Wandering, therefore, through this high city; loitering
on the bridge whereunder turbid Arno glitters like
brass; standing by the yellow Baptistery; or seeing
in Santa Croce cloister—where I write these
lines— seven centuries of enthusiasm mellowed
down by sun and wind into a comely dotage of grey
and green, one is disposed to wonder whether we are
only just beginning to understand Art, or to misunderstand
it? Has the world slept for two thousand years?
Is Degas the first artist? Was Aristotle the
first critic, and is Mr. George Moore the second?
As a white pigeon cuts the blue, and every opinion
of him shines as burnished agate in the live air,
things shape themselves somewhat. I begin to see
that Art is, and that men have been, and shall
be, but never are. Facts are an integral
part of life, but they are not life. I heard a
metaphysician say once that matter was the adjective
of life, and thought it a mighty pretty saying.
In a true sense, it would seem, Art is that adjective.
For so surely as there are honest men to insist how
true things are or how proper to moralising, there
will be Art to sing how lovely they are, and what
amiable dwellings for us. Thus fortified, I think
I can understand Magister Joctus Florentiae.
He lies behind these crumbling walls. Traces of
his crimson and blue still stain the cloister-walk.
What was he telling us in crimson and blue? How
dumb Zacharias spelt out the name of his son John
in the roll of a book? Hardly that, I think.
II
LITTLE FLOWERS
The Via del Monte alle Croce is a leafy way cut between
hedgerows, in the morning time heavy with dew and
the smell of wet flowers. Where it strays out
of the Giro al Monte there is a crumbly brick wall,
a well, and a little earthen shrine to Madonna—a
daub, it is true, of glaring chromes and blues, thick
in glaze and tawdry devices of stout cupids and roses,
but somehow, on this suggestive Autumn morning, innocent
and blue of eye as the carolling throngs of Luca which
it travesties. And a pious inscription cut below
testifieth how Saint Francis, “in friendly talk
with the Blessed Mariano di Lugo,” paused here
before it, and then vanished. It is not necessary
to believe in ghosts; but I’ll go bail that story
is true. We are but two stones’ throw from
the gaunt hulk of a Franciscan Church; a file of dusty
cypresses marks the ruins of a painful Calvary cut
in the waste and shale of the hill-side. Below,
as in a green pasture, Florence shines like a dove’s
egg in her nest of hills; I can pick out among the
sheaf of spears which hedge her about the daintiest
of them all, the crocketed pinnacle of Santa Croce,
grey on blue; and then the lean ridge of a shrine
the barest, simplest and most honest in all Tuscany.
Certainly Saint Francis, “familiarmente discorrendo,”
appeared in this place. I need no reference to
the Annals of the Seraphic Order—part, book
and page—to convince me. My stone gives
them. “Ann. Ord. Min. Tom.
cclii. fasc. 3.,” and so on. That is but
a sorry concession to our short-sightedness.
For if we believe not the shrine which we have seen,
how shall we believe Giotto? What of Giotto?
That is my point.
Copyrights
Earthwork out of Tuscany from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
