tively late example of the secular application of the halo is to be found around the head of the Byzantine "Emperor Justinian amid His Ministers" pictured in mosaic in the old church of San Vitale at Ravenna which dates between 525 and 534 A.D., though the mosaics are later. This particular group must be so, for Justinian only retook Ravenna in 539. Again we find the nimbus in a hexagonal form used to indicate allegorical characters even in pictures so late as those of Giotto in the Lower Church at Assisi. (See Plate I).

The necessity for concealment, by the Christians of their conversion, from the persecuting Roman emperors and their minions, was another cause of the retention of many pagan symbols and types. Thus we find such interesting depictions as that reproduced on Plate I from a painting in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus in Rome, where Our Lord is depicted in the character of Orpheus with his lute, and the use of the Fish to symbolise the Saviour, because the Greek word for fish, IXOYE, is an anagram of the initial letters for the Greek phrase Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεού Υιός, Σωτήρ (Latin: Jesus Christus Dei Filius Salvator) meaning Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour. The Romans were a humorous people, and we can picture their delight, almost see them looking with their tongue in their cheek, in spite of all their self-denying adherence to their new faith and their cheerfully-accepted sufferings, at these representations intended to hoodwink their cruel persecutors.

Now in the early days of Christianity, that is to say in the three centuries which followed the Resurrection of Our Lord, the feeling of His disciples and later followers towards Him was not so much a religious adoration as a profound admiration for a great teacher, and strange though it may seem-even to those of us who still live in an age of hero-worship of another and less noble form-He was almost secondary in many ways to the authentic martyrs, who died after suffering abominable tortures rather than deny their new Master. A reason for this, one which I have never seen advanced elsewhere, yet is surely logical, is probably to be found in the fact that apart from the Apostles a large proportion of the earliest authentic martyrs as opposed to the few legendary sufferers-were either of high birth or of great learning, or both, and therefore well placed to capture the fancy of the "common herd" of uneducated converts, who could not help but exalt them from natural leaders into supernatural heroes. St. Adrian (A.D. 290), St. Agatha (251), St. Barbara (303), St. Blaise (316), St. Catherine of Alexandria (307), St. Sebastian (288), St. Eustace (118), St. Cecilia (280) and many others of the favorite saints were of royal or noble birth, while others, such as St. Lawrence, became heroes to their fellow Christians because of the purity of their lives, the staunchness of their support of the new faith, and the indomitable spirit in which they suffered torture and martyrdom. And so we find the beginnings of this saintly

iconography to be but one more aspect of that same spirit which gave popularity to a consistently successful gladiator, a victorious athlete, or, in the present day, a skilful matador, a conquering general, or an outstanding home-run getter. This comparison is less trivial than it sounds at first, for emulation is the motive force of progress, and a people with nothing at which to look upwards will soon be walking over the ashes of the past with downcast eyes.

Presently, however, the figure of Christ began to stand out, as time lent majesty to His sacrifice, and the ever-increasing thousands of His followers invested Him in the thoughts of the imperiallyminded Romans with a regal grandeur and aloofness. Then He became one with God the Father and the Holy Ghost, a member of the Divine Trinity, too exalted for direct hearing of pleas and prayer.

And so the saints, from being popular heroes, in whom the new converts felt an admiring interest, became the intercessors of the people at "the Court" of a wellnigh inaccessible Deity. This explains to a great extent the enormous number of Christian saints, and their high standing in the minds of the people. Each town, and even smaller communities, had its patron saint, to whom the inhabitants addressed themselves for aid in everything, from the loss of a silver coin to the desire for a son and heir. Furthermore, many varieties of illness, and other worries and troubles, became the particular province of certain saints, as, for example, St. Apollonia, who is the protectress against dental afflictions, while French peasants still pray to St. Anthony of Padua to help them recover some lost object, and their women offer prayers to their patron that they be rendered fertile.

Now, one would think that with the general recognition of the Christian religion by the Emperor Constantine, and his swiftly-succeeding edicts making the Christians monarchs of all they surveyed, and an offence, punishable by forfeiture of half one's worldly possessions, to insult an adherent of the Faith, one would think, I say, that the troubles of the Christian artist were over. They were only just beginning! For now the Church was not at all convinced that pictorial representation of sacred subjects by semi-educated laymen supported the dogmatic teachings of the clergy, who naturally were still groping amid hair-splitting reasonings and debates for the final "form" of the religion's administration. Everything having to be, as it were, codified, which task was in the hands of the most learned of the Fathers of the Church, there was good reason for apprehension that freedom for composers of sacred subjects might lead to embarassing contradictions.

Gregory II might exclaim that "Painting is employed in churches for the reason that those who are ignorant of the scriptures may at least see upon the walls what they are unable to read in books," but St. Augustine spoke of sacred pictures as "the books of the simple" of which the first duty was to teach. And the hierarchy had no intention of allow

ing the "libri idiotorum" to give instruction to the simple along lines which did not run parallel to the verbal teachings of the clergy.

At the Ecumenical Council of the Church, at Nicæa in Asia Minor, known in history as the Nicene Conference (A.D. 325), convoked and presided over by the Emperor Constantine, who favored Christianity from the year 319 though he himself was not baptised until shortly before his death in 337 A.D., rigid laws were laid down concerning the treatment of sacred subjects. It was ordained, for example, that the human body, even that of the Infant Christ, must be entirely clothed in order that no question of the flesh might obscure the spiritual issue. Even the feet were to be hidden, and only the hands and face exposed. This rule was adhered to up till the time of Giotto, and we see in the Madonnas of Guido da Siena, Cimabue and Duccio exactly how the ruling was carried out. And further, through a slavish adherence to pure Byzantine tradition, the Russian ikons-sacred pictures-up to the recent revolution, still portrayed the Holy Personages in the same many-folded, gold-striped garments, covering every inch of the body, as those in the 8th and 9th century Byzantine pictures and mosaics.

Even then the troubles of the artist were far from being smoothed over, for with the accession to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantium, of Leo the Isaurian, the Iconoclast, as he is often styled-in 716 A.D., the churches of both East and West were, by his order, cleared of images, and the "symbols of idolatry" destroyed. Pope Gregory II, mentioned above as an ardent supporter of pictorial teaching-what we call today "teaching through the eye"-fought the execution of this edict and excommunicated its author, severing him and his followers from all connection with the true Catholic Church, an action which played a great role in history, through the alliance of Rome with the French Carlovingian monarchs, for it established the temporal power of the Papacy (755 A.D.). In return, France became known as the "Elder Daughter of the Church."

From that time, in spite of the rigid laws under which it labored, art began its gradual enfranchisement, and as it grew stronger, as painters grew more skilful with their medium, so that it became an easily-wielded instrument in their hands, art stepped out of its swaddling clothes, refused to take orders and finally, even in the depiction of sacred subjects, thrust aside the spiritual, in favor of an almost entirely material, interpretation. Men having lost much of their mediæval naïveté, were willing to look at religious pictures and love them for what they represented, but refused any longer to be hoodwinked as to their meaning.

So, as, with the Renaissance, the arts prospered and education became commoner, symbolism changed, became less mystic and simpler. The Holy Trinity

commenced to inspire less awe. Not only did Jesus Christ begin to appear less far beyond the reach of suppliant mankind, but even God the Father, who at first was represented simply by a hand appearing out of a cloud, began to be portrayed in human form, thus showing that the artists of this later day looked upon the Almighty more as a benevolent Father who loved unworthy man so deeply that He had given His Son as the Redeemer, than as a cruel tyrannical overlord, in whose eyes man could do no right and who had ordained terrible punishment for all who committed the unavoidable sins.

"What! out of senseless nothing to provoke
A conscious something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted pleasure, under pain
Of everlasting penalties, if broke!

OMAR KHAYYAM

an ironic quatrain which expresses perhaps more than any other written line the new spirit, the new "feeling" towards the personages of the Holy Trinity. And nothing betrays the "humanizing" of religion more than the growth of the "Mother and Child" motive in art. This motive, for obvious reasons destined to have a mystic significance, is to be found in the arts of all countries, much older than Christian Art. The Chinese portray Kuan-yin, "Hearer of Cries," with a child in her lap; the Egyptians worshipped the goddess Isis holding her

son, Horus; while the Greeks, in the person of Diana, symbolised at once fertility and chastity, and made her the prototype of motherhood and beauty and charity. And undoubtedly the influence of these portrayals helped to create the "special" character of the Mother of Christ in art. In all likelihood it proceeded directly from the Isis and Horus legend, for St. Cyril, who fought so strenuously for the orthodoxy of the doctrine that the Virgin was the "Mother of God" at the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D., was Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444, and in consequence was thoroughly familiar with Egyptian theology. It was this Cyril whose followers persecuted and put to death the brilliant philosopher and mathematician, Hypatia, the heroine of Charles Kingley's romance of that name.

The "fight" just mentioned illustrates the seriousness with which what we might call the "working dogma" of the church was evolved. In the year 431 the Council of Ephesus condemned for heresy the party headed by Nestorius which maintained that Christ was a dual personality, comprising both God and man, and that therefore Mary, His human mother, was the mother of the latter and had no right to be called the "Mother of God." The Monophysites, who upheld the single character of Our Lord as the God-in-Man, contended that this unity automatically established the Madonna in the higher degree. The controversy engendered such active partisanship that the "Madonna and Child" became, as it were, a "campaign emblem," and, after the victory, was popularised in painting or embroidery on garments, or stamped on coins by all who wished to show their horror at the "sacrilegious" heresy. (See Chapter V.)

At first, as in all arts-see previous papers-the artists who portrayed these religious subjects were themselves deeply imbued with the spirit they were commissioned to represent, and so even the crudest of these early efforts are impressive in their evident sincerity. This feeling of profound religious sentiment lasted up to the beginning of the Cinquecento, and so we find the artists of the Quattrocento, the 15th century, painting with considerable skill pictures which possess that rare combination of spontaneous matter and impeccable manner. This period of perfection in art only lasts a very short time in any branch or country, for only too soon, alas, the artist who has acquired sufficient technical skill to express without difficulty whatever he wishes to say gathers unto himself an excess of pride in that skill, and a desire to see how far it will carry him, which finishes by subordinating the matter entirely to the manner. Decadence has set in. In the matter of religious pictures this was displayed by a semisacrilegious portraiture, as the Madonna, of the wives, and even the mistresses, of some of the painters, and, in votive pictures, by the painting, into the sacred group, of the donor of the picture and his relations, or even the artist and his family.

There was nothing objectionable about the introduction into the composition of early pictures, of the donors, for they were brought in as worshippers only, and portrayed in almost minute proportions in order carefully to emphasize their comparative unimportance. But I have in mind a tryptich by Ludger Tom Ring, a 16th-century German, in the Metropolitan Museum, in which he has depicted Our Lord in the centre panel, in the act of blessing, with the donor and his two sons on one side of Him, his wife and daughter on the other, and two other members of the family on the outer panels. All these figures are of the same size and value as Christ Himself; indeed more importance is accorded to these impertinent and egotistical individuals than to the Master, by the statement of the age of each one of them painted over his or her head. These awful "parvenus" are not even kneeling to their Saviour. They are probably with a condescending thought-having dinner with Him! The Meyer family of the Holbein Madonna, named after it, is more reverent. The burgomeister shows at least some religious sentiment, and his wife is, as it were, behaving decently, as she would, kneeling, in church, as is also the younger daughter. But the other is paying no attention whatever to the beautiful crowned Madonna and Her Child, while the boy on the side of his father has come into the picture

so that "he will be in it" for family reasons. And Titian and Paul Veronese not only inserted the portraits of themselves and their families into such works as the former's "Pilgrims of Emmaeus" in the Louvre, and the latter's great "Marriage at Cana," also in the Paris collection, but also introduced all manner of prominent contemporary personages and even personal friends. Finally, the painting of sacred pictures became a business, and, with the 17th century Italian eclectics of the schools of Bologna and Naples and elsewhere, what had once been a glorious art, pulsating with fervor, vibrant with emotion, vivid in both color and sentiment, the work of preachers in paint, just as the great architects of the Gothic era were preachers in stone, this splendid art which has cast a mantle of immortality upon the name of 13th to 16th century Italy, died an ignoble death, choked by its greed, and its lifeblood of sincerity thinned down to the consistency of over-matured wines.

of Truth. When the Madonna is clad all in white, as in pictures of the Immaculate Conception, it symbolises Her purity, and again when She is clothed in rich vestments they are symbolic of Her mystic standing as the Queen of Heaven or of the Angels (Regina Cali or Angelorum).

Pictures themselves also divide up into two categories, DEVOTIONAL or VOTIVE, and NARRATIVE, or, as they are sometimes called, HISTORICAL. They are easily distinguishable from each other, once the basic points of difference are clearly understood. There is a third group, which is rarer, comprising subjects which combine the features of the

CHAPTER II

OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SYMBOLS AND ATTRIBUTES, AND BETWEEN DEVOTIONAL, VOTIVE AND NARRATIVE PICTURES

There are two classes of objects with which the Saints are always depicted in art, viz., attributes and symbols. Sometimes they are represented with one class, sometimes with the other, and frequently with both. The former have reference to their historical or legendary positions or careers. The latter symbolise some abstract quality, such as piety, learning, fortitude, eloquence, or are emblematic of their martyrdom. For example, St. Catherine of Alexandria, who was a royal princess, is sometimes portrayed with two crowns, one at her feet, the other on her head. In this case the crown at her feet is an attribute of her royal rank, spurned by her in favor of the new Christian faith, while that on her head is the crown of martyrdom, a symbol. Similarly the Apostle Paul is shown in different pictures with a sword held, now pointing upwards, now with the point reversed and the Apostle leaning upon it. In the former case the sword blade, raised in the position of striking, is symbolic of the militant character of the Apostle's preaching, while in the latter it is the attribute of his martyrdom, for he was beheaded with that, the customary, weapon. (See Plate XX.)

Again, the habiliments in which a saint is depicted are almost always an attribute, for they refer to his or her station in life, though the colors of such robes, as in the case of the Dominican habit, may themselves be emblematic. There are exceptions to this rule as, for example, when St. Dominick or St. Clara are portrayed all in white, in symbolic recognition of their outstanding purity of mind. On the other hand, the robes of the Virgin Mary are purely symbolical, the Red of Love, the White of Purity and the Blue

A DEVOTIONAL CRUCIFIXION BY MARTIN SCHÖNGAUER OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY GERMAN SCHOOL. THIS IS AN ADAPTED "STABAT MATER" (Q. v.) FOR, IN ADDITION TO THE USUAL FIGURES OF THE VIRGIN AND ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, THE

OTHER THREE MARYS ARE ALSO PRESENT. (See Page 56.) two main divisions, the features of a narrative character appearing in the subsidiary motives.

Devotional pictures may be classified broadly as those in which no action is depicted, where the personages are represented solely in their saintly aspect, as opposed to their personal aspect. Pictures of the Last Judgment; the Coronation of the Virgin; of Paradise, with the Holy Trinity, the Virgin, the Heavenly Host, and the earthly saints, with their symbols and attributes; groups of saints, called by the Italians, "Sacre Conversazione;" and of the Crucifixion, where the single Cross is shown, bearing the figure of Our Lord, with a number of Saints having no connection with His actual life and His Passion, are all of the category of devotional pictures.

Narrative or Historical Pictures are those which tell a story, depict some incident, actual or legendary, in the lives of the Saviour or His Mother, or the Saints, thereby placing such personages on a terrestrial plane in contradistinction from the spiritual interpretation which marks Devotional Pictures.

The commonest form of devotional picture presents the Madonna and "Bambino," surrounded by saints, having no reference to each other, nor to the actual life of the Virgin, but bearing generally some connection with the symbolic side of Her Life. Good examples of this type are the great Raphael Madonna, the Taddeo Gaddi Altar-piece, and the famous Girolamo dai Libri Madonna-under a tree -all in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York.

Practically all the representations of the Madonna and Child-of which I shall speak more fully in a separate chapter-are in the devotional class, in fact all of them, except the usual type of work representing the Nativity, the Presentation in the Temple, the Circumcision, or the Adoration of the three shepherds and the three Magi or Kings, and other such historical events. Occasionally, the Madonna is represented alone, either simply as a half or bust-length figure, or at full length. These are, of course, all devotional representations.

As mentioned previously, certain representations of the Crucifixion are devotional, while others are narrative. In the former, of which a good, though small, example is again to be found in the Metropolitan Museum, the work of Fra Angelico, il Beato, the Blessed, the Saviour is depicted upon the cross, but almost in an attitude of repose, the self-sacrificing Son of God, rather than the suffering Man, while the other two crosses are replaced by palm trees equal distances away on either side of the Cross. Gathered around its foot are nine saints, three of whom are kneeling to the Divine Figure, while the others are separated into two groups of three on each side, but all in a row. (See Chapter XI.)

When the Crucifixion is depicted with all the historical or legendary attributes, such as the Roman soldiers standing on guard, the two thieves on their crosses, the centurion Longinus, who is said to have pierced the side of Our Lord, and later became converted and canonised as a martyr, or again when the "Heavens were darkened," in short, whenever the picture tells a story, it is not a devotional, but a historical, work. The Bartolo di Fredi crucifixion in the Metropolitan Museum is an example of the narrative form.

Portrayals of the Saints alone also divide into the two groups. Wherever the personage is shown actually suffering martyrdom, or performing some one of the acts that led to his or her canonisation, or as accomplishing some event of his life, either historical or legendary, such pictures fall into the narrative group. The pictures of the Three Miracles of St. Zenobius, and the Last Sacrament of St. Jerome, by

A VERY INTERESTING, BUT UNCOMMON, RENDERING OF THE 'ANNUNCIATION.' THE SUBJECT IS TREATED ENTIRELY IN A DEVOTIONAL MANNER, LIKE ANOTHER ONE BY THE SAME GREAT MASTER, FRANCESCO RAIBOLINI, COMMONLY KNOWN AS "IL FRANCIA." (Picture in the Pinacoteca at Bologna)

Botticelli, in the Metropolitan Museum, belong to this class. Such works as pictures of St. Sebastian, with soldiers actually shooting arrows into his flesh, are of course of the narrative type. But when this same saint is depicted alone, fastened to a tree or stake, with arrows driven into his limbs, it is a devotional picture. The picture of St. Dominick, with his book and lily symbols, in the Metropolitan Museum is of the devotional order. (See Chapter XI.)

Pictures of the Annunciation might be classed as either devotional or narrative, for usually they depict the arrival of the Archangel Gabriel, with his lily-wand, to announce the news to the Virgin. There is therefore action in such pictures, but at the same time, the mystic atmosphere of the whole incident should really class them among the devotional works. There are some representations of this most important subject from an Art standpoint-which are clearly devotional, e. g., the two well-known pictures by Francia, in the Bologna Museum, in which the Virgin is standing upon a slight elevation with a book in her hand, with saints around her and the angel floating above a little to one side, with the right hand raised in a gesture of benediction.

In one of these two (above), the Virgin Mary is surrounded by St. John the Evangelist, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bernardino of Siena, and St. George, while above her head to the right floats a blessing