On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 14

Very n.o.ble, and typical of the pure style.

(47.) _St. John Baptist and other Saints._ (Cima da Conegliano.)

Consummate work; but the photograph, though well taken, darkens it terribly.

(48.) _Meeting of Joachim and Anna._ (Vettor Carpaccio.) (Photograph.)

(49.) _Madonna and Saints._ (John Bellini.) Portrait. (Mantegna.) (Photographs.)

(50.) _Madonna._ (John Bellini.)

With Raphael's "Della Seggiola." Showing the first transition from the style of the "Masters" to that of modern times.

_The Photographs in the above series are all from the Pictures themselves._

CHRISTIAN ART AND SYMBOLISM.[15]

A PREFACE.

254. The writer of this book has long been my friend, and in the early days of friendship was my disciple.

But, of late, I have been his; for he has devoted himself earnestly to the study of forms of Christian Art which I had little opportunity of examining, and has been animated in that study by a brightness of enthusiasm which has been long impossible to me. Knowing this, and that he was able perfectly to fill what must otherwise have been a rudely bridged chasm in my teaching at Oxford, I begged him to give these lectures, and to arrange them for press. And this he has done to please me; and now that he has done it, I am, in one sense, anything but pleased: for I like his writing better than my own, and am more jealous of it than I thought it was in me to be of any good work--how much less of my friend's! I console myself by reflecting, or at least repeating to myself and endeavoring to think, that he could not have found out all this if I had not shown him the way. But most deeply and seriously I am thankful for such help, in a work far too great for my present strength; help all the more precious because my friend can bring to the investigation of early Christian Art, and its influence, the integrity and calmness of the faith in which it was wrought, happier than I in having been a personal comforter and helper of men, fulfilling his life in daily and unquestionable duty; while I have been, perhaps wrongly, always hesitatingly, persuading myself that it was my duty to do the things which pleased me.

255. Also, it has been necessary to much of my a.n.a.lytical work that I should regard the art of every nation as much as possible from their own natural point of view; and I have striven so earnestly to realize belief which I supposed to be false, and sentiment which was foreign to my temper, that at last I scarcely know how far I think with other people's minds, and see with anyone's eyes but my own. Even the effort to recover my temporarily waived conviction occasionally fails; and what was once secured to me becomes theoretical like the rest.

But my old scholar has been protected by his definitely directed life from the temptations of this speculative equity; and I believe his writings to contain the truest expression yet given in England of the feelings with which a Christian gentleman of sense and learning should regard the art produced in ancient days, by the dawn of the faiths which still guide his conduct and secure his peace.

256. On all the general principles of Art, Mr. Tyrwhitt and I are absolutely at one; but he has often the better of me in his acute personal knowledge of men and their ways. When we differ in our thoughts of things, it is because we know them on contrary sides; and often his side is that most naturally seen, and which it is most desirable to see.

There is one important matter, for instance, on which we are thus apparently at issue, and yet are not so in reality. These lectures show, throughout, the most beautiful and just reverence for Michael Angelo, and are of especial value in their account of him; while the last lecture on Sculpture,[16] which I gave at Oxford, is entirely devoted to examining the modes in which his genius failed, and perverted that of other men. But Michael Angelo is great enough to make praise and blame alike necessary, and alike inadequate, in any true record of him. My friend sees him as a traveler sees from a distance some n.o.ble mountain range, obscure in golden clouds and purple shade; and I see him as a sullen miner would the same mountains, wandering among their precipices through chill of storm and snow, and discerning that their strength was perilous and their substance sterile. Both of us see truly, both partially; the complete truth is the witness of both.

257. The notices of Holbein, and the English whom he painted (see especially the sketch of Sir Thomas Wyatt in the sixth lecture), are to my mind of singular value, and the tenor of the book throughout, as far as I can judge--for, as I said, much of it treats of subjects with which I am unfamiliar--so sound, and the feeling in it so warm and true, and true in the warmth of it, that it refreshes me like the sight of the things themselves it speaks of. New and vivid sight of them it will give to many readers; and to all who will regard my commendation I commend it; asking those who have hitherto credited my teaching to read these lectures as they would my own; and trusting that others, who have doubted me, will see reason to put faith in my friend.

PISA, _30th April, 1872._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: Preface to the above-named book, by the Rev. St. John Tyrwhitt. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1872.--ED.]

[Footnote 16: See Mr. Ruskin's pamphlet on "The Relation of Michael Angelo to Tintoret," being (although separately printed) the seventh lecture of the course (1872) published as _Aratra Pentelici_--ED.]

ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIaeVAL CHRISTENDOM.[17]

A PREFACE.

258. The number of British and American travelers who take unaffected interest in the early art of Europe is already large, and is daily increasing; daily also, as I thankfully perceive, feeling themselves more and more in need of a guidebook containing as much trustworthy indication as they can use of what they may most rationally spend their time in examining. The books of reference published by Mr. Murray, though of extreme value to travelers, who make it their object to see (in his, and their, sense of the word) whatever is to be seen, are of none whatever, or may perhaps be considered, justly, as even of quite the reverse of value, to travelers who wish to see only what they may in simplicity understand, and with pleasure remember; while the histories of art, and biographies of artists, to which the more earnest student in his novitiate must have recourse, are at once so voluminous, so vague, and so contradictory, that I cannot myself conceive his deriving any other benefit from their study than a deep conviction of the difficulty of the subject, and of the incert.i.tude of human opinions.

259. It seemed to me, on reading the essays collected in this volume, as they appeared in the periodical[18] for which they were written, that the author not only possessed herself a very true discernment of the qualities in mediaeval art which were justly deserving of praise, but had unusually clear understanding of the degree in which she might expect to cultivate such discernment in the general mind of polite travelers; nor have I less admired her apt.i.tude in collation of essentially ill.u.s.trative facts, so as to bring the history of a very widely contemplative range of art into tenable compa.s.s and very graceful and serviceable form. Her reading, indeed, has been, with respect to many very interesting periods of religious workmanship, much more extensive than my own; and when I consented to edit the volume of collected papers, it was not without the a.s.surance of considerable advantage to myself during the labor of revising them.

260. The revision, however, I am sorry to say, has been interrupted and imperfect, very necessarily the last from the ignorance I have just confessed of more than one segment of the great illuminated field of early religious art, to which the writer most wisely has directed equal and symmetrical attention, and interrupted partly under extreme pressure of other occupation, and partly in very fear of being tempted to oppress the serenity of the general prospect, which I think these essays are eminently calculated to open before an ingenious reader, with the stormy chiaroscuro of my own preference and reprobation. I leave the work, therefore, absolutely Miss Owen's, with occasional note of remonstrance, but without retouch, though it must be distinctly understood that when I allow my name to stand as the editor of a book, it is in no mere compliment (if my editorship could indeed be held as such) to the genius or merit of the author; but it means that I hold myself entirely responsible, in main points, for the accuracy of the views advanced, and that I wish the work to be received, by those who have confidence in my former teaching, as an extension and application of the parts of it which I have felt to be incomplete.

OXFORD, _November 27, 1875._

NOTE.--The "notes of remonstrance" or approbation scattered through the volume are not numerous. They are given below, preceded in each case by the (italicized) statement or expression: giving rise to them:--

(1) P. 73. "_The peculiar characteristic of the Byzantine churches is the dome._" "Form derived first from the Catacombs. See Lord Lindsay."

(2) P. 89. "_The octagon baptistry at Florence, ascribed to Lombard kings...._" "No; it is Etruscan work of pure descent."

(3) _Id._ "_S. Michele, of Pavia, pure Lombard of seventh century, rebuilt in tenth._" "Churches were often rebuilt with their original sculptures. I believe many in this church to be Lombard.

See next page."

(4) P. 95. "_The revolution begun by Rafaelle has ended in the vulgar painting, the sentimental prints, and the colored statuettes, which have made the religious art of the nineteenth century a by-word for its feebleness on the one side, its superst.i.tion on the other._" "Excellent; but my good scholar has not distinguished vulgar from non-vulgar naturalism. Perhaps she will as I read on."

[Compare the last note in the book, pp. 487-8, where Miss Owen's statement that "_the cause of Rafaelle's popularity ... has been that predominance of exaggerated dramatic representation, which in his pictures is visible above all moral and spiritual qualities,_"

is noted to be "Intensely and accurately true."]

(5) P. 108. "_It may be ... it is scarcely credible._" "What does it matter what may be or what is scarcely credible? I hope the reader will consider what a waste of time the thinking of things is when we can never rightly know them."

(6) P. 109. On the statement that "_no vital school of art has ever existed save as the expression of the vital and unquestioned faith of a people,_" followed by some remarks on external helps to devotion, there is a note at the word "people." "Down to this line this page is unquestionably and entirely true. I do not answer for the rest of the clause, but do not dispute it."

(7) P. 113. _S. Michele at Lucca._ "The church is now only a modern architect's copy."

(8) P. 129. "_There is a good model of this pulpit_" (Niccola's in the Pisan Baptistry) "_in the Kensington Museum, through which we may learn much of the rise of Gothic sculpture._" "You cannot do anything of the kind. Pisan sculpture can only be studied in the original marble; half its virtue is in the chiseling."

(9) P. 136. "_S. Donato's shrine_" (by Giovanni Picano) "_in Arezzo Cathedral is one of the finest monuments of the Pisan school._"

"No. He tried to be too fine, and overdid it. The work is merely acc.u.mulated commonplace."

(10) P. 170. On Giotto drawing without compa.s.ses a circle with a crayon, "_not a brush, with which, as Professor Ruskin explained, the feat would have been impossible. See 'Giotto and his Works in Padua.'_" "Don't; but practice with a camel's-hair brush till you can do it. I knew nothing of brush-work proper when I wrote that essay on Padua."

(11) P. 179. In the first of the bas-reliefs of Giotto's tower at Florence, "_Noah lies asleep, or, as Professor Ruskin maintains, drunk._" "I don't 'maintain' anything of the sort; I _know_ it. He is as drunk as a man can be, and the expression of drunkenness given with deliberate and intense skill, as on the angle of the Ducal Palace at Venice."

(12) P. 179. On Giotto's "_astronomy, figured by an old man_" on the same tower. "Above which are seen, by the astronomy of his heart, the heavenly host represented above the stars."

(13) P. 190. "_The Loggia dei Langi_" (at Florence) ... "_the round arches, new to those times ... See Vasari._" "Vasari is an a.s.s with precious things in his panniers; but you must not ask his opinion on any matter. The round arches new to those times had been the universal structure form in all Italy, Roman or Lombard, feebly and reluctantly pointed in the thirteenth century, and occasionally, as in the Campo Santo of Pisa, and Orcagna's own Or San Michele, standing within three hundred yards of the Loggia arches 'new to those times,' filled with tracery, itself composed of intersecting round arches. Now, it does not matter two soldi to the history of art who _built_, but who designed and carved the Loggia. It is out and out the grandest in Italy, and its archaic virtues themselves are impracticable and inconceivable. I don't vouch for its being Orcagna's, nor do I vouch for the Campo Santo frescoes being his. I have never specially studied him; nor do I know what men of might there were to work with or after him. But I know the Loggia to be mighty architecture of Orcagna's style and time, and the Last Judgment and Triumph of Death in the Campo Santo to be the sternest lessons written on the walls of Tuscany, and worth more study alone than English travelers usually give to Pisa, Lucca, Pistoja, and Florence altogether."

(14) P. 468. "_The Gothic style for churches never took root in Venice._" "Not quite correct. The Ducal Palace traceries are shown in the 'Stones of Venice' (vol. ii.) to have been founded on those of the Frari."

(15) P. 471. Mantegna. "_No feeling had he for vital beauty of human face, or the lower creatures of the earth._" To this Miss Owen adds in a note, "Professor Ruskin reminds me to notice here, in qualification, Mantegna's power of painting inanimate forms, as, _e. g._, in the trees and leaves of his Madonna of the National Gallery. 'He is,' says Professor Ruskin, 'the most wonderful leaf-painter of Lombardy.'"