Modern Painters Volume III Part 18

-- 7. His idea, therefore, of rock color, founded on these experiences, is that of a dull or ashen grey, more or less stained by the brown of iron ochre, precisely as the Apennine limestones nearly always are; the grey being peculiarly cold and disagreeable.

As we go down the very hill which stretches out from Pietra-pana towards Lucca, the stones laid by the road-side to mend it are of this ashen grey, with efflorescences of manganese and iron in the fissures. The whole of Malebolge is made of this rock, "All wrought in stone of iron-colored grain."[80]

Perhaps the iron color may be meant to predominate in Evil-pits; but the definite grey limestone color is stated higher up, the river Styx flowing at the base of "malignant _grey_ cliffs"[81] (the word malignant being given to the iron-colored Malebolge also); and the same whitish-grey idea is given again definitely in describing the robe of the purgatorial or penance angel, which is "of the color of ashes, or earth dug dry." Ashes necessarily mean _wood_-ashes in an Italian mind, so that we get the tone very pale; and there can be no doubt whatever about the hue meant, because it is constantly seen on the sunny sides of the Italian hills, produced by the scorching of the ground, a dusty and lifeless whitish grey, utterly painful and oppressive; and I have no doubt that this color, a.s.sumed eminently also by limestone crags in the sun, is the quality which Homer means to express by a term he applies often to bare rocks, and which is usually translated "craggy," or "rocky." Now Homer is indeed quite capable of talking of "rocky rocks," just as he talks sometimes of "wet water;" but I think he means more by this word: it sounds as if it were derived from another, meaning "meal," or "flour," and I have little doubt it means "mealy white;" the Greek limestones being for the most part brighter in effect than the Apennine ones.

-- 8. And the fact is, that the great and pre-eminent fault of southern, as compared with northern scenery, is this rock-whiteness, which gives to distant mountain ranges, lighted by the sun, sometimes a faint and monotonous glow, hardly detaching itself from the whiter parts of the sky, and sometimes a speckled confusion of white light with blue shadow, breaking up the whole ma.s.s of the hills, and making them look near and small; the whiteness being still distinct at the distance of twenty or twenty-five miles. The inferiority and meagreness of such effects of hill, compared with the ma.s.sive purple and blue of our own heaps of crags and mora.s.s, or the solemn gra.s.s-green and pine-purples of the Alps, have always struck me most painfully; and they have rendered it impossible for any poet or painter studying in the south, to enter with joy into hill scenery.

Imagine the difference to Walter Scott, if instead of the single lovely color which, named by itself alone, was enough to describe his hills,--

"Their southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviot's _blue_,"--

a dusty whiteness had been the image that first a.s.sociated itself with a hill range, and he had been obliged, instead of "blue"

Cheviots, to say, "barley-meal-colored" Cheviots.

-- 9. But although this would cause a somewhat painful shock even to a modern mind, it would be as nothing when compared with the pain occasioned by absence of color to a mediaeval one. We have been trained, by our ingenious principles of Renaissance architecture, to think that meal-color and ash-color are the properest colors of all; and that the most aristocratic harmonies are to be deduced out of grey mortar and creamy stucco. Any of our modern cla.s.sical architects would delightedly "face" a heathery hill with Roman cement; and any Italian sacristan would, but for the cost of it, at once whitewash the Cheviots. But the mediaevals had not arrived at these abstract principles of taste. They liked fres...o...b..tter than whitewash; and, on the whole, thought that Nature was in the right in painting her flowers yellow, pink, and blue;--not grey.

Accordingly, this absence of color from rocks, as compared with meadows and trees, was in their eyes an unredeemable defect; nor did it matter to them whether its place was supplied by the grey neutral tint, or the iron-colored stain; for both colors, grey and brown, were, to them, hues of distress, despair, and mortification, hence adopted always for the dresses of monks; only the word "brown" bore, in their color vocabulary, a still gloomier sense than with us. I was for some time embarra.s.sed by Dante's use of it with respect to dark skies and water. Thus, in describing a simple twilight--not a Hades twilight, but an ordinarily fair evening--(Inf. ii. 1.) he says, the "brown" air took the animals of earth away from their fatigues;--the waves under Charon's boat are "brown" (Inf. iii.

117.); and Lethe, which is perfectly clear and yet dark, as with oblivion, is "bruna-bruna," "brown, _exceeding_ brown." Now, clearly in all these cases no _warmth_ is meant to be mingled in the color.

Dante had never seen one of our bog-streams, with its porter-colored foam; and there can be no doubt that, in calling Lethe brown, he means that it was dark slate grey, inclining to black; as, for instance, our clear c.u.mberland lakes, which, looked straight down upon where they are deep, seem to be lakes of ink. I am sure this is the color he means; because no clear stream or lake on the Continent ever looks brown, but blue or green; and Dante, by merely taking away the pleasant color, would get at once to this idea of grave clear grey. So, when he was talking of twilight, his eye for color was far too good to let him call it _brown_ in our sense. Twilight is not brown, but purple, golden, or dark grey; and this last was what Dante meant. Farther, I find that this negation of color is always the means by which Dante subdues his tones. Thus the fatal inscription on the Hades gate is written in "obscure color," and the air which torments the pa.s.sionate spirits is "aer nero" _black_ air (Inf. v. 51.), called presently afterwards (line 81.) malignant air, just as the grey cliffs are called malignant cliffs.

-- 10. I was not, therefore, at a loss to find out what Dante meant by the word; but I was at a loss to account for his not, as it seemed, acknowledging the existence of the color of _brown_ at all; for if he called dark neutral tint "brown," it remained a question what term he would use for things of the color of burnt umber. But, one day, just when I was puzzling myself about this, I happened to be sitting by one of our best living modern colorists, watching him at his work, when he said, suddenly, and by mere accident, after we had been talking of other things, "Do you know I have found that there is no _brown_ in Nature? What we call brown is always a variety either of orange or purple. It never can be represented by umber, unless altered by contrast."

-- 11. It is curious how far the significance of this remark extends, how exquisitely it ill.u.s.trates and confirms the mediaeval sense of hue;--how far, on the other hand, it cuts into the heart of the old umber idolatries of Sir George Beaumont and his colleagues, the "where do you put your _brown_ tree" system; the code of Cremona-violin- colored foregrounds, of brown varnish and asphaltum; and all the old night-owl science, which, like Young's pencil of sorrow,

"In melancholy dipped, _embrowns_ the whole."

Nay, I do Young an injustice by a.s.sociating his words with the asphalt schools; for his eye for color was true, and like Dante's; and I doubt not that he means dark grey, as Byron purple-grey in that night piece in the Siege of Corinth, beginning

"'Tis midnight; on the mountains _brown_ The cold, round moon looks deeply down;"

and, by the way, Byron's best piece of evening color farther certifies the hues of Dante's twilight,--it

"Dies like the dolphin, when it gasps away-- The last still loveliest; till 'tis gone, and all is _grey_."

-- 12. Let not, however, the reader confuse the use of brown, as an expression of a natural tint, with its use as a means of _getting other tints_. Brown is often an admirable ground, just because it is the only tint which is _not_ to be in the finished picture, and because it is the best basis of many silver greys and purples, utterly opposite to it in their nature. But there is infinite difference between laying a brown ground as a representation of shadow,--and as a base for light; and also an infinite difference between using brown shadows, a.s.sociated with colored lights--always the characteristic of false schools of color--and using brown as a warm neutral tint for general study. I shall have to pursue this subject farther hereafter, in noticing how brown is used by great colorists in their studies, not as color, but as the pleasantest negation of color, possessing more transparency than black, and having more pleasant and sunlike warmth. Hence Turner, in his early studies, used blue for distant neutral tint, and brown for foreground neutral tint; while, as he advanced in color science, he gradually introduced, in the place of brown, strange purples, altogether peculiar to himself, founded, apparently, on Indian red and vermilion, and pa.s.sing into various tones of russet and orange.[82] But, in the meantime, we must go back to Dante and his mountains.

-- 13. We find, then, that his general type of rock color was meant, whether pale or dark, to be a colorless grey--the most melancholy hue which he supposed to exist in Nature (hence the synonym for it, subsisting even till late times, in mediaeval appellatives of dress, "_sad_-colored")--with some rusty stain from iron; or perhaps the "color ferrigno" of the Inferno does not involve even so much of orange, but ought to be translated "iron grey."

This being his idea of the color of rocks, we have next to observe his conception of their substance. And I believe it will be found that the character on which he fixes first in them is _frangibility_ --breakableness to bits, as opposed to wood, which can be sawn or rent, but not shattered with a hammer, and to metal, which is tough and malleable.

Thus, at the top of the abyss of the seventh circle, appointed for the "violent," or souls who had done evil by force, we are told, first, that the edge of it was composed of "great broken stones in a circle;" then, that the place was "Alpine;" and, becoming hereupon attentive, in order to hear what an Alpine place is like, we find that it was "like the place beyond Trent, where the rock, either by earthquake, or failure of support, has broken down to the plain, so that it gives any one at the top some means of getting down to the bottom." This is not a very elevated or enthusiastic description of an Alpine scene; and it is far from mended by the following verses, in which we are told that Dante "began to go down by this great _unloading_ of stones," and that they moved often under his feet by reason of the new weight. The fact is that Dante, by many expressions throughout the poem, shows himself to have been a notably bad climber; and being fond of sitting in the sun, looking at his fair Baptistery, or walking in a dignified manner on flat pavement in a long robe, it puts him seriously out of his way when he has to take to his hands and knees, or look to his feet; so that the first strong impression made upon him by any Alpine scene whatever, is, clearly, that it is bad walking. When he is in a fright and hurry, and has a very steep place to go down, Virgil has to carry him altogether, and is obliged to encourage him, again and again, when they have a steep slope to go up,--the first ascent of the purgatorial mountain. The similes by which he ill.u.s.trates the steepness of that ascent are all taken from the Riviera of Genoa, now traversed by a good carriage road under the name of the Corniche; but as this road did not exist in Dante's time, and the steep precipices and promontories were then probably traversed by footpaths, which, as they necessarily pa.s.sed in many places over crumbling and slippery limestone, were doubtless not a little dangerous, and as in the manner they commanded the bays of sea below, and lay exposed to the full blaze of the south-eastern sun, they corresponded precisely to the situation of the path by which he ascends above the purgatorial sea, the image could not possibly have been taken from a better source for the fully conveying his idea to the reader: nor, by the way, is there reason to discredit, in _this_ place, his powers of climbing; for, with his usual accuracy, he has taken the angle of the path for us, saying it was considerably more than forty-five. Now a continuous mountain slope of forty-five degrees is already quite unsafe either for ascent or descent, except by zigzag paths; and a greater slope than this could not be climbed, straightforward, but by help of crevices or jags in the rock, and great physical exertion besides.

-- 14. Throughout these pa.s.sages, however, Dante's thoughts are clearly fixed altogether on the question of mere accessibility or inaccessibility. He does not show the smallest interest in the rocks, except as things to be conquered; and his description of their appearance is utterly meagre, involving no other epithets than "erto" (steep or upright), Inf. xix. 131., Purg. iii. 48. &c.; "sconcio" (monstrous), Inf. xix. 131.; "stagliata" (cut), Inf. xvii.

134.; "maligno" (malignant), Inf. vii. 108; "duro" (hard), xx. 25.; with "large" and "broken" (rotto) in various places. No idea of roundness, ma.s.siveness, or pleasant form of any kind appears for a moment to enter his mind; and the different names which are given to the rocks in various places seem merely to refer to variations in size: thus a "rocco" is a part of a "scoglio," Inf. xx. 25. and xxvi. 27.; a "scheggio" (xxi. 69. and xxvi. 17.) is a less fragment yet; a "petrone," or "sa.s.so," is a large stone or boulder (Purg. iv.

101. 104.), and "pietra," a less stone,--both of these last terms, especially "sa.s.so," being used for any large mountainous ma.s.s, as in Purg. xxi. 106.; and the vagueness of the word "monte" itself, like that of the French "montagne," applicable either to a hill on a post-road requiring the drag to be put on,--or to the Mont Blanc, marks a peculiar carelessness in both nations, at the time of the formation of their languages, as to the sublimity of the higher hills; so that the effect produced on an English ear by the word "mountain," signifying always a ma.s.s of a certain large size, cannot be conveyed either in French or Italian.

-- 15. In all these modes of regarding rocks we find (rocks being in themselves, as we shall see presently, by no means monstrous or frightful things) exactly that inaccuracy in the mediaeval mind which we had been led to expect, in its bearings on things contrary to the spirit of that symmetrical and perfect humanity which had formed its ideal; and it is very curious to observe how closely in the terms he uses, and the feelings they indicate, Dante here agrees with Homer.

For the word stagliata (cut) corresponds very nearly to a favorite term of Homer's respecting rocks "sculptured," used by him also of s.h.i.+ps' sides; and the frescoes and illuminations of the Middle Ages enable us to ascertain exactly what this idea of "cut" rock was.

-- 16. In Plate 10. I have a.s.sembled some examples, which will give the reader a sufficient knowledge of mediaeval rock-drawing, by men whose names are known. They are chiefly taken from engravings, with which the reader has it in his power to compare them,[83] and if, therefore, any injustice is done to the original paintings the fault is not mine; but the general impression conveyed is quite accurate, and it would not have been worth while, where work is so deficient in first conception, to lose time in insuring accuracy of facsimile.

Some of the crags may be taller here, or broader there, than in the original paintings; but the character of the work is perfectly preserved, and that is all with which we are at present concerned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 10. Geology of the Middle Ages.]

Figs. 1. and 5. are by Ghirlandajo; 2. by Filippo Pesellino; 4. by Leonardo da Vinci; and 6. by Andrea del Castagno. All these are indeed workmen of a much later period than Dante, but the system of rock-drawing remains entirely unchanged from Giotto's time to Ghirlandajo's;--is then altered only by an introduction of stratification indicative of a little closer observance of nature, and so remains until t.i.tian's time. Fig 1. is exactly representative of one of Giotto's rocks, though actually by Ghirlandajo; and Fig.

2. is rather less skilful than Giotto's ordinary work. Both these figures indicate precisely what Homer and Dante meant by "cut"

rocks. They had observed the concave smoothness of certain rock fractures as eminently distinctive of rock from earth, and use the term "cut" or "sculptured" to distinguish the smooth surface from the knotty or sandy one, having observed nothing more respecting its real contours than is represented in Figs. 1. and 2., which look as if they had been hewn out with an adze. Lorenzo Ghiberti preserves the same type, even in his finest work.

Fig. 3., from an interesting sixteenth century MS. in the British Museum (Cotton, Augustus, A. 5.), is characteristic of the best later illuminators' work; and Fig. 5., from Ghirlandajo, is pretty ill.u.s.trative of Dante's idea of terraces on the purgatorial mountain. It is the road by which the Magi descend in his picture of their Adoration, in the Academy of Florence. Of the other examples I shall have more to say in the chapter on Precipices; meanwhile we have to return to the landscape of the poem.

-- 17. Inaccurate as this conception of rock was, it seems to have been the only one which, in mediaeval art had place as representative of mountain scenery. To Dante, mountains are inconceivable except as great broken stones or crags; all their broad contours and undulations seem to have escaped his eye. It is, indeed, with his usual undertone of symbolic meaning that he describes the great broken stones, and the fall of the shattered mountain, as the entrance to the circle appointed for the punishment of the violent; meaning that the violent and cruel, notwithstanding all their iron hardness of heart, have no true strength, but, either by earthquake, or want of support, fall at last into desolate ruin, naked, loose, and shaking under the tread.

But in no part of the poem do we find allusion to mountains in any other than a stern light; nor the slightest evidence that Dante cared to look at them. From that hill of San Miniato, whose steps he knew so well, the eye commands, at the farther extremity of the Val d'Arno, the whole purple range of the mountains of Carrara, peaked and mighty, seen always against the sunset light in silent outline, the chief forms that rule the scene as twilight fades away. By this vision Dante seems to have been wholly unmoved, and, but for Lucan's mention of Aruns at Luna, would seemingly not have spoken of the Carrara hills in the whole course of his poem: when he does allude to them, he speaks of their white marble, and their command of stars and sea, but has evidently no regard for the hills themselves. There is not a single phrase or syllable throughout the poem which indicates such a regard.

Ugolino, in his dream, seemed to himself to be in the mountains, "by cause of which the Pisan cannot see Lucca;" and it is impossible to look up from Pisa to that h.o.a.ry slope without remembering the awe that there is in the pa.s.sage; nevertheless, it was as a hunting-ground only that he remembered those hills. Adam of Brescia, tormented with eternal thirst, remembers the hills of Romena, but only for the sake of their sweet waters:

"The rills that glitter down the gra.s.sy slopes Of Casentino, making fresh and soft The banks whereby they glide to Arno's stream, Stand ever in my view."

And, whenever hills are spoken of as having any influence on character, the repugnance to them is still manifest; they are always causes of rudeness or cruelty:

"But that ungrateful and malignant race, Who in old times came down from Fesole, _Ay, and still smack of their rough mountain flint_, Will, for thy good deeds, show thee enmity.

Take heed thou cleanse thee of their ways."

So again--

"As one _mountain-bred_, Rugged, and clownish, if some city's walls He chance to enter, round him stares agape."

-- 18. Finally, although the Carrara mountains are named as having command of the stars and sea, the _Alps_ are never specially mentioned but in bad weather, or snow. On the sand of the circle of the blasphemers--

"Fell slowly wafting down Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow On Alpine summit, when the wind is hushed."

So the Paduans have to defend their town and castles against inundation,

"Ere the genial warmth be felt, On Chiarentana's top."

The clouds of anger, in Purgatory, can only be figured to the reader who has

"On an Alpine height been ta'en by cloud, Through which thou sawest no better than the mole Doth through opacous membrane."

And in approaching the second branch of Lethe, the seven ladies pause,--

"Arriving at the verge Of a dim umbrage h.o.a.r, such as is seen Beneath green leaves and gloomy branches oft To overbrow a bleak and Alpine cliff."

-- 19. Truly, it is unfair of Dante, that when he is going to use snow for a lovely image, and speak of it as melting away under heavenly suns.h.i.+ne, he must needs put it on the Apennines, not on the Alps:

"As snow that lies Amidst the living rafters, on the back Of Italy, congealed, when drifted high And closely piled by rough Sclavonian blasts, Breathe but the land whereon no shadow falls, And straightway melting, it distils away, Like a fire-washed taper; thus was I, Without a sigh, or tear, consumed in heart."

The reader will thank me for reminding him, though out of its proper order, of the exquisite pa.s.sage of Scott which we have to compare with this:

"As snow upon the mountain's breast Slides from the rock that gave it rest, Sweet Ellen glided from her stay, And at the monarch's feet she lay."

Examine the context of this last pa.s.sage, and its beauty is quite beyond praise; but note the northern love of rocks in the very first words I have to quote from Scott, "The rocks that gave it rest." Dante could not have thought of his "cut rocks" as giving rest even to snow.

He must put it on the pine branches, if it is to be at peace.