will find this opinion associated with another, namely, that the works
of the Caracci are far preferable to those of the Venetian painters.
This second statement of feeling reveals to us one of the principal
causes of the first; namely, that Mr. Wood had not any perception of
color, or delight in it. The perception of color is a gift just as
definitely granted to one person, and denied to another, as an ear for
music; and the very first requisite for true judgment of St. Mark's, is
the perfection of that color-faculty which few people ever set
themselves seriously to find out whether they possess or not. For it is
on its value as a piece of perfect and unchangeable coloring, that the
claims of this edifice to our respect are finally rested; and a deaf man
might as well pretend to pronounce judgment on the merits of a full
orchestra, as an architect trained in the composition of form only, to
discern the beauty of St. Mark's. It possesses the charm of color in
common with the greater part of the architecture, as well as of the
manufactures, of the East; but the Venetians deserve especial note as
the only European people who appear to have sympathized to the full with
the great instinct of the Eastern races. They indeed were compelled to
bring artists from Constantinople to design the mosaics of the vaults of
St. Mark's, and to group the colors of its porches; but they rapidly
took up and developed, under more masculine conditions, the system of
which the Greeks had shown them the example: while the burghers and
barons of the North were building their dark streets and grisly castles
of oak and sandstone, the merchants of Venice were covering their
palaces with porphyry and gold; and at last, when her mighty painters
had created for her a color more priceless than gold or porphyry, even
this, the richest of her treasures, she lavished upon walls whose
foundations were beaten by the sea; and the strong tide, as it runs
beneath the Rialto, is reddened to this day by the reflection of the
frescoes of Giorgione.

Sec. XXIX. If, therefore, the reader does not care for color, I must
protest against his endeavor to form any judgment whatever of this
church of St. Mark's. But, if he both cares for and loves it, let him
remember that the school of incrusted architecture is _the only one in
which perfect and permanent chromatic decoration is possible_; and let
him look upon every piece of jasper and alabaster given to the architect