Sacred and legendary art, volume 1 (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts.Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Religion
Sacred and legendary art, volume 1 (of 2): Containing legends of the angels and archangels, the evangelists, the Apostles, the doctors of the church, and St. Mary magdalene, as represented in the fine arts.
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Christian art and symbolism; Christian saints in art
4. In the Vienna Gallery I found three pictures of the same subject,
all by Hemessen, very quaint and curious.
5. At Dresden the same subject in the Venetian style by Pordenone.
6. By Ludovico Caracci, a grand scenic picture, painted for the
Mendicanti in Bologna.
7. In a chapel of the church of San Luigi de’ Francesi, at Rome,
there are three pictures by Caravaggio from the life of St. Matthew.
Over the altar is the saint writing his gospel; he looks up at the
attendant angel, who is behind with outspread wings, and in the act
of dictating. On the left is the calling of St. Matthew; the saint,
who has been counting money, rises with one hand on his breast, and
turns to follow the Saviour: an old man, with spectacles on his nose,
examines with curiosity the personage whose summons has had such a
miraculous effect: a boy is slyly appropriating the money which the
apostle has thrown down. The third picture is the martyrdom of the
saint, who, in the sacerdotal habit, lies extended on a block, while a
half-naked executioner raises the sword, and several spectators shrink
back with horror. There is nothing dignified or poetical in these
representations; and though painted with all that power of effect which
characterised Caravaggio, then at the height of his reputation, they
have also his coarseness of feeling and execution: the priests were
(not without reason) dissatisfied; and it required all the influence
of his patron, Cardinal Giustiniani, to induce them to retain the
pictures in the church where we now see them;—here we sympathise with
the priests, rather than with the artist and his patron.
The Feast which St. Matthew made for our Saviour and his disciples is
the subject of one of Paul Veronese’s gorgeous banquet scenes; that
which he painted for the refectory of the Convent of St. John and St.
Paul at Venice. It is now in the Academy, filling up the end wall of
one of the great rooms from side to side, and seeming to let in light
and air through the lofty marble porticoes, which give us such a
magnificent idea of the splendour which surrounded Levi before he left
all to follow Jesus.
In all the representations of the death of St. Matthew, except those of
the Greek or Byzantine school, he dies by the sword. The Greek artists
uniformly exhibit him as dying in peace, while an angel swings the
censer beside his bed: as on the ancient doors of San Paolo at Rome.
Pictures from the legendary life of St. Matthew are very rare. The
most remarkable are the frescoes in the chapel of San Matteo at
Ravenna, attributed to Giotto. They are so much ruined, that, of the
eight subjects represented, only three—his vocation, his preaching and
healing the sick in Ethiopia, and the baptism of the king and queen—can
be made out. In the Bedford missal at Paris I found a miniature,
representing St. Matthew ‘healing the son and daughter of King Egyptus
of the leprosy;’ but, as a subject of art, he is not popular.
ST. MARK.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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