Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/29

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I.—NICHOLAS THE PISAN.
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drawn for you his lioness and cubs, to fix that in your minds. And beside it, I put the Lion of St. Mark's, that you may see exactly the kind of change he made. The Lion of St. Mark's (all but his wings, which have been made and fastened on in the fifteenth century,) is in the central Byzantine manner; a fine decorative piece of work, descending in true genealogy from the Lion of Nemea, and the crested skin of him that clothes the head of the Heracles of Camarina. It has all the richness of Greek Daedal work,—nay, it has fire and life beyond much Greek Daedal work; but in so far as it is non-natural, symbolic, decorative, and not like an actual lion, it would be felt by Niccola Pisano to be imperfect. And instead of this decorative evangelical preacher of a lion, with staring eyes, and its paw on a gospel, he carves you a quite brutal and maternal lioness, with affectionate eyes, and paw set on her cub.

18. Fix that in your minds, then. Niccola Pisano is the Master of Naturalism in Italy,—therefore elsewhere: of Naturalism, and all that follows. Generally of truth, common-sense, simplicity, vitality,—and of all these, with consummate power, A man to be enquired about,