4. As the supposed founder of one of the four great religious communities, St. Augustine is sometimes represented as giving the rules to his Order: or in the act of writing them, while his monks stand around, as in a picture by Carletto Cagliari:[281] both are common subjects in the houses of the Augustine friars. The habit is black.[282]
5. St. Augustine dispensing alms, generally in a black habit, and with a bishop’s mitre on his head.
6. St. Augustine, washing the feet of the pilgrims, sees Christ descend from above to have his feet washed with the rest; a large picture in the Bologna Academy by Desubleo, a painter whose works, with this one exception, are unknown to me. The saint wears the black habit of an Augustine friar, and is attended by a monk with a napkin in his hand. I found the same subject in the Louvre, in a Spanish picture of the seventeenth century; above is seen a church (like the Pantheon) in a glory, and Christ is supposed to utter the words, ‘Tibi commendo Ecclesiam meam.’[283]
7. St. Augustine, borne aloft by angels in an ecstatic vision, beholds Christ in the opening heavens above, St. Monica kneeling below. This fine picture, by Vandyck, is or was in the gallery of Lord Methuen at Corsham: and at Madrid there is another example, by Murillo: St. Augustine kneeling in an ecstasy sees a celestial vision; on one hand the Saviour crucified, on the other the Virgin and angels.
[89] The Vision of St. Augustine (Murillo)
This, however, is not the famous subject called, in general, 8. ‘The Vision of St. Augustine,’ which represents a dream or vision related by himself. He tells us that while busied in writing his Discourse on the Trinity, he wandered along the sea-shore lost in meditation. Suddenly he beheld a child, who, having dug a hole in the sand, appeared to be bringing water from the sea to fill it. Augustine inquired what was the object of his task? He replied, that he intended to empty into this cavity all the waters of the great deep. ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed Augustine. ‘Not more impossible,’ replied the child, ‘than for thee, O Augustine! to explain the mystery on which thou art now meditating.’
No subject from the history of St. Augustine has been so often treated, yet I do not remember any very early example. It was adopted as a favourite theme when Art became rather theological than religious, and more intent on illustrating the dogmas of churchmen than the teaching of Christ. During the 16th and 17th centuries we find it everywhere, and treated in every variety of style; but the motif does not vary, and the same fault prevails too generally, of giving us a material fact, rather than a spiritual vision or revelation. Augustine, arrayed in his black habit or his episcopal robes, stands on the sea-shore, gazing with an astonished air on the Infant Christ, who pauses, and looks up from his task, holding a bowl, a cup, a ladle, or a shell in his hand. Thus we have it in Murillo’s picture—the most beautiful example I have seen: the child is heavenly, but not visionary, ‘palpable to feeling as to sense.’
In Garofalo’s picture of this subject, now in our National Gallery, Augustine is seated on a rock by the margin of the sea, habited in his episcopal robes, and with his books and writing implements near him; and while he gazes on the mysterious child, the Virgin appears amid a choir of angels above: behind Augustine stands St. Catherine, the patron saint of theologians and scholars: the little red figure in the background represents St. Stephen, whose life and actions are eloquently set forth in the homilies of St. Augustine: the introduction of St. Catherine, St. Stephen, and the whole court of heaven, gives the picture a visionary character. Rubens has painted this subject with all his powerful reality: here Augustine wears the black habit of his Order. Vandyck in his large grand picture has introduced St. Monica kneeling, thus giving at once the devotional or visionary character.[284] Albert Dürer has designed and engraved the same subject. The most singular treatment is the classical composition of Raphael, in one of the small chiaro-scuro pictures placed significantly under the ‘Dispute of the Sacrament.’ St. Augustine is in a Roman dress, bare-beaded, and on horseback; his horse starts and rears at the sight of the miraculous child.
There is something at once picturesque and mystical in this subject, which has rendered it a favourite with artists and theologians; yet there is always, at least in every instance I can recollect, something prosaic and literal in the treatment which spoils the poetry of the conception.