With Raphael's "Della Seggiola." Showing the first transition from the style of the "Masters" to that of modern times.
The Photographs in the above series are all from the Pictures themselves.
CHRISTIAN ART AND SYMBOLISM.[15]
A PREFACE.
254. The writer of this book has long been my friend, and in the early days of friendship was my disciple.
But, of late, I have been his; for he has devoted himself earnestly to the study of forms of Christian Art which I had little opportunity of examining, and has been animated in that study by a brightness of enthusiasm which has been long impossible to me. Knowing this, and that he was able perfectly to fill what must otherwise have been a rudely bridged chasm in my teaching at Oxford, I begged him to give these lectures, and to arrange them for press. And this he has done to please me; and now that he has done it, I am, in one sense, anything but pleased: for I like his writing better than my own, and am more jealous of it than I thought it was in me to be of any good work—how much less of my friend's! I console myself by reflecting, or at least repeating to myself and endeavoring to think, that he could not have found out all this if I had not shown him the way. But most deeply and seriously I am thankful for such help, in a work far too great for my present strength; help all the more precious because my friend can bring to the investigation of early Christian Art, and its influence, the integrity and calmness of the faith in which it was wrought, happier than I in having been a personal comforter and helper of men, fulfilling his life in daily and unquestionable duty; while I have been, perhaps wrongly, always hesitatingly, persuading myself that it was my duty to do the things which pleased me.
255. Also, it has been necessary to much of my analytical work that I should regard the art of every nation as much as possible from their own natural point of view; and I have striven so earnestly to realize belief which I supposed to be false, and sentiment which was foreign to my temper, that at last I scarcely know how far I think with other people's minds, and see with anyone's eyes but my own. Even the effort to recover my temporarily waived conviction occasionally fails; and what was once secured to me becomes theoretical like the rest.
But my old scholar has been protected by his definitely directed life from the temptations of this speculative equity; and I believe his writings to contain the truest expression yet given in England of the feelings with which a Christian gentleman of sense and learning should regard the art produced in ancient days, by the dawn of the faiths which still guide his conduct and secure his peace.