THE MADONNA IN THE SKY.
(THE MADONNA IN GLORIA.)
We have seen that the first Madonnas were painted against a background
either of solid gold, or of cherub figures, and that the latter style
of setting was continued in the early pictures of the enthroned
Madonna. The effect was to idealize the subject, and carry it into the
region of the heavenly. This was the germinal idea which grew into the
"Madonna in Gloria."
The glory was originally a sort of nimbus of a larger order,
surrounding the entire figure, instead of merely the head. It was oval
in shape, like the almond or mandorla.
A picture of this class is the famous Madonna della Stella, of Fra
Angelico. It is in a beautiful Gothic tabernacle, which is the sole
ornament of a cell in San Marco, Florence. At every step in these
sacred precincts, we meet some reminder of the Angelic Brother. How
the gray walls blossomed, under his brush, into forms and colors of
eternal beauty! After seeing the larger wall-paintings in corridors
and refectory, this little gem seems to epitomize his choicest gifts.
A rich frame, fit setting for the jewel, encloses an outer circle of
adoring angels, and within, the central panel contains only the full
length figure of the Virgin with her child, against a mandorla formed
of golden rays running from centre to circumference. The Madonna is
enveloped in a long, dark blue cloak, drawn around her head like a
Byzantine veil. A single star gleams above her brow, from which is
derived the title of the picture. She holds her child fondly, and he,
with responsive affection, nestles against his mother, pressing his
little face into her neck. Faithful to the standards of his
predecessors, and untouched by the new spirit of naturalism all about
him, the monk painter preserves, in his conception, the most sacred
traditions of past ages, and yet unites with them an element of love
and tenderness which appeals strongly to every human heart.
[Illustration: FRA ANGELICO.--MADONNA DELLA STELLA.]
It is but a step from this earlier form of the Madonna in Gloria to
the more modern style of the Madonna in the Sky, where the field of
vision is enlarged, and we see the Virgin and child raised above the
surface of the earth. In some pictures, her elevation is very slight.
There is a curious composition, by Andrea del Sarto (Berlin Gallery),
where we are puzzled to know if the Madonna is enthroned or enskied.
A flight of steps in the centre leads up as if to a throne, but above
these the Virgin sits in a niche, on a bank of clouds.
In Correggio's Madonna of St. Sebastian, in the Dresden Gallery, the
Virgin seems to be descending from heaven to earth with her babe, and
the surrounding clouds and cherubs rest literally upon the heads of
the saints who are honored by the vision.
In other pictures the dividing line between earth and heaven is much
more strongly marked. We have a landscape below, then a stratum of
intervening air, and, in the upper sky, the Madonna with her child.
The lower part of the picture is occupied by a company of saints, to
whom the heavenly vision is vouchsafed; or, in rare cases, by cherubs.
The Virgin appears in a cloud of cherub heads, or accompanied by a few
child-angels. There are a few pictures in which her mother, St.
Anne, sits with her. Adoring seraphs sometimes attend, one on each
side, or even sainted personages. All these variations are exemplified
in the pictures which we are to consider.
[Illustration: UMBRIAN SCHOOL.--GLORIFICATION OF THE
VIRGIN.]
The first has come down to us from the hand of some unknown Umbrian
painter. In the National Gallery, London, where it now hangs, it was
once attributed to Lo Spagna, but is now entered in the catalogue as
nameless. It matters little whether or not we know the name of the
master; he could ask no higher tribute to his talent than the
universal admiration which his picture commands.
In the foreground of a quiet Umbrian landscape is a marble balcony, on
the railing of which sit two captivating little boy choristers. One
roguish fellow pipes on a trumpet, while the other, his face
tip-tilted to the heavenly vision, makes music on a small guitar.
Above, on a cloud, sits the Virgin, with the sweet, mystic smile on
her face, so characteristic of Umbrian art. She supports her babe with
her right arm, and in her left hand carries a lily stalk. The child,
standing on his mother's knee and clinging to her neck, turns his face
out with sweet earnestness. In clouds at the side, tiny cherubs bear
tapers, while others, floating above, hold a large crown just over her
head.
Although we cannot limit this style of picture to any special
locality, it appears to have found much favor in the art of Northern
Italy. In the Brescian school, Moretto was unusually fond of the
subject. His treatment of the theme is somewhat heavy; there is little
of the ethereal in his celestial vision, either in the type of
womanhood or in the style of arrangement. In defiance of the law of
gravitation, he poses his upper figures so as to form a solid pyramid,
wide at the base, and tapering abruptly to the apex.
[Illustration: MORETTO.--MADONNA IN GLORY.]
In the glorified Madonna of St. John the Evangelist, Brescia, the
pyramidal effect is accentuated by curtains draped back on either side
of the upper part of the composition. In the Madonna of San Giorgio
Maggiore, at Verona, we have a much more attractive picture. The
"gloria" encompassing the vision is clearly defined, giving so strong
an effect of the supernatural that we cease to judge the composition
by ordinary standards of natural law. The Virgin's white veil flutters
from her head as if caught by some heavenly breeze. Her cloak floats
about her by the same mysterious force, held in graceful festoons by
winged cherub heads.
Below is a group of five virgin martyrs, with St. Cecilia in the
centre, wearing a crown of roses; St. Lucia holds the awl, the
instrument of her torture, looking down at St. Catherine, who leans
against her terrible wheel; St. Agnes, on the other side, reads
quietly from a book while she caresses her lamb, and St. Barbara
stands behind her, with eyes lifted to the sky. They are all splendid
young Amazons, recalling Moretto's fine St. Justina of the Vienna
Gallery. There is no trace of ascetism in their strong, well-developed
figures, and in their faces no suggestion of an unhealthy pietism.
Moretto's ideals were an anticipation of the most advanced ideas of
the modern science of physical culture. His Madonna and saints derive
their beauty neither from over refinement on the one hand, nor from
sensuous charms on the other, but from sane and harmonious
self-development.
The Berlin Gallery contains a third glorified Madonna by the same
painter, treated as a Holy Family. St. Elizabeth sits beside the
Virgin, who holds her own boy on her right side, while bending to
embrace the little St. John with the left arm. So large a group is not
appropriately treated in this way, yet the picture is so fine a work
of art as to disarm criticism.
Still another representative of the Brescian school must be considered
in the person of Savoldo. Born of a noble family, and following
painting as an amusement rather than as an actual profession, his
works are rare, and one of the finest examples of his art is the
Glorification of the Virgin, in the Brera Gallery, at Milan. The
mandorla-shaped glory surrounds the Virgin's figure, studded with
faintly discerned cherub heads. On either side, a musical angel is in
adoration; four saints stand on the earth below. The entire conception
is rendered with the utmost delicacy: the grace and beauty of the
Madonna are of exactly the quality to make her appearance a beatific
vision.
From Brescia we turn to Verona, where we again find many pictures of
the beautiful subject. There are, in the churches of Verona, at least
three notable works, by Gianfrancesco Caroto, in this style. One is in
Sant' Anastasia, another is in San Giorgio, and the third--the
artist's best existing work--is in San Fermo Maggiore, and shows the
Virgin's mother, St. Anne, seated with her in the clouds.
Girolamo dai Libri was a few years younger than Caroto, and at one
period was, to some extent, an imitator of the latter. Beginning as a
miniaturist, he finally attained a high place among the Veronese
artists of the first order. His characteristics can nowhere be seen to
better advantage than in the Madonna of St. Andrew and St. Peter, in
the Verona Gallery. The Virgin is in an oval glory, edged all around
with small, fleecy clouds. She has a beautiful, matronly face, with
abundant hair, smoothly brushed over her forehead. The two apostles,
below, are fine, strong figures, full of virility.
Morando, or Cavazzola, was, doubtless, the most gifted of the older
school of Verona, possessing some of the best qualities of the later
master, Paolo Veronese. We should not leave the school, therefore,
without mentioning a remarkable contribution he added to this class of
pictures in his latest altar-piece. Here the upper air is filled with
a sacred company, the Virgin and child are attended by St. Francis and
St. Anthony, and surrounded by seven allegorical figures to represent
the cardinal virtues. Below are six saints, specially honored in the
Franciscan Order. The picture is called the finest production of the
school in the first quarter of the sixteenth century.
In the Venetian school, Titian and Tintoretto both painted the subject
of the Madonna in glory, but the pictures are not notable compared
with many others from their hands.
From the North of Italy we naturally turn next to the South, to
inquire what Raphael was doing at the same period in Rome. Occupied by
many great works under the papal patronage, he still found time for
his favorite subject of the Madonna, painting some pictures in the
styles already mastered, and two for the first time in the style of
the Madonna in the sky.
[Illustration: SPANISH SCHOOL.--MADONNA ON THE CRESCENT
MOON.]
The first was the Foligno Madonna, now in the Vatican Gallery. It was
painted in 1511 for the pope's secretary, Sigismund Conti, as a
thank-offering for having escaped the danger of a falling meteor at
Foligno. No thoughtful observer can be slow to recognize the
superiority of this composition over all others of its kind in point
of unity. Here is no formal row of saints, each absorbed in his or her
own reflections, apart from any common purpose. On the contrary, all
unite in paying honor to the Queen of Heaven. Not less superior to his
contemporaries was the painter's skill in arranging the figures of
Mother and child with such grace of equilibrium that they seem to
float in the upper air.
In the Sistine Madonna, Raphael carried this form of composition to
the highest perfection. So simple and apparently unstudied is its
beauty, that we do not realize the masterliness of its art. We seem to
be standing before an altar, or, better still, before an open window,
from which the curtains have been drawn aside, allowing us to look
directly into the heaven of heavens. A cloud of cherub faces fills
the air, from the midst of which, and advancing towards us, is the
Virgin with her child. The downward force of gravity is perfectly
counterbalanced by the vital energy of her progress forward. There is
here no uncomfortable sense, on the part of the spectator, that
natural law is disregarded. While the seated Madonna in glory seems
often in danger of falling to earth, this full-length figure in motion
avoids any such solidity of effect.
The figures on either side are also so posed as to arouse no surprise
at their presence. We should have said beforehand that heavy
pontifical robes would be absurdly incongruous in such a composition,
but Raphael solves the problem so simply that few would suspect the
difficulties. The final touch of beauty is added in the cherub heads
below, recalling the naïve charm of the similar figures in the
Umbrian picture we have considered.
[Illustration: BOUGUEREAU.--MADONNA OF THE ANGELS.]
After the time of Raphael, a pretty form of Madonna in glory was
occasionally painted, showing the Virgin with her babe sitting above
the crescent moon. The conception appears more than once in the
paintings of Albert Dürer, and later, artists of all schools adopted
it. Sassoferrato's picture in the Vatican Gallery is a popular
example. Tintoretto's, in Berlin, is not so well known. In the Dresden
Gallery is a work, by an unknown Spanish painter of the seventeenth
century, differing from the others in that the Virgin is standing, as
in the oft-repeated Spanish pictures of the Immaculate Conception.
It is of pictures like this that our poet Longfellow is speaking, when
he thus apostrophizes the Virgin:
"Thou peerless queen of air,
As sandals to thy feet the silver moon dost wear."
The enskied Madonna involves many technical difficulties of
composition, and demands a high order of artistic imagination. It
could hardly be called a frequent subject in the period of greatest
artistic daring, and no modern painter has shown any adequate
understanding of the subject, though there are not lacking those who
have made the attempt. Bodenhausen, Defregger, Bouguereau, have all
followed Raphael in representing the Queen of Heaven as a full-length
figure in the sky; but their conception has not the dignity
corresponding to the style of treatment.
Impatient and dissatisfied with such modern art, we turn back to the
old masters with new appreciation of their great gifts.