Introduction to Robert Browning [99]
till our lump be leaven -- The better! What's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven: Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto! Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) "O!" Thy great Campanile is still to finish.
-- St. 15-17. "Greek art had ITS lesson to teach, and it taught it. It reasserted the dignity of the human form. It re-stated THE TRUTH of the soul which informs the body, and the body which expresses it. Men saw in its creations their own qualities carried to perfection, and were content to know that such perfection was possible and to renounce the hope of attaining it. In this experience the first stage was progress, the second was stagnation. Progress began again when men looked on these images of themselves and said: `we are not inferior to these. We are greater than they. For what has come to perfection perishes, and we are imperfect because eternity is before us; because we were made to GROW.'" -- Mrs. Orr's Handbook to the Works of R. B.
St. 17. "O!": Boniface VIII. (not Benedict IX., as Vasari has it), wishing to employ Giotto, sent a courtier to obtain some proof of his skill. The latter requesting a drawing to send to his Holiness, Giotto took a sheet of paper and a pencil dipped in red color; then resting his elbow on his side, to form a compass, with one turn of his hand he drew a circle so perfect and exact, that it was a marvel to behold. This done, he turned to the courtier, saying, "Here is your drawing." The courtier seems to have thought that Giotto was fooling him; but the pope was easily convinced, by the roundness of the O, of the greatness of Giotto's skill. This incident gave rise to the proverb, "Tu sei piu tondo che l' O di Giotto", the point of which lies in the word `tondo', signifying slowness of intellect, as well as a circle. -- Adapted from Vasari and Heaton.
18.
Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter, But what and where depend on life's minute? Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter Our first step out of the gulf or in it? Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, Man's face, have no more play and action Than joy which is crystallized forever, Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?
-- St. 18. life's minute: life's short span.
19.
On which I conclude, that the early painters, To cries of "Greek Art and what more wish you?" -- Replied, "To become now self-acquainters, And paint man, man, whatever the issue! Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray, New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters: To bring the invisible full into play, Let the visible go to the dogs -- what matters?"
20.
Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory For daring so much, before they well did it. The first of the new, in our race's story, Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit. The worthies began a revolution, Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, Why, honor them now! (ends my allocution) Nor confer your degree when the folks leave college.
21.
There's a fancy some lean to and others hate -- That, when this life is ended, begins New work for the soul in another state, Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins: Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries, Repeat in large what they practised in small, Through life after life in unlimited series; Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.
22.
Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen By the means of Evil that Good is best, And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene, -- When our faith in the same has stood the test, -- Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labor are surely done; There remaineth a rest for the people of God: And I have had troubles enough, for one.
23.
But at any rate I have loved the season Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy; My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, My painter -- who but Cimabue? Nor even
-- St. 15-17. "Greek art had ITS lesson to teach, and it taught it. It reasserted the dignity of the human form. It re-stated THE TRUTH of the soul which informs the body, and the body which expresses it. Men saw in its creations their own qualities carried to perfection, and were content to know that such perfection was possible and to renounce the hope of attaining it. In this experience the first stage was progress, the second was stagnation. Progress began again when men looked on these images of themselves and said: `we are not inferior to these. We are greater than they. For what has come to perfection perishes, and we are imperfect because eternity is before us; because we were made to GROW.'" -- Mrs. Orr's Handbook to the Works of R. B.
St. 17. "O!": Boniface VIII. (not Benedict IX., as Vasari has it), wishing to employ Giotto, sent a courtier to obtain some proof of his skill. The latter requesting a drawing to send to his Holiness, Giotto took a sheet of paper and a pencil dipped in red color; then resting his elbow on his side, to form a compass, with one turn of his hand he drew a circle so perfect and exact, that it was a marvel to behold. This done, he turned to the courtier, saying, "Here is your drawing." The courtier seems to have thought that Giotto was fooling him; but the pope was easily convinced, by the roundness of the O, of the greatness of Giotto's skill. This incident gave rise to the proverb, "Tu sei piu tondo che l' O di Giotto", the point of which lies in the word `tondo', signifying slowness of intellect, as well as a circle. -- Adapted from Vasari and Heaton.
18.
Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter, But what and where depend on life's minute? Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter Our first step out of the gulf or in it? Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, Man's face, have no more play and action Than joy which is crystallized forever, Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?
-- St. 18. life's minute: life's short span.
19.
On which I conclude, that the early painters, To cries of "Greek Art and what more wish you?" -- Replied, "To become now self-acquainters, And paint man, man, whatever the issue! Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray, New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters: To bring the invisible full into play, Let the visible go to the dogs -- what matters?"
20.
Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory For daring so much, before they well did it. The first of the new, in our race's story, Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit. The worthies began a revolution, Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, Why, honor them now! (ends my allocution) Nor confer your degree when the folks leave college.
21.
There's a fancy some lean to and others hate -- That, when this life is ended, begins New work for the soul in another state, Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins: Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries, Repeat in large what they practised in small, Through life after life in unlimited series; Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.
22.
Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen By the means of Evil that Good is best, And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene, -- When our faith in the same has stood the test, -- Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod, The uses of labor are surely done; There remaineth a rest for the people of God: And I have had troubles enough, for one.
23.
But at any rate I have loved the season Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy; My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan, My painter -- who but Cimabue? Nor even