Another ideal treatment we find in a picture by Guercino; St. Peter is weeping bitterly, and opposite to him the Virgin is seated in motionless grief.
Half-length figures of St. Peter looking up with an expression of repentant sorrow, and wringing his hands, are of frequent occurrence, more especially in the later followers of the Bologna and Neapolitan schools of the seventeenth century: Ribera, Lanfranco, Caravaggio, and Valentin. In most of these instances, the total absence of ideal or elevated sentiment is striking;—any old bearded beggar out of the streets, who could cast up his eyes and look pathetic, served as a model.
I recollect no picture of the Crucifixion in which St. Peter is present.
‘The delivery of the keys to Peter’ and ‘the Charge to Peter,’ (Feed my sheep,) either in separate pictures or combined into one subject, have been of course favourite themes in a Church which founds its authority on these particular circumstances. The bas-relief over the principal door of St. Peter’s at Rome represents the two themes in one: Christ delivers the keys to Peter, and the sheep are standing by. In the panels of the bronze doors beneath (A.D. 1431), we have the chain of thought and incident continued; Peter delivers the emblematical keys to Pope Eugenius IV.
It is curious that, while the repentance of Peter is a frequent subject on the sarcophagi of the fourth century, the delivery of the keys to Peter occurs but once. Christ, as a beardless youth, presents to Peter two keys laid crosswise one over the other. Peter, in whose head the traditional type is most distinctly marked, has thrown his pallium over his outstretched hands, for, according to the antique ceremonial, of which the early sculpture and mosaics afford us so many examples, things consecrated could only be touched with covered hands. This singular example is engraved in Bottari.[173] An example of beautiful and solemn treatment in painting is Perugino’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel. It contains twenty-one figures; the conception is quite ideal, the composition regular even to formality, yet striking and dramatic. In the centre, Peter, kneeling on one knee, receives the keys from the hand of the Saviour; the apostles and disciples are arranged on each side behind Christ and St. Peter; in the background is the rebuilding of the Temple;—a double allegory: ‘Destroy this temple, I will build it up in three days:’ and also, perhaps, alluding to the building of the chapel by Sixtus IV.
In Raphael’s cartoon[174] the scene is an open plain: Christ stands on the right; in front, St. Peter kneels, with the keys in his hand; Christ extends one hand to Peter, and with the other points to a flock of sheep in the background. The introduction of the sheep into this subject has been criticised as at once too literal and too allegorical,—a too literal transcript of the words, a too allegorical version of the meaning; but I do not see how the words of our Saviour could have been otherwise rendered in painting, which must speak to us through sensible objects. The other apostles standing behind Peter show in each countenance the different manner in which they are affected by the words of the Saviour.
By Gian Bellini: a beautiful picture:[175] St. Peter kneeling, half-length, receives the keys from Jesus Christ, seated on a throne. Behind St. Peter stand the three Christian Graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Poussin has taken this subject in his series of the Seven Sacraments[176], to represent the sacrament of Ordination. In this instance again, the two themes are united; and we must also remember, that the allegorical representation of the disciples and followers of Christ as sheep looking up to be fed, is consecrated by the practice of the earliest schools of Christian Art. Rubens has rendered the subject very simply, in a picture containing only the two figures, Christ and St. Peter;[177] and again with five figures, less good.[178] Numerous other examples might be given; but the subject is one that, however treated, cannot be easily mistaken.
A very ideal version of this subject is where St. Peter kneels at the feet of the Madonna, and the Infant Christ, bending from her lap, presents the keys to him; as in a singularly fine and large composition by Crivelli,[179] and in another by Andrea Salaino. Another, very beautiful and curious, is in the possession of Mr. Bromley of Wootten.[180]