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I. EARLY RENAISSANCE. 15
strength: and forthwith encumbered with the painful panoply
every stripling who ought to have gone forth only with his
own choice of three smooth stones out of the brook. -
§ xxii. This, then, the reader must always keep in mind
when he is examining for himself any examples of cinque-
cento work. When it has been done by a truly great man,
whose life and strength could not be oppressed, and who turned
to good account the whole science of his day, nothing is more
exquisite. I do not believe, for instance, that there is a more
glorious work of sculpture existing in the world than that
equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleone, by Yerrocchio, of
which, I hope, before these pages are printed, there will be a
cast in England. But when the cinque-cento work has been
done by those meaner men, who, in the Gothic times, though
in a rough way, would yet have found some means of speaking
out what was in their hearts, it is utterly inanimate,—a base
and helpless copy of more accomplished models; or, if not
this, a mere accumulation of technical skill, in gaining which
the workman had surrendered all other powers that were in
him.
There is, therefore, of course, an infinite gradation in the
art of the period, from the Sistine Chapel down to modern upholstery ; but, for the most part, since in architecture the workman must be of an inferior order, it will be found that this
cinque-cento painting and higher religious sculpture is noble,
while the cinque-cento architecture, with its subordinate sculpture, is universally bad; sometimes, however, assuming forms,
in which the consummate refinement almost atones for the loss
of force.
§ xxin. This is especially the case with that second branch
of the Renaissance which, as above noticed, was engrafted at
Yenice on the Byzantine types. So soon as the classical enthusiasm required the banishment of Gothic forms, it was natural
that the Yenetian mind should turn back with affection to the
Byzantine models in which the round arches and simple shaft!,
necessitated by recent law, were presented under a form consecrated by the usage of their ancestors. And, accordingly,
| Title | The stones of Venice - 3 |
| Creator | Ruskin, John |
| Publisher | J. Wiley |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000029 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | I. EARLY RENAISSANCE. 15 strength: and forthwith encumbered with the painful panoply every stripling who ought to have gone forth only with his own choice of three smooth stones out of the brook. - § xxii. This, then, the reader must always keep in mind when he is examining for himself any examples of cinque- cento work. When it has been done by a truly great man, whose life and strength could not be oppressed, and who turned to good account the whole science of his day, nothing is more exquisite. I do not believe, for instance, that there is a more glorious work of sculpture existing in the world than that equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleone, by Yerrocchio, of which, I hope, before these pages are printed, there will be a cast in England. But when the cinque-cento work has been done by those meaner men, who, in the Gothic times, though in a rough way, would yet have found some means of speaking out what was in their hearts, it is utterly inanimate,—a base and helpless copy of more accomplished models; or, if not this, a mere accumulation of technical skill, in gaining which the workman had surrendered all other powers that were in him. There is, therefore, of course, an infinite gradation in the art of the period, from the Sistine Chapel down to modern upholstery ; but, for the most part, since in architecture the workman must be of an inferior order, it will be found that this cinque-cento painting and higher religious sculpture is noble, while the cinque-cento architecture, with its subordinate sculpture, is universally bad; sometimes, however, assuming forms, in which the consummate refinement almost atones for the loss of force. § xxin. This is especially the case with that second branch of the Renaissance which, as above noticed, was engrafted at Yenice on the Byzantine types. So soon as the classical enthusiasm required the banishment of Gothic forms, it was natural that the Yenetian mind should turn back with affection to the Byzantine models in which the round arches and simple shaft!, necessitated by recent law, were presented under a form consecrated by the usage of their ancestors. And, accordingly, |
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