e after Vandyck; sometimes the swords are placed round her head;
but there is no instance of such a figure from the best period of
religious art, and it must be considered as anything but artistic: in
this case, the more materialized and the more matter of fact, the more
_unreal_.

* * * * *

STABAT MATER. A second representation of the _Madre di Dolore_ is that
figure of the Virgin which, from the very earliest times, was placed
on the right of the Crucifix, St. John the Evangelist being invariably
on the left. I am speaking here of the _crucifix_ as a wholly ideal
and mystical emblem of our faith in a crucified Saviour; not of
the _crucifixion_ as an event, in which the Virgin is an actor and
spectator, and is usually fainting in the arms of her attendants. In
the ideal subject she is merely an ideal figure, at once the mother
of Christ, and the personified Church. This, I think, is evident from
those very ancient carvings, and examples in stained glass, in which
the Virgin, as the Church, stands on one side of the cross, trampling
on a female figure which personifies Judaism or the synagogue. Even
when the allegory is less palpable, we feel that the treatment is
wholly religious and poetical.

The usual attitude of the _Mater Dolorosa_ by the crucifix is that of
intense but resigned sorrow; the hands clasped, the head declined and
shaded by a veil, the figure closely wrapped in a dark blue or violet
mantle. In some instances a more generally religious and ideal cast is
given to the figure; she stands with outspread arms, and looking up;
not weeping, but in her still beautiful face a mingled expression of
faith and anguish. This is the true conception of the sublime hymn,

"Stabat Mater Dolorosa
Juxta crucem lachrymosa
Dum pendebat filius."

LA PIETA. The third, and it is the most important and most beautiful
of all as far as the Virgin is concerned, is the group called the
PIETA, which, when strictly devotional, consists only of the Virgin
with her dead Son in her arms, or on her lap, or lying at her feet;
in some instances with lamenting angels, but no other personages.
This group has been varied in a thousand ways; no doubt the two most
perfect conceptions are those of Michael Angelo and Raphael; the first
excelling in sublimity, the latter in pathos. The celebrated marble
group by Michael Angelo stands in the Vatican in a chapel to the
right as we enter. The Virgin is se