Francis for the modern soulful and
highly individualised art. Its source must have been the strongest
feeling of the most cultured minds, and that was undoubtedly spiritual
love. The Jesuit Beissel wrote with deep regret: "Every master almost
formed his own conception of Mary, but in such a way that the hieratic
severity of earlier times disappeared but slowly." And he continued: "It
is true, the artists' models were the noble ladies of their period; not
only on account of their kindly smiling faces, but also on account of
the charming coquetry with which their hands drew their cloaks across
the bosom." And the art-historian, Male, says: "It is a remarkable fact
that in the thirteenth century the legend, or the story, of the Virgin
Mary was depicted on the doors of all our (_i.e._, French) cathedrals."
The difference between the Catholic and the Protestant world-principles
is strongly marked in this connection. Catholicism with its striving for
absolute uniformity, acknowledging no individual differences, but eager
to shape all life and all doctrines in harmony with one definite ideal,
very consistently pronounced one single, historical woman to be divine,
and made her the object of universal worship.
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