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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-
.
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, 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
'
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I
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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
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