Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Fine Arts Part 23

Such a woman as we believe Mary to have been must have loved and honoured such a woman as Elizabeth. Wherefore, having heard that Elizabeth had been exalted to a miraculous motherhood, she made haste to visit her, not to ask her advice,--for being graced with all good gifts of the Holy Spirit, and herself the mother of Wisdom, she could not need advice,--but to sympathize with her cousin and reveal what had happened to herself.

Thus then they met, "these two mothers of two great princes, of whom one was p.r.o.nounced the greatest born of woman, and the other was his Lord:" happiest and most exalted of all womankind before or since, "needs must they have discoursed like seraphim and the most ecstasied order of Intelligences!" Such was the blessed encounter represented in the Visitation.

The number of the figures, the locality and circ.u.mstances, vary greatly. Sometimes we have only the two women, without accessories of any kind, and nothing interferes with the high solemnity of that moment in which Elizabeth confesses the mother of her Lord. The better to express this willing homage, this momentous prophecy, she is often kneeling. Other figures are frequently introduced, because it could not be supposed that Mary made the journey from Nazareth to the dwelling of Zacharias near Jerusalem, a distance of fifty miles, alone. Whether her husband Joseph accompanied her, is doubtful; and while many artists have introduced him, others have omitted him altogether. According to the ancient Greek formula laid down for the religious painters, Mary is accompanied by a servant or a boy, who carries a stick across his shoulder, and a basket slung to it. The old Italians who followed the Byzantine models seldom omit this attendant, but in some instances (as in the magnificent composition of Michael Angelo, in the possession of Mr. Bromley, of Wootten) a handmaid bearing a basket on her head is subst.i.tuted for the boy. In many instances Joseph, attired as a traveller, appears behind the Virgin, and Zacharias, in his priestly turban and costume, behind Elizabeth.

The locality is often an open porch or a garden in front of a house; and this garden of Zacharias is celebrated in Eastern tradition. It is related that the blessed Virgin, during her residence with her cousin Elizabeth, frequently recreated herself by walking in the garden of Zacharias, while she meditated on the strange and lofty destiny to which she was appointed; and farther, that happening one day to touch a certain flower, which grew there, with her most blessed hand, from being inodorous before, it became from that moment deliciously fragrant. The garden therefore was a fit place for the meeting.

1. The earliest representation of the Visitation to which I can refer is a rude but not ungraceful drawing, in the Catacombs at Rome, of two women embracing. It is not of very high antiquity, perhaps the seventh or eighth century, but there can be so doubt about the subject.

(Cemetery of Julius, v. Bosio, Roma sotterana.)

2. Cimabue has followed the Greek formula, and his simple group appears to me to have great feeling and simplicity.

3. More modern instances, from the date of the revival of art, abound in every form. Almost every painter who has treated subjects from the life of the Virgin has treated the Visitation. In the composition by Raphael (Madrid Gal.) there are the two figures only; and I should object to this otherwise perfect picture, the bashful conscious look of the Virgin Mary. The heads are, however, eminently beautiful and dignified. In the far background is seen the Baptism of Christ--very happily and significantly introduced, not merely as expressing the name of the votary who dedicated the picture, _Giovan-Battista_ Branconio, but also as expressing the relation between the two unborn Children--the Christ and his Prophet.

4. The group by Sebastian del Piombo is singularly grand, showing in every part the influence of Michael Angelo, but richly coloured in Sebastian's best manner. The figures are seen only to the knees. In the background, Zacharias is seen hurrying down some steps to receive the Virgin.[1]

[Footnote 1: Louvre, 1224. There is, in the Louvre, another Visitation of singular and characteristic beauty by D. Ghirlandajo.]

5. The group by Pinturicchio, with the attendant angels, is remarkable for its poetic grace; and that by Lucas v. Leyden is equally remarkable for affectionate sentiment.

6. Still more beautiful, and more dramatic and varied, is another composition by Pinturicchio in the Sala Borgia. (Vatican, Rome.) The Virgin and St. Elizabeth, in the centre, take each other's hands.

Behind the Virgin is St. Joseph, a maiden with a basket on her head, and other attendants. Behind St. Elizabeth, we have a view into the interior of her house, through arcades richly sculptured; and within, Zacharias is reading, and the handmaids of Elizabeth, are spinning and sewing. This elegant fresco was painted for Alexander VI.

7. There is a fine picture of this subject, by Andrea Sabattini of Salerno, the history of which is rather curious. "It was painted at the request of the Sanseverini, princes of Salerno, to be presented to a nunnery, in which one of that n.o.ble family had taken the veil. Under the form of the blessed Virgin, Andrea represented the last princess of Salerno, who was of the family of Villa Marina; under that of St.

Joseph, the prince her husband; an old servant of the family figures as St. Elizabeth; and in the features of Zacharias we recognize those of Bernardo Ta.s.so, the father of Torquato Ta.s.so, and then secretary to the prince of Salerno. After remaining for many years over the high altar of the church, it was removed through the scruples of one of the Neapolitan archbishops, who was scandalized by the impropriety of placing the portraits of well-known personages in such a situation."

The picture, once removed from its place, disappeared, and by some means found its way to the Louvre. Andrea, who was one of the most distinguished of the scholars of Raphael, died in 1545.[1]

[Footnote 1: This picture is thus described in the old catalogues of the Louvre (No. 1207); but is not to be found in that of Villot.]

8. The composition by Rubens has all that scenic effect and dramatic movement which was characteristic of the painter. The meeting takes place on a flight of steps leading to the house of Zacharias. The Virgin wears a hat, as one just arrived from a journey; Joseph and Zacharias greet each other; a maiden with a basket on her head follows; and in the foreground a man unloads the a.s.s.

I will mention two other example, each perfect in its way, in two most opposite styles of treatment.

9. The first is the simple majestic composition of Albertinelli.

(Florence Gal.) The two women, standing alone under a richly sculptured arch, and relieved against the bright azure sky, embrace each other. There are no accessories. Mary is attired in dark-blue drapery, and Elizabeth wears an ample robe of a saffron or rather amber colour. The mingled grandeur, power, and grace, and depth of expression in these two figures, are quite extraordinary; they look like what they are, and worthy to be mothers of the greatest of kings and the greatest of prophets. Albertinelli has here emulated his friend Bartolomeo--his friend, whom he so loved, that when, after the horrible execution of Savonarola, Bartolomeo, broken-hearted, threw himself into the convent of St. Mark, Albertinelli became almost distracted and desperate. He would certainly, says Vasari, have gone into the same convent, but for the hatred be bore the monks, "of whom he was always saying the most injurious things."

Through some hidden influence of intense sympathy, Albertinelli, though in point of character the very antipodes of his friend, often painted so like him, that his pictures--and this n.o.ble picture more particularly--might be mistaken for the work of the Frate.

10. We will now turn to a conception altogether different, and equally a masterpiece; it is the small but exquisitely finished composition by Rembrandt. (Grosvenor Gal.) The scene is the garden in front of the house of Zacharias; Elizabeth is descending the steps in haste to receive and embrace with outstretched arms the Virgin Mary, who appears to have just alighted from her journey. The aged Zacharias, supported by a youth, is seen following Elizabeth to welcome their guest. Behind Mary stands a black female attendant, in the act of removing a mantle from her shoulders; in the background a servant, or (as I think) Joseph, holds the a.s.s on which Mary has journeyed; a peac.o.c.k with a gem-like train, and a hen with a brood of chickens (the latter the emblem of maternity), are in the foreground. Though the representation thus conceived appears like a scene of every-day life, nothing can be more poetical than the treatment, more intensely true and n.o.ble than the expression of the diminutive figures, more masterly and finished than the execution, more magical and l.u.s.trous than the effect of the whole. The work of Albertinelli, in its large and solemn beauty and religious significance, is worthy of being placed over an altar, on which we might offer up the work of Rembrandt as men offer incense, gems, and gold.

As the Visitation is not easily mistaken, I have said enough of it here; and we pa.s.s to the next subject,--The Dream of Joseph.

Although the feast of the Visitation is fixed for the 2d of July, it was, and is, a received opinion, that Mary began her journey to the hill country but a short time, even a few days, after the Annunciation of the angel. It was the sixth month with Elizabeth, and Mary sojourned with her three months. Hence it is supposed, by many commentators, that Mary must have been present at the birth of John the Baptist. It may seem surprising that the early painters should not have made use of this supposition. I am not aware that there exists among the numerous representations of the birth of St. John, any instance of the Virgin being introduced; it should seem that the lofty ideas entertained of the Mater Dei rendered it impossible to place her in a scene where she would necessarily take a subordinate position: this I think sufficiently accounts for her absence.[1] Mary then returned to her own dwelling at Nazareth; and when Joseph (who in these legendary stories is constantly represented as a house-carpenter and builder, and travelling about to exercise his trade in various places) also came back to his home, and beheld his wife, the suspicion entered his mind that she was about to become a mother, and very naturally his mind was troubled "with sorrow and insecure apprehensions; but being a just man, that is, according to the Scriptures and other wise writers, a good, a charitable man, he would not openly disgrace her, for he found it more agreeable to justice to treat an offending person with the easiest sentence, than to render her desperate, and without remedy, and provoked by the suffering of the worst of what she could fear. No obligation to justice can force a man to be cruel; pity, and forbearance, and long-suffering, and fair interpretation, and excusing our brother" (and our sister), "and taking things in the best sense, and pa.s.sing the gentlest sentence, are as certainly our duty, and owing to every person who _does_ offend and _can_ repent, as calling men to account can be owing to the law."

(v. Bishop Taylor's Life of Christ.) Thus says the good Bishop Taylor, praising Joseph, that he was too truly just to call furiously for justice, and that, waiving the killing letter of the law, he was "minded to dismiss his wife privily;" and in this he emulated the mercy of his divine foster-Son, who did not cruelly condemn the woman whom he knew to be guilty, but dismissed her "to repent and sin no more." But while Joseph was pondering thus in his heart, the angel of the Lord, the prince of angels, even Gabriel, appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife!" and he awoke and obeyed that divine voice.

[Footnote 1: There is, however, in the Liverpool Museum, a very exquisite miniature of the birth of St. John the Baptist, in which the female figure standing near represents, I think, the Virgin Mary. It was cut out of a choral book of the Siena school.]

This first vision of the angel is not in works of art easily distinguished from the second vision but there is a charming fres...o...b.. Luini, which can bear no other interpretation. Joseph is seated by the carpenter's bench, and leans his head on his hand slumbering. (Milan, Brera.) An angel stands by him pointing to Mary who is seen at a window above, busied with needlework.

On waking from this vision, Joseph, says the legend, "entreated forgiveness of Mary for having wronged her even in thought." This is a subject quite unknown, I believe, before the fifteenth century, and not commonly met with since, but there are some instances. On one of the carved stalls of the Cathedral of Amiens it is very poetically treated. (Stalles d'Amiens, p. 205.) Mary is seated on a throne under a magnificent canopy; Joseph, kneeling before her and presented by two angels, pleads for pardon. She extends one hand to him; in the other is the volume of the Holy Scriptures. There is a similar version of the text in sculpture over one of the doors of Notre-Dame at Paris.

There is also a picture by Alessandro Tiarini (Le repentir de Saint Joseph, Louvre, 416), and reckoned by Malvasia, his finest work, wherein Joseph kneels before the Virgin, who stands with a dignified air, and, while she raises him with one hand, points with the other up to heaven. Behind is seen the angel Gabriel with his finger on his lip, as commanding silence, and two other angels. The figures are life-size, the execution and colour very fine; the whole conception in the grand but mannered style of the Guido school.

THE NATIVITY.

_Ital._ Il Presepio. Il Nascimento del Nostro Signore. _Fr._ La Nativite. _Ger._ Die Geburt Christi. Dec. 25.

The birth of our Saviour is related with characteristic simplicity and brevity in the Gospels; but in the early Christian traditions this great event is preceded and accompanied by several circ.u.mstances which have a.s.sumed a certain importance and interest in the artistic representations.

According to an ancient legend, the Emperor Augustus Caesar repaired to the sibyl Tiburtina, to inquire whether he should consent to allow himself to be worshipped with divine honours, which the Senate had decreed to him. The sibyl, after some days of meditation, took the Emperor apart, and showed him an altar; and above the altar, in the opening heavens, and in a glory of light, he beheld a beautiful Virgin holding an Infant in her arms, and at the same time a voice was heard saying, "This is the altar of the Son of the living G.o.d;" whereupon Augustus caused an altar to be erected on the Capitoline Hill, with this inscription, _Ara primogeniti Dei_; and on the same spot, in later times, was built the church called the _Ara-Coeli_, well known, with its flight of one hundred and twenty-four marble steps, to all who have visited Rome.

Of the sibyls, generally, in their relation to sacred art, I have already spoken.[1] This particular prophecy of the Tiburtine sibyl to Augustus rests on some very antique traditions, pagan as well as Christian. It is supposed to have suggested the "Pollio" of Virgil, which suggested the "Messiah" of Pope. It is mentioned by writers of the third and fourth centuries, and our own divines have not wholly rejected it, for Bishop Taylor mentions the sibyl's prophecy among "the great and glorious accidents happening about the birth of Jesus."

(Life of Jesus Christ, sec. 4.)

[Footnote 1: Introduction. The personal character and history of the Sibyls will be treated in detail in the fourth series of Sacred and Legendary Art.]

A very rude but curious bas-relief preserved in the church of the Ara-Coeli is perhaps the oldest representation extant. The Church legend a.s.signs to it a fabulous antiquity; but it must be older than the twelfth century, as it is alluded to by writers of that period.

Here the Emperor Augustus kneels before the Madonna and Child and at his side is the sibyl, Tiburtina, pointing upwards.

Since the revival of art, the incident has been frequently treated. It was painted by Cavallini, about 1340, on the vault of the choir of the Ara-Coeli. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it became a favourite subject. It admitted of those cla.s.sical forms, and that mingling of the heathen and the Christian in style and costume, which were calculated to please the churchmen and artists of the time, and the examples are innumerable.

The most celebrated, I believe, is the fres...o...b.. Balda.s.sare Peruzzi, in which the figure of the sibyl is certainly very majestic, but the rest of the group utterly vulgar and commonplace. (Siena, Fonte Giusta.) Less famous, but on the whole preferable in point of taste, is the group by Garofalo, in the palace of the Quirinal; and there is another by t.i.tian, in which the scene is laid in a fine landscape after his manner. Vasari mentions a cartoon of this subject, painted by Rosso for Francis I., "among the best things Rosso ever produced,"

and introducing the King and Queen of France, their guards, and a concourse of people, as spectators of the scene. In some instances the locality is a temple, with an altar, before which kneels the Emperor, having laid upon it his sceptre and laurel crown: the sibyl points to the vision seen through a window above. I think it is so represented in a large picture at Hampton Court, by Pietro da Cortona.

The sibylline prophecy is supposed to have occurred a short tune before the Nativity, about the same period when the decree went forth "that all the world should be taxed." Joseph, therefore, arose and saddled his a.s.s, and set his wife upon it, and went up from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The way was long, and steep, and weary; "and when Joseph looked back, he saw the face of Mary that it was sorrowful, as of one in pain; but when he looked back again, she smiled. And when they, were come to Bethlehem, there was no room for them in the inn, because of the great concourse of people. And Mary said to Joseph, "Take me down for I suffer." (Protevangelion.)

The journey to Bethlehem, and the grief and perplexity of Joseph, have been often represented. 1. There exists a very ancient Greek carving in ivory, wherein Mary is seated on the a.s.s, with an expression of suffering, and Joseph tenderly sustains her; she has one arm round his neck, leaning on him: an angel leads the a.s.s, lighting the way with a torch. It is supposed that this curious relic formed part of the ornaments of the ivory throne of the Exarch of Ravenna, and that it is at least as old as the sixth century.[1] 2. There is an instance more dramatic in an engraving after a master of the seventeenth century.

Mary, seated on the a.s.s, and holding the bridle, raises her eyes to heaven with an expression of resignation; Joseph, cap in hand, humbly expostulates with the master of the inn, who points towards the stable; the innkeeper's wife looks up at the Virgin with a strong expression of pity and sympathy. 3. I remember another print of the same subject, where, in the background, angels are seen preparing the cradle in a cave.

[Footnote 1: It is engraved in Gori's "Thesaurus," and described in Munter's "Sinnbilder."]

I may as well add that the Virgin, in this character of mysterious, and religious, and most pure maternity, is venerated under the t.i.tle of _La Madonna del Parto_.[1]

[Footnote 1: Every one who has visited Naples will remember the church on the Mergellina, dedicated to the _Madonna del Parto_, where lies, beneath his pagan tomb, the poet Sannazzaro. Mr. Hallam, in a beautiful pa.s.sage of his "History of the Literature of Europe,"

has pointed out the influence of the genius of Ta.s.so on the whole school of Bolognese painters of that time. Not less striking was the influence of Sannazzaro and his famous poem on the Nativity (_De Partu Virginis_), on the contemporary productions of Italian art, and more particularly as regards the subject under consideration: I can trace it through all the schools of art, from Milan to Naples, during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Of Sannazzaro's poem, Mr.