Val d'Arno by John Ruskin
page 19 of 175 (10%)
page 19 of 175 (10%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
JOHN THE PISAN. 31. I closed my last lecture with the statement, on which I desired to give you time for reflection, that Christian architecture was, in its chief energy, the adornment of tombs,--having the passionate function of doing honour to the dead. But there is an ethic, or simply didactic and instructive architecture, the decoration of which you will find to be normally representative of the virtues which are common alike to Christian and Greek. And there is a natural tendency to adopt such decoration, and the modes of design fitted for it, in civil buildings. [1] [Footnote: "These several rooms were indicated by symbol and device: Victory for the soldier, Hope for the exile, the Muses for the poets, Mercury for the artists, Paradise for the preacher."--(Sagacius Gazata, of the Palace of Can Grande. I translate only Sismondi's quotation.)] 32. _Civil_, or _civic_, I say, as opposed to military. But again observe, there are two kinds of military building. One, the robber's castle, or stronghold, out of which he issues to pillage; the other, the honest man's castle, or stronghold, into which he retreats from pillage. They are much like each other in external forms;--but Injustice, or Unrighteousness, sits in the gate of the one, veiled with forest branches, (see Giotto's painting of him); and Justice or Righteousness _enters_ by the gate of the other, over strewn forest branches. Now, for example of this second kind of military architecture, look at Carlyle's account of Henry the Fowler, [1] and of his building military towns, or burgs, to protect his peasantry. In |
|