A Joy Forever; Munera Pulveris - Two Paths: Unto This Last: Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century Volume 1-5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ...even the eyes are made symmetrical--entirely round, instead of irregular, oval; and the iris is set properly in the middle, instead of--as nature has absurdly put it--rather under the upper lid. You will also observe the "principle of the pyramid " in the general arrangement of the figure, and the value of " series " in, the placing of dots., I copy'this woodcut from Westwood's " Palaeographia Sacra." From this dead barbarism we pass to living barbarism--to work done by hands quite as rude, if not ruder, and by minds as uninformed; and yet work which in every line of it is prophetic of power, and has in it the sure dawn of day. You have often heard it said that Giotto was the founder of art in Italy. He was not: neither he, -nor Giunta Pisano, nor Niccolo Pisano. They all laid strong hands to the work, and brought it first into aspect above ground; but the foundation had been laid for them by the builders of the Lombardic churches in the valleys of the Adda and the Arno. lt is in the sculpture of the round arched churches of North Italy, bearing disputable dates, ranging from the eighth to the twelfth century, that you will find the lowest struck roots of the art of Titian and Raphael. I go, therefore, to the church which is certainly the earliest of these, St. Ambrogio, of Milan, said still to retain some portions of the actual structure from which St. Ambrose excluded Theodosius, and at all events furnishing the most archaic examples of Lombardic sculpture in North Italy. I dofnot venture to guess their date; they are barbarous enough for any date. We find the pulpit of this church covered with interlacing patterns, closely resembling those of the manuscript at Cambridge, but among them is figure...