Val d'Arno: Ten Lectures on the Tuscan Art Directly Antecedent to the Florentine Year of Victories; Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1873Ruskin, John
History
Val d'Arno: Ten Lectures on the Tuscan Art Directly Antecedent to the Florentine Year of Victories; Given Before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1873
Ruskin, John
Art -- Italy -- Tuscany
In the delivery of the preceding Lectures, some account was given of the
theologic design of the sculptures by Giovanni Pisano at Orvieto, which
I intended to have printed separately, and in more complete form, in
this Appendix. But my strength does not now admit of my fulfilling the
half of my intentions, and I find myself, at present, tired, and so
dead in feeling, that I have no quickness in interpretation, or skill in
description of emotional work. I must content myself, therefore, for the
time, with a short statement of the points which I wish the reader to
observe in the Plates, and which were left unnoticed in the text.
The frontispiece is the best copy I can get, in permanent materials,
of a photograph of the course of the Arno, through Pisa, before the old
banks were destroyed. Two arches of the Ponte-a-Mare which was carried
away in the inundation of 1870, are seen in the distance; the church
of La Spina, in its original position overhanging the river; and the
buttressed and rugged walls of the mediaeval shore. Never more, any of
these, to be seen in reality, by living eyes.
PLATE I.--A small portion of a photograph of Nicolo Pisano's Adoration
of the Magi, on the pulpit of the Pisan Baptistery. The intensely Greek
character of the heads, and the severely impetuous chiselling (learned
from Late Roman rapid work), which drives the lines of the drapery
nearly straight, may be seen better in a fragment of this limited
measure than in the crowded massing of the entire subject. But it may
be observed also that there is both a thoughtfulness and a tenderness
in the features, whether of the Virgin or the attendant angel, which
already indicate an aim beyond that of Greek art.
PLATE II--The Pulpit of the Baptistery (of which the preceding
plate represents a portion). I have only given this general view for
convenience of reference. Beautiful photographs of the subject on a
large scale are easily attainable.
PLATE III.--The Fountain of Perugia. Executed from a sketch by Mr.
Arthur Severn. The perspective of the steps is not quite true; we both
tried to get it right, but found that it would be a day or two's work,
to little purpose, and so let them go at hazard. The inlaid pattern
behind is part of the older wall of the cathedral; the late door is of
course inserted.
PLATE IV., LETTER E.--From Norman Bible in the British Museum; showing
the moral temper which regulated common ornamentation in the twelfth
century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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