No, only half wrong, but very fatally half wrong. There are Greeks, and
Greeks.
This head with the inlaid dark iris in its eyes, from the font of St.
John, is as pure as the sculpture of early Greece, a hundred years
before Phidias; and it is so delicate, that having drawn with equal care
this and the best work of the Lombardi at Venice (in the church of the
Miracoli), I found this to possess the more subtle qualities of design.
And yet, in the cloisters of St. John Lateran at Rome, you have Greek
work, if not contemporary with this at Pisa, yet occupying a parallel
place in the history of architecture, which is abortive, and monstrous
beyond the power of any words to describe. Vasari knew no difference
between these two kinds of Greek work. Nor do your modern architects.
To discern the difference between the sculpture of the font of Pisa, and
the spandrils of the Lateran cloister, requires thorough training of the
hand in the finest methods of draughtsmanship; and, secondly, trained
habit of reading the mythology and ethics of design. I simply assure you
of the fact at present; and if you work, you may have sight and sense of
it.
13. There are Greeks, and Greeks, then, in the twelfth century,
differing as much from each other as vice, in all ages, must differ from
virtue. But in Vasari's sight they are alike; in ours, they must be so,
as far as regards our present purpose. As men of a school, they are to
be summed under the general name of 'Byzantines;' their work all alike
showing specific characters of attenuate, rigid, and in many respects
offensively unbeautiful, design, to which Vasari's epithets of "goffa,
e sproporzionata" are naturally applied by all persons trained only in
modern principles. Under masters, then, of this Byzantine race, Niccola
is working at Pisa.
14. Among the spoils brought by her fleets from Greece, is a
sarcophagus, with Meleager's hunt on it, wrought "con bellissima
maniera," says Vasari.
You may see that sarcophagus--any of you who go to Pisa;--touch it, for
it is on a level with your hand; study it, as Niccola studied it, to
your mind's content. Within ten yards of it, stand equally accessible
pieces of Niccola's own work and of his son's. Within fifty yards of it,
stands the Byzantine font of the chapel of St. John. Spend but the good
hours of a single day quietly by these three pieces of marble, and you
may learn more than in general any of you bring home from an entire
tour in Italy. But how many of you ever yet went into that temple of St.
John, knowing what to look for; or spent as much time in the Campo Santo
of Pisa, as you do in Mr. Ryman's shop on a rainy day?
15. The sarcophagus is not, however, (with Vasari's pardon) in
'bellissima maniera' by any means. But it is in the classical Greek
manner instead of the Byzantine Greek manner. You have to learn the
difference between these.
Now I have explained to you sufficiently, in "Aratra Pentelici," what
the classical Greek manner is. The manner and matter of it being easily
summed--as those of natural and unaffected life;--nude life when nudity
is right and pure; not otherwise. To Niccola, the difference between
this natural Greek school, and the Byzantine, was as the difference
between the bull of Thurium and of Delhi, (see Plate 19 of "Aratra
Pentelici").
Instantly he followed the natural fact, and became the Father of
Sculpture to Italy.