ed in like manner to represent the series | Sculpture was already largely employed in of the Gospel narratives. * Where the sub- the decoration of the great churches, which ject is so vast and the material so abundant, were at once the sanctuaries, the halls of asit may seem ungracious to point out any omis-sembly, the schools, the galleries, and the sions, since it is obvious that no writer can tombs of medieval society, whilst painting attempt to embrace the whole range of Chris- was still confined to the minute adornment tian art. But we think it should be stated, of the missal or the book of hours. When that with the exception of some reference to painting entered the church, it was for the the sarcophagi, the jewels, the enamels, and purpose of mural ornament, but still in å pothe ivories of the earlier Christian ages, Lady sition ancillary to sculpture; and even in the Eastlake's researches, like those of Mrs. later works of the greatest artists, as in the Jameson, have been chiefly directed to the Sistine Chapel, it is impossible to seize the history of Christian painting, a branch of harmony and adjustment of the composition art which can hardly be said to have attained without regarding its architectural character any excellence in the Latin Church before and its general imitation of plastic forms. the fourteenth century. A gap, therefore, Hence the peculiar distribution and connecintervenes which includes precisely the most tion of the earlier Christian paintings, and devout ages of faith, those ages which rear- the difficulty of arriving at their true chared the great cathedrals of France, England, acter unless they are studied, as it were, in Germany, and Italy, and peopled them with the sense of the statuesque compositions and statues. These statues and bas-reliefs did, figures which preceded them.* in fact, create the types which the painters The Christian painters of the Middle Ages were afterwards fain to adopt; and it is and the Renaissance period, working chiefly hardly possible to explain the growth and for the decoration of churches and other resubsequent development of art without trac-ligious edifices in Roman Catholic countries, ing it back to this plastic period. The earli- selected those subjects which were most apest paintings of sacred subjects were obvi-propriate to the faith of the people,—and ously much nearer akin to the stone images from which they were taken than to the living beings they were afterwards held to represent. It would lead us too far from the immediate subject of these pages, to attempt to trace the influence of sculpture upon painting; but it might be shown that the former has in all ages preceded and guided the first efforts of the latter art, and that both of them must be viewed in their relation to architecture. *Mrs. Jameson has cursorily described, in one of her brief contributions to Lady Eastlake's volumes, the frequent introduction of the parable of Lazarus of cathedrals, the entrance most frequented by mendicants, and the painting of the whole story in one of the magnificent windows of Bourges. So, too, she observes that the whole parable of the Prodigal Son is treated in a magnificent window of the north transept of Chartres, in seventeen lights of a window at Bourges, and in a similar number at Sens. These are only specimens; but a careful examination of the painted glass of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries would supply innumerable examples in which this form of art was adapted to the uses of the church; and, curiously enough, it has been revived in our own time with great splendor and completeness, where certainly we least expected to see it,-in the old Cathedral of St. Mungo, at Glasgow. But the history of colored glass lights requires a book and il and the Rich Man in bas-relief over the south door lustrations to itself. these subjects were copiously mingled with the legendary creations of religious tradition. They left comparatively untouched many scenes, taken from the Gospel narratives, which are peculiarly consonant to the sympathy and the taste of our own times. The notes of Mrs. Jameson, incorporated by Lady Eastlake in the latter portion of her first volume, chiefly relate to these incidents. Some of them are already familiar to us in the works of the great masters, though, as in the case of the "Massacre of the Innocents," they cannot be regarded as either pleasing or edifying. Many others, however, have been comparatively unattempted; and we advert to them here, because it is evident that they afford the most attractive field for modern artists in relation to the imperishable truths of the Christian religion. The subject of i Christ disputing with the Doctors" cannot be classed among those scriptural subjects *The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is made by Michael Angelo to stimulate a raised and open roof, intersected by lunettes; in the thronelike niches between these lunettes he has seated the sublime figures of the Sibyls and the Prophets; but their character and attitudes are statuesque, and they bear to the whole painted composition the same re lation which statues would bear to a real edifice. In Mrs. Jameson's list of the pictures illustrating the familiar scenes of the Gospel history, and some of the miracles and the parables of our Lord is interesting but incomplete. The which have not been much painted. On the the synagogue rather than of the temple,— contrary, Luini's exquisite treatment of it, of Amsterdam rather than of Jerusalem. and Rembrandt's noble etching, are familiar the whole range of the schools of Catholic to every one; but it is worth while to remark art, the accessories of scenery, architecture, how keen was the interest excited amongst costumes, and race are purely conventional : all classes of the English people by Mr. Hol- not only did those painters not aspire to repman Hunt's interesting reproduction of this resent Judea and its people, but they reprewell-known subject. More than one hun- sent places and men who never had any real dred thousand persons flocked at their own existence in the shapes and dresses assigned If there be any merit, any beauty, cost to see it: and although it may not in all to them. respects have satisfied the ideal conception of any truth in the attempt to represent these the youthful Saviour, and of her "who had events, in some measure, as they may have sought him sorrowing," yet the reality of the appeared to those who witnessed them, that details, the solemn dignity of the sages of is a region of art still almost untrodden; the law, the local truth of the scene, and the and we only trust that our artists, in drawing extreme care of the execution, inspired in- nearer to the actual reality of the scenes and tense delight, and proved the inexhaustible the times they portray, will lose nothing of power and influence of religious painting that ideal verisimilitude and resemblance thus understood. The same may be said of which is, after all, the highest quality of a work of far higher beauty and grandeur,-art. the loftiest production of the English school, -Mr. Herbert's painting of the "Descent of Moses from the Mount with the Tables of the Law," which adorns-and will, we trust, forever adorn-one of the chambers of the House of Lords. Although the scene it represents is the great fundamental fact of the Old Testament, and the revelation of the primal code of God's law to man, yet that fact is the basis of the Christian Revelation likewise; and when the series is completed by the execution of the "Sermon on the Mount,' which we trust the same great artist will be enabled to undertake, we shall possess two works of the highest value and interest. This is not the place to criticise in detail their artistic excellence: we are now only dealing with them as exalted specimens of what may still be done for subjects taken from the ancient and hallowed themes of religious art. But we hold their merit of execution to be in no degree inferior to their grandeur of conception; and we believe that they will stand a comparison with the noblest productions of human genius in any age. In one important point of view these modern paintings of Scripture subjects differ radically from the treatment of similar subjects by the old masters. It never seems to have crossed their minds that the events of the Old and New Testament occurred in an Eastern land and among an Eastern people. The Jews of Rembrandt are indeed Jews; and this circumstance gives a marvellous reality to his gospel etchings; but they are the Jews of Sermon on the Mount' remains, it appears, for Mr. Herbert: we are not aware that any artist has attempted it with success on a large scale; for Claude's picture under this name in the Grosvenor Gallery is at most a fine Claude 66 The Tribute Money" can landscape. hardly be painted again after Titian, or the 66 Raising of Lazarus," after Sebastian, or the "Transfiguration," after Raphael; these works have become our conception of reality. But the exquisite domestic incidents of the Gospel-" Christ blessing little Children,' the " Prodigal Son," the Miracles of Healing, the Scenes at Bethany-admit of greater variety of treatment and will ever continue to awaken sympathy and love in the beholder. Nothing has been seen in modern times more deeply interesting and more touching than those small canvases on which Paul de la Roche showed us the interior of the disconsolate house to which the Virgin Mary and the Beloved Apostle may have retired after the closing scene at the foot of the cross. was over. The immortal hope had not yet broken even on them. They had yet to watch and wait in the gloom of bereavement and desolation till the dawn of the third day. These emotions the artist has by some means conveyed to the spectator. There are few examples in art of so deep a moral interest, rendered by means so simple. This is pre All cisely what the associations of religion with art enable it to awaken, and what it is yet within the scope of modern art to effect. Among the productions of modern art especially referring to the life of Christ, the Temptation " and the "Christus Consolator" of Ary Scheffer were entitled to a place in these volumes, the former, representing with singular power the mysterious conflict between the sinless majesty of the Redeemer and the subtle energy of evil,-the latter, a picture impossible in the earlier ages of faith and art, inasmuch as it embraces the broadest conception of the wrongs and sufferings and sorrows of humanity, seeking and finding relief at the seat of perfect justice and perfect love. If Christian art is to follow, as we believe it must, the evolution of Christianity itself, in its sustained relation to the progress of mankind, to more intense and affectionate sympathies, to an enlarged interest in the destinies of our race, to more serene reliance upon the beneficent purposes of the Creator for the redemption of his creatures, then assuredly the quaint and mystical conceptions of the medieval painters, and even the more splendid creations of the later schools, are not its supreme efforts or its noblest triumphs; and the growth of religious art will bear its due proportion to the growth of a devout and enlightened religious spirit in the world. almost entirely devoted to it. Following the traditional division of the history, adopted as early as the fourteenth century by Duccio in the series at Sienna, and by Giotto in the Arena Chapel,-which, indeed, had been taken (as we have already hinted) from the Christian statuary of the preceding centuries,— Lady Eastlake has performed this important part of her task with great force and method. The narrative is admirably arranged. The examples cited are extremely various and interesting. The criticism on some of the chief works inspired by these scenes is of the highest eloquence and excellence. We shall not attempt to follow the accomplished writer through these details; but we propose to introduce as a fine specimen of her discrimination and graphic power a passage which will be read by every one with interest and admiration,-we mean the criticism on the "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci at Milan. "It remains, therefore, for us to consider the person sentations of the Last Supper, and we apof our Lord as given in the repreproach it necessarily, as will be shown, through those of his companions. Considered merely in the sense of art, we may say that there was too little in the nature of this subject for so many figures, all men, to do. sented devout, earnest, and faithful, and Eleven out of the twelve were to be repreJudas even decorous in demeanor. Many of them, too, were of the same age, most of In the ascetic ages of Christianity, when them attired in the same kind of costume; the soul was believed to be purified by the while the introduction of their attributes was penances, the mortifications, and even the altogether incompatible with the occasion. tortures inflicted on the body, the represen- Thus, the distinction of one apostle from tation of pain and suffering, humbly endured another strikes us at the very outset as a for the love of God, was the all-pervading in the cathedral at Lodi, or of wood-carving, difficulty which, in the case of sculpture, as theme of art. This principle culminated as in Adam Kraft's work in the Church of in the most terrible of all sacrifices,-the St. Lawrence at Nuremberg, is further inmost sublime of all examples,-in the pas-creased by the absence of color. This was sion of our Lord. Hence the scenes which doubtless the reason, in early times, for the occurred between the entry of Jesus into Je-insertion of the names in the glories, and, rusalem, to keep his last passover, and the final perhaps, for the exaggerated nature of the victory of the Redeemer over death, are those position of St. John, and of the character of Judas, which seem to have been seized upon to which the genius, invention, and skill of as the only salient points. The discriminaman have been most constantly devoted; and tion of the characters and individualities of it is probable that the works of art represent- all, or even most, of these passive and almost ing or bearing upon these deeply touching uniform figures, required, therefore, nothing events exceed both in number and impor- short of the utmost refinement of observation tance all the other productions of the Chris-it is obvious, could only be fulfilled by a mind and power of expression. These conditions, tian schools. It is not, therefore, surprising and hand of the highest order. that these subjects occupy a very large por- "But here another difficulty presented ittion of these volumes; and indeed it may be self. The apostles, after all, were but the said that the second portion of the work is subordinates in the piece; such expression path. "Let us now consider this figure of Christ more closely. and character as could at best be given them | ture. It was not in man not to be fastidious, depended entirely on the part which belonged who had such an unapproachable standard to the principal actor. In representing him, of his own powers perpetually standing in his the artist had to choose between two modes of conception, each equally encumbered with objections. Our Lord might be depicted, as he has often been, in the act of blessing the "It is not sufficient to say that our Lord bread and wine, and with his hand raised in has just uttered this sentence; we must enprayer, an action full of grace for him, and deavor to define in what, in his own person, which clearly conveyed his part in the story the visible proof of his having spoken conto the comprehension of the beholder, but one sists. The painter has cast the eyes down,which, occupying him alone, left his com- an action which generally detracts from the panions little more than lay figures; or our expression of a face. Here, however, no Lord might be represented as engaged in no such loss is felt. The outward sight, it is actual act at all, but simply in the character true, is in abeyance, but the intensest sense of one uttering, or having just uttered, a few of inward vision has taken its place. Our words expressive of deep and mournful mental Lord is looking into himself, that self which conviction. But such a moment, however knew all things,' and therefore needed not easily described in words, is not so easily to lift his mortal lids to ascertain what effect painted. These words, however full of mean- his words had produced. The honest indiging for the mind, offer none to the eye (for nation of the apostles, the visible perturbathe giving the sop to Judas, a very unpleasing tion of the traitor, are each right in their incident in the sense of art, which, in the place, and for the looker-on; but they are difficulty of telling the tale, was frequently nothing to him. Thus here at once the highresorted to in early works, belonged to est power and refinement of art is shown, by another and later moment). Moreover, our the conversion of what in most hands would Lord did not address these words to one have been an insipidity into the means of exapostle more than another, still less to any pression best suited to the moment. The inone out of the picture. Nay, words spoken clination of the head, and the expression of thus, in the deep abstraction of prophetic every feature, all contribute to the same invision, would have produced the same effect tention. This is not the heaviness or even on the hearer, had the speaker been even in- the repose of previous silence. On the convisible. And yet those words were indis- trary, the head has not yet risen, nor the pensable to rouse all these lay figures into muscles of the face subsided from the act of appropriate, though requisitely minute, in- mournful speech. It is just the evanescent dications of individual character. It was moment which all true painters yearn to plain, therefore, that only he who could paint catch, and which few but painters are wont the troubled spirit' of Jesus as it breathed to observe,-when the tones have ceased, but forth the plaintive sentence, Verily, verily, the lips are sealed,-when, for an instant, the I say unto you, one of you shall betray me,' face repeats to the eye what the voice has would have the power to touch that spring said to the ear. No one who has studied which alone could set the rest of the delicate that head can doubt that our Lord has just machinery in motion. spoken the sounds are not there; but they have not travelled far into space. 6 : "We need not say who did fulfil these conditions, nor whose Last Supper it is-all "Much, too, in the general speech of this ruined and defaced as it may be--which head is owing to the skill with which, while alone rouses the heart of the spectator as conveying one particular idea, the painter effectually as that incomparable shadow in has suggested no other. Beautiful as the the centre has roused the feelings of the dim face is, there is no other beauty but that which forms on each side of him. Leonardo da ministers to this end. We know not whether Vinci's Cena, to all who consider this grand the head be handsome or picturesque, massubject through the medium of art, is the Last culine or feminine in type,-whether the eye Supper; there is no other. Various repre- be liquid, the cheeks ruddy, the hair smooth. sentations exist, and by the highest names in or the beard curling,--as we know with such art; but they do not touch the subtle spring. painful certainty in other representations. Compared with this chef d'œuvre, their Last All we feel is, that the wave of one intense Suppers are mere exhibitions of well-drawn, meaning has passed over the whole countedraped, or colored figures, in studiously varied nance, and left its impress alike on every attitudes, which excite no emotion beyond part. Sorrow is the predominant expression, the admiration due to these qualities. It is that sorrow which, as we have said in our no wonder that Leonardo should have done Introduction, distinguishes the Christian's little or nothing more after the execution, in God, and which binds him, by a sympathy his forty-sixth year, of that stupendous pic-no fabled deity ever claimed, with the fallen and suffering race of Adam,-his very words have given himself more pain than they have to his hearers, and a pain he cannot expend in protestations as they do; for for this, as for every other act of his life, came be into the world. : Or the scene is rendered with a dramatic force and truth to make one feel as if the Last Supper itself had occurred in that forsaken refectory. No mystical painter was ever : more sublime no historical painter was ever more real. But in spite of the predilection which Lady Eastlake avows and justifies for the Christian artists of the earlier Catholic schools,—a predilection which goes so far as to lead her to treat Michael Angelo and Raphael as religious painters with some severity,-yet she does ample justice to the remarkable power with which these sacred subjects have been handled by one nothern artist,-Rembrandt. Several of his finest etchings are reproduced in these volumes with great effect; the folsuch an illustration; but it is so remarkable lowing passage stands somewhat in need of that we transfer it to our own ungraphic pages : "But we must not linger with the face alone; no hands ever did such intellectual service as those which lie spread on that table. They, too, have just fallen into that position,-one so full of meaning to us, and so unconsciously assumed by him,—and they will retain it no longer than the eye which is down and the head which is sunk. A special intention on the painter's part may be surmised in the opposite action of each hand the palm of one so graciously and bountifully open to all who are weary and heavy laden, the other averted, yet not closed, as if deprecating its own symbolic office. we may consider their position as applicable to this particular scene only; the one hand saying, Of those that thou hast given me none is lost,' and the other, which lies near Judas, except the son of perdition.' Or, "There was another master about to apagain, we may give a still narrower definipear in the plains of Holland, who was destion, and interpret this averted hand as di- tined, while adhering to the so-called reality, recting the eye, in some sort, to the hand of and even vulgarity, of these Northern schools, Judas which lies nearest it, Behold, the to retrieve both by the spell of the highest hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on moral and picturesque power. That inspired the table. Not that the science of Christian Dutchman,' as Mrs. Jameson has called Remiconography has been adopted here; for the brandt, threw all his grand and uncouth welcoming and condemning functions of the soul into this subject. He painted it once in respective hands have been reversed,-in ref- chiaroscuro (dated 1634), and treated it twice erence, probably, to Judas, who sits on our in an etching, each time historically. We Lord's right. Or we may give up attributing give an etching. The incident takes place in symbolic intentions of any kind to the painter, the open air. A crowd is round and behind -a source of pleasure to the spectator more our Lord; a crowd is importunately pressing often justifiable than justified, and simply upon Pilate, and below is more than a crowd give him credit for having, by his own exquis-rather a furious sea of heads-vanishing ite feeling alone, so placed the hands as to make them thus minister to a variety of suggestions. Either way these grand and pathetic members stand as pre-eminent as the head in the pictorial history of our Lord, having seldom been equalled in beauty of form, and never in power of speech. worst upon 6 "Thus much has been said upon this figure of our Lord, because no other representation approaches so near the ideal of his person. Time, ignorance, and violence have done their it; but it may be doubted whether it ever suggested more overpowering feelings than in its present battered and defaced condition, scarcely now to be called a picture, but a fitter emblem of Him who was despised and rejected of inen.' No work in the whole range of Christian 'art combines in such perfection ideal beauty and grandeur with historic truth. The Christ of Leonardo has a divinity about it which transcends all other human creations, whilst 6 beneath an archway, of which we see neither |