IV
The concentration of Raphael’s genius to so large an extent upon the subject of the Madonna was not a mere accident of the time, nor, when classic forms were renewing their power, was it a solecism. The spirit of the Renaissance entered profoundly into Raphael’s work, and determined powerfully the direction which it took. When he was engaged upon purely classic themes, it is interesting to see how frequently he turned to the forms of children. His decorative work is rich with the suggestion which they bring. One may observe the graceful figures issuing from the midst of flower and leaf; above all, one may note how repeatedly he presents the myth of Amor, and recurs to the Amorini, types of childhood under a purely naturalistic conception.
The child Jesus and the child Amor appear side by side in the creations of Raphael’s genius. In the great Renaissance, of which he was so consummate an exponent, the ancient classic world and the Christian met in these two types of childhood: the one a childhood of the air, unmixed with good or evil; the other a childhood of heaven and earth, proleptic of earthly conflict, proleptic also of heavenly triumph. The coincidence is not of chance. The new world into which men were looking was not, as some thought, to be in the submersion of Christianity and a return to Paganism, nor, as others, in a stern asceticism, which should render Christianity an exclusive church, standing aloof from the world as from a thing wholly evil. There was to be room for truth and love to dwell together, and the symbol of this union was the child. Raphael’s Christ child drew into its features a classic loveliness; his Amor took on a Christ-like purity and truthfulness.
Leslie, in his Handbook for Young Painters, makes a very sensible reflection upon Raphael’s children, as distinguished from the unchildlike children of Francia, for example. “A fault of many painters,” he says, “in their representations of childhood is, that they make it taking an interest in what can only concern more advanced periods of life. But Raphael’s children, unless the subject requires it should be otherwise, are as we see them generally in nature, wholly unconcerned with the incidents that occupy the attention of their elders. Thus the boy, in the cartoon of the Beautiful Gate, pulls the girdle of his grandfather, who is entirely absorbed in what S. Peter is saying to the cripple. The child, impatient of delay, wants the old man to move on. In the Sacrifice at Lystra, also, the two beautiful boys placed at the altar, to officiate at the ceremony, are too young to comprehend the meaning of what is going on about them. One is engrossed with the pipes on which he is playing, and the attention of the other is attracted by a ram brought for sacrifice. The quiet simplicity of these sweet children has an indescribably charming effect in this picture, where every other figure is under the influence of an excitement they alone do not partake in. Children, in the works of inferior painters, are often nothing else than little actors; but what I have noticed of Raphael’s children is true, in many instances, of the children in the pictures of Rembrandt, Jan Steen, Hogarth, and other great painters, who, like Raphael, looked to nature for their incidents.”
There was one artist of this time who looked to nature not merely for the incidents of childhood, but for the soul of childhood itself. It is impossible to regard the work of Luca della Robbia, especially in that ware which receives his name, without perceiving that here was a man who saw children and rejoiced in their young lives with a simple, ingenuous delight. The very spirit which led this artist to seek for expression in homely forms of material, to domesticate art, as it were, was one which would make him quick to seize upon, not the incidents alone, but the graces, of childhood. Nor is it straining a point to say that the purity of his color was one with the purity of this sympathy with childhood. The Renaissance as a witness to a new occupation of the world by humanity finds its finest expression in the hope which springs in the lovely figures of Luca della Robbia.
It is significant of this Renaissance—it is significant, I think we shall find, of every great new birth in the world—that it turns its face toward childhood, and looks into that image for the profoundest realization of its hopes and dreams. In the attitude of men toward childhood we may discover the near or far realization of that supreme hope and confidence with which the great head of the human family saw, in the vision of a child, the new heaven and the new earth. It was when his disciples were reasoning among themselves which of them should be the greatest that Jesus took a child, and set him by him, and said unto them, “Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me.” The reception of the Christ by men, from that day to this, has been marked by successive throes of humanity, and in each great movement there has been a new apprehension of childhood, a new recognition of the meaning involved in the pregnant words of the Saviour. Such a recognition lies in the children of Raphael and of Luca della Robbia. There may have been no express intimation on their part of the connection between their works and the great prophecy, but it is often for later generations to read more clearly the presence of a thought by means of light thrown back upon it. The course of Christianity since the Renaissance supplies such a light.