COLOR IN NATUUE AND ART. 



crimson from the blood wliioh is tlie life of man, the flush from the cheek, the darkness 

 from the eve, the radiance from tlie hair, — if they could hut see for an instant white 

 human creatures living; in a white world, they would soon feel what they owe to color. 

 The fact is, that of all (iou's gifts to the sight of man, color is the holiest, the most 

 divine, tlie most solemn. We s].oak rashly of gay color and s.ad color, for color can 

 not at once be good and gay. All good color is in some degree pensive, tlie loveliest 

 is melancholv ; and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color 

 the most." 



Mr. RrsKiK is not a correct thinker. Eminently sensitive to the impressions of 

 external nature and art, be is destitute of the analytic power to ascertain the real char- 

 acter of those impressions. lie lacks the turn of mind by which a man is enabled to 

 "know himself;" and lience, when he comes to expound his views founded upon those 

 impressions, he not seldom arrives at most absurd conclusions. Kight as to his feelings, 

 he is far wrong as to the inferences he draws from them. Thus, iiustead of understand- 

 ing the feeling of repose which symmetry tends to produce in the beholder, he roundly 

 charges Greek architecture, whicli is of all others most symmetrical, with Ijcing "dead'' 

 and "atheistic" in its spirit; while Gothic architecture, which is eminently irregular 

 and expressive in its style, he quite as absurdly discovers to be .symbolic of all the 

 Christian graces. In the sentences upon color which we have quoted, he falls into a 

 similar error. In speaking of the "sacredness" and "holiness" of color, and in express- 

 ing his comnction that all artists who were fine colorists (i. e., dealing in pure and bright 

 colors) were good religious men, he falls into another of his fantastic mistakes, although 

 in this case his misintei-pretation of his feelings does not lead him very wide of the 

 mark. Gifted with a fine sensibility, he feels, when pure, bright colors are liarmoniously 

 presented to his eye, a thrill of elevated pleasure, calm and pure, because free from all 

 tincture of passion, and felt all the more divine because nameless, indefinite, and mys- 

 terious, — because baftling language to describe, or the mind to analyse it. But this 

 sensation is not occasioned by the "holiness" of color, — it is produced by its beauty. 

 True, the emotion of the beautiful is in one sense sacred and holy ; because it arises 

 from our being brought face to face with perfection, — with ol)iects whicli bear most 

 deeply impressed upon them the siguet-mark of their Maker, and which the soul, mad<' 

 in that Maker's image, yearns towards and w^elcomes with delight. It is a noble and 

 divine feeling, but not the one for which Ruskin here mistakes it. It is physical beauty, 

 not the "beauty of holiness" which charms us in color, just as it does in music or the 

 chefs-d'oBuvre of form. And when Ruskin goes on to say that color " can not be at 

 once good and gay," that " all good color is pensive, and the loveliest, melancholy," he 

 is again treading upon ground which he does not fully understand. lie enunciates 

 only a half truth. In so far as his remark is true, it refers not to color only, but to 

 every other embodiment of the beautiful. For we have ever felt ourselves, and believe 

 that the feeling is common to all persons of ordinary sensibility, that the beholding of 

 high beauty, whether in nature or art, excites a sentiment of joy which is ever mingled 

 with pensiveness, if not with melancholy. It is not a depression — on the contrary, it 

 is an elation of spirits. It is not painful, but pleasing. The heart clings to it, and feels 

 as if elevated and purified by its presence. It is a " divine sadness," occasioned by the 

 ence of some object so beautiful, so divinely perfect, so native in character to the 

 et so rarely met with, that the spirit yearns towards it as to a visitor from a 



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