IV. ST. MARK’S 115

for St. Mark’s, the effort was hopeless from the beginning. For its effects depend not only upon the most delicate sculpture in every part, but, as we have just stated, eminently on its colour also, and that the most subtle, variable, inexpressible colour in the world,-the colour of glass, of transparent alabaster, of polished marble, and lustrous gold. It would be easier to illustrate a crest of Scottish mountain, with its purple heather and pale harebells at their fullest and fairest, or a glade of Jura forest, with its floor of anemone and moss, than a single portico of St. Mark’s.* The fragment of one of its archivolts, given at the bottom of the opposite Plate,¹ is not to illustrate the thing itself, but to illustrate the impossibility of illustration.

§ 49. It is left a fragment, in order to get it on a larger scale; and yet even on this scale it is too small to show the sharp folds and points of the marble vine-leaves with sufficient clearness. The ground of it is gold, the sculpture in the spandrils is not more than an inch and a half deep, rarely so much. It is in fact nothing more than an exquisite sketching of outlines in marble, to about the same depth as

* The two loveliest of which have now been torn down, and vile models put up where they stood, by the accursed modern Italians.² [1879.]

¹ [The “Travellers’ Edition” reads:-

“The fragment of one of its archivolts, given at the bottom of the opposite photograph...”

And the following note is appended:-

“See preface, for my present system of illustration, and directions to binder. The portico is the one on left hand of great entrance, and may best be examined to illustrate itself.”

The preface referred to is that already given in Vol. IX. p. 16; the scheme of illustrative photographs then contemplated was abandoned, but see below, p. 464. In the 1886 edition, and later issues of the complete work, containing the “Travellers’ Edition” notes in an appendix, the two notes-* and the one just given-were run into one, the words “See preface ... binder” were omitted; as also were the words in note*, “by the accursed modern Italians.” The revision, however, was not Ruskin’s. The porch, whose archivolt is shown in this plate, is the lateral door next to the central one, on the spectator’s right as he fronts the facade. The porch next to it, more on the spectator’s right, is shown in Plate 16 of the Examples in Vol. XI.]

² [This refers to the “restoration” of the semi-detached porticoes at either end of the facade; for particulars, see the later volume of this edition containing St. Mark’s Rest; and for Ruskin’s particular admiration of the porticoes in question, see Vol. IX. p. 245, and below, p. 450.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]