Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Fine Arts Part 2

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Caracci school gave a new impetus to religious, or rather, as it has been styled in contradistinction, sacerdotal or theological art. If these great painters had been remarkable merely for the application of new artistic methods, for the success with which they combined the aims of various schools--

"Di Michel Angiol la terribil via E 'l vero natural di Tiziano,"

the study of the antique with the observation of real life,--their works undoubtedly would never have taken such a hold on the minds of their contemporaries, nor kept it so long. Everything to live must have an infusion of truth within it, and this "patchwork ideal," as it has been well styled, was held together by such a principle. The founders of the Caracci school, and their immediate followers, felt the influences of the time, and worked them out. They were devout believers in their Church, and most sincere worshippers of the Madonna. Guido, in particular, was so distinguished by his pa.s.sionate enthusiasm for her, that he was supposed to have been favoured by a particular vision, which enabled him more worthily to represent her divine beauty.

It is curious that, hand in hand with this development of taste and feeling in the appreciation of natural sentiment and beauty, and this tendency to realism, we find the a.s.sociations of a peculiar and specific sanct.i.ty remaining with the old Byzantine type. This arose from the fact, always to be borne in mind, that the most ancient artistic figure of the Madonna was a purely theological symbol; apparently the moral type was too nearly allied to the human and the real to satisfy faith. It is the ugly, dark-coloured, ancient Greek Madonnas, such as this, which had all along the credit of being miraculous; and "to this day," says Kugler, "the Neapolitan lemonade-seller will allow no other than a formal Greek Madonna, with olive-green complexion and veiled head, to be set up in his booth." It is the same in Russia. Such pictures, in which there is no attempt at representation, real or ideal, and which merely have a sort of imaginary sanct.i.ty and power, are not so much idols as they are mere _Fetishes_. The most lovely Madonna by Raphael or t.i.tian would not have the same effect. Guido, who himself painted lovely Virgins, went every Sat.u.r.day to pray before the little black _Madonna della Guardia_, and, as we are a.s.sured, held this old Eastern relic in devout veneration.

In the pictures of the Madonna, produced by the most eminent painters of the seventeenth century, is embodied the theology of the time.

The Virgin Mary is not, like the Madonna di San Sisto, "a single projection of the artist's mind," but, as far as he could put his studies together, she is "a compound of every creature's best,"

sometimes majestic, sometimes graceful, often full of sentiment, elegance, and refinement, but wanting wholly in the spiritual element.

If the Madonna did really sit to Guido in person, (see Malvasia, "Felsina Pittrice,") we fancy she must have revealed her loveliness, but veiled her divinity.

Without doubt the finest Madonnas of the seventeenth century are those produced by the Spanish school; not because they more realize our spiritual conception of the Virgin--quite the contrary: for here the expression of life through sensation and emotion prevails over abstract mind, grandeur, and grace;--but because the intensely human and sympathetic character given to the Madonna appeals most strongly to our human nature. The appeal is to the faith through the feelings, rather than through the imagination. Morales and Ribera excelled in the Mater Dolorosa; and who has surpa.s.sed Murilio in the tender exultation of maternity?[1] There is a freshness and a depth of feeling in the best Madonnas of the late Spanish school, which puts to shame the mannerism of the Italians, and the naturalism of the Flemish painters of the same period: and this because the Spaniards were intense and enthusiastic believers, not mere thinkers, in art as in religion.

[Footnote 1: See in the Handbook to the Private Galleries of Art some remarks on the tendencies of the Spanish School, p, 172.]

As in the sixth century, the favourite dogma of the time (the union of the divine and human nature in Christ, and the dignity of Mary as parent of both) had been embodied in the group of the Virgin and Child, so now, in the seventeenth, the doctrine of the eternal sanctification and predestination of Mary was, after a long controversy, triumphant, and took form in the "Immaculate Conception;"

that beautiful subject in which Guido and Murilio excelled, and which became the darling theme of the later schools of art. It is worthy of remark, that while in the sixth century, and for a thousand years afterwards, the Virgin, in all devotional subjects, was a.s.sociated in some visible manner with her divine Son, in this she appears without the Infant in her arms. The maternal character is set aside, and she stands alone, absolute in herself, and complete in her own perfections. This is a very significant characteristic of the prevalent theology of the time.

I forbear to say much of the productions of a school of art which sprung up simultaneously with that of the Caracci, and in the end overpowered its higher aspirations. The _Naturalisti_, as they were called, imitated nature without selection, and produced some charming painters. But their religious pictures are almost all intolerable, and their Madonnas are almost all portraits. Rubens and Albano painted their wives; Allori and Vandyck their mistresses; Domenichino his daughter. Salvator Rosa, in his Satires, exclaims against this general profaneness in terms not less strong than those of Savonarola in his Sermons; but the corruption was by this time beyond the reach of cure; the sin could neither be preached nor chided away. Striking effects of light and shade, peculiar att.i.tudes, scenic groups, the perpetual and dramatic introduction of legendary scenes and personages, of visions and miracles of the Madonna vouchsafed to her votaries, characterize the productions of the seventeenth century. As "they who are whole need not a physician, but they who are sick," so in proportion to the decline of faith were the excitements to faith, or rather to credulity: just in proportion as men were less inclined to believe were the wonders multiplied which they were called on to believe.

I have not spoken of the influence of Jesuitism on art. This Order kept alive that devotion for the Madonna which their great founder Loyola had so ardently professed when he chose for the "Lady" of his thoughts, "no princess, no d.u.c.h.ess, but one far greater, more peerless." The learning of the Jesuits supplied some themes not hitherto in use, princ.i.p.ally of a fanciful and allegorical kind, and never had the meek Mary been so decked out with earthly ornament as in their church pictures. If the sanctification of simplicity, gentleness, maternal love, and heroic fort.i.tude, were calculated to elevate the popular mind, the sanctification of mere glitter and ornament, embroidered robes, and jewelled crowns, must have tended to degrade it. It is surely an unworthy and a foolish excuse that, in thus desecrating with the vainest and most vulgar finery the beautiful ideal of the Virgin, an appeal was made to the awe and admiration of vulgar and ignorant minds; for this is precisely what, in all religious imagery, should be avoided. As, however, this sacrilegious millinery does not come within the province of the fine arts, I may pa.s.s it over here.

Among the Jesuit prints of the seventeenth century, I remember one which represents the Virgin and Child in the centre, and around are the most famous heretics of all ages, lying prostrate, or hanging by the neck. Julian the Apostate; Leo the Isaurian; his son, Constantine Cap.r.o.nymus; Arius; Nestorius; Manicheus; Luther; Calvin:--very characteristic of the age of controversy which had succeeded to the age of faith, when, instead of solemn saints and grateful votaries, we have dead or dying heretics surrounding the Mother of Mercy!

After this rapid sketch of the influences which modified in a general way the pictures of the Madonna, we may array before us, and learn to compare, the types which distinguished in a more particular manner the separate schools, caught from some more local or individual impulses.

Thus we have the stern, awful quietude of the old Mosaics; the hard lifelessness of the degenerate Greek; the pensive sentiment of the Siena, and stately elegance of the Florentine Madonnas; the intellectual Milanese, with their large foreheads and thoughtful eyes; the tender, refined mysticism of the Umbrian; the sumptuous loveliness of the Venetian; the quaint, characteristic simplicity of the early German, so stamped with their nationality, that I never looked round me in a room full of German girls without thinking of Albert Durer's Virgins; the intense life-like feeling of the Spanish; the prosaic, portrait-like nature of the Flemish schools, and so on. But here an obvious question suggests itself. In the midst of all this diversity, these ever-changing influences, was there no characteristic type universally accepted, suggested by common religious a.s.sociations, if not defined by ecclesiastical authority, to which the artist was bound to conform? How is it that the impersonation of the Virgin fluctuated, not only with the fluctuating tendencies of successive ages, but even with the caprices of the individual artist?

This leads us back to reconsider the sources from which the artist drew his inspiration.

The legend which represents St. Luke the Evangelist as a painter appears to be of Eastern origin, and quite unknown in Western Europe before the first crusade. It crept in then, and was accepted with many other oriental superst.i.tions and traditions. It may have originated in the real existence of a Greek painter named Luca--a saint, too, he may have been; for the Greeks have a whole calendar of canonized artists,--painters, poets, and musicians; and this Greek San Luca may have been a painter of those Madonnas imported from the ateliers of Mount Athos into the West by merchants and pilgrims; and the West, which knew but of one St. Luke, may have easily confounded the painter and the evangelist.

But we must also remember, that St. Luke the Evangelist was early regarded as the great authority with respect to the few Scripture particulars relating to the character and life of Mary; so that, in the figurative sense, he may be said to have _painted_ that portrait of her which has been since received as the perfect type of womanhood:--1. Her n.o.ble, trustful humility, when she receives the salutation of the angel (Luke i. 38); the complete and feminine surrender of her whole being to the higher, holier will--"Be it unto me according to thy word." 2. Then, the decision and prudence of character, shown in her visit to Elizabeth, her older relative; her journey in haste over the hills to consult with her cousin, which journey it is otherwise difficult to accord with the oriental customs of the time, unless Mary, young as she was, had possessed unusual prompt.i.tude and energy of disposition. (Luke i. 39, 40.) 3. The proof of her intellectual power in the beautiful hymn she has left us, "_My soul doth magnify the Lord._" (Luke i. 46.) The commentators are not agreed as to whether this effusion was poured forth by immediate inspiration, or composed and written down, because the same words, "and Mary said," may be interpreted in either sense; but we can no more doubt her being the auth.o.r.ess, than we can doubt of any other particulars recorded in the same Gospel: it proves that she must have been, for her time and country, most rarely gifted in mind, and deeply read in the Scriptures. 4. She was of a contemplative, reflecting, rather silent disposition. "She kept all these sayings, and pondered them in her heart." (Luke ii. 51.) She made no boast of that wondrous and most blessed destiny to which she was called; she thought upon it in silence. It is inferred that as many of these sayings and events could be known to herself alone, St. Luke the Evangelist could have learned them only from her own lips. 5. Next her truly maternal devotion to her divine Son, whom she attended humbly through his whole ministry;[1] 6. and lastly, the sublime fort.i.tude and faith with which she followed her Son to the death scene, stood beside the cross till all was finished, and then went home, and _lived_ (Luke xxiii.); for she was to be to us an example of all that a woman could endure, as well as all that a woman could be and act out in her earthly life.

(John xix. 25.) Such was the character of Mary; such the _portrait_ really _painted_ by St. Luke; and, as it seems to me, these scattered, artless, unintentional notices of conduct and character converge into the most perfect moral type of the intellectual, tender, simple, and heroic woman that ever was placed before us for our edification and example.

[Footnote 1: Milton places in the mouth of our Saviour an allusion to the influence of his Mother in early life:--

"These growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving By words at times cast forth, duly rejoiced, And said to me apart, 'High are thy thoughts, O Son; but nourish them, and let them soar To what height sacred virtue and true worth Can raise them, though above example high.'"]

But in the Church traditions and enactments, another character was, from the fifth century, a.s.signed to her, out of which grew the theological type, very beautiful and exalted, but absorbing to a great degree the scriptural and moral type, and subst.i.tuting for the merely human attributes others borrowed from her relation to the great scheme of redemption; for it was contended that, as the mother of _the Divine_, she could not be herself less than divine; consequently above the angels, and first of all created beings. According to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, her tender woman's wisdom became supernatural gifts; the beautiful humility was changed into a knowledge of her own predestined glory; and, being raised bodily into immortality, and placed beside her Son, in all "the sacred splendour of beneficence," she came to be regarded as our intercessor before that divine Son, who could refuse nothing to his mother. The relative position of the Mother and Son being spiritual and indestructible was continued in heaven; and thus step by step the woman was trans.m.u.ted into the divinity.

But, like her Son, Mary had walked in human form upon earth, and in form must have resembled her Son; for, as it is argued, Christ had no earthly father, therefore could only have derived his human lineaments from his mother. All the old legends a.s.sume that the resemblance between the Son and the Mother must have been perfect. Dante alludes to this belief:

"Riguarda ormai nella faccia ch' a Christo Piu s' a.s.somiglia."

"Now raise thy view Unto the visage most resembling Christ."

The accepted type of the head of Christ was to be taken as a model in its mild, intellectual majesty, for that of the Virgin-mother, as far as difference of s.e.x would allow.

In the ecclesiastical history of Nicephorus Gallixtus, he has inserted a description of the person of Mary, which he declares to have been given by Epiphanius, who lived in the fourth century, and by him derived from a more ancient source. It must be confessed, that the type of person here a.s.signed to the Virgin is more energetic for a woman than that which has been a.s.signed to our Saviour as a man. "She was of middle stature; her face oval; her eyes brilliant, and of an olive tint; her eyebrows arched and black; her hair was of a pale brown; her complexion fair as wheat. She spoke little, but she spoke freely and affably; she was not troubled in her speech, but grave, courteous, tranquil. Her dress was without ornament, and in her deportment was nothing lax or feeble." To this ancient description of her person and manners, we are to add the scriptural and popular portrait of her mind; the gentleness, the purity, the intellect, power, and fort.i.tude; the gifts of the poetess and prophetess; the humility in which she exceeded all womankind. Lastly, we are to engraft on these personal and moral qualities, the theological attributes which the Church, from early times, had a.s.signed to her, the supernatural endowments which lifted her above angels and men:--all these were to be combined into one glorious type of perfection. Where shall we seek this highest, holiest impersonation!

Where has it been attained, or even approached? Not, certainly, in the mere woman, nor yet in the mere idol; not in those lovely creations which awaken a sympathetic throb of tenderness; nor in those stern, motionless types,--which embody a dogma; not in the cla.s.sic features of marble G.o.ddesses, borrowed as models; nor in the painted images which stare upon us from tawdry altars in flaxen wigs and embroidered petticoats. But where?

Of course we each form to ourselves some notion of what we require; and these requirements will be as diverse as our natures and our habits of thought. For myself, I have seen my own ideal once, and only once, attained: _there_, where Raphael--inspired if ever painter was inspired--projected on the s.p.a.ce before him that wonderful creation which we style the _Madonna di San Sisto_ (Dresden Gal.); for there she stands--the transfigured woman, at once completely human and completely divine, an abstraction of power, purity, and love, poised on the empurpled air, and requiring no other support; looking out, with her melancholy, loving mouth, her slightly dilated, sibylline eyes, quite through the universe, to the end and consummation of all things;--sad, as if she beheld afar off the visionary sword that was to reach her heart through HIM, now resting as enthroned on that heart; yet already exalted through the homage of the redeemed generations who were to salute her as Blessed. Six times have I visited the city made glorious by the possession of this treasure, and as often, when again at a distance, with recollections disturbed by feeble copies and prints, I have begun to think, "Is it so indeed? is she indeed so divine? or does not rather the imagination encircle her with a halo of religion and poetry, and lend a grace which is not really there?" and as often, when returned, I have stood before it and confessed that there is more in that form and face than I had ever yet conceived. I cannot here talk the language of critics, and speak of this picture merely as a picture, for to me it was a revelation.

In the same gallery is the lovely Madonna of the Meyer family: inexpressibly touching and perfect in its way, but conveying only one of the attributes of Mary, her benign pity; while the Madonna di San Sisto is an abstract of _all_.[1]

[Footnote 1: Expression is the great and characteristic excellence of Raphael more especially in his Madonnas. It is precisely this which all copies and engravings render at best most imperfectly; and in point of expression the most successful engraving of the Madonna di San Sisto is certainly that of Steinla.]

The poets are ever the best commentators on the painters. I have already given from the great "singers of high poems" in the fourteenth century _their_ exposition of the theological type of the Madonna.

Now, in some striking pa.s.sages of our modern poets, we may find a most beautiful commentary on what I have termed the _moral_ type.

The first is from Wordsworth, and may be recited before the Madonna di San Sisto:--

"Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin allied!

Woman! above all women glorified; Out tainted nature's solitary boast; Purer than foam on central ocean tost; Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn With fancied roses, than the unblemish'd moon Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast, Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some I ween, Not unforgiven, the suppliant knee might bend, As to a visible Power, in which did blend All that was mix'd and reconcil'd in thee, Of mother's love with maiden purity, Of high with low, celestial with terrene."

The next, from Sh.e.l.ley, reads like a hymn in honour of the Immaculate Conception:--

Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human, Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman All that is insupportable in thee Of light, and love, and immortality!

Sweet Benediction in the eternal curse!

Veil'd Glory of this lampless Universe!

Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form Among the Dead! Thou Star above the storm!

Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror!

Thou Harmony of Nature's art! Thou Mirror In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun, All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on!"

"See where she stands! a mortal shape endued With love, and life, and light, and deity; The motion which may change but cannot die, An image of some bright eternity; A shadow of some golden dream; a splendour Leaving the third sphere pilotless."

I do not know whether intentionally or not, but we have here a.s.sembled some of the favourite symbols of the Virgin--the moon, the star, the "_terribilis ut castrorum acies_" (Cant. vi. 10), and the mirror.

The third is a pa.s.sage from Robert Browning, which appears to me to sum up the moral ideal:--

"There is a vision in the heart of each, Of justice, mercy, wisdom, tenderness To wrong and pain, and knowledge of their cure; And these embodied in a woman's form That best transmits them pure as first received From G.o.d above her to mankind below!"

II. SYMBOLS AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE VIRGIN.

That which the genius of the greatest of painters only once expressed, we must not look to find in his predecessors, who saw only partial glimpses of the union of the divine and human in the feminine form; still less in his degenerate successors, who never beheld it at all.

The difficulty of fully expressing this complex ideal, and the allegorical spirit of the time, first suggested the expedient of placing round the figure of the glorified Virgin certain accessory symbols, which should a.s.sist the artist to express, and the observer to comprehend, what seemed beyond the power of art to portray;--a language of metaphor then understood, and which we also must understand if we would seize the complete theological idea intended to be conveyed.

I shall begin with those symbols which are borrowed from the Litanies of the Virgin, and from certain texts of the Canticles, in all ages of the Church applied to her; symbols which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, frequently accompany those representations which set forth her Glorification or Predestination; and, in the seventeenth, are introduced into the "Immaculate Conception."