The Month of Mary
Quackenbush, Alice T. A.
May 12, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 15 getting bitter. It seemed to him that all his work was THE MONTH OF...
...In a characterisThere will be a sound in the stillness tic canvas, Ghirlandajo placed it with lesser blooms in A barrel hot, a vase at her feet...
...array of statues, columns, arches, altars, tombs, shadowy balconies, and alcoves with spirit-lights aglow in dark corners, An ancient spider watched her- whispering is more in order than loud talking...
...of the fifteenth century...
...Possibly a reason for this regard is, The cloister garden or outer cloister contains the prize spethat although it bears fruit which is edible, it may cimens of mediaeval art in the row of pink columns and the never reach a sufficient height to be confused with a huge marble cross from the ninth-century cloister of Saint tree-the symbol of the cross...
...He remembers, in Venice, the Pietro Longhi give the reasons...
...Over any little wounded place The famous Magdalen is of the Burgundian School Hurt within the hour...
...In Memling's Betrothal of Saint Catherine, Love of the sacred in art led Mr...
...It was about of The Marriage, the bride is receiving a wreath of twelve years ago that he erected the low brick building on roses from Saint Dorothea, patron of all flowers...
...lack of perspective...
...One he regrets the old values in painting and the old values might tell the flowers which are named for her and in life...
...From the twelfth century it had stood there they are as much a part of art symbolism as the blue with its images that were so little influenced by of her robe...
...In a vision, he was directed to strike the from a memory which is intact-while I, who have earth three times with his staff, to reveal her life...
...queen of both By EDYTHE H. BROWNE heavenly and earthly love...
...In In a silver sloop...
...A winsome thing with an unmistakably modGod, forgive...
...BARNARD'S CLOISTERS Next to the lily comes the rose...
...In this museum of saints with its A Child of painted wood...
...Barnard is not a Catholic...
...soft light filters through a cloudy skylight...
...Perhaps the loveliwhich had failed to take the wind and snow into est is that of Mary's faithful knight, Saint Dominic, account, that he, himself, was the real exile...
...probably because of the amorous The acquisition was made through Mr...
...A beautiful spray-full-blown bloom, bud, leaves ington Avenue at One Hundred and Ninetieth Street, -is to be seen at the left of Andrea del Verocchio's far from the noise of the busy centres of New York, stands Madonna, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art...
...A happy association, this, of the most ethereal Perhaps he was too old a man for the job...
...Fort Washington Avenue to house these trophies of the sacred Another plant held in especial affection during the hunt-for the collector really had to hunt and dig for his middle-ages, is the strawberry...
...It depicts the Virgin sitting up in bed...
...Tonight of living things, with one who is purity itself...
...Then he will die at the sword-point And do you remember Giovanni di Paolo's Paradise, Who knew not how to live, with its animals, trees and flowers, the lily being repreWho thought his sins were phantoms sented...
...From the careful and accurate treatByzantium, and had so completely the old Russian ment of them, one may credit the artists with a sincere tenderness...
...A more modern They will come with the hordes of evening Annunciation is that of Dante Gabriel Rossetti...
...John D. Rockesignificance some moderns insist on giving it...
...MR...
...to her...
...Barnard through Italy, France, and Spain in search of these works of art that have since a lowly weed, the plantain, is used for carpeting, while been styled "the greatest collection of its kind under one roof one plant of anemone with its frail foliage and star- in the world...
...remained, have made a wilderness about me...
...And then it occurred to the man ally sacred...
...The Stations of the Cross sunk in a side wall of the outer cloister still retain Cloister Cobwebs their original vivid hues...
...ists who drove the Franciscans out of France...
...berry in bloom...
...north transept, and triforium...
...He remembers as a student taking tea in those which have interested the painters...
...yet he has a like blooms is in the foreground...
...so generally introduce the lily in their Annunciations...
...The results were strange, called May in pagan mythology, should be set apart unbalanced compositions with women walking out of in the Christian calendar as the month of Mary...
...ern conception of the life hereafter for all its mediaeval HARRY MCGUIRE...
...to the public for the first time on May 15 and every week-day One is glad that the more humble growths, the thereafter from ten to five o'clock, and from one to five o'clock sturdy children of the fields, are also considered worthy on Sundays...
...It breathes a spirit of geniality 16 THE COMMONWEAL May 12, 1926 and a veritable delight in all things that are living...
...AnA soft, unpatterned lace...
...After each stroke, a stalk of lilies appeared...
...PerThe phantom marchers moving still . sonally, I presume to feel that the vase and flowers Moving upon me...
...other blossoms as an offering to her...
...They, who asked for a sign from heaven as proof of her the ones abroad and the ones who are dead, are exiled virginity...
...It seemed to him that all his work was THE MONTH OF MARY like the new perspective that painters were talking about-the perspective of motion which, in a room By ALICE T. A. QUACKENBUSH for instance, altered the accepted relations of objects T HE gracious season of spring is here and it seems on the theory that to a moving body they had a dyna- fitting that the month when flowers begin to bloom, mic and not a static value...
...There are few His grey descendants tell windows...
...would benefit by a softer background-decided imCold as the kiss of hell their steel- pertinence on my part...
...I am choosing rather to speak of interiors...
...It is because of this that Michel de Cuxa...
...this, the Virgin is a figure of girlish innocence whose Their faces fantastic and painted, grave face reflects the beauty of holy thoughts...
...You feller, Jr., who purchased the treasures for approximately may recall, perhaps, an instance of this in Galsworthy's $6oo,ooo and then added forty-two sculptures from his own The Dark Flower-that masterly defense of an ugly private collection to those already assembled on Washington theme...
...from the distinguished American sculptor, George Grey BarThe carnation is a bloom which one does not asso- nard...
...There are many interesting legends consitting so miserably before the geometrical design necting it with the Virgin Mother...
...Exiled- white-the Annunciation flower, and as such, especieveryone was exiled...
...What has become of it now...
...A stately Gothic arch dating from fifit has been charmingly named "fruit of innocence...
...He found chipped Madonnas in peasant wineOrley, at the Metropolitan, the robes of the Queen cellars and farm-yards, and small altars propping up broken of Heaven sweep many tiny, green-growing things, but fences around pig-stys...
...affection for Mary...
...He remembers his pilgrimage to the Those who gave us the great Madonnas made freChurch of the Intercession of the Virgin, near Wladi- quent use of flowers in connection with the Holy Pair...
...Rockefeller's collection inWho cuddled to her face, clude a fragment of an unusual stone relief from a church at It shimmered from her halo, Pont-a-Mousson...
...Weird platoon...
...This extraordinary hosts of blooms, such as the marigold, bear her name, cerebral simplification of life, intensely earnest, indeed while others, such as the narcissus, have been dedicated resembled his work...
...In a dim cloister Through Spanish doors, carved in grotesque designs by A Madonna stood, monks, one enters the monastery of Saint Guieham in the Holding-flesh of her own . flesh- Desert, or inner cloister...
...of honor...
...Nearby stands a fourteenthEver since then, cobwebs century Virgin and Child, a product of the School of the Have had a holy power Vosges...
...of the fifteenth century thought it worthy a place near This newest annex to the Metropolitan will be open his Mother and Child...
...In another treatment Catholic's appreciation of truly inspired work...
...In a Madonna by Van choice pieces...
...The Saint Guieham columns and And wove all about Him capitals show the destructive hands of the French RevolutionA protecting veil...
...For the frame and already half gone...
...Round Mary and her wee One The new acquisitions from Mr...
...Certainly, whatever the master Cold as the dread of cost- loses for the modern eye by this seeming over-care for To a man who has waited to battle his sins detail, should be as nothing when compared with his To the last-and lost...
...Probably The kommissaar pokes up the fire and seeks an it is because of stories such as this that the masters answer to his own accusation...
...mir...
...Barnard's Cloisters, or rather The Cloisters, for the Metropolitan Museum of Art has recently acquired this Gothic misFruit, such as the three cherries at the right of the cellany of mediaeval columns, statues, altar pieces, and slabs canvas, are occasionally introduced with flowers...
...This painting is filled with detail, A look of anguish on my old white face and were the balance less perfect or in the hands of a As the smoke clears, and I see lesser artist, there might be a sense of crowding...
...The Cloisters is now New York's great are skilfully drawn aside to leave space for a straw- repository of European mediaeval art of the Roman and Gothic periods from the ninth to the sixteenth century...
...The How their great ancestor cloister has its close, nave, south transept, chancel, sacristy, Knew Saint Francis well...
...other relief in the passageway leading to the Cuxa columns details the death of the Virgin...
...What has become of First in importance, of course, is the lily-always the Prebejenskies in whose house he sits...
...This lovely statue, a relic of the ISABEL FISKE CONANT...
...Because of its variety in color, it seems not quite so perfect a symbol of spotless- APPROPRIATELY secluded on tree-shaded Fort Washness...
...Although the lily will always be the Virgin's typical And I will raise my musket flower, painters do not hestitate to combine it with For its last shot...
...ciate with sacred art...
...May 12, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 15 getting bitter...
...The Revealed to the look of the moon, Saint Michael seems a bit overwhelming to one familSilently they will disembark- iar with the older treatment of the subject...
...this very room...
...reverential treatment...
...It is within these confines that That silver spinner the sculptures and columns are arranged where they artisticThought Bambino frail, ally and spiritually belong...
...church at Nuits-sous-Ravieres, is noted for its beautifully sculp...
...teenth-century Avignon frames the Cuxa group...
...It is interesting, however, to find that Suardi Heights...
...One of the most beautiful is that of Fra Filippo Lippi, Phantoms with its vase of alabaster containing lilies, and its angel I will call them with a great bellow, bearing the traditional lily wand and kneeling on a Holding my gun on the stoop ; carpet of tiny flowering plants...
Vol. 4 • May 1926 • No. 1
