The Madonna in Art | Page 9

quiet Umbrian landscape is a marble balcony, on
the railing of which sit two captivating little boy choristers. One
roguish fellow pipes on a trumpet, while the other, his face tip-tilted to
the heavenly vision, makes music on a small guitar. Above, on a cloud,
sits the Virgin, with the sweet, mystic smile on her face, so
characteristic of Umbrian art. She supports her babe with her right arm,
and in her left hand carries a lily stalk. The child, standing on his
mother's knee and clinging to her neck, turns his face out with sweet
earnestness. In clouds at the side, tiny cherubs bear tapers, while others,
floating above, hold a large crown just over her head.

Although we cannot limit this style of picture to any special locality, it
appears to have found much favor in the art of Northern Italy. In the
Brescian school, Moretto was unusually fond of the subject. His
treatment of the theme is somewhat heavy; there is little of the ethereal
in his celestial vision, either in the type of womanhood or in the style of
arrangement. In defiance of the law of gravitation, he poses his upper
figures so as to form a solid pyramid, wide at the base, and tapering
abruptly to the apex.
[Illustration: MORETTO.--MADONNA IN GLORY.]
In the glorified Madonna of St. John the Evangelist, Brescia, the
pyramidal effect is accentuated by curtains draped back on either side
of the upper part of the composition. In the Madonna of San Giorgio
Maggiore, at Verona, we have a much more attractive picture. The
"gloria" encompassing the vision is clearly defined, giving so strong an
effect of the supernatural that we cease to judge the composition by
ordinary standards of natural law. The Virgin's white veil flutters from
her head as if caught by some heavenly breeze. Her cloak floats about
her by the same mysterious force, held in graceful festoons by winged
cherub heads.
Below is a group of five virgin martyrs, with St. Cecilia in the centre,
wearing a crown of roses; St. Lucia holds the awl, the instrument of her
torture, looking down at St. Catherine, who leans against her terrible
wheel; St. Agnes, on the other side, reads quietly from a book while she
caresses her lamb, and St. Barbara stands behind her, with eyes lifted to
the sky. They are all splendid young Amazons, recalling Moretto's fine
St. Justina of the Vienna Gallery. There is no trace of ascetism in their
strong, well-developed figures, and in their faces no suggestion of an
unhealthy pietism.
Moretto's ideals were an anticipation of the most advanced ideas of the
modern science of physical culture. His Madonna and saints derive
their beauty neither from over refinement on the one hand, nor from
sensuous charms on the other, but from sane and harmonious
self-development.

The Berlin Gallery contains a third glorified Madonna by the same
painter, treated as a Holy Family. St. Elizabeth sits beside the Virgin,
who holds her own boy on her right side, while bending to embrace the
little St. John with the left arm. So large a group is not appropriately
treated in this way, yet the picture is so fine a work of art as to disarm
criticism.
Still another representative of the Brescian school must be considered
in the person of Savoldo. Born of a noble family, and following
painting as an amusement rather than as an actual profession, his works
are rare, and one of the finest examples of his art is the Glorification of
the Virgin, in the Brera Gallery, at Milan. The mandorla-shaped glory
surrounds the Virgin's figure, studded with faintly discerned cherub
heads. On either side, a musical angel is in adoration; four saints stand
on the earth below. The entire conception is rendered with the utmost
delicacy: the grace and beauty of the Madonna are of exactly the
quality to make her appearance a beatific vision.
From Brescia we turn to Verona, where we again find many pictures of
the beautiful subject. There are, in the churches of Verona, at least three
notable works, by Gianfrancesco Caroto, in this style. One is in Sant'
Anastasia, another is in San Giorgio, and the third--the artist's best
existing work--is in San Fermo Maggiore, and shows the Virgin's
mother, St. Anne, seated with her in the clouds.
Girolamo dai Libri was a few years younger than Caroto, and at one
period was, to some extent, an imitator of the latter. Beginning as a
miniaturist, he finally attained a high place among the Veronese artists
of the first order. His characteristics can nowhere be seen to better
advantage than in the Madonna of St. Andrew and St. Peter, in the
Verona Gallery. The Virgin is in an oval glory, edged all around with
small, fleecy clouds.