CH. IV THE LAMP OF BEAUTY 175

a perfection-the least of all perfections, and yet the crowning one of all-one which by itself, and regarded in itself, is an architectural coxcombry,* but is yet the sign of the most highly-trained mind and power when it is associated with others. It is a safe manner, as I think, to design all things at first in severe abstraction, and to be prepared,¹ if need were, to carry them out in that form; then to mark the parts where high finish would be admissible, to complete these always with stern reference to their general effect, and then connect them by a graduated scale of abstraction with the rest. And there is one safeguard against danger in this process on which I would finally insist. Never imitate anything but natural forms, and those the noblest, in the completed parts. The degradation of the cinque cento manner of decoration was not owing to its naturalism, to its faithfulness of imitation, but to its imitation of ugly, i.e. unnatural things. So long as it restrained itself to sculpture of animals and flowers, it remained noble. The balcony, on the opposite page (Plate XI.), from a house in the Campo St. Benedetto at Venice, shows one of the earliest occurrences of the cinque cento arabesque, and a fragment of the pattern is given in Plate XII. fig. 8. It is but the arresting upon the stone work of a stem or two of the living flowers, which are rarely wanting in the window above (and which, by the by, the French and Italian peasantry often trellis with exquisite taste about their casements). This arabesque, relieved as it is in darkness from the white stone by the stain of time, is surely both beautiful and pure; and as long as the renaissance ornament remained in such forms it may be beheld with unreserved admiration. But the moment that unnatural objects were associated with these,² and armour, and musical instruments, and wild meaningless

* By no means. I much understated the truth in this matter, and should now say that sculpture should precede and govern all else. The pediment of Ægina3 determines the right-and ends controversy. [1880.]

¹ [Cf. Stones of Venice, vol. i. ch. xxi. § 9 seq., where this subject is further discussed.]

² [The MS. inserts, “for the trick of the imitation.”]

³ [Originals at Munich; casts in the British Museum. For Ruskin’s further study of the Æginetan sculptures, see Aratra Pentelici, § 191, and Art of England, § 71.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]