1. The Annunciation. The treatment here presents no more analogy to
that of the same subject at Varallo than is inevitable in the nature of
the subject. The Annunciation figures at Varallo have proved to be mere
draped dummies with wooden heads; Tabachetti, even though he did the
heads, which he very likely did, would take no interest in the Varallo
work with the same subject. The Annunciation, from its very simplicity
as well as from the transcendental nature of the subject, is singularly
hard to treat, and the work here, whatever it may once have been, is now
no longer remarkable.
2. The Salutation of Mary by Elizabeth. This group, again, bears no
analogy to the Salutation chapel at Varallo, in which Tabachetti's share
was so small that it cannot be considered as in any way his. It is not
to be expected, therefore, that the Saas chapel should follow the Varallo
one. The figures, four in number, are pleasing and well arranged. St.
Joseph, St. Elizabeth, and St. Zacharias are all talking at once. The
Virgin is alone silent.
3. The Nativity is much damaged and hard to see. The treatment bears no
analogy to that adopted by Gaudenzio Ferrari at Varallo. There is one
pleasing young shepherd standing against the wall, but some figures have
no doubt (as in others of the chapels) disappeared, and those that remain
have been so shifted from their original positions that very little idea
can be formed of what the group was like when Tabachetti left it.
4. The Purification. I can hardly say why this chapel should remind me,
as it does, of the Circumcision chapel at Varallo, for there are more
figures here than space at Varallo will allow. It cannot be pretended
that any single figure is of extraordinary merit, but amongst them they
tell their story with excellent effect. Two, those of St. Joseph and St.
Anna (?), that doubtless were once more important factors in the drama,
are now so much in corners near the window that they can hardly be seen.
5. The Dispute in the Temple. This subject is not treated at Varallo.
Here at Saas there are only six doctors now; whether or no there were
originally more cannot be determined.
6. The Agony in the Garden. Tabachetti had no chapel with this subject
at Varallo, and there is no resemblance between the Saas chapel and that
by D'Enrico. The figures are no doubt approximately in their original
positions, but I have no confidence that I have rearranged them
correctly. They were in such confusion when I first saw them that the
Rev. E. J. Selwyn and myself determined to rearrange them. They have
doubtless been shifted more than once since Tabachetti left them. The
sleeping figures are all good. St. James is perhaps a little prosaic.
One Roman soldier who is coming into the garden with a lantern, and
motioning silence with his hand, does duty for the others that are to
follow him. I should think more than one of these figures is actually
carved in wood by Tabachetti, allowance being made for the fact that he
was working in a material with which he was not familiar, and which no
sculptor of the highest rank has ever found congenial.
7. The Flagellation. Tabachetti has a chapel with this subject at
Varallo, and the Saas group is obviously a descent with modification from
his work there. The figure of Christ is so like the one at Varallo that
I think it must have been carved by Tabachetti himself. The man with the
hooked nose, who at Varallo is stooping to bind his rods, is here
upright: it was probably the intention to emphasise him in the succeeding
scenes as well as this, in the same way as he has been emphasised at
Varallo, but his nose got pared down in the cutting of later scenes, and
could not easily be added to. The man binding Christ to the column at
Varallo is repeated (_longo intervallo_) here, and the whole work is one
inspired by that at Varallo, though no single figure except that of the
Christ is adhered to with any very great closeness. I think the nearer
malefactor, with a goitre, and wearing a large black hat, is either an
addition of the year 1709, or was done by the journeyman of the local
sculptor who carved the greater number of the figures. The man stooping
down to bind his rods can hardly be by the same hand as either of the two
black-hatted malefactors, but it is impossible to speak with certainty.
The general effect of the chapel is excellent, if we consider the
material in which it is executed, and the rudeness of the audience to
whom it addresses itself.
8. The Crowning with Thorns. Here again the inspiration is derived from
Tabachetti's Crowning with Thorns at Varallo. The Christs in the two
chapels are strikingly alike, and the general effect is that of a
residuary impression left in the mind of one who had known the Varallo
Flagellation exceedingly well.
9. Sta. Veronica. This and the next succeeding chapels are the most
important of the series. Tabachetti's Journey to Calvary at Varallo is
again the source from which the present work was taken, but, as I have
already said, it has been modified in reproduction. Mount Calvary is
still shown, as at Varallo, towards the left-hand corner of the work, but
at Saas it is more towards the middle than at Varallo, so that horsemen
and soldiers may be seen coming up behind it--a stroke that deserves the
name of genius none the less for the manifest imperfection with which it
has been carried into execution. There are only three horses fully
shown, and one partly shown. They are all of the heavy Flemish type
adopted by Tabachetti at Varallo. The man kicking the fallen Christ and
the goitred man (with the same teeth missing), who are so conspicuous in
the Varallo Journey to Calvary, reappear here, only the kicking man has
much less nose than at Varallo, probably because (as explained) the nose
got whittled away and could not be whittled back again. I observe that
the kind of lapelled tunic which Tabachetti, and only Tabachetti, adopts
at Varallo, is adopted for the centurion in this chapel, and indeed
throughout the Saas chapels this particular form of tunic is the most
usual for a Roman soldier. The work is still a very striking one,
notwithstanding its translation into wood and the decay into which it has
been allowed to fall; nor can it fail to impress the visitor who is
familiar with this class of art as coming from a man of extraordinary
dramatic power and command over the almost impossible art of composing
many figures together effectively in all-round sculpture. Whether all
the figures are even now as Tabachetti left them I cannot determine, but
Mr. Selwyn has restored Simon the Cyrenian to the position in which he
obviously ought to stand, and between us we have got the chapel into
something more like order.
10. The Crucifixion. This subject was treated at Varallo not by
Tabachetti but by Gaudenzio Ferrari. It confirms therefore my opinion as
to the designer of the Saas chapels to find in them no trace of the
Varallo Crucifixion, while the kind of tunic which at Varallo is only
found in chapels wherein Tabachetti worked again appears here. The work
is in a deplorable state of decay. Mr. Selwyn has greatly improved the
arrangement of the figures, but even now they are not, I imagine, quite
as Tabachetti left them. The figure of Christ is greatly better in
technical execution than that of either of the two thieves; the folds of
the drapery alone will show this even to an unpractised eye. I do not
think there can be a doubt but that Tabachetti cut this figure himself,
as also those of the Magdalene and St. John, who stand at the foot of the
cross. The thieves are coarsely executed, with no very obvious
distinction between the penitent and the impenitent one, except that
there is a fiend painted on the ceiling over the impenitent thief. The
one horse introduced into the composition is again of the heavy Flemish
type adopted by Tabachetti at Varallo. There is great difference in the
care with which the folds on the several draperies have been cut, some
being stiff and poor enough, while others are done very sufficiently. In
spite of smallness of scale, ignoble material, disarrangement and decay,
the work is still striking.
11. The Resurrection. There being no chapel at Varallo with any of the
remaining subjects treated at Saas, the sculptor has struck out a line
for himself. The Christ in the Resurrection Chapel is a carefully
modelled figure, and if better painted might not be ineffective. Three
soldiers, one sleeping, alone remain. There were probably other figures
that have been lost. The sleeping soldier is very pleasing.
12. The Ascension is not remarkably interesting; the Christ appears to
be, but perhaps is not, a much more modern figure than the rest.
18. The Descent of the Holy Ghost. Some of the figures along the end
wall are very good, and were, I should imagine, cut by Tabachetti
himself. Those against the two side walls are not so well cut.
14. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The two large cherubs here are
obviously by a later hand, and the small ones are not good. The figure
of the Virgin herself is unexceptionable. There were doubtless once
other figures of the Apostles which have disappeared; of these a single
St. Peter (?), so hidden away in a corner near the window that it can
only be seen with difficulty, is the sole survivor.
15. The Coronation of the Virgin is of later date, and has probably
superseded an earlier work. It can hardly be by the designer of the
other chapels of the series. Perhaps Tabachetti had to leave for Crea
before all the chapels at Saas were finished.
Lastly, we have the larger chapel dedicated to St. Mary, which crowns the
series. Here there is nothing of more than common artistic interest,
unless we except the stone altar mentioned in Ruppen's chronicle. This
is of course classical in style, and is, I should think, very good.
Once more I must caution the reader against expecting to find
highly-finished gems of art in the chapels I have been describing. A
wooden figure not more than two feet high clogged with many coats of
paint can hardly claim to be taken very seriously, and even those few
that were cut by Tabachetti himself were not meant to have attention
concentrated on themselves alone. As mere wood-carving the Saas-Fee
chapels will not stand comparison, for example, with the triptych of
unknown authorship in the Church of St. Anne at Gliss, close to Brieg.
But, in the first place, the work at Gliss is worthy of Holbein himself:
I know no wood-carving that can so rivet the attention; moreover it is
coloured with water-colour and not oil, so that it is tinted, not
painted; and, in the second place, the Gliss triptych belongs to a date
(1519) when artists held neither time nor impressionism as objects, and
hence, though greatly better than the Saas-Fee chapels as regards a
certain Japanese curiousness of finish and _naivete_ of literal
transcription, it cannot even enter the lists with the Saas work as
regards _elan_ and dramatic effectiveness. The difference between the
two classes of work is much that between, say, John Van Eyck or Memling
and Rubens or Rembrandt, or, again, between Giovanni Bellini and
Tintoretto; the aims of the one class of work are incompatible with those
of the other. Moreover, in the Gliss triptych the intention of the
designer is carried out (whether by himself or no) with admirable skill;
whereas at Saas the wisdom of the workman is rather of Ober-Ammergau than
of the Egyptians, and the voice of the poet is not a little drowned in
that of his mouthpiece. If, however, the reader will bear in mind these
somewhat obvious considerations, and will also remember the pathetic
circumstances under which the chapels were designed--for Tabachetti when
he reached Saas was no doubt shattered in body and mind by his four
years' imprisonment--he will probably be not less attracted to them than
I observed were many of the visitors both at Saas-Grund and Saas-Fee with
whom I had the pleasure of examining them.
I will now run briefly through the other principal works in the
neighbourhood to which I think the reader would be glad to have his
attention directed.
At Saas-Fee itself the main altar-piece is without interest, as also one
with a figure of St. Sebastian. The Virgin and Child above the remaining
altar are, so far as I remember them, very good, and greatly superior to
the smaller figures of the same altar-piece.
At Almagel, an hour's walk or so above Saas-Grund--a village, the name of
which, like those of the Alphubel, the Monte Moro, and more than one
other neighbouring site, is supposed to be of Saracenic origin--the main
altar-piece represents a female saint with folded arms being beheaded by
a vigorous man to the left. These two figures are very good. There are
two somewhat inferior elders to the right, and the composition is crowned
by the Assumption of the Virgin. I like the work, but have no idea who
did it. Two bishops flanking the composition are not so good. There are
two other altars in the church: the right-hand one has some pleasing
figures, not so the left-hand.
In St. Joseph's Chapel, on the mule-road between Saas-Grund and Saas-Fee,
the St. Joseph and the two children are rather nice. In the churches and
chapels which I looked into between Saas and Stalden, I saw many florid
extravagant altar-pieces, but nothing that impressed me favourably.
In the parish church at Saas-Grund there are two altar-pieces which
deserve attention. In the one over the main altar the arrangement of the
Last Supper in a deep recess half-way up the composition is very pleasing
and effective; in that above the right-hand altar of the two that stand
in the body of the church there are a number of round lunettes, about
eight inches in diameter, each containing a small but spirited group of
wooden figures. I have lost my notes on these altar-pieces and can only
remember that the main one has been restored, and now belongs to two
different dates, the earlier date being, I should imagine, about 1670. A
similar treatment of the Last Supper may be found near Brieg in the
church of Naters, and no doubt the two altar-pieces are by the same man.
There are, by the way, two very ambitious altars on either side the main
arch leading to the chance in the church at Naters, of which the one on
the south side contains obvious reminiscences of Gaudenzio Ferrari's Sta.
Maria frescoes at Varallo; but none of the four altar-pieces in the two
transepts tempted me to give them much attention. As regards the smaller
altar-piece at Saas-Grund, analogous work may be found at Cravagliana,
half-way between Varallo and Fobello, but this last has suffered through
the inveterate habit which Italians have of showing their hatred towards
the enemies of Christ by mutilating the figures that represent them.
Whether the Saas work is by a Valsesian artist who came over to
Switzerland, or whether the Cravagliana work is by a Swiss who had come
to Italy, I cannot say without further consideration and closer
examination than I have been able to give. The altar-pieces of Mairengo,
Chiggiogna, and, I am told, Lavertezzo, all in the Canton Ticino, are by
a Swiss or German artist who has migrated southward; but the reverse
migration was equally common.
Being in the neighbourhood, and wishing to assure myself whether the
sculptor of the Saas-Fee chapels had or had not come lower down the
valley, I examined every church and village which I could hear of as
containing anything that might throw light on this point. I was thus led
to Vispertimenen, a village some three hours above either Visp or
Stalden. It stands very high, and is an almost untouched example of a
medieval village. The altar-piece of the main church is even more
floridly ambitious in its abundance of carving and gilding than the many
other ambitious altar-pieces with which the Canton Valais abounds. The
Apostles are receiving the Holy Ghost on the first storey of the
composition, and they certainly are receiving it with an overjoyed
alacrity and hilarious ecstasy of _allegria spirituale_ which it would
not be easy to surpass. Above the village, reaching almost to the limits
beyond which there is no cultivation, there stands a series of chapels
like those I have been describing at Saas-Fee, only much larger and more
ambitious. They are twelve in number, including the church that crowns
the series. The figures they contain are of wood (so I was assured, but
I did not go inside the chapels): they are life-size, and in some chapels
there are as many as a dozen figures. I should think they belonged to
the later half of the last century, and here, one would say, sculpture
touches the ground; at least, it is not easy to see how cheap
exaggeration can sink an art more deeply. The only things that at all
pleased me were a smiling donkey and an ecstatic cow in the Nativity
chapel. Those who are not allured by the prospect of seeing perhaps the
very worst that can be done in its own line, need not be at the pains of
climbing up to Vispertimenen. Those, on the other hand, who may find
this sufficient inducement will not be disappointed, and they will enjoy
magnificent views of the Weisshorn and the mountains near the Dom.
I have already referred to the triptych at Gliss. This is figured in
Wolf's work on Chamonix and the Canton Valais, but a larger and clearer
reproduction of such an extraordinary work is greatly to be desired. The
small wooden statues above the triptych, as also those above its modern
companion in the south transept, are not less admirable than the triptych
itself. I know of no other like work in wood, and have no clue whatever
as to who the author can have been beyond the fact that the work is
purely German and eminently Holbeinesque in character.
I was told of some chapels at Rarogne, five or six miles lower down the
valley than Visp. I examined them, and found they had been stripped of
their figures. The few that remained satisfied me that we have had no
loss. Above Brieg there are two other like series of chapels. I
examined the higher and more promising of the two, but found not one
single figure left. I was told by my driver that the other series, close
to the Pont Napoleon on the Simplon road, had been also stripped of its
figures, and, there being a heavy storm at the time, have taken his word
for it that this was so.