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diff --git a/27268.txt b/27268.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7ca72d --- /dev/null +++ b/27268.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6701 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ariadne Florentina, by John Ruskin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ariadne Florentina + Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving + +Author: John Ruskin + +Release Date: November 15, 2008 [EBook #27268] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARIADNE FLORENTINA *** + + + + +Produced by Brownfox, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _Library Edition_ + + THE COMPLETE WORKS + + OF + + JOHN RUSKIN + + + THE EAGLE'S NEST + LOVE'S MEINIE + ARIADNE FLORENTINA + VAL D'ARNO + PROSERPINA + + + NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION + NEW YORK CHICAGO + + + + + ARIADNE FLORENTINA. + + + SIX LECTURES + + ON + + WOOD AND METAL ENGRAVING + + WITH APPENDIX. + + + GIVEN BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, + + IN MICHAELMAS TERM, 1872. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + + LECTURE I. + PAGE +DEFINITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING 1 + + + LECTURE II. + +THE RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS IN FLORENCE 22 + + + LECTURE III. + +THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING 42 + + + LECTURE IV. + +THE TECHNICS OF METAL ENGRAVING 61 + + + LECTURE V. + +DESIGN IN THE GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING (HOLBEIN AND DUeRER) 81 + + + LECTURE VI. + +DESIGN IN THE FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING (SANDRO BOTTICELLI) 108 + + + APPENDIX. + +ARTICLE + I. NOTES ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ENGRAVING IN ENGLAND 143 + +II. DETACHED NOTES 157 + + + + +LIST OF PLATES + + + Facing Page +Diagram 27 + +The Last Furrow (Fig. 2). Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut 47 + +The Two Preachers (Fig. 3). Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut 48 + + I. Things Celestial and Terrestrial, as apparent to the English mind 56 + + II. Star of Florence 62 + + III. "At evening from the top of Fesole" 72 + + IV. "By the Springs of Parnassus" 77 + + V. "Heat considered as a Mode of Motion." Florentine Natural + Philosophy 92 + + VI. Fairness of the Sea and Air. In Venice and Athens 95 + + The Child's Bedtime (Fig. 5). Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut 103 + + "He that hath ears to hear let him hear" (Fig. 6). Facsimile from + Holbein's woodcut 105 + + VII. For a time, and times 130 + +VIII. The Nymph beloved of Apollo (Michael Angelo) 131 + + IX. In the Woods of Ida 132 + + X. Grass of the Desert 135 + + XI. "Obediente Domino voci hominis" 145 + + XII. The Coronation in the Garden 158 + + + + + ARIADNE FLORENTINA. + + + + + LECTURE I. + + DEFINITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING. + + +1. The entrance on my duty for to-day begins the fourth year of my +official work in Oxford; and I doubt not that some of my audience are +asking themselves, very doubtfully--at all events, I ask myself, very +anxiously--what has been done. + +For practical result, I have not much to show. I announced, a fortnight +since, that I would meet, the day before yesterday, any gentleman who +wished to attend this course for purposes of study. My class, so minded, +numbers four, of whom three wish to be artists, and ought not therefore, +by rights, to be at Oxford at all; and the fourth is the last remaining +unit of the class I had last year. + +2. Yet I neither in this reproach myself, nor, if I could, would I +reproach the students who are not here. I do not reproach myself; for it +was impossible for me to attend properly to the schools and to write the +grammar for them at the same time; and I do not blame the absent +students for not attending a school from which I have generally been +absent myself. In all this, there is much to be mended, but, in true +light, nothing to be regretted. + +I say, I had to write my school grammar. These three volumes of lectures +under my hand,[A] contain, carefully set down, the things I want you +first to know. None of my writings are done fluently; the second volume +of "Modern Painters" was all of it written twice--most of it, four +times,--over; and these lectures have been written, I don't know how +many times. You may think that this was done merely in an author's +vanity, not in a tutor's care. To the vanity I plead guilty,--no man is +more intensely vain than I am; but my vanity is set on having it _known_ +of me that I am a good master, not in having it _said_ of me that I am a +smooth author. My vanity is never more wounded than in being called a +fine writer, meaning--that nobody need mind what I say. + +3. Well, then, besides this vanity, I have some solicitude for your +progress. You may give me credit for it or not, as you choose, but it is +sincere. And that your advance may be safe, I have taken the best pains +I could in laying down laws for it. In these three years I have got my +grammar written, and, with the help of many friends, all working +instruments in good order; and now we will try what we can do. Not that, +even now, you are to depend on my presence with you in personal +teaching. I shall henceforward think of the lectures less, of the +schools more; but my best work for the schools will often be by drawing +in Florence or in Lancashire--not here. + +4. I have already told you several times that the course through which I +mean every student in these schools should pass, is one which shall +enable them to understand the elementary principles of the finest art. +It will necessarily be severe, and seem to lead to no immediate result. +Some of you will, on the contrary, wish to be taught what is immediately +easy, and gives prospect of a manifest success. + +But suppose they should come to the Professor of Logic and Rhetoric, and +tell him they want to be taught to preach like Mr. Spurgeon, or the +Bishop of ----. + +He would say to them,--I cannot, and if I could I would not, tell you +how to preach like Mr. Spurgeon, or the Bishop of ----. Your own +character will form your style; your own zeal will direct it; your own +obstinacy or ignorance may limit or exaggerate it; but my business is to +prevent, as far as I can, your having _any_ particular style; and to +teach you the laws of all language, and the essential power of your own. + +In like manner, this course, which I propose to you in art, will be +calculated only to give you judgment and method in future study, to +establish to your conviction the laws of general art, and to enable you +to draw, if not with genius, at least with sense and propriety. + +The course, so far as it consists in practice, will be defined in my +Instructions for the schools. And the theory connected with that +practice is set down in the three lectures at the end of the first +course I delivered--those on Line, Light, and Color. + +You will have, therefore, to get this book,[B] and it is the only one +which you will need to have of your own,--the others are placed, for +reference, where they will be accessible to you. + +5. In the 139th paragraph it states the order of your practical study in +these terms:-- + +"I wish you to begin by getting command of line;--that is to say, by +learning to draw a steady line, limiting with absolute correctness the +form or space you intend it to limit; to proceed by getting command over +flat tints, so that you may be able to fill the spaces you have inclosed +evenly, either with shade or color, according to the school you adopt; +and, finally, to obtain the power of adding such fineness of drawing, +within the masses, as shall express their undulation, and their +characters of form and texture." + +And now, since in your course of practice you are first required to +attain the power of drawing lines accurately and delicately, so in the +course of theory, or grammar, I wish you first to learn the principles +of linear design, exemplified by the schools which (Sec. 137) you will find +characterized as the Schools of Line. + +6. If I had command of as much time as I should like to spend with you +on this subject, I would begin with the early forms of art which used +the simplest linear elements of design. But, for general service and +interest, it will be better that I should sketch what has been +accomplished by the greatest masters in that manner; the rather that +their work is more or less accessible to all, and has developed into the +vast industries of modern engraving, one of the most powerful existing +influences of education and sources of pleasure among civilized people. + +And this investigation, so far from interrupting, will facilitate our +examination of the history of the nobler arts. You will see in the +preface to my lectures on Greek sculpture that I intend them to be +followed by a course on architecture, and that by one on Florentine +sculpture. But the art of engraving is so manifestly, at Florence, +though not less essentially elsewhere, a basis of style both in +architecture and sculpture, that it is absolutely necessary I should +explain to you in what the skill of the engraver consists, before I can +define with accuracy that of more admired artists. For engraving, though +not altogether in the method of which you see examples in the +print-shops of the High Street, is, indeed, a prior art to that either +of building or sculpture, and is an inseparable part of both, when they +are rightly practiced. + +7. And while we thus examine the scope of this first of the arts, it +will be necessary that we learn also the scope of mind of the early +practicers of it, and accordingly acquaint ourselves with the main +events in the biography of the schools of Florence. To understand the +temper and meaning of one great master is to lay the best, if not the +only, foundation for the understanding of all; and I shall therefore +make it the leading aim of this course of lectures to remind you of what +is known, and direct you to what is knowable, of the life and character +of the greatest Florentine master of engraving, Sandro Botticelli; and, +incidentally, to give you some idea of the power of the greatest master +of the German, or any northern, school, Hans Holbein. + +8. You must feel, however, that I am using the word "engraving" in a +somewhat different, and, you may imagine, a wider, sense, than that +which you are accustomed to attach to it. So far from being a wider +sense, it is in reality a more accurate and restricted one, while yet it +embraces every conceivable right application of the art. And I wish, in +this first lecture, to make entirely clear to you the proper meaning of +the word, and proper range of the art of, engraving; in my next +following lecture, to show you its place in Italian schools, and then, +in due order, the place it ought to take in our own, and in all schools. + +9. First then, to-day, of the Differentia, or essential quality of +Engraving, as distinguished from other arts. + +What answer would you make to me, if I asked casually what engraving +was? Perhaps the readiest which would occur to you would be, "The +translation of pictures into black and white by means admitting +reduplication of impressions." But if that be done by lithography, we do +not call it engraving,--whereas we speak contentedly and continually of +seal engraving, in which there is no question of black and white. And, +as scholars, you know that this customary mode of speaking is quite +accurate; and that engraving means, primarily, making a permanent cut or +furrow in something. The central syllable of the word has become a +sorrowful one, meaning the most permanent of furrows. + +10. But are you prepared absolutely to accept this limitation with +respect to engraving as a pictorial art? Will you call nothing an +engraving, except a group of furrows or cavities cut in a hard +substance? What shall we say of mezzotint engraving, for instance, in +which, though indeed furrows and cavities are produced mechanically as a +ground, the artist's work is in effacing them? And when we consider the +power of engraving in representing pictures and multiplying them, are we +to recognize and admire no effects of light and shade except those which +are visibly produced by dots or furrows? I mean, will the virtue of an +engraving be in exhibiting these imperfect means of its effect, or in +concealing them? + +11. Here, for instance, is the head of a soldier by Duerer,--a mere +gridiron of black lines. Would this be better or worse engraving if it +were more like a photograph or lithograph, and no lines seen?--suppose, +more like the head of Mr. Santley, now in all the music-shops, and +really quite deceptive in light and shade, when seen from over the way? +Do you think Duerer's work would be better if it were more like that? And +would you have me, therefore, leaving the question of technical method +of production altogether to the craftsman, consider pictorial engraving +simply as the production of a light-and-shade drawing, by some method +permitting its multiplication for the public? + +12. This, you observe, is a very practical question indeed. For +instance, the illustrations of my own lectures on sculpture are +equivalent to permanent photographs. There can be little doubt that +means will be discovered of thus producing perfect facsimiles of +artists' drawings; so that, if no more than facsimile be required, the +old art of cutting furrows in metal may be considered as, at this day, +virtually ended. And, indeed, it is said that line engravers cannot any +more get apprentices, and that a pure steel or copper plate is not +likely to be again produced, when once the old living masters of the +bright field shall have been all laid in their earth-furrows. + +13. Suppose, then, that this come to pass; and more than this, suppose +that wood engraving also be superseded, and that instead of imperfect +transcripts of drawings, on wood-blocks or metal-plates, photography +enabled us to give, quite cheaply, and without limit to number, +facsimiles of the finished light-and-shade drawings of artists +themselves. Another group of questions instantly offers itself, on these +new conditions; namely, What are the best means for a light-and-shade +drawing--the pen, or the pencil, the charcoal, or the flat wash? That is +to say, the pen, producing shade by black lines, as old engraving did; +the pencil, producing shade by gray lines, variable in force; the +charcoal, producing a smoky shadow with no lines in it, or the washed +tint, producing a transparent shadow with no lines in it. Which of +these methods is the best?--or have they, each and all, virtues to be +separately studied, and distinctively applied? + +14. See how curiously the questions multiply on us. 1st, Is engraving to +be only considered as cut work? 2d, For present designs multipliable +without cutting, by the sunshine, what methods or instruments of drawing +will be best? And now, 3dly, before we can discuss these questions at +all, is there not another lying at the root of both,--namely, what a +light-and-shade drawing itself properly _is_, and how it differs, or +should differ, from a painting, whether by mere deficiency, or by some +entirely distinct merit? + +15. For instance, you know how confidently it is said, in common talk +about Turner, that his works are intelligible and beautiful when +engraved, though incomprehensible as paintings. Admitting this to be so, +do you suppose it is because the translation into light and shade is +deficient in some qualities which the painting had, or that it possesses +some quality which the painting had not? Does it please more because it +is deficient in the color which confused a feeble spectator, and +offended a dogmatic one,--or because it possesses a decision in its +steady linear labor which interprets, or corrects, the swift penciling +of the artist? + +16. Do you notice the two words I have just used, _Decision_, and +_Linear_?--Decision, again introducing the idea of cuts or divisions, as +opposed to gradations; Linear, as opposed to massive or broad? + +Yet we use all these words at different times in praise, while they +evidently mark inconsistent qualities. Softness and decision, breadth +and delineation, cannot co-exist in equal degrees. There must surely +therefore be a virtue in the engraving inconsistent with that of the +painting, and vice versa. + +Now, be clear about these three questions which we have to-day to +answer. + + A. Is all engraving to be cut work? + + B. If it need not be cut work, but only the reproduction of a + drawing, what methods of executing a light-and-shade drawing + will be best? + + C. Is the shaded drawing itself to be considered only as a + deficient or imperfect painting, or as a different thing from a + painting, having a virtue of its own, belonging to black and + white, as opposed to color? + +17. I will give you the answers at once, briefly, and amplify them +afterwards. + + A. All engraving must be cut work;--_that_ is its differentia. + Unless your effect be produced by cutting into some solid + substance, it is not engraving at all. + + B. The proper methods for light-and-shade drawing vary + according to subject, and the degree of completeness + desired,--some of them having much in common with engraving, + and others with painting. + + C. The qualities of a light-and-shade drawing ought to be + entirely different from those of a painting. It is not a + deficient or partial representation of a colored scene or + picture, but an entirely different reading of either. So that + much of what is intelligible in a painting ought to be + unintelligible in a light-and-shade study, and _vice versa_. + +You have thus three arts,--engraving, light-and-shade drawing, and +painting. + +Now I am not going to lecture, in this course, on painting, nor on +light-and-shade drawing, but on engraving only. But I must tell you +something about light-and-shade drawing first; or, at least, remind you +of what I have before told. + +18. You see that the three elementary lectures in my first volume are on +Line, Light, and Color,--that is to say, on the modes of art which +produce linear designs,--which produce effects of light,--and which +produce effects of color. + +I must, for the sake of new students, briefly repeat the explanation of +these. + +Here is an Arabian vase, in which the pleasure given to the eye is only +by lines;--no effect of light, or of color, is attempted. Here is a +moonlight by Turner, in which there are no lines at all, and no colors +at all. The pleasure given to the eye is only by modes of light and +shade, or effects of light. Finally, here is an early Florentine +painting, in which there are no lines of importance, and no effect of +light whatever; but all the pleasure given to the eye is in gayety and +variety of color. + +19. I say, the pleasure given to the _eye_. The lines on this vase write +something; but the ornamentation produced by the beautiful writing is +independent of its meaning. So the moonlight is pleasant, first, as +light; and the figures, first, as color. It is not the shape of the +waves, but the light on them; not the expression of the figures, but +their color, by which the _ocular_ pleasure is to be given. + +These three examples are violently marked ones; but, in preparing to +draw _any_ object, you will find that, practically, you have to ask +yourself, Shall I aim at the color of it, the light of it, or the lines +of it? You can't have all three; you can't even have any two out of the +three in equal strength. The best art, indeed, comes so near nature as +in a measure to unite all. But the best is not, and cannot be, as good +as nature; and the mode of its deficiency is that it must lose some of +the color, some of the light, or some of the delineation. And in +consequence, there is one great school which says, We will have the +color, and as much light and delineation as are consistent with it. +Another which says, We will have shade, and as much color and +delineation as are consistent with it. The third, We will have +delineation, and as much color and shade as are consistent with it. + +20. And though much of the two subordinate qualities may in each school +be consistent with the leading one, yet the schools are evermore +separate: as, for instance, in other matters, one man says, I will have +my fee, and as much honesty as is consistent with it; another, I will +have my honesty, and as much fee as is consistent with it. Though the +man who will have his fee be subordinately honest,--though the man who +will have his honor, subordinately rich, are they not evermore of +diverse schools? + +So you have, in art, the utterly separate provinces, though in contact +at their borders, of + + The Delineators; + The Chiaroscurists; and + The Colorists. + +21. The Delineators are the men on whom I am going to give you this +course of lectures. They are essentially engravers, an engraved line +being the best means of delineation. The Chiaroscurists are essentially +draughtsmen with chalk, charcoal, or single tints. Many of them paint, +but always with some effort and pain. Lionardo is the type of them; but +the entire Dutch school consists of them, laboriously painting, without +essential genius for color. + +The Colorists are the true painters; and all the faultless (as far, that +is to say, as men's work can be so,) and consummate masters of art +belong to them. + +22. The distinction between the colorist and chiaroscurist school is +trenchant and absolute: and may soon be shown you so that you will never +forget it. Here is a Florentine picture by one of the pupils of Giotto, +of very good representative quality, and which the University galleries +are rich in possessing. At the distance at which I hold it, you see +nothing but a checker-work of brilliant, and, as it happens, even +glaring colors. If you come near, you will find this patchwork resolve +itself into a Visitation, and Birth of St. John; but that St. +Elizabeth's red dress, and the Virgin's blue and white one, and the +brown posts of the door, and the blue spaces of the sky, are painted in +their own entirely pure colors, each shaded with more powerful tints of +itself,--pale blue with deep blue, scarlet with crimson, yellow with +orange, and green with richer green. + +The whole is therefore as much a mosaic work of brilliant color as if it +were made of bits of glass. There is no effect of light attempted, or so +much as thought of: you don't know even where the sun is: nor have you +the least notion what time of day it is. The painter thinks you cannot +be so superfluous as to want to know what time of day it is. + +23. Here, on the other hand, is a Dutch picture of good average quality, +also out of the University galleries. It represents a group of cattle, +and a herdsman watching them. And you see in an instant that the time is +evening. The sun is setting, and there is warm light on the landscape, +the cattle, and the standing figure. + +Nor does the picture in any conspicuous way seem devoid of color. On the +contrary, the herdsman has a scarlet jacket, which comes out rather +brilliantly from the mass of shade round it; and a person devoid of +color faculty, or ill taught, might imagine the picture to be really a +fine work of color. + +But if you will come up close to it, you will find that the herdsman has +brown sleeves, though he has a scarlet jacket; and that the shadows of +both are painted with precisely the same brown, and in several places +with continuous touches of the pencil. It is only in the light that the +scarlet is laid on. + +This at once marks the picture as belonging to the lower or +chiaroscurist school, even if you had not before recognized it as such +by its pretty rendering of sunset effect. + +24. You might at first think it a painting which showed greater skill +than that of the school of Giotto. But the skill is not the primary +question. The power of imagination is the first thing to be asked about. +This Italian work imagines, and requires you to imagine also, a St. +Elizabeth and St. Mary, to the best of your power. But this Dutch one +only wishes you to imagine an effect of sunlight on cow-skin, which is a +far lower strain of the imaginative faculty. + +Also, as you may see the effect of sunlight on cow-skin, in reality, any +summer afternoon, but cannot so frequently see a St. Elizabeth, it is a +far less useful strain of the imaginative faculty. + +And, generally speaking, the Dutch chiaroscurists are indeed persons +without imagination at all,--who, not being able to get any pleasure out +of their thoughts, try to get it out of their sensations; note, however, +also their technical connection with the Greek school of shade, (see my +sixth inaugural lecture, Sec. 158,) in which color was refused, not for the +sake of deception, but of solemnity. + +25. With these final motives you are not now concerned; your present +business is the quite easy one of knowing, and noticing, the universal +distinction between the methods of treatment in which the aim is light, +and in which it is color; and so to keep yourselves guarded from the +danger of being misled by the, often very ingenious, talk of persons who +have vivid color sensations without having learned to distinguish them +from what else pleases them in pictures. There is an interesting volume +by Professor Taine on the Dutch school, containing a valuable historical +analysis of the influences which formed it; but full of the gravest +errors, resulting from the confusion in his mind between color and tone, +in consequence of which he imagines the Dutch painters to be colorists. + +26. It is so important for you to be grounded securely in these first +elements of pictorial treatment, that I will be so far tedious as to +show you one more instance of the relative intellectual value of the +pure color and pure chiaroscuro school, not in Dutch and Florentine, but +in English art. Here is a copy of one of the lost frescoes of our +Painted Chamber of Westminster;--fourteenth-century work, entirely +conceived in color, and calculated for decorative effect. There is no +more light and shade in it than in a Queen of Hearts in a pack of +cards;--all that the painter at first wants you to see is that the young +lady has a white forehead, and a golden crown, and a fair neck, and a +violet robe, and a crimson shield with golden leopards on it; and that +behind her is clear blue sky. Then, farther, he wants you to read her +name, "Debonnairete," which, when you have read, he farther expects you +to consider what it is to be debonnaire, and to remember your Chaucer's +description of the virtue:-- + + She was not brown, nor dun of hue, + But white as snowe, fallen new, + With eyen glad, and browes bent, + Her hair down to her heeles went, + And she was simple, as dove on tree, + Full debonnair of heart was she. + +27. You see Chaucer dwells on the color just as much as the painter +does, but the painter has also given her the English shield to bear, +meaning that good-humor, or debonnairete, cannot be maintained by +self-indulgence;--only by fortitude. Farther note, with Chaucer, the +"eyen glad," and brows "bent" (high-arched and calm), the strong life, +(hair down to the heels,) and that her gladness is to be without +subtlety,--that is to say, without the slightest pleasure in any form of +advantage-taking, or any shrewd or mocking wit: "she was simple as dove +on tree;" and you will find that the color-painting, both in the fresco +and in the poem, is in the very highest degree didactic and +intellectual; and distinguished, as being so, from all inferior forms of +art. Farther, that it requires you yourself first to understand the +nature of simplicity, and to like simplicity in young ladies better than +subtlety; and to understand why the second of Love's five kind arrows +(Beaute being the first)-- + + Simplece ot nom, la seconde + Qui maint homme parmi le monde + Et mainte dame fait amer. + +Nor must you leave the picture without observing that there is another +reason for Debonnairete's bearing the Royal shield,--of all shields +that, rather than another. "De-bonne-aire" meant originally "out of a +good eagle's nest," the "aire" signifying the eagle's nest or eyrie +especially, because it is flat, the Latin "area" being the root of all. + +And this coming out of a good nest is recognized as, of all things, +needfulest to give the strength which enables people to be good-humored; +and thus you have "debonnaire" forming the third word of the group, with +"gentle" and "kind," all first signifying "of good race." + +You will gradually see, as we go on, more and more why I called my third +volume of lectures Eagle's Nest; for I am not fantastic in these titles, +as is often said; but try shortly to mark my chief purpose in the book +by them. + +28. Now for comparison with this old art, here is a modern engraving, +in which color is entirely ignored; and light and shade alone are used +to produce what is supposed to be a piece of impressive religious +instruction. But it is not a piece of religious instruction at +all;--only a piece of religious sensation, prepared for the sentimental +pleasure of young ladies; whom (since I am honored to-day by the +presence of many) I will take the opportunity of warning against such +forms of false theological satisfaction. This engraving represents a +young lady in a very long and, though plain, very becoming white dress, +tossed upon the waves of a terrifically stormy sea, by which neither her +hair nor her becoming dress is in the least wetted; and saved from +despair in that situation by closely embracing a very thick and solid +stone Cross. By which far-sought and original metaphor young ladies are +expected, after some effort, to understand the recourse they may have, +for support, to the Cross of Christ, in the midst of the troubles of +this world. + +29. As those troubles are for the present, in all probability, limited +to the occasional loss of their thimbles when they have not taken care +to put them into their work-boxes,--the concern they feel at the +unsympathizing gayety of their companions,--or perhaps the +disappointment at not hearing a favorite clergyman preach,--(for I will +not suppose the young ladies interested in this picture to be affected +by any chagrin at the loss of an invitation to a ball, or the like +worldliness,)--it seems to me the stress of such calamities might be +represented, in a picture, by less appalling imagery. And I can assure +my fair little lady friends,--if I still have any,--that whatever a +young girl's ordinary troubles or annoyances may be, her true virtue is +in shaking them off, as a rose-leaf shakes off rain, and remaining +debonnaire and bright in spirits, or even, as the rose would be, the +brighter for the troubles; and not at all in allowing herself to be +either drifted or depressed to the point of requiring religious +consolation. But if any real and deep sorrow, such as no metaphor can +represent, fall upon her, does she suppose that the theological advice +of this piece of modern art can be trusted? If she will take the pains +to think truly, she will remember that Christ Himself never says +anything about holding by His Cross. He speaks a good deal of bearing +it; but never for an instant of holding by it. It is His Hand, not His +Cross, which is to save either you, or St. Peter, when the waves are +rough. And the utterly reckless way in which modern religious teachers, +whether in art or literature, abuse the metaphor somewhat briefly and +violently leant on by St. Paul, simply prevents your understanding the +meaning of any word which Christ Himself speaks on this matter! So you +see this popular art of light and shade, catching you by your mere +thirst of sensation, is not only undidactic, but the reverse of +didactic--deceptive and illusory. + +30. This _popular_ art, you hear me say, scornfully; and I have told +you, in some of my teaching in "Aratra Pentelici," that all great art +must be popular. Yes, but great art is popular, as bread and water are +to children fed by a father. And vile art is popular, as poisonous jelly +is, to children cheated by a confectioner. And it is quite possible to +make any kind of art popular on those last terms. The color school may +become just as poisonous as the colorless, in the hands of fools, or of +rogues. Here is a book I bought only the other day,--one of the things +got up cheap to catch the eyes of mothers at bookstalls,--Puss in Boots, +illustrated; a most definite work of the color school--red jackets and +white paws and yellow coaches as distinct as Giotto or Raphael would +have kept them. But the thing is done by fools for money, and becomes +entirely monstrous and abominable. Here, again, is color art produced by +fools for religion: here is Indian sacred painting,--a black god with a +hundred arms, with a green god on one side of him and a red god on the +other; still a most definite work of the color school. Giotto or Raphael +could not have made the black more resolutely black, (though the whole +color of the school of Athens is kept in distinct separation from one +black square in it), nor the green more unquestionably green. Yet the +whole is pestilent and loathsome. + +31. Now but one point more, and I have done with this subject for +to-day. + +You must not think that this manifest brilliancy and Harlequin's-jacket +character is essential in the color school. The essential matter is only +that everything should be of _its own_ definite color: it may be +altogether sober and dark, yet the distinctness of hue preserved with +entire fidelity. Here, for instance, is a picture of Hogarth's,--one of +quite the most precious things we have in our galleries. It represents a +meeting of some learned society--gentlemen of the last century, very +gravely dressed, but who, nevertheless, as gentlemen pleasantly did in +that day,--you remember Goldsmith's weakness on the point--wear coats of +tints of dark red, blue, or violet. There are some thirty gentlemen in +the room, and perhaps seven or eight different tints of subdued +claret-color in their coats; and yet every coat is kept so distinctly of +its own proper claret-color, that each gentleman's servant would know +his master's. + +Yet the whole canvas is so gray and quiet, that as I now hold it by this +Dutch landscape, with the vermilion jacket, you would fancy Hogarth's +had no color in it at all, and that the Dutchman was half-way to +becoming a Titian; whereas Hogarth's is a consummate piece of the most +perfect colorist school, which Titian could not beat, in its way; and +the Dutchman could no more paint half an inch of it than he could summon +a rainbow into the clouds. + +32. Here then, you see, are, altogether, five works, all of the +absolutely pure color school:-- + + 1. One, Indian,--Religious Art; + 2. One, Florentine,--Religious Art; + 3. One, English,--from Painted Chamber, Westminster,--Ethic Art; + 4. One, English,--Hogarth,--Naturalistic Art; + 5. One, English,--to-day sold in the High Street,--Caricaturist Art. + +And of these, the Florentine and old English are divine work, +God-inspired; full, indeed, of faults and innocencies, but divine, as +good children are. + +Then this by Hogarth is entirely wise and right; but worldly-wise, not +divine. + +While the old Indian, and this, with which we feed our children at this +hour, are entirely damnable art;--every bit of it done by the direct +inspiration of the devil,--feeble, ridiculous,--yet mortally poisonous +to every noble quality in body and soul. + +33. I have now, I hope, guarded you sufficiently from the danger either +of confusing the inferior school of chiaroscuro with that of color, or +of imagining that a work must necessarily be good, on the sole ground of +its belonging to the higher group. I can now proceed securely to +separate the third school, that of Delineation, from both; and to +examine its special qualities. + +It begins (see "Inaugural Lectures," Sec. 137) in the primitive work of +races insensible alike to shade and to color, and nearly devoid of +thought and of sentiment, but gradually developing into both. + +Now as the design is primitive, so are the means likely to be primitive. +A line is the simplest work of art you can produce. What are the +simplest means you can produce it with? + +A Cumberland lead-pencil is a work of art in itself, quite a +nineteenth-century machine. Pen and ink are complex and scholarly; and +even chalk or charcoal not always handy. + +But the primitive line, the first and last, generally the best of lines, +is that which you have elementary faculty of at your fingers' ends, and +which kittens can draw as well as you--the scratch. + +The first, I say, and the last of lines. Permanent exceedingly,--even in +flesh, or on mahogany tables, often more permanent than we desire. But +when studiously and honorably made, divinely permanent, or +delightfully--as on the venerable desks of our public schools, most of +them, now, specimens of wood engraving dear to the heart of England. + +34. Engraving, then, is, in brief terms, the Art of Scratch. It is +essentially the cutting into a solid substance for the sake of making +your ideas as permanent as possible, graven with an iron pen in the +Rock forever. _Permanence_, you observe, is the object, not +multiplicability;--that is quite an accidental, sometimes not even a +desirable, attribute of engraving. Duration of your work--fame, and +undeceived vision of all men, on the pane of glass of the window on a +wet day, or on the pillars of the castle of Chillon, or on the walls +of the pyramids;--a primitive art,--yet first and last with us. + +Since then engraving, we say, is essentially cutting into the surface of +any solid; as the primitive design is in lines or dots, the primitive +cutting of such design is a scratch or a hole; and scratchable solids +being essentially three--stone, wood, metal,--we shall have three great +schools of engraving to investigate in each material. + +35. On tablet of stone, on tablet of wood, on tablet of steel,--the +first giving the law to everything; the second true Athenian, like +Athena's first statue in olive-wood, making the law legible and homely; +and the third true Vulcanian, having the splendor and power of +accomplished labor. + +Now of stone engraving, which is joined inseparably with sculpture and +architecture, I am not going to speak at length in this course of +lectures. I shall speak only of wood and metal engraving. But there is +one circumstance in stone engraving which it is necessary to observe in +connection with the other two branches of the art. + +The great difficulty for a primitive engraver is to make his scratch +deep enough to be visible. Visibility is quite as essential to your fame +as permanence; and if you have only your furrow to depend on, the +engraved tablet, at certain times of day, will be illegible, and passed +without notice. + +But suppose you fill in your furrow with something black, then it will +be legible enough at once; and if the black fall out or wash out, still +your furrow is there, and may be filled again by anybody. + +Therefore, the noble stone engravers, using marble to receive their +furrow, fill that furrow with marble ink. + +And you have an engraved plate to purpose;--with the whole sky for its +margin! Look here--the front of the church of San Michele of +Lucca,--white marble with green serpentine for ink; or here,--the steps +of the Giant's Stair, with lead for ink; or here,--the floor of the +Pisan Duomo, with porphyry for ink. Such cutting, filled in with color +or with black, branches into all sorts of developments,--Florentine +mosaic on the one hand, niello on the other, and infinite minor arts. + +36. Yet we must not make this filling with color part of our definition +of engraving. To engrave is, in final strictness, "to decorate a surface +with furrows." (Cameos, in accuratest terms, are minute sculptures, not +engravings.) A plowed field is the purest type of such art; and is, on +hilly land, an exquisite piece of decoration. + +Therefore it will follow that engraving distinguishes itself from +ordinary drawing by greater need of muscular effort. + +The quality of a pen drawing is to be produced easily,--deliberately, +always,[C] but with a point that _glides_ over the paper. Engraving, on +the contrary, requires always force, and its virtue is that of a line +produced by pressure, or by blows of a chisel. + +It involves, therefore, always, ideas of power and dexterity, but also +of restraint; and the delight you take in it should involve the +understanding of the difficulty the workman dealt with. You perhaps +doubt the extent to which this feeling justly extends, (in the first +volume of "Modern Painters," expressed under the head "Ideas of Power.") +But why is a large stone in any building grander than a small one? +Simply because it was more difficult to raise it. So, also, an engraved +line is, and ought to be, recognized as more grand than a pen or pencil +line, because it was more difficult to execute it. + +In this mosaic of Lucca front you forgive much, and admire much, +because you see it is all cut in stone. So, in wood and steel, you ought +to see that every line has been costly; but observe, costly of +deliberative, no less than athletic or executive power. The main use of +the restraint which makes the line difficult to draw, is to give time +and motive for deliberation in drawing it, and to insure its being the +best in your power. + +37. For, as with deliberation, so without repentance, your engraved line +must be. It may, indeed, be burnished or beaten out again in metal, or +patched and botched in stone; but always to disadvantage, and at pains +which must not be incurred often. And there is a singular evidence in +one of Duerer's finest plates that, in his time, or at least in his +manner of work, it was not possible at all. Among the disputes as to the +meaning of Duerer's Knight and Death, you will find it sometimes +suggested, or insisted, that the horse's raised foot is going to fall +into a snare. What has been fancied a noose is only the former outline +of the horse's foot and limb, uneffaced. + +The engraved line is therefore to be conclusive; not experimental. "I +have determined this," says the engraver. Much excellent pen drawing is +excellent in being tentative,--in being experimental. Indeterminate, not +through want of meaning, but through fullness of it--halting _wisely_ +between two opinions--feeling cautiously after clearer opinions. But +your engraver has made up his opinion. This is so, and must forever be +so, he tells you. A very proper thing for a thoughtful man to say; a +very improper and impertinent thing for a foolish one to say. Foolish +engraving is consummately foolish work. Look,--all the world,--look for +evermore, says the foolish engraver; see what a fool I have been! How +many lines I have laid for nothing! How many lines upon lines, with no +precept, much less superprecept! + +38. Here, then, are two definite ethical characters in all engraved +work. It is Athletic; and it is Resolute. Add one more; that it is +Obedient;--in their infancy the nurse, but in their youth the slave, of +the higher arts; servile, both in the mechanism and labor of it, and in +its function of interpreting the schools of painting as superior to +itself. + +And this relation to the higher arts we will study at the source of +chief power in all the normal skill of Christendom, Florence; and +chiefly, as I said, in the work of one Florentine master, Sandro +Botticelli. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] "Inaugural Series," "Aratra Pentelici," and "Eagle's Nest." + +[B] My inaugural series of seven lectures (now published uniform in size +with this edition. 1890). + +[C] Compare Inaugural Lectures, Sec. 144. + + + + + LECTURE II. + + THE RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS IN FLORENCE. + + +39. From what was laid before you in my last lecture, you must now be +aware that I do not mean, by the word 'engraving,' merely the separate +art of producing plates from which black pictures may be printed. + +I mean, by engraving, the art of producing decoration on a surface by +the touches of a chisel or a burin; and I mean by its relation to other +arts, the subordinate service of this linear work, in sculpture, in +metal work, and in painting; or in the representation and repetition of +painting. + +And first, therefore, I have to map out the broad relations of the arts +of sculpture, metal work, and painting, in Florence, among themselves, +during the period in which the art of engraving was distinctly connected +with them.[D] + +40. You will find, or may remember, that in my lecture on Michael Angelo +and Tintoret I indicated the singular importance, in the history of art, +of a space of forty years, between 1480, and the year in which Raphael +died, 1520. Within that space of time the change was completed, from the +principles of ancient, to those of existing, art;--a manifold change, +not definable in brief terms, but most clearly characterized, and easily +remembered, as the change of conscientious and didactic art, into that +which proposes to itself no duty beyond technical skill, and no object +but the pleasure of the beholder. Of that momentous change itself I do +not purpose to speak in the present course of lectures; but my endeavor +will be to lay before you a rough chart of the course of the arts in +Florence up to the time when it took place; a chart indicating for you, +definitely, the growth of conscience, in work which is distinctively +conscientious, and the perfecting of expression and means of popular +address, in that which is distinctively didactic. + +41. Means of popular address, observe, which have become singularly +important to us at this day. Nevertheless, remember that the power of +printing, or reprinting, black _pictures_,--practically contemporary +with that of reprinting black _letters_,--modified the art of the +draughtsman only as it modified that of the scribe. Beautiful and unique +writing, as beautiful and unique painting or engraving, remain exactly +what they were; but other useful and reproductive methods of both have +been superadded. Of these, it is acutely said by Dr. Alfred +Woltmann,[E]-- + + "A far more important part is played in the art-life of Germany + by the technical arts for the _multiplying_ of works; for + Germany, while it was the land of book-printing, is also the + land of picture-printing. Indeed, wood-engraving, which + preceded the invention of book-printing, _prepared the way for + it, and only left one step more necessary for it_. + _Book-printing_ and _picture-printing_ have both the same inner + cause for their origin, namely, the impulse to make each mental + gain a common blessing. Not merely princes and rich nobles were + to have the privilege of adorning their private chapels and + apartments with beautiful religious pictures; the poorest man + was also to have his delight in that which the artist had + devised and produced. It was not sufficient for him when it + stood in the church as an altar-shrine, visible to him and to + the congregation from afar; he desired to have it as his own, + to carry it about with him, to bring it into his own home. The + grand importance of wood-engraving and copperplate is not + sufficiently estimated in historical investigations. They were + not alone of use in the advance of art; they form an epoch in + the entire life of mind and culture. The idea embodied and + multiplied in pictures became like that embodied in the printed + word, the herald of every intellectual movement, and conquered + the world." + +42. "Conquered the world"? The rest of the sentence is true, but this, +hyperbolic, and greatly false. It should have been said that both +painting and engraving have conquered much of the good in the world, +and, hitherto, little or none of the evil. + +Nor do I hold it usually an advantage to art, in teaching, that it +_should_ be common, or constantly seen. In becoming intelligibly and +kindly beautiful, while it remains solitary and unrivaled, it has a +greater power. Westminster Abbey is more didactic to the English nation, +than a million of popular illustrated treatises on architecture. + +Nay, even that it cannot be understood but with some difficulty, and +must be sought before it can be seen, is no harm. The noblest didactic +art is, as it were, set on a hill, and its disciples come to it. The +vilest destructive and corrosive art stands at the street corners, +crying, "Turn in hither; come, eat of my bread, and drink of my wine, +which I have mingled." + +And Dr. Woltmann has allowed himself too easily to fall into the common +notion of Liberalism, that bad art, disseminated, is instructive, and +good art isolated, not so. The question is, first, I assure you, whether +what art you have got is good or bad. If essentially bad, the more you +see of it, the worse for you. Entirely popular art is all that is noble, +in the cathedral, the council chamber, and the market-place; not the +paltry colored print pinned on the wall of a private room. + +43. I despise the poor!--do I, think you? Not so. They only despise the +poor who think them better off with police news, and colored tracts of +the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, than they were with Luini +painting on their church walls, and Donatello carving the pillars of +their market-places. + +Nevertheless, the effort to be universally, instead of locally, +didactic, modified advantageously, as you know, and in a thousand ways +varied, the earlier art of engraving: and the development of its popular +power, whether for good or evil, came exactly--so fate appointed--at a +time when the minds of the masses were agitated by the struggle which +closed in the Reformation in some countries, and in the desperate +refusal of Reformation in others.[F] The two greatest masters of +engraving whose lives we are to study, were, both of them, passionate +reformers: Holbein no less than Luther; Botticelli no less than +Savonarola. + +44. Reformers, I mean, in the full and, accurately, the only, sense. Not +preachers of new doctrines; but witnesses against the betrayal of the +old ones, which were on the lips of all men, and in the lives of none. +Nay, the painters are indeed more pure reformers than the priests. They +rebuked the manifest vices of men, while they realized whatever was +loveliest in their faith. Priestly reform soon enraged itself into mere +contest for personal opinions; while, without rage, but in stern rebuke +of all that was vile in conduct or thought,--in declaration of the +always-received faiths of the Christian Church, and in warning of the +power of faith, and death,[G] over the petty designs of men,--Botticelli +and Holbein together fought foremost in the ranks of the Reformation. + +45. To-day I will endeavor to explain how they attained such rank. Then, +in the next two lectures, the technics of both,--their way of speaking; +and in the last two, what they had got to say. + +First, then, we ask how they attained this rank;--who taught _them_ what +they were finally best to teach? How far must every people--how far did +this Florentine people--teach its masters, before _they_ could teach +_it_? + +Even in these days, when every man is, by hypothesis, as good as +another, does not the question sound strange to you? You recognize in +the past, as you think, clearly, that national advance takes place +always under the guidance of masters, or groups of masters, possessed of +what appears to be some new personal sensibility or gift of invention; +and we are apt to be reverent to these alone, as if the nation itself +had been unprogressive, and suddenly awakened, or converted, by the +genius of one man. + +No idea can be more superficial. Every nation must teach its tutors, and +prepare itself to receive them; but the fact on which our impression is +founded--the rising, apparently by chance, of men whose singular gifts +suddenly melt the multitude, already at the point of fusion; or suddenly +form, and _in_form, the multitude which has gained coherence enough to +be capable of formation,--enables us to measure and map the gain of +national intellectual territory, by tracing first the lifting of the +mountain chains of its genius. + +46. I have told you that we have nothing to do at present with the great +transition from ancient to modern habits of thought which took place at +the beginning of the sixteenth century. I only want to go as far as that +point;--where we shall find the old superstitious art represented +_finally_ by Perugino, and the modern scientific and anatomical art +represented _primarily_ by Michael Angelo. And the epithet bestowed on +Perugino by Michael Angelo, 'goffo nell' arte,' dunce, or blockhead, in +art,--being, as far as my knowledge of history extends, the most cruel, +the most false, and the most foolish insult ever offered by one great +man to another,--does you at least good service, in showing how +trenchant the separation is between the two orders of artists,[H]--how +exclusively we may follow out the history of all the 'goffi nell' arte,' +and write our Florentine Dunciad, and Laus Stultitiae, in peace; and +never trench upon the thoughts or ways of these proud ones, who showed +their fathers' nakedness, and snatched their masters' fame. + +47. The Florentine dunces in art are a multitude; but I only want you to +know something about twenty of them. + +Twenty!--you think that a grievous number? It may, perhaps, appease +you a little to be told that when you really have learned a very little, +accurately, about these twenty dunces, there are only five more men +among the artists of Christendom whose works I shall ask you to examine +while you are under my care. That makes twenty-five altogether,--an +exorbitant demand on your attention, you still think? And yet, but a +little while ago, you were all agog to get me to go and look at Mrs. A's +sketches, and tell you what was to be thought about _them_; and I've had +the greatest difficulty to keep Mrs. B's photographs from being shown +side by side with the Raphael drawings in the University galleries. And +you will waste any quantity of time in looking at Mrs. A's sketches or +Mrs. B's photographs; and yet you look grave, because, out of nineteen +centuries of European art-labor and thought, I ask you to learn +something seriously about the works of five-and-twenty men! + +48. It is hard upon you, doubtless, considering the quantity of time you +must nowadays spend in trying which can hit balls farthest. So I will +put the task into the simplest form I can. + + 1200 1300 1400 + | 1250 | 1350 | + + + + + + + Niccola Pisano |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | | + Arnolfo |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | + Cimabue |-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | + Giovanni Pisano |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | + Andrea Pisano |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | + Giotto |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | + Orcagna |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | + + + 1400 1500 1600 + | 1450 | 1550 | + + + + + + + Quercia |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +Brunelleschi |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + Ghiberti |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + Donatello |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | | | + Luca della Robbia |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | | + Filippo Lippi |-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | | | + Giovanni Bellini |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | + Mantegna |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | + Verrocchio |-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | | | | + Perugino |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | + Botticelli |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | + Luini |-|-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | + Duerer |-|-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | + Cima |-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | | + Carpaccio |-|-|-|-| | | | | | | | + Correggio |-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | | + Holbein |-|-|-|-|-| | | | | | + Tintoret |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| + +Here are the names of the twenty-five men,[I] and opposite each, a line +indicating the length of his life, and the position of it in his +century. The diagram still, however, needs a few words of explanation. +Very chiefly, for those who know anything of my writings, there is +needed explanation of its not including the names of Titian, Reynolds, +Velasquez, Turner, and other such men, always reverently put before you +at other times. + +They are absent, because I have no fear of your not looking at these. +All your lives through, if you care about art, you will be looking at +them. But while you are here at Oxford, I want to make you learn what +you should know of these earlier, many of them weaker, men, who yet, for +the very reason of their greater simplicity of power, are better guides +for you, and of whom some will remain guides to all generations. And, +as regards the subject of our present course, I have a still more +weighty reason;--Vandyke, Gainsborough, Titian, Reynolds, Velasquez, and +the rest, are essentially portrait painters. They give you the likeness +of a man: they have nothing to say either about his future life, or his +gods. 'That is the look of him,' they say: 'here, on earth, we know no +more.' + +49. But these, whose names I have engraved, have something to +say--generally much,--either about the future life of man, or about his +gods. They are therefore, literally, seers or prophets. False prophets, +it may be, or foolish ones; of that you must judge; but you must read +before you can judge; and read (or hear) them consistently; for you +don't know them till you have heard them out. But with Sir Joshua, or +Titian, one portrait is as another: it is here a pretty lady, there a +great lord; but speechless, all;--whereas, with these twenty-five men, +each picture or statue is not merely another person of a pleasant +society, but another chapter of a Sibylline book. + +50. For this reason, then, I do not want Sir Joshua or Velasquez in my +defined group; and for my present purpose, I can spare from it even four +others:--namely, three who have _too_ special gifts, and must each be +separately studied--Correggio, Carpaccio, Tintoret;--and one who has no +special gift, but a balanced group of many--Cima. This leaves twenty-one +for classification, of whom I will ask you to lay hold thus. You must +continually have felt the difficulty caused by the names of centuries +not tallying with their years;--the year 1201 being the first of the +thirteenth century, and so on. I am always plagued by it myself, much as +I have to think and write with reference to chronology; and I mean for +the future, in our art chronology, to use as far as possible a different +form of notation. + +51. In my diagram the vertical lines are the divisions of tens of years; +the thick black lines divide the centuries. The horizontal lines, then, +at a glance, tell you the length and date of each artist's life. In one +or two instances I cannot find the date of birth; in one or two more, +of death; and the line indicates then only the ascertained[J] period +during which the artist worked. + +And, thus represented, you see nearly all their lives run through the +year of a new century; so that if the lines representing them were +needles, and the black bars of the years 1300, 1400, 1500 were magnets, +I could take up nearly all the needles by lifting the bars. + +52. I will actually do this, then, in three other simple diagrams. I +place a rod for the year 1300 over the lines of life, and I take up all +it touches. I have to drop Niccola Pisano, but I catch five. Now, with +my rod of 1400, I have dropped Orcagna indeed, but I again catch five. +Now, with my rod of 1500, I indeed drop Filippo Lippi and Verrocchio, +but I catch seven. And here I have three pennons, with the staves of the +years 1300, 1400, and 1500 running through them,--holding the names of +nearly all the men I want you to study in easily remembered groups of +five, five, and seven. And these three groups I shall hereafter call the +1300 group, 1400 group, and 1500 group. + + + 1300. + ^ + | +1240-1302 Cimabue +-+-+-+-+-+-+ + | +1250-1321 Giovanni Pisano +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ + | +1232-1310 ARNOLFO -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ + | +1270-1345 Andrea Pisano +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1276-1336 Giotto +-+-+-+-+-+ + + + 1400. + ^ + | +1374-1438 Quercia -+-+-+-+-+-+-+ + | +1381-1455 Ghiberti +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1377-1446 BRUNELLESCHI +-+-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1386-1468 Donatello +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1400-1481 Luca +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ + + + 1500. + ^ + | +1431-1506 Mantegna -+-+-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1457-1515 Botticelli +-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1426-1516 Bellini +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1446-1524 PERUGINO +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ + | +1470-1535 Luini +-+-+-+-+-+-+- + | +1471-1527 Duerer -+-+-+-+-+- + | +1498-1543 Holbein +-+-+-+-+ + +53. But why should four unfortunate masters be dropped out? + +Well, I want to drop them out, at any rate; but not in disrespect. In +hope, on the contrary, to make you remember them very separately +indeed;--for this following reason. + +We are in the careless habit of speaking of men who form a great number +of pupils, and have a host of inferior satellites round them, as masters +of great schools. + +But before you call a man a master, you should ask, Are his pupils +greater or less than himself? If they are greater than himself, he is a +master indeed;--he has been a true teacher. But if all his pupils are +less than himself, he may have been a great _man_, but in all +probability has been a bad _master_, or no master. + +Now these men, whom I have signally left out of my groups, are true +_Masters_. + +Niccola Pisano taught all Italy; but chiefly his own son, who succeeded, +and in some things very much surpassed him. + +Orcagna taught all Italy, after him, down to Michael Angelo. And these +two--Lippi, the religious schools, Verrocchio, the artist schools, of +their century. + +Lippi taught Sandro Botticelli; and Verrocchio taught Lionardo da Vinci, +Lorenzo di Credi, and Perugino. Have I not good reason to separate the +masters of such pupils from the schools they created? + +54. But how is it that I can drop just the cards I want out of my pack? + +Well, certainly I force and fit matters a little: I leave some men out +of my list whom I should like to have in it;--Benozzo Gozzoli, for +instance, and Mino da Fiesole; but I can do without them, and so can you +also, for the present. I catch Luca by a hair's-breadth only, with my +1400 rod; but on the whole, with very little coaxing, I get the groups +in this memorable and quite literally 'handy' form. For see, I write my +lists of five, five, and seven, on bits of pasteboard; I hinge my rods +to these; and you can brandish the school of 1400 in your left hand, and +of 1500 in your right, like--railway signals;--and I wish all railway +signals were as clear. Once learn, thoroughly, the groups in this +artificially contracted form, and you can refine and complete afterwards +at your leisure. + +55. And thus actually flourishing my two pennons, and getting my grip of +the men, in either hand, I find a notable thing concerning my two flags. +The men whose names I hold in my left hand are all sculptors; the men +whose names I hold in my right are all painters. + +You will infallibly suspect me of having chosen them thus on purpose. +No, honor bright!--I chose simply the greatest men,--those I wanted to +talk to you about. I arranged them by their dates; I put them into three +conclusive pennons; and behold what follows! + +56. Farther, note this: in the 1300 group, four out of the five men are +architects as well as sculptors and painters. In the 1400 group, there +is one architect; in the 1500, none. And the meaning of that is, that in +1300 the arts were all united, and duly led by architecture; in 1400, +sculpture began to assume too separate a power to herself; in 1500, +painting arrogated all, and, at last, betrayed all. From which, with +much other collateral evidence, you may justly conclude that the three +arts ought to be practiced together, and that they naturally are so. I +long since asserted that no man could be an architect who was not a +sculptor. As I learned more and more of my business, I perceived also +that no man could be a sculptor who was not an architect;--that is to +say, who had not knowledge enough, and pleasure enough in structural +law, to be able to build, on occasion, better than a mere builder. And +so, finally, I now positively aver to you that nobody, in the graphic +arts, can be quite rightly a master of anything, who is not master of +everything! + +57. The junction of the three arts in men's minds, at the best times, is +shortly signified in these words of Chaucer. Love's Garden, + + Everidele + Enclosed was, and walled well + With high walls, embatailled, + Portrayed without, and well entayled + With many rich portraitures. + +The French original is better still, and gives four arts in unison:-- + + Quant suis avant un pou ale + Et vy un vergier grant et le, + Bien cloz de bon mur batillie + Pourtrait dehors, et entaillie + Ou (for au) maintes riches escriptures. + +Read also carefully the description of the temples of Mars and Venus in +the Knight's Tale. Contemporary French uses 'entaille' even of solid +sculpture and of the living form; and Pygmalion, as a perfect master, +professes wood carving, ivory carving, waxwork, and iron-work, no less +than stone sculpture:-- + + Pimalion, uns entaillieres + Pourtraians en fuz[K] et en pierres, + En mettaux, en os, et en cire, + Et en toute autre matire. + +58. I made a little sketch, when last in Florence, of a subject which +will fix the idea of this unity of the arts in your minds. At the base +of the tower of Giotto are two rows of hexagonal panels, filled with +bas-reliefs. Some of these are by unknown hands,--some by Andrea Pisano, +some by Luca della Robbia, two by Giotto himself; of these I sketched +the panel representing the art of Painting. + +You have in that bas-relief one of the foundation-stones of the most +perfectly built tower in Europe; you have that stone carved by its +architect's own hand; you find, further, that this architect and +sculptor was the greatest painter of his time, and the friend of the +greatest poet; and you have represented by him a painter in his +shop,--bottega,--as symbolic of the entire art of painting. + +59. In which representation, please note how carefully Giotto shows you +the tabernacles or niches, in which the paintings are to be placed. Not +independent of their frames, these panels of his, you see! + +Have you ever considered, in the early history of painting, how +important also is the history of the frame maker? It is a matter, I +assure you, needing your very best consideration. For the frame was made +before the picture. The painted window is much, but the aperture it +fills was thought of before it. The fresco by Giotto is much, but the +vault it adorns was planned first. Who thought of these;--who built? + +Questions taking us far back before the birth of the shepherd boy of +Fesole--questions not to be answered by history of painting only, still +less of painting in _Italy_ only. + +60. And in pointing out to you this fact, I may once for all prove to +you the essential unity of the arts, and show you how impossible it is +to understand one without reference to another. Which I wish you to +observe all the more closely, that you may use, without danger of being +misled, the data, of unequaled value, which have been collected by Crowe +and Cavalcaselle, in the book which they have called a History of +Painting in Italy, but which is in fact only a dictionary of details +relating to that history. Such a title is an absurdity on the face of +it. For, first, you can no more write the history of painting in Italy +than you can write the history of the south wind in Italy. The sirocco +does indeed produce certain effects at Genoa, and others at Rome; but +what would be the value of a treatise upon the winds, which, for the +honor of any country, assumed that every city of it had a native +sirocco? + +But, further,--imagine what success would attend the meteorologist who +should set himself to give an account of the south wind, but take no +notice of the north! + +And, finally, suppose an attempt to give you an account of either wind, +but none of the seas, or mountain passes, by which they were nourished, +or directed. + +61. For instance, I am in this course of lectures to give you an account +of a single and minor branch of graphic art,--engraving. But observe how +many references to local circumstances it involves. There are three +materials for it, we said;--stone, wood, and metal. Stone engraving is +the art of countries possessing marble and gems; wood engraving, of +countries overgrown with forest; metal engraving, of countries +possessing treasures of silver and gold. And the style of a stone +engraver is formed on pillars and pyramids; the style of a wood engraver +under the eaves of larch cottages; the style of a metal engraver in the +treasuries of kings. Do you suppose I could rightly explain to you the +value of a single touch on brass by Finiguerra, or on box by Bewick, +unless I had grasp of the great laws of climate and country; and could +trace the inherited sirocco or tramontana of thought to which the souls +and bodies of the men owed their existence? + +62. You see that in this flag of 1300 there is a dark strong line in the +center, against which you read the name of Arnolfo. + +In writing our Florentine Dunciad, or History of Fools, can we possibly +begin with a better day than All Fools' Day? On All Fools' Day--the +first, if you like better so to call it, of the month of _opening_,--in +the year 1300, is signed the document making Arnolfo a citizen of +Florence, and in 1310 he dies, chief master of the works of the +cathedral there. To this man, Crowe and Cavalcaselle give half a page, +out of three volumes of five hundred pages each. + +But lower down in my flag, (not put there because of any inferiority, +but by order of chronology,) you will see a name sufficiently familiar +to you--that of Giotto; and to him, our historians of painting in Italy +give some hundred pages, under the impression, stated by them at page +243 of their volume, that "in his hands, art in the Peninsula became +entitled for the first time to the name of Italian." + +63. Art became Italian! Yes, but _what_ art? Your authors give a +perspective--or what they call such,--of the upper church of Assisi, as +if that were merely an accidental occurrence of blind walls for Giotto +to paint on! + +But how came the upper church of Assisi there? How came it to be +vaulted--to be aisled? How came Giotto to be asked to paint upon it? + +The art that built it, good or bad, must have been an Italian one, +before Giotto. He could not have painted on the air. Let us see how his +panels were made for him. + +64. This Captain--the center of our first group--Arnolfo, has always +hitherto been called 'Arnolfo di Lapo;'--Arnolfo the son of Lapo. + +Modern investigators come down on us delightedly, to tell us--Arnolfo +was _not_ the son of Lapo. + +In these days you will have half a dozen doctors, writing each a long +book, and the sense of all will be,--Arnolfo wasn't the son of Lapo. +Much good may you get of that! + +Well, you will find the fact to be, there was a great Northman builder, a +true son of Thor, who came down into Italy in 1200, served the order of +St. Francis there, built Assisi, taught Arnolfo how to build, with Thor's +hammer, and disappeared, leaving his name uncertain--Jacopo--Lapo--nobody +knows what. Arnolfo always recognizes this man as his true father, who put +the soul-life into him; he is known to his Florentines always as Lapo's +Arnolfo. + +That, or some likeness of that, is the vital fact. You never can get at +the literal limitation of living facts. They disguise themselves by the +very strength of their life: get told again and again in different ways +by all manner of people;--the literalness of them is turned topsy-turvy, +inside-out, over and over again;--then the fools come and read them +wrong side upwards, or else, say there never was a fact at all. Nothing +delights a true blockhead so much as to prove a negative;--to show that +everybody has been wrong. Fancy the delicious sensation, to an +empty-headed creature, of fancying for a moment that he has emptied +everybody else's head as well as his own! nay, that, for once, his own +hollow bottle of a head has had the best of other bottles, and has been +_first_ empty;--first to know--nothing. + +65. Hold, then, steadily the first tradition about this Arnolfo. That +his real father was called "Cambio" matters to you not a straw. That he +never called himself Cambio's Arnolfo--that nobody else ever called him +so, down to Vasari's time, is an infinitely significant fact to you. In +my twenty-second letter in Fors Clavigera you will find some account of +the noble habit of the Italian artists to call themselves by their +masters' names, considering their master as their true father. If not +the name of the master, they take that of their native place, as having +owed the character of their life to that. They rarely take their own +family name: sometimes it is not even known,--when best known, it is +unfamiliar to us. The great Pisan artists, for instance, never bear any +other name than 'the Pisan;' among the other five-and-twenty names in my +list, not above six, I think, the two German, with four Italian, are +family names. Perugino, (Peter of Perugia,) Luini, (Bernard of Luino,) +Quercia, (James of Quercia,) Correggio, (Anthony of Correggio,) are +named from their native places. Nobody would have understood me if I had +called Giotto, 'Ambrose Bondone;' or Tintoret, Robusti; or even Raphael, +Sanzio. Botticelli is named from his master; Ghiberti from his +father-in-law; and Ghirlandajo from his work. Orcagna, who _did_, for a +wonder, name himself from his father, Andrea Cione, of Florence, has +been always called 'Angel' by everybody else; while Arnolfo, who never +named himself from his father, is now like to be fathered against his +will. + +But, I again beg of you, keep to the old story. For it represents, +however inaccurately in detail, clearly in sum, the fact, that some +great master of German Gothic at this time came down into Italy, and +changed the entire form of Italian architecture by his touch. So that +while Niccola and Giovanni Pisano are still virtually Greek artists, +experimentally introducing Gothic forms, Arnolfo and Giotto adopt the +entire Gothic ideal of form, and thenceforward use the pointed arch and +steep gable as the limits of sculpture. + +66. Hitherto I have been speaking of the relations of my twenty-five men +to each other. But now, please note their relations altogether to the +art before them. These twenty-five include, I say, all the great masters +of _Christian_ art. + +Before them, the art was too savage to be Christian; afterwards, too +carnal to be Christian. + +Too savage to be Christian? I will justify that assertion hereafter; but +you will find that the European art of 1200 includes all the most +developed and characteristic conditions of the style in the north which +you have probably been accustomed to think of as NORMAN, and which you +may always most conveniently call so; and the most developed conditions +of the style in the south, which, formed out of effete Greek, Persian, +and Roman tradition, you may, in like manner, most conveniently express +by the familiar word BYZANTINE. Whatever you call them, they are in +origin adverse in temper, and remain so up to the year 1200. Then an +influence appears, seemingly that of one man, Nicholas the Pisan, (our +first MASTER, observe,) and a new spirit adopts what is best in each, +and gives to what it adopts a new energy of its own; namely, this +conscientious and didactic power which is the speciality of its +progressive existence. And just as the new-born and natural art of +Athens collects and reanimates Pelasgian and Egyptian tradition, +purifying their worship, and perfecting their work, into the living +heathen faith of the world, so this new-born and natural art of Florence +collects and animates the Norman and Byzantine tradition, and forms out +of the perfected worship and work of both, the honest Christian faith, +and vital craftsmanship, of the world. + +67. Get this first summary, therefore, well into your minds. The word +'Norman' I use roughly for North-savage;--roughly, but advisedly. I mean +Lombard, Scandinavian, Frankish; everything north-savage that you can +think of, except Saxon. (I have a reason for that exception; never mind +it just now.)[L] + +All north-savage I call NORMAN, all south-savage I call BYZANTINE; this +latter including dead native Greek primarily--then dead foreign Greek, +in Rome;--then Arabian--Persian--Phoenician--Indian--all you can think +of, in art of hot countries, up to this year 1200, I rank under the one +term Byzantine. Now all this cold art--Norman, and all this hot +art--Byzantine, is virtually dead, till 1200. It has no conscience, no +didactic power;[M] it is devoid of both, in the sense that dreams are. + +Then in the thirteenth century, men wake as if they heard an alarum +through the whole vault of heaven, and true human life begins again, and +the cradle of this life is the Val d'Arno. There the northern and +southern nations meet; there they lay down their enmities; there they +are first baptized unto John's baptism for the remission of sins; there +is born, and thence exiled,--thought faithless, for breaking the font of +baptism to save a child from drowning, in his 'bel San Giovanni,'--the +greatest of Christian poets; he who had pity even for the lost. + +68. Now, therefore, my whole history of _Christian_ architecture and +painting begins with this Baptistery of Florence, and with its +associated Cathedral. Arnolfo brought the one into the form in which you +now see it; he laid the foundation of the other, and that to purpose, +and he is therefore the CAPTAIN of our first school. + +For this Florentine Baptistery[N] is the great one of the world. Here is +the center of Christian knowledge and power. + +And it is one piece of large _engraving_. White substance, cut into, and +filled with black, and dark-green. + +No more perfect work was afterwards done; and I wish you to grasp the +idea of this building clearly and irrevocably,--first, in order (as I +told you in a previous lecture) to quit yourselves thoroughly of the +idea that ornament should be decorated construction; and, secondly, as +the noblest type of the intaglio ornamentation, which developed itself +into all minor application of black and white to engraving. + +69. That it should do so first at Florence, was the natural sequence, +and the just reward, of the ancient skill of Etruria in chased +metal-work. The effects produced in gold, either by embossing or +engraving, were the direct means of giving interest to his surfaces at +the command of the 'auri faber,' or orfevre: and every conceivable +artifice of studding, chiseling, and interlacing was exhausted by the +artists in gold, who were at the head of the metal-workers, and from +whom the ranks of the sculptors were reinforced. + +The old French word 'orfroiz,' (aurifrigia,) expresses essentially what +we call 'frosted' work in gold; that which resembles small dew or +crystals of hoar-frost; the 'frigia' coming from the Latin frigus. To +chase, or enchase, is not properly said of the gold; but of the jewel +which it secures with hoops or ridges, (French, _en_chasser[O]). Then +the armorer, or cup and casket maker, added to this kind of decoration +that of flat inlaid enamel; and the silver-worker, finding that the +raised filigree (still a staple at Genoa) only attracted tarnish, or got +crushed, early sought to decorate a surface which would bear external +friction, with labyrinths of safe incision. + +70. Of the _security_ of incision as a means of permanent decoration, as +opposed to ordinary carving, here is a beautiful instance in the base of +one of the external shafts of the Cathedral of Lucca; thirteenth-century +work, which by this time, had it been carved in relief, would have been +a shapeless remnant of indecipherable bosses. But it is still as safe as +if it had been cut yesterday, because the smooth round mass of the +pillar is entirely undisturbed; into that, furrows are cut with a chisel +as much under command and as powerful as a burin. The effect of the +design is trusted entirely to the depth of these incisions--here dying +out and expiring in the light of the marble, there deepened, by drill +holes, into as definitely a black line as if it were drawn with ink; +and describing the outline of the leafage with a delicacy of touch and +of perception which no man will ever surpass, and which very few have +rivaled, in the proudest days of design. + +71. This security, in silver plates, was completed by filling the +furrows with the black paste which at once exhibited and preserved them. +The transition from that niello-work to modern engraving is one of no +real moment: my object is to make you understand the qualities which +constitute the _merit_ of the engraving, whether charged with niello or +ink. And this I hope ultimately to accomplish by studying with you some +of the works of the four men, Botticelli and Mantegna in the south, +Duerer and Holbein in the north, whose names I have put in our last flag, +above and beneath those of the three mighty painters, Perugino the +captain, Bellini on one side--Luini on the other. + +The four following lectures[P] will contain data necessary for such +study: you must wait longer before I can place before you those by which +I can justify what must greatly surprise some of my audience--my having +given Perugino the captain's place among the three painters. + +72. But I do so, at least primarily, because what is commonly thought +affected in his design is indeed the true remains of the great +architectural symmetry which was soon to be lost, and which makes him +the true follower of Arnolfo and Brunelleschi; and because he is a sound +craftsman and workman to the very heart's core. A noble, gracious, and +quiet laborer from youth to death,--never weary, never impatient, never +untender, never untrue. Not Tintoret in power, not Raphael in +flexibility, not Holbein in veracity, not Luini in love,--their gathered +gifts he has, in balanced and fruitful measure, fit to be the guide, and +impulse, and father of all. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[D] Compare "Aratra Pentelici," Sec. 154. + +[E] "Holbein and His Time," 4to, Bentley, 1872, (a very valuable book,) +p. 17. Italics mine. + +[F] See Carlyle, "Frederick," Book III., chap. viii. + +[G] I believe I am taking too much trouble in writing these lectures. +This sentence, Sec. 44, has cost me, I suppose, first and last, about as +many hours as there are lines in it;--and my choice of these two words, +faith and death, as representatives of power, will perhaps, after all, +only puzzle the reader. + +[H] He is said by Vasari to have called Francia the like. Francia is a +child compared to Perugino; but a finished working-goldsmith and +ornamental painter nevertheless; and one of the very last men to be +called 'goffo,' except by unparalleled insolence. + +[I] The diagram used at the lecture is engraved on page 30; the reader +had better draw it larger for himself, as it had to be made +inconveniently small for this size of leaf. + +[J] 'Ascertained,' scarcely any date ever is, quite satisfactorily. The +diagram only represents what is practically and broadly true. I may have +to modify it greatly in detail. + +[K] For fust, log of wood, erroneously 'fer' in the later printed +editions. Compare the account of the works of Art and Nature, towards +the end of the Romance of the Rose. + +[L] Of course it would have been impossible to express in any accurate +terms, short enough for the compass of a lecture, the conditions of +opposition between the Heptarchy and the Northmen;--between the +Byzantine and Roman;--and between the Byzantine and Arab, which form +minor, but not less trenchant, divisions of Art-province, for subsequent +delineation. If you can refer to my "Stones of Venice," see Sec. 20 of its +first chapter. + +[M] Again much too broad a statement: not to be qualified but by a +length of explanation here impossible. My lectures on Architecture, now +in preparation ("Val d'Arno"), will contain further detail. + +[N] At the side of my page, here, I find the following memorandum, which +was expanded in the viva-voce lecture. The reader must make what he can +of it, for I can't expand it here. + +_Sense_ of Italian Church plan. + +Baptistery, to make Christians in; house, or dome, for them to pray and +be preached to in; bell-tower, to ring all over the town, when they were +either to pray together, rejoice together, or to be warned of danger. + +Harvey's picture of the Covenanters, with a shepherd on the outlook, as +a campanile. + +[O] And 'chassis,' a window frame, or tracery. + +[P] This present lecture does not, as at present published, justify its +title; because I have not thought it necessary to write the viva-voce +portions of it which amplified the 69th paragraph. I will give the +substance of them in better form elsewhere; meantime the part of the +lecture here given may be in its own way useful. + + + + + LECTURE III. + + THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING. + + +73. I am to-day to begin to tell you what it is necessary you should +observe respecting methods of manual execution in the two great arts of +engraving. Only to _begin_ to tell you. There need be no end of telling +you such things, if you care to hear them. The theory of art is soon +mastered; but 'dal detto al fatto, v'e gran tratto;' and as I have +several times told you in former lectures, every day shows me more and +more the importance of the Hand. + +74. Of the hand as a Servant, observe,--not of the hand as a Master. For +there are two great kinds of manual work: one in which the hand is +continually receiving and obeying orders; the other in which it is +acting independently, or even giving orders of its own. And the +dependent and submissive hand is a noble hand; but the independent or +imperative hand is a vile one. + +That is to say, as long as the pen, or chisel, or other graphic +instrument, is moved under the direct influence of mental attention, and +obeys orders of the brain, it is working nobly;--the moment it moves +independently of them, and performs some habitual dexterity of its own, +it is base. + +75. _Dexterity_--I say;--some 'right-handedness' of its own. We might +wisely keep that word for what the hand does at the mind's bidding; and +use an opposite word--sinisterity,--for what it does at its own. For +indeed we want such a word in speaking of modern art; it is all full of +sinisterity. Hands independent of brains;--the left hand, by division of +labor, not knowing what the right does,--still less what it ought to do. + +76. Turning, then, to our special subject. All engraving, I said, is +intaglio in the solid. But the solid, in wood engraving, is a coarse +substance, easily cut; and in metal, a fine substance, not easily. +Therefore, in general, you may be prepared to accept ruder and more +elementary work in one than the other; and it will be the means of +appeal to blunter minds. + +You probably already know the difference between the actual methods of +producing a printed impression from wood and metal; but I may perhaps +make the matter a little more clear. In metal engraving, you cut +ditches, fill them with ink, and press your paper into them. In wood +engraving, you leave ridges, rub the tops of them with ink, and stamp +them on your paper. + +The instrument with which the substance, whether of the wood or steel, +is cut away, is the same. It is a solid plowshare, which, instead of +throwing the earth aside, throws it up and out, producing at first a +simple ravine, or furrow, in the wood or metal, which you can widen by +another cut, or extend by successive cuts. This (Fig. 1) is the general +shape of the solid plowshare: but it is of course made sharper or +blunter at pleasure. The furrow produced is at first the wedge-shaped or +cuneiform ravine, already so much dwelt upon in my lectures on Greek +sculpture. + +[Illustration: FIG. 1] + +77. Since, then, in wood printing, you print from the surface left +solid; and, in metal printing, from the hollows cut into it, it follows +that if you put few touches on wood, you draw, as on a slate, with white +lines, leaving a quantity of black; but if you put few touches on metal, +you draw with black lines, leaving a quantity of white. + +Now the eye is not in the least offended by quantity of white, but is, +or ought to be, greatly saddened and offended by quantity of black. +Hence it follows that you must never put little work on wood. You must +not sketch upon it. You may sketch on metal as much as you please. + +78. "Paradox," you will say, as usual. "Are not all our journals,--and +the best of them, Punch, par excellence,--full of the most brilliantly +swift and slight sketches, engraved on wood; while line-engravings take +ten years to produce, and cost ten guineas each when they are done?" + +Yes, that is so; but observe, in the first place, what appears to you a +sketch on wood is not so at all, but a most laborious and careful +imitation of a sketch on paper; whereas when you see what appears to be +a sketch on metal, it _is_ one. And in the second place, so far as the +popular fashion is contrary to this natural method,--so far as we do in +reality try to produce effects of sketching in wood, and of finish in +metal,--our work is wrong. + +Those apparently careless and free sketches on the wood ought to have +been stern and deliberate; those exquisitely toned and finished +engravings on metal ought to have looked, instead, like free ink +sketches on white paper. That is the theorem which I propose to you for +consideration, and which, in the two branches of its assertion, I hope +to prove to you; the first part of it, (that wood-cutting should be +careful,) in this present lecture; the second, (that metal-cutting +should be, at least in a far greater degree than it is now, slight, and +free,) in the following one. + +79. Next, observe the distinction in respect of _thickness_, no less +than number, of lines which may properly be used in the two methods. + +In metal engraving, it is easier to lay a fine line than a thick one; +and however fine the line may be, it lasts;--but in wood engraving it +requires extreme precision and skill to leave a thin dark line, and when +left, it will be quickly beaten down by a careless printer. Therefore, +the virtue of wood engraving is to exhibit the qualities and power of +_thick_ lines; and of metal engraving, to exhibit the qualities and +power of _thin_ ones. + +All thin dark lines, therefore, in wood, broadly speaking, are to be +used only in case of necessity; and thick lines, on metal, only in case +of necessity. + +80. Though, however, thin _dark_ lines cannot easily be produced in +wood, thin _light_ ones may be struck in an instant. Nevertheless, even +thin light ones must not be used, except with extreme caution. For +observe, they are equally useless as outline, and for expression of +mass. You know how far from exemplary or delightful your boy's first +quite voluntary exercises in white line drawing on your slate were? You +could, indeed, draw a goblin satisfactorily in such method;--a round O, +with arms and legs to it, and a scratch under two dots in the middle, +would answer the purpose; but if you wanted to draw a pretty face, you +took pencil or pen, and paper--not your slate. Now, that instinctive +feeling that a white outline is wrong, is deeply founded. For Nature +herself draws with diffused light, and concentrated dark;--never, except +in storm or twilight, with diffused dark, and concentrated light; and +the thing we all like best to see drawn--the human face--cannot be drawn +with white touches, but by extreme labor. For the pupil and iris of the +eye, the eyebrow, the nostril, and the lip are all set in dark on pale +ground. You can't draw a white eyebrow, a white pupil of the eye, a +white nostril, and a white mouth, on a dark ground. Try it, and see what +a specter you get. But the same number of dark touches, skillfully +applied, will give the idea of a beautiful face. And what is true of the +subtlest subject you have to represent, is equally true of inferior +ones. Nothing lovely can be quickly represented by white touches. You +must hew out, if your means are so restricted, the form by sheer labor; +and that both cunning and dextrous. The Florentine masters, and Duerer, +often practice the achievement, and there are many drawings by the +Lippis, Mantegna, and other leading Italian draughtsmen, completed to +great perfection with the white line; but only for the sake of severest +study, nor is their work imitable by inferior men. And such studies, +however accomplished, always mark a disposition to regard chiaroscuro +too much, and local color too little. + +We conclude, then, that we must never trust, in wood, to our power of +outline with white; and our general laws, thus far determined, will +be--thick lines in wood; thin ones in metal; complete drawing on wood; +sketches, if we choose, on metal. + +81. But why, in wood, lines at all? Why not cut out white _spaces_, and +use the chisel as if its incisions were so much white paint? Many fine +pieces of wood-cutting are indeed executed on this principle. Bewick +does nearly all his foliage so; and continually paints the light plumes +of his birds with single touches of his chisel, as if he were laying on +white. + +But this is not the finest method of wood-cutting. It implies the idea +of a system of light and shade in which the shadow is totally black. +Now, no light and shade can be good, much less pleasant, in which all +the shade is stark black. Therefore the finest wood-cutting ignores +light and shade, and expresses only form, and _dark local color_. And it +is convenient, for simplicity's sake, to anticipate what I should +otherwise defer telling you until next lecture, that fine metal +engraving, like fine wood-cutting, ignores light and shade; and that, in +a word, all good engraving whatsoever does so. + +82. I hope that my saying so will make you eager to interrupt me. 'What! +Rembrandt's etchings, and Lupton's mezzotints, and Le Keux's +line-work,--do you mean to tell us that these ignore light and shade?' + +I never said that _mezzotint_ ignored light and shade, or ought to do +so. Mezzotint is properly to be considered as chiaroscuro drawing on +metal. But I do mean to tell you that both Rembrandt's etchings, and Le +Keux's finished line-work, are misapplied labor, in so far as they +regard chiaroscuro; and that consummate engraving never uses it as a +primal element of pleasure. + +[Illustration: THE LAST FURROW. + +(Fig. 2) Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut.] + +83. We have now got our principles so far defined that I can proceed to +illustration of them by example. + +Here are facsimiles, very marvelous ones,[Q] of two of the best wood +engravings ever produced by art,--two subjects in Holbein's Dance of +Death. You will probably like best that I should at once proceed to +verify my last and most startling statement, that fine engraving +disdained chiaroscuro. + +This vignette (Fig. 2) represents a sunset in the open mountainous +fields of southern Germany. And Holbein is so entirely careless about +the light and shade, which a Dutchman would first have thought of, as +resulting from the sunset, that, as he works, he forgets altogether +where his light comes from. Here, actually, the shadow of the figure is +cast from the side, right across the picture, while the sun is in front. +And there is not the slightest attempt to indicate gradation of light in +the sky, darkness in the forest, or any other positive element of +chiaroscuro. + +This is not because Holbein cannot give chiaroscuro if he chooses. He is +twenty times a stronger master of it than Rembrandt; but he, therefore, +knows exactly when and how to use it; and that wood engraving is not the +proper means for it. The quantity of it which is needful for his story, +and will not, by any sensational violence, either divert, or vulgarly +enforce, the attention, he will give; and that with an unrivaled +subtlety. Therefore I must ask you for a moment or two to quit the +subject of technics, and look what these two woodcuts mean. + +84. The one I have first shown you is of a plowman plowing at evening. +It is Holbein's object, here, to express the diffused and intense light +of a golden summer sunset, so far as is consistent with grander +purposes. A modern French or English chiaroscurist would have covered +his sky with fleecy clouds, and relieved the plowman's hat and his +horses against it in strong black, and put sparkling touches on the +furrows and grass. Holbein scornfully casts all such tricks aside; and +draws the whole scene in pure white, with simple outlines. + +[Illustration: THE TWO PREACHERS. + +(Fig. 3) Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut.] + +85. And yet, when I put it beside this second vignette, (Fig. 3,) which +is of a preacher preaching in a feebly lighted church, you will feel +that the diffused warmth of the one subject, and diffused twilight in +the other, are complete; and they will finally be to you more impressive +than if they had been wrought out with every superficial means of +effect, on each block. + +For it is as a symbol, not as a scenic effect, that in each case the +chiaroscuro is given. Holbein, I said, is at the head of the +painter-reformers, and his Dance of Death is the most energetic and +telling of all the forms given, in this epoch, to the _Rationalist_ +spirit of reform, preaching the new Gospel of Death,--"It is no matter +whether you are priest or layman, what you believe, or what you do: here +is the end." You shall see, in the course of our inquiry, that +Botticelli, in like manner, represents the _Faithful_ and _Catholic_ +temper of reform. + +86. The teaching of Holbein is therefore always melancholy,--for the +most part purely rational; and entirely furious in its indignation +against all who, either by actual injustice in this life, or by what he +holds to be false promise of another, destroy the good, or the energy, +of the few days which man has to live. Against the rich, the luxurious, +the Pharisee, the false lawyer, the priest, and the unjust judge, +Holbein uses his fiercest mockery; but he is never himself unjust; never +caricatures or equivocates; gives the facts as he knows them, with +explanatory symbols, few and clear. + +87. Among the powers which he hates, the pathetic and ingenious +preaching of untruth is one of the chief; and it is curious to find his +biographer, knowing this, and reasoning, as German critics nearly always +do, from acquired knowledge, not perception, imagine instantly that he +sees hypocrisy in the face of Holbein's preacher. "How skillfully," +says Dr. Woltmann, "is the preacher propounding his doctrines; how +thoroughly is his hypocrisy expressed in the features of his +countenance, and in the gestures of his hands." But look at the cut +yourself, candidly. I challenge you to find the slightest trace of +hypocrisy in either feature or gesture. Holbein knew better. It is not +the hypocrite who has power in the pulpit. It is the _sincere_ preacher +of untruth who does mischief there. The hypocrite's place of power is in +trade, or in general society; none but the sincere ever get fatal +influence in the pulpit. This man is a refined gentleman--ascetic, +earnest, thoughtful, and kind. He scarcely uses the vantage even of his +pulpit,--comes aside out of it, as an eager man would, pleading; he is +intent on being understood--_is_ understood; his congregation are +delighted--you might hear a pin drop among them: one is asleep indeed, +who cannot see him, (being under the pulpit,) and asleep just because +the teacher is as gentle as he is earnest, and speaks quietly. + +88. How are we to know, then, that he speaks in vain? First, because +among all his hearers you will not find one shrewd face. They are all +either simple or stupid people: there is one nice woman in front of all, +(else Holbein's representation had been caricature,) but she is not a +shrewd one. + +Secondly, by the light and shade. The church is not in extreme +darkness--far from that; a gray twilight is over everything, but the sun +is totally shut out of it;--not a ray comes in even at the +window--_that_ is darker than the walls, or vault. + +Lastly, and chiefly, by the mocking expression of Death. Mocking, but +not angry. The man has been preaching what he thought true. Death laughs +at him, but is not indignant with him. + +Death comes quietly: _I_ am going to be preacher now; here is your own +hour-glass, ready for me. You have spoken many words in your day. But +"of the things which you have spoken, _this_ is the sum,"--your +death-warrant, signed and sealed. There's your text for to-day. + +89. Of this other picture, the meaning is more plain, and far more +beautiful. The husbandman is old and gaunt, and has passed his days, not +in speaking, but pressing the iron into the ground. And the payment for +his life's work is, that he is clothed in rags, and his feet are bare on +the clods; and he has no hat--but the brim of a hat only, and his long, +unkempt gray hair comes through. But all the air is full of warmth and +of peace; and, beyond his village church, there is, at last, light +indeed. His horses lag in the furrow, and his own limbs totter and fail: +but one comes to help him. 'It is a long field,' says Death; 'but we'll +get to the end of it to-day,--you and I.' + +90. And now that we know the meaning, we are able to discuss the +technical qualities farther. + +Both of these engravings, you will find, are executed with blunt lines; +but more than that, they are executed with quiet lines, entirely steady. + +Now, here I have in my hand a lively woodcut of the present day--a good +average type of the modern style of wood-cutting, which you will all +recognize.[R] + +The shade in this is drawn on the wood, (not _cut_, but drawn, observe,) +at the rate of at least ten lines in a second: Holbein's, at the rate of +about one line in three seconds.[S] + +91. Now there are two different matters to be considered with respect to +these two opposed methods of execution. The first, that the rapid work, +though easy to the artist, is very difficult to the wood-cutter; so that +it implies instantly a separation between the two crafts, and that your +wood-cutter has ceased to be a draughtsman. I shall return to this +point. I wish to insist on the other first; namely, the effect of the +more deliberate method on the drawing itself. + +92. When the hand moves at the rate of ten lines in a second, it is +indeed under the government of the muscles of the wrist and shoulder; +but it cannot possibly be under the complete government of the brains. I +am able to do this zigzag line evenly, because I have got the use of the +hand from practice; and the faster it is done, the evener it will be. +But I have no mental authority over every line I thus lay: chance +regulates them. Whereas, when I draw at the rate of two or three seconds +to each line, my hand disobeys the muscles a little--the mechanical +accuracy is not so great; nay, there ceases to be any _appearance_ of +dexterity at all. But there is, in reality, more manual skill required +in the slow work than in the swift,--and all the while the hand is +thoroughly under the orders of the brains. Holbein deliberately +resolves, for every line, as it goes along, that it shall be so thick, +so far from the next,--that it shall begin here, and stop there. And he +is deliberately assigning the utmost quantity of meaning to it, that a +line will carry. + +93. It is not fair, however, to compare common work of one age with the +best of another. Here is a woodcut of Tenniel's, which I think contains +as high qualities as it is possible to find in modern art.[T] I hold it +as beyond others fine, because there is not the slightest caricature in +it. No face, no attitude, is pushed beyond the degree of natural humor +they would have possessed in life; and in precision of momentary +expression, the drawing is equal to the art of any time, and shows power +which would, if regulated, be quite adequate to producing an immortal +work. + +94. Why, then, is it _not_ immortal? You yourselves, in compliance with +whose demand it was done, forgot it the next week. It will become +historically interesting; but no man of true knowledge and feeling will +ever keep this in his cabinet of treasure, as he does these woodcuts of +Holbein's. + +The reason is that this is base coin,--alloyed gold. There _is_ gold in +it, but also a quantity of brass and lead--willfully added--to make it +fit for the public. Holbein's is beaten gold, seven times tried in the +fire. Of which commonplace but useful metaphor the meaning here is, +first, that to catch the vulgar eye a quantity of,--so-called,--light +and shade is added by Tenniel. It is effective to an ignorant eye, and +is ingeniously disposed; but it is entirely conventional and false, +unendurable by any person who knows what chiaroscuro is. + +Secondly, for one line that Holbein lays, Tenniel has a dozen. There +are, for instance, a hundred and fifty-seven lines in Sir Peter Teazle's +wig, without counting dots and slight cross-hatching;--but the entire +face and flowing hair of Holbein's preacher are done with forty-five +lines, all told. + +95. Now observe what a different state of mind the two artists must be +in on such conditions;--one, never in a hurry, never doing anything that +he knows is wrong; never doing a line badly that he can do better; and +appealing only to the feelings of sensitive persons, and the judgment of +attentive ones. That is Holbein's habit of soul. What is the habit of +soul of every modern engraver? Always in a hurry; everywhere doing +things which he knows to be wrong--(Tenniel knows his light and shade to +be wrong as well as I do)--continually doing things badly which he was +able to do better; and appealing exclusively to the feelings of the +dull, and the judgment of the inattentive. + +Do you suppose that is not enough to make the difference between mortal +and immortal art,--the original genius being supposed alike in both?[U] + +96. Thus far of the state of the artist himself. I pass, next to the +relation between him and his subordinate, the wood-cutter. + +The modern artist requires him to cut a hundred and fifty-seven lines in +the wig only,--the old artist requires him to cut forty-five for the +face, and long hair, altogether. The actual proportion is roughly, and +on the average, about one to twenty of cost in manual labor, ancient to +modern,--the twentieth part of the mechanical labor, to produce an +immortal instead of a perishable work,--the twentieth part of the labor; +and--which is the greatest difference of all--that twentieth part, at +once less mechanically difficult, and more mentally pleasant. Mr. Otley, +in his general History of Engraving, says, "The greatest difficulty in +wood engraving occurs in clearing out the minute quadrangular lights;" +and in any modern woodcut you will see that where the lines of the +drawing cross each other to produce shade, the white interstices are cut +out so neatly that there is no appearance of any jag or break in the +lines; they look exactly as if they had been drawn with a pen. It is +chiefly difficult to cut the pieces clearly out when the lines cross at +right angles; easier when they form oblique or diamond-shaped +interstices; but in any case some half-dozen cuts, and in square +crossings as many as twenty, are required to clear one interstice. +Therefore if I carelessly draw six strokes with my pen across other six, +I produce twenty-five interstices, each of which will need at least six, +perhaps twenty, careful touches of the burin to clear out.--Say ten for +an average; and I demand two hundred and fifty exquisitely precise +touches from my engraver, to render ten careless ones of mine. + +97. Now I take up Punch, at his best. The whole of the left side of John +Bull's waistcoat--the shadow on his knee-breeches and great-coat--the +whole of the Lord Chancellor's gown, and of John Bull's and Sir Peter +Teazle's complexions, are worked with finished precision of +cross-hatching. These have indeed some purpose in their texture; but in +the most wanton and gratuitous way, the wall below the window is +cross-hatched too, and that not with a double, but a treble line (Fig. +4). + +There are about thirty of these columns, with thirty-five interstices +each: approximately, 1,050--certainly not fewer--interstices to be +deliberately cut clear, to get that two inches square of shadow. Now +calculate--or think enough to feel the impossibility of calculating--the +number of woodcuts used daily for our popular prints, and how many men +are night and day cutting 1,050 square holes to the square inch, as the +occupation of their manly life. And Mrs. Beecher Stowe and the North +Americans fancy they have abolished slavery! + +[Illustration: FIG. 4.] + +98. The workman cannot have even the consolation of pride; for his task, +even in its finest accomplishment, is not really difficult,--only +tedious. When you have once got into the practice, it is as easy as +lying. To cut regular holes WITHOUT a purpose is easy enough; but to cut +_ir_regular holes WITH a purpose, that is difficult, forever;--no tricks +of tool or trade will give you power to do that. + +The supposed difficulty--the thing which, at all events, it takes time +to learn, is to cut the interstices neat, and each like the other. But +is there any reason, do you suppose, for their being neat, and each like +the other? So far from it, they would be twenty times prettier if they +were irregular, and each different from the other. And an old +wood-cutter, instead of taking pride in cutting these interstices smooth +and alike, resolutely cuts them rough and irregular; taking care, at the +same time, never to have any more than are wanted, this being only one +part of the general system of intelligent manipulation, which made so +good an artist of the engraver that it is impossible to say of any +standard old woodcut, whether the draughtsman engraved it himself or +not. I should imagine, from the character and subtlety of the touch, +that every line of the Dance of Death had been engraved by Holbein; we +know it was not, and that there can be no certainty given by even the +finest pieces of wood execution of anything more than perfect harmony +between the designer and workman. And consider how much this harmony +demands in the latter. Not that the modern engraver is unintelligent in +applying his mechanical skill: very often he greatly improves the +drawing; but we never could mistake his hand for Holbein's. + +99. The true merit, then, of wood execution, as regards this matter of +cross-hatching, is first that there be no more crossing than necessary; +secondly, that all the interstices be various, and rough. You may look +through the entire series of the Dance of Death without finding any +cross-hatching whatever, except in a few unimportant bits of background, +so rude as to need scarcely more than one touch to each interstice. +Albert Duerer crosses more definitely; but yet, in any fold of his +drapery, every white spot differs in size from every other, and the +arrangement of the whole is delightful, by the kind of variety which the +spots on a leopard have. + +On the other hand, where either expression or form can be rendered by +the shape of the lights and darks, the old engraver becomes as careful +as in an ordinary ground he is careless. + +The endeavor, with your own hand, and common pen and ink, to copy a +small piece of either of the two Holbein woodcuts (Figures 2 and 3) will +prove this to you better than any words. + +100. I said that, had Tenniel been rightly trained, there might have +been the making of a Holbein, or nearly a Holbein, in him. I do not +know; but I can turn from his work to that of a man who was not trained +at all, and who was, without training, Holbein's equal. + +Equal, in the sense that this brown stone, in my left hand, is the +equal, though not the likeness, of that in my right. They are both of +the same true and pure crystal; but the one is brown with iron, and +never touched by forming hand; the other has never been in rough +companionship, and has been exquisitely polished. So with these two men. +The one was the companion of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. His father was +so good an artist that you cannot always tell their drawings asunder. +But the other was a farmer's son; and learned his trade in the back +shops of Newcastle. + +Yet the first book I asked you to get was his biography; and in this +frame are set together a drawing by Hans Holbein, and one by Thomas +Bewick. I know which is most scholarly; but I do _not_ know which is +best. + +101. It is much to say for the self-taught Englishman;--yet do not +congratulate yourselves on his simplicity. I told you, a little while +since, that the English nobles had left the history of birds to be +written, and their spots to be drawn, by a printer's lad;--but I did not +tell you their farther loss in the fact that this printer's lad could +have written their own histories, and drawn their own spots, if they had +let him. But they had no history to be written; and were too closely +maculate to be portrayed;--white ground in most places altogether +obscured. Had there been Mores and Henrys to draw, Bewick could have +drawn them; and would have found his function. As it was, the nobles of +his day left him to draw the frogs, and pigs, and sparrows--of his day, +which seemed to him, in his solitude, the best types of its Nobility. No +sight or thought of beautiful things was ever granted him;--no heroic +creature, goddess-born--how much less any native Deity--ever shone upon +him. To his utterly English mind, the straw of the sty, and its +tenantry, were abiding truth;--the cloud of Olympus, and its tenantry, a +child's dream. He could draw a pig, but not an Aphrodite. + +102. The three pieces of woodcut from his Fables (the two lower ones +enlarged) in the opposite plate, show his utmost strength and utmost +rudeness. I must endeavor to make you thoroughly understand both:--the +magnificent artistic power, the flawless virtue, veracity, +tenderness,--the infinite humor of the man; and yet the difference +between England and Florence, in the use they make of such gifts in +their children. + +For the moment, however, I confine myself to the examination of +technical points; and we must follow our former conclusions a little +further. + +[Illustration: I. + +Things Celestial and Terrestrial, as apparent to the English Mind.] + +103. Because our lines in wood must be thick, it becomes an extreme +virtue in wood engraving to economize lines,--not merely, as in all +other art, to save time and power, but because, our lines being +necessarily blunt, we must make up our minds to do with fewer, by many, +than are in the object. But is this necessarily a disadvantage? + +_Absolutely_, an immense disadvantage,--a woodcut never can be so +beautiful or good a thing as a painting, or line engraving. But in its +own separate and useful way, an excellent thing, because, practiced +rightly, it exercises in the artist, and summons in you, the habit of +abstraction; that is to say, of deciding what are the essential points +in the things you see, and seizing these; a habit entirely necessary to +strong humanity; and so natural to all humanity, that it leads, in its +indolent and undisciplined states, to all the vulgar amateur's liking of +sketches better than pictures. The sketch seems to put the thing for him +into a concentrated and exciting form. + +104. Observe, therefore, to guard you from this error, that a bad sketch +is good for nothing; and that nobody can make a good sketch unless they +generally are trying to finish with extreme care. But the abstraction of +the essential particulars in his subject by a line-master, has a +peculiar didactic value. For painting, when it is complete, leaves it +much to your own judgment what to look at; and, if you are a fool, you +look at the wrong thing;--but in a fine woodcut, the master says to you, +"You _shall_ look at this, or at nothing." + +105. For example, here is a little tailpiece of Bewick's, to the fable +of the Frogs and the Stork.[V] He is, as I told you, as stout a reformer +as Holbein,[W] or Botticelli, or Luther, or Savonarola; and, as an +impartial reformer, hits right and left, at lower or upper classes, if +he sees them wrong. Most frequently, he strikes at vice, without +reference to class; but in this vignette he strikes definitely at the +degradation of the viler popular mind which is incapable of being +governed, because it cannot understand the nobleness of kingship. He +has written--better than written, engraved, sure to suffer no slip of +type--his legend under the drawing; so that we know his meaning: + +"Set them up with a king, indeed!" + +106. There is an audience of seven frogs, listening to a speaker, or +croaker, in the middle; and Bewick has set himself to show in all, but +especially in the speaker, essential frogginess of mind--the marsh +temper. He could not have done it half so well in painting as he has +done by the abstraction of wood-outline. The characteristic of a manly +mind, or body, is to be gentle in temper, and firm in constitution; the +contrary essence of a froggy mind and body is to be angular in temper, +and flabby in constitution. I have enlarged Bewick's orator-frog for +you, Plate I. c., and I think you will feel that he is entirely +expressed in those essential particulars. + +This being perfectly good wood-cutting, notice especially its +deliberation. No scrawling or scratching, or cross-hatching, or '_free_' +work of any sort. Most deliberate laying down of solid lines and dots, +of which you cannot change one. The real difficulty of wood engraving is +to cut every one of these black lines or spaces of the exactly right +shape, and not at all to cross-hatch them cleanly. + +107. Next, examine the technical treatment of the pig, above. I have +purposely chosen this as an example of a white object on dark ground, +and the frog as a dark object on light ground, to explain to you what I +mean by saying that fine engraving regards local color, but not light +and shade. You see both frog and pig are absolutely without light and +shade. The frog, indeed, casts a shadow; but his hind leg is as white as +his throat. In the pig you don't even know which way the light falls. +But you know at once that the pig is white, and the frog brown or green. + +108. There are, however, two pieces of chiaroscuro _implied_ in the +treatment of the pig. It is assumed that his curly tail would be light +against the background--dark against his own rump. This little piece of +heraldic quartering is absolutely necessary to solidify him. He would +have been a white ghost of a pig, flat on the background, but for that +alternative tail, and the bits of dark behind the ears. Secondly: Where +the shade is necessary to suggest the position of his ribs, it is given +with graphic and chosen points of dark, as few as possible; not for the +sake of the shade at all, but of the skin and bone. + +109. That, then, being the law of refused chiaroscuro, observe further +the method of outline. We said that we were to have thick lines in wood, +if possible. Look what thickness of black outline Bewick has left under +our pig's chin, and above his nose. + +But that is not a line at all, you think? + +No;--a modern engraver would have made it one, and prided himself on +getting it fine. Bewick leaves it actually thicker than the snout, but +puts all his ingenuity of touch to vary the forms, and break the +extremities of his white cuts, so that the eye may be refreshed and +relieved by new forms at every turn. The group of white touches filling +the space between snout and ears might be a wreath of fine-weather +clouds, so studiously are they grouped and broken. + +And nowhere, you see, does a single black line cross another. + +Look back to Figure 4, page 54, and you will know, henceforward, the +difference between good and bad wood-cutting. + +110. We have also, in the lower woodcut, a notable instance of Bewick's +power of abstraction. You will observe that one of the chief characters +of this frog, which makes him humorous,--next to his vain endeavor to +get some firmness into his fore feet,--is his obstinately angular +hump-back. And you must feel, when you see it so marked, how important a +general character of a frog it is to have a hump-back,--not at the +shoulders, but the loins. + +111. Here, then, is a case in which you will see the exact function that +anatomy should take in art. + +All the most scientific anatomy in the world would never have taught +Bewick, much less you, how to draw a frog. + +But when once you _have_ drawn him, or looked at him, so as to know his +points, it then becomes entirely interesting to find out _why_ he has a +hump-back. So I went myself yesterday to Professor Rolleston for a +little anatomy, just as I should have gone to Professor Phillips for a +little geology; and the Professor brought me a fine little active frog; +and we put him on the table, and made him jump all over it, and then the +Professor brought in a charming Squelette of a frog, and showed me that +he needed a projecting bone from his rump, as a bird needs it from its +breast,--the one to attach the strong muscles of the hind legs, as the +other to attach those of the fore legs or wings. So that the entire +leaping power of the frog is in his hump-back, as the flying power of +the bird is in its breast-bone. And thus this Frog Parliament is most +literally a Rump Parliament--everything depending on the hind legs, and +nothing on the brains; which makes it wonderfully like some other +Parliaments we know of nowadays, with Mr. Ayrton and Mr. Lowe for their +aesthetic and acquisitive eyes, and a rump of Railway Directors. + +112. Now, to conclude, for want of time only--I have but touched on the +beginning of my subject,--understand clearly and finally this simple +principle of all art, that the best is that which realizes absolutely, +if possible. Here is a viper by Carpaccio: you are afraid to go near it. +Here is an arm-chair by Carpaccio: you who came in late, and are +standing, to my regret, would like to sit down in it. This is consummate +art; but you can only have that with consummate means, and exquisitely +trained and hereditary mental power. + +With inferior means, and average mental power, you must be content to +give a rude abstraction; but if rude abstraction _is_ to be made, think +what a difference there must be between a wise man's and a fool's; and +consider what heavy responsibility lies upon you in your youth, to +determine, among realities, by what you will be delighted, and, among +imaginations, by whose you will be led. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Q] By Mr. Burgess. The toil and skill necessary to produce a facsimile +of this degree of precision will only be recognized by the reader who +has had considerable experience of actual work. + +[R] The ordinary title-page of Punch. + +[S] In the lecture-room, the relative rates of execution were shown; I +arrive at this estimate by timing the completion of two small pieces of +shade in the two methods. + +[T] John Bull, as Sir Oliver Surface, with Sir Peter Teazle and Joseph +Surface. It appeared in Punch, early in 1863. + +[U] In preparing these passages for the press, I feel perpetual need of +qualifications and limitations, for it is impossible to surpass the +humor, or precision of expressional touch, in the really golden parts of +Tenniel's works; and they _may_ be immortal, as representing what is +best in their day. + +[V] From Bewick's AEsop's Fables. + +[W] See _ante_, Sec. 43. + + + + + LECTURE IV. + + THE TECHNICS OF METAL ENGRAVING. + + +113. We are to-day to examine the proper methods for the technical +management of the most perfect of the arms of precision possessed by the +artist. For you will at once understand that a line cut by a +finely-pointed instrument upon the smooth surface of metal is +susceptible of the utmost fineness that can be given to the _definite_ +work of the human hand. In drawing with pen upon paper, the surface of +the paper is slightly rough; necessarily, two points touch it instead of +one, and the liquid flows from them more or less irregularly, whatever +the draughtsman's skill. But you cut a metallic surface with one edge +only; the furrow drawn by a skater on the surface of ice is like it on a +large scale. Your surface is polished, and your line may be wholly +faultless, if your hand is. + +114. And because, in such material, effects may be produced which no +penmanship could rival, most people, I fancy, think that a steel plate +half engraves itself; that the workman has no trouble with it, compared +to that of a pen draughtsman. + +To test your feeling in this matter accurately, here is a manuscript +book written with pen and ink, and illustrated with flourishes and +vignettes. + +You will all, I think, be disposed, on examining it, to exclaim, How +wonderful! and even to doubt the possibility of every page in the book +being completed in the same manner. Again, here are three of my own +drawings, executed with the pen, and Indian ink, when I was fifteen. +They are copies from large lithographs by Prout; and I imagine that most +of my pupils would think me very tyrannical if I requested them to do +anything of the kind themselves. And yet, when you see in the shop +windows a line engraving like this,[X] or this,[X] either of which +contains, alone, as much work as fifty pages of the manuscript book, or +fifty such drawings as mine, you look upon its effect as quite a matter +of course,--you never say 'how wonderful' _that_ is, nor consider how +you would like to have to live, by producing anything of the same kind +yourselves. + +[Illustration: II. + +The Star of FLORENCE.] + +115. Yet you cannot suppose it is in reality easier to draw a line with +a cutting point, not seeing the effect at all, or, if any effect, seeing +a gleam of light instead of darkness, than to draw your black line at +once on the white paper? You cannot really think[Y] that there is +something complacent, sympathetic, and helpful in the nature of steel; +so that while a pen-and-ink sketch may always be considered an +achievement proving cleverness in the sketcher, a sketch on steel comes +out by mere favor of the indulgent metal; or that the plate is woven +like a piece of pattern silk, and the pattern is developed by pasteboard +cards punched full of holes? Not so. Look close at this engraving, or +take a smaller and simpler one, Turner's Mercury and Argus,--imagine it +to be a drawing in pen and ink, and yourself required similarly to +produce its parallel! True, the steel point has the one advantage of not +blotting, but it has tenfold or twentyfold disadvantage, in that you +cannot slur, nor efface, except in a very resolute and laborious way, +nor play with it, nor even see what you are doing with it at the moment, +far less the effect that is to be. You must _feel_ what you are doing +with it, and know precisely what you have got to do; how deep, how +broad, how far apart your lines must be, etc. and etc., (a couple of +lines of etceteras would not be enough to imply all you must know). But +suppose the plate _were_ only a pen drawing: take your pen--your +finest--and just try to copy the leaves that entangle the head of Io, +and her head itself; remembering always that the kind of work required +here is mere child's play compared to that of fine figure engraving. +Nevertheless, take a small magnifying glass to this--count the dots and +lines that gradate the nostrils and the edges of the facial bone; notice +how the light is left on the top of the head by the stopping, at its +outline, of the coarse touches which form the shadows under the leaves; +examine it well, and then--I humbly ask of you--try to do a piece of it +yourself! You clever sketcher--you young lady or gentleman of +genius--you eye-glassed dilettante--you current writer of criticism +royally plural,--I beseech you,--do it yourself; do the merely etched +outline yourself, if no more. Look you,--you hold your etching needle +this way, as you would a pencil, nearly; and then,--you scratch with it! +it is as easy as lying. Or if you think that too difficult, take an +easier piece;--take either of the light sprays of foliage that rise +against the fortress on the right, pass your lens over them--look how +their fine outline is first drawn, leaf by leaf; then how the distant +rock is put in between, with broken lines, mostly stopping before they +touch the leaf-outline; and again, I pray you, do it yourself,--if not +on that scale, on a larger. Go on into the hollows of the distant +rock,--traverse its thickets,--number its towers;--count how many lines +there are in a laurel bush--in an arch--in a casement; some hundred and +fifty, or two hundred, deliberately drawn lines, you will find, in every +square quarter of an inch;--say _three thousand to the inch_,--each, +with skillful intent, put in its place! and then consider what the +ordinary sketcher's work must appear, to the men who have been trained +to this! + +116. "But might not more have been done by three thousand lines to a +square inch?" you will perhaps ask. Well, possibly. It may be with lines +as with soldiers: three hundred, knowing their work thoroughly, may be +stronger than three thousand less sure of their aim. We shall have to +press close home this question about numbers and purpose presently;--it +is not the question now. Suppose certain results required,--atmospheric +effects, surface textures, transparencies of shade, confusions of +light,--then, more could _not_ be done with less. There are engravings +of this modern school, of which, with respect to their particular aim, +it may be said, most truly, they "cannot be better done." + +Here is one just finished,--or, at least, finished to the eyes of +ordinary mortals, though its fastidious master means to retouch it;--a +quite pure line engraving, by Mr. Charles Henry Jeens; (in calling it +pure line, I mean that there are no mixtures of mezzotint or any +mechanical tooling, but all is steady hand-work,) from a picture by Mr. +Armytage, which, without possessing any of the highest claims to +admiration, is yet free from the vulgar vices which disgrace most of our +popular religious art; and is so sweet in the fancy of it as to deserve, +better than many works of higher power, the pains of the engraver to +make it a common possession. It is meant to help us to imagine the +evening of the day when the father and mother of Christ had been seeking +Him through Jerusalem: they have come to a well where women are drawing +water; St. Joseph passes on,--but the tired Madonna, leaning on the +well's margin, asks wistfully of the women if they have seen such and +such a child astray. Now will you just look for a while into the lines +by which the expression of the weary and anxious face is rendered; see +how unerring they are,--how calm and clear; and think how many questions +have to be determined in drawing the most minute portion of any +one,--its curve,--its thickness,--its distance from the next,--its own +preparation for ending, invisibly, where it ends. Think what the +precision must be in these that trace the edge of the lip, and make it +look quivering with disappointment, or in these which have made the +eyelash heavy with restrained tears. + +117. Or if, as must be the case with many of my audience, it is +impossible for you to conceive the difficulties here overcome, look +merely at the draperies, and other varied substances represented in the +plate; see how silk, and linen, and stone, and pottery, and flesh, are +all separated in texture, and gradated in light, by the most subtle +artifices and appliances of line,--of which artifices, and the nature of +the mechanical labor throughout, I must endeavor to give you to-day a +more distinct conception than you are in the habit of forming. But as I +shall have to blame some of these methods in their general result, and I +do not wish any word of general blame to be associated with this most +excellent and careful plate by Mr. Jeens, I will pass, for special +examination, to one already in your reference series, which for the rest +exhibits more various treatment in its combined landscape, background, +and figures; the Belle Jardiniere of Raphael, drawn and engraved by the +Baron Desnoyers. + +You see, in the first place, that the ground, stones, and other coarse +surfaces are distinguished from the flesh and draperies by broken and +wriggled lines. Those broken lines cannot be executed with the burin, +they are etched in the early states of the plate, and are a modern +artifice, never used by old engravers; partly because the older men were +not masters of the art of etching, but chiefly because even those who +were acquainted with it would not employ lines of this nature. They have +been developed by the importance of landscape in modern engraving, and +have produced some valuable results in small plates, especially of +architecture. But they are entirely erroneous in principle, for the +surface of stones and leaves is not broken or jagged in this manner, but +consists of mossy, or blooming, or otherwise organic texture, which +cannot be represented by these coarse lines; their general consequence +has therefore been to withdraw the mind of the observer from all +beautiful and tender characters in foreground, and eventually to destroy +the very school of landscape engraving which gave birth to them. + +Considered, however, as a means of relieving more delicate textures, +they are in some degree legitimate, being, in fact, a kind of chasing or +jagging one part of the plate surface in order to throw out the delicate +tints from the rough field. But the same effect was produced with less +pains, and far more entertainment to the eye, by the older engravers, +who employed purely ornamental variations of line; thus in Plate IV., +opposite Sec. 137, the drapery is sufficiently distinguished from the grass +by the treatment of the latter as an ornamental arabesque. The grain of +wood is elaborately engraved by Marc Antonio, with the same purpose, in +the plate given in your Standard Series. + +118. Next, however, you observe what difference of texture and force +exists between the smooth, continuous lines themselves, which are all +really _engraved_. You must take some pains to understand the nature of +this operation. + +The line is first cut lightly through its whole course, by absolute +decision and steadiness of hand, which you may endeavor to imitate if +you like, in its simplest phase, by drawing a circle with your +compass-pen; and then, grasping your penholder so that you can push the +point like a plow, describing other circles inside or outside of it, in +exact parallelism with the mathematical line, and at exactly equal +distances. To approach, or depart, with your point at finely gradated +intervals, may be your next exercise, if you find the first unexpectedly +easy. + +119. When the line is thus described in its proper course, it is plowed +deeper, where depth is needed, by a second cut of the burin, first on +one side, then on the other, the cut being given with gradated force so +as to take away most steel where the line is to be darkest. Every line +of gradated depth in the plate has to be thus cut eight or ten times +over at least, with retouchings to smooth and clear all in the close. +Jason has to plow his field ten-furrow deep, with his fiery oxen well in +hand, all the while. + +When the essential lines are thus produced in their several directions, +those which have been drawn across each other, so as to give depth of +shade, or richness of texture, have to be farther enriched by dots in +the interstices; else there would be a painful appearance of network +everywhere; and these dots require each four or five jags to produce +them; and each of these jags must be done with what artists and +engravers alike call 'feeling,'--the sensibility, that is, of a hand +completely under mental government. So wrought, the dots look soft, and +like touches of paint; but mechanically dug in, they are vulgar and +hard. + +120. Now, observe, that, for every piece of shadow throughout the work, +the engraver has to decide with what quantity and kind of line he will +produce it. Exactly the same quantity of black, and therefore the same +depth of tint in general effect, may be given with six thick lines; or +with twelve, of half their thickness; or with eighteen, of a third of +the thickness. The second six, second twelve, or second eighteen, may +cross the first six, first twelve, or first eighteen, or go between +them; and they may cross at any angle. And then the third six may be put +between the first six, or between the second six, or across both, and at +any angle. In the network thus produced, any kind of dots may be put in +the severally shaped interstices. And for any of the series of +superadded lines, dots, of equivalent value in shade, may be +substituted. (Some engravings are wrought in dots altogether.) Choice +infinite, with multiplication of infinity, is, at all events, to be +made, for every minute space, from one side of the plate to the other. + +121. The excellence of a beautiful engraving is primarily in the use of +these resources to exhibit the qualities of the original picture, with +delight to the eye in the method of translation; and the language of +engraving, when once you begin to understand it, is, in these respects, +so fertile, so ingenious, so ineffably subtle and severe in its grammar, +that you may quite easily make it the subject of your life's +investigation, as you would the scholarship of a lovely literature. + +But in doing this, you would withdraw, and necessarily withdraw, your +attention from the higher qualities of art, precisely as a grammarian, +who is that, and nothing more, loses command of the matter and substance +of thought. And the exquisitely mysterious mechanisms of the engraver's +method have, in fact, thus entangled the intelligence of the careful +draughtsmen of Europe; so that since the final perfection of this +translator's power, all the men of finest patience and finest hand have +stayed content with it;--the subtlest draughtsmanship has perished from +the canvas,[Z] and sought more popular praise in this labyrinth of +disciplined language, and more or less dulled or degraded thought. And, +in sum, I know no cause more direct or fatal, in the destruction of the +great schools of European art, than the perfectness of modern line +engraving. + +122. This great and profoundly to be regretted influence I will prove +and illustrate to you on another occasion. My object to-day is to +explain the perfectness of the art itself; and above all to request you, +if you will not look at pictures instead of photographs, at least not to +allow the cheap merits of the chemical operation to withdraw your +interest from the splendid human labor of the engraver. Here is a little +vignette from Stothard, for instance, in Rogers' poems, to the lines, + + "Soared in the swing, half pleased and half afraid, + 'Neath sister elms, that waved their summer shade." + +You would think, would you not? (and rightly,) that of all difficult +things to express with crossed black lines and dots, the face of a young +girl must be the most difficult. Yet here you have the face of a bright +girl, radiant in light, transparent, mysterious, almost breathing,--her +dark hair involved in delicate wreath and shade, her eyes full of joy +and sweet playfulness,--and all this done by the exquisite order and +gradation of a very few lines, which, if you will examine them through a +lens, you find dividing and checkering the lip, and cheek, and chin, so +strongly that you would have fancied they could only produce the effect +of a grim iron mask. But the intelligences of order and form guide them +into beauty, and inflame them with delicatest life. + +123. And do you see the size of this head? About as large as the bud of +a forget-me-not! Can you imagine the fineness of the little pressures of +the hand on the steel, in that space, which at the edge of the almost +invisible lip, fashioned its less or more of smile? + +My chemical friends, if you wish ever to know anything rightly +concerning the arts, I very urgently advise you to throw all your vials +and washes down the gutter-trap; and if you will ascribe, as you think +it so clever to do, in your modern creeds, all virtue to the sun, use +that virtue through your own heads and fingers, and apply your solar +energies to draw a skillful line or two, for once or twice in your life. +You may learn more by trying to engrave, like Goodall, the tip of an +ear, or the curl of a lock of hair, than by photographing the entire +population of the United States of America,--black, white, and +neutral-tint. + +And one word, by the way, touching the complaints I hear at my having +set you to so fine work that it hurts your eyes. You have noticed that +all great sculptors--and most of the great painters of Florence--began +by being goldsmiths. Why do you think the goldsmith's apprenticeship is +so fruitful? Primarily, because it forces the boy to do small work, and +mind what he is about. Do you suppose Michael Angelo learned his +business by dashing or hitting at it? He laid the foundation of all his +after power by doing precisely what I am requiring my own pupils to +do,--copying German engravings in facsimile! And for your eyes--you all +sit up at night till you haven't got any eyes worth speaking of. Go to +bed at half-past nine, and get up at four, and you'll see something out +of them, in time. + +124. Nevertheless, whatever admiration you may be brought to feel, and +with justice, for this lovely workmanship,--the more distinctly you +comprehend its merits, the more distinctly also will the question rise +in your mind, How is it that a performance so marvelous has yet taken no +rank in the records of art of any permanent or acknowledged kind? How +is it that these vignettes from Stothard and Turner,[AA] like the +woodcuts from Tenniel, scarcely make the name of the engraver known; and +that they never are found side by side with this older and apparently +ruder art, in the cabinets of men of real judgment? The reason is +precisely the same as in the case of the Tenniel woodcut. This modern +line engraving is alloyed gold. Rich in capacity, astonishing in +attainment, it nevertheless admits willful fault, and misses what it +ought first to have attained. It is therefore, to a certain measure, +vile in its perfection; while the older work is noble even in its +failure, and classic no less in what it deliberately refuses, than in +what it rationally and rightly prefers and performs. + +125. Here, for instance, I have enlarged the head of one of Duerer's +Madonnas for you out of one of his most careful plates.[AB] You think it +very ugly. Well, so it is. Don't be afraid to think so, nor to say so. +Frightfully ugly; vulgar also. It is the head, simply, of a fat Dutch +girl, with all the pleasantness left out. There is not the least doubt +about that. Don't let anybody force Albert Duerer down your throats; nor +make you expect pretty things from him. Stothard's young girl in the +swing, or Sir Joshua's Age of Innocence, is in quite angelic sphere of +another world, compared to this black domain of poor, laborious Albert. +We are not talking of female beauty, so please you, just now, gentlemen, +but of engraving. And the merit, the classical, indefeasible, immortal +merit of this head of a Dutch girl with all the beauty left out, is in +the fact that every line of it, as engraving, is as good as can +be;--good, not with the mechanical dexterity of a watch-maker, but with +the intellectual effort and sensitiveness of an artist who knows +precisely what can be done, and ought to be attempted, with his assigned +materials. He works easily, fearlessly, flexibly; the dots are not all +measured in distance; the lines not all mathematically parallel or +divergent. He has even missed his mark at the mouth in one place, and +leaves the mistake, frankly. But there are no petrified mistakes; nor is +the eye so accustomed to the look of the mechanical furrow as to accept +it for final excellence. The engraving is full of the painter's higher +power and wider perception; it is classically perfect, because duly +subordinate, and presenting for your applause only the virtues proper to +its own sphere. Among these, I must now reiterate, the first of all is +the _decorative_ arrangement of _lines_. + +126. You all know what a pretty thing a damask tablecloth is, and how a +pattern is brought out by threads running one way in one space, and +across in another. So, in lace, a certain delightfulness is given by the +texture of meshed lines. + +Similarly, on any surface of metal, the object of the engraver is, or +ought to be, to cover it with lovely _lines_, forming a lace-work, and +including a variety of spaces, delicious to the eye. + +And this is his business, primarily; before any other matter can be +thought of, his work must be ornamental. You know I told you a +sculptor's business is first to cover a surface with pleasant _bosses_, +whether they mean anything or not; so an engraver's is to cover it with +pleasant _lines_, whether they mean anything or not. That they should +mean something, and a good deal of something, is indeed desirable +afterwards; but first we must be ornamental. + +127. Now if you will compare Plate II. at the beginning of this lecture, +which is a characteristic example of good Florentine engraving, and +represents the Planet and power of Aphrodite, with the Aphrodite of +Bewick in the upper division of Plate I., you will at once understand +the difference between a primarily ornamental, and a primarily +realistic, style. The first requirement in the Florentine work, is that +it shall be a lovely arrangement of lines; a pretty thing upon a page. +Bewick _has_ a secondary notion of making his vignette a pretty thing +upon a page. But he is overpowered by his vigorous veracity, and bent +first on giving you his idea of Venus. Quite right, he would have been, +mind you, if he had been carving a statue of her on Mount Eryx; but not +when he was engraving a vignette to AEsop's fables. To engrave well is to +ornament a surface well, not to create a realistic impression. I beg +your pardon for my repetitions; but the point at issue is the root of +the whole business, and I _must_ get it well asserted, and variously. + +Let me pass to a more important example. + +128. Three years ago, in the rough first arrangement of the copies in +the Educational Series, I put an outline of the top of Apollo's scepter, +which, in the catalogue, was said to be probably by Baccio Bandini of +Florence, for your first real exercise; it remains so, the olive being +put first only for its mythological rank. + +The series of engravings to which the plate from which that exercise is +copied belongs, are part of a number, executed chiefly, I think, from +early designs of Sandro Botticelli, and some in great part by his hand. +He and his assistant, Baccio, worked together; and in such harmony, that +Bandini probably often does what Sandro wants, better than Sandro could +have done it himself; and, on the other hand, there is no design of +Bandini's over which Sandro does not seem to have had influence. + +And wishing now to show you three examples of the finest work of the +old, the renaissance, and the modern schools,--of the old, I will take +Baccio Bandini's Astrologia, Plate III., opposite. Of the renaissance, +Duerer's Adam and Eve. And of the modern, this head of the daughter of +Herodias, engraved from Luini by Beaugrand, which is as +affectionately and sincerely wrought, though in the modern manner, as +any plate of the old schools. + +[Illustration: III. + +"At ev'ning from the top of Fesole."] + +129. Now observe the progress of the feeling for light and shade in the +three examples. + +The first is nearly all white paper; you think of the outline as the +constructive element throughout. + +The second is a vigorous piece of _white_ and _black_--not of _light_ +and _shade_,--for all the high lights are equally white, whether of +flesh, or leaves, or goat's hair. + +The third is complete in chiaroscuro, as far as engraving can be. + +Now the dignity and virtue of the plates is in the exactly inverse ratio +of their fullness in chiaroscuro. + +Bandini's is excellent work, and of the very highest school. Duerer's +entirely accomplished work, but of an inferior school. And Beaugrand's, +excellent work, but of a vulgar and non-classical school. + +And these relations of the schools are to be determined by the quality +in the _lines_; we shall find that in proportion as the light and shade +is neglected, the lines are studied; that those of Bandini are perfect; +of Duerer perfect, only with a lower perfection; but of Beaugrand, +entirely faultful. + +130. I have just explained to you that in modern engraving the lines are +cut in clean furrow, widened, it may be, by successive cuts; but, +whether it be fine or thick, retaining always, when printed, the aspect +of a continuous line drawn with the pen, and entirely black throughout +its whole course. + +Now we may increase the delicacy of this line to any extent by simply +printing it in gray color instead of black. I obtained some very +beautiful results of this kind in the later volumes of 'Modern +Painters,' with Mr. Armytage's help, by using subdued purple tints; but, +in any case, the line thus engraved must be monotonous in its character, +and cannot be expressive of the finest qualities of form. + +Accordingly, the old Florentine workmen constructed the line _itself_, +in important places, of successive minute touches, so that it became a +chain of delicate links which could be opened or closed at +pleasure.[AC] If you will examine through a lens the outline of the face +of this Astrology, you will find it is traced with an exquisite series +of minute touches, susceptible of accentuation or change absolutely at +the engraver's pleasure; and, in result, corresponding to the finest +conditions of a pencil line drawing by a consummate master. In the fine +plates of this period, you have thus the united powers of the pen and +pencil, and both absolutely secure and multipliable. + +131. I am a little proud of having independently discovered, and had the +patience to carry out, this Florentine method of execution for myself, +when I was a boy of thirteen. My good drawing-master had given me some +copies calculated to teach me freedom of hand; the touches were rapid +and vigorous,--many of them in mechanically regular zigzags, far beyond +any capacity of mine to imitate in the bold way in which they were done. +But I was resolved to have them, somehow; and actually facsimiled a +considerable portion of the drawing in the Florentine manner, with the +finest point I could cut to my pencil, taking a quarter of an hour to +forge out the likeness of one return in the zigzag which my master +carried down through twenty returns in two seconds; and so successfully, +that he did not detect my artifice till I showed it him,--on which he +forbade me ever to do the like again. And it was only thirty years +afterwards that I found I had been quite right after all, and working +like Baccio Bandini! But the patience which carried me through that +early effort, served me well through all the thirty years, and enabled +me to analyze, and in a measure imitate, the method of work employed by +every master; so that, whether you believe me or not at first, you will +find what I tell you of their superiority, or inferiority, to be true. + +132. When lines are studied with this degree of care, you may be sure +the master will leave room enough for you to see them and enjoy them, +and not use any at random. All the finest engravers, therefore, leave +much white paper, and use their entire power on the outlines. + +133. Next to them come the men of the Renaissance schools, headed by +Duerer, who, less careful of the beauty and refinement of the line, +delight in its vigor, accuracy, and complexity. And the essential +difference between these men and the moderns is that these central +masters cut their line for the most part with a single furrow, giving it +depth by force of hand or wrist, and retouching, _not in the furrow +itself, but with others beside it_.[AD] Such work can only be done well +on copper, and it can display all faculty of hand or wrist, precision of +eye, and accuracy of knowledge, which a human creature can possess. But +the dotted or hatched line is not used in this central style, and the +higher conditions of beauty never thought of. + +In the Astrology of Bandini,--and remember that the Astrologia of the +Florentine meant what we mean by Astronomy, and much more,--he wishes +you first to look at the face: the lip half open, faltering in wonder; +the amazed, intense, dreaming gaze; the pure dignity of forehead, +undisturbed by terrestrial thought. None of these things could be so +much as attempted in Duerer's method; he can engrave flowing hair, skin +of animals, bark of trees, wreathings of metal-work, with the free hand; +also, with labored chiaroscuro, or with sturdy line, he can reach +expressions of sadness, or gloom, or pain, or soldierly strength,--but +pure beauty,--never. + +134. Lastly, you have the Modern school, deepening its lines in +successive cuts. The instant consequence of the introduction of this +method is the restriction of curvature; you cannot follow a complex +curve again with precision through its furrow. If you are a dextrous +plowman, you can drive your plow any number of times along the simple +curve. But you cannot repeat again exactly the motions which cut a +variable one.[AE] You may retouch it, energize it, and deepen it in +parts, but you cannot cut it all through again equally. And the +retouching and energizing in parts is a living and intellectual process; +but the cutting all through, equally, a mechanical one. The difference +is exactly such as that between the dexterity of turning out two similar +moldings from a lathe, and carving them with the free hand, like a Pisan +sculptor. And although splendid intellect, and subtlest sensibility, +have been spent on the production of some modern plates, the mechanical +element introduced by their manner of execution always overpowers both; +nor _can any plate of consummate value ever be produced in the modern +method_. + +135. Nevertheless, in landscape, there are two examples in your +Reference series, of insuperable skill and extreme beauty: Miller's +plate, before instanced, of the Grand Canal, Venice; and E. Goodall's of +the upper fall of the Tees. The men who engraved these plates might have +been exquisite artists; but their patience and enthusiasm were held +captive in the false system of lines, and we lost the painters; while +the engravings, wonderful as they are, are neither of them worth a +Turner etching, scratched in ten minutes with the point of an old fork; +and the common types of such elaborate engraving are none of them worth +a single frog, pig, or puppy, out of the corner of a Bewick vignette. + +136. And now, I think, you cannot fail to understand clearly what you +are to look for in engraving, as a separate art from that of painting. +Turn back to the 'Astrologia' as a perfect type of the purest school. +She is gazing at stars, and crowned with them. But the stars are _black_ +instead of shining! You cannot have a more decisive and absolute proof +that you must not look in engraving for chiaroscuro. + +Nevertheless, her body is half in shade, and her left foot; and she +casts a shadow, and there is a bar of shade behind her. + +All these are merely so much acceptance of shade as may relieve the +forms, and give value to the linear portions. The face, though turned +from the light, is shadowless. + +Again. Every lock of the hair is designed and set in its place with the +subtlest care, but there is no luster attempted,--no texture,--no +mystery. The plumes of the wings are set studiously in their +places,--they, also, lusterless. That even their filaments are not +drawn, and that the broad curve embracing them ignores the anatomy of a +bird's wing, are conditions of design, not execution. Of these in a +future lecture.[AF] + +[Illustration: IV. + +"By the Springs of PARNASSUS."] + +137. The 'Poesia,' Plate IV., opposite, is a still more severe, though +not so generic, an example; its decorative foreground reducing it almost +to the rank of goldsmith's ornamentation. I need scarcely point out to +you that the flowing water shows neither luster nor reflection; but +notice that the observer's attention is supposed to be so close to every +dark touch of the graver that he will see the minute dark spots which +indicate the sprinkled shower falling from the vase into the pool. + +138. This habit of strict and calm attention, constant in the artist, +and expected in the observer, makes all the difference between the art +of Intellect, and of mere sensation. For every detail of this plate has +a meaning, if you care to understand it. This is Poetry, sitting by the +fountain of Castalia, which flows first out of a formal urn, to show +that it is not artless; but the rocks of Parnassus are behind, and on +the top of them--only one tree, like a mushroom with a thick stalk. You +at first are inclined to say, How very absurd, to put only one tree on +Parnassus! but this one tree is the Immortal Plane Tree, planted by +Agamemnon, and at once connects our Poesia with the Iliad. Then, this +is the hem of the robe of Poetry,--this is the divine vegetation which +springs up under her feet,--this is the heaven and earth united by her +power,--this is the fountain of Castalia flowing out afresh among the +grass,--and these are the drops with which, out of a pitcher, Poetry is +nourishing the fountain of Castalia. + +All which you may find out if you happen to know anything about +Castalia, or about poetry; and pleasantly think more upon, for yourself. +But the poor dunces, Sandro and Baccio, feeling themselves but 'goffi +nell' arte,' have no hope of telling you all this, except suggestively. +They can't engrave grass of Parnassus, nor sweet springs so as to look +like water; but they can make a pretty damasked surface with ornamental +leaves, and flowing lines, and so leave you something to think of--if +you will. + +139. 'But a great many people won't, and a great many more can't; and +surely the finished engravings are much more delightful, and the only +means we have of giving any idea of finished pictures, out of our +reach.' + +Yes, all that is true; and when we examine the effects of line engraving +upon taste in recent art, we will discuss these matters; for the +present, let us be content with knowing what the best work is, and why +it is so. Although, however, I do not now press further my cavils at the +triumph of modern line engraving, I must assign to you, in few words, +the reason of its recent decline. Engravers complain that photography +and cheap wood-cutting have ended their finer craft. No complaint can be +less grounded. They themselves destroyed their own craft, by vulgarizing +it. Content in their beautiful mechanism, they ceased to learn, and to +feel, as artists; they put themselves under the order of publishers and +print-sellers; they worked indiscriminately from whatever was put into +their hands,--from Bartlett as willingly as from Turner, and from +Mulready as carefully as from Raphael. They filled the windows of +print-sellers, the pages of gift books, with elaborate rubbish, and +piteous abortions of delicate industry. They worked cheap, and +cheaper,--smoothly, and more smoothly,--they got armies of assistants, +and surrounded themselves with schools of mechanical tricksters, +learning their stale tricks with blundering avidity. They had +fallen--before the days of photography--into providers of frontispieces +for housekeepers' pocket-books. I do not know if photography itself, +their redoubted enemy, has even now ousted them from that last refuge. + +140. Such the fault of the engraver,--very pardonable; scarcely +avoidable,--however fatal. Fault mainly of humility. But what has _your_ +fault been, gentlemen? what the patrons' fault, who have permitted so +wide waste of admirable labor, so pathetic a uselessness of obedient +genius? It was yours to have directed, yours to have raised and rejoiced +in, the skill, the modesty, the patience of this entirely gentle and +industrious race;--copyists with their _heart_. The common +painter-copyists who encumber our European galleries with their easels +and pots, are, almost without exception, persons too stupid to be +painters, and too lazy to be engravers. The real copyists--the men who +can put their soul into another's work--are employed at home, in their +narrow rooms, striving to make their good work profitable to all men. +And in their submission to the public taste they are truly national +servants as much as Prime Ministers are. They fulfill the demand of the +nation; what, as a people, you wish to have for possession in art, these +men are ready to give you. + +And what have you hitherto asked of them?--Ramsgate Sands, and Dolly +Vardens, and the Paddington Station,--these, I think, are typical of +your chief demands; the cartoons of Raphael--which you don't care to see +themselves; and, by way of a flight into the empyrean, the Madonna di +San Sisto. And literally, there are hundreds of cities and villages in +Italy in which roof and wall are blazoned with the noblest divinity and +philosophy ever imagined by men; and of all this treasure, I can, as far +as I know, give you not _one_ example, in line engraving, by an English +hand! + +Well, you are in the main matter right in this. You want essentially +Ramsgate Sands and the Paddington Station, because there you can see +yourselves. + +Make yourselves, then, worthy to be seen forever, and let English +engraving become noble as the record of English loveliness and honor. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[X] Miller's large plate of the Grand Canal, Venice, after Turner; and +Goodall's, of Tivoli, after Turner. The other examples referred to are +left in the University Galleries. + +[Y] This paragraph was not read at the lecture, time not allowing:--it +is part of what I wrote on engraving some years ago, in the papers for +the Art Journal, called the Cestus of Aglaia. (Refer now to "On the Old +Road.") + +[Z] An effort has lately been made in France, by Meissonier, Gerome, and +their school, to recover it, with marvelous collateral skill of +engravers. The etching of Gerome's Louis XIV. and Moliere is one of the +completest pieces of skillful mechanism ever put on metal. + +[AA] I must again qualify the too sweeping statement of the text. I +think, as time passes, some of these nineteenth century line engravings +will become monumental. The first vignette of the garden, with the cut +hedges and fountain, for instance, in Rogers' poems, is so consummate in +its use of every possible artifice of delicate line, (note the look of +_tremulous_ atmosphere got by the undulatory etched lines on the +pavement, and the broken masses, worked with dots, of the fountain +foam,) that I think it cannot but, with some of its companions, survive +the refuse of its school, and become classic. I find in like manner, +even with all their faults and weaknesses, the vignettes to Heyne's +Virgil to be real art-possessions. + +[AB] Plate XI., in the Appendix, taken from the engraving of the Virgin +sitting in the fenced garden, with two angels crowning her. + +[AC] The method was first developed in engraving designs on +silver--numbers of lines being executed with dots by the punch, for +variety's sake. For niello, and printing, a transverse cut was +substituted for the blow. The entire style is connected with the later +Roman and Byzantine method of drawing lines with the drill hole, in +marble. See above, Lecture II., Section 70. + +[AD] This most important and distinctive character was pointed out to me +by Mr. Burgess. + +[AE] This point will be further examined and explained in the Appendix. + +[AF] See Appendix, Article I. + + + + + LECTURE V. + + DESIGN IN THE GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. + + +141. By reference to the close of the preface to 'Eagle's Nest,' you +will see, gentlemen, that I meant these lectures, from the first, rather +to lead you to the study of the characters of two great men, than to +interest you in the processes of a secondary form of art. As I draw my +materials into the limited form necessary for the hour, I find my +divided purpose doubly failing; and would fain rather use my time to-day +in supplying the defects of my last lecture, than in opening the greater +subject, which I must treat with still more lamentable inadequacy. +Nevertheless, you must not think it is for want of time that I omit +reference to other celebrated engravers, and insist on the special power +of these two only. Many not inconsiderable reputations are founded +merely on the curiosity of collectors of prints, or on partial skill in +the management of processes; others, though resting on more secure +bases, are still of no importance to you in the general history of art; +whereas you will find the work of Holbein and Botticelli determining for +you, without need of any farther range, the principal questions of +moment in the relation of the Northern and Southern schools of design. +Nay, a wider method of inquiry would only render your comparison less +accurate in result. It is only in Holbein's majestic range of capacity, +and only in the particular phase of Teutonic life which his art adorned, +that the problem can be dealt with on fair terms. We Northerns can +advance no fairly comparable antagonist to the artists of the South, +except at that one moment, and in that one man. Rubens cannot for an +instant be matched with Tintoret, nor Memling with Lippi; while +Reynolds only rivals Titian in what he learned from him. But in Holbein +and Botticelli we have two men trained independently, equal in power of +intellect, similar in material and mode of work, contemporary in age, +correspondent in disposition. The relation between them is strictly +typical of the constant aspects to each other of the Northern and +Southern schools. + +142. Their point of closest contact is in the art of engraving, and this +art is developed entirely as the servant of the great passions which +perturbed or polluted Europe in the fifteenth century. The impulses +which it obeys are all new; and it obeys them with its own nascent +plasticity of temper. Painting and sculpture are only modified by them; +but engraving is educated. + +These passions are in the main three; namely, + +1. The thirst for classical literature, and the forms of proud and false +taste which arose out of it, in the position it had assumed as the enemy +of Christianity. + +2. The pride of science, enforcing (in the particular domain of Art) +accuracy of perspective, shade, and anatomy, never before dreamed of. + +3. The sense of error and iniquity in the theological teaching of the +Christian Church, felt by the highest intellects of the time, and +necessarily rendering the formerly submissive religious art impossible. + +To-day, then, our task is to examine the peculiar characters of the +Design of the Northern Schools of Engraving, as affected by these great +influences. + +143. I have not often, however, used the word 'design,' and must clearly +define the sense in which I now use it. It is vaguely used in common +art-parlance; often as if it meant merely the drawing of a picture, as +distinct from its color; and in other still more inaccurate ways. The +accurate and proper sense, underlying all these, I must endeavor to make +clear to you. + +'Design' properly signifies that power in any art-work which has a +purpose other than of imitation, and which is 'designed,' composed, or +separated to that end. It implies the rejection of some things, and the +insistence upon others, with a given object.[AG] + +Let us take progressive instances. Here is a group of prettily dressed +peasant children, charmingly painted by a very able modern artist--not +absolutely without design, for he really wishes to show you how pretty +peasant children can be, (and, in so far, is wiser and kinder than +Murillo, who likes to show how ugly they can be); also, his group is +agreeably arranged, and its component children carefully chosen. +Nevertheless, any summer's day, near any country village, you may come +upon twenty groups in an hour as pretty as this; and may see--if you +have eyes--children in them twenty times prettier than these. A +photograph, if it could render them perfectly, and in color, would far +excel the charm of this painting; for in it, good and clever as it is, +there is nothing supernatural, and much that is subnatural. + +144. Beside this group of, in every sense of the word, 'artless' little +country girls, I will now set one--in the best sense of the +word--'artful' little country girl,--a sketch by Gainsborough. + +You never saw her like before. Never will again, now that Gainsborough +is dead. No photography,--no science,--no industry, will touch or reach +for an instant this _super_-naturalness. You will look vainly through +the summer fields for such a child. "Nor up the lawn, nor by the wood," +is she. Whence do you think this marvelous charm has come? Alas! if we +knew, would not we all be Gainsboroughs? This only you may practically +ascertain, as surely as that a flower will die if you cut its root away, +that you cannot alter a single touch in Gainsborough's work without +injury to the whole. Half a dozen spots, more or less, in the printed +gowns of these other children whom I first showed you, will not make the +smallest difference to them; nor a lock or two more or less in their +hair, nor a dimple or two more or less in their cheeks. But if you alter +one wave of the hair of Gainsborough's girl, the child is gone. Yet the +art is so subtle, that I do not expect you to believe this. It looks so +instinctive, so easy, so 'chanceux,'--the French word is better than +ours. Yes, and in their more accurate sense, also, 'Il a de la chance.' +A stronger Designer than he was with him. He could not tell you himself +how the thing was done. + +145. I proceed to take a more definite instance--this Greek head of the +Lacinian Juno. The design or appointing of the forms now entirely +prevails over the resemblance to Nature. No real hair could ever be +drifted into these wild lines, which mean the wrath of the Adriatic +winds round the Cape of Storms. + +And yet, whether this be uglier or prettier than Gainsborough's +child--(and you know already what I think about it, that no Greek +goddess was ever half so pretty as an English girl, of pure clay and +temper,)--uglier or prettier, it is more dignified and impressive. It at +least belongs to the domain of a lordlier, more majestic, more guiding +and ordaining art. + +146. I will go back another five hundred years, and place an Egyptian +beside the Greek divinity. The resemblance to Nature is now all but +lost, the ruling law has become all. The lines are reduced to an easily +counted number, and their arrangement is little more than a decorative +sequence of pleasant curves cut in porphyry,--in the upper part of +their contour following the outline of a woman's face in profile, +over-crested by that of a hawk, on a kind of pedestal. But that the +sign-engraver meant by his hawk, Immortality, and by her pedestal, the +House or Tavern of Truth, is of little importance now to the passing +traveler, not yet preparing to take the sarcophagus for his place of +rest. + +147. How many questions are suggested to us by these transitions! Is +beauty contrary to law, and grace attainable only through license? What +we gain in language, shall we lose in thought? and in what we add of +labor, more and more forget its ends? + +Not so. + +Look at this piece of Sandro's work, the Libyan Sibyl.[AH] + +It is as ordered and normal as the Egyptian's--as graceful and facile as +Gainsborough's. It retains the majesty of old religion; it is invested +with the joy of newly awakened childhood. + +Mind, I do not expect you--do not wish you--to enjoy Botticelli's dark +engraving as much as Gainsborough's aerial sketch; for due comparison of +the men, painting should be put beside painting. But there is enough +even in this copy of the Florentine plate to show you the junction of +the two powers in it--of prophecy, and delight. + +148. Will these two powers, do you suppose, be united in the same manner +in the contemporary Northern art? That Northern school is my subject +to-day; and yet I give you, as type of the intermediate condition +between Egypt and England--not Holbein, but Botticelli. I am obliged to +do this; because in the Southern art, the religious temper remains +unconquered by the doctrines of the Reformation. Botticelli was--what +Luther wished to be, but could not be--a reformer still believing in the +Church: his mind is at peace; and his art, therefore, can pursue the +delight of beauty, and yet remain prophetic. But it was far otherwise in +Germany. There the Reformation of manners became the destruction of +faith; and art therefore, not a prophecy, but a protest. It is the +chief work of the greatest Protestant who ever lived,[AI] which I ask +you to study with me to-day. + +149. I said that the power of engraving had developed itself during the +introduction of three new--(practically and vitally new, that is to +say)--elements, into the minds of men: elements which briefly may be +expressed thus: + + 1. Classicism, and Literary Science. + + 2. Medicine, and Physical Science.[AJ] + + 3. Reformation, and Religious Science. + +And first of Classicism. + +You feel, do not you, in this typical work of Gainsborough's, that his +subject as well as his picture is 'artless' in a lovely sense;--nay, not +only artless, but ignorant, and unscientific, in a beautiful way? You +would be afterwards remorseful, I think, and angry with yourself--seeing +the effect produced on her face--if you were to ask this little lady to +spell a very long word? Also, if you wished to know how many times the +sevens go in forty-nine, you would perhaps wisely address yourself +elsewhere. On the other hand, you do not doubt that _this_ lady[AK] +knows very well how many times the sevens go in forty-nine, and is more +Mistress of Arts than any of us are Masters of them. + +150. You have then, in the one case, a beautiful simplicity, and a +blameless ignorance; in the other, a beautiful artfulness, and a wisdom +which you do not dread,--or, at least, even though dreading, love. But +you know also that we may remain in a hateful and culpable ignorance; +and, as I fear too many of us in competitive effort feel, become +possessed of a hateful knowledge. + +Ignorance, therefore, is not evil absolutely; but, innocent, may be +lovable. + +Knowledge also is not good absolutely; but, guilty, may be hateful. + +So, therefore, when I now repeat my former statement, that the first +main opposition between the Northern and Southern schools is in the +simplicity of the one, and the scholarship of the other, that statement +may imply sometimes the superiority of the North, and sometimes of the +South. You may have a heavenly simplicity opposed to a hellish (that is +to say, a lustful and arrogant) scholarship; or you may have a barbarous +and presumptuous ignorance opposed to a divine and disciplined wisdom. +Ignorance opposed to learning in both cases; but evil to good, as the +case may be. + +151. For instance: the last time I was standing before Raphael's +arabesques in the Loggias of the Vatican, I wrote down in my pocket-book +the description, or, more modestly speaking, the inventory, of the small +portion of that infinite wilderness of sensual fantasy which happened to +be opposite me. It consisted of a woman's face, with serpents for hair, +and a virgin's breasts, with stumps for arms, ending in blue +butterflies' wings, the whole changing at the waist into a goat's body, +which ended below in an obelisk upside-down, to the apex at the bottom +of which were appended, by graceful chains, an altar, and two bunches of +grapes. + +Now you know in a moment, by a glance at this 'design'--beautifully +struck with free hand, and richly gradated in color,--that the master +was familiar with a vast range of art and literature: that he knew all +about Egyptian sphinxes, and Greek Gorgons; about Egyptian obelisks, and +Hebrew altars; about Hermes, and Venus, and Bacchus, and satyrs, and +goats, and grapes. + +You know also--or ought to know, in an instant,--that all this learning +has done him no good; that he had better have known nothing than any of +these things, since they were to be used by him only to such purpose; +and that his delight in armless breasts, legless trunks, and obelisks +upside-down, has been the last effort of his expiring sensation, in the +grasp of corrupt and altogether victorious Death. And you have thus, in +Gainsborough as compared with Raphael, a sweet, sacred, and living +simplicity, set against an impure, profane, and paralyzed knowledge. + +152. But, next, let us consider the reverse conditions. + +Let us take instance of contrast between faultful and treacherous +ignorance, and divinely pure and fruitful knowledge. + +In the place of honor at the end of one of the rooms of your Royal +Academy--years ago--stood a picture by an English Academician, announced +as a representation of Moses sustained by Aaron and Hur, during the +discomfiture of Amalek. In the entire range of the Pentateuch, there is +no other scene (in which the visible agents are mortal only) requiring +so much knowledge and thought to reach even a distant approximation to +the probabilities of the fact. One saw in a moment that the painter was +both powerful and simple, after a sort; that he had really sought for a +vital conception, and had originally and earnestly read his text, and +formed his conception. And one saw also in a moment that he had chanced +upon this subject, in reading or hearing his Bible, as he might have +chanced on a dramatic scene accidentally in the street. That he knew +nothing of the character of Moses,--nothing of his law,--nothing of the +character of Aaron, nor of the nature of a priesthood,--nothing of the +meaning of the event which he was endeavoring to represent, of the +temper in which it would have been transacted by its agents, or of its +relations to modern life. + +153. On the contrary, in the fresco of the earlier scenes in the life of +Moses, by Sandro Botticelli, you know--not 'in a moment,' for the +knowledge of knowledge cannot be so obtained; but in proportion to the +discretion of your own reading, and to the care you give to the picture, +you _may_ know,--that here is a sacredly guided and guarded learning; +here a Master indeed, at whose feet you may sit safely, who can teach +you, better than in words, the significance of both Moses' law and +Aaron's ministry; and not only these, but, if he chose, could add to +this an exposition as complete of the highest philosophies both of the +Greek nation, and of his own; and could as easily have painted, had it +been asked of him, Draco, or Numa, or Justinian, as the herdsman of +Jethro. + +154. It is rarely that we can point to an opposition between faultful, +because insolent, ignorance, and virtuous, because gracious, knowledge, +so direct, and in so parallel elements, as in this instance. In general, +the analysis is much more complex. It is intensely difficult to indicate +the mischief of involuntary and modest ignorance, calamitous only in a +measure; fruitful in its lower field, yet sorrowfully condemned to that +lower field--not by sin, but fate. + +When first I introduced you to Bewick, we closed our too partial +estimate of his entirely magnificent powers with one sorrowful +concession--he could draw a pig, but not a Venus. + +Eminently he could so, because--which is still more sorrowfully to be +conceded--he liked the pig best. I have put now in your educational +series a whole galaxy of pigs by him; but, hunting all the fables +through, I find only one Venus, and I think you will all admit that she +is an unsatisfactory Venus.[AL] There is honest simplicity here; but you +regret it; you miss something that you find in Holbein, much more in +Botticelli. You see in a moment that this man knows nothing of Sphinxes, +or Muses, or Graces, or Aphrodites; and, besides, that, knowing nothing, +he would have no liking for them even if he saw them; but much prefers +the style of a well-to-do English housekeeper with corkscrew curls, and +a portly person. + +155. You miss something, I said, in Bewick which you find in Holbein. +But do you suppose Holbein himself, or any other Northern painter, could +wholly quit himself of the like accusations? I told you, in the second +of these lectures, that the Northern temper, refined from savageness, +and the Southern, redeemed from decay, met, in Florence. Holbein and +Botticelli are the purest types of the two races. Holbein is a civilized +boor; Botticelli a reanimate Greek. Holbein was polished by +companionship with scholars and kings, but remains always a burgher of +Augsburg in essential nature. Bewick and he are alike in temper; only +the one is untaught, the other perfectly taught. But Botticelli _needs_ +no teaching. He is, by his birth, scholar and gentleman to the heart's +core. Christianity itself can only inspire him, not refine him. He is as +tried gold chased by the jeweler,--the roughest part of him is the +outside. + +Now how differently must the newly recovered scholastic learning tell +upon these two men. It is all out of Holbein's way; foreign to his +nature, useless at the best, probably cumbrous. But Botticelli receives +it as a child in later years recovers the forgotten dearness of a +nursery tale; and is more himself, and again and again himself, as he +breathes the air of Greece, and hears, in his own Italy, the lost voice +of the Sibyl murmur again by the Avernus Lake. + +156. It is not, as we have seen, every one of the Southern race who can +thus receive it. But it graces them all; is at once a part of their +being; destroys them, if it is to destroy, the more utterly because it +so enters into their natures. It destroys Raphael; but it graces him, +and is a part of him. It all but destroys Mantegna; but it graces him. +And it does not hurt Holbein, just because it does _not_ grace +him--never is for an instant a part of him. It is with Raphael as with +some charming young girl who has a new and beautifully made dress +brought to her, which entirely becomes her,--so much, that in a little +while, thinking of nothing else, she becomes _it_; and is only the +decoration of her dress. But with Holbein it is as if you brought the +same dress to a stout farmer's daughter who was going to dine at the +Hall; and begged her to put it on that she might not discredit the +company. She puts it on to please you; looks entirely ridiculous in it, +but is not spoiled by it,--remains herself, in spite of it. + +157. You probably have never noticed the extreme awkwardness of Holbein +in wearing this new dress; you would the less do so because his own +people think him all the finer for it, as the farmer's wife would +probably think her daughter. Dr. Woltmann, for instance, is enthusiastic +in praise of the splendid architecture in the background of his +Annunciation. A fine mess it must have made in the minds of simple +German maidens, in their notion of the Virgin at home! I cannot show you +this Annunciation; but I have under my hand one of Holbein's Bible cuts, +of the deepest seriousness and import--his illustration of the +Canticles, showing the Church as the bride of Christ. + +[Illustration] + +You could not find a subject requiring more tenderness, purity, or +dignity of treatment. In this maid, symbolizing the Church, you ask for +the most passionate humility, the most angelic beauty: "Behold, thou art +fair, my dove." Now here is Holbein's ideal of that fairness; here is +his "Church as the Bride." + +I am sorry to associate this figure in your minds, even for a moment, +with the passages it is supposed to illustrate; but the lesson is too +important to be omitted. Remember, Holbein represents the temper of +Northern Reformation. He has all the nobleness of that temper, but also +all its baseness. He represents, indeed, the revolt of German truth +against Italian lies; but he represents also the revolt of German +animalism against Hebrew imagination. This figure of Holbein's is +half-way from Solomon's mystic bride, to Rembrandt's wife, sitting on +his knee while he drinks. + +But the key of the question is not in this. Florentine animalism has at +this time, also, enough to say for itself. But Florentine animalism, at +this time, feels the joy of a gentleman, not of a churl. And a +Florentine, whatever he does,--be it virtuous or sinful, chaste or +lascivious, severe or extravagant,--does it with a grace. + +158. You think, perhaps, that Holbein's Solomon's bride is so ungraceful +chiefly because she is overdressed, and has too many feathers and +jewels. No; a Florentine would have put any quantity of feathers and +jewels on her, and yet never lost her grace. You shall see him do it, +and that to a fantastic degree, for I have an example under my hand. +Look back, first, to Bewick's Venus (Lecture III.). You can't accuse her +of being overdressed. She complies with every received modern principle +of taste. Sir Joshua's precept that drapery should be "drapery, and +nothing more," is observed more strictly even by Bewick than by Michael +Angelo. If the absence of decoration could exalt the beauty of his +Venus, here had been her perfection. + +Now look back to Plate II. (Lecture IV.), by Sandro; Venus in her +planet, the ruling star of Florence. Anything more grotesque in +conception, more unrestrained in fancy of ornament, you cannot find, +even in the final days of the Renaissance. Yet Venus holds her divinity +through all; she will become majestic to you as you gaze; and there is +not a line of her chariot wheels, of her buskins, or of her throne, +which you may not see was engraved by a gentleman. + +[Illustration: V. + +"Heat considered as a Mode of Motion." + +Florentine Natural Philosophy.] + +159. Again, Plate V., opposite, is a facsimile of another engraving of +the same series--the Sun in Leo. It is even more extravagant in +accessories than the Venus. You see the Sun's epaulets before you see +the sun; the spiral scrolls of his chariot, and the black twisted rays +of it, might, so far as types of form only are considered, be a design +for some modern court-dress star, to be made in diamonds. And yet all +this wild ornamentation is, if you will examine it, more purely Greek in +spirit than the Apollo Belvedere. + +You know I have told you, again and again, that the soul of Greece is +her veracity; that what to other nations were fables and symbolisms, to +her became living facts--living gods. The fall of Greece was instant +when her gods again became fables. The Apollo Belvedere is the work of a +sculptor to whom Apollonism is merely an elegant idea on which to +exhibit his own skill. He does not himself feel for an instant that the +handsome man in the unintelligible attitude,[AM] with drapery hung over +his left arm, as it would be hung to dry over a clothes-line, is the +Power of the Sun. But the Florentine believes in Apollo with his whole +mind, and is trying to explain his strength in every touch. + +For instance; I said just now, "You see the sun's epaulets before the +sun." Well, _don't_ you, usually, as it rises? Do you not continually +mistake a luminous cloud for it, or wonder where it is, behind one? +Again, the face of the Apollo Belvedere is agitated by anxiety, passion, +and pride. Is the sun's likely to be so, rising on the evil and the +good? This Prince sits crowned and calm: look at the quiet fingers of +the hand holding the scepter,--at the restraint of the reins merely by a +depression of the wrist. + +160. You have to look carefully for those fingers holding the scepter, +because the hand--which a great anatomist would have made so exclusively +interesting--is here confused with the ornamentation of the arm of the +chariot on which it rests. But look what the ornamentation is;--fruit +and leaves, abundant, in the mouth of a cornucopia. A quite vulgar and +meaningless ornament in ordinary renaissance work. Is it so here, think +you? Are not the leaves and fruits of earth in the Sun's hand?[AN] + +You thought, perhaps, when I spoke just now of the action of the right +hand, that less than a depression of the wrist would stop horses such as +those. You fancy Botticelli drew them so, because he had never seen a +horse; or because, able to draw fingers, he could not draw hoofs! How +fine it would be to have, instead, a prancing four-in-hand, in the style +of Piccadilly on the Derby-day, or at least horses like the real Greek +horses of the Parthenon! + +Yes; and if they had had real ground to trot on, the Florentine would +have shown you he knew how they should trot. But these have to make +their way up the hill-side of other lands. Look to the example in your +standard series, Hermes Eriophoros. You will find his motion among +clouds represented precisely in this laboring, failing, half-kneeling +attitude of limb. These forms, toiling up through the rippled sands of +heaven, are--not horses;--they are clouds themselves, _like_ horses, but +only a little like. Look how their hoofs lose themselves, buried in the +ripples of cloud; it makes one think of the quicksands of Morecambe Bay. + +And their tails--what extraordinary tufts of tails, ending in points! +Yes; but do you not see, nearly joining with them, what is not a horse +tail at all; but a flame of fire, kindled at Apollo's knee? All the rest +of the radiance about him shoots _from_ him. But this is rendered _up_ +to him. As the fruits of the earth are in one of his hands, its fire is +in the other. And all the warmth, as well as all the light of it, are +his. + +We had a little natural philosophy, gentlemen, as well as theology, in +Florence, once upon a time. + +161. Natural philosophy, and also natural art, for in this the Greek +reanimate was a nobler creature than the Greek who had died. His art had +a wider force and warmer glow. I have told you that the first Greeks +were distinguished from the barbarians by their simple humanity; the +second Greeks--these Florentine Greeks reanimate--are human more +strongly, more deeply, leaping from the Byzantine death at the call of +Christ, "Loose him, and let him go." And there is upon them at once the +joy of resurrection, and the solemnity of the grave. + +[Illustration: VI. + +Fairness of the Sea and Air. + +In VENICE and ATHENS.] + +162. Of this resurrection of the Greek, and the form of the tomb he had +been buried in "those four days," I have to give you some account in the +last lecture. I will only to-day show you an illustration of it which +brings us back to our immediate question as to the reasons why Northern +art could not accept classicism. When, in the closing lecture of "Aratra +Pentelici,"[AO] I compared Florentine with Greek work, it was to point +out to you the eager passions of the first as opposed to the formal +legalism and proprieties of the other. Greek work, I told you, while +truthful, was also restrained, and never but under majesty of law; while +Gothic work was true, in the perfect law of Liberty or Franchise. And +now I give you in facsimile (Plate VI.) the two Aphrodites thus +compared--the Aphrodite Thalassia of the Tyrrhene seas, and the +Aphrodite Urania of the Greek skies. You may not at first like the +Tuscan best; and why she is the best, though both are noble, again I +must defer explaining to next lecture. But now turn back to Bewick's +Venus, and compare her with the Tuscan Venus of the Stars, (Plate II.); +and then here, in Plate VI., with the Tuscan Venus of the Seas, and the +Greek Venus of the Sky. Why is the English one vulgar? What is it, in +the three others, which makes them, if not beautiful, at least +refined?--every one of them 'designed' and drawn, indisputably, by a +gentleman? + +I never have been so puzzled by any subject of analysis as, for these +ten years, I have been by this. Every answer I give, however plausible +it seems at first, fails in some way, or in some cases. But there is +the point for you, more definitely put, I think, than in any of my +former books;--at present, for want of time, I must leave it to your own +thoughts. + +163. II. The second influence under which engraving developed itself, I +said, was that of medicine and the physical sciences. Gentlemen, the +most audacious, and the most valuable, statement which I have yet made +to you on the subject of practical art, in these rooms, is that of the +evil resulting from the study of anatomy. It is a statement so +audacious, that not only for some time I dared not make it to you, but +for ten years, at least, I dared not make it to myself. I saw, indeed, +that whoever studied anatomy was in a measure injured by it; but I kept +attributing the mischief to secondary causes. It _can't_ be this drink +itself that poisons them, I said always. This drink is medicinal and +strengthening: I see that it kills them, but it must be because they +drink it cold when they have been hot, or they take something else with +it that changes it into poison. The drink itself _must_ be good. Well, +gentlemen, I found out the drink itself to be poison at last, by the +breaking of my choicest Venice glass. I could not make out what it was +that had killed Tintoret, and laid it long to the charge of chiaroscuro. +It was only after my thorough study of his Paradise, in 1870, that I +gave up this idea, finding the chiaroscuro, which I had thought +exaggerated, was, in all original and undarkened passages, beautiful and +most precious. And then at last I got hold of the true clue: "Il disegno +di Michel Agnolo." And the moment I had dared to accuse that, it +explained everything; and I saw that the betraying demons of Italian +art, led on by Michael Angelo, had been, not pleasure, but knowledge; +not indolence, but ambition; and not love, but horror. + +164. But when first I ventured to tell you this, I did not know, myself, +the fact of all most conclusive for its confirmation. It will take me a +little while to put it before you in its total force, and I must first +ask your attention to a minor point. In one of the smaller rooms of the +Munich Gallery is Holbein's painting of St. Margaret and St. Elizabeth +of Hungary,--standard of his early religious work. Here is a photograph +from the St. Elizabeth; and, in the same frame, a French lithograph of +it. I consider it one of the most important pieces of comparison I have +arranged for you, showing you at a glance the difference between true +and false sentiment. Of that difference, generally, we cannot speak +to-day, but one special result of it you are to observe;--the omission, +in the French drawing, of Holbein's daring representation of disease, +which is one of the vital honors of the picture. Quite one of the chief +strengths of St. Elizabeth, in the Roman Catholic view, was in the +courage of her dealing with disease, chiefly leprosy. Now observe, I say +_Roman_ Catholic view, very earnestly just now; I am not at all sure +that it is so in a Catholic view--that is to say, in an eternally +Christian and Divine view. And this doubt, very nearly now a certainty, +only came clearly into my mind the other day after many and many a +year's meditation on it. I had read with great reverence all the +beautiful stories about Christ's appearing as a leper, and the like; and +had often pitied and rebuked myself alternately for my intense dislike +and horror of disease. I am writing at this moment within fifty yards of +the grave of St. Francis, and the story of the likeness of his feelings +to mine had a little comforted me, and the tradition of his conquest of +them again humiliated me; and I was thinking very gravely of this, and +of the parallel instance of Bishop Hugo of Lincoln, always desiring to +do service to the dead, as opposed to my own unmitigated and +Louis-Quinze-like horror of funerals;--when by chance, in the cathedral +of Palermo, a new light was thrown for me on the whole matter. + +165. I was drawing the tomb of Frederick II., which is shut off by a +grating from the body of the church; and I had, in general, quite an +unusual degree of quiet and comfort at my work. But sometimes it was +paralyzed by the unconscious interference of one of the men employed in +some minor domestic services about the church. When he had nothing to +do, he used to come and seat himself near my grating, not to look at my +work, (the poor wretch had no eyes, to speak of,) nor in any way +meaning to be troublesome; but there was his habitual seat. His nose had +been carried off by the most loathsome of diseases; there were two vivid +circles of scarlet round his eyes; and as he sat, he announced his +presence every quarter of a minute (if otherwise I could have forgotten +it) by a peculiarly disgusting, loud, and long expectoration. On the +second or third day, just I had forced myself into some forgetfulness of +him, and was hard at my work, I was startled from it again by the +bursting out of a loud and cheerful conversation close to me; and on +looking round, saw a lively young fledgling of a priest, seventeen or +eighteen years old, in the most eager and spirited chat with the man in +the chair. He talked, laughed, and spat, himself, companionably, in the +merriest way, for a quarter of an hour; evidently without feeling the +slightest disgust, or being made serious for an instant, by the aspect +of the destroyed creature before him. + +166. His own face was simply that of the ordinary vulgar type of +thoughtless young Italians, rather beneath than above the usual +standard; and I was certain, as I watched him, that he was not at all my +superior, but very much my inferior, in the coolness with which he +beheld what was to me so dreadful. I was positive that he could look +this man in the face, precisely because he could _not_ look, +discerningly, at any beautiful or noble thing; and that the reason I +dared not, was because I had, spiritually, as much better eyes than the +priest, as, bodily, than his companion. + +Having got so much of clear evidence given me on the matter, it was +driven home for me a week later, as I landed on the quay of Naples. +Almost the first thing that presented itself to me was the sign of a +traveling theatrical company, displaying the principal scene of the +drama to be enacted on their classical stage. Fresh from the theater of +Taormina, I was curious to see the subject of the Neapolitan popular +drama. It was the capture, by the police, of a man and his wife who +lived by boiling children. One section of the police was coming in, +armed to the teeth, through the passage; another section of the police, +armed to the teeth, and with high feathers in its caps, was coming up +through a trap-door. In fine dramatic unconsciousness to the last +moment, like the clown in a pantomime, the child-boiler was represented +as still industriously chopping up a child, pieces of which, ready for +the pot, lay here and there on the table in the middle of the picture. +The child-boiler's wife, however, just as she was taking the top off the +pot to put the meat in, had caught a glimpse of the foremost policeman, +and stopped, as much in rage as in consternation. + +167. Now it is precisely the same feeling, or want of feeling, in the +lower Italian (nor always in the lower classes only) which makes him +demand the kind of subject for his secular drama; and the Crucifixion +and Pieta for his religious drama. The only part of Christianity he can +enjoy is its horror; and even the saint and saintess are not always +denying themselves severely, either by the contemplation of torture, or +the companionship with disease. + +Nevertheless, we must be cautious, on the other hand, to allow full +value to the endurance, by tender and delicate persons, of what is +really loathsome or distressful to them in the service of others; and I +think this picture of Holbein's indicative of the exact balance and +rightness of his own mind in this matter, and therefore of his power to +conceive a true saint also. He had to represent St. Catherine's chief +effort;--he paints her ministering to the sick, and, among them, is a +leper; and finding it thus his duty to paint leprosy, he courageously +himself studies it from the life. Not to insist on its horror; but to +assert it, to the needful point of fact, which he does with medical +accuracy. + +Now here is just a case in which science, in a subordinate degree, is +really required for a spiritual and moral purpose. And you find Holbein +does not shrink from it even in this extreme case in which it is most +painful. + +168. If, therefore, you _do_ find him in other cases not using it, you +may be sure he knew it to be unnecessary. + +Now it may be disputable whether in order to draw a living Madonna, one +needs to know how many ribs she has; but it would have seemed +indisputable that in order to draw a skeleton, one must know how many +ribs _it_ has. + +Holbein is par excellence the draughtsman of skeletons. His painted +Dance of Death was, and his engraved Dance of Death is, principal of +such things, without any comparison or denial. He draws skeleton after +skeleton, in every possible gesture; but never so much as counts their +ribs! He neither knows nor cares how many ribs a skeleton has. There are +always enough to rattle. + +Monstrous, you think, in impudence,--Holbein for his carelessness, and I +for defending him! Nay, I triumph in him; nothing has ever more pleased +me than this grand negligence. Nobody wants to know how many ribs a +skeleton has, any more than how many bars a gridiron has, so long as the +one can breathe, and the other broil; and still less, when the breath +and the fire are both out. + +169. But is it only of the bones, think you, that Holbein is +careless?[AP] Nay, incredible though it may seem to you,--but, to me, +explanatory at once of much of his excellence,--he did not know anatomy +at all! I told you in my Preface,[AQ] already quoted, Holbein studies +the face first, the body secondarily; but I had no idea, myself, how +completely he had refused the venomous science of his day. I showed you +a dead Christ of his, long ago. Can you match it with your academy +drawings, think you? And yet he did not, and would not, know anatomy. +_He_ would not; but Duerer would, and did:--went hotly into it--wrote +books upon it, and upon 'proportions of the human body,' etc., etc., and +all your modern recipes for painting flesh. How did his studies prosper +his art? + +People are always talking of his Knight and Death, and his Melancholia, +as if those were his principal works. They are his characteristic ones, +and show what he might have been _without_ his anatomy; but they were +mere by-play compared to his Greater Fortune, and Adam and Eve. Look at +these. Here is his full energy displayed; here are both male and female +forms drawn with perfect knowledge of their bones and muscles, and modes +of action and digestion,--and I hope you are pleased. + +But it is not anatomy only that Master Albert studies. He has a taste +for optics also; and knows all about refraction and reflection. What +with his knowledge of the skull inside, and the vitreous lens outside, +if any man in the world is to draw an eye, here's the man to do it, +surely! With a hand which can give lessons to John Bellini, and a care +which would fain do all so that it can't be done better, and +acquaintance with every crack in the cranium, and every humor in the +lens,--if we can't draw an eye, we should just like to know who can! +thinks Albert. + +So having to engrave the portrait of Melanchthon, instead of looking at +Melanchthon as ignorant Holbein would have been obliged to do,--wise +Albert looks at the room window; and finds it has four cross-bars in it, +and knows scientifically that the light on Melanchthon's eye must be a +reflection of the window with its four bars--and engraves it so, +accordingly; and who shall dare to say, now, it isn't like Melanchthon? + +Unfortunately, however, it isn't, nor like any other person in his +senses; but like a madman looking at somebody who disputes his hobby. +While in this drawing of Holbein's, where a dim gray shadow leaves a +mere crumb of white paper,--accidentally it seems, for all the fine +scientific reflection,--behold, it is an eye indeed, and of a noble +creature. + +170. What is the reason? do you ask me; and is all the common teaching +about generalization of details true, then? + +No; not a syllable of it is true. Holbein is right, not because he draws +more generally, but more truly, than Duerer. Duerer draws what he knows is +there; but Holbein, only what he sees. And, as I have told you often +before, the really scientific artist is he who not only asserts bravely +what he _does_ see, but confesses honestly what he does _not_. You must +not draw all the hairs in an eyelash; not because it is sublime to +generalize them, but because it is impossible to see them. How many +hairs there are, a sign painter or anatomist may count; but how few of +them you can see, it is only the utmost masters, Carpaccio, Tintoret, +Reynolds, and Velasquez, who count, or know. + +171. Such was the effect, then, of his science upon Duerer's ideal of +beauty, and skill in portraiture. What effect had it on the temper and +quantity of his work, as compared with poor ignorant Holbein's! You have +only three portraits, by Duerer, of the great men of his time, and those +bad ones; while he toils his soul out to draw the hoofs of satyrs, the +bristles of swine, and the distorted aspects of base women and vicious +men. + +What, on the contrary, has ignorant Holbein done for you? Shakespeare +and he divide between them, by word and look, the Story of England under +Henry and Elizabeth. + +172. Of the effect of science on the art of Mantegna and Marc Antonio, +(far more deadly than on Duerer's,) I must tell you in a future +lecture;--the effect of it on their minds, I must partly refer to now, +in passing to the third head of my general statement--the influence of +new Theology. For Duerer and Mantegna, chiefly because of their science, +forfeited their place, not only as painters of men, but as servants of +God. Neither of them has left one completely noble or completely +didactic picture; while Holbein and Botticelli, in consummate pieces of +art, led the way before the eyes of all men, to the purification of +their Church and land. + +173. III. But the need of reformation presented itself to these two men +last named on entirely different terms. + +To Holbein, when the word of the Catholic Church proved false, and its +deeds bloody; when he saw it selling permission of sin in his native +Augsburg, and strewing the ashes of its enemies on the pure Alpine +waters of Constance, what refuge was there for _him_ in more ancient +religion? Shall he worship Thor again, and mourn over the death of +Balder? He reads Nature in her desolate and narrow truth, and she +teaches him the Triumph of Death. + +But, for Botticelli, the grand gods are old, are immortal. The priests +may have taught falsely the story of the Virgin;--did they not also lie, +in the name of Artemis, at Ephesus;--in the name of Aphrodite, at +Cyprus?--but shall, therefore, Chastity or Love be dead, or the full +moon paler over Arno? Saints of Heaven and Gods of Earth!--shall _these_ +perish because vain men speak evil of them! Let _us_ speak good forever, +and grave, as on the rock, for ages to come, the glory of Beauty, and +the triumph of Faith. + +174. Holbein had bitterer task. + +Of old, the one duty of the painter had been to exhibit the virtues of +this life, and hopes of the life to come. Holbein had to show the vices +of this life, and to obscure the hope of the future. "Yes, we walk +through the valley of the shadow of death, and fear all evil, for Thou +art not with us, and Thy rod and Thy staff comfort us not." He does not +choose this task. It is thrust upon him,--just as fatally as the burial +of the dead is in a plague-struck city. These are the things he sees, +and must speak. He will not become a better artist thereby; no drawing +of supreme beauty, or beautiful things, will be possible to him. Yet we +cannot say he ought to have done anything else, nor can we praise him +specially in doing this. It is his fate; the fate of all the bravest in +that day. + +[Illustration: THE CHILD'S BEDTIME. + +(Fig. 5) Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut.] + +175. For instance, there is no scene about which a shallow and feeble +painter would have been more sure to adopt the commonplaces of the creed +of his time than the death of a child,--chiefly, and most of all, the +death of a country child,--a little thing fresh from the cottage and the +field. Surely for such an one, angels will wait by its sick bed, and +rejoice as they bear its soul away; and over its shroud flowers will be +strewn, and the birds will sing by its grave. So your common +sentimentalist would think, and paint. Holbein sees the facts, as they +verily are, up to the point when vision ceases. He speaks, then, no +more. + +The country laborer's cottage--the rain coming through its roof, the +clay crumbling from its partitions, the fire lighted with a few chips +and sticks on a raised piece of the mud floor,--such dais as can be +contrived, for use, not for honor. The damp wood sputters; the smoke, +stopped by the roof, though the rain is not, coils round again, and +down. But the mother can warm the child's supper of bread and milk +so--holding the pan by the long handle; and on mud floor though it be, +they are happy,--she, and her child, and its brother,--if only they +could be left so. They shall not be left so: the young thing must leave +them--will never need milk warmed for it any more. It would fain +stay,--sees no angels--feels only an icy grip on its hand, and that it +cannot stay. Those who loved it shriek and tear their hair in vain, +amazed in grief. 'Oh, little one, must you lie out in the fields then, +not even under this poor torn roof of thy mother's to-night?' + +[Illustration: "HE THAT HATH EARS TO HEAR, LET HIM HEAR." + +(Fig. 6) Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut.] + +176. Again: there was not in the old creed any subject more definitely +and constantly insisted on than the death of a miser. He had been happy, +the old preachers thought, till then: but his hour has come; and the +black covetousness of hell is awake and watching; the sharp harpy claws +will clutch his soul out of his mouth, and scatter his treasure for +others. So the commonplace preacher and painter taught. Not so Holbein. +The devil want to snatch his soul, indeed! Nay, he never _had_ a soul, +but of the devil's giving. His misery to begin on his death-bed! Nay, he +had never an unmiserable hour of life. The fiend is with him now,--a +paltry, abortive fiend, with no breath even to blow hot with. He +supplies the hell-blast _with a machine_. It is winter, and the rich man +has his furred cloak and cap, thick and heavy; the beggar, bare-headed +to beseech him, skin and rags hanging about him together, touches his +shoulder, but all in vain; there is other business in hand. More haggard +than the beggar himself, wasted and palsied, the rich man counts with +his fingers the gain of the years to come. + +But of those years, infinite that are to be, Holbein says nothing. 'I +know not; I see not. This only I see, on this very winter's day, the low +pale stumbling-block at your feet, the altogether by you unseen and +forgotten Death. You shall not pass _him_ by on the other side; here is +a fasting figure in skin and bone, at last, that will stop you; and for +all the hidden treasures of earth, here is your spade: dig now, and find +them.' + +177. I have said that Holbein was condemned to teach these things. He +was not happy in teaching them, nor thanked for teaching them. Nor was +Botticelli for his lovelier teaching. But they both could do no +otherwise. They lived in truth and steadfastness; and with both, in +their marvelous design, veracity is the beginning of invention, and love +its end. + +I have but time to show you, in conclusion, how this affectionate +self-forgetfulness protects Holbein from the chief calamity of the +German temper, vanity, which is at the root of all Duerer's weakness. +Here is a photograph of Holbein's portrait of Erasmus, and a fine proof +of Duerer's. In Holbein's, the face leads everything; and the most lovely +qualities of the face lead in that. The cloak and cap are perfectly +painted, just because you look at them neither more nor less than you +would have looked at the cloak in reality. You don't say, 'How +brilliantly they are touched,' as you would with Rembrandt; nor 'How +gracefully they are neglected,' as you would with Gainsborough; nor 'How +exquisitely they are shaded,' as you would with Lionardo; nor 'How +grandly they are composed,' as you would with Titian. You say only, +'Erasmus is surely there; and what a pleasant sight!' You don't think of +Holbein at all. He has not even put in the minutest letter H, that I can +see, to remind you of him. Drops his H's, I regret to say, often enough. +'My hand should be enough for you; what matters my name?' But now, look +at Duerer's. The very first thing you see, and at any distance, is this +great square tablet with + + "The image of Erasmus, drawn from the life by Albert Duerer, + 1526," + +and a great straddling A.D. besides. Then you see a cloak, and a table, +and a pot, with flowers in it, and a heap of books with all their +leaves and all their clasps, and all the little bits of leather gummed +in to mark the places; and last of all you see Erasmus's face; and when +you do see it, the most of it is wrinkles. + +All egotism and insanity, this, gentlemen. Hard words to use; but not +too hard to define the faults which rendered so much of Duerer's great +genius abortive, and to this day paralyze, among the details of a +lifeless and ambitious precision, the student, no less than the artist, +of German blood. For too many an Erasmus, too many a Duerer, among them, +the world is all cloak and clasp, instead of face or book; and the first +object of their lives is to engrave their initials. + +178. For us, in England, not even so much is at present to be hoped; and +yet, singularly enough, it is more our modesty, unwisely submissive, +than our vanity, which has destroyed our English school of engraving. + +At the bottom of the pretty line engravings which used to represent, +characteristically, our English skill, one saw always _two_ +inscriptions. At the left-hand corner, "Drawn by--so-and-so;" at the +right-hand corner, "Engraved by--so-and-so." Only under the worst and +cheapest plates--for the Stationers' Almanack, or the like--one saw +sometimes, "Drawn and engraved by--so-and-so," which meant nothing more +than that the publisher would not go to the expense of an artist, and +that the engraver haggled through as he could. (One fortunate exception, +gentlemen, you have in the old drawings for your Oxford Almanack, though +the publishers, I have no doubt, even in that case, employed the +cheapest artist they could find.[AR]) But in general, no engraver +thought himself able to draw; and no artist thought it his business to +engrave. + +179. But the fact that this and the following lecture are on the subject +of design in engraving, implies of course that in the work we have to +examine, it was often the engraver himself who designed, and as often +the artist who engraved. + +And you will observe that the only engravings which bear imperishable +value are, indeed, in this kind. It is true that, in wood-cutting, both +Duerer and Holbein, as in our own days Leech and Tenniel, have workmen +under them who can do all they want. But in metal cutting it is not so. +For, as I have told you, in metal cutting, ultimate perfection of Line +has to be reached; and it can be reached by none but a master's hand; +nor by his, unless in the very moment and act of designing. Never, +unless under the vivid first force of imagination and intellect, can the +Line have its full value. And for this high reason, gentlemen, that +paradox which perhaps seemed to you so daring, is nevertheless deeply +and finally true, that while a woodcut may be laboriously finished, a +grand engraving on metal must be comparatively incomplete. For it must +be done, throughout, with the full fire of temper in it, visibly +governing its lines, as the wind does the fibers of cloud. + +180. The value hitherto attached to Rembrandt's etchings, and others +imitating them, depends on a true instinct in the public mind for this +virtue of line. But etching is an indolent and blundering method at the +best; and I do not doubt that you will one day be grateful for the +severe disciplines of drawing required in these schools, in that they +will have enabled you to know what a line may be, driven by a master's +chisel on silver or marble, following, and fostering as it follows, the +instantaneous strength of his determined thought. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[AG] If you paint a bottle only to amuse the spectator by showing him +how like a painting may be to a bottle, you cannot be considered, in +art-philosophy, as a designer. But if you paint the cork flying out of +the bottle, and the contents arriving in an arch at the mouth of a +recipient glass, you are so far forth a designer or signer; probably +meaning to express certain ultimate facts respecting, say, the +hospitable disposition of the landlord of the house; but at all events +representing the bottle and glass in a designed, and not merely natural, +manner. Not merely natural--nay, in some sense non-natural, or +supernatural. And all great artists show both this fantastic condition +of mind in their work, and show that it has arisen out of a +communicative or didactic purpose. They are the Signpainters of God. + +I have added this note to the lecture in copying my memoranda of it here +at Assisi, June 9th, being about to begin work in the Tavern, or +Tabernaculum, of the Lower Church, with its variously significant four +great 'signs.' + +[AH] Plate X., Lecture VI. + +[AI] I do not mean the greatest teacher of reformed faith; but the +greatest protestant against faith unreformed. + +[AJ] It has become the permitted fashion among modern mathematicians, +chemists, and apothecaries, to call themselves 'scientific men,' as +opposed to theologians, poets, and artists. They know their sphere to be +a separate one; but their ridiculous notion of its being a peculiarly +scientific one ought not to be allowed in our Universities. There is a +science of Morals, a science of History, a science of Grammar, a science +of Music, and a science of Painting; and all these are quite beyond +comparison higher fields for human intellect, and require accuracies of +intenser observation, than either chemistry, electricity, or geology. + +[AK] The Cumaean Sibyl, Plate VII., Lecture VI. + +[AL] Lecture III., Sec. 101. + +[AM] I read somewhere, lately, a new and very ingenious theory about the +attitude of the Apollo Belvedere, proving, to the author's satisfaction, +that the received notion about watching the arrow was all a mistake. The +paper proved, at all events, one thing--namely, the statement in the +text. For an attitude which has been always hitherto taken to mean one +thing, and is plausibly asserted now to mean another, must be in itself +unintelligible. + +[AN] It may be asked, why not corn also? Because that belongs to Ceres, +who is equally one of the great gods. + +[AO] "Aratra Pentelici," Sec. 181. + +[AP] Or inventive! See Woltmann, p. 267. "The shinbone, or the lower +part of the arm, exhibits only one bone, while the upper arm and thigh +are often allowed the luxury of two!" + +[AQ] See ante, Sec. 141. The "preface" is that to "The Eagle's Nest." + +[AR] The drawings were made by Turner, and are now among the chief +treasures of the Oxford Galleries. I ought to add some notice of Hogarth +to this lecture in the Appendix; but fear I shall have no time: besides, +though I have profound respect for Hogarth, as, in literature, I have +for Fielding, I can't criticise them, because I know nothing of their +subjects. + + + + + LECTURE VI. + + DESIGN IN THE FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. + + +181. In the first of these lectures, I stated to you their subject, as +the investigation of the engraved work of a group of men, to whom +engraving, as a means of popular address, was above all precious, +because their art was distinctively didactic. + +Some of my hearers must be aware that, of late years, the assertion that +art should be didactic has been clamorously and violently derided by the +countless crowd of artists who have nothing to represent, and of writers +who have nothing to say; and that the contrary assertion--that art +consists only in pretty colors and fine words,--is accepted, readily +enough, by a public which rarely pauses to look at a picture with +attention, or read a sentence with understanding. + +182. Gentlemen, believe me, there never was any great advancing art yet, +nor can be, without didactic purpose. The leaders of the strong schools +are, and must be always, either teachers of theology, or preachers of +the moral law. I need not tell you that it was as teachers of theology +on the walls of the Vatican that the masters with whose names you are +most familiar obtained their perpetual fame. But however great their +fame, you have not practically, I imagine, ever been materially assisted +in your preparation for the schools either of philosophy or divinity by +Raphael's 'School of Athens,' by Raphael's 'Theology,'--or by Michael +Angelo's 'Judgment.' My task, to-day, is to set before you some part of +the design of the first Master of the works in the Sistine Chapel; and I +believe that, from his teaching, you will, even in the hour which I ask +you now to give, learn what may be of true use to you in all your future +labor, whether in Oxford or elsewhere. + +183. You have doubtless, in the course of these lectures, been +occasionally surprised by my speaking of Holbein and Sandro Botticelli, +as Reformers, in the same tone of respect, and with the same implied +assertion of their intellectual power and agency, with which it is usual +to speak of Luther and Savonarola. You have been accustomed, indeed, to +hear painting and sculpture spoken of as supporting or enforcing Church +doctrine; but never as reforming or chastising it. Whether Protestant or +Roman Catholic, you have admitted what in the one case you held to be +the abuse of painting in the furtherance of idolatry,--in the other, its +amiable and exalting ministry to the feebleness of faith. But neither +has recognized,--the Protestant his ally,--or the Catholic his enemy, in +the far more earnest work of the great painters of the fifteenth +century. The Protestant was, in most cases, too vulgar to understand the +aid offered to him by painting; and in all cases too terrified to +believe in it. He drove the gift-bringing Greek with imprecations from +his sectarian fortress, or received him within it only on the condition +that he should speak no word of religion there. + +184. On the other hand, the Catholic, in most cases too indolent to +read, and, in all, too proud to dread, the rebuke of the reforming +painters, confused them with the crowd of his old flatterers, and little +noticed their altered language or their graver brow. In a little while, +finding they had ceased to be amusing, he effaced their works, not as +dangerous, but as dull; and recognized only thenceforward, as art, the +innocuous bombast of Michael Angelo, and fluent efflorescence of +Bernini. But when you become more intimately and impartially acquainted +with the history of the Reformation, you will find that, as surely and +earnestly as Memling and Giotto strove in the north and south to set +forth and exalt the Catholic faith, so surely and earnestly did Holbein +and Botticelli strive, in the north, to chastise, and, in the south, to +revive it. In what manner, I will try to-day briefly to show you. + +185. I name these two men as the reforming leaders: there were many, +rank and file, who worked in alliance with Holbein; with Botticelli, two +great ones, Lippi and Perugino. But both of these had so much pleasure +in their own pictorial faculty, that they strove to keep quiet, and out +of harm's way,--involuntarily manifesting themselves sometimes, however; +and not in the wisest manner. Lippi's running away with a novice was not +likely to be understood as a step in Church reformation correspondent to +Luther's marriage.[AS] Nor have Protestant divines, even to this day, +recognized the real meaning of the reports of Perugino's 'infidelity.' +Botticelli, the pupil of the one, and the companion of the other, held +the truths they taught him through sorrow as well as joy; and he is the +greatest of the reformers, because he preached without blame; though the +least known, because he died without victory. + +I had hoped to be able to lay before you some better biography of him +than the traditions of Vasari, of which I gave a short abstract some +time back in Fors Clavigera (Letter XXII.); but as yet I have only added +internal evidence to the popular story, the more important points of +which I must review briefly. It will not waste your time if I +read,--instead of merely giving you reference to,--the passages on which +I must comment. + +186. "His father, Mariano Filipepi, a Florentine citizen, brought him up +with care, and caused him to be instructed in all such things as are +usually taught to children before they choose a calling. But although +the boy readily acquired whatever he wished to learn, yet was he +constantly discontented; neither would he take any pleasure in reading, +writing, or accounts, insomuch that the father, disturbed by the +eccentric habits of his son, turned him over in despair to a gossip of +his, called Botticello, who was a goldsmith, and considered a very +competent master of his art, to the intent that the boy might learn the +same." + +"He took no pleasure in reading, writing, nor accounts"! You will find +the same thing recorded of Cimabue; but it is more curious when stated +of a man whom I cite to you as typically a gentleman and a scholar. But +remember, in those days, though there were not so many entirely correct +books issued by the Religious Tract Society for boys to read, there were +a great many more pretty things in the world for boys to see. The Val +d'Arno was Pater-noster Row to purpose; their Father's Row, with books +of His writing on the mountain shelves. And the lad takes to looking at +things, and thinking about them, instead of reading about them,--which I +commend to you also, as much the more scholarly practice of the two. To +the end, though he knows all about the celestial hierarchies, he is not +strong in his letters, nor in his dialect. I asked Mr. Tyrwhitt to help +me through with a bit of his Italian the other day. Mr. Tyrwhitt could +only help me by suggesting that it was "Botticelli for so-and-so." And +one of the minor reasons which induced me so boldly to attribute these +sibyls to him, instead of Bandini, is that the lettering is so ill done. +The engraver would assuredly have had his lettering all right,--or at +least neat. Botticelli blunders through it, scratches impatiently out +when he goes wrong: and as I told you there's no repentance in the +engraver's trade, leaves all the blunders visible. + +187. I may add one fact bearing on this question lately communicated to +me.[AT] In the autumn of 1872 I possessed myself of an Italian book of +pen drawings, some, I have no doubt, by Mantegna in his youth, others by +Sandro himself. In examining these, I was continually struck by the +comparatively feeble and blundering way in which the titles were +written, while all the rest of the handling was really superb; and still +more surprised when, on the sleeves and hem of the robe of one of the +principal figures of women, ("Helena rapita da Paris,") I found what +seemed to be meant for inscriptions, intricately embroidered; which +nevertheless, though beautifully drawn, I could not read. In copying +Botticelli's Zipporah this spring, I found the border of her robe +wrought with characters of the same kind, which a young painter, working +with me, who already knows the minor secrets of Italian art better than +I,[AU] assures me are letters,--and letters of a language hitherto +undeciphered. + +188. "There was at that time a close connection and almost constant +intercourse between the goldsmiths and the painters, wherefore Sandro, +who possessed considerable ingenuity, and was strongly disposed to the +arts of design, became enamored of painting, and resolved to devote +himself entirely to that vocation. He acknowledged his purpose at once +to his father; and the latter, who knew the force of his inclination, +took him accordingly to the Carmelite monk, Fra Filippo, who was a most +excellent painter of that time, with whom he placed him to study the +art, as Sandro himself had desired. Devoting himself thereupon entirely +to the vocation he had chosen, Sandro so closely followed the +directions, and imitated the manner, of his master, that Fra Filippo +conceived a great love for him, and instructed him so effectually, that +Sandro rapidly attained to such a degree in art as none would have +predicted for him." + +I have before pointed out to you the importance of training by the +goldsmith. Sandro got more good of it, however, than any of the other +painters so educated,--being enabled by it to use gold for light to +color, in a glowing harmony never reached with equal perfection, and +rarely attempted, in the later schools. To the last, his paintings are +partly treated as work in niello; and he names himself, in perpetual +gratitude, from this first artisan master. Nevertheless, the fortunate +fellow finds, at the right moment, another, even more to his mind, and +is obedient to him through his youth, as to the other through his +childhood. And this master loves him; and instructs him 'so +effectually,'--in grinding colors, do you suppose, only; or in laying of +lines only; or in anything more than these? + +189. I will tell you what Lippi must have taught any boy whom he loved. +First, humility, and to live in joy and peace, injuring no man--if such +innocence might be. Nothing is so manifest in every face by him, as its +gentleness and rest. Secondly, to finish his work perfectly, and in such +temper that the angels might say of it--not he himself--'Iste perfecit +opus.' Do you remember what I told you in the Eagle's Nest (Sec. 53), that +true humility was in hoping that angels might sometimes admire _our_ +work; not in hoping that we should ever be able to admire _theirs_? +Thirdly,--a little thing it seems, but was a great one,--love of +flowers. No one draws such lilies or such daisies as Lippi. Botticelli +beat him afterwards in roses, but never in lilies. Fourthly, due honor +for classical tradition. Lippi is the only religious painter who dresses +John Baptist in the camelskin, as the Greeks dressed Heracles in the +lion's--over the head. Lastly, and chiefly of all,--Le Pere Hyacinthe +taught his pupil certain views about the doctrine of the Church, which +the boy thought of more deeply than his tutor, and that by a great deal; +and Master Sandro presently got himself into such question for painting +heresy, that if he had been as hot-headed as he was true-hearted, he +would soon have come to bad end by the tar-barrel. But he is so sweet +and so modest, that nobody is frightened; so clever, that everybody is +pleased: and at last, actually the Pope sends for him to paint his own +private chapel,--where the first thing my young gentleman does, mind +you, is to paint the devil in a monk's dress, tempting Christ! The +sauciest thing, out and out, done in the history of the Reformation, it +seems to me; yet so wisely done, and with such true respect otherwise +shown for what was sacred in the Church, that the Pope didn't mind: and +all went on as merrily as marriage bells. + +190. I have anticipated, however, in telling you this, the proper course +of his biography, to which I now return. + +"While still a youth he painted the figure of Fortitude, among those +pictures of the Virtues which Antonio and Pietro Pollaiuolo were +executing in the Mercatanzia, or Tribunal of Commerce, in Florence. In +Santo Spirito, a church of the same city, he painted a picture for the +chapel of the Bardi family: this work he executed with great diligence, +and finished it very successfully, depicting certain olive and palm +trees therein with extraordinary care." + +It is by a beautiful chance that the first work of his, specified by his +Italian biographer, should be the Fortitude.[AV] Note also what is said +of his tree drawing. + +"Having, in consequence of this work, obtained much credit and +reputation, Sandro was appointed by the Guild of Porta Santa Maria to +paint a picture in San Marco, the subject of which is the Coronation of +Our Lady, who is surrounded by a choir of angels--the whole extremely +well designed, and finished by the artist with infinite care. He +executed various works in the Medici Palace for the elder Lorenzo, more +particularly a figure of Pallas on a shield wreathed with vine branches, +whence flames are proceeding: this he painted of the size of life. A San +Sebastiano was also among the most remarkable of the works executed for +Lorenzo. In the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Florence, is a Pieta, +with small figures, by this master: this is a very beautiful work. For +different houses in various parts of the city Sandro painted many +pictures of a round form, with numerous figures of women undraped. Of +these there are still two examples at Castello, a villa of the Duke +Cosimo,--one representing the birth of Venus, who is borne to earth by +the Loves and Zephyrs; the second also presenting the figure of Venus +crowned with flowers by the Graces: she is here intended to denote the +Spring, and the allegory is expressed by the painter with extraordinary +grace." + +Our young Reformer enters, it seems, on a very miscellaneous course of +study; the Coronation of Our Lady; St. Sebastian; Pallas in +vine-leaves; and Venus,--without fig-leaves. Not wholly Calvinistic, Fra +Filippo's teaching seems to have been! All the better for the boy--being +such a boy as he was: but I cannot in this lecture enter farther into my +reasons for saying so. + +191. Vasari, however, has shot far ahead in telling us of this picture +of the Spring, which is one of Botticelli's completest works. Long +before he was able to paint Greek nymphs, he had done his best in +idealism of greater spirits; and, while yet quite a youth, painted, at +Castello, the Assumption of Our Lady, with "the patriarchs, the +prophets, the apostles, the evangelists, the martyrs, the confessors, +the doctors, the virgins, and the hierarchies!" + +Imagine this subject proposed to a young, (or even old) British Artist, +for his next appeal to public sensation at the Academy! But do you +suppose that the young British artist is wiser and more civilized than +Lippi's scholar, because his only idea of a patriarch is of a man with a +long beard; of a doctor, the M.D. with the brass plate over the way; and +of a virgin, Miss ---- of the ---- theater? + +Not that even Sandro was able, according to Vasari's report, to conduct +the entire design himself. The proposer of the subject assisted him; and +they made some modifications in the theology, which brought them both +into trouble--so early did Sandro's innovating work begin, into which +subjects our gossiping friend waives unnecessary inquiry, as follows. + +"But although this picture is exceedingly beautiful, and ought to have +put envy to shame, yet there were found certain malevolent and +censorious persons who, not being able to affix any other blame to the +work, declared that Matteo and Sandro had erred gravely in that matter, +and had fallen into grievous heresy. + +"Now, whether this be true or not, let none expect the judgment of that +question from me: it shall suffice me to note that the figures executed +by Sandro in that work are entirely worthy of praise; and that the pains +he took in depicting those circles of the heavens must have been very +great, to say nothing of the angels mingled with the other figures, or +of the various foreshortenings, all which are designed in a very good +manner. + +"About this time Sandro received a commission to paint a small picture +with figures three parts of a braccio high,--the subject an Adoration of +the Magi. + +"It is indeed a most admirable work; the composition, the design, and +the coloring are so beautiful that every artist who examines it is +astonished; and, at the time, it obtained so great a name in Florence, +and other places, for the master, that Pope Sixtus IV. having erected +the chapel built by him in his palace at Rome, and desiring to have it +adorned with paintings, commanded that Sandro Botticelli should be +appointed Superintendent of the work." + +192. Vasari's words, "about this time," are evidently wrong. It must +have been many and many a day after he painted Matteo's picture that he +took such high standing in Florence as to receive the mastership of the +works in the Pope's chapel at Rome. Of his position and doings there, I +will tell you presently; meantime, let us complete the story of his +life. + +"By these works Botticelli obtained great honor and reputation among the +many competitors who were laboring with him, whether Florentines or +natives of other cities, and received from the Pope a considerable sum +of money; but this he consumed and squandered totally, during his +residence in Rome, where he lived without due care, as was his habit." + +193. Well, but one would have liked to hear _how_ he squandered his +money, and whether he was without care--of other things than money. + +It is just possible, Master Vasari, that Botticelli may have laid out +his money at higher interest than you know of; meantime, he is advancing +in life and thought, and becoming less and less comprehensible to his +biographer. And at length, having got rid, somehow, of the money he +received from the Pope; and finished the work he had to do, and +uncovered it,--free in conscience, and empty in purse, he returned to +Florence, where, "being a sophistical person, he made a comment on a +part of Dante, and drew the Inferno, and put it in engraving, in which +he consumed much time; and not working for this reason, brought infinite +disorder into his affairs." + +194. Unpaid work, this engraving of Dante, you perceive,--consuming much +time also, and not appearing to Vasari to be work at all. It is but a +short sentence, gentlemen,--this, in the old edition of Vasari, and +obscurely worded,--a very foolish person's contemptuous report of a +thing to him totally incomprehensible. But the thing itself is +out-and-out the most important fact in the history of the religious art +of Italy. I can show you its significance in not many more words than +have served to record it. + +Botticelli had been painting in Rome; and had expressly chosen to +represent there,--being Master of Works, in the presence of the Defender +of the Faith,--the foundation of the Mosaic law; to his mind the Eternal +Law of God,--that law of which modern Evangelicals sing perpetually +their own original psalm, "Oh, how hate I Thy law! it is my abomination +all the day." Returning to Florence, he reads Dante's vision of the Hell +created by its violation. He knows that the pictures he has painted in +Rome cannot be understood by the people; they are exclusively for the +best trained scholars in the Church. Dante, on the other hand, can only +be read in manuscript; but the people could and would understand _his_ +lessons, if they were pictured in accessible and enduring form. He +throws all his own lauded work aside,--all for which he is most honored, +and in which his now matured and magnificent skill is as easy to him as +singing to a perfect musician. And he sets himself to a servile and +despised labor,--his friends mocking him, his resources failing him, +infinite 'disorder' getting into his affairs--of this world. + +195. Never such another thing happened in Italy any more. Botticelli +engraved her Pilgrim's Progress for her, putting himself in prison to +do it. She would not read it when done. Raphael and Marc Antonio were +the theologians for her money. Pretty Madonnas, and satyrs with +abundance of tail,--let our pilgrim's progress be in _these_ directions, +if you please. + +Botticelli's own pilgrimage, however, was now to be accomplished +triumphantly, with such crowning blessings as Heaven might grant to him. +In spite of his friends and his disordered affairs, he went his own +obstinate way; and found another man's words worth engraving as well as +Dante's; not without perpetuating, also, what he deemed worthy of his +own. + +196. What would that be, think you? His chosen works before the Pope in +Rome?--his admired Madonnas in Florence?--his choirs of angels and +thickets of flowers? Some few of these yes, as you shall presently see; +but "the best attempt of this kind from his hand is the Triumph of +Faith, by Fra Girolamo Savonarola, of Ferrara, of whose sect our artist +was so zealous a partisan that he totally abandoned painting, and not +having any other means of living, he fell into very great difficulties. +But his attachment to the party he had adopted increased; he became what +was then called a Piagnone, or Mourner, and abandoned all labor; +insomuch that, finding himself at length become old, being also very +poor, he must have died of hunger had he not been supported by Lorenzo +de' Medici, for whom he had worked at the small hospital of Volterra and +other places, who assisted him while he lived, as did other friends and +admirers of his talents." + +197. In such dignity and independence--having employed his talents not +wholly at the orders of the dealer--died, a poor bedesman of Lorenzo de' +Medici, the President of that high academy of art in Rome, whose +Academicians were Perugino, Ghirlandajo, Angelico, and Signorelli; and +whose students, Michael Angelo and Raphael. + +'A worthless, ill-conducted fellow on the whole,' thinks Vasari, 'with a +crazy fancy for scratching on copper.' + +Well, here are some of the scratches for you to see; only, first, I must +ask you seriously for a few moments to consider what the two powers +were, which, with this iron pen of his, he has set himself to reprove. + +198. Two great forms of authority reigned over the entire civilized +world, confessedly, and by name, in the Middle Ages. They reign over it +still, and must forever, though at present very far from confessed; and, +in most places, ragingly denied. + +The first power is that of the Teacher, or true Father; the Father 'in +God.' It may be--happy the children to whom it is--the actual father +also; and whose parents have been their tutors. But, for the most part, +it will be some one else who teaches them, and molds their minds and +brain. All such teaching, when true, being from above, and coming down +from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow +of turning, is properly that of the holy Catholic '[Greek: ekklesia],' +council, church, or papacy, of many fathers in God, not of one. +Eternally powerful and divine; reverenced of all humble and lowly +scholars, in Jewry, in Greece, in Rome, in Gaul, in England, and beyond +sea, from Arctic zone to zone. + +The second authority is the power of National Law, enforcing justice in +conduct by due reward and punishment. Power vested necessarily in +magistrates capable of administering it with mercy and equity; whose +authority, be it of many or few, is again divine, as proceeding from the +King of kings, and was acknowledged, throughout civilized Christendom, +as the power of the Holy Empire, or Holy Roman Empire, because first +throned in Rome; but it is forever also acknowledged, namelessly, or by +name, by all loyal, obedient, just, and humble hearts, which truly +desire that, whether for them or against them, the eternal equities and +dooms of Heaven should be pronounced and executed; and as the wisdom or +word of their Father should be taught, so the will of their Father +should be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. + +199. You all here know what contention, first, and then what corruption +and dishonor, had paralyzed these two powers before the days of which we +now speak. Reproof, and either reform or rebellion, became necessary +everywhere. The northern Reformers, Holbein, and Luther, and Henry, and +Cromwell, set themselves to their task rudely, and, it might seem, +carried it through. The southern Reformers, Dante, and Savonarola, and +Botticelli, set hand to their task reverently, and, it seemed, did not +by any means carry it through. But the end is not yet. + +200. Now I shall endeavor to-day to set before you the art of +Botticelli, especially as exhibiting the modesty of great imagination +trained in reverence, which characterized the southern Reformers; and as +opposed to the immodesty of narrow imagination, trained in self-trust, +which characterized the northern Reformers. + +'The modesty of great _imagination_;' that is to say, of the power which +conceives all things in true relation, and not only as they affect +ourselves. I can show you this most definitely by taking one example of +the modern, and unschooled temper, in Bewick;[AW] and setting it beside +Botticelli's treatment of the same subject of thought,--namely, the +meaning of war, and the reforms necessary in the carrying on of war. + +201. Both the men are entirely at one in their purpose. They yearn for +peace and justice to rule over the earth, instead of the sword; but see +how differently they will say what is in their hearts to the people they +address. To Bewick, war was more an absurdity than it was a horror: he +had not seen battle-fields, still less had he read of them, in ancient +days. He cared nothing about heroes,--Greek, Roman, or Norman. What he +knew, and saw clearly, was that Farmer Hodge's boy went out of the +village one holiday afternoon, a fine young fellow, rather drunk, with +a colored ribbon in his hat; and came back, ten years afterwards, with +one leg, one eye, an old red coat, and a tobacco-pipe in the pocket of +it. That is what he has got to say, mainly. So, for the pathetic side of +the business, he draws you two old soldiers meeting as bricklayers' +laborers; and for the absurd side of it, he draws a stone, sloping +sideways with age, in a bare field, on which you can just read, out of a +long inscription, the words "glorious victory;" but no one is there to +read them,--only a jackass, who uses the stone to scratch himself +against. + +202. Now compare with this Botticelli's reproof of war. _He_ had seen +it, and often; and between noble persons;--knew the temper in which the +noblest knights went out to it;--knew the strength, the patience, the +glory, and the grief of it. He would fain see his Florence in peace; and +yet he knows that the wisest of her citizens are her bravest soldiers. +So he seeks for the ideal of a soldier, and for the greatest glory of +war, that in the presence of these he may speak reverently, what he must +speak. He does not go to Greece for his hero. He is not sure that even +her patriotic wars were always right. But, by his religious faith, he +cannot doubt the nobleness of the soldier who put the children of Israel +in possession of their promised land, and to whom the sign of the +consent of heaven was given by its pausing light in the valley of +Ajalon. Must then setting sun and risen moon stay, he thinks, only to +look upon slaughter? May no soldier of Christ bid them stay otherwise +than so? He draws Joshua, but quitting his hold of the sword: its hilt +rests on his bent knee; and he kneels before the sun, not commands it; +and this is his prayer:-- + +"Oh, King of kings, and Lord of lords, who alone rulest always in +eternity, and who correctest all our wanderings,--Giver of melody to the +choir of the angels, listen Thou a little to our bitter grief, and come +and rule us, oh Thou highest King, with Thy love which is so sweet!" + +Is not that a little better, and a little wiser, than Bewick's jackass? +Is it not also better, and wiser, than the sneer of modern science? +'What great men are we!--we, forsooth, can make almanacs, and know that +the earth turns round. Joshua indeed! Let us have no more talk of the +old-clothes-man.' + +All Bewick's simplicity is in that; but none of Bewick's understanding. + +203. I pass to the attack made by Botticelli upon the guilt of wealth. +So I had at first written; but I should rather have written, the appeal +made by him against the cruelty of wealth, then first attaining the +power it has maintained to this day. + +The practice of receiving interest had been confined, until this +fifteenth century, with contempt and malediction, to the profession, so +styled, of usurers, or to the Jews. The merchants of Augsburg introduced +it as a convenient and pleasant practice among Christians also; and +insisted that it was decorous and proper even among respectable +merchants. In the view of the Christian Church of their day, they might +more reasonably have set themselves to defend adultery.[AX] However, +they appointed Dr. John Eck, of Ingoldstadt, to hold debates in all +possible universities, at their expense, on the allowing of interest; +and as these Augsburgers had in Venice their special mart, Fondaco, +called of the Germans, their new notions came into direct collision with +old Venetian ones, and were much hindered by them, and all the more, +because, in opposition to Dr. John Eck, there was preaching on the other +side of the Alps. The Franciscans, poor themselves, preached mercy to +the poor: one of them, Brother Marco of San Gallo, planned the 'Mount of +Pity' for their defense, and the merchants of Venice set up the first in +the world, against the German Fondaco. The dispute burned far on towards +our own times. You perhaps have heard before of one Antonio, a merchant +of Venice, who persistently retained the then obsolete practice of +lending money gratis, and of the peril it brought him into with the +usurers. But you perhaps did not before know why it was the flesh, or +heart of flesh, in him, that they so hated. + +204. Against this newly risen demon of authorized usury, Holbein and +Botticelli went out to war together. Holbein, as we have partly seen in +his designs for the Dance of Death, struck with all his soldier's +strength.[AY] Botticelli uses neither satire nor reproach. He turns +altogether away from the criminals; appeals only to heaven for defense +against them. He engraves the design which, of all his work, must have +cost him hardest toil in its execution,--the Virgin praying to her Son +in heaven for pity upon the poor: "For these are also my children."[AZ] +Underneath, are the seven works of Mercy; and in the midst of them, the +building of the Mount of Pity: in the distance lies Italy, mapped in +cape and bay, with the cities which had founded mounts of pity,--Venice +in the distance, chief. Little seen, but engraved with the master's +loveliest care, in the background there is a group of two small +figures--the Franciscan brother kneeling, and an angel of Victory +crowning him. + +205. I call it an angel of Victory, observe, with assurance; although +there is no legend claiming victory, or distinguishing this angel from +any other of those which adorn with crowns of flowers the nameless +crowds of the blessed. For Botticelli has other ways of speaking than by +written legends. I know by a glance at this angel that he has taken the +action of it from a Greek coin; and I know also that he had not, in his +own exuberant fancy, the least need to copy the action of any figure +whatever. So I understand, as well as if he spoke to me, that he expects +me, if I am an educated gentleman, to recognize this particular action +as a Greek angel's; and to know that it is a temporal victory which it +crowns. + +206. And now farther, observe, that this classical learning of +Botticelli's, received by him, as I told you, as a native element of his +being, gives not only greater dignity and gentleness, but far wider +range, to his thoughts of Reformation. As he asks for pity from the +cruel Jew to the _poor_ Gentile, so he asks for pity from the proud +Christian to the _untaught_ Gentile. Nay, for more than pity, for +fellowship, and acknowledgment of equality before God. The learned men +of his age in general brought back the Greek mythology as +anti-Christian. But Botticelli and Perugino, as pre-Christian; nor only +as pre-Christian, but as the foundation of Christianity. But chiefly +Botticelli, with perfect grasp of the Mosaic and classic theology, +thought over and seized the harmonies of both; and he it was who gave +the conception of that great choir of the prophets and sibyls, of which +Michael Angelo, more or less ignorantly borrowing it in the Sistine +Chapel, in great part lost the meaning, while he magnified the aspect. + +207. For, indeed, all Christian and heathen mythology had alike become +to Michael Angelo only a vehicle for the display of his own powers of +drawing limbs and trunks: and having resolved, and made the world of his +day believe, that all the glory of design lay in variety of difficult +attitude, he flings the naked bodies about his ceiling with an +upholsterer's ingenuity of appliance to the corners they could fit, but +with total absence of any legible meaning. Nor do I suppose that one +person in a million, even of those who have some acquaintance with the +earlier masters, takes patience in the Sistine Chapel to conceive the +original design. But Botticelli's mastership of the works evidently was +given to him as a theologian, even more than as a painter; and the +moment when he came to Rome to receive it, you may hold for the crisis +of the Reformation in Italy. The main effort to save her priesthood was +about to be made by her wisest Reformer,--face to face with the head of +her Church,--not in contest with him, but in the humblest subjection to +him; and in adornment of his own chapel for his own delight, and more +than delight, if it might be. + +208. Sandro brings to work, not under him, but with him, the three other +strongest and worthiest men he knows, Perugino, Ghirlandajo, and Luca +Signorelli. There is evidently entire fellowship in thought between +Botticelli and Perugino. They two together plan the whole; and +Botticelli, though the master, yields to Perugino the principal place, +the end of the chapter, on which is to be the Assumption of the Virgin. +It was Perugino's favorite subject, done with his central strength; +assuredly the crowning work of his life, and of lovely Christian art in +Europe. + +Michael Angelo painted it out, and drew devils and dead bodies all over +the wall instead. But there remains to us, happily, the series of +subjects designed by Botticelli to lead up to this lost one. + +209. He came, I said, not to attack, but to restore the Papal authority. +To show the power of inherited honor, and universal claim of divine law, +in the Jewish and Christian Church,--the law delivered first by Moses; +then, in final grace and truth, by Christ. + +He designed twelve great pictures, each containing some twenty figures +the size of life, and groups of smaller ones scarcely to be counted. +Twelve pictures,--six to illustrate the giving of the law by Moses; and +six, the ratification and completion of it by Christ. Event by event, +the jurisprudence of each dispensation is traced from dawn to close in +this correspondence. + + 1. Covenant of Circumcision. + 2. Entrance on his Ministry by Moses. + 3. Moses by the Red Sea. + 4. Delivery of Law on Sinai. + 5. Destruction of Korah. + 6. Death of Moses. + 7. Covenant of Baptism. + 8. Entrance on His Ministry by Christ. + 9. Peter and Andrew by the Sea of Galilee. + 10. Sermon on Mount. + 11. Giving Keys to St. Peter. + 12. Last Supper. + +Of these pictures, Sandro painted three himself, Perugino three, and the +Assumption; Ghirlandajo one, Signorelli one, and Rosselli four.[BA] I +believe that Sandro intended to take the roof also, and had sketched out +the main succession of its design; and that the prophets and sibyls +which he meant to paint, he drew first small, and engraved his drawings +afterwards, that some part of the work might be, at all events, thus +communicable to the world outside of the Vatican. + +210. It is not often that I tell you my beliefs; but I am forced here, +for there are no dates to found more on. Is it not wonderful that among +all the infinite mass of fools' thoughts about the "majestic works of +Michael Angelo" in the Sistine Chapel, no slightly more rational person +has ever asked what the chapel was first meant to be like, and how it +was to be roofed? + +Nor can I assume myself, still less you, that all these prophets and +sibyls are Botticelli's. Of many there are two engravings, with +variations: some are inferior in parts, many altogether. He signed none; +never put grand tablets with 'S. B.' into his skies; had other letters +than those to engrave, and no time to spare. I have chosen out of the +series three of the sibyls, which have, I think, clear internal evidence +of being his; and these you shall compare with Michael Angelo's. But +first I must put you in mind what the sibyls were. + +211. As the prophets represent the voice of God in man, the sibyls +represent the voice of God in nature. They are properly all forms of one +sibyl, [Greek: Dios Boule], the counsel of God; and the chief one, at +least in the Roman mind, was the Sibyl of Cumae. From the traditions of +her, the Romans, and we through them, received whatever lessons the +myth, or fact, of sibyl power has given to mortals. + +How much have you received, or may you yet receive, think you, of that +teaching? I call it the myth, or fact; but remember that, _as_ a myth, +it _is_ a fact. This story has concentrated whatever good there is in +the imagination or visionary powers in women, inspired by nature only. +The traditions of witch and gypsy are partly its offshoots. You despise +both, perhaps. But can you, though in utmost pride of your supreme +modern wisdom, suppose that the character--say, even of so poor and +far-fallen a sibyl as Meg Merrilies--is only the coinage of Scott's +brain; or that, even being no more, it is valueless? Admit the figure of +the Cumaean Sibyl, in like manner, to be the coinage only of Virgil's +brain. As such, it, and the words it speaks, are yet facts in which we +may find use, if we are reverent to them. + +To me, personally, (I must take your indulgence for a moment to speak +wholly of myself,) they have been of the truest service--quite material +and indisputable. + +I am writing on St. John's Day, in the monastery of Assisi; and I had no +idea whatever, when I sat down to my work this morning, of saying any +word of what I am now going to tell you. I meant only to expand and +explain a little what I said in my lecture about the Florentine +engraving. But it seems to me now that I had better tell you what the +Cumaean Sibyl has actually done for me. + +212. In 1871, partly in consequence of chagrin at the Revolution in +Paris, and partly in great personal sorrow, I was struck by acute +inflammatory illness at Matlock, and reduced to a state of extreme +weakness; lying at one time unconscious for some hours, those about me +having no hope of my life. I have no doubt that the immediate cause of +the illness was simply, eating when I was not hungry; so that modern +science would acknowledge nothing in the whole business but an extreme +and very dangerous form of indigestion; and entirely deny any +interference of the Cumaean Sibyl in the matter. + +I once heard a sermon by Dr. Guthrie, in Edinburgh, upon the wickedness +of fasting. It was very eloquent and ingenious, and finely explained the +superiority of the Scotch Free Church to the benighted Catholic Church, +in that the Free Church saw no merit in fasting. And there was no +mention, from beginning to end of the sermon, of even the existence of +such texts as Daniel i. 12, or Matthew vi. 16. + +Without the smallest merit, I admit, in fasting, I was nevertheless +reduced at Matlock to a state very near starvation; and could not rise +from my pillow, without being lifted, for some days. And in the first +clearly pronounced stage of recovery, when the perfect powers of spirit +had returned, while the body was still as weak as it well could be, I +had three dreams, which made a great impression on me; for in ordinary +health my dreams are supremely ridiculous, if not unpleasant; and in +ordinary conditions of illness, very ugly, and always without the +slightest meaning. But these dreams were all distinct and impressive, +and had much meaning, if I chose to take it. + +213. The first[BB] was of a Venetian fisherman, who wanted me to follow +him down into some water which I thought was too deep; but he called me +on, saying he had something to show me; so I followed him; and +presently, through an opening, as if in the arsenal wall, he showed me +the bronze horses of St. Mark's, and said, 'See, the horses are putting +on their harness.' + +The second was of a preparation at Rome, in St. Peter's, (or a vast hall +as large as St. Peter's,) for the exhibition of a religious drama. Part +of the play was to be a scene in which demons were to appear in the sky; +and the stage servants were arranging gray fictitious clouds, and +painted fiends, for it, under the direction of the priests. There was a +woman dressed in black, standing at the corner of the stage watching +them, having a likeness in her face to one of my own dead friends; and I +knew somehow that she was not that friend, but a spirit; and she made me +understand, without speaking, that I was to watch, for the play would +turn out other than the priests expected. And I waited; and when the +scene came on, the clouds became real clouds, and the fiends real +fiends, agitating them in slow quivering, wild and terrible, over the +heads of the people and priests. I recollected distinctly, however, when +I woke, only the figure of the black woman mocking the people, and of +one priest in an agony of terror, with the sweat pouring from his brow, +but violently scolding one of the stage servants for having failed in +some ceremony, the omission of which, he thought, had given the devils +their power. + +The third dream was the most interesting and personal. Some one came to +me to ask me to help in the deliverance of a company of Italian +prisoners who were to be ransomed for money. I said I had no money. They +answered, Yes, I had some that belonged to me as a brother of St. +Francis, if I would give it up. I said I did not know even that I _was_ +a brother of St. Francis; but I thought to myself, that perhaps the +Franciscans of Fesole, whom I had helped to make hay in their field in +1845, had adopted me for one; only I didn't see how the consequence of +that would be my having any money. However, I said they were welcome to +whatever I had; and then I heard the voice of an Italian woman singing; +and I have never heard such divine singing before nor since;--the sounds +absolutely strong and real, and the melody altogether lovely. If I could +have written it! But I could not even remember it when I woke,--only how +beautiful it was. + +214. Now these three dreams have, every one of them, been of much use to +me since; or so far as they have failed to be useful, it has been my own +fault, and not theirs; but the chief use of them at the time was to give +me courage and confidence in myself, both in bodily distress, of which I +had still not a little to bear; and worse, much mental anxiety about +matters supremely interesting to me, which were turning out ill. And +through all such trouble--which came upon me as I was recovering, as if +it meant to throw me back into the grave,--I held out and recovered, +repeating always to myself, or rather having always murmured in my ears, +at every new trial, one Latin line, + + Tu ne cede malis, sed contra fortior ito. + +Now I had got this line out of the tablet in the engraving of Raphael's +vision, and had forgotten where it came from. And I thought I knew my +sixth book of Virgil so well, that I never looked at it again while I +was giving these lectures at Oxford, and it was only here at Assisi, +the other day, wanting to look more accurately at the first scene by the +lake Avernus, that I found I had been saved by the words of the Cumaean +Sibyl. + +215. "Quam tua te Fortuna sinet," the completion of the sentence, has +yet more and continual teaching in it for me now; as it has for all men. +Her opening words, which have become hackneyed, and lost all present +power through vulgar use of them, contain yet one of the most immortal +truths ever yet spoken for mankind; and they will never lose their power +of help for noble persons. But observe, both in that lesson, "Facilis +descensus Averni," etc.; and in the still more precious, because +universal, one on which the strength of Rome was founded,--the burning +of the books,--the Sibyl speaks only as the voice of Nature, and of her +laws;--not as a divine helper, prevailing over death; but as a mortal +teacher warning us against it, and strengthening us for our mortal time; +but not for eternity. Of which lesson her own history is a part, and her +habitation by the Avernus lake. She desires immortality, fondly and +vainly, as we do ourselves. She receives, from the love of her _refused_ +lover, Apollo, not immortality, but length of life;--her years to be as +the grains of dust in her hand. And even this she finds was a false +desire; and her wise and holy desire at last is--to die. She wastes +away; becomes a shade only, and a voice. The Nations ask her, What +wouldst thou? She answers, Peace; only let my last words be true. +"L'ultimo mie parlar sie verace." + +[Illustration: VII. + +For a time, and times.] + +216. Therefore, if anything is to be conceived, rightly, and chiefly, in +the form of the Cumaean Sibyl, it must be of fading virginal beauty, of +enduring patience, of far-looking into futurity. "For after my death +there shall yet return," she says, "another virgin." + + Jam redit et virgo;--redeunt Saturnia regna, + Ultima Cumaei venit jam carminis aetas. + +Here then is Botticelli's Cumaean Sibyl. She is armed, for she is the +prophetess of Roman fortitude;--but her faded breast scarcely +raises the corselet; her hair floats, not falls, in waves like the +currents of a river,--the sign of enduring life; the light is full on +her forehead: she looks into the distance as in a dream. It is +impossible for art to gather together more beautifully or intensely +every image which can express her true power, or lead us to understand +her lesson. + +[Illustration: VIII. + +The Nymph beloved of Apollo. + +(MICHAEL ANGELO.)] + +217. Now you do not, I am well assured, know one of Michael Angelo's +sibyls from another: unless perhaps the Delphian, whom of course he +makes as beautiful as he can. But of this especially Italian prophetess, +one would have thought he might, at least in some way, have shown that +he knew the history, even if he did not understand it. She might have +had more than one book, at all events, to burn. She might have had a +stray leaf or two fallen at her feet. He could not indeed have painted +her only as a voice; but his anatomical knowledge need not have hindered +him from painting her virginal youth, or her wasting and watching age, +or her inspired hope of a holier future. + +218. Opposite,--fortunately, photograph from the figure itself, so that +you can suspect me of no exaggeration,--is Michael Angelo's Cumaean +Sibyl, wasting away. It is by a grotesque and most strange chance that +he should have made the figure of this Sibyl, of all others in the +chapel, the most fleshly and gross, even proceeding to the monstrous +license of showing the nipples of the breast as if the dress were molded +over them like plaster. Thus he paints the poor nymph beloved of +Apollo,--the clearest and queenliest in prophecy and command of all the +sibyls,--as an ugly crone, with the arms of Goliath, poring down upon a +single book. + +219. There is one point of fine detail, however, in Botticelli's Cumaean +Sibyl, and in the next I am going to show you, to explain which I must +go back for a little while to the question of the direct relation of the +Italian painters to the Greek. I don't like repeating in one lecture +what I have said in another; but to save you the trouble of reference, +must remind you of what I stated in my fourth lecture on Greek birds, +when we were examining the adoption of the plume crests in armor, that +the crest signifies command; but the diadem, _obedience_; and that every +crown is primarily a diadem. It is the thing that binds, before it is +the thing that honors. + +Now all the great schools dwell on this symbolism. The long flowing hair +is the symbol of life, and the [Greek: diadema] of the law restraining +it. Royalty, or kingliness, over life, restraining and glorifying. In +the extremity of restraint--in death, whether noble, as of death to +Earth, or ignoble, as of death to Heaven, the [Greek: diadema] is +fastened with the mort-cloth: "Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, +and the face bound about with the napkin." + +220. Now look back to the first Greek head I ever showed you, used as +the type of archaic sculpture in Aratra Pentelici, and then look at the +crown in Botticelli's Astrologia. It is absolutely the Greek form,--even +to the peculiar oval of the forehead; while the diadem--the governing +law--is set with appointed stars--to rule the destiny and thought. Then +return to the Cumaean Sibyl. She, as we have seen, is the symbol of +enduring life--almost immortal. The diadem is withdrawn from the +forehead--reduced to a narrow fillet--here, and the hair thrown free. + +[Illustration: IX. + +In the woods of Ida.] + +221. From the Cumaean Sibyl's diadem, traced only by points, turn to +that of the Hellespontic, (Plate 9, opposite). I do not know why +Botticelli chose her for the spirit of prophecy in old age; but he has +made this the most interesting plate of the series in the definiteness +of its connection with the work from Dante, which becomes his own +prophecy in old age. The fantastic yet solemn treatment of the gnarled +wood occurs, as far as I know, in no other engravings but this, and the +illustrations to Dante; and I am content to leave it, with little +comment, for the reader's quiet study, as showing the exuberance of +imagination which other men at this time in Italy allowed to waste +itself in idle arabesque, restrained by Botticelli to his most earnest +purposes; and giving the withered tree-trunks, hewn for the rude throne +of the aged prophetess, the same harmony with her fading spirit which +the rose has with youth, or the laurel with victory. Also in its +weird characters, you have the best example I can show you of the orders +of decorative design which are especially expressible by engraving, and +which belong to a group of art instincts scarcely now to be understood, +much less recovered, (the influence of modern naturalistic imitation +being too strong to be conquered)--the instincts, namely, for the +arrangement of pure line, in labyrinthine intricacy, through which the +grace of order may give continual clue. The entire body of ornamental +design, connected with writing, in the Middle Ages seems as if it were a +sensible symbol, to the eye and brain, of the methods of error and +recovery, the minglings of crooked with straight, and perverse with +progressive, which constitute the great problem of human morals and +fate; and when I chose the title for the collected series of these +lectures, I hoped to have justified it by careful analysis of the +methods of labyrinthine ornament, which, made sacred by Theseian +traditions,[BC] and beginning, in imitation of physical truth, with the +spiral waves of the waters of Babylon as the Assyrian carved them, +entangled in their returns the eyes of men, on Greek vase and Christian +manuscript--till they closed in the arabesques which sprang round the +last luxury of Venice and Rome. + +But the labyrinth of life itself, and its more and more interwoven +occupation, become too manifold, and too difficult for me; and of the +time wasted in the blind lanes of it, perhaps that spent in analysis or +recommendation of the art to which men's present conduct makes them +insensible, has been chiefly cast away. On the walls of the little room +where I finally revise this lecture,[BD] hangs an old silken sampler of +great-grandame's work: representing the domestic life of Abraham: +chiefly the stories of Isaac and Ishmael. Sarah at her tent-door, +watching, with folded arms, the dismissal of Hagar: above, in a +wilderness full of fruit trees, birds, and butterflies, little Ishmael +lying at the root of a tree, and the spent bottle under another; Hagar +in prayer, and the angel appearing to her out of a wreathed line of +gloomily undulating clouds, which, with a dark-rayed sun in the midst, +surmount the entire composition in two arches, out of which descend +shafts of (I suppose) beneficent rain; leaving, however, room, in the +corner opposite to Ishmael's angel, for Isaac's, who stays Abraham in +the sacrifice; the ram in the thicket, the squirrel in the plum tree +above him, and the grapes, pears, apples, roses, and daisies of the +foreground, being all wrought with involution of such ingenious +needlework as may well rank, in the patience, the natural skill, and the +innocent pleasure of it, with the truest works of Florentine engraving. +Nay; the actual tradition of many of the forms of ancient art is in many +places evident,--as, for instance, in the spiral summits of the flames +of the wood on the altar, which are like a group of first-springing +fern. On the wall opposite is a smaller composition, representing +Justice with her balance and sword, standing between the sun and moon, +with a background of pinks, borage, and corn-cockle: a third is only a +cluster of tulips and iris, with two Byzantine peacocks; but the spirits +of Penelope and Ariadne reign vivid in all the work--and the richness of +pleasurable fancy is as great still, in these silken labors, as in the +marble arches and golden roof of the cathedral of Monreale. + +But what is the use of explaining or analyzing it? Such work as this +means the patience and simplicity of all feminine life; and can be +produced, among _us_ at least, no more. Gothic tracery itself, another +of the instinctive labyrinthine intricacies of old, though analyzed to +its last section, has become now the symbol only of a foolish +ecclesiastical sect, retained for their shibboleth, joyless and +powerless for all good. The very labyrinth of the grass and flowers of +our fields, though dissected to its last leaf, is yet bitten bare, or +trampled to slime, by the Minotaur of our lust; and for the traceried +spire of the poplar by the brook, we possess but the four-square furnace +tower, to mingle its smoke with heaven's thunder-clouds.[BE] + +We will look yet at one sampler more of the engraved work, done in the +happy time when flowers were pure, youth simple, and imagination +gay,--Botticelli's Libyan Sibyl. + +Glance back first to the Hellespontic, noting the close fillet, and the +cloth bound below the face, and then you will be prepared to understand +the last I shall show you, and the loveliest of the southern +Pythonesses. + +[Illustration: X. + +Grass of the Desert.] + +222. A less deep thinker than Botticelli would have made her parched +with thirst, and burnt with heat. But the voice of God, through nature, +to the Arab or the Moor, is not in the thirst, but in the fountain--not +in the desert, but in the grass of it. And this Libyan Sibyl is the +spirit of wild grass and flowers, springing in desolate places. + +You see, her diadem is a wreath of them; but the blossoms of it are not +fastening enough for her hair, though it is not long yet--(she is only +in reality a Florentine girl of fourteen or fifteen)--so the little +darling knots it under her ears, and then makes herself a necklace of +it. But though flowing hair and flowers are wild and pretty, Botticelli +had not, in these only, got the power of Spring marked to his mind. Any +girl might wear flowers; but few, for ornament, would be likely to wear +grass. So the Sibyl shall have grass in her diadem; not merely +interwoven and bending, but springing and strong. You thought it ugly +and grotesque at first, did not you? It was made so, because precisely +what Botticelli wanted you to look at. + +But that's not all. This conical cap of hers, with one bead at the +top,--considering how fond the Florentines are of graceful head-dresses, +this seems a strange one for a young girl. But, exactly as I know the +angel of Victory to be Greek, at his Mount of Pity, so I know this +head-dress to be taken from a Greek coin, and to be meant for a Greek +symbol. It is the Petasus of Hermes--the mist of morning over the dew. +Lastly, what will the Libyan Sibyl say to you? The letters are large on +her tablet. Her message is the oracle from the temple of the Dew: "The +dew of thy birth is as the womb of the morning."--"Ecce venientem diem, +et latentia aperientem, tenebit gremio gentium regina." + +223. Why the daybreak came not then, nor yet has come, but only a deeper +darkness; and why there is now neither queen nor king of nations, but +every man doing that which is right in his own eyes, I would fain go on, +partly to tell you, and partly to meditate with you: but it is not our +work for to-day. The issue of the Reformation which these great +painters, the scholars of Dante, began, we may follow, farther, in the +study to which I propose to lead you, of the lives of Cimabue and +Giotto, and the relation of their work at Assisi to the chapel and +chambers of the Vatican. + +224. To-day let me finish what I have to tell you of the style of +southern engraving. What sudden bathos in the sentence, you think! So +contemptible the question of style, then, in painting, though not in +literature? You study the 'style' of Homer; the style, perhaps, of +Isaiah; the style of Horace, and of Massillon. Is it so vain to study +the style of Botticelli? + +In all cases, it is equally vain, if you think of their style first. But +know their purpose, and then, their way of speaking is worth thinking +of. These apparently unfinished and certainly unfilled outlines of the +Florentine,--clumsy work, as Vasari thought them,--as Mr. Otley and most +of our English amateurs still think them,--are these good or bad +engraving? + +You may ask now, comprehending their motive, with some hope of answering +or being answered rightly. And the answer is, They are the finest +gravers' work ever done yet by human hand. You may teach, by process of +discipline and of years, any youth of good artistic capacity to engrave +a plate in the modern manner; but only the noblest passion, and the +tenderest patience, will ever engrave one line like these of Sandro +Botticelli. + +225. Passion, and patience! Nay, even these you may have to-day in +England, and yet both be in vain. Only a few years ago, in one of our +northern iron-foundries, a workman of intense power and natural +art-faculty set himself to learn engraving;--made his own tools; gave +all the spare hours of his laborious life to learn their use; learnt it; +and engraved a plate which, in manipulation, no professional engraver +would be ashamed of. He engraved his blast furnace, and the casting of a +beam of a steam engine. This, to him, was the power of God,--it was his +life. No greater earnestness was ever given by man to promulgate a +Gospel. Nevertheless, the engraving is absolutely worthless. The blast +furnace _is not_ the power of God; and the life of the strong spirit was +as much consumed in the flames of it, as ever driven slave's by the +burden and heat of the day. + +How cruel to say so, if he yet lives, you think! No, my friends; the +cruelty will be in you, and the guilt, if, having been brought here to +learn that God is your Light, you yet leave the blast furnace to be the +only light of England. + +226. It has been, as I said in the note above (Sec. 200), with extreme pain +that I have hitherto limited my notice of our own great engraver and +moralist, to the points in which the disadvantages of English +art-teaching made him inferior to his trained Florentine rival. But, +that these disadvantages were powerless to arrest or ignobly depress +him;--that however failing in grace and scholarship, he should never +fail in truth or vitality; and that the precision of his unerring +hand[BF]--his inevitable eye--and his rightly judging heart--should +place him in the first rank of the great artists not of England only, +but of all the world and of all time:--that _this_ was possible to him, +was simply because he lived a _country_ life. Bewick himself, +Botticelli himself, Apelles himself, and twenty times Apelles, condemned +to slavery in the hell-fire of the iron furnace, could have +done--NOTHING. Absolute paralysis of all high human faculty _must_ +result from labor near fire. The poor engraver of the piston-rod had +faculties--not like Bewick's, for if he had had those, he never would +have endured the degradation; but assuredly, (I know this by his work,) +faculties high enough to have made him one of the most accomplished +figure painters of his age. And they are scorched out of him, as the sap +from the grass in the oven: while on his Northumberland hill-sides, +Bewick grew into as stately life as their strongest pine. + +227. And therefore, in words of his, telling consummate and unchanging +truth concerning the life, honor, and happiness of England, and bearing +directly on the points of difference between class and class which I +have not dwelt on without need, I will bring these lectures to a close. + +"I have always, through life, been of opinion that there is no business +of any kind that can be compared to that of a man who farms his own +land. It appears to me that every earthly pleasure, with health, is +within his reach. But numbers of these men (the old statesmen) were +grossly ignorant, and in exact proportion to that ignorance they were +sure to be offensively proud. This led them to attempt appearing above +their station, which hastened them on to their ruin; but, indeed, this +disposition and this kind of conduct invariably leads to such results. +There were many of these lairds on Tyneside; as well as many who held +their lands on the tenure of 'suit and service,' and were nearly on the +same level as the lairds. Some of the latter lost their lands (not +fairly, I think) in a way they could not help; many of the former, by +their misdirected pride and folly, were driven into towns, to slide away +into nothingness, and to sink into oblivion, while their 'ha' houses' +(halls), that ought to have remained in their families from generation +to generation, have moldered away. I have always felt extremely grieved +to see the ancient mansions of many of the country gentlemen, from +somewhat similar causes, meet with a similar fate. The gentry should, +in an especial manner, prove by their conduct that they are guarded +against showing any symptom of foolish pride; at the same time that they +soar above every meanness, and that their conduct is guided by truth, +integrity, and patriotism. If they wish the people to partake with them +in these good qualities, they must set them the example, without which +no real respect can ever be paid to them. Gentlemen ought never to +forget the respectable station they hold in society, and that they are +the natural guardians of public morals and may with propriety be +considered as the head and the heart of the country, while 'a bold +peasantry' are, in truth, the arms, the sinews, and the strength of the +same; but when these last are degraded, they soon become dispirited and +mean, and often dishonest and useless." + + * * * * * + +"This singular and worthy man[BG] was perhaps the most invaluable +acquaintance and friend I ever met with. His moral lectures and advice +to me formed a most important succedaneum to those imparted by my +parents. His wise remarks, his detestation of vice, his industry, and +his temperance, crowned with a most lively and cheerful disposition, +altogether made him appear to me as one of the best of characters. In +his workshop I often spent my winter evenings. This was also the case +with a number of young men who might be considered as his pupils; many +of whom, I have no doubt, he directed into the paths of truth and +integrity, and who revered his memory through life. He rose early to +work, lay down when he felt weary, and rose again when refreshed. His +diet was of the simplest kind; and he ate when hungry, and drank when +dry, without paying regard to meal-times. By steadily pursuing this mode +of life he was enabled to accumulate sums of money--from ten to thirty +pounds. This enabled him to get books, of an entertaining and moral +tendency, printed and circulated at a cheap rate. His great object was, +by every possible means, to promote honorable feelings in the minds of +youth, and to prepare them for becoming good members of society. I have +often discovered that he did not overlook ingenious mechanics, whose +misfortunes--perhaps mismanagement--had led them to a lodging in +Newgate. To these he directed his compassionate eye, and for the +deserving (in his estimation), he paid their debt, and set them at +liberty. He felt hurt at seeing the hands of an ingenious man tied up in +prison, where they were of no use either to himself or to the community. +This worthy man had been educated for a priest; but he would say to me, +'Of a "trouth," Thomas, I did not like their ways.' So he gave up the +thoughts of being a priest, and bent his way from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, +where he engaged himself to Allan Ramsay, the poet, then a bookseller at +the latter place, in whose service he was both shopman and bookbinder. +From Edinburgh he came to Newcastle. Gilbert had had a liberal education +bestowed upon him. He had read a great deal, and had reflected upon what +he had read. This, with his retentive memory, enabled him to be a +pleasant and communicative companion. I lived in habits of intimacy with +him to the end of his life; and, when he died, I, with others of his +friends, attended his remains to the grave at the Ballast Hills." + +And what graving on the sacred cliffs of Egypt ever honored them, as +that grass-dimmed furrow does the mounds of our Northern land? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[AS] The world was not then ready for Le Pere Hyacinthe;--but the real +gist of the matter is that Lippi did, openly and bravely, what the +highest prelates in the Church did basely and in secret; also he loved, +where they only lusted; and he has been proclaimed therefore by +them--and too foolishly believed by us--to have been a shameful person. +Of his true life, and the colors given to it, we will try to learn +something tenable, before we end our work in Florence. + +[AT] I insert supplementary notes, when of importance, in the text of +the lecture, for the convenience of the general reader. + +[AU] Mr. Charles F. Murray. + +[AV] Some notice of this picture is given at the beginning of my third +Morning in Florence, 'Before the Soldan.' + +[AW] I am bitterly sorry for the pain which my partial references to the +man whom of all English artists whose histories I have read, I most +esteem, have given to one remaining member of his family. I hope my +meaning may be better understood after she has seen the close of this +lecture. + +[AX] Read Ezekiel xviii. + +[AY] See also the account by Dr. Woltmann of the picture of the Triumph +of Riches. 'Holbein and his Time,' p. 352. + +[AZ] These words are engraved in the plate, as spoken by the Virgin. + +[BA] Cosimo Rosselli, especially chosen by the Pope for his gay +coloring. + +[BB] I am not certain of their order at this distance of time. + +[BC] Callimachus, 'Delos,' 304, etc. + +[BD] In the Old King's Arms Hotel, Lancaster. + +[BE] A manufacturer wrote to me the other day, "We don't _want_ to make +smoke!" Who said they did?--a hired murderer does not want to commit +murder, but does it for sufficient motive. (Even our shipowners don't +want to drown their sailors; they will only do it for sufficient +motive.) If the dirty creatures _did_ want to make smoke, there would be +more excuse for them: and that they are not clever enough to consume it, +is no praise to them. A man who can't help his hiccough leaves the room: +why do they not leave the England they pollute? + +[BF] I know no drawing so subtle as Bewick's, since the fifteenth +century, except Holbein's and Turner's. I have been greatly surprised +lately by the exquisite water-color work in some of Stothard's smaller +vignettes; but he cannot set the line like Turner or Bewick. + +[BG] Gilbert Gray, bookbinder. I have to correct the inaccurate--and +very harmfully inaccurate, expression which I used of Bewick, in Love's +Meinie (Sec. 3), 'a printer's lad at Newcastle.' His first master was a +goldsmith and engraver, else he could never have been an artist. I am +very heartily glad to make this correction, which establishes another +link of relation between Bewick and Botticelli; but my error was partly +caused by the impression which the above description of his "most +invaluable friend" made on me, when I first read it. + +Much else that I meant to correct, or promised to explain, in this +lecture, must be deferred to the Appendix; the superiority of the Tuscan +to the Greek Aphrodite I may perhaps, even at last, leave the reader to +admit or deny as he pleases, having more important matters of debate on +hand. But as I mean only to play with Proserpina during the spring, I +will here briefly anticipate a statement I mean in the Appendix to +enforce, namely, of the extreme value of colored copies by hand, of +paintings whose excellence greatly consists in color, as auxiliary to +engravings of them. The prices now given without hesitation for nearly +worthless original drawings by fifth-rate artists, would obtain for the +misguided buyers, in something like a proportion of ten to one, most +precious copies of drawings which can only be represented at all in +engraving by entire alteration of their treatment, and abandonment of +their finest purposes. I feel this so strongly that I have given my best +attention, during upwards of ten years, to train a copyist to perfect +fidelity in rendering the work of Turner; and having now succeeded in +enabling him to produce facsimiles so close as to look like replicas, +facsimiles which I must sign with my own name and his, in the very work +of them, to prevent their being sold for real Turner vignettes, I can +obtain no custom for him, and am obliged to leave him to make his bread +by any power of captivation his original sketches may possess in the +eyes of a public which maintains a nation of copyists in Rome, but is +content with black and white renderings of great English art; though +there is scarcely one cultivated English gentleman or lady who has not +been twenty times in the Vatican, for once that they have been in the +National Gallery. + + + + + NOTES. + + +228. I. The following letter, from one of my most faithful readers, +corrects an important piece of misinterpretation in the text. The waving +of the reins must be only in sign of the fluctuation of heat round the +Sun's own chariot:-- + + "Spring Field, Ambleside, + "February 11, 1875. + +"Dear Mr. Ruskin,--Your fifth lecture on Engraving I have to hand. + +"Sandro intended those wavy lines meeting under the Sun's right[BH] +hand, (Plate V.) primarily, no doubt, to represent the four ends of the +four reins dangling from the Sun's hand. The flames and rays are seen to +continue to radiate from the platform of the chariot between and beyond +these ends of the reins, and over the knee. He may have wanted to +acknowledge that the warmth of the earth was Apollo's, by making these +ends of the reins spread out separately and wave, and thereby inclose a +form like a flame. But I cannot think it. + + "Believe me, + "Ever yours truly, + "CHAS. WM. SMITH." + +II. I meant to keep labyrinthine matters for my Appendix; but the +following most useful by-words from Mr. Tyrwhitt had better be read at +once:-- + +"In the matter of Cretan Labyrinth, as connected by Virgil with the +Ludus Trojae, or equestrian game of winding and turning, continued in +England from twelfth century; and having for last relic the maze[BI] +called 'Troy Town,' at Troy Farm, near Somerton, Oxfordshire, which +itself resembles the circular labyrinth on a coin of Cnossus in Fors +Clavigera. (Letter 23, p. 12.) + +"The connecting quotation from Virg., AEn., V. 588, is as follows: + + 'Ut quondam Creta fertur Labyrinthus in alta + Parietibus textum caecis iter, ancipitemque + Mille viis habuisse dolum, qua signa sequendi + Falleret indeprensus et inremeabilis error. + Haud alio Teucruen nati vestigia cursu + Impediunt, texuntque fagas et proelia ludo, + Delphinum similes.'" + +Labyrinth of Ariadne, as cut on the Downs by shepherds from time +immemorial,-- + +Shakespeare, 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act ii., sc. 2: + +"_Oberon._ The nine-men's morris[BJ] is filled up with mud; + And the quaint mazes in the wanton green + By lack of tread are undistinguishable." + +The following passage, 'Merchant of Venice,' Act iii., sc. 2, confuses +(to all appearance) the Athenian tribute to Crete, with the story of +Hesione: and may point to general confusion in the Elizabethan mind +about the myths: + +"_Portia._ ... with much more love + Than young Alcides, when he did reduce + The virgin-tribute paid by howling Troy + To the sea monster."[BK] + +Theseus is the Attic Hercules, however; and Troy may have been a sort of +house of call for mythical monsters, in the view of midland shepherds. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[BH] "Would not the design have looked better, to us, on the plate than +on the print? On the plate, the reins would be in the left hand; and the +whole movement be from the left to the right? The two different forms +that the radiance takes would symbolize respectively heat and light, +would they not?" + +[BI] Strutt, pp. 97-8, ed. 1801. + +[BJ] Explained as "a game still played by the shepherds, cowkeepers," +etc., in the midland counties. + +[BK] See Iliad, 20, 145. + + +[Illustration: XI. + +"Obediente Domino voci hominis."] + + + + + APPENDIX. + + + ARTICLE I. + + NOTES ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ENGRAVING IN ENGLAND. + +229. I have long deferred the completion of this book, because I had +hoped to find time to show, in some fullness, the grounds for my +conviction that engraving, and the study of it, since the development of +the modern finished school, have been ruinous to European knowledge of +art. But I am more and more busied in what I believe to be better work, +and can only with extreme brevity state here the conclusions of many +years' thought. + +These, in several important particulars, have been curiously enforced on +me by the carelessness shown by the picture dealers about the copies +from Turner which it has cost Mr. Ward and me[BL] fifteen years of study +together to enable ourselves to make. "They are only copies," say +they,--"nobody will look at them." + +230. It never seems to occur even to the most intelligent persons that +an engraving also is 'only a copy,' and a copy done with refusal of +color, and with disadvantage of means in rendering shade. But just +because this utterly inferior copy can be reduplicated, and introduces a +different kind of skill, in another material, people are content to lose +all the composition, and all the charm, of the original,--so far as +these depend on the chief gift of a _painter_,--color; while they are +gradually misled into attributing to the painter himself qualities +impertinently added by the engraver to make his plate popular: and, +which is far worse, they are as gradually and subtly prevented from +looking, in the original, for the qualities which engraving could never +render. Further, it continually happens that the very best +color-compositions engrave worst; for they often extend colors over +great spaces at equal pitch, and the green is as dark as the red, and +the blue as the brown; so that the engraver can only distinguish them by +lines in different directions, and his plate becomes a vague and dead +mass of neutral tint; but a bad and forced piece of color, or a piece of +work of the Bolognese school, which is everywhere black in the shadows, +and colorless in the lights, will engrave with great ease, and appear +spirited and forcible. Hence engravers, as a rule, are interested in +reproducing the work of the worst schools of painting. + +Also, the idea that the merit of an engraving consisted in light and +shade, has prevented the modern masters from even attempting to render +works dependent mainly on outline and expression; like the early +frescoes, which should indeed have been the objects of their most +attentive and continual skill: for outline and expression are entirely +within the scope of engraving; and the scripture histories of an aisle +of a cloister might have been engraved, to perfection, with little more +pains than are given by ordinary workmen to round a limb by Correggio, +or imitate the texture of a dress by Sir Joshua,--and both, at last, +inadequately. + +231. I will not lose more time in asserting or lamenting the mischief +arising out of the existing system: but will rapidly state what the +public should now ask for. + +1. Exquisitely careful engraved outlines of all remaining frescoes of +the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries in Italy, with so +much pale tinting as may be explanatory of their main masses; and with +the local darks and local lights brilliantly relieved. The Arundel +Society have published some meritorious plates of this kind from +Angelico,--not, however, paying respect enough to the local colors, but +conventionalizing the whole too much into outline. + +2. Finished small plates for book illustration. The cheap wood-cutting +and etching of popular illustrated books have been endlessly mischievous +to public taste: they first obtained their power in a general reaction +of the public mind from the insipidity of the lower school of line +engraving, brought on it by servile persistence in hack work for +ignorant publishers. The last dregs of it may still be seen in the +sentimental landscapes engraved for cheap ladies' pocket-books. But the +woodcut can never, educationally, take the place of serene and +accomplished line engraving; and the training of young artists in whom +the gift of delineation prevails over their sense of color, to the +production of scholarly, but small plates, with their utmost honor of +skill, would give a hitherto unconceived dignity to the character and +range of our popular literature. + +3. Vigorous mezzotints from pictures of the great masters, which +originally present noble contrasts of light and shade. Many Venetian +works are magnificent in this character. + +4. Original design by painters themselves, decisively engraved in few +lines--(_not_ etched); and with such insistence by dotted work on the +main contours as we have seen in the examples given from Italian +engraving. + +5. On the other hand, the men whose quiet patience and exquisite manual +dexterity are at present employed in producing large and costly plates, +such as that of the Belle Jardiniere de Florence, by M. Boucher +Desnoyers, should be entirely released from their servile toil, and +employed exclusively in producing colored copies, or light drawings, +from the original work. The same number of hours of labor, applied with +the like conscientious skill, would multiply precious likenesses of the +real picture, full of subtle veracities which no steel line could +approach, and conveying, to thousands, true knowledge and unaffected +enjoyment of painting; while the finished plate lies uncared for in the +portfolio of the virtuoso, serving only, so far as it is seen in the +printseller's window by the people, to make them think that sacred +painting must always be dull, and unnatural. + +232. I have named the above engraving, because, for persons wishing to +study the present qualities and methods of line-work, it is a pleasant +and sufficient possession, uniting every variety of texture with great +serenity of unforced effect, and exhibiting every possible artifice and +achievement in the distribution of even and rugged, or of close and open +line; artifices for which,--while I must yet once more and emphatically +repeat that they are illegitimate, and could not be practiced in a +revived school of classic art,--I would fain secure the reader's +reverent admiration, under the conditions exacted by the school to which +they belong. Let him endeavor, with the finest point of pen or pencil he +can obtain, to imitate the profile of this Madonna in its relief against +the gray background of the water surface; let him examine, through a +good lens, the way in which the lines of the background are ended in a +lance-point as they approach it; the exact equality of depth of shade +being restored by inserted dots, which prepare for the transition to the +manner of shade adopted in the flesh: then let him endeavor to trace +with his own hand some of the curved lines at the edge of the eyelid, or +in the rounding of the lip; or if these be too impossible, even a few of +the quiet undulations which gradate the folds of the hood behind the +hair; and he will, I trust, begin to comprehend the range of delightful +work which would be within the reach of such an artist, employed with +more tractable material on more extended subject. + +233. If, indeed, the present system were capable of influencing the mass +of the people, and enforcing among them the subtle attention necessary +to appreciate it, something might be pleaded in defense of its severity. +But all these plates are entirely above the means of the lower middle +classes, and perhaps not one reader in a hundred can possess himself, +for the study I ask of him, even of the plate to which I have just +referred. What, in the stead of such, he can and does possess, let him +consider,--and, if possible, just after examining the noble qualities of +this conscientious engraving. + +234. Take up, for an average specimen of modern illustrated works, the +volume of Dickens's 'Master Humphrey's Clock,' containing 'Barnaby +Rudge.' + +You have in that book an entirely profitless and monstrous story, in +which the principal characters are a coxcomb, an idiot, a madman, a +savage blackguard, a foolish tavern-keeper, a mean old maid, and a +conceited apprentice,--mixed up with a certain quantity of ordinary +operatic pastoral stuff, about a pretty Dolly in ribbons, a lover with a +wooden leg, and an heroic locksmith. For these latter, the only elements +of good, or life, in the filthy mass of the story,[BM] observe that the +author must filch the wreck of those old times of which we fiercely and +frantically destroy every living vestige, whenever it is possible. You +cannot have your Dolly Varden brought up behind the counter of a railway +station; nor your jolly locksmith trained at a Birmingham brass-foundry. +And of these materials, observe that you can only have the ugly ones +illustrated. The cheap popular art cannot draw for you beauty, sense, or +honesty; and for Dolly Varden, or the locksmith, you will look through +the vignettes in vain. But every species of distorted folly and +vice,--the idiot, the blackguard, the coxcomb, the paltry fool, the +degraded woman,--are pictured for your honorable pleasure in every page, +with clumsy caricature, struggling to render its dullness tolerable by +insisting on defect,--if perchance a penny or two more may be coined out +of the Cockney reader's itch for loathsomeness. + +235. Or take up, for instance of higher effort, the 'Cornhill Magazine' +for this month, July, 1876. It has a vignette of Venice for an +illuminated letter. That is what your decorative art has become, by help +of Kensington! The letter to be produced is a T. There is a gondola in +the front of the design, with the canopy slipped back to the stern like +a saddle over a horse's tail. There is another in the middle distance, +all gone to seed at the prow, with its gondolier emaciated into an oar, +at the stern; then there is a Church of the Salute, and a Ducal +Palace,--in which I beg you to observe all the felicity and dexterity of +modern cheap engraving; finally, over the Ducal Palace there is +something, I know not in the least what meant for, like an umbrella +dropping out of a balloon, which is the ornamental letter T. Opposite +this ornamental design, there is an engraving of two young ladies and a +parasol, between two trunks of trees. The white face and black feet of +the principal young lady, being the points of the design, are done with +as much care,--not with as much dexterity,--as an ordinary sketch of Du +Maurier's in Punch. The young lady's dress, the next attraction, is done +in cheap white and black cutting, with considerably less skill than that +of any ordinary tailor's or milliner's shop-book pattern drawing. For +the other young lady, and the landscape, take your magnifying glass, and +look at the hacked wood that forms the entire shaded surface--one mass +of idiotic scrabble, without the remotest attempt to express a single +leaf, flower, or clod of earth. It is such landscape as the public sees +out of its railroad window at sixty miles of it in the hour--and good +enough for such a public. + +236. Then turn to the last--the poetical plate, p. 122: "Lifts her--lays +her down with care." Look at the gentleman with a spade, promoting the +advance, over a hillock of hay, of the reposing figure in the +black-sided tub. Take your magnifying glass to _that_, and look what a +dainty female arm and hand your modern scientific and anatomical schools +of art have provided you with! Look at the tender horizontal flux of the +sea round the promontory point above. Look at the tender engraving of +the linear light on the divine horizon, above the ravenous sea-gull. +Here is Development and Progress for you, from the days of Perugino's +horizon, and Dante's daybreaks! Truly, here it seems + + "Si che le bianche e le vermiglie guance + Per troppa etate divenivan rance." + +237. I have chosen no gross or mean instances of modern work. It is one +of the saddest points connected with the matter that the designer of +this last plate is a person of consummate art faculty, but bound to the +wheel of the modern Juggernaut, and broken on it. These woodcuts, for +'Barnaby Rudge' and the 'Cornhill Magazine,' are favorably +representative of the entire illustrative art industry of the modern +press,--industry enslaved to the ghastly service of catching the last +gleams in the glued eyes of the daily more bestial English +mob,--railroad born and bred, which drags itself about the black world +it has withered under its breath, in one eternal grind and +shriek,--gobbling,--staring,--chattering,--giggling,--trampling out +every vestige of national honor and domestic peace, wherever it sets the +staggering hoof of it; incapable of reading, of hearing, of thinking, of +looking,--capable only of greed for money, lust for food, pride of +dress, and the prurient itch of momentary curiosity for the politics +last announced by the newsmonger, and the religion last rolled by the +chemist into electuary for the dead. + +238. In the miserably competitive labor of finding new stimulus for the +appetite--daily more gross--of this tyrannous mob, we may count as lost, +beyond any hope, the artists who are dull, docile, or distressed enough +to submit to its demands; and we may count the dull and the distressed +by myriads;--and among the docile, many of the best intellects we +possess. The few who have sense and strength to assert their own place +and supremacy, are driven into discouraged disease by their isolation, +like Turner and Blake; the one abandoning the design of his 'Liber +Studiorum' after imperfectly and sadly, against total public neglect, +carrying it forward to what it is,--monumental, nevertheless, in +landscape engraving; the other producing, with one only majestic series +of designs from the book of Job, nothing for his life's work but +coarsely iridescent sketches of enigmatic dream. + +239. And, for total result of our English engraving industry during the +last hundred and fifty years, I find that practically at this moment I +cannot get a _single_ piece of true, sweet, and comprehensible art, to +place for instruction in any children's school! I can get, for ten +pounds apiece, well-engraved portraits of Sir Joshua's beauties showing +graceful limbs through flowery draperies; I can get--dirt-cheap--any +quantity of Dutch flats, ditches, and hedges, enlivened by cows chewing +the cud, and dogs behaving indecently; I can get heaps upon heaps of +temples, and forums, and altars, arranged as for academical competition, +round seaports, with curled-up ships that only touch the water with the +middle of their bottoms. I can get, at the price of lumber, any quantity +of British squires flourishing whips and falling over hurdles; and, in +suburban shops, a dolorous variety of widowed mothers nursing babies in +a high light with the Bible on a table, and baby's shoes on a chair. +Also, of cheap prints, painted red and blue, of Christ blessing little +children, of Joseph and his brethren, the infant Samuel, or Daniel in +the lions' den, the supply is ample enough to make every child in these +islands think of the Bible as a somewhat dull story-book, allowed on +Sunday;--but of trained, wise, and worthy art, applied to gentle +purposes of instruction, no single example can be found in the shops of +the British printseller or bookseller. And after every dilettante tongue +in European society has filled drawing-room and academy alike with idle +clatter concerning the divinity of Raphael and Michael Angelo, for these +last hundred years, I cannot at this instant, for the first school which +I have some power of organizing under St. George's laws, get a good +print of Raphael's Madonna of the tribune, or an ordinarily intelligible +view of the side and dome of St. Peter's! + +240. And there are simply no words for the mixed absurdity and +wickedness of the present popular demand for art, as shown by its supply +in our thoroughfares. Abroad, in the shops of the Rue de Rivoli, +brightest and most central of Parisian streets, the putrescent remnant +of what was once Catholicism promotes its poor gilded pedlars' ware of +nativity and crucifixion into such honorable corners as it can find +among the more costly and studious illuminations of the brothel: and +although, in Pall Mall, and the Strand, the large-margined +Landseer,--Stanfield,--or Turner-proofs, in a few stately windows, still +represent, uncared-for by the people, or inaccessible to them, the power +of an English school now wholly perished,--these are too surely +superseded, in the windows that stop the crowd, by the thrilling +attraction with which Dore, Gerome, and Tadema have invested the +gambling table, the dueling ground, and the arena; or by the more +material and almost tangible truth with which the apothecary-artist +stereographs the stripped actress, and the railway mound. + +241. Under these conditions, as I have now repeatedly asserted, no +professorship, nor school, of art can be of the least use to the general +public. No race can understand a visionary landscape, which blasts its +real mountains into ruin, and blackens its river-beds with foam of +poison. Nor is it of the least use to exhibit ideal Diana at Kensington, +while substantial Phryne may be worshiped in the Strand. The only +recovery of our art-power possible,--nay, when once we know the full +meaning of it, the only one desirable,--must result from the +purification of the nation's heart, and chastisement of its life: +utterly hopeless now, for our adult population, or in our large cities, +and their neighborhood. But, so far as any of the sacred influence of +former design can be brought to bear on the minds of the young, and so +far as, in rural districts, the first elements of scholarly education +can be made pure, the foundation of a new dynasty of thought may be +slowly laid. I was strangely impressed by the effect produced in a +provincial seaport school for children, chiefly of fishermen's families, +by the gift of a little colored drawing of a single figure from the +Paradise of Angelico in the Accademia of Florence. The drawing was +wretched enough, seen beside the original; I had only bought it from the +poor Italian copyist for charity: but, to the children, it was like an +actual glimpse of heaven; they rejoiced in it with pure joy, and their +mistress thanked me for it more than if I had sent her a whole library +of good books. Of such copies, the grace-giving industry of young +girls, now worse than lost in the spurious charities of the bazaar, or +selfish ornamentations of the drawing-room, might, in a year's time, +provide enough for every dame-school in England; and a year's honest +work of the engravers employed on our base novels, might represent to +our advanced students every frescoed legend of philosophy and morality +extant in Christendom. + +242. For my own part, I have no purpose, in what remains to me of +opportunity, either at Oxford or elsewhere, to address any farther +course of instruction towards the development of existing schools. After +seeing the stream of the Teviot as black as ink, and a putrid carcass of +a sheep lying in the dry channel of the Jed, under Jedburgh Abbey, (the +entire strength of the summer stream being taken away to supply a single +mill,) I know, finally, what value the British mind sets on the +'beauties of nature,' and shall attempt no farther the excitement of its +enthusiasm in that direction. I shall indeed endeavor to carry out, with +Mr. Ward's help, my twenty years' held purpose of making the real +character of Turner's work known, to the persons who, formerly +interested by the engravings from him, imagined half the merit was of +the engraver's giving. But I know perfectly that to the general people, +trained in the midst of the ugliest objects that vice can design, in +houses, mills, and machinery, _all_ beautiful form and color is as +invisible as the seventh heaven. It is not a question of appreciation at +all; the thing is physically invisible to them, as human speech is +inaudible during a steam whistle. + +243. And I shall also use all the strength I have to convince those, +among our artists of the second order, who are wise and modest enough +not to think themselves the matches of Turner or Michael Angelo, that in +the present state of art they only waste their powers in endeavoring to +produce original pictures of human form or passion. Modern aristocratic +life is too vulgar, and modern peasant life too unhappy, to furnish +subjects of noble study; while, even were it otherwise, the +multiplication of designs by painters of second-rate power is no more +desirable than the writing of music by inferior composers. They may, +with far greater personal happiness, and incalculably greater advantage +to others, devote themselves to the affectionate and sensitive copying +of the works of men of just renown. The dignity of this self-sacrifice +would soon be acknowledged with sincere respect; for copies produced by +men working with such motive would differ no less from the common +trade-article of the galleries than the rendering of music by an +enthusiastic and highly trained executant differs from the grinding of a +street organ. And the change in the tone of public feeling, produced by +familiarity with such work, would soon be no less great than in their +musical enjoyment, if having been accustomed only to hear black +Christys, blind fiddlers, and hoarse beggars scrape or howl about their +streets, they were permitted daily audience of faithful and gentle +orchestral rendering of the work of the highest classical masters. + +244. I have not, until very lately, rightly appreciated the results of +the labor of the Arundel Society in this direction. Although, from the +beginning, I have been honored in being a member of its council, my +action has been hitherto rather of check than help, because I thought +more of the differences between our copies and the great originals, than +of their unquestionable superiority to anything the public could +otherwise obtain. + +I was practically convinced of their extreme value only this last +winter, by staying at the house of a friend in which the Arundel +engravings were the principal decoration; and where I learned more of +Masaccio from the Arundel copy of the contest with Simon Magus, than in +the Brancacci chapel itself; for the daily companionship with the +engraving taught me subtleties in its composition which had escaped me +in the multitudinous interest of visits to the actual fresco. + +But the work of the Society has been sorely hindered hitherto, because +it has had at command only the skill of copyists trained in foreign +schools of color, and accustomed to meet no more accurate requisitions +than those of the fashionable traveler. I have always hoped for, and +trust at last to obtain, co-operation with our too mildly laborious +copyists, of English artists possessing more brilliant color faculty; +and the permission of our subscribers to secure for them the great ruins +of the noble past, undesecrated by the trim, but treacherous, plastering +of modern emendation. + +245. Finally, I hope to direct some of the antiquarian energy often to +be found remaining, even when love of the picturesque has passed away, +to encourage the accurate delineation and engraving of historical +monuments, as a direct function of our schools of art. All that I have +generally to suggest on this matter has been already stated with +sufficient clearness in the first of my inaugural lectures at Oxford: +and my forthcoming 'Elements of Drawing'[BN] will contain all the +directions I can give in writing as to methods of work for such purpose. +The publication of these has been hindered, for at least a year, by the +abuses introduced by the modern cheap modes of printing engravings. I +find the men won't use any ink but what pleases them; nor print but with +what pressure pleases them; and if I can get the foreman to attend to +the business, and choose the ink right, the men change it the moment he +leaves the room, and threaten to throw up the job when they are +detected. All this, I have long known well, is a matter of course, in +the outcome of modern principles of trade; but it has rendered it +hitherto impossible for me to produce illustrations, which have been +ready, as far as my work or that of my own assistants is concerned, for +a year and a half. Any one interested in hearing of our progress--or +arrest, may write to my Turner copyist, Mr. Ward:[BO] and, in the +meantime, they can help my designs for art education best by making +these Turner copies more generally known; and by determining, when they +travel, to spend what sums they have at their disposal, not in fady +photography, but in the encouragement of any good _water-color_ and +_pencil_ draughtsmen whom they find employed in the _galleries_ of +Europe. + + + ARTICLE II. + + DETACHED NOTES. + + I. + + _On the series of Sibyl engravings attributed to Botticelli._ + +246. Since I wrote the earlier lectures in this volume, I have been made +more doubtful on several points which were embarrassing enough before, +by seeing some better (so-called) impressions of my favorite plates +containing light and shade which did not improve them. + +I do not choose to waste time or space in discussion, till I know more +of the matter; and that more I must leave to my good friend Mr. Reid of +the British Museum to find out for me; for I have no time to take up the +subject myself, but I give, for frontispiece to this Appendix, the +engraving of Joshua referred to in the text, which however beautiful in +thought, is an example of the inferior execution and more elaborate +shade which puzzle me. But whatever is said in the previous pages of the +plates chosen for example, by whomsoever done, is absolutely +trustworthy. Thoroughly fine they are, in their existing state, and +exemplary to all persons and times. And of the rest, in fitting place I +hope to give complete--or at least satisfactory account. + + + II. + + _On the three excellent engravers representative of the first, middle, + and late schools._ + +[Illustration: XII. + +The Coronation in the Garden.] + +247. I have given opposite a photograph, slightly reduced from the Duerer +Madonna, alluded to often in the text, as an example of his best +conception of womanhood. It is very curious that Duerer, the least +able of all great artists to represent womanhood, should of late have +been a very principal object of feminine admiration. The last thing a +woman should do is to write about art. They never see anything in +pictures but what they are told, (or resolve to see out of +contradiction,)--or the particular things that fall in with their own +feelings. I saw a curious piece of enthusiastic writing by an Edinburgh +lady, the other day, on the photographs I had taken from the tower of +Giotto. She did not care a straw what Giotto had meant by them, declared +she felt it her duty only to announce what they were to _her_; and wrote +two pages on the bas-relief of Heracles and Antaeus--assuming it to be +the death of Abel. + +248. It is not, however, by women only that Duerer has been over-praised. +He stands so alone in his own field, that the people who care much for +him generally lose the power of enjoying anything else rightly; and are +continually attributing to the force of his imagination quaintnesses +which are merely part of the general mannerism of his day. + +The following notes upon him, in relation to two other excellent +engravers, were written shortly for extempore expansion in lecturing. I +give them, with the others in this terminal article, mainly for use to +myself in future reference; but also as more or less suggestive to the +reader, if he has taken up the subject seriously, and worth, therefore, +a few pages of this closing sheet. + +249. The men I have named as representative of all the good ones +composing their school, are alike resolved their engraving shall be +lovely. + +But Botticelli, the ancient, wants, with as little engraving, as much +Sibyl as possible. + +Duerer, the central, wants, with as much engraving as possible, anything +of Sibyl that may chance to be picked up with it. + +Beaugrand, the modern, wants, as much Sibyl as possible, and as much +engraving too. + +250. I repeat--for I want to get this clear to you--Botticelli wants, +with as little engraving, as much Sibyl as possible. For his head is +full of Sibyls, and his heart. He can't draw them fast enough: one +comes, and another and another; and all, gracious and wonderful and +good, to be engraved forever, if only he had a thousand hands and lives. +He scratches down one, with no haste, with no fault, divinely careful, +scrupulous, patient, but with as few lines as possible. 'Another +Sibyl--let me draw another, for heaven's sake, before she has burnt all +her books, and vanished.' + +Duerer is exactly Botticelli's opposite. He is a workman, to the heart, +and will do his work magnificently. 'No matter what I do it on, so that +my craft be honorably shown. Anything will do; a Sibyl, a skull, a +Madonna and Christ, a hat and feather, an Adam, an Eve, a cock, a +sparrow, a lion with two tails, a pig with five legs,--anything will do +for me. But see if I don't show you what engraving is, be my subject +what it may!' + +251. Thirdly: Beaugrand, I said, wants as much Sibyl as possible, and as +much engraving. He is essentially a copyist, and has no ideas of his +own, but deep reverence and love for the work of others. He will give +his life to represent another man's thought. He will do his best with +every spot and line,--exhibit to you, if you will only look, the most +exquisite completion of obedient skill; but will be content, if you will +not look, to pass his neglected years in fruitful peace, and count every +day well spent that has given softness to a shadow, or light to a smile. + + + III. + + _On Duerer's landscape, with reference to the sentence on p. 101_: + "I hope you are pleased." + +252. I spoke just now only of the ill-shaped body of this figure of +Fortune, or Pleasure. Beneath her feet is an elaborate landscape. It is +all drawn out of Duerer's head;--he would look at bones or tendons +carefully, or at the leaf details of foreground;--but at the breadth +and loveliness of real landscape, never. + +He has tried to give you a bird's-eye view of Germany; rocks, and woods, +and clouds, and brooks, and the pebbles in their beds, and mills, and +cottages, and fences, and what not; but it is all a feverish dream, +ghastly and strange, a monotone of diseased imagination. + +And here is a little bit of the world he would not look at--of the great +river of his land, with a single cluster of its reeds, and two boats, +and an island with a village, and the way for the eternal waters opened +between the rounded hills.[BP] + +It is just what you may see any day, anywhere,--innocent, seemingly +artless; but the artlessness of Turner is like the face of +Gainsborough's village girl, and a joy forever. + + + IV. + + _On the study of anatomy._ + +253. The virtual beginner of artistic anatomy in Italy was a man called +'The Poulterer'--from his grandfather's trade; 'Pollajuolo,' a man of +immense power, but on whom the curse of the Italian mind in this age[BQ] +was set at its deepest. + +Any form of passionate excess has terrific effects on body and soul, in +nations as in men; and when this excess is in rage, and rage against +your brother, and rage accomplished in habitual deeds of blood,--do you +think Nature will forget to set the seal of her indignation upon the +forehead? I told you that the great division of spirit between the +northern and southern races had been reconciled in the Val d'Arno. The +Font of Florence, and the Font of Pisa, were as the very springs of the +life of the Christianity which had gone forth to teach all nations, +baptizing them in the name of the Prince of Peace. Yet these two brother +cities were to each other--I do not say as Abel and Cain, but as +Eteocles and Polynices, and the words of AEschylus are now fulfilled in +them to the uttermost. The Arno baptizes their dead bodies:--their +native valley between its mountains is to them as the furrow of a +grave;--"and so much of their land they have, as is sepulcher." Nay, not +of Florence and Pisa only was this true: Venice and Genoa died in +death-grapple; and eight cities of Lombardy divided between them the joy +of leveling Milan to her lowest stone. Nay, not merely in city against +city, but in street against street, and house against house, the fury of +the Theban dragon flamed ceaselessly, and with the same excuse upon +men's lips. The sign of the shield of Polynices, Justice bringing back +the exile, was to them all, in turn, the portent of death: and their +history, in the sum of it and substance, is as of the servants of Joab +and Abner by the pool of Gibeon. "They caught every one his fellow by +the head, and thrust his sword in his fellow's side; so they fell down +together: wherefore that place was called 'the field of the strong +men.'" + +254. Now it is not possible for Christian men to live thus, except under +a fever of insanity. I have before, in my lectures on Prudence and +Insolence in art, deliberately asserted to you the logical accuracy of +the term 'demoniacal possession'[BR]--the being in the power or +possession of a betraying spirit; and the definite sign of such insanity +is delight in witnessing pain, usually accompanied by an instinct that +gloats over or plays with physical uncleanness or disease, and always by +a morbid egotism. It is not to be recognized for demoniacal power so +much by its _viciousness_, as its _paltriness_,--the taking pleasure in +minute, contemptible, and loathsome things.[BS] Now, in the middle of +the gallery of the Brera at Milan, there is an elaborate study of a +dead Christ, entirely characteristic of early fifteenth century Italian +madman's work. It is called--and was presented to the people as--a +Christ; but it _is_ only an anatomical study of a vulgar and ghastly +dead body, with the soles of the feet set straight at the spectator, and +the rest foreshortened. It is either Castagno's or Mantegna's,--in my +mind, set down to Castagno; but I have not looked at the picture for +years, and am not sure at this moment. It does not matter a straw which: +it is exactly characteristic of the madness in which all of +them--Pollajuolo, Castagno, Mantegna, Lionardo da Vinci, and Michael +Angelo, polluted their work with the science of the sepulcher,[BT] and +degraded it with presumptuous and paltry technical skill. Foreshorten +your Christ, and paint Him, if you can, half putrefied,--that is the +scientific art of the Renaissance. + +255. It is impossible, however, in so vast a subject to distinguish +always the beginner of things from the establisher. To the poulterer's +son, Pollajuolo, remains the eternal shame of first making insane +contest the only subject of art; but the two _establishers_ of anatomy +were Lionardo and Michael Angelo. You hear of Lionardo chiefly because +of his Last Supper, but Italy did not hear of him for that. This was not +what brought _her_ to worship Lionardo--but the Battle of the Standard. + + + V. + + _Fragments on Holbein and others._ + +256. Of Holbein's St. Elizabeth, remember, she is not a perfect Saint +Elizabeth, by any means. She is an honest and sweet German lady,--the +best he could see; he could do no better;--and so I come back to my old +story,--no man can do better than he sees: if he can reach the nature +round him, it is well; he may fall short of it; he cannot rise above it; +"the best, in this kind, are but shadows." + + * * * * * + +Yet that intense veracity of Holbein is indeed the strength and glory of +all the northern schools. They exist only in being true. Their work +among men is the definition of what is, and the abiding by it. They +cannot dream of what is not. They make fools of themselves if they try. +Think how feeble even Shakspere is when he tries his hand at a +Goddess;--women, beautiful and womanly, as many as you choose; but who +cares what his Minerva or Juno says, in the masque of the Tempest? And +for the painters--when Sir Joshua tries for a Madonna, or Vandyke for a +Diana--they can't even _paint_! they become total simpletons. Look at +Rubens' mythologies in the Louvre, or at modern French heroics, or +German pietisms! Why, all--Cornelius, Hesse, Overbeck, and David--put +together, are not worth one De Hooghe of an old woman with a broom +sweeping a back-kitchen. The one thing we northerns can do is to find +out what is fact, and insist on it: mean fact it may be, or noble--but +fact always, or we die. + +257. Yet the intensest form of northern realization can be matched in +the south, when the southerns choose. There are two pieces of animal +drawing in the Sistine Chapel unrivaled for literal veracity. The sheep +at the well in front of Zipporah; and afterwards, when she is going +away, leading her children, her eldest boy, like every one else, has +taken his chief treasure with him, and this treasure is his pet dog. It +is a little sharp-nosed white fox-terrier, full of fire and life; but +not strong enough for a long walk. So little Gershom, whose name was +"the stranger" because his father had been a stranger in a strange +land,--little Gershom carries his white terrier under his arm, lying on +the top of a large bundle to make it comfortable. The doggie puts its +sharp nose and bright eyes out, above his hand, with a little roguish +gleam sideways in them, which means,--if I can read rightly a dog's +expression,--that he has been barking at Moses all the morning and has +nearly put him out of temper:--and without any doubt, I can assert to +you that there is not any other such piece of animal painting in the +world,--so brief, intense, vivid, and absolutely balanced in truth: as +tenderly drawn as if it had been a saint, yet as humorously as +Landseer's Lord Chancellor poodle. + +258. Oppose to-- + + Holbein's Veracity--Botticelli's Fantasy. + " Shade " Color. + " Despair " Faith. + " Grossness " Purity. + +True Fantasy. Botticelli's Tree in Hellespontic Sibyl. Not a real tree +at all--yet founded on intensest perception of beautiful reality. So the +swan of Clio, as opposed to Duerer's cock, or to Turner's swan. + +The Italian power of abstraction into one mythologic +personage--Holbein's death is only literal. He has to split his death +into thirty different deaths; and each is but a skeleton. But Orcagna's +death is one--the power of death itself. There may thus be as much +_breadth in thought_, as in execution. + + * * * * * + +259. What then, we have to ask, is a man _conscious of_ in what he sees? + +For instance, in all Cruikshank's etchings--however slight the +outline--there is an intense consciousness of light and shade, and of +local color, _as a part_ of light and shade; but none of color itself. +He was wholly incapable of coloring; and perhaps this very deficiency +enabled him to give graphic harmony to engraving. + + * * * * * + +Bewick--snow-pieces, etc. _Gray_ predominant; _perfect sense of color_, +coming out in patterns of birds;--yet so uncultivated, that he engraves +the brown birds better than pheasant or peacock! + +For quite perfect consciousness of color makes engraving impossible, and +you have instead--Correggio. + + + VI. + + _Final notes on light and shade._ + +260. You will find in the 138th and 147th paragraphs of my Inaugural +lectures, statements which, if you were reading the book by yourselves, +would strike you probably as each of them difficult, and in some degree +inconsistent,--namely, that the school of color has exquisite character +and sentiment; but is childish, cheerful, and fantastic; while the +school of shade is deficient in character and sentiment; but supreme in +intellect and veracity. "The way by light and shade," I say, "is taken +by men of the highest powers of thought and most earnest desire for +truth." + +The school of shade, I say, is deficient in character and sentiment. +Compare any of Duerer's Madonnas with any of Angelico's. + +Yet you may discern in the Apocalypse engravings that Duerer's mind was +seeking for truths, and dealing with questions, which no more could have +occurred to Angelico's mind than to that of a two-years-old baby. + +261. The two schools unite in various degrees; but are always +distinguishably generic, the two headmost masters representing each +being Tintoret and Perugino. The one, deficient in sentiment, and +continually offending us by the want of it, but full of intellectual +power and suggestion. + +The other, repeating ideas with so little reflection that he gets blamed +for doing the same thing over again, (Vasari); but exquisite in +sentiment and the conditions of taste which it forms, so as to become +the master of it to Raphael and to all succeeding him; and remaining +such a type of sentiment, too delicate to be felt by the latter +practical mind of Dutch-bred England, that Goldsmith makes the +admiration of him the test of absurd connoisseurship. But yet, with +under-current of intellect, which gets him accused of free-thinking, and +therefore with under-current of entirely exquisite chiaroscuro. + +Light and shade, then, imply the understanding of things--Color, the +imagination and the sentiment of them. + +262. In Turner's distinctive work, color is scarcely acknowledged unless +under influence of sunshine. The sunshine is his treasure; his lividest +gloom contains it; his grayest twilight regrets it, and remembers. Blue +is always a blue shadow; brown or gold, always light;--nothing is +cheerful but sunshine; wherever the sun is not, there is melancholy or +evil. Apollo is God; and all forms of death and sorrow exist in +opposition to him. + +But in Perugino's distinctive work,--and therefore I have given him the +captain's place over all,--there is simply _no_ darkness, _no_ wrong. +Every color is lovely, and every space is light. The world, the +universe, is divine: all sadness is a part of harmony; and all gloom, a +part of peace. + + THE END. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[BL] See note to the close of this article, p. 156. + +[BM] The raven, however, like all Dickens's animals, is perfect: and I +am the more angry with the rest because I have every now and then to +open the book to look for him. + +[BN] "Laws of Fesole." + +[BO] 2, Church Terrace, Richmond, Surrey. NOTE.--I have hitherto +permitted Mr. Ward to copy any Turner drawing he was asked to do; but, +finding there is a run upon the vignettes of Loch Lomond and Derwent, I +have forbidden him to do more of them for the present, lest his work +should get the least mechanical. The admirable drawings of Venice, by my +good assistant, Mr. Bunney, resident there, will become of more value to +their purchasers every year, as the buildings from which they are made +are destroyed. I was but just in time, working with him at Verona, to +catch record of Fra Giocondo's work in the smaller square; the most +beautiful Renaissance design in North Italy. + +[BP] The engraving of Turner's "Scene on the Rhine" (near Bingen?) with +boats on the right, and reedy foreground on the left; the opening +between its mountain banks in central distance. It is exquisitely +engraved, the plate being of the size of the drawing, about ten inches +by six, and finished with extreme care and feeling. + +[BQ] See the horrible picture of St. Sebastian by him in our own +National Gallery. + +[BR] See "The Eagle's Nest," Sec. 79. + +[BS] As in the muscles of the legs and effort in stretching bows, of the +executioners, in the picture just referred to. + +[BT] Observe, I entirely distinguish the study of _anatomy_--i.e., of +intense bone and muscle--from study of the nude, as the Greeks practiced +it. This for an entirely great painter is absolutely necessary; but yet +I believe, in the case of Botticelli, it was nobly restricted. The +following note by Mr. Tyrwhitt contains, I think, the probable truth:-- + +"The facts relating to Sandro Botticelli's models, or rather to his +favorite model (as it appears to me), are but few; and it is greatly to +be regretted that his pictures are seldom dated;--if it were certain in +what order they appeared, what follows here might approach moral +certainty. + +"There is no doubt that he had great personal regard for Fra Filippo, up +to that painter's death in 1469, Sandro being then twenty-two years old. +He may probably have got only good from him; anyhow he would get a +strong turn for Realism,--i.e. the treatment of sacred and all other +subjects in a realistic manner. He is described in Crowe and +Cavalcaselle from Filippino Lippi's Martyrdom of St. Peter, as a sullen +and sensual man, with beetle brows, large fleshy mouth, etc., etc. +Probably he was a strong man, and intense in physical and intellectual +habit. + +"This man, then, begins to paint in his strength, with +conviction--rather happy and innocent than not--that it is right to +paint any beautiful thing, and best to paint the most beautiful,--say in +1470, at twenty-three years of age. The allegorical Spring and the +Graces, and the Aphrodite now in the Ufficii, were painted for Cosmo, +and seem to be taken by Vasari and others as early, or early-central, +works in his life: also the portrait of Simonetta Vespucei[1]. He is +known to have painted much in early life for the Vespucei and the +Medici;--and this daughter of the former house seems to have been +inamorata or mistress of Giuliano de' Medici, murdered by the Pazzi in +1478. Now it seems agreed by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Pater, etc., (and I +am quite sure of it myself as to the pictures mentioned)--first, that +the same slender and long-throated model appears in Spring, the +Aphrodite, Calumny, and other works.[2] Secondly, that she was +Simonetta, the original of the Pitti portrait. + +"Now I think she must have been induced to let Sandro draw from her +whole person undraped, more or less; and that he must have done so as +such a man probably would, in strict honor as to deed, word, and +_definite_ thought, but under occasional accesses of passion of which he +said nothing, and which in all probability and by grace of God refined +down to nil, or nearly so, as he got accustomed to look in honor at so +beautiful a thing. (He may have left off the undraped after her death.) +First, her figure is absolutely fine Gothic; I don't think any antique +is so slender. Secondly, she has the sad, passionate, and exquisite +Lombard mouth. Thirdly, her limbs shrink together, and she seems not +quite to have 'liked it' or been an accustomed model. Fourthly, there is +tradition, giving her name to all those forms. + +"Her lover Giuliano was murdered in 1478, and Savonarola hanged and +burnt in 1498. Now, can her distress, and Savonarola's preaching, +between them, have taken, in few years, all the carnality out of Sandro, +supposing him to have come already, by seventy-eight, to that state in +which the sight of her delighted him, without provoking ulterior +feelings? All decent men accustomed to draw from the nude tell us they +get to that. + +"Sandro's Dante is dated as published in 1482. He may have been +saddening by that time, and weary of beauty, pure or mixed;--though he +went on painting Madonnas, I fancy. (Can Simonetta be traced in any of +them? I think not. The Sistine paintings extend from 1481 to 1484, +however. I cannot help thinking Zipporah is impressed with her.) After +Savonarola's death, Sandro must have lost heart, and gone into Dante +altogether. Most ways in literature and art lead to Dante; and this +question about the nude and the purity of Botticelli is no exception to +the rule. + +"Now in the Purgatorio, Lust is the last sin of which we are to be made +pure, and it has to be burnt out of us; being itself as searching as +fire, as smoldering, devouring, and all that. Corruptio: optimi pessima; +and it is the most searching and lasting of evils, because it really is +a corruption attendant on true Love, which is eternal--whatever the word +means. That this is so, seems to me to demonstrate the truth of the Fall +of Man from the condition of moral very-goodness in God's sight. And I +think that Dante connected the purifying pains of his intermediate state +with actual sufferings in this life, working out repentance,--in himself +and others. And the 'torment' of this passion, to the repentant or +resisting, or purity-seeking soul is decidedly like the pain of physical +burning. + +"Further, its casuistry is impracticable; because the more you stir the +said 'fire' the stronger hold it takes. Therefore, men and women are +_rightly_ secret about it, and detailed confessions unadvisable. Much +talk about 'hypocrisy' in this matter is quite wrong and unjust. Then, +its connection with female beauty, as a cause of love between man and +woman, seems to me to be the inextricable nodus of the Fall, the here +inseparable mixture of good and evil, till soul and body are parted. For +the sense of seen Beauty is the awakening of Love, at whatever distance +from any kind of return or sympathy--as with a rose, or what not. Sandro +may be the man who has gone nearest to the right separation of Delight +from Desire: supposing that he began with religion and a straight +conscience; saw lovingly the error of Fra Filippo's way; saw with +intense distant love the error of Simonetta's; and reflected on Florence +and _its_ way, and drew nearer and nearer to Savonarola, being yet too +big a man for asceticism; and finally wearied of all things and sunk +into poverty and peace." + +[1] Pitti, Stanza di Prometeo, 348. + +[2] I think Zipporah may be a remembrance of her. + ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +| TRANSCRIBERS' NOTES | +| | +| | +| General: Corrections to punctuation have not been individually | +| documented | +| | +| List of Plates: Fac-simile standardised to Facsimile (3 occurrences) | +| | +| List of Plates, Illustration III: Fesole standardised to Fesole | +| | +| List of Plates: Obedienta corrected to Obediente | +| | +| Pages 10, 31, 105: Leonardo standardised to Lionardo | +| | +| Pages 26, 78: nell' arte as in original | +| | +| Page 27: Diagram has been split into two parts as it was too wide to | +| display | +| | +| Page 27: Durer standardised to Duerer (in diagram) | +| | +| Page 46: line work standardised to line-work (first occurrence) | +| | +| Page 47, 51, 54, 70, 151: wood-cuts standardised to woodcuts | +| | +| Page 50, 51, 53, 56, 57, 59, 70, 107, 147: wood-cut standardised to | +| woodcut | +| | +| Page 76: dexterous standardised to dextrous | +| | +| Page 103: "Holbein had bitterer task." as in the original | +| | +| Page 112: beame corrected to became | ++----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ariadne Florentina, by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARIADNE FLORENTINA *** + +***** This file should be named 27268.txt or 27268.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/2/6/27268/ + +Produced by Brownfox, Juliet Sutherland and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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