I will merely begin the task of examination, to show you how to set about it. Take the head of the commanding Christ. Although inclined forward from the shoulders in the advancing motion of the whole body, the head itself is not stooped; but held entirely upright, the line of forehead sloping backwards. The command is given in calm authority; not in mean anxiety. But this was not expressive enough for the copyist,—"How much better I can show what is meant!" thinks he. So he puts the line of forehead and nose upright; projects the brow out of its straight line; and the expression then becomes,—"Now, be very careful, and mind what I say." Perhaps you like this 'improved' action better? Be it so; only, it is not Giovanni Pisano's design; but the modern Italian's.
Next, take the head of Eve. It is much missed in the photograph—nearly all the finest lines lost—but enough is got to show Giovanni's mind.
It appears, he liked long-headed people, with sharp chins and straight noses. It might be very wrong of him; but that was his taste. So much so, indeed, that Adam and Eve have,
{Illustration: PLATE XI.—THE NATIVITY. MODERN ITALIAN.}
both of them, heads not much shorter than one-sixth of their entire height.
Your modern Academy pupil, of course, cannot tolerate this monstrosity. He indulgently corrects Giovanni, and Adam and Eve have entirely orthodox one-eighth heads, by rule of schools.
But how of Eve's sharp-cut nose and pointed chin, thin lips, and look of quiet but rather surprised attention—not specially reverent, but looking keenly out from under her eyelids, like a careful servant receiving an order?
Well—those are all Giovanni's own notions;—not the least classical, nor scientific, nor even like a pretty, sentimental modern woman. Like a Florentine woman—in Giovanni's time—it may be; at all events, very certainly, what Giovanni thought proper to carve.
Now examine your modern edition. An entirely proper Greco-Roman academy plaster bust, with a proper nose, and proper mouth, and a round chin, and an expression of the most solemn reverence; always, of course, of a classical description. Very fine, perhaps. But not Giovanni.
After Eve's head, let us look at her feet. Giovanni has his own positive notions about those also. Thin and bony, to excess, the right, undercut all along, so that the profile looks as thin as the mere elongated line on an Etruscan vase; and the right showing the five toes all well separate, nearly straight, and the larger ones almost as long as fingers! the shin bone above carried up in as severe and sharp a curve as the edge of a sword.