THE TRUTH OF MASKS [5]
the antique world. Archaeology to them was not
a mere science for the antiquarian; it was a means by which they
could touch the dry dust of antiquity into the very breath and
beauty of life, and fill with the new wine of romanticism forms
that else had been old and outworn. From the pulpit of Niccola
Pisano down to Mantegna's 'Triumph of Caesar,' and the service
Cellini designed for King Francis, the influence of this spirit can
be traced; nor was it confined merely to the immobile arts - the
arts of arrested movement - but its influence was to be seen also
in the great Graeco-Roman masques which were the constant amusement
of the gay courts of the time, and in the public pomps and
processions with which the citizens of big commercial towns were
wont to greet the princes that chanced to visit them; pageants, by
the way, which were considered so important that large prints were
made of them and published - a fact which is a proof of the general
interest at the time in matters of such kind.
And this use of archaeology in shows, so far from being a bit of
priggish pedantry, is in every way legitimate and beautiful. For
the stage is not merely the meeting-place of all the arts, but is
also the return of art to life. Sometimes in an archaeological
novel the use of strange and obsolete terms seems to hide the
reality beneath the learning, and I dare say that many of the
readers of NOTRE DAME DE PARIS have been much puzzled over the
meaning of such expressions as LA CASAQUE E MAHOITRES, LES
VOULGIERS, LE GALLIMARD TACHE D'ENCRE, LES CRAAQUINIERS, and the
like; but with the stage how different it is! The ancient world
wakes from its sleep, and history moves as a pageant before our
eyes, without obliging us to have recourse to a dictionary or an
encyclopaedia for the perfection of our enjoyment. Indeed, there
is not the slightest necessity that the public should know the
authorities for the mounting of any piece. From such materials,
for instance, as the disk of Theodosius, materials with which the
majority of people are probably not very familiar, Mr. E. W.
Godwin, one of the most artistic spirits of this century in
England, created the marvellous loveliness of the first act of
CLAUDIAN, and showed us the life of Byzantium in the fourth
century, not by a dreary lecture and a set of grimy casts, not by a
novel which requires a glossary to explain it, but by the visible
presentation before us of all the glory of that great town. And
while the costumes were true to the smallest points of colour and
design, yet the details were not assigned that abnormal importance
which they must necessarily be given in a piecemeal lecture, but
were subordinated to the rules of lofty composition and the unity
of artistic effect. Mr. Symonds, speaking of that great picture of
Mantegna's, now in Hampton Court, says that the artist has
converted an antiquarian motive into a theme for melodies of line.
The same could have been said with equal justice of Mr. Godwin's
scene. Only the foolish called it pedantry, only those who would
neither look nor listen spoke of the passion of the play being
killed by its paint. It was in reality a scene not merely perfect
in its picturesqueness, but absolutely dramatic also, getting rid
of any necessity for tedious descriptions, and showing us, by the
colour and character of Claudian's dress, and the dress of his
attendants, the whole nature and life of the man, from what school
of philosophy he affected, down to what horses he backed on the
turf.
And indeed archaeology is only really delightful when transfused
into some form of art. I have no desire to underrate the services
of laborious scholars, but I feel that the use Keats made of
Lempriere's Dictionary is of far more value to us than Professor
Max Muller's treatment of the same mythology as a disease of
language. Better ENDYMION than any theory, however sound, or, as
in the present instance, unsound, of an epidemic among adjectives!
And who does not feel that the chief glory of Piranesi's