214 ON TASTE IN ORNAMENTAL DESIGN. Past II. 



higher pretensions of its designs, after the manufacture was 

 transplanted to Italy, rendered it less suitable to common 

 purposes than when in the hands of the Saracens, to whom 

 Europe was indebted for the useful art of glazing earthen- 

 ware. 



Materials the most suitable for figures, as stone, terra-cotta, 

 and others, may be rendered less so by certain circumstances 

 which alter their conditions ; and not only are granite, por- 

 phyry, and other coloured stones, ill suited to sculpture, but 

 even marble, when polished, offends by its shining surface. 

 Again, the gilding of statues is injurious to their effect ; and 

 we are not surprised to find (Pliny xxxiv. 3) that the child, a 

 work of Lysippus, which Nero covered with gold, was thought 

 to be spoilt, and was therefore stript of that intrusive coat- 

 ing : and Pliny complains of a statue of Janus being " hidden 

 by the gold that covered it " (xxxvi. 5). Nor will the value 

 of any material compensate for its unsuitableness. If statues 

 of gold were really of that precious metal, they would not be 

 admirable to any but barbarians ; and the same may be said 

 of the pretended emerald figures of the gods, even had they 

 been of real stone, and not, as they were, of glass. Nothing 

 can be more meretricious than the effect of such materials ; 

 and glass is sometimes used for purposes where a more durable 

 substance is required, and where its transparency, or its re- 

 flecting surface, renders it objectionable : as in figures, large 

 colourless vases, &c. There is the same impropriety in making 

 figures of china, or glazed earthenware ; and it is only a genius 

 like that of a Luca, and the other Delia Eobbias, which could 

 compensate for the bad effect of reflection from the glazed 

 surface of their admirable bas-reliefs. They would be intoler- 

 able in works of inferior merit. And this is one of many 

 proofs that the mere fact of a talented artist having succeeded 

 in some particular method is not sufficient to justify an imita- 

 tion of it; and that judgment is necessary to prevent a blind 



