and especially of human, form, originating with the Arabs and iconoclast
Greeks, had begun at any rate to direct the builders' minds to seek for
decorative materials in inferior types, and when diminished practice in
solid sculpture had rendered it more difficult to find artists capable
of satisfactorily reducing the high organisms to their elementary
outlines, the choice of subject for surface sculpture would be more and
more uninterruptedly directed to floral organisms, and human and animal
form would become diminished in size, frequency, and general importance.
So that, while in the Northern solid architecture we constantly find the
effect of its noblest features dependent on ranges of statues, often
colossal, and full of abstract interest, independent of their
architectural service, in the Southern incrusted style we must expect to
find the human form for the most part subordinate and diminutive, and
involved among designs of foliage and flowers, in the manner of which
endless examples had been furnished by the fantastic ornamentation of
the Romans, from which the incrusted style had been directly derived.
§ XL. Farther. In proportion to the degree in which his subject must be
reduced to abstract outline will be the tendency in the sculptor to
abandon naturalism of representation, and subordinate every form to
architectural service. Where the flower or animal can be hewn into bold
relief, there will always be a temptation to render the representation
of it more complete than is necessary, or even to introduce details and
intricacies inconsistent with simplicity of distant effect. Very often a
worse fault than this is committed; and in the endeavor to give vitality
to the stone, the original ornamental purpose of the design is
sacrificed or forgotten. But when nothing of this kind can be attempted,
and a slight outline is all that the sculptor can command, we may
anticipate that this outline will be composed with exquisite grace; and
that the richness of its ornamental arrangement will atone for the
feebleness of its power of portraiture. On the porch of a Northern
cathedral we may seek for the images of the flowers that grow in the
neighboring fields, and as we watch with wonder the grey stones that
fret themselves into thorns, and soften into blossoms, we may care
little that these knots of ornament, as we retire from them to
contemplate the whole building, appear unconsidered or confused. On the
incrusted building we must expect no such deception of the eye or
thoughts. It may sometimes be difficult to determine, from the
involutions of its linear sculpture, what were the natural forms which
originally suggested them: but we may confidently expect that the grace
of their arrangement will always be complete; that there will not be a
line in them which could be taken away without injury, nor one wanting
which could be added with advantage.
§ XLI. Farther. While the sculptures of the incrusted school will thus
be generally distinguished by care and purity rather than force, and
will be, for the most part, utterly wanting in depth of shadow, there
will be one means of obtaining darkness peculiarly simple and obvious,
and often in the sculptor's power. Wherever he can, without danger,
leave a hollow behind his covering slabs, or use them, like glass, to
fill an aperture in the wall, he can, by piercing them with holes,
obtain points or spaces of intense blackness to contrast with the light
tracing of the rest of his design. And we may expect to find this
artifice used the more extensively, because, while it will be an
effective means of ornamentation on the exterior of the building, it
will be also the safest way of admitting light to the interior, still
totally excluding both rain and wind. And it will naturally follow that
the architect, thus familiarized with the effect of black and sudden
points of shadow, will often seek to carry the same principle into other
portions of his ornamentation, and by deep drill-holes, or perhaps
inlaid portions of black color, to refresh the eye where it may be
wearied by the lightness of the general handling.
§ XLII. Farther. Exactly in proportion to the degree in which the force
of sculpture is subdued, will be the importance attached to color as a
means of effect or constituent of beauty. I have above stated that the
incrusted style was the only one in which perfect or permanent color
decoration was _possible_. It is also the only one in which a true
system of color decoration was ever likely to be invented. In order to
understand this, the reader must permit me to review with some care the
nature of the principles of coloring adopted by the Northern and
Southern nations.
§ XLIII. I believe that from the beginning of the world there has never
been a true or fine school of art in which color was despised. It has
often been imperfectly attained and injudiciously applied, but I believe
it to be one of the essential signs of life in a school of art, that it
loves color; and I know it to be one of the first signs of death in the
Renaissance schools, that they despised color.
Observe, it is not now the question whether our Northern cathedrals are
better with color or without. Perhaps the great monotone grey of Nature
and of Time is a better color than any that the human hand can give; but
that is nothing to our present business. The simple fact is, that the
builders of those cathedrals laid upon them the brightest colors they
could obtain, and that there is not, as far as I am aware, in Europe,
any monument of a truly noble school which has not been either painted
all over, or vigorously touched with paint, mosaic, and gilding in its
prominent parts. Thus far Egyptians, Greeks, Goths, Arabs, and mediæval
Christians all agree: none of them, when in their right senses, ever
think of doing without paint; and, therefore, when I said above that the
Venetians were the only people who had thoroughly sympathized with the
Arabs in this respect, I referred, first, to their intense love of
color, which led them to lavish the most expensive decorations on
ordinary dwelling-houses; and, secondly, to that perfection of the
color-instinct in them, which enabled them to render whatever they did,
in this kind, as just in principle as it was gorgeous in appliance. It
is this principle of theirs, as distinguished from that of the Northern
builders, which we have finally to examine.
§ XLIV. In the second chapter of the first volume, it was noticed that
the architect of Bourges Cathedral liked hawthorn, and that the porch of
his cathedral was therefore decorated with a rich wreath of it; but
another of the predilections of that architect was there unnoticed,
namely, that he did not at all like _grey_ hawthorn, but preferred it
green, and he painted it green accordingly, as bright as he could. The
color is still left in every sheltered interstice of the foliage. He
had, in fact, hardly the choice of any other color; he might have gilded
the thorns, by way of allegorizing human life, but if they were to be
painted at all, they could hardly be painted any tiling but green, and
green all over. People would have been apt to object to any pursuit of
abstract harmonies of color, which might have induced him to paint his
hawthorn blue.
§ XLV. In the same way, whenever the subject of the sculpture was
definite, its color was of necessity definite also; and, in the hands of
the Northern builders, it often became, in consequence, rather the means
of explaining and animating the stories of their stone-work, than a
matter of abstract decorative science. Flowers were painted red, trees
green, and faces flesh-color; the result of the whole being often far
more entertaining than beautiful. And also, though in the lines of the
mouldings and the decorations of shafts or vaults, a richer and more
abstract method of coloring was adopted (aided by the rapid development
of the best principles of color in early glass-painting), the vigorous
depths of shadow in the Northern sculpture confused the architect's eye,
compelling him to use violent colors in the recesses, if these were to
be seen as color at all, and thus injured his perception of more
delicate color harmonies; so that in innumerable instances it becomes
very disputable whether monuments even of the best times were improved
by the color bestowed upon them, or the contrary. But, in the South, the
flatness and comparatively vague forms of the sculpture, while they
appeared to call for color in order to enhance their interest, presented
exactly the conditions which would set it off to the greatest advantage;
breadth of surface displaying even the most delicate tints in the
lights, and faintness of shadow joining with the most delicate and
pearly greys of color harmony; while the subject of the design being in
nearly all cases reduced to mere intricacy of ornamental line, might be
colored in any way the architect chose without any loss of rationality.
Where oak-leaves and roses were carved into fresh relief and perfect
bloom, it was necessary to paint the one green and the other red; but in
portions of ornamentation where there was nothing which could be
definitely construed into either an oak-leaf or a rose, but a mere
labyrinth of beautiful lines, becoming here something like a leaf, and
there something like a flower, the whole tracery of the sculpture might
be left white, and grounded with gold or blue, or treated in any other
manner best harmonizing with the colors around it. And as the
necessarily feeble character of the sculpture called for and was ready
to display the best arrangements of color, so the precious marbles in
the architect's hands give him at once the best examples and the best
means of color. The best examples, for the tints of all natural stones
are as exquisite in quality as endless in change; and the best means,
for they are all permanent.
§ XLVI. Every motive thus concurred in urging him to the study of
chromatic decoration, and every advantage was given him in the pursuit
of it; and this at the very moment when, as presently to be noticed, the
_naïveté_ of barbaric Christianity could only be forcibly appealed to by
the help of colored pictures: so that, both externally and internally,
the architectural construction became partly merged in pictorial effect;
and the whole edifice is to be regarded less as a temple wherein to
pray, than as itself a Book of Common Prayer, a vast illuminated missal,
bound with alabaster instead of parchment, studded with porphyry pillars
instead of jewels, and written within and without in letters of enamel
and gold.
§ XLVII. LAW VII. _That the impression of the architecture is not to be
dependent on size._ And now there is but one final consequence to be
deduced. The reader understands, I trust, by this time, that the claims
of these several parts of the building upon his attention will depend
upon their delicacy of design, their perfection of color, their
preciousness of material, and their legendary interest. All these
qualities are independent of size, and partly even inconsistent with it.
Neither delicacy of surface sculpture, nor subtle gradations of color,
can be appreciated by the eye at a distance; and since we have seen that
our sculpture is generally to be only an inch or two in depth, and that
our coloring is in great part to be produced with the soft tints and
veins of natural stones, it will follow necessarily that none of the
parts of the building can be removed far from the eye, and therefore
that the whole mass of it cannot be large. It is not even desirable that
it should be so; for the temper in which the mind addresses itself to
contemplate minute and beautiful details is altogether different from
that in which it submits itself to vague impressions of space and size.
And therefore we must not be disappointed, but grateful, when we find
all the best work of the building concentrated within a space
comparatively small; and that, for the great cliff-like buttresses and
mighty piers of the North, shooting up into indiscernible height, we
have here low walls spread before us like the pages of a book, and
shafts whose capitals we may touch with our hand.
§ XLVIII. The due consideration of the principles above stated will
enable the traveller to judge with more candor and justice of the
architecture of St. Mark's than usually it would have been possible for
him to do while under the influence of the prejudices necessitated by
familiarity with the very different schools of Northern art. I wish it
were in my power to lay also before the general reader some
exemplification of the manner in which these strange principles are
developed in the lovely building. But exactly in proportion to the
nobility of any work, is the difficulty of conveying a just impression
of it; and wherever I have occasion to bestow high praise, there it is
exactly most dangerous for me to endeavor to illustrate my meaning,
except by reference to the work itself. And, in fact, the principal
reason why architectural criticism is at this day so far behind all
other, is the impossibility of illustrating the best architecture
faithfully. Of the various schools of painting, examples are accessible
to every one, and reference to the works themselves is found sufficient
for all purposes of criticism; but there is nothing like St. Mark's or
the Ducal Palace to be referred to in the National Gallery, and no
faithful illustration of them is possible on the scale of such a volume
as this. And it is exceedingly difficult on any scale. Nothing is so
rare in art, as far as my own experience goes, as a fair illustration of
architecture; _perfect_ illustration of it does not exist. For all good
architecture depends upon the adaptation of its chiselling to the effect
at a certain distance from the eye; and to render the peculiar confusion
in the midst of order, and uncertainty in the midst of decision, and
mystery in the midst of trenchant lines, which are the result of
distance, together with perfect expression of the peculiarities of the
design, requires the skill of the most admirable artist, devoted to the
work with the most severe conscientiousness, neither the skill nor the
determination having as yet been given to the subject. And in the
illustration of details, every building of any pretensions to high
architectural rank would require a volume of plates, and those finished
with extraordinary care. With respect to the two buildings which are the
principal subjects of the present volume, St. Mark's and the Ducal
Palace, I have found it quite impossible to do them the slightest
justice by any kind of portraiture; and I abandoned the endeavor in the
case of the latter with less regret, because in the new Crystal Palace
(as the poetical public insist upon calling it, though it is neither a
palace, nor of crystal) there will be placed, I believe, a noble cast of
one of its angles. As for St. Mark's, the effort was hopeless from the
beginning. For its effect depends not only upon the most delicate
sculpture in every part, but, as we have just stated, eminently on its
color also, and that the most subtle, variable, inexpressible color in
the world,--the color of glass, of transparent alabaster, of polished
marble, and lustrous gold. It would be easier to illustrate a crest of
Scottish mountain, with its purple heather and pale harebells at their
fullest and fairest, or a glade of Jura forest, with its floor of
anemone and moss, than a single portico of St. Mark's. The fragment of
one of its archivolts, given at the bottom of the opposite Plate, is not
to illustrate the thing itself, but to illustrate the impossibility of
illustration.
§ XLIX. It is left a fragment, in order to get it on a larger scale; and
yet even on this scale it is too small to show the sharp folds and
points of the marble vine-leaves with sufficient clearness. The ground
of it is gold, the sculpture in the spandrils is not more than an inch
and a half deep, rarely so much. It is in fact nothing more than an
exquisite sketching of outlines in marble, to about the same depth as in
the Elgin frieze; the draperies, however, being filled with close folds,
in the manner of the Byzantine pictures, folds especially necessary
here, as large masses could not be expressed in the shallow sculpture
without becoming insipid; but the disposition of these folds is always
most beautiful, and often opposed by broad and simple spaces, like that
obtained by the scroll in the hand of the prophet, seen in the plate.
[Illustration: Plate VI.
THE VINE TREE, AND IN SERVICE.]
The balls in the archivolt project considerably, and the interstices
between their interwoven bands of marble are filled with colors like the
illuminations of a manuscript; violet, crimson, blue, gold, and green
alternately: but no green is ever used without an intermixture of blue
pieces in the mosaic, nor any blue without a little centre of pale
green; sometimes only a single piece of glass a quarter of an inch
square, so subtle was the feeling for color which was thus to be
satisfied.[32] The intermediate circles have golden stars set on an
azure ground, varied in the same manner; and the small crosses seen in
the intervals are alternately blue and subdued scarlet, with two small
circles of white set in the golden ground above and beneath them, each
only about half an inch across (this work, remember, being on the
outside of the building, and twenty feet above the eye), while the blue
crosses have each a pale green centre. Of all this exquisitely
mingled hue, no plate, however large or expensive, could give any
adequate conception; but, if the reader will supply in imagination to
the engraving what he supplies to a common woodcut of a group of
flowers, the decision of the respective merits of modern and of
Byzantine architecture may be allowed to rest on this fragment of St.
Mark's alone.
From the vine-leaves of that archivolt, though there is no direct
imitation of nature in them, but on the contrary a studious subjection
to architectural purpose more particularly to be noticed hereafter, we
may yet receive the same kind of pleasure which we have in seeing true
vine-leaves and wreathed branches traced upon golden light; its stars
upon their azure ground ought to make us remember, as its builder
remembered, the stars that ascend and fall in the great arch of the sky:
and I believe that stars, and boughs, and leaves, and bright colors are
everlastingly lovely, and to be by all men beloved; and, moreover, that
church walls grimly seared with squared lines, are not better nor nobler
things than these. I believe the man who designed and the men who
delighted in that archivolt to have been wise, happy, and holy. Let the
reader look back to the archivolt I have already given out of the
streets of London (Plate XIII. Vol. I.), and see what there is in it to
make us any of the three. Let him remember that the men who design such
work as that call St. Mark's a barbaric monstrosity, and let him judge
between us.
§ L. Some farther details of the St. Mark's architecture, and especially
a general account of Byzantine capitals, and of the principal ones at
the angles of the church, will be found in the following chapter.[33]
Here I must pass on to the second part of our immediate subject, namely,
the inquiry how far the exquisite and varied ornament of St. Mark's fits
it, as a Temple, for its sacred purpose, and would be applicable in the
churches of modern times. We have here evidently two questions: the
first, that wide and continually agitated one, whether richness of
ornament be right in churches at all; the second, whether the ornament
of St. Mark's be of a truly ecclesiastical and Christian character.
§ LI. In the first chapter of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture" I
endeavored to lay before the reader some reasons why churches ought to
be richly adorned, as being the only places in which the desire of
offering a portion of all precious things to God could be legitimately
expressed. But I left wholly untouched the question: whether the church,
as such, stood in need of adornment, or would be better fitted for its
purposes by possessing it. This question I would now ask the reader to
deal with briefly and candidly.
The chief difficulty in deciding it has arisen from its being always
presented to us in an unfair form. It is asked of us, or we ask of
ourselves, whether the sensation which we now feel in passing from our
own modern dwelling-house, through a newly built street, into a
cathedral of the thirteenth century, be safe or desirable as a
preparation for public worship. But we never ask whether that sensation
was at all calculated upon by the builders of the cathedral.
§ LII. Now I do not say that the contrast of the ancient with the modern
building, and the strangeness with which the earlier architectural forms
fall upon the eye, are at this day disadvantageous. But I do say, that
their effect, whatever it may be, was entirely uncalculated upon by the
old builder. He endeavored to make his work beautiful, but never
expected it to be strange. And we incapacitate ourselves altogether from
fair judgment of its intention, if we forget that, when it was built, it
rose in the midst of other work fanciful and beautiful as itself; that
every dwelling-house in the middle ages was rich with the same ornaments
and quaint with the same grotesques which fretted the porches or
animated the gargoyles of the cathedral; that what we now regard with
doubt and wonder, as well as with delight, was then the natural
continuation, into the principal edifice of the city, of a style which
was familiar to every eye throughout all its lanes and streets; and that
the architect had often no more idea of producing a peculiarly
devotional impression by the richest color and the most elaborate
carving, than the builder of a modern meeting-house has by his
whitewashed walls and square-cut casements.[34]
§ LIII. Let the reader fix this great fact well in his mind, and then
follow out its important corollaries. We attach, in modern days, a kind
of sacredness to the pointed arch and the groined roof, because, while
we look habitually out of square windows and live under flat ceilings,
we meet with the more beautiful forms in the ruins of our abbeys. But
when those abbeys were built, the pointed arch was used for every shop
door, as well as for that of the cloister, and the feudal baron and
freebooter feasted, as the monk sang, under vaulted roofs; not because
the vaulting was thought especially appropriate to either the revel or
psalm, but because it was then the form in which a strong roof was
easiest built. We have destroyed the goodly architecture of our cities;
we have substituted one wholly devoid of beauty or meaning; and then we
reason respecting the strange effect upon our minds of the fragments
which, fortunately, we have left in our churches, as if those churches
had always been designed to stand out in strong relief from all the
buildings around them, and Gothic architecture had always been, what it
is now, a religious language, like Monkish Latin. Most readers know, if
they would arouse their knowledge, that this was not so; but they take
no pains to reason the matter out: they abandon themselves drowsily to
the impression that Gothic is a peculiarly ecclesiastical style; and
sometimes, even, that richness in church ornament is a condition or
furtherance of the Romish religion. Undoubtedly it has become so in
modern times: for there being no beauty in our recent architecture, and
much in the remains of the past, and these remains being almost
exclusively ecclesiastical, the High Church and Romanist parties have
not been slow in availing themselves of the natural instincts which were
deprived of all food except from this source; and have willingly
promulgated the theory, that because all the good architecture that is
now left is expressive of High Church or Romanist doctrines, all good
architecture ever has been and must be so,--a piece of absurdity from
which, though here and there a country clergyman may innocently believe
it, I hope the common sense of the nation will soon manfully quit
itself. It needs but little inquiry into the spirit of the past, to
ascertain what, once for all, I would desire here clearly and forcibly
to assert, that wherever Christian church architecture has been good and
lovely, it has been merely the perfect development of the common
dwelling-house architecture of the period; that when the pointed arch
was used in the street, it was used in the church; when the round arch
was used in the street, it was used in the church; when the pinnacle was
set over the garret window, it was set over the belfry tower; when the
flat roof was used for the drawing-room, it was used for the nave. There
is no sacredness in round arches, nor in pointed; none in pinnacles, nor
in buttresses; none in pillars, nor in traceries. Churches were larger
than most other buildings, because they had to hold more people; they
were more adorned than most other buildings, because they were safer
from violence, and were the fitting subjects of devotional offering: but
they were never built in any separate, mystical, and religious style;
they were built in the manner that was common and familiar to everybody
at the time. The flamboyant traceries that adorn the façade of Rouen
Cathedral had once their fellows in every window of every house in the
market-place; the sculptures that adorn the porches of St. Mark's had
once their match on the walls of every palace on the Grand Canal; and
the only difference between the church and the dwelling-house was, that
there existed a symbolical meaning in the distribution of the parts of
all buildings meant for worship, and that the painting or sculpture was,
in the one case, less frequently of profane subject than in the other. A
more severe distinction cannot be drawn: for secular history was
constantly introduced into church architecture; and sacred history or
allusion generally formed at least one half of the ornament of the
dwelling-house.
§ LIV. This fact is so important, and so little considered, that I must
be pardoned for dwelling upon it at some length, and accurately marking
the limits of the assertion I have made. I do not mean that every
dwelling-house of mediæval cities was as richly adorned and as exquisite
in composition as the fronts of their cathedrals, but that they
presented features of the same kind, often in parts quite as beautiful;
and that the churches were not separated by any change of style from the
buildings round them, as they are now, but were merely more finished and
full examples of a universal style, rising out of the confused streets
of the city as an oak tree does out of an oak copse, not differing in
leafage, but in size and symmetry. Of course the quainter and smaller
forms of turret and window necessary for domestic service, the inferior
materials, often wood instead of stone, and the fancy of the
inhabitants, which had free play in the design, introduced oddnesses,
vulgarities, and variations into house architecture, which were
prevented by the traditions, the wealth, and the skill of the monks and
freemasons; while, on the other hand, conditions of vaulting,
buttressing, and arch and tower building, were necessitated by the mere
size of the cathedral, of which it would be difficult to find examples
elsewhere. But there was nothing more in these features than the
adaptation of mechanical skill to vaster requirements; there was nothing
intended to be, or felt to be, especially ecclesiastical in any of the
forms so developed; and the inhabitants of every village and city, when
they furnished funds for the decoration of their church, desired merely
to adorn the house of God as they adorned their own, only a little more
richly, and with a somewhat graver temper in the subjects of the
carving. Even this last difference is not always clearly discernible:
all manner of ribaldry occurs in the details of the ecclesiastical
buildings of the North, and at the time when the best of them were
built, every man's house was a kind of temple; a figure of the Madonna,
or of Christ, almost always occupied a niche over the principal door,
and the Old Testament histories were curiously interpolated amidst the
grotesques of the brackets and the gables.
§ LV. And the reader will now perceive that the question respecting
fitness of church decoration rests in reality on totally different
grounds from those commonly made foundations of argument. So long as our
streets are walled with barren brick, and our eyes rest continually, in
our daily life, on objects utterly ugly, or of inconsistent and
meaningless design, it may be a doubtful question whether the faculties
of eye and mind which are capable of perceiving beauty, having been left
without food during the whole of our active life, should be suddenly
feasted upon entering a place of worship; and color, and music, and
sculpture should delight the senses, and stir the curiosity of men
unaccustomed to such appeal, at the moment when they are required to
compose themselves for acts of devotion;--this, I say, may be a doubtful
question: but it cannot be a question at all, that if once familiarized
with beautiful form and color, and accustomed to see in whatever human
hands have executed for us, even for the lowest services, evidence of
noble thought and admirable skill, we shall desire to see this evidence
also in whatever is built or labored for the house of prayer; that the
absence of the accustomed loveliness would disturb instead of assisting
devotion; and that we should feel it as vain to ask whether, with our
own house full of goodly craftsmanship, we should worship God in a house
destitute of it, as to ask whether a pilgrim whose day's journey had led
him through fair woods and by sweet waters, must at evening turn aside
into some barren place to pray.
§ LVI. Then the second question submitted to us, whether the ornament of
St. Mark's be truly ecclesiastical and Christian, is evidently
determined together with the first; for, if not only the permission of
ornament at all, but the beautiful execution of it, be dependent on our
being familiar with it in daily life, it will follow that no style of
noble architecture _can_ be exclusively ecclesiastical. It must be
practised in the dwelling before it be perfected in the church, and it
is the test of a noble style that it shall be applicable to both; for if
essentially false and ignoble, it may be made to fit the dwelling-house,
but never can be made to fit the church: and just as there are many
principles which will bear the light of the world's opinion, yet will
not bear the light of God's word, while all principles which will bear
the test of Scripture will also bear that of practice, so in
architecture there are many forms which expediency and convenience may
apparently justify, or at least render endurable, in daily use, which
will yet be found offensive the moment they are used for church service;
but there are none good for church service, which cannot bear daily use.
Thus the Renaissance manner of building is a convenient style for
dwelling-houses, but the natural sense of all religious men causes them
to turn from it with pain when it has been used in churches; and this
has given rise to the popular idea that the Roman style is good for
houses and the Gothic for churches. This is not so; the Roman style is
essentially base, and we can bear with it only so long as it gives us
convenient windows and spacious rooms; the moment the question of
convenience is set aside, and the expression or beauty of the style is
tried by its being used in a church, we find it fail. But because the
Gothic and Byzantine styles are fit for churches they are not therefore
less fit for dwellings. They are in the highest sense fit and good for
both, nor were they ever brought to perfection except where they were
used for both.
§ LVII. But there is one character of Byzantine work which, according to
the time at which it was employed, may be considered as either fitting
or unfitting it for distinctly ecclesiastical purposes; I mean the
essentially pictorial character of its decoration. We have already seen
what large surfaces it leaves void of bold architectural features, to be
rendered interesting merely by surface ornament or sculpture. In this
respect Byzantine work differs essentially from pure Gothic styles,
which are capable of filling every vacant space by features purely
architectural, and may be rendered, if we please, altogether independent
of pictorial aid. A Gothic church may be rendered impressive by mere
successions of arches, accumulations of niches, and entanglements of
tracery. But a Byzantine church requires expression and interesting
decoration over vast plane surfaces,--decoration which becomes noble
only by becoming pictorial; that is to say, by representing natural
objects,--men, animals, or flowers. And, therefore, the question whether
the Byzantine style be fit for church service in modern days, becomes
involved in the inquiry, what effect upon religion has been or may yet
be produced by pictorial art, and especially by the art of the
mosaicist?
§ LVIII. The more I have examined the subject the more dangerous I have
found it to dogmatize respecting the character of the art which is
likely, at a given period, to be most useful to the cause of religion.
One great fact first meets me. I cannot answer for the experience of
others, but I never yet met with a Christian whose heart was thoroughly
set upon the world to come, and, so far as human judgment could
pronounce, perfect and right before God, who cared about art at all. I
have known several very noble Christian men who loved it intensely, but
in them there was always traceable some entanglement of the thoughts
with the matters of this world, causing them to fall into strange
distresses and doubts, and often leading them into what they themselves
would confess to be errors in understanding, or even failures in duty. I
do not say that these men may not, many of them, be in very deed nobler
than those whose conduct is more consistent; they may be more tender in
the tone of all their feelings, and farther-sighted in soul, and for
that very reason exposed to greater trials and fears, than those whose
hardier frame and naturally narrower vision enable them with less effort
to give their hands to God and walk with Him. But still, the general
fact is indeed so, that I have never known a man who seemed altogether
right and calm in faith, who seriously cared about art; and when
casually moved by it, it is quite impossible to say beforehand by what
class of art this impression will on such men be made. Very often it is
by a theatrical commonplace, more frequently still by false sentiment. I
believe that the four painters who have had, and still have, the most
influence, such as it is, on the ordinary Protestant Christian mind, are
Carlo Dolci, Guercino, Benjamin West, and John Martin. Raphael, much as
he is talked about, is, I believe in very fact, rarely looked at by
religious people; much less his master, or any of the truly great
religious men of old. But a smooth Magdalen of Carlo Dolci with a tear
on each cheek, or a Guercino Christ or St. John, or a Scripture
illustration of West's, or a black cloud with a flash of lightning in it
of Martin's, rarely fails of being verily, often deeply, felt for the
time.
§ LIX. There are indeed many very evident reasons for this; the chief
one being that, as all truly great religious painters have been hearty
Romanists, there are none of their works which do not embody, in some
portions of them, definitely Romanist doctrines. The Protestant mind is
instantly struck by these, and offended by them, so as to be incapable
of entering, or at least rendered indisposed to enter, farther into the
heart of the work, or to the discovering those deeper characters of it,
which are not Romanist, but Christian, in the everlasting sense and
power of Christianity. Thus most Protestants, entering for the first
time a Paradise of Angelico, would be irrevocably offended by finding
that the first person the painter wished them to speak to was St.
Dominic; and would retire from such a heaven as speedily as
possible,--not giving themselves time to discover, that whether dressed
in black, or white, or grey, and by whatever name in the calendar they
might be called, the figures that filled that Angelico heaven were
indeed more saintly, and pure, and full of love in every feature, than
any that the human hand ever traced before or since. And thus
Protestantism, having foolishly sought for the little help it requires
at the hand of painting from the men who embodied no Catholic doctrine,
has been reduced to receive it from those who believed neither
Catholicism nor Protestantism, but who read the Bible in search of the
picturesque. We thus refuse to regard the painters who passed their
lives in prayer, but are perfectly ready to be taught by those who spent
them in debauchery. There is perhaps no more popular Protestant picture
than Salvator's "Witch of Endor," of which the subject was chosen by the
painter simply because, under the names of Saul and the Sorceress, he
could paint a captain of banditti, and a Neapolitan hag.
§ LX. The fact seems to be that strength of religious feeling is capable
of supplying for itself whatever is wanting in the rudest suggestions of
art, and will either, on the one hand, purify what is coarse into
inoffensiveness, or, on the other, raise what is feeble into
impressiveness. Probably all art, as such, is unsatisfactory to it; and
the effort which it makes to supply the void will be induced rather by
association and accident than by the real merit of the work submitted to
it. The likeness to a beloved friend, the correspondence with a habitual
conception, the freedom from any strange or offensive particularity,
and, above all, an interesting choice of incident, will win admiration
for a picture when the noblest efforts of religious imagination would
otherwise fail of power. How much more, when to the quick capacity of
emotion is joined a childish trust that the picture does indeed
represent a fact! it matters little whether the fact be well or ill
told; the moment we believe the picture to be true, we complain little
of its being ill-painted. Let it be considered for a moment, whether the
child, with its colored print, inquiring eagerly and gravely which is
Joseph, and which is Benjamin, is not more capable of receiving a
strong, even a sublime, impression from the rude symbol which it invests
with reality by its own effort, than the connoisseur who admires the
grouping of the three figures in Raphael's "Telling of the Dreams;" and
whether also, when the human mind is in right religious tone, it has not
always this childish power--I speak advisedly, this power--a noble one,
and possessed more in youth than at any period of after life, but
always, I think, restored in a measure by religion--of raising into
sublimity and reality the rudest symbol which is given to it of
accredited truth.
§ LXI. Ever since the period of the Renaissance, however, the truth has
not been accredited; the painter of religious subject is no longer
regarded as the narrator of a fact, but as the inventor of an idea.[35]
We do not severely criticise the manner in which a true history is
told, but we become harsh investigators of the faults of an invention;
so that in the modern religious mind, the capacity of emotion, which
renders judgment uncertain, is joined with an incredulity which renders
it severe; and this ignorant emotion, joined with ignorant observance of
faults, is the worst possible temper in which any art can be regarded,
but more especially sacred art. For as religious faith renders emotion
facile, so also it generally renders expression simple; that is to say a
truly religious painter will very often be ruder, quainter, simpler, and
more faulty in his manner of working, than a great irreligious one. And
it was in this artless utterance, and simple acceptance, on the part of
both the workman and the beholder, that all noble schools of art have
been cradled; it is in them that they _must_ be cradled to the end of
time. It is impossible to calculate the enormous loss of power in modern
days, owing to the imperative requirement that art shall be methodical
and learned: for as long as the constitution of this world remains
unaltered, there will be more intellect in it than there can be
education; there will be many men capable of just sensation and vivid
invention, who never will have time to cultivate or polish their natural
powers. And all unpolished power is in the present state of society
lost; in other things as well as in the arts, but in the arts
especially: nay, in nine cases out of ten, people mistake the polish for
the power. Until a man has passed through a course of academy
studentship, and can draw in an approved manner with French chalk, and
knows foreshortening, and perspective, and something of anatomy, we do
not think he can possibly be an artist; what is worse, we are very apt
to think that we can _make_ him an artist by teaching him anatomy, and
how to draw with French chalk; whereas the real gift in him is utterly
independent of all such accomplishments: and I believe there are many
peasants on every estate, and laborers in every town, of Europe, who
have imaginative powers of a high order, which nevertheless cannot be
used for our good, because we do not choose to look at anything but what
is expressed in a legal and scientific way. I believe there is many a
village mason who, set to carve a series of Scripture or any other
histories, would find many a strange and noble fancy in his head, and
set it down, roughly enough indeed, but in a way well worth our having.
But we are too grand to let him do this, or to set up his clumsy work
when it is done; and accordingly the poor stone-mason is kept hewing
stones smooth at the corners, and we build our church of the smooth
square stones, and consider ourselves wise.
§ LXII. I shall pursue this subject farther in another place; but I
allude to it here in order to meet the objections of those persons who
suppose the mosaics of St. Mark's, and others of the period, to be
utterly barbarous as representations of religious history. Let it be
granted that they are so; we are not for that reason to suppose they
were ineffective in religious teaching. I have above spoken of the whole
church as a great Book of Common Prayer; the mosaics were its
illuminations, and the common people of the time were taught their
Scripture history by means of them, more impressively perhaps, though
far less fully, than ours are now by Scripture reading. They had no
other Bible, and--Protestants do not often enough consider this--_could_
have no other. We find it somewhat difficult to furnish our poor with
printed Bibles; consider what the difficulty must have been when they
could be given only in manuscript. The walls of the church necessarily
became the poor man's Bible, and a picture was more easily read upon the
walls than a chapter. Under this view, and considering them merely as
the Bible pictures of a great nation in its youth, I shall finally
invite the reader to examine the connexion and subjects of these
mosaics; but in the meantime I have to deprecate the idea of their
execution being in any sense barbarous. I have conceded too much to
modern prejudice, in permitting them to be rated as mere childish
efforts at colored portraiture: they have characters in them of a very
noble kind; nor are they by any means devoid of the remains of the
science of the later Roman empire. The character of the features is
almost always fine, the expression stern and quiet, and very solemn, the
attitudes and draperies always majestic in the single figures, and in
those of the groups which are not in violent action;[36] while the
bright coloring and disregard of chiaroscuro cannot be regarded as
imperfections, since they are the only means by which the figures could
be rendered clearly intelligible in the distance and darkness of the
vaulting. So far am I from considering them barbarous, that I believe of
all works of religious art whatsoever, these, and such as these, have
been the most effective. They stand exactly midway between the debased
manufacture of wooden and waxen images which is the support of Romanist
idolatry all over the world, and the great art which leads the mind away
from the religious subject to the art itself. Respecting neither of
these branches of human skill is there, nor can there be, any question.
The manufacture of puppets, however influential on the Romanist mind of
Europe, is certainly not deserving of consideration as one of the fine
arts. It matters literally nothing to a Romanist what the image he
worships is like. Take the vilest doll that is screwed together in a
cheap toy-shop, trust it to the keeping of a large family of children,
let it be beaten about the house by them till it is reduced to a
shapeless block, then dress it in a satin frock and declare it to have
fallen from heaven, and it will satisfactorily answer all Romanist
purposes. Idolatry,[37] it cannot be too often repeated, is no
encourager of the fine arts. But, on the other hand, the highest
branches of the fine arts are no encouragers either of idolatry or of
religion. No picture of Leonardo's or Raphael's, no statue of Michael
Angelo's, has ever been worshipped, except by accident. Carelessly
regarded, and by ignorant persons, there is less to attract in them than
in commoner works. Carefully regarded, and by intelligent persons, they
instantly divert the mind from their subject to their art, so that
admiration takes the place of devotion. I do not say that the Madonna di
S. Sisto, the Madonna del Cardellino, and such others, have not had
considerable religious influence on certain minds, but I say that on the
mass of the people of Europe they have had none whatever; while by far
the greater number of the most celebrated statues and pictures are never
regarded with any other feelings than those of admiration of human
beauty, or reverence for human skill. Effective religious art,
therefore, has always lain, and I believe must always lie, between the
two extremes--of barbarous idol-fashioning on one side, and magnificent
craftsmanship on the other. It consists partly in missal painting, and
such book-illustrations as, since the invention of printing, have taken
its place; partly in glass-painting; partly in rude sculpture on the
outsides of buildings; partly in mosaics; and partly in the frescoes and
tempera pictures which, in the fourteenth century, formed the link
between this powerful, because imperfect, religious art, and the
impotent perfection which succeeded it.
§ LXIII. But of all these branches the most important are the inlaying
and mosaic of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, represented in a
central manner by these mosaics of St. Mark's. Missal-painting could
not, from its minuteness, produce the same sublime impressions, and
frequently merged itself in mere ornamentation of the page. Modern
book-illustration has been so little skilful as hardly to be worth
naming. Sculpture, though in some positions it becomes of great
importance, has always a tendency to lose itself in architectural
effect; and was probably seldom deciphered, in all its parts, by the
common people, still less the traditions annealed in the purple burning
of the painted window. Finally, tempera pictures and frescoes were often
of limited size or of feeble color. But the great mosaics of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries covered the walls and roofs of the churches
with inevitable lustre; they could not be ignored or escaped from; their
size rendered them majestic, their distance mysterious, their color
attractive. They did not pass into confused or inferior decorations;
neither were they adorned with any evidences of skill or science, such
as might withdraw the attention from their subjects. They were before
the eyes of the devotee at every interval of his worship; vast
shadowings forth of scenes to whose realization he looked forward, or of
spirits whose presence he invoked. And the man must be little capable of
receiving a religious impression of any kind, who, to this day, does not
acknowledge some feeling of awe, as he looks up at the pale countenances
and ghastly forms which haunt the dark roofs of the Baptisteries of
Parma and Florence, or remains altogether untouched by the majesty of
the colossal images of apostles, and of Him who sent apostles, that look
down from the darkening gold of the domes of Venice and Pisa.
§ LXIV. I shall, in a future portion of this work, endeavor to discover
what probabilities there are of our being able to use this kind of art
in modern churches; but at present it remains for us to follow out the
connexion of the subjects represented in St. Mark's so as to fulfil our
immediate object, and form an adequate conception of the feelings of its
builders, and of its uses to those for whom it was built.
Now there is one circumstance to which I must, in the outset, direct the
reader's special attention, as forming a notable distinction between
ancient and modern days. Our eyes are now familiar and wearied with
writing; and if an inscription is put upon a building, unless it be
large and clear, it is ten to one whether we ever trouble ourselves to
decipher it. But the old architect was sure of readers. He knew that
every one would be glad to decipher all that he wrote; that they would
rejoice in possessing the vaulted leaves of his stone manuscript; and
that the more he gave them, the more grateful would the people be. We
must take some pains, therefore, when we enter St. Mark's, to read all
that is inscribed, or we shall not penetrate into the feeling either of
the builder or of his times.
§ LXV. A large atrium or portico is attached to two sides of the church,
a space which was especially reserved for unbaptized persons and new
converts. It was thought right that, before their baptism, these persons
should be led to contemplate the great facts of the Old Testament
history; the history of the Fall of Man, and of the lives of Patriarchs
up to the period of the Covenant by Moses: the order of the subjects in
this series being very nearly the same as in many Northern churches, but
significantly closing with the Fall of the Manna, in order to mark to
the catechumen the insufficiency of the Mosaic covenant for
salvation,--"Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are
dead,"--and to turn his thoughts to the true Bread of which that manna
was the type.
§ LXVI. Then, when after his baptism he was permitted to enter the
church, over its main entrance he saw, on looking back, a mosaic of
Christ enthroned, with the Virgin on one side and St. Mark on the other,
in attitudes of adoration. Christ is represented as holding a book open
upon his knee, on which is written: "I AM THE DOOR; BY ME IF ANY MAN
ENTER IN, HE SHALL BE SAVED." On the red marble moulding which surrounds
the mosaic is written: "I AM THE GATE OF LIFE; LET THOSE WHO ARE MINE
ENTER BY ME." Above, on the red marble fillet which forms the cornice of
the west end of the church, is written, with reference to the figure of
Christ below: "WHO HE WAS, AND FROM WHOM HE CAME, AND AT WHAT PRICE HE
REDEEMED THEE, AND WHY HE MADE THEE, AND GAVE THEE ALL THINGS, DO THOU
CONSIDER."
Now observe, this was not to be seen and read only by the catechumen
when he first entered the church; every one who at any time entered, was
supposed to look back and to read this writing; their daily entrance
into the church was thus made a daily memorial of their first entrance
into the spiritual Church; and we shall find that the rest of the book
which was opened for them upon its walls continually led them in the
same manner to regard the visible temple as in every part a type of the
invisible Church of God.
§ LXVII. Therefore the mosaic of the first dome, which is over the head
of the spectator as soon as he has entered by the great door (that door
being the type of baptism), represents the effusion of the Holy Spirit,
as the first consequence and seal of the entrance into the Church of
God. In the centre of the cupola is the Dove, enthroned in the Greek
manner, as the Lamb is enthroned, when the Divinity of the Second and
Third Persons is to be insisted upon together with their peculiar
offices. From the central symbol of the Holy Spirit twelve streams of
fire descend upon the heads of the twelve apostles, who are represented
standing around the dome; and below them, between the windows which are
pierced in its walls, are represented, by groups of two figures for each
separate people, the various nations who heard the apostles speak, at
Pentecost, every man in his own tongue. Finally, on the vaults, at the
four angles which support the cupola, are pictured four angels, each
bearing a tablet upon the end of a rod in his hand: on each of the
tablets of the three first angels is inscribed the word "Holy;" on that
of the fourth is written "Lord;" and the beginning of the hymn being
thus put into the mouths of the four angels, the words of it are
continued around the border of the dome, uniting praise to God for the
gift of the Spirit, with welcome to the redeemed soul received into His
Church:
"HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD OF SABAOTH:
HEAVEN AND EARTH ARE FULL OF THY GLORY.
HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST:
BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD."
And observe in this writing that the convert is required to regard the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit especially as a work of _sanctification_.
It is the _holiness_ of God manifested in the giving of His Spirit to
sanctify those who had become His children, which the four angels
celebrate in their ceaseless praise; and it is on account of this
holiness that the heaven and earth are said to be full of His glory.
§ LXVIII. After thus hearing praise rendered to God by the angels for
the salvation of the newly-entered soul, it was thought fittest that the
worshipper should be led to contemplate, in the most comprehensive forms
possible, the past evidence and the future hopes of Christianity, as
summed up in three facts without assurance of which all faith is vain;
namely that Christ died, that He rose again, and that He ascended into
heaven, there to prepare a place for His elect. On the vault between the
first and second cupolas are represented the crucifixion and
resurrection of Christ, with the usual series of intermediate
scenes,--the treason of Judas, the judgment of Pilate, the crowning with
thorns, the descent into Hades, the visit of the women to the sepulchre,
and the apparition to Mary Magdalene. The second cupola itself, which is
the central and principal one of the church, is entirely occupied by the
subject of the Ascension. At the highest point of it Christ is
represented as rising into the blue heaven, borne up by four angels, and
throned upon a rainbow, the type of reconciliation. Beneath him, the
twelve apostles are seen upon the Mount of Olives, with the Madonna,
and, in the midst of them, the two men in white apparel who appeared at
the moment of the Ascension, above whom, as uttered by them, are
inscribed the words, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into
heaven? This Christ, the Son of God, as He is taken from you, shall so
come, the arbiter of the earth, trusted to do judgment and justice."
§ LXIX. Beneath the circle of the apostles, between the windows of the
cupola, are represented the Christian virtues, as sequent upon the
crucifixion of the flesh, and the spiritual ascension together with
Christ. Beneath them, on the vaults which support the angles of the
cupola, are placed the four Evangelists, because on their evidence our
assurance of the fact of the ascension rests; and, finally, beneath
their feet, as symbols of the sweetness and fulness of the Gospel which
they declared, are represented the four rivers of Paradise, Pison,
Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.
§ LXX. The third cupola, that over the altar, represents the witness of
the Old Testament to Christ; showing him enthroned in its centre, and
surrounded by the patriarchs and prophets. But this dome was little seen
by the people;[38] their contemplation was intended to be chiefly drawn to
that of the centre of the church, and thus the mind of the worshipper was
at once fixed on the main groundwork and hope of Christianity,--"Christ is
risen," and "Christ shall come." If he had time to explore the minor
lateral chapels and cupolas, he could find in them the whole series of
New Testament history, the events of the Life of Christ, and the
Apostolic miracles in their order, and finally the scenery of the Book
of Revelation;[39] but if he only entered, as often the common people do
to this hour, snatching a few moments before beginning the labor of the
day to offer up an ejaculatory prayer, and advanced but from the main
entrance as far as the altar screen, all the splendor of the glittering
nave and variegated dome, if they smote upon his heart, as they might
often, in strange contrast with his reed cabin among the shallows of the
lagoon, smote upon it only that they might proclaim the two great
messages--"Christ is risen," and "Christ shall come." Daily, as the
white cupolas rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the
shadowy campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the
night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph,--"Christ is risen;"
and daily, as they looked down upon the tumult of the people, deepening
and eddying in the wide square that opened from their feet to the sea,
they uttered above them the sentence of warning,--"Christ shall come."
§ LXXXI. And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look with
some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of
that shrine of St. Mark's. He now perceives that it was in the hearts of
the old Venetian people far more than a place of worship. It was at once
a type of the Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the written word
of God. It was to be to them, both an image of the Bride, all glorious
within, her clothing of wrought gold; and the actual Table of the Law
and the Testimony, written within and without. And whether honored as
the Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the gold nor
the crystal should be spared in the adornment of it; that, as the symbol
of the Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper,[40]
and the foundations of it garnished with all manner of precious stones;
and that, as the channel of the World, that triumphant utterance of the
Psalmist should be true of it,--"I have rejoiced in the way of thy
testimonies, as much as in all riches?" And shall we not look with
changed temper down the long perspective of St. Mark's Place towards the
sevenfold gates and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what
solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pavement of the
populous square? Men met there from all countries of the earth, for
traffic or for pleasure; but, above the crowd swaying for ever to and
fro in the restlessness of avarice or thirst of delight, was seen
perpetually the glory of the temple, attesting to them, whether they
would hear or whether they would forbear, that there was one treasure
which the merchantmen might buy without a price, and one delight better
than all others, in the word and the statutes of God. Not in the
wantonness of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the eyes or
the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into transparent strength,
and those arches arrayed in the colors of the iris. There is a message
written in the dyes of them, that once was written in blood; and a sound
in the echoes of their vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of
heaven,--"He shall return, to do judgment and justice." The strength of
Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this: her destruction
found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her irrevocably,
because she forgot it without excuse. Never had city a more glorious
Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture
filled their temples with confused and hardly legible imagery; but, for
her, the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter,
and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like
the star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of the people were
often in places withdrawn from religious association, subject to
violence and to change; and on the grass of the dangerous rampart, and
in the dust of the troubled street, there were deeds done and counsels
taken, which, if we cannot justify, we may sometimes forgive. But the
sins of Venice, whether in her palace or in her piazza, were done with
the Bible at her right hand. The walls on which its testimony was
written were separated but by a few inches of marble from those which
guarded the secrets of her councils, or confined the victims of her
policy. And when in her last hours she threw off all shame and all
restraint, and the great square of the city became filled with the
madness of the whole earth, be it remembered how much her sin was
greater, because it was done in the face of the House of God, burning
with the letters of His Law. Mountebank and masquer laughed their laugh,
and went their way; and a silence has followed them, not unforetold; for
amidst them all, through century after century of gathering vanity and
festering guilt, that white dome of St. Mark's had uttered in the dead
ear of Venice, "Know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee
into judgment."
FOOTNOTES
[19] Acts, xiii. 13; xv. 38, 39.
[20] The reader who desires to investigate it may consult Galliciolli,
"Delle Memorie Venete" (Venice, 1795), tom. ii. p. 332, and the
authorities quoted by him.
[21] Venice, 1761, tom. i. p. 126.
[22] St. Mark's Place, "partly covered by turf, and planted with a
few trees; and on account of its pleasant aspect called Brollo or
Broglio, that is to say, Garden." The canal passed through it, over
which is built the bridge of the Malpassi, Galliciolli, lib. i. cap.
viii.
[23] My authorities for this statement are given below, in the chapter
on the Ducal Palace.
[24] In the Chronicles, "Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappella."
[25] "To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the
Protector St. Mark."--_Corner_, p. 14. It is needless to trouble the
reader with the various authorities for the above statements: I have
consulted the best. The previous inscription once existing on the
church itself:
"Anno milleno transacto bisque trigeno
Desuper undecimo fuit facta primo,"
is no longer to be seen, and is conjectured by Corner, with much
probability, to have perished "in qualche ristauro."
[26] Signed Bartolomeus Bozza, 1634, 1647, 1656, &c.
[27] Guida di Venezia, p. 6.
[28] The mere warmth of St. Mark's in winter, which is much greater
than that of the other two churches above named, must, however, be
taken into consideration, as one of the most efficient causes of its
being then more frequented.
[29] I said above that the larger number of the devotees entered by
the "Arabian" porch; the porch, that is to say, on the north side of
the church, remarkable for its rich Arabian archivolt, and through
which access is gained immediately to the northern transept. The
reason is, that in that transept is the chapel of the Madonna, which
has a greater attraction for the Venetians than all the rest of the
church besides. The old builders kept their images of the Virgin
subordinate to those of Christ; but modern Romanism has retrograded
from theirs, and the most glittering portions of the whole church
are the two recesses behind this lateral altar, covered with silver
hearts dedicated to the Virgin.
[30] Vide "Builder," for October, 1851.
[31] "Quivi presso si vedi una colonna di tanta bellezza e finezza
che e riputato _piutosto gioia che pietra_."--_Sansovino_, of the
verd-antique pillar in San Jacomo dell' Orio. A remarkable piece of
natural history and moral philosophy, connected with this subject,
will be found in the second chapter of our third volume, quoted from
the work of a Florentine architect of the fifteenth century.
[32] The fact is, that no two tesseræ of the glass are exactly of
the same tint, the greens being all varied with blues, the blues of
different depths, the reds of different clearness, so that the
effect of each mass of color is full of variety, like the stippled
color of a fruit piece.
[33] Some illustration, also, of what was said in § XXXIII. above,
respecting the value of the shafts of St. Mark's as large jewels,
will be found in Appendix 9, "Shafts of St. Mark's."
[34] See the farther notice of this subject in Vol. III. Chap. IV.
[35] I do not mean that modern Christians believe less in the
_facts_ than ancient Christians, but they do not believe in the
representation of the facts as true. We look upon the picture as
this or that painter's conception; the elder Christians looked upon
it as this or that painter's description of what had actually taken
place. And in the Greek Church all painting is, to this day,
strictly a branch of tradition. See M. Dideron's admirably written
introduction to his Iconographie Chrétienne, p. 7:--"Un de mes
compagnons s'étonnait de retrouver à la Panagia de St. Luc, le saint
Jean Chrysostome qu'il avait dessiné dans le baptistère de St. Marc,
à Venise. Le costume des personnages est partout et en tout temps le
même, non-seulement pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour
le dessin, mais jusque pour le nombre et l'épaisseur des plis."
[36] All the effects of Byzantine art to represent violent action
are inadequate, most of them ludicrously so, even when the
sculptural art is in other respects far advanced. The early Gothic
sculptors, on the other hand, fail in all points of refinement, but
hardly ever in expression of action. This distinction is of course
one of the necessary consequences of the difference in all respects
between the repose of the Eastern, and activity of the Western,
mind, which we shall have to trace out completely in the inquiry
into the nature of Gothic.
[37] Appendix 10, "Proper Sense of the word Idolatry."
[38] It is also of inferior workmanship, and perhaps later than the
rest. Vide Lord Lindsay, vol. i. p. 124, note.
[39] The old mosaics from the Revelation have perished, and have been
replaced by miserable work of the seventeenth century.
[40] Rev. xxi. 18.