On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - Ruskin John

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Byzantine painters,—idealizing them when the personages represented were of higher mark and dignity, but in none ever outstepping truth. Advancing in his career, we find year by year the fruits of continuous unwearied study in a consistent and equable contemporary improvement in all the various minuter though most important departments of his art, in his design, his drapery, his coloring, in the dignity and expression of his men and in the grace of his women—asperities softened down, little graces unexpectedly born and playing about his path, as if to make amends for the deformity of his actual offspring—touches, daily more numerous, of that nature which makes the world akin—and ever and always a keen yet cheerful sympathy with life, a playful humor mingling with his graver lessons, which affects us the more as coming from one who, knowing himself an object personally of disgust and ridicule, could yet satirize with a smile.

      "Finally, throughout his works, we are conscious of an earnest, a lofty, a religious aim and purpose, as of one who felt himself a pioneer of civilization in a newly-discovered world, the Adam of a new Eden freshly planted in the earth's wilderness, a mouthpiece of God and a preacher of righteousness to mankind.—And here we must establish a distinction very necessary to be recognized before we can duly appreciate the relative merits of the elder painters in this, the most important point in which we can view their character. Giotto's genius, however universal, was still (as I have repeatedly observed) Dramatic rather than Contemplative,—a tendency in which his scholars and successors almost to a man resembled him. Now, just as in actual life—where, with a few rare exceptions, all men rank under two great categories according as Imagination or Reason predominates in their intellectual character—two individuals may be equally impressed with the truths of Christianity and yet differ essentially in its outward manifestation, the one dwelling in action, the other in contemplation, the one in strife, the other in peace, the one (so to speak) in hate, the other in love, the one struggling with devils, the other communing with angels, yet each serving as a channel of God's mercies to man, each (we may believe) offering Him service equally acceptable in His sight—even so shall we find it in art and with artists; few in whom the Dramatic power predominates will be found to excel in the expression of religious emotions of the more abstract and enthusiastic cast, even although men of indisputably pure and holy character themselves; and vice versâ, few of the more Contemplative but will feel bewildered and at fault, if they descend from their starry region of light into the grosser atmosphere that girdles in this world of action. The works of artists are their minds' mirror; they cannot express what they do not feel; each class dwells apart and seeks its ideal in a distinct sphere of emotion,—their object is different, and their success proportioned to the exclusiveness with which they pursue that object. A few indeed there have been in all ages, monarchs of the mind and types of our Saviour, who have lived a twofold existence of action and contemplation in art, in song, in politics, and in daily life; of these have been Abraham, Moses, David, and Cyrus in the elder world—Alfred, Charlemagne, Dante, and perhaps Shakespeare, in the new,—and in art, Niccola Pisano, Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo. But Giotto, however great as the patriarch of his peculiar tribe, was not of these few, and we ought not therefore to misapprehend him, or be disappointed at finding his Madonnas (for instance) less exquisitely spiritual than the Sienese, or those of Fra Angelico and some later painters, who seem to have dipped their pencils in the rainbow that circles the throne of God,—they are pure and modest, but that is all; on the other hand, where his Contemplative rivals lack utterance, he speaks most feelingly to the heart in his own peculiar language of Dramatic composition—he glances over creation with the eye of love, all the charities of life follow in his steps, and his thoughts are as the breath of the morning. A man of the world, living in it and loving it, yet with a heart that it could not spoil nor wean from its allegiance to God—'non meno buon Cristiano che eccellente pittore,' as Vasari emphatically describes him—his religion breathes of the free air of heaven rather than the cloister, neither enthusiastic nor superstitious, but practical, manly and healthy—and this, although the picturesque biographer of S. Francis!"—Vol. ii., pp. 260-264.

      68. This is all as admirably felt as expressed, and to those acquainted with and accustomed to love the works of the painter, it leaves nothing to be asked for; but we must again remind Lord Lindsay, that he has throughout left the artistical orbit of Giotto undefined, and the offense of his manner unremoved, as far as regards the uninitiated spectator. We question whether from all that he has written, the untraveled reader could form any distinct idea of the painter's peculiar merits or methods, or that the estimate, if formed, might not afterwards expose him to severe disappointment. It ought especially to have been stated, that the Giottesque system of chiaroscuro is one of pure, quiet, pervading daylight. No cast shadows ever occur, and this remains a marked characteristic of all the works of the Giotteschi. Of course, all subtleties of reflected light or raised color are unthought of. Shade is only given as far as it is necessary to the articulation of simple forms, nor even then is it rightly adapted to the color of the light; the folds of the draperies are well drawn, but the entire rounding of them always missed—the general forms appearing flat, and terminated by equal and severe outlines, while the masses of ungradated color often seem to divide the figure into fragments. Thus, the Madonna in the small tempera series of the Academy of Florence, is usually divided exactly in half by the dark mass of her blue robe, falling in a vertical line. In consequence of this defect, the grace of Giotto's composition can hardly be felt until it is put into outline. The colors themselves are of good quality, never glaring, always gladdening, the reds inclining to orange more than purple, yellow frequent, the prevalent tone of the color groups warm; the sky always blue, the whole effect somewhat resembling that of the Northern painted glass of the same century—and chastened in the same manner by noble neutral tints or greens; yet all somewhat unconsidered and unsystematic, painful discords not unfrequent. The material and ornaments of dress are never particularized, no imitations of texture or jewelry, yet shot stuffs of two colors frequent. The drawing often powerful, though of course uninformed; the mastery of mental expression by bodily motion, and of bodily motion, past and future, by a single gesture, altogether unrivaled even by Raffaelle;—it is obtained chiefly by throwing the emphasis always on the right line, admitting straight lines of great severity, and never dividing the main drift of the drapery by inferior folds; neither are accidents allowed to interfere—the garments fall heavily and in marked angles—nor are they affected by the wind, except under circumstances of very rapid motion. The ideal of the face is often solemn—seldom beautiful; occasionally ludicrous failures occur: in the smallest designs the face is very often a dead letter, or worse: and in all, Giotto's handling is generally to be distinguished from that of any of his followers by its bluntness. In the school work we find sweeter types of feature, greater finish, stricter care, more delicate outline, fewer errors, but on the whole less life.

      69. Finally, and on this we would especially insist, Giotto's genius is not to be considered as struggling with difficulty and repressed by ignorance, but as appointed, for the good of men, to come into the world exactly at the time when its rapidity of invention was not likely to be hampered by demands for imitative dexterity or neatness of finish; and when, owing to the very ignorance which has been unwisely regretted, the simplicity of his thoughts might be uttered with a childlike and innocent sweetness, never to be recovered in times of prouder knowledge. The dramatic power of his works, rightly understood, could receive no addition from artificial arrangement of shade, or scientific exhibition of anatomy, and we have reason to be deeply grateful when afterwards "inland far" with Buonaroti and Titian, that we can look back to the Giotteschi—to see those children

      "Sport upon the shore

      And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."

      We believe Giotto himself felt this—unquestionably he could have carried many of his works much farther in finish, had he so willed it; but he chose rather to multiply motives than to complete details. Thus we recur to our great principle of Separate gift. The man who spends his life in toning colors must leave the treasures of his invention untold—let each have his perfect work; and while we thank Bellini and Leonardo for their deeply wrought dyes, and life-labored utterance of passionate thought; let us remember also what cause, but for the remorseless destruction of myriads of his works, we should have had to thank Giotto, in that, abandoning all proud effort, he chose rather to make the stones of Italy cry out with one voice of pauseless praise, and to fill with perpetual remembrance of the Saints he loved, and

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