On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2): A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature — John Shaqi
On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2): A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and LiteratureRuskin, John
General
On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2): A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature
Ruskin, John
Art; Essays; Literature
49. And that is God's doing and distributing; and none is rashly to be
thought inferior to another, as if by his own fault; nor any of them
stimulated to emulation, and changing places with others, although their
allotted tasks be of different dignities, and their granted instruments
of different keenness; for in none of them can there be a perfection or
balance of all human attributes;--the great colorist becomes gradually
insensible to the refinements of form which he at first intentionally
omitted; the master of line is inevitably dead to many of the delights
of color; the study of the true or ideal human form is inconsistent with
the love of its most spiritual expressions. To one it is intrusted to
record the historical realities of his age; in him the perception of
character is subtle, and that of abstract beauty in measure diminished;
to another, removed to the desert, or inclosed in the cloister, is
given, not the noting of things transient, but the revealing of things
eternal. Ghirlandajo and Titian painted men, but could not angels;
Duccio and Angelico painted Saints, but could not senators. One is
ordered to copy material form lovingly and slowly--his the fine finger
and patient will: to another are sent visions and dreams upon the
bed--his the hand fearful and swift, and impulse of passion irregular
and wild. We may have occasion further to insist upon this great
principle of the incommunicableness and singleness of all the highest
powers; but we assert it here especially, in opposition to the idea,
already so fatal to art, that either the aim of the antique may take
place together with the purposes, or its traditions become elevatory of
the power, of Christian art; or that the glories of Giotto and the
Sienese are in any wise traceable through Niccola Pisano to the
venerable relics of the Campo Santo.
50. Lord Lindsay's statement, as far as it regards Niccola himself, is
true.
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