Monday, May the 4th, 2009

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Dog, Serpent, Cushion, Fruit

Bear with me while I quote once again from Fors Clavigera by John Ruskin, but this is wonderful. One's only regret is that there is no illustration of the work described.

[I]t happened that on the very day on which I published my last letter, I had to go to the Kensington Museum ; and there I saw the most perfectly and roundly ill-done thing which, as yet, in my whole life I ever saw produced by art. It had a tablet in front of it, bearing this inscription, –

“Statue in black and white marble, a Newfoundland Dog standing on a Serpent, which rests on a marble cushion, the pedestal ornamented with pietra dura fruits in relief.—English. Present century. No. I.”

It was so very right for me, the Kensington people having been good enough to number it “I.,” the thing being almost incredible in its one-ness ; and, indeed, such a punctual accent over the iota of Miscreation,—so absolutely and exquisitely miscreant, that I am not myself capable of conceiving a Number two, or three, or any rivalship or association with it whatsoever. The extremity of its unvirtue consisted, observe, mainly in the quantity of instruction which was abused in it. It showed that the persons who produced it had seen everything, and practised everything ; and misunderstood everything they saw, and misapplied everything they did. They had seen Roman work, and Florentine work, and Byzantine work, and Gothic work ; and misunderstanding of everything had passed through them as the mud does through earthworms, and here at last was their worm-cast of a Production,

From Letter V. Whitethorn Blossom