Part 9 (2/2)

154 It is rarely that we can point to an opposition between faultful, because insolent, ignorance, and virtuous, because gracious, knowledge, so direct, and in so parallel eleeneral, the analysis is much more complex It is intensely difficult to indicate the norance, calamitous only in a measure; fruitful in its lower field, yet sorrowfully condemned to that lower field--not by sin, but fate

When first I introduced you to Bewick, we closed our too partial estinificent poith one sorrowful concession--he could draw a pig, but not a Venus

Eminently he could so, because--which is stillbest I have put now in your educational series a whole galaxy of pigs by hih, I find only one Venus, and I think you will all admit that she is an unsatisfactory Venus[AL] There is honest si that you find in Holbein, much more in Botticelli You see in aof Sphinxes, or Muses, or Graces, or Aphrodites; and, besides, that, knowing nothing, he would have no liking for them even if he saw thelish housekeeper with corkscrew curls, and a portly person

155 You , I said, in Behich you find in Holbein

But do you suppose Holbein himself, or any other Northern painter, could wholly quit himself of the like accusations? I told you, in the second of these lectures, that the Northern teeness, and the Southern, redeemed from decay, met, in Florence Holbein and Botticelli are the purest types of the two races Holbein is a civilized boor; Botticelli a reanimate Greek Holbein was polished by cos, but re in essential nature Bewick and he are alike in teht But Botticelli _needs_ no teaching He is, by his birth, scholar and gentleman to the heart's core Christianity itself can only inspire hiold chased by the jeweler,--the roughest part of him is the outside

No differentlytell upon these two n to his nature, useless at the best, probably cumbrous But Botticelli receives it as a child in later years recovers the forgotten dearness of a nursery tale; and is ain himself, as he breathes the air of Greece, and hears, in his own Italy, the lost voice of the Sibyl ain by the Avernus Lake

156 It is not, as we have seen, every one of the Southern race who can thus receive it But it graces the; destroys them, if it is to destroy, the more utterly because it so enters into their natures It destroys Raphael; but it graces hina; but it graces him

And it does not hurt Holbein, just because it does _not_ grace him--never is for an instant a part of hiirl who has a new and beautifully ht to her, which entirely beco else, she becomes _it_; and is only the decoration of her dress But with Holbein it is as if you brought the sa to dine at the Hall; and begged her to put it on that she ht not discredit the company She puts it on to please you; looks entirely ridiculous in it, but is not spoiled by it,--remains herself, in spite of it

157 You probably have never noticed the extre this new dress; you would the less do so because his own people think him all the finer for it, as the farhter Dr Woltmann, for instance, is enthusiastic in praise of the splendid architecture in the background of his Annunciation A fine mess it must have made in the in at home! I cannot show you this Annunciation; but I have under my hand one of Holbein's Bible cuts, of the deepest seriousness and i the Church as the bride of Christ

[Illustration]

You could not find a subject requiring nity of treat the Church, you ask for the elic beauty: ”Behold, thou art fair, my dove” Now here is Holbein's ideal of that fairness; here is his ”Church as the Bride”

I aure in your es it is supposed to illustrate; but the lesson is too important to be omitted Remember, Holbein represents the temper of Northern Reformation He has all the nobleness of that temper, but also all its baseness He represents, indeed, the revolt of Gerainst Italian lies; but he represents also the revolt of Gerure of Holbein's is half-way fro on his knee while he drinks

But the key of the question is not in this Florentine anih to say for itself But Florentine anientleman, not of a churl And a Florentine, whatever he does,--be it virtuous or sinful, chaste or lascivious, severe or extravagant,--does it with a grace

158 You think, perhaps, that Holbein's Soloraceful chiefly because she is overdressed, and has too many feathers and jewels No; a Florentine would have put any quantity of feathers and jewels on her, and yet never lost her grace You shall see hiree, for I have an example under my hand

Look back, first, to Bewick's Venus (Lecture III) You can't accuse her of being overdressed She complies with every received modern principle of taste Sir Joshua's precept that drapery should be ”drapery, and nothing more,” is observed elo If the absence of decoration could exalt the beauty of his Venus, here had been her perfection

Now look back to Plate II (Lecture IV), by Sandro; Venus in her planet, the ruling star of Florence Anything rotesque in conception, more unrestrained in fancy of ornament, you cannot find, even in the final days of the Renaissance Yet Venus holds her divinity through all; she will becoaze; and there is not a line of her chariot wheels, of her buskins, or of her throne, which you entleman

[Illustration: V

”Heat considered as a Mode of Motion”

Florentine Natural Philosophy]

159 Again, Plate V, opposite, is a facsi of the saant in accessories than the Venus You see the Sun's epaulets before you see the sun; the spiral scrolls of his chariot, and the black twisted rays of it, n for some modern court-dress star, to be made in diamonds And yet all this wild ornamentation is, if you will examine it, more purely Greek in spirit than the Apollo Belvedere

You know I have told you, again and again, that the soul of Greece is her veracity; that what to other nations were fables and sy Gods The fall of Greece was instant when her Gods again became fables The Apollo Belvedere is the work of a sculptor to whoant idea on which to exhibit his own skill He does not himself feel for an instant that the handso over his left ar to dry over a clothes-line, is the Power of the Sun But the Florentine believes in Apollo with his whole th in every touch

For instance; I said just now, ”You see the sun's epaulets before the sun” Well, _don't_ you, usually, as it rises? Do you not continually mistake a luminous cloud for it, or wonder where it is, behind one?

Again, the face of the Apollo Belvedere is agitated by anxiety, passion, and pride Is the sun's likely to be so, rising on the evil and the good? This Prince sits crowned and cal the scepter,--at the restraint of the reins merely by a depression of the wrist