The charm of Venice

by Unknown

As hinder Life the evil with the good

Which make up Living, rightly understood.

ROBERT BROWNING.

THE UNWEARIEDNESS OF VENICE

In returning from an excursion ... it is generally at sunset that one re-enters Venice, the city all ablaze with purple and gold, the radiance of the descending orb; the lagoon is a pearly grey studded with the black points of the piles, and all the campaniles, domes, and warehouses along the bank seem crowned with halos of gold.

These are the spectacles—these, and such as are presented to us by everyday life, which, after a long sojourn in Venice, end by engrossing our interest above all others: as though man soon tired of the works of men, and kept his appetite and desire always keen, always alive for the works of God only, for nature and for life. In truth, however passionate a man may be for the things of art, he is soon surfeited in so colossal a museum as is the city of Venice; he comes at last to the pass of looking at Tintoret without attention, he stands before a Giovanni Bellini without emotion; masterpiece crowds upon masterpiece, Titian on Carpaccio, Pordenone on Palma; bronzes, enamels, triptychs, marbles, figures of doges lying on their biers, famous condottieri buried in their armour and standing proud and valorous in the garb of war upon their sepulchres—all these sights and glories leave us indifferent.... The truth is, the air of Venice, the sky and its varying moods, the extraordinary colouring which the atmosphere throws over everything, offer a charm which surpasses all others; and the open air, the lagoon, the life of the port, with the changing aspect of the pearly waves, that glimmering surface which Guardi has so well rendered, the trembling light upon the silvery field all barred by tongues of sand and dotted by the black points of the piles, are beyond the highest inspirations of man.

To sit in front of a café on the Riva, with no other object but that of looking before you, is a keen pleasure for anyone who has the love of the picturesque. The incessant movement; the never ungentle pranks of the motley crowds; those singular colloquies of which the meaning unfortunately escapes the ear unfamiliar with the Venetian dialect; the colouring, the sunshine; the changing effects, the seductive distances; the constant arrivals of great ships, the entrance or departure of the Chioggiotes or the Greeks of Zante, or sailors of Sporades, with their ruddy sails making blots of colour on the lagoon, and when stretched like a bow by the wind, showing in the transparent air the great Virgin rudely painted on their surface; the caravans of strangers that pass, with the special character peculiar to each nationality,—methodical Englishmen,—American ladies with their long loose hair,—southern Italians high-coloured and vehement,—blond Germans in spectacles,—quick Frenchmen running with their noses in the air,—Italian soldiers with helmets of grey canvas; lastly the quaint industries sheltered under immense umbrellas; chance singers, who fling upon the echoes of the lagoon an air of Verdi or Gordigiani—all this is what one never wearies of at Venice.

And what new surprises in the streets, and on the open places great and small! Here you go up some steps to cross a canal, there the way is barred, and a little staircase descends right into the water; old women, worthy copies of the old woman with the basket of eggs in Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin, brush along the wall, their heads covered up in their shawls....

Nature, the warm air, the limpid and transparent atmosphere in which Venice is bathed,—it is the emotion of this which after all remains the strangest among your impressions. After a visit to that prodigious Ducal Palace, where masterpieces are heaped upon masterpieces, you long to breathe the clear air and hurry away to the gardens. You pass along the whole length of the Riva degli Schiavoni, you get among the shipping, and the farther you go the better you can see the long front of Venice composing itself into a single view. You turn from time to time to enjoy the panorama, for it is the most admirable scene ever dreamt of by a Desplechin, a Thierry, a Cambon, a Chapron, a Nolan, or a Rubbé, and when you lean on the terrace you soon forget the great works of art on which you have but now been gazing, in presence of this mighty work of the Master of masters! The man of letters and the critic in you give way to the painter, and you are held enchanted by the spell of these wonderful harmonies. The grounds of the garden are a light grey, the grass is green, the trees in the foreground, still bare of leaves, cut out against the sky the delicate tracery of their boughs, the water is pearly with diamond spangles and shifting facets of light as bright as stars; the tongues of sand and dry places of the lagoon come cutting here and there with bars of brown that silver mirror; San Giorgio Maggiore, red and white, catches a luminous reflection; the Grand Canal and its palaces close the horizon. All is solitary in the gardens, the green lizards glide quiveringly from sight, a gondolier cries alla barca, a pretty little girl passes with bare head, her hair deftly dressed and draped in her shawl; stretched on the scanty grass all round, the gondoliers sleep in the sunshine. All this would no doubt not satisfy the desires and aspirations of practical minds and natures hungry for life and change, for sensations ever new and spectacles ever varied. But for us it is a world sufficient, and we are not alone in feeling it to be so. ‘You dwell there in delight,’ says Paul de St. Victor, ‘and you look back to the days of your sojourn with emotion. Venice casts about you a charm as tender as the charm of woman. The rosy atmosphere in which she lies steeped, the shimmer of her lagoons, the jewelled hues that change with the changing hour upon her domes, her fascinating vistas, the masterpieces of her radiant painting, the gentle temper of her men and women, the sweet and pensive gladness that you breathe with her very air—all these are so many divers but interlinked enchantments. Other cities had admirers, Venice alone has lovers.’

CHARLES YRIARTE.