"Arch from the Façade of the Church of San Michele, Lucca," by John Ruskin

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Arch from the Façade of the Church of San Michele, Lucca

John Ruskin

R. P. Cuff, engraver

1855

6 15/16 x 4 inches

Plate VI, The Seven Lamps of Architecture in Works, 8.125.

Related material

1845 watercolor of San Michele

According to the "Index to the Plates" (8.xvi), Ruskin refers to this plate on pp. 121, 125, and 185. For the individual passages, see below.

Scanned image and text by George P. Landow

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL]

“The Lamp of Power”

The cornices of San Michele of Lucca, 1 seen above and below the arch, in Plate VI., show the effect of heavy leafage and thick stems arranged on a surface whose curve is a simple quadrant, the light dying from off them as it turns. It would be difficult, as I think, to invent any thing more noble: and I insist on the broad character of their arrangement the more earnestly, because, afterwards modified by greater skill in its management, it became characteristic of the richest pieces of Gothic design. [p. 121]

We have noted above how the wall surface, com- posed of rich materials, and covered with costly work, in modes which we shall examine in the next Chapter, became a subject of peculiar interest to the Christian architects. Its broad flat lights could only be made valuable by points or masses of energetic shadow, which were obtained by the Romanesque architect by means of ranges of recessed arcade, in the management of which, however, though all the effect depends upon the shadow so obtained, the eye is still, as in classical architecture, caused to dwell upon the projecting columns, capitals, and wall, as in Plate VI. But with the enlargement of the window, which, in the Lombard and Romanesque churches, is usually little more than an arched slit, came the conception of the simpler mode of decoration, by penetrations which, seen from within, are forms of light, and, from without, are forms of shade. [p. 125]

“The Lamp of Beauty”

Of pure monochrom [sic], I have given an example in Plate VI., from the noble front of San Michele of Lucca. It contains forty such arches, all covered with equally elaborate ornaments, entirely drawn by cutting out their ground to about the depth of an inch in the flat white marble, and filling the spaces with pieces of green serpentine; a most elaborate mode of sculpture, requiring excessive care and precision in the fitting of the edges, and of course double work, the same line needing to be cut both in the marble and serpentine. The excessive simplicity of the forms will be at once perceived; the eyes of the figures or animals, for instance, being indicated only by a round dot, formed by a little inlet circle of serpentine, about half an inch over: but, though simple, they admit often much grace of curvature, as in the neck of the bird seen above the right-hand pillar. [p. 185]

Bibliography

Ruskin, John. Works, "The Library Edition." eds. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. 39 vols. London: George Allen, 1903-1912.

Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture in Works, vol. 8. Hathi Trust Digital Library. Web. 6 June 2010.

Last modified 6 June 2010