IV. ST. MARK’S 109

glass, to fill an aperture in the wall, he can, by piercing them with holes, obtain points or spaces of intense blackness to contrast with the light tracing of the rest of his design. And we may expect to find this artifice used the more extensively, because, while it will be an effective means of ornamentation on the exterior of the building, it will be also the safest way of admitting light to the interior, still totally excluding both rain and wind. And it will naturally follow that the architect, thus familiarized with the effect of black and sudden points of shadow, will often seek to carry the same principle into other portions of his ornamentation, and by deep drill-holes, or perhaps inlaid portions of black colour, to refresh the eye where it may be wearied by the lightness of the general handling.

§ 42. Farther. Exactly in proportion to the degree in which the force of sculpture is subdued, will be the importance attached to colour as a means of effect or constituent of beauty. I have above stated¹ that the incrusted style was the only one in which perfect or permanent colour decoration was possible. It is also the only one in which a true system of colour decoration was ever likely to be invented. In order to understand this, the reader must permit me to review with some care the nature of the principles of colouring adopted by the Northern and Southern nations.

§ 43. I believe that from the beginning of the world there has never been a true or fine school of art in which colour was despised.² It has often been imperfectly attained and injudiciously applied, but I believe it to be one of the essential signs of life in a school of art that it loves colour; and I know it to be one of the first signs of death in the Renaissance schools, that they despised colour.

Observe, it is not now the question whether our Northern cathedrals are better with colour or without. Perhaps the great monotone grey of Nature and of Time is a better colour

¹ [See § 29, p. 98.]

² [This was a frequent text with Ruskin; see below, ch. v. § 30,and compare especially Modern Painters, vol. v. pt. ix. ch. xi. § 8.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]