Raphael Part 8

'Come then, dear father! On my shoulders I Will bear thee, nor will think the task severe.

Whatever lot awaits us, there shall be One danger and one safety for us both.

Little Iulus my companion be; And at a distance let my wife observe Our footsteps.'

This said, a tawny lion's skin On my broad shoulders and my stooping neck I throw, and take my burden. At my side Little Iulus links his hand in mine, Following his father with unequal steps.

Behind us steps my wife. Through paths obscure We wend; and I, who but a moment since Dreaded no flying weapons of the Greeks, Nor dense battalions of the adverse hosts, Now start in terror at each rustling breeze, And every common sound, held in suspense With equal fears for those attending me, And for the burden that I bore along."

XIV

ST. MICHAEL SLAYING THE DRAGON

There are many legends about St. Michael, who is also represented as the Archangel, or head of the whole company of angels, and most of these legends spring from a few pa.s.sages in the Bible, chiefly two.

One of these is in the Epistle of Jude, the ninth verse, where the archangel Michael is alluded to as "contending with the Devil." The other is in the Book of Revelation, beginning at the seventh verse of the ninth chapter:--

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil, and Satan which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

The Book of Revelation is full of strange imagery; and ever since it was written, men learned and unlearned have tried to turn its impa.s.sioned verses into real historical scenes, past or to come. Above all, this figure of a dragon, a monster part man, part brute, puzzled people, and they have all sorts of explanations to make of it.

In our fairy tales we often hear of hobgoblins and dragons and like fearful beings, and we think of them as make-believe creatures, and sometimes are afraid of them, even though if we are questioned we say we know they do not really exist. But in Raphael's day, dragons were by no means unreal things to people. Some thought they had seen them, and there were a great many persons who if they had not seen them themselves were sure others had seen them.

In Raphael's day there were large tracts of the world, dark woods, inaccessible mountains, which had hardly been explored at all, and people fancied them haunted by strange men and stranger animals. As more and more light is let into the world, these dark places disappear, and we have come to know just what kinds of animals and men there are everywhere. Yet still, we are not quite sure there may not be singular beasts lurking out of sight, like the sea serpent for example.

Now, the dragon in early days stood for what was ugly and terrible and a hater of good. The Greeks believed there were dragons, and they had many tales of how Hercules or this or that hero slew a dragon. To the Christian of the Middle Ages the dragon stood at one end of the scale, an archangel at the other; for as the dragon was all darkness and hideousness, the archangel was all light and beauty and gloriousness.

It thrilled every one to think of the angel of light fighting with and overcoming the beast of darkness; for every one knew that sort of struggle was going on in the world, even in himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MICHAEL SLAYING THE DRAGON _The Louvre, Paris_]

Raphael's picture gives a fine contrast between the beautiful, strong, young archangel and his ugly foe. St. Michael hovers in mid air as light and graceful as a bird, while Satan squirms beneath his feet, a loathsome creature scorched by the flames and sulphurous fumes, which pour from the clefts of the rock.

In the artist's imagination both are spirits, and so both are winged; for wings, which carry one through the air, naturally are symbols of spiritual existence. But the wings of the archangel are the wings of some great, glorious bird like the eagle, which soars upward toward the sun; the wings of the dragon are more like the wings of a bat, which flies only in darkness and clings to the roofs of caves.

After all, the first and last impression which we get from the picture is the lightning-like movement of the archangel. He darts at the dragon as if he had come from heaven with the swiftness of light, his robe flying like the wind away from him, his wings not spread in flight, but lifted in his poise, and his face bearing the serenity of an a.s.sured victory as he lifts his spear for its final thrust.

The great English poet Milton has made use of this same subject in "Paradise Lost." Here is a portion of the story in the sixth book, lines 316-330:--

"Together both, with next to almighty arm Uplifted imminent, one stroke they aimed That might determine, and not need repeat As not of power, at once; nor odds appeared In might or swift prevention.

But the sword of Michael from the armory of G.o.d Was given him, tempered so that neither keen Nor solid might resist that edge: it met The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite Descending, and in half cut sheer; nor stayed But with swift wheel reverse, deep entering, shared All his right side.

Then Satan first knew pain, And writhed him to and fro convolved; so sore The griding sword with discontinuous wound Pa.s.sed through him."

XV

THE SISTINE MADONNA

As we turn to the picture, famous the world over as the Sistine Madonna, we seem to be looking through a window opening into heaven.

Faint in the background, yet filling the whole s.p.a.ce, is a cloud of innumerable cherubs; out of this cloud, and enveloped by it, appear the Mother and Child.

They are taking their way seemingly from heaven to earth. A curtain has been drawn aside that we may see them, and two figures are on either side, as if to await their pa.s.sing, one gazing into their faces while he points outward, the other also kneeling in devotion yet looking intently down. The mother's robes are blown back by the wind as she moves steadily forward.

Underneath is a parapet, as if this were indeed a window, and two beautiful boy-angels lean upon it, adoration on their faces and rest in their position, as if they were everlastingly praising, and were the very embodiments of cheerful innocence.

It is worth while to look at this picture for a moment, without thinking of its meaning, and indeed without paying much attention to the beauty of the figures, just to see how this great painter has managed the lines and ma.s.ses of the work. In art, lines and ma.s.ses and color are not unlike what words and sentences and what we call style are in literature. Even if a writer has good and beautiful ideas, much of the pleasure we might derive is lost when the words are ill chosen, the sentences are bungling, perhaps even ungrammatical, and the whole expression is commonplace or confusing.

We cannot get any notion of Raphael's color from our little print, but it is not difficult to trace the lines and to see something of the effect of the ma.s.ses, and of light and shade. The shape of the whole is a combination of pyramids. When you see the great base of a pyramid and observe how the sides taper upward, you are aware that nothing could stand more securely and at the same time suggest lightness, by the rising and receding of the sides.

Now here you see that lines drawn from the shoulders of the two attendant figures would meet at the Virgin's head, as at the apex of a pyramid. The curtains even help this effect, by being drawn aside in such a way as to make these lines more evident.

In the lower half of the picture the lines in the draperies of the kneeling saints taper to an imaginary point between the heads of the cherubs, forming a second inverted pyramid or triangle. Thus the composition is inclosed in a harmonious figure whose outlines suggest what we call a diamond.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SISTINE MADONNA _Dresden Gallery_]

Perhaps one reason why a triangular arrangement satisfies the eye, lies in the simple fact that the most important and yet familiar object in nature is thus arranged. Thus in this picture, the three princ.i.p.al persons form the upper triangle, and the body of each person repeats the figure,--that is, the head rises from the shoulders in such a way that the lines inclosing them produce a triangle. Further, in each face, the line formed by the eyes is connected by two imaginary lines meeting at the mouth.

In the picture the central figure ill.u.s.trates this very noticeably.

The arm of the Virgin forms by its position, along with the body of the child, a base, from which two other lines rise, tapering to the top of the head; the child's head lies right in the course of one of these lines. Thus mother and child together form a single figure, the two united in one.

But when we have studied this simple principle of composition, we go back with delight to the picture itself for what it tells us: the deep mystery of the mother's face, as if she were lifted above the ordinary plane of human life; the blended loveliness of childhood with the consciousness of a holy calling; the lowly devotion yet dignity of St.

Barbara; the grandeur and forgetfulness of self of the Pope, whose triple crown rests on the parapet; the perpetual childhood of the angelic figures.

The picture takes its name from the Pope, who had been canonized as St. Sixtus. It was painted for the convent of St. Sixtus at Piacenza, but early in the eighteenth century it was bought by the Elector of Saxony, and now hangs in the gallery at Dresden. It is a pleasant thing to know that when Frederick the Great bombarded Dresden, he ordered his cannon to keep clear of the Picture Gallery. Napoleon, too, though he took many pictures to Paris, did not take any from the Dresden gallery.

When we compare the Sistine Madonna with the Madonna of the Chair, we see what a wide variety of pictures there may be on the single subject of the Mother and Child. The Madonna of the Chair is, as we have said, a home scene, like a picture from real life. The Sistine Madonna is a vision; the figures are lifted above the actual surroundings of earth into a purely ideal and heavenly atmosphere. In the Madonna of the Chair, the Mother and Child are all in all to each other, and what attracts us most in the picture is the mother's love. In the other picture both mother and boy seem to forget themselves in the thought of some glorious service to others.

XVI

PORTRAIT OF RAPHAEL

We have been looking at fifteen pictures designed by Raphael. They are but a few of the great number painted either wholly or in part by the master, or painted by his pupils from designs and sketches made by him. He was thirty-seven years old when he died, and it was said that he died on his birthday. His life was brimful of activity as a painter.

The portrait which stands at the beginning of this little book was painted by himself at the age of twenty-three, for his mother's brother, whom he was wont to call his "second father." An English poet, Samuel Rogers, in his poem "Italy," has these lines which describe it prettily:--

"His heavenly face a mirror of his mind, His mind a temple for all lovely things To flock to and inhabit."

One of his contemporaries, Vasari, wrote a book of "Lives of the Painters," and thus he speaks of Raphael: "All confessed the influence of his sweet and gracious nature, which was so replete with excellence, and so perfect in all the charities, that not only was he honored by men, but even by the very animals, who would constantly follow his steps, and always loved him."

If we think of what was happening to Raphael in the year 1506, when he painted this portrait, perhaps we shall read more truthfully the expression in his face. Seven years before he had entered the studio of Perugino, and had begun to learn from that master and to show something of his own power. Two years before he had made his first visit to Florence, and there he saw some of the great pictures by Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo, and had a new conception of what art could do.