It is true, also, that the carved moulding represents nothing, and the
carved drapery represents something; but you will not, I should think,
accept, as an explanation of the difference between architecture and
sculpture, this any more than the other, that "sculpture is art which
has meaning, and architecture art which has none."
Where, then, is your difference? In this, perhaps, you will say; that
whatever ornaments we can direct ourselves, and get accurately cut to
order, we consider architectural. The ornaments that we are obliged to
leave to the pleasure of the workman, or the superintendence of some
other designer, we consider sculptural, especially if they are more or
less extraneous and incrusted--not an essential part of the building.
Accepting this definition, I am compelled to reply, that it is in
effect nothing more than an amplification of my first one--that
whatever is easy you call architecture, whatever is difficult you call
sculpture. For you cannot suppose the arrangement of the place in which
the sculpture is to be put is so difficult or so great a part of the
design as the sculpture itself. For instance: you all know the pulpit
of Niccolo Pisano, in the baptistry at Pisa. It is composed of seven
rich _relievi_, surrounded by panel mouldings, and sustained on
marble shafts. Do you suppose Niccolo Pisano's reputation--such part of
it at least as rests on this pulpit (and much does)--depends on the
panel mouldings, or on the relievi? The panel mouldings are by his
hand; he would have disdained to leave even them to a common workman;
but do you think he found any difficulty in them, or thought there was
any credit in them? Having once done the sculpture, those enclosing
lines were mere child's play to him; the determination of the diameter
of shafts and height of capitals was an affair of minutes; his
_work_ was in carving the Crucifixion and the Baptism.
Or, again, do you recollect Orcagna's tabernacle in the church of San
Michele, at Florence? That, also, consists of rich and multitudinous
bas-reliefs, enclosed in panel mouldings, with shafts of mosaic, and
foliated arches sustaining the canopy. Do you think Orcagna, any more
than Pisano, if his spirit could rise in the midst of us at this
moment, would tell us that he had trusted his fame to the foliation, or
had put his soul's pride into the panelling? Not so; he would tell you
that his spirit was in the stooping figures that stand round the couch
of the dying Virgin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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