Legends of the Madonna by Mrs. Jameson

M >> Mrs. Jameson >> Legends of the Madonna

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29

[Footnote 1: "Tu se' colei che l'umana natura Nobilitasti."]

But also with Christianity came the want of a new type of womanly
perfection, combining all the attributes of the ancient female
divinities with others altogether new. Christ, as the model-man,
united the virtues of the two sexes, till the idea that there are
essentially masculine and feminine virtues intruded itself on the
higher Christian conception, and seems to have necessitated the
female type.

The first historical mention of a direct worship paid to the Virgin
Mary, occurs in a passage in the works of St. Epiphanius, who died
in 403. In enumerating the heresies (eighty-four in number) which had
sprung up in the early Church, he mentions a sect of women, who had
emigrated from Thrace into Arabia, with whom it was customary to
offer cakes of meal and honey to the Virgin Mary, as if she had been a
divinity, transferring to her, in fact, the worship paid to Ceres. The
very first instance which occurs in written history of an invocation
to Mary, is in the life of St. Justina, as related by Gregory
Nazianzen. Justina calls on the Virgin-mother to protect her against
the seducer and sorcerer, Cyprian; and does not call in vain. (Sacred
and Legendary Art.) These passages, however, do not prove that
previously to the fourth century there had been no worship or
invocation of the Virgin, but rather the contrary. However this may
be, it is to the same period--the fourth century--we refer the most
ancient representations of the Virgin in art. The earliest figures
extant are those on the Christian sarcophagi; but neither in the early
sculpture nor in the mosaics of St. Maria Maggiore do we find any
figure of the Virgin standing alone; she forms part of a group of
the Nativity or the Adoration of the Magi. There is no attempt at
individuality or portraiture. St. Augustine says expressly, that there
existed in his time no _authentic_ portrait of the Virgin; but it
is inferred from his account that, authentic or not, such pictures
did then exist, since there were already disputes concerning their
authenticity. There were at this period received symbols of the person
and character of Christ, as the lamb, the vine, the fish, &c., but
not, as far as I can learn, any such accepted symbols of the Virgin
Mary. Further, it is the opinion of the learned in ecclesiastical
antiquities that, previous to the first Council of Ephesus, it was the
custom to represent the figure of the Virgin alone without the Child;
but that none of these original effigies remain to us, only supposed
copies of a later date.[1] And this is all I have been able to
discover relative to her in connection with the sacred imagery of the
first four centuries of our era.

[Footnote 1: Vide "_Memorie dell' Immagine di M.V. dell' Imprunela_."
Florence, 1714.]

* * * * *

The condemnation of Nestorius by the Council of Ephesus, in the year
431, forms a most important epoch in the history of religious art.
I have given further on a sketch of this celebrated schism, and its
immediate and progressive results. It may be thus summed up here. The
Nestorians maintained, that in Christ the two natures of God and man
remained separate, and that Mary, his human mother, was parent of
the man, but not of the God; consequently the title which, during
the previous century, had been popularly applied to her, "Theotokos"
(Mother of God), was improper and profane. The party opposed to
Nestorius, the Monophysite, maintained that in Christ the divine and
human were blended in one incarnate nature, and that consequently Mary
was indeed the Mother of God. By the decree of the first Council
of Ephesus, Nestorius and his party were condemned as heretics; and
henceforth the representation of that beautiful group, since popularly
known as the "Madonna and Child," became the expression of the
orthodox faith. Every one who wished to prove his hatred of the
arch-heretic exhibited the image of the maternal Virgin holding in
her arms the Infant Godhead, either in his house as a picture, or
embroidered on his garments, or on his furniture, on his personal
ornaments--in short, wherever it could be introduced. It is worth
remarking, that Cyril, who was so influential in fixing the orthodox
group, had passed the greater part of his life in Egypt, and must nave
been familiar with the Egyptian type of Isis nursing Horus. Nor, as I
conceive, is there any irreverence in supposing that a time-honoured
intelligible symbol should be chosen to embody and formalize a creed.
For it must be remembered that the group of the Mother and Child was
not at first a representation, but merely a theological symbol set up
in the orthodox churches, and adopted by the orthodox Christians.

It is just after the Council of Ephesus that history first makes
mention of a supposed authentic portrait of the Virgin Mary. The
Empress Eudocia, when travelling in the Holy Land, sent home such
a picture of the Virgin holding the Child to her sister-in-law
Pulcheria, who placed it in a church at Constantinople. It was at that
time regarded, as of very high antiquity, and supposed to have been
painted from the life. It is certain that a picture, traditionally
said to be the same which Eudocia had sent to Pulcheria, did exist
at Constantinople, and was so much venerated by the people as to be
regarded as a sort of palladium, and borne in a superb litter or car
in the midst of the imperial host, when the emperor led the army in
person. The fate of this relic is not certainly known. It is said to
have been taken by the Turks in 1453, and dragged through the mire;
but others deny this as utterly derogatory to the majesty of the Queen
of Heaven, who never would have suffered such an indignity to have
been put on her sacred image. According to the Venetian legend, it was
this identical effigy which was taken by the blind old Dandolo, when
he besieged and took Constantinople in 1204, and brought in triumph
to Venice, where it has ever since been preserved in the church of St.
Mark, and held in _somma venerazione_. No mention is made of St. Luke
in the earliest account of this picture, though like all the antique
effigies of uncertain origin, it was in after times attributed to him.

The history of the next three hundred years testifies to the triumph
of orthodoxy, the extension and popularity of the worship of the
Virgin, and the consequent multiplication of her image in every form
and material, through the whole of Christendom.

Then followed the schism of the Iconoclasts, which distracted
the Church for more than one hundred years, under Leo III., the
Isaurian, and his immediate successors. Such were the extravagances
of superstition to which the image-worship had led the excitable
Orientals, that, if Leo had been a wise and temperate reformer, he
might have done much good in checking its excesses; but he was himself
an ignorant, merciless barbarian. The persecution by which he sought
to exterminate the sacred pictures of the Madonna, and the cruelties
exercised on her unhappy votaries, produced a general destruction
of the most curious and precious remains of antique art. In other
respects, the immediate result was naturally enough a reaction, which
not only reinstated pictures in the veneration of the people, but
greatly increased their influence over the imagination; for it is at
this time that we first hear of a miraculous picture. Among those
who most strongly defended the use of sacred images in the churches,
was St. John Damascene, one of the great lights of the Oriental
Church. According to the Greek legend, he was condemned to lose his
right hand, which was accordingly cut off; but he, full of faith,
prostrating himself before a picture of the Virgin, stretched out the
bleeding stump, and with it touched her lips, and immediately a new
hand sprung forth "like a branch from a tree." Hence, among the Greek
effigies of the Virgin, there is one peculiarly commemorative of this
miracle, styled "the Virgin with three hands." (Didron, Manuel, p.
462.) In the west of Europe, where the abuses of the image-worship had
never yet reached the wild superstition of the Oriental Christians,
the fury of the Iconoclasts excited horror and consternation. The
temperate and eloquent apology for sacred pictures, addressed by
Gregory II. to the Emperor Leo, had the effect of mitigating the
persecution in Italy, where the work of destruction could not be
carried out to the same extent as in the Byzantine provinces. Hence it
is in Italy only that any important remains of sacred art anterior to
the Iconoclast dynasty have been preserved.[1]

[Footnote 1: It appears, from one of these letters from Gregory II,
that it was the custom at that time (725) to employ religious pictures
as a means of instruction in the schools. He says, that if Lee were
to enter a school in Italy, and to say that he prohibited pictures,
the children would infallibly throw their hornbooks (_Ta volexxe del
alfabeto_) at his head.--v. _Bosio_, p. 567.]

The second Council of Nice, under the Empress Irene in 787, condemned
the Iconoclasts, and restored the use of the sacred pictures in the
churches. Nevertheless, the controversy still raged till after the
death of Theophilus, the last and the most cruel of the Iconoclasts,
in 842. His widow Theodora achieved the final triumph of the orthodox
party, and restored the Virgin to her throne. We must observe,
however, that only pictures were allowed; all sculptured imagery
was still prohibited, and has never since been allowed in the Greek
Church, except in very low relief. The flatter the surface, the more
orthodox.

It is, I think, about 886, that we first find the effigy of the Virgin
on the coins of the Greek empire. On a gold coin of Leo VI., the
Philosopher, she stands veiled, and draped, with a noble head, no
glory, and the arms outspread, just as she appears in the old mosaics.
On a coin of Romanus the Younger, she crowns the emperor, having
herself the nimbus; she is draped and veiled. On a coin of Nicephorus
Phocus (who had great pretensions to piety), the Virgin stands,
presenting a cross to the emperor, with the inscription, "Theotokos,
be propitious." On a gold coin of John Zimisces, 975, we first find
the Virgin and Child,--the symbol merely: she holds against her bosom
a circular glory, within which is the head of the Infant Christ. In
the successive reigns of the next two centuries, she almost constantly
appears as crowning the emperor.

Returning to the West, we find that in the succeeding period, from
Charlemagne to the first crusade, the popular devotion to the Virgin,
and the multiplication of sacred pictures, continued steadily to
increase; yet in the tenth and eleventh centuries art was at its
lowest ebb. At this time, the subjects relative to the Virgin were
principally the Madonna and Child, represented according to the Greek
form; and those scenes from the Gospel in which she is introduced, as
the Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Worship of the Magi.

Towards the end of the tenth century the custom of adding the angelic
salutation, the "_Ave Maria_," to the Lord's prayer, was first
introduced; and by the end of the following century, it had been
adopted in the offices of the Church. This was, at first, intended as
a perpetual reminder of the mystery of the Incarnation, as announced
by the angel. It must have had the effect of keeping the idea of
Mary as united with that of her Son, and as the instrument of the
Incarnation, continually in the minds of the people.

The pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and the crusades in the eleventh and
the twelfth centuries, had a most striking effect on religious art,
though this effect was not fully evolved till a century later. More
particularly did this returning wave of Oriental influences modify the
representations of the Virgin. Fragments of the apocryphal gospels
and legends of Palestine and Egypt were now introduced, worked up
into ballads, stories, and dramas, and gradually incorporated with the
teaching of the Church. A great variety of subjects derived from the
Greek artists, and from particular localities and traditions of the
East, became naturalized in Western Europe, Among these were the
legends of Joachim and Anna; and the death, the assumption, and the
coronation of the Virgin.

Then came the thirteenth century, an era notable in the history
of mind, more especially notable in the history of art. The seed
scattered hither and thither, during the stormy and warlike period of
the crusades, now sprung up and flourished, bearing diverse fruit.
A more contemplative enthusiasm, a superstition tinged with a morbid
melancholy, fermented into life and form. In that general "fit of
_compunction_," which we are told seized all Italy at this time, the
passionate devotion for the benign Madonna mingled the poetry of
pity with that of pain; and assuredly this state of feeling, with its
mental and moral requirements, must have assisted in emancipating art
from the rigid formalism of the degenerate Greek school. Men's hearts,
throbbing with a more feeling, more pensive life, demanded something
more _like_ life,--and produced it. It is curious to trace in the
Madonnas of contemporary, but far distant and unconnected schools of
painting, the simultaneous dawning of a sympathetic sentiment--for the
first time something in the faces of the divine beings responsive to
the feeling of the worshippers. It was this, perhaps, which caused
the enthusiasm excited by Cimabue's great Madonna, and made the people
shout and dance for joy when it was uncovered before them. Compared
with the spectral rigidity, the hard monotony, of the conventional
Byzantines, the more animated eyes, the little touch of sweetness in
the still, mild face, must have been like a smile out of heaven. As
we trace the same softer influence in the earliest Siena and Cologne
pictures of about the same period, we may fairly regard it as an
impress of the spirit of the time, rather than that of an individual
mind.

In the succeeding century these elements of poetic art, expanded and
animated by an awakened observation of nature, and a sympathy with
her external manifestations, were most especially directed by the
increasing influence of the worship of the Virgin, a worship at once
religious and chivalrous. The title of "Our Lady"[1] came first into
general use in the days of chivalry, for she was the lady "of all
hearts," whose colours all were proud to wear. Never had her votaries
so abounded. Hundreds upon hundreds had enrolled themselves in
brotherhoods, vowed to her especial service;[2] or devoted to acts of
charity, to be performed in her name.[3] Already the great religious
communities, which at this time comprehended all the enthusiasm,
learning, and influence of the Church, had placed themselves solemnly
and especially under her protection. The Cistercians wore white in
honour of her purity; the Servi wore black in respect to her sorrows;
the Franciscans had enrolled themselves as champions of the Immaculate
Conception; and the Dominicans introduced the rosary. All these richly
endowed communities vied with each other in multiplying churches,
chapels, and pictures, in honour of their patroness, and expressive of
her several attributes. The devout painter, kneeling before his easel,
addressed himself to the task of portraying those heavenly lineaments
which had visited him perhaps in dreams. Many of the professed monks
and friars became themselves accomplished artists.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Fr._ Notre Dame. _Ital._ La Madonna. _Ger._ Unser liebe
Frau.]

[Footnote 2: As the Serviti, who were called in France, _les esclaves
de Marie_.]

[Footnote 3: As the order of "Our Lady of Mercy," for the deliverance
of captives.--_Vide_ Legends of the Monastic Orders.]

[Footnote 4: A very curious and startling example of the theological
character of the Virgin in the thirteenth century is figured in Miss
Twining's work, "_The Symbols of early Christian Art_;" certainly the
most complete and useful book of the kind which I know of. Here the
Madonna and Child are seated side by side with the Trinity; the Holy
Spirit resting on her crowned head.]

At this time, Jacopo di Voragine compiled the "Golden Legend," a
collection of sacred stories, some already current, some new, or
in a new form. This famous book added many themes to those already
admitted, and became the authority and storehouse for the early
painters in their groups and dramatic compositions. The increasing
enthusiasm for the Virgin naturally caused an increasing demand for
the subjects taken from her personal history, and led, consequently,
to a more exact study of those natural objects and effects which were
required as accessories, to greater skill in grouping the figures, and
to a higher development of historic art.

But of all the influences on Italian art in that wonderful fourteenth
century, Dante was the greatest. He was the intimate friend of Giotto.
Through the communion of mind, not less than through his writings,
he infused into religious art that mingled theology, poetry, and
mysticism, which ruled in the Giottesque school during the following
century, and went hand in hand with the development of the power and
practice of imitation. Now, the theology of Dante was the theology of
his age. His ideas respecting the Virgin Mary were precisely those
to which the writings of St. Bernard, St. Bonaventura, and St. Thomas
Aquinas had already lent all the persuasive power of eloquence, and
the Church all the weight of her authority. Dante rendered these
doctrines into poetry, and Giotto and his followers rendered them
into form. In the Paradise of Dante, the glorification of Mary,
as the "Mystic Rose" (_Roxa Mystica_) and Queen of Heaven,--with
the attendant angels, circle within circle, floating round her in
adoration, and singing the Regina Coeli, and saints and patriarchs
stretching forth their hands towards her,--is all a splendid, but
still indefinite vision of dazzling light crossed by shadowy forms.
The painters of the fourteenth century, in translating these glories
into a definite shape, had to deal with imperfect knowledge and
imperfect means; they failed in the power to realize either their own
or the poet's conception; and yet--thanks to the divine poet!--that
early conception of some of the most beautiful of the Madonna
subjects--for instance, the _Coronation_ and the _Sposalizio_--has
never, as a religious and poetical conception, been surpassed by later
artists, in spite of all the appliances of colour, and mastery of
light and shade, and marvellous efficiency of hand since attained.

Every reader of Dante will remember the sublime hymn towards the close
of the Paradiso:--

"Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio!
Umile ed alta piu che creatura,
Terrains fisso d'eterno consiglio;

Tu se' colei che l'umana natura
Nobilitasti si, che 'l suo fattore
Non disdegno di farsi sua fattura;

Nel ventre tuo si raccese l'amore
Per lo cui caldo nell' eterna pace
Cosi e germinato questo fiore;

Qui se' a noi meridiana face
Di caritade, e giuso intra mortali
Se' di speranza fontana vivace:

Donna, se' tanto grande e tanto vali,
Che qual vuol grazia e a te non ricorre
Sua disianza vuol volar senz' ali;

La tua benignita noa pur soccorre
A chi dimanda, ma molte fiate
Liberamente al dimandar precorre;

In te misericordia, in te pietate,
In te magnificenza, in te s' aduna
Quantunque in creatura e di bontate!"

To render the splendour, the terseness, the harmony, of this
magnificent hymn seems impossible. Cary's translation has, however,
the merit of fidelity to the sense:--

"Oh, Virgin-Mother, daughter of thy Son!
Created beings all in lowliness
Surpassing, as in height above them all;
Term by the eternal counsel preordain'd;
Ennobler of thy nature, so advanc'd
In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn
To make himself his own creation;
For in thy womb, rekindling, shone the love
Reveal'd, whose genial influence makes now
This flower to germin in eternal peace:
Here thou, to us, of charity and love
Art as the noon-day torch; and art beneath,
To mortal men, of hope a living spring.
So mighty art thou, Lady, and so great,
That he who grace desireth, and comes not
To thee for aidance, fain would have desire
Fly without wings. Not only him who asks,
Thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft
Forerun the asking. Whatsoe'er may be
Of excellence in creature, pity mild,
Relenting mercy, large munificence,
Are all combin'd in thee!"

It is interesting to turn to the corresponding stanzas in Chaucer.
The invocation to the Virgin with which he commences the story of St.
Cecilia is rendered almost word for word from Dante:--

"Thou Maid and Mother, daughter of thy Son!
Thou wel of mercy, sinful soules cure!"

The last stanza of the invocation is his own, and as characteristic of
the practical Chaucer, as it would have been contrary to the genius of
Dante:--

"And for that faith is dead withouten workis,
So for to worken give me wit and grace!
That I be quit from thence that most dark is;
O thou that art so fair and full of grace,
Be thou mine advocate in that high place,
There, as withouten end is sung Hozanne,
Thou Christes mother, daughter dear of Anne!"

Still more beautiful and more his own is the invocation in the
"Prioress's Tale." I give the stanzas as modernized by Wordsworth:--

"O Mother Maid! O Maid and Mother free!
O bush unburnt, burning in Moses' sight!
That down didst ravish from the Deity,
Through humbleness, the Spirit that that did alight
Upon thy heart, whence, through that glory's might
Conceived was the Father's sapience,
Help me to tell it in thy reverence!

"Lady, thy goodness, thy magnificence,
Thy virtue, and thy great humility,
Surpass all science and all utterance;
For sometimes, Lady! ere men pray to thee,
Thou go'st before in thy benignity,
The light to us vouchsafing of thy prayer,
To be our guide unto thy Son so dear.

"My knowledge is so weak, O blissful Queen,
To tell abroad thy mighty worthiness,
That I the weight of it may not sustain;
But as a child of twelve months old, or less,
That laboureth his language to express,
Even so fare I; and therefore, I thee pray,
Guide thou my song, which I of thee shall say."

And again, we may turn to Petrarch's hymn to the Virgin, wherein
he prays to be delivered from his love and everlasting regrets for
Laura:--

"Vergine bella, che di sol vestita,
Coronata di stelle, al sommo Sole
Piacesti si, che'n te sua luce ascose.

"Vergine pura, d'ogni parte intera,
Del tuo parto gentil figliuola e madre!

"Vergine sola al mondo senza esempio,
Che 'l ciel di tue bellezze innamorasti."

The fancy of the theologians of the middle ages played rather
dangerously, as it appears to me, for the uninitiated and
uninstructed, with the perplexity of these divine relationships. It is
impossible not to feel that in their admiration for the divine beauty
of Mary, in borrowing the amatory language and luxuriant allegories
of the Canticles, which represent her as an object of delight to the
Supreme Being, theologians, poets, and artists had wrought themselves
up to a wild pitch of enthusiasm. In such passages as those I have
quoted above, and in the grand old Church hymns, we find the best
commentary and interpretation of the sacred pictures of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. Yet during the thirteenth century there was
a purity in the spirit of the worship which at once inspired and
regulated the forms in which it was manifested. The Annunciations and
Nativities were still distinguished by a chaste and sacred simplicity.
The features of the Madonna herself, even where they were not what we
call beautiful, had yet a touch of that divine and contemplative grace
which the theologians and the poets had associated with the queenly,
maternal, and bridal character of Mary.

Thus the impulses given in the early part of the fourteenth century
continued in progressive development through the fifteenth; the
spiritual for some time in advance of the material influences; the
moral idea emanating as it were _from_ the soul, and the influences
of external nature flowing _into_ it; the comprehensive power of fancy
using more and more the apprehensive power of imitation, and both
working together till their "blended might" achieved its full fruition
in the works of Raphael.

* * * * *

Early in the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance (A.D. 1414),
and the condemnation of Huss, gave a new impulse to the worship of the
Virgin. The Hussite wars, and the sacrilegious indignity with which
her sacred images had been treated in the north, filled her orthodox
votaries of the south, of Europe with a consternation and horror
like that excited by the Iconoclasts of the eighth century, and were
followed by a similar reaction. The Church was called upon to assert
more strongly than ever its orthodox veneration for her, and, as a
natural consequence, votive pictures multiplied, the works of the
excelling artists of the fifteenth century testify to the zeal of the
votaries, and the kindred spirit in which the painters worked.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29