intuitive faculty among the principal organs of invention, is that
celebrated performance, which by the united testimony of contemporary
writers, and the evident traces of its imitation, scattered over the
works of contemporary artists, contributed alone more to the restoration
of art and the revolution of style, than the united effort of the two
centuries that preceded it: I mean the astonishing design commonly
called the Cartoon of Pisa, the work of Michael Agnolo Buonarrotti,
begun in competition with Lionardo da Vinci, and at intervals finished
at Florence. This work, whose celebrity subjected those who had not seen
it to the supercilious contempt of the luckier ones who had; which was
the common centre of attraction to all the students of Tuscany and
Romagna, from Raphael Sanzio to Bastian da St. Gallo, called Aristotile,
from his loquacious descants on its beauties; this inestimable work
itself is lost, and its destruction is with too much appearance of truth
fixed on the mean villainy of Baccio Bandinelli, who, in possession of
the key to the apartment where it was kept, during the revolutionary
troubles of the Florentine republic, after making what use he thought
proper of it, is said to have torn it in pieces. Still we may form an
idea of its principal groups from some ancient prints and drawings; and
of its composition from a small copy now existing at Holkham, the
outlines of which have been lately etched. Crude, disguised, or feeble,
as these specimens are, they will prove better guides than the
half-informed rhapsodies of Vasari, the meagre account of Ascanio
Condivi, better than the mere anatomic verdict of Benvenuto Cellini, who
denies that the powers afterward exerted in the Capella Sistina, arrive
at "half its excellence."[73]
It represents an imaginary moment relative to the war carried on by the
Florentines against Pisa: and exhibits a numerous group of warriors,
roused from their bathing in the Arno, by the sudden signal of a trumpet
and rushing to arms. This composition may without exaggeration be said
to personify with unexampled variety that motion, which Agasias and
Theon embodied in single figures: in imagining this transient moment
from a state of relaxation to a state of energy, the ideas of motion, to
use the bold figure of Dante, seem to have showered into the artist's
mind. From the chief, nearly placed in the centre, who precedes, and
whose voice accompanies the trumpet, every age of human agility, every
attitude, every feature of alarm, haste, hurry, exertion, eagerness,
burst into so many rays, like sparks flying from the hammer. Many have
reached, some boldly step, some have leaped on the rocky shore; here two
arms emerging from the water grapple with the rock, there two hands cry
for help, and their companions bend over or rush on to assist them;
often imitated, but inimitable is the ardent feature of the grim veteran
whose every sinew labours to force over the dripping limbs his clothes,
whilst gnashing he pushes the foot through the rending garment. He is
contrasted by the slender elegance of a half averted youth, who, though
eagerly buckling the armour to his thigh, methodizes haste; another
swings the high-raised hauberk on his shoulder, whilst one who seems a
leader, mindless of dress, ready for combat, and with brandished spear,
overturns a third, who crouched to grasp a weapon--one naked himself,
buckles on the mail of his companion, and he, turned toward the enemy,
seems to stamp impatiently the ground.--Experience and rage, old vigour,
young velocity, expanded or contracted, vie in exertions of energy. Yet
in this scene of tumult one motive animates the whole, eagerness to
engage with subordination to command; this preserves the dignity of
action, and from a straggling rabble changes the figures to men whose
legitimate contest interests our wishes.
This intuition into the pure emanations of nature, Raphael Sanzio
possessed in the most enviable degree, from the utmost conflict of
passions, to the enchanting round of gentler emotion, and the nearly
silent hints of mind and character. To this he devoted the tremendous
scenery of that magnificent fresco, known to you all under the name of
the _Incendio del Borgo_, in which he sacrificed the historic and mystic
part of his subject to the effusion of the various passions roused by
the sudden terrors of nocturnal conflagration. It is not for the faint
appearance of the miracle which approaches with the pontiff and his
train in the back-ground, that Raphael invites our eyes; the
perturbation, necessity, hope, fear, danger, the pangs and efforts of
affection grappling with the enraged elements of wind and fire,
displayed on the foreground, furnish the pathetic motives that press on
our hearts. That mother, who but half awake or rather in a waking
trance, drives her children instinctively before her; that prostrate
female half covered by her streaming hair, with elevated arms imploring
Heaven; that other who over the flaming tenement, heedless of her own
danger, absorbed in maternal agony, boldly reaches over to drop the babe
into the outstretched arms of its father; that common son of nature, who
careless of another's woe, intent only on his own safety, liberates a
leap from the burning wall; the vigorous youth who followed by an aged
mother bears the palsied father on his shoulder from the rushing wreck;
the nimble grace of those helpless females that vainly strive to
administer relief--these are the real objects of the painter's aim, and
leave the pontiff and the miracle, with taper, bell and clergy--unheeded
in the distance.
I shall not at present expatiate in tracing from this source the novel
combinations of affection by which Raphael contrived to interest us in
his numerous repetitions of Madonnas and Holy Families, selected from
the warmest effusions of domestic endearment, or in Milton's phrase,
from "all the charities of father, son, and mother." Nor shall I follow
it in its more contaminated descent, to those representations of local
manners and national modifications of society, whose characteristic
discrimination and humorous exuberance, for instance, we admire in
Hogarth, but which, like the fleeting passions of the day, every hour
contributes something to obliterate, which soon become unintelligible by
time, or degenerate into caricature, the chronicle of scandal, the
history-book of the vulgar.
Invention in its more specific sense receives its subjects from poetry
or authenticated tradition; they are _epic_ or sublime, _dramatic_ or
impassioned, _historic_ or circumscribed by truth. The first
_astonishes_; the second _moves_; the third _informs_.
The aim of the epic painter is to impress one general idea, one great
quality of nature or mode of society, some great maxim, without
descending to those subdivisions, which the detail of character
prescribes: he paints the elements with their own simplicity, height,
depth, the vast, the grand, darkness, light; life, death; the past, the
future; man, pity, love, joy, fear, terror, peace, war, religion,
government: and the visible agents are only engines to force _one_
irresistible idea upon the mind and fancy, as the machinery of
Archimedes served only to convey _destruction_, and the wheels of a
watch serve only to tell _time_.
Such is the first and general sense of what is called the _sublime_,
epic, allegoric, lyric substance. Homer, to impress one forcible idea of
_war_, its origin, its progress, and its end, set to work innumerable
engines of various magnitude, yet none but what uniformly tends to
enforce this and only this idea; gods and demigods are only actors, and
nature but the scene of war; no character is discriminated but where
discrimination discovers a new look of war; no passion is raised but
what is blown up by the breath of war, and as soon absorbed in its
universal blaze:--As in a conflagration we see turrets, spires, and
temples illuminated only to propagate the horrors of destruction, so
through the stormy page of Homer, we see his heroines and heroes but by
the light that blasts them.
This is the principle of that divine series of frescoes, with which
under the pontificates of Julius II. and Paul III. Michael Angelo
adorned the lofty compartments of the _Capella Sistina_, and from a
modesty or a pride for ever to be lamented, only not occupied the
_whole_ of its ample sides. Its subject is _theocracy_ or the empire of
religion, considered as the parent and queen of man; the origin, the
progress, and final dispensation of Providence, as taught by the sacred
records. Amid this imagery of primeval simplicity, whose sole object is
the relation of the race to its Founder, to look for minute
discrimination of character, is to invert the principle of the artist's
invention: here is only God with man. The veil of eternity is rent;
time, space, and matter teem in the creation of the elements and of
earth; life issues from God and adoration from man, in the creation of
Adam and his mate; transgression of the precept at the tree of knowledge
proves the origin of evil, and of expulsion from the immediate
intercourse with God; the oeconomy of justice and grace commences in the
revolutions of the Deluge, and the covenant made with Noah; and the
germs of social character are traced in the subsequent scene between him
and his sons; the awful synod of prophets and sibyls are the heralds of
the Redeemer, and the host of patriarchs the pedigree of the Son of Man;
the brazen serpent and the fall of Haman, the giant subdued by the
stripling in Goliath and David, and the conqueror destroyed by female
weakness in Judith, are types of his mysterious progress, till Jonah
pronounces him immortal; and the magnificence of the Last Judgment, by
showing the Saviour in the judge of man, sums up the whole, and reunites
the Founder and the race.
Such is the spirit of the Sistine Chapel, and the outline of its
_general_ invention with regard to the cycle of its subjects--as in
their choice they lead to each other without intermediate chasms in the
transition; as each preceding one prepares and directs the conduct of
the next, this the following; and as the intrinsic variety of all,
conspires to the simplicity of one great end. The _specific_ invention
of the pictures separate, as each constitutes an independent whole,
deserves our consideration next: each has its centre, from which it
disseminates, to which it leads back all secondary points; arranged,
hid, or displayed, as they are more or less organs of the inspiring
plan: each rigorously is circumscribed by its generic character; no
inferior, merely conventional, temporary, local, or disparate beauty,
however in itself alluring, is admitted; each finally turns upon that
transient moment, the moment of suspense, big with the past, and
pregnant with the future; the action nowhere expires, for action and
interest terminate together. Thus in the Creation of Adam, the Creator
borne on a group of attendant spirits, the personified powers of
Omnipotence, moves on toward his last, best work, the lord of his
creation: the immortal spark, issuing from his extended arm, electrifies
the new-formed being, who tremblingly alive, half raised, half reclined,
hastens to meet his Maker. In the formation of Eve, the astonishment of
life, just organised, is absorbed in the sublimer sentiment of
adoration; perfect, though not all disengaged from the side of her
dreaming mate, she moves with folded hands and humble dignity towards
the majestic Form whose half raised hand attracts her--what words can
express the equally bland and irresistible velocity of that mysterious
Being, who forms the sun and moon, and already past, leaves the earth,
completely formed, behind him? Here apposition is the symbol of
immensity.[75]
From these specimens of invention exerted in the more numerous
compositions of this _sublime_ cycle, let me fix your attention for a
few moments on the powers it displays in the single figures of the
Prophets, those organs of embodied sentiment: their expression and
attitude, whilst it exhibits the unequivocal marks of inspired
contemplation in all, and with equal variety, energy, and delicacy,
stamps character on each; exhibits in the occupation of the present
moment the traces of the past and hints of the future. Esaiah, the
image of _inspiration_, sublime and lofty, with an attitude expressive
of the sacred trance in which meditation on the Messiah had immersed
him, starts at the voice of an attendant genius, who seems to pronounce
the words, "to us a child is born, to us a son is given." Daniel, the
humbler image of eager _diligence_, transcribes from a volume held by a
stripling, with a gesture natural to those who, absorbed in the progress
of their subject, are heedless of convenience; his posture shows that he
had inspected the volume from which now he is turned, and shall return
to it immediately. Zachariah personifies _consideration_; he has read,
and ponders on what he reads. _Inquiry_ moves in the dignified activity
of Joel, hastening to open a sacred scroll, and to compare the
scriptures with each other. Ezechiel, the fervid feature of _fancy_, the
seer of resurrection, represented as on the field strewn with bones of
the dead, points downward and asks, "can these bones live?" the
attendant angel, borne on the wind that agitates his locks and the
prophet's vestments, with raised arm and finger, pronounces, they shall
rise: last, Jeremiah, subdued by _grief_ and exhausted by lamentation,
sinks in silent woe over the ruins of Jerusalem. Nor are the sibyls,
those female oracles, less expressive, less individually marked--they
are the echo, the counterpart of the prophets; Vigilance, Meditation,
Instruction, Divination, are personified. If the artist who, absorbed by
the uniform power and magnitude of execution, saw only breadth and
nature in their figures, must be told that he has discovered the least
part of their excellence; the critic who charges them with affectation,
can only be dismissed with our contempt.
On the immense plain of the Last Judgment, Michael Angelo has wound up
the destiny of man, simply considered as the subject of religion,
faithful or rebellious; and in one generic manner has distributed
happiness and misery, the general feature of passions is given, and no
more.--But had Raphael meditated that subject, he would undoubtedly have
applied to our sympathies for his choice of imagery; he would have
combined all possible emotions with the utmost variety of probable or
real character: a father meeting his son, a mother torn from her
daughter, lovers flying into each other's arms, friends for ever
separated, children accusing their parents, enemies reconciled; tyrants
dragged before the tribunal by their subjects, conquerors hiding
themselves from their victims of carnage; innocence declared, hypocrisy
unmasked, atheism confounded, detected fraud, triumphant resignation;
the most prominent features of connubial, fraternal, kindred
connexion.--In a word, the heads of that infinite variety which Dante
has minutely scattered over his poem--all domestic, politic, religious
relations; whatever is not local in virtue and in vice: and the
sublimity of the greatest of all events, would have been merely the
minister of sympathies and passions.[76]
If opinions be divided on the respective advantages and disadvantages of
these two modes; if to some it should appear, though from consideration
of the plan which guided Michael Angelo I am far from subscribing to
their notions, that the scenery of the Last Judgment might have gained
more by the dramatic introduction of varied pathos, than it would have
lost by the dereliction of its generic simplicity; there can, I believe,
be but one opinion with regard to the methods adopted by him and
Raphael in the invention of the moment that characterises the creation
of Eve: both artists applied for it to their own minds, but with very
different success: the elevation of Michael Angelo's soul, inspired by
the operation of creation itself, furnished him at once with the feature
that stamps on human nature its most glorious prerogative: whilst the
characteristic subtilty, rather than sensibility of Raphael's mind, in
this instance, offered nothing but a frigid succedaneum; a symptom
incident to all, when after the subsided astonishment on a great and
sudden event, the mind recollecting itself, ponders on it with
inquisitive surmise. In Michael Angelo, all self-consideration is
absorbed in the sublimity of the sentiment which issues from the august
Presence that attracts Eve; "her earthly," in Milton's expression, "by
his heavenly overpowered," pours itself in _adoration_: whilst in the
inimitable cast of Adam's figure, we trace the hint of that half
conscious moment when sleep began to give way to the vivacity of the
dream inspired. In Raphael, creation is complete--Eve is presented to
Adam, now awake: but neither the new-born charms, the submissive grace
and virgin purity of the beauteous image: nor the awful presence of her
Introductor, draw him from his mental trance into effusions of love or
gratitude; at ease reclined, with fingers pointing at himself and his
new mate, he seems to methodize the surprising event that took place
during his sleep, and to whisper the words "flesh of my flesh."
Thus, but far better adapted, has Raphael personified _Dialogue_, moved
the lips of _Soliloquy_, unbent or wrinkled the features and arranged
the limbs and gesture of _Meditation_, in the pictures of the Parnassus
and of the school of Athens, parts of the immense allegoric drama that
fills the stanzas, and displays the brightest ornament of the Vatican;
the immortal monument of the towering ambition, unlimited patronage, and
refined taste of Julius II. and Leo X., its cycle represents the origin,
the progress, extent, and final triumph of _church empire_, or
ecclesiastic government; in the first subject, of the Parnassus, Poetry
led back to its origin and first duty, the herald and interpreter of a
first Cause, in the universal language of imagery addressed to the
senses, unites man, scattered and savage, in social and religious bands.
What was the surmise of the eye and the wish of hearts, is gradually
made the result of reason, in the characters of the school of Athens, by
the researches of philosophy, which from bodies to mind, from corporeal
harmony to moral fitness, and from the duties of society, ascends to the
doctrine of God and hopes of immortality. Here revelation in its
stricter sense commences, and conjecture becomes a glorious reality: in
the composition of the Dispute on the Sacrament, the Saviour after
ascension seated on his throne, the attested Son of God and Man,
surrounded by his types, the prophets, patriarchs, apostles and the
hosts of heaven, institutes the mysteries and initiates in his sacrament
the heads and presbyters of the church militant, who in the awful
presence of their Master and the celestial synod, discuss, explain,
propound his doctrine. That the sacred mystery shall clear all doubt and
subdue all heresy, is taught in the miracle of the blood-stained wafer;
that without arms, by the arm of Heaven itself, it shall release its
votaries, and defeat its enemies, the deliverance of Peter, the
overthrow of Heliodorus, the flight of Attila, the captive Saracens,
bear testimony; that Nature itself shall submit to its power and the
elements obey its mandates, the checked conflagration of the Borgo,
declares; till hastening to its ultimate triumphs, its union with the
state, it is proclaimed by the vision of Constantine, confirmed by the
rout of Maxentius, established by the imperial pupil's receiving
baptism, and submitting to accept his crown at the feet of the mitred
pontiff.
Such is the rapid outline of the cycle painted or designed by Raphael on
the compartments of the stanzas sacred to his name. Here is the mass of
his powers in poetic conception and execution; here is every period of
his style, his emancipation from the narrow shackles of Pietro Perugino,
his discriminations of characteristic form, on to the heroic grandeur of
his line. Here is that master-tone of fresco painting, the real
instrument of history, which with its silver purity and breadth unites
the glow of Titiano and Correggio's tints. Everywhere we meet the
superiority of genius, but more or less impressive, with more or less
felicity in proportion as each subject was more or less susceptible of
dramatic treatment. From the bland enthusiasm of the Parnassus, and the
sedate or eager features of meditation in the School of Athens, to the
sterner traits of dogmatic controversy in the dispute of the sacrament,
and the symptoms of religious conviction or inflamed zeal at the mass of
Bolsena. Not the miracle, as we have observed, the fears and terrors of
humanity inspire and seize us at the conflagration of the Borgo: if in
the Heliodorus the sublimity of the vision balances sympathy with
astonishment, we follow the rapid ministers of grace to their revenge,
less to rescue the temple from the gripe of sacrilege, than inspired by
the palpitating graces, the helpless innocence, the defenceless beauty
of the females and children scattered around; and thus we forget the
vision of the labarum, the angels and Constantine in the battle, to
plunge in the wave with Maxentius, or to share the agonies of the father
who recognizes his own son in the enemy he slew.
With what propriety Raphael introduced portrait, though in its most
dignified and elevated sense, into some compositions of the great work
which we are contemplating, I shall not now discuss; the allegoric part
of the work may account for it: he has, however, by its admission,
stamped that branch of painting at once with its essential feature,
character, and has assigned it its place and rank: ennobled by
character, it rises to dramatic dignity; destitute of that, it sinks to
mere mechanic dexterity, or floats, a bubble of fashion. Portrait is to
historic painting in art, what physiognomy is to pathognomy in science;
_that_ shows the character and powers of the being which it delineates,
in its formation and at rest: _this_ shows it in exertion. Bembo,
Bramante, Dante, Gonzaga, Savonarola, Raphael himself may be considered
in the inferior light of mere characteristic ornament; but Julius the
Second authenticating the miracle at the mass of Bolsena, or borne into
the temple, rather to authorize than to witness the punishment inflicted
on its spoiler; Leo with his train calmly facing Attila, or deciding on
his tribunal the fate of the captive Saracens, tell us by their presence
that they are the heroes of the drama, that the action has been
contrived for them, is subordinate to them, and has been composed to
illustrate their character. For as in the epic, act and agent are
subordinate to the maxim, and in pure history are mere organs of the
fact; so the drama subordinates both fact and maxim to the agent, his
character and passion: what in them was end is but the medium here.
Such were the principles on which he treated the beautiful tale of Amor
and Psyche: the allegory of Apuleius became a drama under the hand of
Raphael, though it must be owned, that with every charm of scenic
gradation and lyric imagery, its characters, as exquisitely chosen as
acutely discriminated, exhibit less the obstacles and real object of
affection, and its final triumph over mere appetite and sexual instinct,
than the voluptuous history of his own favourite passion. The faint
light of the maxim vanishes in the splendour which expands before our
fancy the enchanted circle of wanton dalliance and amorous attachment.