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Page 31
Botticelli I was shy of, because of the craze about him among people who
know nothing: he is far more wonderful than I had hoped, both at the
Uffizi and the Academia: but he is quite pagan. I don't know why I say
"but"; he is quite typical of the world's art-training: Christianity may
get hold of the names and dictate the subjects, but the artist-breed
carries a fairly level head through it all, and, like Pater's Mona Lisa,
draws Christianity and Paganism into one: at least, wherever it reaches
perfect expression it has done so. Some of the distinctly primitives are
different; their works inclose a charm which is not artistic. Fra
Angelico, after being a great disappointment to me in some of his large
set pictures in the Academia and elsewhere, shows himself lovely in fresco
(though I think the "crumb" element helps him). His great Crucifixion is
big altogether, and has so permanent a force in its aloofness from mere
drama and mere life. In San Marco, the cells of the monks are quite
charming, a row of little square bandboxes under a broad raftered
corridor, and in every cell is a beautiful little fresco for the monks to
live up to. But they no longer live there now: all that part of San Marco
has become a peep-show.
I liked being in Savonarola's room, and was more susceptible to the
remains of his presence than I have been to Michel Angelo or anyone
else's. Michel Angelo I feel most when he has left a thing unfinished;
then one can put one's finger into the print of the chisel, and believe
anything of the beauty that might have come out of the great stone
chrysalis lying cased and rough, waiting to be raised up to life.
Yesterday Arthur and I walked from here to Fiesole, which we had
neglected while in Florence--six miles going, and more like twelve
coming back, all because of Arthur's absurd cross-country instinct,
which, after hours of river-bends, bare mountain tracks, and tottering
precipices, brought us out again half a mile nearer Florence than when
we started.
At Fiesole is the only church about here whose interior architecture I
have greatly admired, austere but at the same time gracious--like a
Madonna of the best period of painting. We also went to look at the
Roman baths and theater: the theater is charming enough, because it is
still there: but for the baths--oblongs of stone don't interest me just
because they are old. All stone is old: and these didn't even hold water
to give one the real look of the thing. Too tired, and even more too
lazy, to write other things, except love, most dear Beloved.
LETTER XXXIV.
Dearest: We were to have gone down with the rest into Florence
yesterday: but soft miles of Italy gleamed too invitingly away on our
right, and I saw Arthur's eyes hungry with the same far-away wish. So I
said "Prato," and he ran up to the fattore's and secured a wondrous
shandry-dan with just space enough between its horns to toss the two of
us in the direction where we would go. Its gaunt framework was painted
of a bright red, and our feet had only netting to rest on: so
constructed, the creature was most vital and light of limb, taking every
rut on the road with flea-like agility. Oh, but it was worth it!
We had a drive of fourteen miles through hills and villages, and
castellated villas with gardens shut in by formidably high walls--always,
a charm: a garden should always have something of the jealous seclusion of
a harem. I am getting Italian landscape into my system, and enjoy it more
and more.
Prato is a little cathedral town, very like the narrow and tumble-down
parts of Florence, only more so. The streets were a seething caldron of
cattle-market when we entered, which made us feel like a tea-cup in a
bull-ring (or is it thunderstorm?) as we drove through needle's-eye ways
bristling with agitated horns.
The cathedral is little and good: damaged, of course, wherever the last
three centuries have laid hands on it. At the corner of the west front
is an out-door pulpit beautifully put on with a mushroom hood over its
head. The main lines of the interior are finely severe, either quite
round or quite flat, and proportions good always. An upholstered priest
coming out to say mass is generally a sickening sight, so wicked and
ugly in look and costume. The best-behaved people are the low-down
beggars, who are most decoratively devotional.
We tried to model our exit on a brigand-beggar who came in to ask
permission to murder one of his enemies. He got his request granted at
one of the side-altars (some strictly local Madonna, I imagine), and his
gratitude as he departed was quite touching. Having studiously copied
his exit, we want to know whom we shall murder to pay ourselves for our
trouble.
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