Straws Show which Way the Wind Blows.
Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory
For daring so much before they well did it.
—Browning.
SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE.
It was a charming morning in early November when Mr. Sumner and his little company of students of Florentine art gathered before the broad steps which lead up to the entrance of Santa Maria Novella. The Italian sky, less soft than in midsummer, gleamed brightly blue. The square tower of the old Fiesole Cathedral had been sharply defined as they turned to look at it when leaving their home; and Giotto's Campanile, of which they had caught a glimpse on their way hither, shone like a white lily in the morning sunlight. The sweet, invigorating air, the bustle of the busy streets, the happiness of youth and pleasant expectancy caused all hearts to beat high, and it was a group of eager faces that turned toward the grand old church whose marble sides show the discoloration of centuries.
At Mr. Sumner's invitation all sat on the steps in a sunny corner while he talked of Cimabue,—the first great name in the history of Italian painting,—the man who was great enough to dare attempt to change conditions that existed in his time, which was the latter part of the thirteenth century. He told them how, though a nobleman possessing wealth and honor, he had loved painting and had given his life to it; and how, having been a man arrogant of all criticism, he was fitted to be a pioneer; to break from old traditions, and to infuse life into the dead Byzantine art.
He told them how the people, ever quick to feel any change, were delighted to recognize, in a picture, life, movement, and expression, however slight. How, one day six hundred years ago, a gay procession, with banners and songs, bore a large painting, the Madonna and Child, from the artist's studio, quite a distance away, through the streets and up to the steps on which they were sitting; and how priests chanting hymns and bearing church banners came out to receive the picture.
"And through all these centuries it has here remained," he continued. "It is, of course, scarred by time and dark with the smoke of incense. When you look upon it I wish you would remember what I told you the other evening about that for which we should look in a picture. Be sympathetic. Put yourself in old Cimabue's place and in that of the people who had known only such figures in painting as the Magdalen you saw last week in the Academy. Then, though these figures are so stiff and almost lifeless, though the picture is Byzantine in character, you will see beyond all this a faint expression in the Madonna's face, a little life and action in the Christ-child, who holds up his tiny hand in blessing.
"If you do not look for this you may miss it,—miss all that which gives worth to Cimabue and his art. As thoughtful a mind as that of our own Hawthorne saw only the false in it, and missed the attempt for truth; and so said he only wished 'another procession would come and take the picture from the church, and reverently burn it.' Ah, Malcom, I see your eyes found that in your reading, and you thought in what good company you might be."
"What kind of painting is it?" queried Barbara, as a few minutes later they stood in the little chapel, and looked up at Cimabue's quaint Madonna and Child.
"It is called tempera, and is laid upon wood. In this process the paints are mixed with some glutinous substance, such as the albumen of eggs, glue, etc., which causes them to adhere to the surface on which they are placed."
"What do you think was the cause of Cimabue's taking such an advance step, Mr. Sumner?" asked Howard Sinclair, after a pause, during which all studied the picture.
"It must have been a something caught from the spirit of the time. A stir, an awakening, was taking place in Italy. Dante and Petrarch were in a few years to think and write. The time had come for a new art."
"I do see the difference between this and those Academy pictures," said Bettina, "even though it is so queer, and painted in such colors."
"And I," "And I," quickly added Barbara and Margery.
"I think those angels' faces are interesting," continued Barbara. "They are not all just alike, but look as if each had some thought of his own. They seem proud of their burden as they hold up the Madonna and Child."
"Oh, nonsense, Barbara! you are putting too much imagination in there," exclaimed Malcom. "I think old Cimabue did do something, but it is an awfully bad picture, after all. There is one thing, though; it is not so flat as that Academy Magdalen. The child's head seems round, and I do think his face has a bit of expression."
So they looked and chatted on, and took little note of coming and going tourists, who glanced with curiosity from them to the old dark picture above, and then back to the fresh, eager, beautiful faces,—the greater part ever finding in the latter the keener attraction.
"I always have one thought when I look at this," finally said Mr. Sumner, "that perhaps will be interesting to you, and linger in your minds. This Madonna and Child seems to form a link and also to mark a division between all those which went before it in Christian art and all those that have followed. It is the last Byzantine Madonna and is the first of the long, noble list which has come from the hands of artists who have lived since the thirteenth century.
"We will not stay here longer now, for I know you will come again more than once to study it. There is much valuable historic art in this church which you will understand better when you have learned more. Yonder in the Strozzi Chapel is some of the very best work of an old painter called Orcagna, while here in the choir are notable frescoes by Ghirlandajo; but now I shall take you down these steps between the two into the cloister and there we will talk of Giotto. I know how busy you have been reading about this wonderful old master, for I could not help hearing snatches of your talk about him all through the past week. His figure looms up most important of all among the early painters of Florence. You know how Cimabue, clad in his scarlet robe and hood, insignia of nobility, riding out one day to a little town lying on one of yonder blue hills, found a little, dark-faced shepherd-boy watching his father's sheep, and amusing himself by drawing a picture of one, with only a sharp stone for a pencil. Interested in the boy, he took pains to visit his father and gain his permission to take him as a pupil to Florence. So Giotto came to begin his art-life. What are you thinking of, little Margery?"
"Only a bit of Dante's writing which I read with mother the other day," said she, blushing. "I was thinking how little Cimabue then thought that this poor, ignorant shepherd-boy would ever cause these lines to be written:—
"Cimabue thought to lord it over painting's field:
But now the cry is Giotto, and his name's eclipsed."
"Yes, indeed! Giotto did eclipse his master's fame, for he went so much farther,—but only in the same path, however; so we must not take from Cimabue any of the honor that is due him. But for Giotto the old Byzantine method of painting on all gold backgrounds was abolished. This boy, though born of peasants, was not only gifted with keen powers of observation of nature and mankind and a devotion to the representation of things truly as they are, but, beyond and above all this, with one other quality that made his work of incalculable worth to the people among whom he painted. This was a delicate appreciation of the true relations between earthly and spiritual things.
"Before him, as we have seen, all art was most unnatural and monastic,—utterly destitute of sympathy with the feelings of the common people. Giotto changed all this. He made the Christ-child a loving baby; the Madonna a loving mother into whose joy and suffering all mothers' hearts could enter; angels were servants of men; miracles were wrought by God because He loved and desired to help men; the pictured men and women were like themselves because they smiled and grieved and acted even as they did. All this change Giotto made in the spirit of pictures; and in the ways of painting he also wrought a complete revolution. 'There are no such things as gold backgrounds in nature,' he said; 'I will have my people out of doors or in their homes.' And so he painted the blue sky and rocks and trees and grass, and dressed his men and women in pure, fresh colors, and represented them as if engaged in home duties in the house or in the field. He introduced many characters into his story pictures,—angel visitants, neighbors, wandering shepherds, and even domestic animals. He brought the art of painting down into the minds and hearts of all who looked upon them."
"I never have realized until lately," said Barbara, "how painting can be made a source of education and pleasure to everybody. It is so different here from what it is at home, especially because the churches are full of pictures. There we go into the art museums or the galleries of different art-clubs,—the only places where pictures are to be found,—and meet only those people that can afford luxuries; and so the art itself seems a luxury. But here I have seen such poor, sad-looking people, who seem to forget all their miseries in looking at some beautiful sacred picture. Only the other day I overheard a poor woman, whose clothes were wretched and who had one child in her arms and another beside her, trying to explain a picture to them, and she lingered and lingered before it, and then turned away with a pleased, restful face."
"Yes, it is the spirit of pictures and their truth to nature that appeal to the mass of people here," replied Mr. Sumner, "and so it must be everywhere. I have been very glad to read in my papers from home that free art exhibitions have been occasionally opened in the poor quarters of our cities. Should the movement become general, as I hope it will, it must work good in more than one direction. Not only could those who have hitherto been shut out from this means of pleasure and education receive and profit by it, but the art itself would gain a wholesome impulse. A new class of critics would be heard—those unversed in art-parlance—who would not talk of line, tone, color-harmonies and technique, but would go to the very heart of picture and painter; and I think the truest artists would listen to them and so gain something.
"But we must get to Giotto again. I have told you what he tried to paint, but you will see that he could not do all this in the least as if he had been taught in our art-schools of to-day. How little could Cimabue teach him! His hills and rocks are parodies of nature. He knew not how to draw feet, and would put long gowns or stockings on his people so as to hide his deficiency. He never could make a lying-down figure look flat. But how he could accomplish all that he did in his pictures is more than any one can explain.
"We will now look behind this grand tomb at the foot of the stairs and find two of Giotto's frescoes. There you see the pictures—the Birth of the Virgin and the Meeting of St. Joachim and St. Anna, the father and mother of the Virgin. Do you know the story of these saints?"
"Yes," answered Malcom, "Betty read it to us last evening, for, you see, uncle, we had been dipping just a bit, so as not to get below our depth, into Mr. Ruskin's 'Mornings in Florence'; so we ought to be able to understand something here, if anywhere, oughtn't we?"
"Well, look and see what you can find! I wonder what will appeal first to each one of you!"
After a few minutes of complete silence Mr. Sumner said: "Margery dear, I wonder what you are thinking of?"
"I am thinking, Uncle, that, just as Mr. Ruskin says, I cannot help seeing the baby in this picture. At whatever part I look my eyes keep coming back to the dear little thing wrapped up so clumsily, whom the two nurses are tending so lovingly and with such reverence."
"Yes, my dear, old Giotto knew how to make the chief thing in his pictures seem to be the most important; something that not all of us artists of to-day know how to do by any means."
"But the pictures are so queer!" burst forth Malcom. "I do see some of the fine things of which you speak, Uncle Robert, but there are so many almost ridiculous things; the shepherds that are following St. Joachim—do look at the feet of the first one; and the second has on stockings. I can see the different lines that poor old Giotto drew when he was struggling over those first feet; I wonder if he put the others into stockings just to save trying to draw them. And the funny lamb in the arms of the first shepherd; and the queer, stiff sprigs of grass which are growing up in all sorts of places! and the angel coming out of the cloud! and—"
"Do stop, Malcom," cried Bettina, "just here at the angel! Why! I think he is perfectly beautiful with one hand on St. Joachim's head and the other on St. Anna's. He is blessing them and drawing them together and forgiving, all in one."
"And the people, all of them! just look at the people!" cried Barbara, impetuously. "Each one is thinking of something, and I seem to know what it is! How could—" But her voice faltered, and stopped abruptly.
"It is not difficult to understand what Howard is thinking of," whispered Malcom in Bettina's ear. "Did you see what a look he gave Barbara? I don't believe she likes it."
Mr. Sumner, turning, surprised the same look in the young man's eyes and gave a quick, inquiring glance at the fair, flushed face of Barbara. He felt annoyed, without knowing exactly why. A new and foreign element had been introduced into the little group, whose influence was not to be transient.
After a few more words, in which he told them to notice the type of Giotto's faces—the eyes set near together, their too great length, though much better in this respect than Cimabue's, and the broad, rounded chins—they turned away.
"We have seen all we ought to stay here for to-day, and now we will drive over to Santa Croce. There are also notable frescoes by Giotto in Assisi, and especially in the Arena Chapel, Padua. Perhaps we may see them all by and by."
On leaving the church, Bettina looked back, saying:—
"This is the church that Michael Angelo used to call 'his bride.'"
"Used to," laughed Malcom. "You have gone back centuries this morning, Betty."
"I feel so. I should not be one bit surprised to meet some of these old artists right here in the Piazza on their way to their work."
"Let us go over to Santa Croce by way of the Duomo, and through Piazza Signoria, Uncle," said Margery. "I am never tired of those little, narrow, crooked streets."
"Yes, that will be a good way; for then we shall go right past Giotto's Campanile, and though you have seen it often you will look upon it with especial interest just now, when we are studying his work."
At Santa Croce they were to meet Mrs. Douglas by appointment; and as they pressed on through the broad nave, lined on either side by massive monuments to Florence's great dead, they espied her at the entrance of the Bardi Chapel in conversation with a lady whose slender figure and bright, animated face grew familiar to the young people of the steamship as they approached; for it was the Miss Sherman whom Barbara and Bettina had admired so much on the Kaiser Wilhelm, and whom, with her father and sister, they had met once before in this same church.
Coming rapidly forward, Mrs. Douglas introduced her companion.
"She is alone in Florence," she explained to her brother a moment later when the others had passed on, "for her father has been suddenly summoned home, and her sister has accompanied him. She is a bright, charming young woman, who loves art dearly, and I am sure we all shall like her. I felt drawn to her as we talked together several times on our way over. I think we must have her with us all we can."
After an hour spent in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels, whose walls are covered with Giotto's frescoes, the little group separated. Malcom, Margery, Barbara, and Bettina walked home along the Via dei Pinti, or Street of the Painters. While the others chatted, Barbara was unusually silent. She was thinking how much she had learned that morning, and exulted in the knowledge that there was not quite so vast a difference between herself and Miss Sherman as existed the last time they met in Santa Croce.
For Barbara had entered into the study of this subject with an almost feverish fervor of endeavor. Though she felt there was much to enjoy and to learn all about her, yet nothing seemed so important as a knowledge of the old painters and their pictures; and the longing to be able to think and to speak with some assurance of them haunted her continually.
Bettina sometimes looked at her sister with wonder as she would sit hour after hour poring over Mr. Sumner's books.
"I always thought I loved pictures best," she thought; "but Bab cares more for these old ones than I do."