DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0122
no
JOHN RUSKIN.
rich armature from those that are essential parts of
the solid building; the abandonment of nearly all ex-
pression in the body of the building, except that of
strength, so that the Byzantine building shows no anxiety
to disturb open surfaces; the solidity of the shafts, how-
ever precious in material, as an instinctive amends for
the thinness of the precious surface on the walls; and
the consequent variable size of the shafts, as rubies in
a carcanet have the differences proper to their single
values, and the emeralds of two ear-rings are not abso-
lutely alike; shallow cutting of the decoration, so that
here are none of the hollows and hiding-places proper
to the stone-work of the north. On this serene and
sunny construction the decorator worked as one who
traces a fine drawing, subduing and controlling figure
and drapery to the surface of his film of marble. Little
have they read this book who currently discuss the
fanaticism of Ruskin in the matter of “truth,” and
charge him with so bigoted a love of integrity as to
forbid the use of a marble surface on a construction of
commoner substance; an architect accuses him of this
to-day as easily as a painter to-morrow will aver that
Ruskin did not permit him to choose what he would
record, but compelled him to record all that was before
him. It is as the chief of the lovers of colour that
Ruskin is the apologist of an incrusted church simply
condemned as “ ugly ” by the taste of the guides of the
world—that St Mark’s which was to him “a confusion
of delight,” a “ chain of language and life,” that St Mark’s
JOHN RUSKIN.
rich armature from those that are essential parts of
the solid building; the abandonment of nearly all ex-
pression in the body of the building, except that of
strength, so that the Byzantine building shows no anxiety
to disturb open surfaces; the solidity of the shafts, how-
ever precious in material, as an instinctive amends for
the thinness of the precious surface on the walls; and
the consequent variable size of the shafts, as rubies in
a carcanet have the differences proper to their single
values, and the emeralds of two ear-rings are not abso-
lutely alike; shallow cutting of the decoration, so that
here are none of the hollows and hiding-places proper
to the stone-work of the north. On this serene and
sunny construction the decorator worked as one who
traces a fine drawing, subduing and controlling figure
and drapery to the surface of his film of marble. Little
have they read this book who currently discuss the
fanaticism of Ruskin in the matter of “truth,” and
charge him with so bigoted a love of integrity as to
forbid the use of a marble surface on a construction of
commoner substance; an architect accuses him of this
to-day as easily as a painter to-morrow will aver that
Ruskin did not permit him to choose what he would
record, but compelled him to record all that was before
him. It is as the chief of the lovers of colour that
Ruskin is the apologist of an incrusted church simply
condemned as “ ugly ” by the taste of the guides of the
world—that St Mark’s which was to him “a confusion
of delight,” a “ chain of language and life,” that St Mark’s