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
drawing often powerful, though of course uninformed; the mastery of
mental expression by bodily motion, and of bodily motion, past and
future, by a single gesture, altogether unrivaled even by Raffaelle;--it
is obtained chiefly by throwing the emphasis always on the right line,
admitting straight lines of great severity, and never dividing the main
drift of the drapery by inferior folds; neither are accidents allowed to
interfere--the garments fall heavily and in marked angles--nor are they
affected by the wind, except under circumstances of very rapid motion.
The ideal of the face is often solemn--seldom beautiful; occasionally
ludicrous failures occur: in the smallest designs the face is very often
a dead letter, or worse: and in all, Giotto's handling is generally to
be distinguished from that of any of his followers by its bluntness. In
the school work we find sweeter types of feature, greater finish,
stricter care, more delicate outline, fewer errors, but on the whole
less life.
69. Finally, and on this we would especially insist, Giotto's genius is
not to be considered as struggling with difficulty and repressed by
ignorance, but as appointed, for the good of men, to come into the world
exactly at the time when its rapidity of invention was not likely to be
hampered by demands for imitative dexterity or neatness of finish; and
when, owing to the very ignorance which has been unwisely regretted, the
simplicity of his thoughts might be uttered with a childlike and
innocent sweetness, never to be recovered in times of prouder knowledge.
The dramatic power of his works, rightly understood, could receive no
addition from artificial arrangement of shade, or scientific exhibition
of anatomy, and we have reason to be deeply grateful when afterwards
"inland far" with Buonaroti and Titian, that we can look back to the
Giotteschi--to see those children
"Sport upon the shore
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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