When shepherds watched their flocks by night, and the angel appeared,
bringing the tidings of good-will, a new vocation, until then unknown,
was given to men. Tradition has it that one of the earliest of the
followers of the Child born that night was a painter, and in the
pictures of the primitive Dutch and Italian schools a not uncommon
subject is St. Luke painting the Virgin and Child, while in more than
one church in Europe the original(?) picture may be seen. Perhaps the
most notable of these is the beautiful though quaint picture by Rogier
van der Weyden, now in the Old Pinakothek, in Munich. And the
tradition is a pleasant one, showing how early the services of the
painters were enlisted in spreading abroad the new gospel of peace on
earth.
When we consider that, even stripped of divinity, the birth of a
child, its first dawning intelligence, its flower-like tenderness of
aspect, are one and all motives which excite the best that is in man,
there is little wonder that the Christ-child should have been and
should still be the best subject that a painter could demand. In many
forms, in fact, do we of a later day and of less fervent faith
celebrate the beauty of mother and child. How much more ardently,
therefore, in the days when faith and the painter's craft were so
intimately linked, have the painters approached their task. Almost
transfigured to divinity is the woman with the child at her breast
that shines upon us in so many galleries; quite divine in the devout
painter's thought it was as he wrought.
"Fair shines the gilded aureole
In which our highest painters place
Some living woman's simple face."
sings Rossetti; and the "highest painter," pious monk, as in the case
of Fra Angelico, and stately courtier, as was Peter Paul Rubens,
meet, extremes though they are, on the same ground when they approach
this sacred subject. The pictures reproduced here, it may safely be
said, are all celebrated, and yet they represent but a small part of
the pictures of the same subject which are known to be by men of
importance, and of which every museum in the world has a goodly
number. If we add to these the pictures in private collections, and
then take into account the tens of thousands of pictures of the same
subject which, everywhere throughout the world, especially in Europe,
are to be found in the churches, it is safe to say that no other
subject has so often given its inspiration to the painter.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. TITIAN (ITALIAN: BORN 1477; DIED
1576).]
Nor in any other case has a subject given such variety of inspiration.
The elements are few and simple, and though occasionally there are
accessory figures, the concentration of interest, the reason for the
existence of the picture, is centred on the Mother and Child. A survey
of these pages will suffice to show that of these two principal
elements a great variety of pictorial effect, of expression, of
sentiment, of composition of line, and of light and shade, is
possible. We can go back to the splendid Byzantine churches, with
their wealth of mosaic, their subdued splendor of dulled gold covering
arch and pillar as a background for the glow of color with which the
artists of Constantine worked,--in a rigid convention as to form which
gives their figures an impressive air, but which is ill-suited to the
representation of the divine Mother and Child. Hence, in this, the
earliest manifestation of Christian art, it is the remembrance of the
majesty of a prophet, of the benign dignity of the mature Christ, that
I we carry away with us. Giotto, however, had no sooner freed himself
from the hampering conditions under which his predecessors worked,
than we begin to feel the human element enter into art. Down through
the centuries until to-day, the long procession of artists comes to
us: those of Italy first of all, birthplace of modern art, land where
time has touched everything with so reverent a hand that all has been
rendered beautiful.
[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD. MURILLO (SPANISH: BORN 1618?; DIED
1682).
This legion of valiant painters enlisted in the service of "that most
noble Lady and her Son, our Lord and Seigneur," have names which sound
sweet to the ear, as their work is goodly to the sight. Giotto, Era
Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Gentile da Fabriano, Ghirlandajo, names like
the beads of a rosary, commence the list, to which Botticelli,
Perugino, Raffaello Santi, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto,
Correggio, Tiziano, Veronese, and, last of all, with a name like the
blast of a trumpet, the mighty Michael the Archangel, add their
syllabic charm. Then the painters of more northern lands bring the
tribute of their name and work; names less pleasing to the ear, as
their work has less beauty to the sight, but rich, both in name and
work, with honest intent and simple devotion.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD, MURILLO (SPANISH: BORN 1618?; DIED
1682).]
First come the men whose names are those of their works or of their
birthplace: Master William of Cologne, Master of the Death of Mary,
Master of the Holy Companionship. Then the Van Eycks, Hubert and Jan,
Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, Hans Memling, Quentin
Massys, Lucas van Leyden, the two Hans Holbein, elder and younger,
Burgkmair, Wolgemut, and then, master of them all, Albrecht Dürer.
Something of their honesty of purpose must have been mixed with their
pigments, for the works of these fortunate painters of the early Dutch
and German schools shine on us to-day from the gallery walls with
undiminished splendor; and brave with vivid reds, with blues as rich
and deep as an organ chord, and yellows rich as the gold with which
they embroidered their Virgin's robes, their pictures show, with
touching lapses in some of the details, a large technical mastery,
coupled with an intensity of sentiment which has remained
unapproachable.
[Illustration: HOLY FAMILY. NICOLAS POUSSIN (FRENCH: BORN 1594; DIED
1665).]
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. LANDELLE. A LIVING FRENCH PAINTER.]
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. UNKNOWN EARLY FLEMISH PAINTER.]
[Illustration: THE MADONNA WITH THE DIADEM. RAPHAEL (ITALIAN: BORN
1483; DIED 1520).]
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. RUBENS (FLEMISH: BORN 1577; DIED
1640).]
[Illustration: VIRGIN, INFANT JESUS, AND ST. JOHN. BOTTICELLI
(ITALIAN: BORN 1447; DIED 1515).]
[Illustration: THE REPOSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY. CANTARINI (ITALIAN: BORN
1612; DIED 1648).]
The next of these northern painters who can claim the first rank is he
who is in some respects the greatest of all from a painter's
standpoint, Rembrandt van Ryn. There is little of the primitive
Italian here, little of the painter who worships his Madonna through
the medium of his craft as some great lady, "empress of heaven and of
earth." Rembrandt's picture, lacking this mysticism, gains, however,
in humanity; and however far even from our modern point of view it may
be as a creation embodying the divine Motherhood, it throbs with
tenderness. The homely interior, the good mother, the almost pathetic
_abandon_ of the sleeping child--surely no painter ever wrought
better, nor, we may be sure, more devoutly!
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. P.A.J. DAGNAN-BOUVERET, A LIVING
FRENCH PAINTER.]
Then the giant Peter Paul Rubens, with his facile brush, his acres of
canvas, covered with the virile arabesque by which he has transmitted
to us the record of a temperament so full of life that it needs no
great effort of imagination, before one of his crowded canvases, to
imagine the doughty Fleming back in our midst, and taking his place as
Jupiter upon his painted Olympus, reawakened to life. Yet, when he in
turn approaches this natal subject, his pagan brush touches the
canvas lightly, and all its deftness is given to the praise of Our
Lady and Our Lord. With him, as with the painters of all and differing
nationalities, both Mother and Child bear the strong impress of the
painter's surroundings. It is as though the miraculous birth had, by
some mysterious dispensation, taken place in each of the countries of
the world, the better to insure the comprehension of the message of
divine love to all peoples.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. N. BARABINO, A LIVING ITALIAN
PAINTER.]
[Illustration: HOLY FAMILY. SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK (FLEMISH: BORN 1599;
DIED 1641).]
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. CARLO DOLCI (ITALIAN: BORN 1616; DIED
1686).]
[Illustration: HOLY FAMILY. BONIFAZIO (ITALIAN: BORN 1494; DIED
1563).]
With Van Dyck, a little later, the Child is a young patrician; the
quality of the painter's imagination, influenced by his frequentation
of the princes of the earth, making him conceive the young Christ as a
magnificent man-child, fit to be called later to the high places of
the world, a serene and noble leader.
Somewhat differently did the Italians of the great epoch of painting,
Raphael, Titian, Veronese, even Bellini, who was earlier, conceive
their subject. While both Mother and Child with them were merely what
painters call a "bit" of painting, directly founded on close study of
a living woman and child, there was always present a religious
feeling, different, but almost as intense as that of the primitive
Italian painters. Throughout the many Madonnas on which the fame of
Raphael is founded we feel that, through a certain variety of type,
the research was always the same--a desire to realize the maid-mother,
and to presage, in the lineaments of the child, his future character.
This sentiment, everywhere present, is approached reverently, and the
too short-lived painter in his work at least utters a constant prayer.
With Bellini, with Titian, and with Veronese the effort is not
dissimilar, though something of the sumptuosity of Venetian life has
crept in, and it is to a queen of earth as much as of heaven, and to a
prince of the church temporal, that their service is rendered.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. N. BARABINO, A LIVING ITALIAN
PAINTER.]
In the Spanish pictures, particularly those of earlier date than any
Spanish picture reproduced here, we feel the strong impress of the
Church. In the picture by Alonso Cano there looks out from the eyes of
the Mother the sentiment of the cloistered nun; and though, with the
Murillos, we catch a glimpse of Spain outside of the Church, even with
him there is a sense of subjection from which the memories of the
Inquisition are not altogether absent.
[Illustration: LA VIERGE AU COUSSIN VERT--MADONNA OF THE GREEN
CUSHION. ANDREA DA SOLARIO (ITALIAN: BORN 1458; DIED 1530).]
[Illustration: LA VIERGE AUX CERISES--MADONNA OF THE CHERRIES.
ANNIBALE CARRACCI (ITALIAN: BORN 1560; DIED 1609).]
[Illustration: JESUS ASLEEP. L. DESCHAMPS, A LIVING FRENCH PAINTER.]
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. S.H. LYBAERT, A LIVING GERMAN
PAINTER.]
Our modern art has become so complex, the demands on the modern
painter are so different from those which the older masters met, that
our latter-day painting offers fewer examples of the Mother and Child.
Dagnan-Bouveret, in France, however, has treated the subject in such a
way as to show that there yet remains new presentations of the
world-old theme. To-day the painter has to retain the sentiment of his
subject through a network of technical difficulties, and the gracious
virginal figure which Monsieur Dagnan-Bouveret has painted does this
measurably well; while he has triumphed technically in painting a
figure in white, lit by reflected light filtered through a network of
green leaves. Another picture of the Virgin and Child, where the
outline of the Child is seen through the cloak by which his mother
shelters him, was exhibited not long ago in New York, and is
reproduced here.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. E. VAN HOVE, A LIVING FRENCH
PAINTER.]
[Illustration: THE HOLY NIGHT. F. ROEBER, A LIVING GERMAN PAINTER.]
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD. ITALIAN SCHOOL OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY; ARTIST UNKNOWN.]
[Illustration: THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. SPAGNOLETTO (SPANISH: BORN
1588; DIED 1656).]
[Illustration: THE MADONNA OF THE TEMPI FAMILY. RAPHAEL (ITALIAN: BORN
1483; DIED 1520).]
[Illustration: HOLY FAMILY. REMBRANDT (DUTCH: BORN 1607; DIED 1669).]
In Italy, sadly fallen from her former greatness in art, many painters
render their service to the Church and to their ancient faith, and
there are numerous pictures of the divine Mother and Child. The best
of these, however, are characterized by novel arrangement of the
figures rather than by any sentiment in keeping with theme--a
criticism applicable also to most the modern French examples. Modern
Germany gains in sentiment while losing decidedly in pictorial value,
and it is a question whether it is possible, in these times, to avoid
a mere repetition of what has already been so well done, and produce
more than a picture which, with pictorial and technical qualities, is
laboring in the messages of "peace on earth, good-will to men."
[Illustration: MADONNA, INFANT JESUS, AND ST. JOHN. VOUET (FRENCH:
BORN 1590; DIED 1649).]
[Illustration: LA VIERGE À LA GRAPPE--MADONNA OF THE GRAPES. PIERRE
MIGNARD (FRENCH: BORN 1610; DIED 1695).]
[Illustration: LA VIERGE AU LAPIN--MADONNA OF THE RABBIT. TITIAN
(ITALIAN: BORN 1477; DIED 1576).]
[Illustration: THE FOND MOTHER. GABRIEL GUAY, A LIVING FRENCH
PAINTER.]
[Illustration: ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.