More in front, St. Agnes, splendidly dressed in green and sable, her
lamb at her feet, turns with a questioning air to St. Catherine,
who, in queenly garb of crimson and ermine seems to consult her book.
Behind her another member of the family, a man with a very fine face;
and more in front St. Dorothea, with a charming expression of modesty,
looks down on her basket of roses. On the left of the Virgin is St.
Agatha; then two angels in white with viols; then St. Cecilia; and
near her a female head, another family portrait; next St. Barbara
wearing a beautiful head-dress, in front of which is worked her tower,
framed like an ornamental jewel in gold and pearls; she has a missal
in her lap. St. Lucia next appears; then another female portrait.
All the heads are about one fourth of the size of life. I stood in
admiration before this picture--such miraculous finish in all the
details, such life, such spirit, such delicacy in the heads and hands,
such brilliant colour in the draperies! Of its history I could learn
nothing, nor what family had thus introduced themselves into celestial
companionship. The portraits seemed to me to represent a father, a
mother, and two daughters.

*       *       *       *       *

I must mention some other instances of votive Madonnas, interesting
either from their beauty or their singularity.

3. Rene, Duke of Anjou, and King of Sicily and Jerusalem, the father
of our Amazonian queen, Margaret of Anjou, dedicated, in the church
of the Carmelites, at Aix, the capital of his dominions, a votive
picture, which is still to be seen there. It is not only a monument
of his piety, but of his skill; for, according to the tradition of the
country, he painted it himself. The good King Rene was no contemptible
artist; but though he may have suggested the subject, the hand of a
practised and accomplished painter is too apparent for us to suppose
it his own work.

This altar-piece in a triptychon, and when the doors are closed
it measures twelve feet in height, and seven feet in width. On the
outside of the doors is the Annunciation: to the left, the angel
standing on a pedestal, under a Gothic canopy; to the right, the
Virgin standing with her book, under a similar canopy: both graceful
figures. On opening the doors, the central compartment exhibits the
Virgin and her Child enthroned in a burning bush; the bush which
burned with fire, and was not consumed, being a favourite type of the
immaculate purity of the Virgin. Lower down, in front, Moses appears
surrounded by his flocks, and at the command of an angel is about to
take off his sandals. The angel is most richly dressed, and on the
clasp of his mantle is painted in miniature Adam and Eve tempted
by the serpent. Underneath this compartment, is the inscription,
"_Rubum quem viderat Moyses, incombustum, conservatam agnovimus tuam
laudabilem Virginitatem, Sancta Dei Genitrix[1]_." On the door to
the right of the Virgin kneels King Rene himself before an altar, on
which lies an open book and his kingly crown. He is dressed in a robe
trimmed with ermine, and wears a black velvet cap. Behind him, Mary
Magdalene (the patroness of Provence), St. Antony, and St. Maurice.
On the other door, Jeanne de Laval, the second wife of Rene, kneels
before an open book; she is young and beautiful, and richly attired;
and behind her stand St. John (her patron saint), St. Catherine
(very noble and elegant), and St. Nicholas. I saw this curious and
interesting picture in 1846. It is very well preserved, and painted
with great finish and delicacy in the manner of the early Flemish
school.

[Footnote 1: For the relation of Moses to the Virgin (as attribute) v.
the Introduction.]

4. In a beautiful little picture by Van Eyck (Louvre, No. 162. Ecole
Allemande), the Virgin is seated on a throne, holding in her arms the
infant Christ, who has a globe in his left hand, and extends the right
in the act of benediction. The Virgin is attired as a queen, in a
magnificent robe falling in ample folds around her, and trimmed with
jewels; an angel, hovering with outspread wings, holds a crown over
her head. On the left of the picture, a votary, in the dress of a
Flemish burgomaster, kneels before a Prie-Dieu, on which is an open
book, and with clasped hands adores the Mother and her Child. The
locality represents a gallery or portico paved with marble, and
sustained by pillars in a fantastic Moorish style. The whole picture
is quite exquisite for the delicacy of colour and execution. In the
catalogue of the Louvre, this picture, is entitled "St. Joseph adoring
the Infant Christ,"--an obvious mistake, if we consider the style of
the treatment and the customs of the time.

5. All who have visited the church of the Frari at Venice will
remember--for once seen, they never can forget--the ex-voto
altar-piece which adorns the chapel of the Pesaro family. The
beautiful Virgin is seated on a lofty throne to the right of the
picture, and presses to her bosom the _Dio Bambinetto_, who turns from
her to bless the votary presented by St. Peter. The saint stands on
the steps of the throne, one hand on a book; and behind him kneels one
of the Pesaro family, who was at once bishop of Paphos and commander
of the Pope's galleys: he approaches to consecrate to the Madonna
the standards taken from the Turks, which are borne by St. George, as
patron of Venice. On the other side appear St. Francis and St. Antony
of Padua, as patrons of the church in which the picture is dedicated.
Lower down, kneeling on one side of the throne, is a group of various
members of the Pesaro family, three of whom are habited in crimson
robes, as _Cavalieri di San Marco_; the other, a youth about fifteen,
looks out of the picture, astonishingly _alive_, and yet sufficiently
idealized to harmonize with the rest. This picture is very remarkable
for several reasons. It is a piece of family history, curiously
illustrative of the manners of the time. The Pesaro here commemorated
was an ecclesiastic, but appointed by Alexander VI. to command the
galleys with which he joined the Venetian forces against the Turks in
1503. It is for this reason that St. Peter--as representative here of
the Roman pontiff--introduces him to the Madonna, while St. George,
as patron of Venice, attends him. The picture is a monument of the
victory gained by Pesaro, and the gratitude and pride of his family.
It is also one of the finest works of Titian; one of the earliest
instances in which a really grand religious composition assumes almost
a dramatic and scenic form, yet retains a certain dignity and symmetry
worthy of its solemn destination.[1]

[Footnote 1: We find in the catalogue of pictures which belonged to
our Charles I. one which represented "a pope preferring a general of
his navy to St. Peter." It is Pope Alexander VI. presenting this very
Pesaro to St. Peter; that is, in plain unpictorial prose, giving him
the appointment of admiral of the galleys of the Roman states. This
interesting picture, after many vicissitudes, is now in the Museum at
Antwerp. (See the _Handbook to the Royal Galleries_, p. 201.)]

6. I will give one more instance. There is in our National Gallery
a Venetian picture which is striking from its peculiar and
characteristic treatment. On one side, the Virgin with her Infant is
seated on a throne; a cavalier, wearing armour and a turban, who looks
as if he had just returned from the eastern wars, prostrates himself
before her: in the background, a page (said to be the portrait of the
painter) holds the horse of the votary. The figures are life-size,
or nearly so, as well as I can remember, and the sentimental dramatic
treatment is quite Venetian. It is supposed to represent a certain
Duccio Constanzo of Treviso, and was once attributed to Giorgione: it
is certainly of the school of Bellini. (Nat. Gal. Catalogue, 234.)

*       *       *       *       *

As these enthroned and votive Virgins multiplied, as it became more
and more a fashion to dedicate them as offerings in churches, want
of space, and perhaps, also, regard to expense, suggested the idea of
representing the figures half-length. The Venetians, from early time
the best face painters in the world, appear to have been the first
to cut off the lower part of the figure, leaving the arrangement
otherwise much the same. The Virgin is still a queenly and majestic
creature, sitting there to be adored. A curtain or part of a carved
chair represents her throne. The attendant saints are placed to the
right and to the left; or sometimes the throne occupies one side of
the picture, and the saints are ranged on the other. From the shape
and diminished size of these votive pictures the personages, seen
half-length, are necessarily placed very near to each other, and the
heads nearly on a level with that of the Virgin, who is generally
seen to the knees, while the Child is always full-length. In such
compositions we miss the grandeur of the entire forms, and the
consequent diversity of character and attitude; but sometimes
the beauty and individuality of the heads atone for all other
deficiencies.

*       *       *       *       *

In the earlier Venetian examples, those of Gian Bellini particularly,
there is a solemn quiet elevation which renders them little inferior,
in religious sentiment, to the most majestic of the enthroned and
enskied Madonnas.

*       *       *       *       *

There is a sacred group by Bellini, in the possession of Sir Charles
Eastlake, which has always appeared to me a very perfect specimen of
this class of pictures. It is also the earliest I know of. The Virgin,
pensive, sedate, and sweet, like all Bellini's Virgins, is seated in
the centre, and seen in front. The Child, on her knee, blesses with
his right hand, and the Virgin places hers on the head of a votary,
who just appears above the edge of the picture, with hands joined in
prayer; he is a fine young man with an elevated and elegant profile.
On the right are St. John the Baptist pointing to the Saviour, and
St. Catherine; on the left, St. George with his banner, and St. Peter
holding his book. A similar picture, with Mary Magdalene and St.
Jerome on the right, St. Peter and St. Martha on the left, is in the
Leuchtenberg Gallery at Munich. Another of exquisite beauty is in the
Venice Academy, in which the lovely St. Catherine wears a crown of
myrtle.

Once introduced, these half-length enthroned Madonnas became very
common, spreading from the Venetian states through the north of Italy;
and we find innumerable examples from the best schools of art in
Italy and Germany, from the middle of the fifteenth to the middle of
the sixteenth century. I shall particularize a few of these, which
will be sufficient to guide the attention of the observer; and we
must carefully discriminate between the sentiment proper to these
half-length enthroned Madonnas, and the pastoral or domestic sacred
groups and Holy Families, of which I shall have to treat hereafter.

Raphael's well-known Madonna _della Seggiola_ and Madonna _della
Candelabra_, are both enthroned Virgins in the grand style, though
seen half-length. In fact, the air of the head ought, in the higher
schools of art, at once to distinguish a Madonna, _in trono_, even
where only the head is visible.

*       *       *       *       *

In a Milanese picture, the Virgin and Child appear between St.
Laurence and St. John. The mannered and somewhat affected treatment
is contrasted with the quiet, solemn simplicity of a group by Francia,
where the Virgin and Child appear as objects of worship between St.
Dominick and St. Barbara.

The Child, standing or seated on a table or balustrade in front,
enabled the painter to vary the attitude, to take the infant
Christ out of the arms of the Mother, and to render his figure more
prominent. It was a favourite arrangement with the Venetians; and
there is an instance in a pretty picture in our National Gallery,
attributed to Perugino.

Sometimes, even where the throne and the attendant saints and angels
show the group to be wholly devotional and exalted, we find the
sentiment varied by a touch of the dramatic,--by the introduction
of an action; but it must be one of a wholly religious significance,
suggestive of a religious feeling, or the subject ceases to be
properly _devotional_ in character.

There is a picture by Botticelli, before which, in walking up the
corridor of the Florence Gallery, I used, day after day, to make an
involuntary pause of admiration. The Virgin, seated in a chair of
state, but seen only to the knees, sustains her divine Son with one
arm; four angels are in attendance, one of whom presents an inkhorn,
another holds before her an open book, and she is in the act of
writing the Magnificat, "My soul doth magnify the Lord!" The head of
the figure behind the Virgin is the portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici
when a boy. There is absolutely no beauty of feature, either in
the Madonna, or the Child, or the angels, yet every face is full of
dignity and character.

In a beautiful picture by Titian (Bel. Gal., Vienna. Louvre, No.
458), the Virgin is enthroned on the left, and on the right appear St.
George and St. Laurence as listening, while St. Jerome reads from his
great book. A small copy of this picture is at Windsor.

*       *       *       *       *

The old German and Flemish painters, in treating the enthroned
Madonna, sometimes introduced accessories which no painter of the
early Italian school would have descended to; and which tinge with a
homely sentiment their most exalted conceptions. Thus, I have seen
a German Madonna seated on a superb throne, and most elaborately
and gorgeously arrayed, pressing her Child to her bosom with a truly
maternal air; while beside her, on a table, is a honeycomb, some
butter, a dish of fruit, and a glass of water. (Bel. Gal., Vienna.)
It is possible that in this case, as in the Virgin suckling her Child,
there may be a religious allusion:--"_Butter and honey shall he eat_,"
&c.




THE MATER AMABILIS.


_Ital._ La Madonna col Bambino. La Madonna col celeste suo figlio.
_Fr._ La Vierge et l'enfant Jesus. _Ger._ Maria mit dem Kind.


There is yet another treatment of the Madonna and Child, in which the
Virgin no longer retains the lofty goddess-like exaltation given to
her in the old time. She is brought nearer to our sympathies. She
is not seated in a chair of state with the accompaniments of earthly
power; she is not enthroned on clouds, nor glorified and star-crowned
in heaven; she is no longer so exclusively the VERGINE DEA, nor the
VIRGO DEI GENITRIX; but she is still the ALMA MATER REDEMPTORIS, the
young, and lovely, and most pure mother of a divine Christ. She is
not sustained in mid-air by angels; she dwells lowly on earth; but
the angels leave their celestial home to wait upon her. Such effigies,
when conceived in a strictly ideal and devotional sense, I shall
designate as the MATER AMABILIS.

The first and simplest form of this beautiful and familiar subject, we
find in those innumerable half-length figures of the Madonna, holding
her Child in her arms, painted chiefly for oratories, private or
way-side chapels, and for the studies, libraries, and retired chambers
of the devout, as an excitement to religious feeling, and a memorial
of the mystery of the Incarnation, where large or grander subjects,
or more expensive pictures, would be misplaced. Though unimportant in
comparison with the comprehensive and magnificent church altar-pieces
already described, there is no class of pictures so popular and so
attractive, none on which the character of the time and the painter
is stamped more clearly and intelligibly, than on these simple
representations.

The Virgin is not here the dispenser of mercy; she is simply the
mother of the Redeemer. She is occupied only by her divine Son. She
caresses him, or she gazes on him fondly. She presents him to the
worshipper. She holds him forth with a pensive joy as the predestined
offering. If the profound religious sentiment of the early masters was
afterwards obliterated by the unbelief and conventionalism of later
art, still this favourite subject could not be so wholly profaned by
degrading sentiments and associations, as the mere portrait heads of
the Virgin alone. No matter what the model for the Madonna, might
have been,--a wife, a mistress, a _contadina_ of Frascati, a Venetian
_Zitella_, a _Madchen_ of Nuremberg, a buxom Flemish _Frau_,--for the
Child was there; the baby innocence in her arms consecrated her into
that "holiest thing alive," a mother. The theme, however inadequately
treated as regarded its religious significance, was sanctified in
itself beyond the reach of a profane thought. Miserable beyond the
reach of hope, dark below despair, that moral atmosphere which the
presence of sinless unconscious infancy cannot for a moment purify
or hallow!

Among the most ancient and most venerable of the effigies of the
Madonna, we find the old Greek pictures of the _Mater Amabilis_, if
that epithet can be properly applied to the dark-coloured, sad-visaged
Madonnas generally attributed to St. Luke, or transcripts of those
said to be painted by him, which exist in so many churches, and are,
or were, supposed by the people to possess a peculiar sanctity. These
are almost all of oriental origin, or painted to imitate the pictures
brought from the East in the tenth or twelfth century. There are a few
striking and genuine examples of these ancient Greek Madonnas in the
Florentine Gallery, and, nearer at hand, in the Wallerstein collection
at Kensington Palace. They much resemble each other in the general
treatment.

The infinite variety which painters have given to this most simple
_motif_, the Mother and the Child only, without accessories or
accompaniments of any kind, exceeds all possibility of classification,
either as to attitude or sentiment. Here Raphael shone supreme:
the simplicity, the tenderness, the halo of purity and virginal
dignity, which he threw round the _Mater Amabilis_ have, never been
surpassed--in his best pictures, never equalled. The "Madonna del
Gran-Duca," where the Virgin holds the Child seated on her arm; the
"Madonna Tempi," where she so fondly presses her check to his,--are
perhaps the most remarkable for simplicity. The Madonna of the
Bridgewater Gallery, where the Infant lies on her knees, and the
Mother and Son look into each other's eyes; the little "Madonna
Conestabile," where she holds the book, and the infant Christ, with
a serious yet perfectly childish grace, bends to turn over the
leaf,--are the most remarkable for sentiment.

Other Madonnas by Raphael, containing three or more figures, do not
belong to this class of pictures. They are not strictly devotional,
but are properly Holy Families, groups and scenes from the domestic
life of the Virgin.

With regard, to other painters before or since his time, the examples
of the _Mater Amabilis_ so abound la public and private galleries, and
have been so multiplied in prints, that comparison is within the reach
of every observer. I will content myself with noticing a few of the
most remarkable for beauty or characteristic treatment. Two painters,
who eminently excelled in simplicity and purity of sentiment, are Gian
Bellini of Venice, and Bernardino Luini of Milan. Squarcione, though
often fantastic, has painted one or two of these Madonnas, remarkable
for simplicity and dignity, as also his pupil Mantegna; though in
both the style of execution is somewhat hard and cold. In the one by
Fra Bartolomeo, there is such a depth of maternal tenderness in the
expression and attitude, we wonder where the good monk found his
model. In his own heart? in his dreams? A _Mater Amabilis_ by one of
the Caracci or by Vandyck is generally more elegant and dignified than
tender. The Madonna, for instance, by Annibal, has something of the
majestic sentiment of an enthroned Madonna. Murillo excelled in this
subject; although most of his Virgins have a portrait air of common
life, they are redeemed by the expression. In one of these, the
Child, looking out of the picture with extended arms and eyes full
of divinity, seems about to spring forth to fulfil his mission. In
another he folds his little hands, and looks up to Heaven, as if
devoting himself to his appointed suffering, while the Mother looks
down upon him with a tender resignation. (Leuchtenberg Gal.) In a
noble Madonna by Vandyck (Bridgewater Gal.), it is she herself who
devotes him to do his Father's will; and I still remember a picture
of this class, by Carlo Cignani (Belvedere Gal., Vienna), which made
me start, with the intense expression: the Mother presses to her the
Child, who holds a cross in his baby hand; she looks up to heaven with
an appealing look of love and anguish,--almost of reproach. Guido
did not excel so much in children, as in the Virgin alone. Poussin,
Carlo Dolce, Sasso Ferrato, and, in general, all the painters of the
seventeenth century, give us pretty women and pretty children. We may
pass them over.

A second version of the Mater Amabilis, representing the Virgin
and Child full-length, but without accessories, has been also very
beautifully treated. She is usually seated in a landscape, and
frequently within the mystical enclosure (_Hortus clausus_), which is
sometimes in the German pictures a mere palisade of stakes or boughs.

Andrea Mantegna, though a fantastic painter, had generally some
meaning in his fancies. There is a fine picture of his in which the
Virgin and Child are seated in a landscape, and in the background is
a stone-quarry, where a number of figures are seen busily at work;
perhaps hewing the stone to build the new temple of which our Saviour
was the corner-stone. (Florence Gal.) In a group by Cristofano Allori,
the Child places a wreath of flowers on the brow of his Mother,
holding in his other hand his own crown of thorns: one of the
_fancies_ of the later schools of art.

The introduction of the little St. John into the group of the Virgin
and Child lends it a charming significance and variety, and is very
popular; we must, however, discriminate between the familiarity of
the domestic subject and the purely religious treatment. When the
Giovannino adores with folded hands, as acknowledging in Christ a
superior power, or kisses his feet humbly, or points to him exulting,
then it is evident that we have the two Children in their spiritual
character, the Child, Priest and King, and the Child, Prophet.

In a picture by Lionardo da Vinci (Coll. of the Earl of Suffolk),
the Madonna, serious and beautiful, without either crown or veil, and
adorned only by her long fair hair, is seated on a rock. On one side,
the little Christ, supported in the arms of an angel, raises his hand
in benediction; on the other side, the young St. John, presented by
the Virgin, kneels in adoration.

Where the Children are merely embracing each other, or sporting at
the feet of the Virgin, or playing with the cross, or with a bird, or
with the lamb, or with flowers, we might call the treatment domestic
or poetical; but where St. John is taking the cross from the hand of
Christ, it is clear, from the perpetual repetition of the theme, that
it is intended to express a religious allegory. It is the mission of
St. John as Baptist and Prophet. He receives the symbol of faith ere
he goes forth to preach and to convert, or as it has been interpreted,
he, in the sense used by our Lord, "takes up the cross of our Lord."
The first is, I think, the meaning when the cross is enwreathed with
the _Ecce Agnus Dei_; the latter, when it is a simple cross.

In Raphael's "Madonna della Famiglia Alva," (now in the Imp. Gal., St.
Petersburg), and in his Madonna of the Vienna Gallery, Christ gives
the cross to St. John. In a picture of the Lionardo school in the
Louvre we have the same action; and again in a graceful group by
Guido, which, in the engraving, bears this inscription, "_Qui non
accipit crucem suam non est me dignus_." (Matt. x. 38.) This, of
course, fixes the signification.

Another, and, as I think, a wholly fanciful interpretation, has been
given to this favourite group by Treck and by Monckton Milnes. The
Children contend for the cross. The little St. John begs to have it.

"Give me the cross, I pray you, dearest Jesus.
O if you knew how much I wish to have it,
You would not hold it in your hand so tightly.
Something has told me, something in my breast here,
Which I am sure is true, that if you keep it,
If you will let no other take it from you,
Terrible things I cannot bear to think of
Must fall upon you. Show me that you love me:
Am I not here to be your little servant,
Follow your steps, and wait upon your wishes?"

But Christ refuses to yield the terrible plaything, and claims his
privilege to be the elder "in the heritage of pain."

In a picture by Carlo Maratti, I think this action is evident--Christ
takes the cross, and St. John yields it with reluctance.

A beautiful version of the Mater Amabilis is the MADRE PIA, where the
Virgin in her divine Infant acknowledges and adores the Godhead. We
must be careful to distinguish this subject from the Nativity, for
it is common, in the scene of the birth of the Saviour at Bethlehem,
to represent the Virgin adoring her new-born Child. The presence of
Joseph--the ruined shed or manger--the ox and ass,--these express the
_event_. But in the MADRE PIA properly so called, the locality, and
the accessories, if any, are purely ideal and poetical, and have
no reference to time or place. The early Florentines, particularly
Lorenzo di Credi, excelled in this charming subject.

There is a picture by Filippino Lippi, which appears to me eminently
beautiful and poetical. Here the mystical garden is formed of a
balustrade, beyond which is seen a hedge all in a blush with roses.
The Virgin kneels in the midst, and adores her Infant, who has his
finger on his lip (_Verbum sum!_); an angel scatters rose-leaves
over him, while the little St. John also kneels, and four angels,
in attitudes of adoration, complete the group.

But a more perfect example is the Madonna by Francia in the Munich
Gallery, where the divine Infant lies on the flowery turf; and the
mother, standing before him and looking down on him, seems on the
point of sinking on her knees in a transport of tenderness and
devotion. This, to my feeling, is one of the most perfect pictures in
the world; it leaves nothing to be desired. With all the simplicity of
the treatment it is strictly devotional. The Mother and her Child are
placed within the mystical garden enclosed in a treillage of roses,
alone with each other, and apart from all earthly associations, all
earthly communion.

The beautiful altar-piece by Perugino in our National Gallery is
properly a Madre Pia; the child seated on a cushion is sustained by an
angel, the mother kneels before him.

The famous Correggio in the Florentine Gallery is also a Madre Pia.
It is very tender, sweet, and maternal. The Child lying on part of
his mother's blue mantle, so arranged that while she kneels and bends
over him, she cannot change her attitude without disturbing him, is
a _concetto_ admired by critics in sentiment and Art; but it appears
to me very inferior and commonplace in comparison to the Francia at
Munich.

In a group by Botticelli, angels sustain the Infant, while the mother,
seated, with folded hands, adores him: and in a favourite composition
by Guido he sleeps.

And, lastly, we have the Mater Amabilis in a more complex, and
picturesque, though still devotional, form. The Virgin, seen at full
length, reclines on a verdant bank, or is seated under a tree. She
is not alone with her Child. Holy personages, admitted to a communion
with her, attend around her, rather sympathizing than adoring. The
love of varied nature, the love of life under all its aspects, became
mingled with the religious conception. Instead of carefully avoiding
whatever may remind us of her earthly relationship, the members of her
family always form a part of her _cortege_. This pastoral and dramatic
treatment began with the Venetian and Paduan schools, and extended to
the early German schools, which were allied to them in feeling, though
contrasted with them in form and execution.

The perpetual introduction of St. Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and other
relatives of the Virgin (always avoided in a Madonna dell Trono),
would compose what is called a Holy Family, but that the presence
of sainted personages whose existence and history belong to a
wholly different era--St. Catherine, St. George, St. Francis, or
St. Dominick--takes the composition out of the merely domestic and
historical, and lifts it at once into the ideal and devotional line
of art. Such a group cannot well be styled a _Sacra Famiglia_; it is a
_Sacra Conversazione_ treated in the pastoral and lyrical rather than
the lofty epic style.

In this subject the Venetians, who first introduced it, excel all
other painters. There is no example by Raphael. The German and Flemish
painters who adopted this treatment were often coarse and familiar;
the later Italians became flippant and fantastic. The Venetians alone
knew how to combine the truest feeling for nature with a sort of
Elysian grace.

I shall give a few examples.

1. In a picture by Titian (Dresden Gal.), the Virgin is seated on
a green bank enamelled with flowers. She is simply dressed like a
_contadina_, in a crimson tunic, and a white veil half shading her
fair hair. She holds in her arms her lovely Infant, who raises his
little hand in benediction. St. Catherine kneels before him on one
side; on the other, St. Barbara. St. John the Baptist, not as a child,
and the contemporary of our Saviour, but in likeness of an Arcadian
shepherd, kneels with his cross and his lamb--the _Ecce Agnus Dei_,
expressed, not in words, but in form. St. George stands by as a
guardian warrior. And St. Joseph, leaning on his stick behind,
contemplates the group with an air of dignified complacency.

2. There is another instance also from Titian. In a most luxuriant
landscape thick with embowering trees, and the mountains of Cadore in
the background, the Virgin is seated on a verdant bank; St. Catherine
has thrown herself on her knees, and stretches out her arms to the
divine Child in an ecstasy of adoration, in which there is nothing
unseemly or familiar. At a distance St. John the Baptist approaches
with his Lamb.

3. In another very similar group, the action of St. Catherine is
rather too familiar,--it is that of an eider sister or a nurse: the
young St. John kneels in worship.

4. Wonderfully fine is a picture of this class by Palma, now in the
Dresden Gallery. The noble, serious, sumptuous loveliness of the
Virgin; the exquisite Child, so thoughtful, yet so infantine; the
manly beauty of the St. John; the charming humility of the St.
Catherine as she presents her palm, form one of the most perfect
groups in the world. Childhood, motherhood, maidenhood, manhood,
were never, I think, combined in so sweet a spirit of humanity.[1]

[Footnote 1: When I was at Dresden, in 1860, I found Steinle, so
celebrated for his engravings of the Madonna di San Sisto and the
Holbein Madonna, employed on this picture; and, as far as his
art could go, transferring to his copper all the fervour and the
_morbidezza_ of the original.]

5. In another picture by Palma, in the same gallery, we have the same
picturesque arrangement of the Virgin and Child, while the _little_
St. John adores with folded hands, and St. Catherine sits by in tender
contemplation.

This Arcadian sentiment is carried as far as could well be allowed in
a picture by Titian (Louvre, 459), known as the _Vierge au Lapin_. The
Virgin holds a white rabbit, towards which the infant Christ, in the
arms of St. Catherine, eagerly stretches his hand. In a picture by
Paris Bordone it is carried, I think, too far. The Virgin reclines
under a tree with a book in her hand; opposite to her sits St. Joseph
holding an apple; between them, St. John the Baptist, as a bearded
man, holds in his arms the infant Christ, who caressingly puts one arm
round his neck, and with the other clings to the rough hairy raiment
of his friend.

*       *       *       *       *

It will be observed, that in these Venetian examples St. Catherine,
the beloved protectress of Venice, is seldom omitted. She is not
here the learned princess who confounded tyrants and converted
philosophers, but a bright-haired, full-formed Venetian maiden,
glowing with love and life, yet touched with a serious grace,
inexpressibly charming.

St. Dorothea is also a favourite saint in these sacred pastorals.
There is an instance in which she is seated by the Virgin with her
basket of fruits and flowers; and St. Jerome, no longer beating
his breast in penance, but in likeness of a fond old grandfather,
stretches out his arms to the Child. Much finer is a picture now in
the possession of Sir Charles Eastlake. The lovely Virgin is seated
under a tree: on one side appears the angel Raphael, presenting Tobit;
on the other, St. Dorothea, kneeling, holds up her basket of celestial
fruit, gathered for her in paradise.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Sacred and legendary Art, for the beautiful Legend of
St. Dorothea]

When St. Ursula, with her standard, appears in these Venetian
pastorals, we may suppose the picture to have been painted for the
famous brotherhood (_Scuola di Sant' Orsola_) which bears her name.
Thus, in a charming picture by Palma, she appears before the Virgin,
accompanied by St. Mark a protector of Venice. (Vienna, Belvedere
Gal.)

Ex-voto pictures in this style are very interesting, and the votary,
without any striking impropriety, makes one of the Arcadian group.
Very appropriate, too, is the marriage of St. Catherine, often treated
in this poetical style. In a picture by Titian, the family of the
Virgin attend the mystical rite, and St. Anna places the hand of St.
Catherine in that of the Child.

In a group by Signorelli, Christ appears as if teaching St. Catherine;
he dictates, and she, the patroness of "divine philosophy," writes
down his words.

When the later painters in their great altar-pieces imitated this
idyllic treatment, the graceful Venetian conception became in their
hands heavy, mannered, tasteless,--and sometimes worse. The monastic
saints or mitred dignitaries, introduced into familiar and irreverent
communion with the sacred and ideal personages, in spite of the
grand scenery, strike us as at once prosaic and fantastic "we marvel
how they got there." Parmigiano, when he fled from the sack of Rome
in 1527, painted at Bologna, for the nuns of Santa Margherita, an
altar-piece which has been greatly celebrated. The Madonna, holding
her Child, is seated in a landscape under a tree, and turns her head
to the Bishop St. Petronius, protector of Bologna. St. Margaret,
kneeling and attended by her great dragon, places one hand, with a
free and easy air, on the knee of the Virgin, and with the other seems
to be about to chuck the infant Christ under the chin. In a large
picture by Giacomo Francia, the Virgin, walking in a flowery meadow
with the infant Christ and St. John, and attended by St. Agnes and
Mary Magdalene, meets St. Francis and St. Dominick, also, apparently,
taking a walk. (Berlin Gal. No. 281.) And again;--the Madonna and St.
Elizabeth meet with their children in a landscape, while St. Peter,
St. Paul, and St. Benedict stand behind in attitudes of attention
and admiration. Now, such pictures may be excellently well painted,
greatly praised by connoisseurs, and held in "_somma venerazione_,"
but they are offensive as regards the religious feeling, and, are, in
point of taste, mannered, fantastic, and secular.

*       *       *       *       *


Here we must end our discourse concerning the Virgin and Child as
a devotional subject. Very easily and delightfully to the writer,
perhaps not painfully to the reader, we might have gone on to the end
of the volume; but my object was not to exhaust the subject, to point
out every interesting variety of treatment, but to lead the lover
of art, wandering through a church or gallery, to new sources of
pleasure; to show him what infinite shades of feeling and character
may still be traced in a subject which, with all its beauty and
attractiveness, might seem to have lost its significant interest,
and become trite from endless repetition; to lead the mind to some
perception of the intention of the artist in his work,--under what
aspect he had himself contemplated and placed before the worshipper
the image of the mother of Christ,--whether crowned and enthroned as
the sovereign lady of Christendom; or exalted as the glorious empress
of heaven and all the spiritual world; or bending benignly over us,
the impersonation of sympathizing womanhood, the emblem of relenting
love, the solace of suffering humanity, the maid and mother, dear and
undefiled--

"Created beings all in lowliness
Surpassing, as in height above them all."

It is time to change the scene,--to contemplate the Virgin, as she
has been exhibited to us in the relations of earthly life, as the mere
woman, acting and suffering, loving, living, dying, fulfilling the
highest destinies in the humblest state, in the meekest spirit. So
we begin her history as the ancient artists have placed it before us,
with that mingled _naivete_ and reverence, that vivid dramatic power,
which only faith, and love, and genius united, could impart.




HISTORICAL SUBJECTS




PART I.

THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM HER BIRTH TO HER MARRIAGE WITH
JOSEPH.

1. THE LEGEND OF JOACHIM AND ANNA.
2. THE NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.
3. THE DEDICATION IN THE TEMPLE.
4. THE MARRIAGE WITH JOSEPH.


THE LEGEND OF JOACHIM AND ANNA.

_Ital._ La Leggenda di Sant' Anna Madre della Gloriosa Vergine Maria,
e di San Gioacchino.


Of the sources whence are derived the popular legends of the life of
the Virgin Mary, which, mixed up with the few notices in Scripture,
formed one continuous narrative, authorized by the priesthood, and
accepted and believed in by the people, I have spoken at length in the
Introduction. We have now to consider more particularly the scenes and
characters associated with her history; to show how the artists of the
Middle Ages, under the guidance and by the authority of the Church,
treated in detail these favourite themes in ecclesiastical decoration.