809. THE HOLY FAMILY.
Michael Angelo (Florentine: 1475-1564). See 790.
The Virgin mother is seen withholding from the child Saviour the prophetic writings in which His sufferings are foretold. Angelic figures beside them examine a scroll—
Turn not the prophet's page, O Son! He knew
All that Thou hast to suffer and hath writ.
Not yet Thine hour of knowledge. Infinite
The sorrows that thy manhood's lot must rue
And dire acquaintance of Thy grief. That clue
The spirits of Thy mournful ministerings,
Seek through yon scroll in silence. For these things
The angels have desired to look into.
Still before Eden waves the fiery sword,—
Her Tree of Life unransomed: whose sad tree
Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary
Must yield its Tempter,—Hell the earliest dead
Of Earth resign,—and yet, O Son and Lord,
The Seed o' the woman bruise the serpent's head.
D. G. Rossetti: Sonnets and Ballads.[187]
This picture was at one time attributed to Domenico Ghirlandajo; and Signor Frizzoni now attributes it to Granacci. But, says Sir Edward Poynter, "the beauty of the figures, the nobility of the heads, and the fine qualities of drawing and modelling stamp it as the work of the great master himself." "In my judgment," says Symonds (Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, i. 65), "this is the most beautiful of the easel pictures attributed to Michelangelo.... Florentine painters had been wont to place attendant angels at both sides of their enthroned Madonnas. But their angels were winged and clothed like acolytes; the Madonna was seated on a rich throne or under a canopy, with altar-candles, wreaths of roses, flowering lilies. It is characteristic of Michelangelo to adopt a conventional motive, and to treat it with brusque originality. In this picture there are no accessories to the figures, and the attendant angels are Tuscan lads half draped in succinct tunics. The types have not been chosen with regard to ideal loveliness or dignity, but accurately studied from living models. This is very obvious in the heads of Christ and St. John. The two adolescent genii on the right hand possess a high degree of natural grace. Yet even here what strikes one most is the charm of their attitude, the lovely interlacing of their arms and breasts, the lithe alertness of the one lad contrasted with the thoughtful leaning languor of his comrade. Only perhaps in some drawings of combined male figures made by Ingres, for his picture of the 'Golden Age,' have lines of equal dignity and simple beauty been developed."