_Margaritone_ (Tuscan: 1216-1293).
Margaritone, famous in his time (like so many of his
successors) for painting, sculpture, and architecture
alike, was a native of Arezzo, and was "the last of the
Italian artists who painted entirely after the Greek (or
Byzantine) manner," from which Cimabue and Giotto were the
first to depart.[148] He died at the age of seventy-seven,
"afflicted and disgusted (says Vasari) that he had lived to
see the changes by which all honours were transferred to new
artists." This picture being, according to the critics, the
most important and characteristic picture of the artist still
remaining, should, therefore, be carefully studied by those
who are interested in tracing the history of art. Of the
Greek manner, in which art was for so many centuries encased,
one may notice, first, that there was no attempt to depict
things like life. Art, as the phrase goes, was "symbolic," not
"representative." Certain definite symbols, certain definite
attitudes, were understood to mean certain things. Just as in
earlier Greek painting white flesh, for instance, was taken to
denote a woman, black or red flesh a man, so here such and such
attitudes were accepted as meaning that the figure in question
was the Virgin, and such and such other attitudes that it was
the Christ. Secondly, these symbols were all expressive of
various dogmas of the Church--of creeds and formulas peculiar
to one sect rather than of spiritual truths common to all
Christianity.
Both characteristics may be traced in almost every line of this
picture. For instance, the humanity of Christ is not yet even hinted
at, his divinity alone being insisted upon. Thus the young God is here
represented in the form of a man-child; erect, with the assumed dignity
of an adult, as he raises his hand to bless the faithful. With his left
hand he holds the roll in which are written the names of the faithful
saved: it is as a judge that he comes into the world. The Virgin again
is here shown as elect of God to be the mother of God: not as the
mother of Jesus, the mother of man's highest humanity. She wears on
her head the fleur-de-lys coronet, symbol of purity; and the glory, or
aureole, around her represents the acrostic symbol of the fish, the
Greek word for fish containing the initials of the several Greek words
meaning "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." Outside this "Vesica" (or
"fish glory"), in the four corners, are four Jewish symbols (Ezekiel
i. 10), adopted as emblems of the four Evangelists--the Angel (St.
Matthew), the Ox (St. Luke), the Lion (St. Mark), and the Eagle (St.
John). So again, in the scenes on either side of the central piece
we see the same gloomy theology, in which the world is thought of
solely as a place made hideous with evils, where saints are boiled
by pagans, women slain by seducers, children devoured by dragons. By
help of such pictured deeds of hell, men were taught by the early
Church to "loathe this base world and think of heaven's bliss." The
first subject (on the spectator's left) represents the birth of Christ
in a cattle-shed; the second St. John the Evangelist, calm midst the
cauldron of seething oil, the martyr's uplifted hand expressing the
precept, "Pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."
The third subject depicts in a rude symbolic way incidents in the
life of St. Catherine--her beheading, her soul's reception by angels,
and the burial of her body by two angels on Mount Sinai. The fourth
subject shows St. Nicolas appearing suddenly to some sailors, whom he
exhorts to throw overboard a vase given by the devil. In the fifth is
St. John resuscitating the body of Drusiana, a matron who had lived
in his house previous to his departure, and whose bier he had chanced
to meet on his return to Ephesus. In the next subject St. Benedict,
founder of the Benedictine Order, is shown in the act of throwing
himself into a thicket of briars and nettles, as he rushes from his
cave to rid himself of the recollection of a beautiful woman he had
once met in Rome, and whose image now tempts him to leave his chosen
solitude. In the seventh, St. Nicolas liberates three innocent men;
and in the eighth is represented St. Margaret, patron saint of women
in childbirth, whom the devil in the form of a dragon confronts to
terrify into abnegation of her Christian faith. Unable to persuade her,
he devours her, but bursts in the midst, and by power of the Cross she
emerges unhurt. It is interesting to observe that the two consecutive
acts are here shown as co-existent: a thing frequently done, as we have
seen, in early art. Finally, another characteristic feature is the
introduction of the "grotesque" in the animals that support the throne
as a relief from the strained seriousness of the rest of the picture
(A. H. Macmurdo in _Century Guild Hobby Horse_, i. 21-28).
The picture, signed by the painter, was an altar-front in the church of
Santa Margherita at Arezzo. It is painted in _tempera_ on linen cloth
attached to wood, and even in Vasari's day its preservation was deemed
remarkable. "It comprises," he says, "many small figures, of better
manner than those of larger size, designed with more grace and finished
with greater delicacy; and this work deserves consideration, not
only because the little figures are so carefully done that they look
like miniatures, but also for the extraordinary fact that a picture
on canvas should have continued in such good preservation during 300
years" (i. 89).