Studio: international art (84.1922)

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA'S
PICTURE OF THE NATIVITY, a

IONCE heard a painter say (he is now
famous) " there are only two kinds of
people in the world—the people who paint
and the people who do not." When the
noisy protest of the musicians, poets and
kindred folk present had subsided some-
what, a quiet man in the corner murmured :
" the division should be, really, between
those who know and love Piero Francesca's
Nativity, and those who do not." However
mis may be, there must, in my opinion, be
something wrong with the person who,
knowing Piero's Nativity, does not love it;
and something precious lacking to the
unfortunates who cannot ever know it. a
Gentlemen with spy-glasses have been
busy with this picture ; they assure us that
the restorer has meddled with it; removed
the pupils of the eyes of one of the shepherds
and failed—either through lack of courage
or bad memory—to replace them ; and
that during the picture's sojourn at the
National Gallery (since 1874) the strings
of the angel's lutes have been removed by
cleaning, but that this is of small importance
as the strings had, in any case, been added
by a later hand—Piero never having finished
the picture. I should be inclined to think
that Francesca, like Whistler, knew when
to stop. Not that I believe no restorer has
been busy with the Nativity—indeed, I
sometimes wonder whether the fact that
S. Joseph appears to be smoking a corona-
corona is not largely due to his activities ! a
Another gentleman, after a good deal of
similar private detective work, ventures on
the dangerous ground of criticism and
makes the astounding remark that . . .
" he (Francesca) fails completely in dealing
with the background of hills in the land-
scape, which form a flat, unrelieved mass in
themselves, and seem to occupy the same
plane as the shed in the foreground." I feel
sure that the readers of The Studio will
have the same strong feelings about this
commentator that I have, and will agree
that one of the most exquisite landscapes in
the history of Italian painting should not be
described as " completely failing." a
It was Disraeli, then Prime Minister,
who urged the purchase of Francesca's
Nativity for the National Gallery ; and it
Vol. lxxxiv.—No. 357. December 1922.

was acquired for the sum of two thousand,
four hundred and fifteen pounds. Whether
this picture appeals to the English public
or not I do not know, but there are few
pictures in the National Gallery that make
so strong an appeal as does this one, to the
present day painter. Piero della Francesca
is an artist after their own hearts ; his cool
and luminous colour, his free and uncon-
ventional composition, his simple sense of
decoration — that wove patterns of his
trees and hills, birds and flowers, and his
naive and charming delineation of character
all have their significant message for them.

Were I asked to describe the picture for
those who could not see it, either in its
original or in a reproduction, I should find
myself tasked. I should probably begin by
saying that on the right S. Joseph sits as a
host, still courteous but wearied by having
received many guests, and already wrapping
himself in the pensive mood of one who has
much that he would contemplate in the
mind in solitude. He is deliberately sug-
gested as a being, in the picture but
outside the central scene. That, addressing
him are the shepherds, recounting to him
something of sufficient moment to excite
them from their usual calm. That, near
the shepherds and in the background the
beast-creation—by patient oxen—is sym-
bolized as also present. That a standing
group of beings occupy the larger portion
of the centre and left of the picture :
beings wholly engrossed in their song of
praise; and more like inspired village
children in their earnestness—so straight
and slim in their cool-coloured robes—
and less like the conventional angels than
any group I know. Alone in the centre
of the wide-spaced foreground is the
Infant Child; in every way subtly in-
dicated by the painter as being com-
pletely worshipful. At His feet kneels
His mother in the act of adoration.
Throughout the picture everything con-
tributes to and conveys the idea of the utter
worshipfulness of the Infant Child. Who
but Piero, though, would have laid the scene
of the Nativity in a rock garden, insisted on
orchestral music and loved little plants that
grow and shed their seeds on stone roofs !
Above all, who else would have given us so
fair and pure a symbol of the Mother of
God ! George Shekingham.

297