DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61217#0256
244
CHAPTER XXIII.
‘DEUCALION’ (1875-1883).
In 1875 Ruskin prefaced Deucalion with an ironic sketch
of the unachieved work for which he had until then
collected material: an analysis of the Attic art of the
fifth century b.c. ; an exhaustive history of northern
thirteenth-century art; a history of Florentine fifteenth-
century art; a life of Turner, with analysis of modern
landscape art; a life of Walter Scott; a life of Xenophon,
with analysis of the general principles of education; a
commentary on Hesiod; and a general description of
the geology and botany of the Alps. Meanwhile, at the
outset of this little work, chiefly on geology, he finds
place for a brilliant essay on heraldic colours, fairly
proves “ gules ” to be derived from the Zoroastrian word
for rose, and not from the Latin and Romance words
for a red throat of prey; quotes St Bernard on this
accidental subject, and corrects the “ badgers’ skins ”
that were hung with rams’ skins upon the Tabernacle
of Israel, to seals’—from the sea-flocks that then swam
the Mediterranean by the city of Phocrea, and were
CHAPTER XXIII.
‘DEUCALION’ (1875-1883).
In 1875 Ruskin prefaced Deucalion with an ironic sketch
of the unachieved work for which he had until then
collected material: an analysis of the Attic art of the
fifth century b.c. ; an exhaustive history of northern
thirteenth-century art; a history of Florentine fifteenth-
century art; a life of Turner, with analysis of modern
landscape art; a life of Walter Scott; a life of Xenophon,
with analysis of the general principles of education; a
commentary on Hesiod; and a general description of
the geology and botany of the Alps. Meanwhile, at the
outset of this little work, chiefly on geology, he finds
place for a brilliant essay on heraldic colours, fairly
proves “ gules ” to be derived from the Zoroastrian word
for rose, and not from the Latin and Romance words
for a red throat of prey; quotes St Bernard on this
accidental subject, and corrects the “ badgers’ skins ”
that were hung with rams’ skins upon the Tabernacle
of Israel, to seals’—from the sea-flocks that then swam
the Mediterranean by the city of Phocrea, and were