Page:Ruskin - The Seven Lamps of Architecture.djvu/279

Rh entirely unanswered. What good did it do to real religion? There is no subject into which I should so much rejoice to see a serious and conscientious inquiry instituted as this; an inquiry, undertaken neither in artistical enthusiasm nor in monkish sympathy, but dogged, merciless, and fearless. I love the religious art of Italy as well as most men, but there is a wide difference between loving it as a manifestation of individual feeling, and looking to it as an instrument of popular benefit. I have not knowledge enough to form even the shallow of an opinion on this latter point, and I should be most grateful to any one who would put it in my power to do so. There are, as it seems to me, three distinct questions to be considered: the first. What has been the effect of external splendour on the genuineness and earnestness of Christian worship? |the second, What is the use of pictorial or sculpturtal representation in the communication of Christian historical knowledge, or excitement of affectionate imagination? the third. What the influence of the practice of religious art on the life of the artist?

In answering these inquiries, we should have to consider separately every collateral influence and circumstance; and, by a most subtle analysis, to eliminate the real effect of art from the effects of the abuses with which it was associated. This could be done only by a Christian; not a man who would fall in love with a sweet colour or sweet expression, but who would look for true faith and consistent life as the object of all. It never has been done yet, and the question remains a subject of vain and endless contention between parties of opposite prejudices and temperaments.

3. p. 21. 'To the concealment of what is really good or great': I have often been surprised at the supposition that Romanism, in its present condition, could either patronise art, or profit by it. The noble painted windows of St, Maclou at Rouen, and many other churches in France, are entirely blocked up behind the altars by the erection of huge gilded wooden sunbeams, with interspersed cherubs.

4. p. 29. 'With different pattern of traceries in each': I have certainly not examined the seven hundred and four traceries (four to each niche) so as to be sure that none are alike; but they have the aspect of continual variation, and even the roses of the pendants of the small groined niche roofs are all of different patterns.

5. p. 41. 'Its flamboyant traceries of the last and most degraded forms': They are noticed by Mr. Whewell as