Part 7 (1/2)

The time seems to have come when he is just awakening to the possibilities of life. He faces the future seriously, but with no shrinking. One recalls the words of Gareth, in Tennyson's Idyll:

”Man am I grown, a man's work must I do.

Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the king-- Else wherefore born?”[20]

The lofty ideals of the knights of King Arthur's Round Table are such as we feel sure this gentle spirit would make his own:--

”To reverence the king as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their king, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no nor listen to it, To lead sweet lives in purest chast.i.ty, To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And wors.h.i.+p her by years of n.o.ble deeds Until they won her.”[21]

It may be of these ”n.o.ble deeds” of chivalry that our young man is dreaming, or it may be of that ”one maiden” for whose sake they are to be done. Certainly these candid eyes see visions which we should be glad to see, and show us the depths of a knightly soul.

XII

THE a.s.sUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN

(_Detail_)

The Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, has for over nineteen centuries represented to Christendom all the ideal qualities of womanhood. In her character, as revealed in St. Luke's gospel, we read of her n.o.ble, trustful humility in accepting the message of the Annunciation; of her decision and prudence shown in her visit to Elizabeth; of her intellectual power as manifested in the song of the Magnificat; of the contemplative nature with which she watched the growth of Jesus; of her maternal devotion throughout her son's ministry,--and of her sublime fort.i.tude and faith at his crucifixion.[22] Such was the woman so highly favored of G.o.d, she whom the angel called ”blessed among women.”

Art has pictured for us many imaginary scenes from the life of Mary. The most familiar and best loved subject is that of her motherhood, where she is seen with her babe in her arms. There are other subjects, less common, showing her as a glorified figure in mid-air as in a vision. One such is that called the Immaculate Conception, which the Spanish painter Murillo so frequently repeated.[23] Another is the a.s.sumption, representing her at her death as borne by angels to heaven.

The ”Golden Legend” relates how ”the right fair among the daughters of Jerusalem ... full of charity and dilection” was ”joyously received”

into glory. ”The angels were glad, the archangels enjoyed, the thrones sang, the dominations made melody, the princ.i.p.alities harmonized, the potestates harped, cherubim and seraphim sang laudings and praisings.”

Also, ”the angels were with the apostles singing, and replenished all the land with marvelous sweetness.”[24]

The a.s.sumption of the Virgin is the subject of a n.o.ble painting by t.i.tian, one of the most celebrated pictures in the world. A group of apostles stand on the earth gazing after the receding figure of the Virgin as she soars into the air on a wreath of cloud-borne angels. From the upper air the Heavenly Father floats downward with his angels to receive her. As the canvas is very large, over twenty-two feet in height, a small reproduction of the entire picture is unsatisfactory, and our ill.u.s.tration gives us the heart of the composition for careful study.

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

John Andrew & Son. Sc.

THE a.s.sUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN (DETAIL)

_Venice Academy_]

The Virgin rises buoyantly through the air, and the figure is so full of life and motion that it seems as if it would presently soar beyond our sight. The heavy folds of the skirt swirl about the body in the swiftness of the ascent. The rus.h.i.+ng air fills the mantle like the sail of a s.h.i.+p. Yet the source of motion is not within the figure itself, for we see the feet resting firmly on the cloud. It is as if she were borne aloft in a celestial chariot composed of an angelic host.

The face is lifted with a look of rapture; the arms are extended in a gesture of exultation. The pose of the head displays the beautiful throat, strong and full like that of a singer. The features are cast in a large, majestic mould. The hands, turned palm outward, are large and flexible, but with delicate, tapering fingers.

We have already seen in other pictures what was t.i.tian's conception of the Virgin in her girlhood and motherhood. We find little of the ethereal and spiritual in his ideal, and nothing that would in any way suggest that true piety is morbid or sentimental. Other painters have erred in this direction, but not t.i.tian. To him the Virgin was no angel in disguise, but a strong, happy, healthy woman, rejoicing in life. But though a woman, she was in the poet's phrase ”a woman above all women glorified.” She possessed in perfection all the good gifts of human nature. t.i.tian's ideal coincided with the old Greek formula, ”A sound mind in a sound body.” The Virgin of the a.s.sumption is in fact not unlike a Greek G.o.ddess in her magnificently developed physique and glorious beauty.

Our ill.u.s.tration includes a few of the baby angels from the wreath supporting the Madonna. They are packed so closely together in the picture that their little limbs interlace like interwoven stems in a garland of flowers. Yet the figures are cunningly arranged to bring into prominence a series of radiating lines which flow towards a centre in the Madonna's face. We see in the corner of our print a little arm pointing to the Virgin, and above it is a cherub's wing drawn in the same oblique line.

Frolicsome as is this whole company of angels, they are of an almost unearthly beauty. A poetic critic has told of standing before the picture contemplating these lovely spirits one after another, until, as she expresses it, ”A thrill came over me like that which I felt when Mendelssohn played the organ and I became music while I listened.” She sums up the effect of the picture as ”mind and music and love, kneaded, as it were, into form and color.”[25]