The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-05-28
REVERENCE FOR ART

Whoever has been in Rome, says
Hans Christian Andersen. il begin
ming the ImprovtsatOre, will remeni-
Der the Piazza Barberini and its fodh-
tain. Whoever has been In Florence.
says the Easy Chair, will remember
the Church of Santa Maria Nov6Ila
and its Madonna by Cimabue. Il is
a dark picture in one of the
chapeIs, and il you step into the
Church on a summer day, iis silence
and coolness and the faint odor OF in
cerse seem to be diffused from the
old picture which il the most famous
possession OF tie church, and to come
from the infinitely remote past TO
which it seems TO- belong. For the
picture is six Hundred years old, and
was one OF the first signs of'the awak-
ching genius which came to full
strength and beauty in Raphael and
Michael Angelo. -s''
If by good chance you arein Flor
ence on St. JOHNS Day, in the month
OF June. you will see gay festivities
| in the Piazza Santa Maria NoVelia,
brilliant draperies hanging from the
balconies, and bright groups of citi
zens and country folk, and sou will
near peals of music filing the air,
and announcing some picturesque
procession. As you stand at the
door of the old church and look at
the crowd, you will remember that
with such festsl procession and peal
ing music, ak hundred years ago, the
Florentines brought the picture OF
1.-The Madonna from Cimabue's house
to this church. An Arcadian age,
you muse, the childhood of the world,
when art and artists, beauty and its
devotees, were honored like princes.
How far away that happy time and
its idyllic life! How doubly, trebly
far from us whose fathers followed the
westward course OF empire. and who
are born under setting sun! @
But If you read OF that Arcadia as
Machiayelli and GuicciardiDi describe
it; it was not so wholly artless and
childlike. not all picturesque process
sion and festa1 carriage of pictuies
from placid studios to dim and silent
and fragrant churches. Remote, in
deed, it is, and romantic with the
darkening distance that soitehs and
conceals. But what scenes have not
the mild eyes of this Cimabuan Ma
donna witnessedi what crimes, coaa-
mitted in the name of the Grid upon
her knee! Romance is lacking in
our Western land, you think, as you
gaze from the door OF the church OF
c.usted N arbles out upon the piazza
flashing iE the sum er morning with
the gay garb Of priest and peasant.
Yet even if 1t we're so, who would not
gladly exchange that older time for
this, that. rich historic land Of ieuraf
Does The reverence forzart. largely in
this instance 8 superstitious rsVef
ence, as if Goo was propitiated in
honoring the portrait of the methei
fof God-does this reverence tor art
make the general condition of the
Ipeople happier? s., = Is @li4 }
It is undeniably pleasant to see the
regard for art and the reverence for
artists which are shown ia the annals
tof the old Italian cities. They are
1.-THE sign of consciousness Of the saw
ling truth tina. man does not live by
bread alone. i But it Is che same kind
81 regard, the same acknowledgment
Iof the Immense service rendered to
the commonwealth by the cultivation
of beauty in the largest sense, which
appears in two recent and simultaHe-
GUS incidents. The birthday of Long.
fellow was celebrated in his native
city, and the latest poem ot:Tenny-
snn was teiegrsphsd from London to
the Independent in New YORK, and
was published in. all thec morning
news papers of the day that it .ap.
/ peared in London. In both of these
lipst5nces there was. the recognition
of the commanding position Of the
tpoet, ard of the public Importance OF
bis work. Reading the account OF
the LopgfelIow celebration at PORT
land, or the poem of .Tennysonis
which was simultaneously presented
to millioas Of readers on both sides Of
the ocean, the beautiful Florensine in
cident of the Cimabue Madonna no
longer reproaches our more material
life. No speech OF any living states.
man would have been made more
widely public ras matter of import
ance than the Eoglish poem; and the
birthday of no living man could have
been celebrated ID bis nstive CITY
with a more unsnimons and uuouali-
fed affection and respect than that of
the American poet Hqrper's Maya,