ew ideal. His life was so
short, his work so surpassingly brilliant, that it was as if a splendid
meteor suddenly flashed across the starry firmament of the Cinque-Cento.
Perugino, his master; Pinturicchio, his employer; Fra Bartolommeo, his
friend; Andrea del Sarto, "the faultless painter," all paled before his
rapidly increasing glory. When he laid down his brush at the age of
thirty-seven, he had finished a career which is one of the miracles of
history. His work is a complete epitome of religious art, including all
the great themes, and enveloping each with an atmosphere of pure
spirituality, indescribably elevating to mind and soul.

His conception of the Christ-child ranges from the sleeping Babe from
whose innocent face the Madonna of the Diadem softly lifts a veil, to
the grave boy whom the Chair Madonna clasps in her arms. Every shade of
playfulness, of affection, of dignity, and of contemplation, is mirrored
in the long series of pictures in which he embodied his ever-changing
ideal of the Divine Infant.

[Illustration: MADONNA DI CASA TEMPI.--RAPHAEL.]

The magnificent versatility of his genius is admirably illustrated by
the contrast between two of his finest works,--the Madonna of the
Casa Tempi and the Madonna di San Sisto, standing the one for the human
aspect and the other for the divine, in the incarnation of the Son of
God. The first shows an ideal mother fondly pressing her darling's cheek
against her own; the second is a vision of ideal womanhood hastening
down the centuries to present the Word to the waiting world.

The Christ-child of the Tempi painting is a dimpled baby shyly nestling
against his mother's breast; the Sistine Child is a royal messenger
lightly enthroned upon the Madonna's arm. In one conception, Mother and
Son are absorbed entirely in each other; in the other, they think only
of their mission to humanity, their wide eyes searching the future with
far-seeing gaze, and their thoughts intent upon the coming of the
heavenly kingdom.

We can appreciate the Tempi Madonna at the first glance; the meaning of
the Sistine Madonna we can never fully reach, though to contemplate it
day by day is to feel our thoughts become purer and our aspirations
nobler.

A feature of the child-life of Jesus upon which Raphael loved to dwell
is his companionship with his cousin John, a boy of nearly the same age,
whose destiny was indissolubly linked with the Christ. Following the
Gospel description o