Modern Painters Vol. III.

asion to follow out one or other of its branches; for I have always considered architecture as an essential part of landscape; and I think the study of its best styles and real meaning one of the necessary functions of the landscape-painter; as, in like manner, the architect cannot be

hat chapter[30] divided pr

ul but irrational play of the

nd accidental contemplation of te

of the imagination by the presence o

preference on beautiful and sacred images, but in its mocking or playful moods it is apt to jest, sometimes bitterly, with undercurrent of sternest pathos, sometimes waywardly, sometimes slightly and wickedly, with death and sin; hence an enormous mass of grotesque art, some most noble and useful, as Holbein's Dance of Death, and Albert Durer's Knight and Death,[31

il; still more rarely is it, when so free, natural to the mind; for the moment we begin to contemplate sinless beauty we are apt to get serious; and moral fairy tales, and such other innocent work, are hardly ever truly, that is to say, nat

h; including nearly the whole range of symbolical and allegorical art and poetry. Its nobleness has been sufficiently insisted upon in the place before referred to. (Chapter on

truths which it would have taken a long time to express in any verbal way, and of which the connection is left for the beh

ng, however, is to it a veil, or disgraceful dress, in the sight of others; (6.) and that it never is free from the most bitter suffering, (7.) which cramps all its acts and movements, enfolding and crushing it while it torments. All this it has required a somewhat long and languid sentence for me to say in unsymbolical terms,-not, by the way, that they are unsymbolical altogether, for I have been forced, whether I would or not, to use some figurative words; but even with this

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y truths which nothing else could convey; and not only so, but convey them, in minor cases with a delightfulness,-in the higher instances with an awfulness,-which no mere utterance of the symbolised truth would have possessed, but which belongs to the eff

h, what s

, and the face thereo

hall break forth upon all t

onveyed, from the most sublime words of true Revelation, to the "?λλ? ?τ? ?ν ?μ?ονο? βασιλε??," &c., of the oracles, and the more or less doubtful teachi

ble power best to be emplo

na; Michael Angelo's two best statues, the Night and Day; Albert Durer's noble Melancholy, and hundreds more of his best works; a full third, I should think, of the works of Tintoret and Veronese, and nearly as large a portion of those of Raphael and Rubens, are entirely symbolical or personifiant; and, except in the case of the last-named painter, are always among the most interesting works the painters executed. The greater and more thoughtful the artists, the more they delight in symbolism, and the more fearlessly they employ it. Dead symbolism, second-hand symbolism, pointless symbolism, are indeed objectionable enough; but so are most other things that are dead, second-hand, and pointless. It is also true that both symbolism and personification are somewhat more apt than most things to have their edges taken off by too much handling; and what with our modern Fames, Justices, and various metaphorical ideals, largely used for signs and other such purposes, there is some excuse fo

iving substantial truth, and master of the elements of pictorial effect which have been developed by modern art, would solemnly, and yet fearlessly, cast his fancy free in the spiritual world, and faithfully follow out such masters of that world as Dante and Spenser, there seems no limit to the splendor of thought which painting might express. Consider, for instance, how the ordinary personifications of Charity oscillate between the mere nurse of many children, of Reynolds, and the somewhat painfully conceived figure with flames issuing from the heart, of Giotto; and how much more significance might be given to the representation of Love, by amplifying with tenderness the thought of Dante, "Tanta rossa, che a pena fora dentro al foco nota,"[34] that is to say, by representing the loveliness of her face and form as all flushed with glow of crim

base grotesque of men like Bronzino, who, having no true imagination, are apt, more than others, to try by startling realism to enforce the monstrosity that has no terror in itself. But it is nevertheless true, that, unless in the hands of the very greatest men, the grotesque seems better to be expressed merely in line, or light and shade, or mere abstract color, so as to mark it for a thought rather than a substantial fact. Even if Albert Durer had perfectly painted his Knight and Death, I question if we should fe

sting grotesque. So far as it expresses any transient flash of wit or satire, the less labor of li

normous mass of intellectual power is turned to everlasting use, which, in this present century of ours, evaporates in street gibing or vain revelling; all the good wit and satire expiring in daily talk, (like foam on wine,) which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had a permitted and useful expression in the arts of sculpture and illumination, like foam fixed into chalcedony. It is with a view (not the least important among many others bearing upon art) to the reopening of this great field of human intelligence, long entirely closed, that I am striving to introduce Gothic architecture into daily domestic use; and to revive the art of illumination, properly so called; not the art of miniature-painting in books, or on vellum, which has ridiculously been confused with it; but of making writing, simple writing, beautiful to the eye, by investing it with the great chord of perfect color, blue, purple, scarlet, white, and gold, and in that chord of color, permitting the continual play of the fa

and yet how like in many respects, and apt to be mistaken, one for the other;-how the jest which springs from mere fatuity, and vacant want of penetration or purpose, is everlastingly, infinitely, separated from, and yet may sometimes be mistaken for, the bright, playful, fond, far-sighted jest of Plato, or the bitter, purposeful, sorrowing jest of Aristophanes; how, again, the horror which springs from guilty love of foulness and sin, may be often mistaken for the inevitable horror which a great mind must sometimes feel i

each other, a piece of true grotesque, from the Lombard-Gothic, and of false grotesque from classical (Roman) architecture. They are both griffins; the one on the left carries on his back one of the

ion. For these reasons, it is all the better for our purpose. I do not want to compare the worst false grotesque with the best true, but rather, on the contrary, the best false with the simplest true, in or

mean by calling either of them true? There never

rom the life, meaning to declare to all ages that he had verily seen with his immortal eyes such a griffin as that; but

w do you

of spiny cusps, instead of a mane, on the ridge; next, not to lose the whole leonine character about the neck, he gives a remnant of the lion's beard, turned into a sort of griffin's whisker, and nicely curled and pointed; then an eye, probably meant to look grand and abstracted, and therefore neither lion's nor eagle's; and, finally, an eagle's beak, very sufficiently studied from a real one. The whole head being, it seems to him, still somewhat wanting in weight and power, he brings forward the right wing behind it, so as to enclose it with a broad line. This is the finest thing in the composition, and very masterly, both in thought, and in c

, he would have reported of him as doing something else than that

a bit of lion and a bit of eagle, but whole lion, incorporate with whole eagle. So when we really see one, w

, usually striking his prey down with a blow, woundless; but he could by no means get on without his teeth. Accordingly, we see that the real or Lombardic griff

ratively no leonine power of striking with his feet, but a magnificent power of grip with them. Accordingly, we see that the real griffin, while his feet are heavy enough to strike like a lion's, has them also extended far enough to give them the eagle

nd I are doing together; he never thought a bit about it. He simply saw the beast; saw it as plainly

ly fast. It is no use its having wings at all if it is to be impeded in the use of them. Now it wou

his head, and he would have an infallible earache when he got home. But the real griffin has his ears flat to his head, and all the hair of them blown back, even to a po

griffin is, on the whole, fond of eating, and that his throat will look as if he occasionally took rather lar

ch are evidently inseparable, so that he cannot stretch his neck any more than a horse. But the real griffin is all loose about the neck, evidently being able to make it a

ouble when there is no occasion for it; as, also, one of the notablest things about an eagle is his look of inevitable vigilance, even when quietest. Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false griffin is quite sleepy and dead in the eye, thus contradi

sonous winged dragon to hold, and for such a little matter as that, he may as well do it lying down and at his ease, looking out at the same time for any other piece of work in his way. He takes the dragon by the middle, one paw under the wing, another above, gathers him up into a knot, puts two or three of his claws well into his back, crashing through the scales of it and wrinkling all the flesh up from the wound, flattens him down against the ground, and so l

t of some ancient rock. It does not itself know or care, any more than the peasant laboring with his spade and axe, what is wanted to meet our theories or fancies. It knows simply what is there, and brings out the positive creature, errorless, unquestionable. So it is throughout a

omposing legalism does nothing else than err. One would have thought that, by mere chance, in this or the other element of griffin, the griffin-composer might have struck out a truth; that he might have had the luck to set the ears back, or to give s

re palpable. The subtlety of the sweeping and rolling curves in the real griffin, the way they waver and change and fold, down the neck, and along the wing, and in and out among the serpent coils, is incomparably grander, merely as grouping of ornamental line, than anything in the other; nor is it fine as ornamental only, but as massively useful, giving weight of stone enough to answer the

griffinism, and grace, and usefulness, all at once: but the false composer, caring

Cuff. From Lithog

nd False

al. Cl

e classical griffin has, at least in this place, no other intent than that of covering a level surface with entertaining form; but the Lombardic griffin is a profound expression of the most passionate symbolism. Under its eagle's wings are two wheels,[36] which mark it as connected, in the mind of him who wrought it, with the living creatures of the vision of Ezekiel: "When they went, the wheels went by them, and whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, and the wheels were lifted up over against them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels." Thus signed, the winged shape becomes at once one of the acknowledged symbols of the Divine power; and,

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