Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture: Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870Ruskin, John
Philosophy
Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture: Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870
Ruskin, John
Sculpture
Cima or Bellini expresses mental emotion only; but the clustering and
twining of the fingers of Correggio's S. Catherine is enjoyed by the
painter just in the same way as he would enjoy the twining of the
branches of a graceful plant, and he compels them into intricacies which
have little or no relation to St. Catherine's mind. In the two drawings
of Correggio (S. 13 and 14) it is the rounding of limbs and softness of
foot resting on cloud which are principally thought of in the form of
the Madonna; and the countenance of St. John is foreshortened into a
section, that full prominence may be given to the muscles of his arms
and breast.
So in Tintoret's drawing of the Graces (S. 22), he has entirely
neglected the individual character of the Goddesses, and been content to
indicate it merely by attributes of dice or flower, so only that he may
sufficiently display varieties of contour in thigh and shoulder.
230. Thus far, then, the Greeks, Correggio, Michael Angelo, Raphael in
his latter design, and Tintoret in his scenic design (as opposed to
portraiture), are at one. But the Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, are
also together in this farther point; that they all draw the body for
true delight in it, and with knowledge of it living; while Michael
Angelo and Raphael draw the body for vanity, and from knowledge of it
dead.
The Venus of Melos,--Correggio's Venus, (with Mercury teaching Cupid to
read),--and Tintoret's Graces, have the forms which their designers
truly _liked_ to see in women. They may have been wrong or right in
liking those forms, but they carved and painted them for their pleasure,
not for vanity.
But the form of Michael Angelo's Night is not one which he delighted to
see in women. He gave it her, because he thought it was fine, and that
he would be admired for reaching so lofty an ideal.[48]
231. Again. The Greeks, Correggio, and Tintoret, learn the body from the
living body, and delight in its breath, color, and motion.[49]
Raphael and Michael Angelo learned it essentially from the corpse, and
had no delight in it whatever, but great pride in showing that they knew
all its mechanism; they therefore sacrifice its colors, and insist on
its muscles, and surrender the breath and fire of it, for what is--not
merely carnal,--but osseous, knowing that for one person who can
recognize the loveliness of a look, or the purity of a color, there are
a hundred who can calculate the length of a bone.
The boy with the doves, in Raphael's cartoon of the Beautiful Gate of
the Temple, is not a child running, but a surgical diagram of a child in
a running posture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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