ed by
considerations that have nothing to do with Art. Hence religious
reformers are mystics, enthusiasts: this is the look of Luther, even of
the hard-headed Calvin, as seen from the Roman-Catholic side. Hence,
also, every epoch of revolution in Art seems to the preceding like an
irruption of frivolity and profanity. Christian Art would have seemed so
to the ancients; the Realism of the fourteenth century must have seemed
so to the Giotteschi and the Renaissance, to both. The term
Pre-Raphaelitism, though it seems an odd collocation to bring together
such men as Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, and Luca Signorelli, has so far
an intelligible basis, that all this period, from Giotto to Raphael,
amidst all diversities, is characterized throughout by a deference of
Art to something extraneous. It is not beauty that Fra Angelico looks
for, but holiness, or beauty as expressing this; it is not beauty that
draws Filippo Lippi, but homely actuality. It is from this point of view
that the Renaissance has been attacked as wanting in faith, earnestness,
humility. The Renaissance had swallowed all formulas. Nothing was in
itself sacred, but all other considerations were sacrificed to the
appeal to the eye. But this, so far from proving any "faithlessness,"
shows, on the contrary, an entire faith in their Art, that it was able
to accomplish what was required of it, and needed not to be bolstered up
by anything external. Mr. Ruskin wants language to express his contempt
for Claude, because, in a picture entitled "Moses at the Burning Bush,"
he paints only a graceful landscape, in which the Bush is rather
inconspicuous. But Claude might well reply, that what he intended was
not a history, nor a homily, but a picture; that the name was added for
convenience' sake, as he might name his son, John, without meaning any
comparisons with the Evangelist. It is no defect, but a merit, that it
requires nothing else than itself to explain it.

Claude depicts "an unutilized earth," whence all traces of care, labor,
sorrow, rapine, and want,--all that can suggest the perils and trials of
life,--is removed. The buildings are palaces or picturesque ruins; the
personages promenade at leisure, or only pretend to be doing something.
All action and story, all individuality of persons, objects, and events,
is merged in a pervading atmosphere of tranquil, sunny repose,--as of a
holiday-afternoon. It may seem to us an idle lubberland, a paradise of
do-nothin