Mrs. Jameson

“ His face is seen in profile, and cast into shadow: without being vulgar, or even ugly, it is hateful. St. Andrew, with his long grey beard, lifts up his hands, expressing the wonder of a simple-hearted old man. St. James Minor, resembling the Saviour in his mild features, and the form of his beard and hair, lays his hand on the shoulder of St. Peter—the expression is, ‘Can it be possible? Have we heard aright?’ Bartholomew, at the extreme end of the table, has risen perturbed from his seat; he leans forward with a look of eager attention, the lips parted; he is impatient to hear more. ”

“ Domenichino’s angels are merely human. I never saw an angel in one of Guercino’s pictures that had not, with the merely human character, a touch of vulgarity. As for Albano, how are we to discriminate between his angels and his nymphs, Apollos, and Cupids? But for the occasion and the appellation, it would be quite impossible to distinguish the Loves that sport round Venus and Adonis, from the Cherubim, so called, that hover above a Nativity or a Riposo; and the little angels, in his Crucifixion, cry so like naughty little boys, that one longs to put them in a corner. ”

“ There is nothing more beautiful, more attractive, in Art than the representations of angels in this character. Sometimes they form a chorus round the glorified Saviour, when, after his sorrow and sacrifice on earth, he takes his throne in heaven; or, when the crown is placed on the head of the Maternal Virgin in glory, pour forth their triumphant song, and sound their silver clarions on high: sometimes they stand or kneel before the Madonna and Child, or sit upon the steps of her throne, singing,—with such sweet earnest faces! ”

“ The romances of Chivalry, which long afterwards succeeded, were confined to particular classes, and left no impress on Art, beyond the miniature illuminations of a few manuscripts. This legendary literature, on the contrary, which had worked itself into the life of the people, became, like the antique mythology, as a living soul diffused through the loveliest forms of Art, still vivid and vivifying, even when the old faith in its mystical significance was lost or forgotten. And it is a mistake to suppose that these legends had their sole origin in the brains of dreaming monks. ”

“ The picture of the angel is distinctly and poetically brought before us; he takes to himself a form between boyhood and youth; his waving curls are crowned with beams of light; he puts on a pair of wings of silver tipped with gold, with which he cleaves the air, the clouds, the skies; he alights on Mount Lebanon, and poises himself on his balanced wings—
E si librò su l’ adeguate penne.
This is exactly the angel which figures in the best pictures of the Caracci and Guido: he is supremely elegant, and nothing more. ”

“ Of his glorious tomb, in the Cathedral of Pavia, I can only say that its beauty as a work of art astonished me. I had not been prepared for anything so rich, so elegant in taste, and so elaborate in invention. It is of the finest florid Gothic, worked in white marble, scarcely discoloured by time. Augustine lies upon a bier, and angels of exquisite grace are folding his shroud around him. The basso-relievos represent the events of his life; the statues of the evangelists, apostles, and other saints connected with the history of the Church, are full of dignity and character. ”

“ But the beautiful Magdalene of Annibal Caracci has heard the words of mercy; she has [Pg 362] memories which are not of sin only; angelic visions have already come to her in that wild solitude: she is seated at the foot of a tree; she leans her cheek on her right hand, the other rests on a skull; she is in deep contemplation; but her thoughts are not of death: the upward ardent look is full of hope, and faith, and love. The fault of this beautiful little picture lies in the sacrifice of the truth of the situation to the artistic feeling of beauty—the common fault of the school ”

“ The scene is a smiling and varied landscape; in the centre Mary Magdalene, with the anticipative glory round her head, is seen dancing along to the sound of a flute and tabor, while a man in a rich dress leads her by the hand: several groups of men and women are diverting themselves in the foreground; in the background, Mary Magdalene, with a number of gay companions, is chasing the stag; she is mounted on horseback, and has again the glory round her head: far in the distance she is seen borne upwards by the angels. This singular and suggestive composition is dated 1519. ”

“ A young priest sustains him; St. Paula, kneeling, kisses one of his thin bony hands; the saint fixes his eager eyes on the countenance of the priest, who is about to administer the sacrament,—a noble dignified figure in a rich ecclesiastical dress; a deacon holds the cup, and an attendant priest the book and taper; the lion droops his head with an expression of grief; the eyes and attention of all are on the dying saint, while four angels, hovering above, look down upon the scene. ”

“ It struck me as characteristic of the Venetian school, that the love of music seemed to combine with the sense of harmony in colour; nowhere have I seen musical angels so frequently and so beautifully introduced: and whereas the angelic choirs of Fiesole, Ghirlandajo, and Raphael, seem to be playing as an act of homage for the delight of the Divine Personages, those of Vivarini and Bellini and Palma appear as if enchanted by their own music ”

“ I hate the destructive as I revere the progressive spirit. We must laugh if any one were to try and persuade us that the sun was guided along his blazing path by a ‘fair-haired god who touched a golden lyre;’ but shall we therefore cease to adore in the Apollo Belvedere the majestic symbol of light, the most divine impersonation of intellectual power and beauty? ”

“ I have seen pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which Gabriel enters as a princely ambassador, with three little angels bearing up his mantle behind: in a picture in the collection of Prince Wallerstein, one meek and beautiful angel bears up the rich robes of the majestic archangel, like a page in the train of a sovereign prince. But from the beginning of the fourteenth century we perceive a change of feeling, as well as a change of style: the veneration paid to the Virgin demanded another treatment. She becomes not merely the principal person, but the superior being ”

“ Angelico’s angels are unearthly, not so much in form as in sentiment; and superhuman, not in power but in purity. In other hands, any imitation of his soft ethereal grace would become feeble and insipid. With their long robes falling round their feet, and drooping many-coloured wings, they seem not to fly or to walk, but to float along, ‘smooth sliding without step.’ Blessed, blessed creatures! love us, only love us—for we dare not task your soft serene Beatitude by asking you to help us! ”

“ The face of one of those angels is to the face of a child just what that of the Virgin in the same picture is compared with the fairest of the daughters of earth: it is not here superiority of beauty, but mind and music and love, kneaded, as it were, into form and colour. ”

“ In the Cathedral of Rheims there is a range of colossal angels as a grand procession along the vaults of the nave, who appear as approaching the altar: these bear not only the gospel, the missal, the sacramental cup, the ewer, the taper, the cross, &c., but also the attributes of sovereignty, celestial and terrestrial: one carries the sun, another the moon, a third the kingly sceptre, a fourth the globe, a fifth the sword; and all these, as they approach the sanctuary, they seem about to place at the feet of Christ, who stands there as priest and king in glory. ”

“ This beautiful legend is the subject of some old engravings, in which St. John is represented embracing the robber, who is weeping on his neck, having flung away his weapons. It has been, however, too rarely treated; I have never met with a picture of the subject; and yet it abounds in picturesque capabilities: the forest background—the contrast of youth and age—bright armour, flowing drapery, and the most striking and affecting moral, are here all combined. ”

“ In all the melancholy vicinity of Rome, there is not a more melancholy spot than the ‘Tre Fontane.’ A splendid monastery, rich with the offerings of all Christendom, once existed there: the ravages of that mysterious scourge of the Campagna, the malaria, have rendered it a desert; three ancient churches and some ruins still exist, and a few pale monks wander about the swampy dismal confines of the hollow in which they stand. In winter you approach them through a quagmire; in summer, you dare not breathe in their pestilential vicinity ”

“ The woman who, under the name of Mary Magdalene,—whether that name be rightfully or wrongfully bestowed,—stands before us, sanctified in the imagination and in the faith of the people in her combined character of Sinner and of Saint, as the first-fruits of Christian penitence,—is a reality, and not a fiction. Even if we would, we cannot do away with the associations inseparably connected with her name and her image. ”

“ It is curious to find the critics of the last century treating with pity and ridicule, as the result of ignorance or a barbarous unformed taste, the noblest and most spiritual conceptions of poetic art. Even Sir Joshua Reynolds had so little idea of the true object and feeling of such representations, that he thinks it necessary to apologise for the error of the painter, or the mistaken piety of his employer. We must remember that the personages here brought together in their sacred character belong no more to our earth, but to heaven and eternity: for them there is no longer time or place ”

“ It is only in modern times that the peacock has become the emblem of worldly pride.
The Crown, as introduced in Christian Art, is either an emblem or an attribute. It has been the emblem from all antiquity of victory, and of recompense due to superior power or virtue. In this sense the word and the image are used in Scripture in many passages: for example, ‘Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of glory.’ And in this sense, as the recompense of those who had fought the good fight to the end, and conquered, the crown became the especial symbol of the glory of martyrdom. ”

“ Tertullus is a barrister, in wig, band, and gown; the judge is like an old doting justice of peace, and his attendants like old beggars.
In the Florentine Gallery there is a very curious series of the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul in eight pictures, in the genuine old German style; fanciful, animated, full of natural and dramatic expression, and exquisitely finished,—but dry, hard, grotesque, and abounding in anachronisms. [202] ”

“ All direct imitation of nature was, by the best painters, carefully avoided. In this respect how fine is Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel! how sublime and how true in feeling and conception! where the Messiah comes floating along, upborne by the Four Creatures—mysterious, spiritual, wonderful beings, animals in form, but in all else unearthly, and the winged ox not less divine than the winged angel! [103] Whereas in the later times, when the artist piqued himself upon the imitation of nature, the mystic and venerable significance was wholly lost. ”

“ The group of angels over the Last Judgment, flinging their mighty limbs about, and those that surround the descending figure of Christ in the Conversion of St. Paul, may be referred to here as characteristic examples. The angels, blowing their trumpets, puff and strain like so many troopers. Surely this is not angelic: there may be power, great imaginative and artistic power, exhibited in the conception of form, but in the beings themselves there is more of effort than of power: serenity, tranquillity, beatitude, ethereal purity, spiritual grace, are out of the question. ”

“ Infinitely more beautiful and consistent are the [Pg 56] nondescript wings which the early painters gave their angels:—large—so large, that when the glorious creature is represented as at rest, they droop from the shoulders to the ground; with long slender feathers, eyed sometimes like the peacock’s train, bedropped with gold like the pheasant’s breast, tinted with azure and violet and crimson, ‘colours dipp’d in heaven,’—they are really angel-wings, not bird-wings. ”

“ The first great object to which reviving Art was destined, was to render the Christian places of worship a theatre of instruction and improvement for the people, to attract and to interest them by representations of scenes, events, and personages, already so familiar as to require no explanation, appealing; at once to their intelligence and their sympathies; embodying in beautiful shapes (beautiful at least in their eyes) associations and feelings and memories deep-rooted in their very hearts, and which had influenced, in no slight degree, the progress of civilisation, the development of mind. ”

“ He is young and beautiful, but ‘severe in youthful beauty,’ as one who carries on a perpetual contest with the powers of evil. In the earlier works of art he is robed in white, with ample many-coloured wings, and bears merely the sceptre or the lance surmounted by a cross, as one who conquered by spiritual might alone. But in the later representations, those coloured by the spirit of chivalry, he is the angelic Paladin, armed in a dazzling coat of mail, with sword, and spear, and shield. He has a lofty open brow, long fair hair floating on his shoulders, sometimes bound by a jewelled tiara ”

“ The Dragon is the emblem of sin in general, and of the sin of idolatry in particular; and the dragon slain or vanquished by the power of the cross, is the perpetually recurring myth, which, varied in a thousand ways, we find running through all the old Christian legends: not subject to misapprehension in the earliest times; but, as the cloud of ignorance darkened and deepened, the symbol was translated into a fact. ”

“ But here it is Rembrandt who has shown himself the poet; the ladder is a slanting stream of light; the angels are mysterious bird-like luminous forms, which emerge one after another from a dazzling fount of glory, and go floating up and down,—so like a dream made visible!—In Middle-Age Art this vision of Jacob occurs very rarely. I shall have to return to it when treating of the subjects from the Old Testament.
In the New Testament angels are much more frequently alluded to than in the Old; more as a reality, less as a vision ”

“ The gates of San Paolo (tenth century) afford the most ancient example I have met with of an angel holding the raiment of the Saviour: there is only one angel. Giotto introduces two graceful angels kneeling on the bank of the river, and looking on with attention. The angel in Raphael’s composition bows his head, as if awe-struck by the divine recognition of the majesty of the Redeemer; and the reverent manner in which he holds the vestment is very beautiful. Other examples will here suggest themselves to the reader, and I shall resume the subject when treating of the life of our Saviour. ”

“ When exhibited to us as the patron saint of repentant sinners, Mary Magdalene is sometimes a thin wasted figure with long dishevelled hair, of a pale golden hue, falling over her shoulders almost to the ground; sometimes a skin or a piece of linen is tied round her loins, but not seldom her sole drapery is her long redundant hair. The most ancient single figure of this character to which I can refer is an old picture in the Byzantine manner, as old perhaps as the thirteenth century, and now in the Academy at Florence. ”