Part 13 (2/2)

[Illustration: VIII

The Nymph beloved of Apollo

(MICHAEL ANGELO)]

217 Now you do not, I aelo's sibyls from another: unless perhaps the Delphian, whom of course he makes as beautiful as he can But of this especially Italian prophetess, one would have thought he ht, at least in some way, have shown that he knew the history, even if he did not understand it She ht have had ht have had a stray leaf or two fallen at her feet He could not indeed have painted her only as a voice; but his anato her virginal youth, or her wasting and watching age, or her inspired hope of a holier future

218 Opposite,--fortunately, photograph froeration,--is Michael Angelo's curotesque and ure of this Sibyl, of all others in the chapel, theto thethe nipples of the breast as if the dress were molded over them like plaster Thus he paints the poor nymph beloved of Apollo,--the clearest and queenliest in prophecy and coly crone, with the arle book

219 There is one point of fine detail, however, in Botticelli's cu to show you, to explain which I o back for a little while to the question of the direct relation of the Italian painters to the Greek I don't like repeating in one lecture what I have said in another; but to save you the trouble of reference, must remind you of what I stated inthe adoption of the plunifies command; but the diadem, _obedience_; and that every crown is pri that binds, before it is the thing that honors

Now all the great schools dwell on this sy hair is the sy it Royalty, or kingliness, over life, restraining and glorifying In the extremity of restraint--in death, whether noble, as of death to Earth, or ignoble, as of death to Heaven, the [Greek: diadema] is fastened with the rave-clothes, and the face bound about with the napkin”

220 Now look back to the first Greek head I ever showed you, used as the type of archaic sculpture in Aratra Pentelici, and then look at the crown in Botticelli's Astrologia It is absolutely the Greek form,--even to the peculiar oval of the forehead; while the diade law--is set with appointed stars--to rule the destiny and thought Then return to the cu life--almost immortal The diadem is withdrawn from the forehead--reduced to a narrow fillet--here, and the hair thrown free

[Illustration: IX

In the woods of Ida]

221 From the cumaean Sibyl's diadem, traced only by points, turn to that of the hellespontic, (Plate 9, opposite) I do not knohy Botticelli chose her for the spirit of prophecy in old age; but he hasplate of the series in the definiteness of its connection with the work froe The fantastic yet solenarled wood occurs, as far as I know, in no other engravings but this, and the illustrations to Dante; and I am content to leave it, with little co the exuberance of iination which other men at this time in Italy allowed to waste itself in idle arabesque, restrained by Botticelli to histhe withered tree-trunks, hewn for the rude throne of the aged prophetess, the sa spirit which the rose has with youth, or the laurel with victory Also in its weird characters, you have the best exan which are especially expressible by engraving, and which belong to a group of art instincts scarcely now to be understood, much less recovered, (the influence ofto be conquered)--the instincts, naeh which the grace of order n, connected riting, in the Middle Ages seems as if it were a sensible symbol, to the eye and brain, of the s of crooked with straight, and perverse with progressive, which constitute the great problem of human morals and fate; and when I chose the title for the collected series of these lectures, I hoped to have justified it by careful analysis of the methods of labyrinthine ornainning, in imitation of physical truth, with the spiral waves of the waters of Babylon as the assyrian carved theled in their returns the eyes of men, on Greek vase and Christianround the last luxury of Venice and Rome

But the labyrinth of life itself, and its more and more interwoven occupation, become too manifold, and too difficult for me; and of the time wasted in the blind lanes of it, perhaps that spent in analysis or recommendation of the art to which men's present conduct makes them insensible, has been chiefly cast away On the walls of the little roos an old silken sa the domestic life of Abraham: chiefly the stories of Isaac and Ish, with folded arar: above, in a wilderness full of fruit trees, birds, and butterflies, little Ish at the root of a tree, and the spent bottle under another; Hagar in prayer, and the angel appearing to her out of a wreathed line of gloo clouds, which, with a dark-rayed sun in the midst, surmount the entire composition in two arches, out of which descend shafts of (I suppose) beneficent rain; leaving, however, rooel, for Isaac's, who stays Abraham in the sacrifice; the ram in the thicket, the squirrel in the plurapes, pears, apples, roses, and daisies of the foreground, being all wrought with involution of such ingenious needlework as may well rank, in the patience, the natural skill, and the innocent pleasure of it, with the truest works of Florentine engraving

Nay; the actual tradition of many of the forms of ancient art is in many places evident,--as, for instance, in the spiral summits of the flaroup of first-springing fern On the wall opposite is a s Justice with her balance and sword, standing between the sun and e, and corn-cockle: a third is only a cluster of tulips and iris, with two Byzantine peacocks; but the spirits of Penelope and Ariadne reign vivid in all the work--and the richness of pleasurable fancy is as great still, in these silken labors, as in the olden roof of the cathedral of Monreale

But what is the use of explaining or analyzing it? Such work as this means the patience and si _us_ at least, no more Gothic tracery itself, another of the instinctive labyrinthine intricacies of old, though analyzed to its last section, has become now the symbol only of a foolish ecclesiastical sect, retained for their shi+bboleth, joyless and powerless for all good The very labyrinth of the grass and flowers of our fields, though dissected to its last leaf, is yet bitten bare, or trampled to slime, by the Minotaur of our lust; and for the traceried spire of the poplar by the brook, we possess but the four-square furnace tower, to le its smoke with heaven's thunder-clouds[BE]

We will look yet at one saraved work, done in the happy tiay,--Botticelli's Libyan Sibyl

Glance back first to the hellespontic, noting the close fillet, and the cloth bound below the face, and then you will be prepared to understand the last I shall show you, and the loveliest of the southern Pythonesses

[Illustration: X

Grass of the Desert]

222 A less deep thinker than Botticelli would have made her parched with thirst, and burnt with heat But the voice of God, through nature, to the Arab or the Moor, is not in the thirst, but in the fountain--not in the desert, but in the grass of it And this Libyan Sibyl is the spirit of wild grass and flowers, springing in desolate places

You see, her diadem is a wreath of theh for her hair, though it is not long yet--(she is only in reality a Florentine girl of fourteen or fifteen)--so the little darling knots it under her ears, and thenhair and flowers are wild and pretty, Botticelli had not, in these only, got the power of Spring ht wear flowers; but few, for ornarass So the Sibyl shall have grass in her diade You thought it ugly and grotesque at first, did not you? It was made so, because precisely what Botticelli wanted you to look at

But that's not all This conical cap of hers, with one bead at the top,--considering how fond the Florentines are of graceful head-dresses, this seeirl But, exactly as I know the angel of Victory to be Greek, at his Mount of Pity, so I know this head-dress to be taken from a Greek coin, and to be meant for a Greek sy over the dew

Lastly, ill the Libyan Sibyl say to you? The letters are large on her tablet Her e is the oracle from the temple of the Dew: ”The dew of thy birth is as the wo”--”Ecce venienteina”

223 Why the daybreak came not then, nor yet has come, but only a deeper darkness; and why there is now neither queen nor king of nations, but every o on, partly to tell you, and partly to meditate with you: but it is not our work for to-day The issue of the Reforan, we may follow, farther, in the study to which I propose to lead you, of the lives of Cimabue and Giotto, and the relation of their work at assisi to the chapel and chambers of the Vatican

224 To-day let raving What sudden bathos in the sentence, you think! So conteh not in literature? You study the 'style' of Homer; the style, perhaps, of Isaiah; the style of Horace, and of Massillon Is it so vain to study the style of Botticelli?