POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND ART. FOOTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND ART-. BY HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL WISEMAN. A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, JANUARY 30, 1863. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1863. The n'fj/if 'if Trrms/fifin/i tx reserved. LONDON : PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHETM HOUSE, OXFORD STREET. I' HE FACE. IN preparing the short-hand notes of the follow- ing Lecture for the press, the Author has intro- duced one or two topics which want of time obliged him to omit, and to expand others which the same reason led him to compress beyond his wishes. He cannot neglect this opportunity of express- ing his thanks to his numerous audience, for the kindness of their reception of him, and the in- dulgence of their protracted attention to his words. LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1863. I. PAINTING PAGE 11 IL SCULPTURE 40 III. ARCHITECTURE 62 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND ART. THERE is an anecdote* of Hannibal with which I am sure every one here is well ac- quainted. When an exile at a foreign court, he was invited, as you have been this evening, to attend a lecture. He listened to it atten- tively ; but when asked at its close, by one of the admiring audience, what he thought of the performance, with characteristic bluntness he replied, " That it had been his lot in the course of his life to meet with many old dotards, but never with one Avlio so fully deserved that title, as the man who had just dared to dis- course upon the art of war, in the presence of Hannibal." JJ 2 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN I only fear that yon will not wait until the conclusion of my address, to pronounce the same judgment on my presumption ; especially as mine is, I fear, a double transgression. I am ven- turing to address, on the subject of Science, an assembly of men whose reputation for its ad- vancement, or for its cultivation, may be said to pervade the whole of the civilized world. But, in addition to this, I have had the hardi- hood to announce that I would speak upon Art, in the presence of those who, if their fame has not extended so far because paintings and mar- bles are not so portable or communicable as books at least in their own country can claim pre- eminence, and stand at the very summit of their most honourable profession. I fear, therefore, that perhaps you will not wait for the termination of my lecture to form your judgment ; I fear you have formed it already only the kind greetings which I have just now received from you make me hope, that there will be still room for indulgence. Let me disarm any severer judgment by ac- knowledging at the onset, that I cannot flatter myself, that any man of science will go away this evening, bearing with him the slightest SCIENCE AND ART. 3 addition to his scientific knowledge. Neither dare I hope that any artist will receive the slightest instruction, or a new impression, from anything that I can say ; and therefore I will throw myself at once upon the kindness of those who *1 hope form no small portion of my audi- ence who, like myself, are glad, from time to time, to escape from more engrossing and more systematic pursuits, to spend an hour or two in the company of^hose two fascinating sisters Art and Science; , and who will feel that they have not mis-spent their time, if they have passed an hour in rational and perhaps not un- instructive ivnvation. As a preliminary, let me observe that, in speaking <>f Science and Art, I wish to extend the meaning of one of these words to the utmost, and to i\ strict that of the other.K^By Science I wish to understand whatever knowledge has come to man as the result of investigation, by thought, calculation, and experiment whether the word l>e referred to the more abstruse and abstract, or to the more practical, exercise of the power of observation )> whether these results belong to y what may be called the highest ijaniro and c!ass of Science, or to what may move in a lower and > ' POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN O secondary plane. By Art, on the other hand, I wish not to understand the Arts of Life, as they are called, or the Practical Arts, but the Fine Arts ; and even those restricted to the Arts of Design to those which approach our intellect and our feelings through the eye, not including those which make their way, like Poetry or Music, through another organ. * The union which I have proposed to establish between the two is one so obvious, that I have feared I may have selected a very common- place subject in thus joining the two together 'The points of contact between Science and Art." in familiar discourse we can hardly speak * I need hardly allude to the repeated efforts made, ever since Newton's time, to establish relations between music and colours ; that is, between spaces in the musical scale, and those in the prismatic colours. A magnificent work, purporting to give a perfectly demonstrated view of these analogies, with two atlases of coloured plates, two hundred in number, has been announced in France, under the title of " Du Vrai, du Beau, et de 1'Utile," or " Harmonies Com- paivi'S.'' An introductory and detailed Memoire of it was submitted to the Scientific Congress at Bordeaux in 18G1, and was published there the same year. It was favourably received. I believe the parts which w r ere to follow have not appeared. The author, whose name does not anywhere appear, but, I understand, is F. Dnlancl, promises practical applications of his results to other sciences. SCIENCE AND ART. 5 of the one without the other ; they seem to go necessarily hand-in-hand. But I hope it may be seen that there are points in which they have not yet come sufficiently into contact, and which deserve a closer connection ; so that it should be our endeavour, if possible, to knit still more straitly this natural union. A If we look around us in this great city, we see how indispensable it is considered, that the cultivation of the two should be carried on in common. "\\ Our three great Museums, to which I need not more particularly allude, are all of them of a mixed character ; so that the objects of Science, in its various branches, are almost always to be found blended or associated with objects of Art. N Vlf, however, speaking not of places, but of persons, I had to choose, from ancjent times, the " representative man" of this union, it would be the great artist Leonardo da Vinci, so well known as a consummate painter, comparatively less acknowledged as one of those great men connected with the chain of Science, who kept patiently and sagaciously adding link to link, until it has gained its present perfection. Leo- nardo da Vinci finds his place both in the 6 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN mstory* and in the philosophy f of the Induc- tile Sciences ; and in the latter, among "the practical reformers of Science/' a high character to be given by such a competent judge as the author of those works, to one whose merits are chiefly known by the productions of his pencil. In fact, he left thirteen volumes of scientific sketches, of diagrams and of mechanism, chiefly connected with hydraulics ; which unfortunately have been removed from the place where he left them, by the vicissitudes of modern times, and are to be found now chiefly in Paris. J But we need not go back so far as three cen- turies, to fix upon one in whom has been con- centrated this twofold feeling ; and that so equally and impartially in his blending affections, that we might saj^ne never saw Art without Science, never looked at Science without seeing Art; and who considered both as the great moving powers by which civilisation and progress were * Whewell's " History of the Inductive Sciences," vol. ii., p. 122. t " Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," vol. ii., p. 368. t The descriptions attached to the drawings often, if not always, require to be read in a mirror, as they are writ- ten reversed. SCIENCE AND ART. 7 to be advanced in this, his adopted country.^ You will easily understand that I allude to that Prince so lately taken from us, who for many years studied to the utmost the means of prosperity for England, and became convinced that none was more important than to bring together, as far as possible, these two great manifestations of intellectual cultivation and of social refinement. I cannot help, at the opening of this dis- course, alluding to the care with which he seized every opportunity of inculcating the ne- cessity of cultivating the two harmoniously, and inseparably, yet independently. In his public speeches the Prince Consort alluded constantly to this idea ; but perhaps on no occasion more markedly than a few years ago, on laying the first stone of an Institute of "the Birmingham and Midland Institute" intended for the culti- vation of both Science and Art. After alluding to this happy alliance, he spoke as follows : "You will thus have conferred an inestimable boon on your country ; and in a short time have the satisfaction of witnessing the beneficial results upon our material powers of production. 8 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN Other parts of the country will, I doubt not, emulate your example ; and I live in hope that all these Institutions will some day find a cen- tral point of union."* These words, and others like them, were the germ, sorrowful but glorious, from which has sprung the great idea of erecting, as his memo- rial, a noble hall of combined Science and Art; in which the two can meet in friendship, and mutually support, assist, and grace each other. If a national monument should permanently record the characteristic thought of him to whom it is erected ; and if the memorial would be still grander, if it can actually carry out that thought, and render it enduringly efficacious surely the embodying of the Prince's desire and suggestion, in such a monument as has been proposed, will be, without exception, the most appropriate and useful mausoleum that has yet been ever seen. Hence it seems wise and natural, that the Committee appointed by the Crown to report on this subject, should have suggested the carrying * " Speeches and Addresses," p. 171. See also pp. 164- 167, and 112. At the inauguration of the Horticultural Gardens, similar expressions are said to have been used; but the discourse is not published in this volume. SCIENCE ANU ART. 9 out of the Prince's idea, as the most appropriate manner of publicly honouring his memory.* But the high sanction of this proposal is so striking, and so authoritative, that you will allow me to detain you one moment, by reading a few words from it : " Knowing the importance attached by the Prince to the establishment of one central institution, for the promotion of ar- tistic and scientific education." And again, " The Queen knows how constantly he regretted, that much of the good attending many of the insti- tutions founded for the advancement of Science and Art was lost by their isolation and want of connection with each other, "f I have no right to constitute myself the mouthpiece of an Asso- ciation which stands so deservedly high among our national institutions, as that at whose desire I have the honour to address you, and which has better ways undoubtedly of making itself heard throughout the country ; but may I be allowed, as a representative of the many to whom I have * See the letter of the Committee of Architects, to Sir C. Eastlake, on this proposal, June 5, 1862. t Col. Grey's letter, July 18, approving of this scheme ; , and John, who died in 144(>, SCIENCE AND ART. 13 who painted together, were clearly masters of perspective in both its branches. Speaking of one of their paintings, Lord Lindsay observes, that " the architecture is particularly well painted, and Van Eyck here appears as the forerunner of Neefs and Steenwich;"* he might have added, of our own Roberts. Again, he writes of John, that "it is perhaps for his improvements in perspective, lineal and aerial, that he deserves our warmest gratitude : the former had indeed long been studied in the South, but for the latter we are almost exclu- sively beholden to him."f It would, indeed, have been strange if Florence had been behind Bruges in the discovery of such nn essential condition of good painting. Before the time of Giotto, through the long period of Byzantine Art in fresco and mosaic, it had re- mained unknown ; and we trace the efforts made to attain it which imperfect Art, in the hands of struggling genius, prompted. But in the school, and the successors of that reviver of true Art, there is evidence that not mere personal observa- * " Sketches of the History of Christian Art," vol. iii., p. 21)0. t Ibid. ]). 304. 14 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN tion and individual cleverness enabled some gifted artists to seize this necessary ingredient of pic- torial Art, but that it was reduced to principles, formed into precepts, and taught to scholars. " The Giotteschi, especially Giusto of Padua, had taken the first steps in linear perspective ; and Uccello, Pietro della Francesco, Bramantino, Al- berti, and other Italian artists, advanced it greatly, both by precept and example, towards the middle of the fifteenth century."* Of these perhaps Pietro della Francesca de- serves special notice. He died in 1482, at the advanced age of eighty-four, and was in every respect a great artist, not only on account of his own works, but on account also of the great in- fluence which he exercised upon Art. For there is evidence that he not only understood and practised perspective with great accuracy, as Va- sari records of him, and his own paintings testify, but he reduced its principles to writing in three books, said still to exist.f This is certain, that from his time dates that accuracy in drawing * Ibid. t See the preface to the splendid work (fol., with atlas) by Cav. Annibalc Angelini, " Trattato teorico \ ratico di Prospettiva," Rome, 1801, p. xx. SCIENCE AND ART. 15 temples, triumphal arches, and other edifices which we sec in the works of Luca Signorelli, Bal- (1 assure Peruzzi, Perugino, and others. It is n;>t a slight coincidence, but a suggestive fact, that, about twenty years before his death, he should have been a guest of Giovanni Santi, Raffaele's father, where he may perhaps have sown the seeds of the son's perfection. Certain it is, that before the literature of per- spective commences, that prince of artists, as in his School of Athens, or his Incendio del Borgo, and liis rival Michelangelo, had shown themselves consummate in the application of perspective to Art.* IL're begins the history of Scientific Perspective; tli at is, the first true contact of Science with the art of Painting ; when the anticipations of Art were verified by Science, and reduced to unvary- ing rule.f As we have seen, in the first practical * Ib., p. xiii. The ceiling of the Sixtine Chapel is a tri- umphant evidence of Buonarotti's skill in perspective, and in the kindred power of foreshortening, so totally unknown In-fore Giotto. t The history of the literature of perspective will be found most completely sketched and analysed in a series of " Notes on Perspective," by Mr. A. De Morgan, in the Athenanun, from October to November, 1861. To these articles I am much indebted for what follows. 16 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN exercise of the science of perspective, a remarkable coincidence between its discoveries in northern and southern Europe, the same singular uni- formity is to be found, in this next step, its public, and more accurate explanation. In the first in- stance, Art forestalled Science in two distant coun- tries at the same time ; in the second, Science overtook Art almost in the same manner. Leo- nardo da Vinci, whom I have already described as representing to us the union of Science and Art, who died in 1519, and Albert Diirer, whose death occurred in Niirnberg, in 1528, a mathematician as well as painter, were here the worthy agents in this great advancement of Art. Both indeed united in themselves the two qualifications requisite for that purpose, proficiency in Science as in Art. Notwithstanding the success which practically fol- lowed the example and precepts of these great artists, we are told that "the sixteenth century may be described as the day of a very few rules, and laborious application guided by natural sa- gacity."* It was not till 1608 that the first satisfactory treatise on this subject AVUS published by Guido ri>aido. , Oct. '2(\. ]>. 54-1. SCIENCE AND ART. 17 In 1G42, F. Dubreuil edited his Prospective!, Practica, well-known to artists under the title of the Jesuit's Perspective. Finally, it was only in 1731 that the mathe- matical theory of perspective was demonstrated by Brook Taylor.* Slowly, therefore, and patiently, did Science follow the more rapid steps of Art, to complete, to enlarge, to perfect, and to perpetuate its almost instinctive discoveries. It has been well said by Mr. de Morgan, that " the first-class draughts- man managed, in one way or another, to do all that could be done ; the difference between one * There was a period of retrogression in every depart- ment of Art, and, of course, in the right use of perspective. It was, when abuse in its application took place of its legitimate use, when display of perspective became the sole aim of the artist, when it ceased to be an accessory, but the entire subject of his picture. This does not, of course, apply to the representation of interior architecture, with its beautiful effects of light and shade ; but to the attempt to deceive, by trying to make columns appear straight upon arched ceilings, or domes circular on iiat surfaces. The chief in these tours deforce is Andrea Pozzo (1695), whose vault in the church of St. Ignatius in Rome, and domes there, and at Frascati, are certainly wonderful, but pedantic and unpictorial. The rules for executing these extrava- gances will be found in the splendid edition of his works in two volumes, folio, Rome the frut in 1702, the in 17r>S. 18 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN period and another lies in the facility of the mode of doing it." That is to say, as soon as Science came to bring its resources to bear on Art, it demonstrated certain principles, which came thereby to be so fixed and proved, that it was impossible ever afterwards to allow de- viation from them. But, whenever Science has thus acted in a matter of practical importance, the next step is to convert its theorems into practical rules, which are accepted, for all necessary and useful purposes, without further proof. We have an illustration in arithmetic : we teach thousands and tens of thousands of children to perform com- plicated operations in what was formerly considered one of the great sciences, without the least under- standing why they should so divide, or so multi- ply, or so deal with fractions, or solve equations ; but simply because they have a plain rule taught them, which they are not the least conscious has been the subject of strict and accurate mathe- matical demonstration. The consequence is, that you can teach and tutor, and train a whole nation to anything you like, if you can once get it to accept the formulas proved and demonstrated by science, as simple admitted truths and rules of practice. SCIENCE AND ART. 19 Let us now see the corresponding effect here. From the moment that perspective was reduced to certain and scientific principles, and was so accepted by Art, it became almost impossible to deviate from them ; they were soon popularized ; they were adopted as an essential part of artistic educa- tion, reduced to rules easily learnt and applied ; so that no one would dare now to produce what would have passed muster a few centuries ago, by painting even a signboard out of perspective. It would be impossible, without its appearing the very height of the ridiculous, to reproduce Hogarth's well-known illustration of want of perspective in one of his engravings. We have got thus far, then, in educating the public eye to Art. In order to explain what I mean by this ex- pression, permit me to make a little digression ; because I think I can make it understood from another art. Let me take you back to the year 1733, to Oxford, when, at a commemoration, Handel made his appearance, to perform his oratorio of " Esther." We have the record of what happened from one who was in the city at the time. I cannot read some of the expres- sions, but he says that " one Handel, a c 2 20 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN foreigner," came ; and tells us of " the players being denied by the Vice-Chancellor coming to Oxford, and that very rightly, though they might as well have been here, as Handel and (his crew) a great many fiddlers." " His book/' he adds, "worth one penny, he sells for a shilling." In the description of that first per- formance of " Esther/' " fiddling " is the most honourable term that is applied to it.* Then soon afterwards you have him in London ; and Horace Walpole, whom we are accustomed to look upon as a man of the most refined taste in all that relates to Art, speaks of him with the utmost contempt, even scorning and ridi- culing his " Hallelujahs," as he calls them ; and we are told that "the ladies invented those balls and tea-parties which were so fatal to the performances of Handel .... nay, even got up a puppet-show, by a mimic of the lowest class, in opposition to the oratorios . of Handel." f Now, let us imagine that great composer, after one of these heavy rebuffs, meditating in his own mind upon what he really felt his place * Quoted from " Ilearn's Memoirs," by Victor Schoel- cher, in his "Life of Handel." IS'j?. 1*. 157. t lb.. 2D.",. SCIENCE AND ART. 21 ought to be ; and we can imagine him, as those magnificent and heavenly harmonies floated through his mind and his imagination, shedding tears of bitterness, at the idea that the world was not worthy of him, and that he should be so persecuted and vilipended. But, whatever may have been his own splendid thoughts upon the way in which, if he could have had his will, he would have wished himself and others to hear his music, he may, perhaps, have never reached that which has been really at- tained. His friend Pope one of the few he had represents a meeting between " La Man- cha's knight and a dramatic author," who, after having shown him how completely his composition was in accordance with all Aristotelian precepts, expresses regret that there is one scene which he is sorry to say he must omit, because it would violate those rules. "And what is that?" "Why, a battle with its knights and squires must be cut out, because it would be impractic- able." " What!" exclaims the knight-errant, "cut out the battle ? No, knights and squires all must come on." The poor poet remonstrates 22 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN u So vast a throng the stage could ne'er contain.' 1 u Then build a new, or act it on a plain," responds the undaunted Don Quixote.* We natu- rally consider such a proposal as a fanciful ex- aggeration of artistic enthusiasm. But what if Handel had imagined that this would one day be the history of his music ? Why, he would have been right. That a stage such as the world had never before seen should be erected, in a vast palace of crystal, especially to exhibit and commemorate his musical genius that there would be as many crowded upon it as would have peopled a plain ; and if we add the vast audience the tens of thousands that were there, that no plain in the world could have assembled so many persons as would come to do him honour, and to listen rapturously to his performances to have dreamt of such a retri- bution, would have been beyond his powerful fancy ; yet if he had, his would have been a prophetic dream. Now, the public ear has been trained to the perception and to the relish of the most sublime music perhaps ever composed ; and that in the * Essay on Criticism. SCIENCE AND ART. 23 course of these hundred and thirty years. But that is far below truth. Who are those that crowd that gigantic platform to perform this music ? Are they professional musicians, selected from two or three cathedral choirs? Or, are they members of some particular philharmonic societies, composed of ladies and gentlemen, as it used to be formerly, who gave the public a treat in listening to the "Messiah? " No ; they are the men and the women taken from the looms, and from behind the mules of Manchester and Bolton, and other manufacturing cities; they are the choral societies of villages of Lancashire or Yorkshire, or of other counties, and in the neighbourhood of the Metropolis. And these men and women, who had never met before, have been brought together in London; and the scores of that most difficult music have been put into their heads, as any one will remember who has been present, even at their first re- hearsals ; and not only have these thousands of voices united for the first time in singing it with magnificent precision, but they have been en- abled to relish, and to give expression to, every variety of itst ones, from the flowing undulations of a thanksgiving hymn, to the crash of the hail- 24 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN stone chorus, all under the command of one single baton, in the hand of one who has fully atoned for the wrongs that his countrymen com- mitted during his life, against that matchless composer. We have been able, therefore, completely to educate the public ear, and, I may say, almost the public voice, to the proper appreciation of the sublimest in the Art of Music. Can we do the same for Painting ? Why not ? Look at the step already made in what I before de- scribed. It hardly seems credible that nations can have existed with an Art of their own, ex- ercising it under the highest patronage for hun- dreds, nay, thousands of years, and never have attained the slightest perception, by their eye, of this to us elementary science. I say nothing of the Greeks and Romans. We know very little of their Art, beyond their matchless power of delineating the human form. We have none of their great paintings at all remaining. There exist only a few fragments, and they are chiefly decorative. Pompeii itself gives us little clue to the knowledge of the an- cients in this part of Pictorial Art ; the excuse given for defects there, is, that only an inferior SCIENCE AND ART. 25 class of artists worked at the arabesque orna- ments found. But this is exactly the proof re- quired, that perspective had not been reduced to such simple and obvious rules, as to have been attainable by every artist. The only passages which have been brought from Yitruvius and Pliny to establish the knowledge of the science of perspective by the ancients, relate exclusively to the producing of scenic effects. We may, therefore, reasonably conclude, that as at the last revival of Art first-rate artists, the great painters, had an eye which would not allow them to violate the principal rules of perspective; but we have no evidence that it was a popular, universally-practised portion of Art. Of Assyrian art we have many monuments in our Museums, extending over a period of several centuries; and what an utter neglect or igno- rance there is in them of everything that relates to distance ! Men are fighting in the skies ; boats are swimming through the depths of the current ; the city is represented as a flat surface ; and its walls are out of all proportion with the figures, and the figures with them. In fact, it is quite clear, as far as we can judge from their monuments, that they had no rules by which to 26 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN regulate the disposition of their figures, so as to give any idea of receding spaces. The Egyptians clearly had the same ignorance : for in their paintings there is no attempt at re- presenting any gradation of distance in objects or in figures. Hundreds of people are crowded into the same scene all exactly alike, and all at the same distance apparently, with the same proportions and the same movements. The only difference there is in size is on the sort of principle which we remember in " Jack, the Giant-killer " the king is a giant, a man of enormous proportions, who holds a dozen or more of pigmy kings by the hair, and is going to strike off their heads at one blow. The Chinese, likewise, with such beautiful colours, and with such taste in the delicate de- lineation of natural objects flowers, insects, or birds, yet, when they come to paint any composition even a hand-screen cannot put the lines of the different parts of the building conformably to the laws of perspective.* * In Chinese paintings, even where perspective skill is shown in the principal scene, the foreground will be found in much reduced proportions in miniature, in fact ; and the background figures will be seen diminished beyond all ratio. SCIENCE AND. ART. 27 When, therefore, we find that whole nations may have lived for ages, painting in royal palaces and majestic temples, with no knowledge whatever of perspective, and without arriving at a perception of its absence it is not a trifle to have done what we have, and to have made perspective now so natural, and so universally felt, that it is impossible any longer to tole- rate the violation of its laws. This is one great step forward in national artistic education, due to the contact between Science and Art. * Now comes the question, Can we go further still? And the answer will perhaps result from remarks which I shall have occasion to make later. But here let me observe, that in one branch of Pictorial Art we have, I think, suc- ceeded in educating the public eye and the public mind ; and you may, perhaps, be inclined to smile if I attribute even that progress sorne- The fact is, that importance, not distance, regulates the pic- torial proportions. And this, no doubt, meets the demands of the Chinese eye, or rather idea, in Art. * In referring, as one naturally does, to this country, it is not meant to insinuate, that similar progress has not been made elsewhere. Every country, winch possesses an art, has partaken of the improvements that have taken rise in every other. 28 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN what to mechanical and scientific proficiency. We have done much to inspire the people of this country, in every class, with a perception of the beautiful in nature the love of landscape, of sea and land. Some years ago, I took the liberty of stating in a lecture which I published, that we could find no traces of the real love of natural beauty among the classical poets none that could bear comparison with what pervades our modern bards. I was glad afterwards to find the learned illustrator of Homer in our time, and the most eloquent writer on Art, both agree in the same opinion.* This may appear singular, but, in fact, as far as we can judge, that branch of Art which confines itself to the representation of nature, was little known or * " On the Perception of Natural Beauty, by the An- cients and Moderns," delivered Dec. 10, 1855. Mr. Glad- stone, on the whole, acknowledges that Homer had not much eye for landscape beauty ; " Studies on Homer and the Home- ric Age," 1858, vol. iii., p. 419, seq. He does not give full assent to Mr. Ruskin's sweeping declaration, that " Ho- mer has no trace of feeling for what we call the pictur- esque." Mod. Painters, p. 4, c. xiii. (1856). Mr. Gladstone, in his chapter on " Colour in Homer," (ib., p. 489,) acknow- ledges : "I conclude, then, that the organ of colour and its impressions were but partially developed among the Greeks of the heroic age." Surely this is incompatible with the love or appreciation of natural beauty. SCIENCE AND ART. 29 appreciated among the ancients. It is compara- tively so yet in Italy. I have been surprised to see how little taste or feeling for beautiful natural ' scenery there is, in a country where it so much abounds.* What I am about venturing to ask is this * Many years ago, when a youthful resident in Italy, I remember being struck with this fact, that scenes, before which foreigners would linger for hours, time after time, would be passed by with indifference by natives possessed of good taste, and even of artistic accomplishments. This often formed the subject of interesting speculation, but not of easy understanding. A natural solution offered itself in the supposition, that the native eye was too much accus- tomed to natural beauty, especially lit up by such skies as IVrugino or Francia delighted in, to lead the mind up to high emotions. This, howrver, is far from a satisfactory reply to the difficulty. England possesses also a class of charming national scenery, not known in Italy the calm landscape of river or brook, and tree, with homely adjuncts which does not habituate us to indifference in reality or on canvas. The beauties of our rivers and their banks, in every part of England, have had full justice done them by Mr. Ruskin, in his " Modern Painters." Must we have recourse to the useful hypothesis of races, and suppose that the Teutonic eye has a keener instinct, and the Teutonic mind a finer relish, for landscape beauty ; while the Grrcco- Italian has corresponding gifts in connection with what is called beauty of form ? Certainly the "paesista" does not rank in Italy among highest-class artists ; nor has the country possessed beyond a very limited number of native landscape painters, 30 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN it may seem absurd, perhaps but why is it that in England we are all so keenly alive to the perception of this beauty in nature? Is it not, in part at least, because where formerly one person moved from his home, ten thousand do now. The railway carries them to every beautiful point of scenery in places which they select on its very account. The sea-shore is crowded, and no place on it so much as where there is a rich variety of rock and wave. The lake scenery in England and in Scotland, the wild coasts of the west of Ireland, the Pyrenees, Switzerland, the Rhine are all thronged, year by year, with multitudes of pilgrims after the beautiful, from a class wherein formerly there was little or no appreciation of it ; and they re- turn, no doubt, with their minds impressed with finer feelings ; and gradually those impressions must deepen and widen, until we may hope to find their whole minds richly impregnated with the most wholesome sentiments with thoughts of a more solemn character than the appreciation and love of mere nature ; that admiration being directed to the greatness and power of its Author and Creator. Whether we shall arrive at training the SCIENCE AND ART. 31 popular taste to understand that form of Art which records historical actions, remains yet to be seen. It is certain that if we do wish this Art to be understood and relished, we must provide means for bringing it more within the reach of those whom we desire to instruct.* * We have not done anything like even what\ foreign nations have, in seconding and directing the public taste. The great modern works of Art which should interest the public are shut up from them. There is little opportunity, even in our largest and most educated cities, of seeing large paintings and great works of Art. The number of artists who can undertake them is necessarily small ; but if the demand for that highest Art increases, no doubt plenty of genius will come forth from this country, to be able to satisfy all the wants of artistic progress in every part of the kingdom. The ancients built porticoes almost on purpose to afford public, yet sheltered, wall-space for * Ten people in England can form a judgment on the merits of a Gothic building, for one who could pronounce accurately on a classical one. This arises from familiarity with good specimens of the one style, ancient and modern, and the want of it, with good models, of the other. 32 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN seriescs of paintings. Augustus did this, when he rebuilt the old Septa, or voting-pens, in Rome.* At Munich similar opportunity has been afforded for frescoes. Even covered bridges, like that of Lucerne, have served as ground for the exercise of Art. Cloisters and cemeteries have similarly served it ; not to speak of chapels, churches, domes and ceilings. In Italy every princely house contains at least one great hall (the sala), the vault of which, if not the walls, is often covered with mighty works by the greatest artists. Of all this we possess nothing; nor are we likely to see these colossal and multiplied works within the easy access of the people. Our very domestic habits would forbid it. Nor can we hope that frescoes in the Houses of Parliament, and their purlieus, will exercise any real influ- ence over the multitudes who even live in Lon- don, without ever seeing them. The Museum at Versailles has been a grand attempt to guide public taste, or rather feeling : for it is to the war-scenes, and their national glory there commemorated, not to the Art * Cicero to Atticus, 1. iv.. 1 (>. SCIENCE AND ART. 33 which immortalises them, that the national inte- rest is drawn. * There is no doubt that opportunities corre- sponding to those which I have enumerated, offer themselves abundantly in those institutions, and the edifices erected for them, which belong more strictly to our country and age. Exchanges, Halls of Commerce, Music and Lecture Halls, Scientific Institutes, even Mansion-houses or Town-halls, would easily furnish porticoes or colonnades, with their walls or vaults, and very large rooms, in which ample spaces would be found for noble pictures, analogous to the object of the building. But am I not wandering from my subject? What contact is there here between Science and Art ? A very important one, on which, however, I can only briefly touch. It is rather of a want of such needed contact that I have to speak ; for it relates to colour. Here again Art has run before Science. * It would not be fair to mention this as the only encour- agement given in France to highest Art. Any one who has visited Flandrin's works in the Church of St. Vincent of Paul, in Paris, will see how amply room, scope, and means are provided by French patronage, for pictorial works on a noble scale. 34 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN We do not know very much about ancient colours. We know they were very few, and very simple, and a certain account of them has come down to us ; but how they were mixed or applied, we know but little. This, however, is certain that after eighteen hundred years we find mural paintings still fresh, their colours as yet often even vivid generally without hav- ing altogether vanished. Coming to the first periods of modern Art, we find frescoes out of doors, on the fronts of houses, suffering, no doubt some of them dread- fully from damp and weather ; but they are still there, and there they promise to remain, at least distinguishable, for a very much longer period. Surely with the accurate knowledge we have of the chemical action of substances, one upon another, with the immense resources also that Chemistry has given us in new and beauti- ful pigments, with the power of analysing any deleterious qualities, whether in the lime or in other components of the ground on which the paintings have to be executed, there appears no reason, why we should be behind what seems to have been almost left to accident, by those older painters. We know that all the mediaeval SCIENCE AND ART. 35 artists, and those of later schools, mixed their own colours. They employed men, who some- times, from the low occupation of grinding colours for superior artists, rose to be them- selves great masters, by living among the great works, and receiving the kind assistance, of those who had taken them into their studios. Then, as they painted frescoes in villages, or country houses, for the lowest prices, we cannot doubt that they took their chance as to the qualities and preparation of their intonaco, or plaster, from the hands of ordinary masons. A few years ago, in Citta della Pieve, there was a discovery in the oratory of the Disciplinati, which Pietro Perugino painted, of some original letters, bargaining about the conditions for that beautiful work, which is quite fresh as yet ; and some of his colours were supposed to be found walled up with them ; but they were no longer distinguishable. * We know that there was nothing particular or recondite about ancient colours. They were * This was in 1835. Soon after I saw the letters, which I gave with an account of their discovery, in the Dublin Review, July 1839 republished in " Essays on various sub- jects," vol. iii., 481. D 2 36 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN what we should consider common and simple and wholly primitive. But clearly there is some- thing which we as yet want to come up to them ; and that must be supplied by Science. Science must come to the aid of Art, and answer the question : "Is there any atmo- spheric or other chemical, action in this country, which prevents our carrying out in it such public works of Art as exist in other countries?" It is not that we are unable to produce beautiful paintings, but we desire to see something pro- duced " quod et hunc in annum Vivat, et plures ," something that will go down for centuries, to show the world what Art was with us, in our times. At first sight, it appears incredible that any amount of atmospheric damp could obliterate, or evaporate, a fresco in a few years, more effectu- ally than the humidity of the soil, percolated by nearly two thousand years' rain, and piled upon, or against, a wall, has done in Pompeii. Yet this is, or threatens to be, the case here. It surely is a point on which Science should come SCIENCE AND ART. 37 to the rescue of Art, a point of friendly and useful contact. Now, suppose that, after an earnest examina- tion of this question, it should be decided that fresco painting is, and must be, a failure in our climate ; and that, moreover, all silicating, or other external, processes, are illusory, what re- mains ? There is still one resource left, the most durable and unalterable transcript of the painter's work Mosaic. So far from fearing damp, it seems to flourish in it. Nowhere has it been better preserved, in defiance of climate, than at Ravenna; not only in the city churches, but in the great church in Classe, or out of the gates, in as damp a situation as can well exist. This subject, however, has been so fully and so learnedly treated by a distinguished living artist, that I will not dwell on it, beyond borrowing a few lines from his Essay. " Mural painting/' says Mr. Digby Wyatt, "must in our climate ever have to contend with elements certain to shorten its ephemeral beauty What, then, is left us but those processes, over the most delicate and the boldest pictures produced by which, experience has proved that a thousand years may pass, ' and 38 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN steal no grace away.' "* I did not say that this was mosaic. What I desire, however, to call particular attention to is this : Dealing with mosaic, not as an architectural ornamentation, but as a durable and almost eternalizing process of paint- ing not as a surface of tesselation, but as a glowing, living picture, the chemist must be called in, to assist, or almost to create, the art. First, the mastic, in which the vitrified colour is to be sunk or embedded, must be such as to resist time, damp, and, if on the ground, the tread and stamp of countless feet. Then the gradation of colours must be minute and varied ; for every tint of every colour must proceed from its deepest to its most evanescent hue. In the great Vatican studio, the production and progression of new colours, and shades, are en- tirely in the hands of a chemist, who commands and directs the laboratories and furnaces requi- site for the work. And one must inspect " the catalogues/' or graduated specimens of colours * " On Pictorial Mosaic as an Architectural Embellish- ment." Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects, Maivh 17, 1862. SCIENCE AND ART. 39 in the workshop, to believe in the nicety of succession in each series. In all they number upwards of twenty thousand. If, therefore, we are to persevere in fresco painting, as a monumental art, chemistry must be seriously invoked to lend its almost infallible aid, to secure our great works from speedy decline y and secure them, if not immortality, at least longevity. And if Science declare itself power- less to cope with natural obstacles, and advise us to have recourse to more durable materials, it must no less lend its assistance, to compose and secure them. Before concluding this branch of my subject, let me observe, that in manufactures where colours are used, whether by dyeing or by printing, every resource of chemical science is brought into action, to secure brilliancy, perma- nence, and delicacy of contrast. The whole theory of colour, also, its gradations and sub- divisions, are carefully studied, so as to bring this application of colour to frailer textures very near to contact with decorative art.* * See Neill's " Dictionary of Calico-printing," e. g v p. G4. 40 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN Other points of contact will occur to us later ; in the meantime, I hasten forward to treat, though hurriedly, of Sculpture. IL SCULPTURE. Sculpture has certain disadvantages compared with Painting. First, in the total absence of colour. For, colour not only gives great beauty, but also lends great assistance, to a work of Art, in producing effects almost to illusion. Another disadvantage is the absence of backgrounds, and of accessories, which afso help to carry the eye away from any small defect in the principal objects of the picture. And besides that, it is not capable of combining a large number of figures, brought together in a common action. A group of even three is rare, and is often con- sidered a triumph of Art in Sculpture, as were Gibson's well-known early pieces of classical sculpture. One like the "Dirce," into which several large figures enter, is almost a prodigy. The artist, therefore, selects a subject si it'- SCIENCE AND ART. 41 ficiently expressed by one or two figures, and concentrates his entire thought and skill on that small compass, knowing that the eye will be entirely and undistractedly occupied upon them, with no false light nothing but the pure light of heaven, to give him shadow. Then his work must exhibit, not surface artificially simulating projections or curves, but natural fulness and roundness of the forms he represents; and has to be accurate and correct, not on one side only, but on all ; so that all parts shall combine mid harmonize one with another, from whatever point they are seen. But having thus once taken his stand against these disadvantages, the sculptor holds the power of the most noble and glorious performances. He can give form with all completeness of beauty, and expression with all the depth of sentiment ; without any danger of the mind's being led astray, or distracted, from that which he expressly intends it to contemplate. His is, in truth, a most noble art. He deals almost exclusively with all that has grandeur or beauty in the supremest of earthly beings. And then, as he works, he feels that what proceeds from his hands, so far as aught human can be, is UNIVERSITY 42 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN durable it is perennial it is immortal. It hands down the likeness of a great man, or the performance of a great deed, unimpaired, as a monument, or a lesson, to the latest posterity. I Let us now ask, What are its contacts with Science ? The first that I will name is one, we may say, almost with pure mathematics. From the time of Michelangelo, though undoubtedly the feeling is much more ancient, there has been an expression of the thought, that the human figure is perfect in its proportions, and that those proportions must have a law. Further fctudy, perfected in our days, has shown this to be truly the case; that the whole of the human figure is ruled by lines, the angles of which are all harmonic so musical, that they ; may be represented as tonic, and mediant, and I dominant, and in fact by all other proportions of the vibrative string ; therefore, that there is in the proportions of the human frame a har- / mony a true complete harmony. Besides these harmonic angles, the curves which circumscribe V subdivisions possess this quality no less than the angles. But further still, it is interesting to find, that the curve which dominates through the wonder- SCIENCE AND ART. 43 ful structure of man should be that curve which rules the heavens, the ellipse ; so that we may say, that the figure which circumscribes the great movements of the celestial sphere also binds, and contains within itself, all the graceful action and the sublime expression of the human frame and countenance. This system has been popu- larised in a very able and simple exposition by a physician, Dr. Symonds, who brings these principles very clearly into a narrow compass. * And here a thought suggests itself naturally to ii reflecting mind, which permit me to express. The coincidences which have been described exist only in man, and in his upright frame ; they will fit no inferior creature, even when casually or momentarily erect. The proportions of the chord, whose vibrations produce harmo- nies, perfect or imperfect, but musical the curves which regulate the measured, stately dance of the celestial bodies, meet here without any natural connection ; they link themselves to- gether in man, and combine to give the laws of his form. Surely they thus constitute him the in- * "The Principles of Beauty," by John A. Symonds, M.D. Lond., 1857. Drawn, as to this portion of his work, from 31 r. Hay's writings. 44 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN tellectual centre of this great system, and show him to us as holding the principal place in a harmonious and uniformly connected plan, formed by a transcendent creative wisdom. Let me now proceed to say a few words upon what is acknowledged to form a necessary con- nection between Sculpture (and no less Painting) and Science ; a study on which it is not neces- sary to go into details ; and I shall therefore treat it very briefly. I mean Anatomy. It is clear that, for either sculpture or paint- ing, the human figure must be studied and well mastered ; so that, without a knowledge of /This, no one can ever arrive at the exercise of superior Art. When we look at the highest ancient Grecian sculpture, we are startled by singular contrasts. I will keep the Elgin marbles in my eye in what I am saying, be- cause everybody must be more or less familiar with them. You observe, then, there, a striking contrast. You see heads of magnificent placidity and grandeur of organisation, heads of surpass- ing intellectuality, yet united to bodies appa- rently of exaggerated muscularity, and salient framework. There were two types clearly familiar to the Grecian artist ; and, we may SCIENCE AND ART. 45 assume, under his daily observation : so that it is difficult to say whether we can even truly realise them. From whom could come the ideal of those marvellous heads ? Go into the great museum of Rome or Naples, and mark the grand serenity of Sophocles, or jEs- chines, or Demosthenes ; trace this type through the multitude of philosophers, poets, and orators, whose statues or busts yet remain until the climax, the culminating point, is reached in the sublime beauty of Plato. Such heads were familiar objects ; they belonged to men of thought ; they may have thought wrong ; their philosophy was, no doubt, erroneous but they were men that thought and felt deeply upon it, who lived, in fact, for nothing else. The type of their class was impressed upon their countenances ; so much so, that if you go through any museum, it will not be difficult at once to recognise the bust of a philosopher or a poet of ancient Greece, among a number re- presenting men of any other caste. Such are the heads which you see prevalent in its highest Art the intellectual model developed beyond what we ordinarily see, in our days of hard labour and varied active pursuits. 46 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN Next we contemplate the athletic body, and conclude that its powerful action exhibits the familiar effects of gymnastic training. I speak under correction ; but I hardly think it can be entirely so, in such characters as are represented by the figures alluded to. We are prepared to find this result in the repre- sentation of their wrestling matches, their chariot races, or their combats in the amphithe- atre. There, of course, you will expect to see a bodily development, which we can never expect to witness. But we cannot imagine that great masters saw nothing more than this out- ward and shallow appearance, in those terrible exhibitions, which formed no doubt the unenvi- able school of ancient Art- I believe that what the Grecian sculptor knew how to seize, and alone had the opportunity of seizing, was the result of such deep, such unnatural emotions, as, acting outwards from the nobler organs, impressed themselves in that wonderful way, on their ex- terior covering. To illustrate my meaning, let me endeavour to put a scene before you. The ancient Romans, especially the lower orders, including the slaves, were very fond of sketching upon the walls of SCIENCE AND ART. 47 the ante-rooms (as at Pompeii) such scenes as interested them most ; and the greater part of them represent battles of gladiators. These stood in the place of horse-racing, with us ; and the people commemorated evidently, and discussed every event of the amphitheatre, as now-a-days they take an interest in what they would have considered, our less-exciting pastime. These " scratchings" (graffiti), as they are called by Father Garrucci, present to us a class of very rude, but very interesting monuments. One of them records a peculiar occurrence. It is indeed only a battle in the amphitheatre, but it is between two men in very different positions ; the names of the combatants are given, as they always are, and numbers over their heads tell you how many victories each one had achieved in other words, how many public murders he had committed. This battle, then, is between Spiculus, a tyro that is, one who had never be- fore fought, and Aptonetus, librarius, or holding a high office among the gladiators a man who had gained sixteen victories. The first one has over him the letter V (vicit, he conquered) ; the other, P (periit, he perished). In fact, the old gladiator, with the sixteen laurels that he 48 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN had won, is lying on the ground wounded to death, or dead ; and the youth who has dared to flesh his sword in that old veteran, is alive, and holding his point towards him, perhaps to dispatch him.* Imagine, if you can, the meet- ing of two such men, without, of course, a par- ticle of moral or noble feeling in their com- position; of men who only looked to gaining fame, by the number of murders which they should commit. Imagine the feelings of those two particular men, approaching to meet each other, with the eyes of fifty thousand specta- tors intent upon them : the one, the old, well- experienced fighter, who is indignant at the idea * " Les Graffiti de Pompeii/' par le Pere Garrucci, S. J., Paris, 1856, p. 72, Atlas, plate xiii. This custom of scratch- ing records on the walls, more durable than pencillings, was very general. Most interesting examples have been found in the recent excavations on the Aventine, some of which I gave in a paper published by the R.S.L. ; but by far the most valuable are those in the cemetery, or catacomb, of Callistus, discovered by De Rossi. Individual pilgrims of early ages can be traced by them from tomb to tomb ; be- sides, some of more general interest, which have served as clues for discovering lost chambers of that subterranean labyrinth. For example, the resting-place of the martyr- pontiff Sixtus was suggested by these words scratched in the plaster near a blocked-up door: SANCTR SUSTK, OKA TJ:<> ME. SCIENCE AND ART. 49 that a stripling like that should have presumed to cope with him, and challenge him to mortal combat ; and the other, feeling that if he can carry off those sixteen laurel crowns upon his sword, he will be sung through all Rome, and celebrated, as those men unfortunately were, by public statues and pictures.* See them ap- proaching one another ; it is a matter of life or death ; one must fall ; one must die. And in that deep silence of the amphitheatre, when even the breath is bated or suppressed by the spectator, they are drawing near with all the caution of a wild beast, that desires not to be seen or heard by the prey, upon which it is going to spring. Yet each of them has boiling in his breast such a storm of passion as we can hardly imagine. What hatred, in that determined resolve to kill as quick as possible his adver- sary and rival ! What a tumult of wicked mur- derous passion, yet struggled against, by violent repression, to secure coolness, as necessary in that * A vast hall in the Lateran Palace, now a museum, is paved by a rich mosaic floor, entirely representing full- length portraits of celebrated athletes, with their names, each framed in his separate compartment. What a degrada- tion of Art ! 50 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN tremendous crisis, filled those breasts, far beyond our power of conception ! No shaking of hands before fighting, as with the skilful contenders in the ring ; it is a battle to death, in the presence of the whole city. Can you not conceive how those hearts throbbed and beat, almost audibly ; how those lungs dilated themselves convulsively to breathe, to their full expansion ; how both these powerful organs, in their, vital struggles, would almost force out the bony framework of the chest ; how the muscles which were thus quickened would twist themselves into knotted cords, and every vessel that fed them would be gorged with a burning stream, and visibly pal- pitate to the eyes of the entire audience ? And by this violent exertion of the nobler organs, and the concurrent intensity of mental determination, would not a corresponding direction, and almost superhuman vigour, be given to the thews and sinews interested in carrying out the brutal in- stinct (as in mania, or in sudden catastrophes, where powers unknown or dormant are elicited), so as to impart to even secondary parts, sudden and transient development, swelling and tempering them to steel, for onlv one tremendous moment. SCIENCE AND ART. 51 And then, when the swords clash for an instant, and all those evil passions are more thoroughly concentrated, the blow is scarcely seen ; one gleam, as of lightning, flashes, when the swords cross, and one falls a corpse to the ground, or may have to receive still his death-blow from the other. It is impossible to imagine deep- seated, violent emotions under any other circum- stances, that could come near to these, or to study their effects upon the human form equally, under any other circumstances. Yet these were frequently witnessed, and no doubt accurately noted by the keen eye of the sculptor. He had not indeed the opportunity, re- collect, that artists have now of studying calmly the muscles of the human body, upon the dissected corpse, or even upon casts taken from it. For Galen himself was obliged thus to study the ape,* in order to come to his approximating knowledge of human anatomy. Thus the processes of learning in ancient and in modern Art are in part reversed. The Greek or Koinan arrived at the knowledge of the interior construction of the figure by what he saw without ; the modern may learn directly what is concealed by the * Whcwell's " History of the I. S.," vol. Hi., p. 392. E 2 52 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN outward integuments, and represent its external action. Hence the ancients naturally observed every minute visible change in the human frame ; and for contemplating those which our civilization never brings before us the effects of violent, inhuman passion upon it they had, un- happily, too many opportunities.* We may indeed be grateful, and thank heaven, that never again, where the Christian name has penetrated, will there be such a school of Art, or opportunity of arriving at its perfection ; if in this it consist, or by these means alone it has to be attained. Among sciences perfectly modern, the con- tact of which with both branches of representa- tive Art is greatly desirable, allow me to men- tion Ethnography. It classifies the different types of races and of nations, and at the same time pays attention to the habits, manners and customs of different countries. * This topic might be much further illustrated than it could be incidentally in this lecture. Canova's pugilists in Rome, compared with the Grecian works alluded in the text, would show the marked distinction between the de- velopment of muscular strength by training, learnt and copied from models, and that might which only strong emotion can produce, as witnessed under their influence. SCIENCE AND ART. 53 Begun as a subject of study, having its own interests, and without the least reference to Art, this most important science endeavoured to divide mankind into distinct families, chiefly by the two characteristics of language and of form. Not only the shape of the skull, but the colour of the skin, the texture of the hair, the angles of the eyes, the setting of the limbs, have been taken into calculation in this inquiry. Nay, as I have intimated, the manner of life, in cities, kraals, tents or waggons, the clothing and its decorations, and the artificial disfigure- ments of the person, receive their due weight in reaching accurate conclusions. The ancients, from Aristotle downwards, could not be insensible to those characteristic distinc- tions; nor were they forgotten in Art. In even Egyptian and Assyrian monuments we can dis- tinguish natives from foreigners by their physical varieties, as well as by their attire. The Greeks probably would make the same distinction, when- ever they condescended to introduce bar- barians into their paintings. And in sculpture, the Phrygian or Persian is distinguished most markedly by his costume, features, &c.* * Even in the catacombs this distinction is preserved ; as, 54 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN But in revived Art this was but little attended to. The swarthy and wiry inhabitants of the desert would be represented as fair and plump, and richly draped, as the most civilized and courtly member of the Caucasian family. We behold, in most solemn scenes, as king or magistrate, a turbaned Mussulman merchant caught on the Eialto, or a portly burgomeister who ruled over the destinies of some Dutch village. This will no longer do. The exacter study of national types, and a more popular acquaint- ance with them, through greater intercourse, make accurate truthfulness more necessary, in proportion as it is accessible. And it is gratify- ing to see attention to this point manifestly growing; and not only the human form, and its appurtenances, but the vegetation and peculi- arity of rock and soil, made matter of con- scientious study, in treating a subject belonging to other climates, and other ages. As to Sculpture, the Exhibition which has just closed presented two remarkable statues in the Roman court, in which this study has been for example, in the painting of SS. Abdon and Sennen. Persians, in the cemetery of Pontianus. SCIENCE AND ART. 55 carefully attended to. I allude to Mr. Storey's Cleopatra, and African Sibyl; in both of which the artist (an American) has endeavoured to preserve the national type of the Egyptian features, but at the same time to impart the character and expression of more classical models. I believe we may consider that the effort was successful, and embodied a happy thought, realized in sculpture for the first time. I have spoken of a great science in Ethno- graphy; but surely -the artist ought to be ready to descend lower; and to take lessons from Science, of whatever character. It may be vulgar, if you please ; but one must get at truth, when scenes have to be represented, as must some- times be, in which even, by way of contrasts to what is noble and grand, lower and more homely have to be introduced. We have a worthy example of this artistic condescension in Schiller, who certainly was a word-painter, if ever there was one. Two of his ballads represent such scenes. One of them, the beautiful and touching story of " Fridolin " (Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer), has its scene partly laid, in iron-works with a burning furnace. These he describes in words noted on 56 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN the spot. We are told that he went to them and studied them; he saw exactly what he describes, and he did not consider it beneath him, to examine minutely the operation which he wished to put in verse. But there is another, a more noble, and perhaps better known ballad of his, which has gained him immortality that is, "the Song of the Bell;' 7 imitated by Longfellow, in his " Building of the Ship." It may present itself to our imagination as a double chain, interchangeably winding round each other the one of gold, and the other of silver ; so that first one of the strands, and then the other, comes before the eye. For in it he- describes very exactly the process by which the bell is cast, from beginning to end. But with this he blends, in alternate stanzas, the uses to which the bell will be put, in peace and in war, in religion and in crime, in gladness and in sorrow, in public and in domestic life. There could not be a more exquisite piece of work than this ; and not the smallest portion of its beauty consists in the extreme accuracy with which the more technical part of it is managed. He has made it so perfect, that you might almost cast a bell from his account ; yet there SCIENCE AND ART. 57 are certainly few poems which give a ground- work for more beautiful pictures.* A great poet, then, was not above studying common subjects, or the mechanical operations of practical Science, when he had to introduce them into his verses. Why should not an artist be of the same mind, despising nothing which can give reality or truth to what he represents ? I fear I may not have interested you as much as I wish ; so I will venture to illustrate what I have suggested, on the humble conde- scending of Art, to learn from meaner pursuits, by two anecdotes, one relating to Sculpture, and the other to Painting. And if they descend rather from the dignity of my subject, you will at least allow that they are very practical exemplifications of it. A friend of mine, many years ago, told me in fact I was in Home at the time that he had brought with him an English servant, who knew nothing upon earth of Art in any branch, and, though very honest and faithful, was per- fectly stolid on that subject. In fact, there was only one topic on which he was considered * A large and beautiful engraving, illustrative of the song, has been made by Schleich from designs by Nielson. 58 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN to be what is called "knowing," that was, one instinctive to men of his county (for he was from Yorkshire), hippology, or the science of horses. His master took him through the Vatican Museum; as he went along, he looked at things with the most unmeaning eyes, until they came to the Sala della Biga, in the centre of which beautiful rotunda is a most perfect model in marble of an ancient chariot, drawn by two horses, running evidently at full speed, with distended nostrils and dishevelled manes, whether in battle or in the race. "Now," said my friend to his attendant, "look at these two horses, and tell me what you think of them/' He was delighted, he bright- ened up immediately, and just as if his master had told him to buy a pair of horses at some fair in Holderness or Craven, he set about his commission most scientifically. He patted kindly their marble necks and flanks, stroked gently their stony coats, and examined them round and round at all points. " Now," asked his master, " what do you say to those horses ? " " Why, sir, that is a splendid animal ; I don't think much of t'other." Now, he had just hit the right thing ; the first was the antique, the SCIENCE AND ART. 59 ancient horse, and the other the modern re- storation. There was truly a scientific test applied, and probably no connoisseur, or even artist, would have come so well out of the difficulty. My other illustration applies to Painting. In the late Manchester Exhibition there was a very large picture, which I believe was a fresco by Lattanzio Gambara, of Brescia (1541-74), cut out of a wall, representing the death of Absa- lom. On one side, the young Jewish prince was represented as hanging by his hair from the branches of an oak ; and, on the other, the mule which he had been riding, was galloping away, looking scared and wild. An acquaintance of mine was looking at this picture, when two men came up, who evidently belonged to the same profession as our former critic, no doubt equally versed in all equine topics. They gazed upon it for some time in silence, when one of them broke out with an exclamation which startled my friend to attention. "Well, he thoroughly deserves it!" "Why so?" "Why, what a stupid fellow he must have been, to think of riding such a vicious brute as that with nothing but a snaffle ! " You see that neither the sculptor nor the 60 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN painter, in these instances, should have been above getting the opinion of some one who, although no artist, could give him scientific in- formation on any matter wherein he was practi- cally versed. May we not say, that no equestrian statue should ever be executed, and set up as a public monument, without its model having been as carefully examined, by a professional judge, as is a valuable horse before it is pur- chased? The public exhibition by Apelles of a great picture, on which every one was at liberty to make his remarks, and to point out, first defects, and then excellencies, was, to judge from the proverb to which it gave rise,* intended * " Sutor ne supra crepidam !" i( Let not the shoemaker go higher than the sandal." As Pliny tells the story, a shoe- maker, examining the picture, remarked, that there was a loop too few in the inside of the Greek sandal (crepida), which was fastened by thongs. Next day, proud of having discovered a real defect, he ventured to criticise something in the leg ; when Apelles indignantly leapt from behind the panel, where he had been secretly listening to all fault- finders, and addressed the presumptuous craftsman in the words quoted, which became proverbial in Greek and Latin. (H. N. L., xxx., 10.) We have totally destroyed the point and history of the proverb, by substituting last for sandal. As to equestrian statues, there was a celebrated dispute, I believe, whether an eminent sculptor had not re- presented wrong, the order of motion in the horse's feet. SCIENCE AND ART. 61 to elicit such professional remarks upon acces- sories, on which a painter could not well be supposed to be fully instructed. This denoted the sincere desire of a truly great artist to be minutely accurate. Our conclusion, in fact, must be, that a great artist not only should despise no branch of know- ledge, but should endeavour to acquire every variety of it. If I remember right, Mr. Ruskin has observed, that a painter should be a man of universal learning. This is what Cicero has said of the finished orator ; and can hardly be less true of the artist. The higher and more varied the education he can receive, the more extensive the learning which he acquires, the more it will assist him in his artistic pursuits, to attain truth in copying nature, and reality in depicting life. " Ut pictura poesis as painting so is poetry," says the Roman critic, who adds, " Ego nee studium sine divite vena, Nee rude quid possit video ingenium ; alterius sic Altera poscit opem res, et con jurat amice." * * "I see not what, without true genius, study, Nor genius without study, can effect. Each needs each; both, when hand in hand, will thrive." HORACE, A. P. 409. 62 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN III. ARCHITECTURE. In proceeding to address you, as concisely as possible, on Architecture, it may seem superfluous to observe, that it obviously divides itself into two branches the purely artistic, and the con- structive or scientific. If on the one side it seems to descend towards the class of mechanical pursuits, on the other it rises so high as to command its other two sisters, and to be almost necessary for their perfect ex- istence. I have sufficiently intimated, that one great difference between ancient and modern Art, including Mediaeval Art under the first division, consists in this that ancient Art was public, and modern is private. Galleries of Sculpture were anciently unknown ; its most matchless pieces were in temples or in public halls, such as those of baths, or in open gardens perhaps adorning fountains ; but generally accessible to the most plebeian eye. For this end great public build- ings were necessary, and in former ages were ever amply provided. But this very circum- stance shows how Architecture is in the highest SCIENCE AND ART. 63 sense a Fine Art, and must always necessarily grow, as such, commensurately with the ad- vancement of the other two branches of the Arts of Design. The treasures of Sculpture which England pos- sesses are undoubtedly the Elgin Marbles. Yet what were they but subordinate to the building which they adorned? The sculptor limited and compressed his superb metopes to fit into archi- tectural spaces designed and commanded by the architect, and lengthened his frieze (by, to him perhaps, tedious repetition) to the measures and proportions prescribed to him. But, more won- derfully still, the sublime artist shaped, and bent, and cut off portions of his splendid figures, though finished as carefully on the shoulders as on the chest, and even where the projecting cornice must have hidden their beauties, so as to fit and adapt them to the slopes of the tympanum ; till they diminished to the emerging heads of Aurora's steeds heads that make us fancy he must have almost felt indignant at not being allowed room for equally matchless bodies. But how could such an artist have lent himself to the adornment, or rather the work, of such a building, unless he had felt it to be worthy of him? How could his 64 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN genius have bowed and adapted itself to any but a kindred, and avowedly equal, one? It was neces- sary indeed that Architecture, in its artistic cha- racter, as capable of satisfying and gratifying the eye, should have been on a level with Sculpture, to have so secured its confidence, co-operation, and almost subordination, through the very master- pieces of its skill. And the same must be said of Painting. With few, and not perfectly successful, exceptions, we are content with easel paintings to hang upon the walls of private houses or even of galleries. The latter, indeed, as public buildings, ought to give ample scope to Architecture, and at Florence or Munich they have done so. But in most countries chance buildings have been adapted or adopted, to give a home to Pictorial Art.* Yet, as I have * In Rome there is no gallery of paintings, properly so called; the two public collections date from a recent period. The writer remembers the small but invaluable one in the Vatican, in four different parts of the palace. The hall which the principal pictures occupied before the last change to a warmer and brighter position, from having sun, is being covered by Podesti with immense frescoes. But the great rooms and corridors, painted by Raffaele and his scholars, are open to the public, peasant as well as noble. And these are where they were painted ; a nobler gallery could not well be built or becomingly furnished. SCIENCE AND ART. 65 already observed, Painting on a great scale, and for public instruction, requires great wall-spaces, expressly provided for it by the architect. And now, considering Architecture, in its first aspect, as a Fine Art, I may repeat what I have said of the human figure ; for the proportions and parts of its perfect productions are no less tonic or musical ; lines and angles there being here no curves are reducible to the same harmonic scale. The Parthenon, that grandest of classical edi- fices, which was considered by the greatest of sculptors worthy of being adorned by his chisel, lias been most accurately measured in all its parts by an English architect, sent expressly for this purpose. It is upon his measurements that the reduction has been made ; and it has been found that all the lines and angles in it are harmonic or tonic, without a jar or dissonance among them, so that musical chords could be constructed from its proportions. The same treatment has been applied to Lincoln, and later to Salisbury, cathedral ; and it has been ascer- tained no less that all the angles (being much more angular buildings, of course, than the Grecian one) have the same properties, and are V 66 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN reducible to similar principles. These coinci- dences show that, though no doubt the men who designed and built those great edifices had no idea of the science which they obeyed, they had it in their eye they had it in their feeling; so that when Science came in, and tested their work, she verified and found it strictly according to its rules. * Nowhere, however, does Science come so directly into contact with Art as in the con- structive element of Architecture. And this in two ways: The first is in the selection and even the preparation of materials. Where experience has not fully guaranteed the material proposed for a building, or a new one is to be preferred, the decision of its value or fitness clearly belongs to Science. This was acknowledged, and acted upon, when this nation resolved to erect an edifice which might be considered as its Capitol a monument not national, but European, to its constitutional principles arid life. No expense * See Dr. Symonds's work quoted above, p. 23 ; from Mr. Hay's ''Orthographic Beauty of the Parthenon," 1853. SCIENCE AND ART. 67 was to be spared ; competition led to the selection of a consummate architect, with a splendid design : its exterior was to be en- crusted with sculpture ; its interior enriched with paintings; so as to make it more than a museum not a collection of past, but a record of present, Art. The first step, in proceeding to execute this magnificent idea, was to secure its solidity and permanency. Most wisely, therefore, a commis- sion was formed, comprising, besides architects, eminent men of Science, geologists and chemists, who were to select the best stone for the building. The Dolomite, or Magnesian Lime- stone, which had proved so durable in the Jermyn Street Museum, was selected to be taken from the Bolsover Quarries, in Notting- hamshire. But the recommendation made by the scientific men was not carried out ;* another * In one important respect, however, the scientific recom- mendation was based upon error. It was supposed by Sir II. de la Beche, that York, Beverley, and Ripon Minsters were built of Dolomite ; whereas they were constructed of " Yorkshire stone." (Sir R. I. Murchison, in " Report of Commission, 1861," 471.) A further mistake was, that Southwell Church, the Norman carvings of which are intact, was built with Bolsover stone. This fact, however, on which F 2 68 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN stone was selected. The following answer, in an examination before a later committee, is like a key to the whole result : " We (the builders) did not look at the stone with the eyes of chemists, we looked at it as builders.'^ Stone more convenient for building with, as being better stratified, but from the same range of rock, was preferred ; and what has been the result ? A new commission had to be issued in 1861, to examine into the causes of the rapid decay, which has attacked and gnawed the stone-work of that splendid building, on every side. Nega- tive results have been easily obtained. Not elevation, nor exposure, not proximity to the fetid river, not aspect towards the pottery-smoke of the opposite bank no distinguishable circum- stance which can give a clue to particular chemical or mechanical action, in atmosphere or weather, has been yet determined on, as an adequate cause of this natural dilapidation. Melancholy, indeed, is the Report issued of the actual condition of things. It is too long much stress is laid, is subject, at least, to grave doubts. (See Appendix to Report, p. 100.) * Ib., p. 19. See Report, p. 7. SCIENCE AND ART. 69 to quote. Suffice it to say, that signs of decay manifested themselves in seven years after the building commenced, and even much earlier opposite Henry Vllth's chapel ; that it cannot be accounted for by exposure to the weather, being worst in sheltered situations ; and that the mischief yet in store, and not apparent, is very considerable.* Chemical expedients have been recommended, and are being tried ; to give an artificial hardness to the decaying stones, and arrest, by surface-washes, the disin- tegration of solid rock. Is it too much to say, that this example proves the desirableness of more decided and friendly contact, between Science and Art? Is it not to be feared, that they have not fully understood one another? Does it not appear that the terms of mutual correspondence were not clear and definite ; that there was no sub- ordination of one to the other, or of harmonious co-operation between them ? The necessity for this good understanding will, no doubt, be gradually better attended to. For nothing can be more wise, sensible, and straightforward, than the conclusion come to * P. v. 70 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN by the Committee, with which I will close this topic. " They " (the chemists) " recommend that a series of chemical experiments should be con- ducted, under chemical supervision for a con- siderable period of time ; and the Committee are most reluctantly compelled to coincide with them." * T have alluded to the possible case of new and untried materials for building being re- quired. In our days, this is no hypothesis. Iron has become a material, without which it is doubtful whether any future architect will be able to execute a great work. As a substitute for timber, and for the older vaulting, its place is definite and indisputable. Can it become a manageable material for decorative art, and so an architectural resource ? Why not ? It is, no doubt, inferior in estimation, and in the value-order of metals, to bronze or copper. Yet it is gradually usurping one of the hitherto exclusive offices of those richer substances, by emulating their sonorousness. Steel is beginning to rival and supplant the costlier material in the bell. Iron is more abundant, more gene- * P. viii. SCIENCE AND ART. 71 rally understood, and, above all, more accessi- ble and economical.* Its affinity for oxygen, and consequent fa- cility of corrosion, is yet its greatest defect. But if we intend to have artistic buildings mul- tiplied, and consequently require a manageable material, to be employed on a wide scale ; if casting in metal will be found an easier pro- cess for multiplication of good models than carv- ing in stone : then Chemistry will come to assist Art in preparing the new material desired. The beautiful specimens which Berlin has ex- hibited of iron manufacture, possessing all the deli- cacy of precious metal work, -show the perfect fusibility of the coarser material, whether ob- tained by the addition of phosphorus and arsenic, or by a more careful purification. And after chemistry has thus enabled iron to attain the sharpness of bronze, she will easily veil it with a coating of some metal exempt from the same avidity for oxygen, not to disguise po- verty, but for the legitimate end of preserva- tion. * The drinking-fountains of the metropolis have given examples, not very favourable ones, of artistic applications of iron. 72 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN The second point in constructive Architecture, where it is not merely in contact with Science, but becomes a part of it, is in the adjustment of weight and support the balancing of the parts of the building. Looking anywhere at the first stages of Archi- tecture, we are astonished at the massiveness of their construction, at the immense thickness of their walls and pillars. We find this character in the old Grecian ; we find it in the Roman ; we find it in the Etruscan; and later we find it in the Norman, or Roman, style, as it is called in some parts of Europe. We have huge supports sustaining indeed great masses, but far beyond the exigencies of the case. We admire this ponderous solidity very much now ; but in reality it is probably the result of timidity or ignorance. The early builders could not calcu- late the proportion requisite between superin- cumbent weight and its just support ; and they erred on the right side, by providing super- abundant strength, to carry their intended burthen. We observe how, by degrees, every architecture becomes slimmer and lighter, as ex- perience has brought these proportions to test ; hence, after the Doric comes the Ionic, then v>v SCIENCE AND ART. 73 get to the Corinthian, and, at last, to the Compo- site. In like manner we pass from the Norman, through intermediate stages of pointed architec- ture, to the Flamboyant or Decorated. Remarkable evidence remains, how the heavier construction of remoter periods was not based upon any accurate calculation of ratio between support and weight ; but that the first went mucli beyond the demands of the second. In several churches we surprise, in a manner, the archi- tects of the sixteenth century, in the act of altering the old-fashioned Norman arch into the pointed, and the round massive piers into slen- der clustered columns; thus cutting out masses of sustaining material, without apprehension of inse- curity. This is the case at Ripon, where the chancel-arch has been entirely transformed on one side ; and at St. Alban's, where a few years more of ecclesiastical peace would have seen the entire church so changed. At the period of decay in Roman architecture, as in the churches built by Gall a Placidia, at Ravenna, we find the expedient adopted, of con- structing the vaults with terra-cotta hollow cylinders, which, simulating solid masonry, gave extreme lightnes.s to the supported structure, 74 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN yet have proved durable enough to stand till now intact. I do not know that I can better illustrate this portion of my subject, or give a more striking instance of intervention most salutary, because uncontrolled, of Science, in a matter which belongs so essentially to Architecture, than that which occurs in the history of St. Peter's in Rome. You are aware, of course, and I need not therefore describe it, what a matchless edi- fice is the dome of St. Peter's. Its shape every one can understand who has seen that of St. Paul's, in London ; though the proportions are a great deal more grand. It was the crowning work of Michelangelo, though afterwards there was superadded a lantern, which did not enter into his plan, but added materially to the original weight. There is a popular idea current, that Michel- angelo made the huge piers, on which the dome had to rest, so exactly proportioned to the weight they had to bear, that he even made a dying request, that they should never be touched ; that they were afterwards perforated to make some staircases and niches, and that the conse- quence was, that the whole dome was threatened SCIENCE AND ART. 75 with ruin. All this is incorrect, as I will show you just now. It is not likely that Michel- angelo, whose characteristic was massiveness to excess, would have so offended. But in addi- tion, it deserves to be mentioned, that at the time when he built these piers, a commission was appointed, of which I believe Raffaele was a member, to examine them; and that their re- port was, that the piers should be still further strengthened. Immensely deep wells were accord- ingly sunk at their feet, and filled with Roman concrete which is the strongest, I suppose, in the world so as to give great additional support. It will be useful, to give you the exact dimen- sions, in English feet, of the great masses con- cerned in what I am about to speak of : Piers, on which the dome rests, 282 round. ( V/Wa, diameter, 141J. Circumference, about 423. Height of arches, on which it rests, from the pavement, 146.* Height of lower edge of dome, Total height to summit of lantern, * The real foundation is, of course, lower, as the piers pass through the crypt or sotterraneo, under the church. t " Rome, a Tour of Many Days," by Sir G. Head, vol. iii., pp. 223, 255. 76 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN Perhaps the greatest promise ever made by Art, and faithfully kept, was here. Michelangelo is said to have declared that he would raise the Pantheon up into the skies. These dimensions show how he kept his word. About 1681, it was observed that there were numerous cracks in various directions, through the cupola ; and great blame was thrown upon Bernini, who was accused of having made dan- gerous staircases and niches in the piers ; however, his friend and biographer, Baldinucci, produced plans of earlier date, in which these alterations were marked ; thus disproving that Bernini had been their author. He moreover speaks of the fissures then apparent as trifling. But they went on increasing. What are called in Italy seals that is, marble dove-tails, were placed across the cracks ; and these broke, or were breaking with alarming rapidity. It was evident that the work of destruction was going on ; and before the middle of the last century, it was feared that, in a few years more, the whole dome of St. Peter's might fall in. Architects came forward, to suggest various SCIENCE AND ART. 77 remedies for the threatened evil. One wanted to block up the windows, another to make great spurs or buttresses, in addition to the columns that surround the cupola, to give it strength. In truth, the whole structure would have been disfigured, by the proposed expedients ; but in reality, it was difficult to find a remedy. Benedict XIV., a most able and learned man, was Pope at the time, lie wisely observed, that this was not the busi- ness of Art, but that belonged to Science. So he named a special commission of three mathe- maticians pure mathematicians, having nothing to do with building or architecture, to examine the case. When I mention their names, scientific persons will easily understand how they were selected. At the head of the commission was Father Boscovich, a Jesuit, who had twice measured arcs of the meridian, and had published a number of works on Astronomy, on the spots on the Sun, on Optics, and many other philosophical subjects; a man, in truth, of European reputa- tion, and one of the first men in Italy who ac- cepted the Newtonian system. The other two were not Jesuits, but religious of another order. 78 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN They were the editors of what is commonly called the Jesuits' Edition of Newton, Le Sueur, and Jacquier ; men purely and exclusively scien- tific. How did they go about their work ? As scientific men would naturally do, with great care and caution, as well as ability. As they drew up a minute report of their proceedings, under the modest title of " Opinion of Three Mathematicians," f and presented it to the Pope, I have only to abridge their own account of them. It was given in at the close of 1742 ; and they commence their paper by apologising for apparently intruding into a pro- vince not their own, and pleading for their excuse the sovereign command ; showing, at the same time, how Science has properly to deal with such a matter. Their first care was to examine most minutely the entire dome, within and without, and form thus a plan of all the injuries which it had suf- fered. They give an accurate list of thirty-two distinct damages, some very severe, and running * " Parere di tre mattematiei, sopra i danni che si sono trovati nella cupola di San Pietro, sul fine dell' anno 1742." It contains diagrams, and sections, which illustrate every part of the text. SCIENCE AND ART. 79 in various directions. The stone lintels over several of the windows were split in two. And when they applied a plumb-line to the buttress- pillars round the drum, or cylinder, of the dome, these proved to be as much as over an inch, out of the perpendicular. This naturally pointed to the over-pressure of the spheroidal portion, with the lantern above, upon the drum. But our three Mathematicians were not satisfied with this simple deduction ; they carefully examined the piers to which popular judgment attributed the damage ; and they found that judgment to be erroneous. The piers were intact, and required no attention. They therefore advised that nothing should be done to them. Thus having formed the hypo- thesis of over-pressure, they proved that every phenomenon, to the slightest crack, fell into it, and was adequately explained by it, and by no other. Their next step was to verify most exactly the reality of what they had theoretically ascer- tained, by weighing, on the one hand, the mate- rials supported, and measuring, on the other, the sustaining power. I will not detain you with details, which are minutely given in the 80 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN original Memoir, but present to you the general results. Having exactly weighed measured por- tions of the materials, used in the construction of this wonderful building the stone, brick, copper, lead, and iron and then, from accurate plans, and by sound calculations, having measured the quantity of each, they found that the entire dome, with its lantern, came to the frightful weight of 165 millions of Roman pounds, or 55,245 tons. They obtain separately the weight of the gravitating portion ; and then calculate the re- sistance or supporting powers. This consisted, first, in the drum (tamburro), with its pillars thrust already out of the perpendicular; and secondly, of an iron girder, too slight for its purpose, but so embedded in the wall, that it could not be examined. They estimate, however, its tenacity, and take it into reckoning; but conjecture that it had either snapped or dilated, so as to be useless. But they thus readied the awful result that there was a balance of five million pounds, or 1,674 tons, on the side of pressure against support. The conclusion of the Mathematicians was, " that an irreparable ruin was reasonably to SCIENCE AND ART. 81 be apprehended, unless a timely and efficient remedy were applied." * We may well imagine the alarm of Rome, with its artistic population, at such an announce- ment as this ; and at hearing that this col- lapse and ruin had only been prevented so far, by an iron collar round the base of the lantern, and by the peculiar construction which united the double dome to this, so as to prevent its falling out. It is easier to find a defect, and prognosticate misfortune, than to remedy the one, or to avert the other. But the commission to the three Mathematicians was, not only to probe the evil, but also to suggest its " efficient cure," which they consequently proceeded to do. Well, what sort of a remedy did they suggest? One entirely scientific, and not a little appalling. It was to put six more solid girders round this huge periphery of 420 feet. Each, of course, was to be divided into several sections, or arcs; and where these met, each had to branch into three; and these branches proceeding from the two arcs, were to be fastened by bolts passing through sockets in them ; the bolts again being riveted * P. XXX. G 82 POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN to chains passed round the Imilding. A gigantic or Cyclopean undertaking ; for you must remem- ber that there were then and there no Nasmyth's hammers, or Birmingham rolling-mills ; so that the enormous hoops had all to be forged and shaped by hand. Of course, no sooner had this Report appeared than it was assailed in all its parts groundwork, deductions, and proposals.* To vindicate it, and reply to the objections so gravely urged, and, at the same time, give an account of further pro- ceedings in the matter, a second Memoir was drawn up by the same learned men, early in the following year. A meeting of the general com- mittee was then held, comprising architects, anti- quarians, and others. A fresh examination was made; and finally the decision of the "three ma- thematicians" was adopted, and their proposal accepted. f * Among other assailants was Lelio Cosatti. oks jare -subject to immediate recall. u a RECEIVED JAN CtRCULATION I LD21A-20OT-3/73 (Q8677slO)476-A-31 General University ot Berkele> -95m- 7, '3 7 u. c OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY