Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/192



191. my first lecture of this course, you remember that I showed you (§ 17) the Lion of St. Mark's with Niccola Pisano's, calling the one an evangelical-preacher lion, and the other a real, and naturally affectionate, lioness.

And the one I showed you as Byzantine, the other as Gothic.

So that I thus called the Greek art pious, and the Gothic profane.

Whereas in nearly all our ordinary modes of thought, and in all my own general references to either art, we assume Greek or classic work to be profane, and Gothic pious, or religious.

192. Very short reflection, if steady and clear, will both show you how confused our ideas are usually on this subject, and how definite they may within certain limits become.