The Murillo is its superior in coloring and
grace of arrangement. At first sight of the Murillo every one exclaims
at once, "Plow beautiful!" - at sight of this they are silent. Many are
at first disappointed; but the picture fastens the attention, and
grows upon the thoughts; while that of Murillo is dismissed with the
words of admiration on the lips.
This picture excited my ponderings and inquiries. There was a conflict
of emotion in that mother's face, and shadowed mysteriously in the
child's, of which I queried, "Was it fear? was it sorrow? was it
adoration and faith? was it a presage of the hour when a sword should
pierce through her own soul? Yet, with this, was there not a solemn
triumph in the thought that she alone, of all women, had been called
to that baptism of anguish? And in that infant face there seemed a
foreshadowing of the spirit which said, "Now is my soul troubled; and
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause
came I unto this hour."
The deep-feeling soul which conceived this picture has spread over the
whole divine group a tender and transparent shadow of sorrow. It is
this idea of sorrow in heaven - sorrow, for the lost, in the heart of
God himself - which forms the most sacred mystery of Christianity; and
into this innermost temple of sorrow had Raphael penetrated.
