1. In a picture by Gentile da Fabriano (_Berlin Gallery_, 1130), the
Virgin and Child are enthroned, and on each side of the throne is a
tree, on the branches of which are little red Seraphim winged and
perched like birds, singing and making music. I remember also a little
Dutch print of a Riposo (_v._ ‘Legends of the Madonna,’ p. 256), in
which five little angels are perched on the trees above, singing and
playing for the solace of the divine Infant. Thus we have Dante’s idea
of the _Uccelli di Dio_, reproduced in a more familiar form.
2. In the Convent of Sant-Angelo at Bologna, Camillo Procaccino
painted the ‘Acts of the Holy Angels’ in the following order:—1. The
Fall of the Dragon. 2. The Angels drive Adam and Eve from Paradise. 3.
The three Angels visit Abraham. 4. The Angel stays the arm of Abraham.
5. The Angel wrestles with Jacob. 6. The Angels visit Jacob in a
Dream. 7. The Angel delivers the three Children in the burning fiery
Furnace. 8. The Angel slays the Host of Sennacherib. 9. The Angel
protects Tobit. 10. The Punishment of Heliodorus. 11. The Annunciation
to Mary. It will be remarked that all these subjects are strictly
scriptural.
The Four Evangelists.
‘Matthew wrote for the Hebrews; Mark, for the Italians; Luke, for the
Greeks; for ALL, the great herald John.’—_Gregory Nazianzen._
Since on the Four Evangelists, as the witnesses and interpreters of a
revealed religion, the whole Christian Church may be said to rest as
upon four majestic pillars, we cannot be surprised that representations
of them should abound, and that their effigies should have been
introduced into Christian places of worship, from very early times.
Generally, we find them represented together, grouped, or in a series;
sometimes in their collective character, as the _Four Witnesses_;
sometimes in their individual character, each as an inspired teacher,
or beneficent patron. As no authentic resemblances of these sacred
personages have ever been known or even supposed to exist, such
representations have always been either _symbolical_ or _ideal_. In
the symbol, the aim was to embody, under some emblematical image, the
spiritual mission; in the ideal portrait, the artist, left to his own
conception, borrowed from Scripture some leading trait (when Scripture
afforded any authority for such), and adding, with what success his
skill could attain, all that his imagination could conceive, as
expressive of dignity and persuasive eloquence—the look ‘commercing
with the skies,’ the commanding form, the reverend face, the ample
draperies—he put the book or the pen into his hand, and thus the writer
and the teacher of the truth was placed before us.
The earliest type under which the Four Evangelists are figured is
an emblem of the simplest kind: four scrolls placed in the four
angles of a Greek cross, or four books (the Gospels), represented
allegorically those who wrote or promulgated them. The second type
chosen was more poetical—the four rivers which had their source in
Paradise: representations of this kind, in which the Saviour, figured
as a lamb holding the cross, or in his human form, with a lamb near
him, stands on an eminence, from which gush four rivers or fountains,
are to be met with in the catacombs, on ancient sarcophagi preserved
among the Christian relics in the Vatican, and in several old churches
constructed between the second and the fifth century.
At what period the four mysterious creatures in the vision of Ezekiel
(ch. i. 5) were first adopted as significant symbols of the Four
Evangelists, does not seem clear. The Jewish doctors interpreted them
as figuring the four Archangels,—Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel; and
afterwards applied them as emblems of the Four Great Prophets,—Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. By the early Oriental Christians, who
typified the whole of the Old Testament, the transfer of the emblem to
the Four Evangelists seems obvious and easy; we find it alluded to as
early as the second century. The four ‘Beasts’ of corresponding form in
the Revelation (chap. iv. 7), which stood round the throne of the Lamb,
were likewise thus interpreted; but it was not till the fifth century
that we find these symbols assuming a visible form, and introduced into
works of art. In the seventh century they had become almost universal,
as distinctive attributes.
[Illustration: 48 St. Matthew (Mosaic, fifth century)]
The general application of the Four Creatures to the Four Evangelists
is of much earlier date than the separate and individual application of
each symbol, which has varied at different times; that propounded by
St. Jerome, in his commentary on Ezekiel, has since his time prevailed
universally. Thus, then, 1. To St. Matthew was given the CHERUB, or
human semblance, because he begins his gospel with the human generation
of Christ; or, according to others, because in his gospel the human
nature of the Saviour is more insisted on than the divine. In the most
ancient mosaics, the type is human, not angelic, for the head is that
of a man with a beard. 2. St. Mark has the LION, because he has set
forth the royal dignity of Christ; or, according to others, because he
begins with the mission of the Baptist—‘_the voice of one crying in
the wilderness_’—which is figured by the lion: or, according to a third
interpretation, the lion was allotted to St. Mark, because there was,
in the middle ages, a popular belief that the young of the lion was
born dead, and after three days was awakened to vitality by the breath
of its sire; some authors, however, represent the lion as vivifying
his young not by his breath, but by his roar. In either case the
application is the same; the revival of the young lion was considered
as symbolical of the resurrection, and Mark was commonly called the
‘Historian of the Resurrection.’ Another commentator observes that
Mark begins his gospel with ‘roaring’—‘the voice of one crying in the
wilderness;’ and ends it fearfully with a curse—‘He that believeth not
shall be damned;’ and that, therefore, his appropriate attribute is the
most terrible of beasts, the lion.[101] 3. Luke has the OX, because he
has dwelt on the priesthood of Christ, the _ox_ being the emblem of
sacrifice. 4. John has the EAGLE, which is the symbol of the highest
inspiration, because he soared upwards to the contemplation of the
divine nature of the Saviour.
But the order in which, in theological Art, these symbols are placed,
is not the same as the order of the Gospels according to the canon.
Rupertus considers the Four Beasts as typical of the Incarnation, the
Passion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension; an idea previously dwelt
upon by Durandus, who adds, that the man and the lion are placed on
the right, because the incarnation and the resurrection are the joy
of the whole earth; whilst the ox is on the left, because Christ’s
sacrifice was a trouble to the apostles; and the eagle is above the ox,
as suggestive of our Lord’s upward flight into heaven: according to
others, the proper order in the ascending scale is thus—at the lowest
point on the left, the ox; to the right, the lion; above the ox, the
eagle; and above all, the angel. So in Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel, the
angel gazes into the face of the Holy One, the others form his throne.
I have dwelt on these fanciful interpretations and disquisitions,
because the symbols of the Evangelists meet us at every turn; in the
mosaics of the old Italian churches, in the decorative sculpture
of our old cathedrals, in the Gothic stained glass, in the ancient
pictures and miniatures, on the carved and chased covers of old
books; everywhere, in short, where enters the idea of their divine
mission—and where is it not? The profound thought, as well as the
vivid imagination, exercised in some of these early works of art, is
beginning to be appreciated; and we should lose the half of what is
poetical, and significant, and venerable in these apparently arbitrary
and fanciful symbols, if we merely seized the general intention, and
not the relative and appropriate meaning of each.
I will only add (for I have restricted myself to the consideration
of the mysteries of faith only so far as they are carried into the
forms of Art) that these symbols of the Four Evangelists were in their
combination held to be symbolical of the Redeemer, in the fourfold
character then universally assigned to him, as man, as king, as
high-priest, and as God; according to this Latin verse:
Quatuor hæc Dominum signant animalia Christum:
Est _Homo_ nascendo, _vitulus_ que sacer moriendo,
Et _Leo_ surgendo, cœlos _aquila_ que petendo;
Nec minus hos scribas animalia et ipsa figurant.
This would again alter the received order of the symbols, and place the
angelic or human semblance lower than the rest: but I have never seen
them so placed, at least I can recollect no instance.
A Greek mosaic, existing in the Convent of Vatopedi, on Mount Athos,
exhibits an attempt to reduce to form the wild and sublime imagery
of the prophet Ezekiel: the Evangelists, or rather the Gospels, are
represented as the tetramorph, or four-faced creature, with wings full
of eyes, and borne on wheels of living flame (49).
The Tetramorph, i.e. the union of the four attributes of the
Evangelists, in one figure, is in Greek Art always angelic or winged—a
mysterious thing. The Tetramorph in Western Art has in some instances
become monstrous, instead of mystic and poetical. In a miniature of the
_Hortus Deliciarum_, we find the new Law, or Christianity, represented
as a woman crowned and seated on an animal which, with the body of a
horse, has the four heads of the mystic creatures; and of the four
feet, one is human; one hoofed, for the ox; one clawed like an eagle’s;
and one like a lion’s: underneath is inscribed _Animal Ecclesiæ_.
In some other examples, the Church, or the new Law, is seated in a
triumphal car drawn by the eagle, the lion, and the ox, while the angel
holds the reins and drives as charioteer.
[Illustration: 49 Tetramorph]
The early images of the Evangelical symbol are uniformly represented
with wings, for the same reason that wings were given to the
angels,—they were angels, i.e. bringers of good tidings: for instance,
in the earliest example to which I can refer, a rude fragment of a
bas-relief in terracotta, found in the catacombs, which represents
a lamb with a glory holding a cross; on the right, an angel in a
sacerdotal garment (St. Matthew), on the left the winged ox (St. Luke),
each holding a book.
[Illustration: 50 St. Luke (Mosaic, A.D. 750)]
[Illustration: 51 St. Luke (Mosaic, fifth century)]
In the most ancient Christian churches we find these symbols
perpetually recurring, generally in or over the recess at the east end
(the apsis, or tribune), where stands the altar. And as the image of
Christ, as the Redeemer, either under the semblance of the lamb, or in
his human likeness, as a grand, calm, solemn figure enthroned, and in
the act of benediction, forms invariably the principal object; almost
as invariably the Evangelists are either at the four corners, or
ranged in a line above or below, or they are over the arch in front of
the tribune. Sometimes they are the heads only of the mystic creatures,
on an azure ground, studded with stars, floating as in a firmament,
thus (50): or the half figure ends in a leafy scroll, like the genii
in an arabesque, as thus (51): or the creature is given at full length
and entire, with four wings, holding the book, and looking much like a
figure in heraldry (52, 53).
[Illustration: 52 St. John (Mosaic, eleventh century)]
[Illustration: 53 St. Mark (Mosaic)]
The next step was the combination of the emblem with the human form,
i.e. the head of the lion, ox, or eagle, set upon the figure of a
man. Here is a figure of St. John standing with the head of an eagle,
holding the gospel (54). There is another rudely engraved in Münter’s
work, with the eagle’s head, wings upon the shoulders, and a scroll. I
remember another of St. John seated, writing, with the head and clawed
feet of an eagle, and the body and hands of a man. Such figures as a
series I have seen in ornaments, and frequently in illuminated MSS.,
but seldom in churches, and never of a large size. A very striking
and comparatively modern example of this peculiar treatment occurs
in a bas-relief on the door of the College of St. Stephen and St.
Lawrence, at Castiglione, in which the Four Evangelists are represented
as half-length human figures, amply draped and holding the gospels,
each with the emblematic head and large outspread wings (55). The
bronze bas-reliefs of the Evangelists on each side of the choir of
St. Antonio, at Padua, are similar in form, and very fine, both in
conception and workmanship.
[Illustration: 54 St. John]
This series of full-length figures is from the first compartment of
the Life of Christ by Angelico da Fiesole.[102] In the original the
figures stand round a mystic circle, alternately with the prophets
(56). We must remember, that however monstrous and grotesque such
figures may appear to the eye, they are not more unnatural than the
angelic representations with which we are so familiar that we see in
them beauty only—not considering that men with the wings of birds are
as merely emblematical and impossible as men with animal heads. It is
interesting, and leads the mind to many speculations, to remark that
the Babylonish captivity must have familiarised the Israelites with
the combination of the human and animal attributes in the same figure.
The gigantic bas-reliefs from Nineveh show us winged bulls with human
heads, and the human form with the eagle’s head and wings. This figure,
for example, (57) is not unlike some early figures of St. John, if we
substitute the book and the pen for the basket and the pine-cone.
[Illustration: 55 St. Mark]
[Illustration: 56]
[Illustration: 57 From Nineveh]
In a few later examples the only symbolical attribute retained is
a pair of wings. The next figure (58) is from a curious set of
Evangelists, of a minute size, and exquisitely engraved by Hans Beham:
they are habited in the old German fashion; each has his book, his
emblem, and in addition the expressive wings.
[Illustration: 58]
These animal symbols, whether alone or in combination with the human
forms, were perfectly intelligible to the people, sanctified in their
eyes by tradition, by custom, and by the most solemn associations.
All direct imitation of nature was, by the best painters, carefully
avoided. In this respect how fine is Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel! how
sublime and how true in feeling and conception! where the Messiah comes
floating along, upborne by the Four Creatures—mysterious, spiritual,
wonderful beings, animals in form, but in all else unearthly, and
the winged ox not less divine than the winged angel![103] Whereas in
the later times, when the artist piqued himself upon the imitation
of nature, the mystic and venerable significance was wholly lost. As
a striking instance of this mistaken style of treatment, we may turn
to the famous group of the Four Evangelists by Rubens,[104] grand,
colossal, standing or rather moving figures, each with his emblem,
if emblems they can be called which are almost as full of reality as
nature itself:—the ox so like life, we expect him to bellow at us; the
magnificent lion flourishing his tail, and looking at St. Mark as if
about to roar at him!—and herein lies the mistake of the great painter,
that, for the religious and mysterious emblem, he has substituted the
creatures themselves: this being one of the instances, not unfrequent
in Art, in which the literal truth becomes a manifest falsehood.
In ecclesiastical decoration the Four Evangelists are sometimes grouped
significantly with the Four Greater Prophets; thus representing the
connexion between the new and the old Law. I met with a curious
instance in the Cathedral of Chartres. The five great windows over
the south door may be said to contain a succinct system of theology,
according to the belief of the thirteenth century: here the Virgin,
i.e. the Church or Religion, occupies the central window; on one side
is Jeremiah, carrying on his shoulders St. Luke, and Isaiah carrying
St. Matthew; on the other side, Ezekiel bears St. John, and Daniel St.
Mark; thus representing the New Testament resting on the Old.
In ecclesiastical decoration, and particularly in the stained glass,
they are often found in combination with the Four Doctors, the
Evangelists being considered as witnesses, the Doctors as interpreters,
of the truth: or as a series with the Four Greater Prophets, the Four
Sibyls, and the Four Doctors of the Church, the Evangelists taking the
third place.
If, as late as the sixteenth century, we find the Evangelists still
expressed by the mystic emblems (as in the fine bronzes in the choir
of Sant’ Antonio at Padua), as early as the sixth we have in the Greek
MSS. and mosaics the Evangelists as venerable men, and promulgators
of a revelation; as in San Vitale at Ravenna (A.D. 547): on each side
of the choir, nearest the altar, we find the prophets Isaiah and
Jeremiah; then follow the Evangelists, two on each side, all alike,
all classically draped in white tunics, each holding an open book, on
which is inscribed ‘Secundum Marcum,’ ‘Secundum Johannem,’ &c.; and
above each the animal symbol or attribute, large, full length, and
grandly designed. In modern ecclesiastical decoration, the usual and
appropriate situation of the Four Evangelists is immediately under the
dome, nearest to the Saviour after the angels, or after the prophets,
where either are introduced. I will mention here a few examples
celebrated in the history of Art; premising that among the works of
Leonardo, of Michael Angelo, and Raphael, we find no representations of
the Four Evangelists; which is singular, considering that such figures
entered necessarily into every scheme of theological decorative art.
By Cimabue (A.D. 1270), larger than life, on the vault of the choir in
San Francesco d’Assisi.
By Giotto (A.D. 1320), in the choir of Sant’ Apollinare, at Ravenna;
seated, and each accompanied by one of the doctors of the Church.
By Angelico (A.D. 1390), round the dome of the chapel of San Niccolò,
in the Vatican; all seated, each with his emblem.
By Masaccio (A.D. 1420), round the dome of the chapel of the Passion in
San Clemente, at Rome; admirable for simple grandeur.
By Perugino (A.D. 1490), on the dome of the chapel del Cambio, at
Perugia; the heads admirable.
By Correggio (A.D. 1520), immediately under the cupola of San Giovanni,
in four lunettes, magnificent figures: and again in the Cathedral of
Parma, each seated in glory, with one of the doctors of the Church.
By Domenichino, two sets (A.D. 1620). Those in the church of St. Andrea
della Valle, at Rome, are considered his finest works, and celebrated
in the history of Art: they are grand figures. The emblematical animals
are here combined with the personages in a manner the most studied and
picturesque; and the angels which sport around them, playing with the
mane of St. Mark’s lion, or the pallet and pencils of St. Luke, are
like beautiful ‘Amoretti,’—but we hardly think of angels. The series at
Grotta-Ferrata is inferior.
The Four Evangelists by Valentin (A.D. 1632), in the Louvre, had once
great celebrity, and have been often engraved; they appear to me signal
examples of all that should be avoided in character and sentiment. St.
Matthew, for example, is an old beggar; the model for the attendant
angel is a little French _gamin_, ‘à qui Valentin a commandé de sortir
un bras de la manche de sa chemise, que de l’autre main il soutient
gauchement.’
Le Sueur (A.D. 1655) has represented the Four Evangelists seated at a
table writing; the Holy Ghost descends upon them in the form of a dove.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, we find sets of the
Evangelists in which the emblems are altogether omitted, and the
personages distinguished by their situation, or by their names
inscribed under or over them: but we miss those antique scriptural
attributes which placed them before us as beings foreshadowed in the
prophecies uttered of old; they have become mere men.
* * * * *
This must suffice for the Evangelists considered as a series and in
their collective character; but it will be interesting to pause for a
moment, and take a rapid retrospective view of the progress, from first
to last, in the expression of an idea through form.
First, we have the mere _fact_; the four scrolls, or the four books.
Next, the _idea_; the four rivers of salvation flowing from on high, to
fertilise the whole earth.
Thirdly, the _prophetic_ Symbol; the winged cherub of fourfold aspect.
Next, the _Christian_ Symbol; the four ‘beasts’ in the Apocalypse, with
or without the angel-wings.
Then the combination of the _emblematical animal_ with the _human_ form.
Then the _human_ personages, each of venerable or inspired aspect, as
becomes the teacher and witness; and each attended by the scriptural
emblem—no longer an emblem, but an attribute—marking his individual
vocation and character.
And, lastly, the emblem and attribute both discarded, we have the human
being only, holding his gospel, i.e. _his_ version of the doctrine of
Christ.