_Giovanni Bellini_ (Venetian: 1426-1516). _See 189._
A devotional picture recalling such reminiscences of mediæval mysticism
as are found in many of our hymns--
Come let us stand beneath his Cross:
So may the blood from out his side
Fall gently on us drop by drop.
Jesus our Lord is crucified.
"A cold sky with underlit clouds suggests the still and solemn hour
of early dawn, a fitting time for the advent of this weird and
livid apparition. Gaunt, bloodless, and with attenuated limbs, the
Redeemer, we recognise, has passed through the Valley of 'the Shadow
of Death'--not victoriously; there is no light of triumph in the
lustreless eyes; no palm nor crown awaits this victim of relentless
hate, the type of infinite despair and eternal sacrifice" (_Times_,
September 19, 1887)--
Sunrise is close: the upper sky is blue
That has been darkness; and the day is new,
Bleaching yon little town: where the white hue,
Spread blank on the horizon, skirts
The night-mass there is strife and wavy rush
Of beams in flush....
The dawn is blue among the hills and white
Above their tops; a gladness creeps in sight
Across the silver-russet slopes, but night
Obscures the mortal ebb and flow
Flushing Thy veins; Thy lips in strife for breath
Are full of death.
("Michael Field" in _Sight and Song_.)
The looks and gestures of the Saviour seem to demonstrate that
the blood which pours from His riven side is freely given for the
redemption of the world. In the details of the picture, which careless
observers might mistake for mere chance accessories, there is an
allegorical meaning. The paved terrace with the open doorway symbolises
the Paradise regained by the Blood of the Sacrificed, the ideal
Church, the Church of the New Covenant, in contradistinction to the
Hortus Inclusus, the garden enclosed, without a door, which was the
type of the Old Covenant. The antique reliefs are pagan prototypes of
the Christian sacrifice. On the right is Mucius Scaevola, before Lars
Porsena, thrusting his hand into the fire,--the ancient type of heroism
and readiness to suffer; on the opposite side is a pagan sacrifice,
with Pan playing the pipes, signifying the propitiatory sacrifices of
the ancients, and thus foreshadowing the Sacrifice on the Cross. The
landscape background carries out the same ideas. On the right is a
barren hill with leafless trees, and at its base some ancient ruins
and a crumbling fountain. In contrast to this on the opposite side is
a prosperous and well-fortified city, lying amid meadows; a church
tower; the sky above is rosy with the light of early dawn. Figures are
seen turning from the ancient ruins and making their way along the path
which leads to a new and better home, the Christian city (Richter's
_Lectures on the National Gallery_, p. 37).
This little picture is among the earliest of Bellini's works. The
abnormal length of the figure of Christ and the exaggerated length and
straightness of the forearms are points which should be noticed in
this connection, resembling as they do characteristics of other early
works by the painter, and also the drawings of his father, Jacopo. But
"already, in spite of the archaism of form, he shows a feeling for
atmospheric tonality; the ruin to the right and the two figures near it
are, as painters say, in their place; that is to say, the treatment as
regards relations of tone is such as the linear perspective would lead
us to expect. Still more surprising is the way in which the eye is led
down the valley to free spaces of luminous air" (Roger Fry: _Giovanni
Bellini_, p. 18). The subject is a rare one in Italian art. Mr. Fry
gives a reproduction of a similar figure in a picture by Crivelli in
the Poldi Pezzoli Collection at Milan; and Dr. Richter, one from a
woodcut in Savonarola's treatise on "Humility," first printed in 1492.