_Carlo Crivelli_ (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). _See 602._
Mary is kneeling in her chamber; while a golden ray from a glory above,
piercing the house wall, has struck her head, over which is hovering a
dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. The angel of the Annunciation is
outside in the court, but she cannot see him, for a wall stands between
them--"a treatment of the subject which may be intended to suggest
that the angel appeared to her in a dream." It also gives the painter
an opportunity for introducing an additional display of incident and
ornament. Beside the angel is St. Emidius, the patron saint of Ascoli,
with a model of the city in his hand. "There could not be better
examples of what we may call Crivelli's 'exquisite' style, which is
only just saved by its refinement from mere prettiness and affectation.
This angel is a _poseur_ if ever there was one." The picture is very
characteristic, in two features, of mediæval art. First, it was never
antiquarian: it did not attempt to give a correct historical setting
(_cf._ under 294). No mediæval painter made the Virgin a Jewess; they
nationalised her, as it were, and painted her in the likeness of their
own maidens. So too their scenery was the likeness of their own homes
and their own country. Here, for instance, is a picture of an Italian
city in gala attire, somewhat idealised, no doubt, in splendour, but
otherwise a "perfectly true representation of what the architecture of
Italy was in her glorious time; trim, dainty,--red and white like the
blossom of a carnation,--touched with gold like a peacock's plumes,
and frescoed, even to its chimney-pots, with fairest arabesques,--its
inhabitants, and it together, one harmony of work and life" (_Guide
to the Venetian Academy_, p. 21). And secondly, the picture shows
the pleasure the painters took in their accessories, and the frank
humour--free at once from irreverence and from gloom--with which the
Venetians especially approached what was to them a religion of daily
life. Notice especially the little girl at the top of the steps on the
left, looking round the corner. The whole of this side of the picture
shows a naturalistic treatment which forms "a curious accompaniment
and contrast to Crivelli's ordinary conventional manner. The group
talking with a friar at the house door, the citizen who passes along
bent on business, the dandy who shades his eyes from the sun and looks
up at the house, the figures on the arch, and the people walking in
the open space by the town walls beyond, make up a picture of real
life unequalled among Crivelli's works" (Rushworth's _Crivelli_, p.
63). As a representation of the "Annunciation," the picture should be
compared and contrasted with Lippi's (666). The Madonna and the Angel,
"though essential to the work from the point of view of the patrons,
who commissioned it, were merely its occasion from the point of view
of that extraordinarily painstaking and detail-loving creature, its
painter. There is endless profusion of decorative work; elaborate
arabesques on the pilasters of the Madonna's lordly house, elaborate
capitals, elaborate loggias, an elaborate cornice. The grain of the
wood on her reading-desk is carefully painted; so are the planks in
the wall of her bedchamber.... Besides the endless interest of its
decorative work, this picture is useful as marking the difference
between the spiritual and ideal motives which dominated Florence, and
the worldly motives of richness and splendour which dominated Venice.
Compare its purely adventitious detail with the poetical background of
Filippo Lippi. In the Florentine, the detail is there for the sake
of the picture; in the Venetian, the picture is there for the sake of
the detail" (Grant Allen, in the _Pall Mall Magazine_, July 1895). See
under 1139 for further notes on the subject.
The picture is signed and dated, 1486, at the bottom of the
pilasters of the Virgin's chamber. On the face of the step below
is an inscription between three coats of arms (the Bishop's, the
Pope's, and the town's)--_Libertas Ecclesiastica_, which is of some
historical interest. In the year 1482 the city of Ascoli came to an
agreement with the Pope, whereby, in return for an annual tribute
and the acknowledgment of his suzerainty, the Pope issued a Bull in
favour of its citizens, conferring on them municipal Home Rule. A new
phrase--_Libertas Ecclesiastica_, Independence under the Church--was
invented to describe the new settlement. The arrival of the Charter
on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, was celebrated henceforth
by ceremonies on that day, in which a procession to the church of the
Annunziata was a prominent feature. Our picture was painted for that
church, where it remained until 1790.