Part 2 (1/2)
”So they rushed into one another's arms, and kissed each other”
No, says Giotto,--not that
”They advanced to meet, in a manner conformable to the strictest laws of composition; and with their draperies cast into folds which no one until Raphael could have arranged better”
No, says Giotto,--not that
St Anne hasbackwards enough to tell you so ht St Joachim by his mantle, and draws him to her, softly, by that St Joachi she is like to faint, and holds her up They do not kiss each other--only look into each other's eyes And God's angel lays his hand on their heads
Behind theures, busied with their own affairs,--two of Joachi the wide Florentine cap with the falling point behind, which is exactly like the tube of a larkspur or violet; both carrying ga to each other about--Greasy Joan and her pot, or the like Not at all the sort of persons whoht in har to Racine or Voltaire
No, but according to Shakespeare, or Giotto, these are just the kind of persons likely to be there: as h you will be told nowadays that Giotto was absurd for putting _him_ into the sky, of which an apothecary can always produce the similar blue, in a bottle And now that you have had Shakespeare, and sundry otherthe track of this shepherd lad, _you_ can forgive hiiven the he had, this is the wonder! _We_ have seen sih in our day; and therefore we think that of course shepherd boys will sketch shepherds: onder is there in that?
I can show you how in _this_ shepherd boy it was very wonderful indeed, if you alk for five minutes back into the church with me, and up into the chapel at the end of the south transept,--at least if the day is bright, and you get the Sacristan to undraw the -curtain in the transept itself For then the light of it will be enough to show you the entirely authentic and h what schooling the lad had gone
A good and brave master he was, if ever boy had one; and, as you will find when you know really who the great men are, the master is half their life; and well they know it--always na themselves from their master, rather than their families See then what kind of work Giotto had been first put to There is, literally, not a square inch of all that panel--soht in gold and colour with the fineness of a Greek manuscript
There is not such an elaborate piece of orna's missal, as you will find in that Madonna's throne;--the Madonna herself is rave and noble only; and to be attended only by angels
And here is this saucy iold, and without thrones; nay, that the Golden Gate itself shall have no gilding that St Joachiel between them: and their servants shall have their joke, and nobody say them nay!
It is most wonderful; and would have been ireat in his oay Nor could I in any ofunderstand hoas, till I saw Cimabue's oork at assisi; in which he shows hiold as Giotto,--even h of none, perhaps, so keen or sweet But to this day, a all the Mater Dolorosas of Christianity, Cimabue's at assisi is the noblest; nor did any painter after hiht hich he summed the creation of the earth, and preached its redemption
He evidently never checked the boy, from the first day he found his he felt hientleman,--above all, a Christian,--yet left him--a shepherd And Heaven had ht, the words of his epitaph are in nowise overwrought: ”Ille ego sum, per quem pictura extincta revixit”
A word or two, now, about the repainting by which _this_ pictura extincta has been revived totaste The sky is entirely daubed over with fresh blue; yet it leaves with unusual care the original outline of the descending angel, and of the white clouds about his body This idea of the angel laying his hands on the two heads--(as a bishop at Confirether, like Arnold de Winkelied),--partly in blessing, partly as a syether to the saain: there is one beautiful little echo of it a the old pictures in the schools of Oxford This is the first occurrence of it that I know in pure Italian painting; but the idea is Etruscan-Greek, and is used by the Etruscan sculptors of the door of the Baptistery of Pisa, of the _evil_ angel, who ”lays the heads together”
of two very different persons frohter
Joachim, and the shepherd with the larkspur cap, are both quite safe; the other shepherd a little reinforced; the black bunches of grass, hanging about are retouches They were once bunches of plants draith perfect delicacy and care; you hest ridge of rock above the shepherds
The whole landscape is, however, quite undecipherably changed and spoiled
You will be apt to think at first, that if anything has been restored, surely the ugly shepherd's uglier feet have No, not at all Restored feet are always draith entirely orthodox and academical toes, like the Apollo Belvidere's You would have ad, every bit; and a precious business he has had of it, trying again and again--in vain Even hands were difficult enough to his! Well, he'll have a try, he thinks, and gets really a fair line at last, when you are close to it; but, laying the light on the ground afterwards, he dare not touch this precious and dear-bought outline Stops all round it, a quarter of an inch off, [Footnote: Perhaps it is only the restorer's white on the ground that stops; but I think a restorer would never have been so wise, but have gone right up to the outline, and spoiled all] with such effect as you see But if you want to knohat sort of legs and feet he _can_ draw, look at our _lambs_, in the corner of the fresco under the arch on your left!
And there is one on your right, thoughherself at the Te figure, kissing the he, is, as far as I rein, itself, of the n in all the others you knoell; (and with its steps, by the way, in better perspective already than inal one!” you will be inclined to exclaie of the subsequent art ”_This_ Giotto! why it's a cheap rechauffe of titian!” No, my friend The boy who tried so hard to draw those steps in perspective had been carried down others, to his grave, two hundred years before titian ran alone at Cadore But, as surely as Venice looks on the sea, titian looked upon this, and caught the reflected light of it forever
What kind of boy is this, think you, who can make titian his copyist,--Dante his friend? What neer is here which is to change the heart of Italy?--can you see it, feel it, writing before you these words on the faded wall?
”You shall see things--as they Are”
”And the least with the greatest, because God reatest with the least, because God ave you eyes and a heart”