Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations and also
the index for all three volumes of the set with links
to the other two volumes.
See 30756-h.htm or 30756-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30756/pg30756-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30756/30756-h.zip)
Volumes I and II are available in the Project Gutenberg
Library:
Volume I--see https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30754
Volume II--see https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30755
Transcriber's note:
A few typographical errors have been corrected. They are
listed at the end of the text.
Characters following a caret were printed as superscript
in the original. For example, "M^a,"; here the "a." is a
superscript.
The Complete Works of John Ruskin
Volume IX
STONES OF VENICE
VOLUME III
[Illustration:
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH]
Library Edition
The Complete Works of John Ruskin
STONES OF VENICE
VOLUME III
Giotto
Lectures on Architecture
Harbours of England
A Joy Forever
National Library Association
New York Chicago
THE
STONES OF VENICE
VOLUME III.
THE FALL
CONTENTS.
THIRD, OR RENAISSANCE, PERIOD.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Early Renaissance, 1
CHAPTER II.
Roman Renaissance, 32
CHAPTER III.
Grotesque Renaissance, 112
CHAPTER IV.
Conclusion, 166
APPENDIX.
1. Architect of the Ducal Palace, 199
2. Theology of Spenser, 205
3. Austrian Government in Italy, 209
4. Date of the Palaces of the Byzantine
Renaissance, 211
5. Renaissance Side of Ducal Palace, 212
6. Character of the Doge Michele Morosini, 213
7. Modern Education, 214
8. Early Venetian Marriages, 222
9. Character of the Venetian Aristocracy, 223
10. Final Appendix, 224
INDICES.
I. Personal Index, 263
II. Local Index, 268
III. Topical Index, 271
IV. Venetian Index, 287
LIST OF PLATES.
Facing Page
PLATE 1. Temperance and Intemperance in Ornament, 6
" 2. Gothic Capitals, 8
" 3. Noble and Ignoble Grotesque, 125
" 4. Mosaic of Olive Tree and Flowers, 179
" 5. Byzantine Bases, 225
" 6. Byzantine Jambs, 229
" 7. Gothic Jambs, 230
" 8. Byzantine Archivolts, 244
" 9. Gothic Archivolts, 245
" 10. Cornices, 248
" 11. Tracery Bars, 252
" 12. Capitals of Fondaco de Turchi, 304
THE
STONES OF VENICE.
THIRD, OR RENAISSANCE, PERIOD.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY RENAISSANCE.
§ I. I trust that the reader has been enabled, by the preceding
chapters, to form some conception of the magnificence of the streets of
Venice during the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Yet
by all this magnificence she was not supremely distinguished above the
other cities of the middle ages. Her early edifices have been preserved
to our times by the circuit of her waves; while continual recurrences of
ruin have defaced the glory of her sister cities. But such fragments as
are still left in their lonely squares, and in the corners of their
streets, so far from being inferior to the buildings of Venice, are even
more rich, more finished, more admirable in invention, more exuberant in
beauty. And although, in the North of Europe, civilization was less
advanced, and the knowledge of the arts was more confined to the
ecclesiastical orders, so that, for domestic architecture, the period of
perfection must be there placed much later than in Italy, and considered
as extending to the middle of the fifteenth century; yet, as each city
reached a certain point in civilization, its streets became decorated
with the same magnificence, varied only in style according to the
materials at hand, and temper of the people. And I am not aware of any
town of wealth and importance in the middle ages, in which some proof
does not exist, that, at its period of greatest energy and prosperity,
its streets were inwrought with rich sculpture, and even (though in
this, as before noticed, Venice always stood supreme) glowing with color
and with gold. Now, therefore, let the reader,--forming for himself as
vivid and real a conception as he is able, either of a group of Venetian
palaces in the fourteenth century, or, if he likes better, of one of the
more fantastic but even richer street scenes of Rouen, Antwerp, Cologne,
or Nuremberg, and keeping this gorgeous image before him,--go out into
any thoroughfare, representative, in a general and characteristic way,
of the feeling for domestic architecture in modern times; let him, for
instance, if in London, walk once up and down Harley Street, or Baker
Street, or Gower Street; and then, looking upon this picture and on
this, set himself to consider (for this is to be the subject of our
following and final inquiry) what have been the causes which have
induced so vast a change in the European mind.
§ II. Renaissance architecture is the school which has conducted men's
inventive and constructive faculties from the Grand Canal to Gower
Street; from the marble shaft, and the lancet arch, and the wreathed
leafage, and the glowing and melting harmony of gold and azure, to the
square cavity in the brick wall. We have now to consider the causes and
the steps of this change; and, as we endeavored above to investigate the
nature of Gothic, here to investigate also the nature of Renaissance.
§ III. Although Renaissance architecture assumes very different forms
among different nations, it may be conveniently referred to three
heads:--Early Renaissance, consisting of the first corruptions
introduced into the Gothic schools: Central or Roman Renaissance, which
is the perfectly formed style: and Grotesque Renaissance, which is the
corruption of the Renaissance itself.
§ IV. Now, in order to do full justice to the adverse cause, we will
consider the abstract _nature_ of the school with reference only to its
best or central examples. The forms of building which must be classed
generally under the term _early_ Renaissance are, in many cases, only
the extravagances and corruptions of the languid Gothic, for whose
errors the classical principle is in no wise answerable. It was stated
in the second chapter of the "Seven Lamps," that, unless luxury had
enervated and subtlety falsified the Gothic forms, Roman traditions
could not have prevailed against them; and, although these enervated and
false conditions are almost instantly colored by the classical
influence, it would be utterly unfair to lay to the charge of that
influence the first debasement of the earlier schools, which had lost
the strength of their system before they could be struck by the plague.
§ V. The manner, however, of the debasement of all schools of art, so
far as it is natural, is in all ages the same; luxuriance of ornament,
refinement of execution, and idle subtleties of fancy, taking the place
of true thought and firm handling: and I do not intend to delay the
reader long by the Gothic sick-bed, for our task is not so much to watch
the wasting of fever in the features of the expiring king, as to trace
the character of that Hazael who dipped the cloth in water, and laid it
upon his face, Nevertheless, it is necessary to the completeness of our
view of the architecture of Venice, as well as to our understanding of
the manner in which the Central Renaissance obtained its universal
dominion, that we glance briefly at the principal forms into which
Venetian Gothic first declined. They are two in number: one the
corruption of the Gothic itself; the other a partial return to Byzantine
forms; for the Venetian mind having carried the Gothic to a point at
which it was dissatisfied, tried to retrace its steps, fell back first
upon Byzantine types, and through them passed to the first Roman. But in
thus retracing its steps, it does not recover its own lost energy. It
revisits the places through which it had passed in the morning light,
but it is now with wearied limbs, and under the gloomy shadows of
evening.
§ VI. It has just been said that the two principal causes of natural
decline in any school, are over-luxuriance and over-refinement. The
corrupt Gothic of Venice furnishes us with a curious instance of the
one, and the corrupt Byzantine of the other. We shall examine them in
succession.
Now, observe, first, I do not mean by _luxuriance_ of ornament,
_quantity_ of ornament. In the best Gothic in the world there is hardly
an inch of stone left unsculptured. But I mean that character of
extravagance in the ornament itself which shows that it was addressed to
jaded faculties; a violence and coarseness in curvature, a depth of
shadow, a lusciousness in arrangement of line, evidently arising out of
an incapability of feeling the true beauty of chaste form and restrained
power. I do not know any character of design which may be more easily
recognized at a glance than this over-lusciousness; and yet it seems to
me that at the present day there is nothing so little understood as the
essential difference between chasteness and extravagance, whether in
color, shade, or lines. We speak loosely and inaccurately of
"overcharged" ornament, with an obscure feeling that there is indeed
something in visible Form which is correspondent to Intemperance in
moral habits; but without any distinct detection of the character which
offends us, far less with any understanding of the most important lesson
which there can be no doubt was intended to be conveyed by the
universality of this ornamental law.
§ VII. In a word, then, the safeguard of highest beauty, in all visible
work, is exactly that which is also the safeguard of conduct in the
soul,--Temperance, in the broadest sense; the Temperance which we have
seen sitting on an equal throne with Justice amidst the Four Cardinal
Virtues, and, wanting which, there is not any other virtue which may not
lead us into desperate error. Now, observe: Temperance, in the nobler
sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a
stopping short in any good thing, as in Love or in Faith; but it means
the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting
in any way but as it ought. And with respect to things in which there
may be excess, it does not mean imperfect enjoyment of them; but the
regulation of their quantity, so that the enjoyment of them shall be
greatest. For instance, in the matter we have at present in hand,
temperance in color does not mean imperfect or dull enjoyment of color;
but it means that government of color which shall bring the utmost
possible enjoyment out of all hues. A bad colorist does not _love_
beautiful color better than the best colorist does, nor half so much.
But he indulges in it to excess; he uses it in large masses, and
unsubdued; and then it is a law of Nature, a law as universal as that of
gravitation, that he shall not be able to enjoy it so much as if he had
used it in less quantity. His eye is jaded and satiated, and the blue
and red have life in them no more. He tries to paint them bluer and
redder, in vain: all the blue has become grey, and gets greyer the more
he adds to it; all his crimson has become brown, and gets more sere and
autumnal the more he deepens it. But the great painter is sternly
temperate in his work; he loves the vivid color with all his heart; but
for a long time he does not allow himself anything like it, nothing but
sober browns and dull greys, and colors that have no conceivable beauty
in them; but these by his government become lovely: and after bringing
out of them all the life and power they possess, and enjoying them to
the uttermost,--cautiously, and as the crown of the work, and the
consummation of its music, he permits the momentary crimson and azure,
and the whole canvas is in a flame.
§ VIII. Again, in curvature, which is the cause of loveliness in all
form; the bad designer does not enjoy it more than the great designer,
but he indulges in it till his eye is satiated, and he cannot obtain
enough of it to touch his jaded feeling for grace. But the great and
temperate designer does not allow himself any violent curves; he works
much with lines in which the curvature, though always existing, is long
before it is perceived. He dwells on all these subdued curvatures to the
uttermost, and opposes them with still severer lines to bring them out
in fuller sweetness; and, at last, he allows himself a momentary curve
of energy, and all the work is, in an instant, full of life and grace.
The curves drawn in Plate VII. of the first volume, were chosen entirely
to show this character of dignity and restraint, as it appears in the
lines of nature, together with the perpetual changefulness of the
degrees of curvature in one and the same line; but although the purpose
of that plate was carefully explained in the chapter which it
illustrates, as well as in the passages of "Modern Painters" therein
referred to (vol. ii. pp. 43, 79), so little are we now in the habit of
considering the character of abstract lines, that it was thought by many
persons that this plate only illustrated Hogarth's reversed line of
beauty, even although the curve of the salvia leaf, which was the one
taken from that plate for future use, in architecture, was not a
reversed or serpentine curve at all. I shall now, however, I hope, be
able to show my meaning better.
§ IX. Fig. 1 in Plate I., opposite, is a piece of ornamentation from a
Norman-French manuscript of the thirteenth century, and fig. 2 from an
Italian one of the fifteenth. Observe in the first its stern moderation
in curvature; the gradually united lines _nearly straight_, though none
quite straight, used for its main limb, and contrasted with the bold but
simple offshoots of its leaves, and the noble spiral from which it
shoots, these in their turn opposed by the sharp trefoils and thorny
cusps. And see what a reserve of resource there is in the whole; how
easy it would have been to make the curves more palpable and the foliage
more rich, and how the noble hand has stayed itself, and refused to
grant one wave of motion more.
[Illustration: Plate I.
TEMPERANCE AND INTEMPERANCE.
IN CURVATURE.]
§ X. Then observe the other example, in which, while the same idea is
continually repeated, excitement and interest are sought for by means of
violent and continual curvatures wholly unrestrained, and rolling hither
and thither in confused wantonness. Compare the character of the
separate lines in these two examples carefully, and be assured that
wherever this redundant and luxurious curvature shows itself in
ornamentation, it is a sign of jaded energy and failing invention. Do
not confuse it with fulness or richness. Wealth is not necessarily
wantonness: a Gothic moulding may be buried half a foot deep in thorns
and leaves, and yet will be chaste in every line; and a late Renaissance
moulding may be utterly barren and poverty-stricken, and yet will show
the disposition to luxury in every line.
§ XI. Plate XX., in the second volume, though prepared for the special
illustration of the notices of capitals, becomes peculiarly interesting
when considered in relation to the points at present under
consideration. The four leaves in the upper row are Byzantine; the two
middle rows are transitional, all but fig. 11, which is of the formed
Gothic; fig. 12 is perfect Gothic of the finest time (Ducal Palace,
oldest part), fig. 13 is Gothic beginning to decline, fig. 14 is
Renaissance Gothic in complete corruption.
Now observe, first, the Gothic naturalism advancing gradually from the
Byzantine severity; how from the sharp, hard, formalized conventionality
of the upper series the leaves gradually expand into more free and
flexible animation, until in fig. 12 we have the perfect living leaf as
if fresh gathered out of the dew. And then, in the last two examples and
partly in fig. 11, observe how the forms which can advance no longer in
animation, advance, or rather decline, into luxury and effeminacy as the
strength of the school expires.
§ XII. In the second place, note that the Byzantine and Gothic schools,
however differing in degree of life, are both alike in _temperance_,
though the temperance of the Gothic is the nobler, because it consists
with entire animation. Observe how severe and subtle the curvatures are
in all the leaves from fig. 1 to fig. 12, except only in fig. 11; and
observe especially the firmness and strength obtained by the close
approximation to the straight line in the lateral ribs of the leaf, fig.
12. The longer the eye rests on these temperate curvatures the more it
will enjoy them, but it will assuredly in the end be wearied by the
morbid exaggeration of the last example.
[Illustration: Plate II.
GOTHIC CAPITALS.]
§ XIII. Finally, observe--and this is very important--how one and the
same character in the work may be a sign of totally different states of
mind, and therefore in one case bad, and in the other good. The
examples, fig. 3. and fig. 12., are both equally pure in line; but one
is subdivided in the extreme, the other broad in the extreme, and both
are beautiful. The Byzantine mind delighted in the delicacy of
subdivision which nature shows in the fern-leaf or parsley-leaf; and so,
also, often the Gothic mind, much enjoying the oak, thorn, and thistle.
But the builder of the Ducal Palace used great breadth in his foliage,
in order to harmonize with the broad surface of his mighty wall, and
delighted in this breadth as nature delights in the sweeping freshness
of the dock-leaf or water-lily. Both breadth and subdivision are thus
noble, when they are contemplated or conceived by a mind in health; and
both become ignoble, when conceived by a mind jaded and satiated. The
subdivision in fig. 13 as compared with the type, fig. 12, which it was
intended to improve, is the sign, not of a mind which loved intricacy,
but of one which could not relish simplicity, which had not strength
enough to enjoy the broad masses of the earlier leaves, and cut them to
pieces idly, like a child tearing the book which, in its weariness, it
cannot read. And on the other hand, we shall continually find, in other
examples of work of the same period, an unwholesome breadth or
heaviness, which results from the mind having no longer any care for
refinement or precision, nor taking any delight in delicate forms, but
making all things blunted, cumbrous, and dead, losing at the same time
the sense of the elasticity and spring of natural curves. It is as if
the soul of man, itself severed from the root of its health, and about
to fall into corruption, lost the perception of life in all things
around it; and could no more distinguish the wave of the strong
branches, full of muscular strength and sanguine circulation, from the
lax bending of a broken cord, nor the sinuousness of the edge of the
leaf, crushed into deep folds by the expansion of its living growth,
from the wrinkled contraction of its decay.[1] Thus, in morals, there
is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and conscience, and is
most holy; and a care for trifles which comes of idleness and frivolity,
and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from
thought, which is most noble; and a gravity proceeding from dulness and
mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base. Now, in the various
forms assumed by the later Gothic of Venice, there are one or two
features which, under other circumstances, would not have been signs of
decline; but, in the particular manner of their occurrence here,
indicate the fatal weariness of decay. Of all these features the most
distinctive are its crockets and finials.
§ XIV. There is not to be found a single crocket or finial upon any part
of the Ducal Palace built during the fourteenth century; and although
they occur on contemporary, and on some much earlier, buildings, they
either indicate detached examples of schools not properly Venetian, or
are signs of incipient decline.
The reason of this is, that the finial is properly the ornament of
gabled architecture; it is the compliance, in the minor features of the
building, with the spirit of its towers, ridged roof, and spires.
Venetian building is not gabled, but horizontal in its roots and general
masses; therefore the finial is a feature contradictory to its spirit,
and adopted only in that search for morbid excitement which is the
infallible indication of decline. When it occurs earlier, it is on
fragments of true gabled architecture, as, for instance, on the porch of
the Carmini.
In proportion to the unjustifiableness of its introduction was the
extravagance of the form it assumed; becoming, sometimes, a tuft at the
top of the ogee windows, half as high as the arch itself, and
consisting, in the richest examples, of a human figure, half emergent
out of a cup of leafage, as, for instance, in the small archway of the
Campo San Zaccaria: while the crockets, as being at the side of the
arch, and not so strictly connected with its balance and symmetry,
appear to consider themselves at greater liberty even than the finials,
and fling themselves, hither and thither, in the wildest contortions.
Fig. 4. in Plate I, is the outline of one, carved in stone, from the
later Gothic of St. Mark's; fig. 3. a crocket from the fine Veronese
Gothic; in order to enable the reader to discern the Renaissance
character better by comparison with the examples of curvature above
them, taken from the manuscripts. And not content with this exuberance
in the external ornaments of the arch, the finial interferes with its
traceries. The increased intricacy of these, as such, being a natural
process in the developement of Gothic, would have been no evil; but they
are corrupted by the enrichment of the finial at the point of the
cusp,--corrupted, that is to say, in Venice: for at Verona the finial,
in the form of a fleur-de-lis, appears long previously at the cusp
point, with exquisite effect; and in our own best Northern Gothic it is
often used beautifully in this place, as in the window from Salisbury,
Plate XII. (Vol. II.), fig. 2. But in Venice, such a treatment of it was
utterly contrary to the severe spirit of the ancient traceries; and the
adoption of a leafy finial at the extremity of the cusps in the door of
San Stefano, as opposed to the simple ball which terminates those of the
Ducal Palace, is an unmistakable indication of a tendency to decline.
In like manner, the enrichment and complication of the jamb mouldings,
which, in other schools, might and did take place in the healthiest
periods, are, at Venice, signs of decline, owing to the entire
inconsistency of such mouldings with the ancient love of the single
square jamb and archivolt. The process of enrichment in them is shown by
the successive examples given in Plate VII., below. They are numbered,
and explained in the Appendix.
§ XV. The date at which this corrupt form of Gothic first prevailed over
the early simplicity of the Venetian types can be determined in an
instant, on the steps of the choir of the Church of St. John and Paul.
On our left hand, as we enter, is the tomb of the Doge Marco Cornaro,
who died in 1367. It is rich and fully developed Gothic, with crockets
and finials, but not yet attaining any extravagant developement.
Opposite to it is that of the Doge Andrea Morosini, who died in 1382.
Its Gothic is voluptuous, and over-wrought; the crockets are bold and
florid, and the enormous finial represents a statue of St. Michael.
There is no excuse for the antiquaries who, having this tomb before
them, could have attributed the severe architecture of the Ducal Palace
to a later date; for every one of the Renaissance errors is here in
complete developement, though not so grossly as entirely to destroy the
loveliness of the Gothic forms. In the Porta della Carta, 1423, the vice
reaches its climax.
§ XVI. Against this degraded Gothic, then, came up the Renaissance
armies; and their first assault was in the requirement of universal
perfection. For the first time since the destruction of Rome, the world
had seen, in the work of the greatest artists of the fifteenth
century,--in the painting of Ghirlandajo, Masaccio, Francia, Perugino,
Pinturicchio, and Bellini; in the sculpture of Mino da Fiesole, of
Ghiberti, and Verrocchio,--a perfection of execution and fulness of
knowledge which cast all previous art into the shade, and which, being
in the work of those men united with all that was great in that of
former days, did indeed justify the utmost enthusiasm with which their
efforts were, or could be, regarded. But when this perfection had once
been exhibited in anything, it was required in everything; the world
could no longer be satisfied with less exquisite execution, or less
disciplined knowledge. The first thing that it demanded in all work was,
that it should be done in a consummate and learned way; and men
altogether forgot that it was possible to consummate what was
contemptible, and to know what was useless. Imperatively requiring
dexterity of touch, they gradually forgot to look for tenderness of
feeling; imperatively requiring accuracy of knowledge, they gradually
forgot to ask for originality of thought. The thought and the feeling
which they despised departed from them, and they were left to
felicitate themselves on their small science and their neat fingering.
This is the history of the first attack of the Renaissance upon the
Gothic schools, and of its rapid results, more fatal and immediate in
architecture than in any other art, because there the demand for
perfection was less reasonable, and less consistent with the
capabilities of the workman; being utterly opposed to that rudeness or
savageness on which, as we saw above, the nobility of the elder schools
in great part depends. But inasmuch as the innovations were founded on
some of the most beautiful examples of art, and headed by some of the
greatest men that the world ever saw, and as the Gothic with which they
interfered was corrupt and valueless, the first appearance of the
Renaissance feeling had the appearance of a healthy movement. A new
energy replaced whatever weariness or dulness had affected the Gothic
mind; an exquisite taste and refinement, aided by extended knowledge,
furnished the first models of the new school; and over the whole of
Italy a style arose, generally now known as cinque-cento, which in
sculpture and painting, as I just stated, produced the noblest masters
which the world ever saw, headed by Michael Angelo, Raphael, and
Leonardo; but which failed of doing the same in architecture, because,
as we have seen above, perfection is therein not possible, and failed
more totally than it would otherwise have done, because the classical
enthusiasm had destroyed the best types of architectural form.
§ XVII. For, observe here very carefully, the Renaissance principle, as
it consisted in a demand for universal perfection, is quite distinct
from the Renaissance principle as it consists in a demand for classical
and Roman _forms_ of perfection. And if I had space to follow out the
subject as I should desire, I would first endeavor to ascertain what
might have been the course of the art of Europe if no manuscripts of
classical authors had been recovered, and no remains of classical
architecture left, in the fifteenth century; so that the executive
perfection to which the efforts of all great men had tended for five
hundred years, and which now at last was reached, might have been
allowed to develope itself in its own natural and proper form, in
connexion with the architectural structure of earlier schools. This
refinement and perfection had indeed its own perils, and the history of
later Italy, as she sank into pleasure and thence into corruption, would
probably have been the same whether she had ever learned again to write
pure Latin or not. Still the inquiry into the probable cause of the
enervation which might naturally have followed the highest exertion of
her energies, is a totally distinct one from that into the particular
form given to this enervation by her classical learning; and it is
matter of considerable regret to me that I cannot treat these two
subjects separately: I must be content with marking them for separation
in the mind of the reader.
§ XVIII. The effect, then, of the sudden enthusiasm for classical
literature, which gained strength during every hour of the fifteenth
century, was, as far as respected architecture, to do away with the
entire system of Gothic science. The pointed arch, the shadowy vault,
the clustered shaft, the heaven-pointing spire, were all swept away; and
no structure was any longer permitted but that of the plain cross-beam
from pillar to pillar, over the round arch, with square or circular
shafts, and a low-gabled roof and pediment: two elements of noble form,
which had fortunately existed in Rome, were, however, for that reason,
still permitted; the cupola, and, internally, the waggon vault.
§ XIX. These changes in form were all of them unfortunate; and it is
almost impossible to do justice to the occasionally exquisite
ornamentation of the fifteenth century, on account of its being placed
upon edifices of the cold and meagre Roman outline. There is, as far as
I know, only one Gothic building in Europe, the Duomo of Florence, in
which, though the ornament be of a much earlier school, it is yet so
exquisitely finished as to enable us to imagine what might have been the
effect of the perfect workmanship of the Renaissance, coming out of the
hands of men like Verrocchio and Ghiberti, had it been employed on the
magnificent framework of Gothic structure. This is the question which,
as I shall note in the concluding chapter, we ought to set ourselves
practically to solve in modern times.
§ XX. The changes effected in form, however, were the least part of the
evil principles of the Renaissance. As I have just said, its main
mistake, in its early stages, was the unwholesome demand for
_perfection_, at any cost. I hope enough has been advanced, in the
chapter on the Nature of Gothic, to show the reader that perfection is
_not_ to be had from the general workman, but at the cost of
everything,--of his whole life, thought, and energy. And Renaissance
Europe thought this a small price to pay for manipulative perfection.
Men like Verrocchio and Ghiberti were not to be had every day, nor in
every place; and to require from the common workman execution or
knowledge like theirs, was to require him to become their copyist. Their
strength was great enough to enable them to join science with invention,
method with emotion, finish with fire; but, in them, the invention and
the fire were first, while Europe saw in them only the method and the
finish. This was new to the minds of men, and they pursued it to the
neglect of everything else. "This," they cried, "we must have in all our
work henceforward:" and they were obeyed. The lower workman secured
method and finish, and lost, in exchange for them, his soul.
§ XXI. Now, therefore, do not let me be misunderstood when I speak
generally of the evil spirit of the Renaissance. The reader may look
through all I have written, from first to last, and he will not find one
word but of the most profound reverence for those mighty men who could
wear the Renaissance armor of proof, and yet not feel it encumber their
living limbs,[2]--Leonardo and Michael Angelo, Ghirlandajo and Masaccio,
Titian and Tintoret. But I speak of the Renaissance as an evil time,
because, when it saw those men go burning forth into the battle, it
mistook their armor for their strength: and forthwith encumbered with
the painful panoply every stripling who ought to have gone forth only
with his own choice of three smooth stones out of the brook.
§ XXII. This, then, the reader must always keep in mind when he is
examining for himself any examples of cinque-cento work. When it has
been done by a truly great man, whose life and strength could not be
oppressed, and who turned to good account the whole science of his day,
nothing is more exquisite. I do not believe, for instance, that there is
a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world than that
equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleone, by Verrocchio, of which, I
hope, before these pages are printed, there will be a cast in England.
But when the cinque-cento work has been done by those meaner men, who,
in the Gothic times, though in a rough way, would yet have found some
means of speaking out what was in their hearts, it is utterly
inanimate,--a base and helpless copy of more accomplished models; or, if
not this, a mere accumulation of technical skill, in gaining which the
workman had surrendered all other powers that were in him.
There is, therefore, of course, an infinite gradation in the art of the
period, from the Sistine Chapel down to modern upholstery; but, for the
most part, since in architecture the workman must be of an inferior
order, it will be found that this cinque-cento painting and higher
religious sculpture is noble, while the cinque-cento architecture, with
its subordinate sculpture, is universally bad; sometimes, however,
assuming forms, in which the consummate refinement almost atones for the
loss of force.
§ XXIII. This is especially the case with that second branch of the
Renaissance which, as above noticed, was engrafted at Venice on the
Byzantine types. So soon as the classical enthusiasm required the
banishment of Gothic forms, it was natural that the Venetian mind should
turn back with affection to the Byzantine models in which the round
arches and simple shafts, necessitated by recent law, were presented
under a form consecrated by the usage of their ancestors. And,
accordingly, the first distinct school of architecture[3] which arose
under the new dynasty, was one in which the method of inlaying marble,
and the general forms of shaft and arch, were adopted from the buildings
of the twelfth century, and applied with the utmost possible refinements
of modern skill. Both at Verona and Venice the resulting architecture is
exceedingly beautiful. At Verona it is, indeed, less Byzantine, but
possesses a character of richness and tenderness almost peculiar to that
city. At Venice it is more severe, but yet adorned with sculpture which,
for sharpness of touch and delicacy of minute form, cannot be rivalled,
and rendered especially brilliant and beautiful by the introduction of
those inlaid circles of colored marble, serpentine, and porphyry, by
which Phillippe de Commynes was so much struck on his first entrance
into the city. The two most refined buildings in this style in Venice
are, the small Church of the Miracoli, and the Scuola di San Marco
beside the Church of St. John and St. Paul. The noblest is the Rio
Façade of the Ducal Palace. The Casa Dario, and Casa Manzoni, on the
Grand Canal, are exquisite examples of the school, as applied to
domestic architecture; and, in the reach of the canal between the Casa
Foscari and the Rialto, there are several palaces, of which the Casa
Contarini (called "delle Figure") is the principal, belonging to the
same group, though somewhat later, and remarkable for the association of
the Byzantine principles of color with the severest lines of the Roman
pediment, gradually superseding the round arch. The precision of
chiselling and delicacy of proportion in the ornament and general lines
of these palaces cannot be too highly praised; and I believe that the
traveller in Venice, in general, gives them rather too little attention
than too much. But while I would ask him to stay his gondola beside each
of them long enough to examine their every line, I must also warn him to
observe, most carefully, the peculiar feebleness and want of soul in the
conception of their ornament, which mark them as belonging to a period
of decline; as well as the absurd mode of introduction of their pieces
of colored marble: these, instead of being simply and naturally inserted
in the masonry, are placed in small circular or oblong frames of
sculpture, like mirrors or pictures, and are represented as suspended by
ribands against the wall; a pair of wings being generally fastened on to
the circular tablets, as if to relieve the ribands and knots from their
weight, and the whole series tied under the chin of a little cherub at
the top, who is nailed against the façade like a hawk on a barn door.
But chiefly let him notice, in the Casa Contarini delle Figure, one most
strange incident, seeming to have been permitted, like the choice of the
subjects at the three angles of the Ducal Palace, in order to teach us,
by a single lesson, the true nature of the style in which it occurs. In
the intervals of the windows of the first story, certain shields and
torches are attached, in the form of trophies, to the stems of two trees
whose boughs have been cut off, and only one or two of their faded
leaves left, scarcely observable, but delicately sculptured here and
there, beneath the insertions of the severed boughs.
It is as if the workman had intended to leave us an image of the
expiring naturalism of the Gothic school. I had not seen this sculpture
when I wrote the passage referring to its period, in the first volume of
this work (Chap. XX. § XXXI.):--"Autumn came,--the leaves were
shed,--and the eye was directed to the extremities of the delicate
branches. _The Renaissance frosts came, and all perished!_"
§ XXIV. And the hues of this autumn of the early Renaissance are the
last which appear in architecture. The winter which succeeded was
colorless as it was cold; and although the Venetian painters struggled
long against its influence, the numbness of the architecture prevailed
over them at last, and the exteriors of all the latter palaces were
built only in barren stone. As at this point of our inquiry, therefore,
we must bid farewell to color, I have reserved for this place the
continuation of the history of chromatic decoration, from the Byzantine
period, when we left it in the fifth chapter of the second volume, down
to its final close.
§ XXV. It was above stated, that the principal difference in general
form and treatment between the Byzantine and Gothic palaces was the
contraction of the marble facing into the narrow spaces between the
windows, leaving large fields of brick wall perfectly bare. The reason
for this appears to have been, that the Gothic builders were no longer
satisfied with the faint and delicate hues of the veined marble; they
wished for some more forcible and piquant mode of decoration,
corresponding more completely with the gradually advancing splendor of
chivalric costume and heraldic device. What I have said above of the
simple habits of life of the thirteenth century, in no wise refers
either to costumes of state, or of military service; and any
illumination of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries (the great
period being, it seems to me, from 1250 to 1350), while it shows a
peculiar majesty and simplicity in the fall of the robes (often worn
over the chain armor), indicates, at the same time, an exquisite
brilliancy of color and power of design in the hems and borders, as well
as in the armorial bearings with which they are charged; and while, as
we have seen, a peculiar simplicity is found also in the _forms_ of the
architecture, corresponding to that of the folds of the robes, its
_colors_ were constantly increasing in brilliancy and decision,
corresponding to those of the quartering of the shield, and of the
embroidery of the mantle.
§ XXVI. Whether, indeed, derived from the quarterings of the knights'
shields, or from what other source, I know not; but there is one
magnificent attribute of the coloring of the late twelfth, the whole
thirteenth, and the early fourteenth century, which I do not find
definitely in any previous work, nor afterwards in general art, though
constantly, and necessarily, in that of great colorists, namely, the
union of one color with another by reciprocal interference: that is to
say, if a mass of red is to be set beside a mass of blue, a piece of the
red will be carried into the blue, and a piece of the blue carried into
the red; sometimes in nearly equal portions, as in a shield divided into
four quarters, of which the uppermost on one side will be of the same
color as the lowermost on the other; sometimes in smaller fragments,
but, in the periods above named, always definitely and grandly, though
in a thousand various ways. And I call it a magnificent principle, for
it is an eternal and universal one, not in art only,[4] but in human
life. It is the great principle of Brotherhood, not by equality, nor by
likeness, but by giving and receiving; the souls that are unlike, and
the nations that are unlike, and the natures that are unlike, being
bound into one noble whole by each receiving something from, and of, the
others' gifts and the others' glory. I have not space to follow out this
thought,--it is of infinite extent and application,--but I note it for
the reader's pursuit, because I have long believed, and the whole second
volume of "Modern Painters" was written to prove, that in whatever has
been made by the Deity externally delightful to the human sense of
beauty, there is some type of God's nature or of God's laws; nor are any
of His laws, in one sense, greater than the appointment that the most
lovely and perfect unity shall be obtained by the taking of one nature
into another. I trespass upon too high ground; and yet I cannot fully
show the reader the extent of this law, but by leading him thus far. And
it is just because it is so vast and so awful a law, that it has rule
over the smallest things; and there is not a vein of color on the
lightest leaf which the spring winds are at this moment unfolding in the
fields around us, but it is an illustration of an ordainment to which
the earth and its creatures owe their continuance, and their Redemption.
§ XXVII. It is perfectly inconceivable, until it has been made a subject
of special inquiry, how perpetually Nature employs this principle in the
distribution of her light and shade; how by the most extraordinary
adaptations, apparently accidental, but always in exactly the right
place, she contrives to bring darkness into light, and light into
darkness; and that so sharply and decisively, that at the very instant
when one object changes from light to dark, the thing relieved upon it
will change from dark to light, and yet so subtly that the eye will not
detect the transition till it looks for it. The secret of a great part
of the grandeur in all the noblest compositions is the doing of this
delicately in _degree_, and broadly in _mass_; in color it may be done
much more decisively than in light and shade, and, according to the
simplicity of the work, with greater frankness of confession, until, in
purely decorative art, as in the illumination, glass-painting, and
heraldry of the great periods, we find it reduced to segmental accuracy.
Its greatest masters, in high art, are Tintoret, Veronese, and Turner.
§ XXVIII. Together with this great principle of quartering is introduced
another, also of very high value as far as regards the delight of the
eye, though not of so profound meaning. As soon as color began to be
used in broad and opposed fields, it was perceived that the mass of it
destroyed its brilliancy, and it was _tempered_ by chequering it with
some other color or colors in smaller quantities, mingled with minute
portions of pure white. The two moral principles of which this is the
type, are those of Temperance and Purity; the one requiring the fulness
of the color to be subdued, and the other that it shall be subdued
without losing either its own purity or that of the colors with which it
is associated.
§ XXIX. Hence arose the universal and admirable system of the diapered
or chequered background of early ornamental art. They are completely
developed in the thirteenth century, and extend through the whole of
the fourteenth gradually yielding to landscape, and other pictorial
backgrounds, as the designers lost perception of the purpose of their
art, and of the value of color. The chromatic decoration of the Gothic
palaces of Venice was of course founded on these two great principles,
which prevailed constantly wherever the true chivalric and Gothic spirit
possessed any influence. The windows, with their intermediate spaces of
marble, were considered as the objects to be relieved, and variously
quartered with vigorous color. The whole space of the brick wall was
considered as a background; it was covered with stucco, and painted in
fresco, with diaper patterns.
§ XXX. What? the reader asks in some surprise,--Stucco! and in the great
Gothic period? Even so, but _not stucco to imitate stone_. Herein lies
all the difference; it is stucco confessed and understood, and laid on
the bricks precisely as gesso is laid on canvas, in order to form them
into a ground for receiving color from the human hand,--color which, if
well laid on, might render the brick wall more precious than if it had
been built of emeralds. Whenever we wish to paint, we may prepare our
paper as we choose; the value of the ground in no wise adds to the value
of the picture. A Tintoret on beaten gold would be of no more value than
a Tintoret on coarse canvas; the gold would merely be wasted. All that
we have to do is to make the ground as good and fit for the color as
possible, by whatever means.
§ XXXI. I am not sure if I am right in applying the term "stucco" to the
ground of fresco; but this is of no consequence; the reader will
understand that it was white, and that the whole wall of the palace was
considered as the page of a book to be illuminated: but he will
understand also that the sea winds are bad librarians; that, when once
the painted stucco began to fade or to fall, the unsightliness of the
defaced color would necessitate its immediate restoration; and that
therefore, of all the chromatic decoration of the Gothic palaces, there
is hardly a fragment left.
Happily, in the pictures of Gentile Bellini, the fresco coloring of the
Gothic palaces is recorded, as it still remained in his time; not with
rigid accuracy, but quite distinctly enough to enable us, by comparing
it with the existing colored designs in the manuscripts and glass of the
period, to ascertain precisely what it must have been.
§ XXXII. The walls were generally covered with chequers of very warm
color, a russet inclining to scarlet, more or less relieved with white,
black, and grey; as still seen in the only example which, having been
executed in marble, has been perfectly preserved, the front of the Ducal
Palace. This, however, owing to the nature of its materials, was a
peculiarly simple example; the ground is white, crossed with double bars
of pale red, and in the centre of each chequer there is a cross,
alternately black with a red centre and red with a black centre where
the arms cross. In painted work the grounds would be, of course, as
varied and complicated as those of manuscripts; but I only know of one
example left, on the Casa Sagredo, where, on some fragments of stucco, a
very early chequer background is traceable, composed of crimson
quatrefoils interlaced, with cherubim stretching their wings filling the
intervals. A small portion of this ground is seen beside the window
taken from the palace, Vol. II. Plate XIII. fig. 1.
§ XXXIII. It ought to be especially noticed, that, in all chequered
patterns employed in the colored designs of these noble periods, the
greatest care is taken to mark that they are _grounds_ of design rather
than designs themselves. Modern architects, in such minor imitations as
they are beginning to attempt, endeavor to dispose the parts in the
patterns so as to occupy certain symmetrical positions with respect to
the parts of the architecture. A Gothic builder never does this: he cuts
his ground into pieces of the shape he requires with utter
remorselessness, and places his windows or doors upon it with no regard
whatever to the lines in which they cut the pattern: and, in
illuminations of manuscripts, the chequer itself is constantly changed
in the most subtle and arbitrary way, wherever there is the least chance
of its regularity attracting the eye, and making it of importance. So
_intentional_ is this, that a diaper pattern is often set obliquely to
the vertical lines of the designs, for fear it should appear in any way
connected with them.
§ XXXIV. On these russet or crimson backgrounds the entire space of the
series of windows was relieved, for the most part, as a subdued white
field of alabaster; and on this delicate and veined white were set the
circular disks of purple and green. The arms of the family were of
course blazoned in their own proper colors, but I think generally on a
pure azure ground; the blue color is still left behind the shields in
the Casa Priuli and one or two more of the palaces which are unrestored,
and the blue ground was used also to relieve the sculptures of religious
subject. Finally, all the mouldings, capitals, cornices, cusps, and
traceries, were either entirely gilded or profusely touched with gold.
The whole front of a Gothic palace in Venice may, therefore, be simply
described as a field of subdued russet, quartered with broad sculptured
masses of white and gold; these latter being relieved by smaller inlaid
fragments of blue, purple, and deep green.
§ XXXV. Now, from the beginning of the fourteenth century, when painting
and architecture were thus united, two processes of change went on
simultaneously to the beginning of the seventeenth. The merely
decorative chequerings on the walls yielded gradually to more elaborate
paintings of figure-subject; first small and quaint, and then enlarging
into enormous pictures filled by figures generally colossal. As these
paintings became of greater merit and importance, the architecture with
which they were associated was less studied; and at last a style was
introduced in which the framework of the building was little more
interesting than that of a Manchester factory, but the whole space of
its walls was covered with the most precious fresco paintings. Such
edifices are of course no longer to be considered as forming an
architectural school; they were merely large preparations of artists'
panels; and Titian, Giorgione, and Veronese no more conferred merit on
the later architecture of Venice, as such, by painting on its façades,
than Landseer or Watts could confer merit on that of London by first
whitewashing and then painting its brick streets from one end to the
other.
§ XXXVI. Contemporarily with this change in the relative values of the
color decoration and the stone-work, one equally important was taking
place in the opposite direction, but of course in another group of
buildings. For in proportion as the architect felt himself thrust aside
or forgotten in one edifice, he endeavored to make himself principal in
another; and, in retaliation for the painter's entire usurpation of
certain fields of design, succeeded in excluding him totally from those
in which his own influence was predominant. Or, more accurately
speaking, the architects began to be too proud to receive assistance
from the colorists; and these latter sought for ground which the
architect had abandoned, for the unrestrained display of their own
skill. And thus, while one series of edifices is continually becoming
feebler in design and richer in superimposed paintings, another, that of
which we have so often spoken as the earliest or Byzantine Renaissance,
fragment by fragment rejects the pictorial decoration; supplies its
place first with marbles, and then, as the latter are felt by the
architect, daily increasing in arrogance and deepening in coldness, to
be too bright for his dignity, he casts even these aside one by one: and
when the last porphyry circle has vanished from the façade, we find two
palaces standing side by side, one built, so far as mere masonry goes,
with consummate care and skill, but without the slightest vestige of
color in any part of it; the other utterly without any claim to interest
in its architectural form, but covered from top to bottom with paintings
by Veronese. At this period, then, we bid farewell to color, leaving the
painters to their own peculiar field; and only regretting that they
waste their noblest work on walls, from which in a couple of centuries,
if not before, the greater part of their labor must be effaced. On the
other hand, the architecture whose decline we are tracing, has now
assumed an entirely new condition, that of the Central or True
Renaissance, whose nature we are to examine in the next chapter.
§ XXXVII. But before leaving these last palaces over which the Byzantine
influence extended itself, there is one more lesson to be learned from
them of much importance to us. Though in many respects debased in style,
they are consummate in workmanship, and unstained in honor; there is no
imperfection in them, and no dishonesty. That there is absolutely _no_
imperfection, is indeed, as we have seen above, a proof of their being
wanting in the highest qualities of architecture; but, as lessons in
masonry, they have their value, and may well be studied for the
excellence they display in methods of levelling stones, for the
precision of their inlaying, and other such qualities, which in them are
indeed too principal, yet very instructive in their particular way.
§ XXXVIII. For instance, in the inlaid design of the dove with the olive
branch, from the Casa Trevisan (Vol. I. Plate XX. p. 369), it is
impossible for anything to go beyond the precision with which the olive
leaves are cut out of the white marble; and, in some wreaths of laurel
below, the rippled edge of each leaf is as finely and easily drawn, as
if by a delicate pencil. No Florentine table is more exquisitely
finished than the façade of this entire palace; and as ideals of an
executive perfection, which, though we must not turn aside from our main
path to reach it, may yet with much advantage be kept in our sight and
memory, these palaces are most notable amidst the architecture of
Europe. The Rio Façade of the Ducal Palace, though very sparing in
color, is yet, as an example of finished masonry in a vast building, one
of the finest things, not only in Venice, but in the world. It differs
from other work of the Byzantine Renaissance, in being on a very large
scale; and it still retains one pure Gothic character, which adds not a
little to its nobleness, that of perpetual variety. There is hardly one
window of it, or one panel, that is like another; and this continual
change so increases its apparent size by confusing the eye, that, though
presenting no bold features, or striking masses of any kind, there are
few things in Italy more impressive than the vision of it overhead, as
the gondola glides from beneath the Bridge of Sighs. And lastly (unless
we are to blame these buildings for some pieces of very childish
perspective), they are magnificently honest, as well as perfect. I do
not remember even any gilding upon them; all is pure marble, and of the
finest kind.[5]
And therefore, in finally leaving the Ducal Palace,[6] let us take with
us one more lesson, the last which we shall receive from the Stones of
Venice, except in the form of a warning.
§ XXXIX. The school of architecture which we have just been examining
is, as we have seen above, redeemed from severe condemnation by its
careful and noble use of inlaid marbles as a means of color. From that
time forward, this art has been unknown, or despised; the frescoes of
the swift and daring Venetian painters long contended with the inlaid
marbles, outvying them with color, indeed more glorious than theirs, but
fugitive as the hues of woods in autumn; and, at last, as the art itself
of painting in this mighty manner failed from among men,[7] the modern
decorative system established itself, which united the meaninglessness
of the veined marble with the evanescence of the fresco, and completed
the harmony by falsehood.
§ XL. Since first, in the second chapter of the "Seven Lamps," I
endeavored to show the culpableness, as well as the baseness, of our
common modes of decoration by painted imitation of various woods or
marbles, the subject has been discussed in various architectural works,
and is evidently becoming one of daily increasing interest. When it is
considered how many persons there are whose means of livelihood consist
altogether in these spurious arts, and how difficult it is, even for the
most candid, to admit a conviction contrary both to their interests and
to their inveterate habits of practice and thought, it is rather a
matter of wonder, that the cause of Truth should have found even a few
maintainers, than that it should have encountered a host of adversaries.
It has, however, been defended repeatedly by architects themselves, and
so successfully, that I believe, so far as the desirableness of this or
that method of ornamentation is to be measured by the fact of its simple
honesty or dishonesty, there is little need to add anything to what has
been already urged upon the subject. But there are some points connected
with the practice of imitating marble, which I have been unable to touch
upon until now, and by the consideration of which we may be enabled to
see something of the _policy_ of honesty in this matter, without in the
least abandoning the higher ground of principle.
§ XLI. Consider, then, first, what marble seems to have been made for.
Over the greater part of the surface of the world, we find that a rock
has been providentially distributed, in a manner particularly pointing
it out as intended for the service of man. Not altogether a common rock,
it is yet rare enough to command a certain degree of interest and
attention wherever it is found; but not so rare as to preclude its use
for any purpose to which it is fitted. It is exactly of the consistence
which is best adapted for sculpture: that is to say, neither hard nor
brittle, nor flaky nor splintery, but uniform, and delicately, yet not
ignobly, soft,--exactly soft enough to allow the sculptor to work it
without force, and trace on it the finest lines of finished form; and
yet so hard as never to betray the touch or moulder away beneath the
steel; and so admirably crystallized, and of such permanent elements,
that no rains dissolve it, no time changes it, no atmosphere decomposes
it: once shaped, it is shaped for ever, unless subjected to actual
violence or attrition. This rock, then, is prepared by Nature for the
sculptor and architect, just as paper is prepared by the manufacturer
for the artist, with as great--nay, with greater--care, and more perfect
adaptation of the material to the requirements. And of this marble
paper, some is white and some colored; but more is colored than white,
because the white is evidently meant for sculpture, and the colored for
the covering of large surfaces.
§ XLII. Now, if we would take Nature at her word, and use this precious
paper which she has taken so much care to provide for us (it is a long
process, the making of that paper; the pulp of it needing the subtlest
possible solution, and the pressing of it--for it is all
hot-pressed--having to be done under the saw, or under something at
least as heavy); if, I say, we use it as Nature would have us, consider
what advantages would follow. The colors of marble are mingled for us
just as if on a prepared palette. They are of all shades and hues
(except bad ones), some being united and even, some broken, mixed, and
interrupted, in order to supply, as far as possible, the want of the
painter's power of breaking and mingling the color with the brush. But
there is more in the colors than this delicacy of adaptation. There is
history in them. By the manner in which they are arranged in every piece
of marble, they record the means by which that marble has been produced,
and the successive changes through which it has passed. And in all their
veins and zones, and flame-like stainings, or broken and disconnected
lines, they write various legends, never untrue, of the former political
state of the mountain kingdom to which they belonged, of its infirmities
and fortitudes, convulsions and consolidations, from the beginning of
time.
Now, if we were never in the habit of seeing anything but real marbles,
this language of theirs would soon begin to be understood; that is to
say, even the least observant of us would recognize such and such stones
as forming a peculiar class, and would begin to inquire where they came
from, and, at last, take some feeble interest in the main question, Why
they were only to be found in that or the other place, and how they
came to make a part of this mountain, and not of that? And in a little
while, it would not be possible to stand for a moment at a shop door,
leaning against the pillars of it, without remembering or questioning of
something well worth the memory or the inquiry, touching the hills of
Italy, or Greece, or Africa, or Spain; and we should be led on from
knowledge to knowledge, until even the unsculptured walls of our streets
became to us volumes as precious as those of our libraries.
§ XLIII. But the moment we admit imitation of marble, this source of
knowledge is destroyed. None of us can be at the pains to go through the
work of verification. If we knew that every colored stone we saw was
natural, certain questions, conclusions, interests, would force
themselves upon us without any effort of our own; but we have none of us
time to stop in the midst of our daily business, to touch and pore over,
and decide with painful minuteness of investigation, whether such and
such a pillar be stucco or stone. And the whole field of this knowledge,
which Nature intended us to possess when we were children, is hopelessly
shut out from us. Worse than shut out, for the mass of coarse imitations
confuses our knowledge acquired from other sources; and our memory of
the marbles we have perhaps once or twice carefully examined, is
disturbed and distorted by the inaccuracy of the imitations which are
brought before us continually.
§ XLIV. But it will be said, that it is too expensive to employ real
marbles in ordinary cases. It may be so: yet not always more expensive
than the fitting windows with enormous plate glass, and decorating them
with elaborate stucco mouldings and other useless sources of expenditure
in modern building; nay, not always in the end more expensive than the
frequent repainting of the dingy pillars, which a little water dashed
against them would refresh from day to day, if they were of true stone.
But, granting that it be so, in that very costliness, checking their
common use in certain localities, is part of the interest of marbles,
considered as history. Where they are not found, Nature has supplied
other materials,--clay for brick, or forest for timber,--in the working
of which she intends other characters of the human mind to be developed,
and by the proper use of which certain local advantages will assuredly
be attained, while the delightfulness and meaning of the precious
marbles will be felt more forcibly in the districts where they occur, or
on the occasions when they may be procured.
§ XLV. It can hardly be necessary to add, that, as the imitation of
marbles interferes with and checks the knowledge of geography and
geology, so the imitation of wood interferes with that of botany; and
that our acquaintance with the nature, uses, and manner of growth of the
timber trees of our own and of foreign countries, would probably, in the
majority of cases, become accurate and extensive, without any labor or
sacrifice of time, were not all inquiry checked, and all observation
betrayed, by the wretched labors of the "Grainer."
§ XLVI. But this is not all. As the practice of imitation retards
knowledge, so also it retards art.
There is not a meaner occupation for the human mind than the imitation
of the stains and striæ of marble and wood. When engaged in any easy and
simple mechanical occupation, there is still some liberty for the mind
to leave the literal work; and the clash of the loom or the activity of
the fingers will not always prevent the thoughts from some happy
expatiation in their own domains. But the grainer must think of what he
is doing; and veritable attention and care, and occasionally
considerable skill, are consumed in the doing of a more absolute nothing
than I can name in any other department of painful idleness. I know not
anything so humiliating as to see a human being, with arms and limbs
complete, and apparently a head, and assuredly a soul, yet into the
hands of which when you have put a brush and pallet, it cannot do
anything with them but imitate a piece of wood. It cannot color, it has
no ideas of color; it cannot draw, it has no ideas of form; it cannot
caricature, it has no ideas of humor. It is incapable of anything beyond
knots. All its achievement, the entire result of the daily application
of its imagination and immortality, is to be such a piece of texture as
the sun and dew are sucking up out of the muddy ground, and weaving
together, far more finely, in millions of millions of growing branches,
over every rood of waste woodland and shady hill.
§ XLVII. But what is to be done, the reader asks, with men who are
capable of nothing else than this? Nay, they may be capable of
everything else, for all we know, and what we are to do with them I will
try to say in the next chapter; but meanwhile one word more touching the
higher principles of action in this matter, from which we have descended
to those of expediency. I trust that some day the language of Types will
be more read and understood by us than it has been for centuries; and
when this language, a better one than either Greek or Latin, is again
recognized amongst us, we shall find, or remember, that as the other
visible elements of the universe--its air, its water, and its flame--set
forth, in their pure energies, the life-giving, purifying, and
sanctifying influences of the Deity upon His creatures, so the earth, in
its purity, sets forth His eternity and His TRUTH. I have dwelt above on
the historical language of stones; let us not forget this, which is
their theological language; and, as we would not wantonly pollute the
fresh waters when they issue forth in their clear glory from the rock,
nor stay the mountain winds into pestilential stagnancy, nor mock the
sunbeams with artificial and ineffective light; so let us not by our own
base and barren falsehoods, replace the crystalline strength and burning
color of the earth from which we were born, and to which we must return;
the earth which, like our own bodies, though dust in its degradation, is
full of splendor when God's hand gathers its atoms; and which was for
ever sanctified by Him, as the symbol no less of His love than of His
truth, when He bade the high priest bear the names of the Children of
Israel on the clear stones of the Breastplate of Judgment.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] There is a curious instance of this in the modern imitations of
the Gothic capitals of the Casa d' Oro, employed in its
restorations. The old capitals look like clusters of leaves, the
modern ones like kneaded masses of dough with holes in them.
[2] Not that even these men were able to wear it altogether without
harm, as we shall see in the next chapter.
[3] Appendix 4, "Date of Palaces of Byzantine Renaissance."
[4] In the various works which Mr. Prout has written on light and
shade, no principle will be found insisted on more strongly than
this carrying of the dark into the light, and _vice versa_. It is
curious to find the untaught instinct of a merely picturesque artist
in the nineteenth century, fixing itself so intensely on a principle
which regulated the entire sacred composition of the thirteenth. I
say "untaught" instinct, for Mr. Prout was, throughout his life, the
discoverer of his own principles; fortunately so, considering what
principles were taught in his time, but unfortunately in the
abstract, for there were gifts in him, which, had there been any
wholesome influences to cherish them, might have made him one of the
greatest men of his age. He was great, under all adverse
circumstances, but the mere wreck of what he might have been, if,
after the rough training noticed in my pamphlet on Pre-Raphaelitism,
as having fitted him for his great function in the world, he had met
with a teacher who could have appreciated his powers, and directed
them.
[5] There may, however, be a kind of dishonesty even in the use of
marble, if it is attempted to make the marble look like something
else. See the final or Venetian Index under head "Scalzi."
[6] Appendix 5, "Renaissance Side of Ducal Palace."
[7] We have, as far as I _know_, at present among us, only one
painter, G. F. Watts, who is capable of design in color on a large
scale. He stands alone among our artists of the old school, in his
perception of the value of breadth in distant masses, and in the
vigor of invention by which such breadth must be sustained; and his
power of expression and depth of thought are not less remarkable
than his bold conception of color effect. Very probably some of the
Pre-Raphaelites have the gift also; I am nearly certain that Rosetti
has it, and I think also Millais; but the experiment has yet to be
tried. I wish it could be made in Mr. Hope's church in Margaret
Street.