[Footnote 1: They will be found treated at length in the artistic subjects connected with St. John the Baptist.]

From the butchery which made so many mothers childless, the divine Infant and his mother were miraculously saved; for an angel spoke to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt." This is the second of the four angelic visions which are recorded of Joseph. It is not a frequent subject in early art, but is often met with in pictures of the later schools. Joseph is asleep in his chair, the angel stands before him, and, with a significant gesture, points forward—"arise and flee!"

There is an exquisite little composition by Titian, called a Riposo, which may possibly represent the preparation for the Flight. Here Mary is seated under a tree nursing her Infant, while in the background is a sort of rude stable, in which Joseph is seen saddling the ass, while the ox is on the outside.

In a composition by Tiarini, we see Joseph holding the Infant, while Mary, leaning one hand on his shoulder, is about to mount the ass.

In a composition by Poussin, Mary, who has just seated herself on the ass, takes the Child from the arms of Joseph. Two angels lead the ass, a third kneels in homage, and two others are seen above with a curtain to pitch a tent.

* * * * *

I must notice here a tradition that both the ox and the ass who stood over the manger at Bethlehem, accompanied the Holy Family into Egypt. In Albert Durer's print, the ox and the ass walk side by side. It is also related that the Virgin was accompanied by Salome, and Joseph by three of his sons. This version of the story is generally rejected by the painters; but in the series by Giotto in the Arena at Padua, Salome and the three youths attend on Mary and Joseph; and I remember another instance, a little picture by Lorenzo Monaco, in which Salome, who had vowed to attend on Christ and his mother as long as she lived, is seen following the ass, veiled, and supporting her steps with a staff.

But this is a rare exception. The general treatment confines the group to Joseph, the mother, and the Child. To Joseph was granted, in those hours of distress and danger, the high privilege of providing for the safety of the Holy Infant—a circumstance much enlarged upon in the old legends, and to express this more vividly, he is sometimes represented in early Greek art as carrying the Child in his arms, or on his shoulder, while Mary follows on the ass. He is so figured on the sculptured doors of the cathedral of Beneventum, and in the cathedral of Monreale, both executed by Greek artists.[1] But we are not to suppose that the Holy Family was left defenceless on the long journey. The angels who had charge concerning them were sent to guide them by day, to watch over them by night, to pitch their tent before them, and to refresh them with celestial fruit and flowers. By the introduction of these heavenly ministers the group is beautifully varied.

[Footnote 1: 11th century. Also at Citta di Castello; same date.]

Joseph, says the Gospel story, "arose by night;" hence there is both meaning and propriety in those pictures which represent the Flight as a night-scene, illuminated by the moon and stars, though I believe this has been done more to exhibit the painter's mastery over effects of dubious light, than as a matter of biblical accuracy. Sometimes an angel goes before, carrying a torch or lantern, to light them on the way; sometimes it is Joseph who carries the lantern.

In a picture by Nicolo Poussin, Mary walks before, carrying the Infant; Joseph follows, leading the ass; and an angel guides them.

The journey did not, however, comprise one night only. There is, indeed, an antique tradition, that space and time were, on this occasion, miraculously shortened to secure a life of so much importance; still, we are allowed to believe that the journey extended over many days and nights; consequently it lay within the choice of the artist to exhibit the scene of the Flight either by night or by day.

In many representations of the Flight into Egypt, we find in the background men sowing or cutting corn. This is in allusion to the following legend:—

When it was discovered that the Holy Family had fled from Bethlehem, Herod sent his officers in pursuit of them. And it happened that when the Holy Family had travelled some distance, they came to a field where a man was sowing wheat. And the Virgin said to the husbandman, "If any shall ask you whether we have passed this way, ye shall answer, 'Such persons passed this way when I was sowing this corn.'" For the holy Virgin was too wise and too good to save her Son by instructing the man to tell a falsehood. But behold, a miracle! For by the power of the Infant Saviour, in the space of a single night, the seed sprung up into stalk, blade, and ear, fit for the sickle. And next morning the officers of Herod came up, and inquired of the husbandman, saying, "Have you seen an old man with a woman and a Child travelling this way?" And the man, who was reaping his wheat, in great wonder and admiration, replied "Yes." And they asked again, "How long is it since?" And he answered. "When I was sowing this wheat." Then the officers of Herod turned back, and left off pursuing the Holy Family.

A very remarkable example of the introduction of this legend occurs in a celebrated picture by Hans Hemling (Munich Gal., Cabinet iv. 69), known as "Die Sieben Freuden Mariae." In the background, on the left, is the Flight into Egypt; the men cutting and reaping corn, and the officers of Herod in pursuit of the Holy Family. By those unacquainted with the old legend, the introduction of the cornfield and reapers is supposed to be merely a decorative landscape, without any peculiar significance.

* * * * *

In a very beautiful fresco by Pinturicchio, (Rome, St. Onofrio), the Holy Family are taking their departure from Bethlehem. The city, with the massacre of the Innocents, is seen in the background. In the middle distance, the husbandman cutting corn; and nearer, the palm tree bending down.

* * * * *

It is supposed by commentators that Joseph travelled from Bethlehem across the hilly country of Judea, taking the road to Joppa, and then pursuing the way along the coast. Nothing is said in the Gospel of the events of this long and perilous journey of at least 400 miles, which, in the natural order of things, must have occupied five or six weeks; and the legendary traditions are very few. Such as they are, however, the painters have not failed to take advantage of them.

We are told that on descending from the mountains, they came down upon a beautiful plain enamelled with flowers, watered by murmuring streams, and shaded by fruit trees. In such a lovely landscape have the painters delighted to place some of the scenes of the Flight into Egypt. On another occasion, they entered a thick forest, a wilderness of trees, in which they must have lost their way, had they not been guided by an angel. Here we encounter a legend which has hitherto escaped, because, indeed, it defied, the art of the painter. As the Holy Family entered this forest, all the trees bowed themselves down in reverence to the Infant God; only the aspen, in her exceeding pride and arrogance, refused to acknowledge him, and stood upright. Then the Infant Christ pronounced a curse against her, as he afterwards cursed the barren fig tree; and at the sound of his words the aspen began to tremble through all her leaves, and has not ceased to tremble even to this day.

We know from Josephus the historian, that about this time Palestine was infested by bands of robbers. There is an ancient tradition, that when the Holy Family travelling through hidden paths and solitary defiles, had passed Jerusalem, and were descending into the plains of Syria, they encountered certain thieves who fell upon them; and one of them would have maltreated and plundered them, but his comrade interfered, and said, "Suffer them, I beseech thee, to go in peace, and I will give thee forty groats, and likewise my girdle;" which offer being accepted, the merciful robber led the Holy Travellers to his stronghold on the rock, and gave them lodging for the night. (Gospel of Infancy, ch. viii.) And Mary said to him, "The Lord God will receive thee to his right hand, and grant thee pardon of thy sins!" And it was so: for in after times these two thieves were crucified with Christ, one on the right hand, and one on the left; and the merciful thief went with the Saviour into Paradise.

The scene of this encounter with the robbers, near Ramla, is still pointed out to travellers, and still in evil repute as the haunt of banditti. The crusaders visited the spot as a place of pilgrimage; and the Abbe Orsini considers the first part of the story as authenticated; but the legend concerning the good thief he admits to be doubtful. (Vie de la Ste. Vierge.)

As an artistic subject this scene has been seldom treated. I have seen two pictures which represent it. One is a fresco by Giovanni di San Giovanni, which, having been cut from the wail of some suppressed convent, is now in the academy at Florence. The other is a composition by Zuccaro.

One of the most popular legends concerning the Flight into Egypt is that of the palm or date tree, which at the command of Jesus bowed down its branches to shade and refresh his mother; hence, in the scene of the Flight, a palm tree became a usual accessory. In a picture by Antonello Mellone, the Child stretches out his little hand and lays hold of the branch: sometimes the branch is bent down by angel hands. Sozomenes relates, that when the Holy Family reached the term of their journey, and approached the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, a tree which grew before the gates of the city, and was regarded with great veneration as the seat of a god, bowed down its branches at the approach of the Infant Christ. Likewise it is related (not in legends merely, but by grave religious authorities) that all the idols of the Egyptians fell with their faces to the earth. I have seen pictures of the Flight into Egypt, in which broken idols lie by the wayside.

* * * * *

In the course of the journey the Holy Travellers had to cross rivers and lakes; hence the later painters, to vary the subject, represented them as embarking in a boat, sometimes steered by an angel. The first, as I have reason to believe, who ventured on this innovation, was Annibale Caracci. In a picture by Poussin, the Holy Family are about to embark. In a picture by Giordano, an angel with one knee bent, assists Mary to enter the boat. In a pretty little picture by Teniers, the Holy Family and the ass are seen in a boat crossing a ferry by moonlight; sometimes they are crossing a bridge.

I must notice here a little picture by Adrian Vander Werff, in which the Virgin, carrying her Child, holds by the hand the old decrepit Joseph, who is helping her, or rather is helped by her, to pass a torrent on some stepping-stones. This is quite contrary to the feeling of the old authorities, which represent Joseph as the vigilant and capable guardian of the Mother and her Child: but it appears to have here a rather particular and touching significance; it was painted by Vander Werff for his daughter in his old age, and intended to express her filial duty and his paternal care.

The most beautiful Flight into Egypt I have ever seen, is a composition by Gaudenzio Ferrari. The Virgin is seated and sustained on the ass with a quite peculiar elegance. The Infant, standing on her knee, seems to point out the way; an angel leads the ass, and Joseph follows with the staff and wallet. In the background the palm tree inclines its branches. (At Varallo, in the church of the Minorites.)

Claude has introduced the Flight of the Holy Family as a landscape group into nine different pictures.



THE REPOSE OF THE HOLY FAMILY.

Ital. Il Riposo. Fr. Le Repos de la Sainte Famille. Ger. Die Ruhe in AEgypten.

The subject generally styled a "Riposo" is one of the most graceful and most attractive in the whole range of Christian art. It is not, however, an ancient subject, for I cannot recall an instance earlier than the sixteenth century; it had in its accessories that romantic and pastoral character which recommended it to the Venetians and to the landscape-painters of the seventeenth century, and among these we must look for the most successful and beautiful examples.

I must begin by observing that it is a subject not only easily mistaken by those who have studied pictures; but perpetually misconceived and misrepresented by the painters themselves. Some pictures which erroneously bear this title, were never intended to do so. Others, intended to represent the scene, are disfigured and perplexed by mistakes arising either from the ignorance or the carelessness of the artist.

We must bear in mind that the Riposo, properly so called, is not merely the Holy Family seated in a landscape; it is an episode of the Flight into Egypt, and is either the rest on the journey, or at the close of the journey; quite different scenes, though all go by the same name. It is not an ideal religious group, but a reality, a possible and actual scene; and it is clear that the painter, if he thought at all, and did not merely set himself to fabricate a pretty composition, was restricted within the limits of the actual and possible, at least according to the histories and traditions of the time. Some of the accessories introduced would stamp the intention at once; as the date tree, and Joseph gathering dates; the ass feeding in the distance; the wallet and pilgrim's staff laid beside Joseph; the fallen idols; the Virgin scooping water from a fountain; for all these are incidents which properly belong to the Riposo.

It is nowhere recorded; either in Scripture or in the legendary stories, that Mary and Joseph in their flight were accompanied by Elizabeth and the little St. John; therefore, where either of these are introduced, the subject is not properly a Riposo, whatever the intention of the painter may have been: the personages ought to be restricted to the Virgin, her Infant, and St. Joseph, with attendant angels. An old woman is sometimes introduced, the same who is traditionally supposed to have accompanied them in their flight. If this old woman be manifestly St. Anna or St. Elizabeth, then it is not a Riposo, but merely a Holy Family.

It is related that the Holy Family finally rested, after their long journey, in the village of Matarea, beyond the city of Hermopolis (or Heliopolis), and took up their residence in a grove of sycamores, a circumstance which gave the sycamore tree a sort of religions interest in early Christian times. The crusaders imported it into Europe; and poor Mary Stuart may have had this idea, or this feeling when she brought from France, and planted in her garden, the first sycamores which grew in Scotland.

Near to this village of Matarea, a fountain miraculously sprung up for the refreshment of the Holy Family. It still exists, as we are informed by travellers, and is still styled by the Arabs, "The Fountain of Mary."[1] This fountain is frequently represented, as in the well-known Riposo by Correggio, where the Virgin is dipping a bowl into the gushing stream, hence called the "Madonna della Scodella" (Parma): in another by Baroccio (Grosvenor Gal.), and another by Domenichino (Louvre, 491).

[Footnote 1: The site of this fountain is about four miles N.E. of Cairo.]

In this fountain, says another legend, Mary washed the linen of the Child. There are several pictures which represent the Virgin washing linen in a fountain; for example, one by Lucio Massari, where, in a charming landscape, the little Christ takes the linen out of a basket, and Joseph hangs it on a line to dry. (Florence Gal.)

The ministry of the angels is here not only allowable, but beautifully appropriate; and never has it been more felicitously and more gracefully expressed than in a little composition by Lucas Cranach, where the Virgin and her Child repose under a tree, while the angels dance in a circle round them. The cause of the Flight—the Massacre of the Innocents—is figuratively expressed by two winged boys, who, seated on a bough of the tree, are seen robbing a nest, and wringing the necks of the nestlings, while the parent-birds scream and flutter over their heads: in point of taste, this significant allegory had been better omitted; it spoils the harmony of composition. There is another similar group, quite as graceful, by David Hopfer. Vandyck seems to have had both in his memory when he designed the very beautiful Riposo so often copied and engraved (Coll. of Lord Ashburton); here the Virgin is seated under a tree, in an open landscape, and holds her divine Child; Joseph, behind, seems asleep; in front of the Virgin, eight lovely angels dance in a round, while others, seated in the sky, make heavenly music.

In another singular and charming Riposo by Lucas Cranach, the Virgin and Child are seated under a tree; to the left of the group is a fountain, where a number of little angels appear to be washing linen; to the right, Joseph approaches leading the ass, and in the act of reverently removing his cap.

There is a Riposo by Albert Durer which I cannot pass over. It is touched with all that homely domestic feeling, and at the same time all that fertility of fancy, which are so characteristic of that extraordinary man. We are told that when Joseph took up his residence at Matarea in Egypt, he provided for his wife and Child by exercising his trade as a carpenter. In this composition he appears in the foreground dressed as an artisan with an apron on, and with an axe in his hand is shaping a plank of wood. Mary sits on one side spinning with her distaff, and watching her Infant slumbering in its cradle. Around this domestic group we have a crowd of ministering angels; some of these little winged spirits are assisting Joseph, sweeping up the chips and gathering them into baskets; others are merely "sporting at their own sweet will." Several more dignified-looking angels, having the air of guardian spirits, stand or kneel round the cradle, bending over it with folded hands.[1]

[Footnote 1: In the famous set of wood cuts of the Life of the Virgin Mary.]

In a Riposo by Titian, the Infant lies on a pillow on the ground, and the Virgin is kneeling before him, while Joseph leans on his pilgrim's staff, to which is suspended a wallet. In another, two angels, kneeling, offer fruits in a basket; in the distance, a little angel waters the ass at a stream. (All these are engraved.)

The angels, according to the legend, not only ministered to the Holy Family, but pitched a tent nightly, in which they were sheltered. Poussin, in an exquisite picture, has represented the Virgin and Child reposing under a curtain suspended from the branches of a tree and partly sustained by angels, while others, kneeling, offer fruit. (Grosvenor Gal.)

Poussin is the only painter who has attempted to express the locality. In one of his pictures the Holy Family reposes on the steps of an Egyptian temple; a sphinx and a pyramid are visible in the background. In another Riposo by the same master, an Ethiopian boy presents fruits to the Infant Christ. Joseph is frequently asleep, which is hardly consonant with the spirit of the older legends. It is, however, a beautiful idea to make the Child and Joseph both reposing, while the Virgin Mother, with eyes upraised to heaven, wakes and watches, as in a picture by Mola (Louvre, 269); but a yet more beautiful idea to represent the Virgin and Joseph sunk in sleep, while the divine Infant lying in his mother's arms wakes and watches for both, with his little hands joined in prayer, and his eyes fixed on the hovering angels or the opening skies above.

In a Riposo by Rembrandt, the Holy Family rest by night, and are illuminated only by a lantern suspended on the bough of a tree, the whole group having much the air of a gypsy encampment. But one of Rembrandt's imitators has in his own way improved on this fancy; the Virgin sleeps on a bank with the Child on her bosom; Joseph, who looks extremely like an old tinker, is doubling his fist at the ass, which has opened its mouth to bray.

* * * * *

Before quitting the subject of the Riposo, I must mention a very pretty and poetical legend, which I have met with in one picture only; a description of it may, however, lead to the recognition of others.

There is, in the collection of Lord Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers, a Riposo attributed to Giorgione, remarkable equally for the beauty and the singularity of the treatment. The Holy Family are seated in the midst of a wild but rich landscape, quite in the Venetian style; Joseph is asleep; the two children are playing with a lamb. The Virgin, seated holds a book, and turns round, with an expression of surprise and alarm, to a female figure who stands on the right. This woman has a dark physiognomy, ample flowing drapery of red and white, a white turban twisted round her head, and stretches out her hand with the air of a sibyl. The explanation of this striking group I found in an old ballad-legend. Every one who has studied the moral as well as the technical character of the various schools of art, must have remarked how often the Venetians (and Giorgione more especially) painted groups from the popular fictions and ballads of the time; and it has often been regretted that many of these pictures are becoming unintelligible to us from our having lost the key to them, in losing all trace of the fugitive poems or tales which suggested them.

The religious ballad I allude to must have been popular in the sixteenth century; it exists in the Provencal dialect, in German, and in Italian; and, like the wild ballad of St. John Chrysostom, it probably came in some form or other from the East. The theme is, in all these versions, substantially the same. The Virgin, on her arrival in Egypt, is encountered by a gypsy (Zingara or Zingarella), who crosses the Child's palm after the gypsy manner, and foretells all the wonderful and terrible things which, as the Redeemer of mankind, he was destined to perform and endure on earth.

An Italian version which lies before me is entitled, Canzonetta nuova, sopra la Madonna, quando si parto in Egitto col Bambino Gesu e San Giuseppe, "A new Ballad of our Lady, when she fled into Egypt with the Child Jesus and St. Joseph."

It begins with a conversation between the Virgin, who has just arrived from her long journey, and the gypsy-woman, who thus salutes her:—

ZINGARELLA. Dio ti salvi, bella Signora, E ti dia buona ventura. Ben venuto, vecchiarello, Con questo bambino bello!

MADONNA. Ben trovata, sorella mia, La sua grazia Dio ti dia. Ti perdoni i tuoi peccati L' infinita sua bontade.

ZINGARELLA. Siete stanchi e meschini, Credo, poveri pellegrini Che cercate d' alloggiare. Vuoi, Signora, scavalcare?

MADONNA. Voi che siete, sorella mia, Tutta piena di cortesia, Dio vi renda la carita Per l'infinita sua bonta. Noi veniam da Nazaretta, Siamo senza alcun ricetto, Arrivati all' strania Stanchi e lassi dalla via!

GYPSY. God save thee, fair Lady, and give thee good luck Welcome, good old man, with this thy fair Child!

MARY. Well met, sister mine! God give thee grace, and of his infinite mercy forgive thee thy sins!

GYPSY. Ye are tired and drooping, poor pilgrims, as I think, seeking a night's lodging. Lady, wilt thou choose to alight?

MARY.

O sister mine! full of courtesy, God of his infinite goodness reward thee for thy charity. We are come from Nazareth, and we are without a place to lay our heads, arrived in a strange land, all tired and weary with the way!

The Zingarella then offers them a resting-place, and straw and fodder for the ass, which being accepted, she asks leave to tell their fortune, but begins by recounting, in about thirty stanzas, all the past history of the Virgin pilgrim; she then asks to see the Child—

Ora tu, Signora mia. Che sei piena di cortesia, Mostramelo per favore Lo tuo Figlio Redentore!

And now, O Lady mine, that art full of courtesy, grant me to look upon thy Son, the Redeemer!

The Virgin takes him from the arms of Joseph—

Datemi, o caro sposo, Lo mio Figlio grazioso! Quando il vide sta meschina Zingarella, che indovina!

Give me, dear husband, my lovely boy, that this poor gypsy, who is a prophetess, may look upon him.

The gypsy responds with becoming admiration and humility, praises the beauty of the Child, and then proceeds to examine his palm: which having done, she breaks forth into a prophecy of all the awful future, tells how he would be baptized, and tempted, scourged, and finally hung upon a cross—

Questo Figlio accarezzato Tu lo vedrai ammazzato Sopra d'una dura croce, Figlio bello! Figlio dolce!

but consoles the disconsolate Mother, doomed to honour for the sake of us sinners—

Sei arrivata a tanti onori Per noi altri Peccatori!

and ends by begging an alms—

Non ti vo' piu infastidire, Bella Signora; so chi hai a fare. Dona la limosinella A sta povera Zingarella true repentance and eternal life.

Vo' una vera contrizione Per la tua intercezione, Accio st' alma dopo morte Tragga alle celesti porte!

And so the story ends.

There can be no doubt, I think, that we have here the original theme of Giorgione's picture, and perhaps of others.

In the Provencal ballad, there are three gypsies, men, not women, introduced, who tell the fortune of the Virgin and Joseph, as well as that of the Child, and end by begging alms "to wet their thirsty throats." Of this version there is a very spirited and characteristic translation by Mr. Kenyon, under the title of "a Gypsy Carol."[1]

[Footnote 1: A Day at Tivoli, with other Verses, by John Kenyon, p. 149.]

THE RETURN FROM EGYPT.

According to some authorities, the Holy Family sojourned in Egypt during a period of seven years, but others assert that they returned to Judea at the end of two years.

In general the painters have expressed the Return from Egypt by exhibiting Jesus as no longer an infant sustained in his mother's arms, but as a boy walking at her side. In a picture by Francesco Vanni, he is a boy about two or three years old, and carries a little basket full of carpenter's tools. The occasion of the Flight and Return is indicated by three or four of the martyred Innocents, who are lying on the ground. In a picture by Domenico Feti two of the Innocents are lying dead on the roadside. In a very graceful, animated picture by Rubens, Mary and Joseph lead the young Christ between them, and the Virgin wears a large straw hat.



HISTORICAL SUBJECTS.



PART III.

THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM THE SOJOURN IN EGYPT TO THE CRUCIFIXION OF OUR LORD.

1. THE HOLY FAMILY. 2. THE VIRGIN SEEKS HER SON. 3. THE DEATH OF JOSEPH. 4. THE MARRIAGE AT CANA. 5. "LO SPASIMO." 6. THE CRUCIFIXION. 7. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 8. THE ENTOMBMENT.

THE HOLY FAMILY.

When the Holy Family under divine protection, had returned safely from their sojourn in Egypt, they were about to repair to Bethlehem; but Joseph hearing that Archelaus "did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither; and being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into Galilee," and came to the city of Nazareth, which was the native place and home of the Virgin Mary. Here Joseph dwelt, following in peace his trade of a carpenter, and bringing up his reputed Son to the same craft: and here Mary nurtured her divine Child; "and he grew and waxed strong in spirit, and the grace of God was upon him." No other event is recorded until Jesus had reached his twelfth, year.

* * * * *

This, then, is the proper place to introduce some notice of those representations of the domestic life of the Virgin and the infancy of the Saviour, which, in all their endless variety, pass under the general title of THE HOLY FAMILY—the beautiful title of a beautiful subject, addressed in the loveliest and most familiar form at once to the piety and the affections of the beholder.

These groups, so numerous, and of such perpetual recurrence, that they alone form a large proportion of the contents of picture galleries and the ornaments of churches, are, after all, a modern innovation in sacred art. What may be called the domestic treatment of the history of the Virgin cannot be traced farther back than the middle of the fifteenth century. It is, indeed, common to class all those pictures as Holy Families which include any of the relatives of Christ grouped with the Mother and her Child; but I must here recapitulate and insist upon the distinction to be drawn between the domestic and the devotional treatment of the subject; a distinction I have been careful to keep in view throughout the whole range of sacred art, and which, in this particular subject, depends on a difference in sentiment and intention, more easily felt than set down in words. It is, I must repeat, a devotional group where the sacred personages are placed in direct relation to the worshippers, and where their supernatural character is paramount to every other. It is a domestic or an historical group, a Holy Family properly so called, when the personages are placed in direct relation to each other by some link of action or sentiment, which expresses the family connection between them, or by some action which has a dramatic rather than a religious significance. The Italians draw this distinction in the title "Sacra Conversazione" given to the first-named subject, and that of "Sacra Famiglia" given to the last. For instance, if the Virgin, watching her sleeping Child, puts her finger on her lip to silence the little St. John; there is here no relation between the spectator and the persons represented, except that of unbidden sympathy: it is a family group; a domestic scene. But if St. John, looking out of the picture, points to the Infant, "Behold the Lamb of God!" then the whole representation changes its significance; St. John assumes the character of precursor, and we, the spectators, are directly addressed and called upon to acknowledge the "Son of God, the Saviour of mankind."

If St. Joseph, kneeling, presents flowers to the Infant Christ, while Mary looks on tenderly (as in a group by Raphael), it is an act of homage which expresses the mutual relation of the three personages; it is a Holy Family: whereas, in the picture by Murillo, in our National Gallery, where Joseph and Mary present the young Redeemer to the homage of the spectator, while the form of the PADRE ETERNO, and the Holy Spirit, with attendant angels, are floating above, we have a devotional group, a "Sacra Conversazione:"—it is, in fact a material representation of the Trinity; and the introduction of Joseph into such immediate propinquity with the personages acknowledged as divine is one of the characteristics of the later schools of theological art. It could not possibly have occurred before the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century.

The introduction of persons who could not have been contemporary, as St. Francis or St. Catherine, renders the group ideal and devotional. On the other hand, as I have already observed, the introduction of attendant angels does not place the subject out of the domain of the actual; for the painters literally rendered what in the Scripture text is distinctly set down and literally interpreted, "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee." Wherever lived and moved the Infant Godhead, angels were always supposed to be present; therefore it lay within the province of an art addressed especially to our senses, to place them bodily before us, and to give to these heavenly attendants a visible shape and bearing worthy of their blessed ministry.

The devotional groups, of which I have already treated most fully, even while placed by the accessories quite beyond the range of actual life, have been too often vulgarized and formalized by a trivial or merely conventional treatment.[1] In these really domestic scenes, where the painter sought unreproved his models in simple nature, and trusted for his effect to what was holiest and most immutable in our common humanity, he must have been a bungler indeed if he did not succeed in touching some responsive chord of sympathy in the bosom of the observer. This is, perhaps, the secret of the universal, and, in general, deserved popularity of these Holy Families.

[Footnote 1: See the "Mater Amabilis" and the "Pastoral Madonnas," p. 229, 239.]

TWO FIGURES.

The simplest form of the family group is confined to two figures, and expresses merely the relation between the Mother and the Child. The motif is precisely the same as in the formal, goddess-like, enthroned Madonnas of the antique time; but here quite otherwise worked out, and appealing to other sympathies. In the first instance, the intention was to assert the contested pretensions of the human mother to divine honours; here it was rather to assert the humanity of her divine Son; and we have before us, in the simplest form, the first and holiest of all the social relations.

The primal instinct, as the first duty, of the mother, is the nourishment of the life she has given. A very common subject, therefore, is Mary in the act of feeding her Child from her bosom. I have already observed that, when first adopted, this was a theological theme; an answer, in form, to the challenge of the Nestorians, "Shall we call him God, who hath sucked his mother's breast?" Then, and for at least 500 years afterwards, the simple maternal action involved a religious dogma, and was the visible exponent of a controverted article of faith. All such controversy had long ceased, and certainly there was no thought of insisting on a point of theology in the minds of those secular painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who have set forth the representation with such an affectionate and delicate grace; nor yet in the minds of those who converted the lovely group into a moral lesson. For example, we find in the works of Jeremy Taylor (one of the lights of our Protestant Church) a long homily "Of nursing children, in imitation of the blessed Virgin Mother;" and prints and pictures of the Virgin thus occupied often bear significant titles and inscriptions of the same import; such as "Le premier devoir d'une mere," &c.

I do not find this motif in any known picture by Raphael: but in one of his designs, engraved by Marc Antonio, it is represented with characteristic grace and delicacy.

Goethe describes with delight a picture by Correggio, in which the attention of the Child seems divided between the bosom of his mother, and some fruit offered by an angel. He calls this subject "The Weaning of the Infant Christ." Correggio, if not the very first, is certainly among the first of the Italians who treated this motif in the simple domestic style. Others of the Lombard school followed him; and I know not a more exquisite example than the maternal group by Solario, now in the Louvre, styled La Vierge a l'Oreiller verd, from the colour of the pillow on which the Child is lying. The subject is frequent in the contemporary German and Flemish schools of the sixteenth century. In the next century, there are charming examples by the Bologna painters and the Naturalisti, Spanish, Italian, and Flemish. I would particularly point to one by Agostino Caracci (Parma), and to another by Vandyck (that engraved by Bartolozzi), as examples of elegance; while in the numerous specimens by Rubens we have merely his own wife and son, painted with all that coarse vigorous life, and homely affectionate expression, which his own strong domestic feelings could lend them.

We have in other pictures the relation between the Mother and Child expressed and varied in a thousand ways; as where she contemplates him fondly—kisses him, pressing his cheeks to hers; or they sport with a rose, or an apple, or a bird; or he presents it to his mother; these originally mystical emblems being converted into playthings. In another sketch she is amusing him by tinkling a bell:—the bell, which has a religious significance, is here a plaything. One or more attendant angels may vary the group, without taking it out of the sphere of reality. In a quaint but charming picture in the Wallerstein Collection, an angel is sporting with the Child at his mother's feet—is literally his playfellow; and in a picture by Cambiaso, Mary, assisted by an angel, is teaching her Child to walk.

* * * * *

To represent in the great enthroned Madonnas, the Infant Saviour of the world asleep, has always appeared to me a solecism: whereas in the domestic subject the Infant slumbering on his mother's knee, or cradled in her arms, or on her bosom, or rocked by angels, is a most charming subject. Sometimes angels are seen preparing his bed, or looking on while he sleeps, with folded hands and overshadowing wings. Sometimes Marry hangs over his pillow; "pondering in her heart" the wondrous destinies of her Child. A poetess of our own time has given us an interpretation worthy of the most beautiful of these representations, in the address of the Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus,—"Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!"

"And are thou come for saving, baby-browed And speechless Being? art thou come for saving? The palm that grows beside our door is bowed By treadings of the low wind from the south, A restless shadow through the chamber waving, Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun. But thou, with that close slumber on thy mouth, Dost seem of wind and sun already weary, Art come for saving, O my weary One?

"Perchance this sleep that shutteth out the dreary Earth-sounds and motions, opens on thy soul High dreams on fire with God; High songs that make the pathways where they roll More bright than stars do theirs; and visions new Of thine eternal nature's old abode. Suffer this mother's kiss, Best thing that earthly is, To glide the music and the glory through, Nor narrow in thy dream the broad upliftings Of any seraph wing. Thus, noiseless, thus!—Sleep, sleep, my dreaming One."[1]

[Footnote 1: Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, vol. ii. p. 174.]

Such high imaginings might be suggested by the group of Michael Angelo,—his famous "Silenzio:" but very different certainly are the thoughts and associations conveyed by some of the very lovely, but at the same time familiar and commonplace, groups of peasant-mothers and sleeping babies—the countless productions of the later schools—even while the simplicity and truth of the natural sentiment go straight to the heart.

I remember reading a little Italian hymn composed for a choir of nuns, and addressed to the sleeping Christ, in which he is prayed to awake or if he will not, they threaten to pull him by his golden curls until they rouse him to listen!

* * * * *

I have seen a graceful print which represents Jesus as a child standing at his mother's knee, while she feeds him from a plate or cap held by an angel; underneath is the text, "Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good" And in a print of the same period, the mother suspends her needlework to contemplate the Child, who, standing at her side, looks down compassionately on two little birds, which flutter their wings and open their beaks expectingly; underneath is the test, "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?"

Mary employed in needlework, while her cradled Infant slumbers at her side, is a beautiful subject. Rossini, in his Storia della Pittura, publishes a group, representing the Virgin mending or making a little coat, while Jesus, seated at her feet, without his coat, is playing with a bird; two angels are hovering above. It appears to me that there is here some uncertainty as regards both the subject and the master. In the time of Giottino, to whom Rossini attributes the picture, the domestic treatment of the Madonna and Child was unknown. If it be really by him, I should suppose it to represent Hannah and her son Samuel.

* * * * *

All these, and other varieties of action and sentiment connecting the Mother and her Child, are frequently accompanied by accessory figures, forming, in their combination, what is properly a Holy Family. The personages introduced, singly or together, are the young St. John, Joseph, Anna, Joachim, Elizabeth, and Zacharias.

THREE FIGURES.

The group of three figures most commonly met with, is that of the Mother and Child, with St. John. One of the earliest examples of the domestic treatment of this group is a quaint picture by Botticelli, in which Mary, bending down, holds forth the Child to be caressed by St. John,—very dry in colour and faulty in drawing, but beautiful for the sentiment. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) Perhaps the most perfect example which could be cited from the whole range of art, is Raphael's "Madonna del Cardellino" (Florence Gal.); another is his "Belle Jardiniere" (Louvre, 375); another, in which the figures are half-length, is his "Madonna del Giglio" (Lord Garvagh's Coll.). As I have already observed, where the Infant Christ takes the cross from St. John, or presents it to him, or where St. John points to him as the Redeemer, or is represented, not as a child, but as a youth or a man, the composition assumes a devotional significance.

The subject of the Sleeping Christ is beautifully varied by the introduction of St. John; as where Mary lifts the veil and shows her Child to the little St. John, kneeling with folded hands: Raphael's well-known "Vierge a la Diademe" is an instance replete with grace and expression.[1] Sometimes Mary, putting her finger to her lip, exhorts St. John to silence, as in a famous and oft-repeated subject by Annibale Caracci, of which there is a lovely example at Windsor. Such a group is called in Italian, Il Silenzio, and in French le Sommeil de Jesus.

[Footnote 1: Louvre, 376. It is also styled la Vierge au Linge]

* * * * *

Another group of three figures consists of the Mother, the Child, and St. Joseph as foster-father. This group, so commonly met with in the later schools of art, dates from the end of the fifteenth century. Gerson, an ecclesiastic distinguished at the Council of Constance for his learning and eloquence, had written a poem of three thousand lines in praise of St. Joseph, setting him up as the Christian, example of every virtue; and this poem, after the invention of printing, was published and widely disseminated. Sixtus IV. instituted a festival in honour of the "Husband of the Virgin," which, as a novelty and harmonizing with the tone of popular feeling, was everywhere acceptable. As a natural consequence, the churches and chapels were filled with pictures, which represented the Mother and her Child, with Joseph standing or seated by, in an attitude of religious contemplation or affectionate sympathy; sometimes leaning on his stick, or with his tools lying beside him; and always in the old pictures habited in his appropriate colours, the saffron-coloured robe over the gray or green tunic.

In the Madonna and Child, as a strictly devotional subject, the introduction of Joseph rather complicates the idea; but in the domestic Holy Family his presence is natural and necessary. It is seldom that he is associated with the action, where there is one; but of this also there are some beautiful examples.

* * * * *

1. In a well-known composition by Raphael (Grosvenor Gal.), the mother withdraws the covering from the Child, who seems to have that moment awaked, and, stretching out his little arms, smiles in her face: Joseph looks on tenderly and thoughtfully.

2. In another group by Raphael (Bridgewater Gal.), the Infant is seated on the mother's knee, and sustained by part of her veil; Joseph, kneeling, offers flowers to his divine foster-Son, who eagerly stretches out his little hand to take them.

In many pictures, Joseph is seen presenting cherries; as in the celebrated Vierge aux Cerises of Annibale Caracci. (Louvre.) The allusion is to a quaint old legend, often introduced in the religious ballads and dramatic mysteries of the time. It is related, that before the birth of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary wished to taste of certain cherries which hung upon a tree high above her head; she requested Joseph to procure them for her, and he reaching to pluck them, the branch bowed down to his hand.

3. There is a lovely pastoral composition by Titian, in which Mary is seated under some trees, with Joseph leaning on his staff, and the Infant Christ standing between them: the little St. John approaches with his lap full of cherries; and in the background a woman is seen gathering cherries. This picture is called a Ripose; but the presence of St. John, and the cherry tree instead of the date tree, point out a different signification. Angels presenting cherries on a plate is also a frequent circumstance, derived from the same legend.

4. In a charming picture by Garofalo, Joseph is caressing the Child, while Mary—a rather full figure, calm, matronly, and dignified, as is usual with Garofalo—sits by, holding a book in her hand, from which she has just raised her eyes. (Windsor Gal.)

5. In a family group by Murillo, Joseph, standing, holds the Infant pressed to his bosom; while Mary, seated near a cradle, holds out her arms to take it from him: a carpenter's bench is seen behind.

6. A celebrated picture by Rembrandt, known as le Menage du Menuisier, exhibits a rustic interior; the Virgin is seated with the volume of the Scriptures open on her knees—she turns, and lifting the coverlid of the cradle, contemplates the Infant asleep: in the background Joseph is seen at his work; while angels hover above, keeping watch over the Holy Family. Exquisite for the homely natural sentiment, and the depth of the colour and chiaro-oscuro. (Petersburg.)

7. Many who read these pages will remember the pretty little picture by Annibale Caracci, known as "le Raboteur."[1] It represents Joseph planing a board, while Jesus, a lovely boy about six or seven years old, stands by, watching the progress of his work. Mary is seated on one side plying her needle. The great fault of this picture is the subordinate and utterly commonplace character given to the Virgin Mother: otherwise it is a very suggestive and dramatic subject, and one which might be usefully engraved in a cheap form for distribution.

[Footnote 1: In the Coll. of the Earl of Suffolk, at Charlton.]

* * * * *

Sometimes, in a Holy Family of three figures, the third figure is neither St. John nor St. Joseph, but St. Anna. Now, according to some early authorities, both Joachim and Anna died either before the marriage of Mary and Joseph, or at least before the return from Egypt. Such, however, was the popularity of these family groups, and the desire to give them all possible variety, that the ancient version of the story was overruled by the prevailing taste, and St. Anna became an important personage. One of the earliest groups in which the mother of the Virgin is introduced as a third personage, is a celebrated, but to my taste not a pleasing, composition, by Lionardo da Vinci, in which St. Anna is seated on a sort of chair, and the Virgin on her knees bends down towards the Infant Christ, who is sporting with a lamb. (Louvre, 481.)

FOUR FIGURES.

In a Holy Family of four figures, we have frequently the Virgin, the Child, and the infant St. John, with St. Joseph standing by. Raphael's Madonna del Passeggio is an example. In a picture by Palma Vecchio, St. John presents a lamb, while St. Joseph kneels before the Infant Christ, who, seated on his mother's knee, extends his arms to his foster-father. Nicole Poussin was fond of this group, and has repeated it at least ten times with variations.

But the most frequent group of four figures consists of the Virgin and Child, with St. John and his mother, St. Elizabeth—the two mothers and the two sons. Sometimes the children are sporting together, or embracing each other, while Mary and Elizabeth look on with a contemplative tenderness, or seem to converse on the future destinies of their sons. A very favourite and appropriate action is that of St. Elizabeth presenting St. John, and teaching him to kneel and fold his hands, as acknowledging in his little cousin the Infant Saviour. We have then, in beautiful contrast, the aged coifed head of Elizabeth, with its matronly and earnest expression; the youthful bloom and soft virginal dignity of Mary; and the different character of the boys, the fair complexion and delicate proportions of the Infant Christ, and the more robust and brown-complexioned John. A great painter will be careful to express these distinctions, not by the exterior character only, but will so combine the personages, that the action represented shall display the superior dignity of Christ and his mother.

FIVE OR SIX FIGURES.

The addition of Joseph as a fifth figure, completes the domestic group. The introduction of the aged Zacharias renders, however, yet more full and complete, the circle of human life and human affection. We have then, infancy, youth, maturity, and age,—difference of sex and various degrees of relationship, combined into one harmonious whole; and in the midst, the divinity of innocence, the Child-God, the brightness of a spiritual power, connecting our softest earthly affections with our highest heavenward aspirations.[1]

[Footnote 1: The inscription under a Holy Family in which the children are caressing each other is sometimes Delicae meae esse cum filiis hominum (Prov. viii. 31, "My delights were with the sons of men").]

* * * * *

A Holy Family of more than six figures (the angels not included) is very unusual. But there are examples of groups combining all those personages mentioned in the Gospels as being related to Christ, though the nature and the degree of this supposed relationship has embarrassed critics and commentators, and is not yet settled.

According to an ancient tradition, Anna, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was three times married, Joachim being her third husband: the two others were Cleophas and Salome. By Cleophas she had a daughter, also called Mary, who was the wife of Alpheus, and the mother of Thaddeus, James Minor, and Joseph Justus. By Salome she had a daughter, also Mary, married to Zebedee, and the mother of James Major and John the Evangelist. This idea that St. Anna was successively the wife of three husbands, and the mother of three daughters, all of the name of Mary, has been rejected by later authorities; but in the beginning of the sixteenth century it was accepted, and to that period may be referred the pictures, Italian and German, representing a peculiar version of the Holy Family more properly styled "the Family of the Virgin Mary."

A picture by Lorenzo di Pavia, painted about 1513, exhibits a very complete example of this family group. Mary is seated in the centre, holding in her lap the Infant Christ; near her is St. Joseph. Behind the Virgin stand St. Anna, and three men, with their names inscribed, Joachim, Cleophas, and Salome. On the right of the Virgin is Mary the daughter of Cleophas, Alpheus her husband, and her children Thaddeus, James Minor, and Joseph Justus. On the left of the Virgin is Mary the daughter of Salome, her husband Zebedee, and her children James Major and John the Evangelist.[1]

[Footnote 1: This picture I saw in the Louvre some years ago, but it is not in the New Catalogue by M. Villot.]

A yet more beautiful example is a picture by Perugino in the Musee at Marseilles, which I have already cited and described (Sacred and Legendary Art): here also the relatives of Christ, destined to be afterwards his apostles and the ministers of his word, are grouped around him in his infancy. In the centre Mary is seated and holding the child; St. Anna stands behind, resting her hands affectionately on the shoulders of the Virgin. In front, at the feet of the Virgin, are two boys, Joseph and Thaddeus; and near them Mary, the daughter of Cleophas, holds the hand of her third son James Minor. To the right is Mary Salome, holding in her arms her son John the Evangelist, and at her feet is her other son, James Major. Joseph, Zebedee, and other members of the family, stand around. The same subject I have seen in illuminated MSS., and in German prints. It is worth remarking that all these appeared about the same time, between 1505 and 1520, and that the subject afterwards disappeared; from which I infer that it was not authorized by the Church; perhaps because the exact degree of relationship between these young apostles and the Holy Family was not clearly made out, either by Scripture or tradition.

In a composition by Parmigiano, Christ is standing at his mother's knee; Elizabeth presents St. John the Baptist; the other little St. John kneels on a cushion. Behind the Virgin are St. Joachim and St. Anna; and behind Elizabeth, Zebedee and Mary Salome, the parents of St. John the Evangelist. In the centre, Joseph looks on with folded hands.

* * * * *

A catalogue raisonnee of the Holy Families painted by distinguished artists including from two to six figures would fill volumes: I shall content myself with directing attention to some few examples remarkable either for their celebrity, their especial beauty, or for some peculiarity, whether commendable or not, in the significance or the treatment.

The strictly domestic conception may be said to have begun with Raphael and Correggio; and they afford the most perfect examples of the tender and the graceful in sentiment and action, the softest parental feeling, the loveliest forms of childhood. Of the purely natural and familiar treatment, which came into fashion in the seventeenth century, the pictures of Guido, Rubens, and Murillo afford the most perfect specimens.

1. Raphael. (Louvre, 377.) Mary, a noble queenly creature, is seated, and bends towards her Child, who is springing from his cradle to meet her embrace; Elizabeth presents St. John; and Joseph, leaning on his hand, contemplates the group: two beautiful angels scatter flowers from above. This is the celebrated picture once supposed to have been executed expressly for Francis I.; but later researches prove it to have been painted for Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino.[1]

[Footnote 1: It appears from the correspondence relative to this picture and the "St. Michael," that both pictures were painted by order of this Lorenzo de' Medici, the same who is figured in Michael Angelo's Pensiero, and that they were intended as presents to Francis I. (See Dr. Gaye's Carteggio, ii. 146, and also the new Catalogue of the Louvre by F. Villot.) I have mentioned this Holy Family not as the finest of Raphael's Madonnas, but because there is something peculiarly animated and dramatic in the motif, considering the time at which it was painted. It was my intention to have given here a complete list of Raphael's Holy Families; but this has been so well done in the last English edition of Kugler's Handbook, that it has become superfluous as a repetition. The series of minute and exquisite drawings by Mr. George Scharf, appended to Kugler's Catalogue, renders it easy to recognize all the groups described in this and the preceding pages.]

2. Correggio. Mary holds the Child upon her knee, looking down upon him fondly. Styled, from the introduction of the work-basket, La Vierge au Panier. A finished example of that soft, yet joyful, maternal feeling for which Correggio was remarkable. (National Gal. 23.)

3. Pinturicchio. In a landscape, Mary and Joseph are seated together; near them are some loaves and a small cask of wine. More in front the two children, Jesus and St. John, are walking arm in arm; Jesus holds a book and John a pitcher, as if they were going to a well. (Siena Acad.)

4. Andrea del Sarto. The Virgin is seated on the ground, and holds the Child; the young St. John is in the arms of St. Elizabeth, and Joseph is seen behind. (Louvre, 439.) This picture, another by the same painter in the National Gallery, a third in the collection of Lord Lansdowne, and in general all the Holy Families of Andrea, may be cited as examples of fine execution and mistaken or defective character. No sentiment, no action, connects the personages either with each other, or with the spectator.

5. Michael Angelo. The composition, in the Florence Gallery, styled a Holy Family, appears to me a signal example of all that should be avoided. It is, as a conception, neither religious nor domestic; in execution and character exaggerated and offensive, and in colour hard and dry.

Another, a bas-relief, in which the Child is shrinking from a bird held up by St. John, is very grand in the forms: the mistake in sentiment, as regards the bird, I have pointed out in the Introduction. (Royal Academy.) A third, in which the Child leans pensively on a book lying open on his mother's knee, while she looks out on the spectator, is more properly a Mater Amabilis.

There is an extraordinary fresco still preserved in the Casa Buonarotti at Florence, where it was painted on the wall by Michael Angelo, and styled a Holy Family, though the exact meaning of the subject has been often disputed. It appears to me, however, very clear, and one never before or since attempted by any other artist. (This fresco is engraved in the Etruria Pittrice.) Mary is seated in the centre; her Child is reclining on the ground between her knees; and the little St. John holding his cross looks on him steadfastly. A man coming forward seems to ask of Mary, "Whose son is this?" She most expressively puts aside Joseph with her hand, and looks up, as if answering, "Not the son of an earthly, but of a heavenly Father!" There are five other figures standing behind, and the whole group is most significant.

6. Albert Durer. The Holy Family seated under a tree; the Infant is about to spring from the knee of his mother into the outstretched arms of St. Anna; Joseph is seen behind with his hat in his hand; and to the left sits the aged Joachim contemplating the group.

7. Mary appears to have just risen from her chair, the Child bends from her arms, and a young and very little angel, standing on tiptoe, holds up to him a flower—other flowers in his lap:—a beautiful old German print.

8. Giulio Romano. (La Madonna del Bacino.) (Dresden Gal.) The Child stands in a basin, and the young St. John pours water upon him from a vase, while Mary washes him. St. Elizabeth stands by, holding a napkin; St. Joseph, behind, is looking on. Notwithstanding the homeliness of the action, there is here a religious and mysterious significance, prefiguring the Baptism.

9. N. Poussin. Mary, assisted by angels, washes and dresses her Child. (Gal. of Mr. Hope.)

10. V. Salimbeni.—An Interior. Mary and Joseph are occupied by the Child. Elizabeth is spinning. More in front St. John is carrying two puppies in the lappet of his coat, and the dog is leaping up to him. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) This is one out of many instances in which the painter, anxious to vary the oft-repeated subject, and no longer restrained by refined taste or religious veneration, has fallen into a most offensive impropriety.

11. Ippolito Andreasi. Mary, seated, holds the Infant Christ between her knees; Elizabeth leans over the back of her chair; Joseph leans on his staff behind the Virgin; the little St. John and an angel present grapes, while four other angels are gathering and bringing them. A branch of vine, loaded with grapes, is lying in the foreground. Christ looks like a young Bacchus; and there is something mannered and fantastic in the execution. (Louvre, 38.) With this domestic scene is blended a strictly religious symbol, "I am the vine."

12. Murilio. Mary is in the act of swaddling her Child (Luke ii, 7), while two angels, standing near him, solace the divine Infant with heavenly music. (Madrid Gal.)

13. Rubens. Mary, seated on the ground, holds the Child with a charming maternal expression, a little from her, gazing on him with rapturous earnestness, while he looks up with responsive tenderness in her face. His right hand rests on a cross presented by St. John, who is presented by St. Elizabeth. Wonderful for the intensely natural and domestic expression, and the beauty of the execution. (Florence, Pitti Pal.)

14. D. Hopfer. Within the porch of a building, Mary is seated on one side, reading intently. St. Anna, on the other side, holds out her arms to the Child, who is sitting on the ground between them; an angel looks in at the open door behind. (Bartsch., viii. 483.)

15. Rembrandt. (Le Menage du Menuisier.) A rustic interior. Mary, seated in the centre, is suckling her Child. St. Anna, a fat Flemish grandame, has been reading the volume of the Scriptures, and bends forward in order to remove the covering and look in the Infant's face. A cradle is near. Joseph is seen at work in the background. (Louvre.)

16. Le Brun. (The Benedicite.) Mary, the Child, and Joseph, are seated at a frugal repast. Joseph is in the act of reverently saying grace, which gives to the picture the title by which it is known.[1]

[Footnote 1: Louvre, Ecole Francaise 57. There is a celebrated engraving by Edelinck.]

* * * * *

It is distinctly related that Joseph brought up his foster-Son as a carpenter, and that Jesus exercised the craft of his reputed father. In the Church pictures, we do not often meet with this touching and familiar aspect of the life of our Saviour. But in the small decorative pictures painted for the rich ecclesiastics, and for private oratories, and in the cheap prints which were prepared for distribution among the people, and became especially popular during the religious reaction of the seventeenth century, we find this homely version of the subject perpetually, and often most pleasingly, exhibited. The greatest and wisest Being who ever trod the earth was thus represented, in the eyes of the poor artificer, as ennobling and sanctifying labour and toil; and the quiet domestic duties and affections were here elevated, and hallowed, by religious associations, and adorned by all the graces of Art. Even where the artistic treatment was not first-rate, was not such as the painters—priests and poets as well as painters—of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries would have lent to such themes,—still if the sentiment and significance were but intelligible to those especially addressed, the purpose was accomplished, and the effect must have been good.

I have before me an example in a set of twelve prints, executed in the Netherlands, exhibiting a sort of history of the childhood of Christ, and his training under the eye of his mother. It is entitled Jesu Christi Del Domini Salvatoris nostri Infantia, "The Infancy of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ;" and the title-page is surrounded by a border composed of musical instruments, spinning-wheels, distaffs, and other implements, of female industry, intermixed with all kinds of mason's and carpenter's tools. To each print is appended a descriptive Latin verse; Latin being chosen, I suppose, because the publication was intended for distribution in different countries, and especially foreign missions, and to be explained by the priests to the people.

1. The figure of Christ is seen in a glory surrounded by cherubim, &c.

2. The Virgin is seated on the hill of Sion. The Infant in her lap, with outspread arms, looks up to a choir of angels, and is singing with them.

3. Jesus, slumbering in his cradle, is rocked by two angels, while Mary sits by, engaged in needlework.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Latin stanza beneath, is remarkable for its elegance, and because it has been translated by Coleridge, who mentions that he found the print and the verse under it in a little inn in Germany.

Dormi, Jesu, mater ridet, Quae tam dulcem somnum videt, Dormi, Jesu, blandule! Si non dormis mater plorat, Inter fila cantans orat, Blande, veni, somnule!

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling, Mother sits beside thee smiling, Sleep, my darling, tenderly! If thou sleep not, mother mourneth, Singing as her wheel she turneth" Come, soft slumber, balmily!"]

4. The interior of a carpenter's shop. Joseph is plying his work, while Joachim stands near him. The Virgin is measuring linen, and St. Anna looks on. Two angels are at play with the Infant Christ, who is blowing soap-bubbles.

5. While Mary is preparing the family meal, and watching a pot which is boiling on the fire, Joseph is seen behind chopping wood: more in front, Jesus is sweeping together the chips, and two angels are gathering them up.

6. Mary is reeling off a skein of thread; Joseph is squaring a plank; Jesus is picking up the chips, assisted by two angels.

7. Mary is seated at her spinning-wheel; Joseph, assisted by Jesus, is sawing through a large beam; two angels looking on.

8. Mary is spinning with a distaff; behind, Joseph is sawing a beam, on which Jesus is standing above; and two angels are lifting a plank.

9. Joseph is seen building up the framework of a house, assisted by an angel; Jesus is boring a hole with a large gimlet: an angel helps him; Mary is winding thread.

10. Joseph is busy roofing in the house; Jesus, assisted by the angels, is carrying a beam of wood up a ladder; below, in front, Mary is carding wool or flax.

11. Joseph is building a boat, assisted by Jesus, who has a hammer and chisel in his hand: two angels help him. The Virgin is knitting a stocking; and the new-built house is seen in the background.

12. Joseph is erecting a fence round a garden; Jesus, assisted by the angels, is fastening the palings together; while Mary is weaving garlands of roses.

Justin Martyr mentions, as a tradition of his time, that Jesus assisted his foster-father in making yokes and ploughs. In Holland, where these prints were published, the substitution of the boat-building seems very natural. St. Bonaventura, the great Franciscan theologian, and a high authority in all that relates to the life and character of Mary, not only described her as a pattern of female industry, but alludes particularly to the legend of the distaff, and mentions a tradition, that, when in Egypt, the Holy Family was so reduced by poverty, that Mary begged from door to door the fine flax which she afterwards spun into a garment for her Child.

* * * * *

As if to render the circle of maternal duties, and thereby the maternal example, more complete, there are prints of Mary leading her Son to school. I have seen one in which he carries his hornbook in his hand. Such representations, though popular, were condemned by the highest church authorities as nothing less than heretical. The Abbe Mery counts among the artistic errors "which endanger the faith of good Christians," those pictures which represent Mary or Joseph instructing the Infant Christ; as if all learning, all science, divine and human, were not his by intuition, and without any earthly teaching, (v. Theologie des Peintres.) A beautiful Holy Family, by Schidone, is entitled, "The Infant Christ learning to read" (Bridgewater Gal.); and we frequently meet with pictures in which the mother holds a book, while the divine Child, with a serious intent expression, turns over the leaves, or points to the letters: but I imagine that these, and similar groups, represent Jesus instructing Mary and Joseph, as he is recorded to have done. There is also a very pretty legend, in which he is represented as exciting the astonishment, of the schoolmaster Zaccheus by his premature wisdom. On these, and other details respecting the infancy of our Saviour, I shall have to say much more when treating of the History of Christ.



THE DISPUTE IN THE TEMPLE.

Ital. La Disputa nel Tempio. Fr. Jesus au milieu des Docteurs.

The subject which we call the Dispute in the Temple, or "Christ among the Doctors," is a scene of great importance in the life of the Redeemer (Luke ii. 41, 52). His appearance in the midst of the doctors, at twelve years old, when he sat "hearing them and asking them questions, and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers," has been interpreted as the first manifestation of his high character as teacher of men, as one come to throw a new light on the prophecies,—

"For trailing clouds of glory had he come From heaven, which was his home;"

and also as instructing as that those who are to become teachers of men ought, when young, to listen to the voice of age and experience; and that those who have grown old may learn lessons of wisdom from childish innocence. Such is the historical and scriptural representation. But in the life of the Virgin, the whole scene changes its signification. It is no longer the wisdom of the Son, it is the sorrow of the Mother which is the principal theme. In their journey home from Jerusalem, Jesus has disappeared; he who was the light of her eyes, whose precious existence had been so often threatened, has left her care, and gone, she knows not whither. "No fancy can imagine the doubts, the apprehensions, the possibilities of mischief, the tremblings of heart, which the holy Virgin-mother feels thronging in her bosom. For three days she seeks him in doubt and anguish." (Jeremy Taylor's "Life of Christ.") At length he is found seated in the temple in the midst of the learned doctors, "hearing them, and asking them questions." And she said unto him, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, I and thy father have sought thee sorrowing." And he said unto them, "How is it that ye sought me? Wise ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

Now there are two ways of representing this scene. In all the earlier pictures it is chiefly with reference to the Virgin Mother: it is one of the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary. The Child Jesus sits in the temple, teaching with hand uplifted; the doctors round him turn over the leaves of their great books, searching the law and the prophets. Some look up at the young inspired Teacher—he who was above the law, yet came to obey the law and fulfil the prophecies—with amazement. Conspicuous in front, stand Mary and Joseph, and she is in act to address to him the tender reproach, "I and thy father have sought thee sorrowing." In the early examples she is a principal figure, but in later pictures she is seen entering in the background; and where the scene relates only to the life of Christ, the figures of Joseph and Mary are omitted altogether, and the Child teacher becomes the central, or at least the chief, personage in the group.

In a picture by Giovanni da Udine, the subject is taken out of the region of the actual, and treated altogether as a mystery. In the centre sits the young Redeemer, his hand raised, and surrounded by several of the Jewish doctors; while in front stand the four fathers of the Church, who flourished in the interval between the fourth and sixth centuries after Christ; and these, holding their books, point to Jesus, or look to him, as to the source of their wisdom;—a beautiful and poetical version of the true significance of the story, which the critics of the last century would call a chronological mistake. (Venice, Academy.)

But those representations which come under our especial consideration at present, are such as represent the moment in which Mary appears before her Son. The earliest instance of this treatment is a group by Giotto. Dante cites the deportment of the Virgin on this occasion, and her mild reproach, "con atto dolce di madre," as a signal lesson of gentleness and forbearance. (Purgatorio, c. xv.) It is as if he had transferred the picture of Giotto into his Vision; for it is as a picture, not an action, that it is introduced. Another, by Simon Memmi, in the Roscoe Collection at Liverpool, is conceived in a similar spirit. In a picture by Garofalo, Mary does not reproach her Son, but stands listening to him with her hands folded on her bosom. In a large and fine composition by Pinturicchio, the doctors throw down their books before him, while the Virgin and Joseph are entering on one side. The subject is conspicuous in Albert Durer's Life of the Virgin, where Jesus is seated on high, as one having authority, teaching from a chair like that of a professor in a university, and surrounded by the old bearded doctors; and Mary stands before her Son in an attitude of expostulation.

After the restoration of Jesus to his parents, they conducted him home; "but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart." The return to Nazareth, Jesus walking humbly between Joseph and Mary, was painted by Rubens for the Jesuit College at Antwerp, as a lesson to youth. Underneath is the text, "And he was subject unto them."[1]

[Footnote 1: It has been called by mistake "The Return from Egypt"]



THE DEATH OF JOSEPH.

Ital. La Morte di San Giuseppe. Fr. La Mort de St. Joseph Ger. Josef's Tod.

Between the journey to Jerusalem and the public appearance of Jesus, chronologers place the death of Joseph, but the exact date is not ascertained: some place it in the eighteenth year of the life of our Saviour, and others in his twenty-seventh year, when, as they assert, Joseph was one hundred and eleven years old.

I have already observed, that the enthusiasm for the character of Joseph, and his popularity as a saint and patron of power, date from the fifteenth century; and late in the sixteenth century I find, for the first time, the death of Joseph treated as a separate subject. It appears that the supposed anniversary of his death (July 20) had long been regarded in the East as a solemn festival, and that it was the custom to read publicly, on this occasion, some homily relating to his life and death. The very curious Arabian work, entitled "The History of Joseph the Carpenter," is supposed to be one of these ancient homilies, and, in its original form, as old as the fourth century.[1] Here the death of Joseph is described with great detail, and with many solemn and pathetic circumstances; and the whole history is put into the mouth of Jesus, who is supposed to recite it to his disciples: he describes the pious end of Joseph; he speaks of himself as being present, and acknowledged by the dying man as "Redeemer and Messiah," and he proceeds to record the grief of Mary:—

"And my mother, the Virgin, arose, and she came nigh to me and said, 'O my beloved Son now must the good old man die!' and I answered and said unto her, 'O my most dear mother, needs must all created beings die; and death will have his rights, even over thee, beloved mother; but death to him and to thee is no death, only the passage to eternal life; and this body I have derived from thee shall also undergo death.'"

[Footnote 1: The Arabic MS. in the library at Paris is of the year 1299, and the Coptic version as old as 1367. Extracts from these were become current in the legends of the West, about the fifteenth century.—See the "Neu Testamentlichen Apokryphen," edited in German by Dr. K.F. Borberg.]

And they sat, the Son and the mother, beside Joseph; and Jesus held his hand, and watched the last breath of life trembling on his lips; and Mary touched his feet, and they were cold; and the daughters and the sons of Joseph wept and sobbed around in their grief; and then Jesus adds tenderly, "I, and my mother Mary, we wept with them."

Then follows a truly Oriental scene, of the evil angels rising up with Death, and rejoicing in his power over the saint, while Jesus rebukes them; and at his prayer God sends down Michael, prince of the angelic host, and Gabriel, the herald of light, to take possession of the departing spirit, enfold it in a robe of brightness thereby to preserve it from the "dark angels," and carry it up into heaven.

This legend of the death of Joseph was, in many forms, popular in the sixteenth century; hence arose the custom of invoking him as Intercessor to obtain a blessed and peaceful end, so that he became, in some sort, the patron saint of death-beds; and it is at this time we find the first representations of the death of Joseph, afterwards a popular subject in the churches and convents of the Augustine canons and Carmelite friars, who had chosen him for their patron saint; and also in family chapels consecrated to the memory or the repose of the dead.

The finest example I have seen, is by Carlo Maratti, in the Vienna Gallery. St. Joseph is on a couch; Christ is seated near him; and the Virgin stands by with folded hands, in a sad, contemplative attitude.

* * * * *

I am not aware that the Virgin has ever been introduced into any representation of the temptation or the baptism of our Saviour. These subjects, so important and so picturesque, are reserved till we enter upon the History of Christ.



THE MARRIAGE AT CANA IN GALILEE.

Ital. Le Nozze di Cana. Fr. Les Noces de Cana. Ger. Die Hochzeit zu Cana.

After his temptation and baptism, the first manifestation of the divine mission and miraculous power of Jesus was at the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee; and those who had devoted themselves to the especial glorification of the Virgin Mother did not forget that it was at her request this first miracle was accomplished:—that out of her tender and sympathetic commiseration for the apparent want, arose her appeal to him,—not, indeed, as requiring anything from him, but, looking to him with habitual dependence on his goodness and power. She simply said, "They have no wine!" He replied, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." The term woman, thus used, sounds harsh to us; but in the original is a term of respect. Nor did Jesus intend any denial to the mother, whom he regarded with dutiful and pious reverence:—it was merely an intimation that he was not yet entered into the period of miraculous power. He anticipated it, however, for her sake, and because of her request. Such is the view taken of this beautiful and dramatic incident by the early theologians; and in the same spirit it has been interpreted by the painters.

The Marriage at Cana appears very seldom in the ancient representations taken from the Gospel. All the monkish institutions then prevalent discredited marriage; and it is clear that this distinct consecration of the rite by the presence of the Saviour and his mother did not find favour with the early patrons of art.

There is an old Greek tradition, that the Marriage at Cana was that of John the Evangelist. In the thirteenth century, when the passionate enthusiasm for Mary Magdalene was at its height, it was a popular article of belief, that the Marriage which Jesus graced with his presence was that of John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene; and that immediately after the wedding feast, St. John and Mary, devoting themselves to an austere and chaste religious life, followed Christ, and ministered to him.

As a scene in the life of Christ, the Marriage at Cana, is of course introduced incidentally; but even here, such were the monastic principles and prejudices, that I find it difficult to point out any very early example. In the "Manual of Greek Art," published by Didron, the rules for the representation are thus laid down:—"A table; around it Scribes and Pharisees; one holds up a cup of wine, and seems astonished. In the midst, the bride and bridegroom are seated together. The bridegroom is to have 'grey hair and a round beard (cheveux gris et barbe arrondie); both are to be crowned with flowers; behind them, a servitor. Christ, the Virgin, and Joseph are to be on one side, and on the other are six jars: the attendants are in the act of filling them with water from leathern buckets."

The introduction of Joseph is quite peculiar to Greek art; and the more curious, that in the list of Greek subjects there is not one from his life, nor in which he is a conspicuous figure. On the other hand, the astonished "ruler of the feast" (the Architriclino), so dramatic and so necessary to the comprehension of the scene, is scarcely ever omitted. The apostles whom we may imagine to be present, are Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

* * * * *

As a separate subject, the Marriage at Cana first became popular in the Venetian school, and thence extended to the Lombard and German schools of the same period—that is, about the beginning of the sixteenth century.

The most beautiful representation I have ever seen is a fresco, by Luini, in the church of San Maurizio, at Milan. It belongs to a convent of nuns; and I imagine, from its introduction there, that it had a mystic signification, and referred to a divine Sposalizio. In this sense, the treatment is perfect. There are just the number of figures necessary to tell the story, and no more. It is the bride who is here the conspicuous figure, seated in the centre, arrayed in spotless white, and represented as a nun about to make her profession; for this is evidently the intended signification. The bridegroom is at her side, and near to the spectator. Christ, and the Virgin are seated together, and appear to be conversing. A man presents a cup of wine. Including guests and attendants, there are only twelve figures. The only fault of this exquisite and graceful composition, is the introduction of a cat and dog in front: we feel that they ought to have been omitted, as giving occasion for irreverent witticisms.[1]

[Footnote 1: This beautiful fresco, which is seldom seen, being behind the altar, was in a very ruined condition when I saw it last in 1855.]

In contrast with this picture, and as a gorgeous specimen of the Venetian style of treatment, we may turn to the "Marriage at Cana" in the Louvre, originally painted to cover one side of the refectory of the convent of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, whence it was carried off by the French in 1796. This immense picture is about thirty-six feet in length, and about twenty feet in height, and contains more than a hundred figures above life-size. In the centre Christ is seated, and beside him the Virgin Mother. Both heads are merely commonplace, and probably portraits, like those of the other personages at the extremity of the table. On the left are seated the bride and bridegroom. In the foreground a company of musicians are performing a concert; behind the table is a balustrade, where are seen numerous servants occupied in cutting up the viands and serving dishes, with attendants and spectators. The chief action to be represented, the astonishing miracle performed by him at whose command "the fountain blushed into wine," is here quite a secondary matter; and the value of the picture lies in its magnitude and variety as a composition, and the portraits of the historical characters and remarkable personages introduced,—Francis I., his queen Eleanora of Austria, Charles V. and others. In the group of musicians in front we recognize Titian and Tintoretto, old Bassano, and Paolo himself.

The Marriage at Cana, as a refectory subject, had been unknown till this time: it became popular, and Paolo afterwards repeated it several times. The most beautiful of all, to my feeling, is that in the Dresden Gallery, where the "ruler of the feast," holding up the glass of wine with admiration, seems to exclaim, "Thou hast kept the good wine until now." In another, which is at Milan, the Virgin turns round to the attendant, and desires him to obey her Son;—"Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it!"

As the Marriage at Cana belongs, as a subject, rather to the history of Christ, than to that of the Virgin his mother, I shall not enter into it further here, but proceed.

* * * * *

After the marriage at Cana in Galilee, which may be regarded as the commencement of the miraculous mission of our Lord, we do not hear anything of his mother, the Virgin, till the time approached when he was to close his ministry by his death. She is not once referred to by name in the Gospels until the scene of the Crucifixion. We are indeed given to understand, that in the journeys of our Saviour, and particularly when he went up from Nazareth to Jerusalem, the women followed and ministered to him (Matt. xxvii. 55, Luke, viii. 2): and those who have written the life of the Virgin for the edification of the people, and those who have translated it into the various forms of art, have taken it for granted that SHE, his mother, could not have been absent or indifferent where others attended with affection and zeal: but I do not remember any scene in which she is an actor, or even a conspicuous figure.

Among the carvings on the stalls at Amiens, there is one which represents the passage (Matt. xii. 46.) wherein our Saviour, preaching in Judea, is told that his mother and his brethren stand without. "But he answering, said to him that told him, 'Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?' And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, 'Behold my mother and my brethren!'" The composition exhibits on one side Jesus standing and teaching his disciples; while on the other, through an open door, we perceive the Virgin and two or three others. This representation is very rare. The date of these stalls is the sixteenth century; and such a group in a series of the life of the Virgin could not, I think, have occurred in the fifteenth. It would have been quite inconsistent with all the religious tendencies of that time, to exhibit Christ as preaching within, while his "divine and most glorious" Mother was standing without.

The theologians of the middle ages insist on the close and mystical relation which they assure us existed between Christ and his mother: however far separated, there was constant communion between them; and wherever he might be—in whatever acts of love, or mercy, or benign wisdom occupied for the good of man—there was also his mother, present with him in the spirit. I think we can trace the impress of this mysticism in some of the productions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. For example, among the frescoes by Angelico da Fiesole in the cloisters of St. Mark, at Florence, there is one of the Transfiguration, where the Saviour stands glorified with arms outspread—a simple and sublime conception,—and on each side, half figures of Moses and Elias: lower down appear the Virgin and St. Dominick. There is also in the same series a fresco of the Last Supper as the Eucharist, in which the Virgin is kneeling, glorified, on one side of the picture, and appears as a partaker of the rite. Such a version of either subject must be regarded as wholly mystical and exceptional, and I am not acquainted with any other instance.



LO SPASIMO.

"O what avails me now that honour high, To have conceived of God, and that salute, 'Hail highly favoured among woman blest! While I to sorrows am no less advanced, And fears as eminent, above the lot Of other women by the birth I bore." —"This is my favoured lot, My exaltation to afflictions high."

MILTON.

In the Passion of our Lord, taken in connection with the life of the Virgin Mother, there are three scenes in which she is associated with the action as an important, if not a principal, personage.

We are told in the Gospel of St. John (chap. xvii), that Christ took a solemn farewell of his disciples: it is therefore supposed that he did not go up to his death without taking leave of his Mother,—without preparing her for that grievous agony by all the comfort that his tender and celestial pity and superior nature could bestow. This parting of Christ and his Mother before the Crucifixion is a modern subject. I am not acquainted with any example previous to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The earliest I have met with is by Albert Durer, in the series of the life of the Virgin, but there are probably examples more ancient, or at least contemporary. In Albert Durer's composition, Mary is sinking to the earth, as if overcome with affliction, and is sustained in the arms of two women; she looks up with folded hands and streaming eyes to her Son who stands before her; he, with one hand extended, looks down upon her compassionately, and seems to give her his last benediction. I remember another instance, by Paul Veronese, full of that natural affectionate sentiment which belonged to the Venetian school. (Florence Gal.) In a very beautiful picture by Carotto of Verona, Jesus kneels before his Mother, and receives her benediction before he departs: this must be regarded as an impropriety, a mistake in point of sentiment, considering the peculiar relation between the two personages; but it is a striking instance of the popular notions of the time respecting the high dignity of the Virgin Mother. I have not seen it repeated.[1]

[Footnote 1: Verona, San Bernardino. It is worth remarking, with regard to this picture, that the Intendant of the Convent rebuked the artist, declaring that he had made the Saviour show too little reverence for his Mother, seeing that he knelt to her on one knee only.—See the anecdote in Vasari, vol. i. p. 651. Fl. Edit. 1838.]

* * * * *

It appears from the Gospel histories, that the women who had attended upon Christ during his ministry failed not in their truth and their love to the last. In the various circumstances of the Passion of our Lord, where the Virgin Mother figures as an important personage, certain of these women are represented as always near her, and sustaining her with a tender and respectful sympathy. Three are mentioned by name,—Mary Magdalene; Mary the wife of Cleophas; and Mary, the mother of James and John. Martha, the sister of Mary Magdalene, is also included, as I infer from her name, which in several instances is inscribed in the nimbus encircling her head. I have in another place given the story of Martha, and the legends which in the fourteenth century converted her into a very important character in sacred art, (First Series of Sacred and Legendary Art.) These women, therefore, form, with the Virgin, the group of five female figures which are generally included in the scriptural scenes from the Life of Christ.

Of course, these incidents, and more especially the "Procession to Calvary," and the "Crucifixion," belong to another series of subjects, which I shall have to treat hereafter in the History of our Lord; but they are also included in a series of the Rosary, as two of the mystical SORROWS; and under this point of view I must draw attention to the peculiar treatment of the Virgin in some remarkable examples, which will serve as a guide to others.

* * * * *

The Procession to Calvary (Il Portamento della Croce) followed a path leading from the gate of Jerusalem to Mount Calvary, which has been kept in remembrance and sanctified as the Via Dolorosa, and there is a certain spot near the summit of the hill, where, according to a very ancient tradition, the Virgin Mother, and the women her companions, placed themselves to witness the sorrowful procession; where the Mother, beholding her divine Son dragged along, all bleeding from the scourge, and sinking under his cross, in her extreme agony sank, fainting, to the earth. This incident gave rise to one of the mournful festivals of the Passion Week, under the title, in French, of Notre Dame du Spasme or de la Pamoison; in Italian La Madonna dello Spasimo, or Il Pianto di Maria; and this is the title given to some of those representations in which the affliction of Mary is a prominent part of the tragic interest of the scene. She is sometimes sinking to the earth, sustained by the women or by St. John; sometimes she stands with clasped hands, mute and motionless with excess of anguish; sometimes she stretches out her arms to her Son, as Jesus, sinking under the weight of his cross, turns his benign eyes upon her, and the others who follow him: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me!"

This is the moment chosen by Raphael in that sublime composition celebrated under the title "Lo Spasimo di Sicilia" (Madrid Gal.); so called because it was originally painted for the high altar of the church of the Sicilian Olivetans at Palermo, dedicated to the Madonna dello Spasimo. It was thence removed, by order of Philip IV. of Spain, early in the seventeenth century, and is now placed in the gallery at Madrid. Here the group of the five women forms an important part of the picture, occupying the foreground on the right. The expression in the face of the Mother, stretching forth her arms to her Son with a look of appealing agony, has always been cited as one of the great examples of Raphael's tragic power. It is well known that in this composition the attitude of Christ was suggested by the contemporary engraving of Martin Schoen; but the prominence given to the group of women, the dramatic propriety and pathetic grace in the action of each, and the consummate skill shown in the arrangement of the whole, belong only to Raphael.[1] In Martin Schoen's vivid composition, the Virgin, and the women her companions, are seen far off in the background, crouching in the "hollow way" between two cliffs, from which spot, according to the old tradition, they beheld the sad procession. We have quite a contrary arrangement in an early composition by Lucas van Leyden. The procession to Calvary is seen moving along in the far distance, while the foreground is occupied by two figures only, Mary in a trance of anguish sustained by the weeping St. John.

[Footnote 1: The veneration at all times entertained for this picture was probably enhanced by a remarkable fact in its history. Raphael painted it towards the close of the year 1517, and when finished, it was embarked at the port of Ostia, to be consigned to Palermo. A storm came on, the vessel foundered at sea, and all was lost except the case containing this picture, which was floated by the currents into the Bay of Genoa; and, on being landed, the wondrous masterpiece of art was taken out unhurt. The Genoese at first refused to give it up, insisting that it had been preserved and floated to their shores by the miraculous interposition of the blessed Virgin herself; and it required a positive mandate from the Pope before they would restore it to the Olivetan fathers.—See Passavant's Rafael, i. 292.]

In a very fine "Portamento del Croce," by Gaudenzio Ferrari, one of the soldiers or executioners, in repulsing the sorrowful mother, lifts up a stick as if to strike her;—a gratuitous act of ferocity, which shocks at once the taste and the feelings, and, without adding anything to the pathos of the situation, detracts from the religious dignity of the theme. It is like the soldier kicking our Saviour, which I remember to have seen in a version of the subject by a much later painter, Daniele Crespi.

Murillo represents Christ as fainting under the weight of the cross, while the Virgin sits on the ground by the way-side, gazing on him with fixed eyes and folded hands, and a look of unutterable anguish.[1]

[Footnote 1: This picture, remarkable for the intense expression, was in the collection of Lord Orford, and sold in June, 1856.]

* * * * *

The Ecce Homo, by Correggio, in our National Gallery, is treated in a very peculiar manner with reference to the Virgin, and is, in fact, another version of Lo Spasimo, the fourth of her ineffable sorrows. Here Christ, as exhibited to the people by Pilate, is placed in the distance, and is in all respects the least important part of the picture, of which we have the real subject in the far more prominent figure of the Virgin in the foreground. At sight of the agony and degradation of her Son, she closes her eyes, and is on the point of swooning. The pathos of expression in the half-unconscious face and helpless, almost lifeless hands, which seem to seek support, is particularly fine.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

"Verum stabas, optima Mater, juxta crucem Filli tui, non solum corpore, sed mentis constatia."

This great subject belongs more particularly to the Life of Christ. It is, I observe, always omitted in a series of the Life of the Virgin, unless it be the Rosary, in which the "Vigil of the Virgin by the Cross" is the fifth and greatest of the Seven Sorrows.

We cannot fail to remark, that whether the Crucifixion be treated as a mystery or as an event, Mary is always an important figure.

In the former case she stands alone on the right of the cross, and St. John on the left.[1] She looks up with an expression of mingled grief and faith, or bows her head upon her clasped hands in resignation. In such a position she is the idealized Mater Dolorosa, the Daughter of Jerusalem, the personified Church mourning for the great Sacrifice; and this view of the subject I have already discussed at length.

[Footnote 1: It has been a question with the learned whether the Virgin Mary, with St. John, ought not to stand on the left of the cross, in allusion to Psalm cxlii. (always interpreted as prophetic of the Passion of Christ) ver. 4: "I looked on my right hand, and be held, but there was none who would know me."]

On the other hand, when the Crucifixion is treated as a great historical event, as a living scene acted before our eyes, then the position and sentiment given to the Virgin are altogether different, but equally fixed by the traditions of art. That she was present, and near at hand, we must presume from the Gospel of St. John, who was an eye-witness; and most of the theological writers infer that on this occasion her constancy and sublime faith were even greater than her grief, and that her heroic fortitude elevated her equally above the weeping women and the timorous disciples. This is not, however, the view which the modern painters have taken, and even the most ancient examples exhibit the maternal grief for a while overcoming the constancy. She is standing indeed, but in a fainting attitude, as if about to sink to the earth, and is sustained in the arms of the two Marys, assisted, sometimes, but not generally, by St. John; Mary Magdalene is usually embracing the foot of the cross. With very little variation this is the visual treatment down to the beginning of the sixteenth century. I do not know who was the first artist who placed the Mother prostrate on the ground; but it must be regarded as a fault, and as detracting from the high religious dignity of the scene. In all the greatest examples, from Cimabue, Giotto, and Pietro Cavallini, down to Angelico, Masaccio, and Andrea Mantegna, and their contemporaries, Mary is uniformly standing.