APPENDIX, 12 455

often, once in the Gothic, once in the Renaissance times,-some writers say even rebuilt; but, if so, rebuilt in its old form. The Gothic additions harmonise exquisitely with its Byzantine work, and it is easy, as we examine its lovely central arcade, to forget the Renaissance additions which encumber it above. It is known as the Casa Loredan.

The eighth palace is the Fondaco de’ Turchi, described in the text.¹ A ninth existed, more interesting apparently than any of these, near the Church of San Moisé, but it was thrown down in the course of “improvements” a few years ago. A woodcut of it is given in M. Lazari’s Guide.

12. [p. 174] MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS

Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days, we have defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and few of more practical importance than this, which I shall have occasion again and again to allege in support of many future deductions:

“All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself the objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly attainable; and becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose to itself any other objects better attainable with other materials.”²

Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,-as in ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of hair,-is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting, but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture. All sculpture, therefore, which professes as its chief end the expression of such characters, is debased; and if the suggestion of them be accidentally required of it, that suggestion is only to be given to an extent compatible with perfect ease of execution in the given material,-not to the utmost possible extent. For instance: some of the most delightful drawings of our own water-colour painter, Hunt, have been of birds’ nests;³ of which, in painting, it is perfectly possible to represent the intricate fibrous or mossy structure; therefore, the effort is a legitimate one, and the art is well employed. But to carve a bird’s nest out of marble would be physically impossible, and to reach any approximate expression of its structure would require prolonged and intolerable labour. Therefore, all sculpture which set itself to carving birds’ nests as an end, or which, if a bird’s nest were required of it, carved it to the utmost possible point of realisation, would be debased. Nothing but the general form, and as much of the fibrous structure as could be with perfect ease represented, ought to be attempted at all.

But more than this. The workman has not done his duty, and is not working on safe principles, unless he even so far honours the materials with which he is working as to set himself to bring out their beauty, and to recommend and exalt, as far as he can, their peculiar qualities. If he is working in marble, he should insist upon and exhibit its transparency and solidity; if in

¹ [See above, p. 146, and the frontispiece.]

² [For illustration of this principle, see especially The Two Paths, §§ 160-163, A Joy for Ever, § 34, and Lectures on Art, § 171.]

³ [See, for instance, Ruskin’s note on a drawing of his by Hunt, “Hawthorn and Birds’ Nests,” No. 155 in the Notes on Prout and Hunt.]

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