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APPENDIX, 15. 401
walls against cold winds and snow; much hardening of hands
and gross stoutening of bodies in all this; gross jovialities of
harvest homes and Christmas feasts, which were to be the reward
of it; rough affections, and sluggish imagination; fleshy, substantial, ironshod humanities, but humanities still; humanities
which God had his eye upon, and which won, perhaps, here and
there, as much favor in his sight as the wasted aspects of the
whispering monks of Florence (Heaven forbid it should not be
so, since the most of us cannot be monks, but must be ploughmen
and reapers still). And are we to suppose there is no nobility in
Rubens' masculine and universal sympathy with all this, and with
his large human rendering of it, Gentleman though he was, by
birth, and feeling, and education, and place ; and, when he
chose, lordly in conception also ? He had his faults, perhaps •
great and lamentable faults, though more those of his time and
his country than his own ; he has neither cloister breeding nor
boudoir breeding, and is very unfit to paint either in missals or
annuals ; but he has an open sky and wide-world breeding in him,
that we may not be offended with, fit alike for king's court, knight's
camp, or peasant's cottage. On the other hand, a man trained here
in England, in our Sir Joshua school, will not and cannot allow
that there is any art at all in the technical work of Angelico.
But he is just as wrong as the other. Fra Angelico is as true a
master of the art necessary to his purposes, as Rubens was of that
necesary for his. We have been taught in England to think there
can be no virtue but in a loaded brush and rapid hand ; but if
we can shake our common sense free of such teaching, we shall
understand that there is art also in the delicate point and in the
hand which trembles as it moves ; not because it is more liable
to err, but because there is more danger in its error, and more
at stake upon its precision. The art of Angelico, both as a color-
ist and a draughtsman, is consummate ; so perfect and beautiful,
that his work may be recognised at any distance by the rainbow-
play and brilliancy of it: However closely it may be surrounded
by other works of the same school, glowing with enamel and
gold, Angelico's may be told from them at a glance, like so many
huge pieces of opal lying among common marbles. So again-
with Giotto; the Arena chapel is not only the most perfect ex-
| 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 | 00000463 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | APPENDIX, 15. 401 walls against cold winds and snow; much hardening of hands and gross stoutening of bodies in all this; gross jovialities of harvest homes and Christmas feasts, which were to be the reward of it; rough affections, and sluggish imagination; fleshy, substantial, ironshod humanities, but humanities still; humanities which God had his eye upon, and which won, perhaps, here and there, as much favor in his sight as the wasted aspects of the whispering monks of Florence (Heaven forbid it should not be so, since the most of us cannot be monks, but must be ploughmen and reapers still). And are we to suppose there is no nobility in Rubens' masculine and universal sympathy with all this, and with his large human rendering of it, Gentleman though he was, by birth, and feeling, and education, and place ; and, when he chose, lordly in conception also ? He had his faults, perhaps • great and lamentable faults, though more those of his time and his country than his own ; he has neither cloister breeding nor boudoir breeding, and is very unfit to paint either in missals or annuals ; but he has an open sky and wide-world breeding in him, that we may not be offended with, fit alike for king's court, knight's camp, or peasant's cottage. On the other hand, a man trained here in England, in our Sir Joshua school, will not and cannot allow that there is any art at all in the technical work of Angelico. But he is just as wrong as the other. Fra Angelico is as true a master of the art necessary to his purposes, as Rubens was of that necesary for his. We have been taught in England to think there can be no virtue but in a loaded brush and rapid hand ; but if we can shake our common sense free of such teaching, we shall understand that there is art also in the delicate point and in the hand which trembles as it moves ; not because it is more liable to err, but because there is more danger in its error, and more at stake upon its precision. The art of Angelico, both as a color- ist and a draughtsman, is consummate ; so perfect and beautiful, that his work may be recognised at any distance by the rainbow- play and brilliancy of it: However closely it may be surrounded by other works of the same school, glowing with enamel and gold, Angelico's may be told from them at a glance, like so many huge pieces of opal lying among common marbles. So again- with Giotto; the Arena chapel is not only the most perfect ex- |
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