by John Ruskin
LECTURE V.
STRUCTURE.
_December, 1870._
143. On previous occasions of addressing you, I have endeavoured to showyou, first, how sculpture is distinguished from other arts; then itsproper subjects, then its proper method in the realization of thesesubjects. To-day, we must, in the fourth place, consider the means atits command for the accomplishment of these ends; the nature of itsmaterials; and the mechanical or other difficulties of their treatment.
And however doubtful we may have remained, as to the justice of Greekideals, or propriety of Greek methods of representing them, we may becertain that the example of the Greeks will be instructive in allpractical matters relating to this great art, peculiarly their own. Ithink even the evidence I have already laid before you is enough toconvince you, that it was by rightness and reality, not by idealism ordelightfulness only, that their minds were finally guided; and I am surethat, before closing the present course, I shall be able so far tocomplete that evidence, as to prove to you that the commonly receivednotions of classic art are, not only unfounded, but even in manyrespects, directly contrary to the truth. You are constantly told thatGreece idealized whatever she contemplated. She did the exact contrary:she realized and verified it. You are constantly told she sought onlythe beautiful. She sought, indeed, with all her heart; but she found,because she never doubted that the search was to be consistent withpropriety and common sense. And the first thing you will always discernin Greek work is the first which you _ought_ to discern in all work;namely, that the object of it has been rational, and has been obtainedby simple and unostentatious means.
144. "That the object of the work has been rational!" Consider how muchthat implies. That it should be by all means seen to have beendetermined upon, and carried through, with sense and discretion; thesebeing gifts of intellect far more precious than any knowledge ofmathematics, or of the mechanical resources of art. Therefore, also,that it should be a modest and temperate work, a structure fitted to theactual state of men; proportioned to their actual size, as animals,--totheir average strength,--to their true necessities,--and to the degreeof easy command they have over the forces and substances of nature.
145. You see how much this law excludes! All that is fondly magnificent,insolently ambitious, or vainly difficult. There is, indeed, such athing as Magnanimity in design, but never unless it be joined also withmodesty and _Equ_animity. Nothing extravagant, monstrous, strained, orsingular, can be structurally beautiful. No towers of Babel envious ofthe skies; no pyramids in mimicry of the mountains of the earth; nostreets that are a weariness to traverse, nor temples that make pigmiesof the worshippers.
It is one of the primal merits and decencies of Greek work that it was,on the whole, singularly small in scale, and wholly within reach ofsight, to its finest details. And, indeed, the best buildings that Iknow are thus modest; and some of the best are minute jewel cases forsweet sculpture. The Parthenon would hardly attract notice, if it wereset by the Charing Cross Railway Station: the Church of the Miracoli, atVenice, the Chapel of the Rose, at Lucca, and the Chapel of the Thorn,at Pisa, would not, I suppose, all three together, fill the tenth part,cube, of a transept of the Crystal Palace. And they are better so.
146. In the chapter on Power in the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," Ihave stated what seems, at first, the reverse of what I am saying now;namely, that it is better to have one grand building than any number ofmean ones. And that is true, but you cannot command grandeur by sizetill you can command grace in minuteness; and least of all, remember,will you so command it to-day, when magnitude has become the chiefexponent of folly and misery, co-ordinate in the fraternal enormities ofthe Factory and Poorhouse,--the Barracks and Hospital. And the final lawin this matter is, that if you require edifices only for the grace andhealth of mankind, and build them without pretence and withoutchicanery, they will be sublime on a modest scale, and lovely withlittle decoration.
147. From these principles of simplicity and temperance, two veryseverely fixed laws of construction follow; namely, first, that ourstructure, to be beautiful, must be produced with tools of men; andsecondly, that it must be composed of natural substances. First, I say,produced with tools of men. All fine art requires the application of thewhole strength and subtlety of the body, so that such art is notpossible to any sickly person, but involves the action and force of astrong man's arm from the shoulder, as well as the delicatest touch ofhis finger: and it is the evidence that this full and fine strength hasbeen spent on it which makes the art executively noble; so that noinstrument must be used, habitually, which is either too heavy to bedelicately restrained, or too small and weak to transmit a vigorousimpulse; much less any mechanical aid, such as would render thesensibility of the fingers ineffectual.[126]
148. Of course, any kind of work in glass, or in metal, on a largescale, involves some painful endurance of heat; and working in clay,some habitual endurance of cold; but the point beyond which the effortmust not be carried is marked by loss of power of manipulation. As longas the eyes and fingers have complete command of the material (as aglass blower has, for instance, in doing fine ornamental work)--the lawis not violated; but all our great engine and furnace work, ingun-making and the like, is degrading to the intellect; and no nationcan long persist in it without losing many of its human faculties. Nay,even the use of machinery, other than the common rope and pully, for thelifting of weights, is degrading to architecture; the invention ofexpedients for the raising of enormous stones has always been acharacteristic of partly savage or corrupted races. A block of marblenot larger than a cart with a couple of oxen could carry, and across-beam, with a couple of pulleys, raise, is as large as shouldgenerally be used in any building. The employment of large masses issure to lead to vulgar exhibitions of geometrical arrangement,[127] andto draw away the attention from the sculpture. In general, rocksnaturally break into such pieces as the human beings that have to buildwith them can easily lift, and no larger should be sought for.
149. In this respect, and in many other subtle ways, the law that thework is to be with tools of men is connected with the farther conditionof its modesty, that it is to be wrought in substance provided byNature, and to have a faithful respect to all the essential qualities ofsuch substance.
And here I must ask your attention to the idea, and, more thanidea,--the fact, involved in that infinitely misused term,"Providentia," when applied to the Divine Power. In its truest sense andscholarly use, it is a human virtue, [Greek: Prometheia]; the personaltype of it is in Prometheus, and all the first power of [Greek: techne],is from him, as compared to the weakness of days when men withoutforesight "[Greek: ephyron eike panta]." But, so far as we use the word"Providence" as an attribute of the Maker and Giver of all things, itdoes not mean that in a shipwreck He takes care of the passengers whoare to be saved and takes none of those who are to be drowned; but it_does_ mean that every race of creatures is born into the world undercircumstances of approximate adaptation to its necessities; and, beyondall others, the ingenious and observant race of man is surrounded withelements naturally good for his food, pleasant to his sight, andsuitable for the subjects of his ingenuity;--the stone, metal, and clayof the earth he walks upon lending themselves at once to his hand, forall manner of workmanship.
150. Thus, his truest respect for the law of the entire creation isshown by his making the most of what he can get most easily; and thereis no virtue of art, nor application of common sense, more sacredlynecessary than this respect to the beauty of natural substance, and theease of local use; neither are there any other precepts of constructionso vital as these--that you show all the strength of your material,tempt none of its weaknesses, and do with it only what can be simply andpermanently done.
151. Thus, all good building will be with rocks, or pebbles, or burntclay, but with no artificial compound; all good painting, with commonoils and pigments on common canvas, paper, plaster, or wood,--admitting,sometimes for precious work, precious things, but all applied in
asimple and visible way. The highest imitative art should not, indeed, atfirst sight, call attention to the means of it; but even that, atlength, should do so distinctly, and provoke the observer to takepleasure in seeing how completely the workman is master of theparticular material he has used, and how beautiful and desirable asubstance it was, for work of that kind. In oil painting its unctiousquality is to be delighted in; in fresco, its chalky quality; in glass,its transparency; in wood, its grain; in marble, its softness; inporphyry, its hardness; in iron, its toughness. In a flint country, oneshould feel the delightfulness of having flints to pick up, and fastentogether into rugged walls. In a marble country one should be alwaysmore and more astonished at the exquisite colour and structure ofmarble; in a slate country one should feel as if every rock cleft itselfonly for the sake of being built with conveniently.
PLATE X.--MARBLE MASONRY IN THE DUOMO OF VERONA.]
152. Now, for sculpture, there are, briefly, two materials--Clay, andStone; for glass is only a clay that gets clear and brittle as it cools,and metal a clay that gets opaque and tough as it cools. Indeed, thetrue use of gold in this world is only as a very pretty and very ductileclay, which you can spread as flat as you like, spin as fine as youlike, and which will neither crack, nor tarnish.
All the arts of sculpture in clay may be summed up under the word"Plastic," and all of those in stone, under the word "Glyptic."
153. Sculpture in clay will accordingly include all cast brick-work,pottery, and tile-work[128]--a somewhat important branch of human skill.Next to the potter's work, you have all the arts in porcelain, glass,enamel, and metal; everything, that is to say, playful and familiar indesign, much of what is most felicitously inventive, and, in bronze orgold, most precious and permanent.
154. Sculpture in stone, whether granite, gem, or marble, while weaccurately use the general term "glyptic" for it, may be thought ofwith, perhaps, the most clear force under the English word "engraving."For, from the mere angular incision which the Greek consecrated in thetriglyphs of his greatest order of architecture, grow forth all the artsof bas-relief, and methods of localized groups of sculpture connectedwith each other and with architecture: as, in another direction, thearts of engraving and wood-cutting themselves.
155. Over all this vast field of human skill the laws which I haveenunciated to you rule with inevitable authority, embracing thegreatest, and consenting to the humblest, exertion; strong to repressthe ambition of nations, if fantastic and vain, but gentle to approvethe efforts of children, made in accordance with the visible intentionof the Maker of all flesh, and the Giver of all Intelligence. Theselaws, therefore, I now repeat, and beg of you to observe them asirrefragable.
1. That the work is to be with tools of men.
2. That it is to be in natural materials.
3. That it is to exhibit the virtues of those materials, and aim at noquality inconsistent with them.
4. That its temper is to be quiet and gentle, in harmony with commonneeds, and in consent to common intelligence.
We will now observe the bearing of these laws on the elementaryconditions of the art at present under discussion.
156. There is, first, work in baked clay, which contracts as it dries,and is very easily frangible. Then you must put no work into itrequiring niceness in dimension, nor any so elaborate that it would be agreat loss if it were broken, but as the clay yields at once to thehand, and the sculptor can do anything with it he likes, it is amaterial for him to sketch with and play with,--to record his fanciesin, before they escape him--and to express roughly, for people who canenjoy such sketches, what he has not time to complete in marble. Theclay, being ductile, lends itself to all softness of line; being easilyfrangible, it would be ridiculous to give it sharp edges, so that ablunt and massive rendering of graceful gesture will be its naturalfunction; but as it can be pinched, or pulled, or thrust in a momentinto projection which it would take hours of chiselling to get in stone,it will also properly be used for all fantastic and grotesque form, notinvolving sharp edges. Therefore, what is true of chalk and charcoal,for painters, is equally true of clay, for sculptors; they are all mostprecious materials for true masters, but tempt the false ones into fatallicense; and to judge rightly of terra-cotta work is a far higher reachof skill in sculpture-criticism than to distinguish the merits of afinished statue.
157. We have, secondly, work in bronze, iron, gold, and other metals; inwhich the laws of structure are still more definite.
All kinds of twisted and wreathen work on every scale become delightfulwhen wrought in ductile or tenacious metal, but metal which is to be_hammered_ into form separates itself into two great divisions--solid,and flat.
PLATE XI.--THE FIRST ELEMENTS OF SCULPTURE.
Incised Outline and Opened Space.]
(A.) In solid metal work, _i. e._, metal cast thick enough to resistbending, whether it be hollow or not, violent and various projection maybe admitted, which would be offensive in marble; but no sharp edges,because it is difficult to produce them with the hammer. But since thepermanence of the material justifies exquisiteness of workmanship,whatever delicate ornamentation can be wrought with rounded surfaces maybe advisedly introduced; and since the colour of bronze or any othermetal is not so pleasantly representative of flesh as that of marble, awise sculptor will depend less on flesh contour, and more on picturesqueaccessories, which, though they would be vulgar if attempted in stone,are rightly entertaining in bronze or silver. Verrochio's statue ofColleone at Venice, Cellini's Perseus at Florence, and Ghiberti's gatesat Florence, are models of bronze treatment.
(B.) When metal is beaten thin, it becomes what is technically called"plate," (the _flattened_ thing) and may be treated advisably in twoways; one, by beating it out into bosses, the other by cutting it intostrips and ramifications. The vast schools of goldsmith's work and ofiron decoration, founded on these two principles, have had the mostpowerful influences over general taste in all ages and countries. One ofthe simplest and most interesting elementary examples of the treatmentof flat metal by cutting is the common branched iron bar, Fig. 8, usedto close small apertures in countries possessing any good primitivestyle of iron-work, formed by alternate cuts on its sides, and thebending down of the several portions. The ordinary domestic windowbalcony of Verona is formed by mere ribands of iron, bent into curves asstudiously refined as those of a Greek vase, and decorated merely bytheir own terminations in spiral volutes.
FIG. 8.]
All cast work in metal, unfinished by hand, is inadmissible in anyschool of living art, since it cannot possess the perfection of form dueto a permanent substance; and the continual sight of it is destructiveof the faculty of taste: but metal stamped with precision, as in coins,is to sculpture what engraving is to painting.
158. Thirdly. Stone-sculpture divides itself into three schools: one invery hard material; one in very soft, and one in that of centrallyuseful consistence.
A. The virtue of work in hard material is the expression of form inshallow relief, or in broad contours; deep cutting in hard material isinadmissible, and the art, at once pompous and trivial, of gemengraving, has been in the last degree destructive of the honour andservice of sculpture.
B. The virtue of work in soft material is deep cutting, with studiouslygraceful disposition of the masses of light and shade. The greaternumber of flamboyant churches of France are cut out of an adhesivechalk; and the fantasy of their latest decoration was, in great part,induced by the facility of obtaining contrast of black space, undercut,with white tracery easily left in sweeping and interwoven rods--thelavish use of wood in domestic architecture materially increasing thehabit of delight in branched complexity of line. These points, however,I must reserve for illustration in my lectures on architecture. To-day,I shall limit myself to the illustration of elementary sculpturalstructure in the best material;--that is to say, in crystalline marble,neither soft enough to encourage the caprice of the workman, nor hardenough to resist his will.
159. C. By the true
"Providence" of Nature, the rock which is thussubmissive has been in some places stained with the fairest colours, andin others blanched into the fairest absence of colour, that can be foundto give harmony to inlaying, or dignity to form. The possession by theGreeks of their [Greek: leukos lithos] was indeed the first circumstanceregulating the development of their art; it enabled them at once toexpress their passion for light by executing the faces, hands, and feetof their dark wooden statues in white marble, so that what we look upononly with pleasure for fineness of texture was to them an imitation ofthe luminous body of the deity shining from behind its dark robes; andivory afterwards is employed in their best statues for its yet more softand flesh-like brightness, receptive also of the most delicatecolour--(therefore to this day the favourite ground of miniaturepainters). In like manner, the existence of quarries of peach-colouredmarble within twelve miles of Verona, and of white marble and greenserpentine between Pisa and Genoa, defined the manner both of sculptureand architecture for all the Gothic buildings of Italy. No subtlety ofeducation could have formed a high school of art without thesematerials.
160. Next to the colour, the fineness of substance which will take aperfectly sharp edge, is essential; and this not merely to admit finedelineation in the sculpture itself, but to secure a delightfulprecision in placing the blocks of which it is composed. For thepossession of too fine marble, as far as regards the work itself, is atemptation instead of an advantage to an inferior sculptor; and theabuse of the facility of undercutting, especially of undercutting so asto leave profiles defined by an edge against shadow, is one of the chiefcauses of decline of style in such encrusted bas-reliefs as those of theCertosa of Pavia and its contemporary monuments. But no undue temptationever exists as to the fineness of block fitting; nothing contributes togive so pure and healthy a tone to sculpture as the attention of thebuilder to the jointing of his stones; and his having both the power tomake them fit so perfectly as not to admit of the slightest portion ofcement showing externally, and the skill to insure, if needful, and tosuggest always, their stability in cementless construction. Plate X.represents a piece of entirely fine Lombardic building, the centralportion of the arch in the Duomo of Verona, which corresponds to that ofthe porch of San Zenone, represented in Plate I. In both these pieces ofbuilding, the only line that traces the architrave round the arch, isthat of the masonry joint; yet this line is drawn with extremestsubtlety, with intention of delighting the eye by its relation of variedcurvature to the arch itself; and it is just as much considered as thefinest pen-line of a Raphael drawing. Every joint of the stone is used,in like manner, as a thin black line, which the slightest sign of cementwould spoil like a blot. And so proud is the builder of his finejointing, and so fearless of any distortion or strain spoiling theadjustment afterwards, that in one place he runs his joint quitegratuitously through a bas-relief, and gives the keystone its only signof pre-eminence by the minute inlaying of the head of the Lamb, into thestone of the course above.
161. Proceeding from this fine jointing to fine draughtsmanship, youhave, in the very outset and earliest stage of sculpture, your flatstone surface given you as a sheet of white paper, on which you arerequired to produce the utmost effect you can with the simplest means,cutting away as little of the stone as may be, to save both time andtrouble; and, above all, leaving the block itself, when shaped, as solidas you can, that its surface may better resist weather, and the carvedparts be as much protected as possible by the masses left around them.
162. The first thing to be done is clearly to trace the outline ofsubject with an incision approximating in section to that of the furrowof a plough, only more equal-sided. A fine sculptor strikes it, as hischisel leans, freely, on marble; an Egyptian, in hard rock, cuts itsharp, as in cuneiform inscriptions. In any case, you have a resultsomewhat like the upper figure, Plate XI., in which I show you the mostelementary indication of form possible, by cutting the outline of thetypical archaic Greek head with an incision like that of a Greektriglyph, only not so precise in edge or slope, as it is to be modifiedafterwards.
163. Now, the simplest thing we can do next, is to round off the flatsurface _within_ the incision, and put what form we can get into thefeebler projection of it thus obtained. The Egyptians do this, oftenwith exquisite skill, and then, as I showed you in a former lecture,colour the whole--using the incision as an outline. Such a method oftreatment is capable of good service in representing, at little cost ofpains, subjects in distant effect, and common, or merely picturesque,subjects even near. To show you what it is capable of, and whatcoloured sculpture would be in its rudest type, I have prepared thecoloured relief of the John Dory[129] as a natural history drawing fordistant effect. You know, also, that I meant him to be ugly--as ugly asany creature can well be. In time, I hope to show you prettierthings--peacocks and kingfishers,--butterflies and flowers, on groundsof gold, and the like, as they were in Byzantine work. I shall expectyou, in right use of your aesthetic faculties, to like those better thanwhat I show you to-day. But it is now a question of method only; and ifyou will look, after the lecture, first at the mere white relief, andthen see how much may be gained by a few dashes of colour, such as apractised workman could lay in a quarter of an hour,--the whole forming,if well done, almost a deceptive image--you will, at least, have therange of power in Egyptian sculpture clearly expressed to you.
164. But for fine sculpture, we must advance by far other methods. If wecarve the subject with real delicacy, the cast shadow of the incisionwill interfere with its outline, so that, for representation ofbeautiful things, you must clear away the ground about it, at all eventsfor a little distance. As the law of work is to use the least painspossible, you clear it only just as far back as you need, and then forthe sake of order and finish, you give the space a geometrical outline.By taking, in this case, the simplest I can,--a circle,--I can clear thehead with little labor in the removal of surface round it; (see thelower figure in Plate XI.)
165. Now, these are the first terms of all well-constructed bas-relief.The mass you have to treat consists of a piece of stone, which, howeveryou afterwards carve it, can but, at its most projecting point, reachthe level of the external plane surface out of which it was mapped, anddefined by a depression round it; that depression being at first a meretrench, then a moat of certain width, of which the outer sloping bank isin contact, as a limiting geometrical line, with the laterally salientportions of sculpture. This, I repeat, is the primal construction ofgood bas-relief, implying, first, perfect protection to its surface fromany transverse blow, and a geometrically limited space to be occupied bythe design, into which it shall pleasantly (and as you shall ultimatelysee, ingeniously,) contract itself: implying, secondly, a determineddepth of projection, which it shall rarely reach, and never exceed: andimplying, finally, the production of the whole piece with the leastpossible labor of chisel and loss of stone.
166. And these, which are the first, are very nearly the lastconstructive laws of sculpture. You will be surprised to find how muchthey include, and how much of minor propriety in treatment theirobservance involves.
In a very interesting essay on the architecture of the Parthenon, by theprofessor of architecture of the Ecole Polytechnique, M. Emile Boutmy,you will find it noticed that the Greeks do not usually weaken, bycarving, the constructive masses of their building; but put their chiefsculpture in the empty spaces between the triglyphs, or beneath theroof. This is true; but in so doing, they merely build their panelinstead of carving it; they accept no less than the Goths, the laws ofrecess and limitation, as being vital to the safety and dignity of theirdesign; and their noblest recumbent statues are, constructively, thefillings of the acute extremity of a panel in the form of an obtuselysummitted triangle.
167. In gradual descent from that severest type, you will find that animmense quantity of sculpture of all times and styles may be generallyembraced under the notion of a mass hewn out of, or, at least, placedin, a panel or recess, deepening, it may be, into a niche; the sculp
turebeing always designed with reference to its position in such recess;and, therefore, to the effect of the building out of which the recess ishewn.
But, for the sake of simplifying our inquiry, I will at first suppose nosurrounding protective ledge to exist, and that the area of stone wehave to deal with is simply a flat slab, extant from a flat surfacedepressed all round it.
168. A _flat_ slab, observe. The flatness of surface is essential to theproblem of bas-relief. The lateral limit of the panel may, or may not,be required; but the vertical limit of surface _must_ be expressed; andthe art of bas-relief is to give the effect of true form on thatcondition. For observe, if nothing more were needed than to make first acast of a solid form, then cut it in half, and apply the half of it tothe flat surface;--if, for instance, to carve a bas-relief of an apple,all I had to do was to cut my sculpture of the whole apple in half, andpin it to the wall, any ordinary trained sculptor, or even a mechanicalworkman, could produce bas-relief; but the business is to carve a_round_ thing out of _flat_ thing; to carve an apple out of abiscuit!--to conquer, as a subtle Florentine has here conquered,[130]his marble, so as not only to get motion into what is most rigidlyfixed, but to get boundlessness into what is most narrowly bounded; andcarve Madonna and Child, rolling clouds, flying angels, and space ofheavenly air behind all, out of a film of stone not the third of an inchthick where it is thickest.
169. Carried, however, to such a degree of subtlety as this, and with soambitious and extravagant aim, bas-relief becomes a tour-de-force; and,you know, I have just told you all tours-de-force are wrong. The truelaw of bas-relief is to begin with a depth of incision proportionedjustly to the distance of the observer and the character of the subject,and out of that rationally determined depth, neither increased forostentation of effect, nor diminished for ostentation of skill, to dothe utmost that will be easily visible to an observer, supposing him togive an average human amount of attention, but not to peer into, orcritically scrutinize the work.
170. I cannot arrest you to-day by the statement of any of the laws ofsight and distance which determine the proper depth of bas-relief.Suppose that depth fixed; then observe what a pretty problem, or,rather, continually varying cluster of problems, will be offered to us.You might, at first, imagine that, given what we may call our scale ofsolidity, or scale of depth, the diminution from nature would be inregular proportion, as for instance, if the real depth of your subjectbe, suppose a foot, and the depth of your bas-relief an inch, then theparts of the real subject which were six inches round the side of itwould be carved, you might imagine, at the depth of half-an-inch, and sothe whole thing mechanically reduced to scale. But not a bit of it. Hereis a Greek bas-relief of a chariot with two horses (upper figure, PlateXXI). Your whole subject has therefore the depth of two horses side byside, say six or eight feet. Your bas-relief has, on the scale,[131] saythe depth of the third of an inch. Now, if you gave only the sixth of aninch for the depth of the off horse, and, dividing him again, only thetwelfth of an inch for that of each foreleg, you would make him look amile away from the other, and his own forelegs a mile apart. Actually,the Greek has made the _near leg of the off horse project much beyondthe off leg of the near horse_; and has put nearly the whole depth andpower of his relief into the breast of the off horse, while for thewhole distance from the head of the nearest to the neck of the other, hehas allowed himself only a shallow line; knowing that, if he deepenedthat, he would give the nearest horse the look of having a thick nose;whereas, by keeping that line down, he has not only made the head itselfmore delicate, but detached it from the other by giving no cast shadow,and left the shadow below to serve for thickness of breast, cutting itas sharp down as he possibly can, to make it bolder.
171. Here is a fine piece of business we have got into!--even supposingthat all this selection and adaptation were to be contrived underconstant laws, and related only to the expression of given forms. Butthe Greek sculptor, all this while, is not only debating and decidinghow to show what he wants, but, much more, debating and deciding what,as he can't show everything, he will choose to show at all. Thus, beinghimself interested, and supposing that you will be, in the manner ofthe driving, he takes great pains to carve the reins, to show you wherethey are knotted, and how they are fastened round the driver's waist(you recollect how Hippolytus was lost by doing that), but he does notcare the least bit about the chariot, and having rather more geometrythan he likes in the cross and circle of one wheel of it, entirely omitsthe other!
172. I think you must see by this time that the sculptor's is not quitea trade which you can teach like brickmaking; nor its produce an articleof which you can supply any quantity "demanded" for the next railroadwaiting-room. It may perhaps, indeed, seem to you that, in thedifficulties thus presented by it, bas-relief involves more directexertion of intellect than finished solid sculpture. It is not so,however. The questions involved by bas-relief are of a more curious andamusing kind, requiring great variety of expedients; though none exceptsuch as a true workmanly instinct delights in inventing and inventseasily; but design in solid sculpture involves considerations of weightin mass, of balance, of perspective and opposition, in projecting forms,and of restraint for those which must not project, such as none but thegreatest masters have ever completely solved; and they, not always; thedifficulty of arranging the composition so as to be agreeable frompoints of view on all sides of it, being, itself, arduous enough.
173. Thus far, I have been speaking only of the laws of structurerelating to the projection of the mass which becomes itself thesculpture. Another most interesting group of constructive laws governsits relation to the line that contains or defines it.
In your Standard Series I have placed a photograph of the south transeptof Rouen Cathedral. Strictly speaking, all standards of Gothic are ofthe thirteenth century; but, in the fourteenth, certain qualities ofrichness are obtained by the diminution of restraint; out of which wemust choose what is best in their kinds. The pedestals of the statueswhich once occupied the lateral recesses are, as you see, covered withgroups of figures, enclosed each in a quatrefoil panel; the spacesbetween this panel and the enclosing square being filled with sculpturesof animals.
You cannot anywhere find a more lovely piece of fancy, or moreillustrative of the quantity of result that may be obtained with low andsimple chiselling. The figures are all perfectly simple in drapery, thestory told by lines of action only in the main group, no accessoriesbeing admitted. There is no undercutting anywhere, nor exhibition oftechnical skill, but the fondest and tenderest appliance of it; and oneof the principal charms of the whole is the adaptation of every subjectto its quaint limit. The tale must be told within the four petals of thequatrefoil, and the wildest and playfullest beasts must never come outof their narrow corners. The attention with which spaces of this kindare filled by the Gothic designers is not merely a beautiful compliancewith architectural requirements, but a definite assertion of theirdelight in the restraint of law; for, in illuminating books, although,if they chose it, they might have designed floral ornaments, as we nowusually do, rambling loosely over the leaves, and although, in laterworks, such license is often taken by them, in all books of the finetime the wandering tendrils are enclosed by limits approximatelyrectilinear, and in gracefullest branching often detach themselves fromthe right line only by curvature of extreme severity.
174 Since the darkness and extent of shadow by which the sculpture isrelieved necessarily vary with the depth of the recess, there arise aseries of problems, in deciding which the wholesome desire for emphasisby means of shadow is too often exaggerated by the ambition of thesculptor to show his skill in undercutting. The extreme of vulgarity isusually reached when the entire bas-relief is cut hollow underneath, asin much Indian and Chinese work, so as to relieve its forms against anabsolute darkness; but no formal law can ever be given; for exactly thesame thing may be beautifully done for a wise purpose, by one person,which is basely done, and to no purpose, or to a bad one, by another.Thus, the desir
e for emphasis itself may be the craving of a deadenedimagination, or the passion of a vigorous one; and relief againstshadow may be sought by one man only for sensation, and by another forintelligibility. John of Pisa undercuts fiercely, in order to bring outthe vigour of life which no level contour could render; the Lombardi ofVenice undercut delicately, in order to obtain beautiful lines, andedges of faultless precision; but the base Indian craftsmen undercutonly that people may wonder how the chiselling was done through theholes, or that they may see every monster white against black.
175. Yet, here again we are met by another necessity for discrimination.There may be a true delight in the inlaying of white on dark, as thereis a true delight in vigorous rounding. Nevertheless, the general law isalways, that, the lighter the incisions, and the broader the surface,the grander, caeteris paribus, will be the work. Of the structural termsof that work you now know enough to understand that the schools of goodsculpture, considered in relation to projection, divide themselves intofour entirely distinct groups:--
1st. Flat Relief, in which the surface is, in many places, absolutely flat; and the expression depends greatly on the lines of its outer contour, and on fine incisions within them.
2nd. Round Relief, in which, as in the best coins, the sculptured mass projects so as to be capable of complete modulation into form, but is not anywhere undercut. The formation of a coin by the blow of a die necessitates, of course, the severest obedience to this law.
3rd. Edged Relief. Undercutting admitted, so as to throw out the forms against a background of shadow.
4th. Full Relief. The statue completely solid in form, and unreduced in retreating depth of it, yet connected locally with some definite part of the building, so as to be still dependent on the shadow of its background and direction of protective line.
176. Let me recommend you at once to take what pains may be needful toenable you to distinguish these four kinds of sculpture, for thedistinctions between them are not founded on mere differences ingradation of depth. They are truly four species, or orders, ofsculpture, separated from each other by determined characters. I haveused, you may have noted, hitherto in my Lectures, the word "bas-relief"almost indiscriminately for all, because the degree of lowness orhighness of relief is not the question, but the _method_ of relief.Observe again, therefore--
A. If a portion of the surface is absolutely flat, you have the firstorder--Flat Relief.
B. If every portion of the surface is rounded, but none undercut, youhave Round Relief--essentially that of seals and coins.
C. If any part of the edges be undercut, but the general projection ofsolid form reduced, you have what I think you may conveniently callFoliate Relief,--the parts of the design overlapping each other inplaces, like edges of leaves.
D. If the undercutting is bold and deep, and the projection of solidform unreduced, you have full relief.
Learn these four names at once by heart:--
Flat Relief. Round Relief. Foliate Relief. Full Relief.
And whenever you look at any piece of sculpture, determine first towhich of these classes it belongs; and then consider how the sculptorhas treated it with reference to the necessary structure--thatreference, remember, being partly to the mechanical conditions of thematerial, partly to the means of light and shade at his command.
PLATE XII.--BRANCH OF PHILLYREA. DARK PURPLE]
177. To take a single instance. You know, for these many years, I havebeen telling our architects with all the force of voice I had in me,that they could design nothing until they could carve natural formsrightly. Many imagine that work was easy; but judge for yourselveswhether it be or not. In Plate XII., I have drawn, with approximateaccuracy, a cluster of Phillyrea leaves as they grow. Now, if we wantedto cut them in bas-relief, the first thing we should have to considerwould be the position of their outline on the marble;--here it is, asfar down as the spring of the leaves. But do you suppose that is what anordinary sculptor could either lay for his first sketch, or contemplateas a limit to be worked down to? Then consider how the interlacing andspringing of the leaves can be expressed within this outline. It must bedone by leaving such projection in the marble as will take the light inthe same proportion as the drawing does;--and a Florentine workman coulddo it, for close sight, without driving one incision deeper, or raisinga single surface higher, than the eighth of an inch. Indeed, no sculptorof the finest time would design such a complex cluster of leaves asthis, except for bronze or iron work; they would take simpler contoursfor marble; but the laws of treatment would, under these conditions,remain just as strict: and you may, perhaps, believe me now when I tellyou that, in any piece of fine structural sculpture by the greatmasters, there is more subtlety and noble obedience to lovely laws thancould be explained to you if I took twenty lectures to do it in, insteadof one.
FIG. 9.]
178. There remains yet a point of mechanical treatment, on which I havenot yet touched at all; nor that the least important,--namely, theactual method and style of handling. A great sculptor uses his toolsexactly as a painter his pencil, and you may recognize the decision ofhis thought, and glow of his temper, no less in the workmanship than thedesign. The modern system of modelling the work in clay, getting it intoform by machinery, and by the hands of subordinates, and touching it atlast, if indeed the (so called) sculptor touch it at all, only tocorrect their inefficiencies, renders the production of good work inmarble a physical impossibility. The first result of it is that thesculptor thinks in clay instead of marble, and loses his instinctivesense of the proper treatment of a brittle substance. The second is thatneither he nor the public recognize the touch of the chisel asexpressive of personal feeling or power, and that nothing is looked forexcept mechanical polish.
179. The perfectly simple piece of Greek relief represented in PlateXIII., will enable you to understand at once,--examination of theoriginal, at your leisure, will prevent you, I trust, from everforgetting--what is meant by the virtue of handling in sculpture.
PLATE XIII.--GREEK FLAT RELIEF AND SCULPTURE BY EDGEDINCISION.]
The projection of the heads of the four horses, one behind the other, iscertainly not more, altogether, than three-quarters of an inch from theflat ground, and the one in front does not in reality project more thanthe one behind it, yet, by mere drawing,[132] you see the sculptor hasgot them to appear to recede in due order, and by the soft rounding ofthe flesh surfaces, and modulation of the veins, he has taken away alllook of flatness from the necks. He has drawn the eyes and nostrils withdark incision, careful as the finest touches of a painter's pencil: andthen, at last, when he comes to the manes, he has let fly hand andchisel with their full force, and where a base workman, (above all, ifhe had modelled the thing in clay first,) would have lost himself inlaborious imitation of hair, the Greek has struck the tresses out withangular incisions, deep driven, every one in appointed place anddeliberate curve, yet flowing so free under his noble hand that youcannot alter, without harm, the bending of any single ridge, norcontract, nor extend, a point of them. And if you will look back toPlate IX. you will see the difference between this sharp incision, usedto express horse-hair, and the soft incision with intervening roundedridge, used to express the hair of Apollo Chrysocomes; and, beneath, theobliquely ridged incision used to express the plumes of his swan; inboth these cases the handling being much more slow, because theengraving is in metal; but the structural importance of incision, as themeans of effect, never lost sight of. Finally, here are two actualexamples of the work in marble of the two great schools of the world;one, a little Fortune, standing tiptoe on the globe of the Earth, itssurface traced with lines in hexagons; not chaotic under Fortune's feet;Greek, this, and by a trained workman;--dug up in the temple of Neptuneat Corfu;--and here, a Florentine portrait-marble, found in the recentalterations, face downwards, under the pavement of St'a MariaNovella;[133] both of them first-rate of their kind; and both of them,while exquisit
ely finished at the telling points, showing, on all theirunregarded surfaces, the rough furrow of the fast-driven chisel, asdistinctly as the edge of a common paving-stone.
180. Let me suggest to you, in conclusion, one most interesting point ofmental expression in these necessary aspects of finely executedsculpture. I have already again and again pressed on your attention thebeginning of the arts of men in the make and use of the ploughshare.Read more carefully--you might indeed do well to learn at once byheart,--the twenty-seven lines of the Fourth Pythian, which describe theploughing of Jason. There is nothing grander extant in human fancy, norset down in human words: but this great mythical expression of theconquest of the earth-clay, and brute-force, by vital human energy, willbecome yet more interesting to you when you reflect what enchantment hasbeen cut, on whiter clay, by the tracing of finer furrows;--what thedelicate and consummate arts of man have done by the ploughing ofmarble, and granite, and iron. You will learn daily more and more, asyou advance in actual practice, how the primary manual art of engraving,in the steadiness, clearness, and irrevocableness of it, is the bestart-discipline that can be given either to mind or hand;[134] you willrecognize one law of right, pronouncing itself in the well-resolved workof every age; you will see the firmly traced and irrevocable incisiondetermining not only the forms, but, in great part, the moral temper, ofall vitally progressive art; you will trace the same principle and powerin the furrows which the oblique sun shows on the granite of his ownEgyptian city,--in the white scratch of the stylus through the colour ona Greek vase--in the first delineation, on the wet wall, of the groupsof an Italian fresco; in the unerring and unalterable touch of the greatengraver of Nueremberg,--and in the deep driven and deep bitten ravinesof metal by which Turner closed, in embossed limits, the shadows of theLiber Studiorum.
Learn, therefore, in its full extent, the force of the great Greek word,[Greek: charasso];--and, give me pardon--if you think pardon needed,that I ask you also to learn the full meaning of the English wordderived from it. Here, at the Ford of the Oxen of Jason, are otherfurrows to be driven than these in the marble of Pentelicus. Thefruitfullest, or the fatallest of all ploughing is that by the thoughtsof your youth, on the white field of its imagination. For by these,either down to the disturbed spirit, "[Greek: kekoptai kai charassetaipedon];" or around the quiet spirit, and on all the laws of conduct thathold it, as a fair vase its frankincense, are ordained the pure colours,and engraved the just Characters, of AEonian life.
FOOTNOTES:
[126] Nothing is more wonderful, or more disgraceful among the forms ofignorance engendered by modern vulgar occupations in pursuit of gain,than the unconsciousness, now total, that fine art is essentiallyAthletic. I received a letter from Birmingham, some little time since,inviting me to see how much, in glass manufacture, "machinery excelledrude hand work." The writer had not the remotest conception that hemight as well have asked me to come and see a mechanical boat-race rowedby automata, and "how much machinery excelled rude arm-work."
[127] Such as the sculptureless arch of Waterloo Bridge, for instance,referred to in the Third Lecture, Sec. 84.
[128] It is strange, at this day, to think of the relation of theAthenian Ceramicus to the French Tile-fields, Tileries, or Tuileries;and how these last may yet become--have already partly become--"thePotter's field," blood-bought (December, 1870.)
[129] This relief is now among the other casts which I have placed inthe lower school in the University galleries.
[130] The reference is to a cast from a small and low relief ofFlorentine work in the Kensington Museum.
[131] The actual bas-relief is on a coin, and the projection not abovethe twentieth of an inch, but I magnified it in photograph, for thisLecture, so as to represent a relief with about the third of an inch formaximum projection.
[132] This plate has been executed from a drawing by Mr. Burgess, inwhich he has followed the curves of incision with exquisite care, andpreserved the effect of the surface of the stone, where a photographwould have lost it by exaggerating accidental stains.
[133] These two marbles will always, henceforward, be sufficientlyaccessible for reference in my room at Corpus Christi College.
[134] That it was also, in, some cases, the earliest that the Greeksgave, is proved by Lucian's account of his first lesson at his uncle's;the [Greek: enkopeus], literally "in-cutter"--being the first tool putinto his hand, and an earthenware tablet to cut upon, which the boypressing too hard, presently breaks;--gets beaten--goes home crying, andbecomes, after his dream above quoted, a philosopher instead of asculptor.