This literature, then, "became one in which peace was represented as better than war, and sufferance more dignified than resistance; which exhibited poverty and toil as honorable, and charity as the first of virtues; which held up to imitation and emulation self-sacrifice in the cause of good, and contempt of death for conscience' sake—a literature in which the tenderness, the chastity, the heroism of woman, played a conspicuous part; which distinctly protested against slavery, against violence, against impurity in word and deed; which refreshed the fevered and darkened spirit with images of moral beauty and truth, revealed bright glimpses of a better land, where the wicked cease from troubling, and brought down the angels of God with shining wings, and bearing crowns of glory, to do battle with the demons of darkness, to catch the fleeting soul of the triumphant martyr, and carry it at once into a paradise of eternal blessedness and peace." [Footnote 157]
[Footnote 157: Mrs. Jameson's Legendary Art.]
Under the influence, then, of these new inspirations, art likewise revived, and the brush and the chisel lent the aid of their immortal touch to give force and perpetuity to these creations; and birds, and flowers, and the elements were introduced as types or allegories of the subjects thus interpreted. Each one possessed a significance and symbolism that united the soul to the eternal source of these gifts, and kept alive in the common heart those principles which the people could admire if not emulate. The rapidity with which artists multiplied at this period belongs to the marvelous. God needed artisans for his work, and truly the old masters seemed, judging from their deeds and spirit, to have risen, like Adam, from the clay moulding of the almighty hand. Possessed by a sense of the lofty nature of their calling, they not only strove for perfection in detail, but also for a religious spirit, which should so inspire the work as to move every heart to piety, and embody for instruction the full force of the solemn truths therein portrayed. They emerged from the impure influences of the old religion and literature, like the chrysalis, into the golden-hued glory that shone in the lives of the ancient patriarchs and prophets; in the auroral beams that hung like sea-foam over the angels as they walked or talked as God's messengers on earth, until, bathed in a glory borrowed from the very smile of the Creator, they saw the divine Son descend like the morning star, and dwell upon earth among men.
In all their work a confession of faith lay embodied; and feeling themselves called to this vocation, hearing the voice and seeing in the enthusiasm of their fervor the burning bush, they purified themselves by prayer, and fasting, and long meditation upon the subject that was to grow into life under the glowing tints of the brush or the magic stroke of the chisel. This mystical spirit so elevated and ennobled the soul-work of those grand old masters that faults in mechanical execution and anachronisms in details are, even to this day, overlooked, for the sake of that con amore zeal which pervades the vital treatment of their subjects. Fra Angelico, a Dominican monk, devoted his art life exclusively to the religious mysticism of his subjects. "Whenever he painted Christ upon the cross," says Jarves, "the tears would roll down his cheeks as if he were an actual eyewitness of his Saviour's agony. There is a celestial glow in all his beatified faces that seem to radiate from his own soul." Lippo Dalmasio, an early painter of Bologna, was also noted for his piety in art.
"He never painted the holy Virgin without fasting the previous evening, and receiving absolution and the bread of angels in the morning after; and, finally, never consented to paint for hire, but only as a means of devotion." [Footnote 158]
[Footnote 158: Lord Lindsay's Christian Art.]
Add to these, Luini, of Milan; Francia, of Bologna; Gentile and John Bellini, of Venice; Fra Bartolomeo, the Florentine monk, and friend of Savonarola; Perugino, and finally, Raphael—and we have the list of those who led the vanguard in the perpetuity of those heaven-toned idealizations that yet greet the eye with their beauty and animate the heart with emotions of grateful homage.
"Such art has left us, and can never again be revived until artists believe and pray as did those men of old; until they can see and feel as they did at all hours, amid their rejoicings or as they slept, holy personages, saints, and virgins, apostles and evangelists, martyrs, and the symbolized faith for which they died. Virtues, and not graces; angels, and not muses; types of spiritual truths, and not expressions of sensuous beauty or lustful passion—these were their daily intellectual food. Amid all things—in church, shop, or bedroom; on the roadside and by the palace; at every street corner, and over every threshold—were the figures of the Redeemer and his holy mother to direct their thoughts still higher heavenward. Religion, at all events, in its external form, and as believed, was confessed by all men and in all places. Youth were taught to rely on spiritual powers for their earthly support and sole sustenance. Charity, faith, the due subjection of the body to the development of its perfect strength, humanity, the succor of the oppressed, the relief of the unfortunate, devoir, duty to all men—such were the doctrines of chivalry in the middle ages." [Footnote 159]