Part 13 (1/1)

Over the door: 'I aht of the tower, you see, fearlessly, for the convenience of staircase ascent; all external syreat builders to interior use; and then, out of the rightly ordained infraction of formal law, comes perfect beauty; and when, as here, the Spirit of Heaven is working with the designer, his thoughts are suggested in truer order, by the concession to use After this sculpture comes the Christian arts,--those which necessarily imply the conviction of immortality Astronomy without Christianity only reaches as far as--'Thou hast s_ under His feet':--Christianity says beyond this,--'Know ye not that we shall judge angels (as also the lower creatures shall judge us!)' [Footnote: In the deep sense of this truth, which underlies all the bright fantasy and humour of Mr Courthope's ”Paradise of Birds,”

that rhyme of the risen spirit of Aristophanes may well be read under the tower of Giotto, beside his watch-dog of the fold] The series of sculptures now beginning, show the arts which _can_ only be accoh belief in Christ

20 _Geo ago in astrono of the Earth and all that is on it

Actually done only by Christian faith--first inspiration of the great Earth-measurers Your Prince Henry of Spain, your Coluht artistic invention and religious tenderness which are so peculiarly the gifts of the nineteenth century, we have just provided a fence for, of old cannon open-ht up towards Heaven--yourthe only appeal to Heaven of which the nineteenth century has left itself capable--'The voice of thy Brother's blood crieth to ape, but sonorous in the ears of angels with that appeal)--first inspiration, I say, of these; constant inspiration of all who set true land their , I observe, lately in his oith the Geometry of Yorkshi+re, where the landed proprietors, [Footnote: I ainst any class; probably the one-fielded statesrass than the squire for his bite and sup out of the gypsy's part of the roadside But it is notable enough to the passing traveller, to find hih stone dykes which he can neither see over nor climb over, (I always deliberately pitch theap,) instead of on a broad road between low grey walls with all theover when he chooses in innocent trespass for herb, or view, or splinter of grey rock] when the neglected walls by the roadside tumble down, benevolently repair the same, with better stonework, _outside_ always of the fallen heaps;--which, the wall being thus built _on_ as the public road, absorb the swells of the rocky field-and behold, gain of a couple of feet--along sooperations

This then, is the first of the Christian sciences: division of land rightly, and the general law ofbetisely-held compass points The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use for my first exercise in the laws of Fesole

21 _Sculpture_

The first piece of the closing series on the north side of the Caeneral points must be first noted, before any special exa, are by tradition the only ones attributed to Giotto's own hand The fifth, Song, is known, and recognizable in itsfour are all of Luca's school,--later work therefore, all these five, than any we have been hitherto exa, entirely different in manner, and with late floork beneath them instead of our hitherto severe Gothic arches And it becomes of course instantly a vital question--Did Giotto die leaving the series incomplete, only its subjects chosen, and are these two bas-reliefs of Sculpture and Painting a his last works? or was the series ever completed, and these later bas-reliefs substituted for the earlier ones, under Luca's influence, by way of conducting the whole to a grander close, andtheir order more representative of Florentine art in its fulness of power?

ISculpture than Painting, that I do not in the least set myself up for a critic of authenticity,--but only of absolute goodness My readers may trust me to tell them what is well done or ill; but by who for any certainty, in this school of much-associated masters and pupils, extre on roup of sculptures, then, all I can tell you is that the fifth is a quite nizably, to my extreme conviction, Luca della Robbia's; that the last, Harmonia, is also fine work; that those attributed to Giotto are fine in a different way,--and the other three in reality the poorest pieces in the series, though done with much more advanced sculptural dexterity

But I am chiefly puzzled by the two attributed to Giotto, because they are much coarser than those which seehtly different in workmanshi+p--withof drapery and mode of introduction of details The differencepower, partly by the artist's less deep feeling of the iures, as compared with those of the Fathers of the Arts; but it is very notable and e, complicated as it is with extreme resemblance in other particulars

You cannot compare the subjects on the tower itself; but of raphs take 6 and 21, and put them side by side

I need not dwell on the conditions of resemblance, which are instantly visible; but the _difference_ in the treatment of the heads is incomprehensible That of the Tubal Cain is exquisitely finished, and with a painter's touch; every lock of the hair laid with studied flow, as in theIn the 'Sculpture,' it is struck out with ordinary tricks of rapid sculptor trade, entirely unfinished, and with offensively frank use of the drill hole to give picturesque rustication to the beard

Next, put 22 and 5 back to back You see again the reseures, in the unbroken arcs of their backs, in the breaking of the octagon eneral conception of the heads But again, in the one of Painting, the hair is struck with , and the Gothic of the picture frame is less precise in touch and later in style Observe, however,--and thisthe question,--a picture-fra, and later in style, properly, than cusped arches to be put under the feet of the inventor of all musical sound by breath of er tilting of the work of the wood in the painter's low table for his pots of colour, and his three-legged stool, with that of Tubal Cain's anvil block; and the way in which the lines of the forge and upper triptych are in each co of the head, I believe you will have little hesitation in accepting my own view of the matter--namely, that the three pieces of the Fathers of the Arts rought with Giotto's extremest care for thea sculptor and painter, he did the other two, but with quite definite and wilful resolve that they _should be_, as mere symbols of his oo trades, wholly inferior to the other subjects of the patriarchs; that he made the Sculpture picturesque and bold as you see it is, and showed all a sculptor's tricks in the work of it; and a sculptor's Greek subject, Bacchus, for the her art, withit subordinate to the prienerations of painters for evermore,--this one lesson, like his circle of pure line containing all others,--'Your soul and body must be all in every touch'

I can't resist the expression of a little piece of personal exultation, in noticing that he holds his pencil as I domaster, and no effort (at one ti ever curedboth pen and pencil betweenthe backs of thee these notes for press, I a little finishi+ngs in the two later pieces which I was not before aware of I beg the ood lass to the 'Sculpture' and look at the way Giotto has cut the coes of the chisels, and the keyhole of the lock of the toolbox For the rest, nothing could be more probable, in the confused and perpetually false mass of Florentine tradition, than the preservation of the etfulness, or quite as likely ignorance, of the part he took with Andrea Pisano in the initial sculptures I now take up the series of subjects at the point where we broke off, to trace their chain of philosophy to its close To Geoives to every man his possession of house and land, succeed 21, Sculpture, and 22, Painting, the adornreat arts of education in a Christian home First--

23 _Graether, of which we have already seen the ancient power in the Spanish Chapel series; then,

24 _Arithmetic_, central here as also in the Spanish Chapel, for the sa, with both hands, that two, on the right, you observe-and two on the left-do indeed and for ever make Four Keep your accounts, you, with your book of double entry, on that principle; and you will be safe in this world and the next, in your steward's office But by no means so, if you ever admit the usurers Gospel of Arithmetic, that two and two make Five You see by the rich hem of his robe that the asserter of this economical first principle is a ic_ The art of Dearest of the whole series, far too expressive of the ument is conducted by those who are not _

The essential power of music in animal life Orpheus, the symbol of it all, the inventor properly of Music, the Law of Kindness, as Daedalus of Music, the Law of Construction Hence the ”Orphic life” is one of ideal etarian,)--Plato, _Laws_, Book VI, 782,--and he is named first after Daedalus, and in balance to him as head of the school of har birds clapping their wings in the tree above him; then the five mystic beasts,--closest to his feet the irredeeon closest to his head, the flas The audient eagle, alas! has lost the beak, and is only recognizable by his proud holding of hihted after muddy dinner, close to his shoulder, is a true conquest Hoopoe, or indefinite bird of crested race, behind; of the other three no clear certainty The leafage throughout such as only Luca could do, and the whole consu

27 _Har perfect education in all art of the Muses and of civilized life: the mystery of its concord is taken for the symbol of that of a perfect state; one day, doubtless, of the perfect world So prophesies the last corner stone of the Shepherd's Tower