Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Fine Arts Part 35

I shall now take these subjects in their order.

The angel announcing to Mary her approaching death has been rarely treated. In general, Mary is seated or standing, and the angel kneels before her, bearing the starry palm brought from Paradise. In the frescoes at Orvieto, and in the bas-relief of Oreagna,[1] the angel comes flying downwards with the palm. In a predella by Fra Filippo Lippi, the angel kneels, reverently presenting a taper, which the Virgin receives with majestic grace; St. Peter stands behind. It was the custom to place a taper in the hand of a dying person; and as the palm is also given sometimes to the angel of the incarnation, while the taper can have but one meaning, the significance of the scene is here fixed beyond the possibility of mistake, though there is a departure from the literal details of the old legend. There is in the Munich Gallery a curious German example of this subject by Hans Schauffelein.

[Footnote 1: On the beautiful shrine in Or-San-Michele, at Florence.]

The death of the Virgin is styled in Byzantine and old Italian art the Sleep of the Virgin, _Il Sonno della Madonna_; for it was an old superst.i.tion, subsequently rejected as heretical, that she did not really die after the manner of common mortals, only fell asleep till her resurrection. Therefore, perhaps, it is, that in the early pictures we have before us, not so much a scene or action, as a sort of mysterious rite; it is not the Virgin dead or dying in her bed; she only slumbers in preparation for her entombment; while in the later pictures, we have a death-bed scene with all the usual dramatic and pathetic accessories.

In one sense or the other, the theme has been constantly treated, from the earliest ages of the revival of art down to the seventeenth century.

In the most ancient examples which are derived from the Greek school, it is always represented with a mystical and solemn simplicity, adhering closely to the old legend, and to the formula laid down in the Greek Manual.

There is such a picture in the Wallerstein Collection at Kensington Palace. The couch or bier is in the centre of the picture, and Mary lies upon it wrapped in a veil and mantle with closed eyes and hands crossed over her bosom. The twelve apostles stand round in att.i.tudes of grief angels attend bearing tapers. Behind the extended form of the Virgin is the figure of Christ; a glorious red seraph with expanded wings hovers above his head. He holds in his arms the soul of the Virgin in likeness of a new-born child. On each side stand St.

Dionysius the Areopagite, and St. Timothy, Bishop of Ephesas, in episcopal robes. In front, the archangel Michael bends forward to strike off the hands of the high-priest Adonijah, who had attempted to profane the bier. (This last circ.u.mstance is rarely expressed, except in the Byzantine pictures; for in the Italian legend, the hands of the intruder wither and adhere to the bed or shrine.) In the picture just described; all is at once simple, and formal, and solemn, and supernatural; it is a very perfect example in its way of the genuine Byzantine treatment. There is a similar picture in the Christian museum of the Vatican.

Another (the date about the first half of the fourteenth century, as I think) is curious from the introduction of the women.[1] The Virgin lies on an embroidered sheet held reverently by angels; at the feet and at the head other angels bear tapers; Christ receives the departing soul, which stretches out its arms; St. John kneels in front, and St. Peter reads the service; the other apostles are behind him, and there are three women. The execution of this curious picture is extremely rude, but the heads very fine. Cimabue painted the Death of the Virgin at a.s.sisi. There is a beautiful example by Giotto, where two lovely angels stand at the head and two at the feet, sustaining the pall on which she lies; another most exquisite by Angelico in the Florence Gallery; another most beautiful and pathetic by Taddeo Bartoli in the Palazzo Publico at Siena.

[Footnote 1: At present in the collection of Mr. Bromley, of Wootten.]

The custom of representing Christ as standing by the couch or tomb of his mother, in the act of receiving her soul, continued down to the fifteenth century, at least with slight deviations from the original conception. The later treatment is quite different. The solemn mysterious sleep, the transition from one life to another, became a familiar death-bed scene with the usual moving accompaniments. But even while avoiding the supernatural incidents, the Italians gave to the representation much ideal elegance; for instance, in the beautiful fres...o...b.. Ghirlandajo. (Florence, S. Maria-Novella.)

In the old German school we have that homely matter-of-fact feeling, and dramatic expression, and defiance of all chronological propriety, which belonged to the time and school. The composition by Albert Durer, in his series of the Life of the Virgin, has great beauty and simplicity of expression, and in the arrangement a degree of grandeur and repose which has caused it to be often copied and reproduced as a picture, though the original form is merely that of a wood-cut.[1] In the centre is a bedstead with a canopy, on which Mary lies fronting the spectator, her eyes half closed. On the left of the bed stands St. Peter, habited as a bishop: he places a taper in her dying hand; another apostle holds the asperge with which to sprinkle her with holy water: another reads the service. In the foreground is a priest bearing a cross, and another with incense; and on the right, the other apostles in att.i.tudes of devotion and grief.

[Footnote 1: There is one such copy in the Sutherland Gallery; and another in the Munich Gallery, Cabinet viii. 161.]

Another picture by Albert Durer, once in the Fries Gallery, at Vienna, unites, in a most remarkable manner, all the legendary and supernatural incidents with the most intense and homely reality. It appears to have been painted for the Emperor Maximilian, as a tribute to the memory of his first wife, the interesting Maria of Burgundy.

The disposition of the bed is the same as in the wood-cut, the foot towards the spectator. The face of the dying Virgin is that of the young d.u.c.h.ess. On the right, her son, afterwards Philip of Spain, and father of Charles V., stands as the young St. John, and presents the taper; the other apostles are seen around, most of them praying; St. Peter, habited as bishop, reads from an open book (this is the portrait of George a Zlatkonia, bishop of Vienna, the friend and counsellor of Maximilian); behind him, as one of the apostles, Maximilian himself, with head bowed down, as in sorrow. Three ecclesiastics are seen entering by an open door, bearing the cross, the censer, and the holy water. Over the bed is seen the figure of Christ; in his arms, the soul of the Virgin, in likeness of an infant with clasped hands; and above all, in an open glory and like a vision, her reception and coronation in heaven. Upon a scroll over her head, are the words, "_Surge propera, amica mea; veni de Libano, veni coronaberis._" (Cant. iv. 8.) Three among the hovering angels bear scrolls, on one of which is inscribed the text from the Canticles, "_Quae est ista quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens, pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol, terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata?_" (Cant.

vi. 10;) on another, "_Quae est ista quae ascendit de deserto deliciis affluens super dilectum suum?_" (Cant. viii. 5;) and on the third, "_Quae est ista quae ascendit super dilectum suum ut virgula fumi?_"

(Cant. iii. 6.) This picture bears the date 1518. If it be true, as is, indeed, most apparent, that it was painted by order of Maximilian nearly forty years after the loss of the young wife he so tenderly loved, and only one year before his own death, there is something very touching in it as a memorial. The ingenious and tender compliment implied by making Mary of Burgundy the real object of those mystic texts consecrated to the glory of the MATER DEI, verges, perhaps, on the profane; but it was not so intended; it was merely that combination of the pious, and the poetical, and the sentimental, which was one of the characteristics of the time, in literature, as well as in art. (h.e.l.ler's Albrecht Durer p. 261.)

The picture by Jan Sch.o.r.eel, one of the great ornaments of the Boisseree Gallery,[1] is remarkable for its intense reality and splendour of colour. The heads are full of character; that of the Virgin in particular, who seems, with half-closed eyes, in act to breathe away her soul in rapture. The altar near the bed, having on it figures of Moses and Aaron, is, however, a serious fault and incongruity in this fine painting.

[Footnote 1: Munich (70). The admirable lithograph by Strixner is well known.]

I must observe that Mary is not always dead or dying: she is sometimes preparing for death, in the act of prayer at the foot of her couch, with the apostles standing round, as in a very fine picture by Martin Schaffner, where she kneels with a lovely expression, sustained in the arms of St. John, while St. Peter holds the gospel open before her.

(Munich Gal.) Sometimes she is sitting up in her bed, and reading from the Book of the Scripture, which is always held by St. Peter.

In a picture by Cola della Matrice, the Death of the Virgin is treated at once in a mystical and dramatic style. Enveloped in a dark blue mantle spangled with golden stars, she lies extended on a couch; St. Peter, in a splendid scarlet cope as bishop, reads the service; St. John, holding the palm, weeps bitterly. In front, and kneeling before the coach or bier, appear the three great Dominican saints as witnesses of the religious mystery; in the centre, St. Dominick; on the left, St. Catherine of Siena; and on the right, St. Thomas Aquinas. In a compartment above is the a.s.sumption. (Rome, Capitol.)

Among the later Italian examples, where the old legendary accessories are generally omitted, there are some of peculiar elegance. One by Ludovico Caracci, another by Domenichino, and a third by Carlo Maratti, are treated, if not with much of poetry or religious sentiment, yet with great dignity and pathos.

I must mention one more, because of its history and celebrity: Caravaggio, of whom it was said that he always painted like a ruffian, because he _was_ a ruffian, was also a genius in his way, and for a few months he became the fashion at Rome, and was even patronized by some of the higher ecclesiastics. He painted for the church of _la Scala in Trastevere_ a picture of the Death of the Virgin, wonderful for the intense natural expression, and in the same degree grotesque from its impropriety. Mary, instead of being decently veiled, lies extended with long scattered hair; the strongly marked features and large proportions of the figure are those of a woman of the Trastevere.[1] The apostles stand around; one or two of them--I must use the word--blubber aloud: Peter thrusts his fists into his eyes to keep back the tears; a woman seated in front cries and sobs; nothing can be more real, nor more utterly vulgar. The ecclesiastics for whom the picture was executed were so scandalized, that they refused to hang it up in their church. It was purchased by the Duke of Mantua, and, with the rest of the Mantuan Gallery, came afterwards into the possession of our unfortunate Charles I. On the dispersion of his pictures, it found its way into the Louvre, where it now is. It has been often engraved.

[Footnote 1: The face has a swollen look, and it was said that his model had been a common woman whose features were swelled by intoxication. (Louvre, 32.)]

THE APOSTLES CARRY THE BODY OF THE VIRGIN TO THE TOMB. This is a very uncommon subject. There is a most beautiful example by Taddeo Bartoli (Siena, Pal. Publico), full of profound religious feeling. There is a small engraving by Bonasoni, in a series of the Life of the Virgin, apparently after Parmigiano, in which the apostles bear her on their shoulders over rocky ground, and appear to be descending into the Valley of Jehoshaphat: underneath are these lines:--

"Portan gli uomini santi in su le spalle Al Sepolcro il corpo di Maria Di Josaphat nella famosa valle."

There is another picture of this subject by Ludovico Caracci, at Parma.

THE ENTOMBMENT. In the early pictures, there is little distinction between this subject and the Death of the Virgin. If the figure of Christ stand over the rec.u.mbent form, holding in his arms the emanc.i.p.ated soul, then it is the _Transito_--the death or sleep; but when a sarcophagus is in the centre of the picture, and the body lies extended above it on a sort of sheet or pall held by angels or apostles, it may be determined that it is the Entombment of the Virgin after her death. In a small and very beautiful picture by Angelico, we have distinctly this representation.[1] She lies, like one asleep, on a white pall, held reverently by the mourners. They prepare to lay her in a marble sarcophagus. St. John, bearing the starry palm, appears to address a man in a doctor's cap and gown, evidently intended for Dionysius the Areopagite. Above, in the sky, the soul of the Virgin, surrounded by most graceful angels, is received into heaven. This group is distinguished from the group below, by being painted in a dreamy bluish tint, like solidified light, or like a vision.

[Footnote 1: This picture, now in the possession of W. Fuller Maitland, Esq., was exhibited in the British Inst.i.tution in the summer of 1852. It is engraved in the Etruria Pittrice.]

THE a.s.sUMPTION. The old painters distinguish between the a.s.sumption of the soul and the a.s.sumption of the body of the Virgin. In the first instance, at the moment the soul is separated from the body, Christ receives it into his keeping, standing in person either beside her death-bed or above it. But in the a.s.sumption properly so called, we have the moment wherein the soul of the Virgin is reunited to her body, which, at the command of Christ, rises up from the tomb. Of all the themes of sacred art there is not one more complete and beautiful than this, in what it represents, and in what it suggests. Earth and its sorrows, death and the grave, are left below; and the pure spirit of the Mother again clothed in its unspotted tabernacle, surrounded by angelic harmonies, and sustained by wings of cherubim and seraphim, soars upwards to meet her Son, and to be reunited to him forever.

We must consider this fine subject under two aspects.

The first is purely ideal and devotional; it is simply the expression of a dogma of faith, "_a.s.sumpta est Maria Virgo in Coelum_." The figure of the Virgin is seen within an almond-shaped aureole (the mandorla), not unfrequently crowned as well as veiled, her hands joined, her white robe falling round her feet (for in all the early pictures the dress of the Virgin is white, often spangled with stars), and thus she seems to cleave the air upwards, while adoring angels surround the glory of light within which she is enshrined. Such are the figures which are placed in sculpture over the portals of the churches dedicated to her, as at Florence.[1] She is not always standing and upright, but seated on a throne, placed within an aureole of light, and borne by angels, as over the door of the Campo Santo at Pisa. I am not sure that such figures are properly styled the a.s.sumption; they rather exhibit in an ideal form the glorification of the Virgin, another version of the same idea expressed in the _Incoronata_. She is here _Varia Virgo a.s.sumpta_, or, in Italian, _L'a.s.sunta_; she has taken upon her the glory of immortality, though not yet crowned.

[Footnote 1: The "Santa Maria del Fiore,"--the Duomo.]

But when the a.s.sumption is presented to us as the final scene of her life, and expresses, as it were, a progressive action--when she has left the empty tomb, and the wondering, weeping apostles on the earth below, and rises "like the morning" ("_quasi aurora surgens_") from the night of the grave,--then we have the a.s.sumption of the Virgin in its dramatic and historical form, the final act and consummation of her visible and earthly life. As the Church had never settled in what manner she was translated into heaven, only p.r.o.nouncing it heresy to doubt the fact itself, the field was in great measure left open to the artists. The tomb below, the figure of the Virgin floating in mid-air, and the opening heavens above, such is the general conception fixed by the traditions of art; but to give some idea of the manner in which this has been varied, I shall describe a few examples.

1. Giunta Pisano, 1230. (a.s.sisi, S. Franceso.) Christ and the Virgin ascend together in a seated att.i.tude upborne by clouds and surrounded by angels; his arm is round her. The empty tomb, with the apostles and others, below. The idea is here taken from the Canticles (ch. viii.), "Who is this that ariseth from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved?"

2. Andrea Orcagna, 1359. (Bas-relief, Or-San-Michele, Florence.) The Virgin Mary is seated on a rich throne within the _Mandorla_, which is borne upwards by four angels, while two are playing on musical instruments. Immediately below the Virgin, on the right, is the figure of St. Thomas, with hands outstretched, receiving the mystic girdle: below is the entombment; Mary lies extended on a pall above a sarcophagus. In the centre stands Christ, holding in his arms the emanc.i.p.ated soul; he is attended by eight angels. St. John is at the head of the Virgin, and near him an angel swings a censer; St. James bends and kisses her hand; St. Peter reads as usual; and the other apostles stand round, with Dionysius, Timothy, and Hierotheus, distinguished from the apostles by wearing turbans and caps. The whole most beautifully treated.

I have been minutely exact in describing the details of this composition, because it will be useful as a key to many others of the early Tuscan school, both in sculpture and painting; for example, the fine bas-relief by Nanni over the south door of the Duomo at Florence, represents St. Thomas in the same manner kneeling outside the aureole and receiving the girdle; but the entombment below is omitted. These sculptures were executed at the time when the enthusiasm for the _Sacratissima Cintola della Madonna_ prevailed throughout the length and breadth of Tuscany, and Prato had become a place of pilgrimage.

This story of the Girdle was one of the legends imported from the East. It had certainly a Greek origin;[1] and, according to the Greek formula, St. Thomas is to be figured apart in the clouds, on the right of the Virgin, and in the act of receiving the girdle. Such is the approved arrangement till the end of the fourteenth century; afterwards we find St. Thomas placed below among the other apostles.

[Footnote 1: It may be found in the Greek Menologium, iii. p. 225]

THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY GIRDLE.

An account of the a.s.sumption would be imperfect without some notice of the western legend, which relates the subsequent history of the Girdle, and its arrival in Italy, as represented in the frescoes of Agnolo Gaddi at Prato.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Notizie istoriche intorno alla Sacratissima Cintola di Maria Vergine, che si conserva, nella Citta di Prato, dal Dottore Giuseppe Bianchini di Prato_, 1795.]

The chapel _della Sacratissima Cintola_ was erected from the designs of Giovanni Pisano about 1320. This "most sacred" relic had long been deposited under the high altar of the princ.i.p.al chapel, and held in great veneration; but in the year 1312, a native of Prato, whose name was Musciatino, conceived the idea of carrying it off, and selling it in Florence. The attempt was discovered; the unhappy thief suffered a cruel death; and the people of Prato resolved to provide for the future custody of the precious relic a new and inviolable shrine.

The chapel is in the form of a parallelogram, three sides of which are painted, the other being separated from the choir by a bronze gate of most exquisite workmanship, designed by Ghiberti, or, as others say, by Brunelleschi, and executed partly by Simone Donatello.