EXPRESSION. PART II.--CHRISTIAN IDEALS
The Deity--Christ--The Madonna--The Madonna and Child.
In considering the scope for the exhibition of ideals in art, it should
be remembered that ideal types of some of the principal personages in
religious and mythological history have been already fixed by great
artists, and it is impossible to depart from them without producing what
would appear to be abnormal representations. Homer led the way with
occasional hints of the presumed physical appearance of some of the
leading deities of Greece, and except in the case of Aphrodite the later
Grecian sculptors closely followed him. The Zeus of Homer as improved by
Phidias has been the model of this deity in respect of form for nearly
every succeeding sculptor to this day, while it was also the model which
suggested the Christian Father as represented by the first artists of
the Renaissance, though, as already indicated, the majestic dignity of
the Phidian Zeus was partly sacrificed by the Christian artists. Phidias
in fact created a type which, so far as human foresight can judge, must
ever guide the artistic mind, whether portraying the mighty son of
Kronos, or the God of the Christians. Only very rarely nowadays is the
Christian Deity pictured in art, and as time goes on His introduction in
human shape in a painting will become still more rare in conformity with
changing religious ideas and practices; but now and hereafter any artist
who contemplates the representation, must, voluntarily or involuntarily,
turn to the frescoes of Raphael and Michelangelo for his guide.
There is no tradition upon which to base an actual portrait of Christ.
For the first four centuries A.D., when He was represented in art,
it was usually by means of symbols, or as a young man without beard, but
there are some Roman relics of the fifth century remaining in which He
is depicted much in the later generally accepted type, with short beard
and flowing hair. During the long centuries of the Dark Age, when
religious art was practically confined to the Byzantine Greeks, Christ
was almost invariably portrayed with a long face and emaciated features
and limbs, as the epitome of sadness and sorrow. This expression was
modified as the arts travelled to the north and west of Europe, and
gradually His face began to assume more regularity and beauty. Then came
Cimabue to sow the seed of the Renaissance, and with him the ideal of
Christ was changed to a perfect man of flesh and blood. A century or
more was occupied in establishing this ideal, but it was so established,
and has maintained its position to this day.[38]
[Illustration: PLATE 9 (See page 138)
Raphael's Virgin of the Rose with the Face of "Profane Love" in
Titian's Picture Substituted for that of the Virgin]
This ideal represents the Saviour as a man of about thirty-three
years--His age at the Crucifixion. He wears flowing hair with a short
beard and usually a moustache. His face is rather long, often oval; the
features have a perfect regularity, and the expression is commonly one
of patient resignation. Naturally His body must appear well nourished,
otherwise corporeal beauty cannot be expressed. This is the type which
has been used since the height of the Renaissance, though there have
been a few exceptional representations. Thus, the face of Christ in
Lionardo's Last Supper at Milan is that of a beardless young man of some
twenty-five years[a] and Raphael in an early picture shows Him
beardless, but gives Him an age of about thirty.[b] Some early Flemish
artists also rendered Him beardless at times, notably the Maitre de
Flemalle, Van der Weyden, and Quentin Matsys. Michelangelo in his Last
Judgment represents the Saviour sitting in judgment as a robust, stern,
commanding figure, beardless, and with an expression and bearing
apparently serving the idea of Justice.[c] Strange to say the artist
gives a very similar face to St. Stephen in the same series of frescoes.
A still more unusual representation is that of Francisco di Giorgio, who
gives Christ the appearance of an Apollo,[d] while Bramantino depicts
His face worn with heavy lines.[e] In one picture Marco Basaiti shows
Him as a young man with long hair but without beard, and in another with
a thick beard without moustache.[f] There was considerable variation in
the type among the Venetians of the sixteenth century, but not in
important features, and since then very few artists indeed have ventured
to depart from the ideal above described. The only notable exception in
recent times is in a work by Burne-Jones who represents Christ as a
beardless youth, though indicating the wound to St. Thomas.[g] It is
supposed that the artist presumed that the Person of Christ underwent a
complete change after the Resurrection.
[a] And in the drawing for the picture at the Brera.
[b] Christ Blessing at the Brescia Gallery.
[c] In the Sistine Chapel frescoes.
[d] Christ bereft of His clothes before the Crucifixion, Sienna
Academy.
[e] Christ, Mayno Collection.
[f] The Dead Christ, and Calling of the Children of Zebedee, Academy,
Venice.
[g] Dies Domini.
It is evident that the ideal Christ as established by the Italians can
scarcely be improved upon in art within the prescribed limitations.
Christ having lived as an actual man, His representation must be within
the bounds of possible experience; and since He died at the age of
thirty-three, intellectual power cannot be suggested in His countenance,
for this in life means an expression implying large experience warranted
only by mature age. The representation is therefore confined to that of
a man who, while exhibiting a healthy regularity of form and feature,
has lost all sense of earthly pleasure. The beauty achieved by this type
is negative, the only marked quality being a suggestion of sadness
which, in painting, is necessarily present in all expression where an
unconcern with human instincts and passions is depicted. The Italians in
their representation of Christ were thus unable to reach the height of
the Greek divine portrayals. They were confined to earth, while the
Greek figures were symbols of spiritual forms which were pure products
of the imagination. Giotto and his successors sought a physically
perfect man with all purely human features in expression eliminated. The
Greeks, even when representing divinities below Zeus, generalized all
human attributes, excluding nothing but the exceptional. They embodied
in their forms, truths acknowledged by the whole world; summed up human
life to the contentment of all men: there was nothing in their
divinities which would prevent their acceptance as spiritual symbols in
all religions of civilized peoples. To them human instincts were sacred:
all human passions could be ennobled: everything in the natural
progression of life came within the purview, and under the protection,
of the gods. So the course of their art was definite: there was never a
difference as to the goal, for it was universal.
From the point of view of the development of art the ideal Christ has
been of little importance compared with the ideal Madonna, though here
also the Italians aimed for a particular instead of a general type. They
wanted a living woman with the form and features of a pulsating mother;
a woman of ordinary life in fact, but infinitely superior in physical
beauty, and endowed with the highest grace that their imaginations could
conceive and their hands execute. This ideal seemed to germinate with
Cimabue, but an immense advance upon him was made by Giotto who was
unsurpassed in the representation of the Holy Mother for more than a
century. But the ideal was yet purely formal and continued so till past
the middle of the fifteenth century, both in Italy and Flanders. Giotto
was then excelled by many artists, but the Madonnas they produced,
though often very beautiful, are not humanly attractive. They are on the
side of the Angels; have never been women evidently, and are far, far
away from the human type with tingling veins and heaving breath. Filippo
Lippi marked the border line between this type of Madonna, and the
advanced pattern produced by the series of great artists of the latter
part of the fifteenth century. But with Lionardo, Ghirlandaio,
Botticelli, and the rest, the Madonna was scarcely an ideal woman.
Living persons were commonly taken as models, and although the portraits
were no doubt "improved," they have little connection with the ideal
which the artists evidently had in mind. The very life which the artist
transfers to canvas in a portrait is destructive of the ideal, for it is
a particular life with evidence of particular emotions and passions from
which the Madonna should be free.
A mighty barrier must be passed before a woman is translated on canvas
into the type of Madonna sought by the first Renaissance artists. She
must be a woman of the earth; a woman who has grown up amidst human
surroundings from infancy to girlhood, and from girlhood to womanhood;
with human aspirations and sympathies, and experience of joys and
trials: she must have all these, and as well have become a mother; and
yet with human beauty, her countenance must be such that by no stretch
of the imagination can the possibility of desire be suggested. This was
the problem, and certainly only a genius of the highest order could
arrive at a solution, for the task appears on the face of it to be
almost superhuman. But Raphael succeeded in accomplishing it, and his
achievement will stand for all time as one of the greatest epoch-making
events in history. Even Michelangelo, who created so many superb forms,
never succeeded with an ideal suitable for a Madonna.[39]
It is clear that in reaching for his ideal, Raphael did not strive for
an expression relating to the spiritual. His purpose was to eliminate
from the features anything which might possibly be construed as
indicating earthly desires, and yet retain the highest conceivable human
beauty. With this double object contentment is a quality in expression
which is indispensable, and this Raphael was careful to give, sometimes
emphasizing it with a suggestion of happiness. It is not possible to go
further with an expression which is to generalize the highest human
physical and abstract qualities, while keeping the figure within the
range of apparent feasible realization in life. The result was ideal but
not exclusive. It is a universal type, and is suited to the Madonna
because there is nothing humanly higher within our comprehension; but it
has a further general import which is dealt with elsewhere.
Although the aim achieved by Raphael must necessarily be the goal of all
artists in the representation of the Madonna, it is of course not
essential that he should be accepted as the only guide to her form. Her
features may vary indefinitely so long as the ideal is maintained, and
Raphael himself painted no two Madonnas with the same features. But
certain traditions must be observed, however much one may depart from
the actual circumstances of her life. The first is in respect of her
presumed age. In pictures dealing with her life soon after marriage, as
for instance, the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt, the Madonna is
invariably represented as many years older than she appears in
Annunciation subjects, though only a year or so actually passed between
the respective events. The reason for this is obvious. She must be shown
with the bloom of a matured woman. The highest form of nobility cannot
be disassociated from wisdom and experience, which could not be
indicated in the countenance of a girl in her teens. Innocence and
purity may be present, and a certain majesty even, but our conception of
the Madonna as a woman involves the triumph over known evils, the full
knowledge of right and wrong, and the consciousness of a supreme
position above the possibility of sin. Hence in all representations of
the Madonna at the Nativity and afterwards, she must be shown at an age
suggesting the fullest knowledge of good and evil.
While, between the Annunciation and incidents occurring during the
infancy of Christ, many years must be presumed to have passed, from this
latter period on, the Madonna must be supposed to have aged very little,
if at all, right up to the Crucifixion. It is not often that we find her
included in a design illustrating the life of Christ between His infancy
and the Death Scene, a fact probably due to the age difficulty. In the
exceptions her face is often partly or wholly hidden. But in scenes of
the Crucifixion, where the Virgin is almost invariably introduced,
artists of all periods, with few exceptions, have been careful to avoid
suggesting the full presumed age. Commonly the age indicated is between
twenty-five and thirty years, but as the face is always pale, and often
somewhat drawn, her comparatively youthful appearance is not
conspicuous. Obviously under no circumstances should lines be present in
the features, for this would suggest a physical decay not in conformity
with Christian ideas.[40] Even in pictures relating to her death, which
is presumed to have occurred at an age between fifty and sixty years,
her face is shown with perfectly regular and smooth features, though an
extreme pallor may be painted. But from the point of view of art, the
Virgin must be regarded as an accessory in works relating to the
Crucifixion, for to throw her into prominence would result in dividing
the attention of the observer of the picture on first inspection, and so
lessening the art. In any case she must be painted with an expression of
grief, and hence an unalloyed ideal of transcendent beauty is out of the
question.
The custom of representing the Madonna in costume and surroundings
indicating a higher social level than that in which she actually moved,
is now firmly established, and cannot be departed from without lowering
the ideal. A woman in a lowly position of life, who is compelled to bear
all the responsibilities of a home, with the care of a husband and
child, is seldom seen except in the performance of household duties. We
cannot see her without associating her in our minds with toil and
possible privation, and we naturally expect that the effect of these
will be indicated in her expression and general bearing. If away from
her home her costume would usually declare her position, while habits of
mind connected with her daily occupation commonly engender mannerisms in
air and gait which support the inference drawn from the character of her
attire. It would appear anomalous to paint a woman so situated with such
beauty of form and expression that she appears to have never experienced
earthly cares of any kind, much less the long repeated daily worries
consequent upon the charge of a poor household. Perfect beauty of form
being essential in the representation of the Madonna, she must be
painted amidst surroundings conformable with the supposition that she is
free from earthly responsibilities, and that her mind is entirely
occupied with the boundless joy and happiness arising from the
contemplation of the divine Mission of her Son.[41]
[Illustration: PLATE 10 (See Page 139)
Raphael's Holy Family (Madrid), with the Face of Luini's
Salome Substituted for that of the Virgin]
The difficulty in painting the Madonna is complicated when the Infant
Christ is introduced, because of the liability of the Child to interfere
with a fine presentation of her figure. A similar problem was met with
by the early Greeks, and doubtless they dealt with it in their paintings
as in their sculptures, a few of which, showing an adult holding a
child, have come down to us. These represent the child reduced in size
as far as possible, and carried at the side of the adult figure.[a] A
like system was followed by most of the Byzantine workers, and it is
very noticeable in some of the fine French sculpture of the thirteenth
century.[b] In the same period Giovanni Pisano in sculpture,[c] and
Cimabue in painting,[d] maintained the tradition in Italy, and in the
century following, Giotto,[e] Duccio,[f] Lorenzetto,[g] and others,
often adopted the plan. Towards the middle of the fifteenth century, the
relative importance attached to the Child in the group generally
increased, and by the end of it, the old practice had been almost
entirely abandoned. Meanwhile the artists had some hard problems to
meet. The first was as to the size of the Child. It appeared to be
generally agreed that an older Child should be represented than had been
the custom, though a few artists held back, notably Fra Angelico, while
in sculpture, Donatello maintained his habit of moulding the Child as
only a few weeks old. With an increased age of the Child, the difficulty
of securing repose for the group was enhanced, for it seemed to be
proper with a child past its infancy, that it should be pictured as
engaged in one of the charming simple actions common to childhood. These
questions were settled in different ways according to the genius and
temperament of the artists. A few of them, as Mantegna,[h] Lorenzo
Costa,[i] and Montagna,[j] gave the Child an age of two years or more,
and in some of their designs the figures seem to be of equal
significance, Mantegna and Montagna in several examples actually
standing the Child in the Virgin's lap with the heads touching each
other.
[a] See the Olympian Hermes of Praxiteles, and Irene and Pluto after
Cephisodostus at Munich.
[b] Groups in the Southern and Western porches of Amiens Cathedral.
[c] Madonna and Child, Arena Chapel, Padua.
[d] Groups at the Florence Academy and the Louvre.
[e] Florence Academy.
[f] National Gallery, London.
[g] San Francisco, Assisi.
[h] Madonna and Angels, at Milan, and other works.
[i] Coronation of the Virgin, Bologna.
[j] Enthronement of the Virgin, Brera, Milan.
The plans usually adopted by the greatest masters, were, to present the
maximum repose with the Child sitting in the lap of the Virgin; or to
place Him apart from her, and engaged in some slight action; or to show
Him in the arms of the Virgin, either held at the side, or in front,
with the Virgin more or less in profile. In all of these schemes the
serene contemplation of the Holy Mother is practically undisturbed. In
his many groups of the Virgin and Child, and of the Holy Family, Raphael
only varied twice from these plans,[a] and in both the exceptions the
Child reclines across the lap of the Virgin, so that very little of her
figure is hidden. Titian has the Child standing by her side,[b] or held
away from her, and in one example the Virgin is placing Him in the hands
of St. Joseph.[c] Correggio, when away from the influence of Mantegna,
usually showed the Child held apart from the Mother, or placed on the
floor, or on a bench. It is a common device to show the Child on the
lap of the Virgin, but leaning over to take a flower or other object
offered Him,[d] and numerous artists allow Him to play around
separately.[e] In Holbein's fine group at Augsburg, the Child stands
between the Virgin and St. Anne, and another German painter shows Him
held up by the same personages, but clear from both of them.[f] Murillo
commonly stands the Child at the side of the Virgin, but in one picture
adopts the novel method of placing Him in the arms of St. Joseph.[g]
[a] Madonna and Child, Bridgewater Coll., England; and same group with
St. John, Berlin.
[b] Madonna of the Cherries, Imperial Gallery, Vienna.
[c] Meeting of Joachim and Anna, Bridgwater Coll., England.
[d] Filipino Lippi's Madonna and Angels, Corsini Palace, Florence.
[e] Luca Signorelli's group at Munich, and Bonfiglio's at Perugia.
[f] Hans Fries, National Museum, Nuremburg.
[g] Holy Family, Petrograd.
When the Child is shown distinctly apart from the Virgin, or leaning
away from her lap, great care is necessary in avoiding strength in the
action, otherwise it will draw attention away from the Virgin. A notable
example of this defect is in a picture by Parmigiano, where the Child
leans over and has his head brought close to that of a kneeling Saint
who is caressing Him, the effect being most disturbing.[a] Bramantino
shows the Child in an extraordinary attitude, for He holds His head
above His arms without any apparent reason, the action confusing the
design.[b] Many artists represent Him in the act of reaching out his
hand for flowers, without choosing for the moment of portrayal, an
instant of transition from one part of the action to another,[c] a point
rarely overlooked by the first masters.[d] Occasionally variety is
given in the introduction of nursery duties, as for instance, washing
the Child,[e] but these are inappropriate for reasons already indicated,
apart from the over strong action necessarily exhibited in such designs.
Nor should the Child have an unusual expression, as this will
immediately catch the eye of the observer. In one work Del Sarto
actually makes Him laugh,[f] and a modern artist gives Him an expression
of fear.[g] It is questionable whether Masaccio[h] and others (including
A. della Robbia and Rossellino in sculpture) did not go too far in
portraying the Child with a finger in its mouth, for although such an
incident is common with children, in this case it seems opposed to
propriety. Generally the first artists have striven to free the figure
of the Virgin as far as possible, and this is in conformity with first
principles, for it simplifies the view of the chief figure in the
composition. In all cases repose should be the keynote of the design.
[a] Madonna and Child with Saints, Bologna Academy.
[b] Virgin with a Turban, Brera, Milan.
[c] As in B. da Bagnacavallo's Holy Family, Bologna; and Boltraffio's
Holy Family, Milan.
[d] See Titian's Madonna with SS. Anthony and John, Uffizi Gallery.
[e] Giulio Romano's Holy Family, Dresden.
[f] Holy Family, Hermitage, Petrograd.
[g] Uhde's The Three Magi, Magdeburg Museum.
[h] Madonna enthroned, Sutton Coll., England.
There are no general ideals in Christian art other than those mentioned.
The presumed occupants of the Celestial regions beyond these Personages,
are painted as the fancy of the artist may dictate, subject only to the
limitations of the accepted Christian doctrines. There are certain
conventions in respect of Angels and Saints, but they are by no means
strict; and for the Old Testament prophets, Michelangelo's work in the
Sistine Chapel is commonly taken as a guide. It is scarcely likely that
his examples will ever be exceeded in majestic beauty.