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NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLXIX.-FEBRUARY, 1881.-VOL. LXII.

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THE ENTOMBMENT.-GIOTTO.-FROM THE CHAPEL OF THE ARENA, AT PADUA.-[SEE PAGE 327.]

THE

THE GOSPEL HISTORY IN ITALIAN PAINTING.

HE early Christian Church, when it first awoke to consciousness of organic life, found the arts of sculpture and painting already bound to the service of a corrupt paganism, glorifying the worship of false gods and the practice of moral impurities. In the severity of their first recoil from the heathen life the Christians were ready to hate and mistrust all that

had been connected with it. It was natural, therefore, that they should be hostile to the fine arts, and use them not at all, or very sparingly, for religious purposes. But the native impulse which drives man to embody his religious ideas and feelings in beautiful forms could not long be resisted, especially among a people so artloving as the Italians. In the very first

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by Harper and Brothers, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

VOL. LXII.-No. 369.-21

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THE GOOD SHEPHERD.-MOSAIC FROM THE MAUSOLEUM OF PLACIDIA, AT RAVENNA.

centuries of the Christian era the spirit of sacred art sought and found an outlet in painting, and growing by what it wrought, drew into its service the noblest thought and the most patient labor of Italian genius, until at last it has made the walls of every church and palace glow with its creations. It would be impossible to trace, even in outline, the unfolding of this art, within the limits of an essay; but if we narrow the subject, and follow a single line through the history of Italian painting, it may help us to understand something both of the art and of the religious sentiment which it embodied.

The Gospel history, supplemented by the Acts of the Apostles, and enlarged by the legends of the Church, has always been a favorite treasury of themes for the painter. What Lessing says of the story of Passion - Week is almost true of the whole record. "It is hardly possible to insert the point of a pin into it without touching a passage which has employed a crowd of the greatest artists."* If, then, we trace this history through the different periods of Italian painting, we shall find ourselves studying the work of the greatest masters, and that, too, in connection with subjects which reveal the innermost qualities of the artist.

Three methods may be distinguished in the treatment of the Gospel history by

*Laocoon, & xiv.

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Italian painters. Each of these methods is marked by a temper or spirit, and expresses the attitude assumed by the artist toward his theme. The first method is that of symbolism. The second method is that of realism. The third method is that of idealism.

The earliest works of Christian art in Italy are the wall-paintings of the Catacombs. At first these were merely abstract symbols: the Labarum, the Alpha and Omega, the fish, used as the sign for the name of Christ. Then more pictorial emblems were painted: the dove, representing the Christian soul freed from the body; the peacock or phoenix, type of immortality; the sheep, signifying the soul in the earthly life. This last emblem stands in immediate connection with the earliest representations of Christ as the Good Shepherd. This is the favorite subject of the Catacomb paintings. He is depicted as a beautiful youth in shepherd's dress carrying a lamb on his shoulders, or leaning on his staff in the midst of a flock, or playing on a shepherd's pipe, while the sheep listen to him. idea of these pictures is certainly Biblical; but the artistic form is supposed to be taken from an old Greek statue of Mercury carrying a kid, which existed at Tanagra. For it must be observed with regard to the art of the early Church that once having gained the right to exist, it adopted without hesitation materials and forms

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which had been invented by the heathen. | Christ; Daniel in the lions' den is an enProceeding on the principle that what God couragement to Christian martyrs. hath cleansed man may not call unclean, most common New Testament subjects the Christians repeated in their religious are, the Nativity (with the ox and ass pictures the types of face, the methods of kneeling), the Adoration of the Magi, the expression, the artistic mannerisms, which miracle at Cana, Christ healing the paraare found in the wall-paintings of Hercu- lytic, multiplying the loaves and fishes, laneum and Pompeii. They personified and, most frequently, the raising of Lazthe sun and the moon, the earth and the arus from the dead. Lazarus is represea, mountains and rivers. They even sented as a mummy appearing at an open

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adapted heathen myths. In a beautiful painting from the ceiling of the tomb of S. Domitilla, Christ is represented in the character of Orpheus playing upon his lyre, while trees bend toward him, and wild beasts gather at his feet.

Mingled with these symbols and allegories we find the first beginnings of sacred historical painting. The subjects are chosen impartially from both Testaments, with this difference, that the scenes from the Old are used in a purely typical relation to the new dispensation. Noah in the ark typifies the Christian saved in the ship of the Church; the history of Jonah prefigures the ministry and resurrection of

door, before which Jesus stands with a wand in his hand.

The spirit of all these pictures is purely symbolical. They do not depict, they simply suggest, their subjects. They presuppose in the mind of the beholder the knowledge of a certain event which they shall recall to him by a mystic sign for his comfort and encouragement. For this is the aim and temper of the Catacomb paintings: to strengthen and console. They pass by the passion and death of the Lord, to dwell upon themes of gladness and consolation-resurrection, miracles, deliverance, hope. They are joyful and confident. They are flowers blos

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ADORATION OF THE KINGS.-MOSAIC FROM THE CHURCH OF S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA.

soming in darkness, stunted, delicate, imperfect, but full of a marvellous brightness, an unextinguishable life.

Transplanted in the fifth century to the full daylight of the great basilicas, Christian art blossomed out into the strange, rich splendor of mosaic. This was the painting of the Middle Ages; "the painting for eternity," as Ghirlandajo called it. In the spacious churches which began to spring up as if by magic all over Christendom, apse and triumphal arch glowed with blue and purple and gold; rhythmic groups of majestic figures and splendid symbols gleamed down upon the worshippers. The subjects chosen for these mosaics were mystical rather than historical. Christ seated in solemn light in the midst of the four-and-twenty elders; Christ coming in glory on the clouds of sunset greeted by saints and evangelists; the Lamb on the hill of Zion, at whose foot flow the four rivers of Paradise, while the twelve sheep issue from the gates of Bethlehem and Jerusalem on either hand; mystic palm-trees, sparkling with gold and jewels and the immortal phoenix, and Jordan with shining waves -these were the themes chosen by the Christians to give light and magnificence to their first temples. But among the earliest mosaics there are also some historical scenes, although the material limitations of the art prevented anything more than an imperfect and suggestive style of treatment. In the baptistery of S. Giovanni in Fonte, at Ravenna, there is a mosaic of the baptism of Jesus, in which the river Jordan is personified as an old man with urn and reed.

The most interesting group of old Christian mosaics is in the noble basilica of S. Maria Maggiore, at Rome. They are almost as brilliant to-day as when they were made. A frieze of vivid Old Testament pictures surmounts the pillars of the nave, increasing in splendor until they reach the chancel arch. Here is the great mosaic of the Lamb seated on the throne of the Apocalypse, and on either side smaller scenes from the New Testament. They represent the Annunciation (one of the earliest pictures of this subject), the Angel appearing to Zacharias, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Presentation, the Adoration of the Magi, and Herod receiving the head of John the Baptist.

The picture of the Adoration is especially interesting for the light which it throws upon the position of the early Church in regard to Mariolatry. In the mosaic as it was originally made, the Christ-Child alone occupied a throne or seat of honor. In another chair, opposite to his, was seated a man with a long blue mantle veiling his head. This was meant to be the oldest of the Wise Men. The two others, in Oriental dress, were seen approaching from the same side, and behind the seat of the Child stood his mother. In the last century Pope Benedict XIV. caused the upright figure to be erased, and a halo to be put around the head of the seated figure, transforming it into the Virgin Mary. This illustrates very distinctly the great change which has taken place in the Roman Church in regard to the dignity assigned to the mother of Christ.*

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In these mosaics of the earlier and Western school we see a striving after individual character and personality in the expression of face and figure. The artist is no longer content with the symbolic representation of Christ as the Good Shepherd. He wishes to invent a noble countenance, a sublime form, which shall be worthy to embody the Redeemer of the world before his worshippers. This tendency finds its climax in the great mosaic of SS. Cosmo e Damiano, in Rome (526-530). The mighty Christ, who looks down from the dark blue apsis into the poor, dingy little church, is clothed with majesty; his head, with

of fate, the spirit of the people no longer possessed the power to create, to invent, to beautify. The vital spark was gone out, or buried smouldering in the ashes. And when the Emperor of the East regained his hold of Italy, after the barbarians had satisfied themselves and departed, he must bring with him strange fire from Byzantium to rekindle the altars of religious art. From the re-establishment of the imperial power under Justinian the pictorial art of Italy assumes that type which is commonly called Byzantine. Into the vexed question of the justice of this name in its general application I do not propose

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its dark beard and flowing hair, is strong and solemn as that of a youthful Jupiter Capitolinus, yet lighted with a mild benignity which befits the all-merciful Saviour of men.

With this noble work, so full of power and of promise for a high and worthy artistic conception of Christ, the development of Latin Christian art is abruptly terminated. The causes of the arrest must be sought in the wars of invasion and conquest which desolated Italy. Wave after wave of barbarians, Goths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Lombards, stormed over the peninsula, drowning out learning, civilization, and art. Exhausted by the struggle, distracted and numbed by the violent shocks

to enter. It is necessary simply to mark the influence of Byzantine rules and methods in the representation of Gospel history, to observe the paralysis which fell upon sacred historical art, and its decline into the coldest and most rigid symbolism.

Three features characterize the Byzantine type of pictorial art-the splendor of its colors, the stiffness of its forms, and the morbid sternness of its religious spirit. The harshness of the Eastern theology and the luxurious pomp of the imperial court are strangely blended in the works of art of this period. The dark blue ground of the early Roman mosaics is replaced by great fields of gold, where the imperial family and the courtiers stand side by side

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