DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0410
390
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
and misery; but there seem no clear indications of the
date of that curious episode, though there is no doubt as to
its reality. Mariotto did not very long survive this re-
newed breach. He died in 1515, leaving behind him much
work which was not perfect, and one great picture, more
distinct in its solitary greatness than one production often
is in the life’s work of a notable painter. Perhaps it tells
the more for being thus solitary. It is the well-known
Visitation, which we remember filling with its lovely,
majestic presence, one small room in the Pitti, many years
ago. Mary and Elizabeth, meeting in the way, stand in
the foreground of the canvas, in front of a great Roman
archway against the blue sky; the elder woman steps
forth eagerly to greet the mother of her Lord, who, with
modest eyes cast clown and an ineffable, sweet consciousness
in her face and attitude, receives the mysterious welcome.
I have heard of a woman, sadly lonely in a strange
country, and little aware of the merits of the picture, poor
soul! who would go and linger in the room “for company,”
wistfully wishing that the kind, penetrating, sympathetic
look of that old, tender Elizabeth could but fall on herself.
Here too is a mystery—where our poor Mariotto, undis-
ciplined and perverse spirit, willful and impatient and even
carnale as Vasari is obliged to allow, could have got the
meaning of that tender womanly communion, last secret
of the hearts of mothers. Genius has strange gifts in it,
comprehensions incomprehensible, knowledge nohow con-
veyable by teaching of man; and this we suppose made
the wild fellow in his unruliness capable of sounding that
coy depth of human feeling and putting it on his canvas,
to the consolation of strangers centuries after; though
probably he himself was never aware how great a thing he
had done.
Poor Mariotto ! he was not nearly so good nor so great a
man as Fra Bartolommeo, or even as the gentle and diligent
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
and misery; but there seem no clear indications of the
date of that curious episode, though there is no doubt as to
its reality. Mariotto did not very long survive this re-
newed breach. He died in 1515, leaving behind him much
work which was not perfect, and one great picture, more
distinct in its solitary greatness than one production often
is in the life’s work of a notable painter. Perhaps it tells
the more for being thus solitary. It is the well-known
Visitation, which we remember filling with its lovely,
majestic presence, one small room in the Pitti, many years
ago. Mary and Elizabeth, meeting in the way, stand in
the foreground of the canvas, in front of a great Roman
archway against the blue sky; the elder woman steps
forth eagerly to greet the mother of her Lord, who, with
modest eyes cast clown and an ineffable, sweet consciousness
in her face and attitude, receives the mysterious welcome.
I have heard of a woman, sadly lonely in a strange
country, and little aware of the merits of the picture, poor
soul! who would go and linger in the room “for company,”
wistfully wishing that the kind, penetrating, sympathetic
look of that old, tender Elizabeth could but fall on herself.
Here too is a mystery—where our poor Mariotto, undis-
ciplined and perverse spirit, willful and impatient and even
carnale as Vasari is obliged to allow, could have got the
meaning of that tender womanly communion, last secret
of the hearts of mothers. Genius has strange gifts in it,
comprehensions incomprehensible, knowledge nohow con-
veyable by teaching of man; and this we suppose made
the wild fellow in his unruliness capable of sounding that
coy depth of human feeling and putting it on his canvas,
to the consolation of strangers centuries after; though
probably he himself was never aware how great a thing he
had done.
Poor Mariotto ! he was not nearly so good nor so great a
man as Fra Bartolommeo, or even as the gentle and diligent