Part 2

This simple composition is a perfect round, and if one studies it attentively one will see how curved and flowing are all the lines within the circle; even the back of the chair, though perpendicular, swells and curves into roundness. It is by such simple means as this that the painter gives pleasure to the eye. The harmony of the lines of the composition makes a perfect expression of the peaceful group centred thus about the divine child.

It is a home scene and one such as Raphael might have seen in Rome in his own time. Not unlikely he saw a mother enfolding her child thus when he was taking a walk at the quiet end of day, and caught at once a suggestion from the scene for a Madonna. There is indeed an old legend which grew up about this picture, relating the supposed circumstances under which Raphael found a charming family group which served him as a model, and which he rapidly sketched upon the head of a cask; the circular form of the picture is thus accounted for. Whether or not this pretty story is true, it is certain that the Madonna of the Chair is a true picture of home life either in Raphael's time or even in our own day. The mother wears a handkerchief of many colors over her shoulders, and another on her head like the Roman scarf one still sees nowadays.

We may see what delight and reverence Madonna pictures like this have awakened as we read the words of an old chant. In quaint diction and with fanciful imagery the writer tried to express his feelings in the presence of a painting which, if not this veritable Madonna of the Chair, was certainly very like it.

"When I view the mother holding In her arms the heavenly boy, Thousand blissful thoughts unfolding Melt my heart with sweetest joy.

"As the sun his radiance flinging Shines upon the bright expanse, So the child to Mary clinging Doth her gentle heart entrance.

"See the Virgin Mother beaming! Jesus by her arms embraced, Dew on softest roses gleaming, Violet with lily chaste!

"Each round other fondly twining. Pour the shafts of mutual love, Thick as flowers in meadow shining, Countless as the stars above.

"Oh, may one such arrow glowing, Sweetest Child, which thou dost dart Thro' thy mother's bosom going, Blessed Jesus, pierce my heart."

II

ABRAHAM AND THE THREE ANGELS

In the story of Abraham, as related in our Bible, we read of the wandering and adventurous life of the patriarch as he moved from place to place. In process of time he became "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." He was as brave as he was industrious. When Lot, his brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, was taken captive by some foreign kings who had conquered the king of Sodom, Abraham armed his large company of servants and went to the rescue. He recovered not only his nephew, but all the booty which the victors had taken. Moreover, Abraham was a man of vision as well as of action, a man who feared God and sought righteousness.

In his old age he was living with his aged wife Sarah on the plains of Mamre. "He sat in the tent door in the heat of the day," the story goes on,[1] "and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, 'My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant.' And they said, 'So do, as thou hast said.'

[Footnote 1: Genesis, chapter xviii., verses 1-8.]

"And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, 'Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.' And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat."

In the picture we see Abraham welcoming his strange visitors in front of his simple dwelling-place. He is dressed in Oriental robes and bows himself to the ground after the custom of the Eastern people, who are noted for their courtesy. He offers hospitality not as a favor to his guests, but as a privilege which he craves from them. His, not theirs, is the honor, he seems to say.

The three angels have a mysterious air. They are in human form, and yet they are unlike ordinary visitors. Their attitudes, the flowing of the robes, their gestures, all denote something unusual. While the three stand with outstretched hands as if encouraging and blessing their host, Sarah peeps through the open door and listens to the talk. A country landscape, such as may be seen in the vineyards of Italy, stretches away in the distance. Raphael never traveled outside his own country, and painted only such landscapes as were familiar to him.

The picture was intended as an illustration of the Bible. In the days when Raphael was painting, though the art of printing had been invented, only scholars and learned men could read books, and those which were printed were rarely in the language which the people spoke. Men and women did indeed hear stories read out of the Bible, but they knew these stories chiefly from paintings, and from carvings in wood and stone. Churches and monasteries, palaces and public halls, were adorned with fresco paintings, and these storied walls formed the people's literature.

Now the Pope, Leo the Tenth, employed Raphael to decorate parts of the Vatican. The Vatican was the palace of the Popes in Rome, and one of the open courts of the palace had a gallery or Loggia, as it is called, built about its three sides. Raphael caused to be painted on the walls of this gallery festoons of flowers and fruit and sometimes animals, all surrounded and entwined with graceful ornaments. But it was the vaulted ceiling of the gallery that he treated with the greatest care. He made a great series of pictures from scenes in the Old Testament, and some from the New, and his pupils painted these upon the ceiling, so that it came to be known popularly as "Raphael's Bible."

The ceiling is not flat, and it does not stretch without break, but the gallery is like a succession of arched porches, and the ceiling of each is divided into panels, sloping in four directions, with a flat panel in the centre. These panels are filled with charming pictures which you can see by standing with your head thrown back.

Raphael's Bible begins with the creation of the world; then follow the history of Adam and Eve, and Noah and the deluge; in the fourth section is the story of Abraham told in four compositions. Thus, besides this picture of Abraham and the Three Angels, there is the scene where Lot and his family are fleeing from Sodom, and his wife is turned into a pillar of salt. There is also the meeting of Abraham and Melchisedec (after Abraham's rescue of Lot), and a picture of God promising a long line of descendants to Abraham.

In this open gallery the people of Rome could walk and read the Bible in a succession of pictures. Since these and similar pictures and statues and carvings were everywhere, men, women, and children read them as they would read books, and a popular painter was like a popular story-teller nowadays.

III

THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES

Another of the Bible scenes which Raphael painted was one which is told in the New Testament concerning the Lord Jesus and his Apostles. Some of these, as Peter and Andrew, James and John, were fishermen who lived near the lake of Gennesaret in Galilee, and had spent most of their lives in their boats. They had been much with their Master, and sometimes left their boats to go with him through the country, when he talked with them and healed the sick, and told the glad tidings, for that is what the word Gospel means. One day he had been using Simon Peter's boat as a sort of pulpit from which to speak to the people on the shore.

"Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, 'Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught,' And Simon answering said unto him, 'Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.' And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.

"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's knees, saying, 'Depart from me: for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken; and so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, 'Fear not: from henceforth thou shalt catch men.'"[2]

[Footnote 2: Luke, chapter v., verses 4-10.]

In the picture we see the two boats laden with fish, one containing Jesus with Peter and Andrew, and the other containing the partners hauling in the net. The lake stretches away in the distance until it seems to meet the sky in a line of light at the horizon. On the opposite shore are the people to whom Jesus was speaking before the fishermen launched out. Others on the bank are watching to get some of the fish which are not hauled in. There is a boat over there just pushing off. Fishhawks hover overhead, and on the nearer shore are herons.

Just as before in the Madonna of the Chair we saw how all the lines in the picture were drawn as it were in a circle, so here it is the long horizontal line on which the picture is built: the boats extending across the foreground, the distant shore, and the horizon line swelling into the upland. Some one has said that the boats are so placed that it looks as if the figures were slowly passing before the eye of the spectator.

Now this picture is not, like so many, painted on canvas or on wood. Raphael was bidden to make designs for some great hangings or tapestries for the chapel in the Vatican palace known as the Sistine Chapel. He made his drawings, cartoons they are called, on a coarse kind of paper, the pieces put together on a great frame, and these cartoons were sent to Arras in Flanders, where they were copied in tapestry by skillful artists.

Raphael intended to represent scenes in the lives of the Apostles, and his series was in two groups of five each, the first centring about the life of St. Peter, the second about the life of St. Paul. The tapestries are in the Vatican palace, but seven of the cartoons are in the South Kensington Museum in London. There they are kept with great care, but they have led a perilous life. When they were sent to Arras, they were cut in strips for the convenience of the weavers, and pricked with holes. Then after they had been copied in the tapestries, they were thrown aside, as so much waste paper, and lay in a cellar, neglected, for a hundred years. Fortunately they were not destroyed, and the fragments were found in 1630, by the great Flemish painter Rubens, who knew their value. He advised King Charles I. of England to buy them, and they were still regarded as patterns for tapestries. The king set up a manufactory at Mortlake, and some tapestries were made from these cartoons.

When the king was put to death, Cromwell bought the cartoons, and put them away in some boxes at Whitehall. When Charles II. came to the throne, he tried to sell them to France, but was stopped, and finally they found a home at Hampton Court Palace. A few years ago they were removed to their present place of keeping.

The original tapestries, as we have said, were designed for the Sistine Chapel, but they were long ago removed from that place and are now preserved in the Gallery of Tapestries in the Vatican.

The colors of the tapestries have faded, but color never formed the chief attraction of these compositions. What one always admired, and can still admire in engravings and other copies, is what we call the dramatic character of the picture, the way in which the painter has so arranged his figures as to make them tell a story in a lively, graphic fashion.

He can also, as his eye is more and more trained, discover the beauty which lies in the drawing of forms, in masses and in lines. For an engraving or a pencil drawing in black and white can give a great deal of pleasure, and some painters make better pictures with pen and ink than they can with a paint-box and brushes.

IV

THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA

The Sacrifice at Lystra was another of the great tapestries, and was in the second series of five which had to do with the life of St. Paul as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The apostle was on a journey with his companion Barnabas, and they were teaching and healing as they went. At Lystra they had performed a wonderful cure in healing a man who had been a cripple from his birth.

"And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, 'The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men,' And they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.

"Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people. Which, when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, 'Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God.' ...

"And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them."[3]

[Footnote 3: Acts of the Apostles, chapter xiv., verses 11-15, 18.]

In the picture we see the two apostles standing on a platform at the left, by the steps of a temple, just as the crowd sweeps along from the other side with two oxen in the midst of them. It was just such a sacrificial procession as was formed on the days when they honored their gods in the temples. Paul and Barnabas receive the demonstration with dismay, the former rending his garments, and the latter clasping his hands in perplexity.

In the tumult of many figures we pick out five principal persons. At the right is the restored cripple whose recovery is the origin of the excitement. His folded hands, raised in adoration, come against the back of a youth who, quick to see the apostles' displeasure, reaches out an arm to stay the sacrifice. His hand nearly touches the shoulder of the sturdy priest in front, who is lifting his axe to deal the deathblow to the sacrificial ox. The priest's up-raised hand is brought near the elbow of Paul, behind whom stands his fellow apostle. Thus there is a continuous chain extending across the picture to link together those who make up the plot of the story. The most attractive face in the company is that of the youth in the centre, eager and handsome among the stolid countenances surrounding him. The apostles themselves are presently to join him in his efforts to restrain the people, but for the moment, single-handed among so many, he springs forward fearlessly to oppose the purpose of the mob.

These five figures thus linked together carry the story, but how abundantly the scene is enriched by the minor characters! There are not a great many figures, and each head is seen perfectly, so that one can count the actual number of persons present; but the first impression made on the eye is of a hurrying, eager crowd. As one looks more closely, he discovers particular persons who help to fill out the story. There are two priestesses kneeling beside the ox that is to be sacrificed. One figure, other than the cripple who has been healed, is shown in the attitude of prayer. Perhaps the old man at the extreme right is drawing aside the robe of the cripple, curious to see if there are any signs of the miracle, or if that really was the leg which was helpless.

The two children who stand by the altar, one playing the pipes, the other with a book of music, are very characteristic of Raphael, who loved thus to introduce a playful, innocent element. The singing child has his eyes bent on the ram which is led up for sacrifice.

Raphael, like other illustrators of the Bible, does not always follow exactly the text which he is to illustrate. The people called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercury. This would seem to show that Barnabas was a great, imposing figure, and Paul, according to tradition, was a small, undersized man; but there is no such contrast to be seen here.

By a happy suggestion, the painter has placed in the background on a pedestal a statue of Mercury. We know it by the winged staff which Mercury is supposed to carry as a sign of his office of messenger of the gods.

Raphael painted at a time when scholars and artists were enthusiastic over the rediscovery of the literature and art of the ancient world. Such a scene as this, therefore, appealed to him; for he could not only depict a Biblical incident, but he could make his picture a study of ancient life. The architecture, the altar, the figure of Mercury, the wreath-bound heads, the sacrificial act itself, were all such as he could imagine from ancient Greece. Indeed, the whole picture is like a copy of an antique bas-relief; and in the original cartoon there is, below the picture, a decorative border studied from antique sculpture, and below that still an ornamental edge which was very common in Greek work.

And yet, though Raphael thus made much of the Greek spirit in his design, he was like all great painters of his day. He did not try minutely to repeat Greek life as he imagined it. The men and women and children were like those he was wont to see in Rome or Florence, or Urbino, where he was born, and the headdresses were such as the women of his time wore.

V

HELIODORUS DRIVEN FROM THE TEMPLE

In the Vatican palace there is one chamber in a series of chambers decorated with Raphael's paintings which is called in Italian Stanza d'Eliodoro, or the Heliodorus Room. The name is taken from the first of the paintings which cover the walls of the room.

The story which Raphael told in this picture is taken from an incident in the history of Jerusalem, which is related in one of the books of the Apocrypha and in Josephus's History.

It was at a time when Jerusalem was a prosperous city, owing its good government to the upright and honorable character of the high priest Onias. Through his efforts a large fund of money and treasure had been laid up for the relief of widows and orphans. This treasure was stored in the sacred precincts of the temple and carefully guarded for the uses for which it was intended.

Now it came about that a distant king heard of this valuable treasure and set his heart upon it. He called his treasurer Heliodorus, and straightway sent him to Jerusalem to bring back the treasure by fair means or foul. Heliodorus was a bold man ready for his evil task. Arriving at Jerusalem, he sought out Onias and made his demand, which, as a matter of course, was promptly refused. Heliodorus then prepared to take the treasure by force, and, accompanied by his men, pushed into the temple amid the lamentations of the people and the prayers of the priests. But just as the robbers had laid hands upon the coveted treasure, a strange thing happened; and this is what the old narrative relates:--

"There appeared unto them a horse with a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he ran fiercely and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet, and it seemed that he that sat upon the horse had complete harness of gold.

"Moreover, two other young men appeared before him, notable in strength, excellent in beauty, and comely in apparel, who stood by him on either side, and scourged him continually and gave him many sore stripes.

"And Heliodorus fell suddenly unto the ground, and was compassed with great darkness."[4]

[Footnote 4: Maccabees, book ii., chapter iii., verses 25-27.]

In the picture the priests still kneel at the distant altar while the temple treasures are being borne away in heavy chests and jars. Meanwhile swift retribution overtakes the despoiler. In gallops the mysterious gold-armored horseman, his prancing steed crushing the prostrate Heliodorus under his forefeet. On rush the two celestial avengers, springing through the air in great flying leaps. Their feet do not touch the ground as, with outspread arms and wind-blown hair, they bound lightly forward, raising their scourges to drive out the enemy. Heliodorus vainly lifts his spear to save himself; his men are panic-stricken; his plot is undone. And yet in all this the angelic avengers do not touch one of the prostrate or falling figures. Even the horse's hoofs are not planted on Heliodorus. The victory is not won by force, but by the mysterious power of celestial spirits.

Here is the way this picture affected a lover of art who stood before it: "The Scourging of Heliodorus is full of energy, power, and movement. The horse and his rider are irresistible, and the scourging youths, terrible as embodied lightning; mortal weapons and mortal muscles are powerless as infancy before such supernatural energies. Like flax before the flame--like leaves before the storm--the strong man and his attendants are consumed and borne away."

There is an interesting contrast in this great picture, for while all this terrible action is going on at one side, one sees in an opposite part a group of women and children, looking on with astonishment and alarm. Near by is a figure carried in a chair on the shoulders of strong men. This figure is Pope Julius II, and the reason why Raphael introduced him into the painting is as follows:--

Julius was a warlike Pope who had expelled the enemies of the church from the Papal territories and enlarged the boundaries of these territories. He was also a great patron of the arts. He called on Raphael to make designs for this chamber which should represent the miraculous deliverance of the church from her secular foes; and as he was regarded as the chief instrument in the victory, Raphael made him present at this Expulsion of Heliodorus.

Not only the walls of the Heliodorus Room are adorned with pictures, but the ceiling also is covered with designs, illustrating four Old Testament stories of divine promises to the patriarchs: The Promise of God to Abraham of a numerous posterity,[5] The Sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob's Dream, Moses and the Burning Bush.

[Footnote 5: Sometimes interpreted as God appearing to Noah.]

Probably Raphael, who had friends among the cardinals and other learned men of Rome, consulted them as to the selection of subjects for this room. One can trace the thought which binds them all together. On the ceiling we have God's promises made to his people of old, while the pictures on the walls show how the same watchful Providence delivered the church in later years.

VI

THE LIBERATION OF PETER