Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Volume 1 |
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Ajaccio Alessandro Alfieri Alpine Alps arms artist beauty Bebo beneath Bibboni blue boat called century charm Cherubino Chiavenna Chioggia church clouds Colleoni colour Corsican Crema dark Davos dead deep dream Duke Elena emotion eyes face fancy feeling Florence flowers Francesco Francesco Sforza frescoes genius Gerardo golden Goldoni gondola Graubünden Greek green grey Grisons hand hills Italian Italy lagoon lake landscape light lived Lombard looked Lorenzino Lorenzo Luini Madonna marble master Medeghino Medici melody Messer Milan Monte Monte Rosa morning mountain murder Mürren night noble painted palace pass passion Pauline Lucca picture pines plain poet poetry present rocks round Saronno sculpture seems sense Sforza snow Sondrio soul spirit stars style thought Tintoretto took town traghetto valley Valtelline Vaucluse Venetian Venice village walls whole wind wine winter women words young
Popular passages
Page 128 - Still strives to gauge the symbol and the name: Charmed and compelled thou climb'st from height to height, And round thy path the world shines wondrous bright ; Time, Space, and Size, and Distance cease to be, And every step is fresh infinity. What were the God who sat outside to scan The spheres that 'neath His finger circling ran ? God dwells within, and moves the world and moulds, Himself and Nature in one form enfolds : Thus all that lives in Him and breathes and is, Shall ne'er His puissance,...
Page 162 - Their poetry is intensely melodious ; like the odour of the tuberose, it overcomes and sickens the spirit with excess of sweetness; whilst the poetry of the preceding age was as a meadow-gale of June, which mingles the fragrance of all the flowers of the field...
Page 96 - If thy heart were sincere and upright, then every creature would be unto thee a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine.
Page 254 - One by one, as we rowed steadily, the fishing-boats passed by, emerging from their harbour for a twelve hours' cruise upon the open sea. In a long line they came, with variegated sails of orange, red, and saffron, curiously chequered at the corners, and cantled with devices in contrasted tints. A little land-breeze carried them forward. The lagoon reflected their deep colours till they reached the port. Then, slightly swerving eastward on their course, but still in single file, they took the sea...
Page 97 - Yet they did not forget that spiritual things are symbolised by things of sense ; and so the smallest herb of grass was vital to their tranquil contemplations. We, who have lost sight of the invisible world, who set our affections more on things of earth, fancy that because these monks despised the world, and did not write about its landscapes, therefore they were dead to its beauty. This is mere vanity : the mountains, stars, seas, fields, and living things were only swallowed up in one thought...
Page 239 - The fact that we are impelled to raise these points, that architecture more almost than any art connects itself indissolubly with the life, the character, the moral being of a nation and an epoch, proves that we are justified in bringing it beneath our general definition of the arts. In a great measure because it subserves utility, and is therefore dependent upon the necessities of life, does architecture present to us through form the human spirit. Comparing the palace built by Giulio Romano for...
Page 286 - ... glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond the Misericordia. This is the melodrama of Venetian moonlight ; and if a single impression of the night has to be retained from one visit to Venice, those are fortunate who chance upon a full moon of fair weather. Yet I know not whether some quieter and soberer effects are not more thrilling. To-night, for example, the waning moon will rise late through veils of scirocco. Over the bridges of San Cristoforo and San Gregorio, through the deserted...
Page 242 - Aeginetan pediment, and what was the subject of the Pheidian statues on the Parthenon? Do the three graceful figures of a basrelief which exists at Naples and in the Villa Albani, represent Orpheus, Hermes, and Eurydice, or Antiope and her two sons? Was the winged and sworded genius upon the Ephesus column meant for a genius of Death or a genius of Love ? This dimness of significance indicates the limitation of sculpture, and inclines some of those who feel its charm to assert that the sculptor seeks...
Page 236 - ... become goodness. The rigid definitions, the unmistakable laws of science, are not to be found in art. Whatever art has touched acquires a concrete sensuous embodiment, and thus ideas presented to the mind in art have lost a portion of their pure thought-essence. It is on this account that the religious conceptions of the Greeks were so admirably fitted for the art of sculpture, and certain portions of the mediaeval Christian mythology lent themselves so well to painting. For the same reason the...
Page 251 - My garden stretches down to the Grand Canal, closed at the end with a pavilion, where I lounge and smoke and watch the cornice of the Prefettura fretted with gold in sunset light. My sitting-room and bed-room face the southern sun. There is a canal below, crowded with gondolas, and across its bridge the good folk of San Vio come and go the whole day...