262 THE STONES OF VENICE DECORATION

Observe, therefore, the use of manufacture as ornament is-

(1.) With heroic figure sculpture, not admissible at all.

(2.) With picturesque figure sculpture, admissible in the degree of its picturesqueness.

(3.) Without figure sculpture, not admissible at all.

So also in painting: Michael Angelo, in the Sistine Chapel, would not have willingly painted a dress of figured damask or of watered satin: his was heroic painting, not admitting accessories.

Tintoret, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, and Vandyck, would be very sorry to part with their figured stuffs and lustrous silks; and sorry, observe, exactly in the degree of their picturesque feeling. Should not we also be sorry to have Bishop Ambrose without his vest in that picture of the National Gallery?¹

But I think Vandyck would not have liked, on the other hand, the vest without the bishop. I much doubt if Titian or Veronese would have enjoyed going into Waterloo House,² and making studies of dresses upon the counter.

§ 14. So, therefore, finally, neither architecture nor any other human work is admissible as an ornament, except in subordination to figure subject. And this law is grossly and painfully violated by those curious examples of Gothic, both early and late, in the North (but late, I think, exclusively, in Italy), in which the minor features of the architecture were composed of small models of the larger: examples which led the way to a series of abuses materially affecting the life, strength, and nobleness of the Northern Gothic,-abuses which no Ninevite, nor Egyptian, nor Greek, nor Byzantine, nor Italian of the earlier ages, would have endured for an instant, and which strike me with renewed surprise whenever I pass

¹ [No. 50: “St. Ambrose and Theodosius.”]

² [“Waterloo House,” which occupies a large part of the block of buildings between Cockspur Street and Pall Mall East, was for many years a large draper’s shop.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]