Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 318 pages of information about Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages.

Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 318 pages of information about Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages.

In the sixteenth century the art of mosaic ceased to observe due limitations.  The ideal was to reproduce exactly in mosaic such pictures as were prepared by Titian, Pordenone, Raphael, and other realistic painters.  Georges Sand, in her charming novel, “Les Maitres Mosaistes,” gives one the atmosphere of the workshops in Venice in this later period.  Tintoretto and Zuccato, the aged painter, are discussing the durability of mosaic:—­“Since it resists so well,” says Zuccato, “how comes it that the Seignory is repairing all the domes of St. Mark’s, which to-day are as bare as my skull?” To which Tintoretto makes answer:  “Because at the time when they were decorated with mosaics, Greek artists were scarce in Venice.  They came from a distance, and remained but a short time:  their apprentices were hastily trained, and executed the works entrusted to them without knowing their business, and without being able to give them the necessary solidity.  Now that this art has been cultivated in Venice, century after century, we have become as skilful as even the Greeks were.”  The two sons of Zuccato, who are engaged in this work, confide to each other their trials and difficulties in the undertaking:  like artists of all ages, they cannot easily convince their patrons that they comprehend their art better than their employers!  Francesco complains of the Procurator, who is commissioned to examine the work:  “He is not an artist.  He sees in mosaic only an application of particles more or less brilliant.  Perfection of tone, beauty of design, ingenuity of composition, are nothing to him....  Did I not try in vain the other day to make him understand that the old pieces of gilded crystal used by our ancestors and a little tarnished by time, were more favourable to colour than those manufactured to-day?” “Indeed, you make a mistake, Messer Francesco,” said he, “in handing over to the Bianchini all the gold of modern manufacture.  The Commissioners have decided that the old will do mixed with the new."...  “But did I not in vain try to make him understand that this brilliant gold would hurt the faces, and completely ruin the effect of colour?"...  The answer of the Procurator was, “The Bianchini do not scruple to use it, and their mosaics please the eye much better than yours,” so his brother Valerio, laughing, asks, “What need of worrying yourself after such a decision as that?  Suppress the shadows, cut a breadth of material from a great plate of enamel and lay it over the breast of St. Nicaise, render St. Cecilia’s beautiful hair with a badly cut tile, a pretty lamb for St. John the Baptist, and the Commission will double your salary and the public clap its hands.  Really, my brother, you who dream of glory, I do not understand how you can pledge yourself to the worship of art.”  “I dream of glory, it is true,” replied Francesco, “but of a glory that is lasting, not the vain popularity of a day.  I should like to leave an honoured name, if not an illustrious one, and make those who

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Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.