Or, if ought higher were then that, did it desyre.
One afternoon, about two weeks later, Barbara and Bettina were sitting in their pleasant room in Florence. The wide-open windows looked out upon the slopes of that lovely hill on whose summit is perched Fiesole, the poor little old mother of Florence, who still holds watch over her beautiful daughter stretched at her feet. Scented airs which had swept all the way from distant blue hills over countless orange, olive, and mulberry groves filled the room, and fluttered the paper upon which the girls were writing; it was their weekly letter budget.
The fair faces were flushed as they bent over the crowded sheets so soon to be scanned by dear eyes at home. How much there was to tell of the events of the past week! Drives through the streets of the famous city; through the lovely Cascine; up to San Miniato and Fiesole; visits to churches, palaces, and picture-galleries; days filled to overflowing with the new life among foreign scenes.
Suddenly Barbara, throwing aside her pen, exclaimed:—
"Betty dear, don't you sometimes feel most horribly ignorant?"
"Why? when?"
"Oh! I am just writing about our visit to Santa Croce the other day. I enjoyed so much the fine spaces within the church, the softened light, and some of the monuments. But when we came to those chapels whose walls are covered with paintings,—you remember, where we met that Mr. Sherman and his daughters who came over on the Kaiser with us,—I tried to understand why they were so interested there. They were studying the paintings for such a long time, and I heard some of the things they were saying about them. They thought them perfectly wonderful; and that Miss Sherman who has such lovely eyes said she thought it worth coming from America to Italy just to see them and other works by the same artist. Mr. Sumner, too, heard what she said, and gave her such a pleased, admiring look. After they had gone out from the chapel where are pictures representing scenes in the life of St. Francis, I went in and looked and looked at them; but, try as hard as I could, I could not be one bit interested. The pictures are so queer, the figures so stiff, I could not see a beautiful or interesting thing about them. But I know I am all wrong. I do want to see what they saw, and to feel as they felt!"
"I liked the pictures because of their subject," said Bettina; "that dear St. Francis of Assisi who loved the birds and flowers, and talked to them as if they could understand him. But I did not see any beauty in them."
"We must learn what it is; we must do more than just look at all these early pictures that fill the churches and galleries just as we would look at wall paper, as so many people seemed to do in the Uffizi gallery the other day," said Barbara, emphatically. "This must be one of the things papa meant."
Just here came a knock on the door.
"May we come in, Margery and I?" asked Malcom. "Why! what is the matter? You look as if you had been talking of something unpleasant."
Bettina told of Barbara's trouble.
"How strange!" said Margery. "Mamma has just been talking to us about this very thing. She says that, if you like, Uncle Robert will teach us about the works of the Italian painters. You know he knows everything about them! He has even written a book about these paintings in Florence!"
"Yes," said Malcom with a comical shrug, "the idea is that we all spend one or two mornings every week studying stiff old Madonnas and Magdalenes and saints! I love noble and beautiful paintings as well as any one, but I wonder if I can ever learn anything that will make me care to look twice at some of those old things in the long entrance gallery of the Uffizi. I doubt it. Give me the old palaces where the Medici lived, and let me study up what they did. Or even Dante, or Michael Angelo! He was an artist who is worth studying about. Why! do you know, he built the fortifications of San Miniato and—"
"But," interrupted Barbara, "you know that whenever Italy is written or talked about, her art seems to be the very most important thing. I was reading only the other day an article in which the writer said that undoubtedly the chief mission or gift of Italy to the world is her paintings,—her old paintings,—and that this mission is all fulfilled. Now, if this be true, do we wish to come here and go away without learning all that we possibly can of them? I think that would be foolish."
"And," added Bettina, "I think one of the most interesting studies in the world is about these same old saints whom you dislike so much, Malcom. They were heroes; and I think some of them were a great deal grander than those mythological characters you so dote upon. If your uncle will only be so good as to talk to us of the pictures! Let us go at once and thank him. Now, Malcom, you will be enthusiastic about it, will you not? There will be so much time for all the other things."
Bettina put her arm affectionately about Margery, and smiled into Malcom's face, as they all went to seek Mrs. Douglas and Mr. Sumner.
"Here come the victims, Uncle Rob! three willing ones,—Barbara, who is ever sighing for new worlds to conquer; Betty, who already dotes upon St. Sebastian stuck full of arrows and St. Lucia carrying her eyes on a platter; Madge, who would go to the rack if only you led the way,—and poor rebellious, inartistic I."
"But, my boy—" began Mrs. Douglas.
"Oh! I will do it all if only the girls will climb the Campanile and Galileo's Tower with me and it does not interfere with our drives and walks. If this is to become an æsthetic crowd, I don't wish to be left out," laughed Malcom.
A morning was decided upon for the first lesson.
"We will begin at the beginning," said Mr. Sumner; "one vital mistake often made is in not starting far enough back. In order to realize in the slightest degree the true work of these old masters, one must know in what condition the art was before their time; or rather, that there was no art. So we will first go to the Accademia delle Belle Arti, or Academy, as we will call it, and from there to the church, Santa Maria Novella. And one thing more,—you are welcome to go to my library and learn all you can from the books there. I am sure I do not need to tell those who have studied so much as you already have that the knowledge you shall gain from coming into contact with any new thing must be in a great degree measured by that which you take to it."
"How good you are to give us so much of your time, Mr. Sumner," said Barbara, with sparkling eyes. "How can we ever repay you?"
"By learning to love this subject somewhat as I love it," replied Mr. Sumner; but he thought as he felt the magnetism of her young enthusiasm that he might gain something of compensation which it was impossible to put into words.
"Are you not going with us, dear Mrs. Douglas?" asked Bettina, as the little party were preparing to set forth on the appointed morning.
"Not to-day, dear, for I have another engagement"
"I think I know what mamma is going to do," said Margery as they left the house. "I heard the housemaid, Anita, telling her last evening about the illness of her little brother, and saying that her mother is so poor that she cannot get for the child what he needs. I think mamma is going to see them this morning."
"Just like that blessed mother of ours!" exclaimed Malcom. "There is never anybody in want near her about whom she is not sure to find out and to help! It will be just the same here as at home; Italians or Americans—all are alike to her. She will give up anything for herself in order to do for them."
"I am glad you know her so well," said his uncle, with a smile. "There is no danger that you can ever admire your mother too much."
"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, as after a little walk they entered a square surrounded by massive buildings, with arcades, all white with the sunshine. "Look at that building! It is decorated with those dear little babies, all swathed, whose photographs we have so often seen in the Boston art stores. What is it? Where are we?"
"In the Piazza dell' Annunziata," replied Mr. Sumner, "and an interesting place it is. That building is the Foundling Hospital, a very ancient and famous institution. And the 'swathed babies' are the work of Andrea della Robbia."
"Poor little innocents! How tired they must be, wrapped up like mummies and stuck on the wall like specimen butterflies!" whispered Malcom in an aside to Bettina.
"Hush! hush!" laughed she. "Your uncle will hear you."
"This beautiful church just here on our right," continued Mr. Sumner, "is the church of the S.S. Annunziata or the most Holy Annunciation. It was founded in the middle of the thirteenth century by seven noble Florentines, who used to meet daily to sing Ave Maria in a chapel situated where the Campanile of the Cathedral now stands. It has been somewhat modernized and is now the most fashionable church in Florence. It contains some very interesting paintings, which we will visit by and by."
"Every step we take in this beautiful city is full of interest, and how different from anything we can find at home!" exclaimed Bettina. "Look at the color of these buildings, and their exquisite arches! See the soft painting over the door of the church, and the sculptured bits everywhere! I begin, just a little, to see why Florence is called the art city."
"But only a little, yet," said Mr. Sumner, with a pleased look. "You are just on the threshold of the knowledge of this fair city. Not what she outwardly is, but what she contains, and what her children have wrought, constitute her wealth of art. Do you remember, Margery, what name the poet Shelley gives Florence in that beautiful poem you were reading yesterday?"
Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendor,
Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,
As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender,"
dreamily recited Margery, her sweet face flushing as all eyes looked at her.
"Yes," smiled her uncle. "Florence, as foster-nurse, has cherished for the world the art-treasures of early centuries in Italy, so that there is no other city on earth in which we can learn so much of the 'revival of art,' as it is called, which took place after the barrenness of the Dark Ages, as in this. But here we are at the Academy. I shall not allow you to look at much here this morning. We will go and sit in the farther corner of this first corridor, for I wish to talk a little, and just here we shall find all that I need for illustration."
"You need not put on such a martyr-look, Malcom," continued he, as they walked on. "I prophesy that not one here present will feel more solid interest in the work we are beginning than you will, my boy."
When Mr. Sumner had gathered the little group about him, he began to talk of the beauties of Greek art—how it had flourished for centuries before Christ.
"But I thought Greek art consisted of sculptures," said Barbara.
"Much of it was sculptured,—all of it which remains,—but we have evidence that the Greeks also produced beautiful paintings, which, could they have been preserved, might be not unworthy rivals of modern masterpieces," replied Mr. Sumner. "After the Roman invasion of Greece, these ancient works of art were mostly destroyed. Rome possessed no fine art of her own, but imported Greek artists to produce for her. These, taken away from their native land, and having no noble works around them for inspiration, began simply to copy each other, and so the art degenerated from century to century. The growing Christian religion, which forbade the picturing of any living beauty, gave the death-blow to such excellence as remained. A style of painting followed which received the name of Greek Byzantine. In it was no study of life; all was most strikingly conventional, and it grew steadily worse and worse. A comparison of the paintings and mosaics of the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries shows the rapid decline of all art qualities. Finally every figure produced was a most arrant libel on nature. It was always painted against a flat gold background; the limbs were wholly devoid of action; the feet and hands hung helplessly; and the eyes were round and staring. The flesh tints were a dull brick red, and all else a dreary brown."
"Come here," said he, rising, "and see an example of this Greek Byzantine art,—this Magdalen. Study it well."
"Oh, oh, how dreadful!" chorussed the voices of all.
"Uncle Rob, do you mean to say there was no painting in the world better than this in the ninth—or thereabouts—century?" asked Malcom, with wondering eyes.
"I mean to say just that, Malcom. But I must tell you something more about this same Greek Byzantine painting, for there is a school of it to-day. Should you go to Southern Italy or to Russia, you would find many booths for trading, in the back of which you would see a Madonna, or some saint, painted in just this style. These pictures have gained a superstitious value among the lower classes of the people, and are believed to possess a miraculous power. In Mt. Athos, Greece, is a school that still produces them. Doubtless this has grown out of the fact that several of these old paintings, notably Madonnas, are treasured in the churches, and the people are taught that miracles have been wrought by them. In the Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, is an example (the people are told that it was painted by St. Luke), and during the plague in Rome, and also during a great fire which was most disastrous, this painting was borne through the city by priests in holy procession, and the tradition is that both plague and fire were stayed."
"What a painfully ridiculous figure!" exclaimed Barbara, who had been silently absorbed in study. "It is painful because every line looks as if the artist had done his very best, and that is so utterly bad. It means absolutely nothing."
"You have fathomed the woful secret," replied Mr. Sumner. "It shows no evidence of the slightest thought. Only a man's fingers produced this. All power of originality had become lost; all desire for it was unknown."
"Then, how did things ever get better?" asked Malcom.
"An interesting question. I wish you all would read some before I tell you any more. Find something, please, that treats of the beginnings of Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome. Read about the manuscript illuminations produced by monks of the tenth and eleventh centuries, which are to be found in some great libraries. In these we find the best art of that time,"
"If you find anything about Cimabue and Giotto," he added, "you would better read that also, for the work of these old painters will be the subject of our next lesson. For it, we will go to the church Santa Maria Novella."
"And Santa Croce?" asked Barbara, more timidly than was her wont.
"And Santa Croce too," smilingly added Mr. Sumner.
"And now, Malcom, if you can find a wide carriage, we all will drive for an hour before going home."
Chapter IV.
A New Friend Appears.
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate.
One day Malcom met an old fellow-student. Coming home, he told his mother of him, and asked permission to bring him for introduction.
"His name is Howard Sinclair. I did not know him very well in the school, for he was some way ahead of me. He is now in Harvard College. But his lungs are very weak; and last winter the doctors sent him to Egypt, and told him he must stay for at least two years in the warmer countries. He is lonely and pretty blue, I judge; was glad enough to see me."
"Poor boy! Yes, bring him here, and I will talk with him. Perhaps we can make it more pleasant for him. You are sure his character is beyond question, Malcom?"
"I think so. He has lots of money, and is inclined to spend it freely, but I know he was called a pretty fine fellow in the school, though not very well known by many. He is rather 'toney,' you know,—held his head too high for common fellows. The teachers especially liked him; for he is awfully bright, and took honors right along."
The next day Malcom brought his friend to his mother, whose heart he won at once by his evident delicate health, his gentlemanly manners, and, perhaps most of all, because he had been an orphan for years, and was so much alone in the world. She decided to welcome him to her home, and to give him the companionship of her young people.
Howard Sinclair was a young man of brilliant intellectual promise. He had inherited most keen sensibilities, an almost morbid delicacy of thought, a variable disposition, and a frail body. Both father and mother died before he was ten years of age, leaving a large fortune for him, their only child; and, since then, his home had been with an aged grandmother. Without any young companions in the home, and lacking desire for activity, he had given himself up to an almost wholly sedentary life. The body, so delicate by nature, had always been made secondary to the alert mind. His luxurious tastes could all be gratified, and thus far he had lived like some conservatory plant.
The very darling of his grandmother's heart, it was like death to her to part from him when the physicians decided that to save his life it was an imperative necessity that he should live for a a time in a warmer climate. It was an utter impossibility for her to accompany him. He shrank from any other companion, therefore had set forth with only his faithful John, who had been an old servant in the family before he was born, as valet. He went first to Egypt, where he had remained as long as the heat would permit, then had gone northwest to the Italian lakes and Switzerland, whence he had now come to spend a time in Florence.
Lonely, homesick, and disheartened, it was indeed like a "gift of the gods" to him when one day, as he was leaving his banker's on Via Tornabuoni he met the familiar face of Malcom Douglas. And when he was welcomed to his old schoolmate's home and family circle, the weary young man felt for the first time in many months the sensation of rest and peace.
His evident lack of physical strength, and the quickly coming and going color in his cheeks, told Mrs. Douglas that he could never know perfect health; but he said that the change of country and climate had already done him much good, and this encouraged him to think of staying from home a year or two in the hope that then all danger of active disease might have passed.
He so evidently longed for companionship that Malcom and the girls told him of their life,—of their Italian lessons,—their reading,—Mr. Sumner's talks about Italian painting,—Malcom's private college studies (which he had promised his mother to pursue if she would give him this year abroad), and all that which was filling their days. He was especially interested in their lessons on the Italian masters of painting, and asked if they would permit him to join them.
"If you will only come to me when you have any trouble with your Greek and Latin, Malcom," he said, "perhaps I can repay you in the slightest degree for the wonderful pleasure this would give me."
So as Mr. Sumner was willing, his little class received the addition of Howard Sinclair.
"Why so sober, Malcom?" asked his mother, as she found him alone by himself. "Is not the arrangement that your friend join you agreeable?"
"Oh, yes, mother, he is a nice fellow, though a sort of a prig, and I wish to do all we can for him; only—I do hope he will not monopolize Betty and Barbara always, as he has seemed to do this afternoon."
"My boy, beware of that little green imp we read of," laughed Mrs. Douglas. "You have been too thoroughly 'monarch of all' thus far. Can you not share your realm with this homesick young man?"
"But he has always had all for himself, mother. He does not know what it is to share."
"Malcom! be yourself."
The mother's eyes looked straight up into those of her tall boy, and her hand sought his with a firm, warm pressure that made him fling back his noble young head with an emphatic "I am ashamed of myself! Thank you, mother dear."
That evening, as all were sitting on the balcony watching the soft, rosy afterglow that was creeping over the hills and turning to glowing points the domes and spires of the fair city, Mr. Sumner said:—
"If you are willing, I would like to talk with you a little before we make our visits to Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce to-morrow. You will understand better the old pictures we shall see there if we consider beforehand what we ought to look for in any picture or other work of art. Too many go to them as to some sort of recreation,—simply for amusement,—simply to gratify their love for beautiful color and form, and so, to these, the most beautiful picture is always the best. But this is a low estimate of the great art of painting, for it is simply one of man's means of expression, just as music or poetry is. The artist learns to compose his pictures, to draw his forms, to lay on his colors, just as the poet learns the meanings of words, rhetorical figures, and the laws of harmony and rhythm, or the musician his notes and scales and harmonies of sound."
"I see this is a new thought to you," continued he, after a moment spent in studying the faces about him. "Let us follow it. What is the use of this preparation of study in art, poetry, or music? Is it solely for the perfection of itself? We often hear nowadays the expression, 'art for art's sake,' and by some it is accounted a grand thought and a noble rallying-cry for artists. And so it truly is if the very broadest and highest possible meaning is given to the word 'art.' If it means the embodying of some noble, beautiful, soul-moving thought in a form that can be seen and understood, and means nothing less than this, then it is indeed a worthy motto. But to too many, I fear, it means only the painting of beauty for beauty's sake. That is, the thought embodied, the message to some soul, which every picture ought to contain, and which every noble picture that is worthy to live must contain, becomes of little or no value compared with the play of color and light and form.
"Let me explain further," he went on, even more earnestly. "Imagine that we are looking at a picture, and we admire exceedingly the perfection of drawing its author has displayed,—the wonderful breadth of composition,—the harmony of color-masses. The moment is full of keen enjoyment for us; but the vital thing, after all, is, what impression shall we take away with us. Has the picture borne us any message? Has it been either an interpretation or a revelation of something? Shall we remember it?"
"But is not simple beauty sometimes a revelation, Mr. Sumner?" asked Barbara,—"as in a landscape, or seascape, or the painting of a child's face?"
"Certainly, if the artist has shown by his work that this beauty has stirred depths of feeling in himself, and his effort has been to reveal what he has felt to others. If you seek to find this in pictures you will soon learn to distinguish between those (too many of which are painted to-day) whose only excellence lies in trick of handling or cunning disposition of color-masses,—because these things are all of which the artist has thought,—and those that have grown out of the highest art-desire, which is to bear some message of the restfulness, the power, the beauty, or the innocence of nature to the hearts of other men.
"And there is one thing more that we must not forget. There may be pictures with bad motifs as well as good ones—weak and simple ones, as well as strong and holy ones—and yet they may be full of all artistic qualities of representation. What is true with regard to literature is true in respect to art. It is, after all, the message that determines the degree of nobility.
Lending our minds out.
wrote Mr. Browning, and we should always endeavor to find out whether the artist has loaned his mind or merely his fingers and his knowledge of the use of his materials. If we find thought in his picture, we should then ask to what service he has put it.
"If a poem consist only of words and rhythms, how long do you think it ought to live? And if a picture possess merely forms and colors, however beautiful they may be, it deserves no more fame. And how much worse if there be meaning, and it be base and unworthy!"
"Does he not put it well?" whispered Malcom to Bettina from his usual seat between her and Margery. "I feel as if he were pouring new thoughts into me."
"Now, the one thing I desire to impress upon you to-night," continued Mr. Sumner, "is that these old masters of painting who lived in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries had messages to give their fellow-men. Their great endeavor was to interpret God's word to them,—you know that in those days and in this land there was no Bible open to the common people,—and what we must chiefly look for in their pictures is to see whether or not they told the message as well as the limitation of their art-language permitted.
"At first, no laws of perspective were known. None knew how to draw anything correctly. No color-harmonies had been thought of. These men must needs stammer when they tried to express themselves; but as much greater as thought is than the mere expression of it so much greater are many of their works, in the true sense, than the mass of pictures that make up our exhibitions of the present day.
"Then, also, it is a source of the deepest interest to one who loves this art to watch its growth in means of expression—its steady development—until, finally, we find the noblest thoughts expressed in perfect forms and coloring. This we can do here in Florence as nowhere else, for the Florentine school of painting was the first of importance in Italy.
"So," he concluded, "do not look for beauty in these pictures which we are first to study; instead of it, you will find much ugliness. But strive to put yourselves into the place of the old artists, to feel as they felt. See what impelled them to paint. Recognize the feebleness of their means of expression. Watch for indications in history of the effect of their pictures upon the people. Strive to find originality in them, if it be there, for this quality gives a man's work a certain positive greatness wherever we find it; and so learn to become worthy judges of that which you study. Soon, like me, you will look with pity on those who can see nothing worthy of a second glance in these treasures of the past.
"There! I have preached you a sermon, I am afraid. Are you tired?" and his bright glance searched the faces about him.
Their expression would have been satisfactory without the eager protestations that answered his question.
When, a little later, Barbara and Bettina, each seated before her dainty toilet-table, were brushing their hair, they, as usual, chatted about the events of the day. Never had there been so much to talk over and so little time to do it in as during these crowded weeks, when pleasure and study were hand in hand. For though they read and studied, yet there were drives, and receptions in artists' studios, and, because of Robert Sumner's long residence in Florence, they had even begun to receive invitations to small and select parties, where they met charming people.
This very morning they had driven with Mrs. Douglas through some of the oldest parts of Florence. They were reading together George Eliot's "Romola," and were connecting all its events with this city in which the scenes are laid. Read in this way, it seemed like a new book to them, and possessed an air of reality that awakened their enthusiasm as nothing else could have done. And then in the afternoon had been the meeting with the new friend; tea in the little garden behind the house; and the evening on the balcony.
Naturally their conversation soon turned to Howard Sinclair.
"What a strange life for one so young!" said Bettina. "Malcom says there is no limit to his wealth. He lives in the winter in one of those grandest houses on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, and has summer houses in two or three places. And yet how poor in many ways!" she continued after a little pause—"so much poorer than we! No father and mother,—no brothers and sisters,—and forced to leave his home because he is so ill! Poor fellow! How do you like him, Bab? He seemed to admire you sufficiently, for he hardly took his eyes from you."
"Like him?" slowly returned Barbara. "To tell the truth, Betty, I hardly know. Somehow I feel strangely about him. I like him well enough so far, but I believe I am a bit afraid, and whether it is of him or not, I cannot tell. Somehow I feel as if things are going to be different from what they have been, and—I don't know—I believe I almost wish Malcom had not known him."
"Why, Bab dear! what do you mean? Don't be nervous; that is not like you. Nothing could happen to make us unhappy while we are with these dear people,—nothing, that is, if our dear ones at home are well. I wish he had not stared at you so much with those great eyes, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, but how he could have helped admiring you, sister mine, is more than I know,—for you were lovely beyond everything this afternoon;" and Betty impulsively sprang up to give her sister a hug and a kiss.
"To change the subject," she added, "how did you like Mr. Sumner's talk this evening?"
"Oh! more than words can tell! Betty, I believe, next to our own dear papa, he is the grandest man alive. I always feel when he talks as if nothing were too difficult to attempt; as if nothing were too beautiful to believe. And he is so young too, in feeling; so wise and yet so full of sympathy with all our young nonsense. He is simply perfect." And she drew a long breath.
"I think so too; and he practises what he preaches in his own painting. For don't you remember those pictures we saw in his studio the other day? How he has painted those Egyptian scenes! A perfect tremor ran over me as I felt the terrible, solemn loneliness of that one camel and his rider in the limitless stretch of desert. I felt quite as he must have felt, I am sure; and the desert will always seem a different thing to me because I looked at that picture. And then that sweet, strong, overcoming woman's face! How much she had lived through! What a lesson of triumph over all weakness and sorrow it teaches! I am so thankful every minute that dear Mrs. Douglas asked us to come with her, that our darling papa and mamma allowed us to come, and that everything is so pleasant in this dear, delightful Florence."
And Bettina fell asleep almost the minute her head rested on her pillow, with a happy smile curving her beautiful lips.
But Barbara tossed long on the little white bed in the opposite corner of the room. It was difficult to go to sleep, so many thoughts crowded upon her. Finally she resolutely set herself to recall Mr. Sumner's words of the evening. Then, as she remembered the little lingering of his eyes upon her own as he bade his group of listeners good night, the glad thought came, "He knows I am trying to learn, and that I appreciate all he is doing for me," and so her last thought was not for the new friend the day had brought, but for Robert Sumner.
Chapter V.
Straws Show which Way the Wind Blows.
For daring so much before they well did it.
It was a charming morning in early November when Mr. Sumner and his little company of students of Florentine art gathered before the broad steps which lead up to the entrance of Santa Maria Novella. The Italian sky, less soft than in midsummer, gleamed brightly blue. The square tower of the old Fiesole Cathedral had been sharply defined as they turned to look at it when leaving their home; and Giotto's Campanile, of which they had caught a glimpse on their way hither, shone like a white lily in the morning sunlight. The sweet, invigorating air, the bustle of the busy streets, the happiness of youth and pleasant expectancy caused all hearts to beat high, and it was a group of eager faces that turned toward the grand old church whose marble sides show the discoloration of centuries.
At Mr. Sumner's invitation all sat on the steps in a sunny corner while he talked of Cimabue,—the first great name in the history of Italian painting,—the man who was great enough to dare attempt to change conditions that existed in his time, which was the latter part of the thirteenth century. He told them how, though a nobleman possessing wealth and honor, he had loved painting and had given his life to it; and how, having been a man arrogant of all criticism, he was fitted to be a pioneer; to break from old traditions, and to infuse life into the dead Byzantine art.
He told them how the people, ever quick to feel any change, were delighted to recognize, in a picture, life, movement, and expression, however slight. How, one day six hundred years ago, a gay procession, with banners and songs, bore a large painting, the Madonna and Child, from the artist's studio, quite a distance away, through the streets and up to the steps on which they were sitting; and how priests chanting hymns and bearing church banners came out to receive the picture.
"And through all these centuries it has here remained," he continued. "It is, of course, scarred by time and dark with the smoke of incense. When you look upon it I wish you would remember what I told you the other evening about that for which we should look in a picture. Be sympathetic. Put yourself in old Cimabue's place and in that of the people who had known only such figures in painting as the Magdalen you saw last week in the Academy. Then, though these figures are so stiff and almost lifeless, though the picture is Byzantine in character, you will see beyond all this a faint expression in the Madonna's face, a little life and action in the Christ-child, who holds up his tiny hand in blessing.
"If you do not look for this you may miss it,—miss all that which gives worth to Cimabue and his art. As thoughtful a mind as that of our own Hawthorne saw only the false in it, and missed the attempt for truth; and so said he only wished 'another procession would come and take the picture from the church, and reverently burn it.' Ah, Malcom, I see your eyes found that in your reading, and you thought in what good company you might be."
"What kind of painting is it?" queried Barbara, as a few minutes later they stood in the little chapel, and looked up at Cimabue's quaint Madonna and Child.
"It is called tempera, and is laid upon wood. In this process the paints are mixed with some glutinous substance, such as the albumen of eggs, glue, etc., which causes them to adhere to the surface on which they are placed."
"What do you think was the cause of Cimabue's taking such an advance step, Mr. Sumner?" asked Howard Sinclair, after a pause, during which all studied the picture.
"It must have been a something caught from the spirit of the time. A stir, an awakening, was taking place in Italy. Dante and Petrarch were in a few years to think and write. The time had come for a new art."
"I do see the difference between this and those Academy pictures," said Bettina, "even though it is so queer, and painted in such colors."
"And I," "And I," quickly added Barbara and Margery.
"I think those angels' faces are interesting," continued Barbara. "They are not all just alike, but look as if each had some thought of his own. They seem proud of their burden as they hold up the Madonna and Child."
"Oh, nonsense, Barbara! you are putting too much imagination in there," exclaimed Malcom. "I think old Cimabue did do something, but it is an awfully bad picture, after all. There is one thing, though; it is not so flat as that Academy Magdalen. The child's head seems round, and I do think his face has a bit of expression."
So they looked and chatted on, and took little note of coming and going tourists, who glanced with curiosity from them to the old dark picture above, and then back to the fresh, eager, beautiful faces,—the greater part ever finding in the latter the keener attraction.
"I always have one thought when I look at this," finally said Mr. Sumner, "that perhaps will be interesting to you, and linger in your minds. This Madonna and Child seems to form a link and also to mark a division between all those which went before it in Christian art and all those that have followed. It is the last Byzantine Madonna and is the first of the long, noble list which has come from the hands of artists who have lived since the thirteenth century.
"We will not stay here longer now, for I know you will come again more than once to study it. There is much valuable historic art in this church which you will understand better when you have learned more. Yonder in the Strozzi Chapel is some of the very best work of an old painter called Orcagna, while here in the choir are notable frescoes by Ghirlandajo; but now I shall take you down these steps between the two into the cloister and there we will talk of Giotto. I know how busy you have been reading about this wonderful old master, for I could not help hearing snatches of your talk about him all through the past week. His figure looms up most important of all among the early painters of Florence. You know how Cimabue, clad in his scarlet robe and hood, insignia of nobility, riding out one day to a little town lying on one of yonder blue hills, found a little, dark-faced shepherd-boy watching his father's sheep, and amusing himself by drawing a picture of one, with only a sharp stone for a pencil. Interested in the boy, he took pains to visit his father and gain his permission to take him as a pupil to Florence. So Giotto came to begin his art-life. What are you thinking of, little Margery?"
"Only a bit of Dante's writing which I read with mother the other day," said she, blushing. "I was thinking how little Cimabue then thought that this poor, ignorant shepherd-boy would ever cause these lines to be written:—
But now the cry is Giotto, and his name's eclipsed."
"Yes, indeed! Giotto did eclipse his master's fame, for he went so much farther,—but only in the same path, however; so we must not take from Cimabue any of the honor that is due him. But for Giotto the old Byzantine method of painting on all gold backgrounds was abolished. This boy, though born of peasants, was not only gifted with keen powers of observation of nature and mankind and a devotion to the representation of things truly as they are, but, beyond and above all this, with one other quality that made his work of incalculable worth to the people among whom he painted. This was a delicate appreciation of the true relations between earthly and spiritual things.
"Before him, as we have seen, all art was most unnatural and monastic,—utterly destitute of sympathy with the feelings of the common people. Giotto changed all this. He made the Christ-child a loving baby; the Madonna a loving mother into whose joy and suffering all mothers' hearts could enter; angels were servants of men; miracles were wrought by God because He loved and desired to help men; the pictured men and women were like themselves because they smiled and grieved and acted even as they did. All this change Giotto made in the spirit of pictures; and in the ways of painting he also wrought a complete revolution. 'There are no such things as gold backgrounds in nature,' he said; 'I will have my people out of doors or in their homes.' And so he painted the blue sky and rocks and trees and grass, and dressed his men and women in pure, fresh colors, and represented them as if engaged in home duties in the house or in the field. He introduced many characters into his story pictures,—angel visitants, neighbors, wandering shepherds, and even domestic animals. He brought the art of painting down into the minds and hearts of all who looked upon them."
"I never have realized until lately," said Barbara, "how painting can be made a source of education and pleasure to everybody. It is so different here from what it is at home, especially because the churches are full of pictures. There we go into the art museums or the galleries of different art-clubs,—the only places where pictures are to be found,—and meet only those people that can afford luxuries; and so the art itself seems a luxury. But here I have seen such poor, sad-looking people, who seem to forget all their miseries in looking at some beautiful sacred picture. Only the other day I overheard a poor woman, whose clothes were wretched and who had one child in her arms and another beside her, trying to explain a picture to them, and she lingered and lingered before it, and then turned away with a pleased, restful face."
"Yes, it is the spirit of pictures and their truth to nature that appeal to the mass of people here," replied Mr. Sumner, "and so it must be everywhere. I have been very glad to read in my papers from home that free art exhibitions have been occasionally opened in the poor quarters of our cities. Should the movement become general, as I hope it will, it must work good in more than one direction. Not only could those who have hitherto been shut out from this means of pleasure and education receive and profit by it, but the art itself would gain a wholesome impulse. A new class of critics would be heard—those unversed in art-parlance—who would not talk of line, tone, color-harmonies and technique, but would go to the very heart of picture and painter; and I think the truest artists would listen to them and so gain something.
"But we must get to Giotto again. I have told you what he tried to paint, but you will see that he could not do all this in the least as if he had been taught in our art-schools of to-day. How little could Cimabue teach him! His hills and rocks are parodies of nature. He knew not how to draw feet, and would put long gowns or stockings on his people so as to hide his deficiency. He never could make a lying-down figure look flat. But how he could accomplish all that he did in his pictures is more than any one can explain.
"We will now look behind this grand tomb at the foot of the stairs and find two of Giotto's frescoes. There you see the pictures—the Birth of the Virgin and the Meeting of St. Joachim and St. Anna, the father and mother of the Virgin. Do you know the story of these saints?"
"Yes," answered Malcom, "Betty read it to us last evening, for, you see, uncle, we had been dipping just a bit, so as not to get below our depth, into Mr. Ruskin's 'Mornings in Florence'; so we ought to be able to understand something here, if anywhere, oughtn't we?"
"Well, look and see what you can find! I wonder what will appeal first to each one of you!"
After a few minutes of complete silence Mr. Sumner said: "Margery dear, I wonder what you are thinking of?"
"I am thinking, Uncle, that, just as Mr. Ruskin says, I cannot help seeing the baby in this picture. At whatever part I look my eyes keep coming back to the dear little thing wrapped up so clumsily, whom the two nurses are tending so lovingly and with such reverence."
"Yes, my dear, old Giotto knew how to make the chief thing in his pictures seem to be the most important; something that not all of us artists of to-day know how to do by any means."
"But the pictures are so queer!" burst forth Malcom. "I do see some of the fine things of which you speak, Uncle Robert, but there are so many almost ridiculous things; the shepherds that are following St. Joachim—do look at the feet of the first one; and the second has on stockings. I can see the different lines that poor old Giotto drew when he was struggling over those first feet; I wonder if he put the others into stockings just to save trying to draw them. And the funny lamb in the arms of the first shepherd; and the queer, stiff sprigs of grass which are growing up in all sorts of places! and the angel coming out of the cloud! and—"
"Do stop, Malcom," cried Bettina, "just here at the angel! Why! I think he is perfectly beautiful with one hand on St. Joachim's head and the other on St. Anna's. He is blessing them and drawing them together and forgiving, all in one."
"And the people, all of them! just look at the people!" cried Barbara, impetuously. "Each one is thinking of something, and I seem to know what it is! How could—" But her voice faltered, and stopped abruptly.
"It is not difficult to understand what Howard is thinking of," whispered Malcom in Bettina's ear. "Did you see what a look he gave Barbara? I don't believe she likes it."
Mr. Sumner, turning, surprised the same look in the young man's eyes and gave a quick, inquiring glance at the fair, flushed face of Barbara. He felt annoyed, without knowing exactly why. A new and foreign element had been introduced into the little group, whose influence was not to be transient.
After a few more words, in which he told them to notice the type of Giotto's faces—the eyes set near together, their too great length, though much better in this respect than Cimabue's, and the broad, rounded chins—they turned away.
"We have seen all we ought to stay here for to-day, and now we will drive over to Santa Croce. There are also notable frescoes by Giotto in Assisi, and especially in the Arena Chapel, Padua. Perhaps we may see them all by and by."
On leaving the church, Bettina looked back, saying:—
"This is the church that Michael Angelo used to call 'his bride.'"
"Used to," laughed Malcom. "You have gone back centuries this morning, Betty."
"I feel so. I should not be one bit surprised to meet some of these old artists right here in the Piazza on their way to their work."
"Let us go over to Santa Croce by way of the Duomo, and through Piazza Signoria, Uncle," said Margery. "I am never tired of those little, narrow, crooked streets."
"Yes, that will be a good way; for then we shall go right past Giotto's Campanile, and though you have seen it often you will look upon it with especial interest just now, when we are studying his work."
At Santa Croce they were to meet Mrs. Douglas by appointment; and as they pressed on through the broad nave, lined on either side by massive monuments to Florence's great dead, they espied her at the entrance of the Bardi Chapel in conversation with a lady whose slender figure and bright, animated face grew familiar to the young people of the steamship as they approached; for it was the Miss Sherman whom Barbara and Bettina had admired so much on the Kaiser Wilhelm, and whom, with her father and sister, they had met once before in this same church.
Coming rapidly forward, Mrs. Douglas introduced her companion.
"She is alone in Florence," she explained to her brother a moment later when the others had passed on, "for her father has been suddenly summoned home, and her sister has accompanied him. She is a bright, charming young woman, who loves art dearly, and I am sure we all shall like her. I felt drawn to her as we talked together several times on our way over. I think we must have her with us all we can."
After an hour spent in the Bardi and Peruzzi Chapels, whose walls are covered with Giotto's frescoes, the little group separated. Malcom, Margery, Barbara, and Bettina walked home along the Via dei Pinti, or Street of the Painters. While the others chatted, Barbara was unusually silent. She was thinking how much she had learned that morning, and exulted in the knowledge that there was not quite so vast a difference between herself and Miss Sherman as existed the last time they met in Santa Croce.
For Barbara had entered into the study of this subject with an almost feverish fervor of endeavor. Though she felt there was much to enjoy and to learn all about her, yet nothing seemed so important as a knowledge of the old painters and their pictures; and the longing to be able to think and to speak with some assurance of them haunted her continually.
Bettina sometimes looked at her sister with wonder as she would sit hour after hour poring over Mr. Sumner's books.
"I always thought I loved pictures best," she thought; "but Bab cares more for these old ones than I do."