232 REVIEWS AND PAMPHLETS ON ART

comparison mingle with our admiration of these two sublime works any sense of weakness in the naïveté of the one, or of coldness in the science of the other. Each painter has his own sufficient dominion, and he who complains of the want of knowledge in Orcagna, or of the display of it in Michael Angelo, has probably brought little to his judgment of either.

62. One passage more we must quote, well worthy of remark in these days of hollowness and haste, though we question the truth of the particular fact stated in the second volume respecting the shrine of Or San Michele.¹ Cement is now visible enough in all the joints, but whether from recent repairs we cannot say:-

“There is indeed another, a technical merit, due to Orcagna, which I would have mentioned earlier, did it not partake so strongly of a moral virtue. Whatever he undertook to do, he did well-by which I mean, better than anybody else. His Loggia, in its general structure and its provisions against injury from wet and decay, is a model of strength no less than symmetry and elegance; the junction of the marbles in the tabernacle of Or San Michele, and the exquisite manual workmanship of the bas-reliefs, have been the theme of praise for five centuries; his colours in the Campo Santo have maintained a freshness unrivalled by those of any of his successors there;-nay, even had his mosaics been preserved at Orvieto, I am confident the commettitura would be found more compact and polished than any previous to the sixteenth century. The secret of all this was that he made himself thoroughly an adept in the mechanism of the respective arts, and therefore his works have stood. Genius is too apt to think herself independent of form and matter-never was there such a mistake; she cannot slight either without hamstringing herself. But the rule is of universal application; without this thorough mastery of their respective tools, this determination honestly to make the best use of them, the divine, the soldier, the statesman, the philosopher, the poet-however genuine their enthusiasm, however lofty their genius-are mere empirics, pretenders to crowns they will not run for, children not men-sporters with Imagination, triflers with Reason, with the prospects of humanity, with Time, and with God.”-Vol. iii. pp. 148, 149.

A noble passage this,² and most true, provided we distinguish always between mastery of tool together with thorough strength of workmanship, and mere neatness of outside polish or fitting of measurement, of which ancient masters are daringly scorful.

¹ [Referred to also in Modern Painters, vol.ii. (Vol.IV. p.300)]

² [The passage is also referred to in Seven Lamps, Vol. VIII. p. 197.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]