CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 
 1934 
 
N7425.R95"S91""'""">' """'^ 
 
 ''™MiS,S,.B,r.'"'='P'^s °' art criticism 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 648 202 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030648202 
 
Ruskin's Principles 
 of Art Criticism 
 
 BT 
 
 IDA M. STREET 
 
 Sometime Western Colle^ate Alumnae Fellow in English 
 Literature at the University of Michigan 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS CHICAGO MDCCCCI 
 
COPYRIGHT, I9OI, By 
 HERBERT S. STONE It CO 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 1 
 
 Introductory '~ . i 
 
 Selections ly 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 The Philosophical Point of View 71 
 
 Selections 83 
 
 ' CHAPTER III 
 
 The Individualistic Point of View 152 
 
 Selections 170 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The, Social Value of Art 385 
 
 Selections 391 
 
PREFACE 
 
 So much has been written about Ruskin's art criti- 
 cism and so many selections are being compiled from 
 his works, that it is necessary to show some particular 
 reason why this should be added to the list ; for unless 
 a book meets a real need of its readers, it has no 
 excuse for existence. If the art student can go 
 directly to Ruskin's books and get the help heeded, if 
 Ruskin needs no interpreter, then there is no place 
 for an annotated book of selections ; but that is not the 
 case. In the first place, Ruskin did not write refer- 
 ence or text books, but simply gave expression to his 
 opinion at the time. Besides, this greatest art critic 
 of his century has written as an impressionist in criti- 
 cism, that is, he has given us the impressions that a 
 work of art or a class of art products have made upon 
 him. These impressions are valuable only because 
 they are Ruskin's ; because they are those of a man of 
 poetic insight, an unconscious philosopher. To make 
 them of the greatest value to us, we must eliminate 
 the purely "personal equation," as they say in science; 
 and we must compare him with more conscious philos- 
 ophers to determine whether his criticisms are based 
 on universal canons of thought, or are merely the 
 expression of ephemeral moods. This requires not 
 
vi Preface 
 
 only selection and an index, but also annotation. In 
 a recent article, Lewis E. Gates says that impression- 
 ism in literary criticism— and the same will apply to 
 all art criticism— is more than the critic's personal 
 or fleeting mood; for in his research for the pleasure 
 involved in a work of art the critic must go outside 
 the work of art and beyond his own momentary state 
 of consciousness ; he must not only put the work of 
 art in its historical setting and realize it in its psycho- 
 logical origin, but he must also be alive to its worth as 
 a delicately transparent illustration of aesthetic law. 
 Because Ruskin was a great man and a true critic, he 
 was just this sort of an impressionist ; but he was, as 
 Plato said of the poet, "unconsciously mad," and care- 
 ful study is required to determine how far his criti- 
 cisms are based upon universal laws and how far they 
 are merely personal impressions. 
 
 Now law is but the recognized action under certain 
 conditions of broader principles, and in every well 
 ordered mind these principles have a consistency and 
 relation, called a system of philosophy. For example, 
 the law that bird singing and flower opening accom- 
 panies the rising of the sun depends on the principle 
 or broader law of cause and effect; this principle 
 applies to other phenomena of nature and of human 
 life. Man even applies this principle in the realm of 
 ethics and says that the cause of all natural effects is 
 a creator; thus he harmonizes the laws he has formu- 
 lated and makes a system of philosophy, which when 
 
Preface vii 
 
 it is made the basis of his worship is called his the- 
 ology. He is then a philosopher. 
 
 Ruskin, though he scorned metaphysical distinction 
 and terms, was in the true sense of the word a philos- 
 opher ; and it is his philosophy of art that we wish to 
 study in this book. Philosophy is simply clear and 
 connected thinking; philosophy of art, then, is clear 
 and connected thinking about art, and leads to the 
 formulation of laws and principles. Each man, if he 
 thinks about these subjects at all, has, either con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, his philosophy of life and of 
 art. The object of the present volume is to put Rus- 
 kin's thought on art into such a clear and logical form, 
 that the reader can easily and rapidly compare his own 
 theory with Ruskin's. In this work I wish to appear 
 as an editor rather than as an expositor, although a 
 little exposition has been found absolutely necessary. 
 
 This book was first suggested to me by a lecture on 
 Ruskin given by Professor George S. Morris of the 
 University of Michigan, in his course on aesthetics. 
 The work was done and the selections made while I 
 was A. C. A. Fellow at the University of Michigan in 
 1888-9; and this is the first opportunity that I have 
 had to write out the selections and arrange them for 
 the publisher. After my manuscript was ready for 
 the printer, Mr. Collingwood's.^r/ Teaching of Ruskin 
 came into my hands. While we virtually cover the 
 same subject, we treat it in such directly opposite 
 methods — he by the inductive and I by the deductive 
 
viii Preface 
 
 — that the two books are by no means duplicates. I 
 have tried to do what he says is inadvisable, to for- 
 mulate and summarize Ruskin's art philosophy, while 
 he has traced the growth of his art teaching. 
 
 For criticism and suggestion on the philosophy of 
 this exposition, I am indebted to Professor F. N. Scott 
 of the University of Michigan, and to Professor C. M. 
 Gayley, now of California University; for criticism 
 from the artist's standpoint, to Miss Ida Haskell of 
 Pratt Institute, and to Miss Lillian Cushman of 
 Chicago; for a careful reading of the text, to Mr. 
 Willard G. Bleyer of the University of Wisconsin. 
 
 Ida M. Street. 
 Milwaukee, Wis., 1901. 
 
Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Those who think out for themselves a logical uni- 
 verse are philosophers, but we all have a more or less 
 distinct system into which we fit our ideas of morality, 
 of knowledge, and of beauty. If in art we place per- 
 fection of form above spirituality of idea ; if in educa- 
 tion we prefer a training which can be applied to 
 wage-earning only, in place of one for general culture ; 
 if in social life we judge our fellow men by conven- 
 tional standards, rather than by hidden motives ; if we 
 consider material advancement more important than 
 growth of character: we are essentially materialists. 
 If, on the other hand, we are too neglectful of form in 
 our exaltation of idea; if our training is only for soul 
 culture and not at all for practical purposes ; if we are 
 too lax in our observance of conventional standards; 
 if we make good intentions an excuse for all sorts of 
 brusqueness and carelessness ; if we are so negligent 
 of wealth as to endanger the comfort and even health 
 of those dependent upon us : then we are pure idealists. 
 But if we try to keep to a golden mean, if we are 
 neither pessimists nor too ethereal for human nature's 
 
Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 daily use, then our system of philosophy belongs to 
 the middle class. 
 
 Although this is apparently an individual affair, and 
 each has his own system of this universe; yet there 
 are general resemblances which divide us into schools 
 of philosophy. Of all philosophies that have been 
 expounded from the beginning of historic times to the 
 present, there are but three general classes or schools. 
 When we think of the heavy tomes that have been 
 written to explain the universe this seems strange, 
 and yet the many and apparently diverse explanations 
 may be put into three groups ; and in the very nature 
 of things there can be no more. 
 
 All philosophers that have ever existed have 
 
 assumed either that the universe was material, or that 
 
 it was spiritual, or a combination of the two. 
 
 ?^^o^ois of A substance that was neither material nor 
 
 p osop y. gpjj.j^y^l jj^g never been suggested as a basis 
 
 for the world. Until such a substance is suggested or 
 conceived, no more than three schools or divisions are 
 possible: either we must believe that the world is 
 wholly material, or wholly spiritual, or that it is a 
 mixture of the two. Now this belief in the character 
 of the very foundation of the universe must determine 
 our thoughts upon all natural phenomena presented 
 to us and must influence our judgment in all questions 
 of conduct. Out of it grow our theologies and our 
 standards of value in accordance with which we measure 
 all things. The universal value, then, of any criticism, 
 
Introductory 3 
 
 such as Ruskin's of art, is best found by ascertaining 
 the school of philosophy to which the critic belongs. 
 
 Ruskin, I think, can be shown to be neither of 
 the materialistic, nor of the ultra spiritualistic, gen- 
 erally called idealistic; but of the middle 
 reai^deiiist °^ mixture of the two, sometimes termed 
 the real-ideal school. It will probably be 
 readily conceded that his prominence as a writer is 
 largely due to the spiritual tone of his writings on 
 both art and political economy, as opposed to the 
 materialism of the eighteenth and first half of the 
 nineteenth centuries. He everywhere inveighs against 
 the greed and utilitarian spirit of his cotemporaries. 
 The spiritual element in art, the ethical effect of art, 
 are key-notes in his tirades against the English people 
 and in his criticisms of Italian architecture, especially 
 in his Stones of Venice. This would exclude him from 
 the purely materialistic school of thinkers. On the 
 other hand, although he is an idealist as opposed to 
 materialism, he is not a pure idealist. To the pure 
 idealist the outside world has no objective existence ; 
 it lives only in the sensations and minds of men. To 
 them nature is simply an impression, not a reality ; 
 they cannot seriously think of fidelity to nature as to 
 an outside object, but only fidelity to man's impres- 
 sions of nature. 
 
 Painters who take this position would look upon color 
 and line as substitutes for nature, producing its effect, 
 9. symbol, as it were, by which to express feeling. To 
 
4 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 them nature cannot be a real material object to be 
 imitated, but spiritual forms in the mind to be poetic- 
 ally presented to others through art. This sort of art 
 approaches music in its efifects; it is as near pure 
 emotion as color and line will allow painting to become. 
 We have an example of this in Millais, and in George 
 Inness' poetic interpretation of landscape. Corot also 
 has this temperament. They are in direct opposition 
 to such realists as Vibert and Meissonier. When we 
 speak of this class of artists as using color and line as 
 symbols, it is not meant that they are symbolists like 
 Dante in literature. There is a symbolism which is 
 expressed by the utmost realism as in Dante's pictures 
 of the tortures of the Inferno, Milton's representation 
 of unnatural regions would correspond more accurately 
 to Corot's use of color and line. 
 
 While Ruskin admired such idealists as Cimabue, 
 Giotto, and Fra Angelica, because they emphasized 
 the spiritual content above the form; yet he does 
 not believe that form should be ignored. He agrees 
 with the Pre-Raphaelites that nature should be care- 
 fully studied and faithfully reproduced; and this 
 is to be done, not because to reproduce natural objects 
 is to give expression to man's impression, but because 
 nature is an object in itself. This realism, however, 
 is not that which would copy nature and life, both 
 good and evil, with equal vividness; not the prosaic 
 realism of certain of the old Dutch masters; as 
 Teniers, or, in literature, of a Howells and a Zola. It 
 
Introductory 
 
 emphasizes the good, the spiritual, the ennobling. 
 Not the literalism of this nature copying, but the 
 spiritual side of nature is what Ruskin wished to have 
 brought out. He shows this particularly in his chapter 
 on Turner's topography in Modern Painters, and in 
 his distinction between historical and poetical painting. 
 In art both the subject or idea to be conveyed and 
 the form or language in which it is conveyed are 
 
 important. The idea may be one that can 
 spirit in be expressed in literary form, or it may be 
 
 one that can be expressed only by line and 
 color ; but whatever the subject the language is color, 
 line, and form. Where the subject is made so prom- 
 inent in the artist's mind and work that he is indiJEEer- 
 ent to the language and uses any symbol or even 
 conventional forms, the expression reaches a point 
 where it does not express, as in the Byzantine School 
 in early Christian art, and as at present in the Greek 
 Church. Then a reaction sets in toward the emphasis 
 of language or form. Nature is copied literally, and 
 in then- zeal for perfect form the idea to be expressed 
 is either forgotten or carelessly chosen by the reac- 
 tionists. This is false realism. True realism, that of 
 the best Pre-Raphaelites and Ruskin, is to study 
 nature carefully as a means of expression for spiritual 
 idea, but never to let it become an end in itself. On 
 the other hand, the language or form can never be 
 slighted ; for it too has a soul which must be recog- 
 nized and chosen to harmonize with the idea to be 
 
Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism. 
 
 expressed. The clear and careful presentation of this 
 point is a part of Ruskin's best known work. In the 
 fourth volume of Modern Painters, in treating of Tur- 
 ner's landscape he points out the essential nature of 
 clouds and mountains. So in this consideration of 
 the proper effect of natural beauty on the human 
 mind, he is emphasizing the form as a language or 
 mode of expression. (Chap. VI, et. seq.) He is, 
 therefore, both a realist and an idealist ; he belongs to 
 the middle or real-ideal school. In pure philosophy, 
 the best exponents of this school are Plato and Hegel, 
 and although Ruskin protests against the tendencies 
 of Hegelianism, his philosophical exposition every- 
 where closely follows Hegel's ideas./ 
 
 The chief diflBculty in explaining Ruskin's phi- 
 losophy is that he has nowhere stated it connectedly 
 and clearly as a system. Phases of it are 
 not comaeet- Scattered through all his books mixed with 
 
 edly stated. ... , . , , , , 
 
 criticisms of particular art products and of 
 special social conditions. \ He himself says in one of his 
 letters to Susie: "I've written so much that I can't 
 quite make out what I am myself, nor what it all comes 
 to" [Hortus Inclusus). This is the feeling that a 
 reader of Ruskin might perhaps have on first reading 
 through his books, but the true student realizes, as did 
 Ruskin himself in the bottom of his heart, that he be- 
 lieves in the power of spirit over matter and that the 
 outcome of all his writing is to make people see the appli- 
 cation of this principle to every phase of life and art.^ 
 
Introductory 
 
 This process of practical application, moreover, is a 
 somewhat distorting one. It places the main princi- 
 ples in so many different lights and under 
 Liabilities go many modifications, that it is sometimes 
 
 to error. •' ' 
 
 diflficult to extract the pure principle from 
 its environment. Ruskin has attempted in Modern 
 Painters to formulate his principles, and if these vol- 
 umes had been written after, instead of before, his 
 other books, there would be no need of a guide for 
 students of his works ; it is the foundation, then, rather 
 than the epitome of his philosophy, and like other 
 serviceable foundations is less careful in its details 
 than the completed structure would be. He himself 
 says that it was written before his opinions on all 
 points were settled and that it is entirely right only in 
 his insight into art. It is perfectly natural that expe- 
 rience should modify, not entirely change his opinions. 
 Accordingly we find that, although his later books are 
 taken up chiefly with practical questions, philosophical 
 principles are but differently phrased and slightly 
 modified from his earlier statement. Since he had to 
 forge his own metaphysical vocabulary his terms 
 would, many of them, differ from those used now by 
 philosophers. It is a part of the object of this book 
 to call attention to these discrepancies and changes. 
 While they do not materially affect his philosophy, 
 their explanation may make his tenets clearer to the 
 present student. 
 Before taking up the fuller exposition of Ruskin 's 
 
\J 
 
 8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 canons of criticism, we will outline the main points of 
 his own exposition of principles as given in Modern 
 Painters, and note a few of the differences between 
 his and later writers' use of terms. 
 \^e begins with a definition of greatness in art; that 
 is, the embodiment of the greatest ideas, and he 
 intends to expound these greatest ideas in 
 ofhisprin- the volumes that follow. He compares 
 
 clples. . . . ,. 
 
 pamtmg with literature — a parallelism 
 which he carries through his whole exposition — and 
 distinguishes in painting between the language or 
 form and the idea to be conveyed. He insists upon a 
 unity of arts, and so makes it possible to have the 
 same set of principles apply to all the arts — a philos- 
 ophy of art. 
 
 He states that art is a language conveying the 
 following five classes of ideas: (i) ideas of power; that 
 is, the perception or conception of the mental or | 
 bodily powers by which the work has been produced; j 
 (2) ideas of imitation ; that is, the perception that the 
 thing produced resembles something else ; (3) ideas of ' 
 truth; that is, the perception of faithfulness in a j 
 statement of facts by the thing produced; (4) ideas of 
 beauty; that is, the perception of beauty, either in 
 the thing produced or in what it suggests or resem- 
 bles; (s) ideas of relation; that is, the perception of 
 intellectual relations in the thing produced, or in what 
 it suggests or resembles— invention . The first two 
 of these divisions belong to the language of art, the 
 
Introductory 
 
 technical form, and are not again considered after the 
 first presentation; while the last three are discussed 
 at length in the following volumesTj 
 
 While he is right in starting from the art product' — 
 the most easily visible point — for his exposition of art 
 
 principles, yet the basis of his division is 
 iSdiviSon not clearly defined. Why,, for instance, 
 conveyed does he take the ideas conveyed by art as 
 
 his basis of division, when so many and so 
 great a variety of ideas can be conveyed by an art 
 product; i. e., picture or statue. Moreover he does 
 not clearly distinguish between ideas conveyed by the 
 form and those conveyed by the subject or content. 
 The second and third divisions above appear to be the 
 same ; yet he intends that ideas of imitation shall be 
 ideas conveyed by the faithful copying of the form for 
 the form's sake, while ideas of truth are ideas con- 
 veyed by the truths of nature grasped and presented 
 by the poetic mind, as in Turner's landscape. Ideas 
 of imitation must be conveyed by color, for only by 
 that instrument can texture and material be [repre- 
 sented so perfectly as to deceive the eye : while ideas 
 of truth can be conveyed by line, and black and white ; 
 for deception is not necessary to pleasure in this as in 
 imitation. For example, fruit can be so cleverly 
 imitated that for a moment we are deceived and are 
 tempted to eat it, or the bark of a tree may be imi- 
 tated in its details of texture. The tree itself, on the 
 other hand, with its truths of manner of growth may 
 
lO Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 be truthfully represented on paper with a few black 
 lines. There is no deception in this as we know at 
 once it is the artist's idea of the truth of a tree. It 
 conveys ideas of truth not of imitation. Imitation, 
 then, is of material objects, while truth is of thought 
 and impression. 
 
 What in Ruskin's division are made separate, ideas 
 of beauty and ideas of truth, are really reducible to 
 two phases of the same thing. Beauty is only one 
 side of truth; it is the response of feeling to the 
 impressions of the object, and truth is the response of 
 our intellect to the same impressions. If a painting 
 appeals to our feelings by color, if by grace of line, or 
 by association, we call it beautiful ; but it is our intel- 
 lect that judges of its truth to life. Ideas of relation 
 which he separates from ideas of beauty and of truth 
 are also phases of truth; for our intellect recognizes 
 truth by relations. An isolated fact with no standard 
 by which to measure it cannot be either true or false 
 to us. The fact, that one man shoots another does 
 not make him a criminal ; we must know something 
 of the circumstances and of the relations of the two 
 men, before we can say whether it is wilful murder, 
 shooting in self-defense, or mere accident. It is by 
 relations and comparisons that we recognize truth. 
 He himself says, " 'by ideas of relation' I mean those 
 sources of pleasure which require active exertion of 
 the intellectual powers" (M. P., Pt. I, Sec. I, Chap. VII). 
 Thus we see Ruskin has chosen a division of "ideas 
 
Introductory 1 1 
 
 conveyed by art" which overlap, when he could have 
 taken two clear-cut divisions, such as ideas conveyed 
 by form and those conveyed by content, and included 
 under those all the points he has made about imita- 
 tion and truth, and beauty and relation without the 
 confusion which has arisen from the unnatural separa- 
 tion of truth and beauty. It is easy to see how he 
 could fall into this error; for ideas of beauty do in a 
 rough way correspond to ideas of form, and ideas of 
 truth to the content. In the chapter just preceding 
 the five divisions, he had defined the form as language, 
 and distinguished it from idea, but he does not carry 
 that far enough to see how it includes the divisions in 
 his next chapter. This confusion is not to be won- 
 dered at when we remember that the first volume of 
 Modern Painters was written when he was too young 
 to have formulated a complete system of philosophy, 
 being but twenty-four, and that he was the very first 
 English art critic to analyze the principles of art 
 criticism, and was thus compelled to forge his own 
 terms, (in the third volume, written thirteen years 
 later, he restates the definition of the greatest art, 
 and says that the noblest art depends on the end and 
 purpose of the artist; also, that great art, or the 
 "grand style" depends on choice of a noble subject, on 
 love of beauty, on sincerity, and on invention. This 
 makes the aim and the character of the artist the basis 
 of his division, which is, in my opinion, capable of a 
 more definite sub-division. ^ 
 
12 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 After a general discussion of the five classes of ideas 
 
 and a particular analysis of ideas of truth, he turns 
 
 aside to consider the faculties of the mind 
 
 iSTta's by which a work of art is produced and 
 
 psycuoiogy. .^^^^^^-^^^^ This is Under Idms of Beauty 
 
 in the second volume, and contains the kernel of his 
 psychology, especially where he treats of the imagina- 
 tion. The distinction between the theoretic faculty 
 which apprehends beauty and the imagination does not 
 seem to be clearly drawn. He follows Hegel and 
 Aristotle in using the word theoria, the comprehen- 
 sion of soul beauty, as opposed to aesthesis, which is 
 the comprehension of sensuous beauty only. The 
 theoretic faculty is cognizant of beauty in nature 
 either as being typical, that is, beauty which is a 
 type of divinity ; or as being vital, that is, beauty that 
 inheres in life itself, either human or animal. It is 
 not until the fifth volume that he discusses ideas of 
 relation — the relation of art to God and man. In the 
 second and third volumes of Modern Painters Ruskin 
 is in accord with the real-ideal philosophy and is per- 
 fectly clear, and if the reader ignores his five divisions 
 in the first volumes, there is nothing confusing in his 
 exposition. 
 
 When we analyze them, all subjects have for us two 
 attitudes : an attitude or relation to the individual, 
 and one to the universe. In religion, for instance, 
 there is a personal relation in the regeneration of our 
 souls; but religion has also an attitude towards 
 
Introductory 1 3 
 
 society in general called philanthrophy, and toward 
 other religions called theology. In art, then, as we 
 The indMd- study it we find two sfeneral sets of rela- 
 
 ual— the ° 
 
 StitSde^oi *^°°® • *^® individualistic, and the universal, 
 ar'- On the universal side, we think of it as 
 
 related to truth and goodness, and as showing God's 
 intention or aim; from the individual side, we con- 
 sider its relation to the artist and to the appreciator of 
 the art product. This individual relation would be 
 called in philosophy the psychological side of the sub- 
 ject ; and the universal, the philosophical. 
 
 In the study of the psychological or individualistic 
 division jpf, the subject, there are two sub-divisipns : 
 
 ^ , , the artist's and the appreciator's attitude to 
 The artist's— ... ...... __ *^ - — 
 
 *^8 J^^°i^g6r's the art product. In Ruskin's exposition 
 *^'- confusion sometimes arises from not keep- 
 
 ing distinct the attitude of these two toward art. This 
 same confusion has often arisen in art criticism, and 
 is the source of that endless discussion of the aim of 
 art, whether it is to give pleasure or to teach morality. 
 As a matter of fact there are two aims of art: on the 
 one hand the aim of the artist to embody truth in 
 beautiful forms ; and on the other, the aim of God or 
 the effect of art on the appreciator — its power to create 
 ideals. This indiscriminate interchanging of the 
 effect of art with the aim of the artist is done by Rus- 
 kin in common with many other critics of art and liter- 
 ature. In the third volume the work of art is 
 considered mostly from the point of view of the pro- 
 
14 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ducer, which of course is different from Ruskin's 
 usual method — that of laying stress upon the good to 
 be derived from art, the latter being the appreciator's 
 point of view and not the artist's. The difference 
 between them is that between cause and effect; the 
 artist's aim is the cause, while the effect is that pro- 
 duced on the appreciator by the art product. Between 
 them there is a unity but not an identity. The unity 
 is the law by which cause produces effect. In this 
 case the effect or result of art is to build up ideals in 
 men's minds; and the law by which it is done is the 
 power of art over men's imaginations and feelings. 
 The artist looks on a picture or statue as an embodi- 
 ment of a truth. He asks himself in each case, whether 
 or not it has the imaginative form most in harmony 
 with its subject. He need not ask its effect on the 
 beholder, because that is a natural result of the work- 
 ing of the law of imagination. For example, the 
 painter is impressed with the idea of utter loneliness, 
 he selects as a medium to convey this idea an old man 
 sitting by the dead form of his old wife. The careless 
 observer passing through the gallery sees this, and 
 his imagination may fill in the needed circumstances 
 to make a story. He thinks of his old father and 
 mother, or of himself and his wife. His feelings are 
 stirred, and for some time after he may be more con- 
 siderate toward his childish old father or more tender 
 toward his wife. This result is not produced in all 
 beholders, nor was it in the artist's mind, he simply 
 
Introductory jc 
 
 put down his impression of one phase of life. The 
 purpose in making this distinction between the artist's 
 motive and the beholder's feeling is to bring out the 
 unity of God's law in art. The artist who is con- ' • 
 tantly thinking of the effect of his pictures is too -^' 
 self-conscious, he is posing, he should trust a little to 
 Providence and concern himself only with seeing 
 truths of life and embodying them in form. If he 
 considers his observers too much he will begin to pan- 
 der to their tastes; he will give them not always what 
 is good for them, but what they want. 
 
 In considering the relation of the art product to the 
 
 beholder there is not only the effect of the statue or 
 
 picture on him, but his reaction or attitude 
 
 oiator^seflect toward art; that is, what he likes he will •'' 
 on art. 
 
 demand, and this will in the long run affect 
 
 the art of his country and time. Ruskin dwells on 
 this at length in the social effect of art and the polit- 
 ical economy of art, but it is not necessary for us to 
 stop over it now ; our present concern being with the 
 direct effect of art on the beholder. 
 
 Ruskin speaks of good art as didactic ; it is hard to 
 determine, however, whether this use of the word 
 
 didactic for ethical is the result of a slight 
 In use^ot confusion in the idea, confusing the nature 
 
 of art with the purpose of the artist, or sim- 
 ply a careless use of the word. An object may be 
 ethical, or right, or good in its nature ; it is didactic 
 only when it is used as an instrument to teach, with 
 
i6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the avowed object of teaching; its nature and form 
 being thus warped to suit the purpose of teaching, it 
 may or may not be ethical. As in the picture cited 
 above, an ethical relation of life was represented, but 
 the artist did not tack his moral on to the picture, the 
 beholder drew it for himself. Ruskin also follows the 
 old metaphysical nomenclature in calling every per- 
 sistent action of the inind a faculty instead of a func- 
 tion or power; he likewise adopts Locke's use of 
 idea for notion, and he does not use it in the Platonic 
 sense of ideal. So, too, he follows the ordinary lim- 
 ited use of the word aesthetic, restricting it to sen- 
 suous pleasure, while for the higher pleasure of the 
 spirit in beauty, which is in now called in philosophy, 
 aesthetic, he uses the term theoretic. In one place 
 he defines the sense of beauty as "a mixture of the 
 senses of the body and soul," but does not call it 
 aesthetic as Hegel would have done. 
 
 Having armed ourselves against fallacies which 
 might arise from Ruskin's peculiar use of terms, we 
 shall now take up this exposition from the universal 
 or philosophical point of view; and then we shall pass 
 to the relation of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good 
 as Ruskin presents it. Some points already treated 
 of will necessarily be repeated in the first of the fol- 
 lowing chapter. 
 
Selections 1 7 
 
 SELECTIONS FOR CHAPTER I 
 Eagle's Nest, VI, %%ios, 103. 
 
 §103. I was interested then, I say, more in the device 
 of the creature, than in its source of motion. Never- 
 theless, I am pleased to hear, from men of 
 amM^rtoUst. science, how necessarily that motion pro- 
 ceeds from the sun. But where did its device 
 come from? There is no wisdom, no device in the 
 dust, any more than there is warmth in the dust. The 
 springing of the serpent is from the sun : — the wisdom 
 of the serpent, — whence that? 
 
 §105. Well, the sliding of the serpent, and the device 
 of the serpent, we admit, come from the sun. The 
 flight of the dove, and its harmlessness, — do they also? 
 
 The flight, — yes, assuredly. The Innocence? — It is 
 a new question. How of that? Between movement 
 and non-movement — nay, between sense and non- 
 sense — the difference rests, we say, in the power of 
 Apollo; but between malice and innocence, where 
 shall we find the root of that distinction? 
 
 Ethics of the Dust, Lecture X. 
 
 L. Neither do I understand, myself, my dear, how 
 much I am in earnest. The stones puzzle me as 
 much as I puzzle you. They look as if they were 
 alive, and make me speak as if they were ; and I do 
 not in the least know how much truth there is in the 
 appearance. I'm not to ask things back again to-night, 
 but all questions of this sort lead necessarily to the 
 one main question, which we asked, before, in vain, 
 ''What is it to be alive?" 
 
1 8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Dora. Yes; but we want to comeback to that: for 
 we've been reading scientific books about the "con- 
 servation of forces," and it seems all so grand, and 
 wonderful; and the experiments are so pretty; and I 
 suppose it must be all right: but then the books never 
 speak as if there were any such thing as "life." 
 
 L. They mostly omit that part of the subject, cer- 
 tainly, Dora; but they are beautifully right as far as 
 they go ; and life is not a convenient element to deal 
 with. They seem to have been getting some of it 
 into and out of bottles, in their "ozone" and "anti- 
 zone" lately; but they still know little of it: and, cer- 
 tainly, I know less. 
 
 Dora. You promised not to be provoking, to-night. 
 
 L. Wait a minute. Though, quite truly, I know 
 less of the secrets of life than the philosophers do; I 
 yet know one corner of ground on which we artists 
 can stand, literally as "Life Guards" at bay, as stead- 
 ily as the Guards at Inkermann; however hard the 
 philosophers push. And you may stand with us, if 
 once you learn to draw nicely. 
 
 Dora. I'm sure we are all trying! but tell us where 
 we may stand. 
 
 L. You may always stand by Form, against Force. 
 To a painter, the essential character of anything is the 
 form of it; and the philosophers cannot touch that 
 They come and tell you, for instance, that there is as 
 much heat, or motion, or calorific energy (or whatever 
 else they like to call it), in a teakettle as in a Gier- 
 eagle. Very good; that is so; and it is very interest- 
 ing. It requires just as much heat as will boil the 
 kettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to his nest ; and as 
 
Selections 19 
 
 much more to bring him down again on a nare or a 
 partridge. But we painters, acknowledging the 
 equality and similarity of the kettle and the bird in all 
 scientific respects, attach, for our part, our principal 
 interest to the difference in their forms. For us, the 
 primarily cognisable facts, in the two things, are, 
 that the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak ; the 
 one a lid on its back, the other a pair of wings ; — not 
 to speak of the distinction also of volition, which the 
 philosophers may properly call merely a form or 
 mode of force; — but then, to an artist, the form, or 
 mode, is the gist of the business. The kettle chooses 
 to sit still on the hob ; the eagle to recline on the air. 
 It is the fact of the choice, not the equal degree of 
 temperature in the fulfilment of it, which appears to 
 us the more interesting circumstance; — though the 
 other is very interesting too. Exceedingly so! Don't 
 laugh, children; the philosophers have been doing 
 quite splendid work lately, in their own way: espe- 
 cially, the transformation of force into light is a great 
 piece of systematised discovery ; and this notion about 
 the sun's being supplied with his flame by ceaseless 
 meteoric hail is grand, and looks very likely to be true. 
 Of course, it is only the old gun-lock, — flint and steel, 
 — on a large scale : but the order and majesty of it are 
 sublime. Still, we sculptors and painters care little 
 about it. "It is very fine," we say^ "and very useful, 
 this knocking the light out of the sun, or into it, by 
 an eternal cataract of planets. But you may hail 
 away, so, forever, and you will not knock out what 
 we can. Here is a bit of silver, not the size of a half- 
 a-crown, on which, with a single hammer stroke, one 
 
20 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 of us, two thousand and odd years ago, hit out the 
 head of the Apollo of Clazomenae. It is merely a 
 matter of form ; but if any of you philosophers, with 
 your whole planetary system to hammer with, can hit 
 out such another bit of silver as this,— we will take off 
 our hats to you. For the present, we keep them on." 
 
 Mary. Yes, I understand; and that is nice; but I 
 don't think we shall any of us like having only form 
 to depend upon. 
 
 L. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, my 
 dear. 
 
 Mary. It does not seem to separate us from the dust 
 of the ground. It is that breathing of the life which 
 we want to understand. 
 
 L. So you should: but hold fast to the form, and 
 defend that first, as distinguished from the mere tran- 
 sition of forces. Discern the moulding hand of the 
 potter commanding the clay, from his merely beating 
 foot, as it turns the wheel. If you can find incense, 
 in the vase, afterwards, — well: but it is curious how 
 far mere form will carry you ahead of the philosophers. 
 For instance, with regard to the most interesting of 
 all their modes of force — light ; — they never consider 
 how far the existence of it depends on the putting of 
 certain vitreous and nervous substances into the 
 formal arrangement which we call an eye. The Ger- 
 man philosophers began the attack, long ago, on 
 the other side, by telling us, there was no such thing 
 as light at all, unless we chose to see it: now, Ger- 
 man and English, both, have reversed their engines, 
 and insist that light would be exactly the same light 
 that it is, though nobody could ever see it. The fact 
 
Selections 21 
 
 being that the force must be there, and the eyes 
 there; and "light" means the effect of the one on the 
 other;— and perhaps, also — (Plato saw farther into 
 that mystery than any one has since, that I know of), 
 — on something a little way within the eyes ; but we 
 may stand quite safe, close behind the retina, and 
 defy the philosophers. 
 
 Sibyl. But I don't care so much about defying the 
 philosophers, if only one could get a clear idea of life, 
 or soul, for one's self. 
 
 L. Well, Sibyl, you used to know more about it, in 
 that cave of yours, than any of us. I was just going 
 to ask you about inspiration, and the golden bough, 
 and the like ; only I remembered I was not to ask any- 
 thing. But, will not you, at least, tell us whether the 
 ideas of Life, as the power of putting things together, 
 or "making" them ; and of Death, as the power of 
 pushing things separate, or "unmaking" them, may 
 not be very simply held in balance against each other? 
 
 Sibyl. No, I am not in my cave to-night ; and can- 
 not tell you anything. 
 
 L. I think they may. Modern Philosophy is a great 
 separator; it is little more than the expansion of 
 Molifere's great sentence, "II s'ensuit de Ih, que tout 
 ce qu'il ya de beau est dans les dictionnaires ; il n'y a 
 que les mots qui sont transposes." But when you 
 used to be in your cave, Sibyl, and to be inspired, there 
 was (and there remains still in some small measure), 
 beyond the merely formative and sustaining power, 
 another, which we painters call "passion" — I don't 
 know what the philosophers call it ; we know it makes 
 people red, or white ; and therefore it must be some- 
 
22 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 thing, itself; and perhaps it is the most truly "poetic" 
 or "making" force of all, creating a world of its own 
 out of a glance, or a sigh: and the want of passion is 
 perhaps the truest death, or "unmaking" of every- 
 thing; — even of stones. By the way, you were all 
 reading about that ascent of the Aiguille Verte, the 
 other day? 
 
 Sibyl. Because you had told us it was so difficult, 
 you thought it could not be ascended. 
 
 L. Yes ; I believed the Aiguille Verte would have 
 held its own. But do you recollect what one of the 
 climbers exclaimed, when he first felt sure of reach- 
 ing the summit? 
 
 Sibyl. Yes, it was, "Oh, Aiguille Verte, vous etes' 
 morte, vous etes morte!" 
 
 L. That was true instinct. Real philosophic joy. 
 Now can you at all fancy the difference between 
 that feeling of triumph in a mountain's death; and the 
 exultation of your beloved poet, in its life — 
 
 " 'Quantus Athos, aut quantus Eryx, aut ipse coruscis 
 Quum fremit ilicibus quantus, gaudetque nivali 
 Vertice, se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras.* " 
 
 Dora. You must translate for us mere house-keep- 
 ers, please,— whatever the cave-keepers may know 
 about it. 
 
 Mary. Will Dryden do? 
 
 L. No. Dryden is a far way worse than nothing, 
 and nobody will "do." You can't translate it. But 
 this is all you need know, that the lines are full of a 
 passionate sense of the Apennines' fatherhood, or pro- 
 tecting power over Italy, and of sympathy with their 
 
Selections 23 
 
 joy in their snowy strength in heaven ; and with the 
 same joy, shuddering through all the leaves of their 
 forests. 
 
 Mary. Yes, that is a difference indeed! but then, 
 you know, one can't help feeling that it is fanciful. 
 It is very delightful to imagine the mountains to be 
 alive ; but then, — are they alive? 
 
 L. It seems to me, on the whole, Mary, that the 
 feelings of the purest and most mightily passioned 
 human souls are likely to be the truest. Not, indeed, 
 if they do not desire to know the truth, or blind them- 
 selves to it that they may please themselves with 
 passion ; for then they are no longer pure : but if, con- 
 tinually seeking and accepting the truth as far as it is 
 discernible, they trust their maker for the integrity of 
 the instincts He has gifted them with, and rest in the 
 sense of a higher truth which they cannot demon- 
 strate, I think they will be most in the right, so. 
 
 Dora and Jessk, (clapping their hands). Then we 
 really may believe that the mountains are living? 
 
 L. You may at least earnestly believe, that the pres- 
 ence of the spirit which culminates in your own life, 
 shows itself in dawning, wherever the dust of the earth 
 begins to assume any orderly and lovely state. You 
 will find it impossible to separate this idea of gradated 
 manifestation from that of the vital power. Things 
 are not either wholly alive, or wholly dead. They are 
 less or more alive. Take the nearest, most easily 
 examined instance — the life of a flower. Notice what 
 a different degree and kind of life there is in the 
 calyx and the corolla. The calyx is nothing but the 
 swaddling clothes of the flower; the child-blossom is 
 
24 Ruskin's Principles of Art Critic ism 
 
 bound up in it, hand and foot; guarded in it, restrained 
 by it, till the time of birth. The shell is hardly more 
 subordinate to the germ in the egg, than the calyx to 
 the blossom. It bursts at last; but it never lives as 
 the corolla does. It may fall at the moment its task is 
 fulfilled, as in the poppy; or wither gradually, as in 
 the buttercup ; or persist in a ligeneous apathy, after 
 the flower is dead, as in the rose ; or harmonise itself 
 so as to share in the aspect of the real flower, as in the 
 lily; but it never shares in the corolla's bright passion 
 of life. And the gradations which thus exist between 
 the different members of organic creatures, exist no less 
 between the different ranges of organism. We know 
 no higher or more energetic life than our own ; but 
 there seems to me this great good in the idea of grada- 
 tion of life— it admits the idea of a life above us, in 
 other creatures, as much nobler than ours, as ours is 
 nobler than that of the dust. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XIV, §/#. 
 
 §14. These are, first, that the pursuit of idealism in 
 humanity, as of idealism in lower nature, can be suc- 
 cessful only when followed through the most 
 not a pure constant, patient, and humble rendering of 
 
 Idealist. . 1 j ■, . -, -^i. xi. x 
 
 actual models, accompanied with that ear- 
 nest mental as well as ocular study of each, which can 
 interpret all that is written upon it, disentangle the 
 hieroglyphics of its sacred history, rend the veil of the 
 bodily temple, and rightly measure the relations of 
 good and evil contending within it for mastery, that 
 everything done without such study must be shallow 
 and contemptible, that generalization or combination 
 
Selections 
 
 25 
 
 of individual character will end less in the mending 
 than the losing of it, and, except in certain instances 
 of which we shall presently take note, is valueless and 
 vapid, even if it escape being painful from its want of 
 truth, which in these days it often in some measure 
 does, for we indeed find faces about us with want 
 enough of life or wholesome character in them to jus- 
 tify anything. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IH, Pt. IV, Chap. XII, §§/-j. 
 
 §1. German dulness and English affectation, have of 
 late much multiplied among us the use of two of the 
 most objectionable words that were ever coined by 
 the troublesomeness of metaphysicians, — namely, 
 "Objective" and "Subjective." 
 
 No words can be more exquisitely, and in all points, 
 useless ; and I merely speak of them that I may, at 
 once and for ever, get them out of my way and out of 
 my reader's. But to get that done, they must be ex- 
 plained. The word "Blue," say certain philosophers, 
 means the sensation of color which the human eye re- 
 ceives in looking at the open sky, or at a bell gentian. 
 
 Now, say they farther, as this sensation can only be 
 felt when the eye is turned to the object, and as, there- 
 fore, no such sensation is produced by the object when 
 nobody looks at it, therefore the thing, when it is not 
 looked at, is not blue ; and thus (say they) there are 
 many qualities of things which depend as much on some- 
 thing else as on themselves. To be sweet, a thing 
 must have a taster ; it is only sweet while it is being 
 tasted, and if the tongue. had not the capacity of taste, 
 then the sugar would not have the quality of sweetness. 
 
26 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 And then they agree that the qualities of thin 
 which thus depend upon our perception of them, ai 
 upon our human nature as affected by them, shall i 
 called Subjective ; and the qualities of things whi( 
 they always have, irrespective of any other nature, 
 roundness or squareness, shall be called Objective. 
 
 From these ingenious views the step is very easy 
 a farther opinion, that it does not much matter wh 
 things are in themselves, but only what they are 
 us; and that the only real truth of them is the 
 appearance to, or effect upon, us. From which pos 
 tion, with a hearty desire for mystification, and muc 
 egotism, selfishness, shallowness, and impertinenc 
 a philosopher may easily go so far as to believe, ar 
 say, that everything in the world depends upon h 
 seeing or thinking of it, and that nothing, therefor 
 exists, but what he sees or thinks of. 
 
 §2. Now, to get rid of all these ambiguities ar 
 troublesome words at once, be it observed that tl 
 word "Blue" does not mean the sensation caused by 
 gentian on the human eye; but it means the power ( 
 producing that sensation; and this power is alwaj 
 there, in the thing, whether we are there to experieni 
 it or not, and would remain there though there wei 
 not left a man on the face of the earth. Precisely i 
 the same way gunpowder has a power of explodinj 
 It will not explode if you put no match to it. But it hf 
 always the power of so exploding, and is therefore calle 
 an explosive compound, which it very positively and as 
 suredly is, whatever philosophy may say to the contrarj 
 
 In like manner, a gentian does not produce the sei 
 sation of blueness if you don't look at it. But it ha 
 
Selections 27 
 
 always the power of doing so ; its particles being ever- 
 lastingly so arranged by its Maker. And, therefore, 
 the gentian and the sky are always verily blue, what- 
 ever philosophy may say to the contrary; and if you 
 do not see them blue when you look at them, it is not 
 their fault but yours. * 
 
 §3. Hence I would say to these philosophers: If, 
 instead of using the sonorous phrase, "It is objectively 
 so," you will use the plain old phrase, "It is so"; and 
 if instead of the sonorous phrase, "It is subjectively 
 so," you will say, in plain old English, "It does so," 
 or "It seems so tome"; you will, on the whole, be 
 more intelligible to your fellow creatures ; and besides, 
 if you find that a thing which generally "does so" to 
 other people (as a gentian looks blue to most men) does 
 not so to you, on any particular occasion, you will not 
 fall into the impertinence of saying that the thing is 
 not so, or did not so, but you will say simply (what 
 you will be all the better for speedily finding out) that 
 something is the matter with you. If you find that 
 you cannot explode the gunpowder, you will not 
 declare that all gunpowder is subjective, and all 
 
 * It is quite true, that in all qualities involving sensation, there 
 may be a doubt whether different people receive the same sensa- 
 tion from the same thing (compare Part II, Sec. I, Chap. V, §6); 
 but, though this makes such facts not distinctly explicable, it does 
 not alter the facts themselves. I derive a certain sensation, which 
 I call sweetness, from sugar. That is a fact. Another person 
 feels a sensation, which he also calls sweetness, from sugar. That 
 is also a fact. The sugar's power to produce these two sensations, 
 which we suppose to be, and which are, in all probability, very 
 nearly the same in both of us, and, on the whole, in the human 
 race, is its sweetness. 
 
28 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 explosion imaginary, but you will simply suspect and 
 declare yourself to be an ill-made match. Which, on 
 the whole, though there may be a distant chance of a 
 mistake about it, is, nevertheless, the wisest conclusion 
 you can come to until farther experiment. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Part V, Chap. XVIII, §§^,/. 
 
 §4. Some years ago, as I was talking of the curvi- 
 linear forms in a piece of rock to one of our academi- 
 cians, he said to me, in a somewhat despondent accent, 
 "If you look for curves, you will see curves; if you 
 look for angles, you will see angles.'* 
 
 The saying appeared to me an infinitely sad one. 
 It was the utterance of an experienced man ; and in 
 many ways true, for one of the most singular gifts, or, 
 if abused, most singular weaknesses, of the human 
 mind is its power of persuading itself to see whatever 
 it chooses ; — a great gift, if directed to the discern- 
 ment of the things needful and pertinent to its own 
 work and being; a great weakness, if directed to the 
 discovery of things profitless or discouraging. In all 
 things throughout the world, the men who look for 
 the crooked will see the crooked, and the men who 
 look for the straight will see the straight. But yet 
 the saying was a notably sad one; for it came of the 
 conviction in the speaker's mind that there was in 
 reality no crooked and no straight ; that all so-called 
 discernment was fancy, and that men might, with 
 equal rectitude of judgment, and good-deserving of 
 their fellow men, perceive and paint whatever was 
 convenient to them. 
 
 §5. Whereas things may always be seen truly by 
 
Selections 29 
 
 candid people, though never completely. No human 
 capacity ever yet saw the whole of a thing ; but we 
 may see more and more of it the longer we look. 
 Every individual temper will see something different 
 in it: but supposing the tempers honest, all the 
 differences are there. Every advance in our acuteness 
 of perception will show us something new ; but the old 
 and first discerned thing will still be there, not falsi- 
 fied, only modified and enriched by the new percep- 
 tions, becoming continually more beautiful in its 
 harmony with them and more approved as a part of 
 the Infinite truth. 
 
 Queen of the Air, Led. II, ^s, S4, S8, sg, 60, Sg, gg, 100. 
 §52. But it is of great consequence that you should 
 fix in your minds — and hold, against the baseness of 
 mere materialism on the one hand, and 
 pSraophy aga^inst the fallacies of controversial specu- 
 lation on the other — the certain and practi- 
 cal sense of this word "spirit"; — the sense in which 
 you all know that its reality exists, as the power which 
 shaped you into your shape, and by which you love, 
 and hate, when you have received that shape. You 
 need not fear, on the one hand, that either the sculp- 
 turing or the loving power can ever be beaten down 
 by the philosophers into a metal, or evolved by them 
 into a gas : but on the other hand, take care that you 
 yourselves, in trying to elevate your conception of it, do 
 not lose its truth " in a dream, or even in a word. 
 Beware always of contending for words : you will find 
 them not easy to grasp, if you know them in several 
 languages. This very word, which is so solemn in 
 
30 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 your mouths, is one of the most doubtful. In Latin 
 it means little more than breathing, and may mean 
 merely accent; in French it is not breath, but wit, 
 and our neighbours are therefore obliged, even in 
 their most solemn exfjressions, to say "wit" when we 
 say "ghost." In Greek, "pneuma," the word we 
 translate "ghost," means either wind or breath, and 
 the relative word "psyche" has, perhaps, a more sub- 
 tle power; yet St. Paul's words "pneumatic body" and 
 "psychic body" involve a difference in his mind which 
 no words will explain. But in Greek and in English, 
 and in Saxon and in Hebrew, and in every articulate 
 tongue of humanity the "spirit of man" truly means 
 his passion and virtue, and is stately according to the 
 height of his conception, and stable according to the 
 measure of his endurance. 
 
 §54. And so long as you have that fire of the heart 
 within you, and know the reality of it, you need be 
 under no alarm as to the possibility of its chemical or 
 mechanical analysis. The philosophers are very humor- 
 ous in their ecstasy of hope about it; but the real 
 interest of their discoveries in this direction is very 
 small to human-kind. 
 
 We will assume that science has done its utmost ; and 
 that every chemical or animal force is demonstrably 
 resolyable into heat or motion, reciprocally changing 
 iflto .each other. J would myself like better, in order 
 of thought, to consider motion as a mode of heat than 
 heat as a mode of motion: still, granting that we have 
 got thus far, we have yet to ask, What is heat? or 
 what motion? What is this "primo mobile," this 
 transitional power, in which all things live, and move 
 
Selections 3 1 
 
 and have their being? It is by definition something 
 different from matter, and we may call it as we choose 
 —"first cause," or "first light," or "first heat"; but 
 we can show no scientific proof of its not being per- 
 sonal, and coinciding with the ordinary conception of 
 a supporting spirit in all things. 
 
 ,§59. Still, it is not advisable to apply the word "spirit" 
 or "breathing" to it, while it is only enforcing chem- 
 ical afiBnities; but, when the chemical affinities are 
 brought under the influence of the air, and of the 
 sun's heat, the formative force enters an entirely 
 different phase. It does not now merely crystallize 
 indefinite masses, but it gives to limited portions of 
 matter the power of gathering, selectively, other 
 elements proper to them, and binding these elements 
 into their own peculiar and adopted form. 
 
 This force, now properly called life, or breathing, 
 or spirit, is continually creating its own shells of 
 definite shape out of the wreck round it: and this is 
 what I meant jby saying, in the "Ethics of the Dust": 
 — "you may always stand by form against force." 
 For the mere force of junction is not spirit ; but the 
 power that catches out of chaos charcoal, water, lime 
 or what not and fastens them down into a given form, 
 is properly called "spirit"; and we shall not diminish, 
 but strengthen our conception of this creative energy 
 by recognizing its presence in lower states of matter 
 than our own ; — such recognition being enforced upon 
 us by a delight we instinctively receive from all the 
 forms of matter which manifest it; and yet more, by 
 the glorifying of those forms, in the parts of them that 
 are most animated, with the colours that are pleasant- 
 
33 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 est to our senses. The most familiar instance of this 
 is the best, and also the most wonderful: the blossom- 
 ing of plants. 
 
 §60. The Spirit in the plant,— that is to say, its power 
 of gathering dead matter out of the wreck round it, 
 and shaping it into its own chosen shape, — is of course 
 strongest at the moment of its flowering, for it then 
 not only gathers, but forms, with the greatest energy. 
 
 §89. There is no answer. But the sum of all is, that 
 over the entire surface of the earth and its waters, as 
 influenced by the power of the air under solar light, 
 there is developed a series of changing forms, in 
 clouds, plants, and animals, all of which have refer- 
 ence in their action, or nature, to the human intelli- 
 gence that perceives them; and on which, in their 
 aspects of horror and beauty, and their qualities of 
 good and evil, there is engraved a series of myths, or 
 words of the forming power, which, according to the 
 true passion and energy of the human race, they have 
 been enabled to read into religion. And this forming 
 power has been by all nations partly confused with 
 the breath or air through which it acts, and partly 
 understood as a creative wisdom, proceeding from the 
 Supreme Deity; but entering into and inspiring all 
 intelligences that work in harmony with Him. And 
 whatever intellectual results may be in modern days 
 obtained by regarding this efHuence only as a motion 
 of vibration, every formative human art hitherto, and 
 the best states of human happiness and order, have 
 depended on the apprehension of its mystery (which is 
 certain), and of its personality, which is probable. 
 
 §99. This was the Athena of the greatest people of 
 
Selections 33 
 
 the days of old. And opposite to the temple of this 
 Spirit of the breath, and life-blood, of man and of 
 beast, stood, on the Mount of Justice, and near the 
 chasm which was haunted by the godless-Avengers, 
 an altar to a God unknown; — proclaimed at last to 
 them, as one who, indeed, gave to all men, life, and 
 breath, and all things; and rain from heaven, filling 
 their hearts with food and gladness ; — a God who had 
 made of one blood all nations of men who dwell on 
 the face of all the earth, and had determined the times 
 of their fate, and the bounds of their habitation. 
 
 §100. We ourselves, fretted here in our narrow days, 
 know less, perhaps, in very deed, than they, what 
 manner of spirit we are of, or what manner of spirit 
 we ignorantly worship. Have we, indeed, desired the 
 Desire of all nations? and will the Master whom we 
 meant to seek, and the Messenger in whom we 
 thought we delighted, confirm, when He comes to His 
 temple, — or not find in its midst, — the tables heavy 
 with gold for bread, and the seats that are bought with 
 the price of the dove? Or is our own land also to be 
 left by its angered Spirit ; — left among those, where 
 sunshine vainly sweet, and passionate folly of storm, 
 waste themselves in the silent places of knowledge 
 that has passed away, and of tongues that have ceased? 
 
 This only we may discern assuredly: this, every 
 true light of science, every mercifully-granted power, 
 every wisely-restricted thought, teach us more clearly 
 day by day, that in the heavens above, and the earth 
 beneath, there is one continual and omnipotent pres- 
 ence of help, and of peace, for all men who know that 
 they Live, and remember that they Die. 
 
34 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Mutter a Pulveris, Chap, i, §6. 
 §6. That human nature, as its Creator made it, and 
 maintains it wherever His laws are observed, is 
 entirely harmonious. No physical error can be more 
 profound, no moral error more dangerous, than that 
 involved in the monkish doctrine of the opposition of 
 body to soul. No soul can be perfect in an imperfect 
 body: no body perfect without perfect soul. Every 
 right action and true thought sets the seal of its beauty 
 on person and face; every wrong action and foul 
 thought its seal of distortion ; and the various aspects 
 of humanity might be read as plainly as a printed his- 
 tory, were it not that the impressions are so complex 
 that it must always in some cases (and, in the present 
 state of our knowledge, in all cases) be impossible to 
 decipher them completely. Nevertheless, the face of 
 a consistently just, and of a consistently unjust per- 
 son, may always be rightly distinguished at a glance; 
 and if the qualities are continued by descent through 
 a generation or two, there arises a complete distinc- 
 tion of race. Both moral and physical qualities are 
 communicated by descent, far more than they can be 
 developed by education ; (though both may be destroyed 
 by want of education), and there is as yet no ascer- 
 tained limit to the nobleness of person and mind 
 which the human creature may "attain, by persevering 
 observance of the laws of God respecting its birth and 
 trainiixg. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. IV, §7. 
 
 §7. Yet observe, I do not mean to speak of the 
 body and soul as separable. The man is made up of 
 
Selections 
 
 35 
 
 both: they are to be raised and glorified together, and 
 all art is an expression of the one, by and through 
 the other. All that I would insist upon is, the neces- 
 sity of the_ whole man_b^ng-JjLhjg.,wqrk;^tlie body ^ 
 must be in it. Hands and habits must be in it, 
 whether we -wilLorxiot ;butthfiJlQbleiLparl^^ man 
 may_i)ften^aot be in it. And that nobler part acts 
 principally in love, reverence, and admiration, to- 
 gether with those conditions of thought which arise 
 out of them. For we usually fall into much error 
 by considering the intellectual powers as having dig- 
 nity in themselves, and separable from the heart; 
 whereas the truth is, that the intellect becomes noble 
 and ignoble according to the food we give it, and the 
 kind of subjects with which it is conversant. It is not 
 the reasoning power which, of itself, is noble, but the 
 reasoning power occupied with its proper objects. 
 Half of the mistakes of metaphysicians have arisen 
 from their not observing this ; namely, that the intel- 
 lect, going through the same processes, is yet mean or 
 noble according to the matter it deals with, and wastes 
 itself away in mere rotary motion, if it be set to grind 
 straws and dust. If we reason only respecting words, 
 or lines, or any trifling and finite things, the reason 
 becomes a contemptible faculty ; but reason employed 
 on holy and infinite things, becomes herself holy and 
 infinite. So that, by work of the soul, I mean the 
 reader always to understand the work of the entire 
 immortal creature, proceeding from a quick, percep- 
 tive, and eager heart, perfected by the intellect, and 
 finally dealt with by the hands, under the direct guid- 
 ,ance of these higher powers.. 
 
36 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Appendix 15. 
 
 Now it is well, when we have strong moraLor_goet- 
 
 ical feeling manifested in painting, to mark this as the 
 
 "" '^ best part of the work; but it is not well to 
 
 ■A^ta consider as a thing of small account, the 
 
 language. ° ,. , .. . r i- • 
 
 pamter's language m which that feehng is 
 conveyed ; for.il that language be notj;;oQd-^ni_lovelyi 
 the man may indeed be a just moralist or a great poet, 
 but he is not a painter, and it was wrong of him to 
 paint. He had much better put his morality into ser- 
 mons, and his poetry into verse, than into a language 
 of which he was not master. And this mastery of the 
 language is that of which we should be cognizant by a 
 glance of the eye; and if that be not found, it is 
 wasted time to look farther : the man has mistaken his 
 vocation, and his expression of himself will be cramped 
 by his awkward efforts to do what he was not fit to do. 
 On the other hand, if the man be a painter indeed, 
 and have the gift of colours and lines, what is in him 
 will come from his hand freely and faithfully ; and the 
 language itself is so difficult and so vast, that the 
 mere possession of it argues the man is great, and that 
 his works are worth reading. So that I have never 
 yet seen the case in which this true artistical excel- 
 lence, visible by the eye-glance, was not the index of 
 some true expressional worth in the work. Neither 
 have I ever seen a good expressional work without 
 high artistical merit: and that this is ever denied is 
 only owing to the narrow view which men are apt to 
 take both of expression and of art ; a narrowness con- 
 sequent on their own especial practice and habits of 
 thought. 
 
Selections 37 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. I, Sec. /, Chap. 11, 
 
 §2. Painting, or art generally, as such, with all its tech- 
 nicalities, difficulties, and particular ends, is nothing V 
 
 but a noble and expressive language, inval- 
 as such. Is uable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself 
 more than nothing. He who has learned what is com- 
 anguag . j^Q^jy. considered the whole art of painting, 
 that is, the art of representing any natural object 
 faithfully, has as yet only earned the language by 
 which his thoughts are to be expressed. He has done 
 just as much toward being that which we ought to 
 respect as a great painter, as a man who has learned 
 how to express himself grammatically and. melodiously 
 has towards being a great poet. The language is, 
 indeed, more difficult of acquirement in the one case 
 than in the other aiii possesses more power of deligitr V 
 ing the s^ense, while it. speaks^to the jntellect, but it is, 
 nevertheless, nothing more than language, and all 
 those excellencies which are peculiar to the painter as 
 such, are merely what rhythm, melody, precision and 
 force are in the words of the orator and the poet, nec- 
 essary to their greatness, but not the test of their 
 greatness. It is not by the mode of representing and 
 saying, but by what is represented and said, that the 
 respective greatness either of the painter or the writer 
 is to be finally determined. 
 
 §3. Speaking with strict propriety, therefore, we 
 "Painter " should Call a man a great painter only as he 
 re^m^g excelled in precision and force in the lan- 
 to"Tersifler." guage of lines, and a great versifier, as he ex- 
 celled in precision or force in the language of words. A 
 
38 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 great poet would then be a term strictly, and in pre- 
 cisely the same sense applicable to both, if warranted 
 by the character of the images or thoughts which each 
 in their respective languages convey. 
 
 §5. It is not, however, always easy, either in painting 
 or literature, to determine where the influence of 
 Difficulty language stops, and where that of thought 
 exaofSmif begins. Many thoughts are so dependent 
 PanguSe and ^Po« ^^e language in which they are clothed, 
 thougnt. that they would lose half their beauty if 
 otherwise expressed. But the highest thoughts are 
 those which are least dependent on language, and the 
 dignity of any composition and praise to which it is 
 entitled, are in exact proportion to its independency 
 of language or expression. A composition is indeed 
 usually most perfect, when to such intrinsic dignity is 
 added all that expression can do to attract and adorn; 
 but in every case of supreme excellence this all 
 becomes as nothing. We are more gratified by the 
 simplest lines or words which can suggest the idea in 
 its own naked beauty, than by the robe or the gem 
 which conceal while they decorate; we are better 
 pleased to feel by their absence how little they could 
 bestow, than by their presence how much they can 
 destroy. 
 
 §6. There is therefore a distinction to be made 
 between what is ornamental in language and what is ex- 
 Distinc- pressive. That part of it which is necessary 
 a?co?ati^f "" *° *^® embodying and conveying the thought 
 f^ianlSlfe. ^^ ^^^^^y °^ respect and attention as neces- 
 sary to excellence, though not the test of it. 
 But that part of it which is decorative has little more 
 
Selections 39 
 
 to do with the intrinsic excellence of the picture than 
 the frame or the varnishing of it. And this caution 
 in distinguishing between the ornamental and the 
 expressive is peculiarly necessary in painting ; for in 
 the language of words it is nearly impossible for that 
 which is not expressive to be beautiful, except by 
 mere rhythm or melody, any sacrifice to which is 
 immediately stigmatized as error. But the beauty 
 of mere language in painting is not only very attract- 
 ive and entertaining to the spectator, but requires 
 for its attainment no small exertion of mind and 
 devotion of time by the artist. Hence, in art, men 
 have frequently fancied that they were becoming 
 rhetoricians and poets when they were only lam- 
 ing to speak melodiously, and the judge has over 
 and over again advanced to the honor of authors 
 those who were never more than ornamental writing- 
 masters. 
 
 Most pictures of the Dutch school, for instance, 
 excepting always those of Rubens, Vandyke, and 
 
 Rembrandt, are ostentatious exhibitions of 
 Instance In , . ' , , , , , 
 
 the Dutch the artist s power of speech, the clear and 
 
 ana early . ... /. , i , 
 
 Italian vigorous elocution of useless and senseless 
 
 schools, 
 
 words: while the early efforts of Cimabue 
 and Giotto are the burning messages of prophecy, 
 delivered by the stammering lips of infants. It is not 
 by ranking the former as more than mechanics, or the 
 latter as less than artists, that the taste of the multi- 
 tude, always awake to the lowest pleasures which art 
 can bestow, and blunt to the highest, is to be formed 
 or elevated. It must be th^epartjof the judicious critic / 
 carefully to distinguiiE^hat is language, and what is 
 
40 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 thought, and to rank and praise pictures chiefly for 
 the latter, considering the former as a totally inferior 
 excellence, and one which cannot be compared with 
 nor weighed against thought in any way nor in any 
 degree whatsoever. [The picture which has the nobler 
 and mure numerous ideas, however awkwardly 
 expressed, is a greater and a better picture than that 
 which has the less noble and less numerous ideas, how- 
 ever beautifully expressed. No weight, nor mass, 
 nor beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or 
 fragment of thought. "(Three penstrokes of Raffaelle 
 are a greater and a better picture than the most fin- 
 ished work that ever Carlo Dolci polished into inanity. 
 A ffhished work of a great artist is only better than its 
 sketch, if the sources of pleasure belonging to colour 
 and realization — valuable in themselves, — are so 
 employed as to increase the impressiveness of the 
 thought. But if one atom of thought has vanished; all 
 colour, all finish, all execution, all ornament, are too 
 dearly bought. Nothing but thought can pay for 
 thought, and the instant that the increasing refine- 
 ment or finish of the picture begins to be paid for by 
 the loss of the faintest shadow of an idea, that instant 
 all refinement or finish is an excrescence and a de- 
 formity. 
 
 §8. Yet although in all our speculations on art, lan- 
 guage is thus to be distinguished from, and held sub- 
 ordinate to, that which it conveys, we must 
 are certain still remember that there are certain ideas 
 
 Ideas belong- . 
 
 ingtoian- mherent m language itself, and that strictly 
 
 guage Itself. e> fa i .; 
 
 speaking, every pleasure connected with art 
 has in it some reference .tp the intellect. 
 
Selections 4 1 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. IX, §7. 
 
 §7. Well, but it will be said, there is certainly a 
 kind of finish in stone-cutting, and in every other art, 
 which is meritorious, and which consists in smoothing 
 and refining as much as possible. Yes, assuredly 
 there is a meritorious finish. First, as it has just 
 been said, that which fits a thing for its uses, — as a 
 stone to lie well in its place, or the cog of an engine 
 wheel to play well on another ; and, secondly, a finish 
 belonging properly to the arts; but that finish does 
 not consist in smoothing or polishing, but in the com- 
 pleteness of the expression of ideas. For in painting, 
 there is precisely the same difference between the 
 ends proposed in finishing that there is in manufac- 
 ture. Some artists finish for the finish' sake; dot 
 their pictures all over, as in some kinds of miniature- 
 painting (when a wash of color would have produced 
 as good an effect) ; or polish their pictures all over, 
 making the execution so dedicate that the touch of the 
 brush cannot be seen, for the sake of the smoothness 
 merely, and of the credit they may thus get for great 
 labor; which kind of execution, seen in great perfec- 
 tion in many works of the Dutch school, and in those 
 of Carlo Dolci, is that polished "language" against* 
 which I have spoken at length in various portions of 
 the first volume ; nor is it possible to speak of it with 1 
 too great severity or contempt, where it has been 
 made an ultimate end. 
 
 But other artists finish for the impression's sake,- v' 
 not to show their skill, nor to produce a smooth piece \ 
 of work, but that they may, with each stroke, render 
 clearer the expression of knowledge. And this sort 
 
42 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 of finish is not, properly speaking, so much completing 
 the picture as adding to it. It is not that what is 
 painted is more delicately done, but that infinitely 
 more is painted. This finish is always noble, and, like 
 all other noblest things, hardly ever understood or 
 appreciated. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. J, §9. 
 
 §9. Now, if this outward sublimity be sought for by 
 the painter, without any regard for the real nature of 
 The body ana *^® thing, and without any comprehension 
 tol wk' of the pathos of character hidden beneath, 
 °'»"- it forms the low school of the surface-pic- 
 
 turesque; that which fills ordinary drawing- books, and 
 scrap-books, and employs, perhaps, the most popular 
 living landscape painters of France, England, and Ger- 
 many. But if these same outward characters be sought 
 for in subordination to the inner character of the object, 
 every source of pleasureableness being refused which is 
 incompatible with that, while perfect sympathy is felt 
 at the same time with the object as to all that it tells 
 of itself in those sorrowful by-words, we have the 
 school of true or noble picturesque; still distinguished 
 from the school of pure beauty and sublimity, because, 
 in its subjects, the pathos and sublimity are all by the 
 way, as in Calais' old spire,— not inherent, as in a 
 lovely tree or mountain; while it is distinguished still 
 more from the schools of the lower picturesque by its 
 tender sympathy, and its refusal of all sources of 
 pleasure inconsistent with the perfect nature of the 
 thing to be studied. 
 
Selections 43 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. II, Sec. V, Chap. II, §*. 
 
 §8. But there is one point in all his [Copley Fielding's] 
 seas deserving especial praise — a marked aim at char- 
 acter. He desires, especially in his latter works, not 
 so much to produce an agreeable picture, a scientific 
 piece of arrangement, or delightful melody of colour, 
 as to make us feel the utter desolation, the cold, 
 withering, frozen hopelessness of the continuous storm 
 and merciless sea. And this is peculiarly remarkable 
 in his denying himself all colour, just in the little bits 
 which an artist of inferior mind would paint in sienna 
 and cobalt. 
 
 Art of England, Led. II, %3. 
 
 §2. It may have been observed, and perhaps with 
 question of my meaning, by some readers, that in my 
 Pre-Rapha- ^^®* lecture I used the word "materialistic' ' of 
 eiism. the method of conception common to Ros- 
 
 setti and Hunt, with the greater number of their 
 scholars. I used that expression to denote their pecul- 
 iar tendency to feel and illustrate the relation of 
 spiritual creatures to the substance and conditions of 
 the visible world ; more especially, the familiar, or in 
 a sort humiliating, accidents or employments of their 
 earthly life ; — as, for instance, in the picture I referred 
 to, Rossetti's Virgin in the house of St. John, the 
 Madonna's being drawn at the moment when she rises 
 to trim their lamp. In many such cases, the incidents 
 may of course have symbolical meaning, as, in the 
 unfinished drawing by Rossetti of the Passover, which 
 I have so long left with you, the boy Christ is watching 
 the blood struck on the doorpost; — but the peculiar 
 
44 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 value and character of the treatment is in what I 
 called its material veracity, compelling the spectator's 
 belief, if he have the instinct of belief in him at all, in 
 the thing's having verily happened; and not being a 
 mere poetical fancy. If the spectator, on the con- 
 trary, have no capacity of belief in him, the use of 
 such representation is in making him detect his own 
 incredulity, and recognize that in his former dreamy 
 acceptance of the story, he had never really asked 
 himself whether these things were so. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. /, Preface to zd ed. 
 
 It is not, therefore, detail sought for its own sake,— 
 
 not the calculable bricks of the Dutch house-painters, 
 
 nor the numbered hairs and mapped wrinkles of Den- 
 
 ner, which constitute great art, — they are the lowest 
 
 \J and most contemptible art; bntjt is de tail referre d^to 
 a great end, — sought for the sake of the inestimable 
 beauEy which exists in the slightest and least of God's 
 works, and treated in a manly, broad and impressive 
 manner. There may be as much greatness of mind, 
 as much nobility of manner in a master's treatment 
 of the smallest features, as in his management of the 
 
 J most vast; .an^^his^eatness of manner chiefly con- 
 sists in seizing the specific character of the object, 
 together with all the great qualities of beauty which 
 it has in common with higher orders of existence,* 
 ^ while he utterly rejects the meaner beauties which are 
 
 * 1 shall show, in a future portion of the work, that there are 
 principles of universal beauty common to all the creatures of God; 
 and that it is by the greater or less share of these that one form 
 becomes nobler or meaner than another. 
 
Selections 45 
 
 accidentally peculiar to-the oliject,_8iid jet not specifi- 
 callycha^^;,^^^S_oJt it. I cannot give a better 
 instance than the painting of the flowers in Titian's 
 picture above mentioned. While every stamen of the 
 rose is given, because this was necessary to mark the 
 flower, and while the curves and large characters of 
 the leaves are rendered with exquisite fidelity, there 
 is no vestige of particular texture, of moss, bloom, 
 moisture, or any other accident — no dew-drops, nor 
 flies, nor trickeries, of any kind ; nothing beyond the 
 simple forms and hues of the flowers, — even those 
 hues themselves being simplified and broadly ren- 
 dered. The varieties of aquilegia have, in reality, a 
 grayish and uncertain tone of colour ; and, I believe, 
 never attain the intense purity of blue with which 
 Titian has gifted his flower. But the master does not 
 aim at the particular colour of individual blossoms ; he 
 seizes_the type gf .,all,„axid,,gives it with the utmost 
 purity_and simplicity of which colour is capable. 
 
 If, however, I shall have frequent occasion to insist 
 on the necessity of this heartfelt love of, and unquali- 
 fied submission to, the teaching of nature, it will be 
 no less incumbent upon me to reprobate the careless 
 rendering of casual impression, and the mechanical 
 copyism of unimportant subject, which are too fre- 
 quently visible in our modern school. Their light- 
 ness and~desultoriness of intention, their meaningless 
 multiplication of unstudied composition, and their 
 want of definiteness and loftiness of aim, bring dis- 
 credit on their whole system of study, and encourage 
 in the critic the unhappy prejudice that the field and 
 the hill-side are less fit places of study than the gallery 
 
46 Raskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 and the garret. Not every casual idea caught from 
 the flight of a shower or the fall of a sunbeam, not 
 every glowing fragment of harvest light, nor every 
 flickering dream of copsewood coolness, is to be given 
 to the world as it came, unconsidered, incomplete, 
 and forgotten by the artist as soon as it has left his 
 easel. That only should be considered a picture, in 
 which the spirit, (not the materials, observe,) but the 
 animating emotion of many such studies is concen- 
 trated, and exhibited by the aid of long-studied, pain- 
 fully-chosen forms ; idealized in the right sense of the 
 word, not by audacious liberty of that faculty of 
 degrading God's works which man calls his "imagina- 
 tion," but by perfect assertion of entire knowledge 
 of every part and character and function of the object, 
 and in which the details are completed to the last line 
 compatible with the dignity and simplicity of the 
 whole, wrought out with that noblest industry which 
 concentrates profusion into point, and transforms 
 accumulation into structure ; neither must this labof 
 be bestowed on every subject which appears to afford 
 a capability of good, but on chosen subjects in which 
 nature has prepared to the artist s hand the purest 
 sources of the impression he would convey. These 
 may be humble in their order, but they must be per- 
 fect of their kind. There is a perfection of the hedge- 
 row and cottage, as well as of the forest and the palace, 
 and more ideality in a great artist's selection and 
 treatment of roadside weeds and brook- worn pebbles, 
 than in all the struggling caricature of the meaner 
 mind which heaps its foreground with colossal col- 
 umns, and heaves impossible mountains into the 
 
Selections 
 
 47 
 
 encumbered sky. Finally, these chosen subjects must 
 not be in any way repetitions of one another, but each 
 founded on a new idea, and developing a totally dis- 
 tinct train of thought ; so that the work of the artist's 
 life should form a consistent series of essays, rising 
 through the scale of creation from the humblest scen- 
 ery to the most exalted ; each picture being a neces- 
 sary link in the chain, based on what preceded, 
 introducing to what is to follow, and all, in their 
 lovely system, exhibiting and drawing closer the 
 bonds of nature to the human heart. * 
 
 Arrows of the Chace, III, Letter I. 
 
 But, before entering into such particulars, let me 
 correct an impression which your article is likely to 
 induce in most minds, and which is altogether false. 
 These pre-Raphaelites (I cannot compliment them on 
 common-sense in choice of a nom de guerre) do not 
 desire nor pretend in any way to imitate antique 
 painting as such. They know very little of ancient 
 paintings who suppose the works of these young 
 artists to resemble them. As far as I can judge of 
 their aim — for, as I said, I do not know the men them- 
 selves — the pre-Raphaelites intend to surrender no 
 advantage which the knowledge or inventions of the 
 present tinw^can aif ord to their art. They intend to 
 . return to 'early days in this one point only — that, as 
 far as in them lies, they will draw either what they 
 see, or what they suppose might have been the actual 
 facts of the scene they desire to represent, irrespective 
 
 ♦For further exposition see Ruskin's essay: Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
48 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 of any conventional rules of picture-making; and they 
 have chosen their unfortunate though not inaccurate 
 name because all artists did this before Raphael's 
 time, and after Raphael's time did not this, but sought 
 to paint fair pictures, rather than represent stem 
 facts ; of which the consequence has been that, from 
 Raphael's time to this day, historical art has been in 
 acknowledged decadence. 
 
 The Two Paths, Preface. 
 
 The following addresses, though spoken at different 
 times, are intentionally connected in subject; their 
 s irit ana ^^"^ being to set one or two main principles 
 form In art. ©f art in simple light before the general 
 student, and to indicate their practical bearing on 
 modern design. The law, which it has been my effort 
 chiefly to illustrate, is the dependence of all noble de- 
 sign, in any kind, on the sculpture or painting of 
 Organic Form. 
 
 This is the vital law; lying at the root of all that I 
 have ever tried to teach respecting architecture or' any 
 other art. It is also the law most generally disallowed. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. II, Chap. VI, §#. 
 §4. We have, then, the Gothic character submitted 
 to our analysis, just as the rough mineral is submitted 
 to that of the chemist, entangled with many other 
 foreign substances, itself perhaps in no place pure, 
 or ever to be obtained or seen in purity for more than 
 an instant; but, nevertheless, a thing of definite 
 and separate nature, however inextricable or con- 
 fused in appearance. Now observe: the chemist 
 defines his mineral by two separate kinds of char- 
 
Selections 49 
 
 acter; one external, its crystalline form, hardness, 
 lustre, &c. ; the other internal, the proportions and 
 nature of its constituent atoms. Exactly in the same 
 manner, we shall find that Gothic architecture has 
 external forms, and internal elements. Its elements 
 are certain mental tendencies of the builders, legibly 
 expressed in it; as fancifulness, love of variety, love 
 of richness, and such others. Its external forms are 
 pointed arches, vaulted roofs, &c. And unless both 
 the elements and the forms are there, we have no 
 right to call the style Gothic. It is not enough that it 
 has the Form, if it have not also the power and life. 
 It is not enough that it has the Power, if it have not 
 the form. We must therefore inquire into each of 
 these characters successively; and determine first, what 
 is the Mental Expression, and secondly, what the Ma- 
 terial Form, of Gothic architecture, properly so called.* 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. II, §^?. 
 
 §23. "Well but," still answers the reader, "this 
 kind of error may here and there be occasioned by too 
 much respect for undigested knowledge ; but, on the 
 whole, the gain is greater than the loss, and the fact 
 is, that a picture of the Renaissance period, or by a 
 modern master, does indeed represent nature more 
 faithfully than one wrought in the ignorance of old 
 times." No, not one whit; for the most part less 
 faithfully. Indeed, the outside of nature is more truly 
 drawn; the material commonplace, which can be sys- 
 tematized, catalogued, and taught to all pains-taking 
 mankind, — forms of ribs and scapulae, of eyebrows 
 
 ♦For further exposition read Chapter VI, entire. 
 
50 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 and lips, and curls of hair. Whatever can be measured 
 and handled, dissected and demonstrated, — ^in a word, 
 whatever is of the body only, — that the schools of 
 knowledge do resolutely and courageously possess 
 themselves of, and portray. But whatever is 
 immeasurable, intangible, indivisible; — aaid of the 
 spirit, that the schools of, knowledge_do^ as certainly 
 lose, and blot^out of their sight,, that Jsto^sayj all that 
 is worth art's possessing or rejairdingLaJLall ; for what- 
 ever can be arrested, measured, and systematized, we 
 can contemplate as much as we will in nature herself. 
 But what we want art to do for us is to stay what is 
 fleeting, and to enlighten what is incomprehensible, to 
 incorporate the things that have no measure, and 
 immortalize the things that have no duration. The 
 dimly seen, momentary glance, the flitting shadow of 
 faint emotion, the imperfect lines of fading thought, 
 and all that by and through such things as these 
 is recorded on the features of man, and all that 
 in man's person and actions, and in the great natural 
 world, is infinite and wonderful; having in it that 
 spirit and power which man may witness, but not 
 weigh; conceive, but not comprehend; love, but not 
 limit; and imagine, but not define; — this, the begin- 
 ning and the end of the aim of all noble art, we have, 
 in the ancient art, by perception ; and we have not, in 
 the newer art, by knowledge. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. Ill, §//. 
 
 §15. It is only by the habit of representing faithfully 
 all things, that we can truly learn what is beautiful and 
 what is not. The ugliest objects contain some ele- 
 
Selections 5 1 
 
 ment of beauty; and in all, it is an element peculiar 
 to themselves, which cannot be separated from their 
 Real ideal- ugliness, but must either be enjoyed to- 
 Ism to art. gethgj. ^j^h it, or not at all. The more a 
 painter accepts nature as he finds it, the more unex- 
 pected beauty he discovers in what he at first despised ; 
 but once let him arrogate the right of rejection, and he 
 will gradually contract his circle of enjoyment, until 
 what he supposed to be nobleness of selection ends in 
 narrowness of perception. Dwelling perpetually upon 
 one class of ideas, his art becomes at once monstrous and 
 morbid ; until at last he cannot faithfully represent even 
 what he chooses to retain ; his discrimination contracts 
 into darkness, and his fastidiousness fades into fatuity, 
 rkigl^ art, therefore, consists neither in altering, nor 
 in improving nature ; but in seeking throughout nature 
 for "whatsoever things are lovely, and whatsoever 
 things are pure" ; in loving these, in displaying to the ut- 
 most of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, 
 and directing the thoughts of others to them by win- 
 ning art, or gentle emphasis^j Of the degree in which 
 this can be done, and in which it may be permitted to 
 gather together, without falsifying, the finest forms or 
 thoughts, so as to create a sort of perfect vision, we 
 shall have to speak hereafter: at present, it is enough 
 to remember that art [cceteris paribus) is great in exact 
 pr oportion t o the love of beauty shown" by fhe painter, 
 provided that Tdve~df"-beavityforfeit'nb atoni of truth. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VI, %z. 
 
 §2. Now this loving enthusiasm, which seeks for a 
 beauty fit to be the object of eternal love ; this invent- 
 
5a Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ive skill, which kindly displays what exists around us 
 in the world ; and this playful energy of thought which 
 delights in various conditions of the impossible, are 
 three forms of idealism mor;e or less connected with 
 the three tendencies of the artistical mind which I had 
 occasion to explain in the chapter on the Nature of 
 Gothic, in the "Stones of Venice." It was there 
 pointed out, that, the things around us containing 
 mixed good and evil, certain men chose the good and 
 left the evil (thence properly called Purists) ; others 
 received both good and evil together (thence properly 
 called Naturalists) ; and others had a tendency to 
 choose the evil and leave the good, whom, for con- 
 venience' sake, I termed Sensualists. I do not mean 
 to say that painters of fairies and naiads must belong 
 to this last and lowest class, or habitually choose the 
 evil and leave the good; but there is, nevertheless, a 
 strange connection between the reinless play of the 
 imagination, and a sense of the presence of evil, which 
 is usually more or less developed in those creations of 
 the imagination to which we properly attach the word 
 Grotesque. 
 
 For this reason, we shall find it convenient to 
 arrange what we have to note respecting true idealism 
 under the three heads — 
 
 A. Purist Idealism. 
 
 B. Naturalist Idealism. 
 
 C. Grotesque Idealism. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Preface. 
 
 It is not possible to extend the range of work thus 
 widely, without running the chance of occasionally 
 
Selections 53 
 
 making mistakes ; and if I carefully guarded against 
 that chance, I should be compelled both to shorten 
 LiabiUties "^^ powers of usefulness in many directions, 
 to error. and to lose much time over what work I 
 undertook. All that 1 can secure, therefore, is right- 
 ness in main points and main tendencies ; for it is per- 
 fectly possible to protect oneself against small errors, 
 and yet to make great and final error in the sum of 
 work on the other hand, it is equally possible to fall 
 into many small errors, and yet be right in tendency 
 all the while, and entirely right in the end. In this 
 respect, some men may be compared to careful travel- 
 lers, who neither stumble at stones, nor slip in sloughs, 
 but have, from the beginning of their journey to its 
 close, chosen the wrong road ; and others to those who, 
 however slipping or stumbling at the wayside, have yet 
 their eyes fixed on the true gate and goal (stumbling, 
 perhaps, even the more because they have), and will 
 not fail of reaching them. Such are as assuredly the 
 safer guides: he who follows them may avoid their 
 slips, and be their companion in attainment. 
 
 Although, therefore, it is not possible but that, in 
 the discussion of so many subjects as are necessarily 
 introduced in the following pages, here and there a 
 chance should arise of minor mistake or misconcep- 
 tion, the reader need not be disturbed by the detection 
 of any such. He will find always that they do not 
 affect the matter mainly in hand. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Preface. 
 
 The first volume was the expansion of a reply to a 
 magazine article ; and was not begun because I then 
 
54 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 thought myself qualified to write a systematic treatise 
 on Art ; but because I at least knew, and knew it to 
 be demonstrable, chat Turner was right and true, 
 and that his critics were wrong, false and base. At 
 that time I had seen much of nature, and had been 
 several times in Italy, wintering once in Rome; but 
 had chiefly delighted in northern art, beginning, 
 when a mere boy, with Rubens and Rembrandt. It 
 was long before I got quit of a boy's veneration for 
 Rubens' physical art-power; and the reader will, per- 
 haps, on this ground, forgive the strong expressions 
 of admiration for Rubens, which, to my great regret, 
 occur in the first volume. 
 
 Finding myself, however, engaged seriously in the 
 essay, I went, before writing the second volume, to 
 study in Italy; where the strong reaction from the 
 influence of Rubens threw me at first too far under 
 that of Angelico and Raphael, and, which was the 
 worst harm that came of that Rubens' influence, 
 blinded me long to the deepest qualities of Venetian 
 art ; which, the reader may see by expressions occur- 
 ring not only in the second, but even in the third and 
 fourth volumes, I thought, however powerful, yet 
 partly luxurious and sensual, until I was led into the 
 final inquiries above related. 
 
 These oscillations of temper, and progressions of 
 discovery, extending over a period of seventeen years, 
 ought not to diminish the reader's confidence in the 
 book. Let him be assured of this, that unless impor- 
 tant changes are occurring in his opinions continually, 
 all his life long, not one of those opinions can be on 
 any questionable subject true. All true opinions are 
 
Selections 
 
 55 
 
 living, and show their life by being capable of nour- 
 ishment; therefore of change. But their change is 
 that of a tree — not of a cloud. 
 
 In the main aim and principle of the book, there is 
 no variation, from its first syllable to its last. It 
 declares the perfectness and eternal beauty of the 
 work of God; and tests all work of man by concur- 
 rence with, or subjection to that. And it differs from 
 most books, and has a chance of being in some respects 
 better for the difference, in that it has not been writ- 
 ten either for fame, or for money, or for conscience- 
 sake, but of necessity. 
 
 It has not been written for praise. Had I wished to 
 gain present reputation, by a little flattery adroitly 
 used in some places, a sharp word or two withheld in 
 others, and the substitution of verbiage generally for 
 investigation, I could have made the circulation of 
 these volume* tenfold what it has been in modern 
 society. Had I wished for future fame, I should have 
 written one volume, not five. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Preface. 
 
 It is an idea too frequently entertained, by persons 
 
 who are not much interested in art, that there are no 
 
 laws of right or wrong concerning it ; and 
 Bellereslna , ,,* , ,^ ,.,, 
 
 puiosopny that the best art is that which pleases most 
 
 widely. Hence the constant allegation of 
 "dogmatism" against any one who states unhesitat- 
 ingly either preference or principle, respecting pic- 
 tures. There are, however, laws of truth and right 
 in painting, just as fixed as those of harmony in 
 music, or of aflSnity in chemistry. Those laws are 
 
56 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 perfectly ascertainable by labor, and ascertainable no 
 other way. 
 
 Lectures on Art, II, %i. 
 
 §1. All the great arts have for their object either the 
 supporter exhaltation of human life,— usually both; 
 and their dignity, and ultimately their very existence, 
 depend on their being ' juetol Xoyov dXa^ovs, ' that is to say, 
 apprehending, with right reason, the nature of the 
 materials they work with, of the things they relate or 
 represent, and of the faculties to which they are 
 addressed. And farther, they form one united system 
 from which it is impossible to remove any part with- 
 out harm to the rest. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, Introduction. 
 
 There is no law, no principle, based on past prac- 
 tice, which may not be overthrown in a moment, by 
 the arising of a new condition, or the invention of a 
 new material; and the most rational, if not the only, 
 mode of averting the danger of an utter dissolution of 
 all that is systematic and consistent in our practice, or 
 of ancient authority in our judgment, is to cease for a 
 little while, our endeavors to deal with the multiplying 
 host of particular abuses, restraints, or requirements; 
 and endeavor to determine, as the guides of every 
 effort, some constant, general, and irrefragable laws 
 of right — laws, which based upon man's nature, not 
 upon his knowledge, may possess so far the unchange- 
 ableness of the one, as that neither the increase nor 
 imperfection of the other may be able to assault or 
 invalidate them. 
 
Selections 57 
 
 There are, perhaps, no such laws peculiar to any 
 one art. Their range necessarily includes the entire 
 horizon of man's action. But they have modified 
 forms and operations belonging to each of his pursuits, 
 and the extent of their authority cannot surely be 
 considered as a diminution of its weight. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. I, §/. 
 
 §1. In taking up the clue of an inquiry, now inter- 
 mitted for nearly ten years, it may be well to do as a 
 traveller would, who had to recommence an 
 M^'""^^ °' interrupted journey in a guideless country ; 
 oo'i^yaWe and, ascending, as it were, some little hill 
 beside our road, note how far we have 
 already advanced, and what pleasantest ways we may 
 choose for farther progress. 
 
 I endeavored, in the beginning of the first volume, 
 to divide the sources of pleasure open to us in Art 1/ 
 into certain groups, which might conveniently be 
 studied in succession. After some preliminary dis- 
 cussion, it was concluded (Part I. Chap III. §86), that 
 these groups were, in the main, three; consisting, 
 first, of the pleasures taken in perceiving simple / 
 resemblance to Nature (Ideas of Truth) ; secondly, of 'U 
 the pleasures taken in the beauty of the things chosen 
 to be painted (Ideas of Beauty) ; and, lastly, of 3 
 pleasures taken in the meanings and relations of these 
 things (Ideas of Relation). 
 
 The first volume, treating of the ideas of Truth, was 
 chiefly occupied with an inquiry into the various suc- 
 cess with which different artists had represented the 
 facts of Nature, — an inquiry necessarily conducted 
 
58 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 very imperfectly, owing to the want of pictorial illus- 
 tration. 
 
 The second volume nearly opened the inquiry into 
 the nature of ideas of Beauty and Relation, by analyz- 
 ing (as far as I was able to do so) the two faculties of 
 the human mind which mainly seized such ideas; 
 namely, the contemplative and imaginative faculties. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. I, Sec. I, Chap. VII, §§5, 4. 
 
 §2. Under this head must be arranged everything 
 productive of expression, sentiment, and character, 
 Ideas of whether in figures or landscapes, (for there 
 relation. may be as much definite expression and 
 marked carrying out of particular thoughts in the 
 treatment of inanimate as of animate nature) , eve ry- 
 thing relating to the conception, of .thfi.,SJliJJ£Ct--2^ 
 to the congruity and relation of its_paTts;,^QL_as 
 they^nhance, each other's beauty by kmavsacLaai^on- 
 stant laws of. composition, but as- they .giv^eu^aduafeer 
 expression and meaning, by particular application, 
 requiring distinct thought to discover or tp^enjpy: the 
 choice, for instance, of a particular lurid or appalling 
 light, to illustrate an incident in itself terrible, or of a 
 particular tone of pure colour to prepare the mind for 
 the expression of refined and delicate feeling ; and, in 
 a still higher sense, the invention of such incidents 
 and thoughts as can be expressed in words as well as 
 on canvas, and are totally independent of any means 
 of art but such as may serve for the bare suggestion 
 of them. The principal object in the foreground of 
 Turner's "Building of Carthage" is a group of chil- 
 dren sailing toy-boats. The exquisite choice of this 
 
Selections 59 
 
 incident, as expressive of the ruling passion, which 
 was to be the source of future greatness, in preference 
 to the tumult of busy stone-masons or arming soldiers, 
 is quite as appreciable when it is told as when it is 
 seen, — it has nothing to do with the technicalities of 
 painting; a scratch of the pen would have conveyed 
 the idea and spoken to the intellect as much as the 
 elaborate realizations of color. Such a thought as this 
 is something far above all art ; it is epic poetry of the 
 highest order. 
 
 §4. By the term "ideas of relation," then, I mean 
 in future to express all those sources of pleasure 
 which involve and require, at the instant of their per- 
 ception, active exertion of the intellectual powers. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. /, Sec. II, Chap. I, %s. 
 
 §2. Ideas of power, in the same way, cannot be com- 
 pletely viewed as a separate class ; not because they 
 Measof are mean or unimportant, but because they 
 
 power and , , .-"., , 
 
 reiauon. are almost always associated with, or de- 
 pendent upon, some of the higher ideas of truth, 
 beauty, or relation, rendered with decision or velocity. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap, VI, %S. 
 
 1 §8. Science deals exclusively with things as they are i 
 in themselves ; and art exclusively with things as they 
 affect the human senses and human soul, n Her work 
 is to portray the appearance of things, and to deepen 
 the natural impressions which they produce upon liv- 
 ing creatures. The work of science is to substitute 
 facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impres- 
 
6o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 sions. Both, observe, are equally concerned with 
 truth ; the one with truth of aspect, the other with 
 truth of essence. Art does not represent things falsely, 
 but truly as they appear to mankind. Science studies 
 the relations of things to each other : but art studies 
 only their relations to man ; and it requires of every- 
 thing which is submitted to it imperatively this, and 
 only this, — what that thing is to the human eyes and 
 human heart, what it has to say to men, and what it 
 can become to them: a field of question just as much 
 vaster than that of science, as the soul is larger than 
 the material creation. 
 
 Aratra Penteltci, IV, %t^. 
 
 §142. I leave you to consider it, since, for some time, 
 
 we shall not again be able to take up the inquiries to 
 
 which it leads. But, ultimately, I do not 
 
 Confusion In doubt, that you will rest satisfied in these 
 
 terms. Art , „ . , . 
 
 didactic. following conclusions : 
 
 1. Not only sculpture, but all the other 
 
 fine arts, must be for the people. 
 
 a. They must be didactic to the people, and that as 
 
 their chief end. The structural arts, didactic in their 
 
 manner ; the graphic arts in their matter also. 
 
 3. And chiefly the great representative and imagi- 
 native arts, that is to say, the drama, and sculpture, are 
 to teach what is noble in past history, and lovely in 
 existing human and organic life. 
 
 4. And the test of right manner of execution in 
 these arts, is that they strike, in the most emphatic 
 manner, the rank of popular minds to which they are 
 addressed. 
 
Selections 6 1 
 
 Ariadne Floreniitta, VI, §*. 
 _§a. Gentlemen, believe me, there never was any 
 great advancing art yet, nor can be, without didactic 
 purpose. The leaders of the strong schools are, and 
 must be always, either teachers of theology, or preach- 
 ers of the moral law. I need not tell you that it was 
 as teachers of theology on the walls of the Vatican 
 that the masters with whose names you are most 
 familiar obtained their perpetual fame. 7 
 
 Ariadne Florentina, Led. II, §§^0, 42, &;. 
 
 §40, You will find, or may remember, that in my lec- 
 ture on Michael Angelo and Tintoret I indicated the 
 singular importance, in the history of art, of 
 
 Artaiaactlc. *" r x i. i. ^ o j 
 
 a space of forty years, between 1480, and 
 the year in which Raphael died, 1520. Within that 
 space of time the change was completed, from the 
 principles of ancient, to those of existing, art; — a 
 manifold change, not definable in brief terms, but 
 most clearly characterized, and easily remembered, as 
 the change of conscientious and didactic art, into that 
 which proposes to itself no duty beyond technical skill, 
 and no object but the pleasure of the beholder. Of 
 that momentous change itself I do not purpose to 
 speak in the present course of lectures ; but my endeav- 
 our will be to lay before you a rough chart of the 
 course of the arts in Florence up to the time when it 
 took place; a chart indicating for you, definitely, the 
 growth of conscience, in work which is distinctively con- 
 scientious, and the perfecting of expression and means 
 of popular address, in that which is distinctively 
 didactic. 
 
62 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 §42. Nor do I hold it usually an advantage to art, 
 in teaching, that it should be common, or constantly 
 seen. In becoming intelligibly and kindly beautiful, 
 while it remains solitary and unrivalled, it has a 
 greater power. Westminster Abbey is more didactic 
 to the English nation, than a million of popular illus- 
 trated treatises on architecture. 
 
 Nay, even that it cannot be understood but with 
 some difficulty, and must be sought before it can be 
 seen, is no harm. The noblest didactic art is, as it 
 were, set on a hill, and its disciples come to it. The 
 vilest destructive and corrosive art stands at the street 
 corners, crying, "Turn in hither; come, eat of my 
 bread, and drink of my wine, which I have mingled." 
 
 §67. Now all this cold art — Norman, and all this hot 
 art — Byzantine, is virtually dead, till 1200. It has no 
 conscience, no didactic power; it is devoid of both, 
 in the sense that dreams are. 
 
 Ariadne Florentina Led. V, §§/72, iiy. 
 
 §172. Diirer and Mantegna, chiefly because of their 
 science, forfeited their place, not only as painters of 
 men, but as servants of God. Neither of them has 
 left one completely noble or completely didactic pic- 
 ture; while Holbein and Botticelli, in consummate 
 pieces of art, led the way before the eyes of all men, 
 to the purification of their Church and land. 
 
 §177. I have said that Holbein was condemned to 
 teach these things. He was not happy in teaching 
 them, nor thanked for teaching them. Nor was Bot- 
 ticelli for his lovelier teaching. But they both could 
 do no otherwise. They lived in truth and steadfast- 
 
Selections 63 
 
 ness ; and with both, in their marvellous design, verac- 
 ity is the beginning of invention, and love its end. 
 
 I have but time to show you, in conclusion, how 
 this affectionate self-forgetfulness protects Holbein 
 from the chief calamity of the German temper, vanity, 
 which is at the root of all Diirer's weakness. 
 
 Ariadne Flerentina Led. VI, §7. 
 
 §1. In the first of these lectures, I stated to you their 
 subject, as the investigation of the engraved work of 
 a group of men, to whom engraving, as a means of 
 popular address, was above all precious, because their 
 art was distinctively didactic. 
 
 Some of my hearers must be aware that, of late 
 years, the assertion that art should be didactic has 
 been clamorously and violently derided by the count- 
 less crowd of artists who have nothing to represent, 
 and of writers who have nothing to say ; and that the 
 contrary assertion — that art consists only in pretty col- 
 ours and fine words, — is accepted, readily enough, by 
 a public which rarely pauses to look at a picture with 
 attention, or read a sentence with understanding. 
 
 Queen of the Air, I, §77. 
 
 §17. The minor expressions by the Greeks in word, 
 in symbol, and in religious service, of this faith, are 
 
 so many and so beautiful, that I hope some 
 not didactic ^^^ ^'^ gather at least a few of them into a 
 
 separate body of evidence respecting the 
 power of Athena, and its relations to the ethical con- 
 ception of the Homeric poems, or, rather, to their 
 ethical nature ; for they are not conceived didactically, 
 
64 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 but are didactic in their essence, as all good art is. 
 There is an increasing insensibility to this character, 
 and even an open denial of it, among us, now, which 
 is one of the most curious errors| of modernism, — the 
 peculiar and judicial blindness of an^gejvdy^hjjiaving^ 
 long.43ra&t-ised- art and .poetrxlgcJ;ll.'^-Safee_o f pleasur e 
 only, has become incapable, of, readingutheirjaaguage 
 wEin^hey were both didactic : and also, having been 
 itself accustomed to a professedly didactic teaching, 
 which yet, for private interests, studiously avoids 
 collision with every prevalent vice of its day, (and 
 especially with avarice) has become equally dead to 
 the intensely ethical conceptions of a race which habit- 
 ually divided all men into two broad classes of worthy 
 or worthless; — good, and good for nothing. And 
 even the celebrated passage of Horace about the Iliad 
 is now misread or disbelieved, as if it was impossible 
 that the Iliad could be instructive because it is not like 
 a sermon. Horace does not say that it is like a ser- 
 mon, and would have been still less likely to say so, if 
 he ever had had the advantage of hearing a sermon. 
 "I have been reading that story of Troy again" (thus 
 he writes to a noble youth of Rome whom he cared 
 for) "quietly at Praeneste, while you have been busy 
 at Rome ; and truly I think that w hat is basg an d what 
 is noble, and what useful and useless, maybe better 
 learned from that, than from all Chrysippus' and Gran- 
 tor's talk put together." Which Js_ profoundly Jrue, 
 not of the Iliad only, but of all other ^reat arjLwhatso- 
 ever; for all pieces of such art are didactic in the pur- 
 est way, indirectly and occultly, so that, first, you 
 shall only be bettered by them if you are already hard 
 
Selections 65 
 
 at work in bettering yourself ; and when you are bet- 
 tered by them, it shall be partly with a general accep- 
 tance of their influence, so constant and subtle that 
 you shall be no more conscious of it than of the healthy 
 digestion of food ; and partly by a gift of unexpected 
 truth, which you shall only find by slow mining for it ; 
 — which is withheld on purpose, and close-locked, that 
 you may not get it till you have forged the key of it 
 in a furnace of your own heating. 
 
 Lectures on Art, II, §§ji, 33. 
 
 Q §32. The great arts — forming thus one perfect 
 scheme of human skill, of which it is not right to call one 
 division more honourable, though it may be more sub- 
 tle, than another — have had, and can have, but three 
 principal directions of purpose : — first, that of enforc- <>/ 
 ing the religion of men ; secondly, that of perfecting 
 their ethical state ; thirdly, that of doing them mate- 
 rial service. ~\ 
 
 §33. I do not doubt but that you are surprised at 
 my saying the arts can in their second function only 
 be directed to the perfecting of their ethical state, 
 it being our usual impression that they are often 
 destructive of morality. But it is impossible to direct 
 fine art to an immoral end, except by giving it charac- 
 ters unconnected with its fineness, or by addressing 
 it to persons who cannot perceive it to be fine. Who- 
 soever recognizes it is exalted by it. On the other 
 hand, it has been commonly thought that art was a 
 most fitting means for the enforcement of religious 
 doctrines and emotions; whereas there is, as I must 
 presently try to show you, room for grave doubt 
 
66 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 whether it has not in this function hitherto done evil 
 rather than good. 
 
 Queen of the Air, %io8. 
 \ §io8. Then farther, observe, I have said (and you 
 wTll find it true, and that to the uttermost) that, as 
 all lovely art is rooted in virtue, so it bears fruit of 
 virtue, and is didactic in its own nature. 1 It is often 
 didactic also in actually expressed thought, as Giotto's 
 Michael Angelo's, Diirer's, and hundreds more; but 
 that is not its special function, — it is didactic chiefly by 
 being beautiful ; but beautiful with haunting thought, 
 no less than with form, and full of myths that can be 
 read oiily with the heart. 
 
 Lectures on Art, IV, So* 
 <^ §98. And I wish, in the close of these four prefatory 
 lectures, strongly to assert to you, and, so far as I can 
 in the time, convince you, that the entire vitality of art 
 depends upon its being either full of , truth, or full of 
 use; and that, however pleasant, wonderful, or 
 impressive it may be in itself, it must yet be of infe- 
 rior kind, and tend to deeper inferiority, unless it has 
 clearly one of these main objects, — either to state a 
 true thing, or to adorn a serviceable one. It must 
 never exist alone, — never for itself; it exists rightly 
 only when it is the means of knowledge, or the grace 
 of agency for life. . ' 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Preface to 2d ed. 
 
 Since, then, I shall have to reprobate the absence of 
 
 study in the moderns nearly as much as its false 
 
 direction in the ancients, my task will naturally divide 
 
 itself into three portions. In the first, I shall endeavor 
 
Selections 67 
 
 to investigate and arrange the facts of nature with 
 scientific accuracy; showing as I proceed, by what 
 total neglect of the very first base and groundwork of 
 their art the idealities of some among the old masters 
 are produced. This foundation once securely laid, I 
 shall proceed, in the second portion of the work, to 
 analyze and demonstrate the nature of the emotions 
 of the Beautiful and Sublime ; to examine the partic- 
 tilar characters of every kind of scenery, and to bring 
 to light, as far as may be in my power, that faultless, 
 ceaseless, inconceivable, inexhaustible loveliness, 
 which God has stamped upon all things, if man will 
 only receive them as He gives them. Finally, I shall 
 endeavor to trace the operation of all this on the 
 hearts and minds of men ; to exhibit the moral function 
 and end of art, to prove the share which it ought to 
 have in the thoughts, and influence on the lives of all 
 of us ; to attach to the artist the responsibility of a 
 preacher, and to kindle in the general mind that regard 
 which such an ofl&ce must demand. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. I, Sec. I, Chap. II, %g. 
 
 §9. Nay, the term idea, according to Locke's defini- 
 tion of it, will eztend even to the sensual impressions 
 RusWn'suse themselves as far as they are "things which 
 of terms. the mind occupies itself about in thinking, ' * 
 that is, not as they are felt by the eye only, but as 
 they are received by the mind through the eye. 
 
 Aratra Pentelici, Led. I, %ii. 
 
 §11. These abstract relations and inherent pleas- 
 antnesses, whether in space, number, or time, and 
 
68 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 whether of colours or sounds, form what we may prop- 
 erly term the musical or harmonic element in every 
 art ; and the study of them is an entirely sep- 
 BBsthetio and arate science. It is the branch of art-philos- 
 ophy to which the word "aesthetics" should 
 be strictly limited, being the inquiry into the nature 
 of things that in themselves are pleasant to the human 
 senses or instincts, though they represent nothing, 
 and serve for nothing, their only service being their 
 pleasantness. Thus it is the province of aesthetics to 
 tell you, (if you did not know it before,) that the taste 
 and colour of a peach are pleasant, and to ascertain, 
 if it be ascertainable, (and you have any curiosity to 
 know,) why they are so. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. II, 
 §§/, ^, <5, 7. 
 
 §1. I proceed therefore first, to examine the nature 
 of what I have called the Theoretic faculty, and to 
 Expiana- justify my substitution of the term "the- 
 term^'theo- oretic" for aesthetic, which is the one 
 retio." commonly employed with reference to it. 
 
 Now the term "aesthesis" properly signifies mere 
 sensual perception of the outward qualities and neces- 
 sary effects of bodies, in which sense only, if we would 
 arrive at any accurate conclusions on this difficult sub- 
 ject, it should always be used. But I wholly deny 
 that the impressions of beauty are in any way sen- 
 sual,— they are neither sensual nor intellectual, but 
 moral, and for the faculty of receiving them, whose 
 difference from mere perception I shall immediately 
 endeavor to explain, no term can be more accurate 
 
Selections 69 
 
 or convenient than that employed by the Greeks, 
 "theoretic, " which I pray permission, therefore, always 
 to use, and to call the operation of the faculty itself, 
 Theoria. 
 
 §2. Let us begin at the lowest point, and observe, 
 first, what differences of dignity may exist between 
 different kinds of aesthetic or sensual pleasure, prop- 
 erly so called. 
 
 §6. Now the mere animal consciousness of the pleas- 
 antness I call sesthesis ; but the exulting, reverent, and 
 grateful perception of it I call theoria. For this, and 
 this only, is the full comprehension and contempla- 
 tion of the beautiful as a gift of God, a gift not neces- 
 sary to our being, but added to, and elevating it, and 
 twofold, first of the desire, and secondly of the thing 
 desired. 
 
 §7. And that this joyfulness and reverence are a 
 necessary part of theoretic pleasure is very evident 
 How the when we consider that, by the presence of 
 Sesimiy^be these feelings, even the lower and more 
 fi^^ "" sensual pleasures may be rendered theoretic. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Appendix 14. 
 
 Let us take some notice, therefore, in what 
 degrees the faculties of man may be engaged in his 
 several arts : we may consider the entire man as made 
 up of body, soul, and intellect (Lord Lindsay, mean- 
 ing the same thing, says inaccurately — sense, intellect, 
 and spirit — forgetting that there is a morai sense as 
 well as a bodily sense, and a spiritual body as well as 
 a natural body, and so gets into some awkward con- 
 fusion, though right in the main points). Then, tak- 
 
70 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ing the word soul as a short expression of the moral 
 and responsible part of being, each of these three parts 
 has a passive and active power. The body has senses 
 and muscles; the soul, feeling and resolution; the 
 intellect, understanding and imagination. The 
 scheme may be put into tabular form, thus : — 
 
 Passive or Receptive Part. Active or Motive Part. 
 
 Body .... Senses. Muscles. 
 
 Soul .... Feeling. Resolution. 
 
 Intellect . . Understanding. Imagination. 
 
 In this scheme I consider memory a part of under- 
 standing, and conscience I leave out, as being the 
 voice of God in the heart, inseparable from the sys- 
 tem, yet not an essential part of it. The sense of 
 beauty I consider a mixture of the Senses of the body 
 and soul. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHICAL POINT OP VIEW 
 
 Since philosophy is a reasoning about the world of 
 
 reality as a whole and all things in their entirety — 
 
 what Ruskin calls sophia — all people who 
 
 critic must think' of things in their universal relations 
 
 have the . . - 
 
 same point are philosophers. The art cntic then, is a 
 
 olvlew. * ' ' 
 
 philosopher; for, before he can form judg- 
 ments, he must look at the work of art not only in 
 itself, but in its relations to others of the same class, 
 its relation to nature, to the public, and to the 
 artist. His value as a critic depends upon his abil- 
 ity to consider fairly and to present these relations. 
 To be a good art critic he must have consistent opin- 
 ions on such subjects as ; the superiority of nature to 
 art, the humanizing efEect of art, and the artists' 
 aim — general relations of art to nature and to man. 
 The artist also, either consciously or unconsciously, 
 has an habitual attitude toward these same things, 
 which is expressed or implied in his pictures. This 
 philosophy is usually unconscious; the difference 
 between him and his critic is the same that Plato 
 makes between the poet and the philosopher — the 
 former is unconsciously mad, and the latter is con- 
 sciously mad. 
 
 71 
 
Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 The art critic is an artist's interpreter to the 
 world, as much as his judge. It naturally follows, 
 then, that the critic who has the same atti- 
 Interpreter, tude towards nature and art as the artist he 
 is examining, will be the best interpreter of his ideas 
 or pictures. This Ruskin calls being his equal. In 
 other words,|rte critic ought to have imagination and 
 feeling equal to the artist, but instead of the creative 
 power he should have the interpretive powenj His 
 imagination reproduces the images of the poet or 
 artist; he feels intensely the emotion embodied ; but 
 instead of being aroused by it to produce new images, 
 he contemplates those already formed and translates 
 them into the speech of ordinary men. He makes 
 his madness conscious by trying to interpret it. 
 
 Also it seems probable that the reasoning of the 
 critic on art will in the main be consistent with his 
 Critic's reasoning upon things in general; in other 
 
 p^iioMphy. words, all his philosophy, including that of 
 art, will have a common principle. In adopting the 
 views, then, of any one critic, it is well to see first if 
 we approve of his point of view, his attitude towards 
 the world of reality, his philosophical basis. The 
 critic may not state in set terms his philosophy of art, 
 he may not formulate it, but the whole tenor of his 
 criticism usually shows it. 
 
 As was said in Chapter I, there are three points of 
 view from which to observe the world of reality. 
 These are analogous to Ruskin's three ranks of poets, 
 
The Philosophical Point of View 73 
 
 (M. P. Vol. Ill, Chap. XII, 6-9): "First, the man who 
 perceives rightly because he does not feel and to 
 whom the primrose is very accurately a 
 tetion^^'*' priinrose. Then, secondly, the man who 
 Sreeranks perceives wrongly because he feels, and lets 
 of poets. j^jg feeling blind him. And then, lastly, 
 the man who perceives rightly in spite of his feelings, 
 and to whom the primrose is forever nothing than 
 itself — a little flower, apprehended in the very plain 
 and leafy fact of it. ' ' To the first, the world is purely 
 objective, having no divine soul; to the second, the 
 world lies in his feelings, is subjective ; but to the last 
 the world is both objective and subjective, both with- 
 out himself and within his own soul. The statement 
 of this in philosophical terms would be : that truth or 
 reality may be held to be purely objective, an order of 
 unaided being self-originating and self-evolving — this 
 basis would support a materialistic philosophy. It 
 may be held to be purely subjective, an order of sensa- 
 tions, feelings, conscious states — an internal order of 
 being. From this point of view the existence of ma- 
 terial bodies is unknowable — this basis supports an 
 idealistic philosophy. The third point of view com- 
 bines these two. According to it mechanism is 
 recognized as a fact, but only as the means or organ 
 of the ideal intelligence, or purpose; not as a self- 
 creating, all-sufficient substance. Not matter alone 
 nor spirit alone exists in the universe, but both ; spirit, 
 or idea, or will, being the agent and matter the sub- 
 
74 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 stance acted on, while the product is all creation— 
 both nature and art. 
 
 If the critic thinks that within each object of nature 
 
 there is a divine essence, an idea, which expresses 
 
 itself through material form and that the 
 
 b^iongs"to'" work of the artist is to seize this idea in the 
 
 third school. , . .... . ., j.- ^< t ^ 
 
 object — not originating in the artist s feel- 
 ings, — and to re-embody it in artist's material; then 
 he may be said to look from the third point of view ; 
 for, he admits the existence of both spirit and matter. 
 The form into which the artist puts the idea is its lan- 
 guage and may be expressive or decorative. This 
 form belongs to matter and must be held subordinate, 
 while the imagination of the artist and the ideal or 
 essence of beauty that he sees in nature belong to the 
 world of spirit. Ruskin lays equal stress upon the 
 idea, or content, of a work of art and its fidelity to 
 natural form. Every object has its specific form, 
 which the artist should know. By fidelity to natural 
 form the art student gets an insight into the meaning, 
 or soul, of nature and so of beauty. The faithful 
 copying of natural forms is a necessary educaiiQn_for 
 his Jgower in grasping ideal^ beauty. He should know 
 organic form, however, as the expression of life, not 
 as a dead substance.* 
 
 In Stones of Venice, (Vol. II, Chap. VI), Ruskin 
 divides artists as to their qualifications into men of 
 
 * For selections on this point see "Art a language," under 
 Selections with Chapter I. 
 
The Philosophical Point of View 75 
 
 facts, men of design, and men of both: and as seers of 
 truth, into "Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists"; 
 Purtiier *^^* ^^' ^^ose who See only what they think 
 KmS's pure and spiritual and represent nothing 
 pomtoiTiew. ^jg^^ those who See and represent everything 
 both good and evil, and those that emphasize the evil 
 and ignore the spiritual. In Modern Painters he calls 
 this purist, naturalist, and grotesque idealism. In 
 both these divisions there is a correspondence, in a 
 way, to the idealist who idealizes too much, the real- 
 idealist who acknowledges the presence of both matter 
 and spirit, and the materialist who sees only the 
 material form, the lower order of beauty. 
 
 The order in which they are given here is not the 
 
 order of historical development, nor does Ruskin 
 
 refer to that. First, would come the 
 
 order of the materialists; next, the reactionists, who 
 
 three soliools. . , , , 
 
 ignore the gross material; and last, those of 
 the middle class who, while faithfully copying material 
 form, do not ignore the pure spiritual element in 
 nature and art. Neither can we draw hard and fast 
 hues between these three classes; some painters, 
 though Purists, are fairly good reproducers of natural 
 form, while some that Ruskin would class as mere 
 copyists dimly feel a spirit back of the mere matter. 
 Making a very general application of this to history, 
 we have in Greek art the representation of nature as 
 an objective reality ; it is to the Greek mind a unit, no 
 duality of spirit and matter, but a whole whose 
 
76 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism. 
 
 ethical content — according to modern notions — he 
 does not comprehend, or but dimly and in isolated 
 cases. In the early Christian art, on the other hand, 
 there is undue emphasis laid on the ethical meaning to 
 be conveyed. The form is so subordinate that it 
 becomes a mere sign. Representation becomes 
 untrue, because the symbol has grown unintelligible 
 and art has to return to the careful study of natural 
 forms as a means of expression, but not as an end in 
 itself as in the first class. Because the Greeks imi- 
 tated Nature without interpreting it, their art is 
 rightly called imitative; and Ruskin in his careful 
 distinction between truth and imitation shows that 
 trath, is more than^_imitatiye, it is interpretative. 
 Truth to us means spiritual as well as inateriaLtruth ; 
 because to us, Nature has a Divine element while to 
 the Greek it was one thing, and just what his phys- 
 ical eyes saw — a material object. ^lArt to us is superior 
 to Nature, because it embodies man's conception of 
 this divine element ; the divine in man recognizes the 
 divine in Nature and expresses it in a picture. That 
 gives the picture its superiority over Nature^ 
 
 Divinity is in all things ; that is, the creative power 
 has put itself into all it has made, and we know it as 
 Divinity In ^pi^i*- Logos— the word— created the world 
 nature. and is in the world as St. John tells us. 
 
 "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men," 
 has been as true in aesthetics as in ethics. In so far 
 as we become conscious of this spiritual life within us, 
 
The Philosophical Point of View >]>] 
 
 just that far have we recognized this divinity in 
 Nature. So that the intelligent love of Nature and 
 animals has grown with advanced civilization, wit- 
 nessed by our humane and Audobon societies in 
 ethics, and our lyric poetry of Nature and our land- 
 scape painting in aesthetics. The whole drift of Rus- 
 kin's defense of Turner in Modern Painters is to show 
 that this spiritual element exists in landscape painting 
 and is not incompatible with faithful imitation of nat- 
 ural form, but indeed requires that for adequate 
 expression. 
 
 This world-creating power reveals itself to man as a 
 
 conscious being in three ways : to his senses, as beauty ; 
 
 to his intellect, as truth with its laws ; and 
 
 ofaivinity to his will as ethics, or, right and wrong 
 
 In nature. > o o 
 
 action. Then the True, the Beautiful, and i/ 
 the Good — the philosophical trinity of Hegel — 
 are but different forms of the same Divinity or 
 spirit. The arti st sees the world, both nature and 
 art, as beautiful, the sci^tist, as truthful, and the 
 p reach er as moral; it is, in all three cases, the same 
 divinely-created world. While Ruskin implies the 
 statement just made, he nowhere explicitly words it ; 
 and occasionally in the heat of discussion he forgets 
 that different classes of men see different phases of 
 the same world and is inclined to insist that the artist 
 shall see as the preacher does. In the preface to the 
 first edition of Modern Painters he says that it is the 
 duty of all who perceive what is really great in art to 
 
78 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 declare the essence of the beautiful and the true, thus 
 valuing them together; in the third volume he tries to 
 show that truth and beauty are equal and that one can- 
 not be set above the other; while his whole teaching 
 is a struggle to convince people that beauty and good- 
 ness are equal. Thus, he has no doubt in his own 
 mind of the absolute equality and unity of these three 
 spirit elements. 
 
 While this is the general trend of his teaching it is 
 
 not very definitely stated anywhere, and, indeed, his 
 
 very use of the word truth is a little confus- 
 
 words trutu ing. In his exposition of the Ideas of Truth 
 
 and Ideal. " J^ . ■' """^ 
 
 in Modern Painters he uses the word to 
 mean simply fidglity to natural form. In this place 
 he also distinguishes between imitation and interpre- 
 tation of nature when he says that fife two ^reaf 'ends 
 of landscape painting are the representation of facts 
 and the second, the representation of thoughts, which 
 are the interpretations of facts. He distinguishes 
 between fidelity to nature and an abstract truth, when 
 in the first volume of Modern Painters, he divides 
 truth into material and spiritual, and separates ideas 
 of truth from ideas of imitation. He uses the word 
 in its abstract sense in treating Of the False Ideal in 
 the third volume, where he says that when they 
 reversed the order they lost sight of spiritual truth. 
 In treating of "Purist, Naturalist, and Sensualist, " he 
 uses truth to mean the actual, both good and evil, as 
 it exists. The actual is whatever really happens ; it is 
 
The Philosophical Point of View 79 
 
 brute fact unidealized ; it is the world as we see it with 
 the physical eye. The true is the spiritual idea back 
 of crude or visible fact ; it is called, in philosophy, the 
 real, and in ordinary parlance, the ideal. Ruskin uses 
 the word ideal in this limited popular sense in his 
 treatment of generic beauty. The^ealization of_the 
 act.ualis_lhe^true in this philosophical sense; the pre- 
 sentation of the reality lying back of the actual. For 
 example, the actual is the bare fact that a man named 
 Oliver Cromwell led a revolt against the English 
 dynasty and established a new government called a 
 Commonwealth. Back of this bare fact are motives 
 and influences which must be known to us before we 
 have the true history of this rebellion. Carlyle has 
 given us his ideal of this man and his times ; Roose- 
 velt has given us his ideal of the same ; these ideals give 
 us approximately the real man and is as near the true 
 history of this event as the average reader can probably 
 come. If we had perfect insight into human motives 
 we could, by this idealizing process, reach the real man, 
 Oliver Cromwell. Ruskin has in mind the idealization 
 of the actual where he speaks of Shakespeare as por- 
 traying people as he saw them. The real, then, and the \/ 
 ideal, are not opposed, neither are the true and the ideal 
 opposed ; but the perfect ideal is the perfect idea of the 
 form and condition in which all the properties of the 
 object are fully developed. This discernment of the 
 true or the real, the perfect type behind the actual, 
 is, in architecture, the basis for noble abstraction. 
 
 ./'■ 'A .,u, , h •'•'A 
 
8o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 The word beauty, he makes to include sensuous as 
 well as spiritual beauty. Upon sensuous beauty, edu- 
 cation and accident operate to produce taste, 
 tionof ' Taste, in its final state, however, is the 
 
 beauty. 
 
 result of the contemplation of beauty by 
 theoria, in order to extract the universal element. 
 Impressions of beauty may be elevated by right feel- 
 ing from the sensuous to the moral plane. Beauty, 
 on account of its universality, can be demonstrated 
 yet it is not to be confounded with truth as identical. 
 In answering false opinions concerning beauty, he 
 says that truth is a property of statements and beauty 
 of objects. 
 
 Because beauty is a form of Divinity, or spirit, it 
 
 has an effect on man's moral nature, and the human 
 
 soul hungers and thirsts for beauty as for 
 
 Nature of " •' 
 
 beauty. i^g natural food. While Ruskin believes that 
 
 beauty in nature is a necessary manifestation of God 
 and is not exhibited for man's instruction only, he 
 nowhere explicitly states that it is, itself, God's end 
 and purpose, just as art is man's, without regard to 
 utility or instructiveness. 
 
 Ruskin approaches the discussion of natural beauty 
 through the theoretic faculty, and turns aside from 
 theoria to investigate natural beauty, both 
 beauty. typical and vital. Typical beauty resides 
 in objects by virtue of their existence as manifesta- 
 tions of God, and is only appreciated or recognized by 
 a spirit having divine attributes. The sympathy of 
 
The Philosophical Point of View 8i 
 
 such a spirit with beauty does not depend upon the 
 utility of the object, but is unselfish. 
 
 In types of God shown in beauty, there is infinity, 
 or incomprehensibility ; unity, or comprehensiveness ; 
 Types of God ^^P°^^> °^ permanence; symmetry, or jus- 
 in beauty, tjce; purity; and moderation. These are 
 apprehended by the theoretic faculty only, which he 
 distinguishes from the aesthetic because it apprehends 
 this moral or typical beauty. All spiritual beings 
 must have some vital connection with nature and so 
 have their appropriate representation in some form or 
 nature. 
 
 This theoretic faculty is also employed in the appre- 
 ciation of vital beauty. Vital beauty is first consid- 
 ered as relative ; that is, the happiness of all 
 Vital beauty. ,. , , . ,, , ,. ,. , 
 
 living beings calls up a feeling of beauty 
 
 which depends upon man's love for all creatures. 
 
 This is theoria acting through love, still a moral 
 
 faculty. 
 
 There is also a generic, vital beauty, dependent 
 
 upon the perfect fulfillment of the creature's functions. 
 
 This in man is modified by the influence of 
 Benerlc 
 vital beauty, his mind and moral feelings, not by passion. 
 
 In his order, each individual has his ideal form. This, 
 
 in any creature which is perfect in its type, is ideal in 
 
 the limited meaning of the term. The true meaning 
 
 of ideal is the embodiment of an idea. It is the result 
 
 of a healthy act of the imagination. 
 
 There is then an intrinsic something called beauty 
 
82 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 possessed by objects and not dependent upon cus- 
 tom. This is in direct connection with the good, 
 The relation ^^^ ^^^ Separation from God, or goodness, 
 ?rutii!"aud and truth, gives a false art. Great art de- 
 goo ness. pends on the artist's ability to see clearly 
 the eternal elements of beauty, upon his spirituality, 
 and his earnest search for tightness. The imagination 
 that delights in gross or evil details loses its power or 
 insight into truth and beauty, and becomes imbecile. 
 The moral world then lies back of everything, and to 
 see it requires moral insight, an outgrowth of moral 
 uprightness. There is no insight into beauty and 
 truth without good character in the artist. This leads 
 us to the consideration of art from the individual 
 standpoint. 
 
Selections 83 
 
 SELECTIONS WITH CHAPTER II 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Vol. II, § jo. 
 
 §30. Sophia is the faculty which recognizes in all 
 things their bearing upon life, in the entire sum of life 
 sopua or *^^^ ^^ know, bestial and human ; but which, 
 phuosopiiy. understanding the appointed objects of that 
 life, concentrates its interests and its power on 
 Humanity, as opposed on the one side to the Animal- 
 ism which it must rule, and distinguished on the 
 other side from the Divinity which rules it, and which 
 it cannot imagine. 
 
 Arrows of the Chace, Vol. II, Appendix. 
 
 [From "The Liverpool Weekly Albion," November 9, 1873.] 
 LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF A REVIEW.* 
 
 Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 
 
 Wednesday, joih Oct. 
 
 [My Dear] Sir : I was on the point of writing to the 
 
 Editor of The Albion to ask the name of the author of 
 
 that article. Of course, one likes praise [and I'm 
 
 so glad of it that I can take a great many kinds], 
 
 *The review was the first of three articles entitled "The Disci- 
 pline of Art and the Votary of Science," published in the Liver- 
 pool Weekly Albion of November 9, i6, and 23, 1873. The first 
 of them had also appeared previously in the Liverpool Daily 
 Albion, which was reprinted with the present letter in the weekly 
 issue of Nov. g. The aim of the articles was partly to show how 
 the question "What is Art?" involved a second and deeper 
 inquiry, "What is Man?" The words bracketed here were 
 omitted in the Albion, but occur in the original letter, for access 
 to which I have to thank the writer of the articles. 
 
84 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 but I never got any [that] I liked so much before, 
 because, as far as I [can] remember nobody ever no- 
 criticmust ticed or allowed for the range of work I've 
 luth'ii?'*''^ had to do, and which really has been 
 relations. dreadfully costly and painful to me, com- 
 pelling me to leave things just at the point when one's 
 work on them has become secure and delightsome, to 
 attack them on another rough side. It is a most pain- 
 ful manner of life, and I never got any credit for it 
 before. But the more I see, the more I feel the 
 necessity of seeing all round, however hastily. 
 
 The Two Paths, Appendix, I. 
 
 But I am an entirely safe guide in art judgment; 
 and that simply as the necessary result of my having 
 given the labour of life to the determination 
 Sterpreter. °^ facts, rather than to the following of feel- 
 ings or theories. Not, indeed, that my 
 work is free from mistakes; it admits many, and 
 always must admit many, from its scattered range; 
 but, in the long run, it will be found to enter sternly 
 and searchingly into the nature of what it deals with, 
 and the kind of mistake it admits is never dangerous, 
 consisting, usually, in pressing the truth too far. It 
 is quite easy, for instance, to take an accidental 
 irregularity in a piece of architecture, which less care- 
 ful examination would never have detected at all, for 
 an intentional irregularity ; quite possible to misinter- 
 pret an obscure passage in a picture, which a less 
 earnest observer would never have tried to interpret. 
 But mistakes of this kind — ^honest, enthusiastic mis- 
 takes — are never harmful; because they are always 
 
Selections 85 
 
 made in a true direction, — falls forward on the road, 
 not into the ditch beside it ; and they are sure to be 
 corrected by the next copier. But the blunt and dead 
 mistakes made by too many other writers on art — the 
 mistakes of sheer inattention, and want of sympathy — 
 are mortal. The entire purpose of a great thinker 
 may be difficult to fathom, and we may be over and 
 over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his 
 meaning; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottom- 
 less, and unredeemable mistake, is the fool's thought — 
 that he had no meaning. 
 
 I do not refer, in saying this, to any of my state- 
 ments respecting subjects which it has been my main 
 work to study : as far as I am aware, I have never yet 
 misinterpreted any picture of Turner's, though often 
 remaining blind to the half .of what he had intended: 
 neither have I as yet found anything to correct in my 
 statements respecting Venetian architecture; but in 
 casual references to what has been quickly seen, it is 
 impossible to guard wholly against error, without losing 
 much valuable observation, true in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred, and harmless even when erroneous. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Ft. I, Sec. I, Chap. I, %i. 
 
 §1. If it be true, and it can scarcely be disputed, that 
 
 nothing has been for centuries consecrated by public 
 
 admiration, without possessing in a high 
 
 opinion no degree some kind of sterling excellence, it 
 
 criterion of . " , , ..,-,, ^ i- i 
 
 excellence, is not because the average intellect and leel- 
 except after . . , . . , , , , . 
 
 long periods ing of the majority of the public are compe- 
 tent in any way to distinguish what is really 
 excellent, but because all erroneous opinion is incon- 
 
86 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 sistent, and all ungrounded opinion transitory; so that 
 while the fancies and feelings which deny deserved 
 honor and award what is undue have neither root nor 
 strength sufficient to maintain consistent testimony for 
 a length of time, the opinions formed on right grounds 
 by those few who are in reality competent judges, being 
 necessarily stable, communicate themselves gradually 
 from mind to mind, descending lower as they extend 
 wider, until they leaven the whole lump, and rule by 
 absolute authority, even where the grounds and 
 reasons for them cannot be understood. On this 
 gradual victory of what is consistent over what is 
 vacillating, depends the reputation of all that is 
 highest in art and literature. For it is an insult to 
 what is really great in either, to suppose that it in any 
 way addresses itself to mean or uncultivated faculties. 
 It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no 
 man can be really appreciated but by his equal or 
 superior. His inferior may over-estimate him in 
 enthusiasm; or, as is more commonly the case, 
 degrade him, in ignorance; but he cannot form a 
 grounded and just estimate. Without proving this, 
 however — which it would take more space to do than I 
 can spare — it is sufficiently evident that there is no 
 process of amalgamation by which opinions, wrong 
 individually, can become right merely by their multi- 
 tude. * 
 
 * The opinion of a majority is right only when it is more prob- 
 able with each individual that he should be right than that he 
 should be wrong, as in the case of a jury. Where it is more prob- 
 able, with respect to each individual, that he should be wrong than 
 right, the opinion of the minority is the true one. Thus it is in art. 
 
Selections 87 
 
 Arrows of the Chace, Vol. I, Letter a. 1 
 
 Your correspondent herself, in saying that mere 
 knowledge of pictures cannot qualify a man for the 
 ofBce of a critic, has touched the first source 
 aSmS*^°' of the schisms of the present, and of all 
 time, in questions of pictorial merit. We 
 are overwhelmed with a tribe of critics who are fully 
 imbued with every kind of knowledge which is 
 useful to the picture-dealer, but with none that is 
 important to the artist. They know where a picture / 
 has been retouched, but not where it ought to have 
 been; they know if it has been injured, but not if 
 the injury is to be regretted. They are unques- 
 tionable authorities in all matters relating to the 
 panel or the canvas, to the varnish or the vehicle, 
 while they remain in entire ignorance of that which 
 the vehicle conveys. They are well acquainted with 
 the technical qualities of every master's touch; and 
 when their discrimination fails, plume themselves on 
 indisputable tradition, and point triumphantly to the 
 documents of pictorial genealogy. But they never go </ 
 quite far enough back; they stop one step short of the; 
 real original ; they reach the human one, but never the ; 
 Divine. Whatever, under the present system of study, ' 
 the connoisseur of the gallery may learn or know, 
 there is one thing he does not know — and that is 
 nature. 
 
 Finally, then, we would recommend your correspond- 
 ent, first, to divest herself of every atom of lingering 
 respect or regard for the common criticism of the 
 press, and to hold fast by the authority of Callcott, 
 Chantrey, Landseer, and Stanfield; and this, not 
 
88 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 because we would have her slavishly subject to any 
 authority but that of her own eyes and reason, but 
 because we would not have her blown about with 
 every wind of doctrine, before she has convinced her 
 reason or learned to use her eyes. And if she can 
 .j' draw at all, let her make careful studies of any natural 
 objects that may happen to come in her way,-:-sticks, 
 leaves, or stones, — and of distant atmospheric effects 
 on groups of objects; not for the sake of the drawing 
 itself, but for the sake of the powers of attention and 
 accurate observation which thus only can be culti- 
 vated. And let her make the study, not thinking of 
 this artist or that; not conjecturing what Harding 
 would have done, or Stanfield, to Callcott, with her 
 subject ; nor trying to draw in a bold style, or a free 
 style, or any other style ; but drawing all she sees, as 
 far as may be in her power, earnestly, faithfully, 
 unselectingly ; and, which is perhaps the more diificult 
 task of the two, not drawing what she does not see. 
 Oh, if people did but know how many lines nature 
 suggests without showing, what different art should 
 we have! And let her never be discouraged by ill 
 success. She will seldom have gained more knowl- 
 edge than when she most feels her failure. LetJiCT 
 
 ''' lUse every opportunity of examining the works of 
 JTurner; let her try to copy them, then try to copy 
 jsome one else's, and observe which presents most of 
 that kind of diflSculty which she found in copying 
 
 ^ nature. Let her, i f possible, extend her acquaintance 
 with wild natural scenery of every kind and character, 
 endeavoring in each species of scenery to distinguish 
 those features which are expressive and harmonious 
 
Selections 89 
 
 from those which are unaffecting or incongruous; and 
 after a year or two of such discipline as this, let her 
 judge for herself. No authority need then, or can 
 then, be very influential with her. Her own pleasure 
 in works of true greatness will be too real, too instinc- 
 tive, to be persuaded or laughed out of her. We bid 
 her, therefore, heartily good-speed, with this final 
 warning: Let her beware, in going to nature, of tak- 
 ing with her the commonplace dogmas or dicta of art. 
 Let her not look for that which is like Titian or like 
 Claude, for composed form or arranged chiaroscuro ; but 
 believe that everything which God has made is beau- 
 tiful, and that everything which nature teaches is 
 true. Let her beware, above everything, of that 
 wicked pride which makes man think he can dignify 
 God's glorious creations, or exalt the majesty of His 
 universe. Let her be hvimble, we repeat, and earnest. 
 Truth was never sealed, if so sought. And once more 
 we bid her good-speed in the words of our poet- 
 moralist : 
 
 "Enough of Science and of Art: 
 Seal up these barren leaves ; 
 Come forth, and bring with you a heart 
 That watches, and receives." 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. I, %/o. 
 
 §10. Hence it follows that it is in the power of all, 
 with care and time, to form something like a just judg- 
 (Mtic must ment of the relative merits of artists ; for, 
 s(iuai. although with respect to the feeling and 
 
 passion of pictures, it is often as impossible to criti- 
 cise as to appreciate, except to such as are in some 
 
go Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 degree equal in powers of mind, and in some respects 
 the same in modes of mind, with those whose works 
 they judge; yet, with respect to the representation 
 of facts, it is possible for all, by attention, to form 
 a right judgment of the respective powers and attain- 
 ments of every artist. Truth is a bar of comparison 
 at which they may all be examined, and according to 
 the rank they take in this examination, will almost 
 invariably be that which, if capable of appreciating 
 them in every respect, we should be just in assigning 
 them ; so strict is the connection, so constant the rela- 
 tion between the sum of knowledge and the extent of 
 thought, between accuracy of perception and vividness 
 of idea. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Preface. 
 
 It is probable, for reasons which will be noted in the 
 following pages, that the critical and executive faculties 
 are in great part independent of each other ; so that it 
 is nearly as great an absurdity to require of any critic 
 that he should equal in execution even the work which 
 he condemns, as to require of the audience which 
 hisses a piece of vocal music that they should instantly 
 chant it in truer harmony themselves. But whether 
 this be true or not (it is at least untrue to this extent, 
 that a certain power of drawing is indispensable to the 
 critic of art), and supposing that the executive and 
 critical powers always exist in some corresponding 
 degree in the same person, still they cannot be culti- 
 vated to the same extent. The attention required for 
 the development of a theory is necessarily withdrawn 
 from the design of a drawing, and the time devoted to. 
 
Selections 91 
 
 the realization of a form is lost to the solution of a 
 problem. Choice must at last be made between one 
 and the other power, as the principal aim of life; and 
 if the painter should find it necessary sometimes to 
 explain one of his pictures in words, or the writer to 
 illustrate his meaning with a drawing, the skill of the 
 one need not be doubted because his logic is feeble, 
 nor the sense of the other because his pencil is listless. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. Ill %5. 
 
 §5. Now that verdicts of this kind are received aa 
 
 authoritative by others, proves another and more 
 
 important fact, namely, that not only 
 
 Ultimate , ... , , . " 
 
 conclusions changes of opinion take place in consequence 
 of experience, but that those changes are 
 from variation of opinion to unity of opinion ; and that 
 whatever may be the differences of estimate among 
 unpractised or uncultivated tastes, there will be unity 
 of taste among the experienced. And that therefore 
 the operation of repeated trial and experience is to 
 arrive at principles of preference in some sort common 
 to all, and which are a part of our nature. * 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. II, §7. 
 
 §7. But the truths of nature are one eternal change — 
 one infinite variety. There is no bush on the face of the 
 Each object globe exactly like another bush; — there are 
 Ideal form, no two trees in the forest whose boughs 
 bend in the same network, nor two leaves on the 
 same tree which could not be told one from the other, 
 
 *For selections explaining Ruskin's "three ranks of poets" see 
 "Pathetic fallacy" under Selections with Chapter III. 
 
92 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 nor two waves in the sea exactly alike. And out of 
 this mass of various, yet agreeing beauty, it is by long 
 attention only that the conception of the constant char- 
 acter— the ideal form— hinted at by all, yet assumed 
 by none, is fixed upon the imagination for its standard 
 of truth. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. II, Chap. VI, §§^j, 44, 47, s^SI, 62. 
 
 §43. Now the noblest art is an exact unison of 
 the abstract value, with the imitative power, of forms 
 Men of and colours. It is the noblest composition, 
 
 of design. used to express the noblest facts. But the 
 human mind cannot in general unite the two per- 
 fections : it either pursues the fact to the neglect of 
 the composition, or pursues the composition to the 
 neglect of the fact. 
 
 §44. And it is intended by the Deity that it 
 should do this; the best art is not always wanted. 
 Facts are often wanted without art, as in a geological 
 diagram ; and art often without facts, as in a Turkey 
 carpet. And most men have been made capable of 
 giving either one or the other, but not both ; only one 
 or two, the very highest, can give both. 
 
 Observe then. Men are universally divided, as 
 respects their artistical qualifications, into three great 
 classes; a right, a left, and a centre. On the right 
 side are the men of facts, on the left the men of 
 design, * in the centre the men of both. 
 
 * Design is used in this place as expressive of the power to arrange 
 lines and colours nobly. By facts, I mean facts perceived by the eye 
 and mind, not facts accumulated by knowledge. See the chapter 
 on Roman Renaissance (Vol. Ill, Chap. II) for this distinction. 
 
Selections 93 
 
 The three classes of course pass into each other by 
 imperceptible gradations. The men of facts are hardly 
 ever altogether without powers of design ; the men of 
 design are always in some measure cognizant of facts ; 
 and as each class possesses more or less of the powers 
 of the opposite one, it approaches to the character 
 of the central class. Few men, even in that cen- 
 tral rank, are so exactly throned on the summit 
 of the crest that they cannot be perceived to incline 
 in the least one way or the other, embracing both 
 horizons with their glance. Now each of these 
 classes has, as I above said, a healthy function in 
 the world, and correlative diseases or unhealthy func- 
 tions ; and, when the work of either of them js seen 
 in its morbid condition, we are apt to find fault 
 with the class of workmen, instead of finding fault 
 only with the particular abuse which has perverted 
 their action. 
 
 §47. The second form of error is when the men 
 of design despise facts. All noble design must deal 
 with facts to a certain extent, for there is no food 
 for it but in nature. 
 
 §51. Now, considering them all as more or less 
 searchers after truth, there is another triple division to 
 Three classes ^^ ™^^® °^ t\L&va.. Everything presented to 
 of artists. them in nature has good and evil mingled in 
 it: and artists, considered as searchers after truth, are 
 again to be divided into three great classes, a right, a 
 left, and a center. Those on the right perceive, and 
 pursue, the good, and leave the evil: those in the 
 centre, the greatest, perceive and pursue the good 
 and evil together, the whole thing as it verily is: 
 
94 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 those on the left perceive and pursue the evil, and 
 leave the good. 
 
 §52. The first class, I say, take the good and leave 
 the evil. Out of whatever is presented to them, they 
 gather what it has of grace, and life, and light, and 
 holiness, and leave all, or at least as much as possible, 
 of the rest undrawn. The faces of their figures 
 express no evil passions ; the skies of their landscapes 
 are without storm; the prevalent character of their 
 colour is brightness, and of their chiaroscuro fulness of 
 light. The early Italian and Flemish painters, 
 Angelico and Memling, Perugino, Francia, Raffaelle 
 in his best time, John Bellini, and our own Stothard, 
 belong eminently to this class. 
 
 §53. The second, or greatest class, render all that 
 they see in nature unhesitatingly, with a kind of divine 
 grasp and government of the whole, sympathizing 
 with all the good, and yet confessing, permitting, and 
 bringing good out of the evil also. Their subject is 
 infinite as nature, their colour equally balanced between 
 splendor and sadness, reaching occasionally the high- 
 est degrees of both, and their chiaroscuro equally 
 balanced between light and shade. 
 
 The principal men of this class are Michael Angelo, 
 Leonardo, Giotto, Tintoret, and Turner. Raffaelle 
 in his second time, Titian, and Rubens are transi- 
 tional; the first inclining to the eclectic, and the last 
 two to the impure class, Raffaelle rarely giving all the 
 evil, Titian and Rubens rarely all the good. 
 
 §54. The last class perceive and imitate evil only. 
 They cannot draw the trunk of a tree without blasting 
 and shattering it, nor a sky except covered with stormy 
 
Selections 95 
 
 clouds ; they delight in the beggary and brutality of 
 the human race ; their colour is for the most part sub- 
 dued or lurid, and the greatest spaces of their pictures 
 are occupied by darkness. 
 
 Happily the examples of this class are seldom seen 
 in perfection. Salvator Rosa and Caravaggio are the 
 most characteristic: the other men belonging to it 
 approach towards the central rank by imperceptible 
 gradations, as they perceive and represent more and 
 more of good. But Murillo, Zurbaran, Camillo Pro- 
 caccini, Rembrandt, and Teniers, all belong naturally 
 to this lower class. 
 
 §55. Now, observe: the three classes into which 
 artists were previously divided, of men of fact, men of 
 design, and men of both, are all of Divine institution ; 
 but of these latter three, the last is in no wise of 
 Divine institution. It is entirely human, and the men 
 who belong to it have sunk into it by their own faults. 
 They are, so far forth, either useless or harmful men. 
 It is indeed good that evil should be occasionally rep- 
 resented, even in its worst forms, but never that it 
 should be taken delight in : and the mighty men of the 
 central class will always give us all that is needful of 
 it; sometimes, as Hogarth did, dwelling upon it bit- 
 terly as satirists, — but this with the more effect, 
 because they will neither exaggerate it, nor represent 
 it mercilessly, and without the atoning points that all 
 evil shows to a Divinely guided glance, even at its 
 deepest. So, then, though the third class will always, 
 I fear, in some measure exist, the two necessary 
 classes are only the first two; and this is so far 
 acknowledged by the general sense of men, that the 
 
96 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 J 
 
 basest class has been confounded with the second; 
 and painters have been divided commonly only into 
 two ranks, now known, I believe, throughout Europe 
 by the names which they first received in Italy, 
 "Puristi and Naturalisti." Since, however, in the 
 existing state of things, the degraded or evil-loving 
 class, though less defined than that of the Puristi, is 
 just as vast as it is indistinct, this division has done 
 infinite dishonor to the great faithful painters of 
 nature : and it has long been one of the objects I have 
 had most at heart to show that, in reality, the Purists, 
 in their sanctity, are less separated from these natural 
 painters than the Sensualists in their foulness; and 
 that the difference, though less discernible, is in reality 
 greater, between the man who pursues evil for its own 
 sake, and him who bears with it for the sake of truth, 
 than between this latter and the man who will not 
 endure it at all. 
 
 §56. Let us, then, endeavor briefly to mark the 
 real relations of these three vast ranks of men, whom 
 I shall call, for convenience in speaking of them, 
 Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists; not that these 
 terms express their real characters, but I know no 
 word, and cannot coin a convenient one, which would 
 accurately express the opposite of Purist; and I keep 
 the terms Purist and Naturalist in order to comply, as 
 far as possible, with the established usage of language 
 on the Continent. Now, observe: in saying that 
 nearly everything presented to us in nature has 
 mingling in it of good and evil, I do not mean that 
 nature is conceivably improvable, or that anything 
 that God has made could be called evil, if we could see 
 
Selections 97 
 
 far enough into its uses, but that, with respect to 
 immediate efifects or appearances, it may be so, just as 
 the hard rind or bitter kernel of a fruit may be an evil 
 to the eater, though in the one is the protection of the 
 fruit, and in the other its continuance. The Purist, 
 therefore, does not mend nature, but receives from 
 nature and from God that which is good for him; 
 while the Sensualist fills himself "with the husks that 
 the swine did eat." 
 
 The three classes may, therefore, be likened to men 
 reaping wheat, of which the Purists take the fine flour, 
 and the Sensualists the chaff and straw, but the 
 Naturalists take all home, and make their cake of the 
 one, and their couch of the other. 
 
 §57. For instance. We know more certainly 
 every day that whatever appears to us harmful in the 
 universe has some beneficent or necessary operation; 
 that the storm which destroys a harvest brightens the 
 sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that the vol- 
 cano which buries a city preserves a thousand from 
 destruction. But the evil is not for the time less fear- 
 ful, because we have learned it to be necessary ; and 
 we easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of 
 the spirit which would withdraw itself from the pres- 
 ence of destruction, and create in its imagination a 
 world of which the peace should be unbroken, in which 
 the sky should not darken nor the sea rage, in which 
 the leaf should not change nor the blossom wither. 
 That man is greater, however, who contemplates with 
 an equal mind the alternations of terror and of beauty ; 
 who, not rejoicing less beneath the sunny sky, can 
 bear also to watch the bars of twilight narrowing on 
 
98 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the horizon ; and, not less sensible to the blessing of 
 the peace of nature, can rejoice in the magnificence 
 of the ordinances by which that peace is protected and 
 secured. But separated from both by an immeasur- 
 able distance would be the man who delighted in con- 
 vulsion and disease for their own sake ; who found his 
 daily food in the disorder of nature mingled with the 
 suffering of humanity; and watched joyfully at the 
 right hand of the Angel whose, appointed work is to 
 destroy as well as to accuse, while the corners of the 
 House of feasting were struck by the wind from the 
 wilderness. 
 
 §62. The position of the Sensualists, in treatment 
 of landscape, is less distinctly marked than in that of 
 the figure : because even the wildest passions of nature 
 are noble : but the inclination is manifested by careless- 
 ness in marking generic form in trees and flowers: by 
 their preferring confused and irregular arrangements 
 of foliage or foreground to symmetrical and simple 
 grouping; by their general choice of such picturesque- 
 ness as results from decay, disorder, and disease, 
 rather than of chat which is consistent with the per- 
 fection of the things in which it is found; and by 
 their imperfect rendering of the elements of strength 
 and beauty in all things. I propose to work out this 
 subject fully in the last volume of "Modern Paint- 
 ers"; but I trust that enough has been here said to 
 enable the reader to understand the relations of the 
 three great classes of artists, and therefore also the 
 kinds of morbid condition into which the two higher 
 (for the last has no other than a morbid condition) are 
 liable to fall, 
 
Selections 99 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. II, §/j. 
 
 §13. Now, as far as I have watched the main 
 powers of human mind, they have risen first from the 
 resolution to see fearlessly, pitifully, and to 
 powersof its Very worst, what these deep colours mean, 
 '"^'^ ' wheresoever they fall ; not by any means to 
 pass on the other side looking pleasantly up to the sky 
 but to stoop to the horror, and let the sky, for the 
 present, take care of its own clouds. However this 
 may be in moral matters, with which I have nothing 
 here to do, in my own field of inquiry the fact is so ; 
 and all great and beautiful work has come of first gaz- 
 ing without shrinking into the darkness. If, having 
 done so, the human spirit can, by its courage and 
 faith, conquer the evil, it rises into conceptions of 
 victorious and consummated beauty. It is then the 
 spirit of the highest Greek and Venetian Art. If 
 unable to conquer the evil, but remaining in strong, 
 though melancholy war with it, not rising into 
 supreme beauty, it is the spirit of the best north- 
 ern art, typically represented by that of Holbein 
 and Diirer. If, itself conquered by the evil, in- 
 fected by the dragon breath of it, and at last ,brought 
 into captivity, so as to take delight in evil for- 
 ever, it becomes the spirit of the dark, but still 
 powerful sensualistic art, represented typically by 
 that of Salvator. We must trace this fact briefly 
 through Greek, Venetian, and Diireresque art; we 
 shall then see how the art of decline came of avoid- 
 ing the evil, and seeking pleasure only; and thus 
 pbtain, at last, some power of judging whether 
 
lOO Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the tendency of our own contemplative art be right 
 or ignoble.* 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XIII, §/j. 
 
 §13. Such being their general idea of the gods, we 
 
 can now easily understand the habitual tone of their 
 
 feelings towards what was beautiful in 
 
 DiTinity nature. With us, observe, the idea of the 
 
 in nature. ' ' 
 
 Divinity is apt to get separated from the 
 life of nature ; and imagining our God upon a cloudy 
 throne, far above the earth, and not in the flow- 
 ers or waters, we approach those visible things with 
 a theory that they are dead, governed by physical 
 laws, and so forth. But coming to them, we find the 
 theory fail ; that they are not dead ; that, say what we 
 choose about them, the instinctive sense of their being 
 alive is too strong for us ; and in scorn of all physical 
 law, the wilful fountain sings, and the kindly flowers 
 rejoice. And then, puzzled, and yet happy; pleased, 
 and yet ashamed of being so; accepting sympathy 
 from nature, which we do not believe it gives, and 
 giving sympathy to nature, which we do not believe it 
 receives, — mixing, besides, all manner of purposeful 
 play and conceit with these involuntary fellowships, — 
 we fall necessarily into the curious web of hesitating 
 sentiment, pathetic fallacy, and wandering fancy, 
 which form a great part of our modern view of nature. 
 But the Greek never removed his god out of nature at 
 all ; never attempted for a moment to contradict his 
 instinctive sense that God was everywhere. "The tree 
 
 *For discussion of "The three schools of art," re^d Chapter II 
 before §13. 
 
Selections loi 
 
 wglad," said he, "I know it is; I can cut it down; no 
 matter, there was a nymph in it. The water does 
 sing," said he; "I can dry it up; but no matter, 
 there was a naiad in it." But in thus clearly defining 
 his belief, observe, he threw it entirely into a human 
 form, and gave his faith to nothing but the image of 
 his own humanity. What sympathy and fellowship he 
 had, were always for the spirit in the stream, not for 
 the stream ; always for the dryad in the wood, not for 
 the wood. Content with his human sympathy, he 
 approached the actual waves and woody fibres with no 
 sympathy at all. The spirit that ruled them, he 
 received as a plain fact. Them, also, ruled and 
 material, he received as plain facts ; they, without their 
 spirit, were dead enough. A rose was good for scent, 
 and a stream for sound and coolness ; for the rest, one 
 was no more than leaves, the other no more than water ; 
 he could not make anything else of them ; and the di- 
 vine power, which was involved in their existence, hav- 
 ing been all distilled away by him into an independent 
 Flora or Thetis, the poor leaves or waves were left, in 
 mere cold corporealness, to make the most of their even 
 being discernibly red and soft, clear and wet, and un- 
 acknowledged in any other power what-soever. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. II, Pt. II, Sec. IV, Chap. IV, %30. 
 
 t^§30. One lesson, however, we are invariably taught 
 by all, however approached or viewed — that the work 
 of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unap- 
 proachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects — 
 that the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy 
 of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering 
 
I02 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and 
 settling the foundation of the earth; and that to the 
 rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, 
 the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, 
 and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of 
 the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the 
 mouldering of the dust as in the kindling of the 
 day-star. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. II, %8. 
 
 §8. And so it is with external Nature: she has a 
 body and a soul like man ; but her soul is the Deity. 
 It is possible to represent the body without the spirit; 
 and this shall be like to those whose senses are only cog- 
 nizant of body. It is possible to represent the spirit in 
 its ordinary and inferior manifestations ; and this shall 
 be like to those who have not watched for its moments 
 of power. It is possible to represent the spirit in its 
 secret and high operations ; and this shall be like only 
 to those to whose watching they have been revealed. 
 All these are truth ; but according to the dignity of 
 the truths he can represent or feel, is the power of the 
 painter, — the justice of the judge. 
 
 Preterita, Vol. I, Chap. IX. 
 
 The living inhabitation of the world — the grazing 
 and nesting in it, — the spiritual power of the air, the 
 rocks, the waters, — to be in the midst of it, and rejoice 
 and wonder at it, and help it if I could,— happier if it 
 needed no help of mine, — this was the essential lovGof 
 Nature in me, this the root of all that I have usefully 
 become, and the light of all that I have rightly.learned. 
 
Selections 103 
 
 Mcii*rn Painttrs, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XVII, §41. 
 §41, In general, active men, of strong sense and stern 
 principle, do not care to see anything in a leaf but 
 vegetable tissue, and are so well convinced of useful 
 moral truth, that it does not strike them as a new or 
 notable thing when they find it in any way symbolized 
 by material nature ; hence there is a strong presump- 
 tion, when first we perceive a tendency in any one to 
 regard trees as living, and enunciate moral aphorisms 
 over every pebble they stumble against, that such 
 tendency proceeds from a morbid temperament, like 
 Shelley's, or an inconsistent one, like Jaques's. But 
 when the active life is nobly fulfilled, and the mind is 
 then raised beyond it into clear and calm beholding of 
 the world around us, the same tendency again mani- 
 fests itself in the most sacred way : the simplest forms 
 of nature are strangely animated by the sense of the 
 Divine presence ; the trees and flowers seem all, in a 
 sort, children of God ; and we ourselves, their fellows, 
 made out of the same dust, and greater than they only 
 in having a greater portion of the Divine power 
 exerted on our frame, and all the common uses and 
 palpably visible forms of things, become subordinate 
 in our minds to their inner glory, — to the mysterious 
 voices in which they talk to us about God, and the 
 changeful and typical aspects by which they witness 
 to us of holy truth, and fill us with obedient, joyful, 
 and thankful emotion. 
 
 S/ones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. I, §a(5. 
 §26. I have not space to follow out this thought,— it 
 is of infinite extent and application,— but I note it for 
 
I04 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the reader's pursuit, because I have long believed, and 
 the whole second volume of "Modern Painters" was 
 written to prove, that in whatever has been made by 
 the Deity externally delightful to the human sense of 
 beauty, there is some type of God's nature or of 
 God's laws; nor are any of His laws, in one sense, 
 greater than the appointment that the most lovely and 
 perfect unity shall be obtained by the taking of one 
 nature into another. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XV, §^. 
 
 §4. We have seen that this subject matter is referable 
 to four general heads. It is either the record of con- 
 science, printed in things external, or it is a 
 
 The four , ,. . , -r^. . ., . 
 
 sources from Symbolizing of Divine attributes m matter, 
 
 which the •'.. , ' 
 
 pleasure of or it IS the felicity of living things, or the 
 
 heautyls , , ,^, , , . , . , , 
 
 derived are perfect fulfilment of their duties and func- 
 
 alldivlne. . ■, ,, . . , . ^. . 
 
 tions. In all cases it is something Divine, 
 either the approving voice of God, the glorious 
 symbol of Him, the evidence of His kind presence, or 
 the obedience to His will by Him induced and sup- 
 ported. 
 
 All these subjects of contemplation are such as we 
 may suppose will remain sources of pleasure to the 
 perfected spirit throughout eternity. Divine in their 
 nature they are addressed to the immortal part of 
 men. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. VI, §7. 
 
 §7. In order to render this communion possible, the 
 Deity has stooped from His throne, and has not only, 
 in the person of the Son, taken upon Him the veil of 
 
Selections 105 
 
 our human flesh, but, in the person of the Father, taken 
 upon Him the veil of our human thoughts, and permit- 
 ted us, by His own spoken authority, to conceive Him 
 simply and clearly as a loving Father and Friend ; — 
 a being to be walked with and reasoned with ; to be 
 moved by our entreaties, angered by our rebellion, 
 alienated by our coldness, pleased by our love, and 
 glorified by our labor ; and, finally, to be beheld in 
 immediate and active presence in all the powers and 
 changes of creation. This conception of God, which 
 is the child's, is evidently the only one which can be 
 universal, and therefore the only one which for us can 
 be true. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. I, g/y. 
 
 §13. It is as if the soul of man, itself severed from 
 the root of its health, and about to fall into corrup- 
 The power *^°^' ^°^^ ^^ perception of life in all things 
 »°^ecoguze around it; and could no more distinguish 
 in nature. the wave of the strong branches, full of 
 muscular strength and sanguine circulation, from the 
 lax bending of a broken cord, nor the sinuousness of 
 the edge of the leaf, crushed into deep folds by the 
 expansion of its living growth, from the wrinkled con- 
 traction of its decay. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Ft. V, Chap. XVIII, %s. 
 
 §5. Whereas things may always be seen truly by 
 candid people, though never completely. No humanl y 
 capacity ever yet saw the whole of a thing; but we \ 
 may see more and more of it the longer we look. 
 Every individual temper will see something different 
 
io6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 in it : but supposing the tempers honest, all the differ- 
 ences are there. Every advance in our acuteness of 
 perception will show us something new ; but the old 
 and first discerned thing will still be there, not falsi- 
 fied, only modified and enriched by the new percep- 
 tions, becoming continually more beautiful in its 
 harmony with them and more approved as a part of 
 the Infinite truth. 
 
 The Two Paths, II. 
 
 I am sometimes accused of trying to make art too 
 moral ; yet, observe.vX do not say in the least that in 
 order to be a good painter you must be a good man; 
 but I do say that in order to be a good natural painter 
 there must be strong elements of good in the minSD 
 however warped by other parts of the character. 
 There. are^ hundreds of^ other^gifts of painting which 
 are not at all,iavolved.with moral^gnditions, butjhia 
 one, the perception of^nature, is never given but under 
 certain moral conditions. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XVI, §72. 
 
 §12. All the Renaissance principles of art tended, as 
 I have before often explained, to the setting Beauty 
 Truth and above Truth, and seeking for it always at 
 beauty. the expense of truth. And the proper pun- 
 
 ishment of such pursuit — the punishment which all the 
 laws of the universe rendered inevitable — was, that 
 those who thus pursued beauty should wholly lose 
 sight of beauty. All the thinkers of the age, as we 
 saw previously, declared that it did not exist. The age 
 seconded their efforts, and banished beauty, so far as 
 
Selections 107 
 
 human effort could succeed in doing so, from the face 
 of the earth, and the form of man. To powder the 
 hair, to patch the cheek, to hoop the body, to buckle 
 the foot, were all part and parcel of the same system 
 which reduced streets to brick walls, and pictures to 
 brown stains. One desert of Ugliness was extended 
 before the eyes of mankind ; and their pursuit of the 
 beautiful, so recklessly continued, received unexpected 
 consummation in high-heeled shoes and periwigs, — 
 Gower Street, and Gaspar Poussin. 
 
 „-;t/ 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Preface to ist edition, %i. 
 
 §1. But viliGrL public taste seems plunging deeper and / 
 deeper into degradation day by day, and when the 1 
 press universally exerts such power as it possesses to 
 direct the feeling of the nation more completely to all 
 that is theatrical, affected, and false in art ; while it 
 vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted truth, 
 and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any 
 other age has ever witnessed, it becomes the impera- 
 tive duty of all who have any perception or knowl- 
 edge of what is really great in art, and any desire for 
 its advancement in England, to come fearlessly for- 
 ward, regardless of such individual interests as are 
 likely to be injured by the knowledge of what is good 
 and right, to declare and demonstrate, wherever they 
 exist, the essence and the authority of the Beautiful 
 and the True. 
 
 Art of England, Led. III. 
 
 Since the day of the opening of the great Manchester 
 exhibition in 1851, every Englishman, desiring to 
 
io8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism . 
 
 express interest in the arts, considers it his duty to 
 assert with Keats, that a thing of beauty is &joy for- 
 Beauty and ^^er. I do not know in what sense the say- 
 goodness. jng y^as Understood by the Manchester 
 school. But this I know, that what joy may remain 
 still for you and for your children — in the fields, the 
 homes, and the churches of England — ^you must win 
 by otherwise reading the fallacious line. A beautiful 
 thing may exist but for a moment, as a reality; — it 
 exists forever as a testimony. To the law and to the 
 witness of it the nations must appeal, "in secula secu- 
 lorum"; and in very deed and very truth, a thing of 
 beauty is a law forever. 
 
 That is the true meaning of classic art and of classic 
 literature ; — not the license of pleasure, but the law of 
 goodness ; and if, of the two words, koXos K'dyaflos, one 
 can be left unspoken, as implied by the other, it is the 
 first, not the last. It is- written that the Creator of all 
 things beheld them — not in that they were beautiful, 
 but in that they were good. 
 
 This law of beauty may be one, for aught we know, 
 fulfilling itself more perfectly as the years roll on ; but 
 at least it is one from which no jot shall pass. The 
 beauty of Greece depended on the laws of Lycurgus ; 
 the beauty of Rome, on those of Numa ; our own, on 
 the laws of Christ. On all the beautiful features of men 
 and women, throughout the ages, are written the 
 solemnities and majesty of the law they knew, with 
 the charity and meekness of their obedience; on 
 all unbeautiful features are written either ignorance 
 of the law, or the malice and insolence of the diso- 
 bedience. 
 
Selections 1 09 
 
 Mornings in Florence, The Fifth Morning. 
 
 The common translation in our English Apocrypha 
 loses the entire meaning of this passage, which — not 
 only as the statement of the experience of Florence in 
 her own education, but as universally descriptive of 
 the process of all noble education whatever — we had 
 better take pains to understand. 
 
 First, says Florence "I willed, [in sense of resolutely 
 desiring,] and Sense was given me. " You must begin 
 your education with the distinct resolution to know 
 what is true, and choice of the strait and rough road 
 to such knowledge. This choice is offered to every 
 youth and maid at some moment of their life ; — choice 
 between the easy downward road, so broad that we 
 can dance down it in companies, and the steep narrow 
 way, which we must enter alone. Then, and for many 
 a day afterwards, they need that form of persistent 
 Option, and Will: but day by day, the 'Sense' of the 
 rightness of what they have done, deepens on them, 
 not in consequence of the effort, by by gift 
 Deautyand granted in reward of it. And the Sense of 
 goo eis. (jifference between right and wrong, and be- 
 tween beautiful and unbeautiful things, is confirmed 
 in the heroic, and fulfilled in the industrious, soul. 
 
 That is the process of education in the earthly sci- 
 ences, and the morality connected with them. Reward 
 given to faithful Volition. 
 
 Next, when Moral and Physical senses are perfect, 
 comes the desire for education in the higher world, 
 where the senses are no more our Teachers; but the 
 Maker of the senses. And that teaching, we cannot 
 get by labour, but only by petition. 
 
no Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 "Invocavi, et venit in me Spiritus Sapientiae"— "I 
 prayed, and the Spirit of Wisdom," (not, you observe, 
 was given, but,) ''^came upon me." The personal 
 power of Wisdom: the "<to<^i(x" or Santa Sophia, to 
 whom the first great Christian temple was dedicated. 
 This higher wisdom, governing by her presence, all 
 earthly conduct, and by her teaching, all earthly art, 
 Florence tells you, she obtained only by prayer. 
 
 The Queen of the Air, III, %i68, i6g. 
 
 §i68. And the reason that Greek art, on the whole, 
 bores you, (and you know it does,) is that you are 
 always forced to look in it for something that is not 
 there ; but which may be seen every day, in real life, 
 all round you ; and which you are naturally disposed 
 to delight in, and ought to delight in. For the Greek 
 race was not at all one of exalted beauty, but only of 
 general and healthy completeness of form. They were 
 only, and could be only, beautiful in body to the de- 
 gree that they were beautiful in soul (for you will find, 
 when you read deeply into the matter, t|hat^the^body^ 
 only th&_soul made visible). And the Greeks were in- 
 deed very good people, much better people than most 
 of us think, or than many of us are ; but there are bet- 
 ter people alive now than the best of them, and lovelier 
 people to be seen now than the loveliest of them. 
 
 §169. Then, what are the merits of this Greek art, 
 which make it so exemplary for you? Well, not that 
 it is beautiful, but that it is Right. All that it desires 
 to do, it does, and all that it does, does well. You 
 will find, as you advance in the knowledge of art, that 
 its laws of self-restraint are very marvellous ; that its 
 
Selections 1 1 1 
 
 peace of heart, and contentment in doing a simple 
 thing, with only one or two qualities, restrictedly 
 desired, and sufficiently attained, are a most whole- 
 some element of education for you, as opposed to the 
 wild writhing, and wrestling, and longing for the 
 moon, and tilting at wind-mills, and agony of eyes, 
 and torturing of fingers, and general spinning out of 
 one's soul into fiddlestrings, which constitute the ideal 
 life of a modern artist. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. Ill, g§y. iz, ij. 
 
 §1. I doubt not that the reader was ill-satisfied with 
 the conclusion arrived at in the last chapter. That 
 "great art" is art which represents what is beautiful 
 and good, may not seem a very profound discovery ; 
 and the main question may be thought to have been 
 all the time lost sight of, namely, "What is beautiful, 
 and what is good?" No; those are not the main, at 
 least not the first questions ; on the contrary, our sub- 
 ject becomes at once opened and simplified as soon as 
 we have left those the only questions. For observe, 
 our present task, according to our old plan, is merely 
 to investigate the relative degrees of the beautiful in 
 the art of different masters; and it is an encouragement 
 to be convinced, first of all, that what is lovely will 
 also be great, and what is pleasing, noble. Nor is the 
 conclusion so much a matter of course as it at first 
 appears, for, surprising as the statement may seem, 
 all the confusion into which Reynolds has plunged 
 both himself and his readers, in the essay we have 
 been examining, results primarily from a doubt in his 
 own mind as to the existence of beauty at all. 
 
112 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 §12. II. Love of Beauty.— The second character- 
 istic of the great school of art is, that it introduces in 
 the conception of its subject as much beauty as is pos- 
 sible, consistently with truth. 
 
 For instance, in any subject consisting of a number 
 of figures, it will make as many of those figures beau- 
 tiful as the faithful representation of humanity will 
 admit. It will not deny the facts of ugliness or 
 decrepitude, or relative inferiority and superiority of 
 feature as necessarily manifested in a crowd, but it 
 will, so far as it is in its power, seek for and dwell 
 upon the fairest forms, and in all things insist on the 
 beauty that is in them, not on the ugliness. In this 
 / respect^iJehools of art become higher in exact propor- 
 tion to the degree in which they apprehend and love 
 the beautifi^ Thus^_J5Ln^elic0r^ int«nsel3^4o-vin^pa,ll 
 spiritual_beautx^jKiUJ3&iJi^fi-iiigh^ and Paul 
 
 Veronese and Correggio, intensely loving physical_ and 
 co rporeal Jjeauty. of the,.second rank; and Albert 
 Diirer, Rubens, and in general the Northern artists, 
 apparently insens^ible_Ji)__bfiauty^.a,ad--^carin.g_oiLly_ior 
 -tn^r'whether shapely or not, of the third rank ; and 
 Teniers and Salvator, Caravaggio, and other such 
 worshippers of the depraved, of no rank, or, as we 
 said before, of a certain order in the abyss. 
 
 §13. The corruption of the schools of high art, so 
 far as this particular quality is concerned, consists^in 
 the sacrifice of truth to beauty. Great art dwells on 
 all that is beautiful; but" fal^ art omits or changes all 
 Jh^^jugly. Great art accepts Nature as she is, Fiit 
 directs the eyes and thoughts to what is most perfect 
 in her; false art saves itself the trouble of direction by 
 
Selections 113 
 
 removing or altering whatever it thinks objectionable. 
 The evil results of which proceeding are twofold. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. /, Pt. T, Sec. I, Chap. V, §§/-& 
 
 §1. The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the 
 faithful statement, either to the mind or senses, of 
 any fact of nature. 
 
 We receive an idea of truth, then, when we perceive 
 Kusun's use the faithfulness of such a statement. The 
 truth. difiEerence between ideas of truth and of 
 
 imitation lies chiefly in the following points. 
 
 §2. First, — Imitation can only be of something ma- [ 
 
 terial, but truth has reference to statements both of the 
 
 qualities of material thinsfS, and of emotions, 
 First ? . ■, , , f^, .J 
 
 aiflei-enoe impressions, and thoughts. There is a 
 
 truth and moral as well as material truth, — a truth of , 
 
 Imitation. . . ,-, , ^ , . , 
 
 impression as well as of form, — of thought 
 as well as of matterrfand the truth of impression and 
 thought is a thousand times the more important of the 
 two. H ence, truth is a term ofuniversal application, 
 but imitation is limited to that narrow field of art 
 which takes cognizance only of material things. 
 
 §3. Secondly, — Truth may be stated_bx.any^ignsor 
 symbols which have a definite signification in the minds 
 Second °^ those to whom they are addressed, although 
 auierenoe. g^ch signs be themselves no image nor like- 
 ness of anything. Whatever can excite in the mind the 
 conception of certain facts, can give ideas of truth, 
 though it be in no degree the imitation or resemblance 
 of those facts. If there be — we do not say there is — 
 but i^ there be in painting anything which operates, as 
 words do, not hy resembling anything, but by being 
 
114 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 taken as a symbol and substitute for it, and thus induc- 
 ing the effect of it, then this channel of communication 
 can convey uncorrupted truth, though it does not in any 
 degree resemble the facts whose conception it induces. 
 But ideas of imitation, of course, require the likeness 
 of the object. They speak to the perceptive faculties 
 only: truth to the conceptive. 
 
 §4. Thirdly, — And in consequence of what is above 
 stated, an idea of truth exists in the statement of one 
 TMra attribute of anything, but an idea of imita- 
 
 amerence. tign requires the resemblance of as many 
 attributes as we are usually cognizant of in its real 
 presence. A pencil outline of the bough of a tree on 
 white paper is a statement of a certain number of facts 
 of form. It does not yet amount to the imitation of 
 anything. The idea of that form is not given in 
 nature by lines at all, still less by black lines with a 
 white space between them. But those lines convey to 
 the mind a distinct impression of a certain number of 
 facts, which it recognizes as agreeable with its previous 
 impressions of the bough of a tree ; and it receives, 
 therefore, an idea of truth. If, instead of two lines, 
 we give a dark form with the brush, we convey infor- 
 mation of a certain relation of shade between the 
 bough and sky, recognizable for another idea of truth; 
 but we have still no imitation, for the white paper is 
 not the least like air, nor the black shadow like wood. 
 It is not until after a certain number of ideas of truth 
 have been collected together, that we arrive at an idea 
 of imitation. 
 
 §5. Hence it might at first appear, that an idea of imi- 
 tation, inasmuch as several ideas of truth were united 
 
Selections 115 
 
 in it, was nobler than a simple idea of truth. And if it 
 were necessary that the ideas of truth should be perfect, 
 Noaccu- °^ should be subjects of contemplation as 
 necessa^to ^''^^K J* would be SO. But, observe, we re- 
 imitation. quire to produce the effect of imitation only 
 so many and such ideas of truth as the senses are usually 
 cognizant of. Now the senses are not usually, nor unless 
 they be especially devoted to the service, cognizant, 
 with accuracy, of any truths but those of space and pro- 
 jection. It requires long study and attention before 
 they give certain evidence of even the simplest truths of 
 form. For instance, the quay on which the figure is 
 sitting, with his hand at his eye, in Claude's seaport. 
 No. 14, in the National Gallery, is egregiously out of 
 perspective. The eye of this artist, with all his study, 
 had thus not acquired the power of taking cognizance 
 of the apparent form even of a simple parallelopiped. 
 How much less of the complicated forms of boughs, 
 leaves, or limbs? Although, therefore, something 
 resembling the real form is necessary to deception, 
 this something is not to be called a truth of form ; for, 
 strictly speaking, there are no degrees of truth, there 
 are only degrees of approach to it ; and an approach to 
 it, whose feebleness and imperfection would instantly 
 offend and give pain to a mind really capable of distin- 
 guishing truth, is yet quite suflScient for all the pur- 
 poses of deceptive imagination. It is the same with 
 regard to colour. If we were to paint a tree sky-blue, 
 or a dog rose-pink, the discernment of the public would 
 be keen enough to discover the falsehood ; but, so that 
 there be just so much approach to truth of colour as 
 may come up to the common idea of it in men's minds. 
 
Ii6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 that is to say, if the trees be all bright green, and flesh 
 unbroken bufif, and ground unbroken brown, though 
 all the real and refined truths of colour be wholly 
 omitted, or rather defied and contradicted, there is yet 
 quite enough for all purposes of imitation. The only 
 facts then, which we are usually and certainly cog- 
 nizant of, are those of distance and projection, and if 
 these be tolerably given, with something like truth of 
 form and colour to assist them, the idea of imitation is 
 complete. I would undertake to paint an arm, with 
 every muscle out of its place, and every bone of false 
 form and dislocated articulation, and yet to observe 
 certain coarse and broad resemblances of true outline, 
 which, with careful shading, would induce deception, 
 and draw down the praise and delight of the discern- 
 ing public. Tlie other day at Bruges, while I was 
 endeavoring to set down in my note-book something 
 of the ineffable expression of the Madonna in the 
 cathedral, a French amateur came up to me, to inquire 
 if I had seen the modern French pictures in a neigh- 
 boring church, I had not, but felt little inclined to 
 leave my marble for all the canvas that ever suffered 
 from French brushes. My apathy was attacked with 
 gradually increasing energy of praise. Rubens never 
 executed — Titian never coloured anything like them. 
 I thought this highly probable, and still sat quiet. 
 The voice continued at my ear. "Parbleu, Monsieur, 
 Michel-Ange n'a rien produit de plus beau." "De 
 plus beau?" repeated I, wishing to know what partic- 
 ular excellences of Michael Angelo were to be inti- 
 mated by this expression. "Monsieur, on ne peut 
 plus — c'est un tableau admirable — inconcevable : 
 
Selections 1 1 7 
 
 Monsieur," said the Frenchman, lifting up his hands 
 to heaven, as he concentrated in one conclusive and 
 overwhelming proposition the qualities which were to 
 outshine Rubens and overpower Buonaroti — "Mon- 
 sieur, iL sort!" 
 
 This gentleman could only perceive two truths — 
 flesh colour and projection. These constituted his 
 notion of the perfection of painting; because they 
 unite all that is necessary for deception. He was not 
 therefore cognizant of many ideas of truth, though 
 perfectly cognizant of ideas of imitation. 
 
 §6. We shall see, in the course of our investigation of 
 
 ideas of truth, that ideas of imitation not only do not 
 
 imply their presence, but even are incon- 
 
 Ideasol . . , . -, , . , . , . . 
 
 tnith are sistent With it ; and that pictures which imi- 
 
 Inconslstent i j • i -o 4. 
 
 with ideas of tate SO as to deceive, are never true. But 
 
 imitation. ,. , ^ . - ---. 
 
 this not the place for the proof of this ; at 
 present we have only to insist on the last and great- 
 est distinction between ideas of truth and of imitation 
 — that the mind, in receiving one of the former, 
 dwells upon its own conception of the fact, or form, 
 or feeling stated, and is occupied only with the quali- 
 ties and character of that fact or form, considering it 
 as real and existing, being all the while totally 
 regardless of the signs or symbols by which the 
 notion of it has been conveyed. These signs have 
 no pretence, nor hypocrisy, nor legerdemain about 
 them; — there is nothing to be found out, or sifted, 
 or surprised in them ; — they bear their message sim- 
 ply and clearly, and it is that message which the 
 mind takes from them and dwells upon, regardless 
 of the language in which it is delivered. But the 
 
ii8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 mind, in receiving an idea of imitation, is wholly occu- 
 pied in finding out that what has been suggested to it 
 is not what it appears to be : it does not dwell on the 
 suggestion, but on the perception that it is a false sug- 
 gestion : it derives its pleasure, not from the contem- 
 plation of a truth, but from the discovery of a 
 falsehood. So that the moment ideas of truth are 
 grouped together, so as to give rise to an idea of imita- 
 tion, they change their very nature — ^lose their essence 
 as ideas of truth — and are corrupted and degraded, so 
 as to share in the treachery of what they have pro- 
 duced. Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the founda- 
 tion, and ideas of imitation the destruction, of all art. 
 We shall be better able to appreciate their relative 
 dignity after the investigation which we propose of 
 the functions of the former ; but we may as well now 
 express the conclusion to which we shall then be led — 
 that no picture can be good which deceives by its imi- 
 tation, for the very reason that nothing can be beauti- 
 ful which is not true. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. VII. §/. 
 
 §1. We have seen, in the preceding chapters, some 
 proof of what was before asserted, that the truths neces- 
 sary for deceptive imitation are not only few, 
 sSeotioas^"^* but of the vety lowest order. We thus find 
 sequent oT" P^i£^5^ t5S^S^'^ro?^l2SSjBi2-lwo_^reat _ 
 aimraUmi- '^^^^-^^s ; "one aiming at the development of 
 trutif™** the exquisite truthsptspecific form, refined 
 colour, and ethereal space, and content with 
 the clear and impressive suggestion of any of these, by 
 whatsoever means obtained ; and the other casting all 
 
Selections 119 
 
 these aside, to attain those particular truths of tone 
 and chiaroscuro, which may trick the spectator into a 
 belief j)ij:ealily.., The first cras's, if they have to paint 
 a tree, are intent upon giving the exquisite designs of 
 intersecting undulation in its boughs, the grace of its 
 leafage, the intricacy of its organization, and all those 
 qualities which make it lovely or affecting of its kind. 
 The second endeavor only to make you believe that 
 you are looking at wood. They are totally regardless 
 of truths or beauties of form ; a stump is as good as a 
 trunk for all their purposes, so that they can only 
 deceive the eye into the supposition that it is a stump 
 and not canvas. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. IX, §/. 
 
 §1. I am afraid the reader must be, by this time, 
 almost tired of hearing about truth. But I cannot 
 help this ; the more I have examined the various forms 
 of art, and exercised myself in receiving their differ- 
 ently intended impressions, the more I have found this 
 truthfulness a final test, the only test of lasting power; 
 and, although our concern in this part of our inquiry 
 is, professedly, with the beauty which blossoms out of 
 truth, still I find myself compelled always to gather it 
 by the stalk, not by the petals. I cannot hold the 
 beauty, nor be sure of it for a moment, but by feeling 
 for that strong stem. 
 
 We have, in the preceding chapters, glanced through 
 the various operations of the imaginative power of 
 man; with this almost painfully monotonous result, 
 that its greatness^and honor were always simply in 
 proportion to the quantity of truth it grasped. And 
 
I20 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 now the question, left undetermined some hundred 
 pages back (Chap. II, §6), recurs to us in a simpler 
 form than it could before. How far is this true 
 imagination to be truly represented? How far should 
 the perfect conception of Pallas be so given as to look 
 like Pallas herself, rather than like the picture of 
 Pallas? 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. J, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. X, §j. 
 
 §3. There are some truths, easily obtained, which 
 give a deceptive resemblance to Nature ; others only 
 to be obtained with difficulty, which cause no decep- 
 tion, but give inner and deep resemblance. These 
 two classes of truths cannot be obtained together; 
 choice must be made between them. The bad painter 
 gives the cheap deceptive resemblance. The good 
 painter gives the precious non-deceptive resemblance. 
 Constable perceives in a landscape that the grass is 
 wet, the meadows flat, and the boughs shady; that 
 is to sa}', about as much as, I suppose, might in 
 general be apprehended between them, by an intelli- 
 gent fawn and a sky-lark. Turner perceives at a 
 glance the whole sum of visible truth open to human 
 intelligence. So Berghem perceives nothing in a fig- 
 ure, beyond the flashes of light on the folds of its 
 dress; but Michael Angelo perceives every flash of 
 thought that is passing through its spirit; and Con- 
 stable and Berghem may imitate %vindows; Turner and 
 Michael Angelo can by no means imitate windows. 
 But Turner and Michael Angelo are nevertheless the 
 best* 
 
 * For a fuller account read Chapter VII, 
 
Selections 121 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. HI, ft. IV, Chap. V, §§i, S, it. 
 
 §3. I said just now that we might be tempted to 
 consider how this pursuit of the ideal affected profane 
 art. Strictly speaking, it brought that art into exist- 
 ence. As long as men sought for truth first, and 
 beauty secondarily, they cared chiefly, of course, for 
 the chief truth, and all art was instinctively religious. 
 But as soon as they sought for beauty first, and truth 
 secondarily, they were punished by losing sight of 
 spiritual truth altogether, and the profane (properly 
 so called) schools of art were instantly developed. 
 
 The perfect human beauty, which, to a large part of 
 the community, was by far the most interesting feature 
 in the work of the rising school, might indeed be in 
 some degree consistent with the agony of Madonnas, 
 and the repentance of Magdalenes ; but could not be 
 exhibited in fulness, when the subjects, however 
 irreverently treated, nevertheless demanded some 
 decency in the artist, and some gravity in the spec- 
 tator. The newly acquired powers of round- 
 useottenn ing limbs, and tinting lips, had too little 
 scope in the sanctities even of the softest 
 womanhood; and the newly acquired conceptions of 
 the nobility of nakedness could in nowise be expressed 
 beneath the robes of the prelate or the sack-cloth of 
 the recluse. But the source from which these ideas 
 had been received afforded also full field for their 
 expression; the heathen mythology, which had fur- 
 nished the examples of these heights of art, might 
 again become the subject of the inspirations it had 
 kindled; — with the additional advantage that it could 
 now be delighted in, without being believed ; that its 
 
122 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 errors might be indulged, unrepressed by its awe ; and 
 those of its deities whose function was temptation 
 might be worshipped, in scorn of those whose hands 
 were charged with chastisement. 
 
 §8. I cannot, however, pursue this inquiry here. 
 For our present purpose it is enough to note that the 
 feeling, in itself so debased, branches upwards into 
 that of which, while no one has cause to be ashamed, 
 no one, on the other hand, has cause to be proud, 
 namely, the admiration of physical beauty in the 
 human form, as distinguished from expression of 
 character. Every one can easily appreciate the merit 
 of regular features and well formed limbs, but it 
 requires some attention, sympathy, and sense to 
 detect the charm of passing expression, or life-disci- 
 plined character. The beauty of the Apollo Belvidere, 
 or Venus de Medicis, is perfectly palpable to any shal- 
 low fine lady or fine gentleman, though they would 
 have perceived none in the face of an old weather- 
 beaten St. Peter, or a gray-haired "Grandmother 
 Lois." The knowledge that long study is necessary 
 to produce these regular types of the human form 
 renders the facile admiration matter of eager self-com- 
 placency ; the shallow spectator, delighted that he can 
 really, and without hypocrisy, admire what required 
 much thought to produce, supposes himself endowed 
 with the highest critical faculties, and easily lets him- 
 self be carried into rhapsodies about the 'ideal," which, 
 when all is said, if they be accurately examined, will 
 be found literally to mean nothing more than that the 
 figure has got handsome calves to its legs, and a 
 straight nose. 
 
Selections 123 
 
 §11, Nor is the effect less for evil on the mind of 
 the general observer. The lover of ideal beauty, with 
 all his conceptions narrowed by rule, never looks care- 
 fully enough upon the features which do not come 
 under his law (or any others), to discern the inner 
 beauty in them. The strange intricacies about the 
 lines of the lips, and marvellous shadows and watch- 
 fires of the eye, and wavering traceries of the eyelash, 
 and infinite modulations of the brow, wherein high 
 humanity is embodied, are all invisible to him. He 
 finds himself driven back at last, with all his idealism, 
 to the lionne of the ball-room, whom youth and passion 
 can as easily distinguish as his utmost critical science ; 
 whereas, the observer who has accustomed himself to 
 take human faces as God made them, will often find 
 as much beauty on a village green as in the proudest 
 room of state, and as much in the free seats of a 
 church aisle, as in all the sacred paintings of the 
 Vatican or the Pitti. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VII, %%3, 4, 9. 
 §3. And the greater the master of the ideal, the more 
 perfectly true in portraiture will his individual figures 
 be always found, the more subtle and bold his arts of 
 harmony and contrast. This is a universal principle, 
 common to all great art. Consider, in Shakespeare, 
 how Prince Henry is opposed to Falstaff, Falstaff to 
 Shallow, Titaniato Bottom, Cordelia to Regan, Imogen 
 to Cloten, and so on ; while all the meaner idealists dis- 
 dain the naturalism, and are shocked at the contrasts. 
 The fact is, a man who can see truth at all, sees it 
 wholly, and neither desires nor dares mutilate it. 
 
124 Raskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 §4. It is evident that within this faithful idealism, 
 and as one branch of it only, will arrange itself the 
 representation of the human form and mind in perfec- 
 tion, when this perfection is rationally to be supposed 
 or introduced, — that is to say, in the highest person- 
 ages of the story. The careless habit of confining the 
 term "ideal" to such representations, and not under- 
 standing the imperfect ones to be equally ideal in their 
 place, has greatly added to the embarrassment and 
 multiplied the errors of artists. Thersites is just as 
 ideal as Achilles, and Alecto as Helen ; and, what is 
 more, all the nobleness of the beautiful ideal depends 
 upon its being just as probable and natural as the ugly 
 one, and having in itself, occasionally or partially, 
 both faults and familiarities. If the next painter who 
 desires to illustrate the character of Homer's Achilles, 
 would represent him cutting pork chops for Ulysses, 
 he would enable the public to understand the Homeric 
 ideal better than they have done for several centuries. 
 For it is to be kept in mind that the naturalist ideal 
 has always in it, to the full, the power expressed by 
 those two words. It is naturalist, because studied 
 from nature, and ideal, because it is mentally arranged 
 in a certain manner. Achilles must be represented 
 cutting pork chops, because that was one of the things 
 which the nature of Achilles involved his doing. 
 
 §9. There is, indeed, perhaps no greater sign of 
 innate and real vulgarity of mind or defective educa- 
 tion than the want of power to understand the univer- 
 sality of the ideal truth ; the absence of sympathy with 
 the colossal grasp of those intellects, which have in 
 them so much of divine, that nothing is small to them, 
 
Selections 125 
 
 and nothing large; but with equal and un offended 
 vision they take in the sum of the world, — Straw 
 Street and the seventh heavens, — in the same instant. 
 A certain portion of this divine spirit is visible even in 
 the lower examples of all the true men ; it is, indeed, 
 perhaps, the clearest test of their belonging to the true 
 and great group, that they are continually touching 
 what to the multitude appear vulgarities. 
 
 We may dismiss this matter of vulgarity in plain 
 and few words, at least as far as regards art. There 
 is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however common- 
 place. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot 
 be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, 
 or in affectation. * 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. I, Sec. /, Chap. VI, %(,. 
 
 §6. But although everything in nature is more or less 
 beautiful, every species of object has its own kind and 
 Meaning degree of beauty; some being in their own 
 "ideal**™' nature more beautiful than others, and few, 
 i)eauty." jf any, individuals possessing the utmost 
 degree of beauty of which the species is capable. 
 This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily 
 co-existent with the utmost perfection of the object in 
 other respects, is the ideal of the object. 
 
 Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the 
 subjects of moral, but not of intellectual, perception. 
 By the investigation of them we shall be led to the 
 knowledge of the ideal subjects of art. 
 
 * For a fuller exposition of the true and the false ideal read 
 Modem Painters, Vol. Ill, Chapters III-VIII. 
 
126 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II. Pi. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XIII, 
 §§2. 3< 4, 6, 13-iS- 
 §2. The perfect idea of the form and condition in 
 which all the properties of the species are fully devel- 
 oped, is called the ideal of the species. The 
 senses of the question of the nature of ideal conception of 
 Either it " Species, and of the mode in which the'mind 
 
 rcfsrs to * 
 
 action of the arrives at it, has been the subject of so much 
 
 imagination, ,. . , ,. •■ , 
 
 discussion; and source of so much embarrass- 
 ment, chiefly owing to that unfortunate distinction be- 
 tween idealism and realism which leads most people 
 to imagine the ideal opposed to the real, and therefore 
 false, that I think it necessary to request the reader's 
 most careful attention to the following positions. 
 
 Any work of art which represents, not a material 
 object, but the mental conception of a material object, 
 is, in the primary sense of the word ideal; that is to 
 say, it represents an idea, not a thing. Any work of 
 art which represents or realizes a material object, is, 
 in the primary sense of the term, tmideal. 
 
 Ideal works of art, therefore, in this first sense, rep- 
 resent the result of an act of imagination, and are good 
 or bad in proportion to the healthy condition and gen- 
 eral power of the imagination, whose acts they repre- 
 sent. 
 
 Unideal works of art (the studious production of 
 which is termed realism) represent actual existing 
 things, and are good or bad in proportion to the per- 
 fection of the representation. 
 
 All entirely bad works of art may be divided into 
 those which, professing to be imaginative, bear no 
 stamp of imagination, and are therefore false, and 
 
Selections 
 
 127 
 
 those which, professing to be representative of matter, 
 miss of the representation and are therefore nugatory. 
 
 It is the habit of most observers to regard art as 
 representative of matter, and to look only for the 
 entireness of representation ; and it was to this view 
 of art that I limited the arguments of the former sec- 
 tions of the present work, wherein having to oppose the 
 conclusions of a criticism entirely based upon the real- 
 ist system, I was compelled to meet that criticism on its 
 own grounds. But the greater part of works of art, 
 more especially those devoted to the expression of 
 ideas of beauty, are the results of the agency of 
 imagination, their worthiness depending, as above 
 stated, on the healthy condition of the imagination. 
 
 Hence it is necessary for us, in order to arrive at 
 conclusions respecting the worthiness of such works, 
 to define and examine the nature of the imaginative 
 faculty, and to determine first what are the signs or 
 conditions of its existence at all ; and secondly, what 
 are the evidences of its healthy and eificient existence, 
 upon which examination I shall enter in the second 
 section of the present part. 
 
 §3. But there is another sense of the word ideal be- 
 sides this, and it is that with which we are here con- , 
 
 cerned. It is evident that, so long as we use / 
 Or to per- ' * » 
 
 fection oi the word to signify that art which represents 
 
 ideas and not things, we may use it as truly 
 
 of the art which represents an idea of Caliban, and not 
 
 real Caliban, as of the art which represents an idea of 
 
 Antinous, and not real Antinous. For that is as much 
 
 imagination which conceives the monster as which 
 
 conceives the man. If, however, Caliban and Antinous 
 
128 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 be creatures of the same species, and the form of the 
 one contain not the fully developed types or charac- 
 ters of the species, while the form of the other pre- 
 sents the greater part of them, then the latter is said 
 to be a form more ideal than the other, as a nearer 
 approximation to the general idea or conception of the 
 species. 
 
 §4. Now it is evident that this use of the word ideal 
 
 is much less accurate than the other, from which it is 
 
 derived, for it rests on the assumption that 
 
 This last 
 
 sense how the assemblage of all the characters of a 
 yet to be ' species in their perfect development cannot 
 exist but in the imagination. For if it can 
 actually and in reality exist, it is not right to call it 
 ideal or imaginary ; it would be better to call it char- 
 acteristic or general, and to reserve the word ideal for 
 the results of the operation of the imagination, either 
 on the perfect or imperfect forms. 
 
 Nevertheless, the word ideal has been so long and 
 universally accepted in this sense, that I think it bet- 
 ter to continue the use of it, so only that the reader 
 will be careful to observe the distinction in the sense, 
 according to the subject matter under discussion. At 
 present then, using it as expressive of the noble gen- 
 eric form which indicates the full perfection of the 
 creature in all its functions, I wish to examine how 
 far this perception exists or may exist in nature, and 
 if not in nature, how it is by us discoverable or imag- 
 inable. 
 
 §6. It is, therefore, hardly right to use the word ideal 
 of the generic forms of these creatures, of which we 
 see actual examples ; but if we are to use it, then be 
 
Selections 1 29 
 
 it distinctly understood that their ideality consists in 
 the full development of all the powers and proper- 
 inwhat *^^® °^ *^^ creature as such, and is inconsis- 
 oonsistent tent with accidental or imperfect develop- 
 ments, and even with great variation from average 
 size, the ideal size being neither gigantic nor dimin- 
 utive, but the utmost grandeur and entireness of pro- 
 portion at a certain point above the mean size ; for as 
 more individuals always fall short of generic size than 
 rise above it, the generic is above the average or mean 
 size. And this perfection of the creature invariably 
 involves the utmost possible degree of all those prop- 
 erties of beauty, both typical and vital, which it is 
 appointed to possess. 
 
 §13. Therefore the task of the painter in his piorsuit 
 of ideal form is to obtain accurate knowledge, so far as 
 Theideai- "^^^ ^® ^° ^^^ power, of the character, 
 ityofart. habits, and peculiar virtues and duties of 
 every species of being; down even to the stone, for 
 there is an ideality of stones according to their kind ; 
 an ideality of granite and slate and marble, and it is 
 in the utmost and most exalted exhibition of such indi- 
 vidual character, order, and use, that all ideality of 
 art consists. The more cautious he is in assigning 
 the right species of moss to its favorite trunk, and the 
 right kind of weed to its necessary stone, in marking 
 the definite and characteristic leaf, blossom, seed, 
 fracture, colour, and inward anatomy of everything, 
 the more truly ideal his work becomes. All confusion 
 of species, all careless rendering of character, all 
 unnatural and arbitrary association, is vulgar and 
 unideal in proportion to its degree. 
 
I30 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 §14. It is to be noted, however, that nature sometimes 
 in a measure herself conceals these generic differences, 
 „ and that when she displays them it is com- 
 
 How con- ^ •' 
 
 neotea with monlv on a scale too small for human hand 
 
 tne imaglna- •' 
 
 tire faculties, ^q foUoW. 
 
 The pursuit and seizure of the generic differences in 
 their concealment, and the display of them on a larger 
 and more palpable scale, is one of the wholesome and 
 healthy operations of the imagination of which we are 
 presently to speak. 
 
 Generic differences being commonly exhibited by 
 art in different manner and way from that of their 
 natural occurrence, are in this respect more strictly 
 and truly ideal in art than in reality. 
 
 §15. This only remains to be noted, that, of all crea- 
 tures whose existence involves birth, progress and disso- 
 Meaiity, lution, ideality is predicable all through their 
 ing to ages existence, so that they be perfect with refer- 
 tions. ence to their supposed period of being. 
 
 Thus there is an ideal of infancy, of youth, of old age, 
 of death, and of decay. But when the ideal form of 
 the species is spoken of or conceived in general terms, 
 the form is understood to be of that period when the 
 generic attributes are perfectly developed, and pre- 
 vious to the commencement of their decline. At which 
 period all the characters of vital and typical beauty are 
 commonly most concentrated in them, though the 
 arrangement and" proportion of these characters varies 
 at different periods, youth having more of the vigorous 
 beauty, and age of the reposing; youth of typical out- 
 ward fairness, and age of expanded and etherealized 
 moral expression; the babe, again, in some measure 
 
Selections 1 3 1 
 
 atoning in gracefulness for its want of strength, so 
 that the balanced glory of the creature continues in 
 solemn interchange, perhaps even 
 
 "Filling more and more with crystal light, 
 As pensive evening deepens into night." 
 
 Hitherto, however, we have confined ourselves to 
 the examination of ideal form in the lower animals, 
 and we have found that, to arrive at it, no combina- 
 tion of forms nor exertion of fancy is required, but 
 only simple choice among those naturally presented, 
 together with careful investigation and anatomizing of 
 the habits of the creatures. I fear we shall arrive at 
 a very different conclusion, in considering the ideal 
 form of man. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. III. Pt. IV, Chap. VI, §§^,5. 
 
 §4. Let us take one or two instances in order clearly 
 to explain our meaning. 
 
 The life of Angelico was almost entirely spent in 
 the endeavor to imagine the beings belonging to 
 another world. By purity of life, habitual elevation 
 of thought, and natural sweetness of disposition, he 
 was enabled to express the sacred affections upon the 
 human countenance as no one ever did before or since. 
 In order to effect clearer distinction between heavenly 
 beings and those of this world, he represents the 
 former as clothed in draperies of the purest colour, 
 crowned with glories of burnished gold, and entirely 
 shadowless. With exquisite choice of gesture, and 
 disposition of folds of drapery, this mode of treatment 
 gives perhaps the best idea of spiritual beings which 
 
132 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the human mind is capable of forming. It is, there- 
 fore, a true ideal; but the mode in which it is arrived 
 at (being so far mechanical and contradictory of the 
 appearances of nature) necessarily precludes those 
 who practise it from being complete masters of their 
 art. It is always childish, but beautiful in its child- 
 ishness. 
 
 §S. The works of our own Stothard are examples 
 of the operation of another mind, singular in gentle- 
 ness and purity, upon mere worldly subject. It seems 
 as if Stothard could not conceive wickedness, coarse- 
 ness, or baseness; every one of his figures looks as if 
 it had been copied from some creature who had never 
 harbored an unkind thought, or permitted itself in an 
 ignoble action. With this immense love of mental 
 purity is joined, in Stothard, a love of mere physical 
 smoothness and softness, so that he lived in a universe 
 of soft grass and stainless fountains, tender trees, and 
 stones at which no foot could stumble. 
 
 All this is very beautiful, and may sometimes urge 
 us to an endeavor to make the world itself more like 
 the conception of the ipamteTj/' At least, in the midst 
 of its malice, misery, and baseness, it is often a relief 
 to glance at the graceful shadows, and take, for 
 momentary companionship, creatures full only of love, 
 gladness, and honor. /But the perfect truth will at 
 last vindicate itself against the partial truth ; the help 
 which we can gain from the unsubstantial vision will 
 be only like that which we may sometimes receive, in 
 weariness, from the scent of a flower or the passing of 
 a breeze. For all firm aid and steady use, we must 
 look to harder realities ; and, as far as the painter him- 
 
Selections 133 
 
 self is regarded, we can only receive such work as the 
 sign of an amiable imbecility. It is indeed ideal ; but 
 ideal as a fair dream is in the dawn of the morning, 
 before the faculties are astir. The apparent complete- 
 ness of grace can never be attained without much 
 definite falsification as well as omission; stones, over 
 which we cannot stumble, must be ill-drawn stones ; 
 trees, which are all gentleness and softness, cannot 
 be trees of wood; nor companies without evil in 
 them, companies of flesh and blood. The habit of 
 falsification (with whatever aim) begins always in 
 dulness and ends always in incapacity; nothing can be 
 more pitiable than any endeavor by Stothard to express 
 facts beyond his own sphere of soft pathos or graceful 
 mirth, and nothing more unwise than the aim at a 
 similar ideality by any painter who has power to ren- 
 der a sincerer truth. 
 
 Art of England, Led. IV. 
 
 Long since I told you this great law of noble imag- 
 ination. It does not create, it does not even adorn, it 
 The real does but reveal, the treasures to be pos- 
 S^?^l""' sessed by the spirit. 
 
 Arrows of the Chace, Vol. I, Letter L 
 
 Finally, a very false principle is implied by part of 
 what is advanced by your critic — which has led to 
 infinite error in art, and should therefore be 
 andidlii instantly combated whenever it were hinted 
 not opposed. _t}jat the ideal is different from the true. 
 It is, on the contrary, only the perfection of truth. 
 The Apollo is not a false representation of man, but 
 
134 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the most perfect representation of all that is constant 
 and essential in man free from the accidents and evils 
 which corrupt the truth of his nature.* Supposing 
 we are describing to a naturalist some animal he does 
 not know, and we tell him we saw one with a hump on 
 its back, and another with strange bends in its legs, 
 and another with a long tail, and another with no tail, 
 he will ask us directly, but what is its true form, what 
 is its real form? This truth, this reality, which he 
 requires of us, is the ideal form, that which is hinted 
 at by all the individuals — aimed at, but not arrived at. 
 But never let it be said that, when a painter is defying 
 the principles of nature at every roll of his brush, as 
 I have shown that Gaspar does, when, instead of work- 
 ing out the essential characters of specific form, and 
 raising those to their highest degree of nobility and 
 beauty, he is casting all character aside, and carrying 
 out imperfection and accident; never let it be said, in 
 excuse for such degradation of nature, that it is done 
 in pursuit of the ideal. As well might this be said in 
 defence of the promising sketch of the human form 
 pasted on the wainscot behind the hope of the family — 
 artist and musician of equal power — in the "Blind 
 
 * The passage in the Chronicle ran thus: "The Apollo is but an 
 ideal of the human form ; no figure ever moulded of flesh and blood 
 was like it." With the objection to this criticism we may compare 
 Modern Painters (Vol. I., where the ideal is defined as "the utmost 
 degree of beauty of which the species is capable." See also Vol 
 II : "The perfect idea of the form and condition in which all the 
 properties of the species are fully developed is called the Ideal of 
 the species;" and "That unfortunate distinctness between Ideal- 
 ism and Realism which leads most people to imagine that the 
 Ideal is opposed to the Real, and therefore false.'' 
 
Selections 135 
 
 Fiddler."* Ideal beauty is the generalization of con- 
 summate knowledge, the concentration of perfect truth 
 — ^not the abortive vision of ignorance in its study. 
 Nor was there ever yet one conception of the human 
 mind beautiful, but as it was based on truth. When- 
 ever we leave nature, we fall immeasurably beneath 
 her. 
 
 Study of Architecture, %f. 
 
 §4. Idealism, so far from being contrary to special 
 
 truth, is the very abstraction of specialty from every- 
 
 The Ideal thing else. It is the earnest statement of 
 
 and the true ^jje characters which make man man, and 
 not opposed. ' 
 
 cockle cockle, and flesh flesh, and fish fish. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Ft. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. Ill, §ay. 
 
 §2S- Now, I wish the reader particularly to observe 
 throughout all these works of Tintoret, the distinction 
 of the imaginative verity from falsehood on the one 
 hand, and from realism on the other. The power of 
 every picture depends on the penetration of the imag- 
 ination into the true nature of the thing represented, 
 and on the utter scorn of the imagination for all 
 shackles and fetters of mere external fact that stand 
 in the way of its suggestiveness. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Chap. XXI, §§/o, //. 
 
 §10. What, then, is noble abstraction? It is taking 
 the essential elements of the thing to be represented, 
 
 ♦This picture of Sir David Wilkie's was presented to the 
 National Gallery (No. 99) by Sir George Beaumont, in 1826. 
 
136 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 then the rest in the order of importance (so that 
 wherever we pause we shall always have obtained' 
 Noble ab- more than we leave behind), and using any 
 straction. expedient to impress what we want upon 
 the mind, without caring about the mere literal accu- 
 racy of such expedient. 
 
 §11. This is the definition of the purest architectural 
 abstractions. They are the deep and laborious 
 thoughts of the greatest men, put into such easy let- 
 ters that they can be written by the simplest. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec, II, Chap. IV, 
 
 §12. Again, it is possible to represent objects capa- 
 ble of various accidents in a generic or symbolical form. 
 
 How far this may be done with things having 
 necessary form, as animals, I am not prepared to say. 
 The lions of the Egyptian room in the British Mu- 
 seum, and the fish beside Michael Angelo's Jonah, 
 are instances; and there is imaginative power about 
 both which we find not in the more perfectly realized 
 Florentine boar, nor in Raffaelle's fish of the draught. 
 And yet the propriety and nobility of these types 
 depend on the architectural use and character of the 
 one, and the typical meaning of the other; we should 
 be grieved to see the forms of the Egyptian lion 
 substituted for those of Raffaelle's in its struggle with 
 Samson, nor would the whale of Michael Angelo be 
 tolerated in the nets of Gennesaret. So that I think 
 it is only when the figure of the creature stands not for 
 any representation of vitality, but merely for a letter 
 or type of certain symbolical meaning, or else is 
 
Selections 137 
 
 adopted as a grand form of decoration or support in 
 architecture, that such generalization is allowable, and 
 in such circumstances I think it necessary, always pro- 
 vided it be based, as in the instances given I conceive 
 it to be, upon thorough knowledge of the creature 
 symbolized and wrought out by a master hand ; and 
 these conditions being observed, I believe it to be 
 right and necessary in architecture to modify all animal 
 forms by a severe architectural stamp, and in sym- 
 bolical use of them, to adopt a typical form, to which 
 practice the contrary and its evil consequences, are 
 ludicrously exhibited in the St. Peter of Carlo Dolci in 
 the Pitti palace. 
 
 Ariadne Florentina, Led. Ill, §§/c>7, 104. 
 
 §103. Because our lines in wood must be thick, it 
 becomes an extreme virtue in wood engraving to 
 economize lines, — not merely, as in all other art, to 
 save time and power, but because, our lines being 
 necessarily blunt, we must make up our minds to do 
 with fewer, by many, than are in the object. But is 
 this necessarily a disadvantage? 
 
 Absolutely, an immense disadvantage — a woodcut 
 never can be so beautiful or good a thing as a paint- 
 ing, or line engraving. But in its own separate and 
 useful way, an excellent thing, because, practised 
 rightly, it exercises in the artist, and summons in 
 you, the habit of abstraction ; that is to say, of decid- 
 ing what are the essential points in the things you see, 
 and seizing these; a habit entirely necessary to strong 
 humanity. 
 
 §104. But the abstraction of the essential particulars 
 
138 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 in his subject by a line-master, has a peculiar didactic 
 value. For painting, when it is complete, leaves it 
 much to your own judgment what to look at ; and, if 
 you are a fool, you look at the wrong thing; — but in a 
 fine woodcut, the master says to you, "You shall look. 
 at this or at nothing." 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. Ill, %i2 (footnote). 
 
 As here, for the first time, I am obliged to use the 
 terms Truth and Beauty in a kind of opposition, I 
 must therefore stop for a moment to state clearly the 
 relation of these two qualities of art ; and to protest 
 against the vulgar and foolish habit of confusing truth 
 and beauty with each other. People with shallow 
 powers of thought, desiring to flatter themselves with 
 the sensation of having attained profundity, are con- 
 tinually doing the most serious mischief by introducing 
 confusion into plain matters, and then valuing them- 
 selves on being confounded. Nothing is more com- 
 mon than to hear people who desire to be thought 
 philosophical, declare that "beauty is truth," and 
 "truth is beauty." I would most earnestly beg every 
 sensible person who hears such an assertion made, to 
 nip the germinating philosopher in his ambiguous 
 bud ; and beg him, if he really believes his own asser- 
 tion, never thenceforward to use two words for the 
 same thing. The fact is, truth and beauty are entirely 
 distinct, though often related, things. One is a prop- 
 erty of statements, the other of objects. The state- 
 ment that "two and two make four" is true, but it is 
 neither beautiful nor ugly, for it is invisible; a rose is 
 lovely, but it is neither true nor false, for it is silent. 
 
Selections r39 
 
 That which shows nothing cannot be fair, and that 
 which asserts nothing cannot be false. Even the ordi- 
 nary use of the words false and true as applied to arti- 
 ficial and real things, is inaccurate. An artificial rose 
 is not a "false" rose, it is not a rose at all. The false- 
 ness is in the person who states, or induces the belief, 
 that it is a rose. 
 
 Now, therefore, in things concerning art, the words 
 true and false are only to be rightly used while the 
 picture is considered as a statement of facts. The 
 painter asserts that this which he has painted is the 
 form of a dog, a man, or a tree. If it be not the form 
 of a dog, a man, or a tree, the painter's statement is 
 false; and therefore we justly speak of a false line, or 
 false colour : not that any line or colour can in them- 
 selves be false, but they become so when they convey 
 a statement that they resemble something which they 
 do not resemble. But the beauty of the lines or col- 
 ours is. wholly independent of any such statement. 
 They may be beautiful lines, though quite inaccurate, 
 and ugly lines, though quite faithful. A picture may 
 be frightfully ugly, which represents with fidelity 
 some base circumstance of daily life ; and a painted 
 window may be exquisitely beautiful, which represents 
 men with eagles' faces, and dogs with blue heads and 
 crimson tails (though, by the way, this is not in the 
 strict sense false art, as we shall see hereafter, inas- 
 much as it means no assertion that men ever kad 
 eagles' faces). If this were not so, it would be impos- 
 sible to sacrifice truth to beauty x for to attain the one 
 would always be to attain the other. But, unfortu- 
 nately, this sacrifice is exceedingly possible, and it is 
 
I40- Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 chiefly this . which characterizes the false schools of 
 high art, so far as high art consists in the pursuit of 
 beauty. For although truth and beauty are independ- 
 ent of each other, it does not follow that we are at 
 liberty to pursue whichever we please. They are 
 indeed separable, but it is wrong to separate them: 
 they are to be sought together in the order of their 
 worthiness; that is to say, truth first, and beauty 
 afterwards. High art differs from low art in possess- 
 ing an excess of beauty in addition to its truth, not in 
 possessing an excess of beauty inconsistent with truth. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. Ill, 
 §§/, 2, IS, 17. 
 
 §1. And yet, while I have said that the sensation of 
 beauty is intuitive and necessary, as men derive 
 pleasure from the scent of a rose, I have 
 hungers for assumed that there are some sources from 
 which it is rightly derived, and others from 
 which it is wrongly derived, in other words, that men 
 have no right to think some things beautiful, and no 
 right to remain apathetic with regard to others. 
 
 §2. Hence then arise two questions, according to the 
 sense in which the word right is taken ; the first, in 
 what way an impression of sense may be deceptive, 
 and therefore a conclusion respecting it untrue ; and 
 the second, in what way an impression of sense, or 
 the preference of one, may be a subject of will, and 
 therefore of moral duty or delinquency. 
 
 §15. Seeing then that these qualities of material ob- 
 jects which are calculated to give us this universal 
 pleasure, are demonstrably constant in their address to 
 
Selections i^i 
 
 human nature, they must belong in some measure to 
 whatever has been esteemed beautiful throughout suc- 
 g^^ cessive ages of the world (and they are also 
 
 ciusiSs°°°" ^y ^^^^^ definition common to all the works 
 bllmy^^ °^ ^°^)- Therefore it is evident that it 
 demoS"" must be possible to reason them out, as well 
 strabie. as to feel them out ; possible to divest every 
 object of that which makes it accidentally or tem- 
 porarily pleasant, and to strip it bare of distinctive 
 qualities, until we arrive at those which it has in com- 
 mon with all other beautiful things, which we may 
 then safely affirm to be the cause of its ultimate and 
 true delightfulness. 
 
 §17. The first thing, then, that we have to do, is accur- 
 ately to discriminate and define those appearances from 
 which we are about to reason as belonging 
 The term to bcauty, properly so called, and to clear 
 howiimita- the ground of all the confused ideas and 
 
 Me In the out- , . 
 
 set. Diviaed erroneous theories with which the misappre- 
 ana rttoi. hension or metaphorical use of the term has 
 encumbered it. By the term beauty, then, 
 properly are signified two things. First, that external 
 quality of bodies already so often spoken pf, and which, 
 whether it occur in stone, flower, beast, or in man, is 
 absolutely identical, which, as I have already asserted, 
 may be shown to be in some sort typical of the Divine 
 attributes, and which, therefore, I shall, for distinc- 
 tion's sake, call typical beauty; and, secondarily, the 
 appearance of felicitous fulfilment of function in living 
 things, more especially that of the joyful and right 
 exertion of perfect life in man. And this kind of 
 beauty I shall call vital beauty. 
 
142 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. XIV, ^4, 33. 
 §24. But the reader must yet remember that our spe- 
 cial business in this section of the work is the observ- 
 Typicai ^"^^^ °^ *^^ nature of beauty, and of the de- 
 beauty, grees in which the aspect of any object fulfils 
 the laws of beauty stated in the second volume. Now, 
 in the fifteenth paragraph of the chapter on infinity, it 
 _^was stated that curvature was essential to all beauty, 
 and that what we should "need more especially to 
 prove, was the constancy of curvature in all natural 
 forms whatsoever." 
 
 §25. A rose is rounded by its own soft ways of 
 growth, a reed is bowed into tender curvature by the 
 pressure of the breeze ; but we could not, from these, 
 have proved any resolved preference, by Nature, of 
 curved lines to others, inasmuch as it might always 
 have been answered that the curves were produced, 
 not for beauty's sake, but infallibly, by the laws of 
 vegetable existence ; and, looking at broken flints or 
 rugged banks afterwards, we might have thought that 
 we only liked the curved lines because associated with 
 life and organism, and disliked the angular ones because 
 associated with inaction and disorder. But Nature 
 gives us in these mountains a more clear demonstra- 
 tion of her will. She is here driven to make fracture 
 the law of being. She cannot tuft the rock-edges 
 with moss, or round them by water, or hide them with 
 leaves and roots. She is bound to produce a form, 
 admirable to human beings, by continual breaking 
 away of substance. And behold — so soon as she is 
 compelled to do this — she changes the law of fracture 
 itself. "Growth," she seems to say, "is not essential 
 
Selections 143 
 
 to my work, nor concealment, nor softness; but 
 curvature is: and if I must produce my forms by 
 breaking them, the fracture itself shall be in curves. 
 If, instead of dew and sunshine, the only instruments 
 I am to use are the lightning and the frost, then their 
 forked tongues and crystal wedges shall still work out 
 my laws of tender line. Devastation instead of 
 nurture may be the task of all my elements, and age 
 after age may only prolong the unrenovated ruin ; but 
 the appointments of typical beauty which have been 
 made over all creatures shall not therefore be aban- 
 doned; and the rocks shall be ruled, in their per- 
 petual perishing, by the same ordinances that direct 
 the bending of the reed and the blush of the rose." 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. XI, §9. 
 
 §9. But, without approaching the presence of this 
 deeper meaning of the sign, the reader may rest satis- 
 fied with the connection given him directly in written 
 words, between the cloud and its bow. The cloud, or 
 firmament, as we have seen, signifies the ministration 
 of the heavens to man. That ministration may be 
 in judgment or mercy — in the lightning, or the dew. 
 But the bow, or colour, of the cloud, signifies always 
 mercy, the sparing of life ; such ministry of the heaven, 
 as shall feed and prolong life. And as the sunlight, 
 undivided, is the type of the wisdom and righteous- 
 ness of God, so divided, and softened into colour by 
 means of the fundamental ministry, fitted to every 
 need of man, as to every delight, and becoming one 
 chief source of human beauty, by being made part of 
 the flesh of man; — thus divided, the sunlight is the 
 
144 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 type of the wisdom of God, becoming sanctification 
 and redemption. Various in work — various in beauty 
 — various in power. 
 
 Colour is, therefore, in brief terms, the type of love. 
 Hence it is especially connected with the blossoming 
 of the earth ; and again, with its fruits ; also, with the 
 spring and fall of the leaf, and with the morning and 
 evening of the day, in order to show the waiting of 
 love about the birth and death of man. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XII, 
 %%i, 2, S' 4, 7. S, 13. 
 
 §1. I proceed more particularly to examine the na- 
 ture of that second kind of beauty of which I spoke in 
 Transi- *^® third chapter, as consisting "in the ap- 
 
 typic'ai'to pearance of felicitous fulfilment of function 
 vital Deauty. j^ living things." I have already noticed 
 the example of very pure and high typical beauty which 
 is to be found in the lines and gradations of unsullied 
 snow ; if, passing to the edge of a sheet of it, upon the 
 lower Alps, early in May, we find, as we are nearly 
 sure to find, two or three little round openings pierced 
 in it, and through these emergent, a slender, pensive, 
 fragile flower whose small, dark, purple-fringed bell 
 hangs down and shudders over the icy cleft that it has 
 cloven, as if partly wondering at its own recent grave, 
 and partly dying of very fatigue after its hard won 
 victory ; we shall be, or we ought to be, moved by a 
 totally different impression of loveliness from that 
 which we receive among the dead ice and the idle 
 clouds. There is now uttered to us a call for sym- 
 pathy, now offered to us an image of moral purpose 
 
Selections 145 
 
 and achievement, which, however unconscious or 
 senseless the creature may indeed be that so seems to 
 call, cannot be heard without affection, nor contem- 
 plated without worship, by any of us whose heart is 
 lightly tuned, or whose mind is clearly and surely 
 sighted. 
 
 Throughout the whole of the organic creation every 
 being in a perfect state exhibits certain appearances, 
 or evidences, of happiness, and besides is in its nature, 
 its desires, its modes of nourishment, habitation, and 
 death, illustrative or expressive of certain moral dispo- 
 sitions or principles. Now, first, in the keenness of 
 the sympathy which we feel in the happiness, real 
 or apparent, of all organic beings, and which, as we 
 shall presently see, invariably prompts us, from the 
 joy we have in it, to look upon those as most lovely 
 which are most happy; and secondly, in the justness 
 of the moral sense which rightly reads the lesson they 
 are all intended to teach, and classes them in orders 
 of worthiness and beauty according to the rank and 
 nature of that lesson, whether it be of warning or 
 example, of those that wallow or of those that soar, of 
 the fiend-hunted swine by the Gennesaret lake, or of 
 the dove returning to its ark of rest; in our right 
 accepting and reading of all this, consist, I say, the 
 ultimately perfect condition of that noble theoretic 
 faculty, whose place in the system of our nature I 
 have already partly vindicated with respect to typical, 
 but which can only fully be established with respect to 
 vital beauty. 
 
 §2. Its first perfection, therefore, relating to vital 
 beauty, is the kindness and unselfish fulness of heart, 
 
146 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 which receives the utmost amount of pleasure from 
 the happiness of all things. Of which in high degree 
 the heart of man is incapable, neither what 
 (StiorTof the intense enjoyment the angels may have in 
 faouity'as ^^^ ^^^* ^-^^^ ^®® °^ things that move and 
 ^JuhTitoi ^^^®' ^^^ ^^ ^^^ P^^' *^^y *^^® ^^ *^® shed- 
 charit^ '^ "^^°S °^ God's kindness upon them, can we 
 know or conceive : only in proportion as we 
 draw near to God, and are made in measure like unto 
 Him, can we increase this our possession of charity, of 
 which the entire essence is in God only. 
 
 §3. As we pass from those beings of whose happiness 
 and pain we are certain to those in which it is doubt- 
 oniy with ^^^ °^ Only Seeming, as possibly in plants, 
 ptlnts!iess (though I would fain hold, if I might, "the 
 ffiantym- f^ith that every flower enjoys the air it 
 pathy. breathes, ' ' neither do I ever crush or gather 
 
 one without some pain,) yet our feeling for them has 
 in it more of sympathy than of actual love, as receiv- 
 ing from them in delight far more than we can give; 
 for love, I think, chiefly grows in giving, at least its 
 essence is the desire of doing good, or giving happi- 
 ness, and we cannot feel the desire of that which we 
 cannot conceive, so that if we conceive not of a plant 
 as capable of pleasure, we cannot desire to give it 
 pleasure, that is, we cannot love it in the entire sense 
 of the term. 
 
 Nevertheless, the sympathy of very lofty and sensi- 
 tive minds usually reaches so far as to the conception 
 of life in the plant, and so to love, as with Shelley, of 
 the sensitive plant, and Shakespeare always, as he has 
 taught us in the sweet voices of Ophelia and Perdita, 
 
Selections 147 
 
 and Wordsworth always, as of the daffodils, and the 
 celandine, 
 
 "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold, 
 This neither is its courage, nor its choice. 
 But its necessity in being old," — 
 
 and so all other great poets (that is to say, great 
 seers ;) nor do I believe that any mind, however rude, 
 is without some slight perception or acknowledgement 
 of joy fulness in breathless things, as most certainly 
 there are none but feel instinctive delight in the 
 appearances of such enjoyment. 
 
 §4. For it is matter of easy demonstration, that set- 
 ting the characters of typical beauty aside, the pleasure 
 
 afforded by every organic form is in pro- 
 whichis portion to its appearance of healthy vital 
 '°*raMeoi ^^^^SYl as in a rose-bush, setting aside all 
 tSr^Ss considerations of gradated flushing of colour 
 
 and fair folding of line, which it shares with 
 the cloud or the snow-wreath, we find in and through 
 all this, certain signs pleasant and acceptable as 
 signs of life and enjoyment in the particular individual 
 plant itself. Every leaf and stalk is seen to have a 
 function, to be constantly exercising that function, 
 and as it seems so/ely for the good and enjoyment of 
 the plant. It is true that reflection will show us that 
 the plant is not living for itself alone, that its life is 
 one of benefaction, that it gives as well as receives, 
 but no sense of this whatsoever mingles with our 
 perception of physical beauty in its forms. Those 
 forms which appear to be necessary to its health, the 
 symmetry of its leaflets, the smoothness of its stalks, 
 the vivid green of its shoots, are looked upon by us as 
 
148 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 signs of the plant's own happiness and perfection; 
 they are useless to us, except as they give us pleasure in 
 our sympathizing with that of the plant, and if we see a 
 leaf withered or shrunk or worm-eaten, we say it is ugly, 
 and feel it to be most painful, not because it hurts us, 
 but because it seems to hurt the plant, and conveys to 
 us an idea of pain and disease and failure of life in it. 
 
 §7. As, therefore, it appears from all evidence that it 
 is the sense of felicity which we first desire in organic 
 form, it is evident from reason, as demonstrable by 
 experience, that those forms will be the most beauti- 
 ful (always, observe, leaving typical beauty out of the 
 question) which exhibit most of power, and seem 
 capable of most quick and joyous sensation. Hence 
 we find gradations of beauty from the apparent 
 impenetrableness of hide and slow motion of the ele- 
 phant and rhinoceros, from the foul occupation of the 
 vulture, from the earthly struggling of the worm, to 
 the brilliancy of the butterfly, the buoyancy of the 
 lark, the swiftness of the fawn and the horse, thp fair 
 and kingly sensibility of man. 
 
 §8. Thus far then, the theoretic faculty is concerned 
 with the happiness of animals, and its exercise depends 
 The sec- °° *^® Cultivation of the affections only. 
 tiOTi^/tte ^®* ^^ ^^^^ observe how it is concerned 
 faouity'as ^^*^ *^® moral functions of animals, and 
 vrith u?e1s therefore how it is dependent on the cultiva- 
 moraUudg- *^°^ °^ every moral sense. There is not any 
 ment. organic creature, but in its history and habits 
 
 it shall exemplify or illustrate to us some moral excel- 
 lence or deficiency, or some point of God's providen- 
 tial government, which it is necessary for us to know, 
 
Selections 149 
 
 §1 J. Whence, in fine, looking to the whole kingdom 
 of organic nature, we find that our £ull receiving of its 
 Kecapit. beauty depends first on the sensibility and 
 uiation. then on the accuracy and touchstone faith- 
 fulness of the heart in its moral judgments, so that it 
 is necessary that we should not only love all creatures 
 well, but esteem them in that order which is according 
 to God's laws and not according to our own human 
 passions and predilections, not looking for swiftness, 
 and strength, and cunning, rather than for patience 
 and kindness, still less delighting in their animosity 
 and cruelty one towards another, neither, if it may be 
 avoided, interfering with the working of nature in any 
 way, nor, when we interfere to obtain service, judg- 
 ing from the morbid conditions of the animal or vege- 
 table so induced ; for we see every day the theoretic 
 facility entirely destroyed in those who are interested 
 in particular animals, by their delight in the results 
 of their own teaching, and by the vain straining of 
 curiosity for newformsLSjich as nature never intended, 
 as tEe^isgusting types for instance, which we see 
 earnestly sought for by the fanciers of rabbits and 
 pigeons, and constantly in horses, substituting for the 
 true^ and balanced beauty of the free creature some 
 morbid development of a single power, as of swiftness 
 in the racer, at the expense, in certain measure, of the 
 animal's healthy constitution and fineness of form ; and 
 so the delight of horticulturists in the spoiling of 
 plants; so that in all cases we are to beware of such 
 ©ptnions as seem in any way referable to human pride, 
 or even to the grateful or pernicious influence of things 
 upon ourselves, and to cast the mind free, and out of 
 
\ 
 
 150 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ourselves, humbly, and yet always in that notable 
 position of pause above the other visible creatures, 
 nearer God than they, which we authoritatively hold, 
 thence looking down upon them, and testing the clear- 
 ness of our moral vision by the extent, and fulness, 
 and constancy of our pleasure in the light of God's 
 love as it embraces them, and the harmony of His holy 
 laws, that forever bring mercy out of rapine, and reli- 
 gion out of wrath. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XIII, §/. 
 
 §1. Hitherto we have observed the conclusions of the 
 theoretic faculty with respect to the relations of hap- 
 piness, and of more or less exalted function 
 otftimimeJt existing between different orders of organic 
 lunrtion'ta'^ being. But we must pursue the inquiry 
 IliSai farther yet, and observe what impressions 
 
 of beauty are connected with more or less 
 perfect fulfilment of the appointed function by differ- 
 ent individuals of the same species. We are now 
 no longer called to pronounce upon worthiness of 
 occupation or dignity of disposition ; but both employ- 
 ment and capacity being known, and the animal's 
 position and duty fixed, we have to regard it in that 
 respect alone, comparing it with other individuals of its 
 species, and to determine how far it worthily executes 
 its office ; whether, if scorpion, it hath poison enough, 
 or if tiger, strength enough, or if dove, innocence 
 enough, to sustain rightly its place in creation, and 
 come up to the perfect idea of dove, tiger, or scorpion. 
 
 In the first or sympathetic operation of the theoretic 
 faculty, it will be remembered, we receive pleasure 
 
Selections 151 
 
 from the signs of mere happiness in living things. In 
 the second theoretic operation of comparing and judg- 
 ing, we constituted ourselves such judges of the lower 
 creatures as Adam was made by God when they were 
 brought to him to be named, and we allowed of 
 beauty in them as they reached, more or less, to that 
 standard of moral perfection by which we test our- 
 selves. But, in the third place, we are to come down 
 again from the judgment seat, and taking it for 
 granted that every creature of God is in some way 
 good, and has a duty and specific operation providen- 
 tially accessory to the well-being of all, we are to look 
 in this faith to that employment and nature of each, 
 and to derive pleasure from their entire perfection and 
 fitness for the duty they have to do, and in their 
 entire fulfilment of it: and so we are to take pleasure 
 and find beauty in the magnificent binding together 
 of the jaws of the ichthyosaurus for catching and 
 holding, and in the adaptation of the lion for spring- 
 ing, and of the locust for destroying, and of the lark 
 for singing, and in every creature for the doing of that 
 which God has made it to do. Which faithful pleasure 
 in the perception of the perfect operation of lower 
 creatures I have placed last among the perfections of 
 the theoretic faculty concerning them, because it is 
 commonly last acquired, both owing to the humbleness 
 and trustfulness of heart which it demands, and 
 because it implies a knowledge of the habits and 
 structure of every creature, such as we can but imper- 
 fectly possess.* ^ 
 
 * For a fuller explanation of typical and vital beauty read Vol. 
 II, Chapters V-XV. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE INDIVIDUALISTIC POINT OP VIEW 
 
 We have already seen that Ejiskio believes spirit or 
 God-ta be-present-in bothnature aD.d.man; and also 
 that tmth,_beauty, and gqgdsess_are_tbree 
 of^aeoria*"' essential qualities of^ God_pr jgirit. Since 
 these qualities are a part of spirit by virtue 
 of its divinity, or because spirit is a part of God, they 
 are intrinsic, not external, qualities of the spirit of 
 man and of nature. They must be present, therefore, 
 in both the natural objects and the spirit of man that 
 discerns. The manifestation of these qualities in man 
 in an unusual degree, we call inspiration ; the discern- 
 ment of these qualities in nature by the spirit of man, 
 we call genius^ Then it is a law of his being that man 
 should recognize the divine spirit in the world about 
 him ; the noblest within him goes out to meet its own. 
 When this appeals to him in the form of truth, his 
 reason responds and accepts these relations and con- 
 ditions ; when, either in nature or man, it appeals to 
 him as good, his moral feelings are aroused and he 
 responds by subservience of his will to his moral judg- 
 ment; but when it appeals to him as beauty, with 
 what power does he respond? We should say with his 
 imagination, but Ruskin says that theoria is the fac- 
 ulty by which man seeks divine beauty in^nature. 
 
 152 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 153 
 
 "The moral perception and appreciation of ideas of 
 beauty is the theoretic faculty. ' ' He believes that the 
 fond contemplation of the essence of beauty (the 
 Anschauung of the German) is as much as is meant by 
 the Greek theoria ; but he means more ; he means con- 
 templation of objects accompanied by a full percep- 
 tion of their being a gift from and manifestation of 
 God, since not until so felt are the essential natures of 
 beautiful objects comprehended. 
 
 This faculty has different methods of acting upon 
 typical and vital beauty. He says: "In the first or 
 sympathetic operation of the theoretic faculty, it 
 will be remembered, we receive pleasure from the 
 signs of mere happiness in living things. In the 
 second theoretic operation of comparing and judging, 
 we constituted ourselves such judges of the lower 
 creatures as Adam was made by God when they 
 were "brought to him to be named, and we allowed 
 of beauty in them as they reached, more or less, 
 to that standard of moral perfection by which we 
 test ourselves. But, in the third place, we are to 
 come down again from the judgment seat, and taking 
 it for granted that every creature of God is in some 
 way good, and has a duty and specific operation provi- 
 dentially accessory to the well-being of all, we are to 
 look in this faith to that employment and nature of 
 each, and to derive pleasure from their entire perfec- 
 tion and fitness for the duty they have to do, and in 
 their entire fulfilment of it; and so we are to take 
 
154 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 pleasure and find beauty in the magnificent binding 
 together of the jaws of the ichthyosaurus for catching 
 and holding, and in the adaptation of the lion for 
 springing, and of the locust for destroying, and of the 
 lark for singing, and in every creature for the doing of 
 that which God has made it to do. Which faithful 
 pleasure in the perception of the perfect operation of 
 lower creatures I have placed last among the perfec- 
 tions of the theoretic faculty concerning them, because 
 it is commonly last acquired, both owing to the hum- 
 bleness and trustfulness of heart which it demands, 
 and because it implies a knowledge of the habits and 
 structure of every creature, such as we can but imper- 
 fectly possess" (M. P., Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Chap. XIII). 
 
 Since ideas of beauty are, as Ruskin says, essen- 
 tially moral, then the discernment and contemplation 
 of them is moral also — a sort of moral iudg- 
 
 Conluslon •* ° 
 
 Seauty'^'aud ^^^^^- While this sounds logical it is really 
 goodness. fallacious ; because beautyandgoodness are 
 confused. Beauty i§._.eoncrfite_and_.appea^_tothe 
 imagination through the senses, while goodness is 
 abstract and appeals to the will through the feelingsTj 
 While very closely related as shown above, they are 
 not identical; as, the beauty of a woman's face is not 
 identical with the nobility discerned through her ac- 
 tions. When, in trying to discriminate between theoria 
 and imagination, Ruskin says that the theoretic faculty 
 sees beauty while imagination sees truth, he is confus- 
 ing truth and beauty ; for the imagination sees truth 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 155 
 
 only in its concrete form of beauty. Truth like good- 
 ness is abstract and appeals to the reason by its rela- 
 tions, and cannot be seen by the imagination except it 
 take a concrete form ; for the imagination is the power 
 that makes images which are the reproduction of sen- 
 sation, or in other words, it makes a reproduction of 
 concrete objects only. This image-making power is 
 an essential part of memory, and every image draws 
 its elements from a former sensation. While imagina- 
 tion, in so far as it sees truth, must see it in some con- 
 crete form, it can see truth things and see them truly. 
 This distinction Ruskin brings out very carefully in 
 Modem Painters (Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. IV), 
 where he says, "To assert that the beautiful is the 
 true, appears at first like asserting that propositions 
 are matter, and matter propositions. ' ' 
 
 What Ruskin is trying to express by theoria is the 
 
 effect^ifjbeauty^sjt^appealsjojeeling. He says* that 
 
 it is neither sensual: .that' is, aesthetic, nor 
 
 Its relation intellectual, but moral. Although he says 
 
 tolmaglna- -t~=;^S^~^ . 
 
 tionin that its first action is instinctive and aes- 
 
 general. 
 
 thetic, it is afterwards real and contemplat- 
 ive, so that while it acts in connection with the five 
 senses, it is not to be confounded with them. His defi- 
 nition at this point comes very close to imagination. 
 In later writings he_spejaia_ol me^re_sightj5^a^2iri^^ 
 consciousness d_epandeiLt_„OJi~jmoral^ qudities, and 
 
 * Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I. Chapters II and XV. 
 
IS6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ignores theoria as a separate faculty. In the second 
 volume of Modern Painters he puts off a definite state- 
 ment of the differences between theoria and imagina- 
 tion until after he shall have analysed imagination, 
 but nowhere does he take it up again. When thirteen 
 years later he resumes Modern Painters he does not 
 use the term theoria and speaks only of imagination 
 in its three forms, of which the penetrative comes the 
 nearest to theoria. His recognition of a close relation 
 between the two is shown by his statement that divine 
 ideality — ideal divinity — is conceived by the imagina- 
 tion under the discipline of the theoretic faculty. 
 Here it is evidently to him a moral feeling. 
 
 Although ideas of beauty appeal to this faculty, yet 
 it is not creative, and no new ideas are elicited by it. 
 The artist, therefore, needs a more active function 
 than mere apperception of beauty, and this faculty is 
 imagination — the power to see any object as if it were 
 actual/\ This faculty is original, working without rules 
 and independent; but its originality is genuineness, 
 not newness. It is self-confident, and although desir- 
 ing sympathy can do without it. Imagination is a 
 spiritual faculty, and as such it deals with ideals of 
 divinity. Not only does it see ideals of divinity, as 
 the superhuman, but it also endeavors to embody them 
 in forms which must be changed so as to be incon- 
 sistent with their ordinary nature in order to show the 
 superhuman, or they must have some inherent dignity 
 of expression. 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 157 
 
 Ruskin treats of imagination as threefold — associa- ^ 
 tive, penetrative, and contemplative. The associative 
 imagination is preceded by simple concep- 
 tiieassoSa- tion, which is the recalling of material 
 
 tlve and i • i i . im 
 
 penetrative OD]ects by images. The artist, m setting u 
 retic facvuf' *^®^® conceptions on paper, copies from the ' 
 
 memory as he would from nature ; but he has 
 a command over these images as he has not over nature, 
 since he can remove a part and introduce foreign im- 
 ages or parts. If this re-arranging is done by experir 
 ment, trying first one combination and then another, 
 then he calls it composition and the faculty employed 
 fancy. If it is done by instinct, so that the parts are in 
 perfect harmony by a sort of affinity, it is done by the 
 imagination. These processes are detected by the re- 
 sults ; talent produces a fanciful or romantic .product, V 
 imagination a true representation, of Ufa Genius pro- 
 duces l)ictures of life bj imaginative inven- 
 tToUj not fancy. The imagination, Ruskin 
 says, has a conception of the unity which may exist 
 between imperfect and different parts. This unity is 
 in accord with or following the "impression made on 
 the artist's mind." Ruskin says that it is a prophetic' 
 action of the mind not depending on experiments A/ 
 product so obtained appears to be true to nature. 
 This function of the imagination and the theoretic 
 faculty are in sympathy in their desires, but harmo- 
 niously diverse in their operation ; the theoretic faculty 
 takes out of everything that which is beautiful, while 
 
iS8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the imaginative faculty takes parts, imperfect in 
 themselves, and unites them into a whole to which the 
 theoretic faculty in turn does homage. Both feed con- 
 stantly on external nature. This creative synthetic 
 power is what distinguishes the artist from his critic 
 or interpreter, since both possess the theoretic faculty. 
 Ruskin nowhere distinguishes between the theoretic 
 faculty and the penetrative imagination which works 
 not by reason, or, as Aristotle would say, by under- 
 standing, but by intuition or the higher reason. It 
 seizes the core of whatever it regards; nothing else 
 will content its spirituality. The language in which 
 this imagination expresses itself is 'often obscure; it 
 has an awful undercurrent of meaning, and is impa- 
 vX tient of detailed interpretation. He distin- 
 
 toagLaUou g^ishes between fancy and imagination; 
 
 fancy sees the outside and is full -of detail, 
 imagination the heart and inner nature. Faijcy is 
 intellectual and not serious; imagination is always 
 serious and tender. Later in Pleasures of England 
 Ruskin called this distinction useless and fine-spun, 
 but it seems to me a vital distinction, and nowhere so 
 clearly set forth as in Modern Painters, 
 
 In imagination, pentrative and associative, we have 
 the characteristic attributes, so Ruskin thinks, but 
 
 the faculty delights in a mode of operation 
 
 Contem. 
 
 piative which he calls contemplative. He explains 
 
 Imagination. '^ ^ 
 
 this by saying that in the combining or 
 associative imagination the conceptions are not always 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 159 
 
 distinct. In ordinary minds this indefiniteness adds 
 to the preciousness of memory and makes anticipation 
 and memory superior to actual presence. This is not 
 so, however, of parts flawlessly beautiful; they are 
 enhanced by distinctness of conception. On this indis- 
 tinctness of conception, itself valueless, is based the 
 action of the contemplative imagination. It abstracts 
 only such qualities as suit it, and giving these abstrac- 
 tions consistency and reality, forges them into a new 
 image. In literary art, these results can be expressed ; 
 in sculpture and painting they can be only approxi- 
 mately expressed ; as, symbolically, or architecturally, 
 or in exaggeration. Milton has employed this form 
 of imagining power in the Paradise Lost, wherever he 
 attempts to describe supernatural beings; as, in his 
 word picture of Death at the gates of hell. Such 
 images cannot be expressed by line and color accu- 
 rately; they can be approximately expressed by 
 abstracting line from color as in marble, or color from 
 line as in the shapeless glitter of gems painted by Tin- 
 toret, or flatness of mass as in Titian. However, this 
 last may be the representative of the natural condition 
 under which bright color is seen. This can be done 
 architecturally by conventional forms, which shall be 
 symbolical or typical (M. P., Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, 
 Chap. IV). 
 
 Throughout this whole discussion of imagination, 
 Ruskin has treated it as a capacity or pigeon-hole of 
 the mind with divisions, rather than as a function 
 
i6o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 which varies slightly under different conditions. Thus 
 
 the divisions, associative and penetrative imagina- 
 
 , , tion, which he seems to imply should be fixed 
 Imagination ' * ' 
 
 not'a'"*""' ^^^ distinct, frequently overlap each other, 
 capacity. ^^ ^j^gy. ^^g £jj j-gality the same function 
 
 at different stages of its functioning. The three are 
 
 really phases of one process and difficult to separate. 
 
 However astray Ruskin may have been led by the 
 
 old psychology in his analysis of imagination, in its 
 
 relation to feeling he is entirely right. He 
 
 Eelation of ,....,,, , 
 
 Imagination says that imagination is thc-lord over the 
 
 and emotion. -— - . , - - ~-^ 
 
 passions with which art has to jio, and must 
 be directed by faith. It is a law of the human mind 
 that feeling and imagination work together; that 
 images tend to arouse feelings and strong feeling 
 tends to bring up images. The image of a home where 
 we have spent happy hours brings a wave of home- 
 sickness ; the fears of a mother brings vividly before 
 her mind's eye the image of her son struggling help- 
 lessly in the water. Although Ruskin nowhere 
 definitely states this law, he assumes it and asserts 
 that noble feelings-call up .noble images. Practically 
 he treats theoria as the highest form of moral feeling; 
 but he does not recognize it as feeling distinct from 
 imagination, and treats it as a combination of feeling 
 and imagination, or mental sight. Again, in his treat- 
 ment of "high art" or the "grand style," Ruskin, in 
 discussing Sir Joshua Reynolds' paper on Art in the 
 Idler, finds that the great style is produced by men in 
 
The Individualistic Point of View i6i 
 
 a state of noble enthusiasm and love. Or, at least, 
 they are animated by some solemn sentiment or pur- 
 pose, and details are selected under the influence of 
 this sentiment. 
 
 Ruskin seems to think that although emotion is nee- ^ 
 essary, it must be repressed and governed before the 
 mind can grasp and handle great subjects of 
 controued art and before feeling can give rise to form. 
 
 emotion is & & 
 
 theSst.'^ The feelings must be noble enough to give 
 strength to the will to control baser passions 
 and even themselves. The artist of power is the man 
 of controlled feeling. His rank depends also on the 
 range of his sympathy and variety of his feeling. All 
 passion may be at some time ennobling except pride, 
 which is the only purely evil passion or feeling. 
 
 Not only is emotion present in the artist as a power, 
 but it is also aroused in the appreciator by the imag- 
 inative work. If this is not aroused the 
 
 Cultivation , . 
 
 of taste as beholder cannot come into harmony witn 
 
 based on 
 
 emotion. ^.j^g ^rt product. Ruskin emphatically 
 stated that pureness of heart and moral feeling are ^ 
 necessary to a right appreciation of beauty in art or 
 nature; for the appreciator's taste is determined by 
 his character. It is that makes him responsive to right 
 and noble qualities in art. On the other hand, his 
 ch arac te r is the res ult _of his will acting in acgprdance i 
 with^-Orinj02 P°sition to, t hgjnfliignceof his surround- 
 ings. The divine power for action within a man, 
 called his will, either assimilates or rejects the beauty 
 
^/ 
 
 1 62 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 or the goodness embodied in his environment and so 
 produces character, which in its turn determines his 
 taste. Ruskin says that the theoretic faculty and the 
 contemplative imagination are exercised by both the 
 artist and the appreciator of art ; they dwell upon the 
 impressions of beauty through the senses until its 
 eternal elements are known ; but the united action of 
 emotion, imagination, and the theoretic faculty pro- 
 duces different results in the two. The one creates an 
 ideal which he must at once reproduce in some mate- 
 rial familiar to him, like paint or marble ; the other 
 reproduces in his mind the artist's ideal and extracts 
 from it what he needs for the formation of his own 
 ideals of life. This last is the cultivation of taste. 
 
 In the exercise of taste we are liable to two partly 
 contradictory errors: First, the power of custom has 
 reconciled us to things that are not truly beautiful. 
 Second, in order to discover the better of two impres- 
 sions in the early stages of judgment, it is advisable 
 to submit to established authority. 
 
 The perceptive faculty is made the foimdation of 
 
 taste by the exercise of the will upon it. By this 
 
 faculty he seems to mean imagination in its 
 
 based on function of Seeing, or penetrative. The will 
 
 Imagination. 
 
 acts upon the imagination to bring it into 
 subjection to truth. By constantly choosing the best 
 impressions, we become pleased, with only the best. 
 The formation of taste is more rapid and intuitive in 
 the artist than in the art appreciator. Both must 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 163 
 
 possess the penetrative imagination, in the artist it is 
 directed to nature ; he brings out, and, by the help of 
 the associative imagination, embodies in the work of 
 art the essence of nature. Ruskin says in one place 
 that natural beauty has the same effect as the art prod- 
 uct. He cannot mean this, for it would conflict with 
 his idea of the artist as an interpreter. To the artist, 
 perhaps, natural beauty may have the same effect as 
 the art product, but to the ordinary man nature must 
 be interpreted by the artist before he can fully under- 
 stand it. He must have the divinely gifted seer show 
 it to him. 
 
 By emotion controlled, the artist is aroused to his 
 work and puts life into it; by imagination, he sees 
 ^ and embodies ideas in a work of art. The 
 
 The lorma- 
 
 Ethica/^^*^^' appreciator, looking on the work of art, has 
 the'mdirect ^^^ feeling aroused by means of his sense of 
 result. beauty and imagination. From the work of 
 
 art his contemplative imagination forms ideals, which ; 
 by the action of his will in accordance with these ideals, 
 become the models for his own actions. The result in 
 the mind of the appreciator, then, contemplating the 
 art product, is a formation of ideals. These will have 
 the further effect of developing his taste and elevating 
 his morals^-provided his will consents. Ruskin 
 believesjthatJhfi-State-of-ieeUngJn^^ 
 re produced in the be holder, and therefore that a 
 moral feeling can be direct^produced by the picture 
 or statue. This is not necessarily true ; for while the 
 
164 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 art product arouses feeling, it does not produce moral 
 elevation or character, until the feeling and ideals 
 aroused produce action. So character is a secondary 
 and indirect effect of art. For example, we know 
 people of excellent taste in aesthetic matters whose 
 morals are not good. Their imagination forms ideals, 
 but they do not act up to them or even try to act them. 
 They become mere sentimentalists. We have also 
 seen them, through this inaction of the will, gradually 
 lose moral power and finally moral appreciation, so 
 that only the sensuous or physical side of a picture or 
 statue appealed to them. In such persons art cannot 
 be said to produce a moral feeling ; nor, witlip.Ut.„the 
 action of their own will, can it produce.. charactgr. In 
 one place [Lecture on Art, II, §32] he says that art per- 
 fects our ethical state, but does not enforce religious 
 doctrines or emotion ; that is, it is not didactic. This 
 is true ; it perfects our ethical state byjireatingjdgaJa, 
 not .by teaching jnorals. 
 
 In his examination of the working of the imagination 
 
 Ruskin has in mind only the artist, and does not show 
 
 distinctly the different results of the faculty 
 
 the imagina- in the art appreciator. The associative 
 
 tlon In artist 
 
 and in art faculty is evidently the power by which the 
 
 appreciator. ■' . 
 
 artist composes, one form of the creative 
 imagination, of which the contemplative is another. 
 The penetrative faculty is possessed in the highest 
 degree by the artist, and is exerted upon nature ; but 
 is also possessed by the appreciator and exerted upon 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 165 
 
 the art product. It is one of the chief faculties of the 
 appreciator as critic, or interpreter, and is capable of 
 cultivation by attention, in the appreciator, and is the 
 faculty by which he unconsciously forms ideals. 
 
 The united faculties of the artist gives a product. 
 Ruskin, starting from the point of the work of art, 
 looks both ways, toward the artist and toward the 
 appreciator. In this Janus-like attitude he confuses 
 the purpose of the artist with the effect of art, and he 
 makes God's purpose in art, or the natural effect of 
 art, the artist's purpose. The whole truth is that the 
 artist is concerned with the embodiment of his ideal 
 only. He is reckless of its effect. He does not make 
 art didactic nor even ethical. 
 
 It becomes ethical by its own nature, and the nature 
 
 of the universe, and not by the artist's effort. Ruskin 
 
 admits this when he says that details must 
 
 Distinction 
 
 between feg painted because the artist loves them and 
 
 ethical and '^ 
 
 didactic. jjQt foj. themselves. To the artist..jarJLis its 
 own end and purpose^ This double looking causes 
 Ruskin To confuse the artist and appreciator in his 
 discussion of ideas of truth. He says that the two 
 ends of landscape painting are the representation of 
 facts and of thought. These two results he presumes 
 to be the aim of a landscape painter and to influence 
 his choice of a subject. They are the principles of 
 landscape and so govern the unconscious artist; but 
 a law of art is not his aim, though it may limit or gov- 
 ern his aim. He assumes this same attitude in speak- 
 
N 
 
 1 66 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ing of choice of subject. He says: first, that the 
 subject shall be one in some sort pleasurable to the 
 artist, he shall have love for it ; second, it should be 
 pleasurable to the general public ; and third, instruct- 
 ive. One can easily imagine circumstances where it 
 would be impossible to be governed by all of these 
 considerations, or even by the first two, at once. 
 Turner certainly was not. Usually^if an a rtist loves a 
 siibject^he. -Will- -paint~i±^_and-4et-^rov4dencft,.aSJi^e 
 beholder look after the, instructiyeness and pleas ura- 
 t)leness^T"it; ITis rank as an artist will^jepgndjaaJhe 
 nobleness of the subjects he loves, not on their didac- 
 tic'^possibili'tiesr ' 
 
 Man or the artist is the channel through which God 
 works by inspiration, by the flow of the divine spirit 
 through the artist. Therefore, great artists should 
 be unconscious, simply instruments in the hands of 
 the spirit of truth and beauty. Inspiration acts, how- 
 ever, through a well-governed mind, and truth itself 
 may be distorted by an imperfect imagination. Again 
 he says that the Venetian art decayed, because its 
 great painters worked not for the elevation of man. 
 While he laments the didactic carelessness of great 
 men, in other places he speaks of them as unconscious 
 channels of inspiration. 
 
 Though they are unconscious channels, they must 
 be pure ones. In treating of the imagination we 
 said that in seeing ideals in nature, spirit was touch- 
 ing or recognizing spirit, and that by its very nature 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 167 
 
 it was both a moral and a truthful power of the human 
 mind, though the direct object of its vision was beauty. 
 Why the In Considering this subject from the uni- 
 acter in- vcrsal Side, wc have said that man and nature 
 
 fl n fiTi flps his 
 
 work. each possessed a portion of the divine as 
 
 creative spirit. Since this is true, we must not forget 
 in speaking of the attitude of the artist and the appre- 
 ciator toward the picture or statue, that the proper 
 motion of the spirit of man is upwards to its source. 
 "When it is debased and goes downward and away from 
 its source, it goes to its death. We can understand 
 from this why the character of the artist determines 
 his greatness in art, provided he has skill also; for just 
 as the world contains not spirit alone but spirit and 
 matter, so not character alone but character and skill 
 make the great artist. 
 
 Goodness, however, must not be pursued for the 
 approval of man or God, but for its own sake. SoJn 
 
 pure science_truth_. is_ pursued Jot4ts own 
 onheoretio" Sake, and in _art, beauty for its own sake. 
 
 Ruskm .calls Jhese Mis which are pursued 
 for their own sakes, which are in other words objects 
 of life, contemplative or theoretic as opposed to the 
 useful arts and sciencesjwhich are subservient to life. 
 Thie arts and scienc_e_s„ which are pursued for the sake 
 of beauty and truth and which are useless as a means 
 of money-gettiilg^arre'BylhTcoiiiinon consent ofjnan- 
 kinff^calliaiffie nobler. Their productions^ and _dis- 
 coveries have no end that can interrupt the con- 
 
1 68 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 templatipn of things as they are ; to these arts belong 
 painting and sculpture (JviTl'., Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, 
 Chap. I). 
 To sum up, then, though art may be ethical, the 
 ^ artisj;'s_aijaas.jxa±-±ateach» The art product itself has 
 its own relations to God, man, and nature ; to nature 
 it is an interpreter, to man an inspirer, and to God a 
 means toward an ethical end. Art has its greatest 
 value because it is a product of the spirit of the artist 
 „ . , — a man. While it should embody the 
 
 Belatlons ■' 
 
 beauty^'and ^^tist's Spirit, it should not reproduce his 
 goodness. idiosyucrasies, or personal relations. The 
 imparting _9f,.,the_axti^^s_personal or special feelings, 
 V Rus-kin-^raHsth-e-pat-hetic-iallacy. This fallacy, or the 
 imparting of special personal feelings to the object 
 portrayed, is to be distinguished from true pathos 
 which is inherent in the subject. The picture or 
 statue has a leading emotional purpose called its 
 motive. It also sets forth the true nature of authority 
 and freedom ; is independent of all time ; is compre- 
 hensive ; and represents great things. In its highest 
 for m ^^* •^^prp°''ntf' ^^■^ ; even landscape and architec- 
 ture have a great part of their value through connec- 
 tion with man. As man is an image of God, it reveals 
 the godlike. Man represents himself in art not for 
 his own sake, but for the sake of the spiritual or god- 
 like work, and whether it imitates man or nature it is 
 a revealor of God to man. In a former chapter we 
 reached the relation of art to God and man from the 
 
The Individualistic Point of View 169 
 
 universal side, we have now approached it from the 
 individual side. 
 
 These canons of art criticism, forming or growing 
 out of Ruskin's philosophy of art and life, have their 
 practical application in the following very simple 
 rules : 
 
 1. Since art is a representation of either animate or 
 inanimate life, it should faithfully represent the object 
 by giving the effect of life. Ruskin uses representa- 
 tion, not imitation, in this connection. 
 
 2. Since God is the Creator of both nature and art 
 — in nature working alone, and in art using the artist , 
 as an instrument — that is t he best art which^shajsa^the 
 noblest or^god-like side of nature and man, andhe is 
 the best artist who most carefully controls his personal 
 feeling and interprets tQ_ his fellow men the^pres- 
 ence of God in nature. 
 
I70 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 SELECTIONS WITH CHAPTER III 
 Lectures on Art, II, %44.. 
 
 §44. And the more impartially you examine the phe- 
 nomena of imagination, the more firmly you will be led 
 to conclude that they are the result of the 
 In man and influence of the common and vital, but not, 
 therefore, less Divine, spirit, of which some 
 portion is given to all living creatures in such manner 
 as may be adapted to their rank in creation ; and that 
 everything which men rightly accomplish is indeed 
 done by Divine help, but under a consistent law which 
 is never departed from. 
 
 The strength of this spiritual life within us may be 
 increased or lessened by our own conduct; it varies 
 from time to time, as physical strength varies ; it is 
 summoned on different occasions by our will, and 
 dejected by our distress, or our sin ; but it is always 
 equally human, and equally Divine. We are men, 
 and not mere animals, because a special form of it is 
 with us always; we are nobler and baser men, as it is 
 with us more or less ; but it is never given to us in 
 any degree which can make us more than men. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II. Sec. I, Chap. II, §^ 
 §4. With this kind of bodily sensibility to colour and 
 form is intimately connected that higher sensibility 
 which we revere as one of the chief attri- 
 tobeauty'^ butes of all noble minds, and as the chief 
 with moral Spring of real poetry. I believe this kind 
 ee mg. ^^ sensibility may be entirely resolved into 
 
 the acuteness of bodily sense of which I have been 
 
Selections 171 
 
 speaking, associated with love, love I mean in its 
 infinite and holy functions, as it embraces divine 
 and human and brutal intelligences, and hallows 
 the physical perception of external objects by associ- 
 ation, gratitude, veneration, and other pure feelings 
 of our moral nature. And although the discovery of 
 truth is in itself altogether intellectual, and depend- 
 ent merely on our powers of physical perception and 
 abstract intellect, wholly independent of our moral 
 nature, yet these instruments (perception and judg- 
 ment) are so sharpened and brightened, and so far 
 more swiftly and effectively used, when they have the 
 energy and passion of our moral nature to bring them 
 into action — perception is so quickened by love, and 
 judgment so tempered by veneration, that, practically, 
 a man of deadened moral sensation is always dull in 
 his perception of truth, and thousands of the highest 
 and most divine truths of nature are wholly concealed 
 from him, however constant and indefatigable may be 
 his intellectual search. 
 
 Aratra Pentelici, Led. /, §/^. ,^ 
 
 §12. And in the whole passage is a brief embodiment 
 for you of the ultimate fact that all aesthetics depend on 
 the health of soul and body, and the proper exercise of 
 both, not only through years, but generations. Only 
 by harmony of both collateral and successive lives can 
 the great doctrine of the Muses be received which 
 enables men "xatpav opOm," "to have pleasures 
 rightly"; and there is no other definition of the beau- 
 tiful, nor of any subject of delight to the aesthetic fac- 
 ulty, than that it is what one noble spirit has created, 
 
172 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 seen and felt by another of similar or equal nobility. 
 So much as there is in you of ox, or of swine, per- 
 ceives no beauty, and creates none : what is human in 
 you, in exact proportion to the perfectness of its 
 humanity, can create it, and receive. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. Ill, §§/, 8. 
 
 §1. Hitherto we have observed only the distinctions 
 
 of dignity among pleasures of sense, considered merely 
 
 as such, and the way in which any of them 
 
 Manrecog- .... . , 
 
 nizestue may become theoretic in being received 
 
 Olvlae in tlie .,.,,,. 
 
 world about With right feeling. 
 
 But as we go farther and examine the 
 distinctive nature of ideas of beauty, we shall, I 
 believe, perceive something in them besides aesthetic 
 pleasure, which attests a more important function 
 belonging to them than attaches to other sensual 
 ideas, and exhibits a more exalted character in the 
 faculty by which they are received. And this was 
 what I alluded to, when I said in the chapter already 
 referred to (§i), that "we may indeed perceive, as far 
 as we are acquainted with the nature of God, that we 
 have been so constructed as in a healthy state of mind 
 to derive pleasure from whatever things are illustra- 
 tive of that nature. ' ' 
 
 §8. That, then, which is required in order to the 
 attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the 
 Defluitiou essence of the beautiful, is nothing more 
 o( TLeoria. than earnest, loving, and unselfish attention 
 to our impressions of it, by which those which are 
 shallow, false, or peculiar to times and temperaments, 
 may be distinguished from those that are eternal. 
 
Selections 173 
 
 And this dwelling upon, and fond contemplation of 
 them (the Anschauung of the Germans) is perhaps as 
 much as was meant by the Greek theoria; and it is 
 indeed a very noble exercise of the souls of men, and 
 one by which they are peculiarly distinguished from 
 the anima of lower creatures, which cannot, I think, 
 be proved to have any capacity of contemplation at all, 
 but only a restless vividness of perception and concep- 
 tion, the "fancy" of Hooker (Eccl. Pol. Book I, Chap. 
 VI, 2). And yet this dwelling upon them comes not 
 up to that which I wish to express by the word theoria, 
 unless it be accompanied by full perception of their 
 being a gift from and manifestation of God, and by 
 all those other nobler emotions before described, since 
 not until so felt is their essential nature comprehended. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XI, §4. 
 
 §4. But whatever doubt there may be respecting 
 the exact amount of modification of created things ad- 
 mitted with reference to us, there can be none respect- 
 ing the dignity of that faculty by which we receive the 
 mysterious evidence of their Divine origin. The fact of 
 our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type 
 or semblance of Divine attributes, and from nothing but 
 that which is so, is the most glorious of all that can be 
 demonstrated of human nature ; it not only 
 S^u°^^for^ sets a great gulf of specific separation be- 
 t^^icai^^ tween us and the lower animals, but it seems 
 teauty. ^ promise of a communion ultimately deep, 
 
 close, and conscious, with the Being whose darkened 
 manifestations we here feebly and unthinkingly delight 
 in. Probably to every order of intelligence more of 
 
174 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 His image becomes palpable in all around them, and 
 the glorified spirits and the angels have perceptions 
 as much more full and rapturous than ours, as ours 
 than those of beasts and creeping things. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pi. VII, Chap. IV, §24. 
 
 §J4. It is ifi this character, however, that the beauty 
 of the natural world completes its message. We saw, 
 long ago, how its various powers of appeal to the mind 
 of men might be traced to some typical expression of 
 Divine attributes. We have seen since how its modes 
 of appeal present constant types of human obedience 
 to the Divine law, and constant proofs that this law, 
 instead of being contrary to mercy, is the foundation 
 of all delight, and the guide of all fair and fortunate 
 existence. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XV, §6. 
 
 §6. And first, it will be remembered that I have, 
 
 throughout the examination of typical beauty, asserted 
 
 its instinctive power, the moral meaning of 
 
 beauty may it being Only discoverable by faithful 
 
 be BBSthetlc- 1 j. -kt xi • • ^- i- t •>. 
 
 aiiypursued. thought. Now this instinctive sense of it 
 Instances. ... . .... 
 
 varies m intensity among men, bemg given, 
 like the hearing ear of music, to some more than to 
 others : and if those to whom it is given in large meas- 
 ure be unfortunately men of impious or unreflecting 
 spirit, it is very possible that the perceptions of beauty 
 should be by them cultivated on principles merely 
 aesthetic, and so lose their hallowing power; for 
 though the good seen in them is altogether divine, yet, 
 there being no blessing in the springing thereof, it 
 
Selections 1 75 
 
 brings forth wild grapes in the end. And yet these 
 wild grapes are well discernible, like the deadly gourds 
 of Gilgal. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Chap. XX, %24. 
 
 §24. Not knowingly. I do not suppose a single 
 hint was ever actually taken from mineral form; not 
 even by the Arabs in their stalactite pendants and 
 vaults: all that I mean to allege is, that beautiful 
 ornament, wherever found, or however invented, is 
 always either an intentional or unintentional copy of 
 some constant natural form ; and that in this partic- 
 ular instance, the pleasure we have in these geomet- 
 rical figures of our own invention, is dependent for 
 all its acuteness on the natural tendency impressed on 
 US by our Creator to love the forms into which the 
 earth He gave us to tread, and out of which He 
 formed our bodies, knit itself as it was separated from 
 the deep. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. II, §§<?, 10. 
 
 §8. For, as it is necessary to the existence of an idea 
 of beauty, that the sensual pleasure which may be its 
 
 basis, should be accompanied first with joy, 
 Tteoriaa then with love of the object, then with the 
 
 perception of kindness in a superior Intel- 
 ligence, finally with thankfulness and veneration 
 towards that Intelligence itself, and as no idea can be 
 at all considered as in any way an idea of beauty, 
 until it be made up of these emotions, any more than 
 we can be said to have an idea of a letter of which we 
 perceive the perfume and the fair writing, without 
 
1 76 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 — ' — ■■ ■ -..-II ... I . . , J 
 
 understanding the contents of it, or intent of it ; and 
 as these emotions are in no way resultant from, nor 
 obtainable by, any operation of the intellect, it is 
 evident that the sensation of beauty is not sensual on 
 the one hand, nor is it intellectual on the other, but is 
 dependent on a pure, right, and open state of the 
 heart, both for its truth and for its intensity, inso- 
 much that even the right after-action of the intellect 
 upon facts of beauty so apprehended, is dependent on 
 the acuteness of the heart feeling about them; and 
 thus the Apostolic words come true, in this minor 
 respect as in all others, that men are alienated from 
 the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, 
 having the understanding darkened because of the 
 hardness of their hearts, and so being past feeling, 
 give themselves up to lasciviousness ; for we do indeed 
 see constantly that men having naturally acute per- 
 ceptions of the beautiful, yet not receiving it with a 
 pure heart, nor into their hearts at all, never compre- 
 hend it, nor receive good from it, but make it a mere 
 minister to their desires, and accompaniment and 
 seasoning of lower sensual pleasures, until all their 
 emotions take the same earthly stamp, and the sense 
 of beauty sinks into the servant of lust. 
 
 §10. But the Christian theoria seeks not, though 
 it accepts, and touches with its own purity, what 
 the Epicurean sought, but finds its food and the 
 objects of its love everywhere, in what is harsh and 
 fearful, as well as what is kind, nay, even in all that 
 seems coarse and commonplace ; seizing that which is 
 good, and delighting more sometimes at finding its 
 table spread in strange places, and in the presence of 
 
Selections 177 
 
 its enemies, and its honey coming out of the rock, 
 than if all were harmonized into a less wondrous pleas- 
 ure; hating only what is self-sighted and insolent of 
 men's work, despising all that is not of God, unless 
 reminding it of God, yet able to find evidence of Him 
 still, where all seems forgetful of Him, and to turn 
 that into a witness of His working which was meant to 
 obscure it, and so with clear and unoffended sight 
 beholding Him forever, according to the written prom- 
 ise, — Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
 God. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XIV. §77. 
 
 §17. Here, as throughout the operation of the theo- 
 retic faculty, the perception is altogether moral, an 
 instinctive love and clinging to the lines of light. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. IV, %i. 
 
 §1. Those erring or inconsistent positions which I 
 would at once dismiss are, the first, that the beautiful 
 is the true, the second, that the beautiful is the useful, 
 the third, that it is dependent on custom, and the 
 fourth, that it is dependent on the association of ideas. 
 
 To assert that the beautiful is the true, appears, at 
 
 first, like asserting that propositions are matter, and 
 
 matter propositions. But giving the best 
 
 Ttebeautlful , \. \- ^ ■ ^ x ? A 
 
 Is not the and most rational interpretation we can, and 
 ^^' supposing the holders of this strange posi- 
 
 tion to mean only that things are beautiful which 
 appear what they indeed are, and ugly which appear 
 what they are not, we find them instantly contra- 
 dicted by each and every conclusion of experience. 
 
178 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 A stone looks as truly a stone as a rose looks a rose, and 
 yet is not so beautiful ; a cloud may look more like a 
 castle than a cloud, and be the more beautiful on that 
 account. The mirage of the desert is fairer than its 
 sands ; the false image of the under heaven fairer than 
 the sea. I am at a loss to know how any so untenable 
 a position could ever have been advanced ; but it may, 
 perhaps, have arisen from some confusion of the 
 beauty of art with the beauty of nature, and from an 
 illogical expansion of the very certain truth, that 
 nothing is beautiful in art, which, professing to be an 
 imitation, or a statement, is not as such in some sort 
 true. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. I, %io. 
 
 §10. And such rank these two sublime arts [paint- 
 ing and sculpture] would indeed assume in the minds 
 of nations, and become objects of corre- 
 
 Eelatlon ,. ' 1 <■ % ■■ 1 . •. 
 
 of the imag- spondmg efforts, but for two fatal and wide- 
 uity to tue spread errors respecting the great faculties 
 
 theoretic. , . - , . , ° 
 
 of mmd concerned m them. 
 
 The first of these, or the theoretic faculty, is con- 
 cerned 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 
 
Selections 1 79 
 
 nature, and the operations of which become in their 
 turn objects of the theoretic faculty to other minds. 
 
 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. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. II, %i6. 
 
 § 1 6. And now we find what noble sympathy and unity 
 there is between the imaginative and theoretic facul- 
 ties. Both agree in this, that they reject nothing, and 
 are thankful for all ; but the theoretic faculty takes 
 out of everything that which is beautiful, while the 
 imaginative faculty takes hold of the very imperfections 
 which the theoretic rejects, and by means of these angles 
 and roughnesses, it joints and bolts the separate stones 
 into a mighty temple, wherein the theoretic faculty, 
 in its turn, does deepest homage. Thus sympathetic 
 in their desires, harmoniously diverse in their opera- 
 tion, each working for the other with what the other 
 needs not, all things external to man are by one or 
 other turned to good. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. VI, §§9*, 99. 
 
 §98. And you are to remember still more distinctly 
 that the words "fiat lux" mean indeed "fiat anima," 
 because even the power of the eye itself, as such, is in 
 its animation. You do not see with the lens of the 
 eye. You see through that, and by means of that, 
 but you see with the soul of the eye. 
 
 §99. A great physiologist said to me the other day — it 
 was in the rashness of controversy, and ought not to be 
 
i8o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 remembered as a deliberate assertion, therefore I do 
 not give his name — still he did say — that sight was 
 
 ' 'altogether mechanical. " The words simply 
 spStuai. meant, if they meant anything, that all his 
 
 physiology had never taught him the differ- 
 ence between eyes and telescopes. Sight is an abso- 
 lutely spiritual phenomenon; accurately, and only, to be 
 so defined: and the "Let there be light," is as much, 
 when you understand it, the ordering of intelligence, 
 as the ordering of vision. It is the appointment of 
 change of what had been else only a mechanical 
 effluence from things unseen to things unseeing, — 
 from stars that did not shine to earth that could not 
 perceive ; — the change, I say, of that blind vibration 
 into the glory of the sun and moon for human eyes ; 
 so rendering possible also the communication out of 
 the unfathomable truth, of that portion of truth which 
 is good for us, and animating to us, and is set to rule 
 over the day and night of our joy and sorrow. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. VII, %t23. 
 
 §122. But it is necessary now to collect the gist of 
 what I endeavoured to show you respecting the organs 
 of sight; namely, that in proportion to the physical 
 perfectness or clearness of them is the degree in which 
 they are raised from the perception of prey to the per- 
 ception of beauty and of affection. The imperfect and 
 brutal instrument of the eye may be vivid with 
 malignity, or wild with hunger, or manifoldly detec- 
 tive with microscopic exaggeration, assisting the 
 ingenuity of insects with a multiplied and permanent 
 
Selections i8i 
 
 monstrosity of all things round them ; but the noble 
 human sight, careless of prey, disdainful of minute- 
 ness, and reluctant to anger, becomes clear in gentle- 
 ness, proud in reverence, and joyful in love. And 
 finally, the physical splendour of light and colour, so 
 far from being the perception of a mechanical force by 
 a mechanical instrument, is an entirely spiritual con- 
 sciousness, accurately and absolutely proportioned to 
 the purity of the moral nature, and to the force of its 
 natural and wise affections. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. IX, %i'j2. 
 
 §172. The sixth lecture stated that sight was a dis- 
 tinctly spiritual power, and that its kindness or ten- 
 derness was proportioned to its clearness. Lastly, in 
 the seventh and eighth lectures, I asserted that this 
 spiritual sight, concerned with external aspects of 
 things, was the source of all necessary knowledge in 
 art ; and that the artist has no concern with invisible 
 structures, organic or inorganic. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. VII, %i48. 
 
 §148. Having learned to represent actual appearances 
 faithfully, if you have any human faculty of your own, 
 visionary appearances will take place to you which 
 will be nobler and more true than any actual or mate- 
 rial appearances ; and the realization of these is the 
 function of every fine art, which is founded absolutely, 
 therefore, in truth, and consists absolutely in imagina- 
 tion. 
 
1 8a Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II. Pt. Ill, Sec. T, Chap. XV, §j. 
 §3. Of this beauty, however, it is impossible to deter- 
 mine anything until we have traced the imaginative 
 Theoriais Operations to which it owes its being, of 
 not creative which operations this much may be prema- 
 aiso ima 1- ^'^'^^'^1 Said, that they are not creative, that 
 nation. jjo new ideas are elicited by them, and that 
 
 their whole function is only a certain dealing with, 
 concentrating or mode of regarding the impressions 
 received from external things, that therefore, in the 
 beauty to which they will conduct us, there will be 
 found no new element, but only a peculiar combina- 
 tion or phase of those elements that we now know, and 
 that therefore we may at present draw all the conclu- 
 sions with respect to the rank of the theoretic faculty, 
 which the knowledge of its subject matter can warrant. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. I, %3,s. 
 
 §3. Dugald Stewart's meagre definition may serve us 
 for a starting point. ' ' Imagination, ' ' he says, "includes 
 Dugald conception or simple apprehension, which 
 detaiuon of enables us to form a notion of those former 
 i™Sfade-"°'' objects of perception or of knowledge, out 
 quate. of which we are to make a selection; ab- 
 
 straction, which separates the selected materials from 
 the qualities and circumstances which are connected 
 with them in nature; and judgment or taste, which 
 selects the materials and directs their combination. 
 To these powers we may add that particular habit 
 of association to which I formerly gave the name 
 of fancy, as it is this which presents to our choice all 
 the different materials which are subservient to the 
 
Selections 183 
 
 efforts of imagination, and which may therefore be 
 considered as forming the groundwork of poetical 
 genius. ' ' 
 
 (By fancy in this passage, we find on referring to the 
 chapter treating of it, that nothing more is meant than 
 the rapid occurrence of ideas of sense to the mind.) 
 
 Now, in this definition, the very point and purpose 
 of all the inquiry is missed. We are told that judg- 
 ment or taste "directs the combination." In order 
 that anything may be directed, an end must be pre- 
 viously determined: What is the faculty that deter- 
 mines this end? and of what frame and make, how 
 boned and fleshed, how conceived or seen, is the end 
 itself? Bare judgment, or taste, cannot approve of 
 what has no existence; and yet by Dugald" Stewart's 
 definition we are left to their catering among a host 
 of conceptions, to produce a combination which, as 
 they work for, they must see and approve before it 
 exists. This power of prophecy is the very essence 
 of the whole matter, and ic is just that inexplicable 
 part which the metaphysician misses. 
 
 §5. But the metaphysician's definition fails yet more 
 utterly, when we look at the imagination neither as 
 regarding, nor combining, but as penetrating. 
 
 "My gracious Silence, Hail: 
 Wouldst thou have laughed, had I come coffin'd home 
 That weep'st to see me triumph. Ah! my dear, 
 Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear, 
 And mothers that laclc sons." 
 
 How did Shakespeare know that Virgilia could not 
 speak? 
 This knowledge, this intuitive and penetrative per- 
 
184 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ception, is still one of the forms, the highest, of imag- 
 ination, but there is no combination of images here. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. X, §§<?, 13. 
 
 §8. And thus, always, the real majesty of the appear- 
 ance of the thing to us, depends upon the degree in 
 which we ourselves possess the power of understanding 
 it, — that penetrating, possession-taking power of the 
 imagination, which has been long ago defined as the 
 very life of the man, considered as a seeing creature. 
 
 T* T* T" T* 
 
 We call the power "Imagination," because it imagines 
 or conceives; but it is only noble imagination if it 
 imagines or conceives the truth. And, according to 
 the degree of knowledge possessed, and of sensibility 
 to the pathetic or impressive character of the things 
 known, will be the degree of this imaginative delight. 
 §13. Now, observe, while, as it penetrates into the 
 nature of things, the imagination is pre-eminently a 
 beholder of things as they are, it is, in its creative 
 function, an eminent beholder of things when and 
 where they are not ; a seer, that is, in the prophetic 
 sense, calling "the things that are not as though they 
 were," and forever delighting to dwell on that which 
 is not tangibly present. And its great function being 
 the calling forth, or back, that which is not visible to 
 bodily sense. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. Ill, %4.8. 
 
 §48. It is not as the creating but as the seeing man, 
 that we are here contemplating the master of the true 
 grotesque. It is because the dreadfulness of the 
 
Selections 185 
 
 universe around him weighs upon his heart, that his 
 work is wild; and therefore through the whole of it 
 we shall find the evidence of deep insight into nature. 
 His beasts and birds, however monstrous, will have 
 profound relations with the true. He may be an 
 ignorant man, and little acquainted with the laws of 
 nature ; he is certainly a busy man, and has not much 
 time to watch nature; but he never saw a serpent cross 
 his path, nor a bird flit across the sky, nor a lizard 
 bask upon a stone, without learning so much of the 
 sublimity and inner nature of each as will not suffer 
 him thenceforth to conceive them coldly. He may not 
 be able to carve plumes or scales well; but his crea- 
 tures will bite and fly, for all that. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. IV, %s- 
 
 §5. And, first, consider what are the legitimate uses 
 of the imagination, that is to say, of the power of per- 
 ceiving, or conceiving with the mind, things which 
 cannot be perceived by the senses. 
 
 Its first and noblest use is, to enable us to bring sen- 
 sibly to our sight the things which are recorded as 
 belonging to our future state, or as invisibly sur- 
 rounding us in this. It is given us, that we may imag- 
 ine the cloud of witnesses in heaven and earth, and 
 see, as if they were now present, the souls of the 
 righteous waiting for us; that we may conceive the 
 great army of the inhabitants of heaven, and discover 
 among them those whom we most desire to be with 
 forever; that we may be able to vision forth the min- 
 istry of angels beside us, and see the chariots of fire 
 on the mountains that gird us round; but above all, 
 
i86 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 to call up the scenes and facts in which we are com- 
 manded to believe, and be present, as if in the body, 
 at every recorded event of the history of the Re- 
 deemer. Its second and ordinary use is to empower 
 us to traverse the scenes of all other history, and force 
 the facts to become again visible, so as to make upon 
 us the same impression which they would have made 
 if we had witnessed them ; and in the minor neces- 
 sities of life, to enable us, out of any present good, to 
 gather the utmost measure of enjoyment by investing 
 it with happy associations, and, in any present evil, to 
 lighten it, by summoning back the images of other 
 hours; and, also, to give to all mental truths some 
 visible type in allegory, simile, or personification, 
 which shall more deeply enforce them; and, finally, 
 when the mind is utterly outwearied, to refresh it with 
 such innocent play as shall be most in harmony with 
 the suggestive voices of natural things, permitting it 
 to possess living companionship instead of silent 
 beauty, and create for itself fairies in the grass and 
 naiads in the wave. 
 
 Modern Paintirs, Vol. Ill, Pi. JV, Chap. XIV, %so. 
 §30. Now, whether this be in what we moderns call 
 "good taste," or not, I do not mean just now to 
 
 inquire— Dante having nothing to do with 
 sStf^th"'' taste, but with the facts of what he had 
 
 seen ; only, so far as the imaginative faculty 
 of the two poets is concerned, note that Milton's 
 vagueness is not the sign of imagination, but of its 
 absence, so far as it is significative in the matter. For 
 it does not follow, because Milton did not map out his 
 
Selections 187 
 
 Inferno as Dante did, that he could not have done so 
 if he had chosen; only, it was the easier and less 
 imaginative process to leave it vague than to define it. 
 Imagination is always the seeing and asserting faculty; 
 that which obscures or conceals may be judgment, or 
 feeling, but not invention. The invention, whether 
 good or bad, is in the accurate engineering, not in 
 the fog and uncertainty. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XVI, %28. 
 
 §28. Then, as touching the kind of work done by 
 these two men, the more I think of it I find this con- 
 clusion more impressed upon me, — that the greatest 
 thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see 
 something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hun- 
 dreds of people can talk for one who can think, but 
 thousands can think for one who can see. To see 
 clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, — all in one. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. II, §a/. 
 
 §ai. So that I am more and more convinced of what I 
 had to state respecting the imagination, now many 
 years ago, viz., that its true force lies in its marvel- 
 lous insight and foresight — that it is, instead of a false 
 and deceptive faculty, exactly the most accurate and 
 truth-telling faculty which the human mind possesses ; 
 and all the more truth-telling, because, in its work, 
 the vanity and individualism of the man himself are 
 crushed, and he becomes a mere instrument or mir- 
 ror, used by a higher power for the reflection to others 
 of a truth which no effort of his could ever have ascer- 
 tained; so that all mathematical, and arithmetical, 
 
i88 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 and generally scientific truth, is, in comparison, truth 
 of the husk and surface, hard and shallow ; and only 
 the imaginative truth is precious. Hence, whenever 
 we want to know what are the chief facts of any case, 
 it is better not to go to political economists, nor to 
 mathematicians, but to the great poets ; for I find they 
 always see more of the matter than any one else : and 
 in like manner those who want to know the real facts 
 of the world's outside aspect, will find that they can- 
 not trust maps, nor charts, nor any manner of men- 
 suration ; the most important facts being always quite 
 immeasurable, and that (with only some occasional 
 and trifling inconvenience, if they form too definite 
 anticipations as to the position of a bridge here, or a 
 road there) the Turnerian topography is the only one 
 to be trusted. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. XX, §j^. 
 
 §32. And observe, I am not giving these examples 
 as proof of any smallness in Shakespeare, but of his 
 greatness; that is to say, of his contentment, like 
 every other great man who ever breathed, to paint 
 nothing but what he saw; and therefore giving per- 
 petual evidence that his sight was of the sixteenth, 
 and not of the thirteenth century, beneath all the 
 broad and eternal humanity of his imagination. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VII, §§/, 2,$, 6, 7. 
 
 §1. We now enter on the consideration of that cen- 
 tral and highest branch of ideal art which concerns 
 itself simply with things as they are, and accepts, in all 
 of them, alike the evil and the good. The question is, 
 
Selections 189 
 
 therefore, how the art which represents things simply 
 as they are, can be called ideal at all. How does it 
 ,pj^g meet that requirement stated in Chap. Ill, 
 
 Idealism. g^^ as imperative on all great art, that it 
 shall be inventive, and a product of the imagination? 
 It meets it pre-eminently by that power of arrange- 
 ment which I have endeavored, at great length and 
 with great pains, to define accurately in the chapter 
 on Imagination associative in the second volume. 
 That is to say, accepting the weaknesses, faults, 
 and wrongnesses in all things that it sees, it so places 
 and harmonizes them that they form a noble whole, 
 in which the imperfection of each several part is not 
 only harmless, but absolutely essential, and yet in 
 which whatever is good in each several part shall be 
 completely displayed. 
 
 §2. This operation of true idealism holds, from the 
 least things to the greatest. For instance, in the 
 arrangement of the smallest masses of colour, the false 
 idealist, or even the purist, depends upon perfecting 
 each separate hue, and raises them all, as far as he 
 can, into costly brilliancy ; but the naturalist takes the 
 coarsest and feeblest colours of the things around him, 
 and so interweaves and opposes them that they 
 become more lovely than if they had all been bright. 
 
 85. Now, therefore, observe the main conclusions 
 which follow from these two conditions, attached 
 always to art of this kind. First, it is to be taken 
 straight from nature; it is to be the plain narration of 
 something the painter or writer saw. Herein is the 
 chief practical difference between the higher and lower 
 artists; a difference which I feel more and more every 
 
I90 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 day that I give to the study of art. All the great men 
 see what they paint before they paint it,— see it in a 
 perfectly passive manner,— cannot help seeing it if 
 they would; whether in their mind's eye, or in bodily 
 fact, does not matter; very often the mental vision is, 
 I believe, in men of imagination, clearer than the 
 bodily one ; but vision it is, of one kind or another,— 
 the whole scene, character, or incident passing before 
 them as in second sight, whether they will or no, and 
 requiring them to paint it as they see it; they not 
 daring, under the might of its presence, to alter* one 
 jot or tittle of it as they write it down or paint it down ; 
 it being to them in its own kind and degree always a 
 true vision or Apocalypse, and invariably accom- 
 panied in their hearts by a feeling correspondent to 
 the words, — "Write the things which thou hast seen, 
 and the things which are." 
 
 And the whole power, whether of painter or poet, to 
 describe rightly what we call an ideal thing, depends 
 upon its being thus, to him, not an ideal, but a real 
 thing. No man ever did or ever will work well, but 
 either from actual sight or sight of faith ; and all that 
 we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us 
 it is false and visionary was, to the makers of it, true 
 and existent. The heroes of Phidias are simply repre- 
 sentations of such noble human persons as he every 
 day saw, and the gods of Phidias simply representa- 
 tions of such noble divine persons as he thoroughly 
 believed to exist, and did in mental vision truly behold. 
 
 * ' 'And yet you have just said it shall be at such time and place 
 as Homer chooses. Is not this altering." No; wait a little and 
 read on. 
 
Selections 191 
 
 Hence I said in the second preface to the "Seven 
 Lamps of Architecture": "AH great art represents 
 something that it sees or believes in; nothing unseen 
 or uncredited." 
 
 §6. And just because it is always something that it 
 sees or believes in, there is the peculiar character 
 above noted, almost unmistakable, in all high and 
 true ideals, of having been as it were studied from the 
 life, and involving pieces of sudden familiarity, and 
 close specific painting which never would have been 
 admitted or even thought of, had not the painter 
 drawn either from the bodily life or from the life of 
 faith. For instance, Dante's centaur, Chiron, divid- 
 ing his beard with his arrow before he can speak, is a 
 thing that no mortal would ever have thought of, if he 
 had not actually seen the centaur do it. They might 
 have composed handsome bodies of men and horses in 
 all possible ways, through a whole life of pseudo-ideal- 
 ism, and yet never dreamed of any such thing. But 
 the real living centaur actually trotted across Dante's 
 brain, and he saw him do it. 
 
 §7. And on account of this reality it is, that the 
 great idealists venture into all kinds of what, to the 
 pseudo-idealists, are "vulgarities." Nay, venturing 
 is the wrong word ; the great men have no choice in 
 the matter; they do not know or care whether the 
 things they describe are vulgarities or not. They saw 
 them : they are the facts of the case. If they had 
 merely composed what they describe, they would 
 have had it at their will to refuse this circumstance or 
 add that. But they did not compose it. It came to 
 them ready fashioned; they were too much impressed 
 
192 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 by it to think what was vulgar or not vulgar in it. It 
 might be a very wrong thing in a centaur to have so 
 much beard; but so it was. And, therefore, among 
 the various ready tests of true greatness there is not 
 any more certain than this daring reference to, or use 
 of, mean and little things — mean and little, that is, to 
 mean and little minds ; but, when used by the great 
 men, evidently part of the noble whole which is author- 
 itatively present before them. Thus, in the highest 
 poetry, as partly above noted in the first chapter, 
 there is no word so familiar but what a great man will 
 bring good out of it, or rather, it will bring good to 
 him, and answer some end for which no other word 
 would have done equally well. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VIII, %to. 
 
 §20. And another notable point is, that while the 
 
 imagination receives truth in this simple way, it is all 
 
 the while receiving statutes of composition 
 
 ifo^^ai°° ^Iso, far more noble than those for the sake 
 
 of which the truth was lost by the legalist. 
 
 So that taking the truth first, the honest imagina- 
 tion gains everything; it has its grifiSnism, and grace, 
 and usefulness, all at once: but the false composer, 
 caring for nothing but himself and his rules, loses 
 everything,— griffinism, grace, and all. 
 Queen of the Air, I, §77. 
 
 §17. Nay, beyond this, there is often a meaning 
 which they themselves cannot interpret,— which it may 
 be for ages long after them to interpret,— in what they 
 said, so far as it recorded true imaginative vision. For 
 
Selections 193 
 
 all the greatest myths have been seen, by the men who 
 tell them, involuntarily and passively, — seen by them 
 with as great distinctness (and in some respects, 
 though not in all, under conditions as far beyond the 
 control o£ their will) as a dream sent to any of us by 
 night when we dream clearest ; and it is this veracity 
 of vision that could not be refused, and of moral that 
 could not be foreseen, which in modern historical 
 inquiry has been left wholly out of account: being 
 indeed the thing which no merely historical investi- 
 gator can understand, or even believe ; for it belongs 
 exclusively to the creative or artistic group of men, 
 and can only be interpreted by those of their race, 
 who themselves in some measure also see visions and 
 dream dreams. 
 
 Sesame and Lilies, Lect. Ill, %iai. 
 §131. Does a bird need to theorize about building its 
 nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is 
 essentially done that way— without hesitation, without 
 difificulty, without boasting; and in the doers of the 
 best, there is an inner and involuntary power which 
 approximates literally to the instinct of an animal- 
 nay, I am certain that in the most perfect human 
 artists, reason does not supersede instinct, but is added 
 to an instinct as much more divine than that of the 
 lower animals as the human body is more beautiful 
 than theirs; that a great singer sings not with less 
 instinct than the nightingale, but with more— only 
 more various, applicable, and governable; that a great 
 architect does not build with less instinct than the 
 beaver or the bee, but with more— with an innate cun- 
 
194 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ning of proportion that embraces all beauty, and a 
 divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all construc- 
 tion. But be that as it may— be the instinct less or 
 more than that of inferior animals— like or unlike 
 theirs, still the human art is dependent on that first, 
 and then upon an amount of practice, of science, — and 
 of imagination disciplined by thought, which the true 
 possessor of it knows to be incommunicable, and the 
 true critic of it, inexplicable, except through long 
 process of laborious years. 
 
 The Two Paths, Ltd. III. 
 
 "It is precisely your knowing why not to do these 
 things, and why to do just what you have done, which 
 constituted your power of design ; and like all the peo- 
 ple I have ever known who had that power, you are 
 entirely unconscious of the essential laws by which 
 you work, and confuse other people by telling them 
 that the design depends on symmetry and series, 
 when, in fact, it depends entirely on your own sense 
 and judgment. ' ' 
 
 Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 But is there to be no place left, it will be indignantly 
 asked, for imagination and invention, for poetical pow- 
 er, or love of ideal beauty? Yes ; the highest, 
 of?X™^™* the noblest place— that which these only can 
 attain when they are all used in the cause, 
 and with the aid of truth. Wherever imagination and 
 sentiment are, they will either show themse;lves with- 
 out forcing, or, if capable of artificial development, 
 the kind of training which such a school of art would 
 
Selections 195 
 
 give them would be the best they could receive. The 
 infinite absurdity and failure of our present training 
 consists mainly in this, that we do not rank imagina- 
 tion and invention high enough, and suppose that they 
 can be taught. Throughout every sentence that I 
 ever have written, the reader will find the same rank 
 attributed to these powers, — the rank of a purely 
 divine gift, not to be attained, increased, or in any 
 wise modified by teaching, only in various ways capa- 
 ble of being concealed or quenched. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. 11, Chap. IV, §61. 
 
 §61. It is impossible to calculate the enormous loss 
 of power in modern days, owing to the imperative 
 requirement that art shall be methodical and learned : 
 for as long as the constitution of this world remains 
 unaltered, there will be more intellect in it than there 
 can be education ; there will be many men capable of 
 just sensation and vivid invention, who never will have 
 time to cultivate or polish their natural powers. 
 And all unpolished power is in the present state of 
 society lost; in other things as well as in the arts, but 
 in the arts especially: nay, in nine cases out of ten, 
 people mistake the polish for the power. Until a man 
 has passed through a course of academy studentship, 
 and can draw in an approved manner with French 
 chalk, and knows foreshortening, and perspective, and 
 something of anatomy, we do not think he can possi- 
 bly be an artist; what is worse, we are very apt to 
 think that we can make him an artist by teaching him 
 anatomy, and how to draw with French chalk; whereas 
 the real gift in him is utterly independent of all such 
 
196 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 accomplishments: and I believe there are many peas- 
 ants on every estate, and laborers in every town of 
 Europe, who have imaginative powers of a high order, 
 which nevertheless cannot be used for our good, 
 because we do not choose to look at anything but what 
 is expressed in a legal and scientific way. I believe 
 there is many a village mason who, set to carve a 
 series of Scripture or any other histories, would find 
 many a strange and noble fancy in his head, and set it 
 down, roughlj' enough indeed, but in a way well worth 
 our having. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Ft. VI, Chap. VI, §//. 
 
 §11. And remember always that Turner's greatness 
 and rightness in all these points successively depend on 
 no scientific knowledge. He was entirely ignorant of all 
 the laws we have been developing. He had merely 
 accustomed himself to see ^impartially, intensely, and 
 fearlessly. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. X, §§79-^/. 
 
 §19. All the noblest pictures have this character. 
 They are true or inspired ideals, seen in a moment to be 
 ideal; that is to say, the result of all the highest 
 powers of the imagination, engaged in the discovery 
 and apprehension of the purest truths, and having so 
 arranged them as best to show their preciousness and 
 exalt their clearness. They are always orderly, always 
 one, ruled by one great purpose throughout, in the 
 fulfilment of which every atom of the detail is called 
 to help, and would be missed if removed ; this peculiar 
 
Selections 197 
 
 oneness being the result, not of obedience to any teach- 
 able law, but of the magnificence of tone in the per- 
 fect mind, which accepts only what is good for its 
 great purposes, rejects whatever is foreign or redun- 
 dant, and instinctively and instantaneously ranges 
 whatever it accepts, in sublime subordination and 
 helpful brotherhood. 
 
 §20. Then, this being the greatest art, the lowest 
 art is the mimicry of it, — the subordination of nothing 
 to nothing; the elaborate arrangement of sightlessness 
 and emptiness; the order which has no object; the 
 unity which has no life, and the law which has no 
 love; the light which has nothing to illumine, and 
 shadow which has nothing to relieve. 
 
 §21. And then, between these two, comes the whole- 
 some, happy, and noble — though not noblest — art of 
 simple transcript from nature. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. II, %8g. 
 
 §89. In the appliance of this universal principle 
 to what we have at present in hand, it is to be noted, 
 that all written or writable law respecting the arts is 
 for the childish and ignorant: that in the beginning of 
 teaching, it is possible to say that this or that must or 
 must not be done ; and laws of colour and shade may be 
 taught, as laws of harmony are to the young scholar in 
 music. But the moment a man begins to be anything 
 deserving the name of an artist, all this teachable law 
 has become a matter of course with him; and if, 
 thenceforth, he boast himself any wise in the law, or 
 pretend that he lives and works by it, it is a sure sign 
 that he is merely tithing cummin, and that there is no 
 
1 98 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 true art nor religion in him. For the true artist has 
 that inspiration in him which is above all law, or rather, 
 which is continually working out such magnificent 
 and perfect obedience to supreme law, as can in no 
 wise be rendered by line and rule. There are more 
 laws perceived and fulfilled in the single stroke of a 
 great workman, than could be written in a volume. 
 His science is inexpressibly subtle, directly taught him 
 by his Maker, not in any wise communicable or imita- 
 ble. Neither can any written or definitely observable 
 laws enable us to do any great thing. It is possible, 
 by measuring and administering quantities of colour, 
 to paint a room wall so that it shall not hurt the eye ; 
 but there are no laws by observing which we can 
 become Titians. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. XV, ^s, jj. 
 §32.1 can well believe that the reader will doubt 
 the possibility of all this being intended by Turner: 
 and intended, in the ordinary sense, it was not. It 
 was simply seen and instinctively painted, . according 
 to the command of the imaginative dream, as the true 
 Griffin was, and as all noble things are. * * * Nay, I 
 am quite sure that, to a certain extent, the case really 
 was as he is reported to have declared, and that he 
 neither was aware of the value of the truths he had 
 seized nor understood the nature of the instinct that 
 combined them. And yet the truth was assuredly 
 apprehended, and the instinct assuredly present and 
 imperative; and any artists who try to imitate the 
 smallest portion of his work will find that no happy 
 chances will, for them, gather together the resem- 
 
Selections 199 
 
 blances of fact, nor, for them, mimic the majesty of 
 invention. 
 
 §33- No happy chance— nay, no happy thought— no 
 perfect knowledge— will ever take the place of that 
 mighty unconsciousness. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. II, §§/.j. 
 §1. We saw, in the course of the last chapter, with 
 what kind of feeling an artist ought to regard the 
 originaiityis character of every object he undertakes to 
 
 genuineness. • . mi . . 
 
 paint. The next question is, what objects 
 he ought to undertake to paint; how far he should be 
 influenced by his feelings in the choice of subjects; 
 and how far he should permit himself to alter, or, in 
 the usual art language, improve, nature. For it has 
 already been stated (Vol. Ill, chap, iii, §21), that all 
 great art must be inventive ; that is to say, its subject 
 must be produced by the imagination. If so, then 
 great landscape art cannot be a mere copy of any 
 given scene ; and we have now to inquire what else 
 than this it may be. 
 
 §a. If the reader will glance over that twenty-first, 
 and the following three paragraphs of the same chap- 
 , ter, he will see that we there divided art generally 
 into "historical" and "poetical," or the art of relating 
 facts simply, and facts imaginatively. Now, with 
 respect to landscape, the historical art is simple topog- 
 raphy, and the imaginative art is what I have in the 
 heading of the present chapter call Turnerian topog- 
 raphy, and must in the course of it endeavor to 
 explain. 
 
 Observe, however, at the outset, that, touching the 
 
200 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 duty or fitness of altering nature at all, the quarrels 
 which have so wofuUy divided the world of art are 
 caused only by want of understanding this simplest of 
 all canons,— "It is always wrong to draw what you 
 don't see. " This law is inviolable. But then, some 
 people see only things that exist, and others see things 
 that do not exist, or do not exist apparently. And if 
 they really see these non-apparent things, they are 
 quite right to draw them ; the only harm is when peo- 
 ple try to draw non-apparent things, who don't see 
 them, but think they can calculate or compose into 
 existence what is to them for evermore invisible. If 
 some people really see angels where others see only 
 empty space, let them paint the angels ; only let not 
 anybody else think they can paint an angel, too, on 
 any calculated principles of the angelic. 
 
 §3. If, therefore, when we go to a place, we see 
 nothing else than is there, we are to paint nothing 
 else, and to remain pure topographical or historical 
 landscape painters. If, going to the place, we see 
 something quite different from what is there, then we 
 are to paint that — nay, we must paint that, whether we 
 will nor not ; it being, for us, the only reality we can 
 get at. But let us beware of pretending to see this 
 unreality if we do not. 
 
 The simple observance of this'rule would put an end 
 to nearly all disputes, and keep a large number of men 
 in healthy work, who now totally waste their lives ; so 
 that the most important question that an artist can 
 possibly have to determine for himself, is whether he 
 has invention or nnt. And this he can ascertain with 
 ease. If visions of unreal things present themselves 
 
Selections 201 
 
 to him with or without his own will, praying to be 
 painted, quite ungovernable in their coming or going, 
 — neither to be summoned if they do not choose to 
 come, nor banished if they do, — he has invention. If, 
 on the contrary, he only sees the commonly visible 
 facts ; and, should he not like them, and want to alter 
 them, finds that he must think of a rule whereby to 
 do so, he has no invention. All the rules in the 
 world will do him no good ; and if he tries to draw 
 anything else than those materially visible facts, he 
 will pass his whole life in uselessness, and produce 
 nothing but scientific absurdities. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. Ill, %32. 
 
 §32. Again, as the life of imagination is in the 
 discovering of truth, it is clear it can have no respect 
 for sayings or opinions: knowing in itself when 
 it has invented truly — restless and tormented except 
 when it has this knowledge, its sense of success 
 or failure is too acute to be affected by praise 
 or blame. Sympathy it desires — but can do with- 
 out; of opinions it is regardless, not in 
 ^tres'sym" pride, but because it has no vanity, and is 
 ?anS>^tii- conscious of a rule of action and object of 
 **^***' aim in which it cannot be mistaken; partly, 
 
 also, in pure energy of desire and longing to do and 
 to invent more and more, which suffer it not to suck 
 the sweetness of praise— unless a little, with the end 
 of the rod in its hand, and without pausing in its 
 march. It goes straight forward up the hill ; no voices 
 nor mutterings can turn it back, nor petrify it from its 
 purpose. 
 
202 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. V, %77. 
 
 §77. You have not often heard me use that word 
 "independence." And, in the sense in which of late 
 it has been accepted, you have never heard 
 S^eftSon™ me use it but with contempt. For the true 
 strength of every human soul is to be 
 dependent on as many nobler as it can discern, and to 
 be depended upon, by as many inferior as it can reach. 
 
 But to-day I used the word in a widely different 
 sense. I think you must have felt, in what amplifica- 
 tion I was able to give you of the idea of Wisdom as 
 an unselfish influence in Art and Science, how the 
 highest skill and knowledge were founded in human 
 tenderness, and that the kindly Art-wisdom which 
 rejoices in the habitable parts of the earth, is only 
 another form of the lofty Scientific charity, which 
 "rejoices in the truth. " And as the first order of Wis- 
 dom is to know thyself — though the least creature 
 that can be known — so the first order of Charity is to 
 be sufficient for thyself, though the least creature 
 that can be sufficed ; and thus contented and appeased, 
 to be girded and strong for the ministry to others. If 
 sufficient to thy day is the evil thereof, how much 
 more should be the good ! 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. I, §a. 
 
 §2. Unfortunately, the works of metaphysicians will 
 afford us in this most interesting inquiry no aid what- 
 imagination ^°^^®^- They who are constantly endeav- 
 f ^^""*' curing to fathom and explain the essence of 
 the faculties of mind, are sure in the end to 
 ose sight of all that cannot be explained, (though it 
 
Selections 203 
 
 may be defined and felt,) and because, as I shall 
 presently show, the essence of the imaginative faculty 
 is utterly mysterious and inexplicable, and to be recog- 
 nized in its results only, or in the negative results of 
 its absence, the metaphysicians, as far as I am 
 acquainted with their works, miss it altogether, and 
 never reach higher than a definition of fancy by a false 
 name. 
 
 ^ Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XI, %4. 
 
 §4. And receiving it, as we must, for an universal 
 axiom that " no natural desire can be entirely frustrate, ' ' 
 and seeing that these desires are indeed so unfailing 
 in us that they have escaped not the reasoners of any 
 time, but were held divine of old, and in even heathen 
 countries, it cannot be but that there is in these vis- 
 ionary pleasures, lightly as we now regard them, 
 cause for thankfulness, ground for hope, anchor for 
 faith, more than in all the other manifold gifts and 
 guidances, wherewith God crowns the years, and 
 hedges the paths of men. 
 
 Lectures on Art, Lect. II, §^7. 
 
 §41. On the other hand, you must not allow your 
 scientific habit of trusting nothing but what you have 
 ascertained, to prevent you from appreciating, or at 
 least endeavouring to qualify yourselves to appre- 
 ciate, the work of the highest faculty of the human 
 mind— its imagination,— when it is toiling in the 
 presence of things that cannot be dealt with by any 
 other power. 
 
204 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. V, §§/-/. 6, 7, 
 
 §1. In our investigation in the first section of the 
 
 laws of beauty, we confined ourselves to the observation 
 
 ^ . „ of lower nature, or of humanity. We were 
 
 Imagination ' , , 
 
 deals witii prevented from proceeding to deduce con- 
 DiTinity. elusions respecting divine ideality by our 
 not having then established any principles respecting 
 the imaginative faculty, by which, under the disci- 
 pline of the theoretic, such ideality is conceived. I had 
 purposed to conclude the present section by a careful 
 examination of this subject; but as this is evidently 
 foreign to the matter immediately under discussion, 
 and involves questions of great intricacy respecting 
 the development of mind among those pagan nations 
 who are supposed to have produced high examples of 
 spiritual ideality, I believe it will be better to delay 
 such inquiries until we have concluded our detailed 
 observation of the beauty of visible nature; and I 
 shall therefore at present take notice only of one or 
 two broad principles, which were referred to, or 
 implied, in the chapter respecting the human ideal, 
 and without the enunciation of which that chapter 
 might lead to false conclusions. 
 
 §2. There are four ways in which beings supernatural 
 may be conceived as manifesting themselves to human 
 The conoeiva- sense. The first, by external types, signs, 
 Sl^f°este°' °^ influences; as God to Moses in the 
 iJSai'belSgs flames of the bush, and to Elijah in the 
 are four. yoice of Horeb. 
 
 The second, by the assuming of a form not properly 
 belonging to them; as the Holy Spirit of that of a 
 Dove, the second person of the Trinity of that of a 
 
Selections 
 
 205 
 
 Lamb; and so such manifestations, under angelic or 
 other form, of the first person of the Trinity, as 
 seem to have been made to Abraham, Moses, and 
 Ezekiel. 
 
 The third, by the manifestation of a form properly 
 belonging to them, but not necessarily seen; as of the 
 Risen Christ to his disciples when the doors were shut. 
 And the fourth, by their operation on the human 
 form, which they influence or inspire, as in the shining 
 of the face of Moses. 
 
 §3. It is evident that in all these cases, wherever 
 there is form at all, it is the form of some creature to 
 Ana these ^^ known. It is no new form peculiar to 
 toough spirit nor can it be. We can conceive of 
 forms^amii- ^o^e. Our inquiry is simply, therefore, by 
 lar to us. what modifications those creature forms to 
 us known, as of a lamb, a bird, or a human creature, 
 may be explained as signs or habitations of Divinity, 
 or of angelic essence, and not creatures such as 
 they seem. 
 
 §4. This may be done in two ways. First, by effect- 
 ingsome change in the appearance of the creature incon- 
 supernat- sistent with its actual nature, as by giving 
 urai char- [^ colossal size, or Unnatural color, or mate- 
 
 acter may oe ' ' 
 
 Impressed on j-iai as of gold, or silvcr, or flame, instead of 
 
 these either » & 1 i » 
 
 by i)henom- flesh, or by taking away its property of mat- 
 sistent with ter altogether, and forming it of light or 
 
 theu- common & > o o 
 
 nature (com- shade, or in an intermediate step, of cloud, or 
 
 pare Chap. " > ... ., , 
 
 rv, §16) vapor; or explammg it by terrible concomi- 
 
 tant circumstances, as of wounds in the body, or strange 
 lights and seemings round about it; or by joining cf 
 two bodies together as in angels' wings. Of all which 
 
2o6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 means of attaining supernatural character (which, 
 though in their nature ordinary and vulgar, are yet 
 effective and very glorious in mighty hands) we 
 have already seen the limits in speaking of the imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 §5. But the second means of obtaining supernatural 
 character is that with which we are now concerned, 
 namely, retaining the actual form in its full 
 herent ' and material presence, and without aid from 
 any external interpretation whatsoever, to 
 raise that form by mere inherent dignity to such a 
 pitch of power and impressiveness as cannot but assert 
 and stamp it for superhuman. 
 
 §6. Let us consider by what means this has been 
 effected, so far as they are by analysis traceable ; and 
 1st Of *^^* ^* ^^ '^°* ^^'"' ^°^ here, as always, we 
 
 s?onof'in-' ^^^ *^^* *^® greater part of what has 
 spiration. been rightly accomplished has been done 
 by faith and intense feeling, and cannot, by aid 
 of any rules or teaching, be either tried, estimated, 
 or imitated. 
 
 §7. I have affirmed in the conclusion of the first sec- 
 tion that "of that which is more than creature, no crea- 
 ture ever conceived. " I think this almost 
 SntaSonoi self-evident, for it is clear that the illimita- 
 i^SoTe H?an ^leness of Divine attributes cannot be by 
 polsibie^ '^ matter represented, (though it may be typ- 
 ified), and I believe that all who are ac- 
 quainted with the range of sacred art will admit, not 
 only that no representation of Christ has ever been 
 even partially successful, but that the greatest paint- 
 ers fall therein below their accustomed level. 
 
Selections 207 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. I, §6. 
 
 §6. We find, then, that the imagination has three 
 totally distinct functions. It combines, and by com- 
 bination creates new forms ; but the secret principle 
 of this combination has not been shown by the anal- 
 ysts. Again, it treats or regards both the sim- 
 ple images and its own combinations in peculiar 
 ways; and, thirdly, it penetrates, analyzes, 
 operSs ^^<1 reaches truths by no other faculty dis- 
 naUon!"pln- coverable. These its three functions, I shall 
 associltiTe, endeavour to illustrate, but not in this order : 
 piaum *^^ mast logical mode of treatment would 
 
 be to follow the order in which commonly 
 the mind works ; that is, penetrating first, combining 
 next, and treating or regarding, finally; but this ar- 
 rangement would be inconvenient, because the acts of 
 penetration and of regard are so closely connected, and 
 so like in their relations to other mental acts, that I 
 wish to examine them consecutively, and the rather, 
 because they have to do with higher subject matter than 
 the mere act of combination, whose distinctive nature, 
 that property which makes it imagination and not com- 
 position, it will I think be best to explain at setting 
 out, as we easily may, in subjects familiar and mate- 
 rial. I shall therefore examine the imaginative faculty 
 in these three forms ; first, as combining or associa- 
 tive; secondly, as analytic or penetrative; thirdly, as 
 regardant or contemplative.* 
 
 * For the more complete exposition of this division read Chap- 
 ters II, III and IV, of Vol. II. In Chapter II will be found the 
 use of the imagination in the composition of pictures, and in Chap- 
 ter III the distinction between fancy and imagination. 
 
2o8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. Ill, ^2t-23- 
 
 §i I. IV. Invention.— The last characteristic of great 
 
 art is that it must be inventive, that is, be produced by 
 
 the imagination. In this respect, it must 
 
 Invention. pj.gj,isgiy fulfil the definition already given 
 
 of poetry; and not only present grounds for noble 
 emotion, but furnish these grounds by imaginative 
 power. Hence there is at once a great bar fixed 
 between the two schools of Lower and Higher Art. 
 The lower merely copies what is set before it, whether 
 in portrait, landscape, or still-life; the higher either 
 entirely imagines its subject, or arranges the materials 
 presented to it, so as to manifest the imaginative 
 power in all three phases which have been already 
 explained in the second volume. 
 
 And this was the truth which was confusedly present 
 in Reynold's mind when he spoke, as above quoted, 
 of the difference between Historical and Poetical paint- 
 ing. Every relation of the plain facts which the 
 painter saw is proper historical painting. If those 
 facts are unimportant (as that he saw a gambler quar- 
 rel with another gambler, or a spt enjoying himself 
 with another sot), then the history is trivial; if the 
 facts are important (as that he saw such and such a 
 great man look thus, or act thus, at such a time), then 
 the history is noble : in each case perfect truth of nar- 
 rative being supposed, otherwise the whole thing is 
 worthless, being neither history nor poetry, but plain 
 falsehood. And farther, as greater or less elegance 
 and precision are manifested in the relation or paint- 
 ing of the incidents, the merit of the work varies; so 
 that, what with difference of subject, and what with 
 
Selections 209 
 
 difference of treatment, historical painting falls or 
 rises in changeful eminence, from Dutch trivialities 
 to a Velasquez portrait, just as historical talking or 
 writing varies in eminence, from an old woman's 
 story-telling up to Herodotus. Besides which, cer- 
 tain operations of the imagination come into play inev- 
 itably, here and there, so as to touch the history with 
 some light of poetry, that is, with some light shot 
 forth of the narrator's mind, or brought out by the 
 way he has put the accidents together ; and wherever 
 the imagination has thus had anything to do with the 
 matter at all (and it must be somewhat cold work 
 where it has not) , then, the confines of the lower and 
 higher schools touching each other, the work is col- 
 oured by both ; but there is no reason why, therefore, 
 we should in the least confuse the historical and poet- 
 ical characters, any more than that we should confuse 
 blue with crimson, because they may overlap each 
 other, and produce purple. 
 
 §22. Now, historical or simply narrative art is very 
 precious in its proper place and way, but it is never 
 great art until the poetical or imaginative power 
 touches it; and in proportion to the stronger manifes- 
 tation of this power, it becomes greater and greater, 
 while the highest art is purely imaginative, all its 
 materials being wrought into their form by invention; 
 and it differs, therefore, from the simple historical 
 painting, exactly as Wordsworth's stanza, above 
 quoted, differs from Saussure's plain narrative of the 
 parallel fact; and the imaginative painter differs from 
 the historical painter in the manner that Wordsworth 
 differs from Saussure. 
 
2IO Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 §23. Farther, imaginative art always includes his- 
 torical art; so that, strictly speaking, according to the 
 analogy above used, we meet with the pure blue, and 
 with the crimson ruling the blue and changing it into 
 kingly purple, but not with the pure crimson: for all 
 imagination must deal with the knowledge it has 
 before accumulated; it never produces anything but 
 by combination or contemplation. Creation, in the 
 full sense, is impossible to it. And the mode in which 
 the historical faculties are included by it is often 
 quite simple, and easily seen. Thus, in Hunt's great 
 poetical picture of the Light of the World, the whole 
 thought and arrangement of the picture being imag- 
 inative, the several details of it are wrought out with 
 simple portraiture ; the ivy, the jewels, the creeping 
 plants, and the moonlight being calmly studied or 
 remembered from the things themselves. But of all 
 these special ways in which the invention works with 
 plain facts, we shall have to treat farther afterwards.* 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VII, %ir. 
 
 §11. And this, which by reason we have thus antici- 
 pated, is in reality universally so. There is no excep- 
 tion. The great men never know how or why they do 
 things. They have no rules ; cannot comprehend the 
 nature of rules ; — do not^ usually, even know, in what 
 they do, what is best or what is worst : to them it is 
 all the same; something they cannot help saying or 
 doing, — one piece of it as good as another, and none of 
 it (it seems to tkem) worth much. The moment any 
 
 * For an application of this to landscape read Vol. IV, Pt. V, 
 Chap. II. 
 
Selections 211 
 
 man begins to talk about rules, in whatsoever art, you 
 may know him for a second-rate man ; and, if he talks 
 about them muck, he is a third-rate, or not an artist 
 at all. To tkis rule there is no exception in any art. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VIII, %%r'z^ 13, 
 18, ig. 
 
 §12. "Well, but," the reader says, "what do you 
 miean by calling either of them true? There never 
 were such beasts in the world as either of these?" 
 
 No, never: but the difference is, that the Lombard 
 workman did really see a griffin in his imagination, 
 and carved it from the life, meaning to declare to all 
 ages that he had verily seen with his immortal eyes 
 such a griffin as that ; but the classical workman never 
 saw a griffin at all, nor anything else ; but put the 
 whole thing together by line and rule. 
 
 §15. Now observe, the Lombardic workman did not 
 do all this because he had thought it out, as you and I 
 are doing together ; he never thought a bit about it. 
 He simply saw the beast; saw it as plainly as you see 
 the writing on this page, and of course could not be 
 wrong in anything he told us of it. 
 
 Well, what more does he tell us? Another thing, 
 remember, essential to an eagle is that it should fly 
 fast. It is no use its having wings at all if it is to be 
 impeded in the use of them. Now it would be difficult 
 to impede him more thoroughly than by giving him 
 two cocked ears to catch the wind. 
 
 Look, again, at the two beasts. You see the false 
 griffin has them so set, and, consequently, as he flew, 
 there would be a continual humming of the wind on 
 
213 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 each side of his head, and he would have an infallible 
 earache when he got home. But the real griffin has 
 his ears flat to his head, and all the hair of them blown 
 back, even to a point, by his fast flying, and the 
 aperture is downwards, that he may hear anything 
 going on upon the earth, where his prey is. In the 
 false griffin the aperture is upwards. 
 
 §i8. Now observe how in all this, through every 
 separate part and action of the creature, the imagina- 
 tion is always right. It evidently cannot err ; it meets 
 every one of our requirements respecting the griffin 
 as simply as if it were gathering up the bones of the 
 real creature out of some ancient rock. It does not 
 itself know or care, any more than the peasant labor- 
 ing with his spade and axe, what is wanted to meet 
 our theories or fancies. It knows simply what is 
 there, and brings out the positive creature, errorless, 
 unquestionable. So it is throughout art, and in all 
 that the imagination does ; if anything be wrong it is 
 not the imagination's fault, but some inferior faculty's, 
 which would have its foolish say in the matter, and 
 meddled with the imagination, and said, the bones 
 ought to be put together tail first, or upside down. 
 
 §19. This, however, we need not be amazed at, 
 because the very essence of the imagination is already 
 defined to be the seeing to the heart ; and it is not 
 therefore wonderful that it should never err ; but it is 
 wonderful, on the other hand, how the composing 
 legalism does nothing else than err. One would have 
 thought that, by mere chance, in this or the other 
 element of griffin, the griffin-composer might have 
 struck out a truth ; that he might have had the luck to 
 
Selections 213 
 
 set the ears back, or to give some grasp to the claw. 
 But, no; from beginning to end it is evidently impos- 
 sible for him to be anything but wrong; his whole 
 soul IS instinct with lies; no veracity can come within 
 hail of him; to him, all regions of right and life are 
 forever closed. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pi. VIII, Chap. IV. ^4^, /^-/d 
 
 §4. The sketches of true painters maybe classed 
 under the following heads : 
 
 I. Experimetital.—ln. which they are assisting an 
 Artists' imperfect conception of a subject by trying 
 
 sketches. the look of it on paper in difEerent ways. 
 
 By the greatest men this kind of sketch is hardly 
 ever made ; they conceive their subjects distinctly at 
 once, and their sketch is not to try them, but to fasten 
 them down. Raphael's form the only important 
 exception — and the numerous examples of experi- 
 mental work by him are evidence of his composition 
 being technical rather than imaginative. I have 
 never seen a drawing of the kind by any great Vene- 
 tian. Among the nineteen thousand sketches by Tur- 
 ner — which I arranged in the National Gallery — there 
 was, to the best of my recollection, not one. In 
 several instances the work, after being carried forward 
 a certain length, had been abandoned and begun again 
 with another view ; sometimes also two or more modes 
 of treatment had been set side by side with a view to 
 choice. But there were always two distinct imagina- 
 tions contending for realization — not experimental 
 modifications of one. 
 §5. II. Z'^/^rw»'««»^.— The fastening down of an idea 
 
214 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 in the simplest terms, in order that it may not be dis- 
 turbed or confused by after-work. Nearly all the 
 great composers do this, methodically, before begin- 
 ning a painting. Such sketches are usually in a high 
 degree resolute and compressive; the best of them 
 outlined or marked calmly with the pen, and deliber- 
 ately washed with color, indicating the places of the 
 principal lights. 
 
 Fine drawings of this class never show any hurry or 
 confusion. They are the expression of concluded 
 operations of min d, are drawn slowly, and are not so 
 much sketches, as maps. 
 
 §6. III. Commemorative. — Containing records of 
 facts which the master required. These in their most 
 elaborate form are "studies," or drawings, from 
 Nature, of parts needed in the composition, often 
 highly finished in the part which is to be introduced. 
 In this form, however, they never occur by the great- 
 est imaginative masters. For by a truly great inven- 
 tor everything is invented : no atom of the work is 
 unmodified by his mind ; and no study from nature, 
 however beautiful, could be introduced by him into his 
 design without change ; it would not fit with the rest. 
 Finished studies for introduction are therefore chiefly 
 by Leonardo and Raphael, both technical designers 
 rather than imaginative ones. 
 
 Commemorative sketches, by great masters, are 
 generally hasty, merely to put them in mind of 
 motives of invention, or they are shorthand memo- 
 randa of things with which they do not care to trouble 
 their memory; or, finally, accurate notes of things 
 which they must not modify by invention, as local 
 
Selections 215 
 
 detail, costume, and such like. You may. find per- 
 fectly accurate drawings of coats of arms, portions of 
 dresses, pieces of a chitecture, and so on, by all the 
 great men ; but you will not find elaborate studies of 
 bits of their pictures. 
 
 §7. When the -sketch is made merely as a memoran- 
 dum, it is impossible to say how little, or what kind of 
 drawing, may be sufficient for the purpose. It is of 
 course likely to be hasty from its very nature, and 
 unless the exact purpose be understood, it may be as 
 unintelligible as a piece of shorthand writing. 
 
 §14. Throughout the sketch, as in all that Turner 
 made, the observing and combining intellect acts in 
 the same manner. Not a line is lost, nor a moment of 
 time ; and though the pencil flies, and the whole thing 
 is literally done as fast as a piece of shorthand writ- 
 ing, it is to the full as purposeful and compressed, so 
 that while there are indeed dashes of the pencil which 
 are unintentional, they are only unintentional as the 
 form of a letter is, in fast writing, not from want of 
 intention, but from the accident of haste. 
 
 §15. I know not if the reader can understand, — I 
 myself cannot, though I see it to be demonstrable, — 
 the simultaneous occurrence of idea which produces 
 such a drawing as this : the grasp of the whole, from 
 the laying of the first line, which induces continual 
 modifications of all that is done, out of respect to parts 
 not done yet. No line is ever changed or effaced : no 
 experiment made; but every touch is placed with 
 reference to all that are to succeed, as to all that have 
 gone before; every addition takes its part, as the 
 stones in an arch of a bridge; the last touch locks the 
 
21 6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 arch. Remove that keystone, or remove any other of 
 the stones of the vault, and the whole will fall. 
 
 §i6. I repeat — the power of mind which accom- 
 plishes this, is yet wholly inexplicable to me, as it was 
 when first I defined it in the chapter on imagination 
 associative, in the second volume. But the. grandeur 
 of the power impresses me daily more and more; and, 
 in quitting the subject of invention, let me assert 
 finally, in clearest and strongest terms, that no paint- 
 ing is of any true imaginative perfectness at all, unless 
 it has been thus conceived. 
 
 One sign of its being thus conceived may be always 
 found in the straightforwardness of its work. There 
 are continual disputes among artists as to the best way 
 of doing things, which may nearly all be resolved into 
 confessions of indetermination. If you know precisely 
 what you want, you will not feel much hesitation in 
 setting about it; and a picture may be painted almost 
 in any way, so only that it can be a straight way. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pt. VIII, Chap, i, %%3, 4, 10-13, ^o. 
 
 §2. First, then, of Invention Formal, otherwise 
 and most commonly called technical composition; 
 that is to say, the arrangement of lines, forms, or 
 colours, so as to produce the best possible effect. * 
 
 * The word composition has been so much abused, and is in 
 itself so inexpressive, that when I wrote the first part of this work 
 I intended always to use, in this final section of it, the word "in- 
 vention," and to reserve the term "composition" for that false 
 composition which can be taught on principles ; as I have already so 
 employed the term in the chapter on " Imagination Associative," 
 in the second volume, But, in arranging this section, I find it is 
 
Selections 217 
 
 I have often been accused of slighting this quality 
 m pictures; the fact being that I have avoided it only 
 because I considered it too great and wonderful for me 
 to deal with. The longer I thought, the more won- 
 derful it always seemed; and it is, to myself person- 
 ally, the quality, above all others, which gives me 
 delight in pictures. Many others I admire, or respect ; 
 but this one I rejoice in. Expression, sentiment,' 
 truth to nature, are essential; but all these are not 
 enough. I never care to look at a picture again, if it 
 be ill composed; and if well composed I can hardly 
 leave off looking at it. 
 
 Well composed. " Does that mean according to rule ? 
 No. Precisely the contrary. Composed as only the 
 man who did it could have done it; composed as 
 no other picture is, or was, or ever can be again. 
 Every great work stands alone. 
 
 §4. Composition may be best defined as the help of 
 everything in the picture by everything else. 
 
 I wish the reader to dwell a little on this word 
 "Help." It is a grave one. 
 
 In substance which we call "inanimate, " as of clouds, 
 or stones, their atoms may cohere to each other, or 
 consist with each other, but they do not help each other. 
 The removal of "one part does not injure the rest. 
 
 not conveniently possible to avoid the ordinary modes of parlance ; 
 I therefore only head the section as I intended (and as is, indeed, 
 best), using in the text the ordinarily accepted term ; only the 
 reader must be careful to note that what I spoke of shortly as 
 "composition" in the chapters on "Imagination," I here always 
 call, distinctly, "false composition"; using here, as I find most 
 convenient, the words "invention" or "composition'' indifferently 
 for the true faculty. 
 
2i8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 But in a plant, the taking away of any one part does 
 injure the rest. Hurt or remove any portion of the 
 sap, bark, or pith, the rest is injured. If any part 
 enters into a state in which it no more assists the rest 
 and has thus become "helpless," we call it also"dead." 
 
 §10. Now invention in art signifies an arrangement, 
 in which everything in the work is thus consistent 
 with all things else, and helpful to all else. 
 
 It is the greatest and rarest of all the qualities of 
 art. The power by which it is effected is absolutely 
 inexplicable and incommunicable; but exercised with 
 entire facility by those who possess it, in many cases 
 even unconsciously.* 
 
 In work which is not composed, there may be many 
 beautiful things, but they do not help each other. 
 They at the best only stand beside, and more usually 
 compete with and destroy, each other. They may be 
 connected artificially in many ways, but the test of 
 there being no invention is, that if one of them be 
 taken away, the others are no worse than before. But 
 in true composition, if one be taken away, all the rest 
 are helpless and valueless. Generally, in falsely com- 
 posed work, if anything be taken away, the rest will 
 
 * By diligent study of good compositions it is possible to put 
 work together so that the parts shall help each other, a little, or at 
 all events do no harm ; and when some tact and taste are associ- 
 ated with this diligence, semblances of real invention are often 
 produced, which, being the results of great labor, the artist is 
 always proud of; and which, being capable of learned explanation 
 and imitation, the spectator naturally takes interest in. The com- 
 mon precepts about composition all produce and teach this false 
 kind, which, as true composition is the noblest, being the corrup- 
 tion of it, is the ignoblest condition of art. 
 
Selections 219 
 
 look better; because the attention is less distracted. 
 Hence the pleasure of inferior artists in sketching, and 
 their inability to finish ; all that they add destroys. 
 
 §11. Also in true composition, everything not only 
 helps everjrthing else a little, but helps with its utmost 
 power. Every atom is in full energy; and all that 
 energy is kind. Not a line, nor spark of colour, but 
 is doing its very best, and that best is aid. The extent 
 to which this law is carried in truly right and noble 
 work is whoUy'Jnconceivable to the ordinary observer, 
 and no true account of it would be believed. 
 
 §12. True composition being entirely easy to the 
 man wha can compose, he is seldom proud of it, 
 though he clearly recognizes it. Also, true composi- 
 tion is inexplicable. No one can explain how the 
 notes of a Mozart melody, or the folds of a piece of 
 Titian's drapery, produce their essential eflFect on 
 each other. If you do not feel it, no one can by 
 reasoning make you feel it. And, the highest compo- 
 sition is so subtle, that it is apt to become unpopular, 
 and sometimes seem insipid. 
 
 §13. The reader may be surprised at my giving so 
 high a place to invention. But if he ever come to 
 know true invention from false, he will find that it is 
 not only the highest quality of art, but is simply the 
 most wonderful act or power of humanity. It is pre- 
 eminently the deed of human creation; iroojo-ts, other- 
 wise, poetry. 
 
 §20. It will, perhaps, appear to you, after a little 
 farther thought, that to create anything in reality is to 
 put life into it. 
 
 A poet, or creator, is therefore a person who puts 
 
220 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 things together, not as a watchmaker steel, or a shoe- 
 maker leather, but who puts life into them. 
 
 His work is essentially this: it is the gathering and 
 arranging of material by imagination, so as to have in 
 it at last the harmony or helpfulness of life, and the 
 passion or emotion of life. Mere fitting and adjust- 
 ment of material is nothing; that is watchmaking. 
 But helpful and passionate harmony, essentially 
 choral harmony, so called from the Greek word 
 "rejoicing," is the harmony of Apollo and the Muses; 
 the word Muse and Mother being derived from the 
 same root, meaning "passionate seeking," or love, of 
 which the issue is passionate finding, or sacred inven- 
 tion. For which reason I could not bear to use any 
 baser word than this of invention. And if the reader 
 will think over all these things, and follow them out, 
 as I think he may easily with this much of clew given 
 him, he will not any more think it wrong in me to 
 place invention so high among the powers of man. 
 
 Elements of Drawing, Letter III. 
 
 And now, in the last place, I have a few things to 
 tell you respecting that dangerous nobleness of con- 
 summate art, — Composition. For though it 
 Composition. ... , ^ i.m ^ 
 
 is quite unnecessary for you yet awhile to 
 attempt it, and it may be inexpedient for you to 
 attempt it at all, you ought to know what it means, 
 and to look for and enjoy it in the art of others. 
 
 Composition means, literally and simply, putting 
 several things together, so as to make one thing out of 
 them ; the nature and goodness of which they all have 
 a share in producing. Thus a musician composes an 
 
Selections 22 1 
 
 air, by putting notes together in certain relations ; a 
 poet composes a poem, by putting thoughts and words 
 m pleasant order; and a painter a picture, by putting 
 thoughts, forms, and colours in pleasant order. 
 
 In all these cases, observe, an intended unity must 
 be the result of composition. A paviour cannot be 
 said to compose the heap of stones which he empties 
 from his cart, nor the sower the handful of seed which 
 he scatters from his hand. It is the essence of com- 
 position that everything should be in a determined 
 place, perform an intended part, and act, in that part, 
 advantageously for everything that is connected with it. 
 
 Composition, understood in this pure sense, is the 
 type, in the arts of mankind, of the Providential gov- 
 ernment of the world. (See farther, on this subject. 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Chap. VIII.) It is an exhibi- 
 tion, in the order given to tes, or colours, or forms, 
 of the advantage of perfect fellowship, discipline, and 
 contentment. * * * * 
 
 Much more in a great picture ; every line and colour 
 is so arranged as to advantage the rest. None are 
 inessential, however slight ; and none are independent, 
 however forcible. It is not enough that they truly 
 represent natural objects ; but they must fit into cer- 
 tain places, and gather into certain harmonious groups : 
 so that, for instance, the red chimney of a cottage is 
 not merely set in its place as a chimney, but that it 
 may affect, in a certain way pleasurable to the eye, 
 the pieces of green or blue in other parts of the pic- 
 ture; and we ought to see that the work is masterly, 
 merely by the positions and quantities of these patches 
 of green, red, and blue, even at a distance which ren- 
 
232 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ders it perfectly impossible to determine what the 
 colours represent : or to see whether the red is a chim- 
 ney, or an old woman's cloak; and whether the blue is 
 smoke, sky, or water. 
 
 It seems to be appointed, in order to remind us, in 
 all we do, of the great laws of Divine government and 
 human polity, that composition in the arts should 
 strongly affect every order of mind, however unlearned 
 or thoughtless. Hence the popular delight in rhythm 
 and metre, and in simple musical melodies. But it is 
 also appointed that power of composition in the fine 
 arts should be an exclusive attribute of great intellect. 
 
 It follows, from these general truths, that it is 
 impossible to give rules which will enable you to com- 
 pose. You might much more easily receive rules to 
 enable you to be witty. If it were possible to be witty 
 by rule, wit would cease to be either admirable or 
 amusing : if it were possible to compose melody by 
 rule, Mozart and Cimarosa need not have been born : 
 if it were possible to compose pictures by rule, Titian 
 and Veronese would be ordinary men. The essence 
 of composition lies precisely in the fact of its being 
 unteachable, in its being the operation of an individual 
 mind of range and power exalted above others. 
 
 But though no one can invent by rule, there are 
 some simple laws of arrangement which it is well for 
 you to know, because, though they will not enable you 
 to produce a good picture, they will often assist you to 
 set forth what goodness may be in your work in a 
 more telling way than you could have done otherwise ; 
 and by tracing them in the work of good composers, 
 
Selections 223 
 
 you may better understand the grasp of their imagin- 
 ation, and the power it possesses over their materials. 
 I shall briefly state the chief of these laws. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pi. IV, Chap. IV, %is. 
 
 §15. Now, neither they, nor any other work of the 
 period, were representations either of historical or 
 possible fact. They were, in the strictest sense of the 
 word, "compositions" — cold arrangements of propriety 
 and agreeableness, according to academical formulas; 
 the painter never in any case making the slightest 
 effort to conceive the thing as it must have happened, 
 but only to gather together graceful lines and beautiful 
 faces, in such compliance with commonplace ideas of the 
 subject as might obtain for the whole an "epic unity," 
 or some such other form of scholastic perfectness. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Arch, Chap. IV, %43. 
 §43. I said that the Power of human mind had its 
 growth in the Wilderness ; much more must f^S^ love 
 imagtaatipu and the conception of that beauty, whose 
 SSth ?^"on every line and hue we have seen to be, at 
 nature. ^j^^ best, a faded image of God's daily work, 
 
 and an arrested ray of some star of creation, >be. 
 given chiefly in the places which He has gladdened by 
 planting there the fir tree and the pine. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Ft. HI Sec. II Chap. Ill %33- 
 §33. Finally, it is evident, that like the theoretic fac- 
 ulty the imagination must be fed constantly by exter- 
 nal nature— after the illustrations we have given, this 
 may seem mere truism, for it is clear that to the exer- 
 
224 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 cise of penetrative faculty a subject of penetration is 
 necessary; but I note it because many painters of 
 powerful mind have been lost to the world by their 
 suffering the restless writhing of their imagination in 
 its cage to take place of its healthy and exulting 
 activity in the fields of nature. 
 
 Pleasures of England, Led. IV, [Ed. of 1SS4.] Pleasures 
 
 of Fancy. 
 
 In using the word "fancy" for the mental faculties 
 of which I am to speak to-day, I trust you to read the 
 Fancy and Introductory Note to Modern Painters, Vol. 
 imagination. \\^ which gives Sufficient reason for practi- 
 cally including under the single term fancy or fantasy 
 all the energies of the imagination — "the healthy, vol- 
 untary, and necessary action of the highest powers of 
 the human mind, on subjects properly demanding and 
 justifying their exertion. " * * * * 
 
 With this warning of the connection which exists 
 between the honest intellect and the healthy imagina- 
 tion, and using henceforth the shorter word 'fancy' 
 for all inventive vision, I proceed to consider with you 
 the meaning and consequences of the frank and eager 
 exertion of the fancy, on religious subjects, between 
 the twelfth and sixteenth centuries.* 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. Ill, §§/i5, 17, 18. 
 
 §16. III. Sincerity. — The next characteristic of 
 great art is that it includes the largest possible quan- 
 tity of Truth in the most perfect possible harmony. 
 
 * On Contemplative Imagination read Modern Painters, Vol. 
 n, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. IV. 
 
Selections 22 5 
 
 If it were possible for art to give all the truths of na- 
 ture, it ought to do it. But this is not possible, 
 indistiact- Choice must always be made of some facts 
 ness. which can be represented, from among others 
 
 which must be passed by in silence, or even, in some 
 respects, misrepresented. The inferior artist chooses 
 unimportant and scattered truths; the great artist 
 chooses the most necessary first, and afterwards the 
 most consistent with these, so as to obtain the greatest 
 possible and most harmonious sum. For instance, Rem- 
 brandt always chooses to represent the exact force with 
 which the light on the most illumined part of an object 
 is opposed to its obscurer portions. In order to obtain 
 this, in most cases, not very important truth, he 
 sacrifices the light and colour of five-sixths of his pic- 
 ture ; and the expression of every character of objects 
 which depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But 
 he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and 
 forcible expression is dependent upon it, with mag- 
 nificent skill and subtlety. 
 
 §17. But, in the whole field of art, the difference be- 
 tween the great and inferior artists is of the same 
 kind, and may be determined at once by the 
 St?^^ question, which of them conveys the largest 
 SiVdlttoot. sum of truth? It follows from this prin- 
 ciple, that in general all great drawing is distinct 
 drawing; for truths which are rendered indistinctly 
 might, for the most part, as well not be rendered at 
 all There are, indeed, certain facts of mystery, and 
 facts of indistinctness, in all objects, which must have 
 their proper place in the general harmony, and the 
 reader will presently find me, when we come to that 
 
226 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 part of our investigation, telling him that all good 
 drawing must in some sort be indistinct. We may, 
 however, understand this apparent contradiction, by 
 reflecting that the highest knowledge always involves 
 a more advanced perception of the fields of the 
 unknown ; and. therefore, it may most truly be said, 
 that to know anything well involves a profound sensa- 
 tion of ignorance, while yet it is equally true that good 
 and noble knowledge is distinguished from vain and 
 useless knowledge chiefly by its clearness and dis- 
 tinctness, and by the vigorous consciousness of what 
 is known and what is not. 
 
 So in art. The best drawing involves a wonderful 
 perception and expression of indistinctness; and yet 
 all noble drawing is separated from the ignoble by its 
 distinctness, by its flne expression and firm assertion 
 of Something; whereas the bad drawing, without 
 either firmness or fineness, expresses and asserts Noth- 
 ing. The first thing, therefore, to be looked for as a 
 sign of noble art, is a clear consciousness of what is 
 drawn and what is not ; the bold statement, and frank 
 confession — ''This I know," ''that I know not"; and, 
 generally speaking, all haste, slurring, obscurity, 
 indecision, are signs of low art, and all calmness, dis- 
 tinctness, luminousness, and positiveness, of high art. 
 
 §i8. It follows, secondly, from this principle, that as 
 the great pamter is always attending to the sum and 
 Corollary harmony of his truths rather than to one or 
 i^tifltner ^^^ other of any group, a quality of Grasp is 
 mMsesIno' visible in his work, like the power of a great 
 In scale. reasoner over his subject, or a great poet 
 oyer his conception, manifesting itself very often in 
 
Selections 227 
 
 missing out certain details or less truths (which 
 though good in themselves, he finds are in the way of 
 others), and in a sweeping manner of getting the 
 beginnings and ends of things shown at once, and the 
 squares and depths rather than the surfaces : hence, 
 on the whole, a habit of looking at large masses rather 
 than small ones; and even a physical largeness of 
 handling, and love of working, if possible, on a large 
 scale ; and various other qualities, more or less imper- 
 fectly expressed by such technical terms as breadth, 
 massing, unity, boldness, etc., all of which are, indeed, 
 great qualities when they mean breadth of truth, 
 weight of truth, unity of truth, and courageous asser- 
 tion of truth; but which have all their correlative 
 errors and mockeries, almost universally mistaken for 
 them,— the breadth which has no contents, the weight 
 which has no value, the unity which plots deception, 
 and the boldness which faces out fallacy. 
 
 The Study of Architecture. 
 Idealism, so far from being contrary to special 
 truth, is the very abstraction of specialty from every- 
 thing else. It is the earnest statement of 
 
 Noble the characters which make man man, and 
 
 abstraction. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ gsh. 
 
 Feeble thinkers indeed, always suppose that distinc- 
 tion of kind involves meanness of style; but the mean- 
 ness is in the treatment, not in the distmction. 
 There is a noble way of carving a man, and a mean 
 one- and there is a noble way of carving a beetle and 
 a mean one; and a great sculptor carves his scarabaeus 
 grandl7, as he carves his king, while a mean sculptor 
 
228 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 makes vermin of both. And it is a sorrowful truth, 
 yet a sublime one, that this greatness of treatment 
 cannot be taught by talking about it. No, nor even 
 by enforced imitative practice of it. Men treat their 
 subjects nobly only when they themselves become 
 noble; not till then. And that elevation of their own 
 nature is assuredly not to be effected by a course of 
 drawing from models, however well chosen, or of 
 listening to lectures, however well intended. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Preface to zd Ed. 
 
 Is there then no such thing as elevated ideal charac- 
 ter of landscape? Undoubtedly; and Sir Joshua, with 
 the great master of this character, Nicolo Poussin, 
 present to his thoughts, ought to have arrived at more 
 true conclusions respecting its essence than, as we 
 shall presently see, are deducible from his works. 
 The true ideal of landscape is precisely the same as 
 that of the human form; it is the expression of the 
 specific — not the individual, but the specific — charac- 
 ters of every object, ia their perfection; there is an 
 ideal form of every herb, flower, and tree : it is that 
 form to which every individual of the species has a 
 tendency to arrive, freed from the influence of acci- 
 dent or disease. Every landscape painter should 
 know the specific characters of every object he has to 
 represent, rock, flower, or cloud; and in his highest 
 ideal works, all their distinctions will be perfectly 
 expressed, broadly or delicately, slightly or completely, 
 according to the nature of the subject, and the degree 
 of attention which is to be drawn to the particular 
 object by the part it plays in the composition. Where 
 
Selections 229 
 
 the sublime is aimed at, such distinctions will be indi- 
 cated with severe simplicity, as the muscular markings 
 in a colossal statue ; where beauty is the object, they 
 must be expressed with the utmost refinement of which 
 the hand is capable. 
 
 Elements of Drawing, Led. Ill, Div. g. Law of Harmony. 
 
 Good drawing is, as we have seen, an abstract of 
 natural facts ; you cannot represent all that you would, 
 but must continually be falling short, whether you 
 will or no, of the force, or quantity, of Nature. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 For it is always to be remerbered that no one mind 
 is like another, either in its powers or perceptions; 
 and while the main principles of training must be the 
 same for all, the result in each will be as various as 
 the kinds of truth which each will apprehend; there- 
 fore, also, the modes of effort, even in men whose 
 inner principles and final aims are exactly the same. 
 Suppose, for instance, two men, equally honest, 
 equally industrious, equally impressed with a humble 
 desire to render some part of what they saw in nature 
 faithfully; and, otherwise, trained in convictions such 
 as 1 have above endeavored to induce. But one of 
 them is quiet in temperament, has a feeble memory, 
 no invention, and excessively keen sight. The other 
 is impatient in temperament, has a memory which 
 nothing escapes, an invention which never rests, and 
 is comparatively near-sighted. 
 
 Set them both free in the same field in a mountam 
 valley. One sees everything, small and large, with 
 
230 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 almost the same clearness ; mountains and grasshop- 
 pers alike ; the leaves on the branches, the veins in 
 the pebbles, the bubbles in the stream: but he can 
 remember nothing, and invent nothing. Patiently he 
 sets himself to his mighty task ; abandoning at once 
 all thoughts of seizing transient effects, or giving gen- 
 eral impressions of that which his eyes present to him 
 in microscopical dissection, he chooses some small 
 portion out of the infinite scene, and calculates with 
 courage the number of weeks which must elapse 
 before he can do justice to the intensity of his percep- 
 tions, or the fulness of. matter in his subject. 
 
 Meantime, the other has been watching the change 
 of the clouds, and the march of the light along the 
 moutitain sides ; he beholds the entire scene in broad, 
 soft masses of true gradation, and the very feebleness 
 of his sight is in some sort an advantage to him, in 
 making him more sensible of the aerial mystery of 
 distance, and hiding frojn him the multitudes of cir- 
 cumstances which it would have been impossible for 
 him to represent. But there is not one change in the 
 casting of the jagged shadows along the hollows of the 
 hills, but it is fixed on his mind forever; not a flake 
 of spray has broken from the sea of cloud about their 
 bases, but he has watched it as it melts away, and 
 could recall it to its lost place in heaven by the slight- 
 est effort of his thoughts. Not only so, but thousands 
 and thousands of such images, of older scenes, remain 
 congregated in his mind, each mingling in new associa- 
 tions with those now visibly passing before him, and 
 these again confused with other images of his own 
 ceaseless, sleepless imagination, flashing by in sudden 
 
Selections 231 
 
 troops. Fancy how his paper will be covered with 
 stray symbols and blots, and undecipherable short- 
 hand: — as for his sitting down to "draw from Nature," 
 there was not one of the things which he wished to 
 represent that stayed for so much as five seconds 
 together : but none of them escaped, for all that : they 
 are sealed up in that strange storehouse of his ; he may 
 take one of them out, perhaps, this day twenty years, 
 and paint it in his dark room, far away. Now, 
 observe, you may tell both of these men, when they 
 are young, that they are to be honest, that they have 
 an important function, and that they are not to care 
 what Raphael did. This you may wholesomely 
 impress on them both. But fancy the exquisite 
 absurdity of expecting either of them to possess any 
 of the qualities of the other. 
 
 I have supposed the feebleness of sight in the last, 
 and of invention in the first painter, that the contrast 
 between them might be more striking; but, with very 
 slight modification, both the characters are real. 
 Grant to the first considerable inventive power, with 
 exquisite sense of colour ; and give to the second, in 
 addition to all his other faculties, the eye of an eagle; 
 and the first is John Everett Millais, the second Joseph 
 Mallard William Turner. * * * * 
 
 I have spoken above of his gigantic memory: it is 
 especially necessary to notice this, in order that we 
 may understand the kind of grasp which a man of real 
 imagination takes of all things that are once brought 
 within his reach-grasp thenceforth not to be relaxed 
 
 forever. , ^ . , . 
 
 On looking over any catalogues of his works, or of 
 
232 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism. 
 
 particular series of them, we shall notice the recur- 
 rence of the same subject two, three, or even many 
 times. In any other artist this would be nothing 
 remarkable. Probably most modern landscape paint- 
 ers multiply a favorite subject twenty, thirty, or sixty- 
 fold, putting the shadows and the clouds in different 
 places, and "inventing," as they are pleased to call it, 
 a new "effect" every time. But if we examine the 
 successions of Turner's subjects, we shall find them 
 either the records of a succession of impressions 
 actually perceived by him at some favorite locality, or 
 else repetitions of one impression received in early 
 youth, and again and again realized as his increasing 
 powers enabled him to do better justice to it. In 
 either case we shall find them records of seen facts; 
 never compositions in his room to fill up a favorite 
 outline. * * * * 
 
 Nor is it merely of entire scenes, or of particular 
 incidents, that Turner's memory is thus tenacious. 
 The slightest passages of colour or arrangement that 
 have pleased him— the fork of a bough, the casting of 
 a shadow, the fracture of a stone— will be taken up 
 again and again, and strangely worked into new rela- 
 tions with other thoughts. There is a single sketch 
 from nature in one of the portfolios at Farnley, of a 
 common wood-walk on the estate, which has furnished 
 passages to no fewer thaii three of the most elaborate 
 compositions in the Liber Studiorum. 
 
 I am thus tedious in dwelling on Turner's powers 
 of memory, because I wish it to be thoroughly seen 
 how all his greatness, all his infinite luxuriance of 
 invention, depends on his taking possession of every- 
 
Selections 2^3 
 
 thing that he sees,— on his grasping all, and losing 
 hold of nothing,— on his forgetting himself, and for- 
 getting nothing else. I wish it to be understood how 
 every great man paints what he sees or did see, his 
 greatness being indeed little else than his intense sense 
 of fact. And thus Pre-Raphaelitism and Raphaelitism, 
 and Turnerism, are all one and the same, so far as 
 education can influence them. They are different in 
 their choice, different in their faculties, but all the 
 same in this, that Raphael himself, so far as he was 
 great, and all who preceded or followed him who 
 ever were great, became so by painting the truths 
 around them as they appeared to each man's own 
 mind, not as he had been taught to see them, except 
 by the God who made both him and them. * * * * 
 Let this single fact be quietly meditated upon by 
 our ordinary painters, and they will see the truth of 
 what was above asserted, — that if a great thing can be 
 done at all, it can be done easily; and let them not 
 torment themselves with twisting of compositions this 
 way and that, and repeating, and experimenting, and 
 scene shifting. If a man can compose at all, he can 
 compose at once, or rather he must compose in spite of 
 himself. * * * * As if a man were not composing 
 every moment of his life, well or ill, and would not do 
 it instinctively in his picture as well as elsewhere, if he 
 could. Composition of this lower or common kind is 
 of exactly the same importance in a picture that it is 
 in anything else, — no more. It is well that a man 
 should say what he has to say in good order and 
 sequence, but the main thing is to say it truly. And 
 yet we go on preaching to our pupils as if to have a 
 
234 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 principal light was every thing, and so cover our 
 academy walls with Shacabac feasts, wherein the 
 courses are indeed well ordered, but the dishes empty. 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. I. 
 
 That collateral necessity is the visible operation of 
 human intellect in the presentation of truth, the evi- 
 dence of what is properly called design or 
 plan in the work, no less than of veracity. 
 A looking-glass does not design — it receives and com- 
 municates indiscriminately all that passes before it ; a 
 painter designs when he chooses some things, refuses 
 others, and arranges all. 
 
 This selection and arrangement must have influence 
 over everything that the art is concerned with, great 
 or small — over lines, over colours, and over ideas. 
 Given a certain group of colours, by adding another 
 colour at the side of them, you will either improve the 
 group and render it more delightful, or injure it, and 
 render it discordant and unintelligible. "Design" is 
 the choosing and placing the colour so as to help and 
 enhance all the other colours it is set beside. So of 
 thoughts: in a good composition, every idea is pre- 
 sented in just that order, and with just that force, 
 which will perfectly connect it with all the other 
 thoughts in the work, and will illustrate the others as 
 well as receive illustration from them; so that the 
 entire chain of thoughts offered to the beholder's 
 mind shall be received by him with as much delight 
 and with as little effort as is possible. And thus you 
 see design, properly so called, is human invention, 
 consulting human capacity. Out of the infinite heap 
 
Selections 235 
 
 of things around us in the world, it chooses a certain 
 number which it can thoroughly grasp, and presents 
 this group to the spectator in the form best calculated 
 to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with 
 delight. 
 
 And accordingly, the capacities of both gatherer and 
 receiver being limited, the object is to make every- 
 thing that you offer helpful and precious 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XIV, %z8. 
 
 §28. These discoveries of ultimate truth are, I 
 believe, never made philosophically, but instinctively; 
 Emotion and ^° *^^* wherever we find a high abstract 
 ^ri'Sf-'^"" i^esult of the kind, we may be almost sure it 
 gether. i^^s been the work of the penetrative imag- 
 
 ination, acting under the influence of strong affection. 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. IV. 
 
 Again. Remember that when the imagination and 
 feelings are strongly excited, they will not only bear 
 with strange things, but they will look into minute 
 things with a delight quite unknown in hours of tran- 
 quillity. You surely must remember moments of your 
 lives in which, under some strong excitement of feel- 
 ing, all the details of visible objects presented them- 
 selves with a strange intensity and insistence, whether 
 you would or no ; urging themselves upon the mind, 
 and thrust upon the eye, with a force of fascination 
 which you could not refuse. Now, to a certain extent, 
 the senses get into this state whenever the imagina- 
 tion is strongly excited. Things trivial at other 
 times assume a dignity or significance which we can- 
 
236 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 not explain; but which is only the more attractive 
 because inexplicable: and the powers of attention, 
 quickened by the feverish excitement, fasten and 
 feed upon the minutest circumstances of detail, and 
 remotest traces of intention. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. /, Chap. II, §§//, 13. 
 
 §11. It is not, therefore, that the signs of his affec- 
 tions, which man leaves upon his work, are indeed 
 more ennobling than the signs of his intelligence ; but 
 it is the balance of both whose expression we need, 
 and the signs of the government of them all by Con- 
 science ; and Discretion, the daughter of Conscience. 
 So, then, the intelligent part of man being eminently, 
 if not chiefly, displayed in the structure of his work, 
 his affectionate part is to be shown in its decoration ; 
 and, that decoration may be indeed lovely, two things 
 are needed: first, that the affections be vivid, and 
 honestly shown ; secondly, that they be fixed on the 
 right things. 
 
 §13. So, then, the first thing we have to ask of the 
 decoration is that it should indicate strong liking, and 
 that honestly. It matters not so much what the thing 
 is, as that the builder should really love it and enjoy 
 it, and say so plainly. The architect of Bourges 
 Cathedral liked hawthorns; so he has covered his 
 porch with hawthorn, — it is a perfect Niobe of May. 
 Never was such hawthorn; you would try to gather 
 it forthwith, but for fear of being pricked. The old 
 Lombard architects liked hunting; so they covered 
 their work with horses and hounds, and men blowing 
 
Selections 237 
 
 trumpets two yards long. The base Renaissance 
 architects of Venice liked masquing and fiddling; so 
 they covered their work with comic masks and musical 
 instruments. Even that was better than our English 
 way of liking nothing, and professing to like triglyphs. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. /, Pt. 11, Sec. I, Chap. VII, 
 IIj-, 6, 12, 10. 
 
 §5. The fact is, there is one thing wanting in all the 
 doing of these men, [Salvator, Claude, and G. Poussin] 
 and that is the very virtue by which the work of human 
 mind chiefly rises above that of the Daguerreotype 
 or Calotype, or any other mechanical means that 
 ever have been or maybe invented, Love: There is no 
 evidence of their ever having gone to nature with any 
 thirst, or received from her such emotion as could 
 make them, even for an instant, lose sight of them- 
 selves ; there is in them neither earnestness nor humil- 
 ity; there is no simple or honest record of any single 
 truth; none of the plain words nor straight efforts 
 that men speak and make when they once feel. 
 
 §6. Nor is it only by the professed landscape paint- 
 ers that the great verities of the material world are 
 betrayed: Grand as are the motives of land- 
 Scape scape in the works of the earlier and might- 
 ?tSr^tr"ier men, there is yet in them nothing 
 modem. approaching to a general view nor complete 
 rendering of natural phenomena; not that they are to 
 be blamed for this, for they took out of nature that 
 which was fit for their purpose, and their mission was 
 to do no more; but we must be cautious to distmgmsh 
 that imaginative abstraction of landscape which alone 
 
238 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticistn 
 
 we find in them, from the entire statement of truth 
 which has been attempted by the moderns. I have 
 said in the chapter on symmetry in the second volume, 
 that all landscape grandeur vanishes before that of 
 Titian and Tintoret ; and this is true of whatever these 
 two giants touched ; — ^but they touched little. 
 
 §12. Tintoret seldom reaches or attempts the elabora- 
 tion in substance and colour of these objects, but he is 
 even more truth-telling and certain in his rendering of 
 all the great characters of specific form, and as the pain- 
 ter of Space he stands altogether alone among dead 
 masters ; being the first who introduced the slightaess 
 and confusion of touch which are expressive of the 
 effects of luminous objects seen through large spaces 
 of air, and the principles of aerial colour 'which have 
 been since carried out in other fields by Turner. I 
 conceive him to be the most powerful painter whom 
 the world has seen, and that he was prevented from 
 being also the most perfect, partly by untoward cir- 
 cumstancs in his position and education, partly by the 
 very fulness and impetuosity of his own mind, partly 
 by the want of religious feeling and its accompanying 
 perception of beauty; for his noble treatment of 
 religious subjects, of which I have given several 
 examples in the third part, appears to be the result 
 only of that grasp which a great and well-toned intel- 
 lect necessarily takes of any subject submitted to it 
 and is wanting in the signs of the more withdrawn 
 ■ and sacred sympathies. 
 
 §10. It is a misfortune for all honest criti cs, that hardly 
 any quality of art is independently to be praised, and 
 without reference to the motive from which it resulted. 
 
Selections 230 
 
 and the place in which it appears; so that no prin- 
 ciple can be simply enforced but it shall seem to 
 Fimsh, and ^countenance a vice ; while the work of quali- 
 on^how fixation and explanation both weakens the 
 hi^w'^^ong. ^^^'^^ o^ ^liat is said, and is not perhaps 
 always likely to be with patience received: 
 so also those who desire to misunderstand or to oppose 
 have it always in their power to become obtuse lis- 
 teners or specious opponents. Thus I hardly dare in- 
 sist upon the virtue of completion, lest I should be 
 supposed a defender of Wouvermans or Gerard Dow; 
 neither can I adequately praise the power of Tintoret,' 
 without fearing to be thought adverse to Holbein or 
 Perugino. The fact is, that both finish and impet- 
 uosity, specific minuteness, or large abstraction, may 
 be the signs of passion, or of its reverse ; may result 
 from affection or indifference, intellect or dulness. 
 Some men finish from intense love of the beautiful in 
 the smallest parts of what they do; others in pure 
 incapability of comprehending anything but parts; 
 others to show their dexterity with the brush, and 
 prove expenditure of time. Some are impetuous and 
 bold in their handling, from having great thoughts to 
 express which are independent of detail; others 
 because they have bad taste or have been badly 
 taught ; others from vanity, and others from indolence. 
 (Compare Vol. II, chap, ix, §8.) Now both the finish 
 and incompletion are right where they are the signs 
 of passion or of thought, and both are wrong, and I 
 think the finish the, more contemptible of the two, 
 when they cease to be so. The modern Italians will 
 paint every leaf of a laurel or rose-bush without the 
 
240 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 slightest feeling of their beauty or character ; and with- 
 out showing one spark of intellect or affection from 
 beginning to end. Anything is better than this ; and 
 yet the very highest schools do the same thing, or 
 nearly so, but with totally different motives and per- 
 ceptions, and the result is divine. On the whole, I 
 conceive that the extremes of good and evil lie with 
 the finishers, and that whatever glorious power we 
 may admit in men like Tintoret, whatever attractive- 
 ness of method to Rubens, Rembrandt, or, though in 
 far less degree, our own Reynolds, still the thoroughly 
 great men are those who have done everything thor- 
 oughly, and who, in a word, have never despised any- 
 thing, however small, of God's making. And this is 
 the chief fault of our English landscapists, that they 
 have not the intense all-observing penetration of well- 
 balanced mind ; they have not, except in one or two 
 instances, anything of that feeling which Wordsworth 
 shows in the following lines : 
 
 "So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive; — 
 Would^that tlie little flowers were born to live 
 Conscious of half the pleasure which they give. 
 That to this mountain daisy's self were known 
 The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown 
 On the smooth surface of this naked stone." 
 
 That is a little bit of good, downright, foreground 
 painting — no mistake about it; daisy, and shadow, 
 and stone texture and all. Our painters must come to 
 this before they have done their duty; and yet, on the 
 other hand, let them beware of finishing, for the sake 
 of finish, all over their picture. The ground is not to 
 
Selections 241 
 
 be all over daisies, nor is every daisy to have its star- 
 shaped shadow ; there is as much finish in the right 
 concealment of things as in the right exhibition of 
 them; and while I demand this amount of specific 
 character where nature shows it, I demand equal 
 fidelity to her where she conceals it. To paint mist 
 rightly, space rightly, and light rightly, it may be 
 often necessary to paint nothing else rightly, but the 
 rule is simple for all that ; if the artist is painting 
 something that he knows and loves, as he knows it 
 because he loves it, whether it be the fair strawberry 
 of Cima, or the clear sky of Francia, or the blazing 
 incomprehensible mist of Turner, he is all right; but 
 the moment he does anything as he thinks it ought to 
 be, because he does not care about it, he is all wrong. 
 He has only to ask himself whether he cares for any- 
 thing except himself; so far as he does he will make 
 a good picture; so far as he thinks of himself a vile 
 one. This is the root of the viciousness of the whole 
 French school. Industry they have, learning they 
 have, power they have, feeling they have, yet not so 
 much feeling as ever to force them to forget them- 
 selves even for a moment; the ruling motive is inva- 
 riably vanity, and the picture therefore an abortion. 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. IV. 
 
 But while you thus give the rein to all your impulses, 
 see that those impulses be headed and centred by one 
 noble impulse; and let that be Love— triple love— for 
 the art which you practise, the creation in which you 
 move, and the creatures to whom you minister. 
 
 I. I say, first, Love for the art which you practise. 
 
242 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Be assured that if ever any other motive becomes a 
 imagination leading One in your mind, as the principal 
 under the one for exertion, except your love of art, 
 
 influence of i ^ j j 
 
 feeling. ^^at moment it is all over with your art. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 II. You must love the creation you work in the 
 midst of. For, wholly in proportion to the intensity 
 of feeling which you bring to the subject you have 
 chosen, will be the depth and justice of our perception 
 of its character. And this depth of feeling is not to 
 be gained on the instant, when you want to bring it 
 to bear on this or that. It is the result of the general 
 habit of striving to feel rightly ; and, among thousands 
 of various means of doing this, perhaps the one I ought 
 specially to name to you, is the keeping yourselves 
 clear of petty and mean cares. * * * * 
 
 III. And therefore, lastly, and chiefly, you must 
 love the creatures to whom you minister, your fellow 
 men ; for, if you do not love them, not only will you 
 be little interested in the passing events of life, but 
 in all your gazing at humanity, you will be apt to be 
 struck only by outside form, and not by expression. 
 It is only kindness and tenderness which will ever 
 enable you to see what beauty there is in the dark eyes 
 that are sunk with weeping, and in the paleness of 
 those fixed faces which the earth's adversity has com- 
 passed about, till they shine in their patience like 
 dying watchfires through twilight. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Arch., Led. V, §2/. 
 
 §21. I said, early in this essay, that hand-work might 
 always be known from machine-work; observing, 
 
Selections 243 
 
 however, at the same time, that it was possible for 
 men to turn themselves into machines, and to reduce 
 their labor to the machine level ; but so long as men 
 work as men, putting their heart into what they do, 
 and doing their best, it matters not how bad workmen 
 they may be, there will be that in the handling which 
 is above all price : it will be plainly seen that some 
 places have been delighted in more than others — that 
 there has been a pause, and a care about them ; and 
 then there will come careless bits, and fast bits ; and 
 here the chisel will have struck hard, and there lightly, 
 and anon timidly; and if the man's mind as well as 
 his heart went with his work, all this will be in the 
 right places, and each part will set off the other ; and 
 the effect of the whole, as compared with the same 
 design cut by a machine or a lifeless hand, will be 
 like that of poetry well read and deeply felt to that of 
 the same verses jangled by rote. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Ft. IV, Chap. IV, %io. 
 §10. But a shadow of increasing darkness fell upon 
 the human mind as aft proceeded to still more perfect 
 realization. These fantasies of the earlier painters, 
 though they darkened faith, never hardened feeling; 
 on the contrary, the frankness of their unlikelihood 
 proceeded mainly from the endeavour on the part of 
 the painter to express, not the actual fact, but the 
 enthusiastic state of his own feelings about the fact ; 
 he covers the Virgin's' dress with gold, not with any 
 idea of representing the Virgin as she ever was, or 
 ever will be seen, but with a burning desire to show 
 what his love and reverence would think fittest for 
 
244 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 her. He erects for the stable a Lombardic portico, 
 not because he supposes the Lombard! to have built 
 stables in Palestine in the days of Tiberius, but to 
 show that the manger in which Christ was laid is, in 
 his eyes, nobler than the greatest architecture in the 
 world. He fills his landscape with church spires and 
 silver streams, not because he supposes that either 
 were in sight of Bethlehem, but to remind the 
 beholder of the peaceful course and succeeding power 
 of Christianity. And, regarded with due sympathy 
 and clear understanding of these thoughts of the artist, 
 such pictures remain most impressive and touching, 
 even to this day. I shall refer to them in future, in gen- 
 eral terms, as the pictures of the "Angelican Ideal" — 
 Angelico being the central master of the school. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VIII, %2i. 
 
 §21. I believe the reader will now sufficiently see 
 how the terms "true" and "false" are in the most 
 accurate sense attachable to the opposite branches of 
 what might appear at first, in both cases, the merest 
 wildness of inconsistent reverie'. But they are even 
 to be attached, in a deeper sense than 'that in which 
 we have hitherto used them, to these two compositions. 
 For the imagination hardly ever works in this intense 
 way, unencumbered by the inferior faculties, unless it 
 be under the influence of some solemn purpose or sen- 
 timent. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XVII, §9. 
 
 §9. But, on the other hand, while these feelings of 
 delight in natural objects cannot be construed into 
 
Selections 24 c 
 
 signs of the highest mental powers, or purest moral 
 principles, we see that they are assuredly indicative 
 of minds above the usual standard of power, and 
 endowed with sensibilities of great preciousness to 
 humanity ; so that those who find themelves entirely 
 destitute of them, must make this want a subject of 
 humiliation, not of pride. The apathy which cannot 
 perceive beauty is very different from the stern energy 
 which disdains it; and the coldness of heart which 
 receives no emotion from external nature, is not to be 
 confounded with the wisdom of purpose which represses 
 emotion in action. In the case of most men, it is 
 neither acuteness of the reason, nor breadth of 
 humanity, which shields them from the impressions of 
 natural scenery, but rather low anxieties, vain discon- 
 tents, and mean pleasures ; for one who is blind to the 
 works of God by profound abstraction or lofty pur- 
 pose, tens of thousands have their eyes sealed by vul- 
 gar selfishness, and their intelligence crushed by 
 impious care. 
 
 Observe, then : we have, among mankind in general, 
 the three orders of being ; — the lowest, sordid and sel- 
 fish, which neither sees nor feels ; the second, noble and 
 sympathetic, but which sees and feels without conclud- 
 ing or acting; the third and highest, which loses sight 
 in resolution, and feeling in work. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. II, §§7. 2^. S4- 
 
 §7. Nor let it be supposed that the doing of this 
 
 would ever become mechanical, or be found too easy, 
 
 or exclude sentiment. As for its being easy, those 
 
 only think so who never tried it ; composition being, 
 
246 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 in fact, infinitely easier to a man who can compose, 
 than imitation of this high kind to even the most able 
 imitator; nor -would it exclude sentiment, for, how- 
 ever sincerely we may try to paint all we see, this can- 
 not, as often aforesaid, be ever done : all that is possible 
 is a certain selection, and more or less wilful assertion, 
 of one fact in preference to another; which selection 
 ought always to be made under the influence of senti- 
 ment. 
 
 §2 2. One or two important corollaries may be drawn 
 from these principles, respecting the kind of fidelity 
 which is to be exacted from men who have no imagin- 
 ative power. It has been stated, over and over again, 
 that it is not possible to draw the whole of nature, as 
 in a mirror. Certain omissions must be made, and 
 certain conventionalities admitted, in all art. Now it 
 ought to be the instinctive affection of each painter 
 which guides him to the omissions he is to make, or 
 signs he is to use ; and his choice of this or the other 
 fact for representation, his insistance upon this or the 
 other character in his subject, as that which to him is 
 impressive, constitutes, when it is earnest and simple, 
 part of the value of his work. This is the only inspir- 
 ation he is capable of, but it is a kind of inspiration 
 still; and although he may not have the memory 
 or the associative power which would enable him to 
 compose a subject in the Turnerian manner, he may 
 have certain affections, perfectly expressible in his 
 work, and of which he ought to allow the influence 
 to be seen. 
 
 §24. Still, in all these cases, the more unconscious 
 the draughtsman is of the changes he is making, the 
 
Selections 247 
 
 better. Love will then do its own proper work ; and 
 the only true test of good or bad is, ultimately, 
 strength of affection. For it does not matter with 
 what wise purposes, or on what wise principles, the 
 thing is drawn; if it be not drawn for love of it, 
 it will never be right ; and if it be drawn for love of 
 it, it will never be wrong — love's misrepresentation 
 being truer than the most mathematical presentation. 
 And although all the reasonings about right and 
 wrong, through which we have been led in this chap- 
 ter, could never be brought to bear on the work at the 
 moment of doing it, yet this test of right holds always ; 
 — if the artist is in anywise modifying or methodizing 
 to exhibit himself and his dexterity, his work will, in 
 that precise degree, be abortive ; and if he is working 
 with hearty love of the place, earnest desire to be 
 faithful to it, and yet an open heart for every fancy 
 that Heaven sends him, in that precise degree his 
 work will be great and good. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. XV, %S4- 
 §34. He was, however, especially obedient to these 
 laws of the crests, because he heartily loved them. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. V, §§/. 14- 
 §5. And going down from this great truth to the 
 lower truths which are types of it in smaller matters, 
 we shall find, that as soon as people try honestly to 
 see all they can of anything, they come to a point 
 where a noble dimness begins. They see more than 
 others; but the consequence of their seeing more 
 is, that they feel they cannot see all; and the more 
 
248 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 intense their perception, the more the crowd of things 
 which they partly see will multiply upon them ; and 
 their delight may at last principally consist in dwell- 
 ing on this] cloudy part of their prospect, somewhat 
 casting away or aside what to them has become com- 
 paratively common, but is perhaps the sum and sub- 
 stance of all that other people see in the thing, for the 
 utmost subtleties and shadows and glancings of it can- 
 not be caught but by the most practised vision. And 
 as a delicate ear rejoices in the slighter and more 
 modulated passages of sound which to a blunt ear are 
 utterly monotonous in their quietness, or unintelligible 
 in their complication, so, when the eye is exquisitely 
 keen and clear, it is fain to rest on gray films of shade, 
 and wandering rays of light, and intricaices of tender 
 form, passing over hastily, as unworthy or common- 
 place, what to a less educated sense appears the whole 
 of the subject. In painting, this progress of the eye 
 is marked always by one consistent sign — its sensi- 
 bility, namely, to effects of gradation in light and 
 colour, and habit of looking for them, rather even than 
 for the signs of the essence of the subject. It will, 
 indeed, see more of that essence than is seen by other 
 eyes ; and its choice of the points to be seized upon will 
 be always regulated by that special sympathy which we 
 have above examined as the motive of the Turnerian 
 picturesque; but yet, the more it is cultivated, the 
 more of light and colour it will perceive, the less of 
 substance. 
 
 §14. "Well, then, you mean to say that the tendency 
 of this age to general cloudiness, as opposed to the old 
 religious clearness of painting, is one of degradation; 
 
Selections 249 
 
 but that Turner is this one man who has risen past 
 clearness?" 
 
 Yes. With some modifications of the saying, I 
 mean that, but those modifications will take us a little 
 time to express accurately. 
 
 For, first, it will not do to condemn every minor 
 painter utterly, the moment we see he is foggy. Cop- 
 ley Fielding, for instance, was a minor painter; but 
 his love of obscurity in rain clouds, and dew-mist on 
 downs, was genuine love, full of sweetness and happy 
 aspiration; and, in this way, a little of the light of the 
 higher mystery is often caught by the simplest men 
 when they keep their hearts open. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Ft. IX, Chap. XII, %8. 
 
 §8. Neither is good work ever done for hatred, any 
 more than hire — but for love only. For love of their 
 country, or their leader, or their duty, men fight 
 steadily ; but for massacre and plunder, feebly. Your 
 signal, "England expects every man to do his duty," 
 they will answer; your signal of black flag and 
 death's head, they will not answer. And verily they 
 will answer it no more in commerce than in battle. 
 The cross bones will not make a good shop-sign, you 
 will find ultimately, any more than a good battle stan- 
 dard. Not the cross bones but the cross. 
 
 Lectures on Art, IV, %i24. 
 
 §124. I can easily teach you, as any other moderately 
 
 good draughtsman could, how to hold your pencils, and 
 
 how to lay your colours; but it is little use my doing 
 
 that, while the nation is spending millions of money in 
 
2 So Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the destruction of all that pencil or colour have to repre- 
 sent, and in the promotion of false forms of art, which 
 are only the costliest and the least enjoyable of follies. 
 And therefore these are the things that I have first and 
 last to tell you in this place : — that the fine arts are not 
 to be learned by Locomotion, but by making the homes 
 we live in lovely, and by staying in them ; — that the fine 
 arts are not to be learned by Competition, but by doing 
 our quiet best in our own way; — that the fine arts are 
 not to be learned by Exhibition, but by doing what is 
 right, and making what is honest, whether it be exhib- 
 ited or not ; — and, for the sum of all, that men must 
 paint and build neither for pride nor for money, but 
 for love ; for love of their art, for love of their neigh- 
 bour, and whatever better love may be than these, 
 founded on these. 
 
 Modern Painters, VoU III, Pt. IV, Chaf, I, %i6, 77, tS. 
 
 §16. This question being thus far determined, we 
 may proceed with our paper in the Idler. 
 
 "It is very difficult to determine the exact degree of 
 enthusiasm that the arts of poetry and painting may 
 admit. There may, perhaps, be too great indulgence 
 as well as too great a restraint of imagination; if the 
 one produces incoherent monsters, the other produces 
 what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity. An intimate 
 knowledge of the passions, and good sense, but not 
 common sense, must at last determine its limits. It 
 has been thought, and I believe with reason, that 
 Michael Angelo sometimes transgressed those limits; 
 and, I think, I have seen figures of him of which it 
 was very difficult to determine whether they were in 
 
Selections 
 
 251 
 
 the highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous. 
 Such faults may be said to be the ebullitions of genius ; 
 but at least he had this merit, that he never was 
 insipid, and whatever passion his works may excite, 
 they will always escape contempt. 
 
 "What I have had under consideration is the 
 sublimest style, particularly that of Michael Angelo, 
 the Homer of painting. Other kinds may admit of 
 this naturalness, which of the lowest kind is the chief 
 merit; but in painting, as in poetry, the highest style 
 has the least of common nature." 
 
 From this passage we gather three important indica- 
 tions of the supposed nature of the Great Style. That 
 it is the work of men in a state of enthusiasm. That 
 it is like the writing of Homer ; and that it has as little 
 as possible of "common nature" in it. 
 
 §17. First, it is produced by men in a state of 
 enthusiasm. That is, by men who feel strongly and 
 nobly; for we do not call a strong feeling of envy, 
 jealousy, or ambition, enthusiasm. That is, there- 
 fore, by men who feel poetically. This much we may 
 admit, I think, with perfect safety. Great art is pro- 
 duced by men who feel acutely and nobly; and it is in 
 some sort an expression of this personal feeling. We 
 can easily conceive that there may be a sufficiently 
 marked distinction between such art, and that which is 
 produced by men who do not feel at all, but who 
 reproduce, though ever so accurately, yet coldly, like 
 human mirrors, the scenes which pass before their 
 
 eyes. 
 
 §18. We gather then, on the whole, that a painter in 
 the Great Style must be enthusiastic, or full of emo- 
 
2S2 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 tion, and must paint the human form in its utmost 
 strength and beauty, and perhaps certain impossible ' 
 forms besides, liable by persons not in an equally 
 enthusiastic state of mind to be looked upon as in 
 some degree absurd. This I presume to be Reynolds's 
 meaning. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. VII, §//, i6. 
 
 §15. Such, then, being the generally passive or 
 instinctive character of right invention, it may be 
 
 asked how these unmanageable instincts are 
 tionofthe to be rendered practically serviceable in 
 
 historical or poetical painting, — especially 
 historical, in which given facts are to be represented. 
 Simply by the sense and self-control of the whole 
 man ; not by control of the particular fancy or vision. 
 He who habituates himself, in his daily life, to seek 
 for the stern facts in whatever he hears or sees, will 
 have these facts again brought before him by the 
 involuntary imaginative power in their noblest associa- 
 tions ; and he who seeks for frivolities and fallacies, 
 will have frivolities and fallacies again presented to 
 him in his dreams. Thus if, in reading history for 
 the purpose of painting from it, the painter severely 
 seeks for the accurate circumstances of every event; 
 as, for instance, determining the exact spot of ground 
 on which his hero fell, the way he must have been 
 looking at the moment, the height the sun was at (by 
 the hour of the day), and the way in which the light 
 must have fallen upon his face, the actual number and 
 individuality of the persons by him at the moment, 
 
Selections 253 
 
 and such other veritable details, ascertaining and 
 dwelling upon them without the slightest care for any 
 desirableness or poetic propriety in them, but for their 
 own truth's sake; then these truths will afterwards 
 rise up and form the body of his imaginative vision, 
 perfected and united as his inspiration may teach. 
 But if, in reading the history, he does not regard these 
 facts, but thinks only how it might all most prettily, 
 and properly, and impressively, have happened, then 
 there is nothing but prettiness and propriety to form 
 the body of his future imagination, and his whole 
 ideal becomes false. So, in the higher or expressive 
 part of the work, the whole virtue of it depends on his 
 being able to quit his own personality, and enter suc- 
 cessively into the hearts and thoughts of each person ; 
 and in all this he is still passive: in gathering the 
 truth he is passive, not determining what the truth to 
 be gathered shall be ; and in the after vision he is pas- 
 sive, not determining, but as his dreams will have it, 
 what the truth to be represented shall be : only accord- 
 ing to his own nobleness] is his power of entering into 
 the hearts of noble persons, and the general character 
 of his dream of them. 
 
 §16. It follows from all this, evidently, that a great 
 idealist never can be egotistic. The whole of his 
 power depends upon his losing sight and feeling of his 
 own existence, and becoming a mere witness and mir- 
 ror of truth, and a scribe of visions,— always passive 
 in sight, passive in utterance,— lamenting continually 
 that he cannot completely reflect nor clearly utter all 
 he has seen. Not by any means a proud state for a 
 man to be in. But the man who has no invention is 
 
254 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 always setting things in order, and putting the world 
 to rights, and mending, and beautifying, and pluming 
 himself on his doings as supreme in all ways. 
 
 Lectures on Art, Led. Ill, §§7^, 74. 
 
 §72. It is, of course, true that many of the strong 
 masters had deep faults of character, but their faults 
 Emotion always show in their work. It is true that 
 controlled, gome could not govern their passions ; if so, 
 they died young, or they painted ill when old. But 
 the greater part of our misapprehension in the whole 
 matter is from our not having well known who the 
 great painters were, and taking delight in the petty 
 skill that was bred in the fumes of the taverns of the 
 North, instead of theirs who breathed empyreal air, 
 sons of the morning, under the woods of Assisi and the 
 crags of Cadore. 
 
 §74. Observe then, this Puritanism in the worship of 
 beauty, though sometimes weak, is always honourable 
 and amiable, and the exact reverse of the false Puri- 
 tanism, which consists in the dread or disdain of 
 beauty. And in order to treat my subject rightly, I 
 ought to proceed from the skill of art to the choice of 
 its subject, and show you how the moral temper of the 
 workman is shown by his seeking lovely forms and 
 thoughts to express, as well as by the force of his hand 
 in expression. But I need not now urge this part of 
 the proof on you, because you are already, I believe, 
 sufficiently conscious of the truth in this matter, and 
 also I have already said enough of it in my writings; 
 whereas I have not at all said enough of the infallible- 
 
Selections 2S5 
 
 ness of fine technical work as a proof of every other 
 good power. And indeed it was long before I myself 
 understood the true meaning of the pride of the great- 
 est men in their mere execution, shown, for a per- 
 manent lesson to us, in the stories which, whether 
 true or not, indicate with absolute accuracy the gen- 
 eral conviction of great artists; — the stories of the 
 contest of Apelles and Protogenes in a line only, (of 
 which I can promise you, you shall know the meaning 
 to some purpose in a little while), — the story of the 
 circle of Giotto, and especially, which you may perhaps 
 not have observed, the expression of Durer in his 
 inscription on the drawings sent him by Raphael. 
 These figures, he says, "Raphael drew and sent to 
 Albert Diirer in Niirnberg, to show him" — What? Not 
 his invention, nor his beauty of expression, but "sein 
 Hand zu weisen, " " To show him his hand." And you 
 will find, as you examine farther, that all inferior 
 artists are continually trying to escape from the neces- 
 sity of sound work, and either indulging themselves in 
 their delights in subject, or pluming themselves on 
 their noble motives for attempting what they cannot 
 perform ; (and observe, by the way, that a great deal 
 of what is mistaken for conscientious motive is noth- 
 ing but a very pestilent, because very subtle, condition 
 of vanity) ; whereas the great men always understand 
 at once that the first morality of a painter, as of every- 
 body else, is to know his business ; and so earnest are 
 they in this, that many, whose lives you would think, 
 by the results of their work, had been passed in strong 
 emotion, have in reality subdued themselves, though 
 capable of the very strongest passions, into a calm as 
 
256 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 absolute as that of a deeply sheltered mountaia lake, 
 which reflects every agitation of the clouds in the sky, 
 and every change of shadows on the hills, but is itseif 
 motionless. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pt. VIII, Chap. Ill, %8. 
 
 §8, I do not, however, purpose here to examine or 
 illustrate the nature of great treatment — to do so 
 effectually would need many examples from the figure 
 composers; and it will be better (if I have time to 
 work out the subject carefully) that I should do so in 
 a form which may be easily accessible to young stu- 
 dents. Here I will only state in conclusion what it is 
 chiefly important for all students to be convinced of, 
 that all the technical qualities by which greatness of 
 treatment is known, such as reserve in colour, tranquil- 
 lity and largeness of line, and refusal of unnecessary 
 objects of interest, are, when they are real, the expo- 
 nents of an habitually noble temper of mind, never 
 the observances of a precept supposed to be useful. 
 The refusal or reserve of a mighty painter cannot be 
 imitated; it is only by reaching the same intellectual 
 strength that you will be able to give an equal dignity 
 to your self-denial. No one can tell you beforehand 
 what to accept, or what to ignore; only remember 
 always, in painting as in eloquence, the greater your 
 strength, the quieter will be your manner, and the 
 fewer your words ; and in painting, as in all the arts 
 and acts of life, the secret of high success will be 
 found, not in a fretful, and various excellence, but in 
 a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim. 
 
Selections 257 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pi. VIII, Chap. IV, §§/, 2,3, 20, zi. 
 
 §1. Among the several characteristics of great treat- 
 ment which in the last chapter were alluded to with- 
 out being enlarged upon, one will be found several 
 times named ; — reserve. 
 
 It is necessary for our present purpose that we 
 should understand this quality more distinctly. I 
 mean by it the power which a great painter exercises 
 over himself in fixing certain limits, either of force, of 
 colour, or of quantity of work ; — limits which he will not 
 transgress in any part of his picture, even though 
 here and there a painful sense of incompletion may 
 exist, under the fixed conditions, and might tempt an 
 inferior workman to infringe them. The nature of 
 this reserve we must understand in order that we may 
 also determine the nature of true completion or per- 
 fectness, which is the end of composition. 
 
 §2. For perfectness, properly so called, means har- 
 mony. The word signifies, literally, the doing of our 
 work thoroughly. It does not mean carrying it up to 
 any constant and established degree of finish, but 
 carrying the whole of it up to a degree determined 
 upon. In a chalk or pencil sketch by a great master, 
 it will often be found that the deepest shades are 
 feeble tints of pale gray; the outlines nearly invisible, 
 and the forms brought out by a ghostly delicacy of 
 touch, which, on looking close to the paper, will be 
 indistinguishable from its general texture. A single 
 line of ink, occurring anywhere in such a drawing, 
 would of course destroy it ; placed in the darkness of 
 a mouth or nostril, it would turn the expression into a 
 caricature; on a cheek or brow it would be simply a 
 
2S8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 blot. Yet let the blot remain, and let the master 
 work up to it with lines of similar force; and the 
 drawing which was before perfect, in terms of pencil, 
 will become, under his hand, perfect in terms of ink; 
 and what was before a scratch on the cheek will be- 
 come a necessary and beautiful part of its gradation. 
 
 All great work is thus reduced under certain condi- 
 tions, and its right to be called complete depends on 
 its fulfilment of them, not on the nature of the con- 
 ditions chosen. Habitually, indeed, we call a coloured 
 work which is satisfactory to us, finished, and a chalk 
 drawing unfinished ; but in the mind of the master, 
 all his work is, according to the sense in which you 
 use the word, equally perfect or imperfect. Perfect, 
 if you regard its purpose and limitation ; imperfect, if 
 you compare it with the natural standard. In what 
 appears to you consummate, the master has assigned 
 to himself terms of shortcoming, and marked with a 
 sad severity the point up to which he will permit him- 
 self to contend with nature. Were it not for his 
 acceptance of such restraint, he could neither quit his 
 work, nor endure it. He could not quit it, for he 
 would always perceive more that might be done ; he 
 could not endure it, because all doing ended only in 
 more elaborate deficiency. 
 
 §3. But we are apt to forget, in modern days, that 
 the reserve of a man who is not putting forth half his 
 strength is different in manner and dignity from the 
 effort of one who can do no more. Charmed, and 
 justly charmed, by the harmonious sketches of great 
 painters, and by the grandeur of their acquiescence in 
 the point of pause, we have put ourselves to produce 
 
Selections 259 
 
 sketches as an end instead of a means, and thought to 
 imitate the painter's scornful restraint of his own 
 power, by a scornful rejection of the things beyond 
 ours. For many reasons, therefore, it becomes desir- 
 able to understand precisely and finally what a good 
 painter means by completion. 
 
 §20. But, whatever the means used may be, the cer- 
 tainty and directness of them imply absolute grasp of 
 the whole subject, and without this grasp there is no 
 good painting. This, finally, let me declare, without 
 qualification — that partial conception is no conception. 
 The whole picture must be imagined, or none of it is. 
 And this grasp of the whole implies very strange and 
 sublime qualities of mind. It is not possible, unless 
 the feelings are completely under control; the least 
 excitement or passion will disturb the measured equity 
 of power ; a painter needs to be as cool as a general ; 
 and as little moved or subdued by his sense of pleasure 
 as a soldier by the sense of pain. Nothing good can 
 be done without intense feeling; but it must be feeling 
 so crushed, that the work is set about with mechan- 
 ical steadiness, absolutely untroubled, as a surgeon, — 
 not without pity, but conquering it and putting it 
 aside — ^begins an operation. Until the feelings can 
 give strength enough to the will to enable it to con- 
 quer them, they are not strong enough. If you cannot 
 leave your picture at any moment ; — cannot turn from 
 it and go on with another, while the colour is drying ;— 
 cannot work at any part of it you choose with equal 
 contentment — you have not firm enough grasp of it. 
 
 §21. It follows also, that no vain or selfish person 
 pan possibly paint, in the noble sense of the word. 
 
26o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Vanity and selfishness are troublous, eager, anxious, 
 petulant; — painting can only be done in calm of mind. 
 Resolution is not enough to secure this ; it must be 
 secured by disposition as well. You may resolve to 
 think of your picture only; but, if you have been 
 fretted before beginning, no manly or clear grasp of 
 it will be possible for you. No forced calm is calm 
 enough. Only honest calm — natural calm. You 
 might as well try by external pressure to smoothe a 
 lake till it could reflect the sky, as by violence of effort 
 to secure the peace through which only you can reach 
 imagination. That peace must come in its own time; 
 as the waters settle themselves into clearness as well 
 as quietness ; you can no more filter your mind into 
 purity than you can compress it into calmness; you 
 must keep it pure, if you would have it pure; and 
 throw no stones into it, if you would have it quiet. 
 Great courage and self-command may, to a certain 
 extent, give power of painting without the true calm- 
 ness underneath; but never of doing first-rate work. 
 There is sufiicient evidence of this, in even what we 
 know of great men, though of the greatest, we nearly 
 always know the least (and that necessarily; they 
 being very silent, and not much given to setting them- 
 selves forth to questioners ; apt to be contemptuously 
 reserved, no less than unselfishly). But in such writ- 
 ings and sayings as we possess of theirs, we may trace 
 a quite curious gentleness and serene courtesy. 
 Rubens' letters are almost ludicrous in their unhurried 
 politeness. Reynolds, swiftest of painters, was gen- 
 tlest of companions; so-also Velasquez, Titian, and 
 Veronese. 
 
Selections 261 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. I. 
 
 I find this more and more every day : an infinitude 
 of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the 
 truly great men. It is sure to involve a relative 
 intensity of disdain towards base things, and an 
 appearance of steri^ness and arrogance in the eyes of 
 all hard, stupid, and vulgar people — quite terrific to 
 such, if they are capable of terror, and hateful to 
 them, if they are capable of nothing higher than 
 hatred. Dante's is the great type of this class of 
 mind. I say the first inheritance is Tenderness — the 
 second Truth, because the Tenderness is in the make 
 of the creature, the Truth in his acquired habits and 
 knowledge; besides, the love comes first in dignity as 
 well as in time, and that is always pure and complete : 
 the truth, at best, imperfect. 
 
 The Two Paths, Lect. IV. 
 
 If we were to be asked abruptly, and required to 
 answer briefly, what qualities chiefly distinguish great 
 artists from feeble artists, we should answer, I sup- 
 pose, first, their sensibility and tenderness ; secondly, 
 their imagination; and thirdly, their industry. 
 
 « « 4: 4! 4: 
 
 But though this quality of industry is essential to an 
 artist, it does not in anywise make an artist; many 
 people are busy, whose doings are little worth. 
 Neither does sensibility make an artist; since, as I 
 hope, many can feel both strongly and nobly, who yet 
 care nothing about art. But the gifts which distinct- 
 ively mark the artist — without which he must be feeble 
 in life, forgotten in death— wtVA which he may become 
 
362 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 one of the shakers of the earth, and one of the signal 
 lights in heaven— are those of sympathy and imaginar 
 tion. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. II, §7*. 
 
 §72. And now observe how often a fault in feeling in- 
 duces also a fault in style. In the old tombs the angels 
 used to stand on or by the side of the sarcophagus; 
 but their places are here to be occupied by the Virtues, 
 and therefore, to sustain the diminutive Roman fig- 
 ures at the necessary height, each has a whole Cor- 
 inthian pillar to himself, a pillar whose shaft is eleven 
 feet high, and some three or four feet round : and 
 because this was not high enough, it is put on a 
 pedestal four feet and a half high ; and has a spurred 
 base besides of its own, a tall capital, then a huge 
 bracket above the capital, and then another pedestal 
 above the bracket, and on the top of all the diminutive 
 figure who has charge of the curtains. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. IV, §67. 
 
 §67. From what we have seen to be its nature, we 
 must, I think, be led to one most important conclusion ; 
 that wherever the human mind is healthy and vigorous 
 in all its proportions, great in imagination and emotion 
 no less than in intellect, and not overborne by an 
 undue or hardened pre-eminence of the mere reasoning 
 faculties, there the grotesque will exist in full energy. 
 And, accordingly, I believe that there is no test of 
 greatness in periods, nations, or men, more sure than 
 the development, among them or in them, of a noble 
 grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or 
 
Selections 263 
 
 limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the 
 absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of 
 understanding it. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, Chap. V, %i6. 
 
 §16. Do not let it be supposed that I imagine the 
 Byzantine workmen to have had these various princi- 
 ples in their minds as they built. I believe they built 
 altogether from feeling, and that it was because they 
 did so, that there is this marvellous life, changefulness, 
 and subtlety running through their every arrange- 
 ment ; and that we reason upon the lovely building as 
 we should upon some fair growth of the trees of the 
 earth, that know not their own beauty. 
 
 Poetry of Architecture, Introduction. 
 
 I shall attempt, therefore, to endeavour to illustrate 
 the principle from the neglect of which these abuses 
 have arisen ; that of [unity of feeling, the basis of all 
 grace, the essence of all beauty. We shall consider 
 the architecture of nations as it is influenced by their 
 feelings and manners, as it is connected with the 
 scenery in which it is found, and with the skies under 
 which it was erected ; we shall be led as much to the 
 street and the cottage as to the temple and the tower; 
 and shall be more interested in buildings raised by 
 feeling, than in those corrected by rule. We shall 
 commence with the lower class of edifices, proceeding 
 from the road-side to the village, and from the village 
 to the city; and, if we succeed in directing the atten- 
 tion of a single individual more directly to this most 
 
264 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 interesting department of the science of architecture, 
 we shall not have written in vain. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. II, %87. 
 
 §87. Now, I am very sure that no reader who has 
 given any attention to the former portions of this 
 work, or the tendency of what else I have written, 
 more especially the last chapter of the "Seven Lamps" 
 will suppose me to underrate the importance, or dis- 
 pute the authority, of law. It has been necessary for 
 me to allege these again and again, nor can they 
 ever be too often or too energetically alleged, against 
 the vast masses of men who now disturb or retard 
 the advance of civilization ; heady and high-minded, 
 despisers of discipline, and refusers of correction. But 
 law, so far as it can be reduced to form and system, 
 and is not written upon the heart, — as it is, in a Divine 
 loyalty, upon the hearts of the great hierarchies who 
 serve and wait about the throne of the Eternal Law- 
 giver, — this lower and formally expressible law has, I 
 say, two objects. It is either for the definition and 
 restraint of sin, or the guidance of simplicity; it either 
 explains, forbids, and punishes wickedness, or it guides 
 the movements and actions both of lifeless things and 
 of the more simple and untaught among responsible 
 agents. And so long, therefore, as sin and foolishness 
 are in the world, so long it will be necessary for men 
 to submit themselves painfully to this lower law, in 
 proportion to their need of being corrected, and to the 
 degree of childishness or simplicity by which they 
 approach more nearly to the condition of the unthink- 
 ing and inanimate things which are governed by law 
 
Selections 265 
 
 altogether ; yet yielding, in the manner of their sub- 
 mission to it, a singular lesson to the pride of man, — 
 being obedient more perfectly in proportion to their 
 greatness. But, so far as men become good and wise, 
 and rise above the state of children, so far they 
 become emancipated from this written law, and 
 invested with the perfect freedom which consists in 
 the fulness and joj^ulness of compliance with a 
 higher and unwritten law; a law so universal, so 
 subtle, so glorious, that nothing but the heart can 
 keep it. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 What general feeling, it may be asked incredu- 
 lously, can possibly pervade all this? This, the great- 
 Kange of ar- ®^* ^^ ^ feelings — an utter f orgetfulness of 
 thyae^^*' ^®^^- Throughout the whole period with 
 mtaesrank. which we are at present concerned. Turner 
 appears as a man of sympathy absolutely infinite — a 
 sympathy so all-embracing, that I know nothing but 
 that of Shakespeare comparable with it. A soldier's 
 wife resting by the roadside is not beneath it ; Rizpah, 
 the daughter of Aiah, watching the dead bodies of her 
 sons, not above it. Nothing can possibly be so mean 
 as that it will not interest his whole mind, and carry 
 away his whole heart; nothing so great or solemn 
 but that he can raise himself into harmony with it ; 
 and it is impossible to prophesy of him at any 
 moment, whether, the next, he will be in laughter 
 or in tears. 
 
 This is the root of the man's greatness ; and it follows 
 as a matter of course that this sympathy must give 
 
266 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 him a subtle power of expression, even of the char- 
 acters of mere material things, such as no other 
 painter ever possessed. The man who can best feel 
 the difference between rudeness and tenderness in 
 humanity, perceives also more difference between 
 the branches of an oak and a willow than any one 
 else would; and, therefore, necessarily, the most 
 striking character of the drawings themselves is the 
 specialty of whatever they represent — the thorough 
 stiffness of what is stiff, and grace of what is graceful, 
 and vastness of what is vast ; but through and beyond 
 all this, the condition of the mind of the painter him- 
 self is easily enough discoverable by comparison of a 
 large number of the drawings. It is singularly serene 
 and peaceful : in itself quite passionless, though entering 
 with ease into the external passion which it contem- 
 plates. By the effort of its will it sympathises with 
 tumult or distress, even in their extremes, but there 
 is no tumult, no sorrow in itself, only a chastened and 
 exquisitely peaceful cheerfulness, deeply meditative; 
 touched without loss of its own perfect balance, by 
 sadness on the one side, and stooping to playfulness 
 upon the other. * * * * 
 
 There are many other existing drawings which indi- 
 cate the same character of mind, though I think none 
 so touching or so beautiful ; yet they are not, as I said 
 above, more numerous than those which express his 
 sympathy with sublimer or more active scenes ; but 
 they are almost always marked by a tenderness of 
 execution, and have a look of being beloved in every 
 part of them, which shows them to be the truest 
 expression of his own feelings. 
 
Selections 267 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. IV. 
 
 Now just consider the amount of sympathy with 
 human nature, and observance of it, shown in this one 
 bas-relief ; the sympathy with disputing monks, with 
 puzzled aldermen, with melancholy recluse, with 
 triumphant prelate, with palsy-stricken poverty, with 
 ecclesiastical magnificence, or miracle-working faith. 
 Consider how much intellect was needed in the archi- 
 tect, and how much observance of nature before he 
 could give the expression to these various figures — 
 cast these multitudinous draperies — design these rich 
 and quaint fragments of tombs and altars — weave 
 with perfect animation the entangled branches of the 
 forest. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. I, §§75-, 16, 17. 
 
 §15. It is evident, from what has been advanced, 
 that there is no definite bar of separation between the 
 two; but that the dignity of the picturesque increases 
 from lower to higher, in exact proportion to the sym- 
 pathy of the arti st with his subj ect. And in like m anner 
 his own greatness depends (other things being equal) 
 on the extent of this sympathy. If he rests content 
 with narrow enjoyment of outward forms, and light 
 sensations of luxurious tragedy, and so goes on multi- 
 plying his sketches of mere picturesque material, he 
 necessarily settles down into the ordinary "clever" 
 artist, very good and respectable, maintaining himself 
 by his sketching and painting in an honorable way, as 
 by any other daily business, and in due time passing 
 away from the world without having, on the whole, 
 done much for it. Such has been the necessary, not 
 
268 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 very lamentable, destiny of a large number of men in 
 these days, whose gifts urged them to the practice of 
 art, but who possessing no breadth of mind, nor hav- 
 ing met with masters capable of concentrating what 
 gifts they had towards nobler use, almost perforce 
 remained in their small picturesque circle; getting 
 more and more narrowed in range of sympathy as 
 they feel more and more into the habit of contemplat- 
 ing the one particular class of subjects that pleased 
 them, and recomposing them by rules of art. 
 
 §i6. Of these, also, the ranks rise in worthiness, 
 according to their sympathy. In the noblest of them, 
 that sympathy seems quite unlimited ; they enter with 
 their whole heart into all nature ; their love of grace 
 and beauty keeps them from delighting too much in 
 shattered stones and stunted trees, their kindness and 
 compassion from dwelling by choice on any kind of 
 misery, their perfect humility from avoiding simplicity 
 of subject when it comes in their way, and their grasp 
 of the highest thoughts from seeking a lower sublimity 
 in cottage walls and penthouse roofs. And, whether 
 it be home of English village thatched with straw 
 and walled with clay, or of Italian city vaulted with 
 gold and roofed with marble ; whether it be stagnant 
 stream under ragged willow, or glancing fountain 
 between arcades of laurel, all to them will bring equal 
 power of happiness, and equal field for thought. 
 
 §17. And so, as we pass through the list of great paint- 
 ers, we shall find in each of them some local narrow- 
 ness. Now, I do not, of course, mean to say that Turner 
 has accomplished all to which his sympathy prompted 
 him ; necessarily, the very breadth of effort involved, 
 
Selections 269 
 
 in some directions, manifest failure ; but he has shown, 
 in casual incidents and by-ways, a range of feeling 
 which no other painter, as far as I know, can equal. 
 * « * « 
 Whether there has been or not, in other walks of art, 
 this power of sympathy is unquestionably in land- 
 scape unrivalled ; and it will be one of our pleasantest 
 future tasks to analyze in his various drawing the 
 character it always gives ; a character, indeed, more or 
 less marked in all good work whatever, but to which, 
 being pre-eminent in him, I shall always hereafter 
 give the name of the ^* Turnerian Picturesque." 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. IV, PL V, Chap. Ill, %22. 
 
 §32. I have also been more and more convinced, the 
 more I think of it, that in general pride is at the bottom 
 Pride of all great mistakes. All the other passions 
 
 do occasional good, but whenever pride puts 
 in its word, everything goes wrong, and what it might 
 really be desirable to do, quietly and innocently, it is 
 mortally dangerous to do, proudly. Thus, while it is 
 very often good for the artist to make studies of things, 
 for the sake of knowing their forms, with their high 
 lights all white, the moment he does this in a haughty 
 way, and thinks himself drawing in the great style, 
 because he leaves high lights white, it is all over with 
 him. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. V, %4. 
 §4. And I beheve that the resentment of this inter- 
 ference of the mist is one of the forms of proud error 
 which are too easily mistaken for virtues. To be con- 
 
270 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 tent in utter darkness and ignorance is indeed 
 unmanly, and therefore we think that to love light 
 and seek knowledge must always be right. Yet (as in 
 all matters before observed,) wherever pride has any 
 share in the work, even knowledge and light may be 
 ill pursued. Knowledge is good, and light is good, 
 yet man perished in seeking knowledge, and moths 
 perished in seeking light ; and if we, who are crushed 
 before the moth, will not accept such mystery as is 
 needful for us, we shall perish in like manner. But, 
 accepted in humbleness, it instantly becomes an ele- 
 ment of pleasure ; and I think that every rightly con- 
 stituted mind ought to rejoice, not so much in knowing 
 anything clearly, as in feeling that there is infinitely 
 more which it cannot know. None but proud or weak 
 men would mourn over this, for we may always 
 know more if we choose, by working on; but the 
 pleasure is, I think, to humble people, in knowing 
 that the journey is endless, the treasure inexhaustible, 
 — watching the cloud still march before them with its 
 summitless pillar, and being sure that, to the end of 
 time and to the length of eternity, the mysteries of its 
 infinity will still open farther and farther, their dim- 
 ness being the sign and necessary adjunct of their 
 inexhaustibleness. I know there are an evil mystery 
 and a deathful dimness, — the mystery of the great 
 Babylon — the dimness of the sealed eye and soul; but 
 do not let us confuse these with the glorious mystery 
 of the things which the angels "desire to look into," 
 or with the dimness which, even before the clear eye 
 and open soul, still rests on sealed pages of the eternal 
 volume. 
 
Selections 271 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. II, §§5-7, 36, 37, 72, 88, 93. 
 
 §5. The moral, or immoral, elements which unite to 
 form the spirit of Central Renaissance architecture, 
 are, I believe, in the main, two, — Pride and Infidelity; 
 but the pride resolves itself into three main branches, 
 — Pride of Science, Pride of State, and Pride of Sys- 
 tem : and thus we have four separate mental conditions 
 which must be examined successively. 
 
 §6. I. Pride of Science. It would have been more 
 charitable, but more confusing, to have added another 
 element to our list, namely the Love of Science ; but 
 the love is included in the pride, and is usually so very 
 subordinate an element that it does not deserve 
 equality of nomenclature. But, whether pursued in 
 pride or in affection (how far by either we shall see 
 presently), the first notable characteristic of the 
 Renaissance central school is its introduction of 
 accurate knowledge into all its work, so far as it pos- 
 sesses such knowledge; and its evident conviction, 
 that such science is necessary to the excellence of the 
 work, and is the first thing to be expressed therein. 
 So that all the forms introduced, even in its minor 
 ornament, are studied with the utmost care; the 
 anatomy of all animal structure is thoroughly under- 
 stood and elaborately expressed, and the whole of the 
 execution skilful and practised in the highest degree. 
 Prospective, linear and aerial, perfect drawing and 
 accurate light and shade in painting, and true anatomy 
 in all representations of the human form, drawn or 
 sculptured, are the first requirements in all the work 
 of this school. 
 
 §7, Now, first considering all this in the most 
 
272 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 charitable light, as pursued from a real love of truth, 
 and not from vanity, it would, of course, have been all 
 excellent and admirable, had it been regarded as the 
 aid of art, and not as its essence. But the grand mis- 
 take of the Renaissance schools lay in supposing that 
 science and art are the same things, and that to 
 advance in the one was necessarily to perfect the 
 other. 
 
 §36. This unhappy and childish pride in knowledge, 
 then, was the first constituent element of the Renais- 
 sance mind, and it was enough, of itself, to have cast 
 it into swift decline : but it was aided by another form 
 of pride, which was above called the Pride of State; 
 and which we have next to examine. 
 
 §37. II. Pride of State. It was noticed in the sec- 
 ond volume of "Modern Painters," Ch. XIV, that the 
 principle which had most power in retarding the mod- 
 ern school of portraiture was its constant expression of 
 individual vanity and pride. And the reader cannot 
 fail to have observed that one of the readiest and com- 
 monest ways in which the painter ministers to this 
 vanity, is by introducing the pedestal or shaft of a 
 column, or some fragment, however simple, of 
 Renaissance architecture, in the background of the 
 portrait. And this is not merely because such archi- 
 tecture is bolder or grander than, in general, that of 
 the apartments of a private house. No other archi- 
 tecture would produce the same eflEect in the same 
 degree. The richest Gothic, the most massive Nor- 
 man, would not produce the same sense of exaltation 
 as the simple and meagre lines of the Renaissance. 
 
 §72. With respect to our present purpose, how- 
 
Selections 273 
 
 ever, it is a monument of enormous importance. We 
 have to trace, be it remembered, the pride of state in 
 its gradual intrusion upon the sepulchre; and the con- 
 sequent and correlative vanishing of the expressions 
 of religious feeling and heavenly hope, together with 
 the more and more arrogant setting forth of the vir- 
 tues of the dead. 
 
 §88. Now pride opposes itself to the observance 
 of this Divine law in two opposite ways: either 
 by brute resistance, which is the way of the rabble 
 and its leaders, denying or defying law altogether ; or 
 by formal compliance, which is the way of the Phari- 
 see, exalting himself while he pretends to obedience, 
 and making void the infinite and spiritual command- 
 ment by the finite and lettered commandment. And 
 it is easy to know which law we are obeying : for any 
 law which we magnify and keep through pride, is 
 always the law of the letter ; but that which we love 
 and keep through humility, is the law of the Spirit : 
 And the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. 
 
 §92. These, then, were the three principal direc- 
 tions in which the Renaissance pride manifested itself, • 
 and its impulses were rendered still more fatal by the 
 entrance of another element, inevitably associated 
 with pride. For, as it is written, "He that trusteth 
 in his own heart is a fool," so also it is written, "The 
 fool hath said in his heart. There is no God;" and the 
 self-adulation which influenced not less the learning 
 of the age than its luxury, led gradually to the forget- 
 fulness of all things but self, and to an infidelity only 
 the more fatal because it still retained the form and 
 language of faith. 
 
274 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Ethics of the Dust, Led. VIII. 
 And remember, child, that nothing is ever done 
 beautifully, which is done in rivalship; nor nobly, 
 which is done in pride. ' 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. V, §4. 
 
 §4. Such art could of course have no help from the 
 virtues, nor claim on the energies of men. It neces- 
 sarily rooted itself in their vices and their idleness; 
 and of their vices principally in -two, pride and 
 sensuality. To the pride, was attached eminently the 
 art of architecture ; to the sensuality, those of paint- 
 ing and sculpture. Of the fall of architecture, as 
 resultant from the formalist pride of its patrons and 
 designers, I have spoken elsewhere. The sensualist 
 ideal, as seen in painting and sculpture, remains to be 
 examined here. But one interesting circumstance is 
 to be observed with respect to the manner of the 
 separation of these arts. Pride, being wholly a vice, 
 and in every phase inexcusable, wholly betrayed and 
 destroyed the art which was founded on it. But pas- 
 sion, having some root and use in healthy nature, and 
 only becoming guilty in excess, did not altogether 
 destroy the art founded upon it. The architecture of 
 Palladio is wholly virtueless and despicable. Not so 
 the Venus of Titian, nor the Antiope of Correggio. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Chap. II, %3. 
 
 §2. So, again, the power of exciting emotion must 
 vary or vanish, as the spectator becomes thought- 
 less or cold ; and the building may be often blamed 
 for what is the fault of its critic, or endowed with a 
 
Selections 
 
 275 
 
 charm which is of its spectator's creation. It is not, 
 
 therefore, possible to make expressional character any 
 
 ^ ^ fair criterion of excellence in buildings. 
 
 Art product = ' 
 
 appeals to until We Can fully place ourselves in the posi- 
 
 the emotion ... , , . ^ 
 
 ottiiebe- tion of those to whom their expression was 
 originally addressed, and until we are cer- 
 tain that we understand every symbol, and are capable 
 of being touched by every association which its builders 
 employed as letters of their language. I shall con- 
 tinually endeavor to put the reader into such sym- 
 pathetic temper, when I ask for his judgment of a 
 building; and in every work I may bring before him I 
 shall point out, as far as I am able, whatever is 
 peculiar in its expression ; nay, I must even depend 
 on such peculiarities for much of my best evidence 
 respecting the characters of the builders. But I can- 
 not legalize the judgment for which I plead, nor insist 
 upon it if it be refused. I can neither force the reader 
 to feel this architectural rhetoric, nor compel him to 
 confess that the rhetoric is powerful, if it have pro- 
 duced no imoression on his own mind. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. 11, Chap. VI, §///. 
 
 §114. And, having ascertained this, let him set him- 
 self to read them. Thenceforward the criticism of the 
 building is to be conducted precisely on the same prin- 
 ciples as that of a book ; and it must depend on the 
 knowledge, feeling, and not a little on the industry and 
 perseverance of the reader, whether, even in the case 
 of the best works, he either perceive them to be great, 
 or feel them to be entertaining. 
 
276 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. IV. 
 But the spectator is brought to your work already 
 in an excited and imaginative mood. He has been 
 impressed by the cathedral wall as it loomed over the 
 low streets, before he looks up to the carving of its 
 porch — and his love of mystery has been touched by 
 the silence and the shadows of the cloister, before he 
 can set himself to decipher the bosses on its vaulting. 
 So that when once he begins to observe your doings, 
 he will ask nothing better from you, nothing kinder 
 from you, than that you would meet this imaginative 
 temper of his half way ; — that you would farther touch 
 the sense of terror, or satisfy the expectation of things 
 strange, which have been prompted by the mystery or 
 the majesty of the surrounding scene. And thus, 
 your leaving forms more or less undefined, or carry- 
 ing out your fancies, however extravagant, in 
 grotesqueness of shadow or shape, will be for the 
 most part in accordance with the temper of the 
 observer ; and he is likely, therefore, much more will- 
 ingly to use his fancy to help your meanings, than his 
 judgment to detect your faults. 
 
 Aratra Pentelici, VI, §§ /pp, 200. 
 
 §199. Again and again, however, I have to remind 
 you, with respect to these apparently frank and simple 
 failures, that the Greek always intends you to think 
 for yourself, and understand, more than he can speak. 
 Take this instance at our hands, the trim little circlet 
 for the Island of Leuce, The workman knows very 
 well it is not like the island, and that he could not 
 make it so; that at its best, his sculpture can be little 
 
Selections 377 
 
 more than a letter; and yet, in putting this circlet, 
 and its encompassing fretwork of minute waves, he 
 does more than if he had merely given you a letter L, 
 or written "Leuce. " If you know anything of beaches 
 and sea, this symbol will set your imagination at work 
 in recalling them ; then you will think of the temple 
 service of the novitiate seabirds, and of the ghosts of 
 Achilles and Patroclus appearing, like the Dioscuri, 
 above the storm-clouds of the Euxine. And the 
 artist, throughout his work, never for an instant loses 
 faith in your sympathy and passion being ready to 
 answer his; — if you have none to give, he does not 
 care to take you into his counsel ; on the whole, would 
 rather that you should not look at his work. 
 
 §300. But if you have this sympathy to give, you may 
 be sure that whatever he does for you will be right, as 
 far as he can render it so. It may not be sublime, nor 
 beautiful, nor amusing; but it will be full of meaning, 
 and faithful in guidance. He will give you clue to 
 myriads of things that he cannot literally teach ; and, 
 so far as he does teach, you may trust him. Is not 
 this saying much? 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. VII, %ii. 
 
 §11. The architecture, mountains, and water of these 
 distances are commonly conventional; motives are to 
 be found in them of the highest beauty, and especially 
 remarkable for quantity and meaning of incident ; but 
 they can only be studied or accepted in the particular 
 feeling that produced them. It may generally be 
 observed that whatever has been the result of strong 
 emotion is ill seen unless through the medium of such 
 
278 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 emotion, and will lead to conclusions utterly false and 
 perilous, if it be made a subject of cold-hearted observ- 
 ance, or an object of systematic imitation. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. IV, Chap. Ill, %2^. 
 §24. And indeed all proper consideration of the hill 
 drawing of Turner must be deferred until we are capa- 
 A painting ^^® °^ testing it by the principles of beauty; 
 tShoider's^"^' ^^^^^ ^^^' *^^ ™°^*^ essential qualities of 
 ty^wMc^f " I'lie,— those on which all right delineation 
 aOTstoo<r" °^ mountain character must depend, are 
 those which are only to be explained or illus- 
 trated by appeals to our feeling of what is beautiful. 
 There is an expression and a feeling about all the hill 
 lines of nature, which I think I shall be able, here- 
 after, to explain ; but it is not to be reduced to line and 
 rule — not to be measured by angles or described by 
 compasses— not to be chipped out by the geologist, or 
 equated by the mathematician. It is intangible, incal- 
 culable—a thing to be felt, not understood-^to be 
 loved, not comprehended — a music of the eyes, a 
 melody of the heart, whose truth is known only by' its 
 sweetness. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II. Chap. Ill, §§75, 
 
 £0, 31. 
 
 §15. It is nevertheless evident, that however sugges- 
 tive the work or picture may be, it cannot have effect 
 tSniddress ""^^^^ ^® ^^® ourselves both v,ratchful of its 
 imSaior ^^^^^ ^''^*' ^"*^ capable of understanding 
 • and carrying it out, and although I thmk 
 that this power of continuing or accepting the direc 
 
Selections 279 
 
 tion of feeling given is less a peculiar gift, like that of 
 the original seizing, than a faculty dependent on 
 attention, and improvable by cultivation; yet, to a 
 certain extent, the imaginative work will not, I think, 
 be rightly esteemed except by a mind of some cor- 
 responding power; not but that there is an intense 
 enjoyment in minds of feeble yet light conception in 
 the help and food they get from those of stronger 
 thought ; but a certain imaginative susceptibility is at 
 any irate necessary, and above all things, earnestness 
 and feeling, so that assuredly a work of high con- 
 ceptive dignity will be always incomprehensible and 
 valueless except in those who go to it in earnest and 
 give it time ; and this is peculiarly the case when the 
 imagination acts not merely on the immediate subject, 
 nor in giving a fanciful and peculiar character to prom- 
 instances iiicnt objects, as we have just seen, but busies 
 woSs'of itself throughout in expressing occult and 
 Ttatoret. far-sought sympathies in every minor detail, 
 of which action the most sublime instances are found in 
 the works of Tintoret, whose intensity of imagination 
 is such that there is not the commonest subject to 
 which he will not attach a range of suggestiveness 
 almost limitless, nor a stone, leaf, shadow, nor any- 
 thing so small, but he will give it meaning and 
 oracular voice. 
 
 §ao. , . . With this master-stroke I believe I may 
 terminate all illustration of the peculiar power of the 
 imagination over the feelings of the spectator, by the 
 elevation into dignity and meaning of the smallest 
 accessory circumstances. But I have not yet suffi- 
 ciently dwelt on the fact from which this power arises, 
 
28o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the absolute truth of statement of the central fact as 
 it was, or must have been. Without this truth, this 
 awful first moving principle, all direction of the feel- 
 ings is useless. That which we cannot excite, it is of 
 no use to know how to govern. 
 
 §31. We have seen (§10) that the imagination is 
 
 in no small degree dependent on acuteness of moral 
 
 emotion ; in fact all moral truth can only thus 
 
 cultivation be apprehended — and it is observable, gen- 
 
 on the moral erallv, that all true and deep emotion is 
 
 feelings. . •'.' . , ^, . ^. , 
 
 imaginative, both in conception and expres- 
 sion ; and that the mental sight becomes sharper with 
 every full beat of the heart; and, therefore, all ego- 
 tism, and selfish care, or regard, are in proportion 
 to their constancy, destructive of imagination ; whose 
 play and power depend altogether on our being able to 
 forget ourselves and enter like possessing spirits into 
 the bodies of things about us. 
 
 Modern Pointers, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. I, §§/j, 14. 
 
 §13. I come, after some embarrassment, to the con- 
 clusion, that poetry "is the suggestion, by the imagina- 
 tion, of noble grounds for noble emotions." I mean, 
 by the noble emotions, those four principal sacred 
 passions — Love, Veneration, Admiration, and Joy 
 (this latter especially, if unselfish) ; and their opposites 
 — Hatred, Indignation (or Scorn), Horror, and Grief, 
 — this last, when unselfish, becoming Compassion. 
 These passions in their various combinations constitute 
 what is called "poetical feeling," when they are felt 
 on noble grounds, that is, on great and true grounds. 
 Indignation, for instance, is a poetical feeling, if 
 
Selections 28 1 
 
 excited by serious injury; but it is not a poetical feel- 
 ing if entertained on being cheated out of a small sum 
 of money. It is very possible the manner of the cheat 
 may have been such as to justify considerable indigna- 
 tion; but the feeling is nevertheless not poetical 
 unless the grounds of it be large as well as just. In like 
 manner, energetic admiration may be excited in cer- 
 tain minds by a display of fireworks, or a street of 
 handsome shops; but the feeling is not poetical, 
 because the grounds of it are false, and therefore 
 ignoble. There is in reality nothing to deserve 
 admiration either in the firing of packets of gunpow- 
 der, or in the display of the stocks of warehouses. 
 But admiration excited by the budding of a flower is a 
 poetical feeling, because it is impossible that this 
 manifestation of spiritual power and vital beauty can 
 ever be enough admired. 
 
 §14. Farther, it is necessary to the existence of poetry 
 that the grounds of these feelings should be furnished 
 by the imagination. Poetical feeling, that is to say, 
 mere noble emotion, is not poetry. It is happily 
 inherent in all human nature deserving the name, and 
 is found often to be purest in the least sophisticated. 
 But the power of assembling, by the help of the 
 imagination, such images as will excite these feelings, 
 is the power of the poet or literally of the "Maker." 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pi. IV, Chap. II, %8. 
 
 §8. So that true criticism of art never can consist in 
 
 the mere application of rules ;''it can be just only when 
 
 it is founded on quick sympathy with the innumerable 
 
 instincts and changeful efforts of human nature, 
 
282 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 chastened and guided by unchanging love of all 
 things that God has created to be beautiful, and pro- 
 nounced to be good. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. III,Pt. IV, Chap. X, g§9,//, tz, 17, iS. 
 
 §9. Hence it is, that poets and men of strong feeling 
 in general, are apt to be among the very worst judges 
 of painting. The slightest hint is enough for them. 
 Tell them that a white stroke means a ship, and a 
 black stain, a thunder-storm, and they will be per- 
 fectly satisfied with both, and immediately proceed to 
 remember all that they ever felt about ships and 
 thunder-storms, attributing the whole current and ful- 
 ness of their own feelings to the painter's work; while 
 probably, if the picture be really good, and full of stern 
 fact, the poet, or man of feeling, will find some of its 
 fact in his way, out of the particular course of his own 
 thoughts, — be offended at it, take to criticising and 
 wondering at it, detect, at last, some imperfection in 
 it, — such as must be inherent in all human work, — and 
 so finally quarrel with it, and reject the whole thing. 
 Thus, Wordsworth writes many sonnets to Sir George 
 Beaumont and Haydon, none to Sir Joshua or to 
 Turner. 
 
 §11. Hence it is also that so much grievous difficulty 
 stands in the way of obtaining real opinion about pic- 
 tures at all. Tell any man, of the slightest imaginative 
 power, that such and such a picture is good, and means 
 this or that : tell him, for instance, that a Claude is 
 good, that it means, trees, and grass, and water; and 
 forthwith, whatever faith, virtue, humility, and imagin- 
 ation there are in the man, rise up to help Claude, and 
 
Selections 283 
 
 to declare that indeed it is all "excellent good, 
 i'faith;" and whatever in the course of his life he has 
 felt of pleasure in trees and grass, he will begin to 
 reflect upon and enjoy anew, supposing all the while it 
 is the picture he is enjoying. 
 
 §13. "Well, but why have you dragged in this poor 
 spectator's imagination at all, if you have nothing 
 more to say for it than this ; if you are merely going 
 to abuse it, and go back to your tiresome facts?" 
 
 Nay; I am not going to abuse it. On the contrary, 
 I have to assert, in a temper profoundly venerant of 
 it, that though we must not suppose everything is 
 right when this is aroused, we may be sure that some- 
 thing is wrong when this is not aroused. The some- 
 thing wrong may be in the spectator or in the picture ; 
 and if the picture be demonstrably in accordance with 
 truth, the odds are, that it is in the spectator; but 
 there is wrong somewhere; for the work of the picture 
 is indeed eminently to get at this imaginative power 
 in the beholder, and all its facts are of no use what- 
 ever if it does not. No matter how much truth it tells 
 if the hearer be asleep. Its first work is to wake him, 
 then to teach him. 
 
 §17. . . . "As much Truth as possible," I say still. 
 But Truth so presented, that it will need the help of 
 the imagination to make it real. Between 
 The imagina- the painter and the beholder, each doing his 
 appreoiator proper part, the reality should be sustained ; 
 Soused. and after the beholding imagination has 
 come forward and done its best, then, with 
 its help, and in the full action of it, the beholder 
 should be able to say, I feel as if I were at the real 
 
284 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 place, or seeing the real incident. But not without 
 that help. 
 
 §i8. Farther, in consequence of that other char- 
 acter of the imagination, fatiguableness, it is a great 
 advantage to the picture that it need not present too 
 much at once, and that what it does present may be so 
 chosen and ordered as not only to be more easily 
 seized, but to give the imagination rest, and, as it 
 were, places to lie down and stretch its limbs in; 
 kindly vacancies, beguiling it back into action, with 
 pleasant and cautious sequence of incident; all jarring 
 thoughts being excluded, all vain redundance denied, 
 and all just and sweet transition permitted. 
 
 And thus it is that, for the most part, imperfect 
 sketches, engravings, outlines, rude sculptures, and 
 other forms of abstraction, possess a charm which the 
 most finished picture frequently wants. For not only 
 does the finished picture excite the imagination less, 
 but, like nature itself, it taxes it more. None of it 
 can be enjoyed till the imagination is brought to bear 
 upon it; and the details of the completed picture are 
 so numerous, that it needs greater strength and will- 
 ingness in the beholder to follow them all out; the 
 redundance, perhaps, being not too great for the mind 
 of a careful observer, but too great for a casual or 
 careless observer. So that although the perfection of 
 art will always consist in the utmost acceptable com- 
 pletion, yet, as every added idea will increase the diffi- 
 culty of apprehension, and every added touch advance 
 the dangerous realism which makes the imagination 
 languid, the difference between a noble and ignoble 
 painter is in nothing more sharply defined than in 
 
Selections 285 
 
 -this, — that the first wishes to put into his work as 
 much truth as possible, and yet to keep it looking 
 ««-real ; the second wishes to get through his work 
 lazily, with as little truth as possible, and yet to make 
 it look real; and, so far as they add colour to their 
 abstract sketch, the first realizes for the sake of colour, 
 and the second colours for the sake of the realization. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II, PI. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. Ill, %%g-ia. 
 
 §9. But two very important points are to be observed 
 respecting the direction and discipline of the attention 
 in the early stages of judgment. The first, 
 that, for many beneficent purposes, the 
 nature of man has been made reconcilable by custom 
 to many things naturally painful to it, and even im- 
 Errors ptoper for it, and that therefore, though by 
 
 Se tmwOT^ continued experience, united with thought, 
 of hawt. yfe may discover that which is best of sev- 
 eral, yet if we submit ourselves to authority or fashion, 
 and close our eyes, we may be by custom made to 
 tolerate, and even to love and long for, that which is 
 naturally painful and pernicious to us, whence arise 
 incalculable embarrassments on the subject of art. 
 
 §10. The second, that, in order to the discovery of 
 
 that which is best of two things, it is necessary that both 
 
 should be equally submitted to the atten- 
 
 Theneces- tion: and therefore that weshouljLJiaKe.SP 
 
 sity of ' "^ T" " . 
 
 submission much faith in authority aa^jshalLJBSlB^'US 
 stages of reoeatedlv ohaerse-aud._a.t±enAJx».'that.,TChich 
 
 judgment. t-C zj^-^-—— , i . 
 
 is said to beright, even though at present 
 we may not 7eenrsor"^d in the right mingling of 
 this faith with the openness of heart, which proves 
 
286 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 all things, lies the great difficulty of the cultivation of 
 taste, as far as the spirit of the scholar is concerned, 
 though even when he has this spirit, he may be long 
 retarded by having evil examples submitted to him 
 by ignorant masters. 
 
 The J§Bipe3::,.-.therefQre^. bjf_^which right jbasttJs 
 ~"formed,_is^rst, patient. It dwells upon what is sub- 
 mittedTto it, it does not trample upon it lest it should 
 be pearls, even though it look like husks, it is a good 
 ground, soft, penetrable, retentive, it does not send up 
 thorns of unkind thoughts, to choke the weak seed, it 
 is hungry and thirsty too, and drinks all the dew that 
 falls on it, it is an honest and good heart, that shows 
 no too ready springing before the sun be up, but fails 
 not afterwards; itjs^distrustful to itself^£_as to_be 
 ready to believe and to try allTEhmgs, and yet so trust- 
 ful of itself, that it will neiffief "quit what it has tried, 
 nor take anything without trying. And that pleasure 
 which it has in things that it finds true and good, is so 
 great that it cannot possibly be led aside by any tricks 
 of fashion, nor diseases of vanity, it cannot be cramped 
 in its conclusions by partialities and hypocrisies, its 
 visions and its delights are too penetrating, too living, 
 for any whitewashed object or shallow fountain long 
 to endure or supply. It clasps all that it loves so 
 hard, that it crushes it if it be hollow. 
 
 §11. Now, the conclusions of this disposition are sure 
 to be eventually right, more and more right according to 
 The *^® general maturity of all the powers, but it 
 
 oTmltSred ^^ ^^^® ^° come right at last, because its oper- 
 judgment. ation is in analogy to, and in harmony with, 
 the whole spirit of the Christian moral system, and 
 
Selections 287 
 
 that which it will ultimately love and rest in, are great 
 sources of happiness common to all the human race, 
 and based on the relations they hold to their Creator. 
 
 These common and general sources of pleasure are, 
 I believe, a certain seal, or impress of divine work and 
 character, upon whatever God has wrought in all the 
 world ; only, it being necessary for the perception of 
 them, that their contraries should also be set before 
 us, these divine qualities, though inseparable from all 
 divine works, are yet suffered to eicist in such varieties 
 of degree, that their most limited manifestation shall, 
 in opposition to their most abundant, act as a foil or 
 contrary, just as we conceive of cold as contrary to 
 heat, though the most extreme cold we can produce or 
 conceive is not inconsistent with an unknown amount 
 of heat in the body. 
 
 §13. Our purity of taste, therefore, is best tested by 
 
 its univeiisaHty, for iFwe'cFiTonTyl^annre'ins'thing or 
 
 ~ ^^ ""TEafTwelhay be sure that our cause for lik- 
 
 ttogidsii- ingr is of a finite and false nature. But if 
 
 able from *> , 
 
 false taste, -yye Can perceive beauty in everything of 
 God's doing, we may argue that we have reached the 
 true perception of its universal laws. Hence, false 
 taste may be known by its fastidiousness, by its 
 demands of pomp, splendor, and unusual combination, 
 by its enjoyment only of particular styles and modes 
 of things, and by its pride also, for it is forever med- 
 dling, mending, accumulating, and self-exulting, its 
 eye is always upon itself, and it tests all things around 
 it by the way they fit it. But true taste is forever 
 growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its 
 hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting 
 
288 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground 
 holy, lamenting over itself and testing itself by the 
 way that it fits things. 
 
 Queen of the Air, III, %t77. 
 
 §177. Then, when you have learned to draw thorough- 
 ly, take one master for youf '^"'auitingj_^s_^3Ml.,:ffi5uld 
 haviTdone^eceiiarily in olitinaes'^ESng-put-iate-his 
 school (were I to choose for you, it should be among 
 six men only — Titian, Correggio, Paul Veronese, 
 Velasquez, Reynolds, or Holbein). If you are a land- 
 scapist. Turner must be your only guide, (for no other 
 great landscape painter has yet lived); and having 
 chosen do your best to understand your own chosen 
 master, and obey him, and no one else, till you have 
 strength to deal with the nature itself round you, and 
 then, be your own master, and see with your own 
 eyes. If you have got masterhood or sight in you, 
 that is the way to make the most of them; and if 
 you have neither, you will at least be sound in your 
 work, prevented from immodest and useless effort, 
 and protected from vulgar and fantastic error. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Pt. I, Sec. I, Chap. VI, §§/-j. 
 
 §1. Any material object which can give us pleasure 
 
 in the simple contemplation of its outward qualities 
 
 without any direct and definite exertion of 
 
 Definition the intellect, I call in some way, or in some 
 
 ot the term , , ,., , „,, . 
 
 beautiful. degree, beautiful. Why we receive pleas- 
 ure from some forms and colours, and not 
 from others, is no more to be asked or answered 
 than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. 
 
Selections 289 
 
 The utmost subtilty of investigation will only lead 
 us to ultimate instincts and principles of human 
 nature, for which no farther reason can be given than 
 the simple will of the Deity that we should be so 
 created. We may, indeed, perceive, as far as we are 
 acquainted with His nature, that we have been so 
 constructed as, when in a healthy and cultivated state 
 of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever things are 
 illustrative of that nature; but we do not receive 
 pleasure from them because they are illustrative of it, 
 nor from any perception that they are illustrative of it, 
 but instinctively and necessarily, as we derive sensual 
 pleasure from the scent of a rose. On these primary 
 principles of our nature, education and accident oper- 
 ate to an unlimited extent ; they may be cultivated or 
 checked, directed or diverted, gifted by right guidance 
 with the most acute and faultless* sense, or subjected by 
 neglect to every phase of error and disease. He who 
 has followed up these natural laws of aversion and 
 desire, rendering them more and more authoritative 
 by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always 
 from that which God originally intended should give 
 him pleasure, and who derives the greatest possible sum 
 of pleasure from any given object, is a man of taste. 
 §2. This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed 
 word. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the 
 greatest possible pleasure from those mate- 
 ^A^teSi rial sources which are attractive to our 
 taste. moral nature in its purity and perfection. 
 
 He who receives little pleasure from these sources, 
 wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other 
 sources has false or bad taste. 
 
290 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 §3. And it is thus that the term "taste" is to be dis- 
 tinguished from that of "judgment," with which it is 
 Distinction constantly confounded. Judgment is a gen- 
 tasSTnd ^^^^ term, expressing definite action of the 
 judgment, intellect, and applicable to every kind of 
 subject which can be submitted to it. There may be 
 judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, judgment 
 of justice, and judgment of difficulty and excellence. 
 But all these exertions of the intellect are totally dis- 
 tinct from taste, properly so called, which is the 
 instinctive and instant preferring of one material 
 object to another without any obvious reason, except 
 that it is proper to human nature in its perfection so 
 to do. 
 
 Seven Lamps 0/ Architecture, VII. Lamp 0/ Obedience, %j. 
 
 §7. How surely its principles ought at first to be 
 limited, we may easily deterjnine by the consideration 
 of the necessary modes of teaching any other branch 
 of general knowledge. When we begin to teach chil- 
 dren writing, we force them to absolute copyism, and 
 require absolute accuracy in the formation of the let- 
 ters ; as they obtain command of the received modes 
 of literal expression, we cannot prevent their falling 
 into such variations as are consistent with their feel- 
 ing, their circumstances, or their characters. So, 
 when a boy is first taught to write Latin, an authority 
 is required of him for every expression he uses ; as he 
 becomes master of the language he may take a license, 
 and feel his right to do so without any authority, and 
 yet write better Latin than when he borrowed every 
 separate expression. In the same way our architects 
 
Selections 291 
 
 would have to be taught to write the accepted style. 
 We must first determine what buildings are to be con- 
 sidered Augustan in their authority ; their modes of 
 construction and laws of proportion are to be studied 
 with the most penetrating care; then the different 
 forms and uses of their decorations are to be classed 
 and catalogued, as a German grammarian classes the 
 powers of prepositions; and under this absolute, 
 irrefragable authority, we are to begin to work; 
 admitting not so much as an alteration in the depth of 
 a cavetto, or the breadth of a fillet. Then, when our 
 sight is once accustomed to the grammatical forms 
 and arrangements, and our thoughts familiar with the 
 expression of them all; when we can speak this 
 dead language naturally, and apply it to whatever 
 ideas we have to render, that is to say, to every prac- 
 tical purpose of life ; then, and not till then, a license 
 might be permitted; and individual authority allowed 
 to change or to add to the received forms, always 
 within certain limits; the decorations, especially, 
 might be made subjects of variable fancy, and 
 enriched with ideas either original or taken from 
 other schools. And thus in process of time and by a 
 great national movement, it might come to pass, that 
 a new style would arise, as language itself changes; 
 we might perhaps come to speak Italian instead of 
 Latin, or to speak modern instead of old English; 
 but this would be a matter of entire indifference, 
 and a matter, besides, which no determination or 
 desire could either hasten or prevent. That alone 
 which it is in our power to obtain, and which it is our 
 duty to desire, is an unanimous style of some kmd, 
 
292 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 and such comprehension and practice of it as would 
 enable us to adapt its features to the peculiar character 
 of every several building, large or small, domestic, 
 civil or ecclesiastical. I have said that it was imma- 
 terial what style was adopted, so far as regards the 
 room for originality which its development would 
 admit : it is not so, however, when we take into con- 
 sideration the far more important questions of the 
 facility of adaptation to general purposes, and of the 
 sympathy with which this or that style would be 
 popularly regarded. 
 
 Elements of Drawing, Appendix I. 
 
 If, however, they have any real enjoyment of pic- 
 tures, and want to look at this one ot that, the prin- 
 cipal point is never to disturb them in looking at what 
 interests them, and never to make them look at what 
 does not. Nothing is of the least use to young people 
 (nor, by the way, of much use to old ones), but what 
 interests them; and therefore, though it is of great 
 importance to put nothing but good art into their pos- 
 session, yet when they are passing though great 
 houses or galleries, they should be allowed to look 
 precisely at what pleases them : if it is not useful to 
 them as art, it will be in some other way; and the 
 healthiest way in which art can interest them is when 
 they look at it, not as art, but because it represents 
 something they like in nature. If a boy has had his 
 heart filled by the life of some great man, and goes up 
 thirstily to a Vandyck portrait of him, to see what he 
 was like, that is the wholesomest way in which he can 
 begin the study of portraiture; if he love mountains, 
 
Selections 293 
 
 and dwell on a Turner drawing because he sees in it 
 a likeness to a Yorkshire scar, or an Alpine pass, that 
 is the wholesomest way in which he can begin the 
 study of landscape; and if a girl's mind is filled with 
 dreams of angels and saints, and she pauses before an 
 Angelico because she thinks it must surely be indeed 
 like Heaven, that is the wholesomest way for her to 
 begin the study of religious art. 
 
 Lectures on Art, I, Inaugural %io. 
 
 §20. While, therefore, in these and such other direc- 
 tions, 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 past 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 recognize 
 the nascent and partial skill of former days both with 
 greater interest and greater respect, when you know 
 the full diflSculty of what it attempted, and the com- 
 plete range of what it foretold. 
 
 Crown of Wild Olives, Led. JI. 
 
 Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of 
 mine somewhat. Taste is not only a part and an 
 
294 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 index of morality— it is the only morality. The first, 
 and last, and closest trial question to any living 
 creature is, "What do you like?" Tell me what you 
 like, and I'll tell you what you are. * » * 
 
 And all delight in art, and all love of it, resolve them- 
 selves into simple love of that which deserves love. 
 That deserving is the quality which we call "loveliness' ' 
 — (we ought to have an opposite word, hateliness, to be 
 said of the things which deserve to be hated) ; and it is 
 not an indifferent nor optional thing whether we love 
 this or that; but it is just the vital function of all our 
 being. What we like determines what we are, and is 
 the sign of what we are ; and to teach taste is inevit- 
 ably to form character. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. VIII, %i6i. 
 
 §i6i. Let us take one more step in the logical 
 sequence. You do not, I have told you, need either 
 
 chemistry, botany, geology, or anatomy, to 
 determinea enable you to Understand art, or produce it. 
 
 But there is one science which you must be 
 acquainted with. You must very intensely and thor- 
 oughly know — how to behave. You cannot so much 
 as feel the difference between two casts of drapery, 
 between two tendencies of line, — how much less be- 
 tween dignity and baseness of gesture, — but by your 
 own dignity of character. But, though this is an 
 essential science, and although I cannot teach you to 
 lay one line beside another rightly, unless you have 
 this science, you don't expect me in these schools to 
 teach you how to behave, if you happen not to know it 
 before! 
 
Selections 29 j 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. VI, Chap. II, §5. 
 §6. There is nothing done or omitted by him, which 
 does not imply such a comparison of ends, such rejec- 
 The art ap- ^^^^ °^ *^^ 1®^^* worthy, (as far as they are 
 S^sltaow. incompatible with the rest,) such careful 
 nature. selection and arrangement of all that can 
 
 be united, as can only be enjoyed by minds capable of 
 going through the same process, and discovering the 
 reasons for the choice. And, as there is nothing in 
 his works which can be enjoyed without knowledge, so 
 there is nothing in them which knowledge will not ena- 
 ble us to enjoy. There is no test of our acquantance 
 with nature so absolute and unfailing as the degree of 
 admiration we feel for Turner's painting. Precisely as 
 we are shallow in our knowledge, vulgar in our feeling, 
 and contracted in our views of principles, will the 
 works of this artist be stumbling-blocks or foolishness 
 to us: — precisely in the degree in which we are 
 familiar with nature, constant in our observation of 
 her, and enlarged in our understanding of her, will 
 they expand before our eyes into glory and beauty. 
 In every new insight which we obtain into the works 
 of God, in every new idea which we receive from His 
 creation, we shall find ourselves possessed of an inter- 
 pretation and a guide to something in Turner's works 
 which we had not before understood. 
 
 Elements of Drawing, Preface. 
 
 Therefore, the chief aim and bent of the following 
 
 system is to obtain, first, a perfectly patient, and, to 
 
 the utmost of the pupil's power, a delicate method of 
 
 work, such as may ensure his seeing truly. For I am 
 
296 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 nearly convinced, that when once we see keenly 
 enough, there is very little difficulty in drawing what 
 we see ; but, even supposing that this difficulty be still 
 great, I believe that the sight is a more important 
 thing than the drawing; and I would rather teach 
 drawing that my pupils may learn to love Nature, than 
 teach the looking at Nature that they may learn to 
 draw. It is surely also a more important thing for 
 young people and unprofessional students, to know 
 how to appreciate the art of others, than to gain much 
 power in art themselves. 
 
 Ariadne Florentina, Appendix I. 
 
 But I know perfectly that to the general people, 
 trained in the midst of the ugliest objects that vice 
 can design, in houses, mills, and machinery, all beau- 
 tiful form and colour is as invisible as the seventh 
 heaven. It is not a question of appreciation at all ; 
 the thing is physically invisible to them, as human 
 speech is inaudible during a steam whistle. 
 
 Arrows of. the Chace, Div. VI, Letter III. 
 
 Now, the Castle rock of Edinburgh is, as far as I 
 know, simply the noblest in Scotland conveniently 
 approachable by any creatures but sea-gulls or peewits. 
 Ailsa and the Bass are of course more wonderful ; and, 
 I suppose, in the West Highlands there are masses of 
 crag more wild and fantastic ; but people only go to 
 see these once or twice in their lives, while the Castle 
 rock has a daily influence in forming the taste, or 
 kindling the imagination, of every promising youth in 
 Edinburgh. 
 
Selections 297 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Chap. XXX, §<5, 
 §6. Have no fear, therefore, reader, in judging 
 between nature and art, so only that you love both. 
 If you can love one only, then let it be Nature ; you 
 are safe with her: but do not then attempt to judge 
 the art, to which you do not care to give thought, or 
 time. But if you love both, you may judge between 
 them fearlessly; you may estimate the last, by its mak- 
 ing you remember the first, and giving you the same 
 kind of joy. If, in the square of the city, you can find 
 a delight, finite, indeed, but pure and intense, like 
 that which you have in a valley among the hills, then 
 its art and architecture are right; but if, after fair 
 trial, you can find no delight in them, nor any instruc- 
 tion like that of nature, I call on you fearlessly to con- 
 demn them. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Lecture III, %4i. 
 
 §41. There is nothing that I tell you with more eager 
 desire that you should believe — nothing with wider 
 ground in my experience for requiring you to believe, 
 than this, that you never will love art well, till you 
 love what she mirrors better. 
 
 It is the widest, as the clearest experience I have to 
 give you ; for the beginning of all my own right art 
 work in life, (and it may not be unprofitable that I 
 should tell you this), depended, not on my love of art, 
 but of mountains and sea. All boys with any good in 
 them are fond of boats, and of course I liked the 
 mountains best when they had lakes at the bottom ; 
 and I used to walk always in the middle of the loosest 
 gravel I could find in the roads of the midland coun- 
 
298 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ties, that I might hear, as I trod on it, something like 
 the sound of the pebbles on seabeach. No chance 
 occurred for some time to develop what gift of draw- 
 ing I had ; but I would pass entire days in rambling 
 on the Cumberland hill-sides, or staring at the lines of 
 surf on a low sand ; and when I was taken annually to 
 the Water-colour Exhibition, I used to get hold of a 
 catalogue before-hand, mark all the Robsons, which I 
 knew would be of purple mountains, and all the Cop- 
 ley Fieldings, which I knew would be of lakes or sea; 
 and then go deliberately round the room to these, for 
 the sake, observe, not of the pictures, in any wise, but 
 only of the things painted. 
 
 And through the whole of following life, whatever 
 power of judgment I have obtained in art, which I 
 am now confident and happy in using, or communicat- 
 ing, has depended on my steady habit of always look- 
 ing for the subject principally, and for the art, only as 
 the means of expressing it. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. IV, PI. V, Chap. VII, %f. 
 
 §4. But the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of 
 the winds are the least of the services appointed to the 
 hills. To fill the thirst of the human heart for the 
 beauty of God's working, — to startle its lethargy with 
 the deep and pure agitation of astonishment, — are 
 their higher missions. They are as a great and noble 
 architecture; first giving shelter, comfort, and rest; 
 and covered also with mighty sculpture and painted 
 legend. It is impossible to examine in their connected 
 system the features of even the most ordinary moun- 
 tain scenery, without concluding that it has been pre- 
 
Selections 
 
 299 
 
 pared in order to unite as far as possible, and in the 
 closest compass, every means of delighting and 
 sanctifying the heart of man. • * * * ^^^ 
 among the true mountains of the greater orders the 
 Divine purpose of appeal at once to all the faculties 
 of the human spirit becomes still more manifest. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. I, §/. 
 
 §1. In the course of our inquiry into the moral of 
 
 landscape (Vol. Ill, Chap. X & VII), we promised, at 
 
 the close of our work, to seek for some better. 
 
 Nature has ' ' 
 
 the same el- or at Icast Clearer, conclusions than were 
 
 feet as art. . 
 
 then possible to us. We confined ourselves 
 
 in that chapter to the vindication of the probable utility 
 of the love of natural scenery. We made no assertion 
 of the usefulness of painting such scenery. It might 
 be well to delight in the real country, or admire the 
 real flowers and true mountains. But it did not fol- 
 low that it was advisable to paint them. 
 
 Far from it. Many reasons might be given why we 
 should not paint them. All the purposes of good 
 which we saw that the beauty of nature could accom- 
 plish, may be better fulfilled by the meanest of her 
 realities than by the brightest of imitations. For 
 prolonged entertainment, no picture can be compared 
 with the wealth of interest which may be found in the 
 herbage of the poorest field, or blossoms of the nar- 
 rowest copse. As suggestive of supernatural power, 
 the passing away of a fitful rain-cloud, or opening of 
 dawn, are in their change and mystery more pregnant 
 than any pictures. A child would, I suppose, receive 
 a religious lesson from a flower more willingly than 
 
300 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 from a print of one, and might be taught to under- 
 stand the nineteenth Psalm, on a starry night, better 
 than by diagrams of the constellations. 
 
 Art of England, Led. IV. 
 
 Only, observe, I don't say that you can fancy what 
 you like, to the degree of receiving it for truth. 
 Heaven forbid we should have a power such as that, 
 for it would be one of voluntary madness. But we are, 
 in the most natural and rational health, able to foster 
 the fancy, up to the point of influencing our feelings 
 and character in the strongest way; and for the 
 strength of that healthy imaginative faculty, and all 
 the blending of the good and grace, "richiesto al vero 
 ed al trastuUo, "* we are wholly responsible. We may 
 cultivate it to what brightness we choose, merely by 
 living in a quiet relation with natural objects and 
 great and good people, past or present ; and we may 
 extinguish it to the last snuff, merely by living in 
 town, and reading the "Times" every morning. 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. I. 
 
 You have, in these two nations [Scotch and the East 
 Indian], seen in direct opposition the effects on moral 
 sentiment of art without nature, and of nature without 
 art. And you see enough to justify you in suspect- 
 ing — while, if you choose to investigate the subject 
 more deeply and with other examples, you will find 
 enough to justify you in concluding — that art, followed 
 as such, and for its own sake, irrespective of the inter- 
 
 * Dante, Purg., XIV, 93. 
 
Selections 301 
 
 pretation of nature by it, is destructive of whatever is 
 best and noblest in humanity; but that nature, how- 
 ever simply observed, or imperfectly known, is, in 
 the degree of the affection felt for it, protective and 
 helpful to all that is noblest in humanity. 
 
 You might then conclude farther, that art, so far as 
 it was devoted to the record or the interpretation of 
 nature, would be helpful and ennobling also. * * * 
 
 Leave, therefore, boldly, though not irreverently, 
 mysticism and symbolism on the one side; cast away 
 with utter scorn geometry and legalism on the other; 
 seize hold of God's hand and look full in the face of 
 His creation, and there is nothing He will not enable 
 you to achieve. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. II, Chap. VI, §^0. 
 
 §40. I must now refer for a moment, before we quit 
 the consideration of this, the second mental element 
 of Gothic, to the opening of the third chapter of the 
 "Seven Lamps of Architecture," in which the distinc- 
 tion was drawn (§2) between man gathering and man 
 governing; between his acceptance of the sources of 
 delight from nature, and his development of authori- 
 tative or imaginative power in their arrangement: for 
 the two mental elements, not only of Gothic, but of 
 all good architecture, which we have just been examin- 
 ing, belong to it, and are admirable in it, chieiiy as it 
 is, more than any other subject of art, the work of 
 man, and the expression of the average power of 
 man. A picture or poem is often little more than a 
 feeble utterance of man's admiration of something out 
 of himself; but architecture approaches more to a 
 
303 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 creation of his own, born of his necessities, and 
 expressive of his nature. It is also, in some sort, the 
 work of the whole race, while the picture or statue is 
 the work of one only, in most cases more highly gifted 
 than his fellows. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. X,%%6, ig. 
 
 §6. For, observe, although I believe any sensible per- 
 son would exchange his pictures, however good, for 
 windows, he would not feel, and ought not to 
 
 Art as an ... 
 
 interpreter feel, that the arrangement was entirely gam- 
 
 ofnature. , , . , . „ " u r i -i. 
 
 ful to him. He would feel it was an 
 exchange of a less good of one kind, for a greater of 
 another kind, but that it was definitely exchange, not 
 pure gain, not merely getting more truth instead of 
 less. The picture would be a serious loss; something 
 gone which the actual landscape could never restore, 
 though it might give something better in its place, as 
 age may give to the heart something better than its 
 youthful delusion, but cannot give again the sweetness 
 of that delusion. 
 
 §19. And then, lastly, it is another infinite advan- 
 tage possessed by the picture, that in these various 
 differences from reality it becomes the expression of 
 the power and intelligence of a companionable human 
 soul. In all this choice, arrangement, penetrative 
 sight, and kindly guidance, we recognize a supernatural 
 operation, and perceive, not merely the landscape or 
 incident as in a mirror, but, besides, the presence of 
 what, after all, may perhaps be the most wonderful 
 piece of divine work in the whole matter — the great 
 human spirit through which it is manifested to us. So 
 
Selections 303 
 
 that, although with respect to many important scenes, 
 it might, as we saw above, be one of the most precious 
 gifts that could be given us to see them with our own 
 eyes, yet also in many things it is more desirable to 
 be permitted to see them with the eyes of others ; and 
 although, to the small, conceited, and affected painter 
 displaying his narrow knowledge and tiny dexterities, 
 our only word may be, "Stand aside from between 
 that nature and me," yet to the great imaginative 
 painter — gi-eater a million times in every faculty of 
 soul than we — our word may wisely be, "Come 
 between this nature and me — this nature which is too 
 great and too wonderful for me ; temper it for me, 
 interpret it to me ; let me see with your eyes, and hear 
 with your ears, and have help and strength from your 
 great spirit." 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. I, Preface to 2d Ed. 
 
 We must therefore be cautious not to lose sight of 
 the real use of what has been left us by antiquity, nor 
 to take that for a model of perfection which is, in 
 many cases, only a guide to it. The picture which is 
 looked to for an interpretation of nature is invaluable, 
 but the picture which is taken as a substitute for 
 nature, had better be burned ; and the young artist, 
 while he should shrink with horror from the iconoclast 
 who would tear from him every landmark and light 
 which has been bequeathed him by the ancients, and 
 leave him in a liberated childhood, may be equally 
 certain of being betrayed by those who would give 
 him the power and the knowledge of past time, and 
 then fetter his strength from all advance, and bend 
 
304 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 his eyes backward on a beaten path — who would thrust 
 canvas between him and the sky, and tradition 
 between him and God. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. I, Pt. II, Sec. I, Chap. IV, %$. 
 
 §5. The teaching of nature is as varied and infinite as 
 
 it is constant ; and the duty of the painter is to watch 
 
 for every one of her lessons, and to give (for 
 
 Interpreter human life wiU admit of nothing more) those 
 
 of nature. . ,., , , ., , .,, 
 
 in which she has manifested each of her 
 principles in the most peculiar and striking way. The 
 deeper his research and the rarer the phenomena he 
 has noted, the ^more valuable will his works be ; to 
 repeat himself, even in a single instance, is treachery 
 to nature, for a thousand human lives would not be 
 enough to give one instance of the perfect manifesta- 
 tion of each of her powers ; and as for combining or 
 classifying them, as well might a preacher expect in 
 one sermon to express and explain every divine truth 
 which can be gathered out of God's revelation, as a 
 painter expect in one composition to express and illus- 
 trate every lesson which can be received from God's 
 
 creation. V^oth are commentators on 
 
 The duty , \ss 
 
 of the paint- infinity, anoihe duty of both is to take for 
 
 same as that each discourse one essential truth, seeking 
 of a preacher. .. , , , . . . . ,, , 
 
 particularly and insisting especially on those 
 
 which are less palpable to ordinary observation, and 
 
 more likely to escape an indolent researchjy and to 
 
 impress that, and that alone, upon those whom they 
 
 address, with every illustration that can be furnished 
 
 by their knowledge, and every adornment attainable 
 
 by their power. And the real truthfulness of the 
 
Selections 305 
 
 painter is in proportion to the number and variety of 
 the facts he has so illustrated; those facts being 
 always, as above observed, the realization, not the 
 violation of a general principle. The quantity of truth 
 is in proportion to the number of such facts, and its 
 value and instructiveness in proportion to their rarity. 
 All really great pictures, therefore, exhibit the general 
 habits of nature, manifested in some peculiar, rare 
 and beautiful way. 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. V. 
 
 II. Iron in Art. — Passing then, from the offices of 
 the metal in the operations of nature to its uses in the 
 hands of man, you must remember, in the outset, that 
 the typ^which has been thus given you, by a lifeless 
 metal, of the action of body and soul together, has 
 noble antitype in the operation of all human power. 
 All art worthy the name is the energy — neither of the 
 human body alone, nor of the human soul alone, but 
 of both united, one guiding the other: good crafts- 
 manship and work of the fingers, joined with good 
 emotion and work of the heart. 
 
 There is no good art, nor possible judgment of art, 
 when these two are not united; yet we are constantly 
 trying to separate them. Our amateurs can- 
 Art is the not be persuaded but that they may produce 
 tue whole somo kind of art by their fancy or sensi- 
 
 man. ■' 
 
 bility, without going through the necessary 
 manual toil. That is entirely hopeless. Without a 
 certain number, and that a very great number, of 
 steady acts of hand — a practice as careful and con- 
 stant as would be necessary to learn any other manual 
 
306 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 business — no drawing is possible. On the other side, 
 the workman, and those who employ him, are continu- 
 ally trjnng to produce art by trick or habit of fingers, 
 without using their fancy or sensibility. That also is 
 hopeless. Without mingling of heart-passion with 
 hand-power, no art is possible.* The highest art 
 unites both in their intensest degrees : the action of the 
 hand at its finest, with that of the heart at its fullest. 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. I. 
 
 Remember therefore always, you have two char- 
 acters in which all greatness of art consists: — First, 
 the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts ; then 
 the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, 
 so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the 
 utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And 
 thus great art is nothing else than the type of strong 
 and noble life ; for, as the ignoble person, in his deal- 
 ings with all that occurs in the world about him, first 
 sees nothing clearly, — ^looks nothing fairly in the face, 
 and then allows himself to be swept away by the 
 trampling torrent, and unescapable force, of the things 
 that he would not foresee, and could not understand: 
 so the noble person, looking the facts of the world 
 full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, 
 then deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and 
 unhurried strength, and becomes, with his humari 
 intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant 
 agent, in consummating their good, and restraining 
 their evil. 
 
 * No f5ne art, that is. See definition of fine arts in Lect II. 
 
Selections 307 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. II. 
 
 Then Fine Art is that in which the hand, the head, 
 and the heart of man go together. 
 
 Recollect this triple group; it will help you to solve 
 many difficult problems. And remember that though 
 the hand must be at the bottom of everything, it must 
 also go to the top of everything ; for Fine Art must 
 be produced by the hand of man in a much greater and 
 clearer sense than manufacture is. Fine Art must 
 always be produced by the subtlest of all machines, 
 which is the human hand. No machine yet contrived, 
 or hereafter contrivable, will ever equal the fine 
 machinery of the human fingers. Thoroughly per- 
 fect art is that which proceeds from the heart, which 
 involves all the noble emotions; — associates with these 
 the head, yet as inferior to the heart; and the hand, 
 yet as inferior to the heart and head; and thus brings 
 out the whole man. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. IV, %2i. 
 §21. We have just seen that all great art is the work 
 of the whole living creature, body and soul, and chiefly 
 , of the soul. But it is not only the work of 
 
 Art addressed ,, ,. 
 
 toman. the whole creature it likewise addresses the 
 
 whole creature. That in which the perfect being 
 speaks, must also have the perfect being to listen. 
 I am not to spend my utmost spirit, and give all my 
 strength and life to my work, while you, spectator 
 or hearer, will give me only the attention of half 
 your soul. You must be all mine, as I am all yours; 
 it is the only condition on which we can meet each 
 other. All your faculties, all that is in you of great- 
 
3o8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 est and best, must be awake in you, or I have no 
 reward. The painter is not to cast the entire treas- 
 ure of his human nature into his labor, merely to 
 please a part of the beholder; not merely to delight 
 his senses, not merely to amuse his fancy, not merely 
 to beguile him into emotion, not merely to lead him 
 into thought, but to do all this. Senses, fancy, feel- 
 ing, reason, the whole of the beholding spirit, must be 
 stilled in attention or stirred with delight; else the 
 laboring spirit has riot done its work well. For observe, 
 it is not merely its right to be thus met, face to face, 
 heart to heart ; but it is its duty to evoke its answer- 
 ing of the other soul ; its trumpet call must be so clear, 
 that though the challenge may by dulness or indolence 
 be unanswered, there shall be no error as to the mean- 
 ing of the appeal ; there must be a summons in the 
 work, which it shall be our own fault if we do not 
 obey. We require this of it we beseech this of it. 
 Most men do not know what is in them, till they 
 receive this summons from their fellows: their hearts 
 die within them, sleep settles upon them, the lethargy 
 of the world's miasmata; there is nothing for which 
 they are so thankful as for that cry, "Awake, thou 
 that sleepest. " And this cry must be most loudly 
 uttered to their noblest faculties ; first of all to the 
 imagination, for that is the most tender, and the 
 soonest struck into numbness by the poisoned air ; so 
 that one of the main functions of art in its service to 
 man, is to arouse the imagination from its palsy, like 
 the angel troubling the Bethesda pool; and the art 
 which does not do this is false to its duty, and degraded 
 in its na ture. It is not enough that it be well imagined, 
 
Selections 309 
 
 it must task the beholder also to imagine well ; and 
 this so imperatively, that if he does not choose to rouse 
 himself to meet the work, he shall not taste it, nor 
 enjoy it in any wise. Once that he is well awake, the 
 guidance which the artist gives him should be full and 
 authoritative: the beholder's imagination must not 
 be suffered to take its own way, or wander hither and 
 thither ; but neither must it be left at rest ; and the 
 right point of realization, for any given work of art, is 
 that which will enable the spectator to complete it for 
 himself, in the exact way the artist would have him, 
 but not that which will save him the trouble of effect- 
 ing the completion. So soon as the idea is entirely 
 conveyed, the artist's labor should cease ; and every 
 touch which he adds beyond the point when, with the 
 help of the beholder's imagination, the story ought to 
 have been told, is a degradation to his work. So that 
 the art is wrong, which either realizes its subject com- 
 pletely, or fails in giving such definite aid as shall 
 enable it to be realized by the beholding imagination. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Appendix, 14. 
 Now all these parts of the human system have a 
 reciprocal action on one another, so that the true per- 
 fection of any of them is not possible with- 
 Keiation oi Qut Some relative perfection of the others, 
 
 imagination, ^ r ii. i. 
 
 feeling and and yet any one of the parts of the system 
 may be brought into a morbid development, 
 inconsistent with the perfection of the others. Thus, 
 in a healthy state, the acuteness of the senses quickens 
 that of the feelings, and these latter quicken the 
 understanding, and then all the three quicken the 
 
3IO Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 imagination, and then all the four strengthen the 
 resolution ; while yet there is a danger, on the other 
 hand, that the encouraged and morbid feeling may 
 weaken or bias the understanding, or that the over 
 shrewd and keen understanding may shorten the 
 imagination, or that the understanding and imagination 
 together may take place of, or undermine, the resolu- 
 tion, as in Hamlet. 
 
 Lectures on Art, III, §§9#, 95. 
 
 §94. You will find farther, that as of love, so of all 
 the other passions, the right government and exalta- 
 tion begins in that of the Imagination, which is lord 
 over them. For to subdue the passions, which is 
 thought so often to be the sum of duty respecting 
 them, is possible enough to a proud dulness ; but to 
 excite them rightly, and make them strong for good, 
 is the work of the unselfish imagination. It is con- 
 stantly said that human nature is heartless. Do not 
 believe it. Human nature is kind and generous; but 
 it is narrow and blind ; and can only with difficulty 
 conceive anything but what it immediately sees and 
 feels. People would instantly care for others as well as 
 themselves if only they could imagine others as well as 
 themselves. Let a child fall into the river before the 
 roughest man's eyes; — he will usually do what he can 
 to get it out, even at some risk to himself; and all the 
 town will triumph in the saving of one'little life. Let 
 the same man be shown that hundreds of children are 
 dying of fever for want of some sanitary measure which 
 it will cost him trouble to urge, and he will make no 
 effort ; and probably all the town would resist him if 
 
Selections an 
 
 he did. So, also, the lives of many deserving women 
 are passed in a succession of petty anxieties about 
 themselves, and gleaning of minute interests and 
 mean pleasures in their immediate circle, because they 
 are never taught to make any effort to look beyond it ; 
 or to know anything about the mighty world in which 
 their lives are fading, like blades of bitter grass in 
 fruitless fields. 
 
 §95. I had intended to enlarge on this — and yet more 
 on the kingdom which every man holds in his concep- 
 tive faculty, to be peopled with active thoughts and 
 lovely presences, or left waste for the springing up of 
 those dark desires and dreams of which it is written 
 that "every imagination of the thoughts of man's 
 heart is evil continually. " True, and a thousand times 
 true it is, that, here at least, "greater is he that ruleth 
 his spirit, than he that taketh a city. ' ' But this you 
 can partly follow out for yourselves without help, 
 partly we must leave it for future enquiry. I press 
 to the conclusion which 1 wish to leave with you, that 
 all you can rightly do, or honourably become, depends 
 on the government of these two instincts of order and 
 kindness, by this great Imaginative faculty, which 
 gives you inheritance of the past, grasp of the present, 
 authority over the future. 
 
 Lectures on Art, III, g(5<5. 
 
 §66. You probably recollect that, in the beginning of 
 
 my last lecture, it was stated that fine art had, and 
 
 , , . could have, but three functions: the enforc- 
 
 feet of art. ing of the religious sentiments or men, tne 
 
 perfecting their ethical state, and the doing them 
 
312 Raskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 material service. We have to-day to examine the mode 
 of its action in the second power, that of perfecting 
 the morality or ethical state of men. 
 
 Perfecting, observe — not producing. 
 
 You must have the right moral state first, or you 
 cannot have the art. But when the art is once 
 obtained, its reflected action enhances and completes 
 the moral state out of which it arose, and, above all, 
 communicates the exaltation to other minds which are 
 already morally capable of the like. 
 
 Queen of the Air, I, %42. 
 
 §42. And since, as before stated, every work of right 
 art has a tendency to reproduce the ethical state 
 which first developed it, this, which of all the arts is 
 most directly ethical in origin, is also the most direct 
 in power of discipline; the first, the simplest, the 
 most effective of all instruments of moral instruction; 
 while in the failure and betrayal of its functions, it 
 becomes the subtlest aid of moral degradation. Music 
 is thus, in her health, the teacher of perfect order.* 
 
 Queen of the Air, III, §§//o, ///. 
 §110. He took pleasure in them because he had been 
 bred among English fields and hills ; because the gen- 
 tleness of a great race was in his heart, and its powers 
 of thought in his brain ; because he knew the stories of 
 the Alps, and of the cities at their feet; because he 
 had read the Homeric legends of the clouds, and 
 beheld the gods of dawn, and the givers of dew to the 
 fields ; because he knew the faces of the crags, and the 
 
 * See this same topic under Selections with Chapter I. 
 
Selections 313 
 
 imagery of the passionate mountains, as a man knows 
 the face of his friend ; because he had in him the won- 
 der and sorrow concerning life and death, which are 
 the inheritance of the Gothic soul from the days of its 
 first sea kings , and also the compassion and the joy 
 that are woven into the innermost fabric of every great 
 imaginative spirit, born now in countries that have 
 lived by the Christian faith with any courage or truth. 
 And the picture contains, also, for us, just this which 
 its maker had in him to give ; and can convey it to 
 us, just so far as we are of the temper in which it must 
 be received. It is didactic if we are worthy to be 
 taught, not otherwise. The pure heart, it will make 
 more pure; the thoughtful, more thoughtful. It has 
 in it no words for the reckless or the base. 
 
 §111. As I myself look at it, there is no fault nor folly 
 of my life, — and both have been many and great, — that 
 does not rise up against me, and take away my joy, 
 and shorten my power of possession, of sight, of under- 
 standing. And every past effort of my life, every 
 gleam of rightness or good in it, is with me now, to 
 help me in my grasp of this art, and its vision. 
 
 Lectures on Art, VII, %igo. 
 §190. In closing this first course of lectures, I have 
 one word more to say respecting the possible conse- 
 quence of the introduction of art among the studies of 
 the University. What art may do for scholarship, I 
 have no right to conjecture; but what scholarship may 
 do for art, I may in all modesty tell you. Hitherto, 
 great artists, though always gentlemen, have yet been 
 too exclusively craftsmen. Art has been less thought- 
 
314 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 f ul than we suppose ; it has taught much, but much, 
 also, falsely. Many of the greatest pictures are 
 enigmas; others, beautiful toys; others, harmful, 
 and corrupting toys. In the loveliest there is some- 
 thing weak; in the greatest there is something guilty. 
 And this, gentlemen, if you will, is the new thing 
 that may come to pass, — that the scholars of England 
 may resolve to teach also with the silent power of the 
 arts ; and that some among you may so learn and use 
 them, that pictures may be painted which shall not be 
 enigmas any more, but open teachings of what can no 
 otherwise be so well shown; which shall not be 
 fevered or broken visions any more, but shall be filled 
 with the indwelling light of self-possessed imagina- 
 tion; which shall not be stained or enfeebled any 
 more by evil passion, but glorious with the strength 
 and chastity of noble human love; and which shall no 
 more degrade or disguise the work of God in heaven, 
 but testify of Him as here dwelling with men, and 
 walking with them, not angry, in the garden of the 
 earth. 
 
 Lectures on Architecture, I, §5. 
 
 §5. Believe me, it is not so. All things that are worth 
 doing in art, are interesting and attractive when they 
 are done. There is no law of right which consecrates 
 dulness. The proof of a thing's being right is, that it 
 has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, 
 or helps us. I do not say that it has influence over 
 all, but it has over a large class, one kind of art 
 being fit for one class, and another for another ; and 
 there is no goodness in art which is independent of the 
 
Selections 315 
 
 power of pleasing. Yet, do not mistake me ; I do not 
 mean that there is no such thing as neglect of the 
 best art, or delight in the worst, just as many men 
 neglect nature, and feed upon what is artiiicial and 
 base ; but I mean, that all good art has the capacity 
 of pleasing, if people will attend to it ; that there is no 
 law against its pleasing ; but, on the contrary, some- 
 thing wrong either in the spectator or the art, when 
 it ceases to please. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. Ill, PL IV, Chap. II, §5. 
 §8. It is not true that Poetry does not concern herself 
 with minute details. It is not true that high art seeks 
 only the Invariable. It is not true that imitative art is 
 an easy thing. It is not true that the faithful render- 
 ing of nature is an employment in which "the slowest 
 intellect is likely to succeed best." All these suc- 
 cessive assertions are utterly false and untenable, 
 while the plain truth, a truth lying at the very door, 
 has all the while escaped him,— that which was inci- 
 dentally stated in the preceding chapter,— namely, 
 that the difference between great and mean art lies, 
 not in definable methods of handling, or styles of rep- 
 resentation, or choices of subjects, but wholly in the 
 nobleness of the end to which the effort of the painter 
 is addressed. "We cannot say that a painter is great 
 because he paints boldly, or paints delicately; because 
 he generalizes or particularizes; because he loves 
 detail, or because he disdains it. He is great if, by 
 any of these means, he has laid open noble truths, or 
 aroused noble emotions. It does not matter whether 
 he paint the petal of a rose, or the chasms of a preci- 
 
3i6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 pice, so that Love and Admiration attend him as he 
 labors, and wait forever upon his work. It does not 
 matter whether he toil for months upon a few inches 
 of his canvas, or cover a palace front with color in a 
 day, so only that it be with a solemn purpose that he 
 has filled his heart with patience, or urged his hand to 
 haste. And it does not matter whether he seek for 
 his subjects among peasants or nobles, among the 
 heroic or the simple, in courts or in fields, so only that 
 he behold all things with a thirst for beauty, and a 
 hatred of meanness and vice. There are, indeed, cer- 
 tain methods of representation which are usually 
 adopted by the most active minds, and certain char- 
 acters of subject usually delighted in by the noblest 
 hearts; but it is quite possible, quite easy, to adopt the 
 manner of painting without sharing the activity of 
 mind, and to imitate the choice of subject without 
 possessing the nobility of spirit ; while, on the other 
 hand, it is altogether impossible to foretell on what 
 strange objects the strength of a great man will some- 
 times be concentrated, or by what strange means he 
 will sometimes express himself. 
 
 Queen of the Air, III, %%I02, 104. 
 
 §102. Great art is the expression of the mind of a 
 great man, and mean art, that of the want of mind of 
 a weak man. A foolish person builds foolishly, and a 
 wise one, sensibly; a virtuous one, beautifully; and 
 a vicious one, basely. If stone work is well put 
 together, it means that a thoughtful man planned it, 
 and a careful man cut it, and an honest man cemented 
 it. If it has too much ornament, it means that its 
 
Selections 
 
 317 
 
 carver was too greedy of pleasure ; if too little, that 
 he was rude or insensitive, or stupid, and the like. 
 So that when once you have learned how to spell these 
 most precious of all legends, — pictures and buildings, 
 — you may read the characters of men, and of nations, 
 in their art, as in a mirror ; — nay, as in a microscope, 
 and magnified a hundredfold; for the character 
 becomes passionate in the art, and intensifies itself in 
 all its noblest or meanest delights. Nay, not only as 
 in a microscope, but as under a scalpel, and in dissec- 
 tion ; for a man may hide himself from you, or mis- 
 represent himself to you, every other way; but he 
 cannot in his work : there, be sure, you have him to 
 the inmost. All that he likes, all that he sees, — all 
 that he can do, — his imagination, his affections, his 
 perseverance, his impatience, his clumsiness, clever- 
 ness, everything is there. If the work is a cobweb, 
 you know it was made by a spider ; if a honeycomb, 
 by a bee; a worm-cast is thrown up by a worm, 
 and a nest wreathed by a bird; and a house built 
 by a man, worthily, if he is worthy, and ignobly, if 
 he is ignoble. 
 
 And always, from the least to the greatest, as the 
 made thing is good or bad, so is the maker of it. 
 
 §104. Now I must insist on this matter, for a grave 
 reason. Of all facts concerning art, this is the one 
 most necessary to be known, that, while manufacture 
 is the work of hands only, art is the work of the whole 
 spirit of man; and as that spirit is, so is the deed of 
 it: and by whatever power of vice or virtue any art is 
 produced, the same vice or virtue it reproduces 
 and teaches. That which is born of evil begets evil; 
 
3l8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 and that which is born of valour and honour, teaches 
 valour and honour. All art is either infection or 
 education. It must be one or other of these. 
 
 The Two Paths, I, %%4g, so. 
 
 §49. But it is still more important for 70U to be as- 
 sured that the conditions of life and death in the art of 
 nations are also the conditions of life and 
 
 Artist paints , , . , , , . 
 
 what he death m your own ; and that you have it, 
 
 loves. , . , . . ., . . 
 
 each m his power at this very instant, to 
 determine in which direction his steps are turning. It 
 seems almost a terrible thing to tell you, that all here 
 have all the power of knowing at once what hope there 
 is for them as artists ; you would, perhaps, like bet- 
 ter that there was some unremovable doubt about the 
 chances of the future — some possibility that you might 
 be advancing, in unconscious ways, toward unexpected 
 successes — some excuse or reason for going about, as 
 students do so often, to this master or the other, ask- 
 ing him if they have genius, and whether they are 
 doing right, and gathering, from his careless or formal 
 replies, vague flashes of encouragement, or fitfulnesses 
 of despair. There is no need for this — no excuse for 
 it. All of you have the trial of yourselves in your own 
 power; each may undergo at this instant, before his 
 own judgment seat, the ordeal by fire. Ask your- 
 selves what is the leading motive which actuates you 
 while you are at work. I do not ask you what your 
 leading motive is for working — that is a different 
 thing ; you may have families to support — parents to 
 help — brides to win; you may have all these, or other 
 such sacrerd and pre-eminent motives, to press the 
 
Selections jig 
 
 morning's labour and prompt the twilight thought. 
 But when you are fairly at the work, what is the motive 
 then which tells upon every touch of it? If it is the 
 love of that which your work represents — if, being a 
 landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that 
 moves you— if, being a figure painter, it is love of 
 human beauty and human soul that moves you — if, 
 being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and won- 
 der, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, 
 then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, 
 and the fulness thereof. But if, on the other hand, it 
 is petty self-complacency in your own skill, trust in 
 precepts ^nd laws, hope for academical or popular 
 approbation, or avarice of wealth, — it is quite pos- 
 sible that by steady industry, or even by fortunate 
 chance, you may win the applause, the position, the 
 fortune, that you desire; — but one touch of true 
 art you will never lay on canvas or on stone as long 
 as you live. 
 
 §50. Make, then, your choice, boldly and consciously, 
 for one way or other it must be made. On the dark 
 and dangerous side are set, the pride which delights 
 in self -contemplation — the indolence which rests in 
 unquestioned forms — the ignorance that despises what 
 is fairest among God's creature, and the dulness that 
 denies what is marvellous in His working: there is a 
 life of monotony for your own souls, and of misguid- 
 ing for those of others. And, on the other side, is 
 open to your choice the life of the crowned spirit, mov- 
 ing as a light in creation — discovering always — 
 illuminating always, gaining every hour in strength, 
 yet bowed down every hour into deeper humility; 
 
320 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 sure of being right in its aim, sure of being irresist- 
 ible in its progress; happy in what it has securely 
 done — ^happier in what, day by day, it may as securely 
 hope ; happiest at the close of life, when the right hand 
 begins to forget its cunning, to remember, that there 
 never was a touch of the chisel or the pencil it wielded, 
 but has added to the knowledge and quickened the 
 happiness of mankind, 
 
 A Joy Forever, II. 
 
 A great work is only done when the painter gets 
 into the humour for it, likes his subject, and deter- 
 mines to paint it as well as he can, whether he is paid 
 for it or not ; but bad work, and generally the worst 
 sort of bad work, is done when he is trying to produce 
 a showy picture, or one that shall appear to have as 
 much labour in it as shall be worth a high price. 
 
 Art of England, VI. 
 
 I am indebted also to one of my Oxford friends, 
 Miss Symonds, for the privilege of showing you, with 
 entire satisfaction, a perfectly good and characteristic 
 drawing by Copley Fielding, of Cader Idris, seen 
 down the vale of Dolgelly; in which he has expressed 
 with his utmost skill the joy of his heart in the aerial 
 mountain light, and the iridescent wildness of the 
 mountain foreground; nor could you see enforced 
 with any sweeter emphasis the truth on which Mr. 
 Morris dwelt so earnestly in his recent address to 
 you — that the excellence of the work is, cceteris pari- 
 bus, in proportion to the joy of the workman. 
 
Selections 321 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, V, %34. 
 
 §24. I believe the right question to ask, respect- 
 ing all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with 
 enjoyment — was the carver happy while he was 
 about it? It may be the hardest work possible, 
 and the- harder because so much pleasure was taken 
 in it; but it must have been happy too, or it will 
 not be living. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. V, §9. 
 
 §9. With the earlier and mightier painters of Italy, 
 the practice is commonly to leave their distance of 
 The land- pure and open sky, of such simplicity, that 
 scape artist {i {jj nowisc shall interfere with or draw 
 
 vmconscioiis- 
 
 ly presents the attention from the interest of the fig- 
 
 what lie . ** 
 
 loves. ures, and of such purity, that especially 
 
 towards the horizon, it shall be in the highest degree 
 expressive of the infinite space of heaven. I do not 
 mean to say that they did this with any occult or meta- 
 physical motives. They did it, I think, with the child- 
 like, unpretending simplicity of all earnest men ; they 
 did what they loved and felt ; they sought what the 
 heart naturally seeks, and gave what it most grace- 
 fully receives; and I look to them as in all points of 
 principle (not, observe, of knowledge or empirical 
 attainment) as the most irrefragable authorities, pre- 
 cisely on account of the child-like innocence, which 
 never deemed itself authoritative, but acted upon 
 desire, and not upon dicta, and sought for sympathy, 
 not for admiration. 
 
322 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. V, §«. 
 
 §12. In all these cases, while I would uphold the 
 landscape thus employed and treated, as worthy of all 
 s^j,jj admiration, I should be sorry to advance it 
 
 JfJJ,*=oap«is for imitation. What is right in its manner- 
 imitated, ism arose from keen feeling in the painter: 
 imitated without the same feeling, it would be pain- 
 ful ; the only safe mode of following in such steps is to 
 attain perfect knowledge of nature herself, and then 
 to suffer our own feelings to guide us in the selection 
 of what is fitting for any particular purpose. Every 
 painter ought to paint what he himself loves, not what 
 the others have loved; if his mind be pure and 
 sweetly toned, what he loves will be lovely; if other- 
 wise, no example can guide his selection, no precept 
 govern his hand; and farther let it be distinctly 
 observed, that all this mannered landscape is only 
 right under the supposition of its being a background 
 to some supernatural presence ; behind mortal beings 
 it would be wrong, and by itself, as landscape, ridic- 
 ulous ; and farther, the chief virtue of it results from 
 the exquisite refinement of those natural details con- 
 sistent with its character from the botanical drawing of 
 the flowers and the clearness and brightness of the sky. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XVIII, §j/. 
 
 §31. Thegraceofnature,or her gloom, hertenderand 
 sacred seclusions, or her reach of power and wrath, 
 had never been painted; nor had anything been 
 painted yet in true love of it; for both Dutch and 
 Italians agreed in this, that they always painted for 
 the picture's sake, to show how well they could imi- 
 
Selections 323 
 
 tate sunshine, arrange masses, or articulate straws, — 
 never because they loved the scene, or wanted to carry 
 away some memory of it. 
 
 And thus, all that landscape of the old masters is to 
 be considered merely as a struggle of expiring skill to 
 discover some new direction in which to display itself. 
 There was no love of nature in the age ; only a desire 
 for something new. Therefore those schools expired 
 at last, leaving the chasm of nearly utter emptiness 
 between them and the true moderns, out of which 
 chasm the new school rises, not engrafted on that old 
 one, but, from the very base of all things, beginning 
 with mere washes of Indian ink, touched upon with 
 yellow and brown ; and gradually feeling its way to 
 colour. 
 
 But this infant school differed inherently from that 
 ancienter one, in that its motive was love. However 
 feeble its efforts might be, they were for the sake of 
 nature^ not of the picture, and therefore, having this 
 germ of true life, it grew and throve. Robson did not 
 paint purple hills because he wanted to show how he 
 could lay on purple ; but because he truly loved their 
 dark peaks. Fielding did not paint downs to show 
 how dexterously he could sponge out mists; but 
 because he loved downs. 
 
 This modern school, therefore, became the only 
 true school of landscape which had yet existed ; the 
 artificial Claude and Gaspar work may be cast aside 
 out of our way, — as I have said in my Edinburgh lec- 
 tures, under the general title of "pastoralism,"— and 
 from the last landscape of Tintoret, if we look for life, 
 we must pass at once to the first of Turner. 
 
324 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. I, Pt. 11, Sec. J, Chap. I, §§/, s, f-S. 
 
 §1. it cannot but be evident, from the above division 
 of the ideas conveyable by art, that the landscape pain- 
 ter must always have two great and distinct 
 
 The two , , „ . , . . 
 
 great ends of ends; the first, to induce m the spectator's 
 
 landscape .,, ,.,.-. . , 
 
 painting are mmd the faithful .conception of any natural 
 
 the represent- , . , , , ■" 
 
 ation of facts obiects whatsoever; the second, to euide 
 
 and thoughts. , . ' . i 6 "^ 
 
 the spectator s mmd to those objects most 
 
 worthy of its contemplation, and to inform him of the 
 
 thoughts and feelings with which these were regarded 
 
 by the artist himself. 
 
 In attaining the first end, the painter only places 
 
 the spectator where he stands himself; he sets him 
 
 before the landscape and leaves him. The 
 Thoughts are ^ ^ • ■, xt , ,, 
 
 interpreta- spectator IS alonc. He may follow out his 
 
 tlons of facts. ., ,. , ,,., ,. 
 
 own thoughts as he would in the natural sol- 
 itude, or he may remain untouched, unreflecting and 
 regardless, as his disposition may incline him. But he 
 has nothing of thought given to him, no new ideas, no 
 unknown feelings, forced on his attention or his heart. 
 The artist is his conveyance, not his companion, — his 
 horse, not his friend. But in attaining the second end, 
 the artist not only places the spectator, but talks to him ; 
 makes him a sharer in his own strong feelings and quick 
 thoughts ; hurries him away in his • own enthusiasm ; 
 guides him to all that is beautiful ; snatches him from 
 all that is base, and leaves him more than delighted, — 
 ennobled and instructed, under the sense of having 
 not only beheld a new scene, but of having held com- 
 munion with a new mind, and having been endowed for 
 a time with the keen perception and the impetuous emo- 
 tion of a nobler and more penetrating intelligence. 
 
Selections 325 
 
 §2. Each of these different aims of art will necessitate 
 a different system of choice of objects to be represented. 
 
 The first does not indeed imply choice at all, 
 They In- ... ,, . -■ 
 
 duceadiiPer- but it IS usually United With the selection of 
 ent choice of , , . 
 
 maitiiai such objects as may be naturally and con- 
 stantly pleasing to all men, at all times; and 
 this selection, when perfect and careful, leads to the 
 attainment of the pure ideal. But the artist aiming at 
 the second end, selects his objects for their meaning 
 and character, rather than for their beauty; and uses 
 them rather to throw light upon the particular thought 
 he wishes to convey, than as in themselves objects of 
 unconnected admiration. 
 
 §4. But art, in its second and highest aim, is not an 
 
 appeal to constant animal feelings, but an expression 
 
 and awakening of individual thought: it is 
 
 expresses _ therefore as various and as extended in its 
 
 '" " efforts as the compass and grasp of the 
 
 directing mind; and we feel, in each of its results, that 
 we are looking, not at a specimen of a tradesman's 
 wares, of which he is ready to make us a dozen to 
 match, but at one coruscation of a perpetually active 
 mind, like which there has not been, and will not be, 
 another. 
 
 §5. Hence, although there can be no doubt which of 
 these branches of art is the highest, it is equally evi- 
 dent that the first will be the most general- 
 tost*sde- ly felt and appreciated. For the simple 
 lightfuitoau. g^^^gj^gjjt of the truths of nature must in 
 itself be pleasing to every order of mind; because 
 every truth of nature is more or less beautiful; and 
 if there be just and right selection of the more impor- 
 
326 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 tant of these truths — based, as above explained, on 
 feelings and desires common to all mankind — the facts 
 so selected must, in some degree, be delightful to 
 all, and their value appreciable by all: more or less, 
 indeed, as their senses and instinct have been ren- 
 dered more or less acute and accurate by use and study ; 
 but in some degree by all, and in the same 
 
 Xh6 sec- 
 
 ondoniyto way by all. But the highest art, being 
 based on sensations of peculiar minds, sensa- 
 tions occurring to them only at particular times, and 
 to a plurality of mankind perhaps never, and being 
 expressive of thoughts which could only rise out of a 
 mass of the most extended knowledge, and of disposi- 
 tions modified in a thousand ways by peculiarity of 
 intellect — can only be met and understood by persons 
 having some sort of sympathy with the high and soli- 
 tary minds which produced it — sympathy only to be 
 felt by minds in some degree high and solitary them- 
 selves. He alone can appreciate the art, who could 
 comprehend the conversation of the painter, and share 
 in his emotion, in moments of his most fiery passion 
 and most original thought. And whereas the true 
 meaning and end of his art must thus be sealed to 
 thousands, or misunderstood by them ; so also, as he 
 is sometimes obliged, in working out his own peculiar 
 end, to set at defiance those constant laws which have 
 arisen out of our lower and changeless desires, that 
 whose purpose is unseen, is frequently in its means 
 and parts displeasing. 
 
 §7. But this want of extended influence in high art, be 
 it especially observed, proceeds from no want of truth 
 in the art itself, but from a want of sympathy in the 
 
Selections 327 
 
 ^spectator with those feelings in the artist which prompt 
 him to the utterance of one truth rather than of an- 
 other. For (and this is what I wish at pres- 
 neoessary to ent especially to insist upon) although it is 
 possible to reach what I have stated to be 
 the first end of art, the representation of facts, without 
 reaching the second, the representation of thoughts, yet 
 it is altogether impossible to reach the second without 
 having previously reached the first. I do not say that 
 a man cannot think, having false basis and material for 
 thought ; but that a false thought is worse than the want 
 of thought, and therefore is not art. And this is the 
 reason why, though I consider the second as the real 
 and only important end of all art, I call the representa- 
 tion of facts the first end ; because it is necessary to the 
 other, and must be attained before it. It is the foun- 
 dation of all art ; like real foundations it may be little 
 thought of when a brilliant fabric is raised on it ; but 
 it must be there: and as few buildings are beautiful 
 unless every line and column of their mass have refer- 
 ence to their foundation, and are suggestive of its 
 existence and strength, so nothing can be beautiful in 
 art which does not in all its parts suggest and guide 
 to the foundation, even where no undecorated portion 
 of it is visible; while the noblest edifices of art are 
 built of such pure and fine crystal that the foundation 
 may all be seen through them; and then many, while 
 they do not see what is built upon that first story, yet 
 much admire the solidity of its brickwork; thinking 
 they understand all that is to be understood of the 
 matter; while others stand beside them, looking not 
 at the low story, but up mto the heaven at that 
 
328 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 building of crystal in which the builders' spirit is 
 dwelling. And thus, though we want the thoughts 
 and feelings of the artist as well as the truth, yet they 
 must be thoughts arising out of the knowledge of 
 truth, and feelings arising out of the contemplation of 
 truth. We do not want his mind to be as badly blown 
 glass, that distorts what we see through it; but like a 
 glass of sweet and strange colour, that gives new tones 
 to what we see through it ; and a glass of rare strength 
 and clearness too, to let us see more than we could 
 ourselves, and bring nature up to us and near to us. 
 Nothing can atone for the want of truth, not the most 
 brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most 
 pure feeling, (supposing that feeling could be pure and 
 false at the same time ;) not the most exalted concep- 
 tion, nor the most comprehensive grasp of intellect, 
 can make amends for the want of truth, and that for 
 two reasons : first, because falsehood is in itself revolt- 
 ing and degrading ; arid secondly, because nature is so 
 immeasurably superior to all that the human mind can 
 conceive, that every departure from her is a fall beneath 
 her, so that there can be no such thing as an orna- 
 mental falsehood. All falsehood must be a blot as 
 well as a sin, an injury as well as a deception. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. IV, PL V, Chap. II, §j. 
 
 §5. So far from doing this, the proper choice of sub- 
 ject is an absolute duty to the topographical painter: he 
 should first take care that it is a subject 
 ing choice of intensely pleasmg to himself, else he will 
 never paint it well ; and then also, that it 
 shall be one in some sort pleasurable to the general 
 
Selections 32$ 
 
 public; else it is not worth painting at all; and lastly, 
 take care that it be instructive, as well as pleasurable 
 to the public, else it is not worth painting with care. 
 
 Lectures on Art, II, ^46, 48, 54, j6. 
 
 §46. Now the faculty of vision, being closely asso- 
 ciated with the innermost spiritual nature, is the one 
 which has by most reasoners been held for 
 St^t^se^r. ^^ peculiar channel of Divine teaching: and 
 it is a fact that great part of purely didactic 
 art has been the record, whether in language, or by 
 linear representation, of actual vision involuntarily 
 received at the moment, though cast on a mental 
 retina blanched by the past course of faithful life. 
 
 §48. And so far as we can trace the connection of their 
 powers with the moral character of their lives, we shall 
 find that the best art is the work of good, but of not 
 distinctly religious men, who, at least, are conscious 
 of no inspiration, and often so unconscious of their 
 superiority to others, that one of the very greatest of 
 them, deceived by his modesty, has asserted that 'all 
 things are possible to well-directed labour. ' 
 
 §54. Again, there is another division of Christian 
 work in which the persons represented, though nom- 
 inally real, are treated only as dramatis-personae of a 
 poem, and so presented confessedly as subjects of 
 imagination. All this poetic art is also good when it is 
 the work of good men. 
 
 §76. Let me assure you once for all, that as you grow 
 older, if you enable yourselves to distinguish, by the 
 truth of your own lives, what is true in those of other 
 men, you will gradually perceive that all good has its 
 
33° Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 origin in good, never in evil ; that the fact of either 
 literature or painting being truly fine of their kind, 
 whatever their mistaken aim, or partial error, is proof 
 of their noble origin: and that, if there is indeed 
 sterling value in the thing done, it has come of a 
 sterling worth of the soul that did it, however alloyed 
 .or defiled by conditions of sin which are sometimes 
 more appalling or more strange than those which all 
 may detect in their own hearts, because they are part 
 of a personality altogether larger than ours, and as far 
 beyond our judgment in its darkness as beyond our 
 following in its light. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. II, §§/o, 13. 
 
 §10. This, then, being the kind of truth with which 
 art is exclusively concerned, how is such truth as 
 this to be ascertained and accumulated? Evidently, 
 and only, by perception and feeling. Never either 
 by reasoning, or report. Nothing must come be- 
 tween Nature and the artist's sight; nothing between 
 God and the artist's soul. Neither calculation nor 
 hearsay, — be it the most subtle of calculations, or the 
 wisest of sayings, — may be allowed to come between 
 the universe, and the witness which art bears to its 
 visible nature. The whole value of that witness de- 
 pends on its being rj^- witness; the whole genuine- 
 ness, acceptableness, and dominion of it depend on 
 the personal assurance of the man who utters it. AH 
 its victory depends on the veracity of the one preced- 
 ing word, "Vidi." 
 
 The whole function of the artist in the world is to be 
 a seeing and feeling creature ; to be an instrument of 
 
Selections 331 
 
 such tenderness and sensitiveness, that no shadow, no 
 hue, no line, no instantaneous and evanescent expres- 
 sion of the visible things around him, nor any of the 
 emotions which they are capable of conveying to the 
 spirit which has been given him, shall either be left 
 unrecorded, or fade from the book of record. It is not 
 his business either to think, to judge, to argue, or to 
 know. His place is neither in the closet, nor on the 
 bench, nor at the bar, nor in the library. They are 
 for other men and other work. He may think, in a 
 by-way ; reason, now and then, when he has nothing 
 better to do ; know, such fragments of knowledge as 
 he can gather without stooping, or reach without 
 pains ; but none of these things are to be his care. 
 The work of his life is to be two-fold only : to see, to 
 feel. 
 
 §13. What, then, it will be indignantly asked, is 
 an utterly ignorant and unthinking man likely to make 
 the best artist? No, not so either. Knowledge is 
 good for him so long as he can keep it utterly, 
 servilely, subordinate to his own divine work, and 
 trample it under his feet, and out of his way, the 
 moment it is likely to entangle him. 
 
 And in this respect, observe, there is an enormous 
 difference between knowledge and education. An 
 artist need not be a learned man, in all probability it 
 will be a disadvantage to him to become so; but he 
 ought, if possible, always to be an educated man: that 
 is, one who has understanding of his own uses and 
 duties in the world, and therefore of the general 
 nature of the things done and existing in the world; 
 and who has so trained himself, or been trained, as to 
 
332 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 turn to the best and most courteous account whatever 
 faculties or knowledge he has. The mind of an edu- 
 cated man is greater than the knowledge it possesses; 
 it is like the vault of heaven, encompassing the earth 
 which lives and flourishes beneath it ; but the mind of 
 an educated and learned man is like a caoutchouc band, 
 with an everlasting spirit of contraction in it, fasten- 
 ing together papers which it cannot open, and keeps 
 others from opening. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. Ill, %%3i, 33. 
 
 §32. By reason of one great, one fatal fault; — ^reck- 
 lessness in aim. Wholly noble in its sources, it was 
 wholly unworthy in its purposes. 
 
 Separate and strong, like Samson, chosen from its 
 youth, and with the spirit of God visibly resting on 
 it — like him, it warred in careless strength, and 
 wantoned in untimely pleasure. No Venetian painter 
 ever worked with any aim beyond that of delighting 
 the eye, or expressing fancies agreeable to himself 
 or flattering to his nation. They could not be either 
 unless they were religious. But he did not desire the 
 religion. He desired the delight. 
 
 §33. Strange, and lamentable as this carelessness 
 may appear, I find it to be almost the law with the 
 great workers. Weak and vain men have acute con- 
 sciences, and labor under a profound sense of respon- 
 sibility. The strong men, sternly disdainful of 
 themselves, do what they can, too often merely as it 
 pleases them at the moment, reckless what comes of it. 
 
 I know not how far in humility, or how far in bitter 
 and hopeless levity, the great Venetians gave their art 
 
Selections 333 
 
 to be blasted by the sea-winds or wasted by the worm. 
 I know not whether in sorrowful obedience, or in 
 wanton compliance, they fostered the folly, and 
 enriched the luxury of their age. This only I know, 
 that in proportion to the greatness of their power was 
 the shame of its desecration and the suddenness of its 
 fall. The enchanter's spell, woven by centuries of toil, 
 was broken in the weakness of a moment; and swiftly, 
 and utterly, as a rainbow vanishes, the radiance and 
 the strength faded from the wings of the Lion. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt, IX, Chap. XII, §§j, 4. 
 
 §3. "Bind them about thy neck." I said, but now, 
 that of an evil tree men never gathered good fruit. 
 And the lesson we have finally to learn from Turner's 
 life is broadly this, that all the power of it came of its 
 mercy and sincerity; all the failure of it, from its 
 want of faith. 
 
 §4. Which, least death or illness should forbid me, 
 this only I declare now of what I know respecting 
 Turner's character. Much of his mind and heart I do 
 not know — perhaps, never shall know. But this much 
 I do ; and if there is anything in the previous course 
 of this work to warrant trust in me of any kind, let 
 me be trusted when 1 tell you, that Turner had a 
 heart as intensely kind, and as nobly true, as ever 
 God gave to one of his creatures. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 The infinite absurdity and failure of our present 
 training consists mainly in this, that we do not rank 
 imagination and invention high enough, and suppose 
 
334 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 that they can be taught. Throughout every sentence 
 that I ever have written, the reader will find the same 
 rank attributed to these powers,— the rank of a purely 
 divine gift, not to be attained, increased, or in any 
 wise modified by teaching, only in various ways capa- 
 ble of being conceialed or quenched. 
 
 Pleasures of England, Led. II. 
 
 If you are minded thus to try, begin each day with 
 Alfred's prayer,— ^a^ voluntas tua; resolving that you 
 
 will stand to it, and that nothing that hap- 
 tastrument. P®'^^ ^" *^® course of the day shall displease 
 
 you. Then set to any work you have in 
 hand with the sifted and purified resolution that ambi- 
 tion shall not mix with it, nor love of gain, nor desire 
 of pleasure more than is appointed for you ; and that 
 no anxiety shall touch you as to its issue, nor any 
 impatience nor regret if it fail. Imagine that the 
 thing is being done through you, not by you: that the 
 good of it may never be known, but that at least, 
 unless by your rebellion or foolishness, there can come 
 no evil into it, nor wrong chance to it. Resolve also 
 with steady industry to do what you can for the help 
 of your country and its honour, and the honour of its 
 God ; and that you will not join hands in its iniquity, 
 nor turn aside from its misery ; and that in all you do 
 and feel you will look frankly for the immediate help 
 and direction, and to your own consciences, expressed 
 approval, of God. Live thus, and believe, and with 
 swiftness of answer proportioned to the frankness of the 
 trust, most surely the God of [hope will fill you with 
 all joy and peace in believing. 
 
Selections 335 
 
 But, if you will not do this, if you have not courage 
 nor heart enough to break away the fetters of earth, 
 and take up the sensual bed of it, and walk ; if you say 
 that you are bound to win this thing, and become the 
 other thing, and that the wishes of your friends, — and 
 the interests of your family, — and the bias of your 
 genius, — and the expectations of your college, — aiid 
 all the rest of the bow-wow-wow of the wild dog- 
 world, must be attended to, whether you like it or 
 no, — then, at least, for shame give up talk about being 
 free or independent creatures; recognize yourselves 
 for slaves in whom the thoughts are put in ward with 
 their bodies, and their hearts manacled with their 
 hands : and then at least also, for shame, if you refuse 
 to believe that ever there were men who gave their 
 souls to God, — know and confess how surely there are 
 those who sell them to His adversary. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, III, ^52. 
 
 §52. Whether it has occurred to you or not, I assure 
 you that it is so. The greatest artists, indeed, will con- 
 . . , descend, occasionally, to be scientific;— will 
 
 Artists are ' ■' ' . i, •■ . ■• ^ 
 
 unconscious labour. somewhat systematically, about what 
 
 diAnucls of 7 J * 
 
 inspiration, they are doing, as vulgar persons do; and 
 are privileged, also, to enjoy what they have made 
 more than birds do; yet seldom, observe you, as being 
 beautiful, but very much in the sort of feeling which 
 we may fancy the bullfinch had also,— that the thing, 
 whether pretty or ugly, could not have been better 
 done ; that they could not have made it otherwise, and 
 are thankful it is no worse. And, assuredly, they have 
 
336 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 nothing like the delight in their own work which it 
 gives to other people. 
 
 Modern PainUrs, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XV, %8. 
 
 §8. But secondly, it is to be noted that it is neither 
 by us unascertainable what moments of pure feeling 
 or aspiration may occur to men of minds apparently 
 cold and lost, nor by us to be pronounced through 
 what instruments, and in what strangely occurrent 
 voices, God may choose to communicate good to 
 men. It seems to me that much of what is great, 
 and to all men beneficial, has been wrought by those 
 who neither intended nor knew the good they did, and 
 that many mighty harmonies have been discoursed by 
 instruments that had been dumb or discordant, but 
 that God knew their stops. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Chap. II, §§7, 4. 
 
 §7. This is what we have to admire, — ^this grand 
 power and heart of man in the thing; not his techni- 
 cal or empirical way of holding the trowel and laying 
 mortar. 
 
 §4. We have, then, two qualities of buildings for 
 subjects of separate inquiry : their action, and aspect, 
 and the sources of virtue in both; that is to say. 
 Strength and Beauty, both of these being less admired 
 in themselves, than as testifying the intelligence or 
 imagination of the builder. 
 
 For we have a worthier way of looking at human 
 than at divine architecture : much of the value both of 
 construction at^d decoration, in the edifice^ of men, 
 
Selections 337 
 
 depends upon our being led by the thing produced or 
 adorned, to some contemplation of the powers of mind 
 concerned in its creation or adornment. We are not 
 so led by divine work, but are content to 
 bSi'ausI pro'd- ^®^* ^^ *^^ contemplation of the thing cre- 
 Mtist'sspirit. ^*®*^- ^ '^^^^ *^® reader to note this espe- 
 cially: we take pleasure, or should take 
 pleasure, in architectural construction altogether as 
 the manifestation of an admirable human intelligence ; 
 it is not the strength, not the size, not the finish of the 
 work which we are to venerate: rocks are always 
 stronger, mountains always larger, all natural objects 
 more finished ; but it is the intelligence and resolu- 
 tion of man in overcoming physical difficulty which 
 are to be the source of our pleasure and subject of our 
 praise. And again, in decoration or beauty, it is 
 less the actual loveliness of the thing produced, 
 than the choice and invention concerned in the pro- 
 duction, which are to delight us; the love and the 
 thoughts of the workman more than his work: his 
 work must always be imperfect, but his thoughts and 
 affections may be true and deep. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Chap. XXX, §5. 
 
 §5. Is there, then, nothing to be done by man's art? 
 Have we only to copy, and again copy, for ever, the 
 imagery of the universe? Not so. We have work to 
 do upon it; there is not any one of us so simple, nor 
 so feeble, but he has work to do upon it. But the work 
 is not to improve, but to explain. This infinite uni- 
 verse is unfathomable, inconceivable, in its whole; 
 
338 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 every human creature must slowly spell out, and long 
 contemplate, such part of it as may be possible for him 
 to reach ; then set forth what he has learned of it for 
 those beneath him ; extricating it from infinity, as one 
 gathers a violet out of grass; one does not improve 
 either violet or grass in gathering it, but one makes 
 the flower visible ; and then the human being has to 
 make its power upon his own heart visible also, and 
 to give it the honor of the good thoughts it has raised 
 up in him, and to write upon it the history of his own 
 soul. And sometimes he may be able to do more than 
 this, and to set it in strange lights, and display it in 
 a thousand ways before unknown: ways specially 
 directed to necessary and noble purposes, for which 
 he had to choose instruments out of the wide armory 
 of God. All this he may do: and in this he is only 
 doing what every Christian has to do with the written, 
 as well as the created word, "rightly dividing the 
 word of truth." Out of the infinity of the written 
 word, he has also to gather and set forth things new 
 and old, to ^choose them for the season and the work 
 that are before him, to explain and manifest them to 
 others, with such illustration and enforcement as may 
 be in his power, and to crown them with the history 
 of what, by them, God has done for his soul. And, in 
 doing this, is he improving the Word of God? Just 
 such difference as there is between the sense in which 
 a minister may be said to improve a text, to the 
 people's comfort, and the sense in which an atheist 
 might declare that he could improve the Book, which, 
 if any men shall add unto, there shall be added unto 
 him the plagues that are written therein; just such 
 
Selections 339 
 
 difference is there between that which, with respect to 
 Nature, man is, in his humbleness, called upon to do, 
 and that which, in his insolence, he imagines himself 
 capable of doing. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. II, Chap. VI, %%i2, 14. 
 
 §12. And observe, you are put to stern choice in 
 this matter. You must either make a tool of the 
 creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both. 
 Men were not intended to work with the accuracy of 
 tools, to be precise and perfect in all their actions. 
 If you will have that precision out of them, and make 
 their fingers measure degrees like cog-wheels, and 
 their arms strike curves like compasses, you must 
 unhumanize them. All the energy of their spirits 
 must be given to make cogs and compasses of them- 
 selves. All their attention and strength must go to 
 the accomplishment of the mean act. The eye of the 
 soul must be bent upon the finger-point, and the soul's 
 force must fill all invisible nerves that guide it, ten 
 hours a day, that it may not err from its steely pre- 
 ' cision, and so soul and sight be worn away, and the 
 whole human being be lost at last — a heap of sawdust, 
 so far as its intellectual work in this world is con- 
 cerned; saved only by its Heart, which cannot go into 
 the form of cogs and compasses, but expands, after 
 the ten hours are over, into fireside humanity. On 
 the other hand, if you will make a man of the working 
 creature, you cannot make a tool. Let him but begin 
 to imagine, to think, to try to do anything worth 
 doing; and the engine-turned precision is lost at once. 
 Out come all his roughness, all his dulness, all his 
 
340 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 incapability; shame upon shame, failure upon failure, 
 pause after pause : but out comes the whole majesty 
 of him also ; and we know the height of it only, when 
 we see the clouds settling upon him. And, whether 
 the clouds be bright or dark, there will be transfigura- 
 tion behind and within them. 
 
 §14. And, on the other hand, go forth again to gaze 
 upon the old cathedral front, where you have smiled so 
 often at the fantastic ignorance of the old sculptors: 
 examine once more those ugly goblins, and formless 
 monsters, and stern statues, anatomiless and rigid; 
 but do not mock at them, for they are signs of the life 
 and liberty of every workman who struck the stone ; a 
 freedom of thought, and rank in scale of being, such 
 as no laws, no charters, no charities can secure ; but 
 which it must be the first aim of all Europe at this day 
 to regain for her children. 
 
 Siones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. IV., %6. 
 
 §6. Here, therefore, let me finally and firmly 
 enunciate the great principle to which all that has 
 hitherto been stated is subservient : — that art is valu- 
 able or otherwise, only as it expresses the personality, 
 activity, and living perception of a good and great 
 human soul ; that it may express and contain this with 
 little help from execution, and less from science ; and 
 that if it have not this, if it show not the vigor, per- 
 ception, and invention of a mighty human spirit, it is 
 worthless. Worthless, I mean, as art; it may be 
 precious in some other way, but, as art, it is nugatory. 
 Once let this be well understood among us, and mag- 
 
Selections 341 
 
 nificent consequences will soon follow. Let me repeat 
 it in other terms, so that I may not be misunderstood. 
 All art is great, and good, and true, only so far as it is 
 distinctively the work of manhood in its entire and 
 highest sense ; that is to say, not the work of limbs 
 and fingers, but of the soul, aided, according to her 
 necessities, by the inferior powers ; and therefore dis- 
 tinguished in essence from all products of those inferior 
 powers unhelped by the soul. For as a photograph is 
 not a work of art, though it requires certain delicate 
 manipulations of paper and acid, and subtle calcula- 
 tions of time, in order to bring out a good result ; so, 
 neither would a drawing like a photograph, made 
 directly from nature, be a work of art, although it 
 would imply many delicate manipulations of the pencil 
 and subtle calculations of effects of colour and shade. 
 It is no more art to manipulate a camel's hair pencil, 
 than to manipulate a china tray and a glass vial. It 
 is no more art to lay on colour delicately, than to lay on 
 acid delicately. It is no more art to use the cornea 
 and retina for the reception of an image, than to use a 
 lens and a piece of silvered paper. But the moment 
 that inner part of the man, or rather that entire and 
 only being of the man, of which cornea and retina, 
 fingers and hands, pencils and colours, are all the mere 
 servants and instruments; that manhood which has 
 light in itself, though the eyeball be sightless, and can 
 gain in strength when the hand and the foot are hewn 
 off and cast into the fire ; the moment this part of the 
 man stands forth with its solemn "Behold, it is I," 
 then the work becomes art indeed, perfect in honor, 
 priceless in value, boundless in power. 
 
342 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Queen of the Air, III, l\io6, 107. 
 
 §106. First, of the foundation of art in moral charac- 
 ter. Of course art-gift and amiability of disposition are 
 two different things ; a good man is not necessarily a 
 painter, nor does an eye for colour necessarily imply 
 an honest mind. But great art implies the union of 
 both powers: it is the expression, by an art-gift, of a 
 pure soul. If the gift is not there, we can have no art 
 at all; and if the soul — and a right soul too— is not 
 there, the art is bad, however dexterous. 
 
 §107. But also, remember, that the art-gift itself is 
 only the result of the moral character of generations. 
 A bad woman may have a sweet voice ; but that sweet- 
 ness of voice comes of the past morality of her race. 
 That she can sing with it at all, she owes to the deter- 
 mination of laws of music by the morality of the 
 past. Every act, every impulse, of virtue and vice, 
 affects in any creature, face, voice, nervous power, 
 and vigour and harmony of invention, at once. 
 Perseverance in rightness of human conduct, ren- 
 ders, after a certain number of generations, human 
 art possible ; every sin clouds it, be it ever so little a 
 one; and persistent vicious living and following of 
 pleasure render, after a certain number of genera- 
 tions, all art impossible. Men are deceived by the 
 long-suffering of the laws of nature; and mistake, in a 
 nation, the reward of the virtue of its sires for the 
 issue of its own sins. The time of their visitation 
 will come, and that inevitably ; for, it is always true, 
 that if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the chil- 
 dren's teeth are set on edge. And for the individual, 
 as soon as you have learned to read, you may, as I 
 
Selections 3^3 
 
 said, know him to the heart's core, through his art. 
 Let his art-gift be never so great, and cultivated to 
 the height by the schools of a great race of men ; and 
 it is still but a tapestry thrown over his own being 
 and inner soul; and the bearing of it will show, 
 infallibly, whether it hangs on a man, or on a skel- 
 eton. If you are dim-eyed, you may not see the 
 difference in the fall of the folds at first, but learn how 
 to look, and the folds themselves will become trans- 
 parent, and you shall see through them the death's 
 shape, or the divine one, making the tissue above it as 
 a cloud of light, or as a winding-sheet. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. 4, Chap. Ill, §g^^, 28. 
 
 §24. And now, finally, since this poetical power 
 includes the historical, if we glance back to the other 
 qualities required in great art, and put all together, 
 we find that the sum of them is simply the sum of all 
 the powers of man. For as (i) the choice of the high 
 subject involves all conditions of right moral choice, 
 and as (2) the love of beauty involves all conditions of" 
 right admiration, and as (3) the grasp of truth involves 
 all strength of sense, evenness of judgment, and hon- 
 esty of purpose, and as (4) the poetical power involves 
 all swiftness of invention, and accuracy of historical 
 memory, the sum of all these powers is the sum of 
 the human soul. Hence we see why the word "Great" 
 is used of this art. It is literally great. It compasses 
 and calls for the entire human spirit, whereas any 
 other kind of art, being more or less small or narrow, 
 compasses and calls forth only part of the human 
 spirit. Hence the idea of its magnitude is a literal 
 
344 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 and just one, the art being simply less or greater in 
 proportion to the number of faculties it exercises and 
 addresses. And this is the ultimate meaning of the 
 definition I gave of it long ago, as containing the 
 "greatest number of the greatest ideas." 
 
 §28. Therefore it is, that every system of teaching 
 is false which holds forth "great art" as in any wise to 
 be taught to students, or even to be aimed at by them. 
 Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will 
 be taught, it is pre-eminently and finally the expres- 
 sion of the spirits of great men; so that the only 
 wholesome teaching is that which simply endeavors 
 to fix those characters of nobleness in the pupil's 
 mind, of which it seems easily susceptible; and with- 
 out holding out to him, as a possible or even probable 
 result, that he should ever paint like Titian, or carve 
 like Michael Angelo, enforces upon him the manifest 
 possibility, and assured duty, of endeavoring to draw 
 in a manner at least honest and intelligible; and culti- 
 vates in him those general charities of heart, sincerities 
 of thought and graces of habit which are likely to lead 
 him, throughout life, to prefer openness to affectation, 
 realities to shadows, and beauty to corruption. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. Ill, Chap. Ill, \6o. 
 
 §60. The grotesque which comes to all men in a dis- 
 turbed dream is the most intelligible example of this 
 kind, but also the most ignoble ; the imagination, in 
 this instance, being entirely deprived of all aid from 
 reason, and incapable of self-government. I believe, 
 however, that the noblest forms of imaginative powei 
 are also in some sort ungovernable, and have in them 
 
Selections 345 
 
 something of the character of dreams; so that the 
 vision, of whatever kind, comes uncalled, and will not 
 submit itself to the seer, but conquers him, and forces 
 him to speak as a prophet, having no power over his 
 words or thoughts.* Only, if the whole man be 
 trained perfectly, and his mind calm, consistent and 
 powerful, the vision which comes to him is seen as in a 
 perfect mirror, serenely, and in consistence with the 
 rational powers; but if the mind be imperfect and ill 
 trained, the vision is seen as in a broken mirror, with 
 strange distortions and discrepancies, all the passions 
 of the heart breathing upon it in cross ripples, till 
 hardly a trace of it remains unbroken. So that, 
 strictly speaking, the imagination is never governed ; 
 it is always the ruling and Divine power : and the rest 
 of the man is to it only as an instrument which it 
 sounds, or a tablet on which it writes; clearly and 
 sublimely if the wax be smooth and the strings true, 
 grotesquely and wildly if they are strained and broken. 
 
 ♦This opposition of art to inspiration is long and gracefully- 
 dwelt upon by Plato, in his "Phoedras," using in the course of his 
 argument, almost the words of St. Paul : xiXKtov iiaprvpova-iv oi iroXoiol 
 liavlav aitHppoaimis r^v ix OeoS t^s irap ivOpiiiriav yiyvoiiivqi: "It is the 
 testimony of the ancients that ike madness which is of God is a 
 nobler thing than the wisdom which is of men;" and again, "He 
 who sets himself to anywork with which the Muses have to do,'' 
 (i. e. to any of the fine arts,) "without madness, thinking that by 
 art alone he can do his work sufficiently, will be found vain and 
 incapable, and the work of temperance and rationalism will be 
 thrust aside and obscured by that of inspiration." The passages 
 to the same effect, relating especially to poetry, are innumerable 
 in nearly all ancient writers ; but in this of Plato, the entire com- 
 pass of the fine arts is intended to be embraced. 
 
34^ Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 And thus the "Iliad," the 'Inferno," the "Pilgrim's 
 Progress," the "Faerie Queen," are all of them true 
 dreams; only the sleep of the men to whom they came 
 was the deep, living sleep which God sends, with a 
 sacredness in it, as of death, the revealer of secrets. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. I, \\3-5, 8-10. 
 
 §3. . . . And because also, men in the present cen- 
 tury understand the word Useful in a strange way, or at 
 least (for the word has been often so accepted 
 
 The proper li. t. • • c ..• \ • • ^f 
 
 meaning oi from the bcgmning of time) since m 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 na- 
 ture it is our present object to discover. 
 
 §4. That is to everything created, pre-eminently 
 useful, which enables it rightly and fully to perform 
 the functions appointed to it by its Creator. There- 
 fore, 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 propose 
 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 fulfill this function, is in 
 the pure and first sense of the word useful to us. 
 Pre-eminently therefore whatever sets the glory of 
 
Selections 347 
 
 God more brightly before us. But things that only 
 Theoretic ^®^P *^® *° exist, ate in a secondary and mean 
 arts- sense, useful, or rather, if they be looked for 
 
 alone, they are useless and worse, for it would be bet- 
 ter that we should not exist, than that we should 
 guiltily disappoint the purposes of existence. 
 
 §5. 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, 
 
 meaning of and as if Sight, thought, and admiration, 
 
 nselul. 
 
 were all profitless. 
 §8. 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 
 Division results are, in the common sense of the 
 
 of the pur- ' 
 
 tato^iibsS? word, useful. As the object of life or 
 objective 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 
 mirtd, 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 
 
348 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 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 spec- 
 tacles. 
 
 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 Ihe more exalted range of 
 science adds something also to its practical applic- 
 abilities; 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 ; 
 that the strong torrents which, in their own gladness fill 
 the hills with hollow thunder and the vales with wind- 
 ing 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; 
 
Selections 
 
 349 
 
 and that for our incitement, I say not our reward, for 
 knowledge is its own reward, herbs have their heal- 
 ing, stones their preciousness, and stars their times. 
 
 §9. It would appear, therefore, that those pursuits 
 which are altogether theoretic, whose results are desir 
 Theirreia- *^^^ °^ admirable in themselves and for 
 tive dignities, 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, 
 §10. How re- ^y *^® endeavor to discover of what selfish 
 thro^^her- "^^^ *^®y ^^^ capable (and of this order are 
 oftleMn°°^ painting and sculpture), ought to take rank 
 S^agSia- above all pursuits which have any taint in 
 tivefaoiSties. them of subserviency to life, in so far as all 
 such tendency is the sign of less eternal and less holy 
 function. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. II, §tf. 
 
 §6. Herein, then, we find very sufiScient ground for 
 the higher estimation of these delights, first, in their 
 
 being eternal and inexhaustible, and 
 omgher secondly, in their being evidently no means 
 piea^mesot °'' instrument of life, but an object of life, 
 hffiu'ing'^ Now in whatever is an object of life, in 
 
 whatever may be infinitely and for itself 
 desired, we may be sure there is something of divine, 
 for God will not make anything an object of life to his 
 creature which does not point to, or partake of. Him- 
 self, And so, though we were to regard the pleasures 
 of sight merely as the highest of sensual ■ pleasures, 
 and though they were of rare occurrence, and, when 
 occurring, isolated and imperfect, there would still be 
 
350 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 a supernatural character about them, owing to their 
 permanence and self-sufficiency, where no other sen- 
 sual pleasures are permanent or self-sufficient. But 
 when instead of being scattered, interrupted, or 
 chance-distributed, they are gathered together, and so 
 arranged to enhance each other as by chance they 
 could not be, there is caused by them not only a feel- 
 ing of strong affection towards the object in which 
 they exist, but a perception of purpose and adaptation 
 of it to our desires; a perception, therefore, of the 
 immediate operation of the Intelligence which so 
 formed us, and so feeds us. 
 
 Out of which perception arise joy, admiration, and 
 gratitude. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. IV, %2. 
 
 §2. That the beautiful is the useful, is an assertion 
 evidently based on that limited and false sense of the 
 latter term which I have already deprecated. 
 Of the ^® ^^ ^^ *^® most degrading and dangerous 
 
 that bfauty" Supposition which can be advanced on the 
 compir?^^^' subject, SO, fortunately, it is the most 
 Chap. XII, S5. palpably absurd. It is to confound admira- 
 tion with hunger, love with lust, and life 
 with sensation ; it is to assert that the human creature 
 has no ideas and no feelings, except those ultimately 
 referable to its brutal appetites. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. II, Pt. Ill, Sec. I, Chap. XII, gy. 
 
 Now I wish particularly to impress upon the reader 
 that all these sensations of beauty in the plant arise 
 from our unselfish sympathy with its happiness, and 
 
Selections 351 
 
 not from any view of the qualities in it which may 
 
 bring good to us, nor even from our acknowledgement 
 
 in it of any moral condition beyond that of 
 
 pathyisuu- mere felicity: for such an acknowledsfement 
 
 selflsli, and I' ^- j- j.i~ ^, 
 
 does not, re- belongs to the Second operation of the theo- 
 ^ ' retic faculty (compare §2,) and not to the 
 
 sympathetic part which we are at present examining ; 
 so that we even find that in this respect the moment we 
 begin to look upon any creature as subordinate to 
 some purpose out of itself, some of the sense of 
 organic beauty is lost. Thus, when we are told that 
 the leaves of a plant are occupied in decomposing car- 
 bonic acid, and preparing oxygen for us, we begin to 
 look upon it with some such indifference as upon a 
 gasometer. It has become a machine ; some of our 
 sense of its happiness is gone; its emanation of 
 inherent life is no longer pure. The bending trunk, 
 waving to and fro in the wind above the waterfall, is 
 beautiful because it is happy, though it is perfectly 
 useless to us. The same trunk, hewn down and 
 thrown across the stream, has lost its beauty. It 
 serves as a bridge, — it has become useful ; it lives not 
 for itself, and its beauty is gone, or what it retains is 
 purely typical, dependent on its lines and colours, not 
 on its functions. Saw it into planks, and though now 
 adapted to become permanently useful, its whole 
 beauty is lost forever, or to be regained only in part 
 when decay and ruin shall have withdrawn it again 
 from use, and left it to receive from the hand of 
 nature the velvet moss and varied lichen, which may 
 again suggest ideas of inherent happiness, and tint 
 its mouldering sides with hues of life. 
 
352 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 There is something, I think, peculiarly beautiful 
 and instructive in this unselfishness of the theoretic 
 faculty, and in its abhorrence of all utility which is 
 based on the pain or destruction of any creature, for in 
 such ministering to each other as is consistent with 
 the essence and energy of both, it takes delight, as in 
 the clothing of the rock by the herbage, and the 
 feeding of the herbage by the stream. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. I, Preface to id Ed., §§/5'-/7, S, 9. 
 
 §15. And must it ever be otherwise with painting, for 
 
 otherwise it has it ever been. Her subjects have been 
 
 regarded as mere themes on which the 
 
 Summary. . , . , ,. , « , , 
 
 artist s power is to be displayed ; and that 
 power, be it of imitation, composition, idealization, or 
 of whatever other kind, is the chief object of the spec- 
 tator's observation. It is man and his fancies, man 
 and his trickeries, man and his inventions, — poor, 
 paltry, weak, self-sighted man, — which the connois- 
 seur forever seeks and worships. Among potsherds 
 and dunghills, among drunken boors and withered 
 beldames, through every scene of debauchery and deg- 
 radation, we follow the erring artist, not to receive one 
 wholesome lesson, not to be touched with pity, nor 
 moved with indignation, but to watch the dexterity of 
 the pencil, and gloat over the glittering of the hue. 
 
 §16. I speak not only of the works of the Flemish 
 school — I wage no war with their admirers ; they may 
 be left in peace to count the spiculae of haystacks and 
 the hairs of donkeys — ^it is also of works of real mind that 
 I speak, — works in which there are evidences of genius 
 and workings of power, — works which have been held 
 
Selections 353 
 
 up as containing all of the beautiful that art can reach 
 or man conceive. And I assert with sorrow, that all 
 hitherto done in landscape, by those commonly con- 
 ceived its masters, has never prompted one holy 
 thought in the minds of nations. It has begun and 
 ended in exhibiting the dexterities of individuals, and 
 conventionalities of systems. Filling the world with 
 the honor of Claude and Salvator, it has never once 
 tended to the honor of God. 
 
 §17. Does the reader start in reading these last words, 
 as if they were those of wild enthusiasm, — as if I were 
 lowering the dignity of religion by supposing that its 
 cause could be advanced by such means? His sur- 
 prise proves my position. It does sound like wild, like 
 absurd enthusiasm, to expect any definite moral 
 agency in the painters of landscape ; but ought it so 
 to sound? Are the gorgeousness of the visible hue, 
 the glory of the realized form, instruments in the 
 artist's hand so ineffective, that they can answer no 
 nobler purpose than the amusement of curiosity, or 
 the engagement of idleness? Must it not be owing to 
 gross neglect or misapplication of the means at his 
 command, that while words and tones (means of rep- 
 resenting nature surely less powerful than lines and 
 colors) can kindle and purify the very inmost souls of 
 men, the painter can only hope to entertain by his 
 efforts at expression, and must remain forever brood- 
 ing over his incommunicable thoughts? 
 
 The cause of the evil lies, I believe, deep-seated in 
 the system of ancient landscape art ; it consists, in a 
 word, in the painter's taking upon him to modify 
 God's works at his pleasure, casting the shadow of 
 
3 54 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 himself on all he sees, constituting himself arbiter 
 where it is honor to be a disciple, and exhibiting his 
 ingenuity by the attainment of combinations whose 
 highest praise is that they are impossible. We shall 
 not pass through a single gallery of old art, without 
 hearing this topic of praise confidently advanced. 
 The sense of artificialness, the absence of all appear- 
 ance of reality, the clumsiness of combination by 
 which the meddling of man is made evident, and the 
 feebleness of his hand branded on the inorganization 
 of his monstrous creature, is advanced as a proof of 
 inventive power, as an evidence of abstracted concep- 
 tion; — ^nay, the violation of specific form, the utter 
 abandonment of all organic and individual character 
 of object, (numberless examples of which from the 
 works of the old masters are given in the following 
 pages,) is constantly held up by the unthinking critic, 
 as the foundation of the grand or historical style, and 
 the first step to the attainment of a pure ideal. Now, 
 there is but one grand style, in the treatment of all 
 subjects whatsoever, and that style is based on the 
 perfect knowledge, and consists in the simple, unen- 
 cumbered rendering, of the specific characters of the 
 given object, be it man, beast, or flower. Every 
 change, caricature, or abandonment of such specific 
 character, is as destructive of grandeur as it is of 
 truth, of beauty as of propriety. Every alteration of 
 the features of nature has its origin either in power- 
 less indolence or blind audacity, in the folly which 
 forgets, or the insolence which desecrates, works which 
 it is the pride of angels to know, and their privilege to 
 love. * * * * 
 
Selections 355 
 
 §8. And such conventional teaching is'the more to 
 be dreaded, because all that is highest in art, all that is 
 creative and imaginative, is formed and created by 
 every great master for himself, and cannot be repeated 
 or imitated by others. We judge of the excellence of 
 a rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of his 
 works to what has been done before, as by their differ- 
 ence from it; and while we advise him, in his first 
 trials of strength, to set certain models before him 
 with respect in interior points, — one for versification, 
 another for arrangement, another for treatment, — we 
 yet admit not his greatness until he has broken away 
 from all his models, and struck forth versification, 
 arrangement, and treatment of his own. * * * * 
 
 §9. The second point on which I would insist is that 
 if a mind were to arise of such power as to be capable of 
 equalling or excelling some of the greatest works of 
 past ages, the productions of such a mind would, in 
 all probability, be totally different in manner and 
 matter from all former productions; for the jmore 
 powerful the intellect, the less will its works resemble 
 those of other men, whether predecessors or contem- 
 poraries. Instead of reasoning, therefore, as we com- 
 monly do, in matters of art, that because such and 
 such a work does not resemble that which has hitherto 
 been a canon, therefore it must be inferior and wrong 
 in principle ; let us rather admit that there is in its 
 very dissimilarity an increased chance of its being 
 itself a new, and perhaps, a higher canon. If any 
 production of modem art can be shown to have the 
 authority of nature on its side, and to be based on 
 eternal truths, it is all so much more in its favor, so 
 
3S6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 much farther proof of its power, that it is totally 
 different from all that have been before seen. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. 11, Pt. Ill, Sec. II, Chap. I, \i, 
 §1. We have hitherto been exclusively occupied with 
 those sources of pleasure which exist in the external 
 creation, and which in any faithful copy of it 
 Art product must to a Certain extent exist also. 
 
 not a pure 
 
 transcript of Thesc sources of beauty, however, are not 
 
 nature. ■' ' ' 
 
 presented by any very great work of art in 
 
 a form of pure transcript. They invariably receive 
 
 the reflection of the mind under whose shadow they 
 
 have passed, and are modified or colored by its image. 
 
 This modification is the Work of Imagination. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. IV, Pt. V, Chap. II, \\8, g. 
 
 §8. But if a painter has inventive power he has to 
 treat his subject in a totally different way; giving not 
 the actual facts of it, but the impression it made on 
 his mind. 
 
 §9. But the artist who has real invention sets to 
 work in a totally different way. First, he receives a 
 true impression from the place itself, and takes care 
 to keep hold of that as his chief good; indeed, he 
 needs no care in the matter, for the distinction of his 
 mind from that of others consists in his instantly 
 receiving such sensations strongly, and being unable 
 to lose them ; and then he sets himself as far as poS' 
 sible to reproduce that impression on the mind of the 
 spectator of his picture. 
 
 Now, observe, this impression on the mind nevei 
 results from the mere piece of scenery which can b« 
 
Selections 357 
 
 included within the limits of the picture. It depends 
 on the temper into which the mind has been brought, 
 both by all the landscape round, and by what has been 
 seen previously in the course of the day ; so that no 
 particular spot upon which the painter's glance may 
 at any moment fall, is then to him what, if seen by 
 itself, it will be to the spectator far away ; nor is it what 
 it would be, even to that spectator, if he had come to 
 the reality through the steps which Nature has 
 appointed to be the preparation for it, instead of see- 
 ing it isolated on an exhibition wa^l. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XII, \l4-ii, if, 
 IS, 16. 
 
 §4. Now, therefore, putting these tiresome and 
 absurd words quite out of our way, we may go on at 
 
 ^ our ease to examine the point in question, — 
 
 fallacy. namely, the difference between the ordi- 
 nary, proper, and true appearances of things to us; 
 and the extraordinary, or false appearances, when we 
 are under the influence of emotion, or contemplative 
 'fancy;* false appearances, I say, as being entirely 
 unconnected with any real power or character in the 
 object, and only imputed to it by us. 
 
 For instance — 
 
 "The spendthrift crocus bursting through the mould 
 Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold." 
 
 —O. W. Holmes. 
 
 This is very beautiful and yet very untrue. The 
 crocus is not a spendthrif t, but a hardy plant; its yel- 
 
 * Contemplative, in the sense explained in Part III, Sec. II, 
 Chap. IV. 
 
358 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 low is not gold, but saffron. How is it that we enjo; 
 so much the having it put into our heads that it i 
 anything else than a plain crocus? 
 
 It is an important question. For, throughout ou; 
 past reasonings about art, we have always found tha 
 nothing could be good or useful, or ultimately pleasur 
 able, which was untrue. But here is something pleas 
 turable in written poetry which is nevertheless ««true 
 And what is more, if we think over our favoritt 
 poetry, we shall iind it full of this kind of fallacy, and 
 that we like it all the more for being so. 
 
 §5. It will appear also, on consideration of the 
 matter, that this fallacy is of two principal kinds. 
 Either, as in this case of the crocus, it is the fallacy ol 
 wilful fancy, which involves no real expectation thai 
 it will be believed ; or else it is a fallacy caused by ar 
 excited state of the feelings, making us, for the time, 
 more or less irrational. Of the cheating of the fancy 
 we shall have to speak presently ; but, in this chapter, 
 I want to examine the nature of the other error, that 
 which the mind admits, when affected strongly by 
 emotion. Thus, for instance, in Alton Locke, — 
 
 "They rowed her in across the rolling foam — 
 The cruel, crawling foam." 
 
 The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The 
 state of mind which attributes to it these characters 
 of a living creature is one in which the reason is 
 unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the 
 same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all 
 our impressions of external things, which I would 
 generally characterize as the "Pathetic fallacy." 
 
Selections 359 
 
 §6. Now we are in the habit of considering this 
 fallacy as eminently a character of poetical descrip- 
 tion, and the temper of mind in which we allow it, as 
 one eminently poetical, because passionate. But, I 
 believe, if we look well into the matter, that we shall 
 find the greatest poets do not often admit this kind of 
 falseness, — that it is only the second order of poets who 
 much delight in it. 
 
 Thus, when Dante describes the spirits falling from 
 the bank of Acheron "as dead leaves flutter from a 
 bough," he gives the most perfect image possible of 
 their utter lightness, feebleness, passiveness, and 
 scattering agony of despair, without, however, for an 
 instant losing his own clear perception that these are 
 souls, and those are leaves : he makes no confusion of 
 one with the other. But when Coleridge speaks of 
 
 "The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 
 That dances as often as dance it can," 
 
 he has a morbid, that is to say, a so far false, idea 
 about the leaf: he fancies a life in it, and will, which 
 there are not ; confuses its powerlessness with choice, 
 its fading death with merriment, and the wind that 
 shakes it with music. Here, however, there is some 
 beauty, even in the morbid passage; but take an 
 instance in Homer and Pope. Without the knowledge 
 of Ulysses, Elpenor, his youngest follower, has fallen 
 from an upper chamber in the Circean palace, and has 
 been left dead, unmissed by his leader, or companions, 
 in the haste of their departure. They cross the sea to 
 the Cimmerian land ; and Ulysses summons the shades 
 from Tartarus. The first which appears is that of 
 
360 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the lost Elpenor. Ulysses, amazed, and in exactly the 
 spirit of bitter and terriiied lightness which is seen in 
 Hamlet,*— addresses the spirit with the simple, star- 
 tled words : — 
 
 "Elpenor? How earnest thou under the shadowy darkness? 
 Hast thou come faster on foot than I in my black ship?" 
 
 Which Pope renders thus : — 
 
 "O, say, what angry power Elpenor led 
 To glide in shades, and wander with the dead? 
 How could thy soul, by realms and seas disjoined, 
 Outfly the nimble sail, and leave the lagg^ing wind?" 
 
 I sincerely hope the reader finds no pleasure here, 
 either in the nimbleness of the sail, or the laziness of 
 the wind ! And yet how is it that these conceits are so 
 painful now, when they have been pleasant to us in 
 the other instances? 
 
 §7. For a very simple reason. They are not a 
 pathetic fallacy at all, for they are put into the mouth 
 of the wrong passion — a passion which never could 
 possibly have spoken them — agonized curiosity. 
 Ulysses wants to know the facts of the matter; and 
 the very last thing his mind could do at the moment 
 would be to pause, or suggest in any wise what was not 
 a fact. The delay in the first three lines, and conceit 
 in the last, jar upon us instantly, like the most fright- 
 ful discord in music. No poet of true imaginative 
 power could possibly have written the passage. It is 
 worth while comparing the way a similar question is 
 put by the exquisite sincerity of Keats : — 
 
 * "Well said, old mole! canst work i' the ground so fast?" 
 
Selections 361 
 
 "He wept, and his bright tears 
 Went trickling down the golden bow he held. 
 Thus, with half-shut, suffused eyes, he stood ; 
 While from beneath some cumb'rous boughs hard by, 
 With solemn step, an awful goddess came. 
 And there was purport in her looks for him, 
 Which he with eager guess began to read: 
 Perplexed the while, melodiously he said, 
 'How cam' St thou over the unfooted sea ?' " 
 
 Therefore, we see that the spirit of truth must 
 guide us in some sort, even in our enjoyment of fal- 
 lacy. Coleridge's fallacy has no discord in it, but 
 Pope's has set our teeth on edge. Without farther 
 questioning, I will endeavor to state the main bear- 
 ings of this matter. 
 
 §8. The temperament which admits the pathetic fal- 
 lacy, is, as I said above, that of a mind and body in 
 some sort too weak to deal fully with what is before 
 them or upon them ; borne away, or over-clouded, or 
 over-dazzled by emotion; and it is a more or less 
 noble state, according to the force of the emotion 
 which has induced it. For it is no credit to a man 
 that he is not morbid or inaccurate in his perceptions, 
 when he has no strength of feeling to warp them ; and 
 it is in general a sign of higher capacity and stand in 
 the ranks of being, that the emotions should be strong 
 enough to vanquish, partly, the intellect, and make it 
 believe what they choose. But it is still a grander 
 condition when the intellect also rises, till it is strong 
 enough to assert its rule against, or together with, the 
 utmost efforts of the passions; and the whole man 
 stands in an iron glow, white hot, perhaps, but still 
 
362 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 strong, and in no wise evaporating; even if he melts, 
 losing none of his weight. 
 
 So, then, we have the three ranks: the man who 
 perceives rightly, because he does not feel, and to 
 whom the primrose is very accurately the primrose, 
 because he does not love it. Then, secondly, the man 
 who perceives wrongly, because he feels, and to whom 
 the primrose is anything else than a primrose : a star, 
 or a sun, or a fairy's shield, or a forsaken maiden. 
 And then lastly, there is the man who perceives 
 rightly in spite of his feelings, and to whom the prim- 
 rose is forever nothing else than itself — a little flower, 
 apprehended in the very plain and leafy fact of it, 
 whatever and how many soever the associations and 
 passions may be, that crowd around it. And, in gen- 
 eral, these three classes may be rated in comparative 
 order, as the men who are not poets at all, and the 
 poets of the second order, and the poets of the first; 
 only, however great a man may be, there are always 
 some subjects which ought to throw him off his bal- 
 ance; some, by which his poor human capacity of 
 thought should be conquered, and brought into the 
 inaccurate and vague state of perception, so that the 
 language of the highest inspiration becomes broken, 
 obscure, and wild in metaphor, resembling that of the 
 weaker man, overborne by weaker things. 
 
 §9. And thus, in full, there are four classes: the 
 men who feel nothing, and therefore see truly; the 
 men who feel strongly, think weakly, and see untruly 
 (second order of poets) ; the men who feel strongly, 
 think strongly, and see truly (first order of poets); 
 and the men who, strong as human creatures can be, 
 
Selections 363 
 
 are yet submitted to influences stronger than they, 
 and see in a sort untruly, because what they see is 
 inconceivably above them. This last is the usual con- 
 dition of prophetic inspiration. 
 
 §10. I separate these classes, in order that their 
 character may be clearly understood; but of course 
 they are united each to the other by imperceptible 
 transitions, and the same mind, according to the influ- 
 ences to which it is subjected, passes at different times 
 into the various states. Still, the difference between 
 the great and less man is, on the whole, chiefly in this 
 point of alterability. That is to say, the one knows 
 too much, and perceives and feels too much of the 
 past and future, and of all things beside and around 
 that which immediately affects him, to be in any wise 
 shaken by it. His mind is made up; his thoughts 
 have an accustomed current ; his ways are steadfast ; 
 it is not this or that new sight which will at once 
 unbalance him. He is tender to impression at the 
 surface, like a rock with deep moss upon it ; but there 
 is too much mass of him to be moved. The smaller 
 man, with the same degree of sensibility, is at once 
 carried off his feet ; he wants to do something he did 
 not want to do before ; he views all the universe in a 
 new light through his tears; he is gay or enthusi- 
 astic, melancholy or passionate, as things come and go 
 to him. Therefore the high creative poet might even 
 be thought, to a great extent, impassive (as shallow 
 people think Dante stern), receiving indeed all feel- 
 ings to the full, but having a great centre of reflection 
 and knowledge, in which he stands serene, and 
 watches the feeling, as it were, from far off. 
 
364 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Dante, in his most intense moods, has entire com- 
 mand of himself, and can look around calmly, at all 
 moments, for the image or the word that will best 
 tell what he sees to the upper or lower world. But 
 Keats and Tennyson, and the poets of the second 
 order, are generally themselves subdued by the feel- 
 ings under which they write, or, at least, write as 
 choosing to be so, and therefore admit certain expres- 
 sions and modes of thought which are in some sort 
 diseased or false. 
 
 §11. Now so long as we see that the feeling is true, 
 we pardon, or are even pleased by, the confessed fal- 
 lacy of sight which it induces: we are pleased, for 
 instance, with those lines of Kingsley's, above quoted, 
 not because they fallaciously describe foam, but 
 because they faithfully describe sorrow. But the 
 moment the mind of the speaker becomes cold, that 
 moment every such expression becomes untrue, as 
 being forever untrue in the external facts. And there 
 is no greater baseness in literature than the habit of 
 using these metaphorical expressions in cold blood. 
 An inspired writer, in full impetuosity of passion, 
 may speak wisely and truly of "raging waves of the 
 sea, foaming out their own shame;" but it is only the 
 basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without 
 talking of "raging waves," "remorseless floods," 
 "ravenous billows," &c. ; and it is one of the signs of 
 the highest power in a writer to check all such habits 
 of thought, and to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the 
 pure fact, out of which if any feeling comes to him or 
 his reader, he knows it must be a true one. 
 
 §14. Now in this there is the exact t3rpe of the con- 
 
Selections 365 
 
 summate poetical temperament. For, be it clearly 
 and constantly remembered, that the greatness of a 
 poet depends upon the two faculties, acuteness of feel- 
 ing, and command of it. A poet is great, first in pro- 
 portion to the strength of his passion, and then, that 
 strength being granted, in proportion to his govern- 
 ment of it; there being, however, always a point be- 
 yond which it would be inhuman and monstrous if he 
 pushed this government, and, therefore, a point at 
 which all feverish and wild fancy becomes just and true. 
 
 §15. But by how much this feeling is noble when it 
 is justified by the strength of its cause, by so much it 
 is ignoble when there is not cause enough for it ; and 
 beyond all other ignobleness is the mere affectation 
 of it, in hardness of heart. Simply bad writing may 
 almost always, as above noticed, be known by it 
 adoption of these fanciful metaphorical expressions, as 
 sort of current coin; yet there is even a worse, at 
 least a more harmful, condition of writing than this, in 
 which such expressions are not ignorantly and feeling- 
 lessly caught up, but, by some master, skilful in han- 
 dling, yet insincere, deliberately wrought out with chill 
 and studied fancy; as if we should try to make an old 
 lava stream look red-hot again, by covering it with 
 dead leaves, or white-hot, with hoar-frost. 
 
 §16. I believe these instances are enough to illus- 
 trate the main point I insist upon respecting the 
 pathetic fallacy, — that so far as it is a fallacy, it is 
 always the sign of a morbid state of mind, and com- 
 paratively of a weak one. Even in the most inspired 
 prophet it is a sign of the incapacity of his human 
 sight or thought to bear what has been revealed to it. 
 
366 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 In ordinary poetry, if it is found in the thoughts of the 
 poet himself, it is at once a sign of his belonging to 
 the inferior school ; if in the thoughts of the characters 
 imagined by him, it is right or wrong according to the 
 genuineness of the emotion from which it springs; 
 always, however, implying necessarily some degree of 
 weakness in the character. * * * 
 
 It then being, I hope, now made clear to the reader 
 in all respects that the pathetic fallacy is powerful 
 only so far as it is pathetic, feeble so far as it is fal- 
 lacious, and, therefore, that the dominion of Truth is 
 entire, over this, as over every other natural and just 
 state of the human mind, we may go on to the subject 
 for the dealing with which this prefatory inquiry 
 became necessaryj and why necessary, we shall see 
 forthwith. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt. VIII, Chap. II, ?/. 
 
 §1. The reader has probably been surprised at my 
 assertions made often before now, and reiterated here, 
 Emotional ^^^* *^® fttinutest portion of a great compo- 
 motive. sition is helpful to the whole. It certainly 
 does not seem easily conceivable that this should be so. 
 I will go farther, and say that it is inconceivable. 
 But it is the fact. 
 
 We shall discern it to be so by taking one or two 
 compositions to pieces, and examining the fragments. 
 In doing which, we must remember that a great com- 
 position always has a leading emotional purpose, 
 technically called its motive, to which all its lines and 
 forms have some relation. Undulating lines, for 
 instance, are expressive of action; and would be false 
 
Selections 367 
 
 in effect if tlie motive of the picture was one of 
 repose. Horizontal and angular lines are expressive 
 of rest and strength; and would destroy a design 
 whose purpose was to express disquiet and feebleness. 
 It is therefore necessary to ascertain the motive before 
 descending to the detail. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, Chap. II, J». 
 
 §2. Now, the difference between these two orders of 
 building is not merely that which there is in nature 
 Artrepre- between things beautiful and sublime. It 
 sentsmam. jg^ also, the difference between what is 
 derivative and original in man's work; for whatever 
 is in architecture fair or beautiful, is imitated from 
 natural forms; and what is not so derived, but 
 depends for its dignity upon arrangement and govern- 
 ment received from human mind, becomes the expres- 
 sion of the power of that mind, and receives a sublimity 
 high in proportion to the power expressed. All build- 
 ing, therefore, shows man either as gathering or 
 governing: and the secrets of his success are his 
 knowing what to gather, and how to rule. These are 
 the two great intellectual Lamps of Architecture ; the 
 one consisting in a just and humble veneration for the 
 works of God upon the earth, and the other in an 
 understanding of the dominion over those works which 
 has been vested in man. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, Chap. IV, \i. 
 
 §1. It was stated, in the outset of the preceding chap- 
 ter, that the value of architecture depended on two 
 distinct characters : the one, the impression it receives 
 
368 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 from human power; the other, the image it bears of 
 the natural creation. I have endeavored to show in 
 what manner its majesty was attributable to a sym- 
 pathy with the effort and trouble of human life (a 
 sympathy as distinctly perceived in the gloom and 
 mystery of form, as it is in the melancholy tones of 
 sounds). I desire now to trace that happier element 
 of its excellence, consisting in a noble rendering of 
 images of Beauty, derived chiefly from the external 
 appearances of organic nature. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, Chap. V, §/. 
 
 §1. And this is especially true of all objects which bear 
 upon them the impress of the highest order of creative 
 life, that is to say, of the mind of man : they become 
 noble or ignoble in proportion to the amount of the 
 energy of that mind which has visibly been employed 
 upon them. But most peculiarly and imperatively 
 does the rule hold with respect to the creations of 
 Architecture, which being properly capable of no 
 other life than this, and being not essentially com- 
 posed of things pleasant in themselves, — as music of 
 sweet sounds, or painting of fair colours, but of inert 
 substance, — depend, for their dignity and pleasurable- 
 ness in the utmost degree, upon the vivid expression 
 of the intellectual life which has been concerned in 
 their production. 
 
 The Two Paths, Led. I. 
 
 You have, in these two nations, seen in direct oppo- 
 sition the effects on moral sentiment of art without 
 njtture, and of nature without art. And you see 
 
Selections 369 
 
 enough to justify you in suspecting — while, if you 
 choose to investigate the subject more deeply and with 
 other examples, you will find enough to justify you in 
 concluding— tli&t art, followed as such, and for its own 
 sake, irrespective of the interpretation of nature by 
 it, is destructive of whatever is best and noblest in 
 humanity ; but that nature, however simply observed, 
 or imperfectly known, is, in the degree of the affection 
 felt for it, protective and helpful to all that is noblest 
 in humanity. 
 
 You might then conclude farther, that art, so far as 
 it was devoted to the record or the interpretation of 
 nature, would be helpful and ennobling also. 
 
 And you would conclude this with perfect truth. 
 Let me repeat the assertion distinctly and solemnly, 
 as the first that I am permitted to make in 
 toe ^ersef^ *^^^ building, devoted in a way so new and 
 so admirable to the service of the art-stu- 
 dents of England — Wherever art is practised for its 
 own sake, and the delight of the workman is in what 
 he does and produces, instead of what he interprets or 
 exhibits, — ^there art has an influence of the most fatal 
 kind on brain and heart, and it issues, if long so pur- 
 sued, in the destruction both of intellectual power and 
 moral principle; whereas art, devoted humbly and 
 self-forgetfuUy to the clear statement and record of the 
 facts of the universe, is always helpful and beneficent to 
 mankind, full of comfort, strength and salvation. * * 
 
 You observe that I always say interpretation, never 
 imitation. My reason for so doing is, first, that good 
 art rarely imitates; it usually only describes or 
 explains. But my second and chief reason is that 
 
370 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 good art always consists of two things: First, the 
 observation of fact; secondly, the manifesting of 
 human design and authority in the way that fact is 
 told. Great and good art must unite the two ; it can- 
 not exist for a moment but in their unity ; it consists 
 of the two as essentially as water consists of oxygen 
 and hydrogen, or marble of lime and carbonic acid. 
 
 Let us inquire a little into the nature of each of the 
 elements. The first element, we say, is the love of 
 Nature, leading to the effort to observe and report 
 her truly. And this is the first and leading element. 
 Review for yourselves the history of art, and you will 
 find this to be a manifest certainty, that no great 
 school ever yet existed which had not for primal aim 
 the representation of some natural fact as truly as pos- 
 sible. There have only yet appeared in the world 
 three schools of perfect art — schools, that is to say, 
 that did their work as well as it seems possible to do 
 it. These are the Athenian, Florentine, and Vene- 
 tian. The Athenian proposed to itself the perfect 
 representation of the form of the human body. It 
 strove to do that as well as it could; it did that as 
 well as it can be done; and all its greatness was 
 founded upon and involved in that single and honest 
 effort. The Florentine school proposed to itself the 
 perfect expression of human emotion — the showing of 
 the effects of passion in the human face and gesture. 
 I call this the Florentine school, because, whether you 
 take Raphael for the culminating master of expres- 
 sional art in Italy, or Leonardo, or Michael Angelo, 
 you will find that the whole erergy of the national 
 effort which produced those masters had its root in 
 
Selections 371 
 
 Florence ; not at Urbino or Milan. I say, then, this 
 Florentine, or leading Italian school, proposed to itself 
 human expression for its aim in natural truth; it 
 strove to do that as well as it could — did it as well as 
 it can be done — and all its greatness is rooted in that 
 single and honest effort. Thirdly, the Venetian school 
 propose the representation of the effect of colour and 
 shade on all things ; chiefly on the human form. It 
 tried to do that as well as it could — did it as well as it 
 can be done — and all its greatness is founded on that 
 single and honest effort. 
 
 Pray, do not leave this room without a perfectly 
 clear holding of these three ideas. You may try them, 
 and toss them about afterwards, as much as you like, 
 to see if they'll bear shaking; but do let me put them 
 well and plainly into your possession. Attach them 
 to three wqrks of art which you all have either seen or 
 continually heard of. There's the (so-called) "The- 
 seus" of the Elgin marbles. That represents the whole 
 end and aim of the Athenian school — the natural form 
 of the human body. All their conventional architec- 
 ture — their graceful shaping and painting of pottery — 
 whatsoever other art they practised — was dependent 
 for its greatness on this sheet-anchor of central aim : 
 true shape of living man. Then take, for your type 
 of the Italian school, Raphael's "Disputa del Sacra- 
 mento;" that will be an accepted type by everybody, 
 and will involve no possible questionable points : the 
 Germans will admit it; the English academicians will 
 admit it; and the English purists and pre-Raphaelites 
 will admit it. Well, there you have the truth of 
 human expression proposed as an aim. That is the 
 
372 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 way people look when they feel this or that — when 
 they have this or that other mental character: are 
 they devotional, thoughtful, affectionate, indignant, or 
 inspired? are they prophets, saints, priests, or kings? 
 then — whatsoever is truly thoughtful, affectionate, 
 prophetic, priestly, kingly — that the Florentine school 
 tried to discern and show: that they have discerned 
 and shown ; and all their greatness is first fastened in 
 their aim at this central truth — the open expression of 
 the living human soul. 
 
 Ethics of the Dust, Led. VII. 
 
 Mary, But that's dreadful ! And what is the source 
 of the peculiar charm which we all feel in his work? 
 
 L. There are many sources of it, Mary ; united and 
 seeming like one. You would never feel that charm 
 but in the work of an entirely good man ; be sure of 
 that ; but the goodness is only the recipient and modi- 
 fying element, not the creative one. Consider care- 
 fully what delights you in any original picture of 
 Angelico's. You will find, for one minor thing, an 
 exquisite variety and brightness of ornamental work. 
 That is not Angelico's inspiration. It is the final 
 result of the labour and thought of millions of artists, 
 of all nations; from the earliest Egyptian potters 
 downwards — Greeks, Byzantines, Hindoos, Arabs, 
 Gauls, and Northmen — all joining in the toil; and 
 consummating it in Florence, in that century, with 
 such embroidery of robe and inlaying of armour as 
 had never been seen till then ; nor, probably, ever will 
 be seen more. Angelico merely takes his share of this 
 inheritance, and applies it in the tenderest way to sub- 
 
Selections 373 
 
 jects which are peculiarly acceptant of it. But the 
 inspiration, if it exist anywhere, flashes on the knight's 
 shield quite as radiantly as on the monk's picture. 
 Examining farther into the sources of your emotion in 
 the Angelico work, you will find much of the impres- 
 sion of sanctity dependent on a singular repose and 
 grace of gesture, consummating itself in the floating, 
 flying, and above all, in the dancing groups. That is 
 not Angelico's inspiration. It is only a peculiarly 
 tender use of systems of grouping which had been 
 long before developed by Giotto, Memmi, and 
 Orcagna; and the real root of it all is simply — What 
 do you think, children? The beautiful dancing of the 
 Florentine maidens ! 
 
 Aratra Pentelid, IV, §§/?/, J3S. 
 §137. Such, then, being the definition by your best 
 popular art, of the ideal of feature at which we are 
 gradually arriving by self -manufacture ; when I place 
 opposite to it (in Plate VIII.) the profile of a man not 
 in any wise self-made, neither by the law of his own 
 willj nor by the love of his own interest — nor capable, 
 for a moment, of any kind of "Independence," or of 
 the idea of independence ; but wholly dependent upon, 
 and subjected to, external influence of just law, wise 
 teaching, and trusted love and truth, in his fellow 
 spirits;— setting before you, I say, this profile of a 
 God-made instead of a self-made, man, I know that 
 you will feel, on the instant, that you are brought into 
 contact with the vital elements of human art; and 
 that this, the sculpture of the good, is indeed the only 
 permissible sculpture. 
 
374 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 §138. A God-made man, I say. The face, indeed, 
 stands as a symbol of more than man in its sculptor's 
 mind. 
 
 Aratra Pentelici, Led. VI, §f8j. 
 
 §183. You remember that I told you that the high- 
 est art could do no more than rightly represent the 
 human form. This is the simple test, then, of a per- 
 fect school, — that it has represented the human form, 
 so that it is impossible to conceive of its being better 
 done. And that, I repeat, has been accomplished 
 twice only: once in Athens, once in Florence. And 
 so narrow is the excellence even of these two exclusive 
 schools, that it cannot be said of either of them that they 
 represent the entire human form. The Greeks per- 
 fectly drew, and perfectly moulded the body and 
 limbs ; but there is, so far as I am aware, no instance 
 of their representing the. face as well as any great 
 Italian. On the other hand, the Italian painted and 
 carved the face insuperably ; but I believe there is no 
 instance of his having perfectly represented the body, 
 which, by command of his religion, it became his pride 
 to despise, and his safety to mortify. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. XIII, lif. 
 
 §14. Then, observe farther, the Greeks lived in the 
 midst of the most beautiful nature, and were as familiar 
 with blue sea, clear air, and sweet outlines of moun- 
 tain, as we are with brick walls, black smoke, and 
 level fields. This perfect familiarity rendered all such 
 scenes of natural beauty unexciting, if not indifferent 
 to them, by lulling and overwearying the imagination 
 
Selections 375 
 
 as far as it was concerned with such things ; but there 
 was another kind of beauty which they found it 
 required effort to obtain, and which, when thoroughly 
 obtained, seemed more glorious than any of this wild 
 loveliness — the beauty of the human countenance and 
 form. This, they perceived, could only be reached by 
 continual exercise of virtue; and it was in Heaven's 
 sight, and theirs, all the more beautiful because it 
 needed this self-denial to obtain it. So they set them- 
 selves to reach this, and having gained it, gave it 
 their principal thoughts, and set it off with beautiful 
 dress as best they might. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. I, §#. 
 
 §4. Passing for the present by these inferior schools, 
 we find that all true landscape, whether simple or 
 exalted, depends primarily for its interest on connec- 
 tion with humanity, or with spiritual powers. Banish 
 your heroes and nymphs from the classical landscape — 
 its laurel shades will move you no more. Show that 
 the dark clefts of the most romantic mountain are 
 uninhabited and untraversed; it will cease to be 
 romantic. Fields without shepherds and without 
 fairies will have no gayety in their green, nor will the 
 noblest masses of ground or colours of cloud arrest or 
 raise your thoughts, if the earth has no life to sustain, 
 and the heaven none to refresh. 
 
 Modern Painters, Vol. Ill, Pt. IV, Chap. X, %22. 
 
 §22. We have now, I believe, in some sort answered 
 most of the questions which were suggested to us 
 
376 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 during our statement of the nature of great art. I 
 could recapitulate the answers; but perhaps the 
 
 reader is already sufficiently wearied of the 
 expression recurrence of the terms ' ' Ideal, " " Nature, ' ' 
 
 "Imagination," "Invention," and will 
 hardly care to see them again interchanged among 
 each other, in the formalities of a summary. What 
 difficulties may yet occur to him will, I think, disap- 
 pear as he either re-reads the passages which sug- 
 gested them, or follows out the consideration of the 
 subject for himself: — this very simple, but very 
 precious, conclusion being continually remembered by 
 him as the sum of all; that greatness in art (as 
 assSredly in all other things, but more distinctly in 
 this than in most of them), is not a teachable nor 
 gainable thing, but the expression of the mind of a 
 God-made great man; that teach, or preach, or labor 
 as you will, everlasting difference is set between one 
 man's capacity and another's ; and that this God-given 
 supremacy is the priceless thing, always just as rare 
 in the world at one time as another. What you can 
 manufacture or communicate, you can lower the price 
 of, but this mental supremacy is incommunicable ; you 
 will never multiply its quantity, nor lower its price; 
 and nearly the best thing that men can generally do is 
 to set themselves, not to the attainment, but the dis- 
 covery of this ; learning to know gold, when we see it, 
 from iron-glance, and diamonds from flint-sand, being 
 for most of us a more profitable employment than try- 
 ing to make diamonds out of our own charcoal. And 
 for this God-made supremacy, I generally have used, 
 and shall continue to use, the word Inspiration, not 
 
Selections 377 
 
 carelessly nor lightly, but in all logical calmness and 
 perfect reverence. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. I, %8-io, 11, 75. 
 
 §8. The essential connection of the power of land- 
 scape with human emotion is not less certain, because 
 in many impressive pictures the link is slight or local. 
 That the connection should exist at a single point is 
 all that we need. The comparison with the dress of 
 the body may be carried out into the extremist 
 parallelism. It may often happen that no part of the 
 figure wearing the dress is discernible, nevertheless, 
 the perceivable fact that the drapery is worn by a fig- 
 ure makes all the difference. In one of the most 
 sublime figures in the world this is actually so: one of 
 the fainting Marys in Tintoret's Crucifixion has cast her 
 mantle over her head, and her face is lost in its shade, 
 and her whole figure veiled in folds of gray. But what 
 the difference is between that gray woof, that gathers 
 round her as she falls, and the same folds cast in a heap 
 upon the ground, that difference, and more, exists be- 
 tween the power of Nature through which humanity is 
 seen, and her power in the desert. Desert — whether 
 of leaf or sand — true desertness is not in the want of 
 leaves, but of life. Where humanity is not, and was 
 not, the best natural beauty is more than vain. It is 
 even terrible; not as the dress cast aside from the 
 body ; but as an embroidered shroud hiding a skeleton. 
 
 §9. And on each side of a right feeling in this matter 
 there lie, as usual, two opposite errors. 
 
 The first, that of caring for man only; and for the 
 rest of the universe, little, or not at all, which, in a 
 
378 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 measure, was the error of the Greeks and Florentines; 
 the other, that of caring for the universe only;— for 
 man, not at all, — which, in a measure, is the error of 
 modern science, and of the Art connecting itself with 
 such science. 
 
 The degree of power which any man may 
 ultimately possess in landscape-painting will depend 
 finally on his perception of this influence. If he has 
 to paint the desert, its awfulness — if the garden, its 
 gladsomeness — will arise simply and only from his 
 sensibility to the story of life. Without this he is 
 nothing but a scientific mechanist ; this, though it can- 
 not make him yet a painter, raises him to the sphere 
 in which he may become one. Nay, the mere shadow 
 and semblance of this have given dangerous power to 
 works in all other respects unnoticeable ; and the least 
 degree of its true presence has given value to work in 
 all other respects vain. 
 
 The true presence, observe, of sympathy with the 
 spirit of man. Where this is not, sympathy with any 
 higher spirit is impossible. 
 
 For the directest manifestation of Deity to man is 
 in His own image, that is, in man. 
 
 §10. "In his own image. After his likeness." ' 
 
 §11. It cannot be supposed that the bodily shape of 
 man resembles, or resembled, any bodily shape in 
 Deity. The likeness must therefore be, or have been, 
 in the soul. Had it wholly passed away, and the 
 Divine soul been altered into a soul brutal or diabolic, 
 I suppose we should have been told of the change. 
 But we are told nothing of the kind. The verse still 
 stands as if for our use and trust. It was only death 
 
Selections 379 
 
 which was to be our punishment. Not change. So 
 far as we live, the image is still there ; defiled, if you 
 will ; broken, if you will ; all but effaced, if you "will, 
 by death and the shadow of it. But not changed. 
 We are not made now in any other image than God's. 
 There are, indeed, the two states of this image — the 
 earthly and heavenly, but both Adamite, both human, 
 both the same likeness ; only one defiled, and one pure. 
 So that the soul of man is still a mirror, wherein may 
 be seen, darkly, the image of the mind of God. 
 
 §15. Through the glass, darkly. But, except 
 through the glass in nowise. 
 
 A tremulous crystal, waved as water, poured out 
 upon the ground; — you may defile it, despise it, pol- 
 Mananim- ^"^® ^* ^* y°^^ pleasure, and at your peril; 
 age of Qod. for on the peace of those weak waves must 
 all the heaven you shall ever gain be first seen ; and 
 through such purity as you can win for those dark 
 waves, must all the light of the risen Sun of righteous- 
 ness be bent down, by faint refraction. Cleanse them, 
 and calm them, as you love your life. 
 
 Therefore it is that all the power of nature depends 
 on subjection to the human soul. Man is the sun of 
 the world; more than the real sun. The fire of his 
 wonderful heart is the only light and heat worth gauge 
 or measure. Where he is, are the tropics ; where he 
 is not, the ice-world. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. II, §§/.j. 
 §1. It might be thought that the tenor of the pre- 
 ceding chapter was in some sort adverse to my repeated 
 statement that all great art is the expression of man's 
 
38o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 delight in God's work, not in his own. But observe, 
 he is not himself his own work : he is himself precisely 
 the most wonderful piece of God's workmanship 
 extant. In this best piece not only he is bound to 
 take delight, but cannot, in a right state of thought, 
 take delight in anything else, otherwise than through 
 himself. Through himself, however, as the sun of 
 creation, not as the creation. In himself, as the light 
 of the world. Not as being the world. Let him stand 
 in his due relation to other creatures, and to inanimate 
 things — know them all and love them, as made for 
 him, and he for them; — and he becomes himself the 
 greatest and holiest of them. But let him cast off this 
 relation, despise and forget the less creation around 
 him, and instead of being the light of the world, he is 
 as a sun in space — a fiery ball, spotted with storm. 
 
 §2. All the diseases of mind leading to fatalest ruin 
 consist primarily in this isolation. They are the con- 
 centration of man upon himself, whether his heavenly 
 interests or his wordly interests, matters not ; it is the 
 being his own interests which makes the regard of 
 them so mortal. Every form of asceticism on one 
 side, of sensualism on the other, is an isolation of his 
 soul or of his body ; the fixing his thoughts upon them 
 alone: while every healthy state of nations and of 
 individual minds consists in the unselfish presence of 
 the human spirit everywhere, energizing over all 
 things ; speaking and living through all things. 
 
 §3. Man being thus the crowning and ruling work of 
 God, it will follow that all his best art must have 
 something to tell about himself, as the soul of things, 
 and ruler of creatures. It must also make this refer- 
 
Selections 381 
 
 ence to himself under a true conception of his own 
 nature. Therefore all art which involves no reference 
 to man is inferior or nugatory. And all art which 
 involves misconception of man, or base thought of 
 him, is in that degree false, and base. 
 
 Now the basest thought possible concerning him is, 
 that he has no spiritual nature; and the foolishest 
 misunderstanding of him possible is, that he has or 
 should have, no animal nature. For his nature is 
 nobly animal, nobly spiritual — coherently and irrevo- 
 cably so; neither part of it may, but at its peril, expel, 
 despise, or defy the other. All great art confesses 
 and worships both. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. XI, %30, footnote. 
 
 I limit myself in this book to mere indication of the 
 tones of his mind, illustration of them at any length 
 being as yet impossible. It will be found on examin- 
 ing the series of drawings made by Turner during the 
 late years of life, in possession of the nation, that they 
 are nearly all made for the sake of some record of 
 human power, partly victorious, partly conquered. 
 There is hardly a single example of landscape painted 
 for its own abstract beauty. Power and desolation, 
 or soft pensiveness, are the elements sought chiefly in 
 landscape; hence the later sketches are nearly all 
 among mountain scenery, and chiefly of fortresses, vil- 
 lages or bridges and roads among the wildest Alps. 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. I, Chap. XX, %%i5-'7- 
 §15. I conclude, then, with the reader's leave, that 
 all ornament is base which takes for its subject human 
 
382 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 work, that it is utterly base, — painful to every rightly, 
 toned mind, without perhaps immediate sense of the 
 Gods work ^eason, but for a reason palpable enough 
 of art"^*"* when we do think of it. For to carve 
 our own work, and set it for admiration, 
 is a miserable self-complacency, a contentment in our 
 own wretched doings, when we might have been look- 
 ing at God's doings. And all noble ornament is the 
 exact reverse of this. It is the expression of man's 
 delight in God's work. 
 
 §i6. For observe, the function of ornament is to 
 make you happy. Now in what are you rightly happy? 
 Not in thinking of what you have done yourself; not 
 in your own pride, not your own birth ; not in your 
 own being, or your own will, but in looking at God; 
 watching what He does, what He is; and obeying His 
 law, and yielding yourself to His will. 
 
 You are to be made happy by ornaments ; therefore 
 they must be the expression of all this. Not copies of 
 your own handiwork; not boastings of your own 
 grandeur; not heraldries; not king's arms, nor any 
 creature's arms, but God's arm, seen in His work. 
 Not manifestation of your delight in your own laws, 
 or your own liberties, or your own inventions ; but in 
 divine laws, constant, daily, common laws ; — ^not Com- 
 posite laws, nor Doric laws, nor laws of the five orders, 
 but of the Ten Commandments. 
 
 §17. Then the proper material of ornament will be 
 whatever God has created ; and its proper treatment, 
 that which seems in accordance with or symbolical of 
 His laws. And, for material, we shall therefore have, 
 first, the abstract lines which are most frequent in 
 
Selections 383 
 
 nature; and then, from lower to higher, the whole 
 range of system atised inorganic and organic forms. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt. VIII, Chap. I. §/. 
 
 §1. We have now reached the last and the most 
 important part of our subject. We have seen, in the 
 first division of this book, how far art may be, and has 
 been, consistent with physical or material facts. In 
 its second division, we examined how far it may be 
 and has been obedient to the laws of physical beauty. 
 In this last division we have to consider the relations 
 of art to God and man. Its work in the help of 
 human beings, and service of their Creator. 
 
 The Two Piths, Led. I. 
 
 For, indeed, I have set before you to-night, to the 
 best of my power, the sum and substance of the sys- 
 tem of art to the promulgation of which I 
 Art shows have devoted my life hitherto, and intend to 
 
 man's delight -' ' 
 
 In God's devote what of life may still be spared to 
 me. I have had but one steady aim in all 
 that I have ever tried to teach, namely — to declare 
 that whatever was great in human art was the expres- 
 sion of man's delight in God's work. 
 
 Lectures on Art, IV, %wj. 
 
 §103. But farther, you remember, I hope — ^for I said 
 it in a way that I thought would shock you a little, 
 that you might remember it — my statement, that art 
 had never done more than this, never more than given 
 
384 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the likeness of a noble human being. Not only so, but 
 it very seldom does so much as this ; and the best pic- 
 tures that exist of the great schools are all portraits, 
 or groups of portraits, often of very simple and 
 nowise noble persons, 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE SOCIAL VALUE OF ART 
 
 An exposition of Ruskin's views upon art would not 
 be complete without a mention of his opinions on the 
 relation of art to men. We have already spoken of 
 the relation of art to individual man, but, under this 
 point, the social value of art, we shall consider the 
 relation of art to classes of men. A perfect unfolding 
 of his theory would lead to an arrangement of his dicta 
 on political economy, upon which he published several 
 books. As that would carry us beyond the scope of 
 this work, we shall consider only a few main points of 
 the relations of art and society. 
 
 The social^ value of art lies in its power to educate; ^ 
 in its power to convey noble ideas and arouse them. 
 Ruskin appears to view art from an ethical 
 to'eduoate.'^' Standpoint, and says that it must serve some 
 serious purpose. He constantly insists 
 upon the moral ^asis of_art and its moral influence. 
 If a nation is corrupt, its art will be futile and ugly ; if 
 a nation is true, its art will be sincere ; art, therefore, 
 must come from a moral man, in a moral or healthful 
 people, and have an ethical effect on its admirers. 
 
 In The Political Economy of Art, (Lect. I) he says 
 that in all perfect economy there is a balanced division 
 
 385 
 
386 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 between the two great objects of utility and splendor. 
 This is true of nations as of individuals : every cot- 
 tager has his vegetable garden and his 
 
 The utility „ , . 
 
 and splendor flower garden ; every nation has its useful 
 
 OI SiVti I 
 
 feet balance between these is not kept up, then the 
 national economy is defgctive ; either motives of pomp 
 prevail and there is an undue accumulation of gold, and 
 of pictures, and of silk, and marble; or motives of 
 utility prevail and there is accumulation for the sake of 
 accumulation and of labor for the sake of labor. He 
 considers especially the national flower garden, or the 
 economy of splendor. Money that is spent for pomp 
 or splendor must be spent for objects of value to the 
 community, not for useless articles for selfish display 
 or pleasure. In the matter of dress he uses the illus- 
 tration of the girl who spends money and the labor of 
 others on the flounces "of a ball dress that will be 
 crushed in one night, and will do no one any good. The 
 true economy of good dressing would be to spend the 
 same amount on one dress for herself and five dresses 
 for those who had none. This duty of the buyer to the 
 maker was the germinal idea of the Consumer's 
 League. Economy, he says, means the wise manage- 
 ment of ^labor; and it means this mainly in three 
 senses; applying it, preserving its products, and dis- 
 tributing them. The labor in art is done by a par- 
 ticular class of men who have a special genius for the 
 business, so we must consider not only how to apply 
 
The Social Value of Art 387 
 
 the labor, but how to produce the laborer. He treats 
 of the subject under four heads : discovery, application, 
 accumulation, and distribution. 
 In the first place, it is the duty of a nation or society 
 
 Jo J25^iS_^*i^; *^®°' *° ^®' *^®™ ^t lasting work 
 and at various work. Work that is ephe- 
 
 Dlscoveryls -' — ^ 
 
 Sf sSty""' "^®^^^> °°1 fo? Jfee j:pod of the world, but 
 for our own selfish gratification, should not 
 be encouraged. To the class of useless arts would 
 belong luxuries in food and dress, more than was 
 necessary to bring out the strength and beauty of man. 
 It_js_the_ business of society to preserve and dis- 
 tribute ajrtjproducts. For historical purposes; that 
 is, for the keeping of older forms of art and 
 
 Distribution . 
 
 ^^tiieseeDiid specimens of different forms, art treasures 
 should be preserved in public galleries. 
 Photographs and engravings, black and white repro- 
 ductions of old masters, are legitimate as having also 
 an art value of their own. In the homesofjhe people, 
 however, should be the original work of living artists, 
 not copies of the old masters. If the work of contem- 
 porary artists is cheap enough to be owned by people 
 of ordinary means, then the taste for art will be more 
 widespread, and so art will be more in demand. As 
 an educator, he values, above all else, the^indmdual. 
 art expression, the mind of the artist speaking through 
 hishand in original work. 
 
 Ruskin does not take up at all the division of arts 
 vindet utility and this leads him, perhaps, to empha- 
 
388 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 size unduly the importance of the fine arts and their 
 
 application in decoration. He consider s it the duty 
 
 of society to require ©IlgiaaLart exgression 
 
 righ?fb'ul''^° in all lines,pf jj«a&,»^.8^je5Briea.jyysdown 
 
 appUcatlon . ., i • r • ■• , '»*'«=««==.» 
 
 wrong. to the making of even simple useful articles. 
 
 To him th^ jTOrk,ijf_tlie_hiand-ISIi 
 superior to the work of, tke^maching^ Machine-turned 
 ornaments he abhors. From-,this we see, that he 
 does not appreciate huiaiin„.actiyity in lines outside 
 of what may be called artistic creation. The inventor 
 of a machinejs not a jfenius, but a contemptible fellow 
 or a devil. He does not comprehend that iron and 
 coal may become to the engineer and inventor what 
 paint is to the artist. The locomotive with its grace- 
 fully curling white and gray smoke shooting out over 
 the plain is an iconoclastic engine destroying his idols. 
 i"The busy marts" of men are to him places of tor- 
 ment; he. could not see, as does Wordsworth, the 
 sublimity of the sleeping City. He would have rejoiced 
 that all "that mighty heart was lying still," and hoped 
 that it would be the stillness of death, not of rest. 
 This attitude towards a very important phase of mod- 
 ern life leads him to those savage outcries against 
 labor-saving machines, so common in his books on 
 political economy. His utterances on social economies 
 are all biased by this prejudice of the artist, who 
 thinks that allhandiwork.shtmld show the indiyiduality 
 of the producer^^S*'phase of the divine. He does 
 not comprehend that the freedom from manual labor, 
 
The Social Value of Art 389 
 
 givenj5y_JQachines^iyes time fgt more mental and 
 spiritual cultivation. Neither does he distinguish 
 be^we^n arts that may be relegated to machines and 
 arts that should always be handicraft. This makes 
 him seem to the average reader unpractical and vision- 
 ary. Ruskin's principles are correct; but he is not 
 discriminating enough in the application of them. He 
 says that there is utility and there is splendor ; but he 
 does not see the boundary line distinctly himself and is 
 continually applying the rules of splendor or art, to 
 utility or science. 
 
 Though he is too prone to look at questions of soci- 
 ology too exclusively from the artists' standpoint, he 
 
 has sounded a note of warning, and sounded 
 ]^^^^ it clearly, that was much needed by our 
 
 utilitarian age. He_ia^j;edeemed decora- 
 tive art from the tawdriness of mere machine orhaineht 
 — ornament put on, not for decoration, but for Ihere 
 sho;w;. He has, by his scorn, made us ashamed of the 
 Tavishness of cheap mechanical work. He has spoken 
 out vigorously for handicraft in an epoch that despised 
 manual labor. He has saved us from our own infatua- 
 tion over our inventions and our money-getting. He 
 and Carlyle have been the advance guard in a move- 
 ment of which William Morris has been the most 
 illustrious commander. No other two men — certainly 
 no other two men in literature — have done so much 
 for the thought of their century, in breaking down old 
 prejudices and preparing the way for a new move- 
 
390 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 ment. Ruskin has been no mere art -erilM, JhuJLAp 
 5ficial_r©for-mer. The piinctplesrof his reforms have 
 so saturated society that people who have never read 
 his books will quote his tenets to you as axioms. 
 The _ whole i noji;£nieiit_jtgvgardS'--a--uaion -oL arfe^and 
 CraftS7 which is now spreading so rapidly, had its 
 impetus in his assertion of the c lose and health v_con- 
 jneejyon_gf_Jifi_£H6-arts--wJtkmaterial^^ (Lect. on 
 Art, IV.) 
 
 It is because the world has accepted him as one of 
 its leaders, and because he is worthy of such a trusted 
 Ruskin as a leadership, that we are at liberty— nay, it 
 leader. jg q^j. ^^^y. — ^^ study him Very carefully, to 
 
 pick out his little slips in nomenclature and his con- 
 fusion on minor points, and guarding against these to 
 follow him trustfully. No Englishman of any time 
 has expounded to us more clearly or more accurately 
 the laws of God-like beauty and its close relation to 
 goodness and truth. No other Englishman has been 
 so prominent as a forerunner of two co-ordinate 
 movements that are destined to make the twentieth 
 century illustrious; namely, the_JncQtgoratioii_3f 
 Christian principles into.^^Qrdinary business relation • 
 and the jipplicatipn, without debasing it, of art to 
 conxmon life. 
 
Selections 391 
 
 SELECTIONS WITH CHAPTER IV 
 
 Lectures on Art, VII, %igo, 
 
 §190. And this, gentlemen, if you will, is the new 
 thing that may come to pass, — that the scholars of Eng- 
 land may resolve to teach also with the si- 
 to'eau^uate'^* lent power of the arts ; and that some among 
 you may so learn and use them, that pic- 
 tures may be painted which shall not be enigmas any 
 more, but open teachings of what can no otherwise be 
 so well shown ; which shall not be fevered or broken 
 visions any more, but shall be filled with the indwell- 
 ing light of self-possessed imagination; which shall 
 not be stained or enfeebled any more by evil passion, 
 but glorious with the strength and chastity of noble 
 human love ; and which shall no more degrade or dis- 
 guise the work of God in heaven, but testify of Him as 
 here dwelling with men, and walking with them, not 
 angry, in the garden of the earth. 
 
 The Two Paths, I. 
 
 And this is the truth also ; and holding this clue you 
 will easily and justly interpret the phenomena of his- 
 tory. So long as Art is steady in the contemplation 
 and exhibition of natural facts, so long she herself 
 lives and grows; and in her own life and growth 
 partly implies, partly secures, that of the nation in the 
 midst of which she is practised. But a time has 
 always hitherto come, in which, having thus reached a 
 singular perfection, she begins to contemplate that 
 
392 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 perfection, and to imitate it, and deduce rules and 
 forms from it ; and thus to forget her duty and min- 
 istry as the interpreter and discoverer of Truth. And 
 in the very instant when this diversion of her purpose 
 and forgetfulness of her function take place — forget- 
 f ulness generally coincident with her apparent perfec- 
 tion — in that instant, I say, begins her actual 
 catastrophe; and by her own fall — so far as she has 
 influence — she accelerates the ruin of the nation by 
 which she is practised. 
 
 Ariadne Florentina, Appendix, I. 
 
 The only recovery of our art-power possible, — nay, 
 when once we know the full meaning of it, the only 
 one desirable, — must result from the purification of. 
 the nation's heart, and chastisement of its life: utterly 
 hopeless now, for our adult population, or in our large 
 cities, and their neighbourhood. But, so far as any of 
 the sacred influence of former design can be brought 
 to bear on the minds of the young, and so far as, in 
 rural districts, the first elements of scholarly educa- 
 tion can be made pure, the foundation of a new 
 dynasty of thought may be slowly laid. I was 
 strangely impressed by the effect produced in a 
 provincial seaport school for children, chiefly of 
 fishermen's families, by the gift of a little coloured 
 drawing of a single figure from the Paradise of 
 Angelico in the Academia of Florence. The drawing 
 was wretched enough seen beside the original: I had 
 only bought it from the poor Italian copyist for 
 charity; but, to the children, it was like an actual 
 glimpse of heaven; they rejoiced in it with pure joy, 
 
Selections 393 
 
 and their mistress thanked me for it more than if I 
 had sent her a whole library of good books. Of such 
 copies, the grace-giving industry of young girls, now 
 worse than lost in the spurious charities of the bazaar, 
 or selfish ornamentations of the drawing-room, might, 
 in a year's time, provide enough for every dame- 
 school in England; and a year's honest work of the 
 engravers employed on our base novels, might repre- 
 sent to our advanced students every frescoed legend 
 of philosophy and morality extant in Christendom. 
 
 Inaugural Address at Cambridge School of Art. 
 
 Now, therefore, the sum of all is, that you who wish 
 to encourage Art in England have to do two things 
 with it : you must delight in it, in the first place ; and 
 you must get it to serve some serious work, in the 
 second place. I don't mean by serious, necessarily 
 moral; all that I mean by serious is in some way or 
 other useful, not merely selfish, careless, or indolent. 
 I had, indeed, intended before closing my address, to 
 have traced out a few of the directions in which, as it 
 seems to me. Art may be seriously and practically 
 serviceable to us in the career of civilization. I had 
 hoped to show you how many of the great phenomena 
 of nature still remained unrecorded by it, for us to 
 record; how many of the historical monuments of 
 Europe were perishing without memorial, for the want 
 of a little honest, simple, laborious, loving draughts- 
 manship ; how many of the most impressive historical 
 events of the day failed of teaching us half of what 
 they were meant to teach, for want of painters to rep- 
 
394 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 resent them faithfully, instead of fancifully, and with 
 historical truth for their aim, instead of national self- 
 glorification. I had hoped to show you how many of 
 the best impulses of the heart were lost in frivolity or 
 sensuality, for want of purer beauty to contemplate, 
 and of noble thoughts to associate with the fervour of 
 hallowed human passion ; how, finally, a great part of 
 the vital power of our religious faith was lost in us, 
 for want of such art as would realise in some rational, 
 probable, believable way, those events of sacred his- 
 tory which, as they visibly and intelligibly occurred, 
 may also be visibly and intelligibly represented. But 
 all this I dare not do yet. I felt, as I thought over 
 these things, that the time was not yet come for their 
 declaration : the time will come for it, and I believe 
 soon ; but as yet, the man would only lay himself open 
 to the charge of vanity, of imagination, and of idle 
 fondness of hope, who should venture to trace in words 
 the course of the higher blessings which the Arts may 
 have yet in store for mankind. 
 
 Sesame and Lilies, Led. Ill, §§96, isz, 127. 
 
 §96. In whatever I may say touching the religion 
 which has been the foundation of art, or the policy 
 which has contributed to its power, if I offend one, I 
 shall offend all : for I shall take no note of any separa- 
 tions in creeds, or antagonisms in parties : neither do 
 I fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving — 
 or at least stating as capable of positive proof — the 
 connection of all that is best in the crafts and arts of 
 man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the sincerity 
 of his patriotism. 
 
Selections 395 
 
 §122. For, indeed, the arts, as regards teachable- 
 . ness, differ from the sciences also in this, that their 
 power is founded not merely on facts which can 
 be communicated, but on dispositions which require to 
 be created. Art is neither to be achieved by effort of 
 thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking. It 
 is the instinctive and necessary result of powers which 
 can only be developed through the mind of successive 
 generations, and which finally burst into life under 
 social conditions as slow of growth as the faculties 
 they regulate. Whole aeras of mighty history are 
 summed, and the passions of dead myriads are con- 
 centrated, in the existence of a noble art ; and if that 
 noble art were among us, we should feel it and rejoice ; 
 not caring in the least to hear lectures on it; and since 
 it is not among us, be assured we have to go back to 
 the root of it, or, at least, to the place where the stock 
 of it is yet alive, and the branches began to die. 
 
 §127. And now, returning to the broader question 
 what these art and labours of life have to teach us of 
 
 its mystery, this is the first of their les- 
 Arttheout- SOUS — that the more beautiful the art, the 
 national life, more it is essentially the work of people 
 
 who feel themselves wrong; — who are 
 striving for the fulfilment of a law, and the grasp of a 
 loveliness, which they have not yet attained, which 
 they feel even farther and farther from attaining, the 
 more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, 
 it is the work of people who know also that they are 
 right. The very sense of inevitable error from their 
 purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the 
 continued sense of failure arises from the continued 
 
396 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 opening of the eyes more clearly to all the sacredest 
 laws of truth. 
 
 Lectures on Art, I, %2j. 
 §27. The art of any country is the exponent of its so- 
 cial and political virtues. I will sho w 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. 
 
 Modem Painters, Vol. V, Pt. IX, Chap. Ill, %i». 
 
 § 1 2. And in this rested the dominion of the Venetians 
 over all later schools. They were the last believing 
 school of Italy. Although, as I said above, always 
 quarrelling with the Pope, there is all the more evi- 
 dence of an earnest faith in their religion. People 
 who trusted the Madonna less, flattered the Pope 
 more. But down to Tintoret's time, the Roman 
 Catholic religion was still real and sincere at Venice; 
 and though faith in it was compatible with much which 
 to us appears criminal or absurd, the religion itself 
 was entirely sincere. 
 
 The Crown of Wild Olive, II. 
 
 Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you can- 
 not have good architecture merely by asking people's 
 advice on occasion. All good architecture is the 
 
Selections 397 
 
 expression of national life and character ; and it is pro- 
 duced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire 
 for beauty, * * * * 
 
 And so completely and unexceptionally is this so, 
 that, if I had time to-night, I could show you that a 
 nation cannot be affected by any vice, or weakness, 
 without expressing it, legibly, and for ever, either in 
 bad art, or by want of art; and that there is no 
 national virtue, small or great, which is not manifestly 
 expressed in all the art which circumstances enable 
 the people possessing that virtue to produce. Take, 
 for instance, your great English virtue of enduring 
 and patient courage. You have at present in England 
 only one art of any consequence — that is, iron-work- 
 ing. You know thoroughly well how to cast and ham- 
 mer iron. Now, do you think in those masses of lava 
 which you build volcanic cones to melt, and which you 
 forge at the mouths of the Infernos you have created ; 
 do you think, on those iron plates, your courage and 
 endurance are not written for ever — not merely with 
 an iron pen, but on iron parchment? And take also 
 your great English vice — European vice — vice of all 
 the world — vice of all other worlds that roll or shine 
 in heaven, bearing with them yet the atmosphere of 
 hell — the vice of jealousy, which brings competition 
 into your commerce, treachery into your councils, and 
 dishonor into your wars — that vice which has rendered 
 for you, and for your next neighbouring nation, the 
 daily occupations of existence no longer possible, but 
 with the mail upon your breasts and the sword loose in 
 its sheath ; so that, at last, you have realised for all 
 the multitudes of the two great peoples who lead the 
 
398 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 so-called civilisation of the earth, — ^you have realised 
 for them all, I say, in person and in policy, what was 
 once true only of the rough Border riders of your 
 Cheviot hills — 
 
 'They carved at the meal 
 With gloves of steel, 
 And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd;— 
 
 do you think that this national shame and dastardliness 
 of heart are not written as legibly on every rivet of 
 your iron armour as the strength of the right hands 
 that forged it? * * * * 
 
 I must get back to the matter in hand, however. 
 Believe me, without farther instance, I could show 
 you, in all time, that every nation's vice, or virtue, 
 was written in its art : the soldiership of early Greece ; 
 the sensuality of late Italy ; the visionary religion of 
 Tuscany ; the splendid human energy and beauty of 
 Venice. I have no time to do this to-night (I have 
 done it elsewhere before now) ; but I proceed to apply 
 the principle to ourselves in a more searching man- 
 
 In all my past work, my endeavour has been to show 
 that good architecture is essentially religious — the pro- 
 duction of a faithful and virtuous, not of an infidel and 
 corrupted people. But in the course of doing this, I 
 have had also to show that good architecture is not 
 ecclesiastical. People are so apt to look upon religion 
 as the business of the clergy, not their own, that the 
 moment they hear of anything depending on 'reli- 
 gion, ' they think it must also have depended on the 
 priesthood ; and I have had to take what place was to 
 be occupied between these two errors, and fight both. 
 
Selections 399 
 
 often with seeming contradiction. Good architecture 
 is the work of good and believing men; therefore, 
 you say, at least some people say, 'Good architecture 
 must essentially have been the work of the clergy, not 
 of the laity. ' No — a thousand times no ; good archi- 
 tecture has always been the work of the commonalty, 
 not of the clergy. What, you say, those glorious 
 cathedrals — the pride of Europe — did their builders 
 not form Gothic architecture. No; they corrupted 
 Gothic architecture. Gothic was formed in the 
 baron's castle, and the burgher's street. It was 
 formed by the thoughts, and hands, and powers of 
 free citizens and soldier kings. By the monk it was 
 used as an instrument for the aid of his superstition ; 
 when that superstition became a beautiful madness, 
 and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamed and 
 pined in the cloister, and vainly raged and perished in 
 the crusade — through that fury of perverted faith and 
 wasted war, the Gothic rose also to its loveliest, most 
 fantastic, and, finally, most foolish dreams; and, in 
 those dreams, was lost. 
 
 I hope, now, that there is no risk of your misunder- 
 standing me when I come to the gist of what I want 
 to say to-night — when I repeat, that every great 
 national architecture has been the result apie-pouent 
 of a great national reli^'d. "kou can't have bits of 
 it here, bits there — you must have it everywhere, or 
 nowhere. It is not the monopoly of a clerical com- 
 pany—it is not the exponent of a theological dogma- 
 it is not the hieroglyphic writing of an initiated priest- 
 hood; it is the manly language of a people inspired 
 by resolute and common purpose, and rendering reso- 
 
400 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 lute and common fidelity to the legible laws of an 
 undoubted God. * * * * 
 
 This, then, was the Greek conception of purest 
 Deity, and every habit of life, and every form of his 
 art developed themselves from the seeking this bright 
 serene, resistless wisdom; and setting himself, as a 
 man, to do things evermore rightly and strongly;* not 
 with any ardent affection or ultimate hope ; but with 
 a resolute and continent energy of will, as knowing 
 that for failure there was no consolation, and for sin 
 there was no remission. And the Greek architecture 
 rose unerring, bright, clearly defined and self-con- 
 tained. 
 
 Next followed in Europe the great Christian faith, 
 which was essentially the religion of Comfort. 
 Its great doctrine is the remission of sins; for 
 which cause it happens, too often, in certain phases of 
 Christianity, that sin and sickness themselves are 
 partly glorified, as if, the more you had to be healed 
 of, the more divine was the healing. The practical 
 result of this doctrine, in art, is a continual contem- 
 plation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states of 
 
 * It is an error to suppose that the Greek worship, or seeking, 
 --"■5 chiefly of Beauty. It was essentially of Rightness and 
 Strength, founded r.'" forethought: the principal character of 
 Greek art is not Beauty, but Ut;i.'g:-"--.atid the Dorian Apollo-wor- 
 ship and Athenian Virgin-worship are both expressions of adora- 
 tion of divine Wisdom and Purity. Next to these great deities 
 rank, in power over the national mind, Dionysus and Ceres, the 
 givers of human strength and life: then, for heroic example, Her- 
 cules. There is no Venus-worship among the Greeks in the great 
 times: and the Muses are essentially teachers of Truth, and of its 
 harmonies. 
 
Selections 401 
 
 purification from them ; thus we have an arcnitecture 
 conceived in a mingled sentiment of melancholy and 
 aspiration, partly severe, partly luxuriant, which will 
 bend itself to every one of our needs, and every one 
 of our fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we 
 are strong or weak ourselves. It is, of all architec- 
 ture, the basest, when base people build it — of all, the 
 noblest, when built by the noble. * * * * 
 
 You know we are speaking always of the real, 
 active, continual, national worship; that by which 
 men act while they live.; not that which they talk of 
 when they die. Now, we have, indeed, a nominal 
 religion, to which we pay tithes of property and 
 sevenths of time ; but we have also a practical and 
 earnest religion, to which we devote nine-tenths of 
 our property and six-sevenths of our time. And we 
 dispute a great deal about the nominal religion ; but 
 we are all unanimous about this practical one, of which 
 I think you will admit that the ruling goddess may be 
 best generally described as the 'Goddess of Getting- 
 on,' or 'Britannia of the Market.' 
 
 Lectures on Art, Led. Ill, %%66, 67, 68, 80, 81. 
 
 §66. You probably recollect that, in the beginning of 
 my last lecture, it was stated that fine art had, and 
 could have, but three functions : the enforcing of the 
 religious sentiments of men, the perfecting their 
 ethical state, and the doing them material service. 
 We have to-day to examine the mode of its action in 
 the second power, that of perfecting the morality or 
 ethical state of men. 
 
402 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Perfecting, observe — not producing. 
 
 You must have the right moral state first, or you 
 cannot have the art. But when the art is once 
 obtained, its reflected action enhances and completes 
 the moral state out of which it arose, and, above all, 
 communicates the exaltation to other minds which are 
 already morally capable of the like. 
 
 §67. And with absolute precision from highest to low- 
 est, the fineness of the possible art is an index of the 
 moral purity and majesty of the emotion it expresses. 
 You may test it practically at any instant. Question 
 with yourselves respecting any feeling that has taken 
 strong possession of your mind, 'Could this be sung by 
 a master, and sung nobly, with a true melody and art?' 
 Then it is a right feeling. Could it not be sung at all 
 or only sung ludicrously? It is a base one. And that 
 is so in all the arts ; so that with mathematical precision, 
 subject to no error or exception, the art of a nation, 
 so far as it exists, is an exponent of its ethical 
 state. 
 
 §68. An exponent, observe, and exalting influence; 
 but not the root or cause. You cannot paint or sing 
 yourselves into being good men ; you must be good 
 men before you can either paint or sing, and then the 
 colour and sound will complete in you all that is 
 best. 
 
 §80. Again, I need not repeat to you here what I 
 endeavoured to explain in the first lecture in the book I 
 called 'The Two Paths,' respecting the arts of savage 
 races : but I may now note briefly that such arts are the 
 result of an intellectual activity which has found no 
 room to expand, and which the tyranny of nature or 
 
Selections 403 
 
 of man has condemned to disease through arrested 
 growth. And where neither Christianity, nor any other- 
 religion conveying some moral help, has reached, the 
 animal energy of such races necessarily flames into 
 ghastly conditions of evil, and the g^rotesque or fright- 
 ful forms assumed by their art are precisely indicative 
 of their distorted moral nature. 
 
 §81. But the truly great nations nearly always begin 
 from a race possessing this imaginative power ; and 
 for some time their progress is very slow, and their 
 state not one of innocence, but of feverish and fault- 
 ful animal energy. This is gradually subdued and 
 exalted into bright human life ; the art instinct purify- 
 ing itself with the rest of the nature, until social per- 
 fectness is nearly reached ; and then comes the period 
 when conscience and intellect are so highly developed, 
 that new forms of error begin in the inability to fulfil 
 the demands of the one, or to answer the doubts of the 
 other. Then the wholeness of the people is lost; all 
 kinds of hypocrisies and oppositions of science 
 develop themselves; their faith is questioned on one 
 side, and compromised with on the other; wealth 
 commonly increases at the same period to a destructive 
 extent ; luxury follows ; and the ruin of the nation is 
 then certain : while the arts, all this time, are simply, 
 as I said at first, the exponents of each phase of its 
 moral state, and no more control it in its political 
 career than the gleam of the firefly guides its oscilla- 
 tion. It is true that their most splendid results are 
 usually obtained in the swiftness of the power which 
 is hurrying to the precipice; but to lay the charge of 
 the catastrophe to the art by which it is illumined, 
 
404 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 is to find a cause for the cataract in the hues of its 
 iris. 
 
 Lectures on Art, Led. IV, §§/o#, ii6. 
 
 §104. I am aware that this cannot but at present 
 appear gravely questionable to those of my audience 
 who are strictly cognizant of the phases of Greek art; 
 for they know that the moment of its decline is 
 accurately marked, by its turning from abstract form 
 to portraiture. But the reason of this is simple. The 
 progressive course of Greek art was in subduing 
 monstrous conceptions to natural ones ; it did this by 
 general laws; it reached absolute truth of generic 
 human form, and if its ethical force had remained, 
 would have advanced into healthy portraiture. But at 
 the moment of change the national life ended in 
 Greece; and portraiture, there, meant insult to her 
 religion, and flattery to her tyrants. And her skill 
 perished, not because she became true in sight, but 
 because she became vile in heart. 
 
 §116. But I have told you enough, it seems to me, at 
 least to-day, of this function of art in recording fact; 
 let me now finally, and with all distinctness possible 
 to me, state to you its main business of all ; — its serv- 
 ice in the actual uses of daily life. 
 
 You are surprised, perhaps, to hear me call this its 
 main business. That is indeed so, however. The 
 giving brightness to picture is much, but the giving 
 brightness to life more. And remember, were it as 
 patterns only, you cannot, without the realities, have 
 the pictures. You cannot have a landscape by 
 Turner, without a country for him to paint; you can- 
 
Selections 405 
 
 not have a portrait by Titian, without a man to be 
 portrayed. I need not prove that to you, I suppose, 
 in these short terms ; but in the outcome I can get no 
 soul to believe that the beginning of art is in getting 
 our country clean and our people beautiful. I have 
 been ten years trying to get this very plain certainty — 
 I do not say believed — but even thought of, as any- 
 thing but a monstrous proposition. To get your 
 country clean, and your people lovely; — I assure you, 
 that is a necessary work of art to begin with ! There 
 has indeed been art in countries where people lived in 
 dirt to serve God, but never in countries where they 
 lived in dirt to serve the devil. There has indeed 
 been art where the people were not all lovely, 
 — where even their lips were thick — and their 
 skins black, because the sun had looked upon them; 
 but never in a country where the people were pale 
 with miserable toil and deadly shade, and where the 
 lips of youth, instead of being full with blood, were 
 pinched by famine, or warped with poison. And, 
 now, therefore, note this well, the gist of all these 
 long prefatory talks. I said that the two great moral 
 instincts were those of Order and Kindness. Now, 
 all the arts are founded on agriculture by the hand, 
 and on the graces, and kindness of feeding and dress- 
 ing, and lodging yotir people. Greek art begins in the 
 gardens of Alcinous — perfect order, leeks in beds, 
 fountains in pipes. And Christian art, as it arose out 
 of chivalry, was only possible so far as chivalry com- 
 pelled both kings and knights to care for the right 
 personal training of their people ; it perished utterly 
 when those kings and knights became Sij/io^opio, 
 
4o6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 devourers of the people. And it will become possible 
 again only, when, literally, the sword is beaten into 
 the ploughshare, when your St. George of England 
 shall justify his name, and Christian art shall be 
 known, as its master was, in breaking of bread. 
 
 Political Economy of Art (A Joy Forever), Led. II. 
 
 For, be assured, that all the best things and 
 treasures of this world are not to be produced by each 
 generation for itself ; but we are all intended, not to 
 carve our work in snow that will melt, but each and 
 all of us to be continually rolling a great white gather- 
 ing snowball higher and higher — larger and larger — 
 along the Alps of human power. Thus the science of 
 nations is to be accumulative from father to son : each 
 learning a little more and a little more; each receiv- 
 ing all that was known, and adding its own gain: the 
 history and poetry of nations are to be accumulative; 
 each generation treasuring the history and the songs 
 of its ancestors, adding its own history and its own 
 songs ; and the art of nations is to be accumulative, 
 just as science and history are; the work of living men 
 not superseding, but building itself upon the work of 
 the past. Nearly every great and intellectual race of 
 the world has produced, at every period of its career, 
 an art with some peculiar and precious character about 
 it, wholly unattainable by any other race, and at any 
 other time ; and the intention of Providence concern- 
 ing that art, is evidently that it should all grow 
 together into one mighty temple ; the rough stones and 
 the smooth all finding their place, and rising, day by 
 day, in richer and higher pinnacles to heaven. 
 
Selections 407 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. V, g§p(7, gs- 
 
 §90. But this question is not one which can be deter- 
 mined by the needs, or limited to the circumstances of 
 Art. To live generally more modest and contented 
 lives ; to win the greatest possible pleasure from the 
 smallest things ; to do what is likely to be serviceable 
 to our immediate neighbours, whether it seem to them 
 admirable or not ; to make no pretence of admiring 
 what has really no hold upon our hearts ; and to be 
 resolute in refusing all additions to our learning, until 
 we have perfectly arranged and secured what learn- 
 ing we have got; — these are conditions, and laws, of 
 unquestionable ao^U and <ranl>poiTvvr}, which will indeed 
 lead us up to fine art if we are resolved to have it 
 fine; but will also do what is much better, make 
 rude art precious. 
 
 §95. Every nation can represent, with prudence, or 
 success, only the realities in which it delights. What 
 you have with you, and before you, daily, dearest to 
 your sight and heart, t&at, by the magic of your hand, 
 or of your lips, you can gloriously express to others ; 
 and what you ought to have in your sight and heart, 
 — what, if you have not, nothing else can be truly 
 seen or loved, — is the human life of your own people, 
 understood in its history, and admired in its pres- 
 ence. 
 
 And unless that be first made beautiful, idealism 
 must be false, and imagination monstrous.* 
 
 * For fuller exposition of Art as an exponent of the nation read 
 the whole of Lecture V. 
 
4o8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 Eagle's Nest, Led. VIII, %i7i. 
 §171. My friends, let me very strongly recommend 
 you to give up that hope of finding the principle of 
 life in dead bodies ; but to take all pains to keep the 
 life pure and holy, in the living bodies you have got ; 
 and, farther, not to seek your national amusement in 
 the destruction of animals, nor your national safety in 
 the destruction of men ; but to look for all your joy to 
 kindness, and for all your strength to domestic 
 faith, and law of ancestral honour. Perhaps you will 
 not now any more think it strange that in beginning 
 your natural history studies in this place, I mean to 
 teach you heraldry, but not anatomy. For, as you 
 learn to read the shields, and remember the stories, of 
 the great houses of England, and find how all the arts 
 that glorified them were founded on the passions that 
 inspired, you will learn assuredly, that the utmost 
 secret of national power is in living with honour, and 
 the utmost secrets of human art are in gentleness and 
 truth. 
 
 The Study of Architecture. 
 
 Art, national or individual, is the result of a long 
 course of previous life and training; a necessary 
 result, if that life has been loyal, and an impossible one, 
 if it has been base. Let a nation be healthful, happy, 
 pure in its enjoyments, brave in its acts, and broad in 
 its affections, and its art will spring round and within 
 it as freely as the foam from a fountain; but let 
 the springs of its life be impure, and its course pol- 
 luted, and you will not get the bright spray by treat- 
 ises on the mathematical structure of bubbles. 
 
Selections 409 
 
 TTie Two Paths, Led. II. 
 You will find that the art whose end is pleasure 
 only is pre-eminently the gift of cruel and savage 
 nations, cruel in temper, savage in habits and concep- 
 tion; but that the art which is especially dedicated to 
 natural fact always indicates a peculiar gentleness and 
 tenderness of mind, and that all great and successful 
 work of that kind will assuredly be the production of 
 thoughtful, sensitive, earnest, kind men, large in their 
 views of life, and full of various intellectual power. 
 
 Aratra Pentelici, Led. II, §§40-4 f. 
 
 §40. This third condition is that the heart of the 
 nation shall be set on the discovery of just or equal 
 law, and shall be from day to day developing that law 
 more perfectly. The Greek school of sculpture is 
 formed during, and in consequence of, the national 
 effort to discover the nature of justice; the Tuscan, 
 during, and in consequence of, the national effort to 
 discover the nature of justification. I assert to you 
 at present briefly, what will, I hope, be the subject of 
 prolonged illustration hereafter. 
 
 §41. Now when a nation with mimetic instinct and 
 imaginative belonging is also thus occupied earnestly 
 in the discovery of Ethic law, that effort gradually 
 brings precision and truth into all its manual acts ; and 
 the physical progress of sculpture as in the Greek, so 
 in the Tuscan school, consists in gradually limiting 
 what was before indefinite, in verifying what was 
 inaccurate, and in humanizing what was monstrous. 
 I might perhaps content you by showing these 
 external phenomena, and by dwelling simply on the 
 
41 o Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 increasing desire of naturalness, which compels, in 
 every successive decade of years, literally, in the 
 sculptured images, the mimicked bones to come 
 together, bone to his bone ; and the flesh to come up 
 upon them, until from a flattened and pinched hand- 
 ful of clay, respecting which you may gravely ques- 
 tion whether it was intended for a human form at all ; 
 — ^by slow degrees, and added touch to touch, in 
 increasing consciousness of the bodily truth, — at last 
 the Aphrodite of Melos stands before you, a perfect 
 woman. But all that search for physical accuracy is 
 merely the external operation, in the arts, ^f the seek- 
 ing for truth in the inner soul ; it is impossible with- 
 out that higher effort, and the demonstration of it 
 would be worse than useless to you, unless I made 
 you aware at the same time of its spiritual cause. 
 
 §42. Observe farther ; the increasing truth in repre- 
 sentation is co-relative with increasing beauty in the 
 thing to be represented. The pursuit of justice which 
 regulates the imitative effort, regulates also the 
 development of the race into dignity of person, as of 
 mind; and their culminating art-skill attains the 
 grasp of entire truth at the moment when the truth 
 becomes most lovely. And then, ideal sculpture may 
 go on safely into portraiture. 
 
 Political Economy of Art {A Joy Forever), I. 
 
 Now, we have warped the word "economy" in our 
 English language into a meaning which it has no 
 business whatever to bear. In our use of it, it con- 
 stantly signifies merely sparing or saving; economy of 
 money means saving money — economy of time, spar- 
 
Selections 
 
 411 
 
 tag time, and so on. But that is a wholly barbarous 
 use of the word — barbarous in a double sense, for it is 
 Theutiuty ^°* English, and it is bad Greek; barbarous 
 and splendor in a treble sense, for it is not English, 
 it is bad Greek, and it is worse sense. 
 Economy no more means saving money than it means 
 spending money. It means the administration of a 
 house; its stewardship; spending or saving that is, 
 whether money or time, or anything else, to the best 
 possible advantage. In the simplest and clearest 
 definition of it, economy, whether public or private, 
 means the wise management of labour; and it means 
 this mainly in three senses: namely, first, applying 
 your labour rationally; ^^cou^y , preserving \\& prod- 
 uce carefully; lastly, distributing \\.% produce season- 
 ably. 
 
 I say first, applying your'labour rationally ; that is, 
 so as to obtain the most precious things you can, and 
 the most lasting things, by it: not growing oats in 
 land where you can grow wheat, nor putting fine 
 embroidery on a stuff that will not wear. Secondly, 
 preserving its produce carefully ; that is to say, laying 
 up your wheat wisely in storehouses for the time of 
 famine, and keeping your embroidery watchfully from 
 the moth ; and lastly, distributing its produce season- 
 ably ; that is to say, being able to carry your corn at 
 once to the place where the people are hungry, and 
 your embroideries to the places where they are gay; 
 so fulfilling in all ways the Wise Man's description, 
 whether of the queenly housewife or queenly nation : 
 "She riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to 
 her household, and a portion to her maidens. She 
 
412 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is 
 silk and purple. Strength and honour are in her 
 clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come." 
 
 Now, you will observe that in. this description of the 
 perfect economist, or mistress of a household, there is 
 a studied expression of the balanced division of her 
 care between the two great objects of utility and 
 splendour; in her right hand, food and flax, for life 
 and clothing; in her left hand, the purple and the 
 needlework, for honour and for beauty. All perfect 
 housewifery or national economy is known by these 
 two divisions ; wherever either is wanting, the econ- 
 omy is imperfect. If the motive of pomp prevails, 
 and the care of the national economist is directed only to 
 the accumulation of gold, and of pictures, and of silk 
 and marble, you know at once that the time must soon 
 come when all these treasures shall be scattered and 
 blasted in national ruin. If, on the contrary, the ele- 
 ment of utility prevails, and the nation disdains to 
 occupy itself in any wise with the arts of beauty or 
 delight, not only a certain quantity of its energy cal- 
 culated for exercise in those arts alone must be 
 entirely wasted, which is bad economy, but also the 
 passions connected with the utilities of property 
 become morbidly strong, and a mean lust of accumu- 
 lation, merely for the sake of accumulation, or even 
 of labour, merely for the sake of labour, will banish 
 at least the serenity and the morality of life, as com- 
 pletely, and perhaps more ignobly, than even the 
 lavishness of pride, and the lightness of pleasure. 
 And similarly, and much more visibly, in private and 
 household economy, you may judge always of its per- 
 
Selections 413 
 
 fectness by its fair balance between the use and the 
 pleasure of its possessions. You will see the wise cot- 
 tager's garden trimly divided between its well-set 
 vegetables, and its fragrant flowers; you will see the 
 good housewife taking pride in her pretty table-cloth, 
 and her glittering shelves, no less than in her well- 
 dressed dish, and her full storeroom ; the care in her 
 countenance will alternate with gaiety; and though 
 you will reverence her in her seriousness, you will 
 know her best by her smile. 
 
 Now, as you will have anticipated, I am going to 
 address you, on this and our succeeding evening, 
 chiefly on the subject of that economy which relates 
 rather to the garden than the farm-yard. I shall ask 
 you to consider with me the kind of laws by which we 
 shall best distribute the beds of our national garden, 
 and raise in it the sweetest succession of trees pleasant 
 to the sight, and (in no forbidden sense) to be desired 
 to make us wise. * * * * 
 
 Quitting, however, at last these general and serious 
 laws of government — or rather bringing them down to 
 our own business in hand — we have to consider three 
 points of discipline in that particular branch of human 
 labour which is concerned, not with procuring of 
 food, but the expression of emotion ; we have to con- 
 sider respecting art; first, how to apply our labour to 
 it; then, how to accumulate or preserve the results of 
 labour ; and then, how to distribute them. But since 
 in art the labour which we have to employ is the 
 labour of a particular class of men — men who have 
 special genius for the business, we have not only to 
 consider how to apply the labour, but first of all how 
 
414 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 to produce the labourer; and thus the question in this 
 particular case comes fourfold : first, how to get your 
 man of genius; then, how to employ your man of 
 genius; then, how to accumulate and preserve his 
 work in the greatest quantity ; and lastly, how to dis- 
 tribute his work to the best national advantage. Let 
 us take up these questions in succession. 
 
 I. Discovery. — How are we to get our men of 
 genius : that is to say, by what means may we produce 
 First duty of a^ong US, at any given time, the greatest 
 a, nation. quantity of effective art-intellect? A wide 
 question, you say, involving an account of all the best 
 means of art education. Yes, but I do not mean to 
 go into the consideration of those, I want only to 
 state the few principles which lie at the foundation of 
 the matter. Of these, the first is that you have 
 always to find your artist, not to make him ; you can't 
 manufacture him, any more than you can manufacture 
 gold. You can find him, and refine him : you dig him 
 out as he lies nugget- fashion in the mountain-stream ; 
 you bring him home , and you make him into current 
 coin, or household plate, but not one grain of him can 
 your originally produce. A certain quantity of art- 
 intellect is born annually in every nation, greater or 
 less according to the nature and cultivation of the 
 nation, or race of men ; but a perfectly fixed quantity 
 annually, not increasable by one grain. * * * * 
 
 II. Application. — There are three main points the 
 economist has to attend to in this. 
 
 First, To set his men to various work. 
 Secondly, To easy work. 
 Thirdly, To lasting work, 
 
Selections 415 
 
 I shall briefly touch on the first two, for I want to 
 arrest your attention on the last. 
 
 I say first, to various work. Supposing you have 
 two men of equal power as landscape painters — ^and 
 both of them an hour at your disposal. You would 
 not set them both to paint the same piece of land- 
 scape. You would, of course, rather have two sub- 
 jects than a repetition of one. 
 
 Well, supposing them sculptors, will not the same 
 rule hold? You naturally conclude at once that it 
 will ; but you will have hard work to convince your 
 modern architects of that. They will put twenty 
 men to work, to carve twenty capitals; and all shall be 
 the same. * * * * \\riien men are employed contin- 
 ually in carving the same ornaments, they get into a 
 monotonous and methodical habit of labour — precisely 
 correspondent to that in which they would break stones, 
 or paint house- walls. Of course, what they do so con- 
 stantly, they do easily ; and if you excite them tempo- 
 rarily by an increase of wages you may get much work 
 done by them in a little time. But, unless so stimula- 
 ted, men condemned to a monotonous exertion, work — 
 and always, by the laws of human nature, must work — 
 only at^ tranquil rate, not producing by any means a 
 maximum result in a given time. But if you allow 
 them to vary their designs, and thus interest their 
 heads and hearts in what they are doing, you will find 
 them become eager, first, to get their ideas expressed, 
 and then to finish the expression of them; and the 
 moral energy thus brought to bear on the matter 
 quickens, and therefore cheapens, the production in a 
 most important degree. Sir Thomas Deane, the 
 
4i6 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 architect of the new Museum at Oxford, told me, as I 
 passed through Oxford on my way here, that he found 
 that, owing to this cause alone, capitals of various 
 design could be executed cheaper than capitals of 
 similar design (the amount of hand labour in each 
 being the same) by about 30 per cent. 
 
 Well, that is the first way, then, in which you will 
 employ your intellect well ; and the simple observance 
 of this plain rule of political economy will effect a 
 noble revolution in your architecture, such as you 
 cannot at present so much as conceive. Then the 
 second way in which we are to guard against waste is 
 by setting our men to the easiest, and therefore the 
 quickest, work which will answer the purpose. Mar- 
 ble, for instance, lasts quite as long as granite, and is 
 much softer to work ; therefore, when you get hold of 
 a good sculptor, give him marble to carve — not 
 granite. That, you say, is obvious enough. Yes; 
 but it is not so obvious how much of your workmen's 
 time you waste annually in making them cut glass, 
 after it has got hard, when you ought to make them 
 mould it while it is soft. It is not so obvious how 
 much expense you waste in cutting diamonds and 
 rubies, which are the hardest things you can find, into 
 shapes that mean nothing, when the same men might 
 be cutting sandstone and freestone into shapes that 
 mean something. It is not so obvious how much of 
 the artists' time in Italy you waste, by forcing them 
 to make wretched little pictures for you out of crumbs 
 of stone glued together at enormous cost, when the 
 tenth of time would make good and noble pictures for 
 you out of water-colour. I could go on giving you 
 
Selections 417 
 
 almost numberless instances of this great commercial 
 mistake; but I should only weary and confuse you. 
 I therefore commend also this head of our subject to 
 your own meditation, and proceed to the last I named— 
 the last I shall task your patience with to-night. You 
 know we are now considering how to apply our 
 genius : and we were to do it as economists, in three 
 ways : — 
 
 To various work; 
 
 To easy work ; 
 
 To lasting work. 
 
 This lasting of the work, then, is our final question. 
 * * * * 
 
 It has just been said, that the first great secret is to 
 produce work that will last. Now, the conditions of 
 work lasting are twofold; it must not only be in 
 materials that will last, but it must be itself of a 
 quality that will last — it must be good enough to bear 
 the test of time. If it is not good, we shall tire of it 
 quickly, and throw it aside — we shall have no pleasure 
 in the accumulation of it. So that the first question 
 of a good art-economist respecting any work is, Will 
 it lose its flavour by keeping? It may be verj"^ amus- 
 ing now, and look much like a work of genius. But 
 what will be its value a hundred years hence? * * * 
 
 But I cannot pass without some brief notice our 
 habit — continually, as it seems to me, gaining strength 
 — of putting a large quantity of thought and work, 
 annually, into things which are either in their nature 
 necessarily perishable, as dress ; or else into compli- 
 ances with the fashion of the day, into things not 
 necessarily perishable, as plate. I am afraid almost 
 
41 8 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 the first idea of a young rich couple setting up house 
 in London, is, that they must have new plate. Their 
 father's plate may be very handsome, but the fashion 
 is changed. They will have a new service from the 
 leading manufacturer, and the old plate, except a few 
 apostle spoons, and a cup which Charles the Second 
 drank a health in to their pretty ancestress, is sent to 
 be melted down, and made up with new flourishes and 
 fresh lustre. Now, so long as this is the case — so 
 long, observe, as fashion has influence on the manu- 
 facture of plate — so long you cannot have a gold- 
 smith's art in this country. Do you suppose any 
 workman worthy the name will put his brains into a 
 cup or an urn, which he knows is to go to the melting 
 pot in half a score of years? He will not; you don't 
 ask or expect it of him. You ask of him nothing but 
 a little quick handicraft — a clever twist of a handle 
 here, and a foot there, a convolvulus from the newest 
 school of design, a pheasant from Landseer's game 
 cards ; a couple of sentimental figures for supporters, 
 in the style of the signs of insurance offices, then a 
 clever touch with the burnisher, and there's your 
 epergne, the admiration of all the footmen at the wed- 
 ding-breakfast, and the torment of some unfortunate 
 youth who cannot see the pretty girl opposite to him, 
 through its tyrannous branches. 
 
 But you don't suppose that that's goldsmith's work? 
 Goldsmith's work is made to last, and made with the 
 men's whole heart and soul in it; true goldsmith's 
 work, when it exists, is generally the means of educa- 
 tion of the greatest painters and sculptors of the day. 
 
Selections 419 
 
 So here is one branch of decorative art in which rich 
 people may indulge themselves unselfishly; if they ask 
 for good art in it, they may be sure in buying gold and 
 silver plate that they are enforcing useful education 
 on young artists. But there is another branch of 
 decorative art in which I am sorry to say we cannot, 
 at least under existing circumstances, indulge our- 
 selves, with the hope of doing good to anybody, I 
 mean the great and subtle art of dress. 
 
 And here I must interrupt the pursuit of our sub- 
 ject for a moment or two, in order to state one of the 
 principles of political economy, which, though it is, I 
 believe, now sufficiently understood and asserted by 
 the leading masters of the science, is not yet, I grieve 
 to say, acted upon by the plurality of those who have 
 the management of riches. Whenever we spend 
 money, we of course set people to work : that is the 
 meaning of spending money ; we may, indeed, lose it 
 without employing anybody ; but, whenever we spend 
 it, we set a number of people to work, greater or less, 
 of course, according to the rate of wages, but, in the 
 long run, proportioned to the sum we spend. Well, 
 your shallow people, because they see that however 
 they spend money they are always employing some- 
 body, and, therefore, doing some good, think and say 
 to themselves, that it is all one how they spend it— 
 that all their apparently selfish luxury is, in reality, 
 unselfish, and is doing just as much good as if they 
 gave all their money away, or perhaps more good; and 
 I have heard foolish people even declare it as a prin- 
 ciple of political economy, that whoever invented a 
 new want conferred a good on the community. I have 
 
420 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 not words strong enough — at least I could not, with- 
 out shocking you, use the words which would be strong 
 enough — to express my estimate of the absurdity and 
 the mischievousness of this popular fallacy. So, put- 
 ting a great restraint upon myself, and using no hard 
 words, I will simply try to state the nature of it, and 
 the extent of its influence. 
 
 Granted, that whenever we spend money for what- 
 ever purpose, we set people to work ; and passing by, 
 for the moment, the question whether the work we set 
 them to is all equally healthy and good for them, we 
 will assume that whenever we spend a guinea we pro- 
 vide an equal number of people with healthy main- 
 tenance for a given time. But, by the way in which 
 we spend it, we entirely direct the labour of those 
 people during that given time. We become their 
 masters or mistresses, and we compel them to pro- 
 duce, within a certain period, a certain article. Now, 
 that article may be a useful and lasting one, or it may 
 be a useless and perishable one — it may be one useful 
 to the whole community, or useful only to ourselves. 
 And our selfishness and folly, or our virtue and pru- 
 dence, are shown, not by our spending money, but by 
 our spending it for the wrong or the right thing ; and 
 we are wise and kind, not in maintaining a certain 
 number of people for a given period, but only in 
 requiring them to produce, during that period, the 
 kind of things which shall be useful to society, instead 
 of those which are only useful to ourselves. * * * 
 
 But the point which it is our special business to con- 
 sider is, not whether costliness of dress is contrary to 
 charity ; but whether it is not contrary to mere worldly 
 
Selections 42 1 
 
 wisdom: whether, even supposing we knew that 
 splendour of dress did not cost suffering or hunger, 
 we might not put the splendour better in other things 
 than dress. And, supposing our mode of dress were 
 really graceful or beautiful, this might be a very 
 doubtful question; for I believe true nobleness of 
 dress to be an important means of education, as it 
 certainly is a necessity to any nation which wishes to 
 possess living art, concerned with portraiture of 
 human nature. No good historical painting ever yet 
 existed, or ever can exist, where the dresses of the 
 people of the time are not beautiful : and had it not 
 been for the lovely and fantastic dressing of the 13th 
 to the 1 6th centuries, neither French, nor Florentine, 
 nor Venetian art could have risen to anything like the 
 rank it reached. Still, even then, the best dressing 
 was never the costliest; and its effect depended much 
 more on its beautiful, and, in early times modest, 
 arrangement, and on the simple and lovely masses of 
 its colour, than on gorgeousness of clasp or embroidery. 
 
 Political Economy of Art, Lecture II, 
 
 The heads of our subject which remain for our con- 
 sideration this evening are, you will remember, the 
 accumulation and the distribution of works 
 Second duty of art. Our complete inquiry fell into four 
 
 01 a nation. * •*• "^ 
 
 divisions— first, how to get our genms; 
 then, how to apply our genius ; then, how to accumu- 
 late its results; and lastly, how to distribute them. 
 We considered, last evening, how to discover and apply 
 it; — we have to-night to examine the modes of its 
 preservation and distribution. * * * 
 
422 Ruskin's. Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 IV. Distribution. — And now, lastly, we come to the 
 fourth great head of our inquiry, the question of the 
 wise distribution of the art we have gathered and 
 preserved. It must be evident to us, at a moment's 
 thought, that the way in which works of art are on the 
 whole most useful to the nation to which they belong, 
 must be by their collection in public galleries, suppos- 
 ing those galleries properly managed. * * * 
 
 Supposing, however, this danger properly guarded 
 against, as it would be always by a nation which either 
 knew the value, or understood the meaning of paint- 
 ing, arrangement in a public gallery is the safest, as 
 well as the most serviceable, method of exhibiting pic- 
 tures; and it is the only mode in which their his- 
 torical value can be brought out, and their historical 
 meaning made clear. But great good is also to be done 
 by encouraging the private possession of pictures; 
 partly as a means of study, (much more being always 
 discovered in any work of art by a person who has it 
 perpetually near him than by one who only sees it 
 from time to time,) and also as a means of refining the 
 habits and touching the hearts of the masses of the 
 nation in their domestic life. 
 
 For these last purposes the most serviceable art is 
 the living art of the time ; the particular tastes of the 
 people will be best met, and their particular ignorances 
 best corrected, by painters labouring in the midst of 
 them, more or less guided to the knowledge of what is 
 wanted by the degree of sympathy with which their 
 work is received. So then, generally, it should be the 
 object of government, and of all patrons of art, to col- 
 lect, as far as may be, the works of dead masters in 
 
Selections 433 
 
 public galleries, arranging them so as to illustrate the 
 history of nations, and the progress and influence of 
 their arts ; and to encourage the private possession of 
 the works of living masters. And the first and best 
 way in which to encourage such private possession is, 
 of course, to keep down the price of them as far as you 
 can. * * * 
 
 I repeat, trusting to their indulgence in the interim, 
 that the first object of our national economy, as 
 respects the distribution of modern art, should be 
 steadily and rationally to limit its prices, since by 
 doing so, you will produce two effects ; you will make 
 the painters produce more pictures, two or three 
 instead of one, if they wish to make money; and you 
 will, by bringing good pictures within the reach of 
 people of moderate income, excite the general interest 
 of the nation in them, increase a thousandfold the 
 demand for the commodity, and therefore its whole- 
 some and natural production. * * * 
 
 So far then of the motives which should induce us 
 to keep down the prices of modern art, and thus 
 render it, as a private possession, attainable by 
 greater numbers of people than at present. But we 
 should strive to render it accessible to them in other 
 ways also — chiefly by the permanent decoration of 
 public buildings ; and it is in this field that I think we 
 may look for the profitable means of providing that 
 constant employment for young painters of which we 
 were speaking last evening. 
 
 The first and most important kind of public build- 
 ings which we are always sure to want, are schools : 
 and I would ask you to consider very carefully, whether 
 
424 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 we may not wisely introduce some great changes in 
 the way of school decoration. Hitherto, as far as I 
 know, it has either been so difficult to give all the 
 education we wanted to our lads, that we have been 
 obliged to do it, if at all, with cheap furniture in bare 
 walls ; or else we have considered that cheap furniture 
 and bare walls are a proper part of the means of edu- 
 cation ; and supposed that boys learned best when they 
 sat on hard forms, and had nothing but blank plaster 
 about and above them, whereupon to employ their 
 spare attention ; also, that it was as well they should 
 be accustomed to rough and ugly conditions of things, 
 partly by way of preparing them for the hardship of 
 life, and partly that there might be the least possible 
 damage done to floors and forms, in the event of their 
 becoming, during the master's absence, the fields or 
 instruments of battle. All this is so far well and 
 necessary, as it relates to the training of country lads, 
 and the first training of boys in general. But there 
 certainly comes a period in the life of a well educated 
 youth, in which one of the principal elements of his 
 education is, or ought to be, to give him refinement 
 of habits ; and not only to teach him the strong exer- 
 cises of which his frame is capable, but also to increase 
 his bodily sensibility and refinement, and show him 
 such small matters as the way of handling things 
 properly, and treating them considerately. Not only 
 so, but I believe the notion of fixing the attention by 
 keeping the room empty, is a wholly mistaken one: I 
 think it is just in the emptiest room that the mind 
 wanders most, for it gets restless, like a bird, for want 
 of a perch, and casts about for any possible means of 
 
Selections 
 
 42 s 
 
 getting out and away. And even if it be fixed, by an 
 e£Eort, on the business in hand, that business becomes 
 itself repulsive, more than it need be, by the vileness 
 of its associations ; and many a study appears dull or 
 painful to a boy, when it is pursued on a blotted deal 
 desk, under a wall with nothing on it but scratches 
 and pegs, which would have been pursued pleasantly 
 enough in a curtained corner of his father's library, 
 or at the lattice window of his cottage. Nay, my own 
 belief is, that the best study of all is the most beautiful ; 
 and that a quiet glade or forest, or the nook of a lake 
 shore, are worth all the schoolrooms in Christendom, 
 when once you are past the multiplication table ; but 
 be that as it may, there is no question at all but that a 
 time ought to come in the life of a well trained youth, 
 when he can sit at a writing table without wanting to 
 throw the inkstand at his neighbour; and when also 
 he will feel more capable of certain efforts of mind 
 with beautiful and refined forms about him than with 
 ugly ones. When that time comes he ought to be 
 advanced into the decorated schools ; and this advance 
 ought to be one of the important and honourable 
 epochs of his life. 
 
 I have not time, however, to insist on the mere 
 serviceableness to our youth of refined architectural 
 decoration, as such; for I want you to consider the 
 probable influence of the particular kind of decoration 
 which I wish you to get for them, namely, historical 
 painting. You know we have hitherto been in the 
 habit of conveying all our historical knowledge, such 
 as it is, by the ear only, never by the eye ; all our notions 
 of things being ostensibly derived from verbal descrip- 
 
426 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 tion, not from sight. Now, I have no doubt that as 
 we grow gradually wiser — and we are doing so every 
 day — we shall discover at last that the eye is a nobler 
 organ than the ear; and that through the eye we 
 must, in reality, obtain, or put into form, nearly all the 
 useful information we are to have about this world. 
 * * * But far more than all this, is it a question 
 not of clothes or weapons, but of men? how can we 
 sufficiently estimate the effect on the mind of a noble 
 youth, at the time when the world opfens to him, of 
 having faithful and touching representations put 
 before him of the acts and presences of great men — 
 how many a resolution, which would alter and exalt 
 the whole course of his after-life, might be formed, 
 when in some dreamy twilight he met, through his own 
 tears, the fixed eyes of those shadows of the great 
 dead, unescapable and calm, piercing to his soul ; or 
 fancied that their lips moved in dread reproof or 
 soundless exhortation. And if but for one out of 
 many this were true — if yet, in a few, you could be 
 sure that such influence had indeed changed their 
 thoughts and destinies, and turned the eager and 
 reckless youth, who would have cast away his ener- 
 gies on the race-horse or the gambling-table, to that 
 noble life-race, that holy life-hazard, which should 
 win all glory to himself and all good to his country — 
 would not that, to some purpose, be "political economy 
 of artL," 
 
 Fors Clavigera, Vol. IV, Letter yg. {Quoted from letter in 
 Manchester Guardian.'\ 
 "It is surely possible {h) to find a man or men who 
 will guide us in our study of pictures as Mr. Hall6 has 
 
Selections 427 
 
 guided us in our study of music,— who will place 
 before us good pictures, and carefully guard us from 
 seeing bad. A collection of a dozen pictures in oil and 
 water colour, each excellent of its kind, each with an 
 explanation of what its painter most wished to show, 
 of his method of work, of his reasons for choosing his 
 point of view, and for each departure from the strict- 
 est possible accuracy in imitation, written by men of 
 fit nature and training — such a collection would be of 
 far greater help to those people who desire to study 
 art than any number of ordinary exhibitions of pic- 
 tures. Men who by often looking at these few works, 
 knew them well, would have learnt more of painting, 
 and would have a safer standard by which to judge 
 other pictures, than is often learnt and gained by 
 those who are not painters. Such a collection would 
 not need a costly building for its reception, so that in 
 each of our parks a small gallery of the kind might 
 be formed, which might, of course, also contain a few 
 good engravings, good vases, and good casts, each 
 with a carefully written explanation of our reasons for 
 thinking it good. Then, perhaps, in a few years, 
 authority would do for these forms of art what it has 
 done for music. But many other lessons could at the 
 same time be taught. None is of greater importance 
 than that beautiful form in the things that surround 
 us can give us as much, if not as high, pleasure, as 
 that in pictures and statues ;— that our sensibility for 
 higher forms of beauty is fostered by everything beau- 
 tiful that gives us pleasure; — and that the cultivation 
 of a sense of beauty is not necessarily costly, but is as 
 possible for people of moderate incomes as for the 
 
428 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 rich. Why should not the rooms in which pictures 
 are shown be furnished as the rooms are furnished in 
 which the few English people of cultivated love of art 
 live, so that we may learn from them that the differ- 
 ence between beautiful and ugly wall papers, carpets, 
 curtains, vases, chairs, and tables is as real as the 
 difference between good and bad pictures? In hun- 
 dreds of people there is dormant a sensibility to beauty 
 that this would be enough to awaken. 
 
 "Of our working classes, comparatively few ever 
 enter a gallery of pictures, and unless a sense of 
 beauty can be awakened by other means, the teaching 
 of the School of Art is not likely to be sought by 
 many people of that class. In our climate, home, and 
 not gallery or piazza, is the place where the influence 
 of art must be felt. To carry any forms of art into 
 the homes of working people would a few years ago 
 have been impossible. Happily we have seen lately 
 the creation of schools and workmen's clubs, destined, 
 we may hope, to be as truly parts of their homes as 
 public-houses have been, and as their cramped houses 
 are. Our schools are already so well managed that 
 probably many children pass in them the happiest 
 hours they know. In those large, airy rooms let us 
 place a few beautiful casts, a few drawings of subjects, 
 if possible, that the elder children read of in their les- 
 sons, a few vases or pretty screens. By gifts of a few 
 simple things of this kind, of a few beautiful flow- 
 ers beautifully arranged, the love and the study of 
 art will be more helped than by the gift of twenty 
 times their cost to the building fund of an art gal- 
 lery." 
 
Selections 429 
 
 Stones of Venice, Vol. II, Chap, VI, %i6-26. 
 §16. We have much studied and much perfected, of 
 late, the great civilized invention of the division of 
 
 labor; only we give it a false name. It is 
 Xtr^ °°*' ^^'^^y speaking, the labor that is divided ; 
 economy. ^"* *^® ^^^ :— Divided into mere segments 
 
 of men — broken into small fragments and 
 crumbs of life ; so that all the little piece of intelli- 
 gence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin 
 or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a 
 pin, or the head of a nail. Now it is a good and 
 desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day ; but 
 if we could only see with what crystal sand their points 
 were polished, — sand of human soul, much to be mag- 
 nified before it can be discerned for what it is, — we 
 should think there might be some loss in it also. 
 And the great cry that rises from all our manufactur- 
 ing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very 
 deed for this, — that we manufacture everything there 
 except men ; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, 
 and refine sugar, and shape pottery ; but to brighten, 
 to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living 
 spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. 
 And all the evil to which that cry is urging our 
 myriads can be met only in one way : not by teaching 
 nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them 
 their misery, and to preach to them, if we do nothing 
 more than preach, is to mock at it. It can be met 
 only by a right understanding, on the part of all 
 classes, of what kinds of labor are good for men, rais- 
 ing them, and making them happy; by a determined 
 sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness 
 
430 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 as is to be got only by the degradation of the work- 
 man; and by equally determined demand for the prod- 
 ucts and results of healthy and ennobling labor. 
 
 §17. And how, it will be asked, are these products 
 to be recognized, and this demand to be regulated? 
 Easily : by the observance of three broad and simple 
 rules : 
 
 1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article 
 not absolutely necessary, in the production of which 
 Invention has no share. 
 
 2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, 
 but only for some practical or noble end. 
 
 3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any 
 kind, except for the sake of preserving record of great 
 works. 
 
 The second of these principles is the only one which 
 directly rises out of the consideration of our imme- 
 diate subject; but I shall briefly explain the meaning 
 and extent of the first also, reserving the enforce- 
 ment of the third for another place. 
 
 I. Never encourage the manufacture of anything 
 not necessary, in the production of which invention 
 has no share. 
 
 For instance. Glass beads are utterly unnecessary, 
 and there is no design or thought employed in their 
 manufacture. They are formed by first drawing out 
 the glass into rods ; these rods are chopped up into 
 fragments of the size of beads by the human hand, 
 and the fragments are then rounded in the furnace. 
 The men who chop up the rods sit at their work all 
 day, their hands vibrating with a perpetual and 
 exquisitely timed palsy, and the beads dropping 
 
Selections 
 
 431 
 
 beneath their vibration like hail. Neither they, nor 
 the men who draw out the rods, or fuse the fragments, 
 have the smallest occasion for the use of any single 
 human faculty; and every young lady, therefore, who 
 
 ^^yS.jl£SSJi^™™i£^^i^^?^^'T?lil,?,-!^^ and in 
 
 a^much more cruef one than that which we have so 
 long been endeavouring to put down. 
 
 But glass cups and vessels may become the subjects 
 of exquisite invention ; and if in buying these we pay 
 for the invention, that is to say for the beautiful form, 
 or colour, or engraving, and not for mere finish of 
 execution, we are doing good to humanity. 
 
 §18. So, again, the cutting of precious stones, in 
 all ordinary cases, requires little exertion of any 
 mental faculty; some tact and judgment in avoiding 
 flaws, and so on, but nothing to bring out the whole 
 mind. Every person who wears cut jewels merely 
 for the sake of their value is, therefore, a slave-driver. 
 
 But the working of the goldsmith, and the various 
 designing of grouped jewellery and enamel-work, may 
 become the subject of the most noble human intelli- 
 gence. Therefore, money spent in the purchase of well- 
 designed plate, of precious engraved vases, cameos, or 
 enamels, does good to humanity ; and, in work of this 
 kind, jewels may be employed to heighten its splen- 
 dor; and their cutting is then a price paid for the 
 attainment of a noble end, and thus perfectly allow- 
 able. 
 
 §19. I shall perhaps press this law farther else- 
 where, but our immediate concern is chiefly with the 
 second, namely, never to demand an exact finish, when 
 it does not lead to a noble end. For observe, I have 
 
432 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 only dwelt upon the rudenes of Gothic, or any other 
 kind of imperfectness, as admirable, where it was 
 impossible to get design or thought without it. If you 
 are to have the thought of a rough and untaught man, 
 you must have it in a rough and untaught way ; but 
 from an educated man, who can without efifort express 
 his thoughts in an educated way, take the graceful 
 expression, and be thankful. Only get the thought, 
 and do not silence the peasant because he cannot 
 speak good grammar, or until you have taught him his 
 grammar. Grammar and refinement are good things, 
 both, only be sure of the better thing first. And thus 
 in art, delicate finish is desirable from the greatest 
 masters, and is always given by them. In some places 
 Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Phidias, Perugino, Tur- 
 ner, all finished with most exquisite care; and the 
 finish they give always leads to the fuller accomplish- 
 ment of their noble purposes. But lower men than 
 these cannot finish, for it requires consummate knowl- 
 edge to finish consummately, and then we must take 
 their thoughts as they are able to give them. So the 
 rule is simple: Always look for invention first, and 
 after that, for such execution as will help the inven- 
 tion, and as the inventor is capable of without painful 
 efifort, and no more. Above all, demand no refine- 
 ment of execution where there is no thought, for that 
 is slaves' work, unredeemed. Rather choose rough 
 work than smooth work, so only that the practical 
 purpose be answered, and never imagine there is 
 reason to be proud of anything that may be accom- 
 plished by patience and sandpaper. 
 
 §20. I shall only give one example, which however 
 
Selections 433 
 
 will show the reader what I mean, from the manufac- 
 ture already alluded to, that of glass. Our modern 
 glass is exquisitely clear in its substance, true in its 
 form, accurate in its cutting. We are proud of this. 
 We ought to be ashamed of it. The old Venice glass 
 was muddy, inaccurate in all its forms, and clumsily 
 cut, if at all. And the old Venetian was justly proud 
 of it. For there is this difference between the Eng- 
 lish and Venetian workman, that the former thinks 
 only of accurately matching his patterns, and getting 
 his curves perfectly true and his edges perfectly sharp, 
 and becomes a mere machine for rounding curves and 
 sharpening edges, while the old Venetian cared not a 
 whit whether his edges were sharp or not, but he 
 invented a new design for every glass that he made, 
 and, never moulded a handle or a lip without a new 
 fancy in it. And therefore, though some Venetian 
 glass is ugly and clumsy enough, when made by 
 clumsy and uninventive workmen, other Venetian 
 glass is so lovely in its forms that no price is too great 
 for it ; and we never see the same form in it twice. 
 Now you cannot have the finish and the varied form 
 too. If the workman is thinking about his edges, he 
 cannot be thinking of his design ; if of his design, he 
 cannot think of his edges. Choose whether you will 
 pay for the lovely form or the perfect finish, and choose 
 at the same moment whether you will make the 
 worker a man or a grindstone. 
 
 §21. Nay, but the reader interrupts me, — "If the 
 workman can design beautifully, I would not have 
 him kept at the furnace. Let him be taken away and 
 inade a gentlenian, and have a studio, and design his 
 
434 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 glass there, and I will have it blown and cut for him 
 by common workmen, and so I will have my design 
 and my finish too." 
 
 All ideas of this kind are founded upon two mis- 
 taken suppositions: the first, that one man's thoughts 
 can be, or ought to be, executed by another man's 
 hands ; the second, that manual labor is a degradation, 
 when it is governed by intellect. 
 
 On a large scale, and in work determinable by line 
 and rule, it is indeed both possible and necessary that 
 the thoughts of one man should be carried out by the 
 labor of others; in this sense I have already defined 
 the best architecture to be the expression of the mind 
 of manhood by the hands of childhood. But on a 
 smaller scale, and in a design which cannot be mathe- 
 matically defined, one man's thoughts can never be 
 expressed by another : and the difference between the 
 spirit of touch of the man who is inventing, and of the 
 man who is obeying directions, is often all the dififer- 
 ence between a great and common work of art. How 
 wide the separation is between original and second- 
 hand execution, I shall endeavor to show elsewhere; 
 it is not so much to our purpose here as to mark the 
 other and more fatal error of despising manual labor 
 when governed by intellect ; for it is no less fatal an 
 error to despise it when thus regulated by intellect, 
 than to value it for its own sake. We are always in 
 these days endeavouring to separate the two ; we want 
 one man to be always thinking, and another to be 
 always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the 
 other an operative ; whereas the workman ought often 
 to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, 
 
Selections 435 
 
 and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As 
 it is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the 
 other despising, his brother ; and the m^ss of society 
 is made up of morbid thinkers, and miserable workers. 
 Now it is only by labor that thought can be made 
 healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made 
 happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity. 
 It would be well if all of us were good handicraftsmen 
 in some kind, and the dishonor of manual labor done 
 away with altogether; so that though there should 
 still be a trenchant distinction of race between nobles 
 and commoners, there should not, among the latter, 
 be a trenchant distinction of employment, as between 
 idle and working men, or between men of liberal and 
 illiberal professions. All professions should be lib- 
 eral, and there should be less pride felt in peculiarity 
 of employment, and more in excellence of achieve- 
 ment. And yet more, in each several profession, no 
 master should be too proud to do its hardest work. 
 The painter should grind his own colours ; the architect 
 work in the mason's yard with his men; the master- 
 manufacturer be himself a more skilful operative than 
 any man in his mills ; and the distinction between one 
 man and another be only in experience and skill, and 
 the authority and wealth which these must naturally 
 and justly obtain. 
 
 §22. I should be led far from the matter in hand, 
 if I were to pursue this interesting subject. Enough, 
 I trust, has been said to show the reader that the rude- 
 ness or imperfection which at first rendered the term 
 "Gothic" one of reproach is indeed, when rightly 
 understood, one of the most noble characters of Chris- 
 
436 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 tian architecture, and not only a noble but an essential 
 one. It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is neverthe- 
 less a most important truth, that no architecture can 
 be truly noble which is not imperfect. And this is 
 easily demonstrable. For since the architect, whom 
 we will suppose capable of doing all in perfection, 
 cannot execute the whole with his own hands, he must 
 either make slaves of his workmen in the old Greek, 
 and present English fashion, and level his work to a 
 slave's capacities, which is to degrade it; or else he 
 must take his workmen as he finds them, and let them 
 show their weaknesses together with their strength, 
 which will involve the Gothic imperfection, but render 
 the whole work as noble as the intellect of the age can 
 make it. 
 
 §23. But the principle may be stated more broadly 
 still. I have confined the illustration of it to architec- 
 ture, but I must not leave it as if true of architecture 
 only. Hitherto I have used the words imperfect and 
 perfect merely to distinguish between work grossly 
 unskilful, and work executed with average precision 
 and science ; and I have been pleading that any degree 
 of unskilfulness should be admitted, so only that the 
 laborer's mind had room for expression. But, accu- 
 rately speaking, no good work whatever can be perfect, 
 and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a mis- 
 understanding of the ends of art. 
 
 §24. This for two reasons, both based on everlast- 
 ing laws. The first, that no great man ever stops 
 working till he has reached his point of failure ; that 
 is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his 
 powers of execution, and the latter will now and then 
 
Selections 437 
 
 give way in trjnng to follow it; besides that he will 
 always give to the inferior portions of his work only 
 such inferior attention as they require ; and according 
 to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feel- 
 ing of dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in 
 moments of lassitude or anger with himself he will 
 not care though the beholder be dissatisfied also. I 
 believe there has only been one man who would not 
 acknowledge this necessity, and strove always to reach 
 perfection, Leonardo ; the end of his vain effort being 
 merely that he would take ten years to a picture, and 
 leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have 
 great men working at all, or less men doing their 
 best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. 
 Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, 
 in its own bad way. * 
 
 §25. The second reason is, that imperfection is in 
 some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is 
 the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a 
 state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, 
 or can be, rigidly perfect ; part of it is decaying, part 
 nascent. The foxglove blossom, — a third part bud, a 
 third part past, a third part in full bloom — is a type of 
 the life of this world. And in all things that live 
 there are certain irregularities and deficiencies which 
 are not only signs of life, but sources of beauty. No 
 human face is exactly the same in its lines on each 
 
 *Tlie Elgin marbles are supposed by many persons to be "per- 
 fect." In the most important portions they indeed approach per- 
 fection, but only there. The draperies are unfinished, the hair 
 and wool of the animal are unfinished, and the entire bas-reliefs 
 of the frieze are roughly cut. 
 
438 Raskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its sym- 
 metry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; 
 and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, 
 to check exertion, to paralyse vitality. All things are 
 literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the 
 imperfections which have been divinely appointed, 
 that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law 
 of human judgment, Mercy. 
 
 Accept this then for a universal law, that neither 
 architecture nor any other noble work of man can be 
 good unless it be imperfect ; and let us be prepared 
 for the otherwise strange fact, which we shall discern 
 clearly as we approach the period of the Renaissance, 
 that the first cause of the fall of the arts of Europe 
 was a relentless requirement of perfection, incapable 
 alike either of being silenced by veneration for great- 
 ness, or softened into forgiveness of simplicity. 
 
 Thus far then of the Rudeness or Savageness, which 
 is the first mental element of Gothic architecture. It 
 is an element in many other healthy architectures 
 also, as in Byzantine and Romanesque; but true 
 Gothic cannot exist without it. 
 
 §26. The second mental element above named was 
 Changefulness, or Variety. 
 
 I have already enforced the allowing independent 
 operation to the inferior workman, simply as a duty 
 to him, and as ennobling the architecture by rendering 
 it more Christian. We have now to consider what 
 reward we obtain for the performance of this duty, 
 namely, the perpetual variety of every feature of the 
 building. 
 
 Wherever the workman is utterly enslaved, the parts 
 
Selections 439 
 
 of the building must of course be absolutely like each 
 other; for the perfection of his execution can only be 
 reached by exercising him in doing one thing, and giv- 
 ing him nothing else to do. The degree in which the 
 workman is degraded may be thus known at a glance, 
 by observing whether the several parts of the building 
 are similar or not; and if, as in Greek work, all the 
 capitals are alike, and all the mouldings unvaried, then 
 the degradation is complete; if, as in Egyptian or 
 Ninevite work, though the manner of executing cer- 
 tain figures is always the same, the order of design is 
 perpetually varied, the degradation is less total; if, 
 as in Gothic work, there is perpetual change both in 
 design and execution, the workman must have been 
 altogether set free. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, I, §7. 
 
 §7. It will be seen, in the course of the following chap- 
 ters, that I am no advocate for meanness of private 
 habitation. I would fain introduce into it all mag- 
 nificence, care, and beauty, where they are possible; 
 but I would not have that useless expense in unnoticed 
 fineries or formalities ; cornicings of ceilings and grain- 
 ing of doors, and fringing of curtains, and thousands 
 such; things which have become foolishly and 
 apathetically habitual — things on whose common 
 appliance hang whole trades, to which there never yet 
 belonged the blessing of giving one ray of real 
 pleasure, or becoming of the remotest or most con- 
 temptible use — things which cause half the expense of 
 life, and destroy more than half its comfort, manli- 
 ness, respectability, freshness, and facility. I speak 
 
440 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 from experience : I know what it is to live in a cottage 
 with a deal floor and roof, and a hearth of mica slate ; 
 and I know it to be in many respects healthier and 
 happier than living between a Turkey carpet and 
 gilded ceiling, beside a steel grate and polished fen- 
 der. I do not say that such things have not their 
 place and propriety ; but I say this, emphatically, that 
 the tenth part of the expense which is sacrificed in 
 domestic vanities, if not absolutely and meaninglessly 
 lost in domestic discomforts and incumbrances, 
 would, if collectively offered and wisely employed, 
 build a marble church for every town in England; 
 such a church as it should be a joy and a blessing even 
 to pass near in our daily ways and walks, and as it 
 would bring the light into the eyes to see from afar, 
 lifting its fair height above the purple crowd of 
 humble roofs. 
 
 Fors Clavigera, Vol. I, Letter VII. 
 
 So much for the first law of old Communism, 
 respecting work. Then the second respects property, 
 and it is that the public, or common, wealth, shall be 
 more and statelier in all its substance than private or 
 singular wealth ; that is to say (to come to my own 
 special business for a moment) that there shall be 
 only cheap and few pictures, if any, in the insides of 
 houses, where nobody but the owner can see them; 
 but costly pictures, and many, on the outsides of 
 houses, where the people can see them : also that the 
 H6tel-de-Ville, or Hotel of the whole Town, for the 
 transaction of its common business, shall be a mag- 
 nificent building, much rejoiced in by the people, and 
 
Selections 441 
 
 with its tower seen far away through the clear air ; 
 but that the hotels for private business or pleasure, 
 caf^s, taverns, and the like, shall be low, few, plain, 
 and in back streets ; more especially such as furnish 
 singular and uncommon drinks and refreshments ; but 
 that the fountains which furnish the people's common 
 drink should be very lovely and stately, and adorned 
 with precious marbles, and the like. Then farther, 
 according to old Communism, the private dwellings of 
 uncommon persons — dukes and lords — are to be very 
 simple, and roughly put together — such persons being 
 supposed to be above all care for things that please 
 the commonalty ; but the buildings for public or com- 
 mon service, more especially schools, almshouses, and 
 workhouses, are to be externally of a majestic char- 
 acter, as being for noble purposes and charities ; and 
 in their interiors furnished with many luxuries for the 
 poor and sick. And finally and chiefly, it is an abso-. 
 lute law of old Communism that the fortunes of 
 private persons should be small, and of little account 
 in the State ; but the common treasure of the whole 
 nation should be of superb and precious things in 
 redundant quantity, as pictures, statues, precious 
 books ; gold and silver vessels, preserved from ancient 
 times. 
 
 Fors Clavigera, Vol. /, Letter IX. 
 But in my first series of lectures at Oxford, I stated, 
 (and cannot too often or too firmly state) that no great 
 arts were practicable by any people, unless they were 
 living contented lives, in pure air, out of the way of 
 unsightly objects, and emancipated from unnecessary 
 
442 Ruskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 mechanical occupation. It is simply one part of the 
 practical work I have to do in Art teaching, to bring, 
 somewhere, such conditions into existence, and to 
 show the working of them. I know also assuredly 
 that the conditions necessary for the Arts of men, are 
 the best for their souls and bodies; and knowing this, 
 I do not doubt but that it may be with due pains, to 
 some material extent, convincingly shown ; and I am 
 now ready to receive help, little or much, from any 
 one who cares to forward the showing of it. * * * * 
 You need not think you can ever have seamen in 
 iron ships ; it is not in flesh and blood to be vigilant 
 when vigilance is so slightly necessary : the best seaman 
 born will lose his qualities, when he knows he can 
 steam against wind and tide, and has to handle ships 
 so large that the care of them is necessarily divided 
 among many persons. If you want sea-captains 
 indeed, like Sir Richard Grenville or Lord Dun- 
 donald, you must give them small ships, and wooden 
 ones, — nothing but oak, pine, and hemp to trust to, 
 above or below — and those, trustworthy. 
 
 Time and Tide, Letter XV. 
 
 Nor is this all. For while real commerce is founded 
 
 on real necessities or uses, and limited by these, 
 
 speculation, of which the object is merely 
 
 Buskin's ^ . , . . . "^ ., . 
 
 warning to gam, seeks to excite imagmary necessities 
 society. ^ , ' 1 , . . , / .,. -i 
 
 and popular desires, m order to gather its 
 
 temporary profit from the supply of them. So that 
 
 not only the persons who lend their money to it will 
 
 be finally robbed, but the work done with their money 
 
 will be for the most part useless, and thus the entire 
 
Selections 443 
 
 body of the public injured as well as the persons con- 
 cerned in the transaction. Take, for instance, the 
 architectural decorations of railways throughout the 
 kingdom, — ^representing many millions of money for 
 which no farthing of dividend can ever be forthcom- 
 ing. The public will not be induced to pay the small- 
 est fraction of higher fare to Rochester or Dover 
 because the ironwork of the bridge which carries them 
 over the Thames is covered with floral cockades, and 
 the piers of it edged with ornamental cornices. All 
 that work is simply put there by the builders that 
 they may put the percentage upon [it into their own 
 pockets ; and, the rest of the money being thrown into 
 that floral form, there is an end of it, as far as the 
 shareholders are concerned. Millions upon millions 
 have thus been spent, within the last twenty years, on 
 ornamental arrangements of zigzag bricks, black and 
 blue tiles, cast-iron foliage, and the like; of which 
 millions, as I said, not a penny can ever return into 
 the shareholders' pockets, nor contribute to public 
 speed or safety on the line. It is all sunk forever in 
 o rnamental ar chitectoe^ ajLd^^(tragfc,,oae for this I) all 
 thai jfrMiiea^eJs, bad. As such, it had incompar- 
 ably better not have been built. Its only result will 
 be to corrupt what capacity of taste or right pleasure 
 in such work we have yet left to us! And consider a 
 little, what other kind of result than that might have 
 been attained if all those millions had been spent use- 
 fully: say, in buying land for the people, or building 
 good houses for them, or (if it had been imperatively 
 required to be spent decoratively) in laying out gar- 
 dens and parks for them,— or buying noble works of 
 
444 Rviskin's Principles of Art Criticism 
 
 art for their permanent possession, — or, best of all, 
 establishing frequent public schools and libraries ! 
 
 Lectures on Architecture, II. 
 
 I could press this on you at length, but I hasten to 
 apply the principle to the subject of art. I will do so 
 broadly at first, and then come to architecture. 
 Enormous sums are spent annually by this country in 
 what is called patronage of art, but in what is for the 
 most part merely buying what strikes our fancies. 
 True and judicious patronage there is indeed; many a 
 work of art is bought by those who do not care for its 
 possession, to assist the struggling artist, or relieve 
 the unsuccessful one. But for the most part, I fear 
 we are too much in the habit of buying simply what 
 we like best, wholly irrespective of any good to be 
 done, either to the artist or to the schools of the 
 country. Now let us remember, that every farthing 
 we spend on objects of art has influence over men's 
 minds and spirits, far more than over their bodies. 
 By the purchase of every print which hangs on your 
 walls, of every cup out of which you drink, and every 
 table off which you eat your bread, you are educating 
 a mass of men in one way or another. You are either 
 employing them healthily or un wholesomely; you are 
 making them lead happy or unhappy lives ; you are 
 leading them to look at nature, and to love her — to 
 think, to feel, to enjoy, — or you are blinding them to 
 nature, and keeping them bound, like beasts of bur- 
 den, in mechanical and monotonous employments. 
 We shall all be asked one day, why we did not think 
 more of this. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abstraction, noble, in architecture, 79, 135-137 ; use of, in art, 284. 
 
 ^sthesis distinguished from theoria, 12, 178. 
 
 iEsthetic, definition of, 68, 69 ; theoretic used instead of, 16. 
 
 Alcinous, garden of, 405. 
 
 Angelico, Fra, 4, 54, 94, 112, 131, 244, 293, 372, 373, 392- 
 
 Apelles, contest of, with Protogenes, 255. 
 
 Aphrodite of Melos, 410. 
 
 Apollo Belvidere, 122, 133, and the muses, 220; of Clazomenae, 20. 
 
 Appreciator, attitude of, to the art product, 13, 161-163 ; effect of, 
 on art, 15, 444; emotion of, aroused by art, 275-277, by 
 beauty, 308, 309; imag^inative temper of, appealed to, 276-280, 
 results of ims^nation in, 164, 165; must know nature, 295- 
 299, must have sympathy, 327. 
 
 Arabs, ornamental work of, 372. 
 
 Architecture, noble abstraction in, 79, 135-137 ; expression of man's 
 nature, 301, 302, 368, of national life, 397, of the mind of man- 
 hood by the hands of childhood, 434 ; good, not ecclesiastical, 
 398; imitates natural forms, 367, 368; national, the result of 
 national religion, 399, 400; no, noble, which is not imperfect, 
 436-439; private, 439, 440, 441, public, 423, 440, 441; schools 
 of, Gothic, power and form in, 48, 49, rich, 272, mental ele- 
 ments of, 301, rudeness of, 432, 435, 436, 438, 439, Renais- 
 sance, 271-273, ornamental work of, 372, Romanesque, 438. 
 
 Aristotle, use of theoria by, 12. 
 
 Art, aim of, 50, not perfection, 436; aims of, two, 13 ; attitudes of, 
 two, 13; essentially didactic, 15, 60-64, 66,67, 3i4i 352, 353; 
 effect of, confused with artist's purpose, 13, 165, 332; ethical, 
 3, 15, 63-67, 163-165, 311-317, 385, for the enforcement of re- 
 ligious sentiments, 311, 353, 40i, not for doctrines, 65, 164; 
 great, characteristics of, 224-227, 306, 343, and of mean, 315, 
 316, union of art-gift and soul in, 342, Ruskin's definition of, 
 8, II ; the great style in, 251, cannot be taught, 344, is the 
 445 
 
44^ Index 
 
 expression of the mind of^a God-made man, 376, unites obser- 
 vation of fact with human design in telling, 370; the grand 
 style in, 11, 160, 161; good, has the capacity of pleasing, 314, 
 315 ; historical, 393, 394, how preserved, 422, how useful, 425, 
 426, poetical and, 199, 208-210; ideality of, 129; to create 
 ideals, power of, 13, 14, 162, 163, 385 ; a language, 8, 36-42, 
 74, conveying five classes of ideas, 8, 9, 57-59; laws of, 55; 
 law of, not the artist's aim, 165 ; relation of, to man |and God, 
 12, 168, 383, expression of man's delight in God's work, 380, 
 382-384, addressed to the whole man, 307-309, 344, a product 
 of the whole man, 305-307, 317, an expression of man's power, 
 301, 367, in, as an expression of man lies its power to educate, 
 385-387, represents man, 168, 367, 368, 373, 380, 381, 384, the 
 human form, 374, 375, outgrowth of moral state in man,'3i2, 
 313, 342, 402; material service of, 65, 66, 312, 390, 401, 404; 
 an outg;rowthof national life, 385, 392, 394-410, 441, 442; nature 
 and, 76, 328, truth of nature presented by, 67, 224-227, 391, 
 409, interprets nature, 76, 163, 301-303, 330, 337, 338, 369-375; 
 Ruskin believes in a philosophy of, 55, 56, 65; science and, 
 distinction between, 59, 60, confused, 272, arts and sciences 
 distinguished, 395; social value of, lies in power to educate, 
 385, 391-3951 422, 423, 425-428 ; an expression of a living human 
 soul, 372, a product of the artist's spirit, 336-3'45 ; spirit and 
 form in, 48-50, invention and execution in, 432; discovers truth, 
 392, must present truth, 66; utility and splendor of, 386388, 
 411-413. 
 
 Art, fine, definition, 307, tnree functions of, 401, and rude, 407 ; 
 fine arts, their application in decoration, 388. 
 
 Artist, attitude of, to the art product, 13, 162, 356; character of, 
 determines his work, 226, 227, 329, 333, is an unconscious 
 channel for the divine spirit, 166, 167, 187, 198, 334-336. a seer, 
 329-333, an interpreter, 163, 302-304, 324, mind like glass, 328, 
 345 ; a man of controlled feeling, 161, 254-265, mind well gov- 
 erned, 166, 167; does not need learning, 195, 196, but educa- 
 tion, 331, 332; critic and, must have the same point of view, 
 71, 86, 89, 90, 272, distinguished, 158; paints what he loves, 
 318-323; self-abnegation of, 252-254, 259; sketches of , 213-216; 
 range of his sympathies determines his rank, 161, 265-269, 
 
Index 447 
 
 also nobleness of subjects he loves, i66; his choice of subject, 
 i66, the result of different aims of art, 325, rules governing, 
 328 ; works of his life should form a series, 47. 
 
 Artists, born not made, 414; classes of, 75, 92-98; duty of nation 
 to, 387, 414-429; must be preachers, 61, 62, 67, duty the same, 
 304, see as preachers do, 77; pride of, in execution, 255. 
 
 Art-product, appeals to the emotion of the beholder, 275-277, to 
 imaginative temper, 276; has a body and a soul, 42, 43, con- 
 tent and form, 74, 92; has a leading motive, 168, 366; duty 
 of nation towards, 387 ; not a pure transcript of nature, 356. 
 
 Arts and crafts, 390. 
 
 Athenae, Pallas, 32, 63, 120. 
 
 Athenian art, 370, 371, 374- 
 
 Beaumont, Sir George' Rowland, 282. 
 
 Beautiful, the, definition of, 288, 289; confused with the true, 177, 
 relation of the, to the true and the good, 16, 77, 82, 109-112, 
 152, 390. 
 
 Beauty, the four sources from which the pleasure of, is derived 
 are all divine, 104, the soul hungers for, 140, enjoyed by the 
 theoretic faculty, 149-15 1, 172 ; divisions of, 141, typical, 12, 67, 
 80, 81, 142-144, 173-175, vital, 12, 81, 144-148, generic, 81; ideas 
 of, 12, compared .with truth, 10, 78, 106, with goodness, 108, 
 truth sacrificed to, 112, 120, 139, based on truth, 135; nature 
 of, 80, can be found, 141; sense of, a feeling, 70, 80, 278, an 
 unselfish sympathy, 35 1 ; sensibility to, connected with moral 
 feelings, 170, 171, dependent on health of soul and body, 171, 
 245 ; confusion of, truth and goodness, 154, truth a property of 
 statements and, of objects, 80, 138, 139; is not usefulness, 
 
 350, 351- 
 Beholder, see appreciator. 
 Bellini, John, 94. 
 Berghem, Nikolaas, 120. 
 Botticelli, Sandro, 62. 
 Bourges' Cathedral, 236. 
 Bruges, Madonna in the cathedral of, 116. 
 Byzantine, architecture, 438; art, 62; ornamental work, 372 ; school 
 
 in early Christian art, 5. 
 
448 Index 
 
 Callcott, Augustus Wall, 87, 88. 
 
 Caravaggio, Michael Angelo Amerighi da, 95, 112. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 79, 389. 
 
 Chantry, Francis, 87. 
 
 Christian art, early, 5, 76. 
 
 Cimabue, Giovanni, 4, 39. 
 
 Claude Lorrain, 89, 115, 237, 282, 323, 353. 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 359, 361. 
 
 Composition, easy, 245, 246; false, 223, made by fancy, 157; same 
 
 as invention, 216-223. 
 Constable, John, 120. 
 
 Consumers' League, idea of, 386, 419-421, 430, 431, 444. 
 Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille, 4. 
 Correggio, Antonio Allegfrida, 112, 274, 288. 
 Critic, and artist must have the same point of view, 71, be equal, 
 
 72, 86, 89, 90, 272, differ, 158; an interpreter, 72, 84-86, 427; 
 
 possesses penetrative imagination, 165 ; ascertain his school of 
 
 philosophy, 3, 72, 74, 83, 84; requisites of, 87-89 298. 
 Criticism, canons of, 169 ; opinions'formed on right grounds become 
 
 universal, 86, gi ; true, founded on sympathy, 281, perverted 
 
 by active imagination, 282. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 79, 80. 
 Cumberland, 298. 
 
 Dante Alighieri, 4, 186, 261, 359, 363, 366, his Inferno, 4, 346, his 
 
 centaur, Chiron, 191. 
 Decoration,*school, 423425, 428. 
 Decorative and expressive language in art, 38, 39, 74. 
 Denner, 44. 
 Design, depends on organic form, 48, 74, on artist's judgment, 194, 
 
 435, is human invention consulting human capacity, 234; men 
 
 of fact and men of, 92. 
 Dolci, Carlo, 40, 41, 137. 
 Dow, Gerard, 239. 
 Dryden, John, 22. 
 
 Durer, Albert, 62, 63, 66, 112, 255 ; Diiresque art, 99. 
 Dutch painters, 44, 209, 322 ; school of painting, 39, 41. 
 
Index 449 
 
 Economy, application of his principles of, 429-442 ; definition of, 
 386, 387 political, of art, 426; use of word, 410, 411. 
 
 Egyptian architecture, 439; potters, 372 ; room in British Museum, 
 136. 
 
 Elgin marbles, 371, 437. 
 
 Emotion, basis of all graces, 263; controlled, 161, 252-265, 293; 
 imagination and, i6o, 235-251, 262; noble, calls up noble 
 images, 160; pathetic fallacy based on, and contemplative 
 fancy, 357, strong enough to vanquish intellect, 361, makes 
 three ranks of artists, 362-365. 
 
 Emotional motive of art product, 168, 366. 
 
 England, 107, 108, 249, 393, 397, 408, 440 ; St. George of, 406. 
 
 English academicians, 371; fields, 312; purists, 371. 
 
 Europe, 393, 400; fall of arts in, 438 ; vice of, 397. 
 
 Faculty of the mind instead of function, 16, 159 ; faculties engaged 
 
 in the arts, 69, 70. 
 Feeling, imagination, and -will, 309-311. See emotion. 
 Fielding, Copley, 43, 249, 298, 320, 323. 
 Finish, do not demand, for its own sake, 430, 432 ; two kinds, 41, 
 
 42; how right and how wrong, 239-241, 257, 258. 
 Flemish school of art, 352. 
 Florence, 61, log, no, 372, 374, 392. 
 Florentine art, 370-372, 378, 421; maidens, 373. 
 Force, formative, 30, 31 ; against form, 18-21. 
 Forces, conservation of, 18. 
 
 Form, and spirit in art, 48-50; against force, 18-21 ; has a soul, 5, 6. 
 Francia, Francesco, 94, 241. 
 French school of art, 241, 421. 
 
 Genius, definition of, 152; uses imagination not fancy, 157- 
 German art critics, 371. 
 Giotti di Bondone, 4, 39, 66, 94, 255. 373- 
 
 Good, the, the true and the beautiful, 16, 77, 82, iog-112, 152, con- 
 fusion of, 154. 
 Gothic Architecture, see architecture, schools of. 
 Gradation in life, 23, 24. 
 Greece, 108, 398 1 Leuce (island), 277. 
 
450 Index 
 
 Greek, architecture, 400, 436, 439, art, 99, 110, 190, 404, 405, 409; 
 
 the, always intends you to think for yourself, 276; mind, 75; 
 
 word, 411. 
 Greek Church, art in, 5. 
 Greeks, 63, 69, 76, 100, 372, 374, 378. 
 Grenville, Sir Richard, 442. 
 
 Hamlet, 360. 
 
 Harding, James Duffield, 88. 
 
 Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 282. 
 
 Hegel, George William Frederick, 6, I2, 16, 77. 
 
 Hindoos, 372, East Indian art, 300. 
 
 Hogarth, William, 95. 
 
 Holbein, Hans, 62, 99, 239, 288. 
 
 Holmes, O. W., 357. 
 
 Honjer, ideal characters of, 124; legends of, 312; like, in painting, 
 
 251; Iliad, 64, 346; Odyssey, 277, 359. 
 Hooker's use of word fancy, 173. 
 Horace, 64. 
 Hortus Inclusus, 6. 
 Hunt, William Holman, 43 ; Light of the World, 210. 
 
 Idea, the embodiment of an, is an ideal, 3i, the perfect, is the 
 ideal, 126. 
 
 Ideal, false, 125, falsifying the iinest forms to create a perfect 
 vision, 51,131-133; pure, attainment of, 325; the, and the real, 
 126, not opposed, 133, 134, 190; the, and the true not opposed, 
 135 ; use of term, 12J-129, use of words truth and, 78, 79, 123. 
 
 Ideal form, each object has its, 81, 91, is expression of specific 
 form, 227, 228; is the utmost degree of specific beauty, 125, 
 128, 129; seized by imagination, 130. 
 
 Idealism, true, in art, 189-192; in humanity and in lower nature, 
 24, 25 ; purist, naturalist, grotesque, 52, 75 ;'pure, in philosophy, 
 3, 73; real, in art, 51, 52, in philosophy, 73, 74. 
 
 Idealists, great and pseudo, 191. 
 
 Ideality, the, of art, 129, 130 ; divine, is conceived by the imagina- 
 tion and the theoretic faculty, 156, 185, 20^-206. 
 
 Idealizing in the right sense, 46. 
 
Index 451 
 
 Ideas, certain, belonging to art language itself, 40 ; conveyed by 
 art, 8, 57-59, errors in Ruskin's division of, 9-12. 
 
 Idler, paper on the, discussed, 250-252. 
 
 Imagination, in artists and appreciator, results of, 164 165. 278-280, 
 dependent on moral feelings, 280, and sympathy. 276-279, 
 must be aroused, 283, 284; character of, 158, 184-186, desires 
 sympathy but can do vnthout, 204, independent of rules, 194- 
 igg, 209, is original, 192, 194, 355, its originality is genuine- 
 ness, 199, 200, is self-confident, 202 ; deals with ideals 'of 
 divinity, 204-206; definition of, 155, 156, Dugald Stewart's 
 definition [of , 182; divisions of, 157, contemplative, 158, 159, 
 207, seizes ideas of beauty and relation, 58, penetrative, 183, 
 235, associative, 189, 216; a divine power, 202-204, 345; and 
 emotion, 160, 206, 235-251, 262, 391, and sympathy, 261; a 
 function not a capacity, 159, 160; and^ fancy, 158, 182, 203, 
 224; feeling, will, and, 309-311 ; uncontrolled by reason in the 
 grotesque, 344; modifies nature, 356; penetrates the true 
 nature of the object, 135; theoria and, not clearly distin- 
 guished, 12, 155-158, 178, both feed on nature, 155, 223; truth 
 and, 181, 185-188, 355, sees truly, 212; wrongly used, 46, 178, 
 
 354- 
 
 Imitation, do not encourage, 430; difference between, and inter- 
 pretation of nature, 78, 322, 369 ; ideas of, compared with truth, 
 9, 10, 76, 113-120. 
 
 Indistinctness, 225, noble dimness, 247, 248. 
 
 Inness, George, 4. 
 
 Inspiration, definition of, 152, 376; language of, becomes broken, 
 362, prophetic, 363 ; unconscious result of affection, 246. 
 
 Intellect, noble according to the food given it, 35. 
 
 Invention, in economy, 43°. 43 1; first, execution, second, 432; by 
 imagination, 157. 187. i94. i95, 200, 208-212, 216, 356, and per- 
 ception, 229-233; right, 252, cannot be taught, 333- 
 
 Italy, 22, 54. 321. 396. 398, 416. 
 
 Italian architecture, 3; early, school of painting 39; pawters, 322, 
 374, copyist, 392- 
 
 Iron-work, art of, in England, 397. 
 
 Judgment, see taste. 
 
452 Index 
 
 Keats, John, io8, 360, 361, 364. 
 Kingpley, Charles, 358, 364. 
 
 Landscape, without human life uninteresting, 375, 377, 381; 
 
 earlier, painters compared with modern, 237-241; the two 
 
 great aims of, painting are representation of facts and of 
 
 thoughts, 78, 165, 324-328. 
 Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry, 87, 418. 
 Language, in painting, 8, decorative and expressive, 38, 39, 74; 
 
 limit between, and thought difficult to iix, 38, 41 ; polished, 41. 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 94, 214, 370, 432, 437. 
 Literature . compared with painting, 8, 330, 357-365 ; Pilgrim's 
 
 Progress, 346, Fairie Queen, 346, Iliad, 346. ^fi^ painting. 
 Liverpool Weekly Albion, 83. 
 Locke, John, definition of idea, 16, 67. 
 Lombard architects, 236, workman, 211 ; use of Lombardic portico, 
 
 244. 
 Lycurgus, laws of, 108. 
 
 Man, an image of God, 378-381, the divine spirit in, arid in nature, 
 170, meet, 152, 172 ; body and soul in, 35, not opposed, 34; 
 relation to art, see art. 
 
 Manchester, 107, 108. 
 
 Mantegna, Andrea, 62. 
 
 Manual labor not a degradation when governed by intellect, 434, 
 
 435- 
 Material veracity in painting, 44. 
 Materialism in philosophy, 73. 
 Materialist, Ruskin not a, 17-24. 
 Meissonier, Jean^^Louis Ernest, 4. 
 Memling, Hans, 94. 
 Memmi (Martini) Simone, 373. 
 
 Men cannot be made into machines, 339, 415, 416, 429, 433. 
 Michelangelo, Buonarroti, 61, 66, 94, 116, 117, 120, 136, 250, 344, 
 
 370, 432 ; the Homer of painting, 251. 
 Millais,'John Everett, 4, 231. 
 Milton, John, 4, 159, 186. 
 
Index 453 
 
 Mind, effect of natural beauty on, 6, 296, 298-301 ; the human, per- 
 suades itself to see whatever it chooses, 28. 
 
 Modern Painters, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 75, 77, 78, 98, 104, 156, 158, 221, 
 224, 272; purpose of, preparation for, time of, 7, 54, 55, 57. 
 
 Moliere's g^eat sentence, 21. 
 
 Morris, William, 320, 389. 
 
 Murillo, Bartolom6 Est6ban, 95. 
 
 Nation, duty of, to its artists, 387, 414-429. 
 
 Naturalist painters, 75, 94-97, iSg. 
 
 Nature,"art] and, 328, 368, 369, art imitates or interprets, 75, 76, 
 78, 301-303, 369, has the same effect as art, 63, 299; the divine 
 in man and in, 152, 170, 172, 301, divinity in, 76, 77, 80, 81, 
 100-104, 152, 299, three phases of, 77, the power to recognize 
 it, 105, 106, a body and a soul in, 102; faithful study of, 
 necessary, 74, :295, submission^ to, 45, education of, for art, 
 296-298 ; power of, depends on subjection to the human soul, 
 
 379- 
 Ninevite architecture, 439. 
 Norman architecture, massive, 272; art, cold, 62 ; ornamental work, 
 
 372. 
 Numa, laws of, 108. 
 
 Objective, see terminology. 
 Orcagna, Andrea, 373. 
 Oxford, 416, 441. 
 
 Painter, corresponds to versifier, 37 ; same duty as preacher, 304. 
 
 Painters who are pure idealists, 3, 4. 
 
 Painting, historical, 425, 426, and poetical, 208-210, 252, 253. 3431 a 
 
 language, 37, convejring ideas, 58. See art. 
 Painting and literature compared, 8, 330, 346, 357-365- 
 Palladio, Andrea, 274. 
 Passion disciplined, 293, 365 ; a making or poetic force, 22-24; pnde 
 
 the only evil, 161, 269-275. 3i9- 
 Pathetic Fallacy, 168, 357-366, two kinds of, 358. 
 Perugino, 94, 239, 432. 
 Phidias, 190, 432. 
 
454 Index 
 
 Philosopher, art critic is a,]7i ; each one is a, i, 71 ; Ruskin a real- 
 idealist, 3, 74, 381. 
 
 Philosophical attitude of art, 13. 
 
 Philosophy, of art, Ruskin believes in, 55, 56, the great arts form 
 one perfect scheme of, 65 ; critic's system of, 71, 72, 74, Rus- 
 kin's not connectedly stated, 6; three schools of, 2, 3, 73, 74, 
 historical order of, 75, 76, 77. 
 
 Plato's philosophy, 6, 21, 71. 
 
 Pleasures of England, 158. 
 
 Poetry, definition of, 280, 281 ; concerned with details, 315. 
 
 Poets, emotion in, 365. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, translation of Homer, 35q, 361. 
 
 Poussin, Gaspar, 107, 134, 237, 323; Nicholas, 228. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelism, 43-48, 233. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelites, English, Ruskin agrees with, 4, 5; their aim, 
 47, 48, 371- 
 
 Pride, the only evil passion, 161, 269-275, 319. 
 
 Procaccini, Camillo, 95. 
 
 Psychological attitude of art, 13. 
 
 Psychology, Ruskin's, errors in, 12, 159, 160; right, i6a 
 
 Purist, seer of truth, 75 ; three classes, 94-97, 189; a Pre-Raphaelite, 
 371. 
 
 Raphael (Raffaelle) Sanzio, 40, 48, 54, 61, 94, 136, 213, 214, 231, 
 
 233. 255. 370, 371. 
 Real, the, behind the actual, 133; the, unAJfiie ideal, 126, not 
 
 opposed, 133, 134, 190. 
 Realism, false and true, in painting, 5. ' 
 
 Rembrandt, 39, 54, 95, 225, 240. 
 Renaissance, architecture, 271-273; art demands perfection, 438, 
 
 '" modern period compared with, 49, 50. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, in, 160, 208, 228, 240, 252, 260, 282, 288. 
 Right, the term used in two senses, 140. 
 Robson, George Fennel, 298, 323. 
 Rome, 54, 64, 108. 
 Rossetti, 'Dante Gabriel, 43. 
 Rubens, Peter Paul, 39, 54, 94, 112, 116, 240, 260. 
 Ruskin, his economics biased by his prejudices, 388 ; errors in his 
 
Index 455 
 
 division of ideas conveyed by art, 9-1 1; Jliability to error, 7, 
 53-55; a leader in modem thought, 390; his philosophy, 12, 
 24-35. 74. not connectedly stated, 6, .of art, 55, 56, protests 
 against the tendency of Hegelianism, 6, his interpretation of 
 the three ranks of poets, 73 ; errors in his psychology, 12 ; his 
 warning to society, 389, 442-444. 
 
 St John's gospel, 76. 
 
 Salvator Rosa, 95, gq, 112, 237, 353. 
 
 Saussure, Horace Benedict de, 209. 
 
 Science and art, distinction between, 59, 60, confused, 272; arts 
 and sciences. distinguished, 395. 
 
 School decoration, 423-425, 428. 
 
 Scotch art, 300. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, 264, 301. 
 
 Shakespeare, 123, 146, 183, 188, 265 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 130, 146. 
 
 Sight is spiritual, 155, 180, 181, of higher rank than other sensual 
 pleasures, 349. 
 
 Sophia, wisdom, 71, 83, no. 
 
 Specific, beauty, 125 ; character of an object should be seized, 43, 
 44-46, in landscape, 228, 238, 241, 354; form of every object 74, 
 118; painting, 191. 
 
 Spirit, meaning of the word, 29-33. See art. 
 
 Stanfield, William Clarkson, 87, 88. 
 
 Stones of Venice, 3, 52, 74. 
 
 Stothard, Thomas, 94, 132, 133. 
 
 Symbolism expressed by realism, 4. 
 
 Subjective, see terminology. 
 
 Taste, cultivation of, based on emotion, 161, on ;imagination, 162; 
 determined by "character, 294; false, pride of, 287; two errors 
 in, "162, 285; judgment and, distinguished, 290; how pro- 
 duced, 80, 288, 290-293; scope of matured, 286; D. Stewart's 
 use of the word, 183. 
 
 Teniers, David, 4, 95, 112. 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 364. 
 
 Terminology, critical, Ruskin's use of, 7. ". I5, 16, subjective 
 and objective, 25-28, ethical and dictatic, 60, 67, 68, 78, 390. 
 
456 Index 
 
 Theoria, sesthesis dis^inguishea from, 12, 178 ; explanation of, 152- 
 154, 172-177; not creative, needs imagination, 182; feeds on 
 nature, 223. 
 
 Theoretic arts, explanation of, 167, 347-350. 
 
 Theoretic faculty, the, apprehends beauty, 80, 81, 223, 149-151, 
 the perfection of the, concerned with vital beauty is charity, 
 146-148; explanation of, 68-70; imagination not clearly distin- 
 guished from, 12, 155-158, 178, 179; abhors utility, 352. 
 
 Tintoretto, 61, 94, 135, 159, 238, 239, 240, 279, 323, 377, 396. 
 
 Titian, 45, 89, 94, 116, 159, 219, 222, 238, 260, 274, 288, 344, 405. 
 
 True, the, and the actual, 79, 80; the, the beautiful and the good, 
 16, 77, 82, 109-112, 152, confusion of, 154, 177; the, and the 
 ideal, 79, 123. 
 
 Truth, interpreted by 'art, 392 ; ;is \a. property of statements and 
 beauty of objects, 80, 138, 139 ; sacrificed to beauty, 112, 121, 
 139; ideas of, compared with imitation, 9, 10, 76, 113-120, with 
 beauty, 10, 78, 106; two meanings of the word, 113, used 
 abstractly in false ideal, 78, confusion of, and ideal, 79, 113, 
 121, and reality, 285; spiritual and material, 76, things a part 
 of infinite truth, 29. 
 
 Turner, Joseph Mallord William, 54, 77, 85, 88, 94, 120, 166, 196, 
 199, 213, 215, 231, 232, 238, 249, 265, 268, 278, 282, 288, 293, 
 295, 323. 333. 381, 404. 432; his topography, 5, 9, 188, 199, 241; 
 The Building of Carthage, 58. 
 
 Turnerism, 233. 
 
 Tumerian manner, 246 ; picttifesque, 248, 269. 
 
 Tuscan art, 409. 
 
 Tuscany, visionary religion of, 398. 
 
 The Two Paths, 402. 
 
 Useful, the, is not the beautiful, 350, 351 ; the proper meaning of, 
 
 346, improper meaning of, 347. 
 Utility and splendor in art, 386-388, 411-413, boundary between, 
 
 in Ruskin's writings, 389; theoretic faculty abhors utility, 352. 
 
 Vandyke, Sir Anthony, 39, 292. 
 
 Vatican, 61, 123. 
 
 Velasquez, Diego Rodriguez de Silva, 209, 260, 288. 
 
Index 457 
 
 Venetian, architecture, 85, Renaissance, 287 ; art, 54, 99, 166, 370, 
 
 371. 396. 398, 421, artists, 213, 332; glass, 483. 
 Venus de Medicis, 122. 
 Veracity, material, in painting, 44; is the beginning of imitation, 
 
 63- 
 Veronese, Paul, ri2, 222, 260, 288. 
 Vibert, Jeban Georges, 4. 
 
 Westminster Abbey, didactic, 62. 
 Will, feeling, and imagination, 309-311 
 Wordsworth, William, 209, 240, 388. 
 Wouvermans, Philip, 239. 
 
 Zurbaran, Francisco, 95. 
 
INDEX TO SELECTIONS 
 A Joy Forever (The Political Economy of Art), pp. 320, 406, 410, 
 
 421. 
 
 Aratra Pentelici, pp. 60, 67, 171, 276, 373, 374, 409. 
 
 Ariadne Florentina, 61, 62, 63, 137, 296, 392. 
 
 Arrows of the Chace, 47, 83, 87, 133, 296. 
 
 Art of England, 43, to?, 133, 300, 320. 
 
 Crown of Wild Olives, 293, 396. 
 
 Eagle's Nest, 17, 83, 179, 180, 181, 202, 294, 297, 408. 
 
 Elements o£ Drawing, 220, 229, 292, 295. 
 
 Ethics of the Dust, 17, 274, 372. 
 
 Fors Clavigera, 426, 440, 441. 
 
 Inaugural Address at Cambridge School of Art, 393. 
 
 Lectures on Architecture, 314, 444. 
 
 Lectures on Art, 56, 65, 66, 170, 203, 249, 254, 293, 310, 311, 313, 
 
 383, 391. 396. 401. 404. 
 Modem Painters, 25, 28, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 
 66, 67, 68, 85, 89, 90, 91, 99, 100, loi, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 
 107, III, 113, 118, 119, 120. 121, 123, 125, 126, 131, 135, 136, 
 138, 140, 142, 143, 144, 150, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 178, 
 179, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 192, 196, 198, 199, 201, 202, 
 203, 204, 207, 208, 210, 211, 213, 216, 223, 224, 228, 235, 237, 
 243, 244, 245, 247, 249, 250, 252, 256, 257, 267, 269, 274, 277, 
 278, 280, 281, 282, 285, 288, 295, 298, 299, 302, 303, 304, 315, 
 321, 322, 356, 357, 366, 374, 375, 377, 379. 383. 396- 
 Mornings .in Florence, 109. 
 Munera Pulveris, 34. 
 Pleasures of England, 224. 
 Poetry of Architecture, 263. 
 ■Pre-Raphaelitism, 194, 229, 265. 
 Praeterita, 102. 
 Queen of the Air, 29, 63, 66, no, 192. 288, 312, 316. 
 
Index to Selections 
 
 Sesame and Lilies, 193, 394. 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, 56, 223, 242, 263, 290, 321, 367, 368, 
 
 439- 
 Stones of Venice, 34, 36, 48, 49, 59, 69, 92, 103, 105, 135, 175, 184, 
 
 195, 197, 236, 262, 264, 271, 274, 275, 297, 301, 307, 309, 381, 
 
 42Q. 
 
 Study of Architecture, 135, 227, 408. 
 Time and Tide, 442. 
 
 The Two Paths, 48, 84, 106, 194, 234, 235, 241, 261, 267, 276, 300, 
 305, 306, 307, 318, 368, 383, 391, 409.