Mornings in Florence/The Sixth Morning
I am obliged to interrupt my account of the Spanish chapel by the following notes on the sculptures of Giotto's Campanile: first because I find that inaccurate accounts of those sculptures are in course of publication; and chiefly because I cannot finish my work in the Spanish chapel until one of my good Oxford helpers, Mr. Caird, has completed some investigations he has undertaken for me upon the history connected with it. I had written my own analysis of the fourth side, believing that in every scene of it the figure of St. Dominic was repeated. Mr. Caird first suggested, and has shown me already good grounds for his belief,[1] that the preaching monks represented are in each scene intended for a different person. I am informed also of several careless mistakes which have got into my description of the fresco of the Sciences; and finally, another of my young helpers, Mr. Charles F. Murray,—one, however, whose help is given much in the form of antagonism,—informs me of various critical discoveries lately made, both by himself, and by industrious Germans, of points respecting the authenticity of this and that, which will require notice from me: more especially he tells me of certification that the picture in the Uffizii, of which I accepted the ordinary attribution to Giotto, is by Lorenzo Monaco,—which indeed may well be, without in the least diminishing the use to you of what I have written of its predella, and without in the least, if you think rightly of the matter, diminishing your confidence in what I tell you of Giotto generally. There is one kind of knowledge of pictures which is the artist's, and another which is the antiquary's and the picture-dealer's; the latter especially acute, and founded on very secure and wide knowledge of canvas, pigment, and tricks of touch, without, necessarily, involving any knowledge whatever of the qualities of art itself. There are few practised dealers in the great cities of Europe whose opinion would not be more trustworthy than mine, (if you could get it, mind you,) on points of actual authenticity. But they could only tell you whether the picture was by such and such a master, and not at all what either the master or his work were good for. Thus, I have, before now, taken drawings by Varley and by Cousins for early studies by Turner, and have been convinced by the dealers that they knew better than I, as far as regarded the authenticity of those drawings; but the dealers don't know Turner, or the worth of him, so well as I, for all that. So also, you may find me again and again mistaken among the much more confused work of the early Giottesque schools, as to the authenticity of this work or the other; but you will find (and I say it with far more sorrow than pride) that I am simply the only person who can at present tell you the real worth of any; you will find that whenever I tell you to look at a picture, it is worth your pains; and whenever I tell you the character of a painter, that it is his character, discerned by me faithfully in spite of all confusion of work falsely attributed to him in which similar character may exist. Thus, when I mistook Cousins for Turner, I was looking at a piece of subtlety in the sky of which the dealer had no consciousness whatever, which was essentially Turneresque, but which another man might sometimes equal; whereas the dealer might be only looking at the quality of Whatman's paper, which Cousins used, and Turner did not.
Not, in the meanwhile, to leave you quite guideless as to the main subject of the fourth fresco in the Spanish chapel,—the Pilgrim's Progress of Florence,—here is a brief map of it:
On the right, in lowest angle, St. Dominic preaches to the group of Infidels; in the next group towards the left, he (or some one very like him) preaches to the Heretics: the Heretics proving obstinate, he sets his dogs at them, as at the fatallest of wolves, who being driven away, the rescued lambs are gathered at the feet of the Pope. I have copied the head of the very pious, but slightly weak-minded, little lamb in the centre, to compare with my rough Cumberland ones, who have had no such grave experiences. The whole group, with the Pope above, (the niche of the Duomo joining with and enriching the decorative power of his mitre,) is a quite delicious piece of design.
The Church being thus pacified, is seen in worldly honour under the powers of the Spiritual and Temporal Rulers. The Pope, with Cardinal and Bishop descending in order on his right; the Emperor, with King and Baron descending in order on his left; the ecclesiastical body of the whole Church on the right side, and the laity,—chiefly its poets and artists, on the left.
Then, the redeemed Church nevertheless giving itself up to the vanities and temptations of the world, its forgetful saints are seen feasting, with their children dancing before them, (the Seven Mortal Sins, say some commentators). But the wise-hearted of them confess their sins to another ghost of St. Dominic; and confessed, becoming as little children, enter hand in hand the gate of the Eternal Paradise, crowned with flowers by the waiting angels, and admitted by St. Peter among the serenely joyful crowd of all the saints, above whom the white Madonna stands reverently before the throne. There is, so far as I know, throughout all the schools of Christian art, no other so perfect statement of the noble policy and religion of men.
I had intended to give the best account of it in my power; but, when at Florence, lost all time for writing that I might copy the group of the Pope and Emperor for the schools of Oxford; and the work since done by Mr. Caird has informed me of so much, and given me, in some of its suggestions, so much to think of, that I believe it will be best and most just to print at once his account of the fresco as a supplement to these essays of mine, merely indicating any points on which I have objections to raise, and so leave matters till Fors lets me see Florence once more.
Perhaps she may, in kindness forbid my ever seeing it more, the wreck of it being now too ghastly and heartbreaking to any human soul that remembers the days of old. Forty years ago, there was assuredly no spot of ground, out of Palestine, in all the round world, on which, if you knew, even but a little, the true course of that world's history, you saw with so much joyful reverence the dawn of morning, as at the foot of the Tower of Giotto. For there the traditions of faith and hope, of both the Gentile and Jewish races, met for their beautiful labour: the Baptistery of Florence is the last building raised on the earth by the descendants of the workmen taught by Dædalus: and the Tower of Giotto is the loveliest of those raised on earth under the inspiration of the men who lifted up the tabernacle in the wilderness. Of living Greek work there is none after the Florentine Baptistery; of living Christian work, none so perfect as the Tower of Giotto; and, under the gleam and shadow of their marbles, the morning light was haunted by the ghosts of the Father of Natural Science, Galileo; of Sacred Art, Angelico, and the Master of Sacred Song. Which spot of ground the modern Florentine has made his principal hackney-coach stand and omnibus station. The hackney coaches, with their more or less farmyard-like litter of occasional hay, and smell of variously mixed horse-manure, are yet in more permissible harmony with the place than the ordinary populace of a fashionable promenade would be, with its cigars, spitting, and harlot- planned fineries: but the omnibus place of call being in front of the door of the tower, renders it impossible to stand for a moment near it, to look at the sculptures either of the eastern or southern side; while the north side is enclosed with an iron railing, and usually encumbered with lumber as well: not a soul in Florence ever caring now for sight of any piece of its old artists' work; and the mass of strangers being on the whole intent on nothing but getting the omnibus to go by steam; and so seeing the cathedral in one swift circuit, by glimpses between the puffs of it.
The front of Notre Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a coach-office when I last saw it—1872.[2] Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate, into every once enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled and the miraculous- ness of beauty was shrined in peace.
Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and tower in Stygian pool of vilest thought,—nothing now left sacred, in the places where once—nothing was profane.
For that is indeed the teaching, if you could receive it, of the Tower of Giotto; as of all Christian art in its day. Next to declaration of the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in actual work the eagerest,) was to show the power of the Gospel. History of Christ in due place; yes, history of all He did, and how He died: but then, and often, as I say, with more animated imagination, the showing of His risen presence in granting the harvests and guiding the labour of the year. All sun and rain, and length or decline of days received from His hand; all joy, and grief, and strength, or cessation of labour, indulged or endured, as in His sight and to His glory. And the familiar employments of the seasons, the homely toils of the peasant, the lowliest skills of the craftsman, are signed always on the stones of the Church, as the first and truest condition of sacrifice and offering.
Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the series of bas-reliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's must be held certainly the chief in Europe.[3] At first you may be surprised at the smallness of their scale in proportion to their masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the master workmen of the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in the very finest architecture, the decoration of most precious kind is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it,—as the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle. It is in general not possible for a great workman to carve, himself, a greatly conspicuous series of ornament; nay, even his energy fails him in design, when the bas-relief extends itself into incrustation, or involves the treatment of great masses of stone. If his own does not, the spectator's will. It would be the work of a long summer's day to examine the over-loaded sculptures of the Certosa of Pavia; and yet in the tired last hour, you would be empty-hearted. Read but these inlaid jewels of Giotto's once with patient following; and your hour's study will give you strength for all your life. So far as you can, examine them of course on the spot; but to know them thoroughly you must have their photographs: the subdued colour of the old marble fortunately keeps the lights subdued, so that the photograph may be made more tender in the shadows than is usual in its renderings of sculpture, and there are few pieces of art which may now be so well known as these, in quiet homes far away.
We begin on the western side. There are seven sculptures on the western, southern, and northern sides: six on the eastern; counting the Lamb over the entrance door of the tower, which divides the complete series into two groups of eighteen and eight. Itself, between them, being the introduction to the following eight, you must count it as the first of the terminal group; you then have the whole twenty-seven sculptures divided into eighteen and nine.
Thus lettering the groups on each side for West, South, East, and North, we have:
W. S. E. N.
7 + 7 + 6 + 7 = 27; or,
W. S. E.
7 + 7 + 4 = 18; and,
E. N.
2 + 7 = 9
There is a very special reason for this division by nines but, for convenience' sake, I shall number the whole from 1 to 27, straightforwardly. And if you will have patience with me, I should like to go round the tower once and again; first observing the general meaning and connection of the subjects and then going back to examine the technical points in each, and such minor specialties as it may be well, at the first time, to pass over.
1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with the Creation of Man. It is not the beginning of the story of Genesis; but the simple assertion that God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, into our nostrils the breath of life.
This, Giotto tells you to believe as the beginning of all knowledge and all power.[4] This he tells you to believe, as a thing which he himself knows.
He will tell you nothing but what he does know.
2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano and his fellow sculptors had given, literally, the taking of the rib out of Adam's side, Giotto merely gives the mythic expression of the truth he knows,—"they two shall be one flesh."
3. And though all the theologians and poets of his time would have expected, if not demanded, that his next assertion, after that of the Creation of Man, should be of the Fall of Man, he asserts nothing of the kind. He knows nothing of what man was. What he is, he knows best of living men at that hour, and proceeds to say. The next sculpture is of Eve spinning and Adam hewing the ground into clods. Not digging: you cannot, usually, dig but in ground already dug. The native earth you must hew.
They are not clothed in skins. What would have been the use of Eve spinning if she could not weave? They wear, each, one simple piece of drapery, Adam's knotted behind him, Eve's fastened around her neck with a rude brooch.
Above them are an oak and an apple-tree. Into the apple-tree a little bear is trying to climb.
The meaning of which entire myth is, as I read it, that men and women must both eat their bread with toil. That the first duty of man is to feed his family, and the first duty of the woman to clothe it. That the trees of the field are given us for strength and for delight, and that the wild beasts of the field must have their share with us.[5]
4. The fourth sculpture, forming the centre-piece of the series on the west side, is nomad pastoral life.
Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle, lifts the curtain of his tent to look out upon his flock. His dog watches it.
5. Jubal, the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.
That is to say, stringed and wind instruments;—the lyre and reed. The first arts (with the Jew and Greek) of the shepherd David, and shepherd Apollo.
Giotto has given him the long level trumpet, afterwards adopted so grandly in the sculptures of La Robbia and Donatello. It is, I think, intended to be of wood, as now the long Swiss horn, and a long and shorter tube are bound together.
6. Tubal Cain, the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.
Giotto represents him as sitting, fully robed, turning a wedge of bronze on the anvil with extreme watchfulness.
These last three sculptures, observe, represent the life of the race of Cain; of those who are wanderers, and have no home. Nomad pastoral life; Nomad artistic life, Wandering Willie; yonder organ man, whom you want to send the policeman after, and the gipsy who is mending the old schoolmistress's kettle on the grass, which the squire has wanted so long to take into his park from the roadside.
7. Then the last sculpture of the seven begins the story of the race of Seth, and of home life. The father of it lying drunk under his trellised vine; such the general image of civilized society, in the abstract, thinks Giotto.
With several other meanings, universally known to the Catholic world of that day,—too many to be spoken of here.
The second side of the tower represents, after this introduction, the sciences and arts of civilized or home life.
8. Astronomy. In nomad life you may serve yourself of the guidance of the stars; but to know the laws of their nomadic life, your own must be fixed.
The astronomer, with his sextant revolving on a fixed pivot, looks up to the vault of the heavens and beholds their zodiac; prescient of what else with optic glass the Tuscan artist viewed, at evening, from the top of Fésole.
Above the dome of heaven, as yet unseen, are the Lord of the worlds and His angels. To-day, the Dawn and the Daystar: to-morrow, the Daystar arising in the heart.
9. Defensive architecture. The building of the watchtower. The beginning of security in possession.
10. Pottery. The making of pot, cup, and platter. The first civilized furniture; the means of heating liquid, and serving drink and meat with decency and economy.
11. Riding. The subduing of animals to domestic service.
12. Weaving. The making of clothes with swiftness, and in precision of structure, by help of the loom.
13. Law, revealed as directly from heaven.
14. Dædalus (not Icarus, but the father trying the wings). The conquest of the element of air.
As the seventh subject of the first group introduced the arts of home after those of the savage wanderer, this seventh of the second group introduces the arts of the missionary, or civilized and gift-bringing wanderer.
15. The Conquest of the Sea. The helmsman, and two rowers, rowing as Venetians, face to bow.
16. The Conquest of the Earth. Hercules victor over Antæus. Beneficent strength of civilization crushing the savageness of inhumanity.
17. Agriculture. The oxen and plough.
18. Trade. The cart and horses.
19. And now the sculpture over the door of the tower. The Lamb of God, expresses the Law of Sacrifice, and door of ascent to heaven. And then follow the fraternal arts of the Christian world.
20. Geometry. Again the angle sculpture, introductory to the following series. We shall see presently why this science must be the foundation of the rest.
21. Sculpture.
22. Painting.
23. Grammar.
24. Arithmetic. The laws of number, weight, and measures of capacity.
25 Music. The laws of number, weight (or force), and measure, applied to sound.
26. Logic. The laws of number and measure applied to thought.
27. The Invention of Harmony.
You see now—by taking first the great division of pre-Christian and Christian arts, marked by the door of the Tower; and then the divisions into four successive historical periods, marked by its angles—that you have a perfect plan of human civilization. The first side is of the nomad life, learning how to assert its supremacy over other wandering creatures, herbs, and beasts. Then the second side is the fixed home life, developing race and country; then the third side, the human intercourse between stranger races; then the fourth side, the harmonious arts of all who are gathered into the fold of Christ.
Now let us return to the first angle, and examine piece by piece with care.
1. Creation of Man.
Scarcely disengaged from the clods of the earth, he opens his eyes to the face of Christ. Like all the rest of the sculptures, it is less the representation of a past fact than of a constant one. It is the continual state of man, 'of the earth,' yet seeing God.
Christ holds the book of His Law—the 'Law of life'—in His left hand.
The trees of the garden above are,—central above Christ, palm (immortal life); above Adam, oak (human life). Pear, and fig, and a large-leaved ground fruit (what?) complete the myth of the Food of Life.
As decorative sculpture, these trees are especially to be noticed, with those in the two next subjects, and the Noah's vine as differing in treatment from Giotto's foliage, of which perfect examples are seen in 16 and 17. Giotto's branches are set in close sheaf-like clusters; and every mass disposed with extreme formality of radiation. The leaves of these first, on the contrary, are arranged with careful concealment of their ornamental system, so as to look inartificial. This is done so studiously as to become, by excess, a little unnatural!—Nature herself is more decorative and formal in grouping. But the occult design is very noble, and every leaf modulated with loving, dignified, exactly right and sufficient finish; not done to show skill, nor with mean forgetfulness of main subject, but in tender completion and harmony with it.
Look at the subdivisions of the palm leaves with your magnifying glass. The others are less finished in this than in the next subject. Man himself incomplete, the leaves that are created with him, for his life, must not be so.
(Are not his fingers yet short; growing?)
2. Creation of Woman.
Far, in its essential qualities, the transcendent sculpture of this subject, Ghiberti's is only a dainty elaboration and beautification of it, losing its solemnity and simplicity in a flutter of feminine grace. The older sculptor thinks of the Uses of Womanhood, and of its dangers and sins, before he thinks of its beauty; but, were the arm not lost, the quiet naturalness of this head and breast of Eve, and the bending grace of the submissive rendering of soul and body to perpetual guidance by the hand of Christ—(grasping the arm, note, for full support)—would be felt to be far beyond Ghiberti's in beauty, as in mythic truth.
The line of her body joins with that of the serpent-ivy round the tree trunk above her: a double myth—of her fall, and her support afterwards by her husband's strength. "Thy desire shall be to thy husband." The fruit of the tree—double-set filbert, telling nevertheless the happy equality.
The leaves in this piece are finished with consummate poetical care and precision. Above Adam, laurel (a virtuous woman is a crown to her husband); the filbert for the two together; the fig, for fruitful household joy (under thy vine and fig-tree[6]—but vine properly the masculine joy); and the fruit taken by Christ for type of all naturally growing food, in his own hunger.
Examine with lens the ribbing of these leaves, and the insertion on their stem of the three laurel leaves on extreme right: and observe that in all cases the sculptor works the moulding with his own part of the design; look how he breaks variously deeper into it, beginning from the foot of Christ, and going up to the left into full depth above the shoulder.
3. Original labour.
Much poorer, and intentionally so. For the myth of the creation of humanity, the sculptor uses his best strength, and shows supremely the grace of womanhood; but in representing the first peasant state of life, makes the grace of woman by no means her conspicuous quality. She even walks awkwardly; some feebleness in foreshortening the foot also embarrassing the sculptor. He knows its form perfectly—but its perspective, not quite yet.
The trees stiff and stunted—they also needing culture. Their fruit dropping at present only into beasts' mouths.
4. Jabal.
If you have looked long enough, and carefully enough, at the three previous sculptures, you cannot but feel that the hand here is utterly changed. The drapery sweeps in broader, softer, but less true folds; the handling is far more delicate; exquisitely sensitive to gradation over broad surfaces—scarcely using an incision of any depth but in outline; studiously reserved in appliance of shadow, as a thing precious and local—look at it above the puppy's head, and under the tent.
This is assuredly painter's work, not mere sculptor's. I have no doubt whatever it is by the own hand of the shepherd-boy of Fésole. Cimabue had found him drawing, (more probably scratching with Etrurian point,) one of his sheep upon a stone. These, on the central foundation-stone of his tower he engraves, looking back on the fields of life: the time soon near for him to draw the curtains of his tent.
I know no dog like this in method of drawing, and in skill of giving the living form without one touch of chisel for hair, or incision for eye, except the dog barking at Poverty in the great fresco of Assisi.
Take the lens and look at every piece of the work from corner to corner—note especially as a thing which would only have been enjoyed by a painter, and which all great painters do intensely enjoy—the fringe of the tent,[7] and precise insertion of its point in the angle of the hexagon, prepared for by the archaic masonry indicated in the oblique joint above;[8] architect and painter thinking at once, and doing as they thought.
I gave a lecture to the Eton boys a year or two ago, on little more than the shepherd's dog, which is yet more wonderful in magnified scale of photograph. The lecture is partly published—somewhere, but I can't refer to it.
5. Jubal.
Still Giotto's, though a little less delighted in; but with exquisite introduction of the Gothic of his own tower. See the light surface sculpture of a mosaic design in the horizontal moulding.
Note also the painter's freehand working of the complex mouldings of the table—also resolvedly oblong, not square; see central flower.
6. Tubal Cain.
Still Giotto's, and entirely exquisite; finished with no less care than the shepherd, to mark the vitality of this art to humanity; the spade and hoe—its heraldic bearing—hung on the hinged door.[9] For subtlety of execution, note the texture of wooden block under anvil, and of its iron hoop.
The workman's face is the best sermon on the dignity of labour yet spoken by thoughtful man. Liberal Parliaments and fraternal Reformers have nothing essential to say more.
7. Noah.
Andrea Pisano's again, more or less imitative of Giotto's work.
8. Astronomy.
We have a new hand here altogether. The hair and drapery bad; the face expressive, but blunt in cutting; the small upper heads, necessarily little more than blocked out, on the small scale; but not suggestive of grace in completion: the minor detail worked with great mechanical precision, but little feeling; the lion's head, with leaves in its ears, is quite ugly; and by comparing the work of the small cusped arch at the bottom with Giotto's soft handling of the mouldings of his, in 5, you may for ever know common mason's work from fine Gothic. The zodiacal signs are quite hard and common in the method of bas-relief, but quaint enough in design: Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, on the broad heavenly belt; Taurus upside down, Gemini, and Cancer, on the small globe.
I think the whole a restoration of the original panel, or else an inferior workman's rendering of Giotto's design, which the next piece is, with less question.
9. Building.
The larger figure, I am disposed finally to think, represents civic power, as in Lorenzetti's fresco at Siena. The extreme rudeness of the minor figures may be guarantee of their originality; it is the smoothness of mass and hard edge work that make me suspect the 8th for a restoration.
10. Pottery.
Very grand; with much painter's feeling, and fine mouldings again. The tiled roof projecting in the shadow above, protects the first Ceramicus-home. I think the women are meant to be carrying some kind of wicker or reed-bound water-vessel. The Potter's servant explains to them the extreme advantages of the new invention. I can't make any conjecture about the author of this piece.
11. Riding.
Again Andrea Pisano's, it seems to me. Compare the tossing up of the dress behind the shoulders, in 3 and 2. The head is grand, having nearly an Athenian profile: the loss of the horse's fore-leg prevents me from rightly judging of the entire action. I must leave riders to say.
12. Weaving.
Andrea's again, and of extreme loveliness; the stooping face of the woman at the loom is more like a Leonardo drawing than sculpture. The action of throwing the large shuttle, and all the structure of the loom and its threads, distinguishing rude or smooth surface, are quite wonderful. The figure on the right shows the use and grace of finely woven tissue, under and upper—that over the bosom so delicate that the line of separation from the flesh of the neck is unseen.
If you hide with your hand the carved masonry at the bottom, the composition separates itself into two pieces, one disagreeably rectangular. The still more severely rectangular masonry throws out by contrast all that is curved and rounded in the loom, and unites the whole composition; that is its aesthetic function; its historical one is to show that weaving is queen's work, not peasant's; for this is palace masonry.
13. The Giving of Law.
More strictly, of the Book of God's Law: the only one which can ultimately be obeyed.[10]
The authorship of this is very embarrassing to me. The face of the central figure is most noble, and all the work good, but not delicate; it is like original work of the master whose design No. 8 might be a restoration.
14 Dædalus.
Andrea Pisano again; the head superb, founded on Greek models, feathers of wings wrought with extreme care; but with no precision of arrangement or feeling. How far intentional in awkwardness, I cannot say; but note the good mechanism of the whole plan, with strong standing board for the feet.
15. Navigation.
An intensely puzzling one; coarse (perhaps unfinished) in work, and done by a man who could not row; the plaited bands used for rowlocks being pulled the wrong way. Right, had the rowers been rowing Englishwise: but the water at the boat's head shows its motion forwards, the way the oarsmen look. I cannot make out the action of the figure at the stern; it ought to be steering with the stern oar.
The water seems quite unfinished. Meant, I suppose, for surface and section of sea, with slimy rock at the bottom; but all stupid and inefficient.
16. Hercules and Antæus.
The Earth power, half hidden by the earth, its hair and hand becoming roots, the strength of its life passing through the ground into the oak tree. With Cercyon, but first named, (Plato, Laws, book VII., 796), Antæus is the master of contest without use;—[GREEK: philoneikias achrestou]—and is generally the power of pure selfishness and its various inflation to insolence and degradation to cowardice;—finding its strength only in fall back to its Earth,—he is the master, in a word, of all such kind of persons as have been writing lately about the "interests of England." He is, therefore, the Power invoked by Dante to place Virgil and him in the lowest circle of Hell;—"Alcides whilom felt,—that grapple, straitened sore," etc. The Antæus in the sculpture is very grand; but the authorship puzzles me, as of the next piece, by the same hand. I believe both Giotto's design.
17. Ploughing.
The sword in its Christian form. Magnificent: the grandest expression of the power of man over the earth and its strongest creatures that I remember in early sculpture,—(or for that matter, in late). It is the subduing of the bull which the sculptor thinks most of; the plough, though large, is of wood, and the handle slight. But the pawing and bellowing labourer he has bound to it!—here is victory.
18. The Chariot.
The horse also subdued to draught—Achilles' chariot in its first, and to be its last, simplicity. The face has probably been grand—the figure is so still. Andrea's, I think by the flying drapery.
19. The Lamb, with the symbol of Resurrection.
Over the door: 'I am the door;—by me, if any man enter in,' etc. Put to the right of the tower, you see, fearlessly, for the convenience of staircase ascent; all external symmetry being subject with the great 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 made him a little lower than the angels—and put all things under His feet':—Christianity says beyond this,—'Know ye not that we shall judge angels (as also the lower creatures shall judge us!)'[11] The series of sculptures now beginning, show the arts which can only be accomplished through belief in Christ.
20. Geometry.
Not 'mathematics': they have been implied long ago in astronomy and architecture; but the due Measuring 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 Columbus, your Captain Cook, (whose tomb, with the bright 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-mouthed, straight up towards Heaven—your modern method of symbolizing the only appeal to Heaven of which the nineteenth century has left itself capable—'The voice of thy Brother's blood crieth to me'—your outworn cannon, now silently agape, but sonorous in the ears of angels with that appeal)—first inspiration, I say, of these; constant inspiration of all who set true landmarks and hold to them, knowing their measure; the devil interfering, I observe, lately in his own way, with the Geometry of Yorkshire, where the landed proprietors,[12] 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 what was the public road, absorb themselves, with help of moss and time, into the heaving swells of the rocky field-and behold, gain of a couple of feet—along so much of the road as needs repairing operations.
This then, is the first of the Christian sciences: division of land rightly, and the general law of measuring between wisely-held compass points. The type of mensuration, circle in square, on his desk, I use for my first exercise in the laws of Fésole.
21. Sculpture.
The first piece of the closing series on the north side of the Campanile, of which some general points must be first noted, before any special examination.
The two initial ones, Sculpture and Painting, are by tradition the only ones attributed to Giotto's own hand. The fifth, Song, is known, and recognizable in its magnificence, to be by Luca della Robbia. The remaining four are all of Luca's school,—later work therefore, all these five, than any we have been hitherto examining, entirely different in manner, and with late flower-work 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 among 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, and making their order more representative of Florentine art in its fulness of power?
I must repeat, once more, and with greater insistence respecting Sculpture 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 whom, is quite a separate question, needing for any certainty, in this school of much-associated masters and pupils, extremest attention to minute particulars not at all bearing on my objects in teaching.
Of this closing group of sculptures, then, all I can tell you is that the fifth is a quite magnificent piece of work, and recognizably, 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 seem to me so plainly his on the west side, and slightly different in workmanship—with much that is common to both, however, in the casting of drapery and mode of introduction of details. The difference may be accounted for partly by haste or failing power, partly by the artist's less deep feeling of the importance of these merely symbolic figures, as compared with those of the Fathers of the Arts; but it is very notable and embarrassing notwithstanding, complicated as it is with extreme resemblance in other particulars.
You cannot compare the subjects on the tower itself; but of my series of photographs 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 the most beautiful drawing. In 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 resemblance in the earnestness of both figures, in the unbroken arcs of their backs, in the breaking of the octagon moulding by the pointed angles; and here, even also in the general conception of the heads. But again, in the one of Painting, the hair is struck with more vulgar indenting and drilling, and the Gothic of the picture frame is less precise in touch and later in style. Observe, however,—and this may perhaps give us some definite hint for clearing the question,—a picture-frame would be less precise in making, and later in style, properly, than cusped arches to be put under the feet of the inventor of all musical sound by breath of man. And if you will now compare finally the eager tilting of the workman's seat in 22 and 6, and the working 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 composition used to set off the rounding 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 were wrought with Giotto's extremest care for the most precious stones of his tower; that also, being a sculptor and painter, he did the other two, but with quite definite and wilful resolve that they should be, as mere symbols of his own two 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 model of it; that he wrought the Painting, as the higher art, with more care, still keeping it subordinate to the primal subjects, but showed, for a lesson to all the generations 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 do myself: no writing master, and no effort (at one time very steady for many months), having ever cured me of that way of holding both pen and pencil between my fore and second finger; the third and fourth resting the backs of them on my paper.
As I finally arrange these notes for press, I am further confirmed in my opinion by discovering little finishings in the two later pieces which I was not before aware of. I beg the masters of High Art, and sublime generalization, to take a good magnifying glass to the 'Sculpture' and look at the way Giotto has cut the compasses, the edges 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 memory of Giotto's carving his own two trades, and the forgetfulness, 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 Geometry, which gives to every man his possession of house and land, succeed 21, Sculpture, and 22, Painting, the adornments of permanent habitation. And then, the great arts of education in a Christian home. First—
23. Grammar, or more properly Literature altogether, 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 same reasons; here, more impatiently asserting, 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 man well to do in the world.
25. Logic. The art of Demonstration. Vulgarest of the whole series, far too expressive of the mode in which argument is conducted by those who are not masters of its reins.
26. Song.
The essential power of music in animal life. Orpheus. the symbol of it all, the inventor properly of Music, the Law of Kindness, as Dædalus of Music, the Law of Construction. Hence the "Orphic life" is one of ideal mercy, (vegetarian,)—Plato, Laws, Book VI., 782,—and he is named first after Dædalus, and in balance to him as head of the school of harmonists, in Book III., 677, (Steph.) Look for the two singing birds clapping their wings in the tree above him; then the five mystic beasts,—closest to his feet the irredeemable boar; then lion and bear, tiger, unicorn, and fiery dragon closest to his head, the flames of its mouth mingling with his breath as he sings. The audient eagle, alas! has lost the beak, and is only recognizable by his proud holding of himself; the duck, sleepily delighted 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 consummate in skill and understanding.
27. Harmony.
Music of Song, in the full power of it, meaning 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.
Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ He wrote thus to me on 11th November last: "The three preachers are certainly different. The first is Dominic; the second, Peter Martyr, whom I have identified from his martyrdom on the other wall; and the third, Aquinas."
- ↑ See Fors Clavigera in that year.
- ↑ For account of the series on the main archivolt of St. Mark's, see my sketch of the schools of Venetian sculpture in third forthcoming number of 'St. Mark's Rest.'
- ↑ So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.
- ↑ The oak and apple boughs are placed, with the same meaning, by Sandro Botticelli, in the lap of Zipporah. The figure of the bear is again represented by Jacopo della Quercia, on the north door of the Cathedral of Florence. I am not sure of its complete meaning.
- ↑ Compare Fors Clavigera, February, 1877.
- ↑ "I think Jabal's tent is made of leather; the relaxed intervals between the tent-pegs show a curved ragged edge like leather near the ground" (Mr. Caird). The edge of the opening is still more characteristic, I think.
- ↑ Prints of these photographs which do not show the masonry all round the hexagon are quite valueless for study.
- ↑ Pointed out to me by Mr. Caird, who adds farther, "I saw a forge identical with this one at Pelago the other day,—the anvil resting on a tree-stump: the same fire, bellows, and implements; the door in two parts, the upper part like a shutter, and used for the exposition of finished work as a sign of the craft; and I saw upon it the same finished work of the same shape as in the bas-relief—a spade and a hoe."
- ↑ Mr. Caird convinced me of the real meaning of this sculpture. I had taken it for the giving of a book, writing further of it as follows:— All books, rightly so called, are Books of Law, and all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. (What we now mostly call a book, the infinite reduplication and vibratory echo of a lie, is not given but belched up out of volcanic clay by the inspiration of the devil.) On the Book-giver's right hand the students in cell, restrained by the lifted right hand: "Silent, you, till you know"; then, perhaps, you also. On the left, the men of the world, kneeling, receive the gift. Recommendable seal, this, for Mr. Mudie! Mr. Caird says: "The book is written law, which is given by Justice to the inferiors, that they may know the laws regulating their relations to their superiors—who are also under the hand of law. The vassal is protected by the accessibility of formularized law. The superior is restrained by the right hand of power."
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ I mean no accusation against any class; probably the one-fielded statesman is more eager for his little gain of fifty yards of grass 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 himself shut into a narrow road between high stone dykes which he can neither see over nor climb over, (I always deliberately pitch them down myself, wherever I need a gap,) instead of on a broad road between low grey walls with all the moor beyond—and the power of leaping over when he chooses in innocent trespass for herb, or view, or splinter of grey rock.