The Penguin critics vie with one another in affirming that Penguin art has
from its origin been distinguished by a powerful and pleasing originality, and
that we may look elsewhere in vain for the qualities of grace and reason that
characterise its earliest works. But the Porpoises claim that their artists
were undoubtedly the instructors and masters of the Penguins. It is difficult
to form an opinion on the matter, because the Penguins, before they began to
admire their primitive painters, destroyed all their works.
We cannot be too sorry for this loss. For my own part I feel it cruelly, for I
venerate the Penguin antiquities and I adore the primitives. They are
delightful. I do not say the are all alike, for that would be untrue, but they
have common characters that are found in all schools--I mean formulas from
which they never depart--and there is besides something finished in their
work, for what they know they know well. Luckily we can form a notion of the
Penguin primitives from the Italian, Flemish, and Dutch primitives, and from
the French primitives, who are superior to all the rest; as M. Gruyer tells us
they are more logical, logic being a peculiarly French quality. Even if this
is denied it must at least be admitted that to France belongs the credit of
having kept primitives when the other nations knew them no longer. The
Exhibition of French Primitives at the Pavilion Marsan in 1904 contained
several little panels contemporary with the later Valois kings and with Henry
IV.
I have made many journeys to see the pictures of the brothers Van Eyck, of
Memling, of Roger van der Weyden, of the painter of the death of Mary, of
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and of the old Umbrian masters. It was, however, neither
Bruges, nor Cologne, nor Sienna, nor Perugia, that completed my initiation; it
was in the little town of Arezzo that I became a conscious adept in primitive
painting. That was ten years ago or even longer. At that period of indigence
and simplicity, the municipal museums, though usually kept shut, were always
opened to foreigners. One evening an old woman with a candle showed me, for
half a lira, the sordid museum of Arezzo, and in it I discovered a painting by
Margaritone, a "St. Francis," the pious sadness of which moved me to tears. I
was deeply touched, and Margaritone,of Arezzo became from that day my dearest
primitive.
I picture to myself the Penguin primitives in conformity with the works of
that master. It will not therefore be thought superfluous if in this place I
consider his works with some attention, if not in detail, at least under their
more general and, if I dare say so, most representative aspect.
We possess five or six pictures signed with his hand. His masterpiece,
preserved in the National Gallery of London, represents the Virgin seated on a
throne and holding the infant Jesus in her arms. What strikes one first when
one looks at this figure is the proportion. The body from the neck to the feet
is only twice as long as the head, so that it appears extremely short and
podgy. This work is not less remarkable for its painting than for its drawing.
The great Margaritone had but a limited number of colours in his possession,
and he used them in all their purity without ever modifying the tones. From
this it follows that his colouring has more vivacity than harmony. The cheeks
of the Virgin and those of the Child are of a bright vermilion which the old
master, from a naive preference for clear definitions, has placed on each face
in two circumferences as exact as if they had been traced out by a pair of
compasses.
A learned critic of the eighteenth century, the Abbe Lanzi, has treated
Margaritone's works with profound disdain. "They are," he says. "merely crude
daubs. In those unfortunate times people could neither draw nor paint." Such
was the common opinion of the connoisseurs of the days of powdered wigs. But
the great Margaritone and his contemporaries were soon to be avenged for this
cruel contempt. There was born in the nineteenth century, in the biblical
villages and reformed cottages of pious England, a multitude of little Samuels
and little St. Johns, with hair curling like lambs, who, about 1840, and 1850,
became spectacled professors and founded the cult of the primitives.
That eminent theorist of Pre-Raphaelitism, Sir James Tuckett, does not shrink
from placing the Madonna of the National Gallery on a level with the
masterpieces of Christian art. "By giving to the Virgin's head," says Sir
James Tuckett, "a third of the total height of the figure, the old master
attracts the spectator's attention and keeps it directed towards the more
sublime parts of the human figure, and in particular the eyes, which we
ordinarily describe as the spiritual organs. In this picture, colouring and
design conspire to produce an ideal and mystical impression. The vermilion of
the cheeks does not recall the natural appearance of the skin; it rather seems
as if the old master has applied the roses of Paradise to the faces of the
Mother and the Child."
We see, in such a criticism as this, a shining reflection, so to speak, of the
work which it exalts; yet MacSilly, the seraphic aesthete of Edinburgh, has
expressed in a still more moving and penetrating fashion the impression
produced upon his mind by the sight of this primitive painting. "The Madonna
of Margaritone," says the revered MacSilly, "attains the transcendent end of
art. It inspires its beholders with feelings of innocence and purity; it makes
them like little children. And so true is this, that at the age of sixty-six,
after having had the joy of contemplating it closely for three hours, I felt
myself suddenly transformed into a little child. While my cab was taking me
through Trafalgar Square I kept laughing and prattling and shaking my
spectacle-case as if it were a rattle. And when the maid in my boarding-house
had served my meal I kept pouring spoonfuls of soup into my ear with all the
artlessness of childhood."
"It is by such results," adds MacSilly, "that the excellence of a work of art
is proved."
Margaritone, according to Vasari, died at the age of seventy-seven,
"regretting that he had lived to see a new form of art arising and the new
artists crowned with fame."
These lines, which I translate literally, have inspired Sir James Tuckett with
what are perhaps the finest pages in his work. They form part of his "Breviary
for Aesthetes"; all the Pre-Raphaelites know them by heart. I place them here
as the most precious ornament of this book. You will agree that nothing more
sublime has been written since the days of the Hebrew prophets.
Read next: BOOK III - THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE#CHAPTER VI - MARGARITONE'S VISION
Read previous: BOOK III - THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE#CHAPTER IV - LETTERS: JOHANNES TALPA
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