taken as an example of this movement, this earlier Renaissance within the
Middle Age itself, and as an expression of its qualities, two little compositions
in early French; not because they constitute the best possible expression of
them, but because they help the unity of my series, inasmuch as the Renais
sance ends also in France, in French poetry, in a phase of which the writings
of Joachim du Bellay6 are in many ways the most perfect illustration. The
Renaissance, in truth, put forth in France an aftermath, a wonderful later
growth, the products of which have to the full that subtle and delicate sweet
ness which belongs to a refined and comely decadence, just as its earliest
phases have the freshness which belongs to all periods of growth in art, the charm of ascesis,7 of the austere and serious girding of the loins in youth. But it is in Italy, in the fifteenth century, that the interest of the Renaissance
mainly lies?in that solemn fifteenth century which can hardly be studied too
much, not merely for its positive results in the things of the intellect and the
imagination, its concrete works of art, its special and prominent personalities,
with their profound aesthetic charm, but for its general spirit and character,
for the ethical qualities of which it is a consummate type.
The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture
of an age, move for the most part from different starting points, and by uncon
nected roads. As products of the same generation they partake indeed of a
common character, and unconsciously illustrate each other; but of the pro
ducers themselves, each group is solitary, gaining what advantage or disad
vantage there may be in intellectual isolation. Art and poetry, philosophy and
the religious life, and that other life of refined pleasure and action in the
conspicuous places of the world, are each of them confined to its own circle
of ideas, and those who prosecute either of them are generally little curious
of the thoughts of others. There come, however, from time to time, eras of
more favorable conditions, in which the thoughts of men draw nearer together
than is their wont, and the many interests of the intellectual world combine
in one complete type of general culture. The fifteenth century in Italy is one
of these happier eras, and what is sometimes said of the age of Pericles is true
of that of Lorenzo:8 it is an age productive in personalities, many-sided, cen
tralized, complete. Here, artists and philosophers and those whom the action
of the world has elevated and made keen, do not live in isolation, but breathe
a common air, and catch light and heat from each other's thoughts. There is
a spirit of general elevation and enlightenment in which all alike communicate.
The unity of this spirit gives unity to all the various products of the Renais
sance; and it is to this intimate alliance with mind, this participation in the
best thoughts which that age produced, that the art of Italy in the fifteenth
century owes much of its grave dignity and influence. I have added an essay on Winckelmann,9 as not incongruous with the stud
6. French poet and critic (ca. 1 522?1560), subject patron of the arts. Pericles (ca. 495-429 B.C.E.), a of another essay in Studies of the History of the statesman who led Athens during its period of Renaissance. greatest political and cultural dominance. 7. Asceticism (Greek). 9. Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717?1768), 8. Lorenzo de Medici (1449?1492, also known as German classicist. Lorenzo the Magnificent), ruler of Florence and
.
151 0 / WALTER PATER
ies which precede it, because Winckelmann, coming in the eighteenth century, really belongs in spirit to an earlier age. By his enthusiasm for the things of the intellect and the imagination for their own sake, by his Hellenism, his lifelong struggle to attain to the Greek spirit, he is in sympathy with the humanists of a previous century. He is the last fruit of the Renaissance, and explains in a striking way its motive and tendencies.
['LA GIOCONDA']1
'La Gioconda' is, in the truest sense, Leonardo's masterpiece, the revealing instance of his mode of thought and work. In suggestiveness, only the 'Melancholia' of Diirer is comparable to it; and no crude symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued and graceful mystery. We all know the face and hands of the figure, set in its marble chair,
