Part 5 (1/2)
CHAPTER V
ORVIETO
There seems to be a moment in the life of every great man in which he touches the height of his possibilities, and reaches the limits of his powers of expression. To Signorelli it came late, at an age when most men begin to feel at least their physical powers on the wane. The two last frescoes of the Monte Oliveto series indicate that an immense force lay in reserve, waiting an opportunity for some wider and freer field of action, than had hitherto presented itself. That opportunity now came, when, at the age of fifty-nine, he was called upon to undertake the vast work of these Orvieto frescoes. With the exception of the Sistine Chapel, no such task has been achieved at so sustained a pitch of imaginative power and technical excellence. Whether the subject stirred his dramatic spirit, or whether the great s.p.a.ces to be filled gave an expanded sense of liberty to his genius, or whether his powers, intellectual and physical, really were at the zenith of their strength; whatever was the cause, he succeeded in executing a work which ranks among the greatest monuments of the Renaissance, perhaps should even rank as the very greatest.
Morelli writes: ”These masterpieces appear to me unequalled in the art of the fifteenth century; for to no other contemporary painter was it given to endow the human frame with a like degree of pa.s.sion, vehemence, and strength.”[60] And beside the dignity with which he has in these frescoes elevated the body to an almost superhuman grandeur, his conception of supernatural things is proportionately solemn and impressive. It is impossible to look at the scenes without emotion, and the mood evoked is due in a great measure to the earnest conviction with which they are conceived. Signorelli, always a religious painter, in the wider meaning of the word, seems here to a.s.sume an almost prophetic att.i.tude of warning, embodied, one might almost think, in the portrait of himself, stern and menacing, standing sentinel-like over the work.
Vasari thus speaks of the frescoes: ”In the princ.i.p.al church of Orvieto--that of the Madonna--he completed with his own hand the chapel which had been begun there by Fra Giovane da Fiesole; in which he painted all the history of the end of the world, with strange fantastic invention: Angels, demons, ruins, earthquakes, fires, miracles of Antichrist, and many other of the like things; besides which, nudes, foreshortened figures, and many beautiful designs; having pictured to himself the terror which will be in that latest tremendous day. By means of this he roused the spirit of all those who came after him in such a way that since, they have found the difficulty of that manner easy.
Wherefore it does not surprise me that the works of Luca should have always been most highly praised by Michelagnolo, nor that certain things of his divine Judgement which he painted in the chapel were in part courteously taken from the invention of Luca; as are the Angels, Demons, the heavenly orders, and other things in which Michelagnolo imitated the style of Luca, as everyone may see. Luca portrayed in the above-mentioned work himself and many of his friends; Niccol, Paulo and Vitellozzo Vitelli; Giovan, Paulo and Orazio Baglioni, and others whose names are unknown.”[61]
[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Cathedral, Orvieto_
PORTRAITS OF SIGNORELLI AND FRA ANGELICO
(DETAIL FROM ANTICHRIST)]
Fifty-two years before, in 1447, Fra Angelico had spent three months and a half in this Cathedral of Orvieto, painting the spandrels in the roof of the Cappella Nuova, as it was then called.[62] He had time to complete only two frescoes, being either recalled to Rome by Nicholas V., or to the convent of S. Domenico, near Fiesole (of which, in 1450, he was made Prior). These two works are among the best and strongest of his paintings. In the princ.i.p.al s.p.a.ce, that over the altar, he painted Christ in glory, surrounded by a _mandorla_, with angels on either side; and in the spandrel on the right, a group of sixteen prophets, seated pyramidally against a blaze of gold background. It is probable that he had thought out the general scheme of the frescoes, and that Signorelli only carried out his intention in working the paintings into one great whole--Christ in Heaven, surrounded by Angels, Apostles, Martyrs, Virgins, Patriarchs and Fathers of the Church, witnessing from on high the execution of divine justice below. However that may be, it is certain that Signorelli, in his painting of the roof, kept most scrupulously to the older master's arrangement, and in one of the spandrels actually seems to have worked over his design.
After the withdrawal of Fra Angelico, the chapel remained untouched for more than fifty years. In 1449 his pupil, Benozzo Gozzoli, who had probably been his a.s.sistant in the painting, demanded permission to continue the work; but the authorities were not content to grant it, and it was only in 1499, after some futile negotiations with Perugino, who appears to have refused the commission, that they finally resolved to place the decoration in the hands of Signorelli. Perhaps decided to this step by the success of the Monte Oliveto frescoes, they were yet so cautious and so determined to have only the very best work in their chapel, that at first they only entrusted to him the painting of the vaulting, already begun. They were wise to be careful in their choice, for they were probably conscious of the extreme beauty of their cathedral, and, in particular, of the exquisite architecture of this chapel. Orvieto Cathedral is one of the finest and most impressive of the Italian churches, and from its foundation in 1290, the authorities had been notoriously lavish in their expenditure for its building, and fastidious in their choice of architects, sculptors, and painters.[63]
From the point of view merely of decoration, they could have given the work to no better artist than Signorelli, and the first impression, on pa.s.sing into the chapel from the austere and s.p.a.cious nave, is of the harmonious plan, both of colour and design, with which the original beauty of the architecture has been enhanced, and its graceful characteristics accentuated.
The roof is of very perfect shape, and the s.p.a.ces well adapted for painting. It is divided in the middle by an arch, thus having two complete vaultings, each with four spandrels. The walls are high and s.p.a.cious, also divided in two parts, in each of which, on either side, is a large fresco. Signorelli has separated the lower part of the wall by a painted frieze of delicate gold and ivory, and in the lower half executed a series of portraits, each surrounded by medallions in _grisaille_, containing small subject-pictures, the rest of the s.p.a.ce being filled with an intricate pattern of grotesques. The south wall, in which are three small windows, has been unfortunately disfigured by a _baroque_ seventeenth-century altar, whose projections hide a part of the frescoes. Opposite is the entrance, a magnificently-proportioned portal, with a rounded arch, most delicately decorated in colour. Every inch of the walls is covered, and for the most part by the work of Signorelli himself, the above-mentioned grotesques, the merely ornamental painting, and a few of the medallions alone being by his a.s.sistants.
In describing the frescoes I intend to begin with those of the vaulting, and then to work gradually round the walls from the left of the entrance, where the first of the series of larger paintings begins with ”The Preaching and Fall of Antichrist.”
In the spandrel opposite the Christ of Fra Angelico, Signorelli has painted eight angels holding the symbols of the Pa.s.sion, while two others, not unlike the great Archangels of the ”Resurrection,” blow trumpets to announce the impending Judgment.
Left of the altar, opposite Fra Angelico's ”Prophets,” and arranged in exactly the same pyramidal form, is a magnificent group, representing the ”Apostles,” the Virgin being seated on the lowest tier with S. Peter and S. Paul. Very n.o.ble, impressive figures, powerfully and solidly painted, with broadly-draped, heavy-folded robes, they sit like rocks upon clouds as solid as hills.
These, with the two frescoes of Fra Angelico, complete the paintings of the first vaulting.
Those on the other side of the arch are executed entirely by Signorelli, and, with the exception of one, from his own designs. This one is the weakest of his roof-paintings in execution, and the composition and actual drawing of the central figures, are the work of Fra Angelico. It represents the ”Choir of Martyrs,” a group of seven figures. In the centre are seated three Deacons in full canonicals, with Bishops on either side, and below two Saints in plain robes. These last have all Signorelli's characteristics of drawing, and sit with wide-spread knees and broadly-painted draperies, a striking contrast to the weak att.i.tudes and niggling robes of the central group. Signorelli has indeed hardly altered the childish chubby features of the Deacon in the middle, nor the benevolent vacuity of the two Bishops, so different to his own austere types.
Opposite to this, over the portal, is a group of eight ”Virgins,”
broadly and vigorously treated, in Signorelli's boldest manner. To the right is another of the pyramidal groups, fifteen ”Doctors of the Church,” some of whom are represented disputing and discussing points of theology.
The last of the roof-paintings is a powerful group of ”Patriarchs,”
ranking, with that of the ”Apostles,” among the most impressive of the frescoes. Here appear many of his well-known types of face; the melancholy features of Pan are repeated in the turbaned youth in the top row, intended perhaps to be Solomon; the Christ of the Uffizi ”Holy Family” is in the second tier to the left; the powerful Zacharias from the Berlin _Tondo_ in the lowest.
Luzi, in his minute description of the paintings,[64] has bestowed names on all these figures, without much advantage, since they are for the most part doubtful. Few of them bear symbols, but the different groups are sufficiently described in large letters, by the painters themselves--GLORIOSVS APOSTOLORVM CHOIR--MARTIRVM CANDIDATVS EXERCITVS--etc. etc.
The figures, with the exception of those by Fra Angelico, and the design for the ”Martyrs,” are entirely the work of Signorelli himself. The decorations between the s.p.a.ces seem to be in part by the a.s.sistant of Fra Angelico--perhaps Benozzo Gozzoli. In the first border heads are painted, in lozenges, at regular intervals, a few of which are in the older master's style, while many show the manner of Signorelli. The rounded projecting rib is painted with foliage of cypress-green, with here and there rich red and golden flowers gleaming out, and on either side a border of conventionalised water-lilies. It is difficult to say which of the masters designed this exceedingly beautiful decoration, but it is most effective, and well-calculated to accentuate the life of the fine curves in the vaulting.
[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Cathedral, Orvieto_
PATRIARCHS]
These groups of Signorelli's are n.o.ble and impressive paintings, in technique strong and vigorous. The draperies are treated with simplicity and breadth of fold, and the gold background gives richness and beauty to the colour. No wonder that the authorities, jealous though they were at the beauty of their chapel, should have hesitated no longer to hand over the great s.p.a.ces of the walls to the brush of the painter who had so well executed their first commission.