Note 50 — Chapter IV

46 In the works of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites.

47 Observe, I speak of these various principles as self-evident, only under the present circumstances of the world, not as if they had always been so; and I call them now self-evident, not merely because they seem so to myself, but because they are felt to be so likewise by all the men in whom I place most trust. But granting that they are not so, then their very disputability proves the state of infancy above alleged, as characteristic of the world. For I do not suppose that any Christian reader will doubt the first great truth, that whatever facts or laws are important to mankind, God has made ascertainable by mankind; and that as the decision of all these questions is of vital importance to the race, that decision must have been long ago arrived at, unless they were still in a state of childhood.

48 I intended to have given a sketch in this place (above referred to) of the probable results of the daguerreotype and calotype within the next few years, in modifying the application of the engraver’s art, but I have not had time to complete the experiments necessary to enable me to speak with certainty. Of one thing, however, I have little doubt, that an infinite service will soon be done to a large body of our engravers; namely, the making them draughtsmen (in black and white) on paper instead of steel.

49 I mean art in its highest sense. All that men do ingeniously is art, in one sense. In fact, we want a definition of the word “art” much more accurate than any in our minds at present. For, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as “fine” or “high” art. All art is a low and common thing, and what we indeed respect is not art at all, but instinct or inspiration expressed by the help of art.

50

“Socrates. This, then, was what I asked you; whether that which puts anything else to service, and the thing which is put to service by it, are always two different things?

Alcibiades. I think so.

Socrates. What shall we then say of the leather-cutter? Does he cut his leather with his instruments only, or with his hands also?

Alcibiades. With his hands also.

Socrates. Does he not use his eyes as well as his hands?

Alcibiades. Yes.

Socrates. And we agreed that the thing which uses and the thing which is used, were different things?

Alcibiades. Yes.

Socrates. Then the leather-cutter is not the same thing as his eyes or hands?

Alcibiades. So it appears.

Socrates. Does not, then, man make use of his whole body?

Alcibiades. Assuredly.

Socrates. Then the man is not the same thing as his body?

Alcibiades. It seems so.

Socrates. What, then, is the man?

Alcibiades. I know not.”

Plato, Alcibiades I.

51 Thus the grapes pressed by Excesse are partly golden (Spenser, book ii. cant. 12.):

“Which did themselves amongst the leaves enfold, As lurking from the view of covetous guest, That the weake boughes, with so rich load opprest Did bow adowne as overburdened.”

52 The reader must not suppose that the use of gold, in this manner, is confined to early art. Tintoret, the greatest master of pictorial effect that ever existed, has gilded the ribs of the fig-leaves in his “Resurrection,” in the Scuola di San Rocco.

53 Nothing is more wonderful to me than to hear the pleasure of the eye, in color, spoken of with disdain as “sensual,” while people exalt that of the ear in music. Do they really suppose the eye is a less noble bodily organ than the ear,—that the organ by which nearly all our knowledge of the external universe is communicated to us, and through which we learn the wonder and the love, can be less exalted in its own peculiar delight than the ear, which is only for the communication of the ideas which owe to the eye their very existence? I do not mean to depreciate music: let it be loved and reverenced as is just; only let the delight of the eye be reverenced more. The great power of music over the multitude is owing, not to its being less but more sensual than color; it is so distinctly and so richly sensual, that it can be idly enjoyed; it is exactly at the point where the lower and higher pleasures of the senses and imagination are balanced; so that pure and great minds love it for its invention and emotion, and lower minds for its sensual power.

54 Vol. II. Appendix 7.

55 Louis the Eleventh. “In the month of March, 1481, Louis was seized with a fit of apoplexy at St. Bénoit-du-lac-mort, near Chinon. He remained speechless and bereft of reason three days; and then but very imperfectly restored, he languished in a miserable state.... To cure him,” says a contemporary historian, “wonderful and terrible medicines were compounded. It was reported among the people that his physicians opened the veins of little children, and made him drink their blood, to correct the poorness of his own.”—Bussey’s History of France. London, 1850.

56 Observe, I call Gothic “Christian” architecture, not “ecclesiastical.” There is a wide difference. I believe it is the only architecture which Christian men should build, but not at all an architecture necessarily connected with the services of their church.

57 Mr. Hope’s Church, in Margaret Street, Portland Place. I do not altogether like the arrangements of color in the brickwork; but these will hardly attract the eye, where so much has been already done with precious and beautiful marble, and is yet to be done in fresco. Much will depend, however, upon the coloring of this latter portion. I wish that either Holman Hunt or Millais could be prevailed upon to do at least some of these smaller frescoes.