New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-06-07
SAINT ELIZABETH.
MR. CALDERON'S PICTURE OF HER AND THE
ToIERATION OF 1T By THE BRITISH
PUBLIC

paint picture which has given rise to O news
paper controversy. Mr.. Calderon is Royal
Academician. His subject is St. Elizabeth OF
Hungarys Great Act of Remuneration" 70 quote
the curiously clumsy title he has chosen. and the
picture is hung in the great gallery of the Acad-
envy, on the line and has been bought by the
Academy itself out Of the Chantrey Fund. pur-
chase Of this kind Is one of the blue ribbons Of
the year The picture henceforth forms part of
O permanent exhibition. II has all the honos,
onl Mr. Calderon has an advertisement which
ought TO help him sell many another canvas In
years to come.
lie is an artist who belongs to a school which.
In the opinion of some people, has had its day.
Ills art is of an agreeable character, agreeable
especially 20 those whose notions Of art are de-
rived wholly or mainly from the yearly contem-
plation of the works which il pleased the Royal
Academy TO hang on the walls Of Burlington
House. 1t Is smooth, conventional, very pretty
kind Of painting, to which a suspicion of the
commonplace sometimes attaches. The nude has
been favorite study OF his, and IL was appar-
entity the nude in the story Of St. Elizabeth which
attracted him. This pous woman, who had
great and presumably deserved reputation for
ascctic holiness thought At to renounce the world
AID all it's vanities. She a Princess, and
renowned also the pomps of this world. among
which the pious historian seems TO reckon her
pdIcLtc, onhuicHs duu lcldtlNtS-Vl all thcoc sHC
stripped herself The language of the historian
then becomes doubtful II he be read literally,
she also stripped herself Of her clothes, and
2ieted her act Of Remuneration and penance at the
ultar, naked, in presence Of Master Conrad Of
Marburg and other priests or monks then present
Ihis is the way in which Mr. Calderon has chosen
10 depict her.
IL might be thought that, in these circum-
stances, The British Matron and Mrs Grundy-
perhaps they one and the same-and Mr..
HOrsley-whom Mr. Punch calls Mr.. Clothes
Horsely-and Mr.. McDOugal and other well
known champions of modesty would have been the
Hrst to assail Mr. Caderon. But they were silent
Even Mr.. Stead and Cardinal Manning were SILENT
and this amazing picture was bought for the
Chantrey Fund before a word had been heard
from snv of them. The first critic of il seems
to have been the Reverend Father Clarke. of the
Society of Jesus To Father Clarke this represen-
tation of st. Elizabeth seemed evil calumny.
grossly insulting TO the memory of that eminent
woman: and he denied that it was historical Mr..
Calderon thereupon quoted Dietrich as his au-
thority; relying upon the literal Interpretation of
his words. Father Clarke and others reiOin that
they ought not to be taken literally but met
aphorically To this question of the right rem
dering of Latin quotation for a barbarous medi-
aevu writer, the leading journal joyfully sur
who has of late become an industrious newspaper
correspondent and very superior one. Joined in.
though chiefly upon the side issue whether Con-
rad of Marburg had been rightly described by
Father Clarke as a man of high virtue and stain
less reputation Professor Huxley thinks he was
not quite that. but rather a monster in human
form. And finally the whole matter is solemnly
summed up in leading editorial article of the
orthodox length; "a column and turn" if l
moy employ the jargon of the composing room
aad the editorialofice.
1t is on the whole probable that Mr.. Calderon's
version of Dietrich is wrong and that there is no
real authority for saving that the Great Act of
Remuneration was performed by st. Eliza
beth in state of nature while Conrad
and other monks were looking on The
most that can be urged in Mr.. Calderons support
is that the point is doubtful. He must be left to
settle with his conscience the other point
whether il is fair to St. Elizabeth to present her
TO a modern public in this naked condition with
no better authority than uncertain rendering
Of passage in bad Latin by writer who was not
an EYEWITNESS nor even a contemporary. Father
Clarke, as you may see from his language is much
excited about it, and his zeal for ST Elizabeth is
something like that Of NJ. Victor Cousin for
Madame de Longueville and those other most
fascinating but too virtuous ladies of o later
period, of whom the philosopher wrote more like
lover than philosopher The Jesuit Father
thinks Mr. Calderon's idea utterly repulsive to
Christian feeling, and one which would make Eliz-
abeth mad woman and not a saint The an
tthesis is perhaps less complete than our Loyolan
controyersialist believes 1t to be. The line be-
tween religious fanaticism and madness is not al
ways an easy one TO draw. Still, i am inclined
70 think Father Clarke right in substance. jesuit
though he be. Even Jesuit may sometimes be
right.
But the other question is not doubtful at all.
Whether Mr.. CalderOn has outraged the memory
Of st Elizabeth or not, he has certainly outraged
public decency. The British public is peculiar;
perhaps all publics peculiar. IL has spasms of
virtue; oftener than once in years. as Macau-
lay said; certainly at intervals Of no fixed dura-
ton; and these virtuous impulses seem ftful
They do not always recur when they ought TO re-
cur; like causes falling sometimes to produce like
effects.
This is time when the public might be thought
extremely sensitive in such matter. Within the
last few years there have been more crusades and
ILregulated enterprises Of various sorts in behalf
Of what is nicknamed social purity than ever be-
fore. We have had Mr.. Stead. We have had
the London County Council We have had the
Eonconformist Conscience, throwing politics to the
winds in behalf Of Purity and in condemnation of
Mr.. Parnell. We have had the Rabelais prosecu-
ton, and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, and
Paul Pry at the Music Halls, and the Lord Cham
lerlain regulating the skirts of the ballet. Mr.
Horsey started mountaineering is now
called q movement-against any study or repre-
sentation of the nude whatever within the schools
or walls OF the Royal Academy, or any liberation
Of it. The conflict between the Royal Aquarium
and the Theatres Committee Of Spring Gardens
ruubledom was Of the most acute kind. The
Zao posters had 10 disappear from the streets, and
Mr. Horsley and the Reverend Mr.. Williams or
Thornpson-I am ashamed TO forget his name-fell
upon each others necls and embraced. hope no.
body will interpret this phrase literally, as Mr..
Calderon did that other startling phrase from
oh I nplx that