THE THIRD MORNING. BEFORE THE SOLDAN.

________________________________________________
_

THE THIRD MORNING. BEFORE THE SOLDAN.

I promised some note of Sandro's Fortitude, before whom I asked you to
sit and read the end of my last letter; and I've lost my own notes
about her, and forget, now, whether she has a sword, or a mace;--it
does not matter. What is chiefly notable in her is--that you would not,
if you had to guess who she was, take her for Fortitude at all.
Everybody else's Fortitudes announce themselves clearly and proudly.
They have tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets--and stand firm
astride on their legs,--and are confidently ready for all comers. Yes;
--that is your common Fortitude. Very grand, though common. But not the
highest, by any means.

Ready for all comers, and a match for them,--thinks the universal
Fortitude;--no thanks to her for standing so steady, then!

But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that are
coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing
ready for all comers, she is sitting,--apparently in reverie, her
fingers playing restlessly and idly--nay, I think--even nervously,
about the hilt of her sword.

For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yesterday. Many
a morn and eve have passed since it began--and now--is this to be the
ending day of it? And if this--by what manner of end?

That is what Sandro's Fortitude is thinking. And the playing fingers
about the sword-hilt would fain let it fall, if it might be: and yet,
how swiftly and gladly will they close on it, when the far-off trumpet
blows, which she will hear through all her reverie!

There is yet another picture of Sandro's here, which you must look at
before going back to Giotto: the small Judith in the room next the
Tribune, as you return from this outer one. It is just under Lionardo's
Medusa. She is returning to the camp of her Israel, followed by her
maid carrying the head of Holofernes. And she walks in one of
Botticelli's light dancing actions, her drapery all on flutter, and her
hand, like Fortitude's, light on the sword-hilt, but daintily--not
nervously, the little finger laid over the cross of it.

And at the first glance--you will think the figure merely a piece of
fifteenth-century affectation. 'Judith, indeed!--say rather the
daughter of Herodias, at her mincingest.'

Well, yes--Botticelli _is_ affected, in the way that all men in
that century necessarily were. Much euphuism, much studied grace of
manner, much formal assertion of scholarship, mingling with his force
of imagination. And he likes twisting the fingers of hands about, just
as Correggio does. But he never does it like Correggio, without cause.

Look at Judith again,--at her face, not her drapery,--and remember that
when a man is base at the heart, he blights his virtues into
weaknesses; but when he is true at the heart, he sanctifies his
weaknesses into virtues. It is a weakness of Botticelli's, this love of
dancing motion and waved drapery; but why has he given it full flight
here?

Do you happen to know anything about Judith yourself, except that she
cut off Holofernes' head; and has been made the high light of about a
million of vile pictures ever since, in which the painters thought they
could surely attract the public to the double show of an execution, and
a pretty woman,--especially with the added pleasure of hinting at
previously ignoble sin?

When you go home to-day, take the pains to write out for yourself, in
the connection I here place them, the verses underneath numbered from
the book of Judith; you will probably think of their meaning more
carefully as you write.

Begin thus:

"Now at that time, Judith heard thereof, which was the daughter of
Merari, ... the son of Simeon, the son of Israel." And then write out,
consecutively, these pieces--

Chapter viii., verses 2 to 8. (Always inclusive,) and read the whole
chapter.

Chapter ix., verses 1 and 5 to 7, beginning this piece with the
previous sentence, "Oh God, oh my God, hear me also, a widow."

Chapter ix., verses 11 to 14.
Chapter x., verses 1 to 5.
Chapter xiii., verses 6 to 10.
Chapter xv., verses 11 to 13.
Chapter xvi., verses 1 to 6.
Chapter xvi., verses 11 to 15.
Chapter xvi., verses 18 and 19.
Chapter xvi., verses 23 to 25.

Now, as in many other cases of noble history, apocryphal and other, I
do not in the least care how far the literal facts are true. The
conception of facts, and the idea of Jewish womanhood, are there, grand
and real as a marble statue,--possession for all ages. And you will
feel, after you have read this piece of history, or epic poetry, with
honourable care, that there is somewhat more to be thought of and
pictured in Judith, than painters have mostly found it in them to show
you; that she is not merely the Jewish Delilah to the Assyrian Samson;
but the mightiest, purest, brightest type of high passion in severe
womanhood offered to our human memory. Sandro's picture is but slight;
but it is true to her, and the only one I know that is; and after
writing out these verses, you will see why he gives her that swift,
peaceful motion, while you read in her face, only sweet solemnity of
dreaming thought. "My people delivered, and by my hand; and God has
been gracious to His handmaid!" The triumph of Miriam over a fallen
host, the fire of exulting mortal life in an immortal hour, the purity
and severity of a guardian angel--all are here; and as her servant
follows, carrying indeed the head, but invisible--(a mere thing to be
carried--no more to be so much as thought of)--she looks only at her
mistress, with intense, servile, watchful love. Faithful, not in these
days of fear only, but hitherto in all her life, and afterwards
forever.

After you have seen it enough, look also for a little while at
Angelico's Marriage and Death of the Virgin, in the same room; you may
afterwards associate the three pictures always together in your mind.
And, looking at nothing else to-day in the Uffizi, let us go back to
Giotto's chapel.

We must begin with this work on our left hand, the Death of St.
Francis; for it is the key to all the rest. Let us hear first what Mr.
Crowe directs us to think of it. "In the composition of this scene,
Giotto produced a masterpiece, which served as a model but too often
feebly imitated by his successors. Good arrangement, variety of
character and expression in the heads, unity and harmony in the whole,
make this an exceptional work of its kind. As a composition, worthy of
the fourteenth century, Ghirlandajo and Benedetto da Majano both
imitated, without being able to improve it. No painter ever produced
its equal except Raphael; nor could a better be created except in so
far as regards improvement in the mere rendering of form."

To these inspiring observations by the rapturous Crowe, more cautious
Cavalcasella [Footnote: I venture to attribute the wiser note to Signor
Cavalcasella because I have every reason to put real confidence in his
judgment. But it was impossible for any man, engaged as he is, to go
over all the ground covered by so extensive a piece of critical work as
these three volumes contain, with effective attention.] appends a
refrigerating note, saying, "The St. Francis in the glory is new, but
the angels are in part preserved. The rest has all been more or less
retouched; and no judgment can be given as to the colour of this--or
any other (!)--of these works."

You are, therefore--instructed reader--called upon to admire a piece of
art which no painter ever produced the equal of except Raphael; but it
is unhappily deficient, according to Crowe, in the "mere rendering of
form"; and, according to Signor Cavalcasella, "no opinion can be given
as to its colour."

Warned thus of the extensive places where the ice is dangerous, and
forbidden to look here either for form or colour, you are to admire
"the variety of character and expression in the heads." I do not myself
know how these are to be given without form or colour; but there
appears to me, in my innocence, to be only one head in the whole
picture, drawn up and down in different positions.

The "unity and harmony" of the whole--which make this an exceptional
work of its kind--mean, I suppose, its general look of having been
painted out of a scavenger's cart; and so we are reduced to the last
article of our creed according to Crowe,--

"In the composition of this scene Giotto produced a masterpiece."

Well, possibly. The question is, What you mean by 'composition.' Which,
putting modern criticism now out of our way, I will ask the reader to
think, in front of this wreck of Giotto, with some care.

Was it, in the first place, to Giotto, think you, the, "composition of
a scene," or the conception of a fact? You probably, if a fashionable
person, have seen the apotheosis of Margaret in Faust? You know what
care is taken, nightly, in the composition of that scene,--how the
draperies are arranged for it; the lights turned off, and on; the
fiddlestrings taxed for their utmost tenderness; the bassoons exhorted
to a grievous solemnity.

You don't believe, however, that any real soul of a Margaret ever
appeared to any mortal in that manner?

_Here_ is an apotheosis also. Composed!--yes; figures high on the
right and left, low in the middle, etc., etc., etc.

But the important questions seem to me, Was there ever a St. Francis?--
_did_ he ever receive stigmata?--_did_his soul go up to heaven--did any
monk see it rising--and did Giotto mean to tell us so? If you will be
good enough to settle these few small points in your mind first, the
"composition" will take a wholly different aspect to you, according to
your answer.

Nor does it seem doubtful to me what your answer, after investigation
made, must be.

There assuredly was a St. Francis, whose life and works you had better
study than either to-day's Galignani, or whatever, this year, may
supply the place of the Tichborne case, in public interest.

His reception of the stigmata is, perhaps, a marvellous instance of the
power of imagination over physical conditions; perhaps an equally
marvellous instance of the swift change of metaphor into tradition; but
assuredly, and beyond dispute, one of the most influential,
significant, and instructive traditions possessed by the Church of
Christ. And, that, if ever soul rose to heaven from the dead body, his
soul did so rise, is equally sure.

And, finally, Giotto believed that all he was called on to represent,
concerning St. Francis, really had taken place, just as surely as you,
if you are a Christian, believe that Christ died and rose again; and he
represents it with all fidelity and passion: but, as I just now said,
he is a man of supreme common sense;--has as much humour and clearness
of sight as Chaucer, and as much dislike of falsehood in clergy, or in
professedly pious people: and in his gravest moments he will still see
and say truly that what is fat, is fat--and what is lean, lean--and
what is hollow, empty.

His great point, however, in this fresco, is the assertion of the
reality of the stigmata against all question. There is not only one St.
Thomas to be convinced; there are five;--one to each wound. Of these,
four are intent only on satisfying their curiosity, and are peering or
probing; one only kisses the hand he has lifted. The rest of the
picture never was much more than a grey drawing of a noble burial
service; of all concerned in which, one monk, only, is worthy to see
the soul taken up to heaven; and he is evidently just the monk whom
nobody in the convent thought anything of. (His face is all repainted;
but one can gather this much, or little, out of it, yet.)

Of the composition, or "unity and harmony of the whole," as a burial
service, we may better judge after we have looked at the brighter
picture of St. Francis's Birth--birth spiritual, that is to say, to his
native heaven; the uppermost, namely, of the three subjects on this
side of the chapel. It is entirely characteristic of Giotto; much of it
by his hand--all of it beautiful. All important matters to be known of
Giotto you may know from this fresco.

'But we can't see it, even with our opera-glasses, but all
foreshortened and spoiled. What is the use of lecturing us on this?'

That is precisely the first point which is essentially Giottesque in
it; its being so out of the way! It is this which makes it a perfect
specimen of the master. I will tell you next something about a work of
his which you can see perfectly, just behind you on the opposite side
of the wall; but that you have half to break your neck to look at this
one, is the very first thing I want you to feel.

It is a characteristic--(as far as I know, quite a universal one)--of
the greatest masters, that they never expect you to look at them; seem
always rather surprised if you want to; and not overpleased. Tell them
you are going to hang their picture at the upper end of the table at
the next great City dinner, and that Mr. So and So will make a speech
about it; you produce no impression upon them whatever, or an
unfavourable one. The chances are ten to one they send you the most
rubbishy thing they can find in their lumber-room. But send for one of
them in a hurry, and tell him the rats have gnawed a nasty hole behind
the parlor door, and you want it plastered and painted over;--and he
does you a masterpiece which the world will peep behind your door to
look at for ever.

I have no time to tell you why this is so; nor do I know why,
altogether; but so it is.

Giotto, then, is sent for, to paint this high chapel: I am not sure if
he chose his own subjects from the life of St. Francis: I think so,--but
of course can't reason on the guess securely. At all events, he would have
much of his own way in the matter.

Now you must observe that painting a Gothic chapel rightly is just the
same thing as painting a Greek vase rightly. The chapel is merely the
vase turned upside-down, and outside-in. The principles of decoration
are exactly the same. Your decoration is to be proportioned to the size
of your vase; to be together delightful when you look at the cup, or
chapel, as a whole; to be various and entertaining when you turn the
cup round; (you turn _yourself_ round in the chapel;) and to bend
its heads and necks of figures about, as it best can, over the hollows,
and ins and outs, so that anyhow, whether too long or too short-possible
or impossible--they may be living, and full of grace. You will also please
take it on my word today--in another morning walk you shall have proof of
it--that Giotto was a pure Etruscan-Greek of the thirteenth century:
converted indeed to worship St. Francis instead of Heracles; but as far
as vase-painting goes, precisely the Etruscan he was before. This is
nothing else than a large, beautiful, coloured Etruscan vase you have
got, inverted over your heads like a diving-bell.' [Footnote: I observe
that recent criticism is engaged in proving all Etruscan vases to be of
late manufacture, in imitation of archaic Greek. And I therefore must
briefly anticipate a statement which I shall have to enforce in following
letters. Etruscan art remains in its own Italian valleys, of the Arno and
upper Tiber, in one unbroken series of work, from the seventh century
before Christ, to this hour, when the country whitewasher still scratches
his plaster in Etruscan patterns. All Florentine work of the finest
kind--Luca della Robbia's, Ghiberti's, Donatello's, Filippo Lippi's,
Botticelli's, Fra Angelico's--is absolutely pure Etruscan, merely changing
its subjects, and representing the Virgin instead of Athena, and Christ
instead of Jupiter. Every line of the Florentine chisel in the fifteenth
century is based on national principles of art which existed in the seventh
century before Christ; and Angelico, in his convent of St. Dominic, at
the foot of the hill of Fesole, is as true an Etruscan as the builder who
laid the rude stones of the wall along its crest--of which modern
civilization has used the only arch that remained for cheap building stone.
Luckily, I sketched it in 1845. but alas, too carelessly,--never conceiving
of the brutalities of modem Italy as possible.]

Accordingly, after the quatrefoil ornamentation of the top of the bell,
you get two spaces at the sides under arches, very difficult to cramp
one's picture into, if it is to be a picture only; but entirely
provocative of our old Etruscan instinct of ornament. And, spurred by
the difficulty, and pleased by the national character of it, we put our
best work into these arches, utterly neglectful of the public below,
--who will see the white and red and blue spaces, at any rate, which is
all they will want to see, thinks Giotto, if he ever looks down from
his scaffold.

Take the highest compartment, then, on the left, looking towards the
window. It was wholly impossible to get the arch filled with figures,
unless they stood on each other's heads; so Giotto ekes it out with a
piece of fine architecture. Raphael, in the Sposalizio, does the same,
for pleasure.

Then he puts two dainty little white figures, bending, on each flank,
to stop up his corners. But he puts the taller inside on the right, and
outside on the left. And he puts his Greek chorus of observant and
moralizing persons on each side of his main action.

Then he puts one Choragus--or leader of chorus, supporting the main
action--on each side. Then he puts the main action in the middle--which
is a quarrel about that white bone of contention in the centre.
Choragus on the right, who sees that the bishop is going to have the
best of it, backs him serenely. Choragus on the left, who sees that his
impetuous friend is going to get the worst of it, is pulling him back,
and trying to keep him quiet. The subject of the picture, which, after
you are quite sure it is good as a decoration, but not till then, you
may be allowed to understand, is the following. One of St. Francis's
three great virtues being Obedience, he begins his spiritual life by
quarreling with his father. He, I suppose in modern terms I should say,
commercially invests some of his father's goods in charity. His father
objects to that investment; on which St. Francis runs away, taking what
he can find about the house along with him. His father follows to claim
his property, but finds it is all gone, already; and that St. Francis
has made friends with the Bishop of Assisi. His father flies into an
indecent passion, and declares he will disinherit him; on which St.
Francis then and there takes all his clothes off, throws them
frantically in his father's face, and says he has nothing more to do
with clothes or father. The good Bishop, in tears of admiration,
embraces St. Francis, and covers him with his own mantle.

I have read the picture to you as, if Mr. Spurgeon knew anything about
art, Mr. Spurgeon would read it,--that is to say, from the plain,
common sense, Protestant side. If you are content with that view of it,
you may leave the chapel, and, as far as any study of history is
concerned, Florence also; for you can never know anything either about
Giotto, or her.

Yet do not be afraid of my re-reading it to you from the mystic,
nonsensical, and Papistical side. I am going to read it to you--if
after many and many a year of thought, I am able--as Giotto meant it;
Giotto being, as far as we know, then the man of strongest brain and
hand in Florence; the best friend of the best religious poet of the
world; and widely differing, as his friend did also, in his views of
the world, from either Mr. Spurgeon, or Pius IX.

The first duty of a child is to obey its father and mother; as the
first duty of a citizen to obey the laws of his state. And this duty is
so strict that I believe the only limits to it are those fixed by Isaac
and Iphigenia. On the other hand, the father and mother have also a
fixed duty to the child--not to provoke it to wrath. I have never heard
this text explained to fathers and mothers from the pulpit, which is
curious. For it appears to me that God will expect the parents to
understand their duty to their children, better even than children can
be expected to know their duty to their parents.

But farther. A _child's_ duty is to obey its parents. It is never
said anywhere in the Bible, and never was yet said in any good or wise
book, that a man's, or woman's, is. _When,_ precisely, a child
becomes a man or a woman, it can no more be said, than when it should
first stand on its legs. But a time assuredly comes when it should. In
great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the
parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the
children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to
keep them children. It may be--and happy the house in which it is so
--that the father's at least equal intellect, and older experience, may
remain to the end of his life a law to his children, not of force, but
of perfect guidance, with perfect love. Rarely it is so; not often
possible. It is as natural for the old to be prejudiced as for the
young to be presumptuous; and, in the change of centuries, each
generation has something to judge of for itself.

But this scene, on which Giotto has dwelt with so great force,
represents, not the child's assertion of his independence, but his
adoption of another Father.

You must not confuse the desire of this boy of Assisi to obey God
rather than man, with the desire of your young cockney Hopeful to have
a latch-key, and a separate allowance.

No point of duty has been more miserably warped and perverted by false
priests, in all churches, than this duty of the young to choose whom
they will serve. But the duty itself does not the less exist; and if
there be any truth in Christianity at all, there will come, for all
true disciples, a time when they have to take that saying to heart, "He
that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me."

'_Loveth_'--observe. There is no talk of disobeying fathers or
mothers whom you do not love, or of running away from a home where you
would rather not stay. But to leave the home which is your peace, and
to be at enmity with those who are most dear to you,--this, if there be
meaning in Christ's words, one day or other will be demanded of His
true followers.

And there is meaning in Christ's words. Whatever misuse may have been
made of them,--whatever false prophets--and Heaven knows there have
been many--have called the young children to them, not to bless, but to
curse, the assured fact remains, that if you will obey God, there will
come a moment when the voice of man will be raised, with all its
holiest natural authority, against you. The friend and the wise
adviser--the brother and the sister--the father and the master--the
entire voice of your prudent and keen-sighted acquaintance--the entire
weight of the scornful stupidity of the vulgar world--for _once_,
they will be against you, all at one. You have to obey God rather than
man. The human race, with all its wisdom and love, all its indignation
and folly, on one side,--God alone on the other. You have to choose.

That is the meaning of St. Francis's renouncing his inheritance; and it
is the beginning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless this hardest of
deeds be done first,--this inheritance of mammon and the world cast
away,--all other deeds are useless. You cannot serve, cannot obey, God
and mammon. No charities, no obediences, no self-denials, are of any
use, while you are still at heart in conformity with the world. You go
to church, because the world goes. You keep Sunday, because your
neighbours keep it. But you dress ridiculously, because your neighbours
ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece of work, because your
neighbours despise it. You must renounce your neighbour, in his riches
and pride, and remember him in his distress. That is St. Francis's
'disobedience.'

And now you can understand the relation of subjects throughout the
chapel, and Giotto's choice of them.

The roof has the symbols of the three virtues of labour--Poverty,
Chastity, Obedience.

A. Highest on the left side, looking to the window. The life of St.
Francis begins in his renunciation of the world.

B. Highest on the right side. His new life is approved and ordained by
the authority of the church.

C. Central on the left side. He preaches to his own disciples.

D. Central on the right side. He preaches to the heathen.

E. Lowest on the left side. His burial.

F. Lowest on the right side. His power after death.

Besides these six subjects, there are, on the sides of the window, the
four great Franciscan saints, St. Louis of France, St. Louis of
Toulouse, St. Clare, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

So that you have in the whole series this much given you to think of:
first, the law of St. Francis's conscience; then, his own adoption of
it; then, the ratification of it by the Christian Church; then, his
preaching it in life; then, his preaching it in death; and then, the
fruits of it in his disciples.

I have only been able myself to examine, or in any right sense to see,
of this code of subjects, the first, second, fourth, and the St. Louis
and Elizabeth. I will ask _you_ only to look at two more of them,
namely, St. Francis before the Soldan, midmost on your right, and St.
Louis.

The Soldan, with an ordinary opera-glass, you may see clearly enough;
and I think it will be first well to notice some technical points in
it.

If the little virgin on the stairs of the temple reminded you of one
composition of Titian's, this Soldan should, I think, remind you of all
that is greatest in Titian; so forcibly, indeed, that for my own part,
if I had been told that a careful early fresco by Titian had been
recovered in Santa Croce, I could have believed both report and my own
eyes, more quickly than I have been able to admit that this is indeed
by Giotto. It is so great that--had its principles been understood-there
was in reality nothing more to be taught of art in Italy; nothing to be
invented afterwards, except Dutch effects of light.

That there is no 'effect of light' here arrived at, I beg you at once
to observe as a most important lesson. The subject is St. Francis
challenging the Soldan's Magi,--fire-worshippers--to pass with him
through the fire, which is blazing red at his feet. It is so hot that
the two Magi on the other side of the throne shield their faces. But it
is represented simply as a red mass of writhing forms of flame; and
casts no firelight whatever. There is no ruby colour on anybody's nose:
there are no black shadows under anybody's chin; there are no
Rembrandtesque gradations of gloom, or glitterings of sword-hilt and
armour.

Is this ignorance, think you, in Giotto, and pure artlessness? He was
now a man in middle life, having passed all his days in painting, and
professedly, and almost contentiously, painting things as he saw them.
Do you suppose he never saw fire cast firelight?--and he the friend of
Dante! who of all poets is the most subtle in his sense of every kind
of effect of light--though he has been thought by the public to know
that of fire only. Again and again, his ghosts wonder that there is no
shadow cast by Dante's body; and is the poet's friend, _because_ a
painter, likely, therefore, not to have known that mortal substance
casts shadow, and terrestrial flame, light? Nay, the passage in the
'Purgatorio' where the shadows from the morning sunshine make the
flames redder, reaches the accuracy of Newtonian science; and does
Giotto, think you, all the while, see nothing of the sort?

The fact was, he saw light so intensely that he never for an instant
thought of painting it. He knew that to paint the sun was as impossible
as to stop it; and he was no trickster, trying to find out ways of
seeming to do what he did not. I can paint a rose,--yes; and I will. I
can't paint a red-hot coal; and I won't try to, nor seem to. This was
just as natural and certain a process of thinking with _him_, as
the honesty of it, and true science, were impossible to the false
painters of the sixteenth century.

Nevertheless, what his art can honestly do to make you feel as much as
he wants you to feel, about this fire, he will do; and that studiously.
That the fire be _luminous_ or not, is no matter just now. But
that the fire is _hot_, he would have you to know. Now, will you
notice what colours he has used in the whole picture. First, the blue
background, necessary to unite it with the other three subjects, is
reduced to the smallest possible space. St. Francis must be in grey,
for that is his dress; also the attendant of one of the Magi is in
grey; but so warm, that, if you saw it by itself, you would call it
brown. The shadow behind the throne, which Giotto knows he _can_
paint, and therefore does, is grey also. The rest of the picture
[Footnote: The floor has been repainted; but though its grey is now
heavy and cold, it cannot kill the splendour of the rest.] in at least
six-sevenths of its area--is either crimson, gold, orange, purple, or
white, all as warm as Giotto could paint them; and set off by minute
spaces only of intense black,--the Soldan's fillet at the shoulders,
his eyes, beard, and the points necessary in the golden pattern behind.
And the whole picture is one glow.

A single glance round at the other subjects will convince you of the
special character in this; but you will recognize also that the four
upper subjects, in which St. Francis's life and zeal are shown, are all
in comparatively warm colours, while the two lower ones--of the death,
and the visions after it--have been kept as definitely sad and cold.

Necessarily, you might think, being full of monks' dresses. Not so. Was
there any need for Giotto to have put the priest at the foot of the
dead body, with the black banner stooped over it in the shape of a
grave? Might he not, had he chosen, in either fresco, have made the
celestial visions brighter? Might not St. Francis have appeared in the
centre of a celestial glory to the dreaming Pope, or his soul been seen
of the poor monk, rising through more radiant clouds? Look, however,
how radiant, in the small space allowed out of the blue, they are in
reality. You cannot anywhere see a lovelier piece of Giottesque colour,
though here, you have to mourn over the smallness of the piece, and its
isolation. For the face of St. Francis himself is repainted, and all
the blue sky; but the clouds and four sustaining angels are hardly
retouched at all, and their iridescent and exquisitely graceful wings
are left with really very tender and delicate care by the restorer of
the sky. And no one but Giotto or Turner could have painted them.

For in all his use of opalescent and warm colour, Giotto is exactly
like Turner, as, in his swift expressional power, he is like
Gainsborough. All the other Italian religious painters work out their
expression with toil; he only can give it with a touch. All the other
great Italian colourists see only the beauty of colour, but Giotto also
its brightness. And none of the others, except Tintoret, understood to
the full its symbolic power; but with those--Giotto and Tintoret--there
is always, not only a colour harmony, but a colour secret. It is not
merely to make the picture glow, but to remind you that St. Francis
preaches to a fire-worshipping king, that Giotto covers the wall with
purple and scarlet;--and above, in the dispute at Assisi, the angry
father is dressed in red, varying like passion; and the robe with which
his protector embraces St. Francis, blue, symbolizing the peace of
Heaven, Of course certain conventional colours were traditionally
employed by all painters; but only Giotto and Tintoret invent a
symbolism of their own for every picture. Thus in Tintoret's picture of
the fall of the manna, the figure of God the Father is entirely robed
in white, contrary to all received custom: in that of Moses striking
the rock, it is surrounded by a rainbow. Of Giotto's symbolism in
colour at Assisi, I have given account elsewhere. [Footnote: 'Fors
Clavigera' for September, 1874.]

You are not to think, therefore, the difference between the colour of
the upper and lower frescos unintentional. The life of St. Francis was
always full of joy and triumph. His death, in great suffering,
weariness, and extreme humility. The tradition of him reverses that of
Elijah; living, he is seen in the chariot of fire; dying, he submits to
more than the common sorrow of death.

There is, however, much more than a difference in colour between the upper
and lower frescos. There is a difference in manner which I cannot account
for; and above all, a very singular difference in skill,--indicating, it
seems to me, that the two lower were done long before the others, and
afterwards united and harmonized with them. It is of no interest to the
general reader to pursue this question; but one point he can notice
quickly, that the lower frescos depend much on a mere black or brown
outline of the features, while the faces above are evenly and completely
painted in the most accomplished Venetian manner:--and another, respecting
the management of the draperies, contains much interest for us.

Giotto never succeeded, to the very end of his days, in representing a
figure lying down, and at ease. It is one of the most curious points in
all his character. Just the thing which he could study from nature
without the smallest hindrance, is the thing he never can paint; while
subtleties of form and gesture, which depend absolutely on their
momentariness, and actions in which no model can stay for an instant,
he seizes with infallible accuracy.

Not only has the sleeping Pope, in the right hand lower fresco, his
head laid uncomfortably on his pillow, but all the clothes on him are
in awkward angles, even Giotto's instinct for lines of drapery failing
him altogether when he has to lay it on a reposing figure. But look at
the folds of the Soldan's robe over his knees. None could be more
beautiful or right; and it is to me wholly inconceivable that the two
paintings should be within even twenty years of each other in date--the
skill in the upper one is so supremely greater. We shall find, however,
more than mere truth in its casts of drapery, if we examine them.

They are so simply right, in the figure of the Soldan, that we do not
think of them;--we see him only, not his dress But we see dress first,
in the figures of the discomfited Magi. Very fully draped personages
these, indeed,--with trains, it appears, four yards long, and bearers
of them.

The one nearest the Soldan has done his devoir as bravely as he could;
would fain go up to the fire, but cannot; is forced to shield his face,
though he has not turned back. Giotto gives him full sweeping breadth
of fold; what dignity he can;--a man faithful to his profession, at all
events.

The next one has no such courage. Collapsed altogether, he has nothing
more to say for himself or his creed. Giotto hangs the cloak upon him,
in Ghirlandajo's fashion, as from a peg, but with ludicrous narrowness
of fold. Literally, he is a 'shut-up' Magus--closed like a fan. He
turns his head away, hopelessly. And the last Magus shows nothing but
his back, disappearing through the door.

Opposed to them, in a modern work, you would have had a St. Francis
standing as high as he could in his sandals, contemptuous,
denunciatory; magnificently showing the Magi the door. No such thing,
says Giotto. A somewhat mean man; disappointing enough in presence-even
in feature; I do not understand his gesture, pointing to his forehead
--perhaps meaning, 'my life, or my head, upon the truth of this.' The
attendant monk behind him is terror-struck; but will follow his master.
The dark Moorish servants of the Magi show no emotion--will arrange their
masters' trains as usual, and decorously sustain their retreat.

Lastly, for the Soldan himself. In a modern work, you would assuredly
have had him staring at St. Francis with his eyebrows up, or frowning
thunderously at his Magi, with them bent as far down as they would go.
Neither of these aspects does he bear, according to Giotto. A perfect
gentleman and king, he looks on his Magi with quiet eyes of decision;
he is much the noblest person in the room--though an infidel, the true
hero of the scene, far more than St. Francis. It is evidently the
Soldan whom Giotto wants you to think of mainly, in this picture of
Christian missionary work.

He does not altogether take the view of the Heathen which you would get
in an Exeter Hall meeting. Does not expatiate on their ignorance, their
blackness, or their nakedness. Does not at all think of the Florentine
Islington and Pentonville, as inhabited by persons in every respect
superior to the kings of the East; nor does he imagine every other
religion but his own to be log-worship. Probably the people who really
worship logs--whether in Persia or Pentonville--will be left to worship
logs to their hearts' content, thinks Giotto. But to those who worship
_God_, and who have obeyed the laws of heaven written in their
hearts, and numbered the stars of it visible to them,--to these, a
nearer star may rise; and a higher God be revealed.

You are to note, therefore, that Giotto's Soldan is the type of all
noblest religion and law, in countries where the name of Christ has not
been preached. There was no doubt what king or people should be chosen:
the country of the three Magi had already been indicated by the miracle
of Bethlehem; and the religion and morality of Zoroaster were the
purest, and in spirit the oldest, in the heathen world. Therefore, when
Dante, in the nineteenth and twentieth books of the Paradise, gives his
final interpretation of the law of human and divine justice in relation
to the gospel of Christ--the lower and enslaved body of the heathen
being represented by St. Philip's convert, ("Christians like these the
Ethiop shall condemn")--the noblest state of heathenism is at once
chosen, as by Giotto: "What may the _Persians_ say unto _your_ kings?"
Compare also Milton,--

"At the Soldan's chair,
Defied the best of Paynim chivalry."

And now, the time is come for you to look at Giotto's St. Louis, who is
the type of a Christian king.

You would, I suppose, never have seen it at all, unless I had dragged
you here on purpose. It was enough in the dark originally--is trebly
darkened by the modern painted glass--and dismissed to its oblivion
contentedly by Mr. Murray's "Four saints, all much restored and
repainted," and Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcasella's serene "The St. Louis
is quite new."

Now, I am the last person to call any restoration whatever, judicious.
Of all destructive manias, that of restoration is the frightfullest and
foolishest. Nevertheless, what good, in its miserable way, it can
bring, the poor art scholar must now apply his common sense to take;
there is no use, because a great work has been restored, in now passing
it by altogether, not even looking for what instruction we still may
find in its design, which will be more intelligible, if the restorer
has had any conscience at all, to the ordinary spectator, than it would
have been in the faded work. When, indeed, Mr. Murray's Guide tells you
that a _building_ has been 'magnificently restored,' you may pass
the building by in resigned despair; for _that_ means that every
bit of the old sculpture has been destroyed, and modern vulgar copies
put up in its place. But a restored picture or fresco will often be, to
_you_, more useful than a pure one; and in all probability--if an
important piece of art--it will have been spared in many places,
cautiously completed in others, and still assert itself in a mysterious
way--as Leonardo's Cenacolo does--through every phase of reproduction.
[Footnote: For a test of your feeling in the matter, having looked well
at these two lower frescos in this chapel, walk round into the next,
and examine the lower one on your left hand as you enter that. You will
find in your Murray that the frescos in this chapel "were also till
lately, (1862) covered with whitewash"; but I happen to have a long
critique of this particular picture written in the year 1845, and I see
no change in it since then. Mr. Murray's critic also tells you to
observe in it that "the daughter of Herodias playing on a violin is not
unlike Perugino's treatment of similar subjects." By which Mr. Murray's
critic means that the male musician playing on a violin, whom, without
looking either at his dress, or at the rest of the fresco, he took for
the daughter of Herodias, has a broad face. Allowing you the full
benefit of this criticism--there is still a point or two more to be
observed. This is the only fresco near the ground in which Giotto's
work is untouched, at least, by the modern restorer. So felicitously
safe it is, that you may learn from it at once and for ever, what good
fresco painting is--how quiet--how delicately clear--how little
coarsely or vulgarly attractive--how capable of the most tender light
and shade, and of the most exquisite and enduring colour.

In this latter respect, this fresco stands almost alone among the works
of Giotto; the striped curtain behind the table being wrought with a
variety and fantasy of playing colour which Paul Veronese could not
better at his best.

You will find, without difficulty, in spite of the faint tints, the
daughter of Herodias in the middle of the picture---slowly
_moving_, not dancing, to the violin music--she herself playing on
a lyre. In the farther corner of the picture, she gives St. John's head
to her mother; the face of Herodias is almost entirely faded, which may
be a farther guarantee to you of the safety of the rest. The subject of
the Apocalypse, highest on the right, is one of the most interesting
mythic pictures in Florence; nor do I know any other so completely
rendering the meaning of the scene between the woman in the wilderness,
and the Dragon enemy. But it cannot be seen from the floor level: and I
have no power of showing its beauty in words.]

But I can assure you, in the first place, that St. Louis is by no means
altogether new. I have been up at it, and found most lovely and true
colour left in many parts: the crown, which you will find, after our
mornings at the Spanish chapel, is of importance, nearly untouched; the
lines of the features and hair, though all more or less reproduced,
still of definite and notable character; and the junction throughout of
added colour so careful, that the harmony of the whole, if not delicate
with its old tenderness, is at least, in its coarser way, solemn and
unbroken. Such as the figure remains, it still possesses extreme
beauty--profoundest interest. And, as you can see it from below with
your glass, it leaves little to be desired, and may be dwelt upon with
more profit than nine out of ten of the renowned pictures of the
Tribune or the Pitti. You will enter into the spirit of it better if I
first translate for you a little piece from the Fioretti di San
Francesco.

_"How St. Louis, King of France, went personally in the guise of a
pilgrim, to Perugia, to visit the holy Brother Giles._--St. Louis,
King of France, went on pilgrimage to visit the sanctuaries of the
world; and hearing the most great fame of the holiness of Brother
Giles, who had been among the first companions of St. Francis, put it
in his heart, and determined assuredly that he would visit him
personally; wherefore he came to Perugia, where was then staying the
said brother. And coming to the gate of the place of the Brothers, with
few companions, and being unknown, he asked with great earnestness for
Brother Giles, telling nothing to the porter who he was that asked. The
porter, therefore, goes to Brother Giles, and says that there is a
pilgrim asking for him at the gate. And by God it was inspired in him
and revealed that it was the King of France; whereupon quickly with
great fervour he left his cell and ran to the gate, and without any
question asked, or ever having seen each other before, kneeling down
together with greatest devotion, they embraced and kissed each other
with as much familiarity as if for a long time they had held great
friendship; but all the while neither the one nor the other spoke, but
stayed, so embraced, with such signs of charitable love, in silence.
And so having remained for a great while, they parted from one another,
and St. Louis went on his way, and Brother Giles returned to his cell.
And the King being gone, one of the brethren asked of his companion who
he was, who answered that he was the King of France. Of which the other
brothers being told, were in the greatest melancholy because Brother
Giles had never said a word to him; and murmuring at it, they said,
'Oh, Brother Giles, wherefore hadst thou so country manners that to so
holy a king, who had come from France to see thee and hear from thee
some good word, thou hast spoken nothing?'

"Answered Brother Giles: 'Dearest brothers, wonder not ye at this, that
neither I to him, nor he to me, could speak a word; for so soon as we
had embraced, the light of the divine wisdom revealed and manifested,
to me, his heart, and to him, mine; and so by divine operation we
looked each in the other's heart on what we would have said to one
another, and knew it better far than if we had spoken with the mouth,
and with more consolation, because of the defect of the human tongue,
which cannot clearly express the secrets of God, and would have been
for discomfort rather than comfort. And know, therefore, that the King
parted from me marvellously content, and comforted in his mind.'"

Of all which story, not a word, of course, is credible by any rational
person.

Certainly not: the spirit, nevertheless, which created the story, is an
entirely indisputable fact in the history of Italy and of mankind.
Whether St. Louis and Brother Giles ever knelt together in the street
of Perugia matters not a whit. That a king and a poor monk could be
conceived to have thoughts of each other which no words could speak;
and that indeed the King's tenderness and humility made such a tale
credible to the people,--this is what you have to meditate on here.

Nor is there any better spot in the world,--whencesoever your pilgrim
feet may have journeyed to it, wherein to make up so much mind as you
have in you for the making, concerning the nature of Kinghood and
Princedom generally; and of the forgeries and mockeries of both which
are too often manifested in their room. For it happens that this
Christian and this Persian King are better painted here by Giotto than
elsewhere by any one, so as to give you the best attainable conception
of the Christian and Heathen powers which have both received, in the
book which Christians profess to reverence, the same epithet as the
King of the Jews Himself; anointed, or Christos:--and as the most
perfect Christian Kinghood was exhibited in the life, partly real,
partly traditional, of St. Louis, so the most perfect Heathen Kinghood
was exemplified in the life, partly real, partly traditional, of Cyrus
of Persia, and in the laws for human government and education which had
chief force in his dynasty. And before the images of these two Kings I
think therefore it will be well that you should read the charge to
Cyrus, written by Isaiah. The second clause of it, if not all, will
here become memorable to you--literally illustrating, as it does, the
very manner of the defeat of the Zoroastrian Magi, on which Giotto
founds his Triumph of Faith. I write the leading sentences
continuously; what I omit is only their amplification, which you can
easily refer to at home. (Isaiah xliv. 24, to xlv. 13.)

"Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the
womb. I the Lord that maketh all; that stretcheth forth the heavens,
alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth, alone; _that turneth wise men
backward, and maketh their knowledge, foolish; that confirmeth the word
of his Servant, and fulfilleth the counsel of his messengers_: that
saith of Cyrus, He is my Shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,
even saying to Jerusalem, 'thou shalt be built,' and to the temple,
'thy foundations shall be laid."

"Thus saith the Lord to his Christ;--to Cyrus, whose right hand I have
holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of
Kings.

"I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will
break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron;
and I will give _thee_ the treasures of darkness, and hidden
riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I the Lord, which
call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.

"For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called
thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

"I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I
girded thee, though thou hast not known me. That they may know, from
the _rising of the sun_, and from the west, that there is none
beside me; I am the Lord and there is none else. _I form the
light_, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I the
Lord do all these things.

"I have raised him up in Righteousness, and will direct all his ways;
he shall build my city, and let go my captives, not for price nor
reward, saith the Lord of Nations."

To this last verse, add the ordinance of Cyrus in fulfilling it, that
you may understand what is meant by a King's being "raised up in
Righteousness," and notice, with respect to the picture under which you
stand, the Persian King's thought of the Jewish temple.

"In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, [Footnote: 1st Esdras vi.
24.] King Cyrus commanded that the house of the Lord at Jerusalem
should be built again, _where they do service with perpetual
fire_; (the italicized sentence is Darius's, quoting Cyrus's decree
--the decree itself worded thus), Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia:
[Footnote: Ezra i. 3, and 2nd Esdras ii. 3.] The Lord God of heaven
hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to
build him an house at Jerusalem.

"Who is there among you of all his people?--his God be with him, and
let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and let the men of his
place help him with silver and with gold, and with goods and with
beasts."

Between which "bringing the prisoners out of captivity" and modern
liberty, free trade, and anti-slavery eloquence, there is no small
interval.

To these two ideals of Kinghood, then, the boy has reached, since the
day he was drawing the lamb on the stone, as Cimabue passed by. You
will not find two other such, that I know of, in the west of Europe;
and yet there has been many a try at the painting of crowned heads,--and
King George III and Queen Charlotte, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, are very fine,
no doubt. Also your black-muzzled kings of Velasquez, and Vandyke's
long-haired and white-handed ones; and Rubens' riders--in those handsome
boots. Pass such shadows of them as you can summon, rapidly before your
memory--then look at this St. Louis.

His face--gentle, resolute, glacial-pure, thin-cheeked; so sharp at the
chin that the entire head is almost of the form of a knight's shield--the
hair short on the forehead, falling on each side in the old Greek-Etruscan
curves of simplest line, to the neck; I don't know if you can see without
being nearer, the difference in the arrangement of it on the two sides-the
mass of it on the right shoulder bending inwards, while that on the left
falls straight. It is one of the pretty changes which a modern workman
would never dream of--and which assures me the restorer has followed the
old lines rightly.

He wears a crown formed by an hexagonal pyramid, beaded with pearls on the
edges: and walled round, above the brow, with a vertical fortress-parapet,
as it were, rising into sharp pointed spines at the angles: it is chasing
of gold with pearl--beautiful in the remaining work of it; the Soldan wears
a crown of the same general form; the hexagonal outline signifying all
order, strength, and royal economy. We shall see farther symbolism of this
kind, soon, by Simon Memmi, in the Spanish chapel.

I cannot tell you anything definite of the two other frescos--for I can
only examine one or two pictures in a day; and never begin with one till
I have done with another; and I had to leave Florence without looking at
these--even so far as to be quite sure of their subjects. The central one
on the left is either the twelfth subject of Assisi--St. Francis in
Ecstacy; [Footnote: "Represented" (next to St. Francis before the Soldan,
at Assisi) "as seen one night by the brethren, praying, elevated from
the ground, his hands extended like the cross, and surrounded by a
shining cloud."--_Lord Lindsay_.] or the eighteenth, the Apparition
of St. Francis at Arles; [Footnote: "St. Anthony of Padua was preaching
at a general chapter of the order, held at Arles, in 1224, when St.
Francis appeared in the midst, his arms extended, and in an attitude of
benediction."--_Lord Lindsay_.] while the lowest on the right may admit
choice between two subjects in each half of it: my own reading of them
would be--that they are the twenty-first and twenty-fifth subjects of
Assisi, the Dying Friar [Footnote: "A brother of the order, lying on his
deathbed, saw the spirit of St. Francis rising to heaven, and springing
forward, cried, 'Tarry, Father, I come with thee!' and fell back dead."
--_Lord Lindsay_.] and Vision of Pope Gregory IX.; [Footnote: "He hesitated,
before canonizing St. Francis; doubting the celestial infliction of the
stigmata. St. Francis appeared to him in a vision, and with a severe
countenance reproving his unbelief, opened his robe, and, exposing the
wound in his side, filled a vial with the blood that flowed from it,
and gave it to the Pope, who awoke and found it in his hand."--_Lord
Lindsay_.] but Crowe and Cavalcasella may be right in their
different interpretation; [Footnote: "As St. Francis was carried on his
bed of sickness to St. Maria degli Angeli, he stopped at an hospital on
the roadside, and ordering his attendants to turn his head in the
direction of Assisi, he rose in his litter and said, 'Blessed be thou
amongst cities! may the blessing of God cling to thee, oh holy place,
for by thee shall many souls be saved;' and, having said this, he lay
down and was carried on to St. Maria degli Angeli. On the evening of
the 4th of October his death was revealed at the very hour to the
bishop of Assisi on Mount Sarzana."--_Crowe and Cavalcasella._] in
any case, the meaning of the entire system of work remains unchanged,
as I have given it above.

Content of THE THIRD MORNING. BEFORE THE SOLDAN. [John Ruskin's book: Mornings in Florence]

_

Read next: THE FOURTH MORNING. THE VAULTED BOOK.

Read previous: THE SECOND MORNING. THE GOLDEN GATE.

Table of content of Mornings In Florence


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book