36 St. Michael (Martin Schoen)
In the sixteenth century these figures of St. Michael become less ideal and angelic, and more and more chivalrous and picturesque. In a beautiful altar-piece by Andrea del Sarto, now in the Florence Academy, there is a fine martial figure of the Archangel, which, but for the wings, might be mistaken for a St. George; and in the predella underneath, on a small scale, he is conqueror of the demon. The peculiarity here is, that the demon, though vanquished, makes a vain struggle, and has seized hold of the belt of the angel, who, with uplifted sword, and an action of infinite grace and dignity, looks superior down, as one assured of victory.
Raphael has given us three figures of St. Michael, all different, and one of them taking rank with his masterpieces.
The first is an early production, painted when he was a youth of nineteen or twenty, and now in the Louvre. St. Michael, armed with a shield on which is a red cross, his sword raised to strike, stands with one foot on a monster; other horrible little monsters, like figures in a dream, are around him: in the background are seen the hypocrites and thieves as described by Dante; the first, in melancholy procession, weighed down with leaden cowls; the others, tormented by snakes: and, in the distance, the flaming dolorous city. St. Michael is here the vanquisher of the Vices. It is a curious and fantastic, rather than poetical, little picture.
The second picture, also in the Louvre, was painted by Raphael, in the maturity of his talent, for Francis I.: the king had left to him the choice of the subject, and he selected St. Michael, the military patron of France, and of that knightly Order of which the king was grand master.
St. Michael—not standing, but hovering on his poised wings, and grasping his lance in both hands—sets one foot lightly on the shoulder of the demon, who, prostrate, writhes up, as it were, and tries to lift his head and turn it on his conqueror with one last gaze of malignant rage and despair. The archangel looks down upon him with a brow calm and serious; in his beautiful face is neither vengeance nor disdain—in his attitude no effort; his form, a model of youthful grace and majesty, is clothed in a brilliant panoply of gold and silver; an azure scarf floats on his shoulders; his wide-spread wings are of purple, blue, and gold; his light hair is raised, and floats outward on each side of his head, as if from the swiftness of his downward motion. The earth emits flames, and seems opening to swallow up the adversary. The form of the demon is human, but vulgar in its proportions, and of a swarthy red, as if fire-scathed; he has the horns and the serpent-tail; but, from the attitude into which he is thrown, the monstrous form is so fore-shortened that it does not disgust, and the majestic figure of the archangel fills up nearly the whole space—fills the eye—fills the soul—with its victorious beauty.
37 The St. Michael painted by Raphael for Francis I.
That Milton had seen this picture, and that when his sight was quenched the ‘winged saint’ revisited him in his darkness, who can doubt?—