Legends of the Madonna as Represented in the Fine Arts Part 12

4. The fourth was painted for the chapel of the Immaculate Conception, in the church of San Biagio, at Forli, and is there still.

Just as the Italian schools of painting were on the decline, the Spanish school of art arose in all its glory, and the "Conception"

became, from the popularity of the dogma, not merely an ecclesiastical, but a popular subject. Not only every church, but almost every private house, contained the effigy either painted or carved, or both, of our Lady "_sin peccado concepida_;" and when the academy of painting was founded at Seville, in 1660, every candidate for admission had to declare his orthodox belief in _the most pure Conception of our Lady_.

The finest Spanish "Conception" before the time of Murillo, is by Roelas, who died in 1625; it is in the academy at Seville, and is mentioned by Mr. Ford as "equal to Guido."[1]

[Footnote 1: Handbook of Spain. A very fine picture of this subject, by Roelas, was sold out of the Soult Collection.]

One of the most beautiful and characteristic, as well as earliest, examples of this subject I have seen, is a picture in the Esterhazy Gallery at Vienna. The Virgin is in the first bloom of girlhood; she looks not more than nine or ten years old, with dark hair, Spanish features, and a charming expression of childlike simplicity and devotion. She stands amid clouds, with her hands joined, and the proper white and blue drapery: there are no accessories. This picture is attributed to an obscure painter, Lazaro Tavarone, of whom I can learn nothing more than that he was employed in the Escurial about 1590.

The beautiful small "Conception" by Velasquez, in the possession of Mr. Frere, is a departure from the rules laid down by Pacheco in regard to costume; therefore, as I presume, painted before he entered the studio of the artist-inquisitor, whose son-in-law he became before he was three and twenty. Here the Virgin is arrayed in a pale violet robe, with a dark blue mantle. Her hands are joined, and she looks down. The solemnity and depth of expression in the sweet girlish face is very striking; the more so, that it is not a beautiful face, and has the air of a portrait. Her long hair flows over her shoulders. The figure is relieved against a bright sun, with fleecy clouds around; and the twelve stars are over her head. She stands on the round moon, of which the upper half is illumined. Below, on earth, and through the deep shadow, are seen several of the emblems of the Virgin--the fountain, the temple, the olive, the cypress, and the garden enclosed in a treillage of roses.[1] This picture is very remarkable; it is in the earliest manner of Velasquez, painted in the bold free style of his first master, Herrara, whose school he quitted when he was about seventeen or eighteen, just at the period when the Pope's ordinance was proclaimed at Seville.

[Footnote 1: v. Introduction: "The Symbols and Attributes of the Virgin."]

Of twenty-five pictures of this subject, painted by Murillo, there are not two exactly alike; and they are of all sizes, from the colossal figure called the "Great Conception of Seville," to the exquisite miniature representation in the possession of Lord Overston, not more than fifteen inches in height. Lord Lansdowne has also a beautiful small "Conception," very simply treated. In those which have dark hair, Murillo is said to have taken his daughter Francisca as a model.

The number of attendant angels varies from one or two, to thirty. They bear the palm, the olive, the rose, the lily, the mirror; sometimes a sceptre and crown. I remember but few instances in which he has introduced the dragon-fiend, an omission which Pacheco is willing to forgive; "for," as he observes, "no man ever painted the devil with good-will."

In the Louvre picture (No. 1124), the Virgin is adored by three ecclesiastics. In another example, quoted by Mr. Stirling (Artists of Spain, p. 839), a friar is seen writing at her feet: this figure probably represents her champion, the friar Duns Scotus. There is at Hampton Court a picture, by Spagnoletto, of this same Duns Scotus writing his defence of the Immaculate Conception. Spagnoletto was painting at Naples, when, in 1618, "the Viceroy solemnly swore, in presence of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, to defend with his life the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception;" and this picture, curious and striking in its way, was painted about the same time.

In Italy, the decline of Art in the seventeenth century is nowhere more apparent, nor more offensive, than in this subject. A finished example of the most execrable taste is the mosaic in St. Peter's, after Pietro Bianchi. There exists, somewhere, a picture of the Conception, by Le Brun, in which the Virgin has no other drapery than a thin, transparent gauze, and has the air of a Venus Meretrix.

In some old French prints, the Virgin is surrounded by a number of angels, defending her with s.h.i.+eld and buckler against demons who are taking aim at her with fiery arrows. Such, and even worse, vagaries and perversities, are to be found in the innumerable pictures of this favourite subject, which inundated the churches between 1640 and 1720.

Of these I shall say no more. The pictures of Guido and Murillo, and the carved figures of Alonzo Cano, Montanez, and Hernandez, may be regarded as authorized effigies of "Our Lady of the most pure Conception;" in other words, as embodying, in the most attractive, decorous, and intelligible form, an abstract theological dogma, which is in itself one of the most curious, and, in its results, one of the most important of the religions phenomena connected with the artistic representations of the Virgin.[1]

[Footnote 1: We often find on pictures and prints of the Immaculate Conception, certain scriptural texts which the theologians of the Roman Church have applied to the Blessed Virgin; for instance, from Ps. xliv. _Omnis gloria ejus filiae regis ab intus_--"The king's daughter is all glorious within;" or from the Canticles, iv. 7, _Tota pulchra es amica mea, et macula non est in te_,--"Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee." I have also seen the texts, Ps.

xxii. 10, and Prov. viii. 22, 28, x.x.xi. 29, thus applied, as well as other pa.s.sages from the very poetical office of the Virgin _In Festo Immaculatae Conceptionis_.]

We must be careful to discriminate between the Conception, so styled by ecclesiastical authority, and that singular and mystical representation which is sometimes called the "Predestination of Mary,"

and sometimes the "Litanies of the Virgin." Collectors and writers on art must bear in mind, that the former, as a subject, dates only from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the latter from the beginning of the sixteenth. Although, as representations, so very similar, yet the intention and meaning are different. In the Conception it is the sinless Virgin in her personal character, who is held up to reverence, as the purest, wisest, holiest, of created beings. The earlier theme involves a yet more recondite signification.

It is, undoubtedly, to be regarded as an attempt on the part of the artist to express, in a visible form, the idea or promise of the redemption of the human race, as existing in the Sovereign Mind before the beginning of things. They do not personify this idea under the image of Christ,--for they conceived that, as the second person of the Trinity, he could not be his own instrument,--but by the image of Mary surrounded by those attributes which were afterwards introduced into the pictures of the Conception: or setting her foot, as second Eve, on the head of the prostrate serpent. Not seldom, in a series of subjects from the Old Testament, the _pendant_ to Eve holding the apple is Mary crus.h.i.+ng the head of the fiend; and thus the "bane and antidote are both before us." This is the proper interpretation of those effigies, so prevalent in every form of art during the sixteenth century, and which are often, but erroneously, styled the Immaculate Conception.

The numerous heads of the Virgin which proceeded from the later schools of Italy and Spain, wherein she appears neither veiled nor crowned, but very young, and with flowing hair and white vesture, are intended to embody the popular idea of the _Madonna purissima_, of "the Virgin most pure, conceived without sin," in an abridged form.

There is one by Murillo, in the collection of Mr. Holford; and another by Guido, which will give an idea of the treatment.

Before quitting the subject of the Immaculate Conception. I must refer to a very curious picture[1] called an a.s.sumption, but certainly painted at least one hundred years before the Immaculate Conception was authorized as a Church subject.

[Footnote 1: Once in the collection of Mr. Solly, and now in the possession of Mr. Bromley of Wootten.]

From the year 1496, when Sixtus IV. promulgated his Bull, and the Sorbonne put forth their famous decree,--at a time when there was less of faith and religious feeling in Italy than ever before,--this abstract dogma became a sort of watchword with theological disputants; not ecclesiastics only, the literati and the reigning powers took an interest in the controversy, and were arrayed on one side or the other. The Borgias, for instance, were opposed to it. Just at this period, the singular picture I allude to was painted by Girolamo da Cotignola. It is mentioned by Lanzi, but his account of it is not quite correct.

Above, in glory, is seen the _Padre Eterno_, surrounded by cherubim bearing a scroll, on which is inscribed, "_Non enim pro te sed pro omnibus hec lex const.i.tutura est._"[1] Lower down the Virgin stands on clouds, with hands joined, and attired in a white tunic embroidered with gold, a blue mantle lined with red, and, which is quite singular and unorthodox, _black shoes_. Below, on the earth, and to the right, stands a bishop without a glory, holding a scroll, on which is inscribed, "_Non puto vere esse amatorem Virginis qui respuit celebrare Festum suae Conceptionis_;" on the left is St. Jerome. In the centre are three kneeling figures: on one side St. Catherine (or perhaps Caterina Sforza in the character of St. Catherine, for the head looks like a portrait); on the other an elderly woman, Ginevra Tiepolo, widow of Giovanni Sforza, last prince of Pesaro; [2] between them the little Costanzo Sforza, looking up with a charming devout expression. [3] Underneath is Inscribed, "JUNIPERA SFOSTIA PATRIA A MARITO RECEPTA. EXVOTO MCCCCCXII." Giovanni Sforza had been dispossessed of his dominions by the Borgias, after his divorce from Lucrezia, and died in 1501. The Borgias ceased to reign in 1512; and Ginevra, apparently restored to her country, dedicated this picture, at once a memorial of her grat.i.tude and of her faith. It remained over the high-altar of the Church of the Serviti, at Pesaro, till acquired by Mr. Solly, from whom it was purchased by Mr. Bromley. [4]

[Footnote 1: From the Office of the Blessed Virgin.]

[Footnote 2: This Giovanni was the first husband of Lucrezia Borgia.]

[Footnote 3: Lanzi calls this child Costanzo II., prince of Pesaro.

Very interesting memoirs of all the personages here referred to may be found in Mr. Dennistoun's "Dukes of Urbino."]

[Footnote 4: Girolamo Marchesi da Cotignola, was a painter of the Francia school, whose works date from about 1508 to 1550. Those of his pictures which I have seen are of very unequal merit, and, with much feeling and expression in the heads, are often mannered and fantastic as compositions. This agrees with what Vasari says, that his excellence lay in portraiture, for which reason he was summoned, after the battle of Ravenna, to paint the portrait of Caston de Foix, as he lay dead. (See Vasari, _Vita di Bagnacavallo_; and in the English trans., vol. iii. 331.) The picture above described, which has a sort of historical interest, is perhaps the same mentioned in Murray's Handbook (Central Italy, p. 110.) as an _enthroned_ Madonna, dated 1513, and as being in 1843 in its original place over the altar in the Serviti at Pesaro; if so, it is there no longer.]

DEVOTIONAL SUBJECTS.

PART II.

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD.

1. LA VERGINE MADRE DI DIO. 2. LA MA DRE AMABILE.

THE VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

_Lat._ Sancta Dei Genitrix. Virgo Deipara. _Ital._ La Santissima Vergine, Madre di Dio. _Fr._ La Sainte Vierge, Mere de Dieu. _Ger._ Die Heilige Mutter Gottes.

The Virgin in her maternal character opens upon us so wide a field of ill.u.s.tration, that I scarce know where to begin or how to find my way, amid the crowd of a.s.sociations which press upon me. A mother holding her child in her arms is no very complex subject; but like a very simple air constructed on a few expressive notes, which, when harmonized, is susceptible of a thousand modulations, and variations, and accompaniments, while the original _motif_ never loses its power to speak to the heart; so it is with the MADONNA AND CHILD;--a subject so consecrated by its antiquity, so hallowed by its profound significance, so endeared by its a.s.sociations with the softest and deepest of our human sympathies, that the mind has never wearied of its repet.i.tion, nor the eye become satiated with its beauty. Those who refuse to give it the honour due to a religious representation, yet regard it with a tender half-unwilling homage; and when the glorified type of what is purest, loftiest, holiest in womanhood, stands before us, arrayed in all the majesty and beauty that accomplished Art, inspired by faith and love, could lend her, and bearing her divine Son, rather enthroned than sustained on her maternal bosom, "we look, and the heart is in heaven!" and it is difficult, very difficult, to refrain from an _Ora pro n.o.bis_. But before we attempt to cla.s.sify these lovely and popular effigies, in all their infinite variety, from the enthroned grandeur of the Queen of Heaven, the SANCTA DEI GENITRIX, down to the peasant mother, swaddling or suckling her infant; or to interpret the innumerable shades of significance conveyed by the attendant accessories, we must endeavour to trace the representation itself to its origin.

This is difficult. There exists no proof, I believe, that the effigies of the Virgin with the infant Christ in her arms, which existed before the end of the fifth century, were placed before Christian wors.h.i.+ppers as objects of veneration. They appear to have been merely groups representing a particular incident of the New Testament, namely, the adoration of the Magi; for I find no other in which the mother is seated with the infant Christ, and this is an historical subject of which we shall have to speak hereafter. From the beginning of the fourth century, that is, from the time of Constantine and the condemnation of Arius, the popular reverence for the Virgin, the Mother of Christ, had been gaining ground; and at the same time the introduction of images and pictures into the places of wors.h.i.+p and into the houses of Christians, as ornaments on gla.s.s vessels and even embroidered on garments and curtains, became more and more diffused, (v. Neander's Church History.)

The earliest effigies of the Virgin and Child may be traced to Alexandria, and to Egyptian influences; and it is as easily conceivable that the time-consecrated Egyptian myth of Isis and Horus may have suggested the original type, the outward form and the arrangement of the maternal group, as that the cla.s.sical Greek types of the Orpheus and Apollo should have furnished the early symbols of the Redeemer as the Good Shepherd; a fact which does not rest upon supposition, but of which the proofs remain to us in the antique Christian sculptures and the paintings in the catacombs.

The most ancient Greek figures of the Virgin and Child have perished; but, as far as I can learn, there is no evidence that these effigies were recognized by the Church as sacred before the beginning of the sixth century. It was the Nestorian schism which first gave to the group of the Mother bearing her divine Son that religious importance and significance which it has ever since retained in Catholic countries.

The divinity of Christ and his miraculous conception, once established as articles of belief, naturally imparted to Mary, his mother, a dignity beyond that of other mothers her Son was G.o.d; therefore the t.i.tle of MOTHER OF G.o.d was a.s.signed to her. When or by whom first brought into use, does not appear; but about the year 400 it became a popular designation.

Nestorias, patriarch of Constantinople in 428, had begun by persecuting the Arians; but while he insisted that in Jesus were combined two persons and two natures, he insisted that the Virgin Mary was the mother of Christ considered as _man_, but not the mother of Christ considered as _G.o.d_; and that, consequently, all those who gave her the t.i.tle of _Dei Genitrix_, _Deipara_,[1] were in error. There were many who adopted these opinions, but by a large portion of the Church they were repudiated with horror, as utterly subverting the doctrine of the mystery of the Incarnation. Cyril of Alexandria opposed Nestorius and his followers, and defended with zealous enthusiasm the claims of the Virgin to all the reverence and wors.h.i.+p due to her; for, as he argued, the two natures being one and indivisible from the moment of the miraculous conception, it followed that Mary did indeed bring forth G.o.d,--was, in fact, the mother of G.o.d; and, all who took away from her this dignity and t.i.tle were in error, and to be condemned as heretics.

[Footnote 1: The inscription on the Greek and Byzantine pictures is actually [Greek: MAeR ThU] ([Greek: Mhaetaer Theos]).]

I hope I shall not be considered irreverent in thus plainly and simply stating the grounds of this celebrated schism, with reference to its influence on Art; an influence incalculable, not only at the time, but ever since that time; of which the manifold results, traced from century to century down to the present hour, would remain quite unintelligible, unless we clearly understood the origin and the issue of the controversy.

Cyril, who was as enthusiastic and indomitable as Nestorius, and had the advantage of taking the positive against the negative side of the question, anathematized the doctrines of his opponent, in a synod held at Alexandria in 430, to which Pope Celestine II gave the sanction of his authority. The emperor Theodosius II then called a general council at Ephesus in 431, before which Nestorius refused to appear, and was deposed from his dignity of patriarch by the suffrages of 200 bishops.

But this did not put an end to the controversy; the streets of Ephesus were disturbed by the brawls and the pavement of the cathedral was literally stained with the blood of the contending parties Theodosius arrested both the patriarchs; but after the lapse of only a few days, Cyril triumphed over his adversary: with him triumphed the cause of the Virgin. Nestorius was deposed and exiled; his writings condemned to the flames; but still the opinions he had advocated were adopted by numbers, who were regarded as heretics by those who called themselves "the Catholic Church."

The long continuance of this controversy, the obstinacy of the Nestorians, the pa.s.sionate zeal of those who held the opposite doctrines, and their ultimate triumph when the Western Churches of Rome and Carthage declared in their favour, all tended to multiply and disseminate far and wide throughout Christendom those images of the Virgin which exhibited her as Mother of the G.o.dhead. At length the ecclesiastical authorities, headed by Pope Gregory the Great, stamped them as orthodox: and as the cross had been the primeval symbol which distinguished the Christian from the Pagan, so the image of the Virgin Mother with her Child now became the symbol which distinguished the Catholic Christian from the Nestorian Dissenter.

Thus it appears that if the first religious representations of the Virgin and Child were not a consequence of the Nestorian schism, yet the consecration of such effigies as the visible form of a theological dogma to the purposes of wors.h.i.+p and ecclesiastical decoration must date from the Council of Ephesus in 431; and their popularity and general diffusion throughout the western Churches, from the pontificate of Gregory in the beginning of the seventh century.

In the most ancient of these effigies which remain, we have clearly only a symbol; a half figure, veiled, with hands outspread, and the half figure of a child placed against her bosom, without any sentiment, without even the action of sustaining him. Such was the formal but quite intelligible sign; but it soon became more, it became a representation. As it was in the East that the cause of the Virgin first triumphed, we might naturally expect to find the earliest examples in the old Greek churches; but these must have perished in the furious onslaught made by the Iconoclasts on all the sacred images. The controversy between the image-wors.h.i.+ppers and the image-breakers, which distracted the East for more than a century (that is, from 726 to 840), did not, however, extend to the west of Europe. We find the primeval Byzantine type, or at least the exact reproduction of it, in the most ancient western churches, and preserved to us in the mosaics of Rome, Ravenna, and Capua. These remains are nearly all of the same date, much later than the single figures of Christ as Redeemer, and belonging unfortunately to a lower period and style of art. The true significance of the representation is not, however, left doubtful; for all the earliest traditions and inscriptions are in this agreed, that such effigies were intended as a confession of faith; an acknowledgment of the dignity of the Virgin Mary, as the "SANCTA DEI GENITRIX;" as a visible refutation of "the infamous, iniquitous, and sacrilegious doctrines of Nestorius the Heresiarch."[1]