{"1": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2761", "width": "1747", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "Library of Congress,\\nUNITED STATES OF AMERICA.\\nM4\\nShelf.\\nOC n^", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "Modern English Writers\\nJOHN RUSKIN", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"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 Whibi.ey.\\nDICKENS W. E. Henley.\\nOther Volumes will be ainiozmccd in due course.\\nWILLIAM BLACKWOOD SONS, Edinburgh and London.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "JOHN RUSKIN\\nMRS MEYNELL\\nSECOND IMPRESSION\\nWILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS\\nEDINBURGH AND LONDON\\nM D C C C C\\nAll Rights reser-ved", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "a\\n6 OO", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "DEDICATED TO\\nLieut.-General Sir W. F. BUTLER, K.C.B.\\nBritish Officer who is singularly of one mind\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2with me Ofi matters regarding the nation s honour.\\nPREFACE TO RUSKIN S BIBLE OF AMIENS.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0009.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0010.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "CONTENTS.\\nCHAP.\\nI. INTRODUCTION\\nII. MODERN painters THE FIRST VOLUME\\nIII. MODERN PAINTERS THE SECOND VOLUME\\nIV. MODERN PAINTERS THE THIRD AND FOURTH\\nVOLUMES\\nV. MODERN PAINTERS THE FIFTH VOLUME\\nVI. THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE*\\nVII. THE STONES OF VENICE*\\nVIII. PRE-RAPHAELITISM\\nIX. LECTURES ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING\\nX. ELEMENTS OF DRAWING\\nXI. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART\\nXII. THE TWO PATHS*\\nXIII. UNTO THIS LAST*\\nXIV. SESAME AND LILIES*\\nXV. THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE\\nI\\nTO\\n38\\n48\\n67\\n82\\n102\\n122\\n127\\n136\\n140\\n152\\n166\\n179", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0011.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "Vlll\\nCONTENTS.\\nXVI. TIME AND TIDE BY WEARE AND TYNE\\nXVII. THE QUEEN OF THE AIR\\nXVIII. LECTURES ON ART\\nXIX. ARATRA PENTELICI\\nXX. THE eagle s NEST\\nXXI. ARIADNE FLORENTINA\\nXXII. VAL D aRNO\\nXXIII. DEUCALION\\nXXIV. PROSERPINA\\nXXV. GUIDE-BOOKS: MORNINGS IN FLORENCE* ST\\nmark s REST THE BIBLE OF AMIENS\\nXXVI. FORS clavigera\\nXXVII. pr^terita\\nCHRONOLOGY\\nINDEX\\n183\\n189\\n194\\n209\\n214\\n227\\n244\\n251\\n258\\n270\\n293\\n298", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0012.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "JOHN R U S K I N.\\nCHAPTER I.\\nINTRODUCTION.\\nJohn Ruskin s life was not only centred, but limited,\\nby the places where he was born and taught, and\\nby 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 drawing\\nby his father that interested him when he was a little\\nboy in muslin and a sash (as Northcote painted him,\\nwith his own chosen blue hills for a background),\\nand this drawing hung over his bed when he died\\nthe evenings of his last days were passed in the chair\\nwherein he preached in play a sermon before he could\\nwell pronounce it. The nursery lessons and the house-\\nA", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0013.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "2 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nhold ways of the home on Heme Hill partly remained\\nwith him, reverend and unquestionable, to his last day.\\nAnd yet the student of the work done in this quiet\\nlife of repetitions is somewhat shaken from the stead-\\nfastness of study by two things multitude and move-\\nment. The multitude is in the thoughts of this great\\nand original mind, and the movement is the world s.\\nRuskin s enormous work has never had steady auditors\\nor spectators it may be likened to a sidereal sky\\nbeheld from an earth upon the wing. Many, innumer-\\nable, are the points that seem to shift and journey, to\\nthe shifting eye. Partly it was he himself who altered\\nhis readers and partly they changed with the long\\nchange of a nation and partly they altered with suc-\\ncessive and recurrent moods. John Ruskin wrote first\\nfor his contemporaries, young men fifty years later he\\nwrote for the same readers fifty years older, as well as\\nfor their sons. And hardly has a mob of Shakespeare s\\nshown more sudden, unanimous, or clamorous versions\\nand reversions of opinion than those that have ac-\\nclaimed and rejected, derided and divided, his work,\\nonce to ban and bless, and a second time to bless\\nand ban.\\nPolitical economy in i860 had but one orthodoxy,\\nwhich was that of Manchester scientifically, it held\\ncompetition in production and in distribution, with the\\nremoval (as far as was possible to coherent human\\nsociety) of all intervention of explicit social legislation,\\nto be favourable to the wealth of nations and ethically", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0014.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTION. 3\\nit held that if only the world would leave opposing\\negoisms absolutely free, and would give self-interest the\\nopportunity of perfection, a violent, hostile, mechanical\\nequity and justice would come to pass. Only let men\\nresolve never to relax or cede for the sake of forbearance\\nor compassion, and the Manchester system would be\\nfound to work for good. In i860 it was much in\\nfavour of this doctrine that itself and all its workings\\nwere alike unbeautiful to mind and eye. Men might\\nregret the vanishing beauty of the world, but they\\nwere convinced that it was the ugly thing that was\\nuseful, and that, as it did not attract, it would not\\ndeceive. Before the closing of the century all men\\nchanged their mind. But when Ruskin warned them\\nthat scientifically their orthodox economy made for\\nan intolerable poverty, that ethically it aimed at making\\nmen less human, and that practically it could never,\\nwhile n:an was no less than man, have the entire and\\nuniversal freedom of action upon which its hope of\\nultimate justice depended when he recommended a\\nmore organic and less mechanical equity he was\\nhooted to silence.\\nRuskin first commended the rejoining together of art\\nand handicraft, put asunder in the decline of the Re-\\nnaissance and for this too he was generally derided,\\nbecause men were sure that the ugly thing was the\\nuseful and the comfortable. John Ruskin would show\\nthem that it was neither of these, but they would have\\nit that he was showing them merely that it was ugly.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0015.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "4 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nThat is, he was accused of teaching sentimentality in\\npubUc economy and in art, whereas his teaching dealt\\nwith human character and ultimate utility.\\nBut the moving world has rejected his teaching more\\nviolently after fifty years, in two things more momentous\\nthan the rest it has gone further in that enquiry as to\\nthe origin of the ideas of moral good and evil against\\nwhich Ruskin warned it in the words of Carlyle and it\\nhas multiplied its luxuries. By these two actions it has\\neffectually rejected the teaching of Ruskin.\\nThe moving world assuredly this great thinker\\ngave years of thought to the discovery of moral causes\\nfor the enormous losses of mankind, and did not suffi-\\nciently confess the obscure motive power of change.\\nByzantine architecture was overcome by Gothic, not\\nonly because Gothic was strongly north western, but\\nbecause it was new Gothic was supplanted by the\\nRenaissance, not only because Gothic was enfeebled,\\nbut because the Renaissance was new. He saw the\\nbeauty of the hour with eyes and heart so full of felicity\\nthat he cried, Stay, thou art so fair It never\\nstayed, passing by the law but how shall we dare\\nto call that a law whereof we know not the cause, the\\nend, or the sanctions Let us rather, ignorant yet\\nvigilant, call it the custom of the universe.\\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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0016.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTION. 5\\nelders did not practise upon themselves. It was the\\nasceticism of the day, reserved for the innocent. Charles\\nDickens did more than any man to make the elderly\\nashamed of it. Ruskin s mother kept the training of\\nthe child in her own hands, and subjected him and\\nherself to a hardly credible humiliation by the reading\\naloud, in alternate verses, of the whole Bible, Levitical\\nLaw and all, beginning again at Genesis when the\\nApocalypse was finished. She was her husband s senior,\\nand, like him, of the Evangelical sect. She dedicated\\nthis her only child to the Lord before his birth, and\\nwhen his genius appeared hoped he would be a bishop.\\nHe obeyed her, tended and served her, till at ninety\\nyears 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, i8ig,\\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\\nthat he 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0017.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "6 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 {Sa/se//e and\\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 the May of all these years; and the last\\njourney was in 1859, in 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 tliat could be called a friendship which seemed to\\nhave such strange reserves) was the central fiict 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 1S43. I", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0018.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTION. 7\\n1848 Ruskin married, most unfortunately; his wife left\\nhim a few years later, the marriage was legally annulled,\\nand he lived again, as though he were a boy, with his\\nparents. More than twenty years later a lady who\\nhad been his girlish disciple and whom he had long\\nloved, but who seemed unable to decide for or against\\na 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 Brantwood,\\nConiston, on the 20th of January 1900.\\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 when\\nthe first volume of ATodern Painters was published. His\\nrenunciation of the sectarian religion of his parents will\\nbe told further on. He was always essentially religious,\\nbut he passed, during the later maturity of his mind,\\nthrough some years of doubt as to authoritative doc-\\ntrine, returning to definite beliefs in course of time.\\nHis Oxford and other series of lectures, and the\\nundertaking of the St George s Company, will be\\ntouched upon in this volume in their place amongst\\nhis works. Of those works I have attempted the\\nanalysis, slight and brief, but essential, with quota-\\ntions from beautiful and indispensable pages. I intend", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0019.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "8 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthe following essay to be principally a hand-book of\\nRuskin.\\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 to\\nEnglish speech and in lecturing he had a rather clerical\\ninflexion. He was a disciple (as in his relation to\\nCarlyle and later to Professor Norton), a master, a\\npastor, a chivalrous servant to the young and weak,\\nbut too anxious, too lofty, to be in the equal sense\\na 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0020.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTION. 9\\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 signature\\nin writing to one who loved and understood him) was\\nthe John Ruskin who never pardoned himself for stop-\\nping short of the whole renunciation of a Saint Francis.\\nLonely and unhappy does the student perceive him to\\nhave been who was one of the greatest of great men\\nof all ages but the student who is most cut to the\\nheart by that perception is compelled to wish him\\nto have been not less but more a man sacrificed.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0021.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "lO\\nCHAPTER II.\\nMODERN PAINTERS.\\nTHE FIRST VOLUME (1843).\\nThe 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 that\\nword to their wives and daughters. But it was a word\\nfor the best reviews in the middle of the century. In\\norder to prove this delicate point as to the interpreta-\\ntion of nature and its value, John Ruskin, then very\\nyoung, wrote the first half of the first volume, and\\nthe discussion of Turner follows, with the universal\\ndigressions that make of this volume and its fellows\\na work at once of unity of motive and of multi-\\ntudinous variety. The first volume is written with ex-\\ntreme explicatory labour. Having thought out a certain", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0022.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0080\u00a2modern painters first volume. II\\ndifficult thesis, the writer bends every power to the task\\nof communication. What he has to impose is no state\\nor grace or affection, what he has to communicate is no\\nconjecture, nor does he make his way by that attractive\\ndivination of authorship which is companionable, now\\nat fault, now halting, now leading with confidence a\\nnew and untried way. No more than a treatise of\\nscience is this work designed to bid the reader to that\\ntable of entertainment, the art of English prose. It\\nis only at intervals, and at the end of a clause of\\nexplanation, that this author, who has excited so many\\nenthusiasms, some futile and some worthy, by an over-\\nabundant eloquence a pure style but somewhat pro-\\ndigal adorns his argument with a cadence, a group of\\nbeautiful warm words, as it were alight and in time,\\nmusical and pictorial, the vital, just, and brilliant\\nphrase that afterwards took the nation.\\nThe argument is difficult difficult in the prolonged\\nstudy made by him who wrought it from the beginning\\nto the end, most difficult to present sufficiently in a brief\\ncommentary such as this. What Ruskin had to prove\\nwas that a few greatly admired masters Salvator Rosa,\\nCaspar Poussin, and Claude, especially were inferior\\nas painters of landscape to a certain number of English\\nartists at work about the middle of the nineteenth cen-\\ntury but their inferiority also to the earlier masters\\nwhose landscape was but an accessory, and to the\\nVenetians of the great school of colour, whose landscape\\nhas been mistaken for arbitrary decoration, makes so", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0023.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "12 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nlarge an incident of the work that the title becomes\\nquestionable. Modern Painters proved to be a great\\napology for the art of the past, and of all periods of the\\npast, for Gainsborough profits splendidly the antithesis\\ndisappears. Salvator Rosa, Caspar Poussin, and Claude\\nhave, besides, ceased (thanks to Ruskin s own teaching)\\nto have 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 later\\nmen now long dead, and brought, in our view, near to\\nthose predecessors by the perspective of time. The\\nslight anomaly of the name Moder?i Painters is increased\\nfor us now but that name represents much that is of\\nsignificance. The admiration of Salvator Rosa and the\\ncontempt of Turner, the fact that Claude was a\\nseventeenth century painter and Turner was new, are\\nthings important in the history of the authorship of\\nModern Paijiters. Let it be noted here that a writer\\nto whom was committed by one of the principal reviews\\nthe criticism of art in 1842 preferred a Mr Lee to Gains-\\nborough he is superior to him always in subject,\\ncomposition, and variety not with an irresponsible\\npreference, but with the preference of a connaisseur,\\nsubject, composition, and variety not being things\\nwhereof the first comer is able so to print opinions.\\nShade of Gainsborough says Ruskin deep-\\nthoughted, solemn Gainsborough, forgive us for re-\\nwriting this sentence. Lee was a painter more insular\\nthan it is permitted to a painter to be, piecemeal and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0024.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS FIRST VOLUME. I 3\\nliteral, and very cold in colour; well-intentioned,\\nsimple, free from affectation, and doing his work with\\nconstant reference to nature, says the preface to the\\nsecond edition of Modern Painters, but lacking those\\ntechnical qualities which are more especially the object\\nof an artist s admiration. This phrase is quoted here\\nbecause it is one of many that should keep the reader\\nstraight in the following of the doctrine of this book.\\nA reader who had spared himself the pains of close\\nfollowing might think Ruskin to have taught that well-\\nintentioned work bearing a constant reference to\\nnature 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, says\\nthis preface to the second edition,\\nin the painter s taking upon him to modify God s works\\nat his pleasure, casting the shadow of himself on all\\nhe sees. We shall not pass through a single gallery of\\nold art without hearing this topic of praise confidently\\nadvanced. The sense of artificialness, the clumsi-\\nness of combination by which the meddling of man is\\nmade evident, and the feebleness of his hand branded\\non the inorganisation of his monstrous creature, are\\nadvanced as a proof of inventive power.\\nWe ought to note the word inorganisation. For we\\nshall be willing to take it from Ruskin that the painter\\nconvicted of that is the one condemned he who", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0025.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "14 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ndestroys in order to reconstruct produces inorganised\\nwork, and work therefore without vitaUty. But a\\ncertain foreseen and judicial rearrangement of natural\\nfacts a new but indestructive relation proves that\\nvery organic quality, and is defended, not once or\\ntwice, but a hundred times, in the teaching of Modern\\nPainters. And only by exquisitely close reading can\\nwe distinguish and reconcile, so as to take this defence\\nand also what follows\\nIn his observations on the foreground of the San\\nPietro Martire, Sir Joshua advances, as matter of praise,\\nthat the plants are discriminated just as much as was\\nnecessary for variety, and no more. Had this fore-\\nground been occupied by a group of animals, we should\\nhave been surprised to be told that the lion, the serpent,\\nand the dove were distinguished from each other\\njust as much as was necessary for variety, and no more.\\nIf the distinctive forms of animal life are meant\\nfor our reverent observance, is it likely that those of\\nvegetable life are made 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 enemies, 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 the\\nstatement of no falsehood and the doing of no de~", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0026.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIRST VOLUME. I 5\\nstructive violence is an intelligible condition of the\\nart whereof this is the apostolate but detail Is\\ndetail, or explicit recognition of minor facts, really\\nthe sign of the production of a consummate master\\nDetails contributing to a final purpose seems to be\\na phrase permitting the ignoring of details that do\\nnot contribute. And what does the Impressionist ask\\nmore than this A powerful artist, says Ruskin in a\\nprevious sentence, necessarily looks upon complete\\nparts as the very sign of error, weakness, and ignor-\\nance. Once for all, this should answer the common\\nand careless reading of Modern Painters and the rest.\\nLeaving the question of detail, then, aside, or\\nleaving it, if once for all is hardly possible, for a\\ntime, we shall do justice to Ruskin s teaching by\\nchoosing from his most dogmatic pages the following\\npassages that bear upon the larger question of truth\\nWhen there are things in the foreground of\\nSalvator, of which I cannot pronounce whether they\\nbe granite, or slate, or tufa, I affirm that there is in\\nthem neither harmonious union nor simple effect, but\\nsimple monstrosity. The elements of brutes can\\nonly mix in corruption, the elements of inorganic\\nnature 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 animating", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0027.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "l6 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nemotion, of many studies is concentrated and ex-\\nhibited by tlie aid of long-studied, painfully chosen\\nforms idealised in the right sense of the word, not by\\naudacious liberty of that faculty of degrading God s\\nworks which man calls his imagination, but by perfect\\nassertion of entire knowledge wrought out with\\nthat noblest industry which concentrates profusion into\\npoint, and transforms accumulation into structure.\\nThere is more ideality in a great artist s selection\\nand treatment of roadside weeds and brook-worn pebbles\\nthan in all the struggling caricature of the meaner mind,\\nwhich heaps its foreground with colossal columns, and\\nheaves impossible 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 come\\nnext to Modern Painters, Part I. Section i, the earliest\\nimportant page of one of the greatest authors of our\\nincomparable literature. It is a laborious page, in\\ngreat part filled by one sentence explaining that public\\nopinion can hardly be right upon matters of art until,\\nwith the lapse of time, it shall have accepted guidance.\\nThe same chapter declares war explicitly upon the old\\nmasters in landscape, and the reader has to add to the\\nnames of Salvator Rosa, Caspar Poussin, and Claude,\\nthose of Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbema,\\nTeniers (in landscape), Paul Potter, Canaletto, and\\nthe various Van somethings and Back somethings, more\\nespecially and malignantly those who have libelled the", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0028.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "MODERN TAINTERS FIRST VOLUME. 1/\\nsea. In the chapter, soon following, On Ideals of\\nPower, is to be especially 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 brings into\\nexertion, because nothing can be accomplished by a\\ngreater power which can be accomplished by a less\\nany more than bodily strength can be exerted where\\nthere is nothing to resist it. Be it remembered,\\nthen. 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 to\\nthe correction of a half-educated pleasure, since then\\ngenerally relinquished even by the half-educated, and\\neven in the case of popular pictures. Amid much\\nthat is less valuable, the reader finds this obvious\\nbut excellent distinction\\nA marble figure docs 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 outline of\\nthe bough of a tree on paper is not an imitation it\\nlooks like chalk and paper not like wood, and that\\nwhich it suggests to the mind is not properly said to be\\nlike the form of a bough, it is the form of a bough.\\nThe contrast is, of course, with work in colour, and\\nit is finely made, with the conclusion, for all the arts\\nB", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0029.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "l8 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nalike, Ideas of truth are the foundation, and ideas of\\nimitation the destruction, of art. On the chapter Of\\nIdeas of Relation the criticism of thirty years ago, led\\nby France on the initiative of Theophile Gautier, and\\ngenerally proclaimed by a generation now nearly dis-\\npossessed, joined issue with Ruskin. He teaches that\\nart has its highest exercise in the invention of such\\nincidents and thoughts as can be expressed in words as\\nwell as on canvas, and are totally independent of any\\nmeans of art but such as may serve for the bare sugges-\\ntion of them. Let me give the instance cited in the\\ntext\\nThe principal object in the foreground of Turner s\\nBuilding of Carthage is a group of children sailing toy\\nboats. The exquisite choice of this incident, as express-\\nive of the ruling passion which was to be the source of\\nfuture greatness, in preference to the tumult of busy\\nstonemasons or arming soldiers, is quite as appreciable\\nwhen it is told as when it is seen, it has nothing to do\\nwith the technical difficulties of painting a scratch of\\nthe pen would have conveyed the idea. Claude, in\\nsubjects of the same kind, commonly introduces people\\ncarrying red trunks with iron locks about the\\nintellect can have no occupation here we must look\\nto the imitation or to nothing. Consequently, Turner\\nrises above Claude in the very instant of the conception\\nof 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0030.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIRST VOLUME. I9\\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 Batii, batti,\\nthe opening notes of Parsifal, Tins is My Body from\\nBach s St Matthew, or the chords of Purcell s Winter\\naloof not far, but different from the several worlds\\nof the other arts? The man who has not music in his\\nsoul may perhaps be a man debarred from thought\\nthat is not, in some sense, literature the other arts,\\nalbeit distinct enough, may not have the power that\\nmusic has to prove the distinction in the ear that is\\nable to hear. Therefore he who has not the ear lacks\\nthe strongest of the proofs that the arts are not inter-\\nchangeable. The able eye will not do so much. To\\nadvance such a conjecture here may be something like\\npresumption, but it is intended to explain one of the\\nfew faults or weak places in the great body of doctrine\\nof Modern Painters. The least thoughtful reader has\\nby rote the accusation against Ruskin that his teaching\\non art abounds in errors and inconsistencies. The\\npresent writer finds no such abundance of faults in\\nthe great argument. There, however, 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0031.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "20 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nfive chalk touches bring a head into existence out\\nof nothing. No five touches in the wliole course of\\nthe work will ever do so much as these. Towards\\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,\\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 pencils\\nof light. Truth as it is in a paint-box can be but rela-\\ntive. This is the obvious protest of every reader. Nay,\\ndoes not Ruskin himself justify Rubens, who out of\\ngaiety and vitality of heart and not because of awful", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0032.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS FIRST VOLUME. 21\\ndevotion to one beautiful and hardly accessible thing,\\nlike the luminosity of a cloud puts the sun in one\\npart of the sky and draws the sunbeams from another,\\nand, again, casts shadows at right angles to the light\\nBold and frank licences he names these no worse\\nalbeit with this fine warning The young artist must\\nkeep in mind that the painter s greatness consists not\\nin his taking, but in his atoning for, them. It remains\\nfor him who would enter into the matter to follow the\\nargument of Modern Painters as its author presents\\nit, and as no summary comment is able to represent\\nit. Let it only be added here that the reason Ruskin\\ngives for the abhorrence of falsehood that nature\\nis immeasurably superior to all that the human mind\\ncan conceive 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 most\\ndivine landscape painter that ever lived. And his\\ngreat panegyrist magnifies him for the sake of that", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0033.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "22 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 The Relative Importance of Truths\\nintends to prove, if it be not self-evident, that gen-\\nerality gives importance to the subject, and limitation\\nor particularity to the predicate, and proves it by\\nadmirable reasoning. From Truths of Colour might\\nbe cited something difficult to reconcile with Ruskin s\\njudgment elsewhere in favour of the Tuscan colourists\\n(local-colourists, that is) and against the chiaroscurists,\\neven Rembrandt. But here and in other places it\\nis barely just to bear in mind the age of the writer\\nof the first volume of Modern Painters, and the half\\ncentury following during which he thought out in-\\ncessantly the same themes. Wonderful was this mind\\nof four and twenty it would have been monstrous\\nhad it undergone none of the change that comes of\\nmental experience, and of a pushing-on in the under-\\ntaken 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0034.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS FIRST VOLUME. 23\\nof our school. We are used now to the EngHsh\\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\\nand general and the teaching of detail was liberal\\neducation. The chapter on Application is remark-\\nable for its generosity. Austere had been the principles\\nin the setting forth, but the applications give abso-\\nlution, I know not quite how consciously, assuredly\\nnot arbitrarily, but sometimes to the reader s wonder,\\nseeing what has gone before. A noble convention is\\nexcused, and the passion of one man is acknowledged\\nto be sudden and of another to be slow. It is rarely\\nindeed that the application of the strenuous principles\\nis made by Ruskin to condemn any man altogether,\\nif that man have genius the final reference is to that\\npardon is for the great, and the court of judgment\\nthat grants it cannot publish its rules. The Dutch\\npainters are unhouseled, and so is Domenichino.\\nThe work of that Bolognese is named by Ruskin not\\nfailure, but perpetration and commission. The", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0035.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "24 JOHN RUSKIN.\\npainter of the second greatest picture in the world,\\nas the connaisseur, during a century or two, held the\\nCommunion of St Jerome to be, is here declared\\npalpably incapable of doing anything good, great,\\nor right. He who said this, studying Domenichino\\nfor himself, a student twenty-three years old or less,\\nagainst the world, held a consistency and knew it.\\nAnd, of course, the landscape painters already named\\nCaspar Poussin, Canaletto, and the rest are un-\\nforgiven. It is through a series of criticisms on the\\nRoyal Academy of the Forties that we come at last\\nto the detail of the work of Turner.\\nAt the outset Ruskin traces the foundation of Turner s\\ngreatness in his painting of things intimate and long\\nloved. The Yorkshire downs taught him, for instance,\\nthe masses of mountain drawing. With something that\\nlooks like rashness Ruskin says of any landscape painter\\nthat if he attempt to impress on his landscapes any\\nother spirit than that he has felt, and to make them\\nthe landscapes of other times, it is all over with him,\\nat least in the degree in which such reflected moonshine\\ntakes the place of the genuine light of the present day.\\nIf in some other place such a judgment as this is\\nto be reconciled with the praise of Turner s Building\\nof Carthage, it is not here. (That picture is, in effect,\\nrenounced later on, as, in colour, unworthy of the\\nmaster.) Moreover, when a great exception is made\\nto the general peril of taking inspirations from afar\\nor from antiquity, in the fine phrase Nicola Pisano", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0036.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIRST VOLUME. 2$\\ngot nothing but good, the modern French nothing but\\nevil, from the study of the antique but Nicola Pisano\\nhad a God and a character how is this to be taken\\nas a warning by a student who is not a Frenchman and\\nwho has not abandoned the faith that he too has a\\nGod and a character? Yet it is spoken by Ruskin\\nas a warning, nearly as a menace. The study of the\\ndealing 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. Rus-\\nkin says, perhaps, too little rather than too much of\\nthe un-Italian spirit of the Italy of Turner s work I\\nrecollect no instance of Turner s drawing a cypress\\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 belfry,\\nthe gold-white simple walls, the pure and remote sky\\npricked with delicate and upright forms on the hill-\\nedge, the country of soft dust and of old colours, the\\ncountry of poverty, which is Italy. An opulent and\\nan elegant Italy of balustrades and gardens, and, if\\none may venture to say so, a country of the ideal\\npast, seems to be Turner s. Of the poplars, of the\\nrivers, of the large skies and the flat valleys of France,\\nTurner became the son by singular sympathy. Ruskin\\ndescribes the adoption in a brief and lovely passage", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0037.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "26 JOHN RUSKIN.\\non the beauties of that domestic France. He tells\\nus that Turner s rendering of Switzerland was gener-\\nally deficient, but this seems to be said rather on a\\ntheory, 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 AToderti\\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 hues\\nof the external world no record had ever been given.\\nHe saw also that the finish and specific grandeur of\\nnature had been given, but her fulness, space, and\\nmystery, never and he saw that the great landscape-\\npainters had always sunk the lower middle tints of\\nnature in extreme shade, bringing the entire melody of\\ncolour as many degrees down as their possible light was\\ninferior 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 before\\neven suggested, but of all that is most brilliant, beautiful,\\nand inimitable he went to the cataract for its iris, to\\nthe conflagration for its flames, asked of the sea its in-\\ntensest azure, of the sky its clearest gold. For the\\nlimited space and defined forms of elder landscape he", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0038.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS FIRST VOLUME. 2/\\nsubstituted the quantity and the mystery of the vastest\\nscenes of earth and for the subdued chiaroscuro he\\nsubstituted first a balanced diminution of opposition\\nthroughout the scale, and afterwards attempted to\\nreverse the old principle, taking the lowest portion of\\nthe 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 the\\nwhole technical significance is important, the diction\\nbeing of great precision, to say that the reader ought\\nto make himself master of all that Ruskin means by\\nthe scale. Any man who has thought about any\\npicture must be aware of the scale, and must re-\\ncognise its limited relations in painting as the source\\nof a difficulty or rather an impossibility and as there-\\nfore the justification of a convention not an arbitrary\\nconvention, but a convention commanded, directed, and\\ncontrolled by certain truths, and by certain beauties\\nsalient amongst those truths. And it is because Ruskin\\nmakes the most profound and the most searching con-\\nfession the best of all possible confessions of the\\nconvention of relations whereof a painter has to make\\nhis picture, that a reader, even with all good will\\nto be taught, may be doubtful, at the end, whether\\nModern Fahiters does in fact succeed in proving one\\nway to be blessed and the other banned. But I repeat,\\nthis is to be studied at first hand from the book. And", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0039.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "28 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthe book, entering upon Section ii, does justice, once\\nfor all, to the painters of tone, even Salvator Rosa and\\nCaspar Poussin, and to what they achieved, according\\nto their scheme of relations. Albeit the chapter on\\nTone is one of the most technical, it is -one of the\\nmost interesting. In regard to Turner on this matter,\\nin his power of associating cold with warm light no\\none has ever approached or even ventured into the same\\nfield with him. The old masters, content with one\\nsimple 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 famous\\npage in which the Alban Mount, the Campagna, and\\nLa Riccia, fresh in the sun from a stormy shower,\\nis compared with Caspar Poussin s landscape. Despite\\nits beauty, and certainly because of some of its beauties,\\nit cannot, I venture to think, take a classic place, and\\nI have not extracted it. It is multitudinous as the\\nscene it describes the enormous and various scenery\\nof the sky after storm, and that of the woods, the\\nmountains, the plain, and the far sea. Not one vain\\nor vacant or lifeless or superfluous word is to\\nbe found therein all is abundance, life, and sight,\\nand the diction is as instant as it is pure. The effort", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0040.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIRST VOLUME. 29\\nof this description, whereby, in the end, the reader\\nis httle moved and yet a Uttle wearied, renews the\\nobstinate question whether it may not be that so many\\nof nature s wonders, as well as so many of a fine\\nauthor s wonders, are too. many for one picture, one\\npage. Not in arrogance, but in humility, might the\\npainter detach one luminous truth of natural fact so\\nthat it might be the inspiration of his work, and that\\nwork be 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\u00e2\u0080\u0094 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 ntimcrous truth\\nthis most solitary power over nicmeroiis truth that\\nRuskin says of the master\\nTurner, and Turner only, would follow, and render\\nthat mystery of decided line, that distinct, sharp,\\nvisible, but unintelligible and inextricable richness,\\nwhich, examined part by part, is to the eye nothing but\\nconfusion and defeat, which, taken as a whole, is all\\nunity, symmetry, and truth.\\nRuskin shows us, in another place, how each of the\\ntouches of nature is unique and diverse, so that though\\nwe cannot tell what such or such a touch may be, yet", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0041.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "30 TOHN RUSKIN.\\nwe know it cannot be any thing while even the\\nmost dexterous distances of Salvator or Poussin pre-\\ntend to secrecy without having anything to conceal, and\\nare ambiguous, not from the concentration of meaning,\\nbut from the want of it. This excellent sentence is\\nfrom those greatly scientific chapters on Truth of\\nColour, Truth of Chiaroscuro, Truth of Space as\\ndependent on the focus of the eye, wherein also we\\nread that Nature is never distinct and never vacant,\\nalways mysterious, but always abundant you\\nalways see something, but you never see all that the\\nItalians were vacant, and the Dutch distinct, Nature s\\nrule being you shall never be able to count the\\nbricks, but you shall never see a dead wall and\\nthat Turner introduced a new era in landscape art by\\nshowing that the foreground might be sunk for the\\ndistance, and that it was possible to express immediate\\nproximity to the spectator without giving anything like\\ncompleteness to the forms of the near objects. This\\nTurner accomplished, not by slurred or soft lines\\n(always the sign of vice in art), but by a decisive imper-\\nfection, a firm, but partial, assertion of form, which the\\neye feels indeed to be close home to it, and yet cannot\\nrest upon, nor cling to, nor entirely understand. And\\nlet the following passages be quoted from the chapters\\non Colour and Shadow before we pass to the\\nchapters on Skies and Mountains The ordinary\\ntinsel and trash with which the walls of our\\nAcademy are half covered is based on a system", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0042.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0080\u00a2modern painters FIRST VOLUME, 3 I\\nof colour 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 does\\nnot employ more pure and raw colour than Turner.\\nThen follows the memorable judgment on colour I\\nthink that the first approach to viciousness of colour\\nis commonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of\\npurple and absence of yellow for Ruskin makes us\\naware of the almost secret gold of fine colour. Rubens\\nand Turner had, like nature, yellow and black as a\\nfundamental opposition. In the chapter Of Truth\\nof Chiaroscuro Ruskin writes\\nIf we have to express vivid light, our first aim must\\nbe to get the shadows sharp and visible and this is not\\nto be done by blackness, but by keeping them\\nperfectly flat, keen, and even. A very pale shadow, if\\nit be kept flat, if it conceal the details of the object it\\ncrosses, if it be grey and cold compared with their\\ncolour, and very sharp-edged, will be far more con-\\nspicuous, and make everything out of it look a great\\ndeal more like sunlight than a shadow ten times its\\ndepth, shaded off at the edge, and confounded with the\\ncolour of the object on which it falls. Now the old\\nmasters of the Italian school directly reverse the\\nprinciple they blacken their shadows till the picture\\nbecomes quite appalling, and everything in it is invisible;\\nbut they make a point of losing their edges, and carrying\\nthem off by gradation.\\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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0043.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "6^\\nJOHN RUSKIN.\\nhave observed them for darkness at all. Turner s\\nshadows are, like nature s, shot with light.\\nWords are not accurate enough, nor delicate enough,\\nto express or trace the constant, all-pervading influence\\nof the finer and vaguer shadows throughout his works,\\nthat thrilling influence which gives to the light they leave\\nits passion and its power.\\nThree chapters record the study of the three regions\\nof cloud the neglected upper sky (neglected until\\nTurner drew the cirrus), the middle cloud, and the rain-\\ncloud. There is the noblest pleasure in the writer s\\nconfession that he has to find the same words in\\ndescribing a toreground of nature s and a foreground of\\nTurner s, and that delight is sensibly expressed in the\\nparagraphs on the real and authentic skies, closing with\\nTurner, who had more knowledge of all essential truth\\nin every wreath of vapour than composed the whole\\nstock of heavenly information which lasted Cuyp and\\nClaude their lives. Turner has infinity in forms of\\ncloud, too mysterious in wave of cloud and light to\\nbe tested by the eye infinity outsoaring the mere\\nnumbers achieved by lesser painters. For the\\ngreatest number is no nearer to infinity than the least,\\nif it be definite number, while infinity is reached by\\nthe mere hints of the variety and obscurity of truth.\\nThis is in the upper heavens the lower heavens\\nof the rain cloud have been the material of nearly\\nall the bad pictures in all the schools the two", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0044.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIRST VOLUME. 33\\nwindy Caspar Poussins in our National Gallery, for\\nexample\\nMassive concretions of ink and indigo, wrung and\\ntwisted very hard, apparently in a vain effort to get\\nsome moisture out of them bearing up courageously\\nand successfully against a wind whose effects on the\\ntrees in the foreground can be accounted for only on\\nthe supposition that they are all of the indiarubber\\nspecies.\\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 re-\\ncognition, confessed in the work of Turner and sug-\\ngested in every lightest line. In these chapters the\\nsubject is less closely a piece of reasoning than in\\nthe hard, urgent, and busy first chapters, upon which\\nI have dwelt at length because of their singular im-\\nportance but the motive is still explanation, demon-\\nstration the paragraph is hard at work, and only at\\nthe closes do we find the relaxation of beauty. In\\nthis book Ruskin does not precisely decorate his\\nconstruction he rather adds ornament with a punctual\\nafterthought, and it is doubtless these buoyant and\\nconspicuous flowers of prose that took the eye of\\nthe public, and gained so much and so prompt ad-\\nmiration for Modern Painters. But throughout these\\nc", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0045.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "34 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nchapters the sense of vitaUty increases. It is as though\\nthe searching grasp upon the essential history, law,\\nand spirit of things gave him a natural security, so\\nthat rising from the past of the streams, the origin of\\nthe clouds, and the roots of the mountains, his in-\\ntelligence is, as it were, bound to understand or\\nconceive no other ranges of hills or clouds than those\\nwhich are lifted on the earth and in the skies according\\nto inevitable law. That is, the mountains of Salvator\\nRosa may have, as he says, holes in them but no\\nvalleys protuberances and excrescences, but no parts\\nbut Ruskin, student of the profound nature of the rocks,\\nshows us authentic valleys, and knows the parts of the\\nmountains as fragments of the unity of the earth. In\\nthe beautiful chapter Of the Foreground, it is worth\\nnoting, occurs a brief phrase characteristic of the prose\\na derogation not so much from Johnson as from\\nGibbon that was the common language of letters, the\\nrefuse of an English style, profusely ready to the hand\\nof every 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\\nA steep bank of loose earth exposed to the\\nweather, contains in it features capable of giving\\nhigh gratification to a careful observer.\\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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0046.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "MODERN TAINTERS FIRST VOLUME. 35\\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\\nall inorganic. 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 tliat 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\\nof Backhuysen.\\nIt is curious to see how in this essay on the painting\\nof waters the faith in the perfectibility I wish I knew\\na word to express rather the capability-of-perpetual-\\nprogress-in-a-direction-of-perfection let me take perfecti-\\nbility with that meaning how the faith in this energy\\nand single direction of human things, which inspires\\nRuskin s political economy, mountain drawing, and\\nforeground painting, and compels him to work for\\nthe replies to unanswerable questions, renders him ill-\\nsatisfied with the simple and single painting of calm", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0047.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "36 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nwaters, which painters of moderate powers are able to\\ndo artistically, giving keen pleasure thereby, but giving\\nit easily, and urges him to study rather the painting\\nof the broken sea, the shifting surface, and the\\ncataract. The question arises in the reader s mind\\nyet again whether this noble teaching, which would,\\nif it were possible, make another Turner, has not in\\nfact made, in the lower places, many bad painters.\\nAnd yet his refutation of the bad painters of a quite\\ndifferent kind those whom his teaching did not make\\nand could not make and his immediate appeal to\\nthe nature they disintegrated by the shattering effect\\nof their negligence and the insolence of their recon-\\nstruction, are true master s work in this section on\\nthe sea, and in that which follows, on vegetation.\\nSuch is the lesson on the passage of the cataract\\nfrom the spring to the fall, when the parabolic curve\\nceases, whereas the false painters carry that curve to\\nthe end, and make their water look active where it\\nshould be wildly subject to gravitation. Such is the\\nstudy of the waves seen, from the sea shoreward, not\\nas successive breakers, but as the self- same water\\nrepeating its crash with the perturbed spirit of the\\nsea. Such also is the study of the top of the nodding\\nwave when the water swings and jumps along the\\nridge like a shaken chain. Such is the history of the\\ngrowth of a tree, and the statement of the laws of its\\ndelimitation of outline, and of its angles, which the\\nwildest wind that ever blew on earth cannot take out,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0048.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "modern painters FIRST VOLUME. 37\\nthough from a twig but an inch thick, whereas Caspar\\nPoussin s wind stretches the branches in curves. Of\\nhis sea-chapter, Ruskin himself says in a note It is\\na good study of wild weather but utterly feeble in\\ncomparison to the few words by which any of the great\\npoets will describe sea. There is nothing in\\nsea description, detailed, like Dickens s storm in David\\nCopperfield.\\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, question\\nas to the imitation and selection of nature in painting.\\nUpon this he has said many things contending\\nthings as even a careful student may hold, contrary\\nthings as the careless will continue to think. May\\nwe not regret the arduous thought spent upon an\\nambiguous dispute that is nearly an ambiguous quarrel\\nIf he had been learned in music, an art wherein such\\nc )ntention finds no place, would he have made it the\\ncentre of his argument on painting", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0049.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "38\\nCHAPTER III.\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2MODERN PAINTERS.\\nTHE SECOND VOLUME (1846).\\nThe Second Volume of Modern Fainkrs which,\\nthough in affected language, yet with sincere and very\\ndeep feeling, expresses the first and fundamental law\\nrespecting human contemplation of the natural pheno-\\nmena under whose influence we exist that they can\\nonly be seen with their properly belonging joy and\\ninterpreted up to the measure of proper human intel-\\nligence, when they are accepted as the work and the\\ngift 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0050.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS SECOND VOLUME. 39\\nreprobation, can blind to its shortcomings, or beguile\\nof its hope. Spirituality and morality have done ill\\nto forego their divine claim to that art whereto they\\nhad a right not only of authority but of very origin\\nand essence. And in the literally divine gift of art\\nis implied the responsibility of choice, so that men\\nare bound to authentic and incorrupt beauty in art\\nas they are bound to justice in action. The happiness\\nwhich the senses and their spirit take in the good\\nwhich they contemplate and follow is itself, by its\\nvery energy, a sure rule of choice it clasps what it\\nloves so hard, that it crushes it if it be hollow. And\\nthis happiness, far too high to be called aesthetic,\\nRuskin names 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\\nthe root, is dislike [of natural things] and not affection.\\nBeauty is the bread of the soul, for which virginal\\nhunger is renewed every morning. And good genius\\nwas infallibly imaginative in the days before men had\\nbegun to bring to the cross foot their systems instead\\nof their sorrow, From this noble doctrine to the\\nconclusion that a false and impious man could not\\nbe a great imaginative painter (a judgment that has\\nbeen cast in Ruskin s teeth a thousand times), the logic\\nof a young man carried him, not in haste indeed but", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0051.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "40 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nwith the current of deUberate and intentional decision.\\nI do not think, said Socrates, that any one who\\nshould now hear us, even though he were a comic\\npoet, would say that I talk idly or discourse on\\nmatters that concern me not but the comic, or more\\nproperly the derisive, humour of English writers has\\nnot forborne to accuse Ruskin of that which Socrates\\nhad confidence would be forborne in his own regard\\nto charge with vanity an inquiry that concerned man\\nand the honour of his works. And if the question\\nhas been held so vain, what common contempt has\\nnot mocked the answer framed in the too instant need\\nthat 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,\\nRuskin stays upon the old speculation as to the nature\\nof the beauty that so delights our discerning senses\\nas to cause 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 some-\\ntimes splendid he does quote the vaguer kind of\\nfelicity of Bacon, which fails to explain the kind.\\nNothing is more common, Ruskin says in the following\\nvolume, than to hear people who desire to be thought\\nphilosophical, declare that beauty is truth and truth\\nis beauty. I would most earnestly beg every sensible", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0052.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters SECOND VOLUME. 4I\\nperson who hears such an assertion made, to nip the\\ngerminating philosopher in his ambiguous bud and\\nbeg him, if he really believes his own assertion, never\\nhenceforward to use two words for the same thing.\\nThe succeeding chapters on Unity, Infinity, Re-\\npose, Moderation, are masterly in thought, with\\npassages close and fine, as that which discovers the\\nreason of the agreeableness of a curve that it\\ndivides itself infinitely by its changes of direction\\nthat which asserts the inseparable dependence of\\nspirits on each other s being, and their essential and\\nperfect depending on their Creator s and the noble\\npage on Unity Subjectional Unity of things sub-\\nmitted to the same influence, which is that of clouds\\nin the wind Unity of Origin, which is that of branches\\nof a tree Unity of Sequence, which is that of continued\\nlines or the notes following to make a melody and\\nUnity of Membership, which is the unity of things\\nseparately 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-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0053.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "42 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 given\\nto Michelangiolo, of the love given to Raphael and to\\nFrancia, and of a young man s love of the forest and\\nthe wild landscape, in impatience of the lovely country\\nof agriculture.\\nThe latter part of the second volume is principally a\\ntreatise on Imagination Associative, Penetrative, and\\nContemplative a great work of true intellectual pas-\\nsion and the poverty of any words that try to present\\nthe argument by way of mere sketch must discourage\\nme from the attempt howbeit the task I have set\\nmyself throughout is no less than this almost impossible\\nsummary, the reader will do well to be more than ever\\non his guard in order to take the citations as signs and\\nfragments of the perfect life of the work. Let it be said\\nat once that no man could think out the multitude of\\ntruths without the use of opposing phrases. It would\\nhave been well if in the subsequent revision for later\\nissues (especially the thorough revision of 1883) Ruskin\\nhad altered the mere diction of the doctrine as to\\nchoice in art. The reader must be warned not to put\\nthis amongst the reputed inconsistencies until he has", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0054.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS SECOND VOLUME. 43\\nread the fourth volume, where the paradox is explained.\\nThe real inconsistencies are few, and only a reader\\nbaffled by the consistency (and there is nothing so\\nexacting, so difficult, so various, as the consistency of a\\ncomplete 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 definition\\nof Imagination by Dugald Stewart, who does not know\\nimagination from composition, or recomposition, and\\nthinks imagination in landscape to consist in the im-\\naginary landscape of gathering or collocation. It is\\nnot this, as no one needs to be told to-day, but we\\nowe our knowledge in great part to Ruskin s contention\\nand the word imagination itself (originally esthetic,\\nor sensual, and defective) is what it is now by his\\nown act of transformation. Imagination does not com-\\nbine, but is pre-engaged upon more vital work. In\\nfact, the chapter on Imagination Associative does some\\nof its most effectual work in its witty history of the\\ndrawing of a tree by a painter without imagination.\\nWe will suppose him, for better illustration of the\\npoint in question, to have good feeling and correct\\nknowledge of the nature of trees. He probably lays on\\nhis paper such a general form as he knows to be charac-\\nteristic of the tree to be drawn, and such as he believes\\nwill fall in agreeably with the other masses of his picture.\\nWhen this form is set down, he assuredly finds it\\nhas done something he did not intend it to do. It has\\nmimicked some prominent line, or overpowered some", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0055.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "44 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nnecessary mass. He begins pruning and changing, and,\\nafter several experiments, succeeds in obtaining a form\\nwhich does no material mischief to any other. To this\\nform he proceeds to attach a trunk, and, working prob-\\nably on a received notion or rule (for the unimaginative\\npainter never works without a principle) that tree-tr,;nks\\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 it\\nlooks disagreeably long, he will begin to ramify it and\\nif there be another tree in the picture with two large\\nbranches, he knows that this, by all the laws of com-\\nposition, ought to have three or four, or some different\\nnumber and because he knows that if three or four\\nbranches start from the same point they will look formal,\\ntherefore he makes them start from points one above\\nanother and because equal distances are improper,\\ntherefore they shall start at unequal distances. When\\nthey are fairly started, he knows they must undulate or\\ngo backwards and forwards, which accordingly he makes\\nthem do at random and because he knows that all\\nforms ought to be contrasted, he makes one bend down\\nwhile the other three go up. The three that go up,\\nhe knows, must not go up without interfering with each\\nother, and so he makes two of them cross. He thinks\\nit also proper that there should be variety of character\\nin them so he makes the one that bends down graceful\\nand flexible, and, of the two that cross, he splinters one\\nand makes a stump of it. He repeats the process\\namong the more complicated minor boughs, until, coming\\nto the smallest, he thinks further care unnecessary, but\\ndraws them freely, and by chance. Having to put on\\nthe foliage, he will make it flow properly in the direction\\nof the tree s growth he will make all the extremities\\ngraceful, but will be tormented by finding them come all\\naUke, and at last will be obliged to spoil a number of", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0056.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters SECOND VOLUME. 45\\nthem altogether in order to obtain opposition. They\\nwill not, however, be united in this their spoliation, but\\nwill remain uncomfortably separate and individually ill-\\ntempered. He consoles himself by the reflection that\\nit is unnatural for all of them to be equally perfect.\\nNow, I suppose that through the whole of this process\\nhe has been able to refer to his definite memory or\\nconception of nature for every one of the fragments\\nhe has successively added.\\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\\nof the action of an open hand, palm upwards, and\\nthe fingers 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 ^schylus, Homer, Dante, or Shakespeare. How\\ndid Shakespeare know that Virgiha 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0057.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "46 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nDivine form among the mortal crowd how much\\nn\\\\ore 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\\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, 1 say for the brief mo-\\nment contemplative imagination is in Keats in large\\nand intense perfection.\\nIdeal and Real are words that represent\\nanother subject of old thought whereon most men\\nhave opinions. Let me say briefly (since this may\\nnow be said more briefly than when Ruskin said it)\\nthat the doctrine of Modern Painters would have us\\nto condemn that generalising which is a combination,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0058.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters SECOND VOLUME. 47\\nan assembling of individual characters, and is im-\\npotent and that it would have us to seek the ideal\\nof each individual, by the mental study of the hiero-\\nglyphics of his sacred history, and by the hard working\\nportraiture, the necessary and sterling basis of all\\nideal art, practised by Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto,\\nGhirlandajo, Masaccio, John Bellini and not by\\nGuido or the Caracci. The lack of the individual\\nideal, with the triviality of accessories, has filled the\\nEnglish Academy with such a school of portraiture\\nas must make the people of the nineteenth century\\nthe shame of their descendants, and the butt of all\\ntime. In treating of the vital and ideal beauty of\\nman, Ruskin says that the purity of flesh-painting de-\\npends on the intensity 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 in-\\ntention. But the normal and working style is purely\\nof its own day as his genius renewed the day and\\nthe hour 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": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0059.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "48\\nCHAPTER IV.\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2MODERN PAINTERS.\\nTHE THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES (1856).\\nThe third volume was written after ten years. Turner\\nhad died too soon to receive the amends of the first\\nvolume for the rash blame that had embittered his\\nlife and from the irreparable cruelty Ruskin s heart\\nhad taken the wound that the young heart accepts from\\nthe world but there were, in their measure, men whom\\nit was not too late to praise, and the generous fear\\nlest one or two true painters should be denied their\\ndue until they also had passed from the communion\\nof men upon earth led Ruskin somewhat far in his\\npraises of modern painters who were not Turners.\\nAs a prelude stands an essay Touching the Grand\\nStyle, in controversy with Sir Joshua Reynolds and\\nwith Dr Johnson, his ally. It is with no irreverence\\ntowards the master whose painting was a refutation of\\neverything shallow that he took in hand to speak or\\nread, and with no irreverence to Johnson, that a", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0060.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters THIRD VOLUME. 49\\nreader, fresh from the searching thought of Ruskin,\\nconfesses the Discourse here examined to be an\\ninstance of the commonplace thinking of the eigh-\\nteenth century commonplace (let the paradox be\\nallowed) to the degree of falsity. Loose reasoning\\nin exact English is here, as where Sir Joshua sa)s\\nthat the Grand Style of Michelangiolo, the Homer\\nof painting, has the least of common nature,\\nwhereas it is common and general nature that Sir\\nJoshua s doctrine of the Grand Style does logically\\nallow, and the distinction of individual character that\\nit forbids. If the comparison with Homer were a\\njust one, then the heroic or impossible in art must\\nbe mingled (as Ruskin proves) with the very un-\\nheroic and quite possible, with details of cookery,\\namongst others and having shown the figure of his\\nhero, the painter ought to spend the greater part\\nof his time (as Homer the greater number of his\\nverses) in elaborating the pattern on his shield.\\nMoreover Sir Joshua and the Doctor think they have\\nprofoundly shaken the original idea of beauty by the\\neighteenth century device of explaining beauty by\\ncustom. If the whole world, they say, should\\nagree that Yes and No should change their mean-\\nings, Yes would then deny and No would affirm.\\nAs though the arbitrary sign of a word had any but\\na conventional relation to the thing signified and\\nas though the Yes answered to the question Do\\ntwo and two make four could be changed for", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0061.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "50 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nNo in its significance, even if the sound of it were\\nNo!\\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 safety\\nof the saloon, and his innocence to the seclusion of\\nthe cloister, he has neither courage to front the\\nmonster, nor wit enough to furnish the knave.\\nRuskin finds the great style to be the style of a\\ngreat painter, and knows that no good will can bring it\\nto pass. The reader may remember that it is written\\nin the F/uvdo, There are, say those who preside at\\nthe mysteries, 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 involves\\na ivonderful perception and expression of indistinctness.\\nBut alas how shall I attain to know, in two pictures,\\nthe indistinctness that is merely indistinctness from\\nthat which is wonderfully perceived to be indistinct\\nIf, a little further, we must submit to have it said of\\nthe tender Rembrandt that he sacrifices to one light\\nand its relations the expression of every character", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0062.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS \u00e2\u0080\u0094THIRD VOLUME. 5 I\\nwhich depends on tenderness of shape or tint, we\\nsubmit for the pleasure of reading, in contrast, of\\nVeronese s delicate air and great system of spacious\\ntruth.\\nHe unites all in tenderest balance, noting\\nin each hair s- breadth of colour, not merely what its\\nrightness or wrongness is in itself, but what its relation\\nis restraining, for truth s sake, his exhaustless\\nenergy, reining back, for truth s sake, his fiery stren^h\\nveiling, before truth, the vanity of brightness pene-\\ntrating, for truth, the discouragement of gloom.\\nAfter the true and the false Grand Styles come\\nconsiderations of true and false ideals and I take\\nfrom a page on the latter this witty passage\\nA modern German, without invention, seeing f O Q\\na rapid in a river, will immediately devote the remainder\\nof the day to the composition of dialogues between\\namorous water nymphs and unhappy mariners while\\nthe man of true invention, power, and sense will, instead,\\nset himself to consider whether the rocks in the river\\ncould have their points knocked off, or the boats upon\\nit be made with stronger bottoms. The various\\nforms of false idealism have so entangled the modern\\nmind, often called, I suppose ironically, practical.\\nCompare with this the permission given, two pages later,\\nto the true imagination to create for itself fairies and\\nnaiads, and other such fictitious creatures. How shall\\nthe reader be taught to feel, with Ruskin, an infallible\\nmoral indignation against this naiad and an infallible\\nmoral delight in that? It seems to me impossible.\\nOne falls back upon the sure if inexplicable private", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0063.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "52 JOHN RUSKIN.\\njudgment: this ideal poem is genius -work and\\nbeautiful, and that ideal poem is not. But in con-\\nfessing despair of learning the lesson as a lesson (it is\\ntaught, with all power, purpose, and insistance, by\\nRuskin, as a lesson), I disclaim the insolence of re-\\nproaching him with that moral passion which was to\\nhis mind most intelligible, most necessary, and angelic-\\nally just.\\nPurist Idealism, Naturalist Idealism, and Gro-\\ntesque Idealism in their right forms are studied next,\\nwith some repetition, but also with almost overwhelming\\nvariety. Ruskin adds to his words on the authentic\\nimagination these, which, when they are heard, confer\\nthe vision and the power Write the things which\\nthou hast seen, and the things which are. To the\\nimagination he commits the study of general things,\\nof special things, and of unique things in their mul-\\ntitudes. The choice as well as the vision is mani-\\nfested to Homer, he says in another place, touching on\\nthe controversy that runs throughout. In a passage\\nwhich has truth in a most strange aspect, he avers that\\nwithout choice a great painter may paint vain and paltry\\nthings at a sorrowful level, somewhat above vulgarity.\\nIt is only when the minor painter takes them on his\\neasel that they become things for the universe to be\\nashamed of. The chapter on the Grotesque is alto-\\ngether delightful and wonderful. Grotesque art is that\\nwhich arises from healthful but irrational play of the\\nimagination, or from irregular and accidental contem-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0064.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "MODI .RN painters THIRD VOLUME. 53\\nplation of terrible things, or from the confusion of the\\nimagination by the presence of truths which it cannot\\nwholly grasp 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 of\\nnoble rest from malice, instead of the solemn contem-\\nplation of the necessary evil and from general degra-\\ndation of the human spirit, instead of its subjection, or\\nconfusion, 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 com-\\nposition, collocation, combination the secondary quali-\\nties in no little beauty, but Ruskin takes the man who\\nwrought it through the experiment and piecemeal of his\\nwork as but now he took a bad draughtsman through\\nhis tree with exquisite dramatic sense of the man s\\nmind and action, most wittily, with a wit of the very\\nfingers. He shows how the lion and the eagle, put\\ntogether, have been missed in the winged creature with\\nits trivial eye, and its foot on the top of a flower. Let\\nthe reader remember that this griffin was famous, and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0065.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "54 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthat no one had perceived the Lombardic griffin until\\nRuskin studied him. No piecemeal is in this winged\\ncreature. He is not merely a bit of lion and a bit of\\neagle, but whole lion incorporate with whole eagle.\\nHe has the carnivorous teeth, and the pecuHar hang-\\ning of the jaw at the back, which marks the flexible\\nmouth he has no cocked ears, like the other, to\\ncatch the wind in flight (Ruskin says that the classical\\ngriffin would have an ear-ache when he got home\\na phrase of heart-easing mirth he the Lombard\\nhas the throat, the strength, the indolence of the lion\\nhe has merely got a poisonous winged dragon to hold,\\nand for such a little matter as that, he may as well do\\nit lying down. With the utmost dramatic sense is the\\ngrasp on the dragon told in this fine page, to which the\\nreader is bound to have recourse if he would know true\\ngriffinism at all. Composing legalism does nothing\\nelse than err. The passionate imagination knows not\\nhow to transgress.\\nFrom the chapters on Finish let us clearly learn\\nthat vv hat Ruskin calls by this name is life o 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 knot\\nof reasoning) and a brief history of the human spirit of\\nthe artist, antique and modern, bring us to the famous", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0066.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters THIRD VOLUME. 5^\\nPathetic Fallacy. This fallacy is a fiction (wanton,\\nfanciful, imaginative, or more purely passionate) in our\\nreading of natural things according to the feeling of our\\nown hearts. Obviously it is chiefly poetry that is here\\nin question and the reader should understand that\\nRuskin is not writing of poets who are no poets he\\nadmits two orders of poets, but no third, as doubtless a\\nmusician would admit two orders of musicians two\\nvery arts of music, two muses but no third and he\\nplaces agreeing therein with the greater number of\\ncritics one order higher than the other, as a musician\\nneed not do in contemplating his own double-peaked\\nhill. Ruskin makes an admirable opposition of the\\nimage without fallacy of Dante to the image with fallacy\\nof Coleridge pausing for a moment (only a moment,\\nfor the chapter is intended to treat chiefly of noble and\\npassionate fallacy) at the fallacy which is not poetic at\\nall because it is assigned, as by Pope, to the wrong\\npassion, and is cold. But I confess all this reasoning\\non poetry seems to fail not impotently, but with vital\\nefi ort, and because of some prohibition from the begin-\\nning of the task to fail to prove or even to demonstrate\\nanything we do not know, or to disprove anything we\\nfeel. A whole chapter further on, for instance, shows\\nWalter Scott to be better than a sentimentalist, better\\nthan a poet who works with difficulty, better than a poet\\nwho is self-conscious, better as a poet-seer than a mere\\npoet-thinker, and moreover a thorough representative of\\nhis time by his love of nature, of the past, of colour, and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0067.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "56 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nof the picturesque, by his sadness and lack of personal\\nfaith, and so forth. But at the end of the argument we\\nshall not have been persuaded to take Scott to be a\\npoet possessed of the spirit of poetry. The essay, how-\\never, though a vain persuasion, is an excellent com-\\nmentary take the sentence, for example, which explains\\nhow we have pleasure in Kingsley s fallacious cruel\\nfoam, not because the words fallaciously describe\\nfoam, but because they faithfully describe sorrow.\\nThe chapter has been popular, for it reaches none of\\nthe inner concentrations of thought that make Modern\\nPainters arduous reading to a real reader. The chapter\\nfollowing, on Classical Landscape, deals also with\\npoetry. To the question whether the modern with his\\nfancy does not see something in nature that Homer\\ncould not see, Ruskin replies that the Greek had his\\nown feeling that of faith and not of fallacy. He\\nnever says the waves rage, or the waves are idle. But\\nhe says there is somewhat in, and greater than, the\\nwaves, which rages, and is idle, and that he calls a god.\\nNor will Ruskin consent to have Homer s Hera, cuffing\\nthe contentious 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 spirit,\\nis this passage on the Greek and the gods\\nTo ask counsel of them, to obey them, to sacrifice\\nto them, to thank them for all good, this was well but", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0068.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters THIRD VOLUME. 57\\nto be utterly downcast before them, or not to tell\\nthem his mind in plain Greek if they seemed to him to\\nhe conducting themselves in an ungodly manner this\\nwould not be well.\\nAnd happy in thought is a passage on the modern who\\naccepts sympathy from nature that he does not believe\\nin, and gives her sympathy that he does not believe in\\n(but should this part of the phrase be so positive as\\nthe other?), whereas the Greek had no sympathy at\\nall with actual wave and woody fibre.\\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\\nunfolded there and tracks the change in the human\\nspirit in regard to the forest, wherein the man of the\\nMiddle Ages looked to meet with an enemy in ambush\\nor a bear, whereas the ancient expected to meet one\\nor two gods, but no banditti and The Rocks is\\na magnificent study of mountains as man beheld them\\nin the ancient world and in the altered ages. Ruskin\\ngives modern man, with his love of breeze, of shadows,\\nof the ruling and dividing clouds, over to the gibe\\nof Aristophanes that he would speak ingeniously\\nconcerning smoke, that he disbelieves in Jupiter, and\\ncrowns the whirlwind. Exquisite play is mingled with\\nall the philosophy of these historic chapters. A\\nsummary but splendid history of colour in the arts\\na spiritual history of the colours man has loved", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0069.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "58 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nopens the question treated at length by other pens\\nlong after Modern Painters was written of the sense\\nof colour in Antiquity and the study returns to\\nTurner, the man who was first in the essentially\\nmodern painting of nature in place of the human\\nform, as Bacon was first in the modern study of\\nnature instead of the human mind. But in The\\nMoral of Landscape Turner himself and all lovers\\nof nature are arraigned with extreme austerity to\\njustify, or rather to excuse, that passion for landscape\\nwherewith some of the greatest of human intellects\\nhave not been charged and it is only after a medita-\\ntion, full of misgiving, nay, of suffering, and courage,\\nand after 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 directions,\\nof loss it is only then that this teacher permits him-\\nself to bless the human love of nature. With trem-\\nbling hope and the profound decision that is to be won\\nfrom the heart of hearts of a dreadful doubt, he calls\\nfinally upon the love and knowledge of landscape to\\nmend specifically the foolish spirit of a century bent\\nupon annihilating time and space by steam (as\\npeople said in 1850 but the saying was confessedly\\nmere rhetoric, and certainly a vulgar kind), whereas\\ntime is what wisdom would seek to gain, and space\\nis full of beauty upon which wisdom would be glad\\nto pause.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0070.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters THIRD VOLUME. 59\\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 formalism\\nof a low degree of classical knowledge, which did, in\\nfact, show the way to larger interests. Albeit Turner\\nhad to await his opportunity to steal from the Egerian\\nwells to the Yorkshire streams, and from Homeric\\nrocks, with laurels at the top and caves at the bottom\\nto Alpine precipices carrying the pine, yet he gained\\nsomething from the restraint, and was thereafter able\\nto watch with pleasure the staying of the silver foun-\\ntain [the garden fountain] at its appointed height in\\nthe sky as well as to pore with delight upon the\\nunbound river. But, ordered, as a boy, to draw eleva-\\ntions of Renaissance buildings, and commissioned as\\na youth to draw Palladian mansions for their owners,\\nTurner never loved or understood architecture whereas\\nScott, if he learnt little of it, liked it heartily. A\\nforced admiration of Claude and a fond admiration\\nof Titian, and of all the great Venetian landscape, are\\ntraced by Ruskin in Turner s early work with Cuyp\\nTurner matched himself in emulation, and he suffered\\ninjury from the example of Vandevelde. Then follow\\nsome vigorous pages about Claude. Tenderness of\\nperception and sincerity of purpose Ruskin attributes\\nto him and confesses that he it was who first set the\\nsun in heaven. But Claude s way of misunderstanding\\nthe main point is proved by Ruskin in the case\\nof /Eneas drawing his bow, from the Lite? Veritatis.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0071.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "6o JOHN RUSKIN,\\nFrom the ending of this volume, which refers to\\nthe Crimean 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\\nof nations) For great, accumulated cause, their\\nfoot slides in due time. And this is memorable as\\nthe note of a watcher of public things\\nI noticed that there never came news of the ex-\\nplosion of a powder-barrel but the Parliament lost\\nconfidence immediately in the justice of the war; re-\\nopened the question whether we ever should have\\nengaged in it, and remained in a doubtful and repentant\\nstate of mind until one of the enemy s powder-barrels\\nblew up also.\\nDefending himself against the not unrighteous charge\\nthat he not only neglected but scorned German phil-\\nosophy, Ruskin avers, in his Appendix, that he is right\\nto condemn by specimen\\nHe who seizes all that he plainly discerns to be\\nvaluable, and never is U7ijust hut wheji 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 Fiction\\nFair and Foul, in the Niiieteenth Century, where Ruskin\\nrelated his refusal to be troubled to read a certain\\nnovel he had heard praised; the situation of the\\nstory, they told him, was that of two people who had\\ncompromised themselves in a boat foul and foolish.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0072.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FOURTH VOLUME. 6l\\nNot without pain or incredulity has the reader to learn\\nthat the passage so ridiculed is the flight and the return\\nof Maggie Tulliver. Injustice may be as inevitable as\\nstumbling or being sick, but evitable was the pro-\\nclamation of this stray, uninstructed, and unjustified\\njudgment. The pardon of these implicit injustices\\nsurely depends upon their privacy, upon the silence\\nthat is not irrevocable, and on the secrecy wherewith a\\nman keeps his own counsel as 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 the\\npage on the Calais tower (placed in the late edition at\\nthe beginning of the volume) became famous it evoked\\nwhat its author calls the weak enthusiasms of those who\\nmissed the essential beauty because they thought them-\\nselves elected to admire the style. It is a passage\\nof a chapter directed to correct and chastise that popular\\nideal of the picturescjue abroad and the neat at\\nhome wherewith many thousands go and come across\\nthe Channel.\\nThe large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it the\\nrecord of its years written so visibly, yet without sign of\\nweakness or decay its stern wasteness and gloom,\\neaten away by the Cliannel winds, and overgrown by\\nthe bitter sea grasses its slates and tiles all shaken and\\nrent, and yet not falling its desert of brickwork full of\\nbolts, and holes, and ugly fissures, and yet strong, like a\\nbare brown rock its carelessness of what any one thinks\\nor feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no beauty", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0073.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "62 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nor desirableness, pride, nor grace yet neither asking for\\npity not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or\\nfondly garrulous of better days; but useful still, going\\nthrough its own daily work as some old fisherman\\nbeaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets so it\\nstands, with 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 hillocked\\nshore the lighthouse for life, and the belfry for labour,\\nand this for patience and praise.\\nAppropriate to the time, fifty years ago, is the rebuke\\nthat follows of the painter who went in search of fallen\\ncottage, deserted village, blasted heath, mouldering\\ncastle, ^joyful sights to him alone of mankind, so that\\nthey did but show jagged angles of stone and timber\\ntrue, he mingled with his pleasures a slight tragical feel-\\ning, a vague desire to live in cottages, a partly ro-\\nmantic, partly humble, sympathy. Ruskin showed him\\nhis own triviality in contrast with the sympathy of genius\\nwhich was Turner s. Tintoret had a like genius, but\\nwithout humour. Veronese had such a sympathy, but\\nwithout tragedy. Rubens wants grace and mystery. In\\nTurner alone Ruskin finds the complete sympathy\\nfailing only as he was human. From the immeasurably\\nvarious opened world before such a genius Turner chose\\ngreat things, not contenting himself with the personal\\nimpression that might make odds and ends dear to him,\\nas Ruskin s young pre-Raphaelites were doing, leaving the", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0074.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FOURTH VOLUME. 6^\\nnoble things to be made into vignettes for annuals, or\\nto be painted vilely. Surely the surviving slander that\\nRuskin would have his disciples to select nothing and\\nto neglect nothing might have been silenced once for\\nall by the note to this same page, which proves him to\\nhave directed none but the preparatory studies of young\\nlearners by that celebrated phrase. Nor is any contro-\\nversy possible in face of another page of this volume\\nIf a painter has inventive power he is to treat his\\nsubject [by] giving not the actual facts of it, but\\nthe impression it made on his mind.\\nRuskin supplied his future opponents with this word and\\nwith this thought which they brandished and vaunted\\non their side of some supposed controversy. In truth,\\nhe allows a great inventive landscape painter to do\\nwhat he likes, to give not the image but the spirit of a\\nplace, to go down into a jumbled and formless lower\\nvalley of the Alps with his mind full of the terrors of a\\npass above and in that power of impression to transform\\nthe rocks. But let the uninventive beware of the paltry\\nwork of composing let Aim learn to make portraits of\\nplaces, and record for us the battlefield for the sake of\\nstrategy, the castle before it moulders away, the abbey\\nbefore it is pulled to the ground, the beast before it is\\nextinct, the topography of Venice before the city is\\ndestroyed that is art enough for him. But, unfortun-\\nately, he is not to be trusted for facts and Ruskin\\nfinds that the dull Canaletto, far from making a pic-\\nture, cannot so much as record exactly where a house", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0075.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "64 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nstood. If any one shall say, moreover, that by this or\\nthat invention Turner did wrong inventively, Ruskin\\nreplies, The dream said not so to Turner.\\nThe succeeding chapters are a long lesson on the\\ninitial and unending difficulties of illumination, and of\\nthe degrees of pictorial vision, from which I must quote\\nno more than this on relations or values\\nDespise the earth fix your eyes on its gloom, and\\nforget its loveliness and we do not thank you for your\\nlanguid or despairing perception of brightness in heaven.\\nBut rise up actively from the earth, learn what there is\\nin it, know its colour and form and if after that you\\ncan say heaven is bright, it will be a precious truth.\\nAnd this from the study of colour as more than all else\\na 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. Excel-\\nlence of the highest kind, without obscurity, cannot\\nexist.\\nAssuredly, without difficulty from the objections of\\nmodern readers, who are convinced already, Ruskin\\ncontrols by means of these truths his own doctrine of\\ndetail. It is the perception of mystery that the greatest\\nof all masters have added to the perception of truth\\nTurner, Tintoret, and Paul Veronese, mysterious", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0076.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS FOURTH VOLUME. 65\\npainters, whose perception, first as to what is to be\\ndone, and then of the means of doing it, is so colossal\\nthat I always feel in the presence of their pictures just\\nas other people would in that of a supernatural being.\\nThe student should weigh well the words perception\\nof mystery and all that they imply, as distinct from\\npower of dispelling mystery or any such phrase. All\\ninvention, moreover, all mystery, and all intricacy must\\nclose in a simple and natural pictorial vision, which\\nwould be like a child s if it were not more compre-\\nhensive. Finally, The right of being obscure is not\\none to be lightly claimed. From this point the fourth\\nvolume of Modern Painters becomes chiefly a direct\\nstudy of nature, a study indescribably rich but not to\\nbe followed by notes and summaries. An exception\\nthere is in the digression on the character and condi-\\ntions of the Valais peasantry, in Mountain Gloom, a\\nchapter full of poignant thoughts. Some fault of\\nreasoning may be detected in the attribution to their\\nreligion of a peculiar melancholy in these people,\\nwhereas to the same cause a different effect must be\\nreferred amongst the equally unworldly countrymen of\\nLombardy, and whereas Ruskin himself, after writing\\nwith bitterness of this religious source of sorrow, goes\\non to show that he and they and all of us have cause\\nenough of grief without it. Exquisite is the sad record\\nof the work of the husbandman without books, or\\nthoughts, or attainments, or rest at his small crops on\\nthe ledges of these divine mountain-sides, where the\\nE", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0077.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "66 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nmeadows run in and out like inlets of lake among the\\nharvested rocks, sweet with perpetual streamlets. The\\nhistorical digression, in Mountain Glory, studies the\\nmountains in their relation to the history of the mind\\nof man, as the answering aspect of man towards the\\nmountains was studied in an earlier page and here\\nagain I lose the proof of the argument. Ruskin\\nseems to compel the presence of the mountains to\\naccount for contrary things, rises and falls, in the\\nhistory of Italian painting. And the accompanying\\ninquiry as to the mountain influence upon literary\\npower seems to be one of the few enterprises of\\nthis courageous mind that do not altogether justify\\nthemselves but even here how much splendour of\\nthought", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0078.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "6/\\nCHAPTER V.\\nMODERN PAINTERS.\\nTHE FIFTH VOLUME (1860).\\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\\nis a study of the whole garden How have we\\nravaged instead of kept it and of the unalterable\\nskies. The more intent the study is, the more im-\\npassioned a look of adoration at arm s length, a\\nkiss at close quarters. The large sense of vegetation,\\nthat unsuffering creature, with its youth, age, death\\nperpetually rehearsed, grows yet more poetic when it\\nis the little will of the bud to grow to a pinnacle that\\nRuskin looks into, with his incomparably lovely botany.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0079.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "68 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nHe tells 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 he\\ntells us what, measured month by month, is the year s\\nwork, and, by the pei-iodicity of the life of vegeta-\\ntion itself, what is the age s how the young leaves,\\nlike the young bees, keep out of each other s way.\\nThe exquisite science of the book is for the service of\\nart, for the aspect of the leaf in nature, and for the\\npraise of the leaf-drawing of Titian and Holbein, and\\nfor the refutation of the leaf-drawing of Ruysdael and\\nHobbema. Ruskin shows us, in boughs, the will, fire,\\nand fantasy of growth measured by the strong law of\\nnervous life and strong law of material attraction, the\\nheight of a tree controlled by the gravitation that sinks\\nthe fall of lead. He shows us the whole mathematical\\ntruths of actual and of pictorial balance in wild asym-\\nmetric nature and in Turner and the incoherence, the\\nlack of equilibrium, in the dull-leaved branch of Salvator\\nRosa and how the false work lacks wit as well as\\npoise. He proves to us the conditions of the leaf-\\nbearing bough harmony, obedience, distress (or diffi-\\nculty), and happy inequality. Ruskin has said that he\\nwas content with himself for one thing he had done\\njustice to the pine. But he has done justice also to the\\noak, and to the poplar. Something that belongs to the\\nspecial leaf, to the division of the twigs, to the definite\\ndesign that by their tips all the twigs and branches\\ntogether draw as the figure of the tree, something that", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0080.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIFTH VOLUME. 6g\\nis peculiar to the complexion of the leaf and to its\\ngreen, and is the spirit of the woods, abides about the\\nnames 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 flying\\nvapour.\\nBut the chapters on clouds here following Cloud\\nBalancings, Cloud Flocks, Cloud Chariots, The\\nAngel of the Sea are not only scientific studies of\\nclouds carried further than those in the first volume,\\nand observations multiplied, but are probably intended\\nto mend the former work as literature. The page of\\nsixteen years before had been rather abruptly patched\\nwith decorated and splendid passages the page of the\\nlast volume is more glorious, the words are more abun-\\ndant. Ruskin himself has half disowned the eloquence\\nin the writing of the earlier volumes, but in truth this\\nfifth volume outdoes all that had gone before. The\\npurpose, nevertheless, is as severe as ever here, as\\nthroughout this long task the investigation of the\\nbeauty of the visible world it was always, as Ruskin\\nsays in regard to the reader, accuracy I asked of\\nhim, not sympathy patience, not zeal apprehension,\\nnot sensation.\\nThe following part of this volume deals with certain\\nlaws of art, such as that of composition, not fully\\ntreated elsewhere. And here again we seem to be\\ncast back upon the single law of Genius. As Ruskin", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0081.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "70 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nbanned every kind of falsity, yet allowed Rubens\\nto make an horizon aslant with the drift of a stormy\\npicture, and praised Vandyck for his grey roses so,\\nas to composition, he tells us that no expression, truth\\nto nature, nor sentiment can win him to look at a\\npicture twice if it is ill composed, yet the composition\\ncannot be prescribed by law it is to be as a great\\npainter makes it. The reader will, of course, under-\\nstand that composition in this chapter and com-\\nposition in the great chapters on the Faculties of\\nthe Imagination must be taken with separate meanings\\nin the latter case a false composition is implied. Ruskin\\nhas, needless to say, studied the true composition of\\nhis great painters as deeply as their other qualities,\\nand he gives a technical lesson thereon in The Law\\nof Help, starting from the contrast of the decom-\\nposition which is death and the composition which is\\nnatural life, and showing true pictorial composition to\\nbe coherence, imity, and vitality itself.\\nIn true composition, everything not only lielps\\neverything else a little, but helps with its utmost power.\\nNot a line, not a spark of colour, but is doing its\\nvery 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 for\\nwhat is added in a fine picture is added, he tells us in\\nthis chapter, inevitably and in unity and even when\\nhe represents a true artist asking himself where, in his", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0082.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIFTH VOLUME. 7 1\\npicture, he- can crowd in another detail, another\\nthought, to think this to be an afterthought or a later\\ndetail would be to misinterpret Ruskin s whole body of\\nteaching. Inferior artists, he says, are afraid of finish\\nnot because they have unity, but because they have it\\nnot. Nor have they the deed^ which is the act of pur-\\npose. The greatest deed is creation, and the creation\\nof life. In The Law of Perfectness we have the fruit\\nof an additional study of Titian the winter was spent\\nmainly in trying to get at the mind of Titian\\nespecially in his execution of colour that is, the\\nground, the working in, the striking over of colours.\\nThe Dark Mirror sums up the four landscape orders\\nof Europe: Heroic (Titian); Classical (Nicolo Poussin);\\nPastoral (Cuyp) Contemplative (Turner) and two\\nspurious forms Picturesque and Hybrid. The reader\\nhas to resign himself to the banishment from Ruskin s\\nthought of all the great French landscape. Once or\\ntwice he names French modern work with horror as\\nsomething deathly but what he knows, if anything,\\nof the young Corot, for example, or of Millet, one\\ncannot so much as conjecture. For Venetian art he\\nclaims a share of the Greek spirit which is able to\\nlook without shrinking into the darkness, unentangled\\nin the melancholy war of the northern souls of Holbein\\nand Diirer, unconquered by the evil that not only en-\\ntangled but possessed Salvator. Therefore one chapter\\nis called The Lance of Pallas and the other The\\nWings of the Lion, and both deal with the race and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0083.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "72 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ncharacter of Titian. A courageous but not very\\nhopeful or cheerful faith (and this, in spite of the\\ngaiety of interest which is Mr Meredith s, might be\\na phrase of this last-named master s teaching) is that\\nwhich is rewarded by clear practical success and\\nsplendid intellectual power. And this was in the\\nhighest degree Shakespeare s for although at the\\nclose of Shakespeare s tragedy nothing remains but\\ndead march and clothes of burial, yet he was able to\\nendure that close. It was also that of the Greek\\ntragedy, with this difference in the sorrow that it is\\nconnected with sin by the Greek and not by Shake-\\nspeare and this difference in the close that with the\\nGreek there is a promise of divine triumph and rising\\nagain. Serene is Homer s spirit, with an added cheer-\\nfulness of his own, and practical hope in fjresent\\nthings.\\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 Phcebus, lord of\\nthe three great spirits of life Care, Memory, and\\nMelody turned healer. Ruskin shows us the\\nVenetians also courageous, but a little sadder on the\\nsurface, a little less serious beneath, having arisen from,\\nand partly rejected, asceticism. Seizing truth of colour\\nas only he can, he makes us understand much by", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0084.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIFTH V(^LUME. 73\\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 waters.\\nNay, not a perpetual May we may join issue with\\nRuskin as to the seasons of the sea. Did even he,\\nwho knew better than to follow the fashion, and who\\nwent to the Alps when the gentians were blue did\\neven he not know the May that kindles the Adriatic\\nand is not perpetual, or it would not be May? But\\nhow exquisitely is this written of the Venetian citizen,\\nwith its allusions to certain Greeks to Anacreon, to\\nAristophanes, 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 rist? 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 Com-\\npassion that changed the face of nations, we shall\\nhear in this chapter great things, nobly said, about the\\nVenetian soul of man. It is a pity that half a page\\nof refutation should be wasted in condescension to so", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0085.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "74 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nvulgar an English modern opinion as that the Venetian\\nlord painted on his knees was a hypocrite. But the\\nworldly end of this religious art and majestic intellect\\n(Titian was not less religious than Tintoret, but the\\nreligion of Titian is like that of Shakespeare occult\\nbehind his magnificent equity came to pass and is\\naccounted for by Ruskin after his own subtle 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, it was\\nwholly unworthy in its purposes.\\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 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\\nof Florentine, and of Greek, and of Northern, and\\nof French, 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-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0086.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIFTH VOLUME. 75\\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 Caspar 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\\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 Paris.\\nAnd in this chapter occurs the last elaborate passage\\non Claude, the man of fine feeling for beauty of form\\nand considerable tenderness of perception, whose\\naerial effects are unrivalled, and whose seas are the\\nmost beautiful in old art but who was an artist with-\\nout passion. For its humour I must quote the de-\\nscription of Claude s St George and the Dragon\\nA beautiful opening in woods by a river side a\\npleasant fountain and rich vegetation. The\\ndragon is about the size of ten bramble leaves, and is\\nbeing killed by the remains of a lance in his\\nthroat, curling his tail in a highly offensive and threaten-\\ning manner. St George, notwithstanding, on a prancing\\nhorse, brandishes his sword, at about thirty yards dis-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0087.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "JOHN RUSKIN.\\ntance from the offensive animal. A semicircular shelf\\nof rocks encircles the foreground, by which the theatre\\nof action is divided into pit and boxes. Some women\\nand children having descended unadvisedly into the pit\\nare helping each other out of it again. A prudent\\nperson of rank has taken a front seat in the boxes,\\ncrosses his legs, leans his head on his hand two\\nattendants stand in graceful attitudes behind him, and\\ntwo more walk away under the trees, conversing on\\ngeneral subjects.\\nAs to Claude s Worship of the Golden Calf, in\\norder better to express the desert of Sinai, the river\\nis much larger, and the vegetation softer. Two people,\\nuninterested in idolatrous ceremonies, are rowing in\\na pleasure-boat on the river. Poussin s strong but\\ndegraded mind is the subject of graver phrases all\\nhe does well has been better done by Titian he\\nalso in his manner is condemned for lack of passion.\\nThe pastoral landscape, more properly so called Cuyp\\nand Teniers the type of its painters was lower yet,\\ndestitute not of spiritual character only, but of spiritual\\nthought. Cuyp can paint sunlight, but paints un-\\nthoughtfuUy. Nothing happens in his pictures, ex-\\ncept some indifferent person s asking the way of\\nsomebody else, who, by his cast of countenance,\\nseems not likely to know it. Paul Potter does not\\ncare even for sheep, but only for wool.\\nTitian could have put issues of life and death into\\nthe face of a man asking his way nay, into the back of\\nhim. He has put a whole scheme of dogmatic", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0088.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIFTH VOLUME. J^\\ntheology into a row of bishops backs at the Louvre.\\nAnd for dogs, Velasquez has made some of them nearly\\nas grand as his surly Kings.\\nIt is in the same chapter that Raskin speaks of the\\ntrivial sentiment and caricature of Landseer, who gave\\nup the true nature of the animal for the sake of\\na jest. And by this mature judgment the reader should\\ncorrect 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\\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 in-\\ncapacity of understanding what pleasure meant. Music,\\ndancing, hunting, boating, fishing, bathing, and child-\\nplay are sprinkled in a picture of Wouvermans, but\\nthe fishing and bathing go on close together no one\\nturns 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 sentsual\\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.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0089.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "yS JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 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 amongst\\nhis groups seems to me to save him, barely, from\\nweakness and it is doubtful whether we may name\\nany 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\\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\\nalabaster, 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0090.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "MODERN painters FIFTH VOLUME. 79\\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 a\\ngreat religious picture of that opening century, and its re-\\nligion the triumph of the dragon of Mammon or Covetous-\\nness, sleepless, human-voiced, gran nemico of Dante,\\nset by Turner in a paradise of smoke, conceived by\\nthe painter s imaginative intellect as iron-hearted, with\\na true bony contour, organic, but like a glacier. And\\nas an earlier chapter had ended This (the labour,\\nthat is, of Albert Diirer) is indeed the labour which\\nis crowned with laurel and has the wings of the eagle.\\nIt was reserved for another country to prove the\\nlabour which is crowned with fire and has the wings\\nof the bat so this sad chapter on the Nereid s\\nGuard closes with the fulfilment of the menace the\\nother country and the other age were Turner s.\\nRuskin s beloved painter was also, like Salvator himself,\\nin part overcome of evil. And when he fought his\\nway to nature and the skies, painting iinn-colour as\\nClaude and Cuyp had painted but ^wnshine^ the world\\nnot only rejected but reviled him. One fair dawn\\nor sunset obediently beheld would have set it right,\\nand justified his painting of the coloured Apollo.\\nHis critics shouted, Perish Apollo. Bring us back\\nPython. And Python came, adds Ruskin, came\\nliterally as well as spiritually all the perfect beauty\\nand conquest which Turner wrought is already withered.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0091.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "8o JOHN RUSKIN.\\nThis refers to the destruction that has come so soon\\nupon the very material of Turner s work wrecked,\\nfaded, and defiled, yet even so better than any other\\nlandscape painting unmarred.\\nNo man, before Turner, had painted clouds scarlet.\\nHesperid ^gle 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 an\\nerror in form, because of relation the form belongs to\\nthe thing it defines, the colour to the thing and to all\\nabout it; to deal falsely with the colour breaks the\\nharmony of the day. I do not know a more luminous\\nthought on colour than this, even in these shining\\npages. Few have been the supreme colourists Titian,\\nGiorgione, Veronese, Tintoret, Correggio, Reynolds, and\\nTurner, as Ruskin counts them seven whereas of the\\nother qualities or powers of art the great masters have\\nbeen many.\\nUnder the title of Peace the last great chapter of\\nthis great work closes, not peacefully, but with passionate\\ngrief. Turner had been dead nearly twenty years, but\\nthe cruelty of the criticism that had made his life\\nlonely and painful had never ceased to wound his\\nfriend.\\nThere never was yet isolation of a great spirit\\nso utterly desolate. My own admiration was wild\\nin enthusiasm but it gave him no ray of pleasure he", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0092.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "MODERN PAINTERS FIFTH VOLUME. 8 1\\ncould not make me at that time understand his main\\nmeanings he loved me, but cared nothing for what I\\nsaid, and was always trying to hinder me from writing,\\nbecause it gave pain to his fellow-artists. To cen-\\nsure Turner was acutely sensitive. He knew that\\nhowever little hi* higher power could be seen, he had\\nat least done as much as ought to have saved him from\\nwanton insult, and the attacks upon him in his later\\nyears were to him not merely contemptible in their\\nignorance, but amazing in their ingratitude.\\nLet the reader bear in mind that it was precisely in the\\nfirst year that showed a Royal Academy tvithout any\\npictures of Turner s that the Times had learnt to call\\nthem works of inspiration. It is characteristic of\\nRuskin that he cannot take the customary comfort and\\nsay that Turner learnt in the sorrow he underwent what\\nhe had not learnt in the joy he missed the last pages\\nof Modern Painters protest against this form of com-\\nmonplace. They utter, finally, one of many menaces\\nagainst a world intent upon gain, and negligent of art\\nand nature. Men in England had learnt, say these\\nmournful closing sentences, not to say in their hearts\\nThere is no God, but to say aloud, There is a\\nfoolish God His orders will not work Faith,\\ngenerosity, honesty, zeal, and self-sacrifice are poetical\\nphrases and The power of man is only power of\\nprey otherwise than the spider, he cannot design\\notherwise than the tiger, he cannot feed.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0093.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "82\\nCHAPTER VI.\\nTHE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE (1S49).\\nThis was the first illustrated book published by Ruskin.\\nThe illustrated volumes of Modcrti Painters followed\\nit closely with their splendid cloud and tree drawing.\\nIn the Sevefi Lainps the etchings are of course archi-\\ntectural, but they are etchings of a living stone. A\\nvitality of construction, of time, of shadow and light, and\\nof the power and weight of stone are in these plates,\\noverbitten and not altogether technically successful as\\nthey are I speak of those of the first edition, afterwards\\nwithdrawn. Ruskin made his drawings from windows,\\nlofts, and ladders, holding on as he might, and bit the\\nplates hurriedly on his journey home.\\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 some\\nof the most intent and urgent labour of John Ruskin s\\nlife. There was no need for despatch when primroses\\nwere to be outlined, or when a lax, random weaving\\nof grasses grown to the flower in June was to be woven", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0094.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCIIITECTURi;. 83\\nagain with a delicate pencil for another year would\\nmake amends for any possible lapse of purpose or\\ninterruption of work, yielding new flowers to take the\\nplace of the old. A student of vegetation may wake,\\nand learn the world, and sleep again, not lying in\\nwait for changes, but confident of that repetition which\\nmakes nature old and mystical to memory, and of that\\nrenewal which makes her young and simple to hope\\na mother to the spirit and a child to the eye. The\\npainter of mountains will not be defrauded by years\\nof the ancient line upon the sky. The linked memories\\nof all generations are not long enough, in all, to out-\\nwatch and to record a change in a little hill. He may\\nbe blind, or mad, or absent, but the shape of a bay\\nwill await his light, his reason, or his return. Not so\\nwith the student of ancient buildings, who would arrest\\nthe action of time, and who therefore must make his\\nown hour of labour elastic with application and with\\nvigilance albeit mere time, Ruskin tells us, unbuilds\\nso slowly that if men took pains, they might repair his\\naction not by the futile effort of restoration but\\nby honest proppings and shorings that should confess\\ntheir own date and purpose and make no confusions\\nin the history of construction. It is not the unbuilding\\nof time, therefore, that presses the student, but the\\ndestruction wrought with violence by man, contempt-\\nuous and impatient of the work of the past, or con-\\nfident that he can do something better with the stones\\nunset and set up in another fashion. Ruskin was", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0095.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "84 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nobliged to delay the third volume of Modern Painters\\nwhile he made his drawings of that which no eye should\\nsee and no hand should copy again. A note to the\\npreface of The Seven Lamps tells us that the writer s\\nwhole time has been lately occupied in taking drawings\\nfrom one side of buildings, of which the masons were\\nknocking down 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 ^s 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 Seveti Lamps of Architecture i^, more\\nthan some of its followers, one book from beginning to\\nend. It has the unity of abundant matter, the unity,\\nthat is, which need not break boundaries although it\\nstretches and enlarges them with fulness, but holds\\ntogether, amply, easily, containing with patience the\\nurgence of a throng of thoughts. And the subject has\\nits own unity of time, in as much as the dominating\\ncentre of the book is the work of a certain half-\\ncentury.\\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,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0096.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 85\\nthought equally of the form of the light he revealed by\\nhis 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 and in the mental\\ncouncils of invention the shape of this exterior light,\\nas his work was about to define it, had been the presi-\\ndent image. The son of that stonemason, on the other\\nhand the half-century being past thought in the fore-\\nmost place of the shape of his beautiful stone beautiful\\nit was, but not more beautiful than his whose fortune\\nit was to live in the great half-century, and whose act\\nit was to do the work that made the half-century great.\\nThis latter the stone-sculptor of the fifty years here\\nset in the midst designing a star of sky and designing\\nthe starred stone with the dignity of equal invention,\\nmade the window that is manifestly the noblest.\\nRuskin, with singular sight and singular insight, per-\\nceives the manner, the cause, the past, the future, and\\nthe value of that window, and gives it an historical\\nplace and sanction. There is no child that does not\\nlie staring at the wall and fancying that a wall-paper\\ndesign seems now to take the shape enclosed by lines\\nand anon the shape of the intervals instead and\\nRuskin s eye saw the tracery simply, impartially, and\\nwithout preoccupation, like a child s, and saw it with\\nthe mason s eye moreover, and with the discerning\\nspirit of a master of theory. The reader might be\\ntempted to urge this incident beyond its proper sig-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0097.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "86 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nnificance as an architectural or historical discovery,\\nbut he can hardly be wrong in appreciating the passage\\nfor its authorship authorship, that is, and all that\\nit implies of character, nature, and special and manifold\\nfitness for the work of the book.\\nTo proceed to the expository task.\\nThe Seven Lamps of Architecture are The Lamp of\\nSacrifice The Lamp of Truth The Lamp of Power\\nThe Lamp of Beauty The Lamp of Life The Lamp\\nof Memory The Lamp of Obedience. On the cloth-\\ncover of the original edition, designed by Ruskin after\\nthe arabesques of the pavement of San Miniato, above\\nFlorence foliage, birds, and beasts arranged by\\ncounter-change are embossed seven other words of\\nkindred meaning Religio Observantia Auctoritas\\nFides Obedientia Memoria Spiritus. The volume\\nis divided into unequal chapters, headed with the\\nEnglish titles already stated. The first has in greatest\\nmeasure the signs of the author s yet unmitigated youth.\\nIt is not so much the work of an untamed spirit as that\\nof a spirit wearing certain bonds with all its will, a\\nthousand times convinced, and that from the first\\ninfancy. There is the tone of a man troubled to\\nconvey his indignation by terms adequate, in the\\npassage wherein he threatens the English nation with\\nsensible visitation of divine wrath upon her honour, her\\ncommerce, and her arts as a retribution for the measure\\nwhereby a place in her legislature had been impiously\\nconceded to the Romanist. All this was not only", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0098.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "*THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 8/\\ndisclaimed but unsaid in succeeding editions. Child-\\nhood with its passions the polemic passion of a\\nspiritual and intellectual home-boy is one of the most\\ntumultuous of fresh passions was still in a sense in\\nRuskin s heart during the writing of The Seven Lamps.\\nIn some things he made, as we shall hear him tell later\\nin Fors Clavtgera, a definite change he, for one, could\\nnot live under the stress of doctrines that obliged and\\nadmitted of no transaction, and yet actually suffered\\ndaily transaction at the hands of their professors. He\\nhad thought every moment committed to crime that\\nwas not spent in rescuing men from eternal reprobation;\\nthe choice was now thrust upon him should he devote\\nhis years and moments directly, theologically, and\\nimmediately, or should he mitigate his conviction of\\nthe instant stress of obligation How he answered the\\nquestion may be judged from the fact that he addressed\\nhimself to the mediate work of art.\\nThe Lamp of Sacrifice needs not from a commen-\\ntator to-day the definition that was due when The Seven\\nLamps was written. Manifestly, this author s works\\nhave both enriched the minds of Englishmen with\\nideas and have accustomed them to the apprehension\\nof ideas. What he ha.s thought and pronounced abides\\nwith us, as it were, both in mechanical suspension and\\nin chemical solution. He has charged us with his\\nteachings, and has modified our intelligence. Thus,\\nmany of his pages seem now to be over-anxiously\\nexpository that were not so when he composed them.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0099.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "88 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nIn this matter he stands between the old age and the\\nnew. Briefly, he suggests in this chapter a delicate\\ndistinction between sacrifice and waste between that\\nwork upon partially concealed ornament, which is the\\ncontinuation of visible ornament, and thus justifies the\\nsurmise of the eye and keeps a promise, and work\\nbestowed carelessly or with ignorance as to how to\\nmake it tell, or with heartless contempt of the value\\nof human effort. This last is the subject of a nice\\nbalance. From art that is purely wasted on the one\\nhand, and from art (or art so-called) that is purely\\nexhibitory, on the other, the right spirit of sacrifice is\\nabsent. Hard work is approved all old work nearly\\nhas been hard work.\\nAs usual, the examples are exceedingly interesting.\\nWe are taught to respect the economy of the bas-reliefs\\nof San Zeno at Verona, with their rich work well in\\nsight, and the simplicity of the still lovely work of the\\narcade above, the various distances being treated not\\nby a difference in degree of beauty in decoration, but\\nby a difference in the quality of design. And so forth\\nwith a series of instances that yield all their significance\\nto the sight and insight of Ruskin s intellectual eyes.\\nIt follows from this doctrine of sacrifice that rich orna-\\nment (the natural flower of Gothic) is praised with an\\nardour by which a reader to-day may be slow to be\\nenkindled he has, without intending it, perhaps\\ngradually grown to love simplicity, albeit conscious\\nthat it is vulgar ornament and not fine that has made", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0100.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0080\u00a2THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 89\\nplain masonry to seem so attractive. But under\\nRuskin s teaching this tendency must be corrected,\\nand in fact sacrificed. Many a modern man finds a\\ncharm in a blank strong wall that he knows is more\\nthan any negative merit ought to have for him. Such\\nsimplicities, 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 wild\\nfancies and dark hosts of imagery, thicker and quainter\\nthan ever filled the depth of midsummer dream those\\nvaulted gates, trellised with close leaves these window-\\nlabyrinths of twisted tracery and starry light those\\nmisty masses of multitudinous pinnacle and diademed\\ntower the only witnesses, perhaps, that remain to us of\\nthe faith and fear of nations. All else for which the\\nbuilders sacrificed has passed away all their living\\ninterests, and aims, and achievements. We know not\\nfor what they laboured, and we see no evidence of their\\nreward. Victory, wealth, authority, happiness all have\\ndeparted, though bought by many a bitter sacrifice.\\nBut of them, and their life and their toil upon the\\nearth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those\\ngrey heaps of deep-wrought stone. They have taken\\nwith them to the grave their powers, their honours, and\\ntheir errors but they have left 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\\nof even 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0101.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "90 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nso he 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\\nto such a doctrine? Can the angler who deceives a\\nfish, or the physician who deceives a lunatic, dare to\\naver with 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 endures\\nno stain Assuredly by no such rhetoric is this one\\nvirtue to be separated from the rest her proper com-\\npany who share with her their own inevitable difficulty\\nand doubt. But it is not to be wondered at that\\nhaving said so much Ruskin should find it necessary\\nto reassure his readers against any possible scruple as\\nto the lawfulness of making art look like nature. This,\\nhowever, as a scruple of the moral conscience, need not\\ndetain us. Incidentally to the same subject he does\\nnot abate of his estimate of England as a nation dis-\\ntinguished for its general uprightness and faith, al-\\nthough the English admit into their architecture more\\nof prudence, concealment, and deceit than any other\\n[people] of this or of past time. Much more signifi-\\ncance, by the way, had on a former page been attributed\\nto the poor exhibitory shams of the modern Italians; the\\nEnglish fault is arbitrarily treated as an inconsistency, the\\nItalian, equally arbitrarily, as a consistency quick with", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0102.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 9I\\nessential implications. Quite removed from these pro-\\nvocations to controversy, and easily detachable from the\\nethical question so insistently discussed, is a passage\\nof characteristic beauty descriptive of the imaginative\\nillusion of the cupola of Parma, where Correggio has\\nmade a space of some thirty feet diameter look like\\na cloud-wrapt opening in the seventh heaven, crowded\\nwith a rushing sea of angels. Ruskin mitigated\\nhis admiration of Correggio in after years. A little\\nlater comes the page on tracery, on one salient passage\\nwhereof I have already dwelt and here is another ex-\\nquisite example of this incomparably sensitive perception.\\nThe tracery of the later French Gothic window had\\ngrown exceedingly delicate severe and pure it was\\nstill, nevertheless, and the material manifestly stiff.\\nYet\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nAt the close of the period of pause, the first sign\\nof serious change was like a low breeze, passing through\\nthe emaciated tracery, and making it tremble. It\\nbegan to undulate like the threads of a cobweb lifted by\\nthe wind. It lost its essence as a structure of stone.\\nThe architect was pleased with this new fancy.\\nIn a little time the bars of tracery were caused to\\nappear to the eye as if they had been woven together\\nlike a net.\\nOf chief importance in the chapter dedicated to The\\nLamp of Power is Ruskin s teaching upon the value\\nand weight of shadows. He bids the young architect\\nlearn the habit of thinking in shadow Let him\\ndesign with the sense of heat and cold upon him", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0103.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "92 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 shadow\\ndeep enough not to be dried like a shallow pool by\\na noon day sun. Magnificent image Another\\nexample of power, intellectually apprehended with a\\nhistorian s philosophy, is in Ruskin s study of that\\nGothic of rejection, the Venetian, which began in the\\nluxuriance wherein other architectures have expired,\\nwhich laid aside Byzantine ornaments one by one,\\nfixed its own forms by laws more and more severe,\\nand stood forth, at last, a model of domestic Gothic,\\nso grand, so complete, so nobly systematised, that, to\\nmy mind, there never existed an architecture with so\\nstern a claim to our reverence. This judgment also\\nwas partly renounced afterwards in favour of early\\nLombard work.\\nTwo distinct characters in architecture had been\\ntreated in the earlier chapters (with what complex con-\\nsistency of teaching, what abundance of thought, and\\nwhat experimental examples, this mere indication of the\\nsubject and direction of the work does not pretend to\\nexpress) the one, the impression architecture receives\\nfrom human power the other, the image it bears of\\nthe natural creation. And it is this likeness to the\\nnatural creation that is the subject of the fourth\\nchapter, The Lamp of Beauty. The sanction of all\\nthe beauty of art, its authority, its appeal, its origin,\\nits paragon, abide, as all readers of Ruskin have been", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0104.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 93\\ntold by him in a hundred places, in natural fact. Be-\\nyond a certain point, and that a very low one, man\\ncannot advance in the invention of beauty, without\\ndirectly imitating natural form. Furthermore, the\\nfrequency of a form in nature is, in a sense care-\\nfully understood, the measure of its beauty. In other\\nwords, that which is, in its order and place, frequent,\\neasily visible, very manifest, not subject to the con-\\ncealing counsels of nature in organic and inorganic\\ndepths caverns or living anatomy that is most\\nnatural and most beautiful, and the model of decorative\\nart. By frequency I mean that limited and isolated\\nfrequency which is characteristic of all perfection\\nas a rose is a common flower, but yet there are not so\\nmany roses on a tree as there are leaves. Throughout\\nthe argument the teacher has searched out his way\\nsometimes by quick, sometimes by hard, thinking but\\nnever in haste, and never suppressing any part or step\\nof the sincere processes of thought. And immediately\\nupon this eager but steady inquiry into the sanction of\\nartistic beauty comes the passage that surprised the\\nworld, in condemnation of the Greek fret and with\\nit one of those keen discoveries that make Ruskin s\\nresearch so brilliant the discovery that there is a like-\\nness to natural form in the fret, for it is an image of\\nthe crystals 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 metal being seldom or never found in pure", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0105.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "94 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ncondition. But the crystals of salt have a form known\\nto almost every man, and it is the crystallisation of\\ncommon salt that sets the example of another design\\nin right lines used throughout the Lombard churches\\nand drawn with extraordinary beauty by the author,\\nrich with shadow. As a result of the same kind of\\ncasuistic insight (I put the word casuistic to its right\\nuse) Ruskin condemns the portcullis and all heraldic\\ndecoration especially when, as usual, it is repeated.\\nThe arms are an announcement, and have their place,\\nbut what they have to tell it is an impertinence to\\ntell a score of times. Nor is a motto decorative,\\nsince, of all things unlike nature, the forms of letters\\nare perhaps the most so. With the same sincere in-\\ngenuity (here quite unstrained) he explains the vile-\\nness of the ribbon and its unlikeness to grass and\\nsea-weed with their anatomy, gradation, direction, and\\nallotted size of separate creatures. The ribbon has\\nno strength, no languor. It cannot wave, in the true\\nsense, but only flutter it cannot bend, but only turn\\nand be wrinkled. We are urged to condemn the\\nribbons of Raphael, and do so heartily, even the\\nribbons that tie Ghiberti s glorious bronze flowers,\\nand all the multitudes of scrolls in so far as they are\\nused for decoration. Let me add this exquisite phrase\\n(from a somewhat paradoxical passage) in description\\nof that Mediaeval treatment of drapery which began\\nto restore, while it altered, the Antique buoyancy\\nThe motion of the figure only bent into a softer", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0106.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 95\\nline the stillness of the falling veil, followed by it\\nlike a slow cloud by drooping rain only in links\\nof lighter undulation it followed the dances of the\\nangels.\\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\\ndecorated. The answer of the public is the Greek\\nmoulding on shop-fronts, the decoration of the temple\\nmultiplied in the railway-station, on the counter, in the\\noffice until for disgust we no longer see it, and are\\nbut aware of some superfluity that is depressing, de-\\ngraded, vulgar, dishonouring, and tedious we care\\nnot what. The country has treated with practical\\ncontempt the humorous and generous instructor who\\nin his youth would have much enjoyed going through\\nthe streets of London, pulling down these brackets and\\nfriezes and large names, restoring to the tradesmen\\nthe capital they had spent in architecture, and putting\\nthem on honest and equal terms, each with his name\\nin black letters over his door.\\nSymmetry, proportion, and colour form the subjects\\nof important passages in The Lamp of Beauty. Ver-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0107.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "96 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ntical equality, against which a young architect ought\\nto be warned in his elementary lesson, Ruskin found\\nto be usual in Modern Gothic it has not become\\nless so in Gothic more modern still. He would have\\nsymmetry to belong to horizontal, and proportion to\\nvertical, division symmetry being obviously connected\\nwith the idea of balance, which is only lateral. Colour\\non a building should be that of an organised creature,\\nand the colours of an organised creature are visibly\\nindependent (this word must serve for lack of a better)\\nof the form of its limbs. It is arbitrary, and has a\\nplan of its own the plan of colour. Ruskin would\\nnot have us give to separate mouldings separate colours,\\nnor even to leaves or figures one colour and to the\\nground another. And in general the best place for\\ncolour is on broad surfaces, not on spots of interest\\nin form. When the colouring is brought to pass\\nby the natural hue of blocks of marble, the chequers\\nare not to be harmonised or fitted to the forms of\\nthe windows. As in the Doge s Palace, the front\\nshould look as if the surface had first been finished,\\nand the windows then cut out of it. This rule of\\nbeauty is distinctly also a rule of power. It is, need-\\nless to say, a point of architectural controversy, and\\nthe doctrine of Ruskin on colour has been held in\\nhorror. He has on his side the Byzantine builders\\nwith their perdurable colouring by incrustation, and\\nagainst him Antiquity and most of the northern Gothic\\nschools. Then follows the page on Giotto s tower,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0108.jp2"}, "109": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 97\\nmodel of proportion, design, and colour, coloured like\\na morning cloud and chased like a sea shell\\nAnd if this be, as I believe it, the model and mirror\\nof perfect architecture, is there not something to be\\nlearned by looking back to the early life of him who\\nraised it I said that the power of human mind had\\nits growth in the Wilderness much more must the\\nlove and the conception of that beauty whose every\\nline and hue we have seen to be, at the least, a faded\\nimage of God s daily work, and an arrested ray of some\\nstar of creation, be given chiefly in the places which\\nHe has gladdened by planting the fir tree and the\\npine. Not within the walls of Florence, but among\\nthe far away fields of her lilies, was the child trained\\nwho was to raise the headstone of Beauty above her\\ntowers of watch and war. Remember all that he\\nbecame count the sacred thoughts with which he\\nfilled the heart of Italy ask those who followed him\\nwhat they learned at his feet and when you have\\nnumbered his labours, and received their testimony,\\nif it seem to you that God had verily poured out upon\\nthis His servant no common nor restrained portion\\nof His Spirit, and that he was indeed a King among\\nthe children of men, remember also that the legend\\nupon his crown was that of David s I took thee\\nfrom the sheep-cote, and from following the sheep.\\nNo inconsiderable part of the essential character of\\nBeauty depends on the expression of vital energy in\\norganic things, or on the subjection to such energy\\nof things naturally passive and powerless. This is\\namongst the opening sentences of The Lamp of Life,\\nand the theme is rich in the hands of the most vital of\\nwriters. Even readers in whose ears this eloquence is\\nG", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0109.jp2"}, "110": {"fulltext": "98 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ntoo much inflected, too full of wave, too much moved\\nin its beauty to be a perfect style, must confess a\\nvitality that makes the vivacity of other authors seem\\nbut a trivial agitation. Ruskin always carried that\\nrich internal burden, a vast capacity of sincerity.\\nOthers may have been entirely sincere and he could\\nbe no more than entirely sincere. And yet what a\\ndifference in the degree of integrity And the\\nmeasure of this capacity for truth is the measure of\\nvitality. It is by force of life that Ruskin hoped,\\nin these early works of his, and by force of life\\nthat he so despaired in the later works as almost to\\npersuade himself, for very grief, that he cared no\\nlonger for the miseries of cities, but was glad to\\nenjoy his days 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\\nsayings Sculpture is not the mere cutting of the\\nform of anything in stone .it is the cutting of the effect\\nof it. The sculptor must paint with his chisel half\\nhis touches are not to realise, but to put power into, the\\nform. The Lamp of Life, with its several argu-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0110.jp2"}, "111": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. 99\\nments and its essential significance, is a solemn chapter\\nappealing directly to the obligations of immortal man\\nThe Lamp of Memory, a most delicate one, in which\\nthe author is all but compelled to say somewhat more\\nthan he could stand to, and yet unsays no more than a\\nnote will answer. Except the page in which he had\\nbidden men to refrain from decorating a railway station\\n(a page that filled the artistic public with an incredulous\\nsurprise, wherefrom they have hardly yet recovered,\\nthough, to do them justice, it did not cause them to\\npause in any cast-iron work they might have been\\nabout), perhaps nothing in The Seven Lamps has been\\nfound so memorable by the greater number of readers\\nas the passage that declares Ruskin s lack of delight in\\nan Alpine landscape transposed in fancy to the western\\nhemisphere. The flowers in an instant lost their\\nlight, the river its music. Yet not all their light, nor\\nall its music, says the note. AVhat then Never was\\na thought more certainly doubtful, double, deniable,\\nundeniable. Ruskin s description of that landscape a\\ndescription which, of course, depends for its cogency in\\nthe argument upon the fact that it takes no note of the\\nhistorical interest of the Alps is a finished work,\\nexquisite with study of leaf and language, but yet not\\neffective in proportion to its own beauty and truth.\\nRuskin wrote it in youth, in the impulse of his own\\ndiscovery of language, and of all that English in its\\nrich modern freshness could do under his mastery and\\nit is too much, too charged, too anxious. Some sixty", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0111.jp2"}, "112": {"fulltext": "lOO JOHN RUSKIN.\\nlines of word-painting are here and they are less\\nthan this line of a poet\\nSunny eve in some forgotten place.\\nThis refraining phrase is of more avail to the imagina-\\ntion than the splendid subalpine landscape of The Seven\\nLamps. Another page of this chapter has also become\\nfamous that which begins, Do not let us talk then\\nof Restoration. The thing is a lie from beginning to\\nend. The last lamp is that of Obedience. (Many\\nyears later, in Fors Clavigera, Ruskin confesses that he\\nhad much ado to keep the Lamps to seven, they would\\nso easily become eight or nine on his hands.) It con-\\ntains, among much fruit of thought, the author s definite\\ncounsel to the world as to the choice among the logical\\nand mature styles of European architecture. He for-\\nbids any infantine or any barbarous style, however\\nHerculean their infancy, or majestic their outlawry,\\nsuch as our own Norman, or the Lombard Roman-\\nesque. Of the four that are to choose from the\\nPisan Romanesque, the early Gothic of the Western\\nItalian Republics, the Venetian Gothic, and the English\\nearliest decorated the architect is urged to learn the\\nlaws so surely that he may finally win the right of\\nexercising his own liberty and invention. And a mani-\\nfold meditation on obedience closes with another recol-\\nlection of early religious menace and expectation\\nI have paused, not once or twice, as I wrote, and\\noften have checked the course of what might otherwise", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0112.jp2"}, "113": {"fulltext": "THE SEVEN LAMPS OF ARCHITECTURE. lOI\\nhave been importunate persuasion, as the thought has\\ncrossed me, how soon all Architecture may he vain,\\nexcept that which is not made with hands. There is\\nsomething ominous in the hght which has enabled us\\nto look back with disdain upon the ages among whose\\nlovely vestiges we have been wandering. I could smile\\nwhen I hear the hopeful exultation of many, at the new\\nreach of worldly science, and vigour of worldly effort as\\nif we were again at the beginning of days. There is\\nthunder on the horizon as well as dawn. The sun was\\nrisen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar.\\nA reader with the world-pitying heart of the world of\\nour later day is dismayed at the severity and at the\\ncalm of this universal threat. The visionary beauty of\\nthe 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 omnilo-\\nquent tongue.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0113.jp2"}, "114": {"fulltext": "I02\\nCHAPTER VII.\\nTHE STONES OF VENICE (1851-1853).\\nRusKiN, penetrated with a sense of the baseness of\\nthe schools of architecture and nearly every other art,\\nwhich have for three centuries been predominant in\\nEurope, wrote this book principally in order to convict\\nthose base schools, locally, in their central degradation.\\nLocally, because in Venice, and in Venice only, could the\\nRenaissance be effectually reached, judged, and sentenced.\\nDestroy its claims to admiration there (when Ruskin\\nbegan his work they were triumphant) and it can\\nassert them nowhere else. He intended to make the\\nStones of Venice touchstones, and to detect, by the\\nmouldering of her marble, poison more subtle than\\never was betrayed by the rending of her crystal.\\nAnd beyond this one of the most interesting and\\ndefinite motives that ever urged the making of a book\\nstands the inevitable argument of his life Men\\nare intended, without excessive difficulty, to knov/\\ngood things from bad.\\nThe work is thus local because the festering lily", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0114.jp2"}, "115": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0080\u00a2the stones of VENICE. 103\\nof Shakespeare had its unique fouhiess 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\\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 this,\\nindeed 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 decline\\nin 141 8; so that even her religious painters came later.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0115.jp2"}, "116": {"fulltext": "104 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nand her great school about a century later, more or\\nless. The sensitive arts of architecture and sculpture\\nseem to have taken the mortal hurt more quickly than\\nthe art of painting, incorrupt in Venice later than else-\\nwhere by reason of the life of its incomparable colour.\\nIn the introductory chapter, The Quarry, Ruskin\\ngives us that instance of the tombs of the two Doges\\nwhich is an example of the great essential contention\\nof the book. The one tomb, not primitive, not al-\\ntogether fine, an early fifteenth century work, has a\\nnobility yet unforegone the other, half a century\\nlater, is the tomb of Andrea Vendramin, the most\\ncostly ever bestowed on a Venetian monarch, praised\\nby popular taste and authoritative criticism with all\\ntheir superlatives, while the other was contemned.\\nClimbing to see more of this later effigy, which he per-\\nceived to be ignoble, Ruskin found that the much\\nvaunted sculptured hand, in sight, had no fellow but\\na block, and so with the aged brow, wrinkled only\\nwhere it might be seen, the aged cheek, smooth, and\\nalso distorted, where it lay out of sight. Ruskin would\\nhave had nothing but praise for treatment of sculpture\\naccording to the position of the effigy but this was\\nanother 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0116.jp2"}, "117": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. IO5\\nthis sculptor and find him condemned for forgery\\nhis own sentence strikes close enough.\\nThe lesson on architecture that follows is offered to\\na reader who is to be taught to build and to decorate,\\nand who, in order thereto, is to be set free from the\\npoor fiction is it even so much has it life enough\\nfor feigning that the decorations of the modern\\nworld are delightful to man. Do you seriously\\nimagine, asks our teacher, that any living soul in\\nLondon likes triglyphs Greeks did English\\npeople never did, and never will.\\nThe first thing we have to ask of decoration is that\\nit should indicate strong liking. The old Lom-\\nbard architects liked hunting so they covered their\\nwork with horses and hounds. The base Renais-\\nsance architects liked masquing and fiddling so they\\ncovered their work with comic masks and musical in-\\nstruments. Even that was better than our English way\\nof liking nothing and professing to like triglyphs.\\nRuskin calls upon us for deliberate question and up-\\nright 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\\nnot dead wall on the pier, the base, the shaft,\\nwith a special emphasis upon the transition from the\\nactual to the apparent cluster, illustrated by plans\\non arch masonry, the arch load, the roof, and the\\nbuttress. Of all this, obviously, no indication in this\\nsummary is possible. The introductory lesson on", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0117.jp2"}, "118": {"fulltext": "Io6 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ndecoration is another version of the often repeated\\nteaching on natural form.\\nAll the lovely forms of the universe whence\\nto choose, and all the lovely lines that bound their\\nsubstance or guide their motion. There is material\\nenough in a single flower for the ornament of a score of\\ncathedrals but suppose we were satisfied with less ex-\\nhaustive appliance, and built a score of cathedrals each\\nto illustrate a single flower that would be better than\\ntrying to invent new styles, I think. There is quite\\ndifference of style enough, between a violet and a hare-\\nbell, for all reasonable purposes.\\nWho can read such a passage and not have gained a\\nnew felicity We owe the exquisite thought and phrase\\n(at least in regard to its occasion) to that folly of the\\ntime wherein the book was written\u00e2\u0080\u0094 the hope that a\\nnew kind of architecture was to come to pass through\\nthe initiative of the Crystal Palace. John Ruskin con-\\nsents to pause and refute that idle boast. The earth\\nhath bubbles as the water hath, he says of the Syden-\\nham palace, and this is of them. To return to\\nthis inexhaustible theme of the natural form Ruskin\\nopposes Garnett, a writer who commends art (as writers\\non art have done at least every ten years since then)\\nfor its correction of nature. Art, according to Garnett,\\nis to criticise nature by her own rules gathered from\\nall her works, and he quotes the saying recorded of\\nRaphael, that the artist s object was to make things\\nnot as nature made them but as nature would make\\nthem. Ruskin replies", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0118.jp2"}, "119": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. lO/\\nI had thought that, by this time, we had done with\\nthat stale and misunderstood saying. Raffaelle\\nwas a painter of humanity, and assuredly there is some-\\nthing the matter with humanity, a few dovrebbe s more\\nor less, wanting in it. We have most of us heard of\\noriginal sin, and may perhaps, in our modest moments,\\nconjecture that we are not quite what God, or Nature,\\nwould have us to be. Raffaelle had something to\\nmend in humanity I should have liked to have seen\\nhim mending a daisy, or a pease-blossom, or a moth.\\nThen follows a page on the succession of the waves\\nof the irregular sea. Not one of these hits the great\\nideal shape, the corrected shape, nor will if we watch\\nthem 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 Church,\\nand showing him to be so docile a son as to follow his\\nfather not only in regard to eternal interests but also\\nin regard to temporal prosperity. If you care little for\\nthe first, says the elder Ruskin in effect, you must needs\\ncare for the second, and Protestantism means the wealth\\nof nations. Not many years later, when he wrote Unto\\nthis Last, John Ruskin had thought his own thoughts\\non the wealth of nations, and his father was amongst\\nthe dismayed readers. A more valuable page of the\\nappendix is that which declares the rapid judgment to\\nwhich Ruskin intends by Stones of Venice to train the\\nreader or rather for which he intends to set the reader\\nfree to be attainable in painting as well as in archi-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0119.jp2"}, "120": {"fulltext": "I08 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nlecture. 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 painting\\nare execution and expression. Who will say, after this,\\nthat Ruskin sought too much for symbolism and allusion\\nand the less pictorial characters of art? The business\\nof a painter is to paint. He gave years of his life to\\nVeronese, in whom the emotions were altogether sub-\\nordinate. In fact, Ruskin is the most liberal and uni-\\nversal of all lovers and critics of art, having eyes for all\\nmanners as for all matters.\\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 the\\nAlps. He has forgotten that while Angelico prayed\\nand wept there was different work doing in the\\ndank fields of Flanders wild seas to be banked out\\nhard ploughing and harrowing of the frosty clay\\ncareful breeding of stout horses and fat cattle, rough\\naffections and sluggish imaginations, fleshy, substantial,\\niron-shod humanities. And are we to suppose there\\nis no nobility in Rubens masculine and universal sym-\\npathy with all this On the other hand, a man\\ntrained in our Sir Joshua school will not and\\ncannot allow that there is any art at all in the technical\\nwork of Angelico. We have been taught in England\\nto think there can be no virtue but in a loaded brush\\nand rapid hand but there is art also in the deli-\\ncate point and in the hand which trembles as it moves,\\nnot because it is more liable to err but because there is\\nmore danger in its error.\\nIn the second volume the study of St Mark s is", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0120.jp2"}, "121": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. 109\\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 1 140 one of the most precious monu-\\nments in Italy that the eye which replied with the\\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 is\\nobviously the only permanent chromatic decoration\\npossible, as we know who trace with mixed feelings\\nthe vestiges of the Gothic painter at Bourges and at\\nWinchester, in chocolate and green. Here, at St Mark s,\\nis no opaque surface-painting of the painter s mixing,\\nbut the colour of nature in jasper and marble, into\\nwhich the light makes some way marbles that half\\nrefuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra -like,\\ntheir bluest veins to kiss. Certain characters of\\nconstruction and of decoration are implied by in-\\ncrustation for example, the delicacy that is to dis-\\ntinguish the plinths and cornices used for binding this", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0121.jp2"}, "122": {"fulltext": "no JOHN RUSKIN.\\nrich armature from those that are essential parts of\\nthe sohd building the abandonment of nearly all ex-\\npression in the body of the building, except that of\\nstrength, so that the Byzantine building shows no anxiety\\nto disturb open surfaces the solidity of the shafts, how-\\never precious in material, as an instinctive amends for\\nthe thinness of the precious surface on the walls and\\nthe consequent variable size of the shafts, as rubies in\\na carcanet have the differences proper to their single\\nvalues, and the emeralds of two ear-rings are not abso-\\nlutely alike shallow cutting of the decoration, so that\\nhere are none of the hollows and hiding-places proper\\nto the stone-work of the north. On this serene and\\nsunny construction the decorator worked as one who\\ntraces a fine drawing, subduing and controlling figure\\nand drapery to the surface of his film of marble. Little\\nhave they read this book who currently discuss the\\nfanaticism of Ruskin in the matter of truth, and\\ncharge him with so bigoted a love of integrity as to\\nforbid the use of a marble surface on a construction of\\ncommoner substance; an architect accuses him of this\\nto-day as easily as a painter to-morrow will aver that\\nRuskin did not permit him to choose what he would\\nrecord, but compelled him to record all that was before\\nhim. It is as the chief of the lovers of colour that\\nRuskin is the apologist of an incrusted church simply\\ncondemned as ugly by the taste of the guides of the\\nworld that St Mark s which was to him a confusion\\nof delight, a chain of language and life, that St Mark s", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0122.jp2"}, "123": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. Ill\\nwhich he read, not in Gothic darkness and effort, but\\nclearly, with the clearness of white dome and sky. No\\nsign of carelessness of heart, to him, was the colour of\\nVenice, but a solemn investiture. As to the form, I\\nmay do no more here than record the little spray of\\nleaves he draws on a page of Stones of Venice, with\\na subtle difference in the progression of the propor-\\ntions amongst the seven leaves and when you are\\npenetrated with the grace of these single things in their\\ninter-relation, you read that these are the proportions of\\nthe facade of St Mark s. Who but he has given a reader\\nsuch a happy moment And as for the Byzantine spirit,\\nhe cries, of St Mark s, No city had such a Bible. He\\nperceives in it\\nthat mighty humanity, so perfect and so proud, that\\nhides no weakness beneath the mantle, and gains no\\ngreatness from the diadem the majesty of thoughtful\\nform, on which the dust of gold and flame of jewels\\nare dashed, as the sea-spray upon the rock, and still\\nthe great Manhood seems to stand bare against the\\nsky.\\nThe following section, on the nature of Gothic, is one\\nof the most important chapters of Ruskin s architectural\\nwork.\\nLet it be remembered that he chose the Gothic\\nof Venice for the sake of its local succession to this\\nlocal Byzantine work. But he prefaces the lesson\\nwith a study of universal Gothic, the Gothic of such\\nalmost abstract quality as would be difficult to define,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0123.jp2"}, "124": {"fulltext": "112 JOHN RUSKIN.\\neven as red would be difficult to describe to one who\\nhad not seen it, but who must be told that it was the\\ncolour mingled with blue to make this violet, and with\\nyellow to make yonder orange. Universal Gothic, like\\nother great architecture, began with artless utterance.\\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.\\nFor there will always be more intellect than there\\ncan be education. But Gothic was in a special\\nmanner 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 Roman-\\nesque sculpture became a subject of intense affec-\\ntion. 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, is at once soothed and satisfied\\nas it watches the wandering of the tendril, and the\\nbudding of the flower. And here a Ruskin phrase, also\\nin its place incomparable Greek and Egyptian\\nornament is either mere surface engraving or its\\nlines are flowing, lithe, and luxuriant. But the\\nGothic ornament stands out in prickly independence\\nand frosty fortitude, jutting into crockets, and freezing\\ninto pinnacles, In the same chapter is, amongst others,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0124.jp2"}, "125": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0080\u00a2THE STONES OF VENICE. I13\\nan admirable page upon redundanee as a quality, not,\\nneedless to say, of all fine Gothic, but of the Gothic\\nthat \\\\s most full of all Gothic qualities, and especially\\nthe Gothic quality of humility That humility which\\nis the very life of the Gothic school is shown not\\nonly in the imperfection, but in the accumulation, of\\nornament.\\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\\nthe Renaissance palaces they exhaust their own\\nlife by breathing it into the Renaissance coldness.\\nThe Ducal Palace, according to Ruskin, was a work of\\nsudden Gothic. It is unlike the true transitional work\\ndone between the final cessation of pure Byzantine\\nbuilding, about 1300, and its own date 1320 to 1350.\\nThe struggle between Byzantine and Gothic (formed\\non the mainland) had been one of equals, equally\\norganised and vital. Ruskin shows us the brilliant\\ncontest, with here and there a bit of true Gothic tangled\\nand taken prisoner till its friends should come up and\\nsustain it. And of the Gothic victory the English\\nreader (Ruskin writes, in spite of all, for the ultra-\\nEnglish reader, the insular, the suburban, the very\\nchurchwarden) should note that the Venetian houses\\nwere the refined and ornate dwellings of a nation\\nas laborious, as practical, as brave, and as prudent as\\nourselves. At Venice, Vicenza, Padua, and\\nH", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0125.jp2"}, "126": {"fulltext": "114 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nVerona the traveller may ascertain, by actual experience,\\nthe effect which would be produced upon the comfort\\nand luxury of daily life by the revival of Gothic\\narchitecture he may see the unruined traceries against\\nthe summer sky, or may close the casements fitted\\nto their unshaken shafts against such wintry winds\\nas would have made an English house vibrate to\\nits foundations. I trust, said Ruskin, and his\\nlesson has in part been learnt since then, that\\nthere will come a time when the English people\\nmay see the folly of building basely and insecurely.\\nThe reader is led then at last to the Ducal Palace,\\nand, in honour of its sculptures, to a chapter on\\nthat great book of the Virtues as the Christian Venice\\nhonoured them from that chapter I must save this\\nsentence on Plato that the moral virtues may be\\nfound in his writings defined in the most noble manner,\\nas a great painter defines his figures, without oiitli?ies.^^\\nWhen Gothic architecture came to the conquest of\\nByzantine in Venice, both were noble but when,\\nin a later age, the Renaissance architecture attacked the\\nGothic, neither was purely noble. Ruskin shows us\\nthat unless luxury had enervated and subtlety falsified\\nthe Gothic forms, Roman traditions could not have pre-\\nvailed against them. The corrupt Gothic had become\\nluxurious in some of the best Gothic there is\\nhardly an inch of stone left unsculptured hui the\\ndecadent Gothic is at once extravagant and jaded.\\nAgainst this degraded architecture came the Renais-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0126.jp2"}, "127": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. II5\\nsance armies and their first assault was in the re-\\nquirement of universal perfection. The Renaissance\\nworkmen lost originality of thought and tenderness of\\nfeeling, for the sake of their dexterity of touch and\\naccuracy of knowledge.\\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. Now\\ndo not let me be misunderstood when I speak generally\\nof the evil spirit of the Renaissance. The reader\\nwill not find one word but of the most profound rever-\\nence for those mighty men who could wear the Renais-\\nsance armour of proof, and yet not feel it encumber\\ntheir living limbs Leonardo and Michael Angelo,\\nGhirlandajo and Masaccio, Titian and Tintoret. But\\nI speak of the Renaissance as an evil time, because,\\nwhen it saw those men go burning forth into the battle,\\nit mistook their armour for their strength and forth-\\nwith encumbered with the painful panoply every stripling\\nwho ought to have gone forth only with his own choice\\nof three smooth stones out of the brook.\\nFull of significance (I must take but one detail from\\nthis history of decline) is the fact that even in the\\nfinest examples of early Renaissance, where it was\\nmingled with reminiscences of the Byzantine chromatic\\nwork, the coloured marble was no longer a simple part\\nof the masonry but was framed and represented as\\nhanging by ribbons. Of the central architecture of\\nthe Renaissance, the Casa Grimani stands, in Ruskin s\\nnoble praises, as the best example. With the Vicenza", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0127.jp2"}, "128": {"fulltext": "Il6 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nTown Hall, with St Peter s, Whitehall, and St Paul s,\\nthis palace represents the building that has been set\\nbefore the student, from the date of its invention to\\nthe day of the writing of the Stones of Venice, as the\\nantagonist of the barbarous genius. None the less\\nwas it a sign of the general withdrawal of architecture\\ninto earthliness, out of all that was warm and\\nheavenly. In its central works the Venetian Re-\\nnaissance set up statues of the ancient Venetian virtues\\nTemperance and Justice but these figures were fur-\\nnished as neither the left hand of the one nor the\\nright hand of the other could be seen from below\\nwith one hand each.\\nIts dragons are covered with marvellous scales, but\\nhave no terror or sting in them its birds are perfect in\\nplumage, but have no song in them its children are\\nlovely of limb, but have no childishness in them.\\nThe effigies upon its tombs evaded the thought\\nof death its figure of the dead first indented the\\npillow naturally, then rose on its elbow and looked\\nabout it, and finally stepped out of the tomb for\\npublic applause, not with virtues, but with fame and\\nvictory, for companions. Ruskin takes us, through\\nthe stages of corruption, to the curtains and ropes,\\nfringes, tassels, cherubs, the impotence of expression,\\nthe passionless folly, of the seventeenth century, more\\nfoul in Venice than elsewhere as the thing corrupted\\nhad been the best. InfideUty, Pride of State, Pride\\nof System (or the confidence of definitely observable", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0128.jp2"}, "129": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. II7\\nlaws that never enabled man to do a great thing,\\nand albeit 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 ristn up. The chapter\\nfollowing this on the Roinan 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\\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 mis-\\nunderstanding of social and economic principles, so\\nthat it preached those impossibilities liberty and\\nequality, and yet in no single nation dared to shut\\nup its custom-houses its profession of charity and\\nself-sacrifice for the practice of individual man and\\nits rejection thereof for the practice of the State. If\\nmankind, then, was childish, it might be taught. And", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0129.jp2"}, "130": {"fulltext": "Il8 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 magnificent\\napology for the barbaric olive as the dome of St Mark s\\nhas it, and this allusion to the trees of the painters\\nA few strokes of the pencil, or dashes of colour, will\\nbe enough to enable the imagination to conceive a tree\\nand in those dashes of colour Sir Joshua Reynolds\\nwould have rested, and would have suffered the imagina-\\ntion to paint what more it liked for itself, and grow oaks,\\nor olives, or apples, out of the few dashes of colour at its\\nleisure. On the other hand, Hobbema, one of the worst\\nof the reahsts, smites the imagination on the mouth,\\nand bids it be silent, while he sets to work to paint his\\noak of the right green.\\nThe painters of to-day, worthy the name, paint olives,\\nand the world has been changed in other ways but it\\nhas not begun to restore a great time.\\nFor to the book, in so far as it is a book of persuasion,\\nthere is this reply, and against it this contention that\\nit persuades to that whereto no man nor men can attain", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0130.jp2"}, "131": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. I 19\\nby any means they can be persuaded to lay hands upon.\\nThe German painters, for example, of the Overbeck\\nschool had doubtless a good will to paint as they should,\\nand as Ruskin s teaching would approve. But here is\\nwhat he very rightly thought of them\\nI know not anything more melancholy than the sight\\nof the German cartoon, with its objective side and its\\nsubjective side and mythological division and sym-\\nbolical division its allegorical sense and literal sense\\nand ideal point of view and intellectual point of view\\nits heroism of well-made armour and knitted brows\\nand twenty innocent dashes of the hand of one God-\\nmade painter, poor old Bassano or Bonifazio, were worth\\nit all, and worth it ten thousand times over.\\nWhereto, then, is the persuasion of this book directed\\nAs a book of history and of meditation on character and\\nart it does its work but does it not itself show us that\\nas a book of persuasion it can do no work, for there is\\nno work to be done? Is a man to be persuaded, con-\\nvinced, or converted to be such a man as this of Ruskin s\\ndescription\\nIt is no more art to lay on colour delicately than to\\nlay on acid [the acid of the photographer is meant] deli-\\ncately. It is no more art to use the cornea and retina\\nfor the reception of an image than to use a lens and a\\npiece of silvered paper. But the moment that inner\\npart of the man, or rather that entire and only being of\\nthe man, of which cornea and retina, fingers and hands,\\npencils and colours, are all the mere servants and instru-\\nments that manhood which has light in itself, though\\nthe eyeball be sightless, and can gain in strength when", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0131.jp2"}, "132": {"fulltext": "T20 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthe hand and the foot are hewn off and cast into the\\nfire the moment this part of the man stands forth with\\nits solemn Behold, it is I, then the work becomes art\\nindeed.\\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 A^enetian 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 his\\npatient had thrown all his medicine out of the window,\\nthan that he had sent word to his apothecary to leave\\nout two of its three ingredients, so I would rather, for\\nmy own part, that no architects had ever condescended\\nto adopt one of the views suggested in this book.\\nAt the close of Stones of ]^e)iice he complains once\\nmore that all readers praised the style and none the\\nsubstance.\\nIf I had told, as a more egoistic person would,\\nmy own impressions, as thinking those, forsooth, and not\\nthe history of Venice, the most important business,\\na large number of equally egoistic persons would have\\ninstantly felt the sincerity of the selfishness, clapped it,\\nand stroked it, and said That s me.\\nThe truth he had to tell he declares to have been\\ndenied and detested.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0132.jp2"}, "133": {"fulltext": "THE STONES OF VENICE. 121\\nFinally, a somewhat whimsical last page is filled with\\nan extract from his diary of 1845, showing that he too\\ncould write like a critic of chiaroscuro and other\\nartistic qualities, but that he kept such observations\\nfor the furnishing of his own science rather than for\\npresentation to the public. And in the appendix to\\nSfo/ies of Venice is an invaluable essay on the Venetian\\npictures.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0133.jp2"}, "134": {"fulltext": "122\\nCHAPTER VIII,\\n\u00e2\u0080\u00a2PRE-RAPHAELITISM (1851).\\nWhen the pictures of the young pre Raphaelite\\nbrethren first appeared in the London exhibitions,\\nthe newspapers made loud complaints. Of pictures by\\nMillais and Holman Hunt at the Academy the Times\\nsaid These young artists have unfortunately become\\nnotorious by addicting themselves to an antiquated style\\nand an affected simplicity of painting. We can\\nextend no toleration to a mere senile imitation of the\\ncramped style, false perspective, and crude colour of\\nremote antiquity. That morbid infatuation which\\nsacrifices truth, beauty, and genuine feeling to mere\\neccentricity deserves no quarter at the hands of the\\npublic. Ruskin then wrote to the Times two letters,\\nsigned The Author of Modern Painters, protesting\\nthat^the pictures in question were not false whether in\\nThe word is senile in early and late editions of Ruskin, 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.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0134.jp2"}, "135": {"fulltext": "PRE-RAPIIAELITISM. 1 23\\nfeeling or perspective, that their laboriousness entitled\\nihem to more than a hasty judgment, and that great\\nthings might be expected of the painters. He blames\\nthem for looking too narrowly, and he perceives a\\nflowing and an impulse in nature that outstrips such\\nslow labours as theirs but his praises of their execu-\\ntion, in its kind, and of their colour, are large. I\\nhave no acquaintance with any of these artists, and very\\nimperfect sympathy with them, says the first letter the\\napology was undertaken for the love of natural truth,\\nevidently dear to the new painters. The Tiiues letters\\nwere followed immediately by a pamphlet. The\\npre-Raphaelite brethren, says the preface, had been\\nassailed with the most scurrilous abuse which I ever\\nrecollect seeing issue from the press (it must be owned\\nthat Ruskin s angry sentence is ill-written in three\\nplaces) and the contention that follows is exceedingly\\ninteresting for reasons that seem to have escaped its\\nreaders. That is, Ruskin has always been represented\\nas the champion of a group of young men of talent.\\nThis he was, and a generous one he declared their\\nwork to be the most earnest and complete done\\nin Europe since the day of Albert Diirer. But the\\npamphlet is by no means, in its essential argument, the\\neulogy of young men of talent. It is a frank proposal\\nto young men of industry that they should apply them-\\nselves modestly to painting pictures of topographic,\\nhistoric, scientific, or botanic interest pour serz ir.\\nRuskin is accused of seeing genius too readily; but", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0135.jp2"}, "136": {"fulltext": "124 JOHN RUSKIN,\\nthere could hardly be a more candid declaration (it was\\ntoo candid to be altogether understood) that genius was\\nnot to be looked for. The author of Pre-RapJiaeUtism\\nsays in effect that what is to be demanded of a multi-\\ntude of painters (who can be no more than workmen,\\nand ought to be good workmen) is a trustworthy and\\nuseful record of contemporary things having an un-\\npictorial interest. He says farther on\\nMany 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 sittting 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. Nothing\\nmore humiliating was ever said of modern art it was\\nso humiliating that no one would consent to under-\\nstand it it was indeed too humiliating to be just.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0136.jp2"}, "137": {"fulltext": "rRE-RAPIIAELlTISM. I 25\\nThe pre Raphaelite pamphlet changes, after the\\nintroductory page, into a history of the art of Turner.\\nParticularly instructive here is the history of the evolu-\\ntion of Turner s whole art of colour, from the kind of\\ncolour-stenography of the beginning and excellent also\\nthe history of Turner s sympathy, of his ready admira-\\ntions, of the help he consented to receive from weak\\npainters, such as Claude, and refused from strong but\\nmore false painters, such as Salvator Rosa.\\nBesides, he had never seen classical life, and Claude\\nwas represented to him as a competent authority for it.\\nBut he had seen mountains and torrents, and knew\\ntherefore that Salvator could not paint them.\\nIn iSoo, facing the Continental landscape for himself.\\nTurner cast Claude and the rest away, once for all, and\\nrelied upon his eagle eye, his Imagination, and his\\ngigantic memory. Turner, says Ruskin, forgot him-\\nself, and forgot nothing else.\\nThe Times letters of 1851 were followed by a letter,\\nin 1854, in praise of Mr Holman Hunt s Light of the\\nWorld and in this place although it belongs to a\\nmuch later date may also be mentioned the paper on\\nThe Three Colours of Pre-Raphaelitism {Nineteenth\\nCentury^ 1878), memorable for the happy passage upon\\nthat picture which corrupt criticism used to call the\\ngreatest in the world. Ruskin rehearses his former\\ngrave accusation of Raphael, that he confused and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0137.jp2"}, "138": {"fulltext": "126 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nquenched the veracities of the life of Christ and\\nadds\\nRaphael, after profoundly studying the\\narabesques of Pompeii and of the palace of the Ccesars,\\nbeguiled the tedium, and illustrated the spirituality, of\\nthe converse of Moses and Elias with Christ concerning\\nHis decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem,\\nby placing them, above the Mount of Transfiguration,\\nin the attitudes of two humming-birds on the top of a\\nhoneysuckle.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0138.jp2"}, "139": {"fulltext": "12/\\nCHAPTER IX.\\nLECTURES OiNT ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING\\n(1853)-\\nJohn Ruskin s career as a lecturer began at Edinburgh\\nwith a course of two lectures on architecture and two\\non 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 Ken-\\nsington Museum, to Cambridge, Eton, Manchester,\\nBirmingham, Liverpool, Kendal, Bradford, Dublin,\\nTunbridge Wells, Woolwich, and into the lecture rooms\\nof University College, Christ s Hospital, the Lambeth\\nSchool of Art, St Martin s School of Art, the Working\\nMen s College, the Architectural Association, the Society\\nof Arts, the Society of Antiquaries and the list is not\\ncomplete. This first appearance on the platform was\\nmade with the utmost charm of address, although the\\nmatter was controversial, and controversy followed.\\nI come before you, a passage in the second lecture\\navows, professedly to speak of things forgotten or\\nthings disputed. And his opponents joined issue with", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0139.jp2"}, "140": {"fulltext": "128 JOHN RUSKTN.\\nhim on the importance of architectural ornament, on\\nits place, on the union of architect and sculptor in\\none, and, in general, on the Gothic city. For it was\\nto the Gothic city that Ruskin intended to persuade his\\nModern Athens. He set forth with a comparison of\\nEdinburgh with Verona the one city whereof the beauty\\nlay without, and the other whereof it lay without and\\nwithin. To be beautiful, a town must be domestically\\nbeautiful, beautiful cumulatively in its dwellings, beau-\\ntiful successively along its streets.\\nThe great concerted music of the streets when\\nturret rises over turret, and casement frowns beyond\\ncasement, and tower succeeds to tower along the farthest\\nridges of the inhabited hills this is a sublimity of which\\nyou can at present form no conception.\\nNeither the mind nor the eye, he says elsewhere,\\nwill accept a new college, or a new hospital, or a new\\ninstitution, for a city and a fine church in a vile street\\nis nothing but a superstition. Therefore he would rouse\\nthe citizens against their Ionic and Corinthian column,\\nrepeated without delight and defending once again\\nit is central to his teaching the theory of the certainties\\nof beauty, he says\\nExamine well the channels of your admiration, and\\nyou will find that they are, in verity, as unchangeable as\\nthe channels of your heart s blood.\\nRuskin recommends the pointed window-opening for\\nits greater strength. The common cross lintel is of a\\nform that wastes strength, when it is strong, which, in", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0140.jp2"}, "141": {"fulltext": "ON ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING. 1 29\\nmodern building, is not often. And the pseudo-Greek\\ndecoration is wasted as well as the power, by its position\\nat the top of the building. Pediments, stylobates, and\\narchitraves are dead. Fine Gothic is as various as\\nnature s foliage, and this Ruskin illustrates by an ex-\\nquisite lesson on the leaves of the mountain ash a\\nsculptor should not repeat his sculpture, as a painter\\nshould not paint the same picture. Moreover, fine\\nGothic ornament is visible it is chiefly rich about the\\ndoors, it is rough at a height above the eye only in the\\ndegraded Gothic of Milan cathedral are the statues on\\nthe roof cut delicately.\\nBe assured that 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, since\\nhe must, to the poverty or penury of a society and age\\nstrangely given to boast of riches. The Gothic of\\ndwellings is one with the Gothic church the apse of\\nAmiens is but a series of windows surmounted by\\npure gables of open work the spire, the pointed\\ntower of South Switzerland, are but the roof, which\\nought always to be very visible, made yet more 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 which would\\nthus interest you when the things expressed by them\\nare uninteresting?", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0141.jp2"}, "142": {"fulltext": "130 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nSome expense of controversy seems to be hardly\\nworth while in Ruskin s contention that ornamentation\\nis the principal part of architecture considered as a fine\\nart. For when the word principal is thoroughly\\nexplained, nothing is left in the proposition but what\\nmost architects would be willing to accept.\\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 of\\nproportion, 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\\nit elicited none.\\nThe two lectures on painting deal, the one with\\nTurner and Claude (ground trodden in Modern Painters),\\nand the other with the reforms attempted by the\\nEnglish pre-Raphaelites.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0142.jp2"}, "143": {"fulltext": "131\\nCHAPTER X.\\n\u00e2\u0099\u00a6ELEMENTS OF DRAWING (1857).\\nThe three Letters to Beginners printed with this title\\nrequire of the learner a simple discipleship and con-\\nfidence 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 those\\nreasons and to be sure they are good for the teaching\\nis intolerant of mixture with any other methods. That\\nteaching, merely as it stands in this small book lost\\nin the astonishing quantity of its author s labours of\\nthe mind proves an entire system of thought and\\npractice, justified by pure principle and by the analysis\\nof the work of masters. But the modern reader may\\nwonder whether, a painter having been duly born, but\\nhaving yet to be made, he would have a chance of\\nbeing well made under the guidance of this book. Let\\nno one think that if there were failure it would be the\\nconsequence of too literary a quality of instruction,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0143.jp2"}, "144": {"fulltext": "132 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nand of the influence of a literary mind Ruskin s\\nwork in these letters is artist s work, designer s and\\npainter s work Ruskin is more sure of the world of\\nbodily vision, more obedient to all its limits in a\\nword, more technical than an ordinary drawing-master\\nin his class would know how to be. Ruskin teaches\\nhis students to look at nature with simple eyes, to\\ntrust sight as the sense of the painter, a sense to be\\nkept untampered with, unprompted, and unhampered.\\nIn a book on Velasquez, published in the winter of\\nRuskin s death, by a critic who perhaps would not\\nhave consented to quote a precept from Ruskin, nearly\\na page is devoted to the record of what the writer had\\nbeen fortunate enough to hear said by a French painter\\nand this proves to be but a long statement of what\\nRuskin taught in a single phrase when he bade the\\nstudent to seek to recover the innocence of the eye.\\nAnd yet in spite of admirable theory, the frequently\\nrecurring praises of William Hunt, the water-colour\\npainter of fruit, add to the reader s uneasiness. On\\nthe other hand, the student is taught to perceive the\\ngreatness of the greatest masters.\\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\\npre-Raphaelites.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0144.jp2"}, "145": {"fulltext": "ELEMENTS OF DRAWING. 1 33\\nMichelangiolo, Raphael, and Rubens are great masters,\\nbut not masters for students Murillo, Salvator, Claude,\\nCaspar Poussin, Teniers, are dangerous.\\nYou may look, however, for examples of evil, with\\nsafe universality of reprobation, being sure that every-\\nthing you see is bad, at Domenichino, the Caracci,\\nBronzino, 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 galleries\\nto learn to work and not only to learn to judge. Let\\nus contrast with this another lesson (this one from\\nthe appendix) on things to be studied, whereby the\\nyoung artist is directed to read the poets Scott, Words-\\nworth, Keats, Crabbe, Tennyson, the two Brownings,\\nLowell, Longfellow, and Coventry Patmore alone\\namongst the moderns. Cast Coleridge at once aside,\\nas sickly and useless and Shelley as shallow and ver-\\nbose. Byron is but withheld for a time, with praise\\nof his magnificence. And we have Patmore the\\npoet of spiritual passion and lofty distinction praised\\nfor quiet modern domestic feeling and a finished\\npiece of writing. And Shelley verbose Adonais\\nverbose, and not Endymioii All the living poets\\nwhom Ruskin praised Browning, Rossetti, and Pat-\\nmore amongst them had to endure to be praised side\\nby side with Longfellow, and they did not love the\\nassociation. But in all this strange sentence nothing", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0145.jp2"}, "146": {"fulltext": "134 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nis less intelligible than the word which commends to\\nthe young student urged in the same breath to restrict\\nhimself to what is generous, reverend, and peaceful\\nall the writings of Robert Browning. The student\\nis warned to refrain from even noble, even pure, satire,\\nfrom coldness, and from a sneer and is yet sent to a\\npoet who gave his imagination to the invention of\\ninfernal hate in the Spanish Cloister, and of the ex-\\nplanations of Mr Sludge and Bishop Blougram, busily,\\nindefatigably squalid and ignoble, and delighting in\\nderision. This appendix must have been written in\\na perverse mood but in the text what exquisite lessons\\nof proportion, and of colour For instance, The eye\\nshould feel white as a space of strange, heavenly pale-\\nness in the midst of the feeling of colours, and You\\nmust make the black conspicuous, the black should\\nlook strange what a sense of the growth of trees,\\nof flowers with their delicate inflections of law, their\\nvital symmetry and asymmetry, and their progress, their\\nrelation, from stem to limit of leaf; what a steady\\nnay eternal vision of movement the animal in its\\nmotion, the tree in its growth, the cloud in its course,\\nthe mountain in its wearing away And in the lesson\\non colour 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 gentian,\\nfor instance, the way she economises her ultramarine", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0146.jp2"}, "147": {"fulltext": "ELEMENTS OF DRAWING. 1 35\\ndown in the bell is a little too bad. With Elements of\\nDrawifig should be named Elements of Perspective, a\\nseries of lessons intended to be read in connexion\\nwith the first three books of Euclid, signs of yet another\\nintellect the mathematical added to this wonderful\\nspirit. The drawings that accompany Elements of\\nDrawing are of great beauty.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0147.jp2"}, "148": {"fulltext": "136\\nCHAPTER XI.\\nTHE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART (1S57).\\nThis little volume holds the substance of two lectures\\ngiven at Manchester. The lecturer exercises here the\\npleasant art of stimulating his hearers by a paradox, and\\nof following the phrase of surprise by an irrefutable\\nexposition. His theme is the right expenditure of\\npublic money. He, like the other economists, has to\\nfind room, in the national dispensations, for expense\\nupon the arts, and in some sort the luxuries, of life.\\nChristian and ascetic, he has to consent to this use of\\nthe fruits of the labours of the poor, as the severe but\\nnot ascetic Manchester economist also must needs\\ndo. Mill, who insists that all unproductive consump-\\ntion is so much loss and destruction, evidently arranges\\nfor, and tolerates, so much loss and destruction in a\\ncertain cause he allows the artist to destroy what he\\nconsumes. With such permission a purely scientific\\nwriter has nothing to do. Like a writer on arithmetic\\na writer on political economy proper states these laws,\\nthose causes, and yonder consequences, and is not", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0148.jp2"}, "149": {"fulltext": "THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ART. 1 37\\ncalled upon, as an economist, to approve or disapprove\\nof an act that would disregard the purely economic\\nresults. (I shall have to urge the same point in regard\\nto the later work Unto this Last.) And this is why\\nit is irritating to hear men speak of doing such or\\nsuch a thing in spite of the political economists, or\\nnotwithstanding the professors of the dismal science.\\nThe calculators of a nation s wealth are simply to state\\ntheir calculations that done, they might be the first to\\ncherish ethical, or political, or human reasons why loss\\nand gain should in such or such a case be disregarded\\nor, on the other hand, they might hold it to be wiser to\\ndisregard the results in loss and gain as little as possible.\\nBut in either case they would cease for the lime to speak\\npurely as economists or calculators. Ruskin, needless\\nto say, unites the two functions, as indeed almost all\\nother writers have done. He thinks precisely, and\\nhaving done the sum, he passes to the other\\nfunction, and does the ethical work for which his\\ncalculation has given him material. In these two\\nlectures he plans some order in that strictly unproduc-\\ntive expenditure without which civilisation could hardly\\nendure. The theme of this book is righteous spending,\\nwhile the theme of Ti/ue and Tide is chiefly righteous\\nsparing and he has much to say here of the honour\\nand the power of riches and the disgrace (let us say\\nthe disgrazia in the Italian sense) of poverty, while in\\nFors C/avigera he gives a solemn personal assurance\\nsolemn and personal even for him that for the rich", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0149.jp2"}, "150": {"fulltext": "138 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nman there is no safety unless he shall piously and\\nprudently dispose himself to become poor. But the\\npoverty he deplores is manifestly the ignorant and for-\\nsaken poverty that no man ought to endure the\\npoverty for the love whereof a man of heart despoils\\nhimself is the poverty of simplicity and even the\\npoverty of the simple is to be sought chiefly in order\\nthat there should be none, or less, of the poverty of the\\nforsaken. In this very lecture on the administration\\nof wealth for the fostering of art, the nation and the\\nman are warned alike that the spending which would be\\nlawful in a society where none were starving for lack of\\nwork ought to be forgone or deferred there where\\nchildren have no bread.\\nThe nation, says in effect the lecturer on The\\nPolitical Economy of Art, is as free and as bound, as\\nresponsible and as dependent in its inter-relation, as a\\nhousehold, and a nation is governable like a farm. If\\nany one shall say that the similitude is too domestic, the\\nreply shall be that it is not domestic enough.\\nThe real type of a well-organised nation must be pre-\\nsented, not by a farm cultivated by servants who wrought\\nfor hire, but by a farm in which the master was a\\nfather, and in which all the servants were sons.\\nWith a peculiar humour, Ruskin begs his hearers not to\\nbe alarmed at the menacing word fraternity. The\\nFrench who used it, he declares (for the reassuring of a\\nManchester audience) to have gone wrong in their\\nexperiment. But the cause of their error he states", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0150.jp2"}, "151": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0080\u00a2the rOLTTICAL ECONOMY OF ART. 1 39\\nwithout irony. It was that they refused to acknowledge\\nthat fraternity implied a paternity. The world, never-\\ntheless, does not utter the word paternal without\\nburlesque a paternal government nor the word\\nfraternal without defiance. It does not chance that\\npaternity is spoken of threateningly or fraternity with\\nirony but this might have been the humour of the\\ncommonwealth, instead of the other. Obviously, what\\nRuskin teaches in the political part of this lecture is the\\nnecessity of authority and once the arbitrary tyrannies\\nof primitive society are done away, which is early in all\\ncivilisations the nullity of the liberty that men have\\ndied for with alacrity age 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\\ninsists 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. In\\nThe Political Economy of Art the reader should note\\nthe fine page upon the destruction of wealth, as well as\\nof art, that is wrought not by the tooth of time.\\nFancy what Europe would be now, if the delicate\\nstatues and temples of the Greeks, if the broad roads\\nand massy walls of the Romans, if the noble and\\npathetic architecture of the middle ages had not been\\nground to the dust by mere human rage.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0151.jp2"}, "152": {"fulltext": "140\\nCHAPTER XII.\\nTHE TWO PATHS (1859).\\nThe principal teaching of this volume, ratified by a\\npreface in 1878, is summed up thus:\\nThe law which it has been my effort chiefly to\\nillustrate 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 have\\never tried to teach respecting architecture or any other\\nart. It is also the law most generally disallowed.\\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 yesterday\\nI mean the time of a flow that has already been suc-\\nceeded by some ebbing movement, and, in this case,\\nthe time between the popularising in England of the\\nart for art of the French, about 1880, and the\\nday when the last journalist flagged in the last repeti-\\ntion thereof and it took him nearly twenty years.\\nIn October 1899 a fugitive writer in a conspicuous\\nart-review spoke of the unutterable bosh written by", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0152.jp2"}, "153": {"fulltext": "THE TWO PATHS. I4I\\nRuskin about art and the inferior clownishness of\\nthat reviewer is only the latest mimicking of the higher\\nclownishness of criticism a little earlier written.\\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\\nhe certainly knows he found in that inner place, but\\nwhich he never explicitly confesses. Two paths there\\nare, he teaches, one leading to destruction and the\\nother to life. The one is that of the artist who loves\\nhis own skill and seeks first his pleasure in beauty, and\\nthe other is that of him who loves nature and studies\\nthe beauty of her truth and never lets go his grasp\\nupon the laws of natural living form. Both artists\\nmay nay, must draw conventionally at times, and at\\ntimes must design the mosaic patterns, or the diaper\\npatterns, that ultimately resemble each other, assuredly,\\nfrom whichever path they are approached. It seems\\nthat Ruskin insists upon a difference, even in this\\nultimate point. And yet the prettiest and most in-\\ngenious oriental diaper of fret-work (which he de-\\nnounces) has a suggestion in natural curve, or even in\\nthe curve of organic life, as the Lombard ornament\\n(which he approves) has a suggestion in natural crystal-\\nlisation that is, in something other than organic form\\nproperly so-called. A similar difficulty occurs to the\\nreader in regard to all convention, however slight.\\nThis, however, is a difficulty, as it were, at the end\\nof the argument. At its head Ruskin has placed a", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0153.jp2"}, "154": {"fulltext": "142 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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-\\ncate of this lecture but there is no such mitigation\\nin the text, which declares roundly that from the\\nmoment 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 Ruskin\\ncommands his readers and compels them to attend\\nto what shall follow. Thus it stands India (then\\nlately guilty of the Mutiny and accused of more evil\\nthan 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 of\\nthe 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0154.jp2"}, "155": {"fulltext": "THE TWO PATHS. I43\\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\\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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0155.jp2"}, "156": {"fulltext": "144 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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\\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 spiral\\nhe 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 ends\\nwith 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 Manu-\\nfacture and Design, that partly condemns the usual\\nteaching of symmetry\\nIf you learn to draw a leaf well, you are taught\\nto turn it the other way, opposite to itself; and the\\ntwo leaves set opposite ways are called a design.\\nBut if once you learn to draw the human figure, you\\nwill find that knocking two men s heads together does\\nnot necessarily constitute a good design.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0156.jp2"}, "157": {"fulltext": "THE TWO PATHS. I45\\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\\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 sym-\\nmetry, was proper to art. For felicity of word read\\nwhat 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, with\\nmullioned windows and a low arched porch round\\nwhich, in the little triangular garden, one can imagine\\nthe family as they used to sit in old summer times,\\nthe ripple of the river heard faintly through the sweet-\\nbriar hedge, and the sheep on the far-off wolds shining\\nin the evening sunlight. There, uninhabited for many\\nand many a year, it had been left in unregarded havoc\\nof ruin the garden-gate still swung loose to its latch\\nthe garden, blighted utterly into a field of ashes, not\\neven a weed taking root there the roof torn, the\\nshutters hanging about the windows in rags of rotten\\nweed before its gate, the stream which had gladdened\\nit now soaking slowly by, black as ebony, and thick\\nwith curdling scum the bank above it trodden into\\nunctuous, sooty slime far in front of it, between it\\nand the old hills, the furnaces of the city foaming forth\\nperpetual plague of sulphurous darkness; the volumes", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0157.jp2"}, "158": {"fulltext": "146 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nof their storm clouds coiling low over a waste of grass-\\nless 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\\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 garden-\\npaths, 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0158.jp2"}, "159": {"fulltext": "the two paths.\\n147\\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 heaven\\nin which every cloud that passed was literally the\\nchariot of an angel, and every ray of its Evening and\\nMorning 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0159.jp2"}, "160": {"fulltext": "148 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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-\\ntions. It was a courageous enterprise to answer one\\nof them in this book a great enterprise, a great\\ndefeat.\\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\\nTivo 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0160.jp2"}, "161": {"fulltext": "THE TWO TATirS. I49\\nthe descriptive passage above quoted, I would cite\\nthis from the lecture that urges upon architects their\\ngreat vocation as sculptors\\nIs there anything within range of sight, or concep-\\ntion, which may not be of use to yoti Whatever\\nmay be conceived of Divine, or beheld of Human, may\\nbe dared or adopted by you throughout the kingdom\\nof animal life, no creature is so vast, or so minute, that\\nyou cannot deal with it, or bring it into service the\\nlion and the crocodile will couch about your shafts the\\nmoth and bee will sun themselves upon your flowers\\nfor you, the fawn will leap for you, the snail will be\\nslow for you, the dove smooth her bosom, and the\\nhawk spread her wings towards the south. All the\\nwide world of vegetation blooms and bends for you\\nthe leaves tremble that you may bid them be still under\\nthe marble snow; the thorn and the thistle, which the\\nearth casts forth as evil, are to you the kindliest ser-\\nvants no dying petal, nor drooping tendril, is so feeble\\nas to have no help for you no robed pride of blossom\\nso kingly, but it will lay aside its purple to receive at\\nyour hands its pale immortality.\\nAgain, Ruskin compares the interest of the geologist,\\nof the naturalist, with that of the sculptor, in the things\\nthey study. Yon must get the storm-spirit into your\\neagles, and the lordliness into your lions. And again\\nhe shows the forms of lifeless things the all but in-\\nvisible shells that shall lend their shapes to the starred\\ntraceries of a cathedral roof, the torn cable that can\\ntwine into a perfect moulding You who can crown\\nthe mountain with its fortress, and the city with its\\ntowers, are thus able also to give beauty to ashes", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0161.jp2"}, "162": {"fulltext": "I50 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nand worthiness to dust. He presses the example of\\nthe ancient architects did they employ a subordinate\\nworkman as sculptor, ordering of him bishops at so\\nmuch a mitre, and cripples at so much a crutch\\nWas the procession on the portal of Amiens wrought\\nso\\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\\nindiscriminately a painter designs when he\\nchooses some things, refuses others, and arranges\\nall. And Design, properly so called, is human\\ninvention, consulting human capacity (a most ad-\\nmirable definition).\\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\\ngrasp it also, and to grasp it with delight.\\nJapanese art was unconsidered at the time of the\\nwriting of these lectures. One may wonder how would\\nthe art, the people, their gentleness, their vices, their\\nmonstrous burlesque of human form, the distortion,\\nthe familiarity, the jeer, the mockery, the malice, the\\ndelicate and intent study of natural fact in plants and\\nin birds, the vitality, and especially the love of in-\\nnocent life, how would the men and their art show\\nunder the intricate tests of The Two Paths Where", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0162.jp2"}, "163": {"fulltext": "the two paths. 151\\nwould Japan stand in that entanglement of India,\\nScotland, Rochdale, and Pisa?\\nThe last lecture is on The Work of Iron in Nature,\\nArt, and Policy. The history of the colour of iron\\nin the landscape is brilliant writing. The warning\\nagainst the foolish use of the word freedom, and\\nagainst 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 a\\nfish. There is always something that he must, or must\\nnot, do.\\nIn these and all matters you never can reason finally\\nfrom the abstraction, for both liberty and restraint are\\ngood when they are nobly chosen, but of the two\\nit is restraint which characterises the higher\\ncreature, and betters the lower creature and, from the\\nministering of the archangel to the labour of the insect,\\nfrom the poising of the planets to the gravitation of\\na grain of dust, the power and glory of all creatures,\\nand all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their\\nfreedom.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0163.jp2"}, "164": {"fulltext": "152\\nCHAPTER XIII.\\nUNTO THIS LAST (i860).\\nI REST satisfied with the work, though with nothing\\nelse that I have done, says John Ruskin in the preface\\nto the first issue after the pubUcation had been stopped\\nin the Cornhill Magazine and in 1888 he said that he\\nwould be content that all the rest of his books should\\nbe destroyed rather than this. The book was to give in\\nplain English it has often been incidentally given in\\ngood Greek by Plato and Xenophon, and good Latin\\nby Cicero and Horace a logical definition of wealth.\\nThe first paper, The Roots of Honour, treats of the\\nwages of labour, and at the outset relieves the reader of\\nthe usual burden of deciding whether the interests of\\nemployer and labourer are alike or opposed. According\\nto circumstances they may be either. But it is not to\\nthe 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 of\\nwages. Unlike other writers on economy at that day, he\\nthinks it possible that the rate of wages in industry and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0164.jp2"}, "165": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST. 153\\nagriculture should be fixed by legislation, and fixed irre-\\nspectively of the demand for labour. Vv^hy has the pos-\\nsibility so long been denied, in face of the fact that for\\nall important and some unimportant labour, wages are\\nso regulated wages of the prime minister, the bishop,\\nthe general, the cabman, the lawyer, the physician\\nThe difficulty as to good and bad work Ruskin decides\\nthus the good labourer would be employed and the\\nbad would not but all employed should have the same\\nwages. This, moreover, is done in the cases of the pro-\\nfessions already named. A bad workman should not\\nbe permitted to offer his work at half- price, to the\\nprobable injury of the good it is his freedom to do\\nso, and not regulation, that is artificial and unnatural.\\nEducation would continuously lessen the number of\\nbad workmen. The second aim of true poUtical\\neconomy, and a difficult one, is to maintain employment\\nsteadily despite the sudden and extensive inequalities\\nof demand. But this difficulty, though great, would\\nnot be so great if the rushes and relaxations, overwork\\nand idleness alternately, that come of unequal wages,\\nwere at an end. There would be a calming-down, and\\nemployment would become more equal. Furthermore,\\nthe labourer might be taught to live and work more\\nsteadily, and therefore more evenly, by the counsel of a\\ngood employer. And the good employer would be a\\nmerchant (for example) who should accept his own\\nfunction in the spirit of the lawyer, soldier, or pastor\\nshould provide by commerce for the nation, as those", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0165.jp2"}, "166": {"fulltext": "154 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nadminister law, defend, or teach, not seeking profit in\\nthe first place, but rendering in the first place the\\ndefinite service of providing.\\nThe second paper, The Veins of Wealth, draws the\\ndistinction between mercantile economy (as it actually\\nis) and true political economy, the first being that rule\\nof riches which implies poverty that is, relative riches,\\nthe riches of individuals or classes whereas political\\neconomy is the order of riches of the nation, in\\nharmony, not in internal contrasts. The art of be-\\ncoming rich in the mercantile sense is the art of keep-\\ning others poor. Without their poverty, obviously, the\\nsuccessful man would have neither servants nor hus-\\nbandmen at his disposal. The establishment of the\\nmercantile wealth which consists in a claim upon labour\\nsignifies a political diminution of the real wealth which\\nconsists in substantial possessions. That is, the man\\nwho has become poor, and thus indebted in labour to\\nthe rich, has been unprofitable to the State. If the\\nrich withdraws into idleness, he too becomes unprofit-\\nable to the State. The wealth of individuals may be\\ngathered in masses, but whether for good or evil no one\\ncan tell by the mere fact of its existence. It tends to\\ngather unequally the obvious inequalities of health,\\ncharacter, and ability will have it so. But the sight of\\na class enriched ought not to beguile a student of\\neconomy to think he sees a nation rich. Nor must\\nso John Ruskin teaches the inequality be left to the\\nexaggerations of the unregulated action of forces. The", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0166.jp2"}, "167": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST. I 55\\neconomists of iS6o would have it that the course of\\ndemand and supply cannot be controlled by human\\nlaws.\\nPrecisely in the same sense the waters of the\\nworld go where they are required. Where the land\\nfalls the water flows. But the disposition and\\nadministration can be altered by human fore-\\nthought.\\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 is that\\nthey will consist in a sum of money which will at any\\ntime procure for [the labourer] at least as much labour\\nas he has given. And this equity of payment\\nis, observe, wholly independent of any reference to the\\nnumber of men who are willing 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 a\\nquarter 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 dis-\\ncovery 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 which\\nthe vulgar economists recommend a man to buy and the\\ndearest in which they advise him to sell have to be\\ngroped for, surely, by hard measures. (How right\\nRuskin is when he says that commercial riches im-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0167.jp2"}, "168": {"fulltext": "156 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nplies 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\\nman comes easily nearer to the object of his search\\nor it would be better to say that there is something\\nfor him 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 will\\ncompel him to take for it. His necessities can only\\nbe ascertained by empirical, but his due by analytical,\\ninvestigation.\\nNeither the just nor the unjust hirer employs two men\\nwhere only one man is needed. But in the just case\\nthe hired labourer may be able to hire, for his own\\nnecessities, another workman by the purchase of what\\nhe needs and the influence of this ability passes on\\nthrough 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0168.jp2"}, "169": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST. 15/\\noperatives (who are paid on my opponents principles)\\nI leave it to those opponents to ascertain. He re-\\ncognises as no other has done the impossibility of\\nequality. He had said in Modern Painters, Govern-\\nment and Co-operation are the Laws of Life;\\nAnarchy and Competition the Laws of Death. A\\nmodern reader may wonder that Ruskin should, in\\nreplying to a charge of socialism, defend himself by\\nthe strange means of a denunciation of anarchy.\\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,\\nsuch as competition. But his meaning is not at all\\nconfused, although in this one instance his diction\\nis so.\\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\\npublic of that day believed in Free trade and another\\nsuggesting that human passion might enter into\\nthe calculations of science as justly as the mere\\nthought to the importance whereof Mill confessed\\nthat he could set no limit, even in a purely produc-\\ntive and material point of view. Mill even assigns\\na certain action to feelings, but only to those\\nof a disagreeable kind, as discouragements of", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0169.jp2"}, "170": {"fulltext": "158 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nlabour. Ruskin would permit feelings of an agree-\\nable kind to have their turn.\\nThe fourth and last essay, Ad Valorem, deals with\\nthe search, above-indicated, of the equivalent the\\npayment that would represent, in the hands of the\\nlabourer, his right to the labour of another. Ruskin,\\nin this research, defines Value, Wealth, Price, and\\nProduce. I confess I do not think him to be fair\\neither to Mill or to his own argument when he withers\\nthat writer for his saying that political economy has\\nnothing to do with the estimate of the moralist.\\nMill might justly say this of a science, and yet be\\nwiUing 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\\nscientifically Ruskin would have no ground of op-\\nposition. But, on the other hand, he has legitimate\\nground in his contention that Mill is unscientific,\\nbecause it is unscientific to make no calculation of\\nhuman feeling except feeling of a disagreeable kind.\\nInto that contention, however, I do not see that moral\\nindignation should enter, albeit intellectual irritation\\nmay. It is not Ruskin s anger that replies pat to\\nMill s error, but Ruskin s detection, declared in this\\nsentence The only conclusions of his which I have\\nto dispute are those which follow from his premises.\\nFor he found that Mill covertly introduced the moral\\nestimate he professed to exclude. It is much to the\\npurpose also to expose Mill s definition Wealth con-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0170.jp2"}, "171": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST. 1 59\\nsists of all useful and agreeable objects which possess\\nexchangeable value. Usefulness cannot agreeable-\\nness certainly cannot be separated from human passion.\\nTherefore, Ruskin says, political economy, being\\na science of wealth, must be a science respecting human\\ncapacities and dispositions. A definition of Ricardo s\\nhe shows to be a strange misfit indeed and a plain\\nreader wishes Cobbett were there to trip, entangle, and\\nfell Ricardo in his abominable pronouns Utility is\\nnot the measure of exchangeable value, though it is\\nabsolutely essential to it. In making his own defini-\\ntion of value Ruskin does admirable work in words.\\nHe reminds us of the nominative of valorem and of\\nits reference to health and, in the original sense, to\\nvirtue.\\nA truly valuable thing is that which leads to life.\\nIn proportion as it does not lead to life, or as its\\nstrength is broken, it is less valuable in proportion as\\nit 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\\nus not 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 teaches", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0171.jp2"}, "172": {"fulltext": "l6o JOHN RUSKIN.\\nnations to desire and labour for the things that lead to\\nlife.\\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 wealthy\\nis to have a large stock of useful articles, the not\\nunnecessary words, which we can use, and thus\\nbringing in once again the human power and the\\nhuman heart. Wealth, he says, instead of depend-\\ning merely on a have, is thus seen to depend on a\\ncan. Gladiator s death, on a habet but soldier s\\nvictory, and state s salvation, on a \u00e2\u0096\u00a0quo phirinmm\\nposset. Wealth is the possession of the valu-\\nable by the valiant. As to price, he teaches that in\\nas much as it is exchange value, it has nothing to\\ndo with profit. It is only in labour there can be\\nprofit, or advance. The processes of exchange, in so\\nfar as they are laborious, may bear profit, as involved\\nin the labours of production but the pure exchange\\nis absolute exchange and nothing more. Acquisition\\nthere is in mercantile exchange, but the word profit\\nshould represent increase such as that of the work-\\nshop and the field. Profit is of political, acquisi-\\ntion of mercantile, importance acquisition makes\\npoor by the same act as it makes rich. The making\\nrich is conspicuous, and the making poor is obscure,\\nbut none the less real because it is obscure, of the\\nback-street, and finally of the grave nothing is more", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0172.jp2"}, "173": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST.\\nI6l\\nobscure in this world. Ruskin holds the science of\\nacquisition to be the one science that is founded\\non nescience, and an art founded on artlessness.\\nAll other arts and sciences, except this, have for\\ntheir object the doing away with their opposite\\nnescience and artlessness. This alone needs the ex-\\nistence of the ignorance and helplessness whereby its\\nknowledge and power may work.\\nThe general law, then, respecting just or economical\\nexchange, is simply this There must be advantage on\\nboth sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no\\ndisadvantage on the other), and just payment for\\nhis time, intelligence, and labour to any intermediate\\nperson effecting the transaction. And whatever\\nadvantage there is on either side, and whatever pay is\\ngiven to the intermediate person, should be thoroughly\\nknown. All attempt at concealment implies some\\npractice of the opposite, or undivine, science, founded\\non 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 imagination\\nand the heart. Phenomena of price are therefore\\nextremely complex, but price is to be calculated finally\\nin labour, and Ruskin goes on to define the nature\\nof that standard. The price of other things must\\nalways be counted by the quantity of labour not\\nthe price of labour by the quantity of other things.\\nAnd this is well illustrated by an instance too long\\nL", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0173.jp2"}, "174": {"fulltext": "I62 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nto quote. To this section belongs the singularly\\ninteresting sentence on consumption as the end, crown,\\nand perfection of production. Ruskin and Mill agree\\nmainly in regard to the impoverishing political effect\\nof the consumption of the unproductive classes and\\nof the vain or vicious consumption of the productive\\nclasses but pure consumption Mill inclines to treat as\\nthough there were, at any rate, no good in it, whereas\\nRuskin declares it to be in itself good. I own that\\nMill seems to me on this point more logical that\\nRuskin s estimate is rather of the joy and happiness\\nwhereof consumption is the cost than of consumption\\nitself; and that it is scientific to treat consumption\\nas loss, necessary loss or unnecessary, but still loss.\\nObviously if men could live for a generation without\\nfood all granaries might overflow and eating gives\\npleasure, but the pleasure does not consist in eating\\nas an act of destruction. Ruskin, however, seems to\\nspeak more indisputably when he declares all wealth\\nto be measured by this human capacity of consumption,\\nand shows good measures of consumption to be as\\nworthy of an economist s study as good measures of\\nproduction. He next opposes Mill s assertion that\\nA demand for commodities is not a demand for\\nlabour. It is one of the knotty points. Near this\\nfollows a fine passage on wars of capitalists and on\\nthe taxing of future generations.\\nIn a word, the book is part of the perpetual plea\\nof righteousness against blind self-interest, and the", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0174.jp2"}, "175": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST. 1 63\\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 manu-\\nfacturing town and Englishmen, sacrificing themselves\\nto the good of general humanity, may live diminished\\nlives in the midst of noise, of darkness, and of deadly\\nexhalation. But the world cannot become a factory\\nor a mine. Neither the avarice nor the rage of\\nmen will ever feed them. So long as men live\\nby bread, the far away valleys must laugh as they are\\ncovered with the gold of God, and the shouts of His\\nhappy multitudes ring round the winepress and the\\nwell.\\nThen he consoles the mere sentimentalist, who\\nmight fear that the tilled country, peopled one day\\nwith its natural inheritors, would lose its beauty. Not\\nso, Ruskin says let the desert have its own plac^,\\nbut the soil is loveliest in habitation. The desire\\nof the heart is also the desire of the eyes. In this\\nhe proves his conversion from the young passion of\\nModern 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0175.jp2"}, "176": {"fulltext": "l64 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 accompanies\\nit in the world. The crudest man living could\\nnot sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold. Raise\\nthe veil boldly; face the light; and if, as yet, the\\nlight 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\\nin the Cornhill. The unsold copies of the reissue\\nremained on the publisher s hands. Munera Fiilveris,\\na more technical work on economy, was equally un-\\nacceptable in the pages of Fraser s Magazine.\\nAnd now, after forty years, the living wage\\nis but 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0176.jp2"}, "177": {"fulltext": "UNTO THIS LAST. 165\\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": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0177.jp2"}, "178": {"fulltext": "1 66\\nCHAPTER 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0178.jp2"}, "179": {"fulltext": "SESAME AND LILIES. 167\\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 being,\\nI have sympathy with Guido Guinicelli.\\nIn my constant natural temper, and thoughts of\\nthings and people, with Marmontel.\\nIn my enforced and accidental temper, and thoughts\\nof things and people, with Dean Swift.\\n/The first lecture Sesame of Kings Treasuries\\nis chiefly a plea for accessible libraries. Its demands\\nhave been fulfilled 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 costj 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0179.jp2"}, "180": {"fulltext": "l68 JOHN RUSKIN.\\namongst the multitude of units. Corporately in muni-\\ncipal 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\\nmatter of idle reading, general opinion grows daily\\nmore relaxed. Ruskin would teach men to read\\nand from this long instruction, in which not a sen-\\ntence is futile, I gather first the rebuke of that\\ncommon appreciation, 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. poeta vii disse\\nChe pensel 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0180.jp2"}, "181": {"fulltext": "SESAME AND LILIES. 169\\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-\\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 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 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0181.jp2"}, "182": {"fulltext": "I/O JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 single\\nintention Ruskin takes his hearers through the St\\nPeter passage of Lycidas. Every word has full audience,\\nand makes an ample discharge of Milton s meaning at\\nthe assize of this solicitous judge. Nor may we com-\\nplain that such separate audience resembles the judg-\\nment of one who would take a lens to look at a picture\\npiecemeal. The particular verbal examination is entirely\\nright, it answers immediately to a special claim of the\\npoet in a special passage anon he will relax his de-\\nmands, and you the instance of your attention. And\\nso does Holbein draw finely, intensely, and niuch^ some\\npassage of anatomical articulation, and then pass to\\na larger and slighter drawing of the laxer forms of\\nflesh.\\n\\\\But 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0182.jp2"}, "183": {"fulltext": "SESAME AND LILIES, 171\\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 money\\npublicly confessed to be the motive of all action, the\\ninsanity of avarice is broadcast, and the insane are\\nincapable of thought.\\nHappily our disease is, as yet, little worse than\\nthis incapacity of thought, we are still industrious\\nto the last hour of the day, though we add the gambler s\\nfury to the labourer s patience we are still brave to the\\ndeath, though incapable of discerning the true cause for\\nbattle and are still true in affection to our own flesh.\\nThere is hope for a nation while this can still be\\nsaid of it. As long as it holds its life in its hand, ready\\nto give it for its honour (though a foolish honour), for\\nits love (though a selfish love), and for its business\\n(though a base business), there is hope for it. But hope\\nonly for this instinctive, reckless virtue cannot last.\\nOn the last page, after the evil of privilege has been\\nshown fully, broadly, and with the most impetuous\\nwill, the problem of privilege is touched where it lies,\\nknown to all men, awaiting some solution in the future,\\nnot always to make matter for the last of seventy\\npages.\\nThe principal question remains inexorable,\\nwhich of us, in brief word, is to do the hard and dirty\\nwork for the rest and for what pay Who is to do\\nthe pleasant and clean work, and for what pay?\\nWe live, we gentlemen, on delicatest prey, after the\\nmanner of weasels we keep a certain number of\\nclowns digging and ditching, and generally stupefied, in", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0183.jp2"}, "184": {"fulltext": "172 JOHN RUSKIN.\\norder that we, being fed gratis, may have all the thinking\\nand feeling to ourselves. Yet it is perhaps\\nbetter to build a beautiful human creature than a beauti-\\nful dome or steeple, only the beautiful human\\ncreature will have some duties to do in return.\\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 and\\nvoluntary but corporate service rendered to all kinds of\\ndistress, of the great socialistic confession of the theory\\nof the Poor Law not a word of any business that\\nis not base or of any love that is not selfish.\\nBut in Lilies the teaching is addressed particularly\\nto women of a kind and class that acknowledge con-\\nscience and are concerned with private duty, though\\nthey can hardly be charged with an intellectual responsi-\\nbility for the national condition. In effect, the examples\\nproposed to them by Ruskin are those of heroines who\\nhave never questioned the privilege moral, mental,\\nbodily into which they were born. Nor have the\\nwomen addressed inquired into the conditions of their\\nown privilege, even though they may vaguely avow\\nthat some obligations are implied by their unexplained\\nrights. /In addressing women at all Ruskin tells\\nus he had recourse to faith it w^s a faith that\\ncould boast of no great foundation.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0184.jp2"}, "185": {"fulltext": "SESAME AND LILIES. 1/3\\nI wrote Lilies to please one girl and were it not\\nfor what I remember of her, and of few besides, should\\nnow recast some of the sentences. The fashion of\\nthe time renders whatever is forward, coarse, or senseless,\\nin feminine nature, too palpable to all men.\\nThe one girl was the Rosie of r ^/(?r/Vrt, whom,\\nchild and woman, he had loved, and who was dead\\n(1875) when he revised the pages written for her. As\\nto the audience then left to him, he says that the\\npicturesqueness of his earlier writings had brought\\nhim acquainted with much of their emptiest en-\\nthusiasms and as to the failure of women in relation\\nto his own life, What I might have been so helped\\n[that is, helped by a woman] I rarely indulge myself\\nin the idleness of thinking.\\nHe proposes examples of heroic nature, and the\\nentirely heroic nature of the women of Shakespeare all\\nworthy 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 of\\nImogen, Hermione, or Perdita, of a goddess, or of the\\nfairy women of romance I would take Spenser, and\\nshow you how all his fairy knights are sometimes", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0185.jp2"}, "186": {"fulltext": "174 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ndeceived and sometimes vanquished but the soul of\\nUna is never darkened, and the spear of Britomart is\\nnever broken. That Athena of the ohve-hehn and\\ncloudy shield, to faith in whom you owe, down to this\\ndate, whatever you hold most precious in art, in litera-\\nture, or in types of national virtue.\\n/As 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\\nunderstand the meaning, the inevitableness, and the\\nloveliness of natural laws;/ and to follow at least some\\none path of scientific attainment as far as to the thresh-\\nold of that bitter Valley of Humiliation into which\\nonly the wisest and bravest of men can descend, owning\\nthemselves for ever children, gathering pebbles on a\\nboundless shore. To the girl herself Ruskin makes a\\npassionate appeal. To no one, to no class, has he\\nspoken words more urgent, more hardly wrung from\\nhis profound distress and desire on behalf of mankind.\\nThe criminal is beyond reach, in the grip of circum-\\nstance and of passion the political economist is,\\naccording to Ruskin, teaching his own different lesson\\nthe soldier is under another obedience the man is\\nindocile. But here, in the nation, is the girl, for a\\nscore of reasons accessible and profitable. Against her\\nsins there is no legislation, against her destructiveness\\nno national protest, no public opinion against her", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0186.jp2"}, "187": {"fulltext": "SESAME AND LILIES. 1/5\\ncruelty. In Sesame and Lilies she learns that she must\\nnot be cruel, and that she must not be idle that her\\nidleness cannot but be cruel at her disposal is the\\nawful force of the negation of good. He, who does not\\nwonder at the death of the miser, at the life of the\\nsensualist, at the frenzy of nations, at the crimes of\\nkings, does wonder at the lack of mercy in the heart of\\na fortunate woman. iHe would persuade her to make\\ngarments for the poor and to give alms, not to eat her\\nbread in idleness, not to waste it to live and care for\\nno flowers until she shall have rescued the withering\\nflowers of miserable childhood.\\nDid you ever hear, not of a Maud but a Madeleine,\\nwho went down to her garden in the dawn, and found\\nOne waiting at the gate, whom she supposed to be the\\ngardener\\n/I he third and last lecture bound in this volume,\\nThe Mystery of Life and its Arts, delivered in Dublin\\nin 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 this\\npride, by finding that many people thought of the words\\nonly, and cared nothing for the meaning.\\nA little farther is this\\nI spent the ten strongest years of my life (from\\ntwenty to thirty) in endeavouring to show the excellence\\nof the work of the man whom I believed, and rightly", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0187.jp2"}, "188": {"fulltext": "176 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nbelieved, to be the greatest painter of the schools of\\nEngland since Reynolds. I had then perfect faith in\\nthe power of every great truth or beauty to prevail\\nultimately. Fortunately or unfortunately, an oppor-\\ntunity of perfect trial undeceived me at once and for\\never.\\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 what I\\ndid care for was the to me frightful discovery, that\\nthe most splendid genius in the arts might be permitted\\nby Providence to labour and perish uselessly, that\\nthe glory of it was perishable as well as invisible. That\\nwas the first mystery 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 that\\nit should have hoped so much. Ninety and nine are\\nthey who need no repentance, having not committed\\nthe sin of going thus in front of the judgments of\\nHeaven heralds and have not been called back to\\nrebuke as was this one. In what has so often been\\ncalled the dogmatism of Ruskin s work appears this all-\\nnoble fault.\\nUpon the discovery of this mystery crowd all the\\nmysteries. Who that has suffered one but has also soon", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0188.jp2"}, "189": {"fulltext": "SESAME AND LILIES. 177\\nsuffered all? In this great lecture Ruskin confesses\\nthem one by one, in extremities of soul. And he is\\naghast at the indifference not of the vulgar only, but\\nof poets. The seers themselves have paltered with the\\nfaculty of sight. Milton s history of the fall of the\\nangels is unbelievable to himself, told with artifice and\\ninvention, not a living truth presented to living faith,\\nnor told as he must answer it in the last judgment of\\nthe intellectual conscience.\\nDante s conception is far more intense, and by him-\\nself for the time, not to be escaped from it is indeed\\na vision, but a vision only. And the destinies of\\nthe Christian Church, under their most sacred symbols,\\nbecome literally subordinate to the praise, and are only\\nto be understood by the aid, of one dear Florentine\\nmaiden. It seems daily more amazing to me that\\nmen such as these should dare to fill the open-\\nings of eternity, before which prophets have veiled their\\nfaces, with idle puppets of their scholastic imagin-\\nation, and melancholy lights of frantic faith in their lost\\nmortal love.\\nV The indifference of the world as to the infinite ques-\\ntion of religion, the indifference of all mankind as to the\\npurpose of its little life, of every man as to the effect\\nof his little life in an evil hour these puzzles throng the\\nway to the recesses of thought.l As it chanced, with the\\nirony of things, Ruskin had been bidden to avoid re-\\nligious questions in Dublin for fear of offending some\\nof his hearers. What he had been moved to say, how-\\never, he thought would offend all if it offended any, and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0189.jp2"}, "190": {"fulltext": "178 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nnot in Dublin only but in the breadth and in the corners\\nof the world. |But as his audience expected to hear\\nabout art, and not about the mysteries of life, he\\ncloses the lecture in his old manner, with all the splendid\\nconfidence of teaching, demonstrating the cause of the\\ngood fortune of this art and of the disaster of that, put-\\nting away once more what he confessed to be the un-\\nanswerable, for the exposition of what he held to be\\nthe answerable, question. In a delightful passage (what\\nwonder that his hearers wanted to hear it he recurs\\nto the contrast of the Lombardic Eve the barbarous\\ncarving that had a future, with the Angel (it was an\\nIrish angel, by the way), the barbarous design that had\\nno possible 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, i But, strange to say, if ever he has explained\\nin vain, registered an inconsequence, committed himself\\nto failure, it has been in the generous cause of possible\\nrescue it has been in the Lesson. h-r^r-X", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0190.jp2"}, "191": {"fulltext": "179\\nCHAPTER XV.\\nTHE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE (1866).\\nWhether the four lectures published under this title\\nchanced to be written at a time of interior weakness\\nI know not but at least two of them bear such signs\\nof flagging life as are not to be found elsewhere. Alike\\nin gentleness, in play, in gravity, and in violence in\\nexaggeration itself, which wastes the life of all other\\nwriters Ruskin has an incomparable vitality; and it\\nis not too much to say that, amongst these many books,\\nonly in the lecture on War is the place of this\\nvitality taken by vivacity and excitement but the fol-\\nlowing lecture, The Future of England, seems also\\nto show signs of the spur. Both lectures were given\\nat Woolwich the one at the Royal Military Academy,\\nand the other at the Royal Artillery Institution, with\\nfour years between. Ruskin had been asked, not once\\nor twice, to speak to the young soldier, and had not\\nventured persistently to refuse and perhaps the\\nknowledge that he had a paradox before him caused\\nhim to make the paradox a sort of impossibility, in", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0191.jp2"}, "192": {"fulltext": "I So JOHN RUSKIN.\\nvery despair. Accordingly we have it: All the pure\\nand noble arts of peace are founded on war No\\ngreat art ever yet arose on earth, but among a nation\\nof soldiers There is no art among a shepherd\\npeople, if it remains at peace There is no great\\nart possible to a nation but that which is based on\\nbattle. The reader is almost able to imagine for\\nhimself how Ruskin opposes these assertions by con-\\ndemnations of the contentious temper of man who,\\nset to dress and to keep his garden, delighted to\\ntrample it in quarrel. The opposition is violent enough,\\nbut there is, for once, a lack of passion. Not so when\\nwar ceases to be directly the theme, and Ruskin ap-\\nproaches once more the intricate but more accessible\\nquestion of public 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 show\\nthem, by your example, how to spend theirs to the last\\nfarthing, advisedly.\\nHe liad 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 Traffic,\\nand the first was for a Working Men s Institute. The", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0192.jp2"}, "193": {"fulltext": "THE CROWN OF WILD OLIVE. l8l\\nmain matter treated is the appointment made by capital\\nof the kind and the object of labour. No other opera-\\ntion of capital not even the paying of wages is so\\nmomentous as this for the interests of the labouring\\nclass Ruskin accuses the writers on political economy\\nof neglecting its importance, but I think that Mill\\nhas sufficiently marked it, in his own way. The dif-\\nference between Ruskin and the others is probably\\nthat he sees waste, inutility, and mischief where others,\\nbeguiled of their clear perceptions by commercial (or\\nnon-political) economy, were not aware of it in iron\\nrailings, for example, set up before a new public-\\nhouse.\\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 arrange-\\nment, 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0193.jp2"}, "194": {"fulltext": "l82 JOFIN RUSKTN.\\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 Bradford\\nTown Hall on the eve of the building of a new\\nExchange. I do not care about this Exchange,\\nsaid the lecturer, 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 respect-\\nable architectural man-milliner, and you send for me.\\nHis hope was to teach his hearers to like something,\\nand to build what they could like. The first and\\nlast, and closest trial question to any living creature\\nis What do you like? Taste is not only a part\\nand an index of morality; it is the 07ily morality,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0194.jp2"}, "195": {"fulltext": "183\\nCHAPTER XVT.\\nTIME AND TIDE BY WEARE AND TYNE (1867).\\nThe years 1866 and 1867 are famous in the history of\\nself-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\\nat various points, and the intersections took names.\\nThe great two parties of political history were virtually\\nconfusible somewhat like the little animals, one impla-\\ncental and the other placental, and therefore derived\\nby descent through ways that lay apart for incalcul-\\nable years, yet so like each other in shape, habit, and\\nfeature that to see them run in the fields you cannot\\ntell them apart. Everything then became technically\\npolitical politics became a matter not of principle but\\nof terminology and amid the arbitrary passion about\\nwords, Ruskin wrote his twenty-five letters to a working", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0195.jp2"}, "196": {"fulltext": "184 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nman of 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 atid Tide is one who warns\\nTory and Radical alike against the illusion of outward\\nliberty, and enforces the necessity of inward law first,\\nand of outward law secondly, to execute the first.\\nFreedom from covetousness, freedom from luxury, pro-\\ntection from cruelty Ruskin would ensure these with\\nso much force that standing somewhere between the\\nextremity of socialism on the one hand and the\\nextremity of anarchism on the other, it would cer-\\ntainly be to socialists that he would seem to be\\ngathered. Nevertheless, though the socialist might\\nquote Time and Tide in favour of licences to marry,\\nyet the anarchist might cite the same book against\\nthe army estimates.\\nIt is in this little volume, written when men at\\na time 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0196.jp2"}, "197": {"fulltext": "TIME AND TIDE BY WEARE AND TYNE. 185\\nand rosieres a licence to marry when they deserved it\\nreceived 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\\nits dejection is almost as great as that manifest in the\\nmost decoratively beautiful of Ruskin s writings Sesame\\nand Lilies. He was not able to acquiesce in the\\nsufferings of cities. He was obliged to try to think\\nfor the foolish and work for the helpless, and to give\\nto the disinherited. He was not able, besides, to\\nacquiesce in the profanations.\\nThe action of the deceiving or devilish power is in\\nnothing shown quite so distinctly among us at this day\\nnot even in our commercial dishonesties, nor in our\\nsocial cruelties as in its having been able to take away\\nmusic, as an instrument of education, altogether and\\nto enlist it wholly in the service of superstition on the\\none hand, and of sensuality on the other.\\nIt is right that I should quote this unjust passage.\\nIn 1867 the intellectual and spiritual education of\\nthousands 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0197.jp2"}, "198": {"fulltext": "1 86 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nwould only need to be made more contemptuous for\\nthis) is written with such strange felicity as Ruskin uses\\nwhen, with much feeling, he writes lightly\\nThe pantomime was AH Balm and the Forty Thieves.\\nThe forty thieves were girls. The forty thieves had\\nforty companions, who were girls. The forty thieves\\nand their forty companions were in some way mixed\\nup with about four hundred and forty fairies, who were\\ngirls. There was an Oxford and Cambridge, in which\\nthe Oxford and Cambridge men were girls. Mingled\\nincongruously with these seraphic, and as far as my boy-\\nish experience extends, novel elements of pantomime,\\nthere were yet some of its old and fast expiring ele-\\nments. There were, in speciality, two thoroughly good\\npantomime actors, Mr W. H. Payne and Mr Frederick\\nPayne. There were two subordinate actors, who\\nplayed, subordinately well, the fore and hind legs of a\\ndonkey. And there was a little actress, of whom I have\\nchiefly to speak, who played exquisitely the little part\\nshe had to play. The scene in which she appeared was\\nthe house scene, in which Ali Baba s wife, on\\nwashing day, is called upon by the butcher, baker, and\\nmilkman, with unpaid bills and in the extremity of her\\ndistress hears her husband s knock at the door and\\nopens it for him to drive in his donkey, laden with\\ngold. The children presently share in the rap-\\nture of their father and mother and the little lady I\\nspoke 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0198.jp2"}, "199": {"fulltext": "TIME AND TIDE BY WEARE AND TYNE, iS/\\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 of\\nEnglish fathers and mothers and children, there was not\\none 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 to\\nbe presently done, and time hanging heavy on their\\nhands, arms, and legs, the forty thief-girls proceeded to\\nlight 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 ugly\\nand 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\\nlast bitterness) wherein he avers that he has at last\\nlearnt to be cheerful and to rest in spite of the starv-\\ning and dying of the forlorn, and notwithstanding the\\ndisregard with which the world had let go by his\\ncourageous plan of succour. But in 1867 there was\\nno such despair, but much distress and desire, in that\\ngenerous heart. He still thought that there were\\nmany who would defer the arts, the muses, the luxuries,\\nthe graces of civilisation, the tasks of intellect, and\\nthe accomplishment of nations, until a rescue had\\nbeen made of the poor. At the time of writing Ti ne\\nand Tide the author had the large desire of saving the\\nlabouring classes from what Antiquity and the modern", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0199.jp2"}, "200": {"fulltext": "1 88 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nworld alike have held to be the misfortune and ser-\\nvitude 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.\\nYou say that many a boy runs away from\\ngood positions to go to sea. Of course he does. I\\nnever said I should have any difficulty in finding sailors,\\nbut that I shall in finding fishmongers. I am not at\\na loss for gardeners either, but what am I to do for\\ngreengrocers\\nIt is chiefly to serve the study of profits, fair and\\nunfair, that Tiine 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 sorrow\\nis base. Sorrow without labour is base. Joy without\\nlabour is base.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0200.jp2"}, "201": {"fulltext": "1 89\\nCHAPTER XVII.\\nTHE QUEEN OF THE AH^ (1S69).\\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 Queen\\nof the Air, he names one of the great myths, or those\\nas to which it is of small importance what wild hunter\\ndreamed, or what childish race first dreaded it, because\\none thing is certain that a strong people lived by\\nit. The myth of St George is of the same influential\\nand significant kind. But this Queen of the Air is\\nqueen also of the breathing creatures of earth, queen\\nof human breath, and of the moral health and habitual\\nwisdom of the unaffrighted Grecian heart. Queen\\nof the blue air, first of all and in the Introduction\\nRuskin appeals once more to a world busied upon the\\ndefilement of so much of the celestial blue, but at\\nthat moment greatly interested in Professor TyndalFs\\ndiscovery of the cause of the colour of the sky re-\\nsearches for which Ruskin thanks the professor, with", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0201.jp2"}, "202": {"fulltext": "igO JOHN RUSKIN.\\na gentle apology for any words of his that had seemed\\nto fail in respect for the powers of thought of the\\nmasters of modern physical science.\\nThis first day of May, 1869, I am writing where\\nmy work was begun thirty-five years ago, within sight\\nof the snows of the higher Alps. In that half of the\\npermitted life of man, I have seen strange evil brought\\nupon every scene that I best loved. The light that\\nonce flushed those pale summits with its rose at dawn,\\nand purple at sunset, is now umbered and faint the\\nair which once inlaid the clefts of all their golden crags\\nwith azure is now defiled with languid coils of smoke\\nthe waters that once sank at their feet into crystal-\\nline rest are now dimmed 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 of\\nthe greatest myth in that central time about 500 B.C.\\nwhich held more explicitly and with fuller conscious-\\nness the early religion of the Homeric day.\\nThe Homeric poems arc not conceived didac-\\ntically, but are didactic in their essence, as all good\\nart is. There is an increasing insensibility to this\\ncharacter, and even an open denial of it, among us,\\nnow, which is one of the most curious errors of modern-\\nism, the peculiar and judicial blindness of an age\\nwhich, having long practised art and poetry for the\\nsake of pleasure only, has become incapable of reading\\ntheir language when they were both didactic and also,\\nhaving been itself accustomed to a professedly didactic\\nteaching which yet, for private interests, studiously\\navoids collision with every prevalent vice of its day\\n(and especially with avarice), has become equally dead", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0202.jp2"}, "203": {"fulltext": "THE QUEEN OF THE AIR. I9I\\nto the intensely ethical conceptions of a race which\\nhabitually divided all men into two broad classes of\\nworthy or worthless good, and good for nothing.\\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 centred\\nin the heart and work of men, Ruskin studies it in\\nthe heavens and in the earth. Athena represents\\nall cloud, and rain, and dew, and darkness, and peace,\\nand wrath of heaven. She represents the vegetative\\npower of the earth, the motion of sea and of ships,\\nthe vibration of sound. To her great myth, therefore,\\nRuskin devotes a beautiful page regarding flowers, a\\ndoubtful page regarding music, and one of great vigour\\nregarding the strength that is rather in breath than\\nmuscle the young strength in war, wherewith Athena\\nfilled the breast of Achilles when She leaped down\\nout of heaven like a harpy falcon, shrill-voiced. And\\nthis follows, on the creature that lives and moves by\\nair the bird\\nIt is little more than a drift of the air brought into\\nform by plumes the air is in all its quills, it breathes\\nthrough its whole frame and flesh, and glows with air\\nin its flying, like a blown flame it rests upon the air,\\nsubdues it, surpasses it, outraces it it is the air, con-\\nscious of itself, conquering itself, ruling itself.\\nThe voice of Athena s air is in the bird s throat\\nAs we may imagine the wild form of the cloud\\nclosed into the perfect form of the bird s wings, so the\\nwild voice of the cloud into its ordered and commanded", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0203.jp2"}, "204": {"fulltext": "192 JOHN KUSKIN.\\nvoice. Also upon the plumes of the bird are put\\nthe colours of the air on these the gold of the cloud,\\nthat cannot be gathered by covetousness the rubies\\nof the clouds, that are not the price of Athena, but are\\nAthena the vermilion of the cloud-bar and the flame\\nof the cloud-crest, and the snow of the cloud, and its\\nshadow, and the melted blue of the deep wells of the\\nsky.\\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 insight\\nof the Greek mind than a tracing of Greek records.\\nRuskin has sought that mind through the imperfec-\\ntion, and alas more dimly yet, through the triumphs,\\nof formative art. He finds Athena in that early\\ncreative power we may name it the mother of art\\nthat dies in childbirth.\\nIt is as vain an attempt to reason out the visionary\\npower or guiding influence of Athena in the Greek\\nheart, from anything we now read, or possess, of the\\nwork of Phidias, as it would be for the disciples of\\nsome new religion to infer the spirit of Christianity from\\nTitian s Assumption.\\nBut in the days of art, Athena teaches rightness.\\nEvery reader of Ruskin knows well what he means by\\nthis. Rightness is in the nature of the workman his\\nspirit and his style.\\nIf stone-work is well put together, it means that\\na thoughtful man planned it, and a careful man cut it.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0204.jp2"}, "205": {"fulltext": "THE QUEEN OF THE AIR. 193\\nA man may hide himself from you, or misrepre-\\nsent himself to you, every other way but he cannot\\nin his work there, be sure, you have him to the\\ninmost.\\nThe command of Athena which is the command of\\nrightness 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 of\\nthe 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 stronger.\\nYou will get wiser and stronger only by doing right.\\nWhat a wayward youth might perhaps answer.\\nShall I not know the world best by trying the\\nwrong of it, and repenting Your liberty of choice\\nhas simply destroyed for you so much life and strength,\\nnever regainable. It is true you now know the habits\\nof swine, and the taste of husks do you think your\\nfather could not have taught you to know better habits\\nand pleasanter tastes", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0205.jp2"}, "206": {"fulltext": "194\\nCHAPTER XVIII.\\nLECTURES ON ART (1870).\\nThe first course of Slade Lectures begins with some\\nformality and a sense of the novelty and solemnity of\\nthe lecturer s office. The first of the six goes to the\\nbeginning of things, and has this sharp phrase on\\neducation it is not the equaliser, but the discoverer,\\nof men, and\\nSo far from being instruments for the collection of\\nriches, the first lesson of wisdom is to disdain them, and\\nof 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, says\\nRuskin in 1870, to excel not even in the merest\\ndecoration.\\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.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0206.jp2"}, "207": {"fulltext": "LECTURES ON ART. I95\\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\\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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0207.jp2"}, "208": {"fulltext": "196 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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\\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 Mother-\\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 result\\nof the influence of the common and vital, but not,\\ntherefore, less Divine, spirit, of which some portion is\\ngiven to all living creatures in such manner as may be\\nadapted to their rank in creation and everything\\nwhich men rightly accomplish is indeed done by Divine\\nhelp, but under a consistent law which is never departed\\nfrom.\\nThe Relation of Art to Morals is the subject of a\\nlecture contrasting once more the thought of Antiquity", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0208.jp2"}, "209": {"fulltext": "LECTURES ON ART. I97\\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 Pi/fsc\\nIs it accepted of song\\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 of\\nsimply the careful expression of 1 ight thought.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0209.jp2"}, "210": {"fulltext": "198 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nIt is certainly not a communicable trick, but neither is\\nit a communicable virtue. The following is one of the\\nfinest of many passages condemning modern conditions\\nGreat obscurity has been brought upon the\\ntruth by the want of integrity and simplicity in\\nour modern life. Everything is broken up, be-\\nsides being in great part imitative so that you not only\\ncannot tell what a man is, but sometimes you cannot\\ntell whether he is, 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 worthy\\nof death, entirely pardons the criminal, restores him to\\nhonour and esteem, and then hangs him, not as a\\nmalefactor, 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 handful\\nof walnuts, for fear that other children should come to\\nsteal more of our walnuts. And we do not punish a\\nswindler for ruining a thousand families, because we\\nthink swindling a wholesome excitement to trade.\\nRuskin will have justice to be vindictive and punish-\\nment 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0210.jp2"}, "211": {"fulltext": "LECTURES ON ART. igQ\\npurpose against which there may be some rebellion even\\nin a mind never subject to the fashion of a now departing\\nday. Here, as before, such a mind may appeal, against\\nRuskin s phrase, to the separate art of music. To\\nmake a beautiful thing is not, however, a sufficient\\namendment of that phrase, in as much as the forma-\\ntion of an actually beautiful thing is involved by Ruskin\\nin the act of art. One thing is certain that it is not\\nby way of dishonour to art that he would have art\\nsubservient, but for the advantage of its essential vitality\\nand of its particular skill. Of vitality he is the best\\njudge in the world. Of human skill he charges the\\nwhole world of these three hundred years past with\\ntaking not too much but too little heed.\\nWe have lost our delight in Skill in that majesty\\nof it which long ago I tried to express, under the\\nhead of ideas of power. All the joy and rever-\\nence we ought to feel in looking at a strong man s work\\nhave ceased in us. We keep them yet a little in looking\\nat a honeycomb or a bird s nest we understand that\\nthese differ, by divinity of skill, from a lump of wax or\\na cluster of sticks.\\nIt is in the lecture on the relation of art to use,\\nmoreover, that the reader finds this splendid passage on\\nReynolds\\nHe rejoices in showing you his skill and those of\\nyou who succeed in learning what painter s work really\\nis, will one day rejoice also, even to laughter that\\nhighest laughter which springs of pure delight, in watch-\\ning the fortitude and fire of a hand which strikes forth", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0211.jp2"}, "212": {"fulltext": "200 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nits will upon the canvas as easily as the wind strikes it\\non the sea. He rejoices in all abstract beauty and\\nrhythm and melody of design.\\nBut the beauty is to serve by likeness to nature. This\\nlikeness seems to be rather a strain of the idea of\\nuse. And in fact to prove this curious contention\\nRuskin is obliged to place portrait at a height, as has\\nalready been said, that he had seemed to deny it. But\\nin the course of this argument is a brilliant page on the\\ncause of the dishonour of portraiture in Greek art\\nThe progressive course of Greek art was in subduing\\nmonstrous conceptions to natural ones it did this by\\ngeneral laws it reached absolute truth of generic\\nhuman form, and if this ethical force had remained,\\nwould have advanced into healthy portraiture. But at\\nthe moment of change the national life ended in\\nGreece and portraiture, there, meant insult to her\\nreligion, and flattery to her tyrants. And her skill\\nperished, not because she became true in sight, but\\nbecause 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 of\\nart) compared with the kinds of plain and obvious\\nutility to which, in the beginning of this course, as in\\nthe pamphlet on Pre-Raphaelitism, Ruskin commends\\nthe services of painters.\\nWhat we especially need at present for educational\\npurposes is to know, not the anatomy of plants, but", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0212.jp2"}, "213": {"fulltext": "LECTURES ON ART. 20I\\ntheir biography how and where they Hve and die,\\ntheir tempers, benevolences, mahgnities, distresses, and\\nvirtues. We want them drawn from their youth to their\\nage, from bud to fruit. And all this we ought to\\nhave drawn so accurately that we might at once compare\\nany given part of a plant with the same part of any\\nother, drawn on the like conditions. Now, is not this\\na work which we may set about here in Oxford, with\\ngood hope and much pleasure\\nNot many thought so, it is said. The professor s classes\\nwere not well attended. He went on to suggest that\\ngeology should be served, as well as botany, and urged\\nhis art students to the study of the cleavage-lines of the\\nsmallest fragments of rock. To the rescue of topo-\\ngraphy, and zoology, and history they might go too.\\nThe feudal and monastic buildings of Europe, and\\nstill more the streets of her ancient cities, are vanishing\\nlike dreams and it is difficult to imagine the mingled\\nenvy and contempt with which future generations will\\nlook back to us, who still possessed such things, yet\\nmade no effort to preserve, and scarcely any to delineate\\nthem for, when used as material of landscape by the\\nmodern artist, they are nearly always superficially or\\nflatteringly represented, without zeal enough to pene-\\ntrate their character, or patience enough to render it\\nin 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 miserable\\ntoil and deadly shade, to dress them better, to lodge\\nthem more fitly, to restore the handicrafts to dignity", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0213.jp2"}, "214": {"fulltext": "202 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nand simplicity. But the reform of outward conditions\\nmust come first, and Ruskin thought that art could\\nhardly flourish\\nin any country where the cities are thus built, or\\nthus, let me rather say, clotted and coagulated spots\\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 art\\nhas 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 a line,\\nbut the place of a line, and that, also, made soft by\\ntexture. The linear arts are the earliest, ahd they\\ndivide principally into the Greek (line with light) and\\nthe Gothic (line with colour). Ruskin shows how\\nthese arts began to cease to depend upon line, and\\nlearnt to represent masses, and how from them were\\nderived\\ntwo vast mediaeval schools one of flat and infin-\\nitely 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 sometimes\\nas little of sentiment.\\nAccording to Ruskin, the schools of colour enriched\\nthemselves by adopting from the schools of light and\\nshadow whatever was compatible with their own", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0214.jp2"}, "215": {"fulltext": "LECTURES ON ART. 20.3\\npower. The schools of Hght and shadow, on the\\nother hand, were too haughty and too weak to learn\\nmuch from the schools of colour. To them is chiefly\\ndue the decadence of art. In their fall they dragged\\nthe schools of colour down with them. Returning\\nto the study of line, Ruskin recommends severity in\\ndrawing as a first aim, rather than the finished studies\\nof light and shade practised in some of our classes.\\nIn the following lecture, on Light, and in the last,\\non Colour, he insists further upon the happiness and\\npeace of the art of colour, and upon the oppression\\nand mortality of the art of chiaroscuro the art that\\nsought light and found darkness also, and loved form\\nand found formlessness.\\nThe school of light is founded in the Doric worship\\nof Apollo and the Ionic worship of Athena, as the\\nspirits of life in the light, and of light in the air, opposed\\neach to their own contrary deity of death Apollo to\\nthe Python, Athena to the Gorgon Apollo as life in\\nlight, to the earth spirit of corruption in darkness,\\nAthena as life by motion, to the Gorgon spirit of death\\nby pause, freezing, or turning to stone both of the\\ngreat divinities taking their glory from the evil they\\nhave conquered both of them, when angry, taking to\\nmen the form of the evil which is their opposite.\\nBut underlying both these, and far more mysterious,\\ndreadful, and yet beautiful, there is the Greek concep-\\ntion of spiritual darkness of the anger of fate, whether\\nforedoomed or avenging.\\nRuskin then takes us through the allegory (not the\\nrepresentation) of light in the Greek vase-paintings, and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0215.jp2"}, "216": {"fulltext": "204 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ncloses his history of light with the illumination of the\\nwork of Turner. To the student it must seem some-\\nwhat fantastic to call the schools of light and shadow\\nGreek, for the sake of those allegories of light in Greek\\nart to call, for example, the northern spirit of the\\nMelancholia and The Knight and Death Greek.\\nBut the student of Ruskin will retain, at any rate, the\\nfact that he holds the colour-schools the Gothic to\\nbe the more vital, and the chiaroscuro schools, albeit\\nnoble in noble masters, to be subject to derogation in\\nlicentious and vulgar forms of art having no parallel\\namongst the colourists. Incidentally I must avow that\\namongst the griefs that a reader of Ruskin has to\\nswallow is the contempt of reflected lights that is but\\nthe outcome of his suspicion and distrust of the schools\\nof light and shadow. He bids his classes to make\\nlittle inquiry into reflected lights.\\nNearly all young students (and too many advanced\\nmasters) exaggerate them. In vulgar chiaroscuro\\nthe shades are so full of reflection that they look as\\nif some one had been walking round the object with\\na candle, and the students, by that help, peering into\\nits crannies.\\nRuskin never really loved the landscape of the south.\\nIn a letter (I think to Miss Siddal) he agrees with her\\nthat the Mediterranean coast lacks beauty because it\\nis too pale. Now, that paleness is due to the reflected\\nlight in shadow which is the loveliest secret of the\\nsouthern summer, and the surprise of the East a secret", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0216.jp2"}, "217": {"fulltext": "LECTURES ON ART. 205\\nand a surprise (although it makes all inner places ten-\\nderly bright), because the traveller expects, on the con-\\ntrary, that shadows shall be dark in a bright sun, and\\noften expects black shadows so positively that he goes\\nfurther, 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\\nlights or darks that are to aid in showing its anatomy.\\nHe would have the artist 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 separate\\ncolour of their shadows we must understand false\\nseparate colour, no doubt in any case we may settle\\nour difficulties of theory by referring to the Venetian\\npractice, which Ruskin pronounces to be right, and\\nright in all periods. In 1870 Ruskin had perhaps\\nalready begun to repent of that Renaissance wherewith\\nI venture to charge him in the chapter on St Mark s\\nRest and amongst those periods of Venetian right-\\nness, he was inclining to the tranquil and undazzled\\ncheerfulness of the earlier colourists. None of their\\nlights are flashing, they are soft, winning, precious\\nonly, you know, on this condition they cannot have", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0217.jp2"}, "218": {"fulltext": "206 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nsunshine. In our eyes to-day the attaining to sun-\\nshine is worth the sacrifice of every lesser cheerful-\\nness, and of colour itself. And Titian and Tintoretto\\nthemselves thought so, and Ruskin himself must have\\nthought so when he was at the height of his love\\nfor them, and for Turner. Even in 1870 he writes,\\nnobly\\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\\nprevail. There is mystery in the day as in the\\nnight.\\nWriting thus, he had not yet given his heart to the\\nunmysterious allegory of early art. But how strange an\\ninjustice he could do at this time, and perhaps at all\\ntimes, to that divine creation, artificial light, may be\\nseen from this. The noble men, he says, of the six-\\nteenth century learn their lesson from the schools of\\nchiaroscuro nobly the base men learn it basely.\\nThe great men rise from colour to sunlight. The\\nbase ones fall from colour to candlelight. To-day non\\nragioniam di lor.\\nWhat, then, about Sir Joshua As for the much more\\nmodern art which studies fire in daylight, and that\\nwhich is dazzled by the flashes of day, they do not exist\\nfor Ruskin.\\nBroadly, he names the Gothic school of colour the\\nschool of crystal (and strangely, too, for the colours of", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0218.jp2"}, "219": {"fulltext": "LECTURES ON ART.\\n207\\ncrystal and of glass are colours through which light\\ncomes, and are surely unlike the colours of the primitive\\ncolour-schools) and the Greek school of light he names\\nthe school of clay: potter s clay, and human, are too\\nsorrowfully the same, as far as art is concerned. And\\nhe tells his classes that they must choose between the\\ntwo, and cannot belong to both. None the less had he\\nshown, in many an elaborate lesson, that the great Vene-\\ntians had joined form and light to their colour, and that\\nthey did belong to both. And it is another surprise to\\nfind him declaring himself wholly a Chiaroscurist.\\nHe had taught, in these same lectures, the colourists to\\nbe more vital, and had recommended to the student\\nthe mosaic 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 an\\ninconsistency, it is perhaps due to the theoretic separa-\\ntion of things long joined together but the matter is\\nfull of difficulty to the reader. At any rate, Ruskin\\nmust needs give his Turner the names of both schools.\\nAnd having a living imagination for the art of action\\n(indeed what imagination ever lived so fully as his he\\ninsists that action was, according to the divisions of this\\nbook, Greek, not Gothic. Yet here again w^hat\\ncontradictions, when we call to mind the action and\\nflight of Gothic architecture, the growing plant in stone,\\nthe prickly independence of the leaf of Gothic\\nsculpture, and the repose of Grecian building", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0219.jp2"}, "220": {"fulltext": "208 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nThe lecturer closes with a sombre encouragement\\nYou live in an age of base conceit and baser servility\\nan age whose intellect is chiefly formed by pillage,\\nand occupied in desecration one day mimicking, the\\nnext destroying, the works of all the noble persons who\\nmade its intellectual or art life possible to it. In\\nthe midst of all this you have to become lowly and\\nstrong.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0220.jp2"}, "221": {"fulltext": "209\\nCHAPTER XIX.\\nARATRA PENTELICr (1S72).\\nThis course of Slade Lectures treats of the Elements of\\nSculpture. At setting forth Ruskin condemns the life-\\nless work of cutting and chiselling jewels, in as much\\nas true goods are common goods, and these crystals\\nare prized chiefly because of their rarity. True sculpture\\nhe teaches to be the conquest of the ploughshare and\\nthe chisel over clay it is the victory of life and the\\ntrue sculptor sees Pallas, that is, the spirit of life,\\nand of wisdom in the choice of life to be honoured by\\nart. This is another form of the lesson on natural\\nform. Life purifies design. Here is briefly the indica-\\ntion of the essential matter of these lectures\\nTrue schools of sculpture are peculiar to nations in\\ntheir youth and in their strong humanity. The Greeks\\nfound Phoenician and Etruscan art monstrous and made\\nthem human. The Florentines found Byzantine and\\nNorman art monstrous and made them human both\\nthe reforming schools being wholly sincere.\\nWe, on the contrary, are now absolutely with-\\nout sincerity absolutely, therefore, without imagination,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0221.jp2"}, "222": {"fulltext": "2IO JOHN RUSKIN.\\nand without virtue. Our hands are dexterous with the\\nvile and deadly dexterity of machines our minds filled\\nwith incoherent fragments of faith, which we cling to\\nin cowardice, without believing, and make pictures of,\\nin 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 embank-\\nment passes, is but a gloomy and hollow heap of\\nwedged blocks of blind granite.\\nSculpture touches life essentially, and is forbidden to\\nrecognise those accidental beauties, such as the growth\\nof lichen on a tree, that a painter pauses on. Its\\ndrapery has caught the life of the body. The con-\\ntroversy between Florentine and Greek drapery the\\nFlorentine having its own beauty rather than the body s\\nbeauty is in truth the difference between painting\\nand sculpture. In the study of the Greek Ruskin takes\\nus through the nine centuries three archaic, three\\ncentral, and three decadent whereof the fifth century\\nB.C. is symmetrically the middle age and the greatest.\\nHe insists upon the naturalism of the Greeks, and\\nplunges once more into that perpetual question\\nwhether art can ever approach too near to nature.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0222.jp2"}, "223": {"fulltext": "ARATRA PENTELICI. 211\\nanswering with that emphatic No to which some\\nof his pages hardly seem to assent hterally. Once\\nmore he reproaches the artists called ideal, whether\\nsculptors or painters, for attempting to mend nature\\nand to this rebuke many and many an artist s heart must\\nhave replied that this is but a trap of words, for, at the\\nworst, it is not nature the painter tries to mend, but his\\npicture. In Modern Painters it had been written The\\npicture which is taken as a substitute for nature had\\nbetter be burned but are we forbidden to do honour\\nto a substitute by the name, say, of emissary, ambas-\\nsador, or representative\\nThe true sign, says Ruskin, of the greatest art is\\nto part voluntarily with its greatness, by making the\\neyes of those who look upon it to desire the natural\\nfact. And this the Greeks knew. Phalaris says of the\\nbull of Perilaus It only wanted motion and bellow-\\ning to seem alive and as soon as I saw it I cried out.\\nIt ought to be sent to the god to Apollo, that is,\\nwho would delight in a work worthy to deceive not the\\nsimple but the wise. The Greek rules over the arts\\nto this day, and will for ever, because he sought not\\nfirst for beauty, not first for passion or for invention, but\\nfor Rightness. With him was the origin not only of\\nall broad, mighty, and calm conception, but of all that\\nis divided, delicate, and tremulous. To him is owing\\nthe gigantic pillar of Agrigentum and the last fineness\\nof the Pisan Chapel of the Thorn. The beginning of\\nChristian chivalry was in his bridling of the white and", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0223.jp2"}, "224": {"fulltext": "212 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthe black horses the spiritual and animal natures.\\nHe became at last Grccculus esuriens, little and hungry,\\nand every man s errand boy, but this was in late\\nages, by his iniquity, and his competition, and his\\nlove of talking.\\nRuskin gives a Greek lesson on the modesty of art\\nno block for building should be larger than a cart can\\ncarry, or a cross-beam and a couple of pulleys can lift\\na lesson on the modesty of material in sculpture clay,\\nmarble, metal having their limitations, which are also\\ntheir particular powers an exquisite lesson on the\\nsubtle laws of low relief; one on art-handicraft and art\\nfor the multitude. As far as I know, the first it is not\\nquite the only reference to Japanese art is in these\\nlectures, which were illustrated by an admirably vital\\nJapanese fish but Oriental art was generally repre-\\nsented, in Ruskin s mind, by the Indian, which is\\nobscure, dateless, and dead.\\nTwo quotations follow, which need no explicit con-\\nnexion here with the rest\\nArt is not possible to any sickly person, but involves\\nthe action and force of a strong man s arm from the\\nshoulder.\\nAnd this from the lecture on Imagination\\nRemember that it is of the very highest im-\\nportance that you should know what you are, and\\ndetermine to be the best that you may be but it is\\nof no importance whatever, except as it may contribute\\nto that end, to know what you have been. Whether", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0224.jp2"}, "225": {"fulltext": "ARATRA PENTELICI. 213\\nyour Creator shaped you with fingers, or tools, as a\\nsculptor would a lump of clay, or gradually raised you\\nto mankind through a series of inferior forms, is only of\\nmoment to you in this respect that in the one case\\nyou cannot expect your children to be nobler creatures\\nthan you are yourselves in the other, every act and\\nthought of your present life may be hastening the advent\\nof a race which will look back to you, their fathers (and\\nyou ought at least to have attained the dignity of desir-\\ning that it may be so), 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 subUmity 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 his\\nteaching in this book, to make our rich nation poor, if\\nonly he could make it artistic. But I need not insist\\nagain on this that he held the nation to be poor,\\nintolerably poor in its millions, dangerously poor in its\\ndependence 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 so\\nvigorously drawn, and with so few touches, that Phidias\\nor Turner himself could scarcely have done it better\\nis not named, but could have been no other than\\nKeene.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0225.jp2"}, "226": {"fulltext": "214\\nCHAPTER XX.\\nTHE EAGLE S NEST (1872).\\nThis book was the one preferred by Carlyle. One must\\nwonder whether the passage on the immorahty of original\\nor separate style in art seemed to him stuff o the con-\\nscience, and whether he held an author, like a painter, to\\nbe bound not to produce something different from the\\nwork of his neighbours in the English language, for\\nexample.\\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 her\\nlabour Science wise only when unselfish in her\\nstatement. Art is the shadow or reflection of wise\\nscience and both are peaceful, temperate, and con-\\ntent. The eagle and the mole have their natural\\nplaces of knowledge and ignorance, but man has the\\nchoice of stooping in science beneath himself and of\\nrising above himself therefore he has to seek the\\nsophia that is beyond, for his inspiration and restraint.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0226.jp2"}, "227": {"fulltext": "THE eagle s nest. 215\\nHe needs imaginative knowledge, and especially\\nknowledge of the feelings of living creatures, know-\\nledge of life.\\nSophia is the faculty which recognises in all things\\ntheir bearing upon life, in the entire sum of life that we\\nknow.\\nAnd Sophia is offended by egoism\\nIn all base schools of art, the craftsman is dependent\\nfor his bread on originality that is to say, on finding\\nin himself some fragment of isolated faculty, by which\\nhis work may be recognised as distinct from that of other\\nmen. We are ready enough to take delight in our little\\ndoings, without any such stimulus what must be the\\neffect of the popular applause which continually suggests\\nthat the little thing we can separately do is as excellent\\nas it is singular In all great schools of art these\\nconditions are exactly reversed. An artist is praised\\nin these, not for what is different in him from others\\nbut only for doing most strongly what all arc\\nendeavouring and for contributing to some great\\nachievement, to be completed by the unity of multitudes,\\nand the sequence of ages.\\nWisdom is outraged, not only in our art but in\\nour science, 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 thousands", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0227.jp2"}, "228": {"fulltext": "2l6 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthat die by hunger in an Indian province, and with\\nthese 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 Theseus\\nthe hero, as it chances, whose shadow, or sem-\\nblance in marble, is admittedly the most ideal and\\nheroic we possess of man and the sentence is The\\nbest in this kind are but shadows and the worst are\\nno worse, if imagination amend them. And because\\nthe works of art are shadows, Ruskin would have us to\\nlove them and to use them only to enable us to\\nremember and love what they are cast by. To love\\nart otherwise is to be the fool who wonders at his own\\nshadow. Even Ruskin has spoken no sayings harder\\nto bear than these. Wise art is in direct relation to\\nwise science, we are told in the same lecture they have\\nthe same subjects and art helps science, and helps\\nher more and more as the degrees of science rise that\\nis, art gives little help to the science of chemistry, little\\nto the science of anatomy (it is Shakespeare that Ruskin\\nhas taken as the subject, and he gauges what chemistry\\nand anatomy have to tell us of Shakespeare) but it\\nhelps more the science of human sensibility, that science\\nwhich has something to tell of Shakespeare s nerve-power\\nand emotion and it helps most of all the science of", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0228.jp2"}, "229": {"fulltext": "THE eagle s nest. 21/\\ntheology, which tells us of Shakespeare s relation to a\\nBeing greater than himself.\\nThe lecture passes to the consideration of the sophia\\nthat stands above the several sciences ornithology is\\nthe subject of the lecturer s present lesson, and nest-\\nbuilding gives him the opportunity for his loveliest\\nwork, wherein we are appropriately made to love the\\nnest building rather than the description. And the\\ngreat artist, Ruskin says, works somewhat like the bird\\nwith the feeling we may attribute to a diligent bull-\\nfinch that the thing, whether pretty or ugly, could not\\nhave been better done, and he is thankful it is no\\nworse. And though this is the feeling of the great,\\ncould not even ordinary men, asks Ruskin, be so simple\\nin their measure that superior beings might be interested\\nin their work, as men are 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 as much\\nunconscious art as the lower brutes, and build nests\\nwhich shall be, for ourselves, entirely convenient, and\\nmay perhaps in the eyes of superior beings appear more\\nbeautiful 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 more\\nconvenient and ingenious than a nest. And as for the\\nnoise of a town and the noise of birds, compared on a\\nfollowing page, Ruskin does not open any door on the", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0229.jp2"}, "230": {"fulltext": "2l8 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ncrashing street he loathes, in order to Hsten to the\\nBeethoven within the walls. Some sophia originally\\ndirected the prudence of the common builder; much\\nsophia inspired the music. It is music again that\\ngravely refuses assent to these lessons of humiliation,\\nrepeated in the fourth lecture.\\nRuskin anticipates the murmurs of his hearers at\\nhearing him rank sciences in degrees whereof chemistry\\nholds the lowest and theology the highest nevertheless\\nhe affirms that if theology be science at all, the highest is\\nits place and that it is a science other sciences vouch.\\nYou will find it a practical fact that external tempta-\\ntion and inevitable trials of temper have power against\\nyou which your health and virtue depend on your\\nresisting that, if not resisted, the evil energy of them\\nwill pass into your own heart and that the\\nordinary and vulgarised phrase the Devil, or betraying\\nspirit, is in him is the most scientifically accurate which\\nyou can apply to any person so influenced.\\nAll science, the lecture proceeds, must needs be\\nmodest, because although the field of fact is immeasur-\\nable, not so is the human power of research. Art is\\nmodest 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 landscape,\\nand leave noble scenery to the bad ones. Art, accord-\\ning to the present lesson, should be content. The\\npromise that we shall know all things is a siren promise,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0230.jp2"}, "231": {"fulltext": "THE eagle s nest. 219\\nas it was to Ulysses. Let us not abandon, for the\\nsake of limited knowledge, the charity that is for itself\\nsufificing, and for others serviceable. And for the sake\\nof contentment Ruskin allows us to be pleased in the\\nlittle things we can do, more than in the great things\\ndone by other people. He forbears here to intimidate\\nus with that menacing question of the earlier page of\\nthese lectures what will our selfishness grow to if we\\ncherish our own achievement For we are to confess\\nthe little we do to be little, and contributory. Art must\\nbe happy, and therefore content, even in its rudeness\\nand ignorance.\\nIgnorance, which is contented and clumsy, will\\nproduce what is imperfect, but not offensive. But\\nignorance ^/j-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, limited\\nand strengthened by local difficulties, and this is another\\noccasion for contentment.\\nThe sixth lecture is on The Relation to Art of the\\nScience of Light. Ruskin studies the sense of sight\\nas what it is a spiritual phenomenon. The spirituality\\nof the senses is manifest to him, as to every thinker.\\nScience, at the time of the writing of this lecture, was\\nbeginning to adopt the view that sight is purely\\nmaterial but the view was not a view it was no\\nmore than a confusion of words. At the same date", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0231.jp2"}, "232": {"fulltext": "220 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nsome rhetoric had been spent by a scientific writer on\\nthe sun He rears the whole vegetable world,\\nhis fleetness is in the lion s foot, he springs in the\\npanther, he slides in the snake, c., which is also but\\na kind of circular work of words. Ruskin s retort is so\\nexquisitely written that it must be extracted with little\\nshortening\\nAs I was walking in the woods, and moving very\\nquietly, I came suddenly on a small steel-grey serpent,\\nlying in the middle of the path and it was greatly\\nsurprised to see me. Serpents, however, always have\\ncomplete command of their feelings, and it looked at\\nme for a quarter of a minute without the slightest\\nchange of posture then, with an almost imperceptible\\nmotion, it began to withdraw itself beneath a cluster of\\nleaves. Without in the least hastening its action it\\ngradually concealed the whole of its body. I was\\nabout to raise one of the leaves, when I saw what I\\nthought was the glance of another serpent, in the thicket\\nat the path side; but it was the same one, which,\\nhaving once withdrawn itself from observation beneath\\nthe leaves, used its utmost agility to spring into the\\nwood and with so instantaneous a flash of motion\\nthat I never saw it leave the covert, and only caught\\nthe gleam of light as it glided away into the copse.\\nI am pleased to hear how necessarily that motion\\nproceeds from the sun. But where did its device come\\nfrom\\nFrom the sun too and the flight of the dove from the\\nsun also but the difference of those derivations, whence\\nare they Animism had hardly yet entered into the\\ncontroversy in 1872. How much of a man does a\\nserpent see asks Ruskin.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0232.jp2"}, "233": {"fulltext": "\u00e2\u0080\u00a2the eagle s nest. 221\\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 cat s\\nI want to know what the appearance is to an\\neagle, two thousand feet up, of a sparrow in a hedge.\\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\\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 feathered\\nand what the look of them is, in their eyes and\\nwhat grasp, or cling, or trot, or pat, in their paws and\\nclaws.\\nThen follow some exquisite pages on the dogs of art,\\nfrom Anacreon s in the Greek vase-painting, onwards.\\nSir Joshua, painting child and dog together in their\\ninfinite differences and blessed harmonies, never,\\nsays Ruskin, thinks of their bones.\\nYou might dissect all the dead dogs in the water-\\nsupply of London without finding out what, as a painter,\\nit is here your only business precisely to know what\\nsort of shininess there is at the end of a terrier s nose.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0233.jp2"}, "234": {"fulltext": "222 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nYet the breath was hardly gone in which he had taught\\nhis hearers to study 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\\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\\ncauses of bodily beauty discipline of the senses,\\nromantic ideal of honour, respect for justice, and\\nbelief in God. The lecture ends with a piece of", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0234.jp2"}, "235": {"fulltext": "THE eagle s nest. 223\\ntheology a science much closer to your art\\nthan anatomy\\nI believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver\\nof Life. Disbelieve that and your own being is\\ndegraded into the state of dust driven by the wind.\\nAH 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 strength,\\nand all the arts of men, are measured by, and founded\\nupon, their reverence for the passion, and their guardian-\\nship of the purity, of Love. Gentlemen that\\nepithet of gentle, as you well know, indicates the\\nintense respect for race and fatherhood for family\\ndignity and chastity which was visibly the strength\\nof Rome, as it had been, more disguisedly, the strength\\nof Greece.\\nThe following lecture The Story of the Halcyon\\ndeplores the popular idea of education that leaves\\nan Englishman in such a state of heart that when he\\nsees a rare bird he kills it that is, he has never learnt\\nto see it rightly to see its life. Man should see a\\nbird rightly, and a man rightly\\nThen the last part of education will be whatever\\nis meant by that beatitude of the pure in heart seeing\\nGod 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 against", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0235.jp2"}, "236": {"fulltext": "224 JOHN RUSKTN.\\nlaw that they should have more than these four members\\nin ramification from the spine. What strongly\\nplanted three-legged animals there might have been\\nwhat symmetrically radiant five-legged ones what vola-\\ntile six-legged ones; what circumspect seven-headed\\nones Had Darwinism been true, we should long\\nago have split our heads in two with foolish thinking,\\nor thrust out, from above our covetous hearts, a hundred\\ndesirous arms and clutching hands. But the law\\nis around us, and within unconquerable granting,\\nup to a certain limit, power over our bodies to cir-\\ncumstance and will beyond that limit, inviolable,\\ninscrutable, and, so far as we know, eternal.\\nHis contempt for Darwinism Ruskin explains by the\\nkind of Darwinian argument then presented to students.\\nHe himself had consulted Darwin s account of the con-\\nstruction of the peacock s feather. None of the existing\\nlaws of life regulating the local disposition of colour in\\nplume-filaments seemed to be known.\\nI am informed only that peacocks have grown to be\\npeacocks out of brown pheasants because the young\\nfeminine brown pheasants like fine feathers. Where-\\nupon I say to myself, Then either there was a distinct\\nspecies of brown pheasants originally born with a taste\\nfor fine feathers, and therefore with remarkable eyes in\\ntheir heads, which would be a much more wonderful\\ndistinction of species than being born with remarkable\\neyes in their tails, or else all pheasants would have\\nbeen 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", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0236.jp2"}, "237": {"fulltext": "THE eagle s nest. 225\\nquotes it is wonderfully to the purpose of this book\\nthe word of Simonides in his description of the halcyon\\ndays In the wild winter months Zeus gives the\\nwisdom 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\\nnests to work for themselves Nay, strictly speaking,\\nwe have not even got so much as nests to turn them\\nout 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 appointed\\nplace for their conversation should be dignified and\\nornamental and they build over their combined heads\\nthe absurdest and emptiest piece of filigree, and as it\\nwere eternal foolscap in freestone, which ever human\\nbeings disgraced their posterity by.\\nWhile bullfinches peck a Gothic tracery out of dead\\nclematis, the English yeoman thinks it much if he gets\\nfrom his landlord four dead walls and a drain-pipe.\\nHe is lodged as a puppet is dropped into a deal box.\\nBut two centuries ago, without steam, without electric-\\nity, almost without books, and altogether without help\\nfrom CasseWs Educator, the Swiss shepherd could\\nbuild himself a chalet, daintily carved, and with\\np", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0237.jp2"}, "238": {"fulltext": "226 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nflourished inscriptions. No man should be satisfied\\nwith less than a cottage and a garden in pure air, and\\nthe nests of men should be nests of peace. The word\\nis left, very exquisitely, with the halcyons for Ruskin\\nadds that the making of peace must be in this life\\nNot the taking of arms against, but the building of\\nnests amidst, its sea of troubles.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0238.jp2"}, "239": {"fulltext": "227\\nCHAPTER XXI.\\nARIADNE FLORENTINA (1873).\\nThe six Sladc Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving\\ncontain some of the severest of all the author s critical\\nwork severest not because it shows a fault of Diirer\\nor declares a certain destructive influence of Michel-\\nangiolo, but severest in its intensity of thought and in\\nthe closeness of the hold this adventurous and resolute\\nmind takes upon some discovered track of thought,\\nhowever difficult, and compels the reader to attempt\\nthe path. Many have held Ruskin s method of thought\\nto have been something less purely experimental than\\nthis and let us grant that he does set out upon an\\nuntried quest with a working hypothesis but with-\\nout a working hypothesis experiment itself would lack\\nimpetus and direction, and would sometimes hesitate\\nto move in the abyss. That detachment from his own\\nworking hypothesis which the student of science owes\\nto the end of his journey shall we claim of the student\\nof ethics also Surely there is but one assumption in\\nAriadne F/oretitina that wherewith nearly all thinkers", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0239.jp2"}, "240": {"fulltext": "228 JOHN RUSKIN.\\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 contrary\\nthereto. This book, in which so many things are\\npursued so far with an infinite courage, enterprise, and\\ngood-will, takes no more than this for granted, but takes\\nit to heart takes it so that neither height nor depth\\nnor any other creature can separate the author from his\\nassumption.\\nEverything following that was to be proved seems to\\nbe proved and demonstrated. One exception there is\\nperhaps, and one that must make a strange effect of\\nbathos stated here, but\\nThou canst not pluck a llower\\nWithout troubling of a star\\nand there is nothing touched in these lectures but to\\ngreat issues I mean the apparently arbitrary law tacitly\\nestablished whereby Ruskin separates oil-painting from\\nall the other arts, and makes it solitary, judging it by\\nother theories and on other terms than theirs. The\\nsculptor, the draughtsman, the engraver are instructed to\\ndecide what are the essential points in the things they\\nsee. Such decision is declared to be a habit entirely\\nnecessary to strong humanity, and natural to all\\nhumanity. And yet painting oil-painting is placed\\nin the very next sentence under the disability (Ruskin\\nhere, for the purpose of his argument at the moment,\\nconfesses the disability) of a difference from all the arts", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0240.jp2"}, "241": {"fulltext": "ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 229\\nin this respect Painting, when it is complete, leaves\\nit much to your own judgment what to look at and, if\\nyou are a fool, you look at the wrong thing but in a\\nfine woodcut the master says, You shall look at this\\nor nothing.\\nWhen an artist to-day insists upon calling his work\\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 not.\\nI hat they should mean something is indeed desirable\\nafterwards but first we must be ornamental.\\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 enmity\\n(seeming to strike deep but not striking deep) between\\nthis the greatest of all teachers of art and some of the\\ngreatest of designers and composers who were also\\npainters and it is his insistence in this book upon\\nlocal colour as the chief thing wherewith oil-painting\\nis concerned that is the cause of his distrust, his dis-\\napproval, at best his half-praise, of some of the greatest\\npainters of illumination and darkness, those who painted\\ncolour effaced, half-effaced, just recognised by flashes,\\nfully confessed in turn by the over-ruling light.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0241.jp2"}, "242": {"fulltext": "230 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nLet me hazard the suggestion that Ruskin seems\\nresolved, in treating the Gothic or colour schools, to set\\nhis painter with his back to the sun, so that he shall see\\nall things, illuminated indeed but strong in their own\\ncolour and forbids him to face the sun and to see all\\nthe world as it looks in that great confrontation lustrous\\nand illuminated indeed, but made up of infinite and\\ninnumerable shadow. But why should not the colourist\\nlook with the sun to-day and towards the sun to-morrow,\\nand belong to both the two great schools by that simple\\npower of taking both stations A man and the sun may\\nsurely be allowed a complex and various relation with\\none another. True, Ruskin s theory of local colour was\\nlearnt in front of the works of the Tuscans, and above\\nall in the Library of Siena, but is nothing to be added\\nto Tuscany, by Holland, by Norwich, by France His\\nown Turner faced the sun, and he himself faces the sun\\nin half his writings.\\nRuskin to me, I have to confess hardly intelligibly\\njoins the positive definite sight (the sight, let me call\\nit, that you get, looking with the sun) to the high powers\\nof imagination. He avers that the Italian master re-\\nquires you to imagine a St Elizabeth, and to see her with\\nall completeness but that the Dutch painter only\\nwishes you to imagine an effect of sunlight on cow-skin,\\nwhich is a far lower strain of the imaginative faculty.\\nMoreover, he calls the feeling for colour modified by\\nsun a mere sensation the device of men, who, not\\nbeing able to get any pleasure out of their thoughts, try", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0242.jp2"}, "243": {"fulltext": "ARIADNE FLORENTINA. 23I\\nto get it out of their sensations. This may have been\\naccidentally the act of some chiaroscuro painters but\\nis it essentially the act of all And is this clear seeing\\nof St Elizabeth in her red and blue essentially the work\\nof the imagination and not of the mere fancy?\\nSurely there is no other occasion of controversy in\\nthis masterly book, wrought out of the very life of the\\nintellect. We find this important word spoken to the\\nstudent of engraving, at the outset Your own char-\\nacter will form your style, but my business is to\\nprevent, as far as I can, your having a?iy particular style.\\nThis goes to the root, for all the arts. The technical\\nlessons follow\\nEngraving means, primarily, making a permanent\\ncut or furrow. The central syllable of the word\\nhas become a sorrowful one, meaning the most per-\\nmanent of furrows. Stone engraving is the art\\nof countries possessing marble and gems wood en-\\ngraving, of countries overgrown with forest metal\\nengraving, of countries possessing treasures of silver and\\ngold. And the style of a stone engraver is found on\\npillars and pyramids the style of a wood engraver\\nunder the eaves of larch cottages the style of a metal\\nengraver in the treasuries of kings. Do you suppose I\\ncould rightly explain to you the value of a single touch\\non brass by Finiguerra, or on box by Bewick, unless\\nI had grasp of the great laws of climate and country\\nand could trace the inherited sirocco or tramontana\\nof thought to which the souls and bodies of the men\\nowed their existence\\nHe has that grasp and explains principally the\\ninheritance of the Florentine and that of the German", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0243.jp2"}, "244": {"fulltext": "232 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nSandro Botticelli and Holbein. Holbein is a civilised\\nboor Botticelli a re-animate Greek. And this is his\\nadmirable judgment of the relation of these two to\\nthe recovered ancient learning and to the classic spirit\\nthat learning was probably cumbrous to Holbein.\\nBut Botticelli receives it as a child in later years\\nrecovers the forgotten dearness of a nursery tale\\nand is more himself, and again and again himself, as\\nhe breathes 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 for\\nan 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 Christ,\\nLoose 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 anatomy\\nbrought with it a certain injury, but he had sought\\nthe ruin of the Masters Tintoretto for example\\nelsewhere.\\nAnd then at last I got hold of the true clue: II\\ndisegno di Michelangiolo. And the moment I had", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0244.jp2"}, "245": {"fulltext": "ARIADNE FI,ORENTINA. 233\\ndared to accuse that, it explained everything; and I\\nsaw that the betraying demons of Itah an art, led on\\nby Michael Angelo, had been, not pleasure, but know-\\nledge not indolence, but ambition and not love,\\nbut horror.\\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 Holbein s\\nsimplicity over even Diirer s gifts, Ruskin makes use\\nof some theology. He ought not to have permitted\\nhimself to use other men s habits of phrase by speaking\\nof an Lidulgence as a permission to sin. The\\nknowledge that, according to the definition of those\\nwho hold the doctrine, an Indulgence (or remission\\nof canonical penance) cannot be gained at all without\\na resolution never to commit any sin of any kind\\nwhatever, is knowledge easily accessible. Here, finally,\\nis the magnificent page, on one of the plates of the\\nDance of Death\\nThe labourer s country cottage the rain coming\\nthrough its roof, the clay crumbling from its partitions,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0245.jp2"}, "246": {"fulltext": "234 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthe fire lighted with a few chips and sticks on a raised\\npiece of the mud floor. But the mother can\\nwarm the child s supper of bread and milk so holding\\nthe pan by the long handle and on mud floor though\\nit be, they are happy she and her child, and its\\nbrother if only they could be left so. They shall\\nnot 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\\nicy grip on its hand, and that it cannot stay. Those\\nwho love it shriek and tear their hair in vain, amazed\\nin grief. Oh, little one, thou must lie out in the fields\\nthen, not even under this poor torn roof of thy mother s\\nto-night", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0246.jp2"}, "247": {"fulltext": "235\\nCHAPTER XXII.\\nVAL D ARNO (1874).\\nThese ten Slade Lectures are historical studies of Tus-\\ncan art during that great act of the war of Guelph and\\nGhibelline which had its centre in the middle of the\\nthirteenth century in the city of Florence. The reader\\nmay hesitate at the outset to undertake Val d Arno if\\nhe fears politics so transfigured as in the third paragraph,\\nin which the mountains rehearse the solid and rational\\nauthority of the State and the clouds the more or\\nless spectral, hooded, imaginative, and nubiforni author-\\nity of the Pope, and Church. Furthermore, Ruskin\\nuses the names of the Montagus or Montacutes, and\\nthe Capulets or Cappelletti the hatted, scarlet-hatted,\\nor hooded as but lurking names for Ghibelline and\\nGuelph and in the tower and the dome he sees figures\\nof the same two powers dividing the great Middle Ages,\\nand contending in arms upon the Lombard plains and\\nin the valley of that Tuscan river which carried the\\nwhispers of Florence to the walled banks of the sea-\\nward city. These allegories in act are somewhat ex-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0247.jp2"}, "248": {"fulltext": "236 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ncessive in their ingenuity but the history that follows\\nshows Ruskin s severe hold of facts, the facts upon\\nwhich the historian waits as a surgeon upon the pulse\\nof a man he cannot help. Ruskin has to tell vital\\nhistory, and therefore spiritual history and he looks\\nso closely for spiritual human meaning into the am-\\nbiguous faces of Charles of Anjou and Manfred, Fred-\\nerick II. and Innocent IV. (very much in the manner\\nof Carlyle, whom he called his master), that it is\\nwell he should have the resolution to withdraw, in\\nturn, to the distance that commands the origins and\\nissues of human history, and that from a high place\\nhe should see also these similitudes of clouds and\\narmies, mountains and dynasties, and men as trees\\nwalking.\\nRuskin is punctual in his science of historical judg-\\nment, and will not allow a passage of five years in that\\ngreat mid-century, the thirteenth, to leave so much as\\none equivocal record. And as the momentous work\\ndone by Nicola Pisano yields all its significance to this\\nscrutiny, so does that antique work which prompted\\nhim. So like each other as a pod and a bud may seem\\nin the eyes of those who do not well know the\\nplant, so may the decadence and the promise of that\\nvarious Greek work which we call Byzantine. As to\\nsome passage of sculpture we may ask, is this the im-\\npotence of decline or rather of the time after decline,\\nor is it the difficulty of youth Somewhat there is,\\nhampered or folded in the right sense implicit. From", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0248.jp2"}, "249": {"fulltext": "VAL D aRNO. 237\\nVal d Arno we learn that both the withered and the\\nvital existed in contemporary Greek work twelfth-\\ncentury Byzantine some of this art was in the husk\\nand some in the sheath, if one may use again the\\nfigure of the plant. Vasari did not distinguish the\\none from the other and some that is of the husk is\\nheld in honour at the Lateran, and some that is of\\nthe sheath at Pisa.\\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 less\\naccurate eye seemed to be going forward in a general\\nand broadcast revival, Ruskin traces through this one\\nstrait way, through this one Greek sculpture and this one\\nTuscan sculptor, showing it to be here, and here only, a\\nderivation of veritable life one genealogy, the counsels\\nof one mind, one genius, one little ten years work how\\nnarrow is the pass, how slight the thread, how single\\nthe issue The authentic art, how local, and how\\nbrief! In the pulpit of Nicola at Pisa (the student may\\nstudy the model at South Kensington), and especially\\nin its five cusped arches trefoils Ruskin, as single\\nin the recognition as the Pisan in the design, recog-\\nnised the first architecture of Gothic Christianity, and\\ndiscovered its point of junction with the art of Greece.\\nHe defends and holds this pass of authenticity, this\\npatent, despite some adverse guides who seem to have\\npushed their way by other outlets but let it be borne\\nin mind that what Ruskin has traced of the delicate", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0249.jp2"}, "250": {"fulltext": "238 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ndifferences in the history of art he has gauged not by\\nthe eye only, but also by the finger. He has followed\\nthe sculptor by drawing has felt sensibly and directly\\nthe direction of the bygone human hand has remem-\\nbered in tranquillity the emotion of another and has\\ntraced the working of hour by hour that was charged\\nwith all the fortunes of the Second Civilisation. A\\npulpit was this significant piece of art, not an altar nor\\na tomb and the Greek sculpture that inspired it was\\non a sarcophagus, facts that somewhat (though rather\\nby chance) jar with Ruskin s conclusion to this same\\nchapter Christian architecture is for the glory\\nof death, and is to the end definable as archi-\\ntecture of the tomb. Upon this follows a fine passage\\nupon 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 was\\nset to guard,\\nAt Perugia arose the marble sculptured fountain of\\nGiovanni Pisano, at Siena that of Jacopo della Querela.\\nRuskin felt bitter regret that he had not seen the Sienese\\nfountain, before it had been torn to pieces and restored,\\nexcept with heedless eyes when he had been a boy.\\nI observe that Charles Dickens had the fortune", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0250.jp2"}, "251": {"fulltext": "VAL D aRNO. 239\\ndenied to me. The market-place, or great Piazza, is\\na large square, with a great broken-nosed fountain in it.\\nlyPictii res 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\\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 manner\\nsudden judgments making, strangely enough, a hasty\\nend of prolonged and difficult thought the reader\\nrevolts. Here is one Before the twelfth century\\nthe nations were too savage to be Christian, and after\\nthe fifteenth too carnal. To the glory of these four\\nhundred years, then, he sacrifices at a blow the\\nThebaid, Chrysostom and Nazianzen, Augustine and\\nGregory, and the multitude of Bishoprics of North\\nAfrica, and the great Christian peasant populations of\\nthe sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth\\ncenturies, who have laboured in patience upon Breton,\\nProvengal, Lombard, Tuscan, Irish earth. It is of\\nnations, not of States, that Ruskin speaks otherwise,\\nwe should have granted him that States have not been\\nChristian the historian can hardly venture to claim", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0251.jp2"}, "252": {"fulltext": "240 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthat name for the German Empire or the French\\nMonarchy, or the temporal power of the Papacy.\\nRuskin further explains his four hundred years\\nThe delicacy of sensation and refinements of\\nimagination necessary to understand Christianity belong\\nto the mid period when men, risen from a life of brutal\\nhardship, are not yet fallen to one of brutal luxury.\\nWhether brutal luxury is a name fit for the softer arts of\\nlife to use the usual word, the comforts learnt by\\nmankind since the fifteenth century, I know not it is\\nat any rate a tenable opinion that the most brutal\\nthing about them is that they belong to a minority.\\nBut granting this, there are yet perpetual generations of\\nmen living in precisely this condition, risen from a\\nlife of brutal hardship and not yet fallen to one of\\nbrutal luxury. Assuredly that condition was not con-\\nfined to a few violent and unhappy centuries, centuries\\nwhen for a superstition little children were dashed\\nagainst the stones of their poor villages. Imperial or\\nPapal when, for a calumny, the young devout\\nTemplars, flowers of masculine innocence, self-sacrifice,\\nand good faith, were burnt alive, a score at one time\\nwhen, for a jealousy of trade, one furious city lay in\\nwait for the destruction of another when the revenge\\nupon a political enemy was to hew his son s head off\\nbefore his eyes, so as to make a last spectacle for those\\neyes before they were put out, and ten years in a\\ndungeon without a page to read or a tree to look at\\nwas a common prelude to penal death. Not then", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0252.jp2"}, "253": {"fulltext": "VAL D ARNO. 241\\nonly did a people obscure, unnamed, innumerable, live\\nsomewhere between savagery and luxury, but century\\nby century ever since then. All the centuries have\\nbrought this life to pass, and the race has followed this\\nnarrow way by a multitude that no man can number.\\nMoreover, is that passage, between crude conditions\\nand effete, trodden only by a people corporately? A\\nman lately freed from the main force that compelled\\nhis childhood, and generously simple in that freedom,\\nnot yet slothful or fond of money, is somewhat in the\\ncondition of Ruskin s nations, released from savagery\\nand not corrupt.\\nFrom that more direct teaching of art, for which the\\nstudent will consult Val d Artio, may be cited a subtle\\nrefutation, or rather correction, of the modern principle\\nas to decorating construction. A brief study of the\\ndecoration of the porch of the Baptistery at Pisa shows\\nus how arbitrary is all great decoration. Construction\\nis followed indeed, but with happy choice, decision, and\\ndifference, whereby one member is richly and intently\\nadorned, and another left blank the construction\\ngiving no suggestion of such caprice. To decorate\\nyour construction, we learn, is a good rule for one who\\nshould be barely conscious of it but for a sculptor\\nwithout the good fortune of genius it is at once too\\nmuch and too little it shows the way but does not\\nteach the walk and he who thinks he has but to follow\\nthe road would have a languid movement. So, too,\\nwould the rhymer who wrote iambics without inspira-\\nQ", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0253.jp2"}, "254": {"fulltext": "242 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ntion in the transposition of accents and of quantities.\\nAs, in The Seven Lamps^ Ruskin showed how the outer\\ncolouring of buildings had all its vitality in its own\\narbitrary design, so he shows the sculptural decoration\\nto have also, though less independently, a life of its\\nown. The life of the material, too, he touches in\\nthe chapters on Marble Couchant and Marble\\nRampant, and the nature, the place, and the history\\nof the stone, respected by the ancient builders, who laid\\nit as it had lain in the quarry. And here, by the way,\\nis another of those sayings that should long ago have\\ncorrected the usual misunderstanding of Ruskin s\\ndoctrine You are an artist by animating your\\ncopy of nature into vital variation. Ruskin goes on to\\ntell that the reserved variation of the Greeks had for\\na time escaped him, but that he had at last found them\\nto be as various as the Goths; and that the Greek sea\\nor river whirl-pool, varied infinitely, was the main source\\nof the spiral or rampant decoration of Gothic, and of\\nthe luxuriant design of the early Pisans. Of Giovanni\\nPisano Ruskin has written To him you owe the\\ngrace of Ghiberti, the tenderness of Raphael, the awe\\nof Michael Angelo. Second-rate qualities in all three,\\nbut precious in their kind. Great is this mind that\\nrecognises the awe of Buonarroti as the second-rate\\nquality of a great man. Ruskin s mind was in fact\\nimmortally antique, and in possession of inseparable\\nGreek antecedents, whatever it found to do in the\\naltering world. The ethical sermon of Val d^Arno is", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0254.jp2"}, "255": {"fulltext": "VAL D ARNO. 243\\nchiefly on that text of Carlyle s whereof the warning has\\nbeen in vain\\nThis idle habit of accounting for the moral sense\\nthe moral sense, thank God, is a thing you never\\nwill account for. By no greatest happiness\\nprinciple, greatest nobleness principle, or any principle\\nwhatever, will you make that in the least clearer.\\nVisible infinites say nothing of them, for\\nyou can say nothing wise.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0255.jp2"}, "256": {"fulltext": "244\\nCHAPTER XXIII.\\nDEUCALION (1875-1883).\\nIn 1875 Ruskin prefaced Deucalion with an ironic sketch\\nof the unachieved work for which he had until then\\ncollected material an analysis of the Attic art of the\\nfifth century i;.c. an exhaustive history of northern\\nthirteenth-century art a history of Florentine fifteenth-\\ncentury art a life of Turner, with analysis of modern\\nlandscape art a life of Walter Scott a life of Xenophon,\\nwith analysis of the general principles of education a\\ncommentary on Hesiod and a general description of\\nthe geology and botany of the Alps, Meanwhile, at the\\noutset of this little work, chiefly on geology, he finds\\nplace for a brilliant essay on heraldic colours, fairly\\np-oves gules to be derived from the Zoroastrian w^ord\\nfor rose, and not from the Latin and Romance words\\nfor a red throat of prey quotes St Bernard on this\\naccidental subject, and corrects the badgers skins\\nthat were hung with rams skins upon the Tabernacle\\nof Israel, to seals from the sea-flocks that then swam\\nthe Mediterranean by the city of Phoca^a, and were", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0256.jp2"}, "257": {"fulltext": "DEUCALION. 245\\nassigned to Proteus in the Odyssey. Deucalion^ Pivsei--\\npina, and an essay on birds Love s Meinie are the\\nnearest approach that other labours allowed to the\\nworks on natural history threatened, with a smile the\\ngeology and botany were to be in twenty-four volumes\\nand they are strangely complete, full of that natural\\nfact which Ruskin has acknowledged as at once the\\njustification and the judge of art, the beginning and the\\nnever-attainable end. It is perhaps with a contemptuous\\nconsent to be, by some, misread, that in his contention\\non glaciers with Professor Tyndall he often slights the\\nname of science and man of science whereas\\nobviously it was on the point of science that issue was\\njoined, and if he did not reproach his adversary in that\\nthis adversary was too little and not too much a man of\\nscience, he reproached him to no purpose. Ruskin,\\nintending to teach the form of mountains as they\\nhave stood since man was man, and as they have suffered\\nthe daily strokes of rains or have carried the varying\\nburden of snow, makes very sure of the little he has to\\ntell of the anatomy of those clothed figures. The up-\\nheaving forces of the first remote period and the sculp-\\ntural forces of the second are treated with the brevity\\nthat befits their unknown ages and immeasurable action\\nbut to the disintegrating and diffusing forces of the\\nearth as the eyes of man have known it, Ruskin gives\\nthe study of many a year. The human race has had\\nmany and many centuries in which to watch the Alps\\nand has made small use thereof; but out of those", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0257.jp2"}, "258": {"fulltext": "246 JOHN KUSKIN.\\nages of ages a littlu half-century has been saved\u00e2\u0080\u0094 the\\nyears of this one man s studies and all that fifty years\\ncan tell, in pledge of the rest unobserved and unrecorded,\\nwas read by him with his own eyes directly, immediately,\\nwithout feigning, without use of the reading of others,\\nwith experiment and verification experiment on the\\nspot, and experiment depending upon time. All that\\nfifty years could tell to this watchful intellect, from first\\nto last, is told for ever, with so much of retrospect and\\nprophecy as a slow half- century of the life of rocks\\naffords. Ruskin has been for this space of time the\\ncontemporary of the Alps and of the Alpine rivers, an\\neffectual contemporary who measured the patience of\\nhis years with the long labours of weather and of gravita-\\ntion in the heights and valleys. Of the years of the\\nAlps it may be said that fifty were also his. This\\nspecimen of mountain existence this great echantilloji\\nand sample of many thousand ages, is, as it were, saved\\nand put upon human record. It is saved by one man s\\nwatch well kept, as, in another region of experience, a\\nspecimen of passionate emotion, difficult because of its\\nbrevity, as the movement of mountains is difficult because\\nof its length, is saved by the instant watch of a poet\\nwell kept, and put upon human record.\\nAssuredly it is not too much to claim for Ruskin s\\nwork on the Alps and the Jura that it was, conspicuously,\\nand unlike that of other glacialists, all observation and\\nall experiment there were, in its course, no guesses.\\nTherefore he corrected some inferences of his fellow-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0258.jp2"}, "259": {"fulltext": "DEUCALION. 247\\nworkers and in particular ratified with a great addition\\nJames Forbes s discovery of the general internal thaw of\\nAlpine snows Ruskin it is who finds an argument in\\nthe subsiding languor of the flowing glacier. His\\nwork of observation is necessarily accompanied by theory\\nand by calculation. On all these grounds he contends\\nwith Professor Tyndall, and the contention, to be\\nproperly understood, needs much more than the mere\\nreading of the lecture, even with the help of the diagrams.\\nFor the voice must have expressed ironies that the print\\ndoes but point with a note of admiration moreover, the\\nhearers had Mr Tyndall s assertions that ice could not\\nstretch fresh in their memories, and were ready to be\\nsurprised 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 diagrams\\neither clearly enough to show him his own mistakes,\\nor prettily enough to direct the attention of his friends\\nto them and they luckily remain to us, in their\\nabsurd immortality.\\nIn regard to the other subject specially under exam-\\nination the action of mountain rivers Ruskin has\\nconcluded that the cutting or deepening work of these\\nwaters was done under conditions unknown to the pres-\\nent race of man, and that there has been no action\\nexcept that of the lifting of river-beds and the encum-\\nbering of water-courses, since the earth has been man s\\nworld. But this judgment upon the facts of the past", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0259.jp2"}, "260": {"fulltext": "248 JOHN kUSKlN.\\nwhether measurably or immeasurably far serves in\\nRuskin s studies entirely to inform the eyes of those\\nwho are to look upon the aspect of the present, and\\nwho need that their simplicity in understanding and\\ntheir vigilance in seeing should be strengthened by\\nknowledge. It is the present in the act of passage\\nthat the eyes are to be made ready to perceive, and\\nthe lesson is one for painters indeed for impression-\\nists the mountain, the cleft, the water -courses with\\ntheir past so sealed, and their present so slowly to be\\nknown, are landscape facing the simple eyes of a\\npainter. At the close of his subtle and exact essen-\\ntially most logical reasoning on geology the author\\nof Deucalion refuses the name of philosopher, and\\navers that his teaching is that of the village showman s\\nLook, and you shall see. But the fact that he him-\\nself has laboured so explicitly over two but partially\\nvisible things geology and the past proves how\\nmuch he himself had to owe to the promptings and the\\ncheckings whereby knowledge guards simplicity, and\\nhow little he would trust any student but a genius to\\nthe guidance of the first simplicity. It is surely for\\nthe second simplicity that he so 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-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0260.jp2"}, "261": {"fulltext": "DEUCALION. 249\\nministration of the natural treasures of their woods and\\nstreams. And as he would have done something to\\narrest the distress and disease of the peasantry of the\\nValais people whom hereditary and natural adversity\\nhad forced to grief but never to despair so he had\\noffered suggestions for the protection of Verona from\\nthe turbulent Adige above the city, and for the succour\\nof the Romans from inundation. The Italian Gov-\\nernment spent the taxes of agriculture, however, not\\non the defences of river cities threatened by mountain\\nstreams, but in the decking of Tuscan cities with\\nParisian 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 which\\nProfessor Tyndall brought his audiences into what he\\nis pleased to call contact with facts (in olden times\\nwe used to say grasp of facts modern science, for\\nits own part, prefers, not unreasonably, the term con-\\ntact, expressive merely of occasional collision with\\nthem) must remain inconclusive.\\nRemember always that modern science is reproved,\\nthroughout, for defect of science; the phrase occa-\\nsional collision with facts, in derision of the Professor s\\ncontact, is exquisitely and characteristically witty.\\nIn truth, whatever may be the chances of war as to the\\ncase in controversy, ill befalls Ruskin s antagonist in\\nwords he has the scholarship, the invention, the spirit,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0261.jp2"}, "262": {"fulltext": "250 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nthe delicacy, and the luck of language. Take another\\nreproof that which he administered to the scien-\\ntific people who had taken the name of Angiiis, the\\nstrangling thing a name that was used in Latin for\\nthe more terrible forms of snake to give it to those\\nwhich can t strangle anything. The Angiiis fragilis\\nbreaks like a tobacco-pipe but imagine how discon-\\ncerting such an accident would be to a constrictor\\nThis occurs in the fragmentary chapter on Living\\nWaves, making one volume with Deucalion, in which\\nRuskin accompanies (but without contention, in this\\ncase, and with none but harmonious banter) a lecture\\nof Professor Huxley s. The chapter is a kind of spirit-\\nual version of the development of species, and a study\\nin hereditary imagination.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0262.jp2"}, "263": {"fulltext": "251\\nCHAPTER XXIV.\\nPROSERPINA (1875-1886).\\nThis gentle, ardent, and boyish boy must have breathed\\nhard and close over his collections of minerals and\\nplants. He was unsatisfied with knowledge, and the\\nbooks, few and arid, in which he looked for figures and\\ndefinitions, although good in the main and sure of his\\nrespect, failed him as the modern science of later\\ntimes was to fail him he charged them with futile\\nwords and with the blanks, instead of answers, that\\nmet some of his pertinent questions. What he began\\nover a boy s cabinet and herbarium he never afterwards\\nforsook. He was a reader and an untiring one\\nonly in the second place he studied crystallisation\\nand plants, as he studied the spiritual nature of man,\\nat first hand. Proserpina, a book of botany made\\nlovely, was written to put, if it might be, some\\nelements of the science into a form more tenable\\nby ordinary human and childish faculties than had\\nbeen the form wherewith the faculties, human and\\nchildish in the highest sense, of his own elect boyhood", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0263.jp2"}, "264": {"fulltext": "252 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nhad wrought as they could, docile and zealous, and\\nill-supplied, making much of little, but yet often dis-\\nappointed. Proserpma had for its accessory title,\\nStudies of Wayside Flowers while the Air was yet\\npure among the Alps and in the Scotland and England\\nwhich my Father knew. It is illustrated by the writer s\\nnoble drawings. The particular charm of the book\\nis that it is a real meditation upon the theme, the work\\nof one who lets the reader see process and progress.\\nAnd the value is in this that the questions it considers\\nare problems of the flowers, which the botany book left\\nhim, as a boy and afterwards, to read in their aspect\\nand to answer if he could. The first chapter is full\\nof questions, some answered, some unanswered, on\\nMoss the gold and green and the black, which\\ngives the precious Velasquez touches and what the\\neye, slightly helped by a magnifying glass, sees of the\\ntiny structure of the moss of walls and woods is de-\\nscribed with infinite grace. The chapter on the Leaf\\nis memorable for a paragraph in which Ruskin relates\\nhis misadventures amongst the authorities on botany\\nin his search of instruction as to the nature of sap.\\nSap was not in the index of Dresser, nor scve in that\\nof Figuier. Lindley told him of the course taken\\nby the sap after entering a plant. My dear doctor,\\nyou know, far better than I, that sap never does\\nenter a plant at all but only salt, or earth and water,\\nand that the roots alone could not make it. Memor-\\nable is also this from the same chapter that vital", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0264.jp2"}, "265": {"fulltext": "PROSERPINA. 253\\npower, which scientific people are usually as afraid of\\nnaming as common people are of naming Death.\\nRuskin proposes, as he goes, a new nomenclature,\\nmore scholarly and more strict pure Latin, pure\\nGreek when a distinction is needed, pure English con-\\ncurrently. Nor will he have nursery literature to go\\nwild with a semblance of precision, uncorrected. This\\nhe rebukes with a sweetness that the professors do\\nnot get from him but when a lady, writing pretty\\nlessons for children, makes an easy show of defining\\na weed as a plant that has got into the wrong place,\\nRuskin retorts, Some plants never do. Who ever\\nsaw a wood anemone or a heath blossom in the wrong\\nplace Who ever saw a nettle in the right\\none He cannot know much, by the way, of Swiss\\ncountry households in spring who has not seen the\\ngood woman cutting young nettles into her apron, for\\nthe soup good for the blood, and an excellent vegetable\\nafter the salt food of a mountain winter, is this. But\\nhas Ruskin or any one failed to welcome that early\\nlittle tender nettle when the March earth is dark brown\\nunder the cloudy skies, and full of life, and along the\\nfoot of the hedgerows the sod scarce heaves for the\\ndelicate nettle and a celandine or two? Anon, Proser-\\npina has the scentless daisy, making much of the\\nhumility of that flower of light. It is true that many\\ngrown-up people never smell a daisy, which has a\\nsmall fragrance close to itself; but had Ruskin for\\nonce forgotten his early childhood These are but", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0265.jp2"}, "266": {"fulltext": "254 JOHN RUSKIN.\\naccidents, and they merely serve to make somewhat\\ntedious the perpetual moral lessons for an example\\nor a warning to go with every flower is endurable only\\nwhen all the facts are beyond question. What is\\nimportant and characteristic is the original and final\\nresolve of this mind to confess and maintain the\\nproperties that men call noble, beautiful, evil, noisome,\\nignoble, to be so veritably, in the sense known to them\\nand to their fathers, absolutely the perception of such\\nqualities being not only a fact to be reckoned with,\\nat least as gravely as other facts are reckoned with,\\nbut a divine power of the human spirit, its judgment\\nof the world. It is perhaps an unanswerable question\\nwhether, keeping this fast hold upon the idea of an\\nessential good, Ruskin has not followed it into arbitrary\\nways, attributing to things a good and an evil that are\\nin truth nothing but the tradition of men beset by the\\ncollective memory of their primitive dangers and neces-\\nsities, and by the individual memory of their own\\nrace-dreams in childhood. With the moral lesson of\\nProserpina, only once or twice importunate, and always\\nnoble, severe, and benign, are mingled such feats of\\nillustration, allusion, and intricate history as those\\nof the chapter on the Poppy. Ruskin s persevering eye\\nsaw the poppy confused with the grape by the Byzantine\\nGreeks, and the poppy and the grape with palm fruit\\nsaw the palm, in the stenography of design, pass into\\na nameless symmetrical ornament and thence into the\\nGreek iris (Homer s blue iris, and Pindar s water-flag)", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0266.jp2"}, "267": {"fulltext": "PROSERPINA. 255\\nsaw it read by tlie Florentines, when they made\\nByzantine art their own, into their fleur-de-lys, with\\ntwo poppyheads on each side of the entire foil in\\ntheir finest heraldry saw, on the other hand, the\\npoppy altering the acanthus leaf under the chisel\\nof the Greek, until the northern worker of the twelfth\\ncentury took the thistle-head for the poppy, and the\\nthistle-leaf for the acanthus, the true poppy-head re-\\nmaining in the south, but more and more confused\\nwith grapes, until the Renaissance sculptors are con-\\ntent with any boss full of seed, but insist always upon\\nsome such pod as an important part of their ornament\\nthe bean-pods of Brunelleschi s lantern at Florence,\\nfor example.\\nThrough this vast range of art note this singular\\nfact, that the wheat-ear, the vine, the ileur-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 of\\nthe 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 takes\\nplace at the point where branches begin to assert them-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0267.jp2"}, "268": {"fulltext": "256 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nselves. Who else has caused us so to feel the wood, its\\ndirection, its law, its liberty, its seasons, and the years\\nof its Hfe I, as one of so many whose parents read\\nModem Painters in their own youth, remember my\\nfather s pointing to a tree and telling me that whereas\\nthe Old Masters were apt to draw the stem of a diminish-\\ning or tapering form, Ruskin had made us all to see\\nthat no stem ever grows less until it puts forth a branch,\\nand no branch until it puts forth a twig. And ever after\\nI have felt the stem live, as I could never have felt it\\nhad I continued to think it a thing so paltry that it\\ncould diminish as it grew. Who but Ruskin, more-\\nover, has had this sense of the mathematics of tender\\nthings? I never saw such a lovely perspective line\\nas the pure front leaf profile, he says of some\\nviolet.\\nOne of the principal intentions in the writing of\\nFroserpitia 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.\\nI 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 ^schylean words\\nagain with joy. I shall not be content unless the\\nmothers watching their children at play, in the Ceramicus\\nof Paris, may yet teach them there to know the\\nflowers which the Maid of Orleans gathered at Domremy.\\nI shall not be satisfied unless every word I ask from\\nthe lips of the children of Florence and Rome may", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0268.jp2"}, "269": {"fulltext": "PROSERPINA. 257\\nenable them better to praise the flowers that are chosen\\nby the hand of Matilda and bloom around the tomb of\\nVirgil.\\nIncidentally we have a brief passage of autobiography\\ntelling how Ruskin travelled when he was young, in a\\nlittle carriage of his own, full of pockets and an inn is\\nmentioned as having been described by Dickens in his\\nwholly matchless manner. Wholly matchless and it\\nis this great describer who says so. Now and then there\\nis a slight shock of encounter between them. At\\nBoulogne Dickens thanked Heaven that no Englishman\\nhad been up the tower in the high walled town, to\\nmeasure it at that time Ruskin was, in fact, measuring\\ntowers. Finally, from this little book on Botany, written\\nwith great simplicity, may be taken a description by\\nRuskin of his own language Honest English, of good\\nJohnsonian lineage, touched here and there with colour\\nof a little finer or Elizabethan quality.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0269.jp2"}, "270": {"fulltext": "258\\nCHAPTER 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 guide-\\nbook for six mornings with six lessons to be learnt in\\nthem. The chapters on Giotto are of the first import-\\nance the reader cannot in this volume be taken, even\\nbriefly, through Giotto at Padua (1853-1860), or the\\nabundant studies of Giotto s works at Assisi, widely\\nscattered through Ruskin s writings but he must\\nunderstand Giotto to be Ruskin s original master in\\nmediaeval lineal art, as Nicola Pisano in mediaeval\\nsculpture and Florence is Giotto s own city, containing\\nhis work done at all dates between his twelfth year and\\nhis sixtieth. Ruskin teaches us how to connect the work\\nof his best time with his work in architecture, and with\\nthe Franciscan Order. To Giotto s fresco at Santa\\nMaria Novella we are led through a rich overture,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0270.jp2"}, "271": {"fulltext": "GUIDE BOOKS.\\n259\\nand here is a tune of four notes, on a shepherd s pipe.\\nThe theme is the meeting of St Joachim and St Anne,\\nas it would be according to Shakespeare or Giotto.\\nThere, too, is his Presentation of the Virgin.\\nThe boy who tried so hard to draw those steps in\\nperspective had been carried down others, to his grave,\\ntwo hundred years before Titian ran alone at Cadore.\\nBut, as surely as Venice looks on the sea, Titian looked\\non this, and caught the reflected light of it for ever.\\nColour, too, Giotto founded. But all he began of\\nMediaeval art was the continuation of Antiquity. His\\npainting of a Gothic chapel Ruskin affirms to be but\\nthe painting of a Greek vase inverted, with the figures\\non the concave, as those on the convex, surface, bent\\nin and out, possibly and impossibly, but always living\\nand full of grace.\\nEvery line of the Florentine chisel in the fifteenth\\ncentury is based on national principles of art which\\nexisted in the seventh century before Christ.\\nThe chapter called The Shepherd s Tower is also,\\nof course, on Giotto and the tower was written of\\ndivinely in The Seven Lamps. Here we have a close\\nreading of the sculptures of the campanile, whether\\nGiotto s own or Andrea Pisano s and Ruskin has\\nworked delicately in distinguishing the two. Delicate\\nalso are the suggestions of the science of proportion in\\nthe chapter called The Vaulted Book.\\nBeauty is given by the relation of parts size by\\ntheir comparison. The first secret in getting the im-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0271.jp2"}, "272": {"fulltext": "26o JOHN RUSKIN\\npression of size in this cliapel [the Spanish chapel,\\nSanta Maria Novella] is the ^wproportion between\\npillar and arch. Another great but more subtle\\nsecret is in the zV^equality and immeasurability of the\\ncurved lines, and the hiding of the form by the colour.\\nSf Alark^s Rest has in part the character of a recanta-\\ntion. As the Stones of Venice praised Titian, Tintoretto,\\nand Giorgione, so St Mark s Rest turns with an impulse\\nof recognition, of regret for time lost, and of ardent\\nreparation and tenderness, to the work of Carpaccio.\\nIf it were not nearly a cruel irreverence to say so, it\\nmight be said that John Ruskin too, as well as Europe,\\nhad had his Renaissance although his Renaissance\\nwas controlled, justified, and maintained in the dignity\\nof incorruption, unlike the world s. This abundant\\nParadise of Tintoretto, these doges, this glory, what\\nwas it else, even though its warmth kept it clean as\\nliving creatures are clean Warm in the colour of\\nTitian, this Renaissance was warmer still in the heart\\nof Ruskin, but Renaissance it was, for the date attests\\nit while the great painters were at their splendid work,\\narchitecture and sculpture, sealed with the sign of the\\nRenaissance, 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. The\\nuniversal custom of change passed upon him too.\\nDoubtless he never knew for it is peculiar to genius", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0272.jp2"}, "273": {"fulltext": "GUIDE-LOOKS. 26 1\\nnot to know how much his lot was the common lot,\\nor how usual it is with men and women, as well as with\\nmankind, to make the progress from a trecento to a\\ncinquecento in due time. What befel him was, to him,\\nunheard of, even though he was giving all his years to\\nthe study of a like movement in history, for he brought\\nto every change his own incomparable freshness and the\\nsurprises of an authentic experience. He made his\\ngreat discoveries with an enterprising spirit, and when\\nhe had taken his fill of his Renaissance he retraced his\\nown eager and urgent footsteps, and sought the earlier\\nof the Venetian painters (much earlier in spirit and a\\nlittle earlier in time), and, far behind them, the mosaics\\nof the Byzantine Greeks. It was not that he had not\\nstudied these in the past. The Stones of Venice proves\\nwith what admiration he had read that Bible of\\nVenice St Mark s on his first visit to the city of\\ntremulous streets but now, in a third phase of\\nthought, he rediscovered all things, being greatly and\\nfreshly moved, and thinking, like the disciple in the\\nImitation^ all he had done, until then, to be nothing.\\nThe reading-lesson begins at the farthest side of St\\nMark s from the sea, at a panel set horizontally a\\nsculpture of twelve sheep, a throne between six and six,\\na cross thereon, a circle, and within the circle a little\\ncaprioling creature, the Lamb of God. This is true\\nGreek work, the work of the teacher of the Venetian\\n(as in another place we saw the Greek work that in-\\nstructed the Pisan), and Ruskin has done no more", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0273.jp2"}, "274": {"fulltext": "262 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nimportant work in the history of art than this Hnking\\nof the antique with the new. Is it perhaps Gibbon\\nwith his Fall of Rome that so darkens the air of\\nsome eight hundred years with a squalid dust-storm of\\ndemolition as to obscure our sight of the unquenched\\nlights of the mind of man Ruskin joins day to\\nhuman day again, as the days of nature and the sun\\nfollowed one another undimmed.\\nAfter the Byzantine panel, then, come the two sculp-\\ntures that are the earliest real Venetian work found by\\nRuskin in his search amongst Venetian stones. These\\nare no longer purely symbolical, no longer a kind of\\nstone-stitching or samplerwork, done with the innocence\\nof a girl s heart, but ardently and laboriously sculptural;\\nit is Venetian work of the early thirteenth century it is\\ntraceable through sixteen hundred years to the sculp-\\ntors of the Parthenon and it is the first Venetian\\nSt George.\\nThis immortal symbol-story story of Perseus before\\nit was a story of a saint Ruskin follows up to the\\nheights of the great time of sculpture before the close\\nof the fifteenth century. The house that bore this work\\nof culmination has been destroyed since Ruskin led his\\ntraveller, with so much delight, to the study of its panel.\\nNot so the Scuola of St Theodore, carrying the sculpture\\nof the mid-seventeenth century with its Raphaelesque\\nattitude and its drapery supremely, exquisitely bad\\nnor that which bore the yet later decoration the last\\nof all done by Venice for herself and not for tourists", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0274.jp2"}, "275": {"fulltext": "GUIDE-BOOKS. 263\\nthe last imaginations of her polluted heart, before\\ndeath.\\nThe chapter called Shadow on the Dial shows the\\nmoral history of Venice to be but an intense abstract\\nof the history of every nation in Europe. And this\\nhistory can be approached by a modern reader in the\\nspirit of our numerous cockney friends who are sure\\nthat the fervour of Christian Venice was merely such a\\ncloak for her commercial appetite as modern church-\\ngoing is for modern swindling or else in a spirit of\\nrespect for a faith that was but an exquisite dream of\\nmortal childhood (and this Ruskin calls the theory\\nof the splendid mendacity of Heaven and majestic\\nsomnambulism of man or, thirdly, in the modest\\nand rational spirit that confesses men to be in all\\nages deceived by their own guilty passions, but not\\naltogether deprived of the perception of the rays from a\\nDivinity in nature revealed to such as desire to see\\nthe day of the Son of man. In this spirit and with\\nthis desire does Ruskin begin again that history of\\nVenetian art which he had told thirty years earlier\\nbegins it struck, almost into silence, by wonder at my\\nown pert little Protestant mind. He leaves, he says,\\nthe blunder of his youth standing in the Stones of Venice,\\nlike Dr Johnson repentant in Lichfield Market but the\\nblunder seems to be no more than a neglect of St Mark\\nhimself and of his sepulture in the cathedral, with all\\nthat the possession of this national treasure his body\\nimported to the Venetian heart. From the history", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0275.jp2"}, "276": {"fulltext": "264 John ruskin.\\nbriefly re-written I take this lovely phrase in description\\nof the first, lowly, wooden Venice of the early centuries\\nRuskin calls her this amphibious city, this sea-dog of\\ntowns, looking with soft human eyes at you from the\\nsand. When, in course of time, we come to the day\\nof the press, Ruskin announces printing, and the\\nuniversal gabble of fools. We need to remember his\\nformer phrase of pity for peasants who have no books.\\nThere is a beautiful wayside page about the field that\\nonce spread wild-flowers to the sea-winds before every\\ncoloured 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. The\\nGreek spiral drifted like that of a whirlpool or whirl-\\nwind. It is always an eddy or vortex not a living rod\\nlike the point of a young fern.\\nThe remainder of the historical essay is a reading of the\\nmosaic and sculpture of St Mark s the codex of the\\nreligion of Venice.\\nThe first supplement has for title The Shrine of\\nthe Slaves (the Schinvoni), and is a guide to the\\nprincipal works of Carpaccio, whom Ruskin calls the\\nwonderfullest of Venetian harlequins. Foremost is\\nCarpaccio s St George you shall not find another\\npiece quite the like of that little piece of work, for\\nsupreme, serene, unassuming, unfaltering sweetness of", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0276.jp2"}, "277": {"fulltext": "GUIDE-BOOKS. 265\\npainter s perfect art, Ruskiu says of the first of these\\nand further on he guides us through the series of the\\nSt Jerome paintings. Ruskin studied Luini at Milan\\nalternately with Carpaccio at Venice, for love of Luini\\nwas another sign of Ruskin s reaction against his\\nformer Renaissance and the comparison of the two\\npainters is one of the loveliest passages of Ruskin s\\nwork on the purer Italian art.\\nThat part of the Bible of Aniietis w^hich 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 On?-\\nFathers have told its, planned to present local divisions\\nof Christian history, and to gather, towards their\\nclose, into united illustration of the power of the\\nChurch in the Thirteenth Century. The whole project\\nwas never fulfilled.\\nThe cathedral of Amiens stands in Ruskin s book as\\nthe 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 avow-ed 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\\nflowered 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 people", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0277.jp2"}, "278": {"fulltext": "266 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nof this region paid a belated homage to the gods of\\nRome, and the coming, preaching, and martyrdom of\\nSaint Firmin in Httle Amiens, seated by her eleven\\nstreams, as, twelve hundred years later, the carvings of\\nthe cathedral were to record. A grave for the martyr\\nin a garden, a little oratory over the grave and here\\nwas erected the first bishopric on the soil of Gaul\\nand when the Franks themselves came from the north,\\nhere was their first capital. Two legends are told in\\nthis sketch of history the story of St Martin and\\nthat of St Genevieve St Martin, the Roman soldier,\\nwho in the thirty-first winter after the coming of St\\nFirmin, when men were dying of the frost, cut his cloak\\nin two with his sword, to cover a beggar St Martin,\\nwho was afterwards Bishop of Tours, and an influence\\nof unmixed good to all mankind, then and afterwards,\\nand who took his episcopal vestment from his shoulders\\nat a church ceremony, as he had rent his cloak, for gift\\nto a beggar. Ruskin teaches us of what small moment\\nit is whether these things came to pass in fact, and of\\nwhat great moment that they were told. There is also\\nthe hobnobbing of the same St Martin, at table opposite\\nto the Emperor of Germany, with the beggar behind his\\nchair.\\nYou are aware that in Royal feasts in those days\\npersons of much inferior rank in society were allowed in\\nthe hall got behind people s chairs, and saw and heard\\nwhat was going on, while they unobtrusively picked up\\ncrumbs and licked trenchers.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0278.jp2"}, "279": {"fulltext": "GUIDE-BOOKS. 267\\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 in\\nher village, and among the children who brought him\\non his way noticed this one wider-eyed in rever-\\nence than the rest drew her to him, questioned her,\\nand was sweetly answered that she would fain be Christ s\\nhandmaid. And he hung round her neck a small\\ncopper coin, marked with a cross. More than\\nNitocris was to Egypt, more than Semiramis to Nineveh,\\nmore than Zenobia to the city of palm-trees this seven\\nyears old shepherd maiden became to Paris and her\\nFrance.\\nThe description of the cathedral is to be followed by\\na reading of the stone sculptures, on the spot. But I\\nmust extract this, on the wood-work\\nAisles and porches, lancet windows and roses, you\\ncan see elsewhere as well as here but such carpenter s\\nwork you cannot. It is late, fully-developed flam-\\nboyant just past the fifteenth century and has some\\nFlemish stolidity mixed with the playing French fire of\\nit. Sweet and young -grained wood it is: oak\\ntrained and chosen for such work, sound now as four\\nhundred years since. Under the carver s hand it seems\\nto cut like clay, to fold like silk, to grow like living\\nbranches, to leap like living flame.\\nThe apse at Amiens, we learn, is the first thing done\\nperfectly in its manner by Northern Christendom the\\nbest work here is the work of the only ten perfect years,\\nso that from nave to transept built no more than ten", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0279.jp2"}, "280": {"fulltext": "268 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nyears later there is a little change, not towards\\ndecline, but a not quite necessary precision.\\nWho built it, shall we ask God and Man, is the\\nfirst and most true answer. The stars in their courses\\nbuilt it, and the Nations. Greek Athena labours here\\nand Roman Father Jove, and Guardian Mars. The\\nGaul labours here, and the Frank knightly Norman,\\nmighty Ostrogoth, and wasted anchorite of Idumea.\\nIn this place shall be extracted a page that the\\ntraveller should take with him to Lucca the description\\nof that tomb of Ilaria del Caretto, the work of Jacopo\\ndella Quercia, which, seen by Ruskin in his youth and\\noften seen again, shared with a height of the Alps, a\\nvalley of the Jura, an allegory of Giotto, a myth of\\nPallas, the rule over Ruskin s life. The passage is in\\nThe Th?-ee Co/oii?-s of Pt-e-Raphaelitisin\\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 embodied.\\nThis, as a central work, has all the peace of the\\nChristian Eternity, but only in part its gladness. Young\\nchildren wreath round the tomb a garland of abundant\\nflowers, but she herself, Ilaria, yet sleeps the time is\\nnot yet come for her to be awakened out of sleep. Her\\nimage is a simple portrait of her how much less\\nbeautiful than she was in life we cannot know but as\\nbeautiful as marble can be. And through and in the\\nmarble we may see that the damsel is not dead, but\\nsleepeth yet as visibly a sleep that shall know no ending\\nuntil the last day break, and the last shadow flee away\\nuntil then, she shall not return. Her hands are laid on", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0280.jp2"}, "281": {"fulltext": "GUIDE-BOOKS. 269\\nher breast not praying she has no need to pray now.\\nShe wears her dress of every day, clasped at her throat,\\ngirdled at her waist, the hem of it drooping over her\\nfeet. No disturbance of its folds by pain or sickness,\\nno binding, no shrouding of her sweet form, in death\\nmore than in life. As a soft, low wave of summer sea,\\nher breast rises no more the rippled gathering of its\\nclose mantle droops to her belt, then sweeps to her feet,\\nstraight as drifting snow. And at her feet her dog lies\\nwatching her the mystery of his mortal life joined, by\\nlove, to her immortal one. Few know, and fewer love,\\nthe tomb and its place not shrine, for it stands bare by\\nthe cathedral wall. But no goddess statue of the\\nGreek cities, no nun s image among the cloisters of\\nApennine, no fancied light of angel in the homes of\\nheaven, has more divine rank among the thoughts of\\nmen.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0281.jp2"}, "282": {"fulltext": "2/0\\nCHAPTER XXVI.\\nTORS CLAVIGERA (1S71-1SS4).\\nThis collection of papers being in part biographical, I\\nhave placed it somewhat out of its chronological turn,\\nso as immediately to precede Prceterita in closing the\\nvolume.\\nThe name is explained by Ruskin at the outset.\\nFors Clavigera is the fate or fortune that bears a club, a\\nkey, a nail, signifying the deed of Hercules, the patience\\nof Ulysses, the law of Lycurgus.\\nOf the seven years volumes of the first series I cannot\\nhope to make even the all-imperfect indication (exposi-\\ntion it can hardly be called) the little popular guide\\nthat I have attempted in the case of the other works of\\ncapital importance. The running theme of this book is\\ntoo various, too allusive it is not a book as the others\\nare books. Unity of purpose it has, but it has the\\nform of letters Letters to the Workmen and Labourers\\nof Great Britain written according to the suggestion\\nof the changing day. The initial motive is the redress\\nof social misery miseria as the Italians call it par", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0282.jp2"}, "283": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA. 2/1\\nexcellence that is, the poverty of classes, the poverty of\\nmillions, indiscriminate poverty not the misery which\\nis either deserved or undeserved, or wherefrom this or\\nthat man can rise by using the shoulders of those who\\ncannot, but the massive poverty, the collective.\\nFor my own part [says the first letter] I will put up\\nwith this state of things not an hour longer. I am not\\nan unselfish person, nor an Evangelical one I have no\\nparticular pleasure in doing good neither do I dislike\\ndoing it so much as to expect to be rewarded for it in\\nanother world. But I simply cannot paint, nor read,\\nnor look at minerals, nor do anything else that I like,\\nbecause of the misery that I know of, and see signs\\nof where I know it not, which no imagination can inter-\\npret too bitterly.\\nThe help Ruskin proposes is, to show the causes, to\\nteach a remedy meanwhile to set aside the greater part\\nof his own wealth for the succour of misery in detail,\\nand to set members of St George s Guild over the acre-\\nages of the poverty of cities. Having found himself\\nrich, Ruskin piously and prudently began to grow poor\\nagain, for the sake of the poor, giving one-tenth of his\\nfortune, for instance, for the buying of land for them.\\nHe began to be poor. It would be a mockery to say\\nmore of a man living, as he said, between a Turkey\\ncarpet and a Titian, however laborious were his days.\\nIn many places he complains of the luxury of his boy-\\nhood, which made the practice of poverty more than he\\ncould attempt. He had always been generous giving\\nannuities with both hands the case of Miss Siddal in", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0283.jp2"}, "284": {"fulltext": "2/2 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nhtr delicate health has been made pubUc but he re-\\nproached himself that he had not the courage to live in\\na garret or make shoes like Tolstoi (whom he had not\\nread, but heard of with sympathetic envy) but, after\\nthe self-spoliation of his patrimony, he had a great\\nincome from his books. St George s Guild, the mem-\\nbers whereof gave also a tithe of their revenues, was to\\ndo the human work of keeping the garden and dressing\\nit, fostering fish in the waters, and flocks and herds on\\nthe grass. John Ruskin with his own hand tried to\\ntend a Surrey stream (at Carshalton) and tried to keep a\\nlittle piece of pavement clean in a London back street,\\nand his undergraduates mended the famous road near\\nOxford. The Guild was to succour childhood and\\neducate it. Education w^as one of his chief of all pro-\\njects. The John Ruskin school at Camberwell, and\\nWhitelands College at Chelsea, amongst others, keep\\nthe memory of his generosity and his sympathy. As\\nthe Guild was also to see that the poor were not fined\\nfor their poverty, he himself set up a shop in Paddington\\nStreet, served by his own servants, to sell tea in small\\nquantities without the usual disproportionate profit\\non the subdivision. But for lack of expenditure on\\nglass, brass, signs, and general advertising, the people\\nwere slow to buy at his shop. He would not reconcile\\nhimself to the fact (made hideous by exaggeration in\\nevery street) that a thing must be made known in a\\nstupid world. He had seen it written by a first-rate\\nman of business that a bad thing will pay, if you put", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0284.jp2"}, "285": {"fulltext": "PORS CLAVIGERA. 2/3\\nit properly before the public. What are the final\\nresults of putting bad things properly before the\\npublic he perceived, although neither the first-rate man\\nof business nor the public seemed to do so much.\\nIn regard to the spoliation of the poor and foolish by\\nmore direct means than the proportional increase of\\nprofit on small sales, or the profit generally made neces-\\nsary by plate glass and gilt letters, John Bright had said,\\nabout that time, that false weights and measures were\\nnot so frequent, nor was adulteration, as some philan-\\nthropists thought, and that therefore legislation had\\nbetter let the matter alone; moreover, that life would\\nnot be worth living if one s weights and measures were\\nliable to inspection or so Ruskin reports that depre-\\ncation of interference which was the pestilence of\\nhome affairs in those now distant days. Ruskin thought\\nso much inquisition ought to be tolerable. So does\\nall England think to-day. He also thought that the\\npoor ought not to be deprived of food for fear (on\\nthe part of tradesmen) that prices would go down.\\nHe had seen fish sent back to the coast from a London\\nmarket for this cause. So, too, one year when the sun\\nhad given a great harvest of plums, a London fruit-\\nseller refused to sell plums, for he said, with emotion,\\nit would 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 deal\\ns", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0285.jp2"}, "286": {"fulltext": "2/4 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nas well as they might. The rents of St George s lands\\nwere to be lowered, not raised, in proportion to improve-\\nments made by the tenant, and were to be returned to\\nthe land entirely in the form of better culture not\\nnecessarily returned to the piece of land that produced\\nthem, but applied there or elsewhere. The tenants of\\nSt George would have no more right to ask what was\\ndone with their fair rents than the tenants of another\\nlandlord have to ask about his race horses. The\\nfinancial work of the Company was to be (largely stated)\\nthe endowment, instead of the robbery by National\\nDebt, of children s children and endowment, not taxa-\\ntion, of the poor. For the construction of the Society\\nfor its system of museums for its admirable plan of\\ndiscouraging the arts, and especially the art of fiction\\nfor the laws of its public and commercial economy\\n(entirely gathered from, and tested by, English, Floren-\\ntine, and Venetian history, and obeyed, with no acknow-\\nledgment to Ruskin, by the practice of the magistrates\\nof our own day) for the vast scheme and its details,\\nin a word, the reader must consult those parts of the\\nseven years letters that deal with it. Of himself as\\nMaster, Ruskin wrote\\nWhat am I myself then, infirm and old, who take or\\nclaim leadership God forbid that I should claim\\nit it is thrust and compelled upon me utterly against\\nmy will, utterly to my distress, utterly, in many things,\\nto my shame Such as I am, to my own amaze-\\nment, I stand so far as I can discern\u00e2\u0080\u0094 -alone in con-\\nviction, in hope, and in resolution, in the wilderness of", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0286.jp2"}, "287": {"fulltext": "*FORS CLAVIGERA, 275\\nthis modern world. Bred in luxury, which I perceive to\\nhave been unjust to others, and destructive to myself;\\nvacillating, foolish, and miserably failing in all my own\\nconduct in life and blown about hopelessly by storms\\nof passion I, a man clothed in soft raiment, I, a\\nreed shaken with the wind\\nTo this passion of grief how shall any one desire that\\nconsolation had been brought Not for passion, but\\nfor the lack of it, he reminds us, are men condemned\\nbecause they had no pity. To wish him less mercy,\\nto wish, with the vain wish of retrospection, that Ruskin\\nhad found some solace in the midst of the martyrdom\\nof his convictions, is forbidden us.\\nLet this be borne in mind by those who care anything\\nfor the attempt the conception, the project, and the\\nfailure of the Company it was not intended to be a\\ncurative measure it was not to cure drunkenness or to\\ngive alms, but to change the motive and action of the\\nresponsible social world.\\nThe knotty parts of Political Economy must remain\\nknotty for ordinary minds. Ruskin thinks his way\\nthrough them as though they were easy to him. In\\nreading Mill, on the other hand, you find him making\\nhis way with difficulty. The mere reader may choose\\nhis teachers, but has the right to ask that they shall\\nspeak to him in pure and exact English. This Ruskin\\ndoes and Mill does not. There is nothing left, worth\\nsaying, of some of Mill s famous definitions after Ruskin\\nhas translated them. Those who call Ruskin s system\\nsentimental (intending to insult it) and think they", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0287.jp2"}, "288": {"fulltext": "276 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nhave clone enough, cannot have so much as set out upon\\nthe road of his argument. It is true that he here and\\nthere digresses, as, for instance, to tell us that ministers\\nof religion had been so loud against almsgiving one\\nwinter that when he wanted to give a penny he first\\nlooked up and down the street to see if a clergyman\\nwere coming. But the mental work, when it is in\\nprogress, is close. His quarrel with the science of\\nPolitical Economy, as it is taught by its popular pro-\\nfessors, is that it is not scientific enough, as his quarrel\\nwith the science of some geologists and of some botan-\\nists is to the same purpose. Although Ruskin says\\nnothing to show that he recognises the identity, he holds\\nmuch in common with Mill for example, the national\\nloss that is the price of luxury Ruskin, however, shows\\nthe mischief as well as the loss. But he is alone in\\nstating England to be a poor nation. Beside Mill s\\ncautious chapters on Loans Ruskin places this\\nThere is nothing really more monstrous in any\\nrecorded savagery than that governments should\\nbe able to get money for any folly they choose to\\ncommit by selling to capitalists the right of taxing future\\ngenerations to the end of time. All the cruellest wars in-\\nflicted, all the basest luxuries grasped by the idle classes,\\nare thus paid for by the poor a hundred times over.\\nLet me also extract this, which the reader will replace\\nin the chain of argument\\nThose nations which exchange mechanical or artistic\\nproductions for food are servile, and necessarily in pro-\\ncess of time will be ruined.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0288.jp2"}, "289": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA. 277\\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 larger\\nafter it has lain by, postponed, for a year or ten.\\nIt is less from the incompressible main argument than\\nfrom the by-ways of the letters on Economy that the\\npresent pages shall be illustrated. For instance, Ruskin\\ncommends a communism in all things, even joys\\nThere is in this world infinitely more joy than pain\\nto be shared, if you will only take your share such a\\npartaking of joys not at first ours being the perfection\\nof charity, and strangely enough, though a happy task,\\nmore difficult than many a sad one. This is from one\\nof those digressions on education which grow more and\\nmore frequent in the volumes o( Fors\\nYou little know by what constancy of law the\\npower of highest discipline and honour is vested by\\nNature in the two chivalries of the Horse and the\\nWave.\\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.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0289.jp2"}, "290": {"fulltext": "2/8 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nThis sums up, to one who will think of it, much of the\\nteaching of Ruskin on national economy\\nThat rain and frost of heaven and the earth which\\nthey loose and bind these, and the labour of your\\nhands to divide them, and subdue, are your wealth for\\never. You can diminish it, but cannot increase\\nthat your barns should be filled with plenty your\\npresses burst with new wine is your blessing and\\nevery year when it is full it must be new and, every\\nyear, no more. This money, which you think so multi-\\npliable, is only to be increased in the hands of some, by\\nthe loss of others. The sum of it, in the end, repre-\\nsents, and can represent, only what is in the barn and\\nwinepress.\\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 of\\nmore distant blue, still, to-day, embroidered with snow,\\nare rather to be thought of as vast precious stones than\\nmountains, for all the state of the world s palaces has\\nbeen 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 rivers\\nof a million of sudden streams. Why did not the\\nItalians gather the water for their towns Some men\\nwere standing idle in the piazze (machines doing such\\nwork as there was in their stead), others were employed", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0290.jp2"}, "291": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA.* 279\\nto dash to pieces the Gothic of Tuscany and Lom-\\nbardy, and others to stick bills bearing Rome or\\ndeath upon the ancient walls of Venice, but there was\\nno time nor money for saving the subalpine valleys from\\nflood. At the same time Ruskin gives a simple lesson\\nto engineers on the making of reservoirs, and to writers\\n(Charles Reade is evidently aimed at) on the description\\nof them. They should be wide, not deep the gate of\\na dry dock can keep out the Atlantic, to the necessary\\ndepth in feet and inches\u00e2\u0080\u0094 the depth giving the pres-\\nsure, not the superficies. Thence he passes, like\\nNapoleon after making roads, but to better purpose, to\\nthe education of girls and describes with an exquisite-\\nness that at once quickens and guards the sweet and\\nhumorous and modest phrases, Carpaccio s painting of\\nthe young princess. It is hard upon two American\\ngirls, whom Ruskin saw travelling from Venice to\\nVerona with the blinds of the railway carriage closed,\\nto rebuke them by the contrast of their mind and\\nmanners with St Ursula s. Incidentally Ruskin quotes\\nmuch from Marmontel, a writer of the late eighteenth\\ncentury to whom he claims a kind of resemblance of\\nsympathy, but whom the reader is free to think he\\nhonours over much.\\nThe twenty-fourth letter, which is the first dated from\\nCorpus Christi College, is the last which begins My\\nFriends not one of the workmen he addressed had\\nsent him a friendly word in answer. Nor shall I sign\\nmyself faithfully yours any more being very far from", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0291.jp2"}, "292": {"fulltext": "28o JOHN RUSKIN.\\nfaithfully my own, and having found most other people\\nanything but faithfully mine. To the other money-\\ntroubles expressed in this and other works of about this\\ntime begin to be added those doubts as to the lawful-\\nness of taking interest which Ruskin discusses with a\\ncorrespondent. The coin itself is the subject of one\\nletter, which has a fine lesson on the florin, and a gay\\none on the sovereign (the sovereign of 1872, and what\\nhave we not come to since then?):\\nAs a design how brightly comic it is The horse\\nlooking abstractedly into the air, instead of where pre-\\ncisely it would have looked, at the beast between its\\nlegs St George, with nothing but his helmet on (being\\nthe last piece of armour he is likely to want), putting his\\nnaked feet, at least his feet showing their toes through\\nthe buskins, well forward, that the dragon may with the\\ngreatest convenience get a bite at them and about to\\ndeliver a mortal blow at him with a sword which cannot\\nreach him by a couple of yards, or, I think, in George\\nIII. s piece, with a field-marshal s truncheon. Victor\\nCarpaccio had other opinions on the likelihood of\\nmatters in this battle. His St George exactly reverses\\nthe practice of ours. He rides armed, from shoulder to\\nheel, in proof but without his helmet. For the real\\ndifficulty in dragon-fights is not so much to kill\\nyour dragon as to see him at least to see him in time, it\\nbeing too probable that he will see you first. Carpaccio s\\nSt George will have his eyes about him, and his head\\nfree to turn freely. He meets his dragon at the\\ngallop, catches him in the mouth with his lance.\\nBut Victor Carpaccio had seen knights tilting and\\npoor Pistrucci had only seen them presenting ad-\\ndresses as my Lord Mayor, and killing turtle instead\\nof dragons.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0292.jp2"}, "293": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA. 28 1\\nWhat a perceptive and penetrative imagination as to\\nany encounter with dragons that may befall not Car-\\npaccio s imagination only, but Ruskin s How much\\ndramatic possession of the matter And what sense\\nof dragons Emerson had been the only man who\\nbelieved 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\\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 St\\nGeorge 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), how\\nthin and unintelligent is the malice of the jest Need-\\nless to say, however, the St George believed to have\\nbeen martyred under Diocletian was not the George of\\nthe bacon contract, later a heretic bishop, and lynched.\\nThe symbol of the dragon did not for some ages enter\\ninto the story of the canonised St George. On this\\nsubject it is that Ruskin speaks his only reverent word\\n(or nearly the only one) of a German author, calling\\nGoethe the wise German.\\nIn the prelude to the study of Scott which fills\\nsome part of Fors is this passage on some of the\\nresults of the work of talc-tellers, those who had\\ndynasties", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0293.jp2"}, "294": {"fulltext": "2S2 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nMiss Edgeworth made her morality so impertinent\\nthat, since her time, it has only been with fear and\\ntrembling that any good novelist has ventured to show\\nthe slightest bias in favour of the ten commandments.\\nScott made his romance so ridiculous that since his day\\none can t help fancying helmets were always paste-board,\\nand horses were always hobby. Dickens made every-\\nbody laugh or cry, so that they could not go about their\\nbusiness till they had got their faces in wrinkles and\\nThackeray settled like a meat-fly on whatever one had\\ngot for dinner, and made one sick of it.\\nIt is from Fors Clavigera that we first learn the story\\nof John Ruskin s childhood, severely governed in the\\nstrange sense of the Evangelical sect of that time\\nthat children should be deprived by compulsion of what\\ntheir elders amply permitted themselves, should see self-\\nindulgence at table in those they were taught to respect,\\nbut should be allowed no dainties for themselves. A\\nfasting father and mother setting the example one can\\nunderstand, but not this mute promise of a groaning\\nboard in the future, when father and mother should\\nbe dead. Ruskin acquiesces, more or less, in the disci-\\npline. It was Dickens who made things more equit-\\nable but the equity was established in indulgence, not\\nin fasting. Precious are the fragments of biography as\\nthe letters go on, and most mournful, as My father\\nand mother and nurse are dead, and the woman I hoped\\nwould have been my wife is dying. We find him\\nremembering amid the golden -lighted whitewash of a\\npoor room at Assisi (he not only studied Giotto and the\\n^ovcrello St Francis there, but maintained a Friar) the", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0294.jp2"}, "295": {"fulltext": "FORS CLAVIGERA. 283\\npoor room of his aunt at Croydon at Notre Dame\\ngleaning the remnants of old work among the fine fresh\\nrestorations, having it cast, and drawing it on the Pincio\\nwith his arm about the neck oia.frate who wished to kiss\\nhis hand. We find him (by a memory of what had\\nhappened in 1858) at Turin, overwhelmed by a sense of\\nthe God-given power of Veronese, and listening in a\\nWaldensian chapel to a little squeaking idiot, with a\\ncongregation of seventeen old women and three louts.\\nTheir preacher told them they were the only people of\\nGod in Turin. It had been the turning-point of\\ntwenty years of thought to John Ruskin, and more than\\ntwenty years in much darkness and sorrow followed\\nit, but during this sermon he had renounced the sect of\\nhis youth.\\nRuskin s diction is noble in vigour and high in vitality\\nin this work of impassioned intellect, I^ors Clavigera.\\nNot here does he force with difficulty the tired and\\ninelastic common speech to explain his untired mind, as\\nin some pages of Modern Painters not here are per-\\norations of eloquence over-rich not here constructions\\nafter Hooker, nor signs of Gibbon. All the diction is\\nfused in the fiery life, and the lesser beauties of elo-\\nquence are far transcended. During the publication of\\nthese letters the world told him, now that he could\\nexpress himself but could not think, and now that he\\nwas effeminate. But he was giving to that world the\\nwords of a martyr of thought, and the martyr was a man.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0295.jp2"}, "296": {"fulltext": "284\\nCHAPTER XXVII.\\nPR^TERITA (1SS5-1S89).\\nThe limits of a brief expository essay debar me from\\ngiving so much as an outline of small out-lying books,\\nearly pamphlets and articles, and later lectures, public\\nletters, ai-.d such minor incidental work as the notes on\\nthe Royal Academy of six years; the notes on the\\nTurner drawings the ten conversation-lectures to little\\nschool-girls on the elements of crystallisation, published\\nunder the title Ethics of the Dust (1866) The Lazvs of\\nFesole (1877-1878); The Pleasures of Eji gland (1885),\\nwhich were the last of the Slade lectures Hortus Jn-\\nclusus (18 74- 1 88 7) the letters to Miss Beever and\\nher sister, who collected the volume Frondes Agrestes\\nfrom Modern Painters the studies of the architecture\\nof the Cistercian Order and the re-published volume\\nof early poetry. Arroius of the Chace and On the Old\\nRoad contain respectively the public letters and the\\nmagazine papers, collected. There remains, therefore,\\nonly the book of autobiography, the last page whereof\\nwas the last written by Ruskin for the world.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0296.jp2"}, "297": {"fulltext": "PR.^TERirA. 285\\nThe friendship with Turner in Ruskin s youth is pre-\\nsented to us as a relation warm and equal in the elder\\ngeneration but as to himself Ruskin records little but\\nslight discouragement from the painter he loved. Turner\\nseems to have been principally anxious that the young\\nauthor should give his parents no anxiety on his travels\\nThey will be in such a fidge about you, we find\\nTurner snying dubiously on his own doorstep when\\nRuskin was to travel alone. It used to be, to my\\nfather, yours most truly, and to me yours truly.\\nRuskin s first defence of the old man (it was against a\\ncriticism in Blackivood s Magazine, in 1836, and Ruskin\\nwas seventeen) is acknowledged with thanks but with-\\nout praise, and Turner adds, I never move in these\\nmatters. We read of Ruskin s own study of drawing.\\nHe learnt, whilst yet in his teens, of Copley Fielding,\\nto wash colour smoothly in successive tints, to shade\\ncobalt through pink madder into yellow ochre for skies,\\nto use a broken scraggy touch for the tops of mountains,\\nto represent calm lakes by broad strips of shade with\\nlines of light between them, to produce dark clouds\\nand rain with twelve or t\\\\venty successive washes, and to\\ncrumble burnt umber with a dry brush for foliage and\\nforeground.\\nBut this was a pupil w^ho was discovering a manner of\\nmeasuring the degrees of blue in the sky, and who was\\nacquiring the only true temper of solitude unlike, he\\nfound later, to Carlyle s\\nThat the rest of the world wvis waste to him unless\\nhe had admirers in it, is a sorry slate of sentiment", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0297.jp2"}, "298": {"fulltext": "286 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nenough. My entire delight was in observing with-\\nout being myself noticed. I was absolutely interested\\nin men and their ways, as I was interested in marmots\\nand chamois, in tomtits and trout. If only they would\\nstay still and let me look at them, and not get into their\\nholes and up their heights.\\nThe most moving passage in the first volume shows\\nthe opening to Ruskin of the Gates of the Hills, on\\nhis impassioned petition to his parents that the way\\nof travel might, for the first time, lie towards the Alps\\nGates of the Hills opening for me to a new life\\nto cease no more, except at the Gates of the Hills whence\\none returns not.\\nIt is from the slight record of the books taken into\\nthe travelling-carriage that I quote this magnificent image\\nof the great balance of Johnson s style\\nI valued his sentences not primarily because they\\nwere symmetrical, but because they were just, and clear\\nit is a method of judgment rarely used by the average\\npublic, who are as ready with their applause for a\\nsentence of Macaulay s, which may have no more sense\\nin it than a blot pinched between doubled paper, as to\\nreject one of Johnson s, though its symmetry be as\\nof thunder atiswering from two horizons.^\\nWe find Ruskin, of age, making drawings rather in\\nimitation of Turner, and out of his own head, than in\\nthe copying of Copley Fielding,\u00e2\u0080\u0094 drawings with rocks,\\ncastles, and balustrades. He was aware, throughout his\\nlife, of his lack of inventive imagination. I can no\\nmore write a story than compose a picture, he says", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0298.jp2"}, "299": {"fulltext": "PR^TERITA. 287\\nin reference to his story for children, The King of the\\nGolden River. It was a bit of ivy round a thorn stem\\nthat first drew his eyes to the hfe of things, and next he\\nstudied an aspen-tree against the sky on a road through\\nFontainebleau in a later page he avows that his draw-\\nings of Venetian stones were living and like. And\\nwith these traces of travel are the records of Beauvais,\\nBourges, Chartres, Rouen, a magnificent chapter on\\nGeneva and the Rhone, and on his discovery of the\\nCampo Santo at Pisa, and of Lucca, to be beloved\\nfor the rest of life. Here was the tomb of Ilaria del\\nCaretto, and\\nHere in Lucca I found myself suddenly in the pres-\\nence of twelfth century buildings, originally set in such\\nbalance of masonry that they could all stand without\\nmortar and in material so incorruptible, that after six\\nhundred years of sunshine and rain, a lancet could not\\nnow be put between their joints.\\nIn the Pisan cemetery Ruskin drew, seated on a\\nscaffold level with the frescoes.\\nI, being by this time practised in delicate\\ncurves, by having drawn trees and grass rightly, got far\\nbetter results than I had hoped, and had an extremely\\nhappy fortnight of it. For as the triumph of Death\\nwas no new thought to me, the life of hermits was no\\ntemptation.\\nAt Florence he made friends with the Friars at Fiesole\\n(he insists upon Fesole, with an acute accent that has\\nno existence in the Italian language), for the Friars had", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0299.jp2"}, "300": {"fulltext": "288 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nnot yet been expelled by law, and there remained some\\nliving ancient stones in Italy, later destroyed, or restored,\\nor dead, dark, and dull within museums. His principal\\nwork was at Santa Maria Novella and San Marco, and\\nhis master, Fra Angelico Lippi and Botticelli being\\nstill far beyond me.\\nWhy did Ruskin never go to Spain He owns that\\nhe admires in himself the simplicity of affection that\\nkept him in love year by year with Calais sands, and the\\nnarcissus meadows of Vevay, and the tomb at Lucca,\\nwhereas he heard even more than the customary praises\\n(through his father s wine-making relations) of the sierras\\nand of the architecture. It seems that he decided, on\\nthe evidence of the absolutely careful and faithful work\\nof David Roberts, that Spanish and Arab buildings\\nwere merely luxurious in ornament, and inconstructive\\nin character. He went no further and had, besides,\\nmore than enough on the ways of study that knew his\\nfeet. It is in allusion to Spain, however, that in this\\nsecond volume of PnEterita we find the first signs of his\\nvigilance in other things than the leaves of nature or the\\narts of man. It is in the chapter called The Feasts of\\nthe Vandals, which names the guests received in the\\nRuskins house. Amongst them were the daughters of\\nthe wine -selling partner, M. Domecq, in those days\\nmarried.\\nElise, Comtesse des Roys, and Caroline, Princesse\\nBethune, came with their husbands partly to see\\nLondon, partly to discuss with my father his manage-", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0300.jp2"}, "301": {"fulltext": "PR^TERITA. 289\\nment of the English market and the way in which\\nthese lords, virtually, of lands both in France and Spain,\\nthough men of sense and honour and their wives,\\nthough women of gentle and amiable disposition,\\nspoke of their Spanish labourers and French tenantry,\\nwith no idea whatever respecting them but that, except\\nas producers by their labour of money to be spent in\\nParis, they were cumberers of the ground, gave me the\\nfirst clue to the real sources of wrong in the social laws\\nof modern Europe. It was already beginning to be,\\nif not a question, at least a marvel with me, that these\\ngraceful and 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, and\\nthe other furnished our walls with pictures, our\\ngardens with milk and honey, and five noble houses\\nin Paris with the means of beautiful dominance in its\\nElysian fields.\\nRuskin s friendship with Dr John Brown, a friend of\\nhis father s race and native town, and therefore, he says,\\nbest of friends for him, is conspicuous in the second\\nvolume. Of the long friendship with Carlyle there is\\nlittle trace, and that little a report not of Ruskin s but\\nof Carlyle s youth. Margaret was the daughter of the\\nschoolmaster who gave to Carlyle his first valid lessons\\nin Latin. She lived to be twenty-seven. Carlyle told\\nRuskin, The last time that I wept aloud in the world,\\nI think was at her death.\\nDuring the journeys told in the earlier pages of this\\nvolume, Ruskin was meditating the second volume of\\nT", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0301.jp2"}, "302": {"fulltext": "290 JOHN RUSKIN.\\nModern Paititers. Sydney Smith was amongst the most\\neagerly expectant. Ruskin says\\nAll the main principles of metaphysics asserted in\\nthe opening of Modern Painters had been, with con-\\nclusive decision and simplicity, laid down by Sydney\\nhimself in the lectures he gave on Moral Philosophy at\\nthe Royal Institution in the years 1804-5-6, of which he\\nhad never himself recognised the importance.\\nThe reader may remember, I will add, that Sydney\\nSmith was slightly contemned as a sentimentalist for his\\nadvocacy of the cause of climbing boys. At any rate,\\nthose readers who care for children and for the English\\nlanguage may have in their minds the phrases whereby,\\nin the course of his plea for legislation in that matter,\\nhe rebuked the world of his day for its profligate\\nmdifference.\\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 earliest\\nadmirer in high places. Ruskin s fame was already old,\\nand he still young, when on the Lake of Geneva he met\\nhis American reader, Charles Eliot Norton my second\\nfriend after Dr John Brown my first real tutor.\\nThis friend was of his own age, but a greater reader,\\nRuskin found, and a better scholar. In 1888, writing\\nPrcEterita at Sallenches, he says in regard to this\\nfriendship", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0302.jp2"}, "303": {"fulltext": "PR^TERITA. 291\\nI can see them at this moment, those mountain\\nmeadows, if I rise from my writing-table yes, and\\nthere is the very path we chmbed together, apparently\\nunchanged. But on what seemed then the everlasting\\nhills, beyond which the dawn rose cloudless, and on the\\nheaven in which it rose, and on all that we that day\\nknew, of human mind and virtue how great the change,\\nand sorrowful, I cannot measure.\\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 connection I must extract a\\ncharming passage from one of the letters, of thirty years\\nlater, to Miss Beever, from Assisi\\nThe Sacristan gives me my coffee for lunch in his\\nown little cell, looking out on the olive woods and\\nthen perhaps we go into the sacristy and have a reverent\\nlittle poke-out of relics. Things that are only shown\\ntwice in the year or so, with fumigation all the congre-\\ngation on their knees and the sacristan and I having a\\ngreat heap of them on the table at once, like a dinner-\\nservice\\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 fore-\\ntold and long desired days of political unity. Tearings\\nto pieces and restorations he was compelled to see under\\nthe various political conditions of half a century. More\\ninevitable things than these, in all countries, displeased\\nhim howbeit he resigned himself, many years after the", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0303.jp2"}, "304": {"fulltext": "292 JOHN RUSKIN.\\ninvention of railways, to main lines. It was the by-ways\\nof the rail that he thought unnecessary and unnecessarily\\ndestructive.\\nThere was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bake-\\nwell, divine as the vale of Tempe you might have seen\\nthe gods there morning and evening Apollo and all the\\nsweet Muses of the Light. You enterprised a railroad,\\nyou blasted its rocks away, and now every\\nfool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half an hour, and\\nevery fool in Bakewell at Buxton.\\nThe last phrase of the last volume (1889) closes a\\nremembrance of Fonte Branda, the waters Dante\\nremembered 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\\nexhibition in 1878, written just before the gravest\\nillness of his life\\nOh that some one 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 when\\nthe silence of lawn and wood in the dews of morning\\nshould be completed and all my thoughts should be of\\nthose whom, by neither, I was to meet more", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0304.jp2"}, "305": {"fulltext": "CHRONOLOGY.\\nThe kindness of Mr Ruskin s friend and mine, Mr S. C.\\nCockerell, gives me the advantage of borrowing, with some\\nslight abbreviations, his excellent biographical Chronology.\\n1819.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Feb. 8. John Ruskia born 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick\\nSquare.\\n1S22.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 To Perth. Portrait by Northcote.\\n1S23.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Summer tour in S.W. of England. Removed to 28 Heme\\nHill.\\n1824.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 To the Lakes, Keswick, Perth.\\n1825.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 To Paris, Brussels, Waterloo.\\n1826.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Wrote first poem The Needless Alarm. Summer tour to\\nthe Lakes and Perth. Began Latin.\\n1S27. Summer at Perth.\\n1828.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Summer in West of England. His cousin Mary Richardson\\nadopted by his parents.\\n1S29. Summer in Kent.\\n1S30.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 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.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 First Turner study in Rogers Italy. Tour to the Rhine\\nand Switzerland. Copied Rembrandt. Went to day-school.\\n1834.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 First study of Alpine geology. First published writings.\\nSummer tour in West of England.\\n1835.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Tour to Switzerland and Italy. First published poems.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0305.jp2"}, "306": {"fulltext": "294 JOHN RUSKIN.\\n1836. Visit of the Domecqs. Drawing lessons from Copley\\nFielding. Wrote Defence of Turjier. Tour to the South\\nCoast after matriculating at Christ Church.\\n1S37. Went into residence at Oxford. Summer tour to the Lakes\\nand Yorkshire. Began Poet}y of Ajxhitediire, and The Con-\\nvergence of Perpendictdars.\\n1838. Wrote essay, Comparative Advantages of Music and Paint-\\nittg. Tour to the Lakes.\\n1839. 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.\\n1841. 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 Modem Painters, vol. i.\\n1843. Removed from Heme Hill to Denmark Hill. Took M.A.\\ndegree.\\n1844. Tour in Switzerland. Studied Old Masters at the\\nLouvre.\\n1845. First tour alone. To Pisa. Study of Christian art at Lucca\\nand Florence. To Verona. Study of Tintoretto at Venice.\\nWrote Modem Painters, vol. ii.\\n1846. 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.\\n1851. Notes on Sheepfolds. Acquaintance with Carlyle and\\nMaurice. Defence of the Pre Raphaelites. Tour through\\nFrance and Switzerland. Winter and following spring at\\nVenice. (Dec. 19. Turner died.)\\n1852. Stones of Venice, vols. ii. and iii.\\n1853.\u00e2\u0080\u0094 With Dr Acland and Millais at Glenfinlas. Lectures,\\nArchitecture and Paititing, at Edinburgh.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0306.jp2"}, "307": {"fulltext": "CHRONOLOGY. 295\\n1854. With parents in Switzerland. Drawing. Working Men s\\nCollege inaugurated. Lectures to decorative workmen.\\n1855. Academy Notes began. Studied shipping at Deal. Modern\\nPainters, vols. iii. and iv.\\n1856. 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 Iro7i, Tunbridge Wells. Official Report on Turner bequest.\\nAddress, Study of Art, St Martin s School. Tour alone in\\nSwitzerland and Italy, studying Veronese at Turin. Inaugural\\naddress to Cambridge School of Art.\\n1859. Lecture, Unity of Art, Royal Institution. cXx\\\\xe, Modern\\nMamifacture and Design, Bradford. Address, Switzerlana,\\nWorking Men s College. Last tour with parents, in Germany.\\ni860. Address, Religiotis Art, Working Men s College. Modern\\nPainters, vol. v. Unto this Last, at Chamouni.\\n1861. Gave Turner drawings to Oxford and to Cambridge. Ad-\\ndresses, St George s Mission, Denmark Hill Tree 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, King s Treasuries and\\nQueen s Gardens, and address at Grammar-School, Manchester.\\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 botany.\\nSpoke at meeting of the Eyre Defence Committee.\\n1867. Tirne and Tide. Rede Lecture. Lecture, Modern Art,\\nRoyal Institution.\\n1868. Lecture, Myste y of Life, Dublin. Address, Three-legged\\nStool of Art, Jcrmyn Street. Tour in Belgium and France\\nwith Professor Norton and others.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0307.jp2"}, "308": {"fulltext": "296 JOHN RUSKIN.\\n1869. Lecture, Flamboyant Architecture of the Somme, Royal\\nInstitution. Lecture, Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm,\\nUniversity 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 rts 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 Scot-\\nland. Endowment of Mastership of Drawing, at Oxford.\\nElected Lord Rector of St Andrews University. His mother\\ndied.\\n1872. Lecture, The Bird of Calm, Woolwich. Slade courses,\\nEagle s Nest and Ariadne Florentina. In residence at Corpus\\nChristi College. In Italy. First residence at Brantwood.\\n1873. Re-elected Slade Professor. V2.^^qx, Nature and Authority\\nof ]\\\\Iiracle, Grosvenor Hotel. Lectures, Robin, Sivalloio, and\\nC/^^i(f//, Oxford and Eton. Slade course, Val d^Aj-no.\\n1874. To Rome and Sicily, studied Giotto at Assisi. Slade\\ncourse, Alps and yiira, and Schools of Floi-entine 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 Modern\\nPainters. Lecture, Streams of Westmoreland, 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, Sheffield.\\n1880. Lectures, Snakes, London Institution Amiens, Eton. To\\nAbbeville, Amiens, Beauvais, Chartres, Rouen.\\n1882. Copied in National Gallery. In France and Iialy. Met\\nMiss Alexander at Florence. Lecture, Cistercian Architecture,\\nLondon Institute.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0308.jp2"}, "309": {"fulltext": "CHRONOLOGY. 297\\n18S3. Slade course, Art of England. Lecture, Francesca Alex-\\nander and Kate Greenaivay, Kensington, Tour to Scotland.\\nLecture, Sir Herbert Edwardes, Coniston.\\n1S84. Lecture, The Storm Cloud, London Institution. Lecture\\nto Academy Girls. Slade course, The Pleasures of England.\\n1S85. Address to Society of Friends of Living Creatures, Bedford\\nPark.\\n\\\\%Z6.\u00e2\u0080\u0094Praterita.\\n1887. A posting journey in England.\\n1888. To Beauvais, the Jura, Venice, Berne. Last No. of\\nPr(eterita.\\n1900. ^January 20. Death at Brantwood, Coniston.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0309.jp2"}, "310": {"fulltext": "INDEX.\\nAir, The Queen of the, 189.\\nAmiens, The Bible of 265.\\nAratra Pentelici, 209.\\nArchitecture and Painting, Lec-\\ntures on, 127 et seq,\\nAriadne Florentina, 227,\\nArrows of the Chace, 284.\\nArt, Lectures on, 194.\\nArt, The Political Economy of,\\n136.\\nBible of Amiens, The, 265.\\nBotticelli, 232, 233.\\nBrown, Dr John, 289,\\nBrowning, 133, 134.\\nByron, 5, 133.\\n\u00e2\u0096\u00a0Carlyle, 8, 159, 236, 285, 289.\\nCarpaccio, 260, 264.\\n\u00e2\u0096\u00a0Claude, 11, 12, 16, 18, 32, 35, 54,\\n75-\\nCobbett, William, 159.\\nColeridge, 133.\\nConstable, John, 54.\\nCoreggio, 80, 91.\\nCornhill Magazine, The, 152,\\n164.\\nCrabbe, 133.\\nCrown of Wild Olive, The, 179.\\nDante, 195.\\nDcucalio?i, 244.\\nDickens, Charles, 5, 37, 238, 257,\\n282.\\nDomenichino, 23.\\nDrawijig, Elemcttts of, 131.\\nDi^irer, Albert, 75.\\nDust, Ethics of the, 284.\\nEagle s Nest, The, 214.\\nEdgeworth, Maria, 282.\\nElements of Drawing, 131.\\nElements of Perspective, 135.\\nEliot, George, 61.\\nEmerson, 281.\\nEngland, The Pleasures of, 284.\\nEthics of the Dust, 284.\\nFawcett, Henry, 277.\\nFdsole, The Laivs of 284,\\nFiction Fair and Foul, 60.\\nFielding, Copley, 285, 286.\\nFlorence, Mornings in, 258.\\nForbes, James, 247.\\nFors Clavigera, 270.\\nEraser s Magazine, 164.\\nGainsborough, 12, 195.\\nGautier, Thfephile, 18.\\nGoethe, 281.\\nGolde?i River, The King of the,\\n287.\\nGibbon, Edward, 17, 34, 262\\n283.\\nGiorgione, 78, 80.\\nGiotto, 258.\\nGuild, St George s, 271, 272.\\nGuinicelli, Guido, 167.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0310.jp2"}, "311": {"fulltext": "INDEX.\\n299\\nHolbein, 68, 71, 232, 233.\\nHooker, Richard, 47, 283.\\nHortus Inclusus, 284.\\nHunt, Holman, 122, 125.\\nHunt, William, 132.\\nHuxley, Professor, 250.\\nJohnson, Samuel, 34, 48, 58, 257,\\n263, 286.\\nKeats, 133.\\nKing of the Golden River, The,\\n287.\\nKingsley, Charles, 56.\\nLandseer, Sir Edwin, 45, tj.\\nLaws of Fisole, The, 284.\\nLectures on Architecture and\\nPainting, 127 et seq.\\nLectttres on Art, 194.\\nLilies, Sesame and, 166, 185.\\nLongfellow, 133.\\nLoves Meinie, 245.\\nLowell, J. R., 133.\\nMacaulay, 286.\\nMarmontel, Jean Fran9ois, 167,\\n279.\\nMeredith, Mr George, 72, 197.\\nMichelangiolo, 20, 42, 49, 213.\\nMill, J. S., 157 et seq., 162, 275.\\nMillais, 122, 222.\\nMilton, 170.\\nModern Painters, vol. i., 10 et\\nseq. vol. ii., -^^etseq. vol. iii.,\\n48 et seq. vol. iv., 61 et seq.\\nvol. v. 67 et seq.\\nMornings in Florence, 258.\\nNorthcote, James, i.\\nNorton, Professor Charles E.. 8,\\n290.\\nOlive, The Crown of Wild, 179.\\nOn the Old Road, 284.\\nPaths, The Two, 140.\\nPatmore, Coventry, loi, 133.\\nPerspective, Elements of, 135.\\nPisano, Giovanni, 238, 242.\\nPisano, Nicola, 258.\\nPleasures of England, The, 284.\\nPolitical Economy of Art, The,\\n136.\\nPoussin, Caspar, 11, 12, 16, 28,\\n30. 33 37, 75-\\nPoussin, Nicole, 71.\\nPrccterita, 284.\\nPre-Raf/iaelitistn, Ruskin s pam\u00c2\u00ab\\nphlet on, 123, 200.\\nPre-Raphaelitism, The Three Col-\\nours of, 125, 268.\\nProserpina, 245, 251.\\nQuee?i of the Air, The, 189.\\nRaphael, 14, 42, 94.\\nReade, Charles, 279.\\nRembrandt, 22, 50.\\nReynolds, Sir Joshua, 14, 48, 80,\\n108, 195, 199.\\nRicardo, 159.\\nRoad, On the Old, 284.\\nRoberts, David, 288.\\nRogers, Samuel, 5.\\nRosa, Salvator, 11, 12, 15, 16, 28,\\n30 34. 35. 75-\\nRossetti, 133.\\nRubens, 20, 31, 70, 108.\\nScott, Sir W., 5, 55, 59, 133, 173,\\n244, 282.\\nSesame and Lilies, 166, 185.\\nSeven Latnps of .-I rchilecture, The,\\n82 et seq.\\nSevern, Mrs Arthur, 7.\\nShakespeare, 173, 216.\\nShelley, 133.\\nSlade, Felix, 6.\\nSmith, Sydney, 290.\\nSpenser, 173.\\nStewart, Dugald, 43.\\nSt George s Guild, 271, 272.\\nSt Mark s Rest, 260.\\nStones of Venice, The, 102 et\\nseq.\\nSwift, Jonathan, 167.\\nTeniers, 16.\\nTennyson, 133.\\nThackeray, 164, 282.\\nThree Colours of Pre-Raphaelitism,\\nThe, 125, 268.\\nTime and Tide by Weare and\\nTyne, 183.\\nTintoret, 80.\\nTitian, 14, 59, 68, 71, 80, 144.\\nTolstoi, 272.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0311.jp2"}, "312": {"fulltext": "300\\nINDEX.\\nTurner, John, 6, lo, 12, 18, 21, 24 Vandyck, 70.\\net seq., 29, 31 et seq., 48, 59, 62, Velasquez, jj.\\n71, 78, 79, 80, 125, 176, 206, Venice, The Stones of, 102 et\\n244, 285. seq.\\nTwo Paths, The, 140. Veronese, Paul, 50, 51, 80, io8.\\nTyndall, Professor, 189, 245, 247.\\nWeare arid Tyne, Time and Tide\\nUnto This Last, 152. by, 183.\\nWild Olive, The Crown of, 179.\\nVal D Arno, 235. Wordsworth, 133.\\nTHE END.\\nPRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0312.jp2"}, "313": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0313.jp2"}, "314": {"fulltext": "OCT 23 1900\\nDeacidified using the Bookkeeper process.\\nNeutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide\\nTreatment Date; May 2009\\nPreservationTechnologies\\nA WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0314.jp2"}, "315": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0315.jp2"}, "316": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS\\n014 529 175 6\\n^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^KTi^aa^bi\\nI J- ^lJ.,", "height": "2698", "width": "1674", "jp2-path": "johnruskin00meyn_0316.jp2"}}