in the Vatican palace, and he made the four walls answer to four
divisions in the ceiling, just as afterward in the Heliodorus room.
The four divisions in the ceiling were filled with four figures,
representing Theology, Poetry, Philosophy, and Justice. Beneath Poetry
was this large, full design of Parnassus.
[Illustration: PARNASSUS
_Vatican Palace, Rome_]
Parnassus, in the old Greek myth, was the mountain on which the muses
were wont to meet, and here Apollo had his chief seat. Here, in the
fancy of the ancients, the poets and historians and dramatists came to
draw inspiration. So Raphael has made a great company of gods and
goddesses, and ancient and modern poets.
By means of the accompanying diagram, all the figures in the
composition can be made out.
As it is an imaginary scene, Raphael was free to bring together poets
of different ages and countries, grouping them by the natural
association of one with another. In this mythic realm time and space
are as nothing, and the poets are united in the higher fellowship of
the inspired imagination.
[Illustration: KEY TO PARNASSUS
1. Apollo 2. Calliope 3. Polymnia 4. Clio 5. Erato 6. Terpsichore
7. Euterpe 8. Thalia 9. Urania 10. Melpomene 11. Unknown 12. Virgil
13. Homer 14. Dante 15. Scribe 16. Berni 17. Petrarch 18. Corinna
19. Alcaeus 20. Sappho 21. Plautus 22. Terence 23. Ovid 24. Sannazzaro
25. Cornelius Gallus 26. Anacreon 27. Horace 28. Pindar]
It is interesting to note how the painter has brought them together.
Apollo, of course, as the god of poetry and music, occupies the
central position, seated beneath some laurel trees, near the sacred
fountain of Hippocrene, with the nine Muses circling about him. Apollo
is always spoken of as playing the lyre, but Raphael gives him a
violin, because the action in playing that instrument is so graceful.
Some think also he meant to pay a compliment to a famous violinist of
that day.
Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, rests for a moment the long trumpet
whose epic strains are wont to stir the courage of men. Polymnia, the
muse of sacred poetry, leans upon the lyre whose vibrant strings
thrill the gentler emotions of faith and love.
Blind old Homer advances chanting the adventures of the Greek heroes,
and an eager youth writes down the verses. Behind him are Virgil and
Dante, and Virgil seems to be calling on Dante to listen to Apollo.
Another group shows Pindar, a very aged figure, reciting his
impassioned odes to Horace and another poet, who listen with
admiration. Plautus and Terence, two writers of Latin comedy, walk
together in pleasant companionship.
It was not an easy matter to dispose of the many figures and groups in
a space cut into, as this wall is, by a window, but how free and how
natural is the arrangement! It was among the first great paintings
which Raphael executed in the Vatican, and the grace and harmony which
mark his later works are here shown.
The picture is interesting also as another illustration of the great
revival of learning which took place in Raphael's day. The old
literature of Greece and Rome had been rediscovered. For centuries it
had lain like a buried city, forgotten under the ignorance and the
fighting of the Middle Ages. Now it was brought to light, and the
recovered treasure was the common possession of Italy, not indeed so
much of the plain people as of the learned men and the artists.
Raphael, as an artist, took delight in the statues which had been
found, and the other signs of Greek and Roman art; but it is not to be
supposed that he would know Homer and Virgil and Horace and Pindar and
Sappho at first hand. He had, however, friends among the learned men,
who could tell him of the treasures of classic literature, and his
imagination was quick to seize this material and adapt it to artistic
purposes.
NOTE.--The key to Parnassus on page 61 is based on the
description of the painting in Cav. E. G. Massi's
"Descrizione delle Gallerie di Pittura nel Pontificio
Palazzo Vaticano," the authoritative guide-book to the
Vatican. Miss Eliza Allen Starr, in her monograph on the
frescoes of the Camera della Segnatura, called "The Three
Keys," identifies some of the figures differently, following
the authority of Dandolo's lectures. The "unknown" figure
she calls Sordello.
XII
SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES
In the same room which holds Parnassus, with Poetry above on the
ceiling, there is another wall painting by Raphael, which commonly
bears the name of The School of Athens, though that name was not
originally applied to it. In the ceiling above is a figure
representing Philosophy, and the picture below carries out the idea in
its presentation of an assembly of scholars.
Just as in Parnassus Raphael brought together as in a beautiful dream
the god of poetry, the nine muses, and famous poets of the ancient and
what was to him the modern world, so, in the School of Athens, he has
assembled a great company of philosophers, chiefly out of the famous
line of Greek scholars. In a general way he has divided the assembly
into two groups, one of men who devote themselves to pure thought, the
other of those who apply their thought to science, like geometry,
arithmetic, astronomy, and music.
There are more than fifty figures in this great painting. Raphael has
made it clear whom he meant to represent, in many cases. They were the
philosophers, whom his friends among the cardinals and learned men
were so enthusiastic about. But he has also gathered about these
teachers those who might be their pupils; they are in many cases young
Italians of his own day; indeed, he has even pictured himself coming
in with a fellow artist.
What interested him was to paint a great number of persons who should
show by their faces and their attitudes that they were busy, in an
animated way, over what was worth thinking about. He placed them in a
noble hall, with a domed recess at the end, such as a great architect
of his day might have built. He showed a noble colonnade of pillars,
and he placed in niches statues of the old Greek gods like Apollo and
Minerva, who would be supposed to take an interest in what was going
on.
The picture is so large and has so many figures that it would not be
easy to reproduce it here, and give a good idea of its various parts;
so a portion only is shown, depicting what is commonly known as the
group of Socrates and Alcibiades. Socrates can surely be
distinguished, for he had a singular face and head. Some have thought
the companion was not Alcibiades, but Xenophon.
It does not greatly matter. Each was his companion and pupil, when he
was living. Xenophon wrote a narrative of his master's life and death.
Alcibiades is often mentioned in the dialogues of Plato, who also has
preserved for us the great sayings of Socrates. Two or three men stand
about, listening to a discussion which Socrates is having with his
companion.
[Illustration: SOCRATES AND ALCIBIADES
_Vatican Palace, Rome_]
The chief interest centres in Socrates, who seems to be explaining
his principles, telling them off, one by one, on his fingers. In the
old accounts which we have of this philosopher, he is shown to have
been a man who had thought deeply about the most important things, but
used the plainest, most homely speech when he was trying to make his
meaning clear. His plain face and eccentric figure were a familiar
sight in the market places, where he used to linger, drawing young men
into conversation, by which he tried to show them the better things of
life.
Alcibiades was, as Socrates acknowledged, "the fairest and tallest of
the citizens;" he was also "among the noblest of them," and the nephew
of the powerful Athenian, Pericles. Moreover, he was rich, though this
was a smaller matter. All these things, however, had lifted Alcibiades
up; and with the vanity of youth, he was ambitious for a great
oratorical career, without having in reality any sufficient
preparation. It is at this juncture that he falls in with Socrates,
who begins to question him kindly about his plans. The young man
confesses his ambitions, and the philosopher innocently asks him where
and how he has made his preparatory studies. Alcibiades seems to think
that the ordinary subjects of oratory, such as questions of war and
peace, justice and injustice, need no special knowledge but that
learned of the people.
"I cannot say that I have a high opinion of your teachers," says the
shrewd old philosopher; "you know that knowledge is the first
qualification of any teacher?"
_Alcibiades._ Certainly.
_Socrates._ And if they know, they must agree together and not differ?
_Alcibiades._ Yes.
_Socrates._ And would you say that they knew the things about which
they differ?
_Alcibiades._ No.
_Socrates._ Then how can they teach them?
_Alcibiades._ They cannot.[9]
So little by little, as one question follows another, Alcibiades comes
to see that the popular knowledge upon which he depends is a very weak
and variable thing. He confesses at last his own folly, and declares
his resolution to devote himself to thoughtful study.
[Footnote 9: From Plato's dialogue, _Alcibiades_, Jowett's
translation.]
XIII
THE FLIGHT OF AENEAS
In the series of rooms in the Vatican palace, of which one contains
Parnassus, and another the Expulsion of Heliodorus and the Liberation
of Peter, there is a room, the first of the series, which is called
the Room of the Great Fire, because it contains a large picture of the
Conflagration in the Borgo.
The Borgo is that quarter of Rome where the Vatican stands, and in the
ninth century there was, one day, a great fire there. It was said that
the fire was put out by the Pope of that time, Leo IV., who stood in a
portico connected with the church of St. Peter, and made the sign of
the cross.
Raphael was bidden make a painting upon one wall of the room, which
should represent the scene, and in his characteristic fashion he made
it to be not merely a copy of what he might suppose the scene to have
been; he introduced a poetic element, which at once made the piece a
work of great imagination.
A poet, who was describing such an event, might use an illustration
from some other great historic fire. He might have said in effect: "In
this burning of the Borgo, men could have been seen carrying the aged
away on their shoulders, as when in ancient times Troy was burned,
and AEneas bore his father Anchises away from the falling timbers."
This is exactly what Raphael did in painting. In the background of the
picture is seen Pope Leo IV. with his clergy, in the portico of the
old church of St. Peter's. The Pope's hand is raised, making the sign
of the cross; on the steps of the church are the people who have fled
to it for refuge. On each side of the foreground are burning houses.
Men are busy putting out the fire, and women are bringing them water.
Other men and women and children are escaping from the flames, and
some are heroically saving the weak and helpless.
It is amongst these last that Raphael has placed the group called the
Flight of AEneas. The Trojan bears on his shoulders his father, the
old, blind Anchises. Behind is Creusa, the wife of AEneas, looking back
with terror upon the burning city, and by the side of AEneas is his
young son Iulus, looking up into his face with a trusting gaze.
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF AENEAS
_Vatican Palace, Rome_]
Some one of Raphael's friends had no doubt told him the story, or read
it to him out of Virgil's AEneid, which was one of the favorite books
in that day, when men were delighting in the recovery of the great
poetry of Greece and Rome. Here is a part of the story as told by
Virgil in the translation by C. P. Cranch:--
"But when I reached my old paternal home,
My father, whom I wished to bear away
To the high mountains, and who first of all
I sought, refused to lengthen out his life,
And suffer exile, now that Troy was lost.
'O ye,' he said, 'whose blood is full of life,
Whose solid strength in youthful vigor stands,--
Plan ye your flight! But if the heavenly powers
Had destined me to live, they would have kept
For me these seats. Enough, more than enough,
That one destruction I have seen, and I
Survive the captured city. Go ye then,
Bidding this frame farewell--thus, lying thus
Extended on the earth! I shall find death
From some hand.'
* * * * *
'O father, dost thou think
That I can go and leave thee here alone?
Comes such bad counsel from my father's lips?
If't is the pleasure of the gods that naught
From the whole city should be left, and this
Is thy determined thought and wish, to add
To perishing Troy thyself and all thy kin,--
The gate lies open for that death desired.'"
So saying, AEneas calls for his arms, resolved to remain with Father
Anchises fighting the Greeks to the death. Thereupon Creusa his wife
begins to weep, begging him not to leave her and her little boy Iulus
to perish in the flames. In the midst of her lamentations a sacred
omen is given, in the appearance of lambent flames playing about the
head of Iulus. Anchises is convinced of the will of the gods.
"'Now, now,' he cries, 'for us no more delay!
I follow; and wherever ye may lead,
Gods of my country, I will go! Guard ye
My family, my little grandson guard.
This augury is yours; and yours the power
That watches Troy. And now, my son, I yield,
Nor will refuse to go along with thee.'
And now through all the city we can hear
The roaring flames, which nearer roll their heat.
'Come then, dear father! On my shoulders I
Will bear thee, nor will think the task severe.
Whatever lot awaits us, there shall be
One danger and one safety for us both.
Little Iulus my companion be;
And at a distance let my wife observe
Our footsteps.'
* * * * *
This said, a tawny lion's skin
On my broad shoulders and my stooping neck
I throw, and take my burden. At my side
Little Iulus links his hand in mine,
Following his father with unequal steps.
Behind us steps my wife. Through paths obscure
We wend; and I, who but a moment since
Dreaded no flying weapons of the Greeks,
Nor dense battalions of the adverse hosts,
Now start in terror at each rustling breeze,
And every common sound, held in suspense
With equal fears for those attending me,
And for the burden that I bore along."
XIV
ST. MICHAEL SLAYING THE DRAGON
There are many legends about St. Michael, who is also represented as
the Archangel, or head of the whole company of angels, and most of
these legends spring from a few passages in the Bible, chiefly two.
One of these is in the Epistle of Jude, the ninth verse, where the
archangel Michael is alluded to as "contending with the Devil." The
other is in the Book of Revelation, beginning at the seventh verse of
the ninth chapter:--
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and
prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in
heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent
called the Devil, and Satan which deceiveth the whole world;
he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out
with him."
The Book of Revelation is full of strange imagery; and ever since it
was written, men learned and unlearned have tried to turn its
impassioned verses into real historical scenes, past or to come. Above
all, this figure of a dragon, a monster part man, part brute, puzzled
people, and they have all sorts of explanations to make of it.
In our fairy tales we often hear of hobgoblins and dragons and like
fearful beings, and we think of them as make-believe creatures, and
sometimes are afraid of them, even though if we are questioned we say
we know they do not really exist. But in Raphael's day, dragons were
by no means unreal things to people. Some thought they had seen them,
and there were a great many persons who if they had not seen them
themselves were sure others had seen them.
In Raphael's day there were large tracts of the world, dark woods,
inaccessible mountains, which had hardly been explored at all, and
people fancied them haunted by strange men and stranger animals. As
more and more light is let into the world, these dark places
disappear, and we have come to know just what kinds of animals and men
there are everywhere. Yet still, we are not quite sure there may not
be singular beasts lurking out of sight, like the sea serpent for
example.
Now, the dragon in early days stood for what was ugly and terrible and
a hater of good. The Greeks believed there were dragons, and they had
many tales of how Hercules or this or that hero slew a dragon. To the
Christian of the Middle Ages the dragon stood at one end of the scale,
an archangel at the other; for as the dragon was all darkness and
hideousness, the archangel was all light and beauty and gloriousness.
It thrilled every one to think of the angel of light fighting with and
overcoming the beast of darkness; for every one knew that sort of
struggle was going on in the world, even in himself.
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL SLAYING THE DRAGON
_The Louvre, Paris_]
Raphael's picture gives a fine contrast between the beautiful, strong,
young archangel and his ugly foe. St. Michael hovers in mid air as
light and graceful as a bird, while Satan squirms beneath his feet, a
loathsome creature scorched by the flames and sulphurous fumes, which
pour from the clefts of the rock.
In the artist's imagination both are spirits, and so both are winged;
for wings, which carry one through the air, naturally are symbols of
spiritual existence. But the wings of the archangel are the wings of
some great, glorious bird like the eagle, which soars upward toward
the sun; the wings of the dragon are more like the wings of a bat,
which flies only in darkness and clings to the roofs of caves.
After all, the first and last impression which we get from the picture
is the lightning-like movement of the archangel. He darts at the
dragon as if he had come from heaven with the swiftness of light, his
robe flying like the wind away from him, his wings not spread in
flight, but lifted in his poise, and his face bearing the serenity of
an assured victory as he lifts his spear for its final thrust.
The great English poet Milton has made use of this same subject in
"Paradise Lost." Here is a portion of the story in the sixth book,
lines 316-330:--
"Together both, with next to almighty arm
Uplifted imminent, one stroke they aimed
That might determine, and not need repeat
As not of power, at once; nor odds appeared
In might or swift prevention.
But the sword of Michael from the armory of God
Was given him, tempered so that neither keen
Nor solid might resist that edge: it met
The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheer; nor stayed
But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering, shared
All his right side.
Then Satan first knew pain,
And writhed him to and fro convolved; so sore
The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Passed through him."
XV
THE SISTINE MADONNA
As we turn to the picture, famous the world over as the Sistine
Madonna, we seem to be looking through a window opening into heaven.
Faint in the background, yet filling the whole space, is a cloud of
innumerable cherubs; out of this cloud, and enveloped by it, appear
the Mother and Child.
They are taking their way seemingly from heaven to earth. A curtain
has been drawn aside that we may see them, and two figures are on
either side, as if to await their passing, one gazing into their faces
while he points outward, the other also kneeling in devotion yet
looking intently down. The mother's robes are blown back by the wind
as she moves steadily forward.
Underneath is a parapet, as if this were indeed a window, and two
beautiful boy-angels lean upon it, adoration on their faces and rest
in their position, as if they were everlastingly praising, and were
the very embodiments of cheerful innocence.
It is worth while to look at this picture for a moment, without
thinking of its meaning, and indeed without paying much attention to
the beauty of the figures, just to see how this great painter has
managed the lines and masses of the work. In art, lines and masses
and color are not unlike what words and sentences and what we call
style are in literature. Even if a writer has good and beautiful
ideas, much of the pleasure we might derive is lost when the words are
ill chosen, the sentences are bungling, perhaps even ungrammatical,
and the whole expression is commonplace or confusing.
We cannot get any notion of Raphael's color from our little print, but
it is not difficult to trace the lines and to see something of the
effect of the masses, and of light and shade. The shape of the whole
is a combination of pyramids. When you see the great base of a pyramid
and observe how the sides taper upward, you are aware that nothing
could stand more securely and at the same time suggest lightness, by
the rising and receding of the sides.
Now here you see that lines drawn from the shoulders of the two
attendant figures would meet at the Virgin's head, as at the apex of a
pyramid. The curtains even help this effect, by being drawn aside in
such a way as to make these lines more evident.
In the lower half of the picture the lines in the draperies of the
kneeling saints taper to an imaginary point between the heads of the
cherubs, forming a second inverted pyramid or triangle. Thus the
composition is inclosed in a harmonious figure whose outlines suggest
what we call a diamond.
[Illustration: SISTINE MADONNA
_Dresden Gallery_]
Perhaps one reason why a triangular arrangement satisfies the eye,
lies in the simple fact that the most important and yet familiar
object in nature is thus arranged. Thus in this picture, the three
principal persons form the upper triangle, and the body of each person
repeats the figure,--that is, the head rises from the shoulders in
such a way that the lines inclosing them produce a triangle. Further,
in each face, the line formed by the eyes is connected by two
imaginary lines meeting at the mouth.
In the picture the central figure illustrates this very noticeably.
The arm of the Virgin forms by its position, along with the body of
the child, a base, from which two other lines rise, tapering to the
top of the head; the child's head lies right in the course of one of
these lines. Thus mother and child together form a single figure, the
two united in one.
But when we have studied this simple principle of composition, we go
back with delight to the picture itself for what it tells us: the deep
mystery of the mother's face, as if she were lifted above the ordinary
plane of human life; the blended loveliness of childhood with the
consciousness of a holy calling; the lowly devotion yet dignity of St.
Barbara; the grandeur and forgetfulness of self of the Pope, whose
triple crown rests on the parapet; the perpetual childhood of the
angelic figures.
The picture takes its name from the Pope, who had been canonized as
St. Sixtus. It was painted for the convent of St. Sixtus at Piacenza,
but early in the eighteenth century it was bought by the Elector of
Saxony, and now hangs in the gallery at Dresden. It is a pleasant
thing to know that when Frederick the Great bombarded Dresden, he
ordered his cannon to keep clear of the Picture Gallery. Napoleon,
too, though he took many pictures to Paris, did not take any from the
Dresden gallery.
When we compare the Sistine Madonna with the Madonna of the Chair, we
see what a wide variety of pictures there may be on the single subject
of the Mother and Child. The Madonna of the Chair is, as we have said,
a home scene, like a picture from real life. The Sistine Madonna is a
vision; the figures are lifted above the actual surroundings of earth
into a purely ideal and heavenly atmosphere. In the Madonna of the
Chair, the Mother and Child are all in all to each other, and what
attracts us most in the picture is the mother's love. In the other
picture both mother and boy seem to forget themselves in the thought
of some glorious service to others.
XVI
PORTRAIT OF RAPHAEL
We have been looking at fifteen pictures designed by Raphael. They are
but a few of the great number painted either wholly or in part by the
master, or painted by his pupils from designs and sketches made by
him. He was thirty-seven years old when he died, and it was said that
he died on his birthday. His life was brimful of activity as a
painter.