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Page 20
"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.
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