[Transcriber's note: Transliteration of Greek words appears between + signs.]
Library Edition
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN
CROWN OF WILD OLIVE
TIME AND TIDE
QUEEN OF THE AIR
LECTURES ON ART AND LANDSCAPE
ARATRA PENTELICI
NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK CHICAGO
***
LECTURES ON ART.
DELIVERED
BEFORE THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
IN HILARY TERM, 1870.
***
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
INAUGURAL 1
LECTURE II.
THE RELATION OF ART TO RELIGION 24
LECTURE III.
THE RELATION OF ART TO MORALS 46
LECTURE IV.
THE RELATION OF ART TO USE 66
LECTURE V.
LINE 86
LECTURE VI.
LIGHT 102
LECTURE VII.
COLOUR 123
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1887.
The following lectures were the most important piece of my literary work
done with unabated power, best motive, and happiest concurrence of
circumstance. They were written and delivered while my mother yet lived,
and had vividest sympathy in all I was attempting;--while also my
friends put unbroken trust in me, and the course of study I had followed
seemed to fit me for the acceptance of noble tasks and graver
responsibilities than those only of a curious traveler, or casual
teacher.
Men of the present world may smile at the sanguine utterances of the
first four lectures: but it has not been wholly my own fault that they
have remained unfulfilled; nor do I retract one word of hope for the
success of other masters, nor a single promise made to the sincerity of
the student's labor, on the lines here indicated. It would have been
necessary to my success, that I should have accepted permanent residence
in Oxford, and scattered none of my energy in other tasks. But I chose
to spend half my time at Coniston Waterhead; and to use half my force in
attempts to form a new social organization,--the St. George's
Guild,--which made all my Oxford colleagues distrustful of me, and many
of my Oxford hearers contemptuous. My mother's death in 1871, and that
of a dear friend in 1875, took away the personal joy I had in anything I
wrote or designed: and in 1876, feeling unable for Oxford duty, I
obtained a year's leave of rest, and, by the kind and wise counsel of
Prince Leopold, went to Venice, to reconsider the form into which I had
cast her history in the abstract of it given in the "Stones of Venice."
The more true and close view of that history, begun in "St. Mark's
Rest," and the fresh architectural drawings made under the stimulus of
it, led me forward into new fields of thought, inconsistent with the
daily attendance needed by my Oxford classes; and in my discontent with
the state I saw them in, and my inability to return to their guidance
without abandonment of all my designs of Venetian and Italian history,
began the series of vexations which ended in the very nearly mortal
illness of 1878.
Since, therefore, the period of my effective action in Oxford was only
from 1870 to 1875, it can scarcely be matter of surprise or reproof that
I could not in that time obtain general trust in a system of teaching
which, though founded on that of Da Vinci and Reynolds, was at variance
with the practice of all recent European academy schools; nor
establish--on the unassisted resources of the Slade Professorship--the
schools of Sculpture, Architecture, Metal-work, and manuscript
Illumination, of which the design is confidently traced in the four
inaugural lectures.
In revising the book, I have indicated as in the last edition of the
"Seven Lamps," passages which the student will find generally
applicable, and in all their bearings useful, as distinguished from
those regarding only their immediate subject. The relative importance of
these broader statements, I again indicate by the use of capitals or
italics; and if the reader will index the sentences he finds useful for
his own work, in the blank pages left for that purpose at the close of
the volume, he will certainly get more good of them than if they had
been grouped for him according to the author's notion of their contents.
SANDGATE, _10th January, 1888_.
LECTURES ON ART
LECTURE I
INAUGURAL
1. The duty which is to-day laid on me, of introducing, among the
elements of education appointed in this great University, one not only
new, but such as to involve in its possible results some modification of
the rest, is, as you well feel, so grave, that no man could undertake it
without laying himself open to the imputation of a kind of insolence;
and no man could undertake it rightly, without being in danger of having
his hands shortened by dread of his task, and mistrust of himself.
And it has chanced to me, of late, to be so little acquainted either
with pride or hope, that I can scarcely recover so much as I now need,
of the one for strength, and of the other for foresight, except by
remembering that noble persons, and friends of the high temper that
judges most clearly where it loves best, have desired that this trust
should be given me: and by resting also in the conviction that the
goodly tree whose roots, by God's help, we set in earth to-day, will not
fail of its height because the planting of it is under poor auspices, or
the first shoots of it enfeebled by ill gardening.
2. The munificence of the English gentleman to whom we owe the founding
of this Professorship at once in our three great Universities, has
accomplished the first great group of a series of changes now taking
gradual effect in our system of public education, which, as you well
know, are the sign of a vital change in the national mind, respecting
both the principles on which that education should be conducted, and the
ranks of society to which it should extend. For, whereas it was formerly
thought that the discipline necessary to form the character of youth was
best given in the study of abstract branches of literature and
philosophy, it is now thought that the same, or a better, discipline may
be given by informing men in early years of the things it will be of
chief practical advantage to them afterwards to know; and by permitting
to them the choice of any field of study which they may feel to be best
adapted to their personal dispositions. I have always used what poor
influence I possessed in advancing this change; nor can any one rejoice
more than I in its practical results. But the completion--I will not
venture to say, correction--of a system established by the highest
wisdom of noble ancestors, cannot be too reverently undertaken: and it
is necessary for the English people, who are sometimes violent in change
in proportion to the reluctance with which they admit its necessity, to
be now, oftener than at other times, reminded that the object of
instruction here is not primarily attainment, but discipline; and that a
youth is sent to our Universities, not (hitherto at least) to be
apprenticed to a trade, nor even always to be advanced in a profession;
but, always, to be made a gentleman and a scholar.
3. To be made these,--if there is in him the making of either. The
populaces of civilised countries have lately been under a feverish
impression that it is possible for all men to be both; and that having
once become, by passing through certain mechanical processes of
instruction, gentle and learned, they are sure to attain in the sequel
the consummate beatitude of being rich.
Rich, in the way and measure in which it is well for them to be so, they
may, without doubt, _all_ become. There is indeed a land of Havilah open
to them, of which the wonderful sentence is literally true--"The gold of
_that_ land is good." But they must first understand, that education, in
its deepest sense, is not the equaliser, but the discerner, of men;[1]
and that, so far from being instruments for the collection of riches,
the first lesson of wisdom is to disdain them, and of gentleness, to
diffuse.
[Footnote 1: The full meaning of this sentence, and of that which closes
the paragraph, can only be understood by reference to my more developed
statements on the subject of Education in "Modern Painters" and in "Time
and Tide." The following fourth paragraph is the most pregnant summary
of my political and social principles I have ever been able to give.]
It is not therefore, as far as we can judge, yet possible for all men to
be gentlemen and scholars. Even under the best training some will remain
too selfish to refuse wealth, and some too dull to desire leisure. But
many more might be so than are now; nay, perhaps all men in England
might one day be so, if England truly desired her supremacy among the
nations to be in kindness and in learning. To which good end, it will
indeed contribute that we add some practice of the lower arts to our
scheme of University education; but the thing which is vitally necessary
is, that we should extend the spirit of University education to the
practice of the lower arts.
4. And, above all, it is needful that we do this by redeeming them from
their present pain of self-contempt, and by giving them _rest_. It has
been too long boasted as the pride of England, that out of a vast
multitude of men, confessed to be in evil case, it was possible for
individuals, by strenuous effort, and rare good fortune, occasionally to
emerge into the light, and look back with self-gratulatory scorn upon
the occupations of their parents, and the circumstances of their
infancy. Ought we not rather to aim at an ideal of national life, when,
of the employments of Englishmen, though each shall be distinct, none
shall be unhappy or ignoble; when mechanical operations, acknowledged to
be debasing in their tendency,[2] shall be deputed to less fortunate and
more covetous races; when advance from rank to rank, though possible to
all men, may be rather shunned than desired by the best; and the chief
object in the mind of every citizen may not be extrication from a
condition admitted to be disgraceful, but fulfilment of a duty which
shall be also a birthright?
[Footnote 2: "+technai epirrêtoi+," compare page 81.]
5. And then, the training of all these distinct classes will not be by
Universities of general knowledge, but by distinct schools of such
knowledge as shall be most useful for every class: in which, first the
principles of their special business may be perfectly taught, and
whatever higher learning, and cultivation of the faculties for receiving
and giving pleasure, may be properly joined with that labour, taught in
connection with it. Thus, I do not despair of seeing a School of
Agriculture, with its fully-endowed institutes of zoology, botany, and
chemistry; and a School of Mercantile Seamanship, with its institutes of
astronomy, meteorology, and natural history of the sea: and, to name
only one of the finer, I do not say higher, arts, we shall, I hope, in a
little time, have a perfect school of Metal-work, at the head of which
will be, not the ironmasters, but the goldsmiths: and therein, I
believe, that artists, being taught how to deal wisely with the most
precious of metals, will take into due government the uses of all
others.
But I must not permit myself to fail in the estimate of my immediate
duty, while I debate what that duty may hereafter become in the hands of
others; and I will therefore now, so far as I am able, lay before you a
brief general view of the existing state of the arts in England, and of
the influence which her Universities, through these newly-founded
lectureships, may, I hope, bring to bear upon it for good.
6. We have first to consider the impulse which has been given to the
practice of all the arts by the extension of our commerce, and enlarged
means of intercourse with foreign nations, by which we now become more
familiarly acquainted with their works in past and in present times. The
immediate result of these new opportunities, I regret to say, has been
to make us more jealous of the genius of others, than conscious of the
limitations of our own; and to make us rather desire to enlarge our
wealth by the sale of art, than to elevate our enjoyments by its
acquisition.
Now, whatever efforts we make, with a true desire to produce, and
possess, things that are intrinsically beautiful, have in them at least
one of the essential elements of success. But efforts having origin only
in the hope of enriching ourselves by the sale of our productions, are
_assuredly_ condemned to dishonourable failure; not because, ultimately,
a well-trained nation is forbidden to profit by the exercise of its
peculiar art-skill; but because that peculiar art-skill can never be
developed _with a view_ to profit. The right fulfilment of national
power in art depends always on THE DIRECTION OF ITS AIM BY THE
EXPERIENCE OF AGES. Self-knowledge is not less difficult, nor less
necessary for the direction of its genius, to a people than to an
individual; and it is neither to be acquired by the eagerness of
unpractised pride, nor during the anxieties of improvident distress. No
nation ever had, or will have, the power of suddenly developing, under
the pressure of necessity, faculties it had neglected when it was at
ease; nor of teaching itself in poverty, the skill to produce, what it
has never, in opulence, had the sense to admire.
7. Connected also with some of the worst parts of our social system, but
capable of being directed to better result than this commercial
endeavour, we see lately a most powerful impulse given to the production
of costly works of art, by the various causes which promote the sudden
accumulation of wealth in the hands of private persons. We have thus a
vast and new patronage, which, in its present agency, is injurious to
our schools; but which is nevertheless in a great degree earnest and
conscientious, and far from being influenced chiefly by motives of
ostentation. Most of our rich men would be glad to promote the true
interests of art in this country: and even those who buy for vanity,
found their vanity on the possession of what they suppose to be best.
It is therefore in a great measure the fault of artists themselves if
they suffer from this partly unintelligent, but thoroughly
well-intended, patronage. If they seek to attract it by eccentricity, to
deceive it by superficial qualities, or take advantage of it by
thoughtless and facile production, they necessarily degrade themselves
and it together, and have no right to complain afterwards that it will
not acknowledge better-grounded claims. But if every painter of real
power would do only what he knew to be worthy of himself, and refuse to
be involved in the contention for undeserved or accidental success,
there is indeed, whatever may have been thought or said to the contrary,
true instinct enough in the public mind to follow such firm guidance. It
is one of the facts which the experience of thirty years enables me to
assert without qualification, that a really good picture is ultimately
always approved and bought, unless it is wilfully rendered offensive to
the public by faults which the artist has been either too proud to
abandon or too weak to correct.
8. The development of whatever is healthful and serviceable in the two
modes of impulse which we have been considering, depends however,
ultimately, on the direction taken by the true interest in art which has
lately been aroused by the great and active genius of many of our
living, or but lately lost, painters, sculptors, and architects. It may
perhaps surprise, but I think it will please you to hear me, or (if you
will forgive me, in my own Oxford, the presumption of fancying that some
may recognise me by an old name) to hear the author of "Modern Painters"
say, that his chief error in earlier days was not in over estimating,
but in too slightly acknowledging the merit of living men. The great
painter whose power, while he was yet among us, I was able to perceive,
was the first to reprove me for my disregard of the skill of his
fellow-artists; and, with this inauguration of the study of the art of
all time,--a study which can only by true modesty end in wise
admiration,--it is surely well that I connect the record of these words
of his, spoken then too truly to myself, and true always more or less
for all who are untrained in that toil,--"You don't know how difficult
it is."
You will not expect me, within the compass of this lecture, to give you
any analysis of the many kinds of excellent art (in all the three great
divisions) which the complex demands of modern life, and yet more varied
instincts of modern genius, have developed for pleasure or service. It
must be my endeavour, in conjunction with my colleagues in the other
Universities, hereafter to enable you to appreciate these worthily; in
the hope that also the members of the Royal Academy, and those of the
Institute of British Architects, may be induced to assist, and guide,
the efforts of the Universities, by organising such a system of
art-education for their own students, as shall in future prevent the
waste of genius in any mistaken endeavours; especially removing doubt as
to the proper substance and use of materials; and requiring compliance
with certain elementary principles of right, in every picture and design
exhibited with their sanction. It is not indeed possible for talent so
varied as that of English artists to be compelled into the formalities
of a determined school; but it must certainly be the function of every
academical body to see that their younger students are guarded from what
must in every school be error; and that they are practised in the best
methods of work hitherto known, before their ingenuity is directed to
the invention of others.
9. I need scarcely refer, except for the sake of completeness in my
statement, to one form of demand for art which is wholly unenlightened,
and powerful only for evil;--namely, the demand of the classes occupied
solely in the pursuit of pleasure, for objects and modes of art that can
amuse indolence or excite passion. There is no need for any discussion
of these requirements, or of their forms of influence, though they are
very deadly at present in their operation on sculpture, and on
jewellers' work. They cannot be checked by blame, nor guided by
instruction; they are merely the necessary result of whatever defects
exist in the temper and principles of a luxurious society; and it is
only by moral changes, not by art-criticism, that their action can be
modified.
10. Lastly, there is a continually increasing demand for popular art,
multipliable by the printing-press, illustrative of daily events, of
general literature, and of natural science. Admirable skill, and some of
the best talent of modern times, are occupied in supplying this want;
and there is no limit to the good which may be effected by rightly
taking advantage of the powers we now possess of placing good and lovely
art within the reach of the poorest classes. Much has been already
accomplished; but great harm has been done also,--first, by forms of art
definitely addressed to depraved tastes; and, secondly, in a more subtle
way, by really beautiful and useful engravings which are yet not good
enough to retain their influence on the public mind;--which weary it by
redundant quantity of monotonous average excellence, and diminish or
destroy its power of accurate attention to work of a higher order.
Especially this is to be regretted in the effect produced on the schools
of line engraving, which had reached in England an executive skill of a
kind before unexampled, and which of late have lost much of their more
sterling and legitimate methods. Still, I have seen plates produced
quite recently, more beautiful, I think, in some qualities than anything
ever before attained by the burin: and I have not the slightest fear
that photography, or any other adverse or competitive operation, will in
the least ultimately diminish,--I believe they will, on the contrary,
stimulate and exalt--the grand old powers of the wood and the steel.
11. Such are, I think, briefly the present conditions of art with which
we have to deal; and I conceive it to be the function of this
Professorship, with respect to them, to establish both a practical and
critical school of fine art for English gentlemen: practical, so that if
they draw at all, they may draw rightly; and critical, so that being
first directed to such works of existing art as will best reward their
study, they may afterwards make their patronage of living artists
delightful to themselves in their consciousness of its justice, and, to
the utmost, beneficial to their country, by being given to the men who
deserve it; in the early period of their lives, when they both need it
most, and can be influenced by it to the best advantage.
12. And especially with reference to this function of patronage, I
believe myself justified in taking into account future probabilities as
to the character and range of art in England: and I shall endeavour at
once to organise with you a system of study calculated to develop
chiefly the knowledge of those branches in which the English schools
have shown, and are likely to show, peculiar excellence.
Now, in asking your sanction both for the nature of the general plans I
wish to adopt, and for what I conceive to be necessary limitations of
them, I wish you to be fully aware of my reasons for both: and I will
therefore risk the burdening of your patience while I state the
directions of effort in which I think English artists are liable to
failure, and those also in which past experience has shown they are
secure of success.
13. I referred, but now, to the effort we are making to improve the
designs of our manufactures. Within certain limits I believe this
improvement may indeed take effect: so that we may no more humour
momentary fashions by ugly results of chance instead of design; and may
produce both good tissues, of harmonious colours, and good forms and
substance of pottery and glass. But we shall never excel in decorative
design. Such design is usually produced by people of great natural
powers of mind, who have no variety of subjects to employ themselves on,
no oppressive anxieties, and are in circumstances either of natural
scenery or of daily life, which cause pleasurable excitement. _We_
cannot design, because we have too much to think of, and we think of it
too anxiously. It has long been observed how little real anxiety exists
in the minds of the partly savage races which excel in decorative art;
and we must not suppose that the temper of the Middle Ages was a
troubled one, because every day brought its danger or its change. The
very eventfulness of the life rendered it careless, as generally is
still the case with soldiers and sailors. Now, when there are great
powers of thought, and little to think of, all the waste energy and
fancy are thrown into the manual work, and you have so much intellect as
would direct the affairs of a large mercantile concern for a day, spent
all at once, quite unconsciously, in drawing an ingenious spiral.
Also, powers of doing fine ornamental work are only to be reached by a
perpetual discipline of the hand as well as of the fancy; discipline as
attentive and painful as that which a juggler has to put himself
through, to overcome the more palpable difficulties of his profession.
The execution of the best artists is always a splendid tour-de-force;
and much that in painting is supposed to be dependent on material is
indeed only a lovely and quite inimitable legerdemain. Now, when powers
of fancy, stimulated by this triumphant precision of manual dexterity,
descend uninterruptedly from generation to generation, you have at last,
what is not so much a trained artist, as a new species of animal, with
whose instinctive gifts you have no chance of contending. And thus all
our imitations of other people's work are futile. We must learn first to
make honest English wares, and afterwards to decorate them as may please
the then approving Graces.
14. Secondly--and this is an incapacity of a graver kind, yet having its
own good in it also--we shall never be successful in the highest fields
of ideal or theological art.
For there is one strange, but quite essential, character in us: ever
since the Conquest, if not earlier:--a delight in the forms of burlesque
which are connected in some degree with the foulness of evil. I think
the most perfect type of a true English mind in its best possible
temper, is that of Chaucer; and you will find that, while it is for the
most part full of thoughts of beauty, pure and wild like that of an
April morning, there are even in the midst of this, sometimes
momentarily jesting passages which stoop to play with evil--while the
power of listening to and enjoying the jesting of entirely gross
persons, whatever the feeling may be which permits it, afterwards
degenerates into forms of humour which render some of quite the
greatest, wisest, and most moral of English writers now almost useless
for our youth. And yet you will find that whenever Englishmen are wholly
without this instinct, their genius is comparatively weak and
restricted.
15. Now, the first necessity for the doing of any great work in ideal
art, is the looking upon all foulness with horror, as a contemptible
though dreadful enemy. You may easily understand what I mean, by
comparing the feelings with which Dante regards any form of obscenity or
of base jest, with the temper in which the same things are regarded by
Shakespeare. And this strange earthly instinct of ours, coupled as it
is, in our good men, with great simplicity and common sense, renders
them shrewd and perfect observers and delineators of actual nature, low
or high; but precludes them from that specialty of art which is properly
called sublime. If ever we try anything in the manner of Michael Angelo
or of Dante, we catch a fall, even in literature, as Milton in the
battle of the angels, spoiled from Hesiod; while in art, every attempt
in this style has hitherto been the sign either of the presumptuous
egotism of persons who had never really learned to be workmen, or it has
been connected with very tragic forms of the contemplation of death,--it
has always been partly insane, and never once wholly successful.
But we need not feel any discomfort in these limitations of our
capacity. We can do much that others cannot, and more than we have ever
yet ourselves completely done. Our first great gift is in the
portraiture of living people--a power already so accomplished in both
Reynolds and Gainsborough that nothing is left for future masters but to
add the calm of perfect workmanship to their vigour and felicity of
perception. And of what value a true school of portraiture may become in
the future, when worthy men will desire only to be known, and others
will not fear to know them, for what they truly were, we cannot from
any past records of art influence yet conceive. But in my next address
it will be partly my endeavour to show you how much more useful, because
more humble, the labour of great masters might have been, had they been
content to bear record of the souls that were dwelling with them on
earth, instead of striving to give a deceptive glory to those they
dreamed of in heaven.
16. Secondly, we have an intense power of invention and expression in
domestic drama; (King Lear and Hamlet being essentially domestic in
their strongest motives of interest). There is a tendency at this moment
towards a noble development of our art in this direction, checked by
many adverse conditions, which may be summed in one,--the insufficiency
of generous civic or patriotic passion in the heart of the English
people; a fault which makes its domestic affection selfish, contracted,
and, therefore, frivolous.
17. Thirdly, in connection with our simplicity and good-humour, and
partly with that very love of the grotesque which debases our ideal, we
have a sympathy with the lower animals which is peculiarly our own; and
which, though it has already found some exquisite expression in the
works of Bewick and Landseer, is yet quite undeveloped. This sympathy,
with the aid of our now authoritative science of physiology, and in
association with our British love of adventure, will, I hope, enable us
to give to the future inhabitants of the globe an almost perfect record
of the present forms of animal life upon it, of which many are on the
point of being extinguished.
Lastly, but not as the least important of our special powers, I have to
note our skill in landscape, of which I will presently speak more
particularly.
18. Such I conceive to be the directions in which, principally, we have
the power to excel; and you must at once see how the consideration of
them must modify the advisable methods of our art study. For if our
professional painters were likely to produce pieces of art loftily ideal
in their character, it would be desirable to form the taste of the
students here by setting before them only the purest examples of Greek,
and the mightiest of Italian, art. But I do not think you will yet find
a single instance of a school directed exclusively to these higher
branches of study in England, which has strongly, or even definitely,
made impression on its younger scholars. While, therefore, I shall
endeavour to point out clearly the characters to be looked for and
admired in the great masters of imaginative design, I shall make no
special effort to stimulate the imitation of them; and above all things,
I shall try to probe in you, and to prevent, the affectation into which
it is easy to fall, even through modesty,--of either endeavouring to
admire a grandeur with which we have no natural sympathy, or losing the
pleasure we might take in the study of familiar things, by considering
it a sign of refinement to look for what is of higher class, or rarer
occurrence.
19. Again, if our artisans were likely to attain any distinguished skill
in ornamental design, it would be incumbent upon me to make my class
here accurately acquainted with the principles of earth and metal work,
and to accustom them to take pleasure in conventional arrangements of
colour and form. I hope, indeed, to do this, so far as to enable them to
discern the real merit of many styles of art which are at present
neglected; and, above all, to read the minds of semi-barbaric nations in
the only language by which their feelings were capable of expression;
and those members of my class whose temper inclines them to take
pleasure in the interpretation of mythic symbols, will not probably be
induced to quit the profound fields of investigation which early art,
examined carefully, will open to them, and which belong to it alone: for
this is a general law, that supposing the intellect of the workman the
same, the more imitatively complete his art, the less he will mean by
it; and the ruder the symbol, the deeper is its intention. Nevertheless,
when I have once sufficiently pointed out the nature and value of this
conventional work, and vindicated it from the contempt with which it is
too generally regarded, I shall leave the student to his own pleasure in
its pursuit; and even, so far as I may, discourage all admiration
founded on quaintness or peculiarity of style; and repress any other
modes of feeling which are likely to lead rather to fastidious
collection of curiosities, than to the intelligent appreciation of work
which, being executed in compliance with constant laws of right, cannot
be singular, and must be distinguished only by excellence in what is
always desirable.
20. While, therefore, in these and such other directions, I shall
endeavour to put every adequate means of advance within reach of the
members of my class, I shall use my own best energy to show them what is
consummately beautiful and well done, by men who have passed through the
symbolic or suggestive stage of design, and have enabled themselves to
comply, by truth of representation, with the strictest or most eager
demands of accurate science, and of disciplined passion. I shall
therefore direct your observation, during the greater part of the time
you may spare to me, to what is indisputably best, both in painting and
sculpture; trusting that you will afterwards recognise the nascent and
partial skill of former days both with greater interest and greater
respect, when you know the full difficulty of what it attempted, and the
complete range of what it foretold.
21. And with this view, I shall at once endeavour to do what has for
many years been in my thoughts, and now, with the advice and assistance
of the curators of the University Galleries, I do not doubt may be
accomplished here in Oxford, just where it will be preëminently
useful--namely, to arrange an educational series of examples of
excellent art, standards to which you may at once refer on any
questionable point, and by the study of which you may gradually attain
an instinctive sense of right, which will afterwards be liable to no
serious error. Such a collection may be formed, both more perfectly, and
more easily, than would commonly be supposed. For the real utility of
the series will depend on its restricted extent,--on the severe
exclusion of all second-rate, superfluous, or even attractively varied
examples,--and On the confining the students' attention to a few types
of what is insuperably good. More progress in power of judgment may be
made in a limited time by the examination of one work, than by the
review of many; and a certain degree of vitality is given to the
impressiveness of every characteristic, by its being exhibited in clear
contrast, and without repetition.
The greater number of the examples I shall choose will be only
engravings or photographs: they shall be arranged so as to be easily
accessible, and I will prepare a catalogue, pointing out my purpose in
the selection of each. But in process of time, I have good hope that
assistance will be given me by the English public in making the series
here no less splendid than serviceable; and in placing minor
collections, arranged on a similar principle, at the command also of the
students in our public schools.
22. In the second place, I shall endeavour to prevail upon all the
younger members of the University who wish to attend the art lectures,
to give at least so much time to manual practice as may enable them to
understand the nature and difficulty of executive skill. The time so
spent will not be lost, even as regards their other studies at the
University, for I will prepare the practical exercises in a double
series, one illustrative of history, the other of natural science. And
whether you are drawing a piece of Greek armour, or a hawk's beak, or a
lion's paw, you will find that the mere necessity of using the hand
compels attention to circumstances which would otherwise have escaped
notice, and fastens them in the memory without farther effort. But were
it even otherwise, and this practical training did really involve some
sacrifice of your time, I do not fear but that it will be justified to
you by its felt results: and I think that general public feeling is also
tending to the admission that accomplished education must include, not
only full command of expression by language, but command of true musical
sound by the voice, and of true form by the hand.
23. While I myself hold this professorship, I shall direct you in these
exercises very definitely to natural history, and to landscape; not only
because in these two branches I am probably able to show you truths
which might be despised by my successors: but because I think the vital
and joyful study of natural history quite the principal element
requiring introduction, not only into University, but into national,
education, from highest to lowest; and I even will risk incurring your
ridicule by confessing one of my fondest dreams, that I may succeed in
making some of you English youths like better to look at a bird than to
shoot it; and even desire to make wild creatures tame, instead of tame
creatures wild. And for the study of landscape, it is, I think, now
calculated to be of use in deeper, if not more important modes, than
that of natural science, for reasons which I will ask you to let me
state at some length.
24. Observe first;--no race of men which is entirely bred in wild
country, far from cities, ever enjoys landscape. They may enjoy the
beauty of animals, but scarcely even that: a true peasant cannot see the
beauty of cattle; but only qualities expressive of their
serviceableness. I waive discussion of this to-day; permit my assertion
of it, under my confident guarantee of future proof. Landscape can only
be enjoyed by cultivated persons; and it is only by music, literature,
and painting, that cultivation can be given. Also, the faculties which
are thus received are hereditary; so that the child of an educated race
has an innate instinct for beauty, derived from arts practised hundreds
of years before its birth. Now farther note this, one of the loveliest
things in human nature. In the children of noble races, trained by
surrounding art, and at the same time in the practice of great deeds,
there is an intense delight in the landscape of their country as
_memorial_; a sense not taught to them, nor teachable to any others;
but, in them, innate; and the seal and reward of persistence in great
national life;--the obedience and the peace of ages having extended
gradually the glory of the revered ancestors also to the ancestral
land; until the Motherhood of the dust, the mystery of the Demeter from
whose bosom we came, and to whose bosom we return, surrounds and
inspires, everywhere, the local awe of field and fountain; the
sacredness of landmark that none may remove, and of wave that none may
pollute; while records of proud days, and of dear persons, make every
rock monumental with ghostly inscription, and every path lovely with
noble desolateness.
25. Now, however checked by lightness of temperament, the instinctive
love of landscape in us has this deep root, which, in your minds, I will
pray you to disencumber from whatever may oppress or mortify it, and to
strive to feel with all the strength of your youth that a nation is only
worthy of the soil and the scenes that it has inherited, when, by all
its acts and arts, it is making them more lovely for its children.
And now, I trust, you will feel that it is not in mere yielding to my
own fancies that I have chosen, for the first three subjects in your
educational series, landscape scenes;--two in England, and one in
France,--the association of these being not without purpose:--and for
the fourth Albert Dürer's dream of the Spirit of Labour. And of the
landscape subjects, I must tell you this much. The first is an engraving
only; the original drawing by Turner was destroyed by fire twenty years
ago. For which loss I wish you to be sorry, and to remember, in
connection with this first example, that whatever remains to us of
possession in the arts is, compared to what we might have had if we had
cared for them, just what that engraving is to the lost drawing. You
will find also that its subject has meaning in it which will not be
harmful to you. The second example is a real drawing by Turner, in the
same series, and very nearly of the same place; the two scenes are
within a quarter of a mile of each other. It will show you the character
of the work that was destroyed. It will show you, in process of time,
much more; but chiefly, and this is my main reason for choosing both, it
will be a permanent expression to you of what English landscape was
once;--and must, if we are to remain a nation, be again.
I think it farther right to tell you, for otherwise you might hardly pay
regard enough to work apparently so simple, that by a chance which is
not altogether displeasing to me, this drawing, which it has become, for
these reasons, necessary for me to give you, is--not indeed the best I
have, (I have several as good, though none better)--but, of all I have,
the one I had least mind to part with.
The third example is also a Turner drawing--a scene on the Loire--never
engraved. It is an introduction to the series of the Loire, which you
have already; it has in its present place a due concurrence with the
expressional purpose of its companions; and though small, it is very
precious, being a faultless, and, I believe, unsurpassable example of
water-colour painting.
Chiefly, however, remember the object of these three first examples is
to give you an index to your truest feelings about European, and
especially about your native landscape, as it is pensive and historical;
and so far as you yourselves make any effort at its representation, to
give you a motive for fidelity in handwork more animating than any
connected with mere success in the art itself.
26. With respect to actual methods of practice, I will not incur the
responsibility of determining them for you. We will take Lionardo's
treatise on painting for our first text-book; and I think you need not
fear being misled by me if I ask you to do only what Lionardo bids, or
what will be necessary to enable you to do his bidding. But you need not
possess the book, nor read it through. I will translate the pieces to
the authority of which I shall appeal; and, in process of time, by
analysis of this fragmentary treatise, show you some characters not
usually understood of the simplicity as well as subtlety common to most
great workmen of that age. Afterwards we will collect the instructions
of other undisputed masters, till we have obtained a code of laws
clearly resting on the consent of antiquity.
While, however, I thus in some measure limit for the present the methods
of your practice, I shall endeavour to make the courses of my University
lectures as wide in their range as my knowledge will permit. The range
so conceded will be narrow enough; but I believe that my proper function
is not to acquaint you with the general history, but with the essential
principles of art; and with its history only when it has been both great
and good, or where some special excellence of it requires examination of
the causes to which it must be ascribed.
27. But if either our work, or our enquiries, are to be indeed
successful in their own field, they must be connected with others of a
sterner character. Now listen to me, if I have in these past details
lost or burdened your attention; for this is what I have chiefly to say
to you. The art of any country is _the exponent of its social and
political virtues_. I will show you that it is so in some detail, in the
second of my subsequent course of lectures; meantime accept this as one
of the things, and the most important of all things, I can positively
declare to you. The art, or general productive and formative energy, of
any country, is an exact exponent of its ethical life. You can have
noble art only from noble persons, associated under laws fitted to their
time and circumstances. And the best skill that any teacher of art could
spend here in your help, would not end in enabling you even so much as
rightly to draw the water-lilies in the Cherwell (and though it did, the
work when done would not be worth the lilies themselves) unless both he
and you were seeking, as I trust we shall together seek, in the laws
which regulate the finest industries, the clue to the laws which
regulate _all_ industries, and in better obedience to which we shall
actually have henceforward to live: not merely in compliance with our
own sense of what is right, but under the weight of quite literal
necessity. For the trades by which the British people has believed it to
be the highest of destinies to maintain itself, cannot now long remain
undisputed in its hands; its unemployed poor are daily becoming more
violently criminal; and a certain distress in the middle classes,
arising, _partly from their vanity in living always up to their incomes,
and partly from their folly in imagining that they can subsist in
idleness upon usury_, will at last compel the sons and daughters of
English families to acquaint themselves with the principles of
providential economy; and to learn that food can only be got out of the
ground, and competence only secured by frugality; and that although it
is not possible for all to be occupied in the highest arts, nor for any,
guiltlessly, to pass their days in a succession of pleasures, the most
perfect mental culture possible to men is founded on their useful
energies, and their best arts and brightest happiness are consistent,
and consistent only, with their virtue.
28. This, I repeat, gentlemen, will soon become manifest to those among
us, and there are yet many, who are honest-hearted. And the future fate
of England depends upon the position they then take, and on their
courage in maintaining it.
There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a
nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a
race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in
temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey. We
have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now
betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an
inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with
splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour,
should be the most offending souls alive. Within the last few years we
have had the laws of natural science opened to us with a rapidity which
has been blinding by its brightness; and means of transit and
communication given to us, which have made but one kingdom of the
habitable globe. One kingdom;--but who is to be its king? Is there to be
no king in it, think you, and every man to do that which is right in his
own eyes? Or only kings of terror, and the obscene empires of Mammon
and Belial? Or will you, youths of England, make your country again a
royal throne of kings; a sceptred isle, for all the world a source of
light, a centre of peace; mistress of Learning and of the
Arts;--faithful guardian of great memories in the midst of irreverent
and ephemeral visions;--faithful servant of time-tried principles, under
temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and amidst the
cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in her strange
valour of goodwill towards men?
29. "Vexilla regis prodeunt." Yes, but of which king? There are the two
oriflammes; which shall we plant on the farthest islands,--the one that
floats in heavenly fire, or that hangs heavy with foul tissue of
terrestrial gold? There is indeed a course of beneficent glory open to
us, such as never was yet offered to any poor group of mortal souls. But
it must be--it _is_ with us, now, "Reign or Die." And if it shall be
said of this country, "Fece per viltate, il gran rifiuto;" that refusal
of the crown will be, of all yet recorded in history, the shamefullest
and most untimely.
And this is what she must either do, or perish: she must found colonies
as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and
worthiest men;--seizing every piece of fruitful waste ground she can set
her foot on, and there teaching these her colonists that their chief
virtue is to be fidelity to their country, and that their first aim is
to be to advance the power of England by land and sea: and that, though
they live on a distant plot of ground, they are no more to consider
themselves therefore disfranchised from their native land, than the
sailors of her fleets do, because they float on distant waves. So that
literally, these colonies must be fastened fleets; and every man of them
must be under authority of captains and officers, whose better command
is to be over fields and streets instead of ships of the line; and
England, in these her motionless navies (or, in the true and mightiest
sense, motionless _churches_, ruled by pilots on the Galilean lake of
all the world), is to "expect every man to do his duty;" recognising
that duty is indeed possible no less in peace than war; and that if we
can get men, for little pay, to cast themselves against cannon-mouths
for love of England, we may find men also who will plough and sow for
her, who will behave kindly and righteously for her, who will bring up
their children to love her, and who will gladden themselves in the
brightness of her glory, more than in all the light of tropic skies.