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Giotto and his works in Padua, a non-fiction book by John Ruskin |
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8. The Presentation Of The Virgin |
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_ VIII. THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN "And when three years were expired, and the time of her weaning complete, they brought the Virgin to the temple of the Lord with offerings. "And there were about the temple, according to the fifteen Psalms of Degrees, fifteen stairs to ascend. "The parents of the blessed Virgin and infant Mary put her upon one of these stairs; but while they were putting off their clothes in which they had travelled, in the meantime, the Virgin of the Lord in such a manner went up all the stairs, one after another, without the help of any one to lead her or lift her, that any one would have judged from hence that she was of perfect age." (Gospel of St. Mary, iv. 1-6.) There seems nothing very miraculous in a child's walking up stairs at three years old; but this incident is a favourite one among the Roman-Catholic painters of every period: generally, however, representing the child as older than in the legend, and dwelling rather on the solemn feeling with which she presents herself to the high-priest, than on the mere fact of her being able to walk alone. Giotto has clearly regarded the incident entirely in this light; for St. Anna touches the child's arm as if to support her; so that the so-called miraculous walking is not even hinted at. Lord Lindsay particularly notices that the Virgin is "a dwarf woman instead of a child; the delineation of childhood was one of the latest triumphs of art." Even in the time of those latest triumphs, however, the same fault was committed in another way; and a boy of eight or ten was commonly represented--even by Raffaelle himself--as a dwarf Hercules, with all the gladiatorial muscles already visible in stunted rotundity. Giotto probably felt he had not power enough to give dignity to a child of three years old, and intended the womanly form to be rather typical of the Virgin's advanced mind, than an actual representation of her person. _ |
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