decorative effect depends on the deep blue ground, relieving the
delicate foliage and the local colours of dresses and architecture. It
is also one of those which are most directly opposed to modern
feeling: the sympathy of the spectator with the passion of the crowd
being somewhat rudely checked by the grotesque action of two of the
foremost figures. We ought, however, rather to envy the deep
seriousness which could not be moved from dwelling on the real power
of the scene by any ungracefulness or familiarity of circumstance.
Among men whose minds are rightly toned, nothing is ludicrous: it
must, if an act, be either right or wrong, noble or base; if a thing
seen, it must either be ugly or beautiful: and what is either wrong or
deformed is not, among noble persons, in anywise subject for laughter;
but, in the precise degree of its wrongness or deformity, a subject of
horror. All perception of what, in the modern European mind, falls
under the general head of the ludicrous, is either childish or
profane; often healthy, as indicative of vigorous animal life, but
always degraded in its relation to manly conditions of thought. It has
a secondary use in its power of detecting vulgar imposture; but it
only obtains this power by denying the highest truths.
* * * * *
XXVI.
THE EXPULSION FROM THE TEMPLE.
More properly, the Expulsion from the outer Court of the Temple (Court
of Gentiles), as Giotto has indicated by placing the porch of the
Temple itself in the background.
The design shows, as clearly as that of the Massacre of the Innocents,
Giotto's want of power, and partly of desire, to represent rapid or
forceful action. The raising of the right hand, not holding any
scourge, resembles the action afterwards adopted by Oreagna, and
finally by Michael Angelo in his Last Judgment: and my belief is, that
Giotto considered this act of Christ's as partly typical of the final
judgment, the Pharisees being placed on the left hand, and the
disciples on the right. From the faded remains of the fresco, the
draughtsman could not determine what animals are intended by those on
the left hand. But the most curious incident (so far as I know, found
only in this design of the Expulsion, no subsequent painter repeating
it), is the sheltering of the two children, one of them carrying a
dove, under the arm and cloak of two disciples. Many meanings might
easily be suggested in this; but I see no evidence for the adoption of
any distinct one.
* * * * *
XXVII.
THE HIRING OF JUDAS.
The only point of material interest presented by this design is the
decrepit and distorted shadow of the demon, respecting which it may be
well to remind the reader that all the great Italian thinkers
concurred in assuming decrepitude or disease, as well as ugliness, to
be a characteristic of all natures of evil. Whatever the extent of the
power granted to evil spirits, it was always abominable and
contemptible; no element of beauty or heroism was ever allowed to
remain, however obscured, in the aspect of a fallen angel. Also, the
demoniacal nature was shown in acts of betrayal, torture, or wanton
hostility; never in valiancy or perseverance of contest. I recollect
no mediæval demon who shows as much insulting, resisting, or
contending power as Bunyan's Apollyon. They can only cheat, undermine,
and mock; never overthrow. Judas, as we should naturally anticipate,
has not in this scene the nimbus of an Apostle; yet we shall find it
restored to him in the next design. We shall discover the reason of
this only by a careful consideration of the meaning of that fresco.
* * * * *
XXVIII.
THE LAST SUPPER.
I have not examined the original fresco with care enough to be able to
say whether the uninteresting quietness of its design is redeemed by
more than ordinary attention to expression; it is one of the least
attractive subjects in the Arena Chapel, and always sure to be passed
over in any general observation of the series: nevertheless, however
unfavourably it may at first contrast with the designs of later
masters, and especially with Leonardo's, the reader should not fail to
observe that Giotto's aim, had it been successful, was the higher of
the two, as giving truer rendering of the probable fact. There is no
distinct evidence, in the sacred text, of the annunciation of coming
treachery having produced among the disciples the violent surprise and
agitation represented by Leonardo. Naturally, they would not at first
understand what was meant. They knew nothing distinctly of the
machinations of the priests; and so little of the character or
purposes of Judas, that even after he had received the sop which was
to point him out to the others as false;--and after they had heard the
injunction, "That thou doest, do quickly,"--the other disciples had
still no conception of the significance, either of the saying, or the
act: they thought that Christ meant he was to buy something for the
feast. Nay, Judas himself, so far from starting, as a convicted
traitor, and thereby betraying himself, as in Leonardo's picture, had
not, when Christ's first words were uttered, any immediately active
intention formed. The devil had not entered into him until he received
the sop. The passage in St. John's account is a curious one, and
little noticed; but it marks very distinctly the paralysed state of
the man's mind. He had talked with the priests, covenanted with them,
and even sought opportunity to bring Jesus into their hands; but while
such opportunity was wanting, the act had never presented itself fully
to him for adoption or rejection. He had toyed with it, dreamed over
it, hesitated, and procrastinated over it, as a stupid and cowardly
person would, such as traitors are apt to be. But the way of retreat
was yet open; the conquest of the temper not complete. Only after
receiving the sop the idea _finally_ presented itself clearly, and was
accepted, "To-night, while He is in the garden, I can do it; and I
will." And Giotto has indicated this distinctly by giving Judas still
the Apostle's nimbus, both in this subject and in that of the Washing
of the Feet; while it is taken away in the previous subject of the
Hiring, and the following one of the Seizure: thus it fluctuates,
expires, and reillumines itself, until his fall is consummated. This
being the general state of the Apostles' knowledge, the words, "One of
you shall betray me," would excite no feeling in their minds
correspondent to that with which we now read the prophetic sentence.
What this "giving up" of their Master meant became a question of
bitter and self-searching thought with them,--gradually of intense
sorrow and questioning. But had they understood it in the sense we now
understand it, they would never have each asked, "Lord, is it I?"
Peter believed himself incapable even of _denying_ Christ; and of
giving him up to death for money, every one of his true disciples
_knew_ themselves incapable; the thought never occurred to them. In
slowly-increasing wonder and sorrow ([Greek: êrxanto lupeisthai], Mark
xiv. 19), not knowing what was meant, they asked one by one, with
pauses between, "Is it I?" and another, "Is it I?" and this so quietly
and timidly that the one who was lying on Christ's breast never
stirred from his place; and Peter, afraid to speak, signed to him to
ask who it was. One further circumstance, showing that this was the
real state of their minds, we shall find Giotto take cognisance of in
the next fresco.
* * * * *
XXIX.
THE WASHING OF THE FEET.
In this design, it will be observed, there are still the twelve
disciples, and the nimbus is yet given to Judas (though, as it were,
setting, his face not being seen).
Considering the deep interest and importance of every circumstance of
the Last Supper, I cannot understand how preachers and commentators
pass by the difficulty of clearly understanding the periods indicated
in St. John's account of it. It seems that Christ must have risen
while they were still eating, must have washed their feet as they sate
or reclined at the table, just as the Magdalen had washed His own feet
in the Pharisee's house; that, this done, He returned to the table,
and the disciples continuing to eat, presently gave the sop to Judas.
For St. John says, that he having received the sop, went _immediately_
out; yet that Christ had washed his feet is certain, from the words,
"Ye are clean, but not all." Whatever view the reader may, on
deliberation, choose to accept, Giotto's is clear, namely, that though
not cleansed by the baptism, Judas was yet capable of being cleansed.
The devil had not entered into him at the time of the washing of the
feet, and he retains the sign of an Apostle.
The composition is one of the most beautiful of the series, especially
owing to the submissive grace of the two standing figures.
* * * * *
XXX.
THE KISS OF JUDAS.
For the first time we have Giotto's idea of the face of the traitor
clearly shown. It is not, I think, traceable through any of the
previous series; and it has often surprised me to observe how
impossible it was in the works of almost any of the sacred painters to
determine by the mere cast of feature which was meant for the false
Apostle. Here, however, Giotto's theory of physiognomy, and together
with it his idea of the character of Judas, are perceivable enough. It
is evident that he looks upon Judas mainly as a sensual dullard, and
foul-brained fool; a man in no respect exalted in bad eminence of
treachery above the mass of common traitors, but merely a distinct
type of the eternal treachery to good, in vulgar men, which stoops
beneath, and opposes in its appointed measure, the life and efforts of
all noble persons, their natural enemies in this world; as the slime
lies under a clear stream running through an earthy meadow. Our
careless and thoughtless English use of the word into which the Greek
"Diabolos" has been shortened, blinds us in general to the meaning of
"Deviltry," which, in its essence, is nothing else than slander, or
traitorhood;--the accusing and giving up of good. In particular it has
blinded us to the meaning of Christ's words, "Have not I chosen you
twelve, and one of you is a traitor and accuser?" and led us to think
that the "one of you is a devil" indicated some greater than human
wickedness in Judas; whereas the practical meaning of the entire fact
of Judas' ministry and fall is, that out of any twelve men chosen for
the forwarding of any purpose,--or, much more, out of any twelve men
we meet,--one, probably, is or will be a Judas.
The modern German renderings of all the scenes of Christ's life in
which the traitor is conspicuous are very curious in their vulgar
misunderstanding of the history, and their consequent endeavours to
represent Judas as more diabolic than selfish, treacherous, and
stupid men are in all their generations. They paint him usually
projected against strong effects of light, in lurid
chiaroscuro;--enlarging the whites of his eyes, and making him frown,
grin, and gnash his teeth on all occasions, so as to appear among the
other Apostles invariably in the aspect of a Gorgon.
How much more deeply Giotto has fathomed the fact, I believe all men
will admit who have sufficient purity and abhorrence of falsehood to
recognise it in its daily presence, and who know how the devil's
strongest work is done for him by men who are too bestial to
understand what they betray.
* * * * *
XXXI.
CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS.
Little is to be observed in this design of any distinctive merit; it
is only a somewhat completer version of the ordinary representation
given in illuminated missals and other conventual work, suggesting, as
if they had happened at the same moment, the answer, "If I have spoken
evil, bear witness of the evil," and the accusation of blasphemy which
causes the high-priest to rend his clothes.
Apparently distrustful of his power of obtaining interest of a higher
kind, Giotto has treated the enrichments more carefully than usual,
down even to the steps of the high-priest's seat. The torch and barred
shutters conspicuously indicate its being now dead of night. That the
torch is darker than the chamber, if not an error in the drawing, is
probably the consequence of a darkening alteration in the yellow
colours used for the flame.
* * * * *
XXXII.
THE SCOURGING OF CHRIST.
It is characteristic of Giotto's rational and human view of all
subjects admitting such aspect, that he has insisted here chiefly on
the dejection and humiliation of Christ, making no attempt to suggest
to the spectator any other divinity than that of patience made perfect
through suffering. Angelico's conception of the same subject is higher
and more mystical. He takes the moment when Christ is blindfolded, and
exaggerates almost into monstrosity the vileness of feature and
bitterness of sneer in the questioners, "Prophesy unto us, who is he
that smote thee;" but the bearing of the person of Christ is entirely
calm and unmoved; and his eyes, open, are seen through the binding
veil, indicating the ceaseless omniscience.
This mystical rendering is, again, rejected by the later realistic
painters; but while the earlier designers, with Giotto at their head,
dwelt chiefly on the humiliation and the mockery, later painters dwelt
on the physical pain. In Titian's great picture of this subject in the
Louvre, one of the executioners is thrusting the thorn-crown down upon
the brow with his rod, and the action of Christ is that of a person
suffering extreme physical agony.
No representations of the scene exist, to my knowledge, in which the
mockery is either sustained with indifference, or rebuked by any stern
or appealing expression of feature; yet one of these two forms of
endurance would appear, to a modern habit of thought, the most natural
and probable.
* * * * *
XXXIII.
CHRIST BEARING HIS CROSS.
This design is one of great nobleness and solemnity in the isolation
of the principal figure, and removal of all motives of interest
depending on accessories, or merely temporary incidents. Even the
Virgin and her attendant women are kept in the background; all appeal
for sympathy through physical suffering is disdained. Christ is not
represented as borne down by the weight of the Cross, nor as urged
forward by the impatience of the executioners. The thing to be
shown,--the unspeakable mystery,--is the simple fact, the Bearing of
the Cross by the Redeemer. It would be vain to compare the respective
merits or value of a design thus treated, and of one like Veronese's
of this same subject, in which every essential accessory and probable
incident is completely conceived. The abstract and symbolical
suggestion will always appeal to one order of minds, the dramatic
completeness to another. Unquestionably, the last is the greater
achievement of intellect, but the manner and habit of thought are
perhaps loftier in Giotto. Veronese leads us to perceive the reality
of the act, and Giotto to understand its intention.
* * * * *
XXXIV.
THE CRUCIFIXION.
The treatment of this subject was, in Giotto's time, so rigidly fixed
by tradition that it was out of his power to display any of his own
special modes of thought; and, as in the Bearing of the Cross, so
here, but yet more distinctly, the temporary circumstances are little
regarded, the significance of the event being alone cared for. But
even long after this time, in all the pictures of the Crucifixion by
the great masters, with the single exception perhaps of that by
Tintoret in the Church of San Cassano at Venice, there is a tendency
to treat the painting as a symmetrical image, or collective symbol of
sacred mysteries, rather than as a dramatic representation. Even in
Tintoret's great Crucifixion in the School of St. Roch, the group of
fainting women forms a kind of pedestal for the Cross. The flying
angels in the composition before us are thus also treated with a
restraint hardly passing the limits of decorative symbolism. The
fading away of their figures into flame-like cloud may perhaps be
founded on the verse, "He maketh His angels spirits; His ministers a
flame of fire" (though erroneously, the right reading of that verse
being, "He maketh the winds His messengers, and the flaming fire His
servant"); but it seems to me to give a greater sense of possible
truth than the entire figures, treading the clouds with naked feet, of
Perugino and his successors.
* * * * *
XXXV.
THE ENTOMBMENT.
I do not consider that in fulfilling the task of interpreter intrusted
to me, with respect to this series of engravings, I may in general
permit myself to unite with it the duty of a critic. But in the
execution of a laborious series of engravings, some must of course be
better, some worse; and it would be unjust, no less to the reader than
to Giotto, if I allowed this plate to pass without some admission of
its inadequacy. It may possibly have been treated with a little less
care than the rest, in the knowledge that the finished plate, already
in the possession of the members of the Arundel Society, superseded
any effort with inferior means; be that as it may, the tenderness of
Giotto's composition is, in the engraving before us, lost to an
unusual degree.
It may be generally observed that the passionateness of the sorrow
both of the Virgin and disciples, is represented by Giotto and all
great following designers as reaching its crisis at the Entombment,
not at the Crucifixion. The expectation that, after experiencing every
form of human suffering, Christ would yet come down from the cross, or
in some other visible and immediate manner achieve for Himself the
victory, might be conceived to have supported in a measure the minds
of those among His disciples who watched by His cross. But when the
agony was closed by actual death, and the full strain was put upon
their faith, by their laying in the sepulchre, wrapped in His
grave-clothes, Him in whom they trusted, "that it had been He which
should have redeemed Israel," their sorrow became suddenly hopeless; a
gulf of horror opened, almost at unawares, under their feet; and in
the poignancy of her astonied despair, it was no marvel that the agony
of the Madonna in the "Pietà" became subordinately associated in the
mind of the early Church with that of their Lord Himself;--a type of
consummate human suffering.
* * * * *
XXXVI.
THE RESURRECTION.
Quite one of the loveliest designs of the series. It was a favourite
subject with Giotto; meeting, in all its conditions, his love of what
was most mysterious, yet most comforting and full of hope, in the
doctrines of his religion. His joy in the fact of the Resurrection,
his sense of its function, as the key and primal truth of
Christianity, was far too deep to allow him to dwell on any of its
minor circumstances, as later designers did, representing the moment
of bursting the tomb, and the supposed terror of its guards. With
Giotto the leading thought is not of physical reanimation, nor of the
momentarily exerted power of breaking the bars of the grave; but the
consummation of Christ's work in the first manifesting to human eyes,
and the eyes of one who had loved Him and believed in Him, His power
to take again the life He had laid down. This first appearance to her
out of whom He had cast seven devils is indeed the very central fact
of the Resurrection. The keepers had not seen Christ; they had seen
only the angel descending, whose countenance was like lightning: for
fear of him they became as dead; yet this fear, though great enough to
cause them to swoon, was so far conquered at the return of morning,
that they were ready to take money-payment for giving a false report
of the circumstances. The Magdalen, therefore, is the first witness of
the Resurrection; to the love, for whose sake much had been forgiven,
this gift is also first given; and as the first witness of the truth,
so she is the first messenger of the Gospel. To the Apostles it was
granted to proclaim the Resurrection to all nations; but the Magdalen
was bidden to proclaim it to the Apostles.
In the chapel of the Bargello, Giotto has rendered this scene with yet
more passionate sympathy. Here, however, its significance is more
thoughtfully indicated through all the accessories, down even to the
withered trees above the sepulchre, while those of the garden burst
into leaf. This could hardly escape notice when the barren boughs were
compared by the spectator with the rich foliage of the neighbouring
designs, though, in the detached plate, it might easily be lost sight
of.
* * * * *
XXXVII.
THE ASCENSION.
Giotto continues to exert all his strength on these closing subjects.
None of the Byzantine or earlier Italian painters ventured to
introduce the entire figure of Christ in this scene: they showed the
feet only, concealing the body; according to the text, "a cloud
received Him out of their sight." This composition, graceful as it is
daring, conveys the idea of ascending motion more forcibly than any
that I remember by other than Venetian painters. Much of its power
depends on the continuity of line obtained by the half-floating
figures of the two warning angels.
I cannot understand why this subject was so seldom treated by
religious painters: for the harmony of Christian creed depends as much
upon it as on the Resurrection itself; while the circumstances of the
Ascension, in their brightness, promise, miraculousness, and direct
appeal to all the assembled Apostles, seem more fitted to attract the
joyful contemplation of all who received the faith. How morbid, and
how deeply to be mourned, was the temper of the Church which could not
be satisfied without perpetual representation of the tortures of
Christ; but rarely dwelt on His triumph! How more than strange the
concessions to this feebleness by its greatest teachers; such as that
of Titian, who, though he paints the Assumption of the Madonna rather
than a Pietà, paints the Scourging and the Entombment of Christ, with
his best power,--but never the Ascension!
* * * * *
XXXVIII.
THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
This last subject of the series, the quietest and least interesting in
treatment, yet illustrates sadly, and forcibly, the vital difference
between ancient and modern art.
The worst characters of modern work result from its constant appeal to
our desire of change, and pathetic excitement; while the best features
of the elder art appealed to love of contemplation. It would appear to
be the object of the truest artists to give permanence to images such
as we should always desire to behold, and might behold without
agitation; while the inferior branches of design are concerned with
the acuter passions which depend on the turn of a narrative, or the
course of an emotion. Where it is possible to unite these two sources
of pleasure, and, as in the Assumption of Titian, an action of
absorbing interest is united with perfect and perpetual elements of
beauty, the highest point of conception would appear to have been
touched: but in the degree in which the interest of action
_supersedes_ beauty of form and colour, the art is lowered; and where
real deformity enters, in any other degree than as a momentary shadow
or opposing force, the art is illegitimate. Such art can exist only by
accident, when a nation has forgotten or betrayed the eternal purposes
of its genius, and gives birth to painters whom it cannot teach, and
to teachers whom it will not hear. The best talents of all our English
painters have been spent either in endeavours to find room for the
expression of feelings which no master guided to a worthy end, or to
obtain the attention of a public whose mind was dead to natural
beauty, by sharpness of satire, or variety of dramatic circumstance.
The work to which England is now devoting herself withdraws her eyes
from beauty, as her heart from rest; nor do I conceive any revival of
great art to be possible among us while the nation continues in its
present temper. As long as it can bear to see misery and squalor in
its streets, it can neither invent nor accept human beauty in its
pictures; and so long as in passion of rivalry, or thirst of gain, it
crushes the roots of happiness, and forsakes the ways of peace, the
great souls whom it may chance to produce will all pass away from it
helpless, in error, in wrath, or in silence. Amiable visionaries may
retire into the delight of devotional abstraction, strong men of the
world may yet hope to do service by their rebuke or their satire; but
for the clear sight of Love there will be no horizon, for its quiet
words no answer; nor any place for the art which alone is faithfully
Religious, because it is Lovely and True.
* * * * *