And, as if to prove that this was indeed the builder's intention, and that he did not leave his shafts idle merely because he did not know how to set them to work safely, there are two pieces of masonry at the extremities of the facade, which are just as remarkable for their frank trust in the bearing power of the shafts as the rest are for their want of confidence in them. But, before we come to these, we must say a word or two respecting the second point named above, the superior position of the shafts.

It was assuredly not in the builder's power, even had he been so inclined, to obtain shafts high enough to sustain the whole external gallery, as it is sustained in the nave, on one arcade. He had, as above noticed, a supply of shafts of every sort and size, from which he chose the largest for his nave shafts; the smallest were set aside for windows, jambs, balustrades, supports of pulpits, niches, and such other services, every conceivable size occurring in different portions of the building; and the middle-sized shafts were sorted into two classes, of which on the average one was about two-thirds the length of the other, and out of these the two stories of the facade and sides of the church are composed, the smaller shafts of course uppermost, and more numerous than the lower, according to the ordinary laws of superimposition adopted by all the Romanesque builders, and observed also in a kind of architecture quite as beautiful as any we are likely to invent, that of forest trees.

Nothing is more singular than the way in which this kind of superimposition (the only right one in the case of shafts) will shock a professed architect. He has been accustomed to see, in the Renaissance designs, shaft put on the top of shaft, three or four times over, and he thinks this quite right; but the moment he is shown a properly subdivided superimposition, in which the upper shafts diminish in size and multiply in number, so that the lower pillars would balance them safely even without cement, he exclaims that it is "against law," as if he had never seen a tree in his life.

Not that the idea of the Byzantine superimposition was taken from trees, any more than that of Gothic arches. Both are simple compliances with laws of nature, and, therefore, approximations to the forms of nature.

There is, however, one very essential difference between tree structure and the shaft structure in question; namely, that the marble branches, having no vital connexion with the stem, must be provided with a firm tablet or second foundation whereon to stand. This intermediate plinth or tablet runs along the whole facade at one level, is about eighteen inches thick, and left with little decoration as being meant for hard service. The small porticos, already spoken of as the most graceful pieces of composition with which I am acquainted, are sustained on detached clusters of four or five columns, forming the continuation of those of the upper series, and each of these clusters is balanced on one grand detached shaft; as much trust being thus placed in the pillars here, as is withdrawn from them elsewhere. The northern portico has only one detached pillar at its outer angle, which sustains three shafts and a square pilaster; of these shafts the one at the outer angle of the group is the thickest (so as to balance the pilaster on the inner angle), measuring 3 ft. 2 in. round, while the others measure only 2 ft. 10 in. and 2 ft. 11 in.; and in order to make this increase of diameter, and the importance of the shaft, more manifest to the eye, the old builders made the shaft shorter as well as thicker, increasing the depth both of its capital and the base, with what is to the thoughtless spectator ridiculous incongruity, and to the observant one a most beautiful expression of constructive genius. Nor is this all. Observe: the whole strength of this angle depends on accuracy of poise, not on breadth or strength of foundation. It is a balanced, not a propped structure: if the balance fails, it must fall instantly; if the balance is maintained, no matter how the lower shaft is fastened into the ground, all will be safe. And to mark this more definitely, the great lower shaft has a different base from all the others of the facade, remarkably high in proportion to the shaft, on a circular instead of a square plinth, and without spurs, while all the other bases have spurs without exception. Glance back at what is said of the spurs at p. 79 of the first volume, and reflect that all expression of grasp in the foot of the pillar is here useless, and to be replaced by one of balance merely, and you will feel what the old builder wanted to say to us, and how much he desired us to follow him with our understanding as he laid stone above stone.

And this purpose of his is hinted to us once more, even by the position of this base in the ground plan of the foundation of the portico; for, though itself circular, it sustains a hexagonal plinth set obliquely to the walls of the church, as if expressly to mark to us that it did not matter how the base was set, so only that the weights were justly disposed above it.

10. PROPER SENSE OF THE WORD IDOLATRY.

I do not intend, in thus applying the word "Idolatry" to certain ceremonies of Romanist worship, to admit the propriety of the ordinary Protestant manner of regarding those ceremonies as distinctively idolatrous, and as separating the Romanist from the Protestant Church by a gulf across which we must not look to our fellow-Christians but with utter reprobation and disdain. The Church of Rome does indeed distinctively violate the second commandment; but the true force and weight of the sin of idolatry are in the violation of the first, of which we are all of us guilty, in probably a very equal degree, considered only as members of this or that communion, and not as Christians or unbelievers. Idolatry is, both literally and verily, not the mere bowing down before sculptures, but the serving or becoming the slave of any images or imaginations which stand between us and God, and it is otherwise expressed in Scripture as "walking after the Imagination" of our own hearts. And observe also that while, at least on one occasion, we find in the Bible an indulgence granted to the mere external and literal violation of the second commandment, "When I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing," we find no indulgence in any instance, or in the slightest degree, granted to "covetousness, which is idolatry" (Col. iii. 5; no casual association of terms, observe, but again energetically repeated in Ephesians, v. 5, "No covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ"); nor any to that denial of God, idolatry in one of its most subtle forms, following so often on the possession of that wealth against which Agur prayed so earnestly, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, 'Who is the Lord?'"

And in this sense, which of us is not an idolater? Which of us has the right, in the fulness of that better knowledge, in spite of which he nevertheless is not yet separated from the service of this world, to speak scornfully of any of his brethren, because, in a guiltless ignorance, they have been accustomed to bow their knees before a statue? Which of us shall say that there may not be a spiritual worship in their apparent idolatry, or that there is not a spiritual idolatry in our own apparent worship?

For indeed it is utterly impossible for one man to judge of the feeling with which another bows down before an image. From that pure reverence in which Sir Thomas Brown wrote, "I can dispense with my hat at the sight of a cross, but not with a thought of my Redeemer," to the worst superstition of the most ignorant Romanist, there is an infinite series of subtle transitions; and the point where simple reverence and the use of the image merely to render conception more vivid, and feeling more intense, change into definite idolatry by the attribution of Power to the image itself, is so difficultly determinable that we cannot be too cautions in asserting that such a change has actually taken place in the case of any individual. Even when it is definite and certain, we shall oftener find it the consequence of dulness of intellect than of real alienation of heart from God; and I have no manner of doubt that half of the poor and untaught Christians who are this day lying prostrate before crucifixes, Bambinos, and Volto Santos, are finding more acceptance with God, than many Protestants who idolize nothing but their own opinions or their own interests. I believe that those who have worshipped the thorns of Christ's crown will be found at last to have been holier and wiser than those who worship the thorns of the world's service, and that to adore the nails of the cross is a less sin than to adore the hammer of the workman.

But, on the other hand, though the idolatry of the lower orders in the Romish Church may thus be frequently excusable, the ordinary subterfuges by which it is defended are not so. It may be extenuated, but cannot be denied; and the attribution of power to the image,[163] in which it consists, is not merely a form of popular feeling, but a tenet of priestly instruction, and may be proved, over and over again, from any book of the Romish Church services. Take for instance the following prayer, which occurs continually at the close of the service of the Holy Cross:

"Saincte vraye Croye aouree, Qui du corps Dieu fu aournee Et de sa sueur arrousee, Et de son sanc enluminee, Par ta vertu, par ta puissance, Defent mon corps de meschance, Et montroie moy par ton playsir Que vray confes puisse mourir."

"Oh holy, true, and golden Cross, which wast adorned with God's body, and watered with His sweat, and illuminated with His blood, by thy healing virtue and thy power, defend my body from mischance; and by thy good pleasure, let me make a good confession when I die."

There can be no possible defence imagined for the mere terms in which this prayer and other such are couched: yet it is always to be remembered, that in many cases they are rather poetical effusions than serious prayers; the utterances of imaginative enthusiasm, rather than of reasonable conviction; and as such, they are rather to be condemned as illusory and fictitious, than as idolatrous, nor even as such, condemned altogether, for strong love and faith are often the roots of them and the errors of affection are better than the accuracies of apathy. But the unhappy results, among all religious sects, of the habit of allowing imaginative and poetical belief to take the place of deliberate, resolute, and prosaic belief, have been fully and admirably traced by the author of the "Natural History of Enthusiasm."

11. SITUATIONS OF BYZANTINE PALACES.

(1.) The Terraced House.

The most conspicuous pile in the midmost reach of the Grand Canal is the Casa Grimani, now the Post-Office. Letting his boat lie by the steps of this great palace, the traveller will see, on the other side of the canal, a building with a small terrace in front of it, and a little court with a door to the water, beside the terrace. Half of the house is visibly modern, and there is a great seam, like the edge of a scar, between it and the ancient remnant, in which the circular bands of the Byzantine arches will be instantly recognized. This building not having, as far as I know, any name except that of its present proprietor, I shall in future distinguish it simply as the Terraced House.

(2.) Casa Businello.

To the left of this edifice (looking from the Post-Office) there is a modern palace, on the other side of which the Byzantine mouldings appear again in the first and second stories of a house lately restored. It might be thought that the shafts and arches had been raised yesterday, the modern walls having been deftly adjusted to them, and all appearance of antiquity, together with the ornamentation and proportions of the fabric, having been entirely destroyed. I cannot, however, speak with unmixed sorrow of these changes, since, without his being implicated in the shame of them, they fitted this palace to become the residence of the kindest friend I had in Venice. It is generally known as the Casa Businello.

(3.) The Braided House.

Leaving the steps of the Casa Grimani, and turning the gondola away from the Rialto, we will pass the Casa Businello, and the three houses which succeed it on the right. The fourth is another restored palace, white and conspicuous, but retaining of its ancient structure only the five windows in its second story, and an ornamental moulding above them which appears to be ancient, though it is inaccessible without scaffolding, and I cannot therefore answer for it. But the five central windows are very valuable; and as their capitals differ from most that we find (except in St. Mark's), in their plaited or braided border and basket-worked sides, I shall call this house, in future, the Braided House.[164]

(4.) The Madonnetta House.

On the other side of this palace is the Traghetto called "Della Madonnetta;" and beyond this Traghetto, still facing the Grand Canal, a small palace, of which the front shows mere vestiges of arcades, the old shafts only being visible, with obscure circular seams in the modern plaster which covers the arches. The side of it is a curious agglomeration of pointed and round windows in every possible position, and of nearly every date from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. It is the smallest of the buildings we have to examine, but by no means the least interesting: I shall call it, from the name of its Traghetto, the Madonnetta House.

(5.) The Rio Foscari House.

We must now descend the Grand Canal as far as the Palazzo Foscari, and enter the narrower canal, called the Rio di Ca' Foscari, at the side of that palace. Almost immediately after passing the great gateway of the Foscari courtyard, we shall see on our left, in the ruinous and time-stricken walls which totter over the water, the white curve of a circular arch covered with sculpture, and fragments of the bases of small pillars, entangled among festoons of the Erba della Madonna. I have already, in the folio plates which accompanied the first volume, partly illustrated this building. In what references I have to make to it here, I shall speak of it as the Rio Foscari House.

(6.) Casa Farsetti.

We have now to reascend the Grand Canal, and approach the Rialto. As soon as we have passed the Casa Grimani, the traveller will recognize, on his right, two rich and extensive masses of building, which form important objects in almost every picturesque view of the noble bridge. Of these, the first, that farthest from the Rialto, retains great part of its ancient materials in a dislocated form. It has been entirely modernized in its upper stories, but the ground floor and first floor have nearly all their original shafts and capitals, only they have been shifted hither and thither to give room for the introduction of various small apartments, and present, in consequence, marvellous anomalies in proportion. This building is known in Venice as the Casa Farsetti.

(7.) Casa Loredan.

The one next to it, though not conspicuous, and often passed with neglect, will, I believe, be felt at last, by all who examine it carefully, to be the most beautiful palace in the whole extent of the Grand Canal. It has been restored often, once in the Gothic, once in the Renaissance times,—some writers say, even rebuilt; but, if so, rebuilt in its old form. The Gothic additions harmonize exquisitely with its Byzantine work, and it is easy, as we examine its lovely central arcade, to forget the Renaissance additions which encumber it above. It is known as the Casa Loredan.

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The eighth palace is the Fondaco de' Turchi, described in the text. A ninth existed, more interesting apparently than any of these, near the Church of San Moise, but it was thrown down in the course of "improvements" a few years ago. A woodcut of it is given in M. Lazari's Guide.

12. MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS.

Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days, we have defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and few of more practical importance than this, which I shall have occasion again and again to allege in support of many future deductions:

"All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself the objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly attainable; and becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose to itself any other objects, better attainable with other materials."

Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,—as in ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of hair,—is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting, but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture. All sculpture, therefore, which professes as its chief end the expression of such characters, is debased; and if the suggestion of them be accidentally required of it, that suggestion is only to be given to an extent compatible with perfect ease of execution in the given material,—not to the utmost possible extent. For instance: some of the most delightful drawings of our own water-color painter, Hunt, have been of birds' nests; of which, in painting, it is perfectly possible to represent the intricate fibrous or mossy structure; therefore, the effort is a legitimate one, and the art is well employed. But to carve a bird's nest out of marble would be physically impossible, and to reach any approximate expression of its structure would require prolonged and intolerable labor. Therefore, all sculpture which set itself to carving birds' nests as an end, or which, if a bird's nest were required of it, carved it to the utmost possible point of realization, would be debased. Nothing but the general form, and as much of the fibrous structure as could be with perfect ease represented, ought to be attempted at all.

But more than this. The workman has not done his duty, and is not working on safe principles, unless he even so far honors the materials with which he is working as to set himself to bring out their beauty, and to recommend and exalt, as far as lie can, their peculiar qualities. If he is working in marble, he should insist upon and exhibit its transparency and solidity; if in iron, its strength and tenacity; if in gold, its ductility; and he will invariably find the material grateful, and that his work is all the nobler for being eulogistic of the substance of which it is made. But of all the arts, the working of glass is that in which we ought to keep these principles most vigorously in mind. For we owe it so much, and the possession of it is so great a blessing, that all our work in it should be completely and forcibly expressive of the peculiar characters which give it so vast a value.

These are two, namely, its DUCTILITY when heated, and TRANSPARENCY when cold, both nearly perfect. In its employment for vessels, we ought always to exhibit its ductility, and in its employment for windows, its transparency. All work in glass is bad which does not, with loud voice, proclaim one or other of these great qualities.

Consequently, all cut glass is barbarous: for the cutting conceals its ductility, and confuses it with crystal. Also, all very neat, finished, and perfect form in glass is barbarous: for this fails in proclaiming another of its great virtues; namely, the ease with which its light substance can be moulded or blown into any form, so long as perfect accuracy be not required. In metal, which, even when heated enough to be thoroughly malleable, retains yet such weight and consistency as render it susceptible of the finest handling and retention of the most delicate form, great precision of workmanship is admissible; but in glass, which when once softened must be blown or moulded, not hammered, and which is liable to lose, by contraction or subsidence, the fineness of the forms given to it, no delicate outlines are to be attempted, but only such fantastic and fickle grace as the mind of the workman can conceive and execute on the instant. The more wild, extravagant, and grotesque in their gracefulness the forms are, the better. No material is so adapted for giving full play to the imagination, but it must not be wrought with refinement or painfulness, still less with costliness. For as in gratitude we are to proclaim its virtues, so in all honesty we are to confess its imperfections; and while we triumphantly set forth its transparency, we are also frankly to admit its fragility, and therefore not to waste much time upon it, nor put any real art into it when intended for daily use. No workman ought ever to spend more than an hour in the making of any glass vessel.

Next in the case of windows, the points which we have to insist upon are, the transparency of the glass and its susceptibility of the most brilliant colors; and therefore the attempt to turn painted windows into pretty pictures is one of the most gross and ridiculous barbarisms of this pre-eminently barbarous century. It originated, I suppose, with the Germans, who seem for the present distinguished among European nations by the loss of the sense of color; but it appears of late to have considerable chance of establishing itself in England: and it is a two-edged error, striking in two directions; first at the healthy appreciation of painting, and then at the healthy appreciation of glass. Color, ground with oil, and laid on a solid opaque ground, furnishes to the human hand the most exquisite means of expression which the human sight and invention can find or require. By its two opposite qualities, each naturally and easily attainable, of transparency in shadow and opacity in light, it complies with the conditions of nature; and by its perfect governableness it permits the utmost possible fulness and subtlety in the harmonies of color, as well as the utmost perfection in the drawing. Glass, considered as a material for a picture, is exactly as bad as oil paint is good. It sets out by reversing the conditions of nature, by making the lights transparent and the shadows opaque; and the ungovernableness of its color (changing in the furnace), and its violence (being always on a high key, because produced by actual light), render it so disadvantageous in every way, that the result of working in it for pictorial effect would infallibly be the destruction of all the appreciation of the noble qualities of pictorial color.

In the second place, this modern barbarism destroys the true appreciation of the qualities of glass. It denies, and endeavors as far as possible to conceal, the transparency, which is not only its great virtue in a merely utilitarian point of view, but its great spiritual character; the character by which in church architecture it becomes most touchingly impressive, as typical of the entrances of the Holy Spirit into the heart of man; a typical expression rendered specific and intense by the purity and brilliancy of its sevenfold hues;[165] and therefore in endeavoring to turn the window into a picture, we at once lose the sanctity and power of the noble material, and employ it to an end which is utterly impossible it should ever worthily attain. The true perfection of a painted window is to be serene, intense, brilliant, like flaming jewellery; full of easily legible and quaint subjects, and exquisitely subtle, yet simple, in its harmonies. In a word, this perfection has been consummated in the designs, never to be surpassed, if ever again to be approached by human art, of the French windows of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

FOOTNOTES

[163] I do not like to hear Protestants speaking with gross and uncharitable contempt even of the worship of relics. Elisha once trusted his own staff too far; nor can I see any reasonable ground for the scorn, or the unkind rebuke, of those who have been taught from their youth upwards that to hope even in the hem of the garment may sometimes be better than to spend the living on physicians.

[164] Casa Tiepolo (?) in Lazari's Guide.

[165] I do not think that there is anything more necessary to the progress of European art in the present day than the complete understanding of this sanctity of Color. I had much pleasure in finding it, the other day, fully understood and thus sweetly expressed in a little volume of poems by a Miss Maynard:

"For still in every land, though to Thy name Arose no temple,—still in every age, Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise, We praised Thee; and at rise and set of sun Did we assemble duly, and intone A choral hymn that all the lands might hear. In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee, Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood. But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come, Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house, We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise Thee, Light of Light! Thee, God of very God!"

A Dream of Fair Colors.

These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable for a very unobtrusive and pure religious feeling in subjects connected with art.



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CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.

Page 58: 'endeavoring to imagine its aspect' corrected from 'aspeet.'

Page 84: 'inadmissible altogether, or objectionable' from 'objecjectionable.'

Page 179: 'the surface sculpture will' corrected from 'wiil.'

Page 188: 'central class will always' originally 'aways.'

Page 191: 'with the rest of the spirit' originally 'spirt.'

Page 204: 'the heart of that languor' originally 'langour.'

Page 263: 'merely noting this one assured fact' changed from 'nothing.'

Footnote 130: Appendi corrected to Appendix.

THE END