Raphael seemed to have attained perfection in the
Virgin with the Fish;
however, four or five years later, he was to rise infinitely higher and display
something superior to art and inaccessible to science.
It was in 1518 that the Benedictines of the monastery of St. Sixtus ordered
this picture. They had required that the Virgin and the Infant Jesus should be
in the company of St. Sixtus and St. Barbara. This is how Raphael entered into
their views.
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Deep shadows were veiling from us the majesty of the skies. Suddenly light
succeeds the obscurity, and the Infant Jesus and Mary appear surrounded by a
brightness so intense that the eyes can scarcely bear it. Between two green
curtains drawn to either side of the picture, amid an aureole of innumerable
cherubin, the Virgin is seen standing upon the clouds, with her son in her arms,
showing him to the world as its Redeemer and Sovereign Judge. Lower down, St.
Sixtus and St. Barbara are kneeling on the clouds on either side. Nothing is
visible of the earth,
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saints, who are pointing to the multitude for whom they are imploring the divine
mercy. Two angels are leaning on a kind of balustrade whose horizontal line
forms a solid plane at the base of the composition. Nothing could be more
elementary than the idea of such a picture; the ancient symmetry and the most
rigid parallelism are scrupulously observed. Raphael becomes almost archaic,
and, while returning to the simplicity of primitive traditions, by the force of
genius he confounds the scientific exaggeration that is already so close to
decadence. Doubtless he had raised his eyes high every time he had taken
antiquity as a model, but he raised them much higher still by becoming
exclusively Christian again, and by comprehending that the humblest way is not
only the surest, but also the most sublime. Why is such simple means so highly
successful in exalting our feelings? Why is it, when looking at this picture, we
have moments of divine oblivion in which we fancy ourselves in Heaven? That is
what we must try to penetrate and comprehend.
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The Sistine Madonna.
Raphael.
The principal figure of the picture is the Infant Jesus. He is no longer the
graceful
Bambino that we have so often seen in the arms of Raphael's
Madonnas, gentle and encouraging to the eyes of mankind, or again he who,
erewhile, in the
Virgin with the Fish, leaned towards the young Tobit; it
is the God himself, it is the God of Justice and of the Last Day. In the most
humble state of our flesh, beneath the veil of infancy, we see the terrifying
splendour of infinite majesty in this picture. The divine Infant leaves between
himself and us a place for fear, and in his presence we experience something of
the fear of God that Adam felt and that he transmitted to his race.
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attaining such heights of impression the means employed by Raphael are of
an incomprehensible simplicity. The Infant Jesus nestles familiarly in his
mother's arms. Sitting on a fold of the white veil that the Virgin supports with
her left hand, he leans against the Madonna's right arm; his legs are crossed
one above the other; the whole of the left arm follows the bend of the body and
the left hand rests upon the right leg; at the same time, the right shoulder
being raised by Mary's hand, the right arm is bent at the elbow and the hand
grasps the Virgin's veil. This attitude, so natural, so true, so unstudied,
expresses grandeur and sovereignty. Nothing can be more elementary nor more
powerful. The light rests calmly upon every part of this beautiful body and all
its members in such fine repose. Humanity was never seen under such radiance.
The Son of God, in transporting to Heaven the terrestrial form of his infancy,
has made it divine for all eternity. Raphael doubtless owed to antiquity
something of the power that enabled him spontaneously to create such a
masterpiece; but in this case he has far surpassed his models, and we should
search vainly in antique art for a more ideal and grand figure than that of this
marvellous infant. However, hitherto we have only examined the body, what shall
we say about the head to give a true idea of it? In fact,
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most extraordinary and most indescribable part of the whole picture. The Infant
Jesus seems to recoil from the spectacle of human shame; he lovingly presses
against the Virgin's breast, softly rests his forehead against his Mother's
cheek, and darts towards the world one of those flaming and terrible glances at
which, it is said, everything in heaven, on earth, and in hell trembles. His disordered hair stands upright and quivers as in the
breath of the tempest, and sombre clouds pass across the widely modelled
forehead; the brows are frowning, the pupils dilate and the flame is ready to
dart forth; the eyes, profound and terrible, are preparing to flash with
lightning; they still withhold it, but we feel that it may break forth, and we
tremble. This glance is truly splendid; it fascinates you, attracts you,
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the same time, fills you with terror. The lips are quivering, and, from the
point of view of line, that is the great mystery, I think; the upper lip,
visibly lifted on the left side, assumes a strange accent of anger and
indignation. This deviation of a single feature is materially a small matter,
and yet it suffices to stamp the whole countenance with irresistible action. The
Infant Jesus assumes a formidable aspect; we recognize in him the Sovereign
Judge; his power is infinite and one act of his will be sufficient to condemn or
absolve. The
Virgin of the Chair had given us a presentiment of this
image in 1516; the
Virgin of St. Sixtus shows it to us in 1518, in its
eternal grandeur and sublime reality. But the Word of God would scarcely leave
room for anything but fear, if the Virgin did not immediately come to shed hope
in the soul terrified at the idea of justice.
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In fact, the Virgin remains calm and serene beside her enraged son, and
reassures our heart also with her confidence. If she presents the Son of God to
the world under a terrifying aspect, at the same time she presses him so
tenderly against her breast, and her features, under the splendour of the divine
radiance, shine with such purity that we feel the flame that purifies all
passing within ourselves.The Virgin appears here like the dawning light. She
advances from right to left, beautiful as the skies, light as the cloud that
bears her. Her gait, or rather her flight through the air,
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nobleness and dignity. Her right hand, raised as high as the shoulder, holds the
body of Jesus under his right arm, and the Saviour lies back against his
Mother's right arm, while Mary's left arm is placed under the Infant's body to
support and carry him. The Virgin of St. Sixtus, like every Madonna, wears a red
robe and a white mantle; and Art has never done greater things with drapery with
such simple elements. The mantle falls with a beautiful movement over the lower
part of the body and floats in wide folds, which, while sharply defining the
form and movement of the lower limbs, reveals the bare feet which are of
admirable form and colour. The robe, ornamented only with a little gold
embroidery on the sleeve, is of a purple tint in the shadows and becomes rose in
the light; it is girdled below the breast like the antique statues, and reveals
the neck as well as the top of the shoulders,
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white gauze. A long scarf of the same colour as the veil but tinted with bistre,
is placed on the crown of the head, and, distending like a sail above the left
shoulder, returns to the left hand to serve as a support for the Infant, and
runs along the body of Jesus, who grasps it with his right hand. The Virgin's
head appears in full illumination without any artifice, and glows solely with
its own beauty. It is three quarters left, indeed almost full face, in a similar
position but in opposition to the Saviour's head, which, as we have seen, is
three quarters right and almost full face also. The hair, a light chestnut, is arranged simply in smooth and flat bands
lightly waved above the brow, leaving the ears, cheeks, and temples completely
uncovered, and not interfering in any way with the outlines of the face. The
forehead, of a medium height, presents a widely developed surface, in the centre
of which glows a light that is continued down the bridge of the nose. The eyes,
of irreproachable shape, are full of brilliance, and their gaze sheds over all
it illumines an infinite softness mingled with an indefinable exaltation. The
mouth trembles with divine emotion and seems to quiver with celestial bliss.
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Another remarkable thing in this supreme manifestation of genius is that in
the Virgin and the Infant, of such different, we might almost say such opposite
expressions, the same features are noticeably repeated. Raphael has been
faithful to the last to the system he adopted in almost his earliest pictures,
and to make this intentional resemblance more noticeable here he has placed the
two heads close together, and shown them almost full face, so that there shall
be no distracting element; and has opposed them to each other by turning them in
different ways so that they may complement each other and be reflected in one
another as in a mirror. Therefore, as the same glory surrounds both Mother and
Son at the same time, so the same character of beauty is found faithfully
reproduced in each. The skulls of both have the same general conformation, the
same intelligence shines upon the two brows, although the Saviour's is dark and
menacing whilst the Virgin's remains radiant and clear; the eyes have also the
same shape and are full of the same fire,
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terrible and of the other, reassuring; the mouth has the same lines, the same
nobility, and the same quiver that has the power of alternately inspiring terror
and tranquillity; and the cleft in the chin is identical. The colour also helps
to make an almost perfect unity of these two figures—we have the same white and
solid flesh tints, strong and delicate; the same warm and always luminous
shadows. Indeed, Jesus is confounded with Mary, so to speak, so that the two
forms together make one and the same body, and, moreover, the Saviour at need
may get rid of his majestic nakedness beneath the veil and in the mantle of
Mary.
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This Virgin, in which Raphael has surpassed himself, was painted in a moment
of veritable exaltation of genius. It was not laboriously conceived; it was born
of itself, spontaneously complete, like the antique Minerva, with its perfect
form and beauty, and it was the recompense for an entire life consecrated
without intermission to the search after nature and truth, to the study of the
masters and all the traditions, to the cult of the ideal and especially of the
Virgin.
After having produced so many rare masterpieces, his love and faith were
carried to such a pitch of power and enthusiasm that he seemed to be borne up by
them, and, suddenly penetrating into a sphere superior to all he had hitherto
visited, he painted a Virgin incomparably more beautiful than all the admirable
Virgins he had painted before. Not a single design, nor preparatory study, puts
us on the trace of any bringing forth of any of the parts of this picture.
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However, if the image of this Virgin was traced on the canvas by a hand
suddenly inspired, I think that at the same time Raphael confronted his
inspiration with nature, and that, whilst resolutely springing towards the
infinite, he yet set himself face to face with reality. Perhaps, strictly, he
would have had no need of that; he had amassed so much, his memory placed such
numerous, varied, and exact documents at the service of his will, that he had
only to remember in order almost immediately to produce an accomplished whole.
Moreover, he had the model he wanted, possessing without dominating it; and
without losing sight of his ideal, it was to this model that he applied himself
for the embodiment of his idea. Thus, in the Virgin of St. Sixtus, we recognize,
not the image of La Fornarina, but the transfiguration of her image. None of her
features are left and yet it is she,
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comes to dim the radiant and virginal brightness of the picture. In every human
creature there is a divine germ that cannot flourish on earth and whose
blossoming is only in the skies; this is the flowering, the splendour of which
is shown in the Virgin of St. Sixtus. We care very little about Raphael's
private life; we only affirm in the presence of his work that as a painter he
did not love for this life only, and that from the beginning to the end of his
career he had the respect and the taste for eternal love. Since the day when the
Virgin appeared transfigured to the seer of the Apocalypse, she had never
revealed herself in such effulgence. Before this picture, we lose every memory
of earth and see nothing but the Queen of Heaven and of the angels, the creature elect and blessed above all creatures. In
thus painting the Virgin, Raphael has almost reached the confines of
divinity.
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But everything in this picture is food for admiration, even the atmosphere
that envelops it and those innumerable and endless legions of cherubin that
gravitate around the Virgin and the Word of God. The aureole that encircles the
divine group shows nothing at first but dazzling and golden light; then, as it
recedes from the centre, this light gradually pales and insensibly merges from
the most intense gold into the purest blue, and is filled with those heads,
chaste, innocent, and fervent, that spring beneath the brush of Raphael like the
flowers at the breath of Spring. These aërial creatures throng to contemplate
the Virgin, and their forms recall those radiances in the shape of crowns that
fill the Dantesque Paradise,
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Our eyes and mind lose themselves in the immense multitude of these happy
spirits. "Number if you can the sands of the sea or the stars in the sky, those
that are visible and invisible, and still believe that you have not attained the
number of the angels. It costs God nothing to multiply the most excellent
things, and it is the most beautiful of which he is most prodigal." We cannot
keep our eyes away from that sky; we gaze at it and love to dazzle and weary our
eyes with it.
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On either side of the Virgin, kneel St. Sixtus and St. Barbara. Placed also
amid the clouds, but below the Madonna, they are near the sovereign mediatrix,
as mediators also between the world and the Sovereign Judge. St. Sixtus is seen
on the right in profile, his head is raised towards the Infant Jesus, his left
hand is placed devoutly on his breast while his right is foreshortened and
points towards the spectator. He wears a white rochet tied by a girdle with
golden tassels, a white amice around his neck, a magnificent pallium woven with
gold falling to his feet, and a long chasuble embroidered with gold and lined
with red enveloping his shoulders and arms, the wide folds of which are lost
amid the clouds. His head is bare,
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crown, is placed on the balustrade that runs horizontally across the base of the
picture. It is impossible to find a representation of pontifical sovereignty of
greater fervour, grandeur, and truth. His cranium is bald and has only a crown
of grey hair remaining. His emaciated face is full of ardour and power: his eyes
penetrate straight into the splendour of God; and his mouth, although partially
hidden by the grey beard that covers the lower part of his face, is praying with
extraordinary fervour. His gesture, so resolute and respectful, is in itself an
act of love and charity, and his very hands, so true in drawing and so bold in
action, have their special eloquence. It seems impossible that the divine
justice will not allow itself to be swayed by such intercession.
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St. Barbara is opposite St. Sixtus. Her body is in left profile, towards the
Virgin, while her head, turned over her left shoulder towards the spectator,
appears almost in full face. Only her left arm and hand are visible, pressed
against her breast. Her left knee, directly resting upon the cloud, sustains the
weight of her body; her right leg, which is raised, only touches the clouds with the
foot. Her head is as beautiful, youthful, and fresh as the action of her whole
figure is easy, elegant, and noble. Then where did Raphael find this serenity if
not in himself? The saint, gently bending towards the earth, seems to want to
receive our hopes and vows to bear them to Heaven. She is one of those virgins
who are created in the image of the Virgin par excellence. Nevertheless, here
she affects certain worldly appearances which, beside the severe simplicity of
the Mother of the Word, establish a hierarchy between the two figures and a sort
of line of demarcation that cannot be crossed. The higher we soar the more is
grandeur simplified in everything.
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St. Barbara's hair is arranged with a certain elegance; it is very abundant,
of an ash blonde, and forms thick waving bands that are gathered off the temples
and are crossed by two white fillets, one of which crosses the top of the
forehead like a diadem. Her eyes, lowered towards the earth, are perfectly
beautiful; her mouth is calm and sweet; and purity shines in all her features.
Her shoulders are bare, only covered with a veil of white gauze which falls down
her back, passes under her arm and returns to her breast where her left hand
holds it. Her robe of violet shading into a neutral tint, is only visible where
it covers her leg; for a green mantle, thrown over it, envelops the body, only
revealing the arm, the sleeve of which is blue on the upper arm, yellow, and
slightly puffed at the shoulder, and yellow also on the forearm. All this is of
a grand air and in exquisite taste. Thus draped, the figure has a charming
effect which, without detracting from the religious idea, leaves room also for a
more human sentiment.
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Raphael, doubtless, had thought that the figures of the Virgin, the Infant
Jesus, St. Sixtus, and St. Barbara would alone be sufficient for his picture;
but the empty space remaining beneath the feet of the Madonna was too
considerable to be filled up simply by clouds: and therefore he added that rigid
and horizontal supporting bar on which two angels lean upon their elbows,
contemplating the glory of the Virgin with such rapture. In fact, these angels
seem to be painted as an afterthought, for, laid in with a light brush, they
scarcely cover the clouds, but allow the underlying pigment to show through.
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Little wings of vivid tint complete these aërial creatures, always living
around Raphael and always ready to come from his brush. Although held to nature
by the most intimate ties, although perhaps too familiar in attitude and manner,
they are yet supernatural by the clearness of their intelligence and by the
power of their admiration. We are enchanted with their candour and beauty. They
are full of zeal and enthusiasm; they possess the grace of the Pagan Loves
merged into Christian innocence and chastity. Their faith is as beautiful as the
sky, and in loving them it is almost for God himself that we feel the love.
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Such are the various parts of this work; their union forms the most sublime
harmony, and each in particular brings a divine note to this celestial concert.
By what process was this picture produced? We can scarcely say, so greatly does
the inspiration predominate over the technique.
Raphael aimed at the sublime; and the rest was given to him as increase. The
colour is just what it should be in such a subject; whilst keeping to a sweet,
calm, and peaceful scale, it is resplendent with light, and we ask ourselves
whether it is not the hand of an angel rather than that of a man that has been
able to realize such a marvel.
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The
Virgin of St. Sixtus is the most beautiful picture in the world.
To copy this Virgin is to attempt the impossible. Study it a hundred times and a
hundred times it will reveal itself under a new aspect. It was before this
picture, it is said, that Correggio cried: "And I also, I am a painter."
The
Virgin of St. Sixtus was immediately placed where it was meant to
be; it was present in triumph every day for two hundred and thirty-six years at
the divine sacrament; and never was a human work so worthy of that signal
honour.
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In 1734 the degenerate monks of St. Sixtus preferred a little gold to their
inestimable masterpiece, and for a miserable sum of a hundred and some thousands
of francs (110,000 to 120,000), they sold their Virgin to Augustus III., Elector
of Saxony and King of Poland. That day the barbarians were not those the
Italians think....
At Dresden, the Madonna was received with great pomp. Augustus III. had it
brought in haste into the reception hall of his palace; as the place of honour
was occupied by the throne, he, himself, seized the royal chair, and relegating
it to a less conspicuous station, he cried: "Room for the great Raphael." If
this is historic, it does honour to the prince; if legendary, it is to the glory
of the people whose sentiment it translates.
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Les Vierges de Raphaël (Paris, 1869).
