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[Illustration: LANDSCAPE FROM A PAINTING BY J. M. W. TURNER]
Library Edition
THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
JOHN RUSKIN
MODERN PAINTERS
VOLUME II--OF TRUTH AND THEORETIC
FACULTIES
_Volume III_--OF MANY THINGS
NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK CHICAGO
MODERN PAINTERS.
VOLUME II.,
CONTAINING
PART III.,
SECTIONS I. AND II.
OF THE IMAGINATIVE AND THEORETIC FACULTIES.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
PART III.
OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY.
SECTION I.
OF THE THEORETIC FACULTY.
CHAPTER I.--Of the Rank and Relations of the Theoretic Faculty.
PAGE
Sec. 1. With what care the subject is to be approached. 1
Sec. 2. And of what importance considered. 2
Sec. 3. The doubtful force of the term "utility". 3
Sec. 4. Its proper sense. 4
Sec. 5. How falsely applied in these times. 4
Sec. 6. The evil consequences of such interpretation. How connected
with national power. 5
Sec. 7. How to be averted. 6
Sec. 8. Division of the pursuits of men into subservient and objective. 8
Sec. 9. Their relative dignities. 10
Sec. 10. How reversed through erring notions of the contemplative
and imaginative faculties. 10
Sec. 11. Object of the present section. 11
CHAPTER II.--Of the Theoretic Faculty as concerned with Pleasures of
Sense.
Sec. 1. Explanation of the term "theoretic". 12
Sec. 2. Of the differences of rank in pleasures of sense. 12
Sec. 3. Use of the terms Temperate and Intemperate. 13
Sec. 4. Right use of the term "intemperate". 13
Sec. 5. Grounds of inferiority in the pleasures which are subjects of
intemperance. 14
Sec. 6. Evidence of higher rank in pleasures of sight and hearing. 15
Sec. 7. How the lower pleasures may be elevated in rank. 16
Sec. 8. Ideas of beauty how essentially moral. 17
Sec. 9. How degraded by heartless reception. 17
Sec. 10. How exalted by affection. 18
CHAPTER III.--Of Accuracy and Inaccuracy in Impressions of Sense.
Sec. 1. By what test is the health of the perceptive faculty to be
determined? 19
Sec. 2. And in what sense may the terms Right and Wrong be attached
to its conclusions? 20
Sec. 3. What power we have over impressions of sense. 21
Sec. 4. Depends on acuteness of attention. 21
Sec. 5. Ultimate conclusions universal. 22
Sec. 6. What duty is attached to this power over impressions of sense. 22
Sec. 7. How rewarded. 23
Sec. 8. Especially with respect to ideas of beauty. 23
Sec. 9. Errors induced by the power of habit. 24
Sec. 10. The necessity of submission in early stages of judgment. 24
Sec. 11. The large scope of matured judgment. 25
Sec. 12. How distinguishable from false taste. 25
Sec. 13. The danger of a spirit of choice. 26
Sec. 14. And criminality. 27
Sec. 15. How certain conclusions respecting beauty are by reason
demonstrable. 27
Sec. 16. With what liabilities to error. 28
Sec. 17. The term "beauty" how limitable in the outset. Divided
into typical and vital. 28
CHAPTER IV.--Of False Opinions held concerning Beauty.
Sec. 1. Of the false opinion that truth is beauty, and vice versa. 30
Sec. 2. Of the false opinion that beauty is usefulness. Compare
Chap. xii. Sec. 5. 31
Sec. 3. Of the false opinion that beauty results from custom. Compare
Chap. vi. Sec. 1. 31
Sec. 4. The twofold operation of custom. It deadens sensation, but
confirms affection. 31
Sec. 5. But never either creates or destroys the essence of beauty. 32
Sec. 6. Instances. 32
Sec. 7. Of the false opinion that beauty depends on the association of
ideas. 33
Sec. 8. Association. Is, 1st, rational. It is of no efficiency as a
cause of beauty. 33
Sec. 9. Association accidental. The extent of its influence. 34
Sec. 10. The dignity of its function. 35
Sec. 11. How it is connected with impressions of beauty. 36
Sec. 12. And what caution it renders necessary in the examination of
them. 36
CHAPTER V.--Of Typical Beauty:--First, of Infinity, or the Type of
Divine Incomprehensibility.
Sec. 1. Impossibility of adequately treating the subject. 38
Sec. 2. With what simplicity of feeling to be approached. 38
Sec. 3. The child instinct respecting space. 39
Sec. 4. Continued in after life. 40
Sec. 5. Whereto this instinct is traceable. 40
Sec. 6. Infinity how necessary in art. 41
Sec. 7. Conditions of its necessity. 42
Sec. 8. And connected analogies. 42
Sec. 9. How the dignity of treatment is proportioned to the expression
of infinity. 43
Sec. 10. Examples among the Southern schools. 44
Sec. 11. Among the Venetians. 44
Sec. 12. Among the painters of landscape. 45
Sec. 13. Other modes in which the power of infinity is felt. 45
Sec. 14. The beauty of curvature. 46
Sec. 15. How constant in external nature. 46
Sec. 16. The beauty of gradation. 47
Sec. 17. How found in nature. 47
Sec. 18. How necessary in Art. 48
Sec. 19. Infinity not rightly implied by vastness. 49
CHAPTER VI.--Of Unity, or the Type of the Divine Comprehensiveness.
Sec. 1. The general conception of divine Unity. 50
Sec. 2. The glory of all things is their Unity. 50
Sec. 3. The several kinds of unity. Subjectional. Original. Of
sequence, and of membership. 51
Sec. 4 Unity of membership. How secured. 52
Sec. 5. Variety. Why required. 53
Sec. 6. Change, and its influence on beauty. 54
Sec. 7. The love of change. How morbid and evil. 55
Sec. 8. The conducing of variety towards unity of subjection. 55
Sec. 9. And towards unity of sequence. 57
Sec. 10. The nature of proportion. 1st, of apparent proportion. 57
Sec. 11. The value of apparent proportion in curvature. 60
Sec. 12. How by nature obtained. 61
Sec. 13. Apparent proportion in melodies of line. 61
Sec. 14. Error of Burke in this matter. 62
Sec. 15. Constructive proportion. Its influence in plants. 63
Sec. 16. And animals. 64
Sec. 17. Summary. 64
CHAPTER VII.--Of Repose, or the Type of Divine Permanence.
Sec. 1. Universal feeling respecting the necessity of repose in art.
Its sources. 65
Sec. 2. Repose how expressed in matter. 66
Sec. 3. The necessity to repose of an implied energy. 66
Sec. 4. Mental repose, how noble. 67
Sec. 5. Its universal value as a test of art. 68
Sec. 6. Instances in the Laocoon and Theseus. 69
Sec. 7. And in altar tombs. 70
CHAPTER VIII.--Of Symmetry, or the Type of Divine Justice.
Sec. 1. Symmetry, what and how found in organic nature. 72
Sec. 2. How necessary in art. 72
Sec. 3. To what its agreeableness is referable. Various instances. 73
Sec. 4. Especially in religious art. 73
CHAPTER IX.--Of Purity, or the Type of Divine Energy.
Sec. 1. The influence of light as a sacred symbol. 75
Sec. 2. The idea of purity connected with it. 75
Sec. 3. Originally derived from conditions of matter. 76
Sec. 4. Associated ideas adding to the power of the impression.
Influence of clearness. 76
Sec. 5. Perfect beauty of surface, in what consisting. 77
Sec. 6. Purity only metaphorically a type of sinlessness. 78
Sec. 7. Energy, how expressed by purity of matter. 79
Sec. 8. And of color. 79
Sec. 9. Spirituality, how so expressed. 79
CHAPTER X.--Of Moderation, or the Type of Government by Law.
Sec. 1. Meaning of the terms Chasteness and Refinement. 81
Sec. 2. How referable to temporary fashions. 81
Sec. 3. How to the perception of completion. 81
Sec. 4. Finish, by great masters esteemed essential. 82
Sec. 5. Moderation, its nature and value. 84
Sec. 6. It is the girdle of beauty. 84
Sec. 7. How found in natural curves and colors. 84
Sec. 8. How difficult of attainment, yet essential to all good. 85
CHAPTER XI.--General Inferences respecting Typical Beauty.
Sec. 1. The subject incompletely treated, yet admitting of general
conclusions. 86
Sec. 2. Typical beauty not created for man's sake. 87
Sec. 3. But degrees of it for his sake admitted. 87
Sec. 4. What encouragement hence to be received. 87
CHAPTER XII.--Of Vital Beauty:--First, as Relative.
Sec. 1. Transition from typical to vital Beauty. 89
Sec. 2. The perfection of the theoretic faculty as concerned with
vital beauty, is charity. 90
Sec. 3. Only with respect to plants, less affection than sympathy. 91
Sec. 4. Which is proportioned to the appearance of energy in the
plants. 92
Sec. 5. This sympathy is unselfish, and does not regard utility. 93
Sec. 6. Especially with respect to animals. 94
Sec. 7. And it is destroyed by evidences of mechanism. 95
Sec. 8. The second perfection of the theoretic faculty as concerned
with life is justice of moral judgment. 96
Sec. 9. How impeded. 97
Sec. 10. The influence of moral signs in expression. 97
Sec. 11. As also in plants. 99
Sec. 12. Recapitulation. 100
CHAPTER XIII.--Of Vital Beauty:--Secondly, as Generic.
Sec. 1. The beauty of fulfilment of appointed function in every
animal. 101
Sec. 2. The two senses of the word "ideal." Either it refers to
action of the imagination. 102
Sec. 3. Or to perfection of type. 103
Sec. 4. This last sense how inaccurate, yet to be retained. 103
Sec. 5. Of Ideal form. First, in the lower animals. 104
Sec. 6. In what consistent. 104
Sec. 7. Ideal form in vegetables. 105
Sec. 8. The difference of position between plants and animals. 105
Sec. 9. Admits of variety in the ideal of the former. 106
Sec. 10. Ideal form in vegetables destroyed by cultivation. 107
Sec. 11. Instance in the Soldanella and Ranunculus. 108
Sec. 12. The beauty of repose and felicity, how consistent with such
ideal. 108
Sec. 13. The ideality of Art. 109
Sec. 14. How connected with the imaginative faculties. 109
Sec. 15. Ideality, how belonging to ages and conditions. 110
CHAPTER XIV.--Of Vital Beauty:--Thirdly, in Man.
Sec. 1. Condition of the human creature entirely different from that
of the lower animals. 111
Sec. 2. What room here for idealization. 111
Sec. 3. How the conception of the bodily ideal is reached. 112
Sec. 4. Modifications of the bodily ideal owing to influence of mind.
First, of intellect. 113
Sec. 5. Secondly, of the moral feelings. 113
Sec. 6. What beauty is bestowed by them. 115
Sec. 7. How the soul culture interferes harmfully with the bodily
ideal. 115
Sec. 8. The inconsistency among the effects of the mental virtues on
the form. 116
Sec. 9. Is a sign of God's kind purpose towards the race. 116
Sec. 10. Consequent separation and difference of ideals. 117
Sec. 11. The _effects_ of the Adamite curse are to be
distinguished from signs of its immediate activity. 118
Sec. 12. Which latter only are to be banished from ideal form. 118
Sec. 13. Ideal form is only to be obtained by portraiture. 119
Sec. 14. Instances among the greater of the ideal Masters. 119
Sec. 15. Evil results of opposite practice in modern times. 120
Sec. 16. The right use of the model. 121
Sec. 17. Ideal form to be reached only by love. 121
Sec. 18. Practical principles deducible. 122
Sec. 19. Expressions chiefly destructive of ideal character. 1st,
Pride. 122
Sec. 20. Portraiture ancient and modern. 123
Sec. 21. Secondly, Sensuality. 123
Sec. 22. How connected with impurity of color. 124
Sec. 23. And prevented by its splendor. 124
Sec. 24. Or by severity of drawing. 125
Sec. 25. Degrees of descent in this respect: Rubens, Correggio, and
Guido. 125
Sec. 26. And modern art. 126
Sec. 27. Thirdly, ferocity and fear. The latter how to be distinguished
from awe. 126
Sec. 28. Holy fear, how distinct from human terror. 127
Sec. 29. Ferocity is joined always with fear. Its unpardonableness. 127
Sec. 30. Such expressions how sought by painters powerless and impious. 128
Sec. 31. Of passion generally. 129
Sec. 32. It is never to be for itself exhibited--at least on the face. 130
Sec. 33. Recapitulation. 131
CHAPTER XV.--General Conclusions respecting the Theoretic Faculty.
Sec. 1. There are no sources of the emotion of beauty more than those
found in things visible. 133
Sec. 2. What imperfection exists in visible things. How in a sort by
imagination removable. 134
Sec. 3. Which however affects not our present conclusions. 134
Sec. 4. The four sources from which the pleasure of beauty is derived
are all divine. 134
Sec. 5. What objections may be made to this conclusion. 135
Sec. 6. Typical beauty may be aesthetically pursued. Instances. 135
Sec. 7. How interrupted by false feeling. 136
Sec. 8. Greatness and truth are sometimes by the Deity sustained and
spoken in and through evil men. 137
Sec. 9. The second objection arising from the coldness of Christian
men to external beauty. 138
Sec. 10. Reasons for this coldness in the anxieties of the world. These
anxieties overwrought and criminal. 139
Sec. 11. Evil consequences of such coldness. 140
Sec. 12. Theoria the service of Heaven. 140
SECTION II.
OF THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY.
CHAPTER I.--Of the Three Forms of Imagination.
Sec. 1. A partial examination only of the imagination is to be
attempted. 142
Sec. 2. The works of the metaphysicians how nugatory with respect
to this faculty. 143
Sec. 3. The definition of D. Stewart, how inadequate. 143
Sec. 4. This instance nugatory. 144
Sec. 5. Various instances. 145
Sec. 6. The three operations of the imagination. Penetrative,
associative, contemplative. 146
CHAPTER II.--Of Imagination Associative.
Sec. 1. Of simple conception. 147
Sec. 2. How connected with verbal knowledge. 148
Sec. 3. How used in composition. 148
Sec. 4. Characteristics of composition. 149
Sec. 5. What powers are implied by it. The first of the three
functions of fancy. 150
Sec. 6. Imagination not yet manifested. 150
Sec. 7. Imagination is the correlative conception of imperfect
component parts. 151
Sec. 8. Material analogy with imagination. 151
Sec. 9. The grasp and dignity of imagination. 152
Sec. 10. Its limits. 153
Sec. 11. How manifested in treatment of uncertain relations. Its
deficiency illustrated. 154
Sec. 12. Laws of art, the safeguard of the unimaginative. 155
Sec. 13. Are by the imaginative painter despised. Tests of imagination. 155
Sec. 14. The monotony of unimaginative treatment. 156
Sec. 15. Imagination never repeats itself. 157
Sec. 16. Relation of the imaginative faculty to the theoretic. 157
Sec. 17. Modification of its manifestation. 158
Sec. 18. Instances of absence of imagination.--Claude, Gaspar Poussin. 158
Sec. 19. Its presence.--Salvator, Nicolo Poussin, Titian, Tintoret. 159
Sec. 20. And Turner. 160
Sec. 21. The due function of Associative imagination with respect to
nature. 161
Sec. 22. The sign of imaginative work is its appearance of absolute
truth. 161
CHAPTER III.--Of Imagination Penetrative.
Sec. 1. Imagination penetrative is concerned not with the combining
but apprehending of things. 163
Sec. 2. Milton's and Dante's description of flame. 163
Sec. 3. The imagination seizes always by the innermost point. 164
Sec. 4. It acts intuitively and without reasoning. 165
Sec. 5. Signs of it in language. 165
Sec. 6. Absence of imagination, how shown. 166
Sec. 7. Distinction between imagination and fancy. 166
Sec. 8. Fancy how involved with imagination. 168
Sec. 9. Fancy is never serious. 169
Sec. 10. Want of seriousness the bar to high art at the present time. 169
Sec. 11. Imagination is quiet; fancy, restless. 170
Sec. 12. The detailing operation of fancy. 170
Sec. 13. And suggestive, of the imagination. 171
Sec. 14. This suggestiveness how opposed to vacancy. 172
Sec. 15. Imagination addresses itself to imagination. 173
Instances from the works of Tintoret. 173
Sec. 16. The entombment. 174
Sec. 17. The Annunciation. 174
Sec. 18. The Baptism of Christ. Its treatment by various painters. 176
Sec. 19. By Tintoret. 177
Sec. 20. The Crucifixion. 178
Sec. 21. The Massacre of innocents. 179
Sec. 22. Various works in the Scuola di San Rocco. 181
Sec. 23. The Last Judgment. How treated by various painters. 181
Sec. 24. By Tintoret. 182
Sec. 25. The imaginative verity, how distinguished from realism. 183
Sec. 26. The imagination how manifested in sculpture. 184
Sec. 27. Bandinelli, Canova, Mino da Fiesole. 184
Sec. 28. Michael Angelo. 185
Sec. 29. Recapitulation. The perfect function of the imagination is
the intuitive perception of ultimate truth. 188
Sec. 30. Imagination how vulgarly understood. 190
Sec. 31. How its cultivation is dependent on the moral feelings. 190
Sec. 32. On independence of mind. 191
Sec. 33. And on habitual reference to nature. 191
CHAPTER IV.--Of Imagination Contemplative.
Sec. 1. Imagination contemplative is not part of the essence, but only
a habit or mode of the faculty. 192
Sec. 2. The ambiguity of conception. 192
Sec. 3. Is not in itself capable of adding to the charm of fair
things. 193
Sec. 4. But gives to the imagination its regardant power over them. 194
Sec. 5. The third office of fancy distinguished from imagination
contemplative. 195
Sec. 6. Various instances. 197
Sec. 7. Morbid or nervous fancy. 200
Sec. 8. The action of contemplative imagination is not to be expressed
by art. 201
Sec. 9. Except under narrow limits.--1st. Abstract rendering of
form without color. 201
Sec. 10. Of color without form. 202
Sec. 11. Or of both without texture. 202
Sec. 12. Abstraction or typical representation of animal form. 203
Sec. 13. Either when it is symbolically used. 204
Sec. 14. Or in architectural decoration. 205
Sec. 15. Exception in delicate and superimposed ornament. 206
Sec. 16. Abstraction necessary from imperfection of materials. 206
Sec. 17. Abstractions of things capable of varied accident are not
imaginative. 207
Sec. 18. Yet sometimes valuable. 207
Sec. 19. Exaggeration. Its laws and limits. First, in scale of
representation. 208
Sec. 20. Secondly, of things capable of variety of scale. 209
Sec. 21. Thirdly, necessary in expression of characteristic features on
diminished scale. 210
Sec. 22. Recapitulation. 211
CHAPTER V.--Of the Superhuman Ideal.
Sec. 1. The subject is not to be here treated in detail. 212
Sec. 2. The conceivable modes of manifestation of Spiritual Beings
are four. 212
Sec. 3. And these are in or through creature forms familiar to us. 213
Sec. 4. Supernatural character may be impressed on these either by
phenomena inconsistent with their common nature (compare
Chap. iv. Sec. 16). 213
Sec. 5. Or by inherent Dignity. 213
Sec. 6. 1st. Of the expression of inspiration. 214
Sec. 7. No representation of that which is more than creature is
possible. 215
Sec. 8. Supernatural character expressed by modification of
accessories. 216
Sec. 9. Landscape of the religious painters. Its character is
eminently symmetrical. 217
Sec. 10. Landscape of Benozzo Gozzoli. 217
Sec. 11. Landscape of Perugino and Raffaelle. 218
Sec. 12. Such Landscape is not to be imitated. 218
Sec. 13. Color, and Decoration. Their use in representations of the
Supernatural. 219
Sec. 14. Decoration so used must be generic. 220
Sec. 15. And color pure. 220
Sec. 16. Ideal form of the body itself, of what variety susceptible. 221
Sec. 17. Anatomical development how far admissible. 221
Sec. 18. Symmetry. How valuable. 221
Sec. 19. The influence of Greek art, how dangerous. 222
Sec. 20. Its scope, how limited. 223
Sec. 21. Conclusion. 224
ADDENDA. 225
LIST OF PLATES TO VOLUME II.
_Page._
Court of the Ducal Palace, Venice 10
From a drawing by Ruskin.
Tomb of the Ilaria di Caretto, Lucca 72
From a photograph.
The Adoration of the Magi 158
From a painting by Ruskin, after Tintoret.
Study of Stone Pine, at Sestri 198
From a drawing by Ruskin.
PART III.
OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY.
SECTION I.
OF THE THEORETIC FACULTY.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE RANK AND RELATIONS OF THE THEORETIC FACULTY.
Sec. 1. With what care the subject is to be approached.
Although the hasty execution and controversial tone of the former
portions of this essay have been subjects of frequent regret to the
writer, yet the one was in some measure excusable in a work referred to
a temporary end, and the other unavoidable, in one directed against
particular opinions. Nor are either of any necessary detriment to its
availableness as a foundation for more careful and extended survey, in
so far as its province was confined to the assertion of obvious and
visible facts, the verification of which could in no degree be dependent
either on the care with which they might be classed, or the temper in
which they were regarded. Not so with respect to the investigation now
before us, which, being not of things outward, and sensibly
demonstrable, but of the value and meaning of mental impressions, must
be entered upon with a modesty and cautiousness proportioned to the
difficulty of determining the likeness, or community of such
impressions, as they are received by different men, and with seriousness
proportioned to the importance of rightly regarding those faculties over
which we have moral power, and therefore in relation to which we
assuredly incur a moral responsibility. There is not the thing left to
the choice of man to do or not to do, but there is some sort of degree
of duty involved in his determination; and by how much the more,
therefore, our subject becomes embarrassed by the cross influences of
variously admitted passion, administered discipline, or encouraged
affection, upon the minds of men, by so much the more it becomes matter
of weight and import to observe by what laws we should be guided, and of
what responsibilities regardful, in all that we admit, administer, or
encourage.
Sec. 2. And of what importance considered.
Nor indeed have I ever, even in the preceding sections, spoken with
levity, though sometimes perhaps with rashness. I have never treated the
subject as other than demanding heedful and serious examination, and
taking high place among those which justify as they reward our utmost
ardor and earnestness of pursuit. That it justifies them must be my
present task to prove; that it demands them has never been doubted. Art,
properly so called, is no recreation; it cannot be learned at spare
moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do. It is no
handiwork for drawing-room tables; no relief of the ennui of boudoirs;
it must be understood and undertaken seriously or not at all. To advance
it men's lives must be given, and to receive it their hearts. "Le
peintre Rubens s'amuse a etre ambassadeur," said one with whom, but for
his own words, we might have thought that effort had been absorbed in
power, and the labor of his art in its felicity.--"E faticoso lo studio
della pittura, et sempre si fa il mare maggiore," said he, who of all
men was least likely to have left us discouraging report of anything
that majesty of intellect could grasp, or continuity of labor
overcome.[1] But that this labor, the necessity of which in all ages has
been most frankly admitted by the greatest men, is justifiable in a
moral point of view, that it is not the pouring out of men's lives upon
the ground, that it has functions of usefulness addressed to the
weightiest of human interests, and that the objects of it have calls
upon us which it is inconsistent alike with our human dignity and our
heavenward duty to disobey--has never been boldly asserted nor fairly
admitted; least of all is it likely to be so in these days of dispatch
and display, where vanity, on the one side, supplies the place of that
love of art which is the only effective patronage, and on the other, of
the incorruptible and earnest pride which no applause, no reprobation,
can blind to its shortcomings nor beguile of its hope.
And yet it is in the expectation of obtaining at least a partial
acknowledgment of this, as a truth influential both of aim and conduct,
that I enter upon the second division of my subject. The time I have
already devoted to the task I should have considered altogether
inordinate, and that which I fear may be yet required for its completion
would have been cause to me of utter discouragement, but that the object
I propose to myself is of no partial nor accidental importance. It is
not now to distinguish between disputed degrees of ability in
individuals, or agreeableness in canvases, it is not now to expose the
ignorance or defend the principles of party or person. It is to summon
the moral energies of the nation to a forgotten duty, to display the
use, force, and function of a great body of neglected sympathies and
desires, and to elevate to its healthy and beneficial operation that art
which, being altogether addressed to them, rises or falls with their
variableness of vigor,--now leading them with Tyrtaean fire, now singing
them to sleep with baby murmurings.
Sec. 3. The doubtful force of the term "utility."
Only as I fear that with many of us the recommendation of our own
favorite pursuits is rooted more in conceit of ourselves, than affection
towards others, so that sometimes in our very pointing of the way, we
had rather that the intricacy of it should be admired than unfolded,
whence a natural distrust of such recommendation may well have place in
the minds of those who have not yet perceived any value in the thing
praised, and because also, men in the present century understand the
word Useful in a strange way, or at least (for the word has been often
so accepted from the beginning of time) since in these days, they act
its more limited meaning farther out, and give to it more practical
weight and authority, it will be well in the outset that I define
exactly what kind of utility I mean to attribute to art, and especially
to that branch of it which is concerned with those impressions of
external beauty whose nature it is our present object to discover.
Sec. 4. Its proper sense.
That is to everything created, pre-eminently useful, which enables it
rightly and fully to perform the functions appointed to it by its
Creator. Therefore, that we may determine what is chiefly useful to man,
it is necessary first to determine the use of man himself.
Man's use and function (and let him who will not grant me this follow me
no farther, for this I purpose always to assume) is to be the witness of
the glory of God, and to advance that glory by his reasonable obedience
and resultant happiness.
Whatever enables us to fulfil this function, is in the pure and first
sense of the word useful to us. Pre-eminently therefore whatever sets
the glory of God more brightly before us. But things that only help us
to exist, are in a secondary and mean sense, useful, or rather, if they
be looked for alone, they are useless and worse, for it would be better
that we should not exist, than that we should guiltily disappoint the
purposes of existence.
Sec. 5. How falsely applied in these times.
And yet people speak in this working age, when they speak from their
hearts, as if houses, and lands, and food, and raiment were alone
useful, and as if sight, thought, and admiration,[2] were all
profitless, so that men insolently call themselves Utilitarians, who
would turn, if they had their way, themselves and their race into
vegetables; men who think, as far as such can be said to think, that the
meat is more than the life, and the raiment than the body, who look to
the earth as a stable, and to its fruit as fodder; vinedressers and
husbandmen, who love the corn they grind, and the grapes they crush,
better than the gardens of the angels upon the slopes of Eden; hewers of
wood and drawers of water, who think that the wood they hew and the
water they draw, are better than the pine-forests that cover the
mountains like the shadow of God, and than the great rivers that move
like his eternity. And so comes upon us that woe of the preacher, that
though God "hath made everything beautiful in his time, also he hath set
the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God
maketh from the beginning to the end."
Sec. 6. The evil consequences of such interpretation. How connected with
national power.
This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends us to grass like oxen, seems to
follow but too closely on the excess or continuance of national power
and peace. In the perplexities of nations, in their struggles for
existence, in their infancy, their impotence, or even their
disorganization, they have higher hopes and nobler passions. Out of the
suffering comes the serious mind; out of the salvation, the grateful
heart; out of the endurance, the fortitude; out of the deliverance, the
faith; but now when they have learned to live under providence of laws,
and with decency and justice of regard for each other; and when they
have done away with violent and external sources of suffering, worse
evils seem arising out of their rest, evils that vex less and mortify
more, that suck the blood though they do not shed it, and ossify the
heart though they do not torture it. And deep though the causes of
thankfulness must be to every people at peace with others and at unity
in itself, there are causes of fear also, a fear greater than of sword
and sedition; that dependence on God may be forgotten because the bread
is given and the water is sure, that gratitude to him may cease because
his constancy of protection has taken the semblance of a natural law,
that heavenly hope may grow faint amidst the full fruition of the world,
that selfishness may take place of undemanded devotion, compassion be
lost in vain-glory, and love in dissimulation,[3] that enervation may
succeed to strength, apathy to patience, and the noise of jesting words
and foulness of dark thoughts, to the earnest purity of the girded loins
and the burning lamp. About the river of human life there is a wintry
wind, though a heavenly sunshine; the iris colors its agitation, the
frost fixes upon its repose. Let us beware that our rest become not the
rest of stones, which so long as they are torrent-tossed, and
thunder-stricken, maintain their majesty, but when the stream is silent,
and the storm passed, suffer the grass to cover them and the lichen to
feed on them, and are ploughed down into dust.
Sec. 7. How to be averted.
And though I believe that we have salt enough of ardent and holy mind
amongst us to keep us in some measure from this moral decay, yet the
signs of it must be watched with anxiety, in all matter however trivial,
in all directions however distant. And at this time, when the iron roads
are tearing up the surface of Europe, as grapeshot do the sea, when
their great sagene is drawing and twitching the ancient frame and
strength of England together, contracting all its various life, its
rocky arms and rural heart, into a narrow, finite, calculating
metropolis of manufactures, when there is not a monument throughout the
cities of Europe, that speaks of old years and mighty people, but it is
being swept away to build cafes and gaming-houses;[4] when the honor of
God is thought to consist in the poverty of his temple, and the column
is shortened, and the pinnacle shattered, the color denied to the
casement, and the marble to the altar, while exchequers are exhausted in
luxury of boudoirs, and pride of reception-rooms; when we ravage without
a pause all the loveliness of creation which God in giving pronounced
good, and destroy without a thought all those labors which men have
given their lives, and their sons' sons' lives to complete, and have
left for a legacy to all their kind, a legacy of more than their hearts'
blood, for it is of their souls' travail, there is need, bitter need, to
bring back, if we may, into men's minds, that to live is nothing,
unless to live be to know Him by whom we live, and that he is not to be
known by marring his fair works, and blotting out the evidence of his
influences upon his creatures, not amid the hurry of crowds and crash of
innovation, but in solitary places, and out of the glowing intelligences
which he gave to men of old. He did not teach them how to build for
glory and for beauty, he did not give them the fearless, faithful,
inherited energies that worked on and down from death to death,
generation after generation, that we, foul and sensual as we are, might
give the carved work of their poured-out spirit to the axe and the
hammer; he has not cloven the earth with rivers, that their white wild
waves might turn wheels and push paddles, nor turned it up under as it
were fire, that it might heat wells and cure diseases; he brings not up
his quails by the east wind, only to let them fall in flesh about the
camp of men: he has not heaped the rocks of the mountain only for the
quarry, nor clothed the grass of the field only for the oven.
Sec. 8. Division of the pursuits of men into subservient and objective.
All science and all art may be divided into that which is subservient to
life, and which is the object of it. As subservient to life, or
practical, their results are, in the common sense of the word, useful.
As the object of life or theoretic, they are, in the common sense,
useless; and yet the step between practical and theoretic science is the
step between the miner and the geologist, the apothecary and the
chemist; and the step between practical and theoretic art is that
between the bricklayer and the architect, between the plumber and the
artist, and this is a step allowed on all hands to be from less to
greater; so that the so-called useless part of each profession does by
the authoritative and right instinct of mankind assume the superior and
more noble place, even though books be sometimes written, and that by
writers of no ordinary mind, which assume that a chemist is rewarded for
the years of toil which have traced the greater part of the combinations
of matter to their ultimate atoms, by discovering a cheap way of
refining sugar, and date the eminence of the philosopher, whose life has
been spent in the investigation of the laws of light, from the time of
his inventing an improvement in spectacles.
But the common consent of men proves and accepts the proposition, that
whatever part of any pursuit ministers to the bodily comforts, and
admits of material uses, is ignoble, and whatsoever part is addressed to
the mind only, is noble; and that geology does better in reclothing dry
bones and revealing lost creations, than in tracing veins of lead and
beds of iron; astronomy better in opening to us the houses of heaven
than in teaching navigation; botany better in displaying structure than
in expressing juices; surgery better in investigating organization than
in setting limbs; only it is ordained that, for our encouragement, every
step we make in the more exalted range of science adds something also to
its practical applicabilities; that all the great phenomena of nature,
the knowledge of which is desired by the angels only, by us partly, as
it reveals to farther vision the being and the glory of Him in whom they
rejoice and we live, dispense yet such kind influences and so much of
material blessing as to be joyfully felt by all inferior creatures, and
to be desired by them with such single desire as the imperfection of
their nature may admit;[5] that the strong torrents which, in their own
gladness fill the hills with hollow thunder and the vales with winding
light, have yet their bounden charge of field to feed and barge to bear;
that the fierce flames to which the Alp owes its upheaval and the
volcano its terror, temper for us the metal vein and quickening spring;
and that for our incitement, I say not our reward, for knowledge is its
own reward, herbs have their healing, stones their preciousness, and
stars their times.
Sec. 9. Their relative dignities.
Sec. 10. How reversed through erring notions of the contemplative and
imaginative faculties.
It would appear, therefore, that those pursuits which are altogether
theoretic, whose results are desirable or admirable in themselves and
for their own sake, and in which no farther end to which their
productions or discoveries are referred, can interrupt the contemplation
of things as they are, by the endeavor to discover of what selfish uses
they are capable (and of this order are painting and sculpture), ought
to take rank above all pursuits which have any taint in them of
subserviency to life, in so far as all such tendency is the sign of less
eternal and less holy function.[6] And such rank these two sublime arts
would indeed assume in the minds of nations, and become objects of
corresponding efforts, but for two fatal and widespread errors
respecting the great faculties of mind concerned in them.
The first of these, or the theoretic faculty, is concerned with the
moral perception and appreciation of ideas of beauty. And the error
respecting it is the considering and calling it aesthetic, degrading it
to a mere operation of sense, or perhaps worse, of custom, so that the
arts which appeal to it sink into a mere amusement, ministers to morbid
sensibilities, ticklers and fanners of the soul's sleep.
The second great faculty is the imaginative, which the mind exercises in
a certain mode of regarding or combining the ideas it has received from
external nature, and the operations of which become in their turn
objects of the theoretic faculty to other minds.
[Illustration: COURT OF THE DUCAL PALACE, VENICE. From a drawing by
Ruskin.]
And the error respecting this faculty is, that its function is one of
falsehood, that its operation is to exhibit things as they are _not_,
and that in so doing it mends the works of God.
Sec. 11. Object of the present section.
Now, as these are the two faculties to which I shall have occasion
constantly to refer during that examination of the ideas of beauty and
relation on which we are now entering, because it is only as received
and treated by these, that those ideas become exalted and profitable, it
becomes necessary for me, in the outset, to explain their power and
define their sphere, and to vindicate, in the system of our nature,
their true place for the intellectual lens and moral retina by which and
on which our informing thoughts are concentrated and represented.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Tintoret. (Ridolfi. Vita.)
[2] We live by admiration, hope, and love. (Excursion, Book IV.)
[3] Rom. xii. 9.
[4] The extent of ravage among works of art, or of historical
interest, continually committing throughout the continent may,
perhaps, be in some measure estimated from the following facts, to
which the experience of every traveller may add indefinitely:
At Beauvois--The magnificent old houses supported on columns of
workmanship (so far as I recollect) unique in the north of France,
at the corner of the market-place, have recently been destroyed for
the enlarging of some ironmongery and grocery warehouses. The arch
across the street leading to the cathedral has been destroyed also,
for what purpose, I know not.
At Rouen--The last of the characteristic houses on the quay is now
disappearing. When I was last there, I witnessed the destruction of
the noble gothic portal of the church of St. Nicholas, whose
position interfered with the courtyard of an hotel; the greater part
of the ancient churches are used as smithies, or warehouses for
goods. So also at Tours (St. Julien). One of the most interesting
and superb pieces of middle-age domestic architecture in Europe,
opposite the west front of the cathedral, is occupied as a cafe, and
its lower story concealed by painted wainscotings; representing, if
I recollect right, twopenny rolls surrounded by circles of admiring
cherubs.
At Geneva--The wooden projections or loggias which were once the
characteristic feature of the city, have been entirely removed
within the last ten years.
At Pisa--The old Baptistery is at this present time in process of
being "restored," that is, dashed to pieces, and common stone
painted black and varnished, substituted for its black marble. In
the Campo Santo, the invaluable frescoes, which might be protected
by merely glazing the arcades, are left exposed to wind and weather.
While I was there last year I saw a monument put up against the
lower part of the wall, to some private person; the bricklayers
knocked out a large space of the lower brickwork, with what
beneficial effect to the loose and blistered stucco on which the
frescoes are painted above, I leave the reader to imagine; inserted
the tablet, and then plastered over the marks of the insertion,
destroying a portion of the border of one of the paintings. The
greater part of Giotto's "Satan before God," has been destroyed by
the recent insertion of one of the beams of the roof.
The tomb of Antonio Puccinello, which was the last actually put up
against the frescoes, and which destroyed the terminal subject of
the Giotto series, bears date 1808.
It has been proposed (or at least it is so reported) that the church
of La Spina should be destroyed in order to widen the quay.
At Florence--One of its most important and characteristic streets,
that in which stands the church of Or San Michele, has been within
the last five years entirely destroyed and rebuilt in the French
style; consisting now almost exclusively of shops of bijouterie and
parfumerie. Owing to this direction of public funds, the fronts of
the Duomo, Santa Croce, St. Lorenzo, and half the others in Florence
remain in their original bricks.
The old refectory of Santa Croce, containing an invaluable Cenacolo,
if not by Giotto, at least one of the finest works of his school, is
used as a carpet manufactory. In order to see the fresco, I had to
get on the top of a loom. The _cenacolo_ (of Raffaelle?) recently
discovered, I saw when the refectory it adorns was used as a
coach-house. The fresco, which gave Raffaelle the idea of the Christ
of the Transfiguration, is in an old wood shed at San Miniato,
concealed behind a heap of faggots. In June, last year, I saw
Gentile da Fabriano's picture of the Adoration of the Magi,
belonging to the Academy of Florence, put face upmost in a shower of
rain in an open cart; on my suggesting the possibility of the rain
hurting it, an old piece of matting was thrown over its face, and it
was wheeled away "per essere pulita." What fate this signified, is
best to be discovered from the large Perugino in the Academy; whose
divine distant landscape is now almost concealed by the mass of
French ultramarine, painted over it apparently with a common house
brush, by the picture cleaner.
Not to detain the reader by going through the cities of Italy, I
will only further mention, that at Padua, the rain beats through the
west window of the Arena chapel, and runs down _over_ the frescoes.
That at Venice, in September last, I saw three buckets set in the
scuola di San Rocco to catch the rain which came _through_ the
_canvases_ of Tintoret on the roof; and that while the old works of
art are left thus unprotected, the palaces are being restored in the
following modes. The English residents knock out bow windows to see
up and down the canal. The Italians paint all the _marble_ white or
cream color, stucco the fronts, and paint them in blue and white
stripes to imitate alabaster. (This has been done with Danieli's
hotel, with the north angle of the church of St. Mark, there
replacing the real alabasters which have been torn down, with a
noble old house in St. Mark's place, and with several in the narrow
canals.) The marbles of St. Mark's, and carvings, are being
_scraped_ down to make them look bright--the lower arcade of the
Doge's palace is whitewashed--the entrance porch is being
restored--the operation having already proceeded so far as the
knocking off of the heads of the old statues--an iron railing
painted black and yellow has been put round the court. Faded
tapestries, and lottery tickets (the latter for the benefit of
charitable institutions) are exposed for sale in the council
chambers.
[5] Hooker, Eccl. Pol. Book I. chap. ii. Sec. 2.
[6] I do not assert that the accidental utility of a theoretic
pursuit, as of botany for instance, in any way degrades it, though
it cannot be considered as elevating it. But essential utility, a
purpose to which the pursuit is in some measure referred, as in
architecture, invariably degrades, because then the theoretic part
of the art is comparatively lost sight of; and thus architecture
takes a level below that of sculpture or painting, even when the
powers of mind developed in it are of the same high order.
When we pronounce the name of Giotto, our venerant thoughts are at
Assisi and Padua, before they climb the Campanile of Santa Maria del
Fiore. And he who would raise the ghost of Michael Angelo, must
haunt the Sistine and St. Lorenzo, not St. Peter's.