162 THE STONES OF VENICE

like that of a pointed arch; and the same thing is done in many different ways in other capitals of the same building, and in many of St. Mark’s: but one such instance would have been enough to prove, if the loveliness of the profiles themselves did not do so, that the sculptor understood and loved the great laws of generalization; and that the feeling which bound his prickly leaves, as they waved or drifted around the ridges of his capital, into those broad masses of unbroken flow, was indeed one with that which made Michael Angelo encompass the principal figure in his Creation of Adam with the broad curve of its cloudy drapery.¹ It may seem strange to assert any connexion between so great a conception and these rudely hewn fragments of ruined marble; but all the highest principles of art are as universal as they are majestic, and there is nothing too small to receive their influence. They rule at once the waves of the mountain outline, and the sinuosities of the minutest lichen that stains its shattered stones.

§ 22. We have not yet spoken of the three braided and chequered capitals, numbered 10, 11, and 12. They are representations of a group, with which many most interesting associations are connected. It was noticed in the last chapter,² that the method of covering the exterior of buildings with thin pieces of marble was likely to lead to a system of lighting the interior by minute perforation. In order to obtain both light and air, without admitting any unbroken body of sunshine, in warm countries, it became a constant habit of the Arabian architects to pierce minute and starlike openings in slabs of stone; and to employ the stones so pierced where the Gothic architects employ traceries. Internally, the form of stars assumed by the light as it entered* was, in itself, an exquisite decoration; but, externally, it was felt necessary to add some slight ornament upon the surface

* Compare Seven Lamps, chap. ii. § 22 [Vol. VIII. p. 89].

¹ [In the Sistine Chapel. For another reference see Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 281).]

² [See § 41, p. 108.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]