nor in Raffaelle's fish of the
draught. And yet the propriety and nobility of these types depend on the
architectural use and character of the one, and on the typical meaning
of the other: we should be grieved to see the forms of the Egyptian lion
substituted for those of Raffaelle's in its struggle with Samson, nor
would the whale of Michael Angelo be tolerated in the nets of
Gennesaret. So that I think it is only when the figure of the creature
stands not for any representation of vitality, but merely for a letter
or type of certain symbolical meaning, or else is adopted as a grand
form of decoration or support in architecture, that such generalization
is allowable, and in such circumstances I think it necessary, always
provided it be based, as in the instances given I conceive it to be,
upon thorough knowledge of the creature symbolized and wrought out by a
master hand; and these conditions being observed, I believe it to be
right and necessary in architecture to modify all animal forms by a
severe architectural stamp, and in symbolical use of them, to adopt a
typical form, to which practice the contrary, and its evil consequences
are ludicrously exhibited in the St. Peter of Carlo Dolci in the Pitti
palace, which owing to the prominent, glossy-plumed and crimson-combed
cock, is liable to be taken for the portrait of a poulterer, only let it
be observed that the treatment of the animal form here is offensive, not
only from its realization, but from the pettiness and meanness of its
realization; for it might, in other hands but Carlo Dolci's, have been a
sublime cock, though a real one, but in his, it is fit for nothing but
the spit. Compare as an example partly of symbolical treatment, partly
of magnificent realization, that supernatural lion of Tintoret, in the
picture of the Doge Loredano before the Madonna, with the plumes of his
mighty wings clashed together in cloudlike repose, and the strength of
the sea winds shut within their folding. And note farther the difference
between the typical use of the animal, as in this case, and that of the
fish of Jonah, (and again the fish before mentioned whose form is
indicated in the clouds of the baptism), and the actual occurrence of
the creature itself, with concealed meaning, as the ass colt of the
crucifixion, which it was necessary to paint as such, and not as an
ideal form.

Sec. 14. Or in architectural decoration.

Sec. 15. Exception in delicate and superimposed