[Footnote 18: National, because Giotto's works are properly to be looked on as the fruit of their own age, and the food of that which followed.]

The small loggia of the Virgin's house is noticeable, as being different from the architecture introduced in the other pictures, and more accurately representing the Italian Gothic of the dwelling-house of the period. The arches of the windows have no capitals; but this omission is either to save time, or to prevent the background from becoming too conspicuous. All the real buildings designed by Giotto have the capital completely developed.

* * * * *

XIII.

THE ANNUNCIATION.—THE ANGEL GABRIEL.

This figure is placed on one side of the arch at the east end of the body of the chapel; the corresponding figure of the Virgin being set on the other side. It was a constant practice of the mediaeval artists thus to divide this subject; which, indeed, was so often painted, that the meaning of the separated figures of the Angel and Mary was as well understood as when they were seen in juxtaposition. Indeed, on the two sides of this arch they would hardly be considered as separated, since very frequently they were set to answer to each other from the opposite extremities of a large space of architecture.[19]

[Footnote 19: As, for instance, on the two opposite angles of the facade of the Cathedral of Rheims.]

The figure of the Angel is notable chiefly for its serenity, as opposed to the later conceptions of the scene, in which he sails into the chamber upon the wing, like a stooping falcon.

The building above is more developed than in any other of the Arena paintings; but it must always remain a matter of question, why so exquisite a designer of architecture as Giotto should introduce forms so harsh and meagre into his backgrounds. Possibly he felt that the very faults of the architecture enhanced the grace and increased the importance of the figures; at least, the proceeding seems to me inexplicable on any other theory.[20]

[Footnote 20: (Note by a friend:) "I suppose you will not admit as an explanation, that he had not yet turned his mind to architectural composition, the Campanile being some thirty years later?"]

* * * * *

XIV.

THE ANNUNCIATION.—THE VIRGIN MARY.

Vasari, in his notice of one of Giotto's Annunciations, praises him for having justly rendered the fear of the Virgin at the address of the Angel. If he ever treated the subject in such a manner, he departed from all the traditions of his time; for I am aware of no painting of this scene, during the course of the thirteenth and following centuries, which does not represent the Virgin as perfectly tranquil, receiving the message of the Angel in solemn thought and gentle humility, but without a shadow of fear. It was reserved for the painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to change angelic majesty into reckless impetuosity, and maiden meditation into panic dread.

The face of the Virgin is slightly disappointing. Giotto never reached a very high standard of beauty in feature; depending much on distant effect in all his works, and therefore more on general arrangement of colour and sincerity of gesture, than on refinement of drawing in the countenance.

* * * * *

XV.

THE SALUTATION.

This picture, placed beneath the figure of the Virgin Annunciate at the east end of the chapel, and necessarily small, (as will be seen by the plan), in consequence of the space occupied by the arch which it flanks, begins the second or lower series of frescoes; being, at the same time, the first of the great chain of more familiar subjects, in which we have the power of comparing the conceptions of Giotto not only with the designs of earlier ages, but with the efforts which subsequent masters have made to exalt or vary the ideas of the principal scenes in the life of the Virgin and of Christ. The two paintings of the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate hardly provoke such a comparison, being almost statue-like in the calm subjection of all dramatic interest to the symmetrical dignity and beauty of the two figures, leading, as they do, the whole system of the decoration of the chapel; but this of the Salutation is treated with no such reference to the architecture, and at once challenges comparison with the works of later masters.

Nor is the challenge feebly maintained. I have no hesitation in saying, that, among all the renderings of this scene which now exist, I remember none which gives the pure depth and plain facts of it so perfectly as this of Giotto's. Of majestic women bowing themselves to beautiful and meek girls, both wearing gorgeous robes, in the midst of lovely scenery, or at the doors of Palladian palaces, we have enough; but I do not know any picture which seems to me to give so truthful an idea of the action with which Elizabeth and Mary must actually have met,—which gives so exactly the way in which Elizabeth would stretch her arms, and stoop and gaze into Mary's face, and the way in which Mary's hand would slip beneath Elizabeth's arms, and raise her up to kiss her. I know not any Elizabeth so full of intense love, and joy, and humbleness; hardly any Madonna in which tenderness and dignity are so quietly blended. She not less humble, and yet accepting the reverence of Elizabeth as her appointed portion, saying, in her simplicity and truth, "He that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is His name." The longer that this group is looked upon, the more it will be felt that Giotto has done well to withdraw from it nearly all accessories of landscape and adornment, and to trust it to the power of its own deep expression. We may gaze upon the two silent figures until their silence seems to be broken, and the words of the question and reply sound in our ears, low as if from far away:

"Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?"

"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

* * * * *

XVI.

THE NATIVITY.

I am not sure whether I shall do well or kindly in telling the reader anything about this beautiful design. Perhaps the less he knows about early art or early traditions, the more deeply he will feel its purity and truth; for there is scarcely an incident here, or anything in the manner of representing the incidents, which is not mentioned or justified in Scripture. The bold, hilly background reminds us that Bethlehem was in the hill-country of Judah. But it may seem to have two purposes besides this literal one: the first, that it increases the idea of exposure and loneliness in the birth of Christ; the second that the masses of the great hills, with the angels floating round them in the horizontal clouds, may in some sort represent to our thoughts the power and space of that heaven and earth whose Lord is being laid in the manger-cradle.

There is an exquisite truth and sweetness in the way the Virgin turns upon the couch, in order herself to assist in laying the Child down. Giotto is in this exactly faithful to the scriptural words: "She wrapped the Child in swaddling-clothes, and laid Him in a manger." Joseph sits beneath in meditation; above, the angels, all exulting, and, as it were, confused with joy, flutter and circle in the air like birds,—three looking up to the Father's throne with praise and thankfulness, one stooping to adore the Prince of Peace, one flying to tell the shepherds. There is something to me peculiarly affecting in this disorder of theirs; even angels, as it were, breaking their ranks with wonder, and not knowing how to utter their gladness and passion of praise. There is noticeable here, as in all works of this early time, a certain confidence in the way in which the angels trust to their wings, very characteristic of a period of bold and simple conception. Modern science has taught us that a wing cannot be anatomically joined to a shoulder; and in proportion as painters approach more and more to the scientific, as distinguished from the contemplative state of mind, they put the wings of their angels on more timidly, and dwell with greater emphasis upon the human form, and with less upon the wings, until these last become a species of decorative appendage,—a mere sign of an angel. But in Giotto's time an angel was a complete creature, as much believed in as a bird; and the way in which it would or might cast itself into the air, and lean hither and thither upon its plumes, was as naturally apprehended as the manner of flight of a chough or a starling. Hence Dante's simple and most exquisite synonym for angel, "Bird of God;" and hence also a variety and picturesqueness in the expression of the movements of the heavenly hierarchies by the earlier painters, ill replaced by the powers of foreshortening, and throwing naked limbs into fantastic positions, which appear in the cherubic groups of later times.

It is needless to point out the frank association of the two events,—the Nativity, and appearance of the Angel to the Shepherds. They are constantly thus joined; but I do not remember any other example in which they are joined so boldly. Usually the shepherds are seen in the distance, or are introduced in some ornamental border, or other inferior place. The view of painting as a mode of suggesting relative or consecutive thoughts, rather than a realisation of any one scene, is seldom so fearlessly asserted, even by Giotto, as here, in placing the flocks of the shepherds at the foot of the Virgin's bed.

This bed, it will be noticed, is on a shelf of rock. This is in compliance with the idea founded on the Protevangelion and the apocryphal book known as the Gospel of Infancy, that our Saviour was born in a cave, associated with the scriptural statement that He was laid in a manger, of which the apocryphal gospels do not speak.

The vain endeavour to exalt the awe of the moment of the Saviour's birth has turned, in these gospels, the outhouse of the inn into a species of subterranean chapel, full of incense and candles. "It was after sunset, when the old woman (the midwife), and Joseph with her, reached the cave; and they both went into it. And behold, it was all filled with light, greater than the light of lamps and candles, and greater than the light of the sun itself." (Infancy, i. 9.) "Then a bright cloud overshadowed the cave, and the midwife said: This day my soul is magnified." (Protevangelion, xiv. 10.) The thirteenth chapter of the Protevangelion is, however, a little more skilful in this attempt at exaltation. "And leaving her and his sons in the cave, Joseph went forth to seek a Hebrew midwife in the village of Bethlehem. But as I was going, said Joseph, I looked up into the air, and I saw the clouds astonished, and the fowls of the air stopping in the midst of their flight. And I looked down towards the earth and saw a table spread, and working-people sitting around it; but their hands were on the table, and they did not move to eat. But all their faces were fixed upwards." (Protevangelion, xiii. 1-7.)

It would, of course, be absurd to endeavour to institute any comparison between the various pictures of this subject, innumerable as they are; but I must at least deprecate Lord Lindsay's characterising this design of Giotto's merely as the "Byzantine composition." It contains, indeed, nothing more than the materials of the Byzantine composition; but I know no Byzantine Nativity which at all resembles it in the grace and life of its action. And, for full a century after Giotto's time, in northern Europe, the Nativity was represented in a far more conventional manner than this; usually only the heads of the ox and ass are seen, and they are arranging, or holding with their mouths, the drapery of the couch of the Child; who is not being laid in it by the Virgin, but raised upon a kind of tablet high above her in the centre of the group. All these early designs, without exception, however, agree in expressing a certain degree of languor in the figure of the Virgin, and in making her recumbent on the bed. It is not till the fifteenth century that she is represented as exempt from suffering, and immediately kneeling in adoration before the Child.

* * * * *

XVII.

THE WISE MEN'S OFFERING.

This is a subject which has been so great a favourite with the painters of later periods, and on which so much rich incidental invention has been lavished, that Giotto's rendering of it cannot but be felt to be barren. It is, in fact, perhaps the least powerful of all the series; and its effect is further marred by what Lord Lindsay has partly noted, the appearance—perhaps accidental, but if so, exceedingly unskilful—of matronly corpulence in the figure of the Madonna. The unfortunate failure in the representation of the legs and chests of the camels, and the awkwardness of the attempt to render the action of kneeling in the foremost king, put the whole composition into the class—not in itself an uninteresting one—of the slips or shortcomings of great masters. One incident in it only is worth observing. In other compositions of this time, and in many later ones, the kings are generally presenting their offerings themselves, and the Child takes them in His hand, or smiles at them. The painters who thought this an undignified conception left the presents in the hands of the attendants of the Magi. But Giotto considers how presents would be received by an actual king; and as what has been offered to a monarch is delivered to the care of his attendants, Giotto puts a waiting angel to receive the gifts, as not worthy to be placed in the hands of the Infant.

* * * * *

XVIII.

THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE.

This design is one of those which are peculiarly characteristic of Giotto as the head of the Naturalisti.[21] No painter before his time would have dared to represent the Child Jesus as desiring to quit the arms of Simeon, or the Virgin as in some sort interfering with the prophet's earnest contemplation of the Child by stretching her arms to receive Him. The idea is evidently a false one, quite unworthy of the higher painters of the religious school; and it is a matter of peculiar interest to see what must have been the strength of Giotto's love of plain facts, which could force him to stoop so low in the conception of this most touching scene. The Child does not, it will be observed, merely stretch its arm to the Madonna, but is even struggling to escape, violently raising the left foot. But there is another incident in the composition, witnessing as notably to Giotto's powerful grasp of all the facts of his subject as this does to his somewhat hard and plain manner of grasping them;—I mean the angel approaching Simeon, as if with a message. The peculiar interest of the Presentation is for the most part inadequately represented in painting, because it is impossible to imply the fact of Simeon's having waited so long in the hope of beholding his Lord, or to inform the spectator of the feeling in which he utters the song of hope fulfilled. Giotto has, it seems to me, done all that he could to make us remember this peculiar meaning of the scene; for I think I cannot be deceived in interpreting the flying angel, with its branch of palm or lily, to be the Angel of Death, sent in visible fulfilment of the thankful words of Simeon: "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." The figure of Anna is poor and uninteresting; that of the attendant, on the extreme left, very beautiful, both in its drapery and in the severe and elevated character of the features and head-dress.

[Footnote 21: See account of his principles above, p. 13, head C.]

* * * * *

XIX.

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

Giotto again shows, in his treatment of this subject, a juster understanding of the probable facts than most other painters. It becomes the almost universal habit of later artists to regard the flight as both sudden and secret, undertaken by Joseph and Mary, unattended, in the dawn of the morning, or "by night," so soon as Joseph had awaked from sleep. (Matt. ii. 14.) Without a continuous miracle, which it is unnecessary in this case to suppose, such a lonely journey would have been nearly impracticable. Nor was instant flight necessary; for Herod's order for the massacre could not be issued until he had been convinced, by the protracted absence of the Wise Men, that he was "mocked of them." In all probability the exact nature and extent of the danger was revealed to Joseph; and he would make the necessary preparations for his journey with such speed as he could, and depart "by night" indeed, but not in the instant of awakening from his dream. The ordinary impression seems to have been received from the words of the Gospel of Infancy: "Go into Egypt as soon as the cock crows." And the interest of the flight is rendered more thrilling, in late compositions, by the introduction of armed pursuers. Giotto has given a far more quiet, deliberate, and probable character to the whole scene, while he has fully marked the fact of divine protection and command in the figure of the guiding angel. Nor is the picture less interesting in its marked expression of the night. The figures are all distinctly seen, and there is no broad distribution of the gloom; but the vigorous blackness of the dress of the attendant who holds the bridle, and the scattered glitter of the lights on the Madonna's robe, are enough to produce the required effect on the mind.

The figure of the Virgin is singularly dignified: the broad and severe curves traced by the hem and deepest folds of her dress materially conducing to the nobleness of the group. The Child is partly sustained by a band fastened round the Madonna's neck. The quaint and delicate pattern on this band, together with that of the embroidered edges of the dress, is of great value in opposing and making more manifest the severe and grave outlines of the whole figure, whose impressiveness is also partly increased by the rise of the mountain just above it, like a tent. A vulgar composer would have moved this peak to the right or left, and lost its power.

This mountain background is also of great use in deepening the sense of gloom and danger on the desert road. The trees represented as growing on the heights have probably been rendered indistinct by time. In early manuscripts such portions are invariably those which suffer most; the green (on which the leaves were once drawn with dark colours) mouldering away, and the lines of drawing with it. But even in what is here left there is noticeable more careful study of the distinction between the trees with thick spreading foliage, the group of two with light branches and few leaves, and the tree stripped and dead at the bottom of the ravine, than an historical painter would now think it consistent with his dignity to bestow.

* * * * *

XX.

MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.

Of all the series, this composition is the one which exhibits most of Giotto's weaknesses. All early work is apt to fail in the rendering of violent action: but Giotto is, in this instance, inferior not only to his successors, but to the feeblest of the miniature-painters of the thirteenth century; while his imperfect drawing is seen at its worst in the nude figures of the children. It is, in fact, almost impossible to understand how any Italian, familiar with the eager gesticulations of the lower orders of his countrywomen on the smallest points of dispute with each other, should have been incapable of giving more adequate expression of true action and passion to the group of mothers; and, if I were not afraid of being accused of special pleading, I might insist at some length on a dim faith of my own, that Giotto thought the actual agony and strivings of the probable scene unfit for pictorial treatment, or for common contemplation; and that he chose rather to give motionless types and personifications of the soldiers and women, than to use his strength and realistic faculty in bringing before the vulgar eye the unseemly struggle or unspeakable pain. The formal arrangement of the heap of corpses in the centre of the group; the crowded standing of the mothers, as in a choir of sorrow; the actual presence of Herod, to whom some of them appear to be appealing,—all seem to me to mark this intention; and to make the composition only a symbol or shadow of the great deed of massacre, not a realisation of its visible continuance at any moment. I will not press this conjecture; but will only add, that if it be so, I think Giotto was perfectly right; and that a picture thus conceived might have been deeply impressive, had it been more successfully executed; and a calmer, more continuous, comfortless grief expressed in the countenances of the women. Far better thus, than with the horrible analysis of agony, and detail of despair, with which this same scene, one which ought never to have been made the subject of painting at all, has been gloated over by artists of more degraded times.

* * * * *

XXI.

THE YOUNG CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE.

This composition has suffered so grievously by time, that even the portions of it which remain are seen to the greatest disadvantage. Little more than various conditions of scar and stain can be now traced, where were once the draperies of the figures in the shade, and the suspended garland and arches on the right hand of the spectator; and in endeavouring not to represent more than there is authority for, the draughtsman and engraver have necessarily produced a less satisfactory plate than most others of the series. But Giotto has also himself fallen considerably below his usual standard. The faces appear to be cold and hard; and the attitudes are as little graceful as expressive either of attention or surprise. The Madonna's action, stretching her arms to embrace her Son, is pretty; but, on the whole, the picture has no value; and this is the more remarkable, as there were fewer precedents of treatment in this case than in any of the others; and it might have been anticipated that Giotto would have put himself to some pains when the field of thought was comparatively new. The subject of Christ teaching in the Temple rarely occurs in manuscripts; but all the others were perpetually repeated in the service-books of the period.

* * * * *



XXII.

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST.

This is a more interesting work than the last; but it is also gravely and strangely deficient in power of entering into the subject; and this, I think, is common with nearly all efforts that have hitherto been made at its representation. I have never seen a picture of the Baptism, by any painter whatever, which was not below the average power of the painter; and in this conception of Giotto's, the humility of St. John is entirely unexpressed, and the gesture of Christ has hardly any meaning: it neither is in harmony with the words, "Suffer it to be so now," which must have been uttered before the moment of actual baptism, nor does it in the slightest degree indicate the sense in the Redeemer of now entering upon the great work of His ministry. In the earlier representations of the subject, the humility of St. John is never lost sight of; there will be seen, for instance, an effort at expressing it by the slightly stooping attitude and bent knee, even in the very rude design given in outline on the opposite page. I have thought it worth while to set before the reader in this outline one example of the sort of traditional representations which were current throughout Christendom before Giotto arose. This instance is taken from a large choir-book, probably of French, certainly of Northern execution, towards the close of the thirteenth century;[22] and it is a very fair average example of the manner of design in the illuminated work of the period. The introduction of the scroll, with the legend, "This is My beloved Son," is both more true to the scriptural words, "Lo, a voice from heaven," and more reverent, than Giotto's introduction of the visible figure, as a type of the First Person of the Trinity. The boldness with which this type is introduced increases precisely as the religious sentiment of art decreases; in the fifteenth century it becomes utterly revolting.

[Footnote 22: The exact date, 1290, is given in the title-page of the volume.]

I have given this woodcut for another reason also: to explain more clearly the mode in which Giotto deduced the strange form which he has given to the stream of the Jordan. In the earlier Northern works it is merely a green wave, rising to the Saviour's waist, as seen in the woodcut. Giotto, for the sake of getting standing-ground for his figures, gives shores to this wave, retaining its swelling form in the centre,—a very painful and unsuccessful attempt at reconciling typical drawing with laws of perspective. Or perhaps it is less to be regarded as an effort at progress, than as an awkward combination of the Eastern and Western types of the Jordan. In the difference between these types there is matter of some interest. Lord Lindsay, who merely characterises this work of Giotto's as "the Byzantine composition," thus describes the usual Byzantine manner of representing the Baptism:

"The Saviour stands immersed to the middle in Jordan (flowing between two deep and rocky banks), on one of which stands St. John, pouring the water on His head, and on the other two angels hold His robes. The Holy Spirit descends upon Him as a dove, in a stream of light, from God the Father, usually represented by a hand from Heaven. Two of John's disciples stand behind him as spectators. Frequently the river-god of Jordan reclines with his oars in the corner.... In the Baptistery at Ravenna, the rope is supported, not by an angel, but by the river-deity Jordann (Iordanes?), who holds in his left hand a reed as his sceptre."

Now in this mode of representing rivers there is something more than the mere Pagan tradition lingering through the wrecks of the Eastern Empire. A river, in the East and South, is necessarily recognised more distinctly as a beneficent power than in the West and North. The narrowest and feeblest stream is felt to have an influence on the life of mankind; and is counted among the possessions, or honoured among the deities, of the people who dwell beside it. Hence the importance given, in the Byzantine compositions, to the name and specialty of the Jordan stream. In the North such peculiar definiteness and importance can never be attached to the name of any single fountain. Water, in its various forms of streamlet, rain, or river, is felt as an universal gift of heaven, not as an inheritance of a particular spot of earth. Hence, with the Gothic artists generally, the personality of the Jordan is lost in the green and nameless wave; and the simple rite of the Baptism is dwelt upon, without endeavouring, as Giotto has done, to draw the attention to the rocky shores of Bethabara and AEnon, or to the fact that "there was much water there."

* * * * *

XXIII.

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA.

It is strange that the sweet significance of this first of the miracles should have been lost sight of by nearly all artists after Giotto; and that no effort was made by them to conceive the circumstances of it in simplicity. The poverty of the family in which the marriage took place,—proved sufficiently by the fact that a carpenter's wife not only was asked as a chief guest, but even had authority over the servants,—is shown further to have been distressful, or at least embarrassed, poverty by their want of wine on such an occasion. It was not certainly to remedy an accident of careless provision, but to supply a need sorrowfully betraying the narrow circumstances of His hosts, that our Lord wrought the beginning of miracles. Many mystic meanings have been sought in the act, which, though there is no need to deny, there is little evidence to certify: but we may joyfully accept, as its first indisputable meaning, that of simple kindness; the wine being provided here, when needed, as the bread and fish were afterwards for the hungry multitudes. The whole value of the miracle, in its serviceable tenderness, is at once effaced when the marriage is supposed, as by Veronese and other artists of later times, to have taken place at the house of a rich man. For the rest, Giotto sufficiently implies, by the lifted hand of the Madonna, and the action of the fingers of the bridegroom, as if they held sacramental bread, that there lay a deeper meaning under the miracle for those who could accept it. How all miracle is accepted by common humanity, he has also shown in the figure of the ruler of the feast, drinking. This unregarding forgetfulness of present spiritual power is similarly marked by Veronese, by placing the figure of a fool with his bauble immediately underneath that of Christ, and by making a cat play with her shadow in one of the wine-vases.

It is to be remembered, however, in examining all pictures of this subject, that the miracle was not made manifest to all the guests;—to none indeed, seemingly, except Christ's own disciples: the ruler of the feast, and probably most of those present (except the servants who drew the water), knew or observed nothing of what was passing, and merely thought the good wine had been "kept until now."

* * * * *

XXIV.

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.

In consequence of the intermediate position which Giotto occupies between the Byzantine and Naturalist schools, two relations of treatment are to be generally noted in his work. As compared with the Byzantines, he is a realist, whose power consists in the introduction of living character and various incidents, modifying the formerly received Byzantine symbols. So far as he has to do this, he is a realist of the purest kind, endeavoring always to conceive events precisely as they were likely to have happened; not to idealise them into forms artfully impressive to the spectator. But in so far as he was compelled to retain, or did not wish to reject, the figurative character of the Byzantine symbols, he stands opposed to succeeding realists, in the quantity of meaning which probably lies hidden in any composition, as well as in the simplicity with which he will probably treat it, in order to enforce or guide to this meaning: the figures being often letters of a hieroglyphic, which he will not multiply, lest he should lose in force of suggestion what he gained in dramatic interest.

None of the compositions display more clearly this typical and reflective character than that of the Raising of Lazarus. Later designers dwell on vulgar conditions of wonder or horror, such as they could conceive likely to attend the resuscitation of a corpse; but with Giotto the physical reanimation is the type of a spiritual one, and, though shown to be miraculous, is yet in all its deeper aspects unperturbed, and calm in awfulness. It is also visibly gradual. "His face was bound about with a napkin." The nearest Apostle has withdrawn the covering from the face, and looks for the command which shall restore it from wasted corruption, and sealed blindness, to living power and light.

Nor is it, I believe, without meaning, that the two Apostles, if indeed they are intended for Apostles, who stand at Lazarus' side, wear a different dress from those who follow Christ. I suppose them to be intended for images of the Christian and Jewish Churches in their ministration to the dead soul: the one removing its bonds, but looking to Christ for the word and power of life; the other inactive and helpless—the veil upon its face—in dread; while the principal figure fulfils the order it receives in fearless simplicity.

* * * * *

XXV.

THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.

This design suffers much from loss of colour in translation. Its decorative effect depends on the deep blue ground, relieving the delicate foliage and the local colours of dresses and architecture. It is also one of those which are most directly opposed to modern feeling: the sympathy of the spectator with the passion of the crowd being somewhat rudely checked by the grotesque action of two of the foremost figures. We ought, however, rather to envy the deep seriousness which could not be moved from dwelling on the real power of the scene by any ungracefulness or familiarity of circumstance. Among men whose minds are rightly toned, nothing is ludicrous: it must, if an act, be either right or wrong, noble or base; if a thing seen, it must either be ugly or beautiful: and what is either wrong or deformed is not, among noble persons, in anywise subject for laughter; but, in the precise degree of its wrongness or deformity, a subject of horror. All perception of what, in the modern European mind, falls under the general head of the ludicrous, is either childish or profane; often healthy, as indicative of vigorous animal life, but always degraded in its relation to manly conditions of thought. It has a secondary use in its power of detecting vulgar imposture; but it only obtains this power by denying the highest truths.

* * * * *

XXVI.

THE EXPULSION FROM THE TEMPLE.

More properly, the Expulsion from the outer Court of the Temple (Court of Gentiles), as Giotto has indicated by placing the porch of the Temple itself in the background.

The design shows, as clearly as that of the Massacre of the Innocents, Giotto's want of power, and partly of desire, to represent rapid or forceful action. The raising of the right hand, not holding any scourge, resembles the action afterwards adopted by Oreagna, and finally by Michael Angelo in his Last Judgment: and my belief is, that Giotto considered this act of Christ's as partly typical of the final judgment, the Pharisees being placed on the left hand, and the disciples on the right. From the faded remains of the fresco, the draughtsman could not determine what animals are intended by those on the left hand. But the most curious incident (so far as I know, found only in this design of the Expulsion, no subsequent painter repeating it), is the sheltering of the two children, one of them carrying a dove, under the arm and cloak of two disciples. Many meanings might easily be suggested in this; but I see no evidence for the adoption of any distinct one.

* * * * *

XXVII.

THE HIRING OF JUDAS.

The only point of material interest presented by this design is the decrepit and distorted shadow of the demon, respecting which it may be well to remind the reader that all the great Italian thinkers concurred in assuming decrepitude or disease, as well as ugliness, to be a characteristic of all natures of evil. Whatever the extent of the power granted to evil spirits, it was always abominable and contemptible; no element of beauty or heroism was ever allowed to remain, however obscured, in the aspect of a fallen angel. Also, the demoniacal nature was shown in acts of betrayal, torture, or wanton hostility; never in valiancy or perseverance of contest. I recollect no mediaeval demon who shows as much insulting, resisting, or contending power as Bunyan's Apollyon. They can only cheat, undermine, and mock; never overthrow. Judas, as we should naturally anticipate, has not in this scene the nimbus of an Apostle; yet we shall find it restored to him in the next design. We shall discover the reason of this only by a careful consideration of the meaning of that fresco.

* * * * *

XXVIII.

THE LAST SUPPER.

I have not examined the original fresco with care enough to be able to say whether the uninteresting quietness of its design is redeemed by more than ordinary attention to expression; it is one of the least attractive subjects in the Arena Chapel, and always sure to be passed over in any general observation of the series: nevertheless, however unfavourably it may at first contrast with the designs of later masters, and especially with Leonardo's, the reader should not fail to observe that Giotto's aim, had it been successful, was the higher of the two, as giving truer rendering of the probable fact. There is no distinct evidence, in the sacred text, of the annunciation of coming treachery having produced among the disciples the violent surprise and agitation represented by Leonardo. Naturally, they would not at first understand what was meant. They knew nothing distinctly of the machinations of the priests; and so little of the character or purposes of Judas, that even after he had received the sop which was to point him out to the others as false;—and after they had heard the injunction, "That thou doest, do quickly,"—the other disciples had still no conception of the significance, either of the saying, or the act: they thought that Christ meant he was to buy something for the feast. Nay, Judas himself, so far from starting, as a convicted traitor, and thereby betraying himself, as in Leonardo's picture, had not, when Christ's first words were uttered, any immediately active intention formed. The devil had not entered into him until he received the sop. The passage in St. John's account is a curious one, and little noticed; but it marks very distinctly the paralysed state of the man's mind. He had talked with the priests, covenanted with them, and even sought opportunity to bring Jesus into their hands; but while such opportunity was wanting, the act had never presented itself fully to him for adoption or rejection. He had toyed with it, dreamed over it, hesitated, and procrastinated over it, as a stupid and cowardly person would, such as traitors are apt to be. But the way of retreat was yet open; the conquest of the temper not complete. Only after receiving the sop the idea finally presented itself clearly, and was accepted, "To-night, while He is in the garden, I can do it; and I will." And Giotto has indicated this distinctly by giving Judas still the Apostle's nimbus, both in this subject and in that of the Washing of the Feet; while it is taken away in the previous subject of the Hiring, and the following one of the Seizure: thus it fluctuates, expires, and reillumines itself, until his fall is consummated. This being the general state of the Apostles' knowledge, the words, "One of you shall betray me," would excite no feeling in their minds correspondent to that with which we now read the prophetic sentence. What this "giving up" of their Master meant became a question of bitter and self-searching thought with them,—gradually of intense sorrow and questioning. But had they understood it in the sense we now understand it, they would never have each asked, "Lord, is it I?" Peter believed himself incapable even of denying Christ; and of giving him up to death for money, every one of his true disciples knew themselves incapable; the thought never occurred to them. In slowly-increasing wonder and sorrow ([Greek: erxanto lupeisthai], Mark xiv. 19), not knowing what was meant, they asked one by one, with pauses between, "Is it I?" and another, "Is it I?" and this so quietly and timidly that the one who was lying on Christ's breast never stirred from his place; and Peter, afraid to speak, signed to him to ask who it was. One further circumstance, showing that this was the real state of their minds, we shall find Giotto take cognisance of in the next fresco.

* * * * *

XXIX.

THE WASHING OF THE FEET.

In this design, it will be observed, there are still the twelve disciples, and the nimbus is yet given to Judas (though, as it were, setting, his face not being seen).

Considering the deep interest and importance of every circumstance of the Last Supper, I cannot understand how preachers and commentators pass by the difficulty of clearly understanding the periods indicated in St. John's account of it. It seems that Christ must have risen while they were still eating, must have washed their feet as they sate or reclined at the table, just as the Magdalen had washed His own feet in the Pharisee's house; that, this done, He returned to the table, and the disciples continuing to eat, presently gave the sop to Judas. For St. John says, that he having received the sop, went immediately out; yet that Christ had washed his feet is certain, from the words, "Ye are clean, but not all." Whatever view the reader may, on deliberation, choose to accept, Giotto's is clear, namely, that though not cleansed by the baptism, Judas was yet capable of being cleansed. The devil had not entered into him at the time of the washing of the feet, and he retains the sign of an Apostle.

The composition is one of the most beautiful of the series, especially owing to the submissive grace of the two standing figures.

* * * * *

XXX.

THE KISS OF JUDAS.

For the first time we have Giotto's idea of the face of the traitor clearly shown. It is not, I think, traceable through any of the previous series; and it has often surprised me to observe how impossible it was in the works of almost any of the sacred painters to determine by the mere cast of feature which was meant for the false Apostle. Here, however, Giotto's theory of physiognomy, and together with it his idea of the character of Judas, are perceivable enough. It is evident that he looks upon Judas mainly as a sensual dullard, and foul-brained fool; a man in no respect exalted in bad eminence of treachery above the mass of common traitors, but merely a distinct type of the eternal treachery to good, in vulgar men, which stoops beneath, and opposes in its appointed measure, the life and efforts of all noble persons, their natural enemies in this world; as the slime lies under a clear stream running through an earthy meadow. Our careless and thoughtless English use of the word into which the Greek "Diabolos" has been shortened, blinds us in general to the meaning of "Deviltry," which, in its essence, is nothing else than slander, or traitorhood;—the accusing and giving up of good. In particular it has blinded us to the meaning of Christ's words, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a traitor and accuser?" and led us to think that the "one of you is a devil" indicated some greater than human wickedness in Judas; whereas the practical meaning of the entire fact of Judas' ministry and fall is, that out of any twelve men chosen for the forwarding of any purpose,—or, much more, out of any twelve men we meet,—one, probably, is or will be a Judas.

The modern German renderings of all the scenes of Christ's life in which the traitor is conspicuous are very curious in their vulgar misunderstanding of the history, and their consequent endeavours to represent Judas as more diabolic than selfish, treacherous, and stupid men are in all their generations. They paint him usually projected against strong effects of light, in lurid chiaroscuro;—enlarging the whites of his eyes, and making him frown, grin, and gnash his teeth on all occasions, so as to appear among the other Apostles invariably in the aspect of a Gorgon.

How much more deeply Giotto has fathomed the fact, I believe all men will admit who have sufficient purity and abhorrence of falsehood to recognise it in its daily presence, and who know how the devil's strongest work is done for him by men who are too bestial to understand what they betray.

* * * * *

XXXI.

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS.

Little is to be observed in this design of any distinctive merit; it is only a somewhat completer version of the ordinary representation given in illuminated missals and other conventual work, suggesting, as if they had happened at the same moment, the answer, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil," and the accusation of blasphemy which causes the high-priest to rend his clothes.

Apparently distrustful of his power of obtaining interest of a higher kind, Giotto has treated the enrichments more carefully than usual, down even to the steps of the high-priest's seat. The torch and barred shutters conspicuously indicate its being now dead of night. That the torch is darker than the chamber, if not an error in the drawing, is probably the consequence of a darkening alteration in the yellow colours used for the flame.

* * * * *

XXXII.

THE SCOURGING OF CHRIST.

It is characteristic of Giotto's rational and human view of all subjects admitting such aspect, that he has insisted here chiefly on the dejection and humiliation of Christ, making no attempt to suggest to the spectator any other divinity than that of patience made perfect through suffering. Angelico's conception of the same subject is higher and more mystical. He takes the moment when Christ is blindfolded, and exaggerates almost into monstrosity the vileness of feature and bitterness of sneer in the questioners, "Prophesy unto us, who is he that smote thee;" but the bearing of the person of Christ is entirely calm and unmoved; and his eyes, open, are seen through the binding veil, indicating the ceaseless omniscience.

This mystical rendering is, again, rejected by the later realistic painters; but while the earlier designers, with Giotto at their head, dwelt chiefly on the humiliation and the mockery, later painters dwelt on the physical pain. In Titian's great picture of this subject in the Louvre, one of the executioners is thrusting the thorn-crown down upon the brow with his rod, and the action of Christ is that of a person suffering extreme physical agony.

No representations of the scene exist, to my knowledge, in which the mockery is either sustained with indifference, or rebuked by any stern or appealing expression of feature; yet one of these two forms of endurance would appear, to a modern habit of thought, the most natural and probable.

* * * * *

XXXIII.

CHRIST BEARING HIS CROSS.

This design is one of great nobleness and solemnity in the isolation of the principal figure, and removal of all motives of interest depending on accessories, or merely temporary incidents. Even the Virgin and her attendant women are kept in the background; all appeal for sympathy through physical suffering is disdained. Christ is not represented as borne down by the weight of the Cross, nor as urged forward by the impatience of the executioners. The thing to be shown,—the unspeakable mystery,—is the simple fact, the Bearing of the Cross by the Redeemer. It would be vain to compare the respective merits or value of a design thus treated, and of one like Veronese's of this same subject, in which every essential accessory and probable incident is completely conceived. The abstract and symbolical suggestion will always appeal to one order of minds, the dramatic completeness to another. Unquestionably, the last is the greater achievement of intellect, but the manner and habit of thought are perhaps loftier in Giotto. Veronese leads us to perceive the reality of the act, and Giotto to understand its intention.

* * * * *

XXXIV.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

The treatment of this subject was, in Giotto's time, so rigidly fixed by tradition that it was out of his power to display any of his own special modes of thought; and, as in the Bearing of the Cross, so here, but yet more distinctly, the temporary circumstances are little regarded, the significance of the event being alone cared for. But even long after this time, in all the pictures of the Crucifixion by the great masters, with the single exception perhaps of that by Tintoret in the Church of San Cassano at Venice, there is a tendency to treat the painting as a symmetrical image, or collective symbol of sacred mysteries, rather than as a dramatic representation. Even in Tintoret's great Crucifixion in the School of St. Roch, the group of fainting women forms a kind of pedestal for the Cross. The flying angels in the composition before us are thus also treated with a restraint hardly passing the limits of decorative symbolism. The fading away of their figures into flame-like cloud may perhaps be founded on the verse, "He maketh His angels spirits; His ministers a flame of fire" (though erroneously, the right reading of that verse being, "He maketh the winds His messengers, and the flaming fire His servant"); but it seems to me to give a greater sense of possible truth than the entire figures, treading the clouds with naked feet, of Perugino and his successors.

* * * * *

XXXV.

THE ENTOMBMENT.

I do not consider that in fulfilling the task of interpreter intrusted to me, with respect to this series of engravings, I may in general permit myself to unite with it the duty of a critic. But in the execution of a laborious series of engravings, some must of course be better, some worse; and it would be unjust, no less to the reader than to Giotto, if I allowed this plate to pass without some admission of its inadequacy. It may possibly have been treated with a little less care than the rest, in the knowledge that the finished plate, already in the possession of the members of the Arundel Society, superseded any effort with inferior means; be that as it may, the tenderness of Giotto's composition is, in the engraving before us, lost to an unusual degree.

It may be generally observed that the passionateness of the sorrow both of the Virgin and disciples, is represented by Giotto and all great following designers as reaching its crisis at the Entombment, not at the Crucifixion. The expectation that, after experiencing every form of human suffering, Christ would yet come down from the cross, or in some other visible and immediate manner achieve for Himself the victory, might be conceived to have supported in a measure the minds of those among His disciples who watched by His cross. But when the agony was closed by actual death, and the full strain was put upon their faith, by their laying in the sepulchre, wrapped in His grave-clothes, Him in whom they trusted, "that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel," their sorrow became suddenly hopeless; a gulf of horror opened, almost at unawares, under their feet; and in the poignancy of her astonied despair, it was no marvel that the agony of the Madonna in the "Pieta" became subordinately associated in the mind of the early Church with that of their Lord Himself;—a type of consummate human suffering.

* * * * *

XXXVI.

THE RESURRECTION.

Quite one of the loveliest designs of the series. It was a favourite subject with Giotto; meeting, in all its conditions, his love of what was most mysterious, yet most comforting and full of hope, in the doctrines of his religion. His joy in the fact of the Resurrection, his sense of its function, as the key and primal truth of Christianity, was far too deep to allow him to dwell on any of its minor circumstances, as later designers did, representing the moment of bursting the tomb, and the supposed terror of its guards. With Giotto the leading thought is not of physical reanimation, nor of the momentarily exerted power of breaking the bars of the grave; but the consummation of Christ's work in the first manifesting to human eyes, and the eyes of one who had loved Him and believed in Him, His power to take again the life He had laid down. This first appearance to her out of whom He had cast seven devils is indeed the very central fact of the Resurrection. The keepers had not seen Christ; they had seen only the angel descending, whose countenance was like lightning: for fear of him they became as dead; yet this fear, though great enough to cause them to swoon, was so far conquered at the return of morning, that they were ready to take money-payment for giving a false report of the circumstances. The Magdalen, therefore, is the first witness of the Resurrection; to the love, for whose sake much had been forgiven, this gift is also first given; and as the first witness of the truth, so she is the first messenger of the Gospel. To the Apostles it was granted to proclaim the Resurrection to all nations; but the Magdalen was bidden to proclaim it to the Apostles.

In the chapel of the Bargello, Giotto has rendered this scene with yet more passionate sympathy. Here, however, its significance is more thoughtfully indicated through all the accessories, down even to the withered trees above the sepulchre, while those of the garden burst into leaf. This could hardly escape notice when the barren boughs were compared by the spectator with the rich foliage of the neighbouring designs, though, in the detached plate, it might easily be lost sight of.

* * * * *

XXXVII.

THE ASCENSION.

Giotto continues to exert all his strength on these closing subjects. None of the Byzantine or earlier Italian painters ventured to introduce the entire figure of Christ in this scene: they showed the feet only, concealing the body; according to the text, "a cloud received Him out of their sight." This composition, graceful as it is daring, conveys the idea of ascending motion more forcibly than any that I remember by other than Venetian painters. Much of its power depends on the continuity of line obtained by the half-floating figures of the two warning angels.

I cannot understand why this subject was so seldom treated by religious painters: for the harmony of Christian creed depends as much upon it as on the Resurrection itself; while the circumstances of the Ascension, in their brightness, promise, miraculousness, and direct appeal to all the assembled Apostles, seem more fitted to attract the joyful contemplation of all who received the faith. How morbid, and how deeply to be mourned, was the temper of the Church which could not be satisfied without perpetual representation of the tortures of Christ; but rarely dwelt on His triumph! How more than strange the concessions to this feebleness by its greatest teachers; such as that of Titian, who, though he paints the Assumption of the Madonna rather than a Pieta, paints the Scourging and the Entombment of Christ, with his best power,—but never the Ascension!

* * * * *

XXXVIII.

THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

This last subject of the series, the quietest and least interesting in treatment, yet illustrates sadly, and forcibly, the vital difference between ancient and modern art.

The worst characters of modern work result from its constant appeal to our desire of change, and pathetic excitement; while the best features of the elder art appealed to love of contemplation. It would appear to be the object of the truest artists to give permanence to images such as we should always desire to behold, and might behold without agitation; while the inferior branches of design are concerned with the acuter passions which depend on the turn of a narrative, or the course of an emotion. Where it is possible to unite these two sources of pleasure, and, as in the Assumption of Titian, an action of absorbing interest is united with perfect and perpetual elements of beauty, the highest point of conception would appear to have been touched: but in the degree in which the interest of action supersedes beauty of form and colour, the art is lowered; and where real deformity enters, in any other degree than as a momentary shadow or opposing force, the art is illegitimate. Such art can exist only by accident, when a nation has forgotten or betrayed the eternal purposes of its genius, and gives birth to painters whom it cannot teach, and to teachers whom it will not hear. The best talents of all our English painters have been spent either in endeavours to find room for the expression of feelings which no master guided to a worthy end, or to obtain the attention of a public whose mind was dead to natural beauty, by sharpness of satire, or variety of dramatic circumstance.

The work to which England is now devoting herself withdraws her eyes from beauty, as her heart from rest; nor do I conceive any revival of great art to be possible among us while the nation continues in its present temper. As long as it can bear to see misery and squalor in its streets, it can neither invent nor accept human beauty in its pictures; and so long as in passion of rivalry, or thirst of gain, it crushes the roots of happiness, and forsakes the ways of peace, the great souls whom it may chance to produce will all pass away from it helpless, in error, in wrath, or in silence. Amiable visionaries may retire into the delight of devotional abstraction, strong men of the world may yet hope to do service by their rebuke or their satire; but for the clear sight of Love there will be no horizon, for its quiet words no answer; nor any place for the art which alone is faithfully Religious, because it is Lovely and True.

* * * * *

The series of engravings thus completed, while they present no characters on which the members of the Arundel Society can justifiably pride themselves, have, nevertheless, a real and effective value, if considered as a series of maps of the Arena frescoes. Few artists of eminence pass through Padua without making studies of detached portions of the decoration of this Chapel, while no artist has time to complete drawings of the whole. Such fragmentary studies might now at any time be engraved with advantage, their place in the series being at once determinable by reference to the woodcuts; while qualities of expression could often be obtained in engravings of single figures, which are sure to be lost in an entire subject. The most refined character is occasionally dependent on a few happy and light touches, which, in a single head, are effective, but are too feeble to bear due part in an entire composition, while, in the endeavour to reinforce them, their vitality is lost. I believe the members of the Arundel Society will perceive, eventually, that no copies of works of great art are worthily representative of them but such as are made freely, and for their own purposes, by great painters: the best results obtainable by mechanical effort will only be charts or plans of pictures, not mirrors of them. Such charts it is well to command in as great number as possible, and with all attainable completeness; but the Society cannot be considered as having entered on its true functions until it has obtained the hearty co-operation of European artists, and by the increase of its members, the further power of representing the subtle studies of masterly painters by the aid of exquisite engraving.

THE END