Stones of Venice, Volume 3 — Chapter 02, Roman Renaissance, part 2

§ XVII.

Within its due limits, however, here is one branch of science which the artist may pursue; and, within limits still more strict, another also, namely, the science of the appearances of things as they have been ascertained and registered by his fellow-men.

For no day passes but some visible fact is pointed out to us by others, which, without their help, we should not have noticed; and the accumulation and generalization of visible facts have formed, in the succession of ages, the sciences of light and shade, and perspective, linear and aerial: so that the artist is now at once put in possession of certain truths respecting the appearances of things, which, so pointed out to him, any man may in a few days understand and acknowledge; but which, without aid, he could not probably discover in his lifetime.

I say, probably could not, because the time which the history of art shows us to have been actually occupied in the discovery and systematization of such truth, is no measure of the time _necessary_ for such discovery.

The lengthened period which elapsed between the earliest and the perfect developement of the science of light (if I may so call it) was not occupied in the actual effort to ascertain its laws, but in _acquiring the disposition to make that effort_.

It did not take five centuries to find out the appearance of natural objects; but it took five centuries to make people care about representing them.

An artist of the twelfth century did not desire to represent nature.

His work was symbolical and ornamental.

So long as it was intelligible and lovely, he had no care to make it like nature.

As, for instance, when an old painter represented the glory round a saint's head by a burnished plate of pure gold, he had no intention of imitating an effect of light.

He meant to tell the spectator that the figure so decorated was a saint, and to produce splendor of effect by the golden circle.

It was no matter to him what light was like.

So soon as it entered into his intention to represent the appearance of light, he was not long in discovering the natural facts necessary for his purpose.

§ XVIII.

But, this being fully allowed, it is still true that the accumulation of facts now known respecting visible phenomena, is greater than any man could hope to gather for himself, and that it is well for him to be made acquainted with them; provided always, that he receive them only at their true value, and do not suffer himself to be misled by them.

I say, at their true value; that is, an exceedingly small one.

All the information which men can receive from the accumulated experience of others, is of no use but to enable them more quickly and accurately to see for themselves.

It will in no wise take the place of this personal sight.

Nothing can be done well in art, except by vision.

Scientific principles and experiences are helps to the eye, as a microscope is; and they are of exactly as much use _without_ the eye.

No science of perspective, or of anything else, will enable us to draw the simplest natural line accurately, unless we see it and feel it.

Science is soon at her wits' end.

All the professors of perspective in Europe, could not, by perspective, draw the line of curve of a sea beach; nay, could not outline one pool of the quiet water left among the sand.

The eye and hand can do it, nothing else.

All the rules of aerial perspective that ever were written, will not tell me how sharply the pines on the hill-top are drawn at this moment on the sky.

I shall know if I see them, and love them; not till then.

I may study the laws of atmospheric gradation for fourscore years and ten, and I shall not be able to draw so much as a brick-kiln through its own smoke, unless I look at it; and that in an entirely humble and unscientific manner, ready to see all that the smoke, my master, is ready to show me, and expecting to see nothing more.

§ XIX.

So that all the knowledge a man has must be held cheap, and neither trusted nor respected, the moment he comes face to face with Nature.

If it help him, well; if not, but, on the contrary, thrust itself upon him in an impertinent and contradictory temper, and venture to set itself in the slightest degree in opposition to, or comparison with, his sight, let it be disgraced forthwith.

And the slave is less likely to take too much upon herself, if she has not been bought for a high price.

All the knowledge an artist needs, will, in these days, come to him almost without his seeking; if he has far to look for it, he may be sure he does not want it.

Prout became Prout, without knowing a single rule of perspective to the end of his days; and all the perspective in the Encyclopædia will never produce us another Prout.

§ XX.

And observe, also, knowledge is not only very often unnecessary, but it is often _untrustworthy_.

It is inaccurate, and betrays us where the eye would have been true to us.

Let us take the single instance of the knowledge of aerial perspective, of which the moderns are so proud, and see how it betrays us in various ways.

First by the conceit of it, which often prevents our enjoying work in which higher and better things were thought of than effects of mist.

The other day I showed a line impression of Albert Durer's "St. Hubert" to a modern engraver, who had never seen it nor any other of Albert Durer's works.

He looked at it for a minute contemptuously, then turned away: "Ah, I see that man did not know much about aerial perspective!"

All the glorious work and thought of the mighty master, all the redundant landscape, the living vegetation, the magnificent truth of line, were dead letters to him, because he happened to have been taught one particular piece of knowledge which Durer despised.

§ XXI.

But not only in the conceit of it, but in the inaccuracy of it, this science betrays us.

Aerial perspective, as given by the modern artist, is, in nine cases out of ten, a gross and ridiculous exaggeration, as is demonstrable in a moment.

The effect of air in altering the hue and depth of color is of course great in the exact proportion of the volume of air between the observer and the object.

It is not violent within the first few yards, and then diminished gradually, but it is equal for each foot of interposing air.

Now in a clear day, and clear climate, such as that generally presupposed in a work of fine color, objects are completely visible at a distance of ten miles; visible in light and shade, with gradations between the two.

Take, then, the faintest possible hue of shadow, or of any color, and the most violent and positive possible, and set them side by side.

The interval between them is greater than the real difference (for objects may often be seen clearly much farther than ten miles, I have seen Mont Blanc at 120) caused by the ten miles of intervening air between any given hue of the nearest, and most distant, objects; but let us assume it, in courtesy to the masters of aerial perspective, to be the real difference.

Then roughly estimating a mile at less than it really is, also in courtesy to them, or at 5000 feet, we have this difference between tints produced by 50,000 feet of air.

Then, ten feet of air will produce the 5000th part of this difference.

Let the reader take the two extreme tints, and carefully gradate the one into the other.

Let him divide this gradated shadow or color into 5000 successive parts; and the difference in depth between one of these parts and the next is the exact amount of aerial perspective between one object, and another, ten feet behind it, on a clear day.

§ XXII.

Now, in Millais' "Huguenot," the figures were standing about three feet from the wall behind them; and the wise world of critics, which could find no other fault with the picture, professed to have its eyes hurt by the want of an aerial perspective, which, had it been accurately given (as, indeed, I believe it was), would have amounted to the 10/3-5000th, or less than the 15,000th part of the depth of any given color.

It would be interesting to see a picture painted by the critics, upon this scientific principle.

The aerial perspective usually represented is entirely conventional and ridiculous; a mere struggle on the part of the pretendedly well-informed, but really ignorant, artist, to express distances by mist which he cannot by drawing.

It is curious that the critical world is just as much offended by the true _presence_ of aerial perspective, over distances of fifty miles, and with definite purpose of representing mist, in the works of Turner, as by the true _absence_ of aerial perspective, over distances of three feet, and in clear weather, in those of Millais.

§ XXIII.

"Well but," still answers the reader, "this kind of error may here and there be occasioned by too much respect for undigested knowledge; but, on the whole, the gain is greater than the loss, and the fact is, that a picture of the Renaissance period, or by a modern master, does indeed represent nature more faithfully than one wrought in the ignorance of old times."

No, not one whit; for the most part less faithfully.

Indeed, the outside of nature is more truly drawn; the material commonplace, which can be systematized, catalogued, and taught to all pains-taking mankind,--forms of ribs and scapulæ,[12] of eyebrows and lips, and curls of hair.

Whatever can be measured and handled, dissected and demonstrated,--in a word, whatever is of the body only,--that the schools of knowledge do resolutely and courageously possess themselves of, and portray.

But whatever is immeasurable, intangible, indivisible, and of the spirit, that the schools of knowledge do as certainly lose, and blot out of their sight, that is to say, all that is worth art's possessing or recording at all; for whatever can be arrested, measured, and systematized, we can contemplate as much as we will in nature herself.

But what we want art to do for us is to stay what is fleeting, and to enlighten what is incomprehensible, to incorporate the things that have no measure, and immortalize the things that have no duration.

The dimly seen, momentary glance, the flitting shadow of faint emotion, the imperfect lines of fading thought, and all that by and through such things as these is recorded on the features of man, and all that in man's person and actions, and in the great natural world, is infinite and wonderful; having in it that spirit and power which man may witness, but not weigh; conceive, but not comprehend; love, but not limit; and imagine, but not define;--this, the beginning and the end of the aim of all noble art, we have, in the ancient art, by perception; and we have _not_, in the newer art, by knowledge.

Giotto gives it us, Orcagna gives it us.

Angelico, Memmi, Pisano, it matters not who,--all simple and unlearned men, in their measure and manner,--give it us; and the learned men that followed them give it us not, and we, in our supreme learning, own ourselves at this day farther from it than ever.

§ XXIV.

"Nay," but it is still answered, "this is because we have not yet brought our knowledge into right use, but have been seeking to accumulate it, rather than to apply it wisely to the ends of art.

Let us now do this, and we may achieve all that was done by that elder ignorant art, and infinitely more."

No, not so; for as soon as we try to put our knowledge to good use, we shall find that we have much more than we can use, and that what more we have is an encumbrance.

All our errors in this respect arise from a gross misconception as to the true nature of knowledge itself.

We talk of learned and ignorant men, as if there were a certain quantity of knowledge, which to possess was to be learned, and which not to possess was to be ignorant; instead of considering that knowledge is infinite, and that the man most learned in human estimation is just as far from knowing anything as he ought to know it, as the unlettered peasant.

Men are merely on a lower or higher stage of an eminence, whose summit is God's throne, infinitely above all; and there is just as much reason for the wisest as for the simplest man being discontented with his position, as respects the real quantity of knowledge he possesses.

And, for both of them, the only true reasons for contentment with the sum of knowledge they possess are these: that it is the kind of knowledge they need for their duty and happiness in life;

that all they have is tested and certain, so far as it is in their power; that all they have is well in order, and within reach when they need it; that it has not cost too much time in the getting; that none of it, once got, has been lost; and that there is not too much to be easily taken care of.

§ XXV.

Consider these requirements a little, and the evils that result in our education and polity from neglecting them.

Knowledge is mental food, and is exactly to the spirit what food is to the body (except that the spirit needs several sorts of food, of which knowledge is only one), and it is liable to the same kind of misuses.

It may be mixed and disguised by art, till it becomes unwholesome; it may be refined, sweetened, and made palatable, until it has lost all its power of nourishment; and, even of its best kind, it may be eaten to surfeiting, and minister to disease and death.

§ XXVI.

Therefore, with respect to knowledge, we are to reason and act exactly as with respect to food.

We no more live to know, than we live to eat.

We live to contemplate, enjoy, act, adore; and we may know all that is to be known in this world, and what Satan knows in the other, without being able to do any of these.

We are to ask, therefore, first, is the knowledge we would have fit food for us, good and simple, not artificial and decorated?

and secondly, how much of it will enable us best for our work; and will leave our hearts light, and our eyes clear?

For no more than that is to be eaten without the old Eve-sin.

§ XXVII.

Observe, also, the difference between tasting knowledge, and hoarding it.

In this respect it is also like food; since, in some measure, the knowledge of all men is laid up in granaries, for future use; much of it is at any given moment dormant, not fed upon or enjoyed, but in store.

And by all it is to be remembered, that knowledge in this form may be kept without air till it rots, or in such unthreshed disorder that it is of no use; and that, however good or orderly, it is still only in being tasted that it becomes of use; and that men may easily starve in their own granaries, men of science, perhaps, most of all, for they are likely to seek accumulation of their store, rather than nourishment from it.

Yet let it not be thought that I would undervalue them.

The good and great among them are like Joseph, to whom all nations sought to buy corn; or like the sower going forth to sow beside all waters, sending forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass: only let us remember that this is not all men's work.

We are not intended to be all keepers of granaries, nor all to be measured by the filling of a storehouse; but many, nay, most of us, are to receive day by day our daily bread, and shall be as well nourished and as fit for our labor, and often, also, fit for nobler and more divine labor, in feeding from the barrel of meal that does not waste, and from the cruse of oil that does not fail, than if our barns were filled with plenty, and our presses bursting out with new wine.

§ XXVIII.

It is for each man to find his own measure in this matter; in great part, also, for others to find it for him, while he is yet a youth.

And the desperate evil of the whole Renaissance system is, that all idea of measure is therein forgotten, that knowledge is thought the one and the only good, and it is never inquired whether men are vivified by it or paralyzed.

Let us leave figures.

The reader may not believe the analogy I have been pressing so far; but let him consider the subject in itself, let him examine the effect of knowledge in his own heart, and see whether the trees of knowledge and of life are one now, any more than in Paradise.

He must feel that the real animating power of knowledge is only in the moment of its being first received, when it fills us with wonder and joy; a joy for which, observe, the previous ignorance is just as necessary as the present knowledge.

That man is always happy who is in the presence of something which he cannot know to the full, which he is always going on to know.

This is the necessary condition of a finite creature with divinely rooted and divinely directed intelligence; this, therefore, its happy state,--but observe, a state, not of triumph or joy in what it knows, but of joy rather in the continual discovery of new ignorance, continual self-abasement, continual astonishment.

Once thoroughly our own, the knowledge ceases to give us pleasure.

It may be practically useful to us, it may be good for others, or good for usury to obtain more; but, in itself, once let it be thoroughly familiar, and it is dead.

The wonder is gone from it, and all the fine color which it had when first we drew it up out of the infinite sea.

And what does it matter how much or how little of it we have laid aside, when our only enjoyment is still in the casting of that deep sea line?

What does it matter?

Nay, in one respect, it matters much, and not to our advantage.

For one effect of knowledge is to deaden the force of the imagination and the original energy of the whole man: under the weight of his knowledge he cannot move so lightly as in the days of his simplicity.

The pack-horse is furnished for the journey, the war-horse is armed for war; but the freedom of the field and the lightness of the limb are lost for both.

Knowledge is, at best, the pilgrim's burden or the soldier's panoply, often a weariness to them both: and the Renaissance knowledge is like the Renaissance armor of plate, binding and cramping the human form; while all good knowledge is like the crusader's chain mail, which throws itself into folds with the body, yet it is rarely so forged as that the clasps and rivets do not gall us.

All men feel this, though they do not think of it, nor reason out its consequences.

They look back to the days of childhood as of greatest happiness, because those were the days of greatest wonder, greatest simplicity, and most vigorous imagination.

And the whole difference between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge,--conscious, rather, of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power; a fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him.

That is what we have to make men, so far as we may.

All are to be men of genius in their degree,--rivulets or rivers, it does not matter, so that the souls be clear and pure; not dead walls encompassing dead heaps of things known and numbered, but running waters in the sweet wilderness of things unnumbered and unknown, conscious only of the living banks, on which they partly refresh and partly reflect the flowers, and so pass on.

§ XXIX.

Let each man answer for himself how far his knowledge has made him this, or how far it is loaded upon him as the pyramid is upon the tomb.

Let him consider, also, how much of it has cost him labor and time that might have been spent in healthy, happy action, beneficial to all mankind; how many living souls may have been left uncomforted and unhelped by him, while his own eyes were failing by the midnight lamp;

how many warm sympathies have died within him as he measured lines or counted letters; how many draughts of ocean air, and steps on mountain-turf, and openings of the highest heaven he has lost for his knowledge; how much of that knowledge, so dearly bought, is now forgotten or despised, leaving only the capacity of wonder less within him, and, as it happens in a thousand instances, perhaps even also the capacity of devotion.

And let him,--if, after thus dealing with his own heart, he can say that his knowledge has indeed been fruitful to him,--yet consider how many there are who have been forced by the inevitable laws of modern education into toil utterly repugnant to their natures, and that in the extreme, until the whole strength of the young soul was sapped away; and then pronounce with fearfulness how far, and in how many senses, it may indeed be true that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

§ XXX.

Now all this possibility of evil, observe, attaches to knowledge pursued for the noblest ends, if it be pursued imprudently.

I have assumed, in speaking of its effect both on men generally and on the artist especially, that it was sought in the true love of it, and with all honesty and directness of purpose.

But this is granting far too much in its favor.

Of knowledge in general, and without qualification, it is said by the Apostle that "it puffeth up;" and the father of all modern science, writing directly in its praise, yet asserts this danger even in more absolute terms, calling it a "venomousness" in the very nature of knowledge itself.

§ XXXI.

There is, indeed, much difference in this respect between the tendencies of different branches of knowledge; it being a sure rule that exactly in proportion as they are inferior, nugatory, or limited in scope, their power of feeding pride is greater.

Thus philology, logic, rhetoric, and the other sciences of the schools, being for the most part ridiculous and trifling, have so pestilent an effect upon those who are devoted to them, that their students cannot conceive of any higher sciences than these, but fancy that all education ends in the knowledge of words: but the true and great sciences, more especially natural history, make men gentle and modest in proportion to the largeness of their apprehension, and just perception of the infiniteness of the things they can never know.

And this, it seems to me, is the principal lesson we are intended to be caught by the book of Job; for there God has thrown open to us the heart of a man most just and holy, and apparently perfect in all things possible to human nature except humility.

For this he is tried: and we are shown that no suffering, no self-examination, however honest, however stern, no searching out of the heart by its own bitterness, is enough to convince man of his nothingness before God; but that the sight of God's creation will do it.

For, when the Deity himself has willed to end the temptation, and to accomplish in Job that for which it was sent, He does not vouchsafe to reason with him, still less does He overwhelm him with terror, or confound him by laying open before his eyes the book of his iniquities.

He opens before him only the arch of the dayspring, and the fountains of the deep; and amidst the covert of the reeds, and on the heaving waves, He bids him watch the kings of the children of pride,--"Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee:" And the work is done.

§ XXXII.

Thus, if, I repeat, there is any one lesson in the whole book which stands forth more definitely than another, it is this of the holy and humbling influence of natural science on the human heart.

And yet, even here, it is not the science, but the perception, to which the good is owing; and the natural sciences may become as harmful as any others, when they lose themselves in classification and catalogue-making.

Still, the principal danger is with the sciences of words and methods; and it was exactly into those sciences that the whole energy of men during the Renaissance period was thrown.

They discovered suddenly that the world for ten centuries had been living in an ungrammatical manner, and they made it forthwith the end of human existence to be grammatical.

And it mattered thenceforth nothing what was said, or what was done, so only that it was said with scholarship, and done with system.

Falsehood in a Ciceronian dialect had no opposers; truth in patois no listeners.

A

Roman phrase was thought worth any number of Gothic facts.

The sciences ceased at once to be anything more than different kinds of grammars,--grammar of language, grammar of logic, grammar of ethics, grammar of art; and the tongue, wit, and invention of the human race were supposed to have found their utmost and most divine mission in syntax and syllogism, perspective and five orders.

Of such knowledge as this, nothing but pride could come; and, therefore, I have called the first mental characteristic of the Renaissance schools, the "pride" of science.

If they had reached any science worth the name, they might have loved it; but of the paltry knowledge they possessed, they could only be proud.

There was not anything in it capable of being loved.

Anatomy, indeed, then first made a subject of accurate study, is a true science, but not so attractive as to enlist the affections strongly on its side: and therefore, like its meaner sisters, it became merely a ground for pride; and the one main purpose of the Renaissance artists, in all their work, was to show how much they knew.