Chapter XXXVIII: Appendix: 1. Foundation of Venice (4)

These are the principal modes of representing water in Greek mythography. In the art of the Roman period, the same kind of figurative and symbolic language is employed, but there is a constant tendency to multiply accessories and details, as we have shown in the later representations of harbors and river-gods cited above. In these crowded compositions the eye is fatigued and distracted by the quantity it has to examine; the language of art becomes more copious but less terse and emphatic, and addresses itself to minds far less intelligent than the refined critics who were the contemporaries of Phidias.

Rivers in Roman art are usually represented by reclining male figures, generally bearded, holding reeds or other plants in their hands, and leaning on urns from which water is flowing. On the coins of many Syrian cities, struck in imperial times, the city is represented by a turreted female figure seated on rocks, and resting her feet on the shoulder of a youthful male figure, who looks up in her face, stretching out his arms, and who is sunk in the ground as high as the waist. See Müller (Denkmäler d. A. Kunst, i., taf. 49, No. 220) for a group of this kind in the Vatican, and several similar designs on coins.

On the column of Trajan there occur many rude representations of the Danube, and other rivers crossed by the Romans in their military expeditions. The water is imitated by sculptured wavy lines, in which boats are placed. In one scene (Bartoli, Colonna Trajana, Tav. 4) this rude conventional imitation is combined with a figure. In a recess in the river bank is a reclining river-god, terminating at the waist. This is either meant for a statue which was really placed on the bank of the river, and which therefore marks some particular locality, or we have here figurative representation blended with conventional imitation.

On the column of Antoninus (Bartoli, Colon. Anton., Tav. 15) a storm of rain is represented by the head of Jupiter Pluvius, who has a vast outspread beard flowing in long tresses. In the Townley collection, in the British Museum, is a Roman helmet found at Ribchester in Lancashire, with a mask or vizor attached. The helmet is richly embossed with figures in a battle scene; round the brow is a row of turrets; the hair in the forehead is so treated as to give the idea of waves washing the base of the turrets. This head is perhaps a figurative representation of a town girt with fortifications and a moat, near which some great battle was fought. It is engraved (Vetusta Monum. of Soc. Ant. London, iv., Pl. 1-4).

In the Galeria at Florence is a group in alto relievo (Gori, Inscript. Ant. Flor. 1727, p. 76, Tab. 14) of three female figures, one of whom is certainly Demeter Kourotrophos, or the earth; another, Thetis, or the sea; the centre of the three seems to represent Aphrodite associated, as on the coins of Camarina, with the element of fresh water.

This figure is seated on a swan, and holds over her head an arched veil. Her hair is bound with reeds; above her veil grows a tall water plant, and below the swan other water plants, and a stork seated on a _hydria_, or pitcher, from which water is flowing. The swan, the stork, the water plants, and the _hydria_ must all be regarded as symbols of fresh water, the latter emblem being introduced to show that the element is fit for the use of man.

Fountains in Roman art are generally personified as figures of nymphs reclining with urns, or standing holding before them a large shell.

One of the latest representations of water in ancient art is the mosaic of Palestrina (Barthélemy, in Bartoli, Peint. Antiques) which may be described as a kind of rude panorama of some district of Upper Egypt, a bird's-eye view, half man, half picture, in which the details are neither adjusted to a scale, nor drawn according to perspective, but crowded together, as they would be in an ancient bas-relief.

22. ARABIAN ORNAMENTATION.

I do not mean what I have here said of the Inventive power of the Arab to be understood as in the least applying to the detestable ornamentation of the Alhambra.[105] The Alhambra is no more characteristic of Arab work, than Milan Cathedral is of Gothic: it is a late building, a work of the Spanish dynasty in its last decline, and its ornamentation is fit for nothing but to be transferred to patterns of carpets or bindings of books, together with their marbling, and mottling, and other mechanical recommendations. The Alhambra ornament has of late been largely used in shop-fronts, to the no small detriment of Regent Street and Oxford Street.

23. VARIETIES OF CHAMFER.

Let B A C, Fig. LXXII., be the original angle of the wall. Inscribe within it a circle, _p_ Q N _p_, of the size of the bead required, touching A B, A C, in _p_, _p_; join _p_, _p_, and draw B C parallel to it, touching the circle.

Then the lines B C, _p p_ are the limits of the possible chamfers constructed with curves struck either from centre A, as the line Q _q_, N _d_, _r u_, _g c_, &c., or from any other point chosen as a centre in the direction Q A produced: and also of all chamfers in straight lines, as _a b_, _e f_. There are, of course, an infinite number of chamfers to be struck between B C and _p p_, from every point in Q A produced to infinity; thus we have infinity multiplied into infinity to express the number of possible chamfers of this species, which are peculiarly Italian chamfers; together with another singly infinite group of the straight chamfers, _a b_, _e f_, &c., of which the one formed by the line _a b_, passing through the centre of the circle, is the universal early Gothic chamfer of Venice.

Again. Either on the line A C, or on any other lines A _l_ or A _m_, radiating from A, any number of centres may be taken, from which, with any radii not greater than the distance between such points and Q, an infinite number of curves may be struck, such as _t u_, _r s_, N _n_ (all which are here struck from centres on the line A C). These lines represent the great class of the northern chamfers, of which the number is infinity raised to its fourth power, but of which the curve N _n_ (for northern) represents the average condition; the shallower chamfers of the same group, _r s_, _t u_, &c., occurring often in Italy. The lines _r u_, _t u_, and _a b_ may be taken approximating to the most frequent conditions of the southern chamfer.

It is evident that the chords of any of these curves will give a relative group of rectilinear chamfers, occurring both in the North and South; but the rectilinear chamfers, I think, invariably fall within the line Q C, and are either parallel with it, or inclined to A C at an angle greater than A C Q, and often perpendicular to it; but never inclined to it at an angle less than A C Q.

24. RENAISSANCE BASES.

The following extract from my note-book refers also to some features of late decoration of shafts.

"The Scuola di San Rocco is one of the most interesting examples of Renaissance work in Venice. Its fluted pillars are surrounded each by a wreath, one of vine, another of laurel, another of oak, not indeed arranged with the fantasticism of early Gothic; but, especially the laurel, reminding one strongly of the laurel sprays, powerful as well as beautiful, of Veronese and Tintoret. Their stems are curiously and richly interlaced--the last vestige of the Byzantine wreathed work--and the vine-leaves are ribbed on the surfaces, I think, nearly as finely as those of the Noah,[106] though more injured by time. The capitals are far the richest Renaissance in Venice, less corrupt and more masculine in plan, than any other, and truly suggestive of support, though of course showing the tendency to error in this respect; and finally, at the angles of the pure Attic bases, on the square plinth, are set couchant animals; one, an elephant four inches high, very curiously and cleverly cut, and all these details worked with a spirit, finish, fancy, and affection quite worthy of the middle ages. But they have all the marked fault of being utterly detached from the architecture. The wreaths round the columns look as if they would drop off the next moment, and the animals at the bases produce exactly the effect of mice who had got there by accident: one feels them ridiculously diminutive, and utterly useless."

The effect of diminutiveness is, I think, chiefly owing to there being no other groups of figures near them, to accustom the eye to the proportion, and to the needless choice of the largest animals, elephants, bears, and lions, to occupy a position so completely insignificant, and to be expressed on so contemptible a scale,--not in a bas-relief or pictorial piece of sculpture, but as independent figures. The whole building is a most curious illustration of the appointed fate of the Renaissance architects,--to caricature whatever they imitated, and misapply whatever they learned.

25. ROMANIST DECORATION OF BASES.

I have spoken above (Appendix 12) of the way in which the Roman Catholic priests everywhere suffer their churches to be desecrated. But the worst instances I ever saw of sacrilege and brutality, daily permitted in the face of all men, were the uses to which the noble base of St. Mark's was put, when I was last in Venice. Portions of nearly all cathedrals may be found abandoned to neglect; but this base of St. Mark's is in no obscure position. Full fronting the western sun--crossing the whole breadth of St. Mark's Place--the termination of the most noble square in the world--the centre of the most noble city--its purple marbles were, in the winter of 1849, the customary _gambling tables_ of the idle children of Venice; and the parts which flank the Great Entrance, that very entrance where "Barbarossa flung his mantle off," were the counters of a common bazaar for children's toys, carts, dolls, and small pewter spoons and dishes, German caricatures and books of the Opera, mixed with those of the offices of religion; the caricatures being fastened with twine round the porphyry shafts of the church. One Sunday, the 24th of February, 1850, the book-stall being somewhat more richly laid out than usual, I noted down the titles of a few of the books in the order in which they lay, and I give them below. The irony conveyed by the juxtaposition of the three in Italics appears too shrewd to be accidental; but the fact was actually so.

Along the edge of the white plinth were a row of two kinds of books,

Officium Beatæ Virg. M.; and Officium Hebdomadæ sanctæ, juxta Formam
Missalis et Breviarii Romani sub Urbano VIII. correcti.

Behind these lay, side by side, the following:

Don Desiderio. Dramma Giocoso per Musica.
Breve Esposizione della Carattere di vera Religione.

On the top of this latter, keeping its leaves open,

La Figlia del Reggimento. Melodramma comica.
_Carteggio di Madama la Marchesa di Pompadour, ossia
raccolta di Lettere scritte della Medesima._
_Istruzioni di morale Condotta per le Figlie._
_Francesca di Rimini. Dramma per Musica._

Then, a little farther on, after a mass of plays:--

Orazioni a Gesu Nazareno e a Maria addolorata.
Semiramide; Melodramma tragico da rappresentarsi nel Gran Teatro
il Fenice.
Modo di orare per l'Acquisto del S. Giubileo, conceduto a tutto il
Mondo Cattolico da S. S. Gregorio XVI.
Le due illustre Rivali, Melodramma in Tre Atti, da rappresentarsi
nel nuovo Gran Teatro il Fenice.
Il Cristiano secondo il Cuore di Gesu, per la Pratica delle sue
Virtu.
Traduzione dell'Idioma Italiana.
La chiava Chinese; Commedia del Sig. Abate Pietro Chiari.
La Pelarina; Intermezzo de Tre Parti per Musica.
Il Cavaliero e la Dama; Commedia in Tre Atti in Prosa.

I leave these facts without comment. But this being the last piece of Appendix I have to add to the present volume, I would desire to close its pages with a question to my readers--a statistical question, which, I doubt not, is being accurately determined for us all elsewhere, and which, therefore, it seems to me, our time would not be wasted in determining for ourselves.

There has now been peace between England and the continental powers about thirty-five years, and during that period the English have visited the continent at the rate of many thousands a year, staying there, I suppose, on the average, each two or three months; nor these an inferior kind of English, but the kind which ought to be the best--the noblest born, the best taught, the richest in time and money, having more leisure, knowledge, and power than any other portion of the nation. These, we might suppose, beholding, as they travelled, the condition of the states in which the Papal religion is professed, and being, at the same time, the most enlightened section of a great Protestant nation, would have been animated with some desire to dissipate the Romanist errors, and to communicate to others the better knowledge which they possessed themselves. I doubt not but that He who gave peace upon the earth, and gave it by the hand of England, expected this much of her, and has watched every one of the millions of her travellers as they crossed the sea, and kept count for him of his travelling expenses, and of their distribution, in a manner of which neither the traveller nor his courier were at all informed. I doubt not, I say, but that such accounts have been literally kept for all of us, and that a day will come when they will be made clearly legible to us, and when we shall see added together, on one side of the account book, a great sum, the certain portion, whatever it may be, of this thirty-five years' spendings of the rich English, accounted for in this manner:--

To wooden spoons, nut-crackers, and jewellery, bought at Geneva, and elsewhere among the Alps, so much; to shell cameos and bits of mosaic bought at Rome, so much; to coral horns and lava brooches bought at Naples, so much; to glass beads at Venice, and gold filigree at Genoa, so much; to pictures, and statues, and ornaments, everywhere, so much; to avant-couriers and extra post-horses, for show and magnificence, so much; to great entertainments and good places for seeing sights, so much; to ball-dresses and general vanities, so much. This, I say, will be the sum on one side of the book; and on the other will be written:

To the struggling Protestant Churches of France, Switzerland, and Piedmont, so much.

Had we not better do this piece of statistics for ourselves, in time?

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Ed. Venetis, 1758, Lib. I.

[94] Compare Appendix 12.

[95] L'Artiste en Bâtiments, par Louis Berteaux: Dijon, 1848. My
printer writes at the side of the page a note, which I insert with
thanks:--"This is not the first attempt at a French order. The
writer has a Treatise by Sebastian Le Clerc, a great man in his
generation, which contains a Roman order, a Spanish order, which the
inventor appears to think very grand, and a _new_ French order
nationalised by the Gallic cock crowing and clapping its wings in
the capital."

[96] The lower group in Plate XVII.

[97] One of the upper stories is also in Gally Knight's plate
represented as merely banded, and otherwise plain: it is, in
reality, covered with as delicate inlaying as the rest. The whole
front is besides out of proportion, and out of perspective, at once;
and yet this work is referred to as of authority, by our architects.
Well may our architecture fall from its place among the fine arts,
as it is doing rapidly; nearly all our works of value being devoted
to the Greek architecture, which is _utterly useless_ to us--or
worse. _One_ most noble book, however, has been dedicated to our
English abbeys,--Mr. E. Sharpe's "Architectural Parallels"--almost a
model of what I should like to see done for the Gothic of all
Europe.

[98] Except in the single passage "tell it unto the Church," which
is simply the _extension_ of what had been commanded before, i.e.,
tell the fault first "between thee and him," then taking "with thee
one or two more," then, to all Christian men capable of hearing the
cause: if he refuse to hear their common voice, "let him be unto
thee as a heathen man and publican:" (But consider how Christ
treated both.)

[99] One or two remarks on this subject, some of which I had
intended to have inserted here, and others in Appendix 5, I have
arranged in more consistent order, and published in a separate
pamphlet, "Notes on the Construction of Sheep-folds," for the
convenience of readers interested in other architecture than that of
Venetian palaces.

[100] Not, however, by Johnson's _testimony_: Vide Adventurer, No.
39. "Such operations as required neither celerity nor strength,--the
low drudgery of collating copies, comparing authorities, _digesting
dictionaries_, or accumulating compilations."

[101] We have done so--theoretically; just as one would reason on
the human form from the bones outwards: but the Architect of human
form frames all at once--bone and flesh.

[102] Of course mere multiplicability, as of an engraving, does not
diminish the intrinsic value of the work; and if the casts of
sculpture could be as sharp as the sculpture itself, they would hold
to it the relation of value which engravings hold to paintings. And,
if we choose to have our churches all alike, we might cast them all
in bronze--we might actually coin churches, and have mints of
Cathedrals. It would be worthy of the spirit of the century to put
milled edges for mouldings, and have a popular currency of religious
subjects: a new cast of nativities every Christmas. I have not heard
this contemplated, however, and I speak, therefore, only of the
results which I believe are contemplated, as attainable by mere
mechanical applications of glass and iron.

[103] I shall often have occasion to write measures in the current
text, therefore the reader will kindly understand that whenever they
are thus written, 2 ,, 2, with double commas between, the first
figures stand for English feet, the second for English inches.

[104] I cannot suffer this volume to close without also thanking my
kind friend, Mr. Rawdon Brown, for help given me in a thousand ways
during my stay in Venice: but chiefly for his direction to passages
elucidatory of my subject in the MSS. of St. Mark's library.

[105] I have not seen the building itself, but Mr. Owen Jones's work
may, I suppose, be considered as sufficiently representing it for
all purposes of criticism.

[106] The sculpture of the Drunkenness of Noah on the Ducal Palace,
of which we shall have much to say hereafter.

* * * * *

CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT.

Footnote [31] 'Greek porticos' changed to 'Greek porticoes'.

Page 42: '§ XL. It is not' corrected to '§ XI. It is not'.

Page 161: Added 'r' to 'timbe' in 'long stone or piece of timbe'.

Page 180: 'XII. 2. Inlet' corrected to '§ XII. 2. Inlet'.

Page 237: 'rererence' changed to 'reference' in 'How is ornament to be
treated with rererence'.

Page 247: '§ XIV. Now this is' corrected to '§ XIX. Now this is'.

Page 273: 'no' changed to 'not' in 'a peculiar look, which I can no
otherwise describe'.

Page 333: comma changed to period at the paragraph ending with
'separates its ornament into distinct families, broadly definable'.

Page 370: 'two-thsrds' corrected to 'two-thirds'.

Page 397: 'bodly' corrected to 'bodily' in 'merely through the channel
of the bodly dexterities'.

Page 398: 'calld' corrected to 'called' in 'Men engaged in the practice
of these are calld artizans'.

Page 401: 'necesary' corrected to 'necessary' in 'as Rubens was of that
necesary for his'.

Page 406: Space placement corrected in 'I found it a sugly at last' to
'I found it as ugly at last'.

Page 423: 'Milligen' corrected to 'Millingen' in 'Compare also Milligen,
Ancient Coins of Cities and Kings'.

Page 433: space between 'rappresent' and 'arsi' removed in 'Tre Atti, da
rappresent arsi'.

Page 433: 'del' corrected to 'dell' in 'Traduzione del' Idioma
Italiana'.