Mornings in Florence Part 3

And the answer is, The active art--Lombardic,--rejoices in hunting and fighting; the contemplative art--Byzantine,--contemplates the mysteries of the Christian faith.

And at first, on such answer, one would be apt at once to conclude--All grossness must be in the Lombard; all good in the Byzantine. But again we should be wrong,--and extremely wrong. For the hunting and fighting did practically produce strong, and often virtuous, men; while the perpetual and inactive contemplation of what it was impossible to understand, did not on the whole render the contemplative persons, stronger, wiser, or even more amiable. So that, in the twelfth century, while the Northern art was only in need of direction, the Southern was in need of life. The North was indeed spending its valour and virtue on ign.o.ble objects; but the South disgracing the n.o.blest objects by its want of valour and virtue.

Central stood Etruscan Florence--her root in the earth, bound with iron and bra.s.s--wet with the dew of heaven. Agriculture in occupation, religious in thought, she accepted, like good ground, the good; refused, like the Rock of Fesole, the evil; directed the industry of the Northman into the arts of peace; kindled the dreams of the Byzantine with the fire of charity. Child of her peace, and exponent of her pa.s.sion, her Cimabue became the interpreter to mankind of the meaning of the Birth of Christ.

We hear constantly, and think naturally, of him as of a man whose peculiar genius in painting suddenly reformed its principles; who suddenly painted, out of his own gifted imagination, beautiful instead of rude pictures; and taught his scholar Giotto to carry on the impulse; which we suppose thenceforward to have enlarged the resources and bettered the achievements of painting continually, up to our own time,--when the triumphs of art having been completed, and its uses ended, something higher is offered to the ambition of mankind; and Watt and Faraday initiate the Age of Manufacture and Science, as Cimabue and Giotto inst.i.tuted that of Art and Imagination.

In this conception of the History of Mental and Physical culture, we much overrate the influence, though we cannot overrate the power, of the men by whom the change seems to have been effected. We cannot overrate their power,--for the greatest men of any age, those who become its leaders when there is a great march to be begun, are indeed separated from the average intellects of their day by a distance which is immeasurable in any ordinary terms of wonder.

But we far overrate their influence; because the apparently sudden result of their labour or invention is only the manifested fruit of the toil and thought of many who preceded them, and of whose names we have never heard. The skill of Cimabue cannot be extolled too highly; but no Madonna by his hand could ever have rejoiced the soul of Italy, unless for a thousand years before, many a nameless Greek and nameless Goth had adorned the traditions, and lived in the love, of the Virgin.

In like manner, it is impossible to overrate the sagacity, patience, or precision, of the masters in modern mechanical and scientific discovery.

But their sudden triumph, and the unbalancing of all the world by their words, may not in any wise be attributed to their own power, or even to that of the facts they have ascertained. They owe their habits and methods of industry to the paternal example, no less than the inherited energy, of men who long ago prosecuted the truths of nature, through the rage of war, and the adversity of superst.i.tion; and the universal and overwhelming consequences of the facts which their followers have now proclaimed, indicate only the crisis of a rapture produced by the offering of new objects of curiosity to nations who had nothing to look at; and of the amus.e.m.e.nt of novel motion and action to nations who had nothing to do.

Nothing to look at! That is indeed--you will find, if you consider of it--our sorrowful case. The vast extent of the advertising frescos of London, daily refreshed into brighter and larger frescos by its billstickers, cannot somehow sufficiently entertain the popular eyes.

The great Mrs. Allen, with her flowing hair, and equally flowing promises, palls upon repet.i.tion, and that Madonna of the nineteenth century smiles in vain above many a borgo unrejoiced; even the excitement of the shop-window, with its unattainable splendours, or too easily attainable impostures, cannot maintain itself in the wearying mind of the populace, and I find my charitable friends inviting the children, whom the streets educate only into vicious misery, to entertainments of scientific vision, in microscope or magic lantern; thus giving them something to look at, such as it is;--fleas mostly; and the stomachs of various vermin; and people with their heads cut off and set on again;--still _something_, to look at.

The fame of Cimabue rests, and justly, on a similar charity. He gave the populace of his day something to look at; and satisfied their curiosity with science of something they had long desired to know. We have continually imagined in our carelessness, that his triumph consisted only in a new pictorial skill; recent critical writers, unable to comprehend how any street populace could take pleasure in painting, have ended by denying his triumph altogether, and insisted that he gave no joy to Florence; and that the "Joyful quarter" was accidentally so named--or at least from no other festivity than that of the procession attending Charles of Anjou. I proved to you, in a former lecture, that the old tradition was true, and the delight of the people unquestionable. But that delight was not merely in the revelation of an art they had not known how to practise; it was delight in the revelation of a Madonna whom they had not known how to love.

Again; what was revelation to _them_--we suppose farther and as unwisely, to have been only art in _him_; that in better laying of colours,--in better tracing of perspectives--in recovery of principles, of cla.s.sic composition--he had manufactured, as our Gothic Firms now manufacture to order, a Madonna--in whom he believed no more than they.

Not so. First of the Florentines, first of European men--he attained in thought, and saw with spiritual eyes, exercised to discern good from evil,--the face of her who was blessed among women; and with his following hand, made visible the Magnificat of his heart.

He magnified the Maid; and Florence rejoiced in her Queen. But it was left for Giotto to make the queenship better beloved, in its sweet humiliation.

You had the Etruscan stock in Florence--Christian, or at least semi-Christian; the statue of Mars still in its streets, but with its central temple built for Baptism in the name of Christ. It was a race living by agriculture; gentle, thoughtful, and exquisitely fine in handiwork. The straw bonnet of Tuscany--the Leghorn--is pure Etruscan art, young ladies:--only plaited gold of G.o.d's harvest, instead of the plaited gold of His earth.

You had then the Norman and Lombard races coming down on this: kings, and hunters--splendid in war--insatiable of action. You had the Greek and Arabian races flowing from the east, bringing with them the law of the City, and the dream of the Desert.

Cimabue--Etruscan born, gave, we saw, the life of the Norman to the tradition of the Greek: eager action to holy contemplation. And what more is left for his favourite shepherd boy Giotto to do, than this, except to paint with ever-increasing skill? We fancy he only surpa.s.sed Cimabue--eclipsed by greater brightness.

Not so. The sudden and new applause of Italy would never have been won by mere increase of the already-kindled light. Giotto had wholly another work to do. The meeting of the Norman race with the Byzantine is not merely that of action with repose--not merely that of war with religion,--it is the meeting of _domestic_ life with _monastic_, and of practical household sense with unpractical Desert insanity.

I have no other word to use than this last. I use it reverently, meaning a very n.o.ble thing; I do not know how far I ought to say--even a divine thing. Decide that for yourselves. Compare the Northern farmer with St.

Francis; the palm hardened by stubbing Thornaby waste, with the palm softened by the imagination of the wounds of Christ. To my own thoughts, both are divine; decide that for yourselves; but a.s.suredly, and without possibility of other decision, one is, humanly speaking, healthy; the other _un_healthy; one sane, the other--insane.

To reconcile Drama with Dream, Cimabue's task was comparatively an easy one. But to reconcile Sense with--I still use even this following word reverently--Nonsense, is not so easy; and he who did it first,--no wonder he has a name in the world.

I must lean, however, still more distinctly on the word "domestic." For it is not Rationalism and commercial compet.i.tion--Mr. Stuart Mill's"

other career for woman than that of wife and mother "--which are reconcilable, by Giotto, or by anybody else, with divine vision. But household wisdom, labour of love, toil upon earth according to the law of Heaven--these are reconcilable, in one code of glory, with revelation in cave or island, with the endurance of desolate and loveless days, with the repose of folded hands that wait Heaven's time.

Domestic and monastic. He was the first of Italians--the first of Christians--who _equally_ knew the virtue of both lives; and who was able to show it in the sight of men of all ranks,--from the prince to the shepherd; and of all powers,--from the wisest philosopher to the simplest child.

For, note the way in which the new gift of painting, bequeathed to him by his great master, strengthened his hands. Before Cimabue, no beautiful rendering of human form was possible; and the rude or formal types of the Lombard and Byzantine, though they would serve in the tumult of the chase, or as the recognized symbols of creed, could not represent personal and domestic character. Faces with goggling eyes and rigid lips might be endured with ready help of imagination, for G.o.ds, angels, saints, or hunters--or for anybody else in scenes of recognized legend, but would not serve for pleasant portraiture of one's own self--or of the incidents of gentle, actual life. And even Cimabue did not venture to leave the sphere of conventionally reverenced dignity. He still painted--though beautifully--only the Madonna, and the St. Joseph, and the Christ. These he made living,--Florence asked no more: and "Credette Cimabue nella pintura tener lo campo."

But Giotto came from the field, and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier worth. And he painted--the Madonna, and St. Joseph, and the Christ,--yes, by all means if you choose to call them so, but essentially,--Mamma, Papa, and the Baby. And all Italy threw up its cap,--"Ora ha Giotto il grido."

For he defines, explains, and exalts, every sweet incident of human nature; and makes dear to daily life every mystic imagination of natures greater than our own. He reconciles, while he intensifies, every virtue of domestic and monastic thought. He makes the simplest household duties sacred, and the highest religious pa.s.sions serviceable and just.

THE THIRD MORNING.

BEFORE THE SOLDAN.

I promised some note of Sandro's Fort.i.tude, before whom I asked you to sit and read the end of my last letter; and I've lost my own notes about her, and forget, now, whether she has a sword, or a mace;--it does not matter. What is chiefly notable in her is--that you would not, if you had to guess who she was, take her for Fort.i.tude at all. Everybody else's Fort.i.tudes announce themselves clearly and proudly. They have tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets--and stand firm astride on their legs,--and are confidently ready for all comers. Yes;--that is your common Fort.i.tude. Very grand, though common. But not the highest, by any means.

Ready for all comers, and a match for them,--thinks the universal Fort.i.tude;--no thanks to her for standing so steady, then!

But Botticelli's Fort.i.tude is no match, it may be, for any that are coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing ready for all comers, she is sitting,--apparently in reverie, her fingers playing restlessly and idly--nay, I think--even nervously, about the hilt of her sword.

For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yesterday. Many a morn and eve have pa.s.sed since it began--and now--is this to be the ending day of it? And if this--by what manner of end?

That is what Sandro's Fort.i.tude is thinking. And the playing fingers about the sword-hilt would fain let it fall, if it might be: and yet, how swiftly and gladly will they close on it, when the far-off trumpet blows, which she will hear through all her reverie!

There is yet another picture of Sandro's here, which you must look at before going back to Giotto: the small Judith in the room next the Tribune, as you return from this outer one. It is just under Lionardo's Medusa. She is returning to the camp of her Israel, followed by her maid carrying the head of Holofernes. And she walks in one of Botticelli's light dancing actions, her drapery all on flutter, and her hand, like Fort.i.tude's, light on the sword-hilt, but daintily--not nervously, the little finger laid over the cross of it.

And at the first glance--you will think the figure merely a piece of fifteenth-century affectation. 'Judith, indeed!--say rather the daughter of Herodias, at her mincingest.'

Well, yes--Botticelli _is_ affected, in the way that all men in that century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner, much formal a.s.sertion of scholarship, mingling with his force of imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about, just as Correggio does. But he never does it like Correggio, without cause.

Look at Judith again,--at her face, not her drapery,--and remember that when a man is base at the heart, he blights his virtues into weaknesses; but when he is true at the heart, he sanctifies his weaknesses into virtues. It is a weakness of Botticelli's, this love of dancing motion and waved drapery; but why has he given it full flight here?

Do you happen to know anything about Judith yourself, except that she cut off Holofernes' head; and has been made the high light of about a million of vile pictures ever since, in which the painters thought they could surely attract the public to the double show of an execution, and a pretty woman,--especially with the added pleasure of hinting at previously ign.o.ble sin?

When you go home to-day, take the pains to write out for yourself, in the connection I here place them, the verses underneath numbered from the book of Judith; you will probably think of their meaning more carefully as you write.

Begin thus:

"Now at that time, Judith heard thereof, which was the daughter of Merari, ... the son of Simeon, the son of Israel." And then write out, consecutively, these pieces--

Chapt. viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always inclusive,) and read the whole chapter.

Chapt. ix., verses 1 and 5 to 7, beginning this piece with the previous sentence, "Oh G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, hear me also, a widow."

Chapt. ix., verses 11 to 14. Chapter x., verses 1 to 5. Chapter xiii., verses 6 to 10. Chapter xv., verses 11 to 13. Chapter xvi., verses 1 to 6. Chapter xvi., verses 11 to 15. Chapter xvi., verses 18 and 19.

Chapter xvi., verses 23 to 25.

Now, as in many other cases of n.o.ble history, apocryphal and other, I do not in the least care how far the literal facts are true. The conception of facts, and the idea of Jewish womanhood, are there, grand and real as a marble statue,--possession for all ages. And you will feel, after you have read this piece of history, or epic poetry, with honourable care, that there is somewhat more to be thought of and pictured in Judith, than painters have mostly found it in them to show you; that she is not merely the Jewish Delilah to the a.s.syrian Samson; but the mightiest, purest, brightest type of high pa.s.sion in severe womanhood offered to our human memory. Sandro's picture is but slight; but it is true to her, and the only one I know that is; and after writing out these verses, you will see why he gives her that swift, peaceful motion, while you read in her face, only sweet solemnity of dreaming thought. "My people delivered, and by my hand; and G.o.d has been gracious to His handmaid!"

The triumph of Miriam over a fallen host, the fire of exulting mortal life in an immortal hour, the purity and severity of a guardian angel--all are here; and as her servant follows, carrying indeed the head, but invisible--(a mere thing to be carried--no more to be so much as thought of)--she looks only at her mistress, with intense, servile, watchful love. Faithful, not in these days of fear only, but hitherto in all her life, and afterwards forever.

After you have seen it enough, look also for a little while at Angelico's Marriage and Death of the Virgin, in the same room; you may afterwards a.s.sociate the three pictures always together in your mind.

And, looking at nothing else to-day in the Uffizi, let us go back to Giotto's chapel.

We must begin with this work on our left hand, the Death of St. Francis; for it is the key to all the rest. Let us hear first what Mr. Crowe directs us to think of it. "In the composition of this scene, Giotto produced a masterpiece, which served as a model but too often feebly imitated by his successors. Good arrangement, variety of character and expression in the heads, unity and harmony in the whole, make this an exceptional work of its kind. As a composition, worthy of the fourteenth century, Ghirlandajo and Benedetto da Majano both imitated, without being able to improve it. No painter ever produced its equal except Raphael; nor could a better be created except in so far as regards improvement in the mere rendering of form."

To these inspiring observations by the rapturous Crowe, more cautious Cavalcasella [Footnote: I venture to attribute the wiser note to Signor Cavalcasella because I have every reason to put real confidence in his judgment. But it was impossible for any man, engaged as he is, to go over all the ground covered by so extensive a piece of critical work as these three volumes contain, with effective attention.] appends a refrigerating note, saying, "The St. Francis in the glory is new, but the angels are in part preserved. The rest has all been more or less retouched; and no judgment can be given as to the colour of this--or any other (!)--of these works."