26 THE STONES OF VENICE

subdued, and the other that it shall be subdued without losing either its own purity or that of the colours with which it is associated.

§ 29. Hence arose the universal and admirable system of the diapered or chequered backgrounds of early ornamental art. They are completely developed in the thirteenth century, and extend through the whole of the fourteenth, gradually yielding to landscape and other pictorial backgrounds, as the designers lost perception of the purpose of their art, and of the value of colour. The chromatic decoration of the Gothic palaces of Venice was of course founded on these two great principles, which prevailed constantly wherever the true chivalric and Gothic spirit possessed any influence. The windows, with their intermediate spaces of marble, were considered as the objects to be relieved, and variously quartered with vigorous colour. The whole space of the brick wall was considered as a background; it was covered with stucco, and painted in fresco, with diaper patterns.

§ 30. What? the reader asks in some surprise,-Stucco! and in the great Gothic period? Even so, but not stucco to imitate stone.¹ Herein lies all the difference; it is stucco confessed and understood, and laid on the bricks precisely as gesso is laid on canvas, in order to form them into a ground for receiving colour from the human hand,-colour which, if well laid on, might render the brick wall more precious than if it had been built of emeralds. Whenever we wish to paint, we may prepare our paper as we choose; the value of the ground in nowise adds to the value of the picture. A Tintoret on beaten gold would be of no more value than a Tintoret on coarse canvas; the gold would merely be wasted. All that we have to do is to make the ground as good and fit for the colour as possible, by whatever means.

§ 31. I am not sure if I am right in applying the term

¹ [Ruskin had already considered the ethics of stucco in The Poetry of Architecture, Vol. I. p. 95. See also Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. xv. § 9; and Two Paths, § 161.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]