NOTES ON THE LOUVRE 461

drapery-Corbould¹ has it in the manner rudely shown ... [reference to a sketch], and some Germans, and partly the clumsy monks of monument at Dijon. It is affected verticality. Then consider the true and highest sublimity of verticality in M. Angelo, mixed with vast bounding curves. Then the pure and graceful verticality of Angelico passing into affectation in Perugino, etc. All of them different from the manly, simple, everyday natural grandeur of Veronese. Then Titian sometimes majestic, but often, too, mean and broken, marking, I think, a lower sanctity of mind than Veronese-as also his more sensual pictures, his mighty intellect atoning for want of seriousness. Then the various degrees of flutter and of commonplace-the drapery of Jordaens happened to be next to Veronese’s-one fold of it is enough to show the inanity, baseness, and disquietude of the fellow’s mind, and to prepare one beforehand for his kicking over the Money tables.² Note that exaggerated Verticality in drapery is usually associated with exaggerated Horizontality in sky-and has been run hard by late pursuers of sublime (worth a separate paragraph, this Abuse).

[Veronese: “The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee,” No. 1193.]

§ 30. In Paul Veronese’s smaller of the two grand pictures-the Magdalene washing Christ’s feet-note style of architecture a good deal debased; the principal figures are set under a rotunda supported by Corinthian columns, with a rich, modern Frenchlooking cornice: the acanthus leaves have blunt, round lobes, and the circles of the round shafts at the top are all out of perspective. Note, by-the-bye, in the new treatment of the Corinthian capital generally, the difference between leaves and feathers, between the natural bend of a living leaf-and the crisped curl up of a blighted one: and the exaggerated twist of feather filaments. This subject I must inquire into, and consider the structures of feathers in ostrich, etc., as opposed to that of leaves; it is connected closely with the entire subject of Morbid decoration, and the Corinthian capitals of the Madeleine here, inside, are entirely spoiled by their ends curling right round and becoming absolute feathers. Consider this in connection with early and severe capitals. It is perhaps worth a chapter, associated with curls of waves, etc. The principal evil is, I think, when the end of the leaf loses its living connection with stem, and curls on its own account.³

As regards the general taste of the rest of the architecture, its balustrades are very beautiful, graceful, and light in lines of balusters, or even lighter: a circular temple in distance, with garlands (festoons) hung from pillar to pillar. Statues in semicircular niches rather loose and French. On the whole, grand, rather by suggested size, and by the accidental association of its outlines, than by real design.

Architecture of Veronese.

§ 31. As regards its Painting, it is invariably kept in the lightest and palest neutral tint possible; the columns being exquisitely rounded, the first ruled outlines often left almost in black, and the high lights touched on them in pure white, as well as on the capitals: the whole tone being a close approximation to Turner’s

¹ [For other references to Corbould, see Academy Notes, 1858.]

² [Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678): “Jesus driving the dealers out of the Temple,” No. 2011; see also above, p. 455.]

³ [Ruskin worked out this subject in The Stones of Venice, vol. iii.: see Vol. XI. pp. 8-11.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]