _Serviti di Maria_, were dedicated to the especial service of the Virgin Mary. (v. Legends of the Monastic Orders.)

[Footnote 1: Prov. viii 22, 23. These texts are applied to the Madonna.]

THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.

_Ital._ La Nascita della B. Vergine. _Fr._ La Naissance de la S.

Vierge. _Ger._ Die Geburt Maria.

This is, of course, a very important subject. It is sometimes treated apart as a separate scene; and a series of pictures dedicated to the honour of the Virgin, and comprising only a few of the most eventful scenes in her history, generally begins with her Nativity. The primitive treatment is Greek, and, though varied in the details and the sentiment, it has never deviated much from the original _motif_.

St. Anna reclines on a couch covered with drapery, and a pillow under her head; two handmaids sustain her; a third fans her, or presents refreshments; more in front a group of women are busied about the new-born child. It has been the custom, I know not on what authority, to introduce neighbours and friends, who come to congratulate the parents. The whole scene thus treated is sure to come home to the bosom of the observer. The most important event in the life of a woman, her most common and yet most awful experience, is here so treated as to be at once enn.o.bled by its significance and endeared by its thoroughly domestic character.

I will give some examples. 1. The first is by an unknown master of the Greco-Italian school, and referred by d'Agincourt to the thirteenth century, but it is evidently later, and quite in the style of the Gaddi.

2. There is both dignity and simplicity in the fres...o...b.. Taddeo Gaddi. (Florence, Baroncelli Chapel.) St. Anna is sitting up in bed; an attendant pours water over her hands. In front, two women are affectionately occupied with the child a lovely infant with a glory round its head. Three other attendants are at the foot of the bed.

3. We have next in date, the elegant composition by Ghirlandajo. As Joachim and Anna were "exceedingly rich," he has surrounded them with all the luxuries of life. The scene is a chamber richly decorated; a frieze of angelic boys ornaments the alcove; St. Anna lies on a couch.

Vasari says "certain women are ministering to her." but in Lasinio's engraving they are not to be found. In front a female attendant pours water into a vase; two others seated hold the infant. A n.o.ble lady, habited in the elegant Florentine costume of the fifteenth century, enters with four others--all portraits, and, as is usual with Ghirlandajo, looking on without taking any part in the action. The lady in front is traditionally said to be Ginevra Benci, celebrated for her beauty.

4. The composition by Albert Durer[1] gives us an exact transcript of antique German life, quite wonderful for the homely truth of the delineation, but equally without the simplicity of a scriptural or the dignity of an historical scene. In an old-fashioned German chamber lies St. Anna in an old-fashioned canopied bedstead. Two women bring her a soup and something to drink, while the midwife, tired with her exertions, leans her head on the bedside and has sank to sleep. A crowd of women fill up the foreground, one of whom attends to the new-born child: others, who appear to have watched through the night, as we may suppose from the nearly extinguished candles, are intent on good cheer; they congratulate each other; they eat, drink, and repose themselves. It would be merely a scene of German _commerage_, full of nature and reality, if an angel hovering above, and swinging a censer, did not remind us of the sacred importance of the incident represented.

[Footnote 1: In the set of wood-cuts of the "Life of the Virgin Mary."]

5. In the strongest possible contrast to the homely but animated conception of Albert Durer, is the grand fres...o...b.. Andrea del Sarto, in the church of the Nunziata at Florence. The incidents are nearly the same: we have St. Anna reclining in her bed and attended by her women; the nurses waiting on the lovely new-born child; the visitors who enter to congratulate; but all, down to the handmaidens who bring refreshments, are n.o.ble and dignified, and draped in that magnificent taste which distinguished Andrea, Angels scatter flowers from above and, which is very uncommon, Joachim is seen, after the anxious night reposing on a couch. Nothing in fresco can exceed the harmony and brilliancy of the colouring, and the softness of the execution. It appeared to me a masterpiece as a picture. Like Ghirlandajo, Andrea has introduced portraits; and in the Florentine lady who stands in the foreground we recognize the features of his worthless wife Lucrezia, the original model of so many of his female figures that the ign.o.ble beauty of her face has become quite familiar.

THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN.

_Ital._ La Presentazione, ove nostra Signora piccioletta sale i gradi del Tempio. _Ger._ Joachim und Anna weihen ihre Tochter Maria im Tempel. Die Vorstellung der Jungfrau im Tempel. Nov. 21.

In the interval between the birth of Mary and her consecration in the temple, there is no incident which I can remember as being important or popular as a subject of art.

It is recorded with what tenderness her mother Anna watched over her, "how she made of her bedchamber a holy place, allowing nothing that was common or unclean to enter in;" and called to her "certain daughters of Israel, pure and gentle," whom she appointed to attend on her. In some of the early miniature ill.u.s.trations of the Offices of the Virgin, St. Anna thus ministers to her child; for instance, in a beautiful Greek MS. in the Vatican, she is tenderly putting her into a little bed or cradle and covering her up. (It is engraved in d'Agincourt.)

It is not said anywhere that St. Anna instructed her daughter. It has even been regarded as unorthodox to suppose that the Virgin, enriched from her birth, and before her birth, with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, required instruction from any one. Nevertheless, the subject of the "Education of the Virgin" has been often represented in later times. There is a beautiful example by Murillo; while Anna teaches her child to read, angels hover over them with wreaths of roses. (Madrid Gal.) Another by Rubens, in which, as it is said, he represented his young wife, Helena Forman. (Musee, Antwerp.) There is also a picture in which St. Anna ministers to her daughter, and is intent on braiding and adorning her long golden hair, while the angels look on with devout admiration. (Vienna, Lichtenstein Gal.) In all these examples Mary is represented as a girl of ten or twelve years old. Now, as the legend expressly relates that she was three years old when she became an inmate of the temple, such representations must be considered as incorrect.

The narrative thus proceeds:--

"And when the child was _three years old_, Joachim said, 'Let us invite the daughters of Israel, and they shall take each a taper or a lamp, and attend on her, that the child may not turn back from the temple of the Lord.' And being come to the temple, they placed her on the first step, and she ascended alone all the steps to the altar: and the high priest received her there, kissed her, and blessed her, saying, 'Mary, the Lord hath magnified thy name to all generations, and in thee shall be made known the redemption of the children of Israel.' And being placed before the altar, she danced with her feet, so that all the house of Israel rejoiced with her, and loved her. Then her parents returned home, blessing G.o.d because the maiden had not turned back from the temple."

Such is the incident, which, in artistic representation, is sometimes styled the "Dedication," but more generally "THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN."

It is a subject of great importance, not only as a princ.i.p.al incident in a series of the Life of the Virgin, but because this consecration of Mary to the service of the temple being taken in a general sense, it has often been given in a separate form, particularly for the nunneries. Hence it has happened that we find "The Presentation of the Virgin" among some of the most precious examples of ancient and modern art.