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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1908)
V ; r-i1 Jf r.. . ; , . ,.' VJ1 V . . . ; V . i - - t - . ' : ,-',7 I r ii '' ' - f . " l.. - ---- ggy i i f r rkr I r ; u'd p; . ' 1? J ND oh the third day, He arose from the dead- The Scriptural words! which iTiave, through the long centuries afforded v ! lo Christendom its pertod of rejotcing after ( ij season of humility andt grief, have been s there always, throughout the countless -T. - '.f . J. -Z- itnangcs, vicissimacs ana renaissances oj . art, as plainly and as authoritatively as every other Jra;7 v i ftif history of the Saviour is limned in Holy Writ., Yet, of all the events in His career, this . ,o the Resurrection has been most ignored, if not neglected, by the painter's brush.: ' From fhe ; miraculous mystery of the 'Annunciation to the magnificent spectacle of the Ascension, every ; incident has been ' .depicted again and again and, again, for the ambition and, the emulation of artists have . . been stirred to like degree by no other sub- : ject, human or divine, since. the world be igan. . . ' i . - 4 ' " " ' Generation ; after ' generation - has rde' lighted to tortray the humble yet auspicious 'birth of the Redeemer;, school after school . of art has sought ' to ' bring more deeply home to the peoples of the earth the awful ' tragedy of His agony and death. Yet few Jiave felt the call to picture that luminous, j ecstatic vision which was lost upon the sleeping 'guardians of . the holy tomb. I. I T MAY BE that the Yery, absence of any oeiaus in us narrative nas Bumcea , xo deter the majority of artists from a task upon .which . their most conscientious la fcors must necessarily be apocryphal. ' t ' There were no witnesses of - the ' Besurree ;Jtion. : A Dore,. drawing his famous illustrations "of the Bible, might well leave to a future day 'and to a Tissot the task which' only a protract- ed study of Palestine and a professedly thor ough ,v archeological restoration of Biblical scenes, such as Tissot undertook to make, could render justifiable. : 'i .Yet some few -artists, of the present and the past,: have, been' drawn to the pure pathos ' of the grief -stricken women at the tomb or to Uhe difficult essay ; of the risen form of the IBaviour, transfigured, :mder the awing shadow of death, to the : overwhehaing glory of His 1 divinity. . A Plockhorst has painted his vision of the ' empty sepukher, the Blessed Virgin and her : companions in stupefaction before the angel ; who kept vigil at the sanctified spot. And, again, he has aspired to a vision of' the risen; Redeemer,; appearing in serene ' majesty before one of them, kneeling, yet not. overwhelmed, rejoicing in the proof of His do-. minion over, death.; ."Easter Morning," it ir called.- ', -i " Alexander Ender, in "The Holy Women at the Tomb," has created a scene more real, yet more beautiful, than the conception of Plock horst a cavern entrance, one figure outlined against the sky beyond,' her companious con fronting' the white purity of the angelic being, lambent in the cavern's gloom. . It is as though " a heavenly messenger, of hope beyond the; grave,'; were there for sweet assurance, not to them alone, but to all the ' peoples of the earth, until the last, great day. -A treatment infinitely more human, of the subject in an aspect infinitely more divine, is that of Hofmann, another Easter-Mrninff." which has remembered, as few great paintings do, the anguish of her who was the mother of the Christ. k , - '- - i pTrhaiJ in no other conception in the range' cf art havd the pain of the mother for the; Divine Son, the compassion of the Son for the! rrief-torn mother, been so dramatically set 3'crtli. -', ' ' ' ' . ; C The hi lcss, brukca .woman, ,we8rilysunken 7 from the dead ;' - , 1 ' '. ' 7 .j ,- THE OREGON .; SUNDAY ..JOURNAL. : PORTLAND, SUNDAY- . ..... i ' it J iilw v t "IMI " 1 1. .... .mmmmrMumiS! , J S I . 7SV i , to rest -upon? the; fallen portal i of - the vacant -tomb, dry-eyed, because -the fount of tears has-: been drained ' too deeply by the ; cruel torment of . her - soul ; and,'; regarding 'her with . the ' pity -. that must have ' torn His heart when, in the 4 flesh, He submitted to the sufferings 'of His inexorable destiny, the risen Saviour it is -an epitome of the real ; Easter, mormng such' as no ' art. could -excel,' because its ryery simplicity; is j the essence of the reaLV .. , , v Of ; two notable , modern , presentations of . . the scene at the Holy Sepulcher, one is that of . the '; famous -Bouguereau, whose exquisite skill , ' perished with mm only a year or so ago, leaving - no inheritorof the perfections of his touch'. .' -'. The Blessed Virgin and her companions are grouped-in-.the-deei cntranca-f-tho-tombr their ': KORNING. - APRIL, ; . 1903 ' 'faces' illuminated by the radiance, of the angelic ...presence in the chamber beyond. . The other, of . all men,-' is -by Sir . Philip ;. Burne-J ones, : whose ' "Vampire" has had as . much notoriety as fame. " Comparatively .few . ' among" those who . have admired or have : reviled the masterly handling . of the "Vampire" are I ivira that' the artist' who nictn rod that, Wtt irony of human love has created some of the znuet - inspiring concepuons vi poesy . sua - qi I faith.' . ;, Yet his "Ave Maris Stella," ' with its wom anly personification of hope' and salvation en- ' shrined upon the storm-beaten " rock to which the shipwrecked -mariner clings," is all" of "worn- . " an's" blessed inspiration, as the '"Vampire" ' is all of woman's succubous -selfishness. . In "Mary Magdalen at the Sepulche he has . made a picture of ; irimitable grace, ' in stinct ,with the spirit of .truest reverence. . " Within the low-vaulted cavern the r angels rest upon . the open tomb; while the Magdalen gazes ' in awed ; surprise at ; the form of the V Saviour, the 'splendor; of ' Hia:. presence : as ".impressively -portrayed - as ' is the ' realness . of - His tender, ' grave humanity. '; . ' ' ') - :':'-- is It is noteworthy, as ; a sign of the modern consiaeration oi woman, now mouerniiy in an, in the few examples of ; the Holy Sepulcher it ed by the presence of the grieving mother and her friends. " . tecnnique. 'And- it is equally significant of her tela-' ' We need only the barest essentials of art . tively minor-position in the older civilizations ,. to feel the wordless tragedy of the mother be of Europe that, - in ; the 'ancient r pictures the . ' reft. of the Divine Son. . ? , I ' -t i f ' I i SI ii : i.tAV . mm a literal story 'of the Kesurrection, with its sleep ing soldiery and the single, impressive figure of the Redeemer, is strictly adhered to. ( In the Palazzo della Signoria, in Siena, is the "Resurrection" of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, : H Sodoma,.as he was known when all Europe was dividing - its . attention among war, trade, art and the conquest of this virgin world. He was, if ever an artist was, and remained throughout his career, the true bohemian. They ' used to ''refer to him as H Mattaccio, "The ' Maniac, for he dressed like a mountebank, and ' his house was a very Noah's Ark for animals of , all descriptions. He reveled in music, and he , delighted in ' practical ' jokes an ancient Ro dolphe, Marcel and Schannard, all rolled into one.'. But he possessed, in a superb degree, the strong coloring and the other distinctive marks of the Lombard school; and he wai as brilliant and facile as he was negligent and idle. Per- -haps the Noah's Ark, which his contemporaries derided, the source of his' power in draw ing at a .line when! nature's superb creations ' of bone -and muscle occasionally fared ill at the ' hands of art; perhaps the skill, which his critic, Vasari, jeered at . as being ' too lazy to draw . the preliminary cartoons, belonged to that order of ' genius which could well afford "to daub his frescoes straight off upon the walL" POPE HONORED PAINTER At any rate, Pope Leo X gave a 'large' sum for-.his picture of the ' death of ' Luc; etia, and created him a cavaliere;- and the chapels and oratories of Siena still treasure his frescoes as among their most splendid possessions. With' characteristic boldness, Bazzi has . seized .upon the instant ' of, the resurrection, : picturing ' the Saviour just risen from the tomb, while the soldiers lie sleeping on the 'gfound.. ' If all the rest of .the picture were lost, the face of the Redeemer, as' painted byH Mattac-' cio, would still be heritage worthy of setting up 'before - the eyes of men for the ages to ; . come;"-fdr 'he, as no -other' artist has done, has ' ' given to us the -countenance of a Saviour in -which the strength, 1 the v, true force of . man's ( virility, are 'not wholly sweetened btit.by gentle-1 ness-and humility. '. He, 'of all artists, has con-1 ceived a God incarnate as a. man, not as a weak ling or. a lean, inspired zealot. . . Piero della Franceica, termed also Piero Borghese, has given the world a Resurrection, the simplest and most real of all, if less poetio ! in its conception than that; of Bazzi,' the dash- j ing, - brilliant frescoes who appeared in the , following generation, and less sympathetic than: the work of a' moderns such ss Bouguereau. His werethe .extensive-frescoes- of -the Vatican, which' were - destroyed to ' make room for the painting -by 'Raphael' of ' the "Liberation of Saint Teter and similar subjects; , ' i ': His -."Resurrection" . is almost mathemat ically severe, the figure of the Saviour appear ing ' in ,: the- attitude of one stepping out from the tomb, the four, soldiers resting below Him. .The 'times and the humanity of the times have ; changed. ;Today,' apparent .as . are true art and lofty conception- in -the work of the distant Tears, the imagination is held .most potently by Aat' pictured thought of Bougue- reau's, stnkmg in detail, and interesting in 0 " . V Mm-' V':''''';': ' J: " J;
