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    Raphael's Sistine Madonna
    Raphael's Sistine Madonna
    Raphael's Sistine Madonna
    Ebook81 pages2 hours

    Raphael's Sistine Madonna

    By J. I. Mombert

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    About this ebook

    Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateOct 4, 2016
    ISBN9781473356993
    Raphael's Sistine Madonna

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      Book preview

      Raphael's Sistine Madonna - J. I. Mombert

      CAECILIA

      RAPHAEL’S SISTINE MADONNA.

      INTRODUCTORY.

      DURING a prolonged stay in the charming capital of Saxony, frequent pilgrimages to its magnificent Gallery were of course attended by an ever-growing admiration of its superb array of paintings. In that beautiful temple of art, arranged with rare judgment and filled with masterpieces of the most famous painters of almost every period, school, and country, no picture is more universally admired and more frequently visited than the Madonna di San Sisto, by Raphael Sanzio of Urbino.

      It has a cabinet of its own which is almost always crowded with visitors; it is situated in the northwestern corner of the Gallery. A very soft light falls on the picture, set up in an altar-like structure which, because of the priceless gem it enshrines, has been called by an enthusiastic admirer the holy of holies of the Gallery. The visitor, the moment he enters, becomes conscious of a mysterious spell. Fascinated by the eloquent appeal to his noblest emotions and purest aspirations which seems to address him personally and hold him captive, he yields unconsciously and irresistibly to the magic and subtile influence pervading that sanctuary of art, and becomes one of the silent admirers of that peerless Madonna.

      DESCRIPTION OF THE PICTURE.

      THE picture represents either an open window or part of an altar; in either case imagination has something to supply. If it is a window, the strip or beam below, on which appear the papal tiara and the angel-children, is the lower part of the casement, and the line at the top, to which the curtain-rod is attached, its upper part; that window must be placed very high in order to enable the congregation supposed to be present to see the vision, unless we imagine that the vision passes before the eye of faith rather than before the bodily, material eye. If, on the other hand, we conjecture the presence of an altar, of the very altar of the Church of San Sisto at Piacenza, for which this Madonna was painted, the whole framework of the picture is altogether more intelligible, consistent, and effective. Then the strip at the bottom would represent the super-altar, and we have only to supply the wall behind it, to which the curtain-rod is attached, to get a strictly realistic delineation of what is common in many churches, where curtains are used for the double purpose of protecting pictures and, at times other than when a service is going on, of showing them to visitors only on payment of a fee. Such, for instance, is the custom in the cathedral at Antwerp.

      A half-opened green curtain, fastened to a rod and gathered up at the sides, supposed to have just been opened, discloses to the spectators, imagined to stand or kneel before it,—that is, inside the room,—a celestial vision of passing sublimity. In the centre, enthroned on clouds and surrounded by a halo of innumerable angel heads, which from a tint of pale luminous white gradually gathers intenser coloring till it culminates in softest azure, appears the Virgin Mary, holding in her right arm, and supporting with her left, the infant Saviour. On the Virgin’s right, slightly below her, also on clouds, adores in kneeling attitude, but with uplifted face, Pope Sixtus II.; his tiara is deposited in the extreme right corner of the embrasure, the central portion of which is occupied by two beautiful cherubs in a leaning posture, their faces turned to the spectator, but their glance directed upwards, the one seemingly lost in intent contemplation, the other in rapt introspection. On the Virgin’s left, half-kneeling, also on clouds, the radiant features of St. Barbara are downwards bent toward the contemplative angels. All the figures are life-size, and so grouped together as to form a pyramid.

      Returning to the central figure, and retaining the idea of a heavenly vision, we behold a woman so passing beautiful, of that beauty which the French call spirituelle, so transcendently lovely, so perfect in everything conveyed by the allied terms beauty, goodness, grace, and loveliness, that we unhesitatingly say: "Here is the visible embodiment of the classical τò ϰαλóv."

      The circular shape of the seemingly moving clouds beneath her feet, suggesting the spherical form of the earth, the garments of all the figures waving under the pressure of gentle breezes, the adoring posture of St. Sixtus and St. Barbara, the background of angel hosts, and the contemplative and, as it were, interpreting cherubs in position nearest to the spectator—this striking tout ensemble combines to prompt the thought that here is the Virgin-mother with her Divine Son visiting the earth to carry to the human race the blessings of heaven. And then the Christ-child, clothed with every attribute of infant loveliness, that marvellously telling expression, that intense looking forth, so utterly unlike infancy, and seeming to pierce one through and through, is altogether a unique creation, probably designed to kindle in the beholder’s soul the conviction that in that innocent face shines forth the conscious Godhead; that the searching and suffering look is prophetic of the passion; that it is, in short, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. The conspicuous display of the angel-world, moreover, makes one think of the mystery which angels desire to look into.

      In admirable keeping with the matchless delineation of the human face divine in the Virgin, the Christ-babe, the venerable head of the martyr Pope, and the

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