Stones of Venice, Volume 3 — Conclusion, part 2

§ XV.

Supposing a modern artist to address himself to the rendering of this tree with his best skill: he will probably draw accurately the twisting of the branches, but yet this will hardly distinguish the tree from an oak: he will also render the color and intricacy of the foliage, but this will only confuse the idea of an oak with that of a willow.

The fruit, and the peculiar grace of the leaves at the extremities, and the fibrous structure of the stems, will all be too minute to be rendered consistently with his artistical feeling of breadth, or with the amount of labor which he considers it dexterous and legitimate to bestow upon the work: but, above all, the rounded and monotonous form of the head of the tree will be at variance with his ideas of "composition;" he will assuredly disguise or break it, and the main points of the olive-tree will all at last remain untold.

§ XVI.

Now observe, the old Byzantine mosaicist begins his work at enormous disadvantage.

It is to be some one hundred and fifty feet above the eye, in a dark cupola; executed not with free touches of the pencil, but with square pieces of glass; not by his own hand, but by various workmen under his superintendence; finally, not with a principal purpose of drawing olive-trees, but mainly as a decoration of the cupola.

There is to be an olive-tree beside each apostle, and their stems are to be the chief lines which divide the dome.

He therefore at once gives up the irregular twisting of the boughs hither and thither, but he will not give up their fibres.

Other trees have irregular and fantastic branches, but the knitted cordage of fibres is the olive's own.

Again, were he to draw the leaves of their natural size, they would be so small that their forms would be invisible in the darkness; and were he to draw them so large as that their shape might be seen, they would look like laurel instead of olive.

So he arranges them in small clusters of five each, nearly of the shape which the Byzantines give to the petals of the lily, but elongated so as to give the idea of leafage upon a spray; and these clusters,--his object always, be it remembered, being _decoration_ not less than _representation_,--he arranges symmetrically on each side of his branches, laying the whole on a dark ground most truly suggestive of the heavy rounded mass of the tree, which, in its turn, is relieved against the gold of the cupola.

Lastly, comes the question respecting the fruit.

The whole power and honor of the olive is in its fruit; and, unless that be represented, nothing is represented.

But if the berries were colored black or green, they would be totally invisible; if of any other color, utterly unnatural, and violence would be done to the whole conception.

There is but one conceivable means of showing them, namely to represent them as golden.

For the idea of golden fruit of various kinds was already familiar to the mind, as in the apples of the Hesperides, without any violence to the distinctive conception of the fruit itself.

[51] So the mosaicist introduced small round golden berries into the dark ground between each leaf, and his work was done.

[Illustration: Plate IV.

Mosaics of Olive-tree and Flowers.

] § XVII.

On the opposite plate, the uppermost figure on the left is a tolerably faithful representation of the general effect of one of these decorative olive-trees; the figure on the right is the head of the tree alone, showing the leaf clusters, berries, and _interlacing_ of the boughs as they leave the stem.

Each bough is connected with a separate line of fibre in the trunk, and the junctions of the arms and stem are indicated, down to the very root of the tree, with a truth in structure which may well put to shame the tree anatomy of modern times.

§ XVIII.

The white branching figures upon the serpentine band below are two of the clusters of flowers which form the foreground of a mosaic in the atrium.

I have printed the whole plate in blue, because that color approaches more nearly than black to the distant effect of the mosaics, of which the darker portions are generally composed of blue, in greater quantity than any other color.

But the waved background in this instance, is of various shades of blue and green alternately, with one narrow black band to give it force; the whole being intended to represent the distant effect and color of deep grass, and the wavy line to _express its bending motion_, just as the same symbol is used to represent the waves of water.

Then the two white clusters are representative of the distinctly visible herbage close to the spectator, having buds and flowers of two kinds, springing in one case out of the midst of twisted grass, and in the other out of their own proper leaves; the clusters being kept each so distinctly symmetrical, as to form, when set side by side, an ornamental border of perfect architectural severity; and yet each cluster different from the next, and every flower, and bud, and knot of grass, varied in form and thought.

The way the mosaic tesseræ are arranged, so as to give the writhing of the grass blades round the stalks of the flowers, is exceedingly fine.

The tree circles below are examples of still more severely conventional forms, adopted, on principle, when the decoration is to be in white and gold, instead of color; these ornaments being cut in white marble on the outside of the church, and the ground laid in with gold, though necessarily here represented, like the rest of the plate, in blue.

And it is exceedingly interesting to see how the noble workman, the moment he is restricted to more conventional materials, retires into more conventional forms, and reduces his various leafage into symmetry, now nearly perfect; yet observe, in the central figure, where the symbolic meaning of the vegetation beside the cross required it to be more distinctly indicated, he has given it life and growth by throwing it into unequal curves on the opposite sides.

§ XIX.

I believe the reader will now see, that in these mosaics, which the careless traveller is in the habit of passing by with contempt, there is a depth of feeling and of meaning greater than in most of the best sketches from nature of modern times; and, without entering into any question whether these conventional representations are as good as, under the required limitations, it was possible to render them, they are at all events good enough completely to illustrate that mode of symbolical expression which appeals altogether to thought, and in no wise trusts to realization.

And little as, in the present state of our schools, such an assertion is likely to be believed, the fact is that this kind of expression is the _only one allowable in noble art_.

§ XX.

I pray the reader to have patience with me for a few moments.

I do not mean that no art is noble but Byzantine mosaic; but no art is noble which in any wise depends upon direct imitation for its effect upon the mind.

This was asserted in the opening chapters of "Modern Painters," but not upon the highest grounds; the results at which we have now arrived in our investigation of early art, will enable me to place it on a loftier and firmer foundation.

§ XXI.

We have just seen that all great art is the work of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly of the soul.

But it is not only _the work_ of the whole creature, it likewise _addresses_ the whole creature.

That in which the perfect being speaks, must also have the perfect being to listen.

I am not to spend my utmost spirit, and give all my strength and life to my work, while you, spectator or hearer, will give me only the attention of half your soul.

You must be all mine, as I am all yours; it is the only condition on which we can meet each other.

All your faculties, all that is in you of greatest and best, must be awake in you, or I have no reward.

The painter is not to cast the entire treasure of his human nature into his labor, merely to please a part of the beholder: not merely to delight his senses, not merely to amuse his fancy, not merely to beguile him into emotion, not merely to lead him into thought, but to do _all_ this.

Senses, fancy, feeling, reason, the whole of the beholding spirit, must be stilled in attention or stirred with delight; else the laboring spirit has not done its work well.

For observe, it is not merely its _right_ to be thus met, face to face, heart to heart; but it is its _duty_ to evoke its answering of the other soul; its trumpet call must be so clear, that though the challenge may by dulness or indolence be unanswered, there shall be no error as to the meaning of the appeal; there must be a summons in the work, which it shall be our own fault if we do not obey.

We require this of it, we beseech this of it.

Most men do not know what is in them, till they receive this summons from their fellows: their hearts die within them, sleep settles upon them, the lethargy of the world's miasmata; there is nothing for which they are so thankful as for that cry, "Awake, thou that sleepest."

And this cry must be most loudly uttered to their noblest faculties; first of all to the imagination, for that is the most tender, and the soonest struck into numbness by the poisoned air; so that one of the main functions of art in its service to man, is to arouse the imagination from its palsy, like the angel troubling the Bethesda pool; and the art which does not do this is false to its duty, and degraded in its nature.

It is not enough that it be well imagined, it must task the beholder also to imagine well; and this so imperatively, that if he does not choose to rouse himself to meet the work, he shall not taste it, nor enjoy it in any wise.

Once that he is well awake, the guidance which the artist gives him should be full and authoritative: the beholder's imagination must not be suffered to take its own way, or wander hither and thither; but neither must it be left at rest; and the right point of realization, for any given work of art, is that which will enable the spectator to complete it for himself, in the exact way the artist would have him, but not that which will save him the trouble of effecting the completion.

So soon as the idea is entirely conveyed, the artist's labor should cease; and every touch which he adds beyond the point when, with the help of the beholder's imagination, the story ought to have been told, is a degradation to his work.

So that the art is wrong, which either realizes its subject completely, or fails in giving such definite aid as shall enable it to be realized by the beholding imagination.

§ XXII.

It follows, therefore, that the quantity of finish or detail which may rightly be bestowed upon any work, depends on the number and kind of ideas which the artist wishes to convey, much more than on the amount of realization necessary to enable the imagination to grasp them.

It is true that the differences of judgment formed by one or another observer are in great degree dependent on their unequal imaginative powers, as well as their unequal efforts in following the artist's intention; and it constantly happens that the drawing which appears clear to the painter in whose mind the thought is formed, is slightly inadequate to suggest it to the spectator.

These causes of false judgment, or imperfect achievement, must always exist, but they are of no importance.

For, in nearly every mind, the imaginative power, however unable to act independently, is so easily helped and so brightly animated by the most obscure suggestion, that there is no form of artistical language which will not readily be seized by it, if once it set itself intelligently to the task; and even without such effort there are few hieroglyphics of which, once understanding that it is to take them as hieroglyphics, it cannot make itself a pleasant picture.

§ XXIII.

Thus, in the case of all sketches, etchings, unfinished engravings, &c. , no one ever supposes them to be imitations.

Black outlines on white paper cannot produce a deceptive resemblance of anything; and the mind, understanding at once that it is to depend on its own powers for great part of its pleasure, sets itself so actively to the task that it can completely enjoy the rudest outline in which meaning exists.

Now, when it is once in this temper, the artist is infinitely to be blamed who insults it by putting anything into his work which is not suggestive: having summoned the imaginative power, he must turn it to account and keep it employed, or it will run against him in indignation.

Whatever he does merely to realize and substantiate an idea is impertinent; he is like a dull story-teller, dwelling on points which the hearer anticipates or disregards.

The imagination will say to him: "I knew all that before; I don't want to be told that.

Go on; or be silent, and let me go on in my own way.

I can tell the story better than you."

Observe, then, whenever finish is given for the sake of realization, it is wrong; whenever it is given for the sake of adding ideas it is right.

All true finish consists in the addition of ideas, that is to say, in giving the imagination more food; for once well awaked, it is ravenous for food: but the painter who finishes in order to substantiate takes the food out of its mouth, and it will turn and rend him.

§ XXIV.

Let us go back, for instance, to our olive grove,--or, lest the reader should be tired of olives, let it be an oak copse,--and consider the difference between the substantiating and the imaginative methods of finish in such a subject.

A few strokes of the pencil, or dashes of color, will be enough to enable the imagination to conceive a tree; and in those dashes of color Sir Joshua Reynolds would have rested, and would have suffered the imagination to paint what more it liked for itself, and grow oaks, or olives, or apples, out of the few dashes of color at its leisure.

On the other hand, Hobbima, one of the worst of the realists, smites the imagination on the mouth, and bids it be silent, while he sets to work to paint his oak of the right green, and fill up its foliage laboriously with jagged touches, and furrow the bark all over its branches, so as, if possible, to deceive us into supposing that we are looking at a real oak; which, indeed, we had much better do at once, without giving any one the trouble to deceive us in the matter.