OF THE TRUE IDEAL: THIRDLY, GROTESQUE.
Sec. 1. I have already, in the Stones of Venice, had occasion to
analyze, as far as I was able, the noble nature and power of
grotesque conception; I am not sorry occasionally to refer the
reader to that work, the fact being that it and this are parts of
one whole, divided merely as I had occasion to follow out one or
other of its branches; for I have always considered architecture as
an essential part of landscape; and I think the study of its best
styles and real meaning one of the necessary functions of the
landscape-painter; as, in like manner, the architect cannot be a
master-workman until all his designs are guided by understanding of
the wilder beauty of pure nature. But, be this as it may, the
discussion of the grotesque element belonged most properly to the
essay on architecture, in which that element must always find its
fullest development.
Sec. 2. The Grotesque is in that chapter[30] divided principally into
three kinds:
(A). Art arising from healthful but irrational play of the
imagination in times of rest.
(B). Art arising from irregular and accidental contemplation of
terrible things; or evil in general.
(C). Art arising from the confusion of the imagination by the
presence of truths which it cannot wholly grasp.
It is the central form of this art, arising from contemplation of
evil, which forms the link of connection between it and the
sensualist ideals, as pointed out above in the second paragraph of
the sixth chapter, the fact being that the imagination, when at
play, is curiously like bad children, and likes to play with fire;
in its entirely serious moods it dwells by preference on beautiful
and sacred images, but in its mocking or playful moods it is apt to
jest, sometimes bitterly, with undercurrent of sternest pathos,
sometimes waywardly, sometimes slightly and wickedly, with death and
sin; hence an enormous mass of grotesque art, some most noble and
useful, as Holbein's Dance of Death, and Albert Durer's Knight and
Death,[31] going down gradually through various conditions of less
and less seriousness into an art whose only end is that of mere
excitement, or amusement by terror, like a child making mouths at
another, more or less redeemed by the degree of wit or fancy in the
grimace it makes, as in the demons of Teniers and such others; and,
lower still, in the demonology of the stage.
Sec. 3. The form arising from an entirely healthful and open play of
the imagination, as in Shakspere's Ariel and Titania, and in Scott's
White Lady, is comparatively rare. It hardly ever is free from some
slight taint of the inclination to evil; still more rarely is it,
when so free, natural to the mind; for the moment we begin to
contemplate sinless beauty we are apt to get serious; and moral
fairy tales, and such other innocent work, are hardly ever truly,
that is to say, naturally imaginative; but for the most part
laborious inductions and compositions. The moment any real vitality
enters them, they are nearly sure to become satirical, or slightly
gloomy, and so connect themselves with the evil-enjoying branch.
Sec. 4. The third form of the Grotesque is a thoroughly noble one. It
is that which arises out of the use or fancy of tangible signs to
set forth an otherwise less expressible truth; including nearly the
whole range of symbolical and allegorical art and poetry. Its
nobleness has been sufficiently insisted upon in the place before
referred to. (Chapter on Grotesque Renaissance, Sec.Sec. LXIII. LXIV. &c.)
Of its practical use, especially in painting, deeply despised among
us, because grossly misunderstood, a few words must be added here.
A fine grotesque is the expression, in a moment, by a series of
symbols thrown together in bold and fearless connection, of truths
which it would have taken a long time to express in any verbal way,
and of which the connection is left for the beholder to work out
for himself; the gaps, left or overleaped by the haste of the
imagination, forming the grotesque character.
Sec. 5. For instance, Spenser desires to tell us, (1.) that envy is the
most untamable and unappeasable of the passions, not to be soothed
by any kindness; (2.) that with continual labor it invents evil
thoughts out of its own heart; (3.) that even in this, its power of
doing harm is partly hindered by the decaying and corrupting nature
of the evil it lives in; (4.) that it looks every way, and that
whatever it sees is altered and discolored by its own nature; (5.)
which discoloring, however, is to it a veil, or disgraceful dress,
in the sight of others; (6.) and that it never is free from the most
bitter suffering, (7.) which cramps all its acts and movements,
enfolding and crushing it while it torments. All this it has
required a somewhat long and languid sentence for me to say in
unsymbolical terms,--not, by the way, that they _are_ unsymbolical
altogether, for I have been forced, whether I would or not, to use
_some_ figurative words; but even with this help the sentence is
long and tiresome, and does not with any vigor represent the truth.
It would take some prolonged enforcement of each sentence to make it
felt, in ordinary ways of talking. But Spenser puts it all into a
grotesque, and it is done shortly and at once, so that we feel it
fully, and see it, and never forget it. I have numbered above the
statements which had to be made. I now number them with the same
numbers, as they occur in the several pieces of the grotesque:--
"And next to him malicious Envy rode
(1.) Upon a ravenous wolfe, and (2. 3.) still did chaw
Between his cankred[32] teeth a venemous tode
That all the poison ran about his jaw.
(4. 5.) All in a kirtle of discolourd say
He clothed was, y-paynted full of eies;
(6.) And in his bosome secretly there lay
An hatefull snake, the which his tail uptyes
(7.) In many folds, and mortall sting implyes."
There is the whole thing in nine lines; or, rather, in one image,
which will hardly occupy any room at all on the mind's shelves, but
can be lifted out, whole, whenever we want it. All noble grotesques
are concentrations of this kind, and the noblest convey truths
which nothing else could convey; and not only so, but convey them,
in minor cases with a delightfulness,--in the higher instances with
an awfulness,--which no mere utterance of the symbolised truth would
have possessed, but which belongs to the effort of the mind to
unweave the riddle, or to the sense it has of there being an
infinite power and meaning in the thing seen, beyond all that is
apparent therein, giving the highest sublimity even to the most
trivial object so presented and so contemplated.
"'Jeremiah, what seest thou?'
'I see a seething pot, and the face thereof is toward the north,
'Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the
inhabitants of the land.'"
And thus in all ages and among all nations, grotesque idealism has
been the element through which the most appalling and eventful truth
has been wisely conveyed, from the most sublime words of true
Revelation, to the [Greek: "all' hot' an Hemionos basileus,"] &c., of
the oracles, and the more or less doubtful teaching of dreams; and so
down to ordinary poetry. No element of imagination has a wider range,
a more magnificent use, or so colossal a grasp of sacred truth.
Sec. 6. How, then, is this noble power best to be employed in the art
of painting?
We hear it not unfrequently asserted that symbolism or
personification should not be introduced in painting at all. Such
assertions are in their grounds unintelligible, and in their
substance absurd. Whatever is in words described as visible, may
with all logical fitness[33] be rendered so by colors, and not only
is this a legitimate branch of ideal art, but I believe there is
hardly any other so widely useful and instructive; and I heartily
wish that every great allegory which the poets ever invented were
powerfully put on canvas, and easily accessible by all men, and that
our artists were perpetually exciting themselves to invent more. And
as far as authority bears on the question, the simple fact is that
allegorical painting has been the delight of the greatest men and of
the wisest multitudes, from the beginning of art, and will be till
art expires. Orcagua's Triumph of Death; Simon Memmi's frescoes in
the Spanish Chapel; Giotto's principal works at Assisi, and partly
at the Arena; Michael Angelo's two best statues, the Night and Day;
Albert Durer's noble Melancholy, and hundreds more of his best
works; a full third, I should think, of the works of Tintoret and
Veronese, and nearly as large a portion of those of Raphael and
Rubens, are entirely symbolical or personifiant; and, except in the
case of the last-named painter, are always among the most
interesting works the painters executed. The greater and more
thoughtful the artists, the more they delight in symbolism, and the
more fearlessly they employ it. Dead symbolism, second-hand
symbolism, pointless symbolism, are indeed objectionable enough; but
so are most other things that are dead, second-hand, and pointless.
It is also true that both symbolism and personification are somewhat
more apt than most things to have their edges taken off by too much
handling; and what with our modern Fames, Justices, and various
metaphorical ideals, largely used for signs and other such purposes,
there is some excuse for our not well knowing what the real power of
personification is. But that power is gigantic and inexhaustible,
and ever to be grasped with peculiar joy by the painter, because it
permits him to introduce picturesque elements and flights of fancy
into his work, which otherwise would be utterly inadmissible; to
bring the wild beasts of the desert into the room of state, fill the
air with inhabitants as well as the earth, and render the least
(visibly) interesting incidents themes for the most thrilling drama.
Even Tintoret might sometimes have been hard put to it, when he had
to fill a large panel in the Ducal Palace with the portrait of a
nowise interesting Doge, unless he had been able to lay a winged
lion beside him, ten feet long from the nose to the tail, asleep
upon the Turkey carpet; and Rubens could certainly have made his
flatteries of Mary of Medicis palatable to no one but herself,
without the help of rosy-cheeked goddesses of abundance, and
seven-headed hydras of rebellion.
Sec. 7. For observe, not only does the introduction of these imaginary
beings permit greater fantasticism of _incident_, but also infinite
fantasticism of _treatment_; and, I believe, so far from the pursuit
of the false ideal having in any wise exhausted the realms of
fantastic imagination, those realms have hardly yet been entered, and
that a universe of noble dream-land lies before us, yet to be
conquered. For, hitherto, when fantastic creatures have been
introduced, either the masters have been so realistic in temper that
they made the spirits as substantial as their figures of flesh and
blood,--as Rubens, and, for the most part, Tintoret; or else they have
been weak and unpractised in realization, and have painted transparent
or cloudy spirits because they had no power of painting grand ones.
But if a really great painter, thoroughly capable of giving
substantial truth, and master of the elements of pictorial effect
which have been developed by modern art, would solemnly, and yet
fearlessly, cast his fancy free in the spiritual world, and faithfully
follow out such masters of that world as Dante and Spenser, there
seems no limit to the splendor of thought which painting might
express. Consider, for instance, how the ordinary personifications of
Charity oscillate between the mere nurse of many children, of
Reynolds, and the somewhat painfully conceived figure with flames
issuing from the heart, of Giotto; and how much more significance
might be given to the representation of Love, by amplifying with
tenderness the thought of Dante, "Tanta rossa, che a pena fora dentro
al foco nota,"[34] that is to say, by representing the loveliness of
her face and form as all flushed with glow of crimson light, and, as
she descended through heaven, all its clouds colored by her presence
as they are by sunset. In the hands of a feeble painter, such an
attempt would end in mere caricature; but suppose it taken up by
Correggio, adding to his power of flesh-painting the (not
inconsistent) feeling of Angelico in design, and a portion of Turner's
knowledge of the clouds. There is nothing impossible in such a
conjunction as this. Correggio, trained in another school, might have
even himself shown some such extent of grasp; and in Turner's picture
of the dragon of the Hesperides, Jason, vignette to Voyage of Columbus
("Slowly along the evening sky they went"), and such others, as well
as in many of the works of Watts and Rosetti, is already visible, as I
trust, the dawn of a new era of art, in a true unison of the grotesque
with the realistic power.
Sec. 8. There is, however, unquestionably, a severe limit, in the case
of all inferior masters, to the degree in which they may venture to
realize grotesque conception, and partly, also, a limit in the
nature of the thing itself, there being many grotesque ideas which
may be with safety suggested dimly by words or slight lines, but
which will hardly bear being painted into perfect definiteness. It
is very difficult, in reasoning on this matter, to divest ourselves
of the prejudices which have been forced upon us by the base
grotesque of men like Bronzino, who, having no true imagination, are
apt, more than others, to try by startling realism to enforce the
monstrosity that has no terror in itself. But it is nevertheless
true, that, unless in the hands of the very greatest men, the
grotesque seems better to be expressed merely in line, or light and
shade, or mere abstract color, so as to mark it for a thought rather
than a substantial fact. Even if Albert Durer had perfectly painted
his Knight and Death, I question if we should feel it so great a
thought as we do in the dark engraving. Blake, perfectly powerful in
the etched grotesque of the book of Job, fails always more or less
as soon as he adds color; not merely for want of power (his eye for
color being naturally good), but because his subjects seem, in a
sort, insusceptible of completion; and the two inexpressibly noble
and pathetic woodcut grotesques of Alfred Rethel's, Death the
Avenger, and Death the Friend, could not, I think, but with
disadvantage, be advanced into pictorial color.
And what is thus doubtfully true of the pathetic grotesque, is
assuredly and always true of the jesting grotesque. So far as it
expresses any transient flash of wit or satire, the less labor of
line, or color, given to its expression the better; elaborate
jesting being always intensely painful.
Sec. 9. For these several reasons, it seems not only permissible, but
even desirable, that the art by which the grotesque is expressed
should be more or less imperfect, and this seems a most beneficial
ordinance as respects the human race in general. For the grotesque
being not only a most forceful instrument of teaching, but a most
natural manner of expression, springing as it does at once from any
tendency to playfulness in minds highly comprehensive of truth; and
being also one of the readiest ways in which such satire or wit as
may be possessed by men of any inferior rank of mind can be for
perpetuity expressed, it becomes on all grounds desirable that what
is suggested in times of play should be rightly sayable without
toil; and what occurs to men of inferior power or knowledge, sayable
without any high degree of skill. Hence it is an infinite good to
mankind when there is full acceptance of the grotesque, slightly
sketched or expressed; and, if field for such expression be frankly
granted, an enormous mass of intellectual power is turned to
everlasting use, which, in this present century of ours, evaporates
in street gibing or vain revelling; all the good wit and satire
expiring in daily talk, (like foam on wine,) which in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries had a permitted and useful expression in
the arts of sculpture and illumination, like foam fixed into
chalcedony. It is with a view (not the least important among many
others bearing upon art) to the reopening of this great field of
human intelligence, long entirely closed, that I am striving to
introduce Gothic architecture into daily domestic use; and to revive
the art of illumination, properly so called; not the art of
miniature-painting in books, or on vellum, which has ridiculously
been confused with it; but of making _writing_, simple writing,
beautiful to the eye, by investing it with the great chord of
perfect color, blue, purple, scarlet, white, and gold, and in that
chord of color, permitting the continual play of the fancy of the
writer in every species of grotesque imagination, carefully
excluding shadow; the distinctive difference between illumination
and painting proper, being, that illumination admits _no_ shadows,
but only gradations of pure color. And it is in this respect that
illumination is specially fitted for grotesque expression; for, when
I used the term "_pictorial_ color," just now, in speaking of the
completion of the grotesque of Death the Avenger, I meant to
distinguish such color from the abstract, shadeless hues which are
eminently fitted for grotesque thought. The requirement, respecting
the slighter grotesque, is only that it shall be _incompletely_
expressed. It may have light and shade without color (as in etching
and sculpture), or color without light and shade (illumination), but
must not, except in the hands of the greatest masters, have both.
And for some conditions of the playful grotesque, the abstract
color is a much more delightful element of expression than the
abstract light and shade.
Sec. 10. Such being the manifold and precious uses of the true
grotesque, it only remains for us to note carefully how it is to be
distinguished from the false and vicious grotesque which results
from idleness, instead of noble rest; from malice, instead of the
solemn contemplation of necessary evil; and from general degradation
of the human spirit, instead of its subjection, or confusion, by
thoughts too high for it. It is easy for the reader to conceive how
different the fruits of two such different states of mind _must_ be;
and yet how like in many respects, and apt to be mistaken, one for
the other;--how the jest which springs from mere fatuity, and vacant
want of penetration or purpose, is everlastingly, infinitely,
separated from, and yet may sometimes be mistaken for, the bright,
playful, fond, far-sighted jest of Plato, or the bitter, purposeful,
sorrowing jest of Aristophanes; how, again, the horror which springs
from guilty love of foulness and sin, may be often mistaken for the
inevitable horror which a great mind must sometimes feel in the full
and penetrative sense of their presence;--how, finally, the vague
and foolish inconsistencies of undisciplined dream or reverie may be
mistaken for the compelled inconsistencies of thoughts too great to
be well sustained, or clearly uttered. It is easy, I say, to
understand what a difference there must indeed be between these; and
yet how difficult it may be always to define it, or lay down laws
for the discovery of it, except by the just instinct of minds set
habitually in all things to discern right from wrong.
Sec. 11. Nevertheless, one good and characteristic instance may be of
service in marking the leading directions in which the contrast is
discernible. On the opposite page, Plate I., I have put, beside each
other, a piece of true grotesque, from the Lombard-Gothic, and of
false grotesque from classical (Roman) architecture. They are both
griffins; the one on the left carries on his back one of the main
pillars of the porch of the cathedral of Verona; the one on the
right is on the frieze of the temple of Antoninus and Faustina at
Rome, much celebrated by Renaissance and bad modern architects.
In some respects, however, this classical griffin deserves its
reputation. It is exceedingly fine in lines of composition, and, I
believe (I have not examined the original closely), very exquisite
in execution. For these reasons, it is all the better for our
purpose. I do not want to compare the worst false grotesque with the
best true, but rather, on the contrary, the best false with the
simplest true, in order to see how the delicately wrought lie fails
in the presence of the rough truth; for rough truth in the present
case it is, the Lombard sculpture being altogether untoward and
imperfect in execution.[35]
Sec. 12. "Well, but," the reader says, "what do you mean by calling
_either_ of them true? There never were such beasts in the world as
either of these?"
No, never: but the difference is, that the Lombard workman did
really see a griffin in his imagination, and carved it from the
life, meaning to declare to all ages that he had verily seen with
his immortal eyes such a griffin as that; but the classical workman
never saw a griffin at all, nor anything else; but put the whole
thing together by line and rule.
Sec. 13. "How do you know that?"
Very easily. Look at the two, and think over them. You know a
griffin is a beast composed of lion and eagle. The classical workman
set himself to fit these together in the most ornamental way
possible. He accordingly carves a sufficiently satisfactory lion's
body, then attaches very gracefully cut wings to the sides: then,
because he cannot get the eagle's head on the broad lion's
shoulders, fits the two together by something like a horse's neck
(some griffins being wholly composed of a horse and eagle), then,
finding the horse's neck look weak and unformidable, he strengthens
it by a series of bosses, like vertebrae, in front, and by a series
of spiny cusps, instead of a mane, on the ridge; next, not to lose
the whole leonine character about the neck, he gives a remnant of
the lion's beard, turned into a sort of griffin's whisker, and
nicely curled and pointed; then an eye, probably meant to look grand
and abstracted, and therefore neither lion's nor eagle's; and,
finally, an eagle's beak, very sufficiently studied from a real
one. The whole head being, it seems to him, still somewhat wanting
in weight and power, he brings forward the right wing behind it, so
as to enclose it with a broad line. This is the finest thing in the
composition, and very masterly, both in thought, and in choice of
the exactly right point where the lines of wing and beak should
intersect (and it may be noticed in passing, that all men, who can
compose at all, have this habit of encompassing or governing broken
lines with broad ones, wherever it is possible, of which we shall
see many instances hereafter). The whole griffin, thus gracefully
composed, being, nevertheless, when all is done, a very composed
griffin, is set to very quiet work, and raising his left foot, to
balance his right wing, sets it on the tendril of a flower so
lightly as not even to bend it down, though, in order to reach it,
his left leg is made half as long again as his right.
Sec. 14. We may be pretty sure, if the carver had ever seen a griffin,
he would have reported of him as doing something else than _that_
with his feet. Let us see what the Lombardic workman saw him doing.
Remember, first, the griffin, though part lion and part eagle, has
the united _power of both_. He is not merely a bit of lion and a bit
of eagle, but whole lion, incorporate with whole eagle. So when we
really see one, we may be quite sure we shall not find him wanting
in anything necessary to the might either of beast or bird.
Well, among things essential to the might of a lion, perhaps, on the
whole, the most essential are his _teeth_. He could get on pretty
well even without his claws, usually striking his prey down with a
blow, woundless; but he could by no means get on without his teeth.
Accordingly, we see that the real or Lombardic griffin has the
carnivorous teeth bare to the root, and the peculiar hanging of the
jaw at the back, which marks the flexible and gaping mouth of the
devouring tribes.
Again; among things essential to the might of an eagle, next to his
wings (which are of course prominent in both examples), are his
_claws_. It is no use his being able to tear anything with his beak,
if he cannot first hold it in his claws; he has comparatively no
leonine power of striking with his feet, but a magnificent power of
grip with them. Accordingly, we see that the real griffin, while his
feet are heavy enough to strike like a lion's, has them also
extended far enough to give them the eagle's grip with the back
claw; and has, moreover, some of the bird-like wrinkled skin over
the whole foot, marking this binding power the more; and that he has
besides verily got something to hold with his feet, other than a
flower, of which more presently.
Sec. 15. Now observe, the Lombardic workman did not do all this because
he had thought it out, as you and I are doing together; he never
thought a bit about it. He simply saw the beast; saw it as plainly
as you see the writing on this page, and of course could not be
wrong in anything he told us of it.
Well, what more does he tell us? Another thing, remember, essential
to an eagle is that it should fly _fast_. It is no use its having
wings at all if it is to be impeded in the use of them. Now it would
be difficult to impede him more thoroughly than by giving him two
cocked ears to catch the wind.
Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false griffin _has_ them
so set, and, consequently, as he flew, there would be a continual
humming of the wind on each side of his head, and he would have an
infallible earache when he got home. But the real griffin has his
ears flat to his head, and all the hair of them blown back, even to
a point, by his fast flying, and the aperture is downwards, that he
may hear anything going on upon the earth, where his prey is. In the
false griffin the aperture is upwards.
Sec. 16. Well, what more? As he is made up of the natures of lion and
eagle, we may be very certain that a real griffin is, on the whole,
fond of eating, and that his throat will look as if he occasionally
took rather large pieces, besides being flexible enough to let him
bend and stretch his head in every direction as he flies.
Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false one has got those
bosses upon his neck like vertebrae, which must be infinitely in his
way when he is swallowing, and which are evidently inseparable, so
that he cannot _stretch_ his neck any more than a horse. But the
real griffin is all loose about the neck, evidently being able to
make it almost as much longer as he likes; to stretch and bend it
anywhere, and swallow anything, besides having some of the grand
strength of the bull's dewlap in it when at rest.
Sec. 17. What more? Having both lion and eagle in him, it is probable
that the real griffin will have an infinite look of repose as well
as power of activity. One of the notablest things about a lion is
his magnificent _indolence_, his look of utter disdain of trouble
when there is no occasion for it; as, also, one of the notablest
things about an eagle is his look of inevitable vigilance, even when
quietest. Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false griffin
is quite sleepy and dead in the eye, thus contradicting his eagle's
nature, but is putting himself to a great deal of unnecessary
trouble with his paws, holding one in a most painful position merely
to touch a flower, and bearing the whole weight of his body on the
other, thus contradicting his lion's nature.
But the real griffin is primarily, with his eagle's nature, wide
awake; evidently quite ready for whatever may happen; and with his
lion's nature, laid all his length on his belly, prone and
ponderous; his two paws as simply put out before him as a drowsy
puppy's on a drawingroom hearth-rug; not but that he has got
something to do with them, worthy of such paws; but he takes not one
whit more trouble about it than is absolutely necessary. He has
merely got a poisonous winged dragon to hold, and for such a little
matter as that, he may as well do it lying down and at his ease,
looking out at the same time for any other piece of work in his way.
He takes the dragon by the middle, one paw under the wing, another
above, gathers him up into a knot, puts two or three of his claws
well into his back, crashing through the scales of it and wrinkling
all the flesh up from the wound, flattens him down against the
ground, and so lets him do what he likes. The dragon tries to bite
him, but can only bring his head round far enough to get hold of his
own wing, which he bites in agony instead; flapping the griffin's
dewlap with it, and wriggling his tail up against the griffin's
throat; the griffin being, as to these minor proceedings, entirely
indifferent, sure that the dragon's body cannot drag itself one
hair's breadth off those ghastly claws, and that its head can do no
harm but to itself.
Sec. 18. Now observe how in all this, through every separate part and
action of the creature, the imagination is _always_ right. It
evidently _cannot_ err; it meets every one of our requirements
respecting the griffin as simply as if it were gathering up the
bones of the real creature out of some ancient rock. It does not
itself know or care, any more than the peasant laboring with his
spade and axe, what is wanted to meet our theories or fancies. It
knows simply what is there, and brings out the positive creature,
errorless, unquestionable. So it is throughout art, and in all that
the imagination does; if anything be wrong it is not the
imagination's fault, but some inferior faculty's, which would have
its foolish say in the matter, and meddled with the imagination, and
said, the bones ought to be put together tail first, or upside down.
Sec. 19. This, however, we need not be amazed at, because the very
essence of the imagination is already defined to be the seeing to
the heart; and it is not therefore wonderful that it should never
err; but it is wonderful, on the other hand, how the composing
legalism does _nothing else_ than err. One would have thought that,
by mere chance, in this or the other element of griffin, the
griffin-composer might have struck out a truth; that he might have
had the luck to set the ears back, or to give some grasp to the
claw. But, no; from beginning to end it is evidently impossible for
him to be anything but wrong; his whole soul is instinct with lies;
no veracity can come within hail of him; to him, all regions of
right and life are for ever closed.
Sec. 20. And another notable point is, that while the imagination
receives truth in this simple way, it is all the while receiving
statutes of composition also, far more noble than those for the sake
of which the truth was lost by the legalist. The ornamental lines in
the classical griffin appear at first finer than in the other; but
they only appear so because they are more commonplace and more
palpable. The subtlety of the sweeping and rolling curves in the
real griffin, the way they waver and change and fold, down the neck,
and along the wing, and in and out among the serpent coils, is
incomparably grander, merely as grouping of ornamental line, than
anything in the other; nor is it fine as ornamental only, but as
massively useful, giving weight of stone enough to answer the
entire purpose of pedestal sculpture. Note, especially, the
insertion of the three plumes of the dragon's broken wing in the
outer angle, just under the large coil of his body; this filling of
the gap being one of the necessities, not of the pedestal block
merely, but a means of getting mass and breadth, which all composers
desire more or less, but which they seldom so perfectly accomplish.
So that taking the truth first, the honest imagination gains
everything; it has its griffinism, and grace, and usefulness, all at
once: but the false composer, caring for nothing but himself and his
rules, loses everything,--griffinism, grace, and all.
Sec. 21. I believe the reader will now sufficiently see how the terms
"true" and "false" are in the most accurate sense attachable to the
opposite branches of what might appear at first, in both cases, the
merest wildness of inconsistent reverie. But they are even to be
attached, in a deeper sense than that in which we have hitherto used
them, to these two compositions. For the imagination hardly ever
works in this intense way, unencumbered by the inferior faculties,
unless it be under the influence of some solemn purpose or
sentiment. And to all the falseness and all the verity of these two
ideal creatures this farther falsehood and verity have yet to be
added, that the classical griffin has, at least in this place, no
other intent than that of covering a level surface with entertaining
form; but the Lombardic griffin is a profound expression of the most
passionate symbolism. Under its eagle's wings are two wheels,[36]
which mark it as connected, in the mind of him who wrought it, with
the living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel: "When they went, the
wheels went by them, and whithersoever the spirit was to go, they
went, and the wheels were lifted up over against them, for the
spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels." Thus signed, the
winged shape becomes at once one of the acknowledged symbols of the
Divine power; and, in its unity of lion and eagle, the workman of
the middle ages always means to set forth the unity of the human and
divine natures,[37] In this unity it bears up the pillars of the
Church, set for ever as the corner stone. And the faithful and
true imagination beholds it, in this unity, with everlasting
vigilance and calm omnipotence, restrain the seed of the serpent
crushed upon the earth; leaving the head of it free, only for a
time, that it may inflict in its fury profounder destruction upon
itself,--in this also full of deep meaning. The Divine power does
not slay the evil creature. It wounds and restrains it only. Its
final and _deadly_ wound is inflicted by itself.
[Illustration: 1. True and False Griffins. Mediaeval. Classical.]
[30] On the Grotesque Renaissance, vol. iii.
[31] See Appendix I. Vol. IV. "Modern Grotesque."
[32] Cankred--because he cannot then bite hard.
[33] Though, perhaps, only in a subordinate degree. See farther
on, Sec. 8.
[34] "So red, that in the midst of the fire she could hardly have
been seen."
[35] If there be any inaccuracy in the right-hand griffin, I am
sorry, but am not answerable for it, as the plate has been
faithfully reduced from a large French lithograph, the best I
could find. The other is from a sketch of my own.
[36] At the extremities of the wings,--not seen in the plate.
[37] Compare the Purgatorio, canto xxix. &c.