ead lies right in the course of one of
these lines. Thus mother and child together form a single figure, the
two united in one.

But when we have studied this simple principle of composition, we go
back with delight to the picture itself for what it tells us: the deep
mystery of the mother's face, as if she were lifted above the ordinary
plane of human life; the blended loveliness of childhood with the
consciousness of a holy calling; the lowly devotion yet dignity of St.
Barbara; the grandeur and forgetfulness of self of the Pope, whose
triple crown rests on the parapet; the perpetual childhood of the
angelic figures.

The picture takes its name from the Pope, who had been canonized as
St. Sixtus. It was painted for the convent of St. Sixtus at Piacenza,
but early in the eighteenth century it was bought by the Elector of
Saxony, and now hangs in the gallery at Dresden. It is a pleasant
thing to know that when Frederick the Great bombarded Dresden, he
ordered his cannon to keep clear of the Picture Gallery. Napoleon,
too, though he took many pictures to Paris, did not take any from the
Dresden gallery.

When we compare the Sistine Madonna with the Madonna of the Chair, we
see what a wide variety of pictures there may be on the single subject
of the Mother and Child. The Madonna of the Chair is, as we have said,
a home scene, like a picture from real life. The Sistine Madonna is a
vision; the figures are lifted above the actual surroundings of earth
into a purely ideal and heavenly atmosphere. In the Madonna of the
Chair, the Mother and Child are all in all to each other, and what
attracts us most in the picture is the mother's love. In the other
picture both mother and boy seem to forget themselves in the thought
of some glorious service to others.

XVI

PORTRAIT OF RAPHAEL

We have been looking at fifteen pictures designed by Raphael. They are
but a few of the great number painted either wholly or in part by the
master, or painted by his pupils from designs and sketches made by
him. He was thirty-seven years old when he died, and it was said that
he died on his birthday. His life was brimful of activity as a
painter.

The portrait which stands at the beginning of this little book was
painted by himself at the age of twenty-three, for his mother's
brother, whom he was wont to call his "second father." An English
poet, Samuel Rogers, in his poem "Italy," has these lines which
describe it prettily:--