But her chief duty of all-is to be, Herself, lovely. "That through her smocke, wrought with silk, The flesh be seen as white as milke." * Flesh, ladies mine, you observe; and not any merely illuminated resemblance of it, after the fashion of the daughter of Ethbaal.1 It is your duty to be lovely, not by candlelight, but sunshine; not out of a window or opera-box, but on the bare ground. Which that you may be,-if through the smocke the flesh, then, much more, through the flesh, the spirit must be seen "as white as milke." 2 66 18. I have just been drawing, or trying to draw, Giotto's Poverty" (Sancta Paupertas) at Assisi. You may very "Si que par oula la chemise * Fr., Lui blancheoit la char alise." Look out "Alice," in Miss Yonge's Dictionary of Christian Names, and remember Alice of Salisbury.4 was also begun at Lucca, on August 2 (see heading); apparently some portion of it had been written at Pistoia (where he was on August 6), though he returned to Lucca next day, and remained past the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15) to August 19. Compare Letter 61, § 2 (p. 485).] 1["Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, King of the Zidonians." "She painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. : see 1 Kings xvi. 31, and 2 Kings ix. 30, 33.] 2 [With § 17, compare Letter 80, § 7 (Vol. XXIX. p. 176 n.).] 3 [The plate here given (I.) is from a photograph of the fresco. For other references to the fresco and Ruskin's copy of it, see Vol. XXIII. p. xliv.; Letter 48, § 7 (below, p. 207); and Letter 76, § 9 (Vol, XXIX. p. 91). The following letter to Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh has a note first upon the same fresco, and then upon the companion fresco, "Chastity," in which Love is being driven away by Penitence : "ASSISI, 27th June, 1874. "DEAREST DR. BROWN,-1 forgot to answer you about Giotto. It is Karitas who is Poverty's bridesmaid, and she wears, herself, a crown of white roses which burn up into fire in the outer leaves. The 'Amor' is not Lust, but the Greek Eros. How Giotto, with all his common-sense, gave in at all to the monkish confusion of love with lust, I can't quite make out, but the distinction runs dreadfully fine near the edge. I suspect Giotto had seen a good deal of mischief come of even the most romantic love; God knows some other people have too. But I think you may take his Amor as that of Francesca di Rimini in Dante's view of it. "Ever your loving, in the Charitate Dei, "J. RUSKIN."] 4 [For "Alice of Salisbury," and "the reflection of her great nobleness and her great beauty," see Letter 31, § 10 (Vol. XXVII. p. 570). It is not clear what Ruskin intended to suggest by citing Miss Yonge's account of the name Alice in connexion with the words in the Romaunt of the Rose. "Char (chair) alise" means likely know the chief symbolism of the picture: that Poverty is being married to St. Francis, and that Christ marries them, while her bare feet are entangled in thorns, but behind her head is a thicket of rose and lily. It is less likely you should be acquainted with the farther details of the group. The thorns are of the acacia, which, according to tradition, was used to weave Christ's crown. The roses are in two clusters,-palest red,* and deep crimson; the one on her right, the other on her left; above her head, pure white on the golden ground, rise the Annunciation Lilies.1 She is not crowned with them, observe; they are behind her: she is crowned only with her own hair, wreathed in a tress with which she had bound her short bridal veil. For dress, she has her smocke only; and that torn, and torn again, and patched, diligently; except just at the shoulders, and a little below the throat, where Giotto has torn it, too late for her to mend; and the fair flesh is seen through, so white that one cannot tell where the rents are, except when quite close. For girdle, she has the Franciscan's cord; but that also is white, as if spun of silk; her whole figure, like a statue of snow, seen against the shade of her purple wings: for she is already one of the angels. A crowd of them, on each side, attend her; two, her sisters, are her bridesmaids also. Giotto has written their names above them—SPES; KARITAS; their sister's Christian name he has written in the lilies, for those of us who have truly learned to read. Charity is crowned with white roses, which burst, as they open, into flames; and she gives the bride a marriage gift. * I believe the pale roses are meant to be white, but are tinged with red that they may not contend with the symbolic brightness of the lilies.2 flesh which is smooth, polished (=lisse). Miss Yonge (in her History of Christian Names, p. 411, 1884 edition) explains, agreeing with other authorities, that "Alice is a corrupted form of Adeliza; the whole group of names, Alice, Adelaide, Adela, Alice, Elsie, being derived from the German Adel (=noble)."] 1 ["i.e., not Fleur-de-lys, but real lilies."-MS. note by Author in his own copy.] [For Giotto's symbolism in colour, compare Mornings in Florence, § 56 (Vol. XXIII. p. 351).] |