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Essays and Lectures-Part20_OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Gothic school of Pisa - Nino Pisano or any of his men (22):

On each side of a bright river he saw rise a line of brighter



palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with deep red porphyry,

and with serpentine; along the quays before their gates were riding



troops of knights, noble in face and form, dazzling in crest and

shield; horse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and gleaming



light - the purple, and silver, and scarlet fringes flowing over

the strong limbs and clashing mall, like sea-waves over rocks at



sunset. Opening on each side from the river were gardens, courts,

and cloisters; long successions of white pillars among wreaths of



vine; leaping of fountains through buds of pomegranate and orange:

and still along the garden-paths, and under and through the crimson



of the pomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the fairest

women that Italy ever saw - fairest, because purest and



thoughtfullest; trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous

art - in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in



loftier courage, in loftiest love - able alike to cheer, to

enchant, or save, the souls of men. Above all this scenery of



perfect human life, rose dome and bell-tower, burning with white

alabaster and gold: beyond dome and bell-tower the slopes of



mighty hills hoary with olive; far in the north, above a purple sea

of peaks of solemn Apennine, the clear, sharp-cloven Carrara



mountains sent up their steadfast flames of marblesummit into

amber sky; the great sea itself, scorching with expanse of light,



stretching from their feet to the Gorgonian isles; and over all

these, ever present, near or far - seen through the leaves of vine,



or imaged with all its march of clouds in the Arno's stream, or set

with its depth of blue close against the golden hair and burning



cheek of lady and knight, - that untroubled and sacred sky, which

was to all men, in those days of innocent faith, indeed the



unquestioned abode of spirits, as the earth was of men; and which

opened straight through its gates of cloud and veils of dew into



the awfulness of the eternal world; - a heaven in which every cloud

that passed was literally the chariot of an angel, and every ray of



its Evening and Morning streamed from the throne of God.

What think you of that for a school of design?



And then look at the depressing, monotonous appearance of any

modern city, the sombre dress of men and women, the meaningless and



barren architecture, the colourless and dreadful surroundings.

Without a beautiful national life, not sculpture merely, but all



the arts will die.

Well, as regards the religious feeling of the close of the passage,



I do not think I need speak about that. Religion springs from

religious feeling, art from artistic feeling: you never get one



from the other; unless you have the right root you will not get the

right flower; and, if a man sees in a cloud the chariot of an



angel, he will probably paint it very unlike a cloud.

But, as regards the general idea of the early part of that lovely



bit of prose, is it really true that beautiful surroundings are

necessary for the artist? I think not; I am sure not. Indeed, to



me the most inartistic thing in this age of ours is not the

indifference of the public to beautiful things, but the



indifference of the artist to the things that are called ugly.

For, to the real artist, nothing is beautiful or ugly in itself at



all. With the facts of the object he has nothing to do, but with

its appearance only, and appearance is a matter of light and shade,



of masses, of position, and of value.

Appearance is, in fact, a matter of effect merely, and it is with



the effects of nature that you have to deal, not with the real

condition of the object. What you, as painters, have to paint is



not things as they are but things as they seem to be, not things as

they are but things as they are not.



No object is so ugly that, under certain conditions of light and

shade, or proximity to other things, it will not look beautiful; no



object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not

look ugly. I believe that in every twenty-four hours what is



beautiful looks ugly, and what is ugly looks beautiful, once.

And, the commonplacecharacter of so much of our English painting



seems to me due to the fact that so many of our young artists look

merely at what we may call 'ready-made beauty,' whereas you exist



as artists not to copy beauty but to create it in your art, to wait

and watch for it in nature.



What would you say of a dramatist who would take nobody but




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