Mornings in Florence by John Ruskin
page 127 of 149 (85%)
page 127 of 149 (85%)
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the technical points in each, and such minor specialties as it may be
well, at the first time, to pass over. 1. The series begins, then, on the west side, with the Creation of Man. It is not the beginning of the story of Genesis; but the simple assertion that God made us, and breathed, and still breathes, into our nostrils the breath of life. This, Giotto tells you to believe as the beginning of all knowledge and all power. [Footnote: So also the Master-builder of the Ducal Palace of Venice. See Fors Clavigera for June of this year.] This he tells you to believe, as a thing which he himself knows. He will tell you nothing but what he _does_ know. 2. Therefore, though Giovanna Pisano and his fellow sculptors had given, literally, the taking of the rib out of Adam's side, Giotto merely gives the mythic expression of the truth he knows,--"they two shall be one flesh." 3. And though all the theologians and poets of his time would have expected, if not demanded, that his next assertion, after that of the Creation of Man, should be of the Fall of Man, he asserts nothing of the kind. He knows nothing of what man was. What he is, he knows best of living men at that hour, and proceeds to say. The next sculpture is of Eve spinning and Adam hewing the ground into clods. Not _digging_: you cannot, usually, dig but in ground already dug. The native earth you must hew. They are not clothed in skins. What would have been the use of Eve |
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