Modern Sacred Art

MODERN, SACRED ART. - It can be said that since the eighteenth-century movement of encyclopedism, sacred art no longer had that expression and that triumph which constituted the greatest glory of the figurative arts, not only of the Middle Ages but of the Renaissance and the Baroque. And one understands why: subtle rationalism could not favor the ardor of faith, which was then ever more assailed, during the 19th century and our own, by the new philosophical and political currents known as materialism, socialism, positivism, modernism, communism (to limit ourselves to the principal ones), and to which were added in the last decades the horrors of two world wars with the very grave hardships that have resulted from them. Yet it would be unjust not to recognize that a problem of sacred art was felt, both in the 19th century and today, even if it no longer dominated the minds of artists, and that alongside mediocre or unhappy solutions there were notable and even admirable ones.

Certainly architecture did not succeed in asserting itself in the 19th century; indeed, of all the arts it was the least fortunate, struggling amid continual imitations, now of classical models, now of the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Renaissance. In Italy during the Neoclassical age, among others, Giuseppe Valadier (1762-1839) stands out, the author of the splendid Piazza del Popolo in Rome and the designer, for example, of the measured facade of S. Pantaleo in the same city and of the imposing interior of the cathedral of Urbino. In Rome the greatest classicizing building remains undoubtedly the reconstruction, through the work of Luigi Poletti (1792-1869), of the basilica of S. Paolo fuori le mura after the fire of 1823; but if the interior of this basilica is notable for its luminous yet severe grandeur, the exterior and the bell tower display the worst academicism.

In Naples, which had had the reigns of Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat, the church of S. Francesco di Paola was built, through the work of Pietro Bianchi (1787-1849) and by order of Ferdinand I, on the model of the Pantheon, between the wings of a Doric portico on an elliptical plan, which had already been begun under Murat on a design by Leopoldo Laperuta.

In Milan, capital of the Cisalpine Republic and of the Kingdom of Italy, Neoclassicism triumphed, continuing even after the fall and death of Napoleon. Among the most significant churches of this period is S. Carlo, erected between 1836 and 1847 by Carlo Amati (1776-1852), a pupil of Albertolli and Zanoia. In the Veneto, where classicism always remained alive, through the Palladian tradition, there was already from the early eighteenth century a church already perfectly Neoclassical on the model of the Pantheon: S. Simeone Piccolo in Venice (1718), by Giovanni Scalfarotto. The scheme of the portico with Ionic or Corinthian columns, surmounted by a triangular pediment, would enjoy ever greater fortune not only in the Veneto but in the rest of Italy and abroad, and it suffices to recall, to limit ourselves to the Veneto, the facade of the cathedral of Cologna Veneta, by Giannantonio Selva (1751-1819), that of the cathedral of Schio, by Antonio Diedo (1772-1847), and the other of the cathedral of Treviso, designed in 1836. To Selva also belong the otherwise simple facades of two small churches in Venice, S. Maurizio and S.mo Nome di Gesù. At Possagno, the famous temple designed by Canova himself and completed after his death in 1830, is composed imitating the Parthenon in the portico and the Pantheon in the round body of the building. In Trieste, one of the most notable centers for Neoclassical architecture in Italy, the beautiful church of S. Antonio Nuovo (1826-49) is to be remembered, built by Pietro Nobile (1774-1854) on the model of the Pantheon.

Still for this period Turin can boast above all the church of the Gran Madre di Dio (1818-41), well proportioned and well set within the landscape, the work of Ferdinando Bonsignore (1767-1843). In Genoa the elegant portico erected by Carlo Barabino (1767-1835) for the front of the S.ma Annunziata is worthy of remembrance. In Tuscany civil buildings prevail; yet one may recall the parish church of Montecatini Terme (1833) and that of the SS. Pietro e Paolo at Livorno, both by Luigi de Cambray-Digny (1779-1843). Once the Napoleonic age had passed, the wind of Romanticism also swept over our peninsula, leading to an ever more passionate study of national history, especially of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and it was all the more favored by the new aspirations for liberty and independence. All this naturally had a vivid reflection also in art, determining new directions, but unfortunately this movement was not felt in architecture; the forms of a national past were adopted more out of study and application than out of an urgent demand of taste, out of fantastic reworking; thus to a classical imitation, of the period of the Napoleonic Empire and the immediately following one, another was substituted with a far less happy result because the new imitations soon degenerated into an easy eclecticism and a mixture of hybrid forms. In Rome, having become the capital of Italy, there was in the last decades of the century a great building activity also in the field of sacred architecture, and one can perhaps say that here more than in other Italian cities there was fully displayed that imitation of past forms and that eclecticism which clearly indicate creative poverty, bad taste, academicism. In general the Romanesque and the Gothic are chosen for churches, the Renaissance and the Baroque for private palaces, more rarely for sacred buildings. One of the first examples is the church of the S. Cuore in Via Marsala (1879-1887), of Renaissance type and the work of Francesco Vespignani (1842-99). To Luca Carimini (1830-90) belong S. Antonio on the Via Merulana (1886), of Early Christian scheme, and the Renaissance facade of S. Chiara. Early Christian and Renaissance is S. Gioacchino (1890-98) by Raffaele Ingami; Romanesque is S. Anselmo (1900), built by Francesco Vespignani on designs by Fr. Ildebrando de Hemptine; completely Gothic is the church of the S. Cuore in Via Piave, by Aristide Leonori, and the other likewise dedicated to the S. Cuore at the Lungotevere Prati, by Giuseppe Gualanini (1870-1942); Romanesque are the two churches of S. Teresa al Corso d'Italia and of S. Camillo, due to Tullio Passarelli (1869-1941), and that of S. Giuseppe on the Via Nomentana (1905-1906), the work of Carlo Busiri Vici (1856-1925); a compromise between Early Christian and Romanesque is the church of S. Croce in Via Guido Reni (1913), by Leonori.

Thus outside Rome: one may recall in Florence the facades of S. Croce and of S. Maria del Fiore, the first (1857-63) of Renaissance type and with three Gothic crowning pinnacles, by Niccolò Matas (c. 1798-1872), the second, imitating the forms and the polychromy of the flanks of the same church, with Romanesque-Gothic elements, the work of Emilio De Fabris (1808-83) and completed in 1887 by his assistant Luigi Del Moro. Still in Florence is the bell tower of S. Croce (1865), in the fourteenth-century manner, by Gaetano Baccani (1782-1867). In Milan the two Gothic facades of S. Marco (1871) and of S. Maria del Carmine (c. 1879) by Carlo Maciachini (1818-99). In the Veneto the cathedral of Lonigo (1877-95) by Giacomo Franco (1818-1895), deriving from Romanesque models. In Turin one sees, through the work of the same architect Edoardo Arborio Mella (1806-84), the Gothic S. Cuore di Gesù (1873-76) and the Romanesque S. Giovanni evangelista (1878-82), and by Carlo Velasso the Renaissance church of the SS. Pietro e Paolo (1863-65). Perhaps the most significant eclectic architect in Turin is Carlo Ceppi (1829-1921), whose S. Gioacchino (1876-82), of Early Christian type, and S. Cuore di Maria (1890) are interesting. But a work of genius is found in Novara with the dome of S. Gaudenzio, most agile and slender, due to Alessandro Antonelli (1798-1888), a work even more organic than the celebrated Mole Antonelliana in Turin. To Ligurian and Lombard Renaissance forms is modeled in Genoa the church of the Immacolata Concezione, on a Greek cross and with a rich facade (1856-73), by Domenico Cervetto, Maurizio Dufour (1837-97) and Gioacchino Zandomeneghi (1837-1902), while in Savona the facade of the Cathedral (1886), by Guglielmo Calderini (1837-1916), imitates the late Renaissance. Once again Romanesque and Gothic together appear in the S. Cuore di Gesù in Bologna (1901-12), by Edoardo Collamarini (1863-1928). Finally for Campania one may recall the remodellings of the facade of the cathedral of Naples (1877-1905), of Gothicizing scheme, through the work of Enrico Alvino (1810-76) and Giuseppe Pisanti (1826-1913), and of the cathedral of Amalfi (1891) of thirteenth-century Arab-Sicilian type, through the work of the same Alvino, of L. Della Corte and Guglielmo Raimondi.

Already in the second half of the 19th century the need was felt to react against this confused eclecticism, which indicates nothing other than a lack of creative spirit. But the first attempts at renewal, which occurred in foreign countries, must not be sought in the use of new materials, of iron first, then of reinforced concrete and glass, nor in the premises of the theories of functionalism and rationalism, because a work of architecture must be first of all a work of art, and because the values of a work of art do not reside in particular techniques and theories. The first attempts at a renewal are grasped in the writings, more than in the works, of certain foreign architects, and especially of the Frenchman Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79). But the first works of the new architecture appeared in Holland, in Sweden, in Germany, in Austria with architects such as H. P. Berlage (1856-1935), G. F. Boberg (b. 1860), P. Behrens (1868-1938), O. Wagner (1841-1918), with the suppression of ornament, the simplification of forms, the bringing out of the structural elements and materials, yet on the basis of the reworking of national elements, until the Belgian Van de Velde (b. 1863)

and the American Wright (b. 1869) gave the start to the architecture of today, which would establish itself above all in Holland, in Germany, in Austria, in France, basing itself not so much on principles of functionality and rationalism nor on a tradition of its own, but rather hiding the structural elements behind broad and luminous planes cut at right angles and displaying a common, international character. In Italy, bound to tradition, this vast movement had resonance later. After what Antonio Sant'Elia (1888-1916) wrote in 1914, an idealist and theorist, to whom belongs the merit of having understood that architecture is not «an arid combination of practicality and utility, but remains art, that is, synthesis, expression» and that it must represent «the effort to harmonize with freedom and great daring the environment with man», one must arrive at the years that preceded and followed the Second World War. But in Italy there are no forms so strongly individual as abroad, although in the principal cities and in the new centers that arose in the Agro romano there is no lack of works worthy of admiration, especially in the field of civil building. Fewer in number are the truly modern and beautiful churches. Among others one recalls those of S. Antonio in Cremona (1936) by Giovanni Muzio (b. 1893), the churches of S. Michele Arcangelo in Aprilia (1936-38) by Concesio Petrucci (1902-46) and Mario Tufaroli, and of S. Marco in Latina (1932) by Oriolo Frezzotti, finally that of Cristo Re in Rome (1927-34), by Marcello Piacentini (b. 1881), especially for the facade opened in three arches and flanked by two square towers, while the exterior of the apse and of the dome is poor in appearance and without a logical development. In Italian churches there easily appear, as one can understand, traditional elements, among which above all the arch, but in the best buildings the taste for simplification and for large surfaces and the bold sweep and the precise cutting in the arch itself lead to a completely new artistic expression (cf., for example, the facades of the churches of Aprilia, Latina, Cremona). In the latter Muzio ingeniously reduced the arch to a lunette of crowning in order to give bold development to the great pilasters, which confer on the whole a grand and severe appearance.

In the other genres of art too one can follow, naturally, the evolution of taste and of forms, from the Neoclassical to today. In sculpture the major representative of the Neoclassical age was — as everyone knows — Antonio Canova (v.), an authentic artist, even if more than once not exempt from mannerism. Turned toward the most rigid abstraction from any pulse of life for the triumph of the purest formalism is the northerner Alberto Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), as his monument to Pius VII in the Vatican Basilica (1831) can demonstrate. From the models of Canova and of Thorvaldsen, who exercised a broad influence in Rome, there soon derived works of a more or less monotonous academicism. It suffices to recall some of them: statues of Sts. Peter and Paul at the sides of the staircase of St. Peter's, by Giuseppe de Fabris (1710-1860) and Adamo Tadolini (1789-1868), statue of St. Stephen, by Rinaldo Rinaldi (1793-1873) in the Ostian Basilica, statue of St. Francis Caracciolo by Alessandro Laboureur (1796-1861) in St. Peter's, monument to Pius VIII by Pietro Tenerani (1789-1869) and to Gregory XVI by Luigi Amici (1813-97) in the same basilica, group of the Kiss of Judas by Ignazio Jacometti (1819-83) at the Scala Santa, statue of the Immaculate Conception by Giuseppe Obici (d. before 1865) on the column of the Piazza di Spagna. In Milan, another important center of this period, one observes sculptures in character and value not too different from those of Rome or of other cities. The most celebrated sculptor is Pompeo Marchesi (1789-1858), to whom is owed among other things a Pietà and the Communion of St. Aloysius Gonzaga in the Neoclassical church of S. Marco and various statues on the facade of the Cathedral. In Genoa there is St. Agnes in Glory by Nicola Traverso (1745-1823) in S. Maria del Carmine; in Florence the Penitence and the Faith by Innocenzo Spinazzi (d. 1798). To these forms, weary repetitions of classical models, Lorenzo Bartolini (v.) reacted, banishing the study of the antique in order to uphold that of nature and of the Florentine Quattrocento, but in practice, especially in the last years of his life, he did not move too far away from a Canovan taste for forms, caressing his images with the most meticulous care. His example was followed by another Tuscan, Giovanni Dupré (v.), in whom the study of the true is tempered by a sense of Renaissance composure. A freer form of verism is found in the work of a Lombard, Vincenzo Vela (1820-91), who likewise started from Bartolini's teachings. Of his works, the Addolorata in the Dadda Chapel at Arcole may be remembered. But it must immediately be noted that works on sacred subjects by those sculptors who represent the liveliest currents of the 19th century become increasingly rare. In Lombardy, where Romantic sculpture, in contact with a Cremona and a Ranzoni and with French Impressionism, took on an ever more pronounced pictorialism, down to a Medardo Rosso and a Trabetzkov, after Giuseppe Grandi (1843-94), a pupil of Vela and in turn a leader of a school, other artists established themselves, among them Enrico Butti (1847-1932), who in 1894 modeled a very expressive Crucifix for the tomb of the sculptor Vincenzo Tantardini in the Monumental Cemetery of Milan. Of Rosso (1858-1928), one of our greatest sculptors of the 19th century, only an Ecce Puer (1906) in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome can be cited. In Turin Carlo Marcochetti (1805-1807) had been able to react against academicism; to him belong two Adoring Angels in the church of the Madeleine in Paris. From the second half of the century to the beginning of our own, one may count especially the works of David Calandra (1836-1915) and of Leonardo Bistolfi (1859-1933). Both Romantics, at least in their youth, the former was a passionate lover of nature and a perfect master of technique (cf. Resurrection of the Son of the Widow of Nain [1914] for the Molli tomb in the cemetery of Borgomanero); the latter succeeded, through a subtle pictorialism, in expressing an almost mystical poetry (cf. The Funeral of the Virgin).

In Genoa, above all Giulio Monteverde (1837-1917) is to be remembered, who, like so many of his contemporaries at the end of the century, struggles between verism and academicism, and the group of Madonna and Child (1889) for the Balduino tomb in the cemetery of Stagliano in Genoa is marked by these characteristics. In Florence a strong personality makes itself felt, a bitter enemy of all academicism: Adriano Cecioni (1836-86), theoretician of the Macchiaioli: but in his sculptures we would search in vain for any interest in the sacred world. Later the Palermitan Domenico Trentacoste (1859-1933) settled in this city; in the Dead Christ executed for the De Asarta tomb at Fraforeano (Udine) he shows not only a sure interpretation of nature but a profound feeling that ennobles the form. In Rome, the capital of Italy, artists of various tendencies carried on an intense activity. Ernesto Biondi (1855-1917) reveals himself as an ardent soul in a St. Francis in Ecstasy (1898-1900), today in the Biondi collection in Rome, which may be considered his masterpiece and which shows, through a lively pictorialism, a profound interest in nature. Conversely Enrico Quattrini (1863-1930) is a sensitive modeler and a sincere and refined interpreter of the sacred theme in an Annunziata (c. 1903), in Rome, owned by his son Carlo, who continues his father's art, while Eugenio Maccagnani (1852-1930) impresses a strong plasticism in the sure perspective and a calm and solemn character in a bas-relief with the Transport of the Body of St. Cyril (1908), now in the collection of Msgr. Leccisi in Rome. The eclectic Ettore Ximenes of Palermo (1855-1926; Rome, Ugo Ximenes collection), of refined but noble forms. The liveliest naturalism is found in Naples with Filippo Cifariello (1864-1936), a most skillful and powerful modeler, of whom there remains the monumental bronze group of the Dead Christ and the Magdalene (1895) in the Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts of Ravenna, one of the major works of the time for plastic robustness and dramatic effect. Vincenzo Gemito (1852-1929), who was another ingenious interpreter of life. In our century there has been no lack of new generations that have continued in the tradition of the 19th century. It would suffice to recall in Rome Amleto Cataldi (1882-1930), with the marble group of Madonna and Child (1921) in the possession of his widow in Rome. And still active Duilio Cambellotti (b. in 1876; Good Shepherd, of 1946, with interesting stylizations), Aurelio Mistruzzi (b. 1880; Regina Pacis of 1948), Alfredo Biagini (b. 1896; winning sketch for one of the doors of the Vatican Basilica, of 1949). Others, and they are the majority, sought to renew by giving importance to form, simplifying, taking an interest in characters and states of mind. Among these, one of the personalities that most commands our attention and that still awaits a just evaluation is Ermenegildo Luppi (1877-1937), who knew how to create first-rate works (cf. Pietà, a grandiose marble group formerly in the Galleria nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome: a small bronze with the busts of the Virgin and of Christ, property of the Barluzzi family in Rome). Others, while not reaching the degree of intense poetry attained by Luppi, have created beautiful works: Giovanni Prini (b. 1877), for example, with the Baptism of Christ (1951) in S. Eugenio in Rome, or Antonio Marini (b. 1886), with the Door of S. Paolo fuori le mura (1891), or Attilio Selva (b. 1888) with the bronze group of the Regina Pacis (1948). Of a younger generation, and therefore of a more modern character in the process of simplification of form, are Francesco Nagni (b. 1897), author of a Dormitio Virginis (1939, in the artist's possession), admirable for its sense of measure and feeling; Alessandro Monteleone (b. 1897) with a severe Deposition in the Tomb (1948); Venanzio Crocetti (b. 1913), winner of the competition for one of the doors of St. Peter's (1949); Pericle Fazzini (b. 1913), to whom is owed the group of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Crowned by an Angel (1951) in S. Eugenio in Rome. In Florence, the one who most renews tradition along the examples of the 15th century and the Romanesque is Libero Andreotti (1875-1933): see the Pietà (1926) in S. Croce in Florence, the other beautiful Pietà (1928-29), for its severe stylization, in the Stauropulos collection at Grignano di Trieste, or the Christ in Glory and Blessing (1928) for the Monument to Victory in Bolzano. Giuseppe Graziosi (1879-1942) follows the same path, as demonstrated by the Crucifix (1942) for the church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome. Romano Romanelli (b. 1882), author of the Pietà (1924) in the Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rome, is instead drawn to a grandiose and severe form, and, in contrast to him, Antonio Berti (b. 1904) takes delight in the most precious elegance, as in the bronze statue of St. Catherine of Siena (1938). Where renewal has been most decisive, through the affirmation of new authentic artistic values, is undoubtedly in Milan, the city in which there was formed in 1922 that movement which took the name of "Novecento." Adolfo Wildt (1868-1931) already imposed himself upon us with a new but highly personal vision, expressing in broad, stylized, slender, smooth and luminous forms the most passionate and tragic aspects of the human soul, evoking the images of a St. Francis (Rome, Galleria nazionale d'Arte Moderna) and of a St. Lucy (Forlì, Museo Civico). Arturo Martini (1885-1947), on the other hand, using precise forms but animated by a vibrant pictorialism, gives his images a dreamy and legendary tone, of high lyrical value (with some exceptions among his sculptures): thus in the group of the Prodigal Son (1927) in the Ospizio Ottolenghi at Acqui. Francesco Messina (b. 1900) is different, whose small bronze statuette of St. Sebastian shows a substantially classical character with its precise though animated plasticism. Of a livelier spirit, a continuer of a markedly Lombard pictorial taste, though without sacrificing form as Medardo Rosso had done, is revealed the Bergamasque Giacomo Manzù (b. 1908), himself winner of the competition for one of the doors of St. Peter's in the Vatican (1949), but this sketch, though notable for its taste for line and for flattened, schematized form, does not reveal the artist's best qualities, as, for example, do certain stations of the Via Crucis, in bronze, in S. Eugenio in Rome (1951), admirable for their dramatic power.

Neoclassical painting in Rome may be said to have had a master in the Frenchman J.-L. David (v.), who painted in Rome in 1784 the celebrated Oath of the Horatii, today in the Louvre Museum in Paris and considered the first official painting of the new age.

But the concern for an exact historical reconstruction, the absolute predominance of a well-defined form, the taste for line easily generated cold and monotonous compositions.

This is seen at once in the head of the school, Vincenzo Camuccini (1771-1844), author of a Conversion of St. Paul in the Basilica Ostiense, and likewise in others active in Rome such as Gaspare Landi (1756-1830), to whom is owed, for example, the Immaculate Conception in S. Francesco di Paola in Naples, and in pupils or followers of Camuccini, such as Filippo Agricola (1776-1857) with the Assumption, in S. Paolo fuori le mura, and Francesco Coghetti (1804-73) with a St. Stephen in the same basilica, then being rebuilt.

General characteristics of a similar kind are found in the other principal artistic centers of this period, which are Milan, Florence, Naples. In Milan, where the head of the school Andrea Appiani (1754-1817) produced little in the field of sacred art, who left the Evangelists and the Doctors in S. Maria presso S. Celso; in Florence Pietro Benvenuti (v.) and Luigi Sabatelli (1772-1829) were active, and works by both are preserved in the cathedral of Arezzo; finally in Naples, a pupil of Costanzo Angelini, we recall Giuseppe Mancinelli (1813-75) with the Agony in the Garden in S. Lucia in Naples and Camillo Guerra (1797-1874) with the Death of St. Joseph in the aforementioned Neapolitan church of S. Francesco di Paola. In the various Italian centers, various new tendencies arose in reaction to Neoclassicism, but often these, from the formal point of view, continued the academicism of before.

In Rome there was formed the so-called "school of the Nazarenes" (v.), headed by Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869), who wished to replace the classical world with the Christian one and to reduce images to abstract forms. From the movement of the Nazarenes and more from the literary discussions of the time derived "Purism" (v.), which had as its head Tommaso Minardi (v.) and was accepted by Overbeck himself. But not even this new tendency, which proposed moral and religious aims and harked back to the primitives, was immune from academicism: the word of faith is extinguished in studied and weary works (cf., for example, the Vision of St. Stanislaus Kostka in S. Andrea al Quirinale, by Minardi). Soon the interest in the true manifested itself, but this study in the vast historical and religious compositions very often froze into forms no less conventional than before. It is the so-called historical verism, of which there are numerous manifestations in the Rome of Pius IX in churches then renovated. It suffices to recall a few: the frescoes with Scenes from the Life of St. Paul in the central nave and in the transept of the Basilica Ostiense by several artists, among whom Francesco Podesti (1800-95) and Pietro Grandi (1831-91); the frescoes with Scenes from the Life of St. Lawrence and St. Stephen in S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, due to Cesare Fracassini (1838-68), to Mariani and to Grandi and today almost all vanished following the bombardment of 1943; the decorations in S. Agostino carried out by Gagliardi; the Hall of the Immaculate Conception in the Vatican, by Podesti. Later the same tradition is continued, though with qualities of its own, by the Sienese Cesare Maccari (1840-1919), whose principal work are the Litanies of the Virgin in the dome of the Sanctuary of Loreto (1888-95), while a contemporary of his, Roman but of German origin, Ludovico Seitz (1844-1908), continues the current of the Nazarenes with the Scenes from the Life of the Virgin in the Chapel of the Germans in the same Sanctuary of Loreto (1892-1902). The other artists of the Roman school of the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th do not take an interest, except exceptionally and in an episodic aspect, in the sacred theme.

In Milan, as a reaction to the Neoclassical, Romantic painting established itself, but its leader Francesco Hayez (v.), despite his own refined qualities (and all the more so in his portraits), continued to produce a mannered kind of painting. Yet certain other artists who came a little later revealed a temperament far more genuinely Romantic, not only in the quality of their painting but in their interpretation of the subject. And it is these, especially (excluding those who took no interest in the sacred theme): Giovanni Carnevali, known as il Piccio (v.), author of an Agar in the Desert, in the Farina collection in Milan; Luigi Galli (1820-1900), active in Rome but substantially remaining Lombard, mindful of Piccio's painting, to whom we owe the beautiful Holy Family in the Galleria nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome; Mosè Bianchi (1840-1904) with the Baptism of Christ in the Museo civico of Lugano and with the Word of God in the aforementioned Roman gallery. At the same time, Divisionism established itself in Lombardy as in France, and despite much of present-day criticism, it must be acknowledged that its best representatives were able more than once to create masterpieces through sincerity of inspiration, through refined sensitivity in treating forms, lights and colours, through purity of line. And the sacred theme or religious feeling received suggestive interpretations from these masters. One need only look, for example, without preconceptions, at the Ave Maria a traubordo (1887) by Giovanni Segantini (1858-99), in a private collection in Cologne, so intensely lyrical, or at the Angel of Life (1894) by the same artist, in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan; at the Procession (1892-1895) by Pellizza da Volpedo (1868-1907), permeated with pure, delicate religious poetry, today in the Rossi collection in Milan; and at works by Gaetano Previati (1852-1920), among his many works, the Annunciation, the House of the Virgin (Lugano, Thomy collection), or — powerfully expressive — the Marys at the Foot of the Cross (Rome, Galleria d'Arte Moderna) and the series of the Via Crucis (Milan, Benni collection). In Genoa the artist who can usefully be mentioned is Niccolò Barabino (v.), of a certainly academic naturalism, but who was able to give us a noble image of the Virgin in her humanity, however conventional in composition, with his well-known Madonna of the Olive. In Bologna, a skilful draughtsman and an epigone of Purism: Luigi Serra (1846-88) with St. Bonaventure and St. Francis, in the Galleria nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome; but especially in the Marches, among them Paolo Mussini (v.), a Franciscan tertiary, holds a very notable place in the field of sacred art. In Florence first, and then in Siena, one encounters the work of a Purist who sought to react against academicism, though managing to free himself from it only in part: Luigi Mussini (1813-88), to whom belong, among other things, the cartoons for the mosaics of the façade of Siena Cathedral with the Coronation of the Virgin and the Nativity. Mussini's art was continued by his pupil Alessandro Franchi (1838-1914), of whom the Visitation in the church of that name in Siena is significant. In Florence, painters such as Antonio Ciseri (1821-91) with the Martyrdom of the Maccabees in S. Felicita represent more or less the same position, while others, such as Antonio Puccinelli (1822-97), prepare, especially in their sketches and portraits, the advent of the Macchiaioli (v.), one of the most important schools of 19th-century Italian painting, which unfortunately remained extraneous to the highly complex problem of sacred art. In Naples there was another very lively centre of art, rich in aspects. After the school of Posillipo led by Giacinto Gigante, which may well be called Romantic, a form of verism increasingly established itself through the work of artists often of different origin but all become Neapolitan by school, a verism that found its ingenious interpretations, faithful to its time, also in the sacred theme: for example, in the Mater Dolorosa (c. 1870; Sulmona, Sardi collection) by Teofilo Patini (1840-1906), in the more celebrated Corpus Domini (1877; Rome, Crispini collection), or in the Vow (1880-83; Rome, Galleria nazionale d'Arte Moderna) by Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929), in the Christ among the Children (1880; Naples, Accademia di Belle Arti) by Gaetano Esposito (1858-1911). But above all two masters must be named: Gioacchino Toma (1856-91) and Domenico Morelli (v.). The former was perhaps the greatest of the Neapolitan school for having been able to reveal a most exalted world of faith and sorrow, transforming reality into authentic poetry, without ever resorting to useless illustrative touches: his masterpiece is the Viaticum to the Little Orphan (1877) in the Galleria nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. The latter, now Romantic, now a student of the real, now academic, devoted a good part of his activity to the sacred world, which he undeniably showed that he loved and felt, and among his most beautiful works we single out the Christ Taken Down and Embalmed (1871) and the Christ Served in the Desert by angels (1895) in the aforementioned Roman gallery. In his wake work others, among them Paolo Vetri (1855-1937). In our own age, alongside the activity of artists who, though great and highly individual, show themselves tied to one or another current of the 19th century, new directions and new tendencies establish themselves in clear antithesis to those of the past century. But in so much fervor, in so many battles, and naturally in relation to social and political life, the highly complex problem of sacred art is often neglected; in the work of the many artists who remained outside renovating ideas, the foremost figures are Antonio Mancini (1852-1925), a superb exalter of color, and Armando Spadini (1883-1925), a fanciful interpreter of luminous, joyful hues; but of the former there is only a Holy Family (1918) in the Alfredo Mancini collection in Venice and very few other sacred subjects, of the latter the well-known Finding of Moses (1920) in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan, a pretext for the artist to depict a rejoicing world. Far more numerous are the artists tied to a tradition based on drawing and most often academic, who in the full 20th century continue that 19th-century sacred iconography which can be of interest only when it manages to express a still sincere accent: thus Ubaldo Oppi (1889-1942; frescoes in the Chapel of St. Francis of the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua), Corrado Mezzana (b. 1890; St. Benedict Patron of Labor, of 1945, at the National Federation of the Knights of Labor in Rome), etc. Not without robustness of forms is Ettore Tito (1859-1941) in the ceiling of the church of the Scalzi in Venice (1929-33) and better in the sketch kept by his son. Only in a very fragmentary manner can we follow the sacred theme in the expressions of the most modern currents. Nothing in Futurist painting, almost nothing in the painting of that group of our artists active in Paris who are Modigliani (1884-1920), De Chirico (b. 1888), Severini (b. 1883), Campigli (b. 1895), Tozzi (b. 1895), De Pisis (b. 1896) and others, and who are so important in the development of contemporary art: one could cite, for example, the frescoes of G. Severini in the churches of Semsales-en-Gruyère and La Roche-en-Gruyère, in Switzerland, or a small and delightful Nativity by Mario Tozzi at Msgr. Fallani's in Rome. In Turin F. Carena (b. 1879), after various experiences, arrives at a monumental form, simple and made of color, thus succeeding in renewing tradition, and here are the beautiful canvases of The Apostles in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Florence and of the Pietà in the Cini collection in Venice. In a rare Crucifixion (1944) by F. Casorati (b. 1886) in the Cologno collection in Biella, more than feeling emotion one can appreciate the compositional balance and the juxtaposition of solid tones, not without a subtle taste for primitivism, which can be traced back to Gauguin. In Milan the so-called Novecento group was formed in 1922, today dissolved, and of one of its major members, Piero Marussig (b. 1889), a recent work is noteworthy, truly evocative, the Holy Sepulchre (1949). Among the others active in Milan let us recall Carlo Carrà (b. 1881) with a Deposition (1948), which does not reveal the painter's high qualities; Aldo Carpi (b. 1886) with a Nativity (1942) that is merely decorative; and among the lesser known Augusto Colombo (b. 1902), who in his Jesus and the Blind Boy (1947) shows quite another commitment, seeking a dramatic moment with the greatest simplicity of means. In Florence too the sacred theme is little treated. Of one of the most significant painters, Ottone Rosai (b. 1895), there is a Crucifixion (1943) that is beautiful above all for its harmonies of tones and glazes. On the models of the Tuscan 15th century Gisberto Ceracchini (b. 1890) seeks to simplify and aggrandize, as in a Holy Family (1946), noble certainly but with a patina that gives it a false antiquated appearance. In Rome Ferruccio Ferrazzi (b. 1892) has known how to interpret Gospel themes with characteristics of his own: we see it in The Word of Christ (1943-45), full of imagination, in the Cardarelli collection in Milan. Also interesting for formal problems are the compositions of Antonio Achilli (b. 1903; The Virgin Appearing to a Group of Saints, of 1949) and, for the beauty of color and the modernity of the conception, certain Crucifixions by S. Monachesi (b. 1910). Neapolitan is Giovanni Brancaccio (b. 1903), to whom is owed among other things a vast sketch with the Triumph of the Cross* (1940) for the church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome, with evident recollections of the past in a new vision.

Outside Italy, during the past century and in the first fifty years of ours, new currents of art took shape which, even when they did not create masterpieces, had a very notable importance both for the history of taste and for the influence they exercised everywhere, and therefore also in Italy, but in the field of sacred art one could repeat what has already been observed, that this was not a triumphant age, though expressions even very significant were not lacking. The Neoclassical movement, which had formed in Rome (mid-18th century) and which had known how to create ingenious forms in its first decades, continued its course at the beginning of the 19th century and still after the Napoleonic age, but no longer with that same freedom of vision: often a creative spirit was replaced by an applied study of models, easily arriving at the academic. Neoclassical architecture nonetheless left works of undeniable nobility even at the end of the 18th century and in the 19th.

In France one of the greatest monuments of the time remains the church of the Madeleine in Paris, erected by Barthélemy Vignon (1762-1846) on the model of the Maison carrée of Nîmes. In England, where Neoclassical architecture had established itself in the 18th century in a truly ingenious manner, especially with the work of Robert Adam (1728-92) and his brothers, there are churches with elegant Greek-type Ionic porticoes and bell towers, such as that in London by William and Henry William Inwood (St. Pancras, 1819-22), by C. R. Cockerell (1788-1863; St. George 1823-25, demolished in 1897), by Robert Smirke (1781-1867; St. Mary 1823-24), by John Soane (1753-1837; Holy Trinity, 1824-25), by J. Savage (St. James, 1827-1829). In Germany, another country in which sacred art is often not Catholic, one of the greatest architects of the time, Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1782-1841), designed the church of St. Nicholas in Potsdam (1830-49), adopting the Greek-cross plan inscribed in a square, and Friedrich Weinbrenner (1766-1826), who gave a Neoclassical appearance to the whole of Karlsruhe, built there the Evangelical church (1807-1815) and the Catholic church (1814). In Denmark, in Copenhagen, the Church of Our Lady (1811-29) by Christian Frederick Hansen (1756-1845) is notable for its purity of form, and in Russia one recalls the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in Leningrad (1801-11) by Andrej Nikiforovič Voronichin (1759-1814), with a high dome and a colonnade, and the cathedral of Kronstadt (1806-11) by Adrian Dmitrievič Zacharov (1761-1811). But in Russia the work of famous Italians was of great importance, such as Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817), Luigi Rusca (1758-1822), Carlo Rossi (1775-1849), and of Frenchmen, among them Auguste Ricard de Montferrand (1786-1858), author of the cathedral of St. Isaac in Leningrad, which recalls the Panthéon of Paris and St. Peter's in Rome.

It was precisely in England that the reaction against the neoclassical first took shape. Already during the neoclassical period buildings had also been erected in the Gothic style, and when in the Romantic period the Middle Ages were sought after, knowledge of the Gothic was deepened in England and there arose that interesting phenomenon which was the Gothic Revival and which here more than elsewhere had a unified character. Through the work of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-52) there arose the highly refined churches of St. George and St. Giles in London and that of St. Augustine at Ramsgate. Even better known is the work of Gilbert Scott (1811-78), who unfortunately also restored a number of medieval monuments, falsifying them. Soon interest in the Gothic manifested itself in its land of origin, France, which had its greatest theorist in E. E. Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79), to whom so many unhappy restorations of famous cathedrals are due. Romantically, several architects adopted Gothic forms, and there then appeared, among other buildings, some typical churches in Paris: St. Clotilde (1846) by François Chéé, Gau (1790-1853), the Trinity (1867) by Théodore Ballu (1817-85) and the Sacré-Cœur (1875) by Paul Abadie le Jeune (1812-84). Outside France the movement was of no equal importance: in Vienna one recalls the Votive Church by Heinrich von Ferstel (1828-83). The transition was easy — as has already been seen for Italy — to eclecticism, that is, to the imitation and hybrid mingling of the various styles of the past, with a decorative quest carried to the point of tedium. This was certainly the saddest period in 19th-century architecture; famous civil buildings demonstrate it, such as the Paris Opera by Charles Garnier (1825-98), the museum in Dresden by Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) or that in Munich by Gabriel Seidl (1848-1913). Of the numerous churches, scattered everywhere and still being built in recent times, one cites as mere examples of the most disparate "styles" Notre-Dame in Marseille (1855) by Léon Vaudoyer (1803-72); Westminster Cathedral (1895-1903) in London by John F. Bentley (1839-1902), pseudo-Byzantine; the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona by Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926), a veritable Gothic pastiche; St. Henry in Bamberg (exterior) by Michael Kurz (1876-living) and the church at Boendael (Brussels) by Van den Nieuwenborgh (b. 1890), the Holy Spirit in Paris (1934) by Paul Tournon. Nor did the use of new materials (reinforced concrete, iron, glass), subservient to the old schemes and to decorative effects, mark a renewal: one thinks of St. John the Evangelist in Paris (1894-1904) by Anatole de Baudot (1834-1915), the first reinforced-concrete church, and the others by Auguste (b. 1874) and Gustave (b. 1876) Perret (Notre-Dame at Le Raincy, Seine-et-Oise, 1923, etc.).

At the end of the last century there formed, as a reaction against erudite eclecticism, that floral style known as Art Nouveau (v.), which shows a persistent taste for ornament far more than an interest in a clear and logical architectural structure.

As was already mentioned at the beginning, Viollet-le-Duc himself, Semper and various English theorists had had the merit, in the full 19th century, of reacting in their writings against eclecticism and decorative excess, while nevertheless insisting on principles of rationalism and functionalism which in themselves cannot bring about a renewal, possible only with the formation of a new consciousness and the manifestation of an authentic sensibility. And so these conditions began to be realized, as has already been said, with the works of Berlage in Holland, of Boberg in Sweden, of Behrens in Germany and of Wagner in Austria. In the field of sacred architecture one recalls the church of Saltsjöboden near Stockholm, by Boberg, the Church of Peace in Linz, by Behrens, and the Steinhof church in Vienna, by Wagner. In this preparatory period of renewal, mention must be made of the part played by the "Vienna Secession," which was founded by Wagner himself and by Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908) and which sought a somewhat precious sobriety and gave importance to interior furnishing. But against it, which had its principal animator in Joseph Hoffmann (b. 1870), there set himself Adolphe Loos (1870-1933), who inveighed against every refinement and every kind of ornament and often knew how to design simple, squared-off buildings. Nevertheless, the first to show a wholly new vision and to open the way definitively to modern architecture are the Belgian Henry Van de Velde (b. 1863) and the American Frank Lloyd Wright (b. 1869), who despite their principles of rationalism and functionalism have shown that they possess an absolutely new vision, both in plans and in elevations, devising crisp volumes and broad, luminous surfaces inside and out, without any reference to national traditions. Their work has exercised a wide influence everywhere. The most brilliant aspects of today's architecture are undoubtedly to be found in the Nordic countries. Thus in Holland, after the work of Berlage there came the activity of the so-called Amsterdam School, which had the fault of adhering too closely to tradition and to decorativism. Nevertheless, among these architects there has been no lack of those who sought to simplify, even while adopting Gothic schemes, such as A. J. Kropholler (b. 1881) with the interiors of Our Lady of Good Counsel at Beverwijk and of St. Anthony the Hermit at Rotterdam, Jan

Van Donge with the exterior of St. Francis at Steenwyksmoer and that of Sts. Fabian and Sebastian at Apeldoorn. But against the Amsterdam School there set itself the so-called Grup de Stijl, more decisively innovative in character, until at last the new Rotterdam School asserted itself with J. A. Brinkman (b. 1902), L. C. Van der Vlugt (b. 1894), etc., who on an now international plane exalt crisp volumes and broad, luminous surfaces with sharp edges, going so far, with projecting masses, wide openings and the use of glass panes, as to arrive at an almost aerial, fantastic vision. This is especially so in civil buildings. Of the churches, an interesting example is that of St. Augustine in Amsterdam by K. P. Tholens, for the boldness of its upward thrust and the superimposition of white cubic masses. Likewise in Germany a new art was arrived at after a preparatory phase. Even without the rigorous cubism of a Walter Gropius (b. 1883) in civil buildings, artists such as Fritz Fuchsenberger (1876-1945) with St. Boniface at Erlangen, Dominikus Boehm (b. 1880) with St. Engelbert at Cologne-Riehl (1930), with its compact semi-ovoid façade and bold vaults and arches in the interior, with the Catholic church of the foreigners on the island of Nordewey, of even more modern structure in its cubism; Martin Weber (1890-1941) with Holy Cross at Frankfurt am Main, whose open exterior has a series of slender, narrow arcades; Hans Herkommer (b. 1887) with Our Lady of Peace in the same Frankfurt, have known how to give us churches of our own time. In Sweden, worthy of remembrance is the church of Hogalid, near Stockholm, by Ivar Tengbom (b. 1878), who creates simple masses without departing from national forms, as indeed do all Swedes. In Austria, one of the major personalities is Clemens Holzmeister (b. 1886), whose church in Linienstrasse in Berlin is notable for the measured juxtaposition of volumes. Among others, mention should be made of Karl Holey (b. 1879) and Karl Raimond Lorenz (b. 1909). In Czechoslovakia, Jaroslav Cermak (b. 1901) stands out for his truly modern vision: e.g. the church of St. John Nepomucene in Prague (1938). For Slovenia one recalls Plecnik and his school; for Hungary, Lajos Kozma (b. 1884).

Important is the place occupied by Switzerland, where the architecture of today has been perfectly understood and happily directed. One can point to St. Anthony's in Basel (1927) by Karl Moser (1860-1936) as the first truly modern church: square in form, with broad windows and an immense, deep door with five rectangular setbacks. Less demanding but notable is St. Charles's in Lucerne (1933-34) by Fritz Metzger (b. 1898), simple, light and luminous; and the country church at Döttingen (1944) by Hermann Baur (b. 1894). One must also mention Otto Dreyer, Joseph Schütz (b. 1898), and others. In Belgium there are generally only attempts at renewal within traditional schemes and with decorative tendencies, as demonstrated by the churches of Albert Van Huffel (Sacred Heart in Brussels, 1921), of Henry Vaes (abbeys of Our Lady at Clairfontaine and at Orval), of Henry Lacoste (churches at Beringen and at Bléharies), of Joseph Diongre (St. John the Baptist at Molenbeek near Brussels), and of many others. Of some interest are the church of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows at Dienghem-Loo (Brussels) by H. Julien de Ridder (b. 1891) and the chapel of the College of the Immaculate Conception at Héverlé (Louvain) by Florent Van Reeth, luminous and with clean, squared forms. In France the work of Le Corbusier (b. 1887) is above all important — Swiss by birth and active in the field of civil building, where he brought a wholly new, entirely personal vision, of abstract tendency, with his extremely light architectures, as if suspended, with clean-cut lines, with white and thin walls delimiting space. On the whole, except for his creations, the contribution of France, along with other lesser architects, is certainly not comparable to that of the northern European countries. All the more so in the field of sacred architecture, where eclecticism often persists, albeit with a tendency toward modernity, and where a clear and organic vision is generally lacking. For example, the interior of St. Joan of Arc in Nice, by Jacques Droz, is notable for the soaring of its vaults and arches and for its nudity, but the exterior has a strange system of ovoid domes and half-domes, not without Oriental reminiscences and in bad taste. Fairly interesting are the churches of St. James at Neuilly and of St. Mary of the Flowers at St-Maur-des-Fossés (Seine) by Henri Vidal (b. 1896). Of a more modern tendency is Our Lady of the Trinity at Blois, by Paul Rouvière and Michel-Ives Froidevaux, with large windows, and the church at Assy by Pierre Navarina, which has taken into account the surrounding mountain landscape.

A mention is deserved by the architecture of the two Americas, although it is generally a reflection of European architecture both in eclecticism and in modernity. As simple examples, for Canada one may cite the church of St-Bruno (Montréal) by Tourville and the one at Matane (Québec) by Paul Rousseau, which are the country's first two modern churches (1933), where they have exercised wide influence, and the baptistery (1946) at St-Charles-de-Limoilou (Québec) by A. Henry Tremblay (b. 1901); for the United States, the church of Christ the King in Seattle (Washington) by Paul Trivy (b. 1904), one of the most original in its central plan and in its light, simple and luminous forms. Of particularly bold schemes are the cathedral of Chillán (Chile) by Hernán Larraín Errázuriz and the winning project for the basilica of St. Mary of Grace at Higuey (Santo Domingo) by the Frenchmen André Dunoyer de Segonzac (b. 1915) and Pierre Dupré (b. 1913).

The sculpture of 19th-century Europe — at first Neoclassical-Academic under the strong influence of Canova, then vividly Romantic especially in France with François Rude (1784-1855), Pierre-Jean David d'Angers (1788-1856), Antoine Barye (1795-1875), later often rhetorical in its eclecticism and facile naturalism, and finally turned to researches of form and of pictorialism at the same time with a Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-75) and an Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), or of ideological illustrativeness with the Belgian Constantin Meunier (1831-1905), or of an abstract formalism with the German Adolph von Hildebrandt (1847-1921), to recall only the most salient aspects — remained substantially extraneous to the sacred theme. Nor even in this century have the major masters, such as the Frenchmen Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) and Charles Despiau (1874-1946), who restored to sculpture a new beauty with a full and precise form, finely rendered and bent to calm rhythms, or certain Germans, expressions carried to the point of paroxysm, felt the religious subject. Nevertheless this is not lacking in sculpture from the end of the 19th century to today, and even without indicating its characteristics one by one, a few significant works of modern accent are recalled for the various European regions.

In France, especially notable for its expressive force is the monumental Virgin of the Offering (1920-22) at Niederbrück (Alsace) by Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (1861-1929); numerous are the works conventional in their character, whether eclectic or banally naturalistic or falsely modern; among the most recent, however, of some interest for the sober stylization of form and for the severe expression is a Pietà in bas-relief (1943) by Raymond Delamare (b. 1890), and some small bronzes by Jean Lambert Rucki (b. 1888), of Polish origin, are pleasing. Among the Belgian artists, George Minne (1866-1941; Pietà, 1938) stands out; Oscar Sinia (Pietà, in the Museum of Ghent); Oscar de Clerck (b. 1892; baptismal font, 1937); Camille Colruyt (b. 1908; candlestick for the paschal candle, 1948), etc. In Holland there emerge Charles Vos (b. 1888; Entombment, in stoneware, in the Municipal Museum of The Hague), Herman Van Remmen (b. 1889; Pietà in St. Francis's at Groningen), Albert Termote, Belgian by birth (b. 1887; Pietà of 1948 in St. Adrian's at Naaldwijk), Wim Harzing (b. 1898; Crucifixion and other reliefs in St. Lawrence's at Voorschoten), P. Renald Rats (b. 1900; various ceramic Pietàs), Wim Nijs (b. 1902; baptismal font, in stoneware, with bas-reliefs, 1949). For Germany, Peter Ferkatz (Madonna and Child, bronze group), Heinrich Baenmer (wooden Crucifix, strongly expressive), Karl Baur (Pentecost, marble relief in St. Anthony's in Augsburg), Emil Sutor (Christ Fallen beneath the Cross), C. Dell'Antonio (sculptor in wood, Pietà, etc.), Berthold Müller (b. 1893; group of the Marys at the Tomb). In Denmark, Chresten Skikkild (1927) and Aksel Theilmann, Eigil Vedel Schmidt, living, have attracted notice; in Sweden, Nils Sjögren. In Austria the traditional type of wood sculpture is characteristic: Madonna and Child in St. Othmar in Vienna by Franz Barwig senior (1868-1931), Nativity (1949) in St. Stephen's in Vienna by Josef Troyer (b. 1908), Christ the King by Josef Staud (1949), Last Supper (1950) by Sepp Kals (b. 1911). In Switzerland, on the other hand, the Assumption in the church of Echarlens (Vaud) and the reliefs of the door of Notre-Dame in Bern by François Baud, The Annunciation, a terracotta group by Hans von Mart, of an ingenuous grace almost popular in character, the Reverrexit (1949) by Albert Schilling (b. 1904), etc., are noteworthy for their modernity. The pride of Croatian sculpture is the celebrated Ivan Mestrové (b. 1883), creator of particularly energetic and expressive forms (Stigmata of St. Francis in the church of the General Curia of the Friars Minor in Rome). Among the Czechoslovaks, Ignác Weirich (1856-1916) with his severe Pietà (1914) in the Palace of Propaganda Fide in Rome. Finally, interesting interpreters of sacred themes in Catholic Poland are Pius Welonski (Way of the Cross around the fortifications of the Sanctuary of Czestochowa), Konstanty Laszczka, Jan Szczepkowski, Jadwiga Bohdanowicz (1887-1943; Christ in Hell), Zygmunt Wolf (b. 1912; The Marys at the Tomb), Tadeusz Adam Zielinski (b. 1907; Pietà, wooden bas-relief of 1950, full of character in the most modern stylization), Maciej Piotrowski (delightful Annunciation in wooden bas-relief), and several others. The sacred theme underwent a further development in the painting of the 19th and 20th centuries, although strongly opposed by the interest in man and in nature. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, gigantic in Spain, one of the greatest masters of color, and therefore of modern painting, alien to the neoclassical movement, Francisco José Goya y Lucientes (v.; 1746-1828), who in the Crucifix of the Prado Museum in Madrid reveals himself a superb interpreter of the theme. Neoclassical painting, on the other hand, of the Napoleonic period, remains far from all emotion, concerned above all with reconstructing antiquity, and sacred scenes as well as profane ones generally resolve themselves into vast and cold compositions: a typical example is the Resurrection of the Son of the Widow of Nain (1816) in the Museum of Lille by Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Wicar (1762-1834). In France a reaction to the neoclassical began to take shape already with Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (v.), who at a later stage, pursuing an intellectualistic search for form and line under the influence of Raphael, became the supporter of an abstract neoclassicism in full opposition to Eugène Delacroix (v.), the ardent herald of the romantic creed with his robust deformations and his rich paste of colors.

To the current of Ingres belong, albeit with characteristics of their own, his pupil Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864) with numerous works of sacred subject (in St-Séverin, St-Germain-des-Prés and St-Vincent-de-Paul in Paris); Ary Scheffer (1795-1858), Dutch by origin, with the celebrated painting of St. Augustine and St. Monica in the Louvre Museum in Paris, romantic even in his formal academicism; Pierre Puvis de Chavanne (1924-98), admirer of the Italian Renaissance and deviser of calm, pure, sentimental compositions, such as the Stories of St. Genevieve in the Pantheon in Paris. Instead, works of an otherwise free and frank romanticism, which derived from Delacroix, are those of Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803-60), characterized by strong contrasts of patches and colors (Stories of Samson in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris; Eleazar and Rebecca, 1850-51). The highest poetry is reached by the paintings of one of the greatest French romantics, J.-B. Camille Corot (v.), through the representation of landscape, even if the starting point is taken from the sacred world: Hagar in the Desert, St. Jerome Penitent, Flight into Egypt, etc. In Germany the first romantic manifestation occurred with the art of the Nazarenes (v.), who were formed in Rome, as has already been recalled. Among the first and typical expressions of this school are cited the Stories of Joseph (1916), frescoes formerly in the Bertholdy house in Rome and today in the National Gallery in Berlin, due to Overbeck, to Peter Cornelius, to Philip Veit and to Wilhelm von Schadow; in Munich, in the church of St. Ludwig, there is the Last Judgment of Cornelius, who became the head of that school; in Düsseldorf, paintings by Schadow; in Hamburg, in the Kunsthalle, the Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Philip Otto Runge (1777-1810), father of romanticism in Germany. Other artists, such as the representatives of the Dresden school, with landscapes and interiors, and those who in the second half of the century continued, albeit each in his own manner, romantic painting, almost never treated the sacred theme: Anselm Feuerbach (1829-80), Hans von Marées (1837-87; St. Martin and the Beggar in the Reinhart coll. in Winterthur), Max Klinger (1857-1920) and others. In England the most notable expressions of romanticism are represented by the great landscape painters of the early 19th century, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), John Constable (1776-1837) and Richard Bonington (1801-28), who did not cultivate sacred art, and by the Pre-Raphaelites, who on the contrary devoted themselves to it with fervor. They looked, like the Nazarenes, to the Italian primitives and to the masters of the Quattrocento, and wished to restore to honor the Christian purity of the Middle Ages and its mysticism: in their works the reflection of a literary culture is evident, but at times there is also no lack of the expression of a felt sentiment, which today's criticism does not recognize. This school, prepared by William Dyce (1806-64; St. John and the Virgin at the Tomb of Christ, 1844) and by Ford Madox Brown (1821-93; Christ Washing the Feet of St. Peter in the Tate Gallery in London), was founded in 1848 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), by John Everett Millais (1829-95) and by the sculptor Thomas Woolner (1825-92). The high poetry of the Annunciation (1850) by Rossetti in the Tate Gallery in London is undeniable. Perhaps more intimately a painter, but not always so inspired, is Millais, as the naturalistic character rather than the sentiment of his principal work, The Carpenter's Shop in the Tate Gallery in London, proves. Of the followers, the greatest is perhaps Edward Burne-Jones. Against so many rhetorical manifestations, whether of neoclassical or romantic type, against the painting so false of historical subjects and of facile genre scenes, there asserted itself in France toward the middle of the century the painting of so-called realism, which had Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) as its head. To this school belongs Jean-François Millet (v.), who knew how to create scenes of moving religiosity. Otherwise conventional, although with a certain sense of the true, is William Bouguereau (1825-1905) with the Apotheosis of Martyrdom formerly in the Luxembourg Museum in Paris; Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) with the Martyrdom of St. Denis in the Pantheon in Paris; Théodore Ribot (1823-91) with St. Sebastian Tended by the Pious Women in the Luxembourg Museum.

In Germany, where art is not always devoted to the Catholic religion, realism, which had penetrated there through the influence of Courbet, enjoyed particular success and lasted quite a long time: in Munich especially, with Wilhelm Leibl (1844-1900) at its head. Hans Thomas (1839-1924), of the same movement, also executed sacred paintings (scenes of Christ in the church of St. Peter in Heidelberg). Another master, Fritz von Uhde (1848-1911), enjoyed great fame; he pushed his naturalism so far as to represent Christ in the midst of the contemporary society of his time (Christ among the Peasants, formerly in the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, etc.). In Finland a master corresponding to him, though with his own characteristics, is Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905), with his Christ and the Magdalene in the Ateneum in Helsinki; and others linked to naturalism are: Magnus Enckell (1870-1925) with the Resurrection in the cathedral of Tampere, Eero Järnefelt (1863-1937) with Christ and the Adulteress (1908) in the church of Lieto, Pekka Halonen (1865-1933) with the Adoration of the Magi (1900) in the church of Kotka, Verner Thomé (b. 1878) with the painting of Christ Healing a Cripple (1907), of robust realism. In Austria Albin Egger-Lienz (1868-1926) excels in the same current: deeply religious is his Panem nostrum quotidianum in the Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck. The movement of impressionism, which followed that of realism and so profoundly renewed French painting before arriving later in other countries, as in Germany with Max Liebermann (1847-1935), could not feel the problem of sacred art, being wholly taken up with rendering the most fleeting moments of the day in the continuous vibration of light. But at the same time France, and far more happily than Germany with the school of the Benedictines of the monastery of Beuron, of such decorative and academic character, knew how to open the way to the renewal of sacred art with the institution of the Société St-Jean (Paris, 1872).

And when later, at the time of the new neo-impressionist experiment with Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859-91), symbolism was formed, between 1886 and 1890, one of its most notable representatives, Maurice Denis (v.), accepting the influence of Puvis de Chavannes, pointing to the primitives, brought sacred painting into honor through a stylized form, sharp outlines and flat, juxtaposed tints. Of a very different temperament but formed in the same environment is another important master of sacred painting, Georges Desvallières (b. 1861), strongly expressive through a robust and tormented form: one recalls his tragic Sacred Heart. To these two artists, active down to our own days, is due the founding of the Ateliers d'art sacré (1920), still in existence.

In vain would one look for sacred themes in the works of the three great masters who, by very different paths, but all three seeking synthesis and intense color, renewed painting once more, exerting a very notable influence on that of our century: Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), the greatest of the symbolists, and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90). And the same may be said of others, such as Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) and Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940), who, starting from symbolism, arrived at a new and most felicitous form of impressionism. For the painting of the 20th century too the great center is France, and precisely Paris, but the movements that dominate all international painting, first fauvism with Henri Matisse (b. 1869) and cubism with Pablo Picasso (b. 1881), arisen as if from the need to begin again from scratch in order to arrive at a painting in and for itself, and then the others such as surrealism (with Mark Sagal [b. 1887], Salvador Dalí [b. 1904], etc.) and abstractionism, gave nothing, nor could they have given anything, given their premises and their limitations, in the lofty field of sacred art. And in general even the painters, French and foreign, of the most diverse tendencies, who constitute the so-called School of Paris, have remained extraneous to it. Nevertheless some have distinguished themselves with manifestations, even very important ones, of sacred painting. Above all stands out the work of Georges Rouault (b. 1871), an artist who more than any other has known how to give a truly modern and evocative interpretation of the evangelical world through essential and robust forms and colors deep and splendid as enamels: for example, the Christ Crowned with Thorns. Very beautiful too are his stained-glass windows and engravings. One recalls furthermore the Christ Mocked of Marcel Gromaire (b. 1892), an impressionist; the Crucifixion of Edouard Goerg (b. 1893), to whom is also due a fine series of lithographs illustrating the Apocalypse; and various scenes by the celebrated Japanese Foujita, not without influence of the Italian primitives (Annunciation, Madonna and Child, Crucifix, etc.). Finally it is interesting to note that today, at more than eighty years of age, Henri Matisse, one of the major masters of contemporary painting, has wished to confront the sacred theme by working for the chapel of the Dominicans at Vence (Alpes-Maritimes). These great names are followed by many lesser ones, such as those of Albert Gleizes (Deposition), of Hébert-Stevens (Pietà), of Pauline Peugni (b. 1890; the Primitive Church in Saint-Spirit in Paris; Christmas among the Ruins [1950]); of André Osterlind (b. 1887; Deposition [1944]), and of many, many others, whose works are very often debatable. Let us now rapidly survey the most significant representations of sacred painting of our century in the other European countries. In Belgium, after Jacob Smits (1855-1928; Love One Another) and Auguste Donnay (1862-1921; the Flight into Egypt, in the Museum of Liège), still traditional, those who succeeded in making a truly modern sacred painting are above all Gustave Van de Woestijne and Albert Servaes (b. 1883), of the latter of whom one recalls the Way of the Cross in the Museum of Modern Religious Art in Utrecht, with dark colors, rapid brushstrokes and so tragic an effect. Armand Jamar (1870-1946) too reveals a dramatic nature in the interesting Deposition (1938) of the De Winter collection in Bruges.

In Holland, tradition still dominates in sacred painting, even when renewal has been attempted. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, under the influence of the Italian quattrocentists, the English Pre-Raphaelites and the Frenchman Puvis de Chavannes, a taste for line and stylized form took shape, and in that period there worked, among others, a truly personal artist, Jan Theodor Toorop (1858-1928); notable for the energy of their composition and line are his charcoal studies for figures of Apostles (1910) in the Municipal Museum of Amsterdam. There was a reaction to this way of seeing with a Baroque-like manner, based on sinuous and animated lines, and here we have the painting of a Henri Jonas (1878-1944), who seeks delicate symphonies of color (Magnificat, of 1938, in the church of Genhout-Beek), or that of a Joep Nicolas (b. 1897), who instead uses lean forms and broken, intense lines (Crucifixion, monochrome fired on opaline, of 1932, in the Museum of Modern Religious Art in Utrecht). Other painters too are substantially traditionalist, such as Joseph Ten Horn (b. 1894; frescoes in St. Bartholomew's in Nevenbergen), if not outright academic like Joan Collette (b. 1889; frescoes in the churches of Reymerstock and Bois-le-Duc, 1926 and 1930). The same may be said of the painters of the following generations, such as Max Weis (b. 1910), for example, with his colors and his forms more Baroque than ever, though expressive (Deposition, fired on opaline), or Gérard H. C. A. Heman (b. 1914), who even draws on the painting of the Dutch Renaissance (Return from Egypt, of 1930). To give development to sacred art, a chair was recently established at Maastricht at the Catholic Academy of Fine Arts. In Germany the great movement that followed Impressionism (v.) was that of its opposite, typically Nordic, called Expressionism (v.), which carried the violence of form to the point of exasperation and the murky expression of the individual to the point of hallucination. The group known as "The Bridge" was founded in Dresden, which undoubtedly marked the renewal of German art, and later, after 1918, some of its major representatives tackled the sacred theme: Emil Nolde (b. 1867) in large altarpieces, Ernst Barlach (1870-1938) with scenes from the Old Testament. Of a different tendency and a more measured spirit, but attaining intensity of expression with patches of color and light, is Karl Caspar (b. 1879), author of a triptych of the Passion (1916-17) and of the frescoes in the apse of the western choir of Bamberg Cathedral. Others give their sacred scenes an air of calm naturalism, though somewhat facile, through a simple composition and robust forms (Ernst Bahn with a Rest during the Flight into Egypt; M. Ludwig Hotter with frescoes in the churches of Bad-Vueser and Hallgarten), but academics are not lacking either in tradition or in the repetition of modern forms. In Denmark a painter of taste in his modernity is Joakine Skovgaard (1856-1933; mosaics in the apse and ceiling paintings of Lund Cathedral). Also known are Jais Nielsen (frescoes in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Copenhagen) and Brigitte West (b. 1901; frescoes in the Sacred Heart in Randers). In Norway the greatest painter is Henrik Ingvar Sørensen (b. 1882) for the strength of character of his figures (paintings in the Protestant church of Linköping). Finland counts Alvar Cawén (1886-1935), author of an altarpiece, the Prayer (1933) in the church of Simpele, in which there is still an echo of realism and of a mysticism in the manner of Millet; Tyko Konstantin Sallinen (b. 1879), an Expressionist, with a Crucifixion (1939) and an Adoration of the Magi (1941); Lennart Segerstre (b. 1892), on the other hand, is a traditionalist. Few Austrian painters stand out for personal quality, for example, Anton Faistauer, Karl Pehatschek (b. 1910; Last Judgment). On the other hand, some interesting artists are to be found in Switzerland: besides a Pietro Chiesa (b. 1876) of a calm, traditional naturalism (Quid ploras?), and a Paul Monnier, who in the St. Charles Borromeo during the Plague of Milan, in the church of Avusy (Geneva), even draws on the 17th century while giving us a scene lively in its chiaroscuro. Also to be remembered are Alexandre Cingria (b. 1879) for a particular sense of fanciful decoration (critic of Our Lady of Mercy in the church of Finhaut in Valais), Emilio Maria Beretta (b. 1907) with Spanish reminiscences and not without the influence of Cingria but with a loose brushstroke (Pietà, in the memorial chapel of the cemetery of Muralto; various decorative frescoes), Hans Stocker (b. 1896), the most modern in his schematic decorations (Last Judgment, 1934-1938). In 1924 the Societas S. Lucae was founded to promote sacred art.

Hungary, which at the end of the 19th century had produced famous artists such as Mihály Lieb known as Munkácsy (1844-1909), author of the vast scene of Christ before Pilate (1881), today in Philadelphia, of an illustrative verism, today has artists such as Pal Molnar C. (b. 1894) and the most refined Gyula Rudnay (b. 1878), with a light and luminous touch (Salutatio angelica, of ca. 1924, in the International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice).

In Poland, which in the second half of the last century had had artists of undeniable quality, though too preoccupied with history or followers of naturalism, such as Jan Matejko (1838-93; frescoes in the church of St. Mary in Kraków), his pupil Stanisław Wyspianski (1869-1907; frescoes and stained-glass windows in the Franciscan church in Kraków, 1897-1902), Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902; Christ in the House of Martha and Magdalene in the Academy of Fine Arts in Leningrad), Jan Styka (1859-1925; numerous representations of the Quo Vadis), at the beginning of our fifty-year period among the most notable painters are counted Karol Frycz (b. 1876), Fryderyk Pautsch (b. 1877), Kazimierz Sichulski (b. 1879), and today Adam Bunsch (b. 1896) is appreciated for his modern simplicity, author not only of paintings (in the church of St. Mary in Katowice) but also of fine cartoons for stained-glass windows (for the national church of the Poles in London).

Russia too has produced some painters who interpreted the sacred world: in the past century especially Aleksander Andreevič Ivanov (1806-18; Preaching of St. John the Baptist in the Desert in the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow; Apparition of Christ to the People, etc., with reminiscences now more now less accentuated of the art of the Nazarenes); in our century Wasili Bakchiew (Scenes from the Life of Christ, at the International Exhibition in Rome of 1911), Wladimir Komarowski (The Virgin and the Angels, etc., in the same Exhibition), Ilja Efimovič Repin (1844-1930; sacred themes in his youth), Alexei Issupoff (various sacred subjects in his youthful period, figures of the Virgin and of Christ later).

For the sake of brevity, we omit discussion of other European countries, where artists worthy of note are certainly not lacking, but generally of predominantly traditional forms, which have not added much to modern sacred art. The same may be said of the two Americas, which often depend on Europe, though they sometimes succeed in creating original expressions, as is the case with Mexican painting. A discussion of the so-called minor arts would be of particular interest, but instead we must limit ourselves to pointing out the interesting renewal brought about in France, but also in Belgium, Germany and elsewhere, in objects for worship (chasubles, chalices, etc.); the importance that stained glass has assumed today, of an absolutely modern character, in France (Desvallières, Rouault, Le Chevalier, Hébert-Stevens), Germany (Luckener, Klein, Gitzinger, Baumhauer, Meistermann, etc.), Holland (Jonas, Trautwein, Nicolas, Stokhof de Jong, Slijpen, etc.), Switzerland (Cingria, Wanner, Staiger, Stocker, etc.), Poland (after Wyspianski and Mehoffer, Bunsch, Mazur, and others); and the beauty of the engravings of the French, by birth or by training (Rouault, Chagall, Goerg, Hervieu), of the Belgians (Jean Donnay), of the Poles (Skoczylas, Krasnodebska, Mrozewski, Bartłomiejczyk, Kulisiewicz, Prohaska, Wroblewska), of the Lithuanian V. K. Jonynas, etc. Nor should we forget tapestries (in France with Lurçat and the Aubusson factory), ceramics (in France, Poland, etc.), embroidery (in Germany, Holland, etc.), painted fabrics (with the Hungarian Hajnal), and still other genres of the minor arts, which in our time have assumed truly elevated expressions in the service and for the glory of the Church. - See plates LXXIX-LXXXII.

Giulio R. Ansaldi