Such groups are sometimes arranged with an artless solemnity, all the personages standing and looking straight out of the picture at the worshipper. Sometimes there is a touch of dramatic sentiment, which, without interfering with the solemn devotional feeling, lights up the whole with the charm of a purpose: as in the Correggio at Parma, where St. Jerome presents his translation of the Scriptures to the infant Christ, while an angel turns the leaves, and Mary Magdalene, symbol of redemption and reconciliation, bends to kiss the feet of the Saviour.
Our ancestors of the middle ages were not particular in drawing that strong line of demarcation between the classical, Jewish and Christian periods of history, that we do. They saw only Christendom every where; they regarded the past only in relation to Christianity. Hence we find in the early ecclesiastical monuments and edifices such a strange assemblage of pagan, scriptural, and Christian worthies; as, Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, King David, Judas Maccabeus, King Arthur, St. George, Godfrey of Boulogne, Lucretia, Virginia, Judith, St. Elizabeth, St. Bridget (as in the Cross of Nuremburg). In the curious Manual of Greek Art, published by Didron, we find the Greek philosophers and poets entering into a scheme of ecclesiastical decoration, as in the carved stalls in the Cathedral of Ulm, where Solon, Apollonius, Plutarch, Plato, Sophocles, are represented, holding each a scroll, on which is inscribed a passage from their works, interpreted into an allusion to the coming of Christ: and I have seen a picture of the Nativity in which the sibyls are dancing hand-in-hand around the cradle of the new-born Saviour. This may appear profane to some, but the comprehension of the whole universe within the pale of Christianity strikes me as being in the most catholic, as well as in the most poetical, spirit.
It is in devotional subjects that we commonly find those anthropomorphic representations of the Divinity which shock devout people; and which no excuse or argument can render endurable to those who see in them only ignorant irreverence, or intentional profaneness. It might be pleaded that the profaneness is not intentional; that emblems and forms are, in the imitative arts, what figures of speech are in language; that only through a figure of speech can any attempt be made to place the idea of Almighty Power before us. Familiar expressions, consecrated by Scripture usage, represent the Deity as reposing, waking, stretching forth his hand, sitting on a throne; as pleased, angry, vengeful, repentant; and the ancient painters, speaking the language proper to their art, appear to have turned these emblematical words into emblematical pictures. I forbear to say more on this point, because I have taken throughout the poetical and not the religious view of Art, and this is an objection which must be left, as a matter of feeling, to the amount of candour and knowledge in the critical reader.
In the sacred subjects, properly called HISTORICAL, we must be careful to distinguish between those which are Scriptural, representing scenes from the Old or New Testament; and those which are Legendary.
Of the first, for the present; I do not speak, as they will be fully treated hereafter.
The historical subjects from the lives of the saints consist principally of Miracles and Martyrdoms.
In the first, it is worth remarking that we have no pictured miracle which is not imitated from the Old or the New Testament (unless it be an obvious emblem, as where the saint carries his own head). There is no act of supernatural power related of any saint which is not recorded of some great scriptural personage. The object was to represent the favourite patron as a copy of the great universal type of beneficence, Christ our Redeemer. And they were not satisfied that the resemblance should lie in character only; but should emulate the power of Christ in his visible actions. We must remember that the common people of the middle ages did not, and could not, distinguish between miracles accredited by the testimony of Scripture, and those which were fabrications, or at least exaggerations. All miracles related as divine interposition were to them equally possible, equally credible. If a more extended knowledge of the natural laws renders us in these days less credulous, it also shows us that many things were possible, under particular conditions, which were long deemed supernatural.