Being a study of the frescoes of Giotto
depicting the Lemoine affair
for the use of
the young students of Corpus Christi
that are still mindful of it
by John Ruskin.1
(The translation that we are following here is from the Traveller's
Editions, with the permission of M. Marcel Proust. The full edition, in
fact, begins with two chapters: "The Formulation of the Eglantine" and
"The Abjuration of the Scoundrel" comprising the whole of the first
volume, but which have been superseded by the Travellers' Edition, since
they make no mention of the Lemoine affair. The Travellers' Edition begins
at chapter III (the first of volume II of the full edition): TU IMPERIUM
REGERE, that we give here, placing however before the celebrated beginning
of "The Formulation of the Eglantine", that description of Paris, viewed
from an aeroplane, which with good reason is recognized as one of the most
perfect pieces by the master. For all the rest we have followed the
translation provided by M. Marcel Proust in the Travellers' Edition, a
translation in which ingenious misrepresentations only add a charming
obscurity to the impenetrability and mysteriousness of the text. M. Marcel
Proust however appears not to have had any idea of these
misrepresentations, because he repeatedly expresses his effusive
gratitude, in his extremely frequent notes, to a theatre director, a
telephone operator and two members of the Steeple Chase Society, for
having so willingly clarified passages that he failed to understand.)
In times that will never be seen again when the Englishman, curious to
understand the world and knowing nothing yet of sleeping cars, evening
editions and other inventions of our votive, emotive and locomotive epoch,
travelling only by aeroplane and not knowing the other West, as yet not
redeemed by M. Barthou and Beelzebub, than that which you are told about
in an old book, much less read today than the Hachette Almanac or Maurice
Duplay's last novel,2 but which you would be wrong to smile at:
"You are about to follow the path of the vulture and the track of the
scented breeze of the West", yet, in those far off times, say I, but whose
indelible memory imprinted on the labyrinthine walls of Knossos remain for
many as a benediction, the tourist, when he arrived over Paris in the
fiery rays of the setting sun that he crossed through on Wilbur's bird,3
without being any more disturbed than if it had been the incombustible and
chaste Phoenix, could for a few moments contemplate a spectacle for which
the actual possibility of a cold supper at the Terminal4
perhaps only half compensated for is disappearance.5
While at his feet, the dome of Les Invalides presented that form,
unique at the time, that later must on the azure of the Grand Canal in
Venice have married itself to the external pallor of alabaster in the
church of Santa Maria della Salute, but without any more resembling its
French mother than a common snowball imitates the golden apple of the
garden of Hesperides, the church hardly more ancient than the Sacré-Coeur
in Montmartre presented to the setting sun as if in a basket the
symmetrical sanctification of its bluish cupolas, some of which it
enveloped in glimmering orange.
The Île de la Cité, at that time full only of acacia that shook their
blonde perfumed tresses in the evening breeze, adorned with pale pink
flowers - like the nymphs on Calypso's island - did not yet present the
double grey cubes in the shape of factory chimneys known as the towers of
Notre-Dame, as if any such monument could be raised up to the glory of the
Queen of Angels by their own sons of the Devil, and if a mountain of flint
pretty near as black as a railway station has a right to be, could be
sanctified by the presence and blessed by the adoration of She of whom it
was said: "my house shall be of jasper and turquoise and my lamp shall be
the morning star". So that if, while Wilbur's bird made its majestic
descent in a vertical line, he wanted to cast a glance at the most ancient
monuments, left behind by this iron age, more coarse without doubt but
also more powerful and more grandiose, he had the Eiffel tower to his
right, thrust straight into the ground like the very javelin of Odin, that
while he saw in the sky the pale pinks of twilight close upon its iron
spear, was as if invaded already down to its base by the purple torrents
carried along by the river.
Then the aeroplane landed, an omnibus conductor asks the traveller if
he wants a connection for Austerlitz or Solférino, "because France still
remembered its glories like Athens in the days of Marathon and Venice at
the time of Dandolo" and Ruskin recommends him, after having taken some
nourishment at one of the pretty little pastry shops that line the rue
Royal "still identical at that time to one of Turner's streets, in the Rivers
of France" to come with him to see Giotto's frescoes dedicated to
the Lemoine affair.
CHAPTER II
TU REGERE IMPERIUM
Perhaps you will ask: "But what was Giotto's notion in depicting the
Lemoine affair? That is not, it seems to me, the subject I would
have chosen." The subject that you would have chosen, my dear
reader, believe me, matters little. And if in the presence of Giotto you
must interpose between his frescoes and your admiration your own pitiable
mentality of the cockney reader, believe me, it is useless your wasting
your time looking upon no matter what fresco, be it by Giotto or any other
great artist. The rightness of subjects chosen by great artists, if you
really want to think about it, from the Erymanthian boar up to Léon
Bonnat's Chauchard,6 is in the very fact that it
seems to you not the subject you would have chosen. But believe
me, that is of little importance. Whereas why the subject was an agreeable
one to Giotto is a question of incalculable importance and such that if
you have well understood it there is hardly a single piece of architecture
from Florence or Pisa or Venice worth its salt that you would not be
capable of understanding as well as me. But first of all do you know who
Giotto is?
As I told you in Laws of Fésole if you take a baked potato
and after carefully divesting it of its skin, as I suppose your parents or
in their absence your cook would certainly have shown you how to do for
those occasions when you wanted to eat one at an hour when she was not
there, and if having divested the potato of its skin you mark it in ink on
the back and precisely at the points of its relief so as not to be visible
to someone who has it placed in front of them without twisting their head
and spending a week with a stiff neck, you have the entire history of the
development of mural painting in Italy, notably Giotto's frescoes in the
Spanish chapel in Florence,*
and the mosaics representing the flowers of Paradise in St Mark's in
Venice. But to illustrate this more clearly, come with me before the first
of the frescoes that depict the Lemoine affair, we can return to the life
of Giotto afterwards. Lemoine carries out his experiment before the
advocate Lepoittevin. The advocate, mark it, not the judge, as you would
have thought. Giotto probably knew as well as you that he was a judge. And
when he wanted to portray this judge, he always had him with a
conical cap on his head as in the synagogue on the west porch of Amiens.
If you do not know that, take my word, have done with chasing round the
world in search of Giotto frescoes. Those done by no matter what coxcomb,
cockney painter from Pentonville or Trafalgar Square would have the same
effect on you. But, you say, this Lepoittevin was still a judge? That is
not Giotto's opinion. Giotto, as I think you know, was a friend of
Dante's, who was not a great friend of judges. Perhaps you would
be curious to know Dante's and Giotto's opinions of judges? But before all
that, you must notice in these frescoes something that will appear
astonishing to you at first sight. In no part of it is the diamond
represented. You probably smile and in your Darwinian mind of the cockney
reader you say to yourself that if Giotto has not painted any diamonds, it
was because he was unable to paint them, that he lacked the
skill for it. Mark my words, Giotto was as skillful in the reproduction of
no matter what as Mr Lerolle or Mr Sargent and if he did not paint
diamonds it was because he did not wish to paint them. But why,
you may ask, did Giotto not wish to paint diamonds? Wait a moment, you
will know presently. And first of all look for a moment at the figure of
Lemoine. You no doubt imagine that Giotto has given him the face of a
cheat, an unpleasant expression. Nay, Giotto has not done so. No doubt
Giotto thought ... 7
Manuscript from Cahier II.
1. This pastiche must have been written around spring 1909 because of allusions to recent events. i. The novels (plural) of Lucien Daudet, his second novel, La Fourmilière, appeared on 21 April 1909. ii. The last novel by Maurice Duplay (see below). iii. M. Barthou and "Wilbur's bird" (see below).
2. Refers to Maurice Duplay's novel Léo that the Mercure de France of 16 April 1909 announced among recent publications.
3. The "bird" of the American airman Wilbur Wright caused a
sensation on its first flight in France on 8 August 1908. On 31
December, in the presence of M. Barthou, Minister of Public Works, he
beat two records that he had established on 18 December, accomplishing a
flight of 124 kilometres 700 metres in 2 hours 20 minutes and 23
seconds, which constituted two world records for distance and duration
of flight by aeroplane. From Pau on 22 February 1909 M. Barthou flew for
five minutes with Wilbur Wright in his machine. On 17 March Wright made
three flights at the Pont-Long aerodrome in the presence of Edward VII.
From the month of July however, attention was shifted to French aviators
like Louis Blériot and Henry Farman.
The repurchase of the Ouest: allusion to the repurchase by the state
of the Ouest railway company. The articles were exchanged between the
Minister of Public Works, Barthou, and the Ouest and Orléans companies
on 31 October 1908. The following 17 December the Chamber of Deputies
adopted the scheme into law instituting the provisional network of the
Ouest.
4. Hotel situated close to the Gare Saint-Lazare.
5. An earlier state of the same paragraph (Cahier II):
"In times that will never be seen again when the traveller knows
nothing yet of sleeping cars, pillows, coverlets and other inventions of
our Ibsenesque, scenic, neurasthenic epoch, and not knowing the other
Ouest, as yet unpurchased by M. Barthou and Beelzebub, which an old
book, much less read today than the Hachette Almanac or the novels of
Lucien Daudet but in which if you pay close attention to it, you would
perhaps be wrong to smile at, if you take from its lines: "You are going
to follow the tracks of the vulture and of the scented breeze of the
West" and only move from place to place by aeroplane, when, say I, in
those already far off times but whose memory imprinted on the
labyrinthine walls of Knossos remain for certain people as a
benediction, the traveller in Wilbur's bird crossing through the midst
of the fiery rays of the setting sun with no more danger than if it had
been in the incombustible and chaste Phoenix setting down on the
threshold of the City of Lilies, he has before his eyes a spectacle for
which the actual possibility of an immediate stop at the Terminus
perhaps only partially compensates."
6. Fourth labour of Heracles to capture the Erymanthian boar, frequently depicted in Greek art. Léon Bonnat (1833 - 1922), French painter. Alfred Chauchard was the founder of the Grands Magasins du Louvre department store.
7. The manuscript is interrupted at this point.