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 EXPOSITIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 GREAT PICTURES.
 
 Edinburgh : Printed by Ballantyne and Company.
 
 EXPOSITIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 GREAT PICTURES 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD HENRY SMITH, Jun., 
 
 AUTHOR OF " EXPOSITIONS OF THE CARTOONS OF RAPHAEL." 
 
 3niitGtrateti bv J^ljotoijcaplj^ 
 
 " Such pictures scarcely bear to be spoken of at all. Let them hang in their silent holiness 
 upon the wall of our most sacred room, to be gazed on at times when we feel the emptiness and 
 vanity of all things in this life ; and when our imagination, coming to the relief of our hearts, 
 willingly wafts us to the heaven which inspired such creations of genius. Those great painters, 
 North, were great divines." — Noctes A.MBROSIANje. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 I3EKNERS STREET. 
 
 M.nCCC.LXIII.
 
 WHS' 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following " Expositions of Great Pictures" owe their appear- 
 ance to the reception given, by the public and by the press, three 
 years ago, to the " Expositions of the Cartoons of Raphael," and 
 they will be found to form a companion volume to that Work. 
 
 The revival and the growth of the public interest in Sacred Art 
 has encouraged the Author to continue his comments on Bible Pic- 
 tures; and he has written, under the conviction, that an expositor 
 may render real service to his fellow-laymen, by offering the results 
 of his long and loving study of the great works of the Great 
 Masters. 
 
 The Photographs, being printed from early engravings, possess 
 peculiar value. The pictures themselves are now so changed, by 
 repainting, from what they were, that their original condition is, in 
 most cases, only to be traced in those rare plates which were exe- 
 cuted before the ravages of time, and the labours of the restorer, had 
 marred the masters' work. These Engravings may thus be regarded 
 as the best copies we possess of these great Pictures, and Photo- 
 graphy, undisturbed by colour, has reproduced them with the utmost 
 fidelity. 
 
 IIani.ky, Sejiletnber \
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 TAf.E 
 
 1. LA MADONNA DELLA SEGGIOLA, .... 1 
 
 II. THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD, AND THE FAILURE 
 
 OF THE APOSTLES, ...... 13 
 
 III. THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS, .... 33 
 
 IV. THE LAST SUPPER, ...... 43 
 
 V. CHRIST PRESENTED BY PILATE TO THE PEOPLE, . . 6 1 
 
 VI. THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS, . . . • 73 
 
 VII. THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD, ..... QI
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Ha iftaticmna Mia ^eggtola. 
 
 "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise : When as his mother Mary was 
 used to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy 
 Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a 
 publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these 
 things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, 
 thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife : for that which is con- 
 ceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt 
 call his name JESUS; for he shall save his people from their sins. (Now all this was 
 done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 
 behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call 
 his name Emmanuel ; which being interpreted, is God with us.) Then Joseph, 
 being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto 
 him his wife : and knew her not till she had brought forth her first-bom son : and he 
 called his name Jesus,"- Matthew i. 18-25.
 
 " LA MADONNA DELLA SEGGIOLA." 
 
 "And Mary said, 
 
 '.My soul doth magnify the Lord, 
 
 And my spirit hath rej jiced in God my Saviour. 
 
 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden ; 
 
 For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 
 
 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things ; 
 
 And holy is his name. 
 
 And his mercy is on them that fear him 
 
 From generation to generation. 
 
 He hath shewed strength with his arm ; 
 
 He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts ! 
 
 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, 
 
 And hath exalted them of low degree. 
 
 He hath filled the hungry with good things ; 
 
 And the rich he hath sent empty away. 
 
 He hath holpen his servant Israel, 
 
 In remembrance of his mercy ; 
 
 As he spake to our fathers, 
 
 Tm Abraham, and to his seed for ever.'" 
 
 The Virgin's Hymn. 
 
 HERE is no difficulty in selecting "The Madonna" for 
 our gallery. None of our readers can hesitate for a 
 moment in deciding either upon their painter or their 
 picture. Amongst the great masters who have treated this subject, 
 they must turn at once to Raphael, who is allowed by the profession 
 to have excelled all others in his representation of the Virgin 
 Mother; and the countless copies and engravings of his picture in 
 the Pitti Palace at Florence prove that, amongst his many Madon- 
 nas, "The Madonna della Seggiola" is considered, by common 
 consent, to be his chef d'amvre. At any rate it is the favourite of 
 Protestant Christendom. Few see any Popery in it. No saints in- 
 trude upon the sacred scene, fn this respect it stands almost alone.
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 As wc study the magnificent Madonna at Dresden, we are disturbed 
 by Pope Sixtus, who comes in and kneels down on one side, and by 
 St Barbara, who follows his example, and kneels opposite to him on 
 the other. " The Madonna di San Sisto " looks as if it had been 
 ■painted for the black friars. "The Madonna della Seggiola" is not 
 known to have been painted for any one, and it looks as if it might 
 have been painted for all. There is no sectarianism in it. It is also 
 as marvellously free from affectation. It is in this that Raphael is 
 .distinguished from other painters, and it is this which forms the 
 ipcculiar excellence of this Madonna. She is quite at her ease. She 
 can raise her eyes, which she rarely does in his other pictures, and 
 look at you. 
 
 In the Sistine Madonna, Raphael has aimed at expressing super- 
 natural grandeur. The Virgin and Child have forgotten their 
 human relation in the Divinity that transfigures them. He has 
 foregone the temptation, if such occurred to him, of introducing 
 one of those touches of nature which would only have defeated his 
 purpose. Like other great masters, he painted only one idea at a 
 time. It is, in truth, this unity which gives them such a hold upon 
 the mind. With the same singleness of purpose he has confined 
 himself in the Madonna della Seggiola to the common and homely 
 incident of a mother caressing her boy. 
 
 The power of the picture lies in its simplicity. It is treated in 
 such a manner that no great scope is left for grouping. There is 
 apparently nothing laboured or artistic about it. It is indeed full 
 or art, but the art is concealed. You cannot but admire its com- 
 position, its colour, and its chiaroscuro, when your attention is 
 drawn to these things, but as the mother and child fix their eyes 
 upon you, they hold you spellbound, and you forget for a time that 
 you are only looking at a picture. Many of Raphael's works 
 appear never to have lost in execution an iota of their first concep- 
 tion. Their ultimate appearance on canvas impresses you with the 
 certainty of their being one and the same with his original idea. It 
 is this, perhaps, which suggested the story of the design having been 
 I , — _ — .
 
 LA MADONNA DELLA SEGGIOLA. 
 
 painted on the head of a beer-barrel, in a harvest-field, where a 
 peasant was nursing her child. There is an air of ease about it, as 
 if it had been struck off at once, under the inspiration of some 
 happy moment. 
 
 Many of the earlier Madonnas offend you by their superstition, 
 and many of the later ones by their irreverence. You often see in 
 the pre-Raphaelites an affectation of supernatural expression, and 
 in the post-Raphaelites, mere studies in form, or light and shade. 
 Raphael was kept from the one fault by his genius, and from the 
 other by his religion. He is known to have been specially devoted 
 to the Virgin, and to have been specially devout when painting her 
 portrait. He founded a chapel in her honour in the church of Sta 
 Maria della Rotunda, and being in Florence soon after the martyr- 
 dom of Savonarola, he must have heard of the vehement indignation 
 with which that great preacher had reproached the painters for dis- 
 playing their vain conceits in the churches. If we may judge from 
 his pictures, he appears evidently to have been acquainted with Da 
 Vinci's directions for painting women, and these were regarded 
 by the profession as a receipt for representing the Madonna. 
 "Women must appear very modest and reserved in their air, their 
 knees close together, their arms across, and the head gracefully bow- 
 ing, and a little inclined to one side." We know for a certainty 
 some of his plans, for in one of his letters to Count Castighoni, he 
 says, "To paint a beautiful woman, I must see several, with this 
 condition, that your lordship be near me to select the loveliest. 
 But there being a dearth both of good judges and beautiful women, 
 1 make use of a certain idea that comes into my mind. Whether 
 with benefit to art, I know not, but I strive to form such, an ideal in 
 my mind/' 
 
 In the treatment of religious subjects, especially where saints, 
 angels, or our Saviour are introduced, artists have often been sadly 
 at fault in the conception, and in the expression of their idea of the 
 superhuman and the divine. In the ease of the Madonna there was 
 a peculiar difficulty. A mother holding her babe was an everyday
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 sight. Few seemed to see how so simple and ordinary an object 
 could be treated as to inspire reverence and devotion. Hence, per- 
 haps, the accessories, the gilded glories, the suns, and moons, and 
 stars, and other mystic symbols of the Madonnas painted during the 
 reign of faith, and the mere animal beauty or artistic excellence of 
 the succeeding reign of taste. 
 
 Raphael seems to have believed that man had been made in the 
 image of God, and that, although the likeness had been lost, yet 
 that at times it reappeared, passing as a fleeting expression over the 
 human countenance, and then vanishing away. This relic of Eden 
 seems to have been spared to womanhood and childhood. It is seen 
 in some women, when thev are mothers, and in some children when 
 they are young. It is this, perhaps, which explains the rapt gaze 
 of the mother as she bends over her boy, reading in his countenance 
 that "of children is the kingdom of heaven." It is this, perhaps, 
 which interprets the strange looking of the child into his mother's 
 face, and the vet stronger veneration of the man for her whom he 
 stdl regards as "that holiest thing alive." There is an appearance 
 of divinity about some children in their early childhood, and a look 
 of heaven about some mothers with their first-born babe, and, as we 
 turn to "The Madonna della Seggiola," we cannot help persuading 
 ourselves that Raphael must have seen this heavenlv vision in some 
 mother and child, and painted it. 
 
 It is this, which we must have all seen at some time or other, 
 which makes us feel the power of this picture. There is an appeal 
 made to our experience. We have known, or, what is better, we 
 have had such a mother or such a son, and the picture, while em- 
 bodying and immortalising the expression of a countenance which 
 has long since been changed, not only thus becomes instantly and 
 unspeakably precious to us, but it obtains further and higher power, 
 as it avails itself of our most hallowed recollections, and stirs our 
 mind by way of remembrance of the glorious gospel of the Nativitv. 
 It reminds us that we are the children of God, and that our Saviour 
 was the Son of man. In its simplicity and unwavering faith it does
 
 LA MADONNA DELLA SEGGIOLA. 
 
 not shrink from representing our Lord as He is set before us in the 
 gospel, made in all points like unto us, born of a woman, made 
 under the law. It preaches to us in a language which we can all 
 understand, the Fatherhood of God and the thorough humanity of 
 our Saviour, by placing before us a child upon a mother's knee. As 
 we look on the child, we have hope in Christ, both for ourselves 
 and our children. We see the mind of Christ, — we find Him hum- 
 bling Himself in the fashion of a babe, and, as we are thus assured 
 that He has really taken upon Him our nature, we argue that He 
 will never be ashamed of calling us brethren. We see the mother 
 gathering her child to her bosom, and folding it in her arms, and 
 she teaches us to know more of God, and more of Jesus Christ 
 whom He has sent. But still we feel that, although a mother's 
 love may be the type, it can never be the measure of the love of God. 
 The love of God, passing all understanding, surpasseth the love of 
 women. The picture yet speaks to us again. It re-echoes those 
 homely and wonderful words, " Can a woman forget her sucking 
 child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? 
 yea, they may forget, vet will I not forget thee."* 
 
 Many an artist has shewn us that a painting may be natural with- 
 out being spiritual. Raphael has proved, by his treatment of sacred 
 subjects, and especially by this Madonna, that the spiritual in art 
 can only be fully developed in the degree in which the painting is 
 natural. Everything here is true to nature. The coloured hand- 
 kerchiefs on the head and shoulders of the Virgin are facsimiles of 
 those which were worn by the Italian women. The low seat is what 
 
 J 
 
 has been found all the world over to be the most convenient for 
 nursing. The child's hands are buried in the mother's bosom. 
 The bloom of womanhood, and the diffidence and gentleness of 
 manner, are to be seen now and then, amongst all classes, in a 
 mother as she caresses her first-born son. A poor woman is some- 
 times a lady. Mary is here represented in one of her best moments, 
 during her best days. Like other mothers, she appears to have 
 
 * T^aiali xlix. 13.
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 somewhat deteriorated in after years, as we may learn from her 
 conduct on various occasions. Just now she is the calmest, ten- 
 derest, purest, and happiest of mothers, and, while she is fondly 
 pressing her cheek against the boy's face in all the placid enjoyment 
 of a mother's love, you can see, as you look into her countenance, 
 an under-current of deep humility and profound gratitude. She is 
 nourishing and cherishing the child as a gift from God, wondering 
 at the miracle of her possessing it, and pondering over those things 
 which she had laid up in her heart. The best of mothers must 
 sometimes have some such seasons. The mother of our Lord must 
 often have thought of the past and the future, as she took our Lord 
 in her arms, and, as she did so, she would often be soothed with 
 the recollection of the song she had sung before He was born. She 
 appears to us as if she were now remembering it, and we have 
 therefore prefaced our paper with the words. 
 
 The boy is enjoying the well-known privilege of an onlv child. 
 He is sitting on his mother's knee as upon a throne. He sits there 
 as if no one had a right to it but himself. He is as silent as his 
 mother, and as lost in thought. He looks older than he is, gazing 
 upon you with that seriousness which is often to be found in a child's 
 face. It is only when you notice his feet that you can guess his 
 age. He has still the habit of playing with his toes as he did when 
 he was a babe. His size, beauty, and quiet consciousness of power, 
 foreshadow his increase in wisdom and stature, and his growth in 
 favour with God and man. 
 
 The elder boy, who has come up to the chair, and is standing by 
 the Virgin, reminds you of the attraction which is felt by other 
 children towards a mother when she is nursing the youngest. Were 
 it not for his folded hands, the cross, and the gilded glory about his 
 head, you might mistake his interest for that which is often dis- 
 plaved in many homes. There is a picture in Madrid, supposed to 
 have been painted by Raphael, where the Virgin and Child are 
 represented exactly as they appear here, though their figures are 
 somewhat smaller, and the St John is omitted. His presence is in
 
 LA MADONNA DELLA SEGGIOLA. 
 
 perfect keeping with Scripture, and his expression of awe and adora- 
 tion, if his worship were intended only for the child, would then 
 suggest the feeling that ought to be awakened in every spectator. 
 This third figure, and the carved arm of the chair, however, remind 
 us that there is something else in the picture besides what we have 
 noticed, and that it was intended to serve the purposes of Romish 
 piety. It is an enthroned Madonna, and we must not turn away 
 from it before we have looked at it a while in that light. The ancient, 
 enduring, and wide-spread delusion of the worship of the Virgin 
 must be noticed, however briefly, in any notes which pretend to be 
 an exposition of a Madonna. 
 
 The worship of the Virgin has prevailed for more than a millen- 
 nium, and during the whole period it has given abundant employ- 
 ment to the world of art. The thousands of the Madonnas, where 
 we have endless repetitions of the same figures and an infinite variety 
 of attitude and sentiment, are only some amongst the tens of thou- 
 sands of other pictures which refer to her history, and which evi- 
 dently represent her as if she were divine. The great proportion are 
 votive offerings made by persons, or churches, in acknowledgment 
 of private or public mercies which were supposed to have been 
 vouchsafed either directly by her hand, or indirectly through her 
 interference. This accounts for the frequent introduction of the 
 various saints, and the presence of the curious diminutive portraits 
 of the donors. 
 
 The earliest specimens of Christian art are to be found in the 
 Catacombs, and the Virgin appears there merely as an ordinary 
 historical personage, forming a part of a group in the representation 
 of the Nativity, or the Adoration of the Magi. In the beginning 
 of the fourth century, about the time of Constantine, a disposition 
 was manifested to pay her divine honours. Certain sacrifices that 
 had belonged to Cybele, the mother of the gods, were transferred to 
 Mary as the mother of our Lord. The same name, the Queen of 
 Heaven, was soon given to her who seemed to hold a similar posi- 
 tion in Christianity as the heathen goddess did in Polytheism. The
 
 io EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 change of religion was thus rendered less abrupt, and the new 
 superstition was thus made to answer the same purpose as the old. 
 This heresy, like most, if not all others, sprang from the people. 
 It was eventually, as we shall see, adopted by the priests, but they 
 prophesied falsely only because the people loved to have it so. This 
 error, like the other superstitions of Romanism, is to be traced to its 
 origin in human nature. It was indeed first of all introduced by 
 some heathen converts who were evidently only partially acquainted 
 with the gospel about Christ, and were only half turned from their 
 idols. We must not, however, conclude, that the origin of the wor- 
 ship of the Virgin is to be found in the cakes of meal and honey, 
 which some women who had emigrated from Thrace into Arabia 
 offered to her as if she were God. The origin, growth, and con- 
 tinuance of this custom are to be traced to a deeper source. The 
 custom is something." more than a heathenish superstition ; it is a 
 thoroughly human expedient for supplying a thoroughly human 
 want. A god with a woman's heart has been always, and all the 
 world over, most devoutly desired. Had the nature of our Lord and 
 the mind that was in Him been better known, the worship of the 
 Virgin had never been introduced. At ariv rate, it would never have 
 continued. The delusion would have died out, as unfounded and 
 unnecessarv. 
 
 The proclamation of the truth about our Lord is sufficient in 
 itself to destroy the error about His mother. Our Lord has only to 
 be set forth in His perfect humanity, and the axe will be laid to the 
 root of this tree, which has well-nigh filled the world with its 
 branches. Our Lord became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and the 
 record of His life upon earth abounds with facts which prove that 
 He really did take upon Mini the nature of man. We have in Him 
 what we want, an incarnate God. He is God, and He is man. His 
 humanity is as great a fact as I lis divinity. He was made, not as 
 we arc, but as "man" was before the fall, "male and female." 
 Our Lord, for instance, shewed again and again that He possessed 
 a woman's nature, and that lie had a woman's heart. His self-
 
 denial, that found no sacrifice too great or too trifling, — His tender 
 and thoughtful care, which was ever surprising those with whom He 
 was brought into contact, and His words and works in the time of 
 trouble, prove our position. After noticing His love for children, — 
 His anxiety that the weary should find rest, and that the hungry 
 should find food; — after seeing Him in seasons of sickness, death, 
 and mourning, we learn that He can supply all our need of a 
 woman's feeling. As we come unto God by Him, weary and 
 heavy laden, we have the greatest confidence and comfort in the 
 compassionate intercession of our merciful and faithful High Priest. 
 As our Mediator, He is, as in everything else, all, and in all. His 
 advocacy with the Father leaves nothing to be desired. Our souls 
 do safely trust in Him. The worship of the Virgin is superfluous. 
 
 Bv the decree of the first Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431, Mary 
 was declared to be- the mother of our Saviour, as He was God as well 
 as man. The divinity of the mother was argued from the divinity 
 of the Son, and the Madonna and Child were invested from that time 
 with a theological significance, and became the exponent of the or- 
 thodox faith. The symbol was adopted as a badge distinguishing 
 the Catholic believer from the Nestorian dissenter, and was soon 
 to be found everywhere in the houses and churches of the faithful. 
 
 A pseudo-portrait of the Virgin, as might be expected, quickly 
 made its appearance, and for three hundred years everything seemed 
 to favour the spread of the superstition. Her image in every form 
 and material was multiplied throughout Christendom. This tri- 
 umph of idolatry led to the struggle of the Iconoclasts, and their 
 attempted reformation was followed bv the reaction which produced 
 the first miraculous pictures; and the old, ugly, dark-coloured, 
 Greek effigies, were imagined to possess the same sanctity and power 
 a- tin- winking Madonnas of the present day. 
 
 The revival and reformation of the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
 turies may be traced in the works of Dante, as well as in those of 
 Cimabue and Giotto. The poet is to be credited as will as the 
 painter- tor those spiritual Madonnas which have never been ex-
 
 12 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 celled in their divine and contemplative grace. Many of them are 
 said to be the result of the pious labours of monks and friars, who 
 wrought on their knees, endeavouring to reproduce the ideal that 
 had been revealed to them in visions or dreams. 
 
 The cultivation of classical learning, the taste for the antique, and 
 the spirit of sacerdotalism, were the next influences which modified 
 the representations of the Madonna, and her pictures in the seven- 
 teenth century became almost entirely either Popish or Pagan. The 
 figure of Mary, like the Venus in ancient art, is often nothing more 
 than a mere study in animal beauty, her maternal character is again 
 and again set aside, and she stands alone, or in company with some 
 ecclesiastic, who either awakens your pity as he grovels before you, 
 the victim of some debasing superstition, or rouses your indignation 
 by his priestly pride. 
 
 It has long been customary, among the amateurs of painting upon 
 the Continent, to distinguish certain pictures of the different schools 
 of high value and reputation by characteristic names, serving to ren- 
 der them easily known from others of similar subjects by the same 
 artists. These names are often indicative of some peculiar acces- 
 sory, inserted by the painter, in a conspicuous part of his picture. 
 Thus a celebrated Madonna by Correggio, in the collection of the 
 King of Naples, is known under the title of " La Madonna del 
 Coniglio," from the introduction of a rabbit. It is in this way that 
 the present picture has obtained its name, the chair in which the 
 Virgin is seated being chosen as the object by which it is to be dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 The picture is painted on wood, and is about two feet eight inches 
 in diameter. It is executed in the second manner of Raphael, and 
 betrays to some connoisseurs the influence of his many works in 
 fresco. Like other paintings, it once travelled to France, forming- 
 part of the spoils of Napoleon. It has long since been restored to 
 its old home in the Hall of Mars. The room is well lit, and the 
 picture is well hung. It is the gem of the gallery, and the gallery 
 ranks amongst the richest in Europe.
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 €I)c Ctansfiguratton of our Hart), anU tlje JTatlttre 
 
 of tljc Apostles. 
 
 "And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth 
 
 them up into an high mountain apart by themselves : and he was transfigured before 
 
 them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on 
 
 earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses : and they 
 
 were talking with Jesus. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is good 
 
 for us to be here : and let us make three tabernacles ; one- for thee, and one for Moses, 
 
 and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say ; for they were sore afraid. And 
 
 there was a cloud that overshadowed them : and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, 
 
 This is my beloved Son; hear him. And suddenly, when they had looked round 
 
 about, they saw no man anymore, save Jesus only with themselves. And as they 
 
 came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man whal 
 
 things they had seen, till the Son of man w ere risen from the dead. And they kept 
 
 that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the 
 
 I should mean. And they asked him. saying, Why say the scribes that Elias 
 
 ii; i come? And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and re- 
 
 tli all things ; and how ii is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many 
 
 things, and be sel al nought. But I say unto you, That Elias is indeed come, and 
 
 they have done unto him whatsoever they listed, as it is written of him. And when 
 
 lo his (liscip! at multitude about them, and the scribes ques- 
 
 'iil,' with them. And sti all the people, when they beheld him, were 
 
 greatlj amazed, and, running to him, saluted him. And he asked the scribes, What 
 
 tion ye with them'.' \n I one oi the multitude answered and said, Master, 1 have
 
 14 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit : and wheresoever he taketh him, 
 he teareth him ; and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away : and 
 I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out ; and they could not. He an- 
 swereth him and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you ? how 
 long shall I suffer you ? Bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him : and 
 when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him ; and he fell on the ground, and 
 w allowed, foaming. And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto 
 him? And he said, Of a child : and ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into 
 the waters, to destroy him : but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, 
 and help us. Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him 
 that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, 
 Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief. When Jesus saw that the people came 
 running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf 
 spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more unto him. And the spirit 
 cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him : and he was as one dead ; insomuch 
 that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; 
 and he arose. And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him pri- 
 vately, Why could not we cast him out ? And he said unto them, This kind can 
 come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. And they departed thence, and 
 passed through Galilee ; and he would not that any man should know it. For he 
 taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands 
 of men, and they shall kill him ; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. 
 But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him." — Mark ix. 2-32.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR LORD, AND THE 
 FAILURE OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 " And when all beheld 
 Him, where he lav, how changed from yesterday — ■ 
 Him in that hour cut off; and at his head 
 1 1 is last great work ; when entering in, they look'd 
 Now on the dead, then on that masterpiece — 
 Now on his face, lifeless and colourless — 
 Then on those forms divine that lived and breathed, 
 And would live on for ages — all were moved, 
 And sighs burst forth, and loudest lamentations.'' 
 
 Rogers's Italy. 
 
 HE poet is speaking of the well-known cirenmstanees under 
 which this great picture was first exhibited. It so hap- 
 pened that it had then to be placed where its purpose 
 would probably be perceived. At any rate, its circumstances would 
 materially assist its interpretation. Addressed, as most of Raphael's 
 other works were, to the mind rather than to the eye, and requiring, 
 even more than his cartoons, that spectators should not only be in 
 possession of the tacts of Christianity, but actually feeling their 
 spirit and power, it began thus, more than three hundred years ago, 
 to tell it> talc. 
 
 Hardly finished at the time of his sudden death, the picture was 
 hung immediately above the head of the painter, as his body lay in 
 State, m the room where he had been in the habit of working. The 
 hidden unity of its twofold division would be thus likely to be re- 
 vealed to the faithful. They would be looking at the picture in a 
 double light. They would read it by the light of their sorrow over 
 he death of this world, ami by the light of their hope of the lite of
 
 the world to come. Its spiritual idea would dawn upon them. 
 Their very circumstances would be suo-oestive of that mysterious 
 
 J Do J 
 
 fact which it attempts to represent — our deliverance from evil by a 
 Divine Redeemer. 
 
 In reading a book or a picture, we find that much of the impres- 
 sion we receive depends upon ourselves. Those authors who appeal 
 to our imagination suppose that we shall meet them half-way in 
 their conception ; and it is peculiar to the confidence of genius to 
 trust spectators and readers in this manner. Other artists, correct 
 and careful to a fault, betray their inferiority by the elaborate and 
 distressing pains they take lest they should be misunderstood. 
 Raphael credited his readers with having eyes to see and hearts to 
 understand ; and doubtless the picture appeared to many of its first 
 spectators what it really was — a reprint of one of the many pages in 
 the long history of human redemption. 
 
 " The Transfiguration," through the many copies which have 
 been carefully made, and the genius and number of the engravings, 
 is almost, if not quite, as well and as widely known as the cartoons. 
 Our readers will therefore find no difficulty in following our exposi- 
 tion and testing its truth. The bare mention of the picture will be 
 sufficient to recall the vision, where our Lord is floating in the air, 
 accompanied by Moses and Elias, — Peter, James, and John, lying 
 on the ground, unable to stand in the presence of God, — the nine 
 apostles beneath the mountain, discomfited by their failure, two of 
 whom, by pointing to the Saviour, seem to connect the lower with 
 the upper scene, and to hint at the unity of the double action, — 
 and the crowd on the other side accompanying the father, who holds 
 his demoniac boy. Some of our readers, doubtless, will have seen 
 the original in the Vatican. Others, like ourselves, as they have 
 passed out of the Cartoon Gallery at Hampton Court, will have 
 stopped in the little ante-room, badly lighted as it is, and have 
 studied the clever copy in chalk by Casanova. The humblest print 
 will be found to be sufficient by those who can see. The original 
 itself could not explain its meaning to the blind.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 17 
 
 We arc indebted for this picture, as, indeed, we are for many 
 others which are spiritual interpretations of Holy Writ, to the 
 Catholic Church. The Cardinal de Medicis, afterwards Pope Cle- 
 ment VII., availing himself of the jealousy with which Michael 
 Angelo is supposed to have regarded the popularity of Raphael, gave 
 to Sebastiano, who was in league with Michael Angelo, a commis- 
 sion to paint "The Raising of Lazarus." At the same time, he 
 charged Raphael with the execution of " The Transfiguration/' 
 " The Raising of Lazarus " is now in our National Gallery. 
 
 The two pictures were probably painted in the spirit of rivalry, 
 and they were exhibited together, after the death of Raphael, in the 
 Hall of the Consistory There is between them all the difference of 
 talent and genius. The one is evidently tainted with the vice of 
 competition, having that peculiar look which ever betrays "the prize 
 essay;" the other, while touched by the evil spirit, has been saved 
 by genius from its spell. The cardinal, by sending the work of 
 Sebastiano to his bishopric of Narbonne, (the original destination of 
 Raphael's picture,) and by keeping " The Transfiguration " at Rome, 
 seems to have plainly indicated his preference. 
 
 The small church of San Pietro, in Montario, a little way out 
 of Rome, commanding a fine prospect of the city, held our picture 
 for some 250 years. The younger Richardson thus describes it, as 
 he saw it 150 years ago : — 
 
 "The church is very dark, the best light coming in at the door, 
 very disadvantageous to the pictures. Over the high altar is the 
 famous s Transfiguration.' 'Tis painted on board, or rather on 
 timber, being, as I remember, at least a foot thick.* The laroeuess 
 may be judged of, the figures being as big as the life. 'Tis in an 
 old frame, probably the same it had at first, and is about ten or 
 twelve feet from the floor. I have considered it very attentively, 
 
 * I 'ii is mistaken about the thickness of the panel. It consists of five 
 
 boa.rds/our inches thick. It is said by those who have seen the picture lately that, 
 notwithstanding the thickness of the boards, they have become warped, being slightly 
 
 fa 'tit. 
 
 B
 
 tS expositions of great pictures. 
 
 near and at a distance. The tout ensemble is not extremely agree- 
 able ; the two principal actions and lights are really ehoquing, much 
 more than in any prints of it that I have seen. The shadows are 
 all alike, and in the same degree turned black ; and, in fine, the 
 picture gives no pleasure till one comes to look into the parts 
 nearly. Then one sees what 'tis that has made it so universally 
 admired, for besides that at first, and before the shadows were 
 changed, there was a greater variety of tints that delighted the eye, 
 and delivered it pleasantly from one to another ; whereas now that 
 all the shadows are alike black — the flesh, the reds, the greens, the 
 blues, 8cc. — which, instead of proper masses and reposes, are spots, 
 and those not in beautiful shapes neither;— I say besides all this, 
 the contours are more open and elegant, and the airs of the heads 
 are more sublime and expressive than in any other of his works 
 here. ; Tis painted in oil in the manner of that time, throughly 
 wrought, and (though not to the degree as in some smaller pictures) 
 the hair and other particulars are done with the point of the 
 pencil." 
 
 The picture must have been in a wretched state when it was 
 carried to Paris by the French in 1797, after they had rifled Italv 
 during the wars of the Revolution. In the interval of its stay in 
 Paris it was most successfully cleaned; and at the peace in 1815, it 
 was restored and placed in the small but valuable collection or' 
 paintings in the Vatican. 
 
 "The Transfiguration," while characterised by'the exquisite finish 
 of Raphael, is distinguished from his other works in oil, by a broader 
 treatment. The light and shade are managed with an effect rarely 
 seen from his hand. An instance in point, (not to mention the 
 magnificent contrast of the upper and lower parts of the picture,) 
 will be the woman who is kneeling on the left of the demoniac. 
 Her figure detaches itself from the ground by the strong light cut- 
 ting the shadow, and this effect is strengthened in the original bv 
 the warmth of the light coming into contact with the coldness of 
 the dark blue mantle.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 19 
 
 "This is a picture which combines/' says Mengs, "more excel- 
 lences than any of the previous works of Raphael. The expression 
 in it is more exalted and more refined, the chiaroscuro more correct, 
 the perspective better understood, the pencilling finer, and there is 
 a greater variety in the drapery, more grace in the heads, and more 
 grandeur in the style." It is this characteristic combination of the 
 greatest number of the highest merits peculiar to painting which 
 has placed Raphael at the head of his art, and which has led this 
 work to be regarded as his chef-d'oeuvre. 
 
 It would, however, be idle in us, even were we fortunate enough 
 to be in the presence of the original, to spend much of our time in 
 the discussion of topics which belong rather to antiquaries, con- 
 noisseurs, or the profession. Any member, almost, of either of 
 these guilds will be ready to satisfy us, if we are curious about the 
 letter of the picture. Our work lies rather with its spirit. We 
 can quite understand that it would be possible to detect the hand 
 of Giulio Romano, say in the garments of the father of the demoniac, 
 and in the plants at his feet. We might listen, but without much 
 edification, to some one learned in pigments, and accept, without 
 understanding it, his theory respecting the black and faded colours. 
 We might be led to regret that we were not amongst its first spec- 
 tators, but that we were born to see it after most of the glory of its 
 earthly beauty had departed. We might in these and in many 
 other ways lose our opportunity. 
 
 It is rather with the idea of the picture that we, as laymen, have 
 to do ; and we hope th.it we shall not only be able to shew that 
 the picture is an embodiment of a spiritual truth, but that, although 
 it is decayed and waxed old and ready to vanish away, its eve is not 
 dim, nor its natural force abated. 
 
 !u giving utterance to what we see we shall nut speak with 
 bated breath. Well aware that we may be sometimes under an 
 illusion as to certain effects of Raphael's pictures, and he ready to 
 attribute to him intentions of which he was unconscious, we shall 
 treat "The Transfiguration " as a work ol genius. Anv fear that
 
 might arise of our appearing to be wise above what is written here, 
 will be allayed by the recollection of the strange suggestiveness 
 which has ever been found to characterise the works of those who 
 have been intrusted with this high endowment. Men of genius, 
 more correctly than some may imagine, have often been spoken of 
 as being moved by a kind of inspiration. It is, for instance, in 
 this way that Raphael has received the appellation of "divine." It 
 is this extraordinary gift which separates, as by an impassable gulf, 
 those to whose lot this awful portion has fallen, from the mere men 
 of talent. It is this which accounts for the difference in artists. 
 It is this which makes the spiritual pictures of the great masters so 
 precious and profitable to spiritual men. The great masters have 
 been found to be great divines. 
 
 " The Transfiguration " has shared, in its measure, the fate of 
 truth. Containing many things hard to be understood, it has been 
 wrested by the unlearned and the unstable ; it has been rejected and 
 ridiculed by those who are only connoisseurs ; it has been at some 
 times blindly admired by the multitude, and at all times received 
 and understood by the few. The harmony of its mighty and won- 
 drous contrast has been hidden from the wise and prudent, while 
 its unity has been revealed to babes. 
 
 The singleness of its purpose does not seem to have been denied 
 in the early days of its history, though it is possible that objection 
 on this ground may have been taken by some of the partisans of 
 Michael Angelo, who wished, in this way, to turn the popular at- 
 tention and favour towards the rival picture of Sebastiano. The 
 painter's treatment of his subject soon, however, came to be re- 
 garded by some as a piece of artistic foolishness. Its unorthodox 
 division has always been a stumbling-block to the scribes and phari- 
 sees of art. We have read somewhere of one of this Sanhedrim, 
 who recommended that the Alexandrian method of dealing with a 
 difficulty should be adopted, and that the picture should be cut in 
 halves. 
 
 The picture need not, of course, be touched. A little faith and
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 21 
 
 patience will lead us into all its truth. There is method in its mad- 
 ness. The twofold action represents the mysterious antagonism be- 
 tween good and evil in this present state. The schism in the 
 picture, the first feature which strikes an observer, and the only one 
 seen by many, is a reflection of the awful discord in human nature, 
 and the perplexing confusion of blessings and curses in the human 
 lot. It is this palpable opposition of conflicting elements which 
 has so often raised doubts respecting a Providence, many observers 
 of life living in the misery of treating as an open question the exist- 
 ence of a supreme power, others summarily denying the being of an 
 Almighty God, and arbitrarily adopting the heathenish notion of a 
 double dynasty. 
 
 The seeming fault of the picture is its real excellence. The merest 
 tyro in art can perceive that one of the most common rules of com- 
 position has been broken. The transgression is not to be attributed 
 to what has been termed the waywardness of genius, any more than 
 it is to be regarded as an oversight. It was necessary and in- 
 tentional. Before we leave the picture, we hope to shew that the 
 method by which Raphael chose to treat his subject presents the 
 truth that it declares with a rare adaptation to certain minds. As 
 for ourselves, we never stipulate as to the way by which we are to 
 be led into any truth. Beggars should be no choosers. We are 
 amongst those who believe in the excellency of the knowledge of 
 Christ Jesus our Lord ; and if there be one fact which we desire to 
 know above all others, it is this one — that Jesus is the Son of God. 
 We have found it to be possible, in the light of Mis divinity, to see 
 sonic light in this dark and confused world. As we look at its sin 
 and its misery we would be saved from staggering through unbelief, 
 even though we may be saved in an irregular way. 
 
 Many seem to pass through this awful state without perceivings 
 or at least without fetling, the discord in their nature and the per- 
 plexity of their lot. To these, whose spiritual sensitiveness is of a 
 very low order, this picture will be a word in an unknown tongue. 
 Others are called br the Providence of God in their temperament
 
 22 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 and lot, to live face to face with the conflicting elements of good 
 and evil, both within and without. To these it will be a word in 
 season. Temptations differ. The sin that easily besets this latter 
 class is to restrain prayer before God and to lose hold of His word. 
 Looking at the things seen and temporal, looking away from the 
 things unseen and eternal, they turn sick, and faint and stagger 
 through unbelief. Provision, however, is mude for such cases. 
 Every possible means is adopted by Him who is keeping them from 
 falling;, that their faith fail not. 
 
 There are two suppositions, both equally gratuitous, which have 
 o-iven some appearance of reason to the many adverse criticisms 
 which have been passed upon this picture. It has been supposed 
 that it was the intention of Raphael merely to represent the scene of 
 the transfiguration. The lower portion has also been described as 
 the cure of the demoniac. The practical character of revelation was 
 too well known to our painter, and his knowledge of the gospel 
 history was too exact to allow him to fall into either of these errors. 
 He has doubtless represented two events, but he was justified in 
 doing so, since they transpired at the same time, and their simul- 
 taneous exhibition would assist him in giving, in a remarkably happy 
 way, the practical ksson of this episode in the life of our Lord. 
 
 This picture has retained the name which it at first received. Not- 
 withstanding its two great divisions, which are most palpable, and 
 the predominating effect of the undermost portion, produced by the 
 number and size of the figures, Raphael was still justified in calling 
 his work "The Transfiguration." In spite of the continued criti- 
 cisms of centuries, the faith of the world in our master has remained 
 unshaken, and the name of the picture has remained unaltered. 
 The fact that the picture has been able to maintain its title for so 
 long a period and under such trying circumstances, is a sufficient 
 proof that its name is not a misnomer. Any unprejudiced ob- 
 server may verify its propriety. He has only to turn even to a print, 
 and his eye is at once caught by the blaze of light which shines out 
 so mysteriously from the upper portion. He is thus led to our Lord,
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 whose figure is the central object, and it' he has the slightest ac- 
 quaintance with the facts of the gospel narrative, he is reminded of 
 the transfiguration. 
 
 The boldness of the genius of the painter is shewn by the character 
 of the subject which he has chosen, and the wisdom of his genius is 
 manifested by the manner of his treatment. The subject is one of 
 the many things connected with revelation which are hard to be 
 understood : it passeth knowledge. The transfiguration perplexes 
 human thought, and baffles human expression. 
 
 The difficulties connected with this fact in the history of our 
 Lord, and the dangers attending any representation of it, have often 
 led to its cowardly and culpable neglect. The Scripture containing 
 the record is frequently passed over by preachers — the difficulties 
 disheartening the idle, and the dangers frightening the timorous. 
 
 In this state of things we have to be thankful that we are sum- 
 moned by a painter to ponder over this event, and we shall see that 
 we have further cause for gratitude in the manner in which he brings 
 it before us. He has wisely suggested the scene, rather than made 
 an abortive attempt at its exact representation. 
 
 By a wise falsification, the great masters often got at their true 
 conclusions by not shewing the actual appearances, — all that was 
 to be seen at any given moment by an indifferent eye, but what 
 the eye might be supposed to see in the doing or suffering of some 
 portentous action. 
 
 It may be well, just at this point, to refresh our memories with the 
 details of the gospel story. A week before the transfiguration, (and 
 the sacred historians seem to wish us to pay especial notice to the 
 date,) our Lord had withdrawn to the region of Csesarea Philippi, 
 where the apostle Peter had declared his belief in our Lord as the 
 promised Messiah. " From that time Jesus began to shew unto his 
 disciples, and to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many 
 things, and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests, and the scribes, 
 and be killed, and be raised the third day." This declaration elicited 
 the imperfection of the apostle's faith, and the worldliness of the
 
 24 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 apostle's heart, and led him, with his natural impetuosity, to betray 
 his expectation of the temporal character of the Messiah's kingdom, 
 and to take our Lord and begin to rebuke Him. The familiarity or 
 Peter was received by our Lord in a manner which reminds us of 
 the severity with which He often treated the members of the San- 
 hedrim, and occasioned the enunciation of that mighty argument 
 against worldliness which is found at the close of the 16th chapter 
 of Matthew. 
 
 Nothing further, at that time, seems to have been said. Seven 
 days' silence was kept. The slowness of the apostles to believe could 
 not be quickened by any words. Something must be done. It was 
 exactly a week after this (a double provision having been made in the 
 record against any mistake occurring in reference to the date) that 
 the transfiguration took place. 
 
 The transfiguration of our Lord is not so unique an event in His 
 history as it may at first sight appear. It belongs to a series of 
 similar manifestations. We are clearly taught, both from the Gos- 
 pels and the Epistles, that our Lord was ever' and anon manifest- 
 ing forth His glory Again and again His disciples were being- 
 reminded that although He was the Son of man, He was still the 
 Son of God. Peter and John, two of the three witnesses who were 
 selected in this instance as spectators, are constantly alluding to the 
 fact that they often beheld His glory. John begins his Gospel with 
 this testimony, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, 
 (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the 
 Father,) full of grace and truth."* In the second chapter we read 
 again, " This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, 
 and manifested forth his glorv ; and his disciples believed on him."f 
 He concludes his history with a reference to the object for which it 
 was written, " And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence 
 of his disciples, which are not written in this book ; but these are 
 ! written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
 God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. "J 
 * John i. 14. + Chap. ii. 11 J Chap. xx. 31.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 Peter, in his Second Epistle, makes special reference to this 
 event, and the particular purpose it was intended to answer, 
 " For we have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we 
 made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, hut were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he 
 received from God the Father honour and glory, when there 
 c.ime such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my 
 beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which 
 came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy 
 mount."* 
 
 The transfiguration is not only to be regarded as one of those 
 facts which prove to us the divinity of our Saviour, possessing the 
 same purpose as the other manifestations of His glory ; but it will 
 be seen, after a little study, to partake of the same practical charac- 
 ter, and to have transpired under similar circumstances. There was 
 a law observed in these revelations. A provision was made, that 
 whenever any events occurred which especially proved the humanity 
 of our Lord, they should always be accompanied by some signs 
 which should specially declare His divinity. His birth, for instance, 
 was followed by "the glory of Jehovah" shining on the shepherds. 
 The heavens opened upon the Saviour, and the voice from heaven 
 was heard testifying at the time of His baptism, and immediately 
 before His temptation. His death was preceded by a supernatural 
 darkness, and it was followed by an earthquake. His grave was 
 visited by an angel, whose "countenance was like lightning, and 
 his raiment white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake, 
 and became as dead men."f 
 
 The transfiguration was a part of that manifestation for the 
 world, accredited by witnesses, which was to serve as the basis for 
 the faith of all Christendom in the divine nature of their Redeemer. 
 It was no mere pageant. It bears mi its face the divine stamp. It 
 partakes of the practical character of all revelation, and while speci- 
 ally adapted to inert the wants of the apostles who were called to be 
 * 2 Pet. i. 16-1S. t Matt, \wiii. 3, 4.
 
 witnesses, it serves to make known to any and to all of us who it is 
 m whom we have believed. 
 
 It is possible that the scene may have transpired on Mount Ta- 
 bor. Some, forgetting the lapse of time, have imagined that our 
 Lord must necessarily have been in Coesarea Philippi, or its imme- 
 diate neighbourhood. The silence of the historians in reference to 
 the place, proves that the question of locality is but of little mo- 
 ment. The three disciples, who have been once and again separated 
 from their brethren, are taken as listeners and spectators. It is also 
 worthy of notice that those who are now selected to witness the spe- 
 cial <>-lorv of our Lord, were afterwards chosen ao-ain to witness His 
 special humiliation. The scene in the garden of Gethsemane is 
 complementary to the scene of the transfiguration. They form to- 
 gether a pair of pictures which, perhaps, should never be separated. 
 They represent facts which, perhaps, will never be understood. 
 
 The circumstances, as far as we can trace them, appear to have 
 been these : — The change in the countenance of our Lord seems to 
 have taken place "as he prayed." "And it came to pass that as 
 he was praying, he was transfigured before them, The appearance 
 of his face became different, and his face shone as the sun, and his 
 garments became shining, white as the light and glistering, exceed- 
 ing white as snow, so as no fuller could whiten." This manifesta- 
 tion of glory is not to be confounded with the glory of the Father, 
 but it is rather to be received as a symbol of the personal divinity of 
 our Lord. 
 
 The apostles, as in Gethsemane, are heavy with sleep, their drowsi- 
 ness being accounted for, in both instances, by the fact that it was 
 night. The glory of the Lord awakens the sleeping disciples, and 
 they become aware of the presence of two men, whom they find to 
 be talking with the Saviour. Listening, they discover the topic of 
 conversation to be the subject which had been brought before them 
 a week ago ; and, perhaps from the manner in which it is treated 
 by the two strangers, they perceive that they are none other but 
 Moses and Elijah.
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 27 
 
 Strange and incredible as the doctrine of a suffering; Messiah was 
 to the disciples, it was thus shewn to be an accepted, though inex- 
 plicable fact, with the inhabitants of the invisible world. "The de- 
 cease to be accomplished at Jerusalem " would still be a mystery to 
 the representatives of the Law and the Prophets ; for the angels 
 themselves are represented in Revelation as looking into the scheme 
 of human redemption, desiring to comprehend what evidently pass- 
 eth their knowledge. The vision would serve many subsidiary pur- 
 poses. It would prevent the apostles from confounding our Lord 
 with Elijah or with Moses. They would be the more able to per- 
 ceive the unity of the old and the new dispensations, and the scene 
 would not only enable them to be hereafter witnesses for Christ as 
 the Son of God, but in its measure it would tend to loosen those 
 prejudices which prevented them, in common with their country- 
 men, from receiving the kingdom of God. 
 
 It is worthy of note, that while the disciples were evidently awed 
 by the gloryof Christ, they were not entirely overwhelmed. Peter, 
 though he hardly knows what he is saying, is still able to speak , 
 and it was while he was talking, and the vision w r as fading, that the 
 ancient symbol of the Divine presence appears. The Shechinah, 
 the " bright cloud" of the wilderness, sweeps over the mountain, the 
 apostles (like the keepers at the Saviour's tomb, and like John in 
 Patmos, when he saw the Lord) are smitten down, and become 
 as dead men. "And a voice came out of the cloud, which said, 
 This is my beloved Sou, in whom I am well pleased. I [ear ye him." 
 
 This i> the moment of the picture. The very instant has been 
 seized. Two of the apostles are completely blinded. John is shewn 
 fading his eyes, ami in the act of falling. Peter and James have 
 been flung t<> the ground. James crouches, and with folded hands 
 deprecates the death which he feels must follow the presence of 
 God. Moses and Elias, after ages of glory, can " see his face and 
 live." With unblenched gaze thev still are " looking unto Jesus, 
 the author and finisher of tin ir faith. " 
 
 Painters and poets, in their representations of Deity and the in-
 
 28 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 habitants of the world of lioht, have elothed them with light. The 
 glory of that world shines around their heads as a rainbow, or their 
 whole bodies are seen shining in the midst of an aureole, whether 
 circular, oval, eliptical, or square. Raphael has clad our Lord in a 
 cloud of light. Dante has given the name of " rose " to those cir- 
 cular expansions of light, m which the saints are represented ranged 
 in divine effulgence, emanating from the centre, which is filled by 
 the splendour and brilliancy of God himself. These ^ glories" are 
 evidently related to the sacred fire of the East, the Jewish Shechi- 
 nah, and the symbolic light of the Revelation. 
 
 " The glory of the Lord," which we learn from the record of pre- 
 vious and following appearances, was as full of motion as it was of 
 light, (hovering as a dove or flickering as a flame,) catches Moses 
 and Elijah, and makes them the sport of its power. Our Lord re- 
 mains stationary. Unmoved and rapt for a moment, listening to 
 His God who has not forsaken Him, He is displayed in unclouded 
 splendour. The shameful death of the cross is despised and forgot- 
 ten in the vision of the glory of the Father. 
 
 It is probable that the peculiar length of the pictures required for 
 altar-pieces may have led Raphael to his design for the Transfigura- 
 tion. Necessity is the mother of invention. It is certain that our 
 painter must have been somewhat perplexed with the exceptional 
 proportions of the panel, and having determined upon a subject 
 where the scene is laid on a mountain, he would hardly see, at first, 
 how it would be possible and expedient to overcome the effect of a 
 blank elevation. His knowledge of Scripture and the spirituality of 
 his purpose would come to his rescue. In a moment of inspiration, 
 we can imagine, the finished picture would be presented to his 
 mind's eye, and with the confidence of genius, supported both by 
 the spirit and letter of Revelation, he would determine to risk the 
 penalty of transgressing artistic law, if by any means he could em- 
 body his idc; 1 .. 
 
 Reading the record, he would find that the failure of the nine 
 apostles to cast out the devil from the demoniac boy, synchronised
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 29 
 
 with the transfiguration of our Lord. He would thus be in pos- 
 session of matter which he might legitimately introduce, and he 
 could see at once that the circumstances connected with the scene 
 would more than supplv all his need. There would be furnished, 
 for instance, the element of contrast. He would be able, also, to 
 suggest to the spectator the greater height of the mountain by 
 crowding its base with numerous figures; and what is of more im- 
 portance, at any rate, to us, he would be able to expound the prac- 
 tical character of this revelation, so painting the text and the con- 
 text for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of this 
 scripture, might have hope. 
 
 The scene depicted in the lower portion is not, as some of those 
 have supposed who have objected to the double action, the cure of 
 the demoniac ; nor is it the presentation of the woful case to the 
 apostles. The crowd are not bringing the child, nor are the dis- 
 ciples attempting to cast out the devil. Those moments have 
 passed. The despair painted on the face of the father, the turbulent 
 and malicious rejoicing of the scribes, and, above all, the disappoint- 
 ment and confusion of the apostles, plainly point to another period. 
 The apostles have tried their power, and are here represented as 
 having failed. 
 
 In expounding the meaning of the picture, and in our reading of 
 some of its details, we are aware that we shall lay ourselves open to 
 the charge of being wise above what is written. While, however, 
 it would ill become us to be positive about the purpose of the 
 painter, there is no reason that we should be diffident in our ac- 
 knowledgment of his power. 
 
 In the two scenes brought before us, we seem to be reminded nol 
 only of the mixed character of this life, but, by the strange nearness 
 of the top of the mountain to the ground, we have evidently set 
 forth the fact, that the higher and lower worlds are more nearly 
 connected (ban some people suppose, [n looking at the picture, the 
 eye catches now the glorified figure of 0111 Lord, and then the dis- 
 torted form nt the demoniac. In a moment (anil as no words could
 
 30 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 describe it) we see the same human nature evidently under the power 
 of the devil, and as evidently under the power of God. We find 
 ourselves standing; where we can almost see into the heights of 
 heaven and into the depths of hell. 
 
 In the writhing limbs and knotted muscles of the possessed child, 
 whose very hair seems to be rolling in agony — whose countenance 
 is out of keeping with ordinary madness, and whose whole body is 
 shaken with something else beside ordinary convulsions — who is 
 struggling with a supernatural strength in the arms of his wretched 
 parent, we have the devil incarnate. We are filled with fear 
 and trembling as we remember that this is but a faint picture 
 of that more awful possession, by which the spirit of evil works 
 in the children of disobedience, and leads them about captive at 
 his will. 
 
 Turning in the direction in which the demoniac has uneon- 
 sciously thrown up his arms as he groans, (travailing in pain with 
 the whole of creation,) we are brought face to face with our Saviour, 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. In His glorified body, as it is evidently 
 transfigured before us, we see God incarnate ; we are reminded of 
 the faith and hope of the gospel, that the Son of God was mani- 
 fested to destroy the works of the devil. We know that, on the 
 morrow, the boy was cured ; and as we agonise under our own sins 
 and sorrows, and the sins and sorrows of others, waiting for our 
 redemption, the picture helps us in patience to possess our souls. 
 We are saved from staggering through unbelief by " that blessed 
 hope, even the glorious appearing of our Lord." 
 
 We need hardly refer to the lesson taught by the discomfited and 
 disgraced disciples. They form a picture which might serve to re- 
 present the degraded position in which some professors and societies 
 are found, who are evidently failing, through unbelief, in the fulfil- 
 ment of their mission. The figure of the apostle with the open 
 volume, whose hands and feet form projecting points which press 
 themselves upon our notice, is very suggestive. One cannot help 
 thinking of the " book-form ' ; of godliness, and the futile attempts
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION. 
 
 which arc sometimes made to exorcise the evil spirits of society by 
 read prayers and lead sermons. 
 
 The woman kneeling in the foreground has been introduced foi 
 the sake of effect. It is said by some that no historical picture can 
 be perfect without the female form. Raphael, however, here perhaps 
 wished to relieve the feelings of the spectator from the distress occa- 
 sioned by the sight of so much misery. He has thus introduced the 
 flowing lines of a woman's face, hair, and drapery as a foil, just as 
 in his cartoon of "The Beautiful Gate" he has placed a lovely babe 
 in juxtaposition with the gnarled head of the old beggar. 
 
 The woman has been taken for a sister of the demoniac. We 
 know, however, that he was an only child, and if we did not, it 
 might be easily seen that neither this woman is a relation, nor even 
 the one who is on his other side. The Fornarina is said to have sat 
 for this portrait, and Raphael appears to have been thinking of her 
 while he was painting this figure, much more than of the purpose 
 of his picture. 
 
 The lace of the father speaks volumes; he looks as if he had long- 
 borne his burden alone, 1 1 is trouble and desolation seem to have 
 made him half a woman, and if we may judge the character of his 
 companions from their appearance, we can easily account for that 
 expression of self-contained misery which has settled upon his coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 The picture is blacker than even in three hundred years it ought 
 to have been. This is accounted for by the nature of a pigment 
 used bv Raphael, which, while producing a temporary transparency j 
 quickly and irremediably deadened and darkened his work. 
 
 Kneeling, half-hidden under the trees on the mount, there are two 
 figures which are unquestionably out of place. They are two ecclesi- 
 astics, St Julian and St Lawrence, introduced at the request of 
 Cardinal de Medici, in honoui of his lather, Julian, ami his uncle, 
 Lorenzo the Magnificent.
 
 
 ^, 
 
 
 m
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 €I)e Hesurrectton of iLa^atm 
 
 "Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha 
 met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, 
 u hen they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She 
 goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Maiy was come where Jesus was, 
 and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been 
 here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the J 
 also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. And 
 said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. 
 Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him ! And some of them said, Could not 
 this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should 
 not have died? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave. It 
 was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, 
 the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh : for 
 he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou 
 wouldest believe, thou shouldest seethe glory of God? Then they took away the 
 stone from the place wdierc the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, 
 Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou nearest me 
 always : but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe 
 that thou hasl sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, 
 :rus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with 
 gravi : and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, 
 
 I. ose him, and let him go." — John xi. 30-44.
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 
 
 ' When Lazarus left his charnel cave, 
 And home to Mary's house return VI, 
 Was this demanded — if he groan'd 
 To hear her weeping by his grave ? 
 
 " Where wert thou, brother, those four days? 
 There lives no record of reply, 
 Which, telling what it is to die, 
 Had surely added praise to praise. 
 
 " From every house the neighbours met, 
 The streets were filled with joyful sound, 
 A solemn gladness even crown'd 
 The purple brows of Olivet. 
 
 " Behold a man raised up by Christ! 
 The rest remaineth unreveal'd— 
 He told it not : or something seal'd 
 The lips of that Evangelist." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 [HOSE of our readers who are acquainted with the history 
 of this picture will be expecting it to form the subject of 
 our third exposition. Notwithstanding their surprise 
 that it should ever have appeared as a rival by the side of " The 
 Transfiguration," they will remember the circumstances under 
 which it was painted, and feel the necessity that is laid upon us to 
 place these works together again. We should, however, have held 
 ourselves almost excused from hanging this " Raising of Lazarus " 
 in our gallery of great pictures, had we not been assured by Dr 
 Waagen that it is "the most important specimen of tin' Italian 
 - hool now in England," and by another authority thai it is " the 
 aid picture in tin world."
 
 36 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 The opinion of these professionals will perplex many of the 
 visitors of onr National Gallery, as they stand before this large dark 
 canvas ; there seeming to be only one point in which they, as lay- 
 men, can perceive the two works of the rival painters will bear com- 
 parison. Both having been intended for altar-pieces, they are 
 evidently, as far as their size is concerned, equally great pictures, 
 measuring exactly twelve feet six inches in height, and differing only 
 a few inches in breadth. The comparison, in our opinion, had 
 better end there. 
 
 Most critics concur in believing that "The Raising of Lazarus " 
 was the joint production of Michael Angelo and Sebastian del 
 Piombo, though few of them agree as to the extent to which the 
 master assisted his disciple. Some assert that Michael Angelo fur- 
 nished the complete design, and others that he actually painted the 
 Lazarus ; while those who are aware that he was absent from Rome 
 when this picture was in progress, seem only to see his hand in the 
 modelling of the Lazarus, and conjecture that he merely gave 
 Sebastian the cartoon of that figure. 
 
 The partnership in the picture is a matter of history. There was 
 nothing peculiar in it. Many other paintings of Sebastian were 
 executed from the designs of Michael Angelo, and many other 
 artists, besides Sebastian, were only too glad to be assisted in the 
 same way. 
 
 There is sufficient ground to believe that the two painters united 
 their talents in this work, with the view of eclipsing Raphael. It 
 would appear that comparisons were often being instituted between 
 the great master of Design and the great master of Expression, and 
 that, especially after the simultaneous exhibition of their works in 
 the Vatican, discussions were rife as to their relative merits. This 
 party spirit was pandered to by their patrons and their pupils, and 
 Michael Angelo, notwithstanding his high position, was not above 
 the besetting sin of his profession ; but he appears, with the well- 
 known susceptibility and jealousy of an artist, to have envied the 
 popularity of Raphael, and to have caballed with Sebastian against
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 37 
 
 him. Raphael is reported to have been marvellously free from the 
 power of this evil spirit. This absence of envy is in perfect keep- 
 ing with his character, and might be almost argued from the spirit 
 and power of " The Transfiguration. " It is plainly shewn by a 
 remark which he made when he heard of the conspiracy, " I re- 
 joice," said he, "at the favour Michael Angelo does me, since he 
 proves therein that he thinks me worthy to compete with himself, 
 and not with Sebastian/' While the two schemers are generally 
 acknowledged to have failed in their object, they are still regarded 
 as having produced between them a remarkable work. This could 
 hardly have been avoided, as the picture is a combination of the 
 finest school of design, with the finest school of colour. It is to 
 this, perhaps, that it owes its preciousness with the profession. 
 
 The common effect produced by "The Raising of Lazarus" upon 
 the ordinary spectator is that of oppressiveness and disappointment. 
 It may be that most visitors forget the darkening tendency of time, 
 and come to the gallery unprepared for the obscurity in which cen- 
 turies have hidden the greater part of the design. The fame, the 
 well-known title, and the equally familiar story of the picture will 
 have naturally excited the highest expectations, and the spectators 
 approach almost certain of seeing our Lord, and being present at 
 the very moment when he is raising Lazarus from the dead. They 
 are doomed to be disappointed. 
 
 The point of sight having been placed in the background, specta- 
 tors are at first carried away by it toward Jerusalem, and it is some 
 time before their attention can be turned. Coming back and look- 
 ing again, they find they are too late. The miracle has been al- 
 ready wrought. They now observe the most prominent group in 
 the: crowded canvas, and in the centre of it they discover Lazarus 
 full of life and motion. They cannot help watching him as he 
 struggles to free himself from the bondage of the grave-clothes; 
 and, as they do so, they almost forget to look for the figure of the 
 Saviour. It would be quite as well for them if they did not turn 
 their heads.
 
 38 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 The oppressiveness of the picture is caused, partly, hy the black- 
 ening effect of age on the shadows, and by the accumulation of 
 dirt over the whole surface ; partly by the unusual number of 
 figures which have been introduced, and by the great want of 
 breadth, though the trees ought to have flung their shadows across 
 the picture, and the principal persons might have been thus grouped 
 into masses. The great heaviness of the picture is, however, 
 chiefly to be attributed to the point of sight having been placed 
 high up in the background, far above the heads of the chief actors 
 in the scene. There is also a sad want of aerial perspective ; and 
 while the form of the Lazarus plainly marks the era when painting 
 was taking lessons in modelling from sculpture, the spotty and con- 
 fused effect of the picture betrays that it was painted in the early 
 ages of ehiaro-oseuro. 
 
 Tt has been felt by some that the time of the picture has been in- 
 judiciously chosen. They have regretted that the moment of the 
 miracle has been permitted to pass. We, however, are thankful 
 that we are not required, by this picture, to dwell upon the sublime 
 theme of our Lord's power over death. We should have been 
 sorry to have had such a subject brought before us, by men who 
 were working under the influence of the most pitiable of passions. 
 Our attention is rather to be given to Lazarus, and to the conse- 
 quences that resulted from his resurrection. Michael Angelo has 
 made this possible, for we have Lazarus so evidently set forth, that 
 you almost imagine that the painter must have seen him when our 
 Lord uttered the words " Loose him, and let him go." Nothing, 
 however, that Sebastian has done here, would ever lead you for one 
 moment to suppose that he had witnessed the scene. Arguing 
 from his figure of our Saviour, you would say at once that he had 
 never seen the Lord ; and looking at his work, you cannot help 
 feeling afraid, that if he had attempted to depict the miracle, you 
 would never have been inspired by him to recall the home, the 
 sickness, the death, and the resurrection of " him whom Jesus 
 loved. "
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 39 
 
 With the exception of not being disappointed, we are reminded 
 by this " great picture" of the effect produced upon us when some 
 special occasion has compelled us to listen to a great sermon. We 
 could tell from the manner and the method of the preacher that we 
 were expected to be deeply impressed with the truth that was adver- 
 tised as the subject of his discourse ; but, instead, we were shocked 
 at his spirit of self-assertion, ashamed of his portrait of our Lord, 
 and oppressed and disgusted with his elaborate efforts to produce 
 an effect. As long as he was reading or mandating, and for some 
 time after, it seemed as if it would have been almost a sacrilege even 
 to think of the topic which he had taken for his sermon. 
 
 If you come to this picture as the Jews came to Bethany, to see 
 Lazarus after he was raised from the dead, you will be then well 
 repaid for your trouble. The miracle is complete. Lazarus is 
 thoroughly alive. Every muscle is in motion. You find him half 
 sitting on the edge of the tomb, with the appearance of a man who 
 has been just suddenly awoke out of sleep. He looks as if he were 
 trying to shake off" the dreams as well as the garments of the grave. 
 He is gazing with wonder and a new awe upon our Lord, having 
 evidently now the testimony of the invisible world to his divinity. 
 The contrast between Lazarus and those who have witnessed the 
 miracle, serves to shew that no work, however mighty, is sufficient 
 to reveal the true nature and character of our Lord ; we are re- 
 minded that, until we have died, we shall never know Him as 
 I le is. 
 
 The shadow ami silence of death which shroud his face, suggests 
 the spell referred to by Tennyson, in the poem we have placed at 
 the head of our paper, and the legend of the unbroken solemnity of 
 his second life. There is something very fearful in his appearance, 
 and we can quite understand how, for the moment, Martha turns 
 from linn, almost wishing that he had not risen, just as before she 
 had wished that he. had not died. The wonder and awe of the 
 raised man are mingled with impatience, lie yet feels the presence 
 of some of the relics of the bondage of corruption, ami Michael
 
 40 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 Angelo, whose forte was energy, and who has never been surpassed 
 in depicting the human body in motion, has evidently delighted in 
 depicting the struggle between the death that yet lingers in the grave- 
 clothes, and the life which teems in every muscle. 
 
 There is no question but what Michael Angelo designed the 
 figure of Lazarus. Two of his drawings of it were in the possession 
 of Sir Thomas Lawrence,' and they are now in the collection at the 
 Hague. There is as little doubt that Michael Angelo restored the 
 broken torso of Apollonius, and adapted it to his purpose. The 
 right knee and thigh are elevated at the same angle, and the same 
 line is formed by the drapery over the left leg. The body has 
 identically the same twist — the shoulders are in the same position, 
 and the neck' bends over to the same side.* The figure of the 
 Lazarus may be taken as an exponent of the peculiar service ren- 
 dered by Michael Angelo to painting, and of the obligations that 
 he himself was under to the statuary of the ancients. 
 
 The Christ stands on a slab some six or eioht inches in height, 
 (perhaps the stone which lay upon the cave,) and appears to have 
 just issued the direction to the bystanders, "Loose him, and let 
 him go.-" Sebastian seems to have confessed, by this artificial ex- 
 pedient of giving elevation to the figure of our Lord, that he felt 
 that the figure was a failure. Nothing, however, is of any avail. 
 The Christ, when compared with the Lazarus, is too short, and, 
 having no command of the horizon, it stands in a position in which 
 it would be impossible to invest it with any power. The divided 
 acton of the arms and hands adds the unpleasant impression of in- 
 decision to that of weakness. We know Him in whom we have 
 believed, and we feel that this is no likeness. 
 
 Some have found fault with the appearance of the spectators. 
 They had expected to have seen them overwhelmed with the mani- 
 festation of the glory of the Lord. Only three or four, out of the 
 
 * Those of our readers who wish to verify this interesting fact may easily do so, as 
 a copy of this well-known torso can be obtained for a trifle from almost any plaster- 
 cast maker.
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF LAZARUS. 41 
 
 thirty or forty, are represented as feeling in any measure the gran- 
 deur of the event. We are inclined to think that the painter, in 
 this case, has succeeded in depicting things as they were. The 
 crowd, with the exception of the disciple John, are mainly Jews 
 from Jerusalem ; many of them are Pharisees, some are evidently 
 members of the Sanhedrim, and most are of that class who would 
 not be persuaded though one rose from the dead. 
 
 The apostle John has been, doubtless, introduced by Sebastian, 
 because he is the only evangelist who records this history. He 
 stands behind our Lord in green and orange drapery, with an ad- 
 mirably painted profile, answering objections. The old man at our 
 Lord's left hand is a favourite figure with Michael Angelo, and ap- 
 pears in many of his designs. The one in front is so stiff with age 
 that he can hardly kneel, and his hands tremble together as he folds 
 them in the attitude of worship. The Mary is a success. She is in 
 her right place, kneeling with uplifted countenance at the feet of our 
 Lord in solemn wonder, with an utter absence of incredulity or 
 nervousness. Her foreshortened arm stands out bodily from the 
 canvas. 
 
 The background is full of detail. In the middle distance, to the 
 left, is seen a group of Pharisees in eager discussion. Beyond them, 
 to the right, is a bridge leading to the city, and in the extreme dis- 
 tance there are women washing clothes in the river. On the right 
 we have a high priest, perhaps intended for Caiaphas, (as his name 
 is mentioned in the context of the sacred record,) descending the 
 steps of the Necropolis, accompanied by some partizans. The 
 mourning women, whose "avocation's gone," stand apart under 
 the trees. 
 
 The picture, as we stated in the paper on "The Transfiguration,'' 
 was sent to the cathedral of Narbonne, ami remained there till it 
 was purchased by the Duke of Orleans, early in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, for 24,000 francs. It was brought to England with the rest 
 ..f his gallery, and was purchased by Mr A.ngerstein for 3500 guineas 
 on the first morning of the exhibition, at which only the patron- of
 
 42 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 the art were admitted. He was offered ^15,000 for it by Mr 
 Beckford, of Fonthill, but the negotiation failed, as he insisted upon 
 guineas. The French Government, when they were in possession 
 of " The Transfiguration," wished also for it, and made an offer of 
 I 10,000, (or, as some say, ^20,000,) but their offer was refused. 
 
 The perilous process of transferring the picture from panel to 
 canvas was performed in 1771. The original surface of the master 
 was thus necessarily lost, and besides the restoration which the pic- 
 ture underwent at this time, it is known to have been repainted in 
 many places by West. 
 
 Sebastian, while an excellent colourist, was, after all, only a por- 
 trait painter. His deep, rich-toned draperies of the front figures at- 
 test his eye for colour, while his portrait of himself with the Cardinal 
 Ippolito de Medici, in the National Gallery, proves his power of 
 holding his own in the lower branch of the art. His proper name 
 was Sebastiano Luciano, but on being appointed to the office of 
 affixing the seal of lead (piombo) to the Papal ordinances, he re- 
 ceived the appellation by which he is now most commonly known, 
 Sebastian del Piombo.
 
 s- 
 
 Jg
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 Cije Hast Supper, 
 
 " Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, say- 
 ing unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover ? And lie 
 
 [, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is 
 at hand ; I will keep the passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples 
 did as Jesus had appointed them ; and they made ready the passover. Now when the 
 
 n was come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily I 
 say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were exceeding sorrowful, 
 and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I ? And he answered and 
 said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The 
 Sou of man goeth as it is written of him : but woe unto that man by whom the Son 
 of man is betrayed ! it had been good for that man if lie had not been born. Then 
 Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Master, is it I? lie said unto him. 
 
 Thou i i I id." - Matt. xxvi. 17-25.
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 
 
 '■ Though searching damps and many an envious flaw 
 Have marr'd this work ; the calm, ethereal grace, 
 The love deep-seated in the Saviour's face, 
 The mercy, goodness, have not fail'd to awe 
 The elements ; as they do melt and thaw 
 The heart of the beholder, and erase 
 (At least for one rapt moment) every trace 
 Of disobedience to the primal law. 
 The annunciation of the dreadful truth, 
 Made to the Twelve, survives : lip, forehead, cheek, 
 And hand reposing on the board in ruth 
 • Of what it utters, while the unguilty seek 
 Unquestionable meanings — still bespeak 
 A labour worthy of eternal youth ! " 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 O poet, that we are aware, was ever inspired by the preced- 
 ing picture, and the masses, we believe, pass by it, as a 
 rule, wholly unmoved. The present picture is full of 
 poetry, and its poetry has been felt by the people as well as by the 
 sacred few. While appealing to the mind and heart of the univer- 
 sal Church by its subject, and touching all believers and enlisting 
 their sympathy by the method in which the subject has been treated, 
 it is yet found by some to possess further poetical power. Those 
 who have seen this well-nigh obliterated handwriting on the wall, 
 and those who know the story of its life; the fatal experiments which 
 were tried in preparing the plaster for receiving a painting in oil ; 
 the genius and painstaking with which line after line was added 
 during sixteen long years; the inundation which soddened the 1111- 
 tempered mortar of the wall ; the early, rapid, and irreparable decay 
 which blotted out so much of Da Vinci's work; the pious care with
 
 46 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 which the cartoons of the artist's design have been preserved ; and 
 the unusual frequency with which the picture has been copied and 
 engraved; only those who have thus known the chequered history 
 of the picture have fully felt its poetry. 
 
 The history of the picture is a poem in itself, and we would there- 
 fore beg our readers to turn a while from the photograph, and duly 
 prepare themselves for our exposition, by looking into the memoirs 
 of the original, and refreshing their memories with the incidents of 
 its moving tale. 
 
 " The Last Supper " was one of the few finished works of Leon- 
 ardo da Vinci. It was undertaken by order of Lodovico Sforza il 
 Moro, Regent, and afterwards Duke of Milan, who was anxious to 
 enrich the city with some of the productions of a man who, judging 
 from a letter that he had written offering his services, seemed to be 
 in the possession of the most varied and eminent abilities. The 
 precise period when Leonardo commenced this picture is not cor- 
 rectly ascertained, but we know that it was carried on simultaneously 
 with an equestrian statue of colossal proportions, intended to have 
 been cast in bronze, in memory of Francesco Sforza, the father of 
 Lodovico. These two undertakings were eminently calculated to 
 elicit the powers of the artist, Da Vinci having studied most pro- 
 foundly the expression of the human face, and the anatomy of the 
 horse. The fate of the statue was equally tragical with the fate of 
 the picture. When the first model of the monument was finished, 
 it was carried in triumph in a festal procession, as the most splendid 
 part of the pomp, and was unfortunately broken. With unwearied 
 patience, Leonardo began a new one, but it was never cast; and 
 when Milan was conquered by the French in 1499, tne m °del was 
 made to serve as a target by the Gascon crossbowmen, in the same 
 way as, in 1796, the heads in " The Last Supper " (notwithstand- 
 ing the order of Napoleon) were fired at by the French troops who 
 were quartered in the room which it decorated. 
 
 The place chosen to receive the picture was one of the end walls 
 of the dining-room of a monastery which had been built twenty
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 47 
 
 years previously for a fraternity of Dominican Friars, belonging to 
 a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and styled Delle Grazia. 
 The monastery is now destroyed, and the refectory is a large apart- 
 ment, 116 feet long, 29 feet wide, and of a lofty height. The door 
 is in the centre, and the windows are high and irregularly placed. 
 The wilderness aspect which is now presented by the room is in 
 striking contrast to its appearance when it was inhabited by the holv 
 fathers. They evidently did their best to make it snug and com- 
 fortable, whitewashing the picture over, so that their privacy should 
 not be intruded upon by the strangers, who, with troublesome 
 curiosity, were constantly visiting the convent, desirous to see this 
 extraordinary work of art; and opening a doorway through the 
 lower part of it, (cutting off the feet of our Lord,) for the greater 
 convenience of carrying in their dinner hot from the kitchen. 
 
 Leonardo was a universal genius, and, like most of his class, was 
 fond of experiments. Determining to execute his work in oil- 
 colour, instead of fresco, in order that he might have the opportunity 
 of carefully finishing the minutest details, he tried various composi- 
 tions for his ground ; and at last prepared it with pitch, mastic, and 
 plaster, overlaying it with a cement of burnt clay and ochre, which, 
 being mixed up with varnish, formed a colouring of great beauty, 
 but short duration. The reflecting surface of oil is one of its most 
 objectionable qualities, but this may be avoided by the ground being 
 made absorbent. If the wall be not properly dried, or if from any 
 other cause the painted surface forms itself into a skin separable 
 from the lime, destruction is sure and rapid. The decay of the 
 Cenacolo hardly affords a fair criterion of the durability of oil for 
 wall painting, smce Leonardo was sixteen years engaged on it ; ami 
 during that long period must have repainted much. The materials 
 (if the wall are known to have been inferior; its position between 
 tin kitchen ami the dining-hall was by no means favourable : ami 
 the inundation of 1 jim must have been a severe ordeal. We are 
 not surprised, after knowing these tacts, that the picture began to 
 fill in small II, ikes from the wall, ami that 111 fifty years after it was
 
 48 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 painted it is reported to have been half wasted and destroyed. 
 While mourning over these misfortunes, we have to be thankful 
 that there were those who would not willingly let it die. In the 
 time of Leonardo many successful copies were made by his pupils. 
 One of the most accurate, by Marco d'Oggione, is in the Academy 
 in London, and the engravers, guided by the cartoons, have pre- 
 served for us the general idea, at least, of "The Last Supper." 
 
 The cartoon of the whole picture is unfortunately lost. The car- 
 toons of the single heads happily remain. These are executed in 
 black chalk, and are slightly coloured. A sketch for the head of 
 the Christ, on a now torn and soiled piece of paper, is preserved in 
 the gallery of the Brera, in Milan. This faded drawing gives but a 
 faint idea of what the master accomplished, only suggesting by its 
 lines that mingled expression of divine gentleness, pain at the per- 
 fidy of one of His own disciples, and resignation to His approaching 
 death. Ten heads of the apostles, some of them of enchanting 
 beauty, are in the collection of the King of Holland, at the Hague; 
 three others are in private collections in England. Several slight 
 sketches are in the academy at Venice, and an original drawing, a 
 study for the whole composition, is in the imperial collection at Paris. 
 
 Francis I« of France, entering Milan in triumph in 1515, pur- 
 chased Da Vinci's portrait of the beautiful Lisa (now in the Louvre) 
 for the enormous price of 4000 crowns, being a sum equivalent to 
 45,000 francs in money of this day, and tried hard, if it were pos- 
 sible, to saw "The Last Supper " from the wall. The removal of 
 wall-painted pictures, impossible as it would appear to be, has been 
 effected, and if the Emperor had succeeded in his attempt, we 
 should doubtless have found the original to be in a vastly superior 
 condition. It hac now become a point in Italy to remove frescoes 
 of interest for the purposes of sale or preservation. The method 
 adopted is to cover the face of the fresco with a linen cloth, dressed 
 with a kind of glue. It is then carefully detached, the rough surface 
 rubbed down with pumice-stone, and a canvas fastened to the back, 
 and then treated as an oil picture.
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 49 
 
 It is difficult to reconcile the conflicting statements which have 
 heen made by the various visitors respecting the decay of this paint- 
 ing. Vasari tells us that by his time (1566) it was lamentably in- 
 jured. Scanelli, who saw it in 1642, observes that "there are but 
 few vestiges remaining of the figures ; and the naked parts, such as 
 the heads, hands, and feet, are almost entirely obliterated/' Some 
 years before 1726, when the picture was restored, Richardson writes : 
 — " In the refectory, over a very high door, is the famous picture of 
 •'The Last Supper.' Figures as big as the life; it is excessively 
 ruined, and all the apostles on the right hand of the Christ are en- 
 tirely defaced. The Christ and those on His left hand appear pretty 
 plain, but the colours are quite faded, and in several places only the 
 bare wall is left; that which is next but one to the Christ is the best 
 preserved, (he that crosses his hands upon his breast,) and has a 
 marvellous expression, much stronger than I have seen in any of the 
 drawings. Armenini (who wrote about the year 1580) says this 
 picture was half spoiled in his time. That story of the head of 
 the Christ being left unfinished, Leonardo conceiving it impossible 
 for him to reach his own idea is certainly false ; because one part of 
 th, it head which remains entire is highly finished in his usual man- 
 ner. They have nailed the emperor's arms over the Christ's head, 
 so low that it almost touches His hair, and hides a great part of the 
 picture." 
 
 Michael Angelo Bellotti was the first who had the presumption to 
 repair the picture, repainting it in 1726, under cover of the pretence 
 that he was in possession of a secret which enabled him to renew the 
 colours. At a later period, Giorgone was solicited to re-touch the 
 picture, a task which he modestly declined. In the year 1772 they 
 found a painter less diffident, Muzza, who nearly accomplished its 
 utter destruction, lie boldlv brushed off the surface of the painting 
 wherever it interrupted his progress, laying on a new ground ot 
 paste, mastic, burnt umber, and ochre on the parts which he meanl 
 to repair. I If had nearly finished the w hole, St Thomas, Matthias, 
 and Simon alone were Kit untouched, (and they were in the course 
 
 n
 
 50 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 of execution,) when a new prior (Paul Galloni) saved them from his 
 barbarous hands. In the year 1797, Beauharnois, at that time 
 Viceroy of Milan, ordered the refectory to be repaired, and defended 
 the picture by the erection of a low, wooden gallery, on which the 
 spectator is placed to view it. 
 
 It is now in such a state, that it is even a matter of dispute 
 whether it was originally painted in oil, fresco, or tempora. The 
 central part has stood the best, and best of all the part around and 
 beneath the left hand of our Lord. The face itself has not suffered 
 from accident or mischief, but the colouring is, of course, much 
 lowered by time. There is a white gap in the neck, which cannot 
 be seen without exciting gratitude in the spectator that it did not 
 occur a few inches higher up. These are the points which evi- 
 dently caught the eye of Wordsworth, and awakened his muse. 
 All that part of the picture which is below the table-cloth is in com- 
 plete obscurity. 
 
 There are two or three points which should be remembered by us 
 as we turn to look at this picture, or otherwise we may repeat some 
 of the foolish and threadbare criticisms which are still current among 
 superficial spectators. The long table, covered with a white cloth, 
 on which the apostles are seated, was only the other day a stumbling- 
 block to a clergyman who was looking at an exquisite copy of this 
 great work. We would have forgiven him had he stayed and tried 
 to see something else besides this patent impropriety. Da Vinei, in 
 undertaking the decoration of the refectory of a convent was not 
 only confined to the subject of "The Last Supper," that being; the 
 orthodox ornament, but he was obliged to accept the conventional 
 mode of treatment. He had no power of altering the arrangement 
 of the table, or the position of the guests. Instead of parading our 
 knowledge of the manners and customs of the East, and blamino- 
 the artist for his supposed ignorance, we have some reason to thank 
 him for adhering to the traditional style of composition, and to ad- 
 mire the dexterity with which he has turned the stumbling-block 
 into a stepping-stone to success. He has used the white cloth to
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 5 1 
 
 give value to the bright colours and richly-varied details above; and 
 he has availed himself of the opportunity which the stiff and mono- 
 tonous composition has presented for gratifying our curiosity. We 
 naturally wish, in such a scene as that depicted here, to see and 
 judge for ourselves ; and the apostles being all placed in a line on 
 one side of the table, we are able to exercise our physiognomical 
 faculty, and try to detect the traitor. 
 
 Justly to appreciate a picture, we must remember the position it 
 was intended to occupy, and the purpose it was designed to answer. 
 Looking at the picture as the chief decoration of the large and lofty 
 dining-hall of a rich convent, we admit at once the suitability of 
 the subject, and admire the method of its treatment. The prior 
 and superiors sat opposite to it at a long, raised table, as in our col- 
 lege halls, at the upper end of the room, and the monks sat down 
 on the right and left of the chamber, all of them on the side of the 
 table nearest the wall, no seats being placed on the outer side, for 
 the greater convenience of serving. The company, at meal-times, 
 would thus find the picture complete their circle, and our Lord 
 would appear to be presiding over them all. The figures in the pic- 
 ture being colossal would be reduced by distance to the size of the 
 persons seated below, and the harmony of the fourth table with the 
 other three would be preserved by its arrangement; the table-cloth, 
 with the corners tied up, and with its regular folds as if fresh from 
 the press, and the dishes and drinking cups matching those in use by 
 the holy fathers. Our Lord would be thus evidently set forth eat- 
 ing and drinking with them, and day by clay they would be warned 
 
 i the temptation that beset them of becoming the successors of the 
 apostate apostle. What our Lord had said to (lis disciples Mi 
 would seem to be saying to them, " Verily, I say unto you, that one 
 of you -ball betray me." 
 
 While Da Vinci conformed to the tradition of the elders in Ins 
 composition of "The Lasl Supper," he was one of the first to dis- 
 sent from their conventional treatment of tin- human figure. The 
 lone tabic was indispensable, and the guests had to be waled, and
 
 that in a row upon one side, but no necessity was laid upon him to 
 repeat the flat and feeble forms of his predecessors. His genius had 
 taught him not only that the anatomy of the body need not be 
 sacrificed to the expression of the mind, but that spirituality in art 
 could only be fully developed in the degree in which a painter was 
 natural. By the study and imitation of nature he was able to intro- 
 duce into painting the modelling and chiaro-oscuro of nature, and re- 
 taining the sentiment of the mediaeval artists, to take the first timid 
 steps in that enlargement of style which led ultimately to the grand 
 development of art by Michael Angelo and Raphael. It is not only 
 this combination of what had been hitherto regarded as incompatible 
 that strikes the spectator who has any knowledge of the progress of 
 painting, but it is also the genius that is shewn in the subordination 
 of the minutest detail to the one great aim of the picture. 
 
 Those who visited the Art-Treasures Exhibition at Manchester 
 (so valuable for its chronological arrangement of the pictures) will 
 remember that the artists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
 were satisfied with a light and shade of the most timid description, 
 and that Giotto, and afterwards Masaccio, were the first to venture 
 upon introducing a greater breadth and quantity of shadow. It was 
 left for Leonardo to treat light and shade as an art, and looking at 
 the ease and ingenuity with which he has introduced his lights and 
 darks, both in quantity and shape, we can understand how its chiaro- 
 oscuro has made "The Last Supper" a great picture, and estab- 
 lished the claim of Da Vinci to be a great master. 
 
 The picture is, however, something more than a work of art. 
 The same scriptural effect which is produced by the Cartoons of Ra- 
 phael is felt by us as we look at the Cenacolo, and it is this which 
 has made these religious pictures so popular with those who read the 
 Bible with any intelligence, and who receive it with any faith. 
 "The Last Supper" is even more popular than the Cartoons, and 
 this is perhaps to be accounted for by the greater popularity of its 
 subject, the betrayal of our Lord being one of the most widely- 
 known incidents of His life, and all of us having a more or less de-
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 53 
 
 fined faith and hope in His death. The picture thus finds at once com- 
 mon ground with almost every spectator. It suggests a well-known 
 scene, and stirs up the mind by way of remembrance. It tells us 
 nothing new, but it gains and keeps its power over us by its harmony 
 with the Scripture narrative, and its evident desire to do us good. 
 
 It is utterly impossible to make any mistake about the time of the 
 picture, or to lose sight of the principal figure. Our Lord is de- 
 tached from the disciples, and is placed in the centre, with His head 
 on the same level as the horizon, so that the eye, naturally taking 
 the point of sight, is mechanically fixed upon His face. The open 
 window with its attracting light, and the seven lines in the ceiling 
 and the seven lines on the floor, verging towards the same point, 
 not only give depth and air to the picture, but they assist the painter 
 till he can keep us spell-bound, by shewing us not only how our 
 Lord looked in the night in which He was betrayed, but depicting 
 that kind of expression which we feel must have passed over His 
 countenance, when He announced at the last supper to His disciples 
 that one of them would be the traitor. 
 
 The face, which seems, even in an engraving, to be illumined 
 with a ray of divinity, is one of the very few likenesses of our Lord 
 that almost satisfy us. We can easily understand how Leonardo 
 allowed years to pass away without daring to paint in that portrait. 
 The story of his leaving the heads of the Christ and Judas unfinished, 
 feeling it to be impossible to represent the devilishncss of the one or 
 the divinity of the other, is well known and abundantly confirmed. 
 The disciples look, however, as if they had been painted in after the 
 figure of our Lord, and this effect must have been produced by 
 Leonardo working upon them, feeling as he did so that the empty 
 space was, tor the time, occupied with the invisible presence of his 
 ideal portrait. We are glad that, though despairing of success 3 he 
 did not follow the suggestion of his friend Bernardo Zenale, who, 
 believing that he could not surpass what he had already done, ad- 
 vised him to leave the head of the Christ unfinished, urging the ex- 
 ample of the ( irccian artist.
 
 54 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 Because of the difficulty that has attended the efforts to paint the 
 face of our Saviour, some have been almost inclined to doubt its 
 propriety, forgetting that the reasons that may be alleged against 
 any material representation of the Father, cannot be advanced 
 ao-ainst the likeness of His Son. Since God pleased to manifest 
 Himself in flesh, there was nothing to prevent those for whom He 
 thus humbled Himself procuring His portrait. Written traditions, 
 from the earliest centuries of our era, containing real or apocryphal 
 tales, assure us of the existence of impressions imprinted on veils, 
 portraits attributed to Nicodemus, Pilate, or Luke, and actually a 
 statue. 
 
 "Abgarus, king of Edessa, having learnt/' says Damaseenus, 
 "the wonderful things related of our Saviour, became inflamed with 
 Divine love. He sent ambassadors to the Son of God, inviting 
 [Jim to come and visit him, and should the Saviour refuse to grant 
 his request, he charged his ambassadors to employ some artist to 
 make a portrait of our Lord. Jesus, from whom nothing is hidden, 
 and to whom nothing is impossible, being aware of the intention of 
 Abgarus, took a piece of linen, applied it to His face, and depicted 
 thereon His own image. This very portrait," continues Dama- 
 scene, "is in existence at the present day, and in perfect preserva- 
 tion." 
 
 At the same epoch, a minute verbal description of the appearance 
 of Christ was in circulation. The following description, which is 
 of great importance, was sent to the Roman Senate by Publius 
 LentuluSj proconsul of Judaea before Herod. Lentulus had seen 
 the Saviour, and had made Him sit to him, as it were, that he 
 might give a written description of His features and physiognomy. 
 His portrait, apocryphal though it be, is at least one of the first 
 upon record ; it dates from the earliest period of the Church, and 
 has been mentioned by the most ancient fathers. Lentulus writes 
 to the senate as follows : — "At this time appeared a man who is 
 srill living and endowed with mighty power ; His name is Jesus 
 Christ. His disciples call Him the Son of God; others regard
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 55 
 
 Him as a powerful prophet. He raises the dead to life, and heals 
 the sick of every description of infirmity and disease. This man is 
 of lofty stature, and well-proportioned ; His countenance severe 
 and virtuous, so that He inspires beholders with feelings both of 
 fear and love. The hair of His head is of the colour of wine, and 
 from the top of the head to the ears straight and without radiance ; 
 but it descends from the ears to the shoulders in shining curls. 
 From the shoulders the hair flows down the back, divided into two 
 portions, after the manner of the Nazarenes ; His forehead is clear 
 and without wrinkle ; His face free from blemish, and slightly 
 tinged with red ; His physiognomy noble and gracious. The nose 
 and mouth faultless. His beard is abundant, the same colour as 
 the hair, and forked. His eyes blue, and very brilliant. In reprov- 
 ing; or censuring, He is awe-inspiring; in exhorting and teaching;, 
 His speech is gentle and caressing. His countenance is marvellous 
 in seriousness and grace. He has never once been seen to laugh ; 
 but many have seen Him weep. He is slender in person, His 
 hands are straight and long, His arms beautiful. Grave and solemn 
 in His discourse, His language is simple and quiet. He is in ap- 
 pearance the most beautiful of the children of men." 
 
 The Emperor Constantine caused pictures of the Son of God to 
 be painted from this ancient description. 
 
 The delay in finishing the picture is said to have affected the 
 prior of the Dominicans more than the difficulty in painting the por- 
 trait, and to have led to his making some complaint to the duke. 
 In an interview with Lodovico, (occasioned by this interference,) 
 Leonardo is reported to have said, "There remain only two heads 
 unfinished in the whole picture. That of Christ I have long de- 
 spaired of ever being able to complete, as I am quite convinced of 
 the utter impossibility of representing the union of divinity with hu- 
 manity, and much less can 1 hope to supply the deficiency from my 
 own imagination." It must have been at this interview that the 
 humorous threat was made to the officious dignitary, which led to 
 the idle tale of the Judas being a portrait of the prior. The head is
 
 56 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 known to be no likeness, besides, the dignity of Leonardo is a suffi- 
 cient guarantee against his making his picture a vehicle for satire. 
 Leonardo, as proved from his " Characaturas," was full of humour, 
 and never, perhaps, was he more ready to shew it than at such a 
 time as this, when he was absorbed in the most serious matters. 
 The jeu d 'esprit seems to have been literally interpreted by some 
 dull story-teller, and to have, thus found a currency. 
 
 The two heads which occasioned Leonardo the most anxiety hap- 
 pen to be those which are the best preserved. The traitor has out- 
 lived the other apostles, and he is yet to be seen, in the original, 
 turning towards our Lord, and assuming the attitude of innocence. 
 The expression of the respective characters of the other apostles, 
 with the exception of St John and St Simon, may yet be faintly 
 traced. 
 
 The faces of the apostles disappoint many. Most come to the 
 picture thinking that they shall be able at once to detect the traitor, 
 and expecting to recognise in the other apostles the fancy portraits 
 which they have painted for themselves. They forget that the dis- 
 ciples were men of like feelings and passions with themselves, and 
 that when our Lord told them that one of them would betray Him, 
 "They began to inquire among themselves, which of them it was 
 that should do this thing." 
 
 The ordinary conception of the characters of the eleven are as tra- 
 ditionally false as the vulgar notion that is formed of the traitor and 
 his treachery. Expecting the countenances to conform to these 
 fictitious characters, spectators are happily, in looking at " The Last 
 Supper/' doomed to be disappointed. The eleven are not repre- 
 sented as saints, nor is Judas painted as a devil. 
 
 The Gospels contain not only a portrait of our Lord, but they 
 depict very plainly the likenesses of those whom He chose to be 
 with Him. We have only to collate the passages which refer to 
 their conduct upon various occasions when " the spirit they were 
 of" was manifested — we have only to recollect that on this very 
 night there was a strife among them who should be the greatest,
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 57 
 
 and we shall perceive that the physiognomy of Leonardo is founded 
 on facts. The apostles, at this time, were only men of this world. 
 They had not yet received power, the Holy Spirit was not yet come 
 upon them. Their faith and hope in our Saviour was alloyed with 
 a vain expectation that His kingdom was to be of this world. 
 
 There was, indeed, a difference between the eleven and the traitor, 
 but there was also a likeness. Judas truly was a thief, but it was, 
 assuredly, not his love of money which led him to commit his un- 
 pardonable sin. Had he been governed by merely mercenary mo- 
 tives, he would never have jeopardised his gains as keeper of the 
 bag, for thirty pieces of silver. Judas had the same conjectures and 
 expectations as James and John and the rest of the apostles, but 
 while sharing with them in their delusions, he had made shipwreck 
 of a good conscience, and was thus prepared to adopt any crooked 
 policy that might appear to him to be likely to hasten the attain- 
 ment of his worldly ambition. The other apostles were lacking in 
 faith, but not in fidelity. 
 
 Leonardo seems to have formed as just a conception of the dis- 
 ciple who betrayed our Lord as he did of the others who forsook Him 
 and fled. He has preserved an individuality in each face, while 
 giving to them the same look that is common to all men. He has 
 pointed out the traitor, to those who have only eyes, by the bag and 
 the over-turned salt, and to those who have mind as well as eyes, by 
 placing his face in shadow, and by giving him the air of the worldly 
 professor. The profile, turned from the light, (the only one in this 
 position,) reminds us of the words of the Saviour, " Every one that 
 doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his 
 deeds should be reproved/' I lis evil eye suggests the lines of 
 Shakspeare — 
 
 "Which is the villain? let me see his eyes, 
 I I, it when I note another man like him 
 1 may avoid him." 
 
 The various apostles are identified by their place's in the picture' 
 being recorded in a MS. in the Dominican Convent at Milan, sup-
 
 posed to have been Leonardo's own explanation. Beginning with 
 the disciple who is standing up at the end of the table, bearing the 
 whole weight or' his body on his right foot, and playing uncon- 
 sciously with the toes on his left foot, we have, in the first group, 
 Bartholomew, James the Less, and Andrew. Two of these are 
 silent, bending over in suspense to listen; the other has just uttered 
 some exclamation of surprise. The second group contains the 
 traitor, who has seated himself between the two most notable dis 
 ciples. Peter, with the same hand which smote off the ear of the 
 high priest's servant, is grasping a knife, which he has taken off the 
 table in the moment of his indignation ; he is stooping over and 
 whispering to John to ask our Lord for the traitor's name. John, 
 with his arms fallen, as if he were half fainting, leans towards Peter, 
 and seems hardly to have strength left even to listen. Sitting on 
 the other side is James the Elder, who appeals to our Lord, throw- 
 ing back his arms, as if he wished that his very heart might be 
 searched. Thomas, whose distrust and habitual querulousness have 
 wretchedly disfigured his countenance, is pressing up behind James, 
 and putting the common question, "Lord, is it I?" while Philip 
 is silently pointing with both hands to his breast, "exceeding 
 sorrowful," and pleading his innocence. The last group, con- 
 taining Matthew, Jude, and Simon, are speaking to each other, 
 clearing themselves by pointing to the One who knew what was 
 in them. 
 
 It it hard to persuade ourselves that we are deceived, and that we 
 do not hear the voices of the disciples. Shaking off the spell, we 
 wonder how it has been produced, and we imagine that Da Vinci 
 must have adopted a plan which he strongly recommended to his 
 disciples in his Treatise on Painting. He there advises his pupils to 
 assist their imaginations in suiting the attitudes to their figures, bv 
 considering attentively the gestures of mutes, who express the 
 thoughts and emotions of their minds by the motions of their eyes, 
 hands, and whole body. We have here also some of the results of 
 those painstaking studies in physiognomy which the artist was ever
 
 THE LAST SUPPER. 59 
 
 making, tie evidently possessed the power of expressing a definite 
 idea by his painted lines. The action of his figures seems to speak 
 even more plainly than their words. 
 
 There is a speech and language, though its voice is equally in- 
 audible, which is re-echoed by this picture, and which must be 
 heard by all those who have ears to hear. What our Lord said to 
 His disciples, in the night in which He was betrayed, He here seems 
 to be saying to us. The picture, as it hangs in our houses, is a 
 warning to us of our danger of sinning in the midst of privileges. 
 While the Word is for all, it is especially addressed (as the painting 
 in the convent at Milan) to those who minister in holy things, and 
 who are familiar with the sanctities of the Church. Our Lord can 
 be betrayed as well as crucified again, arid none have the same temp- 
 tations or the same opportunity to be traitors as those who eat and 
 drink at His tabic. As we look at the face of Judas, the likeness of 
 which is to be seen too often, we are filled with fear and trembling, 
 and knowing that, at best, we are yet carnal, and walk as men, we, 
 though we are not hiding any iniquity in our heart, feel afresh the 
 deceitfulness and danger of worldliness, and, turning to our Lord 
 repeat the question, "Lord, is it I?" 
 
 We will not detain our readers, or we might draw their attention 
 to the art shewn in the contrast between the quietness in the face 
 and hands of the Saviour and the excitement which is moving 
 around Him. It is only, too, by study that we awake to other 
 instances in which Leonardo has concealed his art. The difficulties 
 arising from the fixed number of the figures, and their conven- 
 tional position, are lost sight of as we look at the easy and endless 
 variety of the composition. The same attitude is not repeated. No 
 bead is placed straightly upon the shoulders. The temper, action, 
 size, and complexion of each disciple are different. There are no 
 two bands alike, and no bead is turned 011 the same side as the 
 breast. 
 
 Those who wish to know more of "The Last Supper" will do 
 well to consult a work which contains much interesting informa-
 
 60 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 tion. It was published by Signor Bozzi, of Milan, and entitled, 
 "Discorso del Cenacolo di Da Vinci." Bozzi is the same artist 
 who executed the copy from which the mosaic work at Vienna was 
 designed.
 
 
 I 
 
 ..'■• 

 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 Cljrtst Presented b)> Pilate to tije People. 
 
 "Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment : and it was early : 
 
 and they themselves went not into the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled, but 
 
 that they might eat the passover. Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What 
 
 accusation bring you against this man ? They answered and said unto him, If he were 
 
 not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee. Then said Pilate 
 
 unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore 
 
 said unto him, It .is not lawful for us to put any man to death: that the saying of 
 
 Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die. Then 
 
 Pilate entered into the judgment-hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art 
 
 thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or 
 
 did others tell it thee of me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew ? Thine own nation and 
 
 the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, 
 
 My kingdom is not of this world : if my kingdom were of this world, then would my 
 
 servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews : but now is my kingdom not 
 
 from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, 
 
 Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into 
 
 the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth 
 
 hcareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, 
 
 he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all. 
 
 Bui ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover : will ye 
 
 ■ that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Then cried they all again, 
 
 i . \<i thi man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber." — JoHNxviii. :S-40. 
 
 "Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers platted a 
 
 .11 oi thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and 
 
 said, II. iil. King ol the Jews ! and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore 
 
 went forth again, and said unto them, behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may 
 
 know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, the crown oi 
 
 thorns, mid the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man 1 " — John 
 
 xix. 1-5.
 
 CHRIST PRESENTED BY PILATE TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 " Hark, how they ciy aloud still, ' Crucify,' 
 * * * * 
 
 Pilate a stranger holdeth off; but they 
 Mine own dear people cry, ' Away, away.' 
 With noises confused frighting the day : 
 Was ever grief like mine ? 
 
 " Yet still they shout, and cry, and stop their ears, 
 Putting my life among their sins and fears, 
 And therefore with my blood on them and theirs. 
 
 Was ever grief like mine ? " 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 HIS "Ecce Homo " is one of the earlier works of Correggio, 
 and it is painted on a panel three feet two and a half inches 
 in height, and two feet seven inches in width. It hangs 
 beside the " Lazarus" of Sebastian in the National Gallery, and though 
 less than a twelfth of the size of that large dark canvas, it is felt by 
 the merest tyro to be the greater picture. There could hardly be a 
 stronger contrast. The difference in the chiaro-oscuro of the two pic- 
 tures, notwithstanding they were painted within a few years of each 
 other, is as striking as the difference in their composition. Correggio 
 has filled hiscoloursand shadows with light, and hewasprudentenough 
 tn limit himself in the number of accessory figures. I le has admitted 
 just so many persons as were sufficient to tell his version of the story, 
 and no one else. Mam- more of the .lews were presenl at the trial of 
 our Lord than at the resurrection of Lazarus, but Correggio has 
 resolutely excluded them all. lie has left them, where they placed 
 themselves, standing without the praetorium. Instead, therefore, of 
 our Lord being lost in a crowd, we can all see Nun at once, and as
 
 64 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 we look at Him we can hear behind us the full assembly of the San- 
 hedrim, and the roaring rabble, clamouring for His blood. We 
 shall find that we must listen as well as look, or we shall not under- 
 stand this picture. 
 
 The name " Ecce Homo " was given to portraits of our Lord 
 where He is represented when crowned with thorns, and they are to 
 be met with almost as frequently as the Madonnas. As a rule they 
 were painted without any accessories, so that the employment of the 
 name in this instance is hardly legitimate, for while Correggio does 
 indeed set forth our Lord as He appeared in this stage of His bap- 
 tism of suffering, he clearly intended to produce an historical design. 
 In treating his " Eece Homo " historically, he may have wished to 
 avail himself of the assistance given to the face of our Lord by dra- 
 matic interest, and w r e know from his groups of heads in the Gallery 
 that he was fully aware of the value lent to a countenance by the 
 harmonies of similar and contrasted expression. At anv rate, you 
 can see that he has kept his eye single, and not lost sight of the end 
 in the means, for he throws his chief light on his chief figure, and 
 concentrates and gradates and contrasts the sentiment of the picture, 
 as skilfully as its colour and chiaro-oscuro. Being under authority, 
 and a good Catholic, he has of course introduced the Virgin : but 
 as a good artist, he has utilized her face and figure, for the lines and 
 the light and the tints that he needed. Even the architecture, 
 trifling as it appears to be, renders him important service : the few 
 inches of balustrade hinting at the presence of the populace, and the 
 portion of the pillar behind our Lord suggesting the unmovable- 
 ness alike of His love and of the kingdom that He came to establish. 
 
 Until the time of Correggio, oil-painting had held a subordinate 
 position. The clearness and transparency of fresco rendered it spe- 
 cially suited to the interiors of dimly-lighted churches and public 
 buildings. Instead of absorbing light like oil, it may be said to emit 
 it, and thus strongly recommended itself to the Italians for the de- 
 coration of their unbroken walls and uncarved ceilings. Working 
 freely, the painter could throw his whole mind at once into his pic-
 
 ture, and with great ease and rapidity produce effects which other- 
 wise were unattainable, or only the results of lengthened labour. 
 The three great masters, Michael Angelo, Leonardo, and Raphael, 
 therefore chose it as their favourite vehicle, Michael Angelo saying 
 that oil-painting was only fit for women and children. 
 
 Whatever may be the merits of fresco, for works on a large scale, 
 which are exhibited where there are not many windows, oil-paint- 
 ing, since the days of Correggio has been proved to be tar superior 
 to all other methods, in the power of combining force and substance 
 with transparency. 
 
 But little opportunity for invention or discovery had been left to 
 those who came after the great masters of form and composition. 
 Da Vinci had made great advances also in chiaroscuro. Correggio, 
 however, established his claim to hold the next position, by originat- 
 ing that peculiar play of light and shade which is now inseparably 
 associated with his name, and to which so many of his imitators 
 have been indebted for the poetry of their pictures. He was the 
 first to shew the capacity of oil for representing texture, and for 
 rendering shadows transparent. His paint is a rich substance with 
 the lustrous depth of precious tones. lie was the first who collected 
 a large mass of light in the centre, and melted one light into 
 another, and lost shadows in darkness. Few artists have so good a 
 claim to originality, and none have been more flattered and followed. 
 The head of this Christ, for instance, is repeated again and again 
 by the Caracci, and it was pronounced by Ilaydon to be " the only 
 head of Christ in the world." The grace and fleshiness of his forms, 
 the flow of his draperies, the harmony and tenderness of his colour- 
 ing, and the balance and finish of his pictures have often inspired 
 the profession, and it is these rare beauties which have given nse^ to 
 the well-known cant about " the Correggiosity of Correggio." 
 
 The idea of this " Ecce Homo" is in peculiar keeping with the 
 pathos and purity of this master, and the perfection of his taste. 
 This picture is, however, too small to give any just conception 
 either of bis excellencies or delects, and, besides being one ol his 
 
 E .
 
 66 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 earlier works, it has had the misfortune to be retouched in many 
 places. Correggio lacks the force, grandeur, and passion of 
 Raphael, and painting so much as he did on cupolas of cathedrals, 
 he cultivated the faculty of foreshortening till it became almost a 
 frenzy. 
 
 Comparing this Ecce Homo with others, you are struck with the 
 entire absence of either sentimentalism or perfunctoriness. Belong- 
 ing, as the subject does, to the set of stock topics chosen by the 
 church for painters and preachers, it is found to be treated some- 
 times with professional routine, and sometimes with theatrical 
 grimace. Many Ecce Homos are most unfortunate and mis- 
 chievous mistakes. The Christ is painted as if He were appealing 
 to you for your pity, the artist having forgotten that He did not 
 present Himself to the people. These pictures remind you of the 
 sermons you sometimes hear, where the preacher has wholly missed 
 the meaning of his text, and you begin to think that half the origi- 
 nality of the great masters and the great preachers is to be attributed 
 to their knowledge and love of the truth. They are new to you 
 because they are true. Correggio has kept to the letter of the 
 record, and has thus preserved the character of our Lord as a 
 man. Is it that he determined to tell the whole story, because 
 he wished to enter his protest against this common and degrading 
 error ? 
 
 Our Lord here has evidently been brought out by Pilate and ex- 
 posed to the gaze of the people. His face is in harmony with the 
 fact. The expression is so treated that you can see (if, indeed, you 
 can bear to look at it) that there is not the slightest self-conscious- 
 ness about it. Instead of any traces of that human weakness that 
 leads sufferers to parade their sorrows, there are rather the indica- 
 tions of a higher nature. These are not to be discerned at once, for 
 the body is well-nigh worn out with the life of sorrow. It was 
 shattered by the agony in the garden, and since then it has been 
 scourged. The divinity of our Lord will, however, grow upon you, 
 as you look into the eyes; and you may do this, for they do not
 
 CHRIST PRESENTED BY PILATE TO THE PEOPLE. 67 
 
 meet your own. You see for yourself that though He has been tried 
 and tempted in all points, a whole life long, like as we are, He has 
 never murmured. The signs of grief are not to be confounded with 
 the marks of sin. The face is disfigured, but He is evidently in 
 pain from the pressure of the thorns and the binding of the wrists. 
 The lips are a little livid, but that is to be expected, for in the agony 
 of prayer He sweat, last night, drops of blood. You see that this 
 suffering face is not thinking of itself, nor does it betray the least 
 hesitation in its purpose of mercy. The indignities which our Lord 
 has endured have not degraded Him, nor has the raging fury of His 
 enemies, as they cry for His crucifixion, quenched His love. The 
 eyes are fuller of anguish than the face is of pain, and as they look 
 far away over you, they tell you where the heart is. He is ready to 
 weep, not for Himself, but for His enemies. The resistless, helpless 
 form suggests how utterly He has abandoned Himself for their 
 sakes. Whilst they are yet His enemies, He is ready to die for 
 them. Correggio has painted the love of Christ which passeth 
 knowledge, and by painting His love he has painted His divinity. 
 
 The mystery is evidently perplexing the Roman soldier, who can- 
 not believe what he sees. lie may be the centurion, who after- 
 wards made so good a profession before so many witnesses. lie- 
 would have known of the dream of Pilate's wife, and he must have 
 heard before to-day of this Jesus of Nazareth ; but he is now seeing: 
 for himself, and what he will hear and see before the day is over, 
 will issue in his conversion, faith, and love. We have here, per- 
 haps, the first germ of his conviction, that "truly this is the Son 
 of God." 
 
 The colour and the chiaroscuro increase the pathos of the picture, 
 and, in their way, take up its tale. Correggio has thrown his high- 
 1 -t light upon the breast of our Lord, as if be would have us read 
 1 1 i s very heart. It reveals the same love which is seen in Mis face 
 by the light that lingers there, and which is further disclosed bv 
 that which tails on the folded arms and fettered bands. The breadth 
 of middle tint on the pillar, blending it with the Saviour's face and
 
 68 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 figure^ continues the story and deepens the impression. The 
 colouring, with all its hues exquisitely broken, is adapted to the 
 sentiment. The carnations are the leading tones. The flesh is 
 rather fair, but of a manly complexion. It is flesh, not wax, for 
 you can see the blood under the skin. The crimson of the robe is 
 reduced as much as possible. The linen about the waist is a coarse 
 white, and while setting off the surrounding colours, it serves to 
 display the fingers of the Christ. The blue cloak of the Virgin, of 
 a deep tone, adds to the solemnity of the scene, and while harmo- 
 nising with the bluish-gray of the balustrade, it produces, by con- 
 trast to the hands, the strongest effect of relief, and gives roundness 
 and unity to the whole. 
 
 The light, as it travels, touches the hands and face of the Virgin, 
 and reminds us of her presence. It certainly needs no apology. 
 As Protestants, we cannot, of course, be expected to share the feel- 
 ings of those for whom this picture was painted, but it is due to 
 Correggio that we attempt to understand them. In his day, the 
 worship of the Madonna was an almost passionate idolatry, and 
 her life was systematically interwoven by the Romish Church with 
 that of our Lord. She was supposed to be inseparably connected 
 with Him, and theologians insisted upon her introduction into 
 sacred pictures. Those subjects were avoided where her presence 
 was palpablv impossible, and those scenes chosen where she might 
 be brought before the people, with at any rate the same frequency 
 and importance, as her son. This accounts for her being here, and 
 for her prominent position. She is in the foreground, for she is 
 to divide the attention of the spectator with the Saviour, and every 
 one who looks at the picture cannot help seeing her, for she faints. 
 Hooded to the eyes, as usual, in blue, the colour of the cloak 
 enhances the pallor of her face, besides acting as a foil to the mass 
 of flesh tint in the middle of the picture. The eyelids are dropping 
 as in death. The hands, like all the other hands, correspond with 
 the face. They are closing with the eyes. She has been clutching 
 at the balustrade, but, falling back in a swoon, she has been obliged
 
 CHRIST PRESENTED BY PILATE TO THE PEOPLE. 69 
 
 to relax her hold. They are almost helpless, just as her face is 
 almost unconscious. Her weakness betrays her nature. She is 
 but a woman after all. The contrast becomes something more 
 than pictorial. There is a strong resemblance between the features 
 of the Virgin and those of our Lord, but it is in form and not in 
 expression. The likeness is more bodily than spiritual. At any 
 rate, as represented here, she resembles Him rather in countenance 
 than in character.* 
 
 Pilate is standing just within the judgment hall, and he is con- 
 nected with the scene by the breadth of middle tint on the pillar, 
 by his hand which is pointing to the Christ, and by his eyes which 
 are looking at the Sanhedrim as he speaks to them. The hand is 
 an index to the time. It is not yet withdrawn, for his words (which 
 give the name to the picture) are only just uttered. There is a 
 shapclessness about his form and an awkwardness about his attitude, 
 which seem to betray that he is not at his ease. From the very 
 outset he has been embarrassed and uncomfortable, and all through- 
 out the trial he has endeavoured to evade the decision. He is now 
 quite as much annoved with himself as with the chief priests. He 
 is afraid, for he cannot understand himself, — his hesitation and un- 
 precedented scruples; a little while since he had mingled the blood of 
 other Galileans with their sacrifices without any compunction, and 
 new he finds that he is anxious to save this Galilean from the 
 thirsty Jews. Wearied out at last, with their resistance and his 
 own relentings — irritated at the course events were takino- — he has 
 wrapped his robe around him, as if he would, if he could, hide his 
 vexation. I lis robe of office and jewelled turban can do nothing 
 for him. He forms another contrast in the picture to the self-pos- 
 session and dignity of our Lord. The Virgin, in a faint, falls back 
 
 * This ovei been noticed by Catholic writers. Thus, Molanus observes 
 
 that "the blessed Virgin should not lie painted in a swoon, as if an ordinary mother, 
 for, as the holy fathers say, she retained her a cy and hope to the end, even 
 
 when all others failed; therefore, only by paleness and tears is 1 ow to be 
 
 manifest I." 1'ctrus Canasus says, "Painters who re] her fainting arc in- 
 
 excusable "
 
 70 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 upon an arm of flesh, and Correggio has so managed the figure of 
 Pilate, even to the fold and colour of his dress, that you can see 
 what manner of man he was. The well-known words become 
 the more distinct, and the naked, bleeding form, crowned with 
 thorns, with the garb of mockery slipping off its shoulders, be- 
 comes all the more conspicuous. The dress of the governor is a 
 rather light yellow with stripes of pale pinkish-purple, his beard 
 is light, and the uncertain hues of the head-covering serve for the 
 repetition and degradation of the blue and red robes of the principal 
 figures. 
 
 Connoisseurs are divided in their opinion as to whether it is the 
 Magdalene, or the beloved disciple who is supporting the Virgin ; 
 it is possible that some restorer is to blame for giving the occasion 
 for such a question. 
 
 This picture, formerly in the possession of the Counts Prati of 
 Parma, was subsequently long in the Colonna Palace at Rome, and 
 it was reckoned the best work of Correggio in that city. It was 
 purchased in the eaily part of the French Revolution by Sir Simon 
 Clarke, who, not succeeding in removing it from Italy, was induced 
 to part from it to Murat, then king of Naples. In 1834 it became 
 the property of the Marquis of Londonderry, and was for fourteen 
 years one of the most admired ornaments in the collection at Holder- 
 ness House. It was bought for the public, together with "The 
 Academy of Cupid," at the price of ^11,500. 
 
 Last year a picture, purporting to be the replica of this Ecce 
 Homo, was on view in London, and excited considerable attention. 
 It was found at Rome, painted over, and it had evidently been thus 
 concealed for more than a century. The greatest gems have been 
 discovered under the same disguise. The replica of the Dresden 
 Magdalene had been painted over to look like a dog lying down in 
 a landscape, and was purchased at Rome by Lord Dudley for a very 
 large sum. This disguise was adopted to prevent valuable pictures 
 from being taken as plunder in times of disturbance. The old 
 masters often produced two works on the same subject, almost
 
 CHRIST PRESENTED BY PILATE TO THE PEOPLE. 71 
 
 identical in design, as, for instance, we saw in our last paper, was 
 the case with the " Madonna della Seggiola." The history of 
 Correggio's pictures is so singularly imperfect, that the historical 
 test fails altogether. Whether the above-mentioned work be en- 
 titled to the distinction claimed for it, is a point which we believe is 
 yet unsettled,
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 Cije Descent from tije €vom. 
 
 "The Tews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not 
 remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day, (for that Sabbath-day was an high day,) 
 besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. 
 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was 
 crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, 
 they brake not his legs : but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and 
 forthwith came thereout blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his 
 record is true ; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these 
 things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be 
 broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they 
 pierced. And after this, Joseph of Arimathea (being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly 
 for fear of the Jews) besought Filatc that he might take away the body of Jesus : and 
 Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there 
 came also Nicodemus, (which at the firsl came to Jesus by night,) and brought a mix- 
 ture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body 
 of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is 
 to bury."— John xix. 31-40.
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 
 
 "He was taken from prison and from judgment : 
 And who shall declarchis generation? 
 For he was cut off out of the land of the living : 
 For the transgressions of my people was he stricken. 
 And he made his grave with the wicked, 
 And with the rich in his death ; 
 Because he had done no violence, 
 Neither was any deceit in his mouth : 
 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him : 
 He hath put him to grief." 
 
 The Prophecies of Isaiah. 
 
 IHIS picture is not so great as it is popular, and it owes its 
 popularity to its colour and its daring execution. Compared 
 with the hunting and bacchanalian scenes, and the battle- 
 pieces of this dashing master, and even with his other religious sub- 
 jects, it is less gross in its forms, less florid in its hues, and less violent 
 in its contrasts ; but it betrays too many of the tricks of composition 
 and picture-making, to be acceptable to those who reserve their feel- 
 ing, when they discover that they are addressed by one who has not 
 forgotten himself in his subject. 
 
 To be popular, you need not, perhaps you cannot, be true. A 
 popular picture must have a popular subject, and it must be treated 
 in a popular way. Colour is more attractive to the masses than 
 either form or expression. Action speaks to them more loudly than 
 words. Rubens was equally a master of action and colour, and he 
 was more anxious about his manner than his matter. IK knew 
 the popular power of appeals to the eye ; and, addressing himself to 
 the senses, lie readily became the painter of the people. 
 
 This "Descent, from the Cross" forms the centre of a large
 
 76 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 triptych, or double-winged altar-piece, in the chapel of the Guild of 
 Arquebusiers, in the south transept of the Cathedral at Antwerp. 
 Its history is well known. In pulling down and rebuilding his 
 house, Rubens had encroached upon the ground of the Corpora- 
 tion, and as an indemnity, he agreed to paint a picture of their 
 patron, St Christopher. The church furnished him with one of 
 their stock subjects, and the etymology of the name of the saint 
 suggested the adoption of a conceit which at first sadly puzzled and 
 disappointed the gunsmiths, and which seems to need, like other 
 quaint fancies of the time, some explanation. 
 
 The triptych contains five pictures, and in all of them there is a 
 reference to the legend which has given the name to the saint. On 
 each of the three inner panels, scriptural scenes are chosen where 
 Christ is represented as being carried. The idea is certainly subtle, 
 and we can readily forgive the civic guard for their obtuseness in 
 not perceiving the allusion to St Christopher. At first sight there 
 does not appear to be the remotest connexion between "The Saint" 
 and "The Visit of Mary to Elizabeth," "The Presentation in the 
 Temple," and "The Taking Down from the Cross." 
 
 The riddle was solved when the triptych was closed. On the re- 
 verse side of the wings (which act as shutters, closing over the 
 middle panel) the Canaanitish giant is seen, wading through the 
 water with his huge club, and carrying upon his shoulders the won- 
 drous child, whose importunity had roused him from his rest. The 
 saint is being lighted on his way, as he fords the river, by a hermit who 
 holds a lantern. There is nothing much to notice in these minor 
 pictures, except the brawny limbs of the giant, the earnest greeting 
 of Mary and Elizabeth, and the tired appearance of the ass. 
 
 Some allowance must be made for the quaintness of the age, or 
 the pun may prejudice us against the picture. It is, however, 
 almost as difficult to appreciate the quibble as it is to accept the 
 legend. The play upon the word seems to indicate a spirit of 
 trifling, that can hardly be reconciled with the elevation of mind 
 which is indispensable to a painter of sacred subjects. It serves to
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. n 
 
 strengthen a disagreeable suspicion of affectation, which grows upon 
 •you as you look at this work. 
 
 We are not, however, to judge the past by the present, nor to 
 argue from ourselves to others. This triptych was the production 
 of a Flemish painter, and it was designed for a Flemish church. 
 The pictures have the faults of their school, and Rubens, while far 
 behind Guido, Veronese, and Raphael, in scriptural feeling, was 
 far before Rembrandt, Vandyke, and Jordaens. We may also 
 remember that our Quarles, Wither, and Herbert, were his co- 
 temporaries, and that much of their poetry and piety were marred, 
 in the same way, by the mannerism of the time. There are those, 
 even in this day, who are not only able to tolerate, but actually to 
 relish this treatment of religious truths. The acceptableness of the 
 small wit of popular preachers is a case in point. 
 
 " The Taking Down from the Cross" was one of the first pictures 
 painted by Rubens after his return from Italy; and although evi- 
 dently betraying, in its general effect, a resemblance to Italian art, 
 it displays none of its power. It is indeed, as we shall see, an adap- 
 tation of the design of Volterra ; but while Rubens borrowed the 
 idea, he could not catch the style. His copies of the chef d'ev/w res 
 of Da Vinci, and his other studies in Italy, were unable to inspire 
 him with any feeling for grace, refinement, or ideal beauty; and it 
 would seem as if it had been impossible for him to overcome his 
 realistic tendencies, and the coarseness and vulgarity of his native 
 school. 
 
 Rubens knew wherein his great strength lav. For a time, he 
 may have tried to address himself to the mind and heart of a spec- 
 tator, but he soon relinquished the effort. His forte was in colour 
 rind chiaroscuro, and not in form and expression. Adopting the 
 watchword of the great master of ancient oratory, he gave himself 
 wholly up to "action ; " ami he often pushes the dramatic power of 
 his pictures to the verge of the theatric, il. 
 
 Never having any very serious aim, (living too much in tin' 
 world, ami being too much of it, to be in unison with the spirit of
 
 73 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 sacred art,) he chose those scenes which inspired him because they 
 admitted a picturesque treatment; and without any scruple of har- 
 monising the composition and colour of a picture with its senti- 
 ment, he abandoned himself to that placid and dashing style to 
 which he owes so much of his popularity. In an autograph letter, 
 preserved at Cologne, he gives, for instance, as his reason for select- 
 ing " The Crucifixion of Peter " as an altar-piece for the church in 
 which he was christened, that the circumstance of the. head being- 
 downward made a novel and fine incident for a picture. The pic- 
 torial situation of the cross, forming a diagonal line, in his " Eleva- 
 tion " in the other transept of the cathedral, — the opportunity 
 afforded for the display of energy in the muscular men, who appear 
 to be very unnecessarily exerting their utmost strength, — the sway- 
 ing of the body of the Christ, — seem to explain his choice of that 
 subject. Conscious, also, of his power of painting horses, he has 
 introduced them, and has thus added greatly to the picturesque 
 effect of the composition. One can easily understand, if these 
 things were so, how his great works would be deficient in historical 
 dignity, and how his representations of Holy Writ would be sadly 
 wanting in holy feeling. 
 
 While candidly confessing that our heart has not been stirred by 
 his Scripture scenes, it would be folly to attempt to ignore the 
 genius of Rubens. All who saw the splendid collection of his pic- 
 tures, in the collection of Art Treasures at Manchester in 1857, will 
 remember his power. Notwithstanding their detection of his 
 trickery, and their disgust at his coarseness, they must have been 
 forced, by the exuberance of his invention, the breadth, brightness, 
 and depth of his colour, and the extraordinary mastery of his 
 materials, to acknowledge how well he held his own in that memo- 
 rable contest of schools and masters. 
 
 Tastes differ, and are not to be disputed. We are being con- 
 stantly reminded, that about pictures, as well as about other things, 
 we are no judges for others. We have heard of those, for example, 
 who never looked at this " Descent from the Cross " without tears.
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 79 
 
 We read, in the " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," that Mrs 
 Stowe was in ecstacies when she saw it. She closes her rhapsody 
 with the declaration, " Art has satisfied me at last." This some- 
 what startling admission maybe accounted for by her circumstances. 
 " I confess," she writes, " I went to see the painting without much 
 enthusiasm. My experience with Correggio's 'Notte,' and some of 
 the celebrities of Dresden, was not encouraging. I was weary, too, 
 with sight-seeing. I expected to find an old, dim picture, half- 
 spoiled with cleaning, which I should be required to look into shape 
 by an exercise of my jaded imagination. After coming down from 
 hearing the chimes, we went into a side-room, and sat down before 
 the painting. My first sensation was of astonishment, blank, abso- 
 lute, overwhelming. After all I had seen, I had no idea of a paint- 
 ing like this. I was lifted off my feet, as much as by Cologne 
 Cathedral or Niagara Falls, so that I could neither reason nor think 
 whether I was pleased or not." 
 
 The portrait of Sir Peter Paul Rubens prepares you for his pic- 
 tures. He looks what he was — the accomplished, well-bred, and 
 successful man of the world.* Tall, handsome, courtly, well- 
 dressed and well-preserved, you can easily understand how his 
 career would be very different to the ordinary lives of painters. 
 You feel that you would have only yourself to blame for your dis- 
 appointment, if you expected to meet with any traces of unworldli- 
 ness in his works. 
 
 Heading the history of his busy life, you wonder how he could 
 find the time to produce the thousands of compositions which are 
 attributed to him. There is hardly a gallery in England that has 
 not. "a Rubens." The cities, towns, churches, and private cabi- 
 nets of the continent are full of his pictures. Many of them, in- 
 deed, look as if they had not cost him any lengthened labour, the 
 
 • [n our State Papei Office his letters are preserved, and have recently been edited 
 by Mr Sainsbury, who says of them, that th< j po e i "a high ami noble tunc, dig- 
 nity, firmnes . ind cautiousness, exquisitely united in the mosl polite courtesy, eleganl 
 nposition, and elevated sentiment, and at once shew the education of the gentleman, 
 
 n 1 1 < I the niiml of the man."
 
 80 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 grounds shewing that they have evidently been struck off at once 
 with the brush, his fire, rapidity, and self-confidence not permitting 
 him to pause over the more precise and studious details of his art. 
 There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. "The Fall of the 
 Lost/' for instance, in the Munich Gallery, is a carefully studied 
 work, being finished with the greatest care and delicacy. 
 
 Rubens is acknowledged to have been the most fertile of all 
 painters, whether ancient or modern ; and although you learn that 
 he was an early riser, careful in his living, and kept the Sabbath, 
 yet you hesitate to accept the fabulous number of his pictures, till 
 you find that many of those which bear his name, were the work of 
 his scholars who were employed in enlarging his small coloured 
 sketches. The best of their original works (if, indeed, they are 
 worthy of the name) are now often, and not improperly, attributed 
 to him. 
 
 Among the courts visited by Rubens was that of our Charles I.; 
 and we are indebted to this master for our possession of the Cartoons 
 of Raphael, and for inoculating our country with the love of the 
 fine arts. He received ^3000 for his paintings at Whitehall, 
 and they are characterised by that false allegorical taste for which 
 the artist has been so often reproached. In the "Apotheosis of 
 James I.," the Virtues are represented by members of Parliament ; 
 and Prudence, under the form of Apollo, holds in her hand the 
 horn of plenty. It was during his visit to this country that he 
 made his celebrated repartee, when surprised at his easel. " I see," 
 said a noble lord, " that the ambassador of His Catholic Majesty 
 amuses himself by painting, sometimes." " I amuse myself," 
 returned Rubens, " sometimes, by playing the ambassador." 
 
 In 1847, seven years after the bi-centenary of Rubens's death 
 had been kept with great eclat, and a colossal statue in bronze had 
 been erected to his memory in the centre of the Plase Verte, the 
 condition of his pictures in the cathedral at Antwerp became the 
 subject of serious consideration. The panels had shrunk, and the 
 paint had broken into scales. It was suggested that they should be
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 81 
 
 transferred from their panels to canvas ; but a pause was made before 
 trying this perilous experiment ; and at last it was determined only 
 to clean and restore them. The old varnish and the re-painting 
 which "The Descent from the Cross" had received in Paris, have 
 been removed; and the picture is considered to have gained much 
 by these losses. 
 
 One key to the popular impression produced by this picture is to 
 be found in its unity. Every figure has closed around the dead 
 Christ in a dense mass, and you have the strong effect of a single 
 group. Carrying out the reference to St Christopher, each person 
 is touching either the body, or the sheet by which the body is 
 beino- lowered. Some are touching; both. One holds the sheet 
 with his teeth in order that his hands may be free to assist in the 
 descent. All are thus gathered about a common centre, and are 
 brought into the closest contact. The master of action has chosen 
 
 O 
 
 the moment which is the moment of action. The action is con- 
 sentaneous and concentrated. The attention of every actor is 
 absorbed, for the moment is critical, requiring the exercise, of the 
 greatest care, and the exertion of the greatest strength. The time 
 demands a harmony. All must act together. The women have 
 risen, instinctivelv, to render their assistance, and they, too, are 
 touching, though you see that they are not supporting, the body. 
 
 Contrasts are popular. The contrasts here are strong and 
 striking. Utter helplessness is brought into immediate contact 
 with the utmost strength. The body in the centre is pale with 
 death, and the whole of the surrounding group are more or less 
 flushed and heated with animated action. Men are revealed to be 
 in the hand of God, — God seems to he here represented as in the 
 hands of men. 
 
 The subject itself is popular. It is a murder. The chief figure 
 is a corpse. Its drooping head, its naked indignity, its gaping 
 wounds, its ghastliness, appeal powerfully to the morbid tastes 
 of the masses. It is, of course, in perfect keeping with the genius 
 of the Church, which panders to the passions and prejudices of
 
 82 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 the people ; but " The Descent from the Cross " is just one of those 
 incidents to which but little prominence is given in the Bible, and its 
 treatment here cannot but be offensive to those whose religious 
 sentiments have been moulded by the spirit of Protestant Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 In Vol terra's picture the interest of the spectator is divided 
 between the lowering of the body and the group of the women 
 who are gathering round the fainting mother We admit, in 
 this treatment of the subject, the transgression of artistic law, 
 and the departure from the legendary traditions ; but we would 
 sooner look on that picture than on this, for the Italian seems 
 to have felt what he was painting. We overlook the want of 
 unity in his picture, because of the apparent singleness of his 
 heart. We excuse his disobedience to the canon which forbad 
 the representation of the Virgin as subject to a woman's weakness, 
 and his addition to the normal number of the ladders, because he has 
 given us a grand, impassioned work. We had rather see the 
 dying anguish in Volterra's Madonna, than recognise the portrait 
 of the wife of Rubens in the mother of our Lord. We prefer 
 finding Salome utterly overwhelmed in this time of trouble, to 
 discovering that, according to Rubens, she retained sufficient self- 
 consciousness to be arranging her dress. The only persons, in 
 the Antwerp picture, really in earnest, are the two workmen, 
 finely fore-shortened figures, stretching over the arms of the cross, 
 and they are borrowed. The other actors in the scene appear to 
 be acting. 
 
 The composition of this "Descent from the Cross" raises again 
 the subject of plagiarism, and suggests the question as to whether 
 it is justifiable to plunder in the way which seems common in 
 the art world. In the " Exposition of the Cartoons of Raphael " 
 we found the figure of the Paul, in the " Preaching at Athens," 
 was a copy; and the central group of Lystra is taken and adopted 
 from an antique bas-relief in the Admiranda. The system seems 
 to have prevailed from the first, and to have continued till to-dav.
 
 » 
 

 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 83 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, a bold adopter, has his theory for the defence 
 of this practice. 
 
 It is not easy, at any rate in pictures representing the events 
 in the history of our Lord, to settle the question of originality. 
 There is, however, sufficient internal evidence here to shew that 
 Rubens must have seen the fresco of Volterra at Rome, and that 
 he had no scruple in adopting some of the figures. His un- 
 deniable fertility of invention and skill screen him from any charge 
 of poverty. He is said to have pilfered wholesale from the old 
 Germans, and his lion and tiger hunts appear to be variations 
 of Da Vinci's Cartoon of the Rattle of the Standard, with the 
 addition of the wild beasts. There is but little original invention in 
 the world, and there is no place where this poverty is more patent 
 than in a gallery of pictures. 
 
 In criticising the works of the old painters of Scripture subjects, 
 it is only fair to remember that they were not left to themselves 
 in the treatment of their designs, but were obliged to conform 
 to established rules. Explicit directions were given by the Church, 
 and the remarkably uniform character of their compositions is 
 rather to be attributed to ecclesiastical authority than to poverty 
 of invention. 
 
 A very celebrated treatise was written in the thirteenth century 
 bv John Fidenza, better known as St Bonaventura, entitled, 
 "Meditations on the Life of Jesus Christ," which seems to have 
 definitely fixed in Italy, France, Flanders, a>*l — KttgfrTncb the 
 orthodox patterns.* Another ancient series of rules was drawn 
 up in Greece, and is still held in the highest estimation by artists 
 residing in Greek monasteries, and employed in the decoration 
 of churches. 
 
 The following paragraph, containing Bonaventura's description of 
 
 * " Meditationes Vita Domini nostri Jesu Christi," first printed by Gunther 
 
 Twiner in 14' s . A very valuable translation, from a B) inline .MS., was published 
 
 by M. Didron al Pari in [845, and an l nglish translation, in tin- a year, was 
 
 le by the Rev. F. O
 
 84 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 "The Taking Down from the Cross" of the body of our Saviour, 
 will throw some light upon the composition of this picture, and it 
 may be regarded as a sample of the minuteness of the details which 
 were furnished to painters : — 
 
 "Do you now attend, as I have directed you in many places, 
 diligently and fixedly, to the manner of Taking Down the Sacred 
 Body. They place Two Ladders, one against each arm of The 
 Cross. Joseph goes up the ladder on the right side, and tries 
 hard to draw oat the nail from His hand. But this it is diffi- 
 cult to do, for the nail is thick and long, and strongly fixed in 
 the wood ; and, without violently bruising the hand of our Lord, 
 it does not seem as if it could be effected. But there is no rude 
 violence in the act, for he does it in a loyal spirit; and it is 
 thus that our Lord graciously receives it. As soon as it is drawn 
 out, John makes a sign to Joseph that he should hand the nail 
 to him, that our Lady might not see it. Then Nicodemus drew 
 out the other nail from the left hand, and, in like manner, gives 
 it to John. Then Nicodemus came down, and proceeded to draw 
 out the nail which fastened the feet. Joseph, in the meanwhile, 
 supported the body of our Lord. Happy Joseph ! who enjoyed the 
 privilege of thus embracing our Lord's Body. Then our Lady 
 reverently took the right hand as it hung down, and presses it 
 to her mouth : she gazes upon it and kisses it with floods of tears 
 and dolorous sighs. As soon as Joseph had drawn out the nail 
 which fastened the feet, within a while he came down ; and then 
 they all receive the Body of our Lord on the ground. Our Lady 
 receives the sacred Head into her bosom ; and Magdalene the 
 feet, at which she had formerly found such grace. The others 
 stand round, and all make great lamentation over Him : for they 
 all mourn for Him in greatest bitterness ; — ' as one that mourneth 
 for his only son.'" 
 
 It is thought that Michael Angelo furnished Volterra with his 
 design. There is a plastic feeling and anatomical perfection in the 
 descending body of the Christ, and a vigour and freshness about
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 85 
 
 the whole conception, which seems to betray the hand of the great 
 master of form. To this the scholar doubtless alluded, when he 
 painted his master with a looking-glass near it, as if to intimate 
 that he might recognise in the picture a reflection of himself. 
 Poussin considered it to be the third greatest picture in the world, 
 inferior only to Raphael's "Transfiguration," and to the "St 
 Jerome " of Domenichino. It was painted in the church of Trinita 
 de' Monti, at Rome, and was transferred from the wall to canvas 
 by Pietro Palmaroli in 181 1, being the first experiment of that 
 kind. 
 
 Rubens also has been indebted to Michael Anoelo. He has 
 adopted his main serpentine line, flowing diagonally from one 
 corner of the picture to the other, and has thus added considerably 
 to the unity and picturesqueness of his work. This line is produced 
 by the form of the principal figure, and is still farther extended by 
 the winding-sheet, and is continued by the elbow of the Magdalene, 
 and passes away by the arm of Salome. The light follows the 
 direction of the line, and answers the same purpose. The white 
 drapery, (" the clean linen cloth " of the Gospels,) while determining 
 the line, shapes the light, and is used in a masterly manner for pro- 
 ducing a striking effect in chiaroscuro and colour. The originality 
 of this conception also has been doubted. There is an Italian 
 print, bearing the inscription, "Peter Passer, invenit; Hieronymus 
 Wirix, sculpsit," which contains this device, and from which it has 
 been supposed that it was borrowed by Rubens. Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, in his "Journey to Flanders and Holland," refers to the 
 print, and at the same time furnishes some criticisms on this pic- 
 ture. " The greatest peculiarity," he savs, " of this composition is 
 the Contrivance of the white sheet, on which the body of Jesus lies. 
 This circumstance was probably what induced Rubens to adopt the 
 composition. He well knew what effect white linen, opposed to 
 flesh, must have with his powers of colouring; a circumstance 
 which was not likely to enter into the mind of an Italian painter, 
 who probably would have been afraid of the linen's hurting the
 
 86 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 colouring of the flesh, and have kept it down of a low tint. And 
 the truth is, that none but great colourists can venture to paint pure 
 white linen near flesh ; but such know the advantage of it, so that 
 possibly what was stolen by Rubens, the possessor knew not how to 
 value, and certainly *no person knew so well as Rubens how to use. 
 After all, this may perhaps turn out another Lauder's detection of 
 plagiarism. I could wish to see this print, if there is one, to ascer- 
 tain how far Rubens was indebted to it for his Christ, which T con- 
 sider as one of the finest figures ever invented ; it is most correctly 
 drawn, and, I apprehend, in an attitude of the utmost difficulty to 
 execute. The hanging of the head on His shoulder, and the falling 
 of the body on one side, gives such an appearance of the heaviness 
 of death that nothing can exceed it. 
 
 " Of the three Marys, two of them have more beauty than he 
 generally bestowed on female figures, but no great elegance of char- 
 acter, The St Joseph of Arimathea is the same countenance which 
 he so often introduced in his works — a smooth fat face ; a very un- 
 historical character. 
 
 " The principal light is formed by the body of Christ and the 
 white sheet; there is no second light which bears any proportion to 
 the principal. In this respect it has more the manner of Rem- 
 brandt's disposition of light than any other of Rubens' works. 
 However, there are many little detached lights distributed at some 
 distance from the great mass, such as the head and shoulders of the 
 Magdalene, the heads of the two Marys, the head of St Joseph, 
 and the back and arm of the figure leaning over the cross, the 
 whole surrounded with a dark sky, except a little light in the 
 horizon, and above the cross." 
 
 The neutral tint running through the centre of the picture har- 
 monises the whole. The three positive colours are placed at the 
 angles of a triangle. The red robe of the apostle John, throwing 
 an ivory tint over the corpse, abates its ghastliness ; and the colour 
 is repeated on the other side by the red cap of Joseph, and by the 
 blood on the hand and arm of the Christ. The attention of the
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 87 
 
 spectator is drawn to the mother, who stands and supports the arm, 
 (according to the legend,) by the great value given to the flesh of 
 the face by the blue drapery. Her face and figure, however, form 
 the least effective part of the picture. The blue is repeated in the 
 garment of the figure, stretching with both arms over the cross. 
 The dress of Joseph, the hair of the Magdalene, the hair and dress 
 of the other Mary, and the light at the horizon, are of a yellow tint. 
 The secondary colours are placed around the positive, the dress of 
 Nicodemus being purple, and that of the Magdalene a green. The 
 pure colours, placed side by side, are left for distance to blend. 
 The gorgeous colouring of the picture, richly harmonious as it is, 
 seems, however, to be more in accordance with the taste of the artist 
 than with the tone of the scene. 
 
 His light is concentrated and confined chiefly to the principal 
 figure, and the white drapery by which it is supported. The flesh 
 forms a half tint. The deepest shadow is in the centre, and is 
 brought to a focus by the arm of Nicodemus. The angle of the 
 elbow assists also, by its form, in the expression of energy and 
 power. 
 
 It appears evident, from the works of Rubens, that his method of 
 painting was to lay on his colours in their place, one on the side of 
 the other, and mix them afterwards by a slight touch of the pencil. 
 Titian mingled his tints as they are in nature, in such a manner as 
 to render it impossible to discover where they began or terminated; 
 the effect is evident, the labour is concealed. Thus Rubens is more 
 dazzling, and Titian more harmonious. In this respect, the first 
 excites the attention, the second fixes it. The carnations of Titian 
 resemble the blush of nature, those of Rubens are brilliant and 
 polished like satin ; and sometimes his tints are so strong and sepa- 
 rate as to have the effect of spots. 
 
 This picture, while almost preventing us from dwelling upon the 
 death of our adorable Redeemer, and discouraging those sacred feel- 
 ings which are ever excited by a contemplation of that ineffable 
 sacrifice, 111, iv serve to remind us of the two strange facts, — that
 
 88 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 he was taken down from the cross, and that he was taken down 
 from the cross by Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea. 
 
 The Romans, as a rule, left the crucified on the crosses to be 
 devoured by birds. The Jewish Sanhedrim evidently expected that 
 there would be no deviation from the usual custom in this case, for 
 we read, " The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that 
 the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath-day, 
 (for that Sabbath-day was a high day,) besought Pilate that 
 their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away." * 
 
 The death of our Lord, and the slightest circumstances connected 
 with it, had happened by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge 
 of God. His burial had been foretold, and events proved that 
 everything had been anticipated. Up to the moment of His death, 
 however, nothing had occurred to render it likely. If the bodies of 
 the crucified were not granted to their friends, they were flung into 
 the Gehenna ; but the disciples of our Lord had forsaken Him and 
 fled. There were, indeed, the women who had followed Him in His 
 life, and had been faithful till death, but they were helpless. At the 
 last moment and in a most unexpected manner, without any interfer- 
 ence of His recognised disciples or intimate friends, the prophecy is 
 fulfilled. " It is the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes." 
 
 Our Lord was taken down from the cross, and the descent was 
 actually effected by two members of the Sanhedrim. Until the 
 crucifixion, we have no knowledge of the existence of Joseph of 
 Arimathea; and if we had heard of him, we should never have 
 suspected his feeling towards Christ, since we are told that none of 
 the rulers believed on Him. What we had known of Nicodemus 
 would never have led us to suppose that he would have done what 
 the professed disciples of our Lord dared not do. When we con- 
 sider the worldly wealth of these two men, and their social standing, 
 and that by such an act they perilled their property and position, 
 (for any manifestation of faith in Jesus of Nazareth would lead to 
 their excommunication, and that involved the sacrifice of civil as 
 
 * John xix. 31.
 
 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 89 
 
 well as of religious rights,) we may assuredly see the finger of God. 
 They may both have felt a considerable interest in the work, teach- 
 ing, and life of our Lord, and they must have been unquestionably 
 attached to Him, but they had not yet openly declared themselves. 
 They were only secret disciples. They had, as yet, feared the Jews 
 more than they had cared for Christ. Nicodemus, truly, had once 
 in the Sanhedrim spoken a word on behalf of our Lord, and had 
 absented himself with Joseph from the council meeting when the death 
 was determined on ; but no reliance could be placed upon this nega- 
 tive feeling. We should have said, that if any interference would be 
 made on behalf of the body, it would not have been made by them. 
 
 The presence and the conduct of Nicodemus and Joseph of Ari- 
 mathea, may be regarded as some of the very first fruits of the 
 power of the cross. From the very day when our Lord took up His 
 cross, there have been those who have taken up theirs and followed 
 Him. The love of Christ can constrain Christians to do and to suffer 
 anything for Him. The record of the Descent seems to have been 
 written to shew that, although we may be born rich, or be naturally 
 cowards, — although we may be well-connected in our church, — faith 
 in Christ as the redeeming God will give us a victory over ourselves, 
 the world, and even the very church to which we may belong. 
 
 The very linen teaches us a lesson. As we look at it, we know 
 that it bodes a burial. It is a winding-sheet. We are taught 
 again that every word of God is true. Heaven and earth may 
 pass away, but I lis words cannot pass away till all be fulfilled. Had 
 the other members of the Sanhedrim succeeded in obtaining the body, 
 they would, doubtless, have fiung it into a dishonoured grave; but 
 bow, then, could the Scriptures have been fulfilled? Our Lord had 
 suffered with the thieves, but He is to be buried by Joseph of Ari- 
 mathea, a rich man, in his own tomb, for it had been written : — 
 
 "Altli" grave was appointed with ill wicked, 
 
 Yet with a rich man would be his tomb." * 
 
 ' I ,.t. liii. 9.
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 No. VIT. 
 
 Clje Burial of our LoiU 
 
 " Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden ; and in the garden 
 a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore, 
 because of the Jews' preparation-day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand." — John 
 xix. 41, 42.
 
 THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD. 
 
 "Lord ! when Thou didst Thyselfe undresse, 
 Laying by Thy robes of glory, 
 To make us more Thou wouldst be les.se, 
 And becam'st a wofull story. 
 
 "To put on Clouds instead of light, 
 
 And cloath the morning-starre with dust, 
 Was a translation of fresh height 
 As, but in Thee, was ne'r exprest. 
 
 "Brave wormes and Earth ! that thus could have 
 A God Enclosed within your Cell, 
 Your Maker pent up in a grave, 
 
 Life lockt in death, Heaven in a shell ! 
 
 "Ah, my dearc Lord ! what couldst Thou spye 
 In this impure, rebellious clay, 
 That made Thee thus resolve to dye 
 For those that kill Thee every day ! 
 
 "Oh, what strange wonders could Thee move 
 To slight Thy precious bloud and breath ! 
 Sure it was Love, my Lord ; for Lai ve 
 Is only stronger far than death ! " 
 
 Henry Vaughan. 
 
 |HIS last picture forms a striking contrast to the first. In 
 the Madonna della Seggiola, the Virgin appears as the 
 happy mother of her first-born child. Here her heart 
 and her flesh have failed her, and her face and form are full of blank 
 desolation. In Loth pictures her Son is resting on her knees, but 
 in the one He is full of life, and nestles in her bosom ; in the other 
 He hangs heavily upon her with all the heaviness of death. 
 
 During some short pause in the hurried proceedings, the mother,
 
 94 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 with a mother's feelings, and the strong instinct of a breaking 
 heart, has found the body as it has been left alone for a moment, 
 and she has sat herself down upon the ground and lifted up its 
 head. It is the last act in a long day. She has over-estimated her 
 powers of endurance. The tension of her feelings will bear nothing 
 more, much less this. Ere she has folded the body in her arms, she 
 falls back in a swoon. The women, who may have been assisting 
 at the tomb, see her falling and run to save her. One is in time. 
 Another stands, still stretching out her hands. Mary Magdalene is 
 arrested by the face of the dead, and falls, in an agony, on her 
 knees. 
 
 According to the legend, the afflicted mother had embraced the 
 arm of her son, as soon as it had been liberated from the cross, and 
 the apostle John had taken away, secretly, the nails which had fas- 
 tened the hands, that she might not see them. The nails which fas- 
 tened the feet appear, in this picture, to have been overlooked, and 
 they seem to be so placed by the artist as if he would attribute the 
 swoon in some measure to them. 
 
 There is no Scripture authority for this scene. It is just one of 
 those circumstances which might have happened, but one that was 
 sure not to have been recorded. A studied reserve is maintained 
 throughout the sacred history respecting the mother of our Lord ; 
 she is seldom noticed after the birth at Bethlehem, and when any 
 reference is made to her, it is so slight, that it would seem as if the 
 heresy of her worship had been anticipated and provided against. 
 "The testimony of Christ" is the purpose of the gospels, as much 
 as it is " the spirit of prophecy." Nothing irrelevant is intro- 
 duced, still less anything that might distract the attention from 
 I Jim, who is the only object of a sinner's faith and love. Christ is 
 all in all. The canvas is not crowded. There is no question as to 
 the principal figure. The evangelist John, evidently guided by 
 that principle of selection, on which the whole of revelation is 
 composed, seems to have been inspired with the gift of reticence. 
 I J is history, and those of the other evangelists, are completely
 
 THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD. 95 
 
 opposed in this, as well as in other points, to the voluminous, con- 
 tused, and purposeless accounts of unauthorised narrators. The 
 apostle is as explicit respecting the omissions in his gospel, as he is 
 concerning its aim. " And many other signs truly did Jesus in the 
 presence of His disciples, which are not written in this hook ; hut 
 these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the 
 Son of God ; and that believing ye might have life through His 
 name." * 
 
 The women may have taken some part in " The Deposition." 
 The death of our Lord had been sudden and unexpected. It oc- 
 curred not many minutes after He had committed His mother to the 
 care of the beloved disciple. Others, besides Pilate, must have mar- 
 velled when they saw, or when they heard of the early and abrupt 
 termination of the tragedy. No one was aware that He was dying 
 before He was crucified, not even His disciples, though they had seen 
 Him in His agony sweating great drops of blood. He was stricken 
 for death at Gethsemane, rather than at Calvary. The cross may 
 have hastened His end, but He must have died if He had not been 
 crucified. " He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised 
 for our iniquities;" but it was in His mind more than in His body. 
 " And a wounded spirit who can bear? " 
 
 The mother of our Lord, her sister Mary, the wife of Cleophas, 
 and Mary Magdalene, might therefore have been still standing by 
 the cross with John when all was over. They might have borne 
 some momentary part m the taking down of the body, and it is just 
 possible that some such a scene as is here represented might have 
 occurred, though, perhaps, it is by no means likely. We are told 
 that "I lis acquaintance and the women who followed Him from 
 I ralilee stood alar oil", beholding these things." They seem to have 
 drawn off towards the close. At the approach of Nicodemus and 
 Joseph, learning their errand, they may have retraced their steps. 
 
 Although the body of our Lord stretches along the foreground of 
 tins picture, it. docs not seem to have been painted to >hcw forth 
 
 * John xx. 30, 31.
 
 96 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 His death, but rather to awaken our sympathy for the " Mater 
 Dolorosa." The line of the corpse leads us to her fainting figure, 
 and the other lines of the picture verging towards her, we are at 
 once aware of its intention. Only Mary Magdalene is looking at 
 our Lord. It might form one of a series of pictures of the life of 
 the Virgin. 
 
 The treatment of the picture supposes the descent to have been 
 accomplished, and the arrangements for the entombment to be 
 taking place. The women may have been away preparing the 
 spices. It represents an intermediate moment. The technical title 
 of the scene is "The Deposition. " A deposition is treated as a 
 history, and it is distinguished from the devotional form of the 
 subject which is called a " Pieta." A Pieta is addressed to the faith 
 and piety of an observer. 
 
 According to Mrs Jameson: — "The most important and most 
 beautiful of all, as far as the Virgin is concerned, is the group called 
 the ' Pieta,' which, when strictly devotional, consists onlv of the 
 Virgin with her dead Son in her arms, or on her lap, or lying at her 
 feet ; in some instances with lamenting angels, but no other person- 
 ages. This group has been varied in a thousand ways : no doubt 
 the two most perfect conceptions are those of Michael Angelo and 
 Raphael ; the first excelling in sublimity, the latter in pathos. The 
 celebrated marble group by Michael Angelo stands in the Vatican 
 in a chapel to the right as we enter. The Virgin is seated ; the dead 
 Saviour lies across the knees of His mother ; she looks down on Him 
 in mingled sorrow and resignation, but the majestic resignation pre- 
 dominates. The composition of Raphael exists only as a print; 
 but the flimsy paper, consecrated through its unspeakable beauty, is 
 likely to be as lasting as the marble. It represents the Virgin stand- 
 ing with outstretched arms, and looking up with an appealing, 
 agonised expression towards heaven ; before her, on the earth, lies 
 extended the form of the Saviour. In tenderness, dignity, simpli- 
 city, and tragic pathos, nothing can exceed this production ; the 
 head of the Virgin, in particular, is regarded as a masterpiece, so far
 
 THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD. 97 
 
 exceeding every other work of Marc Antonio, that some have thought 
 that Raphael himself took the basin from his hand, and touched 
 himself that face of woe. 
 
 "Another example of wonderful beauty is the ' Pieta' bv Francia, 
 in our National Gallery. The form of Christ lies extended before 
 His mother; a lamenting angel sustains the head, another is at the 
 feet ; the Virgin, with eyes red and heavy with weeping, looks out of 
 the picture. There needs no visible sword in her bosom to tell what 
 anguish has pierced that maternal heart." 
 
 "The Deposition " formed a frequent subject for votive pictures, 
 offered by those who had been bereaved. These pictures were hung 
 as memorials in chapels consecrated to their dead. The Virgin is 
 represented in them as the mother of Pity, and being possessed, as 
 a mother, of a love which is revealed to be the highest type of the 
 love or God, and having suffered the greatest of human sorrows, she 
 would appear as if she were able to sympathise with, and almost to 
 succour, the children of woe. These tvpes, although the shadows 
 of some better thing which God has provided for us, are not the 
 very image of the thing, and can never make the comers thereunto 
 perfect. There is nothing in a Deposition or a Pieta, although it 
 may have been painted for the consolation of the afflicted, "to 
 minister to a mind diseased." There is nothing in the Virgin which 
 will enable any to rejoice in tribulation. The Virgin cannot help 
 herself. Here she has sunk senseless under her sorrow, and she is 
 surrounded bv those who are sorrowing, as those sorrow who have 
 no hope. It is but poor consolation that is to be derived from con- 
 sidering the sorrows of others. A mere human being, however tried 
 and however touched with a feeling for our infirmities, is but a mise- 
 rable comforter after all. There is but One who has been sent to 
 bind up the broken-hearted, and lie alone can give them beauty for 
 ashes, the oil oi joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the 
 spirit of hea\ iness. 
 
 Moving from tin- standpoint of the faithful, and looking at. this 
 picture in the lighl of Protestant Christianity, we air, perhaps, as 
 
 1.
 
 98 EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 impressed with the utter helplessness of the mourners as we are with 
 the poignancy of their grief. Some critics can only see the women 
 weeping and hear them wail, almost ridiculing their frantic cries as 
 womanish weakness. Their criticism is as superficial as it is unkind. 
 Every allowance is to he made. It is the first overwhelming burst of 
 anguish. The mother has given way, and for the moment her com- 
 panions are overcome. All alike claim our compassion. They had 
 attended on our Lord during His ministry, and had ministered to 
 Him of their substance, entertained Him in their homes; they had 
 lived with Him and loved Him; they had begun to believe in Him 
 as the Christ, the Son of God, having seen the mighty miracles 
 which He had done, and having heard the gracious words that had 
 proceeded out of His mouth. One had often sat at His feet, and 
 had once and again manifested her strong personal attachment to 
 Him. She had received her dead brought to life again, and had be- 
 trayed some power of retaining her faith in Him although He should 
 be crucified. Faithful till death, they had followed Him weeping, 
 when His disciples had forsaken Him and fled. He had given them 
 some of His last davs, and had addressed to them some of His last 
 words. Perhaps with more than the usual infatuation of those who 
 love, they had not believed that He eoidd really die 1 . Holding, in 
 common with the disciples, the doctrine of a temporal Messiah and 
 a personal reign, they would share the suspicion of Judas, that in an 
 extremity, there would be a provision made for some way of escape. 
 At first they would think that He would never be delivered into 
 tin' hands of the Sanhedrim ; and then when I le was, they would be 
 sure that He could never be crucified; and even at the last, they 
 would expect Him to come down from the cross. Their faith fails 
 them, and their hope has put them to shame. The whole is a 
 delusion. They cannot believe that this Jesus of Nazareth, 
 suffering these things, is the Christ of God. They are Jews, and 
 " Christ crucified is to the Jews a stumbling-block." Their hearts 
 are bursting with disappointment as well as with woe. They are at 
 their wits' end, having been brought to desolation in a moment,
 
 THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD. 99 
 
 It is possible that the selection of this subject for a picture, 
 or, at any rate, its treatment, has been somewhat influenced by 
 the words of the prophet Zechariah. " And they shall look upon 
 me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one 
 mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one 
 who is in bitterness for his first-born.'"* 
 
 The picture belongs, nominally, to the Eclectic school. If it 
 were only for the sake of its strange power over the masses, (as 
 proved by the crowds it drew in the Manchester Exhibition of 
 1857,) it would bring credit to any academy. The Eclectics were, 
 however, unfortunate in their pretensions and their poetry. They 
 tried to form a perfect school by the union of the principles of all 
 others. A sonnet, by one of their number, Agostino Caracci, in 
 which this patchwork ideal is thus described, has often laid them 
 open to ridicule. " Let him who wishes to be a good painter ac- 
 quire the design of Rome, Venetian action and Venetian manage- 
 ment of shade, the dignified colour of Lombardy, (that is, of Leo- 
 nardo da Vinci,) the terrible manner of Michael Angelo, Titian's 
 brush and nature, the sovereign purity of Correggio's style, and the 
 just symmetry of a Raphael; the decorum and well-grounded study 
 of Tibaldi, the invention of the learned Primaticcio, and a little of 
 Parmigianio's grace ; but without so much study and weary labour, 
 let him apply himself to imitate the works which our Niecolo (dell' 
 Abbate) left us here." 
 
 The whole reads like a mistake. Eclecticism seems to ignore the 
 condition under which we achieve any success or enjoy any good. 
 We are always beaten in every victory, and we have to take some 
 evil with every boon. When the theory is applied to painting it is 
 found to be absurd, since the excellence of any characteristic quality 
 1- lost as soon ;i> it is separated from others bv which it had been 
 controlled and harmonised. The system in which the most original 
 painters have worked, has been, in a measure, always eclectic j and 
 SO, in a sense, it will remain. No painter of true taste can see an 
 
 * Zechariah xii. 10.
 
 too EXPOSITIONS OF GREAT PICTURES. 
 
 excellence anywhere, without the wish and the effort to engraft it 
 into his own stvle. 
 
 The Eclectics were not, and indeed they could not be, true to 
 their principles. They were, as many others have been, better than 
 their creed. They served their day and generation by drawing the 
 attention of the art-world to the principles that lay at the founda- 
 tion of picturesque science, (for painting is a science,) and they were 
 as faithful to Nature as any of the Naturalisti. They lived in an 
 age of insipidity, mannerism, and extravagance, and while falling 
 into the mistakes, they displayed the energy of all earnest reformers. 
 Annibale, the greatest of the Caracci, and the acknowledged leader 
 of the school, painted this picture. It was formerly in the Orleans 
 collection, and is now the property of the Earl of Carlisle. 
 
 A serpentine line runs diagonally through the composition, and 
 the eye is carried by it into and out of the picture. Distance is 
 given by the main line leading away to the sky. The idea of depth 
 is felt from the falling back of the figures from the very foreground. 
 The small corner of sky helps you to breathe, for there is an op- 
 pression in the atmosphere, as if the gloom of the great darkness 
 had not entirely passed away. The whole of the remaining portion 
 of the background is enclosed, with here and there a tree among 
 the rocks. The trees remind you that you are in a garden ; — you 
 hardly need to look at the rocks which have been hewn, to remind 
 you that in that garden there is a sepulchre. The streaks in the 
 sky tell the time. It is toward evening, and the day is far spent. 
 
 The pose of the arm of the corpse, as it hangs over the knee of 
 the Virgin, (so helpful in the expression of death,) seems to have 
 been required to be repeated again and again, that some of the 
 severity of the line might be abated. You trace its form in the 
 other arm behind it. The hands, feet, and legs, have none of that 
 rigidity which is sometimes given in entombments, by those who 
 forget that life had but lately lingered in them, and that it had 
 been taken away in such a manner as to prevent terrible death from 
 taking possession of the body with his usual rigour.
 
 THE BURIAL OF OUR LORD. 101 
 
 The shock of death is broken by a gradation. You pass from 
 death to life by having to look on the fainting form of the Virgin. 
 The danger of confounding the resemblance with the reality was of 
 course great, but the difference has been preserved by the expres- 
 sions of the countenances, the ghastly hue, flung by the blue drapery 
 of the Virgin over the corpse, (a russet handkerchief being placed 
 near her face,) and last, not least, the contrast of her living hand, 
 which still rests upon the body, and has not quite lost all its power. 
 
 The hands are equal in expression to the faces. They repeat the 
 feeling of the picture with many variations and without any tau- 
 tology. They add greatly to the unity of the impression of a 
 moment of unutterable woe. They are deficient, as are the faces, 
 in refinement, but that could not have been avoided. Strength of 
 feeling is incompatible with symmetry of form and delicacy of ex- 
 pression. The Greeks felt that their ideal of the human form 
 would have suffered, if it were associated with human feelings and 
 passions. Hence the statues of their passionless gods. 
 
 As we look upon this picture, we remember that we do not 
 worship One who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infir- 
 mities, and that we are not called to mourn over " a dead Christ/' 
 He is not dead, He is risen. The apostles themselves ever seemed 
 to shrink from dwelling upon the death of our Lord, and with 
 evident haste and gratitude turned to His resurrection and His life. 
 " He died," say they, "yea rather, is risen again, and is even at the 
 right hand of God." Our Lord himself does not wish us to think 
 much of death and the grave. He weeps with us as we mourn over 
 those whom we have lost, as He wept with this Mary who is weep- 
 ing over Him here. What He said to her, He says to us all, " I 
 am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though 
 he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever livcth, and believeth 
 in me, shall never die. Believest thou this?" 
 
 Ballantyne and Company, Printers^ Edinburgh.
 
 By the same A nthor, 
 Illustrated by Photographs printed by Negretti and Zambra, 
 
 THE 
 
 Expositions of the Cartoons of Raphael. 
 
 Price 8s. 6d. cloth elegant. 
 
 EXTRA CTS FROM RE VIE I VS. 
 
 "In place of the o'd insipid annuals, we have now a numerous race of books far better adapted 
 for the gifts which help so much to make Christmas merry and the New Year happy. Various in 
 size, price, and character, they suit all purses, ages, and temperaments. At the head of our present 
 batch, we may place ' Expositions of the Cartoons of Raphael,' (Nisbet & Co.,) the author of which 
 is Richard Henry Smith, jun., evidently a man of artistic taste and strong religious feeling, who has 
 made his residence near Hampton Court an opportunity for continuous study of the famous Car- 
 toons, and seems to have constituted himself a sort of oral interpreter of ' the divine painter' to 
 groups of holiday people, glad of every information about the artist and his work. Thus, he says, 
 he had been led on to write these popular expositions of the story of each Cartoon. But of course 
 no exposition would be worth having without a presentment of the Cartoon itself, and that part oi 
 the work has been very successfully accomplished by Messrs Negretti and Zambra, the photograph- 
 ists. The scale of the work is necessarily so much reduced from the original, that a glass is neces- 
 sary fur the due examination of the photographs ; and with this auxiliary, the ' Expositions' will be 
 found a very useful as well as handsome book — a treasure of artistic pleasure and New Testament 
 knowledge." — Morning Star. 
 
 ''The handsome book now before us, containing a photograph of each of the Cartoons, with Mr 
 Smith's very thoughtful and tasteful comments upon them, will serve to perpetuate and to improve 
 the salutary as well as gratifying impressions which a view of those grand paintings must create." — 
 Daily News. 
 
 "The possible publication of such a volume at so low a price is a positive triumph, in its \va\" 
 over i ilties of costly and laborious art. The expositions which accompany them are pious 
 
 and sensible ; and this book is one which will retain its interest, and answer any season." — Black- 
 wood's Magazine. 
 
 " But it is not in the photographs, after all, that the great charm of this book lies, for us — it is in the 
 
 as of the gr i furnished by Mr Smith. He tells us that, having studied the Car 
 
 in the gal! i il Hampton Court, he became, 'year after year, more interested in them, and 
 
 as he became more familiar with them, w.is led to search the Scriptures from which Raphael sclect- 
 
 subjects:' the present hook is the result of his investigation of the sacred record of the va- 
 
 i hi his study of their treatment by this ' divine' painter. How much this man see- ! 
 
 ' loon, the appreciation of its minutest details, and 
 
 which mark each exposition, interest us not only by the inter- 
 pretation ol Raphael, bul bj thi di lowers of keen analysis and of broad combination, thai 
 are very rare for their delii acy and their strength. We have felt again and again, in turning from 
 the expository page to tl n, it illustrates that we have received a revelation of spiritual 
 ted by us before. But not less do we admire Mr Smith's acquaintance 
 with Scripture. Only by knowing it perfei tly himself, and by bringing true in light to its unfolding, 
 I he exhibit Rap found and more than artistic, even spiritual and emotional, conver 
 with the U'onl he translated and expounded by his art. And the religious thought is as robust 
 ami ii iment is di in live. The work is one, consequently, 
 nerely to be added to the elegancii 10m, bul to be used in the family, — a 
 mother's treat for tin- - hildren on i s ibbath evenin ; at Kin.-, oi .i lonely hour's pure pleasure when 
 denii mist, 
 " W 10 doubt that the of Mr Smith's book will go far to revive the fallen taste
 
 EXPOSITIONS OF THE CARTOONS OF RAPHAEL— Continued. 
 
 for the Cartoons. The book may confidently be recommended as one likely to be reverenced by 
 all." — Illustrated Times. 
 
 "This is a most dainty and pleasant book to set before the public. Handsomely bound, printed 
 with a clear beautiful type on tinted paper, embellished with a series of photographs as perfect as 
 their size will permit, the ' Expositions,' if only the author's aim be taken into the account not un- 
 worthy of these luxurious accessories, — no illustrated gift book of the season, of an equal price, is 
 likely to surpass it. The book is of too dainty and delicate a sort to be very largely used as a guide, 
 and referred to in the presence of those great works of art which have suggested it ; but hardly any 
 one can read it, referring meanwhile to the photographs which illustrate it, without being prepared 
 to study the Cartoons at Hampton Court with a more thoughtful and discern ng eye. It is a great 
 misfortune that many people, the large majority of us, perhaps, when looking at a masterpiece of 
 art, in which the thought and toil of years are expressed, grow impatient if it does not at once dis- 
 close its full meaning and beauty. In our immodest haste we forget that what it has tasked brain 
 and heart to conceive and express, it tasks brain and heart to apprehend, that the products of a mind 
 of far larger original endowment and more various culture than our own must long perplex our la- 
 bouring thoughts. Because we are thus forgetful, we pass by with indifference, and as unworthy of 
 studious regard, that which, if we were more modest and observant, would refine and enlarge our 
 faculties, and make of every 'thing of beauty' 'a joy for ever.' It would be well for us if we ap- 
 proached every work of a master, every work which has won the approval of ' the generations of the 
 wise,' in a reverent and expectant spirit. The more we look for, the more we shall find ; the more 
 humble we are, the more we shall open ourselves to the influences of that creative spirit which God 
 has breathed into the more gifted of the sons of men. Mr Smith teaches us, by example and pre- 
 cept, to approach the Cartoons of Raphael in this temper. He has qualified himself for the office of 
 expositor, by some four or five years of loving, even enthusiastic study ; during which time he has 
 made successful copies of each of the Cartoons. While he has copied, he has evidently brooded 
 over the painter's meaning, aiming to realise and give expression to his thought." — Freeman. 
 
 " In the 'Expositions of the Cartoons of Raphael' photography is well employed in reproducing 
 with great accuracy the celebrated works of the Italian master which now rest at Hampton Court. 
 Although Mr Smith does not pretend to be an art critic, he makes some very sensible remarks on 
 painting, and describes the Cartoons so thoroughly, that it is evident he has made them a Darticu ar 
 study." — Morning Post. 
 
 "A study of this volume will go far towards shewing how much the artist intends that the super- 
 ficial observer fails to recognise." — Manchester Examiner and Times. 
 
 "Mr Smith has spent some years in the study of these paintings, and, as the result of his careful 
 application, has gained such an insight into their whole meaning, and such an appreciation of the 
 excellencies displayed by the painter, that he is a most instructive and entertaining guide. A fur- 
 ther attraction to the non-professional reader is the simple and intelligible manner in which Mr 
 Smith has written his expositions, avoiding all technicalities." — -Sheffield and Rotherham Indepen- 
 dent. 
 
 " It is pleasant to listen to Mr Smith as he eloquently expatiates on Raphael's marvellous know- 
 ledge of Scripture. The binding and general execution of the volume are in the first style of art." 
 — Clerical Journal. 
 
 "The photographs are excellent, but their excellence, like that of the originals, onlv comes out 
 as the reward of study. The spirit in which the analyses are written is admirable. We are con- 
 strained to admit that, with these accessories, we, though admiring students of the Cartoons for 
 years, have discovered points of meaning and beauty in the photographs which had escaped us in 
 the originals. The reader will constantly find light thrown not only on the Ca toon, but on the 
 passage of Scripture to the illustration of which it is devoted. The volume is got up with exquisite 
 taste. The tinted paper, with its soft creamy glaze, and the clear, beautiful type, render this one of 
 the most attractive gift books which can be desired for the approaching festive season." — Baptist 
 Magazine. 
 
 " This is a most delightful volume. We welcome it as an artistic work that will throw a new 
 charm over the world-famed Cartoons of Raphael. The writer of the expositions has evidently had 
 his heart in the subject. His remarks not only tend to elucidate the meaning of the painter, but are 
 full of earnestness and graphic beauty. The religious aspect of the subject is brought at the same 
 time into strong relief; and those who love the Scripture narratives will read those expositions with 
 peculiar interest. Both, therefore, as a work of artistic excellence and of instructive teaching, the 
 volume is very welcome." — Bradford Review. 
 
 " We cannot follow Mr Smith through his paraphrase — the idea of which is very happy : he has 
 made the Cartoons preach the gospel fully and impressively, yet without the least approach to cant. 
 We are sure the book, which the publishers have justly done their part in recommending by beauti- 
 ful printing and an elegant exterior, will find its way to many a drawing-room, and, better still, to 
 many a fireside in this approaching Christmas." — Patriot. 
 
 ' 
 
 LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
 
 
 Ap.r 
 
 
 
 
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 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
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