Part 14 (1/2)

[148] My authorities for this stateiven below, in the chapter on the Ducal Palace [Ruskin]

[149] In the Chronicles, _Sancti Marci Ducalis Cappdla_ [Ruskin]

[150] ”To God the Lord, the glorious Virgin Annunciate, and the Protector St Mark”--Corner, p 14 It is needless to trouble the reader with the various authorities for the above statements: I have consulted the best The previous inscription once existing on the church itself:

Anno eno Desuper undecier to be seen, and is conjectured by Corner, with much probability, to have perished ”in qualche ristauro” [Ruskin]

[151] Signed Bartolomeus Bozza, 1634, 1647, 1656, etc [Ruskin]

[152] An obvious slip The mosaic is on the all of the south transept [Cook and Wedderburn]

[153] _Guida di Venezia_, p 6 [Ruskin]

[154] Fritters and liquors for sale

[155] _Antony and Cleopatra_, 2 5 29

[156] Matthew xxi, 12 and _John_ ii, 16

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

VOLUME II, CHAPTER 6

I believe, then, that the characteristic or , placed in the order of their iefulness

3 Naturalisidity

6 Redundance

These characters are here expressed as belonging to the building; as belonging to the builder, they would be expressed thus:--1 Savageness, or Rudeness 2 Love of Change 3 Love of Nature 4 Disturbed Iination 5 Obstinacy 6 Generosity And I repeat, that the withdrawal of any one, or any till not at once destroy the Gothic character of a building, but the removal of a majority of them will I shall proceed to examine them in their order

1 SAVAGENESS I aenerically applied to the architecture of the North; but I presue, it was intended to imply reproach, and express the barbaric character of the nations a whom that architecture arose It never ie, far less that their architecture had been originally invented by the Goths theether exhibited a degree of sternness and rudeness, which, in contradistinction to the character of Southern and Eastern nations, appeared like a perpetual reflection of the contrast between the Goth and the Roman in their first encounter And when that fallen Roman, in the utuilt, became the model for the imitation of civilized Europe, at the close of the so-called Dark Ages, the word Gothic becaated contempt, not unmixed with aversion From that contempt, by the exertion of the antiquaries and architects of this century, Gothic architecture has been sufficiently vindicated; and perhaps sonificent science of its structure, and sacredness of its expression, ht desire that the term of ancient reproach should be withdrawn, and some other, of more apparent honourableness, adopted in its place There is no chance, as there is no need, of such a substitution As far as the epithet was used scornfully, it was used falsely; but there is no reproach in the word, rightly understood; on the contrary, there is a profound truth, which the instinct of reatly and deeply true, that the architecture of the North is rude and wild; but it is not true, that, for this reason, we are to condemn it, or despise Far otherwise: I believe it is in this very character that it deserves our profoundest reverence

The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast ae, but I have never yet seen any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator to iine the kind of contrast in physical character which exists between Northern and Southern countries We know the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would enable us to feel therow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated ration, that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the s see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and iular lake, and all its ancient prory spot of thunder, a grey stain of stor field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the ht, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to the softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, e, and plu of theunder lucent sand Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colours change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch froh clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of thethe pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth heave intowith a broad waste of gloo into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tor tide, until the roots of the last forests fail froer of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight And, having once traversed in thought this gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its o down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life; the lance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of colour, and swiftness of y covering, and dusky plue of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then, subreat laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being Let us not condemn, but rejoice in the expression by ave him birth Let us watch hiems, and smooths with soft sculpture the jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshi+ne, and rise into a cloudless sky: but not with less reverence let us stand by hith and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth ani the moss of the moorland, and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged wall, instinct ork of an iination as wild and ard as the northern sea; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish life; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds that shade theradation, no reproach in this, but all dignity and honourableness: and we should err grievously in refusing either to recognize as an essential character of the existing architecture of the North, or to admit as a desirable character in that which it yet hness of work; this look of mountain brotherhood between the cathedral and the Alp; this etically because the fine finger-touch was chilled away by the frosty wind, and the eye dim of the strong spirit of e fronity of sunshi+ne, but must break the rock for bread, and cleave the forest for fire, and show, even in what they did for their delight, sorew on theh

If, however, the savageness of Gothic architecture,Northern nations, may be considered, in soher nobility still, when considered as an index, not of cliious principle

In the 13th and 14th paragraphs of Chapter XXL of the first volume of this work, it was noticed that the systeht be divided into three:--1 Servile ornament, in which the execution or power of the inferior workher;--2 Constitutional ornament, in which the executive inferior power is, to a certain point, e a will of its own, yet confessing its inferiority and rendering obedience to higher powers;--and 3

Revolutionary ornament, in which no executive inferiority is admitted at all I reater length