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376 APPENDIX, 8.
bold relief : a darker and harder stone (I think, not serpentine,
but its surface is so disguised by the lustre of ages that I could
not be certain) is used for the capitals of the western door, which
are especially elaborate in their sculpture;—two devilish apes,
or apish devils, I know not which,, with bristly moustaches and
edgy teeth, half-crouching, with their hands impertinently on
their knees, ready for a spit or a spring if one goes near them;
but all is pure bossy sculpture; there is no inlaying, except of
some variegated tiles in the shape of saucers set concave (an ornament used also very gracefully in St. Jacopo of Bologna): and
the whole surface of the church is enriched with the massy reliefs, well preserved everywhere above the reach of human
animals, but utterly destroyed to some five or six feet from the
ground ; worn away into large cellular hollows and caverns, some
almost deep enough to render the walls unsafe, entirely owing to
the uses to which the recesses of the church are dedicated by
the refined and high-minded Italians. But St. Michele of Lucca
is wrought entirely in white marble and green serpentine; there
is hardly any relieved sculpture except in the capitals of the
shafts and cornices, and all the designs of wall ornament are
inlaid with exquisite precision—white on dark ground ; the
ground being cut out and filled with serpentine, the figures left
in solid marble. The designs of the Pavian church are encrusted
on the walls; of the Lucchese, incorporated with them ; small
portions of real sculpture being introduced exactly where the
eye, after its rest on the flatness of the wall, will take most delight
in the piece of substantial form. The entire arrangement is
perfect beyond all praise, and the morbid restlessness of the old
designs is now appeased. Geometry seems to have acted as a
febrifuge, for beautiful geometrical designs are introduced amidst
the tumult of the hunt; and there is no more seeing double,
nor ghastly monstrosity of conception ; no more ending of everything in something else ; no more disputing for spare legs among
bewildered bodies ; no more setting on of heads wrong side foremost. The fragments have come together : we are out of the
Inferno with its weeping down the spine ; we are in the fair
hunting-fields of the Lucchese mountains (though they had their
tears also),—with horse, and hound, and hawk; and merry blast
of the trumpet.—Very strange creatures to be hunted, in all
| Title | The stones of Venice - 1 |
| Creator | Ruskin, John |
| Publisher | J. Wiley |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000436 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | 376 APPENDIX, 8. bold relief : a darker and harder stone (I think, not serpentine, but its surface is so disguised by the lustre of ages that I could not be certain) is used for the capitals of the western door, which are especially elaborate in their sculpture;—two devilish apes, or apish devils, I know not which,, with bristly moustaches and edgy teeth, half-crouching, with their hands impertinently on their knees, ready for a spit or a spring if one goes near them; but all is pure bossy sculpture; there is no inlaying, except of some variegated tiles in the shape of saucers set concave (an ornament used also very gracefully in St. Jacopo of Bologna): and the whole surface of the church is enriched with the massy reliefs, well preserved everywhere above the reach of human animals, but utterly destroyed to some five or six feet from the ground ; worn away into large cellular hollows and caverns, some almost deep enough to render the walls unsafe, entirely owing to the uses to which the recesses of the church are dedicated by the refined and high-minded Italians. But St. Michele of Lucca is wrought entirely in white marble and green serpentine; there is hardly any relieved sculpture except in the capitals of the shafts and cornices, and all the designs of wall ornament are inlaid with exquisite precision—white on dark ground ; the ground being cut out and filled with serpentine, the figures left in solid marble. The designs of the Pavian church are encrusted on the walls; of the Lucchese, incorporated with them ; small portions of real sculpture being introduced exactly where the eye, after its rest on the flatness of the wall, will take most delight in the piece of substantial form. The entire arrangement is perfect beyond all praise, and the morbid restlessness of the old designs is now appeased. Geometry seems to have acted as a febrifuge, for beautiful geometrical designs are introduced amidst the tumult of the hunt; and there is no more seeing double, nor ghastly monstrosity of conception ; no more ending of everything in something else ; no more disputing for spare legs among bewildered bodies ; no more setting on of heads wrong side foremost. The fragments have come together : we are out of the Inferno with its weeping down the spine ; we are in the fair hunting-fields of the Lucchese mountains (though they had their tears also),—with horse, and hound, and hawk; and merry blast of the trumpet.—Very strange creatures to be hunted, in all |
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