ROME—ITS ART AND ARCHITECTURE.
A Question Asked—Answer Given—Nature as Teacher—Italians
as Pupils—Great Artists—The Inferno—The Cardinal in
Hell—The Pope’s Reply—A Thing of Beauty—The Beloved—The
Transfiguration—Architecture—Marble Men Struggle to
Speak—Resplendent Gems.
“WHAT are the chief features of Rome?” was the second question asked
me by a friend whom I met yesterday. “Art and Architecture,” was the
unhesitating reply. Indeed hesitation was unnecessary; my mind was
already made up on that point, and there can be no question as to the
correctness of the answer.
Nature seems to have implanted a love for Art in the sons of Italy, and
whispered its secrets to them as to no other people. She teaches them
by object lessons. At night she embosoms the moon in her soft blue sky
like a silver crescent in a velvet cushion, and the stars with their
new polished lustre seem to bestud God’s diamond throne. In the morning
the same azure sky is “flecked with blushes and gattled with fire.”
As the Italian at the evening hour stands under the sunny vine, on
the green hillside, looking at the glowing, lighted west through the
molten bars of twilight; as he sees the purple clouds, lying along the
horizon, fade from rich purple to pale blue—from blue to lavender—to
pink—to scarlet—then to banks of molten gold; as he beholds the
imperial splendors of the setting sun “vast mirrored on the sea,”—he
gathers inspiration—his soul catches the fire—the whole scene is
photographed on the landscape of his memory. He there learns how best
to blend his colors, and next day as he stands before his canvas beauty
hangs upon his brush like sparks of livid light.
Angelo, Raphael, and Di Vinci were pupils of Nature. Once upon a time
Socrates, after listening to his pupils discourse on philosophy, arose
and, pointing to them, said: “What greater honor could a teacher ask
than to have such pupils as Plato and Xenophon?” And methinks after
seeing the Final Judgment of the first, The Transfiguration of the
second, and The Last Supper of the third, Nature herself would rise
and, pointing to them with pride, say: “What greater honor could I,
even I, ask than to have such pupils as Angelo, Raphael, and Di Vinci!”
After Dante had written “The Inferno,” the people of Florence as
they saw him walking through the streets, would shrink from him and
whisper, “_That is the man who was in hell_.” “It were impossible,”
they said, “for one to write about the infernal world as Dante did,
without having seen it.” The same thought impresses itself upon one
as he beholds The Final Judgment. One says, “that picture was surely
painted by an eye-witness.” Indeed you see no picture—you see the
final judgment itself. You see Christ as judge, coming on the clouds,
preceded by Gabriel and followed by a legion of angels. You see the
assembled multitude, people from every nation, kindred, tribe and
tongue, standing in the back ground breathless, awaiting the decision
of the Judge. You see the remorse, the anguish, the misery, the woe of
those who are led to the left and hurled headlong into the fiery pit
below! Their expression convinces you that they realize in their hearts
that no rainbow of hope will ever again brighten their skies, no note
of mercy will ever more peal in their ears. You see the pleasure, the
joy, the rapture, the ecstasy, that gladdens the hearts and illuminates
the faces, of those who hear the welcome plaudit—“Well done, good and
faithful servants—enter ye into the joy of your Lord.” After seeing
this picture one can but say: “Michael Angelo saw the final judgment,
and showed it me.”
Soon after this picture was begun, one of the Cardinals of Rome,
objecting to the artist’s design, interfered with the work. Angelo
refused to make any alterations in his plan. The Cardinal demanded a
change, whereupon Angelo gave up the engagement. The Cardinal then sent
for other celebrated artists and requested them to finish the picture.
Each and all of them declared that the work was beyond their scope and
power. They all agreed that Michael Angelo was the only living man
who could finish so perfect a piece of work. The Cardinal now sent
for Angelo but he refused to have any further communication with that
prelate.
Finally the Pope himself interviewed the artist on the subject and
agreed that he might finish the picture according to the first design,
or according to any other design that he might choose. The Pope further
agreed that the artist should not be interfered with in his work, and
when once finished the picture should never be altered or changed. With
this understanding Angelo resumed, and in due time finished, his work.
When the day of exhibition came, thousands of people gathered to see
the picture. When the curtain was drawn aside the astonished multitude
recognized the Cardinal in hell. “In hell he lifted up his eyes.” When
the Cardinal saw himself among the damned his wrath was kindled more
than a little. He went to the Pope in a rage and asked to be rescued.
The Pope replied to the Cardinal, “If you were in purgatory I could get
you out, but you know that according to the Catholic faith, when a man
is once in hell he has to stay there. I can do nothing for you.” So the
poor Cardinal is in hell—according to the picture.
This wonderful picture sixty-four feet in breadth covers almost the
entire south end of the world-famed Sistine Chapel. This is a private
chapel in the Vatican, the Pope’s palace. “Sistine,” because built by
Sixtus, and famous because of the picture just mentioned, and the
frescoes on the ceiling by the same gifted artist.
These frescoes represent Bible scenes, large as life, impressive
as death, yet beautiful beyond description. The artist begins at a
time when everything is “without form and void.” The first picture
represents God, with motion of his arms, bringing law and order out of
chaos and confusion. In the second, God with outstretched hands creates
the sun and moon. We see the creation of Adam and the formation of
Eve, then the temptation in and expulsion from Eden. Finally we see
the ark floating on the waters with several small boats clinging to
and following after it. Some of the mountain-tops, not yet submerged,
are crowded with terror-stricken multitudes, who, in their excitement,
wildly but vainly stretch out their hands and silently implore Noah
to take them in. Each of these pictures is realistic and life-like.
And yet the entire series is so arranged as sweetly to blend into one
harmonious whole. And whether contemplating one of its parts, or the
scene as a whole, you involuntary exclaim—“It is a thing of beauty,”
and must therefore be “a joy forever.”
Raphael was to the painters of Italy what John was to the Disciples of
Christ, “The Beloved.” I think, too, that as John was the disciple,
so Raphael was the painter “whom Jesus loved.” Though strong and
determined as a man, he was mild and gentle as a woman. He had the
“Sunshine of life” in his heart, and the “look of eternal youth” in
his face. Methinks he was like David, “a man after God’s own heart.”
Such a man could not paint hell. He had not seen it and knew nothing
about it. His mission was to paint angels and innocence, Heaven and
holiness, God and glory; and his fitness for this high calling amounted
almost to divine inspiration. Never did the fires of genius burn more
brightly upon the altar of devotion, than in the breast of Raphael.
Never before, nor since, has divine glory been so perfectly pictured
on canvas as in The Transfiguration. You see Christ at that supreme
moment when “His face did shine as the sun, and His garments were white
as the light.” Moses and Elias, from the other world are there with
their happy hearts, bright faces and glorified bodies. Below them are
Peter, James, and John, reverently bowing to the earth, and shielding
their faces from the light. Above all, but half enveloped in clouds,
you see God the Father whose very expression says: “This is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him.” Hawthorne makes one of his
characters in the _Marble Faun_ say: “It is the spectator’s mood that
transfigures The Transfiguration itself.” This may be—I suppose it
is—true, to some extent, but somehow I was in the mood. I admired this
picture, I sat down before it “until it sank into my heart.” I said:
“Lord, it is good to be here, it seems only one step from Heaven and
Home.”
The beloved painter came to do what the beloved Disciple left undone.
John in his gospel failed to mention the Transfiguration, so Raphael
was sent to fill up the omission with a picture.
While it is true, as stated in the outset, that Art and Architecture
are the chief features of modern Rome, yet Art is of primary, and
Architecture of secondary consideration. Italians build fine houses,
not for the sake of the houses themselves, but that they may display
their “tasteful talents” in ornamenting and decorating them. I speak
especially of churches, from the very fact that the Italians have not,
nor do they want, fine Court-houses and costly Capitol buildings, as
we have. They exercise their taste, and lavish all their wealth and
art upon the churches or cathedrals. There are eighty odd cathedrals
in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary alone. Besides these there are
scores of others dedicated to men, and monks, seraphs, saints and
sinners—one, I believe, a small one, to Christ. Some of these, St.
Peter’s and St. Paul’s especially are reckoned among the finest
cathedrals in existence; and yet the external appearance of these
buildings is not so imposing as one might imagine. It is their interior
that has rendered them famous.
Without entering these palaces of worship, one can have no just
conception of their resplendent glory. They shine with burnished gold.
They glow with pictures. The mirror-like pavements are a mosaic of
rare workmanship. The walls, columns, and arches seem a vast quarry
of precious stones, so rich and costly are the many-colored marbles
with which they are inlaid. Their lofty cornices have flights of
sculptured angels, and white doves bearing green olive branches gemmed
with pearls and emeralds. And within the vaults of the ceiling, and the
swelling interior of the dome, there are frescoes of such brilliancy,
and wrought with such artful perspective, that the sky, peopled with
sainted forms, appears to be opened only a little way above the
spectator.
Any one of the four churches mentioned has at least a dozen altars—St.
Peter’s has twenty-nine—and upon each altar princely fortunes have
been lavished. Each is a marvel of artistic beauty; each glows with
burnished gold, and sparkles with precious stones. The evening sun,
softened and mellowed by the many-colored glass through which it is
reflected, falls like golden fire upon these shrines. The statues
standing around and the angels hovering above the altars seem warmed
into life by this radiant glow; the marble men struggle to speak,
and the sculptured angels spread their wings and try to rise in the
glorified atmosphere. One would naturally think that, in these shrines,
the unspeakable splendor of the whole edifice would be intensified and
gathered to a focus, but not so. It would be true elsewhere, but here
they are of no separate account. They all “melt away into the vast,
sunny breath,” each contributing its little toward “the grandeur of
the whole.”
Imagine “a casket, all inlaid in the inside with precious stones of
various hues, so that there would not be a hair’s breadth of the small
interior unadorned with resplendent gems. Then conceive this minute
wonder of a mosaic box increased to the magnitude of a miniature sky,”
and you have the interior of the greatest structure ever built by the
hands of man, the Cathedral of St. Peter.