DECORATION XXI. TREATMENT OF ORNAMENT 285

the effect of every portion of the building over which it has influence; that it does not, by its richness, make other parts bald, or by its delicacy, make other parts coarse. Every one of its qualities has reference to its place and use: and it is fitted for its service by what would be faults and deficiencies if it had no especial duty. Ornament, the servant, is often formal, where sculpture, the master, would have been free; the servant is often silent where the master would have been eloquent; or hurried, where the master would have been serene.

§ 5. How far this subordination is in different situations to be expressed, or how far it may be surrendered, and ornament, the servant, be permitted to have independent will; and by what means the subordination is best to be expressed when it is required, are by far the most difficult questions I have ever tried to work out respecting any branch of art; for, in many of the examples to which I look as authoritative in their majesty of effect, it is almost impossible to say whether the abstraction or imperfection of the sculpture was owing to the choice, or the incapacity, of the workman; and if to the latter, how far the result of fortunate incapacity can be imitated by prudent self-restraint. The reader, I think, will understand this at once by considering the effect of the illuminations of an old missal.¹ In their bold rejection of all principles of perspective, light and shade, and drawing, they are infinitely more ornamental to the page, owing to the vivid opposition of their bright colours and quaint lines, than if they had been drawn by Da Vinci himself: and so the Arena chapel is far more brightly decorated by the archaic frescoes of Giotto,² than the Stanze of the Vatican are by those of Raffaelle. But how far it is possible to recur to such archaicism, or to make up for it by any voluntary abandonment of power, I cannot as yet venture in any wise to determine.

¹ [For Ruskin’s study of missals which had begun at this time (1850-1851), see Præterita, iii. ch. i. § 18.]

² [For further remarks on the decorative effect of Giotto’s frescoes, see Giotto and his Works in Padua, § 20, and cf. below, appendix 15, p. 449.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]