3. Taddeo Bartoli, 1413. He has represented the moment in which the soul is reunited to the body. Clothed in a starry robe she appears in the very act and attitude of one rising up from a reclining position, which is most beautifully expressed, as if she were partly lifted up upon the expanded many-coloured wings of a cluster of angels, and partly drawn up, as it were, by the attractive power of Christ, who, floating above her, takes her clasped hands in both his. The intense, yet tender ecstasy in her face, the mild spiritual benignity in his, are quite indescribable, and fix the picture in the heart and the memory as one of the finest religious conceptions extant. (Siena, Palazzo Publico.)
I imagine this action of Christ taking her hands in both his, must be founded on some ancient Greek model, for I have seen the same motif in other pictures, German and Italian; but in none so tenderly or so happily expressed.
4. Domenico di Bartolo, 1430. A large altar-piece. Mary seated on a throne, within a glory of encircling cherubim of a glowing red, and about thirty more angels, some adoring, others playing on musical instruments, is borne upwards. Her hands are joined in prayer, her head veiled and crowned, and she wears a white robe, embroidered with golden flowers. Above, in the opening heaven, is the figure of Christ, young and beardless (à l'antique), with outstretched arms, surrounded by the spirits of the blessed. Below, of a diminutive size, as if seen from a distant height, is the tomb surrounded by the apostles, St. Thomas holding the girdle. This is one of the most remarkable and important pictures of the Siena school, out of Siena, with which I am acquainted. (Berlin Gal., 1122.)
5. Ghirlandajo, 1475. The Virgin stands in star-spangled drapery, with a long white veil, and hands joined, as she floats upwards. She is sustained by four seraphim. (Florence, S. Maria-Novella.)
6. Raphael, 1516. The Virgin is seated within the horns of a crescent moon, her hands joined. On each side an angel stands bearing a flaming torch; the empty tomb and the eleven apostles below. This composition is engraved after Raphael by an anonymous master (Le Maitre au dé). It is majestic and graceful, but peculiar for the time. The two angels, or rather genii, bearing torches on each side, impart to the whole something of the air of a heathen apotheosis.
7. Albert Durer. The apostles kneel or stand round the empty tomb; while Mary, soaring upwards, is received into heaven by her Son; an angel on each side.
8. Gaudenzio Ferrari, 1525. Mary, in a white robe spangled with stars, rises upward as if cleaving the air in an erect position, with her hands extended, but not raised, and a beautiful expression of mild rapture, as if uttering the words attributed to her, "My heart is ready;" many angels, some of whom bear tapers, around her. One angel presents the end of the girdle to St. Thomas; the other apostles and the empty tomb lower down. (Vercelli, S. Cristofore.)
9. Correggio. Cupola of the Duomo at Parma, 1530. This is, perhaps, one of the earliest instances of the Assumption applied as a grand piece of scenic decoration; at all events we have nothing in this luxuriant composition of the solemn simplicity of the older conception. In the highest part of the Cupola, where the strongest light falls, Christ, a violently foreshortened figure, precipitates himself downwards to meet the ascending Madonna, who, reclining amid clouds, and surrounded by an innumerable company of angels, extends her arms towards him. One glow of heavenly rapture is diffused over all; but the scene is vast, confused, almost tumultuous. Below, all round the dome, as if standing on a balcony, appear the apostles.
10. Titian, 1540 (about). In the Assumption at Venice, a picture of world-wide celebrity, and, in its way, of unequalled beauty, we have another signal departure from all the old traditions. The noble figure of the Virgin in a flood of golden light is borne, or rather impelled, upwards with such rapidity, that her veil and drapery are disturbed by the motion. Her feet are uncovered, a circumstance inadmissible in ancient art; and her drapery, instead of being white, is of the usual blue and crimson, her appropriate colours in life. Her attitude, with outspread arms—her face, not indeed a young or lovely face, but something far better, sublime and powerful in the expression of rapture—the divinely beautiful and childish, yet devout, unearthly little angels around her—the grand apostles below—and the splendour of colour over all—render this picture an enchantment at once to the senses and the imagination; to me the effect was like music.
11. Palma Vecchio, 1535. (Venice Acad.) The Virgin looks down, not upwards, as is usual, and is in the act of taking off her girdle to bestow it on St. Thomas, who, with ten other apostles, stands below.