6HIRLANDAJ0
546
GHIRLANDAJO
years of age, is disfiguretl by the coarse realism of Cas-
tagno. His "Virgin Most Pitiful" (Vergine della
Misericordia) follows yet the medieval conventional-
ism, but is remarkable for the beauty of its portraits,
in which line Ghirlandajo always excelled. Hence-
forth his artistic genius seems to have taken a definite
form and to have changed but little in its development.
There was little time for anything except the regular
pursuit of his work in the life of this tireless artist.
His enormous output covers a space of little more than
fifteen years (1475-1491), and owing to its steady
progress can scarcely be divided into periods. Un-
troubled by passion or conflict his genius grew and
expanded like a flower. Though one of the most ac-
complished artists of the fifteenth century, his life
exhibits none of the troubles, complex situations, or
contradictions that meet us in the stormy life of Bot-
ticelli. The first characteristic work of the young
master was exe-
cuted when he was
twenty-flve(1475),
in the collegiate
church of San Gi-
mignano. He drew
his inspiration
from the life of
Santa F i n a , a
maiden of that city
who died in the
odour of sanctity,
12 March, 1254
(de' Medici, " Vita
di Santa Fina",
Siena, 1781), to
whose memory a
c li a p e 1 had re-
cently been erected
(1468) by Giuliano
and Benedetto da
Majano. The two
scenes treated by
the artist, the
Burial ", exhibit all
The first scene
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St. Felix I
Ghirlandajo, SJstine Chapel
"Vision" of the Saint and her
the elements of his future great work
is on a large scale, is treated with much taste and in as
familiar a manner as was permitted to an Italian artist.
In the "Burial" of the Saint something more personal
appeals to us. The simple local event, the mere abso-
lution pronounced over the remains of a modest village
maiden, is magnified and elevated to a lofty and power-
ful significance, in the treatment of the assembled mul-
titude. It is no longer an ordinary burial; the entire
city, represented by its clergy, magistrates, and citizens,
assists at the function, while the beautiful towers of
San Gimignano are shown as decoration of the back-
ground. In reality what he seeks to put before us Ls
an entire society harmoniously grouped; the picture
is a serene portrayal of national life and a triumph
of national sentiment. Of a short journey to Rome
about this time we possess no accurate information;
the artist returned to Florence to paint the fresco of
St. Jerome at Ognissanti and his famous fresco of the
"Last Supper" m the refectory of the same convent
(1480). This very noble composition is the most
idealistic of the artist's works, the only one in which
he deals with abstract concepts and does not depict
contemporary life.
The series of his great works began with a second journey to Rome. From 27 October, 1481, to 15 March, 1482, the artist was at work in the Sistine Chapel. In these six months he painted six portraits of popes and two large frescoes, the " Re.surrection " (over which, in the sixteenth century, a mediocre Flemish work was painted), and the "Call of the Apostles". The latter, with Perugino's "Giving of the Keys to St. Peter", is yet the chief masterpiece of that period of Sistine decoration. On his way back to
Florence, he painted an "Annunciation" (1482) at
San Gimignano. The remainder of his life seems to
have been passed at Florence, where three great under-
takings absorbed his activity. From 1482 to 1484, he
executed at the Palazzo della Signoria the " Maesta di
San Zenobio" and the noble figures of Roman states-
men, modelled after those of Taddeo di Bartolo in the
Palazzo Publico of Siena. Of all the frescoes which
made this town-hall of Florence the worthy compan-
ion of the Sistine Chapel, only those of Ghirlandajo
have been preserved. In 1485, he completed in the
Sassetti chapel at the Trinita six frescoes illustrative
of the " Life of St. Francis". They were not finished
when he received the order for his greatest work, the
fifteen frescoes of the "Life of St. John the Bapti-st"
and the "Life of the Virgin" which adorn the Torna-
buoni chapel in Santa Maria Novella. These paint-
ings, finished in 1490, are rightfully nimibered among
the most celebrated in Florence. They are Ghirlan-
dajo's most popular work, and are reckoned among
the greatest Italian masterpieces. Their merit is not
owing to the subject. Dramatic emotion is entirely
absent. Never did an artist, not even Michelangelo in
his incident from the Pisan war, his tombs of the
Medicis, permit himself such liberties with his ostensi-
ble subject ; or presume in the face of all tradition and
probability to substitute arbitrarily a subject chosen
in conformity with his own tastes and preferences.
Only rarely, and in uninteresting traits, does Ghirlan-
dajo force himself to serious conformity with the con-
ventional treatment of his subject.
As a rule Ghirlandajo avoids representing move- ment. His calm and clear imagination, well-ordered and harmonious, is better adapted to depicting neu- tral gestures and attitudes nearly always borrowed from daily life. In most of his scenes and those the most beautiful, e. g. the "Nativity of the Virgin" or the "Visitation", the historical motij and the actual event are of no moment. The gospel theme is re- duced to a minimum, and becomes a mere pretext for a great and magnificently conceived "tableau de moeurs", or representation of contemporary life. The beautiful everywhere diffused, reality in its highest forms, the artistic setting of things, daily life with its infinite variety of subjects, constitute the inexhausti- ble charm of these marvellous scenes, in which one must not seek depth, emotion, or poetry. No one ever conceived the life about him under such graceful and noble forms as Ghirlandajo. Devoid of imagina- tion, and compelled therefore to substitute for the great drama of the past the multitudinous spectacle of the present, he nevertheless attained, under the cir- cumstances, the highest flights of fancy. Instead of the always hypothetical reconstruction of an imagi- nary scene, we have the thousand-fold more valuable representation of the very world in which the artist lived, and at one of the periods in which life seems to have been most agreeable. The Florentine republic, at its most dazzling height, lives again for us in these incomparable frescoes. Still earlier, in his "Call of the Apostles" (Sistine Chapel), the artist had intro- duced in a group of fifty figures foreign to the subject portraits of the principal Florentines then in Rome. In his " Visitation" we behold Florentine ladies of the middle class out walking. In " Zachary driven from the Temple" we admire the portrait of the charming Lorenzo Tornabuoni, prince of the Florentine youth and husband of the beautiful Giovanna degli Albizzi, also those of the artist himself and of his brothers. But it is in the "Apparition of the Angel to Zachary" that this realism finds its fullest expressioti. This interview, which must have taken place in the retire- ment of the sanctuary, is presented by the artist be- fore thirty members of the Tornabuoni family, mag- nificently staged on the steps of the Temple. It is m fact a solemn glorification of the great line of Floren- tine bankers who built this admirable chapel. In the
