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A bracketed +numeral such as [22] indicates that the material immediately +following the number marks the beginning of the relevant page. I +have preserved paragraph structure except for first-line indentation. + +Hyphenation: I have not preserved original hyphenation since an +e-text does not require line-end or page-end hyphenation. + +Greek typeface: For this full-text edition, I have transliterated +Pater's Greek quotations. If there is a need for the original Greek, it +can be viewed at my site, http://www.ajdrake.com/etexts, a Victorianist +archive that contains the complete works of Walter Pater and many other +nineteenth-century texts, mostly in first editions. + + + + +THE RENAISSANCE: STUDIES IN ART AND POETRY +WALTER HORATIO PATER + + + +CONTENTS + + +Preface: vii-xv + +Two Early French Stories: 1 -29 + +Pico della Mirandola: 30-49 + +Sandro Botticelli: 50-62 + +Luca della Robbia: 63-72 + +The Poetry of Michelangelo: 73-97 + +Leonardo da Vinci: 98-129 + +The School of Giorgione: 130-154 + +Joachim du Bellay: 155-176 + +Winckelmann: 177-232 + +Conclusion: 233-end + + + +DEDICATION + +To C.L.S +February 1873 + + + +PREFACE + +[vii] Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to +define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general +terms, to find some universal formula for it. The value of these +attempts has most often been in the suggestive and penetrating +things said by the way. Such discussions help us very little to +enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry, to discriminate +between what is more and what is less excellent in them, or to use +words like beauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise +meaning than they would otherwise have. Beauty, like all other +qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the +definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to +its abstractness. To define beauty, not in the most abstract but in +the most concrete terms possible, to find not its universal +formula, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or +that [viii] special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student +of aesthetics. + +"To see the object as in itself it really is," has been justly said to +be the aim of all true criticism whatever, and in aesthetic +criticism the first step towards seeing one's object as it really is, +is to know one's own impression as it really is, to discriminate it, +to realise it distinctly. The objects with which aesthetic criticism +deals--music, poetry, artistic and accomplished forms of human +life--are indeed receptacles of so many powers or forces: they +possess, like the products of nature, so many virtues or qualities. +What is this song or picture, this engaging personality presented +in life or in a book, to me? What effect does it really produce on +me? Does it give me pleasure? and if so, what sort or degree of +pleasure? How is my nature modified by its presence, and under +its influence? The answers to these questions are the original +facts with which the aesthetic critic has to do; and, as in the study +of light, of morals, of number, one must realise such primary data +for one's self, or not at all. And he who experiences these +impressions strongly, and drives directly at the discrimination +and analysis of them, has no need to trouble himself with the +abstract question what beauty is in itself, or what its exact +relation to truth or [ix] experience--metaphysical questions, as +unprofitable as metaphysical questions elsewhere. He may pass +them all by as being, answerable or not, of no interest to him. + +The aesthetic critic, then, regards all the objects with which he +has to do, all works of art, and the fairer forms of nature and +human life, as powers or forces producing pleasurable sensations, +each of a more or less peculiar or unique kind. This influence he +feels, and wishes to explain, by analysing and reducing it to its +elements. To him, the picture, the landscape, the engaging +personality in life or in a book, La Gioconda, the hills of Carrara, +Pico of Mirandola, are valuable for their virtues, as we say, in +speaking of a herb, a wine, a gem; for the property each has of +affecting one with a special, a unique, impression of pleasure. +Our education becomes complete in proportion as our +susceptibility to these impressions increases in depth and variety. +And the function of the aesthetic critic is to distinguish, to +analyse, and separate from its adjuncts, the virtue by which a +picture, a landscape, a fair personality in life or in a book, +produces this special impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate +what the source of that impression is, and under what conditions +it is experienced. His end is reached when he has disengaged that +[x] virtue, and noted it, as a chemist notes some natural element, +for himself and others; and the rule for those who would reach +this end is stated with great exactness in the words of a recent +critic of Sainte-Beuve:--De se borner à connaître de près les +belles choses, et à s'en nourrir en exquis amateurs, en +humanistes accomplis. + +What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a +correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain +kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the +presence of beautiful objects. He will remember always that +beauty exists in many forms. To him all periods, types, schools +of taste, are in themselves equal. In all ages there have been +some excellent workmen, and some excellent work done. The +question he asks is always:--In whom did the stir, the genius, the +sentiment of the period find itself? where was the receptacle of +its refinement, its elevation, its taste? "The ages are all equal," +says William Blake, "but genius is always above its age." + +Often it will require great nicety to disengage this virtue from the +commoner elements with which it may be found in combination. +Few artists, not Goethe or Byron even, work quite cleanly, +casting off all débris, and leaving us only what the heat of their +imagination has wholly [xi] fused and transformed. Take, for +instance, the writings of Wordsworth. The heat of his genius, +entering into the substance of his work, has crystallised a part, +but only a part, of it; and in that great mass of verse there is much +which might well be forgotten. But scattered up and down it, +sometimes fusing and transforming entire compositions, like the +Stanzas on Resolution and Independence, or the Ode on the +Recollections of Childhood, sometimes, as if at random, +depositing a fine crystal here or there, in a matter it does not +wholly search through and transmute, we trace the action of his +unique, incommunicable faculty, that strange, mystical sense of a +life in natural things, and of man's life as a part of nature, +drawing strength and colour and character from local influences, +from the hills and streams, and from natural sights and sounds. +Well! that is the virtue, the active principle in Wordsworth's +poetry; and then the function of the critic of Wordsworth is to +follow up that active principle, to disengage it, to mark the degree +in which it penetrates his verse. + +The subjects of the following studies are taken from the history +of the Renaissance, and touch what I think the chief points in that +complex, many-sided movement. I have explained in the first of +them what I understand by the word, [xii] giving it a much wider +scope than was intended by those who originally used it to denote +that revival of classical antiquity in the fifteenth century which +was only one of many results of a general excitement and +enlightening of the human mind, but of which the great aim and +achievements of what, as Christian art, is often falsely opposed to +the Renaissance, were another result. This outbreak of the human +spirit may be traced far into the middle age itself, with its motives +already clearly pronounced, the care for physical beauty, the +worship of the body, the breaking down of those limits which the +religious system of the middle age imposed on the heart and the +imagination. I have taken as an example of this movement, this +earlier Renaissance within the middle age itself, and as an +expression of its qualities, two little compositions in early +French; not because they constitute the best possible expression +of them, but because they help the unity of my series, inasmuch +as the Renaissance ends also in France, in French poetry, in a +phase of which the writings of Joachim du Bellay are in many +ways the most perfect illustration. The Renaissance, in truth, put +forth in France an aftermath, a wonderful later growth, the +products of which have to the full that subtle and delicate +sweetness which belongs to a refined and comely [xiii] +decadence, just as its earliest phases have the freshness which +belongs to all periods of growth in art, the charm of ascêsis, of +the austere and serious girding of the loins in youth. + +But it is in Italy, in the fifteenth century, that the interest of the +Renaissance mainly lies,--in that solemn fifteenth century which +can hardly be studied too much, not merely for its positive results +in the things of the intellect and the imagination, its concrete +works of art, its special and prominent personalities, with their +profound aesthetic charm, but for its general spirit and character, +for the ethical qualities of which it is a consummate type. + +The various forms of intellectual activity which together make +up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different +starting-points, and by unconnected roads. As products of the +same generation they partake indeed of a common character, and +unconsciously illustrate each other; but of the producers +themselves, each group is solitary, gaining what advantage or +disadvantage there may be in intellectual isolation. Art and +poetry, philosophy and the religious life, and that other life of +refined pleasure and action in the conspicuous places of the +world, are each of them confined to its own circle of ideas, and +those who prosecute either of them are generally little [xiv] +curious of the thoughts of others. There come, however, from +time to time, eras of more favourable conditions, in which the +thoughts of men draw nearer together than is their wont, and the +many interests of the intellectual world combine in one complete +type of general culture. The fifteenth century in Italy is one of +these happier eras, and what is sometimes said of the age of +Pericles is true of that of Lorenzo:--it is an age productive in +personalities, many-sided, centralised, complete. Here, artists +and philosophers and those whom the action of the world has +elevated and made keen, do not live in isolation, but breathe a +common air, and catch light and heat from each other's thoughts. +There is a spirit of general elevation and enlightenment in which +all alike communicate. The unity of this spirit gives unity to all +the various products of the Renaissance; and it is to this intimate +alliance with the mind, this participation in the best thoughts +which that age produced, that the art of Italy in the fifteenth +century owes much of its grave dignity and influence. + +I have added an essay on Winckelmann, as not incongruous with +the studies which precede it, because Winckelmann, coming in +the eighteenth century, really belongs in spirit to an earlier age. +By his enthusiasm for the things of the intellect [xv] and the +imagination for their own sake, by his Hellenism, his life-long +struggle to attain the Greek spirit, he is in sympathy with the +humanists of a previous century. He is the last fruit of the +Renaissance, and explains in a striking way its motive and +tendencies. + +1873. + + + +TWO EARLY FRENCH STORIES + +Yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove. + +[1] THE history of the Renaissance ends in France, and carries us +away from Italy to the beautiful cities of the country of the Loire. +But it was in France also, in a very important sense, that the +Renaissance had begun. French writers, who are fond of +connecting the creations of Italian genius with a French origin, +who tell us how Saint Francis of Assisi took not his name only, +but all those notions of chivalry and romantic love which so +deeply penetrated his thoughts, from a French source, how +Boccaccio borrowed the outlines of his stories from the old +French fabliaux, and how Dante himself expressly connects the +origin of the art of miniature-painting with the city of Paris, have +often dwelt on this notion of a Renaissance in the end of the +twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, a Renaissance +within the limits of the middle age itself--a brilliant, but in part +abortive effort to do for human life and the human mind what +was afterwards done in the fifteenth. The word Renaissance, +indeed, is now generally used to denote not [2] merely the revival +of classical antiquity which took place in the fifteenth century, +and to which the word was first applied, but a whole complex +movement, of which that revival of classical antiquity was but +one element or symptom. For us the Renaissance is the name of +a many-sided but yet united movement, in which the love of the +things of the intellect and the imagination for their own sake, the +desire for a more liberal and comely way of conceiving life, make +themselves felt, urging those who experience this desire to search +out first one and then another means of intellectual or imaginative +enjoyment, and directing them not only to the discovery of old +and forgotten sources of this enjoyment, but to the divination of +fresh sources thereof--new experiences, new subjects of poetry, +new forms of art. Of such feeling there was a great outbreak in +the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the following century. +Here and there, under rare and happy conditions, in Pointed +architecture, in the doctrines of romantic love, in the poetry of +Provence, the rude strength of the middle age turns to sweetness; +and the taste for sweetness generated there becomes the seed of +the classical revival in it, prompting it constantly to seek after the +springs of perfect sweetness in the Hellenic world. And coming +after a long period in which this instinct had been crushed, that +true "dark age," in which so many sources of intellectual and +imaginative enjoyment had [3] actually disappeared, this +outbreak is rightly called a Renaissance, a revival. + +Theories which bring into connexion with each other modes of +thought and feeling, periods of taste, forms of art and poetry, +which the narrowness of men's minds constantly tends to oppose +to each other, have a great stimulus for the intellect, and are +almost always worth understanding. It is so with this theory of a +Renaissance within the middle age, which seeks to establish a +continuity between the most characteristic work of that period, +the sculpture of Chartres, the windows of Le Mans, and the work +of the later Renaissance, the work of Jean Cousin and Germain +Pilon, thus healing that rupture between the middle age and the +Renaissance which has so often been exaggerated. But it is not +so much the ecclesiastical art of the middle age, its sculpture and +painting--work certainly done in a great measure for pleasure's +sake, in which even a secular, a rebellious spirit often betrays +itself--but rather its profane poetry, the poetry of Provence, and +the magnificent after-growth of that poetry in Italy and France, +which those French writers have in view when they speak of this +medieval Renaissance. In that poetry, earthly passion, with its +intimacy, its freedom, its variety--the liberty of the heart--makes +itself felt; and the name of Abelard, the great scholar and the +great lover, connects the expression of this liberty of heart with +the free [4] play of human intelligence around all subjects +presented to it, with the liberty of the intellect, as that age +understood it. + +Every one knows the legend of Abelard, a legend hardly less +passionate, certainly not less characteristic of the middle age, +than the legend of Tannhäuser; how the famous and comely +clerk, in whom Wisdom herself, self-possessed, pleasant, and +discreet, seemed to sit enthroned, came to live in the house of a +canon of the church of Notre-Dame, where dwelt a girl, Heloïse, +believed to be the old priest's orphan niece; how the old priest +had testified his love for her by giving her an education then +unrivalled, so that rumour asserted that, through the knowledge +of languages, enabling her to penetrate into the mysteries of the +older world, she had become a sorceress, like the Celtic +druidesses; and how as Abelard and Heloïse sat together at home +there, to refine a little further on the nature of abstract ideas, +"Love made himself of the party with them." You conceive the +temptations of the scholar, who, in such dreamy tranquillity, amid +the bright and busy spectacle of the "Island," lived in a world of +something like shadows; and that for one who knew so well how +to assign its exact value to every abstract thought, those restraints +which lie on the consciences of other men had been relaxed. It +appears that he composed many verses in the vulgar tongue: +already the young men sang them on the quay below the house. +Those songs, says M. de Rémusat, [5] were probably in the taste +of the Trouvères, "of whom he was one of the first in date, or, so +to speak, the predecessor." It is the same spirit which has +moulded the famous "letters," written in the quaint Latin of the +middle age. + +At the foot of that early Gothic tower, which the next generation +raised to grace the precincts of Abelard's school, on the +"Mountain of Saint Geneviève," the historian Michelet sees in +thought "a terrible assembly; not the hearers of Abelard alone, +fifty bishops, twenty cardinals, two popes, the whole body of +scholastic philosophy; not only the learned Heloïse, the teaching +of languages, and the Renaissance; but Arnold of Brescia--that is +to say, the revolution." And so from the rooms of this shadowy +house by the Seine side we see that spirit going abroad, with its +qualities already well defined, its intimacy, its languid sweetness, +its rebellion, its subtle skill in dividing the elements of human +passion, its care for physical beauty, its worship of the body, +which penetrated the early literature of Italy, and finds an echo +even in Dante. + +That Abelard is not mentioned in the Divine Comedy may appear +a singular omission to the reader of Dante, who seems to have +inwoven into the texture of his work whatever had impressed him +as either effective in colour or spiritually significant among the +recorded incidents of actual life. Nowhere in his great poem do +we find the name, nor so much as an allusion to the story of [6] +one who had left so deep a mark on the philosophy of which +Dante was an eager student, of whom in the Latin Quarter, and +from the lips of scholar or teacher in the University of Paris, +during his sojourn among them, he can hardly have failed to hear. +We can only suppose that he had indeed considered the story and +the man, and abstained from passing judgment as to his place in +the scheme of "eternal justice." + +In the famous legend of Tannhäuser, the erring knight makes his +way to Rome, to seek absolution at the centre of Christian +religion. "So soon," thought and said the Pope, "as the staff in +his hand should bud and blossom, so soon might the soul of +Tannhäuser be saved, and no sooner"; and it came to pass not +long after that the dry wood of a staff which the Pope had carried +in his hand was covered with leaves and flowers. So, in the +cloister of Godstow, a petrified tree was shown of which the nuns +told that the fair Rosamond, who had died among them, had +declared that, the tree being then alive and green, it would be +changed into stone at the hour of her salvation. When Abelard +died, like Tannhäuser, he was on his way to Rome. What might +have happened had he reached his journey's end is uncertain; and +it is in this uncertain twilight that his relation to the general +beliefs of his age has always remained. In this, as in other things, +he prefigures the character of the Renaissance, that movement in +[7] which, in various ways, the human mind wins for itself a new +kingdom of feeling and sensation and thought, not opposed to but +only beyond and independent of the spiritual system then actually +realised. The opposition into which Abelard is thrown, which +gives its colour to his career, which breaks his soul to pieces, is a +no less subtle opposition than that between the merely +professional, official, hireling ministers of that system, with their +ignorant worship of system for its own sake, and the true child of +light, the humanist, with reason and heart and senses quick, while +theirs were almost dead. He reaches out towards, he attains, +modes of ideal living, beyond the prescribed limits of that +system, though in essential germ, it may be, contained within it. +As always happens, the adherents of the poorer and narrower +culture had no sympathy with, because no understanding of, a +culture richer and more ample than their own. After the +discovery of wheat they would still live upon acorns--après +l'invention du blé ils voulaient encore vivre du gland; and would +hear of no service to the higher needs of humanity with +instruments not of their forging. + +But the human spirit, bold through those needs, was too strong +for them. Abelard and Heloïse write their letters--letters with a +wonderful outpouring of soul--in medieval Latin; and Abelard, +though he composes songs in the vulgar tongue, writes also in +Latin those [8] treatises in which he tries to find a ground of +reality below the abstractions of philosophy, as one bent on +trying all things by their congruity with human experience, who +had felt the hand of Heloïse, and looked into her eyes, and tested +the resources of humanity in her great and energetic nature. Yet +it is only a little later, early in the thirteenth century, that French +prose romance begins; and in one of the pretty volumes of the +Bibliothèque Elzevirienne some of the most striking fragments of +it may be found, edited with much intelligence. In one of these +thirteenth-century stories, Li Amitiez de Ami et Amile, that free +play of human affection, of the claims of which Abelard's story is +an assertion, makes itself felt in the incidents of a great +friendship, a friendship pure and generous, pushed to a sort of +passionate exaltation, and more than faithful unto death. Such +comradeship, though instances of it are to be found everywhere, +is still especially a classical motive; Chaucer expressing the +sentiment of it so strongly in an antique tale, that one knows not +whether the love of both Palamon and Arcite for Emelya, or of +those two for each other, is the chiefer subject of the Knight's +Tale-- + + He cast his eyen upon Emelya, + And therewithal he bleynte and cried, ah! + As that he stongen were unto the herte. + +What reader does not refer something of the [9] bitterness of that +cry to the spoiling, already foreseen, of the fair friendship, which +had made the prison of the two lads sweet hitherto with its daily +offices? + +The friendship of Amis and Amile is deepened by the romantic +circumstance of an entire personal resemblance between the two +heroes, through which they pass for each other again and again, +and thereby into many strange adventures; that curious interest of +the Doppelgänger, which begins among the stars with the +Dioscuri, being entwined in and out through all the incidents of +the story, like an outward token of the inward similitude of their +souls. With this, again, is connected, like a second reflection of +that inward similitude, the conceit of two marvellously beautiful +cups, also exactly like each other--children's cups, of wood, but +adorned with gold and precious stones. These two cups, which +by their resemblance help to bring the friends together at critical +moments, were given to them by the Pope, when he baptized +them at Rome, whither the parents had taken them for that +purpose, in gratitude for their birth. They cross and recross very +strangely in the narrative, serving the two heroes almost like +living things, and with that well-known effect of a beautiful +object, kept constantly before the eye in a story or poem, of +keeping sensation well awake, and giving a certain air of +refinement to all the scenes into which it enters. That sense of +fate, which [10] hangs so much of the shaping of human life on +trivial objects, like Othello's strawberry handkerchief, is thereby +heightened, while witness is borne to the enjoyment of beautiful +handiwork by primitive people, their simple wonder at it, so that +they give it an oddly significant place among the factors of a +human history. + +Amis and Amile, then, are true to their comradeship through all +trials; and in the end it comes to pass that at a moment of great +need Amis takes the place of Amile in a tournament for life or +death. "After this it happened that a leprosy fell upon Amis, so +that his wife would not approach him, and wrought to strangle +him. He departed therefore from his home, and at last prayed his +servants to carry him to the house of Amile"; and it is in what +follows that the curious strength of the piece shows itself:-- + +"His servants, willing to do as he commanded, carried him to the +place where Amile was; and they began to sound their rattles +before the court of Amile's house, as lepers are accustomed to +do. And when Amile heard the noise he commanded one of his +servants to carry meat and bread to the sick man, and the cup +which was given to him at Rome filled with good wine. And +when the servant had done as he was commanded, he returned +and said, Sir, if I had not thy cup in my hand, I should believe +that the cup which the sick man has was thine, for they are alike, +the [11] one to the other, in height and fashion. And Amile said, +Go quickly and bring him to me. And when Amis stood before +his comrade Amile demanded of him who he was, and how he +had gotten that cup. I am of Briquain le Chastel, answered Amis, +and the cup was given to me by the Bishop of Rome, who +baptized me. And when Amile heard that, he knew that it was his +comrade Amis, who had delivered him from death, and won for +him the daughter of the King of France to be his wife. And +straightway he fell upon him, and began weeping greatly, and +kissed him. And when his wife heard that, she ran out with her +hair in disarray, weeping and distressed exceedingly, for she +remembered that it was he who had slain the false Ardres. And +thereupon they placed him in a fair bed, and said to him, Abide +with us until God's will be accomplished in thee, for all we have +is at thy service. So he and the two servants abode with them. + +"And it came to pass one night, when Amis and Amile lay in one +chamber without other companions, that God sent His angel +Raphael to Amis, who said to him, Amis, art thou asleep? And +he, supposing that Amile had called him, answered and said, I am +not asleep, fair comrade! And the angel said to him, Thou hast +answered well, for thou art the comrade of the heavenly citizens.- +-I am Raphael, the angel of our Lord, and am come to tell thee +how thou mayest be [12] healed; for thy prayers are heard. Thou +shalt bid Amile, thy comrade, that he slay his two children and +wash thee in their blood, and so thy body shall be made whole. +And Amis said to him, Let not this thing be, that my comrade +should become a murderer for my sake. But the angel said, It is +convenient that he do this. And thereupon the angel departed. + +"And Amile also, as if in sleep, heard those words; and he awoke +and said, Who is it, my comrade, that hath spoken with thee? +And Amis answered, No man; only I have prayed to our Lord, as +I am accustomed. And Amile said, Not so! but some one hath +spoken with thee. Then he arose and went to the door of the +chamber; and finding it shut he said, Tell me, my brother, who it +was said those words to thee to-night. And Amis began to weep +greatly, and told him that it was Raphael, the angel of the Lord, +who had said to him, Amis, our Lord commands thee that thou +bid Amile slay his two children, and wash thee in their blood, and +so thou shalt be healed of thy leprosy. And Amile was greatly +disturbed at those words, and said, I would have given to thee my +man-servants and my maid-servants and all my goods, and thou +feignest that an angel hath spoken to thee that I should slay my +two children. And immediately Amis began to weep, and said, I +know that I have spoken to thee a terrible thing, but constrained +thereto; I pray thee cast me not away [13] from the shelter of thy +house. And Amile answered that what he had covenanted with +him, that he would perform, unto the hour of his death: But I +conjure thee, said he, by the faith which there is between me and +thee, and by our comradeship, and by the baptism we received +together at Rome, that thou tell me whether it was man or angel +said that to thee. And Amis answered again, So truly as an angel +hath spoken to me this night, so may God deliver me from my +infirmity! + +"Then Amile began to weep in secret, and thought within +himself: If this man was ready to die before the king for me, shall +I not for him slay my children? Shall I not keep faith with him +who was faithful to me even unto death? And Amile tarried no +longer, but departed to the chamber of his wife, and bade her go +hear the Sacred Office. And he took a sword, and went to the bed +where the children were lying, and found them asleep. And he +lay down over them and began to weep bitterly and said, Hath +any man yet heard of a father who of his own will slew his +children? Alas, my children! I am no longer your father, but +your cruel murderer. + +"And the children awoke at the tears of their father, which fell +upon them; and they looked up into his face and began to laugh. +And as they were of the age of about three years, he said, Your +laughing will be turned into tears, for your innocent blood must +now be shed, [14] and therewith he cut off their heads. Then he +laid them back in the bed, and put the heads upon the bodies, and +covered them as though they slept: and with the blood which he +had taken he washed his comrade, and said, Lord Jesus Christ! +who hast commanded men to keep faith on earth, and didst heal +the leper by Thy word! cleanse now my comrade, for whose love +I have shed the blood of my children. + +"Then Amis was cleansed of his leprosy. And Amile clothed his +companion in his best robes; and as they went to the church to +give thanks, the bells, by the will of God, rang of their own +accord. And when the people of the city heard that, they ran +together to see the marvel. And the wife of Amile, when she saw +Amis and Amile coming, asked which of the twain was her +husband, and said, I know well the vesture of them both, but I +know not which of them is Amile. And Amile said to her, I am +Amile, and my companion is Amis, who is healed of his sickness. +And she was full of wonder, and desired to know in what manner +he was healed. Give thanks to our Lord, answered Amile, but +trouble not thyself as to the manner of the healing. + +"Now neither the father nor the mother had yet entered where the +children were; but the father sighed heavily, because they were +dead, and the mother asked for them, that they might rejoice +together; but Amile said, Dame! let [15] the children sleep. And +it was already the hour of Tierce. And going in alone to the +children to weep over them, he found them at play in the bed; +only, in the place of the sword-cuts about their throats was as it +were a thread of crimson. And he took them in his arms and +carried them to his wife and said, Rejoice greatly, for thy children +whom I had slain by the commandment of the angel are alive, +and by their blood is Amis healed." + +There, as I said, is the strength of the old French story. For the +Renaissance has not only the sweetness which it derives from the +classical world, but also that curious strength of which there are +great resources in the true middle age. And as I have illustrated +the early strength of the Renaissance by the story of Amis and +Amile, a story which comes from the North, in which a certain +racy Teutonic flavour is perceptible, so I shall illustrate that other +element, its early sweetness, a languid excess of sweetness even, +by another story printed in the same volume of the Bibliothèque +Elzevirienne, and of about the same date, a story which comes, +characteristically, from the South, and connects itself with the +literature of Provence. + +The central love-poetry of Provence, the poetry of the Tenson and +the Aubade, of Bernard de Ventadour and Pierre Vidal, is poetry +for the few, for the elect and peculiar people of the [16] kingdom +of sentiment. But below this intenser poetry there was probably a +wide range of literature, less serious and elevated, reaching, by +lightness of form and comparative homeliness of interest, an +audience which the concentrated passion of those higher lyrics +left untouched. This literature has long since perished, or lives +only in later French or Italian versions. One such version, the +only representative of its species, M. Fauriel thought he detected +in the story of Aucassin and Nicolette, written in the French of +the latter half of the thirteenth century, and preserved in a unique +manuscript, in the national library of Paris; and there were +reasons which made him divine for it a still more ancient +ancestry, traces in it of an Arabian origin, as in a leaf lost out of +some early Arabian Nights.* The little book loses none of its +interest through the criticism which finds in it only a traditional +subject, handed on by one people to another; for after passing +thus from hand to hand, its outline is still clear, its surface +untarnished; and, like many other stories, books, literary and +artistic conceptions of the middle age, it has come to [17] have in +this way a sort of personal history, almost as full of risk and +adventure as that of its own heroes. The writer himself calls the +piece a cantefable, a tale told in prose, but with its incidents and +sentiment helped forward by songs, inserted at irregular intervals. +In the junctions of the story itself there are signs of roughness and +want of skill, which make one suspect that the prose was only put +together to connect a series of songs--a series of songs so moving +and attractive that people wished to heighten and dignify their +effect by a regular framework or setting. Yet the songs +themselves are of the simplest kind, not rhymed even, but only +imperfectly assonant, stanzas of twenty or thirty lines apiece, all +ending with a similar vowel sound. And here, as elsewhere in +that early poetry, much of the interest lies in the spectacle of the +formation of a new artistic sense. A novel art is arising, the +music of rhymed poetry, and in the songs of Aucassin and +Nicolette, which seem always on the point of passing into true +rhyme, but which halt somehow, and can never quite take flight, +you see people just growing aware of the elements of a new +music in their possession, and anticipating how pleasant such +music might become. + +The piece was probably intended to be recited by a company of +trained performers, many of whom, at least for the lesser parts, +were probably children. The songs are introduced by the rubric, +[18] Or se cante (ici on chante); and each division of prose by +the rubric, Or dient et content et fabloient (ici on conte). The +musical notes of a portion of the songs have been preserved; and +some of the details are so descriptive that they suggested to M. +Fauriel the notion that the words had been accompanied +throughout by dramatic action. That mixture of simplicity and +refinement which he was surprised to find in a composition of the +thirteenth century, is shown sometimes in the turn given to some +passing expression or remark; thus, "the Count de Garins was old +and frail, his time was over"--Li quens Garins de Beaucaire +estoit vix et frales; si avoit son tans trespassè. And then, all is so +realised! One sees the ancient forest, with its disused roads +grown deep with grass, and the place where seven roads meet--u +a forkeut set cemin qui s'en vont par le païs; we hear the light- +hearted country people calling each other by their rustic names, +and putting forward, as their spokesman, one among them who is +more eloquent and ready than the rest--li un qui plus fu enparlés +des autres; for the little book has its burlesque element also, so +that one hears the faint, far-off laughter still. Rough as it is, the +piece certainly possesses this high quality of poetry, that it aims +at a purely artistic effect. Its subject is a great sorrow, yet it +claims to be a thing of joy and refreshment, to be entertained not +for its matter only, but chiefly for its manner, it is cortois, it tells +us, et bien assis. + +[19] For the student of manners, and of the old French language +and literature, it has much interest of a purely antiquarian order. +To say of an ancient literary composition that it has an +antiquarian interest, often means that it has no distinct aesthetic +interest for the reader of to-day. Antiquarianism, by a purely +historical effort, by putting its object in perspective, and setting +the reader in a certain point of view, from which what gave +pleasure to the past is pleasurable for him also, may often add +greatly to the charm we receive from ancient literature. But the +first condition of such aid must be a real, direct, aesthetic charm +in the thing itself. Unless it has that charm, unless some purely +artistic quality went to its original making, no merely antiquarian +effort can ever give it an aesthetic value, or make it a proper +subject of aesthetic criticism. This quality, wherever it exists, it +is always pleasant to define, and discriminate from the sort of +borrowed interest which an old play, or an old story, may very +likely acquire through a true antiquarianism. The story of +Aucassin and Nicolette has something of this quality. Aucassin, +the only son of Count Garins of Beaucaire, is passionately in love +with Nicolette, a beautiful girl of unknown parentage, bought of +the Saracens, whom his father will not permit him to marry. The +story turns on the adventures of these two lovers, until at the end +of the piece their mutual fidelity is rewarded. These [20] +adventures are of the simplest sort, adventures which seem to be +chosen for the happy occasion they afford of keeping the eye of +the fancy, perhaps the outward eye, fixed on pleasant objects, a +garden, a ruined tower, the little hut of flowers which Nicolette +constructs in the forest whither she escapes from her enemies, as +a token to Aucassin that she has passed that way. All the charm +of the piece is in its details, in a turn of peculiar lightness and +grace given to the situations and traits of sentiment, especially in +its quaint fragments of early French prose. + +All through it one feels the influence of that faint air of +overwrought delicacy, almost of wantonness, which was so +strong a characteristic of the poetry of the Troubadours. The +Troubadours themselves were often men of great rank; they +wrote for an exclusive audience, people of much leisure and great +refinement, and they came to value a type of personal beauty +which has in it but little of the influence of the open air and +sunshine. There is a languid Eastern deliciousness in the very +scenery of the story, the full-blown roses, the chamber painted in +some mysterious manner where Nicolette is imprisoned, the cool +brown marble, the almost nameless colours, the odour of plucked +grass and flowers. Nicolette herself well becomes this scenery, +and is the best illustration of the quality I mean--the beautiful, +weird, foreign girl, whom the [21] shepherds take for a fay, who +has the knowledge of simples, the healing and beautifying +qualities of leaves and flowers, whose skilful touch heals +Aucassin's sprained shoulder, so that he suddenly leaps from the +ground; the mere sight of whose white flesh, as she passed the +place where he lay, healed a pilgrim stricken with sore disease, so +that he rose up, and returned to his own country. With this girl +Aucassin is so deeply in love that he forgets all knightly duties. +At last Nicolette is shut up to get her out of his way, and perhaps +the prettiest passage in the whole piece is the fragment of prose +which describes her escape:-- + +"Aucassin was put in prison, as you have heard, and Nicolette +remained shut up in her chamber. It was summer-time, in the +month of May, when the days are warm and long and clear, and +the nights coy and serene. + +"One night Nicolette, lying on her bed, saw the moon shine clear +through the little window, and heard the nightingale sing in the +garden, and then came the memory of Aucassin, whom she so +much loved. She thought of the Count Garins of Beaucaire, who +mortally hated her, and, to be rid of her, might at any moment +cause her to be burned or drowned. She perceived that the old +woman who kept her company was asleep; she rose and put on +the fairest gown she had; she took the bed-clothes [22] and the +towels, and knotted them together like a cord, as far as they +would go. Then she tied the end to a pillar of the window, and let +herself slip down quite softly into the garden, and passed straight +across it, to reach the town. + +"Her hair was yellow in small curls, her smiling eyes blue-green, +her face clear and feat, the little lips very red, the teeth small and +white; and the daisies which she crushed in passing, holding her +skirt high behind and before, looked dark against her feet; the girl +was so white! + +"She came to the garden-gate and opened it, and walked through +the streets of Beaucaire, keeping on the dark side of the way to be +out of the light of the moon, which shone quietly in the sky. She +walked as fast as she could, until she came to the tower where +Aucassin was. The tower was set about with pillars, here and +there. She pressed herself against one of the pillars, wrapped +herself closely in her mantle, and putting her face to a chink of +the tower, which was old and ruined, she heard Aucassin crying +bitterly within, and when she had listened awhile she began to +speak." + +But scattered up and down through this lighter matter, always +tinged with humour and often passing into burlesque, which +makes up the general substance of the piece, there are morsels of +a different quality, touches of some intenser sentiment, coming it +would seem from [23] the profound and energetic spirit of the +Provençal poetry itself, to which the inspiration of the book has +been referred. Let me gather up these morsels of deeper colour, +these expressions of the ideal intensity of love, the motive which +really unites together the fragments of the little composition. +Dante, the perfect flower of ideal love, has recorded how the +tyranny of that "Lord of terrible aspect" became actually +physical, blinding his senses, and suspending his bodily forces. +In this, Dante is but the central expression and type of +experiences known well enough to the initiated, in that passionate +age. Aucassin represents this ideal intensity of passion-- + + Aucassin, le biax, li blons, + Li gentix, li amorous;-- + +the slim, tall, debonair, dansellon, as the singers call him, with +his curled yellow hair, and eyes of vair, who faints with love, as +Dante fainted, who rides all day through the forest in search of +Nicolette, while the thorns tear his flesh, so that one might have +traced him by the blood upon the grass, and who weeps at +eventide because he has not found her, who has the malady of his +love, and neglects all knightly duties. Once he is induced to put +himself at the head of his people, that they, seeing him before +them, might have more heart to defend themselves; then a song +relates how the sweet, grave figure goes forth to battle, in dainty, +tight-laced [24] armour. It is the very image of the Provençal +love-god, no longer a child, but grown to pensive youth, as Pierre +Vidal met him, riding on a white horse, fair as the morning, his +vestment embroidered with flowers. He rode on through the +gates into the open plain beyond. But as he went, that great +malady of his love came upon him. The bridle fell from his +hands; and like one who sleeps walking, he was carried on into +the midst of his enemies, and heard them talking together how +they might most conveniently kill him. + +One of the strongest characteristics of that outbreak of the reason +and the imagination, of that assertion of the liberty of the heart, in +the middle age, which I have termed a medieval Renaissance, +was its antinomianism, its spirit of rebellion and revolt against +the moral and religious ideas of the time. In their search after the +pleasures of the senses and the imagination, in their care for +beauty, in their worship of the body, people were impelled +beyond the bounds of the Christian ideal; and their love became +sometimes a strange idolatry, a strange rival religion. It was the +return of that ancient Venus, not dead, but only hidden for a time +in the caves of the Venusberg, of those old pagan gods still going +to and fro on the earth, under all sorts of disguises. And this +element in the middle age, for the most part ignored by those +writers who have treated it pre-eminently as the [25] "Age of +Faith"--this rebellious and antinomian element, the recognition of +which has made the delineation of the middle age by the writers +of the Romantic school in France, by Victor Hugo for instance in +Notre-Dame de Paris, so suggestive and exciting--is found alike +in the history of Abelard and the legend of Tannhäuser. More +and more, as we come to mark changes and distinctions of temper +in what is often in one all-embracing confusion called the middle +age, that rebellion, that sinister claim for liberty of heart and +thought, comes to the surface. The Albigensian movement, +connected so strangely with the history of Provençal poetry, is +deeply tinged with it. A touch of it makes the Franciscan order, +with its poetry, its mysticism, its "illumination," from the point of +view of religious authority, justly suspect. It influences the +thoughts of those obscure prophetical writers, like Joachim of +Flora, strange dreamers in a world of flowery rhetoric of that +third and final dispensation of a "spirit of freedom," in which law +shall have passed away. Of this spirit Aucassin and Nicolette +contains perhaps the most famous expression: it is the answer +Aucassin gives when he is threatened with the pains of hell, if he +makes Nicolette his mistress. A creature wholly of affection and +the senses, he sees on the way to paradise only a feeble and worn- +out company of aged priests, "clinging day and night to the +chapel altars," barefoot or [26] in patched sandals. With or even +without Nicolette, "his sweet mistress whom he so much loves," +he, for his part, is ready to start on the way to hell, along with +"the good scholars," as he says, and the actors, and the fine +horsemen dead in battle, and the men of fashion,* and "the fair +courteous ladies who had two or three chevaliers apiece beside +their own true lords," all gay with music, in their gold, and silver, +and beautiful furs--"the vair and the grey." + +But in the House Beautiful the saints too have their place; and the +student of the Renaissance has this advantage over the student of +the emancipation of the human mind in the Reformation, or the +French Revolution, that in tracing the footsteps of humanity to +higher levels, he is not beset at every turn by the inflexibilities +and antagonisms of some well-recognised controversy, with +rigidly defined opposites, exhausting the intelligence and limiting +one's sympathies. The opposition of the professional defenders +of a mere system to that more sincere and generous play of the +forces of human mind and character, which I have noted as the +secret of Abelard's struggle, is indeed always powerful. But the +incompatibility with one another of souls really "fair" is not +essential; and within the enchanted region of the Renaissance, +one needs not be for ever on [27] one's guard. Here there are no +fixed parties, no exclusions: all breathes of that unity of culture in +which whatsoever things are comely" are reconciled, for the +elevation and adorning of our spirits. And just in proportion as +those who took part in the Renaissance become centrally +representative of it, just so much the more is this condition +realised in them. The wicked popes, and the loveless tyrants, +who from time to time became its patrons, or mere speculators in +its fortunes, lend themselves easily to disputations, and, from this +side or that, the spirit of controversy lays just hold upon them. +But the painter of the Last Supper, with his kindred, lives in a +land where controversy has no breathing-place. They refuse to +be classified. In the story of Aucassin and Nicolette, in the +literature which it represents, the note of defiance, of the +opposition of one system to another, is sometimes harsh. Let me +conclude then with a morsel from Amis and Amile, in which the +harmony of human interests is still entire. For the story of the +great traditional friendship, in which, as I said, the liberty of the +heart makes itself felt, seems, as we have it, to have been written +by a monk--La vie des saints martyrs Amis et Amile. It was not +till the end of the seventeenth century that their names were +finally excluded from the martyrology; and their story ends with +this monkish miracle of earthly comradeship, more than faithful +unto death:-- + +[28] "For, as God had united them in their lives in one accord, so +they were not divided in their death, falling together side by side, +with a host of other brave men, in battle for King Charles at +Mortara, so called from that great slaughter. And the bishops +gave counsel to the king and queen that they should bury the +dead, and build a church in that place; and their counsel pleased +the king greatly. And there were built two churches, the one by +commandment of the king in honour of Saint Oseige, and the +other by commandment of the queen in honour of Saint Peter. + +"And the king caused the two chests of stone to be brought in the +which the bodies of Amis and Amile lay; and Amile was carried +to the church of Saint Peter, and Amis to the church of Saint +Oseige; and the other corpses were buried, some in one place and +some in the other. But lo! next morning, the body of Amile in his +coffin was found lying in the church of Saint Oseige, beside the +coffin of Amis his comrade. Behold then this wondrous amity, +which by death could not be dissevered! + +"This miracle God did, who gave to His disciples power to +remove mountains. And by reason of this miracle the king and +queen remained in that place for a space of thirty days, and +performed the offices of the dead who were slain, and honoured +the said churches with great [29] gifts. And the bishop ordained +many clerks to serve in the church of Saint Oseige, and +commanded them that they should guard duly, with great +devotion, the bodies of the two companions, Amis and Amile." + +1872. + +NOTES + +16. *Recently, Aucassin and Nicolette has been edited and +translated into English, with much graceful scholarship, by Mr. F. +W. Bourdillon. Still more recently we have had a translation--a +poet's translation--from the ingenious and versatile pen of Mr. +Andrew Lang. The reader should consult also the chapter on +"The Out-door Poetry," in Vernon Lee's most interesting +Euphorion; being Studies of the Antique and Mediaeval in the +Renaissance, a work abounding in knowledge and insight on the +subjects of which it treats. + +26. *Parage, peerage:--which came to signify all that ambitious +youth affected most on the outside of life, in that old world of the +Troubadours, with whom this term is of frequent recurrence. +Return. + + +PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA + +[30] NO account of the Renaissance can be complete without +some notice of the attempt made by certain Italian scholars of the +fifteenth century to reconcile Christianity with the religion of +ancient Greece. To reconcile forms of sentiment which at first +sight seem incompatible, to adjust the various products of the +human mind to one another in one many-sided type of intellectual +culture, to give humanity, for heart and imagination to feed upon, +as much as it could possibly receive, belonged to the generous +instincts of that age. An earlier and simpler generation had seen +in the gods of Greece so many malignant spirits, the defeated but +still living centres of the religion of darkness, struggling, not +always in vain, against the kingdom of light. Little by little, as +the natural charm of pagan story reasserted itself over minds +emerging out of barbarism, the religious significance which had +once belonged to it was lost sight of, and it came to be regarded +as the subject of a purely artistic or poetical treatment. But it was +inevitable that from time to time minds should [31] arise, deeply +enough impressed by its beauty and power to ask themselves +whether the religion of Greece was indeed a rival of the religion +of Christ; for the older gods had rehabilitated themselves, and +men's allegiance was divided. And the fifteenth century was an +impassioned age, so ardent and serious in its pursuit of art that it +consecrated everything with which art had to do as a religious +object. The restored Greek literature had made it familiar, at +least in Plato, with a style of expression concerning the earlier +gods, which had about it something of the warmth and unction of +a Christian hymn. It was too familiar with such language to +regard mythology as a mere story; and it was too serious to play +with a religion. + +"Let me briefly remind the reader"--says Heine, in the Gods in +Exile, an essay full of that strange blending of sentiment which is +characteristic of the traditions of the middle age concerning the +pagan religions--"how the gods of the older world, at the time of +the definite triumph of Christianity, that is, in the third century, +fell into painful embarrassments, which greatly resembled certain +tragical situations of their earlier life. They now found +themselves beset by the same troublesome necessities to which +they had once before been exposed during the primitive ages, in +that revolutionary epoch when the Titans broke out of the custody +of Orcus, and, piling Pelion on Ossa, scaled [32] Olympus. +Unfortunate gods! They had then to take flight ignominiously, +and hide themselves among us here on earth, under all sorts of +disguises. The larger number betook themselves to Egypt, where +for greater security they assumed the forms of animals, as is +generally known. Just in the same way, they had to take flight +again, and seek entertainment in remote hiding-places, when +those iconoclastic zealots, the black brood of monks, broke down +all the temples, and pursued the gods with fire and curses. Many +of these unfortunate emigrants, now entirely deprived of shelter +and ambrosia, must needs take to vulgar handicrafts, as a means +of earning their bread. Under these circumstances, many whose +sacred groves had been confiscated, let themselves out for hire as +wood-cutters in Germany, and were forced to drink beer instead +of nectar. Apollo seems to have been content to take service +under graziers, and as he had once kept the cows of Admetus, so +he lived now as a shepherd in Lower Austria. Here, however, +having become suspected on account of his beautiful singing, he +was recognised by a learned monk as one of the old pagan gods, +and handed over to the spiritual tribunal. On the rack he +confessed that he was the god Apollo; and before his execution +he begged that he might be suffered to play once more upon the +lyre, and to sing a song. And he played so touchingly, and sang +with such magic, and was withal so [33] beautiful in form and +feature, that all the women wept, and many of them were so +deeply impressed that they shortly afterwards fell sick. Some +time afterwards the people wished to drag him from the grave +again, that a stake might be driven through his body, in the belief +that he had been a vampire, and that the sick women would by +this means recover. But they found the grave empty." + +The Renaissance of the fifteenth century was, in many things, +great rather by what it designed than by what it achieved. Much +which it aspired to do, and did but imperfectly or mistakenly, was +accomplished in what is called the éclaircissement of the +eighteenth century, or in our own generation; and what really +belongs to the revival of the fifteenth century is but the leading +instinct, the curiosity, the initiatory idea. It is so with this very +question of the reconciliation of the religion of antiquity with the +religion of Christ. A modern scholar occupied by this problem +might observe that all religions may be regarded as natural +products, that, at least in their origin, their growth, and decay, +they have common laws, and are not to be isolated from the other +movements of the human mind in the periods in which they +respectively prevailed; that they arise spontaneously out of the +human mind, as expressions of the varying phases of its +sentiment concerning the unseen world; that every intellectual +product must be judged from the point of [34] view of the age +and the people in which it was produced. He might go on to +observe that each has contributed something to the development +of the religious sense, and ranging them as so many stages in the +gradual education of the human mind, justify the existence of +each. The basis of the reconciliation of the religions of the world +would thus be the inexhaustible activity and creativeness of the +human mind itself, in which all religions alike have their root, +and in which all alike are reconciled; just as the fancies of +childhood and the thoughts of old age meet and are laid to rest, in +the experience of the individual. + +Far different was the method followed by the scholars of the +fifteenth century. They lacked the very rudiments of the historic +sense, which, by an imaginative act, throws itself back into a +world unlike one's own, and estimates every intellectual creation +in its connexion with the age from which it proceeded. They had +no idea of development, of the differences of ages, of the process +by which our race has been "educated." In their attempts to +reconcile the religions of the world, they were thus thrown back +upon the quicksand of allegorical interpretation. The religions of +the world were to be reconciled, not as successive stages in a +regular development of the religious sense, but as subsisting side +by side, and substantially in agreement with one another. And +here the first necessity was to misrepresent the language, the +conceptions, the sentiments, it was [35] proposed to compare and +reconcile. Plato and Homer must be made to speak agreeably to +Moses. Set side by side, the mere surfaces could never unite in +any harmony of design. Therefore one must go below the +surface, and bring up the supposed secondary, or still more +remote meaning,--that diviner signification held in reserve, in +recessu divinius aliquid, latent in some stray touch of Homer, or +figure of speech in the books of Moses. + +And yet as a curiosity of the human mind, a "madhouse-cell," if +you will, into which we may peep for a moment, and see it at +work weaving strange fancies, the allegorical interpretation of the +fifteenth century has its interest. With its strange web of +imagery, its quaint conceits, its unexpected combinations and +subtle moralising, it is an element in the local colour of a great +age. It illustrates also the faith of that age in all oracles, its desire +to hear all voices, its generous belief that nothing which had ever +interested the human mind could wholly lose its vitality. It is the +counterpart, though certainly the feebler counterpart, of that +practical truce and reconciliation of the gods of Greece with the +Christian religion, which is seen in the art of the time. And it is +for his share in this work, and because his own story is a sort of +analogue or visible equivalent to the expression of this purpose in +his writings, that something of a general interest still belongs to +the name of Pico della Mirandola, [36] whose life, written by his +nephew Francis, seemed worthy, for some touch of sweetness in +it, to be translated out of the original Latin by Sir Thomas More, +that great lover of Italian culture, among whose works the life of +Pico, Earl of Mirandola, and a great lord of Italy, as he calls +him, may still be read, in its quaint, antiquated English. + +Marsilio Ficino has told us how Pico came to Florence. It was +the very day--some day probably in the year 1482--on which +Ficino had finished his famous translation of Plato into Latin, the +work to which he had been dedicated from childhood by Cosmo +de' Medici, in furtherance of his desire to resuscitate the +knowledge of Plato among his fellow-citizens. Florence indeed, +as M. Renan has pointed out, had always had an affinity for the +mystic and dreamy philosophy of Plato, while the colder and +more practical philosophy of Aristotle had flourished in Padua, +and other cities of the north; and the Florentines, though they +knew perhaps very little about him, had had the name of the +great idealist often on their lips. To increase this knowledge, +Cosmo had founded the Platonic academy, with periodical +discussions at the Villa Careggi. The fall of Constantinople in +1453, and the council in 1438 for the reconciliation of the Greek +and Latin Churches, had brought to Florence many a needy +Greek scholar. And now the work was completed, the door of the +mystical temple lay open to all who could construe Latin, and the +[37] scholar rested from his labour; when there was introduced +into his study, where a lamp burned continually before the bust of +Plato, as other men burned lamps before their favourite saints, a +young man fresh from a journey, "of feature and shape seemly +and beauteous, of stature goodly and high, of flesh tender and +soft, his visage lovely and fair, his colour white, intermingled +with comely reds, his eyes grey, and quick of look, his teeth +white and even, his hair yellow and abundant," and trimmed with +more than the usual artifice of the time. + +It is thus that Sir Thomas More translates the words of the +biographer of Pico, who, even in outward form and appearance, +seems an image of that inward harmony and completeness, of +which he is so perfect an example. The word mystic has been +usually derived from a Greek word which signifies to shut, as if +one shut one's lips brooding on what cannot be uttered; but the +Platonists themselves derive it rather from the act of shutting the +eyes, that one may see the more, inwardly. Perhaps the eyes of +the mystic Ficino, now long past the midway of life, had come to +be thus half-closed; but when a young man, not unlike the +archangel Raphael, as the Florentines of that age depicted him in +his wonderful walk with Tobit, or Mercury, as he might have +appeared in a painting by Sandro Botticelli or Piero di Cosimo, +entered his chamber, he seems to have thought there was +something not wholly earthly about [38] him; at least, he ever +afterwards believed that it was not without the co-operation of the +stars that the stranger had arrived on that day. For it happened +that they fell into a conversation, deeper and more intimate than +men usually fall into at first sight. During this conversation +Ficino formed the design of devoting his remaining years to the +translation of Plotinus, that new Plato, in whom the mystical +element in the Platonic philosophy had been worked out to the +utmost limit of vision and ecstasy; and it is in dedicating this +translation to Lorenzo de' Medici that Ficino has recorded these +incidents. + +It was after many wanderings, wanderings of the intellect as well +as physical journeys, that Pico came to rest at Florence. Born in +1463, he was then about twenty years old. He was called +Giovanni at baptism, Pico, like all his ancestors, from Picus, +nephew of the Emperor Constantine, from whom they claimed to +be descended, and Mirandola from the place of his birth, a little +town afterwards part of the duchy of Modena, of which small +territory his family had long been the feudal lords. Pico was the +youngest of the family, and his mother, delighting in his +wonderful memory, sent him at the age of fourteen to the famous +school of law at Bologna. From the first, indeed, she seems to +have had some presentiment of his future fame, for, with a faith +in omens characteristic of her time, she believed [39] that a +strange circumstance had happened at the time of Pico's birth-- +the appearance of a circular flame which suddenly vanished +away, on the wall of the chamber where she lay. He remained +two years at Bologna; and then, with an inexhaustible, unrivalled +thirst for knowledge, the strange, confused, uncritical learning of +that age, passed through the principal schools of Italy and France, +penetrating, as he thought, into the secrets of all ancient +philosophies, and many Eastern languages. And with this flood +of erudition came the generous hope, so often disabused, of +reconciling the philosophers with one another, and all alike with +the Church. At last he came to Rome. There, like some knight- +errant of philosophy, he offered to defend nine hundred bold +paradoxes, drawn from the most opposite sources, against all +comers. But the pontifical court was led to suspect the orthodoxy +of some of these propositions, and even the reading of the book +which contained them was forbidden by the Pope. It was not +until 1493 that Pico was finally absolved, by a brief of Alexander +the Sixth. Ten years before that date he had arrived at Florence; +an early instance of those who, after following the vain hope of +an impossible reconciliation from system to system, have at last +fallen back unsatisfied on the simplicities of their childhood's +belief. + +The oration which Pico composed for the opening of this +philosophical tournament still [40] remains; its subject is the +dignity of human nature, the greatness of man. In common with +nearly all medieval speculation, much of Pico's writing has this +for its drift; and in common also with it, Pico's theory of that +dignity is founded on a misconception of the place in nature both +of the earth and of man. For Pico the earth is the centre of the +universe: and around it, as a fixed and motionless point, the sun +and moon and stars revolve, like diligent servants or ministers. +And in the midst of all is placed man, nodus et vinculum mundi, +the bond or copula of the world, and the "interpreter of nature": +that famous expression of Bacon's really belongs to Pico. Tritum +est in scholis, he says, esse hominem minorem mundum, in quo +mixtum ex elementis corpus et spiritus coelestis et plantarum +anima vegetalis et brutorum sensus et ratio et angelica mens et +Dei similitudo conspicitur:--"It is a commonplace of the schools +that man is a little world, in which we may discern a body +mingled of earthy elements, and ethereal breath, and the +vegetable life of plants, and the senses of the lower animals, and +reason, and the intelligence of angels, and a likeness to God." + +A commonplace of the schools! But perhaps it had some new +significance and authority, when men heard one like Pico +reiterate it; and, false as its basis was, the theory had its use. For +this high dignity of man, thus bringing the dust under his feet into +sensible communion with the [41] thoughts and affections of the +angels, was supposed to belong to him, not as renewed by a +religious system, but by his own natural right. The proclamation +of it was a counterpoise to the increasing tendency of medieval +religion to depreciate man's nature, to sacrifice this or that +element in it, to make it ashamed of itself, to keep the degrading +or painful accidents of it always in view. It helped man onward +to that reassertion of himself, that rehabilitation of human nature, +the body, the senses, the heart, the intelligence, which the +Renaissance fulfils. And yet to read a page of one of Pico's +forgotten books is like a glance into one of those ancient +sepulchres, upon which the wanderer in classical lands has +sometimes stumbled, with the old disused ornaments and +furniture of a world wholly unlike ours still fresh in them. That +whole conception of nature is so different from our own. For +Pico the world is a limited place, bounded by actual crystal walls, +and a material firmament; it is like a painted toy, like that map or +system of the world, held, as a great target or shield, in the hands +of the creative Logos, by whom the Father made all things, in one +of the earlier frescoes of the Campo Santo at Pisa. How different +from this childish dream is our own conception of nature, with its +unlimited space, its innumerable suns, and the earth but a mote in +the beam; how different the strange new awe, or superstition, +with which it fills our minds! "The silence of those infinite +spaces," [42] says Pascal, contemplating a starlight night, the +silence of those infinite spaces terrifies me":-- Le silence éternel de +ces espaces infinis m'effraie. + +He was already almost wearied out when he came to Florence. +He had loved much and been beloved by women, "wandering +over the crooked hills of delicious pleasure"; but their reign over +him was over, and long before Savonarola's famous "bonfire of +vanities," he had destroyed those love-songs in the vulgar tongue, +which would have been so great a relief to us, after the scholastic +prolixity of his Latin writings. It was in another spirit that he +composed a Platonic commentary, the only work of his in Italian +which has come down to us, on the "Song of Divine Love"-- +secondo la mente ed opinione dei Platonici--"according to the +mind and opinion of the Platonists," by his friend Hieronymo +Beniveni, in which, with an ambitious array of every sort of +learning, and a profusion of imagery borrowed indifferently from +the astrologers, the Cabala, and Homer, and Scripture, and +Dionysius the Areopagite, he attempts to define the stages by +which the soul passes from the earthly to the unseen beauty. A +change indeed had passed over him, as if the chilling touch of the +abstract and disembodied beauty Platonists profess to long for +were already upon him. Some sense of this, perhaps, coupled +with that over-brightness which in the popular imagination +always betokens an early [43] death, made Camilla Rucellai, one +of those prophetic women whom the preaching of Savonarola had +raised up in Florence, declare, seeing him for the first time, that +he would depart in the time of lilies--prematurely, that is, like the +field-flowers which are withered by the scorching sun almost as +soon as they are sprung up. He now wrote down those thoughts +on the religious life which Sir Thomas More turned into English, +and which another English translator thought worthy to be added +to the books of the Imitation. "It is not hard to know God, +provided one will not force oneself to define Him":--has been +thought a great saying of Joubert's. "Love God," Pico writes to +Angelo Politian, "we rather may, than either know Him, or by +speech utter Him. And yet had men liefer by knowledge never +find that which they seek, than by love possess that thing, which +also without love were in vain found." + +Yet he who had this fine touch for spiritual things did not--and in +this is the enduring interest of his story--even after his +conversion, forget the old gods. He is one of the last who +seriously and sincerely entertained the claim on men's faith of the +pagan religions; he is anxious to ascertain the true significance of +the obscurest legend, the lightest tradition concerning them. +With many thoughts and many influences which led him in that +direction, [44] he did not become a monk; only he became +gentle and patient in disputation; retaining "somewhat of the old +plenty, in dainty viand and silver vessel," he gave over the +greater part of his property to his friend, the mystical poet +Beniveni, to be spent by him in works of charity, chiefly in the +sweet charity of providing marriage-dowries for the peasant girls +of Florence. His end came in 1494, when, amid the prayers and +sacraments of Savonarola, he died of fever, on the very day on +which Charles the Eighth entered Florence, the seventeenth of +November, yet in the time of lilies--the lilies of the shield of +France, as the people now said, remembering Camilla's +prophecy. He was buried in the conventual church of Saint +Mark, in the hood and white frock of the Dominican order. + +It is because the life of Pico, thus lying down to rest in the +Dominican habit, yet amid thoughts of the older gods, himself +like one of those comely divinities, reconciled indeed to the new +religion, but still with a tenderness for the earlier life, and +desirous literally to "bind the ages each to each by natural piety"- +-it is because this life is so perfect a parallel to the attempt made +in his writings to reconcile Christianity with the ideas of +paganism, that Pico, in spite of the scholastic character of those +writings, is really interesting. Thus, in the Heptaplus, or +Discourse on the Seven Days of the Creation, he endeavours to +reconcile the [45] accounts which pagan philosophy had given of +the origin of the world with the account given in the books of +Moses--the Timaeus of Plato with the book of Genesis. The +Heptaplus is dedicated to Lorenzo the Magnificent, whose +interest, the preface tells us, in the secret wisdom of Moses is +well known. If Moses seems in his writings simple and even +popular, rather than either a philosopher or a theologian, that is +because it was an institution with the ancient philosophers, either +not to speak of divine things at all, or to speak of them +dissemblingly: hence their doctrines were called mysteries. +Taught by them, Pythagoras became so great a "master of +silence," and wrote almost nothing, thus hiding the words of God +in his heart, and speaking wisdom only among the perfect. In +explaining the harmony between Plato and Moses, Pico lays hold +on every sort of figure and analogy, on the double meanings of +words, the symbols of the Jewish ritual, the secondary meanings +of obscure stories in the later Greek mythologists. Everywhere +there is an unbroken system of correspondences. Every object in +the terrestrial world is an analogue, a symbol or counterpart, of +some higher reality in the starry heavens, and this again of some +law of the angelic life in the world beyond the stars. There is the +element of fire in the material world; the sun is the fire of heaven; +and in the super-celestial world there is the fire of [46] the +seraphic intelligence. "But behold how they differ! The +elementary fire burns, the heavenly fire vivifies, the super- +celestial fire loves." In this way, every natural object, every +combination of natural forces, every accident in the lives of men, +is filled with higher meanings. Omens, prophecies, supernatural +coincidences, accompany Pico himself all through life. There are +oracles in every tree and mountain-top, and a significance in +every accidental combination of the events of life. + +This constant tendency to symbolism and imagery gives Pico's +work a figured style, by which it has some real resemblance to +Plato's, and he differs from other mystical writers of his time by +a genuine desire to know his authorities at first hand. He reads +Plato in Greek, Moses in Hebrew, and by this his work really +belongs to the higher culture. Above all, we have a constant +sense in reading him, that his thoughts, however little their +positive value may be, are connected with springs beneath them +of deep and passionate emotion; and when he explains the grades +or steps by which the soul passes from the love of a physical +object to the love of unseen beauty, and unfolds the analogies +between this process and other movements upward of human +thought, there is a glow and vehemence in his words which +remind one of the manner in which his own brief existence +flamed itself away. + +I said that the Renaissance of the fifteenth [47] century was, in +many things, great rather by what it designed or aspired to do, +than by what it actually achieved. It remained for a later age to +conceive the true method of effecting a scientific reconciliation +of Christian sentiment with the imagery, the legends, the theories +about the world, of pagan poetry and philosophy. For that age +the only possible reconciliation was an imaginative one, and +resulted from the efforts of artists, trained in Christian schools, to +handle pagan subjects; and of this artistic reconciliation work like +Pico's was but the feebler counterpart. Whatever philosophers +had to say on one side or the other, whether they +were successful or not in their attempts to reconcile the old to the +new, and to justify the expenditure of so much care and thought +on the dreams of a dead faith, the imagery of the Greek religion, +the direct charm of its story, were by artists valued and cultivated +for their own sake. Hence a new sort of mythology, with a tone +and qualities of its own. When the ship-load of sacred earth from +the soil of Jerusalem was mingled with the common clay in the +Campo Santo at Pisa, a new flower grew up from it, unlike any +flower men had seen before, the anemone with its concentric +rings of strangely blended colour, still to be found by those who +search long enough for it, in the long grass of the Maremma. Just +such a strange flower was that mythology of the Italian +Renaissance, which grew up from the mixture of two traditions, +two [48] sentiments, the sacred and the profane. Classical story +was regarded as so much imaginative material to be received and +assimilated. It did not come into men's minds to ask curiously of +science, concerning the origin of such story, its primary form and +import, its meaning for those who projected it. The thing sank +into their minds, to issue forth again with all the tangle about it of +medieval sentiment and ideas. In the Doni Madonna in the +Tribune of the Uffizii, Michelangelo actually brings the pagan +religion, and with it the unveiled human form, the sleepy-looking +fauns of a Dionysiac revel, into the presence of the Madonna, as +simpler painters had introduced there other products of the earth, +birds or flowers, while he has given to that Madonna herself +much of the uncouth energy of the older and more primitive +"Mighty Mother." + +This picturesque union of contrasts, belonging properly to the art +of the close of the fifteenth century, pervades, in Pico della +Mirandola, an actual person, and that is why the figure of Pico is +so attractive. He will not let one go; he wins one on, in spite of +one's self, to turn again to the pages of his forgotten books, +although we know already that the actual solution proposed in +them will satisfy us as little as perhaps it satisfied him. It is said +that in his eagerness for mysterious learning he once paid a great +sum for a collection of cabalistic manuscripts, which turned out +to be forgeries; and [49] the story might well stand as a parable of +all he ever seemed to gain in the way of actual knowledge. He +had sought knowledge, and passed from system to system, and +hazarded much; but less for the sake of positive knowledge than +because he believed there was a spirit of order and beauty in +knowledge, which would come down and unite what men's +ignorance had divided, and renew what time had made dim. And +so, while his actual work has passed away, yet his own qualities +are still active, and himself remains, as one alive in the grave, +caesiis et vigilibus oculis, as his biographer describes him, and +with that sanguine, clear skin, decenti rubore interspersa, as with +the light of morning upon it; and he has a true place in that group +of great Italians who fill the end of the fifteenth century with their +names, he is a true humanist. For the essence of humanism is +that belief of which he seems never to have doubted, that nothing +which has ever interested living men and women can wholly lose +its vitality--no language they have spoken, nor oracle beside +which they have hushed their voices, no dream which has once +been entertained by actual human minds, nothing about which +they have ever been passionate, or expended time and zeal. + +1871. + + +SANDRO BOTTICELLI + +[50] IN Leonardo's treatise on painting only one contemporary is +mentioned by name--Sandro Botticelli. This pre-eminence may +be due to chance only, but to some will rather appear a result of +deliberate judgment; for people have begun to find out the charm +of Botticelli's work, and his name, little known in the last +century, is quietly becoming important. In the middle of the +fifteenth century he had already anticipated much of that +meditative subtlety, which is sometimes supposed peculiar to the +great imaginative workmen of its close. Leaving the simple +religion which had occupied the followers of Giotto for a century, +and the simple naturalism which had grown out of it, a thing of +birds and flowers only, he sought inspiration in what to him were +works of the modern world, the writings of Dante and Boccaccio, +and in new readings of his own of classical stories: or, if he +painted religious incidents, painted them with an under-current of +original sentiment, which touches you as the real matter of the +picture through the veil of its ostensible subject. What [51] is the +peculiar sensation, what is the peculiar quality of pleasure, which +his work has the property of exciting in us, and which we cannot +get elsewhere? For this, especially when he has to speak of a +comparatively unknown artist, is always the chief question which +a critic has to answer. + +In an age when the lives of artists were full of adventure, his life +is almost colourless. Criticism indeed has cleared away much of +the gossip which Vasari accumulated, has touched the legend of +Lippo and Lucrezia, and rehabilitated the character of Andrea del +Castagno. But in Botticelli's case there is no legend to dissipate. +He did not even go by his true name: Sandro is a nickname, and +his true name is Filipepi, Botticelli being only the name of the +goldsmith who first taught him art. Only two things happened to +him, two things which he shared with other artists:--he was +invited to Rome to paint in the Sistine Chapel, and he fell in later +life under the influence of Savonarola, passing apparently almost +out of men's sight in a sort of religious melancholy, which lasted +till his death in 1515, according to the received date. Vasari says +that he plunged into the study of Dante, and even wrote a +comment on the Divine Comedy. But it seems strange that he +should have lived on inactive so long; and one almost wishes that +some document might come to light, which, fixing the date of his +death earlier, might relieve one, in thinking of him, of his +dejected old age. + +[52] He is before all things a poetical painter, blending the charm +of story and sentiment, the medium of the art of poetry, with the +charm of line and colour, the medium of abstract painting. So he +becomes the illustrator of Dante. In a few rare examples of the +edition of 1481, the blank spaces, left at the beginning of every +canto for the hand of the illuminator, have been filled, as far as +the nineteenth canto of the Inferno, with impressions of engraved +plates, seemingly by way of experiment, for in the copy in the +Bodleian Library, one of the three impressions it contains has +been printed upside down, and much awry, in the midst of the +luxurious printed page. Giotto, and the followers of Giotto, with +their almost childish religious aim, had not learned to put that +weight of meaning into outward things, light, colour, everyday +gesture, which the poetry of the Divine Comedy involves, and +before the fifteenth century Dante could hardly have found an +illustrator. Botticelli's illustrations are crowded with incident, +blending, with a naïve carelessness of pictorial propriety, three +phases of the same scene into one plate. The grotesques, so often +a stumbling-block to painters, who forget that the words of a +poet, which only feebly present an image to the mind, must be +lowered in key when translated into visible form, make one regret +that he has not rather chosen for illustration the more subdued +imagery of the Purgatorio. Yet in the [53] scene of those who +"go down quick into hell," there is an inventive force about the +fire taking hold on the upturned soles of the feet, which proves +that the design is no mere translation of Dante's words, but a true +painter's vision; while the scene of the Centaurs wins one at +once, for, forgetful of the actual circumstances of their +appearance, Botticelli has gone off with delight on the thought of +the Centaurs themselves, bright, small creatures of the woodland, +with arch baby faces and mignon forms, drawing tiny bows. + +Botticelli lived in a generation of naturalists, and he might have +been a mere naturalist among them. There are traces enough in +his work of that alert sense of outward things, which, in the +pictures of that period, fills the lawns with delicate living +creatures, and the hillsides with pools of water, and the pools of +water with flowering reeds. But this was not enough for him; he +is a visionary painter, and in his visionariness he resembles +Dante. Giotto, the tried companion of Dante, Masaccio, +Ghirlandajo even, do but transcribe, with more or less refining, +the outward image; they are dramatic, not visionary painters; they +are almost impassive spectators of the action before them. But +the genius of which Botticelli is the type usurps the data before it +as the exponent of ideas, moods, visions of its own; in this +interest it plays fast and loose with those data, rejecting some and +[54] isolating others, and always combining them anew. To him, +as to Dante, the scene, the colour, the outward image or gesture, +comes with all its incisive and importunate reality; but awakes in +him, moreover, by some subtle law of his own structure, a mood +which it awakes in no one else, of which it is the double or +repetition, and which it clothes, that all may share it, with visible +circumstance. + +But he is far enough from accepting the conventional orthodoxy +of Dante which, referring all human action to the simple formula +of purgatory, heaven and hell, leaves an insoluble element of +prose in the depths of Dante's poetry. One picture of his, with +the portrait of the donor, Matteo Palmieri, below, had the credit +or discredit of attracting some shadow of ecclesiastical censure. +This Matteo Palmieri, (two dim figures move under that name in +contemporary history,) was the reputed author of a poem, still +unedited, La Città Divina, which represented the human race as +an incarnation of those angels who, in the revolt of Lucifer, were +neither for Jehovah nor for His enemies, a fantasy of that earlier +Alexandrian philosophy about which the Florentine intellect in +that century was so curious. Botticelli's picture may have been +only one of those familiar compositions in which religious +reverie has recorded its impressions of the various forms of +beatified existence--Glorias, as they were called, like that [55] in +which Giotto painted the portrait of Dante; but somehow it was +suspected of embodying in a picture the wayward dream of +Palmieri, and the chapel where it hung was closed. Artists so +entire as Botticelli are usually careless about philosophical +theories, even when the philosopher is a Florentine of the +fifteenth century, and his work a poem in terza rima. But +Botticelli, who wrote a commentary on Dante, and became the +disciple of Savonarola, may well have let such theories come and +go across him. True or false, the story interprets much of the +peculiar sentiment with which he infuses his profane and sacred +persons, comely, and in a certain sense like angels, but with a +sense of displacement or loss about them--the wistfulness of +exiles, conscious of a passion and energy greater than any known +issue of them explains, which runs through all his varied work +with a sentiment of ineffable melancholy. + +So just what Dante scorns as unworthy alike of heaven and hell, +Botticelli accepts, that middle world in which men take no side in +great conflicts, and decide no great causes, and make great +refusals. He thus sets for himself the limits within which art, +undisturbed by any moral ambition, does its most sincere and +surest work. His interest is neither in the untempered goodness +of Angelico's saints, nor the untempered evil of Orcagna's +Inferno; but with men and women, in their mixed and uncertain +condition, always [56] attractive, clothed sometimes by passion +with a character of loveliness and energy, but saddened +perpetually by the shadow upon them of the great things from +which they shrink. His morality is all sympathy; and it is this +sympathy, conveying into his work somewhat more than is usual +of the true complexion of humanity, which makes him, visionary +as he is, so forcible a realist. + +It is this which gives to his Madonnas their unique expression +and charm. He has worked out in them a distinct and peculiar +type, definite enough in his own mind, for he has painted it over +and over again, sometimes one might think almost mechanically, +as a pastime during that dark period when his thoughts were so +heavy upon him. Hardly any collection of note is without one of +these circular pictures, into which the attendant angels depress +their heads so naïvely. Perhaps you have sometimes wondered +why those peevish-looking Madonnas, conformed to no +acknowledged or obvious type of beauty, attract you more and +more, and often come back to you when the Sistine Madonna and +the Virgins of Fra Angelico are forgotten. At first, contrasting +them with those, you may have thought that there was something +in them mean or abject even, for the abstract lines of the face +have little nobleness, and the colour is wan. For with Botticelli +she too, though she holds in her hands the "Desire of all nations," +is one of those who [57] are neither for Jehovah nor for His +enemies; and her choice is on her face. The white light on it is +cast up hard and cheerless from below, as when snow lies upon +the ground, and the children look up with surprise at the strange +whiteness of the ceiling. Her trouble is in the very caress of the +mysterious child, whose gaze is always far from her, and who has +already that sweet look of devotion which men have never been +able altogether to love, and which still makes the born saint an +object almost of suspicion to his earthly brethren. Once, indeed, +he guides her hand to transcribe in a book the words of her +exaltation, the Ave, and the Magnificat, and the Gaude Maria, +and the young angels, glad to rouse her for a moment from her +dejection, are eager to hold the inkhorn and to support the book. +But the pen almost drops from her hand, and the high cold words +have no meaning for her, and her true children are those others, +among whom, in her rude home, the intolerable honour came to +her, with that look of wistful inquiry on their irregular faces +which you see in startled animals--gipsy children, such as those +who, in Apennine villages, still hold out their long brown arms to +beg of you, but on Sundays become enfants du choeur, with their +thick black hair nicely combed, and fair white linen on their +sunburnt throats. + +What is strangest is that he carries this sentiment into classical +subjects, its most complete [58] expression being a picture in the +Uffizii, of Venus rising from the sea, in which the grotesque +emblems of the middle age, and a landscape full of its peculiar +feeling, and even its strange draperies, powdered all over in +the Gothic manner with a quaint conceit of daisies, frame a figure +that reminds you of the faultless nude studies of Ingres. At first, +perhaps, you are attracted only by a quaintness of design, which +seems to recall all at once whatever you have read of Florence in +the fifteenth century; afterwards you may think that this +quaintness must be incongruous with the subject, and that the +colour is cadaverous or at least cold. And yet, the more you +come to understand what imaginative colouring really is, that all +colour is no mere delightful quality of natural things, but a spirit +upon them by which they become expressive to the spirit, the +better you will like this peculiar quality of colour; and you will +find that quaint design of Botticelli's a more direct inlet into the +Greek temper than the works of the Greeks themselves even of +the finest period. Of the Greeks as they really were, of their +difference from ourselves, of the aspects of their outward life, we +know far more than Botticelli, or his most learned +contemporaries; but for us long familiarity has taken off the edge +of the lesson, and we are hardly conscious of what we owe to the +Hellenic spirit. But in pictures like this of Botticelli's you have a +record of the first impression made [59] by it on minds +turned back towards it, in almost painful aspiration, from a world +in which it had been ignored so long; and in the passion, the +energy, the industry of realisation, with which Botticelli carries +out his intention, is the exact measure of the legitimate influence +over the human mind of the imaginative system of which this is +perhaps the central myth. The light is indeed cold--mere sunless +dawn; but a later painter would have cloyed you with sunshine; +and you can see the better for that quietness in the morning air +each long promontory, as it slopes down to the water's edge. +Men go forth to their labours until the evening; but she is awake +before them, and you might think that the sorrow in her face was +at the thought of the whole long day of love yet to come. An +emblematical figure of the wind blows hard across the grey +water, moving forward the dainty-lipped shell on which she sails, +the sea "showing his teeth," as it moves, in thin lines of foam, +and sucking in, one by one, the falling roses, each severe in +outline, plucked off short at the stalk, but embrowned a little, as +Botticelli's flowers always are. Botticelli meant all this imagery +to be altogether pleasurable; and it was partly an incompleteness +of resources, inseparable from the art of that time, that subdued +and chilled it. But this predilection for minor tones counts also; +and what is unmistakable is the sadness with which he has +conceived the goddess [60] of pleasure, as the depositary of a +great power over the lives of men. + +I have said that the peculiar character of Botticelli is the result of +a blending in him of a sympathy for humanity in its uncertain +condition, its attractiveness, its investiture at rarer moments in a +character of loveliness and energy, with his consciousness of the +shadow upon it of the great things from which it shrinks, and that +this conveys into his work somewhat more than painting usually +attains of the true complexion of humanity. He paints the story +of the goddess of pleasure in other episodes besides that of her +birth from the sea, but never without some shadow of death in the +grey flesh and wan flowers. He paints Madonnas, but they shrink +from the pressure of the divine child, and plead in unmistakable +undertones for a warmer, lower humanity. The same figure-- +tradition connects it with Simonetta, the Mistress of Giuliano de' +Medici--appears again as Judith, returning home across the hill +country, when the great deed is over, and the moment of +revulsion come, when the olive branch in her hand is becoming a +burthen; as Justice, sitting on a throne, but with a fixed look of +self-hatred which makes the sword in her hand seem that of a +suicide; and again as Veritas, in the allegorical picture of +Calumnia, where one may note in passing the suggestiveness of +an accident which identifies the image of Truth with the person +of Venus. [61] We might trace the same sentiment through his +engravings; but his share in them is doubtful, and the object of +this brief study has been attained, if I have defined aright the +temper in which he worked. + +But, after all, it may be asked, is a painter like Botticelli--a +secondary painter, a proper subject for general criticism? There +are a few great painters, like Michelangelo or Leonardo, whose +work has become a force in general culture, partly for this very +reason that they have absorbed into themselves all such workmen +as Sandro Botticelli; and, over and above mere technical or +antiquarian criticism, general criticism may be very well +employed in that sort of interpretation which adjusts the position +of these men to general culture, whereas smaller men can be the +proper subjects only of technical or antiquarian treatment. But, +besides those great men, there is a certain number of artists who +have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to us a +peculiar quality of pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere; and +these too have their place in general culture, and must be +interpreted to it by those who have felt their charm strongly, and +are often the object of a special diligence and a consideration +wholly affectionate, just because there is not about them the +stress of a great name and authority. Of this select number +Botticelli is one. He has the freshness, the uncertain and diffident +promise, [62] which belong to the earlier Renaissance itself, and +make it perhaps the most interesting period in the history of the +mind. In studying his work one begins to understand to how +great a place in human culture the art of Italy had been called. + +1870. + +NOTES + +None. + + + +LUCA DELLA ROBBIA + +[63] THE Italian sculptors of the earlier half of the fifteenth +century are more than mere forerunners of the great masters of its +close, and often reach perfection, within the narrow limits which +they chose to impose on their work. Their sculpture shares with +the paintings of Botticelli and the churches of Brunelleschi that +profound expressiveness, that intimate impress of an indwelling +soul, which is the peculiar fascination of the art of Italy in that +century. Their works have been much neglected, and often +almost hidden away amid the frippery of modern decoration, and +we come with some surprise on the places where their fire still +smoulders. One longs to penetrate into the lives of the men who +have given expression to so much power and sweetness. But it is +part of the reserve, the austere dignity and simplicity of their +existence, that their histories are for the most part lost, or told but +briefly. From their lives, as from their work, all tumult of sound +and colour has passed away. Mino, the Raphael of sculpture, +Maso del Rodario, whose works add a further grace to [64] the +church of Como, Donatello even,--one asks in vain for more than +a shadowy outline of their actual days. + +Something more remains of Luca della Robbia; something more +of a history, of outward changes and fortunes, is expressed +through his work. I suppose nothing brings the real air of a +Tuscan town so vividly to mind as those pieces of pale blue and +white earthenware, by which he is best known, like fragments of +the milky sky itself, fallen into the cool streets, and breaking into +the darkened churches. And no work is less imitable: like Tuscan +wine, it loses its savour when moved from its birthplace, from the +crumbling walls where it was first placed. Part of the charm of +this work, its grace and purity and finish of expression, is +common to all the Tuscan sculptors of the fifteenth century; for +Luca was first of all a worker in marble, and his works in terra +cotta only transfer to a different material the principles of his +sculpture. + +These Tuscan sculptors of the fifteenth century worked for the +most part in low relief, giving even to their monumental effigies +something of its depression of surface, getting into them by this +means a pathetic suggestion of the wasting and etherealisation of +death. They are haters of all heaviness and emphasis, of +strongly-opposed light and shade, and seek their means of +delineation among those last refinements of shadow, which are +almost invisible except in a strong [65] light, and which the finest +pencil can hardly follow. The whole essence of their work is +expression, the passing of a smile over the face of a child, the +ripple of the air on a still day over the curtain of a window ajar. + +What is the precise value of this system of sculpture, this low +relief? Luca della Robbia, and the other sculptors of the school +to which he belongs, have before them the universal problem of +their art; and this system of low relief is the means by which they +meet and overcome the special limitation of sculpture. + +That limitation results from the material and other necessary +conditions of all sculptured work, and consists in the tendency of +such work to a hard realism, a one-sided presentment of mere +form, that solid material frame which only motion can relieve, a +thing of heavy shadows, and an individuality of expression +pushed to caricature. Against this tendency to the hard +presentment of mere form trying vainly to compete with the +reality of nature itself, all noble sculpture constantly struggles; +each great system of sculpture resisting it in its own way, +etherealising, spiritualising, relieving its stiffness, its heaviness, +and death. The use of colour in sculpture is but an unskilful +contrivance to effect, by borrowing from another art, what the +nobler sculpture effects by strictly appropriate means. + +To get not colour, but the equivalent of colour; to secure the +expression and the play of life; to [66] expand the too firmly +fixed individuality of pure, unrelieved, uncoloured form:--this is +the problem which the three great styles in sculpture have solved +in three different ways. + +Allgemeinheit--breadth, generality, universality,--is the word +chosen by Winckelmann, and after him by Goethe and many +German critics, to express that law of the most excellent Greek +sculptors, of Pheidias and his pupils, which prompted them +constantly to seek the type in the individual, to abstract and +express only what is structural and permanent, to purge from the +individual all that belongs only to him, all the accidents, the +feelings and actions of the special moment, all that (because in its +own nature it endures but for a moment) is apt to look like a +frozen thing if one arrests it. + +In this way their works came to be like some subtle extract or +essence, or almost like pure thoughts or ideas: and hence the +breadth of humanity in them, that detachment from the conditions +of a particular place or people, which has carried their influence +far beyond the age which produced them, and insured them +universal acceptance. + +That was the Greek way of relieving the hardness and +unspirituality of pure form. But it involved to a certain degree +the sacrifice of what we call expression; and a system of +abstraction which aimed always at the broad and general type, at +the purging away from the [67] individual of what belonged only +to him, and of the mere accidents of a particular time and place, +imposed upon the range of effects open to the Greek sculptor +limits somewhat narrowly defined. When Michelangelo came, +therefore, with a genius spiritualised by the reverie of the middle +age, penetrated by its spirit of inwardness and introspection, +living not a mere outward life like the Greek, but a life full of +intimate experiences, sorrows, consolations, a system which +sacrificed so much of what was inward and unseen could not +satisfy him. To him, lover and student of Greek sculpture as he +was, work which did not bring what was inward to the surface, +which was not concerned with individual expression, with +individual character and feeling, the special history of the special +soul, was not worth doing at all. + +And so, in a way quite personal and peculiar to himself, which +often is, and always seems, the effect of accident, he secured for +his work individuality and intensity of expression, while he +avoided a too heavy realism, that tendency to harden into +caricature which the representation of feeling in sculpture is apt +to display. What time and accident, its centuries of darkness +under the furrows of the "little Melian farm," have done with +singular felicity of touch for the Venus of Melos, fraying its +surface and softening its lines, so that some spirit in the thing +seems always on the point of breaking out, as though [68] in it +classical sculpture had advanced already one step into the +mystical Christian age, its expression being in the whole range of +ancient work most like that of Michelangelo's own:--this effect +Michelangelo gains by leaving nearly all his sculpture in a +puzzling sort of incompleteness, which suggests rather than +realises actual form. Something of the wasting of that snow- +image which he moulded at the command of Piero de' Medici, +when the snow lay one night in the court of the Pitti palace, +almost always lurks about it, as if he had determined to make the +quality of a task, exacted from him half in derision, the pride of +all his work. Many have wondered at that incompleteness, +suspecting, however, that Michelangelo himself loved and was +loath to change it, and feeling at the same time that they too +would lose something if the half-realised form ever quite +emerged from the stone, so rough-hewn here, so delicately +finished there; and they have wished to fathom the charm of this +incompleteness. Well! That incompleteness is Michelangelo's +equivalent for colour in sculpture; it is his way of etherealising +pure form, of relieving its stiff realism, and communicating to it +breath, pulsation, the effect of life. It was a characteristic too +which fell in with his peculiar temper and mode of living, his +disappointments and hesitations. And it was in reality perfect +finish. In this way he combines the utmost amount of passion +and intensity with [69] the sense of a yielding and flexible life: he +gets not vitality merely, but a wonderful force of expression. + +Midway between these two systems--the system of the Greek +sculptors and the system of Michelangelo--comes the system of +Luca della Robbia and the other Tuscan sculptors of the fifteenth +century, partaking both of the Allgemeinheit of the Greeks, their +way of extracting certain select elements only of pure form and +sacrificing all the rest, and the studied incompleteness of +Michelangelo, relieving that sense of intensity, passion, energy, +which might otherwise have stiffened into caricature. Like +Michelangelo, these sculptors fill their works with intense and +individualised expression. Their noblest works are the careful +sepulchral portraits of particular persons--the monument of Conte +Ugo in the Badía of Florence, of the youthful Medea Colleoni, +with the wonderful, long throat, in the chapel on the cool north +side of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Bergamo-- +monuments such as abound in the churches of Rome, +inexhaustible in suggestions of repose, of a subdued Sabbatic joy, +a kind of sacred grace and refinement. And these elements of +tranquillity, of repose, they unite to an intense and individual +expression by a system of conventionalism as skilful and subtle +as that of the Greeks, repressing all such curves as indicate solid +form, and throwing the whole into low relief. + +[70] The life of Luca, a life of labour and frugality, with no +adventure and no excitement except what belongs to the trial of +new artistic processes, the struggle with new artistic difficulties, +the solution of purely artistic problems, fills the first seventy +years of the fifteenth century. After producing many works in +marble for the Duomo and the Campanile of Florence, which +place him among the foremost masters of the sculpture of his age, +he became desirous to realise the spirit and manner of that +sculpture, in a humbler material, to unite its science, its exquisite +and expressive system of low relief, to the homely art of pottery, +to introduce those high qualities into common things, to adorn +and cultivate daily household life. In this he is profoundly +characteristic of the Florence of that century, of that in it which +lay below its superficial vanity and caprice, a certain old-world +modesty and seriousness and simplicity. People had not yet +begun to think that what was good art for churches was not so +good, or less fitted, for their own houses. Luca's new work was +in plain white earthenware at first, a mere rough +imitation of the costly, laboriously wrought marble, finished in a +few hours. But on this humble path he found his way to a fresh +success, to another artistic grace. The fame of the oriental +pottery, with its strange, bright colours--colours of art, colours +not to be attained in the natural stone--mingled with the tradition +of the old Roman [71] pottery of the neighbourhood. The little +red, coral-like jars of Arezzo, dug up in that district from time to +time, are much prized. These colours haunted Luca's fancy. "He +still continued seeking something more," his biographer says of +him; "and instead of making his figures of baked earth simply +white, he added the further invention of giving them colour, to +the astonishment and delight of all who beheld them"--Cosa +singolare, e multo utile per la state!--a curious thing, and very +useful for summer-time, full of coolness and repose for hand and +eye. Luca loved the form of various fruits, and wrought them +into all sorts of marvellous frames and garlands, giving them +their natural colours, only subdued a little, a little paler than +nature. + +I said that the art of Luca della Robbia possessed in an unusual +measure that special characteristic which belongs to all the work- +men of his school, a characteristic which, even in the absence of +much positive information about their actual history, seems to +bring those work-men themselves very near to us. They bear the +impress of a personal quality, a profound+ expressiveness, what +the French call intimité, by which is meant some subtler sense of +originality--the seal on a man's work of what is most inward and +peculiar in his moods, and manner of apprehension: it is what we +call expression, carried to its highest intensity of degree. That +characteristic is rare in poetry, rarer still [72] in art, rarest of all in +the abstract art of sculpture; yet essentially, perhaps, it is the +quality which alone makes work in the imaginative order really +worth having at all. It is because the works of the artists of the +fifteenth century possess this quality in an unmistakable way that +one is anxious to know all that can be known about them and +explain to one's self the secret of their charm. + +1872. + + +NOTES + +71. +The Macmillan edition's misprint "profund" is here +corrected to "profound," the spelling of the 1901 edition. + + + +THE POETRY OF MICHELANGELO + +[73] CRITICS of Michelangelo have sometimes spoken as if the +only characteristic of his genius were a wonderful strength, +verging, as in the things of the imagination great strength always +does, on what is singular or strange. A certain strangeness, +something of the blossoming of the aloe, is indeed an element in +all true works of art: that they shall excite or surprise us is +indispensable. But that they shall give pleasure and exert a +charm over us is indispensable too; and this strangeness must be +sweet also--a lovely strangeness. And to the true admirers of +Michelangelo this is the true type of the Michelangelesque-- +sweetness and strength, pleasure with surprise, an energy of +conception which seems at every moment about to break through +all the conditions of comely form, recovering, touch by touch, a +loveliness found usually only in the simplest natural things--ex +forti dulcedo. + +In this way he sums up for them the whole character of medieval +art itself in that which distinguishes it most clearly from classical +work, the presence of a convulsive energy in it, becoming [74] +in lower hands merely monstrous or forbidding, and felt, even in +its most graceful products, as a subdued quaintness or grotesque. +Yet those who feel this grace or sweetness in Michelangelo might +at the first moment be puzzled if they were asked wherein +precisely such quality resided. Men of inventive temperament-- +Victor Hugo, for instance, in whom, as in Michelangelo, people +have for the most part been attracted or repelled by the strength, +while few have understood his sweetness--have sometimes +relieved conceptions of merely moral or spiritual greatness, but +with little aesthetic charm of their own, by lovely accidents or +accessories, like the butterfly which alights on the blood-stained +barricade in Les Misérables, or those sea-birds for whom the +monstrous Gilliatt comes to be as some wild natural thing, so that +they are no longer afraid of him, in Les Travailleurs de la Mer. +But the austere genius of Michelangelo will not depend for its +sweetness on any mere accessories like these. The world of +natural things has almost no existence for him; "When one speaks +of him," says Grimm, "woods, clouds, seas, and mountains +disappear, and only what is formed by the spirit of man remains +behind"; and he quotes a few slight words from a letter of his to +Vasari as the single expression in all he has left of a feeling for +nature. He has traced no flowers, like those with which Leonardo +stars [75] over his gloomiest rocks; nothing like the fret-work of +wings and flames in which Blake frames his most startling +conceptions. No forest-scenery like Titian's fills his +backgrounds, but only blank ranges of rock, and dim vegetable +forms as blank as they, as in a world before the creation of the +first five days. + +Of the whole story of the creation he has painted only the +creation of the first man and woman, and, for him at least, feebly, +the creation of light. It belongs to the quality of his genius thus +to concern itself almost exclusively with the making of man. For +him it is not, as in the story itself, the last and crowning act of a +series of developments, but the first and unique act, the creation +of life itself in its supreme form, off-hand and immediately, in the +cold and lifeless stone. With him the beginning of life has all the +characteristics of resurrection; it is like the recovery of suspended +health or animation, with its gratitude, its effusion, and +eloquence. Fair as the young men of the Elgin marbles, the +Adam of the Sistine Chapel is unlike them in a total absence of +that balance and completeness which express so well the +sentiment of a self-contained, independent life. In that languid +figure there is something rude and satyr-like, something akin to +the rugged hillside on which it lies. His whole form is gathered +into an expression of mere expectancy and reception; he has +hardly strength enough to lift his finger [76] to touch the finger of +the creator; yet a touch of the finger-tips will suffice. + +This creation of life--life coming always as relief or recovery, +and always in strong contrast with the rough-hewn mass in which +it is kindled--is in various ways the motive of all his work, +whether its immediate subject be Pagan or Christian, legend or +allegory; and this, although at least one-half of his work was +designed for the adornment of tombs--the tomb of Julius, the +tombs of the Medici. Not the Judgment but the Resurrection is +the real subject of his last work in the Sistine Chapel; and his +favourite Pagan subject is the legend of Leda, the delight of the +world breaking from the egg of a bird. As I have already pointed +out, he secures that ideality of expression which in Greek +sculpture depends on a delicate system of abstraction, and in +early Italian sculpture on lowness of relief, by an incompleteness, +which is surely not always undesigned, and which, as I think, no +one regrets, and trusts to the spectator to complete the half- +emergent form. And as his persons have something of the +unwrought stone about them, so, as if to realise the expression by +which the old Florentine records describe a sculptor--master of +live stone--with him the very rocks seem to have life. They have +but to cast away the dust and scurf that they may rise and stand +on their feet. He loved the very quarries of Carrara, those strange +grey peaks which even at mid-day [77] convey into any scene +from which they are visible something of the solemnity and +stillness of evening, sometimes wandering among them month +after month, till at last their pale ashen colours seem to have +passed into his painting; and on the crown of the head of the +David there still remains a morsel of uncut stone, as if by one +touch to maintain its connexion with the place from which it was +hewn. + +And it is in this penetrative suggestion of life that the secret of +that sweetness of his is to be found. He gives us indeed no lovely +natural objects like Leonardo or Titian, but only the coldest, most +elementary shadowing of rock or tree; no lovely draperies and +comely gestures of life, but only the austere truths of human +nature; "simple persons"--as he replied in his rough way to the +querulous criticism of Julius the Second, that there was no gold +on the figures of the Sistine Chapel--"simple persons, who wore +no gold on their garments"; but he penetrates us with a feeling of +that power which we associate with all the warmth and fulness of +the world, the sense of which brings into one's thoughts a swarm +of birds and flowers and insects. The brooding spirit of life itself +is there; and the summer may burst out in a moment. + +He was born in an interval of a rapid mid-night journey in March, +at a place in the neighbourhood of Arezzo, the thin, clear air of +which was then thought to be favourable to the [78] birth of +children of great parts. He came of a race of grave and dignified +men, who, claiming kinship with the family of Canossa, and +some colour of imperial blood in their veins, had, generation after +generation, received honourable employment under the +government of Florence. His mother, a girl of nineteen years, put +him out to nurse at a country house among the hills of Settignano, +where every other inhabitant is a worker in the marble quarries, +and the child early became familiar with that strange first stage in +the sculptor's art. To this succeeded the influence of the sweetest +and most placid master Florence had yet seen, Domenico +Ghirlandajo. At fifteen he was at work among the curiosities of +the garden of the Medici, copying and restoring antiques, +winning the condescending notice of the great Lorenzo. He knew +too how to excite strong hatreds; and it was at this time that in a +quarrel with a fellow-student he received a blow on the face +which deprived him for ever of the comeliness of outward form. + +It was through an accident that he came to study those works of +the early Italian sculptors which suggested much of his own +grandest work, and impressed it with so deep a sweetness. He +believed in dreams and omens. One of his friends dreamed twice +that Lorenzo, then lately dead, appeared to him in grey and dusty +apparel. To Michelangelo this dream seemed to portend the +troubles which afterwards really came, and with [79] the +suddenness which was characteristic of all his movements, he left +Florence. Having occasion to pass through Bologna, he +neglected to procure the little seal of red wax which the stranger +entering Bologna must carry on the thumb of his right hand. He +had no money to pay the fine, and would have been thrown into +prison had not one of the magistrates interposed. He remained in +this man's house a whole year, rewarding his hospitality by +readings from the Italian poets whom he loved. Bologna, with its +endless colonnades and fantastic leaning towers, can never have +been one of the lovelier cities of Italy. But about the portals of its +vast unfinished churches and its dark shrines, half hidden by +votive flowers and candles, lie some of the sweetest works of the +early Tuscan sculptors, Giovanni da Pisa and Jacopo della +Quercia, things as winsome as flowers; and the year which +Michelangelo spent in copying these works was not a lost year. +It was now, on returning to Florence, that he put forth that unique +presentment of Bacchus, which expresses, not the mirthfulness of +the god of wine, but his sleepy seriousness, his enthusiasm, his +capacity for profound dreaming. No one ever expressed more +truly than Michelangelo the notion of inspired sleep, of faces +charged with dreams. A vast fragment of marble had long lain +below the Loggia of Orcagna, and many a sculptor had had his +thoughts of a design which should just fill this famous block of +[80] stone, cutting the diamond, as it were, without loss. Under +Michelangelo's hand it became the David which stood till lately +on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, when it was replaced below +the Loggia. Michelangelo was now thirty years old, and his +reputation was established. Three great works fill the remainder +of his life--three works often interrupted, carried on through a +thousand hesitations, a thousand disappointments, quarrels with +his patrons, quarrels with his family, quarrels perhaps most of all +with himself--the Sistine Chapel, the Mausoleum of Julius the +Second, and the Sacristy of San Lorenzo. + +In the story of Michelangelo's life the strength, often turning to +bitterness, is not far to seek. A discordant note sounds +throughout it which almost spoils the music. He "treats the Pope +as the King of France himself would not dare to treat him": he +goes along the streets of Rome "like an executioner," Raphael +says of him. Once he seems to have shut himself up with the +intention of starving himself to death. As we come, in reading +his life, on its harsh, untempered incidents, the thought again and +again arises that he is one of those who incur the judgment of +Dante, as having "wilfully lived in sadness." Even his tenderness +and pity are embittered by their strength. What passionate +weeping in that mysterious figure which, in the Creation of +Adam, crouches below the image of the Almighty, as he comes +with the forms of things to be, woman [81] and her progeny, in +the fold of his garment! What a sense of wrong in those two +captive youths, who feel the chains like scalding water on their +proud and delicate flesh! The idealist who became a reformer +with Savonarola, and a republican superintending the fortification +of Florence--the nest where he was born, il nido ove naqqu'io, as +he calls it once, in a sudden throb of affection--in its last struggle +for liberty, yet believed always that he had imperial blood in his +veins and was of the kindred of the great Matilda, had within the +depths of his nature some secret spring of indignation or sorrow. +We know little of his youth, but all tends to make one believe in +the vehemence of its passions. Beneath the Platonic calm of the +sonnets there is latent a deep delight in carnal form and colour. +There, and still more in the madrigals, he often falls into the +language of less tranquil affections; while some of them have the +colour of penitence, as from a wanderer returning home. He who +spoke so decisively of the supremacy in the imaginative world of +the unveiled human form had not been always, we may think, a +mere Platonic lover. Vague and wayward his loves may have +been; but they partook of the strength of his nature, and +sometimes, it may be, would by no means become music, so that +the comely order of his days was quite put out: par che amaro +ogni mio dolce io senta. + +But his genius is in harmony with itself; and [82] just as in the +products of his art we find resources of sweetness within their +exceeding strength, so in his own story also, bitter as the ordinary +sense of it may be, there are select pages shut in among the rest-- +pages one might easily turn over too lightly, but which yet +sweeten the whole volume. The interest of Michelangelo's +poems is that they make us spectators of this struggle; the +struggle of a strong nature to adorn and attune itself; the struggle +of a desolating passion, which yearns to be resigned and sweet +and pensive, as Dante's was. It is a consequence of the +occasional and informal character of his poetry, that it brings us +nearer to himself, his own mind and temper, than any work done +only to support a literary reputation could possibly do. His letters +tell us little that is worth knowing about him--a few poor quarrels +about money and commissions. But it is quite otherwise with +these songs and sonnets, written down at odd moments, +sometimes on the margins of his sketches, themselves often +unfinished sketches, arresting some salient feeling or +unpremeditated idea as it passed. And it happens that a true +study of these has become within the last few years for the first +time possible. A few of the sonnets circulated widely in +manuscript, and became almost within Michelangelo's own +lifetime a subject of academical discourses. But they were first +collected in a volume in 1623 by the great-nephew of +Michelangelo, Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger. He omitted +[83] much, re-wrote the sonnets in part, and sometimes +compressed two or more compositions into one, always losing +something of the force and incisiveness of the original. So the +book remained, neglected even by Italians themselves in the last +century, through the influence of that French taste which despised +all compositions of the kind, as it despised and neglected Dante. +"His reputation will ever be on the increase, because he is so little +read," says Voltaire of Dante.-- But in 1858 the last of the +Buonarroti bequeathed to the municipality of Florence the +curiosities of his family. Among them was a precious volume +containing the autograph of the sonnets. A learned Italian, Signor +Cesare Guasti, undertook to collate this autograph with other +manuscripts at the Vatican and elsewhere, and in 1863 published +a true version of Michelangelo's poems, with dissertations and a +paraphrase.* + +People have often spoken of these poems as if they were a +mere cry of distress, a lover's complaint over the obduracy of +Vittoria Colonna. But those who speak thus forget that though it +is quite possible that Michelangelo had seen Vittoria, that +somewhat shadowy figure, as early as 1537, yet their closer +intimacy did not begin till about the year 1542, when +Michelangelo was nearly seventy years old. Vittoria herself, an +ardent neo-catholic, vowed to perpetual widowhood since the +news [84] had reached her, seventeen years before, that her +husband, the youthful and princely Marquess of Pescara, lay dead +of the wounds he had received in the battle of Pavia, was then no +longer an object of great passion. In a dialogue written by the +painter, Francesco d' Ollanda, we catch a glimpse of them +together in an empty church at Rome, one Sunday afternoon, +discussing indeed the characteristics of various schools of art, but +still more the writings of Saint Paul, already following the ways +and tasting the sunless pleasures of weary people, whose care for +external things is slackening. In a letter still extant he regrets that +when he visited her after death he had kissed her hands only. He +made, or set to work to make, a crucifix for her use, and two +drawings, perhaps in preparation for it, are now in Oxford. From +allusions in the sonnets, we may divine that when they first +approached each other he had debated much with himself +whether this last passion would be the most unsoftening, the most +desolating of all--un dolce amaro, un sì e no mi muovi. Is it +carnal affection, or, del suo prestino stato (of Plato's ante-natal +state) il raggio ardente? The older, conventional criticism, +dealing with the text of 1623, had lightly assumed that all or +nearly all the sonnets were actually addressed to Vittoria herself; +but Signor Guasti finds only four, or at most five, which can be +so attributed on genuine authority. Still, there are reasons which +make him assign the majority of them to [85] the period between +1542 and 1547, and we may regard the volume as a record of this +resting-place in Michelangelo's story. We know how Goethe +escaped from the stress of sentiments too strong for him by +making a book about them; and for Michelangelo, to write down +his passionate thoughts at all, to express them in a sonnet, was +already in some measure to command, and have his way with +them-- + + La vita del mia amor non è il cor mio, + Ch' amor, di quel ch' io t' amo, è senza core. + +It was just because Vittoria raised no great passion that the space +in his life where she reigns has such peculiar suavity; and the +spirit of the sonnets is lost if we once take them out of that +dreamy atmosphere in which men have things as they will, +because the hold of all outward things upon them is faint and +uncertain. Their prevailing tone is a calm and meditative +sweetness. The cry of distress is indeed there, but as a mere +residue, a trace of bracing chalybeate salt, just discernible in the +song which rises like a clear, sweet spring from a charmed space +in his life. + +This charmed and temperate space in Michelangelo's life, +without which its excessive strength would have been so +imperfect, which saves him from the judgment of Dante on those +who "wilfully lived in sadness," is then a well-defined period +there, reaching from the year 1542 to the year 1547, the year of +Vittoria's death. In [86] it the lifelong effort to tranquillise his +vehement emotions by withdrawing them into the region of ideal +sentiment, becomes successful; and the significance of Vittoria is, +that she realises for him a type of affection which even in +disappointment may charm and sweeten his spirit. + +In this effort to tranquillise and sweeten life by idealising its +vehement sentiments, there were two great traditional types, +either of which an Italian of the sixteenth century might have +followed. There was Dante, whose little book of the Vita Nuova +had early become a pattern of imaginative love, maintained +somewhat feebly by the later followers of Petrarch; and, since +Plato had become something more than a name in Italy by the +publication of the Latin translation of his works by Marsilio +Ficino, there was the Platonic tradition also. Dante's belief in the +resurrection of the body, through which, even in heaven, Beatrice +loses for him no tinge of flesh-colour, or fold of raiment even; +and the Platonic dream of the passage of the soul through one +form of life after another, with its passionate haste to escape from +the burden of bodily form altogether; are, for all effects of art or +poetry, principles diametrically opposite. Now it is the Platonic +tradition rather than Dante's that has moulded Michelangelo's +verse. In many ways no sentiment could have been less like +Dante's love for Beatrice than Michelangelo's for Vittoria +Colonna. Dante's comes in early youth: Beatrice [87] is a child, +with the wistful, ambiguous vision of a child, with a character +still unaccentuated by the influence of outward circumstances, +almost expressionless. Vittoria, on the other hand, is a woman +already weary, in advanced age, of grave intellectual qualities. +Dante's story is a piece of figured work, inlaid with lovely +incidents. In Michelangelo's poems, frost and fire are almost the +only images--the refining fire of the goldsmith; once or twice the +phoenix; ice melting at the fire; fire struck from the rock which it +afterwards consumes. Except one doubtful allusion to a journey, +there are almost no incidents. But there is much of the bright, +sharp, unerring skill, with which in boyhood he gave the look of +age to the head of a faun by chipping a tooth from its jaw with a +single stroke of the hammer. For Dante, the amiable and devout +materialism of the middle age sanctifies all that is presented by +hand and eye; while Michelangelo is always pressing forward +from the outward beauty--il bel del fuor che agli occhi piace, to +apprehend the unseen beauty; trascenda nella forma universale-- +that abstract form of beauty, about which the Platonists reason. +And this gives the impression in him of something flitting and +unfixed, of the houseless and complaining spirit, almost +clairvoyant through the frail and yielding flesh. He accounts for +love at first sight by a previous state of existence--la dove io t' +amai prima. + +And yet there are many points in which he [88] is really like +Dante, and comes very near to the original image, beyond those +later and feebler followers in the wake of Petrarch. He learns +from Dante rather than from Plato, that for lovers, the surfeiting +of desire--ove gran desir gran copia affrena, is a state less happy +than poverty with abundance of hope--una miseria di speranza +piena. He recalls him in the repetition of the words gentile and +cortesia, in the personification of Amor, in the tendency to dwell +minutely on the physical effects of the presence of a beloved +object on the pulses and the heart. Above all, he resembles Dante +in the warmth and intensity of his political utterances, for the lady +of one of his noblest sonnets was from the first understood to be +the city of Florence; and he avers that all must be asleep in +heaven, if she, who was created "of angelic form," for a thousand +lovers, is appropriated by one alone, some Piero, or Alessandro +de' Medici. Once and again he introduces Love and Death, who +dispute concerning him. For, like Dante and all the nobler souls +of Italy, he is much occupied with thoughts of the grave, and his +true mistress is death,--death at first as the worst of all sorrows +and disgraces, with a clod of the field for its brain; afterwards, +death in its high distinction, its detachment from vulgar needs, +the angry stains of life and action escaping fast. + +Some of those whom the gods love die young. This man, +because the gods loved him, lingered [89] on to be of immense, +patriarchal age, till the sweetness it had taken so long to secrete +in him was found at last. Out of the strong came forth sweetness, +ex forti dulcedo. The world had changed around him. The "new +catholicism" had taken the place of the Renaissance. The spirit +of the Roman Church had changed: in the vast world's cathedral +which his skill had helped to raise for it, it looked stronger than +ever. Some of the first members of the Oratory were among his +intimate associates. They were of a spirit as unlike as possible +from that of Lorenzo, or Savonarola even. The opposition of the +Reformation to art has been often enlarged upon; far greater was +that of the Catholic revival. But in thus fixing itself in a frozen +orthodoxy, the Roman Church had passed beyond him, and he +was a stranger to it. In earlier days, when its beliefs had been in a +fluid state, he too might have been drawn into the controversy. +He might have been for spiritualising the papal sovereignty, like +Savonarola; or for adjusting the dreams of Plato and Homer with +the words of Christ, like Pico of Mirandola. But things had +moved onward, and such adjustments were no longer possible. +For himself, he had long since fallen back on that divine ideal, +which above the wear and tear of creeds has been forming itself +for ages as the possession of nobler souls. And now he began to +feel the soothing influence which since that time the Roman [90] +Church has often exerted over spirits too independent to be its +subjects, yet brought within the neighbourhood of its action; +consoled and tranquillised, as a traveller might be, resting for one +evening in a strange city, by its stately aspect and the sentiment +of its many fortunes, just because with those fortunes he has +nothing to do. So he lingers on; a revenant, as the French say, a +ghost out of another age, in a world too coarse to touch his faint +sensibilities very closely; dreaming, in a worn-out society, +theatrical in its life, theatrical in its art, theatrical even in its +devotion, on the morning of the world's history, on the primitive +form of man, on the images under which that primitive world had +conceived of spiritual forces. + +I have dwelt on the thought of Michelangelo as thus lingering +beyond his time in a world not his own, because, if one is to +distinguish the peculiar savour of his work, he must be +approached, not through his followers, but through his +predecessors; not through the marbles of Saint Peter's, but +through the work of the sculptors of the fifteenth century over the +tombs and altars of Tuscany. He is the last of the Florentines, of +those on whom the peculiar sentiment of the Florence of Dante +and Giotto descended: he is the consummate representative of the +form that sentiment took in the fifteenth century with men like +Luca Signorelli and Mino [91] da Fiesole. Up to him the +tradition of sentiment is unbroken, the progress towards surer and +more mature methods of expressing that sentiment continuous. +But his professed disciples did not share this temper; they are in +love with his strength only, and seem not to feel his grave and +temperate sweetness. Theatricality is their chief characteristic; +and that is a quality as little attributable to Michelangelo as to +Mino or Luca Signorelli. With him, as with them, all is serious, +passionate, impulsive. + +This discipleship of Michelangelo, this dependence of his on the +tradition of the Florentine schools, is nowhere seen more clearly +than in his treatment of the Creation. The Creation of Man had +haunted the mind of the middle age like a dream; and weaving it +into a hundred carved ornaments of capital or doorway, the +Italian sculptors had early impressed upon it that pregnancy of +expression which seems to give it many veiled meanings. As +with other artistic conceptions of the middle age, its treatment +became almost conventional, handed on from artist to artist, with +slight changes, till it came to have almost an independent and +abstract existence of its own. It was characteristic of the +medieval mind thus to give an independent traditional existence +to a special pictorial conception, or to a legend, like that of +Tristram or Tannhäuser, or even to the very thoughts and +substance of a book, like the Imitation, so that no single workman +could [92] claim it as his own, and the book, the image, the +legend, had itself a legend, and its fortunes, and a personal +history; and it is a sign of the medievalism of Michelangelo, that +he thus receives from tradition his central conception, and does +but add the last touches, in transferring it to the frescoes of the +Sistine Chapel. + +But there was another tradition of those earlier, more serious +Florentines, of which Michelangelo is the inheritor, to which he +gives the final expression, and which centres in the sacristy of +San Lorenzo, as the tradition of the Creation centres in the +Sistine Chapel. It has been said that all the great Florentines +were preoccupied with death. Outre-tombe! Outre-tombe!--is +the burden of their thoughts, from Dante to Savonarola. Even the +gay and licentious Boccaccio gives a keener edge to his stories by +putting them in the mouths of a party of people who had taken +refuge in a country-house from the danger of death by plague. It +was to this inherited sentiment, this practical decision that to be +preoccupied with the thought of death was in itself dignifying, +and a note of high quality, that the seriousness of the great +Florentines of the fifteenth century was partly due; and it was +reinforced in them by the actual sorrows of their times. How +often, and in what various ways, had they seen life stricken down, +in their streets and houses La bella Simonetta dies in early youth, +and is borne to the grave with uncovered face. The [93] young +Cardinal Jacopo di Portogallo dies on a visit to Florence--insignis +forma fui et mirabili modestia--his epitaph dares to say. Antonio +Rossellino carves his tomb in the church of San Miniato, with +care for the shapely hands and feet, and sacred attire; Luca della +Robbia puts his skyiest works there; and the tomb of the youthful +and princely prelate became the strangest and most beautiful +thing in that strange and beautiful place. After the execution of +the Pazzi conspirators, Botticelli is employed to paint their +portraits. This preoccupation with serious thoughts and sad +images might easily have resulted, as it did, for instance, in the +gloomy villages of the Rhine, or in the overcrowded parts of +medieval Paris, as it still does in many a village of the Alps, in +something merely morbid or grotesque, in the Danse Macabre of +many French and German painters, or the grim inventions of +Dürer. From such a result the Florentine masters of the fifteenth +century were saved by the nobility of their Italian culture, and +still more by their tender pity for the thing itself. They must +often have leaned over the lifeless body, when all was at length +quiet and smoothed out. After death, it is said, the traces of +slighter and more superficial dispositions disappear; the lines +become more simple and dignified; only the abstract lines +remain, in a great indifference. They came thus to see death in its +distinction. Then following it perhaps one [94] stage further, +dwelling for a moment on the point where all this transitory +dignity must break up, and discerning with no clearness a new +body, they paused just in time, and abstained, with a sentiment of +profound pity. + +Of all this sentiment Michelangelo is the achievement; and, first +of all, of pity. Pietà, pity, the pity of the Virgin Mother over the +dead body of Christ, expanded into the pity of all mothers over +all dead sons, the entombment, with its cruel "hard stones":--this +is the subject of his predilection. He has left it in many forms, +sketches, half-finished designs, finished and unfinished groups of +sculpture; but always as a hopeless, rayless, almost heathen +sorrow--no divine sorrow, but mere pity and awe at the stiff limbs +and colourless lips. There is a drawing of his at Oxford, in which +the dead body has sunk to the earth between the mother's feet, +with the arms extended over her knees. The tombs in the sacristy +of San Lorenzo are memorials, not of any of the nobler and +greater Medici, but of Giuliano, and Lorenzo the younger, +noticeable chiefly for their somewhat early death. It is mere +human nature therefore which has prompted the sentiment here. +The titles assigned traditionally to the four symbolical figures, +Night and Day, The Twilight and The Dawn, are far too definite +for them; for these figures come much nearer to the mind and +spirit of their author, and are a more direct expression [95] of his +thoughts, than any merely symbolical conceptions could possibly +have been. They concentrate and express, less by way of definite +conceptions than by the touches, the promptings of a piece of +music, all those vague fancies, misgivings, presentiments, which +shift and mix and are defined and fade again, whenever the +thoughts try to fix themselves with sincerity on the conditions +and surroundings of the disembodied spirit. I suppose no one +would come to the sacristy of San Lorenzo for consolation; for +seriousness, for solemnity, for dignity of impression, perhaps, but +not for consolation. It is a place neither of consoling nor of +terrible thoughts, but of vague and wistful speculation. Here, +again, Michelangelo is the disciple not so much of Dante as of +the Platonists. Dante's belief in immortality is formal, precise +and firm, almost as much so as that of a child, who thinks the +dead will hear if you cry loud enough. But in Michelangelo you +have maturity, the mind of the grown man, dealing cautiously and +dispassionately with serious things; and what hope he has is +based on the consciousness of ignorance--ignorance of man, +ignorance of the nature of the mind, its origin and capacities. +Michelangelo is so ignorant of the spiritual world, of the new +body and its laws, that he does not surely know whether the +consecrated Host may not be the body of Christ. And of all that +range of sentiment he is the poet, a poet still alive, and in [96] +possession of our inmost thoughts--dumb inquiry over the relapse +after death into the formlessness which preceded life, the change, +the revolt from that change, then the correcting, hallowing, +consoling rush of pity; at last, far off, thin and vague, yet not +more vague than the most definite thoughts men have had +through three centuries on a matter that has been so near their +hearts, the new body--a passing light, a mere intangible, external +effect, over those too rigid, or too formless faces; a dream that +lingers a moment, retreating in the dawn, incomplete, aimless, +helpless; a thing with faint hearing, faint memory, faint power of +touch; a breath, a flame in the doorway, a feather in the wind. + +The qualities of the great masters in art or literature, the +combination of those qualities, the laws by which they moderate, +support, relieve each other, are not peculiar to them; but most +often typical standards, or revealing instances of the laws by +which certain aesthetic effects are produced. The old masters +indeed are simpler; their characteristics are written larger, and are +easier to read, than the analogues of them in all the mixed, +confused productions of the modern mind. But when once we +have succeeded in defining for ourselves those characteristics, +and the law of their combination, we have acquired a standard or +measure which helps us to put in its right place many a vagrant +genius, many an unclassified talent, many precious though +imperfect [97] products of art. It is so with the components of the +true character of Michelangelo. That strange interfusion of +sweetness and strength is not to be found in those who claimed to +be his followers; but it is found in many of those who worked +before him, and in many others down to our own time, in William +Blake, for instance, and Victor Hugo, who, though not of his +school, and unaware, are his true sons, and help us to understand +him, as he in turn interprets and justifies them. Perhaps this is the +chief use in studying old masters. + +1871. + + + +LEONARDO DA VINCI + +HOMO MINISTER ET INTERPRES NATURAE + +[98] IN Vasari's life of Leonardo da Vinci as we now read it there are +some variations from the first edition. There, the painter who has +fixed the outward type of Christ for succeeding centuries was a +bold speculator, holding lightly by other men's beliefs, setting +philosophy above Christianity. Words of his, trenchant enough +to justify this impression, are not recorded, and would have been +out of keeping with a genius of which one characteristic is the +tendency to lose itself in a refined and graceful mystery. The +suspicion was but the time-honoured mode in which the world +stamps its appreciation of one who has thoughts for himself +alone, his high indifference, his intolerance of the common forms +of things; and in the second edition the image was changed into +something fainter and more conventional. But it is still by a +certain mystery in his work, and something enigmatical beyond +the usual measure of great men, that he fascinates, or perhaps half +repels. His life is one of sudden [99] revolts, with intervals in +which he works not at all, or apart from the main scope of his +work. By a strange fortune the pictures on which his more +popular fame rested disappeared early from the world, like the +Battle of the Standard; or are mixed obscurely with the product +of meaner hands, like the Last Supper. His type of beauty is so +exotic that it fascinates a larger number than it delights, and +seems more than that of any other artist to reflect ideas and views +and some scheme of the world within; so that he seemed to his +contemporaries to be the possessor of some unsanctified and +secret wisdom; as to Michelet and others to have anticipated +modern ideas. He trifles with his genius, and crowds all his chief +work into a few tormented years of later life; yet he is so +possessed by his genius that he passes unmoved through the most +tragic events, overwhelming his country and friends, like one +who comes across them by chance on some secret errand. + +His legend, as the French say, with the anecdotes which every +one remembers, is one of the most brilliant chapters of Vasari. +Later writers merely copied it, until, in 1804, Carlo Amoretti +applied to it a criticism which left hardly a date fixed, and not one +of those anecdotes untouched. The various questions thus raised +have since that time become, one after another, subjects of +special study, and mere antiquarianism has in this direction little +more to do. For others remain the editing of [100] the thirteen +books of his manuscripts, and the separation by technical +criticism of what in his reputed works is really his, from what is +only half his, or the work of his pupils. But a lover of strange +souls may still analyse for himself the impression made on him +by those works, and try to reach through it a definition of the +chief elements of Leonardo's genius. The legend, as corrected +and enlarged by its critics, may now and then intervene to support +the results of this analysis. + +His life has three divisions--thirty years at Florence, nearly +twenty years at Milan, then nineteen years of wandering, till he +sinks to rest under the protection of Francis the First at the +Château de Clou. The dishonour of illegitimacy hangs over his +birth. Piero Antonio, his father, was of a noble Florentine house, +of Vinci in the Val d'Arno, and Leonardo, brought up delicately +among the true children of that house, was the love-child of his +youth, with the keen, puissant nature such children often have. +We see him in his boyhood fascinating all men by his beauty, +improvising music and songs, buying the caged birds and setting +them free, as he walked the streets of Florence, fond of odd bright +dresses and spirited horses. + +From his earliest years he designed many objects, and +constructed models in relief, of which Vasari mentions some of +women smiling. His father, pondering over this promise in the +[101] child, took him to the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, +then the most famous artist in Florence. Beautiful objects lay +about there--reliquaries, pyxes, silver images for the pope's +chapel at Rome, strange fancy-work of the middle age, keeping +odd company with fragments of antiquity, then but lately +discovered. Another student Leonardo may have seen there--a +lad into whose soul the level light and aërial illusions of Italian +sunsets had passed, in after days famous as Perugino. Verrocchio +was an artist of the earlier Florentine type, carver, painter, and +worker in metals, in one; designer, not of pictures only, but of all +things for sacred or household use, drinking-vessels, ambries, +instruments of music, making them all fair to look upon, filling +the common ways of life with the reflexion of some far-off +brightness; and years of patience had refined his hand till his +work was now sought after from distant places. + +It happened that Verrocchio was employed by the brethren of +Vallombrosa to paint the Baptism of Christ, and Leonardo was +allowed to finish an angel in the left-hand corner. It was one of +those moments in which the progress of a great thing--here, that +of the art of Italy--presses hard on the happiness of an individual, +through whose discouragement and decrease, humanity, in more +fortunate persons, comes a step nearer to its final success. + +For beneath the cheerful exterior of the mere [102] well-paid +craftsman, chasing brooches for the copes of Santa Maria +Novella, or twisting metal screens for the tombs of the Medici, +lay the ambitious desire to expand the destiny of Italian art by a +larger knowledge and insight into things, a purpose in art not +unlike Leonardo's still unconscious purpose; and often, in the +modelling of drapery, or of a lifted arm, or of hair cast back from +the face, there came to him something of the freer manner and +richer humanity of a later age. But in this Baptism the pupil had +surpassed the master; and Verrocchio turned away as one +stunned, and as if his sweet earlier work must thereafter be +distasteful to him, from the bright animated angel of Leonardo's +hand. + +The angel may still be seen in Florence, a space of sunlight in the +cold, laboured old picture; but the legend is true only in +sentiment, for painting had always been the art by which +Verrocchio set least store. And as in a sense he anticipates +Leonardo, so to the last Leonardo recalls the studio of +Verrocchio, in the love of beautiful toys, such as the vessel of +water for a mirror, and lovely needle-work about the implicated +hands in the Modesty and Vanity, and of reliefs, like those +cameos which in the Virgin of the Balances hang all round the +girdle of Saint Michael, and of bright variegated stones, such as +the agates in the Saint Anne, and in a hieratic preciseness and +grace, as of a sanctuary swept and [103] garnished. Amid all the +cunning and intricacy of his Lombard manner this never left him. +Much of it there must have been in that lost picture of Paradise, +which he prepared as a cartoon for tapestry, to be woven in the +looms of Flanders. It was the perfection of the older Florentine +style of miniature-painting, with patient putting of each leaf upon +the trees and each flower in the grass, where the first man and +woman were standing. + +And because it was the perfection of that style, it awoke in +Leonardo some seed of discontent which lay in the secret places +of his nature. For the way to perfection is through a series of +disgusts; and this picture--all that he had done so far in his life at +Florence--was after all in the old slight manner. His art, if it was +to be something in the world, must be weighted with more of the +meaning of nature and purpose of humanity. Nature was "the +true mistress of higher intelligences." He plunged, then, into the +study of nature. And in doing this he followed the manner of the +older students; he brooded over the hidden virtues of plants and +crystals, the lines traced by the stars as they moved in the sky, +over the correspondences which exist between the different +orders of living things, through which, to eyes opened, they +interpret each other; and for years he seemed to those about him +as one listening to a voice, silent for other men. + +[104] He learned here the art of going deep, of tracking the +sources of expression to their subtlest retreats, the power of an +intimate presence in the things he handled. He did not at once or +entirely desert his art; only he was no longer the cheerful, +objective painter, through whose soul, as through clear glass, the +bright figures of Florentine life, only made a little mellower and +more pensive by the transit, passed on to the white wall. He +wasted many days in curious tricks of design, seeming to lose +himself in the spinning of intricate devices of line and colour. He +was smitten with a love of the impossible--the perforation of +mountains, changing the course of rivers, raising great buildings, +such as the church of San Giovanni, in the air; all those feats for +the performance of which natural magic professed to have the +key. Later writers, indeed, see in these efforts an anticipation of +modern mechanics; in him they were rather dreams, thrown off +by the overwrought and labouring brain. Two ideas were +especially confirmed in him, as reflexes of things that had +touched his brain in childhood beyond the depth of other +impressions--the smiling of women and the motion of great +waters. + +And in such studies some interfusion of the extremes of beauty +and terror shaped itself, as an image that might be seen and +touched, in the mind of this gracious youth, so fixed that for the +rest of his life it never left him. As if catching [105] glimpses of +it in the strange eyes or hair of chance people, he would follow +such about the streets of Florence till the sun went down, of +whom many sketches of his remain. Some of these are full of a +curious beauty, that remote beauty which may be apprehended +only by those who have sought it carefully; who, starting with +acknowledged types of beauty, have refined as far upon these, as +these refine upon the world of common forms. But mingled +inextricably with this there is an element of mockery also; so that, +whether in sorrow or scorn, he caricatures Dante even. Legions +of grotesques sweep under his hand; for has not nature too her +grotesques--the rent rock, the distorting lights of evening on +lonely roads, the unveiled structure of man in the embryo, or the +skeleton? + +All these swarming fancies unite in the Medusa of the Uffizii. +Vasari's story of an earlier Medusa, painted on a wooden shield, +is perhaps an invention; and yet, properly told, has more of the air +of truth about it than anything else in the whole legend. For its +real subject is not the serious work of a man, but the experiment +of a child. The lizards and glow-worms and other strange small +creatures which haunt an Italian vineyard bring before one the +whole picture of a child's life in a Tuscan dwelling--half castle, +half farm--and are as true to nature as the pretended +astonishment [106] of the father for whom the boy has prepared +a surprise. It was not in play that he painted that other Medusa, +the one great picture which he left behind him in Florence. The +subject has been treated in various ways; Leonardo alone cuts to +its centre; he alone realises it as the head of a corpse, exercising +its powers through all the circumstances of death. What may be +called the fascination of corruption penetrates in every touch its +exquisitely finished beauty. About the dainty lines of the cheek +the bat flits unheeded. The delicate snakes seem literally +strangling each other in terrified struggle to escape from the +Medusa brain. The hue which violent death always brings with it +is in the features; features singularly massive and grand, as we +catch them inverted, in a dexterous foreshortening, crown +foremost, like a great calm stone against which the wave of +serpents breaks. + +The science of that age was all divination, clairvoyance, +unsubjected to our exact modern formulas, seeking in an instant +of vision to concentrate a thousand experiences. Later writers, +thinking only of the well-ordered treatise on painting which a +Frenchman, Raffaelle du Fresne, a hundred years afterwards, +compiled from Leonardo's bewildered manuscripts, written +strangely, as his manner was, from right to left, have imagined a +rigid order in his inquiries. But this rigid order would have been +little in [107] accordance with the restlessness of his character; +and if we think of him as the mere reasoner who subjects design +to anatomy, and composition to mathematical rules, we shall +hardly have that impression which those around Leonardo +received from him. Poring over his crucibles, making +experiments with colour, trying, by a strange variation of the +alchemist's dream, to discover the secret, not of an elixir to make +man's natural life immortal, but of giving immortality to the +subtlest and most delicate effects of painting, he seemed to them +rather the sorcerer or the magician, possessed of curious secrets +and a hidden knowledge, living in a world of which he alone +possessed the key. What his philosophy seems to have been most +like is that of Paracelsus or Cardan; and much of the spirit of the +older alchemy still hangs about it, with its confidence in short +cuts and odd byways to knowledge. To him philosophy was to +be something giving strange swiftness and double sight, divining +the sources of springs beneath the earth or of expression beneath +the human countenance, clairvoyant of occult gifts in common or +uncommon things, in the reed at the brook-side, or the star which +draws near to us but once in a century. How, in this way, the +clear purpose was overclouded, the fine chaser's hand perplexed, +we but dimly see; the mystery which at no point quite lifts from +Leonardo's life is deepest here. But it is [108] certain that at one +period of his life he had almost ceased to be an artist. + +The year 1483--the year of the birth of Raphael and the thirty- +first of Leonardo's life--is fixed as the date of his visit to Milan +by the letter in which he recommends himself to Ludovico +Sforza, and offers to tell him, for a price, strange secrets in the art +of war. It was that Sforza who murdered his young nephew by +slow poison, yet was so susceptible of religious impressions that +he blended mere earthly passion with a sort of religious +sentimentalism, and who took for his device the mulberry-tree-- +symbol, in its long delay and sudden yielding of flowers and fruit +together, of a wisdom which economises all forces for an +opportunity of sudden and sure effect. The fame of Leonardo had +gone before him, and he was to model a colossal statue of +Francesco, the first Duke of Milan. As for Leonardo himself, he +came not as an artist at all, or careful of the fame of one; but as a +player on the harp, a strange harp of silver of his own +construction, shaped in some curious likeness to a horse's skull. +The capricious spirit of Ludovico was susceptible also to the +power of music, and Leonardo's nature had a kind of spell in it. +Fascination is always the word descriptive of him. No portrait of +his youth remains; but all tends to make us believe that up to this +time some charm of voice and aspect, strong enough to balance +the disadvantage of his birth, had [109] played about him. His +physical strength was great; it was said that he could bend a +horseshoe like a coil of lead. + +The Duomo, work of artists from beyond the Alps, so fantastic to +the eye of a Florentine used to the mellow, unbroken surfaces of +Giotto and Arnolfo, was then in all its freshness; and below, in +the streets of Milan, moved a people as fantastic, changeful, and +dreamlike. To Leonardo least of all men could there be anything +poisonous in the exotic flowers of sentiment which grew there. It +was a life of brilliant sins and exquisite amusements: Leonardo +became a celebrated designer of pageants; and it suited the +quality of his genius, composed, in almost equal parts, of +curiosity and the desire of beauty, to take things as they came. + +Curiosity and the desire of beauty--these are the two elementary +forces in Leonardo's genius; curiosity often in conflict with the +desire of beauty, but generating, in union with it, a type of subtle +and curious grace. + +The movement of the fifteenth century was twofold; partly the +Renaissance, partly also the coming of what is called the +"modern spirit," with its realism, its appeal to experience. It +comprehended a return to antiquity, and a return to nature. +Raphael represents the return to antiquity, and Leonardo the +return to nature. In this return to nature, he was seeking to satisfy +a boundless curiosity by her perpetual surprises, [110] a +microscopic sense of finish by her finesse, or delicacy of +operation, that subtilitas naturae which Bacon notices. So we +find him often in intimate relations with men of science,--with +Fra Luca Paccioli the mathematician, and the anatomist Marc +Antonio della Torre. His observations and experiments fill +thirteen volumes of manuscript; and those who can judge +describe him as anticipating long before, by rapid intuition, the +later ideas of science. He explained the obscure light of the +unilluminated part of the moon, knew that the sea had once +covered the mountains which contain shells, and of the gathering +of the equatorial waters above the polar. + +He who thus penetrated into the most secret parts of nature +preferred always the more to the less remote, what, seeming +exceptional, was an instance of law more refined, the +construction about things of a peculiar atmosphere and mixed +lights. He paints flowers with such curious felicity that different +writers have attributed to him a fondness for particular flowers, +as Clement the cyclamen, and Rio the jasmin; while, at Venice, +there is a stray leaf from his portfolio dotted all over with studies +of violets and the wild rose. In him first appears the taste for +what is bizarre or recherché in landscape; hollow places full of +the green shadow of bituminous rocks, ridged reefs of trap-rock +which cut the water into quaint sheets of light,--their exact +antitype is in our own western seas; all the [111] solemn effects +of moving water. You may follow it springing from its distant +source among the rocks on the heath of the Madonna of the +Balances, passing, as a little fall, into the treacherous calm of the +Madonna of the Lake, as a goodly river next, below the cliffs of +the Madonna of the Rocks, washing the white walls of its distant +villages, stealing out in a network of divided streams in La +Gioconda to the seashore of the Saint Anne--that delicate place, +where the wind passes like the hand of some fine etcher over the +surface, and the untorn shells are lying thick upon the sand, and +the tops of the rocks, to which the waves never rise, are green +with grass, grown fine as hair. It is the landscape, not of dreams +or of fancy, but of places far withdrawn, and hours selected from +a thousand with a miracle of finesse. Through Leonardo's +strange veil of sight things reach him so; in no ordinary night or +day, but as in faint light of eclipse, or in some brief interval of +falling rain at daybreak, or through deep water. + +And not into nature only; but he plunged also into human +personality, and became above all a painter of portraits; faces of a +modelling more skilful than has been seen before or since, +embodied with a reality which almost amounts to illusion, on the +dark air. To take a character as it was, and delicately sound its +stops, suited one so curious in observation, curious in invention. +He painted thus the portraits of Ludovico's [112] mistresses, +Lucretia Crivelli and Cecilia Galerani the poetess, of Ludovico +himself, and the Duchess Beatrice. The portrait of Cecilia +Galerani is lost, but that of Lucretia Crivelli has been identified +with La Belle Feronière of the Louvre, and Ludovico's pale, +anxious face still remains in the Ambrosian library. Opposite is +the portrait of Beatrice d'Este, in whom Leonardo seems to have +caught some presentiment of early death, painting her precise and +grave, full of the refinement of the dead, in sad earth-coloured +raiment, set with pale stones. + +Sometimes this curiosity came in conflict with the desire of +beauty; it tended to make him go too far below that outside of +things in which art really begins and ends. This struggle between +the reason and its ideas, and the senses, the desire of beauty, is +the key to Leonardo's life at Milan--his restlessness, his endless +re-touchings, his odd experiments with colour. How much must +he leave unfinished, how much recommence! His problem was +the transmutation of ideas into images. What he had attained so +far had been the mastery of that earlier Florentine style, with its +naïve and limited sensuousness. Now he was to entertain in this +narrow medium those divinations of a humanity too wide for it, +that larger vision of the opening world, which is only not too +much for the great, irregular art of Shakespeare; and everywhere +the effort is visible in the work of his hands. This agitation, this +[113] perpetual delay, give him an air of weariness and ennui. To +others he seems to be aiming at an impossible effect, to do +something that art, that painting, can never do. Often the +expression of physical beauty at this or that point seems strained +and marred in the effort, as in those heavy German foreheads-- +too heavy and German for perfect beauty. + +For there was a touch of Germany in that genius which, as +Goethe said, had "thought itself weary"--müde sich gedacht. +What an anticipation of modern Germany, for instance, in that +debate on the question whether sculpture or painting is the nobler +art!* But there is this difference between him and the German, +that, with all that curious science, the German would have +thought nothing more was needed. The name of Goethe himself +reminds one how great for the artist may be the danger of +overmuch science; how Goethe, who, in the Elective Affinities +and the first part of Faust, does transmute ideas into images, who +wrought many such transmutations, did not invariably find the +spell-word, and in the second part of Faust presents us with a +mass of science which has almost no artistic character at all. But +Leonardo will never work till the happy moment comes--that +moment of bien-être, which to imaginative men is a moment of +invention. On this he waits with [114] a perfect patience; other +moments are but a preparation, or after-taste of it. Few men +distinguish between them as jealously as he. Hence so many +flaws even in the choicest work. But for Leonardo the distinction +is absolute, and, in the moment of bien-être, the alchemy +complete: the idea is stricken into colour and imagery: a cloudy +mysticism is refined to a subdued and graceful mystery, and +painting pleases the eye while it satisfies the soul. + +This curious beauty is seen above all in his drawings, and in these +chiefly in the abstract grace of the bounding lines. Let us take +some of these drawings, and pause over them awhile; and, first, +one of those at Florence--the heads of a woman and a little child, +set side by side, but each in its own separate frame. First of all, +there is much pathos in the reappearance, in the fuller curves of +the face of the child, of the sharper, more chastened lines of the +worn and older face, which leaves no doubt that the heads are +those of a little child and its mother. A feeling for maternity is +indeed always characteristic of Leonardo; and this feeling is +further indicated here by the half-humorous pathos of the +diminutive, rounded shoulders of the child. You may note a like +pathetic power in drawings of a young man, seated in a stooping +posture, his face in his hands, as in sorrow; of a slave sitting in an +uneasy inclined attitude, in some brief interval of rest; of a small +Madonna and Child, [115] peeping sideways in half-reassured +terror, as a mighty griffin with batlike wings, one of Leonardo's +finest inventions, descends suddenly from the air to snatch up a +great wild beast wandering near them. But note in these, as that +which especially belongs to art, the contour of the young man's +hair, the poise of the slave's arm above his head, and the curves +of the head of the child, following the little skull within, thin and +fine as some sea-shell worn by the wind. + +Take again another head, still more full of sentiment, but of a +different kind, a little drawing in red chalk which every one will +remember who has examined at all carefully the drawings by old +masters at the Louvre. It is a face of doubtful sex, set in the +shadow of its own hair, the cheek-line in high light against it, +with something voluptuous and full in the eye-lids and the lips. +Another drawing might pass for the same face in childhood, with +parched and feverish lips, but much sweetness in the loose, short- +waisted childish dress, with necklace and bulla, and in the +daintily bound hair. We might take the thread of suggestion +which these two drawings offer, when thus set side by side, and, +following it through the drawings at Florence, Venice, and Milan, +construct a sort of series, illustrating better than anything else +Leonardo's type of womanly beauty. Daughters of Herodias, +with their fantastic head-dresses knotted and folded so strangely +to leave the [116] dainty oval of the face disengaged, they are not +of the Christian family, or of Raphael's. They are the +clairvoyants, through whom, as through delicate instruments, one +becomes aware of the subtler forces of nature, and the modes of +their action, all that is magnetic in it, all those finer conditions +wherein material things rise to that subtlety of operation which +constitutes them spiritual, where only the final nerve and the +keener touch can follow. It is as if in certain significant examples +we actually saw those forces at their work on human flesh. +Nervous, electric, faint always with some inexplicable faintness, +these people seem to be subject to exceptional conditions, to feel +powers at work in the common air unfelt by others, to become, as +it were, the receptacle of them, and pass them on to us in a chain +of secret influences. + +But among the more youthful heads there is one at Florence +which Love chooses for its own--the head of a young man, which +may well be the likeness of Andrea Salaino, beloved of Leonardo +for his curled and waving hair--belli capelli ricci e inanellati-- +and afterwards his favourite pupil and servant. Of all the +interests in living men and women which may have filled his life +at Milan, this attachment alone is recorded. And in return +Salaino identified himself so entirely with Leonardo, that the +picture of Saint Anne, in the Louvre, has been attributed to him. +It illustrates Leonardo's usual choice of pupils, men [117] of +some natural charm of person or intercourse like Salaino, or men +of birth and princely habits of life like Francesco Melzi--men +with just enough genius to be capable of initiation into his secret, +for the sake of which they were ready to efface their own +individuality. Among them, retiring often to the villa of the +Melzi at Canonica al Vaprio, he worked at his fugitive +manuscripts and sketches, working for the present hour, and for a +few only, perhaps chiefly for himself. Other artists have been as +careless of present or future applause, in self-forgetfulness, or +because they set moral or political ends above the ends of art; but +in him this solitary culture of beauty seems to have hung upon a +kind of self-love, and a carelessness in the work of art of all but +art itself. Out of the secret places of a unique temperament he +brought strange blossoms and fruits hitherto unknown; and for +him, the novel impression conveyed, the exquisite effect woven, +counted as an end in itself--a perfect end. + +And these pupils of his acquired his manner so thoroughly, that +though the number of Leonardo's authentic works is very small +indeed, there is a multitude of other men's pictures through +which we undoubtedly see him, and come very near to his genius. +Sometimes, as in the little picture of the Madonna of the +Balances, in which, from the bosom of His mother, Christ weighs +the pebbles of the brook against the sins of men, we have a hand, +rough enough by [118] contrast, working upon some fine hint or +sketch of his. Sometimes, as in the subjects of the Daughter of +Herodias and the Head of John the Baptist, the lost originals have +been re-echoed and varied upon again and again by Luini and +others. At other times the original remains, but has been a mere +theme or motive, a type of which the accessories might be +modified or changed; and these variations have but brought out +the more the purpose, or expression of the original. It is so with +the so-called Saint John the Baptist of the Louvre--one of the few +naked figures Leonardo painted--whose delicate brown flesh and +woman's hair no one would go out into the wilderness to seek, +and whose treacherous smile would have us understand +something far beyond the outward gesture or circumstance. But +the long, reedlike cross in the hand, which suggests Saint John +the Baptist, becomes faint in a copy at the Ambrosian Library, +and disappears altogether in another version, in the Palazzo +Rosso at Genoa. Returning from the latter to the original, we are +no longer surprised by Saint John's strange likeness to the +Bacchus which hangs near it, and which set Théophile Gautier +thinking of Heine's notion of decayed gods, who, to maintain +themselves, after the fall of paganism, took employment in the +new religion. We recognise one of those symbolical inventions +in which the ostensible subject is used, not as matter for definite +pictorial realisation, but as the starting-point of a [119] train of +sentiment, subtle and vague as a piece of music. No one ever +ruled over the mere subject in hand more entirely than Leonardo, +or bent it more dexterously to purely artistic ends. And so it +comes to pass that though he handles sacred subjects continually, +he is the most profane of painters; the given person or subject, +Saint John in the Desert, or the Virgin on the knees of Saint +Anne, is often merely the pretext for a kind of work which carries +one altogether beyond the range of its conventional associations. + +About the Last Supper, its decay and restorations, a whole +literature has risen up, Goethe's pensive sketch of its sad fortunes +being perhaps the best. The death in childbirth of the Duchess +Beatrice was followed in Ludovico by one of those paroxysms of +religious feeling which in him were constitutional. The low, +gloomy Dominican church of Saint Mary of the Graces had been +the favourite oratory of Beatrice. She had spent her last days +there, full of sinister presentiments; at last it had been almost +necessary to remove her from it by force; and now it was here +that mass was said a hundred times a day for her repose. On the +damp wall of the refectory, oozing with mineral salts, Leonardo +painted the Last Supper. Effective anecdotes were told about it, +his retouchings and delays. They show him refusing to work +except at the moment of invention, scornful of any one who +supposed that art could be a work of mere industry and rule, +[120] often coming the whole length of Milan to give a single +touch. He painted it, not in fresco, where all must be impromptu, +but in oils, the new method which he had been one of the first to +welcome, because it allowed of so many after-thoughts, so +refined a working out of perfection. It turned out that on a +plastered wall no process could have been less durable. Within +fifty years it had fallen into decay. And now we have to turn +back to Leonardo's own studies, above all to one drawing of the +central head at the Brera, which, in a union of tenderness and +severity in the face-lines, reminds one of the monumental work +of Mino da Fiesole, to trace it as it was. + +Here was another effort to lift a given subject out of the range of +its traditional associations. Strange, after all the mystic +developments of the middle age, was the effort to see the +Eucharist, not as the pale Host of the altar, but as one taking +leave of his friends. Five years afterwards the young Raphael, at +Florence, painted it with sweet and solemn effect in the refectory +of Saint Onofrio; but still with all the mystical unreality of the +school of Perugino. Vasari pretends that the central head was +never finished. But finished or unfinished, or owing part of its +effect to a mellowing decay, the head of Jesus does but +consummate the sentiment of the whole company--ghosts +through which you see the wall, faint as the shadows of the [121] +leaves upon the wall on autumn afternoons. This figure is but the +faintest, the most spectral of them all. + +The Last Supper was finished in 1497; in 1498 the French +entered Milan, and whether or not the Gascon bowmen used it as +a mark for their arrows, the model of Francesco Sforza certainly +did not survive. What, in that age, such work was capable of +being--of what nobility, amid what racy truthfulness to fact--we +may judge from the bronze statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni on +horseback, modelled by Leonardo's master, Verrocchio (he died +of grief, it was said, because, the mould accidentally failing, he +was unable to complete it), still standing in the piazza of Saint +John and Saint Paul at Venice. Some traces of the thing may +remain in certain of Leonardo's drawings, and perhaps also, by a +singular circumstance, in a far-off town of France. For Ludovico +became a prisoner, and ended his days at Loches in Touraine. +After many years of captivity in the dungeons below, where all +seems sick with barbarous feudal memories, he was allowed at +last, it is said, to breathe fresher air for awhile in one of the rooms +of the great tower still shown, its walls covered with strange +painted arabesques, ascribed by tradition to his hand, amused a +little, in this way, through the tedious years. In those vast +helmets and human faces and pieces of armour, among which, in +great letters, the [122] motto Infelix Sum is woven in and out, it is +perhaps not too fanciful to see the fruit of a wistful after- +dreaming over Leonardo's sundry experiments on the armed +figure of the great duke, which had occupied the two so much +during the days of their good fortune at Milan. + +The remaining years of Leonardo's life are more or less years of +wandering. From his brilliant life at court he had saved nothing, +and he returned to Florence a poor man. Perhaps necessity kept +his spirit excited: the next four years are one prolonged rapture or +ecstasy of invention. He painted now the pictures of the Louvre, +his most authentic works, which came there straight from the +cabinet of Francis the First, at Fontainebleau. One picture of his, +the Saint Anne--not the Saint Anne of the Louvre, but a simple +cartoon, now in London--revived for a moment a sort of +appreciation more common in an earlier time, when good pictures +had still seemed miraculous. For two days a crowd of people of +all qualities passed in naïve excitement through the chamber +where it hung, and gave Leonardo a taste of the "triumph" of +Cimabue. But his work was less with the saints than with the +living women of Florence. For he lived still in the polished +society that he loved, and in the houses of Florence, left perhaps a +little subject to light thoughts by the death of Savonarola--the +latest gossip (1869) is of an [123] undraped Monna Lisa, found in +some out-of-the-way corner of the late Orleans collection--he +saw Ginevra di Benci, and Lisa, the young third wife of +Francesco del Giocondo. As we have seen him using incidents of +sacred story, not for their own sake, or as mere subjects for +pictorial realisation, but as a cryptic language for fancies all his +own, so now he found a vent for his thought in taking one of +these languid women, and raising her, as Leda or Pomona, as +Modesty or Vanity, to the seventh heaven of symbolical +expression. + +La Gioconda is, in the truest sense, Leonardo's masterpiece, the +revealing instance of his mode of thought and work. In +suggestiveness, only the Melancholia of Dürer is comparable to +it; and no crude symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued and +graceful mystery. We all know the face and hands of the figure, +set in its marble chair, in that circle of fantastic rocks, as in some +faint light under sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has +chilled it least.* As often happens with works in which invention +seems to reach its limit, there is an element in it given to, not +invented by, the master. In that inestimable folio of drawings, +once in the possession of Vasari, were certain designs by +Verrocchio, faces of such impressive beauty that Leonardo in his +boyhood copied them [124] many times. It is hard not to connect +with these designs of the elder, by-past master, as with its +germinal principle, the unfathomable smile, always with a touch +of something sinister in it, which plays over all Leonardo's work. +Besides, the picture is a portrait. From childhood we see this +image defining itself on the fabric of his dreams; and but for +express historical testimony, we might fancy that this was but his +ideal lady, embodied and beheld at last. What was the +relationship of a living Florentine to this creature of his thought? +By what strange affinities had the dream and the person grown up +thus apart, and yet so closely together? Present from the first +incorporeally in Leonardo's brain, dimly traced in the designs of +Verrocchio, she is found present at last in Il Giocondo's house. +That there is much of mere portraiture in the picture is attested by +the legend that by artificial means, the presence of mimes and +flute-players, that subtle expression was protracted on the face. +Again, was it in four years and by renewed labour never really +completed, or in four months and as by stroke of magic, that the +image was projected? + +The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters, is +expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come +to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world +are come," and the eyelids are a little [125] weary. It is a beauty +wrought out from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by +cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite +passions. Set it for a moment beside one of those white Greek +goddesses or beautiful women of antiquity, and how would they +be troubled by this beauty, into which the soul with all its +maladies has passed! All the thoughts and experience of the +world have etched and moulded there, in that which they have of +power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the +animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the mysticism of the +middle age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the +return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is older +than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has +been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and +has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about +her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; +and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint +Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the +sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with +which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the +eyelids and the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping +together ten thousand experiences, is an old one; and modern +philosophy has conceived the idea of humanity as wrought upon +by, and summing up in itself, all modes of thought and life. +Certainly [126] Lady Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the +old fancy, the symbol of the modern idea. + +During these years at Florence Leonardo's history is the history +of his art; for himself, he is lost in the bright cloud of it. The +outward history begins again in 1502, with a wild journey +through central Italy, which he makes as the chief engineer of +Caesar Borgia. The biographer, putting together the stray jottings +of his manuscripts, may follow him through every day of it, up +the strange tower of Siena, elastic like a bent bow, down to the +seashore at Piombino, each place appearing as fitfully as in a +fever dream. + +One other great work was left for him to do, a work all trace of +which soon vanished, The Battle of the Standard, in which he had +Michelangelo for his rival. The citizens of Florence, desiring to +decorate the walls of the great council-chamber, had offered the +work for competition, and any subject might be chosen from the +Florentine wars of the fifteenth century. Michelangelo chose for +his cartoon an incident of the war with Pisa, in which the +Florentine soldiers, bathing in the Arno, are surprised by the +sound of trumpets, and run to arms. His design has reached us +only in an old engraving, which helps us less perhaps than our +remembrance of the background of his Holy Family in the Uffizii +to imagine in what superhuman form, [127] such as might have +beguiled the heart of an earlier world, those figures ascended out +of the water. Leonardo chose an incident from the battle of +Anghiari, in which two parties of soldiers fight for a standard. +Like Michelangelo's, his cartoon is lost, and has come to us only +in sketches, and in a fragment of Rubens. Through the accounts +given we may discern some lust of terrible things in it, so that +even the horses tore each other with their teeth. And yet one +fragment of it, in a drawing of his at Florence, is far different--a +waving field of lovely armour, the chased edgings running like +lines of sunlight from side to side. Michelangelo was twenty- +seven years old; Leonardo more than fifty; and Raphael, then +nineteen years of age, visiting Florence for the first time, came +and watched them as they worked. + +We catch a glimpse of Leonardo again, at Rome in 1514, +surrounded by his mirrors and vials and furnaces, making strange +toys that seemed alive of wax and quicksilver. The hesitation +which had haunted him all through life, and made him like one +under a spell, was upon him now with double force. No one had +ever carried political indifferentism farther; it had always been +his philosophy to "fly before the storm"; he is for the Sforzas, or +against them, as the tide of their fortune turns. Yet now, in the +political society of Rome, he came [128] to be suspected of secret +French sympathies. It paralysed him to find himself among +enemies; and he turned wholly to France, which had long courted +him. + +France was about to become an Italy more Italian than Italy itself. +Francis the First, like Lewis the Twelfth before him, was +attracted by the finesse of Leonardo's work; La Gioconda was +already in his cabinet, and he offered Leonardo the little Château +de Clou, with its vineyards and meadows, in the pleasant valley +of the Masse, just outside the walls of the town of Amboise, +where, especially in the hunting season, the court then frequently +resided. A Monsieur Lyonard, peinteur du Roy pour Amboyse-- +so the letter of Francis the First is headed. It opens a prospect, +one of the most interesting in the history of art, where, in a +peculiarly blent atmosphere, Italian art dies away as a French +exotic. + +Two questions remain, after much busy antiquarianism, +concerning Leonardo's death--the question of the exact form of +his religion, and the question whether Francis the First was +present at the time. They are of about equally little importance in +the estimate of Leonardo's genius. The directions in his will +concerning the thirty masses and the great candles for the church +of Saint Florentin are things of course, their real purpose being +immediate and practical; and on no theory of religion could these +hurried offices be of much consequence. We forget them in +speculating [129] how one who had been always so desirous of +beauty, but desired it always in such precise and definite forms, +as hands or flowers or hair, looked forward now into the vague +land, and experienced the last curiosity. + +1869. + + +NOTES + +113. *How princely, how characteristic of Leonardo, the answer, +Quanto più, un' arte porta seco fatica di corpo, tanto più è vile! +Return. + +123. *Yet for Vasari there was some further magic of crimson in +the lips and cheeks, lost for us. + +125. +"[. . .] with Eastern merchants:" is the punctuation used in +the 1901 Macmillan edition. Macmillan's 1910 Library edition +erroneously uses a space followed only by a period. The Norton +Anthology editors emend the text to contain a comma after +"merchants" rather than a colon, but I have chosen to follow the +unusual, but seemingly correct, 1901 punctuation. + + + +THE SCHOOL OF GIORGIONE + +[130] IT is the mistake of much popular criticism to regard +poetry, music, and painting--all the various products of art--as but +translations into different languages of one and the same fixed +quantity of imaginative thought, supplemented by certain +technical qualities of colour, in painting; of sound, in music; of +rhythmical words, in poetry. In this way, the sensuous element in +art, and with it almost everything in art that is essentially artistic, +is made a matter of indifference; and a clear apprehension of the +opposite principle--that the sensuous material of each art brings +with it a special phase or quality of beauty, untranslatable into the +forms of any other, an order of impressions distinct in kind--is the +beginning of all true aesthetic criticism. For, as art addresses not +pure sense, still less the pure intellect, but the "imaginative +reason" through the senses, there are differences of kind in +aesthetic beauty, corresponding to the differences in kind of the +gifts of sense themselves. Each art, therefore, having its own +peculiar and untranslatable sensuous charm, has its own [131] +special mode of reaching the imagination, its own special +responsibilities to its material. One of the functions of aesthetic +criticism is to define these limitations; to estimate the degree in +which a given work of art fulfils its responsibilities to its special +material; to note in a picture that true pictorial charm, which is +neither a mere poetical thought or sentiment, on the one hand, nor +a mere result of communicable technical skill in colour or design, +on the other; to define in a poem that true poetical quality, which +is neither descriptive nor meditative merely, but comes of an +inventive handling of rhythmical language, the element of song in +the singing; to note in music the musical charm, that essential +music, which presents no words, no matter of sentiment or +thought, separable from the special form in which it is conveyed +to us. + +To such a philosophy of the variations of the beautiful, Lessing's +analysis of the spheres of sculpture and poetry, in the Laocoon, +was an important contribution. But a true appreciation of these +things is possible only in the light of a whole system of such art- +casuistries. Now painting is the art in the criticism of which this +truth most needs enforcing, for it is in popular judgments on +pictures that the false generalisation of all art into forms of poetry +is most prevalent. To suppose that all is mere technical +acquirement in delineation or touch, working through [132] and +addressing itself to the intelligence, on the one side, or a merely +poetical, or what may be called literary interest, addressed also to +the pure intelligence, on the other:--this is the way of most +spectators, and of many critics, who have never caught sight all +the time of that true pictorial quality which lies between, unique +pledge, as it is, of the possession of the pictorial gift, that +inventive or creative handling of pure line and colour, which, as +almost always in Dutch painting, as often also in the works of +Titian or Veronese, is quite independent of anything definitely +poetical in the subject it accompanies. It is the drawing--the +design projected from that peculiar pictorial temperament or +constitution, in which, while it may possibly be ignorant of true +anatomical proportions, all things whatever, all poetry, all ideas +however abstract or obscure, float up as visible scene or image: it +is the colouring--that weaving of light, as of just perceptible gold +threads, through the dress, the flesh, the atmosphere, in Titian's +Lace-girl, that staining of the whole fabric of the thing with a +new, delightful physical quality. This drawing, then--the +arabesque traced in the air by Tintoret's flying figures, by +Titian's forest branches; this colouring--the magic conditions of +light and hue in the atmosphere of Titian's Lace-girl, or Rubens's +Descent from the Cross:--these essential pictorial qualities must +first of all delight the sense, delight it as [133] directly and +sensuously as a fragment of Venetian glass; and through this +delight alone become the vehicle of whatever poetry or science +may lie beyond them in the intention of the composer. In its +primary aspect, a great picture has no more definite message for +us than an accidental play of sunlight and shadow for a few +moments on the wall or floor: is itself, in truth, a space of such +fallen light, caught as the colours are in an Eastern carpet, but +refined upon, and dealt with more subtly and exquisitely than by +nature itself. And this primary and essential condition fulfilled, +we may trace the coming of poetry into painting, by fine +gradations upwards; from Japanese fan-painting, for instance, +where we get, first, only abstract colour; then, just a little +interfused sense of the poetry of flowers; then, sometimes, +perfect flower-painting; and so, onwards, until in Titian we have, +as his poetry in the Ariadne, so actually a touch of true childlike +humour in the diminutive, quaint figure with its silk gown, which +ascends the temple stairs, in his picture of the Presentation of the +Virgin, at Venice. + +But although each art has thus its own specific order of +impressions, and an untranslatable charm, while a just +apprehension of the ultimate differences of the arts is the +beginning of aesthetic criticism; yet it is noticeable that, in its +special mode of handling its given material, each art may be +observed to pass into the [134] condition of some other art, by +what German critics term an Anders-streben--a partial alienation +from its own limitations, through which the arts are able, not +indeed to supply the place of each other, but reciprocally to lend +each other new forces. + +Thus some of the most delightful music seems to be always +approaching to figure, to pictorial definition. Architecture, again, +though it has its own laws--laws esoteric enough, as the true +architect knows only too well--yet sometimes aims at fulfilling +the conditions of a picture, as in the Arena chapel; or of +sculpture, as in the flawless unity of Giotto's tower at Florence; +and often finds a true poetry, as in those strangely twisted +staircases of the châteaux of the country of the Loire, as if it were +intended that among their odd turnings the actors in a theatrical +mode of life might pass each other unseen; there being a poetry +also of memory and of the mere effect of time, by which +architecture often profits greatly. Thus, again, sculpture aspires +out of the hard limitation of pure form towards colour, or its +equivalent; poetry also, in many ways, finding guidance from the +other arts, the analogy between a Greek tragedy and a work of +Greek sculpture, between a sonnet and a relief, of French poetry +generally with the art of engraving, being more than mere figures +of speech; and all the arts in common aspiring towards the +principle of music; music being the typical, or ideally +consummate [135] art, the object of the great Anders-streben of +all art, of all that is artistic, or partakes of artistic qualities. + +All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For +while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the +matter from the form, and the understanding can always make +this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it. +That the mere matter of a poem, for instance, its subject, namely, +its given incidents or situation--that the mere matter of a picture, +the actual circumstances of an event, the actual topography of a +landscape--should be nothing without the form, the spirit, of the +handling, that this form, this mode of handling, should become an +end in itself, should penetrate every part of the matter: this is +what all art constantly strives after, and achieves in different +degrees. + +This abstract language becomes clear enough, if we think of +actual examples. In an actual landscape we see a long white +road, lost suddenly on the hill-verge. That is the matter of one of +the etchings of M. Alphonse Legros: only, in this etching, it is +informed by an indwelling solemnity of expression, seen upon it +or half-seen, within the limits of an exceptional moment, or +caught from his own mood perhaps, but which he maintains as +the very essence of the thing, throughout his work. Sometimes a +momentary tint of stormy light may invest a homely or too +familiar scene with a character which might well have been [136] +drawn from the deep places of the imagination. + +Then we might say that this particular effect of light, this sudden +inweaving of gold thread through the texture of the haystack, and +the poplars, and the grass, gives the scene artistic qualities, that it +is like a picture. And such tricks of circumstance are commonest +in landscape which has little salient character of its own; because, +in such scenery, all the material details are so easily absorbed by +that informing expression of passing light, and elevated, +throughout their whole extent, to a new and delightful effect by +it. And hence the superiority, for most conditions of the +picturesque, of a river-side in France to a Swiss valley, because, +on the French river-side, mere topography, the simple material, +counts for so little, and, all being very pure, untouched, and +tranquil in itself, mere light and shade have such easy work in +modulating it to one dominant tone. The Venetian landscape, on +the other hand, has in its material conditions much which is hard, +or harshly definite; but the masters of the Venetian school have +shown themselves little burdened by them. Of its Alpine +background they retain certain abstracted elements only, of cool +colour and tranquillising line; and they use its actual details, the +brown windy turrets, the straw-coloured fields, the forest +arabesques, but as the notes of a music which duly accompanies +the presence of their men and women, presenting us with the +[137] spirit or essence only of a certain sort of landscape--a +country of the pure reason or half-imaginative memory. + +Poetry, again, works with words addressed in the first instance to +the pure intelligence; and it deals, most often, with a definite +subject or situation. Sometimes it may find a noble and quite +legitimate function in the conveyance of moral or political +aspiration, as often in the poetry of Victor Hugo. In such +instances it is easy enough for the understanding to distinguish +between the matter and the form, however much the matter, the +subject, the element which is addressed to the mere intelligence, +has been penetrated by the informing, artistic spirit. But the ideal +types of poetry are those in which this distinction is reduced to its +minimum; so that lyrical poetry, precisely because in it we are +least able to detach the matter from the form, without a deduction +of something from that matter itself, is, at least artistically, the +highest and most complete form of poetry. And the very +perfection of such poetry often appears to depend, in part, on a +certain suppression or vagueness of mere subject, so that the +meaning reaches us through ways not distinctly traceable by the +understanding, as in some of the most imaginative compositions +of William Blake, and often in Shakespeare's songs, as pre- +eminently in that song of Mariana's page in Measure for +Measure, in which the kindling force and poetry of the whole +[138] play seems to pass for a moment into an actual strain of +music. + +And this principle holds good of all things that partake in any +degree of artistic qualities, of the furniture of our houses, and of +dress, for instance, of life itself, of gesture and speech, and the +details of daily intercourse; these also, for the wise, being +susceptible of a suavity and charm, caught from the way in which +they are done, which gives them a worth in themselves. Herein, +again, lies what is valuable and justly attractive, in what is called +the fashion of a time, which elevates the trivialities of speech, +and manner, and dress, into "ends in themselves," and gives them +a mysterious grace and attractiveness in the doing of them. + +Art, then, is thus always striving to be independent of the mere +intelligence, to become a matter of pure perception, to get rid of +its responsibilities to its subject or material; the ideal examples of +poetry and painting being those in which the constituent elements +of the composition are so welded together, that the material or +subject no longer strikes the intellect only; nor the form, the eye +or the ear only; but form and matter, in their union or identity, +present one single effect to the "imaginative reason," that +complex faculty for which every thought and feeling is twin-born +with its sensible analogue or symbol. + +It is the art of music which most completely [139] realises this +artistic ideal, this perfect identification of matter and form. In its +consummate moments, the end is not distinct from the means, the +form from the matter, the subject from the expression; they +inhere in and completely saturate each other; and to it, therefore, +to the condition of its perfect moments, all the arts may be +supposed constantly to tend and aspire. In music, then, rather +than in poetry, is to be found the true type or measure of +perfected art. Therefore, although each art has its +incommunicable element, its untranslatable order of impressions, +its unique mode of reaching the "imaginative reason," yet the arts +may be represented as continually struggling after the law or +principle of music, to a condition which music alone completely +realises; and one of the chief functions of aesthetic criticism, +dealing with the products of art, new or old, is to estimate the +degree in which each of those products approaches, in this sense, +to musical law. + +By no school of painters have the necessary limitations of the art +of painting been so unerringly though instinctively apprehended, +and the essence of what is pictorial in a picture so justly +conceived, as by the school of Venice; and the train of thought +suggested in what has been now said is, perhaps, a not unfitting +introduction to a few pages about Giorgione, who, though much +has been taken by recent criticism from [140] what was reputed +to be his work, yet, more entirely than any other painter, sums up, +in what we know of himself and his art, the spirit of the Venetian +school. + +The beginnings of Venetian painting link themselves to the last, +stiff, half-barbaric splendours of Byzantine decoration, and are +but the introduction into the crust of marble and gold on the walls +of the Duomo of Murano, or of Saint Mark's, of a little more of +human expression. And throughout the course of its later +development, always subordinate to architectural effect, the work +of the Venetian school never escaped from the influence of its +beginnings. Unassisted, and therefore unperplexed, by +naturalism, religious mysticism, philosophical theories, it had no +Giotto, no Angelico, no Botticelli. Exempt from the stress of +thought and sentiment, which taxed so severely the resources of +the generations of Florentine artists, those earlier Venetian +painters, down to Carpaccio and the Bellini, seem never for a +moment to have been so much as tempted to lose sight of the +scope of their art in its strictness, or to forget that painting must +be before all things decorative, a thing for the eye, a space of +colour on the wall, only more dexterously blent than the marking +of its precious stone or the chance interchange of sun and shade +upon it:--this, to begin and end with; whatever higher matter of +thought, or poetry, or religious reverie might play its part therein, +[141] between. At last, with final mastery of all the technical +secrets of his art, and with somewhat more than "a spark of the +divine fire" to his share, comes Giorgione. He is the inventor of +genre, of those easily movable pictures which serve neither for +uses of devotion, nor of allegorical or historic teaching--little +groups of real men and women, amid congruous furniture or +landscape--morsels of actual life, conversation or music or play, +but refined upon or idealised, till they come to seem like glimpses +of life from afar. Those spaces of more cunningly blent colour, +obediently filling their places, hitherto, in a mere architectural +scheme, Giorgione detaches from the wall. He frames them by +the hands of some skilful carver, so that people may move them +readily and take with them where they go, as one might a poem in +manuscript, or a musical instrument, to be used, at will, as a +means of self-education, stimulus or solace, coming like an +animated presence, into one's cabinet, to enrich the air as with +some choice aroma, and, like persons, live with us, for a day or a +lifetime. Of all art such as this, art which has played so large a +part in men's culture since that time, Giorgione is the initiator. +Yet in him too that old Venetian clearness or justice, in the +apprehension of the essential limitations of the pictorial art, is +still undisturbed. While he interfuses his painted work with a +high-strung sort of poetry, caught directly from a singularly rich +and high-strung [142] sort of life, yet in his selection of subject, +or phase of subject, in the subordination of mere subject to +pictorial design, to the main purpose of a picture, he is typical of +that aspiration of all the arts towards music, which I have +endeavoured to explain,--towards the perfect identification of +matter and form. + +Born so near to Titian, though a little before him, that these two +companion pupils of the aged Giovanni Bellini may almost be +called contemporaries, Giorgione stands to Titian in something +like the relationship of Sordello to Dante, in Browning's poem. +Titian, when he leaves Bellini, becomes, in turn, the pupil of +Giorgione. He lives in constant labour more than sixty years +after Giorgione is in his grave; and with such fruit, that hardly +one of the greater towns of Europe is without some fragment of +his work. But the slightly older man, with his so limited actual +product (what remains to us of it seeming, when narrowly +explained, to reduce itself to almost one picture, like Sordello's +one fragment of lovely verse), yet expresses, in elementary +motive and principle, that spirit--itself the final acquisition of all +the long endeavours of Venetian art--which Titian spreads over +his whole life's activity. + +And, as we might expect, something fabulous and illusive has +always mingled itself in the brilliancy of Giorgione's fame. The +exact relationship to him of many works--drawings, [143] +portraits, painted idylls--often fascinating enough, which in +various collections went by his name, was from the first +uncertain. Still, six or eight famous pictures at Dresden, Florence +and the Louvre, were with no doubt attributed to him, and in +these, if anywhere, something of the splendour of the old +Venetian humanity seemed to have been preserved. But of those +six or eight famous pictures it is now known that only one is +certainly from Giorgione's hand. The accomplished science of +the subject has come at last, and, as in other instances, has not +made the past more real for us, but assured us only that we +possess less of it than we seemed to possess. Much of the work +on which Giorgione's immediate fame depended, work done for +instantaneous effect, in all probability passed away almost within +his own age, like the frescoes on the façade of the fondaco dei +Tedeschi at Venice, some crimson traces of which, however, still +give a strange additional touch of splendour to the scene of the +Rialto. And then there is a barrier or borderland, a period about +the middle of the sixteenth century, in passing through which the +tradition miscarries, and the true outlines of Giorgione's work +and person are obscured. It became fashionable for wealthy +lovers of art, with no critical standard of authenticity, to collect +so-called works of Giorgione, and a multitude of imitations came +into circulation. And now, in the "new [144] Vasari,"* the great +traditional reputation, woven with so profuse demand on men's +admiration, has been scrutinised thread by thread; and what +remains of the most vivid and stimulating of Venetian masters, a +live flame, as it seemed, in those old shadowy times, has been +reduced almost to a name by his most recent critics. + +Yet enough remains to explain why the legend grew up above the +name, why the name attached itself, in many instances, to the +bravest work of other men. The Concert in the Pitti Palace, in +which a monk, with cowl and tonsure, touches the keys of a +harpsichord, while a clerk, placed behind him, grasps the handle +of the viol, and a third, with cap and plume, seems to wait upon +the true interval for beginning to sing, is undoubtedly +Giorgione's. The outline of the lifted finger, the trace of the +plume, the very threads of the fine linen, which fasten themselves +on the memory, in the moment before they are lost altogether in +that calm unearthly glow, the skill which has caught the waves of +wandering sound, and fixed them for ever on the lips and hands-- +these are indeed the master's own; and the criticism which, while +dismissing so much hitherto believed to be Giorgione's, has +established the claims of this one picture, has left it among the +most precious things in the world of art. + +It is noticeable that the "distinction" of this [145] Concert, its +sustained evenness of perfection, alike in design, in execution, +and in choice of personal type, becomes for the "new Vasari" the +standard of Giorgione's genuine work. Finding here sufficient to +explain his influence, and the true seal of mastery, its authors +assign to Pellegrino da San Daniele the Holy Family in the +Louvre, in consideration of certain points where it comes short of +this standard. Such shortcoming, however, will hardly diminish +the spectator's enjoyment of a singular charm of liquid air, with +which the whole picture seems instinct, filling the eyes and lips, +the very garments, of its sacred personages, with some wind- +searched brightness and energy; of which fine air the blue peak, +clearly defined in the distance, is, as it were, the visible pledge. +Similarly, another favourite picture in the Louvre, the subject of a +delightful sonnet by a poet* whose own painted work often comes +to mind as one ponders over these precious things--the Fête +Champêtre, is assigned to an imitator of Sebastian del Piombo; +and the Tempest, in the Academy at Venice, to Paris Bordone, or +perhaps to "some advanced craftsman of the sixteenth century." +From the gallery at Dresden, the Knight embracing a Lady, where +the knight's broken gauntlets seem to mark some well-known +pause in a story we would willingly hear the rest of, is conceded +to "a Brescian hand," and Jacob meeting Rachel to [146] a pupil +of Palma. And then, whatever their charm, we are called on to +give up the Ordeal, and the Finding of Moses with its jewel-like +pools of water, perhaps to Bellini. + +Nor has the criticism, which thus so freely diminishes the number +of his authentic works, added anything important to the well- +known outline of the life and personality of the man: only, it has +fixed one or two dates, one or two circumstances, a little more +exactly. Giorgione was born before the year 1477, and spent his +childhood at Castelfranco, where the last crags of the Venetian +Alps break down romantically, with something of parklike grace, +to the plain. A natural child of the family of the Barbarelli by a +peasant-girl of Vedelago, he finds his way early into the circle of +notable persons--people of courtesy. He is initiated into those +differences of personal type, manner, and even of dress, which +are best understood there--that "distinction" of the Concert of the +Pitti Palace. Not far from his home lives Catherine of Cornara, +formerly Queen of Cyprus; and, up in the towers which still +remain, Tuzio Costanzo, the famous condottiere--a picturesque +remnant of medieval manners, amid a civilisation rapidly +changing. Giorgione paints their portraits; and when Tuzio's son, +Matteo, dies in early youth, adorns in his memory a chapel in the +church of Castelfranco, painting on this occasion, perhaps, the +altar-piece, foremost among his authentic [147] works, still to be +seen there, with the figure of the warrior-saint, Liberale, of which +the original little study in oil, with the delicately gleaming, silver- +grey armour, is one of the greater treasures of the National +Gallery. In that figure, as in some other knightly personages +attributed to him, people have supposed the likeness of the +painter's own presumably gracious presence. Thither, at last, he +is himself brought home from Venice, early dead, but celebrated. +It happened, about his thirty-fourth year, that in one of those +parties at which he entertained his friends with music, he met a +certain lady of whom he became greatly enamoured, and "they +rejoiced greatly," says Vasari, "the one and the other, in their +loves." And two quite different legends concerning it agree in +this, that it was through this lady he came by his death; Ridolfi +relating that, being robbed of her by one of his pupils, he died of +grief at the double treason; Vasari, that she being secretly +stricken of the plague, and he making his visits to her as usual, +Giorgione took the sickness from her mortally, along with her +kisses, and so briefly departed. + +But, although the number of Giorgione's extant works has been +thus limited by recent criticism, all is not done when the real and +the traditional elements in what concerns him have been +discriminated; for, in what is connected with a great name, much +that is not real is often very stimulating. For the aesthetic +philosopher, [148] therefore, over and above the real Giorgione +and his authentic extant works, there remains the Giorgionesque +also--an influence, a spirit or type in art, active in men so +different as those to whom many of his supposed works are really +assignable. A veritable school, in fact, grew together out of all +those fascinating works rightly or wrongly attributed to him; out +of many copies from, or variations on him, by unknown or +uncertain workmen, whose drawings and designs were, for +various reasons, prized as his; out of the immediate impression he +made upon his contemporaries, and with which he continued in +men's minds; out of many traditions of subject and treatment, +which really descend from him to our own time, and by retracing +which we fill out the original image. Giorgione thus becomes a +sort of impersonation of Venice itself, its projected reflex or +ideal, all that was intense or desirable in it crystallising about the +memory of this wonderful young man. + +And now, finally, let me illustrate some of the characteristics of +this School of Giorgione, as we may call it, which, for most of us, +notwithstanding all that negative criticism of the "new Vasari," +will still identify itself with those famous pictures at Florence, at +Dresden and Paris. A certain artistic ideal is there defined for us- +-the conception of a peculiar aim and procedure in art, which we +may understand as the Giorgionesque, [149] wherever we find it, +whether in Venetian work generally, or in work of our own time. +Of this the Concert, that undoubted work of Giorgione in the Pitti +Palace, is the typical instance, and a pledge authenticating the +connexion of the school, and the spirit of the school, with the +master. + +I have spoken of a certain interpenetration of the matter or +subject of a work of art with the form of it, a condition realised +absolutely only in music, as the condition to which every form of +art is perpetually aspiring. In the art of painting, the attainment +of this ideal condition, this perfect interpenetration of the subject +with the elements of colour and design, depends, of course, in +great measure, on dexterous choice of that subject, or phase of +subject; and such choice is one of the secrets of Giorgione's +school. It is the school of genre, and employs itself mainly with +"painted idylls," but, in the production of this pictorial poetry, +exercises a wonderful tact in the selecting of such matter as lends +itself most readily and entirely to pictorial form, to complete +expression by drawing and colour. For although its productions +are painted poems, they belong to a sort of poetry which tells +itself without an articulated story. The master is pre-eminent for +the resolution, the ease and quickness, with which he reproduces +instantaneous motion--the lacing-on of armour, with the head +bent back so stately--the fainting lady--the embrace, rapid as the +kiss, caught with death itself from dying [150] lips--some +momentary conjunction of mirrors and polished armour and still +water, by which all the sides of a solid image are exhibited at +once, solving that casuistical question whether painting can +present an object as completely as sculpture. The sudden act, the +rapid transition of thought, the passing expression--this he arrests +with that vivacity which Vasari has attributed to him, il fuoco +Giorgionesco, as he terms it. Now it is part of the ideality of the +highest sort of dramatic poetry, that it presents us with a kind of +profoundly significant and animated instants, a mere gesture, a +look, a smile, perhaps--some brief and wholly concrete moment-- +into which, however, all the motives, all the interests and effects +of a long history, have condensed themselves, and which seem to +absorb past and future in an intense consciousness of the present. +Such ideal instants the school of Giorgione selects, with its +admirable tact, from that feverish, tumultuously coloured world +of the old citizens of Venice--exquisite pauses in time, in which, +arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the fulness of +existence, and which are like some consummate extract or +quintessence of life. + +It is to the law or condition of music, as I said, that all art like this +is really aspiring; and, in the school of Giorgione, the perfect +moments of music itself, the making or hearing of music, song or +its accompaniment, are themselves prominent as subjects. On +that background [151] of the silence of Venice, so impressive to +the modern visitor, the world of Italian music was then forming. +In choice of subject, as in all besides, the Concert of the Pitti +Palace is typical of everything that Giorgione, himself an +admirable musician, touched with his influence. In sketch or +finished picture, in various collections, we may follow it through +many intricate variations--men fainting at music; music at the +pool-side while people fish, or mingled with the sound of the +pitcher in the well, or heard across running water, or among the +flocks; the tuning of instruments; people with intent faces, as if +listening, like those described by Plato in an ingenious passage of +the Republic, to detect the smallest interval of musical sound, the +smallest undulation in the air, or feeling for music in thought on a +stringless instrument, ear and finger refining themselves +infinitely, in the appetite for sweet sound; a momentary touch of +an instrument in the twilight, as one passes through some +unfamiliar room, in a chance company. + +In these then, the favourite incidents of Giorgione's school, +music or the musical intervals in our existence, life itself is +conceived as a sort of listening--listening to music, to the reading +of Bandello's novels, to the sound of water, to time as it flies. +Often such moments are really our moments of play, and we are +surprised at the unexpected blessedness of what may seem our +[152] least important part of time; not merely because play is in +many instances that to which people really apply their own best +powers, but also because at such times, the stress of our servile, +everyday attentiveness being relaxed, the happier powers in +things without are permitted free passage, and have their way +with us. And so, from music, the school of Giorgione passes +often to the play which is like music; to those masques in which +men avowedly do but play at real life, like children "dressing +up," disguised in the strange old Italian dresses, parti-coloured, or +fantastic with embroidery and furs, of which the master was so +curious a designer, and which, above all the spotless white linen +at wrist and throat, he painted so dexterously. + +But when people are happy in this thirsty land water will not be +far off; and in the school of Giorgione, the presence of water--the +well, or marble-rimmed pool, the drawing or pouring of water, as +the woman pours it from a pitcher with her jewelled hand in the +Fête Champêtre, listening, perhaps, to the cool sound as it falls, +blent with the music of the pipes--is as characteristic, and almost +as suggestive, as that of music itself. And the landscape feels, +and is glad of it also--a landscape full of clearness, of the effects +of water, of fresh rain newly passed through the air, and collected +into the grassy channels. The air, moreover, in the school of +Giorgione, seems as vivid as the people who breathe [153] it, and +literally empyrean, all impurities being burnt out of it, and no +taint, no floating particle of anything but its own proper elements +allowed to subsist within it. + +Its scenery is such as in England we call "park scenery," with +some elusive refinement felt about the rustic buildings, the choice +grass, the grouped trees, the undulations deftly economised for +graceful effect. Only, in Italy all natural things are as it were +woven through and through with gold thread, even the cypress +revealing it among the folds of its blackness. And it is with gold +dust, or gold thread, that these Venetian painters seem to work, +spinning its fine filaments, through the solemn human flesh, +away into the white plastered walls of the thatched huts. The +harsher details of the mountains recede to a harmonious distance, +the one peak of rich blue above the horizon remaining but as the +sensible warrant of that due coolness which is all we need ask +here of the Alps, with their dark rains and streams. Yet what real, +airy space, as the eye passes from level to level, through the long- +drawn valley in which Jacob embraces Rachel among the flocks! +Nowhere is there a truer instance of that balance, that modulated +unison of landscape and persons--of the human image and its +accessories--already noticed as characteristic of the Venetian +school, so that, in it, neither personage nor scenery is ever a mere +pretext for the other. + +[154] Something like this seems to me to be the vraie vérité about +Giorgione, if I may adopt a serviceable expression, by which the +French recognise those more liberal and durable impressions +which, in respect of any really considerable person or subject, +anything that has at all intricately occupied men's attention, lie +beyond, and must supplement, the narrower range of the strictly +ascertained facts about it. In this, Giorgione is but an illustration +of a valuable general caution we may abide by in all criticism. +As regards Giorgione himself, we have indeed to take note of all +those negations and exceptions, by which, at first sight, a "new +Vasari" seems merely to have confused our apprehension of a +delightful object, to have explained away in our inheritance from +past time what seemed of high value there. Yet it is not with a +full understanding even of those exceptions that one can leave off +just at this point. Properly qualified, such exceptions are but a +salt of genuineness in our knowledge; and beyond all those +strictly ascertained facts, we must take note of that indirect +influence by which one like Giorgione, for instance, enlarges his +permanent efficacy and really makes himself felt in our culture. +In a just impression of that, is the essential truth, the vraie vérité, +concerning him. + +1877. + + +NOTES + +144. *Crowe and Cavalcaselle; History of Painting in North Italy. + +145. *Dante Gabriel Rossetti. + + + +JOACHIM DU BELLAY + +[155] IN the middle of the sixteenth century, when the spirit of +the Renaissance was everywhere, and people had begun to look +back with distaste on the works of the middle age, the old Gothic +manner had still one chance more, in borrowing something from +the rival which was about to supplant it. In this way there was +produced, chiefly in France, a new and peculiar phase of taste +with qualities and a charm of its own, blending the somewhat +attenuated grace of Italian ornament with the general outlines of +Northern design. It created the Château de Gaillon, as you may +still see it in the delicate engravings of Isräel Silvestre--a Gothic +donjon veiled faintly by a surface of dainty Italian traceries-- +Chenonceaux, Blois, Chambord, and the church of Brou. In +painting, there came from Italy workmen like Maître Roux and +the masters of the school of Fontainebleau, to have their later +Italian voluptuousness attempered by the naïve and silvery +qualities of the native style; and it was characteristic of these +painters that they were most successful in painting on glass, an +art so [156] essentially medieval. Taking it up where the middle +age had left it, they found their whole work among the last +subtleties of colour and line; and keeping within the true limits of +their material, they got quite a new order of effects from it, and +felt their way to refinements on colour never dreamed of by those +older workmen, the glass-painters of Chartres or Le Mans. What +is called the Renaissance in France is thus not so much the +introduction of a wholly new taste ready-made from Italy, but +rather the finest and subtlest phase of the middle age itself, its last +fleeting splendour and temperate Saint Martin's summer. In +poetry, the Gothic spirit in France had produced a thousand +songs; so in the Renaissance, French poetry too did but borrow +something to blend with a native growth, and the poems of +Ronsard, with their ingenuity, their delicately figured surfaces, +their slightness, their fanciful combinations of rhyme, are the +correlative of the traceries of the house of Jacques Coeur at +Bourges, or the Maison de Justice at Rouen. + +There was indeed something in the native French taste naturally +akin to that Italian finesse. The characteristic of French work had +always been a certain nicety, a remarkable daintiness of hand, +une netteté remarquable d'exécution. In the paintings of +François Clouet, for example, or rather of the Clouets--for there +was a whole family of them--painters remarkable for [157] their +resistance to Italian influences, there is a silveriness of colour and +a clearness of expression which distinguish them very definitely +from their Flemish neighbours, Hemling or the Van Eycks. And +this nicety is not less characteristic of old French poetry. A light, +aërial delicacy, a simple elegance--une netteté remarquable +d'exécution: these are essential characteristics alike of Villon's +poetry, and of the Hours of Anne of Brittany. They are +characteristic too of a hundred French Gothic carvings and +traceries. Alike in the old Gothic cathedrals, and in their +counterpart, the old Gothic chansons de geste, the rough and +ponderous mass becomes, as if by passing for a moment into +happier conditions, or through a more gracious stratum of air, +graceful and refined, like the carved ferneries on the granite +church at Folgoat, or the lines which describe the fair priestly +hands of Archbishop Turpin, in the song of Roland; although +below both alike there is a fund of mere Gothic strength, or +heaviness.* + +Now Villon's songs and Clouet's painting are like these. It is the +higher touch making itself felt here and there, betraying itself, +like nobler blood in a lower stock, by a fine line or gesture or +expression, the turn of a wrist, the tapering of a finger. In +Ronsard's time that rougher [158] element seemed likely to +predominate. No one can turn over the pages of Rabelais without +feeling how much need there was of softening, of castigation. To +effect this softening is the object of the revolution in poetry +which is connected with Ronsard's name. Casting about for the +means of thus refining upon and saving the character of French +literature, he accepted that influx of Renaissance taste, which, +leaving the buildings, the language, the art, the poetry of France, +at bottom, what they were, old French Gothic still, gilds their +surfaces with a strange, delightful, foreign aspect passing over all +that Northern land, in itself neither deeper nor more permanent +than a chance effect of light. He reinforces, he doubles the +French daintiness by Italian finesse. Thereupon, nearly all the +force and all the seriousness of French work disappear; only the +elegance, the aërial touch, the perfect manner remain. But this +elegance, this manner, this daintiness of execution are +consummate, and have an unmistakable aesthetic value. + +So the old French chanson, which, like the old northern Gothic +ornament, though it sometimes refined itself into a sort of weird +elegance, was often, in its essence, something rude and formless, +became in the hands of Ronsard a Pindaric ode. He gave it +structure, a sustained system, strophe and antistrophe, and taught +it a changefulness and variety of metre which keep the curiosity +always excited, so that the very aspect of it, as it [159] lies +written on the page, carries the eye lightly onwards, and of which +this is a good instance:-- + + Avril, le grace, et le ris + De Cypris, + Le flair et la douce haleine; + Avril, le parfum des dieux, + Qui, des cieux, + Sentent l’odeur de la plaine; + + C’est toy, courtois et gentil, + Qui, d’exil + Retire ces passagères, + Ces arondelles qui vont, + Et qui sont + Du printemps les messagères. + +That is not by Ronsard, but by Remy Belleau, for Ronsard soon +came to have a school. Six other poets threw in their lot with him +in his literary revolution,--this Remy Belleau, Antoine de Baif, +Pontus de Tyard, Étienne Jodelle, Jean Daurat, and lastly Joachim +du Bellay; and with that strange love of emblems which is +characteristic of the time, which covered all the works of Francis +the First with the salamander, and all the works of Henry the +Second with the double crescent, and all the works of Anne of +Brittany with the knotted cord, they called themselves the Pleiad; +seven in all, although, as happens with the celestial Pleiad, if you +scrutinise this constellation of poets more carefully you may find +there a great number of minor stars. + +The first note of this literary revolution was [160] struck by +Joachim du Bellay in a little tract written at the early age of +twenty-four, which coming to us through three centuries seems of +yesterday, so full is it of those delicate critical distinctions which +are sometimes supposed peculiar to modern writers. The piece +has for its title La Deffense et Illustration de la langue +Françoyse; and its problem is how to illustrate or ennoble the +French language, to give it lustre. + +We are accustomed to speak of the varied critical and creative +movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as the +Renaissance, and because we have a single name for it we may +sometimes fancy that there was more unity in the thing itself than +there really was. Even the Reformation, that other great +movement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, had far less +unity, far less of combined action, than is at first sight supposed; +and the Renaissance was infinitely less united, less conscious of +combined action, than the Reformation. But if anywhere the +Renaissance became conscious, as a German philosopher might +say, if ever it was understood as a systematic movement by those +who took part in it, it is in this little book of Joachim du Bellay's, +which it is impossible to read without feeling the excitement, the +animation, of change, of discovery. "It is a remarkable fact," +says M. Sainte-Beuve, "and an inversion of what is true of other +languages, that, in French, prose has always had the precedence +over poetry." Du Bellay's prose [161] is perfectly transparent, +flexible, and chaste. In many ways it is a more characteristic +example of the culture of the Pleiad than any of its verse; and +those who love the whole movement of which the Pleiad is a +part, for a weird foreign grace in it, and may be looking about for +a true specimen of it, cannot have a better than Joachim du Bellay +and this little treatise of his. + +Du Bellay's object is to adjust the existing French culture to the +rediscovered classical culture; and in discussing this problem, +and developing the theories of the Pleiad, he has lighted upon +many principles of permanent truth and applicability. There were +some who despaired of the French language altogether, who +thought it naturally incapable of the fulness and elegance of +Greek and Latin--cette élégance et copie qui est en la langue +Greque et Romaine--that science could be adequately discussed, +and poetry nobly written, only in the dead languages. "Those +who speak thus," says Du Bellay, "make me think of the relics +which one may only see through a little pane of glass, and must +not touch with one's hands. That is what these people do with all +branches of culture, which they keep shut up in Greek and Latin +books, not permitting one to see them otherwise, or transport +them out of dead words into those which are alive, and wing their +way daily through the mouths of men." "Languages," he says +again, "are not born like plants and trees, some naturally feeble +and sickly, [162] others healthy and strong and apter to bear the +weight of men's conceptions, but all their virtue is generated in +the world of choice and men's freewill concerning them. +Therefore, I cannot blame too strongly the rashness of some of +our countrymen, who being anything rather than Greeks or +Latins, depreciate and reject with more than stoical disdain +everything written in French; nor can I express my surprise at the +odd opinion of some learned men who think that our vulgar +tongue is wholly incapable of erudition and good literature." + +It was an age of translations. Du Bellay himself translated two +books of the Aeneid, and other poetry, old and new, and there +were some who thought that the translation of the classical +literature was the true means of ennobling the French language:-- +strangers are ever favourites with us--nous favorisons toujours les +étrangers. Du Bellay moderates their expectations. "I do not +believe that one can learn the right use of them"--he is speaking +of figures and ornament in language--"from translations, because +it is impossible to reproduce them with the same grace with +which the original author used them. For each language has I +know not what peculiarity of its own; and if you force yourself to +express the naturalness (le naïf) of this in another language, +observing the law of translation,--not to expatiate beyond the +limits of the author himself, your words will be constrained, +[163] cold and ungraceful." Then he fixes the test of all good +translation:--"To prove this, read me Demosthenes and Homer in +Latin, Cicero and Virgil in French, and see whether they produce +in you the same affections which you experience in reading those +authors in the original." + +In this effort to ennoble the French language, to give it grace, +number, perfection, and as painters do to their pictures, that last, +so desirable, touch--cette dernière main que nous désirons-what +Du Bellay is really pleading for is his mother-tongue, the +language, that is, in which one will have the utmost degree of +what is moving and passionate. He recognised of what force the +music and dignity of languages are, how they enter into the +inmost part of things; and in pleading for the cultivation of the +French language, he is pleading for no merely scholastic interest, +but for freedom, impulse, reality, not in literature only, but in +daily communion of speech. After all, it was impossible to have +this impulse in Greek and Latin, dead languages shut up in books +as in reliquaries--péris et mises en reliquaires de livres. By aid +of this starveling stock--pauvre plante et vergette--of the French +language, he must speak delicately, movingly, if he is ever to +speak so at all: that, or none, must be for him the medium of what +he calls, in one of his great phrases, le discours fatal des choses +mondaines--that discourse about affairs which decides men's +fates. And it is his patriotism [164] not to despair of it; he sees it +already perfect in all elegance and beauty of words--parfait en +toute élégance et vénusté de paroles. + +Du Bellay was born in the disastrous year 1525, the year of the +battle of Pavia, and the captivity of Francis the First. His parents +died early, and to him, as the younger son, his mother's little +estate, ce petit Liré, the beloved place of his birth, descended. He +was brought up by a brother only a little older than himself; and +left to themselves, the two boys passed their lives in day-dreams +of military glory. Their education was neglected; "The time of +my youth," says Du Bellay, "was lost, like the flower which no +shower waters, and no hand cultivates." He was just twenty +years old when the elder brother died, leaving Joachim to be the +guardian of his child. It was with regret, with a shrinking sense +of incapacity, that he took upon him the burden of this +responsibility. Hitherto he had looked forward to the profession +of a soldier, hereditary in his family. But at this time a sickness +attacked him which brought him cruel sufferings, and seemed +likely to be mortal. It was then for the first time that he read the +Greek and Latin poets. These studies came too late to make him +what he so much desired to be, a trifler in Greek and Latin verse, +like so many others of his time now forgotten; instead, they made +him a lover of his own homely native tongue, that poor starveling +stock of the French [165] language. It was through this fortunate +short-coming in his education that he became national and +modern; and he learned afterwards to look back on that wild +garden of his youth with only a half regret. A certain Cardinal du +Bellay was the successful member of the family, a man often +employed in high official business. To him the thoughts of +Joachim turned when it became necessary to choose a profession, +and in 1552 he accompanied the Cardinal to Rome. He remained +there nearly five years, burdened with the weight of affairs, and +languishing with home-sickness. Yet it was under these +circumstances that his genius yielded its best fruits. From Rome, +so full of pleasurable sensation for men of an imaginative +temperament such as his, with all the curiosities of the +Renaissance still fresh in it, his thoughts went back painfully, +longingly, to the country of the Loire, with its wide expanse of +waving corn, its homely pointed roofs of grey slate, and its far- +off scent of the sea. He reached home at last, but only to die +there, quite suddenly, one wintry day, at the early age of thirty- +five. + +Much of Du Bellay's poetry illustrates rather the age and school +to which he belonged than his own temper and genius. As with +the writings of Ronsard and the other poets of the Pleiad, its +interest depends not so much on the impress of individual genius +upon it, as on the [166] circumstance that it was once poetry à la +mode, that it is part of the manner of a time--a time which made +much of manner, and carried it to a high degree of perfection. It +is one of the decorations of an age which threw a large part of its +energy into the work of decoration. We feel a pensive pleasure in +gazing on these faded adornments, and observing how a group of +actual men and women pleased themselves long ago. Ronsard's +poems are a kind of epitome of his age. Of one side of that age, it +is true, of the strenuous, the progressive, the serious movement, +which was then going on, there is little; but of the catholic side, +the losing side, the forlorn hope, hardly a figure is absent. The +Queen of Scots, at whose desire Ronsard published his odes, +reading him in her northern prison, felt that he was bringing back +to her the true flavour of her early days in the court of Catherine +at the Louvre, with its exotic Italian gaieties. Those who disliked +that poetry, disliked it because they found that age itself +distasteful. The poetry of Malherbe came, with its sustained style +and weighty sentiment, but with nothing that set people singing; +and the lovers of such poetry saw in the poetry of the Pleiad only +the latest trumpery of the middle age. But the time arrived when +the school of Malherbe also had had its day; and the +Romanticists, who in their eagerness for excitement, for strange +music and imagery, went back to the works of the middle age, +accepted the Pleiad too [167] with the rest; and in that new +middle age which their genius has evoked, the poetry of the +Pleiad has found its place. At first, with Malherbe, you may +think it, like the architecture, the whole mode of life, the very +dresses of that time, fantastic, faded, rococo. But if you look +long enough to understand it, to conceive its sentiment, you will +find that those wanton lines have a spirit guiding their caprices. +For there is style there; one temper has shaped the whole; and +everything that has style, that has been done as no other man or +age could have done it, as it could never, for all our trying, be +done again, has its true value and interest. Let us dwell upon it +for a moment, and try to gather from it that special flower, ce +fleur particulier, which Ronsard himself tells us every garden +has. + +It is poetry not for the people, but for a confined circle, for +courtiers, great lords and erudite persons, people who desire to be +humoured, to gratify a certain refined voluptuousness they have +in them. Ronsard loves, or dreams that he loves, a rare and +peculiar type of beauty, la petite pucelle Angevine, with golden +hair and dark eyes. But he has the ambition not only of being a +courtier and a lover, but a great scholar also; he is anxious about +orthography, about the letter è Grecque, the true spelling of Latin +names in French writing, and the restoration of the letter i to its +primitive liberty--del' i voyelle en sa première liberté. His poetry +is full of quaint, [168] remote learning. He is just a little +pedantic, true always to his own express judgment, that to be +natural is not enough for one who in poetry desires to produce +work worthy of immortality. And therewithal a certain number +of Greek words, which charmed Ronsard and his circle by their +gaiety and daintiness, and a certain air of foreign elegance about +them, crept into the French language; as there were other strange +words which the poets of the Pleiad forged for themselves, and +which had only an ephemeral existence. + +With this was united the desire to taste a more exquisite and +various music than that of the older French verse, or of the +classical poets. The music of the measured, scanned verse of +Latin and Greek poetry is one thing; the music of the rhymed, +unscanned verse of Villon and the old French poets, la poésie +chantée, is another. To combine these two kinds of music in a +new school of French poetry, to make verse which should scan +and rhyme as well, to search out and harmonise the measure of +every syllable, and unite it to the swift, flitting, swallow-like +motion of rhyme, to penetrate their poetry with a double music-- +this was the ambition of the Pleiad. They are insatiable of music, +they cannot have enough of it; they desire a music of greater +compass perhaps than words can possibly yield, to drain out the +last drops of sweetness which a certain note or accent contains. + +[169] It was Goudimel, the serious and protestant Goudimel, who +set Ronsard's songs to music; but except in this eagerness for +music the poets of the Pleiad seem never quite in earnest. The +old Greek and Roman mythology, which the great Italians had +found a motive so weighty and severe, becomes with them a mere +toy. That "Lord of terrible aspect," Amor, has become Love the +boy, or the babe. They are full of fine railleries; they delight in +diminutives, ondelette, fontelette, doucelette, Cassandrette. +Their loves are only half real, a vain effort to prolong the +imaginative loves of the middle age beyond their natural lifetime. +They write love-poems for hire. Like that party of people who +tell the tales in Boccaccio's Decameron, they form a circle which +in an age of great troubles, losses, anxieties, can amuse itself with +art, poetry, intrigue. But they amuse themselves with wonderful +elegance. And sometimes their gaiety becomes satiric, for, as +they play, real passions insinuate themselves, and at least the +reality of death. Their dejection at the thought of leaving this fair +abode of our common daylight--le beau sejour du commun jour-- +is expressed by them with almost wearisome reiteration. But +with this sentiment too they are able to trifle. The imagery of +death serves for delicate ornament, and they weave into the airy +nothingness of their verses their trite reflections on the vanity +[170] of life. Just so the grotesque details of the charnel-house +nest themselves, together with birds and flowers and the fancies +of the pagan mythology, in the traceries of the architecture of that +time, which wantons in its graceful arabesques with the images of +old age and death. + +Ronsard became deaf at sixteen; and it was this circumstance +which finally determined him to be a man of letters instead of a +diplomatist, significantly, one might fancy, of a certain premature +agedness, and of the tranquil, temperate sweetness appropriate to +that, in the school of poetry which he founded. Its charm is that +of a thing not vigorous or original, but full of the grace which +comes of long study and reiterated refinements, and many steps +repeated, and many angles worn down, with an exquisite +faintness, une fadeur exquise, a certain tenuity and caducity, as +for those who can bear nothing vehement or strong; for princes +weary of love, like Francis the First, or of pleasure, like Henry +the Third, or of action, like Henry the Fourth. Its merits are those +of the old,--grace and finish, perfect in minute detail. For these +people are a little jaded, and have a constant desire for a subdued +and delicate excitement, to warm their creeping fancy a little. +They love a constant change of rhyme in poetry, and in their +houses that strange, fantastic interweaving of thin, reed-like lines, +which are a kind of rhetoric in architecture. + +[171] But the poetry of the Pleiad is true not only to the +physiognomy of its age, but also to its country--ce pays du +Vendomois--the names and scenery of which so often recur in it:- +-the great Loire, with its long spaces of white sand; the little river +Loir; the heathy, upland country, with its scattered pools of water +and waste road-sides, and retired manors, with their crazy old +feudal defences half fallen into decay; La Beauce, where the vast +rolling fields seem to anticipate the great western sea itself. It is +full of the traits of that country. We see Du Bellay and Ronsard +gardening, or hunting with their dogs, or watch the pastimes of a +rainy day; and with all this is connected a domesticity, a +homeliness and simple goodness, by which the Northern country +gains upon the South. They have the love of the aged for +warmth, and understand the poetry of winter; for they are not far +from the Atlantic, and the west wind which comes up from it, +turning the poplars white, spares not this new Italy in France. So +the fireside often appears, with the pleasures of the frosty season, +about the vast emblazoned chimneys of the time, and with a +bonhomie as of little children, or old people. + +It is in Du Bellay's Olive, a collection of sonnets in praise of a +half-imaginary lady, Sonnetz a la louange d'Olive, that these +characteristics are most abundant. Here is a perfectly crystallised +example:-- + +[172] + + D'amour, de grace, et de haulte valeur + Les feux divins estoient ceinctz et les cieulx + S'estoient vestuz d'un manteau precieux + A raiz ardens de diverse couleur: + Tout estoit plein de beauté, de bonheur, + La mer tranquille, et le vent gracieulx, + Quand celle la nasquit en ces bas lieux + Qui a pillé du monde tout l'honneur. + Ell' prist son teint des beux lyz blanchissans, + Son chef de l'or, ses deux levres des rozes, + Et du soleil ses yeux resplandissans: + Le ciel usant de libéralité, + Mist en l'esprit ses semences encloses, + Son nom des Dieux prist l'immortalité. + +That he is thus a characteristic specimen of the poetical taste of +that age, is indeed Du Bellay's chief interest. But if his work is +to have the highest sort of interest, if it is to do something more +than satisfy curiosity, if it is to have an aesthetic as distinct from +an historical value, it is not enough for a poet to have been the +true child of his age, to have conformed to its aesthetic +conditions, and by so conforming to have charmed and stimulated +that age; it is necessary that there should be perceptible in his +work something individual, inventive, unique, the impress there +of the writer's own temper and personality. This impress M. +Sainte-Beuve thought he found in the Antiquités de Rome, and +the Regrets, which he ranks as what has been called poésie +intime, that intensely modern sort of poetry in which the writer +has for his aim the portraiture of his own most intimate moods, +and [173] to take the reader into his confidence. That age had +other instances of this intimacy of sentiment: Montaigne's Essays +are full of it, the carvings of the church of Brou are full of it. M. +Sainte-Beuve has perhaps exaggerated the influence of this +quality in Du Bellay's Regrets; but the very name of the book has +a touch of Rousseau about it, and reminds one of a whole +generation of self-pitying poets in modern times. It was in the +atmosphere of Rome, to him so strange and mournful, that these +pale flowers grew up. For that journey to Italy, which he +deplored as the greatest misfortune of his life, put him in full +possession of his talent, and brought out all its originality. And +in effect you do find intimacy, intimité, here. The trouble of his +life is analysed, and the sentiment of it conveyed directly to our +minds; not a great sorrow or passion, but only the sense of loss in +passing days, the ennui of a dreamer who must plunge into the +world's affairs, the opposition between actual life and the ideal, a +longing for rest, nostalgia, home-sickness--that pre-eminently +childish, but so suggestive sorrow, as significant of the final +regret of all human creatures for the familiar earth and limited +sky. + +The feeling for landscape is often described as a modern one; still +more so is that for antiquity, the sentiment of ruins. Du Bellay +has this sentiment. The duration of the hard, sharp outlines of +things is a grief to him, and passing his wearisome [174] days +among the ruins of ancient Rome, he is consoled by the thought +that all must one day end, by the sentiment of the grandeur of +nothingness--la grandeur du rien. With a strange touch of far-off +mysticism, he thinks that the great whole--le grand tout--into +which all other things pass and lose themselves, ought itself +sometimes to perish and pass away. Nothing less can relieve his +weariness. From the stately aspects of Rome his thoughts went +back continually to France, to the smoking chimneys of his little +village, the longer twilight of the North, the soft climate of +Anjou--La douceur Angevine; yet not so much to the real France, +we may be sure, with its dark streets and roofs of rough-hewn +slate, as to that other country, with slenderer towers, and more +winding rivers, and trees like flowers, and with softer sunshine on +more gracefully-proportioned fields and ways, which the fancy of +the exile, and the pilgrim, and of the schoolboy far from home, +and of those kept at home unwillingly, everywhere builds up +before or behind them. + +He came home at last, through the Grisons, by slow journeys; +and there, in the cooler air of his own country, under its skies of +milkier blue, the sweetest flower of his genius sprang up. There +have been poets whose whole fame has rested on one poem, as +Gray's on the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, or Ronsard's, as +many critics have thought, on the eighteen lines of [175] one +famous ode. Du Bellay has almost been the poet of one poem; +and this one poem of his is an Italian product transplanted into +that green country of Anjou; out of the Latin verses of Andrea +Navagero, into French. But it is a composition in which the +matter is almost nothing, and the form almost everything; and the +form of the poem as it stands, written in old French, is all Du +Bellay's own. It is a song which the winnowers are supposed to +sing as they winnow the corn, and they invoke the winds to lie +lightly on the grain. + + D'UN VANNEUR DE BLE AUX VENTS.* + + A vous trouppe legère + Qui d'aile passagères + Par le monde volez, + Et d'un sifflant murmure + L'ombrageuse verdure + Doulcement esbranlez. + + J'offre ces violettes, + Ces lis & ces fleurettes, + Et ces roses icy, + Ces vermeillettes roses + Sont freschement écloses, + Et ces oelliets aussi. + + De vostre doulce haleine + Eventez ceste plaine + Eventez ce sejour; + Ce pendant que j'ahanne + A mon blè que je vanne + A la chaleur du jour. + +[176] + +That has, in the highest degree, the qualities, the value, of the +whole Pleiad school of poetry, of the whole phase of taste from +which that school derives--a certain silvery grace of fancy, nearly +all the pleasure of which is in the surprise at the happy and +dexterous way in which a thing slight in itself is handled. The +sweetness of it is by no means to be got at by crushing, as you +crush wild herbs to get at their perfume. One seems to hear the +measured motion of the fans, with a child's pleasure on coming +across the incident for the first time, in one of those great barns of +Du Bellay's own country, La Beauce, the granary of France. A +sudden light transfigures some trivial thing, a weather-vane, a +wind-mill, a winnowing fan, the dust in the barn door. A +moment--and the thing has vanished, because it was pure effect; +but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may +happen again. + +1872. + + +NOTES + +157. *The purely artistic aspects of this subject have been +interpreted, in a work of great taste and learning, by Mrs. Mark +Pattison:--The Renaissance of Art in France. + +175. *A graceful translation of this and some other poems of the +Pleiad may be found in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, by Mr. +Andrew Lang. + + + +WINCKELMANN + +[177] ET EGO IN ARCADIA FUI + +GOETHE'S fragments of art-criticism contain a few pages of +strange pregnancy on the character of Winckelmann. He speaks +of the teacher who had made his career possible, but whom he +had never seen, as of an abstract type of culture, consummate, +tranquil, withdrawn already into the region of ideals, yet retaining +colour from the incidents of a passionate intellectual life. +He classes him with certain works of art, possessing an +inexhaustible gift of suggestion, to which criticism may return +again and again with renewed freshness. Hegel, in his lectures on +the Philosophy of Art, estimating the work of his predecessors, +has also passed a remarkable judgment on Winckelmann's +writings:--"Winckelmann, by contemplation of the ideal works of +the ancients, received a sort of inspiration, through which he +opened a new sense for the study of art. He is to be regarded as +one of those who, in the sphere of art, have known how to initiate +a new organ for the human spirit." That it has [178] given a new +sense, that it has laid open a new organ, is the highest that can be +said of any critical effort. It is interesting then to ask what kind +of man it was who thus laid open a new organ. Under what +conditions was that effected? + +Johann Joachim Winckelmann was born at Stendal, in +Brandenburg, in the year 1717. The child of a poor tradesman, +he passed through many struggles in early youth, the memory of +which ever remained in him as a fitful cause of dejection. In +1763, in the full emancipation of his spirit, looking over the +beautiful Roman prospect, he writes--"One gets spoiled here; but +God owed me this; in my youth I suffered too much." Destined +to assert and interpret the charm of the Hellenic spirit, he served +first a painful apprenticeship in the tarnished intellectual world of +Germany in the earlier half of the eighteenth century. Passing out +of that into the happy light of the antique, he had a sense of +exhilaration almost physical. We find him as a child in the dusky +precincts of a German school, hungrily feeding on a few +colourless books. The master of this school grows blind; +Winckelmann becomes his famulus. The old man would have +had him study theology. Winckelmann, free of the master's +library, chooses rather to become familiar with the Greek +classics. Herodotus and Homer win, with their "vowelled" +Greek, his warmest enthusiasm; whole nights of fever are +devoted to them; disturbing dreams of an [179] Odyssey of his +own come to him. "He felt in himself," says Madame de Staël, +"an ardent attraction towards the south. In German imaginations +even now traces are often to be found of that love of the sun, that +weariness of the North (cette fatigue du nord), which carried the +northern peoples away into the countries of the South. A fine sky +brings to birth sentiments not unlike the love of one's +Fatherland." + +To most of us, after all our steps towards it, the antique world, in +spite of its intense outlines, its own perfect self-expression, still +remains faint and remote. To him, closely limited except on the +side of the ideal, building for his dark poverty "a house not made +with hands," it early came to seem more real than the present. In +the fantastic plans of foreign travel continually passing through +his mind, to Egypt, for instance, and to France, there seems +always to be rather a wistful sense of something lost to be +regained, than the desire of discovering anything new. Goethe +has told us how, in his eagerness actually to handle the antique, +he became interested in the insignificant vestiges of it which the +neighbourhood of Strasburg afforded. So we hear of +Winckelmann's boyish antiquarian wanderings among the ugly +Brandenburg sandhills. Such a conformity between himself and +Winckelmann, Goethe would have gladly noted. + +At twenty-one he enters the University of Halle, to study +theology, as his friends desire; [180] instead, he becomes the +enthusiastic translator of Herodotus. The condition of Greek +learning in German schools and universities had fallen, and there +were no professors at Halle who could satisfy his sharp, +intellectual craving. Of his professional education he always +speaks with scorn, claiming to have been his own teacher from +first to last. His appointed teachers did not perceive that a new +source of culture was within their hands. Homo vagus et +inconstans!--one of them pedantically reports of the future +pilgrim to Rome, unaware on which side his irony was whetted. +When professional education confers nothing but irritation on a +Schiller, no one ought to be surprised; for Schiller, and such as +he, are primarily spiritual adventurers. But that Winckelmann, +the votary of the gravest of intellectual traditions, should get +nothing but an attempt at suppression from the professional +guardians of learning, is what may well surprise us. + +In 1743 he became master of a school at Seehausen. This was the +most wearisome period of his life. Notwithstanding a success in +dealing with children, which seems to testify to something simple +and primeval in his nature, he found the work of teaching very +depressing. Engaged in this work, he writes that he still has +within him a longing desire to attain to the knowledge of beauty-- +sehnlich wünschte zur Kenntniss des Schönen zu gelangen. He +had to shorten his nights, [181] sleeping only four hours, to gain +time for reading. And here Winckelmann made a step forward in +culture. He multiplied his intellectual force by detaching from it +all flaccid interests. He renounced mathematics and law, in +which his reading had been considerable,--all but the literature of +the arts. Nothing was to enter into his life unpenetrated by its +central enthusiasm. At this time he undergoes the charm of +Voltaire. Voltaire belongs to that flimsier, more artificial, +classical tradition, which Winckelmann was one day to supplant, +by the clear ring, the eternal outline, of the genuine antique. But +it proves the authority of such a gift as Voltaire's that it allures +and wins even those born to supplant it. Voltaire's impression on +Winckelmann was never effaced; and it gave him a consideration +for French literature which contrasts with his contempt for the +literary products of Germany. German literature transformed, +siderealised, as we see it in Goethe, reckons Winckelmann +among its initiators. But Germany at that time presented nothing +in which he could have anticipated Iphigenie, and the formation +of an effective classical tradition in German literature. + +Under this purely literary influence, Winckelmann protests +against Christian Wolff and the philosophers. Goethe, in +speaking of this protest, alludes to his own obligations to +Emmanuel Kant. Kant's influence over the [182] culture of +Goethe, which he tells us could not have been resisted by him +without loss, consisted in a severe limitation to the concrete. But +he adds, that in born antiquaries, like Winckelmann, a constant +handling of the antique, with its eternal outline, maintains that +limitation as effectually as a critical philosophy. Plato, however, +saved so often for his redeeming literary manner, is excepted +from Winckelmann's proscription of the philosophers. The +modern student most often meets Plato on that side which seems +to pass beyond Plato into a world no longer pagan, based upon +the conception of a spiritual life. But the element of affinity +which he presents to Winckelmann is that which is wholly Greek, +and alien from the Christian world, represented by that group of +brilliant youths in the Lysis, still uninfected by any spiritual +sickness, finding the end of all endeavour in the aspects of the +human form, the continual stir and motion of a comely human +life. + +This new-found interest in Plato's dialogues could not fail to +increase his desire to visit the countries of the classical tradition. +"It is my misfortune," he writes, " that I was not born to great +place, wherein I might have had cultivation, and the opportunity +of following my instinct and forming myself." A visit to Rome +probably was already designed, and he silently preparing for it. +Count Bünau, the author of a historical work then of note, had +collected at Nöthenitz a [183] valuable library, now part of the +library of Dresden. In 1748 Winckelmann wrote to Bünau in +halting French:--He is emboldened, he says, by Bünau's +indulgence for needy men of letters. He desires only to devote +himself to study, having never allowed himself to be dazzled by +favourable prospects in the Church. He hints at his doubtful +position "in a metaphysical age, by which humane literature is +trampled under foot. At present," he goes on, "little value is set +on Greek literature, to which I have devoted myself so far as I +could penetrate, when good books are so scarce and expensive." +Finally, he desires a place in some corner of Bünau's library. +"Perhaps, at some future time, I shall become more useful to the +public, if, drawn from obscurity in whatever way, I can find +means to maintain myself in the capital." + +Soon afterwards we find Winckelmann in the library at +Nöthenitz. Thence he made many visits to the collection of +antiquities at Dresden. He became acquainted with many artists, +above all with Oeser, Goethe's future friend and master, who, +uniting a high culture with the practical knowledge of art, was +fitted to minister to Winckelmann's culture. And now a new +channel of communion with the Greek life was opened for him. +Hitherto he had handled the words only of Greek poetry, stirred +indeed and roused by them, yet divining beyond the words some +unexpressed pulsation of sensuous life. Suddenly [184] he is in +contact with that life, still fervent in the relics of plastic art. +Filled as our culture is with the classical spirit, we can hardly +imagine how deeply the human mind was moved, when, at the +Renaissance, in the midst of a frozen world, the buried fire of +ancient art rose up from under the soil. Winckelmann here +reproduces for us the earlier sentiment of the Renaissance. On a +sudden the imagination feels itself free. How facile and direct, it +seems to say, is this life of the senses and the understanding, +when once we have apprehended it! Here, surely, is that more +liberal mode of life we have been seeking so long, so near to us +all the while. How mistaken and roundabout have been our +efforts to reach it by mystic passion, and monastic reverie; how +they have deflowered the flesh; how little have they really +emancipated us! Hermione melts from her stony posture, and the +lost proportions of life right themselves. Here, then, in vivid +realisation we see the native tendency of Winckelmann to escape +from abstract theory to intuition, to the exercise of sight and +touch. Lessing, in the Laocoon, has theorised finely on the +relation of poetry to sculpture; and philosophy may give us +theoretical reasons why not poetry but sculpture should be the +most sincere and exact expression of the Greek ideal. By a +happy, unperplexed dexterity, Winckelmann solves the question +in the concrete. It is what Goethe calls his Gewahrwerden der +griechischen Kunst, his finding of Greek art. + +[185] Through the tumultuous richness of Goethe's culture, the +influence of Winckelmann is always discernible, as the strong, +regulative under-current of a clear, antique motive. "One learns +nothing from him," he says to Eckermann, "but one becomes +something." If we ask what the secret of this influence was, +Goethe himself will tell us--wholeness, unity with one's self, +intellectual integrity. And yet these expressions, because they fit +Goethe, with his universal culture, so well, seem hardly to +describe the narrow, exclusive interest of Winckelmann. +Doubtless Winckelmann's perfection is a narrow perfection: his +feverish nursing of the one motive of his life is a contrast to +Goethe's various energy. But what affected Goethe, what +instructed him and ministered to his culture, was the integrity, the +truth to its type, of the given force. The development of this +force was the single interest of Winckelmann, unembarrassed by +anything else in him. Other interests, practical or intellectual, +those slighter talents and motives not supreme, which in most +men are the waste part of nature, and drain away their vitality, he +plucked out and cast from him. The protracted longing of his +youth is not a vague, romantic longing: he knows what he longs +for, what he wills. Within its severe limits his enthusiasm burns +like lava. "You know," says Lavater, speaking of +Winckelmann's countenance, "that I consider ardour and +indifference by no means incompatible in the [186] same +character. If ever there was a striking instance of that union, it is +in the countenance before us." "A lowly childhood," says +Goethe, "insufficient instruction in youth, broken, distracted +studies in early manhood, the burden of school-keeping! He was +thirty years old before he enjoyed a single favour of fortune: but +so soon as he had attained to an adequate condition of freedom, +he appears before us consummate and entire, complete in the +ancient sense." + +But his hair is turning grey, and he has not yet reached the south. +The Saxon court had become Roman Catholic, and the way to +favour at Dresden was through Roman ecclesiastics. Probably +the thought of a profession of the papal religion was not new to +Winckelmann. At one time he had thought of begging his way to +Rome, from cloister to cloister, under the pretence of a +disposition to change his faith. In 1751, the papal nuncio, +Archinto, was one of the visitors at Nöthenitz. He suggested +Rome as the fitting stage for Winckelmann's accomplishments, +and held out the hope of a place in the Pope's library. Cardinal +Passionei, charmed with Winckelmann's beautiful Greek writing, +was ready to play the part of Maecenas, if the indispensable +change were made. Winckelmann accepted the bribe, and visited +the nuncio at Dresden. Unquiet still at the word "profession," not +without a struggle, he joined the Roman Church, July the 11th, +1754. + +[187] Goethe boldly pleads that Winckelmann was a pagan, that +the landmarks of Christendom meant nothing to him. It is clear +that he intended to deceive no one by his disguise; fears of the +inquisition are sometimes visible during his life in Rome; he +entered Rome notoriously with the works of Voltaire in his +possession; the thought of what Count Bünau might be thinking +of him seems to have been his greatest difficulty. On the other +hand, he may have had a sense of a certain antique and as it were +pagan grandeur in the Roman Catholic religion. Turning from +the crabbed Protestantism, which had been the ennui of his youth, +he might reflect that while Rome had reconciled itself to the +Renaissance, the Protestant principle in art had cut off Germany +from the supreme tradition of beauty. And yet to that transparent +nature, with its simplicity as of the earlier world, the loss of +absolute sincerity must have been a real loss. Goethe +understands that Winckelmann had made this sacrifice. Yet at +the bar of the highest criticism, perhaps, Winckelmann may be +absolved. The insincerity of his religious profession was only +one incident of a culture in which the moral instinct, like the +religious or political, was merged in the artistic. But then the +artistic interest was that, by desperate faithfulness to which +Winckelmann was saved from the mediocrity, which, breaking +through no bounds, moves ever in a bloodless routine, and misses +its one [188] chance in the life of the spirit and the intellect. +There have been instances of culture developed by every high +motive in turn, and yet intense at every point; and the aim of our +culture should be to attain not only as intense but as complete a +life as possible. But often the higher life is only possible at all, +on condition of the selection of that in which one's motive is +native and strong; and this selection involves the renunciation of +a crown reserved for others. Which is better?--to lay open a new +sense, to initiate a new organ for the human spirit, or to cultivate +many types of perfection up to a point which leaves us still +beyond the range of their transforming power? Savonarola is one +type of success; Winckelmann is another; criticism can reject +neither, because each is true to itself. Winckelmann himself +explains the motive of his life when he says, "It will be my +highest reward, if posterity acknowledges that I have written +worthily." + +For a time he remained at Dresden. There his first book +appeared, Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works of Art in +Painting and Sculpture. Full of obscurities as it was, obscurities +which baffled but did not offend Goethe when he first turned to +art-criticism, its purpose was direct--an appeal from the artificial +classicism of the day to the study of the antique. The book was +well received, and a pension supplied through the king's +confessor. In September 1755 he started for Rome, in the +company of a young [189] Jesuit. He was introduced to Raphael +Mengs, a painter then of note, and found a home near him, in the +artists' quarter, in a place where he could "overlook, far and +wide, the eternal city." At first he was perplexed with the sense +of being a stranger on what was to him, spiritually, native soil. +"Unhappily," he cries in French, often selected by him as the +vehicle of strong feeling, "I am one of those whom the Greeks +call opsimatheis.+--I have come into the world and into Italy too +late." More than thirty years afterwards, Goethe also, after many +aspirations and severe preparation of mind, visited Italy. In early +manhood, just as he too was finding Greek art, the rumour of that +true artist's life of Winckelmann in Italy had strongly moved +him. At Rome, spending a whole year drawing from the antique, +in preparation for Iphigenie, he finds the stimulus of +Winckelmann's memory ever active. Winckelmann's Roman life +was simple, primeval, Greek. His delicate constitution permitted +him the use only of bread and wine. Condemned by many as a +renegade, he had no desire for places of honour, but only to see +his merits acknowledged, and existence assured to him. He was +simple without being niggardly; he desired to be neither poor nor +rich. + +Winckelmann's first years in Rome present all the elements of an +intellectual situation of the highest interest. The beating of the +soul against its bars, the sombre aspect, the alien traditions,* +[190] the still barbarous literature of Germany, are afar off; +before him are adequate conditions of culture, the sacred soil +itself, the first tokens of the advent of the new German literature, +with its broad horizons, its boundless intellectual promise. +Dante, passing from the darkness of the Inferno, is filled with a +sharp and joyful sense of light, which makes him deal with it, in +the opening of the Purgatorio, in a wonderfully touching and +penetrative way. Hellenism, which is the principle pre-eminently +of intellectual light (our modern culture may have more colour, +the medieval spirit greater heat and profundity, but Hellenism is +pre-eminent for light), has always been most effectively +conceived by those who have crept into it out of an intellectual +world in which the sombre elements predominate. So it had been +in the ages of the Renaissance. This repression, removed at last, +gave force and glow to Winckelmann's native affinity to the +Hellenic spirit. "There had been known before him," says +Madame de Staël, "learned men who might be consulted like +books; but no one had, if I may say so, made himself a pagan for +the purpose of penetrating antiquity." "One is always a poor +executant of conceptions not one's own."--On exécute mal ce +qu'on n'a pas conçu soi-même*--are true in their measure of +every genuine enthusiasm. Enthusiasm,--that, in the broad +Platonic sense of the Phaedrus, was the secret of [191] his +divinatory Power over the Hellenic world. This enthusiasm, +dependent as it is to a great degree on bodily temperament, has a +power of re-enforcing the purer emotions of the intellect with an +almost physical excitement. That his affinity with Hellenism was +not merely intellectual, that the subtler threads of temperament +were inwoven in it, is proved by his romantic, fervent friendships +with young men. He has known, he says, many young men more +beautiful than Guido's archangel. These friendships, bringing +him into contact with the pride of human form, and staining the +thoughts with its bloom, perfected his reconciliation to the spirit +of Greek sculpture. A letter on taste, addressed from Rome to a +young nobleman, Friedrich von Berg, is the record of such a +friendship. + +"I shall excuse my delay," he begins, "in fulfilling my promise of an +essay on the taste for beauty in works of art, in the words of Pindar. +He says to Agesidamus, a youth of Locri--idea te kalon, hôra te +kekramenon--whom he had kept waiting for an intended ode, that a debt +paid with usury is the end of reproach. This may win your good-nature +on behalf of my present essay, which has turned out far more detailed +and circumstantial than I had at first intended. "It is from yourself +that the subject is taken. Our intercourse has been short, too short +both for you and me; but the first time I saw you, the affinity of our +spirits was revealed to me: [192] your culture proved that my hope was +not groundless; and I found in a beautiful body a soul created for +nobleness, gifted with the sense of beauty. My parting from you was +therefore one of the most painful in my life; and that this feeling +continues our common friend is witness, for your separation from me +leaves me no hope of seeing you again. Let this essay be a memorial +of our friendship, which, on my side, is free from every selfish +motive, and ever remains subject and dedicate to yourself alone." + +The following passage is characteristic-- + +"As it is confessedly the beauty of man which is to be conceived +under one general idea, so I have noticed that those who are +observant of beauty only in women, and are moved little or not at +all by the beauty of men, seldom have an impartial, vital, inborn +instinct for beauty in art. To such persons the beauty of Greek art +will ever seem wanting, because its supreme beauty is rather +male than female. But the beauty of art demands a higher +sensibility than the beauty of nature, because the beauty of art, +like tears shed at a play, gives no pain, is without life, and must +be awakened and repaired by culture. Now, as the spirit of +culture is much more ardent in youth than in manhood, the +instinct of which I am speaking must be exercised and directed to +what is beautiful, before that age is reached, at which one would +be afraid to confess that one had no taste for it." + +[193] Certainly, of that beauty of living form which regulated +Winckelmann's friendships, it could not be said that it gave no +pain. One notable friendship, the fortune of which we may trace +through his letters, begins with an antique, chivalrous letter in +French, and ends noisily in a burst of angry fire. Far from +reaching the quietism, the bland indifference of art, such +attachments are nevertheless more susceptible than any others of +equal strength of a purely intellectual culture. Of passion, of +physical excitement, they contain only just so much as stimulates +the eye to the finest delicacies of colour and form. These +friendships, often the caprices of a moment, make +Winckelmann's letters, with their troubled colouring, an +instructive but bizarre addition to the History of Art, that shrine of +grave and mellow light around the mute Olympian family. The +impression which Winckelmann's literary life conveyed to those +about him was that of excitement, intuition, inspiration, rather +than the contemplative evolution of general principles. The +quick, susceptible enthusiast, betraying his temperament even in +appearance, by his olive complexion, his deep-seated, piercing +eyes, his rapid movements, apprehended the subtlest principles of +the Hellenic manner, not through the understanding, but by +instinct or touch. A German biographer of Winckelmann has +compared him to Columbus. That is not the aptest of comparisons; +but it reminds one of [194] a passage in which Edgar Quinet +describes the great discoverer's famous voyage. His science was +often at fault; but he had a way of estimating at once the slightest +indication of land, in a floating weed or passing bird; he seemed +actually to come nearer to nature than other men. And that world +in which others had moved with so much embarrassment, seems +to call out in Winckelmann new senses fitted to deal with it. He +is in touch with it; it penetrates him, and becomes part of his +temperament. He remodels his writings with constant renewal of +insight; he catches the thread of a whole sequence of laws in +some hollowing of the hand, or dividing of the hair; he seems to +realise that fancy of the reminiscence of a forgotten knowledge +hidden for a time in the mind itself; as if the mind of one, lover +and philosopher at once in some phase of pre-existence--philosophêsas +pote met' erôtos.+--fallen into a new cycle, were beginning its +intellectual career over again, yet with a certain power of +anticipating its results. So comes the truth of Goethe's judgments +on his works; they are a life, a living thing, designed for those who +are alive--ein Lebendiges für die Lebendigen geschrieben, ein +Leben selbst. + +In 1758 Cardinal Albani, who had formed in his Roman villa a +precious collection of antiquities, became Winckelmann's patron. +Pompeii had just opened its treasures; Winckelmann [195] +gathered its first-fruits. But his plan of a visit to Greece remained +unfulfilled. From his first arrival in Rome he had kept the +History of Ancient Art ever in view. All his other writings were a +preparation for that. It appeared, finally, in 1764; but even after +its publication Winckelmann was still employed in perfecting it. +It is since his time that many of the most significant examples of +Greek art have been submitted to criticism. He had seen little or +nothing of what we ascribe to the age of Pheidias; and his +conception of Greek art tends, therefore, to put the mere elegance +of the imperial society of ancient Rome in place of the severe and +chastened grace of the palaestra. For the most part he had to +penetrate to Greek art through copies, imitations, and later +Roman art itself; and it is not surprising that this turbid medium +has left in Winckelmann's actual results much that a more +privileged criticism can correct. + +He had been twelve years in Rome. Admiring Germany had +made many calls to him. At last, in 1768, he set out to revisit the +country of his birth; and as he left Rome, a strange, inverted +home-sickness, a strange reluctance to leave it at all, came over +him. He reached Vienna. There he was loaded with honours and +presents: other cities were awaiting him. Goethe, then nineteen +years old, studying art at Leipsic, was expecting his coming, with +that wistful eagerness which marked his youth, when the news +[196] of Winckelmann's murder arrived. All his "weariness of +the North" had revived with double force. He left Vienna, +intending to hasten back to Rome, and at Trieste a delay of a few +days occurred. With characteristic openness, Winckelmann had +confided his plans to a fellow-traveller, a man named Arcangeli, +and had shown him the gold medals received at Vienna. +Arcangeli's avarice was aroused. One morning he entered +Winckelmann's room, under pretence of taking leave. +Winckelmann was then writing "memoranda for the future editor +of the History of Art," still seeking the perfection of his great +work. Arcangeli begged to see the medals once more. As +Winckelmann stooped down to take them from the chest, a cord +was thrown round his neck. Some time afterwards, a child with +whose companionship Winckelmann had beguiled his delay, +knocked at the door, and receiving no answer, gave the alarm. +Winckelmann was found dangerously wounded, and died a few +hours later, after receiving the last sacraments. It seemed as if the +gods, in reward for his devotion to them, had given him a death +which, for its swiftness and its opportunity, he might well have +desired. "He has," says Goethe, "the advantage of figuring in the +memory of posterity, as one eternally able and strong; for the +image in which one leaves the world is that in which one moves +among the shadows." Yet, perhaps, it is not fanciful to regret that +his proposed [197] meeting with Goethe never took place. +Goethe, then in all the pregnancy of his wonderful youth, still +unruffled by the "press and storm" of his earlier manhood, was +awaiting Winckelmann with a curiosity of the worthiest kind. As +it was, Winckelmann became to him something like what Virgil +was to Dante. And Winckelmann, with his fiery friendships, had +reached that age and that period of culture at which emotions +hitherto fitful, sometimes concentrate themselves in a vital, +unchangeable relationship. German literary history seems to +have lost the chance of one of those famous friendships, the very +tradition of which becomes a stimulus to culture, and exercises an +imperishable influence. + +In one of the frescoes of the Vatican, Raphael has commemorated +the tradition of the Catholic religion. Against a space of tranquil +sky, broken in upon by the beatific vision, are ranged the great +personages of Christian history, with the Sacrament in the midst. +Another fresco of Raphael in the same apartment presents a very +different company, Dante alone appearing in both. Surrounded +by the muses of Greek mythology, under a thicket of laurel, sits +Apollo, with the sources of Castalia at his feet. On either side are +grouped those on whom the spirit of Apollo descended, the +classical and Renaissance poets, to whom the waters of Castalia +[198] come down, a river making glad this other "city of God." +In this fresco it is the classical tradition, the orthodoxy of taste, +that Raphael commemorates. Winckelmann's intellectual history +authenticates the claims of this tradition in human culture. In the +countries where that tradition arose, where it still lurked about its +own artistic relics, and changes of language had not broken its +continuity, national pride might sometimes light up anew an +enthusiasm for it. Aliens might imitate that enthusiasm, and +classicism become from time to time an intellectual fashion. But +Winckelmann was not further removed by language, than by +local aspects and associations, from those vestiges of the classical +spirit; and he lived at a time when, in Germany, classical studies +were out of favour. Yet, remote in time and place, he feels after +the Hellenic world, divines those channels of ancient art, in +which its life still circulates, and, like Scyles, the half-barbarous +yet Hellenising king, in the beautiful story of Herodotus, is +irresistibly attracted by it. This testimony to the authority of the +Hellenic tradition, its fitness to satisfy some vital requirement of +the intellect, which Winckelmann contributes as a solitary man of +genius, is offered also by the general history of the mind. The +spiritual forces of the past, which have prompted and informed +the culture of a succeeding age, live, indeed, within that culture, +but with an absorbed, underground life. The Hellenic element +alone [199] has not been so absorbed, or content with this +underground life; from time to time it has started to the surface; +culture has been drawn back to its sources to be clarified and +corrected. Hellenism is not merely an absorbed element in our +intellectual life; it is a conscious tradition in it. + +Again, individual genius works ever under conditions of time and +place: its products are coloured by the varying aspects of nature, +and type of human form, and outward manners of life. There is +thus an element of change in art; criticism must never for a +moment forget that "the artist is the child of his time." But +besides these conditions of time and place, and independent of +them, there is also an element of permanence, a standard of taste, +which genius confesses. This standard is maintained in a purely +intellectual tradition. It acts upon the artist, not as one of the +influences of his own age, but through those artistic products of +the previous generation which first excited, while they directed +into a particular channel, his sense of beauty. The supreme +artistic products of succeeding generations thus form a series of +elevated points, taking each from each the reflection of a strange +light, the source of which is not in the atmosphere around and +above them, but in a stage of society remote from ours. The +standard of taste, then, was fixed in Greece, at a definite +historical period. A tradition for all succeeding generations, it +originates in a spontaneous [200] growth out of the influences of +Greek society. What were the conditions under which this ideal, +this standard of artistic orthodoxy, was generated? How was +Greece enabled to force its thought upon Europe? + +Greek art, when we first catch sight of it, is entangled with Greek +religion. We are accustomed to think of Greek religion as the +religion of art and beauty, the religion of which the Olympian +Zeus and the Athena Polias are the idols, the poems of Homer the +sacred books. Thus Cardinal Newman speaks of "the classical +polytheism which was gay and graceful, as was natural in a +civilised age." Yet such a view is only a partial one. In it the eye +is fixed on the sharp, bright edge of high Hellenic culture, but +loses sight of the sombre world across which it strikes. Greek +religion, where we can observe it most distinctly, is at once a +magnificent ritualistic system, and a cycle of poetical +conceptions. Religions, as they grow by natural laws out of +man's life, are modified by whatever modifies his life. They +brighten under a bright sky, they become liberal as the social +range widens, they grow intense and shrill in the clefts of human +life, where the spirit is narrow and confined, and the stars are +visible at noonday; and a fine analysis of these differences is one +of the gravest functions of religious criticism. Still, the broad +foundation, in mere human nature, of all religions as they exist +for the greatest number, [201] is a universal pagan sentiment, a +paganism which existed before the Greek religion, and has +lingered far onward into the Christian world, ineradicable, like +some persistent vegetable growth, because its seed is an element +of the very soil out of which it springs. + +This pagan sentiment measures the sadness with which the +human mind is filled, whenever its thoughts wander far from +what is here, and now. It is beset by notions of irresistible natural +powers, for the most part ranged against man, but the secret also +of his fortune, making the earth golden and the grape fiery for +him. He makes gods in his own image, gods smiling and flower- +crowned, or bleeding by some sad fatality, to console him by +their wounds, never closed from generation to generation. It is +with a rush of home-sickness that the thought of death presents +itself. He would remain at home for ever on the earth if he could. +As it loses its colour and the senses fail, he clings ever closer to +it; but since the mouldering of bones and flesh must go on to the +end, he is careful for charms and talismans, which may chance to +have some friendly power in them, when the inevitable shipwreck +comes. Such sentiment is a part of the eternal basis of all +religions, modified indeed by changes of time and place, but +indestructible, because its root is so deep in the earth of man's +nature. The breath of religious initiators passes over them; a few +"rise up with wings as eagles," [202] but the broad level of +religious life is not permanently changed. Religious progress, +like all purely spiritual progress, is confined to a few. This +sentiment attaches itself in the earliest times to certain usages of +patriarchal life, the kindling of fire, the washing of the body, the +slaughter of the flock, the gathering of harvest, holidays and +dances. Here are the beginnings of a ritual, at first as occasional +and unfixed as the sentiment which it expresses, but destined to +become the permanent element of religious life. The usages of +patriarchal life change; but this germ of ritual remains, promoted +now with a consciously religious motive, losing its domestic +character, and therefore becoming more and more inexplicable +with each generation. Such pagan worship, in spite of local +variations, essentially one, is an element in all religions. It is the +anodyne which the religious principle, like one administering +opiates to the incurable, has added to the law which makes life +sombre for the vast majority of mankind. + +More definite religious conceptions come from other sources, and +fix themselves upon this ritual in various ways, changing it, and +giving it new meanings. In Greece they were derived from +mythology, itself not due to a religious source at all, but +developing in the course of time into a body of religious +conceptions, entirely human in form and character. To the +unprogressive ritual element it brought these conceptions, itself- +hê pterou dynamis, the power of the wing--an element [203] of +refinement, of ascension, with the promise of an endless destiny. +While the ritual remains unchanged, the aesthetic element, only +accidentally connected with it, expands with the freedom and +mobility of the things of the intellect. Always, the fixed element +is the religious observance; the fluid, unfixed element is the +myth, the religious conception. This religion is itself pagan, and +has in any broad view of it the pagan sadness. It does not at +once, and for the majority, become the higher Hellenic religion. +The country people, of course, cherish the unlovely idols of an +earlier time, such as those which Pausanias found still devoutly +preserved in Arcadia. Athenaeus tells the story of one who, +coming to a temple of Latona, had expected to find some worthy +presentment of the mother of Apollo, and laughed on seeing only +a shapeless wooden figure. The wilder people have wilder gods, +which, however, in Athens, or Corinth, or Lacedaemon, changing +ever with the worshippers in whom they live and move and have +their being, borrow something of the lordliness and distinction of +human nature there. Greek religion too has its mendicants, its +purifications, its antinomian mysticism, its garments offered to +the gods, its statues worn with kissing, its exaggerated +superstitions for the vulgar only, its worship of sorrow, its +addolorata, its mournful mysteries. Scarcely a wild or +melancholy note of the medieval church but was anticipated by +Greek polytheism! What should [204] we have thought of the +vertiginous prophetess at the very centre of Greek religion? The +supreme Hellenic culture is a sharp edge of light across this +gloom. The fiery, stupefying wine becomes in a happier climate +clear and exhilarating. The Dorian worship of Apollo, rational, +chastened, debonair, with his unbroken daylight, always opposed +to the sad Chthonian divinities, is the aspiring element, by force +and spring of which Greek religion sublimes itself. Out of Greek +religion, under happy conditions, arises Greek art, to minister to +human culture. It was the privilege of Greek religion to be able +to transform itself into an artistic ideal. + +For the thoughts of the Greeks about themselves, and their +relation to the world generally, were ever in the happiest +readiness to be transformed into objects for the senses. In this +lies the main distinction between Greek art and the mystical art of +the Christian middle age, which is always struggling to express +thoughts beyond itself. Take, for instance, a characteristic work +of the middle age, Angelico's Coronation of the Virgin, in the +cloister of Saint Mark's at Florence. In some strange halo of a +moon Jesus and the Virgin Mother are seated, clad in mystical +white raiment, half shroud, half priestly linen. Jesus, with rosy +nimbus and the long pale hair--tanquam lana alba et tanquam +nix--of the figure in the Apocalypse, with slender finger-tips is +setting a crown of pearl on the head of Mary, who, [205] corpse- +like in her refinement, is bending forward to receive it, the light +lying like snow upon her forehead. Certainly, it cannot be said of +Angelico's fresco that it throws into a sensible form our highest +thoughts about man and his relation to the world; but it did not do +this adequately even for Angelico. For him, all that is outward or +sensible in his work--the hair like wool, the rosy nimbus, the +crown of pearl--is only the symbol or type of a really +inexpressible world, to which he wishes to direct the thoughts; he +would have shrunk from the notion that what the eye +apprehended was all. Such forms of art, then, are inadequate to +the matter they clothe; they remain ever below its level. +Something of this kind is true also of oriental art. As in the +middle age from an exaggerated inwardness, so in the East from a +vagueness, a want of definition, in thought, the matter presented +to art is unmanageable, and the forms of sense struggle vainly +with it. The many-headed gods of the East, the orientalised, +many-breasted Diana of Ephesus, like Angelico's fresco, are at +best overcharged symbols, a means of hinting at an idea which art +cannot fitly or completely express, which still remains in the +world of shadows. + +But take a work of Greek art,--the Venus of Melos. That is in no +sense a symbol, a suggestion, of anything beyond its own +victorious fairness. The mind begins and ends with the finite +image, yet loses no part of the spiritual motive. [206] That motive +is not lightly and loosely attached to the sensuous form, as its +meaning to an allegory, but saturates and is identical with it. The +Greek mind had advanced to a particular stage of self-reflexion, +but was careful not to pass beyond it. In oriental thought there is +a vague conception of life everywhere, but no true appreciation +of itself by the mind, no knowledge of the distinction of man's +nature: in its consciousness of itself, humanity is still confused +with the fantastic, indeterminate life of the animal and vegetable +world. In Greek thought, on the other hand, the "lordship of the +soul" is recognised; that lordship gives authority and divinity to +human eyes and hands and feet; inanimate nature is thrown into +the background. But just there Greek thought finds its happy +limit; it has not yet become too inward; the mind has not yet +learned to boast its independence of the flesh; the spirit has not +yet absorbed everything with its emotions, nor reflected its own +colour everywhere. It has indeed committed itself to a train of +reflexion which must end in defiance of form, of all that is +outward, in an exaggerated idealism. But that end is still distant: +it has not yet plunged into the depths of religious mysticism. + +This ideal art, in which the thought does not outstrip or lie +beyond the proper range of its sensible embodiment, could not +have arisen out of a phase of life that was uncomely or poor. +That delicate pause in Greek reflexion was joined, by [207] some +supreme good luck, to the perfect animal nature of the Greeks. +Here are the two conditions of an artistic ideal. The influences +which perfected the animal nature of the Greeks are part of the +process by which "the ideal" was evolved. Those "Mothers" +who, in the second part of Faust, mould and remould the typical +forms that appear in human history, preside, at the beginning of +Greek culture, over such a concourse of happy physical +conditions as ever generates by natural laws some rare type of +intellectual or spiritual life. That delicate air, "nimbly and +sweetly recommending itself" to the senses, the finer aspects of +nature, the finer lime and clay of the human form, and modelling +of the dainty framework of the human countenance:--these are +the good luck of the Greek when he enters upon life. Beauty +becomes a distinction, like genius, or noble place. + +"By no people," says Winckelmann, "has beauty been so highly +esteemed as by the Greeks. The priests of a youthful Jupiter at +Aegae, of the Ismenian Apollo, and the priest who at Tanagra led +the procession of Mercury, bearing a lamb upon his shoulders, +were always youths to whom the prize of beauty had been +awarded. The citizens of Egesta erected a monument to a certain +Philip, who was not their fellow-citizen, but of Croton, for his +distinguished beauty; and the people made offerings at it. In an +ancient song, ascribed to Simonides or Epicharmus, [208] of +four wishes, the first was health, the second beauty. And as +beauty was so longed for and prized by the Greeks, every +beautiful person sought to become known to the whole people by +this distinction, and above all to approve himself to the artists, +because they awarded the prize; and this was for the artists an +occasion for having supreme beauty ever before their eyes. +Beauty even gave a right to fame; and we find in Greek histories +the most beautiful people distinguished. Some were famous for +the beauty of one single part of their form; as Demetrius +Phalereus, for his beautiful eyebrows, was called Charito- +blepharos. It seems even to have been thought that the +procreation of beautiful children might be promoted by prizes. +This is shown by the existence of contests for beauty, which in +ancient times were established by Cypselus, King of Arcadia, by +the river Alpheus; and, at the feast of Apollo of Philae, a prize +was offered to the youths for the deftest kiss. This was decided +by an umpire; as also at Megara, by the grave of Diocles. At +Sparta, and at Lesbos, in the temple of Juno, and among the +Parrhasii, there were contests for beauty among women. The +general esteem for beauty went so far, that the Spartan women set +up in their bedchambers a Nireus, a Narcissus, or a Hyacinth, that +they might bear beautiful children." + +So, from a few stray antiquarianisms, a few [209] faces cast up +sharply from the waves, Winckelmann, as his manner was, +divines the temperament of the antique world, and that in which it +had delight. It has passed away with that distant age, and we may +venture to dwell upon it. What sharpness and reality it has is the +sharpness and reality of suddenly arrested life. The Greek system +of gymnastics originated as part of a religious ritual. The +worshipper was to recommend himself to the gods by becoming +fleet and fair, white and red, like them. The beauty of the +palaestra, and the beauty of the artist's workshop, reacted on one +another. The youth tried to rival his gods; and his increased +beauty passed back into them.--"I take the gods to witness, I had +rather have a fair body than a king's crown"--Omnymi pantas theous +mê helesthai an tên basileôs archên anti tou kalos einai+--that +is the form in which one age of the world chose the higher life.-- +A perfect world, if the gods could have seemed for ever only fleet +and fair, white and red! Let us not regret that this unperplexed +youth of humanity, satisfied with the vision of itself, passed, at +the due moment, into a mournful maturity; for already the deep joy +was in store for the spirit, of finding the ideal of that youth still +red with life in the grave. + +It followed that the Greek ideal expressed itself pre-eminently in +sculpture. All art has a sensuous element, colour, form, sound--in +poetry a dexterous recalling of these, together with the profound, +joyful sensuousness of motion, and each [210] of them may be a +medium for the ideal: it is partly accident which in any individual +case makes the born artist, poet, or painter rather than sculptor. +But as the mind itself has had an historical development, one +form of art, by the very limitations of its material, may be more +adequate than another for the expression of any one phase of that +development. Different attitudes of the imagination have a native +affinity with different types of sensuous form, so that they +combine together, with completeness and ease. The arts may +thus be ranged in a series, which corresponds to a series of +developments in the human mind itself. Architecture, which +begins in a practical need, can only express by vague hint or +symbol the spirit or mind of the artist. He closes his sadness over +him, or wanders in the perplexed intricacies of things, or projects +his purpose from him clean-cut and sincere, or bares himself to +the sunlight. But these spiritualities, felt rather than seen, can but +lurk about architectural form as volatile effects, to be gathered +from it by reflexion. Their expression is, indeed, not really +sensuous at all. As human form is not the subject with which it +deals, architecture is the mode in which the artistic effort centres, +when the thoughts of man concerning himself are still indistinct, +when he is still little preoccupied with those harmonies, storms, +victories, of the unseen and intellectual world, which, wrought +out into the bodily form, give it an interest and significance +[211] communicable to it alone. The art of Egypt, with its +supreme architectural effects, is, according to Hegel's beautiful +comparison, a Memnon waiting for the day, the day of the Greek +spirit, the humanistic spirit, with its power of speech. + +Again, painting, music, and poetry, with their endless power of +complexity, are the special arts of the romantic and modern ages. +Into these, with the utmost attenuation of detail, may be +translated every delicacy of thought and feeling, incidental to a +consciousness brooding with delight over itself. Through their +gradations of shade, their exquisite intervals, they project in an +external form that which is most inward in passion or sentiment. +Between architecture and those romantic arts of painting, music, +and poetry, comes sculpture, which, unlike architecture, deals +immediately with man, while it contrasts with the romantic arts, +because it is not self-analytical. It has to do more exclusively +than any other art with the human form, itself one entire medium +of spiritual expression, trembling, blushing, melting into dew, +with inward excitement. That spirituality which only lurks about +architecture as a volatile effect, in sculpture takes up the whole +given material, and penetrates it with an imaginative motive; and +at first sight sculpture, with its solidity of form, seems a thing +more real and full than the faint, abstract world of poetry or +painting. Still the fact is the reverse. Discourse and action show +man as he is, more directly than the play of [212] the muscles and +the moulding of the flesh; and over these poetry has command. +Painting, by the flushing of colour in the face and dilatation of +light in the eye--music, by its subtle range of tones--can refine +most delicately upon a single moment of passion, unravelling its +subtlest threads. + +But why should sculpture thus limit itself to pure form? Because, +by this limitation, it becomes a perfect medium of expression for +one peculiar motive of the imaginative intellect. It therefore +renounces all those attributes of its material which do not forward +that motive. It has had, indeed, from the beginning an unfixed +claim to colour; but this element of colour in it has always been +more or less conventional, with no melting or modulation of +tones, never permitting more than a very limited realism. It was +maintained chiefly as a religious tradition. In proportion as the +art of sculpture ceased to be merely decorative, and subordinate +to architecture, it threw itself upon pure form. It renounces the +power of expression by lower or heightened tones. In it, no +member of the human form is more significant than the rest; the +eye is wide, and without pupil; the lips and brow are hardly less +significant than hands, and breasts, and feet. But the limitation of +its resources is part of its pride: it has no backgrounds, no sky or +atmosphere, to suggest and interpret a train of feeling; a little of +suggested motion, and much of pure light on its gleaming +surfaces, with pure form--only these. + +[213] And it gains more than it loses by this limitation to its own +distinguishing motives; it unveils man in the repose of his +unchanging characteristics. That white light, purged from the +angry, blood-like stains of action and passion, reveals, not what is +accidental in man, but the tranquil godship in him, as opposed to +the restless accidents of life. The art of sculpture records the first +naïve, unperplexed recognition of man by himself; and it is a +proof of the high artistic capacity of the Greeks, that they +apprehended and remained true to these exquisite limitations, yet, +in spite of them, gave to their creations a mobile, a vital, +individuality. + +Heiterkeit--blitheness or repose, and Allgemeinheit--generality or +breadth, are, then, the supreme characteristics of the Hellenic +ideal. But that generality or breadth has nothing in common with +the lax observation, the unlearned thought, the flaccid execution, +which have sometimes claimed superiority in art, on the plea of +being "broad" or "general." Hellenic breadth and generality +come of a culture minute, severe, constantly renewed, rectifying +and concentrating its impressions into certain pregnant types. + +The basis of all artistic genius lies in the power of conceiving +humanity in a new and striking way, of putting a happy world of +its own creation in place of the meaner world of our common +days, generating around itself an atmosphere with a novel power +of refraction, selecting, transforming, recombining the images it +transmits, according to [214] the choice of the imaginative +intellect. In exercising this power, painting and poetry have a +variety of subject almost unlimited. The range of characters or +persons open to them is as various as life itself; no character, +however trivial, misshapen, or unlovely, can resist their magic. +That is because those arts can accomplish their function in the +choice and development of some special situation, which lifts or +glorifies a character, in itself not poetical. To realise this +situation, to define, in a chill and empty atmosphere, the focus +where rays, in themselves pale and impotent, unite and begin to +burn, the artist may have, indeed, to employ the most cunning +detail, to complicate and refine upon thought and passion a +thousand-fold. Let us take a brilliant example from the poems of +Robert Browning. His poetry is pre-eminently the poetry of +situations. The characters themselves are always of secondary +importance; often they are characters in themselves of little +interest; they seem to come to him by strange accidents from the +ends of the world. His gift is shown by the way in which he +accepts such a character, throws it into some situation, or +apprehends it in some delicate pause of life, in which for a +moment it becomes ideal. In the poem entitled Le Byron de nos +Jours, in his Dramatis Personae, we have a single moment of +passion thrown into relief after this exquisite fashion. Those two +jaded Parisians are not intrinsically interesting: they begin to +interest us only [215] when thrown into a choice situation. But to +discriminate that moment, to make it appreciable by us, that we +may "find" it, what a cobweb of allusions, what double and treble +reflexions of the mind upon itself, what an artificial light is +constructed and broken over the chosen situation; on how fine a +needle's point that little world of passion is balanced! Yet, in +spite of this intricacy, the poem has the clear ring of a central +motive. We receive from it the impression of one imaginative +tone, of a single creative act. + +To produce such effects at all requires all the resources of +painting, with its power of indirect expression, of subordinate but +significant detail, its atmosphere, its foregrounds and +backgrounds. To produce them in a pre-eminent degree requires +all the resources of poetry, language in its most purged form, its +remote associations and suggestions, its double and treble lights. +These appliances sculpture cannot command. In it, therefore, not +the special situation, but the type, the general character of the +subject to be delineated, is all-important. In poetry and painting, +the situation predominates over the character; in sculpture, the +character over the situation. Excluded by the proper limitation of +its material from the development of exquisite situations, it has to +choose from a select number of types intrinsically interesting-- +interesting, that is, independently of any special situation into +which they may be thrown. Sculpture [216] finds the secret of its +power in presenting these types, in their broad, central, incisive +lines. This it effects not by accumulation of detail, but by +abstracting from it. All that is accidental, all that distracts the +simple effect upon us of the supreme types of humanity, all traces +in them of the commonness of the world, it gradually purges +away. + +Works of art produced under this law, and only these, are really +characterised by Hellenic generality or breadth. In every +direction it is a law of restraint. It keeps passion always below +that degree of intensity at which it must necessarily be transitory, +never winding up the features to one note of anger, or desire, or +surprise. In some of the feebler allegorical designs of the middle +age, we find isolated qualities portrayed as by so many masks; its +religious art has familiarised us with faces fixed immovably into +blank types of placid reverie. Men and women, again, in the +hurry of life, often wear the sharp impress of one absorbing +motive, from which it is said death sets their features free. All +such instances may be ranged under the grotesque; and the +Hellenic ideal has nothing in common with the grotesque. It +allows passion to play lightly over the surface of the individual +form, losing thereby nothing of its central impassivity, its depth +and repose. To all but the highest culture, the reserved faces of +the gods will ever have something of insipidity. + +[217] Again, in the best Greek sculpture, the archaic immobility +has been stirred, its forms are in motion; but it is a motion ever +kept in reserve, and very seldom committed to any definite +action. Endless as are the attitudes of Greek sculpture, exquisite +as is the invention of the Greeks in this direction, the actions or +situations it permits are simple and few. There is no Greek +Madonna; the goddesses are always childless. The actions +selected are those which would be without significance, except in +a divine person--binding on a sandal or preparing for the bath. +When a more complex and significant action is permitted, it is +most often represented as just finished, so that eager expectancy +is excluded, as in the image of Apollo just after the slaughter of +the Python, or of Venus with the apple of Paris already in her +hand. The Laocoon, with all that patient science through which it +has triumphed over an almost unmanageable subject, marks a +period in which sculpture has begun to aim at effects legitimate, +because delightful, only in painting. + +The hair, so rich a source of expression in painting, because, +relatively to the eye or the lip, it is mere drapery, is withdrawn +from attention; its texture, as well as its colour, is lost, its +arrangement but faintly and severely indicated, with no broken or +enmeshed light. The eyes are wide and directionless, not fixing +anything with their gaze, nor riveting the brain to any special +[218] external object, the brows without hair. Again, Greek +sculpture deals almost exclusively with youth, where the +moulding of the bodily organs is still as if suspended between +growth and completion, indicated but not emphasised; where the +transition from curve to curve is so delicate and elusive, that +Winckelmann compares it to a quiet sea, which, although we +understand it to be in motion, we nevertheless regard as an image +of repose; where, therefore, the exact degree of development is so +hard to apprehend. If a single product only of Hellenic art were +to be saved in the wreck of all beside, one might choose perhaps +from the "beautiful multitude" of the Panathenaic frieze, that line +of youths on horseback, with their level glances, their proud, +patient lips, their chastened reins, their whole bodies in exquisite +service. This colourless, unclassified purity of life, with its +blending and interpenetration of intellectual, spiritual, and +physical elements, still folded together, pregnant with the +possibilities of a whole world closed within it, is the highest +expression of the indifference which lies beyond all that is +relative or partial. Everywhere there is the effect of an awaking, +of a child's sleep just disturbed. All these effects are united in a +single instance--the adorante of the museum of Berlin, a youth +who has gained the wrestler's prize, with hands lifted and open, +in praise for the victory. Fresh, unperplexed, it is the image of a +man as he springs first from the sleep of nature, his white light +[219] taking no colour from any one-sided experience. He is +characterless, so far as character involves subjection to the +accidental influences of life. + +"This sense," says Hegel, "for the consummate modelling of +divine and human forms was pre-eminently at home in Greece. +In its poets and orators, its historians and philosophers, Greece +cannot be conceived from a central point, unless one brings, as a +key to the understanding of it, an insight into the ideal forms of +sculpture, and regards the images of statesmen and philosophers, +as well as epic and dramatic heroes, from the artistic point of +view. For those who act, as well as those who create and think, +have, in those beautiful days of Greece, this plastic character. +They are great and free, and have grown up on the soil of their +own individuality, creating themselves out of themselves, and +moulding themselves to what they were, and willed to be. The +age of Pericles was rich in such characters; Pericles himself, +Pheidias, Plato, above all Sophocles, Thucydides also, Xenophon +and Socrates, each in his own order, the perfection of one +remaining undiminished by that of the others. They are ideal +artists of themselves, cast each in one flawless mould, works of +art, which stand before us as an immortal presentment of the +gods. Of this modelling also are those bodily works of art, the +victors in the Olympic games; yes! and even Phryne, who, as the +most beautiful of women, [220] ascended naked out of the water, +in the presence of assembled Greece." + +This key to the understanding of the Greek spirit, Winckelmann +possessed in his own nature, itself like a relic of classical +antiquity, laid open by accident to our alien, modern atmosphere. +To the criticism of that consummate Greek modelling he brought +not only his culture but his temperament. We have seen how +definite was the leading motive of that culture; how, like some +central root-fibre, it maintained the well-rounded unity of his life +through a thousand distractions. Interests not his, nor meant for +him, never disturbed him. In morals, as in criticism, he followed +the clue of instinct, of an unerring instinct. Penetrating into the +antique world by his passion, his temperament, he enunciated no +formal principles, always hard and one-sided. Minute and +anxious as his culture was, he never became one-sidedly self- +analytical. Occupied ever with himself, perfecting himself and +developing his genius, he was not content, as so often happens +with such natures, that the atmosphere between him and other +minds should be thick and clouded; he was ever jealously +refining his meaning into a form, express, clear, objective. This +temperament he nurtured and invigorated by friendships which +kept him always in direct contact with the spirit of youth. The +beauty of the Greek statues was a sexless beauty: the statues of +the gods had the least traces of sex. [221] Here there is a moral +sexlessness, a kind of ineffectual wholeness of nature, yet with a +true beauty and significance of its own. + +One result of this temperament is a serenity--Heiterkeit--which +characterises Winckelmann's handling of the sensuous side of +Greek art. This serenity is, perhaps, in great measure, a negative +quality: it is the absence of any sense of want, or corruption, or +shame. With the sensuous element in Greek art he deals in the +pagan manner; and what is implied in that? It has been +sometimes said that art is a means of escape from "the tyranny of +the senses." It may be so for the spectator: he may find that the +spectacle of supreme works of art takes from the life of the senses +something of its turbid fever. But this is possible for the +spectator only because the artist, in producing those works, has +gradually sunk his intellectual and spiritual ideas in sensuous +form. He may live, as Keats lived, a pure life; but his soul, like +that of Plato's false astronomer, becomes more and more +immersed in sense, until nothing which lacks the appeal to sense +has interest for him. How could such an one ever again endure +the greyness of the ideal or spiritual world? The spiritualist is +satisfied as he watches the escape of the sensuous elements from +his conceptions; his interest grows, as the dyed garment bleaches +in the keener air. But the artist steeps his thought again and again +into the fire of colour. To the Greek this immersion in [222] the +sensuous was, religiously, at least, indifferent. Greek +sensuousness, therefore, does not fever the conscience: it is +shameless and childlike. Christian asceticism, on the other hand, +discrediting the slightest touch of sense, has from time to time +provoked into strong emphasis the contrast or antagonism to +itself, of the artistic life, with its inevitable sensuousness.--I did +but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine +hand, and lo! I must die.--It has sometimes seemed hard to +pursue that life without something of conscious disavowal of a +spiritual world; and this imparts to genuine artistic interests a +kind of intoxication. From this intoxication Winckelmann is free: +he fingers those pagan marbles with unsinged hands, with no +sense of shame or loss. That is to deal with the sensuous side of +art in the pagan manner. + +The longer we contemplate that Hellenic ideal, in which man is at +unity with himself, with his physical nature, with the outward +world, the more we may be inclined to regret that he should ever +have passed beyond it, to contend for a perfection that makes the +blood turbid, and frets the flesh, and discredits the actual world +about us. But if he was to be saved from the ennui which ever +attaches itself to realisation, even the realisation of the perfect +life, it was necessary that a conflict should come, that some +sharper note should grieve the existing harmony, and the spirit +chafed by it beat out at last only a larger and profounder music. +[223] In Greek tragedy this conflict has begun: man finds himself +face to face with rival claims. Greek tragedy shows how such a +conflict may be treated with serenity, how the evolution of it may +be a spectacle of the dignity, not of the impotence, of the human +spirit. But it is not only in tragedy that the Greek spirit showed +itself capable of thus bringing joy out of matter in itself full of +discouragements. Theocritus too strikes often a note of romantic +sadness. But what a blithe and steady poise, above these +discouragements, in a clear and sunny stratum of the air! + +Into this stage of Greek achievement Winckelmann did not enter. +Supreme as he is where his true interest lay, his insight into the +typical unity and repose of the highest sort of sculpture seems to +have involved limitation in another direction. His conception of +art excludes that bolder type of it which deals confidently and +serenely with life, conflict, evil. Living in a world of exquisite +but abstract and colourless form, he could hardly have conceived +of the subtle and penetrative, yet somewhat grotesque art of the +modern world. What would he have thought of Gilliatt, in Victor +Hugo's Travailleurs de la Mer, or of the bleeding mouth of +Fantine in the first part of Les Misérables, penetrated as those +books are with a sense of beauty, as lively and transparent as that +of a Greek? Nay, a sort of preparation for the romantic temper is +noticeable even within the limits of the Greek ideal itself, [224] +which for his part Winckelmann failed to see. For Greek religion +has not merely its mournful mysteries of Adonis, of Hyacinthus, +of Demeter, but it is conscious also of the fall of earlier divine +dynasties. Hyperion gives way to Apollo, Oceanus to Poseidon. +Around the feet of that tranquil Olympian family still crowd the +weary shadows of an earlier, more formless, divine world. The +placid minds even of Olympian gods are troubled with thoughts +of a limit to duration, of inevitable decay, of dispossession. +Again, the supreme and colourless abstraction of those divine +forms, which is the secret of their repose, is also a premonition of +the fleshless, consumptive refinements of the pale, medieval +artists. That high indifference to the outward, that impassivity, +has already a touch of the corpse in it: we see already Angelico +and the Master of the Passion in the artistic future. The +suppression of the sensuous, the shutting of the door upon it, the +ascetic interest, may be even now foreseen. Those abstracted +gods, "ready to melt out their essence fine into the winds," who +can fold up their flesh as a garment, and still remain themselves, +seem already to feel that bleak air, in which like Helen of Troy, +they wander as the spectres of the middle age. + +Gradually, as the world came into the church, an artistic interest, +native in the human soul, reasserted its claims. But Christian art +was still dependent on pagan examples, building the [225] shafts +of pagan temples into its churches, perpetuating the form of the +basilica, in later times working the disused amphitheatres as +stone quarries. The sensuous expression of ideas which +unreservedly discredit the world of sense, was the delicate +problem which Christian art had before it. If we think of +medieval painting, as it ranges from the early German schools, +still with something of the air of the charnel-house about them, to +the clear loveliness of Perugino, we shall see how that problem +was solved. In the very "worship of sorrow" the native blitheness +of art asserted itself. The religious spirit, as Hegel says, "smiled +through its tears." So perfectly did the young Raphael infuse that +Heiterkeit, that pagan blitheness, into religious works, that his +picture of Saint Agatha at Bologna became to Goethe a step in +the evolution of Iphigenie.* But in proportion as the gift of +smiling was found once more, there came also an aspiration +towards that lost antique art, some relics of which Christian art +had buried in itself, ready to work wonders when their day came. + +The history of art has suffered as much as any history by +trenchant and absolute divisions. Pagan and Christian art are +sometimes harshly opposed, and the Renaissance is represented +as a fashion which set in at a definite period. That is the +superficial view: the deeper view is that which preserves the +identity of European culture. [226] The two are really continuous; +and there is a sense in which it may be said that the Renaissance +was an uninterrupted effort of the middle age, that it was ever +taking place. When the actual relics of the antique were restored +to the world, in the view of the Christian ascetic it was as if an +ancient plague-pit had been opened. All the world took the +contagion of the life of nature and of the senses. And now it was +seen that the medieval spirit too had done something for the new +fortunes of the antique. By hastening the decline of art, by +withdrawing interest from it and yet keeping unbroken the thread +of its traditions, it had suffered the human mind to repose itself, +that when day came it might awake, with eyes refreshed, to those +ancient, ideal forms. + +The aim of a right criticism is to place Winckelmann in an +intellectual perspective, of which Goethe is the foreground. For, +after all, he is infinitely less than Goethe; and it is chiefly because +at certain points he comes in contact with Goethe, that criticism +entertains consideration of him. His relation to modern culture is +a peculiar one. He is not of the modern world; nor is he wholly +of the eighteenth century, although so much of his outer life is +characteristic of it. But that note of revolt against the eighteenth +century, which we detect in Goethe, was struck by Winckelmann. +Goethe illustrates a union of the Romantic spirit, in its adventure, +its variety, its profound subjectivity of soul, with Hellenism, +[227] in its transparency, its rationality, its desire of beauty--that +marriage of Faust and Helena, of which the art of the nineteenth +century is the child, the beautiful lad Euphorion, as Goethe +conceives him, on the crags, in the "splendour of battle and in +harness as for victory," his brows bound with light.* Goethe +illustrates, too, the preponderance in this marriage of the Hellenic +element; and that element, in its true essence, was made known to +him by Winckelmann. + +Breadth, centrality, with blitheness and repose, are the marks of +Hellenic culture. Is such culture a lost art? The local, accidental +colouring of its own age has passed from it; and the greatness that +is dead looks greater when every link with what is slight and +vulgar has been severed. We can only see it at all in the +reflected, refined light which a great education creates for us. +Can we bring down that ideal into the gaudy, perplexed light of +modern life? + +Certainly, for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, +its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, with many +preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of +unity with ourselves, in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it +was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, +not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality. +It is this which Winckelmann imprints on the imagination of +[228] Goethe, at the beginning of life, in its original and simplest +form, as in a fragment of Greek art itself, stranded on that +littered, indeterminate shore of Germany in the eighteenth +century. In Winckelmann, this type comes to him, not as in a +book or a theory, but more importunately, because in a passionate +life, in a personality. For Goethe, possessing all modern +interests, ready to be lost in the perplexed currents of modern +thought, he defines, in clearest outline, the eternal problem of +culture--balance, unity with one's self, consummate Greek +modelling. + + It could no longer be solved, as in Phryne ascending naked out of +the water, by perfection of bodily form, or any joyful union with +the external world: the shadows had grown too long, the light too +solemn, for that. It could hardly be solved, as in Pericles or +Pheidias, by the direct exercise of any single talent: amid the +manifold claims of our modern intellectual life, that could only +have ended in a thin, one-sided growth. Goethe's Hellenism was +of another order, the Allgemeinheit and Heiterkeit, the +completeness and serenity, of a watchful, exigent intellectualism. +Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren, resolut zu leben:--is Goethe's +description of his own higher life; and what is meant by life in +the whole--im Ganzen? It means the life of one for whom, over +and over again, what was once precious has become indifferent. +Every one who aims at the life of culture is met by many forms of +it, arising out [229] of the intense, laborious, one-sided +development of some special talent. They are the brightest +enthusiasms the world has to show: and it is not their part to +weigh the claims which this or that alien form of genius makes +upon them. But the proper instinct of self-culture cares not so +much to reap all that those various forms of genius can give, as to +find in them its own strength. The demand of the intellect is to +feel itself alive. It must see into the laws, the operation, the +intellectual reward of every divided form of culture; but only that +it may measure the relation between itself and them. It struggles +with those forms till its secret is won from each, and then lets +each fall back into its place, in the supreme, artistic view of life. +With a kind of passionate coldness, such natures rejoice to be +away from and past their former selves, and above all, they are +jealous of that abandonment to one special gift which really +limits their capabilities. It would have been easy for Goethe, +with the gift of a sensuous nature, to let it overgrow him. It +comes easily and naturally, perhaps, to certain "other-worldly" +natures to be even as the Schöne Seele, that ideal of gentle +pietism, in Wilhelm Meister: but to the large vision of Goethe, +this seemed to be a phase of life that a man might feel all round, +and leave behind him. Again, it is easy to indulge the +commonplace metaphysical instinct. But a taste for metaphysics +may be one of those things which we must renounce, if we [230] +mean to mould our lives to artistic perfection. Philosophy serves +culture, not by the fancied gift of absolute or transcendental +knowledge, but by suggesting questions which help one to detect +the passion, and strangeness, and dramatic contrasts of life. + +But Goethe's culture did not remain "behind the veil": it ever +emerged in the practical functions of art, in actual production. +For him the problem came to be:--Can the blitheness and +universality of the antique ideal be communicated to artistic +productions, which shall contain the fulness of the experience of +the modern world? We have seen that the development of the +various forms of art has corresponded to the development of the +thoughts of man concerning humanity, to the growing revelation +of the mind to itself. Sculpture corresponds to the unperplexed, +emphatic outlines of Hellenic humanism; painting to the mystic +depth and intricacy of the middle age; music and poetry have +their fortune in the modern world. + +Let us understand by poetry all literary production which attains +the power of giving pleasure by its form, as distinct from its +matter. Only in this varied literary form can art command that +width, variety, delicacy of resources, which will enable it to deal +with the conditions of modern life. What modern art has to do in +the service of culture is so to rearrange the details of modern life, +so to reflect it, that it may satisfy the spirit. [231] And what does +the spirit need in the face of modern life? The sense of freedom. +That naïve, rough sense of freedom, which supposes man's will +to be limited, if at all, only by a will stronger than his, he can +never have again. The attempt to represent it in art would have +so little verisimilitude that it would be flat and uninteresting. The +chief factor in the thoughts of the modern mind concerning itself +is the intricacy, the universality of natural law, even in the moral +order. For us, necessity is not, as of old, a sort of mythological +personage without us, with whom we can do warfare. It is rather +a magic web woven through and through us, like that magnetic +system of which modern science speaks, penetrating us with a +network, subtler than our subtlest nerves, yet bearing in it the +central forces of the world. Can art represent men and women in +these bewildering toils so as to give the spirit at least an +equivalent for the sense of freedom? Certainly, in Goethe's +romances, and even more in the romances of Victor Hugo, we +have high examples of modern art dealing thus with modern life, +regarding that life as the modern mind must regard it, yet +reflecting upon it blitheness and repose. Natural laws we shall +never modify, embarrass us as they may; but there is still +something in the nobler or less noble attitude with which we +watch their fatal combinations. In those romances of Goethe and +Victor Hugo, in some excellent work done after them, this [232] +entanglement, this network of law, becomes the tragic situation, +in which certain groups of noble men and women work out for +themselves a supreme Dénouement. Who, if he saw through all, +would fret against the chain of circumstance which endows one at +the end with those great experiences? + +1867. + + +NOTES + +189. +Liddell and Scott definition: "late in learning, late to learn." + +190. *Words of Charlotte Corday before the Convention. + +191. +Pindar, Odes Book O., poem 10, line 99. E-text editor's +translation: "beautiful in appearance, and blended with the fresh +spring of youth..." + +194. + +Transliteration: philosophêsas pote met' erôtos. Translation: +"Seeking knowledge alongside love." + +209. +Symposium, Chapter 4, section 11, line 3. E.C. Marchant, +Xenophontis opera omnia, vol. 2, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon +Press, 1921 (repr. 1971). + +225. *Italiänische Reise. Bologna, 19 Oct. 1776. + +227. *Faust, Th. ii. Act. 3. + + + +CONCLUSION* + +Legei pou Hêrakleitos hoti panta chorei kai ouden menei.+ + +[233] TO regard all things and principles of things as inconstant +modes or fashions has more and more become the tendency of modern +thought. Let us begin with that which is without--our physical +life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisite intervals, the +moment, for instance, of delicious recoil from the flood of water +in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment +but a combination of natural elements to which science gives +their names? But those elements, phosphorus and lime and +delicate fibres, are present not in the human body alone: we +detect them in places most remote from it. Our physical life is a +perpetual motion of them--the passage of the blood, the waste +and repairing of the lenses of the eye, [234] the modification of +the tissues of the brain under every ray of light and sound-- +processes which science reduces to simpler and more elementary +forces. Like the elements of which we are composed, the action +of these forces extends beyond us: it rusts iron and ripens corn. +Far out on every side of us those elements are broadcast, driven +in many currents; and birth and gesture and death and the +springing of violets from the grave are but a few out of ten +thousand resultant combinations. That clear, perpetual outline of +face and limb is but an image of ours, under which we group +them--a design in a web, the actual threads of which pass out +beyond it. This at least of flamelike our life has, that it is but the +concurrence, renewed from moment to moment, of forces parting +sooner or later on their ways. + +Or if we begin with the inward world of thought and feeling, the +whirlpool is still more rapid, the flame more eager and devouring. +There it is no longer the gradual darkening of the eye, the gradual +fading of colour from the wall--movements of the shore-side, +where the water flows down indeed, though in apparent rest--but +the race of the mid-stream, a drift of momentary acts of sight and +passion and thought. At first sight experience seems to bury us +under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp +and importunate reality, calling us out of ourselves in a thousand +forms of action. But when [235] reflexion begins to play upon +these objects they are dissipated under its influence; the cohesive +force seems suspended like some trick of magic; each object is +loosed into a group of impressions--colour, odour, texture--in the +mind of the observer. And if we continue to dwell in thought on +this world, not of objects in the solidity with which language +invests them, but of impressions, unstable, flickering, +inconsistent, which burn and are extinguished with our +consciousness of them, it contracts still further: the whole scope +of observation is dwarfed into the narrow chamber of the +individual mind. Experience, already reduced to a group of +impressions, is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall +of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its +way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be +without. Every one of those impressions is the impression of the +individual in his isolation, each mind keeping as a solitary +prisoner its own dream of a world. Analysis goes a step farther +still, and assures us that those impressions of the individual mind +to which, for each one of us, experience dwindles down, are in +perpetual flight; that each of them is limited by time, and that as +time is infinitely divisible, each of them is infinitely divisible +also; all that is actual in it being a single moment, gone while we +try to apprehend it, of which it may ever be more truly said that it +has ceased to be than that it is. [236] To such a tremulous wisp +constantly re-forming itself on the stream, to a single sharp +impression, with a sense in it, a relic more or less fleeting, of +such moments gone by, what is real in our life fines itself down. +It is with this movement, with the passage and dissolution of +impressions, images, sensations, that analysis leaves off--that +continual vanishing away, that strange, perpetual weaving and +unweaving of ourselves. + +Philosophiren, says Novalis, ist dephlegmatisiren, vivificiren.+ +The service of philosophy, of speculative culture, towards the +human spirit, is to rouse, to startle it to a life of constant and +eager observation. Every moment some form grows perfect in +hand or face; some tone on the hills or the sea is choicer than the +rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is +irresistibly real and attractive to us,--for that moment only. Not +the fruit of experience, but experience itself, is the end. A +counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, +dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to seen in them +by the finest senses? How shall we pass most swiftly from point +to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest +number of vital forces unite in their purest energy? + +To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this +ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that +our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a +[237] stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of +the eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem +alike. While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any +exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by +a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring +of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, +or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend. Not to +discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those +about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic +dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and +sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of +our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into +one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time +to make theories about the things we see and touch. What we +have to do is to be for ever curiously testing new opinions and +courting new impressions, never acquiescing in a facile +orthodoxy of Comte, or of Hegel, or of our own. Philosophical +theories or ideas, as points of view, instruments of criticism, may +help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unregarded by us. +"Philosophy is the microscope of thought." The theory or idea or +system which requires of us the sacrifice of any part of this +experience, in consideration of some interest into which we +cannot enter, or some abstract theory we have not identified with +ourselves, [238] or of what is only conventional, has no real +claim upon us. + +One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the +sixth book of the Confessions, where he describes the awakening +in him of the literary sense. An undefinable taint of death had +clung always about him, and now in early manhood he believed +himself smitten by mortal disease. He asked himself how he +might make as much as possible of the interval that remained; +and he was not biassed by anything in his previous life when he +decided that it must be by intellectual excitement, which he found +just then in the clear, fresh writings of Voltaire. Well! we are all +condamnés, as Victor Hugo says: we are all under sentence of +death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve--les hommes sont tous +condamnés à mort avec des sursis indéfinis: we have an interval, +and then our place knows us no more. Some spend this interval +in listlessness, some in high passions, the wisest, at least among +"the children of this world," in art and song. For our one chance +lies in expanding that interval, in getting as many pulsations as +possible into the given time. Great passions may give us this +quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various +forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which +come naturally to many of us. Only be sure it is passion--that it +does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied +consciousness. [239] Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the +desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. For +art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the +highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for +those moments' sake. + +1868. + + +NOTES + +233. *This brief "Conclusion" was omitted in the second edition +of this book, as I conceived it might possibly mislead some of +those young men into whose hands it might fall. On the whole, I +have thought it best to reprint it here, with some slight changes +which bring it closer to my original meaning. I have dealt more +fully in Marius the Epicurean with the thoughts suggested by it. + +233. +Pater's translation: "[Herakleitos says somewhere that] All things +give way; nothing remains." Plato, Cratylus 402 A, as noted in +The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, eds. Lionel Trilling +and Harold Bloom. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973. + +236. +Following William Buckler's emendation in Walter Pater: +Three Major Texts (New York: New York UP, 1986), I have +corrected dephlegmatisiren vivificiren to dephlegmatisiren, +vivificiren. + +THE END + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Renaissance, by Walter Pater + diff --git a/4060-8.zip b/4060-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c999388 --- /dev/null +++ b/4060-8.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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