128 THE STONES OF VENICE

the modern religious mind, the capacity of emotion, which renders judgment uncertain, is joined with an incredulity which renders it severe; and this ignorant emotion, joined with ignorant observance of faults, is the worst possible temper in which any art can be regarded, but more especially sacred art. For as religious faith renders emotion facile, so also it generally renders expression simple: that is to say, a truly religious painter will very often be ruder, quainter, simpler, and more faulty in his manner of working, than a great irreligious one. And it was in this artless utterance, and simple acceptance, on the part of both the workman and the beholder, that all noble schools of art have been cradled; it is in them that they must be cradled to the end of time. It is impossible to calculate the enormous loss of power in modern days, owing to the imperative requirement that art shall be methodical and learned: for as long as the constitution of this world remains unaltered, there will be more intellect in it than there can be education; there will be many men capable of just sensation and vivid invention, who never will have time to cultivate or polish their natural powers. And all unpolished power is in the present state of society lost; in other things as well as in the arts, but in the arts especially: nay, in nine cases out of ten, people mistake the polish for the power. Until a man has passed through a course of academy studentship, and can draw in an improved manner with French chalk, and knows fore-shortening, and perspective, and something of anatomy, we do not think he can possibly be an artist; what is worse,

elder Christians looked upon it as this or that painter’s description of what had actually taken place. And in the Greek Church all painting is, to this day, strictly a branch of tradition. See M. Didron’s admirably written introduction to his Iconographie Chrétienne,¹ p. 7:-“Un de mes compagnons s’étonnait de retrouver à la Panagia de St. Luc, le saint Jean Chrysostome qu’il avait dessiné dans le baptistére de St. Luc, le saint Jean Chrysostome personnages est partout et en tout temps le même, non-seulement pour la forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour le dessin, mais jusque pour le nombre et I’épaisseur des plis.”

¹ [Manuel d’Iconographie Chrétienne Grecque et Latine (by Dionysius, Monk of Fourna d’ Agrapha), avec une introduction et des notes, par M. Didron, 1845.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]