Part 5 (2/2)

[Footnote 22: St Luke, chapter xxiii, verse 2]

”Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put on hi of the Jews! and they sain, and saith unto the him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in hi the crown of thorns, and the purple robe And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw hi Crucify hiht to release Jesus, but the people continued to clamor, ”Aith him,” ”Crucify him” ”Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified”[24]

[Footnote 23: St John, chapter xix, verses 1-6]

[Footnote 24: _Ib_, verse 16]

The Latin foriven the title ”Ecce homo” to our picture It is the moment when Jesus comes forth from the rudethe crown of thorns The governor has bidden one of the soldiers lead the prisoner out on a balcony of the palace An eager throng of people are waiting outside, but they are not all ene them are a few faithful women, and they are allowed to press close to the balcony At the sight of her son, treated as a cri over the balustrade, supported by a younger wo in the doorway behind appeals to the crowd: ”I find no fault in him Behold the man” He has been deeply i to do soood-natured, we see, but with no strength of character in it He is a handso beard carefully tri and selfish

[Illustration: ECCE homo _National Gallery, London_]

Jesus stands with drooping head and an expression of suffering resignation In thefaces before hi less than his death Already he hears the cruel cry, ”Crucify hishi+p is the crown of suffering Were his kingdom of this world, his servants would deliver hidom, he was born ”to bear witness unto the truth”

The rich ly thrown over his shoulders, falls away and shows the body as it had been bared for the scourging It is a beautiful form, perfectly developed, and the arms and hands are as delicately ular features of classicin disordered curls about it This is the typical face of Christ, as it has been handed down froeneration since early in the Christian era The rude pictures in the catacombs are on the sah the centuries, soinal must have been an authentic likeness[25]

[Footnote 25: See _Rex Regu and beautiful As the great Michelangelo said, ”Purity enjoys eternal youth”[26] A heavy veil orthe pure profile of her face

This for Mary as _Mater Dolorosa_, or the Sorrowing Mother

[Footnote 26: See the volue 35]

Artistically considered, this figure of the faintingin the picture Her codalene, is also a lovely creature, though we see only a part of her face

The subject is in tragic contrast to the illustrations we have just been studying It seee to connect this Man of Sorroith the happy boyby the woodland spring, or this grief-stricken woio himself, we know, shrank froe of St Catherine, our illustration sho skilfully Correggio painted hands The drooping fingers of the Saviour taper delicately, with long alers like those of sodalene It is apparent that the study of hands and feet interested our painter more than that of faces We shall lose ive special attention to these features In the case before us, the face of Christ must be less attractive, on account of the sorrowful expression To ht into prominent notice, and are very beautiful

XI

APOSTLES AND GENII

The glory of Parma is the Cathedral, which represents the labors of un in 1058, and completed in the thirteenth century The interior was beautified by a succession of artists, one of as our painter Correggio His work here was the decoration of the cupola, and he began it i the frescoes in the church of S Giovanni Evangelista

The Cathedral doonal in shape In the roof, or tops of saints and angels to meet the Saviour in the upper air Below the doht sections, filled with figures of apostles gazing upon the vision Still lower are four decorated pendentives, sielista These contain respectively the four patron saints of Par up fro vision, rapturous and ecstatic” A h the heavenly spaces ”They are upon every side, bending, tossing, floating, and diving through the clouds, hovering above the abysmal void that is between the dome and the earth below it”[27] Wonderful indeed is the triumph of the painter's art in this place ”Reverse the cupola and fill it with gold, and even that will not represent its worth,” said titian