The Catholic World
Chapter 35 : {246} From The Dublin Review.CHRISTIAN ART._The History of our Lord as exemplified in W

{246}

From The Dublin Review.

CHRISTIAN ART.

_The History of our Lord as exemplified in Works of Art;_ with that of the Types, St. John the Baptist and other persons of the Old and New Testament. Commenced by the late Mrs. JAMESON; continued and completed by Lady EASTLAKE. 2 vols. London: Longman. 1864.

The series of works on Christian Art brought out by the late Mrs.

Jameson, and which earned for her so high a reputation as an art critic, was conceived upon a plan of progressive interest and importance. From "Sacred and Legendary Art," published in 1848, she pa.s.sed to the special legends connected with Monastic Orders, and in 1852 gave to the public her most charming volume, ent.i.tled "Legends of the Madonna." The series was to have closed with the subject of the volume now before us, and some progress had been made by Mrs. Jameson in collecting notes on various pictures, when, in the spring of 1860, death cut her labors short. The work, however, has pa.s.sed into hands well able to complete it worthily. We may miss some of the freshness and genuine simplicity with which Mrs. Jameson was wont to transfer to paper rare impression made on her mind and heart; but Lady Eastlake, while bringing to her task the essential qualification of earnestness and exhibiting considerable grace and force of style, is possessed of a far wider and more critical acquaintance with the history of art than her amiable predecessor either had or pretended to have. It is pleasant to find in these pages, as in those which preceded them, the evidence of a desire to avoid controversial matter; and that, without compromise of personal conviction, care has been generally taken not to wound the feelings of those who differ from the writer in religious belief. The primary object of the work is aesthetic and artistic, not religious; and it is seldom that the laws of good taste are transgressed in its pages by gratuitous attacks upon the tenets of the great body of artists who are the immediate subject of criticism.

Indeed, considering that these volumes are the production of a Protestant, we think that less of Protestant animus could hardly be shown, at all consistently with honesty of purpose and frankness of speech. That no traces of the Protestant spirit should appear, would be next to an impossibility; and the affectation of Catholic feeling, where it did not exist, would be offensive from its very unreality. So much self-control in traversing a vast extent of delicate and dangerous ground deserves all the more hearty acknowledgment, as it must have been peculiarly difficult to a person of Lady Eastlake's ardent temperament and evident strength of conviction. If, therefore, in the course of our remarks, we feel bound to point out the evil influence which Lady Eastlake's religious views seem to us to have exercised on her critical appreciations, it will be understood that theories, not persons, are the object of our animadversions. It is at all times an ungrateful task to expose the weak points of an author; it would be especially ungenerous to be hard upon the shortcomings of one who has done such good service to the cause of truth, in proving, however unconsciously, by the mere exercise of persistent candor, the ident.i.ty of Christian and Catholic art. Catholics, indeed, do not ordinarily stand in need of such proof. If they know anything of art, the fact of this ident.i.ty must be with them an early discovery; but it is gratifying, especially in a time and country in which scant justice on such matters is too often dealt out to us, to be able to adduce a {247} testimony the more valuable because given in despite of an adverse bias. It is quite possible, indeed, that the writer has not perceived the full import of her work; but no one, we think, can study her examples or weigh the force of her criticism with out coming to the true conclusion upon this subject.

But, before establis.h.i.+ng the correctness of this a.s.sertion, we must draw attention to one point upon which we are at issue with Lady Eastlake: a point, moreover, of no small importance, as it vitally affects the value of a large part of her criticisms. A question arises at the outset, what standard or test of Christian art is to be set up; and Lady Eastlake makes an excellent start in the investigation. There is, perhaps, no principle so steadily kept in view throughout the work, or so often and earnestly insisted on, as this: that genuine Christian art and true Christian doctrine are intimately and essentially connected. Art is bound to depict only the truth in fact or doctrine (vol. ii., p. 266, note). Departure from sound theology involves heresy in art. Now, no principle can be more true than this, or of greater importance toward forming a correct judgment upon works professing to belong to Christian art. Beauty and truth are objectively identical, for beauty is only truth lighted up and harmonized by the reason; and to supernatural beauty, which Christian art essentially aims at expressing, supernatural truth must necessarily correspond. For here we have nothing to do with mere material beauty, "the glories of color, the feats of anatomical skill, the charms of chiaroscuro, the revels of free handling." Admirable as these are in themselves, and by no means, theoretically at least, injurious to Christian art, they belong properly to art as art, and are more or less separable from art as Christian. Christian art is never perfect as art, unless material beauty enters into the composition; but as Christianity is above art, and the soul superior to the body, so material beauty must never forget its place, never strive to obtain the mastery, or const.i.tute itself the chief aim of the artist, upon pain of total destruction of the Christian element.

The soul of Christian art is in the idea--the shadowing out by symbol or representation, under material forms and conditions, of immaterial, supernatural, even uncreated beauty, the beauty of heavenly virtue, or heavenly mystery or divinity itself. But how are these objects, in all their harmony, proportion, and splendor, to be realized--how is supernatural beauty to be conceived--except by a soul gifted with supernatural perceptions? Faith, at least, is indispensably requisite to the truthfulness of any artistic work intended to represent the supernatural. Without faith, distortion and caricature are inevitable.

With faith--the foundation of all knowledge of the supernatural in this life--much, very much, may be accomplished. But it is when faith, enlivened and perfected by supernatural love, exercises itself in contemplation, that the spiritual sight becomes keen, and the soul, from having simply a just appreciation, pa.s.ses to a vision of exquisite beauty, sublimity, and tenderness, which a higher perception of divine mysteries has laid open to its gaze. The hand may falter, and be faithless to the mental conception, so as to produce imperfect execution and inadequate artistic result. Faith and love do not make a man an artist. But, amidst deformity or poverty of art in the material element, if there is any, however slight, artistic power employed, the outward defects will be qualified, and almost transformed, to the eye of an appreciating spectator, through the inner power which speaks from the painter's soul to his own: just as we learn to overlook, or even to admire, plain features, and anything short of positive ugliness of outline, in those whose mental greatness and moral beauty we have learned to venerate and to love. On the other hand, any amount of material perfection in contour and color is insipid as a doll, {248} a mere mask of nothingness, incapable of arresting attention or captivating the heart, unless within there be a soul of beauty--that inward excellence which subordinates to itself, while it gives life and meaning to, the outward form. On the side of the object, truth; on the part of the spectator, faith and love--these are the palmary conditions of Christian art and its appreciation. For it must ever be remembered that supernatural truth lies beyond the ken of any but souls elevated by faith; and, what is of equal importance, that faith can have no other object than the truth. Its object is infallible truth, or it is not faith. No wonder, then, that, when we see a prodigality of manual skill and grace of form, and even moral beauty of the natural order, devoid of the inspiration of supernatural faith and love, we are forced to exclaim with St. Gregory, as he gazed on the fair Saxon youths, _Heit proh dolor! quod tam lucidi vultus homines tenebrarum auctor possideret, tantaque gratia frontis conspicui mentem ab aeterna gratia vacuam gestarent._ [Footnote 51]

Alas! that so much physical beauty should embody nothing but a pagan idea! It were as unreasonable to look for Christian art as the product of an heretical imagination, as to demand Christian eloquence or Christian poetry from an heretical preacher or a free-thinking poet.

The vision is wanting, the appreciation is not there--how, then, is the expression possible?

[Footnote 51: "Alas! what pain it is to think that men of such bright countenance should be the possession of the Prince of Darkness; and that though conspicuous for surprising grace of feature, they should bear a soul within untenanted by everlasting grace."]

Nor is this a mere abstract theory, erected on _a priori_ principles. It would be easy to verify our position by a large induction from the history of art. Is there a picture whose mute eloquence fills the soul with reverential awe, or holy joy, or supernatural calm, or deep, deep sympathy with the sufferings of our Lord, or the sorrows of his Immaculate Mother, we may be sure the painter was some humble soul, ascetical and pious, who, like Juan de Joanes, or Zurbaran, spent his days in lifelong seclusion, given up to the grave and holy thoughts which their pictures utter to us; or that other Spaniard, Luis de Vargas, famed alike for his austerity and amiable Christian gaiety; or a Sa.s.soferrato, or a Van Eyck, seeking in, holy communion the peace of soul which can alone reflect the calmness of sanct.i.ty, or the bliss of celestial scenes; or the holy friar, John of Fiesoli, known to all as the Angelic whose heroic humility and Christian simplicity, learned in a life of prayer and contemplation, invest his pictures with an unearthly charm. These, and many another pious painter, known or unknown by name to men, looked on their vocation as a holy trust, and sought to keep themselves unspotted from the world. Theirs was the practical maxim so dear to the blessed Angelico, that "those who work for Christ must dwell in Christ." On the other hand, does a picture, albeit Christian in subject and in name, offend us by false sentiment, or cold conventionalism, or sensuality, or affectation, or strain after theatrical effect, or any of the hundred forms which degraded art exhibits when it has wandered from the Christian type--we know that we are looking on the handiwork of some schismatic Greek, or modern Protestant; or that, if the painter be a Catholic, he lived in the days or wrought under the influence of the Renaissance, when paganism made its deadly inroads upon art, subst.i.tuting the spirit of voluptuousness for the sweet and austere graces that spring of divine charity; or under the blighting influence of Jansenism, which killed alike that queenly virtue and her sister humility by false asceticism and pharisaic rigor. We might even trust the decision as to the truthfulness of our view to an inspection of the examples with which Lady Eastlake has so abundantly ill.u.s.trated her volumes. Indeed, hitherto her principle and ours are one.

{249}

But unfortunately, though the _major_ premise of the art-syllogism is granted on both sides, Lady Eastlake adopts a _minor_, from which we utterly dissent. It is implied in one and all of the following statements, and is more or less interwoven with the whole staple of her work. She tells us that "the materials for this history in art are only properly derivable from Scripture, and therefore referable back to the same source for verification" (vol. i., p. 3). And again: "It may be at once laid down as a principle, that the interests of art and the integrity of Scripture [by integrity is meant literal adherence to the text of Scripture] are indissolubly united. Where superst.i.tion mingles, the quality of Christian art suffers; where doubt enters, Christian art has nothing to do. It may even be averred that, if a person could be imagined, deeply imbued with aesthetic instincts and knowledge, and utterly ignorant of Scripture, he would yet intuitively prefer, as art, all those conceptions of our Lord's history which adhere to the simple text... . All preference for the simple narrative of Scripture he would arrive at through art--all condemnation of the embroideries of legend through the same channel"

(vol. i., p. 6). And again: "The simplicity of art and of the Gospel stand or fall together. The literal narrative of the agony in the garden lost sight of, all became confusion and error" (vol. ii., p.

30).

Now, whatever obscurity and confusion these pa.s.sages contain--and they do contain a great deal--one thing is unmistakably clear, that the orthodoxy of the ultra-Protestant maxim, "The Bible and the Bible only," is a fixed principle with Lady Eastlake. And the consequence is, that, whenever she looks at a religious picture, she refers to the Gospel narrative for its verification. If it does not stand this test, it is nowhere in her esteem. What is not in Scripture is legendary and unartistic, because necessarily at variance with scriptural truth.

Thus whole provinces of art in connection with our Lord are banished from her pages. Surely such a canon of taste is not only narrow, but arbitrary: narrow, as excluding whatever comes down to us hallowed by tradition, considered apart from or beyond the limits of scriptural statement; arbitrary, because it leaves art at the mercy of the sects, with their manifold dissensions as to the extent of Scripture, or its true interpretation. Thus, Lady Eastlake, being herself no believer in the doctrine of the real presence, does not recognize its enunciation in the sacred pages, and loses, apparently, all interest in the great pictures which symbolize or relate to the most holy sacrament of the altar. So, too, most of the special devotions to the person of our Lord, which have sprung out of the living faith of the church, and have furnished subjects for pictures incontestably of a high order, are totally omitted from her cla.s.sification of devotional compositions. We can hardly imagine it possible for her to adhere consistently to her rule in other departments of Christian art. The Immaculate Conception, for instance, the a.s.sumption, the Coronation of our Lady, the marriage of St. Catherine, the stigmata of St. Francis, the vision of St. Dominic, the miracles of the saints--subjects, many of which have inspired some of the n.o.blest productions of her favorite Fra Angelico, or of Raphael, or Murillo, or Velasquez--undoubtedly do violence to her criteria of artistic merit, though we cannot believe that she would contest their universally acknowledged claim to the highest honors in Christian art. Indeed, fidelity to this narrow Protestant maxim would have rendered these two volumes an impossibility. Strange, then, that it should not have occurred to the mind of the auth.o.r.ess that by far the larger part, and, on her own showing, the most glorious part, of the fraternity of Christian artists have been men full to overflowing of the spirit of a church which has never adopted her standard of orthodoxy.

{250}

The Catholic Church is at once the parent, historically, of all Christian art and the upholder of that grand principle of tradition which gives to art, no less than to doctrine, a range far wider and more ample than the mere letter of the biblical records. Of course, contradiction of Scripture, or "alterations of the text, which, however slight, affect the revealed character of our Lord," must give offence to every judicious critic; but it is tradition and the voice of the living Church--together with that instinctive sense of the faithful which, so long as they live in submission to their divinely-appointed teachers, is so marvellously true and unerring--that must be the criteria of orthodoxy, and determine when the artist's conceptions or mode of treatment are contrary to, or in accordance with, the spirit of the sacred text.

Lady Eastlake does not like the notion of our Lord's falling under the cross. It is not in the Bible, and she p.r.o.nounces it to be counter to the spirit and purport of the Gospel narrative. She grows positively angry with some painters for having represented an angel holding the chalice, surmounted by a cross or host, before the eyes of our blessed Redeemer in his agony. She has her own standard of feeling, abstract and arbitrary, to which she refers the decision of such points. But where is the guarantee for the correctness of that standard, or the security for its general acceptance? The Bible does not tell us what its own spirit and purport are, and outside the Bible Lady Eastlake, at least, cannot point to any infallible authority. She is, therefore, imposing her own judgment, unsupported by any a.s.signed reason, upon the world, as a rule to be followed. So, too, St. Veronica to her is always _de trop_, morally and pictorially, in the Way of the Cross; and scholastic interpretations, seemingly because they are scholastic, of the types of the Old Testament, are invariably p.r.o.nounced by her to be strained, unreal, and superst.i.tious. So effectually does Protestantism interfere with the capacity of a critic to appreciate the higher developments and fuller expression of Christian art.

Not that a Protestant or a free-thinker can have no sense at all of the supernaturally beautiful. If they are trained to a high degree of moral and intellectual cultivation in the natural order, and in proportion to the height of their attainments in that order, they will not fail to be affected by beauty of a superior order. For there is no contradiction between the truth of nature and the truth which is above nature. The Protestant, indeed, as sincerely holding large fragments of Christian truth, will necessarily have much sympathy with many exhibitions of supernatural beauty. But he lacks the clue to it as a whole; and if he can often admire, rarely, if ever, can he create.

Both Protestant and unbeliever must therefore labor under much vagueness and uncertainty of judgment, inasmuch as they can have no fixity of principle. Often they will not know what they want; they will praise in one page what they condemn in the next; or, when moved, will be at a loss to account for their emotion. They will exhibit phenomena not unlike those so often presented in this country by unbelievers, who, entering our churches, are one while overawed by a presence they cannot define, and which bewilders their intellect, whilst it captivates their imagination; and another while, as unaccountably, are moved to disgust and derision by what to them is an insoluble riddle, a perplexity, and an annoyance. To such critics some phases of the supernatural will never be welcome. The tortures of the martyrs, the self-inflicted macerations of ascetics, the sublime self-abandonment of heroic charity--whatever, in a word, embodies and brings home the grand, sacred, but, to the natural man, repugnant idea of the cross, will always be offensive, and produce a sense of irritation, such as even Lady Eastlake, with all her {251} self-mastery and good taste, cannot wholly suppress or conceal. So true is it in the sphere of Christian art, as in that of Christian doctrine and devotion, _Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis_. Casual excitement, transient enthusiasm, unmeaning admiration, are at best the pitiful subst.i.tutes for an intelligent and abiding appreciation of excellence, in those who are not possessed of supernatural ideas in common with the subjects and authors of the works of genuine Christian art.

It would be unfair, however, not to mention that Lady Eastlake admits many important modifications of this rigid principle of adherence to the letter of Scripture. The following secondary canons go far to soften down the asperity of her Protestantism. They shall be stated in her own words:

"On the other hand, additions to Scripture given in positive images, if neither prejudicial to art nor inconsistent with our Lord's character, are not in themselves necessarily objectionable; but will, according to their merits, be looked upon with indulgence or admiration. The pictures, for instance, representing the disrobing of our Lord--a fact not told in Scripture, yet which must have happened--will be regarded with pathetic interest. The same will be felt of Paul Delaroche's exquisite little picture, where St. John is leading the Virgin home; for such works legitimately refresh and carry on the narrative in a scriptural spirit. Nay, episodes which are more purely invention--such as the ancient tradition of the Mother of Christ wrapping the cloth round her son, previous to his crucifixion; or, again, the picture by Paul Delaroche, of the agony of her and of the disciples, represented as gathered together in a room while Christ pa.s.ses with his cross--even such imaginary episodes will silence the most arrant Protestant criticism, by their overpowering appeal to the feelings; since in neither case is the great duty of art to itself or to its divine object tampered with.

"The same holds good where symbolical forms, as in Christian art of cla.s.sic descent, are given, which embody the idea rather than the fact. For instance, where the Jordan is represented as a river G.o.d, with his urn under his arm, at the baptism of our Lord; or when, later, the same event is accompanied by the presence of angels, who hold the Saviour's garments. Such paraphrases and poetical imaginings in no way affect the truth of the facts they set forth, but rather, to mortal fancy, swell their pomp and dignity.

"Still less need the lover of art and adorer of Christ care about inconsistencies in minor matters. As, for example, that the entombment takes place in a renaissance monument, in the centre of a beautiful Italian landscape, and not in a cave in a rock in the arid scenery of Judea. On the contrary, it is right that art should exercise the utmost possible freedom in such circ.u.mstances, which are the signs and handwriting of different schools and times, and enrich a picture with sources of interest to the historian and the archaeologist. It is the moral expression which touches the heart and adorns the tale, not the architecture or costume; and whether our Lord be in the garb of a Roman citizen or of a German burgher (though his dress is usually conventional in color and form), it matters not, if he be but G.o.d in all."

The arbitrariness of the principles set forth in the earlier portion of this pa.s.sage, and the quiet a.s.sumption that all ancient traditions are pure inventions, may well be excused by the reader for the sake of the inconsistency which saves from condemnation not a few glorious pictures, which could never otherwise have been made to square with the rule of literal adherence to the Gospel narrative.

Another principle essential to the right appreciation of art is admirably stated by Lady Eastlake:

"All will agree that the duty of the Christian artist is to give not only the {252} temporary fact, but the permanent truth. Yet this entails a discrepancy to which something must be sacrificed. For, in the scenes from our Lord's life, fact and truth are frequently at variance. That the Magdalen took our Lord for a gardener, was the fact; that he was Christ, is the truth. That the Roman soldiers believed him to be a criminal, and therefore mocked and buffeted him without scruple, is the fact; that we know him through all these scenes to be the Christ, is the truth. Nay, the very cruciform nimbus that encircles Christ's head is an a.s.sertion of this principle. As visible to us, it is true; as visible even to his disciples, it is false. There are, however, educated people so little versed in the conditions of art, as to object even to the nimbus, as a departure from fact, and, therefore, an offence to truth; preferring, they say, to see our Lord represented as he walked upon earth. But this is a fallacy in more than one sense. Our Lord, as he walked upon earth, was not known to be the Messiah. To give him as he was seen by men who knew him not, would be to give him not as the Christ. It may be urged that the cruciform nimbus is a mere arbitrary sign, nothing in itself more than a combination of lines. This is true; but there _must_ be something arbitrary in all human imaginings (we should prefer to say symbolizings) of the supernatural. Art, for ages, a.s.sumed this sign as that of the G.o.dhead of Christ, and the world for ages granted it. It served various purposes; it hedged the rudest representations of Christ round with a divinity, which kept them distinct from all others. It pointed him out to the most ignorant spectator, and it identified the sacred head, even at a distance."

This principle may, indeed, be legitimately extended much further. The purpose of Christian art is instruction, either in morals or in dogma, or in both. It is not, therefore, a sin in art to sacrifice upon occasion some portion of historical truth, in subservience to this end. Nor in fact, in Catholic ages, was there danger of the people being led into error on the fundamental facts of religion. The Gospel narrative was too familiar to them for that. They seem, as is well remarked by Father Cahier, to have had hearts more elevated than ours, and more attuned by meditation and habitual catholicity of spirit to mystery, and its sublimer lessons; and therefore, whenever we find in early paintings what seems to us anomalous in an historic point of view, we may conclude with safety that there was a dogmatic intention.

There are, however, limits to liberties of this kind, which may not be transgressed without incurring censure. Overbold speculation has ere now betrayed even orthodox theologians into accidental error. And a Catholic artist may depict, as a Catholic schoolman may enunciate, views which deserve to be stigmatized as rash, offensive, erroneous, scandalous, or even, in themselves, heretical. There have been occasions in which the Church has felt herself bound to interfere with wanderings of the artistic imagination, as injurious, morally or doctrinally, to the faithful committed to her charge. Nor have theologians failed to protest from time to time against similar abuses. Bellarmine frowned upon the muse in Christian art. Savonarola, in his best days, made open war upon the pagan corruptions which in his time had begun to abound in Florentine paintings. Father Canisius denounces those painters as inexcusable who, in the face of Scripture, represent our Lady as swooning at the foot of the cross; and Father de Ligny reprobates, on the same grounds, the introduction of St. Joseph into pictures of the meeting between the Blessed Virgin and St.

Elizabeth. For--whatever we may think as to his having accompanied our Lady on the journey--had he been present at the interview, he would have been enlightened upon the mystery, his ignorance of which afterward threw him into such perplexity.

{253}

As to the order of the work, Lady Eastlake gives ample explanation in the preface:

"In the short programme left by Mrs. Jameson, the ideal and devotional subjects, such as the Good Shepherd, the Lamb, the Second Person of the Trinity, were placed first; the scriptural history of our Lord's life on earth next; and, lastly, the types from the Old Testament.

There is reason, however, to believe, from the evidence of what she had already written, that she would have departed from this arrangement. After much deliberation, I have ventured to do so, and to place the subjects chronologically. The work commences, therefore, with that which heads most systems of Christian art--The Fall of Lucifer and Creation of the World--followed by the types and prophets of the Old Testament. Next comes the history of the Innocents and of John the Baptist, written by her own hand, and leading to the Life and Pa.s.sion of our Lord. The abstract and devotional subjects, as growing out of these materials, then follow, and the work terminates with the Last Judgment."

Mrs. Jameson's own share in the work is confined mainly to some of the types, the histories specified above, and familiar scenes in the earlier portions of the Gospel narrative, including a few of the miracles and parables of our Lord. The notes are fragmentary, but written in her usual interesting and lively style. How refres.h.i.+ng, for instance, and characteristic are the following comments upon some pictures representing the dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael at the imperious request of Sarah:

"I believe the most celebrated example is the picture by Guercino, in the Brera; but I do not think it deserves its celebrity--the pathetic is there alloyed with vulgarity of character. I remember that, when I first saw this picture, I could only think of the praises lavished on it by Byron and others, as the finest expression of deep, natural pathos to be found in the whole range of art. I fancied, as many do, that I could see in it the beauties so poetically described. Some years later, when I saw it again, with a more cultivated eye and taste, my disappointment was great. In fact, Abraham is much more like an unfeeling old beggar than a majestic patriarch, resigned to the divine will, yet struck to the heart by the cruel necessity under which he was acting. Hagar cries like a housemaid turned off without wages or warning, and Ishmael is merely a blubbering boy. For expression, the picture by Govaert Hiricke (Berlin Gallery, 815) seems to me much superior; the look of appealing anguish in the face of Hagar as she turns to Abraham, and points to her weeping boy, reaches to the tragic in point of conception, but Ishmael, if very natural, with his fist in his eye, is also rather vulgar. Rembrandt's composition is quite dramatic, and, in his manner, as fine as possible. Hagar, lingering on the step of the dwelling whence she is rejected, weeps reproachfully; Ishmael, in a rich Oriental costume, steps on before, with the boyish courage of one destined to become an archer and a hunter in the wilderness, and the father of a great and even yet unconquered nation; in the background Sarah is seen looking out of the window at her departing rival, with exultation in her face."

Those who are acquainted with Italian paintings of the 15th century must have remarked the frequency with which the great masters of the Tuscan school in that era treat the subject of "The Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents." Though our Lord is not an actor in the scene, it is intimately connected with his history. The Innocents were the first martyrs in his cause, and from the earliest times attracted the veneration and tender affection of Christians. Painful as the subject is, it affords scope for the exercise of the highest tragic power. The mere fact that Herod's sword swept the nurseries of Bethlehem, though necessarily entering into the picture, becomes subordinate to the {254} sorrow which then started into life in so many mothers' hearts.

That is the point made most prominent in the Gospel by the citation of the pathetic words of Jeremias in the prophecy: "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentations, and weeping, and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." The mind is carried back to the time when the very sound of those tottering feet sufficed to waken the pulses of love in the mother's bosom; when those confiding hands were ever locked in hers.

How dear had been the pretty prattle of those little ones, the first stammerings of the tongue, the silvery laughter, even the cries of pa.s.sion or of pain! Hitherto all had bsen suns.h.i.+ne, or once and again the shadow of some light cloud had drifted across the face of heaven; but now agony comes on the wings of the whirlwind--a pitiless storm that leaves nothing but blank, broken hearts behind. Here we see a bereaved mother, wildly pa.s.sionate, tossing her frantic arms heavenward; we almost fancy we hear her rave and moan. There we mark the wandering footsteps, no longer obedient to the helm of reason.

Another, with clasped hands, kneels, gazing on the purple stains which dye the ivory limbs of her slaughtered darling. Or the eye rests with awful compa.s.sion on a standing figure, another speechless Niobe, pale and unconscious as a statue, still pressing her dead infant to her breast. Upon one or two upturned faces a light has broken; the grand thought seems just to have flashed upon their souls--that the purple stains are the dye of martyrdom, destined by a loving Providence to adorn a robe of unfading glory. And so sorrow pa.s.ses almost into joy, and the imagination reaches forward to another sorrowful Mother --Mother of sorrows--who is to sit in desolation, yet mastering her deep woe, and, with a sacrificing love that transcends resignation, entering into and uniting herself with the mysterious designs of G.o.d.

In spite, however, of the interest of the subject, for ages it was rarely depicted. Mrs. Jameson gives the following account of its sudden rise into general favor:

"All at once, however, in the latter half of the 15th century--that is, after 1450--we find the subject of the Holy Innocents a.s.suming an extraordinary degree of popularity and importance. Then, for the first time, we find chapels dedicated to them, and groups of martyred children in altar-pieces round the throne of Christ or the Virgin.

From this period we have innumerable examples of the terrible scene of the ma.s.sacre at Bethlehem, treated as a separate subject in pictures and prints, while the best artists vied with each other in varying and elaborating the details of circ.u.mstantial cruelty and frantic despair.

"For a long time, I could not comprehend how this came about, nor how it happened that through all Italy, especially in the Tuscan schools, a subject so ghastly and so painful should have a.s.sumed this sort of prominence. The cause, as it gradually revealed itself, rendered every picture more and more interesting; connecting them with each other, and showing how intimately the history of art is mixed up with the life of a people.

"There had existed at Florence, from the 13th century, a hospital for foundlings, the first inst.i.tution of the kind in Europe. It was attached to the Benedictine monastery of San Gallo, near one of the gates of the city still bearing the name. In the 15th century, when the population and extent of the city had greatly increased, it was found that this hospital was too small, and the funds of the monastery quite inadequate to the purpose. Then Lionardo Buruni, of Arezzo, who was twice chancellor of Florence--the same Lionardo who gave to Ghiberti the subjects of his famous gates--filled with compa.s.sion for the orphans and neglected children, addressed the senate on the subject, and made such an affecting appeal in their behalf, that not the senate only, but the whole people of {255} Florence, responded with enthusiasm, frequently interrupting him with cries of 'Viva Messer Lionardo d'Arezzo!' 'And,' adds the historian, 'never was a question of importance carried with such [more] quickness and unanimity' (_mai con maggior celerita e pienezza de' voti fu vinto part.i.to di cosa grave come questa_). Large sums were voted, offerings flowed in, a superb hospital was founded, and Brunelleschi was appointed architect. When finished, which was not till 1444, it was solemnly dedicated to the '_Holy Innocents_.' The first child consigned to the new inst.i.tution was a poor little female infant, on whose breast was pinned the name 'Agata,' in remembrance of which an altar in the chapel was dedicated to St. Agatha. We have proof that the foundation, progress, and consecration of this refuge for dest.i.tute children excited the greatest interest and sympathy, not only in Florence, but in the neighboring states, and that it was imitated in Pisa, Arezzo, and Siena. The union of the two hospitals of San Gallo and the 'Innocenti' took place in 1463. Churches and chapels were appended to the hospitals, and, as a matter of course, the painters and sculptors were called upon to decorate them. Such are the circ.u.mstances which explain, as I think, the popularity of the story of the Innocents in the 15th century, and the manner in which it occupied the minds of the great cotemporary artists of the Tuscan school, and others after them."

We cannot pretend to decide upon the truth of this supposed connection between the establishment of an inst.i.tution to minister to the wants of the forsaken and the development of a special branch of Christian art. Whether true or not, this much is certain, that it is in keeping with a mult.i.tude of instances which go to prove how favorable the practice of Catholic charity is to the progress of the arts. Love ever pours itself around in streams of radiance, lighting up whole regions which lie beyond its immediate object. It copies the creative liberality of G.o.d, who, in providing us with what is necessary for subsistence, surrounds us at the same time with a thousand superfluous manifestations of beauty.

But it is time to pa.s.s on to the second volume of this history, which we owe almost entirely to the pen of Lady Eastlake. It is mainly occupied with the Pa.s.sion of our Lord; and certainly the diligent attention paid by the auth.o.r.ess to this subject, and the judgment displayed in the arrangement of the narrative and the selection of examples, cannot be too highly commended. The style is generally clear, simple, and earnest. Always dignified, it sometimes rises to eloquence, as in the description of Rembrandt's etching of the "Ecce h.o.m.o," and in the following criticism of Leonardo da Vinci's celebrated "Last Supper." After a clever disquisition on the difficulties of the subject, and the conditions essential to its effective treatment, she thus proceeds:

"We need not say who did fulfil these conditions, nor whose Last Supper it is--all ruined and defaced as it may be--which alone arouses the heart of the spectator as effectually as that incomparable shadow in the centre has roused the feelings of the dim forms on each side of him. Leonardo da Vinci's _Cena_, to all who consider this grand subject through the medium of art, is _the_ Last Supper--there is no other. Various representations exist, and by the highest names in art, but they do not touch the subtle spring. Compared with this _chef d'oeuvre_, their Last Suppers are mere exhibitions of well-drawn, draped, or colored figures, in studiously varied att.i.tudes, which excite no emotion beyond the admiration due to these qualities. It is no wonder that Leonardo should have done little or nothing more after the execution, in his forty-sixth year, of that stupendous picture. It was not in man not to be fastidious, who had such an unapproachable standard of his own {256} powers perpetually standing in his path.

"Let us now consider this figure of Christ more closely.

"It is not sufficient to say that our Lord has just uttered this sentence, viz., 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, one of you shall betray me;' we must endeavor to define in what, in his own person, the visible proof of his having spoken consists. The painter has cast the eyes down--an action which generally detracts from the expression of a face. Here, however, no such loss is felt. The outward sight, it is true, is in abeyance, but the intensest sense of inward vision has taken its place. Our Lord is looking into himself--that self which knew 'all things,' and therefore needed not to lift his mortal lids to ascertain what effect his words had produced. The honest indignation of the apostles, the visible perturbation of the traitor, are each right in their place, and for the looker-on, but they are nothing to him. Thus here at once the highest power and refinement of art is shown, by the conversion of what in most hands would have been an insipidity into the means of expression best suited to the moment. The inclination of the head, and the expression of every feature, all contribute to the same intention. This is not the heaviness or even the repose of previous silence. On the contrary, the head has not yet risen, nor the muscles of the face subsided from the act of mournful speech. It is just that evanescent moment which all true painters yearn to catch, and which few but painters are wont to observe--when the tones have ceased, but the lips are not sealed--when, for an instant, the face repeats to the eye what the voice has said to the ear. No one who has studied that head can doubt that our Lord has just spoken: the sounds are not there, but they have not travelled far into s.p.a.ce.

"Much, too, in the general speech of this head is owing to the skill with which, while conveying one particular idea, the painter has suggested no other. Beautiful as the face is, there is no other beauty but that which ministers to this end. We know not whether the head be handsome or picturesque, masculine or feminine in type--whether the eye be liquid, the cheek ruddy, the hair smooth, or the beard curling--as we know with such painful certainty in other representations. All we feel is, that the wave of one intense meaning has pa.s.sed over the whole countenance, and left its impress alike on every part. Sorrow is the predominant expression--that sorrow which, as we have said in our Introduction, distinguishes the Christian's G.o.d, and which binds him, by a sympathy no fabled deity ever claimed, with the fallen and suffering race of Adam. His very words have given himself more pain than they have to his hearers, and a pain he cannot expend in protestations as they do, for this, as for every other act of his life, came he into the world.

"But we must not linger with the face alone; no hands ever did such intellectual service as those which lie spread on that table. They, too, have just fallen into that position--one so full of meaning to us, and so unconsciously a.s.sumed by him--and they will retain it no longer than the eye which is down and the head which is sunk. A special intention on the painter's part may be surmised in the opposite action of each hand: the palm of the one so graciously and bountifully open to all who are weary and heavy-laden; the other averted, yet not closed, as if deprecating its own symbolic office. Or we may consider their position as applicable to this particular scene only; the one hand saying, 'Of those that thou hast given me none is lost,' and the other, which lies near Judas, 'except the son of perdition.' Or, again, we may give a still narrower definition, and interpret this averted hand as directing the eye, in some sort, to the hand of Judas, which lies nearest it, 'Behold, the hand of him that {257} betrayeth me is with me on the table.' Not that the science of Christian iconography has been adopted here, for the welcoming and condemning functions of the respective hands have been reversed--in reference, probably, to Judas, who sits on our Lord's right. Or we may give up attributing symbolic intentions of any kind to the painter--a source of pleasure to the spectator more often justifiable than justified--and simply give him credit for having, by his own exquisite feeling alone, so placed the hands as to make them thus minister to a variety of suggestions. Either way, these grand and pathetic members stand as preeminent as the head in the pictorial history of our Lord, having seldom been equalled in beauty of form, and never in power of speech.