The weakness and the strength of the painter are alike well seen in this picture of Christ, with the banner of the resurrection surrounded by the Blessed. The representation of Christ Himself is weak and devoid of dignity; but what can be more beautiful than the surrounding angel choirs, "with the flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening in the pauses of alternate song for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep, and from all the star shores of heaven" (Modern Painters, vol. ii. pt. iii. sec. ii. ch. v. § 21).[159] No two of the 266 figures are alike in face or form, though each is perfect in grace and beauty.[160] In the central compartment the seraphim (red) are on Christ's right, the cherubim (blue) on His left. In the compartment to Christ's left are, amongst other patriarchs and saints, Abraham with the sword, Noah with the ark, Moses with the tables of law, Aaron with his name on his mitre, and below them St. Agnes with the Lamb, and St. Catherine with her wheel. The martyrs bear palms in their hands; some wear wreaths of roses, others the crown of thorns. In the compartment to Christ's left are the Virgin, St. Peter with the keys, and the Evangelists. On the extreme ends on either side are those of the painter's brother Dominicans, in their black robes, who have joined the company of the "Blessed."
Multitudes—multitudes—stood up in bliss,
Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair;
With harps, palms, wedding-garments, kiss of peace,
And crowned and haloed hair.
Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit,
Each face looked one way toward its Sun of Love;
Drank love, and bathed in love, and mirrored it,
And knew no end thereof.
Glory touched glory, on each blessèd head,
Hands locked dear hands never to sunder more:
These were the new-begotten from the dead
Whom the great birthday bore.
Christina Rossetti: From House to Home.
This picture was formerly the predella of an altar-piece in San Domenico at Fiesole. It was sold by the monks in 1826 to the Prussian Consul in Rome, from whose nephew it was purchased for our Gallery. "The price paid was £3500. The additional and incidental expenses, in consequence of the demands of the Roman Government before allowing the exportation, were unusually great. Those demands, ostensibly founded on the excellence and celebrity of the picture, were admitted to be partly also suggested by the state of the Papal finances." The British Consul finally paid £700 for the permission of exportation (Director's Report, 1861). The altar-piece to which our picture belonged remains sadly damaged in situ.
664. THE DEPOSITION IN THE TOMB.
Roger van der Weyden[161] (Early Flemish: 1400-1464).
See also (p. xix)
This painter was born at Tournai, where he was known as Rogelet de la Pasture. He afterwards went to Brussels, where he assumed his Flemish name, and where in 1436 he was appointed town painter. For the Hall of Justice there he painted four pictures, which are now lost, but of which the designs are preserved in a set of tapestries in Berne Cathedral. He was the chief master (as a teacher, that is) of the early Flemish school. It was he who carried Flemish art into Italy (see 772), where he was in 1449-1450. "Contemporary Italian writers laud the pathos, the brilliant colouring, and the exhaustive finish of his works." He on his side gained something from the study of Italian masters. The composition of many of his great works—e.g. "The Last Judgment" at Beaune, the "Nativity" at Berlin, and "The Adoration of the Magi" at Munich—bears evidence of Italian influence. Nearer home, the school of the Lower Rhine in its later time was an offshoot of his school: and farther up the river, Martin Schongauer, at Colmar, was an immediate pupil of his. He set the fashions in several subjects—such as descents from the cross, and hundreds of followers imitated his designs. What gave his art this wide currency was the way in which it united the older religious feeling, from which Van Eyck had cut himself adrift, with the new naturalism and improved technique which Van Eyck had introduced. His French blood, too, gave his art an element of vivid emotion, which was lacking in the staid control of Van Eyck. He is especially praised for his "representations of human desires and dispositions, whether grief, pain, or joy." He thus painted for the religious needs of the people at large; and though an inferior artist, enjoyed a far wider influence than Van Eyck. "Less intensely realistic than Van Eyck, less gifted with the desire and the power to reproduce the phenomena of nature for their own sake, and in their completeness, he thought more," says Sir F. Burton, "of expressing the feelings common to him and the pious worshippers for whose edification he wrought. His figures exhibit deep, if sometimes rather overstrained, pathos. He strove with naïf earnestness to bring home to the senses the reality of the incidents connected with the last sufferings and death of the Saviour. Still he was naturalistic too, in the sense in which that term applies to all painters of the early Flemish school, in that he imitated with minuteness every object which he thought necessary to his compositions; but of the broad principles of chiaroscuro and subordination which Van Eyck had so wonderfully grasped, he had small perception. His scenes seem filled with the light of early morning. His colour, pale in the flesh-tints with greyish modelling, is varied and delicately rich in the clothing and other stuffs introduced. His landscape abounds in freshness and greenth. Thus he transferred to his oil pictures the light and brilliance of missal painting, an art which perhaps he had himself practised." "He occasionally practised a very different technical method from that usually employed in Flanders—that is to say, he painted in pure tempera colours on unprimed linen, the flesh tints especially being laid on extremely thin, so that the texture of the linen remains unhidden. Other colours, such as a smalto blue used for draperies, are applied in greater body, and the whole is left uncovered by any varnish" (Middleton). Of this method the present picture is a fine example.