Madonna

“ The tiny candle standing at the foot of the Madonna’s throne strikes, indeed, a note of bizarrerie, but it is beautiful bizarrerie, and the Madonna, marvellously robed and embowered in fruit and leaves, who is offering a great pear to a charming Child, is less the Mother of God than a crowned queen of faery with an infant prince in a golden robe and a golden halo, and less a queen with a prince than a wonderful decorative pattern, a study in gold and marble and precious stones and brocaded gowns, broidered, rich-dyed, and fantastic with arabesques. ”

“ The face of the Madonna alone shone with the delicate brilliance of alabaster within which glows a light. Queen of Heaven, she was shown to men in the gloom of twilight, in a subterranean cavern, in the most secret of the recesses of nature, perhaps the last refuge of ancient Pan and the wood nymphs—she, the mystery of mysteries, the mother of the God-man, in the very bosom of mother earth. ”

“ Inside the old church of Santa Maria del Carmine, close by, hundreds of votive candles were burning before the altars, and night and day the people flocked in there to implore the mighty Madonna's protection. Mothers took the rings off their hands and hung them as sacred offerings round the Madonna's neck, girls drew the strings of coral out of their dark plaits to adorn the rich robe of the statue, and, with brows pressed against the worn marble floor, strong men knelt, murmuring prayers for help and mercy. ”

“ The earlier Madonna was a somewhat cold type of beauty; the faultless regularity of her features and the imperturbable calm of her expression make her rather unapproachable; but she shows a strong, sweet purity of character, worthy of profound respect. ”

“ And as for the Madonna being an Italian grande dame dressed in Venetian silks or Florentine brocades, how else, pray, are we to preserve religion? True local colour and true Jerusalem costuming would have brought relativity into the absoluteness of belief, would have been a reminder that the Madonna was a foreigner. The truer truth is that she is Our Lady.
Art, you see, had in its palmy days to be a full-orbed reality, carrying conviction as well as beauty to the guileless beholder. To us too ’tis only the masterpiece attuned to our own macrocosm that can give us this plenary satisfaction. ”

“ Through all his pictures of the Virgin and child we can see that the Madonna as the Christ-bearer is the ideal he always has in view. He falls short of it, not through any lack of earnestness, but because his type of womanhood is incapable of expressing such lofty idealism. His virgins are modelled upon the simple Andalusian maidens, sweet, timid, dark-eyed creatures. Their faces glow with gentle affection as they look wistfully out of the picture, or raise their eyes to heaven, as if dimly discerning the heights which they have never reached. ”

“ Centuries ago, thousands of years ago, other women had grown the same unwholesome flowers to fill the tomb of the dead Adonis. The Madonna, stylish and complacent in spite of the seven swords at her heart, was carried by, winking and glittering in the torchlight. ”

“ It is the impatience to burst into blossoming, the longing for love which pulsates in these Songs of the Maidens with the tenseness of suspense. The Prayers of the Maidens to Mary have not the mild melody of maidenly prayer; they vibrate with the ecstasy of expectant life, and the Madonna is more than the Heavenly Virgin, their longing transforms her into the symbol of earthly love and motherhood. ”

“ Cimabue's Madonna still hangs in Santa Maria Novella, over the altar of the Ruccellai chapel, and thither many a pilgrim takes his way to honor the memory of the father of modern painting. The throne is a sort of carved armchair, very simple in form, but richly overlaid with gold; the surrounding background is filled with adoring angels. Here sits the Madonna, in stiff solemnity, holding her child on her lap. If we find it hard to admire her beauty, we must note the superiority of the picture to its predecessors. ”

“ The curtain flew back and—there she stood, the Madonna with the Child in her arms, so beautiful, so instinct with life and warmth, as only nature has ever painted and art imitated from nature. There she stood with that richly tinted olive complexion, with those transparent, softly reddened cheeks, with those full crimson lips, with those large black eyes at once full of mildness and fire, and with that broad and noble brow full of depth of thought and yet full of repose. ”

“ Listening in wonder and awe they fell on their knees, and lo, senor! a marvellous silver light, brighter than that of day, filled all the orange grove, and amid a choir of angels, whose golden hair floated over their shoulders, whose wings and robes were white as the new fallen snow, and whose faces bloomed with the purity and radiance of heaven, there, on the summit of a white marble pillar, stood the blessed Madonna, with her fair brow crowned by thirteen stars, and her robe all of a dazzling brightness. ”

“ The image of Madonna seems to have become young by the fresh wreaths: the fragrant flowers here have a power like that of poetry—they bring back the days of past centuries to our own times. It is as if the extinguished glory around the head shone again; the flowers exhale perfume: it is as if incense again streamed through the aisles of the church—it shines around the altar as if the consecrated tapers were lighted—it is a sunbeam through the window. ”

“ O Madonna! Thine eyes’ lustre
Lightens me like stars in heaven;
While life’s bark doth drift at random,
Stars lead on for ever surely.
O Madonna! Without wavering
I have borne thy test of sorrow,
On kind love relying blindly,
In thy glow alone e’er glowing.{12}
O Madonna! ”

“ The Virgin Mary is not, like the Madonna di San Sisto, "a single projection of the artist's mind," but, as far as he could put his studies together, she is "a compound of every creature's best," sometimes majestic, sometimes graceful, often full of sentiment, elegance, and refinement, but wanting wholly in the spiritual element. If the Madonna did really sit to Guido in person, (see Malvasia, "Felsina Pittrice,") we fancy she must have revealed her loveliness, but veiled her divinity. ”

“ Striking effects of light and shade, peculiar attitudes, scenic groups, the perpetual and dramatic introduction of legendary scenes and personages, of visions and miracles of the Madonna vouchsafed to her votaries, characterize the productions of the seventeenth century. As "they who are whole need not a physician, but they who are sick," so in proportion to the decline of faith were the excitements to faith, or rather to credulity: just in proportion as men were less inclined to believe were the wonders multiplied which they were called on to believe. ”

“ Whom have I met upon this earth who was so beautiful—so beautiful and awe-inspiring—awe-inspiring and unapproachable. I have learned by this time your entire archive, Wondergood, and I do not believe that it comes from your modest gallery!
“Madonna!” mumbled Toppi in a hoarse voice, scared out of his wits.
So that is it! Yes, Madonna. The fool was right, and I, Satan, could understand his terror. Madonna, whom people see only in churches, in paintings, in the imagination of artists. Maria, the name which rings only in hymns and prayer books, heavenly beauty, mercy, forgiveness and love! ”

“ The tone of this picture is decidedly mellow, whether from age or after the subdued style of the artist, it matters not, but there is a character and a dignity given to the subject, which impresses and grows upon the spectator more than would be produced by the brilliant tints so generally employed. The face of the Madonna, with dark eyes and hair, is of a melancholy type, but its sweetness cannot be denied. ”

“ The mountain is still in labour; I have not heard that the mouse has been born. I pass him once in a while in the galleries, and he fixes his great dark eyes on me with a sublimity of indifference, as if I were a bad copy of a Sassoferrato! It is a long time ago now that I heard that he was making studies for a Madonna who was to be a résumé of all the other Madonnas of the Italian school—like that antique Venus who borrowed a nose from one great image and an ankle from another. It’s certainly a masterly idea. ”

“ He is exact with regard to the colours of the drapery, but not always in the colour of the hair. On the other hand, the beauty and expression of the face and attitude, the mingled loveliness, dignity, and purity, are given with exquisite feeling; and we are never, as in his other representations of the Madonna, reminded of commonplace homely, often peasant, portraiture; here all is spotless grace, ethereal delicacy, benignity, refinement, repose,—the very apotheosis of womanhood. ”

“ Thus, while a Byzantine Madonna is to be found in nearly every old church in Italy, to see one is to see all. They are half-length figures against a background of gold leaf, at first laid on solidly, or, at a somewhat later date, studded with cherubs. The Virgin has a meagre, ascetic countenance, large, ill-shaped eyes, and an almost peevish expression; her head is draped in a heavy, dark blue veil, falling in stiff folds.
Unattractive as such pictures are to us from an artistic standpoint, they inspire us with respect if not with reverence. ”

“ Lastly, the Madonna and the Child, who turn to the donor, are in attitudes which, however graceful, are not perhaps sufficiently tranquil for the majesty of the queen of heaven. The expression of the Madonna's countenance is extremely sweet, but with more of the character of a mere woman than of a glorified being. ”

“ It represented in simple composition a Madonna and Child; the mother facing you, pressing the infant to her bosom, faintly smiling, and looking out of the picture with a solemn sweetness. It was pretty, it was good; but it was not Correggio. There was indeed a certain suggestion of his exquisite touch; but it was a likeness merely, and not the precious reality. One fact, however, struck swiftly home to my consciousness: the face of the Madonna bore a singular resemblance to that of Miss Evans. ”

“ It is now about fifteen centuries since the Madonna with her Babe was first introduced into art, and it is safe to say that, throughout all this time, the subject has been unrivalled in popularity. It requires no very profound philosophy to discover the reason for this. The Madonna is the universal type of motherhood, a subject which, in its very nature, appeals to all classes and conditions of people. No one is too ignorant to understand it, and none too wise to be superior to its charm. ”

“ It is far more than a mother and child, for one sees in the [43] Madonna a look suggesting that she sees vaguely the darkness of Calvary and the glory of the resurrection. This is no ordinary child, either, that she holds, for He sees beyond this world into eternity and that His is no common destiny;—at least, one feels these things as we gaze at the lovely apparition on its background of clouds and innumerable angel heads. St. Sixtus on one side would know more of this mystery, while St. Barbara on the other is dazzled by the vision and turns aside her lovely face. ”

“ A dark-coloured frame surrounds the gabled square of the picture, delicately traced with an ornament interrupted at intervals by thirty medallions on gold ground, each of which contains the half-figure of a saint. In the face of the Madonna is a soft and melancholy expression ”

“ She is clad in bright vestments of azure, and, like the Virgin who appeared to the peasant girl at Lourdes, she has about her head an aureole of blue. Deep tones of red and brown form the background of the window from which the figure of the Madonna stands out, so that you might almost believe that she is about to step through into the dark aisles of the Cathedral that is hers. ”

“ When weary with the senseless repetition of the set compositions of past ages, we turn with relief to a simple portrait mother like this, at once the most primitive and the most advanced form of Madonna art. It is only another case where the simplest is the best. ”

“ A belated woman with a baby stumbles upon a company of shepherds all in the twittering dark. Hearts jump to mouths, flesh creeps, hairs stand tiptoe—Madonna, of course! Whom else could they call her, pray? They don't know the woman: name her they must. Well! Who is there they don't know whose name comes readiest to the tongue? Madonna, of course. Good: Ecco Madonna!"
This was very eloquently reasoned, but the bishop shook his head. ”

“ This is so marked that at first sight almost every one is repelled by Botticelli, and yields only after long familiarity to the mysterious fascination of the sad-eyed Madonna, who holds her babe almost listlessly, as her head droops with the weight of her sorrow. Her expression is the same whatever her [195] attitude, when she presses her babe to her bosom as the Mater Amabilis (in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, in the Dresden Gallery, and Louvre) , or when, as witness to her son's destiny, she holds him forth to be seen of men. It is in this last capacity that her mood is most intelligible. ”

“ Without doubt the finest Madonnas of the seventeenth century are those produced by the Spanish school; not because they more realize our spiritual conception of the Virgin—quite the contrary: for here the expression of life through sensation and emotion prevails over abstract mind, grandeur, and grace;—but because the intensely human and sympathetic character given to the Madonna appeals most strongly to our human nature. ”

“ In like manner, the Madonna is draped with so great grace and dignity that nothing better can be imagined, the flow of the folds being very beautiful and soft, while the borders of the draperies are seen following closely the nude form of the figure, which, with its very covering, reveals every curve of the limbs ”