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III. GROTESQUE RENAISSANCE. 161 is a head introduced as a boss on the foundation of the Palazzo Corner della Regina at Yenice, utterly devoid of invention, made merely monstrous by exaggerations of the eyeballs and cheeks, and generally characteristic of that late Renaissance grotesque of Yenice, with which we are at present more immediately concerned.* § lxxii. The developement of that grotesque took place under different laws from those which regulate it in any other European city. For, great as we have seen the Byzantine mind show itself to be in other directions, it was marked as that of a declining nation by the absence of the grotesque element; and, owing to its influence, the early Yenetian Gothic remained inferior to all other schools in this particular character. Nothing can well be more wonderful than its instant failure in any attempt at the representation of ludicrous or fearful images, more especially when it is compared with the magnificent grotesque of the neighboring city of Yerona, in which the Lombard influence had full sway. Nor was it until the last links of connexion with Constantinople had been dissolved* that the strength of the Yenetian mind could manifest itself in this direction. But it had then a new enemy to encounter. The Renaissance laws altogether checked its imagination in architecture; and it could only obtain permission to express itself by starting forth in the work of the Yenetian painters, filling them with monkeys and dwarfs, even amidst the most serious subjects, and leading Yeronese and Tintoret to the most unexpected and wild fantasies of form and color. § lxxiii. We may be deeply thankful for this peculiar re- * Note especially, in connexion with what was advanced in Vol. II. respecting our English neatness of execution, how the base workman has cut the lines of the architecture neatly and precisely round the abominable head: but the noble workman has used his chisel like a painter's pencil, and sketched the glory with a few irregular lines, anything rather than circular; and struck out the whole head in the same frank and fearless way, leaving the sharp edges of the stone as they first broke, and flinging back the crest of hair from the forehead with half a dozen hammer-strokes, while the poor wretch who did the other was half a day in smoothing its vapid and vermicular curls.
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 | 00000177 |
Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Transcript | III. GROTESQUE RENAISSANCE. 161 is a head introduced as a boss on the foundation of the Palazzo Corner della Regina at Yenice, utterly devoid of invention, made merely monstrous by exaggerations of the eyeballs and cheeks, and generally characteristic of that late Renaissance grotesque of Yenice, with which we are at present more immediately concerned.* § lxxii. The developement of that grotesque took place under different laws from those which regulate it in any other European city. For, great as we have seen the Byzantine mind show itself to be in other directions, it was marked as that of a declining nation by the absence of the grotesque element; and, owing to its influence, the early Yenetian Gothic remained inferior to all other schools in this particular character. Nothing can well be more wonderful than its instant failure in any attempt at the representation of ludicrous or fearful images, more especially when it is compared with the magnificent grotesque of the neighboring city of Yerona, in which the Lombard influence had full sway. Nor was it until the last links of connexion with Constantinople had been dissolved* that the strength of the Yenetian mind could manifest itself in this direction. But it had then a new enemy to encounter. The Renaissance laws altogether checked its imagination in architecture; and it could only obtain permission to express itself by starting forth in the work of the Yenetian painters, filling them with monkeys and dwarfs, even amidst the most serious subjects, and leading Yeronese and Tintoret to the most unexpected and wild fantasies of form and color. § lxxiii. We may be deeply thankful for this peculiar re- * Note especially, in connexion with what was advanced in Vol. II. respecting our English neatness of execution, how the base workman has cut the lines of the architecture neatly and precisely round the abominable head: but the noble workman has used his chisel like a painter's pencil, and sketched the glory with a few irregular lines, anything rather than circular; and struck out the whole head in the same frank and fearless way, leaving the sharp edges of the stone as they first broke, and flinging back the crest of hair from the forehead with half a dozen hammer-strokes, while the poor wretch who did the other was half a day in smoothing its vapid and vermicular curls. |
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