The Renaissance, in its early stages, at least, was a period neither of pure realism nor of classicalism; it was neither a revival of learning nor a revival of antiquity. These words are mere euphemisms, mere drawing-room phrases. For, at its inception, the Renaissance was nothing more nor less than man's convalescence, after an illness that had lasted centuries. It was his first walk into the open, after leaving his bed and his sick-room.
According to the Nietzschean doctrine of art, this realism of Van Eyck, of Van der Weyden, Quintin Massys, Donatello, Pisanello, Masolino, Ucello and others ought to disgust you. It is not art, or if it is, its rank is inferior. Why, then, does it claim attention? Why is it far superior to the realism of the present day, despite some appallingly ugly features?[29]
It is superior only in this sense, that it is the work of convalescents. After they had been laid on the rack in the attempt to stretch their limbs and bodies to infinity, you must not be surprised that these men could only limp along. How could they be expected to walk majestically and with grace? That they could stand at all was a mercy. That they were able to hobble along as they did was a triumph.
To expect these recovering invalids to impart something of themselves to Life, to enrich her and to transfigure her, would be to expect the impossible. But if you applaud them at all, applaud them for their recovery, for the fact that it is well that they can give us even drabby reality as it is. Do not congratulate them yet on their health. For their realism, as realism, is as hopeless, as uninteresting and as unelevating as any realism ever was and ever will be.
It is deceptive, too, for what seem to be beauties in their pictures are borrowed from such of their predecessors of the late Gothic period as were already overloading their pictures with ornamental art forms, in order to disguise the ugliness of the type they presented. Where they beguile you, it is often with a wealth of sweet ornament.[30]
In Ucello's "Battle of Sant' Eglidio," at the National Gallery, it is impossible not to recognize the pains the artist has taken to make your eye dwell on the dainty trappings and accoutrements of the knights and their steeds, on the distracting balls of gold in the shrubbery, artfully repeated in the bridles of the horses, and on the complex maze of pikes, spears and lances, which makes the glimpse of hills in the distance all the more restful and pleasing.
Also in Pisanello's "St. Anthony and St. George" (National Gallery), whatever charm there is to be seen is still a Gothic charm, and the same holds good of this painter's remarkable picture of the "Vision of St. Eustace," in which the deliberately ornamental purpose of the animals in the background charms you more than their startling realism.
If you leave these pictures, in the National Gallery, and walk over to Orcagna's "Coronation of the Virgin," you will see where the ornamental charm of the early Renaissance realists probably found its origin. For these convalescent men made no sudden and unanticipated appearance. They were preceded by painters like Orcagna, who were beginning to feel the impossibility of making a beautiful image out of the Christian type, and who therefore crammed their pictures with ornament in a manner so prodigal that the human portion of them assumed quite a subordinate place.
Look at this picture of Orcagna's. It seems positively to ring with gold. Massed halos of the precious metal convert the faces of the people into mere decorative discs of colour. The golden embroidery on the dresses and on the hangings in the background give you a feeling of sunshine, of wealth and of luxury, which makes you forget the ideal for which all this lavish display is acting but as a subtle impresario. And the utilization of every square inch of room by filigrees, festoons, frills and fretwork of gorgeousness, almost convinces you at last that you are in front of an art which says "Yea" to the glory of sunshine, beauty and life.
In this very need of extravagant ornament, however, Orcagna confesses quite openly to you that, as far as humanity is concerned, he, as an artist, is bankrupt and destitute. His picture, like most things connected with the art of Christianity, is a pictorial paradox; and when you leave it, to wander through the other rooms, your mind must be of a singularly ingenuous stamp if it feels no suspicion with regard to Orcagna's use of such a deafening brass band in the exaltation of his ideal.