Part 10 (1/2)

160 You have to look carefully for those fingers holding the scepter, because the hand--which a great anato--is here confused with the ornamentation of the arm of the chariot on which it rests But look what the ornamentation is;--fruit and leaves, abundant, in the less ornament in ordinary renaissance work Is it so here, think you? Are not the leaves and fruits of earth in the Sun's hand?[AN]

You thought, perhaps, when I spoke just now of the action of the right hand, that less than a depression of the wrist would stop horses such as those You fancy Botticelli drew them so, because he had never seen a horse; or because, able to draw fingers, he could not draw hoofs! How fine it would be to have, instead, a prancing four-in-hand, in the style of Piccadilly on the Derby-day, or at least horses like the real Greek horses of the Parthenon!

Yes; and if they had had real ground to trot on, the Florentine would have shown you he kne they should trot But these have to make their way up the hill-side of other lands Look to the example in your standard series, Her clouds represented precisely in this laboring, failing, half-kneeling attitude of lih the rippled sands of heaven, are--not horses;--they are clouds themselves, _like_ horses, but only a little like Look how their hoofs lose themselves, buried in the ripples of cloud; it makes one think of the quicksands of Morecambe Bay

And their tails--what extraordinary tufts of tails, ending in points!

Yes; but do you not see, nearly joining with them, what is not a horse tail at all; but a flame of fire, kindled at Apollo's knee? All the rest of the radiance about him shoots _from_ him But this is rendered _up_ to him As the fruits of the earth are in one of his hands, its fire is in the other And all the warht of it, are his

We had a little natural philosophy, gentley, in Florence, once upon a time

161 Natural philosophy, and also natural art, for in this the Greek reanimate was a nobler creature than the Greek who had died His art had a wider force and waruished from the barbarians by their simple humanity; the second Greeks--these Florentine Greeks reani from the Byzantine death at the call of Christ, ”Loose hio” And there is upon therave

[Illustration: VI

Fairness of the Sea and Air

In VENICE and ATHENS]

162 Of this resurrection of the Greek, and the form of the toive you some account in the last lecture I will only to-day show you an illustration of it which brings us back to our immediate question as to the reasons why Northern art could not accept classicis lecture of ”Aratra Pentelici,”[AO] I compared Florentine with Greek work, it was to point out to you the eager passions of the first as opposed to the foralism and proprieties of the other Greek work, I told you, while truthful, was also restrained, and never but under majesty of lahile Gothic as true, in the perfect law of Liberty or Franchise And now I give you in facsimile (Plate VI) the two Aphrodites thus compared--the Aphrodite Thalassia of the Tyrrhene seas, and the Aphrodite Urania of the Greek skies You may not at first like the Tuscan best; and why she is the best, though both are noble, again Ito next lecture But now turn back to Bewick's Venus, and compare her with the Tuscan Venus of the Stars, (Plate II); and then here, in Plate VI, with the Tuscan Venus of the Seas, and the Greek Venus of the Sky Why is the English one vulgar? What is it, in the three others, which makes them, if not beautiful, at least refined?--every one of theentleman?

I never have been so puzzled by any subject of analysis as, for these ten years, I have been by this Every answer I give, however plausible it seems at first, fails in some way, or in some cases But there is the point for you, more definitely put, I think, than in any of my former books;--at present, for want of tihts

163 II The second influence under which engraving developed itself, I said, was that of medicine and the physical sciences Gentlemen, the most audacious, and the most valuable, statement which I have yet made to you on the subject of practical art, in these roo from the study of anatomy It is a statement so audacious, that not only for some time I dared not make it to you, but for ten years, at least, I dared not make it to myself I saw, indeed, that whoever studied anato the mischief to secondary causes It _can't_ be this drink itself that poisons the: I see that it kills them, but it must be because they drink it cold when they have been hot, or they take soes it into poison The drink itself _entlemen, I found out the drink itself to be poison at last, by the breaking of lass I could not make out what it was that had killed Tintoret, and laid it long to the charge of chiaroscuro

It was only after ave up this idea, finding the chiaroscuro, which I had thought exaggerated, was, in all original and undarkened passages, beautiful and ot hold of the true clue: ”Il disegno di Michel Agnolo” And the ; and I saw that the betraying deelo, had been, not pleasure, but knowledge; not indolence, but ambition; and not love, but horror

164 But when first I ventured to tell you this, I did not know, myself, the fact of all most conclusive for its confirmation It will take me a little while to put it before you in its total force, and I must first ask your attention to a minor point In one of the s of St Margaret and St Elizabeth of Hungary,--standard of his early religious work Here is a photograph froraph of it I consider it one of the ed for you, showing you at a glance the difference between true and false sentienerally, we cannot speak to-day, but one special result of it you are to observe;--the o representation of disease, which is one of the vital honors of the picture Quite one of the chief strengths of St Elizabeth, in the Ro with disease, chiefly leprosy Now observe, I say _Roman_ Catholic view, very earnestly just now; I am not at all sure that it is so in a Catholic view--that is to say, in an eternally Christian and Divine view And this doubt, very nearly now a certainty, only came clearly into my mind the other day after reat reverence all the beautiful stories about Christ's appearing as a leper, and the like; and had often pitied and rebuked myself alternately forat this rave of St Francis, and the story of the likeness of his feelings to mine had a little coain huravely of this, and of the parallel instance of Bishop Hugo of Lincoln, always desiring to do service to the dead, as opposed to ated and Louis-Quinze-like horror of funerals;--when by chance, in the cathedral of Palerht was thrown forthe to froeneral, quite an unusual degree of quiet and comfort at my work But sometimes it was paralyzed by the unconscious interference of one of the men employed in someto do, he used to co, not to look at my work, (the poor wretch had no eyes, to speak of,) nor in any wayto be troublesome; but there was his habitual seat His nose had been carried off by the most loathsome of diseases; there were two vivid circles of scarlet round his eyes; and as he sat, he announced his presence every quarter of a otten it) by a peculiarly disgusting, loud, and long expectoration On the second or third day, just I had forced etfulness of hiain by the bursting out of a loud and cheerful conversation close toof a priest, seventeen or eighteen years old, in the er and spirited chat with the hed, and spat, himself, companionably, in the merriest way, for a quarter of an hour; evidently without feeling the slightest disgust, or being made serious for an instant, by the aspect of the destroyed creature before him

166 His own face was si Italians, rather beneath than above the usual standard; and I was certain, as I watched him, that he was not at all my superior, but very much my inferior, in the coolness hich he beheld as to me so dreadful I was positive that he could look this man in the face, precisely because he could _not_ look, discerningly, at any beautiful or noble thing; and that the reason I dared not, was because I had, spiritually, as much better eyes than the priest, as, bodily, than his coiven me on the matter, it was driven home for me a week later, as I landed on the quay of Naples

Aln of a traveling theatrical co the principal scene of the drae Fresh from the theater of Taormina, I was curious to see the subject of the Neapolitan popular drama It was the capture, by the police, of achildren One section of the police was coe; another section of the police, arh feathers in its caps, was coh a trap-door In fine dramatic unconsciousness to the last moment, like the clown in a pantomime, the child-boiler was represented as still industriously chopping up a child, pieces of which, ready for the pot, lay here and there on the table in the middle of the picture

The child-boiler's wife, however, just as she was taking the top off the pot to put the lie as in consternation

167 Now it is precisely the sa, in the lower Italian (nor always in the lower classes only) which makes him demand the kind of subject for his secular draious drama The only part of Christianity he can enjoy is its horror; and even the saint and saintess are not always denying themselves severely, either by the contemplation of torture, or the companionshi+p with disease

Nevertheless, we must be cautious, on the other hand, to allow full value to the endurance, by tender and delicate persons, of what is really loathsome or distressful to them in the service of others; and I think this picture of Holbein's indicative of the exact balance and rightness of his own mind in this matter, and therefore of his power to conceive a true saint also He had to represent St Catherine's chief effort;--he paints herthe it thus his duty to paint leprosy, he courageously himself studies it from the life Not to insist on its horror; but to assert it, to the needful point of fact, which he does with medical accuracy

Now here is just a case in which science, in a subordinate degree, is really required for a spiritual and moral purpose And you find Holbein does not shrink from it even in this extreme case in which it is most painful

168 If, therefore, you _do_ find hi it, you may be sure he knew it to be unnecessary

Now itMadonna, one needs to kno many ribs she has; but it would have seemed indisputable that in order to draw a skeleton, one must kno htsraved Dance of Death is, principal of such things, without any comparison or denial He draws skeleton after skeleton, in every possible gesture; but never so much as counts their ribs! He neither knows nor cares how h to rattle