Luca Signorelli Part 3

The Virgin, it is true, sits awkwardly, and with a rather ungainly gesture of hands and arms, there are faults of drawing in the feet, and the Child is ugly and insignificant. But these are faults easy to overlook in considering the grandeur of the landscape, the beauty of the colour, and, above all, the magnificent modelling of the nude figures in the background. The Virgin gains in importance by the n.o.bility of these athletes behind her, but it is clear that Signorelli's interest lay less in the melancholy Mother and Child, than in these superb t.i.tans, in whom he seems to have personified the forces of Nature. How great was the influence of this picture upon Michelangelo we need only take a few steps into the Tribuna to see, in his _Tondo_ of the Holy Family, No. 1139. The painting is set in a kind of frame in _grisaille_, surmounted by a head of S. John the Baptist, and two seated Prophets in medallions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Uffizi, Florence_

MADONNA]

Somewhat inferior in execution, but painted in exactly the same spirit, is the "Madonna," of the Munich Gallery, formerly in the Palazzo Ginori, Florence.[52] Here, as in the last, the Virgin sits, filling the foreground s.p.a.ce, a stately figure, with fingers pressed together, as if in prayer to the Child at her feet. The background is a cla.s.sic landscape, through which runs a stream of the beautiful limpid green with which Signorelli always paints water, and by its side sits another of the n.o.ble nude figures, untying his sandal. It may be intended for S.

John the Baptist, as the critics say, but I do not think that either here or in the Uffizi painting, Signorelli had any intention of adhering to traditional ill.u.s.tration. It seems rather as though the pictures were symbolic--expressive of some comparison in his mind between Christianity, as he perhaps conceived it for the moment, melancholy and dejected, and the Greek Pantheism, vigorous and strong, and radiant with the joy of life.

Another picture belonging to this beautiful group is the "Portrait of a Man," in the Berlin Gallery, formerly in the Torrigiani Collection, Florence. In the days before it was photographed it was considered to be a portrait of Signorelli himself, and, as it represents a man with grey hair, was naturally reckoned among his later works; but comparison with the two portraits at Orvieto show that there is no real resemblance of feature, while the technique and spirit of the painting claim a place for it among this early series.

Here again occur the cla.s.sic figures, but this time with less of the idyllic feeling. On one side are hurrying Apollo and Daphne(?), on the other, one athlete has overthrown another, and stands menacingly over his prey, who tries with ineffectual gestures to beat him off--a very Pollaiuolesque scene of violence. The colouring, with its clear reds of the _biretta_ and the robe, is very successful. With this powerful portrait closes this beautiful and interesting group of paintings, the _provenance_ of all four of which, it will be observed, is from Florence.

The two _Tondos_, of the Pitti and Corsini Galleries, Florence, must have been painted at a date not far distant from those, for they have much in common in certain forms, and particularly in the rich and glowing scheme of colour.

The "Holy Family," of the Pitti Gallery, has been restored, and suffers much from thick varnish and repainting, but nothing has spoilt the harmony of the colours, nor the tender beauty of the Virgin, whose features and expression are a repet.i.tion of those of Echo in the "Pan."

The Saint, who writes at the dictation of the Child, is painted with earnestness, and the whole scene is treated with the utmost religious feeling.

The "Madonna and Saints," of the Corsini Gallery, has the same warm glow of colour, and was probably painted about the same time. The Virgin sits with the Child on her left knee, clad in a red robe, round the neck of which little Loves are embroidered in gold. Over it she wears a dark-green mantle shot with gold--a form of decoration very usual with Signorelli, especially about this time. She has the beautiful, pale, honey-coloured hair which occurs so often in his works, almost the same colour which was characteristic of Palma's Venetian ladies later. To the left kneels S. Jerome, gazing up at her, and on the right is S. Bernard holding a pen and book. The painting is in a good state of preservation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Pitti, Florence_

MADONNA AND SAINTS]

The rather insignificant type of head of S. Joseph occurs again in another "Holy Family," which belongs approximately to the same period,--that of the Rospigliosi Gallery in Rome. As far as beauty and tender grace go, this is the most successful of all his Madonnas. The daring repet.i.tion of the same features with darker colouring in the S.

John behind her, I have already drawn attention to. The draperies are painted with great freedom, and a fine sweep of broad fold. They are shot, as in the Corsini _Tondo_, with gold in the high lights.

Insignificant as is the Child in all these Holy Families, there is at the same time something pathetic and winning in the earnest, careworn little face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Rospigliosi Gallery, Rome_

HOLY FAMILY]

Very different is the type Signorelli has adopted for the Christ in the Uffizi "Holy Family," No. 1291, which must be placed somewhere about this time, or a very little later. Here He is represented with a certain n.o.bility of feature and gesture, although self-conscious and unchildlike. The Greek profile of the Virgin is almost identical with that of the above-mentioned Rospigliosi picture, while the powerful head of S. Joseph carries us back to the figures in the "Circ.u.mcision." The Virgin sits uneasily, ill-balanced, and with badly-modelled feet, but the beauty of the face makes amends for these defects. It is a picture full of n.o.ble qualities, both of feeling and technique, and it has besides a special importance by reason of the difference of colour, so much less heavy than usual. The flesh tints are very pale, and the shadows a silvery grey, and the whole tone is much lighter than in any of the preceding pictures. The composition is specially fine, the attention being concentrated without effort on the central figure of the Child, to which the other two serve as a kind of frame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: [Uffizi, Florence

HOLY FAMILY]

I cannot leave this series of early works, which includes so many _Tondos_, without drawing attention to the excellence of Signorelli's composition in this difficult form. The figures fill the s.p.a.ce naturally and without any artificial bending of the heads to fit the shape; there is a sense of s.p.a.ce, and ease of grouping, and the large sweeping lines of the draperies follow most harmoniously the curves of the panel.

With the exception of the Perugia altar-piece, none of the above-mentioned paintings are dated. Inferentially we arrive at the time when the Loreto frescoes were completed, but there is little to help in grouping the rest beyond the internal evidence they afford. I have endeavoured to place them in the order they seem most naturally to take, with reference to colour, form, and the early influences to be observed in them, but the arrangement must necessarily be somewhat arbitrary.

Fortunately this difficulty grows less and less in dealing with the later works, and the most important of them are generally dated.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] I shall, as far as s.p.a.ce permits, describe those pictures of which ill.u.s.trations cannot be inserted. Where the ill.u.s.tration is given, it becomes unnecessary.

[43] Vasari, iii. 691.

[44] Vischer, p. 79.

[45] Cavalcaselle e Crowe, viii. 507. Note 1.

[46] I have thought it best only to translate those names that are familiar to us in English.

[47] Vasari, iii. 685.

[48] Cavalcaselle e Crowe, viii. 455.

[49] Vasari, iii. 685.

[50] Vasari, iii. 689.

[51] I am indebted for the above facts to Mr H. J. Ross of Poggio Gherardo, Florence, the original purchaser of the picture.

[52] The photograph gives so little idea of the beauty of the original that I have not reproduced it.

CHAPTER IV

MIDDLE PERIOD

We have now arrived at the paintings belonging to the year 1491, part of which Signorelli spent in Volterra, three works still remaining in that city to testify to the visit--"The Annunciation," of the Cathedral; the "Madonna and Saints," now in the Gallery, both dated; and a much-injured fresco in _grisaille_, representing S. Jerome, on the walls of the same building--the Palazzo Communale.

The "Madonna enthroned with Saints" was painted for the altar of Maffei Chapel in San Francesco, and was unfortunately removed not many years ago to the Gallery of the Palazzo Communale, suffering the greatest damage in the transit. Two large cracks run through the figures of the Child and the seated Father; large pieces of the paint have dropped away, and in the repainting the Child has lost all characteristics of Signorelli's work. In the less ruined parts, however, enough remains to testify to the original excellence of the painting, which is finely composed, and broadly and vigorously treated, especially in the draperies.

The Virgin sits enthroned between four saints, with a very Peruginesque angel on either side, and seated below, at the foot of her throne, are two Fathers of the Church, in one of whom we have repeated the burly bishop with wide-spread knees and fine sweeping drapery of the Loreto cupola, and which occurs later in the Florence Academy altar-piece. The influence of Pollaiuolo can be observed in the sculptures on the _gradino_ of the throne, little nude figures in violent action.

In better preservation is the "Annunciation," in the Cathedral, signed, and with the same date as the foregoing. The architecture, with its excellent perspective, again reminds us that Signorelli was the pupil of Pier dei Franceschi, the painter of the wonderful _loggia_ in the "Annunciation," of Perugia. The Virgin is painted with great feeling, and in the solemn beauty of the Archangel we get the first of those splendid creatures whose sublimity Signorelli felt in the same spirit as Dante, who bent his knees and folded his hands at the sight of the "_Uccel divino_," "_trattando l'aere con l'eterne penne_."[53]

[Ill.u.s.tration: [_Cathedral, Volterra_

THE ANNUNCIATION]

The resemblance is so great between this painting and the "Annunciation," of the Uffizi _predella_ (No. 1298) that we are justified in placing the latter somewhere about the same date. As is so often the case in _predella_ pictures, especially with Signorelli's, the spontaneity and freedom of execution, and even of conception, is much greater here than in the more carefully thought-out and finished works.

Small as this panel is, the rush of the great Archangel, the solemn beauty of the landscape, and the splendid att.i.tudes of the young courtiers in the last division, make it one of the master's most important and characteristic paintings. The colour in the first panel of the "Annunciation" is especially beautiful, and there is a n.o.ble simplicity in the composition, as well as a breadth and certainty of touch that give the picture great grandeur. The _predella_ is divided by painted pilasters into three parts. In the first the Archangel hastens through a rocky pa.s.s to announce the message, to which the Virgin bows with awed acceptance of its solemn meaning. In the second, the shepherds kneel to offer homage to the new-born Child, who lies at the Virgin's feet, while the third represents the visit of the Magi.

The same freedom of brushwork characterises another "Annunciation," of probably the same time, and treated in much the same manner, although less stately than that of the Uffizi. This is one part of a _predella_ formerly belonging to the Mancini Collection of Citta di Castello.[54]

The Archangel, with great wings half folded, and blown drapery, is just alighting at the feet of the Virgin, who has dropped her book, and drawn back with startled gesture at the impetuous rush of the messenger.

Connected with these by the same qualities of breadth of treatment, and almost modern impressionism in the conception of the scene, are two compartments of a _predella_, belonging to Mr Benson in London, representing "The Dispute by the Way," and "The Supper at Emmaus." In the former especially, the dramatic realism with which the Apostles are depicted, as they argue with animated gestures, is extraordinarily vivid.

Yet another _predella_ picture--"The Feast in the House of Simon," now in the Dublin Gallery--belongs approximately to this period. It is a most beautiful representation of the scene, and is treated somewhat in the gay manner of Bonifazio or Paolo Veronese. At a long table, crowded with guests, Christ sits, with His Mother on His right hand, the master of the feast being conspicuous in the middle. Over Christ's head, the Magdalen, a charming and graceful figure, pours the ointment, and on the left of the table Judas, with expressive gesture, calls attention to the waste. Notwithstanding the small size of the panel, and the number of the figures, the effect is exceedingly s.p.a.cious and free. It is a well-composed scene, full of animation, and broad in treatment, and is fortunately in a good state of preservation. The altar-pieces to which all this series of _predelle_ belong are unknown.

We will now consider the fine Standard, painted in 1494 for the church of Santo Spirito in Urbino.[55] On one side was represented the "Crucifixion," and on the other "The Descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost," but the canvases have now been divided. In the former, at the foot of the Cross is grouped the first of those characteristic scenes of the fainting Virgin which was, probably from its dramatic element, so favourite a subject with Signorelli. Sincerely and naturally felt, it in no way trenches on the melodramatic, as one or two of the later groups tend to do, and the solitary figure of Christ, raised high above the sorrowing women, is for once, among his Crucifixions, of dignity and real pathos. The solemnity of the mood given, is enhanced by the fine idea of the soldier on the left, who, impressively standing out against the sky, shades his eyes, with bewildered gesture, as though blinded by a sudden comprehension of the sacrifice. The grief of the women who tend the unconscious Virgin, is sympathetically realised, and without exaggeration of outward sorrow. The composition is specially beautiful, the sides are well-balanced, while the two mounted soldiers on either side (notwithstanding their characteristically badly-drawn horses) give the scene a ceremonious stateliness, which is very impressive.