{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25897/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25897","id":"gutenberg_25897","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25897","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Art","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Sculpture"],"text":"Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLibrary Edition\n\nTHE COMPLETE WORKS\n\nOF\n\nJOHN RUSKIN\n\nCROWN OF WILD OLIVE\nTIME AND TIDE\nQUEEN OF THE AIR\nLECTURES ON ART AND LANDSCAPE\nARATRA PENTELICI\n\nNATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION\nNEW YORK       CHICAGO\n\n\n\n\nARATRA PENTELICI.\n\nSEVEN LECTURES\n\nON THE\n\nELEMENTS OF SCULPTURE,\n\nGIVEN BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN MICHAELMAS TERM, 1870.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                      PAGE\n\nPREFACE                                                  v\n\nLECTURE I.\nOF THE DIVISION OF ARTS                                  1\n\nLECTURE II.\nIDOLATRY                                                20\n\nLECTURE III.\nIMAGINATION                                             39\n\nLECTURE IV.\nLIKENESS                                                67\n\nLECTURE V.\nSTRUCTURE                                               90\n\nLECTURE VI.\nTHE SCHOOL OF ATHENS                                   114\n\nLECTURE VII.\nTHE RELATION BETWEEN MICHAEL ANGELO AND TINTORET       132\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF PLATES\n\n\n                                                          Facing Page\n\nI. Porch of San Zenone, Verona                                     14\n\nII. The Arethusa of Syracuse                                       15\n\nIII. The Warning to the Kings, San Zenone, Verona                  15\n\nIV. The Nativity of Athena                                         46\n\nV. Tomb of the Doges Jacopo and Lorenzo Tiepolo                    49\n\nVI. Archaic Athena of Athens and Corinth                           50\n\nVII. Archaic, Central and Declining Art of Greece                  72\n\nVIII. The Apollo of Syracuse, and the Self-made Man                84\n\nIX. Apollo Chrysocomes of Clazomenae                                85\n\nX. Marble Masonry in the Duomo of Verona                          100\n\nXI. The First Elements of Sculpture. Incised outline\n  and opened space                                                101\n\nXII. Branch of Phillyrea                                          109\n\nXIII. Greek Flat relief, and sculpture by edged incision          111\n\nXIV. Apollo and the Python. Heracles and the Nemean Lion          119\n\nXV. Hera of Argos. Zeus of Syracuse                               120\n\nXVI. Demeter of Messene. Hera of Cnossus                          121\n\nXVII. Athena of Thurium. Siren Ligeia of Terina                   121\n\nXVIII. Artemis of Syracuse. Hera of Lacinian Cape                 122\n\nXIX. Zeus of Messene. Ajax of Opus                                124\n\nXX. Greek and Barbarian Sculpture                                 127\n\nXXI. The Beginnings of Chivalry                                   129\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\n1. I must pray the readers of the following Lectures to remember that\nthe duty at present laid on me at Oxford is of an exceptionally complex\ncharacter. Directly, it is to awaken the interest of my pupils in a\nstudy which they have hitherto found unattractive, and imagined to be\nuseless; but more imperatively, it is to define the principles by which\nthe study itself should be guided; and to vindicate their security\nagainst the doubts with which frequent discussion has lately incumbered\na subject which all think themselves competent to discuss. The\npossibility of such vindication is, of course, implied in the original\nconsent of the Universities to the establishment of Art Professorships.\nNothing can be made an element of education of which it is impossible to\ndetermine whether it is ill done or well; and the clear assertion that\nthere is a canon law in formative Art is, at this time, a more important\nfunction of each University than the instruction of its younger members\nin any branch of practical skill. It matters comparatively little\nwhether few or many of our students learn to draw; but it matters much\nthat all who learn should be taught with accuracy. And the number who\nmay be justifiably advised to give any part of the time they spend at\ncollege to the study of painting or sculpture ought to depend, and\nfinally _must_ depend, on their being certified that painting and\nsculpture, no less than language, or than reasoning, have grammar and\nmethod,--that they permit a recognizable distinction between scholarship\nand ignorance, and enforce a constant distinction between Right and\nWrong.\n\n2. This opening course of Lectures on Sculpture is therefore restricted\nto the statement, not only of first principles, but of those which were\nillustrated by the practice of one school, and by that practice in its\nsimplest branch, the analysis of which could be certified by easily\naccessible examples, and aided by the indisputable evidence of\nphotography.[1]\n\nThe exclusion of the terminal Lecture[2] of the course from the series\nnow published, is in order to mark more definitely this limitation of my\nsubject; but in other respects the Lectures have been amplified in\narranging them for the press, and the portions of them trusted at the\ntime to extempore delivery (not through indolence, but because\nexplanations of detail are always most intelligible when most familiar)\nhave been in substance to the best of my power set down, and in what I\nsaid too imperfectly, completed.\n\n3. In one essential particular I have felt it necessary to write what I\nwould not have spoken. I had intended to make no reference, in my\nUniversity Lectures, to existing schools of Art, except in cases where\nit might be necessary to point out some undervalued excellence. The\nobjects specified in the eleventh paragraph of my inaugural Lecture[3]\nmight, I hoped, have been accomplished without reference to any works\ndeserving of blame; but the Exhibition of the Royal Academy in the\npresent year showed me a necessity of departing from my original\nintention. The task of impartial criticism[4] is now, unhappily, no\nlonger to rescue modest skill from neglect; but to withstand the errors\nof insolent genius, and abate the influence of plausible mediocrity.\n\nThe Exhibition of 1871 was very notable in this important particular,\nthat it embraced some representation of the modern schools of nearly\nevery country in Europe: and I am well assured that, looking back upon\nit after the excitement of that singular interest has passed away, every\nthoughtful judge of Art will confirm my assertion, that it contained not\na single picture of accomplished merit; while it contained many that\nwere disgraceful to Art, and some that were disgraceful to humanity.\n\n4. It becomes, under such circumstances, my inevitable duty to speak of\nthe existing conditions of Art with plainness enough to guard the youths\nwhose judgments I am intrusted to form, from being misled, either by\ntheir own naturally vivid interest in what represents, however\nunworthily, the scenes and persons of their own day, or by the cunningly\ndevised, and, without doubt, powerful allurements of Art which has long\nsince confessed itself to have no other object than to allure. I have,\ntherefore, added to the second of these Lectures such illustration of\nthe motives and course of modern industry as naturally arose out of its\nsubject; and shall continue in future to make similar applications;\nrarely indeed, permitting myself, in the Lectures actually read before\nthe University, to introduce, subjects of instant, and therefore too\nexciting, interest; but completing the addresses which I prepare for\npublication in these, and in any other, particulars, which may render\nthem more widely serviceable.\n\n5. The present course of Lectures will be followed, if I am able to\nfulfill the design of them, by one of a like elementary character on\nArchitecture; and that by a third series on Christian Sculpture: but, in\nthe meantime, my effort is to direct the attention of the resident\nstudents to Natural History, and to the higher branches of ideal\nLandscape: and it will be, I trust, accepted as sufficient reason for\nthe delay which has occurred in preparing the following sheets for the\npress, that I have not only been interrupted by a dangerous illness, but\nengaged, in what remained to me of the summer, in an endeavor to deduce,\nfrom the overwhelming complexity of modern classification in the Natural\nSciences, some forms capable of easier reference by Art students, to\nwhom the anatomy of brutal and floral nature is often no less important\nthan that of the human body.\n\nThe preparation of examples for manual practice, and the arrangement of\nstandards for reference, both in Painting and Sculpture, had to be\ncarried on, meanwhile, as I was able. For what has already been done,\nthe reader is referred to the \"Catalogue of the Educational Series,\"\npublished at the end of the Spring Term: of what remains to be done I\nwill make no anticipatory statement, being content to have ascribed to\nme rather the fault of narrowness in design, than of extravagance in\nexpectation.\n\n    DENMARK HILL,\n\n    _25th November, 1871._\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Photography cannot exhibit the character of large and finished\nsculpture; but its audacity of shadow is in perfect harmony with the\nmore roughly picturesque treatment necessary in coins. For the rendering\nof all such frank relief, and for the better explanation of forms\ndisturbed by the luster of metal or polished stone, the method employed\nin the plates of this volume will be found, I believe, satisfactory.\nCasts are first taken from the coins, in white plaster; these are\nphotographed, and the photograph printed by the autotype process. Plate\nXII. is exceptional, being a pure mezzotint engraving of the old school,\nexcellently carried through by my assistant, Mr. Allen, who was taught,\nas a personal favor to myself, by my friend, and Turner's fellow-worker,\nThomas Lupton. Plate IV. was intended to be a photograph from the superb\nvase in the British Museum, No. 564 in Mr. Newton's Catalogue; but its\nvariety of color defied photography, and after the sheets had gone to\npress I was compelled to reduce Le Normand's plate of it, which is\nunsatisfactory, but answers my immediate purpose.\n\nThe enlarged photographs for use in the Lecture Room were made for me\nwith most successful skill by Sergeant Spackman, of South Kensington;\nand the help throughout rendered to me by Mr. Burgess is acknowledged in\nthe course of the Lectures; though with thanks which must remain\ninadequate lest they should become tedious; for Mr. Burgess drew the\nsubjects of Plates III., X., and XIII.; and drew and engraved every\nwood-cut in the book.\n\n[2] It is included in this edition. See Lecture VII., pp. 132-158.\n\n[3] Lectures on Art, 1870.\n\n[4] A pamphlet by the Earl of Southesk, 'Britain's Art Paradise'\n(Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh), contains an entirely admirable\ncriticism of the most faultful pictures of the 1871 Exhibition. It is to\nbe regretted that Lord Southesk speaks only to condemn; but indeed, in\nmy own three days' review of the rooms, I found nothing deserving of\nnotice otherwise, except Mr. Hook's always pleasant sketches from\nfisher-life, and Mr. Pettie's graceful and powerful, though too slightly\npainted, study from Henry IV.\n\n\n\n\nARATRA PENTELICI.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I.\n\nOF THE DIVISION OF ARTS.\n\n_November, 1870._\n\n\n1. If, as is commonly believed, the subject of study which it is my\nspecial function to bring before you had no relation to the great\ninterests of mankind, I should have less courage in asking for your\nattention to-day, than when I first addressed you; though, even then, I\ndid not do so without painful diffidence. For at this moment, even\nsupposing that in other places it were possible for men to pursue their\nordinary avocations undisturbed by indignation or pity,--here, at least,\nin the midst of the deliberative and religious influences of England,\nonly one subject, I am well assured, can seriously occupy your\nthoughts--the necessity, namely, of determining how it has come to pass\nthat, in these recent days, iniquity the most reckless and monstrous can\nbe committed unanimously, by men more generous than ever yet in the\nworld's history were deceived into deeds of cruelty; and that prolonged\nagony of body and spirit, such as we should shrink from inflicting\nwillfully on a single criminal, has become the appointed and accepted\nportion of unnumbered multitudes of innocent persons, inhabiting the\ndistricts of the world which, of all others, as it seemed, were best\ninstructed in the laws of civilization, and most richly invested with\nthe honor, and indulged in the felicity, of peace.\n\nBelieve me, however, the subject of Art--instead of being foreign to\nthese deep questions of social duty and peril,--is so vitally connected\nwith them, that it would be impossible for me now to pursue the line of\nthought in which I began these lectures, because so ghastly an emphasis\nwould be given to every sentence by the force of passing events. It is\nwell, then, that in the plan I have laid down for your study, we shall\nnow be led into the examination of technical details, or abstract\nconditions of sentiment; so that the hours you spend with me may be\ntimes of repose from heavier thoughts. But it chances strangely that, in\nthis course of minutely detailed study, I have first to set before you\nthe most essential piece of human workmanship, the plow, at the very\nmoment when--(you may see the announcement in the journals either of\nyesterday or the day before)--the swords of your soldiers have been sent\nfor _to be sharpened_, and not at all to be beaten into plowshares. I\npermit myself, therefore, to remind you of the watchword of all my\nearnest writings--\"Soldiers of the Plowshare, instead of Soldiers of the\nSword,\"--and I know it my duty to assert to you that the work we enter\nupon to-day is no trivial one, but full of solemn hope; the hope,\nnamely, that among you there may be found men wise enough to lead the\nnational passions towards the arts of peace, instead of the arts of war.\n\nI say, the work \"we enter upon,\" because the first four lectures I gave\nin the spring were wholly prefatory; and the following three only\ndefined for you methods of practice. To-day we begin the systematic\nanalysis and progressive study of our subject.\n\n2. In general, the three great, or fine, Arts of Painting, Sculpture,\nand Architecture, are thought of as distinct from the lower and more\nmechanical formative arts, such as carpentry or pottery. But we cannot,\neither verbally, or with any practical advantage, admit such\nclassification. How are we to distinguish painting on canvas from\npainting on china?--or painting on china from painting on glass?--or\npainting on glass from infusion of color into any vitreous substance,\nsuch as enamel?--or the infusion of color into glass and enamel from\nthe infusion of color into wool or silk, and weaving of pictures in\ntapestry, or patterns in dress? You will find that although, in\nultimately accurate use of the word, painting must be held to mean only\nthe laying of a pigment on a surface with a soft instrument; yet, in\nbroad comparison of the functions of Art, we must conceive of one and\nthe same great artistic faculty, as governing _every mode of disposing\ncolors in a permanent relation on, or in, a solid substance_; whether it\nbe by tinting canvas, or dyeing stuffs; inlaying metals with fused\nflint, or coating walls with colored stone.\n\n3. Similarly, the word 'Sculpture,'--though in ultimate accuracy it is\nto be limited to the development of form in hard substances by cutting\naway portions of their mass--in broad definition, must be held to\nsignify _the reduction of any shapeless mass of solid matter into an\nintended shape_, whatever the consistence of the substance, or nature of\nthe instrument employed; whether we carve a granite mountain, or a piece\nof box-wood, and whether we use, for our forming instrument, ax, or\nhammer, or chisel, or our own hands, or water to soften, or fire to\nfuse;--whenever and however we bring a shapeless thing into shape, we do\nso under the laws of the one great art of Sculpture.\n\n4. Having thus broadly defined painting and sculpture, we shall see that\nthere is, in the third place, a class of work separated from both, in a\nspecific manner, and including a great group of arts which neither, of\nnecessity, _tint_, nor for the sake of form merely, _shape_ the\nsubstances they deal with; but construct or arrange them with a view to\nthe resistance of some external force. We construct, for instance, a\ntable with a flat top, and some support of prop, or leg, proportioned in\nstrength to such weights as the table is intended to carry. We construct\na ship out of planks, or plates of iron, with reference to certain\nforces of impact to be sustained, and of inertia to be overcome; or we\nconstruct a wall or roof with distinct reference to forces of pressure\nand oscillation, to be sustained or guarded against; and, therefore, in\nevery case, with especial consideration of the strength of our\nmaterials, and the nature of that strength, elastic, tenacious, brittle,\nand the like.\n\nNow although this group of arts nearly always involves the putting of\ntwo or more separate pieces together, we must not define it by that\naccident. The blade of an oar is not less formed with reference to\nexternal force than if it were made of many pieces; and the frame of a\nboat, whether hollowed out of a tree-trunk, or constructed of planks\nnailed together, is essentially the same piece of art; to be judged by\nits buoyancy and capacity of progression. Still, from the most wonderful\npiece of all architecture, the human skeleton, to this simple one,[5]\nthe plowshare, on which it depends for its subsistence, _the putting of\ntwo or more pieces together_ is curiously necessary to the perfectness\nof every fine instrument; and the peculiar mechanical work of\nDaedalus,--inlaying,--becomes all the more delightful to us in external\naspect, because, as in the jawbone of a Saurian, or the wood of a bow,\nit is essential to the finest capacities of tension and resistance.\n\n5. And observe how unbroken the ascent from this, the simplest\narchitecture, to the loftiest. The placing of the timbers in a ship's\nstem, and the laying of the stones in a bridge buttress, are similar in\nart to the construction of the plowshare, differing in no essential\npoint, either in that they deal with other materials, or because, of the\nthree things produced, one has to divide earth by advancing through it,\nanother to divide water by advancing through it, and the third to divide\nwater which advances against it. And again, the buttress of a bridge\ndiffers only from that of a cathedral in having less weight to sustain,\nand more to resist. We can find no term in the gradation, from the\nplowshare to the cathedral buttress, at which we can set a logical\ndistinction.\n\n6. Thus then we have simply three divisions of Art--one, that of giving\ncolors to substance; another, that of giving form to it without question\nof resistance to force; and the third, that of giving form or position\nwhich will make it capable of such resistance. All the fine arts are\nembraced under these three divisions. Do not think that it is only a\nlogical or scientific affectation to mass them together in this manner;\nit is, on the contrary, of the first practical importance to understand\nthat the painter's faculty, or masterhood over color, being as subtle as\na musician's over sound, must be looked to for the government of every\noperation in which color is employed; and that, in the same manner, the\nappliance of any art whatsoever to minor objects cannot be right, unless\nunder the direction of a true master of that art. Under the present\nsystem, you keep your Academician occupied only in producing tinted\npieces of canvas to be shown in frames, and smooth pieces of marble to\nbe placed in niches; while you expect your builder or constructor to\ndesign colored patterns in stone and brick, and your china-ware merchant\nto keep a separate body of workwomen who can paint china, but nothing\nelse. By this division of labor, you ruin all the arts at once. The work\nof the Academician becomes mean and effeminate, because he is not used\nto treat color on a grand scale and in rough materials; and your\nmanufactures become base, because no well-educated person sets hand to\nthem. And therefore it is necessary to understand, not merely as a\nlogical statement, but as a practical necessity, that wherever beautiful\ncolor is to be arranged, you need a Master of Painting; and wherever\nnoble form is to be given, a Master of Sculpture; and wherever complex\nmechanical force is to be resisted; a Master of Architecture.\n\n7. But over this triple division there must rule another yet more\nimportant. Any of these three arts may be either imitative of natural\nobjects or limited to useful appliance. You may either paint a picture\nthat represents a scene, or your street door, to keep it from rotting;\nyou may mold a statue, or a plate; build the resemblance of a cluster\nof lotus stalks, or only a square pier. Generally speaking, Painting\nand Sculpture will be imitative, and Architecture merely useful; but\nthere is a great deal of Sculpture--as this crystal ball,[6] for\ninstance, which is not imitative, and a great deal of architecture\nwhich, to some extent, is so, as the so-called foils of Gothic\napertures; and for many other reasons you will find it necessary to keep\ndistinction clear in your minds between the arts--of whatever\nkind--which are imitative, and produce a resemblance or image of\nsomething which is not present; and those which are limited to the\nproduction of some useful reality, as the blade of a knife, or the wall\nof a house. You will perceive also, as we advance, that sculpture and\npainting are indeed in this respect only one art; and that we shall have\nconstantly to speak and think of them as simply _graphic_, whether with\nchisel or color, their principal function being to make us, in the words\nof Aristotle, \"[Greek: theoretikoi tou peri somata kallous]\" (Polit. 8.\n3), \"having capacity and habit of contemplation of the beauty that is in\nmaterial things;\" while architecture, and its correlative arts, are to\nbe practiced under quite other conditions of sentiment.\n\n8. Now it is obvious that so far as the fine arts consist either in\nimitation or mechanical construction, the right judgment of them must\ndepend on our knowledge of the things they imitate, and forces they\nresist: and my function of teaching here would (for instance) so far\nresolve itself, either into demonstration that this painting of a\npeach[7] does resemble a peach, or explanation of the way in which this\nplowshare (for instance) is shaped so as to throw the earth aside with\nleast force of thrust. And in both of these methods of study, though of\ncourse your own diligence must be your chief master, to a certain extent\nyour Professor of Art can always guide you securely, and can show you,\neither that the image does truly resemble what it attempts to resemble,\nor that the structure is rightly prepared for the service it has to\nperform. But there is yet another virtue of fine art which is, perhaps,\nexactly that about which you will expect your Professor to teach you\nmost, and which, on the contrary, is exactly that about which you must\nteach yourselves all that it is essential to learn.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 1]\n\n9. I have here in my hand one of the simplest possible examples of the\nunion of the graphic and constructive powers,--one of my breakfast\nplates. Since all the finely architectural arts, we said, began in the\nshaping of the cup and the platter, we will begin, ourselves, with the\nplatter.\n\nWhy has it been made round? For two structural reasons: first, that the\ngreatest holding surface may be gathered into the smallest space; and\nsecondly, that in being pushed past other things on the table, it may\ncome into least contact with them.\n\nNext, why has it a rim? For two other structural reasons: first, that\nit is convenient to put salt or mustard upon; but secondly, and chiefly,\nthat the plate may be easily laid hold of. The rim is the simplest form\nof continuous handle.\n\nFarther, to keep it from soiling the cloth, it will be wise to put this\nridge beneath, round the bottom; for as the rim is the simplest possible\nform of continuous handle, so this is the simplest form of continuous\nleg. And we get the section given beneath the figure for the essential\none of a rightly made platter.\n\n10. Thus far our art has been strictly utilitarian, having respect to\nconditions of collision, of carriage, and of support. But now, on the\nsurface of our piece of pottery, here are various bands and spots of\ncolor which are presumably set there to make it pleasanter to the eye.\nSix of the spots, seen closely, you discover are intended to represent\nflowers. These then have as distinctly a graphic purpose as the other\nproperties of the plate have an architectural one, and the first\ncritical question we have to ask about them is, whether they are like\nroses or not. I will anticipate what I have to say in subsequent\nLectures so far as to assure you that, if they are to be like roses at\nall, the liker they can be, the better. Do not suppose, as many people\nwill tell you, that because this is a common manufactured article, your\nroses on it are the better for being ill-painted, or half-painted. If\nthey had been painted by the same hand that did this peach, the plate\nwould have been all the better for it; but, as it chanced, there was no\nhand such as William Hunt's to paint them, and their graphic power is\nnot distinguished. In any case, however, that graphic power must have\nbeen subordinate to their effect as pink spots, while the band of\ngreen-blue round the plate's edge, and the spots of gold, pretend to no\ngraphic power at all, but are meaningless spaces of color or metal.\nStill less have they any mechanical office: they add nowise to the\nserviceableness of the plate; and their agreeableness, if they possess\nany, depends, therefore, neither on any imitative, nor any structural,\ncharacter; but on some inherent pleasantness in themselves, either of\nmere colors to the eye, (as of taste to the tongue,) or in the placing\nof those colors in relations which obey some mental principle of order,\nor physical principle of harmony.\n\n11. These abstract relations and inherent pleasantnesses, whether in\nspace, number, or time, and whether of colors or sounds, form what we\nmay properly term the musical or harmonic element in every art; and the\nstudy of them is an entirely separate science. It is the branch of\nart-philosophy to which the word 'aesthetics' should be strictly limited,\nbeing the inquiry into the nature of things that in themselves are\npleasant to the human senses or instincts, though they represent\nnothing, and serve for nothing, their only service _being_ their\npleasantness. Thus it is the province of aesthetics to tell you, (if you\ndid not know it before,) that the taste and color of a peach are\npleasant, and to ascertain, if it be ascertainable, (and you have any\ncuriosity to know,) why they are so.\n\n12. The information would, I presume, to most of you, be gratuitous. If\nit were not, and you chanced to be in a sick state of body in which you\ndisliked peaches, it would be, for the time, to you false information,\nand, so far as it was true of other people, to you useless. Nearly the\nwhole study of aesthetics is in like manner either gratuitous or useless.\nEither you like the right things without being recommended to do so, or,\nif you dislike them, your mind cannot be changed by lectures on the laws\nof taste. You recollect the story of Thackeray, provoked, as he was\nhelping himself to strawberries, by a young coxcomb's telling him that\n\"he never took fruit or sweets.\" \"That,\" replied, or is said to have\nreplied, Thackeray, \"is because you are a sot, and a glutton.\" And the\nwhole science of aesthetics is, in the depth of it, expressed by one\npassage of Goethe's in the end of the second part of Faust;--the notable\none that follows the song of the Lemures, when the angels enter to\ndispute with the fiends for the soul of Faust. They enter\nsinging--\"Pardon to sinners and life to the dust.\" Mephistopheles hears\nthem first, and exclaims to his troop, \"Discord I hear, and filthy\njingling\"--\"Mis-toene hoere ich: garstiges Geklimper.\" This, you see, is\nthe extreme of bad taste in music. Presently the angelic host begin\nstrewing roses, which discomfits the diabolic crowd altogether.\nMephistopheles in vain calls to them--\"What do you duck and shrink\nfor--is that proper hellish behavior? Stand fast, and let them\nstrew\"--\"Was duckt und zuckt ihr; ist das Hellen-brauch? So haltet\nstand, und lasst sie streuen.\" There you have also, the extreme, of bad\ntaste in sight and smell. And in the whole passage is a brief embodiment\nfor you of the ultimate fact that all aesthetics depend on the health of\nsoul and body, and the proper exercise of both, not only through years,\nbut generations. Only by harmony of both collateral and successive lives\ncan the great doctrine of the Muses be received which enables men\n\"[Greek: chairein orthos],\"--\"to have pleasure rightly;\" and there is no\nother definition of the beautiful, nor of any subject of delight to the\naesthetic faculty, than that it is what one noble spirit has created,\nseen and felt by another of similar or equal nobility. So much as there\nis in you of ox, or of swine, perceives no beauty, and creates none:\nwhat is human in you, in exact proportion to the perfectness of its\nhumanity, can create it, and receive.\n\n13. Returning now to the very elementary form in which the appeal to our\naesthetic virtue is made in our breakfast-plate, you notice that there\nare two distinct kinds of pleasantness attempted. One by hues of color;\nthe other by proportions of space. I have called these the musical\nelements of the arts relating to sight; and there are indeed two\ncomplete sciences, one of the combinations of color, and the other of\nthe combinations of line and form, which might each of them separately\nengage us in as intricate study as that of the science of music. But of\nthe two, the science of color is, in the Greek sense, the more musical,\nbeing one of the divisions of the Apolline power; and it is so\npractically educational, that if we are not using the faculty for color\nto discipline nations, they will infallibly use it themselves as a means\nof corruption. Both music and color are naturally influences of peace;\nbut in the war trumpet, and the war shield, in the battle song and\nbattle standard, they have concentrated by beautiful imagination the\ncruel passions of men; and there is nothing in all the Divina Commedia\nof history more grotesque, yet more frightful, than the fact that, from\nthe almost fabulous period when the insanity and impiety of war wrote\nthemselves in the symbols of the shields of the Seven against Thebes,\ncolors have been the sign and stimulus of the most furious and fatal\npassions that have rent the nations: blue against green, in the decline\nof the Roman Empire; black against white, in that of Florence; red\nagainst white, in the wars of the Royal houses in England; and at this\nmoment, red against white, in the contest of anarchy and loyalty, in all\nthe world.\n\n14. On the other hand, the directly ethical influence of color in the\nsky, the trees, flowers, and colored creatures round us, and in our own\nvarious arts massed under the one name of painting, is so essential and\nconstant that we cease to recognize it, because we are never long enough\naltogether deprived of it to feel our need; and the mental diseases\ninduced by the influence of corrupt color are as little suspected, or\ntraced to their true source, as the bodily weaknesses resulting from\natmospheric miasmata.\n\n15. The second musical science which belongs peculiarly to sculpture,\n(and to painting, so far as it represents form,) consists in the\ndisposition of beautiful masses. That is to say, beautiful surfaces\nlimited by beautiful lines. Beautiful _surfaces_, observe; and remember\nwhat is noted in my Fourth Lecture of the difference between a space and\na mass. If you have at any time examined carefully, or practiced from,\nthe drawings of shells placed in your copying series, you cannot but\nhave felt the difference in the grace between the aspects of the same\nline, when inclosing a rounded or unrounded space. The exact science of\nsculpture is that of the relations between outline and the solid form it\nlimits; and it does not matter whether that relation be indicated by\ndrawing or carving, so long as the expression of solid form is the\nmental purpose; it is the science always of the beauty of relation in\nthree dimensions. To take the simplest possible line of continuous\nlimit--the circle: the flat disk inclosed by it may indeed be made an\nelement of decoration, though a very meager one; but its relative mass,\nthe ball, being gradated in three dimensions, is always delightful.\nHere[8] is at once the simplest, and, in mere patient mechanism, the\nmost skillful, piece of sculpture I can possibly show you,--a piece of\nthe purest rock-crystal, chiseled, (I believe, by mere toil of hand,)\ninto a perfect sphere. Imitating nothing, constructing nothing;\nsculpture for sculpture's sake of purest natural substance into simplest\nprimary form.\n\n16. Again. Out of the nacre of any mussel or oyster shell you might cut,\nat your pleasure, any quantity of small flat circular disks of the\nprettiest color and luster. To some extent, such tinsel or foil of shell\n_is_ used pleasantly for decoration. But the mussel or oyster becoming\nitself an unwilling modeler, agglutinates its juice into three\ndimensions, and the fact of the surface being now geometrically\ngradated, together with the savage instinct of attributing value to what\nis difficult to obtain, make the little boss so precious in men's sight,\nthat wise eagerness of search for the kingdom of heaven can be likened\nto their eagerness of search for _it_; and the gates of Paradise can be\nno otherwise rendered so fair to their poor intelligence, as by telling\nthem that every gate was of \"one pearl.\"\n\n17. But take note here. We have just seen that the sum of the perceptive\nfaculty is expressed in these words of Aristotle's, \"to take pleasure\nrightly\" or straightly--[Greek: chairein orthos]. Now, it is not\npossible to do the direct opposite of that,--to take pleasure\niniquitously or obliquely--[Greek: chairein adikos] or [Greek:\nskolios],--more than you do in enjoying a thing because your neighbor\ncannot get it. You may enjoy a thing legitimately because it is rare,\nand cannot be seen often (as you do a fine aurora, or a sunset, or an\nunusually lovely flower); that is Nature's way of stimulating your\nattention. But if you enjoy it because your neighbor cannot have\nit,--and, remember, all value attached to pearls more than glass beads,\nis merely and purely for that cause,--then you rejoice through the worst\nof idolatries, covetousness; and neither arithmetic, nor writing, nor\nany other so-called essential of education, is now so vitally necessary\nto the population of Europe, as such acquaintance with the principles of\nintrinsic value, as may result in the iconoclasm of jewelry; and in the\nclear understanding that we are not, in that instinct, civilized, but\nyet remain wholly savage, so far as we care for display of this selfish\nkind.\n\nYou think, perhaps, I am quitting my subject, and proceeding, as it is\ntoo often with appearance of justice alleged against me, into irrelevant\nmatter. Pardon me; the end, not only of these Lectures, but of my whole\nProfessorship, would be accomplished,--and far more than that,--if only\nthe English nation could be made to understand that the beauty which is\nindeed to be a joy forever, must be a joy for all; and that though the\nidolatry may not have been wholly divine which sculptured gods, the\nidolatry is wholly diabolic, which, for vulgar display, sculptures\ndiamonds.\n\n18. To go back to the point under discussion. A pearl, or a glass bead,\nmay owe its pleasantness in some degree to its luster as well as to its\nroundness. But a mere and simple ball of unpolished stone is enough for\nsculpturesque value. You may have noticed that the quatrefoil used in\nthe Ducal Palace of Venice owes its complete loveliness in distant\neffect to the finishing of its cusps. The extremity of the cusp is a\nmere ball of Istrian marble; and consider how subtle the faculty of\nsight must be, since it recognizes at any distance, and is gratified by,\nthe mystery of the termination of cusp obtained by the gradated light on\nthe ball.\n\nIn that Venetian tracery this simplest element of sculptured form is\nused sparingly, as the most precious that can be employed to finish the\nfacade. But alike in our own, and the French, central Gothic, the\nball-flower is lavished on every line--and in your St. Mary's spire, and\nthe Salisbury spire, and the towers of Notre Dame of Paris, the rich\npleasantness of decoration,--indeed, their so-called 'decorative\nstyle,'--consists only in being daintily beset with stone balls. It is\ntrue the balls are modified into dim likeness of flowers; but do you\ntrace the resemblance to the rose in their distant, which is their\nintended, effect?\n\n19. But, farther, let the ball have motion; then the form it generates\nwill be that of a cylinder. You have, perhaps, thought that pure early\nEnglish architecture depended for its charm on visibility of\nconstruction. It depends for its charm altogether on the abstract\nharmony of groups of cylinders,[9] arbitrarily bent into moldings, and\narbitrarily associated as shafts, having no _real_ relation to\nconstruction whatsoever, and a theoretical relation so subtle that none\nof us had seen it till Professor Willis worked it out for us.\n\n20. And now, proceeding to analysis of higher sculpture, you may have\nobserved the importance I have attached to the porch of San Zenone, at\nVerona, by making it, among your standards, the first of the group which\nis to illustrate the system of sculpture and architecture founded on\nfaith in a future life. That porch, fortunately represented in the\nphotograph, from which Plate I. has been engraved, under a clear and\npleasant light, furnishes you with examples of sculpture of every kind,\nfrom the flattest incised bas-relief to solid statues, both in marble\nand bronze. And the two points I have been pressing upon you are\nconclusively exhibited here, namely,--(1) that sculpture is essentially\nthe production of a pleasant bossiness or roundness of surface; (2) that\nthe pleasantness of that bossy condition to the eye is irrespective of\nimitation on one side, and of structure on the other.\n\n[Illustration: I.\n\nPORCH OF SAN ZENONE. VERONA.]\n\n[Illustration: II.\n\nTHE ARETHUSA OF SYRACUSE.]\n\n[Illustration: III.\n\nTHE WARNING TO THE KINGS\n\nSAN ZENONE. VERONA.]\n\n21. (1.) Sculpture is essentially the production of a pleasant bossiness\nor roundness of surface.\n\nIf you look from some distance at these two engravings of Greek coins,\n(place the book open, so that you can see the opposite plate three or\nfour yards off,) you will find the relief on each of them simplifies\nitself into a pearl-like portion of a sphere, with exquisitely gradated\nlight on its surface. When you look at them nearer, you will see that\neach smaller portion into which they are divided--cheek, or brow, or\nleaf, or tress of hair--resolves itself also into a rounded or undulated\nsurface, pleasant by gradation of light. Every several surface is\ndelightful in itself, as a shell, or a tuft of rounded moss, or the\nbossy masses of distant forest would be. That these intricately\nmodulated masses present some resemblance to a girl's face, such as the\nSyracusans imagined that of the water-goddess Arethusa, is entirely a\nsecondary matter; the primary condition is that the masses shall be\nbeautifully rounded, and disposed with due discretion and order.\n\n22. (2.) It is difficult for you, at first, to feel this order and\nbeauty of surface, apart from the imitation. But you can see there is a\npretty disposition of, and relation between, the projections of a\nfir-cone, though the studded spiral imitates nothing. Order exactly the\nsame in kind, only much more complex; and an abstract beauty of surface\nrendered definite by increase and decline of light--(for every curve of\nsurface has its own luminous law, and the light and shade on a parabolic\nsolid differs, specifically, from that on an elliptical or spherical\none)--it is the essential business of the sculptor to obtain; as it is\nthe essential business of a painter to get good color, whether he\nimitates anything or not. At a distance from the picture, or carving,\nwhere the things represented become absolutely unintelligible, we must\nyet be able to say, at a glance, \"That is good painting, or good\ncarving.\"\n\nAnd you will be surprised to find, when you try the experiment, how\nmuch the eye must instinctively judge in this manner. Take the front of\nSan Zenone, for instance, Plate I. You will find it impossible, without\na lens, to distinguish in the bronze gates, and in great part of the\nwall, anything that their bosses represent. You cannot tell whether the\nsculpture is of men, animals, or trees; only you feel it to be composed\nof pleasant projecting masses; you acknowledge that both gates and wall\nare, somehow, delightfully roughened; and only afterwards, by slow\ndegrees, can you make out what this roughness means; nay, though here\n(Plate III.) I magnify[10] one of the bronze plates of the gate to a\nscale, which gives you the same advantage as if you saw it quite close,\nin the reality,--you may still be obliged to me for the information that\n_this_ boss represents the Madonna asleep in her little bed; and this\nsmaller boss, the Infant Christ in His; and this at the top, a cloud\nwith an angel coming out of it; and these jagged bosses, two of the\nThree Kings, with their crowns on, looking up to the star, (which is\nintelligible enough, I admit); but what this straggling, three-legged\nboss beneath signifies, I suppose neither you nor I can tell, unless it\nbe the shepherd's dog, who has come suddenly upon the Kings with their\ncrowns on, and is greatly startled at them.\n\n23. Farther, and much more definitely, the pleasantness of the surface\ndecoration is independent of structure; that is to say, of any\narchitectural requirement of stability. The greater part of the\nsculpture here is exclusively ornamentation of a flat wall, or of\ndoor-paneling; only a small portion of the church front is thus treated,\nand the sculpture has no more to do with the form of the building than a\npiece of lace veil would have, suspended beside its gates on a festal\nday: the proportions of shaft and arch might be altered in a hundred\ndifferent ways without diminishing their stability; and the pillars\nwould stand more safely on the ground than on the backs of these carved\nanimals.\n\n24. I wish you especially to notice these points, because the false\ntheory that ornamentation should be merely decorated structure is so\npretty and plausible, that it is likely to take away your attention from\nthe far more important abstract conditions of design. Structure should\nnever be contradicted, and in the best buildings it is pleasantly\nexhibited and enforced: in this very porch the joints of every stone are\nvisible, and you will find me in the Fifth Lecture insisting on this\nclearness of its anatomy as a merit; yet so independent is the\nmechanical structure of the true design, that when I begin my Lectures\non Architecture, the first building I shall give you as a standard will\nbe one in which the structure is wholly concealed. It will be the\nBaptistery of Florence, which is, in reality, as much a buttressed\nchapel with a vaulted roof, as the Chapter House of York;--but round it,\nin order to conceal that buttressed structure, (not to decorate,\nobserve, but to _conceal_,) a flat external wall is raised; simplifying\nthe whole to a mere hexagonal box, like a wooden piece of Tunbridge\nware, on the surface of which the eye and intellect are to be interested\nby the relations of dimension and curve between pieces of incrusting\nmarble of different colors, which have no more to do with the real make\nof the building than the diaper of a Harlequin's jacket has to do with\nhis bones.\n\n25. The sense of abstract proportion, on which the enjoyment of such a\npiece of art entirely depends, is one of the aesthetic faculties which\nnothing can develop but time and education. It belongs only to highly\ntrained nations; and, among them, to their most strictly refined\nclasses, though the germs of it are found, as part of their innate\npower, in every people capable of art. It has for the most part vanished\nat present from the English mind, in consequence of our eager desire for\nexcitement, and for the kind of splendor that exhibits wealth, careless\nof dignity; so that, I suppose, there are very few now even of our best\ntrained Londoners who know the difference between the design of\nWhitehall and that of any modern club-house in Pall Mall. The order and\nharmony which, in his enthusiastic account of the Theater of Epidaurus,\nPausanias insists on before beauty, can only be recognized by stern\norder and harmony in our daily lives; and the perception of them is as\nlittle to be compelled, or taught suddenly, as the laws of still finer\nchoice in the conception of dramatic incident which regulate poetic\nsculpture.\n\n26. And now, at last, I think, we can sketch out the subject before us\nin a clear light. We have a structural art, divine and human, of which\nthe investigation comes under the general term Anatomy; whether the\njunctions or joints be in mountains, or in branches of trees, or in\nbuildings, or in bones of animals. We have next a musical art, falling\ninto two distinct divisions--one using colors, the other masses, for its\nelements of composition; lastly, we have an imitative art, concerned\nwith the representation of the outward appearances of things. And, for\nmany reasons, I think it best to begin with imitative Sculpture; that\nbeing defined as _the art which, by the musical disposition of masses,\nimitates anything of which the imitation is justly pleasant to us; and\ndoes so in accordance with structural laws having due reference to the\nmaterials employed_.\n\nSo that you see our task will involve the immediate inquiry what the\nthings are of which the imitation is justly pleasant to us: what, in few\nwords,--if we are to be occupied in the making of graven images,--we\nought to like to make images _of_. Secondly, after having determined its\nsubject, what degree of imitation or likeness we ought to desire in our\ngraven image; and, lastly, under what limitations demanded by structure\nand material, such likeness may be obtained.\n\nThese inquiries I shall endeavor to pursue with you to some practical\nconclusion, in my next four Lectures; and in the sixth, I will briefly\nsketch the actual facts that have taken place in the development of\nsculpture by the two greatest schools of it that hitherto have existed\nin the world.\n\n27. The tenor of our next Lecture, then, must be an inquiry into the\nreal nature of Idolatry; that is to say, the invention and service of\nIdols: and, in the interval, may I commend to your own thoughts this\nquestion, not wholly irrelevant, yet which I cannot pursue; namely,\nwhether the God to whom we have so habitually prayed for deliverance\n\"from battle, murder, and sudden death,\" _is_ indeed, seeing that the\npresent state of Christendom is the result of a thousand years' praying\nto that effect, \"as the gods of the heathen who were but idols;\" or\nwhether--(and observe, one or other of these things _must_ be\ntrue)--whether our prayers to Him have been, by this much, worse than\nIdolatry;--that heathen prayer was true prayer to false gods; and our\nprayers have been false prayers to the True One?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[5] I had a real plowshare on my lecture-table; but it would interrupt\nthe drift of the statements in the text too long if I attempted here to\nillustrate by figures the relation of the colter to the share, and of\nthe hard to the soft pieces of metal in the share itself.\n\n[6] A sphere of rock crystal, cut in Japan, enough imaginable by the\nreader, without a figure.\n\n[7] One of William Hunt's peaches; not, I am afraid, imaginable\naltogether, but still less representable by figure.\n\n[8] The crystal ball above mentioned.\n\n[9] All grandest effects in moldings may be, and for the most part have\nbeen, obtained by rolls and cavettos of circular (segmental) section.\nMore refined sections, as that of the fluting of a Doric shaft, are only\nof use near the eye and in beautiful stone; and the pursuit of them was\none of the many errors of later Gothic. The statement in the text that\nthe moldings, even of best time, \"have no real relation to\nconstruction,\" is scarcely strong enough: they in fact contend with, and\ndeny the construction, their principal purpose seeming to be the\nconcealment of the joints of the voussoirs.\n\n[10] Some of the most precious work done for me by my assistant, Mr.\nBurgess, during the course of these Lectures, consisted in making\nenlarged drawings from portions of photographs. Plate III. is engraved\nfrom a drawing of his, enlarged from the original photograph of which\nPlate I. is a reduction.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II.\n\nIDOLATRY.\n\n_November, 1870._\n\n\n28. Beginning with the simple conception of sculpture as the art of\nfiction in solid substance, we are now to consider what its subject\nshould be. What--having the gift of imagery--should we by preference\nendeavor to image? A question which is, indeed, subordinate to the\ndeeper one--why we should wish to image anything at all.\n\n29. Some years ago, having been always desirous that the education of\nwomen should begin in learning how to cook, I got leave, one day, for a\nlittle girl of eleven years old to exchange, much to her satisfaction,\nher schoolroom for the kitchen. But as ill-fortune would have it, there\nwas some pastry toward, and she was left unadvisedly in command of some\ndelicately rolled paste; whereof she made no pies, but an unlimited\nquantity of cats and mice.\n\nNow you may read the works of the gravest critics of art from end to\nend; but you will find, at last, they can give you no other true account\nof the spirit of sculpture than that it is an irresistible human\ninstinct for the making of cats and mice, and other imitable living\ncreatures, in such permanent form that one may play with the images at\nleisure.\n\nPlay with them, or love them, or fear them, or worship them. The cat may\nbecome the goddess Pasht, and the mouse, in the hand of a sculptured\nking, enforce his enduring words \"[Greek: es eme tis horeon eusebes\nesto]\"; but the great mimetic instinct underlies all such purpose; and\nis zooplastic,--life-shaping,--alike in the reverent and the impious.\n\n30. Is, I say, and has been, hitherto; none of us dare say that it will\nbe. I shall have to show you hereafter that the greater part of the\ntechnic energy of men, as yet, has indicated a kind of childhood; and\nthat the race becomes, if not more wise, at least more manly,[11] with\nevery gained century. I can fancy that all this sculpturing and painting\nof ours may be looked back upon, in some distant time, as a kind of\ndoll-making, and that the words of Sir Isaac Newton may be smiled at no\nmore: only it will not be for stars that we desert our stone dolls, but\nfor men. When the day comes, as come it must, in which we no more deface\nand defile God's image in living clay, I am not sure that we shall any\nof us care so much for the images made of Him, in burnt clay.\n\n31. But, hitherto, the energy of growth in any people may be almost\ndirectly measured by their passion for imitative art; namely, for\nsculpture, or for the drama, which is living and speaking sculpture, or,\nas in Greece, for both; and in national as in actual childhood, it is\nnot merely the _making_, but the _making-believe_; not merely the acting\nfor the sake of the scene, but acting for the sake of acting, that is\ndelightful. And, of the two mimetic arts, the drama, being more\npassionate, and involving conditions of greater excitement and luxury,\nis usually in its excellence the sign of culminating strength in the\npeople; while fine sculpture, requiring always submission to severe law,\nis an unfailing proof of their being in early and active progress.\n_There is no instance of fine sculpture being produced by a nation\neither torpid, weak, or in decadence._ Their drama may gain in grace and\nwit; but their sculpture, in days of decline, is _always_ base.\n\n32. If my little lady in the kitchen had been put in command of colors,\nas well as of dough, and if the paste would have taken the colors, we\nmay be sure her mice would have been painted brown, and her cats\ntortoiseshell; and this, partly indeed for the added delight and\nprettiness of color itself, but more for the sake of absolute\nrealization to her eyes and mind. Now all the early sculpture of the\nmost accomplished nations has been thus colored, rudely or finely; and\ntherefore you see at once how necessary it is that we should keep the\nterm 'graphic' for imitative art generally; since no separation can at\nfirst be made between carving and painting, with reference to the mental\npowers exerted in, or addressed by, them. In the earliest known art of\nthe world, a reindeer hunt may be scratched in outline on the flat side\nof a clean-picked bone, and a reindeer's head carved out of the end of\nit; both these are flint-knife work, and, strictly speaking, sculpture:\nbut the scratched outline is the beginning of drawing, and the carved\nhead of sculpture proper. When the spaces inclosed by the scratched\noutline are filled with color, the coloring soon becomes a principal\nmeans of effect; so that, in the engraving of an Egyptian-color\nbas-relief (S. 101), Rosellini has been content to miss the outlining\nincisions altogether, and represent it as a painting only. Its proper\ndefinition is, 'painting accented by sculpture;' on the other hand, in\nsolid colored statues,--Dresden china figures, for example,--we have\npretty sculpture accented by painting; the mental purpose in both kinds\nof art being to obtain the utmost degree of realization possible, and\nthe ocular impression being the same, whether the delineation is\nobtained by engraving or painting. For, as I pointed out to you in my\nFifth Lecture, everything is seen by the eye as patches of color, and of\ncolor only;--a fact which the Greeks knew well; so that when it becomes\na question in the dialogue of Minos, \"[Greek: tini onti te opsei horatai\nta horomena],\" the answer is \"[Greek: aisthesei taute te dia ton\nophthalmon delouse hemin ta chromata].\"--\"What kind of power is the\nsight with which we see things? It is that sense which, through the\neyes, can reveal _colors_ to us.\"\n\n33. And now observe that, while the graphic arts begin in the mere\nmimetic effort, they proceed, as they obtain more perfect realization,\nto act under the influence of a stronger and higher instinct. They begin\nby scratching the reindeer, the most interesting object of sight. But\npresently, as the human creature rises in scale of intellect, it\nproceeds to scratch, not the most interesting object of sight only, but\nthe most interesting object of imagination; not the reindeer, but the\nMaker and Giver of the reindeer. And the second great condition for the\nadvance of the art of sculpture is that the race should possess, in\naddition to the mimetic instinct, the realistic or idolizing instinct;\nthe desire to see as substantial the powers that are unseen, and bring\nnear those that are far off, and to possess and cherish those that are\nstrange. To make in some way tangible and visible the nature of the\ngods--to illustrate and explain it by symbols; to bring the immortals\nout of the recesses of the clouds, and make them Penates; to bring back\nthe dead from darkness, and make them Lares.\n\n34. Our conception of this tremendous and universal human passion has\nbeen altogether narrowed by the current idea that Pagan religious art\nconsisted only, or chiefly, in giving personality to the gods. The\npersonality was never doubted; it was visibility, interpretation, and\npossession that the hearts of men sought. Possession, first of all--the\ngetting hold of some hewn log of wild olive-wood that would fall on its\nknees if it was pulled from its pedestal--and, afterwards, slowly\nclearing manifestation; the exactly right expression is used in Lucian's\ndream,--[Greek: Pheidias edeixe ton Dia]; \"Showed[12] Zeus;\" manifested\nhim; nay, in a certain sense, brought forth, or created, as you have it,\nin Anacreon's ode to the Rose, of the birth of Athena herself,--\n\n    [Greek: polemoklonon t' Athenen\n    koryphes edeiknye Zeus.]\n\nBut I will translate the passage from Lucian to you at length--it is in\nevery way profitable.\n\n35. \"There came to me, in the healing[13] night, a divine dream, so\nclear that it missed nothing of the truth itself; yes, and still after\nall this time, the shapes of what I saw remain in my sight, and the\nsound of what I heard dwells in my ears\"--(note the lovely sense of\n[Greek: enaulos]--the sound being as of a stream passing always by in\nthe same channel)--\"so distinct was everything to me. Two women laid\nhold of my hands and pulled me, each towards herself, so violently, that\nI had like to have been pulled asunder; and they cried out against one\nanother,--the one, that she resolved to have me to herself, being indeed\nher own; and the other, that it was vain for her to claim what belonged\nto others;--and the one who first claimed me for her own was like a hard\nworker, and had strength as a man's; and her hair was dusty, and her\nhand full of horny places, and her dress fastened tight about her, and\nthe folds of it loaded with white marble-dust, so that she looked just\nas my uncle used to look when he was filing stones: but the other was\npleasant in features, and delicate in form, and orderly in her dress;\nand so, in the end, they left it to me to decide, after hearing what\nthey had to say, with which of them I would go; and first the\nhard-featured and masculine one spoke:--\n\n36. \"'Dear child, I am the Art of Image-sculpture, which yesterday you\nbegan to learn; and I am as one of your own people, and of your house,\nfor your grandfather' (and she named my mother's father) 'was a\nstone-cutter; and both your uncles had good name through me: and if you\nwill keep yourself well clear of the sillinesses and fluent follies that\ncome from this creature,' (and she pointed to the other woman,) 'and\nwill follow me, and live with me, first of all, you shall be brought up\nas a man should be, and have strong shoulders; and, besides that, you\nshall be kept well quit of all restless desires, and you shall never be\nobliged to go away into any foreign places, leaving your own country and\nthe people of your house; _neither shall all men praise you for your\ntalk_.[14] And you must not despise this rude serviceableness of my\nbody, neither this meanness of my dusty dress; for, pushing on in their\nstrength from such things as these, that great Phidias revealed Zeus,\nand Polyclitus wrought out Hera, and Myron was praised, and Praxiteles\nmarveled at: therefore are these men worshiped with the gods.'\"\n\n37. There is a beautiful ambiguity in the use of the preposition with\nthe genitive in this last sentence. \"Pushing on from these things\" means\nindeed, justly, that the sculptors rose from a mean state to a noble\none; but not as _leaving_ the mean state,--not as, from a hard life,\nattaining to a soft one,--but as being helped and strengthened by the\nrough life to do what was greatest. Again, \"worshiped with the gods\"\ndoes not mean that they are thought of as in any sense equal to, or like\nto, the gods, but as being on the side of the gods against what is base\nand ungodly; and that the kind of worth which is in them is therefore\nindeed worshipful, as having its source with the gods. Finally, observe\nthat every one of the expressions used of the four sculptors is\ndefinitely the best that Lucian could have chosen. Phidias carved like\none who had seen Zeus, and had only to _reveal_ him; Polyclitus, in\nlabor of intellect, completed his sculpture by just law, and _wrought_\nout Hera; Myron was of all most _praised_, because he did best what\npleased the vulgar; and Praxiteles the most _wondered at_, or admired,\nbecause he bestowed utmost exquisiteness of beauty.\n\n38. I am sorry not to go on with the dream: the more refined lady, as\nyou may remember, is liberal or gentlemanly Education, and prevails at\nlast; so that Lucian becomes an author instead of a sculptor, I think to\nhis own regret, though to our present benefit. One more passage of his I\nmust refer you to, as illustrative of the point before us; the\ndescription of the temple of the Syrian Hieropolis, where he explains\nthe absence of the images of the sun and moon. \"In the temple itself,\"\nhe says, \"on the left hand as one goes in, there is set first the\nthrone of the sun; but no form of him is thereon, for of these two\npowers alone, the sun and the moon, they show no carved images. And I\nalso learned why this is their law, for they say that it is permissible,\nindeed, to make of the other gods, graven images, since the forms of\nthem are not visible to all men. But Helios and Selenaia are everywhere\nclear-bright, and all men behold them; what need is there therefore for\nsculptured work of these, who appear in the air?\"\n\n39. This, then, is the second instinct necessary to sculpture; the\ndesire for the manifestation, description, and companionship of unknown\npowers; and for possession of a bodily substance--the 'bronze\nStrasbourg,' which you can embrace, and hang immortelles on the head\nof--instead of an abstract idea. But if you get nothing more in the\ndepth of the national mind than these two feelings, the mimetic and\nidolizing instincts, there may be still no progress possible for the\narts except in delicacy of manipulation and accumulative caprice of\ndesign. You must have not only the idolizing instinct, but an [Greek:\nethos] which chooses the right thing to idolize! Else, you will get\nstates of art like those in China or India, non-progressive, and in\ngreat part diseased and frightful, being wrought under the influence of\nfoolish terror, or foolish admiration. So that a third condition,\ncompleting and confirming both the others, must exist in order to the\ndevelopment of the creative power.\n\n40. This third condition is that the heart of the nation shall be set on\nthe discovery of just or equal law, and shall be from day to day\ndeveloping that law more perfectly. The Greek school of sculpture is\nformed during, and in consequence of, the national effort to discover\nthe nature of justice; the Tuscan, during, and in consequence of, the\nnational effort to discover the nature of justification. I assert to you\nat present briefly, what will, I hope, be the subject of prolonged\nillustration hereafter.\n\n41. Now when a nation with mimetic instinct and imaginative longing is\nalso thus occupied earnestly in the discovery of Ethic law, that effort\ngradually brings precision and truth into all its manual acts; and the\nphysical progress of sculpture, as in the Greek, so in the Tuscan,\nschool, consists in gradually _limiting_ what was before indefinite, in\n_verifying_ what was inaccurate, and in _humanizing_ what was monstrous.\nI might perhaps content you by showing these external phenomena, and by\ndwelling simply on the increasing desire of naturalness, which compels,\nin every successive decade of years, literally, in the sculptured\nimages, the mimicked bones to come together, bone to his bone; and the\nflesh to come up upon them, until from a flattened and pinched handful\nof clay, respecting which you may gravely question whether it was\nintended for a human form at all;--by slow degrees, and added touch to\ntouch, in increasing consciousness of the bodily truth,--at last the\nAphrodite of Melos stands before you, a perfect woman. But all that\nsearch for physical accuracy is merely the external operation, in the\narts, of the seeking for truth in the inner soul; it is impossible\nwithout that higher effort, and the demonstration of it would be worse\nthan useless to you, unless I made you aware at the same time of its\nspiritual cause.\n\n42. Observe farther; the increasing truth in representation is\ncorrelative with increasing beauty in the thing to be represented. The\npursuit of justice which regulates the imitative effort, regulates also\nthe development of the race into dignity of person, as of mind; and\ntheir culminating art-skill attains the grasp of entire truth at the\nmoment when the truth becomes most lovely. And then, ideal sculpture may\ngo on safely into portraiture. But I shall not touch on the subject of\nportrait sculpture to-day; it introduces many questions of detail, and\nmust be a matter for subsequent consideration.\n\n43. These, then, are the three great passions which are concerned in\ntrue sculpture. I cannot find better, or, at least, more easily\nremembered, names for them than 'the Instincts of Mimicry, Idolatry, and\nDiscipline;' meaning, by the last, the desire of equity and wholesome\nrestraint, in all acts and works of life. Now of these, there is no\nquestion but that the love of Mimicry is natural and right, and the love\nof Discipline is natural and right. But it looks a grave question\nwhether the yearning for Idolatry (the desire of companionship with\nimages) is right. Whether, indeed, if such an instinct be essential to\ngood sculpture, the art founded on it can possibly be 'fine' art.\n\n44. I must now beg for your close attention, because I have to point out\ndistinctions in modes of conception which will appear trivial to you,\nunless accurately understood; but of an importance in the history of art\nwhich cannot be overrated.\n\nWhen the populace of Paris adorned the statue of Strasbourg with\nimmortelles, none, even the simplest of the pious decorators, would\nsuppose that the city of Strasbourg itself, or any spirit or ghost of\nthe city, was actually there, sitting in the Place de la Concorde. The\nfigure was delightful to them as a visible nucleus for their fond\nthoughts about Strasbourg; but never for a moment supposed to _be_\nStrasbourg.\n\nSimilarly, they might have taken delight in a statue purporting to\nrepresent a river instead of a city,--the Rhine, or Garonne,\nsuppose,--and have been touched with strong emotion in looking at it, if\nthe real river were dear to them, and yet never think for an instant\nthat the statue _was_ the river.\n\nAnd yet again, similarly, but much more distinctly, they might take\ndelight in the beautiful image of a god, because it gathered and\nperpetuated their thoughts about that god; and yet never suppose, nor be\ncapable of being deceived by any arguments into supposing, that the\nstatue _was_ the god.\n\nOn the other hand, if a meteoric stone fell from the sky in the sight of\na savage, and he picked it up hot, he would most probably lay it aside\nin some, to him, sacred place, and believe the _stone itself_ to be a\nkind of god, and offer prayer and sacrifice to it.\n\nIn like manner, any other strange or terrifying object, such, for\ninstance, as a powerfully noxious animal or plant, he would be apt to\nregard in the same way; and very possibly also construct for himself\nfrightful idols of some kind, calculated to produce upon him a vague\nimpression of their being alive; whose imaginary anger he might\ndeprecate or avert with sacrifice, although incapable of conceiving in\nthem any one attribute of exalted intellectual or moral nature.\n\n45. If you will now refer to Sec.Sec. 52-9 of my Introductory Lectures, you\nwill find this distinction between a resolute conception, recognized for\nsuch, and an involuntary apprehension of spiritual existence, already\ninsisted on at some length. And you will see more and more clearly as we\nproceed, that the deliberate and intellectually commanded conception is\nnot idolatrous in any evil sense whatever, but is one of the grandest\nand wholesomest functions of the human soul; and that the essence of\nevil idolatry begins only in the idea or belief of a real presence of\nany kind, in a thing in which there is no such presence.\n\n46. I need not say that the harm of the idolatry must depend on the\ncertainty of the negative. If there be a real presence in a pillar of\ncloud, in an unconsuming flame, or in a still small voice, it is no sin\nto bow down before these.\n\nBut, as matter of historical fact, the idea of such presence has\ngenerally been both ignoble and false, and confined to nations of\ninferior race, who are often condemned to remain for ages in conditions\nof vile terror, destitute of thought. Nearly all Indian architecture and\nChinese design arise out of such a state: so also, though in a less\ngross degree, Ninevite and Phoenician art, early Irish, and\nScandinavian; the latter, however, with vital elements of high intellect\nmingled in it from the first.\n\nBut the greatest races are never grossly subject to such terror, even in\ntheir childhood, and the course of their minds is broadly divisible into\nthree distinct stages.\n\n47. (I.) In their infancy they begin to imitate the real animals about\nthem, as my little girl made the cats and mice, but with an\nunder-current of partial superstition--a sense that there must be more\nin the creatures than they can see; also they catch up vividly any of\nthe fancies of the baser nations round them, and repeat these more or\nless apishly, yet rapidly naturalizing and beautifying them. They then\nconnect all kinds of shapes together, compounding meanings out of the\nold chimeras, and inventing new ones with the speed of a running\nwildfire; but always getting more of man into their images, and\nadmitting less of monster or brute; their own characters, meanwhile,\nexpanding and purging themselves, and shaking off the feverish fancy, as\nspringing flowers shake the earth off their stalks.\n\n48. (II.) In the second stage, being now themselves perfect men and\nwomen, they reach the conception of true and great gods as existent in\nthe universe; and absolutely cease to think of them as in any wise\npresent in statues or images; but they have now learned to make these\nstatues beautifully human, and to surround them with attributes that may\nconcentrate their thoughts of the gods. This is, in Greece, accurately\nthe Pindaric time, just a little preceding the Phidian; the Phidian is\nalready dimmed with a faint shadow of infidelity; still, the Olympic\nZeus may be taken as a sufficiently central type of a statue which was\nno more supposed to _be_ Zeus, than the gold or elephants' tusks it was\nmade of; but in which the most splendid powers of human art were\nexhausted in representing a believed and honored God to the happy and\nholy imagination of a sincerely religious people.\n\n49. (III.) The third stage of national existence follows, in which, the\nimagination having now done its utmost, and being partly restrained by\nthe sanctities of tradition, which permit no farther change in the\nconceptions previously created, begins to be superseded by logical\ndeduction and scientific investigation. At the same moment, the elder\nartists having done all that is possible in realizing the national\nconceptions of the gods, the younger ones, forbidden to change the\nscheme of existing representations, and incapable of doing anything\nbetter in that kind, betake themselves to refine and decorate the old\nideas with more attractive skill. Their aims are thus more and more\nlimited to manual dexterity, and their fancy paralyzed. Also in the\ncourse of centuries, the methods of every art continually improving, and\nbeing made subjects of popular inquiry, praise is now to be got, for\neminence in these, from the whole mob of the nation; whereas\nintellectual design can never be discerned but by the few. So that in\nthis third era we find every kind of imitative and vulgar dexterity more\nand more cultivated; while design and imagination are every day less\ncared for, and less possible.\n\n50. Meanwhile, as I have just said, the leading minds in literature and\nscience become continually more logical and investigative; and once that\nthey are established in the habit of testing facts accurately, a very\nfew years are enough to convince all the strongest thinkers that the old\nimaginative religion is untenable, and cannot any longer be honestly\ntaught in its fixed traditional form, except by ignorant persons. And at\nthis point the fate of the people absolutely depends on the degree of\nmoral strength into which their hearts have been already trained. If it\nbe a strong, industrious, chaste, and honest race, the taking its old\ngods, or at least the old forms of them, away from it, will indeed make\nit deeply sorrowful and amazed; but will in no whit shake its will, nor\nalter its practice. Exceptional persons, naturally disposed to become\ndrunkards, harlots, and cheats, but who had been previously restrained\nfrom indulging these dispositions by their fear of God, will, of course,\nbreak out into open vice, when that fear is removed. But the heads of\nthe families of the people, instructed in the pure habits and perfect\ndelights of an honest life, and to whom the thought of a Father in\nheaven had been a comfort, not a restraint, will assuredly not seek\nrelief from the discomfort of their orphanage by becoming uncharitable\nand vile. Also the high leaders of their thought gather their whole\nstrength together in the gloom; and at the first entrance to this Valley\nof the Shadow of Death, look their new enemy full in the eyeless face of\nhim, and subdue him, and his terror, under their feet. \"Metus omnes, et\ninexorabile fatum,... strepitumque Acherontis avari.\" This is the\ncondition of national soul expressed by the art, and the words, of\nHolbein, Duerer, Shakspeare, Pope, and Goethe.\n\n51. But if the people, at the moment when the trial of darkness\napproaches, be not confirmed in moral character, but are only\nmaintaining a superficial virtue by the aid of a spectral religion; the\nmoment the staff of their faith is broken, the character of the race\nfalls like a climbing plant cut from its hold: then all the earthliest\nvices attack it as it lies in the dust; every form of sensual and insane\nsin is developed; and half a century is sometimes enough to close in\nhopeless shame the career of the nation in literature, art, and war.\n\n52. Notably, within the last hundred years, all religion has perished\nfrom the practically active national mind of France and England. No\nstatesman in the senate of either country would dare to use a sentence\nout of their acceptedly divine Revelation, as having now a literal\nauthority over them for their guidance, or even a suggestive wisdom for\ntheir contemplation. England, especially, has cast her Bible full in the\nface of her former God; and proclaimed, with open challenge to Him, her\nresolved worship of His declared enemy, Mammon. All the arts, therefore,\nfounded on religion and sculpture chiefly, are here in England effete\nand corrupt, to a degree which arts never were hitherto in the history\nof mankind; and it is possible to show you the condition of sculpture\nliving, and sculpture dead, in accurate opposition, by simply comparing\nthe nascent Pisan school in Italy with the existing school in England.\n\n53. You were perhaps surprised at my placing in your educational series,\nas a type of original Italian sculpture, the pulpit by Niccola Pisano in\nthe Duomo of Siena. I would rather, had it been possible, have given the\npulpit by Giovanni Pisano in the Duomo of Pisa; but that pulpit is\ndispersed in fragments through the upper galleries of the Duomo, and the\ncloister of the Campo Santo; and the casts of its fragments now put\ntogether at Kensington are too coarse to be of use to you. You may\npartly judge, however, of the method of their execution by the eagle's\nhead, which I have sketched from the marble in the Campo Santo (Edu.,\nNo. 113), and the lioness with her cubs (Edu., No. 103, more carefully\nstudied at Siena); and I will get you other illustrations in due time.\nMeanwhile, I want you to compare the main purpose of the Cathedral of\nPisa, and its associated Bell Tower, Baptistery, and Holy Field, with\nthe main purpose of the principal building lately raised for the people\nof London. In these days, we indeed desire no cathedrals; but we have\nconstructed an enormous and costly edifice, which, in claiming\neducational influence over the whole London populace, and middle class,\nis verily the Metropolitan cathedral of this century,--the Crystal\nPalace.\n\n54. It was proclaimed, at its erection, an example of a newly discovered\nstyle of architecture, greater than any hitherto known,--our best\npopular writers, in their enthusiasm, describing it as an edifice of\nFairyland. You are nevertheless to observe that this novel production of\nfairy enchantment is destitute of every kind of sculpture, except the\nbosses produced by the heads of nails and rivets; while the Duomo of\nPisa, in the wreathen work of its doors, in the foliage of its capitals,\ninlaid color designs of its facade, embossed panels of its Baptistery\nfont, and figure sculpture of its two pulpits, contained the germ of a\nschool of sculpture which was to maintain, through a subsequent period\nof four hundred years, the greatest power yet reached by the arts of the\nworld, in description of Form, and expression of Thought.\n\n55. Now it is easy to show you the essential cause of the vast\ndiscrepancy in the character of these two buildings.\n\nIn the vault of the apse of the Duomo of Pisa was a colossal image of\nChrist, in colored mosaic, bearing to the temple, as nearly as possible,\nthe relation which the statue of Athena bore to the Parthenon; and in\nthe same manner, concentrating the imagination of the Pisan on the\nattributes of the God in whom he believed.\n\nIn precisely the same position with respect to the nave of the\nbuilding, but of larger size, as proportioned to the three or four times\ngreater scale of the whole, a colossal piece of sculpture was placed by\nEnglish designers, at the extremity of the Crystal Palace, in\npreparation for their solemnities in honor of the birthday of Christ, in\nDecember 1867 or 1868.\n\nThat piece of sculpture was the face of the clown in a pantomime, some\ntwelve feet high from brow to chin, which face, being moved by the\nmechanism which is our pride, every half-minute opened its mouth from\near to ear, showed its teeth, and revolved its eyes, the force of these\nperiodical seasons of expression being increased and explained by the\nilluminated inscription underneath, \"Here we are again.\"\n\n56. When it is assumed, and with too good reason, that the mind of the\nEnglish populace is to be addressed, in the principal Sacred Festival of\nits year, by sculpture such as this, I need scarcely point out to you\nthat the hope is absolutely futile of advancing their intelligence by\ncollecting within this building (itself devoid absolutely of every kind\nof art, and so vilely constructed that those who traverse it are\ncontinually in danger of falling over the cross-bars that bind it\ntogether,) examples of sculpture filched indiscriminately from the past\nwork, bad and good, of Turks, Greeks, Romans, Moors, and Christians,\nmiscolored, misplaced, and misinterpreted;[15] here thrust into unseemly\ncorners, and there mortised together into mere confusion of\nheterogeneous obstacle; pronouncing itself hourly more intolerable in\nweariness, until any kind of relief is sought from it in steam\nwheelbarrows or cheap toyshops; and most of all in beer and meat, the\ncorks and the bones being dropped through the chinks in the damp deal\nflooring of the English Fairy Palace.\n\n57. But you will probably think me unjust in assuming that a building\nprepared only for the amusement of the people can typically represent\nthe architecture or sculpture of modern England. You may urge that I\nought rather to describe the qualities of the refined sculpture which is\nexecuted in large quantities for private persons belonging to the upper\nclasses, and for sepulchral and memorial purposes. But I could not now\ncriticise that sculpture with any power of conviction to you, because I\nhave not yet stated to you the principles of good sculpture in general.\nI will, however, in some points, tell you the facts by anticipation.\n\n58. We have much excellent portrait sculpture; but portrait sculpture,\nwhich is nothing more, is always third-rate work, even when produced by\nmen of genius;--nor does it in the least require men of genius to\nproduce it. To paint a portrait, indeed, implies the very highest gifts\nof painting; but any man, of ordinary patience and artistic feeling, can\ncarve a satisfactory bust.\n\n59. Of our powers in historical sculpture, I am, without question, just,\nin taking for sufficient evidence the monuments we have erected to our\ntwo greatest heroes by sea and land; namely, the Nelson Column, and the\nstatue of the Duke of Wellington opposite Apsley House. Nor will you, I\nhope, think me severe,--certainly, whatever you may think me, I am using\nonly the most temperate language, in saying of both these monuments,\nthat they are absolutely devoid of high sculptural merit. But consider\nhow much is involved in the fact thus dispassionately stated, respecting\nthe two monuments in the principal places of our capital, to our two\ngreatest heroes.\n\n60. Remember that we have before our eyes, as subjects of perpetual\nstudy and thought, the art of all the world for three thousand years\npast; especially, we have the best sculpture of Greece, for example of\nbodily perfection; the best of Rome, for example of character in\nportraiture; the best of Florence, for example of romantic passion; we\nhave unlimited access to books and other sources of instruction; we have\nthe most perfect scientific illustrations of anatomy, both human and\ncomparative; and we have bribes for the reward of success, large in the\nproportion of at least twenty to one, as compared with those offered to\nthe artists of any other period. And with all these advantages, and the\nstimulus also of fame carried instantly by the press to the remotest\ncorners of Europe, the best efforts we can make, on the grandest of\noccasions, result in work which it is impossible in any one particular\nto praise.\n\nNow consider for yourselves what an intensity of the negation of the\nfaculty of sculpture this implies in the national mind! What measure can\nbe assigned to the gulf of incapacity, which can deliberately swallow up\nin the gorge of it the teaching and example of three thousand years, and\nproduce, as the result of that instruction, what it is courteous to call\n'nothing'?\n\n61. That is the conclusion at which we arrive on the evidence presented\nby our historical sculpture. To complete the measure of ourselves, we\nmust endeavor to estimate the rank of the two opposite schools of\nsculpture employed by us in the nominal service of religion, and in the\nactual service of vice.\n\nI am aware of no statue of Christ, nor of any apostle of Christ, nor of\nany scene related in the New Testament, produced by us within the last\nthree hundred years, which has possessed even superficial merit enough\nto attract public attention.\n\nWhereas the steadily immoral effect of the formative art which we learn,\nmore or less apishly, from the French schools, and employ, but too\ngladly, in manufacturing articles for the amusement of the luxurious\nclasses, must be ranked as one of the chief instruments used by joyful\nfiends and angry fates for the ruin of our civilization.\n\nIf, after I have set before you the nature and principles of true\nsculpture, in Athens, Pisa, and Florence, you consider these\nfacts,--(which you will then at once recognize as such),--you will find\nthat they absolutely justify my assertion that the state of sculpture in\nmodern England, as compared with that of the great Ancients, is\nliterally one of corrupt and dishonorable death, as opposed to bright\nand fameful life.\n\n62. And now, will you bear with me while I tell you finally why this is\nso?\n\nThe cause with which you are personally concerned is your own frivolity;\nthough essentially this is not your fault, but that of the system of\nyour early training. But the fact remains the same, that here, in\nOxford, you, a chosen body of English youth, in nowise care for the\nhistory of your country, for its present dangers, or its present duties.\nYou still, like children of seven or eight years old, are interested\nonly in bats, balls, and oars: nay, including with you the students of\nGermany and France, it is certain that the general body of modern\nEuropean youth have their minds occupied more seriously by the sculpture\nand painting of the bowls of their tobacco-pipes, than by all the\ndivinest workmanship and passionate imagination of Greece, Rome, and\nMediaeval Christendom.\n\n63. But the elementary causes, both of this frivolity in you, and of\nworse than frivolity in older persons, are the two forms of deadly\nIdolatry which are now all but universal in England.\n\nThe first of these is the worship of the Eidolon, or Fantasm of Wealth;\nworship of which you will find the nature partly examined in the\nthirty-seventh paragraph of my 'Munera Pulveris'; but which is briefly\nto be defined as the servile apprehension of an active power in Money,\nand the submission to it as the God of our life.\n\n64. The second elementary cause of the loss of our nobly imaginative\nfaculty, is the worship of the Letter, instead of the Spirit, in what we\nchiefly accept as the ordinance and teaching of Deity; and the\napprehension of a healing sacredness in the act of reading the Book\nwhose primal commands we refuse to obey.\n\nNo feather idol of Polynesia was ever a sign of a more shameful idolatry\nthan the modern notion in the minds of certainly the majority of English\nreligious persons, that the Word of God, by which the heavens were of\nold, and the earth, standing out of the water and in the water,--the\nWord of God which came to the prophets, and comes still forever to all\nwho will hear it (and to many who will forbear); and which, called\nFaithful and True, is to lead forth, in the judgment, the armies of\nheaven,--that this 'Word of God' may yet be bound at our pleasure in\nmorocco, and carried about in a young lady's pocket, with tasseled\nribbons to mark the passages she most approves of.\n\n65. Gentlemen, there has hitherto been seen no instance, and England is\nlittle likely to give the unexampled spectacle, of a country successful\nin the noble arts, yet in which the youths were frivolous, the maidens\nfalsely religious; the men, slaves of money, and the matrons, of vanity.\nNot from all the marble of the hills of Luini will such a people ever\nshape one statue that may stand nobly against the sky; not from all the\ntreasures bequeathed to them by the great dead, will they gather, for\ntheir own descendants, any inheritance but shame.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] Glance forward at once to Sec. 75, read it, and return to this.\n\n[12] There is a primary and vulgar sense of 'exhibited' in Lucian's\nmind; but the higher meaning is involved in it.\n\n[13] In the Greek, 'ambrosial.' Recollect always that ambrosia, as food\nof gods, is the continual restorer of strength; that all food is\nambrosial when it nourishes, and that the night is called 'ambrosial'\nbecause it restores strength to the soul through its peace, as, in the\n23d Psalm, the stillness of waters.\n\n[14] I have italicized this final promise of blessedness, given by the\nnoble Spirit of Workmanship. Compare Carlyle's fifth Latter-day\nPamphlet, throughout; but especially pp. 12-14, in the first edition.\n\n[15] \"Falsely represented,\" would be the better expression. In the cast\nof the tomb of Queen Eleanor, for a single instance, the Gothic foliage,\nof which one essential virtue is its change over every shield, is\nrepresented by a repetition of casts from one mold, of which the design\nitself is entirely conjectural.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III.\n\nIMAGINATION.\n\n_November, 1870._\n\n\n66. The principal object of the preceding Lecture, (and I choose rather\nto incur your blame for tediousness in repeating, than for obscurity in\ndefining it,) was to enforce the distinction between the ignoble and\nfalse phase of Idolatry, which consists in the attribution of a\nspiritual power to a material thing; and the noble and truth-seeking\nphase of it, to which I shall in these Lectures[16] give the general\nterm of Imagination;--that is to say, the invention of material symbols\nwhich may lead us to contemplate the character and nature of gods,\nspirits, or abstract virtues and powers, without in the least implying\nthe actual presence of such Beings among us, or even their possession,\nin reality, of the forms we attribute to them.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 2.]\n\n67. For instance, in the ordinarily received Greek type of Athena, on\nvases of the Phidian time, (sufficiently represented in the following\nwood-cut,) no Greek would have supposed the vase on which this was\npainted to be itself Athena, nor to contain Athena inside of it, as the\nArabian fisherman's casket contained the genie; neither did he think\nthat this rude black painting, done at speed as the potter's fancy urged\nhis hand, represented anything like the form or aspect of the goddess\nherself. Nor would he have thought so, even had the image been ever so\nbeautifully wrought. The goddess might, indeed, visibly appear under the\nform of an armed virgin, as she might under that of a hawk or a swallow,\nwhen it pleased her to give such manifestation of her presence; but it\ndid not, therefore, follow that she was constantly invested with any of\nthese forms, or that the best which human skill could, even by her own\naid, picture of her, was, indeed, a likeness of her. The real use, at\nall events, of this rude image, was only to signify to the eye and heart\nthe facts of the existence, in some manner, of a Spirit of wisdom,\nperfect in gentleness, irresistible in anger; having also physical\ndominion over the air which is the life and breath of all creatures, and\nclothed, to human eyes, with aegis of fiery cloud, and raiment of falling\ndew.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 3.]\n\n68. In the yet more abstract conception of the Spirit of Agriculture, in\nwhich the wings of the chariot represent the winds of Spring, and its\ncrested dragons are originally a mere type of the seed with its twisted\nroot piercing the ground, and sharp-edged leaves rising above it, we are\nin still less danger of mistaking the symbol for the presumed form of an\nactual Person. But I must, with persistence, beg of you to observe that\nin all the noble actions of imagination in this kind, the distinction\nfrom idolatry consists, not in the denial of the being, or presence, of\nthe Spirit, but only in the due recognition of our human incapacity to\nconceive the one, or compel the other.\n\n69. Farther--and for this statement I claim your attention still more\nearnestly. As no nation has ever attained real greatness during periods\nin which it was subject to any condition of Idolatry, so no nation has\never attained or persevered in greatness, except in reaching and\nmaintaining a passionate Imagination of a spiritual estate higher than\nthat of men; and of spiritual creatures nobler than men, having a quite\nreal and personal existence, however imperfectly apprehended by us.\n\nAnd all the arts of the present age deserving to be included under the\nname of sculpture have been degraded by us, and all principles of just\npolicy have vanished from us,--and that totally,--for this double\nreason; that we are, on one side, given up to idolatries of the most\nservile kind, as I showed you in the close of the last Lecture,--while,\non the other hand, we have absolutely ceased from the exercise of\nfaithful imagination; and the only remnants of the desire of truth which\nremain in us have been corrupted into a prurient itch to discover the\norigin of life in the nature of the dust, and prove that the source of\nthe order of the universe is the accidental concurrence of its atoms.\n\n70. Under these two calamities of our time, the art of sculpture has\nperished more totally than any other, because the object of that art is\nexclusively the representation of form as the exponent of life. It is\nessentially concerned only with the human form, which is the exponent of\nthe highest life we know; and with all subordinate forms only as they\nexhibit conditions of vital power which have some certain relation to\nhumanity. It deals with the \"particula undique desecta\" of the animal\nnature, and itself contemplates, and brings forward for its disciples'\ncontemplation, all the energies of creation which transform the [Greek:\npelos], or, lower still, the [Greek: borboros] of the _trivia_, by\nAthena's help, into forms of power;--([Greek: to men holon architekton\nautos en syneirgazeto de toi kai he 'Athena empneousa ton pelon kai\nempsycha poiousa einai ta plasmata;])[17]--but it has nothing whatever\nto do with the representation of forms not living, however beautiful (as\nof clouds or waves); nor may it condescend to use its perfect skill,\nexcept in expressing the noblest conditions of life.\n\nThese laws of sculpture, being wholly contrary to the practice of our\nday, I cannot expect you to accept on my assertion, nor do I wish you to\ndo so. By placing definitely good and bad sculpture before you, I do not\ndoubt but that I shall gradually prove to you the nature of all\nexcelling and enduring qualities; but to-day I will only confirm my\nassertions by laying before you the statement of the Greeks themselves\non the subject; given in their own noblest time, and assuredly\nauthoritative, in every point which it embraces, for all time to come.\n\n71. If any of you have looked at the explanation I have given of the\nmyth of Athena in my 'Queen of the Air,' you cannot but have been\nsurprised that I took scarcely any note of the story of her birth. I did\nnot, because that story is connected intimately with the Apolline myths;\nand is told of Athena, not essentially as the goddess of the air, but as\nthe goddess of Art-Wisdom.\n\nYou have probably often smiled at the legend itself, or avoided thinking\nof it, as revolting. It is, indeed, one of the most painful and childish\nof sacred myths; yet remember, ludicrous and ugly as it seems to us,\nthis story satisfied the fancy of the Athenian people in their highest\nstate; and if it did not satisfy, yet it was accepted by, all later\nmythologists: you may also remember I told you to be prepared always to\nfind that, given a certain degree of national intellect, the ruder the\nsymbol, the deeper would be its purpose. And this legend of the birth of\nAthena is the central myth of all that the Greeks have left us\nrespecting the power of their arts; and in it they have expressed, as it\nseemed good to them, the most important things they had to tell us on\nthese matters. We may read them wrongly; but we must read them here, if\nanywhere.\n\n72. There are so many threads to be gathered up in the legend, that I\ncannot hope to put it before you in total clearness, but I will take\nmain points. Athena is born in the island of Rhodes; and that island is\nraised out of the sea by Apollo, after he had been left without\ninheritance among the gods. Zeus[18] would have cast the lot again, but\nApollo orders the golden-girdled Lachesis to stretch out her hands; and\nnot now by chance or lot, but by noble enchantment, the island rises out\nof the sea.\n\nPhysically, this represents the action of heat and light on chaos,\nespecially on the deep sea. It is the \"Fiat lux\" of Genesis, the first\nprocess in the conquest of Fate by Harmony. The island is dedicated to\nthe nymph Rhodos, by whom Apollo has the seven sons who teach [Greek:\nsophotata noemata]; because the rose is the most beautiful organism\nexisting in matter not vital, expressive of the direct action of light\non the earth, giving lovely form and color at once, (compare the use of\nit by Dante, as the form of the sainted crowd in highest heaven); and\nremember that, therefore, the rose is, in the Greek mind, essentially a\nDoric flower, expressing the worship of Light, as the Iris or Ion is an\nIonic one, expressing the worship of the Winds and Dew.\n\n73. To understand the agency of Hephaestus at the birth of Athena, we\nmust again return to the founding of the arts on agriculture by the\nhand. Before you can cultivate land, you must clear it; and the\ncharacteristic weapon of Hephaestus,--which is as much his attribute as\nthe trident is of Poseidon, and the rhabdos of Hermes, is not, as you\nwould have expected, the hammer, but the clearing-ax--the double-edged\n[Greek: pelekys], the same that Calypso gives Ulysses with which to cut\ndown the trees for his home voyage; so that both the naval and\nagricultural strength of the Athenians are expressed by this weapon,\nwith which they had to hew out their fortune. And you must keep in mind\nthis agriculturally laborious character of Hephaestus, even when he is\nmost distinctly the god of serviceable fire; thus Horace's perfect\nepithet for him, \"avidus,\" expresses at once the devouring eagerness of\nfire, and the zeal of progressive labor, for Horace gives it to him when\nhe is fighting against the giants. And this rude symbol of his cleaving\nthe forehead of Zeus with the ax, and giving birth to Athena, signifies\nindeed, physically, the thrilling power of heat in the heavens, rending\nthe clouds, and giving birth to the blue air; but far more deeply it\nsignifies the subduing of adverse Fate by true labor; until, out of the\nchasm, cleft by resolute and industrious fortitude, springs the Spirit\nof Wisdom.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 4.]\n\n74. Here (Fig. 4) is an early drawing of the myth, to which I shall\nhave to refer afterwards in illustration of the childishness of the\nGreek mind at the time when its art-symbols were first fixed; but it is\nof peculiar value, because the physical character of Vulcan, as fire, is\nindicated by his wearing the [Greek: endromides] of Hermes, while the\nantagonism of Zeus, as the adverse chaos, either of cloud or of fate, is\nshown by his striking at Hephaestus with his thunderbolt. But Plate IV.\ngives you (as far as the light on the rounded vase will allow it to be\ndeciphered) a characteristic representation of the scene, as conceived\nin later art.\n\n75. I told you in a former Lecture of this course[19] that the entire\nGreek intellect was in a childish phase as compared to that of modern\ntimes. Observe, however, childishness does not necessarily imply\nuniversal inferiority: there may be a vigorous, acute, pure, and solemn\nchildhood, and there may be a weak, foul, and ridiculous condition of\nadvanced life; but the one is still essentially the childish, and the\nother the adult phase of existence.\n\n76. You will find, then, that the Greeks were the first people that were\nborn into complete humanity. All nations before them had been, and all\naround them still were, partly savage, bestial, clay-incumbered,\ninhuman; still semi-goat, or semi-ant, or semi-stone, or semi-cloud. But\nthe power of a new spirit came upon the Greeks, and the stones were\nfilled with breath, and the clouds clothed with flesh; and then came the\ngreat spiritual battle between the Centaurs and Lapithae; and the living\ncreatures became \"Children of Men.\" Taught, yet by the Centaur--sown, as\nthey knew, in the fang--from the dappled skin of the brute, from the\nleprous scale of the serpent, their flesh came again as the flesh of a\nlittle child, and they were clean.\n\nFix your mind on this as the very central character of the Greek\nrace--the being born pure and human out of the brutal misery of the\npast, and looking abroad, for the first time, with their children's\neyes, wonderingly open, on the strange and divine world.\n\n[Illustration: IV.\n\nTHE NATIVITY OF ATHENA.]\n\n77. Make some effort to remember, so far as may be possible to you,\neither what you felt in yourselves when you were young, or what you have\nobserved in other children, of the action of thought and fancy. Children\nare continually represented as living in an ideal world of their own. So\nfar as I have myself observed, the distinctive character of a child is\nto live always in the tangible present, having little pleasure in\nmemory, and being utterly impatient and tormented by anticipation: weak\nalike in reflection and forethought, but having an intense possession of\nthe actual present, down to the shortest moments and least objects of\nit; possessing it, indeed, so intensely that the sweet childish days are\nas long as twenty days will be; and setting all the faculties of heart\nand imagination on little things, so as to be able to make anything out\nof them he chooses. Confined to a little garden, he does not imagine\nhimself somewhere else, but makes a great garden out of that; possessed\nof an acorn-cup, he will not despise it and throw it away, and covet a\ngolden one in its stead: it is the adult who does so. The child keeps\nhis acorn-cup as a treasure, and makes a golden one out of it in his\nmind; so that the wondering grown-up person standing beside him is\nalways tempted to ask concerning his treasures, not, \"What would you\nhave more than these?\" but \"What possibly can you see _in_ these?\" for,\nto the bystander, there is a ludicrous and incomprehensible\ninconsistency between the child's words and the reality. The little\nthing tells him gravely, holding up the acorn-cup, that \"this is a\nqueen's crown,\" or \"a fairy's boat,\" and, with beautiful effrontery,\nexpects him to believe the same. But observe--the acorn-cup must be\n_there_, and in his own hand. \"Give it me; then I will make more of it\nfor myself.\" That is the child's one word, always.\n\n78. It is also the one word of the Greek--\"Give it me.\" Give me _any_\nthing definite here in my sight, then I will make more of it.\n\nI cannot easily express to you how strange it seems to me that I am\nobliged, here in Oxford, to take the position of an apologist for Greek\nart; that I find, in spite of all the devotion of the admirable scholars\nwho have so long maintained in our public schools the authority of Greek\nliterature, our younger students take no interest in the manual work of\nthe people upon whose thoughts the tone of their early intellectual life\nhas exclusively depended. But I am not surprised that the interest, if\nawakened, should not at first take the form of admiration. The\ninconsistency between an Homeric description of a piece of furniture or\narmor, and the actual rudeness of any piece of art approximating, within\neven three or four centuries, to the Homeric period, is so great, that\nwe at first cannot recognize the art as elucidatory of, or in any way\nrelated to, the poetic language.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 5.]\n\n[Illustration: V.\n\nTOMB OF THE DOGES JACOPO AND LORENZO TIEPOLO.]\n\n79. You will find, however, exactly the same kind of discrepancy between\nearly sculpture, and the languages of deed and thought, in the second\nbirth, and childhood, of the world, under Christianity. The same fair\nthoughts and bright imaginations arise again; and, similarly, the fancy\nis content with the rudest symbols by which they can be formalized to\nthe eyes. You cannot understand that the rigid figure (2) with checkers\nor spots on its breast, and sharp lines of drapery to its feet, could\nrepresent, to the Greek, the healing majesty of heaven: but can you any\nbetter understand how a symbol so haggard as this (Fig. 5) could\nrepresent to the noblest hearts of the Christian ages the power and\nministration of angels? Yet it not only did so, but retained in the rude\nundulatory and linear ornamentation of its dress, record of the thoughts\nintended to be conveyed by the spotted aegis and falling chiton of\nAthena, eighteen hundred years before. Greek and Venetian alike, in\ntheir noble childhood, knew with the same terror the coiling wind and\ncongealed hail in heaven--saw with the same thankfulness the dew shed\nsoftly on the earth, and on its flowers; and both recognized, ruling\nthese, and symbolized by them, the great helpful spirit of Wisdom, which\nleads the children of men to all knowledge, all courage, and all art.\n\n80. Read the inscription written on the sarcophagus (Plate V.), at the\nextremity of which this angel is sculptured. It stands in an open recess\nin the rude brick wall of the west front of the church of St. John and\nPaul at Venice, being the tomb of the two doges, father and son, Jacopo\nand Lorenzo Tiepolo. This is the inscription:--\n\n    \"Quos natura pares studiis, virtutibus, arte\n    Edidit, illustres genitor natusque, sepulti\n    Hac sub rupe Duces. Venetum charissima proles\n    Theupula collatis dedit hos celebranda triumphis.\n    Omnia presentis donavit predia templi\n    Dux Jacobus: valido fixit moderamine leges\n    Urbis, et ingratam redimens certamine Jadram\n    Dalmatiosque dedit patrie post, Marte subactas\n    Graiorum pelago maculavit sanguine classes.\n    Suscipit oblatos princeps Laurentius Istros,\n    Et domuit rigidos, ingenti strage cadentes,\n    Bononie populos. Hinc subdita Cervia cessit.\n    Fundavere vias pacis; fortique relicta\n    Re, superos sacris petierunt mentibus ambo.\n\n    Dominus Jachobus hobiit[20] M. CCLI. Dominus Laurentius hobiit\n    M. CCLXXVIII.\"\n\nYou see, therefore, this tomb is an invaluable example of\nthirteenth-century sculpture in Venice. In Plate VI., you have an\nexample of the (coin) sculpture of the date accurately corresponding in\nGreece to the thirteenth century in Venice, when the meaning of symbols\nwas everything, and the workmanship comparatively nothing. The upper\nhead is an Athena, of Athenian work in the seventh or sixth\ncentury--(the coin itself may have been struck later, but the archaic\ntype was retained). The two smaller impressions below are the front and\nobverse of a coin of the same age from Corinth, the head of Athena on\none side, and Pegasus, with the archaic Koppa, on the other. The smaller\nhead is bare, the hair being looped up at the back and closely bound\nwith an olive branch. You are to note this general outline of the head,\nalready given in a more finished type in Plate II., as a most important\nelementary form in the finest sculpture, not of Greece only, but of all\nChristendom. In the upper head the hair is restrained still more closely\nby a round helmet, for the most part smooth, but embossed with a single\nflower tendril, having one bud, one flower, and, above it, two olive\nleaves. You have thus the most absolutely restricted symbol possible to\nhuman thought of the power of Athena over the flowers and trees of the\nearth. An olive leaf by itself could not have stood for the sign of a\ntree, but the two can, when set in position of growth.\n\nI would not give you the reverse of the coin on the same plate, because\nyou would have looked at it only, laughed at it, and not examined the\nrest; but here it is, wonderfully engraved for you (Fig. 6): of it we\nshall have more to say afterwards.\n\n[Illustration: VI.\n\nARCHAIC ATHENA OF ATHENS AND CORINTH.]\n\n81. And now as you look at these rude vestiges of the religion of\nGreece, and at the vestiges still ruder, on the Ducal tomb, of the\nreligion of Christendom, take warning against two opposite errors.\n\nThere is a school of teachers who will tell you that nothing but Greek\nart is deserving of study, and that all our work at this day should be\nan imitation of it.\n\nWhenever you feel tempted to believe them, think of these portraits of\nAthena and her owl, and be assured that Greek art is not in all respects\nperfect, nor exclusively deserving of imitation.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 6.]\n\nThere is another school of teachers who will tell you that Greek art is\ngood for nothing; that the soul of the Greek was outcast, and that\nChristianity entirely superseded its faith, and excelled its works.\n\nWhenever you feel tempted to believe _them_, think of this angel on the\ntomb of Jacopo Tiepolo; and remember that Christianity, after it had\nbeen twelve hundred years existent as an imaginative power on the earth,\ncould do no better work than this, though with all the former power of\nGreece to help it; nor was able to engrave its triumph in having stained\nits fleets in the seas of Greece with the blood of her people, but\nbetween barbarous imitations of the pillars which that people had\ninvented.\n\n82. Receiving these two warnings, receive also this lesson. In both\nexamples, childish though it be, this Heathen and Christian art is alike\nsincere, and alike vividly imaginative: the actual work is that of\ninfancy; the thoughts, in their visionary simplicity, are also the\nthoughts of infancy, but in their solemn virtue they are the thoughts of\nmen.\n\nWe, on the contrary, are now, in all that we do, absolutely without\nsincerity;--absolutely, therefore, without imagination, and without\nvirtue. Our hands are dexterous with the vile and deadly dexterity of\nmachines; our minds filled with incoherent fragments of faith, which we\ncling to in cowardice, without believing, and make pictures of in\nvanity, without loving. False and base alike, whether we admire or\nimitate, we cannot learn from the Heathen's art, but only pilfer it; we\ncannot revive the Christian's art, but only galvanize it; we are, in the\nsum of us, not human artists at all, but mechanisms of conceited clay,\nmasked in the furs and feathers of living creatures, and convulsed with\nvoltaic spasms, in mockery of animation.\n\n83. You think, perhaps, that I am using terms unjustifiable in violence.\nThey would, indeed, be unjustifiable, if, spoken from this chair, they\nwere violent at all. They are, unhappily, temperate and\naccurate,--except in shortcoming of blame. For we are not only impotent\nto restore, but strong to defile, the work of past ages. Of the\nimpotence, take but this one, utterly humiliatory, and, in the full\nmeaning of it, ghastly, example. We have lately been busy embanking, in\nthe capital of the country, the river which, of all its waters, the\nimagination of our ancestors had made most sacred, and the bounty of\nnature most useful. Of all architectural features of the metropolis,\nthat embankment will be, in future, the most conspicuous; and in its\nposition and purpose it was the most capable of noble adornment.\n\nFor that adornment, nevertheless, the utmost which our modern poetical\nimagination has been able to invent, is a row of gas-lamps. It has,\nindeed, farther suggested itself to our minds as appropriate to\ngas-lamps set beside a river, that the gas should come out of fishes'\ntails; but we have not ingenuity enough to cast so much as a smelt or a\nsprat for ourselves; so we borrow the shape of a Neapolitan marble,\nwhich has been the refuse of the plate and candlestick shops in every\ncapital in Europe for the last fifty years. We cast _that_ badly, and\ngive luster to the ill-cast fish with lacquer in imitation of bronze. On\nthe base of their pedestals, towards the road, we put, for\nadvertisement's sake, the initials of the casting firm; and, for farther\noriginality and Christianity's sake, the caduceus of Mercury: and to\nadorn the front of the pedestals, towards the river, being now wholly at\nour wits' end, we can think of nothing better than to borrow the\ndoor-knocker which--again for the last fifty years--has disturbed and\ndecorated two or three millions of London street-doors; and magnifying\nthe marvelous device of it, a lion's head with a ring in its mouth,\n(still borrowed from the Greek,) we complete the embankment with a row\nof heads and rings, on a scale which enables them to produce, at the\ndistance at which only they can be seen, the exact effect of a row of\nsentry-boxes.\n\n84. Farther. In the very center of the City, and at the point where the\nEmbankment commands a view of Westminster Abbey on one side, and of St.\nPaul's on the other,--that is to say, at precisely the most important\nand stately moment of its whole course,--it has to pass under one of the\narches of Waterloo Bridge, which, in the sweep of its curve, is as\nvast--it alone--as the Rialto at Venice, and scarcely less seemly in\nproportions. But over the Rialto, though of late and debased Venetian\nwork, there still reigns some power of human imagination: on the two\nflanks of it are carved the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation; on\nthe keystone, the descending Dove. It is not, indeed, the fault of\nliving designers that the Waterloo arch is nothing more than a gloomy\nand hollow heap of wedged blocks of blind granite. But just beyond the\ndamp shadow of it, the new Embankment is reached by a flight of stairs,\nwhich are, in point of fact, the principal approach to it, afoot, from\ncentral London; the descent from the very midst of the metropolis of\nEngland to the banks of the chief river of England; and for this\napproach, living designers _are_ answerable.\n\n85. The principal decoration of the descent is again a gas-lamp, but a\nshattered one, with a brass crown on the top of it, or, rather,\nhalf-crown, and that turned the wrong way, the back of it to the river\nand causeway, its flame supplied by a visible pipe far wandering along\nthe wall; the whole apparatus being supported by a rough cross-beam.\nFastened to the center of the arch above is a large placard, stating\nthat the Royal Humane Society's drags are in constant readiness, and\nthat their office is at 4, Trafalgar Square. On each side of the arch\nare temporary, but dismally old and battered boardings, across two\nangles capable of unseemly use by the British public. Above one of these\nis another placard, stating that this is the Victoria Embankment. The\nsteps themselves--some forty of them--descend under a tunnel, which the\nshattered gas-lamp lights by night, and nothing by day. They are covered\nwith filthy dust, shaken off from infinitude of filthy feet; mixed up\nwith shreds of paper, orange-peel, foul straw, rags, and cigar-ends, and\nashes; the whole agglutinated, more or less, by dry saliva into slippery\nblotches and patches; or, when not so fastened, blown dismally by the\nsooty wind hither and thither, or into the faces of those who ascend and\ndescend. The place is worth your visit, for you are not likely to find\nelsewhere a spot which, either in costly and ponderous brutality of\nbuilding, or in the squalid and indecent accompaniment of it, is so far\nseparated from the peace and grace of nature, and so accurately\nindicative of the methods of our national resistance to the Grace,\nMercy, and Peace of Heaven.\n\n86. I am obliged always to use the English word 'Grace' in two senses,\nbut remember that the Greek [Greek: charis] includes them both (the\nbestowing, that is to say, of Beauty and Mercy); and especially it\nincludes these in the passage of Pindar's first ode, which gives us the\nkey to the right interpretation of the power of sculpture in Greece. You\nremember that I told you, in my Sixth Introductory Lecture (Sec. 151), that\nthe mythic accounts of Greek sculpture begin in the legends of the\nfamily of Tantalus; and especially in the most grotesque legend of them\nall, the inlaying of the ivory shoulder of Pelops. At that story Pindar\npauses,--not, indeed, without admiration, nor alleging any impossibility\nin the circumstances themselves, but doubting the careless hunger of\nDemeter,--and gives his own reading of the event, instead of the ancient\none. He justifies this to himself, and to his hearers, by the plea that\nmyths have, in some sort, or degree, ([Greek: pou ti],) led the mind of\nmortals beyond the truth; and then he goes on:--\n\n\"Grace, which creates everything that is kindly and soothing for\nmortals, adding honor, has often made things, at first untrustworthy,\nbecome trustworthy through Love.\"\n\n87. I cannot, except in these lengthened terms, give you the complete\nforce of the passage; especially of the [Greek: apiston emesato\npiston]--\"made it trustworthy by passionate desire that it should be\nso\"--which exactly describes the temper of religious persons at the\npresent day, who are kindly and sincere, in clinging to the forms of\nfaith which either have long been precious to themselves, or which they\nfeel to have been without question instrumental in advancing the dignity\nof mankind. And it is part of the constitution of humanity--a part\nwhich, above others, you are in danger of unwisely contemning under the\nexisting conditions of our knowledge, that the things thus sought for\nbelief with eager passion, do, indeed, become trustworthy to us; that,\nto each of us, they verily become what we would have them; the force of\nthe [Greek: menis] and [Greek: mneme] with which we seek after them,\ndoes, indeed, make them powerful to us for actual good or evil; and it\nis thus granted to us to create not only with our hands things that\nexalt or degrade our sight, but with our hearts also, things that exalt\nor degrade our souls; giving true substance to all that we hoped for;\nevidence to things that we have not seen, but have desired to see; and\ncalling, in the sense of creating, things that are not, as though they\nwere.\n\n88. You remember that in distinguishing Imagination from Idolatry, I\nreferred[21] you to the forms of passionate affection with which a\nnoble people commonly regards the rivers and springs of its native land.\nSome conception of personality, or of spiritual power in the stream, is\nalmost necessarily involved in such emotion; and prolonged [Greek:\ncharis], in the form of gratitude, the return of Love for benefits\ncontinually bestowed, at last alike in all the highest and the simplest\nminds, when they are honorable and pure, makes this untrue thing\ntrustworthy; [Greek: apiston emesato piston], until it becomes to them\nthe safe basis of some of the happiest impulses of their moral nature.\nNext to the marbles of Verona, given you as a primal type of the\nsculpture of Christianity, moved to its best energy in adorning the\nentrance of its temples, I have not unwillingly placed, as your\nintroduction to the best sculpture of the religion of Greece, the forms\nunder which it represented the personality of the fountain Arethusa. But\nwithout restriction to those days of absolute devotion, let me simply\npoint out to you how this untrue thing, made true by Love, has intimate\nand heavenly authority even over the minds of men of the most practical\nsense, the most shrewd wit, and the most severe precision of moral\ntemper. The fair vision of Sabrina in 'Comus,' the endearing and tender\npromise, \"Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium,\" and the joyful and proud\naffection of the great Lombard's address to the lakes of his enchanted\nland,--\n\n          \"Te, Lari maxume, teque\n    Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino,\"\n\nmay surely be remembered by you with regretful piety, when you stand by\nthe blank stones which at once restrain and disgrace your native river,\nas the final worship rendered to it by modern philosophy. But a little\nincident which I saw last summer on its bridge at Wallingford, may put\nthe contrast of ancient and modern feeling before you still more\nforcibly.\n\n89. Those of you who have read with attention (none of us can read with\ntoo much attention), Moliere's most perfect work, 'The Misanthrope,'\nmust remember Celimene's description of her lovers, and her excellent\nreason for being unable to regard with any favor, \"notre grand flandrin\nde vicomte,--depuis que je l'ai vu, trois quarts d'heure durant, cracher\ndans un puits pour faire des ronds.\" That sentence is worth noting, both\nin contrast to the reverence paid by the ancients to wells and springs,\nand as one of the most interesting traces of the extension of the\nloathsome habit among the upper classes of Europe and America, which now\nrenders all external grace, dignity, and decency impossible in the\nthoroughfares of their principal cities. In connection with that\nsentence of Moliere's you may advisably also remember this fact, which I\nchanced to notice on the bridge of Wallingford. I was walking from end\nto end of it, and back again, one Sunday afternoon of last May, trying\nto conjecture what had made this especial bend and ford of the Thames so\nimportant in all the Anglo-Saxon wars. It was one of the few sunny\nafternoons of the bitter spring, and I was very thankful for its light,\nand happy in watching beneath it the flow and the glittering of the\nclassical river, when I noticed a well-dressed boy, apparently just out\nof some orderly Sunday-school, leaning far over the parapet; watching,\nas I conjectured, some bird or insect on the bridge-buttress. I went up\nto him to see what he was looking at; but just as I got close to him, he\nstarted over to the opposite parapet, and put himself there into the\nsame position, his object being, as I then perceived, to spit from both\nsides upon the heads of a pleasure party who were passing in a boat\nbelow.\n\n90. The incident may seem to you too trivial to be noticed in this\nplace. To me, gentlemen, it was by no means trivial. It meant, in the\ndepth of it, such absence of all true [Greek: charis], reverence, and\nintellect, as it is very dreadful to trace in the mind of any human\ncreature, much more in that of a child educated with apparently every\nadvantage of circumstance in a beautiful English country town, within\nten miles of our University. Most of all is it terrific when we regard\nit as the exponent (and this, in truth, it is) of the temper which, as\ndistinguished from former methods, either of discipline or recreation,\nthe present tenor of our general teaching fosters in the mind of\nyouth;--teaching which asserts liberty to be a right, and obedience a\ndegradation; and which, regardless alike of the fairness of nature and\nthe grace of behavior, leaves the insolent spirit and degraded senses to\nfind their only occupation in malice, and their only satisfaction in\nshame.\n\n91. You will, I hope, proceed with me, not scornfully any more, to\ntrace, in the early art of a noble heathen nation, the feeling of what\nwas at least a better childishness than this of ours; and the efforts to\nexpress, though with hands yet failing, and minds oppressed by ignorant\nfantasy, the first truth by which they knew that they lived; the birth\nof wisdom and of all her powers of help to man, as the reward of his\nresolute labor.\n\n92. \"[Greek: Haphaiston technaisi].\" Note that word of Pindar in the\nSeventh Olympic. This ax-blow of Vulcan's was to the Greek mind truly\nwhat Clytemnestra falsely asserts hers to have been, \"[Greek: tes de\ndexias cheros, ergon, dikaias tektonos]\"; physically, it meant the\nopening of the blue through the rent clouds of heaven, by the action of\nlocal terrestrial heat (of Hephaestus as opposed to Apollo, who shines on\nthe surface of the upper clouds, but cannot pierce them); and,\nspiritually, it meant the first birth of prudent thought out of rude\nlabor, the clearing-ax in the hand of the woodman being the practical\nelementary sign of his difference from the wild animals of the wood.\nThen he goes on, \"From the high head of her Father, Athenaia rushing\nforth, cried with her great and exceeding cry; and the Heaven trembled\nat her, and the Earth Mother.\" The cry of Athena, I have before pointed\nout, physically distinguishes her, as the spirit of the air, from silent\nelemental powers; but in this grand passage of Pindar it is again the\nmythic cry of which he thinks; that is to say, the giving articulate\nwords, by intelligence, to the silence of Fate. \"Wisdom crieth aloud,\nshe uttereth her voice in the streets,\" and Heaven and Earth tremble at\nher reproof.\n\n93. Uttereth her voice in the \"streets.\" For all men, that is to say;\nbut to what work did the Greeks think that her voice was to call them?\nWhat was to be the impulse communicated by her prevailing presence; what\nthe sign of the people's obedience to her?\n\nThis was to be the sign--\"But she, the goddess herself, gave to them to\nprevail over the dwellers upon earth, _with best-laboring hands in every\nart. And by their paths there were the likenesses of living and of\ncreeping things_; and the glory was deep. For to the cunning workman,\ngreater knowledge comes, undeceitful.\"\n\n94. An infinitely pregnant passage, this, of which to-day you are to\nnote mainly these three things: First, that Athena is the goddess of\nDoing, not at all of sentimental inaction. She is begotten, as it were,\nof the woodman's ax; her purpose is never in a word only, but in a word\nand a blow. She guides the hands that labor best, in every art.\n\n95. Secondly. The victory given by Wisdom, the worker, to the hands that\nlabor best, is that the streets and ways, [Greek: keleuthoi], shall be\nfilled by likenesses of living and creeping things.\n\nThings living, and creeping! Are the Reptile things not alive then? You\nthink Pindar wrote that carelessly? or that, if he had only known a\nlittle modern anatomy, instead of 'reptile' things, he would have said\n'monochondylous' things? Be patient, and let us attend to the main\npoints first.\n\nSculpture, it thus appears, is the only work of wisdom that the Greeks\ncare to speak of; they think it involves and crowns every other.\nImage-making art; _this_ is Athena's, as queenliest of the arts.\nLiterature, the order and the strength of word, of course belongs to\nApollo and the Muses; under Athena are the Substances and the Forms of\nthings.\n\n96. Thirdly. By this forming of Images there is to be gained a\n'deep'--that is to say, a weighty, and prevailing, glory; not a floating\nnor fugitive one. For to the cunning workman, greater knowledge comes,\n'undeceitful.'\n\n\"[Greek: Daenti;]\" I am forced to use two English words to translate\nthat single Greek one. The 'cunning' workman, thoughtful in experience,\ntouch, and vision of the thing to be done; no machine, witless, and of\nnecessary motion; yet not cunning only, but having perfect habitual\nskill of hand also; the confirmed reward of truthful doing. Recollect,\nin connection with this passage of Pindar, Homer's three verses about\ngetting the lines of ship-timber true, (Il. XV. 410):\n\n    \"[Greek: 'All' hoste stathme dory neion exithynei\n    tektonos en palam si daemonos, hoo rha te pases\n    eu eide sophies, hypothemosynesin 'Athenes],\"\n\nand the beautiful epithet of Persephone,--\"[Greek: daeira],\" as the\nTryer and Knower of good work; and remembering these, trust Pindar for\nthe truth of his saying, that to the cunning workman--(and let me\nsolemnly enforce the words by adding--that to him _only_,) knowledge\ncomes undeceitful.\n\n97. You may have noticed, perhaps, and with a smile, as one of the\nparadoxes you often hear me blamed for too fondly stating, what I told\nyou in the close of my Third Introductory Lecture,[22] that \"so far from\nart's being immoral, little else except art is moral.\" I have now\nfarther to tell you, that little else, except art, is wise; that all\nknowledge, unaccompanied by a habit of useful action, is too likely to\nbecome deceitful, and that every habit of useful action must resolve\nitself into some elementary practice of manual labor. And I would, in\nall sober and direct earnestness, advise you, whatever may be the aim,\npredilection, or necessity of your lives, to resolve upon this one thing\nat least, that you will enable yourselves daily to do actually with your\nhands, something that is useful to mankind. To do anything well with\nyour hands, useful or not; to be, even in trifling, [Greek: palamesi\ndaemon], is already much. When we come to examine the art of the Middle\nAges, I shall be able to show you that the strongest of all influences\nof right then brought to bear upon character was the necessity for\nexquisite manual dexterity in the management of the spear and bridle;\nand in your own experience most of you will be able to recognize the\nwholesome effect, alike on body and mind, of striving, within proper\nlimits of time, to become either good batsmen or good oarsmen. But the\nbat and the racer's oar are children's toys. Resolve that you will be\nmen in usefulness, as well as in strength; and you will find that then\nalso, but not till then, you can become men in understanding; and that\nevery fine vision and subtle theorem will present itself to you\nthence-forward undeceitfully, [Greek: hypothemosynesin Athenes].\n\n98. But there is more to be gathered yet from the words of Pindar. He is\nthinking, in his brief intense way, at once of Athena's work on the\nsoul, and of her literal power on the dust of the Earth. His \"[Greek:\nkeleuthoi]\" is a wide word, meaning all the paths of sea and land.\nConsider, therefore, what Athena's own work _actually is_--in the\nliteral fact of it. The blue, clear air _is_ the sculpturing power upon\nthe earth and sea. Where the surface of the earth is reached by that,\nand its matter and substance inspired with and filled by that, organic\nform becomes possible. You must indeed have the sun, also, and moisture;\nthe kingdom of Apollo risen out of the sea: but the sculpturing of\nliving things, shape by shape, is Athena's, so that under the brooding\nspirit of the air, what was without form, and void, brings forth the\nmoving creature that hath life.\n\n99. That is her work then--the giving of Form; then the separately\nApolline work is the giving of Light; or, more strictly, Sight: giving\nthat faculty to the retina to which we owe not merely the idea of light,\nbut the existence of it; for light is to be defined only as the\nsensation produced in the eye of an animal, under given conditions;\nthose same conditions being, to a stone, only warmth or chemical\ninfluence, but not light. And that power of seeing, and the other\nvarious personalities and authorities of the animal body, in pleasure\nand pain, have never, hitherto, been, I do not say, explained, but in\nanywise touched or approached by scientific discovery. Some of the\nconditions of mere external animal form and of muscular vitality have\nbeen shown; but for the most part that is true, even of external form,\nwhich I wrote six years ago. \"You may always stand by Form against\nForce. To a painter, the essential character of anything is the form of\nit, and the philosophers cannot touch that. They come and tell you, for\ninstance, that there is as much heat, or motion, or calorific energy (or\nwhatever else they like to call it), in a tea-kettle, as in a\ngier-eagle. Very good: that is so, and it is very interesting. It\nrequires just as much heat as will boil the kettle, to take the\ngier-eagle up to his nest, and as much more to bring him down again on a\nhare or a partridge. But we painters, acknowledging the equality and\nsimilarity of the kettle and the bird in all scientific respects,\nattach, for our part, our principal interest to the difference in their\nforms. For us, the primarily cognizable facts, in the two things, are,\nthat the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak; the one a lid on its\nback, the other a pair of wings; not to speak of the distinction also of\nvolition, which the philosophers may properly call merely a form or mode\nof force--but then, to an artist, the form or mode is the gist of the\nbusiness.\"[23]\n\n100. As you will find that it is, not to the artist only, but to all of\nus. The laws under which matter is collected and constructed are the\nsame throughout the universe: the substance so collected, whether for\nthe making of the eagle, or the worm, may be analyzed into gaseous\nidentity; a diffusive vital force, apparently so closely related to\nmechanically measurable heat as to admit the conception of its being\nitself mechanically measurable, and unchanging in total quantity, ebbs\nand flows alike through the limbs of men and the fibers of insects. But,\nabove all this, and ruling every grotesque or degraded accident of this,\nare two laws of beauty in form, and of nobility in character, which\nstand in the chaos of creation between the Living and the Dead, to\nseparate the things that have in them a sacred and helpful, from those\nthat have in them an accursed and destroying, nature; and the power of\nAthena, first physically put forth in the sculpturing of these [Greek:\nzoa] and [Greek: herpeta], these living and reptile things, is put\nforth, finally, in enabling the hearts of men to discern the one from\nthe other; to know the unquenchable fires of the Spirit from the\nunquenchable fires of Death; and to choose, not unaided, between\nsubmission to the Love that cannot end, or to the Worm that cannot die.\n\n101. The unconsciousness of their antagonism is the most notable\ncharacteristic of the modern scientific mind; and I believe no credulity\nor fallacy admitted by the weakness (or it may sometimes rather have\nbeen the strength) of early imagination, indicates so strange a\ndepression beneath the due scale of human intellect, as the failure of\nthe sense of beauty in form, and loss of faith in heroism of conduct,\nwhich have become the curses of recent science,[24] art, and policy.\n\n102. That depression of intellect has been alike exhibited in the mean\nconsternation confessedly felt on one side, and the mean triumph\napparently felt on the other, during the course of the dispute now\npending as to the origin of man. Dispute for the present not to be\ndecided, and of which the decision is, to persons in the modern temper\nof mind, wholly without significance: and I earnestly desire that you,\nmy pupils, may have firmness enough to disengage your energies from\ninvestigation so premature and so fruitless, and sense enough to\nperceive that it does not matter how you have been made, so long as you\nare satisfied with being what you are. If you are dissatisfied with\nyourselves, it ought not to console, but humiliate you, to imagine that\nyou were once seraphs; and if you are pleased with yourselves, it is not\nany ground of reasonable shame to you if, by no fault of your own, you\nhave passed through the elementary condition of apes.\n\n103. Remember, therefore, that it is of the very highest importance that\nyou should know what you _are_, and determine to be the best that you\nmay be; but it is of no importance whatever, except as it may contribute\nto that end, to know what you have been. Whether your Creator shaped\nyou with fingers, or tools, as a sculptor would a lump of clay, or\ngradually raised you to manhood through a series of inferior forms, is\nonly of moment to you in this respect--that in the one case you cannot\nexpect your children to be nobler creatures than you are yourselves--in\nthe other, every act and thought of your present life may be hastening\nthe advent of a race which will look back to you, their fathers (and you\nought at least to have attained the dignity of desiring that it may be\nso,) with incredulous disdain.\n\n104. But that you _are_ yourselves capable of that disdain and dismay;\nthat you are ashamed of having been apes, if you ever were so; that you\nacknowledge, instinctively, a relation of better and worse, and a law\nrespecting what is noble and base, which makes it no question to you\nthat the man is worthier than the baboon,--_this_ is a fact of infinite\nsignificance. This law of preference in your hearts is the true essence\nof your being, and the consciousness of that law is a more positive\nexistence than any dependent on the coherence or forms of matter.\n\n105. Now, but a few words more of mythology, and I have done. Remember\nthat Athena holds the weaver's shuttle, not merely as an instrument of\n_texture_, but as an instrument of _picture_; the ideas of clothing, and\nof the warmth of life, being thus inseparably connected with those of\ngraphic beauty, and the brightness of life. I have told you that no art\ncould be recovered among us without perfectness in dress, nor without\nthe elementary graphic art of women, in divers colors of needlework.\nThere has been no nation of any art-energy, but has strenuously occupied\nand interested itself in this household picturing, from the web of\nPenelope to the tapestry of Queen Matilda, and the meshes of Arras and\nGobelins.\n\n106. We should then naturally ask what kind of embroidery Athena put on\nher own robe; \"[Greek: peplon heanon, poikilon, hon r' aute poiesato kai\nkame chersin].\"\n\nThe subject of that [Greek: poikilia] of hers, as you know, was the war\nof the giants and gods. Now the real name of these giants, remember, is\nthat used by Hesiod, '[Greek: pelogonoi],' 'mud-begotten,' and the\nmeaning of the contest between these and Zeus, [Greek: pelogonon\nelater], is, again, the inspiration of life into the clay, by the\ngoddess of breath; and the actual confusion going on visibly before you,\ndaily, of the earth, heaping itself into cumbrous war with the powers\nabove it.\n\n107. Thus, briefly, the entire material of Art, under Athena's hand, is\nthe contest of life with clay; and all my task in explaining to you the\nearly thought of both the Athenian and Tuscan schools will only be the\ntracing of this battle of the giants into its full heroic form, when,\nnot in tapestry only, but in sculpture, and on the portal of the Temple\nof Delphi itself, you have the \"[Greek: klonos en teichesi lainoisi\ngiganton],\" and their defeat hailed by the passionate cry of delight\nfrom the Athenian maids, beholding Pallas in her full power, \"[Greek:\nleusso Pallad' eman theon],\" my own goddess. All our work, I repeat,\nwill be nothing but the inquiry into the development of this one\nsubject, and the pressing fully home the question of Plato about that\nembroidery--\"And think you that there is verily war with each other\namong the Gods? and dreadful enmities and battles, such as the poets\nhave told, and such as our painters set forth in graven scripture, to\nadorn all our sacred rites and holy places; yes, and in the great\nPanathenaea themselves, the Peplus, full of such wild picturing, is\ncarried up into the Acropolis--shall we say that these things are true,\noh Euthuphron, right-minded friend?\"\n\n108. Yes, we say, and know, that these things are true; and true\nforever: battles of the gods, not among themselves, but against the\nearth-giants. Battle prevailing age by age, in nobler life and lovelier\nimagery; creation, which no theory of mechanism, no definition of force,\ncan explain, the adoption and completing of individual form by\nindividual animation, breathed out of the lips of the Father of Spirits.\nAnd to recognize the presence in every knitted shape of dust, by which\nit lives and moves and has its being--to recognize it, revere, and show\nit forth, is to be our eternal Idolatry.\n\n\"Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them.\"\n\n\"Assuredly no,\" we answered once, in our pride; and through porch and\naisle, broke down the carved work thereof, with axes and hammers.\n\nWho would have thought the day so near when we should bow down to\nworship, not the creatures, but their atoms,--not the forces that form,\nbut those that dissolve them? Trust me, gentlemen, the command which is\nstringent against adoration of brutality, is stringent no less against\nadoration of chaos, nor is faith in an image fallen from heaven to be\nreformed by a faith only in the phenomenon of decadence. We have ceased\nfrom the making of monsters to be appeased by sacrifice;--it is\nwell,--if indeed we have also ceased from making them in our thoughts.\nWe have learned to distrust the adorning of fair fantasms, to which we\nonce sought for succor;--it is well, if we learn to distrust also the\nadorning of those to which we seek, for temptation; but the verity of\ngains like these can only be known by our confession of the divine seal\nof strength and beauty upon the tempered frame, and honor in the fervent\nheart, by which, increasing visibly, may yet be manifested to us the\nholy presence, and the approving love, of the Loving God, who visits the\niniquities of the Fathers upon the Children, unto the third and fourth\ngeneration of them that hate Him, and shows mercy unto thousands of them\nthat love Him, and keep His Commandments.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[16] I shall be obliged in future Lectures, as hitherto in my other\nwritings, to use the terms Idolatry and Imagination in a more\ncomprehensive sense; but here I use them for convenience' sake,\nlimitedly, to avoid the continual occurrence of the terms noble and\nignoble, or false and true, with reference to modes of conception.\n\n[17] \"And in sum, he himself (Prometheus) was the master-maker, and\nAthena worked together with him, breathing into the clay, and caused the\nmolded things to have soul (psyche) in them.\"--LUCIAN, _Prometheus._\n\n[18] His relations with the two great Titans, Themis and Mnemosyne,\nbelong to another group of myths. The father of Athena is the lower and\nnearer physical Zeus, from whom Metis, the mother of Athena, long\nwithdraws and disguises herself.\n\n[19] _Ante_, Sec. 30.\n\n[20] The Latin verses are of later date; the contemporary plain prose\nretains the Venetian gutturals and aspirates.\n\n[21] _Ante_, Sec. 44.\n\n[22] \"Lectures on Art,\" Sec. 95.\n\n[23] \"Ethics of the Dust,\" Lecture X.\n\n[24] The best modern illustrated scientific works show perfect faculty\nof representing monkeys, lizards, and insects; absolute incapability of\nrepresenting either a man, a horse, or a lion.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV.\n\nLIKENESS.\n\n_November, 1870._\n\n\n109. You were probably vexed, and tired, towards the close of my last\nLecture, by the time it took us to arrive at the apparently simple\nconclusion that sculpture must only represent organic form, and the\nstrength of life in its contest with matter. But it is no small thing to\nhave that \"[Greek: leusso Pallada]\" fixed in your minds, as the one\nnecessary sign by which you are to recognize right sculpture; and,\nbelieve me, you will find it the best of all things, if you can take for\nyourselves the saying from the lips of the Athenian maids, in its\nentirety, and say also--[Greek: leusso Pallad' eman theon]. I proceed\nto-day into the practical appliance of this apparently speculative, but\nin reality imperative, law.\n\n110. You observe, I have hitherto spoken of the power of Athena, as over\npainting no less than sculpture. But her rule over both arts is only so\nfar as they are zoographic;--representative, that is to say, of animal\nlife, or of such order and discipline among other elements, as may\ninvigorate and purify it. Now there is a speciality of the art of\npainting beyond this, namely, the representation of phenomena of color\nand shadow, as such, without question of the nature of the things that\nreceive them. I am now accordingly obliged to speak of sculpture and\npainting as distinct arts: but the laws which bind sculpture, bind no\nless the painting of the higher schools, which has, for its main\npurpose, the showing beauty in human or animal form; and which is\ntherefore placed by the Greeks equally under the rule of Athena, as the\nSpirit, first, of Life, and then of Wisdom in conduct.\n\n111. First, I say, you are to 'see Pallas' in all such work, as the\nQueen of Life; and the practical law which follows from this, is one of\nenormous range and importance, namely, that nothing must be represented\nby sculpture, external to any living form, which does not help to\nenforce or illustrate the conception of life. Both dress and armor may\nbe made to do this, by great sculptors, and are continually so used by\nthe greatest. One of the essential distinctions between the Athenian and\nFlorentine schools is dependent on their treatment of drapery in this\nrespect; an Athenian always sets it to exhibit the action of the body,\nby flowing with it, or over it, or from it, so as to illustrate both its\nform and gesture; a Florentine, on the contrary, always uses his drapery\nto conceal or disguise the forms of the body, and exhibit mental\nemotion; but both use it to enhance the life, either of the body or\nsoul; Donatello and Michael Angelo, no less than the sculptors of Gothic\nchivalry, ennoble armor in the same way; but base sculptors carve\ndrapery and armor for the sake of their folds and picturesqueness only,\nand forget the body beneath. The rule is so stern, that all delight in\nmere incidental beauty, which painting often triumphs in, is wholly\nforbidden to sculpture;--for instance, in _painting_ the branch of a\ntree, you may rightly represent and enjoy the lichens and moss on it,\nbut a sculptor must not touch one of them: they are inessential to the\ntree's life,--he must give the flow and bending of the branch only, else\nhe does not enough 'see Pallas' in it.\n\nOr, to take a higher instance, here is an exquisite little painted poem,\nby Edward Frere; a cottage interior, one of the thousands which within\nthe last two months[25] have been laid desolate in unhappy France. Every\naccessory in the painting is of value--the fireside, the tiled floor,\nthe vegetables lying upon it, and the basket hanging from the roof. But\nnot one of these accessories would have been admissible in sculpture.\nYou must carve nothing but what has life. \"Why?\" you probably feel\ninstantly inclined to ask me.--You see the principle we have got,\ninstead of being blunt or useless, is such an edged tool that you are\nstartled the moment I apply it. \"Must we refuse every pleasant accessory\nand picturesque detail, and petrify nothing but living creatures?\" Even\nso: I would not assert it on my own authority. It is the Greeks who say\nit, but whatever they say of sculpture, be assured, is true.\n\n112. That then is the first law--you must see Pallas as the Lady of\nLife; the second is, you must see her as the Lady of Wisdom; or [Greek:\nsophia]--and this is the chief matter of all. I cannot but think that,\nafter the considerations into which we have now entered, you will find\nmore interest than hitherto in comparing the statements of Aristotle, in\nthe Ethics, with those of Plato in the Polity, which are authoritative\nas Greek definitions of goodness in art, and which you may safely hold\nauthoritative as constant definitions of it. You remember, doubtless,\nthat the [Greek: sophia], or [Greek: arete pechnes], for the sake of\nwhich Phidias is called [Greek: sophos] as a sculpture, and Polyclitus\nas an image-maker, Eth. 6. 7. (the opposition is both between ideal and\nportrait sculpture, and between working in stone and bronze), consists\nin the \"[Greek: nous ton timiotaton t e physei],\" \"the mental\napprehension of the things that are most honorable in their nature.\"\nTherefore, what is indeed most lovely, the true image-maker will most\nlove; and what is most hateful, he will most hate; and in all things\ndiscern the best and strongest part of them, and represent that\nessentially, or, if the opposite of that, then with manifest detestation\nand horror. That is his art wisdom; the knowledge of good and evil, and\nthe love of good, so that you may discern, even in his representation of\nthe vilest thing, his acknowledgment of what redemption is possible for\nit, or latent power exists in it; and, contrariwise, his sense of its\npresent misery. But, for the most part, he will idolize, and force us\nalso to idolize, whatever is living, and virtuous, and victoriously\nright; opposing to it in some definite mode the image of the conquered\n[Greek: herpeton].\n\n113. This is generally true of both the great arts; but in severity and\nprecision, true of sculpture. To return to our illustration: this poor\nlittle girl was more interesting to Edward Frere, he being a painter,\nbecause she was poorly dressed, and wore these clumsy shoes, and old red\ncap, and patched gown. May we sculpture her so? No. We may sculpture her\nnaked, if we like; but not in rags.\n\nBut if we may not put her into marble in rags, may we give her a pretty\nfrock with ribbons and flounces to it, and put her into marble in that?\nNo. We may put her simplest peasant's dress, so it be perfect and\norderly, into marble; anything finer than that would be more\ndishonorable in the eyes of Athena than rags. If she were a French\nprincess, you might carve her embroidered robe and diadem; if she were\nJoan of Arc, you might carve her armor--for then these also would be\n\"[Greek: ton timiotaton],\" not otherwise.\n\n114. Is not this an edge-tool we have got hold of, unawares? and a\nsubtle one too; so delicate and cimeter-like in decision. For note that\neven Joan of Arc's armor must be only sculptured, _if she has it on_; it\nis not the honorableness or beauty of it that are enough, but the direct\nbearing of it by her body. You might be deeply, even pathetically,\ninterested by looking at a good knight's dinted coat of mail, left in\nhis desolate hall. May you sculpture it where it hangs? No; the helmet\nfor his pillow, if you will--no more.\n\nYou see we did not do our dull work for nothing in last Lecture. I\ndefine what we have gained once more, and then we will enter on our new\nground.\n\n115. The proper subject of sculpture, we have determined, is the\nspiritual power seen in the form of any living thing, and so represented\nas to give evidence that the sculptor has loved the good of it and hated\nthe evil.\n\n\"_So_ represented,\" we say; but how is that to be done? Why should it\nnot be represented, if possible, just as it is seen? What mode or limit\nof representation may we adopt? We are to carve things that have\nlife;--shall we try so to imitate them that they may indeed seem\nliving,--or only half living, and like stone instead of flesh?\n\nIt will simplify this question if I show you three examples of what the\nGreeks actually did: three typical pieces of their sculpture, in order\nof perfection.\n\n116. And now, observe that in all our historical work, I will endeavor\nto do, myself, what I have asked you to do in your drawing exercises;\nnamely, to outline firmly in the beginning, and then fill in the detail\nmore minutely. I will give you first, therefore, in a symmetrical form,\nabsolutely simple and easily remembered, the large chronology of the\nGreek school; within that unforgettable scheme we will place, as we\ndiscover them, the minor relations of arts and times.\n\nI number the nine centuries before Christ thus, upwards, and divide them\ninto three groups of three each.\n\n                   {9\n    A. ARCHAIC.    {8\n                   {7\n                  ----\n\n                   {6\n    B. BEST.       {5\n                   {4\n                  ----\n\n                   {3\n    C. CORRUPT.    {2\n                   {1\n\nThen the ninth, eighth, and seventh centuries are the period of archaic\nGreek art, steadily progressive wherever it existed.\n\nThe sixth, fifth, and fourth are the period of Central Greek art; the\nfifth, or central, century producing the finest. That is easily\nrecollected by the battle of Marathon. And the third, second, and first\ncenturies are the period of steady decline.\n\nLearn this A B C thoroughly, and mark, for yourselves, what you, at\npresent, think the vital events in each century. As you know more, you\nwill think other events the vital ones; but the best historical\nknowledge only approximates to true thought in that matter; only be\nsure that what is truly vital in the character which governs events, is\nalways expressed by the art of the century; so that if you could\ninterpret that art rightly, the better part of your task in reading\nhistory would be done to your hand.\n\n117. It is generally impossible to date with precision art of the\narchaic period--often difficult to date even that of the central three\nhundred years. I will not weary you with futile minor divisions of time;\nhere are three coins (Plate VII.) roughly, but decisively,\ncharacteristic of the three ages. The first is an early coin of\nTarentum. The city was founded, as you know, by the Spartan Phalanthus,\nlate in the eighth century. I believe the head is meant for that of\nApollo Archegetes; it may however be Taras, the son of Poseidon; it is\nno matter to us at present whom it is meant for, but the fact that we\ncannot know, is itself of the greatest import. We cannot say, with any\ncertainty, unless by discovery of some collateral evidence, whether this\nhead is intended for that of a god, or demigod, or a mortal warrior.\nOught not that to disturb some of your thoughts respecting Greek\nidealism? Farther, if by investigation we discover that the head is\nmeant for that of Phalanthus, we shall know nothing of the character of\nPhalanthus from the face; for there is no portraiture at this early\ntime.\n\n118. The second coin is of AEnus in Macedonia; probably of the fifth or\nearly fourth century, and entirely characteristic of the central period.\nThis we know to represent the face of a god--Hermes. The third coin is a\nking's, not a city's. I will not tell you, at this moment, what king's;\nbut only that it is a late coin of the third period, and that it is as\ndistinct in purpose as the coin of Tarentum is obscure. We know of this\ncoin, that it represents no god nor demigod, but a mere mortal; and we\nknow precisely, from the portrait, what that mortal's face was like.\n\n[Illustration: VII.\n\nARCHAIC, CENTRAL AND DECLINING ART OF GREECE.]\n\n119. A glance at the three coins, as they are set side by side, will now\nshow you the main differences in the three great Greek styles. The\narchaic coin is sharp and hard; every line decisive and numbered, set\nunhesitatingly in its place; nothing is wrong, though everything\nincomplete, and, to us who have seen finer art, ugly. The central coin\nis as decisive and clear in arrangement of masses, but its contours are\ncompletely rounded and finished. There is no character in its execution\nso prominent that you can give an epithet to the style. It is not hard,\nit is not soft, it is not delicate, it is not coarse, it is not\ngrotesque, it is not beautiful; and I am convinced, unless you had been\ntold that this is fine central Greek art, you would have seen nothing at\nall in it to interest you. Do not let yourselves be anywise forced into\nadmiring it; there is, indeed, nothing more here than an approximately\ntrue rendering of a healthy youthful face, without the slightest attempt\nto give an expression of activity, cunning, nobility, or any other\nattribute of the Mercurial mind. Extreme simplicity, unpretending vigor\nof work, which claims no admiration either for minuteness or dexterity,\nand suggests no idea of effort at all; refusal of extraneous ornament,\nand perfectly arranged disposition of counted masses in a sequent order,\nwhether in the beads, or the ringlets of hair; this is all you have to\nbe pleased with; neither will you ever find, in the best Greek Art,\nmore. You might at first suppose that the chain of beads round the cap\nwas an extraneous ornament; but I have little doubt that it is as\ndefinitely the proper fillet for the head of Hermes, as the olive for\nZeus, or corn for Triptolemus. The cap or petasus cannot have expanded\nedges; there is no room for them on the coin; these must be understood,\ntherefore; but the nature of the cloud-petasus is explained by edging it\nwith beads, representing either dew or hail. The shield of Athena often\nbears white pellets for hail, in like manner.\n\n120. The third coin will, I think, at once strike you by what we moderns\nshould call its 'vigor of character.' You may observe also that the\nfeatures are finished with great care and subtlety, but at the cost of\nsimplicity and breadth. But the _essential_ difference between it and\nthe central art, is its disorder in design--you see the locks of hair\ncannot be counted any longer--they are entirely disheveled and\nirregular. Now the individual character may, or may not, be a sign of\ndecline; but the licentiousness, the casting loose of the masses in the\ndesign, is an infallible one. The effort at portraiture is good for art\nif the men to be portrayed are good men, not otherwise. In the instance\nbefore you, the head is that of Mithridates VI. of Pontus, who had,\nindeed, the good qualities of being a linguist and a patron of the arts;\nbut, as you will remember, murdered, according to report, his mother,\ncertainly his brother, certainly his wives and sisters, I have not\ncounted how many of his children, and from a hundred to a hundred and\nfifty thousand persons besides; these last in a single day's massacre.\nThe effort to represent this kind of person is not by any means a method\nof study from life ultimately beneficial to art.\n\n121. This, however, is not the point I have to urge to-day. What I want\nyou to observe is, that though the master of the great time does not\nattempt portraiture, he _does_ attempt animation. And as far as his\nmeans will admit, he succeeds in making the face--you might almost\nthink--vulgarly animated; as like a real face, literally, 'as it can\nstare.' Yes: and its sculptor meant it to be so; and that was what\nPhidias meant his Jupiter to be, if he could manage it. Not, indeed, to\nbe taken for Zeus himself; and yet, to be as like a living Zeus as art\ncould make it. Perhaps you think he tried to make it look living only\nfor the sake of the mob, and would not have tried to do so for\nconnoisseurs. Pardon me; for real connoisseurs he would, and did; and\nherein consists a truth which belongs to all the arts, and which I will\nat once drive home in your minds, as firmly as I can.\n\n122. All second-rate artists--(and remember, the second-rate ones are a\nloquacious multitude, while the great come only one or two in a century;\nand then, silently)--all second-rate artists will tell you that the\nobject of fine art is not resemblance, but some kind of abstraction more\nrefined than reality. Put that out of your heads at once. The object of\nthe great Resemblant Arts is, and always has been, to resemble; and to\nresemble as closely as possible. It is the function of a good portrait\nto set the man before you in habit as he lived, and I would we had a few\nmore that did so. It is the function of a good landscape to set the\nscene before you in its reality; to make you, if it may be, think the\nclouds are flying, and the streams foaming. It is the function of the\nbest sculptor--the true Daedalus--to make stillness look like breathing,\nand marble look like flesh.\n\n123. And in all great times of art, this purpose is as naively expressed\nas it is steadily held. All the talk about abstraction belongs to\nperiods of decadence. In living times, people see something living that\npleases them; and they try to make it live forever, or to make something\nas like it as possible, that will last forever. They paint their\nstatues, and inlay the eyes with jewels, and set real crowns on the\nheads; they finish, in their pictures, every thread of embroidery, and\nwould fain, if they could, draw every leaf upon the trees. And their\nonly verbal expression of conscious success is that they have made their\nwork 'look real.'\n\n124. You think all that very wrong. So did I, once; but it was I that\nwas wrong. A long time ago, before ever I had seen Oxford, I painted a\npicture of the Lake of Como, for my father. It was not at all like the\nLake of Como; but I thought it rather the better for that. My father\ndiffered with me; and objected particularly to a boat with a red and\nyellow awning, which I had put into the most conspicuous corner of my\ndrawing. I declared this boat to be 'necessary to the composition.' My\nfather not the less objected, that he had never seen such a boat, either\nat Como or elsewhere; and suggested that if I would make the lake look a\nlittle more like water, I should be under no necessity of explaining its\nnature by the presence of floating objects. I thought him at the time a\nvery simple person for his pains; but have since learned, and it is the\nvery gist of all practical matters, which, as Professor of Fine Art, I\nhave now to tell you, that the great point in painting a lake is--to\nget it to look like water.\n\n125. So far, so good. We lay it down for a first principle that our\ngraphic art, whether painting or sculpture, is to produce something\nwhich shall look as like Nature as possible. But now we must go one step\nfarther, and say that it is to produce what shall look like Nature to\npeople who know what Nature is like! You see this is at once a great\nrestriction, as well as a great exaltation of our aim. Our business is\nnot to deceive the simple; but to deceive the wise! Here, for instance,\nis a modern Italian print, representing, to the best of its power, St.\nCecilia, in a brilliantly realistic manner. And the fault of the work is\nnot in its earnest endeavor to show St. Cecilia in habit as she lived,\nbut in that the effort could only be successful with persons unaware of\nthe habit St. Cecilia lived in. And this condition of appeal only to the\nwise increases the difficulty of imitative resemblance so greatly, that,\nwith only average skill or materials, we must surrender all hope of it,\nand be content with an imperfect representation, true as far as it\nreaches, and such as to excite the imagination of a wise beholder to\ncomplete it; though falling very far short of what either he or we\nshould otherwise have desired. For instance, here is a suggestion, by\nSir Joshua Reynolds, of the general appearance of a British\nJudge,--requiring the imagination of a very wise beholder indeed to fill\nit up, or even at first to discover what it is meant for. Nevertheless,\nit is better art than the Italian St. Cecilia, because the artist,\nhowever little he may have done to represent his knowledge, does,\nindeed, know altogether what a Judge is like, and appeals only to the\ncriticism of those who know also.\n\n126. There must be, therefore, two degrees of truth to be looked for in\nthe good graphic arts; one, the commonest, which, by any partial or\nimperfect sign, conveys to you an idea which you must complete for\nyourself; and the other, the finest, a representation so perfect as to\nleave you nothing to be farther accomplished by this independent\nexertion; but to give you the same feeling of possession and presence\nwhich you would experience from the natural object itself. For instance\nof the first, in this representation of a rainbow,[26] the artist has no\nhope that, by the black lines of engraving, he can deceive you into any\nbelief of the rainbow's being there, but he gives indication enough of\nwhat he intends, to enable you to supply the rest of the idea yourself,\nproviding always you know beforehand what a rainbow is like. But in this\ndrawing of the falls of Terni,[27] the painter has strained his skill to\nthe utmost to give an actually deceptive resemblance of the iris,\ndawning and fading among the foam. So far as he has not actually\ndeceived you, it is not because he would not have done so if he could;\nbut only because his colors and science have fallen short of his desire.\nThey have fallen so little short, that, in a good light, you may all but\nbelieve the foam, and the sunshine are drifting and changing among the\nrocks.\n\n127. And after looking a little while, you will begin to regret that\nthey are not so: you will feel that, lovely as the drawing is, you would\nlike far better to see the real place, and the goats skipping among the\nrocks, and the spray floating above the fall. And this is the true sign\nof the greatest art--to part voluntarily with its greatness;--to make\n_itself_ poor and unnoticed; but so to exalt and set forth its theme,\nthat you may be fain to see the theme instead of it. So that you have\nnever enough admired a great workman's doing, till you have begun to\ndespise it. The best homage that could be paid to the Athena of Phidias\nwould be to desire rather to see the living goddess; and the loveliest\nMadonnas of Christian art fall short of their due power, if they do not\nmake their beholders sick at heart to see the living Virgin.\n\n128. We have then, for our requirement of the finest art, (sculpture, or\nanything else,) that it shall be so like the thing it represents as to\nplease those who best know or can conceive the original; and, if\npossible, please them deceptively--its final triumph being to deceive\neven the wise; and (the Greeks thought) to please even the Immortals,\nwho were so wise as to be undeceivable. So that you get the Greek, thus\nfar entirely true, idea of perfectness in sculpture, expressed to you by\nwhat Phalaris says, at first sight of the bull of Perilaus, \"It only\nwanted motion and bellowing to seem alive; and as soon as I saw it, I\ncried out, it ought to be sent to the god,\"--to Apollo, for only he, the\nundeceivable, could thoroughly understand such sculpture, and perfectly\ndelight in it.\n\n129. And with this expression of the Greek ideal of sculpture, I wish\nyou to join the early Italian, summed in a single line by Dante--\"non\nvide me' di me, chi vide 'l vero.\" Read the twelfth canto of the\nPurgatory, and learn that whole passage by heart; and if ever you chance\nto go to Pistoja, look at La Robbia's colored porcelain bas-reliefs of\nthe seven works of Mercy on the front of the hospital there; and note\nespecially the faces of the two sick men--one at the point of death, and\nthe other in the first peace and long-drawn breathing of health after\nfever--and you will know what Dante meant by the preceding line, \"Morti\nli morti, e i vivi paren vivi.\"\n\n130. But now, may we not ask farther,--is it impossible for art such as\nthis, prepared for the wise, to please the simple also? Without entering\non the awkward questions of degree, how many the wise can be, or how\nmuch men should know, in order to be rightly called wise, may we not\nconceive an art to be possible, which would deceive _everybody_, or\neverybody worth deceiving? I showed you at my First Lecture, a little\nringlet of Japan ivory, as a type of elementary bas-relief touched with\ncolor; and in your rudimentary series you have a drawing, by Mr.\nBurgess, of one of the little fishes enlarged, with every touch of the\nchisel facsimiled on the more visible scale; and showing the little\nblack bead inlaid for the eye, which in the original is hardly to be\nseen without a lens. You may, perhaps, be surprised when I tell you that\n(putting the question of _subject_ aside for the moment, and speaking\nonly of the mode of execution and aim at resemblance,) you have there a\nperfect example of the Greek ideal of method in sculpture. And you will\nadmit that, to the simplest person whom we could introduce as a critic,\nthat fish would be a satisfactory, nay, almost a deceptive, fish; while,\nto any one caring for subtleties of art, I need not point out that every\ntouch of the chisel is applied with consummate knowledge, and that it\nwould be impossible to convey more truth and life with the given\nquantity of workmanship.\n\n131. Here is, indeed, a drawing by Turner, (Edu. 131), in which, with\nsome fifty times the quantity of labor, and far more highly educated\nfaculty of sight, the artist has expressed some qualities of luster and\ncolor which only very wise persons indeed could perceive in a John Dory;\nand this piece of paper contains, therefore, much more, and more subtle,\nart, than the Japan ivory; but are we sure that it is therefore\n_greater_ art? or that the painter was better employed in producing this\ndrawing, which only one person can possess, and only one in a hundred\nenjoy, than he would have been in producing two or three pieces on a\nlarger scale, which should have been at once accessible to, and\nenjoyable by, a number of simpler persons? Suppose, for instance, that\nTurner, instead of faintly touching this outline, on white paper, with\nhis camel's-hair pencil, had struck the main forms of his fish into\nmarble, thus, (Fig. 7); and instead of coloring the white paper so\ndelicately that, perhaps, only a few of the most keenly observant\nartists in England can see it at all, had, with his strong hand, tinted\nthe marble with a few colors, deceptive to the people, and harmonious to\nthe initiated; suppose that he had even conceded so much to the spirit\nof popular applause as to allow of a bright glass bead being inlaid for\nthe eye, in the Japanese manner; and that the enlarged, deceptive, and\npopularly pleasing work had been carved on the outside of a great\nbuilding,--say Fishmongers' Hall,--where everybody commercially\nconnected with Billingsgate could have seen it, and ratified it with a\nwisdom of the market;--might not the art have been greater, worthier,\nand kinder in such use?\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 7.]\n\n132. Perhaps the idea does not at once approve itself to you of having\nyour public buildings covered with ornaments; but, pray remember that\nthe choice of _subject_ is an ethical question, not now before us. All I\nask you to decide is whether the method is right, and would be pleasant,\nin giving the distinctiveness to pretty things, which it has here given\nto what, I suppose it may be assumed, you feel to be an ugly thing. Of\ncourse, I must note parenthetically, such realistic work is impossible\nin a country where the buildings are to be discolored by coal-smoke; but\nso is all fine sculpture whatsoever; and the whiter, the worse its\nchance. For that which is prepared for private persons, to be kept under\ncover, will, of necessity, degenerate into the copyism of past work, or\nmerely sensational and sensual forms of present life, unless there be a\ngoverning school addressing the populace, for their instruction, on the\noutside of buildings. So that, as I partly warned you in my Third\nLecture, you can simply have _no_ sculpture in a coal country. Whether\nyou like coals or carvings best, is no business of mine. I merely have\nto assure you of the fact that they are incompatible.\n\nBut, assuming that we are again, some day, to become a civilized and\ngoverning race, deputing ironmongery, coal-digging, and lucre-digging,\nto our slaves in other countries, it is quite conceivable that, with an\nincreasing knowledge of natural history, and desire for such knowledge,\nwhat is now done by careful, but inefficient, wood-cuts, and in\nill-colored engravings, might be put in quite permanent sculptures, with\ninlay of variegated precious stones, on the outside of buildings, where\nsuch pictures would be little costly to the people; and in a more\npopular manner still, by Robbia ware and Palissy ware, and inlaid\nmajolica, which would differ from the housewife's present favorite\ndecoration of plates above her kitchen dresser, by being every piece of\nit various, instructive, and universally visible.\n\n133. You hardly know, I suppose, whether I am speaking in jest or\nearnest. In the most solemn earnest, I assure you; though such is the\nstrange course of our popular life that all the irrational arts of\ndestruction are at once felt to be earnest; while any plan for those of\ninstruction on a grand scale, sounds like a dream, or jest. Still, I do\nnot absolutely propose to decorate our public buildings with sculpture\nwholly of this character; though beast, and fowl, and creeping things,\nand fishes, might all find room on such a building as the Solomon's\nHouse of a New Atlantis; and some of them might even become symbolic of\nmuch to us again. Passing through the Strand, only the other day, for\ninstance, I saw four highly finished and delicately colored pictures of\ncock-fighting, which, for imitative quality, were nearly all that could\nbe desired, going far beyond the Greek cock of Himera; and they would\nhave delighted a Greek's soul, if they had meant as much as a Greek\ncock-fight; but they were only types of the \"[Greek: endomachas\nalektor],\" and of the spirit of home contest, which has been so fatal\nlately to the Bird of France; and not of the defense of one's own\nbarnyard, in thought of which the Olympians set the cock on the pillars\nof their chariot course; and gave it goodly alliance in its battle, as\nyou may see here, in what is left of the angle of moldering marble in\nthe chair of the priest of Dionusos. The cast of it, from the center of\nthe theater under the Acropolis, is in the British Museum; and I wanted\nits spiral for you, and this kneeling Angel of Victory;--it is late\nGreek art, but nobly systematic flat bas-relief. So I set Mr. Burgess to\ndraw it; but neither he nor I, for a little while, could make out what\nthe Angel of Victory was kneeling for. His attitude is an ancient and\ngrandly conventional one among the Egyptians; and I was tracing it back\nto a kneeling goddess of the greatest dynasty of the Pharaohs--a goddess\nof Evening, or Death, laying down the sun out of her right hand;--when,\none bright day, the shadows came out clear on the Athenian throne, and I\nsaw that my Angel of Victory was only backing a cock at a cock-fight.\n\n134. Still, as I have said, there is no reason why sculpture, even for\nsimplest persons, should confine itself to imagery of fish, or fowl, or\nfour-footed things.\n\nWe go back to our first principle: we ought to carve nothing but what is\nhonorable. And you are offended, at this moment, with my fish, (as I\nbelieve, when the first sculptures appeared on the windows of this\nmuseum, offense was taken at the unnecessary introduction of cats,)\nthese dissatisfactions being properly felt by your \"[Greek: nous ton\ntimiotaton].\" For indeed, in all cases, our right judgment must depend\non our wish to give honor only to things and creatures that deserve it.\n\n135. And now I must state to you another principle of veracity, both in\nsculpture, and all following arts, of wider scope than any hitherto\nexamined. We have seen that sculpture is to be a true representation of\ntrue internal form. Much more is it to be a representation of true\ninternal emotion. You must carve only what you yourself see as you see\nit; but, much more, you must carve only what you yourself feel, as you\nfeel it. You may no more endeavor to feel through other men's souls,\nthan to see with other men's eyes. Whereas generally now, in Europe and\nAmerica, every man's energy is bent upon acquiring some false emotion,\nnot his own, but belonging to the past, or to other persons, because he\nhas been taught that such and such a result of it will be fine. Every\nattempted sentiment in relation to art is hypocritical; our notions of\nsublimity, of grace, or pious serenity, are all secondhand: and we are\npractically incapable of designing so much as a bell-handle or a\ndoor-knocker, without borrowing the first notion of it from those who\nare gone--where we shall not wake them with our knocking. I would we\ncould.\n\n136. In the midst of this desolation we have nothing to count on for\nreal growth but what we can find of honest liking and longing, in\nourselves and in others. We must discover, if we would healthily\nadvance, what things are verily [Greek: timiotata] among us; and if we\ndelight to honor the dishonorable, consider how, in future, we may\nbetter bestow our likings. Now it appears to me, from all our popular\ndeclarations, that we, at present, honor nothing so much as liberty and\nindependence; and no person so much as the Free man and Self-made man,\nwho will be ruled by no one, and has been taught, or helped, by no one.\nAnd the reason I chose a fish for you as the first subject of sculpture,\nwas that in men who are free and self-made, you have the nearest\napproach, humanly possible, to the state of the fish, and finely\norganized [Greek: herpeton]. You get the exact phrase in Habakkuk, if\nyou take the Septuagint text,--\"[Greek: poieseis tous anthropous hos\ntous ichthyas tes thalasses, kai hos ta herpeta ta ouk echonta\nhegoumenon].\" \"Thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the\nreptile things, _that have no ruler over them_.\" And it chanced that as\nI was preparing this Lecture, one of our most able and popular prints\ngave me a wood-cut of the 'self-made man,' specified as such, so\nvigorously drawn, and with so few touches, that Phidias or Turner\nhimself could scarcely have done it better; so that I had only to ask my\nassistant to enlarge it with accuracy, and it became comparable with my\nfish at once. Of course it is not given by the caricaturist as an\nadmirable face; only, I am enabled by his skill to set before you,\nwithout any suspicion of unfairness on _my_ part, the expression to\nwhich the life we profess to think most honorable, naturally leads. If\nwe were to take the hat off, you see how nearly the profile corresponds\nwith that of the typical fish.\n\n137. Such, then, being the definition, by your best popular art, of the\nideal of feature at which we are gradually arriving by self-manufacture:\nwhen I place opposite to it (in Plate VIII.) the profile of a man not in\nanywise self-made, neither by the law of his own will, nor by the love\nof his own interest--nor capable, for a moment, of any kind of\n'Independence,' or of the idea of independence; but wholly dependent\nupon, and subjected to, external influence of just law, wise teaching,\nand trusted love and truth, in his fellow-spirits;--setting before you,\nI say, this profile of a God-made, instead of a self-made, man, I know\nthat you will feel, on the instant, that you are brought into contact\nwith the vital elements of human art; and that this, the sculpture of\nthe good, is indeed the only permissible sculpture.\n\n138. A God-made _man_, I say. The face, indeed, stands as a symbol of\nmore than man in its sculptor's mind. For as I gave you, to lead your\nfirst effort in the form of leaves, the scepter of Apollo, so this,\nwhich I give you as the first type of rightness in the form of flesh, is\nthe countenance of the holder of that scepter, the Sun-God of Syracuse.\nBut there is nothing in the face (nor did the Greek suppose there was)\nmore perfect than might be seen in the daily beauty of the creatures the\nSun-God shone upon, and whom his strength and honor animated. This is\nnot an ideal, but a quite literally true, face of a Greek youth; nay, I\nwill undertake to show you that it is not supremely beautiful, and even\nto surpass it altogether with the literal portrait of an Italian one. It\nis in verity no more than the form habitually taken by the features of a\nwell-educated young Athenian or Sicilian citizen; and the one\nrequirement for the sculptors of to-day is not, as it has been thought,\nto invent the same ideal, but merely to see the same reality.\n\n[Illustration: VIII.\n\nTHE APOLLO OF SYRACUSE, AND THE SELF-MADE MAN.]\n\n[Illustration: IX.\n\nAPOLLO CHRYSOCOMES OF CLAZOMENAE.]\n\nNow, you know I told you in my Fourth Lecture[28] that the beginning of\nart was in getting our country clean and our people beautiful, and you\nsupposed that to be a statement irrelevant to my subject; just as, at\nthis moment, you perhaps think I am quitting the great subject of this\npresent Lecture--the method of likeness-making,--and letting myself\nbranch into the discussion of what things we are to make likeness of.\nBut you shall see hereafter that the method of imitating a beautiful\nthing must be different from the method of imitating an ugly one; and\nthat, with the change in subject from what is dishonorable to what is\nhonorable, there will be involved a parallel change in the management of\ntools, of lines, and of colors. So that before I can determine for you\n_how_ you are to imitate, you must tell me what kind of face you wish to\nimitate. The best draughtsman in the world could not draw this Apollo in\nten scratches, though he can draw the self-made man. Still less this\nnobler Apollo of Ionian Greece (Plate IX.), in which the incisions are\nsoftened into a harmony like that of Correggio's painting. So that you\nsee the method itself,--the choice between black incision or fine\nsculpture, and perhaps, presently, the choice between color or no color,\nwill depend on what you have to represent. Color may be expedient for a\nglistening dolphin or a spotted fawn;--perhaps inexpedient for white\nPoseidon, and gleaming Dian. So that, before defining the laws of\nsculpture, I am compelled to ask you, _what you mean to carve_; and\nthat, little as you think it, is asking you how you mean to live, and\nwhat the laws of your State are to be, for _they_ determine those of\nyour statue. You can only have this kind of face to study from, in the\nsort of state that produced it. And you will find that sort of state\ndescribed in the beginning of the fourth book of the laws of Plato; as\nfounded, for one thing, on the conviction that of all the evils that can\nhappen to a state, quantity of money is the greatest! [Greek: meizon\nkakon, hos epos eipein, polei ouden an gignoita, eis gennaion kai\ndikaion ethon ktesin], \"for, to speak shortly, no greater evil, matching\neach against each, can possibly happen to a city, as adverse to its\nforming just or generous character,\" than its being full of silver and\ngold.\n\n139. Of course the Greek notion may be wrong, and ours right,\nonly--[Greek: hos epos eipein]--you can have Greek sculpture only on\nthat Greek theory: shortly expressed by the words put into the mouth of\nPoverty herself, in the Plutus of Aristophanes, \"[Greek: Tou ploutou\nparecho beltionas andras, kai ten gnomen, kai ten idean],\" \"I deliver to\nyou better men than the God of Money can, both in imagination and\nfeature.\" So, on the other hand, this ichthyoid, reptilian, or\nmonochondyloid ideal of the self-made man can only be reached,\nuniversally, by a nation which holds that poverty, either of purse or\nspirit,--but especially the spiritual character of being [Greek: ptochoi\nto pneumati],--is the lowest of degradations; and which believes that\nthe desire of wealth is the first of manly and moral sentiments. As I\nhave been able to get the popular ideal represented by its own living\nart, so I can give you this popular faith in its own living words; but\nin words meant seriously, and not at all as caricature, from one of our\nleading journals, professedly aesthetic also in its very name, the\n_Spectator_, of August 6, 1870.\n\n\"Mr. Ruskin's plan,\" it says, \"would make England poor, in order that\nshe might be cultivated, and refined, and artistic. A wilder proposal\nwas never broached by a man of ability; and it might be regarded as a\nproof that the assiduous study of art emasculates the intellect, _and\neven the moral sense_. Such a theory almost warrants the contempt with\nwhich art is often regarded by essentially intellectual natures, like\nProudhon\" (sic). \"Art is noble as the flower of life, and the creations\nof a Titian are a great heritage of the race; but if England could\nsecure high art and Venetian glory of color only by the sacrifice of her\nmanufacturing supremacy, and _by the acceptance of national poverty_,\nthen the pursuit of such artistic achievements would imply that we had\nceased to possess natures of manly strength, _or to know the meaning of\nmoral aims_. If we must choose between a Titian and a Lancashire cotton\nmill, then, in the name of manhood and of morality, give us the cotton\nmill. Only the dilettanteism of the studio; that dilettanteism which\nloosens the moral no less than the intellectual fiber, and which is as\nfatal to rectitude of action as to correctness of reasoning power, would\nmake a different choice.\"\n\nYou see also, by this interesting and most memorable passage, how\ncompletely the question is admitted to be one of ethics--the only real\npoint at issue being, whether this face or that is developed on the\ntruer moral principle.\n\n140. I assume, however, for the present, that this Apolline type is the\nkind of form you wish to reach and to represent. And now observe,\ninstantly, the whole question of manner of imitation is altered for us.\nThe fins of the fish, the plumes of the swan, and the flowing of the\nSun-God's hair are all represented by incisions--but the incisions do\nsufficiently represent the fin and feather,--they _in_sufficiently\nrepresent the hair. If I chose, with a little more care and labor, I\ncould absolutely get the surface of the scales and spines of the fish,\nand the expression of its mouth; but no quantity of labor would obtain\nthe real surface of a tress of Apollo's hair, and the full expression of\nhis mouth. So that we are compelled at once to call the imagination to\nhelp us, and say to it, _You_ know what the Apollo Chrysocomes must be\nlike; finish all this for yourself. Now, the law under which imagination\nworks, is just that of other good workers. \"You must give me clear\norders; show me what I have to do, and where I am to begin, and let me\nalone.\" And the orders can be given, quite clearly, up to a certain\npoint, in form; but they cannot be given clearly in color, now that the\nsubject is subtle. All beauty of this high kind depends on harmony; let\nbut the slightest discord come into it, and the finer the thing is, the\nmore fatal will be the flaw. Now, on a flat surface, I can command my\ncolor to be precisely what and where I mean it to be; on a round one I\ncannot. For all harmony depends, first, on the fixed proportion of the\ncolor of the light to that of the relative shadow; and therefore if I\nfasten my color, I must fasten my shade. But on a round surface the\nshadow changes at every hour of the day; and therefore all coloring\nwhich is expressive of form, is impossible; and if the form is fine,\n(and here there is nothing but what is fine,) you may bid farewell to\ncolor.\n\n141. Farewell to color; that is to say, if the thing is to be seen\ndistinctly, and you have only wise people to show it to; but if it is to\nbe seen indistinctly, at a distance, color may become explanatory; and\nif you have simple people to show it to, color may be necessary to\nexcite _their_ imaginations, though not to excite yours. And the art is\ngreat always by meeting its conditions in the straightest way; and if it\nis to please a multitude of innocent and bluntly-minded persons, must\nexpress itself in the terms that will touch them; else it is not good.\nAnd I have to trace for you through the history of the past, and\npossibilities of the future, the expedients used by great sculptors to\nobtain clearness, impressiveness, or splendor; and the manner of their\nappeal to the people, under various light and shadow, and with reference\nto different degrees of public intelligence: such investigation\nresolving itself again and again, as we proceed, into questions\nabsolutely ethical; as, for instance, whether color is to be bright or\ndull,--that is to say, for a populace cheerful or heartless;--whether it\nis to be delicate or strong,--that is to say, for a populace attentive\nor careless; whether it is to be a background like the sky, for a\nprocession of young men and maidens, because your populace revere\nlife--or the shadow of the vault behind a corpse stained with drops of\nblackened blood, for a populace taught to worship Death. Every critical\ndetermination of rightness depends on the obedience to some ethic law,\nby the most rational and, therefore, simplest means. And you see how it\ndepends most, of all things, on whether you are working for chosen\npersons, or for the mob; for the joy of the boudoir, or of the Borgo.\nAnd if for the mob, whether the mob of Olympia, or of St. Antoine.\nPhidias, showing his Jupiter for the first time, hides behind the temple\ndoor to listen, resolved afterwards \"[Greek: rhythmizein to agalma pros\nto tois pleistois dokoun, ou gar hegeito mikran einai symboulen demou\ntosoutou],\" and truly, as your people is, in judgment, and in multitude,\nso must your sculpture be, in glory. An elementary principle which has\nbeen too long out of mind.\n\n142. I leave you to consider it, since, for some time, we shall not\nagain be able to take up the inquiries to which it leads. But,\nultimately, I do not doubt that you will rest satisfied in these\nfollowing conclusions:\n\n1. Not only sculpture, but all the other fine arts, must be for the\npeople.\n\n2. They must be didactic to the people, and that as their chief end. The\nstructural arts, didactic in their manner; the graphic arts, in their\nmatter also.\n\n3. And chiefly the great representative and imaginative arts--that is to\nsay, the drama and sculpture--are to teach what is noble in past\nhistory, and lovely in existing human and organic life.\n\n4. And the test of right manner of execution in these arts, is that they\nstrike, in the most emphatic manner, the rank of popular minds to which\nthey are addressed.\n\n5. And the test of utmost fineness in execution in these arts, is that\nthey make themselves be forgotten in what they represent; and so fulfill\nthe words of their greatest Master,\n\n     \"THE BEST, IN THIS KIND, ARE BUT SHADOWS.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[25] See date of delivery of Lecture. The picture was of a peasant girl\nof eleven or twelve years old, peeling carrots by a cottage fire.\n\n[26] In Duerer's 'Melancholia.'\n\n[27] Turner's, in the Hakewill series.\n\n[28] \"Lectures on Art,\" Sec. 116.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V.\n\nSTRUCTURE.\n\n_December, 1870._\n\n\n143. On previous occasions of addressing you, I have endeavored to show\nyou, first, how sculpture is distinguished from other arts; then its\nproper subjects; then its proper method in the realization of these\nsubjects. To-day, we must, in the fourth place, consider the means at\nits command for the accomplishment of these ends; the nature of its\nmaterials; and the mechanical or other difficulties of their treatment.\n\nAnd however doubtful we may have remained as to the justice of Greek\nideals, or propriety of Greek methods of representing them, we may be\ncertain that the example of the Greeks will be instructive in all\npractical matters relating to this great art, peculiarly their own. I\nthink even the evidence I have already laid before you is enough to\nconvince you that it was by rightness and reality, not by idealism or\ndelightfulness only, that their minds were finally guided; and I am sure\nthat, before closing the present course, I shall be able so far to\ncomplete that evidence, as to prove to you that the commonly received\nnotions of classic art are, not only unfounded, but even, in many\nrespects, directly contrary to the truth. You are constantly told that\nGreece idealized whatever she contemplated. She did the exact contrary:\nshe realized and verified it. You are constantly told she sought only\nthe beautiful. She sought, indeed, with all her heart; but she found,\nbecause she never doubted that the search was to be consistent with\npropriety and common sense. And the first thing you will always discern\nin Greek work is the first which you _ought_ to discern in all work;\nnamely, that the object of it has been rational, and has been obtained\nby simple and unostentatious means.\n\n144. \"That the object of the work has been rational\"! Consider how much\nthat implies. That it should be by all means seen to have been\ndetermined upon, and carried through, with sense and discretion; these\nbeing gifts of intellect far more precious than any knowledge of\nmathematics, or of the mechanical resources of art. Therefore, also,\nthat it should be a modest and temperate work, a structure fitted to the\nactual state of men; proportioned to their actual size, as animals,--to\ntheir average strength,--to their true necessities,--and to the degree\nof easy command they have over the forces and substances of nature.\n\n145. You see how much this law excludes! All that is fondly magnificent,\ninsolently ambitious, or vainly difficult. There is, indeed, such a\nthing as Magnanimity in design, but never unless it be joined also with\nmodesty, and _Equ_animity. Nothing extravagant, monstrous, strained, or\nsingular, can be structurally beautiful. No towers of Babel envious of\nthe skies; no pyramids in mimicry of the mountains of the earth; no\nstreets that are a weariness to traverse, nor temples that make pigmies\nof the worshipers.\n\nIt is one of the primal merits and decencies of Greek work, that it was,\non the whole, singularly small in scale, and wholly within reach of\nsight, to its finest details. And, indeed, the best buildings that I\nknow are thus modest; and some of the best are minute jewel cases for\nsweet sculpture. The Parthenon would hardly attract notice, if it were\nset by the Charing Cross Railway Station: the Church of the Miracoli, at\nVenice, the Chapel of the Rose, at Lucca, and the Chapel of the Thorn,\nat Pisa, would not, I suppose, all three together, fill the tenth part,\ncube, of a transept of the Crystal Palace. And they are better so.\n\n146. In the chapter on Power in the 'Seven Lamps of Architecture,' I\nhave stated what seems, at first, the reverse of what I am saying now;\nnamely, that it is better to have one grand building than any number of\nmean ones. And that is true: but you cannot command grandeur by size\ntill you can command grace in minuteness; and least of all, remember,\nwill you so command it to-day, when magnitude has become the chief\nexponent of folly and misery, coordinate in the fraternal enormities of\nthe Factory and Poorhouse,--the Barracks and Hospital. And the final law\nin this matter is that, if you require edifices only for the grace and\nhealth of mankind, and build them without pretense and without\nchicanery, they will be sublime on a modest scale, and lovely with\nlittle decoration.\n\n147. From these principles of simplicity and temperance, two very\nseverely fixed laws of construction follow; namely, first, that our\nstructure, to be beautiful, must be produced with tools of men; and,\nsecondly, that it must be composed of natural substances. First, I say,\nproduced with tools of men. All fine art requires the application of the\nwhole strength and subtlety of the body, so that such art is not\npossible to any sickly person, but involves the action and force of a\nstrong man's arm from the shoulder, as well as the delicatest touch of\nhis fingers: and it is the evidence that this full and fine strength has\nbeen spent on it which makes the art executively noble; so that no\ninstrument must be used, habitually, which is either too heavy to be\ndelicately restrained, or too small and weak to transmit a vigorous\nimpulse; much less any mechanical aid, such as would render the\nsensibility of the fingers ineffectual.[29]\n\n148. Of course, any kind of work in glass, or in metal, on a large\nscale, involves some painful endurance of heat; and working in clay,\nsome habitual endurance of cold; but the point beyond which the effort\nmust not be carried is marked by loss of power of manipulation. As long\nas the eyes and fingers have complete command of the material, (as a\nglass-blower has, for instance, in doing fine ornamental work,)--the law\nis not violated; but all our great engine and furnace work, in\ngun-making and the like, is degrading to the intellect; and no nation\ncan long persist in it without losing many of its human faculties. Nay,\neven the use of machinery other than the common rope and pulley, for the\nlifting of weights, is degrading to architecture; the invention of\nexpedients for the raising of enormous stones has always been a\ncharacteristic of partly savage or corrupted races. A block of marble\nnot larger than a cart with a couple of oxen could carry, and a\ncross-beam, with a couple of pulleys, raise, is as large as should\ngenerally be used in any building. The employment of large masses is\nsure to lead to vulgar exhibitions of geometrical arrangement,[30] and\nto draw away the attention from the sculpture. In general, rocks\nnaturally break into such pieces as the human beings that have to build\nwith them can easily lift; and no larger should be sought for.\n\n149. In this respect, and in many other subtle ways, the law that the\nwork is to be with tools of men is connected with the farther condition\nof its modesty, that it is to be wrought in substance provided by\nNature, and to have a faithful respect to all the essential qualities of\nsuch substance.\n\nAnd here I must ask your attention to the idea, and, more than\nidea,--the fact, involved in that infinitely misused term,\n'Providentia,' when applied to the Divine power. In its truest sense and\nscholarly use, it is a human virtue, [Greek: Prometheia]; the personal\ntype of it is in Prometheus, and all the first power of [Greek: techne],\nis from him, as compared to the weakness of days when men without\nforesight \"[Greek: ephyron eike panta].\" But, so far as we use the word\n'Providence' as an attribute of the Maker and Giver of all things, it\ndoes not mean that in a shipwreck He takes care of the passengers who\nare to be saved, and takes none of those who are to be drowned; but it\n_does_ mean that every race of creatures is born into the world under\ncircumstances of approximate adaptation to its necessities; and, beyond\nall others, the ingenious and observant race of man is surrounded with\nelements naturally good for his food, pleasant to his sight, and\nsuitable for the subjects of his ingenuity;--the stone, metal, and clay\nof the earth he walks upon lending themselves at once to his hand, for\nall manner of workmanship.\n\n150. Thus, his truest respect for the law of the entire creation is\nshown by his making the most of what he can get most easily; and there\nis no virtue of art, nor application of common sense, more sacredly\nnecessary than this respect to the beauty of natural substance, and the\nease of local use; neither are there any other precepts of construction\nso vital as these--that you show all the strength of your material,\ntempt none of its weaknesses, and do with it only what can be simply and\npermanently done.\n\n151. Thus, all good building will be with rocks, or pebbles, or burnt\nclay, but with no artificial compound; all good painting with common\noils and pigments on common canvas, paper, plaster, or wood,--admitting\nsometimes, for precious work, precious things, but all applied in a\nsimple and visible way. The highest imitative art should not, indeed, at\nfirst sight, call attention to the means of it; but even that, at\nlength, should do so distinctly, and provoke the observer to take\npleasure in seeing how completely the workman is master of the\nparticular material he has used, and how beautiful and desirable a\nsubstance it was, for work of that kind. In oil painting, its unctuous\nquality is to be delighted in; in fresco, its chalky quality; in glass,\nits transparency; in wood, its grain; in marble, its softness; in\nporphyry, its hardness; in iron, its toughness. In a flint country, one\nshould feel the delightfulness of having flints to pick up, and fasten\ntogether into rugged walls. In a marble country, one should be always\nmore and more astonished at the exquisite color and structure of\nmarble; in a slate country, one should feel as if every rock cleft\nitself only for the sake of being built with conveniently.\n\n152. Now, for sculpture, there are, briefly, two materials--Clay, and\nStone; for glass is only a clay that gets clear and brittle as it cools,\nand metal a clay that gets opaque and tough as it cools. Indeed, the\ntrue use of gold in this world is only as a very pretty and very ductile\nclay, which you can spread as flat as you like, spin as fine as you\nlike, and which will neither crack nor tarnish.\n\nAll the arts of sculpture in clay may be summed up under the word\n'Plastic,' and all of those in stone, under the word 'Glyptic.'\n\n153. Sculpture in clay will accordingly include all cast brickwork,\npottery, and tile-work[31]--a somewhat important branch of human skill.\nNext to the potter's work, you have all the arts in porcelain, glass,\nenamel, and metal,--everything, that is to say, playful and familiar in\ndesign, much of what is most felicitously inventive, and, in bronze or\ngold, most precious and permanent.\n\n154. Sculpture in stone, whether granite, gem, or marble, while we\naccurately use the general term 'glyptic' for it, may be thought of\nwith, perhaps, the most clear force under the English word 'engraving.'\nFor, from the mere angular incision which the Greek consecrated in the\ntriglyphs of his greatest order of architecture, grow forth all the arts\nof bas-relief, and methods of localized groups of sculpture connected\nwith each other and with architecture: as, in another direction, the\narts of engraving and wood-cutting themselves.\n\n155. Over all this vast field of human skill the laws which I have\nenunciated to you rule with inevitable authority, embracing the\ngreatest, and consenting to the humblest, exertion; strong to repress\nthe ambition of nations, if fantastic and vain, but gentle to approve\nthe efforts of children, made in accordance with the visible intention\nof the Maker of all flesh, and the Giver of all Intelligence. These\nlaws, therefore, I now repeat, and beg of you to observe them as\nirrefragable.\n\n1. That the work is to be with tools of men.\n\n2. That it is to be in natural materials.\n\n3. That it is to exhibit the virtues of those materials, and aim at no\nquality inconsistent with them.\n\n4. That its temper is to be quiet and gentle, in harmony with common\nneeds, and in consent to common intelligence.\n\nWe will now observe the bearing of these laws on the elementary\nconditions of the art at present under discussion.\n\n156. There is, first, work in baked clay, which contracts, as it dries,\nand is very easily frangible. Then you must put no work into it\nrequiring niceness in dimension, nor any so elaborate that it would be a\ngreat loss if it were broken; but as the clay yields at once to the\nhand, and the sculptor can do anything with it he likes, it is a\nmaterial for him to sketch with and play with,--to record his fancies\nin, before they escape him,--and to express roughly, for people who can\nenjoy such sketches, what he has not time to complete in marble. The\nclay, being ductile, lends itself to all softness of line; being easily\nfrangible, it would be ridiculous to give it sharp edges, so that a\nblunt and massive rendering of graceful gesture will be its natural\nfunction: but as it can be pinched, or pulled, or thrust in a moment\ninto projection which it would take hours of chiseling to get in stone,\nit will also properly be used for all fantastic and grotesque form, not\ninvolving sharp edges. Therefore, what is true of chalk and charcoal,\nfor painters, is equally true of clay, for sculptors; they are all most\nprecious materials for true masters, but tempt the false ones into fatal\nlicense; and to judge rightly of terra-cotta work is a far higher reach\nof skill in sculpture-criticism than to distinguish the merits of a\nfinished statue.\n\n157. We have, secondly, work in bronze, iron, gold, and other metals;\nin which the laws of structure are still more definite.\n\nAll kinds of twisted and wreathen work on every scale become delightful\nwhen wrought in ductile or tenacious metal; but metal which is to be\n_hammered_ into form separates itself into two great divisions--solid,\nand flat.\n\nA. In solid metal-work, _i.e._, metal cast thick enough to resist\nbending, whether it be hollow or not, violent and various projection may\nbe admitted, which would be offensive in marble; but no sharp edges,\nbecause it is difficult to produce them with the hammer. But since the\npermanence of the material justifies exquisiteness of workmanship,\nwhatever delicate ornamentation can be wrought with rounded surfaces may\nbe advisedly introduced; and since the color of bronze or any other\nmetal is not so pleasantly representative of flesh as that of marble, a\nwise sculptor will depend less on flesh contour, and more on picturesque\naccessories, which, though they would be vulgar if attempted in stone,\nare rightly entertaining in bronze or silver. Verrocchio's statue of\nColleone at Venice, Cellini's Perseus at Florence, and Ghiberti's gates\nat Florence, are models of bronze treatment.\n\nB. When metal is beaten thin, it becomes what is technically called\n'plate,' (the _flattened_ thing,) and may be treated advisably in two\nways: one, by beating it out into bosses, the other by cutting it into\nstrips and ramifications. The vast schools of goldsmiths' work and of\niron decoration, founded on these two principles, have had the most\npowerful influences over general taste in all ages and countries. One of\nthe simplest and most interesting elementary examples of the treatment\nof flat metal by cutting is the common branched iron bar, Fig. 8, used\nto close small apertures in countries possessing any good primitive\nstyle of ironwork, formed by alternate cuts on its sides, and the\nbending down of the severed portions. The ordinary domestic window\nbalcony of Verona is formed by mere ribbons of iron, bent into curves as\nstudiously refined as those of a Greek vase, and decorated merely by\ntheir own terminations in spiral volutes.\n\nAll cast work in metal, unfinished by hand, is inadmissible in any\nschool of living art, since it cannot possess the perfection of form due\nto a permanent substance; and the continual sight of it is destructive\nof the faculty of taste: but metal stamped with precision, as in coins,\nis to sculpture what engraving is to painting.\n\n158. Thirdly. Stone-sculpture divides itself into three schools: one in\nvery hard material; one in very soft; and one in that of centrally\nuseful consistence.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 8.]\n\nA. The virtue of work in hard material is the expression of form in\nshallow relief, or in broad contours: deep cutting in hard material is\ninadmissible; and the art, at once pompous and trivial, of gem\nengraving, has been in the last degree destructive of the honor and\nservice of sculpture.\n\nB. The virtue of work in soft material is deep cutting, with studiously\ngraceful disposition of the masses of light and shade. The greater\nnumber of flamboyant churches of France are cut out of an adhesive\nchalk; and the fantasy of their latest decoration was, in great part,\ninduced by the facility of obtaining contrast of black space, undercut,\nwith white tracery easily left in sweeping and interwoven rods--the\nlavish use of wood in domestic architecture materially increasing the\nhabit of delight in branched complexity of line. These points, however,\nI must reserve for illustration in my Lectures on Architecture. To-day,\nI shall limit myself to the illustration of elementary sculptural\nstructure in the best material,--that is to say, in crystalline marble,\nneither soft enough to encourage the caprice of the workman, nor hard\nenough to resist his will.\n\n159. C. By the true 'Providence' of Nature, the rock which is thus\nsubmissive has been in some places stained with the fairest colors, and\nin others blanched into the fairest absence of color that can be found\nto give harmony to inlaying, or dignity to form. The possession by the\nGreeks of their [Greek: leukos lithos] was indeed the first circumstance\nregulating the development of their art; it enabled them at once to\nexpress their passion for light by executing the faces, hands, and feet\nof their dark wooden statues in white marble, so that what we look upon\nonly with pleasure for fineness of texture was to them an imitation of\nthe luminous body of the deity shining from behind its dark robes; and\nivory afterwards is employed in their best statues for its yet more soft\nand flesh-like brightness, receptive also of the most delicate\ncolor--(therefore to this day the favorite ground of miniature\npainters). In like manner, the existence of quarries of peach-colored\nmarble within twelve miles of Verona, and of white marble and green\nserpentine between Pisa and Genoa, defined the manner both of sculpture\nand architecture for all the Gothic buildings of Italy. No subtlety of\neducation could have formed a high school of art without these\nmaterials.\n\n160. Next to the color, the fineness of substance which will take a\nperfectly sharp edge, is essential; and this not merely to admit fine\ndelineation in the sculpture itself, but to secure a delightful\nprecision in placing the blocks of which it is composed. For the\npossession of too fine marble, as far as regards the work itself, is a\ntemptation instead of an advantage to an inferior sculptor; and the\nabuse of the facility of undercutting, especially of undercutting so as\nto leave profiles defined by an edge against shadow, is one of the chief\ncauses of decline of style in such incrusted bas-reliefs as those of the\nCertosa of Pavia and its contemporary monuments. But no undue temptation\never exists as to the fineness of block fitting; nothing contributes to\ngive so pure and healthy a tone to sculpture as the attention of the\nbuilder to the jointing of his stones; and his having both the power to\nmake them fit so perfectly as not to admit of the slightest portion of\ncement showing externally, and the skill to insure, if needful, and to\nsuggest always, their stability in cementless construction. Plate X.\nrepresents a piece of entirely fine Lombardic building, the central\nportion of the arch in the Duomo in Verona, which corresponds to that of\nthe porch of San Zenone, represented in Plate I. In both these pieces of\nbuilding, the only line that traces the architrave round the arch, is\nthat of the masonry joint; yet this line is drawn with extremest\nsubtlety, with intention of delighting the eye by its relation of varied\ncurvature to the arch itself; and it is just as much considered as the\nfinest pen-line of a Raphael drawing. Every joint of the stone is used,\nin like manner, as a thin black line, which the slightest sign of cement\nwould spoil like a blot. And so proud is the builder of his fine\njointing, and so fearless of any distortion or strain spoiling the\nadjustment afterwards, that in one place he runs his joint quite\ngratuitously through a bas-relief, and gives the keystone its only sign\nof preeminence by the minute inlaying of the head of the Lamb into the\nstone of the course above.\n\n161. Proceeding from this fine jointing to fine draughtsmanship, you\nhave, in the very outset and earliest stage of sculpture, your flat\nstone surface given you as a sheet of white paper, on which you are\nrequired to produce the utmost effect you can with the simplest means,\ncutting away as little of the stone as may be, to save both time and\ntrouble; and above all, leaving the block itself, when shaped, as solid\nas you can, that its surface may better resist weather, and the carved\nparts be as much protected as possible by the masses left around them.\n\n[Illustration: X.\n\nMARBLE MASONRY IN THE DUOMO OF VERONA.]\n\n[Illustration: XI.\n\nTHE FIRST ELEMENTS OF SCULPTURE.\n\nINCISED OUTLINE AND OPENED SPACE.]\n\n162. The first thing to be done is clearly to trace the outline of\nsubject with an incision approximating in section to that of the furrow\nof a plow, only more equal-sided. A fine sculptor strikes it, as his\nchisel leans, freely, on marble; an Egyptian, in hard rock, cuts it\nsharp, as in cuneiform inscriptions. In any case, you have a result\nsomewhat like the upper figure, Plate XI., in which I show you the most\nelementary indication of form possible, by cutting the outline of the\ntypical archaic Greek head with an incision like that of a Greek\ntriglyph, only not so precise in edge or slope, as it is to be modified\nafterwards.\n\n163. Now, the simplest thing we can do next is to round off the flat\nsurface _within_ the incision, and put what form we can get into the\nfeebler projection of it thus obtained. The Egyptians do this, often\nwith exquisite skill, and then, as I showed you in a former Lecture,\ncolor the whole--using the incision as an outline. Such a method of\ntreatment is capable of good service in representing, at little cost of\npains, subjects in distant effect; and common, or merely picturesque,\nsubjects even near. To show you what it is capable of, and what colored\nsculpture would be in its rudest type, I have prepared the colored\nrelief of the John Dory[32] as a natural history drawing for distant\neffect. You know, also, that I meant him to be ugly--as ugly as any\ncreature can well be. In time, I hope to show you prettier\nthings--peacocks and kingfishers, butterflies and flowers,--on grounds\nof gold, and the like, as they were in Byzantine work. I shall expect\nyou, in right use of your aesthetic faculties, to like those better than\nwhat I show you to-day. But it is now a question of method only; and if\nyou will look, after the Lecture, first at the mere white relief, and\nthen see how much may be gained by a few dashes of color, such as a\npracticed workman could lay in a quarter of an hour,--the whole\nforming, if well done, almost a deceptive image,--you will, at least,\nhave the range of power in Egyptian sculpture clearly expressed to you.\n\n164. But for fine sculpture, we must advance by far other methods. If we\ncarve the subject with real delicacy, the cast shadow of the incision\nwill interfere with its outline, so that, for representation of\nbeautiful things you must clear away the ground about it, at all events\nfor a little distance. As the law of work is to use the least pains\npossible, you clear it only just as far back as you need, and then, for\nthe sake of order and finish, you give the space a geometrical outline.\nBy taking, in this case, the simplest I can,--a circle,--I can clear the\nhead with little labor in the removal of surface round it; (see the\nlower figure in Plate XI.)\n\n165. Now, these are the first terms of all well-constructed bas-relief.\nThe mass you have to treat consists of a piece of stone which, however\nyou afterwards carve it, can but, at its most projecting point, reach\nthe level of the external plane surface out of which it was mapped, and\ndefined by a depression round it; that depression being at first a mere\ntrench, then a moat of a certain width, of which the outer sloping bank\nis in contact, as a limiting geometrical line, with the laterally\nsalient portions of sculpture. This, I repeat, is the primal\nconstruction of good bas-relief, implying, first, perfect protection to\nits surface from any transverse blow, and a geometrically limited space\nto be occupied by the design, into which it shall pleasantly (and as you\nshall ultimately see, ingeniously,) contract itself: implying, secondly,\na determined depth of projection, which it shall rarely reach, and never\nexceed: and implying, finally, the production of the whole piece with\nthe least possible labor of chisel and loss of stone.\n\n166. And these, which are the first, are very nearly the last\nconstructive laws of sculpture. You will be surprised to find how much\nthey include, and how much of minor propriety in treatment their\nobservance involves.\n\nIn a very interesting essay on the architecture of the Parthenon, by\nthe Professor of Architecture of the Ecole Polytechnique, M. Emile\nBoutmy, you will find it noticed that the Greeks do not usually weaken,\nby carving, the constructive masses of their building; but put their\nchief sculpture in the empty spaces between the triglyphs, or beneath\nthe roof. This is true; but in so doing, they merely build their panel\ninstead of carving it; they accept, no less than the Goths, the laws of\nrecess and limitation, as being vital to the safety and dignity of their\ndesign; and their noblest recumbent statues are, constructively, the\nfillings of the acute extremity of a panel in the form of an obtusely\nsummited triangle.\n\n167. In gradual descent from that severest type, you will find that an\nimmense quantity of sculpture of all times and styles may be generally\nembraced under the notion of a mass hewn out of, or, at least, placed\nin, a panel or recess, deepening, it may be, into a niche; the sculpture\nbeing always designed with reference to its position in such recess:\nand, therefore, to the effect of the building out of which the recess is\nhewn.\n\nBut, for the sake of simplifying our inquiry, I will at first suppose no\nsurrounding protective ledge to exist, and that the area of stone we\nhave to deal with is simply a flat slab, extant from a flat surface\ndepressed all round it.\n\n168. A _flat_ slab, observe. The flatness of surface is essential to the\nproblem of bas-relief. The lateral limit of the panel may, or may not,\nbe required; but the vertical limit of surface _must_ be expressed; and\nthe art of bas-relief is to give the effect of true form on that\ncondition. For observe, if nothing more were needed than to make first a\ncast of a solid form, then cut it in half, and apply the half of it to\nthe flat surface;--if, for instance, to carve a bas-relief of an apple,\nall I had to do was to cut my sculpture of the whole apple in half, and\npin it to the wall, any ordinarily trained sculptor, or even a\nmechanical workman, could produce bas-relief; but the business is to\ncarve a _round_ thing out of a _flat_ thing; to carve an apple out of a\nbiscuit!--to conquer, as a subtle Florentine has here conquered,[33]\nhis marble, so as not only to get motion into what is most rigidly\nfixed, but to get boundlessness into what is most narrowly bounded; and\ncarve Madonna and Child, rolling clouds, flying angels, and space of\nheavenly air behind all, out of a film of stone not the third of an inch\nthick where it is thickest.\n\n169. Carried, however, to such a degree of subtlety as this, and with so\nambitious and extravagant aim, bas-relief becomes a tour-de-force; and,\nyou know, I have just told you all tours-de-force are wrong. The true\nlaw of bas-relief is to begin with a depth of incision proportioned\njustly to the distance of the observer and the character of the subject,\nand out of that rationally determined depth, neither increased for\nostentation of effect, nor diminished for ostentation of skill, to do\nthe utmost that will be easily visible to an observer, supposing him to\ngive an average human amount of attention, but not to peer into, or\ncritically scrutinize, the work.\n\n170. I cannot arrest you to-day by the statement of any of the laws of\nsight and distance which determine the proper depth of bas-relief.\nSuppose that depth fixed; then observe what a pretty problem, or,\nrather, continually varying cluster of problems, will be offered to us.\nYou might, at first, imagine that, given what we may call our scale of\nsolidity, or scale of depth, the diminution from nature would be in\nregular proportion, as, for instance, if the real depth of your subject\nbe, suppose, a foot, and the depth of your bas-relief an inch, then the\nparts of the real subject which were six inches round the side of it\nwould be carved, you might imagine, at the depth of half an inch, and so\nthe whole thing mechanically reduced to scale. But not a bit of it. Here\nis a Greek bas-relief of a chariot with two horses (upper figure, Plate\nXXI.) Your whole subject has therefore the depth of two horses side by\nside, say six or eight feet. Your bas-relief has, on this scale,[34] say\nthe depth of a third of an inch. Now, if you gave only the sixth of an\ninch for the depth of the off horse, and, dividing him again, only the\ntwelfth of an inch for that of each foreleg, you would make him look a\nmile away from the other, and his own forelegs a mile apart. Actually,\nthe Greek has made the _near leg of the off horse project much beyond\nthe off leg of the near horse_; and has put nearly the whole depth and\npower of his relief into the breast of the off horse, while for the\nwhole distance from the head of the nearest to the neck of the other, he\nhas allowed himself only a shallow line; knowing that, if he deepened\nthat, he would give the nearest horse the look of having a thick nose;\nwhereas, by keeping that line down, he has not only made the head itself\nmore delicate, but detached it from the other by giving no cast shadow,\nand left the shadow below to serve for thickness of breast, cutting it\nas sharp down as he possibly can, to make it bolder.\n\n171. Here is a fine piece of business we have got into!--even supposing\nthat all this selection and adaptation were to be contrived under\nconstant laws, and related only to the expression of given forms. But\nthe Greek sculptor, all this while, is not only debating and deciding\nhow to show what he wants, but, much more, debating and deciding what,\nas he can't show everything, he will choose to show at all. Thus, being\nhimself interested, and supposing that you will be, in the manner of the\ndriving, he takes great pains to carve the reins, to show you where they\nare knotted, and how they are fastened round the driver's waist, (you\nrecollect how Hippolytus was lost by doing that); but he does not care\nthe least bit about the chariot, and having rather more geometry than he\nlikes in the cross and circle of one wheel of it, entirely omits the\nother!\n\n172. I think you must see by this time that the sculptor's is not quite\na trade which you can teach like brickmaking; nor its produce an article\nof which you can supply any quantity 'demanded' for the next railroad\nwaiting-room. It may perhaps, indeed, seem to you that, in the\ndifficulties thus presented by it, bas-relief involves more direct\nexertion of intellect than finished solid sculpture. It is not so,\nhowever. The questions involved by bas-relief are of a more curious and\namusing kind, requiring great variety of expedients; though none except\nsuch as a true workmanly instinct delights in inventing, and invents\neasily; but design in solid sculpture involves considerations of weight\nin mass, of balance, of perspective and opposition, in projecting forms,\nand of restraint for those which must not project, such as none but the\ngreatest masters have ever completely solved; and they, not always; the\ndifficulty of arranging the composition so as to be agreeable from\npoints of view on all sides of it, being, itself, arduous enough.\n\n173. Thus far, I have been speaking only of the laws of structure\nrelating to the projection of the mass which becomes itself the\nsculpture. Another most interesting group of constructive laws governs\nits relation to the line that contains or defines it.\n\nIn your Standard Series I have placed a photograph of the south transept\nof Rouen Cathedral. Strictly speaking, all standards of Gothic are of\nthe thirteenth century; but, in the fourteenth, certain qualities of\nrichness are obtained by the diminution of restraint; out of which we\nmust choose what is best in their kinds. The pedestals of the statues\nwhich once occupied the lateral recesses are, as you see, covered with\ngroups of figures, inclosed each in a quatrefoil panel; the spaces\nbetween this panel and the inclosing square being filled with sculptures\nof animals.\n\nYou cannot anywhere find a more lovely piece of fancy, or more\nillustrative of the quantity of result, than may be obtained with low\nand simple chiseling. The figures are all perfectly simple in drapery,\nthe story told by lines of action only in the main group, no accessories\nbeing admitted. There is no undercutting anywhere, nor exhibition of\ntechnical skill, but the fondest and tenderest appliance of it; and one\nof the principal charms of the whole is the adaptation of every subject\nto its quaint limit. The tale must be told within the four petals of the\nquatrefoil, and the wildest and playfulest beasts must never come out of\ntheir narrow corners. The attention with which spaces of this kind are\nfilled by the Gothic designers is not merely a beautiful compliance with\narchitectural requirements, but a definite assertion of their delight in\nthe restraint of law; for, in illuminating books, although, if they\nchose it, they might have designed floral ornaments, as we now usually\ndo, rambling loosely over the leaves, and although, in later works, such\nlicense is often taken by them, in all books of the fine time the\nwandering tendrils are inclosed by limits approximately rectilinear, and\nin gracefulest branching often detach themselves from the right line\nonly by curvature of extreme severity.\n\n174. Since the darkness and extent of shadow by which the sculpture is\nrelieved necessarily vary with the depth of the recess, there arise a\nseries of problems, in deciding which the wholesome desire for emphasis\nby means of shadow is too often exaggerated by the ambition of the\nsculptor to show his skill in undercutting. The extreme of vulgarity is\nusually reached when the entire bas-relief is cut hollow underneath, as\nin much Indian and Chinese work, so as to relieve its forms against an\nabsolute darkness; but no formal law can ever be given; for exactly the\nsame thing may be beautifully done for a wise purpose, by one person,\nwhich is basely done, and to no purpose, or to a bad one, by another.\nThus, the desire for emphasis itself may be the craving of a deadened\nimagination, or the passion of a vigorous one; and relief against shadow\nmay be sought by one man only for sensation, and by another for\nintelligibility. John of Pisa undercuts fiercely, in order to bring out\nthe vigor of life which no level contour could render; the Lombardi of\nVenice undercut delicately, in order to obtain beautiful lines and edges\nof faultless precision; but the base Indian craftsmen undercut only that\npeople may wonder how the chiseling was done through the holes, or that\nthey may see every monster white against black.\n\n175. Yet, here again we are met by another necessity for discrimination.\nThere may be a true delight in the inlaying of white on dark, as there\nis a true delight in vigorous rounding. Nevertheless, the general law is\nalways, that, the lighter the incisions, and the broader the surface,\nthe grander, caeteris paribus, will be the work. Of the structural terms\nof that work you now know enough to understand that the schools of good\nsculpture, considered in relation to projection, divide themselves into\nfour entirely distinct groups:--\n\n     1st. Flat Relief, in which the surface is, in many places,\n     absolutely flat; and the expression depends greatly on the\n     lines of its outer contour, and on fine incisions within them.\n\n     2d. Round Relief, in which, as in the best coins, the\n     sculptured mass projects so as to be capable of complete\n     modulation into form, but is not anywhere undercut. The\n     formation of a coin by the blow of a die necessitates, of\n     course, the severest obedience to this law.\n\n     3d. Edged Relief. Undercutting admitted, so as to throw out the\n     forms against a background of shadow.\n\n     4th. Full Relief. The statue completely solid in form, and\n     unreduced in retreating depth of it, yet connected locally with\n     some definite part of the building, so as to be still dependent\n     on the shadow of its background and direction of protective\n     line.\n\n176. Let me recommend you at once to take what pains may be needful to\nenable you to distinguish these four kinds of sculpture, for the\ndistinctions between them are not founded on mere differences in\ngradation of depth. They are truly four species, or orders, of\nsculpture, separated from each other by determined characters. I have\nused, you may have noted, hitherto in my Lectures, the word 'bas-relief'\nalmost indiscriminately for all, because the degree of lowness or\nhighness of relief is not the question, but the _method_ of relief.\nObserve again, therefore--\n\n[Illustration: XII.\n\nBRANCH OF PHILLYREA.]\n\nA. If a portion of the surface is absolutely flat, you have the first\norder--Flat Relief.\n\nB. If every portion of the surface is rounded, but none undercut, you\nhave Round Relief--essentially that of seals and coins.\n\nC. If any part of the edges be undercut, but the general protection of\nsolid form reduced, you have what I think you may conveniently call\nFoliate Relief,--the parts of the design overlapping each other, in\nplaces, like edges of leaves.\n\nD. If the undercutting is bold and deep, and the projection of solid\nform unreduced, you have Full Relief.\n\nLearn these four names at once by heart:--\n\n    Flat Relief.\n    Round Relief.\n    Foliate Relief.\n    Full Relief.\n\nAnd whenever you look at any piece of sculpture, determine first to\nwhich of these classes it belongs; and then consider how the sculptor\nhas treated it with reference to the necessary structure--that\nreference, remember, being partly to the mechanical conditions of the\nmaterial, partly to the means of light and shade at his command.\n\n[Illustration: FIG. 9.]\n\n177. To take a single instance. You know, for these many years, I have\nbeen telling our architects, with all the force of voice I had in me,\nthat they could design nothing until they could carve natural forms\nrightly. Many imagined that work was easy; but judge for yourselves\nwhether it be or not. In Plate XII., I have drawn, with approximate\naccuracy, a cluster of Phillyrea leaves as they grow, Now, if we wanted\nto cut them in bas-relief, the first thing we should have to consider\nwould be the position of their outline on the marble;--here it is, as\nfar down as the spring of the leaves. But do you suppose that is what an\nordinary sculptor could either lay for his first sketch, or contemplate\nas a limit to be worked down to? Then consider how the interlacing and\nspringing of the leaves can be expressed within this outline. It must be\ndone by leaving such projection in the marble as will take the light in\nthe same proportion as the drawing does;--and a Florentine workman could\ndo it, for close sight, without driving one incision deeper, or raising\na single surface higher, than the eighth of an inch. Indeed, no sculptor\nof the finest time would design such a complex cluster of leaves as\nthis, except for bronze or iron work; they would take simpler contours\nfor marble; but the laws of treatment would, under these conditions,\nremain just as strict: and you may, perhaps, believe me now when I tell\nyou that, in any piece of fine structural sculpture by the great\nmasters, there is more subtlety and noble obedience to lovely laws than\ncould be explained to you if I took twenty lectures to do it in, instead\nof one.\n\n[Illustration: XIII.\n\nGREEK FLAT RELIEF, AND SCULPTURE BY EDGED INCISION.]\n\n178. There remains yet a point of mechanical treatment on which I have\nnot yet touched at all; nor that the least important,--namely, the\nactual method and style of handling. A great sculptor uses his tool\nexactly as a painter his pencil, and you may recognize the decision of\nhis thought, and glow of his temper, no less in the workmanship than the\ndesign. The modern system of modeling the work in clay, getting it into\nform by machinery, and by the hands of subordinates, and touching it at\nlast, if indeed the (so-called) sculptor touch it at all, only to\ncorrect their inefficiencies, renders the production of good work in\nmarble a physical impossibility. The first result of it is that the\nsculptor thinks in clay instead of marble, and loses his instinctive\nsense of the proper treatment of a brittle substance. The second is that\nneither he nor the public recognize the touch of the chisel as\nexpressive of personal feeling of power, and that nothing is looked for\nexcept mechanical polish.\n\n179. The perfectly simple piece of Greek relief represented in Plate\nXIII., will enable you to understand at once,--examination of the\noriginal, at your leisure, will prevent you, I trust, from ever\nforgetting,--what is meant by the virtue of handling in sculpture.\n\nThe projection of the heads of the four horses, one behind the other, is\ncertainly not more, altogether, than three-quarters of an inch from the\nflat ground, and the one in front does not in reality project more than\nthe one behind it, yet, by mere drawing,[35] you see the sculptor has\ngot them to appear to recede in due order, and by the soft rounding of\nthe flesh surfaces, and modulation of the veins, he has taken away all\nlook of flatness from the necks. He has drawn the eyes and nostrils with\ndark incision, careful as the finest touches of a painter's pencil: and\nthen, at last, when he comes to the manes, he has let fly hand and\nchisel with their full force; and where a base workman, (above all, if\nhe had modeled the thing in clay first,) would have lost himself in\nlaborious imitation of hair, the Greek has struck the tresses out with\nangular incisions, deep driven, every one in appointed place and\ndeliberate curve, yet flowing so free under his noble hand that you\ncannot alter, without harm, the bending of any single ridge, nor\ncontract, nor extend, a point of them. And if you will look back to\nPlate IX. you will see the difference between this sharp incision, used\nto express horse-hair, and the soft incision with intervening rounded\nridge, used to express the hair of Apollo Chrysocomes; and, beneath, the\nobliquely ridged incision used to express the plumes of his swan; in\nboth these cases the handling being much more slow, because the\nengraving is in metal; but the structural importance of incision, as the\nmeans of effect, never lost sight of. Finally, here are two actual\nexamples of the work in marble of the two great schools of the world;\none, a little Fortune, standing tiptoe on the globe of the Earth, its\nsurface traced with lines in hexagons; not chaotic under Fortune's feet;\nGreek, this, and by a trained workman;--dug up in the temple of Neptune\nat Corfu;--and here, a Florentine portrait-marble, found in the recent\nalterations, face downwards, under the pavement of Sta. Maria Novella;\nboth of them first-rate of their kind; and both of them, while\nexquisitely finished at the telling points, showing, on all their\nunregarded surfaces, the rough furrow of the fast-driven chisel, as\ndistinctly as the edge of a common paving-stone.\n\n180. Let me suggest to you, in conclusion, one most interesting point of\nmental expression in these necessary aspects of finely executed\nsculpture. I have already again and again pressed on your attention the\nbeginning of the arts of men in the make and use of the plowshare. Read\nmore carefully--you might indeed do well to learn at once by heart,--the\ntwenty-seven lines of the Fourth Pythian, which describe the plowing of\nJason. There is nothing grander extant in human fancy, nor set down in\nhuman words: but this great mythical expression of the conquest of the\nearth-clay and brute-force by vital human energy, will become yet more\ninteresting to you when you reflect what enchantment has been cut, on\nwhiter clay, by the tracing of finer furrows;--what the delicate and\nconsummate arts of man have done by the plowing of marble, and granite,\nand iron. You will learn daily more and more, as you advance in actual\npractice, how the primary manual art of engraving, in the steadiness,\nclearness, and irrevocableness of it, is the best art-discipline that\ncan be given either to mind or hand;[36] you will recognize one law of\nright, pronouncing itself in the well-resolved work of every age; you\nwill see the firmly traced and irrevocable incision determining, not\nonly the forms, but, in great part, the moral temper, of all vitally\nprogressive art; you will trace the same principle and power in the\nfurrows which the oblique sun shows on the granite of his own Egyptian\ncity,--in the white scratch of the stylus through the color on a Greek\nvase--in the first delineation, on the wet wall, of the groups of an\nItalian fresco; in the unerring and unalterable touch of the great\nengraver of Nuremberg,--and in the deep-driven and deep-bitten ravines\nof metal by which Turner closed, in embossed limits, the shadows of the\nLiber Studiorum.\n\nLearn, therefore, in its full extent, the force of the great Greek word\n[Greek: charasso];--and give me pardon, if you think pardon needed, that\nI ask you also to learn the full meaning of the English word derived\nfrom it. Here, at the Ford of the Oxen of Jason, are other furrows to be\ndriven than these in the marble of Pentelicus. The fruitfulest, or the\nfatalest, of all plowing is that by the thoughts of your youth, on the\nwhite field of its Imagination. For by these, either down to the\ndisturbed spirit, \"[Greek: kekoptai kai charassetai pedon];\" or around\nthe quiet spirit, and on all the laws of conduct that hold it, as a fair\nvase its frankincense, are ordained the pure colors, and engraved the\njust characters, of AEonian life.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[29] Nothing is more wonderful, or more disgraceful, among the forms of\nignorance engendered by modern vulgar occupations in pursuit of gain,\nthan the unconsciousness, now total, that fine art is essentially\nAthletic. I received a letter from Birmingham, some little time since,\ninviting me to see how much, in glass manufacture, \"machinery excelled\nrude hand-work.\" The writer had not the remotest conception that he\nmight as well have asked me to come and see a mechanical boat-race rowed\nby automata, and \"how much machinery excelled rude arm-work.\"\n\n[30] Such as the Sculptureless arch of Waterloo Bridge, for instance,\nreferred to in the Third Lecture, Sec. 84.\n\n[31] It is strange, at this day, to think of the relation of the\nAthenian Ceramicus to the French Tile-fields, Tileries, or Tuileries:\nand how these last may yet become--have already partly become--\"the\nPotter's field,\" blood-bought. (_December, 1870._)\n\n[32] This relief is now among the other casts which I have placed in the\nlower school in the University galleries.\n\n[33] The reference is to a cast from a small and low relief of\nFlorentine work in the Kensington Museum.\n\n[34] The actual bas-relief is on a coin, and the projection not above\nthe twentieth of an inch, but I magnified it in photograph, for this\nLecture, so as to represent a relief with about the third of an inch for\nmaximum projection.\n\n[35] This plate has been executed from a drawing by Mr. Burgess, in\nwhich he has followed the curves of incision with exquisite care, and\npreserved the effect of the surface of the stone, where a photograph\nwould have lost it by exaggerating accidental stains.\n\n[36] That it was also, in some cases, the earliest that the Greeks gave,\nis proved by Lucian's account of his first lesson at his uncle's; the\n[Greek: enkopeus], literally 'in cutter'--being the first tool put into\nhis hand, and an earthenware tablet to cut upon, which the boy, pressing\ntoo hard, presently breaks;--gets beaten--goes home crying, and becomes,\nafter his dream above quoted, (Sec.Sec. 35, 36,) a philosopher instead of a\nsculptor.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI.\n\nTHE SCHOOL OF ATHENS.\n\n_December, 1870._\n\n\n181. It can scarcely be needful for me to tell even the younger members\nof my present audience, that the conditions necessary for the production\nof a perfect school of sculpture have only twice been met in the history\nof the world, and then for a short time; nor for short time only, but\nalso in narrow districts,--namely, in the valleys and islands of Ionian\nGreece, and in the strip of land deposited by the Arno, between the\nApennine crests and the sea.\n\nAll other schools, except these two, led severally by Athens in the\nfifth century before Christ, and by Florence in the fifteenth of our own\nera, are imperfect; and the best of them are derivative: these two are\nconsummate in themselves, and the origin of what is best in others.\n\n182. And observe, these Athenian and Florentine schools are both of\nequal rank, as essentially original and independent. The Florentine,\nbeing subsequent to the Greek, borrowed much from it; but it would have\nexisted just as strongly--and, perhaps, in some respects more nobly--had\nit been the first, instead of the latter of the two. The task set to\neach of these mightiest of the nations was, indeed, practically the\nsame, and as hard to the one as to the other. The Greeks found\nPhoenician and Etruscan art monstrous, and had to make them human. The\nItalians found Byzantine and Norman art monstrous, and had to make them\nhuman. The original power in the one case is easily traced; in the other\nit has partly to be unmasked, because the change at Florence was, in\nmany points, suggested and stimulated by the former school. But we\nmistake in supposing that Athens taught Florence the laws of design; she\ntaught her, in reality, only the duty of truth.\n\n183. You remember that I told you the highest art could do no more than\nrightly represent the human form. This is the simple test, then, of a\nperfect school,--that it has represented the human form, so that it is\nimpossible to conceive of its being better done. And that, I repeat, has\nbeen accomplished twice only: once in Athens, once in Florence. And so\nnarrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive schools, that it\ncannot be said of either of them that they represented the entire human\nform. The Greeks perfectly drew, and perfectly molded, the body and\nlimbs; but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance of their\nrepresenting the face as well as any great Italian. On the other hand,\nthe Italian painted and carved the face insuperably; but I believe there\nis no instance of his having perfectly represented the body, which, by\ncommand of his religion, it became his pride to despise and his safety\nto mortify.\n\n184. The general course of your study here renders it desirable that you\nshould be accurately acquainted with the leading principles of Greek\nsculpture; but I cannot lay these before you without giving undue\nprominence to some of the special merits of that school, unless I\npreviously indicate the relation it holds to the more advanced, though\nless disciplined, excellence of Christian art.\n\nIn this and the last Lecture of the present course,[37] I shall\nendeavor, therefore, to mass for you, in such rude and diagram-like\noutline as may be possible or intelligible, the main characteristics of\nthe two schools, completing and correcting the details of comparison\nafterwards; and not answering, observe, at present, for any\ngeneralization I give you, except as a ground for subsequent closer and\nmore qualified statements.\n\nAnd in carrying out this parallel, I shall speak indifferently of works\nof sculpture, and of the modes of painting which propose to themselves\nthe same objects as sculpture. And this, indeed, Florentine, as opposed\nto Venetian, painting, and that of Athens in the fifth century, nearly\nalways did.\n\n185. I begin, therefore, by comparing two designs of the simplest\nkind--engravings, or, at least, linear drawings both; one on clay, one\non copper, made in the central periods of each style, and representing\nthe same goddess--Aphrodite. They are now set beside each other in your\nRudimentary Series. The first is from a patera lately found at Camirus,\nauthoritatively assigned by Mr. Newton, in his recent catalogue, to the\nbest period of Greek art. The second is from one of the series of\nengravings executed, probably, by Baccio Bandini, in 1485, out of which\nI chose your first practical exercise--the Scepter of Apollo. I cannot,\nhowever, make the comparison accurate in all respects, for I am obliged\nto set the restricted type of the Aphrodite Urania of the Greeks beside\nthe universal Deity conceived by the Italian as governing the air,\nearth, and sea; nevertheless, the restriction in the mind of the Greek,\nand expatiation in that of the Florentine, are both characteristic. The\nGreek Venus Urania is flying in heaven, her power over the waters\nsymbolized by her being borne by a swan, and her power over the earth by\na single flower in her right hand; but the Italian Aphrodite is rising\nout of the actual sea, and only half risen: her limbs are still in the\nsea, her merely animal strength filling the waters with their life; but\nher body to the loins is in the sunshine, her face raised to the sky;\nher hand is about to lay a garland of flowers on the earth.\n\n186. The Venus Urania of the Greeks, in her relation to men, has power\nonly over lawful and domestic love; therefore, she is fully dressed, and\nnot only quite dressed, but most daintily and trimly: her feet\ndelicately sandaled, her gown spotted with little stars, her hair\nbrushed exquisitely smooth at the top of her head, trickling in minute\nwaves down her forehead; and though, because there is such a quantity of\nit, she can't possibly help having a chignon, look how tightly she has\nfastened it in with her broad fillet. Of course she is married, so she\nmust wear a cap with pretty minute pendent jewels at the border; and a\nvery small necklace, all that her husband can properly afford, just\nenough to go closely round her neck, and no more. On the contrary, the\nAphrodite of the Italian, being universal love, is pure-naked; and her\nlong hair is thrown wild to the wind and sea.\n\nThese primal differences in the symbolism, observe, are only because the\nartists are thinking of separate powers: they do not necessarily involve\nany national distinction in feeling. But the differences I have next to\nindicate are essential, and characterize the two opposed national modes\nof mind.\n\n187. First, and chiefly. The Greek Aphrodite is a very pretty person,\nand the Italian a decidedly plain one. That is because a Greek thought\nno one could possibly love any but pretty people; but an Italian thought\nthat love could give dignity to the meanest form that it inhabited, and\nlight to the poorest that it looked upon. So his Aphrodite will not\ncondescend to be pretty.\n\n188. Secondly. In the Greek Venus the breasts are broad and full, though\nperfectly severe in their almost conical profile;--(you are allowed on\npurpose to see the outline of the right breast, under the chiton;)--also\nthe right arm is left bare, and you can just see the contour of the\nfront of the right limb and knee; both arm and limb pure and firm, but\nlovely. The plant she holds in her hand is a branching and flowering\none, the seed-vessel prominent. These signs all mean that her essential\nfunction is child-bearing.\n\nOn the contrary, in the Italian Venus the breasts are so small as to be\nscarcely traceable; the body strong, and almost masculine in its angles;\nthe arms meager and unattractive, and she lays a decorative garland of\nflowers on the earth. These signs mean that the Italian thought of love\nas the strength of an eternal spirit, forever helpful; and forever\ncrowned with flowers, that neither know seedtime nor harvest; and bloom\nwhere there is neither death nor birth.\n\n189. Thirdly. The Greek Aphrodite is entirely calm, and looks straight\nforward. Not one feature of her face is disturbed, or seems ever to have\nbeen subject to emotion. The Italian Aphrodite looks up, her face all\nquivering and burning with passion and wasting anxiety. The Greek one is\nquiet, self-possessed, and self-satisfied: the Italian incapable of\nrest; she has had no thought nor care for herself; her hair has been\nbound by a fillet like the Greek's; but it is now all fallen loose, and\nclotted with the sea, or clinging to her body; only the front tress of\nit is caught by the breeze from her raised forehead, and lifted, in the\nplace where the tongues of fire rest on the brows, in the early\nChristian pictures of Pentecost, and the waving fires abide upon the\nheads of Angelico's seraphim.\n\n190. There are almost endless points of interest, great and small, to be\nnoted in these differences of treatment. This binding of the hair by the\nsingle fillet marks the straight course of one great system of art\nmethod, from that Greek head which I showed you on the archaic coin of\nthe seventh century before Christ, to this of the fifteenth of our own\nera;--nay, when you look close, you will see the entire action of the\nhead depends on one lock of hair falling back from the ear, which it\ndoes in compliance with the old Greek observance of its being bent there\nby the pressure of the helmet. That rippling of it down her shoulders\ncomes from the Athena of Corinth; the raising of it on her forehead,\nfrom the knot of the hair of Diana, changed into the vestal fire of the\nangels. But chiefly, the calmness of the features in the one face, and\ntheir anxiety in the other, indicate first, indeed, the characteristic\ndifference in every conception of the schools, the Greek never\nrepresenting expression, the Italian primarily seeking it; but far more,\nmark for us here the utter change in the conception of love; from the\ntranquil guide and queen of a happy terrestrial domestic life, accepting\nits immediate pleasures and natural duties, to the agonizing hope of an\ninfinite good, and the ever mingled joy and terror of a love divine in\njealousy, crying, \"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon\nthine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the\ngrave.\"\n\n[Illustration: XIV.\n\nAPOLLO AND THE PYTHON.\n\nHERACLES AND THE NEMEAN LION.]\n\nThe vast issues dependent on this change in the conception of the ruling\npassion of the human soul, I will endeavor to show you on a future\noccasion: in my present Lecture, I shall limit myself to the definition\nof the temper of Greek sculpture, and of its distinctions from\nFlorentine in the treatment of any subject whatever, be it love or\nhatred, hope or despair.\n\nThese great differences are mainly the following.\n\n191. First. A Greek never expresses momentary passion; a Florentine\nlooks to momentary passion as the ultimate object of his skill.\n\nWhen you are next in London, look carefully in the British Museum at the\ncasts from the statues in the pediment of the Temple of Minerva at\nAEgina. You have there Greek work of definite date--about 600 B. C.,\ncertainly before 580--of the purest kind; and you have the\nrepresentation of a noble ideal subject, the combats of the AEacidae at\nTroy, with Athena herself looking on. But there is no attempt whatever\nto represent expression in the features, none to give complexity of\naction or gesture; there is no struggling, no anxiety, no visible\ntemporary exertion of muscles. There are fallen figures, one pulling a\nlance out of his wound, and others in attitudes of attack and defense;\nseveral kneeling to draw their bows. But all inflict and suffer, conquer\nor expire, with the same smile.\n\n192. Plate XIV. gives you examples, from more advanced art, of true\nGreek representation; the subjects being the two contests of leading\nimport to the Greek heart--that of Apollo with the Python, and of\nHercules with the Nemean Lion. You see that in neither case is there the\nslightest effort to represent the [Greek: lyssa], or agony of contest.\nNo good Greek artist would have you behold the suffering either of\ngods, heroes, or men; nor allow you to be apprehensive of the issue of\ntheir contest with evil beasts, or evil spirits. All such lower sources\nof excitement are to be closed to you; your interest is to be in the\nthoughts involved by the fact of the war; and in the beauty or rightness\nof form, whether active or inactive. I have to work out this subject\nwith you afterwards, and to compare with the pure Greek method of\nthought that of modern dramatic passion, ingrafted on it, as typically\nin Turner's contest of Apollo and the Python: in the meantime, be\ncontent with the statement of this first great principle--that a Greek,\nas such, never expresses momentary passion.\n\n[Illustration: XV.\n\nHERA OF ARGOS.\n\nZEUS OF SYRACUSE.]\n\n[Illustration: XVI.\n\nDEMETER OF MESSENE.\n\nHERA OF CNOSSUS.]\n\n[Illustration: XVII.\n\nATHENA OF THURIUM.\n\nSIREN LIGEIA OF TERINA.]\n\n193. Secondly. The Greek, as such, never expresses personal character,\nwhile a Florentine holds it to be the ultimate condition of beauty. You\nare startled, I suppose, at my saying this, having had it often pointed\nout to you, as a transcendent piece of subtlety in Greek art, that you\ncould distinguish Hercules from Apollo by his being stout, and Diana\nfrom Juno by her being slender. That is very true; but those are general\ndistinctions of class, not special distinctions of personal character.\nEven as general, they are bodily, not mental. They are the distinctions,\nin fleshly aspect, between an athlete and a musician,--between a matron\nand a huntress; but in nowise distinguish the simple-hearted hero from\nthe subtle Master of the Muses, nor the willful and fitful girl-goddess\nfrom the cruel and resolute matron-goddess. But judge for yourselves. In\nthe successive plates, XV.-XVIII., I show you,[38] typically represented\nas the protectresses of nations, the Argive, Cretan, and Lacinian Hera,\nthe Messenian Demeter, the Athena of Corinth, the Artemis of Syracuse;\nthe fountain Arethusa of Syracuse, and the Siren Ligeia of Terina. Now,\nof these heads, it is true that some are more delicate in feature than\nthe rest, and some softer in expression: in other respects, can you\ntrace any distinction between the Goddesses of Earth and Heaven, or\nbetween the Goddess of Wisdom and the Water Nymph of Syracuse? So little\ncan you do so, that it would have remained a disputed question--had not\nthe name luckily been inscribed on some Syracusan coins--whether the\nhead upon them was meant for Arethusa at all; and, continually, it\nbecomes a question respecting finished statues, if without attributes,\n\"Is this Bacchus or Apollo--Zeus or Poseidon?\" There is a fact for you;\nnoteworthy, I think! There is no personal character in true Greek\nart:--abstract ideas of youth and age, strength and swiftness, virtue\nand vice,--yes: but there is no individuality; and the negative holds\ndown to the revived conventionalism of the Greek school by Leonardo,\nwhen he tells you how you are to paint young women, and how old ones;\nthough a Greek would hardly have been so discourteous to age as the\nItalian is in his canon of it,--\"old women should be represented as\npassionate and hasty, after the manner of Infernal Furies.\"\n\n194. \"But at least, if the Greeks do not give character, they give ideal\nbeauty?\" So it is said, without contradiction. But will you look again\nat the series of coins of the best time of Greek art, which I have just\nset before you? Are any of these goddesses or nymphs very beautiful?\nCertainly the Junos are not. Certainly the Demeters are not. The Siren,\nand Arethusa, have well-formed and regular features; but I am quite sure\nthat if you look at them without prejudice, you will think neither\nreaches even the average standard of pretty English girls. The Venus\nUrania suggests at first the idea of a very charming person, but you\nwill find there is no real depth nor sweetness in the contours, looked\nat closely. And remember, these are chosen examples,--the best I can\nfind of art current in Greece at the great time; and if even I were to\ntake the celebrated statues, of which only two or three are extant, not\none of them excels the Venus of Melos; and she, as I have already\nasserted, in the 'Queen of the Air,' has nothing notable in feature\nexcept dignity and simplicity. Of Athena I do not know one authentic\ntype of great beauty; but the intense ugliness which the Greeks could\ntolerate in their symbolism of her will be convincingly proved to you by\nthe coin represented in Plate VI. You need only look at two or three\nvases of the best time to assure yourselves that beauty of feature was,\nin popular art, not only unattained, but unattempted; and, finally,--and\nthis you may accept as a conclusive proof of the Greek insensitiveness\nto the most subtle beauty,--there is little evidence even in their\nliterature, and none in their art, of their having ever perceived any\nbeauty in infancy, or early childhood.\n\n195. The Greeks, then, do not give passion, do not give character, do\nnot give refined or naive beauty. But you may think that the absence of\nthese is intended to give dignity to the gods and nymphs; and that their\ncalm faces would be found, if you long observed them, instinct with some\nexpression of divine mystery or power.\n\nI will convince you of the narrow range of Greek thought in these\nrespects, by showing you, from the two sides of one and the same coin,\nimages of the most mysterious of their deities, and the most\npowerful,--Demeter, and Zeus.\n\nRemember that just as the west coasts of Ireland and England catch first\non their hills the rain of the Atlantic, so the Western Peloponnese\narrests, in the clouds of the first mountain ranges of Arcadia, the\nmoisture of the Mediterranean; and over all the plains of Elis, Pylos,\nand Messene, the strength and sustenance of men was naturally felt to be\ngranted by Zeus; as, on the east coast of Greece, the greater clearness\nof the air by the power of Athena. If you will recollect the prayer of\nRhea, in the single line of Callimachus--[Greek: \"Taia phile, teke kai\nsu; teai d' odines elaphrai],\" (compare Pausanias, iv. 33, at the\nbeginning,)--it will mark for you the connection, in the Greek mind, of\nthe birth of the mountain springs of Arcadia with the birth of Zeus. And\nthe centers of Greek thought on this western coast are necessarily Elis,\nand, (after the time of Epaminondas,) Messene.\n\n[Illustration: XVIII.\n\nARTEMIS OF SYRACUSE.\n\nHERA OF LACINIAN CAPE.]\n\n196. I show you the coin of Messene, because the splendid height and\nform of Mount Ithome were more expressive of the physical power of Zeus\nthan the lower hills of Olympia; and also because it was struck just at\nthe time of the most finished and delicate Greek art--a little after the\nmain strength of Phidias, but before decadence had generally pronounced\nitself. The coin is a silver didrachm, bearing on one side a head of\nDemeter, (Plate XVI., at the top); on the other a full figure of Zeus\nAietophoros, (Plate XIX., at the top); the two together signifying the\nsustaining strength of the earth and heaven. Look first at the head of\nDemeter. It is merely meant to personify fullness of harvest; there is\nno mystery in it, no sadness, no vestige of the expression which we\nshould have looked for in any effort to realize the Greek thoughts of\nthe Earth Mother, as we find them spoken by the poets. But take it\nmerely as personified Abundance,--the goddess of black furrow and tawny\ngrass,--how commonplace it is, and how poor! The hair is grand, and\nthere is one stalk of wheat set in it, which is enough to indicate the\ngoddess who is meant; but, in that very office, ignoble, for it shows\nthat the artist could only inform you that this was Demeter by such a\nsymbol. How easy it would have been for a great designer to have made\nthe hair lovely with fruitful flowers, and the features noble in mystery\nof gloom, or of tenderness. But here you have nothing to interest you,\nexcept the common Greek perfections of a straight nose and a full chin.\n\n197. We pass, on the reverse of the die, to the figure of Zeus\nAietophoros. Think of the invocation to Zeus in the Suppliants, (525,)\n\"King of Kings, and Happiest of the Happy, Perfectest of the Perfect in\nstrength, abounding in all things, Jove--hear us, and be with us;\" and\nthen, consider what strange phase of mind it was, which, under the very\nmountain-home of the god, was content with this symbol of him as a\nwell-fed athlete, holding a diminutive and crouching eagle on his fist.\nThe features and the right hand have been injured in this coin, but the\naction of the arm shows that it held a thunderbolt, of which, I believe,\nthe twisted rays were triple. In the presumably earlier coin engraved by\nMillingen, however,[39] it is singly pointed only; and the added\ninscription \"[Greek: ITHOM],\" in the field, renders the conjecture of\nMillingen probable, that this is a rude representation of the statue of\nZeus Ithomates, made by Ageladas, the master of Phidias; and I think it\nhas, indeed, the aspect of the endeavor, by a workman of more advanced\nknowledge, and more vulgar temper, to put the softer anatomy of later\nschools into the simple action of an archaic figure. Be that as it may,\nhere is one of the most refined cities of Greece content with the figure\nof an athlete as the representative of their own mountain god; marked as\na divine power merely by the attributes of the eagle and thunderbolt.\n\n198. Lastly. The Greeks have not, it appears, in any supreme way, given\nto their statues character, beauty, or divine strength. Can they give\ndivine sadness? Shall we find in their art-work any of that pensiveness\nand yearning for the dead which fills the chants of their tragedy? I\nsuppose, if anything like nearness or firmness of faith in after-life is\nto be found in Greek legend, you might look for it in the stories about\nthe Island of Leuce, at the mouth of the Danube, inhabited by the ghosts\nof Achilles, Patroclus, Ajax the son of Oileus, and Helen; and in which\nthe pavement of the Temple of Achilles was washed daily by the sea-birds\nwith their wings, dipping them in the sea.\n\nNow it happens that we have actually on a coin of the Locrians the\nrepresentation of the ghost of the Lesser Ajax. There is nothing in the\nhistory of human imagination more lovely than their leaving always a\nplace for his spirit, vacant in their ranks of battle. But here is their\nsculptural representation of the phantom, (lower figure, Plate XIX.);\nand I think you will at once agree with me in feeling that it would be\nimpossible to conceive anything more completely unspiritual. You might\nmore than doubt that it could have been meant for the departed soul,\nunless you were aware of the meaning of this little circlet between the\nfeet. On other coins you find his name inscribed there, but in this you\nhave his habitation, the haunted Island of Leuce itself, with the waves\nflowing round it.\n\n[Illustration: XIX.\n\nZEUS OF MESSENE.\n\nAJAX OF OPUS.]\n\n199. Again and again, however, I have to remind you, with respect to\nthese apparently frank and simple failures, that the Greek always\nintends you to think for yourself, and understand, more than he can\nspeak. Take this instance at our hands, the trim little circlet for the\nIsland of Leuce. The workman knows very well it is not like the island,\nand that he could not make it so; that, at its best, his sculpture can\nbe little more than a letter; and yet, in putting this circlet, and its\nencompassing fretwork of minute waves, he does more than if he had\nmerely given you a letter L, or written 'Leuce.' If you know anything of\nbeaches and sea, this symbol will set your imagination at work in\nrecalling them; then you will think of the temple service of the\nnovitiate sea-birds, and of the ghosts of Achilles and Patroclus\nappearing, like the Dioscuri, above the storm-clouds of the Euxine. And\nthe artist, throughout his work, never for an instant loses faith in\nyour sympathy and passion being ready to answer his;--if you have none\nto give, he does not care to take you into his counsel; on the whole,\nwould rather that you should not look at his work.\n\n200. But if you have this sympathy to give, you may be sure that\nwhatever he does for you will be right, as far as he can render it so.\nIt may not be sublime, nor beautiful, nor amusing; but it will be full\nof meaning, and faithful in guidance. He will give you clue to myriads\nof things that he cannot literally teach; and, so far as he does teach,\nyou may trust him. Is not this saying much?\n\nAnd as he strove only to teach what was true, so, in his sculptured\nsymbol, he strove only to carve what was--Right. He rules over the arts\nto this day, and will forever, because he sought not first for beauty,\nnot first for passion, or for invention, but for Rightness; striving to\ndisplay, neither himself nor his art, but the thing that he dealt with,\nin its simplicity. That is his specific character as a Greek. Of course\nevery nation's character is connected with that of others surrounding or\npreceding it; and in the best Greek work you will find some things that\nare still false, or fanciful; but whatever in it is false, or fanciful,\nis not the Greek part of it--it is the Phoenician, or Egyptian, or\nPelasgian part. The essential Hellenic stamp is veracity:--Eastern\nnations drew their heroes with eight legs, but the Greeks drew them with\ntwo;--Egyptians drew their deities with cats' heads, but the Greeks drew\nthem with men's; and out of all fallacy, disproportion, and\nindefiniteness, they were, day by day, resolvedly withdrawing and\nexalting themselves into restricted and demonstrable truth.\n\n201. And now, having cut away the misconceptions which incumbered our\nthoughts, I shall be able to put the Greek school into some clearness of\nits position for you, with respect to the art of the world. That\nrelation is strangely duplicate; for, on one side, Greek art is the root\nof all simplicity; and, on the other, of all complexity.\n\nOn one side, I say, it is the root of all simplicity. If you were for\nsome prolonged period to study Greek sculpture exclusively in the Elgin\nroom of the British Museum, and were then suddenly transported to the\nHotel de Cluny, or any other museum of Gothic and barbarian workmanship,\nyou would imagine the Greeks were the masters of all that was grand,\nsimple, wise, and tenderly human, opposed to the pettiness of the toys\nof the rest of mankind.\n\n[Illustration: XX.\n\nGREEK AND BARBARIAN SCULPTURE.]\n\n202. On one side of their work they are so. From all vain and mean\ndecoration--all wreak and monstrous error, the Greeks rescue the forms\nof man and beast, and sculpture them in the nakedness of their true\nflesh, and with the fire of their living soul. Distinctively from other\nraces, as I have now, perhaps to your weariness, told you, this is the\nwork of the Greek, to give health to what was diseased, and chastisement\nto what was untrue. So far as this is found in any other school,\nhereafter, it belongs to them by inheritance from the Greeks, or invests\nthem with the brotherhood of the Greek. And this is the deep meaning of\nthe myth of Daedalus as the giver of motion to statues. The literal\nchange from the binding together of the feet to their separation, and\nthe other modifications of action which took place, either in\nprogressive skill, or often, as the mere consequence of the transition\nfrom wood to stone, (a figure carved out of one wooden log must have\nnecessarily its feet near each other, and hands at its sides,) these\nliteral changes are as nothing, in the Greek fable, compared to the\nbestowing of apparent life. The figures of monstrous gods on Indian\ntemples have their legs separate enough; but they are infinitely more\ndead than the rude figures at Branchidae sitting with their hands on\ntheir knees. And, briefly, the work of Daedalus is the giving of\ndeceptive life, as that of Prometheus the giving of real life; and I can\nput the relation of Greek to all other art, in this function, before\nyou, in easily compared and remembered examples.\n\n203. Here, on the right, in Plate XX., is an Indian bull, colossal, and\nelaborately carved, which you may take as a sufficient type of the bad\nart of all the earth. False in form, dead in heart, and loaded with\nwealth, externally. We will not ask the date of this; it may rest in the\neternal obscurity of evil art, everywhere, and forever. Now, beside this\ncolossal bull, here is a bit of Daedalus-work, enlarged from a coin not\nbigger than a shilling: look at the two together, and you ought to know,\nhenceforward, what Greek art means, to the end of your days.\n\n204. In this aspect of it, then, I say it is the simplest and nakedest\nof lovely veracities. But it has another aspect, or rather another pole,\nfor the opposition is diametric. As the simplest, so also it is the most\ncomplex of human art. I told you in my Fifth Lecture, showing you the\nspotty picture of Velasquez, that an essential Greek character is a\nliking for things that are dappled. And you cannot but have noticed how\noften and how prevalently the idea which gave its name to the Porch of\nPolygnotus, \"[Greek: stoa poikile],\" occurs to the Greeks as connected\nwith the finest art. Thus, when the luxurious city is opposed to the\nsimple and healthful one, in the second book of Plato's Polity, you find\nthat, next to perfumes, pretty ladies, and dice, you must have in it\n\"[Greek: poikilia],\" which observe, both in that place and again in the\nthird book, is the separate art of joiners' work, or inlaying; but the\nidea of exquisitely divided variegation or division, both in sight and\nsound--the \"ravishing division to the lute,\" as in Pindar's \"[Greek:\npoikiloi hymnoi]\"--runs through the compass of all Greek\nart-description; and if, instead of studying that art among marbles, you\nwere to look at it only on vases of a fine time, (look back, for\ninstance, to Plate IV. here,) your impression of it would be, instead of\nbreadth and simplicity, one of universal spottiness and checkeredness,\n\"[Greek: en angeou Herkesin pampoikilois];\" and of the artist's\ndelighting in nothing so much as in crossed or starred or spotted\nthings; which, in right places, he and his public both do unlimitedly.\nIndeed they hold it complimentary even to a trout, to call him a\n'spotty.' Do you recollect the trout in the tributaries of the Ladon,\nwhich Pausanias says were spotted, so that they were like thrushes, and\nwhich, the Arcadians told him, could speak? In this last [Greek:\npoikilia], however, they disappointed him. \"I, indeed, saw some of them\ncaught,\" he says, \"but I did not hear any of them speak, though I waited\nbeside the river till sunset.\"\n\n205. I must sum roughly now, for I have detained you too long.\n\nThe Greeks have been thus the origin, not only of all broad, mighty, and\ncalm conception, but of all that is divided, delicate, and tremulous;\n\"variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made.\" To them, as\nfirst leaders of ornamental design, belongs, of right, the praise of\nglistenings in gold, piercings in ivory, stainings in purple,\nburnishings in dark blue steel; of the fantasy of the Arabian\nroof,--quartering of the Christian shield,--rubric and arabesque of\nChristian scripture; in fine, all enlargement, and all diminution of\nadorning thought, from the temple to the toy, and from the mountainous\npillars of Agrigentum to the last fineness of fretwork in the Pisan\nChapel of the Thorn.\n\n[Illustration: XXI.\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF CHIVALRY.]\n\nAnd in their doing all this, they stand as masters of human order and\njustice, subduing the animal nature, guided by the spiritual one, as you\nsee the Sicilian Charioteer stands, holding his horse-reins, with the\nwild lion racing beneath him, and the flying angel above, on the\nbeautiful coin of early Syracuse; (lowest in Plate XXI.)\n\nAnd the beginnings of Christian chivalry were in that Greek bridling of\nthe dark and the white horses.\n\n206. Not that a Greek never made mistakes. He made as many as we do\nourselves, nearly;--he died of his mistakes at last--as we shall die of\nthem; but so far as he was separated from the herd of more mistaken and\nmore wretched nations--so far as he was Greek--it was by his rightness.\nHe lived, and worked, and was satisfied with the fatness of his land,\nand the fame of his deeds, by his justice, and reason, and modesty. He\nbecame Graeculus esuriens, little, and hungry, and every man's\nerrand-boy, by his iniquity, and his competition, and his love of talk.\nBut his Graecism was in having done, at least at one period of his\ndominion, more than anybody else, what was modest, useful, and eternally\ntrue; and as a workman, he verily did, or first suggested the doing of,\neverything possible to man.\n\nTake Daedalus, his great type of the practically executive craftsman, and\nthe inventor of expedients in craftsmanship, (as distinguished from\nPrometheus, the institutor of moral order in art). Daedalus invents,--he,\nor his nephew,\n\n    The potter's wheel, and all work in clay;\n    The saw, and all work in wood;\n    The masts and sails of ships, and all modes of motion;\n      (wings only proving too dangerous!)\n    The entire art of minute ornament;\n    And the deceptive life of statues.\n\nBy his personal toil, he involves the fatal labyrinth for Minos; builds\nan impregnable fortress for the Agrigentines; adorns healing baths among\nthe wild parsley-fields of Selinus; buttresses the precipices of Eryx,\nunder the temple of Aphrodite; and for her temple itself--finishes in\nexquisiteness the golden honeycomb.\n\n207. Take note of that last piece of his art: it is connected with many\nthings which I must bring before you when we enter on the study of\narchitecture. That study we shall begin at the foot of the Baptistery of\nFlorence, which, of all buildings known to me, unites the most perfect\nsymmetry with the quaintest [Greek: poikilia]. Then, from the tomb of\nyour own Edward the Confessor, to the farthest shrine of the opposite\nArabian and Indian world, I must show you how the glittering and\niridescent dominion of Daedalus prevails; and his ingenuity in division,\ninterposition, and labyrinthine sequence, more widely still. Only this\nlast summer I found the dark red masses of the rough sandstone of\nFurness Abbey had been fitted by him, with no less pleasure than he had\nin carving them, into wedged hexagons--reminiscences of the honeycomb of\nVenus Erycina. His ingenuity plays around the framework of all the\nnoblest things; and yet the brightness of it has a lurid shadow. The\nspot of the fawn, of the bird, and the moth, may be harmless. But\nDaedalus reigns no less over the spot of the leopard and snake. That\ncruel and venomous power of his art is marked, in the legends of him, by\nhis invention of the saw from the serpent's tooth; and his seeking\nrefuge, under blood-guiltiness, with Minos, who can judge evil, and\nmeasure, or remit, the penalty of it, but not reward good; Rhadamanthus\nonly can measure _that_; but Minos is essentially the recognizer of evil\ndeeds \"conoscitor delle peccata,\" whom, therefore, you find in Dante\nunder the form of the [Greek: erpeton]. \"Cignesi con la coda tante\nvolte, quantunque gradi vuol che giu sia messa.\"\n\nAnd this peril of the influence of Daedalus is twofold; first, in leading\nus to delight in glitterings and semblances of things, more than in\ntheir form, or truth;--admire the harlequin's jacket more than the\nhero's strength; and love the gilding of the missal more than its\nwords;--but farther, and worse, the ingenuity of Daedalus may even become\nbestial, an instinct for mechanical labor only, strangely involved with\na feverish and ghastly cruelty:--(you will find this distinct in the\nintensely Daedal work of the Japanese); rebellious, finally, against the\nlaws of nature and honor, and building labyrinths for monsters,--not\ncombs for bees.\n\n208. Gentlemen, we of the rough northern race may never, perhaps, be\nable to learn from the Greek his reverence for beauty; but we may at\nleast learn his disdain of mechanism:--of all work which he felt to be\nmonstrous and inhuman in its imprudent dexterities.\n\nWe hold ourselves, we English, to be good workmen. I do not think I\nspeak with light reference to recent calamity, (for I myself lost a\nyoung relation, full of hope and good purpose, in the foundered ship\n_London_,) when I say that either an AEginetan or Ionian shipwright built\nships that could be fought from, though they were under water; and\nneither of them would have been proud of having built one that would\nfill and sink helplessly if the sea washed over her deck, or turn\nupside-down if a squall struck her topsail.\n\nBelieve me, gentlemen, good workmanship consists in continence and\ncommon sense, more than in frantic expatiation of mechanical ingenuity;\nand if you would be continent and rational, you had better learn more of\nArt than you do now, and less of Engineering. What is taking place at\nthis very hour,[40] among the streets, once so bright, and avenues, once\nso pleasant, of the fairest city in Europe, may surely lead us all to\nfeel that the skill of Daedalus, set to build impregnable fortresses, is\nnot so wisely applied as in framing the [Greek: treton ponon],--the\ngolden honeycomb.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[37] The closing Lecture, on the religious temper of the Florentine,\nthough necessary for the complete explanation of the subject to my\nclass, at the time, introduced new points of inquiry which I do not\nchoose to lay before the general reader until they can be examined in\nfuller sequence. The present volume, therefore, closes with the Sixth\nLecture, and that on Christian art will be given as the first of the\npublished course on Florentine Sculpture.\n\n[38] These plates of coins are given for future reference and\nexamination, not merely for the use made of them in this place. The\nLacinian Hera, if a coin could be found unworn in surface, would be very\nnoble; her hair is thrown free because she is the goddess of the cape of\nstorms, though in her temple, there, the wind never moved the ashes on\nits altar. (Livy, xxiv. 3.)\n\n[39] 'Ancient Cities and Kings,' Plate IV., No. 20.\n\n[40] The siege of Paris, at the time of the delivery of this Lecture,\nwas in one of its most destructive phases.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VII.\n\nTHE RELATION BETWEEN MICHAEL ANGELO AND TINTORET.[41]\n\n\n209. In preceding lectures on sculpture I have included references to\nthe art of painting, so far as it proposes to itself the same object as\nsculpture, (idealization of form); and I have chosen for the subject of\nour closing inquiry, the works of the two masters who accomplished or\nimplied the unity of these arts. Tintoret entirely conceives his figures\nas solid statues: sees them in his mind on every side; detaches each\nfrom the other by imagined air and light; and foreshortens, interposes,\nor involves them as if they were pieces of clay in his hand. On the\ncontrary, Michael Angelo conceives his sculpture partly as if it were\npainted; and using (as I told you formerly) his pen like a chisel, uses\nalso his chisel like a pencil; is sometimes as picturesque as Rembrandt,\nand sometimes as soft as Correggio.\n\nIt is of him chiefly that I shall speak to-day; both because it is part\nof my duty to the strangers here present to indicate for them some of\nthe points of interest in the drawings forming part of the University\ncollections; but still more, because I must not allow the second year of\nmy professorship to close, without some statement of the mode in which\nthose collections may be useful or dangerous to my pupils. They seem at\npresent little likely to be either; for since I entered on my duties, no\nstudent has ever asked me a single question respecting these drawings,\nor, so far as I could see, taken the slightest interest in them.\n\n210. There are several causes for this which might be obviated--there is\none which cannot be. The collection, as exhibited at present, includes a\nnumber of copies which mimic in variously injurious ways the characters\nof Michael Angelo's own work; and the series, except as material for\nreference, can be of no practical service until these are withdrawn, and\nplaced by themselves. It includes, besides, a number of original\ndrawings which are indeed of value to any laborious student of Michael\nAngelo's life and temper; but which owe the greater part of this\ninterest to their being executed in times of sickness or indolence, when\nthe master, however strong, was failing in his purpose, and, however\ndiligent, tired of his work. It will be enough to name, as an example of\nthis class, the sheet of studies for the Medici tombs, No. 45, in which\nthe lowest figure is, strictly speaking, neither a study nor a working\ndrawing, but has either been scrawled in the feverish languor of\nexhaustion, which cannot escape its subject of thought; or, at best, in\nidly experimental addition of part to part, beginning with the head, and\nfitting muscle after muscle, and bone after bone, to it, thinking of\ntheir place only, not their proportion, till the head is only about\none-twentieth part of the height of the body: finally, something between\na face and a mask is blotted in the upper left-hand corner of the paper,\nindicative, in the weakness and frightfulness of it, simply of mental\ndisorder from over-work; and there are several others of this kind,\namong even the better drawings of the collection, which ought never to\nbe exhibited to the general public.\n\n211. It would be easy, however, to separate these, with the acknowledged\ncopies, from the rest; and, doing the same with the drawings of Raphael,\namong which a larger number are of true value, to form a connected\nseries of deep interest to artists, in illustration of the incipient and\nexperimental methods of design practiced by each master.\n\nI say, to artists. Incipient methods of design are not, and ought not to\nbe, subjects of earnest inquiry to other people; and although the\nre-arrangement of the drawings would materially increase the chance of\ntheir gaining due attention, there is a final and fatal reason for the\nwant of interest in them displayed by the younger students;--namely,\nthat these designs have nothing whatever to do with present life, with\nits passions, or with its religion. What their historic value is, and\nrelation to the life of the past, I will endeavor, so far as time\nadmits, to explain to-day.\n\n212. The course of Art divides itself hitherto, among all nations of the\nworld that have practiced it successfully, into three great periods.\n\nThe first, that in which their conscience is undeveloped, and their\ncondition of life in many respects savage; but, nevertheless, in harmony\nwith whatever conscience they possess. The most powerful tribes, in this\nstage of their intellect, usually live by rapine, and under the\ninfluence of vivid, but contracted, religious imagination. The early\npredatory activity of the Normans, and the confused minglings of\nreligious subjects with scenes of hunting, war, and vile grotesque, in\ntheir first art, will sufficiently exemplify this state of a people;\nhaving, observe, their conscience undeveloped, but keeping their conduct\nin satisfied harmony with it.\n\nThe second stage is that of the formation of conscience by the discovery\nof the true laws of social order and personal virtue, coupled with\nsincere effort to live by such laws as they are discovered.\n\nAll the Arts advance steadily during this stage of national growth, and\nare lovely, even in their deficiencies, as the buds of flowers are\nlovely by their vital force, swift change, and continent beauty.\n\n213. The third stage is that in which the conscience is entirely formed,\nand the nation, finding it painful to live in obedience to the precepts\nit has discovered, looks about to discover, also, a compromise for\nobedience to them. In this condition of mind its first endeavor is\nnearly always to make its religion pompous, and please the gods by\ngiving them gifts and entertainments, in which it may piously and\npleasurably share itself; so that a magnificent display of the powers of\nart it has gained by sincerity, takes place for a few years, and is then\nfollowed by their extinction, rapid and complete exactly in the degree\nin which the nation resigns itself to hypocrisy.\n\nThe works of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Tintoret belong to this period\nof compromise in the career of the greatest nation of the world; and are\nthe most splendid efforts yet made by human creatures to maintain the\ndignity of states with beautiful colors, and defend the doctrines of\ntheology with anatomical designs.\n\nFarther, and as an universal principle, we have to remember that the\nArts express not only the moral temper, but the scholarship, of their\nage; and we have thus to study them under the influence, at the same\nmoment of, it may be, declining probity, and advancing science.\n\n214. Now in this the Arts of Northern and Southern Europe stand exactly\nopposed. The Northern temper never accepts the Catholic faith with force\nsuch as it reached in Italy. Our sincerest thirteenth-century sculptor\nis cold and formal compared with that of the Pisani; nor can any\nNorthern poet be set for an instant beside Dante, as an exponent of\nCatholic faith: on the contrary, the Northern temper accepts the\nscholarship of the Reformation with absolute sincerity, while the\nItalians seek refuge from it in the partly scientific and completely\nlascivious enthusiasms of literature and painting, renewed under\nclassical influence. We therefore, in the north, produce our Shakspeare\nand Holbein; they their Petrarch and Raphael. And it is nearly\nimpossible for you to study Shakspeare or Holbein too much, or Petrarch\nand Raphael too little.\n\nI do not say this, observe, in opposition to the Catholic faith, or to\nany other faith, but only to the attempts to support whatsoever the\nfaith may be, by ornament or eloquence, instead of action. Every man who\nhonestly accepts, and acts upon, the knowledge granted to him by the\ncircumstances of his time, has the faith which God intends him to\nhave;--assuredly a good one, whatever the terms or form of it--every man\nwho dishonestly refuses, or interestedly disobeys the knowledge open to\nhim, holds a faith which God does not mean him to hold, and therefore a\nbad one, however beautiful or traditionally respectable.\n\n215. Do not, therefore, I entreat you, think that I speak with any\npurpose of defending one system of theology against another; least of\nall, reformed against Catholic theology. There probably never was a\nsystem of religion so destructive to the loveliest arts and the\nloveliest virtues of men, as the modern Protestantism, which consists in\nan assured belief in the Divine forgiveness of all your sins, and the\nDivine correctness of all your opinions. But in the first searching and\nsincere activities, the doctrines of the Reformation produced the most\ninstructive art, and the grandest literature, yet given to the world;\nwhile Italy, in her interested resistance to those doctrines, polluted\nand exhausted the arts she already possessed. Her iridescence of dying\nstatesmanship--her magnificence of hollow piety,--were represented in\nthe arts of Venice and Florence by two mighty men on either side--Titian\nand Tintoret,--Michael Angelo and Raphael. Of the calm and brave\nstatesmanship, the modest and faithful religion, which had been her\nstrength, I am content to name one chief representative artist at\nVenice, John Bellini.\n\n216. Let me now map out for you roughly the chronological relations of\nthese five men. It is impossible to remember the minor years, in dates;\nI will give you them broadly in decades, and you can add what finesse\nafterwards you like.\n\nRecollect, first, the great year 1480. Twice four's eight--you can't\nmistake it. In that year Michael Angelo was five years old; Titian,\nthree years old; Raphael, within three years of being born.\n\nSo see how easily it comes. Michael Angelo five years old--and you\ndivide six between Titian and Raphael,--three on each side of your\nstandard year, 1480.\n\nThen add to 1480, forty years--an easy number to recollect, surely; and\nyou get the exact year of Raphael's death, 1520.\n\nIn that forty years all the new effort and deadly catastrophe took\nplace. 1480 to 1520.\n\nNow, you have only to fasten to those forty years, the life of Bellini,\nwho represents the best art before them, and of Tintoret, who represents\nthe best art after them.\n\n217. I cannot fit you these on with a quite comfortable exactness, but\nwith very slight inexactness I can fit them firmly.\n\nJohn Bellini was ninety years old when he died. He lived fifty years\nbefore the great forty of change, and he saw the forty, and died. Then\nTintoret is born; lives eighty[42] years after the forty, and closes, in\ndying, the sixteenth century, and the great arts of the world.\n\nThose are the dates, roughly; now for the facts connected with them.\n\nJohn Bellini precedes the change, meets, and resists it victoriously to\nhis death. Nothing of flaw or failure is ever to be discerned in him.\n\nThen Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian, together, bring about the\ndeadly change, playing into each other's hands--Michael Angelo being the\nchief captain in evil; Titian, in natural force.\n\nThen Tintoret, himself alone nearly as strong as all the three, stands\nup for a last fight; for Venice, and the old time. He all but wins it at\nfirst; but the three together are too strong for him. Michael Angelo\nstrikes him down; and the arts are ended. \"Il disegno di Michael\nAgnolo.\" That fatal motto was his death-warrant.\n\n218. And now, having massed out my subject, I can clearly sketch for you\nthe changes that took place from Bellini, through Michael Angelo, to\nTintoret.\n\nThe art of Bellini is centrally represented by two pictures at Venice:\none, the Madonna in the Sacristy of the Frari, with two saints beside\nher, and two angels at her feet; the second, the Madonna with four\nSaints, over the second altar of San Zaccaria.\n\nIn the first of these, the figures are under life size, and it\nrepresents the most perfect kind of picture for rooms; in which, since\nit is intended to be seen close to the spectator, every right kind of\nfinish possible to the hand may be wisely lavished; yet which is not a\nminiature, nor in any wise petty, or ignoble.\n\nIn the second, the figures are of life size, or a little more, and it\nrepresents the class of great pictures in which the boldest execution is\nused, but all brought to entire completion. These two, having every\nquality in balance, are as far as my present knowledge extends, and as\nfar as I can trust my judgment, the two best pictures in the world.\n\n219. Observe respecting them--\n\nFirst, they are both wrought in entirely consistent and permanent\nmaterial. The gold in them is represented by painting, not laid on with\nreal gold. And the painting is so secure, that four hundred years have\nproduced on it, so far as I can see, no harmful change whatsoever, of\nany kind.\n\nSecondly, the figures in both are in perfect peace. No action takes\nplace except that the little angels are playing on musical instruments,\nbut with uninterrupted and effortless gesture, as in a dream. A choir of\nsinging angels by La Robbia or Donatello would be intent on their music,\nor eagerly rapturous in it, as in temporary exertion: in the little\nchoirs of cherubs by Luini in the Adoration of the Shepherds, in the\nCathedral of Como, we even feel by their dutiful anxiety that there\nmight be danger of a false note if they were less attentive. But\nBellini's angels, even the youngest, sing as calmly as the Fates weave.\n\n220. Let me at once point out to you that this calmness is the attribute\nof the entirely highest class of art: the introduction of strong or\nviolently emotional incident is at once a confession of inferiority.\n\nThose are the two first attributes of the best art. Faultless\nworkmanship, and perfect serenity; a continuous, not momentary,\naction,--or entire inaction. You are to be interested in the living\ncreatures; not in what is happening to them.\n\nThen the third attribute of the best art is that it compels you to think\nof the spirit of the creature, and therefore of its face, more than of\nits body.\n\nAnd the fourth is that in the face you shall be led to see only beauty\nor joy;--never vileness, vice, or pain.\n\nThose are the four essentials of the greatest art. I repeat them, they\nare easily learned.\n\n1. Faultless and permanent workmanship.\n\n2. Serenity in state or action.\n\n3. The Face principal, not the body.\n\n4. And the Face free from either vice or pain.\n\n221. It is not possible, of course, always literally to observe the\nsecond condition, that there shall be quiet action or none; but\nBellini's treatment of violence in action you may see exemplified in a\nnotable way in his St. Peter Martyr. The soldier is indeed striking the\nsword down into his breast; but in the face of the Saint is only\nresignation, and faintness of death, not pain--that of the executioner\nis impassive; and, while a painter of the later schools would have\ncovered breast and sword with blood, Bellini allows no stain of it; but\npleases himself by the most elaborate and exquisite painting of a soft\ncrimson feather in the executioner's helmet.\n\n222. Now the changes brought about by Michael Angelo--and permitted, or\npersisted in calamitously, by Tintoret--are in the four points these:\n\n     1st. Bad workmanship.\n\n     The greater part of all that these two men did is hastily and\n     incompletely done; and all that they did on a large scale in\n     color is in the best qualities of it perished.\n\n     2d. Violence of transitional action.\n\n     The figures flying,--falling,--striking,--or biting. Scenes of\n     Judgment,--battle,--martyrdom,--massacre; anything that is in\n     the acme of instantaneous interest and violent gesture. They\n     cannot any more trust their public to care for anything but\n     that.\n\n     3d. Physical instead of mental interest. The body, and its\n     anatomy, made the entire subject of interest: the face,\n     shadowed, as in the Duke Lorenzo,[43] unfinished, as in the\n     Twilight, or entirely foreshortened, backshortened, and\n     despised, among labyrinths of limbs, and mountains of sides and\n     shoulders.\n\n     4th. Evil chosen rather than good. On the face itself, instead\n     of joy or virtue, at the best, sadness, probably pride, often\n     sensuality, and always, by preference, vice or agony as the\n     subject of thought. In the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo, and\n     the Last Judgment of Tintoret, it is the wrath of the Dies Irae,\n     not its justice, in which they delight; and their only\n     passionate thought of the coming of Christ in the clouds, is\n     that all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.\n\nThose are the four great changes wrought by Michael Angelo. I repeat\nthem:\n\n    Ill work for good.\n    Tumult for Peace.\n    The Flesh of Man for his Spirit.\n    And the Curse of God for His blessing.\n\n223. Hitherto, I have massed, necessarily, but most unjustly, Michael\nAngelo and Tintoret together, because of their common relation to the\nart of others. I shall now proceed to distinguish the qualities of their\nown. And first as to the general temper of the two men.\n\nNearly every existing work by Michael Angelo is an attempt to execute\nsomething beyond his power, coupled with a fevered desire that his power\nmay be acknowledged. He is always matching himself either against the\nGreeks whom he cannot rival, or against rivals whom he cannot forget. He\nis proud, yet not proud enough to be at peace; melancholy, yet not\ndeeply enough to be raised above petty pain; and strong beyond all his\ncompanion workmen, yet never strong enough to command his temper, or\nlimit his aims.\n\nTintoret, on the contrary, works in the consciousness of supreme\nstrength, which cannot be wounded by neglect, and is only to be thwarted\nby time and space. He knows precisely all that art can accomplish under\ngiven conditions; determines absolutely how much of what can be done he\nwill himself for the moment choose to do; and fulfills his purpose with\nas much ease as if, through his human body, were working the great\nforces of nature. Not that he is ever satisfied with what he has done,\nas vulgar and feeble artists are satisfied. He falls short of his ideal,\nmore than any other man; but not more than is necessary; and is content\nto fall short of it to that degree, as he is content that his figures,\nhowever well painted, do not move nor speak. He is also entirely\nunconcerned respecting the satisfaction of the public. He neither cares\nto display his strength to them, nor convey his ideas to them; when he\nfinishes his work, it is because he is in the humor to do so; and the\nsketch which a meaner painter would have left incomplete to show how\ncleverly it was begun, Tintoret simply leaves because he has done as\nmuch of it as he likes.\n\n224. Both Raphael and Michael Angelo are thus, in the most vital of all\npoints, separate from the great Venetian. They are always in dramatic\nattitudes, and always appealing to the public for praise. They are the\nleading athletes in the gymnasium of the arts; and the crowd of the\ncircus cannot take its eyes away from them, while the Venetian walks or\nrests with the simplicity of a wild animal; is scarcely noticed in his\noccasionally swifter motion; when he springs, it is to please himself;\nand so calmly, that no one thinks of estimating the distance covered.\n\nI do not praise him wholly in this. I praise him only for the\nwell-founded pride, infinitely nobler than Michael Angelo's. You do not\nhear of Tintoret's putting any one into hell because they had found\nfault with his work. Tintoret would as soon have thought of putting a\ndog into hell for laying his paws on it. But he is to be blamed in\nthis--that he thinks as little of the pleasure of the public, as of\ntheir opinion. A great painter's business is to do what the public ask\nof him, in the way that shall be helpful and instructive to them. His\nrelation to them is exactly that of a tutor to a child; he is not to\ndefer to their judgment, but he is carefully to form it;--not to consult\ntheir pleasure for his own sake, but to consult it much for theirs. It\nwas scarcely, however, possible that this should be the case between\nTintoret and his Venetians; he could not paint for the people, and in\nsome respects he was happily protected by his subordination to the\nSenate. Raphael and Michael Angelo lived in a world of court intrigue,\nin which it was impossible to escape petty irritation, or refuse\nthemselves the pleasure of mean victory. But Tintoret and Titian, even\nat the height of their reputation, practically lived as craftsmen in\ntheir workshops, and sent in samples of their wares, not to be praised\nor caviled at, but to be either taken or refused.\n\n225. I can clearly and adequately set before you these relations between\nthe great painters of Venice and her Senate--relations which, in\nmonetary matters, are entirely right and exemplary for all time--by\nreading to you two decrees of the Senate itself, and one petition to it.\nThe first document shall be the decree of the Senate for giving help to\nJohn Bellini, in finishing the compartments of the great Council\nChamber; granting him three assistants--one of them Victor Carpaccio.\n\nThe decree, first referring to some other business, closes in these\nterms:[44]\n\n     \"There having moreover offered his services to this effect our\n     most faithful citizen, Zuan Bellin, according to his agreement\n     employing his skill and all speed and diligence for the\n     completion of this work of the three pictures aforesaid,\n     provided he be assisted by the under-written painters.\n\n     \"Be it therefore put to the ballot, that besides the aforesaid\n     Zuan Bellin in person, who will assume the superintendence of\n     this work, there be added Master Victor Scarpaza, with a\n     monthly salary of five ducats; Master Victor, son of the late\n     Mathio, at four ducats per month; and the painter, Hieronymo,\n     at two ducats per month; they rendering speedy and diligent\n     assistance to the aforesaid Zuan Bellin for the painting of the\n     pictures aforesaid, so that they be completed well and\n     carefully as speedily as possible. The salaries of the which\n     three master painters aforesaid, with the costs of colors and\n     other necessaries, to be defrayed by our Salt Office with the\n     moneys of the great chest.\n\n     \"It being expressly declared that said pensioned painters be\n     tied and bound to work constantly and daily, so that said three\n     pictures may be completed as expeditiously as possible; the\n     artists aforesaid being pensioned at the good pleasure of this\n     Council.\n\n    \"Ayes     23\n\n    \"Noes      3\n\n    \"Neutrals  0\"\n\nThis decree is the more interesting to us now, because it is the\nprecedent to which Titian himself refers, when he first offers his\nservices to the Senate.\n\nThe petition which I am about to read to you, was read to the Council of\nTen, on the last day of May, 1513, and the original draft of it is yet\npreserved in the Venice archives.\n\n    \"'Most Illustrious Council of Ten.\n    \"'Most Serene Prince and most Excellent Lords.\n\n     \"'I, Titian of Serviete de Cadore, having from my boyhood\n     upwards set myself to learn the art of painting, not so much\n     from cupidity of gain as for the sake of endeavoring to\n     acquire some little fame, and of being ranked amongst those who\n     now profess the said art.\n\n     \"'And altho heretofore, and likewise at this present, I have\n     been earnestly requested by the Pope and other potentates to go\n     and serve them, nevertheless, being anxious as your Serenity's\n     most faithful subject, for such I am, to leave some memorial in\n     this famous city; my determination is, should the Signory\n     approve, _to undertake, so long as I live, to come and paint in\n     the Grand Council with my whole soul and ability_; commencing,\n     provided your Serenity think of it, with the battle-piece on\n     the side towards the \"Piaza,\" that being the most difficult;\n     nor down to this time has any one chosen to assume so hard a\n     task.\n\n     \"'I, most excellent Lords, should be better pleased to receive\n     as recompense for the work to be done by me, such\n     acknowledgments as may be deemed sufficient, and much less; but\n     because, as already stated by me, I care solely for my honor,\n     and mere livelihood, should your Serenity approve, you will\n     vouchsafe to grant me for my life, the next brokers-patent in\n     the German factory,[45] by whatever means it may become vacant;\n     notwithstanding other expectancies; with the terms, conditions,\n     obligations, and exemptions, as in the case of Messer Zuan\n     Bellini; besides two youths whom I purpose bringing with me as\n     assistants; they to be paid by the Salt Office; as likewise the\n     colors and all other requisites, as conceded a few months ago\n     by the aforesaid most Illustrious Council to the said Messer\n     Zuan; for I promise to do such work and with so much speed and\n     excellency as shall satisfy your lordships to whom I humbly\n     recommend myself.'\"\n\n226. \"This proposal,\" Mr. Brown tells us, \"in accordance with the\npetitions presented by Gentil Bellini and Alvise Vivarini, was\nimmediately put to the ballot,\" and carried thus--the decision of the\nGrand Council, in favor of Titian, being, observe, by no means\nunanimous:\n\n    \"Ayes     10\n\n    \"Noes      6\n\n    \"Neutrals  0\"\n\nImmediately follows on the acceptance of Titian's services, this\npractical order:\n\n     \"We, Chiefs of the most Illustrious Council of Ten, tell and\n     inform you Lords Proveditors for the State; videlicet the one\n     who is cashier of the Great Chest, and his successors, that for\n     the execution of what has been decreed above in the most\n     Illustrious Council aforesaid, you do have prepared all\n     necessaries for the above written Titian according to his\n     petition and demand, and as observed with regard to Juan\n     Bellini, that he may paint ut supra; paying from month to month\n     the two youths whom said Titian shall present to you at the\n     rate of four ducats each per month, as urged by him because of\n     their skill and sufficiency in said art of painting, tho' we do\n     not mean the payment of their salary to commence until they\n     begin work; and thus will you do. Given on the 8th of June,\n     1513.\"\n\nThis is the way, then, the great workmen wish to be paid, and that is\nthe way wise men pay them for their work. The perfect simplicity of such\npatronage leaves the painter free to do precisely what he thinks best:\nand a good painter always produces his best, with such license.\n\n227. And now I shall take the four conditions of change in succession,\nand examine the distinctions between the two masters in their acceptance\nof, or resistance to, them.\n\n(I.) The change of good and permanent workmanship for bad and insecure\nworkmanship.\n\nYou have often heard quoted the saying of Michael Angelo, that\noil-painting was only fit for women and children.\n\nHe said so, simply because he had neither the skill to lay a single\ntouch of good oil-painting, nor the patience to overcome even its\nelementary difficulties.\n\nAnd it is one of my reasons for the choice of subject in this concluding\nlecture on Sculpture, that I may, with direct reference to this much\nquoted saying of Michael Angelo, make the positive statement to you,\nthat oil-painting is the Art of arts;[46] that it is sculpture, drawing,\nand music, all in one, involving the technical dexterities of those\nthree several arts; that is to say--the decision and strength of the\nstroke of the chisel;--the balanced distribution of appliance of that\nforce necessary for graduation in light and shade;--and the passionate\nfelicity of rightly multiplied actions, all unerring, which on an\ninstrument produce right sound, and on canvas, living color. There is\nno other human skill so great or so wonderful as the skill of fine\noil-painting; and there is no other art whose results are so absolutely\npermanent. Music is gone as soon as produced--marble discolors,--fresco\nfades,--glass darkens or decomposes--painting alone, well guarded, is\npractically everlasting.\n\nOf this splendid art Michael Angelo understood nothing; he understood\neven fresco, imperfectly. Tintoret understood both perfectly; but\nhe--when no one would pay for his colors (and sometimes nobody would\neven give him space of wall to paint on)--used cheap blue for\nultramarine; and he worked so rapidly, and on such huge spaces of\ncanvas, that between damp and dry, his colors must go, for the most\npart; but any complete oil-painting of his stands as well as one of\nBellini's own: while Michael Angelo's fresco is defaced already in every\npart of it, and Lionardo's oil-painting is all either gone black, or\ngone to nothing.\n\n228. (II.) Introduction of dramatic interest for the sake of excitement.\nI have already, in the _Stones of Venice_, illustrated Tintoret's\ndramatic power at so great length, that I will not, to-day, make any\nfarther statement to justify my assertion that it is as much beyond\nMichael Angelo's as Shakspeare's is beyond Milton's--and somewhat with\nthe same kind of difference in manner. Neither can I speak to-day, time\nnot permitting me, of the abuse of their dramatic power by Venetian or\nFlorentine; one thing only I beg you to note, that with full half of his\nstrength, Tintoret remains faithful to the serenity of the past; and the\nexamples I have given you from his work in S. 50,[47] are, one, of the\nmost splendid drama, and the other, of the quietest portraiture ever\nattained by the arts of the Middle Ages.\n\nNote also this respecting his picture of the Judgment, that, in spite\nof all the violence and wildness of the imagined scene, Tintoret has not\ngiven, so far as I remember, the spectacle of any one soul under\ninfliction of actual pain. In all previous representations of the Last\nJudgment there had at least been one division of the picture set apart\nfor the representation of torment; and even the gentle Angelico shrinks\nfrom no orthodox detail in this respect; but Tintoret, too vivid and\ntrue in imagination to be able to endure the common thoughts of hell,\nrepresents indeed the wicked in ruin, but not in agony. They are swept\ndown by flood and whirlwind--the place of them shall know them no more,\nbut not one is seen in more than the natural pain of swift and\nirrevocable death.\n\n229. (III.) I pass to the third condition; the priority of flesh to\nspirit, and of the body to the face.\n\nIn this alone, of the four innovations, Michael Angelo and Tintoret have\nthe Greeks with them;--in this, alone, have they any right to be called\nclassical. The Greeks gave them no excuse for bad workmanship; none for\ntemporary passion; none for the preference of pain. Only in the honor\ndone to the body may be alleged for them the authority of the ancients.\n\nYou remember, I hope, how often in my preceding lectures I had to insist\non the fact that Greek sculpture was essentially [Greek:\naprosopos];--independent, not only of the expression, but even of the\nbeauty of the face. Nay, independent of its being so much as seen. The\ngreater number of the finest pieces of it which remain for us to judge\nby, have had the heads broken away;--we do not seriously miss them\neither from the Three Fates, the Ilissus, or the Torso of the Vatican.\nThe face of the Theseus is so far destroyed by time that you can form\nlittle conception of its former aspect. But it is otherwise in Christian\nsculpture. Strike the head off even the rudest statue in the porch of\nChartres and you will greatly miss it--the harm would be still worse to\nDonatello's St. George:--and if you take the heads from a statue of\nMino, or a painting of Angelico--very little but drapery will be\nleft;--drapery made redundant in quantity and rigid in fold, that it may\nconceal the forms, and give a proud or ascetic reserve to the actions,\nof the bodily frame. Bellini and his school, indeed, rejected at once\nthe false theory, and the easy mannerism, of such religious design; and\npainted the body without fear or reserve, as, in its subordination,\nhonorable and lovely. But the inner heart and fire of it are by them\nalways first thought of, and no action is given to it merely to show its\nbeauty. Whereas the great culminating masters, and chiefly of these,\nTintoret, Correggio, and Michael Angelo, delight in the body for its own\nsake, and cast it into every conceivable attitude, often in violation of\nall natural probability, that they may exhibit the action of its\nskeleton, and the contours of its flesh. The movement of a hand with\nCima or Bellini expresses mental emotion only; but the clustering and\ntwining of the fingers of Correggio's S. Catherine is enjoyed by the\npainter just in the same way as he would enjoy the twining of the\nbranches of a graceful plant, and he compels them into intricacies which\nhave little or no relation to St. Catherine's mind. In the two drawings\nof Correggio (S. 13 and 14) it is the rounding of limbs and softness of\nfoot resting on cloud which are principally thought of in the form of\nthe Madonna; and the countenance of St. John is foreshortened into a\nsection, that full prominence may be given to the muscles of his arms\nand breast.\n\nSo in Tintoret's drawing of the Graces (S. 22), he has entirely\nneglected the individual character of the Goddesses, and been content to\nindicate it merely by attributes of dice or flower, so only that he may\nsufficiently display varieties of contour in thigh and shoulder.\n\n230. Thus far, then, the Greeks, Correggio, Michael Angelo, Raphael in\nhis latter design, and Tintoret in his scenic design (as opposed to\nportraiture), are at one. But the Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, are\nalso together in this farther point; that they all draw the body for\ntrue delight in it, and with knowledge of it living; while Michael\nAngelo and Raphael draw the body for vanity, and from knowledge of it\ndead.\n\nThe Venus of Melos,--Correggio's Venus, (with Mercury teaching Cupid to\nread),--and Tintoret's Graces, have the forms which their designers\ntruly _liked_ to see in women. They may have been wrong or right in\nliking those forms, but they carved and painted them for their pleasure,\nnot for vanity.\n\nBut the form of Michael Angelo's Night is not one which he delighted to\nsee in women. He gave it her, because he thought it was fine, and that\nhe would be admired for reaching so lofty an ideal.[48]\n\n231. Again. The Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, learn the body from the\nliving body, and delight in its breath, color, and motion.[49]\n\nRaphael and Michael Angelo learned it essentially from the corpse, and\nhad no delight in it whatever, but great pride in showing that they knew\nall its mechanism; they therefore sacrifice its colors, and insist on\nits muscles, and surrender the breath and fire of it, for what is--not\nmerely carnal,--but osseous, knowing that for one person who can\nrecognize the loveliness of a look, or the purity of a color, there are\na hundred who can calculate the length of a bone.\n\nThe boy with the doves, in Raphael's cartoon of the Beautiful Gate of\nthe Temple, is not a child running, but a surgical diagram of a child in\na running posture.\n\nFarther, when the Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, draw the body active,\nit is because they rejoice in its force, and when they draw it inactive,\nit is because they rejoice in its repose. But Michael Angelo and Raphael\ninvent for it ingenious mechanical motion, because they think it\nuninteresting when it is quiet, and cannot, in their pictures, endure\nany person's being simple-minded enough to stand upon both his legs at\nonce, nor venture to imagine anyone's being clear enough in his language\nto make himself intelligible without pointing.\n\nIn all these conditions, the Greek and Venetian treatment of the body is\nfaithful, modest, and natural; but Michael Angelo's dishonest, insolent,\nand artificial.\n\n232. But between him and Tintoret there is a separation deeper than all\nthese, when we examine their treatment of the face. Michael Angelo's\nvanity of surgical science rendered it impossible for him ever to treat\nthe body as well as the Greeks treated it; but it left him wholly at\nliberty to treat the face as ill; and he did: and in some respects very\ncuriously worse.\n\nThe Greeks had, in all their work, one type of face for beautiful and\nhonorable persons; and another, much contrary to it, for dishonorable\nones; and they were continually setting these in opposition. Their type\nof beauty lay chiefly in the undisturbed peace and simplicity of all\ncontours; in full roundness of chin; in perfect formation of the lips,\nshowing neither pride nor care; and, most of all, in a straight and firm\nline from the brow to the end of the nose.\n\nThe Greek type of dishonorable persons, especially satyrs, fauns, and\nsensual powers, consisted in irregular excrescence and decrement of\nfeatures, especially in flatness of the upper part of the nose, and\nprojection of the end of it into a blunt knob.\n\nBy the most grotesque fatality, as if the personal bodily injury he had\nhimself received had passed with a sickly echo into his mind also,\nMichael Angelo is always dwelling on this satyric form of\ncountenance;--sometimes violently caricatures it, but never can help\ndrawing it; and all the best profiles in this collection at Oxford have\nwhat Mr. Robinson calls a \"nez retrousse;\" but what is, in reality, the\nnose of the Greek Bacchic mask, treated as a dignified feature.\n\n233. For the sake of readers who cannot examine the drawings themselves,\nand lest I should be thought to have exaggerated in any wise the\nstatement of this character, I quote Mr. Robinson's description of the\nhead, No. 9--a celebrated and entirely authentic drawing, on which, I\nregret to say, my own pencil comment in passing is merely \"brutal lower\nlip, and broken nose\":--\n\n     \"This admirable study was probably made from nature, additional\n     character and more powerful expression having been given to it\n     by a slight exaggeration of details, bordering on caricature\n     (observe the protruding lower lip, 'nez retrousse,' and\n     overhanging forehead). The head, in profile, turned to the\n     right, is proudly planted on a massive neck and shoulders, and\n     the short tufted hair stands up erect. The expression is that\n     of fierce, insolent self-confidence and malevolence; it is\n     engraved in facsimile in Ottley's 'Italian School of Design,'\n     and it is described in that work, p. 33, as 'Finely expressive\n     of scornfulness and pride, and evidently a study from nature.'\n\n     \"Michel Angelo has made use of the same ferocious-looking model\n     on other occasions--see an instance in the well-known 'Head of\n     Satan' engraved in Woodburn's Lawrence Gallery (No. 16), and\n     now in the Malcolm Collection.\n\n     \"The study on the reverse of the leaf is more lightly executed;\n     it represents a man of powerful frame, carrying a hog or boar\n     in his arms before him, the upper part of his body thrown back\n     to balance the weight, his head hidden by that of the animal,\n     which rests on the man's right shoulder.\n\n     \"The power displayed in every line and touch of these drawings\n     is inimitable--the head was in truth one of the 'teste divine,'\n     and the hand which executed it the 'mano terribile,' so\n     enthusiastically alluded to by Vasari.\"\n\n234. Passing, for the moment, by No. 10, a \"young woman of majestic\ncharacter, marked by a certain expression of brooding melancholy,\" and\n\"wearing on her head a fantastic cap or turban;\"--by No. 11, a bearded\nman, \"wearing a conical Phrygian cap, his mouth wide open,\" and his\nexpression \"obstreperously animated;\"--and by No. 12, \"a middle-aged or\nold man, with a snub nose, high forehead, and thin, scrubby hair,\" we\nwill go on to the fairer examples of Divine heads in No. 32.\n\n     \"This splendid sheet of studies is probably one of the 'carte\n     stupendissime di teste divine,' which Vasari says (Vita, p.\n     272) Michel Angelo executed, as presents or lessons for his\n     artistic friends. Not improbably it is actually one of those\n     made for his friend Tommaso dei Cavalieri, who, when young, was\n     desirous of learning to draw.\"\n\nBut it is one of the chief misfortunes affecting Michael Angelo's\nreputation, that his ostentatious display of strength and science has a\nnatural attraction for comparatively weak and pedantic persons. And this\nsheet of Vasari's \"teste divine\" contains, in fact, not a single drawing\nof high quality--only one of moderate agreeableness, and two caricatured\nheads, one of a satyr with hair like the fur of animals, and one of a\nmonstrous and sensual face, such as could only have occurred to the\nsculptor in a fatigued dream, and which in my own notes I have classed\nwith the vile face in No. 45.\n\n235. Returning, however, to the divine heads above it, I wish you to\nnote \"the most conspicuous and important of all,\" a study for one of the\nGenii behind the Sibylla Libyca. This Genius, like the young woman of a\nmajestic character, and the man with his mouth open, wears a cap, or\nturban; opposite to him in the sheet, is a female in profile, \"wearing a\nhood of massive drapery.\" And, when once your attention is directed to\nthis point, you will perhaps be surprised to find how many of Michael\nAngelo's figures, intended to be sublime, have their heads bandaged. If\nyou have been a student of Michael Angelo chiefly, you may easily have\nvitiated your taste to the extent of thinking that this is a dignified\ncostume; but if you study Greek work, instead, you will find that\nnothing is more important in the system of it than a finished\ndisposition of the hair; and as soon as you acquaint yourself with the\nexecution of carved marbles generally, you will perceive these massy\nfillets to be merely a cheap means of getting over a difficulty too\ngreat for Michael Angelo's patience, and too exigent for his invention.\nThey are not sublime arrangements, but economies of labor, and reliefs\nfrom the necessity of design; and if you had proposed to the sculptor of\nthe Venus of Melos, or of the Jupiter of Olympia, to bind the ambrosial\nlocks up in towels, you would most likely have been instantly bound,\nyourself; and sent to the nearest temple of AEsculapius.\n\n236. I need not, surely, tell you,--I need only remind,--how in all\nthese points, the Venetians and Correggio reverse Michael Angelo's evil,\nand vanquish him in good; how they refuse caricature, rejoice in beauty,\nand thirst for opportunity of toil. The waves of hair in a single figure\nof Tintoret's (the Mary Magdalen of the Paradise) contain more\nintellectual design in themselves alone than all the folds of unseemly\nlinen in the Sistine chapel put together.\n\nIn the fourth and last place, as Tintoret does not sacrifice, except as\nhe is forced by the exigencies of display, the face for the body, so\nalso he does not sacrifice happiness for pain. The chief reason why we\nall know the \"Last Judgment\" of Michael Angelo, and not the \"Paradise\"\nof Tintoret, is the same love of sensation which makes us read the\n_Inferno_ of Dante, and not his _Paradise_; and the choice, believe me,\nis our fault, not his; some farther evil influence is due to the fact\nthat Michael Angelo has invested all his figures with picturesque and\npalpable elements of effect, while Tintoret has only made them lovely in\nthemselves and has been content that they should deserve, not demand,\nyour attention.\n\n237. You are accustomed to think the figures of Michael Angelo\nsublime--because they are dark, and colossal, and involved, and\nmysterious--because in a word, they look sometimes like shadows, and\nsometimes like mountains, and sometimes like specters, but never like\nhuman beings. Believe me, yet once more, in what I told you long\nsince--man can invent nothing nobler than humanity. He cannot raise his\nform into anything better than God made it, by giving it either the\nflight of birds or strength of beasts, by enveloping it in mist, or\nheaping it into multitude. Your pilgrim must look like a pilgrim in a\nstraw hat, or you will not make him into one with cockle and nimbus; an\nangel must look like an angel on the ground, as well as in the air; and\nthe much-denounced pre-Raphaelite faith that a saint cannot look\nsaintly unless he has thin legs, is not more absurd than Michael\nAngelo's, that a Sybil cannot look Sibylline unless she has thick ones.\n\n238. All that shadowing, storming, and coiling of his, when you look\ninto it, is mere stage decoration, and that of a vulgar kind. Light is,\nin reality, more awful than darkness--modesty more majestic than\nstrength; and there is truer sublimity in the sweet joy of a child, or\nthe sweet virtue of a maiden, than in the strength of Antaeus, or\nthunder-clouds of AEtna.\n\nNow, though in nearly all his greater pictures, Tintoret is entirely\ncarried away by his sympathy with Michael Angelo, and conquers him in\nhis own field;--outflies him in motion, outnumbers him in multitude,\noutwits him in fancy, and outflames him in rage,--he can be just as\ngentle as he is strong: and that Paradise, though it is the largest\npicture in the world, without any question, is also the thoughtfulest,\nand most precious.\n\nThe Thoughtfulest!--it would be saying but little, as far as Michael\nAngelo is concerned.\n\n239. For consider of it yourselves. You have heard, from your youth up\n(and all educated persons have heard for three centuries), of this Last\nJudgment of his, as the most sublime picture in existence.\n\nThe subject of it is one which should certainly be interesting to you,\nin one of two ways.\n\nIf you never expect to be judged for any of your own doings, and the\ntradition of the coming of Christ is to you as an idle tale--still,\nthink what a wonderful tale it would be, were it well told. You are at\nliberty, disbelieving it, to range the fields--Elysian and Tartarean--of\nall imagination. You may play with it, since it is false; and what a\nplay would it not be, well written? Do you think the tragedy, or the\nmiracle play, or the infinitely Divina Commedia of the Judgment of the\nastonished living who were dead;--the undeceiving of the sight of every\nhuman soul, understanding in an instant all the shallow, and depth of\npast life and future,--face to face with both,--and with God:--this\napocalypse to all intellect, and completion to all passion, this minute\nand individual drama of the perfected history of separate spirits, and\nof their finally accomplished affections!--think you, I say, all this\nwas well told by mere heaps of dark bodies curled and convulsed in\nspace, and fall as of a crowd from a scaffolding, in writhed concretions\nof muscular pain?\n\nBut take it the other way. Suppose you believe, be it never so dimly or\nfeebly, in some kind of Judgment that is to be;--that you admit even the\nfaint contingency of retribution, and can imagine, with vivacity enough\nto fear, that in this life, at all events, if not in another--there may\nbe for you a Visitation of God, and a questioning--What hast thou done?\nThe picture, if it is a good one, should have a deeper interest, surely\non _this_ postulate? Thrilling enough, as a mere imagination of what is\nnever to be--now, as a conjecture of what _is_ to be, held the best that\nin eighteen centuries of Christianity has for men's eyes been\nmade;--Think of it so!\n\n240. And then, tell me, whether you yourselves, or any one you have\nknown, did ever at any time receive from this picture any, the smallest\nvital thought, warning, quickening, or help? It may have appalled, or\nimpressed you for a time, as a thunder-cloud might: but has it ever\ntaught you anything--chastised in you anything--confirmed a\npurpose--fortified a resistance--purified a passion? I know that, for\nyou, it has done none of these things; and I know also that, for others,\nit has done very different things. In every vain and proud designer who\nhas since lived, that dark carnality of Michael Angelo's has fostered\ninsolent science, and fleshly imagination. Daubers and blockheads think\nthemselves painters, and are received by the public as such, if they\nknow how to foreshorten bones and decipher entrails; and men with\ncapacity of art either shrink away (the best of them always do) into\npetty felicities and innocencies of genre painting--landscapes, cattle,\nfamily breakfasts, village schoolings, and the like; or else, if they\nhave the full sensuous art-faculty that would have made true painters\nof them, being taught, from their youth up, to look for and learn the\nbody instead of the spirit, have learned it, and taught it to such\npurpose, that at this hour, when I speak to you, the rooms of the Royal\nAcademy of England, receiving also what of best can be sent there by the\nmasters of France, contain _not one_ picture honorable to the arts of\ntheir age; and contain many which are shameful in their record of its\nmanners.\n\n241. Of that, hereafter. I will close to-day giving you some brief\naccount of the scheme of Tintoret's Paradise, in justification of my\nassertion that it is the thoughtfulest as well as mightiest picture in\nthe world.\n\nIn the highest center is Christ, leaning on the globe of the earth,\nwhich is of dark crystal. Christ is crowned with a glory as of the sun,\nand all the picture is lighted by that glory, descending through circle\nbeneath circle of cloud, and of flying or throned spirits.\n\nThe Madonna, beneath Christ, and at some interval from Him, kneels to\nHim. She is crowned with the Seven stars, and kneels on a cloud of\nangels, whose wings change into ruby fire, where they are near her.\n\nThe three great Archangels meeting from three sides, fly towards Christ.\nMichael delivers up his scales and sword. He is followed by the Thrones\nand Principalities of the Earth; so inscribed--Throni--Principatus. The\nSpirits of the Thrones bear scales in their hands; and of the\nPrincedoms, shining globes: beneath the wings of the last of these are\nthe four great teachers and lawgivers, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St.\nGregory, St. Augustine, and behind St. Augustine stands his mother,\nwatching him, her chief joy in Paradise.\n\nUnder the Thrones, are set the Apostles, St. Paul separated a little\nfrom the rest, and put lowest, yet principal; under St. Paul, is St.\nChristopher, bearing a massive globe, with a cross upon it; but to mark\nhim as the Christ-bearer, since here in Paradise he cannot have the\nChild on his shoulders, Tintoret has thrown on the globe a flashing\nstellar reflection of the sun the head of Christ.\n\nAll this side of the picture is kept in glowing color,--the four Doctors\nof the church have golden miters and mantles; except the Cardinal, St.\nJerome, who is in burning scarlet, his naked breast glowing, warm with\nnoble life,--the darker red of his robe relieved against a white glory.\n\n242. Opposite to Michael, Gabriel flies towards the Madonna, having in\nhis hand the Annunciation lily, large, and triple-blossomed. Above him,\nand above Michael, equally, extends a cloud of white angels, inscribed\n\"Serafini;\" but the group following Gabriel, and corresponding to the\nThroni following Michael, is inscribed \"Cherubini.\" Under these are the\ngreat prophets, and singers and foretellers of the happiness or of the\nsorrow of time. David, and Solomon, and Isaiah, and Amos of the\nherdsmen. David has a colossal golden psaltery laid horizontally across\nhis knees;--two angels behind him dictate to him as he sings, looking up\ntowards Christ; but one strong angel sweeps down to Solomon from among\nthe cherubs, and opens a book, resting it on the head of Solomon, who\nlooks down earnestly unconscious of it;--to the left of David, separate\nfrom the group of prophets, as Paul from the apostles, is Moses,\ndark-robed; in the full light, withdrawn far behind him, Abraham,\nembracing Isaac with his left arm, and near him, pale St. Agnes. In\nfront, nearer, dark and colossal, stands the glorious figure of Santa\nGiustina of Padua; then a little subordinate to her, St. Catherine, and,\nfar on the left, and high, St. Barbara leaning on her tower. In front,\nnearer, flies Raphael; and under him is the four-square group of the\nEvangelists. Beneath them, on the left, Noah; on the right, Adam and\nEve, both floating unsupported by cloud or angel; Noah buoyed by the\nArk, which he holds above him, and it is _this_ into which Solomon gazes\ndown, so earnestly. Eve's face is, perhaps, the most beautiful ever\npainted by Tintoret--full in light, but dark-eyed. Adam floats beside\nher, his figure fading into a winged gloom, edged in the outline of\nfig-leaves. Far down, under these, central in the lowest part of the\npicture, rises the Angel of the Sea, praying for Venice; for Tintoret\nconceives his Paradise as existing now, not as in the future. I at\nfirst mistook this soft Angel of the Sea for the Magdalen, for he is\nsustained by other three angels on either side, as the Magdalen is, in\ndesigns of earlier time, because of the verse, \"There is joy in the\npresence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth.\" But the Magdalen\nis on the right, behind St. Monica; and on the same side, but lowest of\nall, Rachel, among the angels of her children, gathered now again to her\nforever.\n\n243. I have no hesitation in asserting this picture to be by far the\nmost precious work of art of any kind whatsoever, now existing in the\nworld; and it is, I believe, on the eve of final destruction; for it is\nsaid that the angle of the great council-chamber is soon to be rebuilt;\nand that process will involve the destruction of the picture by removal,\nand, far more, by repainting. I had thought of making some effort to\nsave it by an appeal in London to persons generally interested in the\narts; but the recent desolation of Paris has familiarized us with\ndestruction, and I have no doubt the answer to me would be, that Venice\nmust take care of her own. But remember, at least, that I have borne\nwitness to you to-day of the treasures that we forget, while we amuse\nourselves with the poor toys, and the petty or vile arts, of our own\ntime.\n\nThe years of that time have perhaps come, when we are to be taught to\nlook no more to the dreams of painters, either for knowledge of\nJudgment, or of Paradise. The anger of Heaven will not longer, I think,\nbe mocked for our amusement; and perhaps its love may not always be\ndespised by our pride. Believe me, all the arts, and all the treasures\nof men, are fulfilled and preserved to them only, so far as they have\nchosen first, with their hearts, not the curse of God, but His blessing.\nOur Earth is now incumbered with ruin, our Heaven is clouded by Death.\nMay we not wisely judge ourselves in some things now, instead of amusing\nourselves with the painting of judgments to come?\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[41] NOTE.--The separate edition of this lecture was prefaced by the\nfollowing note:--\n\n\"I have printed this Lecture separately, that strangers visiting the\nGalleries may be able to use it for reference to the drawings. But they\nmust observe that its business is only to point out what is to be blamed\nin Michael Angelo, and that it assumes the facts of his power to be\ngenerally known. Mr. Tyrwhitt's statement of these, in his 'Lectures on\nChristian Art,' will put the reader into possession of all that may\njustly be alleged in honor of him.\n\n\"_Corpus Christi College, 1st May, 1872._\"\n\n[42] If you like to have it with perfect exactitude, recollect that\nBellini died at true ninety,--Tintoret at eighty-two; that Bellini's\ndeath was four years before Raphael's, and that Tintoret was born four\nyears before Bellini's death.\n\n[43] Julian, rather. _See_ Mr. Tyrwhitt's notice of the lately\ndiscovered error, in his _Lectures on Christian Art_.\n\n[44] From the invaluable series of documents relating to Titian and his\ntimes, extricated by Mr. Rawdon Brown from the archives of Venice, and\narranged and translated by him.\n\n[45] Fondaco de Tedeschi. I saw the last wrecks of Giorgione's frescoes\non the outside of it in 1845.\n\n[46] I beg that this statement may be observed with attention. It is of\ngreat importance, as in opposition to the views usually held respecting\nthe grave schools of painting.\n\n[47] The upper photograph in S. 50 is, however, not taken from the great\nParadise, which is in too dark a position to be photographed, but from a\nstudy of it existing in a private gallery, and every way inferior. I\nhave vainly tried to photograph portions of the picture itself.\n\n[48] He had, indeed, other and more solemn thoughts of the Night than\nCorreggio; and these he tried to express by distorting form, and making\nher partly Medusa-like. In this lecture, as above stated, I am only\ndwelling on points hitherto unnoticed of dangerous evil in the too much\nadmired master.\n\n[49] Tintoret dissected, and used clay models, in the true academical\nmanner, and produced academical results thereby; but all his fine work\nis done from life, like that of the Greeks.","title":"Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture: Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":57345}