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Comments on an Observation by Reynolds

Author(s): Edgar WindSource: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jul., 1937), pp. 70-71Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750075.

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70 MISCELLANEOUS NOTEScannot be credited with such dullness as toplace Justice first on the ceiling and, fail-ing to think of something appropriate for thewall below, simply fill it with the other threevirtues.

There is a riddle in this arrangement,andits key is to be found in Plato. In the firstbooks of the Republic Socrates goes in searchof Justice. He encounters the other virtues :Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, butJusticewill not appear. The explanation given(Book IV, 432 sq.) is that Justice is not aparticular virtue juxtaposed to Prudence,Fortitude, and Temperance, but that funda-mental power in the soul which assigns toeach of them their particular function.This is one of the tenets in Plato's phil-osophy which were not contradicted butaccepted by Aristotle (Nic. Eth., V, 3). Inthe encyclopaedic plan of the 'Stanza dellaSegnatura' the ' Concordantia Platonis etAristotelis' plays a decisive r6le. It seemsnatural, therefore, that in choosing a themefor demonstrating the nature of Justice, theauthor of the programme should have selecteda passage which is apt to support this con-cordance.But there is even a wider concordance atwhich the author of the Stanza aimed. Henot only resolved the contrasts within ancientphilosophy, he also reconciled the ancientlearning with the Christian dogma, thehuman knowledge with the wisdom divine.The fresco of Justice being placed betweenthe 'School of Athens' and the 'Disputa'asserts and resolves in its lower section thecontrast between secular and sacred Justice.On the side of the 'School of Athens'the emperor accepts the Pandecta : on theside of the 'Disputa' the Pope blesses theDecretalia. Should that fundamental ideaof concordance between the heavenly and theearthly rule have remained unexpressed inthe chief part of the fresco where Justiceappears as the harmony of the virtues ?The three virtues are assisted by putti,which have been taken as purely ornamentalfigures. The putto on the right, next toTemperance, lifts his arm and points upwards.This is the traditional gesture of Hope. Theputti in the centre, next to Prudence, holdmirror and flame. The flame is an attributeof Faith, in accordance with St. Augustine:Illuminatio est Fides .1 The mirror, anormal attribute of Prudence, is also related

to Faith : Videmus nunc per speculum inanigmate. On the left, one of the childrenseems to be engaged in plundering thebranches of the tree which Fortitude isholding; and a tree giving its fruits tochildren was used as an emblem of Charity,as can be seen in a design by Holbein(P1. 8e) who, by emphasising the destructive-ness of the children rather than the charitable-ness of the tree, turned the image into a jest.The serious moral, as usual, can be read inRipa's Iconologia.2Thus Platonic Justice, the union of thecardinal virtues, is made concordant withthe virtues of Christian grace : Faith, Hope,and Charity. In studying this group as awhole it might seem dangerous to want toseek a deeper meaning in the particularpairing of the virtues: Prudence assistedby Faith, Temperance directed by Hope,Fortitude mated with Charity. But in thecase of Fortitude at least a definite pointwas intended-a personal compliment to thePope. The tree of Charity which is held byFortitude is an oak tree, the family emblem ofthe della Rovere. Belligerence, the outstand-ing characteristic of Julius II, is united to thegreatest of Christian virtues. E. W.

1 Cesare Ripa, Iconologia(ed. 1645, p. 201), s.v.Fede Cattolica. 2 Loc.cit., p. 86.

THE MIENAD UNDER THE CROSSI. COMMENTS ON AN OBSERVATION

BY REYNOLDSDerhaps the shrewdest advice given bySSir Joshua Reynolds to his students wasto take hints from the ancient masters andemploy them in a situation totally differentfrom that in which they were originallyemployed . In expounding this rule,Reynolds hit, apparently en passant, upon afundamental law of human expression:There is a figure of a Bacchante leaningbackward, her head thrown quite behindher, which seems to be a favourite invention,as it is so frequently repeated in basso-relievos, cameos, and intaglios; it is intendedto express an enthusiastic frantic kind of joy.This figure Baccio Bandinelli, in a drawingthat I have of that Master of the Descentfrom the Cross, has adopted (and he knewvery well what was worth borrowing) for oneof the Maries, to express frantic agony ofgrief. It is curious to observe, and it is

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a-Bacchante. Detailof a neo-Attic reliefin the Museum ofNaples (p. 7P)

b-Reynolds. Drawing from a sketch-book, BritishMuseum, Print Room (p. 7)

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c-Bacchante. De-tail of a neo-Atticrelief in the Uffizi,Florence (p. 7i)

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zxgd-Bandinelli. Descent from the Cross. Drawing, Paris, Ecole desBeaux Arts (p. 7)

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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 71certainly true, that the extremes of contrarypassions are with little variation expressedby the same action. ' A drawing in one ofReynolds' sketch books (P1. 9b) shows whatuse he himself intended to make of this lesson.

Some time ago the late A. Warburg, with-out knowing of this passage in Reynolds'Discourses, or of the drawing in Reynolds'sketch book, collected material which tendedto show that similar gestures can assumeopposite meanings. The pagan figure of thedancing manad (Pl. 9a, c) was the centraltheme of these studies, and their mostpoignant chapter contained the story of howBertoldo di Giovanni, the early Renaissancesculptor, transformed the manad into aMary Magdalene moaning under the Cross(P1. Iob).Dr. Antal discovered that Florentine reliefsof this early period were actually among themodels from which Bandinelli worked ;2 Sothat Reynolds, in confessing himself to beinspired by Bandinelli, continues a traditionwhich goes back to the fifteenth century.Even to-day the formula has not lost itsforce, as can be seen in a recent book onGrunewald written by that experiencedphysiognomist,Wilhelm Fraenger.3 It wouldbe difficult to imagine anything furtherremoved from classical antiquity than thefigures painted by Gruinewaldfor the Isen-heim altar. Yet when Fraenger tries to findadequate words to describe Mary Magdaleneunder the Crossthe memory of the old symbolmakes itself felt and he calls her eineSchmerz-mdnade,quoting a Latin hymn which mayhave been present in the minds of manyRenaissance artistswho pictured the saint inthe attitude of a Bacchante:

Fac me cruceinebriariEt cruore ilii.It would be of interest to trace this figurein the history of poetic imagination. In theRomantic period the Maenadunder the Crossassumed the meaning of a philosophicsymbol. In Eichendorff's novel AhnungundGegenwarthe makes a most striking appear-ance in a staged tableau,4 not in the characterof Mary Magdalene, but as an abstract alle-gorical image. A white radiant figure hold-ing a cross to Heaven is seen in the centre ofthe stage. At the other side stood abeautiful female figure in Greek garb, like

an image of one of the ancient goddesses.With both arms raised, she carried a cymballike somebody dancing, and held it high up,displaying all the measured splendour of herlimbs. Her face turned away, as if over-whelmed by the glory, she was only in half-light, yet it was the most distinct and perfectfigure. It seemed as if the joyous earthlybeauty, touched by the radiance of theheavenly one, were thus suddenly petrifiedin her bacchic posture. To the romanticpoet the maenad,transformed into stone atthe sight of the cross, symbolizes the fateof paganism: die vor dem Glanze desChristentums zu Stein gewordene Religionder Phantasie. E. W.

x DiscourseNo. 12.2 See Dr. Antal's article below.3 Matthias Griinewald n seinen Werken,ein physio-gnomischerVersuch. Berlin, 1936, p. 92.4 Book II, Chapter 12.

2. SOME EXAMPLES OF THE ROLE OF THEMKENAD IN FLORENTINE ART OF THE LATERFIFTEENTH AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES5

The Bandinelli drawing of the Descentfrom the Cross, mentioned by Reynolds, isin all probability the sheet (P1. 9d) in theEcole des Beaux Arts, reproduced here.6Reynolds' description refers to the femalefigure near the right-hand margin, who isseen, as it were, petrified in the act ofrunning, one knee bent, her head thrownback, and the hand of her raised right armgrasping her hair. It represents one of theMaries and is evidently formed after a neo-Attic dancing maenad(P1.9a, c). The wholescene of Christ'sburial, in which this womanplays a prominent part, and which has asits focussing point the striking feature of thedead Saviour, held upright and with thehead falling forward, receives in a certainmeasure the character of a Bacchic proces-sion. This example proves-and herein liesthe historical significance-that the Bacchicfrenzy of Roman or late Greek antiquity (weare concerned with sculptures of the lastcentury B.c. and the first century A.D., mostof them copies after fourth-century works ofan emotional, often passionate, character)could be transposed by the early manneristartists into an expression of religious ecstasy.

These detached observations are to be incor-porated in a book on Florentine art of this period tobe published later ; their formulation is not yet thefinal one, and they are therefore subject to revision.6 This drawing was in England until the beginningof the last century, when Ottley reproduced it in hisItalian School of Design, London, 1823, p. 13, at-tributing it to Donatello. Obviously he was the firstto attribute it, along with other Bandinelli drawings,to the great Quattrocento sculptor.

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a--Donatello. Detail of theDescent fl'om the Cross,Pulpit in S. Lorcnzo, Florence(P. 72)

b-Bertoldo. Detailof the Crucifixion,Bargello, Florence(P. 71)

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c-Filippino Lippi.Detail of the Deathof Virginia, Louvre(p. 72)

d-Verrocchio. Detail of the Tomb of Fran-cesca Tornabuoni, Bargello, Florence (p. 72) e-Niccolo dell' Arca. Figure ofMagdalen from the Lamentationin Sta. Maria della Vita, Bologna.(P. 72)

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