I promised some note of Sandro's Fortitude, before whom I asked you to
sit and read the end of my last letter; and I've lost my own notes about
her, and forget, now, whether she has a sword, or a mace;--it does not
matter. What is chiefly notable in her is--that you would not, if you
had to guess who she was, take her for Fortitude at all. Everybody
else's Fortitudes announce themselves clearly and proudly. They have
tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets--and stand firm astride on
their legs,--and are confidently ready for all comers. Yes;--that is
your common Fortitude. Very grand, though common. But not the highest,
by any means.
Ready for all comers, and a match for them,--thinks the universal
Fortitude;--no thanks to her for standing so steady, then!
But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that are
coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing
ready for all comers, she is sitting,--apparently in reverie, her
fingers playing restlessly and idly--nay, I think--even nervously, about
the hilt of her sword.
For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yesterday. Many
a morn and eve have passed since it began--and now--is this to be the
ending day of it? And if this--by what manner of end?
That is what Sandro's Fortitude is thinking. And the playing fingers
about the sword-hilt would fain let it fall, if it might be: and yet,
how swiftly and gladly will they close on it, when the far-off trumpet
blows, which she will hear through all her reverie!
There is yet another picture of Sandro's here, which you must look
at before going back to Giotto: the small Judith in the room next the
Tribune, as you return from this outer one. It is just under Lionardo's
Medusa. She is returning to the camp of her Israel, followed by her maid
carrying the head of Holofernes. And she walks in one of Botticelli's
light dancing actions, her drapery all on flutter, and her hand, like
Fortitude's, light on the sword-hilt, but daintily--not nervously, the
little finger laid over the cross of it.
And at the first glance--you will think the figure merely a piece of
fifteenth-century affectation. 'Judith, indeed!--say rather the daughter
of Herodias, at her mincingest.'
Well, yes--Botticelli _is_ affected, in the way that all men in that
century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of manner,
much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force of
imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about, just as
Correggio does. But he never does it like Correggio, without cause.
Look at Judith again,--at her face, not her drapery,--and remember that
when a man is base at the heart, he blights his virtues into weaknesses;
but when he is true at the heart, he sanctifies his weaknesses into
virtues. It is a weakness of Botticelli's, this love of dancing motion
and waved drapery; but why has he given it full flight here?
Do you happen to know anything about Judith yourself, except that she
cut off Holofernes' head; and has been made the high light of about a
million of vile pictures ever since, in which the painters thought they
could surely attract the public to the double show of an execution,
and a pretty woman,--especially with the added pleasure of hinting at
previously ignoble sin?
When you go home to-day, take the pains to write out for yourself, in
the connection I here place them, the verses underneath numbered from
the book of Judith; you will probably think of their meaning more
carefully as you write.
Begin thus:
"Now at that time, Judith heard thereof, which was the daughter of
Merari, ... the son of Simeon, the son of Israel." And then write out,
consecutively, these pieces--
Chapt. viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always inclusive,) and read the whole
chapter.
Chapt. ix., verses 1 and 5 to 7, beginning this piece with the previous
sentence, "Oh God, oh my God, hear me also, a widow."
Chapt. ix., verses 11 to 14. Chapter x., verses 1 to 5. Chapter xiii.,
verses 6 to 10. Chapter xv., verses 11 to 13. Chapter xvi., verses 1
to 6. Chapter xvi., verses 11 to 15. Chapter xvi., verses 18 and 19.
Chapter xvi., verses 23 to 25.
Now, as in many other cases of noble history, apocryphal and other, I do
not in the least care how far the literal facts are true. The conception
of facts, and the idea of Jewish womanhood, are there, grand and real as
a marble statue,--possession for all ages. And you will feel, after you
have read this piece of history, or epic poetry, with honourable care,
that there is somewhat more to be thought of and pictured in Judith,
than painters have mostly found it in them to show you; that she is not
merely the Jewish Delilah to the Assyrian Samson; but the mightiest,
purest, brightest type of high passion in severe womanhood offered to
our human memory. Sandro's picture is but slight; but it is true to her,
and the only one I know that is; and after writing out these verses, you
will see why he gives her that swift, peaceful motion, while you read
in her face, only sweet solemnity of dreaming thought. "My people
delivered, and by my hand; and God has been gracious to His handmaid!"
The triumph of Miriam over a fallen host, the fire of exulting mortal
life in an immortal hour, the purity and severity of a guardian
angel--all are here; and as her servant follows, carrying indeed the
head, but invisible--(a mere thing to be carried--no more to be so much
as thought of)--she looks only at her mistress, with intense, servile,
watchful love. Faithful, not in these days of fear only, but hitherto in
all her life, and afterwards forever.
After you have seen it enough, look also for a little while at
Angelico's Marriage and Death of the Virgin, in the same room; you may
afterwards associate the three pictures always together in your mind.
And, looking at nothing else to-day in the Uffizi, let us go back to
Giotto's chapel.
We must begin with this work on our left hand, the Death of St. Francis;
for it is the key to all the rest. Let us hear first what Mr. Crowe
directs us to think of it. "In the composition of this scene, Giotto
produced a masterpiece, which served as a model but too often feebly
imitated by his successors. Good arrangement, variety of character and
expression in the heads, unity and harmony in the whole, make this an
exceptional work of its kind. As a composition, worthy of the fourteenth
century, Ghirlandajo and Benedetto da Majano both imitated, without
being able to improve it. No painter ever produced its equal except
Raphael; nor could a better be created except in so far as regards
improvement in the mere rendering of form."
To these inspiring observations by the rapturous Crowe, more cautious
Cavalcasella [Footnote: I venture to attribute the wiser note to Signor
Cavalcasella because I have every reason to put real confidence in his
judgment. But it was impossible for any man, engaged as he is, to go
over all the ground covered by so extensive a piece of critical work
as these three volumes contain, with effective attention.] appends a
refrigerating note, saying, "The St. Francis in the glory is new, but
the angels are in part preserved. The rest has all been more or less
retouched; and no judgment can be given as to the colour of this--or any
other (!)--of these works."
You are, therefore--instructed reader--called upon to admire a piece of
art which no painter ever produced the equal of except Raphael; but it
is unhappily deficient, according to Crowe, in the "mere rendering of
form"; and, according to Signor Cavalcasella, "no opinion can be given
as to its colour."
Warned thus of the extensive places where the ice is dangerous, and
forbidden to look here either for form or colour, you are to admire "the
variety of character and expression in the heads." I do not myself know
how these are to be given without form or colour; but there appears to
me, in my innocence, to be only one head in the whole picture, drawn up
and down in different positions.
The "unity and harmony" of the whole--which make this an exceptional
work of its kind--mean, I suppose, its general look of having been
painted out of a scavenger's cart; and so we are reduced to the last
article of our creed according to Crowe,--
"In the composition of this scene Giotto produced a masterpiece."
Well, possibly. The question is, What you mean by 'composition.' Which,
putting modern criticism now out of our way, I will ask the reader to
think, in front of this wreck of Giotto, with some care.
Was it, in the first place, to Giotto, think you, the "composition of
a scene," or the conception of a fact? You probably, if a fashionable
person, have seen the apotheosis of Margaret in Faust? You know what
care is taken, nightly, in the composition of that scene,--how the
draperies are arranged for it; the lights turned off, and on; the
fiddlestrings taxed for their utmost tenderness; the bassoons exhorted
to a grievous solemnity.
You don't believe, however, that any real soul of a Margaret ever
appeared to any mortal in that manner?
_Here_ is an apotheosis also. Composed!--yes; figures high on the right
and left, low in the middle, etc., etc., etc.
But the important questions seem to me, Was there ever a St.
Francis?--_did_ he ever receive stigmata?--_did_his soul go up to
heaven--did any monk see it rising--and did Giotto mean to tell us so?
If you will be good enough to settle these few small points in your mind
first, the "composition" will take a wholly different aspect to you,
according to your answer.
Nor does it seem doubtful to me what your answer, after investigation
made, must be.
There assuredly was a St. Francis, whose life and works you had better
study than either to-day's Galignani, or whatever, this year, may supply
the place of the Tichborne case, in public interest.
His reception of the stigmata is, perhaps, a marvellous instance of
the power of imagination over physical conditions; perhaps an equally
marvellous instance of the swift change of metaphor into tradition; but
assuredly, and beyond dispute, one of the most influential, significant,
and instructive traditions possessed by the Church of Christ. And, that,
if ever soul rose to heaven from the dead body, his soul did so rise, is
equally sure.
And, finally, Giotto believed that all he was called on to represent,
concerning St. Francis, really had taken place, just as surely as you,
if you are a Christian, believe that Christ died and rose again; and he
represents it with all fidelity and passion: but, as I just now said, he
is a man of supreme common sense;--has as much humour and clearness
of sight as Chaucer, and as much dislike of falsehood in clergy, or in
professedly pious people: and in his gravest moments he will still see
and say truly that what is fat, is fat--and what is lean, lean--and what
is hollow, empty.
His great point, however, in this fresco, is the assertion of the
reality of the stigmata against all question. There is not only one St.
Thomas to be convinced; there are five;--one to each wound. Of these,
four are intent only on satisfying their curiosity, and are peering or
probing; one only kisses the hand he has lifted. The rest of the picture
never was much more than a grey drawing of a noble burial service; of
all concerned in which, one monk, only, is worthy to see the soul taken
up to heaven; and he is evidently just the monk whom nobody in the
convent thought anything of. (His face is all repainted; but one can
gather this much, or little, out of it, yet.)
Of the composition, or "unity and harmony of the whole," as a burial
service, we may better judge after we have looked at the brighter
picture of St. Francis's Birth--birth spiritual, that is to say, to his
native heaven; the uppermost, namely, of the three subjects on this side
of the chapel. It is entirely characteristic of Giotto; much of it by
his hand--all of it beautiful. All important matters to be known of
Giotto you may know from this fresco.
'But we can't see it, even with our opera-glasses, but all foreshortened
and spoiled. What is the use of lecturing us on this?'
That is precisely the first point which is essentially Giottesque in
it; its being so out of the way! It is this which makes it a perfect
specimen of the master. I will tell you next something about a work of
his which you can see perfectly, just behind you on the opposite side of
the wall; but that you have half to break your neck to look at this one,
is the very first thing I want you to feel.
It is a characteristic--(as far as I know, quite a universal one)--of
the greatest masters, that they never expect you to look at them; seem
always rather surprised if you want to; and not overpleased. Tell them
you are going to hang their picture at the upper end of the table at the
next great City dinner, and that Mr. So and So will make a speech about
it; you produce no impression upon them whatever, or an unfavourable
one. The chances are ten to one they send you the most rubbishy thing
they can find in their lumber-room. But send for one of them in a hurry,
and tell him the rats have gnawed a nasty hole behind the parlor
door, and you want it plastered and painted over;--and he does you a
masterpiece which the world will peep behind your door to look at for
ever.
I have no time to tell you why this is so; nor do I know why,
altogether; but so it is.
Giotto, then, is sent for, to paint this high chapel: I am not sure if
he chose his own subjects from the life of St. Francis: I think so,--but
of course can't reason on the guess securely. At all events, he would
have much of his own way in the matter.
Now you must observe that painting a Gothic chapel rightly is just the
same thing as painting a Greek vase rightly. The chapel is merely the
vase turned upside-down, and outside-in. The principles of decoration
are exactly the same. Your decoration is to be proportioned to the size
of your vase; to be together delightful when you look at the cup, or
chapel, as a whole; to be various and entertaining when you turn the cup
round; (you turn _yourself_ round in the chapel;) and to bend its heads
and necks of figures about, as it best can, over the hollows, and ins
and outs, so that anyhow, whether too long or too short-possible or
impossible--they may be living, and full of grace. You will also please
take it on my word today--in another morning walk you shall have proof
of it--that Giotto was a pure Etruscan-Greek of the thirteenth century:
converted indeed to worship St. Francis instead of Heracles; but as far
as vase-painting goes, precisely the Etruscan he was before. This is
nothing else than a large, beautiful, coloured Etruscan vase you have
got, inverted over your heads like a diving-bell.' [Footnote: I observe
that recent criticism is engaged in proving all Etruscan vases to be of
late manufacture, in imitation of archaic Greek. And I therefore
must briefly anticipate a statement which I shall have to enforce in
following letters. Etruscan art remains in its own Italian valleys,
of the Arno and upper Tiber, in one unbroken series of work, from
the seventh century before Christ, to this hour, when the country
whitewasher still scratches his plaster in Etruscan patterns. All
Florentine work of the finest kind--Luca della Robbia's, Ghiberti's,
Donatello's, Filippo Lippi's, Botticelli's, Fra Angelico's--is
absolutely pure Etruscan, merely changing its subjects, and representing
the Virgin instead of Athena, and Christ instead of Jupiter. Every line
of the Florentine chisel in the fifteenth century is based on national
principles of art which existed in the seventh century before Christ;
and Angelico, in his convent of St. Dominic, at the foot of the hill of
Fésole, is as true an Etruscan as the builder who laid the rude stones
of the wall along its crest--of which modern civilization has used the
only arch that remained for cheap building stone. Luckily, I sketched it
in 1845. but alas, too carelessly,--never conceiving of the brutalities
of modern Italy as possible.]
Accordingly, after the quatrefoil ornamentation of the top of the bell,
you get two spaces at the sides under arches, very difficult to
cramp one's picture into, if it is to be a picture only; but entirely
provocative of our old Etruscan instinct of ornament. And, spurred by
the difficulty, and pleased by the national character of it, we put
our best work into these arches, utterly neglectful of the public
below,--who will see the white and red and blue spaces, at any rate,
which is all they will want to see, thinks Giotto, if he ever looks down
from his scaffold.
Take the highest compartment, then, on the left, looking towards the
window. It was wholly impossible to get the arch filled with figures,
unless they stood on each other's heads; so Giotto ekes it out with a
piece of fine architecture. Raphael, in the Sposalizio, does the same,
for pleasure.
Then he puts two dainty little white figures, bending, on each flank,
to stop up his corners. But he puts the taller inside on the right,
and outside on the left. And he puts his Greek chorus of observant and
moralizing persons on each side of his main action.
Then he puts one Choragus--or leader of chorus, supporting the main
action--on each side. Then he puts the main action in the middle--which
is a quarrel about that white bone of contention in the centre. Choragus
on the right, who sees that the bishop is going to have the best of it,
backs him serenely. Choragus on the left, who sees that his impetuous
friend is going to get the worst of it, is pulling him back, and trying
to keep him quiet. The subject of the picture, which, after you are
quite sure it is good as a decoration, but not till then, you may be
allowed to understand, is the following. One of St. Francis's three
great virtues being Obedience, he begins his spiritual life by
quarreling with his father. He, I suppose in modern terms I should say,
commercially invests some of his father's goods in charity. His father
objects to that investment; on which St. Francis runs away, taking what
he can find about the house along with him. His father follows to claim
his property, but finds it is all gone, already; and that St. Francis
has made friends with the Bishop of Assisi. His father flies into an
indecent passion, and declares he will disinherit him; on which
St. Francis then and there takes all his clothes off, throws them
frantically in his father's face, and says he has nothing more to
do with clothes or father. The good Bishop, in tears of admiration,
embraces St. Francis, and covers him with his own mantle.
I have read the picture to you as, if Mr. Spurgeon knew anything about
art, Mr. Spurgeon would read it,--that is to say, from the plain, common
sense, Protestant side. If you are content with that view of it, you
may leave the chapel, and, as far as any study of history is concerned,
Florence also; for you can never know anything either about Giotto, or
her.
Yet do not be afraid of my re-reading it to you from the mystic,
nonsensical, and Papistical side. I am going to read it to you--if after
many and many a year of thought, I am able--as Giotto meant it; Giotto
being, as far as we know, then the man of strongest brain and hand in
Florence; the best friend of the best religious poet of the world; and
widely differing, as his friend did also, in his views of the world,
from either Mr. Spurgeon, or Pius IX.
The first duty of a child is to obey its father and mother; as the first
duty of a citizen to obey the laws of his state. And this duty is so
strict that I believe the only limits to it are those fixed by Isaac and
Iphigenia. On the other hand, the father and mother have also a fixed
duty to the child--not to provoke it to wrath. I have never heard this
text explained to fathers and mothers from the pulpit, which is curious.
For it appears to me that God will expect the parents to understand
their duty to their children, better even than children can be expected
to know their duty to their parents.
But farther. A _child's_ duty is to obey its parents. It is never said
anywhere in the Bible, and never was yet said in any good or wise book,
that a man's, or woman's, is. _When,_ precisely, a child becomes a man
or a woman, it can no more be said, than when it should first stand on
its legs. But a time assuredly comes when it should. In great states,
children are always trying to remain children, and the parents wanting
to make men and women of them. In vile states, the children are always
wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep them children.
It may be--and happy the house in which it is so--that the father's at
least equal intellect, and older experience, may remain to the end of
his life a law to his children, not of force, but of perfect guidance,
with perfect love. Rarely it is so; not often possible. It is as natural
for the old to be prejudiced as for the young to be presumptuous; and,
in the change of centuries, each generation has something to judge of
for itself.
But this scene, on which Giotto has dwelt with so great force,
represents, not the child's assertion of his independence, but his
adoption of another Father.
You must not confuse the desire of this boy of Assisi to obey God
rather than man, with the desire of your young cockney Hopeful to have a
latch-key, and a separate allowance.
No point of duty has been more miserably warped and perverted by false
priests, in all churches, than this duty of the young to choose whom
they will serve. But the duty itself does not the less exist; and if
there be any truth in Christianity at all, there will come, for all true
disciples, a time when they have to take that saying to heart, "He that
loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me."
'_Loveth_'--observe. There is no talk of disobeying fathers or mothers
whom you do not love, or of running away from a home where you would
rather not stay. But to leave the home which is your peace, and to be at
enmity with those who are most dear to you,--this, if there be meaning
in Christ's words, one day or other will be demanded of His true
followers.
And there is meaning in Christ's words. Whatever misuse may have been
made of them,--whatever false prophets--and Heaven knows there have
been many--have called the young children to them, not to bless, but to
curse, the assured fact remains, that if you will obey God, there will
come a moment when the voice of man will be raised, with all its holiest
natural authority, against you. The friend and the wise adviser--the
brother and the sister--the father and the master--the entire voice of
your prudent and keen-sighted acquaintance--the entire weight of the
scornful stupidity of the vulgar world--for _once_, they will be against
you, all at one. You have to obey God rather than man. The human race,
with all its wisdom and love, all its indignation and folly, on one
side,--God alone on the other. You have to choose.
That is the meaning of St. Francis's renouncing his inheritance; and
it is the beginning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless this hardest
of deeds be done first,--this inheritance of mammon and the world cast
away,--all other deeds are useless. You cannot serve, cannot obey, God
and mammon. No charities, no obediences, no self-denials, are of any
use, while you are still at heart in conformity with the world. You
go to church, because the world goes. You keep Sunday, because your
neighbours keep it. But you dress ridiculously, because your neighbours
ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece of work, because your
neighbours despise it. You must renounce your neighbour, in his riches
and pride, and remember him in his distress. That is St. Francis's
'disobedience.'
And now you can understand the relation of subjects throughout the
chapel, and Giotto's choice of them.
The roof has the symbols of the three virtues of labour--Poverty,
Chastity, Obedience.
A. Highest on the left side, looking to the window. The life of St.
Francis begins in his renunciation of the world.
B. Highest on the right side. His new life is approved and ordained by
the authority of the church.