CMP Review 2024-04-21

I will never forget the first time I entered the hall of the seven virtues in the Uffizi Gallery. I looked intently at the first painting, and then the second. “Paintings,” I thought. Another, and another. Until finally I reached the end of the hall, and then I gasped. I could not simply say to myself, “Painting.” For I was standing before something that was more than a painting.

“Everybody else’s Fortitudes announce themselves clearly and proudly,” writes John Ruskin. “They have tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets—and stand firm astride on their legs,—and are confidently ready for all comers.”

Not so the Fortitude of Sandro Botticelli. “Botticelli’s Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that are coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing ready for all comers, she is sitting,—apparently in reverie, her fingers playing restlessly and idly—nay, I think—even nervously, about the hilt of her sword. For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yesterday. Many a morn and eve have passed since it began—and now—is this to be the ending day of it? And if this—by what manner of end?”

Charlotte Mason read these words of John Ruskin in Mornings in Florence. She alluded to them in Ourselves Book II in her chapter on Fortitude.

When speaking of humility, Mason quoted William Law: “There never was nor ever will be, but one humility in the whole world, and that is the one humility of Christ.” Perhaps there is only one fortitude also. When Mason wrote of the fortitude of Christ, she cited Ruskin again. And she cited Botticelli again. And I know why. Because it is really more than a painting. Read or listen to Mason’s poem on the fortitude of Christ here.

@artmiddlekauff