It is a home scene and one such as Raphael might have seen in Rome in his own time. Not unlikely he saw a mother enfolding her child thus when he was taking a walk at the quiet end of day, and caught at once a suggestion from the scene for a Madonna. There is indeed an old legend which grew up about this picture, relating the supposed circ.u.mstances under which Raphael found a charming family group which served him as a model, and which he rapidly sketched upon the head of a cask; the circular form of the picture is thus accounted for.
Whether or not this pretty story is true, it is certain that the Madonna of the Chair is a true picture of home life either in Raphael"s time or even in our own day. The mother wears a handkerchief of many colors over her shoulders, and another on her head like the Roman scarf one still sees nowadays.
We may see what delight and reverence Madonna pictures like this have awakened as we read the words of an old chant. In quaint diction and with fanciful imagery the writer tried to express his feelings in the presence of a painting which, if not this veritable Madonna of the Chair, was certainly very like it.
"When I view the mother holding In her arms the heavenly boy, Thousand blissful thoughts unfolding Melt my heart with sweetest joy.
"As the sun his radiance flinging Shines upon the bright expanse, So the child to Mary clinging Doth her gentle heart entrance.
"See the Virgin Mother beaming!
Jesus by her arms embraced, Dew on softest roses gleaming, Violet with lily chaste!
"Each round other fondly twining.
Pour the shafts of mutual love, Thick as flowers in meadow shining, Countless as the stars above.
"Oh, may one such arrow glowing, Sweetest Child, which thou dost dart Thro" thy mother"s bosom going, Blessed Jesus, pierce my heart."
II
ABRAHAM AND THE THREE ANGELS
In the story of Abraham, as related in our Bible, we read of the wandering and adventurous life of the patriarch as he moved from place to place. In process of time he became "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." He was as brave as he was industrious. When Lot, his brother"s son, who dwelt in Sodom, was taken captive by some foreign kings who had conquered the king of Sodom, Abraham armed his large company of servants and went to the rescue. He recovered not only his nephew, but all the booty which the victors had taken.
Moreover, Abraham was a man of vision as well as of action, a man who feared G.o.d and sought righteousness.
In his old age he was living with his aged wife Sarah on the plains of Mamre. "He sat in the tent door in the heat of the day," the story goes on,[1] "and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said, "My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pa.s.s not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree: and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pa.s.s on: for therefore are ye come to your servant." And they said, "So do, as thou hast said."
[Footnote 1: Genesis, chapter xviii., verses 1-8.]
"And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth." And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he took b.u.t.ter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat."
In the picture we see Abraham welcoming his strange visitors in front of his simple dwelling-place. He is dressed in Oriental robes and bows himself to the ground after the custom of the Eastern people, who are noted for their courtesy. He offers hospitality not as a favor to his guests, but as a privilege which he craves from them. His, not theirs, is the honor, he seems to say.
The three angels have a mysterious air. They are in human form, and yet they are unlike ordinary visitors. Their att.i.tudes, the flowing of the robes, their gestures, all denote something unusual. While the three stand with outstretched hands as if encouraging and blessing their host, Sarah peeps through the open door and listens to the talk.
A country landscape, such as may be seen in the vineyards of Italy, stretches away in the distance. Raphael never traveled outside his own country, and painted only such landscapes as were familiar to him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ABRAHAM AND THE THREE ANGELS _Vatican Palace, Rome_]
The picture was intended as an ill.u.s.tration of the Bible. In the days when Raphael was painting, though the art of printing had been invented, only scholars and learned men could read books, and those which were printed were rarely in the language which the people spoke.
Men and women did indeed hear stories read out of the Bible, but they knew these stories chiefly from paintings, and from carvings in wood and stone. Churches and monasteries, palaces and public halls, were adorned with fresco paintings, and these storied walls formed the people"s literature.
Now the Pope, Leo the Tenth, employed Raphael to decorate parts of the Vatican. The Vatican was the palace of the Popes in Rome, and one of the open courts of the palace had a gallery or Loggia, as it is called, built about its three sides. Raphael caused to be painted on the walls of this gallery festoons of flowers and fruit and sometimes animals, all surrounded and entwined with graceful ornaments. But it was the vaulted ceiling of the gallery that he treated with the greatest care. He made a great series of pictures from scenes in the Old Testament, and some from the New, and his pupils painted these upon the ceiling, so that it came to be known popularly as "Raphael"s Bible."
The ceiling is not flat, and it does not stretch without break, but the gallery is like a succession of arched porches, and the ceiling of each is divided into panels, sloping in four directions, with a flat panel in the centre. These panels are filled with charming pictures which you can see by standing with your head thrown back.
Raphael"s Bible begins with the creation of the world; then follow the history of Adam and Eve, and Noah and the deluge; in the fourth section is the story of Abraham told in four compositions. Thus, besides this picture of Abraham and the Three Angels, there is the scene where Lot and his family are fleeing from Sodom, and his wife is turned into a pillar of salt. There is also the meeting of Abraham and Melchisedec (after Abraham"s rescue of Lot), and a picture of G.o.d promising a long line of descendants to Abraham.
In this open gallery the people of Rome could walk and read the Bible in a succession of pictures. Since these and similar pictures and statues and carvings were everywhere, men, women, and children read them as they would read books, and a popular painter was like a popular story-teller nowadays.
III
THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES
Another of the Bible scenes which Raphael painted was one which is told in the New Testament concerning the Lord Jesus and his Apostles.
Some of these, as Peter and Andrew, James and John, were fishermen who lived near the lake of Gennesaret in Galilee, and had spent most of their lives in their boats. They had been much with their Master, and sometimes left their boats to go with him through the country, when he talked with them and healed the sick, and told the glad tidings, for that is what the word Gospel means. One day he had been using Simon Peter"s boat as a sort of pulpit from which to speak to the people on the sh.o.r.e.
"Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught,"
And Simon answering said unto him, "Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net." And when they had this done, they inclosed a great mult.i.tude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus"s knees, saying, "Depart from me: for I am a sinful man, O Lord." For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken; and so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, "Fear not: from henceforth thou shalt catch men.""[2]
[Footnote 2: Luke, chapter v., verses 4-10.]
In the picture we see the two boats laden with fish, one containing Jesus with Peter and Andrew, and the other containing the partners hauling in the net. The lake stretches away in the distance until it seems to meet the sky in a line of light at the horizon. On the opposite sh.o.r.e are the people to whom Jesus was speaking before the fishermen launched out. Others on the bank are watching to get some of the fish which are not hauled in. There is a boat over there just pushing off. Fishhawks hover overhead, and on the nearer sh.o.r.e are herons.
Just as before in the Madonna of the Chair we saw how all the lines in the picture were drawn as it were in a circle, so here it is the long horizontal line on which the picture is built: the boats extending across the foreground, the distant sh.o.r.e, and the horizon line swelling into the upland. Some one has said that the boats are so placed that it looks as if the figures were slowly pa.s.sing before the eye of the spectator.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES _South Kensington Museum, London_]
Now this picture is not, like so many, painted on canvas or on wood.
Raphael was bidden to make designs for some great hangings or tapestries for the chapel in the Vatican palace known as the Sistine Chapel. He made his drawings, cartoons they are called, on a coa.r.s.e kind of paper, the pieces put together on a great frame, and these cartoons were sent to Arras in Flanders, where they were copied in tapestry by skillful artists.
Raphael intended to represent scenes in the lives of the Apostles, and his series was in two groups of five each, the first centring about the life of St. Peter, the second about the life of St. Paul. The tapestries are in the Vatican palace, but seven of the cartoons are in the South Kensington Museum in London. There they are kept with great care, but they have led a perilous life. When they were sent to Arras, they were cut in strips for the convenience of the weavers, and p.r.i.c.ked with holes. Then after they had been copied in the tapestries, they were thrown aside, as so much waste paper, and lay in a cellar, neglected, for a hundred years. Fortunately they were not destroyed, and the fragments were found in 1630, by the great Flemish painter Rubens, who knew their value. He advised King Charles I. of England to buy them, and they were still regarded as patterns for tapestries. The king set up a manufactory at Mortlake, and some tapestries were made from these cartoons.
When the king was put to death, Cromwell bought the cartoons, and put them away in some boxes at Whitehall. When Charles II. came to the throne, he tried to sell them to France, but was stopped, and finally they found a home at Hampton Court Palace. A few years ago they were removed to their present place of keeping.
The original tapestries, as we have said, were designed for the Sistine Chapel, but they were long ago removed from that place and are now preserved in the Gallery of Tapestries in the Vatican.
The colors of the tapestries have faded, but color never formed the chief attraction of these compositions. What one always admired, and can still admire in engravings and other copies, is what we call the dramatic character of the picture, the way in which the painter has so arranged his figures as to make them tell a story in a lively, graphic fashion.
He can also, as his eye is more and more trained, discover the beauty which lies in the drawing of forms, in ma.s.ses and in lines. For an engraving or a pencil drawing in black and white can give a great deal of pleasure, and some painters make better pictures with pen and ink than they can with a paint-box and brushes.
IV
THE SACRIFICE AT LYSTRA
The Sacrifice at Lystra was another of the great tapestries, and was in the second series of five which had to do with the life of St. Paul as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The apostle was on a journey with his companion Barnabas, and they were teaching and healing as they went. At Lystra they had performed a wonderful cure in healing a man who had been a cripple from his birth.
"And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, "The G.o.ds are come down to us in the likeness of men," And they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.