Part 4 (1/2)

Such pictures do not represent any actual historical event. The various persons represented may not even be contemporaries. It is in a devotional and not a literal sense that they wors.h.i.+p the Christ child together.

In our picture the Mother tends her Babe at one side while three saints form an attendant company. The nearest is St. Stephen, the young man ”full of faith and power,” who did ”great wonders and miracles among the people” of Jerusalem in the apostolic days. When false witnesses accused him of blasphemy his face was like ”the face of an angel.” Nevertheless, when his accusers heard his defence they were angry at his frank denunciations, and casting him out of the city, stoned him to death.[9]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fr. Hanfstaengl, photo.

John Andrew & Son. Sc.

MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS

_Vienna Gallery_]

The old man standing next is St. Jerome, one of the Latin fathers of the fourth century. He was both a preacher and a writer, and his greatest service to the world was his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate). This is the book from which he is now reading, and St. George seems to look over his shoulder. St. George is the hero saint who rescued the princess Cleodolinda from the dragon. He suffered many tortures at the orders of the Emperor Diocletian, and was finally beheaded for his faith.[10]

We learn to identify these and other saints in the old pictures by certain features which the masters long ago agreed upon as appropriate to the characters. St. Stephen we recognize here because he is young, and carries a palm as the symbol of his martyrdom. St. Jerome is always an old man and is known here by his book, and St. George is distinguished by his armor.

The three make an interesting group as they represent three ages of man,--youth, maturity, and old age. They stand, too, for distinctly different temperaments. St. Stephen has the ardent imaginative nature of a dreamer, St. George the active prosaic temper of the warrior, and St.

Jerome the grave contemplative mind of the scholar. Each serves the Christ with his own gift.

In the picture the three seem to be reading together some pa.s.sage referring to the birth of Christ, perhaps that glorious verse from the prophet Isaiah, ”Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”

Coming to the words ”Wonderful, Counsellor,” St. Stephen lifts his face adoringly.

The Child is innocently unconscious of his grave guests. He lies across his mother's lap kicking his feet gleefully and looking up to her with a playful, appealing gesture. She bends over him smiling, and the two seem to talk together in the mystic language of babyhood. The artist, we see, painted the mother as beautiful and the child as winsome as he could well imagine them. He did not try to discover how a woman of Judea was likely to have looked centuries before. He preferred to think of Mary as one of the beautiful Venetian women of his own day. He may have seen some real mother and babe who suggested the picture to him, but in that case he painted them largely according to his own fancy. The Madonna's dress is not according to any Venetian fas.h.i.+ons, but in the simple style chosen as most appropriate by old masters. Red and blue were the colors always used in her draperies, and it was also an ancient custom to represent her as wearing a veil over her head as befitting her modesty.

The mother has the fresh comely look of perfect health, yet with much delicacy and refinement in her gentle face. Both she and the babe seem to rejoice in abounding health and vitality. The picture is full of the joy of life.

V

PHILIP II

Philip II. was the son of the Emperor Charles V. and the Empress Isabella, whose portrait we have seen. He had therefore, like most princes, a union of several nationalities in his lineage. Upon his birth in 1527, all Spain rejoiced that there was now an heir to the throne.

Charles himself counted eagerly upon the help his son would give him in the administration of his vast dominions.

From the first Philip was a grave and thoughtful child, pursuing his studies first with his mother and then with a tutor. When he was twelve years old his mother died; and two years later his father, who had scarcely seen the boy, returned to Spain, and devoted himself for a while to teaching him the principles of government. Philip was an apt pupil, and showed great fondness for statesmans.h.i.+p.

At the age of sixteen a great responsibility fell upon the young prince.

Charles was called to Germany and left Philip as regent of Spain. A marriage had already been arranged between the youth and his cousin Mary of Portugal, and this took place soon after the Emperor's departure.

Philip's regency was eminently successful, and he won the lasting affection and loyalty of the Spanish people.

The Emperor now planned that the prince should make a journey through the empire to become acquainted with his future subjects. The Spanish parted with him reluctantly, and he set forth accompanied by a great train of courtiers. Six months he was on his way, everywhere greeted by festivals, banquets and tourneys. Philip, being of a reticent and sombre nature, had little taste for these festivities, but having political ambition, submitted as gracefully as possible. At length he made a state entry into Brussels. This was in 1548; and in the two years that followed, the emperor and prince were together, planning their future policy of government. The lessons which Charles most deeply impressed upon Philip were those of self-repression, patience and distrust. The leading element in his policy was to be absolute ruler.

It was at the close of these two years, that is, in 1550, that the emperor, attending a diet in Augsburg, summoned thither t.i.tian to paint the portrait of Philip. The prince was now in his twenty-fourth year, and stood, as it were, on the threshold of his great career. There could scarcely be a more unattractive subject for a portrait. Philip had a poor figure, with narrow chest and large ungainly feet, and his features were exceedingly ill-formed. His eyes were large and bulging, he had a projecting jaw and full fleshy lips which his scanty beard could not conceal. t.i.tian, however, had the great artist's gift of making the most of a subject. We forget all Philip's defects when we look at this magnificent portrait.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Picture from Carbon Print by Braun, Clement & Co.

John Andrew & Son, Sc.