Among the Great Masters of Music: Scenes in the Lives of Famous MusiciansRowlands, Walter
History
Among the Great Masters of Music: Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians
Rowlands, Walter
Music in art; Musicians -- Biography; Musicians -- Portraits
He shows us Cecilia, standing with enraptured face lifted to heaven,
where the parted clouds display six angels prolonging the melody which
the saint has ceased to draw forth from the organ she holds. On her
right, the majestic figure of St. Paul appears as if in deep thought,
leaning on his sword, and between him and St. Cecilia we see the
beautiful young face of the beloved disciple, John the Evangelist.
Upon the other side, the foremost figure is that of Mary Magdalen,
carrying the jar of ointment in her hand, and behind her stands St.
Augustine with a bishop's staff, looking toward John. At the feet of
St. Cecilia are scattered various instruments of music, a viol,
cymbals, the triangle, flute, and others. They are broken, and some of
the pipes of the regal held by St. Cecilia are falling from their
place,--all seeming to indicate the inferiority of earthly music to the
celestial harmonies. Of the five saints depicted, only Cecilia looks
upward, and it has been suggested that Raphael meant that she, alone,
hears and understands the heavenly strains.
She is clothed in a garment of cloth of gold, St. Paul in crimson and
green, and the Magdalen in violet.
Some writers claim that the face of the Magdalen is that of Raphael's
love, the "Farnarina," whom he frequently used as a model. The baker's
daughter was a girl of the Trastevere, and it is a coincidence that her
home was near that church dedicated to Cecilia, where the saint's
remains have rested for hundreds of years.
As Mrs. Jameson observed, Sir Joshua Reynolds has given us a paraphrase
of Raphael's painting of music's patron saint in his fine picture of
Mrs. Billington, the famous English singer of his last years, as St.
Cecilia. She holds a music book in her hand, but is listening to the
carolling of some cherubs hovering above her. The composer Haydn paid
the singer a happy compliment suggested by this portrait when he said
to Sir Joshua, "What have you done? you have made her listening to the
angels, you should have represented the angels listening to her." Mrs.
Billington was so delighted with this praise that she gave Haydn a
hearty kiss. This splendid portrait of the charming young singer is in
the Lenox Library in New York.
Raphael's "St. Cecilia" has, of course, a history. In October of the
year 1513, a noble lady of Bologna, named Elena Duglioli dall Olio,
imagined that she heard supernatural voices bidding her to dedicate a
chapel to St. Cecilia in the Church of S. Giovanni in Monte. Upon
telling this to a relative, Antonio Pucci of Florence, he offered to
fit up the chapel at his own expense, and induced his uncle, Lorenzo
Pucci, then newly created a cardinal, to commission Raphael to paint a
picture for the altar. It was finished in 1516.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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