{"1": {"fulltext": "JOHN RUSHN\\nMrs. Meynell", "height": "3669", "width": "2521", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.\\nChap. Copyright No.A-L^t\\nShelf..\\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA.", "height": "3317", "width": "2020", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3317", "width": "2020", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3317", "width": "2020", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3317", "width": "2020", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3317", "width": "2020", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "JOHN RUSKIN\\nBY\\nMRS. MEYNELL\\nNEW YORK\\nDODD, MEAD AND COMPANY\\n1900", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "B259\\nMM\\n13\\nLibrary t \u00c2\u00ab..v/n.#-\\nT*o Co^fS 8*\u00c2\u00ab\\nJUN 151900\\n\u00e2\u0082\u00actrf.A/4T\\nFIRST COPY.\\n2\u00c2\u00bbiC* W Oeii\u00c2\u00bb\u00c2\u00abrti to\\nCopyright, 1000,\\nBy Dodd, Mead and Company.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "Contents\\nCHAP. PAGE\\nI. Introduction i\\nII. Modern Painters (First Volume) 9\\nIII. Modern Painters (Second Volume) 36\\nIV. Modern Painters (Third and Fourth Vol-\\numes) 46\\nV. Modern Painters (Fifth Volume) 64\\nVI. The Seven Lamps of Architecture 79\\nVII. The Stones of Venice 98\\nVIII. Pre-Raphaelitism 117\\nIX. Lectures on Architecture and Painting 121\\nX. Elements of Drawing 125\\nXL The Political Economy of Art 129\\nXII. The Two Paths 133\\nXIII. Unto This Last 145\\nXIV. Sesame and Lilies 158\\nXV. The Crown of Wild Olive 171\\nXVI. Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne 175\\nXVII. The Queen of the Air 181\\nXVIII. Lectures on Art r 186\\nXIX. Aratra Pentelici 200\\nXX. The Eagle s Nest 205\\nXXI. Ariadne Florentina 217\\nXXII. Val d Arno 225\\nXXIII. Deucalion 233\\nXXIV. Proserpina 240\\nXXV. Guide Books 247\\nXXVI. Fors Clavigera 259\\nXXVII. Pr^eterita 273\\nChronology 283\\nv", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0009.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0010.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "Modern English Writers\\nMATTHEW ARNOLD Professor Saintsbury.\\nR. L. STEVENSON L. Cope Cornford.\\nJOHN RUSKIN Mrs. Meynell.\\nTENNYSON Andrew Lang.\\nGEORGE ELIOT Sidney Lee.\\nBROWNING C. H. Herford.\\nFROUDE John Oliver Hobbes.\\nHUXLEY Edward Clodd.\\nTHACKERAY Charles Whibley.\\nDICKENS W. E. Henley.\\nOther Volumes will be announced in due course.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0011.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0012.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "DEDICATED TO\\nLieut.-General Sir W. F. BUTLER, K.C.B.\\nA British Officer who is singularly of o?ie mind\\nwith me on matters regarding the nation s honour.\\nPREFACE TO RUSKIN S BIBLE OF AMIENS.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0013.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0014.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "JOHN RUSKIN\\nCHAPTER I\\nINTRODUCTION\\nJohn Ruskin s life was not only centred, but\\nlimited, by the places where he was born and taught,\\nand by the things he loved. The London suburb and\\nthe English lake-side for his homes, Oxford for his\\nplace first of study and then of teaching, usually one\\nbeaten road by France, Switzerland, and Italy for his\\nannual journeys these closed the scene of his dwell-\\nings and travellings. There was a water-colour\\ndrawing by his father that interested him when he was\\na little boy in muslin and a sash (as Northcote\\npainted him, with his own chosen blue hills for a\\nbackground), and this drawing hung over his bed when\\nhe died; the evenings of his last days were passed in\\nthe chair wherein he preached in play a sermon be-\\nfore he could well pronounce it. The nursery lessons\\nand the household ways of the home on Heme Hill\\npartly remained with him, reverend and unquestion-\\nable, to his last day. And yet the student of the\\nwork done in this quiet life of repetitions is somewhat\\nshaken from the steadfastness of study by two things\\nmultitude and movement. The multitude is in the\\ni", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0015.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "2 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthoughts of this great and original mind, and the\\nmovement is the world s. Ruskin s enormous work\\nhas never had steady auditors or spectators it may be\\nlikened to a sidereal sky beheld from an earth upon\\nthe wing. Many, innumerable, are the points that\\nseem to shift and journey, to the shifting eye. Partly\\nit was he himself who altered his readers and partly\\nthey changed with the long change of a nation; and\\npartly they altered with successive and recurrent\\nmoods. John Ruskin wrote first for his contem-\\nporaries, young men fifty years later he wrote for\\nthe same readers fifty years older, as well as for their\\nsons. And hardly has a mob of Shakespeare s shown\\nmore sudden, unanimous, or clamorous versions and\\nreversions of opinion than those that have acclaimed\\nand rejected, derided and divided, his work, once to\\nban and bless, and a second time to bless and ban.\\nPolitical economy in i860 had but one orthodoxy,\\nwhich was that of Manchester scientifically, it\\nheld competition in production and in distribution,\\nwith the removal (as far as was possible to coherent\\nhuman society) of all intervention of explicit social\\nlegislation, to be favourable to the wealth of nations\\nand ethically it held that if only the world would\\nleave opposing egoisms absolutely free, and would give\\nself-interest the opportunity of perfection, a violent,\\nhostile, mechanical equity and justice would come to\\npass. Only let men resolve never to relax or cede\\nfor the sake of forbearance or compassion, and the\\nManchester system would be found to work for good.\\nIn i860 it was much in favour of this doctrine that", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0016.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTION.\\nitself and all its workings were alike unbeautiful to\\nmind and eye. Men might regret the vanishing\\nbeauty of the world, but they were convinced that it\\nwas the ugly thing that was useful, and that, as it\\ndid not attract, it would not deceive. Before the clos-\\ning of the century all men changed their mind. But\\nwhen Ruskin warned them that scientifically their\\northodox economy made for an intolerable poverty,\\nthat ethically it aimed at making men less human, and\\nthat practically it could never, while man was no less\\nthan man, have the entire and universal freedom of\\naction upon which its hope of ultimate justice de-\\npended; when he recommended a more organic and\\nless mechanical equity he was hooted to silence.\\nRuskin first commended the rejoining together of\\nart and handicraft, put asunder in the decline of the\\nRenaissance and for this too he was generally\\nderided, because men were sure that the ugly thing\\nwas the useful and the comfortable. John Ruskin\\nwould show them that it was neither of these, but\\nthey would have it that he was showing them merely\\nthat it was ugly. That is, he was accused of teach-\\ning sentimentality in public economy and in art,\\nwhereas his teaching dealt with human character and\\nultimate utility.\\nBut the moving world has rejected his teaching\\nmore violently after fifty years, in two things more\\nmomentous than the rest it has gone further in that\\nenquiry as to the origin of the ideas of moral good\\nand evil against which Ruskin warned it in the words\\nof Carlyle and it has multiplied its luxuries. By", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0017.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "4 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthese two actions it has effectually rejected the teach-\\ning of Ruskin.\\nu The moving world assuredly this great\\nthinker gave years of thought to the discovery of\\nmoral causes for the enormous losses of mankind, and\\ndid not sufficiently confess the obscure motive power\\nof change. Byzantine architecture was overcome by\\nGothic, not only because Gothic was strongly north-\\nwestern, but because it was new Gothic was sup-\\nplanted by the Renaissance, not only because Gothic\\nwas enfeebled, but because the Renaissance was new.\\nHe saw the beauty of the hour with eyes and heart so\\nfull of felicity that he cried, Stay, thou art so fair\\nIt never stayed, passing by the law but how shall we\\ndare to call that a law whereof we know not the\\ncause, the end, or the sanctions Let us rather, ig-\\nnorant yet vigilant, call it the custom of the uni-\\nverse.\\nJohn Ruskin himself has told us his life in exquisite\\ndetail. He underwent in childhood a strict discipline,\\ncommon in those times, had no toys, was whipped,\\nwas compelled to a self-denial that he perceived his\\nelders did not practise upon themselves. It was the\\nasceticism of the day, reserved for the innocent.\\nCharles Dickens did more than any man to make the\\nelderly ashamed of it. Ruskin s mother kept the\\ntraining of the child in her own hands, and subjected\\nhim and herself to a hardly credible humiliation by\\nthe reading aloud, in alternate verses, of the whole\\nBible, Levitical Law and all, beginning again at\\nGenesis when the Apocalypse was finished. She was", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0018.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTION 5\\nher husband s senior, and, like him, of the Evangelical\\nsect. She dedicated this her only child to the\\nLord before his birth, and when his genius appeared\\nhoped he would be a bishop. He obeyed her, tended\\nand served her, till at ninety years old she died.\\nJohn Ruskin s father was a Scottish wine-merchant,\\nwell educated and liberally interested in the arts. He\\nmarried his first cousin, daughter of an inn-keeper at\\nCroydon, prospered greatly in trade by his partnership\\nwith Telford and Domecq, and rose in the world. His\\nsister was married to a tanner at Perth his wife s\\nsister to a baker at Croydon. His son, born at 54\\nHunter Street, Brunswick Square, on February 8, 18 19,\\ntook his first little journeys on his visits to these aunts.\\nThe child remembered the street home, but it was in\\nhis Heme Hill home and in the Heme Hill garden that\\nhe became possessed of the antiquities of childhood.\\nThe boy learnt, in his companionship with his father\\nand mother, to love Scott, Rogers, and Byron, and he\\nremained nobly docile to the admirations of his dear\\nelders. Otherwise, one should have needed to quote\\nsome phrase of his own to define the feebleness of the\\nItaly, the cold corruption of heart of Don Juan, the\\ninventory of nature s beauties versified by Scott. Rus-\\nkin was impulsive sometimes he loved a thing first\\nseen more than he was to love it later but generally he\\nloved the customs of his sweet childhood. He read\\nwith a tutor a nonconformist minister, Dr. Andrews,\\nthe father of the lady who became Coventry Patmore s\\nfirst wife matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in\\n1836, where he won the Newdigate prize (Sahette and", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0019.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "6 JOHN RUSKIN\\nElephanta the subject) in 1839, became Honorary\\nStudent of Christ Church and Honorary Fellow of\\nCorpus Christi, and Slade Professor (Chair of Fine\\nArts founded by Felix Slade) in 1870, to be three\\ntimes re-elected. His boyish education had been\\nfurthered by annual journeys with his father and mother,\\nfirst in Britain, on wine-selling business, and then\\nabroad, always in a travelling carriage. The three used\\nto set out in May of all these years and the last\\njourney was in 1859, m Germany. Early in his teens\\nthe boy fell in love with the daughter of his father s\\npartner, Mr. Domecq, and suffered a decline of health\\nin his disappointment. But the friendship with Turner\\n(if that could be called a friendship which seemed to\\nhave such strange reserves) was the central fact of his\\nlife as a young man.\\nThe little family took up its abode in a larger and\\nmore worldly house, 163 Denmark Hill, in 1843. n\\n1848 Ruskin married, most unfortunately; his wife\\nleft him a few years later, the marriage was legally\\nannulled, and he lived again, as though he were a boy,\\nwith his parents. More than twenty years later a\\nlady who had been his girlish disciple and whom he\\nhad long loved, but who seemed unable to decide for\\nor against a marriage with him, died estranged.\\nThis solitary life was consoled during all its middle\\nand later terms by the affection of his cousin, Mrs.\\nArthur Severn, who had lived with his mother in her\\nwidowhood, and bore him company, with her husband\\nand children, until his death in his home at Brant-\\nwood, Coniston, on the 20th of January, 1900.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0020.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTION J\\nJohn Ruskin had been a writer from his babyhood.\\nThe first expectation was of the poetic genius, but his\\npoems were never more than mediocre. His prose\\nasserted itself quickly, for he was only twenty-four\\nwhen the first volume of Modern Painters was pub-\\nlished. His renunciation of the sectarian religion of\\nhis parents will be told further on. He was always\\nessentially religious, but he passed, during the later\\nmaturity of his mind, through some years of doubt as\\nto authoritative doctrine, returning to definite beliefs in\\ncourse of time. His Oxford and other series of lec-\\ntures, and the undertaking of the St. George s Com-\\npany, will be touched upon in this volume in their\\nplace amongst his works. Of those works I have\\nattempted the analysis, slight and brief, but essential,\\nwith quotations from beautiful and indispensable pages.\\nI intend the following essay to be principally a hand-\\nbook of Ruskin.\\nIn his central or later-central years John Ruskin was\\na thin and rather tall man, very English (Scottish in\\nfact, but I mean to indicate the physique that looks\\nconspicuous on the Continent), active and light, with\\nsloping shoulders he had a small face with large\\nfeatures, the eyebrows, nose, and under-lip prominent\\nhis eyes were blue, and the blue tie by the peculiar\\nproperty of a strong blue to increase a neighbouring\\nlesser blue, instead of quenching it made them look\\nthe bluest of all blue eyes. He had the r in the throat,\\nthe r of the Parisians, which gives a certain weakness\\nto English speech and in lecturing he had a rather\\nclerical inflexion. He was a disciple (as in his rela-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0021.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "8 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntion to Carlyle and later to Professor Norton), a mas-\\nter, a pastor, a chivalrous servant to the young and\\nweak, but too anxious, too lofty, to be in the equal\\nsense a friend.\\nHe was broken by sorrow long before he died. His\\npurposes had been, for the time, defeated. His final\\nrenunciation of the Slade Professorship (he had resigned\\nit before for one interval in a time of deep grief) was\\ndue to the vote passed to establish a physiological\\nlaboratory (to establish, that is, vivisection) at the\\nmuseum at Oxford he took this for a sign of the\\ncontradiction of the world. He has left his museum\\nat Sheffield, a linen industry at Keswick, and handloom\\nweaving at Langdale, fairly successful, the Turner\\ndrawings arranged at indescribable labour in the\\nNational Gallery, and his public gifts. But much of\\nhis work that was not the written word passed, like\\nthe drawing-lessons he had given to working-men at\\ntheir classes in Great Ormond Street and in the fields,\\nin 1857. But it was not failure or rejection, or even\\npartial and futile acceptance, that finally and interiorly\\nbowed him. Your poor John Ruskin (his signa-\\nture in writing to one who loved and understood him)\\nwas the John Ruskin who never pardoned himself for\\nstopping short of the whole renunciation of a Saint\\nFrancis. Lonely and unhappy does the student per-\\nceive him to have been who was one of the greatest\\nof great men of all ages but the student who is most\\ncut to the heart by that perception is compelled to\\nwish him to have been not less but more a man sacri-\\nficed.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0022.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER II\\nmodern painters\\nTHE FIRST VOLUME (1843)\\n41 The picture which is looked to for an interpreta-\\ntion of nature is invaluable, but the picture which is\\ntaken as a substitute for nature had better be burned.\\nJohn Ruskin began to write Modern Painters in order\\nto teach men how they should see Turner to be like\\nnature, whereas the critics of that day called him\\nunnatural. The critics of our days would leave\\nthat word to their wives and daughters. But it was\\na word for the best reviews in the middle of the cen-\\ntury. In order to prove this delicate point as to the\\ninterpretation of nature and its value, John Ruskin,\\nthen very young, wrote the first half of the first vol-\\nume, and the discussion of Turner follows, with the\\nuniversal digressions that make of this volume and its\\nfellows a work at once of unity of motive, and of\\nmultitudinous variety. The first volume is written\\nwith extreme explicatory labour. Having thought out\\na certain difficult thesis, the writer bends every power\\nto the task of communication. What he has to im-\\npose is no state or grace or affection, what he has to\\ncommunicate is no conjecture, nor does he make his\\nway by that attractive divination of authorship which\\nis companionable, now at fault, now halting, now\\n9", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0023.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "10 JOHN RUSKIN\\nleading with confidence a new and untried way. No\\nmore than a treatise of science is this work designed\\nto bid the reader to that table of entertainment, the\\nart of English prose. It is only at intervals, and at\\nthe end of a clause of explanation, that this author,\\nwho has excited so many enthusiasms, some futile\\nand some worthy, by an over-abundant eloquence a\\npure style but somewhat prodigal adorns his argu-\\nment with a cadence, a group of beautiful warm\\nwords, as it were alight and in time, musical and\\npictorial, the vital, just, and brilliant phrase that\\nafterwards took the nation.\\nThe argument is difficult difficult in the prolonged\\nstudy made by him who wrought it from the begin-\\nning to the end, most difficult to present sufficiently\\nin a brief commentary such as this. What Ruskin\\nhad to prove was that a few greatly admired masters\\nSalvator Rosa, Gaspar Poussin, and Claude, espe-\\ncially, were inferior as painters of landscape to a\\ncertain number of English artists at work about the\\nmiddle of the nineteenth century but their inferiority\\nalso to the earlier masters whose landscape was but an\\naccessory, and to the Venetians of the great school of\\ncolour, whose landscape has been mistaken for arbi-\\ntrary decoration, makes so large an incident of the\\nwork that the title becomes questionable. Modern\\nPainters proved to be a great apology for the art of\\nthe past, and of all periods of the past, for Gainsbor-\\nough profits splendidly the antithesis disappears.\\nSalvator Rosa, Gaspar Poussin, and Claude have, be-\\nsides, ceased (thanks to Ruskin s own teaching) to", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0024.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "modern PAINTERS II\\nhave the importance that the critics of sixty years ago\\nassigned to them their names do not stand, in our\\nthoughts to-day, opposed conspicuously to those of\\nlater men now long dead, and brought, in our view,\\nnear to those predecessors by the perspective of time.\\nThe slight anomaly of the name Modern Painters is\\nincreased for us now but that name represents much\\nthat is of significance. The admiration of Salvator\\nRosa and the contempt of Turner, the fact that\\nClaude was a seventeenth century painter and Turner\\nwas new, are things important in the history of the\\nauthorship of Modern Painters. Let it be noted here\\nthat a writer to whom was committed by one of the\\nprincipal reviews the criticism of art in 1842 preferred\\na Mr. Lee to Gainsborough he is superior to him\\nalways in subject, composition, and variety not\\nwith an irresponsible preference, but with the prefer-\\nence of a connoisseur, subject, composition, and\\nvariety, not being things whereof the first comer\\nis able so to print opinions. Shade of Gains-\\nborough says Ruskin deep-thoughted, solemn\\nGainsborough, forgive us for rewriting this sentence.\\nLee was a painter more insular than it is permitted to\\na painter to be, piecemeal and literal, and very cold\\nin colour; well-intentioned, simple, free from affec-\\ntation, and doing his work with constant reference\\nto nature, says the preface to the second edition of\\nModern Painters, but lacking those technical quali-\\nties which are more especially the object of an artist s\\nadmiration. This phrase is quoted here because it\\nis one of many that should keep the reader straight in", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0025.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "12 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthe following of the doctrine of this book. A reader\\nwho had spared himself the pains of close following\\nmight think Ruskin to have taught that well-inten-\\ntioned work bearing a constant reference to na-\\nture had nearly all the qualities, whereas in this\\npassage he declares it to have, virtually, none.\\nThe evil of the ancient landscape art (Ruskin per-\\nsistently calls it ancient, but let the reader bear in\\nmind that he is in the act of comparing it with more\\nancient as well as with modern) lies, I believe,\\nsays this preface to the second edition,\\nIn the painter s taking upon him to modify God s\\nworks at his pleasure, casting the shadow of himself\\non all he sees. We shall not pass through a single\\ngallery of old art without hearing this topic of praise\\nconfidently advanced. The sense of artificialness,\\nthe clumsiness of combination by which the\\nmeddling of man is made evident, and the feebleness\\nof his hand branded on the inorganisation of his\\nmonstrous creature, are advanced as a proof of in-\\nventive power.\\nWe ought to note the word inorganisation. For\\nwe shall be willing to take it from Ruskin that the\\npainter convicted of that is the one condemned he\\nwho destroys in order to reconstruct produces inor-\\nganised work, and work therefore without vitality.\\nBut a certain foreseen and judicial re-arrangement of\\nnatural facts a new but indestructive relation proves\\nthat very organic quality, and is defended, not once\\nor twice, but a hundred times in the teaching of Mod-\\nern Painters. And only by exquisitely close reading", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0026.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "modern painters 13\\ncan we distinguish and reconcile, so as to take this\\ndefence and also what follows\\nIn his observations on the foreground of the San\\nPietro Martire, Sir Joshua advances, as matter of\\npraise, that the plants are discriminated just as much\\nas was necessary for variety, and no more. Had this\\nforeground been occupied by a group of animals, we\\nshould have been surprised to be told that the lion, the\\nserpent, and the dove were distinguished\\nfrom each other just as much as was necessary for\\nvariety, and no more. If the distinctive\\nforms of animal life are meant for our reverent ob-\\nservance, is it likely that those of vegetable life are\\nmade merely to be swept away\\n(In this case Sir Joshua, according to Modern\\nPainters, was wrong even as to facts, and Titian, like\\nRaphael, was accurate in his foreground flowers.) Sir\\nJoshua separates, says Ruskin, as chief \u00c2\u00bbenemies, the\\ndetails and the whole, which an artist cannot be great\\nunless he reconciles. Details perfect in unity, and\\ncontributing to a final purpose, are the sign of the\\nproduction of a consummate master. This is surely\\na passage of singular difficulty. Truth to nature\\nthe statement of no falsehood and the doing of no\\ndestructive violence is an intelligible condition of\\nthe art whereof this is the apostolate but detail Is\\ndetail, or explicit recognition of minor facts, really\\nthe sign of the production of a consummate mas-\\nter Details contributing to a final purpose\\nseems to be a phrase permitting the ignoring of details\\nthat do not contribute. And what does the Impres-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0027.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "14 JOHN RUSKIN\\nsionist ask more than this A powerful artist, says\\nRuskin in a previous sentence, necessarily looks\\nupon complete parts as the very sign of error, weak-\\nness, and ignorance. Once for all, this should an-\\nswer the common and careless reading of Modern\\nPainters and the rest.\\nLeaving the question of detail, then, aside, or leav-\\ning it, if once for all is hardly possible, for a time, we\\nshall do justice to Ruskin s teaching by choosing from\\nhis most dogmatic pages the following passages that\\nbear upon the larger question of truth\\nWhen there are things in the foreground of Sal-\\nvator, of which I cannot pronounce whether they be\\ngranite, or slate, or tufa, I affirm that there is in them\\nneither harmonious union nor simple effect, but simple\\nmonstrosity. The elements of brutes can\\nonly mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic na-\\nture only in annihilation. We may, if we choose,\\nput together centaur monsters but they must still be\\nhalf man, half horse they cannot be both man and\\nhorse, nor either man or horse.\\nAnd this\\nThat only should be considered a picture in which\\nthe spirit, not the materials, observe, but the animat-\\ning emotion, of many studies is concen-\\ntrated and exhibited by the aid of long-studied, pain-\\nfully chosen forms idealised in the right sense of the\\nword, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of de-\\ngrading God s works which man calls his imagina-\\ntion, but by perfect assertion of entire knowledge\\nwrought out with that noblest industry which\\nconcentrates profusion into point, and transforms ac-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0028.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "modern painters 15\\ncumulation into structure. There is\\nmore ideality in a great artist s selection and treatment\\nof roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles than in all\\nthe struggling caricature of the meaner mind, which\\nheaps its foreground with colossal columns, and heaves\\nimpossible mountains into the encumbered sky.\\nThose columns and those mountains get no respect\\nfrom any one at present, but it must not be forgotten\\nthat the book before us was in part written to over-\\nthrow them!\\nAll this is from the later-written preface. We\\ncome next to Modern Painters, Part I. Section I, the\\nearliest important page of one of the greatest authors\\nof our incomparable literature. It is a laborious page,\\nin great part filled by one sentence explaining that\\npublic opinion can hardly be right upon matters of art\\nuntil, with the lapse of time, it shall have accepted\\nguidance. The same chapter declares war explicitly\\nupon the old masters in landscape, and the reader\\nhas to add to the names of Salvator Rosa, Gaspar\\nPoussin, and Claude, those of Cuyp, Berghem, Both,\\nRuysdael, Hobbema, Teniers (in landscape), Paul\\nPotter, Canaletto, and the various Van somethings\\nand Back somethings, more especially and malignantly\\nthose who have libelled the sea. In the chapter,\\nsoon following, On Ideals of Power, is to be espe-\\ncially noted the just thought\\nIt is falsely said of great men that they waste their\\nlofty powers on unworthy objects. The object\\ncannot be unworthy of the power which it\\nbrings into exertion, because nothing can be accom-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0029.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "l6 JOHN RUSKIN\\nplished by a greater power which can be accomplished\\nby a less, any more than bodily strength can be ex-\\nerted where there is nothing to resist it.\\nBe it remembered, then, Power is never wasted.\\n(Ruskin, at this time and ever after, used which\\nwhere that would be both more correct and less\\ninelegant. He probably had the habit from him who\\ndid more than any other to disorganise the English\\nlanguage that is, Gibbon.)\\nThe chapter on Imitation is in part addressed\\nto the correction of a half-educated pleasure, since\\nthen generally relinquished even by the half-educated,\\nand even in the case of popular pictures. Amid\\nmuch that is less valuable, the reader finds this obvious\\nbut excellent distinction\\nA marble figure does not look like what it is not\\nit looks like marble, and like the form of a man. It\\ndoes not look like a man, which it is not, but like the\\nform of a man, which it is. The chalk out-\\nline of the bough of a tree on paper is not an imita-\\ntion it looks like chalk and paper not like wood,\\nand that which it suggests to the mind is not properly\\nsaid to be like the form of a bough, it is the form of a\\nbough.\\nThe contrast is, of course, with work in colour, and\\nit is finely made, with the conclusion, for all the arts\\nalike, Ideas of truth are the foundation, and ideas\\nof imitation the destruction, of art. On the chapter\\nOf Ideas of Relation the criticism of thirty years\\nago, led by France on the initiative of Theophile\\nGautier, and generally proclaimed by a generation", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0030.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "modern painters 17\\nnow nearly dispossessed, joined issue with Ruskin.\\nHe teaches that art has its highest exercise in the\\ninvention of such incidents and thoughts as can be\\nexpressed in words as well as on canvas, and are\\ntotally independent of any means of art but such as\\nmay serve for the bare suggestion of them. Let me\\ngive the instance cited in the text\\nThe principal object in the foreground of Turner s\\n1 Building of Carthage is a group of children sailing\\ntoy boats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as\\nexpressive of the ruling passion which was to be the\\nsource of future greatness, in preference to the tumult\\nof busy stonemasons or arming soldiers, is quite as\\nappreciable when it is told as when it is seen, it has\\nnothing to do with the technical difficulties of paint-\\ning a scratch of the pen would have conveyed the\\nidea. Claude, in subjects of the same kind,\\ncommonly introduces people carrying red trunks with\\niron locks about the intellect can have no\\noccupation here we must look to the imitation or to\\nnothing. Consequently, Turner rises above Claude\\nin the very instant of the conception of his picture.\\nAre we really required to connect this foreground in-\\ncident essentially with the conception of Turner s\\npicture And how about Turner s pictures wherein\\nno such unlandscape-like accessory occurs\\nRuskin was, it is evident in a score of places, no\\nmusician. How should a musician consent to the\\njudgment that his art should do its highest and most\\nmusicianly work in uttering thoughts that another art\\nmight have served Is not an absolute melody, or an\\nabsolute musical phrase, or a harmony Batti, batti,", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0031.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "l8 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthe opening notes of Parsifal, This is My Body from\\nBach s St. Matthew, or the chords of Purcell s Winter\\naloof not far, but different from the several\\nworlds of the other arts? The man who has not\\nmusic in his soul may perhaps be a man debarred\\nfrom thought that is not, in some sense, literature\\nthe other arts, albeit distinct enough, may not have\\nthe power that music has to prove the distinction in\\nthe ear that is able to hear. Therefore he who has\\nnot the ear lacks the strongest of the proofs that the\\narts are not interchangeable. The able eye will not\\ndo so much. To advance such a conjecture here\\nmay be something like presumption, but it is intended\\nto explain one of the few faults or weak places in the\\ngreat body of doctrine of Modern Painters. The least\\nthoughtful reader has by rote the accusation against\\nRuskin that his teaching on art abounds in errors and\\ninconsistencies. The present writer finds no such\\nabundance of faults in the great argument. There,\\nhowever, is one.\\nFrom the chapter on Ideas of Power may be\\ncited the admirable explanation of the conviction of\\npower produced in all minds, ignorant and educated,\\nby the sketch, or by the beginning. The first\\nfive chalk touches bring a head into existence out of\\nnothing. No five touches in the whole course of the\\nwork will ever do so much as these. Toward\\ncompletion the decrease of respective effect continues.\\nWe ought not, Ruskin tells us, to prefer this sensation\\nof power to the intellectual estimate of power that\\ncomes as the work is developed. Those who take,", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0032.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "modern painters 19\\nwithout the necessary care for precise meanings what\\nhe has said elsewhere against Michelangiolo should\\ncheck their own exaggeration by the sentence in\\nwhich he judges that master to be the only father of\\nart from whose work we get both the sensation and\\nthe intellectual estimate of power, and equally. The\\nchapter Of Ideas of Truth entangles us once again\\nin the intricacies of this argument. No falsehood,\\nit assures us, was ever beautiful. But granting that\\nthe beautiful centaur is not in this subtle sense a\\nfalsehood, does the same dispensation hold good in\\nthe case of a brown shadow a fictitious brown\\nshadow, even cast upon a twilight road in order that\\na bright cloud may be seen to shine The painter\\nhas not nature s materials wherewith to make his\\npicture match hers; and that her foreground is light\\nwhilst yet her cloud shines does not make the same\\nrelation possible to man, who does not hold the\\npencils of light. Truth as it is in a paint-box can be\\nbut relative. This is the obvious protest of every\\nreader. Nay, does not Ruskin himself justify Rubens\\nwho out of gaiety and vitality of heart and not be-\\ncause of awful devotion to one beautiful and hardly\\naccessible thing, like the luminosity of a cloud puts\\nthe sun in one part of the sky and draws the sun-\\nbeams from another, and, again, casts shadows at right\\nangles to the light Bold and frank licences he\\nnames these no worse albeit with this fine warn-\\ning The young artist must keep in mind that the\\npainter s greatness consists not in his taking, but in\\nhis atoning for, them. It remains for him who", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0033.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "20 JOHN RUSKIN\\nwould enter into the matter to follow the argument\\nof Modern Painters as its author presents it and as no\\nsummary comment is able to represent it. Let it\\nonly be added here that the reason Ruskin gives for\\nthe abhorrence of falsehood that nature is im-\\nmeasurably superior to all that the human mind can\\nconceive seems to be precisely a reason why man\\nmight be content with one or two truths at a time\\nand reverently glad of the means (fictitious shadow\\namongst them) of securing the one or two not in\\ndisorganisation, but in the unity of, as it were, a\\ndazzled pictorial vision, confessing its limitations by\\nfewness, and its love of natural facts by closing with\\nthe few. If Turner was so supreme an artist as to\\nhave stolen that fire from heaven which is the light,\\nwhy still there are painters who have not it and yet\\nhave not deserved to die. But to say so of Turner\\nwould be a mere trick of speech. Not even he had\\nmore than a paint-box but doubtless he was the\\nmost divine landscape painter that ever lived. And\\nhis great panegyrist magnifies him for the sake of that\\nnatural truth whereof he writes: To him who does\\nnot search it out it is darkness, as it is to him who\\ndoes, infinity.\\nThe chapter on u The Relative Importance of\\nTruths intends to prove, if it be not self-evident,\\nthat generality gives importance to the subject, and\\nlimitation or particularity to the predicate, and proves\\nit by admirable reasoning. From Truths of Col-\\nour might be cited something difficult to reconcile\\nwith Ruskin s judgment elsewhere in favour of the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0034.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "modern painters 21\\nTuscan colourists (local-colourists, that is) and against\\nthe chiaroscurists, even Rembrandt. But here and in\\nother places it is barely just to bear in mind the age\\nof the writer of the first volume of Modern Painters,\\nand the half century following during which he thought\\nout incessantly the same themes. Wonderful was this\\nmind of four and twenty it would have been mon-\\nstrous had it undergone none of the change that comes\\nof mental experience, and of a pushing-on in the un-\\ndertaken way.\\nAnd this brings us to the end of the first seven\\nchapters of this first volume chapters of principles,\\nwhich are applied with a large sweep of allusion to\\nthe works of all schools. When, in the course of\\nthis most interesting section, we find fidelity of detail\\nagain commended, let us remember that neglect of\\nthe spirit and truth as well as of the letter of natural\\nthings was characteristic of the English painters be-\\nfore this book itself did so much to alter the manner\\nof our school. We are used now to the English\\nlandscape that is the corrupt following of this\\napostle, Ruskin, and is full of literal detail; but it\\ndid not exist when Modern Painters was written. It\\nwas necessary to tell people accustomed to a brown\\ntree and a tapering stem that Raphael, Titian, Ghir-\\nlandajo, and Perugino painted little mallows, straw-\\nberries, and all wayside things with devotion and\\nprecision, that Masaccio drew a true mountain, that\\nthe Umbrians painted true skies, that Giotto traced\\nthe form of a rock, and the Venetians of a tree, in\\ntheir right anatomy. It was insular then to be coarse", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0035.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "22 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand general; and the teaching of detail was liberal\\neducation. The chapter on Application is re-\\nmarkable for its generosity. Austere had been the\\nprinciples in the setting forth, but the applications\\ngive absolution, I know not quite how consciously,\\nassuredly not arbitrarily, but sometimes to the reader s\\nwonder, seeing what has gone before. A noble con-\\nvention is excused, and the passion of one man is ac-\\nknowledged to be sudden and of another to be slow.\\nIt is rarely indeed that the application of the stren-\\nuous principles is made by Ruskin to condemn any\\nman altogether, if that man have genius the final\\nreference is to that pardon is for the great, and the\\ncourt of judgment that grants it cannot publish its\\nrules. The Dutch painters are unhouseled, and so is\\nDomenichino. The work of that Bolognese is named\\nby Ruskin not failure, but perpetration and com-\\nmission. The painter of the second greatest picture\\nin the world, as the connoisseur, during a century or\\ntwo, held the Communion of St. Jerome to be, is\\nhere declared palpably incapable of doing anything\\ngood, great, or right. He who said this, studying\\nDomenichino for himself, a student twenty-three years\\nold or less, against the world, held a consistency\\nand knew it. And, of course, the landscape painters\\nalready named Gaspar Poussin, Canaletto, and the\\nrest are unforgiven. It is through a series of criti-\\ncisms on the Royal Academy of the Forties that\\nwe come at last to the detail of the work of Turner.\\nAt the outset Ruskin traces the foundation of\\nTurner s greatness in his painting of things intimate", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0036.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 23\\nand long loved. The Yorkshire downs taught him,\\nfor instance, the masses of mountain drawing. With\\nsomething that looks like rashness Ruskin says of any\\nlandscape painter that if he attempt to impress on\\nhis landscapes any other spirit than that he has felt,\\nand to make them the landscapes of other times, it is\\nall over with him, at least in the degree in which such\\nreflected moonshine takes the place of the genuine\\nlight of the present day. If in some other place\\nsuch a judgment as this is to be reconciled with the\\npraise of Turner s Building of Carthage, it is not\\nhere. (That picture is, in effect, renounced later on,\\nas, in colour, unworthy of the master.) Moreover,\\nwhen a great exception is made to the general peril\\nof taking inspirations from afar or from antiquity, in\\nthe fine phrase Nicola Pisano got nothing but\\ngood, the modern French nothing but evil, from the\\nstudy of the antique but Nicola Pisano had a God\\nand a character how is this to be taken as a warn-\\ning by a student who is not a Frenchman and who\\nhas not abandoned the faith than he too has a God\\nand a character? Yet it is spoken by Ruskin as a\\nwarning, nearly as a menace. The study of the deal-\\ning of Turner with France, Switzerland, and Italy,\\nwhich follows, and of their dealings with his growing\\npower, is an exquisite one, notwithstanding some cer-\\ntain paradoxes exquisite in regard to that beautiful\\nand diverse Europe, and in regard to the genius.\\nRuskin says, perhaps, too little rather than too much\\nof the un-Italian spirit of the Italy of Turner s work\\nM I recollect no instance of Turner s drawing a cypress", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0037.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "24 JOHN RUSKIN\\nexcept in general terms. The man, I may add, who\\npossessed not, among the many spirits of the woods,\\nthe special spirit of the cypress, assuredly could not\\nspiritually paint the country of the hill-village, the\\nbelfry, the gold-white simple walls, the pure and re-\\nmote sky pricked with delicate and upright forms on\\nthe hill-edge, the country of soft dust and of old col-\\nours, the country of poverty, which is Italy. An\\nopulent and an elegant Italy of balustrades and gar-\\ndens, and, if one may venture to say so, a country of\\nthe ideal past, seems to be Turner s. Of the poplars,\\nof the rivers, of the large skies and the flat valleys of\\nFrance, Turner became the son by singular sympathy.\\nRuskin describes the adoption in a brief and lovely\\npassage on the beauties of that domestic France. He\\ntells us that Turner s rendering of Switzerland was\\ngenerally deficient, but this seems to be said rather on\\na theory, and we cannot forget the entire praise and\\nwonder bestowed elsewhere on the drawings of Swiss\\nand Savoyard mountains.\\nThe changes introduced by Turner in the received\\nsystem of art shall be given in the words of Modern\\nPainters, the page being one of the most important in\\nthe work\\nIt was impossible for him, with all his keen and\\nlong-disciplined perceptions, not to feel that the real\\ncolour of nature had never been attempted by any\\nschool and that though conventional representations\\nhad been given by the Venetians of sunlight and twi-\\nlight by invariably rendering the whites golden and the\\nblues green, yet of the actual, joyous, pure, roseate", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0038.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "modern painters 25\\nhues of the external world no record had ever been\\ngiven. He saw also that the finish and specific gran-\\ndeur of nature had been given, but her fulness, space,\\nand mystery, never and he saw that the great land-\\nscape-painters had always sunk the lower middle tints\\nof nature in extreme shade, bringing the entire melody\\nof colour as many degrees down as their possible light\\nwas inferior to nature s and that in so doing a gloomy\\nprinciple had influenced them even in their choice of\\nsubject. For the conventional colour he substituted a\\npure straightforward rendering of fact, as far as was in\\nhis power; and that not of such fact as had been be-\\nfore even suggested, but of all that is most brilliant,\\nbeautiful, and inimitable he went to the cataract for\\nits iris, to the conflagration for its flames, asked of the\\nsea its intensest azure, of the sky its clearest gold. For\\nthe limited space and defined forms of elder landscape\\nhe substituted the quantity and the mystery of the vast-\\nest scenes of earth and for the subdued chiaroscuro\\nhe substituted first a balanced diminution of opposition\\nthroughout the scale, and afterwards attempted\\nto reverse the old principle, taking the lowest portion\\nof the scale truly, and merging the upper part in high\\nlight. Innovations so daring and so various could not\\nbe introduced without corresponding peril the diffi-\\nculties that lay in his way were more than any human\\nintellect could altogether surmount.\\nI will stop upon a detail of this passage, of which\\nthe whole technical significance is important, the dic-\\ntion being of great precision, to say that the reader\\nought to make himself master of all that Ruskin means\\nby the scale. Any man who has thought about\\nany picture must be aware of the scale, and must\\nrecognise its limited relations in painting as the source\\nof a difficulty or rather an impossibility and as", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0039.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "26 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntherefore the justification of a convention not an\\narbitrary convention, but a convention commanded,\\ndirected, and controlled by certain truths, and by cer-\\ntain beauties salient amongst those truths. And it is\\nbecause Ruskin makes the most profound and the most\\nsearching confession the best of all possible confes-\\nsions of the convention of relations whereof a painter\\nhas to make his picture, that a reader, even with all\\ngood will to be taught, may be doubtful, at the end,\\nwhether Modern Painters does in fact succeed in prov-\\ning one way to be blessed and the other banned. But\\nI repeat, this is to be studied at first hand from the\\nbook. And the book, entering upon Section n, does\\njustice, once for all, to the painters of tone, even\\nSalvator Rosa and Gaspar Poussin, and to what they\\nachieved, according to their scheme of relations.\\nAlbeit the chapter on Tone is one of the most\\ntechnical it is one of the most interesting. In regard\\nto Turner on this matter,\\nIn his power of associating cold with warm light\\nno one has ever approached or even ventured into the\\nsame field with him. The old masters, content with\\none simple tone, sacrificed to its unity all the exquisite\\ngradations and varied touches of relief and change by\\nwhich nature unites her hours with each other. They\\ngive the warmth of the sinking sun, overwhelming all\\nthings in its gold, but they do not give those grey\\npassages about the horizon where, seen through its\\ndying light, the cool and the gloom of night gather\\nthemselves for their victory.\\nThe chapter on Colour opens with a very\\nfamous page in which the Alban Mount, the Cam-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0040.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "modern painters 27\\npagna, and La Riccia, fresh in the sun from a stormy\\nshower, is compared with Gaspar Poussin s landscape.\\nDespite its beauty, and certainly because of some of\\nits beauties, it cannot, I venture to think, take a clas-\\nsic place, and I have not extracted it. It is multitu-\\ndinous as the scene it describes the enormous and\\nvarious scenery of the sky after storm, and that of the\\nwoods, the mountains, the plain, and the far sea.\\nNot one vain or vacant or lifeless or superfluous word\\nis to be found therein all is abundance, life, and sight,\\nand the diction is as instant as it is pure. The effort\\nof this description, whereby, in the end, the reader is\\nlittle moved and yet a little wearied, renews the obsti-\\nnate question whether it may not be that so many of\\nnature s wonders, as well as so many of a fine author s\\nwonders, are too many for one picture, one page. Not\\nin arrogance, but in humility, might the painter de-\\ntach one luminous truth of natural fact so that it\\nmight be the inspiration of his work, and that work\\nbe no portrait of inimitable things, but a beautiful\\nthing of its own kind, owing its beauty to one beauty\\nof nature s. It is true that to try for the organic all\\nis more glorious the few, the one perhaps, did so by\\ngenius Turner. But those who are less than Turner\\nand have been taught that they ought to try for all\\nhave made bad pictures. And even this master of\\nliterature, trying for all in this splendid description,\\nhas not made a good page.\\nIt is in regard to this power over numerous truth\\nthis most solitary power over numerous truth that Rus-\\nkin says of the master:", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0041.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "28 JOHN RUSKIN\\nTurner, and Turner only, would follow and ren-\\nder that mystery of decided line, that dis-\\ntinct, sharp, visible, but unintelligible and inextrica-\\nble richness, which, examined part by part, is to the\\neye nothing but confusion and defeat, which, taken as\\na whole, is all unity, symmetry, and truth.\\nRuskin shows us, in another place, how each of\\nthe touches of nature is unique and diverse, so that\\nthough we cannot tell what such or such a touch\\nmay be, yet we know it cannot be any thing\\nwhile even the most dexterous distances of Salvator\\nor Poussin pretend to secrecy without having any-\\nthing to conceal, and are ambiguous, not from the\\nconcentration of meaning, but from the want of it.\\nThis excellent sentence is from those greatly scientific\\nchapters on Truth of Colour, Truth of Chiaro-\\nscuro, Truth of Space as dependent on the focus\\nof the eye, wherein also we read that Nature is\\nnever distinct and never vacant, always\\nmysterious, but always abundant you always see\\nsomething, but you never see all that the Italians\\nwere vacant, and the Dutch distinct, Nature s rule\\nbeing you shall never be able to count\\nthe bricks, but you shall never see a dead wall\\nand that Turner introduced a new era in landscape\\nart by showing that the foreground might be sunk for\\nthe distance, and that it was possible to express im-\\nmediate proximity to the spectator without giving\\nanything like completeness to the forms of the near\\nobjects. This, Turner accomplished, not by slurred\\nor soft lines (always the sign of vice in art), but by a", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0042.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "modern painters 29\\ndecisive imperfection, a firm, but partial, assertion of\\nform, which the eye feels indeed to be close home to\\nit, and yet cannot rest upon, nor cling to, nor en-\\ntirely understand. And let the following passages\\nbe quoted from the chapters on Colour and\\nShadow before we pass to the chapters on Skies\\nand Mountains The ordinary tinsel and trash\\nwith which the walls of our Academy are\\nhalf covered is based on a system of col-\\nour beside which Turner s is as Vesta to Cotytto\\nthe chastity of fire to the foulness of earth. There\\nis scarcely an artist of the present day who\\ndoes not employ more pure and raw colour than\\nTurner. Then follows the memorable judgment on\\ncolour I think that the first approach to vicious-\\nness of colour is commonly indicated\\nchiefly by a prevalence of purple and absence of yel-\\nlow for Ruskin makes us aware of the almost se-\\ncret gold of fine colour. Rubens and Turner had,\\nlike nature, yellow and black as a fundamental op-\\nposition. In the chapter Of Truth of Chiaro-\\nscuro Ruskin writes\\nIf we have to express vivid light, our first aim\\nmust be to get the shadows sharp and visible and\\nthis is not to be done by blackness, but by\\nkeeping them perfectly flat, keen, and even. A very\\npale shadow, if it be kept flat, if it conceal the details\\nof the object it crosses, if it be grey and cold com-\\npared with their colour, and very sharp-edged, will be\\nfar more conspicuous, and make everything out of it\\nlook a great deal more like sunlight than a shadow\\nten times its depth, shaded off* at the edge, and con-,", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0043.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "30 JOHN RUSKIN\\nfounded with the colour of the object on which it\\nfalls. Now the old masters of the Italian school\\ndirectly reverse the principle they blacken\\ntheir shadows till the picture becomes quite appalling,\\nand everything in it is invisible but they make a\\npoint of losing their edges, and carrying them off by\\ngradation.\\nTurner will keep the shadows clear and distinct,\\nand make them felt as shadows, though they are so\\nfaint that, but for their decisive forms, we should not\\nhave observed them for darkness at all. Turner s\\nshadows are, like nature s, shot with light.\\nWords are not accurate enough, nor delicate\\nenough, to express or trace the constant, all-pervading\\ninfluence of the finer and vaguer shadows throughout\\nhis works, that thrilling influence which gives to the\\nlight they leave its passion and its power.\\nThree chapters record the study of the three re-\\ngions of cloud the neglected upper sky (neg-\\nlected until Turner drew the cirrus), the middle\\ncloud, and the rain-cloud. There is the noblest pleas-\\nure in the writer s confession that he has to find the\\nsame words in describing a foreground of nature s\\nand a foreground of Turner s, and that delight is sensi-\\nbly expressed in the paragraphs on the real and authentic\\nskies, closing with Turner, who had more knowledge\\nof all essential truth in every wreath of vapour\\nthan composed the whole stock of heavenly informa-\\ntion which lasted Cuyp and Claude their lives.\\nTurner has infinity in forms of cloud, too mysterious\\nin wave of cloud and light to be tested by the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0044.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "modern painters 31\\neye infinity outsoaring the mere numbers achieved\\nby lesser painters. For the greatest num-\\nber is no nearer to infinity than the least, if it be defi-\\nnite number, while infinity is reached by the mere\\nhints of the variety and obscurity of truth. This is\\nin the upper heavens; the lower heavens of the rain-\\ncloud have been the material of nearly all the bad\\npictures in all the schools the two windy Gaspar\\nPoussins in our National Gallery, for example\\nMassive concretions of ink and indigo, wrung\\nand twisted very hard, apparently in a vain effort, to\\nget some moisture out of them bearing up coura-\\ngeously and successfully against a wind whose effects\\non the trees in the foreground can be accounted for\\nonly on the supposition that they are all of the india-\\nrubber species.\\nBut Ruskin gives some praise to modern artists\\nCox and De Wint and Copley Fielding before we\\nascend the solitary throne.\\nAfter the heavens come the heavenly mountains,\\nwhereof, at this early age, Ruskin had studied the\\nwhole organisation, to find it, with a rapture of recog-\\nnition, confessed in the work of Turner and suggested\\nin every lightest line. In these chapters the subject\\nis less closely a piece of reasoning than in the hard,\\nurgent, and busy first chapters, upon which I have\\ndwelt at length because of their singular importance\\nbut the motive is still explanation, demonstration the\\nparagraph is hard at work, and only at the closes do\\nwe find the relaxation of beauty. In this book Ruskin", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0045.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "32 JOHN RUSKIN\\ndoes not precisely decorate his construction he rather\\nadds ornament with a punctual afterthought, and it is\\ndoubtless these buoyant and conspicuous flowers of\\nprose that took the eye of the public and gained so\\nmuch and so prompt admiration for Modern Painters.\\nBut throughout these chapters the sense of vitality\\nincreases. It is as though the searching grasp upon the\\nessential history, law, and spirit of things gave him a\\nnatural security, so that rising from the past of the\\nstreams, the origin of the clouds, and the roots of the\\nmountains, his intelligence is, as it were, bound to\\nunderstand or conceive no other ranges of hills or\\nclouds than those which are lifted on the earth and in\\nthe skies according to inevitable law. That is, the\\nmountains of Salvator Rosa may have, as he says,\\nholes in them but no valleys protuberances and ex-\\ncrescences, but no parts but Ruskin, student of\\nthe profound nature of the rocks, shows us authentic\\nvalleys, and knows the parts of the mountains as frag-\\nments of the unity of the earth. In the beautiful\\nchapter Of the Foreground it is worth noting, oc-\\ncurs a brief phrase characteristic of the prose a der-\\nogation not so much from Johnson as from Gibbon\\nthat was the common language of letters, the refuse\\nof an English style, profusely ready to the hand of\\nevery writer in the middle of the century, and en-\\ncumbered the way even of one who was to purge the\\nrefuse from so many kinds of floors\\nu A steep bank of loose earth exposed to\\nthe weather, contains in it features capable\\nof giving high gratification to a careful observer.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0046.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "modern painters 33\\nAs a suggestion of the study of organic simplicity\\nthis fine chapter on foreground is rich in a sense of\\ndrawing which the reader takes from the strong fingers\\nof the writer. Capable of this hold upon the forms,\\nthe growth, the perspectives, the floor of the world,\\nand the ranks of all erections, that hand could cer-\\ntainly not refrain from the gesture of contempt before\\nthe foregrounds of Salvator Rosa, all emphatic and all\\ninorganic. With indignation and wit their condem-\\nnation is flicked at them in twenty examples. But in\\nthe following chapters Of Truth of Water, there\\nis of course less of organic design and more of the\\npainter s vision of inorganic and various unity, except\\nin the pages that treat, with a mathematical calculation,\\nof reflections. This section of his work, Ruskin tells\\nus, he approached despondently, because, whilst he\\ncould understand why men admired Salvator s rocks,\\nClaude s foregrounds, Hobbema s trees, and whilst he\\nperceived in these things a root which seems right\\nand legitimate, he knew not what the sea of nature\\ncould be in the eyes of men who admired the seas of\\nBackhuysen.\\nIt is curious to see how in this essay on the painting\\nof waters the faith in the perfectibility I wish I\\nknew a word to express rather the capability-of-per-\\npetual-progress-in-a-direction-of-perfection let me\\ntake perfectibility with that meaning how the faith\\nin this energy and single direction of human things,\\nwhich inspires Ruskin s political economy, mountain\\ndrawing, and foreground painting, and compels him to\\nwork for the replies to unanswerable questions, renders", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0047.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "34 JOHN RUSKIN\\nhim ill-satisfied with the simple and single painting of\\ncalm waters, which painters of moderate powers are\\nable to do artistically, giving keen pleasure thereby,\\nbut giving it easily, and urges him to study rather the\\npainting of the broken sea, the shifting surface, and\\nthe cataract. The question arises in the reader s\\nmind yet again whether this noble teaching, which\\nwould, if it were possible, make another Turner, has\\nnot in fact made, in the lower places, many bad\\npainters. And yet his refutation of the bad painters\\nof a quite different kind those whom his teaching\\ndid not make and could not make and his immediate\\nappeal to the nature they disintegrated by the shatter-\\ning effect of their negligence and the insolence of their\\nreconstruction, are true master s work in this section\\non the sea, and in that which follows, on vegetation.\\nSuch is the lesson on the passage of the cataract from\\nthe spring to the fall, when the parabolic curve ceases,\\nwhereas the false painters carry that curve to the end\\nand make their water look active where it should be\\nwildly subject to gravitation. Such is the study of the\\nwaves seen, from the sea shoreward, not as successive\\nbreakers, but as the self-same water repeating its\\ncrash with the perturbed spirit of the sea. Such also\\nis the study of the top of the nodding wave when the\\nwater swings and jumps along the ridge like a shaken\\nchain. Such is the history of the growth of a tree,\\nand the statement of the laws of its delimitation of\\noutline, and of its angles, which the wildest wind that\\never blew on earth cannot take out, though from a\\ntwig but an inch thick, whereas Gaspar Poussin s wind", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0048.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 35\\nstretches the branches in curves. Of his sea-chapter,\\nRuskin himself says in a note It is a good study of\\nwild weather; but utterly feeble in comparison to\\nthe few words by which any of the great poets will\\ndescribe sea. There is nothing in sea de-\\nscription, detailed, like Dickens s storm in c David Cop-\\nperfield.\\nIn this book, as in others, Ruskin (perhaps, as I\\nhave suggested, for lack of music, and in default,\\ntherefore, of a sense of the separateness of an art\\nthat imitates nothing) spends the riches of his mind\\nupon the perpetual, and in some kind insoluble, ques-\\ntion as to the imitation and selection of nature in\\npainting. Upon this he has said many things con-\\ntending things as even a careful student may hold,\\ncontrary things as the careless will continue to think.\\nMay we not regret the arduous thought spent upon\\nan ambiguous dispute that is nearly an ambiguous\\nquarrel If he had been learned in music, an art\\nwherein such contention finds no place, would he\\nhave made it the centre of his argument on painting", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0049.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER III\\nMODERN PAINTERS\\nTHE SECOND VOLUME (1846)\\nThe Second Volume of Modern Painters which,\\nthough in affected language, yet with sincere and very\\ndeep feeling, expresses the first and fundamental law\\nrespecting human contemplation of the natural phe-\\nnomena under whose influence we exist that they\\ncan only be seen with their properly belonging joy\\nand interpreted up to the measure of proper human\\nintelligence, when they are accepted as the work and\\nthe gift of a Living Spirit greater than our own so\\nruns Ruskin s description of this book. It passes to\\nthe study of the Theoretic Faculty, and teaches us to\\naccount for the beauty we are formed to perceive by\\nreferring it to the attributes of God. In front of this\\nessay stands a moral apology for art, as accessory to\\nthe human dignity and heavenward duty of man-\\nkind, informing the spirit of the artist by the incor-\\nruptible and earnest pride which no applause, no rep-\\nrobation, can blind to its shortcomings, or beguile of\\nits hope. Spirituality and morality have done ill to\\nforego their divine claim to that art whereto they had\\na right not only of authority but of very origin and\\nessence. And in the literally divine gift of art is im-\\nplied the responsibility of choice, so that men are\\n36", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0050.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "modern painters 37\\nbound to authentic and incorrupt beauty in art as they\\nare bound to justice in action. The happiness which\\nthe senses and their spirit take in the good which they\\ncontemplate and follow is itself, by its very energy, a\\nsure rule of choice it clasps what it loves so hard,\\nthat it crushes it if it be hollow. And this happi-\\nness, far too high to be called aesthetic, Ruskin\\nnames the Theoretic Faculty.\\nWe must advance, as we live on, from what is\\nbrilliant to what is pure, and from what is promised\\nto what is fulfilled, and from what is our strength to\\nwhat is our crown, only observing in all things how\\nthat which is indeed wrong, and to be cut up from the\\nroot, is dislike [of natural things] and not affection.\\nBeauty is the bread of the soul, for which vir-\\nginal hunger is renewed every morning. And good\\ngenius was infallibly imaginative in the days before\\nmen had begun to bring to the cross foot their sys-\\ntems instead of their sorrow. From this noble doc-\\ntrine to the conclusion that a false and impious man\\ncould not be a great imaginative painter (a judgment\\nthat has been cast in Ruskin s teeth a thousand times),\\nthe logic of a young man carried him, not in haste\\nindeed but with the current of deliberate and inten-\\ntional decision. I do not think, said Socrates,\\nthat any one who should now hear us, even though\\nhe were a comic poet, would say that I talk idly or\\ndiscourse on matters that concern me not but the\\ncomic, or more properly the derisive, humour of Eng-\\nlish writers has not forborne to accuse Ruskin of that", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0051.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "38 JOHN RUSKIN\\nwhich Socrates had confidence would be forborne in\\nhis own regard to charge with vanity an inquiry that\\nconcerned man and the honour of his works. And\\nif the question has been held so vain, what common\\ncontempt has not mocked the answer framed in the\\ntoo instant need that a great mind had to be satisfied\\nIn preparation of his task of referring what we see\\nto be beautiful to what we believe to be Eternal, Rus-\\nkin stays upon the old speculation as to the nature of\\nthe beauty that so delights our discerning senses as to\\ncause us to refer the felicity to qualities of God.\\nAmong attempted definitions of beauty (which are\\ndescriptions rather than definitions) he does not cite\\nthe scholastic sentence Splendour of Truth, which\\nwould have pleased him had he known it, but which\\ndoes not explain why the aspect of truth is only\\nsometimes splendid; he does quote the vaguer kind\\nof felicity of Bacon, which fails to explain the kind.\\nNothing is more common, Ruskin says in the\\nfollowing volume, than to hear people who desire to\\nbe thought philosophical, declare that c beauty is\\ntruth and truth is beauty. I would most earnestly\\nbeg every sensible person who hears such an assertion\\nmade, to nip the germinating philosopher in his am-\\nbiguous bud and beg him, if he really believes his\\nown assertion, never henceforward to use two words\\nfor the same thing. The succeeding chapters on\\nUnity, Infinity, Repose, u Moderation, are\\nmasterly in thought, with passages close and fine, as\\nthat which discovers the reason of the agreeable-\\nness of a curve that it divides itself infinitely by", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0052.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 39\\nits changes of direction that which asserts the\\ninseparable dependence of spirits on each other s\\nbeing, and their essential and perfect depending on\\ntheir Creator s j and the noble page on Unity\\nSubjectional Unity of things submitted to the same\\ninfluence, which is that of clouds in the wind Unity\\nof Origin, which is that of branches of a tree\\nUnity of Sequence, which is that of continued lines\\nor the notes following to make a melody and Unity\\nof Membership, which is the unity of things sep-\\narately imperfect in a perfect whole, as in the notes\\njoining to make a harmony, and, in spiritual creatures,\\ntheir essential life of happiness in the Creator Spirit.\\nInordinate variety (such as that of the colouring of\\nsome tropical birds) is a defect of the beauty of Unity.\\nThe dark background is presented to us (and here\\nRuskin seems perilously to strain a principle in the\\napplication) as a denial of the beauty of Infinity.\\nI think if there be any one grand division, by\\nwhich it is at all possible to set the productions of\\npainting, so far as their mere plan or system is con-\\ncerned, on our right and left hands, it is this of light\\nand dark background, of heaven light or of object\\nlight.-\\nThe abruptness and confidence of the theological\\nassertions, Ruskin protests in a note, became painful\\nto him in after years, but their matter is involved in\\nevery thought of this essay. Nothing else is retracted\\nin the revision except something of the veneration\\ngiven to Michelangiolo, of the love given to Raphael", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0053.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "40 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand to Francia, and of a young man s love of the for-\\nest and the wild landscape, in impatience of the lovely\\ncountry of agriculture.\\nThe latter part of the second volume is principally\\na treatise on Imagination Associative, Penetra-\\ntive, and Contemplative a great work of true intel-\\nlectual passion and the poverty of any words that\\ntry to present the argument by way of mere sketch\\nmust discourage me from the attempt howbeit the\\ntask I have set myself throughout is no less than this\\nalmost impossible summary, the reader will do well to\\nbe more than ever on his guard in order to take the\\ncitations as signs and fragments of the perfect life of\\nthe work. Let it be said at once that no man could\\nthink out the multitude of truths without the use of\\nopposing phrases. It would have been well if in the\\nsubsequent revision for later issues (especially the\\nthorough revision of 1883) Ruskin had altered the\\nmere diction of the doctrine as to choice in art. The\\nreader must be warned not to put this amongst the\\nreputed inconsistencies until he has read the fourth\\nvolume, where the paradox is explained. The real\\ninconsistencies are few, and only a reader baffled\\nby the consistency (and there is nothing so exacting,\\nso difficult, so various, as the consistency of a com-\\nplete theory, nothing so overwhelming to a slothful\\nstudent) has ever diverted himself by counting them.\\nAt the outset Ruskin encounters by another of those\\noriginally paltry accidents that are of use the defini-\\ntion of Imagination by Dugald Stewart, who does not\\nknow imagination from composition, or recomposi-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0054.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "modern painters 41\\ntion, and thinks imagination in landscape to consist\\nin the imaginary landscape of gathering or colloca-\\ntion. It is not this, as no one needs to be told to-\\nday, but we owe our knowledge in great part to Rus-\\nkin s contention; and the word imagination itself\\n(originally aesthetic, or sensual, and defective) is\\nwhat it is now by his own act of transformation.\\nImagination does not combine, but is pre-engaged\\nupon more vital work. In fact the chapter on Im-\\nagination Associative does some of its most effectual\\nwork in its witty history of the drawing of a tree by\\na painter without imagination\\nWe will suppose him, for better illustration of\\nthe point in question, to have good feeling and correct\\nknowledge of the nature of trees. He probably lays\\non his paper such a general form as he knows to be\\ncharacteristic of the tree to be drawn, and such as he\\nbelieves will fall in agreeably with the other masses\\nof his picture. When this form is set down,\\nhe assuredly finds it has done something he did not\\nintend it to do. It has mimicked some prominent\\nline, or overpowered some necessary mass. He be-\\ngins pruning and changing, and, after several experi-\\nments, succeeds in obtaining a form which does no\\nmaterial mischief to any other. To this form he pro-\\nceeds to attach a trunk, and, working probably on a\\nreceived notion or rule (for the unimaginative painter\\nnever works without a principle) that tree-trunks\\nought to lean first one way and then the other as they\\ngo up, and ought not to stand under the middle of the\\ntree, he sketches a serpentine form of requisite pro-\\npriety when it has gone up far enough that is, till\\nit looks disagreeably long, he will begin to ramify it", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0055.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "42 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand if there be another tree in the picture with two\\nlarge branches, he knows that this, by all the laws of\\ncomposition, ought to have three or four, or some\\ndifferent number and because he knows that if three\\nor four branches start from the same point they will\\nlook formal, therefore he makes them start from\\npoints one above another; and because equal dis-\\ntances are improper, therefore they shall start at un-\\nequal distances. When they are fairly started, he\\nknows they must undulate or go backwards and for-\\nwards, which accordingly he makes them do at ran-\\ndom and because he knows that all forms ought to\\nbe contrasted, he makes one bend down while the\\nother three go up. The three that go up, he knows,\\nmust not go up without interfering with each other,\\nand so he makes two of them cross. He thinks it\\nalso proper that there should be variety of character\\nin them so he makes the one that bends down grace-\\nful and flexible, and, of the two that cross, he splinters\\none and makes a stump of it. He repeats the process\\namong the more complicated minor boughs, until\\ncoming to the smallest, he thinks further care un-\\nnecessary, but draws them freely, and by chance.\\nHaving to put on the foliage, he will make it flow\\nproperly in the direction of the tree s growth he will\\nmake all the extremities graceful, but will be tor-\\nmented by rinding them come all alike, and at last\\nwill be obliged to spoil a number of them altogether\\nin order to obtain opposition. They will not, how-\\never, be united in this their spoliation, but will remain\\nuncomfortably separate and individually ill-tempered.\\nHe consoles himself by the reflection that it is unnat-\\nural for all of them to be equally perfect. Now, I\\nsuppose that through the whole of this process he has\\nbeen able to refer to his definite memory or concep-\\ntion of nature for every one of the fragments he has\\nsuccessively added.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0056.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 43\\nRuskin s own tree-drawing stem-drawing especially\\nhas an extraordinary power so has his word, living\\nwith the life of the tree, as when he tells you of the\\nlower bough stretched towards you with somewhat of\\nthe action of an open hand, palm upwards, and the\\nfingers a little bent.\\nThe penetrative form of the imaginative faculty, he\\ntells us, is proved in its dealing with matter and with\\nspirit. It takes a grasp of things by the heart, seizes\\noutward things from within, and refers them to that\\ninner secret spring of which the hold is never lost\\nby i^Eschylus, Homer, Dante, or Shakespeare. How\\ndid Shakespeare know that Virgilia could not speak\\nContemplative imagination is Shelley s faculty in\\npainting, it presents the generic or symbolical form of\\nthings capable of various accidents and no fidelity\\nof surface imitation, such as Landseer s, can atone for\\nthe loss of the larger relations of light or colour,\\nfor example brought about by lack of imaginative\\nvision. Contemplative imagination is able, having\\nclimbed the sycamore, and waiting, to perceive the\\nDivine form among the mortal crowd how much\\nmore it knows in the breaking of bread cannot be\\ntold. Though we cannot, while we feel deeply,\\nreason shrewdly, yet I doubt if, except when we feel\\ndeeply, we can ever comprehend fully. (One wishes\\nit were lawful, in quoting, to leave out such a futile\\nword as the ever in this sentence.) And the in-\\ntellect is said to sit, in the hour of imagination, upon\\nits central throne. Incidentally we have this keen\\npoint made of one of the differences of imagination", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0057.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "44 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand fancy fancy is sequent and mobile herself\\ndeals with the mobility (I suppose mobility rather\\nthan action, wherewith imagination is mightily con-\\ncerned) of things; and perhaps I may add that Keats\\njudged more wisely than he knew of the rather\\ncommon fancy occupying him for the moment when\\nhe wrote\\nEver let the fancy roam\\nPleasure never is at home.\\nDoubtless imaginative joy is everywhere supremely at\\nhome. For the moment, I say for the brief mo-\\nment; contemplative imagination is in Keats in large\\nand intense perfection.\\nIdeal and Real are words that represent an-\\nother subject of old thought whereon most men have\\nopinions. Let me say briefly (since this may now be\\nsaid more briefly than when Ruskin said it) that the\\ndoctrine of Modern Painters would have us to con-\\ndemn that generalising which is a combination, an as-\\nsembling of individual characters, and is impotent;\\nand that it would have us to seek the ideal of each\\nindividual, by the mental study of the hieroglyphics\\nof his sacred history, and by the hard working por-\\ntraiture, the necessary and sterling basis of all ideal\\nart, practised by Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Ghir-\\nlandajo, Masaccio, John Bellini; and not by Guido\\nor the Caracci. The lack of the individual ideal,\\nwith the triviality of accessories, has filled the English\\nAcademy with such a school of portraiture as must\\nmake the people of the nineteenth century the shame", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0058.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "modern painters 45\\nof their descendants, and the butt of all time. In\\ntreating of the vital and ideal beauty of man Ruskin\\nsays that the purity of flesh-painting depends on the\\nintensity and warmth of its colour.\\nThe second volume, finally, is very distinctly, and\\nindeed suddenly, patched with the style of Hooker,\\nwhom Ruskin had studied with full imitative inten-\\ntion. But the normal and working style is purely of\\nits own day as his genius renewed the day and the\\nhour that is, it is fresh, full-charged, and exact\\nand as unlike anything in the past ages as it is unlike\\nthe more hesitating, gradated, and reinforced propriety\\nlearned by some later English from some later French\\nwriters.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0059.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER IV\\nMODERN PAINTERS\\nTHE THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES (1S56)\\nThe third volume was written after ten years.\\nTurner had died too soon to receive the amends of\\nthe first volume for the rash blame that had embittered\\nhis life; and from the irreparable cruelty Ruskin s\\nheart had taken the wound that the young heart ac-\\ncepts from the world but there were, in their meas-\\nure, men whom it was not too late to praise, and the\\ngenerous fear lest one or two true painters should be\\ndenied their due until they also had passed from the\\ncommunion of men upon earth led Ruskin somewhat\\nfar in his praises of modern painters who were not\\nTurners. As a prelude stands an essay Touching\\nthe Grand Style, in controversy with Sir Joshua\\nReynolds and with Dr. Johnson, his ally. It is with\\nno irreverence towards the master whose painting was\\na refutation of everything shallow that he took in\\nhand to speak or read, and with no irreverence to\\nJohnson, that a reader, fresh from the searching thought\\nof Ruskin, confesses the Discourse here examined to\\nbe an instance of the commonplace thinking of the\\neighteenth century commonplace (let the paradox be\\nallowed) to the degree of falsity. Loose reasoning in\\nexact English is here, as where Sir Joshua says that\\n46", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0060.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 47\\nthe Grand Style of Michelangiolo, the Homer of\\npainting, has the least of common nature, whereas\\nit is common and general nature that Sir Joshua s\\ndoctrine of the Grand Style does logically allow, and\\nthe distinction of individual character that it forbids.\\nIf the comparison with Homer were a just one, then\\nthe heroic or impossible in art must be mingled (as\\nRuskin proves), with the very unheroic and quite pos-\\nsible, with details of cookery, amongst others and\\nhaving shown the figure of his hero, the painter ought\\nto u spend the greater part of his time (as Homer the\\ngreater number of his verses) in elaborating the pat-\\ntern on his shield. Moreover Sir Joshua and the\\nDoctor think they have profoundly shaken the original\\nidea of beauty by the eighteenth-century device of ex-\\nplaining beauty by custom If the whole world,\\nthey say, should agree that Yes and No should\\nchange their meanings, Yes would then deny and No\\nwould affirm. As though the arbitrary sign of a\\nword had any but a conventional relation to the thing\\nsignified and as though the Yes answered to the\\nquestion Do two and two make four could be\\nchanged for No in its significance, even if the sound\\nof it were No\\nIn regard to dignity Ruskin says:\\nPaul Veronese opposes the dwarf to the soldier,\\nand the negress to the queen; Shakespeare places\\nCaliban beside Miranda and Autolycus beside Perdita;\\nbut the vulgar idealist withdraws his beauty to the\\nsafety of the saloon, and his innocence to the seclu-\\nsion of the cloister, he has neither courage", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0061.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "48 JOHN RUSKIN\\nto front the monster, nor wit enough to furnish the\\nknave.\\nRuskin finds the great style to be the style of a great\\npainter, and knows that no good will can bring it to\\npass. The reader may remember that it is written in\\nthe Phczdo, There are, say those who preside at the\\nmysteries, many wand-bearers, but few inspired.\\nThe recurrence of the dispute as to detail, if ever\\nto be lamented, is hardly so in this third volume,\\nwherein it produces some memorable sayings; for\\nexample, that touches, seeming coarse when near the\\neye, are put on by a fine painter with the calculation\\nwherewith an archer draws his bow according to the\\ndistance, the spectator seeing nothing but the strain\\nof the strong arm and that the best drawing in-\\nvolves a wonderful perception and expression of indis-\\ntinctness. But alas how shall I attain to know, in\\ntwo pictures, the indistinctness that is merely indis-\\ntinctness from that which is wonderfully perceived to\\nbe indistinct If, a little further, we must submit to\\nhave it said of the tender Rembrandt that he sacrifices\\nto one light and its relations the expression of every\\ncharacter which depends on tenderness of\\nshape or tint, we submit for the pleasure of reading,\\nin contrast, of Veronese s delicate air and great\\nsystem of spacious truth.\\nHe unites all in tenderest balance,\\nnoting in each hair s-breadth of colour, not merely\\nwhat its Tightness or wrongness is in itself, but what\\nits relation is restraining, for truth s sake,", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0062.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 49\\nhis exhaustless energy, reigning back, for truth s sake,\\nhis fiery strength veiling, before truth, the vanity of\\nbrightness penetrating, for truth, the discouragement\\nof gloom.\\nAfter the true and the false Grand Styles come\\nconsiderations of true and false ideals and I take from\\na page on the latter this witty passage\\nA modern German, without invention,\\nseeing a rapid in a river, will immediately devote\\nthe remainder of the day to the composition of\\ndialogues between amorous water nymphs and un-\\nhappy manners while the man of true invention,\\npower, and sense will, instead, set himself to consider\\nwhether the rocks in the river could have their points\\nknocked off, or the boats upon it be made with\\nstronger bottoms. The various forms of\\nfalse idealism have so entangled the modern mind,\\noften called, I suppose ironically, practical.\\nCompare with this the permission given, two pages\\nlater, to the true imagination to create for itself\\nfairies and naiads, and other such fictitious creatures.\\nHow shall the reader be taught to feel, with Ruskin,\\nan infallible moral indignation against this naiad and\\nan infallible moral delight in that? It seems to me\\nimpossible. One falls back upon the sure if inex-\\nplicable private judgment this ideal poem is genius-\\nwork and beautiful, and that ideal poem is not. But\\nin confessing despair of learning the lesson as a lesson\\n(it is taught, with all power, purpose, and insistence,\\nby Ruskin, as a lesson) I disclaim the insolence of re-\\nproaching him with that moral passion which was to", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0063.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "50 JOHN RUSKIN\\nhis mind most intelligible, most necessary, and an-\\ngelically just.\\nPurist Idealism, Naturalist Idealism, and\\nGrotesque Idealism in their right forms are studied\\nnext, with some repetition, but also with almost over-\\nwhelming variety. Ruskin adds to his words on the\\nauthentic imagination these, which, when they are\\nheard, confer the vision and the power: Write the\\nthings which thou hast seen, and the things which\\nare. To the imagination he commits the study of\\ngeneral things, of special things, and of unique things\\nin their multitudes. The choice as well as the\\nvision is manifested to Homer, he says in another\\nplace, touching on the controversy that runs through-\\nout. In a passage which has truth in a most strange\\naspect, he avers that without choice a great painter\\nmay paint vain and paltry things at a sorrowful\\nlevel, somewhat above vulgarity. It is only when the\\nminor painter takes them on his easel that they be-\\ncome things for the universe to be ashamed of. The\\nchapter on the Grotesque is altogether delightful and\\nwonderful. Grotesque art is that which arises\\nfrom healthful but irrational play of the imagination,\\nor from irregular and accidental contemplation of ter-\\nrible things, or from the confusion of the imagination\\nby the presence of truths which it cannot wholly\\ngrasp i in the last case it is altogether noble.\\nHow is it to be distinguished from the false and\\nvicious grotesque which results from idleness instead\\nof noble rest from malice, instead of the solemn con-\\ntemplation of the necessary evil; and from general", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0064.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "modern painters 51\\ndegradation of the human spirit, instead of its sub-\\njection, or confusion, by thoughts too high for it\\nRuskin admits that the vague and foolish incon-\\nsistencies of undisciplined dream might be mistaken\\nfor the compelled inconsistencies of thought and\\nhe teaches us the difference in one of the best, most\\nunmistakable, most imaginative, and most conclusive\\nof all the lessons in his books that of the two griffins.\\nThe drawings of the Roman griffin, from the temple of\\nAntoninus and Faustina, and of the Lombard griffin,\\nfrom the Cathedral of Verona, are by his own hand.\\nThe classical griffin has technical mastery of\\ncomposition, collocation, combination the secondary\\nqualities in no little beauty, but Ruskin takes the man\\nwho wrought it through the experiment and piece-\\nmeal of his work as but now he took a bad draughts-\\nman through his tree with exquisite dramatic sense\\nof the man s mind and action, most wittily, with a wit\\nof the very fingers. He shows how the lion and the\\neagle, put together, have been missed in the winged\\ncreature with its trivial eye, and its foot on the top of\\na flower. Let the reader remember that this griffin\\nwas famous, and that no one had perceived the Lom-\\nbardic griffin until Ruskin studied him. No piecemeal\\nis in this winged creature. He is not merely a bit\\nof lion and a bit of eagle, but whole lion incorporate\\nwith whole eagle. He has the carnivorous teeth,\\nand the peculiar hanging of the jaw at the back,\\nwhich marks the flexible mouth he has no cocked\\nears, like the other, to catch the wind in flight (Ruskin", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0065.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "52 JOHN RUSKIN\\nsays that the classical griffin would have an ear-ache\\nwhen he got home a phrase of heart-easing\\nmirth he the Lombard has the throat, the\\nstrength, the indolence of the lion he has merely\\ngot a poisonous winged dragon to hold, and for such\\na little matter as that, he may as well do it lying\\ndown. With the utmost dramatic sense is the grasp\\non the dragon told in this fine page, to which the\\nreader is bound to have recourse if he would know\\ntrue griffinism at all. Composing legalism does\\nnothing else than err. The passionate imagination\\nknows not how to transgress.\\nFrom the chapters on u Finish let us clearly learn\\nthat what Ruskin calls by this name is life no less.\\nHis illustrations of Claude s and Constable s tree-\\ndrawing and of the real and vital growth of trees are\\nto this point and nowhere is the extraordinary power\\nof his own hand more manifest than in the plate\\nStrength of Old Pine. None but his word would\\ndescribe his work. The Use of Pictures (a very\\nknot of reasoning) and a brief history of the human\\nspirit of the artist, antique and modern, bring us to\\nthe famous Pathetic Fallacy. This fallacy is a\\nfiction (wanton, fanciful, imaginative, or more purely\\npassionate) in our reading of natural things according\\nto the feeling of our own hearts. Obviously it is\\nchiefly poetry that is here in question and the reader\\nshould understand that Ruskin is not writing of poets\\nwho are no poets; he admits two orders of poets,\\nbut no third, as doubtless a musician would admit two\\norders of musicians two very arts of music, two", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0066.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "modern painters 53\\nmuses but no third and he places agreeing therein\\nwith the greater number of critics one order higher\\nthan the other, as a musician need not do in contem-\\nplating his own double-peaked hill. Ruskin makes an\\nadmirable opposition of the image without fallacy of\\nDante to the image with fallacy of Coleridge paus-\\ning for a moment (only a moment, for the chapter is\\nintended to treat chiefly of noble and passionate fal-\\nlacy) at the fallacy which is not poetic at all because\\nit is assigned, as by Pope, to the wrong passion, and\\nis cold. But I confess all this reasoning on poetry\\nseems to fail not impotently, but with vital effort,\\nand because of some prohibition from the beginning\\nof the task to fail to prove or even to demonstrate\\nanything we do not know, or to disprove anything\\nwe feel. A whole chapter further on, for instance,\\nshows Walter Scott to be better than a sentimentalist,\\nbetter than a poet who works with difficulty, better\\nthan a poet who is self-conscious, better as a poet-seer\\nthan a mere poet-thinker, and moreover a thorough\\nrepresentative of his time by his love of nature, of the\\npast, of colour, and of the picturesque, by his sadness\\nand lack of personal faith, and so forth. But at the\\nend of the argument we shall not have been persuaded\\nto take Scott to be a poet possessed of the spirit of\\npoetry. The essay, however, though a vain persua-\\nsion, is an excellent commentary take the sentence,\\nfor example, which explains how we have pleasure in\\nKingsley s fallacious u cruel foam, not because the\\nwords u fallaciously describe foam, but because they\\nfaithfully describe sorrow. The chapter has been", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0067.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "54 JOHN RUSKIN\\npopular, for it reaches none of the inner concentra-\\ntions of thought that make Modern Painters arduous\\nreading to a real reader. The chapter following, on\\nClassical Landscape, deals also with poetry. To\\nthe question whether the modern with his fancy does\\nnot see something in nature that Homer could not see,\\nRuskin replies that the Greek had his own feeling\\nthat of faith and not of fallacy. He never says the\\nwaves rage, or the waves are idle. But he says there\\nis somewhat in, and greater than, the waves, which\\nrages, and is idle, and that he calls a god. Nor will\\nRuskin consent to have Homer s Hera, cuffing the\\ncontentious Artemis about the ears, too much inter-\\npreted. Let no one think to explain away my real,\\nrunning, beautiful, beaten Diana, into a moon behind\\nclouds. Happy too, by its phrase, in the finely\\nelaborate contrast of the antique and the modern\\nspirit, is this passage on the Greek and the gods\\nTo ask counsel of them, to obey them, to sacri-\\nfice to them, to thank them for all good, this was\\nwell but to be utterly downcast before them, or not\\nto tell them his mind in plain Greek if they seemed\\nto him to be conducting themselves in an ungodly\\nmanner this would not be well.\\nAnd happy in thought is a passage on the modern\\nwho accepts sympathy from nature that he does not\\nbelieve in, and gives her sympathy that he does not\\nbelieve in (but should this part of the phrase be so\\npositive as the other whereas the Greek had no\\nsympathy at all with actual wave and woody fibre.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0068.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "modern painters 55\\nThe exquisite chapter on The Fields traces the\\nhistory of the landscape of vegetation, ancient and\\nmediaeval, discovers the first sky in an illuminated\\nmanuscript and the first leaf in its borders how it un-\\nfolded there and tracks the change in the human\\nspirit in regard to the forest, wherein the man of the\\ni\\\\Iiddle Ages looked to meet with an enemy in am-\\nbush or a bear, whereas the ancient expected to meet\\none or two gods, but no banditti j and The Rocks\\nis a magnificent study of mountains as man beheld\\nthem in the ancient world and in the altered ages.\\nRuskin gives modern man, with his love of breeze,\\nof shadows, of the ruling and dividing clouds, over to\\nthe gibe of Aristophanes that he would speak in-\\ngeniously concerning smoke, that he disbelieves in\\nJupiter, and crowns the whirlwind. Exquisite play\\nis mingled with all the philosophy of these historic\\nchapters. A summary but splendid history of colour\\nin the arts a spiritual history of the colours man\\nhas loved opens the question treated at length by\\nother pens long after Modern Painters was written\\nof the sense of colour in Antiquity; and the study re-\\nturns to Turner, the man who was first in the es-\\nsentially modern painting of nature in place of the\\nhuman form, as Bacon was first in the modern study\\nof nature instead of the human mind. But in The\\nMoral of Landscape Turner himself and all lovers\\nof nature are arraigned with extreme austerity to justify,\\nor rather to excuse, that passion for landscape where-\\nwith some of the greatest of human intellects have\\nnot been charged and it is only after a meditation,", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0069.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "56 JOHN RUSKIN\\nfull of misgiving, nay, of suffering, and courage, and\\nafter trying all things all human wandering, from\\nthat of the truant schoolboy studying nature despite\\nof duty and discipline, to that of the poet, astray on\\none of the infinite ways, in one of the infinite direct-\\ntions, of loss it is only then that this teacher permits\\nhimself to bless the human love of nature. With\\ntrembling hope and the profound decision that is\\nto be won from the heart of hearts of a dreadful\\ndoubt, he calls finally upon the love and knowledge\\nof landscape to mend specifically the foolish spirit of\\na century bent upon u annihilating time and space by\\nsteam (as people said in 1850 but the saying was\\nconfessedly mere rhetoric, and certainly a vulgar kind),\\nwhereas time is what wisdom would seek to gain, and\\nspace is full of beauty upon which wisdom would be\\nglad to pause.\\nThe volume closes with a little history of The\\nTeachers of Turner, which compares Scott, neglected\\nas a boy, with Turner, educated a little in the for-\\nmalism of a low degree of classical knowledge, which\\ndid, in fact, show the way to larger interests. Albeit\\nTurner had to await his opportunity to steal from the\\nEgerian wells to the Yorkshire streams, and from\\nHomeric rocks, with laurels at the top and caves at\\nthe bottom to Alpine precipices carrying the pine,\\nyet he gained something from the restraint, and was\\nthereafter able to watch with pleasure the staying of\\nthe silver fountain [the garden fountain] at its ap-\\npointed height in the sky as well as to pore with\\ndelight upon the unbound river. But, ordered, as a", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0070.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "modern painters 57\\nboy, to draw elevations of Renaissance buildings, and\\ncommissioned as a youth to draw Palladian mansions\\nfor their owners, Turner never loved or understood\\narchitecture; whereas Scott, if he learnt little of it,\\nliked it heartily. A forced admiration of Claude\\nand a fond admiration of Titian, and of all the great\\nVenetian landscape, are traced by Ruskin in Turner s\\nearly work with Cuyp Turner matched himself in\\nemulation, and he suffered injury from the example of\\nVandevelde. Then follow some vigorous pages about\\nClaude. Tenderness of perception and sincerity of\\npurpose Ruskin attributes to him and confesses\\nthat he it was who first set the sun in heaven. But\\nClaude s way of misunderstanding the main point\\nis proved by Ruskin in the case of iEneas drawing\\nhis bow, from the Liber Veritatis.\\nFrom the ending of this volume, which refers to the\\nCrimean War, the reader should carry two phrases\\nbriefer and more concentrated than is usual with an\\nauthor so bent on exposition. One is the sunlight\\nof deathbeds, and the other (on the sudden faults of\\nnations) For great, accumulated cause,\\ntheir foot slides in due time. And this is memorable\\nas the note of a watcher of public things\\nI noticed that there never came news of the ex-\\nplosion of a powder-barrel but the Parlia-\\nment lost confidence immediately in the justice of the\\nwar reopened the question whether we ever should\\nhave engaged in it, and remained in a doubtful and\\nrepentant state of mind until one of the enemy s\\npowder-barrels blew up also.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0071.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "58 JOHN RUSKIN\\nDefending himself against the not unrighteous\\ncharge that he not only neglected but scorned German\\nphilosophy, Ruskin avers, in his Appendix, that he is\\nright to condemn by specimen\\nHe who seizes all that he plainly discerns to be\\nvaluable, and never is unjust but when he cannot honestly\\nhelp it, will soon be enviable in his possessions, and\\nvenerable in his equity.\\nThe humorous phrase takes us on many years, to\\nFiction Fair and Foul, in the Nineteenth Century, where\\nRuskin related his refusal to be troubled to read a\\ncertain novel he had heard praised; the situation\\nof the story, they told him, was that of two people\\nwho had compromised themselves in a boat foul\\nand foolish. Not without pain or incredulity has the\\nreader to learn that the passage so ridiculed is the\\nflight and the return of Maggie Tulliver. Injustice\\nmay be as inevitable as stumbling or being sick,\\nbut evitable was the proclamation of this stray, un-\\ninstructed, and unjustified judgment. The pardon of\\nthese implicit injustices surely depends upon their\\nprivacy, upon the silence that is not irrevocable, and\\non the secrecy wherewith a man keeps his own counsel\\nas to his prejudice.\\nThe volumes are less difficult reading as the work\\ngoes forward, and the fourth has had ten readers for\\none reader of the earlier three. Partly for this cause\\nthe page on the Calais tower (placed in the late edition\\nat the beginning of the volume) became famous it\\nevoked what its author calls the weak enthusiasms of", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0072.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 59\\nthose who missed the essential beauty because they\\nthought themselves elected to admire the u style. It\\nis a passage of a chapter directed to correct and\\nchastise that popular ideal of the picturesque abroad\\nand the neat at home wherewith many thousands\\ngo and come across the Channel.\\nThe large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it\\nthe record of its years written so visibly, yet without\\nsign of weakness or decay its stern wasteness and\\ngloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and over-\\ngrown by the bitter sea grasses its slates and tiles all\\nshaken and rent, and yet not falling its desert of\\nbrickwork full of bolts, and holes, and ugly fissures,\\nand yet strong, like a bare brown rock; its careless-\\nness of what any one thinks or feels about it, putting\\nforth no claim, having no beauty or desirableness,\\npride, nor grace yet neither asking for pity not, as\\nruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly gar-\\nrulous of better days but useful still, going through\\nits own daily work as some old fisherman beaten\\ngrey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets so it stands,\\nwith no complaint about its past youth, in blanched\\nand meagre massiveness and serviceableness, gathering\\nhuman souls together underneath it the sound of its\\nbells for prayer still rolling through its rents and the\\ngrey peak of it seen far across the sea, principal of the\\nthree that rise above the waste of surfy sand and\\nhillocked shore the lighthouse for life, and the belfry\\nfor labour, and this for patience and praise.\\nAppropriate to the time, fifty years ago, is the re-\\nbuke that follows of the painter who went in search\\nof fallen cottage, deserted village, blasted heath,\\nmouldering castle, joyful sights to him alone of", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0073.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "60 JOHN RUSKIN\\nmankind, so that they did but show jagged angles of\\nstone and timber true, he mingled with his pleasures\\na slight tragical feeling, a vague desire to live in\\ncottages, a partly romantic, partly humble, sympathy.\\nRuskin showed him his own triviality in contrast with\\nthe sympathy of genius which was Turner s. Tintoret\\nhad a like genius, but without humour. Veronese\\nhad such a sympathy, but without tragedy. Rubens\\nwants grace and mystery. In Turner alone Ruskin\\nfinds the complete sympathy failing only as he was\\nhuman. From the immeasurably various opened\\nworld before such a genius Turner chose great things,\\nnot contenting himself with the personal impression\\nthat might make odds and ends dear to him, as\\nRuskin s young pre-Raphaelites were doing, leaving\\nthe noble things to be made into vignettes for\\nannuals, or to be painted vilely. Surely the surviv-\\ning slander that Ruskin would have his disciples to\\nselect nothing and to neglect nothing might have\\nbeen silenced once for all by the note to this same\\npage, which proves him to have directed none but the\\npreparatory studies of young learners by that celebrated\\nphrase. Nor is any controversy possible in face of\\nanother page of this volume\\nIf a painter has inventive power he is to treat his\\nsubject [by] giving not the actual facts of\\nit, but the impression it made on his mind.\\nRuskin supplied his future opponents with this word\\nand with this thought which they brandished and", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0074.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "modern painters 6 1\\nvaunted on their side of some supposed controversy.\\nIn truth, he allows a great inventive landscape\\npainter to do what he likes, to give not the image,\\nbut the spirit of a place, to go down into a jumbled\\nand formless lower valley of the Alps with his mind\\nfull of the terrors of a pass above and in that power\\nof impression to transform the rocks. But let the\\nuninventive beware of the paltry work of composing;\\nlet him learn to make portraits of places, and record\\nfor us the battlefield for the sake of strategy, the castle\\nbefore it moulders away, the abbey before it is pulled\\nto the ground, the beast before it is extinct, the\\ntopography of Venice before the city is destroyed\\nthat is art enough for him. But, unfortunately, he is\\nnot to be trusted for facts and Ruskin finds that the\\ndull Canaletto, far from making a picture, cannot so\\nmuch as record exactly where a house stood. If any\\none shall say, moreover, that by this or that invention\\nTurner did wrong inventively, Ruskin replies, The\\ndream said not so to Turner.\\nThe succeeding chapters are a long lesson on the\\ninitial and unending difficulties of illumination, and\\nof the degrees of pictorial vision, from which I must\\nquote no more than this on relations or values\\nDespise the earth; fix your eyes on its gloom,\\nand forget its loveliness and we do not thank you for\\nyour languid or despairing perception of brightness in\\nheaven. But rise up actively from the earth, learn\\nwhat there is in it, know its colour and form\\nand if after that you can say heaven is bright, it will\\nbe a precious truth.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0075.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "62 JOHN RUSKIN\\nAnd this from the study of colour as more than all\\nelse a painter s business\\nThe student may be led into folly by philosophers,\\nand into falsehood by purists but he is always safe if\\nhe holds the hand of a colourist.\\nAnd this, on Mystery\\nAll distinct drawing must be bad drawing, and\\nnothing can be right till it is unintelligible.\\nExcellence of the highest kind, without ob-\\nscurity, cannot exist.\\nAssuredly, without difficulty from the objections of\\nmodern readers, who are convinced already, Ruskin\\ncontrols by means of these truths his own doctrine\\nof detail. It is the perception of mystery that the\\ngreatest of all masters have added to the perception\\nof truth Turner, Tintoret, and Paul Veronese, mys-\\nterious painters, whose perception, first as to what\\nis to be done, and then of the means of doing it, is\\nso colossal that I always feel in the presence of their\\npictures just as other people would in that of a super-\\nnatural being. The student should weigh well the\\nwords perception of mystery and all that they im-\\nply, as distinct from power of dispelling mystery or\\nany such phrase. All invention, moreover, all mys-\\ntery, and all intricacy must close in a simple and nat-\\nural pictorial vision, which would be like a child s if\\nit were not more comprehensive. Finally, The\\nright of being obscure is not one to be lightly\\nclaimed. From this point the fourth volume of", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0076.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 63\\nModem Painters becomes chiefly a direct study of na-\\nture, a study indescribably rich but not to be followed\\nby notes and summaries. An exception there is in\\nthe digression on the character and conditions of the\\nValais peasantry, in Mountain Gloom, a chapter\\nfull of poignant thoughts. Some fault of reasoning\\nmay be detected in the attribution to their religion of\\na peculiar melancholy in these people, whereas to the\\nsame cause a different effect must be referred amongst\\nthe equally unworldly countrymen of Lombardy, and\\nwhereas Ruskin himself, after writing with bitterness\\nof this religious source of sorrow, goes on to show\\nthat he and they and all of us have cause enough of\\ngrief without it. Exquisite is the sad record of the\\nwork of the husbandman without books, or thoughts,\\nor attainments, or rest at his small crops on the\\nledges of these divine mountain-sides, where the\\nmeadows run in and out like inlets of lake among the\\nharvested rocks, sweet with perpetual streamlets.\\nThe historical digression, in Mountain Glory,\\nstudies the mountains in their relation to the history\\nof the mind of man, as the answering aspect of man\\ntowards the mountains was studied in an earlier page\\nand here again I lose the proof of the argument.\\nRuskin seems to compel the presence of the moun-\\ntains to account for contrary things, rises and falls, in\\nthe history of Italian painting. And the accompany-\\ning inquiry as to the mountain influence upon literary\\npower seems to be one of the few enterprises of this\\ncourageous mind that do not altogether justify them-\\nselves but even here how much splendour of thought", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0077.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER V\\nMODERN PAINTERS\\nTHE FIFTH VOLUME (i860)\\nThe last volume of this enormous work of thought,\\nimagination, sincerity, and devotion is chiefly a con-\\ntinuation of the study of natural landscape, of form\\nin the leaf, anatomy in the branch of the play of\\nthese creatures of earth with the light from the skies,\\nand the unimaginable shadows that stumble over\\neverything they come across a world of its own\\nthat of the experimental shadow This volume is a\\nstudy of the whole garden How have we ravaged\\ninstead of kept it and of the unalterable skies.\\nThe more intent the study is, the more impassioned\\na look of adoration at arm s length, a kiss at close\\nquarters. The large sense of vegetation, that unsuf-\\nfering creature, with its youth, age, death perpetually\\nrehearsed, grows yet more poetic when it is the little\\nwill of the bud to grow to a pinnacle that Ruskin\\nlooks into, with his incomparably lovely botany. He\\ntells us of the trees that are builders with the shield,\\nand of those that are builders with the sword, accord-\\ning to the manner in which they defend their buds\\nhe tells us what, measured month by month, is the\\nyear s work, and, by the periodicity of the life of\\nvegetation itself, what is the age s how the young\\n64", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0078.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "modern painters 65\\nleaves, like the young bees, keep out of each\\nother s way. The exquisite science of the book is\\nfor the service of art, for the aspect of the leaf in na-\\nture, and for the praise of the leaf-drawing of Titian\\nand Holbein, and for the refutation of the leaf-draw-\\ning of Ruysdael and Hobbema. Ruskin shows us, in\\nboughs, the will, fire, and fantasy of growth measured\\nby the strong law of nervous life and strong law of\\nmaterial attraction, the height of a tree controlled\\nby the gravitation that sinks the fall of lead. He\\nshows us the whole mathematical truths of actual\\nand of pictorial balance in wild asymmetric nature\\nand in Turner; and the incoherence, the lack\\nof equilibrium, in the dull-leaved branch of Salva-\\ntor Rosa and how the false work lacks wit as\\nwell as poise. He proves to us the conditions of the\\nleaf-bearing bough harmony, obedience, distress (or\\ndifficulty), and happy inequality. Ruskin has said\\nthat he was content with himself for one thing he\\nhad done justice to the pine. But he has done justice\\nalso to the oak, and to the poplar. Something that\\nbelongs to the special leaf, to the division of the twigs,\\nto the definite design that by their tips all the twigs\\nand branches together draw as the figure of the tree,\\nsomething that is peculiar to the complexion of the\\nleaf and to its green, and is the spirit of the woods,\\nabides about the names of all trees in these pages.\\nBetween the earth and man arose the leaf. Be-\\ntween the heaven and man arose the cloud. His life\\nbeing partly as the falling leaf, and partly as the fly-\\ning vapour.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0079.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "66 JOHN RUSKIN\\nBut the chapters on clouds here following Cloud\\nBalancings, Cloud Flocks, Cloud Chariots,\\nThe Angel of the Sea are not only scientific\\nstudies of clouds carried further than those in the first\\nvolume, and observations multiplied, but are probably\\nintended to mend the former work as literature. The\\npage of sixteen years before had been rather abruptly\\npatched with decorated and splendid passages the\\npage of the last volume is more glorious, the words\\nare more abundant. Ruskin himself has half dis-\\nowned the eloquence in the writing of the earlier\\nvolumes, but in truth this fifth volume outdoes all\\nthat had gone before. The purpose, nevertheless, is\\nas severe as ever here, as throughout this long task\\nthe investigation of the beauty of the visible\\nworld it was always, as Ruskin says in regard to\\nthe reader, accuracy I asked of him, not sympathy\\npatience, not zeal apprehension, not sensation.\\nThe following part of this volume deals with cer-\\ntain laws of art, such as that of composition, not\\nfully treated elsewhere. And here again we seem to\\nbe cast back upon the single law of Genius. As\\nRuskin banned every kind of falsity, yet allowed\\nRubens to make an horizon aslant with the drift of a\\nstormy picture, and praised Vandyck for his grey\\nroses so, as to composition, he tells us that no ex-\\npression, truth to nature, nor sentiment can win him\\nto look at a picture twice if it is ill composed, yet the\\ncomposition cannot be prescribed by law it is to be\\nas a great painter makes it. The reader will, of\\ncourse, understand that composition in this chap-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0080.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "modern painters 67\\nter and composition in the great chapters on the\\nFaculties of the Imagination must be taken with\\nseparate meanings in the latter case a false compo-\\nsition is implied. Ruskin has, needless to say, studied\\nthe true composition of his great painters as deeply\\nas their other qualities, and he gives a technical lesson\\nthereon in The Law of Help, starting from the\\ncontrast of the decomposition which is death and the\\ncomposition which is natural life, and showing true\\npictorial composition to be coherence, unity, and vi-\\ntality itself.\\nu In true composition, everything not only helps\\neverything else a little, but helps with its utmost\\npower. Not a line, not a spark of colour,\\nbut is doing its very best.\\nAnd this should correct the doubts of those who have\\nrepeated that Ruskin teaches finish to be an added\\ntruth. He never meant thereby a piecemeal truth\\nfor what is added in a fine picture is added, he tells\\nus in this chapter, inevitably and in unity and even\\nwhen he represents a true artist asking himself where,\\nin his picture, he can crowd in another detail, an-\\nother thought, to think this to be an afterthought or a\\nlater detail would be to misinterpret Ruskin s whole\\nbody of teaching. Inferior artists, he says, are afraid\\nof finish not because they have unity, but because\\nthey have it not. Nor have they the deed, which is\\nthe act of purpose. The greatest deed is creation,\\nand the creation of life. In The Law of Perfect-\\nness we have the fruit of an additional study of", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0081.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "68 JOHN RUSKIN\\nTitian the winter was spent mainly in trying to\\nget at the mind of Titian especially in his execu-\\ntion of colour; that is, the ground, the working in,\\nthe striking over of colours. The Dark Mirror\\nsums up the four landscape orders of Europe Heroic\\n(Titian) Classical (Nicolo Poussin) Pastoral (Cuyp)\\nContemplative (Turner) and two spurious forms\\nPicturesque and Hybrid. The reader has to resign\\nhimself to the banishment from Ruskin s thought of\\nall the great French landscape. Once or twice he\\nnames French modern work with horror as something\\ndeathly but what he knows, if anything, of the\\nyoung Corot, for example, or of Millet, one cannot\\nso much as conjecture. For Venetian art he claims\\na share of the Greek spirit which is able to look with-\\nout shrinking into the darkness, unentangled in the\\nmelancholy war of the northern souls of Holbein\\nand Diirer, unconquered by the evil that not only en-\\ntangled but possessed Salvator. Therefore one chap-\\nter is called The Lance of Pallas and the other\\nThe Wings of the Lion, and both deal with the\\nrace and character of Titian. A courageous but\\nnot very hopeful or cheerful faith (and this, in spite\\nof the gaiety of interest which is Mr. Meredith s,\\nmight be a phrase of this last-named master s teach-\\ning) is that which is rewarded by clear practical\\nsuccess and splendid intellectual power. And this\\nwas in the highest degree Shakespeare s for although\\nat the close of Shakespeare s tragedy nothing re-\\nmains but dead march and clothes of burial, yet he\\nwas able to endure that close. It was also that of the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0082.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS 69\\nGreek tragedy, with this difference in the sorrow\\nthat it is connected with sin by the Greek and not by\\nShakespeare and this difference in the close that\\nwith the Greek there is a promise of divine triumph\\nand rising again. Serene is Homer s spirit, with an\\nadded cheerfulness of his own, and practical hope in\\npresent things.\\nThe gods have given us at least this glorious body\\nand this righteous conscience.\\nTherefrom came conquest and the destroying, op-\\npressing, slaying, and betraying gods turned kind;\\nArtemis guarded their flocks, and Phoebus, lord of\\nthe three great spirits of life Care, Memory, and\\nMelody turned healer. Ruskin shows us the Ve-\\nnetians also courageous, but a little sadder on the sur-\\nface, a little less serious beneath, having arisen from,\\nand partly rejected, asceticism. Seizing truth of col-\\nour as only he can, he makes us understand much by\\ntelling us that they sunburn all their hermits to a\\nsplendid brown. And he tells us of the dealings of\\nthe sea with this people that despised agriculture and\\nhad no gardens, but a perpetual May of the wa-\\nters. Nay, not a perpetual May we may join issue\\nwith Ruskin as to the seasons of the sea. Did even\\nhe, who knew better than to follow the fashion, and\\nwho went to the Alps when the gentians were blue\\ndid even he not know the May that kindles the Adri-\\natic and is not perpetual, or it would not be May\\nBut how exquisitely is this written of the Venetian", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0083.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "70 JOHN RUSKIN\\ncitizen, with its allusions to certain Greeks to Anac-\\nreon, to Aristophanes, and to Hippias Major\\nNo swallow chattered at his window, nor, nestled\\nunder his golden roofs, claimed the sacredness of his\\nmercy no Pythagorean fowl taught him the blessings\\nof the poor, nor did the grave spirit of poverty rise at\\nhis side to set forth the delicate grace and honour of\\nlowly life. No humble thoughts of grasshopper sire\\nhad he, like the Athenian; no gratitude for gifts of\\nolive; no childish care for figs, any more than thistles.\\nAs usual Ruskin betakes himself to the religion of\\nthe Venetians the most he knows of it was told him\\nin the nursery at Heme Hill; submitting to this, and\\nto the cruel passing-over, as something non-existent,\\nof the enormous work of one faculty of religion\\nCompassion that changed the face of nations, we\\nshall hear in this chapter great things, nobly said, about\\nthe Venetian soul of man. It is a pity that half a\\npage of refutation should be wasted in condescension\\nto so vulgar an English modern opinion as that the\\nVenetian lord painted on his knees was a hypocrite.\\nBut the worldly end of this religious art and majestic\\nintellect (Titian was not less religious than Tintoret,\\nbut the religion of Titian is like that of Shakespeare\\noccult behind his magnificent equity came to\\npass and is accounted for by Ruskin after his own\\nsubtle way\\nIn its roots of power and modes of work in its\\nbelief, its breadth, and its judgment, I find the Venetian\\nmind perfect wholly noble in its sources,\\nit was wholly unworthy in its purposes.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0084.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "modern painters 71\\nThe Venetian believed in the religion, but he de-\\nsired the delight. It is difficult to the reader thus\\nto divide source from purpose. When Ruskin says\\nthat Titian painted the Assumption u because he\\nenjoyed rich masses of red and blue, and faces\\nflushed with sunlight, I confess I need to be told\\nthat this because refers to purpose and not to\\nsource. Is there not, finally, something omitted in\\nthis history of Venetian art as also in the histories of\\nFlorentine, and of Greek, and of Northern, and of\\nFrench, and of Lombard, and of all arts whereof\\nRuskin has written the vicissitudes and is not this\\nthe law of movement and of alteration He goes far,\\ngoes deep, goes close, to explain the inevitable change\\nwhich comes about perhaps through no action that\\nman can know by searching or can arrest for an hour.\\nThe following chapter, Diirer and Salvator, is\\nupon art reconciled to sorrow, and upon the Resur-\\nrection of Death of the sixteenth and seventeenth\\ncenturies. First of Salvator Rosa, the condemned\\nSalvator, the bearer of the last signs of the spiritual\\nlife in the art of Europe, who named himself Despiser\\nof wealth and of death. Two grand scorns, says\\nRuskin, but the question is not for man what he\\ncan scorn but what he can love. Diirer, on the\\nother hand, was quiet, riding in fortitude with Death,\\nlike his own Knight. Claude and Gaspar Poussin,\\nclassical, but incapable of the Greek or the Roman\\nspirit, renounced the labour and sorrow whereto man\\nis born and so became ornamental, renounced the\\npursuit of wealth and so became pastoral and pretended", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0085.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "72 JOHN RUSKIN\\nto study nature they made selections from amongst\\nthe gods. In their works Minerva rarely presents\\nherself, except to be insulted by the judgment of\\nParis. And in this chapter occurs the last elaborate\\npassage on Claude, the man of fine feeling for\\nbeauty of form and considerable tenderness of percep-\\ntion, whose aerial effects are unrivalled, and\\nwhose seas are the most beautiful in old art but\\nwho was an artist without passion. For its humour I\\nmust quote the description of Claude s u St. George\\nand the Dragon\\nA beautiful opening in woods by a riverside; a\\npleasant fountain and rich vegetation.\\nThe dragon is about the size of ten bramble\\nleaves, and is being killed by the remains of a lance\\nin his throat, curling his tail in a highly of-\\nfensive and threatening manner. St. George, not-\\nwithstanding, on a prancing horse, brandishes his\\nsword, at about thirty yards distance from the offen-\\nsive animal. A semicircular shelf of rocks encircles\\nthe foreground, by which the theatre of action is di-\\nvided into pit and boxes. Some women and children\\nhaving descended unadvisedly into the pit are helping\\neach other out of it again. A prudent per-\\nson of rank has taken a front seat in the boxes,\\ncrosses his legs, leans his head on his hand;\\ntwo attendants stand in graceful attitudes behind him,\\nand two more walk away under the trees, conversing\\non general subjects.\\nAs to Claude s Worship of the Golden Calf,\\nin order better to express the desert of Sinai, the\\nriver is much larger, and the vegetation softer. Two", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0086.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "modern painters 73\\npeople, uninterested in idolatrous ceremonies, are\\nrowing in a pleasure-boat on the river. Poussin s\\nstrong but degraded mind is the subject of graver\\nphrases all he does well has been better done by-\\nTitian i he also in his manner is condemned for lack of\\npassion. The pastoral landscape, more properly so-\\ncalled Cuyp and Teniers the type of its painters\\nwas lower yet, destitute not of spiritual character\\nonly, but of spiritual thought. Cuyp can paint sun-\\nlight, but paints unthoughtfully. Nothing happens\\nin his pictures, except some indifferent person s ask-\\ning the way of somebody else, who, by his cast of\\ncountenance, seems not likely to know it. Paul\\nPotter does not care even for sheep, but only for\\nwool.\\nTitian could have put issues of life and death into\\nthe face of a man asking his way nay, into the back\\nof him. He has put a whole scheme of\\ndogmatic theology into a row of bishops backs at the\\nLouvre. And for dogs, Velasquez has made some of\\nthem nearly as grand as his surly Kings.\\nIt is in the same chapter that Ruskin speaks of the\\ntrivial sentiment and caricature of Landseer, who\\ngave up the true nature of the animal for the sake\\nof a jest. And by this mature judgment the reader\\nshould correct a passage of praise in an earlier volume.\\nIn the chapter that contrasts Wouvermans and\\nAngelico, Ruskin tells us how he finds it impossible\\nto lay hold of the temper of some of the Dutch\\npainters, workmanlike though they are. Wouvermans", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0087.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "74 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand Berghem are amongst the masters of the hybrid\\nlandscape, intended to combine the attractions of the\\nother schools, but they have a clay-cold, ice-cold\\nincapacity of understanding what pleasure meant.\\nMusic, dancing, hunting, boating, fishing, bathing,\\nand child-play are sprinkled in a picture of Wouver-\\nmans, but the fishing and bathing go on close together\\nno one turns to look at the hunting hart and hind gallop\\nacross the middle of the river touching bottom, but\\na man dives at the edge where it is deep the dancing\\nhas no spring the buildings are part ruin, part villa.\\nRuskin holds this paralysis of dramatic invention to\\nbe the consequence of the desire to please sensual\\npatrons by offering them inventoried articles of\\npleasure. Unredeemed carnal appetite seems to\\nthe reader a somewhat violent sentence for this cold\\nincontinence of incident, this trifling of convention,\\nbut Ruskin has never allowed trifling to be a trifle,\\nwhether in art or in life. The study of Angelico,\\nmaster of the Purist school u I have guarded my\\nreaders from over-estimating that school opposes\\nspirituality to this luxury about which the reader has\\nperhaps his doubts. As for Angelico, a dramatic or\\nimaginative movement of some embracing angel\\namongst his groups seems to me to save him, barely,\\nfrom weakness and it is doubtful whether we may\\nname any weak thing as typically spiritual.\\nRuskin goes back to Turner in the chapter called\\nThe Two Boyhoods, which paints the Venice of\\nthe young Giorgione, and the Maiden Lane, the\\nChelsea, the Covent Garden, and Thames side of the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0088.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "modern painters 75\\nLondon child. The description of Venice is some-\\nwhat too gorgeous. It is hardly possible for any one\\nwho knows Italy to imagine her at any time all ala-\\nbaster, bronze, and marble, splendidly draped. But\\nlike this untempered Venice of fancy is Ruskin s page.\\nIt is one of the beautiful passages that I do not ex-\\ntract, marking only with pleasure the quiet phrase that\\nexplains how no weak walls, low-roofed cottage, or\\nstraw-built shed could be built over those tremulous\\nstreets. Turner s only drawing of an English clergy-\\nman is excellently described, and Turner in the fogs,\\nTurner among the ships, Turner in the outer ways\\nof the trampled market. Ever after, his foregrounds\\nhad a succulent cluster or two of green-grocery at\\nthe corners. But the England of his day did graver\\nthings to him even than the nurturing of this great\\nchildhood in squalor. Ruskin gives us the exposition\\nof the first picture painted by Turner with his whole\\nstrength the Garden of the Hesperides of 1806, as\\na great religious picture of that opening century, and\\nits religion the triumph of the dragon of Mammon or\\nCovetousness, sleepless, human-voiced, il gran nemico\\nof Dante, set by Turner in a paradise of smoke, con-\\nceived by the painter s imaginative intellect as iron-\\nhearted, with a true bony contour, organic, but like a\\nglacier. And as an earlier chapter had ended\\nThis (the labour, that is, of Albert Durer), is\\nindeed the labour which is crowned with laurel and\\nhas the wings of the eagle. It was reserved for an-\\nother country to prove the labour which is\\ncrowned with fire and has the wings of the bat so", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0089.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "76 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthis sad chapter on the Nereid s Guard closes with\\nthe fulfilment of the menace the other country\\nand the other age were Turner s. Ruskin s beloved\\npainter was also, like Salvator himself, in part over-\\ncome of evil. And when he fought his way to nature\\nand the skies, painting sun-colour as Claude and Cuyp\\nhad painted but sunshine, the world not only rejected\\nbut reviled him. One fair dawn or sunset obedi-\\nently beheld would have set it right, and justified his\\npainting of the coloured Apollo. His critics shouted,\\nPerish Apollo. Bring us back Python. And\\nPython came, adds Ruskin, came literally as well\\nas spiritually all the perfect beauty and conquest\\nwhich Turner wrought is already withered. This\\nrefers to the destruction that has come so soon upon\\nthe very material of Turner s work wrecked, faded,\\nand defiled, yet even so better than any other land-\\nscape painting unmarred.\\nNo man, before Turner, had painted clouds scarlet.\\nHesperid JEg\\\\e and Erytheia [the blushing one] fade\\ninto the twilights of four thousand years unconfessed.\\nAnd in this new page on the great subject of colour\\nRuskin teaches us that albeit form is of incalculably\\ngreater importance, an error in colour is graver than\\nan error in form, because of relation the form be-\\nlongs to the thing it defines, the colour to the thing\\nand to all about it to deal falsely with the colour\\nbreaks the harmony of the day. I do not know a\\nmore luminous thought on colour than this, even in\\nthese shining pages. Few have been the supreme\\ncolourists Titian, Giorgione, Veronese, Tintoret,", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0090.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "modern painters 77\\nCorreggio, Reynolds, and Turner, as Ruskin counts\\nthem seven whereas of the other qualities or powers\\nof art the great masters have been many.\\nUnder the title of Peace the last great chapter\\nof this great work closes, not peacefully, but with\\npassionate grief. Turner had been dead nearly twenty\\nyears, but the cruelty of the criticism that had\\nmade his life lonely and painful had never ceased to\\nwound his friend.\\nThere never was yet isolation of a great\\nspirit so utterly desolate. My own admira-\\ntion was wild in enthusiasm, but it gave him no ray\\nof pleasure he could not make me at that time under-\\nstand his main meanings he loved me, but cared\\nnothing for what I said, and was always trying to\\nhinder me from writing, because it gave pain to\\nhis fellow-artists. To censure Turner was\\nacutely sensitive. He knew that however\\nlittle his higher power could be seen, he had at least\\ndone as much as ought to have saved him from wan-\\nton insult, and the attacks upon him in his later years\\nwere to him not merely contemptible in their igno-\\nrance, but amazing in their ingratitude.\\nLet the reader bear in mind that it is was precisely in\\nthe first year that showed a Royal Academy without\\nany pictures of Turner s that the Times had learnt\\nto call them works of inspiration. It is charac-\\nteristic of Ruskin that he cannot take the customary\\ncomfort and say that Turner learnt in the sorrow he\\nunderwent what he had not learnt in the joy he missed\\nthe last pages of Modern Painters protest against", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0091.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "78 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthis form of commonplace. They utter, finally, one\\nof many menaces against a world intent upon gain,\\nand negligent of art and nature. Men in England\\nhad learnt, say these mournful closing sentences, not\\nto say in their hearts There is no God, but to say\\naloud, t; There is a foolish God His orders will\\nnot work Faith, generosity, honesty, zeal, and\\nself-sacrifice are poetical phrases and The power\\nof man is only power of prey otherwise than the\\nspider, he cannot design otherwise than the tiger, he\\ncannot feed.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0092.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER VI\\nthe seven lamps of architecture (1849)\\nThis was the first illustrated book published by Rus-\\nkin. The illustrated volumes of Modern Painters\\nfollowed it closely with their splendid cloud and tree\\ndrawing. In the Seven Lamps the etchings are of\\ncourse architectural, but they are etchings of a living\\nstone. A vitality of construction, of time, of shadow\\nand light, and of the power and weight of stone are in\\nthese plates, overbitten and not altogether technically\\nsuccessful as they are I speak of those of the first\\nedition, afterwards withdrawn. Ruskin made his draw-\\nings from windows, lofts and ladders, holding on as he\\nmight, and bit the plates hurriedly on his journey\\nhome.\\nThe book was an incident of the third volume of\\nModern Painters a pause upon the topic of archi-\\ntecture, but a pause as it were in haste and full of\\nsome of the most intent and urgent labour of John Rus-\\nkin s life. There was no need for despatch when\\nprimroses were to be outlined, or when a lax, random\\nweaving of grasses grown to the flower in June was\\nto be woven again with a delicate pencil for another\\nyear would make amends for any possible lapse of\\npurpose or interruption of work, yielding new flowers\\nto take the place of the old. A student of vegetation\\n79", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0093.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "80 JOHN RUSKIN\\nmay wake, and learn the world, and sleep again,\\nnot lying in wait for changes, but confident of that\\nrepetition which makes nature old and mystical to\\nmemory, and of that renewal which makes her young\\nand simple to hope a mother to the spirit and a child\\nto the eye. The painter of mountains will not be de-\\nfrauded by years of the ancient line upon the sky.\\nThe linked memories of all generations are not long\\nenough, in all, to outwatch and to record a change in\\na little hill. He may be blind, or mad, or absent, but\\nthe shape of a bay will await his light, his reason, or\\nhis return. Not so with the student of ancient build-\\nings, who would arrest the action of time, and who\\ntherefore must make his own hour of labour elastic\\nwith application and with vigilance albeit mere time,\\nRuskin tells us, unbuilds so slowly that if men took\\npains, they might repair his action not by the futile\\neffort of u restoration but by honest proppings and\\nshorings that should confess their own date and pur-\\npose and make no confusions in the history of con-\\nstruction. It is not the unbuilding of time, therefore,\\nthat presses the student, but the destruction wrought\\nwith violence by man, contemptuous and impatient of\\nthe work of the past, or confident that he can do some-\\nthing better with the stones unset and set up in an-\\nother fashion. Ruskin was obliged to delay the third\\nvolume of Modern Painters while he made his draw-\\nings of that which no eye should see and no hand\\nshould copy again. A note to the preface of The\\nSeven Lamps tells us that the writer s whole time has\\nbeen lately occupied in taking drawings from one side", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0094.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 8 1\\nof buildings, of which the masons were knocking\\ndown the other.\\nThe book, taking its place as an interlude in what\\nwas the continuous work of the young Graduate of\\nOxford, takes its place also as a book definite in\\nmotive, justified by the unity of the matter, the re-\\nsponsibility of the purpose, and the fulness of prepara-\\ntion the conscience and conviction need hardly be\\nnamed but The Seven Lamps of Architecture is, more\\nthan some of its followers, one book from beginning\\nto end. It has the unity of abundant matter, the\\nunity, that is, which need not break boundaries al-\\nthough it stretches and enlarges them with fulness,\\nbut holds together, amply, easily, containing with\\npatience the urgence of a throng of thoughts. And\\nthe subject has its own unity of time, inasmuch as\\nthe dominating centre of the book is the work of a\\ncertain half-century.\\nWe shall find nothing more characteristic of Ruskin\\nthan this incident of the fifty years in question. Let\\nme describe them, though roughly enough, to the\\nreader, by means of Ruskin s own discovery that they\\nwere the years in which the stonemason, setting his\\nwork of Gothic tracery between man and the heavens,\\nthought equally of the form of the light he revealed\\nby his window and of the form of the stone whereby he\\nrevealed it. The eyes of that stonemason s father\\nhad been chiefly intent upon the opening, the star;\\nthe form of it had been in his fancy j and in the men-\\ntal councils of invention the shape of this exterior\\nlight, as his work was about to define it, had been the", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0095.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "82 JOHN RUSKIN\\npresident image. The son of that stonemason, on the\\nother hand the half-century being past thought in\\nthe foremost place of the shape of his beautiful stone\\nbeautiful it was, but not more beautiful than his whose\\nfortune it was to live in the great half-century, and\\nwhose act it was to do the work that made the half-\\ncentury great. This latter the stone-sculptor of the\\nfifty years here set in the midst designing a star of\\nsky and designing the starred stone with the dignity\\nof equal invention, made the window that is mani-\\nfestly the noblest. Ruskin, with singular sight and\\nsingular insight, perceives the manner, the cause, the\\npast, the future, and the value of that window and\\ngives it an historical place and sanction. There is no\\nchild that does not lie staring at the wall and fancy-\\ning that a wall-paper design seems now to take the\\nshape enclosed by lines and anon the shape of the in-\\ntervals instead and Ruskin s eye saw the tracery\\nsimply, impartially, and without preoccupation, like a\\nchild s and saw it with the mason s eye moreover, and\\nwith the discerning spirit of a master of theory. The\\nreader might be tempted to urge this incident beyond\\nits proper significance as an architectural or historical\\ndiscovery but he can hardly be wrong in appreciating\\nthe passage for its authorship authorship, that is, and\\nall that it implies of character, nature, and special and\\nmanifold fitness for the work of the book.\\nTo proceed to the expository task.\\nThe Seven Lamps of Architecture are The Lamp\\nof Sacrifice The Lamp of Truth The Lamp of\\nPower j The Lamp of Beauty The Lamp of Life", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0096.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 83\\nThe Lamp of Memory The Lamp of Obedience.\\nOn the cloth-cover of the original edition, designed by\\nRuskin after the arabesques of the pavement of San\\nMiniato, above Florence foliage, birds, and beasts\\narranged by counter-change are embossed seven\\nother words of kindred meaning Religio Observ-\\nantia; Auctoritas Fides; Obedientia; Memoria;\\nSpiritus. The volume is divided into unequal chap-\\nters, headed with the English titles already stated.\\nThe first has in greatest measure the signs of the\\nauthor s yet unmitigated youth. It is not so much\\nthe work of an untamed spirit as that of a spirit wear-\\ning certain bonds with all its will, a thousand times\\nconvinced, and that from the first infancy. There is\\nthe tone of a man troubled to convey his indignation\\nby terms adequate, in the passage wherein he threatens\\nthe English nation with sensible visitation of divine\\nwrath upon her honour, her commerce, and her arts\\nas a retribution for the measure whereby a place in\\nher legislature had been impiously conceded to\\nthe Romanist. All this was not only disclaimed but\\nunsaid in succeeding editions. Childhood with its\\npassions the polemic passion of a spiritual and intel-\\nlectual home-boy is one of the most tumultuous of\\nfresh passions was still in a sense in Ruskin s heart\\nduring the writing of The Seven Lamps. In some\\nthings he made, as we shall hear him tell later in Fors\\nClavigera, a definite change he, for one, could not\\nlive under the stress of doctrines that obliged and ad-\\nmitted of no transaction, and yet actually suffered\\ndaily transaction at the hands of their professors. He", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0097.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "84 JOHN RUSKIN\\nhad thought every moment committed to crime that\\nwas not spent in rescuing men from eternal reproba-\\ntion; the choice was now thrust upon him: should\\nhe devote his years and moments directly, theologic-\\nally, and immediately, or should he mitigate his con-\\nviction of the instant stress of obligation How he\\nanswered the question may be judged from the fact\\nthat he addressed himself to the mediate work of art.\\nThe Lamp of Sacrifice needs not from a com-\\nmentator to-day the definition that was due when The\\nSeven Lamps was written. Manifestly, this author s\\nworks have both enriched the minds of Englishmen\\nwith ideas and have accustomed them to the appre-\\nhension of ideas. What he has thought and pro-\\nnounced abides with us, as it were, both in mechan-\\nical suspension and in chemical solution. He has\\ncharged us with his teachings, and has modified our\\nintelligence. Thus, many of his pages seem now to\\nbe over-anxiously expository that were not so when\\nhe composed them. In this matter he stands between\\nthe old age and the new. Briefly, he suggests in this\\nchapter a delicate distinction between sacrifice and\\nwaste between that work upon partially concealed\\nornament, which is the continuation of visible orna-\\nment, and thus justifies the surmise of the eye and\\nkeeps a promise, and work bestowed carelessly or\\nwith ignorance as to how to make it tell, or with\\nheartless contempt of the value of human effort. This\\nlast is the subject of a nice balance. From art that\\nis purely wasted on the one hand, and from art (or art\\nso-called) that is purely exhibitory, on the other, the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0098.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 85\\nright spirit of sacrifice is absent. Hard work is ap-\\nproved all old work nearly has been hard work.\\nAs usual, the examples are exceedingly interesting.\\nWe are taught to respect the economy of the bas-re-\\nliefs of San Zeno at Verona, with their rich work well\\nin sight, and the simplicity of the still lovely work of\\nthe arcade above, the various distances being treated\\nnot by a difference in degree of beauty in decoration,\\nbut by a difference in the quality of design. And so\\nforth with a series of instances that yield all their\\nsignificance to the sight and insight of Ruskin s intel-\\nlectual eyes. It follows from this doctrine of sacrifice\\nthat rich ornament (the natural flower of Gothic) is\\npraised with an ardour by which a reader to-day may\\nbe slow to be enkindled he has, without intending\\nit, perhaps gradually grown to love simplicity, albeit\\nconscious that it is vulgar ornament and not fine that\\nhas made plain masonry to seem so attractive. But\\nunder Ruskin s teaching this tendency must be cor-\\nrected, and in fact sacrificed. Many a modern man\\nfinds a charm in a blank strong wall that he knows is\\nmore than any negative merit ought to have for him.\\nSuch simplicities, he has to learn,\\nAre but the rests and monotones of the art it is\\nto its far happier, far higher, exultation that we owe\\nthose fair fronts of variegated mosaic, charged with\\nwild fancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and\\nquainter than ever filled the depth of midsummer\\ndream those vaulted gates, trellised with close leaves j\\nthese window-labyrinths of twisted tracery and starry\\nlight i those misty masses of multitudinous pinnacle", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0099.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "86 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand diademed tower; the only witnesses, perhaps, that\\nremain to us of the faith and fear of nations. All else\\nfor which the builders sacrificed has passed away all\\ntheir living interest, and aims, and achievements. We\\nknow not for what they laboured, and we see no\\nevidence of their reward. Victory, wealth, authority,\\nhappiness all have departed, though bought by many\\na bitter sacrifice. But of them, and their life and\\ntheir toil upon the earth, one reward, one evidence, is\\nleft to us in those grey heaps of deep-wrought stone.\\nThey have taken with them to the grave their\\npowers, their honours, and their errors but they have\\nleft us their adoration.\\nThis splendid passage is itself a Gothic architecture\\nof style. It closes the section of The Lamp of\\nSacrifice. The second chapter opens with a page of\\neven higher beauty, in honour of the authority of\\nTruth, the terrible virtue that has no borderland (so\\nRuskin was doubtless taught in his childhood and so\\nhe teaches with his manly voice, thunderous). But\\nwho that has dealt, unprejudiced, with the common\\nmatters of the conscience will be able to cry assent to\\nsuch a doctrine Can the angler who deceives a fish,\\nor the physician who deceives a lunatic, dare to aver\\nwith Ruskin that Truth regards with the same\\nseverity the lightest and the boldest violations of its\\nlaw that it is the one quality of which there are\\nno degrees that whereas there are some faults\\nslight in the sight of love, some errors slight in the\\nestimate of wisdom, truth forgives no insult, and en-\\ndures no stain Assuredly by no such rhetoric is\\nthis one virtue to be separated from the rest her", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0100.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 87\\nproper company who share with her their own in-\\nevitable difficulty and doubt. But it is not to be\\nwondered at that having said so much Ruskin should\\nfind it necessary to reassure his readers against any\\npossible scruple as to the lawfulness of making art look\\nlike nature. This, however, as a scruple of the moral\\nconscience, need not detain us. Incidentally to the\\nsame subject he does not abate of his estimate of Eng-\\nland as a nation distinguished for its general upright-\\nness and faith, although the English admit into their\\narchitecture more of prudence, concealment, and de-\\nceit than any other [people] of this or of past time.\\nMuch more significance, by the way, had on a former\\npage been attributed to the poor exhibitory shams\\nof the modern Italians the English fault is arbitrarily\\ntreated as an inconsistency, the Italian, equally arbi-\\ntrarily, as a consistency quick with essential impli-\\ncations. Quite removed from these provocations to\\ncontroversy, and easily detachable from the ethical\\nquestion so insistently discussed, is a passage of\\ncharacteristic beauty descriptive of the imaginative il-\\nlusion of the cupola of Parma, where Correggio has\\nmade a space of some thirty feet diameter look like a\\ncloud-wrapt opening in the seventh heaven, crowded\\nwith a rushing sea of angels. Ruskin mitigated his\\nadmiration of Correggio in after years. A little later\\ncomes the page on tracery, on one salient passage\\nwhereof I have already dwelt; and here is another ex-\\nquisite example of this incomparably sensitive per-\\nception. The tracery of the later French Gothic\\nwindow had grown exceedingly delicate; severe and", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0101.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "88 JOHN RUSKIN\\npure it was still, nevertheless, and the material man-\\nifestly stiff. Yet\\nAt the close of the period of pause, the first sign\\nof serious change was like a low breeze, passing\\nthrough the emaciated tracery, and making it tremble.\\nIt began to undulate like the threads of a cobweb lifted\\nby the wind. It lost its essence as a structure of\\nstone. The architect was pleased with this\\nnew fancy. In a little time the bars of\\ntracery were caused to appear to the eye as if they had\\nbeen woven together like a net.\\nOf chief importance in the chapter dedicated to\\nThe Lamp of Power is Ruskin s teaching upon\\nthe value and weight of shadows. He bids the young\\narchitect learn the habit of thinking in shadow Let\\nhim design with the sense of heat and cold upon him\\nlet him cut out the shadows, as men dig wells in un-\\nwatered plains. Let him see that the light is bold\\nenough not to be dried up by twilight, and the\\nshadow deep enough not to be dried like a shallow\\npool by a noon-day sun. Magnificent image An-\\nother example of power, intellectually apprehended\\nwith a historian s philosophy, is in Ruskin s study of\\nthat Gothic of rejection, the Venetian, which began\\nin the luxuriance wherein other architectures have ex-\\npired, which laid aside Byzantine ornaments one by\\none, fixed its own forms u by laws more and more\\nsevere, and stood forth, at last, a model of domestic\\nGothic, so grand, so complete, so nobly systematised,\\nthat, to my mind, there never existed an architecture\\nwith so stern a claim to our reverence. This judg-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0102.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE 89\\nment also was partly renounced afterwards in favour\\nof early Lombard work.\\nTwo distinct characters in architecture had been\\ntreated in the earlier chapters (with what complex\\nconsistency of teaching, what abundance of thought,\\nand what experimental examples, this mere indication\\nof the subject and direction of the work does not\\npretend to express) the one, the impression archi-\\ntecture receives from human power; the other, the\\nimage it bears of the natural creation. And it is this\\nlikeness to the natural creation that is the subject\\nof the fourth chapter, The Lamp of Beauty.\\nThe sanction of all the beauty of art, its authority,\\nits appeal, its origin, its paragon, abide, as all readers\\nof Ruskin have been told by him in a hundred places,\\nin natural fact. Beyond a certain point, and that a\\nvery low one, man cannot advance in the invention\\nof beauty, without directly imitating natural form.\\nFurthermore, the frequency of a form in nature is, in\\na sense carefully understood, the measure of its\\nbeauty. In other words, that which is, in its order\\nand place, frequent, easily visible, very manifest, not\\nsubject to the concealing counsels of nature in organic\\nand inorganic depths caverns or living anatomy\\nthat is most natural and most beautiful, and the model\\nof decorative art. By frequency I mean that lim-\\nited and isolated frequency which is characteristic of\\nall perfection as a rose is a common flower,\\nbut yet there are not so many roses on a tree as there\\nare leaves. Throughout the argument the teacher\\nhas searched out his way sometimes by quick, some-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0103.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "90 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntimes by hard, thinking but never in haste, and\\nnever suppressing any part or step of the sincere proc-\\nesses of thought. And immediately upon this eager\\nbut steady inquiry into the sanction of artistic beauty\\ncomes the passage that surprised the world, in con-\\ndemnation of the Greek fret and with it one of\\nthose keen discoveries that make Ruskin s research so\\nbrilliant the discovery that there is a likeness to\\nnatural form in the fret, for it is an image of the\\ncrystals of bismuth but that this crystallisation is\\nseldom visible, little known, and not even perfectly\\nnatural, inasmuch it is brought to pass by artificial\\nmeans, the mental being seldom or never found in\\npure condition. But the crystals of salt have a form\\nknown to almost every man, and it is the crytallisa-\\ntion of common salt that sets the example of another\\ndesign in right lines used throughout the Lombard\\nchurches and drawn with extraordinary beauty by the\\nauthor, rich with shadow. As a result of the same\\nkind of casuistic insight (I put the word casuistic to\\nits right use) Ruskin condemns the portcullis and all\\nheraldic decoration especially when, as usual, it is\\nrepeated. The arms are an announcement, and have\\ntheir place, but what they have to tell it is an imperti-\\nnence to tell a score of times. Nor is a motto deco-\\nrative, since, of all things unlike nature, the forms\\nof letters are perhaps the most so. With the same\\nsincere ingenuity (here quite unstrained) he explains\\nthe vileness of the ribbon and its unlikeness to grass\\nand sea-weed with their anatomy, gradation, direction,\\nand allotted size of separate creatures. The ribbon", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0104.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 91\\nhas no strength, no languor. It cannot wave, in\\nthe true sense, but only flutter; it cannot bend, but\\nonly turn and be wrinkled. We are urged to con-\\ndemn the ribbons of Raphael, and do so heartily,\\neven the ribbons that tie Ghiberti s glorious bronze\\nflowers, and all the multitudes of scrolls in so far as\\nthey are used for decoration. Let me add this ex-\\nquisite phrase (from a somewhat paradoxical passage)\\nin description of that Mediaeval treatment of drapery\\nwhich began to restore, while it altered, the Antique\\nbuoyancy The motion of the figure only bent\\ninto a softer line the stillness of the falling veil, fol-\\nlowed by it like a slow cloud by drooping rain only\\nin links of lighter undulation it followed the dances\\nof the angels.\\nThe warning against false decorations is necessarily\\na warning also against decoration misplaced. It was\\nspoken in 1849. Fifty years later and more, the\\nworld has become full of violations. Nothing spoken\\nby this voice, which spoke after close thought and\\nwith singular authority, has been disobeyed with a\\nmore general and more national consent. Ruskin\\npronounced the law that things belonging to pur-\\nposes of active and occupied life should not be dec-\\norated. The answer of the public is the Greek\\nmoulding on shop-fronts, the decoration of the tem-\\nple multiplied in the railway-station, on the counter,\\nin the office; until for disgust we no longer see it,\\nand are but aware of some superfluity that is depress-\\ning, degraded, vulgar, dishonouring, and tedious we\\ncare not what. The country has treated with prac-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0105.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "92 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntical contempt the humorous and generous instructor\\nwho in his youth would have much enjoyed going\\nthrough the streets of London, pulling down these\\nbrackets and friezes and large names, restoring to the\\ntradesmen the capital they had spent in architecture,\\nand putting them on honest and equal terms, each\\nwith his name in black letters over his door.\\nSymmetry, proportion, and colour form the subjects\\nof important passages in The Lamp of Beauty.\\nVertical equality, against which a young architect\\nought to be warned in his elementary lesson, Ruskin\\nfound to be usual in Modern Gothic it has not be-\\ncome less so in Gothic more modern still. He would\\nhave symmetry to belong to horizontal, and propor-\\ntion to vertical, division symmetry being obviously\\nconnected with the idea of balance, which is only\\nlateral. Colour on a building should be that of an\\norganised creature, and the colours of an organised\\ncreature are visibly independent (this word must\\nserve for lack of a better) of the form of its limbs.\\nIt is arbitrary, and has a plan of its own the\\nplan of colour. Ruskin would not have us give\\nto separate mouldings separate colours, nor even to\\nleaves or figures one colour and to the ground an-\\nother. And in general the best place for colour is\\non broad surfaces, not on spots of interest in form.\\nWhen the colouring is brought to pass by the natural\\nhue of blocks of marble, the chequers are not to be\\nharmonised or fitted to the forms of the windows.\\nAs in the Doge s Palace, the front should look as if\\nthe surface had first been finished, and the windows", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0106.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 93\\nthen cut out of it. This rule of beauty is distinctly\\nalso a rule of power. It is, needless to say, a point\\nof architectural controversy, and the doctrine of Rus-\\nkin on colour has been held in horror. He has on\\nhis side the Byzantine builders with their perdurable\\ncolouring by incrustation, and against him Antiquity\\nand most of the northern Gothic schools. Then\\nfollows the page on Giotto s tower, model of propor-\\ntion, design, and colour, coloured like a morning\\ncloud and chased like a sea shell\\nAnd if this be, as I believe it, the model and\\nmirror of perfect architecture, is there not something\\nto be learned by looking back to the early life of him\\nwho raised it I said that the power of human mind\\nhad its growth in the Wilderness much more must\\nthe love and the conception of that beauty whose\\nevery line and hue we have seen to be, at the least, a\\nfaded image of God s daily work, and an arrested ray\\nof some star of creation, be given chiefly in the places\\nwhich He has gladdened by planting the fir tree and\\nthe pine. Not within the walls of Florence, but\\namong the far away fields of her lilies, was the child\\ntrained who was to raise the headstone of Beauty\\nabove her towers of watch and war. Remember all\\nthat he became count the sacred thoughts with which\\nhe filled the heart of Italy ask those who followed\\nhim what they learned at his feet and when you\\nhave numbered his labours, and received their testi-\\nmony, if it seem to you that God had verily poured\\nout upon this His servant no common nor restrained\\nportion of His Spirit, and that he was indeed a King\\namong the children of men, remember also that the\\nlegend upon his crown was that of David s I took thee\\nfrom the sheep-cote, and from following the sheep.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0107.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "94 JOHN RUSKIN\\nNo inconsiderable part of the essential character\\nof Beauty depends on the expression of vital energy\\nin organic things, or on the subjection to such energy\\nof things naturally passive and powerless. This is\\namongst the opening sentences of The Lamp of\\nLife, and the theme is rich in the hands of the most\\nvital of writers. Even readers in whose ears this\\neloquence is too much inflected, too full of wave, too\\nmuch moved in its beauty to be a perfect style, must\\nconfess a vitality that makes the vivacity of other\\nauthors seem but a trivial agitation. Ruskin always\\ncarried that rich internal burden, a vast capacity of\\nsincerity. Others may have been entirely sincere;\\nand he could be no more than entirely sincere. And\\nyet what a difference in the degree of integrity And\\nthe measure of this capacity for truth is the measure\\nof vitality. It is by force of life that Ruskin hoped,\\nin these early works of his, and by force of life that\\nhe so despaired in the later works as almost to per-\\nsuade himself, for very grief, that he cared no longer\\nfor the miseries of cities, but was glad to enjoy his\\ndays in peace.\\nThe passage on dead architecture is an example of\\nthe profound misgiving that has beset all prophets, a\\ndistrust of the world and of its final work; it is also a\\npassage of literature that has cost much. Among\\ncorrupted styles Ruskin has tolerance of that which is\\nanimated and unafraid the Flamboyant design of\\nFrance. And because the question of life is locked\\n(when the sculpture is that of natural form) in the\\nquestion of finish, the student should consult these", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0108.jp2"}, "109": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 95\\nsavings: Sculpture is not the mere cutting of the\\nform of anything in stone it is the cutting of the\\neffect of it. The sculptor must paint with his chisel\\nhalf his touches are not to realise, but to put power\\ninto, the form. The Lamp of Life, with its\\nseveral arguments and its essential significance, is a\\nsolemn chapter appealing directly to the obligations\\nof immortal man; The Lamp of Memory, a most\\ndelicate one, in which the author is all but compelled\\nto say somewhat more than he could stand to, and\\nyet unsays no more than a note will answer. Except\\nthe page in which he had bidden men to refrain from\\ndecorating a railway station (a page that filled the\\nartistic public with an incredulous surprise, where-\\nfrom they have hardly yet recovered, though, to do\\nthem justice, it did not cause them to pause in any\\ncast-iron work they might have been about), perhaps\\nnothing in The Seven Lamps has been found so mem-\\norable by the greater number of readers as the passage\\nthat declares Ruskin s lack of delight in an Alpine\\nlandscape transposed in fancy to the western hemis-\\nphere. The flowers in an instant lost their light,\\nthe river its music. Yet not all their light, nor\\nall its music, says the note. What then Never\\nwas a thought more certainly doubtful, double, de-\\nniable, undeniable. Ruskin s description of that\\nlandscape a description which, of course, depends\\nfor its cogency in the argument upon the fact that it\\ntakes no note of the historical interest of the Alps\\nis a finished work, exquisite with study of leaf and\\nlanguage, but yet not effective in proportion to its", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0109.jp2"}, "110": {"fulltext": "96 JOHN RUSKIN\\nown beauty and truth. Ruskin wrote it in youth, in\\nthe impulse of his own discovery of language, and of\\nall that English in its rich modern freshness could do\\nunder his mastery and it is too much, too charged,\\ntoo anxious. Some sixty lines of word-painting\\nare here and they are less than this line of a\\npoet:\\nSunny eve in some forgotten place.\\nThis refraining phrase is of more avail to the imagi-\\nnation than the splendid subalpine landscape of The\\nSeven Lamps. Another page of this chapter has also\\nbecome famous that which begins, Do not let us\\ntalk then of Restoration. The thing is a lie from be-\\nginning to end. The last lamp is that of Obedience.\\n(Many years later, in Fors Clavigera, Ruskin confesses\\nthat he had much ado to keep the Lamps to seven,\\nthey would so easily become eight or nine on his\\nhands.) It contains, among much fruit of thought,\\nthe author s definite counsel to the world as to the\\nchoice among the logical and mature styles of Euro-\\npean architecture. He forbids any infantine or any\\nbarbarous style, however Herculean their infancy, or\\nmajestic their outlawry, such as our own Norman, or\\nthe Lombard Romanesque. Of the four that are to\\nchoose from the Pisan Romanesque, the early Gothic\\nof the Western Italian Republics, the Venetian Gothic,\\nand the English earliest decorated the architect is\\nurged to learn the laws so surely that he may finally\\nwin the right of exercising his own liberty and inven-\\ntion. And a manifold meditation on obedience closes", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0110.jp2"}, "111": {"fulltext": "the seven lamps of architecture 97\\nwith another recollection of early religious menace\\nand expectation\\nI have paused, not once or twice, as I wrote, and\\noften have checked the course of what might other-\\nwise have been importunate persuasion, as the thought\\nhas crossed me, how soon all Architecture may be\\nvain, except that which is not made with hands.\\nThere is something ominous in the light which has\\nenabled us to look back with disdain upon the ages\\namong whose lovely vestiges we have been wandering.\\nI could smile when I hear the hopeful exultation of\\nmany, at the new reach of worldly science, and vigour\\nof worldly effort as if we were again at the begin-\\nning of days. There is thunder on the horizon as\\nwell as dawn. The sun was risen upon the earth\\nwhen Lot entered Zoar.\\nA reader with the world-pitying heart of the world\\nof our later day is dismayed at the severity and at the\\ncalm of this universal threat. The visionary beauty\\nof the phrase has none of that grief which is heard in\\nthe vaticination of another prophetic author, Coventry\\nPatmore, who yet menaced not the whole world but\\none degenerate land, foretelling the day when\\nA dim heroic nation, long since dead,\\nThe foulness of her agony forgot\\nEngland shall be remembered only by her then dead\\nlanguage the bird-voice and the blast of her omnil-\\noquent tongue.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0111.jp2"}, "112": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER VII\\nTHE STONES OF VENICE (185I-1853)\\nRuskin, penetrated with a sense of the baseness\\nof the schools of architecture and nearly every other\\nart, which have for three centuries been predominant\\nin Europe, wrote this book principally in order to\\nconvict those base schools, locally, in their central\\ndegradation. Locally, because in Venice, and in\\nVenice only, could the Renaissance be effectually\\nreached, judged, and sentenced. Destroy its claims\\nto admiration there (when Ruskin began his work\\nthey were triumphant) and it can assert them no-\\nwhere else. He intended to make the Stones of\\n^^Jk^enice touchstones, and to detect, by the moulder-\\ning of her marble, poison more subtle than ever was\\nbetrayed by the rending of her crystal. And be-\\nyond this one of the most interesting and definite\\nmotives that ever urged the making of a book stands\\nthe inevitable argument of his life Men are in-\\ntended, without excessive difficulty to know\\ngood things from bad.\\nThe work is thus local because the festering lily\\nof Shakespeare had its unique foulness in Venice.\\nThat city had been in an early age of her long history\\nthe central meeting-place of the Lombard from the\\nnorth and the Arab from the south over the wreck\\n98", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0112.jp2"}, "113": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE 99\\nof the Roman empire. It was through this fruitful\\nencounter that the Ducal Palace became the central\\nbuilding of the world. All European architecture\\nderives from Greece, through Rome, and the condi-\\ntions of place and of race bring to pass the all-unique\\nvariety of derivation. In Venice the variety was also\\nall-important and Ruskin begins the study of the\\nart in its rise, greatness, decline, and last corruption,\\nby a brief but large history of this nation, standing,\\nas a sea-nation, a ruin between Tyre (no more than\\na memory) and England still imperial. He divides\\nthe national life of Venice, between the nine hundred\\nyears from her foundation (421 a. d.) and the five\\nhundred years of her decline and fall, by the measure\\ncalled the Serrar del Consiglio, which finally and\\nfatally distinguished the nobles from the commonalty,\\nand withdrew the power from the people and the\\nDoge alike. Ah, well done, Venice Wisdom\\nthis, indeed had been Ruskin s note to Sansovino s\\nsummary of the constitution of Venice before the\\nSerrar del Consiglio She found means to commit\\nthe government not to one, not to few, not to many,\\nbut to the many good, to the few better, and to the\\nbest one. Ruskin places the beginning of the de-\\ncline in 141 8 so that even her religious painters\\ncame later, and her great school about a century later,\\nmore or less. The sensitive arts of architecture and\\nsculpture seem to have taken the mortal hurt more\\nquickly than the art of painting, incorrupt in Venice\\nlater than elsewhere by reason of the life of its in-\\ncomparable colour. In the introductory chapter,\\nbtfC.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0113.jp2"}, "114": {"fulltext": "100 JOHN RUSKIN\\nThe Quarry, Ruskin gives us that instance of the\\ntombs of the two Doges which is an example of the\\ngreat essential contention of the book. The one\\ntomb, not primitive, not altogether fine, an early fif-\\nteenth-century work, has a nobility yet unforegone;\\nthe other, half a century later, is the tomb of Andrea\\nVendramin, the most costly ever bestowed on a Vene-\\ntian monarch, praised by popular taste and authorita-\\ntive criticism with all their superlatives, while the\\nother was contemned. Climbing to see more of this\\nlater effigy, which he perceived to be ignoble, Ruskin\\nfound that the much vaunted sculptured hand, in\\nsight, had no fellow but a block, and so with the aged\\nbrow, wrinkled only where it might be seen, the aged\\ncheek, smooth, and also distorted, where it lay out of\\nsight. Ruskin would have had nothing but praise\\nfor treatment of sculpture according to the position\\nof the effigy but this was another matter\\nWho, with a heart in his breast, could have stayed\\nhis hand, as he reached the bend of the grey forehead,\\nand measured out the last veins of it as so much the\\nzecchin\\nIt was not necessary that Ruskin should follow up\\nthis sculptor and find him condemned for forgery; his\\nown sentence strikes close enough.\\nThe lesson on architecture that follows is offered\\nto a reader who is to be taught to build and to dec-\\norate, and who, in order thereto, is to be set free\\nfrom the poor fiction is it even so much has it life\\nenough for feigning that the decorations of the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0114.jp2"}, "115": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE IOI\\nmodern world are delightful to man. Do you seri-\\nously imagine, asks our teacher, that any living\\nsoul in London likes triglyphs Greeks\\ndid English people never did, and never will.\\nThe first thing we have to ask of decoration is\\nthat it should indicate strong liking. The\\nold Lombard architects liked hunting so they cov-\\nered their work with horses and hounds.\\nThe base. Renaissance architects liked masquing and\\nfiddling so they covered their work with comic\\nmasks and musical instruments. Even that was bet-\\nter than our English way of liking nothing and pro-\\nfessing to like triglyphs.\\nRuskin calls upon us for deliberate question and\\nupright answer as to our affections.\\nBut first comes the long historical lesson on con-\\nstruction on the wall, which is so built that it is not\\ndead wall on the pier, the base, the shaft, with a\\nspecial emphasis upon the transition from the actual\\nto the apparent cluster, illustrated by plans on arch\\nmasonry, the arch load, the roof, and the buttress.\\nOf all this, obviously, no indication in this summary\\nis possible. The introductory lesson on decoration is\\nanother version of the often-repeated teaching on\\nnatural form\\nAll the lovely forms of the universe\\nwhence to choose, and all the lovely lines that bound\\ntheir substance or guide their motion.\\nThere is material enough in a single flower for the\\nornament of a score of cathedrals but suppose we\\nwere satisfied with less exhaustive appliance, and built", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0115.jp2"}, "116": {"fulltext": "102 JOHN RUSKIN\\na score of cathedrals each to illustrate a single flower?\\nthat would be better than trying to invent new styles,\\nI think. There is quite difference of style enough,\\nbetween a violet and a hare-bell, for all reasonable\\npurposes.\\nWho can read such a passage and not have gained\\na new felicity We owe the exquisite thought and\\nphrase (at least in regard to its occasion) to that folly\\nof the time wherein the book was written the hope\\nthat a new kind of architecture was to come to pass\\nthrough the initiative of the Crystal Palace. John\\nRuskin consents to pause and refute that idle boast.\\nThe earth hath bubbles as the water hath, he says\\nof the Sydenham palace, and this is of them.\\nTo return to this inexhaustible theme of the natural\\nform Ruskin opposes Garnett, a writer who com-\\nmends art (as writers on art have done at least every\\nten years since then) for its correction of nature.\\nArt, according to Garnett, is to criticise nature by\\nher own rules gathered from all her works, and he\\nquotes the saying recorded of Raphael, u that the\\nartist s object was to make things not as nature made\\nthem but as nature would make them. Ruskin\\nreplies\\nI had thought that, by this time, we had done\\nwith that stale and misunderstood saying.\\nRafFaelle was a painter of humanity, and\\nassuredly there is something the matter with human-\\nity, a few dovrebbe s more or less, wanting in it. We\\nhave most of us heard of original sin, and may per-\\nhaps, in our modest moments, conjecture that we are", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0116.jp2"}, "117": {"fulltext": "the stones of Venice 103\\nnot quite what God, or Nature, would have us to be.\\nRaffaelle had something to mend in humanity I\\nshould have liked to have seen him mending a daisy,\\nor a pease-blossom, or a moth.\\nThen follows a page on the succession of the\\nwaves of the irregular sea. Not one of these hits the\\ngreat ideal shape, the corrected shape, nor will if we\\nwatch them for a thousand years.\\nIn the appendix to the first volume we may read\\nmuch theology of Ruskin s own writing and of his\\nfather s, directed against the idea of a teaching\\nChurch, and showing him to be so docile a son as to\\nfollow his father not only in regard to eternal inter-\\nests but also in regard to temporal prosperity. If\\nyou care little for the first, says the elder Ruskin in\\neffect, you must needs care for the second, and Prot-\\nestantism means the wealth of nations. Not many\\nyears later, when he wrote Unto this Last, John\\nRuskin had thought his own thoughts on the wealth\\nof nations, and his father was amongst the dismayed\\nreaders. A more valuable page of the appendix is\\nthat which declares the rapid judgment to which\\nRuskin intends by Stones of Venice to train the reader\\nor rather for which he intends to set the reader free\\nto be attainable in painting as well as in architec-\\nture. We ought by a side-glance, as we walk down\\na gallery, to tell a good painting because, as in archi-\\ntecture structure and expression are united, so in\\npainting are execution and expression. Who will\\nsay, after this, that Ruskin sought too much for sym-\\nbolism and allusion and the less pictorial characters", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0117.jp2"}, "118": {"fulltext": "104 JOHN RUSKIN\\nof art The business of a painter is to paint.\\nHe gave years of his life to Veronese, in whom the\\nemotions were altogether subordinate. In fact Ruskin\\nis the most liberal and universal of all lovers and\\ncritics of art, having eyes for all manners as for all\\nmatters\\nA man long trained to love the monk s visions of\\nAngelico turns in proud and ineffable disgust from the\\nfirst work of Rubens he encounters across\\nthe Alps. He has forgotten that while An-\\ngelico prayed and wept there was different\\nwork doing in the dank fields of Flanders wild seas\\nto be banked out; hard ploughing and har-\\nrowing of the frosty clay careful breeding of stout\\nhorses and fat cattle, rough affections and\\nsluggish imaginations, fleshy, substantial, iron-shod\\nhumanities. And are we to suppose there is\\nno nobility in Rubens masculine and universal sym-\\npathy with all this On the other hand, a\\nman trained in our Sir Joshua school, will\\nnot and cannot allow that there is any art at all in the\\ntechnical work of Angelico. We have been\\ntaught in England to think there can be no virtue but\\nin a loaded brush and rapid hand but there\\nis art also in the delicate point and in the hand which\\ntrembles as it moves, not because it is more liable to\\nerr but because there is more danger in its error.\\nIn the second volume the study of St. Mark s is\\nprefaced by that of the churches of Torcello and of\\nMurano, those ancient villages whence in part Venice\\nreceived her people. It is in the marble-mosaic Murano\\npavement of 1140 one of the most precious monu-\\nments in Italy that the eye which replied with the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0118.jp2"}, "119": {"fulltext": "the stones of Venice 105\\nsplendour of its gift of vision to the splendour of the\\nVenetian brush discovered the first Venetian colour.\\nAs to Byzantine building Ruskin teaches us the im-\\nportance of this fact that it is a style of confessed\\nincrustation, and shows us how far this fact carries.\\nVenice on her islands, hard by a sandy and marshy\\ncoast, and in traffic with the East, built with the meaner\\nmaterials and faced them with the marbles of her\\ncommerce. Her coloured architecture became rather\\nflat, rather small, as well as precious, carrying porphyry,\\nalabaster, and gold, and later the less perdurable but\\nmore precious colours of her painters. Incrustation\\nis obviously the only permanent chromatic decora-\\ntion possible, as we know who trace with mixed\\nfeelings the vestiges of the Gothic painter at Bourges\\nand at Winchester, in chocolate and green. Here, at\\nSt. Mark s, is no opaque surface-painting of the paint-\\ner s mixing, but the colour of nature in jasper and\\nmarble, into which the light makes some way mar-\\nbles that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine,\\nCleopatra-like, their bluest veins to kiss. Certain\\ncharacters of construction and of decoration are im-\\nplied by incrustation for example, the delicacy that\\nis to distinguish the plinths and cornices used for bind-\\ning this rich armature from those that are essential\\nparts of thejsolid building the abandonment of nearly\\nall expression in the body of the building, except that\\nof strength, so that the Byzantine building shows no\\nanxiety to disturb open surfaces the solidity of the\\nshafts, however precious in material, as an instinctive\\namends for the thinness of the precious surface on the", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0119.jp2"}, "120": {"fulltext": "106 JOHN RUSKIN\\nwalls and the consequent variable size of the shafts,\\nas rubies in a carcanet have the differences proper to\\ntheir single values, and the emeralds of two ear-rings\\nare not absolutely alike shallow cutting of the dec-\\noration, so that here are none of the hollows and\\nhiding-places proper to the stone-work of the north.\\nOn this serene and sunny construction the decorator\\nworked as one who traces a fine drawing, subduing\\nand controlling figure and drapery to the surface of\\nhis film of marble. Little have they read this book\\nwho currently discuss the fanaticism of Ruskin in the\\nmatter of truth, and charge him with so bigoted a\\nlove of integrity as to forbid the use of a marble sur-\\nface on a construction of commoner substance an\\narchitect accuses him of this to-day as easily as a\\npainter to-morrow will aver that Ruskin did not per-\\nmit him to choose what he would record, but com-\\npelled him to record all that was before him. It is as\\nthe chief of the lovers of colour that Ruskin is the\\napologist of an incrusted church simply condemned as\\nu gly by tne taste of the guides of the world that\\nSt. Mark s which was to him a confusion of de-\\nlight, a chain of language and life, that St. Mark s\\nwhich he read, not in Gothic darkness and effort, but\\nclearly, with the clearness of white dome and sky.\\nNo sign of carelessness of heart, to him, was the col-\\nour of Venice, but a solemn investiture. As to the\\nform, I may do no more here than record the little\\nspray of leaves he draws on a page of Stones of Venice,\\nwith a subtle difference in the progression of the pro-\\nportions amongst the seven leaves; and when you are", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0120.jp2"}, "121": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE IO7\\npenetrated with the grace of these single things in\\ntheir inter-relation, you read that these are the pro-\\nportions of the facade of St. Mark s. Who but he\\nhas given a reader such a happy moment And as\\nfor the Byzantine spirit, he cries, of St. Mark s, No\\ncity had such a Bible. He perceives in it\\nThat mighty humanity, so perfect and so proud,\\nthat hides no weakness beneath the mantle, and gains\\nno greatness from the diadem the majesty of thought-\\nful form, on which the dust of gold and flame of jew-\\nels are dashed, as the sea-spray upon the rock, and\\nstill the great Manhood seems to stand bare against\\nthe sky.\\nThe following section, on the nature of Gothic, is\\none of the most important chapters of Ruskin s archi-\\ntectural work.\\nLet it be remembered that he chose the Gothic of\\nVenice for the sake of its local succession to this local\\nByzantine work. But he prefaces the lesson with a\\nstudy of universal Gothic, the Gothic of such almost\\nabstract quality as would be difficult to define, even\\nas red would be difficult to describe to one who had\\nnot seen it, but who must be told that it was the col-\\nour mingled with blue to make this violet, and with\\nyellow to make yonder orange. Universal Gothic,\\nlike other great architecture, began with artless utter-\\nance.\\nIt is impossible to calculate the enormous loss\\nof power in modern days owing to the imperative re-\\nquirement that art shall be methodical and learned.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0121.jp2"}, "122": {"fulltext": "108 JOHN RUSKIN\\nFor there will always be more intellect than there\\ncan be education. But Gothic was in a special man-\\nner the work of the savage intellect, of the inventor,\\nthe intellectual workman it has not the same word\\nto repeat, but the perpetual novelty of life. And, to\\nthe Gothic workman, living foliage no longer the\\nmere explanatory accessory of Lombardic or Ro-\\nmanesque sculpture became a subject of intense\\naffection. Here is an incomparable Ruskin thought\\nthe love of change, he tells us, that was in the char-\\nacter of the Gothic sculptor, restless in following the\\nhunt or the battle, u is at once soothed and satisfied as\\nit watches the wandering of the tendril, and the bud-\\nding of the flower. And here a Ruskin phrase, also\\nin its place incomparable Greek and Egyptian or-\\nnament is either mere surface engraving or\\nits lines are flowing, lithe, and luxuriant.\\nBut the Gothic ornament stands out in prickly inde-\\npendence, and frosty fortitude, jutting into crockets,\\nand freezing into pinnacles. In the same chapter is,\\namongst others, an admirable page upon redundance\\nas a quality, not, needless to say, of all fine Gothic,\\nbut of the Gothic that is most full of all Gothic\\nqualities, and especially the Gothic quality of humility\\n11 That humility which is the very life of the Gothic\\nschool is shown not only in the imperfection, but in\\nthe accumulation, of ornament.\\nWith the selfsame care are the many Gothic con-\\nstructions of Venice discovered by Ruskin s research\\nas the few Byzantine nearly all, except the Ducal\\nPalace, suffer from the continual juxtaposition of the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0122.jp2"}, "123": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE IOO,\\nRenaissance palaces they exhaust their\\nown life by breathing it into the Renaissance cold-\\nness. The Ducal Palace, according to Ruskin, was\\na work of sudden Gothic. It is unlike the true\\ntransitional work done between the final cessation of\\npure Byzantine building, about 1300, and its own\\ndate 1320 to 1350. The struggle between Byzan-\\ntine and Gothic (formed on the mainland) had been\\none of equals, equally organised and vital. Ruskin\\nshows us the brilliant contest, with here and there a\\nbit of true Gothic tangled and taken prisoner till its\\nfriends should come up and sustain it. And of the\\nGothic victory the English reader (Ruskin writes, in\\nspite of all, for the ultra-English reader, the insular,\\nthe suburban, the very churchwarden) should note\\nthat the Venetian houses were the refined and ornate\\ndwellings of a nation as laborious, as practical, as\\nbrave, and as prudent as ourselves. At\\nVenice, Vicenza, Padua, and Verona the\\ntraveller may ascertain, by actual experience, the\\neffect which would be produced upon the comfort\\nand luxury of daily life by the revival of Gothic\\narchitecture he may see the unruined traceries\\nagainst the summer sky, or may close the casements\\nfitted to their unshaken shafts against such wintry\\nwinds as would have made an English house vibrate\\nto its foundations. I trust, said Ruskin, and his\\nlesson has in part been learnt since then, that there\\nwill come a time when the English people may see\\nthe folly of building basely and insecurely. The\\nreader is led then at last to the Ducal Palace, and, in", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0123.jp2"}, "124": {"fulltext": "110 JOHN RUSKIN\\nhonour of its sculptures, to a chapter on that great\\nbook of the Virtues as the Christian Venice honoured\\nthem from that chapter I must save this sentence on\\nPlato that the moral virtues may be found in his\\nwritings defined in the most noble manner, as a great\\npainter defines his figures, without outlines.\\nWhen Gothic architecture came to the conquest\\nof Byzantine in Venice, both were noble but when,\\nin a later age, the Renaissance architecture attacked\\nthe Gothic, neither was purely noble. Ruskin shows\\nus that unless luxury had enervated and subtlety\\nfalsified the Gothic forms, Roman traditions could\\nnot have prevailed against them. The corrupt\\nGothic had become luxurious in some of the best\\nGothic there is hardly an inch of stone\\nleft unsculptured but the decadent Gothic is at\\nonce extravagant and jaded. Against this degraded\\narchitecture came the Renaissance armies and\\ntheir first assault was in the requirement of universal\\nperfection. The Renaissance workmen lost origi-\\nnality of thought and tenderness of feeling, for the\\nsake of their dexterity of touch and accuracy of\\nknowledge.\\nThe thought and the feeling which they despised\\ndeparted from them, and they were left to felicitate\\nthemselves on their small science and their neat\\nfingering. This is the history of the first attack of\\nthe Renaissance upon the Gothic schools.\\nNow do not let me be misunderstood when I speak\\ngenerally of the evil spirit of the Renaissance. The\\nreader will not find one word but of the\\nmost profound reverence for those mighty men who", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0124.jp2"}, "125": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE III\\ncould wear the Renaissance armour of proof, and yet\\nnot feel it encumber their living limbs Leonardo and\\nMichael Angelo, Ghirlandajo and Masaccio, Titian\\nand Tintoret. But I speak of the Renaissance as an\\nevil time, because, when it saw those men go burning\\nforth into the battle, it mistook their armour for their\\nstrength and forthwith encumbered with the painful\\npanoply every stripling who ought to have gone forth\\nonly with his own choice of three smooth stones out\\nof the brook.\\nFull of significance (I must take but one detail\\nfrom this history of decline) is the fact that even in\\nthe finest examples of early Renaissance, where it was\\nmingled with reminiscences of the Byzantine chro-\\nmatic work, the coloured marble was no longer a\\nsimple part of the masonry but was framed and repre-\\nsented as hanging by ribbons. Of the central archi-\\ntecture of the Renaissance, the Casa Grimani stands,\\nin Ruskin s noble praises, as the best example. With\\nthe Vicenza Town Hall, with St. Peter s, Whitehall,\\nand St. Paul s, this palace represents the building that\\nhas been set before the student, from the date of its\\ninvention to the day of the writing of the Stones of\\nVenice^ as the antagonist of the barbarous genius.\\nNone the less was it a sign of the general withdrawal\\nof architecture into earthliness, out of all that was\\nwarm and heavenly. In its central works the Ve-\\nnetian Renaissance set up statues of the ancient Ve-\\nnetian virtues Temperance and Justice but these\\nfigures were furnished as neither the left hand of\\nthe one nor the right hand of the other could be seen\\nfrom below with one hand each.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0125.jp2"}, "126": {"fulltext": "112 JOHN RUSKIN\\nIts dragons are covered with marvellous scales,\\nbut have no terror or sting in them its birds are\\nperfect in plumage, but have no song in them its\\nchildren are lovely of limb, but have no childishness\\nin them.\\nThe effigies upon its tombs evaded the thought of\\ndeath; its figure of the dead first indented the pillow\\nnaturally, then rose on its elbow and looked about\\nit, and finally stepped out of the tomb for public ap-\\nplause, not with virtues, but with fame and victory,\\nfor companions. Ruskin takes us, through the stages\\nof corruption, to the curtains and ropes, fringes,\\ntassels, cherubs, the impotence of expression, the\\npassionless folly, of the seventeenth century, more\\nfoul in Venice than elsewhere as the thing corrupted\\nhad been the best. Infidelity, Pride of State, Pride\\nof System (or the confidence of definitely observable\\nlaws that never enabled man to do a great thing, and\\nalbeit literature and painting could break through,\\narchitecture could not) these were the causes of the\\nderogation of Venice. The rod had blossomed, pride\\nhad budded, violence had risen up. The chapter\\nfollowing this on the Roman Renaissance deals with\\nthe Grotesque of the Renaissance it shows us the\\nmocking head inhuman, weak, and finely finished,\\ncarved upon the base of the tower of Santa Maria\\nFormosa, one of many hundreds to be found upon\\nthe later buildings. As the grotesque was, to Ruskin s\\nmind, at its noblest in Dante (yet heaven help us,\\nwretched race of man, if Dante s laugh is to be our\\nmirth so it was at its thinnest and most malicious", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0126.jp2"}, "127": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE II3\\nin Renaissance ornament in Venice. That ornament\\ncloses the architecture of Europe.\\nBut the conclusion of this great book is an appeal\\nnot to despair, but to the hope of the race. It is a\\nrace still in its infancy, says John Ruskin, if we may\\ntake as tokens of puerility its foolish condemnation of\\nthe only work of art (Turner s) that was true to the\\nscience and truth professed by the age its misunder-\\nstanding of social and economic principles, so that it\\npreached those impossibilities liberty and equal-\\nity, and yet in no single nation dared to shut up its\\ncustom-houses its profession of charity and self-sac-\\nrifice for the practice of individual man and its re-\\njection thereof for the practice of the State. If man-\\nkind, then, was childish, it might be taught. And\\nhow much, in by-ways of opinion, the world did learn\\nfrom Ruskin, of true learning, may be seen from an\\nincident of this last chapter, in which he rebukes the\\npainters of his day for painting Italy without olive-\\ntrees This they did because their teachers thought\\ntrees ought not to be known from one another, and\\nyou certainly cannot make olives like any other tree\\nof the hillside. The very school which carries its\\nscience in the representation of man down to the\\ndissection of the most minute muscle, refuses so much\\nscience to the drawing of a tree as shall distinguish\\none species from another. Then follows a magnifi-\\ncent apology for the barbaric olive as the dome of St.\\nMark s has it, and this allusion to the trees of the\\npainters", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0127.jp2"}, "128": {"fulltext": "114 JOHN RUSKIN\\nA few strokes of the pencil, or dashes of colour,\\nwill be enough to enable the imagination to conceive a\\ntree; and in those dashes of colour Sir Joshua Reynolds\\nwould have rested, and would have suffered the imag-\\nination to paint what more it liked for itself, and grow\\noaks, or olives, or apples, out of the few dashes of\\ncolour at its leisure. On the other hand, Hobbema,\\none of the worst of the realists, smites the imagination\\non the mouth, and bids it be silent, while he sets to\\nwork to paint his oak of the right green.\\nThe painters of to-day, worthy the name, paint\\nolives, and the world has been changed in other ways\\nbut it has not begun to restore a great time.\\nFor to the book, in so far as it is a book of persua-\\nsion, there is this reply, and against it this contention\\nthat it persuades to that whereto no man nor men can\\nattain by any means they can be persuaded to lay hands\\nupon. The German painters, for example, of the\\nOverbeck school had doubtless a good will to paint\\nas they should, and as Ruskin s teaching would ap-\\nprove. But here is what he very rightly thought of\\nthem\\nI know not anything more melancholy than the\\nsight of the German cartoon, with its objective side\\nand its subjective side; and mythological division and\\nsymbolical division its allegorical sense and literal\\nsense; and ideal point of view and intellectual point\\nof view its heroism of well-made armour and knitted\\nbrows and twenty innocent dashes of the\\nhand of one God-made painter, poor old Bassano or\\nBonifazio, were worth it all, and worth it ten thou-\\nsand times over.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0128.jp2"}, "129": {"fulltext": "the stones of Venice 115\\nWhereto, then, is the persuasion of this book di-\\nrected As a book of history and of meditation on\\ncharacter and art it does its work; but does it not it-\\nself show us that as a book of persuasion it can do no\\nwork, for there is no work to be done Is a man to\\nbe persuaded, convinced, or converted to be such a\\nman as this of Ruskin s description\\nu It is. no more art to lay on colour delicately\\nthan to lay on acid [the acid of the photographer is\\nmeant] delicately. It is no more art to use the cornea\\nand retina for the reception of an image than to use a\\nlens and a piece of silvered paper. But the moment\\nthat inner part of the man, or rather that entire and only\\nbeing of the man, of which cornea and retina, fingers\\nand hands, pencils and colours, are all the mere serv-\\nants and instruments; that manhood has light in it-\\nself, though the eyeball be sightless, and can gain in\\nstrength when the hand and the foot are hewn off and\\ncast into the fire the moment this part of the man\\nstands forth with its solemn 4 Behold, it is I, then the\\nwork becomes art indeed.\\nIn the preface to the third edition (1874) Ruskin\\nconfesses that his book had gained an influence, for\\nEnglishmen had begun to mottle their manufactory\\nchimneys with black and red, and to adorn their banks\\nand drapers shops with Venetian tracery, but the chief\\npurpose of the writing, which was to show the moral\\ncorruption as cause of the corruption of art, had been\\naltogether neglected.\\nAs a physician would rather hear that\\nhis patient had thrown all his medicine out of the", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0129.jp2"}, "130": {"fulltext": "Il6 JOHN RUSKIN\\nwindow, than that he had sent word to his apothecary\\nto leave out two of its three ingredients, so I would\\nrather, for my own part, that no architects had ever\\ncondescended to adopt one of the views suggested in\\nthis book.\\nAt the close of Stones of Venice he complains once\\nmore that all readers praised the style and none the\\nsubstance.\\nIf I had told, as a more egoistic person\\nwould, my own impressions, as thinking those, for-\\nsooth, and not the history of Venice, the most impor-\\ntant business, a large number of equally\\negoistic persons would have instantly felt the sincer-\\nity of the selfishness, clapped it, and stroked it, and\\nsaid, c That s me.\\nThe truth he had to tell he declares to have been\\ndenied and detested.\\nFinally, a somewhat whimsical last page is filled\\nwith an extract from his diary of 1845, showing that\\nhe too could write like a critic of chiaroscuro and\\nother artistic qualities, but that he kept such obser-\\nvations for the furnishing of his own science rather\\nthan for presentation to the public. And in the ap-\\npendix to Stones of Venice is an invaluable essay on\\nthe Venetian pictures.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0130.jp2"}, "131": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER VIII\\nPRE-RAPHAELITISM (1851)\\nWhen the pictures of the young pre-Raphaelite\\nbrethren first appeared in the London exhibitions,\\nthe newspapers made loud complaints. Of pictures\\nby Millais and Holman Hunt at the Academy the\\nTimes said u These young artists have unfortunately\\nbecome notorious by addicting themselves to an anti-\\nquated style and an affected simplicity of painting.\\nWe can extend no toleration to a mere\\nsenile 1 imitation of the cramped style, false perspec-\\ntive, and crude colour of remote antiquity.\\nThat morbid infatuation which sacrifices truth,\\nbeauty, and genuine feeling to mere eccentricity de-\\nserves no quarter at the hands of the public. Rus-\\nkin then wrote to the Times two letters, signed The\\nAuthor of Modern Painters protesting that the pic-\\ntures in question were not false whether in feeling or\\nperspective, that their laboriousness entitled them to\\nmore than a hasty judgment, and that great things\\nmight be expected of the painters. He blames them\\nfor looking too narrowly, and he perceives a flowing\\n1 The word is senile in early and late editions of Ruslcin, but\\nit is a strange word wherewith to rate young painters. The ad-\\njective you can read with your eyes shut, to go with imitation,\\nis servile.\\n117", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0131.jp2"}, "132": {"fulltext": "Il8 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand an impulse in nature that outstrips such slow\\nlabours as theirs; but his praises of their execution,\\nin its kind, and of their colour, are large. I have\\nno acquaintance with any of these artists, and very\\nimperfect sympathy with them, says the first letter;\\nthe apology was undertaken for the love of natural\\ntruth, evidently dear to the new painters. The Times\\nletters were followed immediately by a pamphlet.\\nThe pre-Raphaelite brethren, says the preface, had\\nbeen assailed with the most scurrilous abuse which\\nI ever recollect seeing issue from the press (it must\\nbe owned that Ruskin s angry sentence is ill-written\\nin three places) and the contention that follows is\\nexceedingly interesting for reasons that seem to have\\nescaped its readers. That is, Ruskin has always been\\nrepresented as the champion of a group of young\\nmen of talent. This he was, and a generous one he\\ndeclared their work to be the most earnest and com-\\nplete done in Europe since the day of Albert Diirer.\\nBut the pamphlet is by no means, in its essential\\nargument, the eulogy of young men of talent. It is\\na frank proposal to young men of industry that they\\nshould apply themselves modestly to painting pictures\\nof topographic, historic, scientific, or botanic interest\\npour servir. Ruskin is accused of seeing genius\\ntoo readily but there could hardly be a more candid\\ndeclaration (it was too candid to be altogether under-\\nstood) that genius was not to be looked for. The\\nauthor of Pre-Raphaelitism says in effect that what is\\nto be demanded of a multitude of painters (who can\\nbe no more than workmen, and ought to be good", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0132.jp2"}, "133": {"fulltext": "PRE-RAPHAELITISM I 19\\nworkmen) is a trustworthy and useful record of con-\\ntemporary things having an unpictorial interest. He\\nsays further on\\nu Many people have found fault with me for not\\nteaching people how to arrange masses for not\\nattributing sufficient importance to composition.\\nAlas I attribute far more importance to it than they\\ndo so much importance that I should just as soon\\nthink of sitting down to teach a man how to write a\\nDivina Commedia or King Lear, as how to compose,\\nin the true sense, a single building or picture.\\nSuch a comparison doubtless goes too far, or rather\\ngoes wrong, as demonstrations borrowed from each\\nother by the arts must always do for certainly there\\nare things to be taught to a painter that have no\\ncounterpart in any things possible to teach to a poet.\\nBut I quote the passage in sign of the curious conten-\\ntion it reappears in the first Slade lectures that the\\nmajority of painters would do well to content them-\\nselves with pictures that are hardly pictures. Noth-\\ning more humiliating was ever said of modern art; it\\nwas so humiliating that no one would consent to un-\\nderstand it; was indeed too humiliating to be just.\\nThe pre-Raphaelite pamphlet changes, after the in-\\ntroductory page, into a history of the art of Turner.\\nParticularly instructive here is the history of the\\nevolution of Turner s whole art of colour, from the\\nkind of colour-stenography of the beginning and\\nexcellent also the history of Turner s sympathy, of\\nhis ready admirations, of the help he consented to\\nreceive from weak painters, such as Claude, and re-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0133.jp2"}, "134": {"fulltext": "120 JOHN RUSKIN\\nfused from strong but more false painters, such as\\nSalvator Rosa.\\nBesides, he had never seen classical life, and\\nClaude was represented to him as a competent au-\\nthority for it. But he had seen mountains and tor-\\nrents, and knew therefore that Salvator could not paint\\nthem.\\nIn 1800, facing the Continental landscape for him-\\nself, Turner cast Claude and the rest away, once for\\nall, and relied upon his eagle eye, his imagination, and\\nhis u gigantic memory. Turner, says Ruskin, for-\\ngot himself, and forgot nothing else.\\nThe Times letters of 1851 were followed by a\\nletter, in 1854, in praise of Mr. Holman Hunt s\\nLight of the World and in this place although\\nit belongs to a much later date may also be men-\\ntioned the paper on The Three Colours of Pre-\\nRaphaelitism {Nineteenth Century, 1878), memo-\\nrable for the happy passage upon that picture which\\ncorrupt criticism used to call the greatest in the world.\\nRuskin rehearses his former grave accusation of\\nRaphael, that he confused and quenched the veraci-\\nties of the life of Christ and adds\\nRaphael after profoundly studying the\\narabesques of Pompeii and of the palace of the\\nCaesars, beguiled the tedium, and illustrated the\\nspirituality, of the converse of Moses and Elias with\\nChrist concerning His decease which He should ac-\\ncomplish at Jerusalem, by placing them, above the\\nMount of Transfiguration, in the attitudes of two\\nhumming-birds on the top of a honeysuckle.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0134.jp2"}, "135": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER IX\\nLECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING (1853)\\nJohn Ruskin s career as a lecturer began at Edin-\\nburgh with a course of two lectures on architecture and\\ntwo on painting. It was to take him later to the Slade\\nchair at Oxford, to the Oxford Museum, to the Royal\\nInstitution, the London Institution, the South Kensing-\\nton Museum, to Cambridge, Eton, Manchester, Bir-\\nmingham, Liverpool, Kendal, Bradford, Dublin, Tun-\\nbridge Wells, Woolwich, and into the lecture rooms\\nof University College, Christ s Hospital, the Lam-\\nbeth School of Art, St. Martin s School of Art, the\\nWorking Men s College, the Architectural Associa-\\ntion, the Society of Arts, the Society of Antiquaries\\nand the list is not complete. This first appearance\\non the platform was made with the utmost charm of\\naddress, although the matter was controversial, and\\ncontroversy followed. I come before you, a pas-\\nsage in the second lecture avows, professedly to\\nspeak of things forgotten or things disputed. And\\nhis opponents joined issue with him on the importance\\nof architectural ornament, on its place, on the union\\nof architect and sculptor in one, and, in general, on\\nthe Gothic city. For it was to the Gothic city that\\nRuskin intended to persuade his Modern Athens. He\\nset forth with a comparison of Edinburgh with Verona\\nthe one city whereof the beauty lay without, and\\n121", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0135.jp2"}, "136": {"fulltext": "122 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthe other whereof it lay without and within. To be\\nbeautiful, a town must be domestically beautiful, beau-\\ntiful cumulatively in its dwellings, beautiful success-\\nively along its streets\\nM The great concerted music of the streets\\nwhen turret rises over turret, and casement frowns\\nbeyond casement, and tower succeeds to tower along\\nthe farthest ridges of the inhabited hills this is a\\nsublimity of which you can at present form no con-\\nception.\\nNeither the mind nor the eye, he says else-\\nwhere, will accept a new college, or a new hospital,\\nor a new institution, for a city and a fine church\\nin a vile street is nothing but a superstition. There-\\nfore he would rouse the citizens against their Ionic\\nand Corinthian column, repeated without delight; and\\ndefending once again it is central to his teaching\\nthe theory of the certainties of beauty, he says\\nExamine well the channels of your admiration,\\nand you will find that they are, in verity, as un-\\nchangeable as the channels of your heart s blood.\\nRuskin recommends the pointed window-opening\\nfor its greater strength. The common cross lintel is\\nof a form that wastes strength, when it is strong,\\nwhich, in modern building, is not often. And the\\npseudo-Greek decoration is wasted as well as the\\npower, by its position at the top of the building.\\nPediments, stylobates, and architraves are dead.\\nFine Gothic is as various as nature s foliage, and this", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0136.jp2"}, "137": {"fulltext": "lectures on architecture and painting 123\\nRuskin illustrates by an exquisite lesson on the leaves\\nof the mountain ash; a sculptor should not repeat\\nhis sculpture, as a painter should not paint the same\\npicture. Moreover, fine Gothic ornament is visible\\nit is chiefly rich about the doors, it is rough at a\\nheight above the eye only in the degraded Gothic\\nof Milan cathedral are the statues on the roof cut\\ndelicately.\\nBe assured that c handling is as great a thing in\\nmarble as in paint, and that the power of producing a\\nmasterly effect with few touches is as essential in an\\narchitect as in a draughtsman.\\nThus he does not urge upon the modern citizen a\\ncostly manner of architecture, but resigns himself,\\nsince he must, to the poverty or penury of a society\\nand age strangely given to boast of riches. The\\nGothic of dwellings is one with the Gothic church\\nthe apse of Amiens is but a series of windows sur-\\nmounted by pure gables of open work the spire,\\nthe pointed tower of South Switzerland, are but the\\nroof, which ought always to be very visible, made yet\\nmore visible.\\nHave not those words Pinnacle, Turret, Belfry,\\nSpire, Tower, a pleasant sound in all your ears\\nDo you think there is any group of words\\nwhich would thus interest you when the things ex-\\npressed by them are uninteresting\\nSome expense of controversy seems to be hardly\\nworth while in Ruskin s contention that ornamenta-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0137.jp2"}, "138": {"fulltext": "124 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntion is the principal part of architecture considered as\\na fine art. For when the word principal is\\nthoroughly explained, nothing is left in the proposi-\\ntion but what most architects would be willing to\\naccept.\\nA Gothic cathedral is properly to be defined as a\\npiece of the most magnificent associative sculpture\\narranged on the noblest principles of building.\\nBut this principle is pushed far by Ruskin when he\\nadds that architecture may be defined as the art of\\ndesigning sculpture for a particular place and placing\\nit there on the best principles of building. Archi-\\ntecture, said his opponents, is par excellence the art\\nof proportion. So, rejoined Ruskin, is all art in the\\nworld, and none par excellence all art depends from\\nthe beginning upon proportion for its existence, and\\nGothic has more proportions than other architecture,\\nhaving a greater number of members.\\nThe final lesson of the lectures is that Gothic with\\nits liberal variety and interest implies the liberty of\\nthe workman. Such a plea Ruskin thought would\\nhave won some reply from the modern heart but it\\nelicited none.\\nThe two lectures on painting deal, the one with\\nTurner and Claude (ground trodden in Modern\\nPainters), and the other with the reforms attempted by\\nthe English pre-Raphaelites.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0138.jp2"}, "139": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER X\\nelements of drawing (1857)\\nThe three Letters to Beginners printed with this\\ntitle require of the learner a simple discipleship and\\nconfidence not blind, for everything is shown him in\\ntime, but expectant, and with good reasons for being\\nintellectually predisposed to receive this instruction\\nrather than another. It would be well to warn a\\nstudent in Ruskin s drawing-class to look well to\\nthose reasons and to be sure they are good for the\\nteaching is intolerant of mixture with any other\\nmethods. That teaching, merely as it stands in this\\nsmall book lost in the astonishing quantity of its\\nauthor s labours of the mind proves an entire system\\nof thought and practice, justified by pure principle\\nand by the analysis of the work of masters. But the\\nmodern reader may wonder whether, a painter having\\nbeen duly born, but having yet to be made, he would\\nhave a chance of being well made under the guidance\\nof this book. Let no one think that if there were\\nfailure it would be the consequence of too literary a\\nquality of instruction, and of the influence of a literary\\nmind Ruskin s work in these letters is artist s work,\\ndesigner s and painter s work Ruskin is more sure of\\nthe world of bodily vision, more obedient to all its\\nlimits in a word, more technical than an ordinary\\ndrawing-master in his class would know how to be.\\n125", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0139.jp2"}, "140": {"fulltext": "126 JOHN RUSKIN\\nRuskin teaches his students to look at nature with\\nsimple eyes, to trust sight as the sense of the painter,\\na sense to be kept untampered with, unprompted, and\\nunhampered. In a book on Velasquez, published in\\nthe winter of Ruskin s death, by a critic who perhaps\\nwould not have consented to quote a precept from\\nRuskin, nearly a page is devoted to the record of what\\nthe writer had been fortunate enough to hear said by\\na French painter and this proves to be but a long\\nstatement of what Ruskin taught in a single phrase\\nwhen he bade the student to seek to recover the in-\\nnocence of the eye. And yet in spite of admirable\\ntheory, the frequently recurring praises of William\\nHunt, the water-colour painter of fruit, add to the\\nreader s uneasiness. On the other hand, the student\\nis taught to perceive the greatness of the greatest\\nmasters\\nYou may look, with trust in their being always\\nright, at Titian, Veronese, Tintoret, Giorgione, John\\nBellini, and Velasquez. You may look with admira-\\ntion, admitting, however, question of right and wrong,\\nat Van Eyck, Holbein, Perugino, Francia, Angelico,\\nLeonardo da Vinci, Correggio, Vandyck, Rembrandt,\\nReynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, and the modern pre-\\nRaphaelites.\\nMichelangiolo, Raphael, and Rubens are great\\nmasters, but not masters for students; Murillo, Sal-\\nvator, Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Teniers, are danger-\\nous.\\nYou may look, however, for examples of evil,\\nwith safe universality of reprobation, being sure that", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0140.jp2"}, "141": {"fulltext": "elements of drawing 127\\neverything you see is bad, at Domenichino, the Ca-\\nracci, Bronzino, and the figure pieces of Salvator.\\nIn this lesson, the teacher disclaims any intention\\nof placing his great ones higher or lower than one\\nanother it is a lesson for those who go to the gal-\\nleries to learn to work and not only to learn to judge.\\nLet us contrast with this another lesson (this one\\nfrom the appendix) on things to be studied, whereby\\nthe young artist is directed to read the poets Scott,\\nWordsworth, Keats, Crabbe, Tennyson, the two\\nBrownings, Lowell, Longfellow, and Coventry Pat-\\nmore alone amongst the moderns. Cast Coleridge\\nat once aside, as sickly and useless and Shelley as\\nshallow and verbose. Byron is but withheld for a\\ntime, with praise of his magnificence. And we\\nhave Patmore the poet of spiritual passion and lofty\\ndistinction praised for quiet modern domestic feel-\\ning and a finished piece of writing. And Shelley\\nverbose Adonais verbose, and not Endymion All\\nthe living poets whom Ruskin praised Browning,\\nRossetti, and Patmore amongst them had to endure\\nto be praised side by side with Longfellow, and they\\ndid not love the association. But in all this strange\\nsentence nothing is less intelligible than the word\\nwhich commends to the young student urged in the\\nsame breath to restrict himself to what is generous,\\nreverend, and peaceful all the writings of Robert\\nBrowning. The student is warned to refrain from\\neven noble, even pure, satire, from coldness, and from\\na sneer; and is yet sent to a poet who gave his imag-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0141.jp2"}, "142": {"fulltext": "128 JOHN RUSKIN\\nination to the invention of infernal hate in the\\nSpanish Cloister, and of the explanations of Mr. Sludge\\nand Bishop Blougram, busily, indefatigably squalid\\nand ignoble, and delighting in derision. This appen-\\ndix must have been written in a perverse mood but\\nin the text what exquisite lessons of proportion, and\\nof colour For instance, The eye should feel white\\nas a space of strange, heavenly paleness in the midst\\nof the feeling of colours, and You must make the\\nblack conspicuous, the black should look strange\\nwhat a sense of the growth of trees, of flowers with\\ntheir delicate inflections of law, their vital symmetry\\nand asymmetry, and their progress, their relation, from\\nstem to limit of leaf; what a steady nay eternal\\nvision of movement the animal in its motion, the\\ntree in its growth, the cloud in its course, the moun-\\ntain in its wearing away And in the lesson on\\ncolour occurs the humour that might be a woman s\\nor a child s, if woman or child could ever be womanly\\nor childish enough to conceive it it is in a fine pas-\\nsage on the economy of nature Sometimes I have\\nreally thought her miserliness intolerable in a gen-\\ntian, for instance, the way she economises her ultra-\\nmarine down in the bell is a little too bad. With\\nElements of Drawing should be named Elements of\\nPerspective, a series of lessons intended to be read in\\nconnection with the first three books of Euclid, signs\\nof yet another intellect the mathematical added to\\nthis wonderful spirit. The drawings that accompany\\nElements of Drawing are of great beauty.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0142.jp2"}, "143": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XI\\nthe political economy of art (1857)\\nThis little volume holds the substance of two\\nlectures given at Manchester. The lecturer exercises\\nhere the pleasant art of stimulating his hearers by a\\nparadox, and of following the phrase of surprise by an\\nirrefutable exposition. His theme is the right ex-\\npenditure of public money. He, like the other econ-\\nomists, has to find room, in the national dispensa-\\ntions, for expense upon the arts, and in some sort\\nthe luxuries, of life. Christian and ascetic, he has to\\nconsent to this use of the fruits of the labours of the\\npoor, as the severe but not ascetic Manchester\\neconomist also must needs do. Mill, who insists that\\nall unproductive consumption is so much loss and de-\\nstruction, evidently arranges for, and tolerates, so\\nmuch loss and destruction in a certain cause; he\\nallows the artist to destroy what he consumes. With\\nsuch permission a purely scientific writer has nothing\\nto do. Like a writer on arithmetic, a writer on polit-\\nical economy proper states these laws, those causes,\\nand yonder consequences, and is not called upon, as\\nan economist, to approve or disapprove of an act that\\nwould disregard the purely economic results. (I shall\\nhave to urge the same point in regard to the later\\nwork Unto this Last.) And this is why it is irritat-\\ning to hear men speak of doing such or such a thing\\n129", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0143.jp2"}, "144": {"fulltext": "I30 JOHN RUSKIN\\nin spite of the political economists, or notwith-\\nstanding the professors of the dismal science. The\\ncalculators of a nation s wealth are simply to state\\ntheir calculations; that done, they might be the first\\nto cherish ethical, or political, or human reasons why\\nloss and gain should in such or such a case be disre-\\ngarded or, on the other hand, they might hold it to\\nbe wiser to disregard the results in loss and gain as\\nlittle as possible. But in either case they would cease\\nfor the time to speak purely as economists or calcula-\\ntors. Ruskin, needless to say, unites the two func-\\ntions, as indeed almost all other writers have done.\\nHe thinks precisely, and having done the sum, he\\npasses to the other function, and does the ethical work\\nfor which his calculation has given him material. In\\nthese two lectures he plans some order in that strictly\\nunproductive expenditure without which civilisation\\ncould hardly endure. The theme of this book is\\nrighteous spending, while the theme of Time and Tide\\nis chiefly righteous sparing and he has much to say\\nhere of the honour and the power of riches and the\\ndisgrace (let us say the disgrazia in the Italian sense)\\nof poverty, while in Fors Clavigera he gives a solemn\\npersonal assurance solemn and personal even for\\nhim that for the rich man there is no safety unless\\nhe shall piously and prudently dispose himself to\\nbecome poor. But the poverty he deplores is mani-\\nfestly the ignorant and forsaken poverty that no man\\nought to endure the poverty for the love whereof a\\nman of heart despoils himself is the poverty of sim-\\nplicity and even the poverty of the simple is to be", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0144.jp2"}, "145": {"fulltext": "the political economy of art 131\\nsought chiefly in order that there should be none, or\\nless, of the poverty of the forsaken. In this very\\nlecture on the administration of wealth for the foster-\\ning of art, the nation and the man are warned alike\\nthat the spending which would be lawful in a society\\nwhere none were starving for lack of work ought to\\nbe foregone or deferred there where children have no\\nbread.\\nThe riation, says in effect the lecturer on The\\nPolitical Economy of Art, is as free and as bound,\\nas responsible and as dependent in its inter-rela-\\ntion, as a household, and a nation is governable like\\na farm. If any one shall say that the similitude is\\ntoo domestic, the reply shall be that it is not domestic\\nenough.\\nThe real type of a well-organised nation must be\\npresented, not by a farm cultivated by servants who\\nwrought for hire, but by a farm in which\\nthe master was a father, and in which all the servants\\nwere sons.\\nWith a peculiar humour, Ruskin begs his hearers not\\nto be alarmed at the menacing word fraternity.\\nThe French who used it, he declares (for the reas-\\nsuring of a Manchester audience) to have gone wrong\\nin their experiment. But the cause of their error he\\nstates without irony. It was that they refused to ac-\\nknowledge that fraternity implied a paternity. The\\nworld, nevertheless, does not utter the word paternal\\nwithout burlesque a paternal government nor\\nthe word fraternal without defiance. It does not", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0145.jp2"}, "146": {"fulltext": "I32 JOHN RUSKIN\\nchance that paternity is spoken of threateningly or\\nfraternity with irony but this might have been the\\nhumour of the commonwealth, instead of the other.\\nObviously, what Ruskin teaches in the political part\\nof this lecture is the necessity of authority and once\\nthe arbitrary tyrannies of primitive society are done\\naway, which is early in all civilisations the nullity\\nof the liberty that men have died for with alacrity\\nage by age.\\nWealth ought not to be acquired by covetousness,\\nnor distributed by prodigality, nor hoarded by avarice,\\nnor increased by competition, nor destroyed by luxury.\\nTo none of these forms of egoism should be aban-\\ndoned the important economy of money. Ruskin in-\\nsists upon the special responsibility of man for that\\ntalent not the talent of wit or intellect or influence\\nwith the bishops, but the talent of money literally.\\nIn The Political Economy of Art the reader\\nshould note the fine page upon the destruction of\\nwealth, as well as of art, that is wrought not by the\\ntooth of time\\nFancy what Europe would be now, if the delicate\\nstatues and temples of the Greeks, if the broad\\nroads and massy walls of the Romans, if the noble\\nand pathetic architecture of the middle ages had not\\nbeen ground to the dust by mere human rage.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0146.jp2"}, "147": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XII\\nthe two paths (1859)\\nThe principal teaching of this volume, ratified by\\na preface in 1878, is summed up thus\\nThe law which it has been my effort chiefly to il-\\nlustrate is the dependence of all noble design, in any\\nkind, on the sculpture or painting of Organic Form.\\nThis is the vital law lying at the root of all that I\\nhave ever tried to teach respecting architecture or\\nany other art. It is also the law most generally dis-\\nallowed.\\nIt is possible that to this book was due much of the\\nimpatience and anger spent, the day before yesterday,\\nupon Ruskin s art-theory. By the day before yester-\\nday I mean the time of a flow that has already been\\nsucceeded by some ebbing movement, and, in this\\ncase, the time between the popularising in England\\nof the art for art of the French, about 1880, and\\nthe day when the last journalist flagged in the last\\nrepetition thereof and it took him nearly twenty\\nyears. In October 1899 a fugitive writer in a con-\\nspicuous art-review spoke of the unutterable bosh\\nwritten by Ruskin about art and the inferior clown-\\nishness of that reviewer is only the latest mimicking\\nof the higher clownishness of criticism a little earlier\\nwritten.\\n*33", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0147.jp2"}, "148": {"fulltext": "134 JOHN RUSKIN\\nThe teaching of The Two Paths has been thought\\nout by its author in the very interior intricacies. It\\nis dogmatic in proportion to the difficulty which he\\ncertainly knows he found in that inner place, but\\nwhich he never explicitly confesses. Two paths\\nthere are, he teaches, one leading to destruction and\\nthe other to life. The one is that of the artist who\\nloves his own skill and seeks first his pleasure in\\nbeauty, and the other is that of him who loves nature\\nand studies the beauty of her truth and never lets go\\nhis grasp upon the laws of natural living form. Both\\nartists may nay, must draw conventionally at\\ntimes, and at times must design the mosaic patterns,\\nor the diaper patterns, that ultimately resemble each\\nother, assuredly, from whichever path they are ap-\\nproached. It seems that Ruskin insists upon a differ-\\nence, even in this ultimate point. And yet the pret-\\ntiest and most ingenious oriental diaper of fret-work\\n(which he denounces) has a suggestion in natural\\ncurve, or even in the curve of organic life, as the\\nLombard ornament (which he approves) has a sugges-\\ntion in natural crystallisation that is, in something\\nother than organic form properly so-called. A similar\\ndifficulty occurs to the reader in regard to all u con-\\nvention, however slight.\\nThis, however, is a difficulty, as it were, at the end\\nof the argument. At its head Ruskin has placed a\\ndifficulty that meets the reader with a very menace.\\nThe title of this first lecture is The Deteriorative\\nPowers of Conventional Art over Nations. The\\nadjective conventional seems to mitigate the predi-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0148.jp2"}, "149": {"fulltext": "the two paths 135\\ncate of this lecture but there is no such mitigation\\nin the text, which declares roundly that from the mo-\\nment when a perfect picture is painted or a perfect\\nstatue wrought within a State, that State begins to\\nderogate. Not only is the word conventional\\nomitted, but the word perfect seems to bar it out.\\nThen comes the tremendous contrast with which\\nRuskin commands his readers and compels them to\\nattend to -what shall follow. Thus it stands India\\n(then lately guilty of the Mutiny and accused of more\\nevil than she had committed) is a nation possessed of\\nexquisite art, but given over to every infernal passion\\ncruelty and the rest. Scotland is a nation full of\\nthe dignity of virtue and possessed of no art whatever\\nexcept that of arranging lines of colour at right angles\\nin the plaid. Splendid are these pages, with their\\nnobility and temperance of diction in the statement\\nof what is most certainly a disastrous exaggeration.\\nThey close with the assertion of a brief and absolute\\nopposition Out of the peat cottage come faith,\\ncourage, self-sacrifice, purity, and piety out\\nof the ivory palace come treachery, cruelty, cowardice,\\nidolatry, bestiality. Who, nevertheless, in calmer\\nthought dare ratify such a sentence Piety alas\\nPurity alas, alas The judgment on the Hindoo\\ncalls for more indignant groans. To pass to the art,\\nhowever Indian art never represents a natural fact,\\nsays Ruskin but (putting aside the certain truth that\\nit is suggested by natural fact, and that the European\\nconventional art is no more than suggested by\\nnatural fact) what becomes of his contention that", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0149.jp2"}, "150": {"fulltext": "136 JOHN RUSKIN\\nIndian art is therefore a portent of degradation, in\\nview of the statement on a previous page that the\\nperfect statue and the perfect picture were also, in\\nRome and Venice, portents of degradation Surely\\nthe perfect statue represents a natural fact. And\\nat the end of a close and urgent argument, the\\nreader asks where, then, is Scotland in all this\\nThe Scot of the cottage does not produce the art\\ntaught by organic form which is so nobly described as\\nrighteous he produces no art or stay, he produces\\nthe plaid just mentioned, which is much, much less\\norganic than anything in the whole range of Indian\\ndesign. The curve of an Indian shawl-pattern has a\\nnatural inspiration what life let alone the noble\\nanimal and human life which Ruskin declares to be\\nthe highest inspiration of art but what life, however\\nhumble, what life of any degree of humbleness, is\\nrepresented, much less imitated, by the plaid To\\ndespise life is, Ruskin teaches, the first and ultimate\\nsin. Well, then, asks his reader, are they to be held\\ninnocent of that sin who, having before their eyes\\nthe living proportion of common plant-growth, and\\nthe form of rock, less vital yet erect in all the gravity\\nof natural law, yet turned their eyes away and ruled\\nthe lines of their tartan; who, having in sight the\\nsoft gloomy purple of their heather and the soft brown\\nof their streams, chose to put that yellow line between\\nthat blue and that red the hardest colours of all\\nmen s invention I want such a phrase as Ruskin\\nalone could give me to denounce the hatred of nature\\nand the contempt of life which the plaid could be", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0150.jp2"}, "151": {"fulltext": "the two paths 137\\nmade to prove. And see what significance he attaches\\nto the mere straying from nature in the Hindoo\\nHe draws no plant, but only a spiral. But the\\nScot loved the plant not enough to draw even a\\nspiral he ruled straight lines.\\nIf I have treated this book with controversy, it was\\nimpossible to do otherwise. But out of its treasures\\nof wisdom take the page in praise of Titian which\\nends with the passage Nobody cares much at heart\\nabout Titian only there is a strange undercurrent of\\neverlasting murmur about his name, which means the\\ndeep consent of all great men that he is greater than\\nthey, and so on to the end. For wit take this, from\\nthe important section of the lecture on Modern\\nManufacture and Design, that partly condemns the\\nusual teaching of symmetry\\nIf you learn to draw a leaf well, you are taught\\nto turn it the other way, opposite to itself;\\nand the two leaves set opposite ways are called c a\\ndesign. But if once you learn to draw the\\nhuman figure, you will find that knocking two men s\\nheads together does not necessarily constitute a good\\ndesign.\\nThe incident (in the same lecture) of the sporting\\nhandkerchief is full of signs of charming wit. The\\nreader must be referred to the illustration, but let him\\nbe assured that Ruskin had the best of it in his con-\\ntroversy with his friend. His friend proved to him\\nthat series, symmetry, and contrast were the material\\nof design, but used them so cleverly that Ruskin could", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0151.jp2"}, "152": {"fulltext": "I38 JOHN RUSKIN\\nshow him by his own work how such use could not\\nbe taught, measured, or ruled and, moreover, used\\nthem with so little beauty that Ruskin was able to\\nreply to him that not mere symmetry, but lovely\\nsymmetry, was proper to art. For felicity of word\\nread what follows\\nOutside the town I came upon an old English\\ncottage, or mansion, I hardly know which to call it,\\nset close under the hill, and beside the river,\\nwith mullioned windows and a low arched porch\\nround which, in the little triangular garden, one can\\nimagine the family as they used to sit in old summer\\ntimes, the ripple of the river heard faintly through the\\nsweet-briar hedge, and the sheep on the far-off wolds\\nshining in the evening sunlight. There, uninhabited\\nfor many and many a year, it had been left in unre-\\ngarded havoc of ruin the garden-gate still swung\\nloose to its latch the garden, blighted utterly into a\\nfield of ashes, not even a weed taking root there the\\nroof torn, the shutters hanging about the\\nwindows in rags of rotten weed before its gate, the\\nstream which had gladdened it now soaking slowly\\nby, black as ebony, and thick with curdling scum\\nthe bank above it trodden into unctuous, sooty slime\\nfar in front of it, between it and the old hills, the\\nfurnaces of the city foaming forth perpetual plague\\nof sulphurous darkness the volumes of their storm\\nclouds coiling low over a waste of grassless fields.\\nThat is the circumstance of the designer at Rochdale\\nand in such conditions fine design is impossible. This,\\non the other hand, is the circumstance of the great\\ndesigner at Pisa", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0152.jp2"}, "153": {"fulltext": "the two paths 139\\nOn each side of a bright river he saw rise a line\\nof brighter palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with\\ndeep red porphyry, and with serpentine along the\\nquays, before their gates, were riding troops of knights,\\nnoble in face and form, dazzling in crest and shield\\nhorse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and\\ngleaming light the purple, and silver, and scarlet\\nfringes flowing over the strong limbs and clashing\\nmail like sea-waves over rocks at sunset. Opening\\non each side from the river were gardens, courts, and\\ncloisters long successions of white pillars among\\nwreaths of vine leaping of fountains through buds\\nof pomegranate and orange and still along the gar-\\nden-paths, and under and through the crimson of the\\npomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the\\nfairest women that Italy ever saw fairest, because\\npurest and thoughtfullest trained in all high knowledge,\\nas in all courteous art in dance, in song, in sweet\\nwit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love\\nable alike to cheer, to enchant or save, the souls\\nof men. Above all this scenery of perfect human life,\\nrose dome and bell-tower, burning with white alabaster\\nand gold beyond dome and bell-tower the slopes of\\nmighty hills, hoary with olive far in the north, above\\na purple sea of peaks of solemn Apennine, the clear,\\nsharp-cloven Carrara mountains sent up their steadfast\\nflowers of marble summit into amber sky the great\\nsea itself, scorching with expanse of light, stretching\\nfrom their feet to the Gorgonian Isles and over all\\nthese, ever present, near or far seen through the leaves\\nof vine, or imaged with all its march of clouds in the\\nArno s stream, or set with its depth of blue close against\\nthe golden hair and burning cheek of lady or knight\\nthat untroubled and sacred sky, which was to all men,\\nin those days of innocent faith indeed the unquestioned\\nabode of spirits, as the earth was of men, a\\nheaven in which every cloud that passed was literally", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0153.jp2"}, "154": {"fulltext": "140 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthe chariot of an angel, and every ray of its Evening\\nand Morning streamed from the throne of God.\\nOver-rich, even for its purpose, is a phrase now and\\nthen but that sentence, close against the golden\\nhair and burning cheek the untroubled and\\nsacred sky, is purely beautiful. As to the signifi-\\ncance of this contrast (for controversy must have it\\nagain), how are we to take it Here is Rochdale\\ndeclared unable to design beautifully because of its\\ninternal and surrounding hideousness; India able to\\ndesign beautifully, with vice, in the midst of beauty\\nPisa able to design beautifully in the midst of beauty,\\nwith virtue, according to this golden picture Scot-\\nland unable to design beautifully, with virtue, in the\\nmidst of beauty. What is the lesson, finally And\\nbesides this general doubt as to what these several\\nthings have to prove to us, there is also a local\\nquestion. I never stand under that untroubled and\\nsacred sky but with a remembrance of a tower, long\\nfallen, that filled a place in the sunny blue aloft.\\nMany a space of the earth has been a site of the\\nsuffering of man but here is a space of the very sky\\nthat has been a site of human wrongs intolerable.\\nAbove, in that delicate air, was the upper chamber\\nof the Tower of Famine high in that now vacant\\nand serene space sounded the voice of Ugolino and\\nhis sons. Earth has everywhere her graves but no\\nother sky than the Pisan sky holds such a place as\\nthis.\\nThe world nature is full of unanswerable ques-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0154.jp2"}, "155": {"fulltext": "the two paths 141\\ntions. It was a courageous enterprise to answer one\\nof them in this book a great enterprise, a great de-\\nfeat.\\nTo small minds, and to the vulgar, the desire to\\nreply to those perpetual questions is a matter of daily\\nhabit. They have no doubt as to two paths, or as\\nto the destination of each, or the cause of its inclin-\\ning. But here, for once, is a great mind condemning\\nitself to the disaster of judgment and decision, in its\\ndivine good faith. It is hardly credible that the in-\\ntellectual martyrdom of the enterprise of writing The\\nTwo Paths should have been hailed with the laughter\\nof the untroubled. So, nevertheless, it has been.\\nTragedy is not, says Hegel, in the conflict of right\\nwith wrong, but in the conflict of right with right.\\nRuskin was nobly reluctant to confess such a strife,\\nor to be the spectator of such a battle. Hence he\\nmust declare two paths. But his own labour of the\\nmind, his book, is, in the sense of Hegel, tragic.\\nFor a far better quality of splendid English than\\nthe descriptive passage above quoted, I would cite\\nthis from the lecture that urges upon architects their\\ngreat vocation as sculptors\\nu Is there anything within range of sight, or con-\\nception, which may not be of use to you f\\nWhatever may be conceived of Divine, or beheld of\\nHuman, may be dared or adopted by you through-\\nout the kingdom of animal life, no creature is so vast,\\nor so minute, that you cannot deal with it, or bring it\\ninto service the lion and the crocodile will couch\\nabout your shafts the moth and bee will sun them-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0155.jp2"}, "156": {"fulltext": "142 JOHN RUSKIN\\nselves upon your flowers for you, the fawn will leap\\nfor you, the snail will be slow for you, the dove\\nsmooth her bosom, and the hawk spread her wings\\ntowards the south. All the wide world of vegetation\\nblooms and bends for you the leaves tremble that\\nyou may bid them be still under the marble snow the\\nthorn and the thistle, which the earth casts forth as\\nevil, are to you the kindliest servants no dying petal,\\nnor drooping tendril, is so feeble as to have no help\\nfor you no robed pride of blossom so kingly, but it\\nwill lay aside its purple to receive at your hands its\\npale immortality.\\nAgain, Ruskin compares the interest of the geolo-\\ngist, of the naturalist, with that of the sculptor, in\\nthe things they study. You must get the storm-\\nspirit into your eagles, and the lordliness into your\\nlions. And again he shows the forms of lifeless\\nthings the all but invisible shells that shall lend their\\nshapes to the starred traceries of a cathedral roof, the\\ntorn cable that can twine into a perfect moulding\\nYou who can crown the mountain with its fortress,\\nand the city with its towers, are thus able also to give\\nbeauty to ashes and worthiness to dust. He presses\\nthe example of the ancient architects did they em-\\nploy a subordinate workman as sculptor, ordering of\\nhim bishops at so much a mitre, and cripples at so\\nmuch a crutch Was the precession on the portal\\nof Amiens wrought so\\nAmongst the many sentences that in the course of\\nall Ruskin s books correct his teaching that nothing\\nin nature should be rejected are these A looking-\\nglass does not design it receives and communicates", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0156.jp2"}, "157": {"fulltext": "the two paths 143\\nindiscriminately a painter designs when he\\nchooses some things, refuses others, and arranges all.\\nAnd Design, properly so called, is human invention,\\nconsulting human capacity (a most admirable defi-\\nnition).\\nOut of the infinite heap of things around us in\\nthe world, it chooses a certain number which it can\\nthoroughly grasp, and presents this group to the spec-\\ntator in the form best calculated to enable him to grasp\\nit also, and to grasp it with delight.\\nJapanese art was unconsidered at the time of the\\nwriting of these lectures. One may wonder how\\nwould the art, the people, their gentleness, their vices,\\ntheir monstrous burlesque of human form, the distor-\\ntion, the familiarity, the jeer, the mockery, the\\nmalice, the delicate and intent study of natural fact\\nin plants and in birds, the vitality, and especially the\\nlove of innocent life, how would the men and their\\nart show under the intricate tests of The Two Paths?\\nWhere would Japan stand in that entanglement of\\nIndia, Scotland, Rochdale, and Pisa\\nThe last lecture is on The Work of Iron in Na-\\nture, Art, and Policy. The history of the colour of\\niron in the landscape is brilliant writing. The warn-\\ning against the foolish use of the word freedom,\\nand against the foolish enthusiasm for the vague idea,\\nrepeats what Ruskin has said often No human\\nbeing, however great or powerful, was ever so free as\\na fish. There is always something that he must, or\\nmust not, do.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0157.jp2"}, "158": {"fulltext": "144 JOHN RUSKIN\\nIn these and all matters you never can reason\\nfinally from the abstraction, for both liberty and re-\\nstraint are good when they are nobly chosen,\\nbut of the two it is restraint which char-\\nacterises the higher creature, and betters the lower\\ncreature and, from the ministering of the archangel\\nto the labour of the insect, from the poising of the\\nplanets to the gravitation of a grain of dust, the\\npower and glory of all creatures, and all matter, con-\\nsist in their obedience, not in their freedom.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0158.jp2"}, "159": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XIII\\nunto this last (i860)\\nI rest satisfied with the work, though with noth-\\ning else that I have done, says John Ruskin in the\\npreface to, the first issue after the publication had been\\nstopped in the Cornhill Magazine; and in 1888 he\\nsaid that he would be content that all the rest of his\\nbooks should be destroyed rather than this. The\\nbook was to give in plain English it has often\\nbeen incidentally given in good Greek by Plato and\\nXenophon, and good Latin by Cicero and Horace\\na logical definition of wealth. The first paper,\\nThe Roots of Honour, treats of the wages of\\nlabour, and at the outset relieves the reader of the\\nusual burden of deciding whether the interests of em-\\nployer and labourer are alike or opposed. According\\nto circumstances they may be either. But it is not\\nto the chance of the harmony of interests, nor to the\\npossible equity of opposition of interests not to any\\nchance whatever that Ruskin would entrust the rate\\nof wages. Unlike other writers on economy at that\\nday, he thinks it possible that the rate of wages in\\nindustry and agriculture should be fixed by legislation,\\nand fixed irrespectively of the demand for labour.\\nWhy has the possibility so long been denied, in face\\nof the fact that for all important and some unimpor-\\ntant labour, wages are so regulated wages of the\\n*45", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0159.jp2"}, "160": {"fulltext": "I46 JOHN RUSKIN\\nprime minister, the bishop, the general, the cabman,\\nthe lawyer, the physician The difficulty as to good\\nand bad work Ruskin decides thus the good labourer\\nwould be employed and the bad would not but all\\nemployed should have the same wages. This, more-\\nover, is done in the cases of the professions already\\nnamed. A bad workman should not be permitted to\\noffer his work at half-price, to the probable injury of\\nthe good it is his freedom to do so, and not regula-\\ntion, that is artificial and unnatural. Education would\\ncontinuously lessen the number of bad workmen.\\nThe second aim of true political economy, and a diffi-\\ncult one, is to maintain employment steadily despite\\nthe sudden and extensive inequalities of demand.\\nBut this difficulty, though great, would not be so\\ngreat if the rushes and relaxations, overwork and\\nidleness alternately, that come of unequal wages,\\nwere at an end. There would be a calming-down,\\nand employment would become more equal. Further-\\nmore, the labourer might be taught to live and work\\nmore steadily, and therefore more evenly, by the\\ncounsel of a good employer. And the good employer\\nwould be a merchant (for example) who should accept\\nhis own function in the spirit of the lawyer, soldier,\\nor pastor should provide by commerce for the na-\\ntion, as those administer law, defend, or teach, not\\nseeking profit in the first place, but rendering in the\\nfirst place the definite service of providing.\\nThe second paper, The Veins of Wealth, draws\\nthe distinction between mercantile economy (as it\\nactually is) and true political economy, the first being", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0160.jp2"}, "161": {"fulltext": "unto this last 147\\nthat rule of riches which implies poverty that is,\\nrelative riches, the riches of individuals or classes\\nwhereas political economy is the order of riches of the\\nnation, in harmony, not in internal contrasts. The\\nart of becoming rich in the mercantile sense is the art\\nof keeping others poor. Without their poverty, ob-\\nviously, the successful man would have neither servants\\nnor husbandmen at his disposal. The establishment\\nof the mercantile wealth which consists in a claim\\nupon labour signifies a political diminution of the real\\nwealth which consists in substantial possessions.\\nThat is, the man who has become poor, and thus in-\\ndebted in labour to the rich, has been unprofitable to\\nthe State. If the rich withdraws into idleness, he too\\nbecomes unprofitable to the State. The wealth of\\nindividuals may be gathered in masses, but whether\\nfor good or evil no one can tell by the mere fact of its\\nexistence. It tends to gather unequally; the obvious\\ninequalities of health, character, and ability will have\\nit so. But the sight of a class enriched ought not to\\nbeguile a student of economy to think he sees a nation\\nrich. Nor must so John Ruskin teaches the in-\\nequality be left to the exaggerations of the unregulated\\naction of forces. The economists of i860 would have\\nit that the course of demand and supply cannot be\\ncontrolled by human laws.\\nPrecisely in the same sense the waters\\nof the world go where they are required. Where the\\nland falls the water flows. But the disposition\\nand administration can be altered by human\\nforethought.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0161.jp2"}, "162": {"fulltext": "I48 JOHN RUSKIN\\nRuskin then labours to find a rate of wages so just\\nthat legislation may approve and enforce it.\\nThe abstract idea of just or due wages\\nis that they will consist in a sum of money which will\\nat any time procure for [the labourer] at least as much\\nlabour as he has given. And this equity\\nof payment is, observe, wholly independent\\nof any reference to the number of men who are will-\\ning to do the work.\\nThe smith who gives his skill and a quarter of an\\nhour of his life to forging a horse-shoe has a right to\\na quarter of an hour of equal life and skill, at least, in\\npayment, when he needs it. Then comes the difficulty\\nof translating this into the kinds of payment the smith\\nwill actually desire. But Ruskin believes that the\\ndiscovery of the right representation of exchange is no\\nmore difficult than that of the maxima and minima\\nof the vulgar economist the cheapest market in\\nwhich the vulgar economists recommend a man to buy\\nand the dearest in which they advise him to sell have\\nto be groped for, surely, by hard measures. (How\\nright Ruskin is when he says that commercial riches\\nimplies poverty is proved by this once respected maxim.\\nThe vaunted wealth was not and never could be\\npolitical for there was necessarily a man selling\\nin the cheapest market and buying in the dearest at\\nevery operation of the principle the principle\\nBuy in the cheapest/ c.) In brief, a just man\\napproaches the just price, as an unjust approaches his\\ncheapest and dearest markets. Nay, the just", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0162.jp2"}, "163": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST I49\\nman comes easily nearer to the object of his search\\nor it would be better to say that there is something for\\nhim to come at, whereas the commercial economist\\ntouches ground nowhere.\\nIt is easier to determine scientifically what a man\\nought to have for his work than what his necessities\\nwill compel him to take for it. His necessities can\\nonly be ascertained by empirical, but his due by ana-\\nlytical, investigation.\\nNeither the just nor the unjust hirer employs two\\nmen where only one man is needed. But in the just\\ncase the hired labourer may be able to hire, for his\\nown necessities, another workman by the purchase of\\nwhat he needs and the influence of this ability passes\\non through all the kinds and grades of labour. Ruskin s\\nsystem would tend to send wealth flowing. It was,\\nneedless to say, accused of socialism, to which he\\nanswers, not very profoundly but profoundly enough\\nfor the purpose Whether socialism has made more\\nprogress among the army and navy (where payment is\\nmade on my principles) or among the manufacturing\\noperatives (who are paid on my opponents principles)\\nI leave it to those opponents to ascertain. He rec-\\nognises as no other has done the impossibility of\\nequality. He had said in Modern Painters, Govern-\\nment and Co-operation are the Laws of\\nLife Anarchy and Competition the Laws of Death.\\nA modern reader may wonder that Ruskin should, in\\nreplying to a charge of socialism, defend himself by\\nthe strange means of a denunciation of anarchy.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0163.jp2"}, "164": {"fulltext": "150 JOHN RUSKIN\\nAnarchy and Socialism are the two poles of political\\nprinciple, as we know now that the words are better\\ndefined; yet even to-day the two opposites are con-\\nfused in daily speech. The truth is that Ruskin s\\nsystem is highly socialistic because it is opposed to\\nanarchy and to the licence of irresponsible forces such\\nas competition. But his meaning is not at all con-\\nfused, although in this one instance his diction is\\nso.\\nTo this essay there are two important notes one\\nannouncing Ruskin as a complete Free-trader, despite\\nhis perception of the false grounds on which the pub-\\nlic of that day believed in Free trade; and another\\nsuggesting that human passion might enter into the\\ncalculations of science as justly as the mere thought\\nto the importance whereof Mill confessed that he\\ncould set no limit, even in a purely productive and\\nmaterial point of view. Mill even assigns a certain\\naction to feelings, but only to those of a disa-\\ngreeable kind, as discouragements of labour. Ruskin\\nwould permit feelings of an agreeable kind to have\\ntheir turn.\\nThe fourth and last essay, Ad Valorem, deals\\nwith the search, above-indicated, of the equivalent\\nthe payment that would represent, in the hands of\\nthe labourer, his right to the labour of another. Rus-\\nkin, in this research, defines Value, Wealth, Price,\\nand Produce. I confess I do not think him to be fair\\neither to Mill or to his own argument when he with-\\ners that writer for his saying that political economy\\nhas nothing to do with the estimate of the moralist.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0164.jp2"}, "165": {"fulltext": "unto this last 151\\nMill might justly say this of a science, and yet be\\nwilling that the science should be overruled. The\\neconomist s business is to demonstrate the laws of\\nwealth and their working, and if this were done scien-\\ntifically Ruskin would have no ground of opposition.\\nBut, on the other hand, he has legitimate ground in\\nhis contention that Mill is unscientific, because it is\\nunscientific to make no calculation of human feeling\\nexcept feeling of a disagreeable kind. Into that\\ncontention, however, I do not see that moral indigna-\\ntion should enter, albeit intellectual irritation may. It\\nis not Ruskin s anger that replies pat to Mill s error,\\nbut Ruskin s detection, declared in this sentence\\nThe only conclusions of his which I have to dispute\\nare those which follow from his premises. For he\\nfound that Mill covertly introduced the moral esti-\\nmate he professed to exclude. It is much to the\\npurpose also to expose Mill s definition Wealth\\nconsists of all useful and agreeable objects which\\npossess exchangeable value. Usefulness cannot\\nagreeableness certainly cannot be separated from\\nhuman passion. Therefore, Ruskin says, polit-\\nical economy, being a science of wealth, must be a\\nscience respecting human capacities and dispositions.\\nA definition of Ricardo s he shows to be a strange\\nmisfit indeed and a plain reader wishes Cobbett were\\nthere to trip, entangle, and fell Ricardo in his abomi-\\nnable pronouns Utility is not the measure of ex-\\nchangeable value, though it is absolutely essential to\\nit. In making his own definition of value Ruskin\\ndoes admirable work in words. He reminds us of the", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0165.jp2"}, "166": {"fulltext": "152 JOHN RUSKIN\\nnominative of valorem and of its reference to health\\nand, in the original sense, to virtue\\nA truly valuable thing is that which leads to life.\\nIn proportion as it does not lead to life, or\\nas its strength is broken, it is less valuable in pro-\\nportion as it leads away from life, it is invaluable.\\nThis value is independent of opinion, and of quan-\\ntity. Here we get back, as in every one of Ruskin s\\nbooks, to that absolute good that Carlyle warned us\\nnot to doubt at our peril. Within all Ruskin s\\nscience, all his art, all his sight, and all his thought\\nstands this\\nThe real science of political economy, which has\\nyet to be distinguished from the bastard science, as\\nmedicine from witchcraft, is that which\\nteaches nations to desire and labour for the things that\\nlead to life.\\nIt is to teach them to destroy things that lead to\\ndestruction, and to forsake indifferent things that do\\nnegative evil. Ruskin then defines wealth or\\nhaving, adding to Mill s definition: To be\\nwealthy is to have a large stock of useful articles,\\nthe not unnecessary words, which we can use, and\\nthus bringing in once again the human power and the\\nhuman heart. Wealth, he says, instead of de-\\npending merely on a l have, is thus seen to depend on\\na can. Gladiator s death, on a habet but sol-\\ndier s victory, and state s salvation, on a quo pluri-\\nmum posset. 1 Wealth is the possession", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0166.jp2"}, "167": {"fulltext": "unto this last 153\\nof the valuable by the valiant. As to price, he\\nteaches that in as much as it is exchange value, it has\\nnothing to do with profit. It is only in labour\\nthere can be profit, or advance. The processes of\\nexchange, in so far as they are laborious, may bear\\nprofit, as involved in the labours of production but\\nthe pure exchange is absolute exchange and nothing\\nmore. Acquisition there is in mercantile exchange,\\nbut the word profit should represent increase such as\\nthat of the workshop and the field. Profit is of po-\\nlitical, acquisition of mercantile, importance ac-\\nquisition makes poor by the same act as it makes\\nrich. The making rich is conspicuous, and the mak-\\ning poor is obscure, but none the less real because it\\nis obscure, of the back-street, and finally of the grave\\nnothing is more obscure in this world. Ruskin holds\\nthe science of acquisition to be the one science that\\nis founded on nescience, and an art founded on art-\\nlessness. All other arts and sciences, except this,\\nhave for their object the doing away with their op-\\nposite nescience and artlessness. This alone needs\\nthe existence of the ignorance and helplessness\\nwhereby its knowledge and power may work.\\nThe general law, then, respecting just or econom-\\nical exchange, is simply this There must be advan-\\ntage on both sides (or if only advantage on one, at\\nleast no disadvantage on the other), and\\njust payment for his time, intelligence, and labour to\\nany intermediate person effecting the transaction.\\nAnd whatever advantage there is on either\\nside, and whatever pay is given to the intermediate", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0167.jp2"}, "168": {"fulltext": "154 JOHN RUSKIN\\nperson, should be thoroughly known. All attempt at\\nconcealment implies some practice of the opposite, or\\nundivine, science, founded on nescience.\\nWhat we wish for is to be reckoned with amongst\\nour gettings, as well as what we need. We wish for\\nromantic things, and ideal and the regulation of\\nthe purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagina-\\ntion and the heart. Phenomena of price are there-\\nfore extremely complex, but price is to be calculated\\nfinally in labour, and Ruskin goes on to define the na-\\nture of that standard. The price of other things\\nmust always be counted by the quantity of labour;\\nnot the price of labour by the quantity of other\\nthings. And this is well illustrated by an instance\\ntoo long to quote. To this section belongs the sin-\\ngularly interesting sentence on consumption as the\\nend, crown, and perfection of production. Ruskin\\nand Mill agree mainly in regard to the impoverishing\\npolitical effect of the consumption of the unproductive\\nclasses and of the vain or vicious consumption of the\\nproductive classes but pure consumption Mill in-\\nclines to treat as though there were, at any rate, no\\ngood in it, whereas Ruskin declares it to be in itself\\ngood. I own that Mill seems to me on this point\\nmore logical that Ruskin s estimate is rather of the\\njoy and happiness whereof consumption is the cost\\nthan of consumption itself; and that it is scientific to\\ntreat consumption as loss necessary loss or unneces-\\nsary but still loss. Obviously if men could live for\\na generation without food all granaries might over-\\nflow; and eating gives pleasure, but the pleasure does", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0168.jp2"}, "169": {"fulltext": "unto this last 155\\nnot consist in eating as an act of destruction. Ruskin,\\nhowever, seems to speak more indisputably when he\\ndeclares all wealth to be measured by this human ca-\\npacity of consumption, and shows good measures of\\nconsumption to be as worthy of an economist s study\\nas good measures of production. He next opposes\\nMill s assertion that A demand for commodities is\\nnot a demand for labour. It is one of the knotty\\npoints. Near this follows a fine passage on wars of\\ncapitalists and on the taxing of future generations.\\nIn a word, the book is part of the perpetual plea\\nof righteousness against blind self-interest, and the\\nplea is scientific. It closes with some pages beautiful\\nbeyond praise, and full of the dignity of confidence\\nin unalterable facts. Whilst man lives by bread, by\\nthe very wheat and the flocks, the sacred necessities\\nof his body of his mouth will be the moderate\\nmeasure of his common and daily wealth.\\nAll England may, if it chooses, become one man-\\nufacturing town and Englishmen, sacrificing them-\\nselves to the good of general humanity, may live\\ndiminished lives in the midst of noise, of darkness,\\nand of deadly exhalation. But the world cannot be-\\ncome a factory or a mine. Neither the av-\\narice nor the rage of men will ever feed them.\\nSo long as men live by bread, the far away valleys\\nmust laugh as they are covered with the gold of God,\\nand the shouts of His happy multitudes ring round\\nthe winepress and the well.\\nThen he consoles the mere sentimentalist, who\\nmight fear that the tilled country, peopled one day", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0169.jp2"}, "170": {"fulltext": "I56 JOHN RUSKIN\\nwith its natural inheritors, would lose its beauty. Not\\nso, Ruskin says let the desert have its own place, but\\nthe soil is loveliest in habitation. The de-\\nsire of the heart is also the desire of the eyes. In\\nthis he proves his conversion from the young passion\\nof Modern Painters for solitudes and its contempt of\\npotato-patches. He ends\\nNot greater wealth, but simpler pleasure.\\nWaste nothing, and grudge nothing. Care in nowise\\nto make more of money, but care to make much of\\nit remembering always the great, palpable, inevitable\\nfact that what one person has, another cannot have.\\nAnd if, on due and honest thought over these\\nthings, it seems that the kind of existence to which\\nmen are now summoned by every plea of pity and\\nclaim of right, may, for some time at least, not be a\\nluxurious one consider whether, even supposing it\\nguiltless, luxury could be desired by any of us, if we\\nsaw clearly at our sides the suffering which accom-\\npanies it in the world. The crudest man\\nliving could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold.\\nRaise the veil boldly face the light and if, as yet,\\nthe light of the eye can only be through tears, and the\\nlight of the body through sackcloth, go thou forth\\nweeping, bearing precious seed.\\nHow did the world hear this appeal It replied\\nwith a laugh. Was, then, the argument of the book\\nso hollow that the first comer could refute it Was\\nthe feeling of the book so small that the first comer\\nmight deride it John Ruskin was bidden to go back\\nto his art-criticism. Thackeray stopped the papers in\\nthe Cornhill. The unsold copies of the reissue re-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0170.jp2"}, "171": {"fulltext": "unto this last 157\\nmained on the publisher s hands. Munera Puheris y\\na more technical work on economy, was equally un-\\nacceptable in the pages of Eraser s Magazine.\\nAnd now, after forty years, the living wage is\\nbut another name for Ruskin s fixity of payments.\\nThe old-age pensions of to-day or to-morrow are of\\nhis proposal so are technical and elementary educa-\\ntion by the State government workshops fair rents\\nfixity of -tenure compensation for improvements\\ncompulsory powers of allotment the preservation of\\ncommons municipal recognition of trades-union rates\\nof wages all are, or are to be, rehearsals of measures\\nsuggested by him, in this book or elsewhere, to the\\nlegislature. Private undertakings have followed him\\nno less in the building and regulation of houses for\\nthe poor.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0171.jp2"}, "172": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XIV\\nsesame and lilies (1864-1869)\\nThis also was a work solemnly presented. Ruskin\\ntook it for the initial volume of the revised series\\nof his writings, furnished it with a new preface, and\\nadded to the two lectures a third, which every atten-\\ntive reader must hold to be amongst the most mo-\\nmentous of the expressions of his mind. It is not\\nsurprising, to one who has recognised in the book a\\nsupreme value, to find that in the later preface its\\nauthor declares it to contain the best of many state-\\nments of his purpose. In the same pages he takes\\noccasion to present himself to those whose confidence\\nhe asks\\nNot an unjust person not an unkind one a lover\\nof order, labour, and peace. That, it seems to me,\\nis enough to give me right to say all I care to say\\non ethical subjects more, I could only tell definitely\\nthrough details of autobiography such as none but pros-\\nperous and (in the simple sense of the word) faultless\\nlives could justify and mine has been neither. Yet if\\nany one, skilled in reading the torn manuscripts of the\\nhuman soul, cares for more intimate knowledge of me,\\nhe may have it by knowing with what persons in past\\nhistory I have most sympathy.\\nI will name three.\\nIn all that is strongest and deepest in me, that fits\\nme for my work, and gives light or shadow to my be-\\ning, I have sympathy with Guido Guinicelli.\\n158", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0172.jp2"}, "173": {"fulltext": "sesame and lilies 159\\nIn my constant natural temper, and thoughts of\\nthings and people, with Marmontel.\\nIn my enforced and accidental temper, and\\nthoughts of things and people, with Dean Swift.\\nThe first lecture Sesame of Kings Treasuries\\nis chiefly a plea for accessible libraries. Its demands\\nhave been fullfilled in part, and as far as public\\nauthority had office and function in the matter. But\\nin part also the urgent counsel of the lecture has\\nbeen absolutely contemned for it represented to the\\nhearers that inasmuch as life is very short, and the\\nquiet hours of it few^ it is well to waste none of\\nthem in reading worthless books. Public libraries are\\nincreasing not entirely in the sense in which Ruskin\\nintended to commend them for he wished English-\\nmen to be rather able to buy good books securely\\nthan to read them free of cost yet in a very real\\nsense treasuries have been stored for the use of the\\nquiet hours of citizens. But it is evident that\\nmore of the quiet hours of this short life are wasted\\nnow in reading worthless books than when the re-\\nmonstrance was spoken. The private following of\\nRuskin s teaching, however diligent it may have been\\nwith a few, separate and single, has been as nothing\\namongst the multitude of units. Corporately in munic-\\nipal action, and obscurely in the practice of two or\\nthree not joined together, but scattered out of sight\\nSesame had its share of influence but its appeal\\nwas to the private throng, thousands and millions,\\nwhose conduct of life is matter of their own mul-\\ntitudinous but solitary responsibility. And in this", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0173.jp2"}, "174": {"fulltext": "l6o JOHN RUSKIN\\nmatter of idle reading, general opinion grows daily\\nmore relaxed. Ruskin would teach men to read j\\nand from this long instruction, in which not a sen-\\ntence is futile, I gather first the rebuke of that\\ncommon appreciation, u How good this is that s ex-\\nactly what I think The right feeling is rather,\\nHow strange that is I never thought of that\\nbefore, and yet I see it is true or if I do not\\nnow, I hope I shall, some day. This is asking\\nperhaps overmuch submission and assuredly litera-\\nture is a question, a recognition, a consultation, an\\nevocation to the reader s spirit. II poeia mi disse\\nChe pense And what Virgil asked of his student,\\nDante, every poet asks of a young man. But Ruskin\\nsays, Be sure that you go to the author to get at\\nhis meaning, not to find yours and that doubtless\\nis the first step. Next the reader is bidden to look\\nintently at words and to know their history. Let\\nthe accent of words be watched, and closely let\\ntheir meaning be watched more closely still, and\\nfewer will do the work. There are masked\\nwords droning and skulking about us in Europe just\\nnow. How excellent a phrase Ruskin is not of\\nthose who think English to be a fortunate language\\nin that it has words of Greek and Latin derivation\\nfor august and awful things. He would have us\\ntranspose what we have so arbitrarily placed damn\\nand condemn by popular use, for example, and\\nBible and book by derivation. Nevertheless\\nthere might be much to be said on the other side.\\nQuote the French Scriptures, in words that do journey-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0174.jp2"}, "175": {"fulltext": "sesame and lilies 161\\nman s work nay, worse, commercial work in daily\\nlife, and see the loss. The world acquires and pos-\\nsesses a greater number of things spiritual things\\nas it grows older; nobler its possessions may not be,\\nbut they are certainly more numerous and England,\\namong the nations of the world, is happy in the fact\\nthat she is able, better than the rest, to multiply\\nnames for these things by her power of giving to\\none word two forms. Has not Ruskin himself been\\nable to think more remotely and more intellectually\\nby means of the removed and immaterial Latin word\\nof what he calls our u mongrel tongue No imag-\\ninative reader, however, and no reader who knows\\nanything of Ruskin, will need to be told that when\\nhe would have us to counterchange u Bible and\\nbook, or any such words, he would add to the\\ngravity of this word, not take away from the gravity\\nof that. But no reader who knows anything of the\\nworld will need to be told that in effect the counter-\\nchange would add nothing to the gravity of one\\nword and would take much from the gravity of the\\nother.\\nAs a lesson in the intent study of words, such as a\\ngreat poet claims from his reader by his own weight\\nof special purpose the single stroke struck with\\nsingle intention Ruskin takes his hearers through the\\nSt. Peter passage of Lycidas. Every word has full\\naudience, and makes an ample discharge of Milton s\\nmeaning at the assize of this solicitous judge. Nor\\nmay we complain that such separate audience re-\\nsembles the judgment of one who would take a lens", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0175.jp2"}, "176": {"fulltext": "l62 JOHN RUSKIN\\nto look at a picture piecemeal. The particular verbal\\nexamination is entirely right, it answers immediately\\nto a special claim of the poet in a special passage\\nanon he will relax his demands, and you the instance\\nof your attention. And so does Holbein draw finely,\\nintensely, and much, some passage of anatomical\\narticulation, and then pass to a larger and slighter\\ndrawing of the laxer forms of flesh.\\nBut the mournful point of this lecture on reading\\nis that after all it is a lecture against reading. The\\nlecturer himself must not follow his proper vocation\\nchiefly, he has said elsewhere, the outlining of\\nprimroses; because no savages are housed so ill as\\nthe poor of English towns, or die so lonely and no\\nman nor woman ought to follow the vocation of art\\nor study until the lost were rescued and the names\\nof the unknown written in a register open under the\\neyes of a responsible compassion. And even if it\\nwere fit that the arts should engross the human energy\\nthat is due to the tasks of succour, how should a\\ncovetous people read aright With the love of\\nmoney publicly confessed to be the motive of all\\naction, the insanity of avarice is broadcast, and the\\ninsane are incapable of thought.\\nHappily our disease is, as yet, little worse than\\nthis incapacity of thought, we are still in-\\ndustrious to the last hour of the day, though we add\\nthe gambler s fury to the labourer s patience we are\\nstill brave to the death, though incapable of discern-\\ning the true cause for battle and are still true in af-\\nfection to our own flesh. There is hope for", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0176.jp2"}, "177": {"fulltext": "sesame and lilies 163\\na nation while this can still be said of it. As long as it\\nholds its life in its hand, ready to give it for its honour\\n(though a foolish honour), for its love (though a selfish\\nlove), and for its business (though a base business),\\nthere is hope for it. But hope only for this instinc-\\ntive, reckless virtue cannot last.\\nOn the last page, after the evil of privilege has\\nbeen shown fully, broadly, and with the most im-\\npetuous will, the problem of privilege is touched\\nwhere it lies, known to all men, awaiting some solu-\\ntion in the future, not always to make matter for the\\nlast of seventy pages\\nThe principal question remains inexorable,\\nwhich of us, in brief word, is to do the\\nhard and dirty work for the rest and for what pay\\nWho is to do the pleasant and clean work, and for\\nwhat pay We live, we gentlemen, on\\ndelicatest prey, after the manner of weasels\\nwe keep a certain number of clowns digging and\\nditching, and generally stupefied, in order that we,\\nbeing fed gratis, may have all the thinking and feel-\\ning to ourselves. Yet it is per-\\nhaps better to build a beautiful human creature than a\\nbeautiful dome or steeple, only the beauti-\\nful human creature will hav^e some duties to do in re-\\nturn.\\nIt is of these duties that the second lecture, Of\\nQueens Gardens, treats with singular beauty. The\\nforegoing pages of the book as it stands had assuredly\\ncast not only sudden lights upon the evil but black\\nshadows upon the good of modern English life. Not\\na word, for instance, of the vast alms, of the private", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0177.jp2"}, "178": {"fulltext": "164 JOHN RUSKIN\\nand voluntary but corporate service rendered to all\\nkinds of distress, of the great socialistic confession\\nof the theory of the Poor Law not a word of any\\nbusiness that is not base or of any love that is not\\nselfish. But in Lilies the teaching is addressed\\nparticularly to women of a kind and class that ac-\\nknowledge conscience and are concerned with private\\nduty, though they can hardly be charged with an in-\\ntellectual responsibility for the national condition.\\nIn effect, the examples proposed to them by Ruskin\\nare those of heroines who have never questioned the\\nprivilege moral, mental, bodily into which they\\nwere born. Nor have the women addressed inquired\\ninto the conditions of their own privilege, even\\nthough they may vaguely avow that some obligations\\nare implied by their unexplained rights. In ad-\\ndressing women at all Ruskin tells us he had recourse\\nto faith 5 it was a faith that could boast of no\\ngreat foundation\\nI wrote Lilies to please one girl and were it\\nnot for what I remember of her, and of few besides,\\nshould now recast some of the sentences.\\nThe fashion of the time renders whatever is forward,\\ncoarse, or senseless, in feminine nature, too palpable\\nto all men.\\nThe one girl was the Rosie of Praterita,\\nwhom, child and woman, he had loved, and who was\\ndead (1875) when he revised the pages written for\\nher. As to the audience then left to him, he says\\nthat the picturesqueness of his earlier writings had", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0178.jp2"}, "179": {"fulltext": "sesame and lilies 165\\nbrought him acquainted with much of their emptiest\\nenthusiasms and as to the failure of women in re-\\nlation to his own life, What I might have been so\\nhelped [that is, helped by a woman] I rarely in-\\ndulge myself in the idleness of thinking.\\nHe proposes examples of heroic nature, and the\\nentirely heroic nature of the women of Shakespeare\\nall worthy young readers will grant to Ruskin s lovely\\nexposition. But they will assuredly boggle at a like\\nascription of honour to the women of Scott. These\\nyoung creatures Scott made virtuous because conven-\\ntion required a virtuous maid for the hero to love, and\\nmade faultless, at a blow, because he could not be at\\nthe pains to work upon their characters. It is chilling\\nto hear their intellect and tenderness praised in the\\nnoble terms that honour the intellect and tenderness\\nof Imogen, Hermione, or Perdita, of a goddess, or of\\nthe fairy women of romance I would take\\nSpenser, and show you how all his fairy knights are\\nsometimes deceived and sometimes vanquished but\\nthe soul of Una is never darkened, and the spear of\\nBritomart is never broken. That Athena of the\\nolive-helm and cloudy shield, to faith in whom you\\nowe, down to this date, whatever you hold most\\nprecious in art, in literature, or in types of national\\nvirtue.\\nAs for the education of the girl who is in England\\nborn into the inheritance of the privilege of what is\\nwhile the disinherited consent her own place, Ruskin\\ncounsels what perhaps no one will question. She is to\\nbe trained in habits of accurate thought she is to", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0179.jp2"}, "180": {"fulltext": "l66 JOHN RUSKIN\\nunderstand the meaning, the inevitableness, and the\\nloveliness of natural laws and to follow at least\\nsome one path of scientific attainment as far as to the\\nthreshold of that bitter Valley of Humiliation into\\nwhich only the wisest and bravest of men can de-\\nscend, owning themselves for ever children, gathering\\npebbles on a boundless shore. To the girl herself\\nRuskin makes a passionate appeal. To no one, to\\nno class, has he spoken words more urgent, more\\nhardly wrung from his profound distress and desire on\\nbehalf of mankind. The criminal is beyond reach,\\nin the grip of circumstance and of passion the\\npolitical economist is, according to Ruskin, teaching\\nhis own different lesson the soldier is under another\\nobedience the man is indocile. But here, in the\\nnation, is the girl, for a score of reasons accessible\\nand profitable. Against her sins there is no legisla-\\ntion, against her destructiveness no national protest,\\nno public opinion against her cruelty. In Sesame\\nand Lilies she learns that she must not be cruel, and\\nthat she must not be idle that her idleness cannot\\nbut be cruel at her disposal is the awful force of the\\nnegation of good. He, who does not wonder at the\\ndeath of the miser, at the life of the sensualist, at the\\nfrenzy of nations, at the crimes of kings, does wonder\\nat the lack of mercy in the heart of a fortunate\\nwoman. He would persuade her to make garments\\nfor the poor and to give alms, not to eat her bread in\\nidleness, not to waste it to live and care for no\\nflowers until she shall have rescued the withering\\nflowers of miserable childhood", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0180.jp2"}, "181": {"fulltext": "sesame and lilies 167\\nDid you ever hear, not of a Maud but a Made-\\nleine, who went down to her garden in the dawn, and\\nfound One waiting at the gate, whom she supposed\\nto be the gardener\\nThe third and last lecture bound in this volume\\nThe Mystery of Life and its Arts, delivered in\\nDublin in 1868 has near its opening this passage:\\nI have had what, in many respects, I boldly call\\nthe misfortune, to set my words somewhat prettily to-\\ngether not without a foolish vanity in the poor knack\\nI had of doing so until I was heavily punished for\\nthis pride, by finding that many people thought of the\\nwords only, and cared nothing for the meaning.\\nA little further is this\\nI spent the ten strongest years of my life (from\\ntwenty to thirty) in endeavouring to show the excel-\\nlence of the work of the man whom I believed, and\\nrightly believed, to be the greatest painter of the\\nschools of England since Reynolds. I had then per-\\nfect faith in the power of every great truth or beauty\\nto prevail ultimately. Fortunately or un-\\nfortunately, an opportunity of perfect trial undeceived\\nme at once and forever.\\nRuskin found that the Turner drawings arranged by\\nhim for exhibition were the object of absolute public\\nneglect. He saw that his ten years had been lost.\\nFor that I did not much care I had, at least,\\nlearned my own business thoroughly. But\\nwhat I did care for was the to me frightful dis-\\ncovery, that the most splendid genius in the arts", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0181.jp2"}, "182": {"fulltext": "l68 JOHN RUSKIN\\nmight be permitted by Providence to labour and\\nperish uselessly, that the glory of it was\\nperishable as well as invisible. That was the first\\nmystery of life to me.\\nThe reader will remember that Turner s pictures were\\nnot only neglected by men, but also irreparably injured\\nand altered by time to witness this was to endure the\\nchastisement of a hope whereof few men are capable.\\nSurely it is no obscure sign of greatness in a soul\\nthat it should have hoped so much. Ninety and\\nnine are they who need no repentance, having not\\ncommitted the sin of going thus in front of the\\njudgments of Heaven heralds and have not been\\ncalled back to rebuke as was this one. In what has\\nso often been called the dogmatism of Ruskin s work\\nappears this all-noble fault.\\nUpon the discovery of this mystery crowd all the\\nmysteries. Who that has suffered one but has also\\nsoon suffered all In this great lecture Ruskin con-\\nfesses them one by one, in extremities of soul. And\\nhe is aghast at the indifference not of the vulgar only,\\nbut of poets. The seers themselves have paltered\\nwith the faculty of sight. Milton s history of the\\nfall of the angels is unbelievable to himself, told with\\nartifice and invention, not a living truth presented to\\nliving faith, nor told as he must answer it in the last\\njudgment of the intellectual conscience.\\nDante s conception is far more intense, and by\\nhimself for the time, not to be escaped from it is in-\\ndeed a vision, but a vision only. And the\\ndestinies of the Christian Church, under their most", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0182.jp2"}, "183": {"fulltext": "sesame and lilies 169\\nsacred symbols, become literally subordinate to the\\npraise, and are only to be understood by the aid, of\\none dear Florentine maiden. It seems daily\\nmore amazing to me that men such as these should\\ndare to fill the openings of eternity, before\\nwhich prophets have veiled their faces,\\nwith idle puppets of their scholastic imagination, and\\nmelancholy lights of frantic faith in their lost mortal\\nlove.\\nThe indifference of the world as to the infinite\\nquestion of religion, the indifference of all mankind\\nas to the purpose of its little life, of every man as to\\nthe effect of his little life in an evil hour these\\npuzzles throng the way to the recesses of thought.\\nAs it chanced, with the irony of things, Ruskin had\\nbeen bidden to avoid religious questions in Dublin for\\nfear of offending some of his hearers. What he had\\nbeen moved to say, however, he thought would offend\\nall if it offended any, and not in Dublin only but in\\nthe breadth and in the corners of the world. But as\\nhis audience expected to hear about art, and not\\nabout the mysteries of life, he closes the lecture in\\nhis old manner, with all the splendid confidence of\\nteaching, demonstrating the cause of the good fortune\\nof this art and of the disaster of that, putting away\\nonce more what he confessed to be the unanswerable,\\nfor the exposition of what he held to be the answer-\\nable, question. In a delightful passage (what wonder\\nthat his hearers wanted to hear it he recurs to the\\ncontrast of the Lombardic Eve the barbarous carving\\nthat had a future, with the Angel (it was an Irish\\nangel, by the way), the barbarous design that had no", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0183.jp2"}, "184": {"fulltext": "170 JOHN RUSKIX\\npossible artistic future and was the end of its own\\nfutile attempt these had been described in The Two\\nPaths. Here is Ruskin leaving the Mystery for the\\nlesson. But, strange to sav, if ever he has explained\\nin vain, registered an inconsequence, committed him-\\nself to failure, it has been in the generous cause of\\npossible rescue it has been in the Lesson.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0184.jp2"}, "185": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XV\\nthe crown of wild olive (1866)\\nWhether the four lectures published under this\\ntitle chanced to be written at a time of interior weak-\\nness I knOw not; but at least two of them bear such\\nsigns of flagging life as are not to be found elsewhere.\\nAlike in gentleness, in play, in gravity, and in violence\\nin exaggeration itself, which wastes the life of all\\nother writers Ruskin has an incomparable vitality\\nand it is not too much to say that, amongst these\\nmany books, only in the lecture on War is the\\nplace of this vitality taken by vivacity and excite-\\nment; but the following lecture, The Future of\\nEngland, seems also to show signs of the spur.\\nBoth lectures were given at Woolwich the one at\\nthe Royal Military Academy, and the other at the\\nRoyal Artillery Institution, with four years between.\\nRuskin had been asked, not once or twice, to speak\\nto the young soldier, and had not ventured persist-\\nently to refuse and perhaps the knowledge that he\\nhad a paradox before him caused him to make the\\nparadox a sort of impossibility, in very despair. Ac-\\ncordingly we have it All the pure and noble arts\\nof peace are founded on war No great art ever\\nyet arose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers\\nThere is no art among a shepherd people, if it re-\\nmains at peace There is no great art possible to\\n171", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0185.jp2"}, "186": {"fulltext": "172 JOHN RUSKIN\\na nation but that which is based on battle. The\\nreader is almost able to imagine for himself how Rus-\\nkin opposes these assertions by condemnations of the\\ncontentious temper of man who, set to dress and to\\nkeep his garden, delighted to trample it in quarrel.\\nThe opposition is violent enough, but there is, for\\nonce, a lack of passion. Not so when war ceases to\\nbe directly the theme, and Ruskin approaches once\\nmore the intricate but more accessible question of\\npublic economy\\nYou object, Lords of England, to increase, to the\\npoor, the wages you give them, because they spend\\nthem, you say, unadvisedly. Render them, therefore,\\nan account of the wages which they give you and\\nshow them, by your example, how to spend theirs to\\nthe last farthing, advisedly.\\nHe had just then heard of working men who spent\\ntheir wages in the brief time of prosperity by sitting\\ntwo days a-week in the tavern parlour, ladling port\\nwine, not out of bowls, but out of buckets and he\\nremembered the example set to them at his own first\\ncollege supper.\\nThe two other lectures are on Work and\\nTraffic, and the first was for a Working Men s\\nInstitute. The main matter treated is the appoint-\\nment made by capital of the kind and the object of\\nlabour. No other operation of capital not even the\\npaying of wages is so momentous as this for the in-\\nterests of the labouring class Ruskin accuses the\\nwriters on political economy of neglecting its impor-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0186.jp2"}, "187": {"fulltext": "the crown of wild olive 173\\ntance, but I think that Mill has sufficiently marked\\nit, in his own way. The difference between Ruskin\\nand the others is probably that he sees waste, inutility,\\nand mischief where others, beguiled of their clear per-\\nceptions by commercial (or non-political) economy,\\nwere not aware of it in iron railings, for example,\\nset up before a new public-house\\nThe front of it was built in so wise manner, that\\na recess of two feet was left below its front windows,\\nbetween them and the street-pavement a recess too\\nnarrow for any possible use (for even if it had been\\noccupied by a seat, as in old time it might have been,\\neverybody walking along the street would have fallen\\nover the legs of the reposing wayfarer). But, by way\\nof making this two feet depth of freehold land more\\nexpressive of the dignity of an establishment for the\\nsale of spirituous liquors, it was fenced from the pave-\\nment by an imposing iron railing, having four or five\\nspear-heads to the yard of it, and six feet high con-\\ntaining as much iron and iron-work, indeed, as could\\nwell be put into the space; and by this stately ar-\\nrangement, the little piece of dead ground within\\nbecame a protective receptacle of refuse.\\nIt was only Ruskin who saw this work to be im-\\npoverishing and hard by this Croydon railing was\\nthe once sweet stream at Carshalton, full of festering\\nrefuse that a little natural labour would have cleared.\\nFood, fresh air, and pure water brought about by\\nlabour are so much gain to the nation a political\\npossession even if the labour spent on them be ill\\npaid.\\nThe lecture on Traffic was given in the Brad-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0187.jp2"}, "188": {"fulltext": "174 JOHN RUSKIN\\nford Town Hall on the eve of the building of a new\\nExchange. I do not care about this Exchange,\\nsaid the lecturer, u because you don t.\\nYou know there are a great many odd styles of\\narchitecture about; you don t want to do anything\\nridiculous; you hear of me, among others, as a re-\\nspectable architectural man-milliner, and you send for\\nme.\\nHis hope was to teach his hearers to like some-\\nthing, and to build what they could like. The first\\nand last, and closest trial question to any living crea-\\nture is What do you like Taste is not\\nonly a part and an index of morality it is the only\\nmorality.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0188.jp2"}, "189": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XVI\\ntime and tide by weare and tyne (1867)\\nThe years 1866 and 1867 are famous in the history\\nof self-government in England. The agitator and the\\nlegislator, this party and that, vied amongst themselves\\nfor a place not in the vanward and the rearward, but\\nboth in the vanward. Democracy gained ground that\\nwould not have been yielded to it without the slight\\nquibble of altered names. At any rate it was in 1866\\nthat the two parties began to intersect one another at\\nvarious points, and the intersections took names. The\\ngreat two parties of political history were virtually\\nconfusible somewhat like the little animals, one im-\\nplacental and the other placental, and therefore derived\\nby descent through ways that lay apart for incalculable\\nyears, yet so like each other in shape, habit, and feature\\nthat to see them run in the fields you cannot tell them\\napart. Everything then became technically political\\npolitics became a matter not of principle but of termi-\\nnology and amid the arbitrary passion about words,\\nRuskin wrote his twenty-five letters to a workingman\\nof Sunderland on the Laws of Work, to which he\\ngave the aforesaid title, and which were intended to\\nteach realities. Ruskin himself at times used the\\nnames of parties, calling himself a Tory or what not.\\nBut the writer of Time and Tide is one who warns\\nTory and Radical alike against the illusion of outward\\n*75", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0189.jp2"}, "190": {"fulltext": "176 JOHN RUSKIN\\nliberty, and enforces the necessity of inward law first,\\nand of outward law secondly, to execute the first.\\nFreedom from covetousness, freedom from luxury,\\nprotection from cruelty Ruskin would ensure these\\nwith so much force that standing somewhere between\\nthe extremity of socialism on the one hand and the\\nextremity of anarchism on the other, it would certainly\\nbe to socialists that he would seem to be gathered.\\nNevertheless, though the socialist might quote Time\\nand Tide in favour of licences to marry, yet the\\nanarchist might cite the same book against the army\\nestimates.\\nIt is in this little volume, written when men at a\\ntime of political revision were not ashamed to make\\nfresh plans (called Utopias in the language of the\\nnewspaper) for society, that Ruskin has given himself\\nthe greatest freedom of proposal. That is, he takes,\\nfor all his sad heart, something of the pleasure of a\\nchild planning the laws and economies of its own\\nisland in the Pacific Ocean. There is an ingenious\\ninterest in the work, and withal a profound conviction\\nof the wisdom of what seems so visionary. It is\\nneedless to say that a proposal to give young men and\\nrosieres a licence to marry when they deserved it re-\\nceived from the world the derision that costs nothing\\nnot even the pains of reading the book. The book,\\nindeed, is full rather of desires than of hopes, and its\\ndejection is almost as great as that manifest in the\\nmost decoratively beautiful of Ruskin s writings\\nSesame and Lilies. He was not able to acquiesce in\\nthe sufferings of cities. He was obliged to try to", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0190.jp2"}, "191": {"fulltext": "time and tide by weare and tyne 177\\nthink for the foolish and work for the helpless, and to\\ngive to the disinherited. He was not able, besides, to\\nacquiesce in the profanations.\\nThe action of the deceiving or devilish power is\\nin nothing shown quite so distinctly among us at this\\nday not even in our commercial dishonesties, nor in\\nour social cruelties as in its having been able to take\\naway music, as an instrument of education, altogether\\nand to enlist it wholly in the service of superstition\\non the one hand, and of sensuality on the other.\\nIt is right that I should quote this unjust passage. In\\n1867 the intellectual and spiritual education of thou-\\nsands of Englishmen by the greatest music in the\\nworld may not have made great progress but even\\nat that time Ruskin, if he had looked, might have\\nseen multitudes of people studying music neither for\\nsuperstition nor for sensuality; the citizens at the\\nfamiliar popular concerts were then beginning, with\\nthe most willing hearts ever brought to the hearing of\\ngood music, their education at no ignoble hands. The\\npage that describes a stage-burlesque of that day (it\\nwould only need to be made more contemptuous for\\nthis) is written with such strange felicity as Ruskin\\nuses when, with much feeling, he writes lightly\\nThe pantomime was Alt Bada and the Forty\\nThieves. The forty thieves were girls. The forty\\nthieves had forty companions, who were girls. The\\nforty thieves and their forty companions were in some\\nway mixed up with about four hundred and forty\\nfairies, who were girls. There was an Oxford and\\nCambridge, in which the Oxford and Cambridge men", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0191.jp2"}, "192": {"fulltext": "I78 JOHN RUSKIN\\nwere girls. Mingled incongruously with these\\nseraphic, and as far as my boyish experience extends,\\nnovel elements of pantomime, there were yet some\\nof its old and fast-expiring elements. There were, in\\nspeciality, two thoroughly good pantomime actors,\\nMr. W. H. Payne and Mr. Frederick Payne.\\nThere were two subordinate actors, who played, sub-\\nordinate^ well, the fore and hind legs of a donkey.\\nAnd there was a little actress, of whom I have chiefly\\nto speak, who played exquisitely the little part she had\\nto play. The scene in which she appeared was\\nthe house scene, in which Ali Baba s wife,\\non washing day, is called upon by the butcher, baker,\\nand milkman, with unpaid bills; and in the extremity\\nof her distress hears her husband s knock at the door\\nand opens it for him to drive in his donkey, laden with\\ngold. The children presently share in the\\nrapture of their father and mother and the little lady\\nI spoke of eight or nine years old dances a pas de\\ndeux with the donkey. She did it beautifully and\\nsimply, as a child ought to dance. She was not an\\ninfant prodigy there was no evidence, in the finish\\nor strength of her motion, that she had been put to\\ncontinual torture through half her eight or nine years.\\nShe did nothing more than any child, well taught, but\\npainlessly, might easily do. She caricatured no older\\nperson attempted no curious or fantastic skill. She\\nwas dressed decently she moved decently she looked\\nand behaved innocently and she danced her joyful\\ndance with perfect grace, spirit, sweetness, and self-\\nforgetfulness. And through all the vast theatre, full\\nof English fathers and mothers and children, there was\\nnot one hand lifted to give her sign of praise but mine.\\nPresently after this came on the forty thieves, who, as\\nI told you, were girls and, there being no thieving\\nto be presently done, and time hanging heavy on their\\nhands, arms, and legs, the forty thief-girls proceeded", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0192.jp2"}, "193": {"fulltext": "time and tide by we are and tyne 179\\nto light forty cigars, whereupon the British public give\\nthem a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a-think-\\ning and saw little more of the piece, except as an\\nugly and disturbing dream.\\nI recur elsewhere to the saddest page Ruskin ever\\nwrote (and perhaps in writing it he did not think how\\nsome few of his readers would share with him its last\\nbitterness) wherein he avers that he has at last learnt\\nto be cheerful and to rest in spite of the starving and\\ndying of the forlorn, and notwithstanding the disre-\\ngard with which the world had let go by his courageous\\nplan of succour. But in 1867 there was no such\\ndespair, but much distress and desire, in that generous\\nheart. He still thought that there were many who\\nwould defer the arts, the muses, the luxuries, the\\ngraces of civilization, the tasks of intellect, and the\\naccomplishment of nations, until a rescue had been\\nmade of the poor. At the time of writing Time and\\nTide the author had the large desire of saving the\\nlabouring classes from what Antiquity and the modern\\nworld alike have held to be the misfortune and servi-\\ntude of labour. But he found himself, needless to\\nsay, with the unvanquished difficulty of the necessity\\nof some such servitude. With a laugh he asks the\\nprofessors of Evangelical Christianity especially the\\nministers whether they will not purchase their own\\nproclaimed eternal reward by taking upon themselves\\nthe disgrace of the unattractive offices. There seems\\nno other way to fill them in the nation as he would\\nreconstruct it. He sets about the work of reconstruc-\\ntion ingeniously, with wisdom, and like a child", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0193.jp2"}, "194": {"fulltext": "l80 JOHN RUSKIN\\nM You say that many a boy runs away\\nfrom good positions to go to sea. Of course he does.\\nI never said I should have any difficulty in finding\\nsailors, but that I shall in finding fishmongers. I am\\nnot at a loss for gardeners either, but what am I to do\\nfor greengrocers\\nIt is chiefly to serve the study of profits, fair and\\nunfair, that Time and Tide was written but amongst\\nits many other purposes was that reunion of art and\\nhandicraft for which Ruskin worked in those days\\nalone, and to further which, as also to rebuke luxury,\\nhe wrote\\nLabour without joy is base. Labour without sor-\\nrow is base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy\\nwithout labour is base.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0194.jp2"}, "195": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XVII\\nthe queen of the air (1869)\\nRuskin called this book a study of the Greek myths\\nof cloud and storm, but no more than a prefatory\\nstudy a collection of desultory memoranda on a\\nmost noble subject. The myth of Athena, his\\nQueen of the Air, he names one of the great\\nmyths, or those as to which it is of small importance\\nwhat wild hunter dreamed, or what childish race first\\ndreaded it, because one thing is certain that a\\nstrong people lived by it. The myth of St. George\\nis of the same influential and significant kind. But\\nthis Queen of the Air is queen also of the breathing\\ncreatures of earth, queen of human breath, and of the\\nmoral health and habitual wisdom of the unaf-\\nfrighted Grecian heart. Queen of the blue air, first\\nof all and in the Introduction Ruskin appeals once\\nmore to a world busied upon the defilement of so\\nmuch of the celestial blue, but at that moment greatly\\ninterested in Professor Tyndall s discovery of the\\ncause of the colour of the sky researches for which\\nRuskin thanks the professor, with a gentle apology for\\nany words of his that had seemed to fail in respect for\\nthe powers of thought of the masters of modern\\nphysical science.\\nThis first day of May, 1869, I am writing where\\n181", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0195.jp2"}, "196": {"fulltext": "l8l JOHN RUSKIN\\nmy work was begun thirty-five years ago, within\\nsight of the snows of the higher Alps. In that half\\nof the permitted life of man, I have seen strange evil\\nbrought upon every scene that I best loved.\\nThe light that once flushed those pale summits with\\nits rose at dawn, and purple at sunset, is now umbered\\nand faint the air which once inlaid the clefts of all\\ntheir golden crags with azure is now defiled with\\nlanguid coils of smoke the waters that\\nonce sank at their feet into crystalline rest are now\\ndimmed and foul.\\nIs there any reader inclined to take this for a light\\ngrief? I protest that it is a heavy one.\\nThe Athena of the clear heavens was the theme\\nof the greatest myth in that central time about 500\\nb. c. which held more explicitly and with fuller\\nconsciousness the early religion of the Homeric day.\\nThe Homeric poems are not conceived\\ndidactically, but are didactic in their essence, as all\\ngood art is. There is an increasing insensibility to\\nthis character, and even an open denial of it, among\\nus, now, which is one of the most curious errors of\\nmodernism, the peculiar and judicial blindness of an\\nage which, having long practiced art and poetry for\\nthe sake of pleasure only, has become incapable of\\nreading their language when they were both didactic\\nand also, having been itself accustomed to a profess-\\nedly didactic teaching which yet, for private interests,\\nstudiously avoids collision with every prevalent vice\\nof its day (and especially with avarice), has become\\nequally dead to the intensely ethical conceptions of a\\nrace which habitually divided all men into two broad\\nclasses of worthy or worthless good, and good for\\nnothing.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0196.jp2"}, "197": {"fulltext": "the queen of the air 183\\nRuskin would teach this Greek spirit again to a\\nworld that had boasted of denying it but before the\\nformative and decisive spirit of Athena is shown\\ncentred in the heart and work of men, Ruskin studies\\nit in the heavens, and in the earth. Athena\\nrepresents all cloud, and rain, and dew, and dark-\\nness, and peace, and wrath of heaven. She repre-\\nsents the vegetative power of the earth, the motion\\nof sea and of ships, the vibration of sound. To her\\ngreat myth, therefore, Ruskin devotes a beautiful page\\nregarding flowers, a doubtful page regarding music,\\nand one of great vigour regarding the strength that is\\nrather in breath than muscle the young strength in\\nwar, wherewith Athena filled the breast of Achilles\\nwhen She leaped down out of heaven like a harpy\\nfalcon, shrill-voiced. And this follows, on the crea-\\nture that lives and moves by air the bird\\nIt is little more than a drift of the air brought\\ninto form by plumes the air is in all its quills, it\\nbreathes through its whole frame and flesh, and glows\\nwith air in its flying, like a blown flame it rests\\nupon the air, subdues it, surpasses it, outraces it it\\nis the air, conscious of itself, conquering itself, ruling\\nitself.\\nThe voice of Athena s air is in the bird s throat\\nu As we may imagine the wild form of the cloud\\nclosed into the perfect form of the bird s wings, so\\nthe wild voice of the cloud into its ordered and com-\\nmanded voice. Also upon the plumes of\\nthe bird are put the colours of the air on these the\\ngold of the cloud, that cannot be gathered by covet-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0197.jp2"}, "198": {"fulltext": "184 JOHN RUSKIN\\nousness the rubies of the clouds, that are not the\\nprice of Athena, but are Athena the vermilion of\\nthe cloud-bar and the flame of the cloud-crest, and the\\nsnow of the cloud, and its shadow, and the melted\\nblue of the deep wells of the sky.\\nAs the bird has most of the life of air, the serpent\\nhas least and the serpent is one of the dark sayings\\nof nature the invariable living hieroglyph, worth the\\nreading.\\nAthena in the Heart is rather a reading by in-\\nsight of the Greek mind than a tracing of Greek rec-\\nords. Ruskin has sought that mind through the\\nimperfection, and alas more dimly yet, through the\\ntriumphs, of formative art. He finds Athena in that\\nearly creative power we may name it the mother of\\nart that dies in childbirth.\\nIt is as vain an attempt to reason out the vision-\\nary power or guiding influence of Athena in the\\nGreek heart, from anything we now read, or possess,\\nof the work of Phidias, as it would be for the disciples\\nof some new religion to infer the spirit of Christianity\\nfrom Titian s l Assumption.\\nBut in the days of art, Athena teaches Tightness.\\nEvery reader of Ruskin knows well what he means\\nby this. Rightness is in the nature of the workman\\nhis spirit and his style.\\nIf stone-work is well put together, it means that\\na thoughtful man planned it, and a careful man cut it.\\nA man may hide himself from you, or mis-\\nrepresent himself to you, every other way; but he", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0198.jp2"}, "199": {"fulltext": "the queen of the air 185\\ncannot in his work there, be sure, you have him to\\nthe inmost.\\nThe command of Athena which is the command\\nof Tightness antecedent to beauty is spoken thus\\nBe well exercised, and rightly clothed. Clothed,\\nand in your right minds not insane and in rags, nor\\nin soiled fine clothes clutched from each other s\\nshoulders. Fight and weave. Then I myself will\\nanswer for the course of the lance, and the colours\\nof the loom.\\nRuskin renews, upon this text, his warning to a\\nsociety that sets machines to fight and weave whilst\\nmen are obliged to stand idle. All vital power, he\\nholds, should be employed first, natural mechanical\\nforce secondly, and artificially produced mechanical\\nforce only in the third place. We waste our coal,\\nand spoil our humanity, at one and the same time.\\nAthena, finally, represents restraint\\nNo one ever gets wiser by doing wrong, nor\\nstronger. You will get wiser and stronger only by\\ndoing right. s What a wayward youth\\nmight perhaps answer c Shall I not know\\nthe world best by trying the wrong of it, and repent-\\ning Your liberty of choice has simply\\ndestroyed for you so much life and strength, never\\nregainable. It is true you now know the habits of\\nswine, and the taste of husks do you think your\\nfather could not have taught you to know better\\nhabits and pleasanter tastes", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0199.jp2"}, "200": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XVIII\\nlectures on art (1870)\\nThe first course of Slade Lectures begins with\\nsome formality and a sense of the novelty and solem-\\nnity of the lecturer s office. The first of the six goes\\nto the beginning of things, and has this sharp phrase\\non education it is not the equaliser, but the dis-\\ncoverer, of men, and,\\nu So far from being instruments for the collection\\nof riches, the first lesson of wisdom is to disdain\\nthem, and of gentleness, to diffuse.\\nThe technical education proposed by Ruskin is not\\nto enable a man here and there to extricate himself\\nfrom a crowd confessed to be in evil case, but to\\nmake the case of the crowd more honourable. Art\\nmay be mingled with their toil, but on this point a\\nmodest expectation is proposed. Let us not hope,\\nsays Ruskin in 1870, to excel not even in the\\nmerest decoration.\\nNo nation ever had, or will have, the power of\\nsuddenly developing, under the pressure of necessity,\\nfaculties it had neglected when it was at ease.\\nHe closes against his countrymen the highest fields\\nof ideal art, but strangely confounds himself and\\nvoids his own argument when he closes those fields\\n186", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0200.jp2"}, "201": {"fulltext": "lectures on art 187\\nof art for reasons that would avail equally to shut the\\ngates of the highest fields of ideal literature. He\\nfinds in the English genius (and so proper thereto that\\nthe lack, in an Englishman, implies some failure or\\nweakness) a pleasure in the grotesque, and a tolerance\\nof certain gross forms of evil. Let us grant to Ruskin\\nthat it is there we would go further and grant to him\\nthat because of it Englishmen cannot be the greatest\\npainters, if that concession did not bind us to the\\nabsurdity that because of it Englishmen cannot be\\nthe greatest writers. As it is, the theory cannot stand.\\nJudged by comparison with Dante, we may be, if\\nRuskin will, a coarse nation but in that case a coarse\\nnation owns one name certainly greater than Dante s.\\nSurely because of his terrible custom of referring the\\nhuman spirit to Dante, and of testing human char-\\nacter by the rule of Dante s, does Ruskin commit this\\noutrage.\\nHe offers his countrymen some comfort if they\\ncannot paint the greatest pictures, they can, in the\\npersons of Reynolds and Gainsborough, paint portraits\\ninsuperably good (but in the second lecture he says,\\nThe highest that art can do is to set before you the\\ntrue image of the presence of a noble human being\\nthey can love and study landscape by the very fact that\\nthey are unhappily a city folk, whereas the peasant\\ncares little for natural beauty; and they have a national\\nsympathy with animals let them improve it and learn\\nto draw birds rather than shoot them. And there\\nfollows a beautiful passage on the inheritance of a\\nlove of beauty", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0201.jp2"}, "202": {"fulltext": "l88 JOHN RUSKIN\\nIn the children of noble races, trained by sur-\\nrounding art, and at the same time in the practice\\nof great deeds, there is an intense delight in the land-\\nscape of their country, as memorial a sense not taught\\nto them, nor teachable to any others but, in them,\\ninnate and the seal and reward of persistence in great\\nnational life the obedience and the peace of ages\\nhaving extended gradually the glory of the revered\\nancestors also to the ancestral land until the A4 other-\\nhood of the dust, the mystery of the Demeter from\\nwhose bosom we came, and to whose bosom we return,\\nsurrounds and inspires, everywhere, the local awe of\\nfield and fountain.\\nThe students, discouraged, one must suppose, by the\\ninaugural lecture, were instructed, in the second, on\\nThe Relation of Art to Religion.\\nThe phenomena of imagination are the\\nresult of the influence of the common and vital, but\\nnot, therefore, less Divine, spirit, of which some por-\\ntion is given to all living creatures in such manner as\\nmay be adapted to their rank in creation and\\neverything which men rightly accomplish is indeed\\ndone by Divine help, but under a consistent law which\\nis never departed from.\\nThe Relation of Art to Morals is the subject of a\\nlecture contrasting once more the thought of Antiquity\\nand of the modern world. It seems to the careful\\nreader that if Ruskin tests art by morality, he also\\ntests morality by art. One page of this lecture puts\\nlife to the touch with a trial like that of Mr. Meredith s\\ntest in The Empty Purse\\nIs it accepted of song", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0202.jp2"}, "203": {"fulltext": "lectures on art 189\\nNo art-teaching, says Ruskin in the same lecture,\\ncould be of use to you, but would rather be harmful,\\nunless it was grafted on something deeper than all art.\\nBut we have heard him say elsewhere that taste is the\\nonly morality that is to say, what a man loves is his\\nspiritual life. Whichever of these two answers for the\\nother whether morality for such art as it is able to\\nteach, or .art for such morality as it is able to teach\\nby neither, nor by both, in those elementary measures,\\nare men led many paces on the way they must walk.\\nThe fact of morality may be established by art, but the\\ncode of morality whereby we have to control our actions\\nand to constrain ourselves has that fact as its starting\\npoint, and does its effectual work further on. Ruskin,\\nhowever, seems to hold that a working morality is to be\\nfound in the decisions of art. Leaving these polemics,\\nthe reader stops with full assent upon this incidental\\njudgment of language and literature\\nThe chief vices of education have arisen from the\\none great fallacy of supposing that noble language is a\\ncommunicable trick of grammar and accent, instead\\nof simply the careful expression of right thought.\\nIt is certainly not a communicable trick, but neither\\nis it a communicable virtue. The following is one of\\nthe finest of many passages condemning modern con-\\nditions\\nGreat obscurity has been brought upon\\nthe truth by the want of integrity and sim-\\nplicity in our modern life. Everything is broken up,\\nbesides being in great part imitative so that", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0203.jp2"}, "204": {"fulltext": "190 JOHN RUSKIN\\nyou not only cannot tell what a man is, but sometimes\\nyou cannot tell whether he w, at all.\\nAmongst other things we fail in is anger when it\\nis due Ruskin will not away with our non-vindictive\\njustice, which, having convicted a man of a crime\\nworthy of death, entirely pardons the criminal, restores\\nhim to honour and esteem, and then hangs him not\\nas a malefactor, but as a scarecrow.\\nThat is the theory. And the practice is, that we\\nsend a child to prison for a month for stealing a hand-\\nful of walnuts, for fear that other children should\\ncome to steal more of our walnuts. And we do not\\npunish a swindler for ruining a thousand families, be-\\ncause we think swindling a wholesome excitement to\\ntrade.\\nRuskin will have justice to be vindictive and pun-\\nishment retributive.\\nIn The Relation of Art to Use, we read, The\\nentire vitality of art depends upon its being either full\\nof truth or full of use. It is either to state a true\\nthing or to adorn a serviceable one. It must never\\nexist alone never for itself. The very commonplace\\nof later, but not latest, opinion is to the contrary. I\\nconfess that to state a true thing is a definition of\\npurpose against which there may be some rebellion even\\nin a mind never subject to the fashion of a now depart-\\ning day. Here, as before, such a mind may appeal,\\nagainst Ruskin s phrase, to the separate art of music.\\nTo make a beautiful thing is not, however, a suf-\\nficient amendment of that phrase, in as much as the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0204.jp2"}, "205": {"fulltext": "lectures on art 191\\nformation of an actually beautiful thing is involved\\nby Ruskin in the act of art. One thing is certain\\nthat it is not by way of dishonour to art that he would\\nhave art subservient, but for the advantage of its es-\\nsential vitality and of its particular skill. Of vitality\\nhe is the best judge in the world. Of human skill\\nhe charges the whole world of these three hundred\\nyears past with taking not too much but too little\\nheed.\\nWe have lost our delight in Skill in that majesty\\nof it which long ago I tried to express,\\nunder the head of ideas of power. All\\nthe joy and reverence we ought to feel in looking at\\na strong man s work have ceased in us. We keep\\nthem yet a little in looking at a honeycomb or a bird s\\nnest; we understand that these differ, by divinity of\\nskill, from a lump of wax or a cluster of sticks.\\nIt is in the lecture on the relation of art to use,\\nmoreover, that the reader finds this splendid passage\\non Reynolds\\nHe rejoices in showing you his skill; and those\\nof you who succeed in learning what painter s work\\nreally is, will one day rejoice also, even to laughter\\nthat highest laughter which springs of pure delight,\\nin watching the fortitude and fire of a hand which\\nstrikes forth its will upon the canvas as easily as the\\nwind strikes it on the sea. He rejoices in all\\nabstract beauty and rhythm and melody of design.\\nBut the beauty is to serve by likeness to nature.\\nThis likeness seems to be rather a strain of the\\nidea of use. And in fact to prove this curious", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0205.jp2"}, "206": {"fulltext": "192 JOHN RUSKIN\\ncontention Ruskin is obliged to place portrait at a\\nheight, as has already been said, that he had seemed to\\ndeny it. But in the course of this argument is a\\nbrilliant page on the cause of the dishonour of por-\\ntraiture in Greek art\\nu The progressive course of Greek art was in sub-\\nduing monstrous conceptions to natural ones it did\\nthis by general laws it reached absolute truth of\\ngeneric human form, and if this ethical force had\\nremained, would have advanced into healthy portrait-\\nure. But at the moment of change the national life\\nended in Greece and portraiture, there, meant insult\\nto her religion, and flattery to her tyrants. And her\\nskill perished, not because she became true in sight,\\nbut because she became vile in heart.\\nBut these moralities and portraitures are but obscure\\nglories of art in use (as to which the reader may be\\nhalf-convinced, or may hold that they are concerned\\nrather with the sense of words than with principles\\nof art) compared with the kinds of plain and obvious\\nutility to which, in the beginning of this course, as\\nin the pamphlet on Pre-Raphaclitism, Ruskin com-\\nmends the services of painters\\nWhat we especially need at present for educational\\npurposes is to know, not the anatomy of plants, but\\ntheir biography how and where they live and die,\\ntheir tempers, benevolences, malignities, distresses, and\\nvirtues. We want them drawn from their youth to\\ntheir age, from bud to fruit. And all this\\nwe ought to have drawn so accurately that we might\\nat once compare any given part of a plant with the\\nsame part of any other, drawn on the like conditions.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0206.jp2"}, "207": {"fulltext": "lectures on art 193\\nNow, is not this a work which we may set about\\nhere in Oxford, with good hope and much pleas-\\n,irp\\nure\\nNot many thought so, it is said. The professor s\\nclasses were not well attended. He went on to sug-\\ngest that geology should be served, as well as botany,\\nand urged his art students to the study of the cleav-\\nage-lines of the smallest fragments of rock. To the\\nrescue of topography, and zoology, and history they\\nmight go too\\nThe feudal and monastic buildings of Europe,\\nand still more the streets of her ancient cities, are\\nvanishing like dreams and it is difficult to imagine\\nthe mingled envy and contempt with which future\\ngenerations will look back to us, who still possessed\\nsuch things, yet made no effort to preserve, and\\nscarcely any to delineate them for, when used as\\nmaterial of landscape by the modern artist, they are\\nnearly always superficially or flatteringly represented,\\nwithout zeal enough to penetrate their character, or\\npatience enough to render it in modest harmony.\\nRuskin appeals to those professing to love art that\\nthey would labour to get the country clean and the\\npeople lovely, to rescue young creatures from miser-\\nable toil and deadly shade, to dress them better, to\\nlodge them more fitly, to restore the handicrafts to\\ndignity and simplicity. But the reform of outward\\nconditions must come first, and Ruskin thought that\\nart could hardly flourish\\nIn any country where the cities are thus built, or\\nthus, let me rather say, clotted and coagulated spots", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0207.jp2"}, "208": {"fulltext": "194 JOHN RUSKIN\\nof dreadful mildew spreading by patches and blotches\\nover the country they consume.\\nIt is a repetition of the old contention, made doubtful\\nby history as Ruskin himself tells it for whenever\\nart has begun to decay it has been surrounded, in that\\nhour, by fulness of beauty.\\nThe fourth lecture is a practical lesson on Line\\nthat outline which is infinitely subtle not even\\na line, but the place of a line, and that, also, made\\nsoft by texture. The linear arts are the earliest, and\\nthey divide principally into the Greek (line with light)\\nand the Gothic (line with colour). Ruskin shows\\nhow these arts began to cease to depend upon line, and\\nlearnt to represent masses, and how from them were\\nderived\\nu Two vast mediaeval schools one of flat and infi-\\nnitely varied colour, with exquisite character and senti-\\nment added, but little perception of shadow;\\nthe other, of light and shade, with exquisite drawing\\nof solid form, and little perception of colour some-\\ntimes as little of sentiment.\\nAccording to Ruskin, the schools of colour en-\\nriched themselves by adopting from the schools of\\nlight and shadow whatever was compatible with\\ntheir own power. The schools of light and shadow,\\non the other hand, were too haughty and too weak to\\nlearn much from the schools of colour. To them is\\nchiefly due the decadence of art. In their fall they\\ndragged the schools of colour down with them.\\nReturning to the study of line, Ruskin recommends", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0208.jp2"}, "209": {"fulltext": "lectures on art 195\\nseverity in drawing as a first aim, rather than the\\nfinished studies of light and shade practised in some\\nof our classes. In the following lecture, on Light,\\nand in the last, on Colour, he insists further upon\\nthe happiness and peace of the art of colour, and\\nupon the oppression and mortality of the art of\\nchiaroscuro the art that sought light and found\\ndarkness also, and loved form and found formlessness.\\nThe school of light is founded in the Doric wor-\\nship of Apollo and the Ionic worship of Athena, as\\nthe spirits of life in the light, and of light in the air,\\nopposed each to their own contrary deity of death\\nApollo to the Python, Athena to the Gorgon Apollo\\nas life in light, to the earth spirit of corruption in\\ndarkness, Athena as life by motion, to the Gorgon\\nspirit of death by pause, freezing, or turning to stone\\nboth of the great divinities taking their glory from the\\nevil they have conquered both of them, when angry,\\ntaking to men the form of the evil which is their op-\\nposite. But underlying both these, and far\\nmore mysterious, dreadful, and yet beautiful, there is\\nthe Greek conception of spiritual darkness of the\\nanger of fate, whether foredoomed or avenging.\\nRuskin then takes us through the allegory (not the\\nrepresentation) of light in the Greek vase-paintings,\\nand closes his history of light with the illumination\\nof the work of Turner. To the student it must seem\\nsomewhat fantastic to call the schools of light and\\nshadow Greek, for the sake of those allegories of light\\nin Greek art to call, for example, the northern spirit\\nof the Melancholia and The Knight and Death\\nGreek. But the student of Ruskin will retain, at any", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0209.jp2"}, "210": {"fulltext": "196 JOHN RUSKIN\\nrate, the fact that he holds the colour-schools the\\nGothic to be the more vital, and the chiaroscuro\\nschools, albeit noble in noble masters, to be subject to\\nderogation in licentious and vulgar forms of art\\nhaving no parallel amongst the colourists. Inciden-\\ntally I must avow that amongst the griefs that a reader\\nof Ruskin has to swallow is the contempt of reflected\\nlights that is but the outcome of his suspicion and\\ndistrust of the schools of light and shadow. He bids\\nhis classes to make little inquiry into reflected lights\\nNearly all young students (and too many advanced\\nmasters) exaggerate them. In vulgar chiaro-\\nscuro the shades are so full of reflection that they\\nlook as if some one had been walking round the ob-\\nject with a candle, and the students, by that help,\\npeering into its crannies.\\nRuskin never really loved the landscape of the\\nsouth. In a letter (I think to Miss Siddal) he agrees\\nwith her that the Mediterranean coast lacks beauty\\nbecause it is too pale. Now, that paleness is due to\\nthe reflected light in shadow which is the loveliest\\nsecret of the southern summer, and the surprise of the\\nEast a secret and a surprise (although it makes all\\ninner places tenderly bright), because the traveller ex-\\npects, on the contrary, that shadows shall be dark in\\na bright sun, and often expects black shadows so posi-\\ntively that he goes further, and describes them.\\nRuskin here, as elsewhere, recommends the student\\nnot to disregard local colour even in studies of form\\nnot to ignore the leopard s spots for the sake of the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0210.jp2"}, "211": {"fulltext": "lectures on art 197\\nlights or darks that are to aid in showing its anatomy.\\nHe would have the artist u to consider all nature merely\\nas a mosaic of different colours, to be imitated one by\\none, in simplicity. In teaching the practice of the\\ncolourist painters he insists that shadows are as much\\ncolours as lights are and that whoever represents\\nthem by merely the subdued or darkened tint of the\\nlight, represents them falsely. In Modern Painters\\nCuyp and others seemed to be rebuked for the sep-\\narate colour of their shadows; we must understand\\nfalse separate colour, no doubt; in any case we may\\nsettle our difficulties of theory by referring to the\\nVenetian practice, which Ruskin pronounces to be\\nright, and right in all periods. In 1870 Ruskin had\\nperhaps already begun to repent of that Renaissance\\nwherewith I venture to charge him in the chapter on\\nSt. Mark s Rest; and amongst those periods of Ve-\\nnetian Tightness, he was inclining to the tranquil and\\nundazzled cheerfulness of the earlier colourists.\\nNone of their lights are flashing, they\\nare soft, winning, precious only, you know, on this\\ncondition they cannot have sunshine. In our eyes\\nto-day the attaining to sunshine is worth the sacrifice\\nof every lesser cheerfulness, and of colour itself.\\nAnd Titian and Tintoretto themselves thought so, and\\nRuskin himself must have thought so when he was at\\nthe height of his love for them, and for Turner.\\nEven in 1870 he writes, nobly\\nWe do not live in the inside of a pearl; but in\\nan atmosphere through which a burning sun shines\\nthwartedly, and over which a sorrowful night must far", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0211.jp2"}, "212": {"fulltext": "I98 JOHN RUSKIN\\nprevail. There is mystery in the day as in\\nthe night.\\nWriting thus, he had not yet given his heart to the\\nun mysterious allegory of early art. But how strange\\nan injustice he could do at this time, and perhaps at\\nall times, to that divine creation, artificial light,\\nmay be seen from this. The noble men, he says, of\\nthe sixteenth century learn their lesson from the\\nschools of chiaroscuro nobly the base men learn it\\nbasely.\\nThe great men rise from colour to sunlight. The\\nbase ones fall from colour to candlelight. To-day\\n1 non ragioniam di lor.\\nWhat, then, about Sir Joshua As for the much\\nmore modern art which studies fire in daylight, and\\nthat which is dazzled by the flashes of day, they do\\nnot exist for Ruskin.\\nBroadly, he names the Gothic school of colour\\nthe school of crystal (and strangely, too, for the\\ncolours of crystal and of glass are colours through\\nwhich light comes, and are surely unlike the colours\\nof the primitive colour-schools) and the Greek school\\nof light he names the school of clay potter s clay,\\nand human, are too sorrowfully the same, as far as art\\nis concerned. And he tells his classes that they\\nmust choose between the two, and cannot belong to\\nboth. None the less had he shown, in many an elab-\\norate lesson, that the great Venetians had joined form\\nand light to their colour, and that they did belong to", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0212.jp2"}, "213": {"fulltext": "lectures on art 199\\nboth. And it is another surprise to find him declaring\\nhimself wholly a chiaroscurist. He had taught,\\nin these same lectures, the colourists to be more\\nu vital, and had recommended to the student the\\nmosaic of the colour of nature he had disclaimed\\nthe chiaroscurists in Modern Painters, and in the later\\nstudies of Florentine art was to proclaim himself a\\ncolourist, as it would seem, wholly. If there is\\nan inconsistency, it is perhaps due to the theoretic\\nseparation of things long joined together; but the\\nmatter is full of difficulty to the reader. At any rate,\\nRuskin must needs give his Turner the names of both\\nschools. And having a living imagination for the art\\nof action (indeed what imagination ever lived so fully\\nas his he insists that action was, according to the\\ndivisions of this book, Greek, not Gothic. Yet\\nhere again what contradictions, when we call to mind\\nthe action and flight of Gothic architecture, the grow-\\ning plant in stone, the prickly independence of the\\nleaf of Gothic sculpture, and the repose of Grecian\\nbuilding\\nThe lecture closes with a sombre encouragement\\nYou live in an age of base conceit and baser sur-\\nvility an age whose intellect is chiefly formed by\\npillage, and occupied in desecration one day mimick-\\ning, the next destroying, the works of all the noble\\npersons who made its intellectual or art life possible\\nto it. In the midst of all this you have to\\nbecome lowly and strong.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0213.jp2"}, "214": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XIX\\naratra pentelici (1872)\\nThis course of Slade Lectures treats of the Ele-\\nments of Sculpture. At setting forth Ruskin con-\\ndemns the lifeless work of cutting and chiselling\\njewels, in as much as true goods are common goods,\\nand these crystals are prized chiefly because of their\\nrarity. True sculpture he teaches to be the conquest\\nof the plough-share and the chisel over clay it is the\\nvictory of life and the true sculptor sees Pallas,\\nthat is, the spirit of life, and of wisdom in the choice\\nof life to be honoured by art. This is another form\\nof the lesson on natural form. Life purifies de-\\nsign. Here is briefly the indication of the essential\\nmatter of these lectures\\nTrue schools of sculpture are peculiar to nations\\nin their youth and in their strong humanity. The\\nGreeks found Phoenician and Etruscan art monstrous\\nand made them human. The Florentines found\\nByzantine and Norman art monstrous and made\\nthem human both the reforming schools being\\nwholly sincere.\\nWe, on the contrary, are now abso-\\nlutely without sincerity absolutely, therefore, without\\nimagination, and without virtue. Our hands are dex-\\nterous with the vile and deadly dexterity of machines\\n200", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0214.jp2"}, "215": {"fulltext": "aratra PENTELICI 201\\nour minds filled with incoherent fragments of faith,\\nwhich we cling to in cowardice, without believing,\\nand make pictures of, in vanity, without loving.\\nThen follows a sketch of the Thames Embankment\\nits gas jets coming out of fishes tails borrowed from\\na refuse Neapolitan marble, and these ill-cast and\\nlacquered, to imitate bronze, adorned with a caduceus\\nstolen from Mercury, a street-knocker from two or\\nthree million street doors, the initials of the casting\\nfirm, and a lion s head copied from the Greek while\\nthe arch of Waterloo Bridge, under which this em-\\nbankment passes, is but a gloomy and hollow heap\\nof wedged blocks of blind granite.\\nSculpture touches life essentially, and is forbidden\\nto recognise those accidental beauties, such as the\\ngrowth of lichen on a tree, that a painter pauses on.\\nIts drapery has caught the life of the body. The\\ncontroversy between Florentine and Greek drapery\\nthe Florentine having its own beauty rather than the\\nbody s beauty is in truth the difference between\\npainting and sculpture. In the study of the Greek\\nRuskin takes us through the nine centuries three\\narchaic, three central, and three decadent whereof\\nthe fifth century b. c. is symmetrically the middle age\\nand the greatest. He insists upon the naturalism of\\nthe Greeks, and plunges once more into that per-\\npetual question whether art can ever approach too\\nnear to nature, answering with that emphatic No\\nto which some of his pages hardly seem to assent\\nliterally. Once more he reproaches the artists called", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0215.jp2"}, "216": {"fulltext": "202 JOHN RUSKIN\\nideal, whether sculptors or painters, for attempting\\nto mend nature; and to this rebuke many and many\\nan artist s heart must have replied that this is but a\\ntrap of words, for, at the worst, it is not nature the\\npainter tries to mend, but his picture. In Modern\\nPainters it had been written The picture which is\\ntaken as a substitute for nature had better be burned\\nbut are we forbidden to do honor to a substitute\\nby the name, say, of emissary, ambassador, or repre-\\nsentative\\nThe true sign, says Ruskin, of the greatest art\\nis to part voluntarily with its greatness, by making\\nthe eyes of those who look upon it to desire the\\nnatural fact. And this the Greeks knew. Phalaris\\nsays of the bull of Perilaus It only wanted motion\\nand bellowing to seem alive and as soon as I saw it\\nI cried out, It ought to be sent to the god to\\nApollo, that is, who would delight in a work worthy\\nto deceive not the simple but the wise. The Greek\\nu rules over the arts to this day, and will forever, be-\\ncause he sought not first for beauty, not first for pas-\\nsion or for invention, but for Rightness. With him\\nwas the origin not only of all broad, mighty, and\\ncalm conception, but of all that is divided, delicate,\\nand tremulous. To him is owing the gigantic pillar\\nof Agrigentum and the last fineness of the Pisan\\nChapel of the Thorn. The beginning of Christian\\nchivalry was in his bridling of the white and the black\\nhorses the spiritual and animal natures. He be-\\ncame at last Gratculus esuriens, little and hungry, and\\nevery man s errand boy, but this was in late ages,", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0216.jp2"}, "217": {"fulltext": "ARATRA PENTELICI 203\\nby his iniquity, and his competition, and his love of\\ntalking.\\nRuskin gives a Greek lesson on the modesty of art\\nno block for building should be larger than a cart\\ncan carry, or a cross-beam and a couple of pulleys\\ncan lift 5 a lesson on the modesty of material in\\nsculpture clay, marble, metal having their limita-\\ntions, which are also their particular powers an ex-\\nquisite lesson on the subtle laws of low relief; one\\non art handicraft and art for the multitude. As far\\nas I know, the first it is not quite the only refer-\\nence to Japanese art is in these lectures, which were\\nillustrated by an admirably vital Japanese fish but\\nOriental art was generally represented, in Ruskin s\\nmind, by the Indian, which is obscure, dateless, and\\ndead.\\nTwo quotations follow, which need no explicit\\nconnection here with the rest\\nArt is not possible to any sickly person, but in-\\nvolves the action and force of a strong man s arm\\nfrom the shoulder.\\nAnd this from the lecture on Imagination\\nRemember that it is of the very high-\\nest importance that you should know what you are,\\nand determined to be the best that you may be but\\nit is of no importance whatever, except as it may\\ncontribute to that end, to know what you have been.\\nWhether your Creator shaped you with fingers, or\\ntools, as a sculptor would a lump of clay, or gradually\\nraised you to mankind through a series of inferior\\nforms, is only of moment to you in this respect that", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0217.jp2"}, "218": {"fulltext": "204 JOHN RUSKIN\\nin the one case you cannot expect your children to be\\nnobler creatures than you are yourselves; in the\\nother, every act and thought of your present life may\\nbe hastening the advent of a race which will look\\nback to you, their fathers (and you ought at least to\\nhave attained the dignity of desiring that it may be\\nso), with incredulous disdain.\\nThe lectures close with a history of the decline of\\ngreat art in the work of a great man Michelangiolo\\nand a warning against the sublimity that has so\\ntaken captive the world. In choosing to admire his\\nLast Judgment rather than Tintoretto s Paradise,\\nmen have deliberately chosen, Ruskin tells us, God s\\ncurse instead of His blessing.\\nThe Spectator accused Ruskin of attempting, by\\nhis teaching in this book, to make our rich nation\\npoor, if only he could make it artistic. But I need\\nnot insist again on this that he held the nation to be\\npoor, intolerably poor in its millions, dangerously poor\\nin its dependence on the bread of foreign fields.\\nAmongst the illustrations is that of the two profiles\\nthe Apollo of Syracuse and the Self-Made Man.\\nThe draughtsman of the latter most admirable head\\nso vigorously drawn, and with so few touches, that\\nPhidias or Turner himself could scarcely have done it\\nbetter is not named, but could have been no other\\nthan Keene.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0218.jp2"}, "219": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XX\\nthe eagle s nest (1872)\\nThis book was the one preferred by Carlyle. One\\nmust wonder whether the passage on the immorality\\nof original or separate style in art seemed to him stuff\\no the conscience, and whether he held an author, like\\na painter, to be bound not to produce something\\ndifferent from the work of his neighbours in the\\nEnglish language, for example.\\nThe Eagle s Nest (Slade Lectures) is an essay in\\nsearch of that wisdom which is president over science,\\nliterature, and art ultimately the divine sophia also\\ncalled charity Art is wise only when unselfish in\\nher labour Science wise only when un-\\nselfish in her statement. Art is the shadow or re-\\nflection of wise science and both are peaceful, tem-\\nperate, and content. The eagle and the mole have\\ntheir natural places of knowledge and ignorance,\\nbut man has the choice of stooping in science be-\\nneath himself and of rising above himself therefore\\nhe has to seek the sophia that is beyond, for his in-\\nspiration and restraint. He needs imaginative\\nknowledge, and especially knowledge of the\\nfeelings of living creatures, knowledge of life.\\nSophia is the faculty which recognises in all things\\ntheir bearing upon life, in the entire sum of life that\\nwe know.\\n205", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0219.jp2"}, "220": {"fulltext": "206 JOHN RUSKIN\\nAnd sophia is offended by egoism\\nIn all base schools of art, the craftsman is de-\\npendent for his bread on originality that is to say, on\\nfinding in himself some fragment of isolated faculty,\\nby which his work may be recognised as distinct from\\nthat of other men. We are ready enough to take de-\\nlight in our little doings, without any such stimulus\\nwhat must be the effect of the popular applause which\\ncontinually suggests that the little thing we can\\nseparately do is as excellent as it is singular\\nIn all great schools of art these conditions are exactly\\nreversed. An artist is praised in these, not for what\\nis different in him from others but only\\nfor doing most strongly what all are endeavouring\\nand for contributing to some great achieve-\\nment, to be completed by the unity of multitudes, and\\nthe sequence of ages.\\nWisdom is outraged, not only in our art but in our\\nscience, which we have not used, for example, to\\nprevent the famines in the East. Ruskin habitually\\naccuses modern men of these failures as though they\\nwere immediate murders. The Middle Ages he loves\\nwere wont to put men, women and children to death\\nby sword or privation or fire he multiplies the thou-\\nsands that so died in an Italian town into the thou-\\nsands that die by hunger in an Indian province, and\\nwith these numbers multiplies our guilt.\\nNo people, understanding pain, ever inflicted so\\nmuch no people, understanding facts, ever acted on\\nthem so little.\\nMimetic art, says the third lecture, is in epitome in\\nShakespeare s sentence, placed in the mouth of", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0220.jp2"}, "221": {"fulltext": "the eagles nest 207\\nTheseus the hero, as it chances, whose shadow,\\nor semblance in marble, is admittedly the most ideal\\nand heroic we possess of man and the sentence is\\nThe best in this kind are but shadows; and the\\nworst are no worse, if imagination amend them.\\nAnd because the works of art are shadows, Ruskin\\nwould have us to love them and to use them only to\\nenable us. to remember and love what they are cast\\nby. To love art otherwise is to be the fool who\\nwonders at his own shadow. Even Ruskin has spoken\\nno sayings harder to bear than these. Wise art is in\\ndirect relation to wise science, we are told in the same\\nlecture they have the same subjects and art helps\\nscience, and helps her more and more as the degrees\\nof science rise that is, art gives little help to the\\nscience of chemistry, little to the science of anatomy\\n(it is Shakespeare that Ruskin has taken as the sub-\\nject, and he gauges what chemistry and anatomy\\nhave to tell us of Shakespeare) but it helps more the\\nscience of human sensibility, that science which has\\nsomething to tell of Shakespeare s nerve-power and\\nemotion and it helps most of all the science of\\ntheology, which tells us of Shakespeare s relation to a\\nBeing greater than himself.\\nThe lecture passes to the consideration of the\\nsophia that stands above the several sciences orni-\\nthology is the subject of the lecturer s present lesson,\\nand nest-building gives him the opportunity for his\\nloveliest work, wherein we are appropriately made to\\nlove the nest-building rather than the description.\\nAnd the great artist, Ruskin says, works somewhat", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0221.jp2"}, "222": {"fulltext": "208 JOHN RUSKIN\\nlike the bird with the feeling we may attribute to a\\ndiligent bull-finch that the thing, whether pretty or\\nugly, could not have been better done, and he is\\nthankful it is no worse. And though this is the\\nfeeling of the great, could not even ordinary men,\\nasks Ruskin, be so simple in their measure that supe-\\nrior beings might be interested in their work, as men\\nare in the birds\\nIt cannot be imagined that either the back streets\\nof our manufacturing towns, or the designs of our\\nsuburban villas, are things which the angels desire to\\nlook into but we should at least possess\\nas much unconscious art as the lower brutes, and\\nbuild nests which shall be, for ourselves, entirely con-\\nvenient, and may perhaps in the eyes of superior be-\\nings appear more beautiful than to our own.\\nIt would be easy to reply that the suburban villa with\\nits bathrooms is whatever else it may fail to be\\nmore convenient and ingenious than a nest. And as\\nfor the noise of a town and the noise of birds, com-\\npared on a following page, Ruskin does not open any\\ndoor on the crashing street he loathes, in order to\\nlisten to the Beethoven within the walls. Some\\nsophia originally directed the prudence of the com-\\nmon builder much sophia inspired the music. It is\\nmusic again that gravely refuses assent to these les-\\nsons of humiliation, repeated in the fourth lecture.\\nRuskin anticipates the murmurs of his hearers at\\nhearing him rank sciences in degrees whereof chem-\\nistry holds the lowest and theology the highest\\nnevertheless he affirms that if theology be science at", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0222.jp2"}, "223": {"fulltext": "the eagles nest 209\\nall, the highest is its place and that it is a science\\nother sciences vouch\\nYou will find it a practical fact that external\\ntemptation and inevitable trials of temper have power\\nagainst you which your health and virtue depend on\\nyour resisting that, if not resisted, the evil energy\\nof them will pass into your own heart\\nand that- the ordinary and vulgarised phrase the\\nDevil, or betraying spirit, is in him is the most\\nscientifically accurate which you can apply to any\\nperson so influenced.\\nAll science, the lecture proceeds, must needs be\\nmodest, because although the field of fact is immeas-\\nurable, not so is the human power of research. Art\\nis modest Ruskin here commends humble landscape\\nand discommends the Matterhorns and Monte Rosas;\\nalthough elsewhere he laments that good painters are\\ntoo easily content with the odds and ends of land-\\nscape, and leave noble scenery to the bad ones. Art,\\naccording to the present lesson, should be content.\\nThe promise that we shall know all things is a siren\\npromise, as it was to Ulysses. Let us not abandon,\\nfor the sake of limited knowledge, the charity that\\nis for itself sufficing, and for others serviceable.\\nAnd for the sake of contentment Ruskin allows us to\\nbe pleased in the little things we can do, more than\\nin the great things done by other people. He for-\\nbears here to intimidate us with that menacing ques-\\ntion of the earlier page of these lectures what will\\nour selfishness grow to if we cherish our own achieve-\\nment For we are to confess the little we do to be", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0223.jp2"}, "224": {"fulltext": "210 JOHN RUSKIN\\nlittle, and contributory. Art must be happy, and\\ntherefore content, even in its rudeness and ignorance\\nIgnorance, which is contented and clumsy, will\\nproduce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But\\nignorance ^contented, and dexterous, learning what\\nit cannot understand, and imitating what it cannot\\nenjoy, produces the most loathsome forms of manu-\\nfacture that can disgrace or mislead humanity.\\nThe finest art of the world has been provincial,\\nlimited and strengthened by local difficulties, and this\\nis another occasion for contentment.\\nThe sixth lecture is on u The Relation to Art of\\nthe Science of Light. Ruskin studies the sense of\\nsight as what it is a spiritual phenomenon. The\\nspirituality of the senses is manifest to him, as to\\nevery thinker. Science, at the time of the writing of\\nthis lecture, was beginning to adopt the view that\\nsight is purely material but the u view was not\\na view it was no more than a confusion of words.\\nAt the same date some rhetoric had been spent by a\\nscientific writer on the sun He rears the whole\\nvegetable world, his fleetness is in the\\nlion s foot, he springs in the panther, he slides in the\\nsnake, c, which is also but a kind of circular\\nwork of words. Ruskin s retort is so exquisitely\\nwritten that it must be extracted with little shorten-\\ning\\nAs I was walking in the woods, and moving very\\nquietly, I came suddenly on a small steel-grey ser-\\npent, lying in the middle of the path and it was", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0224.jp2"}, "225": {"fulltext": "the eagle s NEST 211\\ngreatly surprised to see me. Serpents, however,\\nalways have complete command of their feelings, and\\nit looked at me for a quarter of a minute without the\\nslightest change of posture then, with an almost im-\\nperceptible motion, it began to withdraw itself beneath\\na cluster of leaves. Without in the least hastening its\\naction it gradually concealed the whole of its body. I\\nwas about to raise one of the leaves, when I saw what\\nI thought was the glance of another serpent, in the\\nthicket at the path side; but it was the same one,\\nwhich, having once withdrawn itself from observation\\nbeneath the leaves, used its utmost agility to spring\\ninto the wood and with so instantaneous a flash of\\nmotion that I never saw it leave the covert, and only\\ncaught the gleam of light as it glided away into the\\ncopse. I am pleased to hear how\\nnecessarily that motion proceeds from the sun. But\\nwhere did its device come from\\nFrom the sun too and the flight of the dove from the\\nsun also; but the difference of those derivations,\\nwhence are they Animism had hardly yet en-\\ntered into the controversy in 1872. How much of a\\nman does a serpent see asks Ruskin\\nMake me a picture of the appearance of a man, as\\nfar as you can judge it can take place on the snake s\\nretina. How say you of a tiger s eye, or a\\ncat s I want to know what the appearance\\nis to an eagle, two thousand feet up, of a sparrow in a\\nhedge.\\nIn the lecture on The Sciences of Inorganic Form\\nwe find chiefly the lesson on drapery which teaches\\nfinely that drapery must become organic under the", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0225.jp2"}, "226": {"fulltext": "212 JOHN RUSKIN\\nartist s hand by his invention and in that following,\\non Organic Form, the teaching enforced that art\\nhas nothing to do with structure, causes, or absolute\\nfacts, and that therefore the study of anatomy gen-\\nerally, whether of plants, animals, or man, is an im-\\npediment to graphic art. Man has to think of all\\nliving creatures with their skins on them and with\\ntheir souls in them he is to know\\nHow they are spotted, wrinkled, furred, and\\nfeathered and what the look of them is, in their eyes\\nand what grasp, or cling, or trot, or pat, in their paws\\nand claws.\\nThen follow some exquisite pages on the dogs of\\nart, from Anacreon s in the Greek vase-painting, on-\\nwards. Sir Joshua, painting child and dog together\\nin their infinite differences and blessed harmonies,\\nnever, says Ruskin, thinks of their bones.\\nYou might dissect all the dead dogs in the water\\nsupply of London without finding out what, as a\\npainter, it is here your only business precisely to know\\nwhat sort of shininess there is at the end of a ter-\\nrier s nose.\\nYet the breath was hardly gone in which he had taught\\nhis hearers to studv a little piece of broken stone for\\nits veining, as, in another volume, we shall find him\\nwithering Millais for having painted a wild rose with\\na petal too few, and commending Holbein for having\\ndrawn a skeleton with a rib too many. The student\\nshould easily understand the difference. In the case of", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0226.jp2"}, "227": {"fulltext": "the eagle s nest 213\\nthe rose the painter had committed a fault against the\\nduty of ordinary and innocent sight a painter s first\\nduty, the duty of the daily vision; not so in the case\\nof the skeleton. And almost, though not quite, the\\nsame difference may be found between geological\\nreserves and anatomical secrets. Anatomy, says\\nRuskin, misleads the artist especially in the study\\nof the eagle s head, with its projection of the brow,\\nhooding the eye its most eagle-like characteristic,\\nwhich the bone does not suggest and which no dis-\\nsector seems to have taken the trouble to notice. But\\nthe Greek artist, and the Pisan, knew of it. Further-\\nmore, through anatomy in art the lower class of animals\\nare represented well, and the higher, ill. As for the\\nstudy of the nude, Ruskin holds it to be, at any rate,\\na bad thing for our care for beauty in dress and in\\nthe conditions of actual life and he corrects the\\npopular idea of Greek power it was due little to\\nadmiration of bodily beauty, but much to those causes\\nof bodily beauty discipline of the senses, romantic\\nideal of honour, respect for justice, and belief in\\nGod. The lecture ends with a piece of theology\\na science much closer to your art than\\nanatomy\\n4 1 believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver\\nof Life. Disbelieve that and your own being is de-\\ngraded into the state of dust driven by the wind.\\nAll Nature, with one voice with one glory, is set to\\nteach you reverence for the life communicated to you\\nfrom the Father of Spirits and all the\\nstrength, and all the arts of men, are measured by, and", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0227.jp2"}, "228": {"fulltext": "214 JOHN RUSKIN\\nfounded upon, their reverence for the passion, and\\ntheir guardianship of the purity, of Love. Gentle-\\nmen that epithet of gentle, as you well\\nknow, indicates the intense respect for race and fa-\\ntherhood for family dignity and chastity which was\\nvisibly the strength of Rome, as it had been, more\\ndisguisedly, the strength of Greece.\\nThe following lecture The Story of the Hal-\\ncyon deplores the popular idea of education that\\nleaves an Englishman in such a state of heart that\\nwhen he sees a rare bird he kills it that is, he has\\nnever learnt to see it rightly to see its life. Man\\nshould see a bird rightly, and a man rightly\\nThen the last part of education will be whatever\\nis meant by that beatitude of the pure in heart see-\\ning God rightly.\\nIn his study of the bird Ruskin proposes the mystery\\nof the limiting laws of structure\\nIt is appointed that vertebrated animals shall have\\nno more than four legs, and that, if they require to fly,\\nthe two legs in front must become wings, it being\\nagainst law that they should have more than these\\nfour members in ramification from the spine.\\nWhat strongly planted three-legged animals there might\\nhave been what symmetrically radiant five-legged\\nones what volatile six-legged ones what circum-\\nspect seven-headed ones Had Darwinism been true,\\nwe should long ago have split our heads in two with\\nfoolish thinking, or thrust out, from above our covet-\\nous hearts, a hundred desirous arms and clutching hands.\\nBut the law is around us, and within un-\\nconquerable granting, up to a certain limit, power", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0228.jp2"}, "229": {"fulltext": "the eagle s nest 215\\nover our bodies to circumstance and will beyond that\\nlimit, inviolable, inscrutable, and, so far as we know,\\neternal.\\nHis contempt for Darwinism Ruskin explains by\\nthe kind of Darwinian argument then presented to\\nstudents. He himself had consulted Darwin s ac-\\ncount of the construction of the peacock s feather.\\nNone of the existing laws of life regulating the local\\ndisposition of colour in plume-filaments seemed to be\\nknown\\nI am informed only that peacocks have grown to\\nbe peacocks out of brown pheasants because the young\\nfeminine brown pheasants like fine feathers. Where-\\nupon I say to myself, Then either there was a dis-\\ntinct species of brown pheasants originally born with\\na taste for fine feathers, and therefore with remarkable\\neyes in their heads, which would be a much more\\nwonderful distinction of species than being born with\\nremarkable eyes in their tails, or else all pheasants\\nwould have been peacocks by this time.\\nThe reader will do well to read this twice it is an\\nextraordinarily full piece of writing.\\nFrom the lovely fables of Alcyone and Ceyx Ruskin\\nquotes it is wonderfully to the purpose of this book\\nthe word of Simonides in his description of the\\nhalcyon days In the wild winter months Zeus\\ngives the wisdom of calm. But as for us,\\nTo what sorrowful birds shall we be likened, who\\nmake the principal object of our lives dispeace and\\nunrest, and turn our wives and daughters out of their\\n1", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0229.jp2"}, "230": {"fulltext": "2l6 JOHN RUSKIN\\nnests to work for themselves Nay, strictly speak-\\ning, we have not even got so much as nests to turn\\nthem out of.\\nOn the old subject of the ill building of human nests\\nRuskin has an excellent phrase for the Houses of\\nParliament\\nA number of English gentlemen get together to\\ntalk; they have no delight whatever in any kind of\\nbeauty but they have a vague notion that the ap-\\npointed place for their conversation should be dignified\\nand ornamental and they build over their combined\\nheads the absurdest and emptiest piece of filigree,\\nand as it were eternal foolscap in freestone, which\\never human beings disgraced their posterity by.\\nWhile bullfinches peck a Gothic tracery out of\\ndead clematis, the English yeoman thinks it much\\nif he gets from his landlord four dead walls and a\\ndrain-pipe. He is lodged as a puppet is dropped\\ninto a deal box. But two centuries ago, without\\nsteam, without electricity, almost without books, and\\naltogether without help from Casselh Educator the\\nSwiss shepherd could build himself a chalet, daintily\\ncarved, and with flourished inscriptions. No man\\nshould be satisfied with less than a cottage and a\\ngarden in pure air, and the nests of men should be\\nnests of peace. The word is left, very exquisitely,\\nwith the halcyons for Ruskin adds that the making\\nof peace must be in this life\\nNot the taking of arms against, but the building\\nof nests amidst, its sea of troubles.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0230.jp2"}, "231": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XXI\\nARIADNE FLORENTINA (1873)\\nThe six Slade Lectures on Wood and Metal En-\\ngraving contain some of the severest of all the\\nauthor s critical work severest not because it shows\\na fault of Diirer or declares a certain destructive in-\\nfluence of Michelangiolo, but severest in its intensity\\nof thought and in the closeness of the hold this ad-\\nventurous and resolute mind takes upon some dis-\\ncovered track of thought, however difficult, and\\ncompels the reader to attempt the path. Many have\\nheld Ruskin s method of thought to have been some-\\nthing less purely experimental than this and let us\\ngrant that he does set out upon an untried quest with\\na working hypothesis but without a working\\nhypothesis experiment itself would lack impetus and\\ndirection, and would sometimes hesitate to move in\\nthe abyss. That detachment from his own working\\nhypothesis which the student of science owes to the\\nend of his journey shall we claim of the student of\\nethics also Surely there is but one assumption in\\nAriadne Florentina that wherewith nearly all thinkers\\n(including Kant, but, I suppose, excluding Nietzche)\\nhave done their work that is, the confession of the\\nmoral law that there is a good, and that pure cruelty,\\nmere hatred, and ingratitude, for example, are con-\\ntrary thereto. This book, in which so many things\\n217", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0231.jp2"}, "232": {"fulltext": "2l8 JOHN RUSKIN\\nare pursued so far with an infinite courage, enter-\\nprise, and good-will, takes no more than this for\\ngranted, but takes it to heart takes it so that neither\\nheight nor depth nor any other creature can separate\\nthe author from his assumption.\\nEverything following that was to be proved seems\\nto be proved and demonstrated. One exception there\\nis perhaps, and one that must make a strange effect\\nof bathos stated here, but\\nThou canst not pluck a flower\\nWithout troubling of a star;\\nAnd there is nothing touched in these lectures but to\\ngreat issues I mean the apparently arbitrary law\\ntacitly established whereby Ruskin separates oil-paint-\\ning from all the other arts, and makes it solitary,\\njudging it by other theories and on other terms than\\ntheirs. The sculptor, the draughtsman, the engraver\\nare instructed to decide what are the essential points\\nin the things they see. Such decision is declared to\\nbe a habit entirely necessary to strong humanity,\\nand natural to all humanity. And yet painting\\noil-painting is placed in the very next sentence un-\\nder the disability (Ruskin here, for the purpose of his\\nargument at the moment, confesses the disability) of a\\ndifference from all the arts in this respect Painting,\\nwhen it is complete, leaves it much to your own\\njudgment what to look at and, if you are a fool, you\\nlook at the wrong thing but in a fine woodcut the\\nmaster says, You shall look at this or nothing.\\nWhen an artist to-day insists upon calling his work", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0232.jp2"}, "233": {"fulltext": "ARIADNE FLORENTINA 210,\\na pattern he does no more than Ruskin whom he\\nthinks to oppose and refute, but who has said, for all\\nto hear\\nYou know I told you a sculptor s business is first\\nto cover a surface with pleasant bosses, whether they\\nmean anything or not so an engraver s is to cover it\\nwith pleasant lines, whether they mean anything or\\nnot. That they should mean something is indeed\\ndesirable afterwards but first we must be orna-\\nmental.\\nBut with colour this whole theory is tyrannously (or\\na modern reader will hold it to be tyrannously) altered.\\nIt is this insistence upon a certain kind of complete-\\nness in painting only and solely that has set the\\nenmity (seeming to strike deep but not striking deep)\\nbetween this the greatest of all teachers of art and\\nsome of the greatest of designers and composers who\\nwere also painters and it is his insistence in this\\nbook upon local colour as the chief thing wherewith\\noil-painting is concerned that is the cause of his dis-\\ntrust, his disapproval, at best his half-praise, of some\\nof the greatest painters of illumination and darkness,\\nthose who painted colour effaced, half-effaced, just\\nrecognised by flashes, fully confessed in turn by the\\nover-ruling light.\\nLet me hazard the suggestion that Ruskin seems\\nresolved, in treating the Gothic or colour schools, to\\nset his painter with his back to the sun, so that he\\nshall see all things, illuminated indeed but strong in\\ntheir own colour; and forbids him to face the sun\\nand to see all the world as it looks in that great con-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0233.jp2"}, "234": {"fulltext": "220 JOHN RUSKIN\\nfrontation lustrous and illuminated indeed, but made\\nup of infinite and innumerable shadow. But why\\nshould not the colourist look with the sun to-day and\\ntowards the sun to-morrow, and belong to both the\\ntwo great schools by that simple power of taking both\\nstations A man and the sun may surely be allowed\\na complex and various relation with one another.\\nTrue, Ruskin s theory of local colour was learnt in\\nfront of the works of the Tuscans, and above all in\\nthe Library of Siena, but is nothing to be added to\\nTuscany, by Holland, by Norwich, by France His\\nown Turner faced the sun, and he himself faces the\\nsun in half his writings.\\nRuskin to me, I have to confess hardly intelligibly\\njoins the positive definite sight (the sight, let me\\ncall it, that you get, looking with the sun) to the high\\npowers of imagination. He avers that the Italian\\nmaster requires you to imagine a St. Elizabeth, and to\\nsee her with all completeness but that the Dutch\\npainter only wishes you to imagine an effect of sun-\\nlight on cow-skin, which is a far lower strain of the\\nimaginative faculty. Moreover, he calls the feeling\\nfor colour modified by sun a mere sensation the de-\\nvice of men, who, not being able to get any pleas-\\nure out of their thoughts, try to get it out of their\\nsensations. This may have been accidentally the\\nact of some chiaroscuro painters but is it essentially\\nthe act of all And is this clear seeing of St. Eliza-\\nbeth in her red and blue essentially the work of the\\nimagination and not of the mere fancy\\nSurely there is no other occasion of controversy in", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0234.jp2"}, "235": {"fulltext": "ARIADNE FLORENTINA 221\\nthis masterly book, wrought out of the very life of\\nthe intellect. We find this important word spoken to\\nthe student of engraving, at the outset Your own\\ncharacter will form your style, but my\\nbusiness is to prevent, as far as I can, your having\\nany particular style. This goes to the root, for all\\nthe arts. The technical lessons follow\\nEngraving means, primarily, making a permanent\\ncut or furrow. The central syllable of the\\nword has become a sorrowful one, meaning the most\\npermanent of furrows. Stone engraving is\\nthe art of countries possessing marble and gems;\\nwood engraving, of countries overgrown with forest;\\nmetal engraving, of countries possessing treasures of\\nsilver and gold. And the style of a stone engraver is\\nfound on pillars and pyramids the style of a wood\\nengraver under the eaves of larch cottages the style\\nof a metal engraver in the treasuries of kings. Do\\nyou suppose I could rightly explain to you the value\\nof a single touch on brass by Finiguerra, or on box by\\nBewick, unless I had grasp of the great laws of cli-\\nmate and country; and could trace the inherited\\nsirocco or tramontana of thought to which the souls\\nand bodies of the men owed their existence\\nHe has that grasp and explains principally the\\ninheritance of the Florentine and that of the German\\nSandro Botticelli and Holbein. Holbein is a\\ncivilised boor Botticelli a re-animate Greek. And\\nthis is his admirable judgment of the relation of these\\ntwo to the recovered ancient learning and to the\\nclassic spirit that learning was probably cumbrous to\\nHolbein", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0235.jp2"}, "236": {"fulltext": "222 JOHN RUSKIN\\nBut Botticelli receives it as a child in later years\\nrecovers the forgotten clearness of a nursery tale and\\nis more himself, and again and again himself, as he\\nbreathes the air of Greece, and hears, in his own\\nItaly, the lost voice of the Sibyl murmur again by the\\nAvernus Lake. It destroys Raphael but it\\ngraces him, and is a part of him. It all but destroys\\nMantegna but it graces him. And it does not hurt\\nHolbein, just because it does not grace him never\\nfor an instant is part of him.\\nWas ever judgment more exquisite And this, on\\nFlorence herself:\\nThe second Greeks these Florentine Greeks\\nre-animate are human more strongly, more deeply,\\nleaping from the Byzantine death at the call of\\nChrist, Loose him and let him go\\nTake also this great passage. Ruskin himself avers\\nthat it contains the most audacious, and the most\\nvaluable, statement he had made, on practical art, in\\nthese lectures. He had seen that the study of anat-\\nomy brought with it a certain injury, but he had\\nsought the ruin of the Masters Tintoretto for ex-\\nample elsewhere\\nAnd then at last I got hold of the true clue II\\ndisegno di Michelangiolo. And the moment I had\\ndared to accuse that, it explained everything; and I\\nsaw that the betraying demons of Italian art, led on\\nby Michael Angelo, had been, not pleasure, but\\nknowledge not indolence, but ambition j and not\\nlove, but horror.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0236.jp2"}, "237": {"fulltext": "ARIADNE FLORENTINA 223\\nFrom the study of Botticelli s Sibyls, full of divine\\nperceptions, I take this little passage it adorns the\\ndescription of the Libyan Sibyl, loveliest of the\\nSouthern Pythonesses\\nA less deep thinker than Botticelli would have\\nmade her parched with thirst, and burnt with heat.\\nBut the voice of God, through nature, to the Arab or\\nthe Moor, .is not in the thirst, but in the fountain, not\\nin the desert, but in the grass of it. And this Libyan\\nSibyl is the spirit of wild grass and flowers, springing\\nin desolate places.\\nIn treating of Holbein, with a triumph for Hol-\\nbein s simplicity over even Diirer s gifts, Ruskin\\nmakes use of some theology. He ought not to have\\npermitted himself to use other men s habits of phrase\\nby speaking of an Indulgence as a permission to\\nsin. The knowledge that, according to the defini-\\ntion of those who hold the doctrine, an Indulgence\\n(or remission of canonical penance) cannot be gained\\nat all without a resolution never to commit any sin of\\nany kind whatever, is knowledge easily accessible.\\nHere, finally, is the magnificent page, on one of the\\nplates of the Dance of Death\\nThe labourer s country cottage the rain coming\\nthrough its roof, the clay crumbling from its parti-\\ntions, the fire lighted with a few chips and sticks on\\na raised piece of the mud floor. But the\\nmother can warm the child s supper of bread and milk\\nso holding the pan by the long handle and on mud\\nfloor though it be, they are happy she and her child,\\nand its brother if only they could be left so. They", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0237.jp2"}, "238": {"fulltext": "224 JOHN RUSKIN\\nshall not be left so the young thing must leave them\\nwill never need milk to be warmed for it any more.\\nIt would fain stay sees no angels feels only an icy\\ngrip on its hand, and that it cannot stay. Those who\\nlove it shriek and tear their hair in vain, amazed in\\ngrief. Oh, little one, thou must lie out in the fields\\nthen, not even under this poor torn roof of thy moth-\\ner s to-night", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0238.jp2"}, "239": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XXII\\nVAL D ARNO (1874)\\nThese ten Slade Lectures are historical studies of\\nTuscan art during that great act of the war of Guelph\\nand Ghibelline which had its centre in the middle of\\nthe thirteenth century in the city of Florence. The\\nreader may hesitate at the outset to undertake Val d*\\nArno if he fears politics so transfigured as in the third\\nparagraph, in which the mountains rehearse the solid\\nand rational authority of the State; and the clouds\\nthe more or less spectral, hooded, imaginative, and\\nnubiform authority of the Pope, and Church. Fur-\\nthermore, Ruskin uses the names of the Montagus or\\nMontacutes, and the Capulets or Cappelletti the\\nhatted, scarlet-hatted, or hooded as but lurking\\nnames for Ghibelline and Guelph and in the tower\\nand the dome he sees figures of the same two powers\\ndividing the great Middle Ages, and contending in\\narms upon the Lombard plains and in the valley of\\nthat Tuscan river which carried the whispers of Flor-\\nence to the walled banks of the seaward city. These\\nallegories in act are somewhat excessive in their in-\\ngenuity but the history that follows shows Ruskin s\\nsevere hold of facts, the facts upon which the historian\\nwaits as a surgeon upon the pulse of a man he cannot\\nhelp. Ruskin has to tell vital history, and therefore\\nspiritual history and he looks so closely for spiritual\\n225", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0239.jp2"}, "240": {"fulltext": "226 JOHN RUSKIN\\nhuman meaning into the ambiguous faces of Charles\\nof Anjou and Manfred, Frederick II. and Innocent\\nIV. (very much in the manner of Carlyle, whom he\\ncalled his master), that it is well he should have the\\nresolution to withdraw, in turn, to the distance that\\ncommands the origins and issues of human history,\\nand that from a high place he should see also these\\nsimilitudes of clouds and armies, mountains and dy-\\nnasties, and men as trees walking.\\nRuskin is punctual in his science of historical judg-\\nment, and will not allow a passage of five years in\\nthat great mid-century, the thirteenth, to leave so much\\nas one equivocal record. And as the momentous\\nwork done by Nicola Pisano yields all its significance\\nto this scrutiny, so does that antique work which\\nprompted him. So like each other as a pod and a bud\\nmay seem in the eyes of those who do not well know\\nthe plant, so may the decadence and the promise of\\nthat various Greek work which we call Byzantine.\\nAs to some passage of sculpture we may ask, is this\\nthe impotence of decline or rather of the time after\\ndecline, or is it the difficulty of youth Somewhat\\nthere is, hampered or folded in the right sense im-\\nplicit. From Val cfdrno we learn that both the with-\\nered and the vital existed in contemporary Greek\\nwork twelfth-century Byzantine some of this art\\nwas in the husk and some in the sheath, if one may\\nuse again the figure of the plant. Vasari did not dis-\\ntinguish the one from the other and some that is of\\nthe husk is held in honour at the Lateran, and some\\nthat is of the sheath at Pisa.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0240.jp2"}, "241": {"fulltext": "VAL d aRNO 227\\nFrom the Sarcophagus with Meleager s hunt on it\\nNicola Pisano learnt that which was the beginning of\\nModern Art. This derivation of life, which to the\\nless accurate eye seemed to be going forward in a gen-\\neral and broadcast revival, Ruskin traces through this\\none strait way, through this one Greek sculpture and\\nthis one Tuscan sculptor, showing it to be here, and\\nhere only,, a derivation of veritable life one genealogy,\\nthe counsels of one mind, one genius, one little ten\\nyears work how narrow is the pass, how slight the\\nthread, how single the issue The authentic art, how\\nlocal, and how brief! In the pulpit of Nicola at Pisa\\n(the student may study the model at South Kensing-\\nton) and especially in its five cusped arches trefoils\\nRuskin, as single in the recognition as the Pisan in\\nthe design, recognised the first architecture of Gothic\\nChristianity, and discovered its point of junction with\\nthe art of Greece. He defends and holds this pass\\nof authenticity, this patent, despite some adverse\\nguides who seem to have pushed their way by other\\noutlets but let it be borne in mind that what Ruskin\\nhas traced of the delicate differences in the history of\\nart he has gauged not by the eye only, but also by the\\nfinger. He has followed the sculptor by drawing\\nhas felt sensibly and directly the direction of the by-\\ngone human hand has remembered in tranquillity\\nthe emotion of another; and has traced the working\\nof hour by hour that was charged with all the fortunes\\nof the Second Civilisation. A pulpit was this sig-\\nnificant piece of art, not an altar, nor a tomb and\\nthe Greek sculpture that inspired it was on a sarcoph-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0241.jp2"}, "242": {"fulltext": "228 JOHN RUSKIN\\nagus facts that somewhat (though rather by chance)\\njar with Ruskin s conclusion to this same chapter\\nChristian architecture is for the glory of\\ndeath, and is to the end definable as archi-\\ntecture of the tomb. Upon this follows a fine pas-\\nsage upon tombs and their treasure, with the incidental\\naddition\\nIt has been thought, gentlemen, that there is a fine\\nGothic revival in your streets of Oxford, because you\\nhave a Gothic door to your County Bank. Remember,\\nat all events, it was other kind of buried treasure, and\\nbearing other interest, which Nicola Pisano s Gothic\\nwas set to guard.\\nAt Perugia arose the marble sculptured fountain of\\nGiovanni Pisano, at Siena that of Jacopo della\\nOuercia. Ruskin felt bitter regret that he had not\\nseen the Sienese fountain, before it had been torn to\\npieces and restored, except with heedless eyes when\\nhe had been a boy.\\nI observe that Charles Dickens had the fortune\\ndenied to me. The market-place, or great Piazza,\\nis a large square, with a great broken-nosed fountain\\nin it. (Pictures from Italy.)\\nThe historical essay contained in these lectures\\nbegins with a passage that opens a door from on high\\nupon a historic country. As the generalising historian\\nof our first lessons was wont to talk of watersheds and\\nwatering rivers, dull as a map, Ruskin, using an\\nequally large gesture, shows a landscape-nation the\\nvalleys of Lombardy, of Etruria, and of Rome of the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0242.jp2"}, "243": {"fulltext": "VAL DARNO 229\\nPo, the Arno, and the Tiber fertile with the various\\nvitality of Italy the chivalry of Germany, of France,\\nand of the Saracen riding those fields in war. Against\\nsome brief historic judgments in his own wilful man-\\nner sudden judgments making, strangely enough, a\\nhasty end of prolonged and difficult thought the\\nreader revolts. Here is one Before the twelfth\\ncentury the nations were too savage to be Christian,\\nand after the fifteenth too carnal. To the glory of\\nthese four hundred years, then, he sacrifices at a blow\\nthe Thebaid, Chrysostom and Nazianzen, Augustine\\nand Gregory, and the multitude of Bishoprics of\\nNorth Africa, and the great Christian peasant popu-\\nlations of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and\\nnineteenth centuries, who have laboured in patience\\nupon Breton, Provencal, Lombard, Tuscan, Irish\\nearth. It is of nations, not of States, that Ruskin\\nspeaks otherwise, we should have granted him that\\nStates have not been Christian the historian can\\nhardly venture to claim that name for the German\\nEmpire or the French Monarchy, or the temporal\\npower of the Papacy. Ruskin further explains his\\nfour hundred years\\nThe delicacy of sensation and refinements of\\nimagination necessary to understand Christianity be-\\nlong to the mid period when men, risen from a life of\\nbrutal hardship, are not yet fallen to one of brutal\\nluxury.\\nWhether brutal luxury is a name fit for the softer arts\\nof life to use the usual word, the comforts\\nlearnt by mankind since the fifteenth century, I know", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0243.jp2"}, "244": {"fulltext": "23O JOHN RUSK.IN\\nnot it is at any rate a tenable opinion that the most\\nbrutal thing about them is that they belong to a minority.\\nBut granting this, there are yet perpetual generations\\nof men living in precisely this condition, u risen from\\na life of brutal hardship and not yet fallen to one of\\nbrutal luxury. Assuredly that condition was not\\nconfined to a few violent and unhappy centuries,\\ncenturies when for a superstition little children were\\ndashed against the stones of their poor villages, Im-\\nperial or Papal when, for a calumny, the young devout\\nTemplars, flowers of masculine innocence, self-\\nsacrifice, and good faith, were burnt alive, a score at\\none time when, for a jealousy of trade, one furious\\ncity lay in wait for the destruction of another when\\nthe revenge upon a political enemy was to hew his\\nson s head off before his eyes, so as to make a last\\nspectacle for those eyes before they were put out, and\\nten years in a dungeon without a page to read or a\\ntree to look at was a common prelude to penal death.\\nNot then only did a people obscure, unnamed, in-\\nnumerable, live somewhere between savagery and lux-\\nury, but century by century ever since then. All the\\ncenturies have brought this life to pass, and the race\\nhas followed this narrow way by a multitude that no\\nman can number. Moreover, is that passage, between\\ncrude conditions and effete, trodden only by a people\\ncorporately A man lately freed from the main force\\nthat compelled his childhood, and generously simple\\nin that freedom, not yet slothful or fond of money, is\\nsomewhat in the condition of Ruskin s nations, re-\\nleased from savagery and not corrupt.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0244.jp2"}, "245": {"fulltext": "VAL D ARNO 23I\\nFrom that more direct teaching of art, for which the\\nstudent will consult Val cf Arno, may be cited a subtle\\nrefutation, or rather correction, of the modern prin-\\nciple as to decorating construction. A brief study\\nof the decoration of the porch of the Baptistery at\\nPisa shows us how arbitrary is all great decoration.\\nConstruction is followed indeed, but with happy choice,\\ndecision, and difference, whereby one member is richly\\nand intently adorned, and another left blank the con-\\nstruction giving no suggestion of such caprice. To\\ndecorate your construction, we learn, is a good rule\\nfor one who should be barely conscious of it but for\\na sculptor without the good fortune of genius it is at\\nonce too much and too little it shows the way but does\\nnot teach the walk; and he who thinks he has but to\\nfollow the road would have a languid movement. So,\\ntoo, would the rhymer who wrote ibics without in-\\nspiration in the transposition of 2 -cents and of quan-\\ntities. As, in The Seven Lamps, Ruskin showed how\\nth~ outer colouring of buildings had all its vitality in\\nits own arbitrary design, so he shows the sculptural\\ndecoration to have also, though less independently, a\\nlife of its own. The life of the material, too, he\\ntouches in the chapters on Marble Couchant and\\nMarble Rampant, and the nature, the place, and\\nthe history of the stone, respected by the ancient\\nbuilders, who laid it as it had lain in the quarry. And\\nhere, by the way, is another of those sayings that\\nshould long ago have corrected the usual misunder-\\nstanding of Ruskin s doctrine You are\\nan artist by animating your copy of nature into vital", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0245.jp2"}, "246": {"fulltext": "232 JOHN RUSKIN\\nvariation. Ruskin goes on to tell that the reserved\\nvariation of the Greeks had for a time escaped him,\\nbut that he had at last found them to be as various as\\nthe Goths and that the Greek sea or river whirl-pool,\\nvaried infinitely, was the main source of the spiral or\\nrampant decoration of Gothic, and of the luxuriant\\ndesign of the early Pisans. Of Giovanni Pisano\\nRuskin has written: To him you owe\\nthe grace of Ghiberti, the tenderness of Raphael, the\\nawe of Michael Angelo. Second-rate qualities in all\\nthree, but precious in their kind. Great is this\\nmind that recognises the awe of Buonarroti as the\\nsecond-rate quality of a great man. Ruskin s mind\\nwas in fact immortally antique, and in possession of\\ninseparable Greek antecedents, whatever it found to\\ndo in the altering world. The ethical sermon of Val\\ncT Arno is chiefly on that text of Carlyle s whereof the\\nwarning has been in vain\\nThis idle habit of accounting for the moral\\nsense the moral sense, thank God, is a thing you\\nnever will account for. By no greatest\\nhappiness principle, greatest nobleness principle, or\\nany principle whatever, will you make that in the\\nleast clearer. Visible infinites:\\nsay nothing of them for you can say\\nnothing wise.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0246.jp2"}, "247": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XXIII\\nDEUCALION (1875-1883)\\nIn 1875 Ruskin prefaced Deucalion with an ironic\\nsketch of the unachieved work for which he had until\\nthen collected material an analysis of the Attic art\\nof the fifth century B.C.; an exhaustive history of\\nnorthern thirteenth-century art a history of Floren-\\ntine fifteenth-century art a life of Turner, with\\nanalysis of modern landscape art a life of Walter\\nScott a life of Xenophon, with analysis of the gen-\\neral principles of education a commentary on Hesiod\\nand a general description of the geology and botany\\nof the Alps. Meanwhile, at the outset of this little\\nwork, chiefly on geology, he finds place for a brilliant\\nessay on heraldic colours, fairly proves gules to be\\nderived from the Zoroastrian word for rose, and not\\nfrom the Latin and Romance words for a red throat\\nof prey quotes St. Bernard on this accidental sub-\\nject, and corrects the badgers skins that were\\nhung with rams skins upon the Tabernacle of Israel,\\nto seals from the sea-flocks that then swam the\\nMediterranean by the city of Phocoea, and were as-\\nsigned to Proteus in the Odyssey. Deucalion, Proser-\\npina, and an essay on birds Love s Afeinie\u00e2\u0080\u0094are the\\nnearest approach that other labours allowed to the\\nworks on natural history threatened, with a smile\\nthe geology and botany were to be in twenty-four\\n233", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0247.jp2"}, "248": {"fulltext": "234 JOHN RUSKIN\\nvolumes and they are strangely complete, full of\\nthat natural fact which Ruskin has acknowledged as\\nat once the justification and the judge of art, the be-\\nginning and the never-attainable end. It is perhaps\\nwith a contemptuous consent to be, by some, misread,\\nthat in his contention on glaciers with Professor Tyn-\\ndall he often slights the name of science and man\\nof science whereas obviously it was on the point\\nof science that issue was joined, and if he did not re-\\nproach his adversary in that this adversary was too\\nlittle and not too much a man of science, he re-\\nproached him to no purpose. Ruskin, intending to\\nteach the form of mountains as they have stood since\\nman was man, and as they have suffered the daily\\nstrokes of rains or have carried the varying burden\\nof snow, makes very sure of the little he has to tell\\nof the anatomy of those clothed figures. The up-\\nheaving forces of the first remote period and the\\nsculptural forces of the second are treated with the\\nbrevity that befits their unknown ages and immeasur-\\nable action but to the disintegrating and diffusing\\nforces of the earth as the eyes of man have known\\nit, Ruskin gives the study of many a year. The\\nhuman race has had many and many centuries in\\nwhich to watch the Alps and has made small use\\nthereof; but out of those ages of ages a little half-\\ncentury has been saved the years of this one man s\\nstudies and all that fifty years can tell, in pledge of\\nthe rest unobserved and unrecorded, was read by him\\nwith his own eyes directly, immediately, without\\nfeigning, without use of the reading of others, with", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0248.jp2"}, "249": {"fulltext": "DEUCALION 235\\nexperiment and verification experiment on the spot,\\nand experiment depending upon time. All that fifty\\nyears could tell to this watchful intellect, from first\\nto last, is told for ever, with so much of retrospect\\nand prophecy as a slow half-century of the life of\\nrocks affords. Ruskin has been for this space of time\\nthe contemporary of the Alps and of the Alpine rivers,\\nan effectual contemporary who measured the patience\\nof his years with the long labours of weather and of\\ngravitation in the heights and valleys. Of the years\\nof the Alps it may be said that fifty were also his.\\nThis specimen of mountain existence this great\\nechantillon and sample of many thousand ages, is, as\\nit were, saved and put upon human record. It is\\nsaved by one man s watch well kept, as, in another\\nregion of experience, a specimen of passionate emo-\\ntion, difficult because of its brevity, as the movement\\nof mountains is difficult because of its length, is saved\\nby the instant watch of a poet well kept, and put\\nupon human record.\\nAssuredly it is not too much to claim for Ruskin s\\nwork on the Alps and the Jura that it was, conspicu-\\nously, and unlike that of other glacialists, all observa-\\ntion and all experiment there were, in its course, no\\nguesses. Therefore he corrected some inferences of\\nhis fellow-workers and in particular ratified with a\\ngreat addition James Forbes s discovery of the general\\ninternal thaw of Alpine snows Ruskin it is who\\nfinds an argument in the. subsiding languor of the\\nflowing glacier. His work of observation is necessarily\\naccompanied by theory and by calculation. On all", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0249.jp2"}, "250": {"fulltext": "236 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthese grounds he contends with Professor Tyndall, and\\nthe contention, to be properly understood, needs much\\nmore than the mere reading of the lecture, even with\\nthe help of the diagrams. For the voice must have\\nexpressed ironies that the print does but point with a\\nnote of admiration moreover, the hearers had Mr.\\nTyndall s assertions that ice could not stretch\\nfresh in their memories, and were ready to be sur-\\nprised by Ruskin s proof that ice, in fact, could stretch.\\nNot that all was irony there was some hard hitting\\nHis incapacity of drawing, and ignorance of per-\\nspective, prevented him from constructing his dia-\\ngrams either clearly enough to show him his own\\nmistakes, or prettily enough to direct the attention of\\nhis friends to them and they luckily remain to us, in\\ntheir absurd immortality.\\nIn regard to the other subject specially under ex-\\namination the action of mountain rivers Ruskin\\nhas concluded that the cutting or deepening work of\\nthese waters was done under conditions unknown to\\nthe present race of man, and that there has been no\\naction except that of the lifting of river-beds and the\\nencumbering of water-courses, since the earth has\\nbeen man s world. But this judgment upon the facts\\nof the past whether measurably or immeasurably far\\nserves in Ruskin s studies entirely to inform the\\neyes of those who are to look upon the aspect of the\\npresent, and who need that their simplicity in under-\\nstanding and their vigilance in seeing should be\\nstrengthened by knowledge. It is the present in the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0250.jp2"}, "251": {"fulltext": "DEUCALION 237\\nact of passage that the eyes are to be made ready to\\nperceive, and the lesson is one for painters indeed\\nfor impressionists the mountain, the cleft, the water-\\ncourses with their past so sealed, and their present so\\nslowly to be known, are landscape facing the simple\\neyes of a painter. At the close of his subtle and\\nexact essentially most logical reasoning on geology\\nthe author of Deucalion refuses the name of philoso-\\npher, and avers that his teaching is that of the village\\nshowman s Look, and you shall see. But the fact\\nthat he himself has laboured so explicitly over two\\nbut partially visible things geology and the past\\nproves how much he himself had to owe to the\\npromptings and the checkings whereby knowledge\\nguards simplicity, and how little he would trust any\\nstudent but a genius to the guidance of the first sim-\\nplicity. It is surely for the second simplicity that he\\nso profoundly prepares.\\nIt must not, however, be forgotten that although\\nRuskin worked for art with the single and present in-\\ntention of giving authority to the plain observer, he\\nhad long studied the Alpine country, as he tells us,\\nwith the practical hope of arousing the attention of\\nthe Swiss and Italian peasantry to an intelligent ad-\\nministration of the natural treasures of their woods\\nand streams. And as he would have done something\\nto arrest the distress and disease of the peasantry of\\nthe Valais people who hereditary and natural adver-\\nsity had forced to grief but never to despair, so he\\nhad offered suggestions for the protection of Verona\\nfrom the turbulent Adige above the city, and for the", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0251.jp2"}, "252": {"fulltext": "238 JOHN RUSKIN\\nsuccour of the Romans from inundation. The\\nItalian Government spent the taxes of agriculture,\\nhowever, not on the defences of river cities threat-\\nened by mountain streams, but in the decking of\\nTuscan cities with Parisian boulevards.\\nAt the risk of dwelling too much upon the mere\\ncontroversy of Deucalion, I must extract the brilliant\\nphrase of rebuke\\nThe delicate experiments by the conduct of\\nwhich Professor Tyndall brought his audiences into\\nwhat he is pleased to call contact with facts (in\\nolden times we used to say l grasp of facts mod-\\nern science, for its own part, prefers, not unreason-\\nably, the term contact, expressive merely of oc-\\ncasional collision with them) must remain inconclu-\\nsive.\\nRemember always that modern science is reproved,\\nthroughout, for defect of science the phrase occa-\\nsional collision with facts, in derision of the Pro-\\nfessor s contact, is exquisitely and characteristically\\nwitty. In truth, whatever may be the chances of\\nwar as to the case in controversy, ill befalls Ruskin s\\nantagonist in words he has the scholarship, the in-\\nvention, the spirit, the delicacy, and the luck of lan-\\nguage. Take another reproof that which he ad-\\nministered to the scientific people who had taken\\nthe name of anguis, the strangling thing a name\\nthat was used in Latin for the more terrible forms of\\nsnake to give it to those which can t strangle any-\\nthing. The anguh fragilis breaks like a tobacco-pipe\\nbut imagine how disconcerting such an accident would", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0252.jp2"}, "253": {"fulltext": "DEUCALION 239\\nbe to a constrictor This occurs in the fragmen-\\ntary chapter on Living Waves, making one volume\\nwith Deucalion^ in which Ruskin accompanies (but\\nwithout contention, in this case, and with none but\\nharmonious banter) a lecture of Professor Huxley s.\\nThe chapter is a kind of spiritual version of the de-\\nvelopment of species, and a study in hereditary im-\\nagination..", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0253.jp2"}, "254": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XXIV\\nPROSERPINA (1875-1886)\\nThis gentle, ardent, and boyish boy must have\\nbreathed hard and close over his collections of min-\\nerals and plants. He was unsatisfied with knowledge,\\nand the books, few and arid, in which he looked for\\nfigures and definitions, although good in the main and\\nsure of his respect, failed him as the modern sci-\\nence of later times was to fail him he charged\\nthem with futile words and with the blanks, instead\\nof answers, that met some of his pertinent questions.\\nWhat he began over a boy s cabinet and herbarium he\\nnever afterwards forsook. He was a reader and an\\nuntiring one only in the second place he studied\\ncrystallisation and plants, as he studied the spiritual\\nnature of man, at first hand. Proserpina, a book of\\nbotany made lovely, was written to put, if it might\\nbe, some elements of the science into a\\nform more tenable by ordinary human and childish\\nfaculties than had been the form wherewith the\\nfaculties, human and childish in the highest sense, of\\nhis own elect boyhood had wrought as they could,\\ndocile and zealous, and ill-supplied, making much of\\nlittle, but yet often disappointed. Proserpina had for\\nits accessory title, Studies of Wayside Flowers while\\nthe Air was yet pure among the Alps and in the Scot-\\nland and England which my Father knew. It is\\n240", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0254.jp2"}, "255": {"fulltext": "PROSERPINA 24I\\nillustrated by the writer s noble drawings. The par-\\nticular charm of the book is that it is a real medita-\\ntion upon the theme, the work of one who lets the\\nreader see process and progress. And the value is in\\nthis that the questions it considers are problems of\\nthe flowers, which the botany book left him, as a boy\\nand afterwards, to read in their aspect and to answer\\nif he could. The first chapter is full of questions,\\nsome answered, some unanswered, on Moss the gold\\nand green and the black, which gives the precious\\nVelasquez touches and what the eye, slightly\\nhelped by a magnifying glass, sees of the tiny structure\\nof the moss of walls and woods is described with in-\\nfinite grace. The chapter on the Leaf is memorable\\nfor a paragraph in which Ruskin relates his misad-\\nventures amongst the authorities on botany in his\\nsearch of instruction as to the nature of sap. Sap\\nwas not in the index of Dresser, nor seve in that of\\nFiguier. Lindley told him of the course taken by\\nthe sap after entering a plant. My dear doctor,\\nyou know, far better than I, that sap never\\ndoes enter a plant at all but only salt, or earth and\\nwater, and that the roots alone could not make it.\\nMemorable is also this from the same chapter that\\nvital power, which scientific people are usually as\\nafraid of naming as common people are of naming\\nDeath. Ruskin proposes, as he goes, a new nomen-\\nclature, more scholarly and more strict pure Latin,\\npure Greek when a distinction is needed, pure Eng-\\nlish concurrently. Nor will he have nursery litera-\\nture to go wild with a semblance of precision, uncor-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0255.jp2"}, "256": {"fulltext": "242 JOHN RUSKIN\\nrected. This he rebukes with a sweetness that the\\nprofessors do not get from him but when a lady,\\nwriting pretty lessons for children, makes an easy\\nshow of defining a weed as a plant that has got into\\nthe wrong place, Ruskin retorts, Some plants never\\ndo. Who ever saw a wood anemone or a heath\\nblossom in the wrong place Who ever saw a nettle\\nin the right one He cannot know much,\\nby the way, of Swiss country households in spring\\nwho has not seen the good woman cutting young net-\\ntles into her apron, for the soup; good for the blood,\\nand an excellent vegetable after the salt food of a\\nmountain winter, is this. But has Ruskin or any one\\nfailed to welcome that early little tender nettle when\\nthe March earth is dark brown under the cloudy\\nskies, and full of life, and along the foot of the\\nhedgerows the sod scarce heaves for the delicate net-\\ntle and a celandine or two? Anon, Proserpina has\\nthe scentless daisy, making much of the humility\\nof that flower of light. It is true that many grown-up\\npeople never smell a daisy, which has a small fra-\\ngrance close to itself; but had Ruskin for once for-\\ngotten his early childhood These are but accidents,\\nand they merely serve to make somewhat tedious the\\nperpetual moral lessons for an example or a warning\\nto go with every flower is endurable only when all\\nthe facts are beyond question. What is important\\nand characteristic is the original and final resolve of\\nthis mind to confess and maintain the properties that\\nmen call noble, beautiful, evil, noisome, ignoble, to\\nbe so veritably, in the sense known to them and to", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0256.jp2"}, "257": {"fulltext": "PROSERPINA 243\\ntheir fathers, absolutely the perception of such qual-\\nities being not only a fact to be reckoned with, at\\nleast as gravely as other facts are reckoned with, but a\\ndivine power of the human spirit, its judgment of the\\nworld. It is perhaps an unanswerable question\\nwhether, keeping this fast hold upon the idea of an\\nessential good, Ruskin has not followed it into arbi-\\ntrary ways, attributing to things a good and an evil\\nthat are in truth nothing but the tradition of men\\nbeset by the collective memory of their primitive\\ndangers and necessities, and by the individual mem-\\nory of their own race-dreams in childhood. With the\\nmoral lesson of Proserpina, only once or twice impor-\\ntunate, and always noble, severe, and benign, are\\nmingled such feats of illustration, allusion, and in-\\ntricate history as those of the chapter on the Poppy.\\nRuskin s persevering eye saw the poppy confused with\\nthe grape by the Byzantine Greeks, and the poppy\\nand the grape with palm fruit saw the palm, in the\\nstenography of design, pass into a nameless sym-\\nmetrical ornament and thence into the Greek iris\\n(Homer s blue iris, and Pindar s water-flag); saw it\\nread by the Florentines, when they made Byzantine\\nart their own, into their fleur-de-lys, with two poppy-\\nheads on each side of the entire foil in their finest\\nheraldry; saw, on the other hand, the poppy altering\\nthe acanthus-leaf under the chisel of the Greek, until\\nthe northern worker of the twelfth century took the\\nthistle-head for the poppy, and the thistle-leaf for the\\nacanthus, the true poppy-head remaining in the south,\\nbut more and more confused with grapes, until the", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0257.jp2"}, "258": {"fulltext": "244 JOHN RUSKIN\\nRenaissance sculptors are content with any boss full\\nof seed, but insist always upon some such pod as an\\nimportant part of their ornament the bean-pods of\\nBrunelleschi s lantern at Florence, for example.\\nThrough this vast range of art note this singular\\nfact, that the wheat-ear, the vine, the fleur-de-lys, the\\npoppy, and the jagged leaf of the acanthus-weed, or\\nthistle, occupy the entire thoughts of the decorative\\nworkmen trained in classic schools, to the exclusion\\nof the rose, the true lily, and other flowers of luxury.\\nA mingling of subtle history with morals gives us\\nan admirable page on noble Scottish character in the\\nchapter on the Thistle. In that on the Stem we have\\na vigorous instruction upon that spiral growing which\\nexpresses a flame of life, as in the trunks of great\\nchestnut-trees of that subtle action Ruskin has drawn\\nan example in a waste-thistle. We have also a lesson\\nupon the structural change of direction that always\\ntakes place at the point where branches begin to assert\\nthemselves. Who else has caused us so to feel the\\nwood, its direction, its law, its liberty, its seasons, and\\nthe years of its life I, as one of so many whose\\nparents read Modern Painters in their own youth, re-\\nmember my father s pointing to a tree and telling me\\nthat whereas the Old Masters were apt to draw the\\nstem of a diminishing or tapering form, Ruskin had\\nmade us all to see that no stem ever grows less until\\nit puts forth a branch, and no branch until it puts forth\\na twig. And ever after I have felt the stem live, as I\\ncould never have felt it had I continued to think it a", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0258.jp2"}, "259": {"fulltext": "PROSERPINA 245\\nthing so paltry that it could diminish as it grew. Who\\nbut Ruskin, moreover, has had this sense of the mathe-\\nmatics of tender things I never saw such a lovely\\nperspective line as the pure front leaf profile, he says\\nof some violet.\\nOne of the principal intentions in the writing of\\nProserpina was the planning with a boy s pleasure\\nadded to a scholar s of the new terminology that was\\nto be acceptable to students in the five languages\\nGreek, Latin, French, Italian, and English\\nu I shall not be satisfied unless I can feel that the\\nlittle maids who gather their first violets under the\\nAcropolis rock may receive for them iEschylean words\\nagain with joy. I shall not be content, unless the\\nmothers watching their children at play, in the Ceram-\\nrcus of Paris, may yet teach them there\\nto know the flowers which the Maid of Orleans gath-\\nered at Domremy. I shall not be satisfied unless every\\nword I ask from the lips of the children of Florence\\nand Rome may enable them better to praise the flow-\\ners that are chosen by the hand of Matilda and bloom\\naround the tomb of Virgil.\\nIncidentally we have a brief passage of autobiog-\\nraphy telling how Ruskin travelled when he was young,\\nin a little carnage of his own, full of pockets and\\nan inn is mentioned as having been described by\\nDickens in his wholly matchless manner. Wholly\\nmatchless and it is this great describer who says so.\\nNow and then there is a slight shock of encounter be-\\ntween them. At Boulogne Dickens thanked Heaven\\nthat no Englishman had been up the tower in the high", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0259.jp2"}, "260": {"fulltext": "246 JOHN RUSICIN\\nwalled town, to measure it at that time Ruskin was,\\nin fact, measuring towers. Finally, from this little\\nbook on Botany, written with great simplicity, may be\\ntaken a description by Ruskin of his own language\\nHonest English, of good Johnsonian lineage, touched\\nhere and there with colour of a little finer of Eliza-\\nbethan quality.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0260.jp2"}, "261": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XXV\\nguide books\\nMornings in Florence (1875-1877)\\nSt. Mark s Rest (1877-1884)\\nThe Bible of Amiens (1880-1885)\\nMornings in Florence was written definitely as a\\nguide-book for six mornings with six lessons to be\\nlearnt in them. The chapters on Giotto are of the\\nfirst importance the reader cannot in this volume be\\ntaken, even briefly, through Giotto at Padua (1853-\\n1860), or the abundant studies of Giotto s works at\\nAssisi, widely scattered through Ruskin s writings\\nbut he must understand Giotto to be Ruskin s original\\nmaster in mediaeval lineal art, as Nicola Pisano in me-\\ndiaeval sculpture and Florence is Giotto s own city,\\ncontaining his work done at all dates between his\\ntwelfth year and his sixtieth. Ruskin teaches us how\\nto connect the work of his best time with his work in\\narchitecture, and with the Franciscan Order. To\\nGiotto s fresco at Santa Maria Novella we are led\\nthrough a rich overture, and here is a\\ntune of four notes, on a shepherd s pipe. The theme\\nis the meeting of St. Joachim and St. Anne, as it would\\nbe according to Shakespeare or Giotto. There,\\ntoo, is his Presentation of the Virgin\\n247", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0261.jp2"}, "262": {"fulltext": "248 JOHN RUSKIN\\nThe boy who tried so hard to draw those steps\\nin perspective had been carried down others, to his\\ngrave, two hundred years before Titian ran alone at\\nCadore. But, as surely as Venice looks on the sea,\\nTitian looked on this, and caught the reflected light\\nof it for ever.\\nColour, too, Giotto founded. But all he began of\\nMediaeval art was the continuation of Antiquity.\\nHis painting of a Gothic chapel Ruskin affirms to be\\nbut the painting of a Greek vase inverted, with the\\nfigures on the concave, as those on the convex, sur-\\nface, bent in and out, possibly and impossibly, but\\nalways living and full of grace\\nEvery line of the Florentine chisel in the fif-\\nteenth century is based on national principles of art\\nwhich existed in the seventh century before Christ.\\nThe chapter called The Shepherd s Tower is\\nalso, of course, on Giotto and the tower was\\nwritten of divinely in The Seven Lamps. Here we\\nhave a close reading of the sculptures of the cam-\\npanile, whether Giotto s own or Andrea Pisano s\\nand Ruskin has worked delicately in distinguishing\\nthe two. Delicate also are the suggestions of the\\nscience of proportion in the chapter called The\\nVaulted Book\\nBeauty is given by the relation of parts size by\\ntheir comparison. The first secret in getting the im-\\npression of size in this chapel [the Spanish chapel,\\nSanta Maria Novella] is the ^proportion between\\npillar and arch. Another great, but more", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0262.jp2"}, "263": {"fulltext": "GUIDE BOOKS 249\\nsubtle secret is in the /^equality and immeasurability\\nof the curved lines and the hiding of the form by\\nthe colour.\\nSt. Mark s Rest has in part the character of a re-\\ncantation. As the Stones of Venice praised Titian,\\nTintoretto, and Giorgione, so St. Mark s Rest turns\\nwith an impulse of recognition, of regret for time\\nlost, and of ardent reparation and tenderness, to the\\nwork of Carpaccio. If it were not nearly a cruel\\nirreverence to say so, it might be said that John Rus-\\nkin too, as well as Europe, had had his Renaissance\\nalthough his Renaissance was controlled, justified,\\nand maintained in the dignity of incorruption, unlike\\nthe world s. This abundant Paradise of Tintoretto,\\nthese doges, this glory, what was it else, even though\\nits warmth kept it clean as living creatures are clean\\nWarm in the colour of Titian, this Renaissance was\\nwarmer still in the heart of Ruskin, but Renaissance\\nit was, for the date attests it; while the great\\npainters were at their splendid work, architecture\\nand sculpture, sealed with the sign of the Renais-\\nsance, were going together fast to indignity and\\ndeath.\\nRuskin, like Europe, had had his Primitive days,\\nhis trecento and his quattrocento, before the great\\nhour when he had first seen Tintoretto in glory.\\nThe universal custom of change passed upon him\\ntoo. Doubtless he never knew for it is peculiar to\\ngenius not to know how much his lot was the com-\\nmon lot, or how usual it is with men and women, as\\nwell as with mankind, to make the progress from a", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0263.jp2"}, "264": {"fulltext": "25O JOHN RUSKIN\\ntrecento to a cinquecento in due time. What befel\\nhim was, to him, unheard of, even though he was\\ngiving all his years to the study of a like movement\\nin history, for he brought to every change his own in-\\ncomparable freshness and the surprises of an authentic\\nexperience. He made his great discoveries with an\\nenterprising spirit, and when he had taken his fill of\\nhis Renaissance he retraced his own eager and urgent\\nfootsteps, and sought the earlier of the Venetian\\npainters (much earlier in spirit and a little earlier in\\ntime), and, far behind them, the mosaics of the\\nByzantine Greeks. It was not that he had not\\nstudied these in the past. The Stones of Venice\\nproves with what admiration he had read that Bible\\nof Venice St. Mark s on his first visit to the\\ncity of tremulous streets but now, in a third\\nphase of thought, he rediscovered all things, being\\ngreatly and freshly moved, and thinking, like the\\ndisciple in the Imitation, all he had done, until then,\\nto be nothing.\\nThe reading-lesson begins at the farthest side of\\nSt. Mark s from the sea, at a panel set horizontally\\na sculpture of twelve sheep, a throne between six and\\nsix, a cross thereon, a circle, and within the circle u a\\nlittle caprioling creature, the Lamb of God. This\\nis true Greek work, the work of the teacher of the\\nVenetian (as in another place we saw the Greek work\\nthat instructed the Pisan), and Ruskin has done no\\nmore important work in the history of art than this\\nlinking of the antique with the new. Is it perhaps\\nGibbon with his Fall of Rome that so darkens the", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0264.jp2"}, "265": {"fulltext": "GUIDE BOOKS 25 I\\nair of some eight hundred years with a squalid dust-\\nstorm of demolition as to obscure our sight of the\\nunquenched lights of the mind of man Ruskin\\njoins day to human day again, as the days of nature\\nand the sun followed one another undimmed.\\nAfter the Byzantine panel, then, come the two\\nsculptures that are the earliest real Venetian work\\nfound by Ruskin in his search amongst Venetian\\nstones. These are no longer purely symbolical, no\\nlonger a kind of stone-stitching or samplerwork,\\ndone with the innocence of a girl s heart, but\\nardently and laboriously sculptural it is Venetian\\nwork of the early thirteenth century it is traceable\\nthrough sixteen hundred years to the sculptors of the\\nParthenon and it is the first Venetian St. George.\\nThis immortal symbol-story story of Perseus be-\\nfore it was a story of a saint Ruskin follows up to\\nthe heights of the great time of sculpture before the\\nclose of the fifteenth century. The house that bore\\nthis work of culmination has been destroyed since\\nRuskin led his traveller, with so much delight, to the\\nstudy of its panel. Not so the Scuola of St. Theo-\\ndore, carrying the sculpture of the mid-seventeenth\\ncentury with its Raphaelesque attitude and its drapery\\nsupremely, exquisitely bad nor that which bore\\nthe yet later decoration the last of all done by\\nVenice for herself and not for tourists the last im-\\naginations of her polluted heart, before death.\\nThe chapter called Shadow on the Dial shows the\\nmoral history of Venice to be but an intense ab-\\nstract of the history of every nation in Europe.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0265.jp2"}, "266": {"fulltext": "252 JOHN RUSKIN\\nAnd this history can be approached by a modern reader\\nin the spirit of our numerous cockney friends who\\nare sure that the fervour of Christian Venice u was\\nmerely such a cloak for her commercial appetite as\\nmodern church-going is for modern swindling or\\nelse in a spirit of respect for a faith that was but an\\nexquisite dream of mortal childhood (and this Ruskin\\ncalls the theory of the splendid mendacity of Heaven\\nand majestic somnambulism of man or, thirdly,\\nin the modest and rational spirit that confesses men to\\nbe in all ages deceived by their own guilty passions,\\nbut not altogether deprived of the perception of the\\nrays from a Divinity in nature revealed to such as de-\\nsire to see the day of the Son of Man. In this\\nspirit and with this desire does Ruskin begin again that\\nhistory of Venetian art which he had told thirty years\\nearlier begins it struck, almost into silence, by\\nwonder at my own pert little Protestant mind. He\\nleaves, he says, the blunder of his youth standing in\\nthe Stones of Venice, like Dr. Johnson repentant in\\nLitchfield Market but the blunder seems to be no\\nmore than a neglect of St. Mark himself and of his\\nsepulture in the cathedral, with all that the possession\\nof this national treasure his body imported to the\\nVenetian heart. From the history briefly re-written I\\ntake this lovely phrase in description of the first, lowly,\\nwooden Venice of the early centuries Ruskin calls\\nher this amphibious city, this sea-dog of towns, look-\\ning with soft human eyes at you from the sand.\\nWhen, in course of time, we come to the day of the\\npress, Ruskin announces u printing, and the universal", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0266.jp2"}, "267": {"fulltext": "GUIDE BOOKS\\n253\\ngabble of fools. We need to remember his former\\nphrase of pity for peasants who have no books. There\\nis a beautiful wayside page about the field that once\\nspread wild flowers to the sea-winds before every col-\\noured church in Venice before St. Mark s itself.\\nRuskin himself had passed one of his happiest of all\\nhours, looking out of a church upon a flowering field,\\nin England. And here, also by the way, is a passage\\non the Gothic sense of life\\nThe Northern spiral is always elastic.\\nThe Greek spiral drifted like that of a whirlpool or\\nwhirlwind. It is always an eddy or vortex not a\\nliving rod like the point of a young fern.\\nThe remainder of the historical essay is a reading\\nof the mosaic and sculpture of St. Mark s the codex\\nof the religion of Venice.\\nThe first supplement has for title The Shrine\\nof the Slaves (the Schiavoni), and is a guide to the\\nprincipal works of Carpaccio, whom Ruskin calls\\nthe wonderfullest of Venetian harlequins. Fore-\\nmost is Carpaccio s St. George you shall not find\\nanother piece quite the like of that little piece of\\nwork, for supreme, serene, unassuming, unfaltering\\nsweetness of painter s perfect art, Ruskin says of the\\nfirst of these and further on he guides us through\\nthe series of the St. Jerome paintings. Ruskin studied\\nLuini at Milan alternately with Carpaccio at Venice,\\nfor love of Luini was another sign of Ruskin s\\nreaction against his former Renaissance; and the\\ncomparison of the two painters is one of the loveliest", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0267.jp2"}, "268": {"fulltext": "254 JOHN RUSKIN\\npassages of Ruskin s work on the purer Italian\\nart.\\nThat part of the Bible of Amiens which places the\\nbook in this chapter of Guide-books is no more than\\nthe after-part and the volume was originally intended\\nto form one of the series bearing the general title Our\\nFathers have told us, planned to present local divisions\\nof Christian history, and to gather, u towards their\\nclose, into united illustration of the power of the\\nChurch in the Thirteenth Century. The whole\\nproject was never fulfilled.\\nThe cathedral of Amiens stands in Ruskin s book\\nas the representative work of the Franks in this north-\\nwestern part of the country, and the centuries that\\nprepared for the erection of such a sign as this the\\nParthenon of Gothic architecture are told in a few\\nchapters, with the avowed intention of showing the\\nstudent the virtues, and not the crimes, of the remote\\npast. In as much as it was not the crimes of the sons\\nof the Frank and Goth that raised this cluster of flow-\\nered sculpture, doubtless Ruskin works duly to the\\npurpose of his book. He shows us the few centuries\\n(three after the birth of Christ) during which the peo-\\nple of this region paid a belated homage to the gods\\nof Rome, and the coming, preaching, and martyrdom\\nof Saint Firmin in little Amiens, seated by her eleven\\nstreams, as, twelve hundred years later, the carvings\\nof the cathedral were to record. A grave for the\\nmartyr in a garden, a little oratory over the grave\\nand here was erected the first bishopric on the soil of\\nGaul and when the Franks themselves came from", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0268.jp2"}, "269": {"fulltext": "GUIDE BOOKS 255\\nthe north, here was their first capital. Two legends\\nare told in this sketch of history the story of St.\\nMartin, and that of St. Genevieve St. Martin, the\\nRoman soldier, who in the thirty-first winter after the\\ncoming of St. Firmin, when men were dying of the\\nfrost, cut his cloak in two with his sword, to cover a\\nbeggar St. Martin, who was afterwards Bishop of\\nTours, and an influence of unmixed good to all\\nmankind, then and afterwards, and who took his\\nepiscopal vestment from his shoulders at a church\\nceremony, as he had rent his cloak, for gift to a beg-\\ngar. Ruskin teaches us of what small moment it is\\nwhether these things came to pass in fact, and of what\\ngreat moment that they were told. There is also the\\nhobnobbing of the same St. Martin, at table opposite\\nto the Emperor of Germany, with the beggar behind\\nhis chair\\nYou are aware that in Royal feasts in those days\\npersons of much inferior rank in society were allowed\\nin the hall got behind people s chairs, and saw and\\nheard what was going on, while they unobtrusively\\npicked up crumbs and licked trenchers.\\nThe legend of St. Genevieve is of the wild fifth\\ncentury\\nSeven years old she was, when, on his way to\\nEngland from Auxerre, Saint Germain passed a night\\nin her village, and among the children who brought\\nhim on his way noticed this one wider-\\neyed in reverence than the rest drew her to him,\\nquestioned her, and was sweetly answered that she", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0269.jp2"}, "270": {"fulltext": "256 JOHN RUSKIN\\nwould fain be Christ s handmaid. And he hung\\nround her neck a small copper coin, marked with a\\ncross. More than Nitocris was to Egypt,\\nmore than Semiramis to Nineveh, more than Zenobia\\nto the city of palm-trees this seven years old shep-\\nherd maiden became to Paris and her France.\\nThe description of the cathedral is to be followed\\nby a reading of the stone sculptures, on the spot.\\nBut I must extract this, on the wood-work\\nAisles and porches, lancet windows and roses,\\nyou can see elsewhere as well as here but such car-\\npenter s work you cannot. It is late, fully-devel-\\noped flamboyant just past the fifteenth century and\\nhas some Flemish stolidity mixed with the playing\\nFrench fire of it. Sweet and young-grained\\nwood it is oak trained and chosen for such work,\\nsound now as four hundred years since. Under the\\ncarver s hand it seems to cut like clay, to fold like\\nsilk, to grow like living branches, to leap like living\\nflame.\\nThe apse at Amiens, we learn, is the first thing\\ndone perfectly in its manner by Northern Christen-\\ndom the best work here is the work of the only ten\\nperfect years, so that from nave to transept built no\\nmore than ten years later there is a little change,\\nnot towards decline, but a not quite necessary pre-\\ncision.\\nWho built it, shall we ask God and Man, is\\nthe first and most true answer. The stars in their\\ncourses built it, and the Nations. Greek Athena\\nlabours here and Roman Father Jove, and Guardian", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0270.jp2"}, "271": {"fulltext": "GUIDE BOOKS 257\\nMars. The Gaul labours here, and the Frank;\\nknightly Norman, mighty Ostrogoth, and wasted\\nanchorite of Idumea.\\nIn this place shall be extracted a page that the\\ntraveller should take with him to Lucca the descrip-\\ntion of that tomb of Ilaria del Caretto, the work of\\nJacopo della Quercia, which, seen by Ruskin in his\\nyouth and often seen again, shared with a height of\\nthe Alps, a valley of the Jura, an allegory of Giotto,\\na myth of Pallas, the rule over Ruskin s life. The\\npassage is in The Three Colours of Pre-Raph a elitism\\nThis sculpture is central in every respect being\\nthe last Florentine work in which the proper form of\\nEtruscan tomb is preserved, and the first in which all\\nright Christian sentiment respecting death is em-\\nbodied. This, as a central work, has all\\nthe peace of the Christian Eternity, but only in part\\nits gladness. Young children wreath round the tomb\\na garland of abundant flowers, but she herself, Ilaria,\\nyet sleeps; the time is not yet come for her to be\\nawakened out of sleep. Her image is a simple portrait\\nof her how much less beautiful than she was in life\\nwe cannot know but as beautiful as marble can be.\\nAnd through and in the marble we may see that the\\ndamsel is not dead, but sleepeth yet as visibly a sleep\\nthat shall know no ending until the last day break,\\nand the last shadow flee away until then, she shall\\nnot return. Her hands are laid on her breast not\\npraying she has no need to pray now. She wears\\nher dress of every day, clasped at her throat, girdled at\\nher waist, the hem of it drooping over her feet. No\\ndisturbance of its folds by pain or sickness, no binding,\\nno shrouding of her sweet form, in death more than in", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0271.jp2"}, "272": {"fulltext": "258 JOHN RUSKIN\\nlife. As a soft, low wave of summer sea, her breast\\nrises no more the rippled gathering of its close\\nmantle droops to her belt, then sweeps to her feet,\\nstraight as drifting snow. And at her feet her dog\\nlies watching her the mystery of his mortal life\\njoined, by love, to her immortal one. Few know,\\nand fewer love the tomb and its place not shrine,\\nfor it stands bare by the cathedral wall. But\\nno goddess statue of the Greek cities, no nun s image\\namong the cloisters of Apennine, no fancied light of\\nangel in the homes of heaven, has more divine rank\\namong the thoughts of men/", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0272.jp2"}, "273": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XXVI\\nfors clavigera (1871-1884)\\nThis collection of papers being in part biographical,\\nI have placed it somewhat out of its chronological\\nturn, so as immediately to precede Prceterita in closing\\nthe volume.\\nThe name is explained by Ruskin at the outset.\\nFors Clavigera is the fate or fortune that bears a club,\\na key, a nail, signifying the deed of Hercules, the\\npatience of Ulysses, the law of Lycurgus.\\nOf the seven years volumes of the first series I\\ncannot hope to make even the all-imperfect indication\\n(exposition it can hardly be called) the little popular\\nguide that I have attempted in the case of the other\\nworks of capital importance. The running theme\\nof this book is too various, too allusive; it is not a\\nbook as the others are books. Unity of purpose it\\nhas, but it has the form of letters Letters to the Work-\\nmen and Labourers of Great Britain written accord-\\ning to the suggestion of the changing day. The initial\\nmotive is the redress of social misery miseria as the\\nItalians call it par excellence that is, the poverty of\\nclasses, the poverty of millions, indiscriminate poverty\\nnot the misery which is either deserved or undeserved,\\nor wherefrom this or that man can rise by using the\\nshoulders of those who cannot, but the massive pov-\\nerty, the collective.\\n259", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0273.jp2"}, "274": {"fulltext": "260 JOHN RUSKIN\\nFor my own part [says the first letter] I will put\\nup with this state of things not an hour longer. I\\nam not an unselfish person, nor an Evangelical one\\nI have no particular pleasure in doing good neither\\ndo I dislike doing it so much as to expect to be re-\\nwarded for it in another world. But I simply cannot\\npaint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor do anything\\nelse that I like, because of the misery that\\nI know of, and see signs of where I know it not,\\nwhich no imagination can interpret too bitterly.\\nThe help Ruskin proposes is, to show the causes,\\nto teach a remedy, meanwhile to set aside the greater\\npart of his own wealth for the succour of misery in\\ndetail, and to set members of St. George s Guild over\\nthe acreages of the poverty of cities. Having found\\nhimself rich, Ruskin piously and prudently began to\\ngrow poor again, for the sake of the poor, giving\\none-tenth of his fortune, for instance, for the buying\\nof land for them. He began to be poor. It would\\nbe a mockery to say more of a man living, as he said,\\nbetween a Turkey carpet and a Titian, however\\nlaborious were his days. In many places he complains\\nof the luxury of his boyhood, which made the practice\\nof poverty more than he could attempt. He had al-\\nways been generous giving annuities with both hands\\nthe case of Miss Siddal in her delicate health has\\nbeen made public; but he reproached himself that he\\nhad not the courage to live in a garret or make shoes\\nlike Tolstoy (whom he had not read, but heard of with\\nsympathetic envy) but, after the self-spoliation of his\\npatrimony, he had a great income from his books. St.\\nGeorge s Guild, the members whereof gave also a", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0274.jp2"}, "275": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA 26 I\\ntithe of their revenues, was to do the human work of\\nkeeping the garden and dressing it, fostering fish in\\nthe waters, and flocks and herds on the grass. John\\nRuskin with his own hand tried to tend a Surrey stream\\n(at Carshalton) and tried to keep a little piece of pave-\\nment clean in a London back street, and his under-\\ngraduates mended the famous road near Oxford. The\\nGuild was to succour childhood and educate it. Ed-\\nucation was one of his chief of all projects. The John\\nRuskin school at Camberwell, and Whitelands College\\nat Chelsea, amongst others, keep the memory of his\\ngenerosity and his sympathy. As the Guild was also\\nto see that the poor were not fined for their poverty,\\nhe himself set up a shop in Paddington Street, served\\nby his own servants, to sell tea in small quantities\\nwithout the usual disproportionate profit on the sub-\\ndivision. But for lack of expenditure on glass, brass,\\nsigns, and general advertising, the people were slow to\\nbuy at his shop. He would not reconcile himself to\\nthe fact (made hideous by exaggeration in every street)\\nthat a thing must be made known in a stupid world.\\nHe had seen it written by a first-rate man of busi-\\nness that a bad thing will pay, if you put it properly\\nbefore the public. What are the final results of put-\\nting bad things properly before the public he per-\\nceived, although neither the first-rate man of business\\nnor the public seemed to do so much. In regard to\\nthe spoliation of the poor and foolish by more direct\\nmeans than the proportional increase of profit on small\\nsales, or the profit generally made necessary by plate\\nglass and gilt letters, John Bright had said, about that", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0275.jp2"}, "276": {"fulltext": "262 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntime, that false weights and measures were not so\\nfrequent, nor was adulteration, as some philanthropists\\nthought, and that therefore legislation had better let the\\nmatter alone moreover that life would not be worth\\nliving if one s weights and measures were liable to in-\\nspection or so Ruskin reports that deprecation of\\ninterference which was the pestilence of home af-\\nfairs in those now distant days. Ruskin thought so\\nmuch inquisition ought to be tolerable. So does all\\nEngland think to-day. He also thought that the poor\\nought not to be deprived of food for fear (on the part\\nof tradesmen) that prices would go down. He had\\nseen fish sent back to the coast from a London market\\nfor this cause. So, too, one year when the sun had\\ngiven a great harvest of plums, a London fruit-seller\\nrefused to sell plums, for he said, with emotion, it\\nwould be a pity to sell them for less than so much a\\npound. He had a real respect for the plums. Mean-\\nwhile the poor streets were full of children who could\\nbuy neither fish nor plums at the artificial prices.\\nWith these matters the farms of the Guild were to\\ndeal as well as they might. The rents of St. George s\\nlands were to be lowered, not raised, in proportion to\\nimprovements made by the tenant, and were to be re-\\nturned to the land entirely in the form of better culture\\nnot necessarily returned to the piece of land that\\nproduced them, but applied there or elsewhere. The\\ntenants of St. George would have no more right to ask\\nwhat was done with their fair rents than the tenants\\nof another landlord have to ask about his race-horses.\\nThe financial work of the Company was to be (largely", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0276.jp2"}, "277": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA 263\\nstated) the endowment, instead of the robbery by-\\nNational Debt, of children s children and endowment,\\nnot taxation, of the poor. For the construction of the\\nSociety; for its system of museums for its admirable\\nplan of discouraging the arts, and especially the art\\nof fiction for the laws of its public and commercial\\neconomy (entirely gathered from, and tested by, Eng-\\nlish, Florentine, and Venetian history, and obeyed,\\nwith no acknowledgment to Ruskin, by the practice\\nof the magistrates of our own day) for the vast scheme\\nand its details, in a word, the reader must consult those\\nparts of the seven years letters that deal with it. Of\\nhimself as Master Ruskin wrote\\nWhat am I myself then, infirm and old, who take\\nor claim leadership God forbid that I should\\nclaim it it is thrust and compelled upon me utterly\\nagainst my will, utterly to my distress, utterly, in many\\nthings, to my shame Such as I am, to my\\nown amazement, I stand so far as I can discern\\nalone in conviction, in hope, and in resolution, in the\\nwilderness of this modern world. Bred in luxury,\\nwhich I perceive to have been unjust to others, and\\ndestructive to myself; vacillating, foolish, and mis-\\nerably failing in all my own conduct in life and\\nblown about hopelessly by storms of passion I, a\\nman clothed in soft raiment, I, a reed shaken with\\nthe wind\\nTo this passion of grief how shall any one desire\\nthat consolation had been brought Not for passion,\\nbut for the lack of it, he reminds us, are men con-\\ndemned because they had no pity. To wish him\\nless mercy, to wish, with the vain wish of retrospec-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0277.jp2"}, "278": {"fulltext": "264 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntion, that Ruskin had found some solace in the midst\\nof the martyrdom of his convictions, is forbidden us.\\nLet this be borne in mind by those who care any-\\nthing for the attempt the conception, the project,\\nand the failure of the Company it was not intended\\nto be a curative measure it was not to cure drunken-\\nness or to give alms, but to change the motive and\\naction of the responsible social world.\\nThe knotty parts of Political Economy must re-\\nmain knotty for ordinary minds. Ruskin thinks his\\nway through them as though they were easy to him.\\nIn reading Mill, on the other hand, you find him\\nmaking his way with difficulty. The mere reader may\\nchoose his teachers, but has the right to ask that they\\nshall speak to him in pure and exact English. This\\nRuskin does and Mill does not. There is nothing\\nleft, worth saying, of some of Mill s famous defini-\\ntions after Ruskin has translated them. Those who\\ncall Ruskin s system sentimental (intending to in-\\nsult it) and think they have done enough, cannot have\\nso much as set out upon the road of his argument.\\nIt is true that he here and there digresses, as, for in-\\nstance, to tell us that ministers of religion had been\\nso loud against almsgiving one winter that when he\\nwanted to give a penny he first looked up and down\\nthe street to see if a clergyman were coming. But\\nthe mental work, when it is in progress, is close. His\\nquarrel with the science of Political Economy, as it is\\ntaught by its popular professors, is that it is not scien-\\ntific enough, as his quarrel with the science of some\\ngeologists and of some botanists is to the same pur-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0278.jp2"}, "279": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA 265\\npose. Although Ruskin says nothing to show that he\\nrecognises the identity, he holds much in common\\nwith Mill, for example, the national loss that is the\\nprice of luxury Ruskin, however, shows the mischief\\nas well as the loss. But he is alone in stating Eng-\\nland to be a poor nation. Beside Mill s cautious\\nchapters on Loans Ruskin places this:\\nu There is nothing really more monstrous in any\\nrecorded savagery than that governments\\nshould be able to get money for any folly they choose\\nto commit by selling to capitalists the right of taxing\\nfuture generations to the end of time. All the cruel-\\nlest wars inflicted, all the basest luxuries grasped by the\\nidle classes, are thus paid for by the poor a hundred\\ntimes over.\\nLet me also extract this, which the reader will re-\\nplace in the chain of argument\\nThose nations which exchange mechanical or ar-\\ntistic productions for food are servile, and necessarily\\nin process of time will be ruined.\\nAnd in the pages on commercial economy, the reader\\nwill probably find that Fawcett merits Ruskin s con-\\ntemptuous correction where he states the interest of\\nmoney to consist of three parts, and the first to be\\nReward for Abstinence. Abstinence, as Ruskin\\nshows us, will not make the uneaten cake any the\\nlarger after it has lain by, postponed, for a year or\\nten.\\nIt is less from the incompressible main argument\\nthan from the by-ways of the letters on Economy that", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0279.jp2"}, "280": {"fulltext": "266 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthe present pages shall be illustrated. For instance,\\nRuskin commends a communism in all things, even\\njoys There is in this world infinitely more joy\\nthan pain to be shared, if you will only take your\\nshare such a partaking of joys not at first ours be-\\ning the perfection of charity, and strangely enough,\\nthough a happy task, more difficult than many a sad\\none. This is from one of those digressions on edu-\\ncation which grow more and more frequent in the\\nvolumes of Fors\\nYou little know by what constancy of\\nlaw the power of highest discipline and honour is\\nvested by Nature in the two chivalries of the Horse\\nand the Wave.\\nOf his own early travels by carriage with his father in\\nEngland he says that as soon as he could perceive any\\npolitical truth at all, he perceived that it was probably\\nmuch happier to live in a small house, and have\\nWarwick Castle to be astonished at, than to live in\\nWarwick Castle and have nothing to be astonished at.\\nThis sums up, to one who will think of it, much of\\nthe teaching of Ruskin on national economy\\nThat rain and frost of heaven and the earth\\nwhich they loose and bind these, and the labour of\\nyour hands to divide them, and subdue, are your wealth\\nforever. You can diminish it, but cannot\\nincrease that your barns should be filled with plenty\\nyour presses burst with new wine is your blessing\\nand every year when it is full it must be new j\\nand, every year, no more. This money, which you", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0280.jp2"}, "281": {"fulltext": "267\\nthink so multipliable, is only to be increased in the\\nhands of some, by the loss of others. The sum of it,\\nin the end, represents, and can represent, only what is\\nin the barn and winepress.\\nNot all the letters are full of this matter. Some of\\nthem are written from Pisa, Rome, Lucca, or Verona\\nsome are historical studies one has a quiet and lovely\\npage on the cultivated lands under Carrara.\\nOn each side of the great plain is a wilderness of\\nhills, veiled at their feet with a grey cloud of olive-\\nwoods above, sweet with glades of chestnut peaks\\nof more distant blue, still, to-day, embroidered with\\nsnow, are rather to be thought of as vast precious stones\\nthan mountains, for all the state of the world s palaces\\nhas been hewn out of their marble.\\nFrom Verona Ruskin writes of the breaking of a\\nthunder-shower over the city, at the outer gates of the\\nAlpine valleys, and the slipping into the Lombard\\nrivers of a million of sudden streams. Why did not\\nthe Italians gather the water for their towns Some\\nmen were standing idle in the piazze (machines doing\\nsuch work as there was in their stead), others were\\nemployed to dash to pieces the Gothic of Tuscany\\nand Lombardy, and others to stick bills bearing Rome\\nor death upon the ancient walls of Venice, but\\nthere was no time nor money for saving the subalpine\\nvalleys from flood. At the same time Ruskin gives a\\nsimple lesson to engineers on the making of reservoirs,\\nand to writers (Charles Reade is evidently aimed at)\\non the description of them. They should be wide, not", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0281.jp2"}, "282": {"fulltext": "268 JOHN RUSKIN\\ndeep the gate of a dry dock can keep out the Atlantic,\\nto the necessary depth of feet and inches the depth\\ngiving the pressure, not the superficies. Thence he\\npasses, like Napoleon after making roads, but to bet-\\nter purpose, to the education of girls and describes\\nwith an exquisiteness that at once quickens and guards\\nthe sweet and humorous and modest phrases, Carpac-\\ncio s painting of the young princess. It is hard upon\\ntwo American girls, whom Ruskin saw travelling from\\nVenice to Verona with the blinds of the railway car-\\nriage closed, to rebuke them by the contrast of their\\nmind and manners with St. Ursula s. Incidentally\\nRuskin quotes much from Marmontel, a writer of\\nthe late eighteenth century to whom he claims a kind\\nof resemblance of sympathy, but whom the reader is\\nfree to think he honours over much.\\nThe twenty-fourth letter, which is the first dated\\nfrom Corpus Christi College, is the last which be-\\ngins My Friends not one of the workmen he\\naddressed had sent him a friendly word in answer.\\nNor shall I sign myself c faithfully yours any more;\\nbeing very far from faithfully my own, and having\\nfound most other people anything but faithfully\\nmine. To the other money-troubles expressed in\\nthis and other works of about this time begin to be\\nadded those doubts as to the lawfulness of taking in-\\nterest which Ruskin discusses with a correspondent.\\nThe coin itself is the subject of one letter, which has\\na fine lesson on the florin, and a gay one on the\\nsovereign (the sovereign of 1872, and what have we\\nnot come to since then", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0282.jp2"}, "283": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA 269\\nu As a design how brightly comic it is The\\nhorse looking abstractedly into the air, instead of\\nwhere precisely it would have looked, at the beast be-\\ntween its legs St. George, with nothing but his\\nhelmet on (being the last piece of armour he is likely\\nto want), putting his naked feet, at least his feet\\nshowing their toes through the buskins, well forward,\\nthat the dragon may with the greatest convenience\\nget a bite at them and about to deliver a mortal blow\\nat him with a sword which cannot reach him by a\\ncouple of yards, or, I think, in George III. s piece,\\nwith a field-marshal s truncheon. Victor Carpaccio\\nhad other opinions on the likelihood of matters in this\\nbattle. His St, George exactly reverses the practice\\nof ours. He rides armed, from shoulder to heel, in\\nproof but without his helmet. For the real difficulty\\nin dragon-fights is not so much to kill your\\ndragon as to see him at least to see him in time, it\\nbeing too probable that he will see you first. Carpac-\\ncio s St. George will have his eyes about him, and his\\nhead free to turn freely. He meets his\\ndragon at the gallop, catches him in the mouth with\\nhis lance. But Victor Carpaccio had seen\\nknights tilting and poor Pistrucci had\\nonly seen them presenting addresses as my Lord\\nMayor, and killing turtle instead of dragons.\\nWhat a perceptive and penetrative imagination as to\\nany encounter with dragons that may befall not\\nCarpaccio s imagination only, but Ruskin s How\\nmuch dramatic possession of the matter And what\\nsense of dragons Emerson had been the only man\\nwho believed Ruskin s story of Turner that he had\\ndarkened his own picture lest it should take the light\\nout of Lawrence s yet Emerson joined those who", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0283.jp2"}, "284": {"fulltext": "2 0 JOHN RUSKIN\\nrejoice in discrediting, when he took some less than\\nnoble pleasure in exposing St. George as a fraudulent\\nbacon-factor who was lynched, not martyred, and de-\\nserved it. Strange subject for triumph or scorn If\\nSt. George had been honoured for his fraud, like an\\nAmerican millionaire, the laugh, such as it is, might\\nhave been against his votaries but seeing that he was\\nhonoured for his honour (whether by error or not)\\nhow thin and unintelligent is the malice of the jest\\nNeedless to say, however, the St. George believed to\\nhave been martyred under Diocletian was not the\\nGeorge of the bacon contract, later a heretic bishop,\\nand lynched. The symbol of the dragon did not for\\nsome ages enter into the story of the canonised St.\\nGeorge. On this subject it is that Ruskin speaks his\\nonly reverent word (or nearly the only one) of a Ger-\\nman author, calling Goethe the wise German.\\nIn the prelude to the study of Scott which fills some\\npart of Fors, is this passage on some of the results of\\nthe work of tale-tellers, those who had dynasties\\nMiss Edgeworth made her morality so imperti-\\nnent that, since her time, it has only been with fear\\nand trembling that any good novelist has ventured to\\nshow the slightest bias in favour of the ten command-\\nments. Scott made his romance so ridiculous that\\nsince his day one can t help fancying helmets were\\nalways paste-board, and horses were always hobby.\\nDickens made everybody laugh or cry, so that they\\ncould not go about their business till they had got\\ntheir faces in wrinkles and Thackeray settled like a\\nmeat-fly on whatever one had got for dinner, and\\nmade one sick of it.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0284.jp2"}, "285": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA 27 I\\nIt is from Fors Clavigera that we first learn the\\nstory of John Ruskin s childhood, severely governed\\nin the strange sense of the Evangelical sect of that\\ntime that children should be deprived by compulsion\\nof what their elders amply permitted themselves,\\nshould see self-indulgence at table in those they were\\ntaught to respect, but should be allowed no dainties\\nfor themselves. A fasting father and mother setting\\nthe example one can understand, but not this mute\\npromise of a groaning board in the future, when\\nfather and mother should be dead. Ruskin acqui-\\nesces, more or less, in the discipline. It was Dickens\\nwho made things more equitable but the equity was\\nestablished in indulgence, not in fasting. Precious\\nare the fragments of biography as the letters go on,\\nand most mournful, as My father and mother and\\nnurse are dead, and the woman I hoped would have\\nbeen my wife is dying. We find him remembering\\namid the golden-lighted whitewash of a poor room at\\nAssisi (he not only studied Giotto and the poverello\\nSt. Francis there, but maintained a Friar) the poor\\nroom of his aunt at Croydon at Notre Dame glean-\\ning the remnants of old work among the fine fresh\\nrestorations, having it cast, and drawing it on the\\nPincio with his arm about the neck of a frate who\\nwished to kiss his hand. We find him (by a memory\\nof what had happened in 1858) at Turin, over-\\nwhelmed by a sense of the God-given power of\\nVeronese, and listening in a Waldensian chapel to a\\nlittle squeaking idiot, with a congregation of seven-\\nteen old women and three louts. Their preacher", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0285.jp2"}, "286": {"fulltext": "272 JOHN RUSKIN\\ntold them they were the only people of God in\\nTurin. It had been the turning point of twenty\\nyears of thought to John Ruskin, and more than\\ntwenty years in much darkness and sorrow fol-\\nlowed it, but during this sermon he had renounced\\nthe sect of his youth.\\nRuskin s diction is noble in vigour and high in vi-\\ntality in this work of impassioned intellect, Fors Clav-\\nigera. Not here does he force with difficulty the tired\\nand inelastic common speech to explain his untired\\nmind, as in some pages of Modern Painters; not here\\nare perorations of eloquence over-rich not here con-\\nstructions after Hooker, nor signs of Gibbon. All\\nthe diction is fused in the fiery life, and the lesser\\nbeauties of eloquence are far transcended. During\\nthe publication of these letters the world told him,\\nnow that he could express himself but could not think,\\nand now that he was effeminate. But he was giving\\nto that world the words of a martyr of thought, and\\nthe martyr was a man.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0286.jp2"}, "287": {"fulltext": "CHAPTER XXVII\\nPRiETERITA (1885-1889)\\nThe limits of a brief expository essay debar me\\nfrom giving so much as an outline of small out-lying\\nbooks, early pamphlets and articles, and later lectures,\\npublic letters, and such minor incidental work as the\\nnotes on the Royal Academy of six years the notes\\non the Turner drawings; the ten conversation-lec-\\ntures to little school-girls on the elements of crystal-\\nlisation, published under the title Ethics of the Dust\\n(1866) The Laws of Fesole (1877-1878) The Pleas-\\nures of England (1885), which were the last of the\\nSlade lectures; Hortus Inclusus (187 4-1887) the let-\\nters to Miss Beever and her sister, who collected the\\nvolume Frondes Agrestes from Modern Painters; the\\nstudies of the architecture of the Cistercian Order;\\nand the re-published volume of early poetry. Arrows\\nof the Chace and On the Old Road contain respectively\\nthe public letters and the magazine papers, collected.\\nThere remains, therefore, only the book of autobiog-\\nraphy, the last page whereof was the last written by\\nRuskin for the world.\\nThe friendship with Turner in Ruskin s youth is\\npresented to us as a relation warm and equal in the\\nelder generation but as to himself Ruskin records\\nlittle but slight discouragement from the painter he\\nloved. Turner seems to have been principally anxious\\n273", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0287.jp2"}, "288": {"fulltext": "274 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthat the young author should give his parents no anx-\\niety on his travels u They will be in such a ridge\\nabout you, we find Turner saying dubiously on his\\nown doorstep when Ruskin was to travel alone. It\\nused to be, to my father, yours most truly, and to\\nme yours truly. Ruskin s first defence of the old\\nman (it was against a criticism in Blackwood s Maga-\\nzine, in 1836, and Ruskin was seventeen) is acknowl-\\nedged with thanks but without praise, and Turner\\nadds, I never move in these matters. We read of\\nRuskin s own study of drawing. He learnt, whilst\\nyet in his teens, of Copley Fielding,\\nTo wash colour smoothly in successive tints, to\\nshade cobalt through pink madder into yellow ochre\\nfor skies, to use a broken scraggy touch for the tops\\nof mountains, to represent calm lakes by broad strips\\nof shade with lines of light between them,\\nto produce dark clouds and rain with twelve or twenty\\nsuccessive washes, and to crumble burnt umber with\\na dry brush for foliage and foreground.\\nBut this was a pupil who was discovering a manner\\nof measuring the degrees of blue in the sky, and who\\nwas acquiring the only true temper of solitude un-\\nlike, he found later, to Carlyle s\\nThat the rest of the world was waste to him un-\\nless he had admirers in it, is a sorry state of sentiment\\nenough. My entire delight was in observing\\nwithout being myself noticed. I was abso-\\nlutely interested in men and their ways, as I was in-\\nterested in marmots and chamois, in tomtits and trout.\\nIf only they would stay still and let me look at them,\\nand not get into their holes and up their heights.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0288.jp2"}, "289": {"fulltext": "PRiETERITA 275\\nThe most moving passage in the first volume shows\\nthe opening to Ruskin of the Gates of the Hills,\\non his impassioned petition to his parents that the\\nway of travel might, for the first time, lie towards the\\nAlps\\nGates of the Hills opening for me to a new life\\nto cease no more, except at the Gates of the Hills\\nwhence one returns not.\\nIt is from the slight record of the books taken into\\nthe travelling-carriage that I quote this magnificent\\nimage of the great balance of Johnson s style\\nI valued his sentences not primarily because they\\nwere symmetrical, but because they were just, and\\nclear; it is a method of judgment rarely\\nused by the average public, who are as\\nready with their applause for a sentence of Macaulay s,\\nwhich may have no more sense in it than a blot\\npinched between doubled paper, as to reject one of\\nJohnson s, though its symmetry be as of thun-\\nder answering from two horizons.\\nWe find Ruskin, of age, making drawings rather\\nin imitation of Turner, and out of his own head,\\nthan in the copying of Copley Fielding drawings\\nwith rocks, castles, and balustrades. He was aware,\\nthroughout his life, of his lack of inventive imagina-\\ntion I can no more write a story than compose a\\npicture, he says in reference to his story for children,\\nThe King of the Golden River. It was a bit of ivy\\nround a thorn stem that first drew his eyes to the life\\nof things, and next he studied an aspen-tree against", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0289.jp2"}, "290": {"fulltext": "276 JOHN RUSKIN\\nthe sky on a road through Fontainebleau in a later\\npage he avows that his drawings of Venetian stones\\nwere living and like. And with these traces of\\ntravel are the records of Beauvais, Bourges, Chartres,\\nRouen, a magnificent chapter on Geneva and the\\nRhone, and on his discovery of the Campo Santo at\\nPisa, and of Lucca, to be beloved for the rest of life.\\nHere was the tomb of Ilaria del Caretto, and\\nHere in Lucca I found myself suddenly in the\\npresence of twelfth century buildings, originally set in\\nsuch balance of masonry that they could all stand\\nwithout mortar; and in material so incorruptible,\\nthat after six hundred years of sunshine and rain, a\\nlancet could not now be put between their joints.\\nIn the Pisan cemetery Ruskin drew, seated on a\\nscaffold level with the frescoes\\nI, being by this time practiced in deli-\\ncate curves, by having drawn trees and grass rightly,\\ngot far better results than I had hoped, and had an\\nextremely happy fortnight of it. For as the triumph\\nof Death was no new thought to me, the life of her-\\nmits was no temptation.\\nAt Florence he made friends with the Friars at\\nFiesole (he insists upon Fesole, with an acute ac-\\ncent that has no existence in the Italian language),\\nfor the Friars had not yet been expelled by law, and\\nthere remained some living ancient stones in Italy,\\nlater destroyed, or restored, or dead, dark, and dull\\nwithin museums. His principal work was at Santa\\nMaria Novella and San Marco, and his master, Fra", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0290.jp2"}, "291": {"fulltext": "PRiETERITA 277\\nAngelico Lippi and Botticelli being still far beyond\\nme.\\nWhy did Ruskin never go to Spain He owns\\nthat he admires in himself the simplicity of affec-\\ntion that kept him in love year by year with Calais\\nsands, and the Narcissus meadows of Vevay, and the\\ntomb at Lucca, whereas he heard even more than the\\ncustomary praises (through his father s wine-making\\nrelations) of the sierras and of the architecture. It\\nseems that he decided, on the evidence of the abso-\\nlutely careful and faithful work of David Roberts,\\nthat Spanish and Arab buildings were merely luxurious\\nin ornament, and inconstructive in character. He\\nwent no further; and had, besides, more than enough\\non the ways of study that knew his feet. It is in\\nallusion to Spain, however, that in this second volume\\nof Prceterita we find the first signs of his vigilance\\nin other things than the leaves of nature or the arts\\nof man. It is in the chapter called The Feasts\\nof the Vandals, which names the guests received in\\nthe Ruskins house. Amongst then were the daugh-\\nters of the wine-selling partner, M. Domecq, in those\\ndays married.\\nElise, Comtesse des Roys, and Caroline, Princesse\\nBethune, came with their husbands partly\\nto see London, partly to discuss with my father his\\nmanagement of the English market and the way in\\nwhich these lords, virtually, of lands both in France\\nand Spain, though men of sense and honour; and\\ntheir wives, though women of gentle and amiable dis-\\nposition, spoke of their Spanish labourers\\nand French tenantry, with no idea whatever respect-", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0291.jp2"}, "292": {"fulltext": "278 JOHN RUSKIN\\ning them but that, except as producers by their labour\\nof money to be spent in Paris, they were cumberers\\nof the ground, gave me the first clue to the real\\nsources of wrong in the social laws of modern Europe.\\nIt was already beginning to be, if not a ques-\\ntion, at least a marvel with me, that these graceful\\nand gay Andalusians, who played guitars, danced\\nboleros, and fought bulls, should virtually get no good\\nof their beautiful country but the bunch of grapes or\\nstalk of garlic they frugally dined on that its precious\\nwine was not for them, still less the money it was sold\\nfor but the one came to crown our Vandalic feasts,\\nand the other furnished our walls with\\npictures, our gardens with milk and honey,\\nand live noble houses in Paris with the means of\\nbeautiful dominance in its Elysian fields.\\nRuskin s friendship with Dr. John Brown, a friend\\nof his father s race and native town, and therefore, he\\nsays, best of friends for him, is conspicuous in the\\nsecond volume. Of the long friendship with Carlyle\\nthere is little trace, and that little a report not of\\nRuskin s but of Carlyle s youth. Margaret was the\\ndaughter of the schoolmaster who gave to Carlyle his\\nfirst valid lessons in Latin. She lived to be twenty-\\nseven. Carlyle told Ruskin, The last time that I\\nwept aloud in the world, I think was at her death.\\nDuring the journeys told in the earlier pages of this\\nvolume, Ruskin was meditating the second volume of\\nModern Painters. Sydney Smith was amongst the\\nmost eagerly expectant. Ruskin says\\nAll the main principles of metaphysics asserted in\\nthe opening of Modern Painters had been, with con-", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0292.jp2"}, "293": {"fulltext": "PRiETERITA 279\\nelusive decision and simplicity, laid down by Sydney\\nhimself in the lectures he gave on Moral Philosophy\\nat the Royal Institution in the years 1 804-5-6, of\\nwhich he had never himself recognised the impor-\\ntance.*\\nThe reader may remember, I will add, that Sydney\\nSmith was slightly contemned as a sentimentalist for\\nhis advocacy of the cause of climbing boys. At\\nany rate, those readers who care for children and for\\nthe English language may have in their minds the\\nphrases whereby, in the course of his plea for legisla-\\ntion in that matter, he rebuked the world of his day\\nfor its profligate indifFerence.\\nTo the signature Kataphusin, used in the earliest\\nof Ruskin s essays, had followed that of A Graduate\\nof Oxford, and the work so signed was looked for,\\nas Ruskin himself says, by more people than my\\nfather and mother but Sydney Smith was the\\nearliest admirer in high places. Ruskin s fame was\\nalready old, and he still young, when on the Lake of\\nGeneva he met his American reader, Charles Eliot\\nNorton my second friend after Dr. John Brown\\nmy first real tutor. This friend was of his\\nown age, but a greater reader, Ruskin found, and a\\nbetter scholar. In 1888, writing Praterita at Sallen-\\nches, he says in regard to this friendship\\nI can see them at this moment, those mountain\\nmeadows, if I rise from my writing-table\\nyes, and there is the very path we climbed together,\\napparently unchanged. But on what seemed then\\nthe everlasting hills, beyond which the dawn rose", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0293.jp2"}, "294": {"fulltext": "230 JOHN RUSKIN\\ncloudless, and on the heaven in which it rose, and on\\nall that we that day knew, of human mind and virtue\\nhow great the change, and sorrowful, I cannot\\nmeasure.\\nThere is a great deal, in these last of all volumes,\\nabout preachers to whose sermons Ruskin listened in\\nhis youth, and about monks and friars whom he then\\nvisited abroad. And in this connexion I must extract\\na charming passage from one of the letters, of thirty\\nyears later, to Miss Beever, from Assisi\\nThe sacristan gives me my coffee for lunch in his\\nown little cell, looking out on the olive woods\\nand then perhaps we go into the sacristy and\\nhave a reverent little poke-out of relics.\\nThings that are only shown twice in the year or so,\\nwith fumigation all the congregation on their knees\\nand the sacristan and I having a great heap of them\\non the table at once, like a dinner-service\\nBut he lived to see another kind of Italy. He hoped\\nnever again to hear the summer evening noises of an\\nItalian town as they appalled his indignant ears in one\\nof his last Italian summers a summer of the long\\nforetold and long desired days of political unity. Tear-\\nings to pieces and restorations he was compelled to see\\nunder the various political conditions of half a century.\\nMore inevitable things than these, in all countries,\\ndispleased him howbeit he resigned himself, many\\nyears after the invention of railways, to main lines.\\nIt was the by-ways of the rail that he thought unneces-\\nsary and unnecessarily destructive", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0294.jp2"}, "295": {"fulltext": "pr^eterita 281\\nThere was a rocky valley between Buxton and\\nBakewell, divine as the vale of Tempe you might\\nhave seen the gods there morning and evening Apollo\\nand all the sweet Muses of the Light. You enter-\\nprised a railroad, you blasted its rocks away,\\nand now every fool in Buxton can be at\\nBakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell\\nat Buxton.\\nThe last phrase of the last volume (1889) closes a\\nremembrance of Fonte Branda, the waters Dante re-\\nmembered in the streamless place. With Charles\\nNorton Ruskin had drunk of those sweet waters under\\nthe arches that hooded the head of Dante and, as it\\nchances, these last of all words composed by Ruskin\\nend, in Dante s way, with the stars. Mixed with\\nthe lightning, he says of the fireflies of one of those\\nItalian summer nights, and more intense than the\\nstars. After this he wrote no more. But the last\\nextract here shall be from the notes on a Turner ex-\\nhibition in 1878, written just before the gravest illness\\nof his life\\nOh that someone had told me in my youth, when\\nall my heart seemed to be set on these colours and\\nclouds that appear for a little while and then vanish\\naway, how little my love of them would serve me\\nwhen the silence of lawn and wood in the dews of\\nmorning should be completed and all my thoughts\\nshould be of those whom, by neither, I was to meet\\nmore", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0295.jp2"}, "296": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0296.jp2"}, "297": {"fulltext": "CHRONOLOGY\\nThe kindness of Mr. Ruskin s friend and mine, Mr. S. C.\\nCockerell, gives me the advantage of borrowing, with some slight\\nabbreviations, his excellent biographical Chronology.\\n1819. Feb. 8. John Ruskin born; 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick\\nSquare.\\n1822.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 To Perth. Portrait by Northcote.\\n1823. Summer tour in S. W. of England. Removed to 28 Heme\\nHill.\\n1824. To the Lakes, Keswick, Perth.\\n1825. To Paris, Brussels, Waterloo.\\n1826. Wrote first poem The Needless Alarm. Summer tour\\nto the Lakes and Perth. Began Latin.\\n1827. Summer at Perth.\\n1828. Summer in West of England. His cousin Mary Richard-\\nson adopted by his parents.\\n1829. Summer in Kent.\\n1830. Tour to the Lakes. Began Greek. Copied Cruikshank.\\n1 83 1. First drawing lessons from Runciman. Summer tour in\\nWales. Began mathematics.\\n1832. Summer tour in Kent.\\n1833. First Turner study in Rodgers Italy. Tour to the Rhine\\nand Switzerland. Copied Rembrandt. Went to day-school.\\n1834. First study of Alpine geology. First published writings.\\nSummer tour in West of England.\\n1835. Tour to Switzerland and Italy. First published poems.\\n1836. Visit of the Domecqs. Drawing-lessons from Copley\\nFielding. Wrote Defence of Turner. Tour to the South\\nCoast after matriculating at Christ Church.\\n1837. Went into residence at Oxford. Summer tour to the Lakes\\nand Yorkshire. Began Poetry of Architecture, and The Con-\\nvergence of Perpendiculars.\\n283", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0297.jp2"}, "298": {"fulltext": "284 CHRONOLOGY\\n1838. Wrote essay, Comparative Advantages of Music and\\nPainting. Tour to the Lakes.\\nJ 839- Recited Newdigate prize poem at Commemoration. Tour\\nto Cheddar, Devon, and Cornwall. Read with Osborne\\nGordon.\\n1840. Threatened with consumption. By Loire and Riviera to\\nRome.\\n1 84 1. At Naples, Bologna, Venice, Basle. Under treatment at\\nLeamington. Drawing-lessons from Harding.\\n1842. Passed final examination, and took B.A. degree. Saw\\nTurner s Swiss sketches. Study of ivy from nature. Tour to\\nFrance and Switzerland. Wrote Modern Painters, vol. i.\\n1843. Removed from Heme Hill to Denmark Hill. Took M.A.\\ndegree.\\n1S44. Tour in Switzerland. Studied Old Masters at the\\nLouvre.\\n1S45. First tour alone. To Pisa. Study of Christian art at Lucca\\nand Florence. To Verona. Study of Tintoretto at Venice.\\nWrote Modern Painters, vol. ii.\\n184.6. Through France and the Jura to Geneva, Mont Cenis, and\\nItaly.\\n1847. Tour in Scotland.\\n1848. Married at Perth. Attempted pilgrimage to English\\ncathedrals. To Amiens, Paris, and Normandy. Seven Lamps,\\nat 31 Park Street.\\n1849. Tour through Switzerland. Winter at Venice.\\n1850. Studied architecture and missals at Venice. Stones of\\nVenice, vol. i., at Park Street.\\n185 1. Notes on Sheepfolds. Acquaintance with Carlyle and\\nMaurice. Defence of the Pre-P.aphaelites. Tour through\\nFrance and Switzerland. Winter and following spring at\\nVenice. (Dec. 19. Turner died.)\\n1852. Stones of Venice, vols. ii. and iii.\\n1853. With Dr. Acland and Millais at Glenfinlas. Lectures,\\nArchitecture and Painting, at Edinburgh.\\n1854. With parents in Switzerland. Drawing. Working Men s\\nCollege inaugurated. Lectures to decorative workmen.\\n1855. Academy A T otes begun. Studied shipping at Deal. Mod-\\nern Painters, vols. iii. and iv.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0298.jp2"}, "299": {"fulltext": "CHRONOLOGY 285\\n1S56. Address to workmen of the Oxford Museum. Tour in\\nSwitzerland. Elements of Drawing.\\n1857. Lecture to Archit. Assoc., Imagination in Architecture.\\nAddress to St. Martin s School of Art. Lecture, Political\\nEconomy of Art, at Manchester. Address to Working Men s\\nCollege. Tour in Scotland. Arranged Turner drawings at\\nNational Gallery.\\n1858. Lecture, Conventional Art, S. Kensington. Lecture, Work\\nof Iron, Tunbridge Wells. Official Report on Turner be-\\nquest. Address, Study of Art, St. Martin s School. Tour\\nalone in Switzerland and Italy, studying Veronese at Turin.\\nInaugural address to Cambridge School of Art.\\n1859. Lecture, Unity of Art, Royal Institution. Lecture, Mod-\\nern Manufacture and Design, Bradford. Address, Switzer-\\nland, Working Men s College. Last tour with parents, in\\nGermany.\\ni860. Address, Religious Art, Working Men s College. Modern\\nPainters, vol. v. Unto this Last, at Chamouni.\\n1 86 1. Gave Turner drawings to Oxford and to Cambridge. Ad-\\ndresses, St. George s Mission, Denmark Hill; Three Twigs,\\nRoyal Institution Illuminated Missals, Burlington House.\\nTour in Savoy. Munera Pulveris.\\n1862. Studied Luini at Milan.\\n1863. Studied Limestone Alps. Lecture, Stratified Alps, Royal\\nInstitution.\\n1864. Lecture at Working Men s College. His father died.\\nLecture, Traffic, Bradford. Lectures, \u00c2\u00a3~ing s Treasuries and\\nQueeris Gardens, and address at Grammar School, Man-\\nchester.\\n1865. Lecture, Work and Play, Camberwell. Addresses at\\nWorking Men s College. Address to R.I.B.A., Study of\\nArchitecture. Lecture, War, Woolwich Royal Military College.\\n1866. With friends in Switzerland. Study of geology and bot-\\nany. Spoke at meeting of the Eyre Defence Committee.\\n1867. Time and Tide. Rede Lecture. Lecture, Modern Art,\\nRoyal Institution.\\n1868. Lecture, Mystery of Life, Dublin. Address, Three-legged\\nStool of Art, Jermyn Street. Tour in Belgium and France\\nwith Professor Norton and others.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0299.jp2"}, "300": {"fulltext": "286 CHRONOLOGY\\n18c 9. Lecture, Flamboyant Architecture of the Somme, Royal\\nInstitution. Lecture, Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm, Uni-\\nversity College. Lecture, Hercules of Camarina, South\\nLambeth School of Art. To France, Switzerland, Verona,\\nand Venice. Elected Slade Professor. Lecture, Future of\\nEngland, Woolwich.\\n1870. Lecture, Verona and its Rivers, Royal Institution. First\\nand Second Slade courses at Oxford. To Switzerland and\\nItaly. Study of coins at the British Museum. Lecture, Story\\nof Arachne, Woolwich.\\n1 87 1. Fors Clavigera, No. I. Slade course on landscape.\\nDangerous illness at Matlock. Tour to Lakes and Scotland.\\nEndowment of Mastership of Drawing, at Oxford. Elected\\nLord Rector of St. Andrew s University. His mother died.\\n1872. Lecture, The Bird of Calm, Woolwich. Slade courses,\\nEagWs Nest and Ariadne Florentina. In residence at\\nCorpus Christi College. In Italy. First residence at Brant-\\nwood.\\n1873. Re-elected Slade Professor. Paper, Nature and Authority\\nof Miracle, Grosvenor Hotel. Lectures, Robin, Swallow,\\nand Chough, Oxford and Eton. Slade course, Val d Arno.\\n1874. To Rome and Sicily, studied Giotto at Assisi. Slade\\ncourse, Alps and jura, and Schools of Florentine Art.\\nLecture, Botticelli, at Eton.\\n1875. Lecture, Glacial Action, Royal Institution. Slade course,\\nSir Joshua Reynolds. Lecture, Spanish Chapel, Eton.\\n1876. Lectures, Precious Stones, Christ s Hospital; Minerals,\\nWoolwich. Posting tours in England. To Switzerland.\\n1S77. Studied Carpaccio at Venice. Speech to Society for Pre-\\nvention of Cruelty to Animals, Heme Hill. Lecture, Yewdale\\nand its Streamlets, Kendal. Slade course, Readings in Mod-\\nern Painters. Lecture, Streams of V/esttnoreland, Eton.\\n1878. At Windsor Castle; at Hawarden. Turner exhibition in\\nBond Street. Illness at Brantwood. Whistler versus Ruskin\\ntrial.\\n1879. Received Prince Leopold at St. George s Museum, Shef-\\nfield.\\n1880. Lectures, Snakes, London Institution; Amiens, Eton. To\\nAbbeville, Amiens, Beauvais, Chartres, Rouen.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0300.jp2"}, "301": {"fulltext": "CHRONOLOGY 287\\n18S2. Copied in National Gallery. In France and Italy. Met\\nMiss Alexander at Florence. Lecture, Cistercian Architecture,\\nLondon Institute.\\n1883. Slade course, Art of England. Lecture, Francesca Alex-\\nander and Kate Greenaway, Kensington. Tour to Scotland.\\nLecture, Sir Herbert Edwards, Coniston.\\n1884. Lecture, The Storm Cloud, London Institution. Lecture\\nto Academy Girls. Slade course, The Pleasures of England.\\n1885. Address to Society of Friends of Living Creatures, Bed-\\nford Park.\\n1886.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Prceterita.\\n1887. A posting journey in England.\\n1888. To Beauvais, the Jura, Venice, Berne. Last No. of\\nPrceterita.\\n1900. January 20. Death at Brantwood, Coniston.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0301.jp2"}, "302": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0302.jp2"}, "303": {"fulltext": "Ind\\nex\\nAir, The Queen of the, 181.\\nAmiens, The Bible of, 254.\\nAratra Pentelici, 200.\\nArchitecture and Painting, Lec-\\ntures on i 121 et sea.\\nAriadne Florentine, 217.\\nArrozus of the Chace, 273.\\nArt, Lectures on, 186.\\nArt, The Political Economy of,\\n129.\\nBible of Amiens, The, 254.\\nBotticelli, 221.\\nBrown, Dr. John, 278.\\nBrowning, 127.\\nByron, 5, 127.\\nCarlyle, 8, 152, 274, 278.\\nCarpaccio, 249, 253.\\nClaude, 10, 11, 15, 17, 30, 33,\\n52,71.\\nCobbett, William, 151.\\nColeridge, 127.\\nConstable, John, 52.\\nCoreggio, 77, 87.\\nCornhill Magazine, The, 145,\\n156.\\nCrabbe, 127.\\nCrown of Wild Olive, The, 171.\\nDante, 187.\\nDeucalion, 233.\\nDickens, Charles, 4, 35, 228,\\n245, 270.\\nDomenichino, 22.\\nDrawing, Elements of, 125.\\nDlirer, Albert, 71.\\nDust, Ethics of the, 273.\\nEagle s Nest, The, 205.\\nEdge worth, Maria, 270.\\nElements of Drawing, 125.\\nElements of Perspective, 128.\\nEliot, George, 58.\\nEmerson, 269.\\nEngland, The Pleasures of, 273.\\nEthics of the Dust, 273.\\nFawcett, Henry, 265.\\nFesole, The Laws of 273.\\nFiction Fair and Foul, 58.\\nFielding, Copley, 274.\\nFlorence, Mornings in, 247.\\nForbes, James, 235.\\nFors Clavigera, 259.\\nFraser s Magazine, 3, 157.\\nGainsborough, n, 187.\\nGautier, Theophile, 16.\\nGoethe, 270.\\nGolden River, The King of the,\\n275-\\nGibbon, Edward, 16, 32, 250,\\n272.\\nGiorgione, 76.\\nGiotto, 247.\\nGuild, St. George s, 260.\\nGuinicelli, Guido, 158.\\nHolbein, 65, 68, 221.\\nHooker, Richard, 45, 272.\\nHortus Inchisus, 273.\\nHunt, Holman, 117, 120.\\nHunt, William, 126.\\nHuxley, Professor, 239.\\nJohnson, Samuel, 46, 246, 252,\\n275-\\nKeats, 127.\\nKing of the Golden River, The,\\n275-\\nKingsley, Charles, 53.\\n289", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0303.jp2"}, "304": {"fulltext": "290\\nINDEX\\nLandseer, Sir Edwin, 43, 73.\\nLaws of Fesole, The, 273.\\nLectures on Architecture and\\nPainting, 1 21 et seq.\\nLectures on Art, 186.\\nLilies, Sesame and, 158, 176.\\nLongfellow, 127.\\nLove s Meinie, 233.\\nLowell, J. R., 127.\\nMacaulay, 275.\\nMarmontel, Jean Francois, 159,\\n268.\\nMeredith, Mr. George, 68, 188.\\nMichelangiolo, 19, 39, 47, 204.\\nMill, J. S., 150 et seq., 264.\\nMillais, 117, 212.\\nMilton, 161.\\nModern Painters, vol. i., 9 et\\nseq.; vol. ii., 37 etseq.; vol.\\niii., 46 et seq. vol. iv., 58 et\\nseq. vol. v., 64 et seq.\\nMornings in Florence, 247.\\nNorthcote, James, I.\\nNorton, Professor Charles E., 8,\\n279.\\nOlive, the Crown of Wild, 17 1.\\nOn the Old Road, 273.\\nPaths, The Two, 133.\\nPatmore, Coventry, 5, 97, 127.\\nPerspective, Elements of 128.\\nPisano, Giovanni, 228, 232.\\nPisano, Nicola, 247.\\nPleasures of England, The, 273.\\nPolitical Economy of Art, The,\\n129.\\nPoussin, Gaspar, 10, 15, 26, 28,\\nPoussin, Nicolo, 68.\\nPrceterita, 273.\\nPre-Raphaelitism,Rusk\\\\n s pam-\\nphlet on, 117, 192.\\nPre-Raphaelitis;n, The Three Col-\\nours of, 120, 257.\\nProserpina, 233, 240.\\nQueen of the Air, The, 181.\\nRaphael, 13, 39, 91.\\nReade, Charles, 267.\\nRembrandt, 21, 48.\\nReynolds, Sir Joshua, 13, 46, 77,\\n104, 187, 212.\\nRicardo, 151.\\nRoad, On the Old, 273.\\nRoberts, David, 277.\\nRogers, Samuel, 5.\\nRosa, Salvator, 10, n, 14, 15,\\n26, 71.\\nRossetti, 127.\\nRubens, 19, 29, 66, 104.\\nScott, Sir W., 5, 53, 56, 127,\\n233. 270.\\nSesame and Lilies, 158, 176.\\nSeven Lamps of Architecture,\\nThe, 7 9 el seq.\\nSevern, Mrs. Arthur, 6.\\nShakespeare, 207.\\nShelley, 127.\\nSlade, Felix, 6.\\nSmith, Sydney, 278.\\nSpenser, 165.\\nStewart, DugaM, 40.\\nSt. George s Guild, 260, 261.\\n5/. Mart s Rest, 219.\\nStones of Venice, The, 98 et seq.\\nSwift, Jonathan, 159.\\nTeniers, 15.\\nTennyson, 127.\\nThackeray, 156, 270.\\nThree Colours of Pre-Raphaeli-\\ntism, The, 120, 257.\\nTime and Tide by Weare ana\\nTyne, 175.\\nTintoret, 76.\\nTitian, 13, 57, 65, 63, 76, 137.\\nTolstoi, 260.\\nTurner, John, 8, 9, 11, 17, 20,\\n22 et seq., 27, 29 et seq., 46,\\n55, 60, 68, 74, 75\u00c2\u00bb 76, 119.\\n167, I95 233, 273.\\nTwo Paths, The, 133.", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0304.jp2"}, "305": {"fulltext": "INDEX 29I\\nTyndall, Professor, 181, 236, Venice The Stones of, 98 et seq.\\n238. Veronese, Paul, 47, 48, 76, 104.\\n45- Weare and Tyne, Time and\\nVal D Arno, 225. Tide by, 175.\\nVandyck, 66. Wild Olive, The Crown of, 171.\\nVelasquez, 73. Wordsworth, 127.", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0305.jp2"}, "306": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0306.jp2"}, "307": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0307.jp2"}, "308": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0308.jp2"}, "309": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0309.jp2"}, "310": {"fulltext": "JOftl 15 190G\\nDeacidified using the Bookkeeper process.\\nNeutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide\\nTreatment Date: May 2009\\nPreservationTechnologies\\nA WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION\\n111 Thomson Park Drive\\nCranberry Township. PA 1 6066\\n(724)779-2111", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0310.jp2"}, "311": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0311.jp2"}, "312": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS\\n014 529 176 8", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0312.jp2"}, "313": {"fulltext": "r\\npiiPppif 11 1\\nIHHini|MMini\\nCM\\nCO\\nlohnruskinOOmey", "height": "3631", "width": "2334", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0313.jp2"}, "314": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3692", "width": "2365", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00mey_0314.jp2"}}