What I want you to see, is the
baseness and falseness of a religious state of enthusiasm, in
which such a work could be dwelt upon with pious pleasure. That a
figure, with two small round black beads for eyes; a gilded face,
deep cut into horrible wrinkles; an open gash for a mouth, and a
distorted skeleton for a body, wrapped about, to make it fine,
with striped enamel of blue and gold;--that such a figure, I say,
should ever have been thought helpful towards the conception of a
Redeeming Deity, may make you, I think, very doubtful, even of the
Divine approval,--much more of the Divine inspiration,--of
religious reverie in general. You feel, doubtless, that your own
idea of Christ would be something very different from this; but in
what does the difference consist? Not in any more divine authority
in your imagination; but in the intellectual work of six
intervening centuries; which, simply, by artistic discipline, has
refined this crude conception for you, and filled you, partly with
an innate sensation, partly with an acquired knowledge, of higher
forms,--which render this Byzantine crucifix as horrible to you,
as it was pleasing to its maker. More is required to excite your
fancy; but your fancy is of no more authority than his was: and a
point of national art-skill is quite conceivable, in which the
best we can do now will be as offensive to the religious dreamers
of the more highly cultivated time, as this Byzantine crucifix is
to you.
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