Straws Show which Way the Wind Blows.
_Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory
For daring so much before they well did it_.
--BROWNING.
[Illustration: SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE.]
It was a charming morning in early November when Mr. Sumner and his
little company of students of Florentine art gathered before the broad
steps which lead up to the entrance of Santa Maria Novella. The Italian
sky, less soft than in midsummer, gleamed brightly blue. The square
tower of the old Fiesole Cathedral had been sharply defined as they
turned to look at it when leaving their home; and Giotto's Campanile, of
which they had caught a glimpse on their way hither, shone like a white
lily in the morning sunlight. The sweet, invigorating air, the bustle of
the busy streets, the happiness of youth and pleasant expectancy caused
all hearts to beat high, and it was a group of eager faces that turned
toward the grand old church whose marble sides show the discoloration of
centuries.
At Mr. Sumner's invitation all sat on the steps in a sunny corner while
he talked of Cimabue,--the first great name in the history of Italian
painting,--the man who was great enough to dare attempt to change
conditions that existed in his time, which was the latter part of the
thirteenth century. He told them how, though a nobleman possessing
wealth and honor, he had loved painting and had given his life to it;
and how, having been a man arrogant of all criticism, he was fitted to
be a pioneer; to break from old traditions, and to infuse life into the
dead Byzantine art.
He told them how the people, ever quick to feel any change, were
delighted to recognize, in a picture, life, movement, and expression,
however slight. How, one day six hundred years ago, a gay procession,
with banners and songs, bore a large painting, the _Madonna and Child_,
from the artist's studio, quite a distance away, through the streets and
up to the steps on which they were sitting; and how priests chanting
hymns and bearing church banners came out to receive the picture.
"And through all these centuries it has here remained," he continued.
"It is, of course, scarred by time and dark with the smoke of incense.
When you look upon it I wish you would remember what I told you the
other evening about that for which we should look in a picture. Be
sympathetic. Put yourself in old Cimabue's place and in that of the
people who had known only such figures in painting as the _Magdalen_ you
saw last week in the Academy. Then, though these figures are so stiff
and almost lifeless, though the picture is Byzantine in character, you
will see beyond all this a faint expression in the Madonna's face, a
little life and action in the Christ-child, who holds up his tiny hand
in blessing.
"If you do not look for this you may miss it,--miss all that which gives
worth to Cimabue and his art. As thoughtful a mind as that of our own
Hawthorne saw only the false in it, and missed the attempt for truth;
and so said he only wished 'another procession would come and take the
picture from the church, and reverently burn it.' Ah, Malcom, I see your
eyes found that in your reading, and you thought in what good company
you might be."
"What kind of painting is it?" queried Barbara, as a few minutes later
they stood in the little chapel, and looked up at Cimabue's quaint
_Madonna and Child_.
"It is called _tempera_, and is laid upon wood. In this process the
paints are mixed with some glutinous substance, such as the albumen of
eggs, glue, etc., which causes them to adhere to the surface on which
they are placed."
"What do you think was the cause of Cimabue's taking such an advance
step, Mr. Sumner?" asked Howard Sinclair, after a pause, during which
all studied the picture.
"It must have been a something caught from the spirit of the time. A
stir, an awakening, was taking place in Italy. Dante and Petrarch were
in a few years to think and write. The time had come for a new art."
"I do see the difference between this and those Academy pictures," said
Bettina, "even though it is so queer, and painted in such colors."
"And I," "And I," quickly added Barbara and Margery.
"I think those angels' faces are interesting," continued Barbara. "They
are not all just alike, but look as if each had some thought of his own.
They seem proud of their burden as they hold up the Madonna and Child."
"Oh, nonsense, Barbara! you are putting too much imagination in there,"
exclaimed Malcom. "I think old Cimabue did do something, but it is an
awfully bad picture, after all. There is one thing, though; it is not so
flat as that Academy _Magdalen_. The child's head seems round, and I do
think his face has a bit of expression."
So they looked and chatted on, and took little note of coming and going
tourists, who glanced with curiosity from them to the old dark picture
above, and then back to the fresh, eager, beautiful faces,--the greater
part ever finding in the latter the keener attraction.
"I always have one thought when I look at this," finally said Mr.
Sumner, "that perhaps will be interesting to you, and linger in your
minds. This _Madonna and Child_ seems to form a link and also to mark a
division between all those which went before it in Christian art and all
those that have followed. It is the last Byzantine Madonna and is the
first of the long, noble list which has come from the hands of artists
who have lived since the thirteenth century.
"We will not stay here longer now, for I know you will come again more
than once to study it. There is much valuable historic art in this
church which you will understand better when you have learned more.
Yonder in the Strozzi Chapel is some of the very best work of an old
painter called Orcagna, while here in the choir are notable frescoes by
Ghirlandajo; but now I shall take you down these steps between the two
into the cloister and there we will talk of Giotto. I know how busy you
have been reading about this wonderful old master, for I could not help
hearing snatches of your talk about him all through the past week. His
figure looms up most important of all among the early painters of
Florence. You know how Cimabue, clad in his scarlet robe and hood,
insignia of nobility, riding out one day to a little town lying on one
of yonder blue hills, found a little, dark-faced shepherd-boy watching
his father's sheep, and amusing himself by drawing a picture of one,
with only a sharp stone for a pencil. Interested in the boy, he took
pains to visit his father and gain his permission to take him as a pupil
to Florence. So Giotto came to begin his art-life. What are you thinking
of, little Margery?"
"Only a bit of Dante's writing which I read with mother the other day,"
said she, blushing. "I was thinking how little Cimabue then thought that
this poor, ignorant shepherd-boy would ever cause these lines to be
written:--
"Cimabue thought to lord it over painting's field:
But now the cry is _Giotto_, and his name's eclipsed."
"Yes, indeed! Giotto did eclipse his master's fame, for he went so much
farther,--but only in the same path, however; so we must not take from
Cimabue any of the honor that is due him. But for Giotto the old
Byzantine method of painting on all gold backgrounds was abolished. This
boy, though born of peasants, was not only gifted with keen powers of
observation of nature and mankind and a devotion to the representation
of things truly as they are, but, beyond and above all this, with one
other quality that made his work of incalculable worth to the people
among whom he painted. This was a delicate appreciation of the true
relations between earthly and spiritual things.
"Before him, as we have seen, all art was most unnatural and
monastic,--utterly destitute of sympathy with the feelings of the common
people. Giotto changed all this. He made the Christ-child a loving baby;
the Madonna a loving mother into whose joy and suffering all mothers'
hearts could enter; angels were servants of men; miracles were wrought
by God because He loved and desired to help men; the pictured men and
women were like themselves because they smiled and grieved and acted
even as they did. All this change Giotto made in the spirit of pictures;
and in the ways of painting he also wrought a complete revolution.
'There are no such things as gold backgrounds in nature,' he said; 'I
will have my people out of doors or in their homes.' And so he painted
the blue sky and rocks and trees and grass, and dressed his men and
women in pure, fresh colors, and represented them as if engaged in home
duties in the house or in the field. He introduced many characters into
his story pictures,--angel visitants, neighbors, wandering shepherds,
and even domestic animals. He brought the art of painting _down_ into
the minds and hearts of all who looked upon them."
"I never have realized until lately," said Barbara, "how painting can be
made a source of education and pleasure to everybody. It is so different
here from what it is at home, especially because the churches are full
of pictures. There we go into the art museums or the galleries of
different art-clubs,--the only places where pictures are to be
found,--and meet only those people that can afford luxuries; and so the
art itself seems a luxury. But here I have seen such poor, sad-looking
people, who seem to forget all their miseries in looking at some
beautiful sacred picture. Only the other day I overheard a poor woman,
whose clothes were wretched and who had one child in her arms and
another beside her, trying to explain a picture to them, and she
lingered and lingered before it, and then turned away with a pleased,
restful face."
"Yes, it is the spirit of pictures and their truth to nature that appeal
to the mass of people here," replied Mr. Sumner, "and so it must be
everywhere. I have been very glad to read in my papers from home that
free art exhibitions have been occasionally opened in the poor quarters
of our cities. Should the movement become general, as I hope it will,
it must work good in more than one direction. Not only could those who
have hitherto been shut out from this means of pleasure and education
receive and profit by it, but the art itself would gain a wholesome
impulse. A new class of critics would be heard--those unversed in
art-parlance--who would not talk of line, tone, color-harmonies and
technique, but would go to the very heart of picture and painter; and I
think the truest artists would listen to them and so gain something.
"But we must get to Giotto again. I have told you what he tried to
paint, but you will see that he could not do all this in the least as if
he had been taught in our art-schools of to-day. How little could
Cimabue teach him! His hills and rocks are parodies of nature. He knew
not how to draw feet, and would put long gowns or stockings on his
people so as to hide his deficiency. He never could make a lying-down
figure look flat. But how he could accomplish all that he did in his
pictures is more than any one can explain.
"We will now look behind this grand tomb at the foot of the stairs and
find two of Giotto's frescoes. There you see the pictures--the _Birth of
the Virgin_ and the _Meeting of St. Joachim and St. Anna_, the father
and mother of the Virgin. Do you know the story of these saints?"
"Yes," answered Malcom, "Betty read it to us last evening, for, you
see, uncle, we had been dipping just a bit, so as not to get below our
depth, into Mr. Ruskin's 'Mornings in Florence'; so we ought to be able
to understand something here, if anywhere, oughtn't we?"
"Well, look and see what you can find! I wonder what will appeal first
to each one of you!"
After a few minutes of complete silence Mr. Sumner said: "Margery dear,
I wonder what you are thinking of?"
"I am thinking, Uncle, that, just as Mr. Ruskin says, I cannot help
seeing the baby in this picture. At whatever part I look my eyes keep
coming back to the dear little thing wrapped up so clumsily, whom the
two nurses are tending so lovingly and with such reverence."
"Yes, my dear, old Giotto knew how to make the chief thing in his
pictures seem to be the most important; something that not all of us
artists of to-day know how to do by any means."
"But the pictures are so queer!" burst forth Malcom. "I do see some of
the fine things of which you speak, Uncle Robert, but there are so many
almost ridiculous things; the shepherds that are following St.
Joachim--do look at the feet of the first one; and the second has on
stockings. I can see the different lines that poor old Giotto drew when
he was struggling over those first feet; I wonder if he put the others
into stockings just to save trying to draw them. And the funny lamb in
the arms of the first shepherd; and the queer, stiff sprigs of grass
which are growing up in all sorts of places! and the angel coming out of
the cloud! and--"
"Do stop, Malcom," cried Bettina, "just here at the angel! Why! I think
he is perfectly beautiful with one hand on St. Joachim's head and the
other on St. Anna's. He is blessing them and drawing them together and
forgiving, all in one."
"And the people, all of them! just look at the people!" cried Barbara,
impetuously. "Each one is thinking of something, and I seem to know what
it is! How could--" But her voice faltered, and stopped abruptly.
"It is not difficult to understand what Howard is thinking of,"
whispered Malcom in Bettina's ear. "Did you see what a look he gave
Barbara? I don't believe she likes it."
Mr. Sumner, turning, surprised the same look in the young man's eyes and
gave a quick, inquiring glance at the fair, flushed face of Barbara. He
felt annoyed, without knowing exactly why. A new and foreign element had
been introduced into the little group, whose influence was not to be
transient.
After a few more words, in which he told them to notice the type of
Giotto's faces--the eyes set near together, their too great length,
though much better in this respect than Cimabue's, and the broad,
rounded chins--they turned away.
"We have seen all we ought to stay here for to-day, and now we will
drive over to Santa Croce. There are also notable frescoes by Giotto in
Assisi, and especially in the Arena Chapel, Padua. Perhaps we may see
them all by and by."
On leaving the church, Bettina looked back, saying:--
"This is the church that Michael Angelo used to call 'his bride.'"
"Used to," laughed Malcom. "You have gone back centuries this morning,
Betty."
"I feel so. I should not be one bit surprised to meet some of these old
artists right here in the Piazza on their way to their work."
"Let us go over to Santa Croce by way of the Duomo, and through Piazza
Signoria, Uncle," said Margery. "I am never tired of those little,
narrow, crooked streets."
"Yes, that will be a good way; for then we shall go right past Giotto's
Campanile, and though you have seen it often you will look upon it with
especial interest just now, when we are studying his work."
At Santa Croce they were to meet Mrs. Douglas by appointment; and as
they pressed on through the broad nave, lined on either side by massive
monuments to Florence's great dead, they espied her at the entrance of
the Bardi Chapel in conversation with a lady whose slender figure and
bright, animated face grew familiar to the young people of the steamship
as they approached; for it was the Miss Sherman whom Barbara and Bettina
had admired so much on the _Kaiser Wilhelm_, and whom, with her father
and sister, they had met once before in this same church.
Coming rapidly forward, Mrs. Douglas introduced her companion.
"She is alone in Florence," she explained to her brother a moment later
when the others had passed on, "for her father has been suddenly
summoned home, and her sister has accompanied him. She is a bright,
charming young woman, who loves art dearly, and I am sure we all shall
like her. I felt drawn to her as we talked together several times on our
way over. I think we must have her with us all we can."
After an hour spent in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels, whose walls are
covered with Giotto's frescoes, the little group separated. Malcom,
Margery, Barbara, and Bettina walked home along the Via dei Pinti, or
Street of the Painters. While the others chatted, Barbara was unusually
silent. She was thinking how much she had learned that morning, and
exulted in the knowledge that there was not quite so vast a difference
between herself and Miss Sherman as existed the last time they met in
Santa Croce.
For Barbara had entered into the study of this subject with an almost
feverish fervor of endeavor. Though she felt there was much to enjoy and
to learn all about her, yet nothing seemed so important as a knowledge
of the old painters and their pictures; and the longing to be able to
think and to speak with some assurance of them haunted her continually.
Bettina sometimes looked at her sister with wonder as she would sit hour
after hour poring over Mr. Sumner's books.
"I always thought _I_ loved pictures best," she thought; "but Bab cares
more for these old ones than I do."