II. OF THE DISTINCTION TO BE DRAWN BETWEEN THE At first, when entering on a subject so boundless and so diversified, we are at a loss for some leading classification which shall be distinct and intelligible, without being mechanical. It appears to me, that all sacred representations, in as far as they appeal to sentiment and imagination, resolve themselves into two great classes, which I shall call the DEVOTIONAL and the HISTORICAL. Devotional pictures are those which portray the objects of our veneration with reference only to their sacred character, whether standing singly or in company with others. They place before us no action or event, real or supposed. They are neither portrait nor history. A group of sacred personages where no action is represented, is called in Italian a "sacra conversazione:" the word conversazione, which signifies a society in which there is communion, being here, as it appears to me, used with peculiar propriety. All subjects, then, which exhibit to us sacred personages, alone or in groups, simply in the character of superior beings, must be considered as devotionally treated. But a sacred subject, without losing wholly its religious import, becomes historical the moment it represents any story, incident, or action, real or imagined. All pictures which exhibit the events of Scripture story, all those which express the actions, miracles, and martyrdoms of saints, come under this class; and to this distinction I must call the attention of the reader, requesting that it may be borne in mind throughout this work. We must also recollect that a story, action, or fact may be so represented as to become a symbol expressive of an abstract idea: and some scriptural and some legendary subjects may be devotional, or historical, according to the sentiment conveyed; for example, the Crucifixion and the Last Supper may be so represented as either to exhibit an event, or to express a symbol of our Redemption. The raising of Lazarus exhibits, in the catacombs, a mystical emblem of the general resurrection; in the grand picture by Sebastian del Piombo, in our National Gallery, it is a scene from the life of our Saviour. Among the legendary subjects, the penance of the Magdalene, and St. Martin dividing his cloak, may be merely incidents, or they may be symbolical, the first of penitence, the latter of charity, in the general sense. And, again, there are some subjects which, though expressing a scene or an action, are wholly mystical and devotional in their import; as the vision of St. Augustine, and the marriage of St. Catherine. Among the grandest of the devotional subjects, we may reckon those compositions which represent the whole celestial hierarchy; the divine personages of the Trinity, the angels and archangels, and the beatified spirits of the just. Such is the subject called the "Paradiso," so often met with in pictures and ecclesiastical decoration, where Christ is enthroned in glory: such is also the Coronation of the Virgin, that ancient and popular symbol of the triumph of Religion or the Church; the Adoration of the Lamb; and the Last Judgment, from the Apocalypse. The order of precedence in these sacred assemblages was early settled by ecclesiastical authority, and was almost as absolute as that of a modern code of honour. First after the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, as Regina Angelorum, and St. John the Baptist: then, in order, the Evangelists; the Patriarchs; the Prophets; the Apostles; the Fathers; the Bishops; the Martyrs; the Hermits; the Virgins; the Monks, Nuns, and Confessors. As examples, I may cite the Paradiso of Angelico, in the Florence Academy; the Coronation of the Virgin by Hans Hemling, in the Wallerstein collection, which contains not less than fifty-two figures, all individualised with their proper attributes; and which, if it were possible, should be considered in contrast with the Coronation by Angelico, The Flemish painter seems to have carried his intense impression of earthly and individual life into the regions of heaven; the Italian, through a purer inspiration, seems to have brought all Paradise down before us upon earth. In the Adoration of the Lamb by Van Eyck, there are not fewer than two hundred figures. For the Last Judgment, the grand compositions of Orcagna in the Campo Santo, Luca Signorelli and Angelico at Orvieto,—and the fresco of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel, may be consulted. of Where the usual order is varied, there is generally some reason for it; for instance, in the exaltation of a favourite saint, as we sometimes find St. Dominick and St. Francis by the side of St. Peter and St. Paul: and among the miniatures of that extraordinary MS., the Hortus Deliciarum, now at Strasbourg, painted for a virgin abbess, there is a "Paradiso" in which the painter, either by her command or in compliment to her, has placed the virgins immediately after the angels. The representation of the Virgin and Child with saints grouped around them, is a devotional subject familiar to us from its constant recurrence. It also frequently happens that the tutelary saint of the locality, or the patron saint of the votary, is represented as seated on a raised throne in the centre; and other saints, though under every other circumstance taking a superior rank, become here accessaries, and are placed on each side or lower down in the picture: for example, where St. Augustine is enthroned, and St. Peter and St. Paul stand on each side, as in a picture by B. Vivarini', or where St. Barbara is enthroned, and Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine stand on each side, as in a picture by Matteo di Siena.2 In such pictures, the votary or donor is often introduced kneeling at the feet of his patron, either alone or accompanied by his wife and other members of his family: and, to express the excess of his humility, he is sometimes so diminutive in proportion to the colossal object of his veneration, as to be almost lost to sight; we have frequent examples of this naïveté of sentiment in the old mosaics and votive altar-pieces; for instance, in a beautiful old fresco at Assisi, where the Magdalene, a majestic figure about six feet high, holds out her hand in benediction to a little Franciscan friar about a foot in height: but it was abandoned as barbarous in the later schools of Art, and the votary, when retained, appears of the natural size; as in the Madonna del Donatore of Raphael3, where Sigismond Conti is almost the finest and most striking part of that inestimable picture: and in the Madonna of the Meyer family by Holbein. When a bishop is introduced into a group of saints kneeling, while all 1 Venice; SS. Giovanni e Paolo, 3 Rome; Vatican, Siena; San Dominico. the others are standing, he may be supposed to be the Donatore or Divoto, the person who presents the picture. When he is standing, he is one of the bishop-patrons or bishop-martyrs, of whom there are some hundreds, and who are more difficult to discriminate than any other pictured saints. And this leads me to the subject of the so-called anachronisms in devotional subjects, where personages who lived at different and distant periods of time are found grouped together. It is curious to find the critics of the last century treating with pity and ridicule, as the result of ignorance or a barbarous unformed taste, the noblest and most spiritual conceptions of poetic art. Even Sir Joshua Reynolds had so little idea of the true object and feeling of such representations, that he thinks it necessary to apologise for the error of the painter, or the mistaken piety of his employer. We must remember that the personages here brought together in their sacred character belong no more to our earth, but to heaven and eternity: for them there is no longer time or place; they are here assembled together in the perpetual "communion of saints,"-immortal contemporaries in that kingdom where the Angel of the Apocalypse proclaimed " that there should be time no longer." Such groups are sometimes arranged with an artless solemnity, all the personages standing and looking straight out of the picture at the wor→ shipper. Sometimes there is a touch of dramatic sentiment, which, without interfering with the solemn devotional feeling, lights up the whole with the charm of a purpose: as in the Correggio at Parma, where St. Jerome presents his translation of the Scriptures to the infant Christ, while an angel turns the leaves, and Mary Magdalene, symbol of redemption and reconciliation, bends to kiss the feet of the Saviour. Our ancestors of the middle ages were not particular in drawing that strong line of demarcation between the classical, Jewish, and Christian periods of history, that we do. They saw only Christendom every where; they regarded the past only in relation to Christianity. Hence we find in the early ecclesiastical monuments and edifices such a strange assemblage of pagan, scriptural, and Christian worthies; as, Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, King David, Judas Maccabeus, King Arthur, St. George, Godfrey of Boulogne, Lucretia, Virginia, Judith, St. Elizabeth, St. Bridget (as in the Cross of Nuremberg). In the curious Manual of Greek Art, published by Didron, we find the Greek philosophers and poets entering into a scheme of ecclesiastical decoration, as in the carved stalls in the Cathedral of Ulm, where Solon, Apollonius, Plutarch, Plato, Sophocles, are represented, holding each a scroll, on which is inscribed a passage from their works, interpreted into an allusion to the coming of Christ: and I have seen a picture of the Nativity in which the sibyls are dancing hand-in-hand around the cradle of the new-born Saviour. This may appear profane to some, but the comprehension of the whole universe within the pale of Christianity strikes me as being in the most catholic, as well as in the most poetical, spirit. It is in devotional subjects that we commonly find those anthropomorphic representations of the Divinity which shock devout people; and which no excuse or argument can render endurable to those who see in them only ignorant irreverence, or intentional profaneness. It might be pleaded that the profaneness is not intentional; that emblems and forms are, in the imitative arts, what figures of speech are in language; that only through a figure of speech can any attempt be made to place the idea of Almighty Power before us. Familiar expressions, consecrated by Scripture usage, represent the Deity as reposing, waking, stretching forth his hand, sitting on a throne; as pleased, angry, vengeful, repentant; and the ancient painters, speaking the language proper to their art, appear to have turned these emblematical words into emblematical pictures. I forbear to say more on this point, because I have taken throughout the poetical and not the religious view of Art, and this is an objection which must be left, as a matter of feeling, to the amount of candour and knowledge in the critical reader. In the sacred subjects, properly called HISTORICAL, we must be careful to distinguish between those which are Scriptural, representing scenes from the Old or New Testament; and those which are Legendary. Of the first, for the present, I do not speak, as they will be fully treated hereafter. |