WOMAN IN ART
no less than of nature. Their art has kept alive many a legend and spiritual truth, that even a reading world of recent times has well-nigh lost sight of.
Raphael was an idealist or he could never have painted the prodigious number of Madonnas and Saints that have given honor and fame to his name. The story of Saint Margaret lived as a legend through many centuries, coming from pagan Greece to the heart of the Renaissance and its most illustrious painter.
Raphael's ideal of Saint Margaret stands for the soulful art of that great artist; it stands for innocence, purity, and the faith and peace that fears no evil; on his canvas hers is the sweetest and purest face known in art.
Maid Margaret was the daughter of a priest of Antioch. Being a delicate child she was sent to be nursed by a woman in the country. The woman was secretly a Christian and brought up Margaret in the true faith. The artist has personified evil by the loathsome dragon that would crush virtue, but the power of love and faith have triumphed, and the evil that had surrounded her has burst asunder; and like a liberated soul, the maid steps up and out of his power.
Not only did the centuries of the Renaissance awaken the mind of man in the field of art, discovery, science, and literature, as arteries toward a higher civilization, but the Christ-spirit was awakening a new life wherever unselfishness permitted.
While artists worked from models, yet they painted more or less of their own spirit and ideals into their pictures.
Another of the greatest painters of the world represents this growth of ideals and spirituality. The "Immaculate Conception," by Murillo, is a gem of spiritual idealism. The Virgin is spiritually above the earth; even amid the clouds her gaze is heavenward, rapt with the wonder of the heavenly message. Her poise, with one foot on the crescent moon, signifies the rapport of soul—she is in a transport in the realm of spirit. The background is vibrant with cherubs. That ideal of the Virgin could not have been painted five hundred years before Murillo put it on canvas. Mind and soul had not reached that stage of development. It could not be painted today, five hundred years after Murillo ceased to work, for materialism and impressionism are not the instruments for soul-expression. Like begets like, spirit impresses spirit, and the spiritual dominated Murillo.
Influence is the unspoken language of the invisible man; it is spirit.
Elements of love and truth were enlarging as new powers in the life of woman, and ethics taught by St. Paul were doing emancipating work, enlight-
31
