Minor Writings Upon Art - Art Schools Of Mediaeval Christendom

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_ ART SCHOOLS OF MEDIAEVAL CHRISTENDOM. 1876 [17]

A PREFACE.

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

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

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

OXFORD, _November 27, 1875._

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(9) P. 136. "_S. Donato's shrine_" (by Giovanni Picano) "_in Arezzo Cathedral is one of the finest monuments of the Pisan school._" "No. He tried to be too fine, and overdid it. The work is merely accumulated commonplace."

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 17: Preface to the above-named book by Miss A. C. Owen, edited by Mr. Ruskin. London: Mozley & Smith, 1876.--ED.]

[Footnote 18: _The Monthly Packet._--ED.] _

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