Fr. Hanfstaengl, photo.
John Andrew & Son. Sc.
MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS
Vienna Gallery
The old man standing next is St. Jerome, one of the Latin fathers of the fourth century. He was both a preacher and a writer, and his greatest service to the world was his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate). This is the book from which he is now reading, and St. George seems to look over his shoulder. St. George is the hero saint who rescued the princess Cleodolinda from the dragon. He suffered many tortures at the orders of the Emperor Diocletian, and was finally beheaded for his faith. [10]
We learn to identify these and other saints in the old pictures by certain features which the masters long ago agreed upon as appropriate to the characters. St. Stephen we recognize here because he is young, and carries a palm as the symbol of his martyrdom. St. Jerome is always an old man and is known here by his book, and St. George is distinguished by his armor.
The three make an interesting group as they represent three ages of man,—youth, maturity, and old age. They stand, too, for distinctly different temperaments. St. Stephen has the ardent imaginative nature of a dreamer, St. George the active prosaic temper of the warrior, and St. Jerome the grave contemplative mind of the scholar. Each serves the Christ with his own gift.
In the picture the three seem to be reading together some passage referring to the birth of Christ, perhaps that glorious verse from the prophet Isaiah, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” Coming to the words “Wonderful, Counsellor,” St. Stephen lifts his face adoringly.
The Child is innocently unconscious of his grave guests. He lies across his mother’s lap kicking his feet gleefully and looking up to her with a playful, appealing gesture. She bends over him smiling, and the two seem to talk together in the mystic language of babyhood. The artist, we see, painted the mother as beautiful and the child as winsome as he could well imagine them. He did not try to discover how a woman of Judea was likely to have looked centuries before. He preferred to think of Mary as one of the beautiful Venetian women of his own day. He may have seen some real mother and babe who suggested the picture to him, but in that case he painted them largely according to his own fancy. The Madonna’s dress is not according to any Venetian fashions, but in the simple style chosen as most appropriate by old masters. Red and blue were the colors always used in her draperies, and it was also an ancient custom to represent her as wearing a veil over her head as befitting her modesty.