We stepped on shore to find ourselves led on by the sound of military music, and to be tempted by the luxury of ices eaten al fresco in the Piazza; and then, when the crowd gradually dispersed, we too, among the last, found our way to our hotel, charmed so much with our last night in Venice that it is impossible not to recollect that evening with the deepest pleasure.
It is not without purpose that I have held silence with regard to the churches and buildings generally of the Renaissance school in Venice. These have had in their time many more admirers than have the examples of architecture which it was alike my business and my delight particularly to examine; and to the present day I doubt not that nine people out of ten, led by their valets-de-place, go to see what is worst in point of taste, and so reap the reward of allowing themselves to be made to see with another’s eyes, instead of enjoying the intense pleasure of working out and exploring for themselves all the treasures of this mine and storehouse of ancient art. It is partly because I feel the greatest repugnance to the buildings themselves, and partly because I fear to make my notes, already lengthy, far too long for the patience of my readers, that I do not venture upon this additional field of study; but not in the least degree because I doubt the result, for I believe firmly that, tried by the fair rules which must regulate merit in a constructive art, the Renaissance buildings of Venice would be no nearer perfection than those of any other city. Something perhaps there is in the gloomy grandeur of their vast masses rearing their rusticated walls and deeply recessed windows darkly above the comparatively cheerful and bright-looking walls of the neighbouring Gothic palaces, which may impress the minds of some, but they must be of a sombre temperament who really love them. Still more must they be of a tasteless temperament who can endure with patience the succession of eccentricities with which Palladio and his disciples have loaded their churches. I pretend not, however, to discuss the point. I had not time for everything, and preferred giving up the attempt to like what from my heart I have ever disliked, and what nothing that I saw in Venice would make me dislike at all less heartily.
Neither do I pretend to say anything about Venetian pictures; guides without number may be found of more service and more knowledge, and to their hands I leave their proper charge. A word only upon one point—their adaptation, namely, to the sacred edifices of which they are the most notable ornaments.
Now I must at once say that there is no church, so far as I saw, in Venice, with the single exception of S. Mark’s, which is to be compared in this respect (in its effect, that is, as heightened by colour) with such buildings as the Arena Chapel at Padua or the church of Sta. Anastasia at Verona—the one an example of the very noblest art working under strict architectural limitations; the other, of simple decorative painting. The fact is, that the Venetian pictures give the impression that they might do elsewhere as well as in a church, and therefore entirely fail in identifying themselves with the walls on which they hang; whilst no one can ever think of the noble works of Giotto at Padua, without recalling to mind the religious order of his works and their identification with the building which contains them; and at Verona the result of the system adopted in the painting is marvellously to enhance the effect of the architecture without in any way concealing or damaging it. In Venice the case is quite different. The church of San Sebastiano, in which Paul Veronese is buried, and which internally is almost entirely covered with his paintings, is an example of what I suppose I must call the best Venetian treatment. This consists, however, of immense oil-paintings covering entire walls, and absolutely requiring, in order that they may be at all properly appreciated, that the spectator should stand in a particular spot—in some cases by the side of the altar—and that the windows should first have blinds drawn down, and then, when he goes to look at another painting, have them drawn up again. This is all very unpleasant. But besides this, there is no very sensible advantage to the colour of the buildings from these decorations; certainly they are far behind mere decorative paintings as vehicles for bringing out the architectural features; and so they are visited very much as pictures in a gallery, and without in any case being identified with the churches in which they are preserved. The mosaics at S. Mark’s are, on the other hand, some of the very grandest examples of the proper mode of decorating interiors with representations of religious subjects, all conceived and arranged with some order and relation to each other. But of the other Venetian churches there does not seem to me to be any one whose artists at all succeeded in equalling the example so early set them.
I do not pretend in these pages to speak at all of paintings irrespective of architecture, or I might find much to say upon the store of works, of a very noble school, in which this great city is so rich. The immense rooms of the Ducal Palace, covered as their walls and ceilings are with the works of Tintoretto, Titian, and Paul Veronese, cannot be forgotten; still less can the many works of Giovanni Bellini, and of other painters in the churches, and in the collection in the Accademia—rich among others in the works of that great and interesting painter Carpaccio—be passed over; whilst the decorated walls of the various Scuole are in many cases of hardly inferior interest. I am sorry that I was obliged to take the great merits of some of the grandest works somewhat on faith; it was in vain to think of actually studying them in a short time, and, educated as I have been to love the works of an earlier date and another school more heartily than these, I must confess, barbarous as the confession may appear to be, that I was not thoroughly pleased with what I saw. The magnificence of the chiaroscuro and colouring of these great pictures scarcely atoned to me for the degree to which—owing generally to the immense array of figures and confusion of subject—I failed to carry away distinct conceptions of the story intended to be told. It may be said that this is the result of want of taste or education, but still the feeling is so different when for the first time pictures by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Raffaelle, Perugino, or Francia are looked at, that it is hard to avoid believing that, though their power over colour may have been somewhat less, their power of attaining to the highest point of the true painter’s art—that of leaving indelible impressions on the minds of all beholders—was immeasurably higher. Thus much only by way of excuse for not saying more about what the world in general rightly conceives to be one of the great glories of Venice.
And now I must say farewell, and, doubtful though I may be as to the claims of Venetian art in the Middle Ages to be considered as at all equal to that of the same period in Northern Europe, I am very grateful for many new ideas gathered and much intense pleasure enjoyed in the examination of its treasures; and so, rather sadly laying myself down to sleep for the last time in Venice, I began to deem that my journey henceforward must be rather less interesting than it had been; with Venice a thing of the past, instead of, as it was on my outward course, full of all the beauties with which the liveliest fancy could crowd its walls and palaces by anticipation.
CHAPTER IX.
“A sea
Of glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuli’s mountains.”
Childe Harold.
New Roads to Venice—The Pusterthal—Innichen—Dolomite Mountains—Heiligenblut Kötschach—Kirchbach—Gail Thal—Hermagor—Ober Tarvis—Predil Pass—Gorizia—Aquileja—Grado—Udine—Pordenone.
TO those who wish to find new roads to old haunts let me recommend the road to Venice described in this chapter. A more interesting way for any one who has already travelled through Lombardy to Venice cannot be desired. It affords a sight not only of charming scenery, primitive people, and churches of some interest, but gives an opportunity for a visit to Aquileja, Grado, and Udine, all of them places well worthy to be known by all lovers of architecture. Leaving the Brenner railway at Franzensfeste, we made our way first of all to Innichen. Here I found a very fine Romanesque church which, placed as it is not very far to the north of the distant mountains which one sees from Venice, and full as it is of Italian influence in its general design, may well be included in my notes. It is a cruciform church with a central raised lantern, three eastern apses, a lofty south-western tower, and a fifteenth-century narthex in front of the rest of the west end. The nave is divided from the aisles by columns which are, (1) ten-sided, (2) four half columns attached to a square, and (3) octagonal. The first and third are massive columns decreasing rapidly in size from the base to the capital. The central lantern has an octagonal vault upon very simple pendentives, and the apses have semi-dome roofs. A fine south doorway has the emblems of the four Evangelists, sculptured around Our Lord in the tympanum. Innichen is a small and unimportant village, but boasts, I think, of no less than five churches; and fine as is the mother-church, I suppose most travellers would agree with me in thinking the background of mountains to the south of it, the most delightful feature of the place. Truly I know few things more lovely than the evening view of the church and village, with the tall fantastic peaks of the Dolomite Drei Schuster behind, lighted up with the glowing brilliancy which is so characteristic a result of the Dolomite formation, by the last rays of the setting sun. Below all was gloomy, dark, and shaded; above the whole series of towering peaks seemed to be on fire, and most unearthly did they look. The attraction of such sights as I had seen before compelled me to give a day to an excursion southwards to the Kreuzberg pass, to have a glimpse, at any rate, of the Auronzo Dolomites, and I had no reason to repent the day so spent.