Part 5 (1/2)

XXI

THE YOUNG CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE

This corievously by time, that even the portions of it which ree

Little more than various conditions of scar and stain can be now traced, where were once the draperies of the figures in the shade, and the suspended garland and arches on the right hand of the spectator; and in endeavouring not to represent raver have necessarily produced a less satisfactory plate than most others of the series But Giotto has also himself fallen considerably below his usual standard The faces appear to be cold and hard; and the attitudes are as little graceful as expressive either of attention or surprise The Madonna's action, stretching her arms to embrace her Son, is pretty; but, on the whole, the picture has no value; and this is the more remarkable, as there were fewer precedents of treatht have been anticipated that Giotto would have put hiht was co in the Temple rarely occurs in manuscripts; but all the others were perpetually repeated in the service-books of the period

[Illustration]

XXII

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

This is a ravely and strangely deficient in power of entering into the subject; and this, I think, is common with nearly all efforts that have hitherto been made at its representation I have never seen a picture of the Baptise power of the painter; and in this conception of Giotto's, the huesture of Christ has hardly any : it neither is in harmony with the words, ”Suffer it to be so nohich must have been uttered before the ree indicate the sense in the Redeereat work of His ministry

In the earlier representations of the subject, the huht of; there will be seen, for instance, an effort at expressing it by the slightly stooping attitude and bent knee, even in the very rude design given in outline on the opposite page I have thought it worth while to set before the reader in this outline one example of the sort of traditional representations which were current throughout Christendoe choir-book, probably of French, certainly of Northern execution, towards the close of the thirteenth century;[22]

and it is a very fair average exan in the illuminated work of the period The introduction of the scroll, with the legend, ”This is My beloved Son,” is both more true to the scriptural words, ”Lo, a voice from heaven,” and ure, as a type of the First Person of the Trinity The boldness hich this type is introduced increases precisely as the religious sentiment of art decreases; in the fifteenth century it beco

[Footnote 22: The exact date, 1290, is given in the title-page of the voluiven this woodcut for another reason also: to explain e foriven to the stream of the Jordan In the earlier Northern works it isto the Saviour's waist, as seen in the woodcut Giotto, for the sake of getting standing-ground for his figures, gives _shores_ to this wave, retaining its swelling form in the centre,--a very painful and unsuccessful atte with laws of perspective Or perhaps it is less to be regarded as an effort at progress, than as an aard combination of the Eastern and Western types of the Jordan In the difference between these types there is matter of some interest Lord Lindsay, who merely characterises this work of Giotto's as ”the Byzantine composition,”

thus describes the usual Byzantinethe Baptism:

”The Saviour stands i between two deep and rocky banks_), on one of which stands St John, pouring the water on His head, and on the other two angels hold His robes

The Holy Spirit descends upon Hiht, from God the Father, usually represented by a hand from Heaven Two of John's disciples stand behind him as spectators Frequently _the river-God of Jordan_ reclines with his oars in the corner In the Baptistery at Ravenna, the rope is supported, not by an angel, but by the river-deity _Jordann_ (Iordanes?), who holds in his left hand a reed as his sceptre”

Now in thish the wrecks of the Eastern Enised more distinctly as a beneficent power than in the West and North The narrowest and feeblest stream is felt to have an influence on the life ofthe possessions, or honoured a the deities, of the people ell beside it Hence the iiven, in the Byzantine compositions, to the name and specialty of the Jordan stream In the North such peculiar definiteness and ile fountain Water, in its various forift of heaven, not as an inheritance of a particular spot of earth Hence, with the Gothic artists generally, the personality of the Jordan is lost in the green and nameless wave; and the si, as Giotto has done, to draw the attention to the rocky shores of Bethabara and aenon, or to the fact that ”there was much water there”

XXIII

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA

It is strange that the sweet significance of this first of the ht of by nearly all artists after Giotto; and that no effort was made by them to conceive the circumstances of it in sie took place,--proved sufficiently by the fact that a carpenter's wife not only was asked as a chief guest, but even had authority over the servants,--is shown further to have been distressful, or at least embarrassed, poverty by their want of wine on such an occasion It was not certainly to remedy an accident of careless provision, but to supply a need sorrowfully betraying the narrow circu of ht in the act, which, though there is no need to deny, there is little evidence to certify: but we , that of si provided here, when needed, as the bread and fish were afterwards for the hungry multitudes The whole value of the miracle, in its serviceable tenderness, is at once effaced when the e is supposed, as by Veronese and other artists of later times, to have taken place at the house of a rich man For the rest, Giotto sufficiently implies, by the lifted hand of the Madonna, and the action of the fingers of the bridegroom, as if they held sacra under the miracle for those who could accept it How all miracle _is_ accepted by coure of the ruler of the feast, drinking This unregarding forgetfulness of present spiritual power is siure of a fool with his bauble i a cat play with her shadow in one of the wine-vases

It is to be re all pictures of this subject, that the uests;--to none indeed, seely, except Christ's own disciples: the ruler of the feast, and probably most of those present (except the servants who drew the water), knew or observed nothing of as passing, and ood wine had been ”kept until now”

XXIV

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS