DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61670#0070
44
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
her as stately and hieratic a bearing as the old Byzantine type.
She is solemn, at times almost severe—the High Priestess and
Mediatrix between God and Man. He chooses for her a form
such as the Greeks gave to their Goddess of Victory, of the
grandest physical development, large, athletic, and strong, and
the type of face is Greek also. But while laying stress on her
impersonal and Divine aspect, he connects her closely with
humanity in her earnestness and her maternity. She differs
essentially from the earlier Byzantine type—which, abstracted
from humanity, presents the child so coldly to the worship of
man—in the intimacy and tenderness of her relation to the
child. Nothing could be more human than the Madonna of
Luca della Robbia, but it is humanity at its noblest, where it
approaches to and mingles with the Divine.
His Christ-Child is conceived also in his divine aspect ; but
again, with that peculiar blending of the two natures, is very child-
like and simple, far more simple than Desiderio’s, Verrocchio’s,
or Andrea della Robbia’s. Ego sum Lux Mundi his radiant
glance says, even when he does not bear the legend. He is
the Divinity clothed momentarily in human flesh and radiating
his Godhead by an inspired far-seeing glance, but he retains
also the unconscious simplicity of infancy, and is free from
didacticism or affectation.
Luca conceives humanity always in its noblest aspect, its
highest physical and spiritual development, in this revealing
again his close connection with the spirit of antique art. He
ignores as unworthy of artistic representation all that is transi-
tory or commonplace. His figures are stately, reserved, and
impersonal, expressive only of the deep and fundamental
emotions. They have the fearless, free-souled bearing of the
Greek statue, superbly unconscious of all in life that is not
noble and serene.
In his treatment of more secular subjects, as when depicting
the joyous dances of children in his Cantoria, Luca preserves a
certain sobriety, and is never exuberant. The merriest, most
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
her as stately and hieratic a bearing as the old Byzantine type.
She is solemn, at times almost severe—the High Priestess and
Mediatrix between God and Man. He chooses for her a form
such as the Greeks gave to their Goddess of Victory, of the
grandest physical development, large, athletic, and strong, and
the type of face is Greek also. But while laying stress on her
impersonal and Divine aspect, he connects her closely with
humanity in her earnestness and her maternity. She differs
essentially from the earlier Byzantine type—which, abstracted
from humanity, presents the child so coldly to the worship of
man—in the intimacy and tenderness of her relation to the
child. Nothing could be more human than the Madonna of
Luca della Robbia, but it is humanity at its noblest, where it
approaches to and mingles with the Divine.
His Christ-Child is conceived also in his divine aspect ; but
again, with that peculiar blending of the two natures, is very child-
like and simple, far more simple than Desiderio’s, Verrocchio’s,
or Andrea della Robbia’s. Ego sum Lux Mundi his radiant
glance says, even when he does not bear the legend. He is
the Divinity clothed momentarily in human flesh and radiating
his Godhead by an inspired far-seeing glance, but he retains
also the unconscious simplicity of infancy, and is free from
didacticism or affectation.
Luca conceives humanity always in its noblest aspect, its
highest physical and spiritual development, in this revealing
again his close connection with the spirit of antique art. He
ignores as unworthy of artistic representation all that is transi-
tory or commonplace. His figures are stately, reserved, and
impersonal, expressive only of the deep and fundamental
emotions. They have the fearless, free-souled bearing of the
Greek statue, superbly unconscious of all in life that is not
noble and serene.
In his treatment of more secular subjects, as when depicting
the joyous dances of children in his Cantoria, Luca preserves a
certain sobriety, and is never exuberant. The merriest, most